City of Elf-land, just without
Our seeing, marvel ever new,
Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt
Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue.

I build thee in yon sunset cloud, Whose edge allures to climb the height;

I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud, From still pools dusk with dreams of night.

Thy gates are shut to hardiest will,

Thy countersign of long-lost speech, -

Those fountained courts, those chambers still,

Fronting Time's far East, who shall reach?

I know not, and will never pry,

But trust our human heart for all; Wonders that from the seeker fly Into an open sense may fall.

Hide in thine own soul, and surprise The password of the unwary elves; Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies; Unsought, they whisper it themselves.

In the wild van thy mace's swing;

BLONDEL.

Make thou thine own and ours, my king!

I had found out what

Richard was in,

And was spurring for England to push on the ransom.

How I scorned the dull souls that sat guzzling around

And knew not my secret nor recked my derision!

Let the world sink or swim, John or Richard be crowned,

All one, so the beer-tax got lenient

bless ye,

but,

What infinite odds 'twixt a hero to come And your only too palpable hero in esse! Precisely the odds (such examples are rife)

"Twixt the poem conceived and the rhyme we make show of,

"Twixt the boy's morning dream and the wake-up of life,

"Twixt the Blondel God meant and a Blondel I know of!

But the world's better off, I'm convinced of it now,

Than if heroes, like buns, could be bought for a penny

To regard all mankind as their haltered milch-cow,

And just care for themselves. Well, God cares for the many; For somehow the poor old Earth blunders along,

Each son of hers adding his mite of unfitness,

And, choosing the sure way of coming out wrong,

Gets to port as the next generation will witness.

You think her old ribs have come all

crashing through,

And our sins cannot push the Lord's right hand from under.

Better one honest man who can wait for God's mind

In our poor shifting scene here though heroes were plenty!

Better one bite, at forty, of Truth's bitter rind,

Than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty!

I see it all now: when I wanted a king, 'T was the kingship that failed in myself I was seeking, 'T is so much less easy to do than to sing,

So much simpler to reign by a proxy than be king!

Yes, I think I do see: after all's said and sung,

Take this one rule of life and you never will rue it,

'Tis but do your own duty and hold your own tongue

And Blondel were royal himself, if he knew it !

MEMORIÆ POSITUM.

R. G. SHAW

I.

BENEATH the trees,

My lifelong friends in this dear spot, Sad now for eyes that see them not, I hear the autumnal breeze

Wake the dry leaves to sigh for gladness gone,

Whispering vague omens of oblivion,
Hear, restless as the seas,
Time's grim feet rustling through the
withered grace

Of many a spreading realm and strongstemmed race,

Even as my own through these.

Why make we moan

For loss that doth enrich us yet With upward yearnings of regret? Bleaker than unmossed stone

cobweb asunder;