WHAT if we call it fifty years! ’Tis steep! To climb so high a gradient? Prate of Guides? Are we not roped? The Danger? Nay, the Turf, No less nor more than mountain peaks, my friend, Hears talk of Roping,—but the Jubilee! Nay, there you have me: old Francesco once (This was in Milan, in Visconti’s time, Our wild Visconti, with one lip askance, And beard tongue-twisted in the nostril’s nook) Parlous enough,—these times—what? “So are ours”? Or any times, i’fegs, to him who thinks,— Well ’twas in Spring “the frolic myrtle trees There gendered the grave olive stocks,”—you cry “A miracle!”—Sordello writeth thus,— Believe me that indeed ’twas thus, and he, Francesco, you are with me? Well, there’s gloom No less than gladness in your fifty years, “And so,” said he, “to supper as we may.” “Voltairean?” So you take it; but ’tis late, And dinner seven, sharp, at Primrose Hill. _The Poet and the Jubilee_. POSCIMUR! BY A. D. A _Birthday Ode_ for MEG or NAN, A Rhyme for Lady FLORA’s Fan, A Verse on _Smut_, who’s gone astray, These Things are in the _Poet’s_ way; At Home with praise of JULIA’s Lace, Or DELIA’s Ankles, ROSE’s Face, But “Something _overparted_” He, When asked to rhyme the _jubilee_! He therefore turns, the _Poet_ wary, And Thumbs his _Carmen Seculare_, To PHŒBUS and to DIAN prays, Who tune Men’s Lyres of Holidays, He reads of the _Sibylline_ Shades, Of Stainless Boys and chosen Maids. He turns, and reads the other Page, Of docile Youth, and placid Age, Then Sings how, in this golden Year _Fides Pudorque_ reappear,— And if they don’t appear, you know it Were quite unjust to blame the Poet! _On any Beach_. BY M. A. YES, in the stream and stress of things, That breaks around us like the sea, There comes to Peasants and to Kings, The solemn Hour of Jubilee. If they, till strenuous Nature give Some fifty harvests, chance to live! Ah, Fifty harvests! But the corn Is grown beside the barren main, Is salt with sea-spray, blown and borne Across the green unvintaged plain. And life, lived out for fifty years, Is briny with the spray of tears! Ah, such is Life, to us that live Here, in the twilight of the Gods, Who weigh each gift the world can give, And sigh and murmur, _What’s the odds_ _So long’s you’re happy_? Nay, what Man Finds Happiness since Time began? _Ode of Jubilee_. BY A. C. S. ME, that have sung and shrieked, and foamed in praise of Freedom, _Me_ do you ask to sing Parochial pomps, and waste, the wail of Jubileedom For Queen, or Prince, or King! * * * * *