J^wn Cuvli 'iCInUcy 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 ^ £1
 
 SISTER SONGS
 
 Uniform with this 
 
 Poems 
 
 by Francis Thompson 
 with frontispiece, title-page 
 and cover design by 
 Laurence Housman 
 4th edition, sm. 4to, 5s. net
 
 ISTER-SONGS 
 
 AN OFFERING TO 
 TWO SISTERS 
 BY FRANCIS THOMPSON 
 
 LONDON JOHN LANE AT THE 
 BODLEY HEAD VIGO STREET 
 BOSTON • COPELAND AND DAY 
 
 1895
 
 r 
 
 .■^K
 
 P R H F A C H 
 
 This poem, though new in the sense of being now 
 for the first time printed, was written some four years 
 ago, about the same date as the Hound of Heaven in 
 my former vokuTie. 
 
 One image in the Proem was an unconscious pla- 
 giarism from the beautiful image in Mr. Patmore's 
 St. Valentine's Day : — 
 
 " O baby Spring, 
 
 That flutter'st sudden 'neath the breast of Earth, 
 
 A month before the birth ! " 
 
 Finding I could not disengage it without injury to 
 the passage in which it is embedded, I have preferred 
 to leave it, with this acknowledgment to a Poet rich 
 enough to lend to the poor. 
 
 FRANCIS THOMPSON. 
 1895.
 
 SISTER SONGS 
 
 An Offering to Two Sisters 
 
 The Proem 
 
 Shrewd winds and shrill — were these the speech of 
 May? 
 A ragged, slag-grey sky — invested so, 
 Mary's spoilt nursling ! wert thou wont to go ? 
 Or tho2i^ Sun-god and song-god, say 
 Could singer pipe one tiniest linnet-lay, 
 
 While Song did turn away his face from song ? 
 
 Or who could be 
 In spirit or in body hale for long, — 
 
 Old /Esculap's best Master ! — lacking thee
 
 At length, then, thou art here ! 
 On the earth's lethM ear 
 Thy voice of light rings out exultant, strong ; 
 Through dreams she stirs and murmurs at that 
 summons dear : 
 
 From its red leash my heart strains tamelessly, 
 For Spring leaps in the womb of the young year ! 
 Nay, was it not brought forth before, 
 And we waited, to behold it, 
 Till the sun's hand should unfold it, 
 What the year's young bosom bore ? 
 Even so ; it came, nor knew we that it came, 
 In the sun's eclipse. 
 Yet the birds have plighted vows, 
 And from the branches pipe each other's name ; 
 Yet the season all the boughs 
 Has kindled to the finger-tips, — 
 Mark yonder, how the long laburnum drips 
 Its jocund spilth of fire, its honey of wild flame ! 
 Yea, and myself put on swift quickening. 
 And answer to the presence of a sudden Spring. 
 From cloud-zoned pinnacles of the secret spirit
 
 Song falls precipitant in dizzying streams ; 
 And, like a mountain-hold when war-shouts stir it, 
 The mind's recessed fastness casts to light 
 Its gleaming multitudes, that from every height 
 
 .Unfurl the flaming of a thousand dreams. 
 Now therefore, thou who bring'st the year to birth, 
 
 Who guid'st the bare and dabbled feet of May ; 
 Sweet stem to that rose Christ, who from the earth 
 Suck'st our poor prayers, conveying them to Him ; 
 Be aidant, tender Lady, to my lay ! 
 Of thy two maidens somewhat must I say, 
 Ere shadowy twilight lashes, drooping, dim 
 Day's dreamy eyes from us ; 
 Ere eve has struck and furled 
 The beamy-textured tent transpicuous, 
 
 Of webbed coerule wrought and woven calms, 
 Whence has paced forth the lambent-footed sun. 
 And Thou disclose my flower of song upcurled, 
 Who from Thy fair irradiant palms 
 Scatterest all love and loveliness as alms ; 
 Yea, Holy One, 
 Who coin'st Thyself to beauty for the world !
 
 TJien^ Spring's little children, your lauds do yc upraise 
 To Sylvia, O Sylvia, her sweet, feat ivays ! 
 Your lovesonie labours lay away, 
 And trick you out in holiday, 
 
 For syllabling to Sylvia ; 
 A nd all you birds on branches, lave your mouths with 
 May, 
 To bear witJi me this burthen, 
 For singing to Sylvia.
 
 Part the First 
 
 The leaves dance, the leaves sing, 
 The leaves dance in the breath of the Spring, 
 I bid them dance, 
 I bid them sing. 
 For the limpid glance 
 Of my ladyling ; 
 For the gift to the Spring of a dewier spring, 
 For God's good grace of this ladyling ! 
 I know in the lane, by the hedgcrow^track, 
 
 The long, broad grasses underneath 
 Are warted with rain like a toad's knobbed back ; 
 
 But here May weareth a rainless wreath. 
 In the new-sucked milk of the sun's bosom 
 Is dabbled the mouth of the daisy-blossom ; 
 
 The smouldering rosebud chars through its sheath ; 
 The lily stirs her snowy limbs,
 
 Ere she swims 
 Naked up through her cloven green, 
 Like the wave-born Lady of Love Hellene ; 
 And the scattered snowdrop exquisite 
 Twinkles and gleams, 
 As if the showers of the sunny beams 
 Were splashed from the earth in drops of light. 
 Everything 
 
 That is child of Spring 
 Casts its bud or blossomin£f 
 Upon the stream of my delight. 
 
 Their voices^ that scents are, now let them upraise 
 To Sylvia, Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways ! 
 Their lovely mother them array. 
 And prank them out in holiday, 
 For syllabling to Sylvia ; 
 And all the birds on branches lave their inojiths with 
 May, 
 To bear ivith me this burthen, 
 For singing to Sylvia.
 
 2. 
 
 While thus I stood in mazes bound 
 
 Of vernal sorcery, 
 I heard a dainty dubious sound, 
 
 As of goodly melody ; 
 Which first was faint as if in swound, 
 
 Then burst so suddenly 
 In warring concord all around, 
 
 That, whence this thing might be, 
 To see 
 The very marrow longed in me ! 
 
 It seemed of air, it seemed of ground. 
 And never any witchery 
 
 Drawn from pipe, or reed, or string, 
 
 Made such dulcet ravishing. 
 
 'Twas like no earthly instrument, 
 
 Yet had something of them all 
 
 In its rise, and in its fall ; 
 As if in one sweet consort there were blent 
 
 Those archetypes celestial 
 Which our endeavouring instruments recall.
 
 8 
 
 So heavenly flutes made murmurous plain 
 To heavenly viols, that again 
 — Aching with music — wailed back pain ; 
 Regals release their notes, which rise 
 Welling, like tears from heart to eyes ; 
 And the harp thrills with thronging sighs. 
 Horns in mellow flattering 
 Parley with the cithern-string : — 
 Hark ! — the floating, long-drawn note 
 Woos the throbbing cithern-string ! 
 
 Their pretty, pretty prating those citherns snre upraise 
 For homage nnto Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways : 
 Those flutes do flute their vozvelled lay, 
 Their lovely languid language say. 
 For lisping to Sylvia ; 
 Those vioU lissom bowings break the heart of May, 
 And harps harp their burthen^ 
 For singing to Sylvia. 
 
 3- 
 
 Now at that music and that mirth 
 
 Rose, as 'twere, veils from earth ;
 
 9 
 
 And I spied 
 
 How beside 
 liud, bell, bloom, an elf 
 Stood, or was the flower itself 
 
 'Mid radiant air 
 
 All the fair 
 Frequence swayed in irised wavers. 
 Some against the gleaming rims 
 
 Their bosoms prest 
 Of the kingcups, to the brims 
 Filled with sun, and their white limbs 
 Bathed in those golden lavers ; 
 Some on the brown, glowing breast 
 Of that Indian maid, the pansy, 
 (Through its tenuous veils confest 
 Of swathing light), in a quaint fancy 
 Tied her knot of yellow favours ; 
 Others dared open draw 
 Snapdragon's dreadful jaw : 
 Some, just sprung from out the soil, 
 Sleeked and shook their rumpled fans 
 
 Dropt with sheen
 
 10 
 
 Of moony green ; 
 Others, not yet extricate, 
 On their hands leaned their weight. 
 And writhed them free with mickle toil, 
 Still folded in their veiny vans : 
 And all with an unsought accord 
 Sang together from the sward ; 
 Whence had come, and from sprites 
 Yet unseen, those delights, 
 As of tempered musics blent, 
 Which had given me such content. 
 For haply our best instrument, 
 Pipe or cithern, stopped or strung, 
 Mimics but some spirit tongue. 
 
 Their amiable voices^ I bid them upraise 
 To Sylvia, O Sylvia, her siveet, feat ways ; 
 Their lovcsome labours laid away, 
 To linger out this holiday 
 
 In syllabling to Sylvia; 
 While all the birds 07i branches lave their mouihs with 
 May,
 
 II 
 
 To bear with vie this biirtheii. 
 For singing to Sylvia. 
 
 4. 
 
 Next I saw, wondcr-whi'st, 
 
 How from the atmosphere a mist, 
 
 So it seemed, slow uprist ; 
 
 And, looking from those elfin swarms, 
 
 I was 'ware 
 
 How the air 
 Was all populous with forms 
 Of the Hours, floating down, 
 Like Nereids through a watery town. 
 Some, with languors of waved arms, 
 Fluctuous oared their flexile way ; 
 Some were borne half resupine 
 On the aerial hyaline, 
 Their fluid limbs and rare array 
 Flickering on the wind, as quivers 
 Trailing weed in running rivers ; 
 And others, in far prospect seen. 
 Newly loosed on this terrene.
 
 12 
 
 Shot in piercing swiftness came, 
 
 With hair a-stream like pale and goblin flame. 
 
 As crystalline ice in water, 
 
 Lay in air each faint daughter ; 
 
 Inseparate (or but separate dim) 
 
 Circumfused wind from wind-like vest, 
 
 Wind-like vest from wind-like limb. 
 
 But outward from each lucid breast, 
 
 When some passion left its haunt, 
 
 Radiate surge of colour came, 
 
 Diffusing blush-wise, palpitant, 
 
 Dying all the filmy frame. 
 
 With some sweet tenderness they would 
 Turn to an amber-clear and glossy gold ; 
 Or a fine sorrow, lovely to behold, 
 Would sweep them as the sun and wind's joined flood 
 
 Sweeps a greening-sapphire sea ; 
 
 Or they would glow enamouredly 
 Illustrious sanguine, like a grape of blood ; 
 
 Or with mantling poetry 
 Curd to the tincture which the opal hath, 
 Like rainbows thawing in a moonbeam bath. 
 
 I
 
 13 
 
 So paled they, flushed they, swam they, sang melo- 
 diously. 
 
