As I came homeward At merry Christmas, By the old church tower, Through the churchyard grass, And saw there, circled With graves all about, The yew-tree paternal, The yew-tree devout, Then this hot life-blood Was hard to endure, O Death! so I loved thee, The sole love sure. For stars slip in heaven, They wander, they break: But under the yew-tree Not one heartache. And ours, what failure Renewed and avowed! But ah, the long-buried Is leal, and is proud. Now I came homeward At merry Christmas, By the wise gray tower, Through the green kind grass. SHROPSHIRE LANDSCAPE. Vague, in a silver sheen Rayed from their armour green, Some aged limes upstand; Nigh fields kindle and shine: Beauty incarnadine! What thrill of what Uranian wine So flushed the placid land? All tints of a broken wave Light the leafy architrave, Far up the cloudy spring; And the ploughed soil ruddier glows Than the ruby or the rose, Or the moon, when the harvest goes Beneath her blazing wing. Trees keep the broad outpost; Dusk, by their dusky host, Long-loved Severn glides. Thence, towards the hilly south, Like a queen, battle-wroth, Upon a vermeil saddle-cloth, The three-spired city rides. THE GRAHAM TARTAN TO A GRAHAM. Use me in honour: cherish me As ivy from a sacred tree. Mine in the winds of war to close Around the armour of Montrose, And kiss the death-wound of Dundee. Yet fear not me, nor such estate Heroic and inviolate; But green-and-white-and-azure wind About thy body and thy mind, And by that length enlarge thy fate! IN A LONDON STREET. Though sea and mount have beauty, and this but what it can, Thrice fairer than their life the life here battling in the van, The tragic gleam, the mist and grime, The dread endearing stain of time, The sullied heart of man. Mine is the clotted sunshine, a bubble in the sky, That where it dare not enter, steals in shrouded passion by; And mine the saffron river-sails, And every plane-tree that avails To rest an urban eye; The bells, the dripping gables, the tavern’s corner glare The cabs in firefly dartings, the barrel-organ’s air, Where one by one, or two by two, The hatless babes are dancing through The gutters of the square. Not on Sicilian headlands of song and old desire, My spirit chose her pleasure-house, but in the London mire: Long, long alone she loves to pace, And find a music in the place As in a minster choir. O deeds of awe and rapture! O names of legendry! Still is it most of joy within your altered pale to be, Whose very ills I fain would slake, Mine angels are, and help to make In hell, a heaven for me. ATHASSEL ABBEY.