Not unto us, O Lord,
    Not unto us the rapture of the day,
    The peace of night, or love’s divine surprise,
    High heart, high speech, high deeds ’mid
      honouring eyes;
    For at Thy word
    All these are taken away.

    Not unto us, O Lord: 
    To us Thou givest the scorn, the scourge, the scar,
    The ache of life, the loneliness of death,
    The insufferable sufficiency of breath;
    And with Thy sword
    Thou piercest very far.

    Not unto us, O Lord: 
    Nay, Lord, but unto her be all things given—­
    My light and life and earth and sky be blasted—­
    But let not all that wealth of love be wasted: 
    Let Hell afford
    The pavement of her Heaven!

I print also a letter in verse sent to me on October 20th, 1887: 

I came in to-night, made as woful as worry can,
Heart like a turnip and head like a hurricane,
When lo! on my dull eyes there suddenly leaped a
Bright flash of your writing, du Herzensgeliebte;
And I found that the life I was thinking so leavable
Had still something in it made living conceivable;
And that, spite of the sores and the bores and the
flaws in it,
My own life’s the better for small bits of yours in it;
And it’s only to tell you just that that I write to
you,
And just for the pleasure of saying good night to
you: 
For I’ve nothing to tell you and nothing to talk
about,
Save that I eat and I sleep and I walk about. 
Since three days past does the indolent I bury
Myself in the British Museum Lib’ary,
Trying in writing to get in my hand a bit,
And reading Dutch books that I don’t understand
a bit: 
But to-day Lady Charty and sweet Mrs. Lucy em-
Broidered the dusk of the British Museum,
And made me so happy by talking and laughing on
That I loved them more than the frieze of the
Parthenon. 
But I’m sleepy I know and don’t know if I silly
ain’t;
Dined to-night with your sisters, where Tommy
was brilliant;
And, while I the rest of the company deafened, I
Dallied awhile with your auntlet of seventy,
While one, Mr. Winsloe, a volume before him,
Regarded us all with a moody decorum. 
No, I can’t keep awake, and so, bowing and blessing
you,
And seeing and loving (while slowly undressing)
you,
Take your small hand and kiss, with a drowsed
benediction, it
Knowing, as you, I’m your ever affectionate

Harry C. C.

I had another friend, James Kenneth Stephen, too pagan, wayward and lonely to be available for the Souls, but a man of genius.  One afternoon he came to see me in Grosvenor Square and, being told by the footman that I was riding in the Row, he asked for tea and, while waiting for me wrote the following parody of Kipling and left it on my writing-table with his card: 

P.S.  The man who wrote it.