 Their chanting^ soon fadiyig, let them, too, tipraise 
 For homage tmto Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways ; 
 Weave with suave float their waved way, 
 A nd colours take of holiday. 
 For syllabling to Sylvia ; 
 A nd all the birds on branches lave their mouths with 
 May, 
 To bear with vie this burthen. 
 For singing to Sylvia. 
 
 5. 
 Then, through those translucencles, 
 As grew my senses clearer clear, 
 Did I see, and did I hear. 
 How under an elm's canopy 
 Wheeled a flight of Dryades 
 Murmuring measured melody. 
 Gyre in gyre their treading was, 
 Wheeling with an adverse flight, 
 In twi-circle o'er the grass.
 
 14 
 
 These to left, and those to right ; 
 
 All the band 
 Linked by each other's hand ; 
 Decked in raiment stained as 
 The blue-helmed aconite. 
 And they advance with flutter, with grace, 
 
 To the dance 
 Moving on with a dainty pace, 
 As blossoms mince it on river swells. 
 Over their heads their cymbals shine, 
 Round each ankle gleams a twine 
 
 Of twinkling bells — 
 Tune twirled golden from their cells. 
 Every step was a tinkling sound, 
 As they glanced in their dancing-ground. 
 Clouds in cluster with such a sailing 
 Float o'er the light of the wasting moon, 
 As the cloud of their gliding veiling 
 Swung in the sway of the dancing-tune. 
 There was the clash of their cymbals clanging, 
 Ringing of swinging bells clinging their feet ; 
 And the clang on wing it seemed a-hanging.
 
 IS 
 
 Hovering round their dancing so fleet. — 
 I stirred, I rustled more than meet ; 
 Whereat they broke to the left and right, 
 With eddying robes like aconite 
 
 Blue of helm ; 
 And I beheld to the foot o' the elm. 
 
 They have not tripped those dances y betrayed to my gaze^ 
 To glad the heart of Sylvia , beholding of their maze; 
 Through barky vjalls have slid away, 
 And tricked them in their holiday, 
 For other than for Sylvia ; 
 While all the birds on branches lave their nioi.ths with 
 May, 
 And bear with me this burthen, 
 For singing to Sylvia. 
 
 6. 
 
 Where its umbrage was enrooted, 
 
 Sat white-suited, 
 Sat green-amiced, and bare-footed, 
 
 Spring amid her minstrelsy ; 
 There she sat amid her ladies,
 
 i6 
 
 Where the shade is 
 Sheen as Enna mead ere Hades' 
 
 Gloom fell thwart Persephone. 
 Dewy buds were interstrown 
 Through her tresses hanging down, 
 And her feet 
 Were most sweet, 
 Tinged like sea-stars, rosied brown. 
 A throng of children like to flowers were sown 
 About the grass beside, or clomb her knee : 
 I looked who were that favoured company. 
 And one there stood 
 Against the beamy flood 
 Of sinking day, which, pouring its abundance, 
 Sublimed the illuminous and volute redundance 
 Of locks that, half dissolving, floated round her face ;. 
 As see I might 
 Far off a lily-cluster poised in sun 
 
 Dispread its gracile curls of light. 
 I knew what chosen child was there in place 1 
 I knew there might no brows be, save of one,. 
 With such Hesperian fulgence compassed,
 
 17 
 
 Which in her moving seemed to wheel about her head. 
 
 O Spring's little children, more loud your lauds upraise. 
 For this is even Sylvia, with her sweet, feat ways ! 
 Your lovcsonie labours lay away. 
 And prank you out in holiday. 
 For syllabling to Sylvia ; 
 And all you birds on branches, lave your mouths with 
 May, 
 To bear with me this burthen. 
 For singing to Sylvia ! 
 
 7- 
 Spring, goddess, is it thou, desired long ? 
 And art thou girded round with this young train ? — 
 If ever I did do thee ease in song, 
 Now of thy grace let me one meed obtain, 
 
 And list thou to one plain. 
 
 Oh, keep still in thy train 
 After the years when others therefrom fade, 
 
 This tiny, well-beloved maid ! 
 To whom the gate of my heart's fortalice. 
 
 With all which in it is,
 
 i8 
 
 And the shy self who doth therein immew him 
 'Gainst what loud leagurers battailously woo him, 
 
 I, bribed traitor to him, 
 
 Set open for one kiss. 
 
 Then suffer. Spring, thy children, that lauds tJiey should 
 
 upraise 
 To Sylvia, this Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways ; 
 Their lovely labours lay away, 
 A lid trick them out in holiday. 
 For syllabling to Sylvia ; 
 And that all birds on branches lave their mouths with 
 May, 
 To bear with me this burthen. 
 For singing to Sylvia. 
 
 8. 
 
 A kiss ? for a child's kiss ? 
 
 Aye, goddess, even for this. 
 Once, bright Sylviola ! in days not far, 
 Once — in that nightmare-time which still doth haunt 
 My dreams, a grim, unbidden visitant — 
 
 Forlorn, and faint, and stark,
 
 19 
 
 I had endured through watches of the dark 
 The abashless inquisition of each star, 
 Yea, was the outcast mark 
 
 Of all those heavenly passers' scrutiny ; 
 
 Stood bound and helplessly 
 For Time to shoot his barbed minutes at me ; 
 Suffered the trampling hoof of every hour 
 
 In night's slow-wheeled car ; 
 Until the tardy dawn dragged me at length 
 From under those dread wheels ; and, bled of 
 
 strength, 
 I waited the inevitable last. 
 
 Then there came past 
 A child ; like thee, a spring-flower ; but a flower 
 Fallen from the budded coronal of Spring, 
 And through the city-streets blown withering. 
 She passed, — O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing !— 
 And of her own scant pittance did she give, 
 
 That I might eat and live : 
 Then fled, a swift and trackless fugitive. 
 
 Therefore I kissed in thee 
 The heart of Childhood, so divine for me ;
 
 20 
 
 And her, through what sore ways, 
 And what unchildish days. 
 Borne from me now, as then, a trackless fugitive. 
 Therefore I kissed in thee 
 Her, child ! and innocency, 
 And spring, and all things that have gone from me, 
 
 And that shall never be ; 
 All vanished hopes, and all most hopeless bliss, 
 
 Came with thee to my kiss. 
 And ah ! so long myself had strayed afar 
 From child, and woman, and the boon earth's green, 
 And all wherewith life's face is fair beseen ; 
 
 Journeying its journey bare 
 Five suns, except of the all-kissing sun 
 Unkissed of one ; 
 Almost I had forgot 
 The healing harms. 
 And whitest witchery, a-lurk in that ! 
 
 Authentic cestus of two girdling arms : 
 And I remembered not 
 The subtle sanctities which dart 
 From childish lips' unvalued precious brush,
 
 21 
 
 Nor how it makes the sudden lilies push 
 
 Between the loosening fibres of the heart. 
 
 Then, that thy little kiss 
 
 Should be to me all this, 
 Let workaday wisdom blink sapje lids thereat ; 
 Which towers a flight three hedgerows high, poor bat ! 
 And straightway charts me out the empyreal air. 
 Its chart I wing not by, its canon of worth 
 Scorn not, nor reck though mine should breed it mirth: 
 And howso thou and I may be disjoint. 
 Yet still my falcon spirit makes her point 
 
 Over the covert where 
 Thou, sweetest quarry, hast put in from her ! 
 
 (Soul, hush these sad mimbers, too sad to upraise 
 In hymning bright Sylvia, unlearn" d i?t such zvays! 
 Our moiirnful moods lay lue away, 
 And prank our thoughts in holiday, 
 For syllabling to Sylvia ; 
 When all the birds on branches lave their mouths with 
 May, 
 To bear with us this burthen, 
 For singing to Sylvia I)
 
 22 
 
 9. 
 
 Then thus Spring, bounteous lady, made reply : 
 " O lover of me and all my progeny. 
 
 For grace to you 
 I take her ever to my retinue. 
 Over thy form, dear child, alas ! my art 
 Cannot prevail ; but mine immortalising 
 
 Touch I lay upon thy heart. 
 
 Thy soul's fair shape 
 In my unfading mantle's green I drape, 
 And thy white mind shall rest by my devising 
 A Gideon-fleece amid life's dusty drouth. 
 If Even burst yon globed yellow grape 
 (Which is the sun to mortals' sealed sight) 
 
 Against her stained mouth ; 
 
 Or if white-handed light 
 Draw thee yet dripping from the quiet pools, 
 
 Still lucencies and cools, 
 Of sleep, which all night mirror constellate dreams ; 
 Like to the sign which led the Israelite, 
 
 Thy soul, through day or dark, 
 A visible brightness on the chosen ark 
 
 I
 
 23 
 
 Of thy sweet body and pure, 
 Shall it assure, 
 
 With auspice large and tutelary gleams, 
 Appointed solemn courts, and covenanted streams." 
 
 Cease, Spring's little children, now cease your lauds to 
 
 raise ; 
 That dream is past, and Sylvia, with her sweet, feat 
 ways. 
 Our loved labour, laid aiuay. 
 Is smoothly ended ; said our say, 
 Our syllabling to Sylvia. 
 Make sweet, you birds on branches / make sweet your 
 mouths with May I 
 But borne is this burthen. 
 Sung unto Sylvia.
 
 Part the Second 
 
 And now, thou elder nursling of the nest-; 
 Ere all the intertangled west 
 
 Be one magnificence 
 Of multitudinous blossoms that o'errun 
 The flaming brazen bowl o' the burnished sun 
 
 Which they do flower from, 
 How shall I 'stablish thy memorial ? 
 Nay, how or with what countenance shall I come 
 
 To plead in my defence 
 
 For loving thee at all ? 
 I who can scarcely speak my fellows' speech, 
 Love their love, or mine own love to them teach ; 
 A bastard barred from their inheritance. 
 
 Who seem, in this dim shape's uneasy nook, 
 Some sun-flower's spirit which by luckless chance 
 Has mournfully its tenement mistook ;
 
 25 
 
 When it were better in its right abode, 
 Heartless and happy lackeying its god. 
 How com'st thou, little tender thing of white, 
 Whose very touch full scantly me beseems, 
 How com'st thou resting on my vaporous dreams, 
 Kindling a wraith there of earth's vernal green ? 
 
 Even so as I have seen, 
 In night's acirial sea with no wind blust'rous, 
 A ribbed tract of cloudy malachite 
 
 Curve a shored crescent wide ; 
 And on its slope marge shelving to the night 
 
 The stranded moon lay quivering like a lustrous 
 Medusa newly washed up from the tide, 
 Lay in an oozy pool of its own deliquious light. 
 
 Yet hear how my excuses may prevail, 
 
 Nor, tender white orb, be thou opposite ! 
 Life and life's beauty only hold their revels 
 In the abysmal ocean's luminous levels. 
 There, like the phantasms of a poet pale. 
 
