THE IRIS 73 



And if, like them, I fade and fail, 

 If I but share the common doom, 

 Let no lament of mine bewail 

 My dark descent to Hades' gloom. 



" Farewell, thou lamp of this green globe ! 

 Thy light is on my dying face, 

 Thy glory tints my faded robe, 

 And clasps me in a death-embrace. 

 Farewell, thou balsam-dropping spring ! 

 Farewell, ye skies that beam and weep ! 

 Unhoping, and unmurmuring, 

 I bow my head and sink to sleep." 



FBIBDRICH RUCKERT. 

 (Translated by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN.) 



THE IRIS 



FRAIL iris, from whose fragile sheath, 

 In lilac and in primrose hue, 

 The beaked bud just pushes through 

 To greet the blackbirds and the blue, 



What news from hollow worlds beneath ? 



In strata of the kindling sod 



What murmur reached you of the spring ? 

 What proof of warmth and weft and wing 

 Broke through your blank imagining, 



And thrilled your core with hopes of God ? 



