She went her unremembering way,
She went, and left in me
The pang of all the partings gone,
And partings yet to be.

She left me marvelling why my soul
Was sad that she was glad ;

At all the sadness in the sweet
The sweetness in the sad.

Still, still I seemed to see her, still
Look up with soft replies,
And take the berries with her hand,
And the love with her lovely eyes.

Nothing begins, and nothing ends,
That is not paid with moan;
For we are born in other's pain,
And perish in our own.

FRANCIS THOMPSON.

JULY FUGITIVE

The sweetness with which the poet plays with his image that of July as a lovely damsel-allures the reader to join in the game of hide-and-seek of fancies.

CAN you tell me where has hid her
Pretty Maid July?

I would swear one day ago
She passed by,

I would swear that I do know
The blue bliss of her eye:

"Tarry, maid, maid," I bid her;
But she hastened by.

Do you know where she has hid her,
Maid July?

Yet in truth it needs must be,
The flight of her is old;

Yet in truth it needs must be,

For her nest, the earth, is cold.

No more in the poolèd Even
Wade her rosy feet,

Dawn-flakes no more plash from them
To poppies 'mid the wheat.

She has mudded the day's oozes
With her petulant feet;

Scared the clouds that floated

As sea-birds they were,

Slow on the cœrule

Lulls of the air.

Lulled on the luminous

Levels of air:

She has chidden in a pet

All her stars from her;

Now they wander loose and sigh
Through the turbid blue,

Now they wander, weep, and cry—
Yea, and I too—

"Where are you, sweet July,
Where are you?

"

When the bird quits the cage,
We set the cage outside,
With seed and with water,
And the door wide,
Haply we may win it so
Back to abide.

Hang her cage of earth out

O'er Heaven's sunward wall,
Its four gates open, winds in watch
By reinèd cars at all;
Relume in hanging hedgerows
The rain-quenched blossom,

And roses sob their tears out

On the gale's warm heaving bosom; Shake the lilies till their scent

Over-drip their rims;

That our runaway may see

We do know her whims :

Sleek the tumbled waters out

For her travelled limbs ;

Strew and smoothe blue night thereon,

There will-O not doubt her !

The lovely sleepy lady lie,

With all her stars about her!

FRANCIS THOMPSON.

AT LORD'S CRICKET-GROUND

(Lancashire playing)

The reference to the Wars of the Roses is clear. Francis Thompson was a Lancashire man. He was not a cricketer, or a player of any kind, but he loved to look on; and as illness came upon him, he remembered with tears the looking-on of years ago, when Hornby and Barlow were at the wicket.

It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk,

Though my own red roses there may blow; It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk,

Though the red roses crest the caps, I know. For the field is full of shades as I near the shadowy

coast,

And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost,

And I look through my tears on a soundlessclapping host

As the run-stealer's flicker to and fro,

To and fro,

O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago!

FRANCIS THOMPSON.

LAST WORDS OVER A LITTLE BED AT NIGHT

The mother who watches day and night over the growth of her children dwells-too much, surely, for the fact, but not too much for her warm, clinging fancyon the change that even one night brings about in the darkening of the childish fair hair, and the lengthening of the little legs. She finds the change so quick that she says good-bye to the little ones who will be different children in the morning

GOOD-NIGHT, pretty sleepers of mine-
I never shall see you again :
Ah, never in shadow or shine;
Ah, never in dew or in rain.

In your small dreaming-dresses of white,
With the wild bloom you gathered to-day
In your quiet shut hands, from the light
And the dark you will wander away.

Though no graves in the bee-haunted grass,
And no love in the beautiful sky,
Shall take you as yet, you will pass,

With this kiss, through these tear-drops. Goodbye!

With less gold and more gloom in their hair,
When the buds near have faded to flowers,

Three faces may wake here as fair

But older than yours are, by hours!