Part 3

Here dwells she, gracious, unrebellious, kind, Knowing, since Fate is Lord, the strife how vain; Knowing, for all her birthright of disdain, Her spirit touched to pity as the sea stirs to the wind.

Here dwells she, unrebellious, past surprise, Tranquil through tears, save when she evokes the ghost Of Hope's Armadas with their piteous host Foundering, betrayed anew eternally before her eyes.

Yet, in some magic, purple, sunset hour, Old portraits, shadowy on the tarnished gold-- Ivory, black of velvet--wake to hold New promise from the past of splendid insubstantial power.

Pale painted hands Velasquez pictured, guide Her soaring thoughts again to nothingness Miraged so fair, dies all her weariness And glows a sudden glory from the rubies of her pride.

But lo, old horror of the world of men And all its brazen clangour stills her blood... Life flows--a distant murmur--like the flood... More secret and more strange the smile is on her lips again.

No breath may trouble now her eyes' repose Where haunt the veilèd ghosts of cities dead; Adown dim corridors with tranquil tread Singing she passes where an idle fountain idly flows.

Pale at her casement sits she, to await Till pride and peace shall have an end at last, Holding her tulip, mirrored in the past, Forgotten as old galleys in the roads disconsolate.

My soul is an Infanta, robed for state.

_D. L. SAYERS_

(_SOMERVILLE_)

FAIR EREMBOURS

A SONG OF THE WEB. FRENCH, XII C.

When in the long-day month, the month of May, The Franks of France from king's court ride away, Reynault rides foremost, the first in rank alway. Passes the tower where Erembours doth stay; He never deigned to lift his head her way, Ha, Reynault, ha, true love!

Fair Erembours, within the window's ray, Holds on her knees a web of colours gay, Sees Franks of France from king's court ride away, Sees Reynault riding the first in rank alway, Speaketh aloud, on this wise she doth say: Ha, Reynault, ha, true love!

Reynault, true love, I have beheld the day When if my father's castle stood on your way You had been sad, had I had nought to say. --Ill hast thou wrought with me, king's daughter, yea, Hast loved another, cast my love away. Ha, Reynault, ha, true love!

Reynault, fair sir, on relics solemnly I'll swear, before an hundred maidens free And thirty ladies that I shall bring with me, I never loved another man save thee; Take this amends, I'll give thee kisses three. Ha, Reynault, ha, true love!

O then Count Reynault up by the stairway ran, Wide were his shoulders, and small his girdle's span, His hair close-curled, and very fair to scan, In all the world is not so fine a man. Erembours saw him, and so to weep began. Ha, Reynault, ha, true love!

Count Reynault mounts into her highest towers And sets him on a bed of broidered flowers, And close beside him sits fair Erembours. Then they take up their loves of former hours. Ha, Reynault, ha, true love!

_H. SIMPSON_

(_HOME-STUDENT_)

"THERE ARE QUANTITIES OF THINGS..."

There are quantities of things One would like to be and do When one's mind unfurls its wings;

Clouds full chase across the blue All unthinking in their flight; Overcasting me and you,

Sometimes raining out of spite. Or perhaps you would prefer To go coasting through the night

With a flutter and a stir, Like a nightjar in a wood Rising softly with a whirr.

Or with cold and scanty blood Don a fish's suit of scales, And go oaring through the flood

Under bigger fishes' tails, Into warm and open sea While above you blow the gales--

So my mind spins constantly In unprofitable rings Almost to infinity--

Such innumerable things One would like to do and be When one's thoughts shake out their wings.

_E. E. SMITH_

(_UNIVERSITY_)

THE VOYAGE

O my soul that fliest over never-ending seas That are so still their deeps lie dark beneath the sun, Untroubled by any foam, so that the ship-boy sees All the world's water, and thinks his voyage never done: Some day thou wilt stay thy wings and stoop to land Where the sea's edge lies sharp like a bright sword, And hardly break the waves, and sweet is the sand Where the keel runs home and ships are gently shored. There sit the solemn seamen, with rings in their brown ears, Who are grave when they laugh and are not ashamed to weep; Their hair and their beards are grown long with the long years, And some are too old and too wise for speaking, and some sleep. And when the night grows cold they stir, and touch their lips With dark-red sluggish liquor, and kindle a fire from wood Washed up by a quiet wave from the wracked majestical ships, The planks where the feet of the sea-captains and the ship-boys stood. Their eyes grow silent and dark, their gnarled bodies swing Like trees that are stript in a wind; they go mad with moon and stars, Murmuring songs like water, and beating their hands as they sing Of how they are fled far off from the foam of tides and the handling of bars.

_L. A. G. STRONG_

(_WADHAM_)

THE MAD MAN

I think I'll do a fearful deed Of wickedness and cruelty, And then, if Father Walsh speaks truth, Jesus will weep a tear for me,

And I will catch it in my hat Just here outside my cabin door: And put it on my little field Where nothing ever grew before.

And it will sprout so fine and brave, That lovely birds with yellow bills Will come to peck my crowded corn From all the Seven Holy Hills.

THE BAIT-DIGGER'S SON

Aye, there's many a man does be drownded, An' carried a middling way: But never the like o' me brother Was floated from Dublin to Bray.

An' him only two days in it-- Sure ye'd hardly believe it at all: But it's God's truth. He went down fishing One night from the North Wall.

What way was it? There's none knows rightly-- He was there one turn o' the light, An' when next it came round he was no place: An' no sign of him till next night,

When two men out o' Coliemore Harbour, Rowin' back from the fishin' ground, Seen him floatin' by on his belly Down the middle o' Dalkey Sound:

But they didn't dare stop for to get him, For the boat was a heavy weight, An' the wind was strong, an' the current Was runnin' the divil's own gate.

An' he crossed the Bay o' Killiney; Till next mornin', at twelve o' the clock, They found him all swelled an' puffy, At Bray, in the slit of a rock.

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Aye, there's many a man does be drownded, An' carried a middling way: But never the like o' me brother Was floated from Dublin to Bray.

_D. E. A. WALLACE_

(_SOMERVILLE_)

SONNET IN CONTEMPT OF DEATH

When I consider some day wanton Death With sudden hand ungently laid above The heart of her, my softly-sleeping love, Shall fright away her sweet and rhythmic breath; Shall quell the colour in her flower-face, Inevitable and unheralded As frosts in May that strike the blossom dead-- Shall quench her eyes, transfix her dreaming grace; When I consider that her limbs shall be Set stiffly in a strong rigidity; That by-and-by her flesh shall fall away, Unsightly in a horrible decay, Then do I laugh, despite my catching breath-- A piteous fool, a sad, blind fool is Death!

_LEO WARD_

(_CHRIST CHURCH_)

THE LAST COMMUNION

There is a time wherein eternity Takes rest upon the world: King Charity Bow'd to our fallen state: the God of Grace Made visible upon a human face:-- When the deep harmony, the eternal Word, The unfallen Wisdom (only love has heard!) Touches the troubled body, bruised and hard With the long fight, yet now set heavenward:-- When the deep argument of souls must cease, Dying--to meet the victory of peace!

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND

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Transcriber's Notes

Italics are represented thus _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected, but no other changes have been made to the text.