POETRY.
THEOCRITITS IN FLEET STREET.
WHAT matter though my room be small, Though this red lamp-light looks On nothing but a papered wall And some few rows of books P
For in my hand I hold a key
That opens golden doors ; At whose resistless sesame A tide of sunlight pours In from the basking lawns that lie- Beyond the boundary wall ; Where summer broods eternally, Where the cicalas call.
There all the landscape softer is There greener tendrils twine, The bowers are roofed with clematis-, With briony and vine.
There pears and golden apples hang, There falls the honey-dew,
And there the birds that morning sang„
When all the world was new.
Beneath the oaks Menalcas woos Arachnia's nut-brown eyes ; And still the laughing Faun pursues, And still the wood-nymph flies.
And you may hear young Orpheus there Come singing through the wood, Or catch the gleam of golden hair In Dian's solitude.
So when the world is all awry, When life is out of chime, I take this key of gold and fly To that serener clime ; To those fair sunlit lawns that lie Beyond the boundary wall, Where summer broods eternally
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