to brilliance by the hard majesty of that sophistication which is su- perior to opportunity, these things are rich instruments with which to experiment but surgery is not tentative: why dissect destiny with instruments which are more highly specialized than the tissues of destiny itself? FEED ME, ALSO, RIVER GOD, lest by diminished vitality and abated vigilance, I become food for crocodiles—for that quicksand of gluttony which is legion. It is there—close at hand— on either side of me. You remember the Israelites who said in pride and stoutness of heart: “The bricks are fallen down, we will build with hewn stone, the sycamores are cut down, we will change to cedars”? I am not ambitious to dress stones, to renew forts, nor to match my value in action, against their ability to catch up with arrested prosperity. I am not like them, indefatigable, but if you are a god you will not discriminate against me. Yet—if you may fulfil none but prayers dressed as gifts in return for your gifts—disregard the request. TO WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ON TAGORE It is made clear by the phrase, even the mood—by virtue of which he says the thing he thinks—that it pays, to cut gems even in these conscience-less days; but the jewel that always outshines ordinary jewels, is your praise. HE MADE THIS SCREEN not of silver nor of coral, but of weatherbeaten laurel. Here, he introduced a sea uniform like tapestry; here, a fig-tree; there, a face; there, a dragon circling space— designating here, a bower; there, a pointed passion-flower. TALISMAN Under a splintered mast, torn from ship and cast near her hull, a stumbling shepherd found embedded in the ground, a sea-gull of lapis lazuli, a scarab of the sea, with wings spread— curling its coral feet, parting its beak to greet men long dead. BLACK EARTH Openly, yes, with the naturalness of the hippopotamus or the alligator when it climbs out on the bank to experience the sun, I do these things which I do, which please no one but myself. Now I breathe and now I am sub- merged; the blemishes stand up and shout when the object in view was a renaissance; shall I say the contrary? The sediment of the river which encrusts my joints, makes me very gray but I am used to it, it may remain there; do away with it and I am myself done away with, for the patina of circumstance can but enrich what was there to begin with. This elephant skin which I inhabit, fibred over like the shell of the coco-nut, this piece of black glass through which no light