Through the dim veil of evening's dusky shade,
Near some lone fane, or yew's funereal green,
What dreary forms has magic Fear survey'd!
What shrouded spectres Superstition seen!

But you, secure, shall pour your sad complaint,
Nor dread the meagre phantom's wan array;
What none but Fear's officious hand can paint,
What none, but Superstition's eye, survey.

The glimm'ring twilight and the doubtful dawn
Shall see your step to these sad scenes return:
Constant, as crystal dews impearl the lawn,
Shall Strephon's tear bedew Ophelia's urn.

O Rose-Fed Bee, why hast thou come
When flowers thy presence seek,
And dare to touch the fragrant bloom
Of Heliodora's cheek?

Is this thy message: that Love's sting
May never find relief
And that within the sweetest thing
There lurks a hidden grief?

Ah, little friend, thy word is vain
And vain thy help, I trow:
Quick backward fly nor waste thy pain,
Too well the truth I know.

If proud Pygmalion quit his cumbrous frame,
Funereal pomp the scanty tear supplies;
Whilst heralds loud, with venal voice, proclaim,
Lo! here the brave and the puissant lies.

When humbler Alcon leaves his drooping friends,
Pageant nor plume distinguish Alcon's bier;
The faithful Muse with votive song attends,
And blots the mournful numbers with a tear.

He little knew the sly penurious art;
That odious art which Fortune's favourites know;
Form'd to bestow, he felt the warmest heart,
But envious Fate forbade him to bestow.

Where are those others? — the men who stood
In the first wild spate of the German flood,
And paid full price with their heart's best blood
For the saving of you and me:
French's Contemptibles, haggard and lean,
Allenby's lads of the cavalry screen,
Gunners who fell in Battery L,
And Guardsmen of Landrecies?

Where are those others who fought and fell,
Outmanned, outgunned and scant of shell,
On the deadly curve of the Ypres hell,
Barring the coast to the last?
Where are our laddies who died out there,

Daughters of the Pilgrim-Sires!
Dwellers by their mould'ring graves!
Watchers of their altar-fires!
Look upon your country's slaves.

And can ye behold, unmov'd,
All the crushing weight of grief,
That their aching hearts have prov'd,
And refuse to send relief?

Are not woman's pulses warm,
Beating in that anguish'd breast?
Is it not a sister's form,
On whose limbs those fetters rest?

Once in my heyday of cricket,
Oh, day I shall ever recall!
I captured that glorious wicket,
The greatest, the grandest of all.

Before me he stands like a vision,
Bearded and burly and brown,
A smile of good-humoured derision
As he waits for the first to come down.

A statue from Thebes or from Cnossus,
A Hercules shrouded in white,
Assyrian Bull-like Colossus,
He stands in his might.

With the beard of a Goth or a Vandal,
His bat hanging ready and free,
His great hairy hands on the handle

Satan.

O poet, in whose brain and heart the sweetness
Of summer reigns and glows,
What bars thy life from rounding to completeness?
Where findest thou thy foes?

Thy foes are surely in the heavens above thee;
God gazes down with scorn: —
The golden stars and golden blossoms love thee,
And the bright clouds of morn.

Upon thy side thou hast the sunset-glory;
The clouds in fiery mail.

Your eyes, Asclepias, have the pride
Of waves in summer weather,
Alluring all men to your side
To sail Love's sea together.

" Which of these four, " the Angel said,
" Will be your life-long choice,
The maiden with the kindest heart,
Or with the sweetest voice,
Or she who has the dearest form,
With every gentle grace,
Or she who shows the noblest soul
Upon the loveliest face? "

Lost in deepest thought I sat,
And viewed these maidens four,
And first chose this and then chose that,
And doubted more and more;
A kindly heart is treasure trove,
A perfect voice is rare,
A graceful form is Heaven's gift
And so is beauty rare.

Oft would she gaze from out the lattice high,
Her cheeks with longing wet, and lonely cry
Till he came to her door.
But Cleophon's blue eyes with their bright fire
Have dried her tears and filled her heart's desire,
And now she weeps no more.