A COMMON INFERENCE

A NIGHT: mysterious, tender, quiet, deep; Heavy with flowers; full of life asleep; Thrilling with insect voices; thick with stars;

No cloud between the dewdrops and red Mars;

The small earth whirling softly on her way, The moonbeams and the waterfalls at play; A million million worlds that move in peace, A million mighty laws that never cease; And one small ant-heap, hidden by small weeds,

Rich with eggs, slaves, and store of millet seeds.

They sleep beneath the sod

And trust in God.

At that outrageous bug I shot
The fury of mine eye;
Said I, in scorn all burning hot,
In rage and anger high,
"You ignominious idiot!

Those wings are made to fly!"

"I do not want to fly," said he,

"I only want to squirm!" And he drooped his wings dejectedly,

But still his voice was firm:
"I do not want to be a fly!
I want to be a worm !"

O yesterday of unknown lack!
To-day of unknown bliss!
I left my fool in red and black,
The last I saw was this,
The creature madly climbing back
Into his chrysalis.

Away, and far away, his pride is borne,
Riding the noisy morn,

Plunges, and preens her wings, and laughs to know

The helm and tightening halyards still
Follow the urging of his will,

And scoff at sullen earth a league below.

Mischance hath barred him from his heirdom high,

And shackled him with many an inland tie,

And of his only wisdom made a jibe
Amid an alien tribe:

No wave abroad but moans his fallen state. The trade-wind ranges now, the trade-wind roars !

Why is it on a yellowing page he pores ? Ah, why this hawser fast to a garden gate ?

Thou friend so long withdrawn, so deaf, so dim,

Familiar Danger, O forget not him!
Repeat of thine evangel yet the whole
Unto his subject soul,

Who suffers no such palsy of her drouth,
Nor hath so tamely worn her chain,
But she may know that voice again,
And shake the reefs with answer of her
mouth..

And faint, O rather by the sun anew
Of timeless passion set my dial true,
That with thy saints and thee I may con-
sort,

And, wafted in the cool, enshadowed port
Of poets, seem a little sail long due,
And be as one the call of memory drew
Unto the saddle void since Agincourt!
Not now, for secular love's unquiet lease,
Receive my soul, who, rapt in thee ere-
while,

Hath broken tryst with transitory things;
But seal with her a marriage and a peace
Eternal, on thine Edward's altar-isle,
Above the oval sea of ended kings.

Chief miracle of theme and touch
That upstart enviers adore:
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

No critic born since Charles was king
But sighed in smiling, as he read:
"Here's theft of the supremest thing
A poet might have said!”

Young knight and wit and beau, who won,
Mid war's adventure, ladies' praise,
Was 't well of you, ere you had done,
To blight our modern bays?

O yet to you, whose random hand
Struck from the dark whole gems
Archaic beauty, never planned
Nor reared by wan degrees,

like these,

Which leaves an artist poor, and art
An earldom richer all her years;
To you, dead on your shield apart,
Be" Ave!" passed in tears.

How shall this singing era spurn
Her master, and in lauds be loath?
Your worth, your work, bid us discern
Light exquisite in both.

'T was virtue's breath inflamed your lyre,

Heroic from the heart it ran;

Nor for the shedding of such fire

Lives since a manlier man.

And till your strophe sweet and bold So lovely aye, so lonely long,

Love's self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold The pinnacles of song.

THE WILD RIDE

I HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses, All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible

horses;

All night, from their stalls, the importunate tramping and neighing.

Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle,

Straight, grim, and abreast, go the weatherworn, galloping legion,

With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;

There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us: What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the riding.

I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,

All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible