Where in wild-winged crowds Blown birds show their whiteness Up against the lightness Of the clammy clouds; By the random river Pushing to the sea, Under bents that quiver There rest we. FAINTHEART IN A RAILWAY TRAIN AT nine in the morning there passed a church, At ten there passed me by the sea, At twelve a town of smoke and smirch, At two a forest of oak and birch, And then, on a platform, she: A radiant stranger, who saw not me. I queried, “Get out to her do I dare?” But I kept my seat in my search for a plea, And the wheels moved on. O could it but be That I had alighted there! AT MOONRISE AND ONWARDS I THOUGHT you a fire On Heron-Plantation Hill, Dealing out mischief the most dire To the chattels of men of hire There in their vill. But by and by You turned a yellow-green, Like a large glow-worm in the sky; And then I could descry Your mood and mien. How well I know Your furtive feminine shape! As if reluctantly you show You nude of cloud, and but by favour throw Aside its drape . . . —How many a year Have you kept pace with me, Wan Woman of the waste up there, Behind a hedge, or the bare Bough of a tree! No novelty are you, O Lady of all my time, Veering unbid into my view Whether I near Death’s mew, Or Life’s top cyme! THE GARDEN SEAT ITS former green is blue and thin, And its once firm legs sink in and in; Soon it will break down unaware, Soon it will break down unaware. At night when reddest flowers are black Those who once sat thereon come back; Quite a row of them sitting there, Quite a row of them sitting there. With them the seat does not break down, Nor winter freeze them, nor floods drown, For they are as light as upper air, They are as light as upper air! BARTHÉLÉMON AT VAUXHALL François Hippolite Barthélémon, first-fiddler at Vauxhall Gardens, composed what was probably the most popular morning hymn-tune ever written. It was formerly sung, full-voiced, every Sunday in most churches, to Bishop Ken’s words, but is now seldom heard. HE said: “Awake my soul, and with the sun,” . . . And paused upon the bridge, his eyes due east, Where was emerging like a full-robed priest The irradiate globe that vouched the dark as done. It lit his face—the weary face of one Who in the adjacent gardens charged his string, Nightly, with many a tuneful tender thing, Till stars were weak, and dancing hours outrun. And then were threads of matin music spun In trial tones as he pursued his way: “This is a morn,” he murmured, “well begun: This strain to Ken will count when I am clay!” And count it did; till, caught by echoing lyres, It spread to galleried naves and mighty quires.