O ye, the wise who think, the wise who reign, From growing commerce loose her latest chain, And let the fair white-winged peacemaker fly To happy havens under all the sky, And mix the seasons and the golden hours, Till each man finds his own in all men's good, And all men work in noble brotherhood, Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers, And ruling by obeying Nature's powers, And gathering all the fruits of peace and crown'd with all her flowers. A DEDICATION. -----<>----- Dear, near and true--no truer Time himself Can prove you, tho' he make you evermore Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life Shoots to the fall--take this, and pray that he, Who wrote it, honoring your sweet faith in him, May trust himself; and spite of praise and scorn, As one who feels the immeasurable world, Attain the wise indifference of the wise; And after Autumn past--if left to pass His autumn into seeming-leafless days-- Draw toward the long frost and longest night, Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit Which in our winter woodland looks a flower.* *The fruit of the Spindle-tree (Euonymus Europaeus). EXPERIMENTS. BOADICEA. -----<>----- While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess, Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility, Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 'They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces, Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating? Shall I heed them in their anguish? shall I brook to be supplicated? Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us? Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering? Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable, Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton, Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it, Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated. Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodune! There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary. There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot. Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cassivelaun!