Yours, William Burn. (Next letter of series will appear in June number.) Prose Coronales Morris Ward To G. M. Chadwick “I the reed was a useless plant; for out of me grow not figs nor apple nor grape-cluster; but man consecrated me in the mysteries of Helicon, piercing my frail lips and making me the channel of a narrow stream; and thenceforth whenever I sip the black drink, like one inspired I speak all words with this voiceless mouth.”—_From the Greek Anthology. Anonymous._ I _The New Dawn_ “You have slept long, oh heart! And you, my heart’s dear comrade, whom men call Beauty—why have you awakened me once more and made my bed no longer roses but sharp thorns?”—“Too many are yet asleep: they have slept overlong. You must awaken now and once more, in this golden dawning, sing to them and to this silence round about them out of your soul’s rich pain, out of your body’s weariness. Sing, then, sing!”—“I will, dear my heart, my Beauty, I will! But oh, the silence, this silence!” II _At Evening_ The lamp shines low in the silent room, and the lonely poet dreams of long-forgotten evenings. Putting aside the volume in my hand I caress the sumptuous fur of the cat asleep on my knees, crooning to myself the while an old old folk song. Without, stretching far away into the horizon, the fields of golden wheat sway to and fro under the moon’s full light; and on the screen of the window a single moth clings motionless, its fire-like eyes drinking long draughts of the light which it cannot reach.—Oh moth! why should you love so well the thing that seeks your death?... III _An Invocation_ You who love Beauty as the bee loves the flower, as the bird loves the air—hail! You who lie awake at night dreaming of the Beauty that is in the world yet not of the world—all hail! You whose life is like a broken song trailing through the ceaseless monotone of human things—hail and farewell! We were not long together, but haply neither will soon forget. Almost we understood each other, and in all the world there is no word that touches life so quickly as “almost”. And on that word we parted. Because you have not learned that Beauty never stops to kiss her chosen ones. You do not know that with her sweet, too-sweet and awful breath alone does she condemn them to journey forever from flower to flower by day, by night from star to star. Even as you journey, a frail, wondrous and ghostly being, pouring forth your pain-mad melodies, broken melodies, ceaselessly yearning toward the verge of that perfection ... ah! and you would have me leap into those chill profundities, out of the world, out of your dear remembrance, out of the bright sun’s warmth, forever!