Uppe rose ye brave Sir Yroncladde

And groaned, "I hadde no wrong!
I'll hustle back to Paradyse,

And ryng ye entraunce gong;

For thys new croppe of earthlie knyghtes
At joustynge is too strong;

And henceforth thys is my resolve:

To staye where I belong!"

WILBUR D. NESBIT.

THE CONQUERED.

WE who so eager started on life's race,
And breathless ran, nor stinted any whit
For aching muscles, or the parching grit
Of dust upon the lips; who set the face
Only more desperately toward the place

Where the goal's altar smoked, if runners knit
With stronger limbs outran us; we who sit
Beaten at last; - for us what gift or grace?

Though we have been outstripped, yet known have we

The joy of contest; we have felt hot life
Throb in our veins, a tingling ecstasy.

The prize is not the wreath with envy rife,
But to have been all our souls might be.
Our guerdon is the passion of that strife!

ARLO BATES.

IN GUERNSEY.

(TO THEODORE watts.)

I.

My mother sea, my fortress, what new strand, What new delight of waters, may this be,

The fairest found since time's first breezes fanned

My mother sea?

Once more I give me body and soul to thee, Who hast my soul for ever: cliff and sand Recede, and heart to heart once more are we.

My heart springs first and plunges, ere my hand Strike out from shore: more close it brings to me,

More near and dear than seems my fatherland, My mother sea.

II.

Across and along, as the bay's breadth opens, and o'er us

Wild autumn exults in the wind, swift rapture

and strong

Impels us, and broader the wide waves brighten before us

Across and along.

The whole world's heart is uplifted, and knows

not wrong;

The whole world's life is a chant to the seatide's chorus;

Are we not as waves of the water, as notes of the song?

Like children unworn of the passions and toils that wore us,

We breast for a season the breadth of the seas

that throng,

Rejoicing as they, to be borne as of old they bore us

Across and along.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

A SWIMMER'S DREAM.

Somno mollior unda.

(November 4, 1889.)

I.

DAWN is dim on the dark soft water,
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,
Fair and flawless from face to feet,
Hailed of all when the world was golden,
Loved of lovers whose names beholden
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden

Days more glad than their flight was fleet.

So they sang but for men that love her,
Souls that hear not her word in vain,
Earth beside her and heaven above her
Seem but shadows that wax and wane.
Softer than sleep's are the sea's caresses,
Kinder than love's that betrays and blesses,
Blither than spring's when her flowerful tresses
Shake forth sunlight and shine with rain.

All the strength of the waves that perish
Swells beneath me and laughs and sighs,
Sighs for love of the life they cherish,

Laughs to know that it lives and dies,
Dies for joy of its life, and lives

Thrilled with joy that its brief death gives —
Death whose laugh or whose breath forgives
Change that bids it subside and rise.

II.

Hard and heavy, remote but nearing,
Sunless hangs the severe sky's weight,
Cloud on cloud, though the wind be veering
Heaped on high to the sundawn's gate.
Dawn and even and noon are one,
Veiled with vapour and void of sun;
Nought in sight or in fancied hearing

Now less mighty than time or fate.

The grey sky gleams and the grey seas glimmer, Pale and sweet as a dream's delight,

As a dream's where darkness and light seem dimmer,

Touched by dawn or subdued by night.

The dark wind, stern and sublime and sad,
Swings the rollers to westward, clad
With lustrous shadow that lures the swimmer,
Lures and lulls him with dreams of light.

Light, and sleep, and delight, and wonder,
Change, and rest, and a charm of cloud,
Fill the world of the skies whereunder

Heaves and quivers and pants aloud
All the world of the waters, hoary

Now, but clothed with its own live glory,

That makes the lightning and mocks the thunder With light more living and word more proud.

III.

A dream, a dream is it all- -the season,

The sky, the water, the wind, the shore? A day-born dream of divine unreason,

A marvel moulded of sleep - no more? For the cloudlike wave that my limbs while cleaving

Feel as in slumber beneath them heaving
Soothes the sense as to slumber, leaving
Sense of nought that was known of yore.

A purer passion, a lordlier leisure,

A peace more happy than lives on land, Fulfils with pulse of diviner pleasure

The dreaming head and the steering hand. I lean my cheek to the cold grey pillow, The deep soft swell of the full broad billow, And close mine eyes for delight past measure,

And wish the wheel of the world would stand.