"I stood by the unvintageable sea Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray, The long red fires of the dying day Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily; And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee: 'Alas!' I cried, 'my life is full of pain, And who can garner fruit or golden grain, From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!' My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw Nathless I threw them as my final cast Into the sea, and waited for the end. When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw From the black waters of my tortured past The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!" and compare it with Rossetti's "Venetian Pastoral" and "Mary's Girlhood," and we can almost imagine that the painter was holding up pictures to inspire the young poet. "Red underlip drawn in for fear of love And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove," might almost have been written by Rossetti himself. More characteristically original are the lines-- "I saw From the black waters of my tortured past The argent splendour of white limbs ascend," from the "Vita Nuova," though one cannot fail to perceive a faint Baudelairian note. "Where behind lattice window scarlet wrought and gilt Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry," at once reminds us of the Rossetti influence. The poem itself shows considerable skill in construction and deftness in the moulding of the sentences, moreover, there is a freshness in the treatment of the theme that a less original writer would have found great difficulty in imparting. Here again we see the Catholic note as when he writes-- "Never mightest thou see The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel; Who got from Love no joyous gladdening, But only Love's intolerable pain, Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain, Only the bitterness of child-bearing." There is one especially fine bit of imagery-- "The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of death Lie in thy hand--" which bears the very truest imprint of poetry. With the poet's return to England, a reaction took place, and the sight of English woodlands and English lanes caused a strong revulsion of feeling. "This English Thames is holier far than Rome Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea Breaking across the woodland, with the foam Of meadow-sweet and white anemone, To fleck their blue waves,--God is likelier there Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear."