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The Romans look'd for altar cloth's design,
Fulgent as the Byzantine work, and stiff
With rough meandering of the golden line;
A miracle of colouring as if

In charmed looms the sunset clouds were trick'd,
And magic wrought the matchless acupict.

The Romans look'd for vestments to display,
Radiant with all the colours of the morn,
Rich with pineapple, and pomegranate spray :

But Bernard pray'd-" Let art again be born,
With beauty not this lower atmosphere's.

He paints Christ ill who paints Him not with tears.”

Then after psalms and vespers all expect,

The Pontiff bow'd and bade the Abbot speak.
He rose, his chestnut hair with thin grey fleck'd,
A little flush upon his pallid cheek,

And oped the Song at that place of the lay
Which saith," Pascitur inter lilia."

Preluding something for the knights' behalf,
Of virgin knights who keep a virgin will-
Serious, who almost deem it sin to laugh,
Bearing the red cross upon Sion's hill ;
Who with strong arm corporeal possest
The place corporeal of our Jesus' rest,

He added-" Jesus, Lily for our eyes.

Lo! from the midst those spikelets all of gold, Cinct with the white disposèd circlet-wise.

Golden divinity in this behold,

With fair Humanity pure white around Him,

Christ with the crown wherewith his Mother crown'd Him.

"Lily and lilies, fair perfumèd towers,

And all things that be His true lilies are

His birth, His words, His works, His passion hours,
His life risen beyond the morning star.

Joy to our sinful hearts from each is sent ;
For each is white, and each is redolent.

"Ah! we are poor, and yet it shall be well
If we can keep our narrow garden so
That He who feeds among the lilies dwell

In hearts where we have made one lily grow—
So that each little life be turned by grace
Into one lily perfect in its place."

I closed both books; the double spell was o'er.
I slept, but a voice spake with gentle might,
"Open to me, open the long closed door;

My locks are filled with the drops of night.
From some far shore, perchance across the sea,
Through drift and rain, O soul, I come to thee."

I saw a Hand, and raised my hands from thence-
Were my hands wet with myrrh or tears so late?
If there were myrrh, 'twas myrrh of penitence ;
Of penitence that I had made him wait.

If there were tears, it was because I knew

That Hand of love was love-pierced through and through.

Then to the Frenchman's vaudeville I turn'd-
There stands a law for every tongue of man,
They only can interpret who have learn'd;
To the unlearn'd it is barbarian.

Lay of the lily, dreamland of the dove!

Love hath a tongue they only know who love.

THE NEW ATLANTIS.

ARGUMENT.

I. Oxford in 1845-reading the New Atlantis of Bacon-II. Vision of the Island-III. Imaginatively applied to an idealized Oxford— IV. Oxford in 1885-Disappointment-Discord of Faith and Science in an age of Criticism—V. The inner work-the hope of reconciliation.

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A CITY of young life astir for fame,

With generations each of three years' date,-
The waters fleeting, yet the fount the same—
Where old age hardly enters thro' the gate.

Forty years since! Thoughts now long over-blown
Had just begun to quicken in the germ.
We sat discussing subjects dimly known.
One pleasant evening of the Summer Term.

So question came of all things new and old,

And how the Movement sped and where should lead?

Some, peradventure, scorn'd, but more wax'd bold,
And bravely flaunted their triumphant creed.

Grave grew the talk, and golden grew the gloom;
The reason might be weak, the voice was strong.
Outside, by fits and starts, from room to room,
Boy call'd to boy, like birds, in bursts of song.

Of forms they talked that rose, as if in joy,
Like magic isles from an enchanted foam;
They prophesied (no prophet like a boy!)
Some fairer Oxford and some freer Rome,-

An Oxford of a more majestic growth

A Rome that sheds no blood, and makes no slaveThe perfect flower and quintessence of both,

More reverent science, faith by far more brave.

Faith should have broader brow and bolder eye,
Science sing "Angelus" at close of day;

Faith have more liberal and lucent sky,

And science end by learning how to pray.

And "Hail the hour," they cried, "when each high morn England, at one, shall stand at the church gate,

And vesper bells o'er all the land be borne,

And Newman mould the Church, and Gladstone stamp the State."

Now, when all left me, on my table lay

A volume of my Bacon, where was writ

By that great hand, in the evening of his day,
The fairest fable sunshine ever lit.

While in the dusk white chestnut blossoms paled
Above the black old wall, on the great tree,
The book and talk commingled, and I sail'd
Across a vast unnavigated sea.

II.

The enchanted island rose before me, drawn More beautiful than words of mine may reach; It lay magnificent in a magic dawn,

And full of boscage to the foam-fringed beach.

How well the city of the sons of knowledge
Stood, giving pleasant prospect to the sea!
The fabulous and fancied island college
Unfabled and unfancied grew for me.

In secret conclave of a sea so vast

Earth's widest wilderness of waves ring'd roundNo mariner ever caught from any mast A glimpse or inkling of that happy ground.

Yet now (such fair adventure did I win!)

That I could see and hear whate'er of state Or thought, or work, or worship, was within That muse-discovered island fortunate.

I saw the House of Solomon strongly stand,
No fane so noble springs from any sod;
The oracle and lanthorn of the land,

Where nature is the interpreter of God.

The College of the Six Days' Work well call'd,
Whence traders issue-not for gain or might,
For gold or silk, for spice or emerald-

Only for God's first creature, which is light.

I saw the masters of the speech and pen,
Those cunning in the secret cause of things;
Whose aspect was as if they pitied men—

A temperate race, a commonwealth of kings.

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