Above her knee she drew the robe succinct,
Above her breast, and just below her arms.
This will preserve my breath when tightly bound,
If struggle and equal strength should so constrain.
Thus, pulling hard to fasten it, she spake,

And, rushing at me, closed: I thrill'd throughout
And seem'd to lessen and shrink up with cold.
Again with violent impulse gusht my blood,
And hearing nought external, thus absorb'd,
I heard it, rushing through each turbid vein,
Shake my unsteady swimming sight in air.
Yet with unyielding though uncertain arms
I clung around her neck; the vest beneath
Rustled against our slippery limbs entwined:
Often mine springing with eluded force
Started aside and trembled till replaced:
And when I most succeeded, as I thought,
My bosom and my throat felt so comprest
That life was almost quivering on my lips,
Yet nothing was there painful: these are signs
Of secret arts and not of human might;
What arts I can not tell; I only know
My eyes grew dizzy and my strength decay'd;
I was indeed o'ercome . . . With what regret,
And more, with what confusion, when I reacht
The fold, and yielding up the sheep, she cried,
This pays a shepherd to a conquering maid.
She smiled, and more of pleasure than disdain
Was in her dimpled chin and liberal lip,

And eyes that languisht, lengthening, just like love.
She went away; I on the wicker gate

Leant, and could follow with my eyes alone.

The sheep she carried easy as a cloak;

But when I heard its bleating, as I did,
And saw, she hastening on, its hinder feet
Struggle, and from her snowy shoulder slip,
One shoulder its poor efforts had unveil'd,
Then all my passions mingling fell in tears;
Restless then ran I to the highest ground
To watch her; she was gone; gone down the tide;
And the long moon-beam on the hard wet sand
Lay like a jasper column half up-rear'd.

DE LA MARE. The lines:

And the long moon-beam on the hard wet sand
Lay like a jasper column half up-rear'd,

are very beautiful.

MOORE. The incident is complete in itself but we can have The Hamadryad if you don't like the poem. It surprises me to find Landor writing its bleating, and a little lower down he speaks of its hinder feet, as if the sheep were an inanimate object. And the word hooves being available, I am puzzled to find a reason for hinder feet.

DE LA MARE. A poem of several hundred lines will destroy the symmetry of our anthology. None of the poems we have provisionally accepted exceed a hundred.

MOORE. A hundred lines, I think, was the length that a poem should never exceed, according to Poe, and the reason he gives is that a poem should be read in one uninterrupted mood of increasing exaltation. He wrote little and I have never read that

he wrote with ease, as Shelley did, but he wrote certainly out of an emotive imagination; his poems are almost free from thought, and that is why we have gathered so many in his tiny garden for our anthology. Another thing. He is one of the few modern poets who wrote with his eyes as well as his ears; Browning saw nothing, Tennyson only a little and with an effort.

FREEMAN. Morris.

DE LA MARE. Poetry is not painting.

MOORE. No; nor is it music. Poetry stands between music and painting, sharing their qualities. We hear the word music applied to poetry, but poetry only touches on music inasmuch as poetry and music both rejoice in rhythm. Music has intervals, and limiting music to the treble clef, to thirteen notes and to a singer's voice, which, if he be a good singer, has a range of two octaves, we get a richness of sound far beyond anything that ten syllables can give. But should the poet open his eyes and tell us all that his eyes see, as Morris did, Melpomene and Erato will not be judged less beautiful than their sisters. In Golden Wings our eyes and ears enjoy equally, and so complete is our enjoyment that whilst we read we clap our hands (speaking figuratively) and thank heaven that we have escaped at last from grey thoughtfulness into a world of things:

Midways of a wallèd garden,

In the happy poplar land,
Did an ancient castle stand,
With an old knight for a warden.

Many scarlet bricks there were

In its walls, and old grey stone;
Over which red apples shone
At the right time of the year.

On the bricks the green moss grew,
Yellow lichen on the stone,
Over which red apples shone;
Little war that castle knew.

Deep green water fill'd the moat,
Each side had a red-brick lip,
Green and mossy with the drip
Of dew and rain; there was a boat

Of carven wood, with hangings green
About the stern; it was great bliss
For lovers to sit there and kiss

In the hot summer noons, not seen.

The poem takes its name, Golden Wings, from the lyric which Morris introduces into the narrative:

Gold wings across the sea,
Moonlight from tree to tree,
Gold hair beside my knee;
Ah, sweet knight, come to me,
Gold wings across the sea.

Are not my blue eyes sweet?

The west wind from the wheat
Blows cold across my feet;
Is it not time to greet
Gold wings across the sea?

I will not answer for the accuracy of the quotation. DE LA MARE. May we include The Lady of Shalott?

MOORE. Certainly, the one poem whereby poor Tennyson justifies his existence. The knights as they ride in the morning early through the barley— how does it go, De La Mare, how does it go?

DE LA MARE.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.

MOORE. How beautiful!

How like Morris!

DE LA MARE. It is not like Morris; it is Morris. MOORE. And was written probably before Morris. I remember now that the volume entitled The Defence of Guenevere was published in 'fifty-seven. The Lady of Shalott must have been written in the 'forties. But Tennyson had not the genius to continue the style that he had discovered accidentally, or he was beguiled and yielded himself to moralities and mumbled them till he was eighty.

FREEMAN.

The Lady of Shalott comes well within our definition, but is it good enough? Is it a better lyric than: