(WRITTEN DURING A DANGEROUS SICKNESS) I sit and wait a pair of oars On cis-Elysian river-shores. Where the immortal dead have sate, 'Tis mine to sit and meditate; To re-ascend life's rivulet, Without remorse, without regret; And sing my _Alma Genetrix_ Among the willows of the Styx. And lo, as my serener soul Did these unhappy shores patrol, And wait with an attentive ear The coming of the gondolier, Your fire-surviving roll I took, Your spirited and happy book;[1] Whereon, despite my frowning fate, It did my soul so recreate That all my fancies fled away On a Venetian holiday. Now, thanks to your triumphant care, Your pages clear as April air, The sails, the bells, the birds, I know, And the far-off Friulan snow; The land and sea, the sun and shade, And the blue even lamp-inlaid. For this, for these, for all, O friend, For your whole book from end to end-- For Paron Piero's mutton-ham-- I your defaulting debtor am. Perchance, reviving, yet may I To your sea-paven city hie, And in a _felze_ some day yet Light at your pipe my cigarette. FOOTNOTE: [1] "Life on the Lagoons," by H. F. Brown, originally burned in the fire at Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.'s. XIV TO ANDREW LANG Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair, Who glory to have thrown in air, High over arm, the trembling reed, By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed: An equal craft of hand you show The pen to guide, the fly to throw: I count you happy-starred; for God, When He with inkpot and with rod Endowed you, bade your fortune lead For ever by the crooks of Tweed, For ever by the woods of song And lands that to the Muse belong; Or if in peopled streets, or in The abhorred pedantic sanhedrin, It should be yours to wander, still Airs of the morn, airs of the hill, The plovery Forest and the seas That break about the Hebrides, Should follow over field and plain And find you at the window-pane; And you again see hill and peel, And the bright springs gush at your heel. So went the fiat forth, and so Garrulous like a brook you go, With sound of happy mirth and sheen Of daylight--whether by the green You fare that moment, or the grey; Whether you dwell in March or May; Or whether treat of reels and rods Or of the old unhappy gods: Still like a brook your page has shone, And your ink sings of Helicon. XV ET TU IN ARCADIA VIXISTI (TO R. A. M. S.)