Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Sydney Dobell, fully Sydney Thompson Dobell

English Poet and Critic

"It often requires more strength and judgment to resist than to embrace an opportunity. It is better to do nothing than to do other than well."

"He who, being bold For life to come, is false to the past sweet Of mortal life, hath killed the world above. For why to live again if not to meet? And why to meet if not to meet in love? And why in love if not in that dear love of old? "

"The Ballad of Keith of Ravelston - The murmur of the mourning ghost That keeps the shadowy kine, 'O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line!' Ravelston, Ravelston, The merry path that leads Down the golden morning hill, And thro' the silver meads; Ravelston, Ravelston, The stile beneath the tree, The maid that kept her mother's kine, The song that sang she! She sang her song, she kept her kine, She sat beneath the thorn, When Andrew Keith of Ravelston Rode thro' the Monday morn. His henchman sing, his hawk-bells ring, His belted jewels shine; O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! Year after year, where Andrew came, Comes evening down the glade, And still there sits a moonshine ghost Where sat the sunshine maid. Her misty hair is faint and fair, She keeps the shadowy kine; O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! I lay my hand upon the stile, The stile is lone and cold, The burnie that goes babbling by Says naught that can be told. Yet, stranger! here, from year to year, She keeps her shadowy kine; O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! Step out three steps, where Andrew stood— Why blanch thy cheeks for fear? The ancient stile is not alone, 'Tis not the burn I hear! She makes her immemorial moan, She keeps her shadowy kine; O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line!"

"The Son thou sentest forth is now a Thought- A Dream. To all but thee he is as nought As if he had gone back into the same Bosom that bare him. Oh, thou grey pale Dame, With eyes so wan and wide, what! knowest thou where Thy Dream is such a thing as doth up-bear The earth out of its wormy place? I' the air Dost see the very fashion of the stone That hath his face for clay? Deep, deep, hast found The texture of that single weight of ground Which to each mole and mark that thou hast known Is special burden? Nay, her face is mild And sweet. In Heaven the evening star is fair, And there the mother looketh for her child."

"We could not turn from that colossal foe, The morning shadow of whose hideous head Darkened the furthest West, and who did throw His evening shade on Ind. The polar bow Behind him flamed and paled, and through the red Uncertain dark his vasty shape did grow Upon the sleepless nations. Lay him low! Aye, low as for our priceless English dead We lie and groan to-day in England! Oh, My God! I think Thou hast not finished This Thy fair world, where, triumph Ill or Good, We still must weep; where or to lose or gain Is woe; where Pain is medicined by Pain, And Blood can only be washed out by Blood."

"Let one or thousands loose or bind, That land's enslaved whose sovran mind Collides the conscience of mankind. And free-whoever holds the rood- Where Might in Right, and Power in Good, Flow each in each, like life in blood. The age has broken from his kings! Stop him! Behold his feet have wings. Upon his back the hero springs."

"By this the rain had ceased, and I went forth From that Dodona green of oak and beech. But ere my steps could reach The hamlet, I beheld along the verge A flight of fleeing cloudlets that did urge Unequal speed, as when a herd is driven By the recurring pulse of shoutings loud. I saw; but held the omen of no worth. For by the footway not a darnel stirred, And still the noon slept on, nor even a bird Moved the dull air; but, at each silent hand, Upon the steaming land The hare lay basking, and the budded wheat Hung slumberous heads of sleep. Then I was 'ware that a great northern cloud Moved slowly to the centre of the heaven. His white head was so high That the great blue fell round him like the wide And ermined robe of kings. He sat in pride Lonely and cold; but methought when he spied From that severe inhospitable height The distant dear delight, The meiting world with summer at her side, His pale brow mellowed with a mournful light, And like a marble god he wept his stony tears. The loyal clouds that sit about his feet, All in their courtier kinds, Do weep to see him weep. After the priceless drops the sycophant winds Leap headlong down, and chase, and swirl, and sweep Beneath the royal grief that scarce may reach the ground. To see their whirling zeal, Unlikely things that in the kennel lie Begin to wheel and wheel; The wild tarantula-will spreads far and nigh, And spinning straws go spiral to the sky, And leaves long dead leap up and dance their ghastly round. And so it happened in the street 'Neath a broad eave I stood and mused again, And all the arrows of the driving rain Were tipped with slanting sleet. I mused beneath the straw pent of the bricked And sodded cot, with damp moss mouldered o'er, The bristled thatch gleamed with a carcanet, And from the inner eaves the reeking wet Dripped; dropping more And more, as more the sappy roof was sapped, And wept a mirkier wash that splashed and clapped The plain-stones, dribbling to the flooded door. A plopping pool of droppings stood before, Worn by a weeping age in rock of easy grain. O'erhead, hard by, a pointed beam o'erlapped, And from its jewelled tip The slipping slipping drip Did whip the fillipped pool whose hopping plashes ticked. "

"Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain! Rain, rain, warm and sweet, Summer wood lush leafy and loud, With note of a throat that ripples and rings, Sad sole sweet from her central seat, Bubbling and trilling, Filling, filling, filling The shady space of the green dim place With an odour of melody, Till all the noon is thrilling, And the great wood hangs in the balmy day Like a cloud with an angel in the cloud, And singing because she sings! In the sheltering wood, At that hour I stood; I saw that in that hour Great round drops, clear round drops, Grew on every leaf and flower, And its hue so fairly took And faintly, that each tinted elf Trembled with a rarer self, Even as if its beauty shook With passion to a tenderer look. Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain! Rain, rain, warm and sweet, Summer wood lush leafy and loud, With note of a throat that ripples and rings, Sad sole sweet from her central seat, Bubbling and trilling, Filling, filling, filling The shady space of the green dim place With an odour of melody, Till all the noon is thrilling, And the great wood hangs in the balmy day, Like a cloud with an angel in the cloud, And singing because she sings! Then out of the sweet warm weather There came a little wind sighing, sighing: Came to the wood sighing, and sighing went in, Sighed thro' the green grass, and o'er the leaves brown, Sighed to the dingle, and, sighing, lay down, While all the flowers whispered together. Then came swift winds after her who was flying, Swift bright winds with a jocund din, Sought her in vain, her boscage was so good, And spread like baffled revellers thro' the wood. Then, from bough, and leaf, and bell, The great round drops, the clear round drops, In fitful cadence drooped and fell- Drooped and fell as if some wanton air Were more apparent here and there, Sphered on a favourite flower in dewy kiss, Grew heavy with delight and dropped with bliss. Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain; Rain, rain, still and sweet, For the winds have hushed again, And the nightingale is still, Sleeping in her central seat. Rain, rain, summer rain, Silent as the summer heat. Doth it fall, or doth it rise? Is it incense from the hill, Or bounty from the skies? Or is the face of earth that lies Languid, looking up on high, To the face of Heaven so nigh That their balmy breathings meet? Rain, rain, summer rain, On the wood and on the plain: Rain, rain, rain, until The tall wet trees no more athirst, As each chalice green doth fill, See the pigmy nations nurst Round their distant feet, and throw The nectar to the herbs below. The droughty herbs, without a sound, Drink it ere it reach the ground. Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain, And round me like a dropping well, The great round drops they fell and fell. I say not War is good or ill; Perchance they may slay, if they will, Who killing love, and loving kill. I do not join yon captive's din; Some man among us without sin Perhaps may rightly lock him in. I do not grant the Tyrant's plea; The slaves potential to be free Already are the Powers that be. Whether our bloodsheds flow or cease, I know that as the years increase, The flower of all is human peace. 'The Flower.' Vertumnus hath repute O'er Flora; yet methinks the fruit But alter ego of the root; And that which serves our fleshly need, Subserves the blossom that doth feed The soul which is the life indeed. Nor well he deems who deems the rose Is for the roseberry, nor knows The roseberry is for the rose. And Autumn's garnered treasury, But prudent Nature's guarantee That Summer evermore shall be, And yearly, once a year, complete That top and culmen exquisite Whereto the slanting seasons meet. Whether our bloodsheds flow or cease, I know that, as the years increase, The flower of all is human peace. 'The flower.' Yet whether shall we sow A blossom or a seed? I know The flower will rot, the seed will grow."

