Then said the general, "Lo, a vow I on this battle swore
That I would send a thousand souls to bow at Neptune's door.
That where the outer ocean licks the earth's down-curving rim
A thousand captive victims would I there devote to him.
But now that victory bright has crowned the fight I held in fear
I find a way my vow to pay is like to cost me dear.

Ships can I spare not more than one from out my scattered fleets,

And none can bear my thousand there if rowers fill the seats." To him my captain, "Trouble not, my general, o'er thy vow; See, I need hardly raise my hand to bring my legion now With five times ten of chosen men to make thy captives row: I'll pay the debt." The general wet his lips and answered,

"Go!

Without thy rowers ne'er again shall you revisit home;
Yet go. Oh, thrice devoted, how thy name shall ring in

Rome!

My friend in life, in death, in strife, the gods thy deed shall

know

When high thy turning altars shade the sky with incense; go!" Then swift my captain gripped his hand and swifter turned

away,

And strode with eyes that filled with flame to where my

cohorts lay.

Awhile he spoke, then from the crowd that clamored for the

place

He sorted half a century to do the general's grace.

And while our fires set the beach alight with ruddy glow
He ranged the chosen victims on the seats and bade them row,
And long ere dawn had lent the morn her flying standards red
I scraped my ram across the beach and gliding by the head
That jutted out across the bay and gave the port its lee
I looked a last farewell and passed forever out to sea.
Across the lapping azure waves that range the southern coast
I swept away to westward with my sullen captive host.
Six evenings saw the sun before my gilded rostrum sink
Until when dawned the seventh day I swept across the brink
Where frown the lofty pillared gates the Hero's labors set
To ward away the storms that on the outer ocean fret.

Again six nights my captain held me straight where sang the

day

And laughed to see the chill green waves along my quarter play; And oft he cried to those beside who watched the flying foam, "Chill graves indeed, but think how great our triumph looms in Rome."

Then on we sped and on while bread and water dwindled slow, While ever louder snarled the herd of captives forced to row. And thus we drave across the wave till 'neath a sunny morn The captain showed our water casks with all their taps withdrawn.

"So comes our end, good friends," he said. ""Twere foolish now to wait

Till dearth of water drive the soul before black Pluto's gate;
This day shall see us gathered here our last farewell to make,
And leave our charge to pay the vow our general might not
break."

Then while we rocked beneath the sun a clamoring began,
Beneath my decks as swift the news of failing water ran,
But grim the captain smiled and sent to double every chain
That not a man should break away to make our promise vain.
And when at last the day had passed and twilight faded low,
Our band of fifty gathered 'neath the dying western glow,
And one by one they bowed to touch the captain's poisoned
drink,

Again somewhile the captain harked the howling wolves below,
Then laughed aloud and raised his cup across the sunset slow,
A moment poised, then swift it touched his lips, and drinking

deep,

He set it down and, seated by his soldiers, fell asleep.

With dragging oars I drifted on, no more my captives rowed, But dully sought to find what ill their master's absence showed, Until at last a silence filled my shadow-freighted hold,

Unbroken save for beams that creaked as o'er the swells I rolled.

Death-still the crowded benches watched the shivering oar bars shake

And still as death across the sea I watched the daylight break.

Across the sky the sun blazed high with cruel, piercing heat
And o'er the decks above my thousand gasping rowers beat.
Then raged the herded wolves again and made the hold resound,
But troubled not the sleepers where they lay, nor freedom
found,

Nor any drink but rolling sweat that dripped across their eyes
As blistered by the sun I rode beneath the blazing skies.
Full long they raged and clashed their chains and screamed
with failing breath

Till chill the twilight brought again a silence still as death.
And thus for days and darkness twain I rolled beneath the sun
That baked my scorching sides and made the tarry seamings

run,

And now and then a gasping cry would bring a riot out,

And now and then a groan would pierce the silence like a shout,
But bound they lay nor broke away a single tortured soul.
And ever swifter through their ranks the chilling shadow stole,
And ever less the cries arose until at seventh dawn

The last of all I bore to pay our general's vow had gone.
So now at last the voyage was past and all my duty done,
And sprung from northward came a breeze before the rising

sun,

Which led me ever swifter as a falling meteor flees

With oars that trailed behind me o'er the tops of curling seas Until I felt a stroking touch that checked my onward speed, And found my rostrum brushing through this isle of floating weed.

