BALLADE OF HIS CHOICE OF A SEPULCHRE

Here I'd come when weariest !

Here the breast

Of the Windburg's tufted over

Deep with bracken; here his crest

Takes the west,

Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover.

Silent here are lark and plover;

In the cover

Deep below the cushat best

Loves his mate, and croons above her

O'er their nest,

Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover.

Bring me here, Life's tired-out guest,

To the blest

Bed that waits the weary rover,

Here should failure be confessed;

Ends my quest,

Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover!

ENVOY

Friend, or stranger kind, or lover,

Ah, fulfil a last behest,

Let me rest

Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover!

NATURAL THEOLOGY

ἐπεὶ καὶ τοῦτον οἴομαι ἀθανάτοισιν εὔχεσθαι· Πάντες δὲ θεῶν χατέουσ' άνθρωποι.

Od. iii. 47.

"Once CAGN was like a father, kind and good, But He was spoiled by fighting many things; He wars upon the lions in the wood,

And breaks the Thunder-bird's tremendous wings But still we cry to Him,- We are thy broodO Cagn, be merciful! and us He brings To herds of elands, and great store of food, And in the desert opens water-springs."

So Qing, King Nqsha's Bushman hunter, spoke,
Beside the camp-fire, by the fountain fair,
When all were weary, and soft clouds of smoke
Were fading, fragrant, in the twilit air:
And suddenly in each man's heart there woke
A pang, a sacred memory of prayer.

EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE

LYING IN THE GRASS

Born 1849

Between two golden tufts of summer grass,
I see the world through hot air as through glass,
And by my face sweet lights and colours pass.

Before me, dark against the fading sky,
I watch three mowers mowing, as I lie :
With brawny arms they sweep in harmony.

Brown English faces by the sun burnt red,
Rich glowing colour on bare throat and head,
My heart would leap to watch them, were I dead!

And in my strong young living as I lie,

I seem to move with them in harmony,—
A fourth is mowing, and that fourth am I.

The music of the scythes that glide and leap,
The young men whistling as their great arms sweep,
And all the perfume and sweet sense of sleep,

The weary butterflies that droop their wings,
The dreamy nightingale that hardly sings,
And all the lassitude of happy things,

Is mingling with the warm and pulsing blood
That gushes through my veins a languid flood,
And feeds my spirit as the sap a bud.

Behind the mowers, on the amber air,
A dark-green beech wood rises, still and fair,
A white path winding up it like a stair.

And see that girl, with pitcher on her head,
And clean white apron on her gown of red,-
Her even-song of love is but half-said:

She waits the youngest mower.

Now he goes;

Her cheeks are redder than a wild blush-rose :
They climb up where the deepest shadows close.

But though they pass, and vanish, I am there.
I watch his rough hands meet beneath her hair,
Their broken speech sounds sweet to me like prayer.

Ah! now the rosy children come to play,
And romp and struggle with the new-mown hay;
Their clear high voices sound from far away.

They know so little why the world is sad,

They dig themselves warm graves and yet are glad ; Their muffled screams and laughter make me mad!

I long to go and play among them there;
Unseen, like wind, to take them by the hair,
And gently make their rosy cheeks more fair.

The happy children! full of frank surprise,
And sudden whims and innocent extacies;
What godhead sparkles from their liquid eyes!

No wonder round those urns of mingled clays
That Tuscan potters fashioned in old days,
And coloured like the torrid earth ablaze,

We find the little gods and loves portrayed,
Through ancient forests wandering undismayed,
And fluting hymns of pleasure unafraid.

They knew, as I do now, what keen delight,
A strong man feels to watch the tender flight
Of little children playing in his sight;

What pure sweet pleasure, and what sacred love,
Comes drifting down upon us from above,
In watching how their limbs and features move.