t)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

_R. Browning_

XXVIII

_THE RAINBOW_

A fragment of a rainbow bright
Through the moist air I see,
All dark and damp on yonder height,
All bright and clear to me.

An hour ago the storm was here,
The gleam was far behind,
So will our joys and grief appear,
When earth has ceased to blind.

Grief will be joy if on its edge
Fall soft that holiest ray,
Joy will be grief if no faint pledge
Be there of heavenly day.

_J. Keble_

XXIX

_THE RAVEN AND THE OAK_

Underneath an old oak tree
There was of swine a huge company,
That grunted as they crunch'd the mast:
For that was ripe and fell full fast.
Then they trotted away, for the wind it grew high
One acorn they left and no more might you spy.
Next came a Raven that liked not such folly:
He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest jet,
Flew low in the rain and his feathers not wet.
He picked up the acorn and buried it straight
By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the Raven go?
He went high and low,
Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.
Many autumns, many springs
Travelled he with wandering wings;
Many summers, many winters--
I can't tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a she,
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had and were happy enow.
But soon came a woodman in leathern guise,
His brow, like a pent house, hung over his eyes.
He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke,
But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,
At length he brought down the poor Raven's old oak.
His young ones were killed, for they could not depart,
And their mother did die of a broken heart.
The boughs from the trunk the woodman did sever;
And they floated it down on the course of the river.
They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip,
And with this tree and others they made a good ship.
The ship it was launched; but in sight of the land
Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand.
It bulged on a rock, and the waves rushed in fast:
Ro