Curse upon curse, pang upon pang,

For years, they sitting helpless in their home,
A grey old man and woman; yet of old
The Gods had to their marriage come,
And at the banquet all the Muses sang.

Therefore they did not end their days
In sight of blood; but were rapt, far away,
To where the west-wind plays,

And murmurs of the Adriatic come

To those untrodden mountain-lawns; and there
Placed safely in changed forms, the pair
Wholly forgot their first sad life, and home,
And all that Theban woe, and stray

For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.

Self-dependence

WEARY of myself, and sick of asking

What I am, and what I ought to be,

At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send :

'Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me,

Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

'Ah, once more', I cried, 'ye stars, ye waters,

On my heart your mighty charm renew;

Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,

Feel my soul becoming vast like you!'

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,

Over the lit sea's unquiet way,

In the rustling night-air came the answer :
'Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.

'Unaffrighted by the silence round them, Undistracted by the sights they see,

These demand not that the things without them Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

'And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

'Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.'

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear :
'Resolve to be thyself; and know that he,
Who finds himself, loses his misery!'

BROWNING

The Common Problem

So, drawing comfortable breath again,

You weigh and find whatever more or less I boast of my ideal realised

Is nothing in the balance when opposed
To your ideal, your grand simple life,

Of which you will not realise one jot.

I am much, you are nothing; you would be all, I would be merely much-you beat me there.

No, friend, you do not beat me,-hearken why.
The common problem, yours, mine, every one's,
Is not to fancy what were fair in life
Provided it could be,-but, finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair
Up to our means—a very different thing!
No abstract intellectual plan of life
Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws,
But one, a man, who is man and nothing more,
May lead within a world which (by your leave)
Is Rome or London-not Fool's paradise.

Then Welcome each Rebuff

THEN welcome each rebuff

That turns earth's smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain !

Strive, and hold cheap the strain ;

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

MRS. BROWNING

Patience Taught by Nature

'DREARY life', we cry, 'O dreary life!'
And still the generations of the birds

Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle ! Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest trees
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory: O thou God of old,

Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!
But so much patience as a blade of grass

Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 249

To a Linnet

WILLIAM CORY

MY cheerful mate, you fret not for the wires,

The changeless limits of your small desires ; You heed not winter rime or summer dew, You feel no difference 'twixt old and new; You kindly take the lettuce or the cress Without the cognizance of more or less, Content with light and movement in a cage. Not reckoning hours, nor mortified by age, You bear no penance, you resent no wrong, Your timeless soul exists in each unconscious song.

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

Lebens Philosophie

IF

F we were but free to wander
Light as mountain cloud or air;
If our love grew firmer, fonder,
And our youth were always fair;
If no thought of sin or scorning
Marred the magic of our morning,
If delight expelled despair :

If the dreadful hand of duty

Lay not on our souls like lead;