and now they are offered after
careful trimming.

Standing afar. I gaze with doubt at other trimmings which are not mine.
They have conquered the taste of the day perhaps, and high art announces
them as her last transfiguration. Moreover they are highly recommended--
as the purest art not always is--by the modesty of the artist.

The cover design, borders, initial letters and the whole of the
full-page illustrations--with the exception of the three to 'Pausias
and Glycera' by James W. R. Linton--are by Louis Fairfax-Muckley.

[Illustration: 017.]

I

Thou feeble implement of mind,
Wherewith she strove to scrawl her
name;
But, like a mitcher, left behind
No signature, no stroke, no claim,
No hint that she hath pined--

Shall ever come a stronger time,
When thou shalt be a tool of skill,
And steadfast purpose, to fulfil
A higher task than rhyme?

II

Thou puny instrument of soul,
Wherewith she labours to impart
Her efforts at some arduous goal;
But fails to bring thy coarser art
Beneath a fine control--

Shall ever come a fairer day,
When thou shalt be a buoyant plume,
To soar, where clearer suns illume,
And fresher breezes play?

[Illustration: 020.]

[Illustration: 023.]

III

Thou weak interpreter of heart,
So impotent to tell the tale
Of love's delight, of envy's smart,
Of passion, and ambition's bale,
Of pride that dwells apart--

Shall I, in length of time, attain
(By walking in the human ways,
With love of Him, who made and sways)
To ply thee, less in vain?

If so, thou shalt be more to me
Than sword, or sceptre, flag, or crown;
With mind, and soul, and heart in thee,
Despising gold, and sham renown;

But truthful, kind, and free--
Then come; though now a pithless quill,
Uncouth, unfledged, indefinite,--
In time, thou shalt be taught to write,
By patience, and good-will.

LITA OF THE NILE

A TALE IN THREE PARTS

PART I

I

"KING, and Father, gift and giver,
God revealed in form of river,
Issuing perfect, and sublime,
From the fountain-head of time;

"Whom eternal mystery shroudeth,
Unapproached, untracked, unknown;
Whom the Lord of heaven encloudeth