CXLII. THE BANQUET. Now, as when sometime with high festival In carven cups with far-sought gems aglow, Lack yet some love to make the strange thing fair; Yea, to their sad souls rather seem to be Sheep from the sheepfold strayed they know not where. ERNEST MYERS. CXLIII. THE NIGHT'S MESSAGE. LAST night there came a message to mine ear, Saying: Come forth, that I may speak with thee. It was the Night herself that called to me. And I arose and went forth without fear And without hope; and by the mountain-mere, In the great silence sitting silently, Drank in amazed the large moon's purity: Yet was my soul unsoothed of any cheer. But when the moon had set, a great mist lay On the earth and me, and to its wide soft breast Drew forth the secret woe we might not say. Then slowly, its brooding presence lightlier pressed, It heaved, and broke, and swayed, and soared away: And the Earth had morn, and I some space of rest. CXLIV. MILTON. He left the upland lawns and serene air Wherefrom his soul her noble nurture drew, Grew grim with sulphurous dust and sanguine dew; He, with a scornful sigh of his clear soul, Back to his mountain clomb, now bleak and frore, And with the awful Night he dwelt alone, In darkness, listening to the thunder's roll. FREDERICK W. H. MYERS. CXLV. IMMORTALITY. So when the old delight is born anew Seems it not all as one first trembling kiss Ere soul knew soul with whom she has to do? "O nights how desolate, O days how few, O death in life, if life be this, be this! O weighed alone as one shall win or miss The faint eternity which shines therethrough!" Lo, all but age is as a speck of sand Lost on the long beach where the tides are free, And no man metes it in his hollow hand Nor cares to ponder it, how small it be; At ebb it lies forgotten on the land, And at full tide forgotten in the sea. CXLVI. WOULD GOD IT WERE MORNING. My God, how many times ere I be dead Between the twilight and the twilight go, Thro' many a wild enormity of woe? And grey, and blinded with the stormy burst |