"Ah, the beans, or,-example better yet, A-carpet-web I saw once leave the loom And lie at gorgeous length in Ispahan! The weaver plied his work with lengths of silk Dyed each to match some jewel as it might, And wove them, this by that. How comes it, friend,'

(Quoth I) that while, apart, this fiery hue,
That watery dimness, either shocks the eye,
So blinding bright, or else offends again,
By dulness, yet the two, set each by each,
Somehow produce a color born of both,
A medium profitable to the sight?'
'Such medium is the end whereat I aim,' —
Answered my craftsman: there's no single
tinct

Would satisfy the eye's desire to taste
The secret of the diamond: join extremes
Results a serviceable medium-ghost,
The diamond's simulation. Even so
I needs must blend the quality of man
With quality of God, and so assist
Mere human sight to understand my Life,
What is, what should be, - understand thereby
Wherefore I hate the first and love the last, -
Understand why things so present themselves
To me, placed here to prove I understand.
Thus, from beginning runs the chain to end,
And binds me plain enough. By consequence,
I bade thee tolerate, — not kick and cuff
The man who held that natures did in fact
Blend so, since so thyself must have them blend
In fancy, if it take a flight so far."

"A power, confessed past knowledge, nay, past thought,

-Thus thought thus known!"

"To know of, think about — Is all man's sum of faculty effects When exercised on earth's least atom, Son! What was, what is, what may such atom be?

Suppose thou visit our lord Shalim-Shah, Bringing thy tribute as appointed. Here Come I to pay my due!' Whereat one slave Obsequious spreads a carpet for thy foot,

His fellow offers sweetmeats, while a third Prepares a pipe: what thanks or praise have they?

Such as befit prompt service. Gratitude
Goes past them to the Shah whose gracious nod
Set all the sweet civility at work;

But for his ordinance, I much suspect,
My scholar had been left to cool his heels
Uncarpeted, or warm them-likelier still-
With bastinado for intrusion. Slaves

Needs must obey their master: force and

force,

Son!

Who but my sorry self? See! stars are out

Stars which, unconscious of thy gaze beneath,
Go glorifying, and glorify thee too

Those Seven Thrones, Zurah's beauty, weird
Parwin!

Whether shall love and praise to stars be paid
Or say-some Mubid who, for good to thee
Blind at thy birth, by magie all his own
Opened thine eyes, and gave the sightless sight,
Let the stars' glory enter? Say his charm
Worked while thyself lay sleeping: as he went
Thou wakedst: What a novel sense have I!
Whom shall I love and praise?' 'The stars,
each orb

Thou standest rapt beneath,' proposes one:
'Do not they live their life, and please them-
selves,

And so please thee? What more is requisite ?'
Make thou this answer: If indeed no mage
Opened my eyes and worked a miracle,
Then let the stars thank me who apprehend
That such an one is white, such other blue !
But for my apprehension both were blank.
Cannot I close my eyes and bid my brain
Make whites and blues, conceive without stars'
help,

New qualities of color? were my sight
Lost or misleading, would yon red -- I judge
A ruby's benefaction - stand for aught

But green from vulgar glass? Myself appraise
Lustre and lustre: should I overlook
Fomalhaut and declare some fen-fire king,
Who shall correct me, lend me eyes he trusts
No more than I trust mine? My mage for me!
I never saw him: if he never was,

I am the arbitrator!' No, my Son!
Let us sink down to thy similitude:
I eat my apple, relish what is ripe -
The sunny side, admire its rarity

-

Since half the tribe is wrinkled, and the rest
Hide commonly a maggot in the core,
And down Zerdusht goes with due smack of
lips:

But thank an apple? He who made my mouth

To masticate, my palate to approve,
My maw to further the concoction

- Him

I thank, but for whose work, the orchard's wealth

"Why from the world," Ferishtah smiled, "should thanks

Go to this work of mine? If worthy praise,
Praised let it be and welcome: as verse ranks,
So rate my verse: if good therein outweighs
Aught faulty judged, judge justly! Justice says:
Be just to fact, or blaming or approving:
But- generous? No, nor loving!

"Loving! what claim to love has work of mine?
Concede my life were emptied of its gains

To furnish forth and fill work's strict confine,

Who works so for the world's sake-he complains With cause when hate, not love, rewards his pains. I looked beyond the world for truth and beauty: Sought, found, and did my duty."

space from cloud

Iridescent splendors: gloom-would else confound me

Barriered off and banished far brightedged the blackest shroud!

Thronging through the cloud-rift, whose are they, the faces

Faint revealed yet sure divined, the famous ones of old ?

"What"-they smile" our names, Our deeds so soon erases

Time upon his tablet where Life's glory lies enrolled?

