How Salvator Won

AND
O T H E R R E C I T A T I O N S
BY
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
Author of “Maurine,” “Poems of Passion,” “Poems of Pleasure,” “Mal Moulée,” “Adventures of Miss Volney,” “A Double Life,” Etc.
New York
EDGAR S. WERNER
1891
COPYRIGHT, 1891,
BY
EDGAR S. WERNER.

PREFACE.

I AM constantly urged by readers and impersonators to furnish them with verses for recitation. In response to this ever-increasing demand I have selected, for this volume, the poems which seem suitable for such a purpose.

In making my collection I have been obliged to use, not those which are among my best efforts in a literary or artistic sense, but those which contain the best dramatic possibilities for professionals. Several of the poems are among my earliest efforts, others were written expressly for this book. In “Meg’s Curse,” which has never before been in print, and in several others, I ignored all rules of art for the purpose of giving the public reader a better chance to exercise his elocutionary powers.

E. W. W.

CONTENTS.

HOW SALVATOR WON.

HE gate was thrown open, I rode out alone,
More proud than a monarch who sits on a throne.
I am but a jockey, yet shout upon shout
Went up from the people who watched me ride out;
And the cheers that rang forth from that warm-hearted crowd,
Were as earnest as those to which monarch e’er bowed.

My heart thrilled with pleasure so keen it was pain
As I patted my Salvator’s soft silken mane;
And a sweet shiver shot from his hide to my hand
As we passed by the multitude down to the stand.

The great waves of cheering came billowing back,
As the hoofs of brave Tenny rang swift down the track;
And he stood there beside us, all bone and all muscle,
Our noble opponent, well trained for the tussle
That waited us there on the smooth, shining course.
My Salvator, fair to the lovers of horse,
As a beautiful woman is fair to man’s sight—
Pure type of the thoroughbred, clean-limbed and bright,—
Stood taking the plaudits as only his due,
And nothing at all unexpected or new.

And then, there before us the bright flag is spread,
There’s a roar from the grand stand, and Tenny’s ahead;
At the sound of the voices that shouted “a go!”
He sprang like an arrow shot straight from the bow.
I tighten the reins on Prince Charlie’s great son—
He is off like a rocket, the race is begun.
Half-way down the furlong, their heads are together,
Scarce room ’twixt their noses to wedge in a feather;
Past grand stand, and judges, in neck-to-neck strife,
Ah, Salvator, boy! ’tis the race of your life.
I press my knees closer, I coax him, I urge,
I feel him go out with a leap and a surge;
I see him creep on, inch by inch, stride by stride,
While backward, still backward, falls Tenny beside.
We are nearing the turn, the first quarter is past—
’Twixt leader and chaser the daylight is cast.
The distance elongates, still Tenny sweeps on,
As graceful and free-limbed and swift as a fawn;
His awkwardness vanished, his muscles all strained—
A noble opponent, well born and well trained.
I glanced o’er my shoulder, ha! Tenny, the cost
Of that one second’s flagging, will be—the race lost.
One second’s weak yielding of courage and strength,
And the daylight between us has doubled its length.

The first mile is covered, the race is mine—no!
For the blue blood of Tenny responds to a blow.
He shoots through the air like a ball from a gun,
And the two lengths between us are shortened to one.
My heart is contracted, my throat feels a lump,
For Tenny’s long neck is at Salvator’s rump;
And now with new courage, grown bolder and bolder,
I see him once more running shoulder to shoulder.
With knees, hands and body I press my grand steed;
I urge him, I coax him, I pray him to heed!
Oh, Salvator! Salvator! list to my calls,
For the blow of my whip will hurt both if it falls.
There’s a roar from the crowd like the ocean in storm,
As close to my saddle leaps Tenny’s great form,
One more mighty plunge, and with knee, limb and hand,
I lift my horse first by a nose past the stand.
We are under the string now—the great race is done,
And Salvator, Salvator, Salvator won!
Cheer, hoar-headed patriarchs; cheer loud, I say:
’Tis the race of a century witnessed to-day!
Though ye live twice the space that’s allotted to men
Ye never will see such a grand race again.
Let the shouts of the populace roar like the surf
For Salvator, Salvator, king of the turf!
He has broken the record of thirteen long years;
He has won the first place in a vast line of peers.
’Twas a neck-to-neck contest, a grand, honest race,
And even his enemies grant him his place.
Down into the dust let old records be hurled,
And hang out 2.05 in the gaze of the world.

THE GOSSIPS.

ROSE in my garden, the sweetest and fairest,
Was hanging her head through the long golden hours;
And early one morning I saw her tears falling,
And heard a low gossiping talk in the bowers.
The yellow Nasturtium, a spinster all faded,
Was telling a Lily what ailed the poor Rose:
“That wild roving Bee who was hanging about her,
Has jilted her squarely, as everyone knows.

