"I will give you life, ye vermin, For the secret of the drink."

There stood the son and father

And they looked high and low; The heather was red around them, The sea rumbled below. And up and spoke the father, Shrill was his voice to hear:

"I have a word in private,

A word for the royal ear.

"Life is dear to the aged,
And honor a little thing;
I would gladly sell the secret,"
Quoth the Pict to the King.
His voice was small as a sparrow's,
And shrill and wonderful clear:
"I would gladly sell my secret,
Only my son I fear.

"For life is a little matter,

And death is nought to the young; And I dare not sell my honor

Under the eye of my son. Take him, O king, and bind him, And cast him far in the deep; And it's I will tell the secret

That I have sworn to keep."

They took the son and bound him,
Neck and heels in a thong,
And a lad took him and swung him,
And flung him far and strong,
And the sea swallowed his body,
Like that of a child of ten ;

And there on the cliff stood the father,
Last of the dwarfish men.

"True was the word I told you:
Only my son I feared;

For I doubt the sapling courage
That goes without the beard.

A BALLADE OF PLAYING CARDS

To soothe a mad King's fevered brain (So runs the legend), cards were made,

When Gringonneur for Charles insane "Diversely colored" heart and spade,

Diamond and club, the painted jade, The light-heeled Jack, and beckoning Called, to their royal cousin's aid, Puppets of knave, and queen, and king

Grim fancy that the playful train,

The quaint, grimacing cavalcade,

Should wreck such ills where they obtain
The victims to their sorry trade,
The player cozened by the played;
Pasteboards supreme; to this they bring

Both gallant buck and roystering blade, Puppets of knave, and queen, and king.

From reckless play, what noble gain?
One friend hard hit, the rest afraid
To show their pleasure at his pain,
Such sympathy might well persuade
The cards in garish heaps displayed
To join, with impish revelling,

And jeer as all his fortunes fade —
Puppets of knave, and queen, and king.

L'ENVOI

Prince! after all, they are the shade,
The type of every earthly thing,
And we, through all life's masquerade,
Puppets of knave, and queen, and king.

SUFFICIENCY

A LITTLE love, of Heaven a little share, And then we go - what matters it? since where,

Or when, or how, none may aforetime know,

Nor if Death cometh soon, or lingering slow,

Send on ahead his herald of Despair.

On this gray life, Love lights with golden glow;

Refracted from The Source, his bright wings throw

Its glory round us, should Fate grant our prayer A little love!

A little; 't is as much as we may bear,
For Love is compassed with such magic air
Who breathes it fully dies; and, knowing

So,

The Gods all wisely but a taste bestow For little lives, - a little while they spare A little love.

A PRIMROSE DAME

SHE has a primrose at her breast,
I almost wish I were a Tory.

I like the Radicals the best;
She has a primrose at her breast;
Now is it chance she so is drest,
Or must I tell a story?
She has a primrose at her breast,
I almost wish I were a Tory.

"And the winds from dawn to vesper,

Blow they north or blow they south, Softly in my ear shall whisper,

Thou hast kissed Schöne Rothraut's mouth.'

"Every floweret of the meadow,
Every bird upon the tree,
In life's sunshine or its shadow,

Shall bring back my joy to me."

A PARABLE OF THE SPIRIT

I CAME in light that I might behold
The shadow which shut me apart of old.
Lo, it was lying robed in white,

With the still palms crossed o'er a lily, bright

With salt rain of tears; and everywhere Around lay blossoms that filled the air With perfume, snow of flowers that hid The snow of the silken coverlid

With myrtle and orange bloom and store
Of jasmine stars, and a wreath it wore
Of stephanotis. Still it lay,

For its time of travail had passed away.
"Of old it was never so fair as this,"
I said, as I bent me down to kiss

The cast swathing robe. "It is well that so
I see it before I turn to go
Turn to depart that I may bless

The love that has shown such tenderness."

So I passed to my mother's side,
Where she lay sleepless and weary-eyed;
Glided within, that I might see

The chamber her love had reserved for

me.

It was wide and warm, and furnished forth
With the best she had, with gifts of worth,
Anxious watchings and tears and prayers
And ministrations of many years.
I bent me down o'er her wrinkled brow
And kissed it smooth, as I whispered low
Comfort and hope for her daughter dear,
Till my whisper drew forth the healing

tear.

Last, I kissed her to slumber deep,
Kissed her to quiet rest and sleep.

I passed to my sister's heart, and there

I heard sweet notes of her soaring prayer ; And, joining therewith, found the fair white shrine

That her love had set apart as mine.

3

Its fulness, before but dimly seen,
As I lifted its veils and entered in
Entered, and saw with mute amaze
How squalid and narrow was the place.
Still, I fancied, perchance for me
The best of that which is here may be.
Searching in dusk, I forced my way
To the secret place where my chamber
lay,

Choked with the sordid piles o'erthrown
Of a miser's dust which had been my own,
Till but little space for me remained,
All being filthy and weather-stained;
Whilst evil fungi, spawn of lust,
Pushed through the rotten floor, and
thrust

Unsightly growths in that evil space,
And vanity pressed in the crowded space
Till room was scanty for me to tread.
I gazed shadowed a moment before I fled,

For no gift of mine of love or care
Might live in that pestilential air;
Still, for the love of dreams bygone,
I could not leave him quite alone,
So I planted cypress to warn of death.
It might live, and its keen balsamic breath
Would wither these fungi one by one,
Giving entrance, perchance, to some ray of

sun.

Then I departed, earth's lesson o'er.
Never henceforth shall I enter more;
And the thought was mine of former
dread

And former longings, and so I said,
"Blind I was when my dearest wish
Was ever to dwell in a home like this."
Knew, as I went forth to my rest,
My prayer was a child's, and God knew
best.

THE WAKING OF THE LARK

O BONNIE bird, that in the brake, exultant, dost prepare thee,

As poets do whose thoughts are true, for wings that will upbear thee Oh! tell me, tell me, bonnie bird, Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred? Or canst thou sing of naught but Spring among the golden meadows?

Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow,

And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow;

But thou art not a prophet, thou, If naught but joy can touch thee now; If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish.

Oh! I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, though poor and slighted,

he songs we love are those we hear when love is unrequited;

But thou art still the slave of dawn, And canst not sing till night be gone, Till o'er the pathway of the fawn the sunbeams shine and quiver.

Thou art the minion of the sun that rises in his splendor,

And canst not spare for Dian fair the songs that should attend her.

The moon, so sad and silver-pale, Is mistress of the nightingale ; And thou wilt sing on hill and dale no ditties in the darkness.

For Queen and King thou wilt not spare one note of thine outpouring;

And thou 'rt as free as breezes be on Nature's velvet flooring.

The daisy, with its hood undone, The grass, the sunlight, and the sun — These are the joys, thou holy one, that pay thee for thy singing.

Oh, hush! Oh, hush! how wild a gush of rapture in the distance—

A roll of rhymes, a toll of chimes, a cry for love's assistance;

A sound that wells from happy throats, A flood of song where beauty floats, And where our thoughts, like golden boats, do seem to cross a river.

Was fraught with science; and be called from death

Verona's lovers, with the burning breath Of their great passion that has filled the spheres.

He made us know Cordelia, and the man Who murdered sleep, and baleful Caliban: And, one by one, athwart the gloom appeared

Maidens and men and myths who were revered

In olden days, before the earth was sad.

Ay! this is true. It was ordained so ;
He was thine own, three hundred years ago;
But ours to-day; and ours till earth be

red

With doom-day splendor for the quick and dead,

And days and nights be scattered like the leaves.

It was for this he lived, for this he died: To raise to Heaven the face that never

lied,

To lean to earth the lips that should be

come

Fraught with conviction when the mouth was dumb,

And all the firm, fine body turned to clay.

He lived to seal, and sanctify, the lives
Of perished maids, and uncreated wives.