Bid sow, when the crane starts clanging for Afric, in shrill-voiced emigrant number,

And calls to the pilot to hang up his rudder again for the season, and slumber;

And then weave a cloak for Orestes the thief, lest he strip men of theirs if it freezes.

And again thereafter the kite reappearing announces a change in the breezes,

And that here is the season for shearing your sheep of their spring wool. Then does the swallow

Give you notice to sell your greatcoat, and provide something light for the heat that's to follow.

Thus are we as Ammon or Delphi unto you, Dodona, nay, Phœbus Apollo.

For, as first ye come all to get auguries of birds, even such is in all things your carriage,

Be the matter a matter of trade, or of earning your bread, or of any one's marriage.

And all things ye lay to the charge of a bird that belong to discerning prediction:

Winged fame is a bird, as you reckon: you sneeze, and the sign's as a bird for conviction:

All tokens are 'birds' with you—sounds too, and lackeys, and donkeys. Then must it not follow

That we ARE to you all as the manifest godhead that speaks in prophetic Apollo?

October 19, 1880.

 OFF SHORE.

When the might of the summer

Is most on the sea;

When the days overcome her

With joy but to be,

With rapture of royal enchantment, and sorcery that sets her not free,

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