laughter

Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.

They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,
Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.
And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished,
And some strange shadows threw.

And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving,

I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears
I hid from him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated
Adown titanic glooms of chasme d hears
From those strong feet that followed, followed after
But with unhurrying chase and unperturbe d pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat, and a Voice beat,
More instant than the feet:

Here on a hill of the occident stand we shoulder to shoulder,
Comrades tried and true through a mighty swath of the years!
Spring harps glad laughter through us, and ministrant rains of the autumn
Sing us again the songs of ancient dolor and tears.

The glory of sunrise smites on our fair, free brows uplifted
When the silver-kirtled day steps over the twilight's bars;
At evening we look adown into valleys hearted with sunset,
And we whisper old lore together under the smouldering stars.

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,

I have been so great a lover: filled in days
So proudly with the splendor of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.

PETER RONSARD loquitur.)

``Heigho!'' yawned one day King Francis,
``Distance all value enhances!
``When a man's busy, why, leisure
``Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:
`` 'Faith, and at leisure once is he?
``Straightway he wants to be busy.
``Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm
``Caught thinking war the true pastime.
``Is there a reason in metre?
``Give us your speech, master Peter!''
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er am at loss with my Naso,
``Sire,'' I replied, ``joys prove cloudlets:

Now two have met, now two have met,
Who may not meet again—
Two grains of sand, two blades of grass,
Two threads within the skein—
Beside the Great Grey Water.

Two hands to touch, two hearts to touch;
And, here forgathered, we
Will not forget, may not forget,
Where last forgathered three—
Beyond the Great Grey Water.

Two glasses filled, two pipes to fill—
‘To all our fortunes, brother!’
And as they clink—like so—we drink
Fair passage to the other

'NEATH the shadow

Of these bushes,
On the meadow

Where the cooling water gushes.
Phoebus gave me, when a boy,
All life's fullness to enjoy.
So, in silence, as the God
Bade them with his sov'reign nod,
Sacred Muses train'd my days
To his praise.--
With the bright and silv'ry flood
Of Parnassus stirr'd my blood,
And the seal so pure and chaste
By them on my lips was placed.

With her modest pinions, see,
Philomel encircles me!
In these bushes, in yon grove,

When the two sisters go to fetch
water, they come to this spot and
they smile.
They must be aware of somebody
who stands behind the trees when-
ever they go to fetch water.
The two sisters whisper to each
other when they pass this spot.
They must have guessed the secret
of that somebody who stands behind
the trees whenever they go to
fetch water.
Their pitchers lurch suddenly, and
water spills when they reach this
spot.
They must have found out that

To the guests that must go bid
God's speed and brush away all traces
of their steps.
Take to your bosom with a smile
what is easy and simple and near.
To-day is the festival of phantoms
that know not when they die.
Let your laughter be but a meaning-
less mirth like twinkles of light on
the ripples.
Let your life lightly dance on the
edges of Time like dew on the tip of
a leaf.
Strike in chords from your harp
fitful momentary rhythms.