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And fingered at the grass, and tried to cool
Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward:
And then she raised her head, and upward cast
Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light
Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black hair,
As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks
Of deep Parnassus, at the mournful moon.
Beside her lay her lyre. She snatched the shell,
And waked wild music from its silver strings;
Then tossed it sadly by.-" Ah, hush!" she cries,
"Dead offspring of the tortoise and the mine!
Why mock my discords with thine harmonies?
Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine,
Only to echo back in every tone,

The moods of nobler natures than thine own."

A MYTH.

I.

A FLOATING, a floating

Across the sleeping sea,

All night I heard a singing bird
Upon the topmast tree.

II.

"Oh came you from the isles of Greece

Or from the banks of Seine;

Or off some tree in forests free,

Which fringe the western main ?"

III.

"I came not off the old world

Nor yet from off the new

But I am one of the birds of God

Which sing the whole night through."

IV.

"Oh sing and wake the dawning

Oh whistle for the wind;

The night is long, the current strong,
My boat it lags behind."

V.

"The current sweeps the old world,
The current sweeps the new ;

The wind will blow, the dawn will glow,
Ere thou hast sailed them through."

1

THE ANGLER'S QUESTIONS.

I CANNOT tell what you say, green leaves,
I cannot tell what you say:

But I know that there is a spirit in you,
And a word in you this day.

I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks,
I cannot tell what you say:

But I know that there is a spirit in you,
And a word in you this day.

I cannot tell what you say, brown streams,
I cannot tell what you say:

But I know that in you too a spirit doth live,
And a word doth speak this day.

"OH

THE WORD'S ANSWER.

green is the colour of faith and truth,

And rose the colour of love and youth,

And brown of the fruitful clay.

Sweet Earth is faithful, and fruitful, and young,

And her bridal day shall come ere long,

And you shall know what the rocks and the streams And the whispering woodlands say."

THE DEAD CHURCH.

I.

WILD, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?
Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away?

Cold, cold church, in thy death sleep lying,

Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter

day.

II.

Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sigh

ing;

Rest, fair corpse, where thy Lord himself hath lain.

Weep, dear Lord, where thy bride is lying;

Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health

again.

A PARABLE FROM LIEBIG.

I.

THE church bells were ringing, the devil sat singing

On the stump of a rotting old tree;

“Oh faith, it grows cold, and the creeds they grow old, And the world is nigh ready for me."

II.

The bells went on ringing, a spirit came singing,

And smiled as he crumbled the tree;

"Yon wood does but perish new seedlings to cherish,

And the world is too live yet for thee."

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