I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silver waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

TURN, FORTUNE, TURN THY
WHEEL.

[Idyls of the King: Enid.]
"TURN, Fortune, turn thy wheel and
lower the proud:

Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;

Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

IN LOVE, IF LOVE BE LOVE. [Idyls of the King: Vivien,]

"IN Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,

Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:

Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

"It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all.

"The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, That rotting inward slowly moulders all.

"It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all,"

SWEET IS TRUE LOVE. [Idyls of the King: Elaine.] "SWEET is true love, tho' given in vain, in vain;

And sweet is death who puts an end to pain:

I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee

I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,

But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's.

I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh, And in the flesh thou hast sinn'd; and mine own flesh,

Here looking down on thine polluted, cries

'I loathe thee '; yet not less, O Guinevere,

For I was ever virgin save for thee, My love thro' flesh hath wrought into my life

So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.

Let no man dream but that I love thee still.

Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul, And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,

Hereafter in that world where all are pure

We two may meet before high God, and thou

Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine,

and know

I am thine husband-not a smaller soul, Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that,

I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence.

Thro' the thick night I hear the trumpet blow:

They summon me their King to lead mine hosts

Far down to that great battle in the west, Where I must strike against my sister's son,

Leagued with the lords of the White
Horse and knights
Once mine, and strike him dead, and
meet myself

Death, or I know not what mysterious doom.

And thou remaining here wilt learn the event;

But hither shall I never come again, Never lie by thy side, see thee no more, Farewell!"

One word, ere yet the evening ends,-
Let's close it with a parting rhyme;
And pledge a hand to all young friends,
As flits the merry Christmas time;
On life's wide scene you, too, have
parts

That fate erelong shall bid you play; Good night!with honest, gentle hearts

A kindly greeting go alway!

Good night!-I'd say the griefs, the joys,

Just hinted in this mimic page, The triumphs and defeats of boys,

Are but repeated in our age; I'd say your woes were not less keen, Your hopes more vain, than those of

men,

Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen

At forty-five played o'er again.

I'd say we suffer and we strive

Not less nor more as men than boys,

With grizzled beards at forty-five,
As erst at twelve in corduroys;
And if, in time of sacred youth,

We learned at home to love and
pray,

Pray Heaven that early love and truth May never wholly pass away.

And in the world, as in the school,

I'd say how fate may change and
shift,-

The prize be sometimes with the fool,
The race not always to the swift:
The strong may yield, the good may
fall,

The great man be a vulgar clown,
The knave be lifted over all,

The kind cast pitilessly down.

Who knows the inscrutable design?

Blessed be He who took and gave! Why should your mother, Charles, not mine,

Be weeping at her darling's grave? We bow to Heaven that willed it so, That darkly rules the fate of all, That sends the respite or the blow, That's free to give or to recall.