 The exquisite marvels sail : 
 Clarified silver ; greens and azures frail
 
 26 
 
 As if the colours sighed themselves away, 
 And blent in supersubtile interplay 
 
 As if they swooned into each other's arms ; 
 
 Repured vermilion, 
 
 Like ear-tips 'gainst the sun ; 
 And beings that, under night's swart pinion, 
 Make every wave upon the harbour-bars 
 
 A beaten yolk of stars. 
 But where day's glance turns baffled from the deeps, 
 
 Die out those lovely swarms ; 
 And in the immense profound no creature glides or 
 creeps. 
 
 Love and love's beauty only hold their revels 
 In life's familiar, penetrable levels : 
 
 What of its ocean-floor ? 
 
 I dwell there evermore. 
 
 From almost earliest youth 
 
 I raised the lids o' the truth, 
 And forced her bend on me her shrinking sight ; 
 Ever I knew me Beauty's eremite, 
 In antre of this lowly body set,
 
 27 
 
 Girt with a thirsty solitude of soul. 
 Nathless I not forget 
 How I have, even as the anchorite, 
 
 I too, imperishing essences that console. 
 Under my ruined passions, fallen and sere, 
 
 The wild dreams stir like little radiant girls. 
 Whom in the moulted plumage of the year 
 
 Their comrades sweet have buried to the curls. 
 Yet, though their dedicated amorist. 
 How often do I bid my visions hist. 
 
 Deaf to them, pleading all their piteous fills ; 
 Who weep, as weep the maidens of the mist 
 
 Clinging the necks of the unheeding hills : 
 And their tears wash them lovelier than before, 
 That from grief's self our sad delight grows more. 
 Fair are the soul's uncrisped calms, indeed, 
 
 Endiapered with many a spiritual form 
 Of blosmy-tinctured weed ; 
 But scarce itself is conscious of the store 
 
 Suckled by it, and only after storm 
 Casts up its loosened thoughts upon the shore. 
 To this end my deeps are stirred ;
 
 28 
 
 And I deem well v/hy life unshared 
 Was ordained me of yore. 
 In pairing-time, we know, the bird 
 Kindles to its deepmost splendour, 
 And the tender 
 Voice is tenderest in its throat : 
 Were its love, for ever nigh it, 
 Never by it. 
 It might keep a vernal note, 
 The crocean and amethystine 
 In their pristine 
 Lustre linger on its coat. 
 Therefore must my song-bower lone be, 
 That my tone be 
 Fresh with dewy pain alway ; 
 She, who scorns my dearest care ta'en. 
 An uncertain 
 Shadow of the sprite of May. 
 And is my song sweet, as they say ? 
 'Tis sweet for one whose voice has no reply, 
 
 Save silence's sad cry : 
 And are its plumes a burning bright array?
 
 29 
 
 They burn for an un incarnated eye. 
 
 A bubble, charioteered by the inward breath 
 
 Which, ardorous for its own invisible lure, 
 Urges me glittering to aerial death, 
 
 I am rapt towards that bodiless paramour ; 
 Blindly the uncomprehended tyranny 
 
 Obeying of my heart's impetuous might. 
 The earth and all its planetary kin. 
 Starry buds tangled in the whirling hair 
 That flames round the Phoebean wassailer, 
 
 Speed no more ignorant, more predestined flight,. 
 Than I, her viewless tresses netted in. 
 As some most beautiful one, with lovely taunting, 
 Her eyes of guileless guile o'ercanopies, 
 
 Does her hid visage bow, 
 And miserly your covetous gaze allow, 
 By inchmeal, coy degrees, 
 Saying — " Can you see me now ? " 
 Yet from the mouth's reflex you guess the wanting 
 
 Smile of the coming eyes 
 In all their upturned grievous witcheries, 
 Before that sunbreak rise ;
 
 30 
 
 And each still hidden feature view within 
 
 Your mind, as eager scrutinies detail 
 
 The moon's young rondure through the shamefast veil 
 
 Drawn to her gleaming chin : 
 After this wise, 
 From the enticing smile of earth and skies 
 I dream my unknown Fair's refused gaze ; 
 And guessingly her love's close traits devise, 
 
 Which she with subtile coquetries 
 Through little human glimpses slow displays, 
 
 Cozening my mateless days 
 
 By sick, intolerable delays. 
 And so I keep mine un companioned ways ; 
 And so my touch, to golden poesies 
 Turning love's bread, is bought at hunger's price. 
 So, — in the inextinguishable wars 
 
 hich roll song's Orient on the sullen night 
 Whose ragged banners in their own despite 
 Take on the tinges of the hated light, — 
 So Sultan Phoebus has his Janizars.
 
 31 
 
 I5ut if mine unappcased cicatrices 
 
 Might get them lawful ease ; 
 Were any gentle passion hallowed me, 
 
 Who must none other breath of passion feel 
 Save such as winnows to the fledged heel 
 The tremulous Paradisal plumages ; 
 The conscious sacramental trees 
 Which ever be 
 Shaken celestially, 
 Consentient with enamoured wings, might know my 
 love for thee. 
 
 Yet is there more, whereat none guesseth, love ! 
 
 Upon the ending of my deadly night 
 (Whereof thou hast not the surmise, and slight 
 Is all that any mortal knows thereof), 
 
 Thou wert to me that earnest of day's light, 
 When, like the back of a gold-mailed saurian 
 
 Heaving its slow length from Nilotic slime, 
 The first long gleaming fissure runs Aurorian 
 
 Athwart the yet dun firmament of prime. 
 Stretched on the margin of the cruel sea 
 Whence they had rescued me. 
 
 With faint and painful pulses was I lying ;
 
 32 
 
 Not yet discerning well 
 If I had 'scaped, or were an icicle, 
 
 Whose thawing is its dying. 
 Like one who sweats before a despot's gate, 
 Summoned by some presaging scroll of fate, 
 And knows not whether kiss or dagger wait ; 
 And all so sickened is his countenance. 
 
 The courtiers buzz, " Lo, doomed ! " and look at him |j 
 
 askance : — 
 
 At Fate's dread portal then 
 
 Even so stood I, I ken. 
 Even so stood I, between a joy and fear, 
 And said to mine own heart, "Now if the end be here!" 
 
 They say. Earth's beauty seems completest 
 
 To them that on their death-beds rest ; 
 Gentle lady ! she smiles sweetest 
 Just ere she clasp us to her breast. 
 And I, — now my Earth's countenance grew bright, 
 Did she but smile me towards that nuptial-night ? 
 But, whileas on such dubious bed I lay, 
 One unforgotten day, 
 As a sick child waking sees
 
 33 
 
 Wide-eyed daisies 
 Gazing on it from its hand, 
 Slipped there for its dear amazes ; 
 So between thy father's knees 
 I saw tJiee stand, 
 And through my hazes 
 Of pain and fear thine eyes' young wonder shone. 
 Then, as flies scatter from a carrion, 
 
 Or rooks in spreading gyres like broken smoke 
 Wheel, when some sound their quietude has broke, 
 Fled, at thy countenance, all that doubting spawn : 
 The heart which I had questioned spoke, 
 A cry impetuous from its depths was drawn, — 
 " I take the omen of this face of dawn ! " 
 And with the omen to my heart cam'st thou. 
 
 Even with a spray of tears 
 That one light draft was fixed there for the years. 
 
 And now .'' — 
 
 The hours I tread ooze memories of thee, Sweet ! 
 
 Beneath my casual feet. 
 
 With rainfall as the lea, 
 
 4
 
 34 
 
 The day is drenched with thee ; 
 In little exquisite surprises 
 Bubbling dcliciousness of thee arises 
 From sudden places, 
 Under the common traces 
 Of my most lethargied and customed paces. 
 
 As an Arab journeyeth 
 
 Through a sand of Ayaman, 
 
 Lean Thirst, lolling its cracked tongue, 
 
 Lagging by his side along ; 
 
 And a rusty-winged Death 
 
 Grating its low flight before, 
 
 Casting ribbed shadows o'er 
 
 The blank desert, blank and tan : 
 He lifts by hap toward where the morning's roots are 
 His weary stare, — 
 Sees, although they plashless mutes are, 
 
 Set in a silver air 
 Fountains of gelid shoots are, 
 
 Making the daylight fairest fair ; 
 Sees the palm and tamarind
 
 35 
 
 Tangle the tresses of a phantom wind ; — 
 A sight like innocence when one has sinned ! 
 A green and maiden freshness smiling there, 
 
 While with unblinking glare 
 The tawny-hided desert crouches watching her. 
 
 'Tis a vision : 
 Yet the greeneries Elysian 
 He has known in tracts afar ; 
 Thus the enamouring fountains flow, 
 Those the very palms that grow. 
 By rare-gummed Sava, or Herbalimar. — 
 
 Such a watered dream has tarried 
 Trembling on my desert arid ; 
 Even so 
 Its lovely gleamings 
 Seemings show 
 Of things not seemings ; 
 And I gaze. 
 Knowing that, beyond my ways. 
 Verily
 
 36 
 
 All these are, for these are she. 
 Eve no gentlier lays her cooling cheek 
 On the burning brow of the sick earth, 
 Sick with death, and sick with birth, 
 Aeon to aeon, in secular fever twirled. 
 Than thy shadow soothes this weak 
 And distempered being of mine. 
 In all I work, my hand includeth thine ; 
 
 Thou rushest down in every stream 
 Whose passion frets my spirit's deepening gorge ; 
 Unhood'st mine eyas-heart, and fliest my dream ; 
 Thou swing'st the hammers of my forge ; 
 As the innocent moon, that nothing does but shine. 
 Moves all the labouring surges of the world. 
 
 Pierce where thou wilt the springing thought 
 in me. 
 And there thy pictured countenance lies enfurled, 
 As in the cut fern lies the imaged tree. 
 This poor song that sings of thee, 
 This fragile song, is but a curled 
 
 Shell outgathered from thy sea. 
 And murmurous still of its nativity.
 
 37 
 
 Princess of Smiles ! 
 Sorceress of most unlawful-lawful wiles ! 
 Cunning pit for gazers' senses, 
 Overstrewn with innocences ! 
 Purities gleam white like statues 
 In the fair lakes of thine eyes, 
 And I watch the sparkles that use 
 
 There to rise, 
 
 Knowing these 
 Are bubbles from the calyces 
 Of the lovely thoughts that breathe 
 Paving, like water-flowers, thy spirit's floor beneath. 
 
