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Patara's own Apollo.[A]
[Footnote A:
Hic avidus stetit Vulcanus, hic matrona Juno, et Nunquam humero positurus arcum; Qui rore puro Castaliae lavat Crines solutos, qui Lyciae tenet Dumeta natalemque sylvum, Delius et Patareus Apollo.]
IX.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,
Yet it is pleasant, I own it, to be in their company: pleasant, Whatever else it may be, to abide in the feminine presence. Pleasant, but wrong, will you say? But this happy, serene coexistence Is to some poor soft souls, I fear, a necessity simple, Meat and drink and life, and music, filling with sweetness, Thrilling with melody sweet, with harmonies strange overwhelming, All the long-silent strings of an awkward, meaningless fabric. Yet as for that, I could live, I believe, with children; to have those Pure and delicate forms encompassing, moving about you, This were enough, I could think; and truly with glad resignation Could from the dream of romance, from the fever of flushed adolescence, Look to escape and subside into peaceful avuncular functions. Nephews and nieces! alas, for as yet I have none! and, moreover, Mothers are jealous, I fear me, too often, too rightfully; fathers Think they have title exclusive to spoiling their own little darlings; And by the law of the land, in despite of Malthusian doctrine, No sort of proper provision is made for that most patriotic, Most meritorious subject, the childless and bachelor uncle.
X.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Ye, too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement, Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces, Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,-- O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas, Are ye Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you, Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has set up on the apex Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you the Christian symbol? And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble, Ye tha