"An Evening Dream - I'm leaning where you loved to lean in eventides of old, The sun has sunk an hour ago behind the treeless wold, In this old oriel that we loved how oft I sit forlorn, Gazing, gazing, up the vale of green and waving corn. The summer corn is in the ear, thou knowest what I see Up the long wide valley, and from seldom tree to tree, The serried corn, the serried corn, the green and serried corn, From the golden morn till night, from the moony night till morn. I love it, morning, noon, and night, in sunshine and in rain, For being here it seems to say, 'The lost come back again.' And being here as green and fair as those old fields we knew, It says, 'The lost when they come back, come back unchanged and true.' But more than at the shout of morn, or in the sleep of noon, Smiling with a smiling star, or wan beneath a wasted moon, I love it, soldier brother! at this weird dim hour, for then The serried ears are swords and spears, and the fields are fields of men. Rank on rank in faultless phalanx stern and still I can discern, Phalanx after faultless phalanx in dumb armies still and stern; Army on army, host on host, till the bannered nations stand, As the dead may stand for judgment silent on the o'erpeopled land. Not a bayonet stirs: down sinks the awful twilight, dern and dun, On an age that waits its leader, on a world that waits the sun. Then your dog-I know his voice-cries from out the courtyard nigh, And my love too well interprets all that long and mournful cry! In my passion that thou art not, lo! I see thee as thou art, And the pitying fancy brings thee to assuage the anguished heart. 'Oh my brother!' and my bosom's throb of welcome at the word, Claps a hundred thousand hands, and all my legions hail thee lord. And the vast unmotioned myriads, front to front, as at a breath, Live and move to martial music, down the devious dance of death. Ah, thou smilest, scornful brother, at a maiden's dream of war! And thou shakest back thy locks as if-a glow-worm for thy star- I dubbed thee with a blade of grass, by earthlight, in a fairy ring, Knight o' the garter o' Queen Mab, or lord in waiting to her king. Brother, in thy plum."

"A Musing On A Victory - Down by the Sutlej shore, Where sound the trumpet and the wild tum-tum, At winter's eve did come A gaunt old northern lion, at whose roar The myriad howlers of thy wilds are dumb, Blood-stained Ferozepore! In the rich Indian night, And dreaming of his mate beyond the sea, Toil-worn but grand to sight, He made his lair, in might, Beneath thy dark palm-tree, And thou didst rouse him to the unequal fight- And woe for thee! For some of that wild land Had heard him in the desert where he lay; And soon he snuffs upon their hurtling way, The hunters-bandby band; And up he gat him from the eastern sand And leaped upon his prey. Alas for man! Alas for all thy dreams, Thou great somnambulist, wherein, outlawed From right and thought, thou workest out unawed Thy grand fantastic fancies! Thro' the flood, The pestilence, the whirlwind, the dread plain Of thunders-thro' the earthquake and the storm, The deluge and the snows, the whirling ice Of the wild glacier, every ghastly form Of earth's most vexed vicissitudes of pain,- Thro' worlds of fire and seas of mingled bloods Thou rushest, dreadful as a maniac god; And only finding that thou wert not sane When some great sorrow thunders at thy brain And wakes thee trembling by a precipice. Alas for thee, thou grey-haired man that still Art sleeping, and canst hold thy grandchild high That he may see the gorgeous wrong go by Which slew his father! And for thee, thou bright Inheritress of summer-time and light, Alas for thee, that thy young cheek is flush'd With dreaming of the lion and the foe, Tho' it had been yet paler than the snow Upon the battle-hill, if once had gush'd, But once before thee, even the feeblest flow Of that life's blood that swept in floods below. Alas! that even thy beauty cannot break The vampyre spell of such a war-dream's woe,- Alas! tho' waking might have been to know Things which had made it sweeter not to wake. Alas for man!-poor hunchback-all so proud And yet so conscious; man that stalks divine Because he feels so mortal, speaking loud To drown the trembling whisper in his heart, And wildly hurrying on from crowd to crowd, In hope to shun the faithful shapes that start Wherever lake doth sleep or streamlet shine In silent solitudes. When once in youth Fresh from the spheres, and too severely wise, Truth drew the face he longed yet feared to view, Stung with the instinct that confessed it true He dashed the tablets from her sacred hand; She drops her singing robes and leaves his land; And Fiction, decent in the garb of Truth, While lurking mischief lights her lambent eyes, Seizes the fallen pencil, and with grave Historic features paints the lies we crave. So war became a welcome woe. The grass Grows tear-bedewed upon a lonely grave, And we plant sad flow'rs and sweet epitaphs, And every grief of monumental stone, Above a single woe; but let men sleep In thousands, and we choose their hideous heap For Joy to hold his godless orgies on. Is it that some strange law's unknown behest Makes gladness of the greatest woes we have And leaves us but to sorrow for the less? Even as in outward nature light's excess Is blindness, and intensest motion rest; Or is it not-oh conscious heart declare- That the vast pride of our o'erwrought despair, Seeing the infinite grief, and knowing yet We have no tears to pay such deep distress, Grown wild, repudiates the direful debt, And in its very bankrupt madness laughs?- Yet when this Victory's fame shall pass, as grand And griefless as a rich man's funeral, Thro' nations that look on with spell-bound eye, While echoing plaudits ring from land to land, Alas! will there be none among the good And great and brave and free, to speak of all The pale piled pestilence of flesh and blood, The common cold corruption that doth lie Festering beneath the pall? Alas! when time has deified the thought Of this day's desperate devilry, and men (Who scorn to inherit virtue, but will ape Their sires, and bless them, when they sin) shall shape A graven image of the thought, and then Fall down to worship it-will no one dare, While nations kneel before the idol there, To stand and tell them it is Juggernaut? Alas for man! if this new crime shall yield To truth no harvest for the sighs it cost; If this crowned corpse, this pale ensceptred ghost That stalks, Ferozepore, from thy red field Robed as a king, shall all unchallenged pass Down the proud scene of Time. Alas, alas! If there are some to weep and some to pray, And none to bow their humbled heads and say, Low sighing,-There hath been a mortal strife; And thirteen thousand murdered men lie there, And day and night upon the tainted air Blaspheme the Lord of Life."

