POETRY.

UNICORN MAD.

WET-armed, sleet-footed, The mad witty gales Ruin wildly up the hills, Rocket up the dales : In their slippery arms Bushels of hail They do their daft seeding Over hill, over dale : Smash their crooked furrows Through all things that grow : Alas, that in the green tilth Barren hail they sow ! Is it the world's end they bring, That the roaring pine And the fierce old thorn Lie down with the celandine ? That the thunder-headed oaks Converse with the grass, And the kindly vine Lies with the upas ?

So the winds return, but frost Catches what the winds have lost,

Blackens rock-hid moss, Curls the hardy, bugloss : Feather-like, bird-like, The humorous snow

Spreads its tender down Over all things that grow. Under her cold care Eggs of cold are hatched there, - Till the lion lies stark Beside the long-toed lark, And the tiny curled mice Shrivel like wood-lice.

Pity, pity poor Unicorn That he cannot now die, Bow his neck, Close his eye,

Lay. his lovely horn low, Leave his body in the earth Where the brown roots go ! Now he sees his heart's desire Scorched more fiercely than in

fire, All the whole world dead, All the noisy earth dead, With his icicled eye.

Wild he flings his glassy mane Till its bells chime again : Delicate monkeys nestled close

In his long and waving hair Whimper in a mute despair, Feel the ice about their toes.

Where each shadowy soul goes Who tells ? Who knows ? Cold is brooding on the earth, Cold has sealed the dripping rain Heavily the ice crawls Up the dead waterfalls, Grinds and shudders up the hill : Cold can madden, cold can kill : . . . Cold has him by the brain I He has lived a million ages, He shall live a million more With his clear soul frcire And a heart where frenzy Pity, pity poor Unicorn That he cannot now die ! Loud he whinnies forth his pain To the snow-winged wheeling Roc, Leaps four-footed in the air Till the roots of the water- springs Snap and shudder at the shock : Now he stands stock-still, With trembling nostril sniffs the snow Where the palm was used to grow, Where he used to munch his fill : Conjuring that he is young In forests half a league high, All his horn with grapes hung, Lotus tart to his tongue, Moonlight in his moist eye, And clear starlight that kindles fires Of wild indefinite desires : Pity, pity Unicorn That he cannot die 1 Now he's Cassandra Trumpeting aloud, Calling aloud Things of fear With none to hear : Now Io, he, far driven Galloping mutely By the flickering tooth Of lightning stung : And now that Jew Who creeps, hiding, That no hill may see, No river guess or see To curse his misery.

Where the Phoenix makes his pyre,

Outcast in night he snuffs the fire, Watching with unseeing eyes How everlasting Phoenix dies Where Cerberus on the leash leans And trebly rumbles forth his love.

Of Midnight stalking on the earth A hundred thousand feet above, Unicorn may not go by, Unicorn may not die.

He has lived a million ages, He shall live a million more With his clear soul frore And a heart where frenzy rages. - Only on a wild night

When the winds run low For fear of the glaring stars That hunt them all the night

through,

You may hear his hooves go, You may hear his wild spring Clean across the thorny light-, ning

And the piled thunder too : You may hear the heartless, chiming Of his ice-tongued mane Like a cold bell mocking Mocking, mocking human pain.

RICHARD HUGHES.