Therein are set four jewels rare;
Pearl winter, summer's ruby blaze,
Spring's emerald, and than all more fair,
Fate's pensive opal doomed to bear
A pearl of fire bedreamed with haze.

To him the simple spell who knows,
The spirits of the ring to sway,
Fresh power with every sunrise flows,
And royal pursuivants are those
That fly his mandates to obey.

But he that with a slackened will
Dreams of things past or things to be,
From him the charm is slipping still,
And drops ere he suspect the ill
Into the inexorable sea.

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN.

DON'T believe in the Flying Dutchman !
Well, I have known him for years;
My button I've wrenched from his clutch, man,
I shudder whenever he nears.

He's a Rip Van Winkle skipper,
A Wandering Jew of the sea,
Who sails his bedevilled old clipper
In the mind's eye, straight as a bee.

Back topsails, you can't escape him,
The man ropes stretch with his weight,
And the queerest old toggeries drape him,
The Lord knows how far out of date.

Like a long disembodied idea,

A kind of ghost plentiful now;
He stands there; you fancy you see a
Coval of Teniers or Douw.

He greets you; would have you take letters,
You scan the addresses with dread,
While he mutters his donners and wetters-
They're all from the dead to the dead.

You seem taking time for reflection,

But the heart fills your throat with a jam,

As you spell in each faded direction,
An ominous ending in “dam.”

Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend,

That were changing green turtle to mock,
No thank you; I've found out which wedge end
Is meant for the head of the block.

The fellow I have in my mind's eye
Plays the old Skipper's part upon shore,
And sticks like a burr till he finds I
Have got just the gauge of his bore.

This postman twixt one ghost and t' other
With last dates that smell of the mould;
I have met him; O man and brother
(Forgive me!) in azure and gold.

In the pulpit I've known of his preaching,
Out of hearing behind the times
Some statement of Balaam impeaching,
Giving Eve a due sense of her crimes.

I have seen him some poor ancient thrashing
Into something (God save us !) more dry;
With the Water of Life itself washing,
The life out of earth, sea, and sky.

O dread fellow-mortal; get newer
Despatches to carry, or none;

We're as quick as the Greek and the Jew were,
As knowing a loaf from a stone.

Till the Couriers of God fail in duty

We shan't ask a mummy for news,

Nor sate the soul's hunger for beauty

With your drawings from casts of a Muse.

S. Coran & Co., Strathmore Fress, Perth.