VII. See for a couch to their ambrosial limbs Even as their golden load of splendour presses The fragrant thyme, a billowing cloud up-swims Of springing flowers beneath their deep caresses, Hyacinth, lotus, crocus, wildernesses Of bloom but clouds of sunlight and of dew Dropping rich balm, round the dark pine-woods curled That the warm wonder of their in-woven tresses, And all the secret blisses that they knew, Where beauty kisses truth In heaven's deep heart of youth, Might still be hidden, as thou art, from the heartless world. VIII. Even as we found thy book, below these rocks On Ida, vanished thro' the morning gray: A dream for which no longer thou hadst need! To ease it of its load And watch this world of shadows as a dream recede? IX. We slept! Darkling we slept! Our busy schemes, But O, their eyes are blinded even in dreams Who from the heavenlier Powers with-draw their will: Here did the dawn with purer light fulfil Thy happier eyes than ours, here didst thou see The quickening glory of the haunted hill, The Hamadryad beckoning from the tree, While from her long dark dream Earth woke, trembling with life, light, beauty, through and through. X. And the everlasting miracle of things Flowed round thee, and this dark earth opposed no bar, And radiant faces from the flowers and springs Dawned on thee, whispering, Knowest thou whence we are? Faintly thou heardst us calling thee afar As Hylas heard, swooning beneath the wave, Girdled with glowing arms, while wood and glen Echoed his name beneath that rosy star; And thy farewell came faint as from the grave Could neither hear nor see; And all the hill with Hylas! Hylas! rang again. XI. But there were deeper love-tales for thine ears Had swept. They solemnized his music well! Which oped and let thee through And led thee heavenward by that deep enchanted way? XII. Yet here thou mad'st thy choice: Love, Wisdom, Power, Beneath them Ida, like one full-blown flower, Shed her bloom earthward thro' the radiant air Gav'st thou the sunset's boon, Nor to foam-bosomed Aphrodite's rose-lipped smile. XIII. Here didst thou make the eternal choice a-right, Nor to great Juno's frown Cast thou the apple down, And, when the Paphian raised her lustrous eyes anew, XIV. Thou from thy soul didst whisper-in that heaven Till your three splendours in that Sun unite The pain? And like three waves of music there Up the sun-smitten crests And melted with thee smiling into the Most Fair. XV. Upward and onward, ever as ye went Closer, as if in love, round Ida, blent With alien hills in one great bridal-wreath Of dawn-flushed clouds; while, breathing with your breath, Dark with excess of light Where the Ever-living dies and the All-loving hears. XVI. For thou hadst seen what tears upon man's face Wherein like waves of one harmonious sea All our slight dreams of heaven are singing still, Melts with that one great cry; And the lost doves of Ida moan on Siloa's hill. XVII. I gather all the ages in my song And send them singing up the heights to thee! Chord by æonian chord the stars prolong Their passionate echoes to Eternity: Earth wakes, and one orchestral symphony Sweeps o'er the quivering harp-strings of man-kind; No strife now but of love in that great sea Of song! I dream! I dream! Mine eyes grow blind: Escape the fainting hand; Tears fall. Thou canst not hear. Thou'rt still too far above. XVIII. Farewell! What word should answer but farewell Strikes thro' the turmoil of our darkling days Haunt the thrice-holy hill, what answer but farewell? ALFRED NOYES. NINETY DAYS' LEAVE-NOWHERE. SOON after I returned home on leave last year, I ran across an old friend in the town near which I was staying. His Christian name is Wisdom, and, after a long and useful life's work, he is spending the autumn of his days in a Foundation, built and endowed by an Archbishop, housed in a noble pile of brick, and inhabited by a score of old "gownsmen" like himself. To belong to this Hospital implies that a member is not only of local birth but of irreproachable character, and to be nominated to fill a vacancy is source of pride and congratulation to the recipient and his relatives. Wisdom shook me kindly by the hand, and, in answer to my inquiries after his health, replied, "I'm just 'NOHOW,' sir,-just 'NOHOW""; and it struck me then and there that, had I possessed his power of terse speech, I might have saved myself, and my hearers, many long-winded explanations as to where I had been during my last shooting trip by saying "Just Nowhere, sir,-just 'NowHERE.'" But though too late for that, I can still paraphrase friend Wisdom and call this little story "A trip to Nowhere," or something of that sort. On the 15th April a brother officer named Addington and I packed ourselves, our ser vants, our light kit, and our dogs into a couple of compartments and steamed out of the cantonment station in a downpour of unseasonable rain, and in equally unseasonable— though welcome-coolness. Our destination was a littleknown country far away in the interior of the Himalayas, whose name and whereabouts I shall withhold till I succeed in reaching it, for the following chronicle is one of unsuccessful endeavour and of ultimate failure. Away up through the plains of the Punjab we rolled that night, and early next morning arrived at the terminus of the line, and exchanged steam for horse-flesh,-horse-flesh of an emaciated but wiry type, that did not realise how innutritious was the hill grass on which it had to sustain life, but did realise that, though it was all collar work, the sooner the stage was covered the sooner would come rest. Eighty miles in a tonga brought us to P, and we drove up to the Dak Bungalow,-not dustsmothered as usual, but coated with mud, for the rain had accompanied us. The bungalow Khansamah promised us tea in five minutes, but before it appeared an English lady came out and told us that a case of smallpox had been discovered among her servants that day, and that orders had accordingly been sent by the Local Civil Authority for the |