“I knew when he came, with his singing and sighing,
His airs and his speeches so fine and so sweet,
Just how it would end; but no one would believe me,
For all were quite ready to fall at his feet.”
“Indeed, you are wrong,” said the Lily-belle proudly;
“I cared nothing for him, he called on me once,
And would have come often, no doubt, if I’d asked him,
But, though he was handsome, I thought him a dunce.”

“Now, now, that’s not true,” cried the tall Oleander.
“He has traveled and seen every flower that grows;
And one who has supped in the garden of princes,
We all might have known would not wed with the Rose.”
“But wasn’t she proud when he showed her attention?
And she let him caress her,” said sly Mignonette;
“And I used to see it and blush for her folly,
The silly thing thinks he will come to her yet.”

“I thought he was splendid,” said pretty pert Larkspur,
“So dark, and so grand with that gay cloak of gold;
But he tried once to kiss me, the impudent fellow!
And I got offended; I thought him too bold.”
“Oh, fie!” laughed the Almond, “that does for a story.
Though I hang down my head, yet I see all that goes;
And I saw you reach out trying hard to detain him,
But he just tapped your cheek and flew by to the Rose.

“He cared nothing for her, he only was flirting
To while away time, as I very well knew;
So I turned a cold shoulder on all his advances,
Because I was certain his heart was untrue.”
“The Rose is served right for her folly in trusting
An oily-tongued stranger,” quoth proud Columbine.
“I knew what he was, and thought once I would warn her,
But of course the affair was no business of mine.”

“Oh, well,” cried the Peony, shrugging her shoulders,
“I saw all along that the Bee was a flirt;
But the Rose has been always so praised and so petted,
I thought a good lesson would do her no hurt.”
Just then came the sound of a love-song sung sweetly,
I saw my proud Rose lifting up her bowed head;
And the talk of the gossips was hushed in a moment,
And the flowers all listened to hear what was said.

And the dark, handsome Bee, with his cloak o’er his shoulder,
Came swift through the sunlight and kissed the sad Rose,
And whispered: “My darling, I’ve roved the world over,
And you are the loveliest flower that grows.”

PLATONIC.

KNEW it the first of the summer,
I knew it the same at the end,
That you and your love were plighted;
But couldn’t you be my friend?
Couldn’t we sit in the twilight,
Couldn’t we walk on the shore
With only a pleasant friendship
To bind us, and nothing more?

There was not a word of folly
Spoken between us two,
Though we lingered oft in the garden
Till the roses were wet with dew.
We touched on a thousand subjects—
The moon and the worlds above,—
And our talk was tinctured with science,
And everything else, save love.

A wholly Platonic friendship
You said I had proven to you
Could bind a man and a woman
The whole long season through,
With never a thought of flirting,
Though both were in their youth.
What would you have said, my lady,
If you had known the truth!

What would you have done, I wonder,
Had I gone on my knees to you
And told you my passionate story,
There in the dusk and the dew.
My burning, burdensome story,
Hidden and hushed so long—
My story of hopeless loving—
Say, would you have thought it wrong?

But I fought with my heart and conquered,
I hid my wound from sight;
You were going away in the morning,
And I said a calm good-night.
But now when I sit in the twilight,
Or when I walk by the sea
That friendship, quite Platonic,
Comes surging over me.
And a passionate longing fills me
For the roses, the dusk, the dew;
For the beautiful summer vanished,
For the moonlight walks—and you.

SOLITUDE.

AUGH, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth
Must borrow its mirth,
It has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound
To a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure
Of all your pleasure,
But they do not want your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all;
There are none to decline
Your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by;
Succeed and give,
And it helps you live,
But it cannot help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train;
But one by one
We must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

GRANDPA’S CHRISTMAS.

N his great cushioned chair by the fender
An old man sits dreaming to-night,
His withered hands, licked by the tender,
Warm rays of the red anthracite,
Are folded before him, all listless;
His dim eyes are fixed on the blaze,
While over him sweeps the resistless
Flood-tide of old days.

He hears not the mirth in the hallway,
He hears not the sounds of good cheer,
That through the old homestead ring alway
In the glad Christmas-time of the year.
He heeds not the chime of sweet voices
As the last gifts are hung on the tree.
In a long-vanished day he rejoices—
In his lost Used to be.

He has gone back across dead Decembers
To his childhood’s fair land of delight;
And his mother’s sweet smile he remembers,
As he hangs up his stocking at night.
He remembers the dream-haunted slumber
All broken and restless because
Of the visions that came without number
Of dear Santa Claus.

Again, in his manhood’s beginning,
He sees himself thrown on the world,
And into the vortex of sinning
By Pleasure’s strong arms he is hurled.
He hears the sweet Christmas bells ringing,
“Repent ye, repent ye, and pray;”
But he joins with his comrades in singing
A bacchanal lay.

Again he stands under the holly
With a blushing face lifted to his;
For love has been stronger than folly,
And has turned him from vice unto bliss;
And the whole world is lit with new glory
As the sweet vows are uttered again,
While the Christmas bells tell the old story
Of peace unto men.

Again, with his little brood ’round him,
He sits by the fair mother-wife;
He knows that the angels have crowned him
With the truest, best riches of life;
And the hearts of the children, untroubled,
Are filled with the gay Christmas-tide;
And the gifts for sweet Maudie are doubled,
’Tis her birthday, beside.

Again,—ah, dear Jesus, have pity—
He finds in the chill, waning day,
That one has come home from the city—
Frail Maudie, whom love led astray.
She lies with her babe on her bosom—
Half-hid by the snow’s fleecy spread;
A bud and a poor trampled blossom—
And both are quite dead.

So fair and so fragile! just twenty—
How mocking the bells sound to-night!
She starved in this great land of plenty,
When she tried to grope back to the light.
Christ, are Thy disciples inhuman,
Or only for men hast Thou died?
No mercy is shown to a woman
Who once steps aside.

Again he leans over the shrouded
Still form of the mother and wife;
Very lonely the way seems, and clouded,
As he looks down the vista of life.
With the sweet Christmas chimes there is blended
The knell for a life that is done,
And he knows that his joys are all ended
And his waiting begun.

So long have the years been, so lonely,
As he counts them by Christmases gone.
“I am homesick,” he murmurs; “if only
The Angel would lead the way on.
I am cold, in this chill winter weather;
Why, Maudie, dear, where have you been?
And you, too, sweet wife—and together—
O Christ, let me in.”

The children ran in from the hallway,
“Were you calling us, grandpa?” they said.
Then shrank, with that fear that comes alway
When young eyes look their first on the dead.
The freedom so longed for is given.
The children speak low and draw near:
“Dear grandpa keeps Christmas in Heaven
With grandma, this year.”

AFTER THE ENGAGEMENT.

ELL, Mabel, ’tis over and ended—
The ball I wrote was to be;
And oh! it was perfectly splendid—
If you could have been here to see.
I’ve a thousand things to write you
That I know you are wanting to hear,
And one, that is sure to delight you—
I am wearing Joe’s diamond, my dear!

Yes, mamma is quite ecstatic
That I am engaged to Joe;
She thinks I am rather erratic,
And feared that I might say “no.”
But, Mabel, I’m twenty-seven
(Though nobody dreams it, dear),
And a fortune like Joe’s isn’t given
To lay at one’s feet each year.

You know my old fancy for Harry—
Or, at least, I am certain you guessed
That it took all my sense not to marry
And go with that fellow out west.
But that was my very first season—
And Harry was poor as could be,
And mamma’s good practical reason
Took all the romance out of me.

She whisked me off over the ocean,
And had me presented at court,
And got me all out of the notion
That ranch life out west was my forte.
Of course I have never repented—
I’m not such a goose of a thing;
But after I had consented
To Joe—and he gave me the ring—

I felt such a queer sensation.
I seemed to go into a trance,
Away from the music’s pulsation,
Away from the lights and the dance.
And the wind o’er the wild prairie
Seemed blowing strong and free,
And it seemed not Joe, but Harry
Who was standing there close to me.

And the funniest feverish feeling
Went up from my feet to my head,
With little chills after it stealing—
And my hands got as numb as the dead.
A moment, and then it was over:
The diamond blazed up in my eyes,
And I saw in the face of my lover
A questioning, strange surprise.

Maybe ’twas the scent of the flowers,
That heavy with fragrance bloomed near,
But I didn’t feel natural for hours;
It was odd now, wasn’t it, dear?
Write soon to your fortunate Clara
Who has carried the prize away,
And say you’ll come on when I marry;
I think it will happen in May.

THE WATCHER.

THINK I hear the sound of horses’ feet
Beating upon the graveled avenue.
Go to the window that looks on the street,
He would not let me die alone, I knew.”
Back to the couch the patient watcher passed,
And said: “It is the wailing of the blast.”

She turned upon her couch and, seeming, slept,
The long, dark lashes shadowing her cheek;
And on and on the weary moments crept,
When suddenly the watcher heard her speak:
“I think I hear the sound of horses’ hoofs—”
And answered, “’Tis the rain upon the roofs.”

Unbroken silence, quiet, deep, profound.
The restless sleeper turns: “How dark, how late!
What is it that I hear—a trampling sound?
I think there is a horseman at the gate.”
The watcher turns away her eyes tear-blind:
“It is the shutter beating in the wind.”

