ISLET THE DACHS

Our Islet out of Helgoland, dismissed

From his quaint tenement, quits hates and loves.

There lived with us a wagging humourist

In that hound's arch dwarf-legged on boxing-gloves.

ON HEARING THE NEWS FROM VENICE

( THE DEATH OF ROBERT BROWNING )

Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak,

And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier.

Our words are sobs, our cry of praise a tear:

We are the smitten mortal, we the weak.

We see a spirit on Earth's loftiest peak

Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear:

See a great Tree of Life that never sere

Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak.

Such ending is not Death: such living shows

What wide illumination brightness sheds

From one big heart, to conquer man's old foes:

The coward, and the tyrant, and the force

Of all those weedy monsters raising heads

When Song is murk from springs of turbid source.