uttermost,
God gathers and reaps, to His purposes blest,
The Flesh and the Blood for the chalice and host!

Jadis et Naguere

Jadis

PROLOGUE

Off, be off, now, graceless pack:
Get you gone, lost children mine:
Your release is earned in fine:
The Chimaera lends her back.

Huddling on her, go, God-sped,
As a dream-horde crowds and cowers
Mid the shadowy curtain-flowers
Round a sick man's haunted bed.

Hold! My hand, unfit before,
Feeble still, but feverless,
And which palpitates no more
Save with a desire to bless,

Blesses you, O little flies
Of my black suns and white nights.
Spread your rustling wings, arise,
Little griefs, little delights,

Hopes, despairs, dreams foul and fair,
All!--renounced since yesterday
By my heart that quests elsewhere....
Ite, aegri somnia!

LANGUEUR

I am the Empire in the last of its decline,
That sees the tall, fair-haired Barbarians pass,--the while
Composing indolent acrostics, in a style
Of gold, with languid sunshine dancing in each line.

The solitary soul is heart-sick with a vile
Ennui. Down yon, they say, War's torches bloody shine.
Alas, to be so faint of will, one must resign
The chance of brave adventure in the splendid file,--

Of death, perchance! Alas, so lagging in desire!
Ah, all is drunk! Bathyllus, hast done laughing, pray?
Ah, all is drunk,--all eaten! Nothing more to say!

Alone, a vapid verse one tosses in the fire;
Alone, a somewhat thievish slave neglecting one;
Alone, a vague disgust of all beneath the sun!

Naguere

[Illustration: "Crepuscule du Soir Mystique."]

PROLOGUE

Glimm'ring twilight things are these,
Visions of the end of night.
Truth, thou lightest them, I wis,
Only with a distant light,

Whitening through the hated shade
In such grudging dim degrees,
One must doubt if they be made
By the moon among the trees,

Or if these uncertain ghosts
Shall take body bye and bye,
And uniting with the hosts
Tented by the azure sky,

Framed by Nature's setting meet,--
Offer up in one accord
From the heart's ecstatic heat,
Incense to the living Lord!

Parallelement

IMPRESSION FAUSSE

Dame mouse patters