 O thou most dear ! 
 Who art thy sex's complex harmony 
 
 God-set more facilely ; 
 
 To thee may love draw near 
 
 Without one blame or fear, 
 Unchidden save by his humility : 
 Thou Perseus' Shield ! wherein I view secure 
 The mirrored Woman's fateful-fair allure ! 
 Whom Heaven still leaves a twofold dignity,
 
 38 
 
 As girlhood gentle, and as boyhood free ; 
 With whom no most diaphanous webs enwind 
 The bared limbs of the rebukeless mind. 
 Wild Dryad ! all unconscious of thy tree, 
 
 With which indissolubly 
 The tyrannous time shall one day make thee whole ; 
 Whose frank arms pass unfretted through its bole : 
 
 Who wear'st thy femineity 
 Light as entrailed blossoms, that shalt find 
 It erelong silver shackles unto thee. 
 Thou whose young sex is yet but in thy soul ; — 
 
 As hoarded in the vine 
 Hang the gold skins of undelirious wine, 
 As air sleeps, till it toss its limbs in breeze : — 
 
 In whom the mystery which lures and sunders, 
 Grapples and thrusts apart ; endears, estranges ; 
 — The dragon to its own Hesperides — 
 
 Is gated under slow-revolving changes, 
 Manifold doors of heavy-hinged years. 
 
 So once, ere Heaven's eyes were filled with wonders 
 To see Laughter rise from Tears,
 
 39 
 
 Lay in beauty not yet mighty, 
 Conchcd in transluccncics, 
 
 The antenatal Aphrodite, 
 Caved magically under magic seas ; 
 Caved dreamlessly beneath the dreamful seas. 
 
 "Whose sex is in thy soul ! " 
 What think we of thy soul ? 
 Which has no parts, and cannot grow. 
 Unfurled not from an embryo ; 
 Born of full stature, lineal to control ; 
 
 And yet a pigmy's yoke must undergo. 
 Yet must keep pace and tarry, patient, kind, 
 With its unwilling scholar, the dull, tardy mind ; 
 Must be obsequious to the body's powers. 
 Whose low hands mete its paths, set ope and close its 
 ways ; 
 
 Must do obeisance to the days, 
 And wait the little pleasure of the hours ; 
 Yea, ripe for kingship, yet must be 
 Captive in statuted minority ! 
 So is all power fulfilled, as soul in thee.
 
 40 
 
 So still the ruler by the ruled takes rule, 
 
 And wisdom weaves itself i' the loom o' the fool. 
 
 The splendent sun no splendour can display, 
 
 Till on gross things he dash his broken ray, 
 
 From cloud and tree and flower re-tossed in prismy 
 
 spray. 
 Did not obstruction's vessel hem it in, 
 Force were not force, would spill itself in vain ; 
 We know the Titan by his champed chain. 
 Stay is heat's cradle, it is rocked therein, 
 And by check's hand is burnished into light ; 
 If hate were none, would love burn lowlier bright ? 
 God's Fair were guessed scarce but for opposite sin ; 
 Yea, and His Mercy, I do think it well, 
 Is flashed back from the brazen gates of Hell. 
 
 The heavens decree 
 All power fulfil itself as soul in thee. 
 For supreme Spirit subject was to clay, 
 
 And Law from its own servants learned a law, 
 And Light besought a lamp unto its way, 
 
 And Awe was reined in awe. 
 At one small house of Nazareth ; 
 
 ■L
 
 41 
 
 And Goljijotha 
 Saw Breath to breathlessncss resign its breath, 
 And Life do hcmajie for its crown to death. 
 
 'fa* 
 
 So is all power, as soul in thee increased ! 
 But, knowing this, in knowledge's despite 
 I fret against the law severe that stains 
 
 Thy spirit with eclipse ; 
 When — as a nymph's carven head sweet water 
 
 drips, 
 For others oozing so the cool delight 
 Which cannot steep her stiffened mouth of stone — 
 Thy nescient lips repeat maternal strains. 
 
 Mcmnonian lips ! 
 Smitten with singing from thy mother's east. 
 And murmurous with music not their own : 
 Nay, the lips flexile, while the mind alone 
 A passionless statue stands. 
 Oh, pardon, innocent one ! 
 Pardon at thine unconscious hands ! 
 " Murmurous with music not their own," I say ? 
 And in that saying how do I missay,
 
 42 
 
 When from the common sands 
 Of poorest common speech of common day 
 Thine accents sift the golden musics out ! 
 And ah, we poets, I misdoubt. 
 Are little more than thou ! 
 We speak a lesson taught we know not how, 
 
 And what it is that from us flows 
 The hearer better than the utterer knows. 
 
 Thou canst foreshape thy word ; 
 
 The poet is not lord 
 Of the next syllable may come 
 With the returning pendulum ; 
 And what he plans to-day in song, 
 To-morrow sings it in another tongue. 
 
 Where the last leaf fell from his bough. 
 He knows not if a leaf shall grow, 
 Where he sows he doth not reap. 
 He reapeth where he did not sow ; 
 He sleeps, and dreams forsake his sleep 
 To meet him on his waking way. 
 Vision will mate him not by law and vow :
 
 43 
 
 Disguised in life's most hodden-grey, 
 By the most beaten road of everyday 
 She waits him, unsuspected and unknown. 
 
 The hardest pang whereon 
 He lays his mutinous head may be a Jacob's stone. 
 In the most iron crag his foot can tread 
 A Dream may strew her bed. 
 And suddenly his limbs entwine. 
 And draw him down through rock as sea-nymphs 
 
 might through brine. 
 But, unlike those feigned temptress-ladies who 
 In guerdon of a night the lover slew, 
 When the embrace has failed, the rapture fled, 
 Not he, not he, the wild sweet witch is dead ! 
 
 And, though he cherisheth 
 The babe most strangely born from out her death, 
 Some tender trick of her it hath, maybe, — 
 It is not she ! 
 
 Yet, even as the air is rumorous of fray 
 
 Before the first shafts of the sun's onslaught 
 From gloom's black harness splinter,
 
 44 
 
 And Summer move on Winter 
 With the trumpet of the March, and the pennon of the 
 May ; 
 
 As gesture outstrips thought ; 
 So, haply, toyer with ethereal strings ! 
 Are thy blind repetitions of high things 
 The murmurous gnats whose aimless hoverings 
 
 Reveal song's summer in the air ; 
 The outstretched hand, which cannot thought declare, 
 
 Yet is thought's harbinger. 
 These strains the way for thine own strains prepare ; 
 We feel the music moist upon this breeze, 
 And hope the congregating poesies. 
 
 Sundered yet by thee from us 
 
 Wait, with wild eyes luminous, 
 All thy winged things that are to be ; 
 They flit against thee, Gate of Ivory ! 
 They clamour on the portress Destiny, — 
 " Set her wide, so we may issue through ! 
 Our vans are quick for that they have to do." 
 
 Suffer still your young desire ; 
 Your plumes but bicker at the tips with fire,
 
 45 
 
 Tarry their kindling ; they will beat the hiLjhcr. 
 And thou, bright girl, not long shalt thou repeat 
 Idly the music from thy mother caught ; 
 Not vainly has she wrought, 
 Not vainly from the cloudward-jetting turret 
 Of her aerial mind, for thy weak feet, 
 Let down the silken ladder of her thought. 
 She bare thee with a double pain, 
 
 Of the body and the spirit ; 
 Thou thy fleshly weeds hast ta'en, 
 Thy diviner weeds inherit ! 
 The precious streams which through thy young lips roll 
 Shall leave their lovely delta in thy soul : 
 Where sprites of so essential kind 
 
 Set their paces, 
 Surely they shall leave behind 
 
 The green traces 
 Of their sportance in the mind ; 
 And thou shalt, ere we well may know it, 
 Turn that daintiness, a poet, — 
 
 Elfin-ring 
 Where sweet fancies foot and sing.
 
 46 
 
 So it may be, so it shall be, — 
 Oh, take the prophecy from me ! 
 
 What if the old fastidious sculptor, Time, 
 This crescent marvel of his hands 
 Carveth all too painfully. 
 
 And I who prophesy shall never see ? 
 
 What if the niche of its predestined rhyme, 
 
 Its aching niche, too long expectant stands ? 
 Yet shall he after sore delays 
 On some exultant day of days 
 The white enshrouding childhood raise 
 
 From thy fair spirit, finished for our gaze ; 
 
 While we (but 'mongst that happy " we " 
 The prophet cannot be !) 
 
 While we behold with no astonishments, 
 
 With that serene fulfilment of delight 
 
 Wherewith we view the sight 
 When the stars pitch the golden tents 
 
 Of their high campment on the plains of night. 
 
 Why should amazement be our satellite ? 
 
 What wonder in such things ? 
 
 If angels have hereditary wings,
 
 47 
 
 If not by Salic law is handed down 
 
 The poet's crown, 
 To thcc, born in the purple of the throne, 
 The laurel must belong : 
 Thou, in thy mother's right 
 Descendant of Castalian-chrismed kings — 
 O Princess of the Blood of Song ! 
 
 Peace ; too impetuously have I been winging 
 
 Toward vaporous heights which beckon and beguile : 
 I sink back, saddened to my inmost mind ; 
 Even as I list a-dream that mother singing 
 The poesy of sweet tone, and sadden, while 
 Her voice is cast in troubled wake behind 
 The keel of her keen spirit. Thou art enshrined 
 In a too primal innocence for this eye — 
 Intent on such untempered radiancy — 
 Not to be pained ; my clay can scarce endure 
 Ungrieved the effluence near of essences so pure. 
 Therefore, little, tender maiden, 
 Never be thou overshaden 
 With a mind whose canopy
 
 48 
 
 Would shut out the sky from thee ; 
 Whose tangled branches intercept Heaven's light : 
 
 I will not feed my unpastured heart 
 
 On thee, green pleasaunce as thou art, 
 To lessen by one flower thy happy daisies white. 
 The water-rat is earth-hued like the runlet 
 
 Whereon he swims ; and how in me should lurk 
 Thoughts apt to neighbour thine, thou creature sunlit ? 
 
 If through long fret and irk 
 Thine eyes within their browed recesses were 
 Worn caves where thought lay couchant in its lair ; 
 Wert thou a spark among dank leaves, ah ruth ! 
 With age in all thy veins, while all thy heart was 
 youth ; 
 
 Our contact might run smooth. 
 But life's Eoan dews still moist thy ringed hair ; 
 
 Dian's chill finger-tips 
 Thaw if at night they happen on thy lips ; 
 The flying fringes of the sun's cloak frush 
 The fragile leaves which on those warm lips blush ; 
 
 And joy only lurks retired 
 
 In the dim gloaming of thine irid.
 
 49 
 
 Then since my love drags this poor shadow, me, 
 And one without the other may not be, 
 From both I guard thee free. 
 
 It still is much, yes, it is much. 
 Only — my dream ! — to love my love of thee ; 
 
 And it is much, yes, it is much, 
 In hands which thou hast touched to feel thy touch. 
 In voices which have mingled with thine own 
 
 To hear a double tone. 
 As anguish, for supreme expression prest, 
 
 Borrows its saddest tongue from jest, 
 
 Thou hast of absence so create 
 
 A presence more importunate ; 
 
 And thy voice pleads its sweetest suit 
 When it is mute. 
 
 I thank the once accursed star 
 Which did me teach 
 To make of Silence my familiar, 
 Who hath the rich reversion of thy speech, 
 Since the most charming sounds thy thought can wear. 
 Cast off, fall to that pale attendant's share ; 
 
 And thank the gift which made my mind
 
 50 
 
 A shadow-world, wherethrough the shadows wind 
 Of all the loved and lovely of my kind. 
 
