THE LONDONMERCURY

Vol. I No. 1November 1919

WITHthese notes we introduce the first number of theLondon Mercury. It might, beyond denial, appear in more tranquil and comfortable days. We have just been through a crisis which has brought us within sight of the basic realities of life—food, clothing, housing, security against violence. As soon as the paper was projected we were forced to visualise the likelihood of a time in which paper would be almost unprocurable, printing impossible (save in an amateur way at home), and the distribution of literature a matter of passing sheets from hand to hand. We have had a glimpse into the abyss of disorganisation, and, for the time being at all events, we have managed to keep on the solid ground. But, having conceived this journal, its conductors would have been reluctant to abandon their plans whatever confusion might have supervened. They may fairly claim to have formulated a scheme which, when it is perfectly executed, will meet all the demands of the public which reads old or new books, and of that other and smaller public which is chiefly concerned with the production of new works of the imagination. The more intense the troubles of society, the more uncertain and dark the future, the more obvious is the necessity for periodicals which hand on the torch of culture and creative activity. Literature is of the spirit; and by the spirit man lives. Our traditions are never more jealously to be cherished than when they are threatened; and our literature is the repository of all our traditions.

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We think that, with our list of contents before us, we may reasonably say that there has never been in this country a paper with the scope of theLondon Mercury. We have had periodicals which have exercised a great critical influence, such as theEdinburgh Reviewof Jeffrey's and Macaulay's day. We have had periodicals which have published an unusual amount of fine "creative work," such as Thackeray'sCornhill. We have at this day theTimes Literary Supplement, which reviews, with the utmost possible approximation to completeness, the literary "output" of the time; we have weekly papers which review the principal books and publish original verseand prose, and monthly papers which diversify their tables of contents with articles on Molière or Chateaubriand, Byron or Mr. Alfred Noyes. But we have had no paper which has combined as theLondon Mercurywill do all those various kinds of matter which are required by the lover of books and the practising writer. In our pages will be found original verse and prose in a volume not possible to the weekly paper; full-length literary essays such as have been found only in the politico-literary monthlies; a critical survey of books of all kinds recently published; and other "features," analogues to some of which may be found, one by one, here and there, but which have never before been brought together within a single cover. TheLondon Mercury—save in so far as it will publish reasoned criticisms of political (as of other) books—will avoid politics. It will concern itself with none of those issues which are the field of political controversy, save only such—the teaching of English, the fostering of the arts, the preservation of ancient monuments are examples—as impinge directly upon the main sphere of its interests. But within the field that it has chosen it will endeavour to be as exhaustive as is humanly possible. The present number is an earnest of its intentions; in early future numbers other sections will be added which will steadily bring it nearer to the ideal that it has set out to reach.

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That ideal comprehends the satisfaction of the current needs of all those who are intelligently interested in literature, in the drama, in the arts, and in music. We shall attempt to make known the best that is being done and, so far as literature is concerned, to assist the process by the publication of original work. But thus far we have mentioned no more than theLondon Mercury'sfunctions as what may be called a "news" paper, an organ for the recording and dissemination of things that have already happened or been done. Its functions, as its conductors conceive them, will include—and this will be the chief of them—the examination of those conditions which in the past have favoured, and in the future are likely to favour, the production of artistic work of the first order, and the formulation and application of sound critical standards.

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It is not a matter of attempting to make universal the shibboleths of some coterie or school, or of carrying some technical "stunt" through the country as though it were a fiery cross. We do not propose to maintain (to give concrete examples) that literatureshouldbe didactic or that itshouldbe a-moral. We are not interested in urging that the couplet is exhausted, that the sonnet should be revived, that plays should have four or three acts, that rhyme is essential or that it is outworn, that lines should or should not be of regular lengths. We are tied to no system of harmony; we have no dogmas as to the dominance of representation in painting; wewould make no hard-and-fast rule about the desirability of drawing a vertical wall as sloping at 45 degrees or of painting a man's face magenta and sage-green. As convenient descriptions we do not object (save sometimes on grounds of euphony) to the terms Futurist, Vorticist, Expressionist, post-Impressionist, Cubist, Unanimist, Imagist: but we suspect them as banners and battle-cries, for where they are used as such it is probable that fundamentals are being forgotten. Our aim will be, as critics, to state and to reiterate what are the motives, and what must be the dominant elements, of all good art, whatever the medium and whatever the idiosyncrasies of the artist, even if he find it convenient to draw on papier-mâché with a red-hot poker, and even if his natural genius impels him to write in lines of one syllable. The profoundest truths about art, whether literary or pictorial, are crystallised in maxims which may have been more often reiterated than understood, but which have undeniably been so often repeated that people now find them tiresome. Of such are "fundamental brainwork," "emotion recollected in tranquillity," "the rhythmical creation of beauty," and "the eye on the object." Each of these embodies truths, and there is indisputable truth also in the statements that a poet should have an ear and that a painter should paint what he sees. These things are platitudes; but a thing does not cease to be true merely because it is trite, and it is disastrous to throw over the obvious merely because it was obvious to one's grandfather. Yet men—and even women—do such things. We have had in the last few years art, so called, which sprang from every sort of impulse but the right one, and was governed by every sort of conceptions but the right ones. We have had "styles" which were mere protests and revulsions against other styles; "styles" which were no more than flamboyant attempts at advertisement akin to the shifting lights of the electric night signs; authors who have forgotten their true selves in the desperate search for remarkable selves; artists who have refused to keep their eyes upon the object because it has been seen before; musicians who have made, for novelty's sake, noises, and painters who have made, for effect's sake, spectacles, which invited the attention of those who make it their business to suppress public nuisances. We have had also theories in vogue the effects of which on mind and heart were such, and were foredoomed to be such, as to wither many talents in the bud. A single positive trend in English literature we do not ask and it is not necessarily desirable. We have heard the complaint from critics of the Gallic school that even in the days of the marvellously fertile English "Romantic generation" there was no one "movement," no Ten Commandments, and everybody was at sixes and sevens. That is the national way, and it probably accounts for our possession of the greatest and most varied imaginative literature that exists. Nevertheless, anarchy is not desirable, nor that worthy frame of mind which extends toleration not merely to the good of all kinds, but to the good and the bad, the intelligent and the foolish indifferently. And surely this toleration has been too commonly in evidence in this country in our time.

Is the contention disputed? Is the fact other than self-evident? Is it necessary to explain and to accentuate the confusion which for the last ten years has been evident in the creative and in the critical literature of this country? There have been, as there always are, writers who have cheerfully continued writing as their predecessors have written, serious parodists of Milton, of Tennyson, and of George Eliot. These least of all can be said to be in the tradition of English letters; for that tradition has been a tradition of constant experiment and renovation. There has been a central body of writers—from Mr. Hardy, Mr. Bridges, and Mr. Conrad to the best of the younger poets—who have gone steadily along the sound path, traditional yet experimental, personal yet sane. But there has been also a large number of young writers who have strayed and lost themselves amongst experiments, many of them foredoomed to sterility. Young men, ignoring the fundamental truth expressed in the maxim, "Look in thy heart and write," have attempted to make up poems (and pictures) "out of their heads." Others, defying the obvious postulate that all good writing will carry at least a superficial meaning to the intelligent reader, have invited us to admire strings of disconnected words and images, meaningless and even verbless. Others, turning their backs on those natural affections and primary interests the repudiation of which means, and must always mean, the death of the highest forms of literature, have concentrated upon the subversion of every belief by which man lives. They have sapped at the bases of every loyalty, and sneered at every code, oblivious to both social welfare and social experience. They have been, such of them as profess the moralistic preoccupation, very contemptuous of "clean living and no thinking," but the dirty living and muddled thinking that they have offered as a substitute have been no great improvement. They have been, such of them as have the preoccupation of the artist, so anxious to look at the abnormal and the recondite that they have forgotten what are and must be the main elements of man's life and what the most conspicuous features in man's landscape. We have had an orgy of undirected abnormality. The old object of art was "what oft was said but ne'er so well expressed"; the object of many of the new artists has been what was never said before and could not possibly be expressed worse. The tricks of abnormality have been learnt. Young simpletons who, twenty years ago, would have been writing vapid magazine verses about moonrise and roses have discovered that they have only to become incoherent, incomprehensible, and unmetrical to be taken seriously. Bad writers will, without intellectual or æsthetic impulse, pretend to burrow into psychological (or physical) obscurities which are no more beyond the artist's purview than anything else, provided he responds to them, but which have the advantage for an insincere writer that they enable him to talk nonsense that honest unsophisticated readers are unable to diagnose as nonsense. Year after year we have new fungoid growths of feeble pretentious impostors who, after a while, are superseded by their younger kindred; and year by yearwe see writers who actually have some intelligence and capacity for observation and exact statement led astray into the stony and barren fields of technical anarchism or the pitiful madhouse of moral antinomianism. At bottom vanity and pretence are the worst of vices in a young writer, but they may be encouraged or discouraged, even these; and we have seen times and places in which black was called white.

