he father sleeps, but the world is new,
The child of his love forgets.

IV.

I too, it may be, before they drop,
The leaves that flicker to-day,
Ere bountiful gleams make ripe the crop,
Shall pass from my place away:

V.

Ere yon gray cygnet puts on her white,
Or snow lies soft on the wold,
Shall shut these eyes on the lovely light,
And leave the story untold.

VI.

Shall I tell it there? Ah, let that be,
For the warm pulse beats so high;
To love to-day, and to breathe and see,--
To-morrow perhaps to die,--

VII.

Leave it with God. But this I have known,
That sorrow is over soon;
Some in dark nights, sore weeping alone,
Forget by full of the moon.

VIII.

But if all loved, as the few can love,
This world would seldom be well;
And who need wish, if he dwells above,
For a deep, a long death knell.

IX.

There are four or five, who, passing this place,
While they live will name me yet;
And when I am gone will think on my face,
And feel a kind of regret.

WINSTANLEY.

_THE APOLOGY._

_Quoth the cedar to the reeds and rushes,
"Water-grass, you know not what I do;
Know not of my storms, nor of my hushes.
And--I know not you."

Quoth the reeds and rushes, "Wind! O waken!
Breathe, O wind, and set our answer free,
For we have no voice, of you forsaken,
For the cedar-tree."

Quoth the earth at midnight to the ocean,
"Wilderness of water, lost to view,
Naught you are to me but sounds of motion;
I am naught to you."

Quoth the ocean, "Dawn! O fairest, clearest,
Touch me with thy golden fingers bland;
For I have no smile till thou appearest
For the lovely land."_

_Quoth the hero dying, whelmed in glory
"Many blame me, few have understood;
Ah, my folk, to you I leave a story,--
Make its meaning good."

Quoth the folk, "Sing, poet! teach us, prove us
Surely we shall learn the meaning then;
Wound us with a pain divine, O move us,
For this man of men."_

* * * * *

Winstanley's deed, you kindly folk,
With it I fill my lay,
And a nobler man ne'er walked the world,
Let his name be what it may.

The good ship "Snowdrop" tarried long,
Up at the vane looked he;
"Belike," he said, for the wind had dropped,
"She lieth becalmed at sea."

The lovely ladies flocked within,
And still would each one say,
"Good mercer, be the ships come up?"
But sti