Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

I know you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for mine,

Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake A heart that dotes on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower

Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

Some meeker pupil you must find,
For were you queen of all that is,
I could not stoop to such a mind.
You sought to prove how I could love,
And my disdain is my reply.
The lion on your old stone gates
Is not more cold to you than I.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

You put strange memories in my head.
Not thrice your branching limes have blown
Since I beheld young Laurence dead.
Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies:
A great enchantress you may be;

But there was that across his throat
Which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind,

She spake some certain truths of you. Indeed I heard one bitter word

That scarce is fit for you to hear;

Her manners had not that repose

Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

There stands a spectre in your hall:

The guilt of blood is at your door:

You changed a wholesome heart to gall.

You held your course without remorse,
To make him trust his modest worth,
And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare,

And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,

From yon blue heavens above us bent
The gardener Adam and his wife

Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.

Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere,

You pine among your halls and towers:
The languid light of your proud eyes
Is wearied of the rolling hours.

In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
But sickening of a vague disease,

You know so ill to deal with time,

You needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,

If time be heavy on your hands,
Are there no beggars at your gate,
Nor any poor about your lands?
Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read,
Or teach the orphan girl to sew,
Pray Heaven for a human heart,
And let the foolish yeoman go.

THE MAY QUEEN.

OU must wake and call me early, call me early, mother

You dear;

To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;

Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day; For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

There's many a black black eye they say, but none so bright • as mine;

There's Margaret and Mary, there's Kate and Caroline;
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o'
the May.

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break:
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands

gay,

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see,
But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yester-

day,

But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white, And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light. They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be: They say his heart is breaking, mother-what is that to me There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,

And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen; For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far away And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy bowers, And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo

flowers;

And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and

hollows gray,

And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow

grass,

And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they

pass;

There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day,

And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still,
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,
And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and

play,

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,

To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad Newyear:

To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

IF

NEW YEAR'S EVE.

you are waking call me early, call me early, mother dear,

For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year.

It is the last New-year that I shall ever see,

Then you may lay me lov i' the mould and think no more

of me.

To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind

The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of

mind;

And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.

Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day;

Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;

And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse, Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney.

tops.

There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane: I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again:

I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high; I long to see a flower so before the day I die.

The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,

And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the

wave,

But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.

Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early early morning the summer sun 'ill shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
When you are warm- asleep, mother, and all the world is
still.

When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light

You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night; When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.

You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade And you'll come sometimes and see where I am lowly laid.