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Amid this luxuriant confusion the voices of critics at once sane and informed have been few. For the most part our older critics have tended to treat the younger generation as a howling menagerie of insensate young beasts, and have failed to keep sufficiently closely in touch with production to discriminate between the traditional and the anarchistic, the sincere and the pretentious, the intelligent and the stupid, the healthy and the vicious, the promising and the sterile. We have ourselves been frequently amused and irritated at finding elderly men of letters alarmed at the "revolutionism of the young," as manifested in Mr. A. or Mr. B., or asking, bewildered, "why the young take Miss C. so seriously," when as a fact A. and B. are merely rowdies of whose foolish books even the young buy only fifty or sixty copies, and the fair C. is a person taken seriously by no serious person of her own generation. Those critics, again, who are constantly in touch with the fruits of the printing press have for the most part got into a state of puzzlement in which they are not merely afraid to make mistakes (lest what looks like a frog may turn out to be an angel), but in which they have almost lost the habit of using their senses for the purpose for which they were meant to be used. Everything is treated with respect. Platitudinous rubbish—so welcome perhaps because it is so easily understood—is treated as though Wordsworth had written it; hectic gibberish of the silliest kind is honoured, at worst, with the sort of deferential reprimand that is applicable to great genius when great genius shows a slight tendency to kick over the traces. Even those of our reviews which do not ignore the best contemporary work more often than not allocate just as much space to the humbug and thefaux bon. "The public, though dull, has not quite such a skull," as Swinburne's limerick put it. Many bad authors are much talked about but very little read, and critics who never write a line are frequently sound when most of the professionals have gone clean off the rails. Moreover, it is arguable—though we should not, without long consideration, accept the argument—that no amount of misleading criticism or bad example will ruin a man of strong natural genius, which implies perceptions which will not be denied, and a well-defined positive character. Nevertheless, even if we do not exaggerate the ill effects of haphazard and timid or haphazard and reckless criticism, it is surely obvious that both artists and their publics must gain if some of the rubbish can be cleared away. The ship moves in spite of all the barnacles, and it does not lose direction, but its progress might be less troublesome. We have often metpersons who have distrusted all reviews because they have bought books on the strength of extravagant reviews and been once bit. We have often met people, too, who have procured what somebody (undeniably "intellectual") has told them to be the latest and most vigorous and representative work of imaginative literature, and, finding it distasteful, have come to the conclusion that the "poets of the day" or the "novelists of to-morrow" are not for them: turning back, then, to their Dickens or Browning or Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the mood of that ghastly pessimist who said that whenever a new book came out he read an old one. These readers are typical of many, and the result of their existence is that the dissemination of the best contemporary literature is (1) less wide than it might be and (2) less rapid than it might be. There is, as a rule—in the economists' term—far too great a "time-lag" in the making of the best reputations. A man often writes for years before he is heard of by the mass of the cultivated readers who are naturally predisposed to like his work, and do like it when at last they meet it. In a nation so large, and with so immense a volume of literary production, such numerous and diverse news-sheets, and such congested and ill-arranged bookshops, this phenomenon is bound to exist in some degree. But it may be minimised, and although we of theLondon Mercurycannot hope, and do not desire, to be judged by our aspirations rather than by our performances, we may at least be permitted to say that we shall do our utmost to contribute towards that end.

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Even to disclaim an ambition for an infallible pontificate of letters must savour of impertinence. We can only say that what our journal can do in the way of affirming and applying principles of criticism, and giving a conspectus of the best contemporary work, we shall attempt to do. Our other functions we have already outlined, and a beginning is made in this number. We have made no endeavour to arrange a dazzling shop-window of names or "features" for our first number; whatever may be our readers' views concerning this number we can at least assure them that the contributors to subsequent numbers will be not less representative than those here found, and that only a beginning has yet been made towards the complete scheme that we have in view.

