In mount or vale, throughout the changeful year,
From all the by-ways of the world, I peer
Into the secret places where they wind
Almost beyond the utmost reach of mind,
And beauty, beauty everywhere I find.

" O why, " I asked, " doth Nature in such wealth
Lavish her jewels, hide them as by stealth,
The wondrous treasures of her artist soul
In opulence outpour, and o'er the whole
Great wilderness of worlds her splendours roll? "

From jungles only to the wild things known,
From waste karroo, from forest deep and lone.

The choral pines to the wild winds are singing,
A weird Æolian strain,
Aloft their green imperial branches swinging
In sunshine, dark and rain,
Through all the patient centuries outflinging
Their litanies of pain.

Stern atmospheres and lashing storms enfold them
And robes of ancient night;
The rock-sills of the solid planet hold them
And swing them to the light;
They whisper dreams — the dreams the mountains told them,
The great peaks tipped with white.

Dreams of the story of their own creation —
How from a burning mist

HE ANSWERS AGAIN

I KNOW you love me still, for all the blue
And ardent glances of your tender eyes
Can never feign, or you would not be you;
And yet in your high heart you do despise
The thing I did, and swift resentments rise
That I, unto myself was so untrue,
That I could stain the perfect love I knew,
That I could so defile my life's set prize!
You love me, yes, and yet you hate the sin
Against our love's convincing purity;
I mourn with you for what I might have been,
High priest of loyal Love's security —

HE ANSWERS

You , who have suffered much because I failed,
This bitter anguish you can never know —
To see in eyes you love the utter woe
Of one whose heart unto a cross is nailed.
Must those dear eyes forever be half veiled
As though afraid to meet the cruel blow
Of disillusion? Ah! how faint their glow —
Poor, martyred spirits by their love impaled.
Beloved, I would give my days to this,
Could I but render back the joy you miss,
And lift the load I laid, the deep distress.
I, by whose hand your soul was rudely torn —

SCENE SECOND. — Another P ART OF THE F OREST .

Enter L EFROY , carrying his rifle, and examining a knot of wild flowers .

L EFROY . This region is as lavish of its flowers
As Heaven of its primrose blooms by night.
This is the Arum which within its root
Folds life and death; and this the Prince's Pine,
Fadeless as love and truth — the fairest form
That ever sun-shower washed with sudden rain.
This golden cradle is the Moccasin Flower,
Wherein the Indian hunter sees his hound;

The wall is without a rampart. Because it holds no water,
the moat has calves grazing and frisking in it. So the city
stands. Her father does not think about this, since he
is deluded. And her brothers—Killi of the swift horses
who wears a chaplet lovely to look at
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

With your elephants in rut, with your proud horses, with your fame
that does not fade, Pekan, you who gave clothing to the dark
mindless peacock in compassion because it was shivering with the cold!
I come to you not because I am hungry, not because of the burden
of my family! But the gift for which I beg is that tonight
you may mount your chariot strung with bells and free her
of the anguish she lives with, and for that I sing “May those
who love mercy act with justice!” while I play on my small yal
black as a kalam berry, keeping

The glowing Seraph with the brow of light
Was first among the Faithful. When the war
Between heaven's rival armies fiercely waged,
She bore the Will Divine from rank to rank,
The chosen courier of Deity.
Her presence cheered the combatants for Truth,
And Victory stood up where'er she moved.
And now, in gleaming robe of woven pearl,
Emblazoned with devices of the stars,
And legends of their glory yet to come,
The type of Beauty Intellectual,
The representative of Love and Truth,
She moves first in the innumerable throng

Back from a journey; mournful, it is true,
But mingled with a deep-down sweetness, too.
After the law with that poor girl was done,
I found permission with the proper one,
And, though such things by law could not occur,
In my heart-family I adopted her.
(Help much too late to benefit her, living —
It's that way with a good share of our giving!)
But with a father's love, " Poor girl! " I said,
" You shall have all that I can give you, dead! "
I found, by lightning inquiries I made,
The graveyard where her own loved ones were laid;

LIB . II. Ode IV.— CLASSICAL LOVE MATCHES .

Odeem not thy love for a captive maid
Doth, Phoceus, the heart of a Roman degrade!
Like the noble Achilles, 'tis simply, simply,
With a “Briseis” thou sharest thy bed.

Ajax of Telamon did the same,
Felt in his bosom a Phrygian flame;
Taught to contemn none, King Agamemnon
Fond of a Trojan slave became.
Such was the rule with the Greeks of old,
When they had conquer'd the foe's stronghold;
When gallant Hector—Troy's protector—
Falling, the knell of Ilion toll'd.