AN EVENING IN TAVROBEL.

'Tis the time when May first looks toward June,
With almond-scented hawthorn strewn,
The tremulous day at last has run
Down the gold stairways of the Sun,
Who brimmed the buttercups with light
Like a clear wine she spillèd bright ;
And gleaming spirits there did dance
And sip those goblets' radiance.

Now wane they all ; now comes the moon ;
Like crystal are the dewdrops strewn
Beneath the eve, and twinkling gems
Are hung on the leaves and slender stems.
Now in the grass lies many a pool,
Infintesimal and cool,
Where tiny faces peer and laugh
At glassy fragments of the stars
About them mirrored, or from jars
Of unimagined frailty quaff
This essence of the plenilune,
Thirsty, perchance, from dancing all noon.


THE LONELY ISLE.

O glimmering island set sea-giirdled and alone -
A gleam of white rock through a sunny haze ;
O all ye hoary caverns ringing with the moan
Of long green waters in the southern bays ;
Ye murmurous never-ceasing voices of the tide ;
Ye plumèd foams wherein the shore and spirits ride ;
Ye white birds flying from the whispering coast
And wailing conclaves of the silver shore,
Sea-voiced, sea-wingèd, lamentable host
Who cry about unharboured beaches evermore,
Who sadly whistling skim these waters grey
And wheel about my lonely outward way -

For me for ever they forbidden marge appears
A gleam of white rock over sundering seas,
And thou art crowned in glory through a mist of tears,
Thy shores all full of music, and thy lands of ease -
Old haunts of many children robed in flowers,
Until the sun pace down his arch of hours,
When in the silence fairies with a wistful heart
Dance to soft airs their harps and viols weave.
Down the great wastes and in gloom apart
I long for thee and thy fair citadel.
Where echoing through the lighted elms at eve
In a high inland tower there peals a bell :
         O lonely, sparkling isle, farewell !

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