Going and StayingThe moving sun-shapes on the spray,The sparkles where the brook was flowing,Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,These were the things we wished would stay;But they were going.Seasons of blankness as of snow,The silent bleed of a world decaying,The moan of multitudes in woe,These were the things we wished would go;But they were staying.THOMAS HARDYIt's Not Going to Happen AgainI have known the most dear that is granted us here,More supreme than the gods know above,Like a star I was hurled through the sweet of the world,And the height and the light of it, Love.I have risen to the uttermost Heaven of Joy,I have sunk to the sheer Hell of Pain—But—it's not going to happen again, my boy,It's not going to happen again.It's the very first word that poor Juliet heardFrom her Romeo over the Styx;And the Roman will tell Cleopatra in hellWhen she starts her immortal old tricks;What Paris was tellin' for good-bye to HelenWhen he bundled her into the train—Oh, it's not going to happen again, old girl,It's not going to happen again.RUPERT BROOKEChâteau Lake Louise, Canada, 1913.The Search for the Nightingale(To S. S.)1Beside a stony, shallow stream I satIn a deep gully underneath a hill.I watched the water trickle down dark mossAnd shake the tiny boughs of maidenhair,And billow on the bodies of cold stone.And sculptured clearUpon the shoulder of that aerial peakStood trees, the fragile skeletons of light,High in a bubble blownOf visionary stone.2Under that azurine transparent archThe hill, the rocks, the treesWere still and dreamless as the printed woodBlack on the snowy page.It was the song of some diviner birdThan this still country knew,The words were twigs of burnt and blackened treesFrom which there trilled a voice,Shadowy and faint, as though it were the songThe water carolled as it flowed along.3Lifting my head, I gazed upon the world,Carved in the breathless heat as in a gem,And watched the parroquets green-feathered flyThrough crystal vacancy, and perch in treesThat glittered in a thin, blue, haze-like dream,And the voice faded, though the water dinnedAgainst the stones its dimming memory.And I ached thenTo hear that song burst out upon that scene,Startling an earth where it had never been.4And then I came unto an older world.The woods were damp, the sunShone in a watery mist, and soon was gone;The trees were thick with leaves, heavy and old,The sky was grey, and blue, and like the seaRolling with mists and shadowy veils of foam.I heard the roaring of an ancient windAmong the elms and in the tattered pines;Lighting pale hollows in the cloud-dark sky,A ghostly ship, the Moon, flew scudding by.5"O is it here," I cried, "that bird that singsSo that the traveller in his frenzy weeps?"It was the autumn of the year, and leavesFell with a dizzying moan, and all the treesRoared like the sea at my small impotent voice.And if that bird was there it did not sing,And I knew not its haunts, or where it went,But carven stood and raved!In that old wood that dripped upon my faceUpturned below, pale in its passionate chase.6And years went by, and I grew slowly cold:I had forgotten what I once had sought.There are no passions that do not grow dim,And like a fire imagination sinksInto the ashes of the mind's cold grate.And if I dreamed, I dreamed of that far land,That coast of pearl upon a summer sea,Whose frail trees in unruffled amber sleep,Gaudy with jewelled birds, whose feathers sprayBright founts of colour through the tranquil day.7The hill, the gully, and the stony streamI had not thought on when this spring I satIn a strange room with candles guttering downInto the flickering silence. From the MoonAmong the trees still-wreathed upon the skyThere came the sudden twittering of a ghost.And I stept out from darkness, and I sawThe great pale sky immense, transparent, filledWith boughs and mountains and wide-shining lakesWhere stillness, crying in a thin voice, breaks.8It was the voice of that imagined bird.I saw the gully and that ancient hill,The water trickling down from ParadiseShaking the tiny boughs of maidenhair.There sat the dreaming boy.And O! I wept to see that scene again,To read the black print on that snowy page,I wept, and all was still.No shadow came into that sun-steeped glen,No sound of earth, no voice of living men.9Was it a dream or was it that in meA God awoke and gazing on his dreamSaw that dream rise and gaze into its soul,Finding, Narcissus-like, its image there:A Song, a transitory Shape on water blown,Descending down the bright cascades of time,The shadowiest-flowering, ripple-woven bloomAs ghostly as still waters' unseen foamThat lies upon the air, as that song layWithin my heart on one far summer day?10Carved in the azure air white peacocks fly,Their fanning wings stir not the crystal trees,Bright parrots fade through dimming turquoise days,And music scrolls its lightning calm and brightOn the pale sky where thunder cannot come.Into that world no ship has ever sailed,No seaman gazing with hand-shaded eyesHas ever seen its shore whiten the waves.But to that land the Nightingale has flown,Leaving bright treasure on this calm air blown.W. J. TURNEREarly ChronologySlowly the daylight left our listening faces.*****Professor Brown with level baritoneDiscoursed into the dusk.Five thousand yearsHe guided us through scientific spacesOf excavated History; till the loneRoads of research grew blurred; and in our earsTime was the rumoured tongues of vanished races,And Thought a chartless Age of Ice and Stone.*****The story ended. Then the darkened airFlowered as he lit his pipe; an aureole glowedEnwreathed with smoke; the moment's match-light showedHis rosy face, broad brow, and smooth grey hair,Backed by the crowded book-shelves.In his wakeAn archæologist began to makeAssumptions about aqueducts (he quotedProfessor Sandstorm's book); and soon they floatedThrough desiccated forests; mangled myths;And argued easily round megaliths.*****Beyond the college garden something glinted;A copper moon climbed clear above the trees.Some Lydian coin?... Professor Brown agreesThat copper coinswerein that culture minted;But, as her whitening way aloft she took,I thought she had a pre-dynastic look.SIEGFRIED SASSOONThe Rock Pool(To Miss Alice Warrender)This is the sea. In these uneven wallsA wave lies prisoned. Far and far away,Outward to ocean as the slow tide falls,Her sisters, through the capes that hold the bay,Dancing in lovely liberty recede.Yet lovely in captivity she lies,Filled with soft colours, where the waving weedMoves gently and discloses to our eyesBlurred shining veins of rock and lucent shellsUnder the light-shot water; and here reposeSmall quiet fish and the dimly glowing bellsOf sleeping sea-anemones that closeTheir tender fronds and will not now awakeTill on these rocks the waves returning break.EDWARD SHANKSThe Evening Sky in MarchRose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd,With eyes of dazzling bright,Shakes Venus mid the twined boughs of the night;Rose-limb'd, soft-steppingFrom low bough to bough,Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage—dimmedIts bloom of snowBy that sole planetary glow.Venus, avers the astronomerNot thus idly dancing goesFlushing the eternal orchard with wild rose.She through ether burnsOutpacing planetary earth,And ere two years triumphantly returnsAnd again wave-like swelling flows;And again her flashing apparition comes and goes.This we have not seen,No heavenly courses set,No flight unpausing through a void serene:But when eve clears,Arises Venus as she first uproseStepping the shaken boughs among,And in her bosom glowsThe warm light hidden in sunny snows.She shakes the clustered starsLightly, as she goesAmid the unseen branches of the night,Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright.She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows—And who but knowsHow the rejoiced heart achesWhen Venus all his starry vision shakes:When through his mindTossing with random airs of an unearthly wind,Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd,The mistress of his starry vision arises,And the boughs glittering swayAnd the stars pale away,And the enlarging heaven glowsAs Venus light-foot mid the twined branches goes.JOHN FREEMANLove's CautionTell them, when you are home again,How warm the air was now;How silent were the birds and leaves,And of the moon's full glow;And how we saw afarA falling star:It was a tear of pure delightRan down the face of Heaven this happy night.Our kisses are but love in flower,Until that greater timeWhen, gathering strength, those flowers take wing,And Love can reach his prime.And now, my heart's delight,Good night, good night;Give me the last sweet kiss—But do not breathe at home one word of this!W. H. DAVIESThe House That WasOf the old house, only a few crumbledCourses of brick, smothered in nettle and dock,Or a squared stone, lying mossy where it tumbled!Sprawling bramble and saucy thistle mockWhat once was firelit floor and private charmWhere, seen in a windowed picture, hills were fadingAt dusk, and all was memory-coloured and warm,And voices talked, secure from the wind's invading.Of the old garden, only a stray shiningOf daffodil flames amid April's cuckoo-flowers,Or a cluster of aconite mixt with weeds entwining!But, dark and lofty, a royal cedar towersBy homely thorns: whether the white rain driftsOr sun scorches, he holds the downs in ken,The western vale; his branchy tiers he lifts,Older than many a generation of men.LAURENCE BINYONSuppose ...Suppose ... and suppose that a wild little Horse of MagicCame cantering out of the sky,With bridle of silver, and into the saddle I mountedTo fly—and to fly;And we stretched up into the air, fleeting on in the sunshine,A speck in the gleamOn galloping hoofs, his mane in the wind out-flowing,In a shadowy stream;And, oh, when, all lone, the gentle star of eveningCame crinkling into the blue,A magical castle we saw in the air, like a cloud of moonlight,As onward we flew;And across the green moat on the drawbridge we foamed and we snorted;And there was a beautiful QueenWho smiled at me strangely, and spoke to my wild little Horse, too—A lovely and beautiful Queen;Suppose with delight she cried to her delicate maidens:"Behold my daughter—my dear!"And they crowned me with flowers, and then to their harps sate playing,Solemn and clear;And magical cakes and goblets were spread on the table;And at window the birds came in;Hopping along with bright eyes, pecking crumbs from the platters,And sipped of the wine;And splashing up—up to the roof tossed fountains of crystal;And Princes in scarlet and greenShot with their bows and arrows, and kneeled with their dishesOf fruits for the Queen;And we walked in a magical garden, with rivers and bowers,And my bed was of ivory and gold;And the Queen breathed soft in my ear a song of enchantment—And I never grew old....And I never, never came back to the earth, oh, never and never;How mother would cry and cry!There'd be snow on the fields then, and all these sweet flowers in the winterWould wither and die....Suppose ... and suppose....WALTER DE LA MARE

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,The sparkles where the brook was flowing,Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,These were the things we wished would stay;But they were going.Seasons of blankness as of snow,The silent bleed of a world decaying,The moan of multitudes in woe,These were the things we wished would go;But they were staying.

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,The sparkles where the brook was flowing,Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,These were the things we wished would stay;But they were going.

Seasons of blankness as of snow,The silent bleed of a world decaying,The moan of multitudes in woe,These were the things we wished would go;But they were staying.

THOMAS HARDY

I have known the most dear that is granted us here,More supreme than the gods know above,Like a star I was hurled through the sweet of the world,And the height and the light of it, Love.I have risen to the uttermost Heaven of Joy,I have sunk to the sheer Hell of Pain—But—it's not going to happen again, my boy,It's not going to happen again.It's the very first word that poor Juliet heardFrom her Romeo over the Styx;And the Roman will tell Cleopatra in hellWhen she starts her immortal old tricks;What Paris was tellin' for good-bye to HelenWhen he bundled her into the train—Oh, it's not going to happen again, old girl,It's not going to happen again.

It's the very first word that poor Juliet heardFrom her Romeo over the Styx;And the Roman will tell Cleopatra in hellWhen she starts her immortal old tricks;What Paris was tellin' for good-bye to HelenWhen he bundled her into the train—Oh, it's not going to happen again, old girl,It's not going to happen again.

RUPERT BROOKE

Château Lake Louise, Canada, 1913.

(To S. S.)

1Beside a stony, shallow stream I satIn a deep gully underneath a hill.I watched the water trickle down dark mossAnd shake the tiny boughs of maidenhair,And billow on the bodies of cold stone.And sculptured clearUpon the shoulder of that aerial peakStood trees, the fragile skeletons of light,High in a bubble blownOf visionary stone.2Under that azurine transparent archThe hill, the rocks, the treesWere still and dreamless as the printed woodBlack on the snowy page.It was the song of some diviner birdThan this still country knew,The words were twigs of burnt and blackened treesFrom which there trilled a voice,Shadowy and faint, as though it were the songThe water carolled as it flowed along.3Lifting my head, I gazed upon the world,Carved in the breathless heat as in a gem,And watched the parroquets green-feathered flyThrough crystal vacancy, and perch in treesThat glittered in a thin, blue, haze-like dream,And the voice faded, though the water dinnedAgainst the stones its dimming memory.And I ached thenTo hear that song burst out upon that scene,Startling an earth where it had never been.4And then I came unto an older world.The woods were damp, the sunShone in a watery mist, and soon was gone;The trees were thick with leaves, heavy and old,The sky was grey, and blue, and like the seaRolling with mists and shadowy veils of foam.I heard the roaring of an ancient windAmong the elms and in the tattered pines;Lighting pale hollows in the cloud-dark sky,A ghostly ship, the Moon, flew scudding by.5"O is it here," I cried, "that bird that singsSo that the traveller in his frenzy weeps?"It was the autumn of the year, and leavesFell with a dizzying moan, and all the treesRoared like the sea at my small impotent voice.And if that bird was there it did not sing,And I knew not its haunts, or where it went,But carven stood and raved!In that old wood that dripped upon my faceUpturned below, pale in its passionate chase.6And years went by, and I grew slowly cold:I had forgotten what I once had sought.There are no passions that do not grow dim,And like a fire imagination sinksInto the ashes of the mind's cold grate.And if I dreamed, I dreamed of that far land,That coast of pearl upon a summer sea,Whose frail trees in unruffled amber sleep,Gaudy with jewelled birds, whose feathers sprayBright founts of colour through the tranquil day.7The hill, the gully, and the stony streamI had not thought on when this spring I satIn a strange room with candles guttering downInto the flickering silence. From the MoonAmong the trees still-wreathed upon the skyThere came the sudden twittering of a ghost.And I stept out from darkness, and I sawThe great pale sky immense, transparent, filledWith boughs and mountains and wide-shining lakesWhere stillness, crying in a thin voice, breaks.8It was the voice of that imagined bird.I saw the gully and that ancient hill,The water trickling down from ParadiseShaking the tiny boughs of maidenhair.There sat the dreaming boy.And O! I wept to see that scene again,To read the black print on that snowy page,I wept, and all was still.No shadow came into that sun-steeped glen,No sound of earth, no voice of living men.9Was it a dream or was it that in meA God awoke and gazing on his dreamSaw that dream rise and gaze into its soul,Finding, Narcissus-like, its image there:A Song, a transitory Shape on water blown,Descending down the bright cascades of time,The shadowiest-flowering, ripple-woven bloomAs ghostly as still waters' unseen foamThat lies upon the air, as that song layWithin my heart on one far summer day?10Carved in the azure air white peacocks fly,Their fanning wings stir not the crystal trees,Bright parrots fade through dimming turquoise days,And music scrolls its lightning calm and brightOn the pale sky where thunder cannot come.Into that world no ship has ever sailed,No seaman gazing with hand-shaded eyesHas ever seen its shore whiten the waves.But to that land the Nightingale has flown,Leaving bright treasure on this calm air blown.

Beside a stony, shallow stream I satIn a deep gully underneath a hill.I watched the water trickle down dark mossAnd shake the tiny boughs of maidenhair,And billow on the bodies of cold stone.And sculptured clearUpon the shoulder of that aerial peakStood trees, the fragile skeletons of light,High in a bubble blownOf visionary stone.

Under that azurine transparent archThe hill, the rocks, the treesWere still and dreamless as the printed woodBlack on the snowy page.It was the song of some diviner birdThan this still country knew,The words were twigs of burnt and blackened treesFrom which there trilled a voice,Shadowy and faint, as though it were the songThe water carolled as it flowed along.

Lifting my head, I gazed upon the world,Carved in the breathless heat as in a gem,And watched the parroquets green-feathered flyThrough crystal vacancy, and perch in treesThat glittered in a thin, blue, haze-like dream,And the voice faded, though the water dinnedAgainst the stones its dimming memory.And I ached thenTo hear that song burst out upon that scene,Startling an earth where it had never been.

And then I came unto an older world.The woods were damp, the sunShone in a watery mist, and soon was gone;The trees were thick with leaves, heavy and old,The sky was grey, and blue, and like the seaRolling with mists and shadowy veils of foam.I heard the roaring of an ancient windAmong the elms and in the tattered pines;Lighting pale hollows in the cloud-dark sky,A ghostly ship, the Moon, flew scudding by.

"O is it here," I cried, "that bird that singsSo that the traveller in his frenzy weeps?"It was the autumn of the year, and leavesFell with a dizzying moan, and all the treesRoared like the sea at my small impotent voice.And if that bird was there it did not sing,And I knew not its haunts, or where it went,But carven stood and raved!In that old wood that dripped upon my faceUpturned below, pale in its passionate chase.

And years went by, and I grew slowly cold:I had forgotten what I once had sought.There are no passions that do not grow dim,And like a fire imagination sinksInto the ashes of the mind's cold grate.And if I dreamed, I dreamed of that far land,That coast of pearl upon a summer sea,Whose frail trees in unruffled amber sleep,Gaudy with jewelled birds, whose feathers sprayBright founts of colour through the tranquil day.

The hill, the gully, and the stony streamI had not thought on when this spring I satIn a strange room with candles guttering downInto the flickering silence. From the MoonAmong the trees still-wreathed upon the skyThere came the sudden twittering of a ghost.And I stept out from darkness, and I sawThe great pale sky immense, transparent, filledWith boughs and mountains and wide-shining lakesWhere stillness, crying in a thin voice, breaks.

It was the voice of that imagined bird.I saw the gully and that ancient hill,The water trickling down from ParadiseShaking the tiny boughs of maidenhair.There sat the dreaming boy.And O! I wept to see that scene again,To read the black print on that snowy page,I wept, and all was still.No shadow came into that sun-steeped glen,No sound of earth, no voice of living men.

Was it a dream or was it that in meA God awoke and gazing on his dreamSaw that dream rise and gaze into its soul,Finding, Narcissus-like, its image there:A Song, a transitory Shape on water blown,Descending down the bright cascades of time,The shadowiest-flowering, ripple-woven bloomAs ghostly as still waters' unseen foamThat lies upon the air, as that song layWithin my heart on one far summer day?

Carved in the azure air white peacocks fly,Their fanning wings stir not the crystal trees,Bright parrots fade through dimming turquoise days,And music scrolls its lightning calm and brightOn the pale sky where thunder cannot come.Into that world no ship has ever sailed,No seaman gazing with hand-shaded eyesHas ever seen its shore whiten the waves.But to that land the Nightingale has flown,Leaving bright treasure on this calm air blown.

W. J. TURNER

Slowly the daylight left our listening faces.*****Professor Brown with level baritoneDiscoursed into the dusk.Five thousand yearsHe guided us through scientific spacesOf excavated History; till the loneRoads of research grew blurred; and in our earsTime was the rumoured tongues of vanished races,And Thought a chartless Age of Ice and Stone.*****The story ended. Then the darkened airFlowered as he lit his pipe; an aureole glowedEnwreathed with smoke; the moment's match-light showedHis rosy face, broad brow, and smooth grey hair,Backed by the crowded book-shelves.In his wakeAn archæologist began to makeAssumptions about aqueducts (he quotedProfessor Sandstorm's book); and soon they floatedThrough desiccated forests; mangled myths;And argued easily round megaliths.*****Beyond the college garden something glinted;A copper moon climbed clear above the trees.Some Lydian coin?... Professor Brown agreesThat copper coinswerein that culture minted;But, as her whitening way aloft she took,I thought she had a pre-dynastic look.

Slowly the daylight left our listening faces.

*****

Professor Brown with level baritoneDiscoursed into the dusk.Five thousand yearsHe guided us through scientific spacesOf excavated History; till the loneRoads of research grew blurred; and in our earsTime was the rumoured tongues of vanished races,And Thought a chartless Age of Ice and Stone.

*****

The story ended. Then the darkened airFlowered as he lit his pipe; an aureole glowedEnwreathed with smoke; the moment's match-light showedHis rosy face, broad brow, and smooth grey hair,Backed by the crowded book-shelves.In his wakeAn archæologist began to makeAssumptions about aqueducts (he quotedProfessor Sandstorm's book); and soon they floatedThrough desiccated forests; mangled myths;And argued easily round megaliths.

*****

Beyond the college garden something glinted;A copper moon climbed clear above the trees.Some Lydian coin?... Professor Brown agreesThat copper coinswerein that culture minted;But, as her whitening way aloft she took,I thought she had a pre-dynastic look.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

(To Miss Alice Warrender)

This is the sea. In these uneven wallsA wave lies prisoned. Far and far away,Outward to ocean as the slow tide falls,Her sisters, through the capes that hold the bay,Dancing in lovely liberty recede.Yet lovely in captivity she lies,Filled with soft colours, where the waving weedMoves gently and discloses to our eyesBlurred shining veins of rock and lucent shellsUnder the light-shot water; and here reposeSmall quiet fish and the dimly glowing bellsOf sleeping sea-anemones that closeTheir tender fronds and will not now awakeTill on these rocks the waves returning break.

EDWARD SHANKS

Rose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd,With eyes of dazzling bright,Shakes Venus mid the twined boughs of the night;Rose-limb'd, soft-steppingFrom low bough to bough,Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage—dimmedIts bloom of snowBy that sole planetary glow.Venus, avers the astronomerNot thus idly dancing goesFlushing the eternal orchard with wild rose.She through ether burnsOutpacing planetary earth,And ere two years triumphantly returnsAnd again wave-like swelling flows;And again her flashing apparition comes and goes.This we have not seen,No heavenly courses set,No flight unpausing through a void serene:But when eve clears,Arises Venus as she first uproseStepping the shaken boughs among,And in her bosom glowsThe warm light hidden in sunny snows.She shakes the clustered starsLightly, as she goesAmid the unseen branches of the night,Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright.She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows—And who but knowsHow the rejoiced heart achesWhen Venus all his starry vision shakes:When through his mindTossing with random airs of an unearthly wind,Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd,The mistress of his starry vision arises,And the boughs glittering swayAnd the stars pale away,And the enlarging heaven glowsAs Venus light-foot mid the twined branches goes.

Venus, avers the astronomerNot thus idly dancing goesFlushing the eternal orchard with wild rose.She through ether burnsOutpacing planetary earth,And ere two years triumphantly returnsAnd again wave-like swelling flows;And again her flashing apparition comes and goes.

This we have not seen,No heavenly courses set,No flight unpausing through a void serene:But when eve clears,Arises Venus as she first uproseStepping the shaken boughs among,And in her bosom glowsThe warm light hidden in sunny snows.

She shakes the clustered starsLightly, as she goesAmid the unseen branches of the night,Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright.She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows—And who but knowsHow the rejoiced heart achesWhen Venus all his starry vision shakes:

When through his mindTossing with random airs of an unearthly wind,Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd,The mistress of his starry vision arises,And the boughs glittering swayAnd the stars pale away,And the enlarging heaven glowsAs Venus light-foot mid the twined branches goes.

JOHN FREEMAN

Tell them, when you are home again,How warm the air was now;How silent were the birds and leaves,And of the moon's full glow;And how we saw afarA falling star:It was a tear of pure delightRan down the face of Heaven this happy night.Our kisses are but love in flower,Until that greater timeWhen, gathering strength, those flowers take wing,And Love can reach his prime.And now, my heart's delight,Good night, good night;Give me the last sweet kiss—But do not breathe at home one word of this!

Our kisses are but love in flower,Until that greater timeWhen, gathering strength, those flowers take wing,And Love can reach his prime.And now, my heart's delight,Good night, good night;Give me the last sweet kiss—But do not breathe at home one word of this!

W. H. DAVIES

Of the old house, only a few crumbledCourses of brick, smothered in nettle and dock,Or a squared stone, lying mossy where it tumbled!Sprawling bramble and saucy thistle mockWhat once was firelit floor and private charmWhere, seen in a windowed picture, hills were fadingAt dusk, and all was memory-coloured and warm,And voices talked, secure from the wind's invading.Of the old garden, only a stray shiningOf daffodil flames amid April's cuckoo-flowers,Or a cluster of aconite mixt with weeds entwining!But, dark and lofty, a royal cedar towersBy homely thorns: whether the white rain driftsOr sun scorches, he holds the downs in ken,The western vale; his branchy tiers he lifts,Older than many a generation of men.

Of the old garden, only a stray shiningOf daffodil flames amid April's cuckoo-flowers,Or a cluster of aconite mixt with weeds entwining!But, dark and lofty, a royal cedar towersBy homely thorns: whether the white rain driftsOr sun scorches, he holds the downs in ken,The western vale; his branchy tiers he lifts,Older than many a generation of men.

LAURENCE BINYON

Suppose ... and suppose that a wild little Horse of MagicCame cantering out of the sky,With bridle of silver, and into the saddle I mountedTo fly—and to fly;And we stretched up into the air, fleeting on in the sunshine,A speck in the gleamOn galloping hoofs, his mane in the wind out-flowing,In a shadowy stream;And, oh, when, all lone, the gentle star of eveningCame crinkling into the blue,A magical castle we saw in the air, like a cloud of moonlight,As onward we flew;And across the green moat on the drawbridge we foamed and we snorted;And there was a beautiful QueenWho smiled at me strangely, and spoke to my wild little Horse, too—A lovely and beautiful Queen;Suppose with delight she cried to her delicate maidens:"Behold my daughter—my dear!"And they crowned me with flowers, and then to their harps sate playing,Solemn and clear;And magical cakes and goblets were spread on the table;And at window the birds came in;Hopping along with bright eyes, pecking crumbs from the platters,And sipped of the wine;And splashing up—up to the roof tossed fountains of crystal;And Princes in scarlet and greenShot with their bows and arrows, and kneeled with their dishesOf fruits for the Queen;And we walked in a magical garden, with rivers and bowers,And my bed was of ivory and gold;And the Queen breathed soft in my ear a song of enchantment—And I never grew old....And I never, never came back to the earth, oh, never and never;How mother would cry and cry!There'd be snow on the fields then, and all these sweet flowers in the winterWould wither and die....Suppose ... and suppose....

Suppose ... and suppose that a wild little Horse of MagicCame cantering out of the sky,With bridle of silver, and into the saddle I mountedTo fly—and to fly;

And we stretched up into the air, fleeting on in the sunshine,A speck in the gleamOn galloping hoofs, his mane in the wind out-flowing,In a shadowy stream;

And, oh, when, all lone, the gentle star of eveningCame crinkling into the blue,A magical castle we saw in the air, like a cloud of moonlight,As onward we flew;

And across the green moat on the drawbridge we foamed and we snorted;And there was a beautiful QueenWho smiled at me strangely, and spoke to my wild little Horse, too—A lovely and beautiful Queen;Suppose with delight she cried to her delicate maidens:"Behold my daughter—my dear!"And they crowned me with flowers, and then to their harps sate playing,Solemn and clear;

And magical cakes and goblets were spread on the table;And at window the birds came in;Hopping along with bright eyes, pecking crumbs from the platters,And sipped of the wine;

And splashing up—up to the roof tossed fountains of crystal;And Princes in scarlet and greenShot with their bows and arrows, and kneeled with their dishesOf fruits for the Queen;

And we walked in a magical garden, with rivers and bowers,And my bed was of ivory and gold;And the Queen breathed soft in my ear a song of enchantment—And I never grew old....

And I never, never came back to the earth, oh, never and never;How mother would cry and cry!There'd be snow on the fields then, and all these sweet flowers in the winterWould wither and die....

Suppose ... and suppose....

WALTER DE LA MARE

By ROBERT NICHOLS

LONG,long ago there dwelt in the pleasant City-of-Towers a young princess of immense riches and of such exceeding beauty that none other could be compared to her. So famous, indeed, became the riches of her beauty and her possessions, that were only less than her beauty, that she was sought in marriage by every kind of personage. In three moons the train of her suitors, or mounted upon gold-stencilled elephants, tassel-fringed camels, palfries of Arabia, ponies of Astrakhan, mules of Nubia, or faring but upon the Sandals-of-Nature along the Road-of-Advantage, became so huge that the citizens of the City-of-Towers being eaten (albeit at no small price) out of hearth and home, petitioned the princely father of the damsel to mitigate, in whatever sort he should think fit, the good fortune of their city, which, possessing such a treasure as the princess Sa-adeh, the Bestower-of-Felicity, admitted to finding its pleasure rather in reflecting upon the value of their jewel than in entertaining those who came to steal it. The ever-benevolent Prince accordingly issued a decree that no suitor was to approach the Princess save on the understanding that if he failed to win her affections his head should pay the forfeit. Forthwith ensued so remarkable a diminution in the number of her suitors that, in a short while, only those whom the Light-of-Love's-Eyes had guided or those whom the Three-thonged-Scourge-of-Need had driven remained mounted or standing before the palace gates. Nor did these linger overlong, for the heart of the Princess was less easily softened than that of the Executioner, who with one sweep of the scimitar relieved the Lover of the Burden-of-Love or severed the Needy from the Vessel-of-Need. Then the beautiful Sa-adeh, the Bestower-of-Felicity, not unfatigued by such a succession of maidenly preoccupations, determined that for a little she would forget the Bonds-of-Necessity and atone somewhat to the citizens of the City-of-Towers for the inconveniences she had brought them. To this end she caused a special litter of cedar wood to be constructed, and, mounting therein, sallied forth to bestow upon the citizens of the City-of-Towers the hitherto-unseen and almost-unendurable beauty of her face.

Now it happened that in this city there was then dwelling a young scribe by name Es-siddeeh, that is the Very Veracious. This youth, the height of whose beauty was almost as remarkable as the depth of his wisdom, had spent the greater number of his days in study; so much so, in fact, that he had never cast his eyes upon a woman to love her, and this in spite of the possession of an enchanting smile, Nature's gift to him, of the power of which he was hardly conscious. Surrounded by parchments, having hung about his neck many little scrolls, with his tablet laid across his knees,daily he sat in his window and, while the traffic flowed by and the crowd shrilled more loudly than a flock of parokeets, raised not his eyes from his papyrus nor regarded any sound but the squeaking of his stylus-reed.

Thus, then, was he sitting when the troating of horns and the bombilation of gongs proclaimed the nearing of the Princess in her progress. But Es-siddeeh paid this din no attention and, though the fantastic shadows of many majestically-apparelled persons fell across his page, lifted not the Gatherers-of-Knowledge from the Leaves-of-Enlightenment. Meanwhile Sa-adeh, lying in her litter, enjoyed a certain satisfaction in the pleasurable recognition the gracious bestowal of the sight of her countenance procured the citizens. This satisfaction she told herself, as the procession advanced, was increased rather than diminished by the spectacle of certain bleared scribes, who, with ears already attached by cobwebs to the lintels of their doors, never lifted eyes as she passed. "For," she reflected, "such insensibility affords me a scale by which to gauge the pleasure I bestow elsewhere."

At this moment she arrived opposite Es-siddeeh's window.

Then the young scribe, feeling the gaze of another fixed upon him, looked up. And the eyes of Es-siddeeh exchanged thoughts with the eyes of Sa-adeh. When he bent to the tablet again, behold the words were to him but foolishness. All the afternoon he sat there wondering why he had spent his youth upon such things as now appeared to him the very vanity of vanities, colourless and the occupation of the myopic. At evenfall, driven abroad by a terrible restlessness, he wandered outside the walls of the city, but the murmuring of the breeze through the groves did but increase his distraction. Toward midnight he returned and, after spending the remainder of the night without sleep, informed his parents of his intention to turn suitor. Greatly perturbed, they besought him to relinquish so hopeless a project. In vain! at the third hour he proceeded to the palace. The gates were shut. When they did at last open he found himself face to face with the Executioner. Involuntarily he recoiled.

"No alms will be given to-day," said the Reliever-of-Headaches.

"I have not come for alms. I wish to see the porter."

"I am the porter."

"I thought you were——"

"So I was. But now that job is at an end. The capacity to love as our forefathers loved is passing away. Even a spirit of commercial enterprise is lacking. The world goes from bad to worse. Yesterday I cut off the heads of princes; to-day I open the door to mendicants. On no one is Fortune harder than I."

"I find that last reflection," returned the scribe, "so general that I grow convinced it must be true. But be of good cheer. Strange as it may seem, I am the bearer of good tidings. There is every likelihood of your shortly resuming your distinguished office—I have come as a suitor to the Princess."

"Have you, indeed? Ha, ha, ha! The coin is as good as earned.... However ... excuse my entertainment. I should not laugh; forunderstand my heart goes out to you in your public-spirited endeavour not to permit my office to lapse. Ah, if there were only more men of your kidney, and yet ... I regret to have to add that you will not profit me much. For make no mistake, I am a Republican; I believe that handsome is as handsome does. It is therefore my custom to request a little honorarium, in ratio to the means of my customer, in return for the service I render him. For this is a service which is unique, in that he probably has no servant in his suite trained to perform this duty for him, and it is besides a service for which the requirement of one small fee cannot be described as extortionate since the duty is one which being once satisfactorily performed does not require to be repeated."

"But I have not yet incurred the penalty."

"You will. Be reassured and, having no troublesome misgivings on this count, hand me that which in a few hours it will be too late for me to ask."

Es-siddeeh smiled. "Are you not paid by the Court?" he asked.

"I am," replied the other, softening, "and a beggarly wage it is, too, which compels me to make these requisitions. However, since you seem, for all your queer dress, a pleasant fellow, I will reduce my charge."

"Good. I feared I should never be able to pay—my means are so scanty."

"I should inform you that it is as well to pay because, if you do not, my arm, unstrengthened by the sinews of charity, may not perform its office with quite that address which is at once a delight to the spectators and a matter of self-gratification to my customer."

"Your magnanimity," replied the scribe, giving the man a coin, "does indeed bear witness to the superiority of your mind to its present situation and deserves a reward. I hope you will see that I am not disappointed of an interview."

Thereupon the Executioner conducted him into the palace and, leaving him in an inner apartment, acquainted one of the attendant damsels with the object of the scribe's visit.

For some time the maid regarded his dress dubiously.

"I should be grateful if you would inform the Princess of my arrival, for I cannot say that I find the sound of the Executioner in the courtyard below sharpening his scimitar on a wheel affords me as much pleasure as by his expression it affords him."

She vanished through the curtains, and the following conversation was borne to Es-siddeeh's ears:

"A young man calling himself the Very Veracious has arrived and sues for an interview on the same subject as his forerunners."

"I cannot see him." The maid returned.

"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh, "that she is as beautiful as one red rose in a garden of lilies."

"The compliment," he heard the Princess remark, "is a new one and is graceful. Nevertheless dismiss him."

"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh, "that her wisdom has the wings of therukh, the eye of the falcon, the talons of the osprey, and the voice of the dove."

"It is very remarkable," he heard the Princess remark, "that he should so accurately describe my characteristics. He must be a diviner; since, as far as I know, he has never seen me nor spoken to me. Nevertheless dismiss him."

"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh—but he could not think of anything to tell her and was sadly cast down. For his love, continuing to pain him, tortured him as a sweet fire in his bosom. At length, bethinking himself of his wisdom, he said in as brusque a tone as he could summon, "Tell her that I know the answer to all secrets and that she will regret it if she dismiss me."

