THE DISCOVERY

I watched a moorland torrent run
  Down through the rift itself had made,
Golden as honey in the sun,
  Of darkest amber in the shade.

In this wild glen at last, methought,
  The magic’s secret I surprise;
Here Celia’s guardian fairy caught
  The changeful splendors of her eyes.

All else grows tame, the sky’s one blue,
  The one long languish of the rose,
But these, beyond prevision new,
  Shall charm and startle to the close.

WITH A SEASHELL

Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold,
Might with Dian’s ear make bold,
Seek my Lady’s; if thou win
To that portal, shut from sin,
Where commissioned angels’ swords
Startle back unholy words,
Thou a miracle shalt see
Wrought by it and wrought in thee;
Thou, the dumb one, shalt recover
Speech of poet, speech of lover. 
If she deign to lift you there,
Murmur what I may not dare;
In that archway, pearly-pink
As the Dawn’s untrodden brink,
Murmur, ’Excellent and good,
Beauty’s best in every mood,
Never common, never tame,
Changeful fair as windwaved flame’—­
Nay, I maunder; this she hears
Every day with mocking ears,
With a brow not sudden-stained
With the flush of bliss restrained,
With no tremor of the pulse
More than feels the dreaming dulse
In the midmost ocean’s caves,
When a tempest heaps the waves. 
Thou must woo her in a phrase
Mystic as the opal’s blaze,
Which pure maids alone can see
When their lovers constant be. 
I with thee a secret share,
Half a hope, and half a prayer,
Though no reach of mortal skill
Ever told it all, or will;
Say, ’He bids me—­nothing more—­
Tell you what you guessed before!’

THE SECRET

I have a fancy:  how shall I bring it
Home to all mortals wherever they be? 
Say it or sing it?  Shoe it or wing it,
So it may outrun or outfly ME,
Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free?

Only one secret can save from disaster,
Only one magic is that of the Master: 
Set it to music; give it a tune,—­
Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze brings you,
Tune the wild columbines nod to in June!

This is the secret:  so simple, you see! 
Easy as loving, easy as kissing,
Easy as—­well, let me ponder—­as missing,
Known, since the world was, by scarce two or three.

IV.  HUMOR AND SATIRE

FITZ ADAM’S STORY