POETRY.
THE ANTIC SHRINE.
Iv she will not receive me, well, that is to bo borne ; There is basking in sunshine, And the bland comity of the grass ; The lustre of winged beetles-
Pearls without price on pins of random weed—
Enchants and alleviates ; The brocading flowers Tender thoir pale monotonies of assuagement, The coated may tree puts Her cushion of soft odour into the air ; I can listen to birds and observe the laburnums.
0 but those charmed airs live but to enslave me ; The thickets bud again in those charmed airs, With prongs of snow-pale blossom, sheaves of thorn, And gilded salley nodding with muzzy drops My banished thoughts, confuting, Slip through this chink of time ; The old unravelled wonder, Like a bandit bee with booty-groping eye, Pursues me and entreats ; And hope's veiled prophecies cajole once more
The unloved lover to her antic shrine—
Pillars of dust, Walls of water, Rafters of roving air.
0 rare faint-fingered lightning, Let fall upon our towers No more your tyrannous flame Let me be void as this air, Empty of all but my arrogant will to live on, To live on.
I love beat to lie in the sun, Looking at winged booties.
Beautiful ! But are they beautiful ?
Even the wing of a butterfly is much like the fin of a cod.
A. E. COPPARD.
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