Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,

Back to its proper size again, and smoothing
Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,
And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.
O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.

What further may be sought for or declared?,

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach

(Alfred, dear friend!) that little child to

I took one thought his picture struck from

me,

And spread it out, translating it to song. My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?

How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end? This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.

MEMORABILIA

Aн, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems and new!

But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I'started at

My starting moves your laughter!

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:

For there I picked up on the heather,
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.

POPULARITY

As the previous poem was an appreciation of Shelley, so this, of Keats.

STAND still, true poet that you are!

I know you; let me try and draw you. Some night you'll fail us: when afar

You rise, remember one man saw you, Knew you, and named a star! M

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 ?

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.

That day, the earth's feast-master's brow
Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;
"Others give best at first, but thou
Forever set'st our table praising,
Keep'st the good wine till now!'

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.

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
Through foam the rock-weeds thresh.

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

Most like the centre-spike of gold

Which burns deep in the bluebell's womb What time, with ardors manifold,

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

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.

And there's the extract, flasked and fine,
And priced and salable at last!

And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine
To paint the future from the past,
Put blue into their line.

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?

MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA

Whomever Browning may have had in mind, there was no historical figure with this name and place.

HIST, but a word, fair and soft!

Forth and be judged, Master Hugues ! Answer the question I've put you so oft: What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?

See, we 're alone in the loft,

I, the poor organist here,

Hugues, the composer of note,

Dead though, and done with, this many a year: Let's have a colloquy, something to quote, Make the world prick up its ear!

A master were lauded and sciolists shent,
Parted the sheep from the goats!"

Well then, speak up, never flinch!
Quick, ere my candle 's a snuff

Burnt, do you see? to its uttermost inch
I believe in you, but that 's not enough:

Give my conviction a clinch!

First you deliver your phrase

Nothing propound, that I see,

Fit in itself for much blame or much praise -
Answered no less, where no answer needs be;
Off start the Two on their ways.

Straight must a Third interpose,
Volunteer needlessly help;

In strikes a Fourth, a Fifth thrusts in his nose, So the cry's open, the kennel 's a-yelp, Argument 's hot to the close.

One dissertates, he is candid;

Two must discept, --has distinguished; Three helps the couple, if ever yet man did; Four protests; Five makes a dart at the thing wished:

Back to One, goes the case bandied.

One says his say with a difference:
More of expounding, explaining!

All now is wrangle, abuse and vociferance; Now there's a truce, all's subdued, self-restraining:

Five, though, stands out all the stiffer hence.

Karshook. The moon is carried off in purple fire:

Day breaks at last! Break glory, with the day,
On Djabal's dread incarnate mystery
Now ready to resume its pristine shape
Of Hakeem, as the Khalif vanished erst
In what seemed death to uninstructed eyes,
On red Mokattam's verge-our Founder's flesh,
As he resumes our Founder's function!
Raghib.
Sweep to the Christian Prefect that enslaved
So long us sad Druse exiles o'er the sea!
Ayoob. Most joy be thine, O Mother-mount!
Thy brood

- Death

Initiated Druses

DJABAL, KHALIL, ANAEL, MAANI, KARSHOOK, RAGHIB, AYOOB, and others.

Uninitiated Druses, Prefect's Guard, Nuncio's Attendants, Admiral's Force.

TIME, 14-.

PLACE, An Islet of the Southern Sporades, colonized by Druses of Lebanon, and garrisoned by the KnightsHospitallers of Rhodes.

SCENE, A Hall in the Prefect's Palace.

Returns to thee, no outcasts as we left,
But thus- but thus! Behind, our Prefect's

corse;

Before, a presence like the morning-thine, Absolute Djabal late, God Hakeem now That day breaks!

-

Kar. Off then, with disguise at last! As from our forms this hateful garb we strip, Lose every tongue its glozing accent too, Discard each limb the ignoble gesture! Cry, 'Tis the Druse Nation, warders on our Mount Of the world's secret, since the birth of time, No kindred slips, no offsets from thy stock, No spawn of Christians are we, Prefect, we Who rise.

Ay. Ragh.

Who shout

Who seize, a first-fruits, haSpoil of the spoiler! Brave!

[They begin to tear down, and to dispute for, the decora

tions of the hall.