Men who are sour at missing larger game
May wing a chattering sparrow for revenge.

There's more of odd than even in this world.
Else pretty sinners would not be let off
Sooner than ugly; for if honeycombs

Are to be got by stealing, they should go
Where life is bitterest on the tongue.

-0

'Tis but a toilsome game

To bet upon that feather Policy,

And guess where after twice a hundred puffs
'Twill catch another feather crossing it :

Guess how the Pope will blow and how the king ;
What force my lady's fan has; how a cough
Seizing the Padre's throat may raise a gust,
And how the queen may sigh the feather down.
Such catching at imaginary threads,

Such spinning twisted air, is not for me.

If I should want a game, I'll rather bet

On racing snails, two large, slow, lingering snailsNo spurring, equal weights-a chance sublime, Nothing to guess at, pure uncertainty.

Your teaching orthodoxy with faggots may only

bring up a fashion of roasting.

Knightly love is blent with reverence

As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue.

-0

Fedalma.-Good Juan, I could have no nobler

friend.

You'd ope your veins and let your life-blood out
To save another's pain, yet hide the deed

With jesting-say, 'twas merest accident,

A sportive scratch that went by chance too deepAnd die content with men's slight thoughts of you, Finding your glory in another's joy,

Juan.-Dub not my likings virtues, lest they get
A drug-like taste, and breed a nausea.
Honey's not sweet, commended as cathartic.
Such names are parchment labels upon gems
Hiding their colour. What is lovely seen
Priced in a tarif ?—lapis lazuli,

Such bulk, so many drachmas : amethysts
Quoted at so much; sapphires higher still.
The stone like solid heaven in its blueness
Is what I care for, not its name or price.
So, if I live or die to serve my friend,
'Tis for my love—'tis for my friend alone,
And not for any rate that friendship bears
In heaven or on earth.

Fedalma.

Men say they have none.

Zincali's faith?

Zarca.

Oh, it is a faith

Taught by no priest, but by their beating hearts :

Faith to each other: the fidelity

Of fellow-wanderers in a desert place

Who share the same dire thirst, and therefore share

The scanty water: the fidelity

Of men whose pulses leap with kindred fire,
Who in the flash of eyes, the clasp of hands,
The speech that even in lying tells the truth
Of heritage inevitable as past deeds,
Nay, in the silent bodily presence feel
The mystic stirring of a common life
Which makes the many one: fidelity

To the deep consecrating oath our sponsor Fate
Made through our infant breath when we were born,
The fellow-heirs of that small island, Life,

Where we must dig and sow and reap with brothers.
Fear thou that oath, my daughter-nay not fear,
But love it; for the sanctity of oaths

Lies not in lightning that avenges them,
But in the injury wrought by broken bonds
And in the garnered good of human trust.

Let men contemn us : 'tis such blind contempt That leaves the wingèd broods to thrive in warmth Unheeded, till they fill the air like storms.

So we shall thrive-still darkly shall draw force

Into a new and multitudinous life

That likeness fashions to community,

Mother divine of customs, faith and laws.
'Tis ripeness, 'tis fame's zenith that kills hope.
Huge oaks are dying, forests yet to come
Lie in the twigs and rotten-seeming seeds.

Because our race has no great memories,

I will so live, it shall remember me
For deeds of such divine beneficence

As rivers have, that teach men what is good
By blessing them.

The rich heritage, the milder life, Of nations fathered by a mighty Past.

'Life and more life unto the chosen, death

To all things living that would stifle them!'

So speaks each god that makes a nation strong.

—0—

Royal deeds

May make long destinies for multitudes.

0

Strong souls

Live like fire-hearted suns to spend their strength

In farthest striving action; breathe more free

In mighty anguish than in trivial ease.

'Tis a vile life that like a garden pool
Lies stagnant in the round of personal loves;
That has no ear save for the tickling lute
Set to small measures--deaf to all the beats
Of that large music rolling o'er the world:
A miserable, petty, low-roofed life,

That knows the mighty orbits of the skies

Through nought save light or dark in its own cabin.
The very brutes will feel the force of kind

And move together, gathering a new soul—
The soul of multitudes.

In vain, my daughter!

Lay the young eagle in what nest you will,
The cry and swoop of eagles overhead

Vibrate prophetic in its kindred frame,

And make it spread its wings and poise itself
For the eagle's flight.

(To Fedalma.)-Nay, never falter: no great deed is done

By falterers who ask for certainty.

No good is certain, but the steadfast mind,