THE MAGE.

When I shall sing my songs the world will hear, -Which hears not these,-I shall be white with age, My beard on breast great as befits a mage

So skilled; but song is young, and in no drear

Tome-crammed, lamp-litten chamber shall mine

fear

To pine ascetic. Where the woods are deep,
Thick leaves for arras, in a noonday sleep

Of breeze and bloom, gaze, but my art revere !
There I will sit, and score rare wisardry

In characters vermilion, azure, gold,

With bird, starred flower, and peering dragon-fly Limned in the lines; and secrets shall be told Of greatest Pan, and lives of wood-nymphs shy, Blabbed by my goat-foot servitor overbold.

WISE PASSIVENESS.

Think you I choose or that or this to sing?

I lie as patient as yon wealthy stream

Dreaming among green fields its summer dream,

Which takes whate'er the gracious hours will bring

Into its quiet bosom; not a thing

Too common, since perhaps you see it there

Who else had never seen it, though as fair

As on the world's first morn; a fluttering

Of idle butterflies; or the deft seeds
Blown from a thistle-head; a silver dove
As faultlessly; or the large, yearning eyes
Of pale Narcissus; or beside the reeds
A shepherd seeking lilies for his love,
And evermore the all-encircling skies.

THE SINGER'S PLEA.

Why do I sing? I know not why, my friend ;
The ancient rivers, rivers of renown,

A royal largess to the sea roll down,

And on those liberal highways nations send

Their tributes to the world,-stored corn and wine,
Gold-dust, the wealth of pearls, and orient spar,
And myrrh, and ivory, and cinnabar,

And dyes to make a presence-chamber shine.
But in the woodlands, where the wild-flowers are,
The rivulets, they must have their innocent will
Who all the summer hours are singing still,
The birds care for them, and sometimes a star,
And should a tired child rest beside the stream
Sweet memories would slide into his dream.

THE TRESPASSER.

Trespassers will be prosecuted,—so

Announced the inhospitable notice-board;
But silver-clear as any lady's word

Come in, in, in, come in, now rich and low,
Now with tumultuous palpitating flow,

I swear by ring of Canace I heard.

"Sure," said I, "this is no brown-breasted bird, But some fair princess, lost an age ago

Through stepdame's cursed spell, till the saints brought her

Who but myself, the knight foredoomed of grace."

Alas! poor knight, in all that cockney place

You found no magic, save one radiant sight,

The huge, obstreperous house-keeper's grand

daughter,

A child with eyes of pure ethereal light.

RITUALISM.

This is high ritual and a holy day;

I think from Palestrina the wind chooses

That movement in the firs; one sits and muses
In hushed heart-vacancy made meek to pray;
Listen! the birds are choristers with gay
Clear voices infantine, and with good will
Each acolyte flower has swung his thurible,
Censing to left and right these aisles of May.
For congregation, see! real sheep most clean,
And I—what am I, worshipper or priest?
At least all these I dare absolve from sin,
Aye, dare ascend to where the splendours shine
Of yon steep mountain-altar, and the feast

Is holy, God himself being bread and wine.