TO H. F. BROWN

(Written during a dangerous sickness)

I

SIT and wait a pair of oars

On cis-Elysian river-shores.

Where the immortal dead have sate,
'T is mine to sit and meditate;
To re-ascend life's rivulet,

Without remorse, without regret;
And sing my Alma Genetrix
Among the willows of the Styx.

And lo, as my serener soul
Did these unhappy shores patrol,
And wait with an attentive ear
The coming of the gondolier,
Your fire-surviving roll I took,
Your spirited and happy book;1

1Life on the Lagoons, by H. F. Brown, originally burned in the fire at Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.'s.

Whereon, despite my frowning fate,
It did my soul so recreate

That all my fancies fled away
On a Venetian holiday.

Now, thanks to your triumphant care, Your pages clear as April air,

The sails, the bells, the birds, I know, And the far-off Friulan snow;

The land and sea, the sun and shade,
And the blue even lamp-inlaid.

For this, for these, for all, O friend,
For your whole book from end to end-
For Paron Piero's muttonham
I your defaulting debtor am.

Perchance, reviving, yet may I
To your sea-paven city hie,
And in a felze, some day yet
Light at your pipe my cigarette.

D'

TO ANDREW LANG

EAR Andrew, with the brindled hair,

Who glory to have thrown in air,
High over arm, the trembling reed,
By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed:
An equal craft of hand you show
The pen to guide, the fly to throw:
I count you happy starred: for God,
When he with inkpot and with rod
Endowed you, bade your fortune lead
Forever by the crooks of Tweed,
Forever by the woods of song
And lands that to the Muse belong;
Or if in peopled streets, or in
The abhorred pedantic sanhedrim,
It should be yours to wander, still
Airs of the morn, airs of the hill,
The plovery Forest and the seas
That break about the Hebrides,
Should follow over field and plain
And find you at the window pane;

And you again see hill and peel,
And the bright springs gush at your heel.
So went the fiat forth, and so
Garrulous like a brook you go,

With sound of happy mirth and sheen
Of daylight - whether by the green
You fare that moment, or the grey;
Whether you dwell in March or May;
Or whether treat of reels and rods
Or of the old unhappy gods:

Still like a brook your page has shone,
And your ink sings of Helicon.

IN

ET TU IN ARCADIA VIXISTI

(TO R. A. M. S.)

N ancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt;

There, from of old, thy childhood passed; and there

High expectation, high delights and deeds, Thy fluttering heart with hope and terror moved.

And thou hast heard of yore the Blatant Beast,

And Roland's horn, and that war-scattering shout

Of all-unarmed Achilles, ægis-crowned.

And perilous lands thou sawest, sounding shores

And seas and forests drear, island and dale And mountain dark. For thou with Tris

tram rod'st

Or Bedevere, in farthest Lyonesse.

Thou hadst a booth in Samarcand, whereat