THE LAST OF THE IDYLLS.

"Ended at last

Those wondrous dreams, so beautifully told!

It seems that I have through enchantment passed,

And lived and loved in that fair court of old.

"Yes, yes, I know—

The old Greek idylls about which you rave,

Theocritus and his melodious flow

Of verse, and all that Moschus sang o'er Bion's grave.

"You've shown me oft

How far superior all that they have said—

That Tennyson has learned to soar aloft

By seeking inspiration from the greater dead.

"And yet in me

A pulse is never stirred by what they sing:

The reason I know not, unless it be

Their idylls are not Idylls of the King.

"You smile: no doubt

You think I've never learned to criticise.

Perhaps so, yet I feel that which I speak about.

And Enim is the last! Well, no more sighs;

"For spring is here:

I have no time to waste in dreamings vain.

After our marriage—nay, you need not sneer—

We will read all the idylls through again."

"So shall it be

So long as lives the love which poets sing.

The harp is still, yet is begun for thee

A lifelong dream—the idyll of thy king."

F.F. ELMS.