Pale in his cot that day, Dying, the pastor lay, Where still his eye could stray Up valleys gleaming; Watchers were at his side; Prayer unto prayer replied: Hush! what was that he spied, Pinnacle-streaming? (Nothing was he aware In his deaf Breton air,-- So gray traditions there Throve unforgotten,-- That, by a final chance, Kings all were led a dance; Long since, in fickle France, Sceptres were rotten!) Sprang the old lion, still Live with prodigious will, To his stone casement-sill; Foolish and true one! Snatched up the blade he bore, Rough with its rust of yore, Kissed it, a saint no more-- Only a Chouan! Barred from the charging mass In the choked market-pass, All he could do, alas! Now, was to clang it: Nay, more:--‘God save the King!’ With a last clarion ring, Shot ere he ceased to sing, Allio sang it. LYRICS YOUTH. LET us hymn thee for our silent brothers, Freely as the wild impellent wind blows, Briefly, rudely, in the smoky pauses Of a battle, in the stress and scourging Of the sail apast thy heavenly margin; Let us hymn thee, while the gallant pulses In high heart and limbs one kingliest instant, Boom and flash thy name and their allegiance; ‘Once, and for one only,’ let us hymn thee, O Delight, O Sunrise, O sole Answer, Empery unbought, supreme Adventure, Youth, ah, Youth! all men’s desire and sorrow. Let us hymn thee, we, the passing, dying, Out of bondage by a vision lifted, Since by chance sublime, in secret places, Goddess! we, Aktaion-like, have seen thee. Tho’ our voice as a spent eagle’s voice is, Let us hymn thee, while the doom is forging; Holding, losing, thro’ one first last moment, One mad moment worth dull life forever, Triumphing in anguish, let us hymn thee! Thine, beholden Beauty, thine this heart-break, Thine, O Hope forsworn! this salutation, Youth, ah, Youth! all men’s desire and sorrow. THE LAST FAUN. HOW hath he stumbled hither, in search of love and praise, A tardy comer and goer across the world’s highways, A kind shape from the thicket, a wanderer all his days? He finds a rocky seat where the moiling town recedes: The altered shepherds flout him; but O he little heeds! Incredulous he swings there, and drones upon his reeds. He stamps his cloven heel, and he laughs adown the wind, With eye that wanes and waxes at doings of mankind. Slow, slow creeps the invader upon that happy mind.