In Vishnu-land what Avatar ? Or who in Moscow, towards the Czar, Unable to repress the tear, Each as his sceptre down he flings, To Dian's fame at Taurica, Where now a captive priestess, she alway With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach: As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter! In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter ! Ay, most likely 't is in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall I love to think The leaving us was just a feint; Or Music means this land of ours By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,- Made as if they were the throng That crowd around and carry aloft The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure, Out of a myriad noises soft, Into a tone that can endure Amid the noise of a July noon When all God's creatures crave their boon, All at once, and all in tune, And get it, happy as Waring then, Having first within his ken What a man might do with men : And far too glad, in the even-glow, To mix with the world he meant to take And out of it his world to make, Some one shall somehow run a muck Still more distinguished, like the games Of children. Turn our sport to earnest With a visage of the sternest! Bring the real times back, confessed Still better than our very best ! II. I. "WHEN I last saw Waring . . II. "We were sailing by Triest "Where a day or two we harboured: "When, looking over the vessel's side, "And as a sea-duck flies and swims "Its great sail on the instant furled, "(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's) "Buy wine of us, you English Brig? "Or fruit, tobacco and cigars ? "A pilot for you to Triest? "Without one, look you ne'er so big, "They'll never let you up the bay! "We natives should know best.' "I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,' "Our captain said, 'The 'long-shore thieves "Are laughing at us in their sleeves.' III. "In truth, the boy leaned laughing back; "And one, half-hidden by his side "Under the furled sail, soon I spied, "With great grass hat and kerchief black, "Who looked up with his kingly throat, "Said somewhat, while the other shook "His hair back from his eyes to look "Their longest at us; then the boat, "I know not how, turned sharply round, 66 Laying her whole side on the sea "As a leaping fish does; from the lee "Into the weather, cut somehow "Her sparkling path beneath our bow, "And so went off, as with a bound, "Into the rosy and golden half "O' the sky, to overtake the sun "And reach the shore, like the sea-calf "Its singing cave; yet I caught one "Glance ere away the boat quite passed, "And neither time nor toil could mar |