 Like a maiden Saxon, folden. 
 
 As she flits, in moon-drenched mist ; 
 Whose curls streaming flaxen-golden, 
 
 By the misted moonbeams kist, 
 Dispread their filmy floating silk 
 
 Like honey steeped in milk : 
 So, vague goldenness remote. 
 Through my thoughts I watch thee float. 
 When the snake summer casts her blazoned skin 
 We find it at the turn of autumn's path, 
 And think it summer that rewinded hath, 
 
 Joying therein ; 
 And this enamouring slough of thee, mine elf, 
 
 I take it for thyself; 
 Content. Content ? Yea, title it content. 
 The very loves that belt thee must prevent 
 My love, I know, with their legitimacy : 
 As the metallic vapours, that are swept 
 Athwart the sun, in his light intercept 
 
 il
 
 51 
 
 The very hues 
 Which their conflagrant elements effuse. 
 But, my love, my heart, my fair, 
 That only I should see thee rare, 
 Or tent to the hid core thy rarity, — 
 
 This were a mournfulness more piercing far 
 Than that those other loves my own must bar, 
 Or thine for others leave thee none for me. 
 
 But on a day whereof I think, 
 One shall dip his hand to drink- 
 In that still water of thy soul, 
 And its imaged tremors race 
 Over thy joy-troubled face, 
 As the intervolved reflections roll 
 From a shaken fountain's brink. 
 With swift light wrinkling its alcove. 
 From the hovering wing of Love 
 
 The warm stain shall flit roseal on thy cheek. 
 Then, sweet blushet ! whenas he, 
 
 The destined paramount of thy universe. 
 
 Who has no worlds to sigh for, ruling thee,
 
 52 
 
 Ascends his vermeil throne of empery, 
 One grace alone I seek. 
 Oh ! may this treasure-galleon of my verse, 
 Fraught with its golden passion, oared with cadent 
 
 rhyme, 
 Set with a towering press of fantasies, 
 Drop safely down the time, 
 Leaving mine isled self behind it far 
 Soon to be sunken in the abysm of seas, 
 (As down the years the splendour voyages 
 
 From some long ruined and night-submerged star). 
 And in thy subject sovereign's havening heart 
 Anchor the freightage of its virgin ore ; 
 
 Adding its wasteful more 
 To his own overflowing treasury. 
 So through his river mine shall reach thy sea, 
 Bearing its confluent part ; 
 In his pulse mine shall thrill ; 
 And the quick heart shall quicken from the heart 
 that's still. 
 
 Ah ! help, my Daemon that hast served me well ! 

 
 53 
 
 Not at this last, oh, do not me disgrace ! 
 I faint, I sicken, darkens all my sight, 
 As, poised upon this unprevisioned height, 
 I lift into its place 
 The utmost aery traceried pinnacle. 
 So ; it is builded, the high tenement, 
 
 — God grant — to mine intent 1 
 Most like a palace of the Occident, 
 
 Up-thrusting, toppling maze on maze, 
 Its mounded blaze, 
 And washed by the sunset's rosy waves, 
 Whose sea drinks rarer hue from those rare walls it 
 laves. 
 
 Yet wail, my spirits, wail ! 
 So few therein to enter shall prevail ! 
 Scarce fewer could win way, if their desire 
 A dragon baulked, with involuted spire. 
 And writhen snout spattered with yeasty fire. 
 For at the elfin portal hangs a horn 
 
 Which none can wind aright 
 Save the appointed knight 
 Whose lids the fay-wings brushed when he was born.
 
 54 
 
 All others stray forlorn, 
 Or glimpsing, through the blazoned windows scrolled 
 Receding labyrinths lessening tortuously 
 
 In half obscurity ; 
 With mystic images, inhuman, cold, 
 
 That flameless torches hold. 
 But who can wind that horn of might 
 (The horn of dead Heliades) aright, — 
 
 Straight 
 Open for him shall roll the conscious gate ; 
 And light leap up from all the torches there. 
 And life leap up in every torchbearer, 
 And the stone faces kindle in the glow, 
 And into the blank eyes the irids grow, 
 And through the dawning irids ambushed meanings 
 show. 
 
 Illumined this wise on, 
 He threads securely the far intricacies, 
 
 With brede from Heaven's wrought vesture over- 
 strewn ; 
 Swift Tellus' purfled tunic, girt upon 
 With the blown chlamys of her fluttering seas ;
 
 55 
 
 And the freaked kirtle of the pearled [moon : 
 Until he gain the structure's core, where stands — 
 
 A toil of magic hands — 
 The unbodied spirit of the sorcerer, 
 Most strangely rare, 
 As is a vision remembered in the noon ; 
 Unbodied, yet to mortal seeing clear, 
 Like sighs exhaled in eager atmosphere. 
 From human haps and mutabilities 
 It rests exempt, beneath the edifice 
 To which itself gave rise ; 
 Sustaining centre to the bubble of stone 
 Which, breathed from it, exists by it alone. 
 Yea, ere Saturnian earth her child consumes, 
 And I lie down with outworn ossuaries, 
 Ere death's grim tongue anticipates the tomb's 
 Siste viator, in this storied urn 
 My living heart is laid to throb and burn, 
 Till end be ended, and till ceasing cease. 
 
 And thou by whom this strain hath parentage ; 
 
 VVantoner between the yet untreacherous claws
 
 56 
 
 Of newly-whelped existence ! ere he pause, 
 What gift to thee can yield the archimagc ? 
 For coming seasons' frets 
 What aids, what amulets, 
 What softenings, or what brightenings ? 
 As Thunder writhes the lash of his long lightnings 
 About the growling heads of the brute main 
 Foaming at mouth, until it wallow again 
 In the scooped oozes of its bed of pain ; 
 So all the gnashing jaws, the leaping heads 
 Of hungry menaces, and of ravening dreads. 
 
 Of pangs 
 Twitch-lipped, with quivering nostrils and immitigate 
 
 fangs, 
 I scourge beneath the torment of my charms 
 That their repentless nature fear to work thee harms. 
 And as yon Apollonian harp-player. 
 
 Yon wandering psalterist of the sky, 
 With flickering strings which scatter melody, 
 The silver-stoled damsels of the sea. 
 
 Or lake, or fount, or stream. 
 Enchants from their ancestral heaven of waters
 
 57 
 
 To Naiad it through the unfrothing air ; 
 
 My song enchants so out of undulous dream 
 The gh'mmcring shapes of its dim-tresscd daugh- 
 ters, 
 And missions each to be thy minister. 
 
 Saying ; " O ye, 
 The organ-stops of being's harmony ; 
 The blushes on existence's pale face, 
 Lending it sudden grace ; 
 Without whom we should but guess Heaven's worth 
 By blank negations of this sordid earth, 
 
 (So haply to the blind may light 
 Be but gloom's undetermined opposite) ; 
 Ye who are thus as the refracting air 
 Whereby we see Heaven's sun before it rise 
 Above the dull line of our mortal skies ; 
 As breathing on the strained car that sighs 
 From comrades viewless unto strained eyes, 
 Soothing our terrors in the lamplcss night ; 
 Ye who can make this world where all is deeming 
 What world yc list, being arbiters of seeming ; 
 Attend upon her ways, benignant powers !
 
 58 
 
 Unroll ye life a carpet for her feet, 
 And cast ye down before them blossomy hours, 
 Until her going shall be clogged with sweet ! 
 All dear emotions whose new-bathed hair, 
 Still streaming from the soul, in love's warm air 
 Smokes with a mist of tender fantasies ; 
 
 All these, 
 And all the heart's wild growths which, swiftly bright, 
 Spring up the crimson agarics of a night, 
 No pain in withering, yet a joy arisen ; 
 And all thin shapes more exquisitely rare, 
 
 More subtly fair, 
 Than these weak ministering words have spell to prison 
 Within the magic circle of this rhyme ; 
 And all the fays who in our creedless clime 
 
 Have sadly ceased 
 Bearing to other children childhood's proper feast ; 
 Whose robes are fluent crystal, crocus-hued, 
 
 Whose wings are wind a-fire, whose mantles 
 wrought 
 From spray that falling rainbows shake 
 
 to air; l
 
 59 
 
 These, ye familiars to my wizard thought, 
 Make things of journal custom unto her; 
 
 With lucent feet imbrued, 
 If young Day tread, a glorious vintager, 
 The wine-press of the purple-foamed east ; 
 Or round the nodding sun, flush-faced and sunken, 
 
 His wild bacchantes drunken 
 Reel, with rent woofs a-flaunt, their westering rout. 
 — But lo ! at length the day is lingered out. 
 At length my Ariel lays his viol by ; 
 We sing no more to thee, child, he and I ; 
 The day is lingered out : 
 In slow wreaths folden 
 Around yon censer, sphered, golden, 
 Vague Vesper's fumes aspire ; 
 And glimmering to eclipse 
 The long laburnum drips 
 Its honey of wild flame, its jocund spilth of fire. 
 
 Now pass your 'ways, fair bird^ and pass your ways. 
 If you IV ill ;
 
 60 
 
 / have yoii through the days ! 
 And flit or hold you still, 
 And perch y 021 where you list 
 On what wrist, — 
 You are mine tJirough the times ! 
 / have caught you fast for ever in a tangle of sweet 
 rhymes. 
 
 And in your young maiden viorn^ 
 You may scorn, 
 But you must be 
 Bound and sociate to me ; 
 With this thread from out the tomb my dead hand shall 
 tether thee I 
 
 Go, sister-songs, to that sweet sister-pair 
 For whom I have your frail limbs fashioned, 
 
 And framed feateously ; — 
 For whom I have your frail limbs fashioned 
 With how great shamefastness and how great dread,
 
 6i 
 
 Knowing you frail, but not if you be fair, 
 
 Though framed fcateously ; 
 
 Go unto them from mc. 
 Go from my shadow to their sunshine sight, 
 
 Made for all sights' delight ; 
 Go like twin swans that oar the surgy storms 
 To bate with pennoned snows in candent air : 
 
 Nigh with abased head, 
 Yourselves linked sisterly, that sister-pair. 
 
 And go in presence there ; 
 Saying — " Your young eyes cannot see our forms. 
 Nor read the yearning of our looks aright ; 
 But time shall trail the veilings from our hair, 
 And cleanse your seeing with his euphrasy, 
 (Yea, even your bright seeing make more bright. 
 
 Which is all sights' delight). 
 And ye shall know us for what things we be. 
 
 "Whilom, within a poet's calyxed heart, 
 A dewy love we trembled all apart ; 
 
 Whence it took rise 
 
 Beneath your radiant eyes,
 
 62 
 
 Which misted it to music. We must long, 
 A floating haze of silver subtile song, 
 
 Await love-laden 
 
 Above each maiden 
 The appointed hour that o'er the hearts of you- 
 
 As vapours into dew 
 
 Unweave, whence they were wove, — 
 Shall turn our loosening musics back to love." 
 
 it«
 
 Inscription 
 
 When the last stir of bubbling melodies 
 
 Broke as my chants sank underneath the wave 
 
 Of dulcitude, but sank again to rise 
 
 Where man's embaying mind those waters lave, 
 
 (For music hath its Oceanides 
 
 Flexuously floating through their parent seas, 
 
 And such are these), 
 I saw a vision — or may it be 
 The effluence of a dear desired reality ? 
 
 I saw two spirits high, — 
 Two spirits, dim within the silver smoke 
 
 Which is for ever woke 
 By snowing lights of fountained Poesy. 
 Two shapes they were familiar as love ; 
 
 They were those souls, whereof 
 One twines from finest gracious daily things. 
 Strong, constant, noticeless, as are heart-strings.
 
 64 
 
 The golden cage wherein this song-bird sings ; 
 And the other's sun gives hue to all my flowers, 
 Which else pale flowers of Tartarus would grow, 
 Where ghosts watch ghosts of blooms in ghostly 
 
 bowers ; — 
 
 For we do know 
 The hidden player by his harmonies, 
 And by my thoughts I know what still hands thrill 
 
 the keys. 
 
 And to these twain — as from the mind's abysses 
 
 All thoughts draw toward the awakening heart's sweet 
 
 kisses, 
 With proffer of their wreathen fantasies, — 
 
 Even so to these 
 I saw how many brought their garlands fair. 
 Whether of song, or simple love, they were, — 
 Of simple love, that makes best garlands fair. 
 But one I marked who lingered still behind, 
 As for such souls no seemly gift had he : 
 
 He was not of their strain, 
 Nor worthy of so bright beings to entertain,
 
 65 
 
 Nor fit compeer for such high company. 
 Yet was he, surely, born to them in mind. 
 Their youngest nursh'ng of the spirit's kind. 
 
 Last stole this one, 
 With timid glance, of watching eyes adread, 
 And dropped his frightened flower when all were gone; 
 And where the frail flower fell, it withered. 
 But yet methought those high souls smiled thereon ; 
 As when a child, upstraining at your knees 
 Some fond and fancied nothings, says, " I give you 
 these ! "
 
 Poems 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS THOMPSON 
 
 With Frontispiece, Title-page, and Cover Design Ijy 
 Laurence Housman 
 
 Fourth Edition, pott 4to, 5s. net 
 
 ?- 
 
 " A new poet, nnd this time a major and not a minor one. . . . 
 Swinburne, William Morris, George Meredith, among the elder of our 
 present-day poets, William Watson and Norman Gale among the juniors, 
 have each tlieir poetical genius, or something approaching it ; but here is 
 another to add to the small band."— 67. James's Guzeite. 
 
 " They are written, to borrow a phrase of Chaucer's, in the ' high style"; 
 their harmonies are at times almost Miltonic, and yet original in cadence. 
 . . . The most promising work by a young poet which has seen the 
 light for a long Ume.''— Guardian. 
 
 " I can hardly doubt that at least that minority who can recognise the 
 essentials under the accidents of poetry, and who feel that it is to poetic 
 Form only and not to forms that eternity belongs, will agree that, alike in 
 wealth and dignity of imagination, in depth and subtlety of thought, and 
 in magic and mastery of language, a new poet of the first rank is to be 
 welcomed in the author of this volume."— Mk. H, D. Traill in A/i/c- 
 iecnth Century. 
 
 " Profound thought and far-fetched splendour of imagery, and nimble- 
 witted discernment of those analogies which are the ' roots ' of the poet's 
 language, abound . . . qualities which ought to place him, even 
 should he do no more than he has done, in the prominent ranks of fame, 
 with Cowley and Crashaw."— Mk. Coventry Patmore in Fortnightly 
 Review. 
 
 " There is enough and more remaining to prove that in this work there 
 is a power of thought, of imagination, and of language which must give 
 pause to every reader inclined to believe that high verse is dead and done 
 whh." —Pa // Ma N Gazette. 
 
 " They are the most fascinating poems which have appeared since Ros- 
 setti."— Z?(3f/(K Chronicle.
 
 "Mr. Francis Thompson is endowed with very precious gifts, and we 
 may well look to liim to enrich the treasury of our poetical wealth."- 
 Weekly Sun. 
 
 " Mr. Thompson's poetry attains a sublimity unsurpassed by any Vic- 
 torian poet." — Speaker. 
 
 " He has great splendour of imagination, extraordinary fecundity of 
 phrase, a rich vocabulary, an impassioned utterance.''— /rw/z Independent. 
 
 " The thought these poems clothe is too intense, too deep, too fervent to 
 be appreciated by the casual reader ; but every lover of poetry, proud of 
 the richness of our English tongue, will feel indebted to Mr. Thompson 
 for a new revelation of its beauties."— World. 
 
 " Those who have not merely ears, but ' ears to hear ' great poetry, will 
 agree that the publication of this volume marks an era in English litera- 
 ture. " — Merrie England. 
 
 •' So remarkable a use of metaphor, and a style so entirely distinguished, 
 are considerable capital on which to begin a poetic career. " — Siar. 
 
 " They all display the same fine bloom of young imagination."— 5f (?/.?- 
 f/ian. 
 
 "If we would find sincerity, splendour of imagination, extraordinary 
 tenderness and depth of thought, a piercing conscience of an inner hfe, 
 not of much joy and of very great pain, and majesty of expression, we 
 know not where to look among modern poets rather than to Mr. Francis 
 Thompson. '' — Tablet. 
 
 " His very excesses are those of luxuriance, and the root of the matter 
 is certainly there since there is so much to prime away in the blossom. Most 
 versifiers might wish that in this respect they had half his complaint."— 
 Daily News. 
 
 " We have hopes that arc not cheap for his M\xs,esin\.\xrQ."— National 
 Observer. 
 
 " In a word, a new planet has swum into the ken of the watchers of the 
 poetic skies. These are big words ; but we have weighed ihGm."— New- 
 castle Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " I do not know who Mr. Francis Thompson may be ; but if the little 
 volume which contains his ' Poems,' does not include some of the best 
 verse which has been written for ten years, then I give up any claim to 
 know what good poetry is." — Queen. 
 
 " A finely extravagant courtliness, which belongs to an older school of 
 verse. Mr. Thompson has grappled with splendid subjects splendidly."— 
 AtkencEum. 
 
 ''The book is one which every lover of the Muse must needs possess. 
 It has individuality and charm, and where these are there is permanence of 
 fame." — Globe. 
 
 " Francis Thompson keeps the best traditions of the Elizabethans un- 
 lowered.''— Illustrated London News.
 
 List of Books 
 
 IN 
 
 Belles Lettres 
 
 lOHh LAnEPUB 
 
 lLI5MER':f BELLLM 
 LETTK'^J'T.V* 
 
 ITmcBODLEYMCADJ 
 VIGO 51" Lon DON > 
 
 All the Books in this Catalogue 
 are Published at Net Prices 
 
 i8g5 -i 
 
 ^^• 
 
 TeUgrapkk tAddrtu 
 
 'Bcdliian, Lor.dijH
 
 i8gs. 
 
 List of Books 
 
 IN 
 
 'BELL 8 S LSrrRSS 
 
 (Including some Transfers) 
 
 Published by John Lane 
 Vigo Street, London, W. 
 
 N.B. — The Authors and Publisher reserve the right of reprinting 
 any book in this list if a new edition is called for, except in cases 
 where a stipulation has been made to the contrary, and of printing a 
 separate edition of any of the books for America irrespective of the 
 numbers to which the English editions are limited. The numbers 
 mentioned do not include copies sent to the public libraries, nor those 
 sent for review. 
 
 Most of the books are published simultaneously in England and 
 America, and in many instances the names of the American 
 publishers are appended. 
 
 ADAMS {FRANCIS). 
 
 Essays in Modernity. Cr. 8vo. sj. net. [Shortly. 
 
 Chicago: Stone &' Kimball. 
 
 A Child of the Age. (5£c Keynotes Series.)
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 ALLEN (GRANT). 
 
 The Lower Slopes : A Volume of Verse. With title-page 
 and cover design by J. Illingworth Kav. 600 copies, 
 cr. 8vo. 5 J. net. 
 
 Chicago: Stone &> Kimball. 
 
 The Woman Who Did. (See Keynotes Series.) 
 BEARDSLEY [AUBREY). 
 
 The Story of Venus and Tannhausek, in which is set 
 fortli an exact account of the Manner of State held by 
 Madam Venus, Goddess and Meretrix, under the famous 
 Horselberg, and containing the adventures of Tannhauser 
 in that place, his repentance, his journeying to Rome, and 
 return to the loving mountain. By Aubrey Beardsley. 
 With 20 full-page illustrations, numerous ornaments, and 
 a cover from the same hand. Sq. i6mo. 10s. Sd. net. 
 BEDDOES (T. L.). {m preparation. 
 
 See GossE (Edmund). 
 
 BEECHING (Rev. H. C). 
 
 In a Garden : Poems. With title-page and cover design by 
 
 Roger Fry, Cr. 8vo. ^s. net. 
 New York: Macmillan &= Co. 
 
 BENSON (ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER). 
 Lyrics. Fcap. 8vo, buckram. 55, net. 
 Neiu York: Macmillan &' Co. 
 
 BROTH ERTON (MARY). 
 
 Rosemary for Remembrance. With title-page and cover 
 design by Walter West. Fcap. 8vo. y. 6d. net. 
 
 CAMPBELL (GERALD). 
 
 The Joneses and the Asterisks. With six illustrations 
 and title-page by F. H. Townsend. Fcap. 8vo. 3^. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 New York : The Merriam Co. 
 
 CASTLE (Mrs. E'G ERTON). 
 
 My Little Lady Anne : A Romance. Sq. i6mo. 25. 6(1. 
 
 . "^^' . \Jn preparation. 
 
 Philadelphia: Henry Altemus.
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 CASTLE (EGERTON). 
 
 See STEviiNsoN (Robert Louis). 
 
 CROSS (VICTORIA). 
 
 Consummation : A Novel. Cr. 8vo. 41. td. net. 
 
 [/« preparation. 
 DALMON [C. W.). 
 
 Song Favours. Witli a specially designed title-page. Sq. 
 i6mo. y. 6d. net. [In preparation. 
 
 Chicago: Way ^ IVilliams. 
 
 D'ARCY (ELLA). 
 
 Monochromes. [See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 DAVIDSON (JOHN). 
 
 Plays : An Unhistorical Pastoral ; A Romantic Farce ; 
 Bruce, a Chronicle Play ; Smith, a Tragic Farce ; Scara- 
 mouch in Naxos, a Pantomime. With a frontispiece and 
 cover design by Aubrey Beardsley. Printed at the 
 Ballantyne Press. 500 copies, sm. 4to. 7s. 6J. net. 
 
