Where comely looks shall never wear
Uncomely, under toil and care,
The fair, at death be always fair,
Still fair to living, thought and love,
And fairer still to God above,
Than when they died in beauty.
[273].
I remember actually coming upon this poem (in Mr. Nahum's second book), and how I twisted my head and looked up at the quiet dark-socketed skull in its alcove in the turret room. It had no alarm for me then, though I can recall cold moments of dread or confusion, when I was a boy, at the thought of death. Then—or was it some time after?—I turned the page and found the following poem by Thomas Campion, and, in Mr. Nahum's writing, this scrawl at the foot of it: "Yes, but the vision first."
The man of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free