e, and Science high,
Grappling the spectre grim
On the battle-field of quiet Sandringham:
And force of perfect Love,
And the will of One above,
Chased Death's dark squadrons off,
And overcame.

--O soul, to life restored
And love, and wider aim
Than private care can claim,
--And from Death's unsheath'd sword!
By suffering and by safety dearer made:--
O may the life new-found
Through life be wisdom-crown'd,--
Till in the common ground
Thou too art laid!

A DORSET IDYL

_HARCOMBE NEAR LYME_

September: 1878

Before me with one happy heave
Of golden green the hillside curves,
Where slowly, smoothly, rounding swerves
The shadow of each perfect tree,
By slanting shafts of eve
Flame-fringed and bathed in pale transparency.

And that long ridge that crowns the hill
Stands fir-dark 'gainst the falling rays;
Above, a waft of pearly haze
Lies on the sapphire field of air,
So radiant and so still
As though a star-cloud took its station there.

Up wold and wild the valley goes,
'Mid heath and mounded slopes of oak,
And light ash-thicket, where the smoke
Wreathes high in evening's air serene,
Floating in white repose
O'er the blue reek of cottage-hearths unseen.

Another landscape at my feet
Unfolds its nearer grace the while,
Where gorses gleam with golden smile;
Where Inula lifts a russet head
The shepherd's spikenard sweet;
And closing Centaury points her rosy red.

One light cicada's simmering cry,
Survivor of the summer heat,
Chimes faint; the robin, shrill and sweet,
Pipes from green holly; whilst from far
The rookery croaks reply,
Hoarse, deep, as veterans readying for war.

--Grief on a happier future dwells;
The happy present haunts the past;
And those old minstrels who outlast
Our looser-textured webs of song,
Nursed in Hellenic dells,
Sicilian, or Italian, hither throng.

Why care if Turk and Tartar fume,
Barbarian 'gainst barbarian set,
Or how our politic prophets fret,
When on this tapestry-thyme and heath,
Fresh work of Nature's loom,
Thus, thus, we can diffuse ourselves, and breathe

Autumnal sparkling freshness?--while
The page by some bless'd miracle saved
When Goth and Frank 'gainst Hellas raved.
Paints how the wanderer-chi