So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-armed I ride, whate'er betide,

Until I find the holy Grail.

TENNYSON

113.-TO DARKNESS

HAIL, thou most sacred, venerable thing!
What muse is worthy thee to sing—
Thee, from whose pregnant, universal womb
All things, even Light, thy rival, first did come?
What dares he not attempt that sings of thee,
Thou first and greatest mystery?

Who can the secrets of thy essence tell?
Thou, like the light of God, art inaccessible.

Before great Love this monument did raise,
This ample theatre of praise;

Before the folding circles of the sky
Were tuned by Him who is all harmony;
Before the morning stars their hymn began,
Before the council held for man,

Before the birth of either time or place,

Thou reign'st unquestioned monarch in the empty space.

Thy native lot thou did'st to Light resign,
But still half of the globe is thine.

Here, with a quiet but yet awful hand,

Like the best emperors thou dost command.

To thee the stars above their brightness owe,
And mortals their repose below;

To thy protection fear and sorrow flee,

And those that weary are of Light find rest in thee.

Though light and glory be the Almighty's throne,
Darkness is His pavilion;

From that His radiant beauty, but from thee
He has His terror and His majesty :

Thus, when He first proclaimed His sacred law,
And would His rebel subjects awe,

Like princes on some great solemnity,

He appeared in His robes of state, and clad Himself with thee.

J. NORRIS

114. TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL 17861

WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem.

To spare thee now is past my power,

Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie Lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,3
Wi' spreckled breast,

2

When upward-springing, blythe, to greet

The purpling east.

1 This poem was really composed under the circumstances described.

2 Dust.

3 Wetness.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,

Scarce reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield,
But thou, beneath the random bield 1

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie 2 stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawy bosom sun-ward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise ;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless Maid,
Sweet floweret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betrayed,

And guileless trust;

Till she, like thee, all soiled is laid
Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple Bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starred !
Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,

1 Shelter.

And whelm him o'er!

2 Dry.

Such fate to suffering worth is given,

Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven

To misery's brink,

Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink!

Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom;

Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be thy doom!

R. BURNS

115. AT A SOLEMN MUSIC

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,
Sphere-born harmonious Sisters, Voice and Verse!
Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce ;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbèd Song of pure consent
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
To Him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout and solemn jubilee;
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow;
And the Cherubic host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms

Singing everlastingly :

That we on Earth, with undiscording voice
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportioned sin
Jarred against nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

O may we soon again renew that Song,

And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long To His celestial consort us unite,

To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light!

116. BY THE SEA

J. MILTON

WHY does the sea moan evermore?
Shut out from heaven it makes its moan,
It frets against the boundary shore;
All earth's full rivers cannot fill

The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.

Sheer miracles of loveliness

Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed :

Anemones, salt, passionless,

Blow flower-like; just enough alive
To blow and multiply and thrive.

Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike,
Encrusted live things Argus-eyed,

All fair alike, yet all unlike,

Are born without a pang, and die
Without a pang, and so pass by.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

1 See p. 54.