The yellow fog came creeping down The bridges, till the houses’ walls Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul’s Loomed like a bubble o’er the town. Then suddenly arose the clang Of waking life; the streets were stirred With country waggons: and a bird Flew to the glistening roofs and sang. But one pale woman all alone, The daylight kissing her wan hair, Loitered beneath the gas lamps’ flare, With lips of flame and heart of stone. MAGDALEN WALKS THE little white clouds are racing over the sky, And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March, The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by. A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze, The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth, The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth, Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees. And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring, And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar, And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring. And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green, And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove. See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there, Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew, And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue! The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air. ATHANASIA TO that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught Of all the great things men have saved from Time, The withered body of a girl was brought Dead ere the world’s glad youth had touched its prime, And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid In the dim womb of some black pyramid. But when they had unloosed the linen band Which swathed the Egyptian’s body,—lo! was found Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand A little seed, which sown in English ground Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air. With such strange arts this flower did allure That all forgotten was the asphodel, And the brown bee, the lily’s paramour, Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell, For not a thing of earth it seemed to be, But stolen from some heavenly Arcady. In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white At its own beauty, hung across the stream, The purple dragon-fly had no delight With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam, Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss, Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis.