new Swinburne was a really
great poet. And fancy, he's alive now."

"Alive, and living at Putney," said Mr. Viner.

"And yet he wrote what you've just said!"

"He wrote that, and many other things too. He wrote:

_Before the beginning of years_
_There came to the making of man_
_Time, with a gift of tears;_
_Grief, with a glass that ran;_
_Pleasure, with pain for leaven,_
_Summer, with flowers that fell;_
_Remembrance fallen from heaven,_
_And madness risen from hell."_

"Good Lord!" sighed Michael. "And he's in Putney at this very moment."

Michael went home clasping close the black volume, and in his room that
night, while the gas jet flamed excitably in defiance of rule, he read
almost right through the Second Series of Poems and Ballads. It was
midnight when he turned down the gas and sank feverishly into bed. For a
long while he was saying to himself isolated lines: _'The wet skies
harden, the gates are barred on the summer side.' 'The rose-red acacia
that mocks the rose.' 'Sleep, and if life was bitter to thee, brother.'
'For whom all winds are quiet as the sun, all waters as the shore.'_

In school on Monday morning Mr. Cray, to Michael's regret, did not
allude to the command that his class should read 'In a Garden.' Michael
was desperately anxious at once to tell him how much he had loved the
poem and to remind him of the real title, 'A Forsaken Garden.' At last
he could bear it no longer and went up flushed with enthusiasm to Mr.
Cray's desk, nominally to enquire into an alleged mistake in his Latin
Prose, but actually to inform Mr. Cray of his delight in Swinburne. When
the grammatical blunder had been discussed, Michael said with as much
nonchalance as he could assume:

"I read that poem, sir. I think it's ripping."

"What poem?" repeated Mr. Cray vaguely. "Oh, yes, 'Enoch Arden.'"

"'Enoch Arden,'" stammered Michael. "I thought you said 'In a Garden.' I
read 'A Forsaken Garden' by Swinburne."

Mr. Cray put on his most patronizing manner.

"My poor Fane, have you never heard of Enoch Arden? Perhaps you've never
even heard of Tennyson?"

"But Swinburne's good, isn't he, sir?"

"Swinburne is very well," said Mr. Cray. "Oh, yes, Swinburne will do, if
you like rose-jam. But I don't recommend Swinburne for you, Fane."

Then Mr. Cray addressed his class:

"Did you all read 'Enoch Arden'?"

"Yes, sir," twittered the Upper Fifth.

"Fane, however, with t