ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

Are not the roofs and the lintels wet? The woven web that was plain to follow, The small slain body, the flower-like face, Can I remember if thou forget?

O sister, sister, thy first-begotten !

The hands that cling and the feet that follow,

The voice of the child's blood crying yet, Who hath remember* d me ? who hath forgotten ? Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow, But the world shall end when I forget.

��WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

8 12. Earliest Spring

HPOSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies and

• tangles,

Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,

Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the

hollows and angles [death.

Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and

But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow

Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow,

Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift.

Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire [goes

(How shall I name it aright ?) comes for a moment and Rapture of life ineffable, perfect as if in the brier,

Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.

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