To the East with praise he turned, And on his sight the angel burned. "I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell, And set thee here; I did not well. "Vainly I left my angel-sphere, Vain was thy dream of many a year, "Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped-- Creation's chorus stopped! "Go back and praise again The early way, while I remain. 70 "With that weak voice of our disdain, Take up creation's pausing strain. "Back to the cell and poor employ: Resume the craftsman and the boy!" Theocrite grew old at home; A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. One vanished as the other died: They sought God side by side. * * * * * MEMORABILIA Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems and new! But you were living before that, And also you are living after; And the memory I started at-- My starting moves your laughter! I crossed a moor with a name of its own And a certain use in the world, no doubt, 10 Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 'Mid the blank miles round about. For there I picked upon the heather And there I put inside my breast A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! Well, I forget the rest. * * * * * WHY I AM A LIBERAL "Why?" Because all I haply can and do, All that I am now, all I hope to be,-- Whence comes it save from fortune setting free Body and soul the purpose to pursue, God traced for both? If fetters, not a few, Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, These shall I bid men--each in his degree Also God-guided--bear, and gayly too? But little do or can the best of us: That little is achieved thro' Liberty. 10 Who then dares hold, emancipated thus, His fellow shall continue bound? not I, Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." * * * * * PROSPICE Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, 10 Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all. I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, The best and the last!