CHAPTER II .

Indeed they do presage what will betide,
With the misgiving verdict of misdeeds;
They know a fall will follow after pride,
And in so foul a heart grows many weeds:
Our life is short, quoth they; no, 'tis too long,
Lengthen'd with evil thoughts and evil tongue.

A life must needs be short to them that dies,
For life once dead in sin doth weakly live;
These die in sin, and mask in death's disguise,

CHAPTER I .

Wisdom, elixir of the purest life,
Hath taught her lesson to judicial views,
To those that judge a cause, and end a strife,
Which sits in judgment's seat and justice use;
A lesson worthy of divinest care,
Quintessence of a true divinest fear:

Unwilling that exordium should retain
Her life-infusing speech, doth thus begin:
You, quoth she, that give remedy or pain,
Love justice, for injustice is a sin;

The Gods held talk together, group'd in knots,
Round Balder's corpse, which they had thither borne;
And Hermod came down tow'rds them from the gate.
And Lok, the father of the serpent, first
Beheld him come, and to his neighbour spake: —
" See, here is Hermod, who comes single back
From Hell; and shall I tell thee how he seems?
Like as a farmer, who hath lost his dog,
Some morn, at market, in a crowded town —
Through many streets the poor beast runs in vain,
And follows this man after that, for hours;

2. JOURNEY TO THE DEAD

Forth from the east, up the ascent of Heaven,
Day drove his courser with the shining mane;
And in Valhalla, from his gable-perch,
The golden-crested cock began to crow.
Hereafter, in the blackest dead of night,
With shrill and dismal cries that bird shall crow,
Warning the Gods that foes draw nigh to Heaven;
But now he crew at dawn, a cheerful note,
To wake the Gods and Heroes to their tasks.
And all the Gods, and all the Heroes, woke.
And from their beds the Heroes rose, and donn'd

I. SENDING

So on the floor lay Balder dead; and round
Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears,
Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown
At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove;
But in his breast stood fixt the fatal bough
Of mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gave
To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw —
'Gainst that alone had Balder's life no charm.
And all the Gods and all the Heroes came,
And stood round Balder on the bloody floor,
Weeping and wailing; and Valhalla rang

To be made wholly one
With all the world in fellowship of grief
May count for something. Human joy is brief,
And sorrow stalks between us and the sun.

I told my story of pain to one I met;
He gentler seemed, to grief more reconciled
He said: " A grey-haired mother you regret;
I sorrow for a child. "

If I could see thee! — know
Just once for certain that thou waitest me,
The dreariest pang would go:
But, this is just the gift which cannot be.

Most hard it seems to bear,
Most hard, — that, if the dead be living yet,
Our foreheads may be met
Never by breathings from their mountain-air.

O mother — just to know
That Death's forlorn black " Never " is a lie!
Then could I wait to die;

Claude Monet uses, with essential ease,
The basic method of the Japanese
Who trace the feeling of the object shown
Thro' realism of the form and tone.
In handling masses they reject detail,
And triumph where atomic painters fail.
Like the old Greeks they better Nature's best,
And this is Classic Art's abiding test;
For ideal truth is Beauty's inner law
Freed from the trammel of material flaw.

Hundreds of years ere Monet saw the light,
Or Degas came, to charm with central sight,
Ere Whistler was, or Beardsley had his hour,

There are three words, synonymous and clear,
That picture lovers everywhere revere:
The classic, the impressionist, and real —
Three words of simple force the masters feel.
The first Impressionists of classic aim
The Land of Cherry Blossoms gave to fame;
And they 're the Chiefs of realism too —
The Classic Realists of impressions true.

Impressions that impress are somewhat rare —
To catch the shiver of the open air
And paint it with a touch refin'd and true
Is only given to the chosen few.
Impressions are experience, and they teach
The painter's depth, his consciousness and reach.