ECHOES.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere
Was eight years old, she said:
Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.
She took her little porringer:
Of me she shall not win renown:
For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her down.
“Sisters and brothers, little Maid?
There stands the Inspector at thy door:
Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four.”
“Kind words are more than coronets,”
She said, and wondering looked at me:
“It is the dead unhappy night, and I must hurry home to tea.”

A SEA DIRGE.

There are certain things—as, a spider, a ghost,
The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three—
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the Sea.

Pour some salt water over the floor—
Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
That’s very like the Sea.
Beat a dog till it howls outright—
Cruel, but all very well for a spree:
Suppose that he did so day and night,
That would be like the Sea.
I had a vision of nursery-maids;
Tens of thousands passed by me—
All leading children with wooden spades,
And this was by the Sea.
Who invented those spades of wood?
Who was it cut them out of the tree?
None, I think, but an idiot could—
Or one that loved the Sea.
It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt, to float
With ‘thoughts as boundless, and souls as free’:
But, suppose you are very unwell in the boat,
How do you like the Sea?