Side-looking Magians trafficked; thence, by

night,

An Afreet snatched thee, and with wings upbore

Beyond the Aral mount; or, hoping gain,
Thou, with a jar of money, didst embark,
For Balsorah, by sea. But chiefly thou
In that clear air took'st life; in Arcady
The haunted, land of song; and by the wells
Where most the gods frequent. There
Chiron old,

In the Pelethronian antre, taught thee lore:
The plants, he taught, and by the shining

stars

In forests dim to steer. There hast thou

seen

Immortal Pan dance secret in a glade,

And, dancing, roll his eyes; these, where they fell,

Shed glee, and through the congregated oaks A flying horror winged; while all the earth To the god's pregnant footing thrilled within.

Or whiles, beside the sobbing stream, he breathed,

In his clutched pipe, unformed and wizard strains,

Divine yet brutal; which the forest heard, And thou, with awe; and far upon the plain The unthinking ploughman started and gave ear.

Now things there are that, upon him who

sees,

A strong vocation lay; and strains there are That whoso hears shall hear for evermore. For evermore thou hear'st immortal Pan And those melodious godheads, ever young And ever quiring, on the mountains old.

What was this earth, child of the gods, to thee?

Forth from thy dreamland thou, a dreamer, cam'st,

And in thine ears the olden music rang,
And in thy mind the doings of the dead,
And those heroic ages long forgot.
To a so fallen earth, alas! too late.
Alas! in evil days, thy steps return,
To list at noon for nightingales, to grow
A dweller on the beach till Argo come
That came long since, a lingerer by the
pool

Where that desirèd angel bathes no more.

As when the Indian to Dakota comes,
Or farthest Idaho, and where he dwelt,
He with his clan, a humming city finds;
Thereon awhile, amazed, he stares, and then
To right and leftward, like a questing dog,
Seeks first the ancestral altars, then the
hearth

Long cold with rains, and where old terror lodged,

And where the dead. So thee undying

Hope,

With all her pack, hunts screaming through the years:

Here, there, thou fleeëst; but nor here nor there

The pleasant gods abide, the glory dwells.

That, that was not Apollo, not the god. This was not Venus, though she Venus seemed

A moment. And though fair yon river

move,

She, all the way, from disenchanted fount To seas unhallowed runs; the gods forsook Long since her trembling rushes; from her plains

Disconsolate, long since adventure fled;

And now although the inviting river flows, And every poplared cape, and every bend Or willowy islet, win upon thy soul

And to thy hopeful shallop whisper speed; Yet hope not thou at all; hope is no more; And O, long since the golden groves are dead,

The faery cities vanished from the land!

TO W. E. HENLEY

HE year runs through her phases; rain

THE

and sun,

Springtime and summer pass; winter succeeds;

But one pale season rules the house of death. Cold falls the imprisoned daylight; fell disease

By each lean pallet squats, and pain and sleep

Toss gaping on the pillows.

Uprise and take thy pipe.

But O thou!

Bid music flow, Strains by good thoughts attended, like the spring

The swallows follow over land and sea.

Pain sleeps at once; at once, with open eyes, Dozing despair awakes. The shepherd sees His flock come bleating home; the seaman hears