But within this fretted shell,
The wonder of Love made visible,
The King a private gentle mood
There placed, of pleasant quietude.
For right amidst there was a court,
Where always muskèd silences
Listen'd to water and to trees;
And herbage of all fragrant sort,—
Lavender, lad's-love, rosemary,
Basil, tansy, centaury,—

Was the grass of that orchard, hid
Love's amazements all amid.

Jarring the air with rumour cool,
Small fountains play'd into a pool

With sound as soft as the barley's hiss

When its beard just sprouting is;

Whence a young stream, that trod on moss,
Prettily rimpled the court across.

And in the pool's clear idleness,
Moving like dreams through happiness,
Shoals of small bright fishes were ;
In and out weed-thickets bent
Perch and carp, and sauntering went
With mounching jaws and eyes a-stare ;
Or on a lotus leaf would crawl
A brinded loach to bask and sprawl,
Tasting the warm sun ere it dipt
Into the water; but quick as fear
Back his shining brown head slipt
To crouch on the gravel of his lair,
Where the cool'd sunbeams broke in wrack,
Spilt shatter'd gold about his back.

So within that green-veil'd air,
995

Within

Within that white-wall'd quiet, where
Innocent water thought aloud,-
Childish prattle that must make
The wise sunlight with laughter shake
On the leafage overbow'd,—
Often the King and his love-lass
Let the delicious hours pass.
All the outer world could see
Graved and sawn amazingly
Their love's delighted riotise,
Fixt in marble for all men's eyes;
But only these twain could abide
In the cool peace that withinside
Thrilling desire and passion dwelt ;
They only knew the still meaning spelt
By Love's flaming script, which is
God's word written in ecstasies.

And where is now that palace gone,
All the magical skill'd stone,
All the dreaming towers wrought
By Love as if no more than thought
The unresisting marble was?
How could such a wonder pass ?
Ah, it was but built in vain

Against the stupid horns of Rome,
That pusht down into the common loam
The loveliness that shone in Spain.
But we have raised it up again!
A loftier palace, fairer far,

Is ours, and one that fears no war.
Safe in marvellous walls we are;
Wondering sense like builded fires,
High amazement of desires,

Delight and certainty of love,
Closing around, roofing above
Our unapproacht and perfect hour
Within the splendours of love's power.

779. Ceremonial Ode Intended for

WH

a University

WHEN from Eternity were separate
The curdled element

And gathered forces, and the world began,—
The Spirit that was shut and darkly blent
Within this being, did the whole distress
With a blind hanker after spaciousness.
Into its wrestle, strictly tied up in Fate
And closely natured, came like an open'd grate
At last the Mind of Man,

Letting the sky in, and a faculty

To light the cell with lost Eternity.

So commerce with the Infinite was regain'd:
For upward grew Man's ken

And trode with founded footsteps the grievous fen
Where other life festering and prone remain'd.
With knowledge painfully quarried and hewn fair,
Platforms of lore, and many a hanging stair
Of strong imagination Man has raised

His Wisdom like the watch-towers of a town;
That he, though fasten'd down

In law, be with its cruelty not amazed,
But be of outer vastness greatly aware.

This, then, is yours: to build exultingly
High, and yet more high,

The knowledgeable towers above base wars
And sinful surges reaching up to lay
Dishonouring hands upon your work, and drag
From their uprightness your desires to lag
Among low places with a common gait.
That so Man's mind, not conquer'd by his clay,
May sit above his fate,

Inhabiting the purpose of the stars,
And trade with his Eternity.

INDEX OF AUTHORS

The references are to the numbers of the poems.