8.

The Lotos blooms below the flowery peak :

The lotos blows by every winding creek:

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone

Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos

dust is blown.

We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge

was seething free,

Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined

On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd

Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd

Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming

world:

Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,

Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.

But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning though the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer-some, 'tis whisper'd down in hell

Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and

oar;

Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.

I.

I READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade,

"The Legend of Good Women," long ago Sung by the morning star of song, who made

His music heard below;

II.

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill

The spacious times of great Elizabeth

With sounds that echo still.

III.

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art

Held me above the subject, as strong gales

Hold swollen clouds from raining, though my heart,

Brimful of those wild tales,

IV.

Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land

I saw, wherever light illumineth,

Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand

The downward slope to death.

V.

Those far-renowned brides of ancient song

Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong,

And trumpets blown for wars;

VI.

And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs:

And I saw crowds in column'd sanctuaries; And forms that pass'd at windows and on roofs

Of marble palaces;

VII.

Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall

Dislodging pinnacle and parapet

Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall;

Lances in ambush set;

VIII.

And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts

That run before the fluttering tongues of fire:

White surf wind-scattered over sails and masts,

And ever climbing higher;

IX.

Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates,
Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes,
Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,
And hush'd seraglios.

X.

So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land

Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand,

Torn from the fringe of spray.

XI.

I started once, or seem'd to start in pain,

Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak,

As when a great thought strikes along the brain,

And flushes all the cheek.