 Chicago : Stoue &" Kimball. 
 
 Fleet Street Eclogues. Fcap. 8vo, buckram. 55. net. 
 
 \Out cf print at present. 
 
 A Random Itinerary and a Ballad. With a frontispiece 
 and title-page by Laurence Housman. 600 copies. 
 Fcap. 8vo, Irish Linen. 5^. net. 
 
 Boston : Copeland b' Day. 
 
 Ballads and Songs. With title-page designed by Walter 
 
 West. Fourth Edition. Fcap. Svo, buckram. 5^. net. 
 Boston : Copeland 6^ Day. 
 
 DA WE (]V. CARLTON). 
 
 Yellow and White. (5fe Keynotes Series.) 
 
 DE TABLEY (LORD). 
 
 Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical. By John Leicester 
 Warren (Lord De Tabley). Illustrations and cover design 
 by C. S. RiCKETTS. 2nd edition, cr. Svo. 7s. 6d. net. 
 New York : Macmillan if Co.
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 BE TABLEY {LORD). 
 
 Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical. 2nd series, uniform in 
 binding with tlie former volume. Cr. 8vo. 55. net. 
 
 New York: Macmillan b" Co. 
 
 DIX {GERTRUDE). 
 
 The Girl from the Farm, (See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 DOSTOIEVSKY {F.). 
 
 {See Keynotes Series, Vol. III.) 
 
 ECHEGARAY {JOSE). 
 See Lynch (Hannah). 
 
 EGERTON {GEORGE). 
 
 Keynotes. {See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 Discords. (5^e Keynotes Series.) 
 
 Young Ofeg's Ditties. A translation from the Swedish of 
 Ola Hansson. Cr, 8vo. 35. 6d. net. 
 
 Boston: Roberts Bros. 
 
 FARR {FLORENCE). , 
 
 The Dancing Faun. {See Keynotes Series,) 
 
 FLETCHER {J. S.). 
 
 The Wonderful Wapentake. By "A Son of the Soil." 
 
 With 18 full-page illustrations by J, A. Symington. 
 
 Cr. 8vo. 5^. 6d. net. 
 Chicago: A. C. McClurg b= Co. 
 
 GALE {NORMAN). 
 
 Orchard Songs. With title-page and cover design by J. 
 Illingworth Kay. Fcap. 8vo, Irish Linen. 5s. net. 
 
 Also a special edition limited in number on hand-made 
 paper bound in English vellum. £x \s. net. 
 
 New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 GARNETT {RICHARD). 
 
 Poems. With title-page by J. Illingworth Kay. 350 
 
 copies, cr. 8vo. y. net. 
 Bos/on: Copeland b' Day. 
 
 Dante, Petrarch, Camoens. CXXIV Sonnets rendered 
 in English. Cr. 8vo. 5J. net. [/n preparation. 
 
 GEARY (NEVILL). 
 
 A Lawyer's Wife : A Novel. Cr. 8vo. 4i. 6d. net. 
 
 \In preparation. 
 
 GOSSE (EDMUND). 
 
 The Letters of Thomas Lovell Beddoes. Now first 
 edited. Pott Bvo. ss. net. 
 
 Also 25 copies large paper. I2J. td. net. 
 New York: Macmillan b" Co. 
 
 GRAHAME (KENNETH). 
 
 Pagan Papers : A Volume of Essays. With title-page 
 by Aubrey Beardsley. Fcap. Bvo. 51. net. 
 
 Chicago : Stone <5r' Kimball, 
 
 The Golden Age. Cr. 8vo. 31. dd. net. 
 Chicago : Stone &" Kimball 
 
 GREENE (G. A.). 
 
 Italian Lyrists of To-Day. Translations in the original 
 metres from about 35 living Itahan poets with bibliographi- 
 cal and biographical notes. Cr. 8vo. 5J. net. 
 New York : Macmillan 6^ Co. 
 
 GREENWOOD (FREDERICK). 
 
 Imagination in Dreams. Crown 8vo. 5^. net. 
 New York: Macmillan b" Co. 
 
 HAKE (T. GORDON). 
 
 A Selection from his Poems. Edited by Mrs. Meynell. 
 With a portrait after D. G. RosSETTi, and a cover design 
 by Gleeson White. Cr. 8vo. y. net. 
 
 Chicago : Stone b' Kimball,
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 HANSSON (LAURA MARHOLM). 
 
 Modern Women : Six Psychological Sketches. [Sophia 
 
 KOVALEVSKY, GeORGE EGERTON, ElEONORA DuSE, 
 
 Amalie Skram, Marie Bashkirtseff, A. Edgren 
 Leffler.] Translated from the German by Hermione 
 Ramsden. Cr. 8vo. 3^. 6d. net. {In preparation. 
 
 HANSSON (OLA). 
 See Egerton. 
 
 HARLAND (HENRY). 
 
 Grey Roses, (See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 HAYES (ALFRED). 
 
 The Vale of Arden, and Other Poems. With a title- 
 page and cover design by E. H. New. Fcap. 8vo. 3^. 6d. 
 net. 
 Also 25 copies large paper. 155. 7iet. 
 
 HEINEMANN (WILLIAM). 
 
 The First Step : A Dramatic Moment. Sm. 410, ss. 6d. net. 
 
 HOPPER (NORA). 
 
 Ballads in Prose. With a title-page and cover by 
 
 Walter West. Sq. i6mo. 55. net. 
 Boston : Roberts Bros. 
 
 HOUSMAN (LAURENCE). 
 
 Green Arras : Poems. With illustrations by the Author. 
 Cr. 8vo. 51. net. l/n preparation. 
 
 IRVING (LAURENCE). 
 
 Godefroi and Yolande : A Play. With 3 illustrations by 
 Aubrey Beardsley. Sm. 410. 55. net. 
 
 [/« preparation, 
 
 JAMES (W. P.). 
 
 Romantic Professions : A volume of Essays. With title- 
 page designed by J. Illingworth Kay. Cr. 8vo. 5^. net. 
 New York: Macniillan (3= Co.
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 yOHNSON (LIONEL). 
 
 The Art of Thomas Hardy. Six Essays, with etched 
 portrait by Wm. STRANG, and Bibliography by John 
 Lane. Second edition, cr. 8vo. liuckram. y. 6d. net. 
 Also 150 copies, large paper, with proofs of the portrait. 
 £^\s. \s. net. 
 
 New York .- Dodd, Mead b' Co. 
 
 JOHNSON (PAULINE). 
 
 The White Wampum : Poems. With title-page and cover 
 
 designs by E. H. New. Cr. 8vo. 5^, net. 
 Boston : Lamson, Wolffe &» Co. 
 
 JOHNSTONE (C. £.). 
 
 Ballads of Boy and Beak. Sq. 32010. 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 [/n preparation. 
 
 KEYNOTES SERIES. 
 
 Each volume with specially designed title-page by Aubrey 
 
 Beardsley. Cr. 8vo, cloth. 3^. 6d. net. 
 Vol. I. Keynotes, By George Egerton. 
 
 [Scvent/t edition now ready. 
 Vol. II. The Dancing Fau.n. By Florence Farr. 
 Vol. III. Poor Folk. Translated from the Russian of F. 
 Dostoievsky by Lena Milman, with a preface by 
 George Moore. 
 Vol. IV. A Child of the Age. By Francis Adams. 
 VoL V. The Great God Pan and the Inmost Light. 
 By Arthur Machen. 
 
 \Second edition now ready. 
 Vol. VI. Discords. By George Egerton. 
 
 {Fourth edition now ready. 
 Prince Zaleski. By M. P. Shiel. 
 The Woman who Did. By Grant Allen. 
 
 [Fifteenth edition now ready. 
 Women's Tragedies. By H. D. Lowry. 
 Grey Roses. By Henry Harland. 
 At the First Corner, and Other Stories. 
 
 By H. B. Marriott Watson. 
 Monochromes. By Ella D'Arcy. 
 , At the Relton Arms. By Evelyn Sharp. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 vni. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 IX, 
 
 Vol. 
 
 X. 
 
 Vol, 
 
 XI. 
 
 VoL 
 
 XII. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 XIII,
 
 lO THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 KEYNOTES SERIES. 
 
 Vol. XIV. The Girl from the Farm. By Gertrude 
 Dix. 
 
 Vol. XV. The Mirror of Music. By Stanley V. 
 
 Makower. 
 
 Vol. XVI. Yellow and White. By W. Carlton Dawe. 
 Vol. XVII, The Mountain Lovers. By Fiona Macleod. 
 Vol. xvin. The Three Impostors. By Arthur Machen. 
 Boston : Roberts Bros. \In preparation. 
 
 LANDER {HARRY). 
 
 Weighed in the Balance : A Novel. Cr. 8vo. 41. 6d. net. 
 
 [In preparation, 
 LANG (ANDREW). 
 See Stoddart. 
 
 LEATHER (R. K.). 
 
 Verses. 250 copies, fcap. 8vo, 3J. net. 
 
 Transferred by the Author to the present Publisher. 
 
 LE G ALLIEN NE (RICHARD). 
 
 Prose Fancies. With portrait of the Author by Wilson 
 Steer. Fourth edition, cr. 8vo, purple cloth. 5^. net. 
 Also a limited large paper edition. 125. 6d. net. 
 New York -. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
 
 The Book Bills of Narcissus. An account rendered by 
 Richard le Gallienne. Third edition, with a new 
 chapter and a frontispiece, cr. Bvo, purple cloth, y. 6d. 
 net. 
 
 Also 50 copies on large paper. 8vo. 105. 6d. net. 
 New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
 
 English Poems. Fourth edition, revised, cr. 8vo, purple cloth. 
 
 4J. 6d. net. 
 Boston : Cope/and 6* Day. 
 
 George Meredith: some Characteristics; with a Biblio- 
 graphy (much enlarged) by John Lane, portrait, &c. 
 Fourth edition, cr. 8vo, piu-ple cloth. 5^-. 6d. net.
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE I I 
 
 LE GALLIENNE (RICHARD). 
 
 The Religion of a Literary Man. sih thousand, cr. 8vo, 
 
 purple cloth, y. 6d. net. 
 Also a special rubricated edition on band-made paper, 8vo. 
 
 10 J. dd. net. 
 New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson : An Elegy, and Other Poems. 
 
 mainly personal. With etched title-page by D. Y. 
 
 Cameron. Cr. 8vo, purple cloth. +1. 6d. net. 
 Also 75 copies on large paper. 8vo. i2s.6d.net. 
 Boston : Cope /and &" Da}'. 
 
 Retrospective Reviews : A Literary Log, 1891- 1895. 2 
 vols., cr. Svo, purple cloth, js. net. \^ln preparation. 
 
 New York ; Dodd, Mead 6= Co. 
 
 LOWRY {H. D.). 
 
 Women's Tragedies. (See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 LUCAS (WINIFRED). 
 
