to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green, And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

p. 85

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there, Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew, And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue! The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

p. 86ATHANASIA

p. 86

To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught Of all the great things men have saved from Time, The withered body of a girl was brought Dead ere the world’s glad youth had touched its prime, And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid In the dim womb of some black pyramid.

To

But when they had unloosed the linen band Which swathed the Egyptian’s body,—lo! was found Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand A little seed, which sown in English ground Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air.

With such strange arts this flower did allure That all forgotten was the asphodel, And the brown bee, the lily’s paramour, Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell, For not a thing of earth it seemed to be, But stolen from some heavenly Arcady.

p. 87In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white At its own beauty, hung across the stream, The purple dragon-fly had no delight With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam, Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss, Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis.

p. 87

For love of it the passionate nightingale Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king, And the pale dove no longer cared to sail Through the wet woods at time of blossoming, But round this flower of Egypt sought to float, With silvered wing and amethystine throat.

While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue A cooling wind crept from the land of snows, And the warm south with tender tears of dew Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos up-rose Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie.

But when o’er wastes of lily-haunted field The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune, And broad and glittering like an 

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