The Vision of Sin

'No, I love not what is new;
She is of an ancient house:
And I think we know the hue
Of that cap upon her brows.

"Let her go! her thirst she slakes
Where the bloody conduit runs,
Then her sweetest meal she makes
On the first-born of her sons.

'Drink to lofty hopes that cool-
Visions of a perfect State :
Drink we, last, the public fool,su
Frantic love and frantic hate.

• Chant me now some wicked stave,
Till thy drooping courage rise,
And the glow-worm of the grave
Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes.

Fear not thou to loose thy tongue;
Set thy hoary fancies free;

What is loathsome to the young baba
Savours well to thee and me.

Change, reverting to the years, When thy nerves could understand What there is in loving tears,

And the warmth of hand in hand.

Tell me tales of thy first love-D
April hopes, the fools of chance;
Till the graves begin to move,
And the dead begin to dance.

'Lo! God's likeness-the ground-plan-
Neither modell'd, glazed, nor framed:
Buss me, thou rough sketch of man,
Far too naked to be shamed!

'Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, While we keep a little breath!

Drink to heavy Ignorance!

Hob-and-nob with brother Death!

Q

The Vision of Sin

The Vision of Sin

'Thou art mazed, the night is long,
And the longer night is near:
What! I am not all as wrongd suf
As a bitter jest is dear.al LA

"Youthful hopes, by scores to all,

When the locks are crisp and curl'd; Unto me my maudlin gall

And my mockeries of the world.

Fill the cup, and fill the can:
Mingle madness, mingle scorn!
Dregs of life, and lees of man:
Yet we will not die forlorn.'

The voice grew faint: there came a further
change:

Again uprose the mystic mountain-range:
Below were men and horses pierced with worms,
And slowly quickening into lower forms;
By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross,
Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd with moss.
Then some one spake: Behold! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with
time.'

Another said: The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal blame.'
And one: He had not wholly quench'd his
power; of dobl

A little grain of conscience made him sour.'
At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, Is there any hope?'

To which an answer peal'd from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.

The SkippingRope

SURE never yet was Antelope
Could skip so lightly by.

Stand off, or else my skipping-rope
Will hit in the eye.

you

How lightly whirls the skipping-rope !
How fairy-like you fly!

Go, get you gone, you muse and mope—
I hate that silly sigh.

Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,
are Or tell me how to die.

There, take it, take my skipping-rope,
And hang yourself thereby.

Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow:
From fringes of the faded eve,
O, happy planet, eastward go;
Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister-world, and rise
To glass herself in dewy eyes
That watch me from the glen below.

Break, Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,

Break,

Break

And move me to my marriage-morn,

And round again to happy night. 6062

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

THE POET'S SONG

THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose,

He pass'd by the town and out of the street; A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, And waves of shadow went over the wheat,