"How now?" cried the Princess, "is he so clever, and has such courage? He will indeed be the Very Veracious if, possessing these answers, he depart immediately, for then my womanish regret will indeed be sharp; since of all humours, he has had the wit to see, this humour of curiosity is the one most deeply implanted in us. Of what complexion is he?"

"He is of spare build; his hair is black and glossy as that of a black panther; in his eyes there is a dark fire. His clothes are by no means new, his fingers are stained with ink, and about his neck there is a necklace of little scrolls."

"A necklace of little scrolls, did you say? Send him in."

Then Es-siddeeh stepped into her presence, and it was to him as if he were a little planet drawn for the first time into the orbit of the sun.

She commanded him to be seated and plied him with various questions concerning the value as an amulet of this or that precious stone, of the pedigree of famous horses, music as Emotional Sound or as an Architecture, and many other matters of a similar nature.

All these questions he answered not only discreetly, but with wit.

For some time she rested her eyes upon his face in a musing fashion. Then, with a strange inflection, she asked, "What is love?"

"I have but just beheld the cause," he returned; "give me a little space and I infer its properties as a consequence. At present I am troubled to know whether the same vessel can contain both cause and consequence."

Not without haste, she assured him that she would consider her question answered, and enquired, "Does it become thee to risk so wise a head at the bidding of so foolish a heart?"

"It lay not, and does not lie, with me to make it becoming."

This answer did not appear to please her, for, moving her head, she proceeded with an instant change of tone, "One thing I have ever desired to know. What is the secret of the smile of the Sphinx?"

He was taken aback.

"What? Canst thou not answer, thou who didst assert that thou hadst in thy bosom the answer to all secrets, O Very Veracious one?"

Seeing her smiling, he replied, "I have not seen the Sphinx unless I see her now."

"I perceive that thou canst not answer. Yet because of thy youth and thy beauty I will spare thee."

"Spare me not, since before thou hast not spared me."

"Upon one condition:—that shouldst thou wish again to see me thou shalt bring with thee the secret of the Sphinx's smile. And now, before thou leavest me, because thou wert not as insensible as most scribes are wont to be, but wast willing to assay to gain some knowledge of perfection from life as well as from thy scrolls, I will give thee a token to take with thee."

At these words, as if some beneficent and invisible djinn had escaped from his bottle, a spirit of strange sweetness seemed to fill the room. Strength forsook the body of Es-siddeeh.

"Come hither," she murmured.

So Es-siddeeh went to her and bowed down with his face to the floor.

Then the Princess took him very gently in her arms and, raising his head, placed one hand beneath his locks and the other over his eyes, and so kissed him.

Now when Es-siddeeh felt the touch of her hands, cool as water lilies upon him; smelled the delicate smell of her bosom, more mysterious than any perfume of the mages; tasted her mouth's nectar, more precious than the combed honey of the blessed in Paradise, then indeed he knew there to be such a seal coldly pressed upon his heart that the stamp of it would not be erased all the days of his life.

"Ah, merciless," said he, "thou hast indeed not spared me. Now must I inevitably return."

"It was for that reason I gave it thee," she said.

He hurried home. He sold all his belongings.

His father, seeing him about to depart, cried, "Thou wilt break thy mother's heart."

He could not reply.

His mother, watching him set out upon his mule with a slender bag of coin in his hands, cursed him and the Princess.

He did not look back.

After a journey of three moons he arrived before the Sphinx.

His first impression was that her countenance contained no such difficult riddle as he had been led to suppose. The body of the Sphinx was huge, her paws stretched in front formidable, her shoulders heavy. Her bandeletted head sustained a wedge-fronted tiara. All this he took in at a glance. Then he turned to the face. He had not expected it to be so close to the ground and so open to inspection. The forehead he could see was ample. The eyebrows, albeit contracted in a slight frown, were high, arched, and wide, which lent the upper part of the face a frankexpression; but the reverie of the eyes, fixed on space, seemed somewhat dimmed—as if an impalpable hand had interposed itself between the gazing orbs and the sun. The smoothness and delicate moulding of the cheeks and chin were remarkable. The nose astonished by the firm subtlety of its outline, which gave to the face a simultaneous expression of suavity and undeviating determination. If the nose had provoked wonder the mouth was yet more amazing. The lips, which might have been gracious and full when parted, were so closely compressed in their smile as to modify the whole effect of the other features.

"I must go nearer," said Es-siddeeh.

He established himself almost between the paws of the monster, for monster she had become to him who now beheld her mien more clearly—a mien disfigured, yet seeming uncaring for its own disfigurement, and—greatest horror of all—a mien in which the eyes possessed irises but seemingly no pupils. For a little he considered returning. Then he said to himself, "No; to see her afar off gives a false impression. One should see her as she is, and earnestly scanning the visage wrestle in thought till one discovers the secret of the smile." In this he instinctively knew himself to be right.

But he was not long in finding that the more and the closer he stared the more difficult the problem became. To begin with the blemishes distracted him overmuch. The main cast of the face appeared, though subtle, simple and grand enough, but the fissures between the blocks that composed it, the discolorations, and the crevices that ran from side to side confused his eye. "If it were only perfect, all would be much easier to discover," he murmured. Then, too, the expression of the Sphinx and the import of the smile seemed to vary with the changes of the weather. On fresh-blowing sunny days the image beamed on him with a shadow-dappled, bleached cheerfulness of resignation. But when the sun raged the face, too, raged as with an inward fury; its lineaments shook in the heat-eddies that arose from the sand, and every grain glowed like a particle of fire. Nor did its rage abate during the succeeding night. The rising of the tropic moon gave to its complexion, streaked with violet shadows, an ashen hue: the pallidity of an unappeasable and frustrated anger. On lowering days it blackly scowled, and the swollen nostrils and imperious mouth assumed the similitude of being endowed only with the bitterest irony, a constancy of cruelty and an unquestionable scorn. Then he hated it....

At last, perceiving that the secret was not to be gained in a few days or even in a few moons, he resolved to settle in the desert opposite the Sphinx.

Three years passed.

Day by day and night by night Es-siddeeh watched the Sphinx. Daily the sun, shining upon the surface of the mask, seemed to make it more impenetrable, and nightly the moon, deepening the shadows in the crevices, increased its mystery. Round about the knoll, which the pilgrim had selected for his station, the sand gave off a glare more deadly than the bed of a furnace or, rising in whirlwind-spouts whose tops spattered ashes upon him, circledhis island like monstrous and infuriate djinns. Toward sunset the clouds, gathered in an awful and silent grandeur, discharged, with stunning clap and reverberations as of mountains overthrown, their lightnings, a shower of blue arrows, to all quarters of the fluttering horizon. Once indeed Es-siddeeh awoke to behold a body of dense vapour launch itself wrathfully downward against the head of the brooding Sphinx and wreath it with a crown of crackling fire. The scribe leaped up, and, despite the pressure of the blast, succeeded in gaining, not without considerable risk to himself, a position before the base of the monster. His courage was unrewarded. Upon that obstinate mien, livid in the tawny light, the rain glistened as if there had indeed started from the stony pores a ghastly dew; but the thin lips were as tightly compressed as ever. "Hideous Sphinx!" exclaimed the youth, "thou cruelty incarnate, cannot even the ire of the gods subdue thee? Shall I never, from some motion of thy visage, learn what secret thou hidest?"

As the winter approached the wilderness, utterly denuded of weed or moss, grew vaster and more bleak. The nights turned frosty. Overhead the constellations increased in splendour and number until every quarter of the empyrean shone encrusted with stars. Against these brilliant galaxies and the diffused, pervasive effulgence of countless further bodies the forehead of the Sphinx outlined itself in desolate and stubborn majesty.

Then was it that, alone amid the desert, under the gaze of those myriad and so distant lights, facing the figure of the Sphinx, now blacker and more impenetrable than ever, Es-siddeeh reached the climacteric which is despair. Baffled, without any sensation but an exasperation that gnawed his very reins and made giddy his temples, he spent his days and nights in complete dejection. At length, wishing, to terminate his sufferings once and for all he approached the Sphinx and, vehemently hammering its breast with his fists, cried in a terrible voice, "What is the secret of thy smile, O Sphinx?"

