"Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute. "I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain, "But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again. “Get hence, the hearse is at your door- the grim black stallions wait "They bear your clay to place to-day.

late!

"Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed

Speed, lest ye come too

go back with an open

eye, "And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die: "That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one

by one

“And . . . the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!"

THE EXPLANATION

1890

Love and Death once ceased their strife

At the Tavern of Man's Life.

Called for wine, and threw

- alas!

Each his quiver on the grass.
When the bout was o'er they found
Mingled arrows strewed the ground.
Hastily they gathered then

Each the loves and lives of men.
Ah, the fateful dawn deceived!
Mingled arrows each one sheaved;
Death's dread armoury was stored
With the shafts he most abhorred;
Love's light quiver groaned beneath
Venom-headed darts of Death.

Thus it was they wrought our woe
At the Tavern long ago.

Tell me, do our masters know,
Loosing blindly as they fly,

Old men love while young men die?

THE ANSWER

1892

A ROSE, in tatters on the garden path,

Cried out to God and murmured 'gainst His Wrath,
Because a sudden wind at twilight's hush
Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush.
And God, Who hears both sun-dried dust and sun,
Had pity, whispering to that luckless one.
"Sister, in that thou sayest We did not well —
What voices heardst thou when thy petals fell ?"
And the Rose answered, "In that evil hour

"A voice said, 'Father, wherefore falls the flower?
For lo, the very gossamers are still.'

666

And a voice answered, 'Son, by Allah's will!""

Then softly as a rain-mist on the sward,

Came to the Rose the Answer of the Lord:

"Sister, before We smote the Dark in twain,

"Ere yet the stars saw one another plain,

"Time, Tide, and Space, We bound unto the task

"That thou shouldst fall, and such an one should ask."

Whereat the withered flower, all content,

Died as they die whose days are innocent;

While he who questioned why the flower fell

Caught hold of God and saved his soul from Hell.

THE GIFT OF THE SEA

1890

THE dead child lay in the shroud,

And the widow watched beside;

And her mother slept, and the Channel swept The gale in the teeth of the tide.

But the mother laughed at all.

"I have lost my man in the sea, "And the child is dead. Be still," she said, "What more can ye do to me?"

The widow watched the dead,
And the candle guttered low,
And she tried to sing the Passing Song
That bids the poor soul go.

And "Mary take you now," she sang,
"That lay against my heart."
And "Mary smooth your crib to-night,"
But she could not say "Depart.

Then came a cry from the sea,

But the sea-rime blinded the glass, And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said, ""T is the child that waits to pass."

And the nodding mother sighed.

""Tis a lambing ewe in the whin,

"For why should the christened soul cry out "That never knew of sin?"

"O feet I have held in my hand,

"O hands at my heart to catch,

"How should they know the road to go,

"And how should they lift the latch?"

They laid a sheet to the door,

With the little quilt atop,

That it might not hurt from the cold or the dirt,

But the crying would not stop.

The widow lifted the latch

And strained her eyes to see,

And opened the door on the bitter shore
To let the soul go free.

There was neither glimmer nor ghost,
There was neither spirit nor spark,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
""T is crying for me in the dark."

And the nodding mother sighed :

""T is sorrow makes ye dull;

"Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern, "Or the wail of the wind-blown gull ?"

"The terns are blown inland,

"The grey gull follows the plough. ""T was never a bird, the voice I heard, "O mother, I hear it now!"

"Lie still, dear lamb, lie still;

"The child is passed from harm,

""T is the ache in your breast that broke

"And the feel of an empty arm."

She put her mother aside,

"In Mary's name let be!

your rest,

"For the peace of my soul I must go," she said, And she went to the calling sea.

In the heel of the wind-bit pier,
Where the twisted weed was piled,

She came to the life she had missed by an hour
For she came to a little child.

She laid it into her breast,

And back to her mother she came,

But it would not feed and it would not heed,
Though she gave it her own child's name.

And the dead child dripped on her breast,
And her own in the shroud lay stark;
And "God forgive us, mother," she said,
"We let it die in the dark!"

THE KING

1894

"FAREWELL, Romance!" the Cave-men said;

"With bone well carved he went away, "Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,

"And jasper tips the spear to-day.

"Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance, "And he with these. Farewell, Romance!

"Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed;
"We lift the weight of flatling years;
"The caverns of the mountain-side

"Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.
"Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell,
"Guard ye his rest. Romance, Farewell!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke;
"By sleight of sword we may not win,
"But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke
"Of arquebus and culverin.

"Honour is lost, and none may tell

"Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!"