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Eyes the bent anemones, and hangs her hands. Such a look will tell that the violets are peeping, Coming the rose: and unaware a cry Springs in her bosom for odours and for colour, Covert and the nightingale; she knows not why.

Kerchief'd head and chin she darts between her tulips,

Streaming like a willow grey in arrowy rain: Some bend beaten cheek to gravel, and their angel She will be; she lifts them, and on she speeds again.

Black the driving raincloud breasts the iron gate

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When the hand's firm as driven stakes! Ay, when we're strong, and braced, and manful, Life's a sweet fiddle: but we're a batch Born to become the Great Juggler's han'ful: Balls he shies up, and is safe to catch. Here's where the lads of the village cricket: I was a lad not wide from here: Couldn't I whip off the bale from the wicket? Like an old world those days appear! Donkey, sheep, geese and thatched ale-house I know them!

They are old friends of my halts, and seem, Somehow, as if kind thanks I owe them:

Juggling don't hinder the heart's esteem.

Juggling's no sin, for we must have victual: Nature allows us to bait for the fool. Holding one's own makes us juggle no little; But, to increase it, hard juggling's the rule. You that are sneering at my profession, Haven't you juggled a vast amount? There's the Prime Minister, in one Session, Juggles more games than my sins'll count.

I've murdered insects with mock thunder:
Conscience, for that, in men don't quail.
I've made bread from the bump of wonder:
That's my business, and there's my tale.
Fashion and rank all praised the professor:
Ay! and I've had my smile from the Queen:
Bravo, Jerry! she meant: God bless her!
Ain't this a sermon on that scene?

I've studied men from my topsy-turvy
Close, and, I reckon, rather true.
Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy:
Most, a dash between the two.
But it's a woman, old girl, that makes me
Think more kindly of the race:

And it's a woman, old girl, that shakes me
When the Great Juggler I must face.

We two were married, due and legal: Honest we've lived since we've been one. Lord! I could then jump like an eagle:

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You danced bright as a bit o' the sun. Birds in a May-bush we were! right merry! All night we kiss'd, we juggled all day. Joy was the heart of Juggling Jerry!

Now from his old girl he's juggled away.

It's past parsons to console us:

No, nor no doctor fetch for me:

I can die without my bolus;

Two of a trade, lass, never agree!

Parson and Doctor! - don't they love rarely,
Fighting the devil in other men's fields!
Stand up yourself and match him fairly:
Then see how the rascal yields!

I, lass, have lived no gipsy, flaunting

Finery while his poor helpmate grubs: Coin I've stored, and you won't be wanting:

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You sha'n't beg from the troughs and tubs. Nobly you've stuck to me, though in his kitchen Many a Marquis would hail you Cook! Palaces you could have ruled and grown rich in,

But your old Jerry you never forsook.

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It's just the sword-trick

BELLEROPHON

Maimed, beggared, grey; seeking an alms; with nod

Of palsy doing task of thanks for bread;

Upon the stature of a god,

He whom the Gods have struck bends low his

head.

Weak words he has, that slip the nerveless tongue
Deformed, like his great frame: a broken arc:
Once radiant as the javelin flung
Right at the centre breastplate of his mark

Oft pausing on his white-eyed inward look,
Some undermountain narrative he tells,

As gapped by Lykian heat the brook
Cut from the source that in the upland swells.

The cottagers who dole him fruit and crust,
With patient inattention hear him prate:

And comes the snow, and comes the dust, Comes the old wanderer, more bent of late.

A crazy beggar grateful for a meal
Has ever of himself a world to say.

For them he is an ancient wheel Spinning a knotted thread the livelong day.

He cannot, nor do they, the tale connect; For never singer in the land has been

ΙΟ

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Who him for theme did not reject:
Spurned of the hoof that sprang the Hippocrene.

Albeit a theme of flame to bring them straight
The snorting white-winged brother of the wave,
They hear him as a thing by fate
Cursed in unholy babble to his grave.

As men that spied the wings, that heard the snort,
Their sires have told; and of a martial prince
Bestriding him; and old report
Speaks of a monster slain by one long since.

There is that story of the golden bit
By Goddess given to tame the lightning steed:
A mortal who could mount, and sit
Flying, and up Olympus midway speed.

Tired of his dark dominion, swung the fiend Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose. Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.

And now upon his western wing he leaned, Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened, Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows. Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars With memory of the old revolt from Awe, He reached a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.

ΙΟ