Till, at ending, all the judges
  Cry with one assent
“Take the prize—­a prize who grudges
  Such a voice and instrument? 
Why, we took your lyre for harp,
So it shrilled us forth F sharp!”

Did the conqueror spurn the creature,
  Once its service done? 
That’s no such uncommon feature
  In the case when Music’s son
Finds his Lotte’s power too spent
For aiding soul development.

No!  This other, on returning
  Homeward, prize in hand,
Satisfied his bosom’s yearning: 
 (Sir!  I hope you understand!)
—­Said “Some record there must be
Of this cricket’s help to me!”

So he made himself a statue: 
  Marble stood, life-size;
On the lyre, he pointed at you,
  Perched his partner in the prize;
Never more apart you found
Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.

That’s the tale:  its application? 
  Somebody I know
Hopes one day for reputation
  Through his poetry that’s—­Oh,
All so learned and so wise
And deserving of a prize!

If he gains one, will some ticket,
  When his statue’s built,
Tell the gazer “’Twas a cricket
  Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt
Sweet and low, when strength usurped
Softness’ place i’ the scale, she chirped?

“For as victory was nighest,
  While I sang and played,—­
With my lyre at lowest, highest,
  Right alike,—­one string that made
‘Love’ sound soft was snapt in twain
Never to be heard again,—­

“Had not a kind cricket fluttered,
  Perched upon the place
Vacant left, and duly uttered
  ‘Love, Love, Love,’ whene’er the bass
Asked the treble to atone
For its somewhat sombre drone.”

But you don’t know music!  Wherefore
  Keep on casting pearls
To a—­poet?  All I care for
  Is—­to tell him a girl’s
“Love” comes aptly in when gruff
Grows his singing. (There, enough!)

ROBERT BROWNING.

* * * * *

MONT BLANC BEFORE SUNRISE.

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course?  So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc! 
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently!  Around thee, and above,
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass:  methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge.  But when I look again
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity.

O dread and silent Mount!  I gazed upon thee
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought:  entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone. 
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,—­
So sweet we know not we are listening to it,—­
Thou, the mean while wast blending with my thought. 
Yea, with my life, and life’s own secret joy;
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing—­there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven.