Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire;
Lovely feet as yet unbruised,
On the ways of dark desire;
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
O'er the wilderness defiling!

"Why such beauty, to be blighted,
By the swarm of foul destruction?
Why such innocence delighted,
When sin stalks to thy seduction?
All the litanies e'er chanted,
Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.

"I have pray'd the Sainted Morning
To unclasp her hands to hold thee;
From resignful Eve's adorning
Stol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee;
With all charms of man's contriving
Arm'd thee for thy lonely striving.

"Me too once unthinking Nature,
--Whence Love's timeless mockery took me,--
Fashion'd so divine a creature,
Yes, and like a beast forsook me.
I forgave, but tell the measure,
Of her crime in thee, my treasure."

It seems as if he were haunted by memories of his own thwarted childhood
and shipwrecked youth. If possible he wished to guard and protect his
Benjamin from the pitfalls that had beset his path, knowing that the
same dangers might prevail in Kazuo's case as in his own, and that there
might be no one to protect and guard him.

A charming piece of prose, from which I give a few extracts, was found
amongst Hearn's papers after his death. The manuscript, lent to me by
Mrs. Atkinson, lies by my hand as I write; it is entitled "Fear."

"An old, old sea-wall, stretching between two boundless levels, green
and blue. Everything is steeped in white sun; and I am standing on the
wall. Along its broad and grass-grown top a boy is running towards
me,--running in sandals of wood,--the sea-breeze blowing aside the long
sleeves of his robe as he runs.... With what sudden incommunicable pang
do I watch the gracious little figure leaping in the light.... A
delicate boy, with the blended charm of two races.... And how softly
vivid all things under this milky radiance,--the smiling child-face with
lips apart,--the twinkle of the light quick feet,--the shadows of
grasses and of little stones!...

"But quickly as he runs, the child will come no nearer to me,--the slim
brown hand will never cli