The darkness is a tumult. We tear on,
The roll behind us and the cry before,
Constantly, in a lull of intense speed

And thunder. Any other sound is known
Merely by sight. The shrubs, the trees your eye
Scans for their growth, are far along in haze.
The sky has lost its clouds, and lies away
Oppressively at calm: the moon has failed:
Our speed has set the wind against us. Now
Our engine's heat is fiercer, and flings up

Great glares alongside. Wind and steam and speed
And clamour and the night. We are in Ghent.

THE STAIRCASE OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.

As one who, groping in a narrow stair,

Hath a strong sound of bells upon his ears,
Which, being at a distance off, appears

Quite close to him because of the pent air :
So with this France. She stumbles file and square
Darkling and without space for breath: each one
Who hears the thunder says: "It shall anon

Be in among her ranks to scatter her." .

This may be; and it may be that the storm
Is spent in rain upon the unscathed seas,
Or wasteth other countries ere it die :
Till she, having climbed always through the swarm
Of darkness and of hurtling sound,—from these
Shall step forth on the light in a still sky.

PLACE DE LA BASTILLE, PARIS.

How dear the sky has been above this place!
Small treasures of this sky that we see here
Seen weak through prison-bars from year to year;
Eyed with a painful prayer upon God's grace
To save, and tears that stayed along the face

Lifted at sunset. Yea, how passing dear,

Those nights when through the bars a wind left clear

The heaven, and moonlight soothed the limpid space!

So was it, till one night the secret kept

Safe in low vault and stealthy corridor

Was blown abroad on gospel-tongues of flame.

O ways of God, mysterious evermore !

How many on this spot have cursed and wept

That all might stand here now and own Thy
Name.

NEAR BRUSSELS-A HALF-WAY PAUSE.

THE turn of noontide has begun.

In the weak breeze the sunshine yields.
There is a bell upon the fields.
On the long hedgerow's tangled run
A low white cottage intervenes :
Against the wall a blind man leans,
And sways his face to have the sun.

Our horses' hoofs stir in the road,
Quiet and sharp. Light hath a song
Whose silence, being heard, seems long.

The point of noon maketh abode,

And will not be at once gone through.
The sky's deep colour saddens you,
And the heat weighs a dreamy load.

ANTWERP AND BRUGES.

I CLIMBED the stair in Antwerp church,
What time the circling thews of sound
At sunset seem to heave it round.
Far up, the carillon did search
The wind, and the birds came to perch
Far under, where the gables wound.

In Antwerp harbour on the Scheldt
I stood along, a certain space

Of night. The mist was near my face;
Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.
The carillon kept pause, and dwelt
In music through the silent place.

John Memmeling and John van Eyck

Hold state at Bruges. In sore shame I scanned the works that keep their name. The carillon, which then did strike Mine ears, was heard of theirs alike: It set me closer unto them.

I climbed at Bruges all the flight
The belfry has of ancient stone.

For leagues I saw the east wind blown;
The earth was grey, the sky was white.
I stood so near upon the height

That my flesh felt the carillon.

ON LEAVING BRUGES.

THE city's steeple-towers remove away,
Each singly; as each vain infatuate Faith
Leaves God in heaven, and passes.
A mere breath
Each soon appears, so far. Yet that which lay
The first is now scarce further or more grey

Than the last is. Now all are wholly gone.
The sunless sky has not once had the sun
Since the first weak beginning of the day.

The air falls back as the wind finishes,

And the clouds stagnate. On the water's face
The current breathes along, but is not stirred.
There is no branch that thrills with any bird.
Winter is to possess the earth a space,
And have its will upon the extreme seas