"Bayonet Song - Fire away, fire away, boys must have their play, There'll be hard work yet Before sunset: But what of the day when the boys have had their play? When the boys have played, why then, Aha! 'Twill be time for the men, Hurrah! And the bayonet! But, men, as we've nothing to do till then, And the match is on out there, I think you and I may as well stand by And see that the game goes fair. No drummer! no tambourettes, The earth is our drum wherever we come, Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, Where's the drumstick that ever could beat, Where's the drumhead that ever could drum, Like the mighty foot of our thousand feet, And the earth that is dumb till we come and come? Come and come and come and come Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, bayonets. 'Love your enemy'-yes, 'tis the Briton's grace! I love him so well that I'd see his face. Yon little ninepins all in a row, How can I tell if I love 'em or no? So hurrah, lads, up we go! Here's to our nearer meeting, And if when we come within greeting I see my own special foe, I'll leave him to Tom or John, And find my work further on, And perhaps he and I will shake hands by and bye Side by side as we lie (To-night on the gory slope of the hill As the dew-tears drop from the sky above At the silent thought Of the friends whom we love Better still), And wait for the surgeon's cart That's always coming and never comes, And when a couple of bearers pass I'll give him my turn, Tho' the flesh-wounds smart, And the bone-wounds burn, And the life-tide's running dry Because he's my enemy. But that's when I've spiked up John's and Tom's And Rosie's and Poll's and Marjorie's And little Jack's and todlin May's And the victory's won and the bloody day's Done, and of flesh that is grass Along the braes the bloody hay's Made, that is made, hurrah! With the bayonet. For till you show me the Sacred Word I'm for Peter and his good sword, Only I hope if we'd drilled him here He'd not have missed the head for the ear. Gods, I'd give a Life's delights To have been there that night of nights, With ten such men as I see here now, When they spat their sin on the Sinless Brow And struck Him without let,- And have heard the ten steels clash at my call And seen the ten steels flash in the hall As we did them all up to the wall, High Priest, low Priest, Romans and all, Great and small up to the wall, Up to the wall with the bayonet. I would keep or lose my right hand By the love of every man here For the dear native land. There is not a man here this day Of whom come what come can I could speak with an accent of scorn. Who feels his courage grow colder At sight of the foe, Whose conscience is bolder Because we are shoulder to shoulder, Who goes up the hill because we are men And not because he is man, He shall serve his country yet But not with the bayonet. Well done-I like your eyes, Neither sunrise Nor sunset. Well done-I know the grips That will tell to barrel and stock What the beard hides on the lips: No strain on the rein, no tug on the slips. No drummer! no tambourettes! The earth is our drum wherever we come, Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, Where's the drumstick that ever could beat, Where's the drumhead that ever could drum, Like the mighty foot of our thousand feet, And the earth that is dumb till we come and come? Till we come and come and come and come, Bayonets, bayonets, bayonets, bayonets! You are not dogs but Lions, and who Holds Lions in leash? Hurrah, My Lions! with just such a pack I'd hunt down the gods of Olympus! Alack, This mount is all an Olympus. Up there You see the bird-popping goddikins-ten To one I'll warrant you-bah! What then? Who cares while theirs is the ten to the one And ours is the one to the ten? Were't one to twenty which of us would shirk The odds or the glory? You see How the land lies? This fox-cover up the long rise, Then fifty paces of open, and then the breast-work. Scatter the pack in cover, make them cast wide, From wood-side to wood-side. Go in like hounds and come out At the top like men and lions-full swing Up the wood, but when it's grey-blue Overhead come together like men. A halt for breath, Slow-time and still as death To the covert-edge, and then The rush and the roar and the spring! Hunt's up, my Lions, hie in, hurrah!"

