In Vishnu-land what Avatar ?
Or who in Moscow, towards the Czar,
With the demurest of footfalls
Over the Kremlin's pavement bright
With serpentine and syenite,
Steps, with five other Generals
That simultaneously take snuff,
For each to have pretext enough
And kerchiefwise unfold his sash
Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,
And leave the grand white neck no gash?
Waring in Moscow, to those rough
Cold northern natures borne perhaps,
Like the lambwhite maiden dear
From the circle of mute kings
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
Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech
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 From some black coffin-lid. Or, best of all, I love to think The leaving us was just a feint; Back here to London did he slink, And now works on without a wink Of sleep, and we are on the brink Of something great in fresco-paint : Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor, Up and down and o'er and o'er He splashes, as none splashed before Since great Caldara Polidore. Or Music means this land of ours Some favour yet, to pity won By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,“Give me my so-long promised son, “ Let Waring end what I begun !” Then down he creeps and out he steals, Only when the night conceals His face; in Kent 't is cherry-time, Or hops are picking : or at prime Of March he wanders as, too happy, Years ago when he was young, Some mild eve when woods grew sappy And the early moths had sprung To life from many a trembling sheath Woven the warm boughs beneath; While small birds said to themselves What should soon be actual song, And young gnats, by tens and twelves 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
Into his hand, he told you, so-
And out of it his world to make,
To contract and to expand
As he shut or oped his hand.
Oh Waring, what's to really be ?
A clear stage and a crowd to see !
Some Garrick, say, out shall not he
The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck ?
Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,
Some Junius—am I right?—shall tuck
His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife !
Some Chatterton shall have the luck
Of calling Rowley into life.!
Some one shall somehow run a muck
With this old world, for want of strife
Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive
To rouse us, Waring! Who 's alive?
Our men scarce seem in earnest now.
Distinguished names !—but 't is, somehow,
As if they played at being names

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 .
(How all turned to him who spoke !
You saw Waring? Truth or joke?
In land-travel or sea-faring?)

II.

“ We were sailing by Triest " Where a day or two we harboured: " A sunset was in the West, " When, looking over the vessel's side, “ One of our company espied “ A sudden speck to larboard. “ And as a sea-duck flies and swims “ At once, so came the light craft up, « With its sole lateen sail that trims “ And turns (the water round its rims “Dancing, as round a sinking cup) " And by us like a fish it curled, " And drew itself up close beside, “ Its great sail on the instant furled, " And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried, (A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's)

* Buy wine of us, you English Brig? 6. 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 ! 6. 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,

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, 66 And neither time nor toil could mar