the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's
breath.
Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul
of our senses
Sweetens the stress of surprising suspicion that sobs in the semblance
and sound of a sigh;
Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular
tenses,--
"Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn
of the day when we die."
Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as it
may be,
While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of
men's rapiers, resigned to the rod;
Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing
bulk of a balm-breathing baby,
As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies growing
green at a groan for the grimness of God.
Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is
blacker than bluer:
Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are
the wine of the bloodshed of things:
Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is
freed from the fangs that pursue her,
Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the hunt
that has harried the kennel of kings.

_Algernon Charles Swinburne._

UP THE SPOUT

I

Hi! Just you drop that! Stop, I say!
Shirk work, think slink off, twist friend's wrist?
Where that spined sand's lined band's the bay--
Lined blind with true sea's blue, as due--
Promising--not to pay?

II

For the sea's debt leaves wet the sand;
Burst worst fate's weight's in one burst gun?
A man's own yacht, blown--What? off land?
Tack back, or veer round here, then--queer!
Reef points, though--understand?

III

I'm blest if I do. Sigh? be blowed!
Love's doves make break life's ropes, eh? Tropes!
Faith's brig, baulked, sides caulked, rides at road;
Hope's gropes befogged, storm-dogged and bogged--
Clogged, water-logged, her load!

Stowed, by Jove, right and tight, away.
No show now how best plough sea's brow,
Wrinkling--breeze quick, tease thick, ere day,
Clear sheer wave's sheen of green, I mean,
With twinkling wrinkles--eh?

V

Sea sprinkles wrinkles, tinkles light
Shells' bells--boy's joys that hap