the ages." Softly the plash of the waters of Leman Sounds from the rough-tumbled stones at its margin: Gently the zephyrs play over its surface, Making it glitter with myriads of sparklets. Swiftly the barques trim their sails in the sunshine— Sails high and slender that swell to the breezes, White as the snow on the breast of the Jungfrau— Mirrored in whiteness upon the blue water. 

 As I sat watching the lake and the mountains, Slowly a haze like a curtain of muslin, Flimsy and fine like a texture of cobweb, Drifted and rose till it shut out the bases And bulk of the mountains across the still water, Whilst high above it the crests and sierras Stood out as castles and walls of enchantment, Raised in the air like king Solomon's city, Held up aloft by invisible genii. Then in the faintly drawn lines of escarpment, Battlements, pinnacles, turrets and bastions Sprang into being, and fancy, untrammelled, Pictured a palace with walls, and a fortress Beleaguered and stormed by a shadowy army, Massed under pennons seen dim through the vapour. 

 Over the drawbridge a desperate sortie Made by the knights of the castle invested Brings the foes quickly in conflict together. Plumes white and restless like foam on the breakers Drift to and fro with the tide of the battle; Falchions and maces and curtaxes gleaming A moment aloft, strike sparks in descending On corslet and casque and dinted escutcheon, Whilst out of the contest, with stumbling footsteps The wounded are led sore stricken and helpless. Ladies in sarcenet, arabesque broidered With blossoms that climb fantastic in colour,— Stiff flowers of blazonry's formal convention That rise from the hem to the throat in profusion, Where carcanets flash on bosoms unquiet,— Look from their casements with eyes full of wonder, Down on the conflict that rages below them, Fierce in the shock and the heat of encounter, Hearing the war-cries and clashing of weapons, Winding of horns, and the groans of the dying. Till all was lost in the thickening curtain, Veiled by the mist were my golden romances. 

 Once when a snowstorm swept over lake Leman Filling the distance with wildly tossed snowflakes, I pictured a scene in the heart of the mountains, Hidden in shadows, unknown to the climber, Out of the range of Humanity's footsteps. There is the cave where the slumbering ice god Hides from the gaze of the wandering stranger, Shut in the depths of the mountain's recesses, Rent long ago by the force of upheavals In the wild turmoil and labour of earthquake. There sits the god of the cold everlasting, Guarding the spirits of men who have perished In their endeavours to master the 

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