Volume II Part 103 (1/2)

(_A few months after the Milton Ter-centenary._)

I

The crowd has pa.s.sed away, Faded the feast, and most forget!

Master, we come with lowly hearts to pay Our deeper debt.

II

High they upheld the wine, And royally, royally drank to thee!

Loud were their plaudits. Now the lonely shrine Accepts our knee.

III

All dark and silent now!

Master, thy few are faithful still, And nightly hear thy brooks that warbling flow By Siloa's hill.

AT NOON

(AFTER THE FRENCH OF VERLAINE)

The sky is blue above the roof, So calm, so blue; One rustling bough above the roof Rocks, the noon through.

The bell-tower in the sky, aloof, Tenderly rings!

A bird upon the bough, aloof, Sorrows and sings.

My G.o.d, my G.o.d, and life is here So simple and still!

Far off, the murmuring town I hear At the wind's will....

_What hast thou done, thou, weeping there?

O quick, the truth!

What hast thou done, thou, weeping there, With thy lost youth?_

TO A FRIEND OF BOYHOOD LOST AT SEA

O warm blue sky and dazzling sea, Where have you hid my friend from me?

The white-chalk coast, the leagues of surf Laugh to the May-light, now as then, And violets in the short sweet turf Make fragmentary heavens again, And sea-born wings of rustling snow Pa.s.s and re-pa.s.s as long ago.

Old friend, do you remember yet The days when secretly we met In that old harbor years a-back, Where I admired your billowing walk, Or in that perilous fis.h.i.+ng smack What tarry oaths perfumed your talk, The sails we set, the ropes we spliced, The raw potato that we sliced,