ECCE HOMO

HE Cross, the crown of thorns, the anguished eyes,

TH

The cruel wounds unstaunched and bleeding yet

Ever the same wan form before me set,

All out of tune with the proud, glorying skies!
O, were it not to-day at last more wise
In his immortal greatness to forget
The mortal agony and bloody sweat,

And in his living words the dying cries?

What is to me this show of wounds and death?

To me his death is nought, his life is all!
The one no word of hourly purport saith;
The other, at morn and noon and evenfall,
Rallies me to him with a trumpet's call—
Him, not of Calvary, but of Nazareth.

NIGHTMARE

(WRITTEN DURING APPARENT IMMINENCE OF WAR)

N a false dream I saw the Foe prevail.

The war was ended; the last smoke had rolled Away: and we, erewhile the strong and bold, Stood broken, humbled, withered, weak and pale, And moan'd, "Our greatness is become a tale To tell our children's babes when we are old. They shall put by their playthings to be told How England once, before the years of bale, Throned above trembling, puissant, grandiose, calm, Held Asia's richest jewel in her palm;

And with unnumbered isles barbaric, she

The broad hem of her glistering robe impearl'd;
Then, when she wound her arms about the world,
And had for vassal the obsequious sea."

THE KNELL OF CHIVALRY

VANISHED morn of crimson and of gold,

O youth and roselight and romance, wherein I read of payním and of paladin,

And Beauty snatched from ogre's dungeoned hold!
Ever the recreant, then, in dust was rolled,
Ever the true knight in the joust did win,
Ever the scaly shape of monstrous Sin
At last lay vanquished, fold on writhing fold.
Was it all false, that world of princely deeds,
The splendid quest, the good fight ringing clear?
Yonder the Dragon ramps with fiery gorge,
Yonder the victim faints and gasps and bleeds;
But in his merry England our St. George
Sleeps a base sleep beside his idle spear.

THE TEMPTATION

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT AFTER THE WALTZ AT THE VENETIAN REVELS

HEN hope lies dead-ah, when 'tis death to live, And wrongs remembered make the heart still bleed, Better are Sleep's kind lies for Life's blind need Than truth, if lies a little peace can give.

A little peace! 'tis thy prerogative,

O Sleep! to lend it; thine to quell or feed

This love that starves—this starving soul's long greed,
And bid Regret, the queen of hell, forgive.

Yon moon that mocks me thro' the uncurtained glass
Recalls that other night, that other moon,—
Two English lovers on a grey lagoon,-
The voices from the lantern'd gondolas,

The kiss, the breath, the flashing eyes, and, soon,
The throbbing stillness: all the heaven that was.

IN A GRAVEYARD

OLIVER MADOX BROWN

NOVEMBER 12, 1874

AREWELL to thee, and to our dreams farewell—

F Dreams of high deeds and golden days of thine,

Where once again should Art's twin powers combine-
The painter's wizard-wand, the poet's spell!
Though Deathstrikes free, careless of Heaven and Hell-
Careless of Man, of Love's most lovely shrine;
Yet must Man speak-must ask of Heaven a sign
That this wild world is God's, and all is well.
Last night we mourned thee, cursing eyeless Death,
Who, sparing sons of Baal and Ashtoreth,
Must needs slay thee, with all the world to slay;
But round this grave the winds of winter say:
"On earth what hath the poet? An alien breath.
Night holds the keys that ope the doors of Day."