"Oh, what is that in heaven where grey cloud-flakes are seven,
Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt?"
"Oh, that's a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous,
An undecipher'd solemn signal of help or hurt."
"Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,
Their scent comes rich and sickly?" "A scaled and hooded worm."
"Oh, what's that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?"
"Oh, that's a thin dead body which waits the eternal term."
"Turn again, O my sweetest,—turn again, false and fleetest:
This beaten way thou beatest, I fear is hell's own track."
"Nay, too steep for hill mounting; nay, too late for cost counting:
This down-hill path is easy, but there's no turning back."
[XCVI]. TOUJOURS AMOUR.
Edmund Clarence Stedman.—1833-
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin,
At what age does love begin?
Your blue eyes have scarcely seen