Now the bright crocus flames, and now The slim narcissus takes the rain, And, straying o’er the mountain’s brow, The daffodilies bud again. The thousand blossoms wax and wane On wold, and heath, and fragrant bough, But fairer than the flowers art thou, Than any growth of hill or plain. Ye gardens, cast your leafy crown, That my Love’s feet may tread it down, Like lilies on the lilies set; My Love, whose lips are softer far Than drowsy poppy petals are, And sweeter than the violet! BEFORE THE SNOW. (AFTER ALBERT GLATIGNY.) The winter is upon us, not the snow, The hills are etched on the horizon bare, The skies are iron grey, a bitter air, The meagre cloudlets shudder to and fro. One yellow leaf the listless wind doth blow, Like some strange butterfly, unclassed and rare. Your footsteps ring in frozen alleys, where The black trees seem to shiver as you go. Beyond lie church and steeple, with their old And rusty vanes that rattle as they veer, A sharper gust would shake them from their hold, Yet up that path, in summer of the year, And past that melancholy pile we strolled To pluck wild strawberries, with merry cheer. VILLANELLE. TO LUCIA. Apollo left the golden Muse And shepherded a mortal’s sheep, Theocritus of Syracuse! To mock the giant swain that woo’s The sea-nymph in the sunny deep, Apollo left the golden Muse. Afield he drove his lambs and ewes, Where Milon and where Battus reap, Theocritus of Syracuse! To watch thy tunny-fishers cruise Below the dim Sicilian steep Apollo left the golden Muse. Ye twain did loiter in the dews, Ye slept the swain’s unfever’d sleep, Theocritus of Syracuse! That Time might half with _his_ confuse Thy songs,—like his, that laugh and leap,— Theocritus of Syracuse, Apollo left the golden Muse! NATURAL THEOLOGY. ἐπει καὶ τοῦτον ὀῖομαι ἀθανάτοισιν ἔυχεσθαι·. Πάντες δὲ θεῶν χατέουσ’ ἄνθρωποι. 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 brood_— _O 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. THE ODYSSEY.