VIII.

All or nothing, stake it! Trusts he God or no?
Thus far and no farther? farther? be it so!
Now, enough of your chicane of prudent pauses,
Sage provisos, sub-intents and saving-clauses!

IX.

Ah, "forgive" you bid him? While God's champion lives, Wrong shall be resisted: dead, why, he forgives.

But you must not end my friend ere you begin him;

Evil stands not crowned on earth, while breath is in him.

X.

Once more
Will the wronger, at this last of all,
Dare to say, "I did wrong," rising in his fall?

No?

- Let go, then! Both the fighters to their places! While I count three, step you back as many paces!

AFTER.

Take the cloak from his face, and at first
Let the corpse do its worst!

How he lies in his rights of a man!

Death has done all death can.

And, absorbed in the new life he leads,

He recks not, he heeds

Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike
On his senses alike,

And are lost in the solemn and strange

Surprise of the change.

Ha, what avails death to erase
His offence, my disgrace?

I would we were boys as of old
In the field, by the fold:

His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn
Were so easily borne !

I stand here now, he lies in his place:

Cover the face!

THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL.

A PICTURE AT FANO.

I.

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve

Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

II.

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,
From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,
And suddenly my head is covered o'er

With those wings, white above the child who prays Now on that tomb and I shall feel thee guarding Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding

Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

III.

I would not look up thither past thy head

Because the door opes, like that child, I know, For I should have thy gracious face instead,

Thou bird of God!

And wilt thou bend me low

Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,

And lift them up to pray, and gently tether

Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

IV.

If this was ever granted, I would rest

My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,

Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands, Back to its proper size again, and smoothing Distortion down till every nerve had soothing, And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.

v.

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.

O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
What further may be sought for or declared?

VI.

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach

(Alfred, dear friend!) - that little child to pray, Holding the little hands up, each to each

Pressed gently, with his own head turned away Over the earth where so much lay before him Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him, And he was left at Fano by the beach.

VII.

We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there,
And drink his beauty to our soul's content

- My angel with me too: and since I care
For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent) –

VIII.

And since he did not work thus earnestly

At all times, and has else endured some wrongI took one thought his picture struck from me, And spread it out, translating it to song. My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend? How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end? This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.

III.

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:

IV.

For there I picked up on the heather,
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.

POPULARITY.

I.

Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you 'll fail us: when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you,
Knew you, and named a star!

II.

My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend That loving hand of his which leads you, Yet locks you safe from end to end

Of this dark world, unless he needs you, Just saves your light to spend?

III.

His clenched hand shall unclose at last,
I know, and let out all the beauty :
My poet holds the future fast,

Accepts the coming ages' duty,
Their present for this past.

IV.

That day, the earth's feast-master's brow Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;

"Others give best at first, but thou

Forever set'st our table praising,

Keep'st the good wine till now!"

V.

Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand,

With few or none to watch and wonder:

I'll say

a fisher, on the sand

By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder, A netful, brought to land.

VI.

Who has not heard how Tyrian shells
Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes
Whereof one drop worked miracles,
And colored like Astarte's eyes
Raw silk the merchant sells ?

VII.

And each bystander of them all
Could criticise, and quote tradition

How depths of blue sublimed some pall

To get which, pricked a king's ambition;

Worth sceptre, crown and ball.

VIII.

Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh,
The sea has only just o'er-whispered!
Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh,
As if they still the water's lisp heard
Through foam the rock-weeds thresh.

IX.

Enough to furnish Solomon

Such hangings for his cedar-house,
That, when gold-robed he took the throne
In that abyss of blue, the Spouse
Might swear his presence shone

X.

Most like the centre-spike of gold

Which burns deep in the bluebell's womb

What time, with ardors manifold,

The bee goes singing to her groom, Drunken and overbold.

XI.

Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof!
Till cunning come to pound and squeeze
And clarify, refine to proof

The liquor filtered by degrees, While the world stands aloof.