LORD THURLOW.

CCXXVII.

THE HARVEST HOME.

THE crimson moon, uprising from the sea,
With large delight foretells the harvest near:
Ye shepherds, now prepare your melody

To greet the soft appearance of her sphere;
And, like a page enamoured of her train,
The star of evening glimmers in the west:
Then raise, ye shepherds, your observant strain,
That so of the Great Shepherd here are blest.
Our fields are full with the time-ripened grain,
Our vineyards with the purple clusters swell;
Her golden splendour glimmers on the main,
And vales and mountains her bright glory tell:
Then sing, ye shepherds, for the time is come
When we must bring the enriched harvest home.

CCXXVIII.

A DREAM OF EGYPT.

"Where's my Serpent of old Nile?"

NIGHT sends forth many an eagle-winged dream
To soar through regions never known by day;
And I by one of these was wrapt away

To where the sunburnt Nile, with opulent stream
Makes teem the desert sand. My pomp supreme
Enriched the noon; I spurned earth's common clay;
For I was Antony and by me lay

That Snake whose sting was bliss. Nations did seem But camels for the burden of our joy;

Kings were our slaves; our wishes glowed in the air

And grew fruition; night grew day, day night, Lest the high bacchanal of our loves should cloy; We reined the tiger, Life, with flower-crowned hair, Abashlessly abandoned to delight.

JOHN TODHUNTER.

CCXXIX.

IN THE LOUVRE.

A DINGY picture: others passed it by
Without a second glance. To me it seemed
Mine somehow, yet I knew not how, nor why:
It hid some mystic thing I once had dreamed,
As I suppose. A palace porch there stood,
With massy pillars and long front, where gleamed
Most precious sculptures; but all scarred and seamed

By ruining Time. There, in a sullen mood,

A man was pacing o'er the desolate floor

Of weedy marble; and the bitter waves

Of the encroaching sea crawled to his feet,

Gushing round tumbled blocks. I conned it o'er.

Age-mouldering creeds!" said I, "a dread sea raves

To whelm the temples of our fond conceit."

CCXXX.

WITCHES.

METHOUGHT I saw three sexless things of storm,

Like Macbeth's witches-creatures of the curse
That broods, the nightmare of the universe,
Over the womb and mortal births of form;
And cloudlike in their train a vampyre swarm

Of hovering ills, each than the other worse,
Lecheries and hates that make this world a hearse

Wherein the heart of life is coffined warm.

Said the First Witch: "I am Lust, the worm that feeds

Upon the buds of love;" the Second said:

"I am the tyrant's tyrant, cruel Fear; The Third: "I am the blight of evil deeds,

The murrain of sick souls," and in my ear Whispered a name of paralysing dread.

ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.

CCXXXI.

THE HEART'S SACREDNESS.

A WRETCHED thing it were to have our heart
Like a broad highway or a populous street,
Where every idle thought has leave to meet,
Pause or pass on as in an open mart;
Or like some roadside pool, which no nice art
Has guarded that the cattle may not beat
And foul it with a multitude of feet,

Till of the heavens it give back no part.

But keep thou thine a holy solitude,

For He who would walk there would walk alone; He who would drink there must be first endued

With single right to call that stream his own; Keep thou thine heart close fastened, unrevealed, A fenced garden and a fountain sealed.