POETRY.

MEDITATIVE ODE ON VISION.

THE cool bright fingers of the winter sun Shape the clear hills to beauty, where the breeze Coils his slow, shining side, Basks in cold light at ease : Basks, till the feathered woods Sleep on their rocky nests, where hide Their tender broods Of naked saplings, voiceless every one.

Voiceless : for Silence treads her padded way : No sound, but sunbeam's gently weeping ray, —That, and worms sighing three full inches deep, —That, and fish singing in their winter sleep To charm away the frost . . .

And yet, to my sprite ear Across these earthy noises ringing clear As music up the wind, there come sad tones Unsounded : voices : melancholy Harmonious : sounds, and bells, and melancholy More beautiful than stones Or cry of mountains in the fearful moonlight lost.

Whence do they come ?

I cannot tell.

Where do they dwell ?

I do not say, For at the door cloth Vision stand With burning coal in her left hand To seal the lips. In every way Three-headed Vision lies across the gate, Darting this way and that.

Naked of words alone we pass : We hang our names upon a tree, Pile epithets upon the grass In useless heaps : our restless verbs We chain—they stalk uneasy.

Naked of words we enter in Where formless beauties walk in threes, And soundless music stirs no trees, And thoughtless knowledge bursts no mind, And uneyed senses thin as wind Swim on the darkness with no fin, No light wing-fall ; And speechless Joy in Sorrow's arms Engenders Nothing : and the hours Flatten, and shine like pigments on the wall.

Naked we passed the door ; Naked return Beauties wreatheless of all Name, And with no hue of shame : Like unicorns for joy We leap, we burn, we burn Like eyes grown large as stars . .

Then the cold breath of matter stirs And joy falls steep as tears : Then ecstasy lies still, Soul shudders, sprite grows chill For shelter of a word,

Till I fling Richard round my shoulders, gird Hughes decently across my loins.

Others I see on that dun plain Gaze with memorial eyes.

Brother, was yours this pain ?

—Come ; in ironic idleness, let's play With words as children do with bricks : That one's a Loveliness, that a Melody, (Rough, unlovely, unmelodious 1) —Let's sit in the sand And recall our Giocondas with round sea-pebbles.

—Three sticks, and some green moss : there's the Greek Fleet 1 —A swan's feather, dog-rose petal, wisp of yellow metal Found in the mud : there's Helen for you !

—It's true, children ? Say you see it, or I'll scratch your

eyes out 1 And then, my own !—You see it ?

Fools I That's not Helen ! Not the ships she launched Only my sticks and mud. I'll grind it up, Such pain is on me : fling the husky words For swine to feed on.

Listen, children, I will tell A tale. I am a king—queen—priest—god I was touched by most ethereal fingers Of an unbelievable loveliness . . . .

Had they a name ? Well, if they had a name, you'd laugh to hear it : Why should they have a name ?

Perhaps it's in that pile somewhere : but I can't reach it.

The frozen hills reflect the winter star Unshivering : never a breeze stirs, Never a tree whispers ; ' Head aches, and the veins run Slow, unheeded.-0h, to be free Of formless beauty ! To make a jewelry, To write with sweet meticulous ease Of barndoor fowl, pattering chestnut : Or conjure scent of lime-flowers on the breeze : Or tell what Irony hid in a shepherd's hut, What Passion solved itself in the pond's ooze . .

So, to be saved : to be no soul forlorn,

But without soul to lose . . . .

To win some case . . . .

Yet, sitting, and musing, there is something Grows in my ribs with the terrible force of an acorn, The visible speed of lightning : And he is a god, And with finger and thumb Has burst my heart like a pod of peas.

RICHARD HUGHES.