There with the shining Souls I lay When, lo, a Voice that seemed to say, In far-off haunts of Memory, _Whoso doth taste the Dead Men’s bread_, _Shall dwell for ever with these Dead_, _Nor ever shall his body lie_ _Beside his friends_, _on the grey hill_ _Where rains weep_, _and the curlews shrill_ _And the brown water wanders by_! Then did a new soul in me wake, The dead men’s bread I feared to break, Their fruit I would not taste indeed Were it but a pomegranate seed. Nay, not with these I made my choice To dwell for ever and rejoice, For otherwhere the River rolls That girds the home of Christian souls, And these my whole heart seeks are found On otherwise enchanted ground. Even so I put the cup away, The vision wavered, dimmed, and broke, And, nowise sorrowing, I woke While, grey among the ruins grey Chill through the dwellings of the dead, The Dawn crept o’er the Northern sea, Then, in a moment, flushed to red, Flushed all the broken minster old, And turned the shattered stones to gold, And wakened half the world with me! L’ENVOI. To E. W. G. (Who also had rhymed on the _Fortunate Islands_ of Lucian). _Each in the self-same field we glean_ _The field of the Samosatene_, _Each something takes and something leaves_ _And this must choose_, _and that forego_ _In Lucian’s visionary sheaves_, _To twine a modern posy so_; _But all my gleanings_, _truth to tell_, _Are mixed with mournful asphodel_, _While yours are wreathed with poppies red_, _With flowers that Helen’s feet have kissed_, _With leaves of vine that garlanded_ _The Syrian Pantagruelist_, _The sage who laughed the world away_, _Who mocked at Gods_, _and men_, _and care_, _More sweet of voice than Rabelais_, _And lighter-hearted than Voltaire_. ALMAE MATRES. ALMAE MATRES. (ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865.) _ST. Andrews by the Northern sea_, _A haunted town it is to me_! A little city, worn and grey, The grey North Ocean girds it round. And o’er the rocks, and up the bay, The long sea-rollers surge and sound. And still the thin and biting spray Drives down the melancholy street, And still endure, and still decay, Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. Ghost-like and shadowy they stand Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sand. St. Leonard’s chapel, long ago We loitered idly where the tall Fresh budded mountain ashes blow Within thy desecrated wall: The tough roots rent the tomb below, The April birds sang clamorous, We did not dream, we could not know How hardly Fate would deal with us!