r fair,
Lightfooted as a frightened bounding deer,
Thy wreath of vine-leaves twisted in thy hair,
Through all the changing seasons of the year,
And tread, to Autumn's gorgeous hymn of praise,
And to the happy Spring's light lilt of pleasure,
And to the dirgeful chant of Winter's days,
And ever varying, ever suited measure;
And in the Summer, when the reeking earth
Swings a vast censer, as it is most meet,
Praise thou for lavish gifts, new hopes, new birth,
Praise with the dancing of thy tireless feet!

I woke to daylight, and to find
A wreath of fading vine-leaves, rough entwined,
Lying, as dropped in hasty flight, upon my floor.

* Reprinted by kind permission of the Editor of the "English Review,"
where it first appeared in August 1913

CONSTANTINOPLE

DHJI-HAN-GHIR. For H.N.

FOR years it had been neglected,
This wilderness garden of ours,
And its ruin had shone reflected
In its pools through abandoned hours.
For none had cared for its beauty
Till we came, the strangers, the Giaours,
And none had thought of a duty
Towards its squandering flowers.

Of broken wells and fountains
There were half a dozen or more,
And, beyond the sea, the mountains
Of that far Bithynian shore
Were blue in the purple distance
And white was the cap they wore,
And never in our existence
Had life seemed brighter before!

And the fruit-trees grew in profusion,
Quince and pomegranate and wine,
And the roses in rich confusion
With the lilac intertwine,
And the Banksia rose, the creeper,
Which is golden like yellow wine,
Is surely more gorgeous and deeper
In this garden of mine and thine.

And the little bright flowers in the grasses,
Cyclamen, daffodil,
Are crushed by the foot that passes,
But seem to grow thicker still;
In the cool grey fig-tree's shadows
They grow at their own free will,
In the grass as in English meadows,
On the slope of an English hill.

Is it best, when the lone flute-player
Wanders by with his strange little tune
And the muezzin sings out for prayer
Thrice daily his Arabic rune:
Once, when the sunset has faded,
Once in the brilliant noon,
Or once in the daybreak, rose-shaded.
A farewell to the dying moon?

LEBLEBIDJI*

I KNOW so well the busy cries
That echo through the quarter
Till daylight into evening dies
And stars shine in the water,
So dear they have becom