That's a new question ; still replies the fact,

Nothing endures : the wind moans, saying so;
We moan in acquiescence: there's life's pact,

Perhaps probation-do I know?
God does : endure his act !
Only, for man, how bitter not to grave

On his soul's hands' palms one fair good wise thing Just as he grasped it! For himself, death's wave;

While time first washes-ah, the sting !O'er all he'd sink to save.

VII. Among the Rocks OH, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, U This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth;

Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;

Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows. If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:

Make the low nature better by your throes!
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

VIII. Beside the Drawing Board
“ A S like as a Hand to another Hand!"

A Whoever said that foolish thing,
Could not have studied to understand

The counsels of God in fashioning,
Out of the infinite love of his heart,
This Hand, whose beauty I praise, apart
From the world of wonder left to praise,
If I tried to learn the other ways
Of love in its skill, or love in its power.

“As like as a Hand to another Hand":
Who said that, never took his stand,

Found and followed, like me, an hour,
The beauty in this,-how free, how fine
To fear, almost, of the limit-line!
As I looked at this, and learned and drew,

Drew and learned, and looked again,
While fast the happy minutes flew,

Its beauty mounted into my brain,

And a fancy seized me; I was fain To efface my work, begin anew, Kiss what before I only drew; Ay, laying the red chalk 'twixt my lips, With soul to help if the mere lips failed,

I kissed all right where the drawing ailed, Kissed fast the grace that somehow slips Still from one's soulless finger-tips. 'Tis a clay cast, the perfect thing,

From Hand live once, dead long ago: Princess-like it wears the ring

To fancy's eye, by which we know That here at length a master found

His match, a proud lone soul its mate,
As soaring genius sank to ground,

And pencil could not emulate
The beauty in this.-how free, how fine
To fear almost!-of the limit-line.
Long ago the god, like me
The worm, learned, each in our degree:
Looked and loved, learned and drew,

Drew and learned and loved again,
While fast the happy minutes flew,

Till beauty mounted into his brain And on the finger which outvied

His art he placed the ring that 's there, Still by fancy's eye descried,

In token of a marriage rare:

For him on earth, his art's despair, For him in heaven, his soul's fit bride.

Little girl with the poor coarse hand

I turned from to a cold clay castI have my lesson, understand

The worth of flesh and blood at last. Nothing but beauty in a Hand?

Because he could not change the hue, Mend the lines and make them true To this which met his soul's demand,

Would Da Vinci turn from you? I hear him laugh my woes to scorn“The fool forsooth is all forlorn “ Because the beauty, she thinks best, “Lived long ago or was never born,“Because no beauty bears the test "In this rough peasant Hand! Confessed! “Art is null and study void!'

“So sayest thou? So said not I,

“Who threw the faulty pencil by, " And years instead of hours employed, “Learning the veritable use

“Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath

“Lines and hue of the outer sheath, “If haply I might reproduce “One motive of the powers profuse, “ Flesh and bone and nerve that make

“The poorest coarsest human hand

“An object worthy to be scanned “A whole life long for their sole sake. “Shall earth and the cramped moment-space “Yield the heavenly crowning grace? “Now the parts and then the whole! “Who art thou, with stinted soul

“And stunted body, thus to cry “I love,-shall that be life's strait dole?

"I must live beloved or die!' “This peasant hand that spins the wool

“And bakes the bread, why lives it on, “Poor and coarse with beauty gone,

“What use survives the beauty?" Fool! Go, little girl with the poor coarse hand! I have my lesson, shall understand.

IX. On Deck
THERE is nothing to remember in me

1 Nothing I ever said with a grace, Nothing I did that you care to see,

Nothing I was that deserves a place
In your mind, now I leave you, set you free.
Conceded! In turn, concede to me,

Such things have been as a mutual flame,
Your soul's locked fast; but, love for a key,

You might let it loose, till I grew the same In your eyes, as in mine you stand: strange plea! For then, then, what would it matter to me

That I was the harsh ill-favoured one?
We both should be like as pea and pea;

It was ever so since the world begun:
So, let me proceed with my reverie.
How strange it were if you had all me,

As I have all you in my heart and brain,
You, whose least word brought gloom or glee,

Who never lifted the hand in vain-
Will hold mine yet, from over the sea!
Strange, if a face, when you thought of me,

Rose like your own face present now,
With eyes as dear in their due degree,

Much such a mouth, and as bright a brow, Till you saw yourself, while you cried, “'Tis She!" Well, you may, you must, set down to me

Love that was life, life that was love; A tenure of breath at your lips' decree,

A passion to stand as your thoughts approve, A rapture to fall where your foot might be.

But did one touch of such love for me

Come in a word or a look of yours, Whose words and looks will, circling, flee

Round me and round while life endures, Could I fancy “As I feel, thus feels he"; Why, fade you might to a thing like me,

And your hair grow these coarse hanks of hair, Your skin, this bark of a gnarled tree,

You might turn myself !should I know or care When I should be dead of joy, James Lee?

GOLD HAIR:

A Story of Pornic OH, the beautiful girl, too white,

Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,
Just where the sea and the Loire unite!

And a boasted name in Brittany
She bore, which I will not write.
Too white, for the flower of life is red;

Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen
Of a soul that is meant (her parents said)

To just see earth, and hardly be seen,
And blossom in heaven instead.
Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair!

One grace that grew to its full on earth : Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare,

And her waist want half a girdle's girth,
But she had her great gold hair.
Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss,

Freshness and fragrance-floods of it, too!
Gold, did I say? Nay, gold's mere dross:

Here, Life smiled, “Think what I meant to do!" And Love sighed, “Fancy my loss!"