The morning call., 1892-12-25

The sea gives her shells to the single,
The earth gives her streams to the sea:
They are many, but my gift is single.
My verses, the first fruits OF me
Let the wind take the green and the gray leaf,
Cast forth without fruit upon air;
Take roSe-leaf and vine leaf and pay-leaf
Blown loose from the hair.
The night shakes them round me in iegions,
Dawn drives them before her like dreams.
Time sheds them like SHOWS on strange re lions
Swept shoreward on infinite streams;
Leaves paliid and somber aud ruddy,
Dead fruits of the fugitive years;
Some stained as with wine anu made bloody,
Aud some rs with tears
They are past as a slumber that passes
As The dew OF dawn OF OF time;
More fran than the shadows on glasses.
More feet than a wave or a rhyme
As the waves after ebb drawing seward
When their holiows full or the night
SO the birds that flew singing to meward
Recede out of sight.
The songs OF dead seasons, that wander
On wings OF articulate words:
Lost leaves that the shore wind may squandsr
Light hoeks of untamable birds;
Some sang TO me dreaming In cIass.time
And truant in hand as IN tongue:
For the youngest were born OF boys pas time.
The eldest are young.
Is there shelter while life in them fingers
Is there healing for songs that recede,
Tunes touched from harp with mans fingers
Or blown with boys mouth in a reed?
10 there place In the land OF your labor.
is there room In your world OF delight,
Where change has not sorrow for neighpor
Aud day has not night?
Though the seasons of man full OF losses
Make empty the years full of youth,
II but one thing be constant In crosses,
Change lays not her hand upon truth;
Hopes die, and their tombs are for token
That the grief as the JOY of them ends
Ere time that breaks all men has broken
The faith between friends
Though the many lights dwindle to one light.
There Is help If the heaven have one;
Though the skies be discrowned OF the sunlight
disnOS9ASSaH
They have moonlight and sieep for repayment.
With star and sea winds In her rament,
Night sinks on the sea.
sketches that the sweetly perfect measure
used by Tennyson In I'm Memoriam" was
not new with him, but was used in his day.
and before his use of 1t by Rossetti, as well
as others OF former generations, and it Is
but right and fair to call attention TO the
fact that this meter here, which Swinburne
by his NEST masterful use of 1t, has made
his own, is not at all his own creation
Take the following lines from Byron's
poem to mis- sister Augusta and you will OBJ
serve the same sweet melody and measure |:
In the desert one fountain is springing;
In It's branches one bird Is still singing,
And IT sings to my spirit OF thee.
The truth is, my writer's, and my readers
toe, there is very little originality of utter
ance left to any one. Originality of idea.
however, is at our service. Any enc who
has an idea, truth. or beautiful image Of
any sort, need not hesitate to garment it
in silk simply because silk has been used
before by some celebrated parsonage. Use
any measure or meter you may find best
fitted to your length OF arm or strength OF
thought which you may please to use. Only
please to say something when you speak
and you will be heard Honey OF any land
is sweet. No matter about the land; 1t Is