I make the cry my maker cannot make With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!"

Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?

Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, What knows,-the something over Sete

bos

That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,

Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.

There may be something quiet o'er His head,

Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor

grief,

Since both derive from weakness in some way.

I joy because the quails come; would not joy

Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:

This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. 'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,

But never spends much thought nor care that way.

It may look up, work up, the worse for those

It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos
The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,
Who, making Himself feared through
what He does,

Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot

soar

To what is quiet and hath happy life; Next looks down here, and out of very spite

Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,

These good things to match those as hips do grapes.

'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.

Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books

Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle : Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,

Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;

Has peeled a wand and called it by a

name;

Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's

robe

The eyed skin of a supple oncelot ;

"Tasteth himself, no finer good i' the world

When all goes right, in this safe summertime,

And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,

Than trying what to do with wit and strength.

'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,

And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,

And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,

And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,

And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,

Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.

No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;

'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.

All need not die, for of the things o' the isle

Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;

Those at His mercy,-why they please Him most

When . . . when . . . well, never try the same way twice!

Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.

You must not know His ways, and play Him off,

Sure of the issue. Doth the like himself:

'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,

And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:

'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, Curls up into a ball, pretending death For fright at my approach: the two ways please.

But what would move my choler more than this,

That either creature counted on its life To-morrow and next day and all days to

Idly! He doth His worst in this our life.

Giving just respite lest we die through pain,

Saving last pain for worst,-with which, an end.

Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire

Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,

Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,

Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.

'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball

On head and tail as if to save their lives: Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.

Even so,' would have him misconceive, suppose

This Caliban strives hard and ails no less, And always, above all else, envies Him; Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,

Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,

And never speaks his mind save housed

as now:

Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here,

O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"

'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off, Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,

Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree, Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:

While myself lit a fire, and made a song And sung it, "What I hate, be consecrate, To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?"

Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,

Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,

That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch

And conquer Setebos, or likelier He Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.

[What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!

Crickets stop hissing; not a bird-or, yes,

There scuds His raven that has told Him all!

It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind

Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,

And fast invading fires begin! White blaze

A tree's head snaps-and there, there, there, there, there,

His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!

Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos ! 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, [month Will let those quails fly, will not eat this One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!] 1864.

CONFESSIONS

WHAT is he buzzing in my ears?

Now that I come to die,

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?" Ah, reverend sir, not I!

What I viewed there once, what I view again

Where the physic bottles stand
On the table's edge,-is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry
O'er the garden-wall; is the curtain blue
Or green to a healthy eye?

To mine, it serves for the old June weather

Blue above lane and wall; And

that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"

Is the house o'ertopping all.

Yet never catch her and me together, As she left the attic, there,

By the rim of the bottle labelled 66 Ether,"

And stole from stair to stair,

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,

We loved, sir-used to meet : How sad and bad and mad it wasBut, then, how it was sweet! 1864.

YOUTH AND ART

IT once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the house top lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

Your trade was with sticks and clay,

You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,

Then laughed "They will see some day Smith made, and Gibson demolished."

My business was song, song, song;

I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twit tered,

"Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, And Grisi's existence embittered!"

I earned no more by a warble
Than you by a sketch in plaster:
You wanted a piece of marble,
I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles,

Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, For air, looked out on the tiles,

For fun, watched each other's windows.

You lounged, like a boy of the South, Cap and blouse-nay, a bit of beard too:

Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
With fingers the clay adhered to.

And I-soon managed to find
Weak points in the flower-fence facing,
Was forced to put up a blind

And be safe in my corset-lacing.
No harm! It was not my fault
If you never turned your eye's tail up
As I shook upon E in alt.,

Or ran the chromatic scale up: For spring bade the sparrows pair,

And the boys and girls gave guesses,

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,

Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained,

And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more, The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad

life's arrears

Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to

the brave,

The black minute's at end,