“ Fear not thou to loose thy tongue;

Set thy hoary fancies free: What is loathsome to the young

Savours well to thee and me.

“ Change, reverting to the years,

When thy nerves could understand What there is in loving tears,

And the warmth of hand in hand.

“ Tell me tales of thy first love —

April hopes, the fools of chance; Till the graves begin to move,

And the dead begin to dance.

“ Fill the can, and fill the cup:

All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up,

And is lightly laid again,

“ Trooping from their mouldy dens

The chap-fallen circle spreads : Welcome, fellow-citizens,

Hollow hearts and empty heads!

“ You are bones, and what of that?

Every face, however full, Padded round with flesh and fat,

Is but modell’d on a skull.

“Death is king, and Vivat Rex!

Tread a measure on the stones, Madam — if I know your sex,

From the fashion of your bones.

“ No, I cannot praise the fire

In your eye — nor yet your lip : All the more do I admire

Joints of cunning workmanship.

“Lo! God's likeness — the ground-plan

Neither modell’d, glazed, or framed: Buss me, thou rough sketch of man,

Far too naked to be shamed !

“ Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance,

While we keep a little breath! Drink to heavy Ignorance !

Hob-and-nob with brother Death!

“ Thou art mazed, the night is long,

And the longer night is near : What! I am not all as wrong

As a bitter jest is dear.

“ Youthful hopes, by scores, to all,

When the locks are crisp and curld; Unto me my maudlin gall

And my mockeries of the world.

“ Fill the cup, and fill the can!

Mingle madness, mingle scorn!
Dregs of life, and lees of man:

Yet we will not die forlorn."

The voice grew faint: there came a further change:
Again arose the mystic mountain-range :
Below were men and horses pierced with worms,
And slowly quickening into lower forms;
By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross,
Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd with moss.
Then some one said, “ Behold! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time.”
Another said : “ The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal blame.”
And one: “He had not wholly quench'd his power;
A little grain of conscience made him sour.”
At last I heard a voice upon the slope,
Cry to the summit, “Is there any hope ?"
vol. 11.

15

To which an answer peald from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand ;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.