shows us not such comfort anywhere.
Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there?

Out of the Day's deceiving light we call,
Day that shows man so great and God so small,
That hides the stars and magnifies the grass;
O is the Darkness too a lying glass,
Or, undistracted, do you find truth there?
What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?

AD CIMMERIOS

(_A Prefatory Sonnet for_ SANTA LUCIA_, the Misses Hodgkin's
Magazine for the Blind)_

We, deeming day-light fair, and loving well
Its forms and dyes, and all the motley play
Of lives that win their colour from the day,
Are fain some wonder of it all to tell
To you that in that elder kingdom dwell
Of Ancient Night, and thus we make assay
Day to translate to Darkness, so to say,
To talk Cimmerian for a little spell.

Yet, as we write, may we not doubt lest ye
Should smile on us, as once our fathers smiled,
When we made vaunt of joys they knew no more;
Knowing great dreams young eyes can never see,
Dwelling in peace unguessed of any child--
Will ye smile thus upon our daylight lore?

OLD LOVE-LETTERS

You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best:
A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me!
A dream hangs dead on a life it blest.
Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see
In the cold dank wind of our memory?
Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest?
Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery--
Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest.

And shall life fail if one dream be sped?
For loss of one bloom shall the lily pass?
Nay, bury these deep round the roots, for so
In soil of old dreams do the new dreams grow,
New 'Hail' is begot of the old 'Alas.'
See, here are our letters, so sweet--so dead.

DEATH IN A LONDON LODGING

'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last--'twas only five minutes ago
We heard her sigh from her corner,--she sat in the kitchen, you know:
We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and I
Had just gone into the larder--but you could have heard that sigh
Right up in the garret, sir, for it seemed to pass one by
Like a puff of wind--may be 'twas her soul, who knows--
And we all looked up and ran to her--just in time to see her head
Was sinking down on her bosom and "she's gone at last," I said.'

So Mrs. Pownceby, meeting on the stairs
Her second-floor lodger, me, bound citywards,
Told of her sister's death, doing her best
To match her face's colour with the news:
While I in listening made a run