"Afloat and Ashore - 'Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort, Like a whale to starboard, a whale to port; Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort, And the steamer steams thro' the sea, love!' 'I see the ship on the sea, love, I stand alone On this rock, The sea does not shock The stone; The waters around it are swirled, But under my feet I feel it go down To where the hemispheres meet At the adamant heart of the world. Oh, that the rock would move! Oh, that the rock would roll To meet thee over the sea, love! Surely my mighty love Should fill it like a soul, And it should bear me to thee, love; Like a ship on the sea, love, Bear me, bear me, to thee, love!' 'Guns are thundering, seas are sundering, crowds are wondering, Low on our lee, love. Over and over the cannon-clouds cover brother and lover, but over and over The whirl-wheels trundle the sea, love, And on thro' the loud pealing pomp of her cloud The great ship is going to thee, love; Blind to her mark, like a world thro' the dark, Thundering, sundering, to the crowds wondering, Thundering ever to thee, love.' 'I have come down to thee coming to me, love, I stand, I stand On the solid sand, I see thee coming to me, love; The sea runs up to me on the sand, I start-'t is as if thou hadst stretched thine hand And touched me thro' the sea, love. I feel as if I must die For there's something longs to fly, Fly and fly, to thee, love. As the blood of the flower ere she blows Is beating up to the sun, And her roots do hold her down, And it blushes and breaks undone In a rose, So my blood is beating in me, love! I see thee nigh and nigher, And my soul leaps up like sudden fire, My life's in the air To meet thee there, To meet thee coming to me, love! Over the sea, Coming to me, Coming, and coming to me, love!' 'The boats are lowered: I leap in first, Pull, boys, pull! or my heart will burst! More! more!-lend me an oar!- I'm thro' the breakers! I'm on the shore! I see thee waiting for me, love!' 'A sudden storm Of sighs and tears, A clenching arm, A look of years. In my bosom a thousand cries, A flash like light before my eyes, And I am lost in thee, love!'"

