That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed ? What little town by river or seashore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity. Cold pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." J. KEATS

165. MORALITY

WE cannot kindle when we will

The fire which in the heart resides ;
The spirit bloweth and is still,

In mystery our soul abides,

But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.

With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone ;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.

Not till the hours of light return

All we have built do we discern.

Then, when the clouds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she viewed thy self-control,
Thy struggling, tasked morality-

Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.

And she, whose censure thou dost dread,
Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,
See, on her face a glow is spread,
A strong emotion on her cheek!

"Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine, Whence was it, for it is not mine?

"There is no effort on my brow-
I do not strive, I do not weep;
I rush with the swift spheres and glow
In joy, and when I will, I sleep.

Yet that severe, that earnest air,
I saw, I felt it once--but where?

"I knew not yet the gauge of time,
Nor wore the manacles of space;
I felt it in some other clime,

I saw it in some other place.

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod,

And lay upon the breast of God."

M. ARNOLD

166.-HOW IT STRIKES A CON

TEMPORARY

I ONLY knew one Poet in my life;

And this, or something like it, was his way.

You saw go up and down Valladolid

A man of mark, to know next time you saw.
His very serviceable suit of black

Was courtly once, and conscientious still,

And many might have worn it, though none did: The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the

threads,

Had purpose, and the ruff significance.

He walked, and tapped the pavement with his

cane,

Scenting the world, looking it full in face:

An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.
They turned up now the alley by the church
That leads no whither; now they breathed them-
selves

On the main promenade just at the wrong time.
You'd come upon his scrutinising hat,
Making a peaked shade blacker than itself
Against the single window spared some house,
Intact, yet with its mouldered Moorish work,——
Or else surprise the ferrule of his stick

Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks
Of some new shop a-building-French and fine.
He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade,
The man who slices lemon into drink,

The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys

That volunteer to help him turn its winch.
He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye,
And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string,
And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.
He took such cognisance of men and things,
If any beat a horse, you felt he saw ;

If any cursed a woman, he took note;
Yet stared at nobody,-you stared at him,
And found, less to your pleasure than surprise,
He seemed to know you and expect as much.
So, next time that a neighbour's tongue was
loosed,

It marked the shameful and notorious fact
We had among us, not so much a spy

As a recording chief-inquisitor,

The town's true master if the town but knew!
We merely kept a governor for form,
While this man walked about and took account
Of all thought, said and acted, then went home,
And wrote it fully to our Lord the King,
Who has an itch to know things, he knows why,
And reads them in his bedroom of a night.
O you may smile! there wanted not a touch,
A tang of... well, it was not wholly ease,
As back into your mind the man's look came.
Stricken in years a little, such a brow
His eyes had to live under!-clear as flint
On either side o' the formidable nose,
Curved, cut, and coloured like an eagle's claw.
Had he to do with A's surprising fate?
When altogether old B disappeared,

And young C got his mistress,—was't our friend,
His letter to the King, that did it all?

What paid the bloodless man for so much pains?

Our Lord the King has favourites manifold,
And shifts his ministry some once a month;
Our city gets new governors at whiles,—
But never word or sign, that I could hear,
Notified to this man about the streets
The King's approval of those letters conned,
The last thing duly at the dead of night.
Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord,
Exhorting when none heard-"Beseech me not!
"Too far above my people,-beneath me!

"I set the watch,—how should the people know? "Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!" Was some such understanding 'twixt the two?

I found no truth in one report at least That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, You found he ate his supper in a room Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall, And twenty naked girls to change his plate! Poor man, he lived another kind of life

In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge, Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise! The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat, Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back, Playing a decent cribbage with his maid (Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheese

And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears, Or treat of radishes in April. Nine,

Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he.

My father, like the man of sense he was, Would point him out to me a dozen times;