It were enough to feel, to see,
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,

And dream the rest-and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,

Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear,
All things revive in field or grove,

And sky and sea, but two, which move,
And form all others, life and love.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

ΧΧΙ

A CONQUEST

I FOUND him openly wearing her token;

I knew that her troth could never be broken;
I laid my hand on the hilt of my sword,

He did the same, and he spoke no word;
He faced me with his villainy;

He laughed, and said, "She gave it me.
We searched for seconds, they soon were found;
They measured our swords; they measured the ground:
They held to the deadly work too fast;
They thought to gain our place at last.

We fought in the sheen of a wintry wood,
The fair white snow was red with his blood;
But his was the victory, for, as he died,
He swore by the rood that he had not lied.
WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK.

XXII

TO JULIET

FAREWELL, then. It is finished.

I forego

With this all right in you, even that of tears.
If I have spoken hardly, it will show
How much I loved you. With you disappears
A glory, a romance of early years.

What you may be henceforth I will not know.
The phantom of your presence on my fears
Is impotent at length for weal or woe.
Your past, your present, all alike must fade
In a new land of dreams where love is not.
Then kiss me and farewell. The choice is made,
And we shall live to see the past forgot,

If not forgiven.

Yet stay to bless.

See, I came to curse,

I know not which is worse.

WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

XXIII

WALY, WALY

O WALY, waly, up the bank,

O waly, waly, doun the brae,
And waly, waly, yon burn-side,

Where I and my love were wont to gae!

I lean'd my back unto an aik,

I thocht it was a trusty tree,

But first it bowed and syne it brak',-
Sae my true love did lichtlie me.

O waly, waly, but love be bonnie,
A little time while it is new!
But when it's auld it waxeth cauld,
And fadeth away like the morning dew.
O wherefore should I busk my heid,
O wherefore should I kame my hair?
For my true love has me forsook,

And says he'll never lo'e me mair.

Noo Arthur's Seat sall be my bed,

The sheets sall ne'er be pressed by me;
Saint Anton's Well sall be my drink;
Since my true love's forsaken me.
Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw,
And shake the green leaves aff the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou come?
For of my life I am wearie.

'Tis not the frost that freezes fell,

Nor blawing snaw's inclemencie,
'Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry;

But my love's heart grown cauld to me.
When we cam' in by Glasgow toun,
We were a comely sicht to see;
My love was clad in the black velvet,
An' I mysel' in cramasie.

But had I wist before I kiss'd

That love had been sae ill to win,
I'd lock'd my heart in a case o' gowd,
And pinn'd it wi' a siller pin.
Oh, oh, if my young babe were born,

And set upon the nurse's knee;
And I mysel' were dead and gane,

And the green grass growing over me!

UNKNOWN.

XXIV

BARBARA

ON the Sabbath-day,

Through the churchyard old and gray,

Over the crisp and yellow leaves I held my rustling way : And amid the words of mercy, falling on my soul like

balms,

'Mid the gorgeous storms of music-in the mellow organcalms,

'Mid the upward-streaming prayers, and the rich and solemn psalms,

I stood careless, Barbara.

My heart was otherwhere

While the organ shook the air,

And the priest, with outspread hands, blest the people with a prayer;

But, when rising to go homeward, with a mild and saintlike shine

Gleamed a face of airy beauty with its heavenly eyes on

mine

Gleamed and vanished in a moment-O that face was surely thine

Out of heaven, Barbara!

O pallid, pallid face!

O earnest eyes of grace!

When last I saw thee, dearest, it was in another place. You came running forth to meet me with my love-gift on your wrist :

The flutter of a long white dress, then all was lost in mist

A purple stain of agony was on the mouth I kissed,
That wild morning, Barbara.

I searched, in my despair,

Sunny noon and midnight air;

I could not drive away the thought that you were lingering there.

O many and many a winter night I sat when you were

gone,

My worn face buried in my hands, beside the fire aloneWithin the dripping churchyard, the rain plashing on the

stone,

You were sleeping, Barbara.

'Mong angels, do you think Of the precious golden link

I clasped around your happy arm while sitting by yon brink?

Or when that night of gliding dance, of laughter and

guitars,

Was emptied of its music, and we watched, through latticed bars,

The silent midnight heaven creeping o'er us with its stars, Till the day broke, Barbara?

In the years I've changed;

Wild and far my heart hath ranged,

And many sins and errors now have been on me avenged;
But to you I have been faithful, whatsoever good I lacked :
I loved you, and above my life still hangs that love intact—
Your love the trembling rainbow, I the reckless cataract—
Still I love you,
Barbara.

Yet, love, I am unblest;

With many doubts opprest,

I wander like a desert wind, without a place of rest. Could I but win you for an hour from off that starry shore,