"A Health To The Queen - While the thistle bears Spears, And the shamrock is green, And the English rose Blows, A health to the Queen! A health to the Queen, a health to the Queen! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen! The thistle bears spears round its blossom, Round its blossom the shamrock is green, The rose grows and glows round the rose in its bosom, We stand sword in hand round the Queen! Our glory is green round the Queen! We close round the rose, round the Queen! The Queen, boys, the Queen! a health to the Queen! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen! Last post I'd a note from that old aunt of mine, 'T was meant for a hook, but she called it a line; She says, I don't know why we're going to fight, She's sure I don't know-and I'm sure she's quite right; She swears I haven't looked at one sole protocol; Tantara! tantara! I haven't, 'pon my soul! Soho, blow trumpeter, Trumpeter, trumpeter! Soho, blow trumpeter, onward's the cry! Fall, tyrants, fall-the devil care why! A health to the Queen; a health to the Queen! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen! My granny came down-'pour vous voir, mon barbare,' She brought in her pocket a map-du Tartare- Drawn up, so she vowed, 'par un homme ah! si bon!' With a plan for campaigning old Hal, en haut ton. With here you may trick him, and here you may prick him, And here-if you do it en roi-you may lick him, But there he is sacred, and yonder-Oh, la! He's as dear a sweet soul as your late grandpapa! Soho, blow trumpeter, Trumpeter, trumpeter! Blow the charge, trumpeter, blare, boy, blare! Fall, tyrants, fall-the devil care where! A health to the Queen, a health to the Queen! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen! My cousin, the Yankee, last night did his best To prove 'the Czar-bless you's-no worse than the rest.' We wheeled the decanters out on to the lawn, And he argued-and spat-in a circle till dawn. Quoth I, 'If the game's half as thick as you say, The more need for hounds, lad! Hunt's up! Harkaway!' Soho, blow trumpeter! Trumpeter, trumpeter! Tally-ho, trumpeter, over the ditch- Over the ditch, boys, the broad ditch at Dover! Hands slack, boys, heels back, boys, Yohoicks! we're well over! Soho, blow, trumpeter! blow us to cover! Blow, boy, blow, Berlin, or Moscow, Schoenbrun, or Rome, So Reynard's at home, The devil care which! Hark, Evans! hark, Campbell! hark, Cathcart!-Halloo! Heydey, harkaway! good men and true! Harkaway to the brook, You won't land in clover! Leap and look! High and dry! Tantivy, full cry! Full cry up the hill! Hurrah, and it's over! A burst and a kill. While the thistle bears Spears, And the shamrock is green, And the English rose Blows, A health to the Queen! A health to the Queen, a health to the Queen! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen! The Queen, boys, the Queen! the Queen, boys, the Queen! Full cry, high and dry, boys, A health to the Queen!"

"As grand and griefless as a rich man's funeral"

"It is a zealot’s faith that blasts the shrines of the false god, but builds no temple to the true."

"The secret of pleasure in life, as distinct from its great triumphs of transcendent joy, is to live in a series of small, legitimate successes. By legitimate I mean such as are not accompanied by self-condemnation."

"Trembling lips, tuned to such grief that they say bright words sadly."

"Unsuccessful emulation is too apt to sink into envy, which of all sins has not even the excuse to offer of temporary gratification."

"I'm leaning where you loved to lean in eventides of old, the sun has sunk an hour ago behind the treeless world, in this old oriel that we loved how oft i sit forlorn, gazing, gazing, up the vale of green and waving corn. The summer corn is in the ear, thou knowest what i see up the long wide valley, and from seldom tree to tree, the serried corn, the serried corn, the green and serried corn, from the golden morn till night, from the moony night till morn. I love it, morning, noon, and night, in sunshine and in rain, for being here it seems to say, 'the lost come back again.' and being here as green and fair as those old fields we knew, it says, 'the lost when they come back, come back unchanged and true.' but more than at the shout of morn, or in the sleep of noon, smiling with a smiling star, or wan beneath a wasted moon, i love it, soldier brother! At this weird dim hour, for then the serried ears are swords and spears, and the fields are fields of men. Rank on rank in faultless phalanx stern and still i can discern, phalanx after faultless phalanx in dumb armies still and stern; army on army, host on host, till the bannered nations stand, as the dead may stand for judgment silent on the o'er peopled land. Not a bayonet stirs: down sinks the awful twilight, dern and dun, on an age that waits its leader, on a world that waits the sun. Then your dog-I know his voice-cries from out the courtyard nigh, and my love too well interprets all that long and mournful cry! In my passion that thou art not, lo! I see thee as thou art, and the pitying fancy brings thee to assuage the anguished heart. 'Oh my brother!' and my bosom's throb of welcome at the word, claps a hundred thousand hands, and all my legions hail thee lord. And the vast unmotioned myriads, front to front, as at a breath, live and move to martial music, down the devious dance of death. Ah, thou smilest, scornful brother, at a maiden's dream of war! And thou shakest back thy locks as if-a glow-worm for thy star- i dubbed thee with a blade of grass, by earthlight, in a fairy ring, knight o' the garter o' Queen Mab, or lord in waiting to her king. Brother, in thy plum."