II.

The air broke into a mist with bells,

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels

But give me your sun from yonder skies!" They had answered "And afterward, what else?"

III.

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun

To give it my loving friends to keep! Naught man could do, have I left undone: And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run.

IV.

There's nobody on the house-tops now-
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,

At the Shambles' Gate- - or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

V.

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

VI.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. "Paid by the world, what dost thou owe

Me?"- God might question; now instead, 'T is God shall repay: I am safer so.

II.

My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend
That loving hand of his which leads you,
Yet locks you safe from end to end

Of this dark world, unless he needs you,
Just saves your light to spend?

III.

His clenched hand shall unclose at last,
I know, and let out all the beauty :

My poet holds the future fast,
Accepts the coming ages' duty,
Their present for this past.

IV.

That day, the earth's feast-master's brow
Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;
"Others give best at first, but thou
For ever set'st our table praising,

Keep'st the good wine till now!"

V.

Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand,

With few or none to watch and wonder:

I'll say a fisher, on the sand

By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder, A netful, brought to land.

VI.

Who has not heard how Tyrian shells
Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes
Whereof one drop worked miracles,
And coloured like Astarte's eyes
Raw silk the merchant sells?

VII.

And each bystander of them all

Could criticize, and quote tradition

How depths of blue sublimed some pall

- To get which, pricked a king's ambition;

Worth sceptre, crown and ball.

ΙΟ

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VIII.

Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh,
The sea has only just o'er-whispered!
Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh,
As if they still the water's lisp heard
Thro' foam the rock-weeds thresh.

IX.

Enough to furnish Solomon

Such hangings for his cedar-house,

That, when gold-robed he took the throne
In that abyss of blue, the Spouse
Might swear his presence shone

X.

Most like the centre-spike of gold

Which burns deep in the blue-bell's womb

What time, with ardours manifold,

The bee goes singing to her groom, Drunken and overbold.

XI.

Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof!

Till cunning come to pound and squeeze

And clarify, refine to proof

The liquor filtered by degrees,

While the world stands aloof.

XII.

And there's the extract, flasked and fine,

And priced and saleable at last!

And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine

To paint the future from the past,

Put blue into their line.

XIII.

Hobbs hints blue,

straight he turtle eats:

Nobbs prints blue, claret crowns his cup: Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,

Both gorge. Who fished the murex up? What porridge had John Keats?

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