Then said a voice, “Ye may not herein stay! But immortality May here incloséd be; And ye are mortals—ye must hence away, Or ere the night unwombs the clearer day. “And ye must wait the riving of the chain That gives surcease of pain, And linger lone upon the evening shore Till ye be ferried o’er. But now the nymphs shall cease their merriment, Ere yet your stay be spent, And music shall be struck—shall charm and please You to contented ease.” Then dropt a quiet o’er the enhancéd glee, As when a Boreal night dusks o’er a frigid sea. Next grew a hymning sonnet, worded well, Up ’mid the oaken boles, whose listening green Tented the Dryad scene, Wavering across the silence with a spell Worthy to sink the yesty broil of waves, And bid huge winds creep into airless graves, In barred Æolian caves. “We sing, we sing, The sweet lyre fingering On every vibrant string; The sisters of the sea, Whose silken dynasty Holds us in light, and long, and glad captivity. “We sing, we sing, The sweet lyre fingering With sound like Hermes’ wing— Of nectarous draughts and deep, Wooing the gods asleep, What time the crystal honey-dews of heaven weep. “We sing, we sing, The sweet lyre fingering Till windless woodlands ring; How rich the lofty chime, When gods converse in rhyme, And far Olympian peaks reëcho all the time. “We sing, we sing, The sweet lyre fingering With notes that ever cling, The blue and airy dome That floors the godly home Where thunderous Jove is throned, and Here dwells at home. “We sing, we sing, With silver vibrating Of every tuneful string, The effervescing wine, In beakers most divine, By Hebe overbrimmed for whom the half-gods pine. “Ah, well! ah, well! Our island home we tell, Where peace for aye doth dwell; Where, from the drowsy deep, A gilded mist doth creep Up all the sanded shore to shrine us in our sleep. “Away, away! Our fingers cease to play For alien ears our lay; But, by the sea’s low moan, Sportive we go alone; Our lyre’s notes are dead—our measured hymn is done.” Then died the hymning sonnet, worded well, Adown the oaken boles that pillared all the dell. * * * * * Then all a day and night athwart the sea— A day and night complete we backward sped— And as the dawn grew red— Our half-moon prow slid upward easily Upon the margent of the ocean foam That murmured by our home. * * * * * =THE PEDANT:=