t wreathing Roses--who can tell?--
Or chanting for some girl that pleased thee well,
Or satst at wine in Nasha'pu'r, when dun
The twilight veiled the field where Harold fell!

The salt Sea-waves above him rage and roam!
Along the white Walls of his guarded Home
No Zephyr stirs the Rose, but o'er the wave
The wild Wind beats the Breakers into Foam!

And dear to him, as Roses were to thee,
Rings long the Roar of Onset of the Sea;
The _Swan's Path_ of his Fathers is his grave:
His sleep, methinks, is sound as thine can be.

His was the Age of Faith, when all the West
Looked to the Priest for torment or for rest;
And thou wert living then, and didst not heed
The Saint who banned thee or the Saint who blessed!

Ages of Progress! These eight hundred years
Hath Europe shuddered with her hopes or fears,
And now!--she listens in the wilderness
To thee, and half believeth what she hears!

Hadst _thou_ THE SECRET? Ah, and who may tell?
'An hour we have,' thou saidst. 'Ah, waste it well!'
An hour we have, and yet Eternity
Looms o'er us, and the thought of Heaven or Hell!

Nay, we can never be as wise as thou,
O idle singer 'neath the blossomed bough.
Nay, and we cannot be content to die.
_We_ cannot shirk the questions 'Where?' and 'How?'

Ah, not from learned Peace and gay Content
Shall we of England go the way he went
The Singer of the Red Wine and the Rose
Nay, otherwise than his our Day is spent!

Serene he dwelt in fragrant Nasha'pu'r,
But we must wander while the Stars endure.
_He_ knew THE SECRET: we have none that knows,
No Man so sure as Omar once was sure!

XXII. To Q. Horatius Flaccus.

In what manner of Paradise are we to conceive that you, Horace, are
dwelling, or what region of immortality can give you such pleasures as
this life afforded? The country and the town, nature and men, who knew
them so well as you, or who ever so wisely made the best of those two
worlds? Truly here you had good things, nor do you ever, in all your
poems, look for more delight in the life beyond; you never expect
consolation for present sorrow, and when you once have shaken hands with
a friend the parting seems to you eternal.

Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
Tam cari capitis?

So you sing, for the dear head you mourn has sunk for ever beneath the
wave. Virgil might wander forth bearing the golden branch 'the Sibyl
doth to