"Drink to lofty hopes that coolVisions of a perfect State : Drink we, last, the public fool,

Frantic love and frantic hate.

150

"Chant me now some wicked stave,
Till thy drooping courage rise,
And the glow-worm of the grave
Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes.

April hopes, the fools of chance; Till the graves begin to move,

And the dead begin to dance.

165

"Trooping from their mouldy dens The chap-fallen circle spreads: Welcome, fellow-citizens,

Hollow hearts and empty heads!

170

"You are bones, and what of that?

175

Every face, however full,

Padded round with flesh and fat,
Is but modelled on a skull.

"Death is king, and Vivat Rex!

Tread a measure on the stones,

Madam if I know your sex,

180

From the fashion of

your

bones.

"No, I cannot praise the fire

In

your eye- -nor yet your lip:

All the more do I admire

Joints of cunning workmanship.

185

"Lo! God's likeness · the ground-plan — Neither modelled, glazed, or framed : Buss me, thou rough sketch of man,

Far too naked to be shamed!

190

1

"Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance,

While we keep a little breath!

Drink to heavy Ignorance!

Hob-and-nob with brother Death!

"Thou art mazed, the night is long,

195

And the longer night is near: What! I am not all as wrong As a bitter jest is dear.

"Youthful hopes, by scores, to all,

The voice grew faint: there came a further change;
Again arose the mystic mountain-range:
Below were men and horses pierced with worms,
And slowly quickening into lower forms;

By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross,
Old plash of rains, and refuse patched with moss.
Then some one spake: "Behold! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time."
Another said: "The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal blame."

210

And one: "He had not wholly quenched his power;
A little grain of conscience made him sour."
At last I heard a voice upon the slope

Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?"

To which an answer pealed from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand:
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made himself an awful rose of dawn.

215

220

THE SKIPPING-ROPE.

SURE never yet was Antelope
Could skip so lightly by.

Stand off, or else my skipping-rope
Will hit in the eye.

you

How lightly whirls the skipping-rope!

How fairy-like you fly!

Go, get you gone, you muse and mope

I hate that silly sigh.

Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,

Or tell me how to die.

There, take it, take my skipping-rope

And hang yourself thereby.