L'ENVOI
When earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are
twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic
has died.
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an
æon or two.
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work
anew!
And those that were good will be happy; they shall sit in a
Golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of
comet's hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from—Magdalene, Peter
and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired
at all;
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall
blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for
fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate
star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as
They Are! —Rudyard Kipling.
"If you and I—just you and I—
Should laugh instead of worry;
If we should grow—just you and I—
Kinder and sweeter hearted,
Perhaps in some near by and by
A good time might get started;
Then what a happy world 'twould be
For you and me—for you and me!"
PIPPA'S SONG
The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world.
—Robert Browning.
SONG
Give me back my heart, fair child;
To you as yet 'twere worth but little;
Half beguiler, half beguiled,
Be you warned, your own is brittle,
I know it by your redd'ning cheeks,
I know it by those two black streaks
Arching up your pearly brows
In a momentary laughter,
Stretched in long and dark repose
With a sigh the moment after.
"Hid it; dropt it on the moors!
Lost it, and you can not find it"—
My own heart I want, not yours
You have bound and must unbind it.
Set it free then from your net,
We will love, sweet—but not yet!
Fling it from you—we are strong;
Love is trouble, love is folly;
Love, that makes an old heart young,
Makes a young heart melancholy.
—Aubrey de Vere.