In their aërial ocean measureless

Myriads of little joys, that ripen sweet

And soothe the sorrowful spirit of the world, Groaning and travailing with the painful birth Of slow redemption.

The soul of man is widening towards the past:
No longer hanging at the breast of life
Feeding in blindness to his parentage—
Quenching all wonder with Omnipotence,
Praising a name with indolent piety—
He spells the record of his long descent,
More largely conscious of the life that was.

Can we believe that the dear dead are gone? Love in sad weeds forgets the funeral-day, Opens the chamber door and almost smilesThen sees the sunbeams pierce athwart the bed Where the pale face is not.

Spirits seem buried and their epitaph
Is writ in Latin by severest pens,

Yet still they flit above the trodden grave
And find new bodies, animating them

In quaint and ghostly way with antique souls.

So Juan was a troubadour revived,

Freshening life's dusty road with babbling rills
Of wit and song, living 'mid harnessed men
With limbs ungalled by armour, ready so
To soothe them weary, and to cheer them sad.
Guest at the board, companion in the camp,
A crystal mirror to the life around,

Flashing the comment keen of simple fact
Defined in words; lending brief lyric voice
To grief and sadness; hardly taking note
Of difference betwixt his own and others';
But rather singing as a listener

To the deep moans, the cries, the wild strong joys Of universal nature, old yet young.

JUAN'S SONG.

PUSH off the boat,

Quit, quit the shore,

The stars will guide us back :

O gathering cloud,

O wide, wide sea,

O waves that keep no track!

On through the pines !

The pillared woods,

Where silence breathes sweet breath:

O labyrinth,

O sunless gloom,

The other side of death!

So soft a night was never made for sleep,
But for the waking of the finer sense
To every murmuring and gentle sound,
To subtlest odours, pulses, visitings

That touch our frames with wings too delicate

To be discerned amid the blare of day.

(She pauses near the window to gather some jasmine: then walks again.)

Surely these flowers keep happy watch-their breath Is their fond memory of the loving light.

I often rue the hours I lose in sleep :

It is a bliss too brief, only to see

This glorious world, to hear the voice of love,
To feel the touch, the breath of tenderness,
And then to rest as from a spectacle.

I need the curtained stillness of the night
To live through all my happy hours again
With more selection-cull them quite away
From blemished moments. Then in loneliness
The face that bent before me in the day
Rises in its own light, more vivid seems

Painted upon the dark, and ceaseless glows
With sweet solemnity of gazing love,

Till like the heavenly blue it seems to grow
Nearer, more kindred, and more cherishing,
Mingling with all my being. Then the words,
The tender low-toned words come back again,
With repetition welcome as the chime

Of softly hurrying brooks—' My only love—
My love while life shall last-my own Fedalma !'
Oh it is mine-the joy that once has been !
Poor eager hope is but a stammerer,

Must listen dumbly to great memory,

Who makes our bliss the sweeter by her telling.

It must be sad to outlive aught we love.

So I shall grieve a little for these days

Of poor unwed Fedalma. Oh, they are sweet,

And none will come just like them. Perhaps the wind

Wails so in winter for the summers dead,

And all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries

For what has been and is not. Are they, Silva ?

-0

These rubies greet me Duchess. How they glow! Their prisoned souls are throbbing like my own. Perchance they loved once, were ambitious, proud ; Or do they only dream of wider life,

Ache from intenseness, yearn to burst the wall

Compact of crystal splendour, and to flood

Some wider space with glory? Poor, poor gems ! We must be patient in our prison-house,

And find our space in loving.

Fedalma.-These gems have life in them: their

colours speak,

Say what words fail of. So do many things—
The scent of jasmine, and the fountain's plash,
The moving shadows on the far-off hills,
The slanting moonlight, and our clasping hands.
O Silva, there's an ocean round our words
That overflows and drowns them. Do you know
Sometimes when we sit silent, and the air
Breathes gently on us from the orange-trees,
It seems that with the whisper of a word
Our souls must shrink, get poorer, more apart.
Is it not true?

Don Silva. Yes, dearest, it is true.
Speech is but broken light upon the depth
Of the unspoken: even your loved words
Float in the larger meaning of your voice
As something dimmer.

Hinda.-You love the roses-so do I. I wish The sky would rain down roses, as they rain