So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some fullbreasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her dath, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. At length he groan'd, and turning slowly clomb The last hardfootstep of that iron crag Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet and cried, "He passes to be king among the dead And after healing of his grievous wound IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON. Two dead men have I known Two dead men have I loved With a love that ever will be: Three dead men have I loved, and thou art last of the three. THE VOICE AND THE PEAK. THE voice and the Peak 358 A WELCOME TO THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH. Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm, Waverings of every vane with every wind, And wordy trucklings to the transient hour, And fierce or careless looseners of the faith, And Softness breeding scorn of simple life, Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold, Or Labor, with a groan and not a voice, Or Art, with poisonous honey stol'n from France, And that which knows, but careful for itself, And that which knows not, ruling that which knows To its own harm: the goal of this great world Lies beyond sight: yet-if our slowlygrown And crown'd Republic's crowning com mon-sense, That saved her many times, not failtheir fears Are morning shadows huger than the shapes That cast them, not those gloomier The darkness of that battle in the West, A WELCOME TO THE DUKE AND March, 1874. I. THE Son of him with whom we strove for power Whose will is lord thro' all his worlddomain Who male the serf a man, and burst Has given our Prince his own Imperial Alexandra. And welcome, Russian flower, a people's pride, To Britain, when her flowers begin to blow ! From love to love, from home to home you go. From mother unto mother, stately bride, Marie-Alexandrovna. II. The golden news along the steppes is blown, And at thy name the Tartar tents are stirred: Elburz and all the Caucasus have heard ; And all the sultry palms of India known, Alexandrovna, The voice of our universal sea, On capes of Afric as on cliffs of The Maoris and that Isle of Conti nent, And loyal pines of Canada murmur III. Fair empires branching, both, in lusty life! Yet Harold's England fell to Norman Yet thine own land has bow'd to Since English Harold gave its throne a Alexandrovna. For thrones and peoples are as waifs that swing, And float or fall, in endless ebb and |