Ancient Mariner.' His chief defects, besides
the occasional obscurity already referred to, are a tendency to
looseness of structure in his longer poems, and once in a while, as in
parts of 'The Silent Lodger,' a Browningesque lapse into hardness and
baldness when the effect aimed at is colloquial simplicity.

[Signature: Charles G. D. Roberts]

HACK AND HEW

Hack and Hew were the sons of God
In the earlier earth than now;
One at his right hand, one at his left,
To obey as he taught them how.

And Hack was blind and Hew was dumb,
But both had the wild, wild heart;
And God's calm will was their burning will,
And the gist of their toil was art.

They made the moon and the belted stars,
They set the sun to ride;
They loosed the girdle and veil of the sea,
The wind and the purple tide.

Both flower and beast beneath their hands
To beauty and speed outgrew,--
The furious fumbling hand of Hack,
And the glorying hand of Hew.

Then, fire and clay, they fashioned a man,
And painted him rosy brown;
And God himself blew hard in his eyes:
"Let them burn till they smolder down!"

And "There!" said Hack, and "There!" thought Hew,
"We'll rest, for our toil is done."
But "Nay," the Master Workman said,
"For your toil is just begun.

"And ye who served me of old as God
Shall serve me anew as man,
Till I compass the dream that is in my heart
And perfect the vaster plan."

And still the craftsman over his craft,
In the vague white light of dawn,
With God's calm will for his burning will
While the mounting day comes on,

Yearning, wind-swift, indolent, wild,
Toils with those shadowy two,--
The faltering restless hand of Hack,
And the tireless hand of Hew.

From 'Behind the Arras': copyrighted 1895, by Lamson,
Wolffe and Company

AT THE GRANITE GATE

There paused to shut the door
A fellow called the Wind.
With mystery before,
And reticence behind,

A portal waits me too
In the glad house of spring;
One day I shall pass through
And leave you wondering.

It lies beyond the marge
Of evening or of prime,
Silent and dim and large,
The gateway of all time.

There troop by night and day
My brothers of the field;
And I shall know the way
Their wood-songs have revealed.

The dusk w