Must a game be played for the sake of pelf?
Where a button goes, 'twere an epigram
To offer the stamp of the very Guelph.

The true has no value beyond the sham.
As well the counter as coin, I submit,
When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram.

Stake your counter as boldly every whit;
Venture as truly, use the same skill;

Do your best, whether winning or losing it,

If you choose to play

is my principle!

Let a man contend to the uttermost

For his life's set prize, be it what it will!

The counter our lovers staked was lost

As surely as if it were lawful coin;

And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost

Was the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a crime, I say.
You of the virtue (we issue join),

How strive you? De te, fabula !

Robert Browning.

From Paradise Lost

(Vallombrosa)

THICK as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,

High overarched, embower.

John Milton.

Evening

(Ponte a Mare, Pisa)

THE

HE sun is set; the swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the gray air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening's breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,

Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirled about the pavement of the town.

Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,
Immovably unquiet, and forever

It trembles, but it never fades away;
Go to the .

You, being changed, will find it then as now.

The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut
By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled - but
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,
And over it a space of watery blue,

Which the keen evening star is shining through.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

FAR

AR hence, with holier heavens above,
The holy city of my love

Bathes deep in the sun-satiate air

That flows round no fair thing more fair
Her beauty bare.

There the utter sky is holier, there

More pure the intense white height of air, More clear men's eyes that mine would meet, And the sweet springs of things more sweet. There for this one warm note of doves

A clamor of a thousand loves

Storms the night's ear, the day's assails,
From the tempestuous nightingales,
And fills, and fails.

O gracious city well beloved,

Italian, and a maiden crowned,

Siena, my feet are no more moved,

Toward thy strange-shapen mountain bound: heart in me turns and moves,

But my

O lady loveliest of my loves,

Toward thee, to lie before thy feet
And gaze from thy fair fountain-seat
Up the sheer street;

And the house midway hanging see
That saw Saint Catherine bodily,
Felt on its floors her sweet feet move,
And the live light of fiery love
Burn from her beautiful strange face,
As in the sanguine sacred place
Where in pure hands she took the head
Severed, and with pure lips still red
Kissed the lips dead.

UP soared the lark into the air,

A shaft of song, a winged prayer,
As if a soul, released from pain,
Were flying back to heaven again.

St. Francis heard; it was to him
An emblem of the Seraphim;
The upward motion of the fire,
The light, the heat, the heart's desire.

Around Assisi's convent gate

The birds, God's poor who cannot wait,
From moor and mere and darksome wood
Came flocking for their dole of food.

"O brother birds," St. Francis said, "Ye come to me and ask for bread, But not with bread alone to-day Shall ye be fed and sent away.

"Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds,

With manna of celestial words;

Not mine, though mine they seem to be,

Not mine, though they be spoken through me.

"O doubly are ye bound to praise The great Creator in your lays;

He giveth you your plumes of down,

Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown.

"He giveth you your wings to fly
And breathe a purer air on high,
And careth for you everywhere,
Who for yourselves so little care!"

With flutter of swift wings and songs
Together rose the feathered throngs,
And singing scattered far apart;
Deep peace was in St. Francis' heart.

He knew not if the brotherhood
His homily had understood;
He only knew that to one ear
The meaning of his words was clear.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.