And high at last I shouldered on the shore the seaweeds form Where sail the ships whose masters set them free before the

storm;

While centuries have swept the sky my sisters from the deep Have made this soundless port at last their endless watch to keep,

From leathern-sheeted galley to the steel-bound sail-less ships That make their way by swimming, one and all have found their slips

By me, the first to reach the port within the grass-filled foam, The ship that bore the gift before the waiting gods of Rome.

J. Carlisle Peet.

T

THE POETRY OF FRANCIS THOMPSON.

HIS is not a poet-producing age. Few men, at least, adopt poetry as their sole calling and ultimate aim in life. If, then, there arise a man who takes his muse with utter seriousness and spends a life of singing, we may indeed wonder and be glad. Such a man was Francis Thompson. Out of a series of sorrows and disappointments he found inspiration for the beauty of his verse, as well as the material out of which he fashioned a life remarkable for courage and purity.

In considering his poetry the facts of his life are of peculiar interest, since his poetry is the spiritual essence of daily experience. The son of a Lancashire physician, he was nurtured in the Catholic belief and educated at Ushaw College. There he drank deep of classic literature, and doubtless caught glimpses of his destined vocation, but in accordance with his father's wishes he studied medicine at Owens College. Failing thrice to pass his examinations, he sought itinerary employment, and at length, disowned by his father, who believed him quite a failure, he made his way to London. "Like De Quincey," Wilfrid Meynell remarks, "he found Oxford Street a stony-hearted stepmother." Employed for some months by a bootmaker during this period of wretched existence, he managed to copy out on bits of paper, his "Dream Tryst" and the prose piece, "Paganism, Old and New." Utterly unfitted for self-support, sick in body and mind, he took to selling newspapers and peddling matches, till at length rescued by Wilfrid and Mrs. Meynell, and removed to the Franciscan monastery in Sussex. It was here that most of his poetry was written, and that life and strength came back to him. But his body never regained the joyous strength that was characteristic of his poetry. Ten weeks before his death his powers failed rapidly and he was for some time the carefully tended guest

of his friend and admirer, Wilfrid Blunt. Believing he felt renewed strength he at length made his way to London, but the forces of his shattered health were spent and on the 13th of November he died.

Briefly these are the outlines of his short life. Mr. Hackett of the Yale Press, who as a schoolboy in the Sussex Franciscan monastery knew Thompson, has told the writer a little of the man's character. "At first we rather shunned him, a silent, none too attractive figure. But a gentleness in his personality, a fine courtesy of manner at length won us over." Thompson was at this time about 30 years of age. His most fruitful years were yet before him. "Even then," Mr. Hackett continues, "Father Jeffcotte remarked, 'There is the greatest poet in England today.'

His first small book, entitled, "Poems," was indeed a revelation for the literary world. There was no long waiting upon dusty book-sellers' shelves, no apprenticeship of harsh criticism by unknowing and unfeeling reviewers. One of the scanty casts of good fortune granted the sorrowful man was the opportunity for review by fellow-poets. Wilfrid Blunt, Coventry Patmore and others became his immediate admirers. He had now friends indeed and yet friends won solely by the fine frenzy and exquisite beauty of his verse. His poetry was marked by a matured skill in artifice, by an unreined spontaneity, a fervent and gorgeous flow of imagery; sometimes a majesty of rhythm and conceit almost orchestral, sometimes an indescribable lyric mystery that few poets since Rossetti have breathed into verse. No modern poet has won the enthusiastic review that Thompson gained. He has been compared to men of such varied talents as Crashaw, Shelley, Coleridge and Milton.

The manner of his verse or the vesture in which he wrapped his thought was indeed composite and varied. Milton's life of asceticism he imitated, but the striving after the perfectly finished verse, launched by Milton's work, he despised. His belief was that such a doctrine crushes originality, spontaneity and freshness. In his essay, "The Way of Imperfection," he says, "The principle leads again to aestheticism; which is simply the aspiration for a hot-house seclusion of beauty in a