POETRY.

VARIATIONS -UPON OXFORD.

L" Tra la, iza la, In la la laire !

Qui Ile commit pas ce motif Fl"—Taitosaux GAlITIXO..j

I.

Your wizard hands evoke to-night

A haunting, well-remembered air, And as you play by candle-light

I dream within your deepest chair ; Freed by your touch, the wild notes sail And flutter like blown leaves of sound, Or listlessly and sadly trail, Ruined rose petals, to the ground; It is the tune that I have missed

And yearned to hear for many a day ; It is the rhapsody of Liszt

That long ago you used to play.

II.

Outside, the city, sleeplessly Beneath its cold electric moons Throbs like a sombre symphony Of drums and basses and bassoons; But I can see, amid the sweet And gallant pageant of my dreams, Another city, at whose feet The Thames, unsullied, glides and gleams; / hear the curfew rise and fall

In the wild wind, and I can see The bright room in the old grey wall Where first I heard Liszt's rhapsody.

The vision shifts ; the day appears ; I see the bridge, the stream again, And like a spell-bound flight of spears The gilded vanes of Magdalen; The fresh breeze blows ; in every tree Awakes a matutinal choir; The ardent sun's artillery Sets all the dewy roofs on fire, And pearl-hued from the pearly foam Of morning mist, I see arise The sloping shoulders of the dome, The spires that soar to stainless skies.

Waking from her winter's trance, Her pale face blushing faintly red, The strange, sweet Princess of Romance Rises from her cloudy bed; Dreamy-eyed and dark, she passes, When the mirth of May begins, Where tall reeds and nodding grasses Hum like fairy violins; Past the purple rushes, fleeter Than the morning wind, she flies; All the yellow kingcups greet her, And the flecked fritillaries.

The heavy scent of lilac floats Across the golden Christ Church meads, To where our joined, unguided boats Shoulder their slow course through the reeds ; And still at intervals there comes The measured moan and hiss of oars, The bourdon note of muffled drums From where a distant dasher roars, And the soft rustling of the vole Who sees our prow advance, and shoots Like a grey arrow down his hole Beneath the tough, gnarled hawthorn roots.

Above the meadow's hazy veil The happy larks have soared, each one Like a freed soul afire to scale

The golden ladders of the sun,— The sun, whose royal alms are flung Broadcast into the lap of her

Who boasts a thousand diamonds strung On every thread of gossamer.

And over the yellow meadowland And all along the water's way, Summer and Youth go hand-in-hand Beneath the burdened boughs of. May.

VI.

O bride arrayed in rose and gold, 0 daughter of a thousand springs, O dear, grey city, where of old

I snared awhile joy's wayward wings;

How soon youth's bright inheritance

Is spent ; how soon the spring flower dies ! How soon the Princess of Romance Has vanished from our task-dimmed eyes !

All passes; only you remain Inviolate, the Queen of Dreams ;

In vain the villas choke your plain,

In vain the mills pollute your streams ; In vain new Vandals desecrate Worn wall and tower and pinnacle; Beyond their grasp your soul is set Immortal and invulnerable ; The soul 1 the shilling soul that kissed My lips already grim with pain ; The spirit that the chords of Liszt

Waft like a perfume to my brain.

ST. JOHN LIICA1