"Was it for mere fool's-play, make-believe and mumming,

So we battled it like men, not boylike sulked or whined?

Each of us heard clang God's 'Come!' and each was coming:

Soldiers all, to forward-face, not sneaks to lag behind!

"How of the field's fortune? That concerned our Leader!

Led, we struck our stroke nor cared for doings left and right:

Each as on his sole head, failer or succeeder, Lay the blame or lit the praise: no care for cowards: fight!??

Then the cloud-rift broadens, spanning earth that 's under,

Wide our world displays its worth, man's strife and strife's success ;

All the good and beauty, wonder crowning wonder,

Till my heart and soul applaud perfection, nothing less.

Only, at heart's utmost joy and triumph, terror Sudden turns the blood to ice: a chill wind disencharms

All the late enchantment! What if all be

error

If the halo irised round my head were, Love, thine arms?

Palazzo Giustinian-Recanati, VENICE:

December 1, 1883.

RAWDON BROWN

"Tutti ga i so gusti, e mi go i mii."

(Venetian saying.)

Mr. Rawdon Brown was an Englishman who went to Venice on some temporary errand, and lived there for forty years, dying in that city in the summer of 1883. He had an enthusiastic love for Venice, and is mentioned in books of travel as one who knew the city thoroughly. The Venetian saying means that "everybody follows his taste as I follow mine." Toni was the gondolier and attendant of Brown. The inscription on Brown's tomb is given in the third and fourth lines. G. W. COOKE.

SIGHED Rawdon Brown: "Yes, I'm departing, Toni!

I needs must, just this once before I die, Revisit England: Anglus Brown am I, Although my heart's Venetian. Yes, old

At Dr. F. J. Furnivall's suggestion, Browning was asked to contribute a sonnet to the Shakesperean Show-Book of the "Shakesperean Show" held in Albert Hall, London, on May 29-31, 1884, to pay off the debt on the Hospital for Women, in Fulham Road. The poet sent to the committee a sonnet on the names of Jehovah and Shakespeare.

SHAKESPEARE!-to such name's sounding, what succeeds

Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell, Act follows word, the speaker knows full well,

Nor tampers with its magic more than needs. Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads

With his soul only if from lips it fell,

:

Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,

Would own "Thou didst create us!" Naught impedes

:

We voice the other name, man's most of might,
Awesomely, lovingly let awe and love
Mutely await their working, leave to sight
All of the issue as - below-above-
Shakespeare's creation rises: one remove,
Though dread-this finite from that infinite.
March 12, 1884.

EPITAPH

ON LEVI LINCOLN THAXTER

Born in Watertown, Massachusetts, February 1, 1824. Died May 31, 1884.

Mr. Thaxter was early a student of Browning's genius and in his later years gave readings from his poems, which were singularly interpretative. The boulder over his grave bears these lines.

THOU, whom these eyes saw never! Say friends true

Who say my soul, helped onward by my song,
Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too?
I gave of but the little that I knew:
How were the gift requited, while along
Life's path I pace, couldst thou make weak-
ness strong!

Help me with knowledge-for Life's Old-
Death's New!

R. B. to L. L. T., April, 1885.

WHY I AM A LIBERAL

Contributed to a volume edited by Andrew Reid, in which a number of leaders of English thought answered the question, "Why I am a Liberal?

"WHY?" Because all I haply can and do,
All that I am now, all I hope to be,
Whence comes it save from fortune setting
free

Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
These shall I bid men-each in his de-
gree

Also God-guided — bear, and gayly, too?
But little do or can the best of us :

That little is achieved through Liberty.
Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,
Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss
A brother's right to freedom. That is
"Why."

Haunt of the Dire Ones. Haste! They wreak

Wrath on Admetus whose respite I seek.

The Fates. (Below. Darkness.) Dragonwise
couched in the womb of our Mother,
Coiled at thy nourishing heart's core,
Night!

Dominant Dreads, we, one by the other,
Deal to each mortal his dole of light
On earth the upper, the glad, the bright.

Clotho. Even so: thus from my loaded spindle

Plucking a pinch of the fleece, lo, "Birth" Brays from my bronze lip: life I kindle: Look, 't is a man! go, measure on earth The minute thy portion, whatever its worth!

Lachesis. Woe-purfled, weal-prankt, speed, if it linger,

- if it

Nay, swart spinsters! So I surprise yon Making and marring the fortunes of Man? Huddling -no marvel, your enemy eyes you Head by head bat-like, blots under the ban Of daylight earth's blessing since time began! The Fates. Back to thy blest earth, prying Apollo !

Shaft upon shaft transpierce with thy beams Earth to the centre, -spare but this hollow Hewn out of Night's heart, where our mystery seems