Enough if we have winked to sun,
Have sped the plough a season;
There is a soul for labour done.
Endureth fixed as reason.

Then let our trust be firm in Good,
Though we be of the fasting;
Our questions are a mortal brood,
Our work is everlasting.

We children of Beneficence,

Are in its being sharers,

And Whither vainer sounds than Whence, For word with such wayfarers.

OUTER AND INNER

From twig to twig the spider weaves
At noon his webbing fine.
So near to mute the zephyrs flute
That only leaflets dance.

The sun draws out of hazel leaves
A smell of woodland wine.

I wake a swarm to sudden storm
At any step's advance.

Along my path is bugloss blue,
The star with fruit in moss;

The foxgloves drop from throat to top
A daily lesser bell.

The blackest shadow, nurse of dew,
Has orange skeins across;

And keenly red is one thin thread
That flashing seems to swell.

My world I note ere fancy comes,
Minutest hushed observe:

What busy bits of motioned wits

Through antlered mosswork strive. But now so low the stillness hums, My springs of seeing swerve,

For half a wink to thrill and think
The woods with nymphs alive.

I neighbour the invisible

So close that my consent
Is only asked for spirits masked
To leap from trees and flowers.
And this because with them I dwell
In thought, while calmly bent
To read the lines dear Earth designs
Shall speak her life on ours.

Accept, she says; it is not hard
In woods; but she in towns
Repeats, accept; and have we wept,
And have we quailed with fears,

Or shrunk with horrors, sure reward

We have whom knowledge crowns;
Who see in mould the rose unfold,
The soul through blood and tears.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

WORLD'S WORTH

'Tis of the Father Hilary.

He strove, but could not pray; so took The steep-coiled stair, where his feet shook A sad blind echo. Ever up

He toiled.

'Twas a sick sway of air

That autumn noon within the stair,

As dizzy as a turning cup.

His brain benumbed him, void and thin; He shut his eyes and felt it spin;

The obscure deafness hemmed him in. He said: "O world, what world for me?"

He leaned unto the balcony

Where the chime keeps the night and day; It hurt his brain, he could not pray. He had his face upon the stone:

Deep 'twixt the narrow shafts, his eye Passed all the roofs to the stark sky, Swept with no wing, with wind alone.

Close to his feet the sky did shake

With wind in pools that the rains make:
The ripple set his eyes to ache.

He said: "O world, what world for me?"

He stood within the mystery

Girding God's blessed Eucharist:

The organ and the chaunt had ceas'd. The last words paused against his ear Said from the altar: drawn round him The gathering rest was dumb and dim. And now the sacring-bell rang clear

And ceased; and all was awe-the breath Of God in man that warranteth The inmost utmost things of faith. He said: "O God, my world in Thee!"

VAIN VIRTUES

What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell? None of the sins,—but this and that fair deed Which a soul's sin at length could supersede. These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel Together now, in snake-bound shuddering

sheaves

Of anguish, while the pit's pollution leaves Their refuse maidenhood abominable.

Night sucks them down, the tribute of the pit, Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,

Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit To gaze, but, yearning, waits his destined wife, The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.

LOST DAYS

The lost days of my life until to-day,
What were they, could I see them on the street
Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat
Sown once for food but trodden into clay?
Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?
Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat
The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway?

I do not see them here; but after death

God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. "I am thyself,-what hast thou done to me?" "And I—and I-thyself," (lo! each one saith,) "And thou thyself to all eternity!"