1 FEBRUARY 1902, Page 18

CONVALESCENCE.

THE sun has kissed me on the brow, The gentle morning lends me breath : I feel like Lazarus of old,

Whom Jesus raised from death.

And all the Spring's reviving green, Ambitious of an early bloom, Is hand-in-hand with me to-day, Uprising from the tomb.

Ah, had you cloistered been like me, A denizen of aching dark,

You'd see a rose on every bush, In every bird a lark.

• ahAroes is in the text used; but the 7, must be long. (The Greek has a general look of being late.) Something like agekbr is wanted, The idea is 'obviously want of sympathy in the passer-by.

For I have dwelt alone with fear, And I had taken pain to wife ; So now I quaff in eager draughts The heady wine of life.

Dear world, restore me to thy breast, The mother-breast for which I yearned, Thy child that strayed away with Death, Thy Prodigal returned.