And flowers sprang up about her feet
She entered heaven; she climbed the stair
And knelt down at the mercy-seat.

Seraphs and saints with one great voice
Welcomed that soul that knew not fear.
Amazed to find it could rejoice,
Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer.

IMAGINATION

(_From "New Year's Eve"_)

There is a dish to hold the sea,
A brazier to contain the sun,
A compass for the galaxy,
A voice to wake the dead and done!

That minister of ministers,
Imagination, gathers up
The undiscovered Universe,
Like jewels in a jasper cup.

Its flame can mingle north and south;
Its accent with the thunder strive;
The ruddy sentence of its mouth
Can make the ancient dead alive.

The mart of power, the fount of will,
The form and mould of every star,
The source and bound of good and ill,
The key of all the things that are,

Imagination, new and strange
In every age, can turn the year;
Can shift the poles and lightly change
The mood of men, the world's career.

_William Watson_

William Watson was born at Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire, August 2,
1858. He achieved his first wide success through his long and eloquent
poems on Wordsworth, Shelley, and Tennyson--poems that attempted, and
sometimes successfully, to combine the manners of these masters. _The
Hope of the World_ (1897) contains some of his most characteristic
verse.

It was understood that he would be appointed poet laureate upon the
death of Alfred Austin. But some of his radical and semi-political
poems are supposed to have displeased the powers at Court, and the
honor went to Robert Bridges. His best work, which is notable for its
dignity and moulded imagination, may be found in _Selected Poems_,
published in 1903 by John Lane Co.

ODE IN MAY[1]

Let me go forth, and share
The overflowing Sun
With one wise friend, or one
Better than wise, being fair,
Where the pewit wheels and dips
On heights of bracken and ling,
And Earth, unto her leaflet tips,
Tingles with the Spring.

What is so sweet and dear
As a prosperous morn in May,
The confident prime of the day,
And the dauntless youth of the year,
When nothing that asks for bliss,
Asking aright, is denied,
And half of the world a bridegroom is,
And half of the world a bride?