'Tis the bells of Shandon

hat sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.

F. Mahony (Father Prout)

FROM "SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE'

CCCXLVIII
I thought once how Theocritus had sung

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,

Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young : And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,

I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had fung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, 'Guess now who holds thee? – Death,' I said.

But there, The silver answer rang, 'Not Death, but

Love.'

CCCXLIX

What can I give thee back, O liberal

And princely giver, who hast brought the gold

And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the wall
For such as I to take or leave withal,

In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.

Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run

The colours from my life, and left so dead

And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done To give the same as pillow to thy head.

Go farther ! let it serve to trample on.

CCCL

Yet love, mere love, is beautiful indeed

And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,

Let temple burn, or flax. And equal light Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed. And love is fire; and when I say at need

I love thee ... mark!... I love thee!... in thy sight

I stand transfigured, glorified aright, With conscience of the new rays that proceed Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low

In love, when love the lowest: meancst creatures Who love God, God accepts while loving so.

And what I feel, across the inferior features Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show

How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.

CCCLI

If thou must love me, let it be for naught

Except for love's sake only. Do not say

'I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way Of speaking gently, . . . for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'

For these things in themselves, Belovéd, may Be changed, or change for thee,-and love, so

wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore

Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

CCCLII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints,- I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life !--and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

E. B. Browning

CCCLIII

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT What was he doing, the great god Pan,

Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat

With the dragon-fly on the river.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,

From the deep cool bed of the river :
The limpid water turbidly ran,

And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.
High on the shore sate the great god Pan,

While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,

With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed

To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan

(How tall it stood in the river !),
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,

Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sate by the river.
"This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan

(Laughed while he sate by the river), "The only way, since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed.' Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

He blew in power by the river. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!

Piercing sweet by the river !
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!

The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly

Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,

To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,-
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

E. B. Browning

CCCLIV

I do not love thee !-no! I do not love thee! And yet when thou art absent I am sad;

And envy even the bright blue sky above thee, Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.

I do not love thee !--yet, I know not why, Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:

And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!

I do not love thee !-yet, when thou art gone, I hate the sound (though those who speak dear)

Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.

I do not love thee !--yet thy speaking eyes, With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,

Between me and the midnight heaven arise, Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.

I know I do not love thee! yet, alas ! Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;

And oft I catch them smiling as they pass, Because they see me gazing where thou art.

Carolina E. S. Norton

CCCLV

RUBÁIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM OF

NAISHÁPÚR

I

Awakel for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

2

Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,

‘Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup 'Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry.'

3 And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted— Open then the Door!

“You know how little while we have to stay, 'And, once departed, may return no more.'