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11.

"Thus were a match made, sure and fast,

'Mid the blue weed-flowers round the mound Where, issuing, we shall stand and stay For one more look at Baths and bay, Sands, sea-gulls, and the old church last

12.

"A match 'twixt me, bent, wigged, and lamed,
Famous, however, for verse and worse,
Sure of the Fortieth spare Arm-chair

When gout and glory seat me there,
So, one whose love-freaks pass unblamed,-

13.

"And this young beauty, round and sound As a mountain-apple, youth and truth

With loves and doves, at all events

With money in the Three per Cents; Whose choice of me would seem profound :

14.

"She might take me as I take her.

Perfect the hour would pass, alas!

Climb high, love high, what matter? Still,
Feet, feelings, must descend the hill:

An hour's perfection can't recur.

15.

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Then follows Paris and full time

For both to reason: Thus with us!'

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She'll sigh, Thus girls give body and soul

At first word, think they gain the goal, When 'tis the starting-place they climb!

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16.

My friend makes verse and gets renown;
Have they all fifty years, his peers?

He knows the world, firm, quiet, and gay;
Boys will become as much one day :
They're fools; he cheats, with beard less brown.

66 6

17.

For boys say, Love me or I die!

He did not say, The truth is, youth

I want, who am old and know too much;

I'd catch youth: lend me sight and touch! Drop heart's blood where life's wheels grate dry!

18.

"While I should make rejoinder "—(then
It was, no doubt, you ceased that least
Light pressure of my arm in yours)
"I can conceive of cheaper cures

For a yawning-fit o'er books and men.

19.

"What? All I am, was, and might be,

All, books taught, art brought, life's whole strife, Painful results since precious, just

Were fitly exchanged in wise disgust
For two cheeks freshened by youth and sea?

20.

"All for a nosegay!-what came first;
With fields on flower, untried each side;
I rally, need my books and men,.

And find a nosegay: drop it, then,
No match yet made for best or worst!'"

21.

That ended me. You judged the porch
We left by, Norman; took our look
At sea and sky; wondered so few

Find out the place for air and view;
Remarked the sun began to scorch;

22.

Descended, soon regained the Baths,

And then, good bye! Years ten since then :
Ten years! We meet you tell me, now,
By a window-seat for that cliff-brow,
On carpet-stripes for those sand-paths.

23.

Now I may speak: you fool, for all

Your lore! WHо made things plain in vain? What was the sea for? What, the grey

Sad church, that solitary day,

Crosses and graves and swallows' call?

24.

Was there nought better than to enjoy?

No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures through

Into eternity, our due?

No forcing earth teach Heaven's employ?

25.

No wise beginning, here and now,

What cannot grow complete (earth's feat)
And Heaven must finish, there and then?
No tasting earth's true food for men,
Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet?

26.

No grasping at love, gaining a share

O' the sole spark from God's life at strife

With death, so, sure of range above

The limits here? For us and love,

Failure; but, when God fails, despair.

54 DÎS ALITER VISUM; OR, LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS.

27.

This you call wisdom? Thus you add
Good unto good again, in vain?

You loved, with body worn and weak;
I loved, with faculties to seek:

Were both loves worthless since ill-clad ?

28.

Let the mere star-fish in his vault

Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed,
Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips:

He, whole in body and soul, outstrips
Man, found with either in default.

29.

But what's whole, can increase no more,
Is dwarfed and dies, since here 's its sphere.

The devil laughed at you in his sleeve!

You knew not? That, I well believe;

Or you had saved two souls: nay, four.

30.

For Stephanie sprained last night her wrist,
Ancle, or something. "Pooh," cry you?
At any rate she danced, all say,

Vilely: her vogue has had its day.
Here comes my husband from his whist.

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