in Hell,
And flashings upon faces without hope.--
And I will think in gold and dream in silver,
Imagine in marble and conceive in bronze,
Till it shall dazzle pilgrim nations
And stammering tribes from undiscovered lands,
Allure the living God out of the bliss,
And all the streaming seraphim from heaven.

BEAUTIFUL LIE THE DEAD

Beautiful lie the dead;
Clear comes each feature;
Satisfied not to be,
Strangely contented.

Like ships, the anchor dropped,
Furled every sail is;
Mirrored with all their masts
In a deep water.

A DREAM

My dead love came to me, and said:
'God gives me one hour's rest,
To spend with thee on earth again:
How shall we spend it best?'

'Why, as of old,' I said; and so
We quarrelled, as of old:
But, when I turned to make my peace,
That one short hour was told.

_Laurence Binyon_

Laurence Binyon was born at Lancaster, August 10, 1869, a cousin of
Stephen Phillips; in _Primavera_ (1890) their early poems appeared
together. Binyon's subsequent volumes showed little distinction until
he published _London Visions_, which, in an enlarged edition in 1908,
revealed a gift of characterization and a turn of speech in surprising
contrast to his previous academic _Lyrical Poems_ (1894). His _Odes_
(1901) contains his ripest work; two poems in particular, "The
Threshold" and "The Bacchanal of Alexander," are glowing and unusually
spontaneous.

Binyon's power has continued to grow; age has given his verse a new
sharpness. "The House That Was," one of his most recent poems,
appeared in _The London Mercury_, November, 1919.

A SONG

For Mercy, Courage, Kindness, Mirth,
There is no measure upon earth.
Nay, they wither, root and stem,
If an end be set to them.

Overbrim and overflow,
If your own heart you would know;
For the spirit born to bless
Lives but in its own excess.

THE HOUSE THAT WAS

Of the old house, only a few crumbled
Courses of brick, smothered in nettle and dock,
Or a squared stone, lying mossy where it tumbled!
Sprawling bramble and saucy thistle mock
What once was firelit floor and private charm
Where, seen in a windowed picture, hills were fading
At dusk, and all was memory-coloured and warm,
And voices talked, secure from the wind's invading.

Of the old garden, on