THE CAT 



Free, and proud, and glad as they, 



Here to-day- 

 Rests or roams their radiant child, 

 Vanquished not, but reconciled; 

 Free from curb of aught above 

 Save the lovely curb of love. 



Love, through dreams of souls divine, 



Fain would shine 

 Round a dawn whose light and song 

 Then should right our mutual wrong, — 

 Speak, and seal the love-lit law, 

 Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw. 



Dreams were theirs; yet haply may 



Dawn a day 

 When such friends and fellows born, 

 Seeing our earth as fair at morn, 

 May, for wiser love's sake, see 

 More of heaven's deep heart than we. 



Algernon Charles Swinburne. 



69 