But the Sphinx did not answer.

At dawn, impotent before the titan, he perceived upon the surface of her bosom bloodmarks hitherto unobserved. Other hands beside his own, then, had knocked upon that stony breast. He returned to his hovel and stretched himself down in a sleep that was like a stupor. On waking he determined to climb the bandelettes of the Sphinx and to cast himself from its forehead. He had scarcely taken a step when, exhausted by privation and prolonged anguish of mind, he fell, and lying helpless found himself fronting a face mirrored in a pool, the product of a shower which had fallen while he slept. The face was the face of one whose visage was slowly approximating to that of the Sphinx, but it lacked the smile, and in its eyes there was the light of imminent insanity. For a space he gazed without realising the apparition to be but his own reflection. Then—stiffening his arms that he might raise his head and shoulders, extended, as he was, upon the desert like a Syrian puma whose bowels are transfixed by an arrow andwho is about to die—he rallied his strength for a last effort. Before him, a quivering tigress in the meridian sunshine, crouched the colossal Sphinx. The frustrated eyes of the scribe, nigh starting from their sockets, bent upon it such a glare as sought to penetrate its very soul. Yet at the last, heaving himself forward, with nostrils wrinkled and teeth bared as if in the very coughing frenzy of a fighting death, he could but ejaculate "Sphinx, now had I entreated thine aid!—hadst thou not rendered me too proud, who have discovered thee to be but stone."

Then the Sphinx answered in a voice of thunder:

"O man, aid thyself!"

A company of Bedawi, journeying across the desert, discovered him lying senseless. Him they succoured as a madman, and therefore sacred to the gods.

For a while he rested in a pleasant city, enjoying the support of a good man, who did not understand the cause of his afflictions, but at once realised their intensity and the deep importance to Es-siddeeh of the search on which he was engaged. His health mended at length and undeterred by the solicitations of his host, troubled to see him in such haste, he resumed his investigations. This time he did not attempt to wrestle the secret from the Sphinx herself, but determined to prosecute his enquiries among the learned.

With this end in view he interrogated the chief scholars of that district, but, coming to the conclusion that they were too provincial, he made his way to Jerusalem. Here no answer at all was given him—save that by the study of the particular law made for a particular tribe and containing, as he himself was obliged to admit, the most admirable rules for the preservation of an individual or a clan, he would attain to a knowledge of all things.

He determined to go to Greece, the fountain-head of knowledge. But in Athens he fared not much better. The majority of the inhabitants, the fascination of whose minds he had nevertheless to admit, seemed given up to the fervour of local politics, money-making, the quarrels of the law-courts, the consideration of athletics, the technique of the chase, and the refinement of trivial or voluptuous delights: pursuits which he told himself could scarcely further true knowledge. There were, however, a number of persons, given to the study of natural law as revealed in nature, who enquired whether he had weighed the Sphinx or examined her molecules beneath the magnifying crystal. He was compelled to reply that he had done neither of these things. Whereat they retorted that it was therefore impossible for them to build a theory as to the constituents of her smile and verify it in experiment. "Moreover," they continued, "even the data you have given us appear not only insufficient but contradictory, since you state that the smile is at once sweet and sour. Direct opposites cannot be reconciled in science. We think it therefore best to direct you to the school of metaphysics opposite, where, if we are to judge from the uproar which occasionallydisturbs our precincts, we believe this feat to be daily accomplished." ... Es-siddeeh accordingly lost no time in entering the school opposite. After a lengthy session, the clamour of which somewhat bewildered him, a young man with a high complexion and a shrill voice approached him and said, "As far as can be ascertained (for there are the usual number of qualifications and reservations of opinion amongst us) we are of a mind that the secret of the Sphinx is that she has no secret—at least no secrets from us."

Es-siddeeh did not stop to enquire further, for it appeared to him that he could not gain by it and, moreover, he was much fatigued. So, taking boat, he sailed through the Pillars of Hercules and, turning north, descried, after an arduous voyage, the extreme Western Isles enshrouded in a perpetual prismatic fog. On these coasts he landed and, penetrating inland, in a short while discovered a university situated on the chief river of the main island. Having struck up an acquaintance with the courteous master of the chief college, he poured out his tale. The Disseminator-of-Truth, after prolonged thought, replied, "Without wishing in any way to influence your conduct, I should, since you seem to be enamoured of the lady, inform her that the secret is anything you happen to have in your head at the moment (as well it may be), provided the matter be of such obscurity that that instinct which is peculiar to females, and which on the best authority (namely, their own) I am given to understand is infallible, will instantly assure her that she understands it even better than you do."

"But you would not have me deceive her?"

"Indeed, no. For recollect—what she believes to be true willper contrabe true to her."

"It seems to me, then, that you are asking her to deceive herself."

"Not at all," answered the Sage somewhat impatiently; "all is, you must know, relative, and any conclusion is as relative to enquiry as any other."

"But not to truth!" returned Es-siddeeh with heat.

The great man smiled. "An irritating preoccupation this, when the search itself is so intriguing."

Es-siddeeh, the Very Veracious, experienced a curious sensation in which pleasure certainly played a part. "That is perfectly true," he remarked; "I am finding more interest in the search than I expected. Nevertheless I wish to return to Sa-adeh, the Bestower-of-Felicity" (and at her name he was conscious of an inexplicable spasm of contrition), "and to present her with my conclusion—the Truth."

"Here I think we part," said the other suddenly. "Farewell."

Then, as he turned away, the elder flung over his shoulder, "For myself, old-fashioned being that I am, I am inclined to think the truth is that the secret of the smile of the Sphinx is not one that should be repeated to a lady."

It was some time before Es-siddeeh recovered from the shock of this interview. When he had done so, he hastened to leave the country and to betake himself to the Furthest East. The voyage lasted three years. But,when he posed his question to the head of a Manchu university, what was his surprise to be countered with just such a suggestion as had been put to him in the extreme Isles of the Western Hemisphere!

"But you forget my name," he exclaimed.

"No; for indeed so eager have you been to enquire of me the secret of the Sphinx and to narrate to me the story of your quest that you have forgotten to acquaint me with your name."

"I am named Es-siddeeh, which, being translated, is the Very Veracious."

"Then, my middle-aged young man of redoubtable veracity, I advise you to abandon your quest and to despair at once. It is much quicker. In such a mood you will discover yourself becoming most pleasantly the prey of one of the unmarried maidens who abound hereabout and who, I assure you, are not less beautiful and certainly less exacting than your friend. For women, according to the sage's experience, are much the same the whole world over—a morsel of honey in which the bee has left his sting: without the sting no honey, and no honey no sting."

"Sir," replied the scribe, "I am much indebted to you, but you know neither Sa-adeh nor the secret of the Sphinx."

"I do not indeed, but I venture to think that to propose to oneself a question that cannot immediately be answered is not the conduct of a wise man and may very well give offence to Powers of which we are becomingly ignorant."

Utterly wearied by the enquiries he had prosecuted among the learned, Es-siddeeh turned over in his mind the many types he had encountered in his wanderings and, recollecting the lively intelligence of those Athenians who were not of the learned professions, he determined to live after their manner that perchance he might hap upon the secret. Several years were spent in acquiring sufficient money. The subsequent spending taught him that his mind was apt to wander from the problem in the mere enjoyment of the moment. Before, however, he could make finally sure whether he was any nearer gaining a solution he found himself ruined. Turned soldier, he took part in many notable engagements and distinguished himself not a little. The itch of the excitement of the search was for the time being eclipsed by the perils and responsibilities of war. There were, too, other distractions, nor were these invariably the bodiless preoccupations of the mind.... It was the somewhat unpleasant termination of one of these episodes which plunged him into reverie upon the past. At midnight, silently rising from his rose-strewn couch, he determined there and then to bring to the contemplation of the Sphinx that store of varied knowledge which he had gathered in the course of his wanderings. Arrayed, then, in a dress similar to that which he had worn as a youth and encircling his neck with a necklace of scrolls he set out alone for the desert.

Since the way was long and he no longer young, a year passed ere he approached his goal.

Then once again Es-siddeeh stood before the Sphinx.

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