 A Volume of Poems. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net. 
 
 [/n preparation. 
 LYNCH (HANNAH). 
 
 The Great Galeoto and Folly or Saintliness. Two 
 Plays, from the Spanish of ]osk Echegaray, with an 
 Introduction. Sm. 4to. y. 6d. net. 
 Boston : Lamson, Wolffe &" Co. 
 
 MA CHEN (ARTHUR). 
 
 The Great God Pan. (See Keynotes Series.) 
 The Three Impostors. (^^-^ Keynotes Series.) 
 
 MACLEOD (FIONA). 
 
 The Mountain Lovers. (See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 MAKOIVER (STANLEY V.). 
 
 The Mirror of Music. (See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 MARZIALS (THEO.). 
 
 The Gallery of Pigeons, and Other Poems. Post Svo. 
 +s. 6d. net. [ Very few remain. 
 
 Transferred by the Author to the present Publisher.
 
 12 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOH^f LANE 
 
 MATHEW {FRANK). 
 
 Thk Wood ok the Brambles : A Novel. Cr. 8vo. 4^. 6d. 
 ^^^- [In preparation. 
 
 MEREDITH (GEORGE). 
 
 The First Published Portrait of this Author, engraved 
 on the wood by W. Biscombe Gardner, after the pair.tirg 
 by G. F. Watts. Proof copies on Japanese vellum, 
 signed by painter and engraver, ^i is. }ict. 
 
 MEYNELL (MRS.). (ALICE C. THOMPSON). 
 
 Poems. Fcap. 8vo. y.6d.nef. (Out of prhit at present.) A 
 few of the 50 large paper copies (ist edition) remain. 
 12S. 6d. net. 
 
 The Rhythm of Life, and Other Essays. 2nd edition, 
 fcap. 8vo. 35. bd. net. A few of the 50 large paper copies 
 (ist edition) remain, 12s. 6d. net. 
 
 See also Hake. 
 
 MILLER (JOAQUIN). 
 
 The Building of the City Beautiful, Fcap. 8vo. 
 
 With a decorated cover. 5^. net. 
 Chicago: Stone 6^ Kimball. 
 
 MILMAN (LENA). 
 
 Dostoievsky's Poor Folk. (See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 MONKHOUSE (ALLAN). 
 
 Books and Plays : A Volume of Essays on Meredith, 
 Borrow, Ibsen and others. 400 copies, crown 8vo. 
 Ss. net. 
 
 Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott Co. 
 
 MOORE (GEORGE). 
 
 (See Keynotes Series, Vol. III.) 
 
 NESBIT (£.). 
 
 A Pomander of Verse. With a title-page and cover designed 
 
 by Laurence Housman. Cr. 8vo. 55. net. 
 Chicago: A. C. McClurg b' Co. [^In preparation.
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE I 3 
 
 NETTLESHIP {J. T.). 
 
 Robert Bkowning. Essays and Thoughts. Third edition, 
 
 with a portrait, cr. 8vo. 5^. 6d. net. 
 New York: Cluis. Scribner's Sons. 
 
 NOBLE {J AS. ASHCROFT). 
 
 The Sonnet in England, and Other Essays. Title-page 
 and cover design by Austin Young. 600 copies, cr. 8vo. 
 SS. net. Also 50 copies, large paper, i2j. 6d. net. 
 
 O'SHAUGHNESSY (ARTHUR). 
 
 His Life and His Work. With selections from his Poems. 
 
 By Louise Chandler Moulton. Portrait and cover 
 
 design, fcap. 8vo. 5X. net. 
 Chicago : Stone 6* Kimball. 
 
 OXFORD CHARACTERS. 
 
 A series of lithographed portraits by Will Rothenstein, with 
 text by F.York Powell and others. To be issued monthly 
 in term. Each number will contain two portraits. Parts L 
 to VI. ready. 200 sets only, folio, wrapper, sj. net per part; 
 25 special large paper sets containing proof impressions of 
 the portraits signed by the artist, los. 6d. net per part. 
 
 PETERS (WM. THEODORE). 
 
 Posies out of Rings. Sq. i6mo. 3^. td. net. 
 
 [In preparation. 
 
 PLARR (VICTOR). 
 
 Is the Dorian Mood : Poems. Cr. 8vo. w. net. 
 
 [/« preparation. 
 RADFORD (DOLLIE). 
 
 Songs, and Other Verses. With title-page designed by 
 
 Patten Wilson. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. bd. net. 
 Philadelphia ; /. B. Lippincott Co. 
 
 RAMSDEN (HERMIONE). 
 See Hansson. 
 
 RICKETTS (C. S.) AND C. H. SHANNON. 
 
 Hero and Leander. By Christopher Marlowe and 
 George Chapman. With borders, initials, and illus- 
 trations designed and engraved on the wood by C. S. 
 Ricketts and C. H. Shannon. Bound in English 
 vellum and gold. 200 copies only. jy. net. 
 
 Boston: Copeland &* Day.
 
 I^ THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 RHYS {ERNEST). 
 
 A London Rose, and Other Rhymes. With title-page 
 
 designed by Selwyn Image. 350 copies, cr. 8vo. 
 
 SJ. net 
 New York: Dodd, Mead 6» Co. 
 
 ROBINSON (C. NEWTON). 
 
 The Viol of Love. With ornaments and cover design by 
 
 Laurence Housman. Cr. 8vo. 51. nei. 
 Bos f on : Lamson, Wolffe &' Co. 
 
 ST. CYRES (LORD). 
 
 The Little Flowers of St. Francis. A new rendering 
 into English of the Fioretti di San Francesco. Cr. 
 8vo. 5J. net \_In preparation. 
 
 SHARP (EVELYN). 
 
 At the Relton Arms. (See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 SHIEL (M. P.). 
 
 Prince Zaleski. (See Keynotes Series.) 
 
 STACPOOLE (H. DE VERE). 
 
 Death, the Knight, and the Lady. Sq. i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 net. [_In preparation. 
 
 Philadelphia: Henry Altenius. 
 
 STEVENSON (ROBERT LOUIS). 
 
 Prince Otto : A Rendering in French by Egerton Castle. 
 Cr. 8vo. y. net. \Jn preparation. 
 
 Also 100 copies on large paper, uniform in size with the 
 Edinburgh Edition of the works. 
 
 STODDART (THOMAS TOD). 
 
 The Death Wake. With an introduction by Andrew 
 
 Lang. Fcap. 8vo. 55. net, 
 Chicago: IVay ^ Williams. 
 
 STREET (G. S.). 
 
 The Autobiography of a Boy. Passages selected by his 
 friend, G. S. S. With title-page designed by C. W. 
 FURSE. Fcap. 8vo. 35. 6d. net. 
 New York: The Merriam Co, {Fourth edition now ready. 
 
 Miniatures and Moods. Fcap. Bvo. 3^. net. 
 
 Transferred by the Author to the present Publisher. 
 New York: The Merriam Co.
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 1 5 
 
 SWETTENHAM (F. A.). 
 
 Malay Sketches. With title and cover designs by Patten 
 
 Wilson. Cr. 8vo. 5^. net. 
 New York : Macmillan &' Co. 
 
 TABB {JOHN B.). 
 
 PoKMS. Sq. 32mo. 4-f. 6d. net. 
 Boston : Cope/and fir" Day. 
 
 TENNYSON (FREDERICK). 
 
 Poems of the Day and Year, Cr. 8vo. v. net. 
 
 [/« preparation. 
 THIMM (C. A.). 
 
 A Comi'lete Bibliograi'hy of the Art ok Fence, 
 Duelling, &c. With illustrations. [/« preparation. 
 
 THOMPSON (FRANCIS). 
 
 Poems. With frontispiece, title-page, and cover design by 
 Laurence Housman. Fourth edition, pott 410. 5^. net. 
 Boston : Cope/and &» Daj'. 
 
 Sister- Songs : An Offering to Tsvo Sisters. With frontis- 
 piece, title-page, and cover design by LAURENCE HOLS- 
 man. Pott 4to, buckram, y. net. 
 
 Boston : Cope land 6^ Day. 
 
 TYNAN HINKSON (KATHARINE). 
 
 Cuckoo Songs. With title-page and cover design by Laur- 
 ence Housman. Fcap. 8vo. 5^. net. 
 Boston : Copeland &» Day. 
 
 Miracle Plays. \^[n preparation. 
 
 WATSON (ROSAMUND MARRIOTT). 
 
 Vespebtilia, and Other Poems. With title-page designed 
 by R. Anning Bell. Fcap. 8vo. 4^. 6d. net. 
 
 [/« preparation, 
 WATSON (H. B. MARRIOTT). 
 
 At the First Corner, (^^•f Keynotes Series.) 
 
 WATSON (WILLIAM). 
 
 Odes, and Other Poems. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 
 
 4J. 6d. net. 
 New York -. Macmillan b' Co.
 
 l6 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 WATSON (WILLIAM). 
 
 The Eloping Angels : a Caprice. Second edition, sq. 
 
 i6mo, buckram. 35. 6d. net. 
 New York ■■ Macmillan fir" Co. 
 
 Excursions in Criticism ; being some Prose Recreations 
 
 OF a Rhymer. Second edition, cr. 8vo. 55. net. 
 New York: Macmillan 6^ Co. 
 
 The Prince's Quest, and Other Poems. With a biblio- 
 graphical note added. Second edition, fcap. 8vo. 4J. dd. 
 net. 
 
 WATT (FRANCIS). 
 
 The Law's Lumber Room. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 [In preparation. 
 WATTS (THEODORE). 
 
 Poems. Crown 8vo. y. net. [^In preparation. 
 
 There will also be an Edition de Luxe of this volume, printed 
 at the Kelmscott Press. 
 
 WELLS (H. G.). 
 
 Select Conversations with an Uncle, now extinct. 
 
 With a title-page designed by F. H. Townsend. Fcap. 
 
 8vo. 3 J. 6d. net. 
 New York : Tlic Merriam Co. 
 
 WHARTON (H. T.). 
 
 Sappho. Memoir, text, selected renderings, and a literal trans- 
 lation by Henry Thornton Wharton. With Three 
 Illustrations in photogravure and a cover design by Aubrey 
 Beardsley. Fcap. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 Chicago: A. C. McClurg b= Co. 
 
 The Yellow Book 
 
 An Illustrated Quarterly. Pott tfto, js. net. 
 Volume I. April 1894, 272 pp., 15 Illustrations. 
 Volume II. July 1894, 364 pp., 23 Illustrations. 
 Volume III. October 1894, 280 pp., 15 Illustrations. 
 Volume IV. January 1895, 285 pp., 16 Illustrations. 
 Volume V. April 1895, 317 pp., 14 Illustrations. 
 Boston : Cope land 6^ Day. 
 
 f(r.
 
 Vr 000 609 799 i 
 
 V...R.n..O|jj.,,y„u^, 
 
 3 121001285 1125