Underwoods | Page 6

great mountains and loud
river-bars,
And from the shore hear inland voices call.
Strange is the seaman's heart; he hopes, he fears;
Draws closer and
sweeps wider from that coast;
Last, his rent sail refits, and to the deep

His shattered prow uncomforted puts back.
Yet as he goes he
ponders at the helm
Of that bright island; where he feared to touch,

His spirit readventures; and for years,
Where by his wife he slumbers
safe at home,
Thoughts of that land revisit him; he sees
The eternal
mountains beckon, and awakes
Yearning for that far home that might
have been.
XI - TO WILL. H. LOW
Youth now flees on feathered foot
Faint and fainter sounds the flute,

Rarer songs of gods; and still
Somewhere on the sunny hill,
Or
along the winding stream,
Through the willows, flits a dream;
Flits

but shows a smiling face,
Flees but with so quaint a grace,
None
can choose to stay at home,
All must follow, all must roam.
This is unborn beauty: she
Now in air floats high and free,
Takes
the sun and breaks the blue; -
Late with stooping pinion flew

Raking hedgerow trees, and wet
Her wing in silver streams, and set

Shining foot on temple roof:
Now again she flies aloof,
Coasting
mountain clouds and kiss't
By the evening's amethyst.
In wet wood and miry lane,
Still we pant and pound in vain;
Still
with leaden foot we chase
Waning pinion, fainting face;
Still with
gray hair we stumble on,
Till, behold, the vision gone!
Where hath fleeting beauty led?
To the doorway of the dead.
Life is
over, life was gay:
We have come the primrose way.
XII - TO MRS. WILL. H. LOW
Even in the bluest noonday of July,
There could not run the smallest
breath of wind
But all the quarter sounded like a wood;
And in the
chequered silence and above
The hum of city cabs that sought the
Bois,
Suburban ashes shivered into song.
A patter and a chatter and
a chirp
And a long dying hiss - it was as though
Starched old
brocaded dames through all the house
Had trailed a strident skirt, or
the whole sky
Even in a wink had over-brimmed in rain.
Hark, in these shady parlours, how it talks
Of the near Autumn, how
the smitten ash
Trembles and augurs floods! O not too long
In these
inconstant latitudes delay,
O not too late from the unbeloved north

Trim your escape! For soon shall this low roof
Resound indeed with
rain, soon shall your eyes
Search the foul garden, search the darkened
rooms,
Nor find one jewel but the blazing log.
12 Rue Vernier, Paris

XIII - TO H. F. BROWN
(Written during a dangerous sickness.)
I sit and wait a pair of oars
On cis-Elysian river-shores.
Where the
immortal dead have sate,
`Tis mine to sit and meditate;
To
re-ascend life's rivulet,
Without remorse, without regret;
And sing
my ALMA GENETRIX
Among the willows of the Styx.
And lo, as my serener soul
Did these unhappy shores patrol,
And
wait with an attentive ear
The coming of the gondolier,
Your
fire-surviving roll I took,
Your spirited and happy book; (1)

Whereon, despite my frowning fate,
It did my soul so recreate
That
all my fancies fled away
On a Venetian holiday.
Now, thanks to your triumphant care,
Your pages clear as April air,

The sails, the bells, the birds, I know,
And the far-off Friulan snow;

The land and sea, the sun and shade,
And the blue even lamp-inlaid.

For this, for these, for all, O friend,
For your whole book from end
to end -
For Paron Piero's muttonham -
I your defaulting debtor am.
Perchance, reviving, yet may I
To your sea-paven city hie,
And in
FELZE, some day yet
Light at your pipe my cigarette.
(1) LIFE ON THE LAGOONS, by H. F. Brown, originally
burned in
the fire at
Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench. and Co.'s.
XIV - TO ANDREW LANG
Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair,
Who glory to have thrown in air,

High over arm, the trembling reed,
By Ale and Kail, by Till and
Tweed:
An equal craft of band you show
The pen to guide, the fly
to throw:
I count you happy starred; for God,
When He with inkpot
and with rod
Endowed you, bade your fortune lead

Forever by the
crooks of Tweed,
Forever by the woods of song
And lands that to

the Muse belong;
Or if in peopled streets, or in
The abhorred
pedantic sanhedrim,
It should be yours to wander, still
Airs of the
morn, airs of the hill,
The plovery Forest and the seas
That break
about the Hebrides,
Should follow over field and plain
And find
you at the window pane;
And you again see hill and peel,
And the
bright springs gush at your heel.
So went the fiat forth, and so

Garrulous like a brook you go,
With sound of happy mirth and sheen

Of daylight - whether by the green
You fare that moment, or the
gray;
Whether you dwell in March or May;
Or whether treat of
reels and rods
Or of the old unhappy gods:
Still like a brook your
page has shone,
And your ink sings of Helicon.
XV - ET TU IN ARCADIA VIXISTI
(TO R. A. M. S.)
In ancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt;
There, from of old, thy
childhood passed; and there
High expectation, high delights and
deeds,
Thy fluttering heart with