It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet,

It made me creep, and it made me cold!

Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet Where a mummy is half unroll'd.

And I turn'd and look'd.

She was sitting there

In a dim box, over the stage: and drest

In that muslin dress, with that full soft hair,
And that jasmin in her breast!

I was here and she was there:

And the glittering horse-shoe curved between :From my bride-betroth'd, with her raven hair, And her sumptuous, scornful mien,

To my early love, with her eyes downcast,
And over her primrose face the shade
(In short, from the Future back to the Past),
There was but a step to be made

To my early love from my future bride

One moment I look'd. Then I stole to the door. I traversed the passage; and down at her side, I was sitting, a moment more.

My thinking of her, or the music's strain,

Or something which never will be expressed, Had brought her back from the grave again, With the jasmin in her breast.

She is not dead, and she is not wed!

But she loves me now, and she loved me then! And the very first word that her sweet lips said, My heart grew youthful again.

The Marchioness there, of Carabas,

She is wealthy, and young, and handsome still, And but for her . . . well, we'll let that pass, She may marry whomsoever she will.

But I will marry my own first love

With her primrose face: for old things are best; And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above

The brooch in my lady's breast.

The world is fill'd with folly and sin,

And Love must cling where it can, I

For beauty is easy enough to win ;

But one isn't loved every day.

say:

And I think, in the lives of most women and men, There's a moment when all would go smooth and

even,

If only the dead could find out when
To come back and be forgiven.

But oh, the smell of that jasmin-flower!
And oh, that music! and oh, the way
That voice rang out from the donjon tower—
"Non ti scordar di me,

Non ti scordar di me!"

LUCILE

(THE PARTING BEFORE SEBASTOPOL)

But she in response. "Mark yon ship far away,
Asleep on the wave, in the last light of day,
With all its hushed thunders shut up!

know

A thought which came to me a few days ago,

Would you

Whilst watching those ships? . . . When the great Ship

of Life,

Surviving, though shattered, the tumult and strife

Of earth's angry element-masts broken short,
Decks drench'd, bulwarks beaten-drives safe into port,
When the Pilot of Galilee, seen on the strand,
Stretches over the waters a welcoming hand;
When, heeding no longer the sea's baffled roar,
The mariner turns to his rest evermore.

What will then be the answer the helmsman must give?
Will it be, 'Lo, our log-book! Thus once did we live
In the zones of the South; thus we traversed the seas
Of the Orient; there dwelt with the Hesperides;
Thence follow'd the west wind; here, eastward we turn'd;
The stars failed us there; just here, land we discern'd
On our lee; there the storm overtook us at last;
That day went the bowsprit, the next day the mast;
There the mermen came round us, and there we saw bask
A siren.' The Captain of the Port, will he ask
Any one of such questions? I cannot think so!
But, 'What is the last Bill of Health you can show?'
Not 'How fared the soul through the trials she passed?'
But 'What is the state of that soul at the last?""

"May it be so!" he sighed.

behold!"

"There, the sun drops,

And, indeed, whilst he spoke, all the purple and gold
In the West had turned ashen, save one fading strip
Of light that yet gleam'd from the dark nether lip
Of a long reef of clouds; and o'er sullen ravines
And ridges the raw damps were hanging white screens
Of melancholy mist.

"Nunc dimittis!" she said.

"O God of the living, whilst yet 'mid the dead
And the dying we stand here alive, and thy days
Returning, admit space for prayer and for praise.
In both these confirm us.

The helmsman, Eugène, Needs the compass to steer by. Pray always. Again

We two part: each to work out Heaven's will: you, I trust,
In the world's ample witness; and I, as I must,
In secret and silence: you, love, fame await;
Me, sorrow and sickness. We meet at one gate
When all's over. The ways they are many and wide,
And seldom are two ways the same. Side by side
May we stand at the same little door when all's done!
The ways they are many, the end it is one.

He that knocketh shall enter; who asks shall obtain:
And who seeketh, he findeth. Remember, Eugène !"

C. S. CALVERLEY. 1831-1884

SHELTER

By the still lake margin I saw her lie,
The deep dark lake where the rushes sigh,
A fair young thing with a shy soft eye;
And I deemed that her thoughts had flown
To her father and mother and sisters dear,
As she lay there watching the deep dark mere,
All motionless, all alone.

Then I heard a noise as of men and boys,

And a boisterous troop drew near.

Whither now shall escape those fairy feet?
Where hide till the storm pass by?

One glance-the wild glance of a hunted thing
She cast behind her, she gave one spring,
And I heard a splash and a widening ring

On the lake where the rushes sigh.

She has gone from the ken of ungentle men,

But scarce did I grieve for that,

For I knew she was safe in her own home, then,
And the danger o'er would appear again,

For she was a water rat.