grief, and sublime as their suffering, and
strong as their sorrows were strong.
It knew not, it saw not, but shadows triune, and evoked by the
strength of their spell
Dark hell, and the mountain of anguish, and heaven that was
hollower and harder than hell.
These are not: the womb of the darkness that bare them rejects
them, and knows them no more:
Thought, fettered in misery and iron, revives in the light that it
lived in of yore.
For the soul that is wisdom and freedom, the spirit of England
redeemed from her past,
Speaks life through the lips of the master and lord of her
children, the first and the last.
Thought, touched by his hand and redeemed by his breath, sees,
hears, and accepts from above
The limitless lightnings of vision and passion, the measureless
music of love.

A SWIMMER'S DREAM

NOVEMBER 4, 1889

_Somno mollior unda_

I

Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,
Fair and flawless from face to feet,
Hailed of all when the world was golden,
Loved of lovers whose names beholden
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden
Days more glad than their flight was fleet.

So they sang: but for men that love her,
Souls that hear not her word in vain,
Earth beside her and heaven above her
Seem but shadows that wax and wane.
Softer than sleep's are the sea's caresses,
Kinder than love's that betrays and blesses,
Blither than spring's when her flowerful tresses
Shake forth sunlight and shine with rain.

All the strength of the waves that perish
Swells beneath me and laughs and sighs,
Sighs for love of the life they cherish,
Laughs to know that it lives and dies,
Dies for joy of its life, and lives
Thrilled with joy that its brief death gives--
Death whose laugh or whose breath forgives
Change that bids it subside and rise.

II

Hard and heavy, remote but nearing,
Sunless hangs the severe sky's weight,
Cloud on cloud, though the wind be veering
Heaped on high to the sundawn's gate.
Dawn and even and noon are one,
Veiled with vapour and void of sun;
Nought in sight or in fanci