The dread hours passed; the patient clock ticked on;
The weary watcher moved not from her place.
The gray dim shadows of the early dawn
Caught sudden glory from the sleeper’s face.
“He comes! my love! I knew he would!” she cried;
And smiling sweetly in her slumbers, died.

FALSE.

ALSE! Good God, I am dreaming!
No, no, it never can be—
You who are so true in seeming,
You, false to your vows and me?
My wife and my fair boy’s mother
The star of my life—my queen—
To yield herself to another
Like some light Magdalene!

Proofs! what are proofs—I defy them!
They never can shake my trust;
If you look in my face and deny them
I will trample them into the dust.
For whenever I read of the glory
Of the realms of Paradise,
I sought for the truth of the story
And found it in your sweet eyes.

Why, you are the shy young creature
I wooed in her maiden grace;
There was purity in each feature,
And my heaven I found in your face
And, “not only married but mated,”
I would say in my pride and joy;
And our hopes were all consummated
When the angels gave us our boy.

Now you could not blot that beginning
So beautiful, pure and true,
With a record of wicked sinning
As a common woman might do.
Look up in your old frank fashion,
With your smile so free from art;
And say that no guilty passion
Has ever crept into your heart.

How pallid you are, and you tremble!
You are hiding your face from view!
“Tho’ a sinner, you cannot dissemble”—
My God! then the tale is true?
True and the sun above us
Shines on in the summer skies?
And men say the angels love us,
And that God is good and wise.

Yet he lets a wanton thing like you
Ruin my home and my name!
Get out of my sight ere I strike you
Dead in your shameless shame!
No, no, I was wild, I was brutal;
I would not take your life,
For the efforts of death would be futile
To wipe out the sin of a wife.
Wife—why, that word has seemed sainted,
I uttered it like a prayer.
And now to think it is tainted—
Christ! how much we can bear!

“Slay you!” my boy’s stained mother—
Nay, that would not punish, or save;
A soul that has outraged another
Finds no sudden peace in the grave.
I will leave you here to remember
The Eden that was your own,
While on toward my life’s December
I walk in the dark alone.

THE PHANTOM BALL.

OU remember the hall on the corner?
To-night as I walked down street
I heard the sound of music,
And the rhythmic beat and beat,
In time to the pulsing measure
Of lightly tripping feet.

And I turned and entered the doorway—
It was years since I had been there—
Years, and life seemed altered:
Pleasure had changed to care.
But again I was hearing the music
And watching the dancers fair.

And then, as I stood and listened,
The music lost its glee;
And instead of the merry waltzers
There were ghosts of the Used-to-be—
Ghosts of the pleasure-seekers
Who once had danced with me.

Oh, ’twas a ghastly picture!
Oh, ’twas a gruesome crowd!
Each bearing a skull on his shoulder,
Each trailing a long white shroud,
As they whirled in the dance together,
And the music shrieked aloud.

As they danced, their dry bones rattled
Like shutters in a blast;
And they stared from eyeless sockets
On me as they circled past;
And the music that kept them whirling
Was a funeral dirge played fast.

Some of them wore their face-cloths,
Others were rotted away.
Some had mould on their garments,
And some seemed dead but a day.
Corpses all, but I knew them
As friends, once blithe and gay.

Beauty and strength and manhood—
And this was the end of it all:
Nothing but phantoms whirling
In a ghastly skeleton ball.
But the music ceased—and they vanished,
And I came away from the hall.

THE KINGDOM OF LOVE.

N the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth
Reflected the sunrise above,
I set forth with a heart full of courage and mirth
To seek for the Kingdom of Love.
I asked of a Poet I met on the way
Which cross-road would lead me aright.
And he said: “Follow me, and ere long you shall see
Its glittering turrets of light.”

And soon in the distance a city shone fair.
“Look yonder,” he said; “how it gleams!”
But alas! for the hopes that were doomed to despair,
It was only the “Kingdom of Dreams.”
Then the next man I asked was a gay Cavalier,
And he said: “Follow me, follow me;”
And with laughter and song we went speeding along
By the shores of Life’s beautiful sea.

Then we came to a valley more tropical far
Than the wonderful vale of Cashmere,
And I saw from a bower a face like a flower
Smile out on the gay Cavalier.
And he said: “We have come to humanity’s goal:
Here love and delight are intense.”
But alas and alas! for the hopes of my soul—
It was only the “Kingdom of Sense.”

As I journeyed more slowly I met on the road
A coach with retainers behind.
And they said: “Follow me, for our Lady’s abode
Belongs in that realm, you will find.”
’Twas a grand dame of fashion, a newly-made bride,
I followed, encouraged and bold;
But my hopes died away like the last gleams of day,
For we came to the “Kingdom of Gold.”

At the door of a cottage I asked a fair maid.
“I have heard of that realm,” she replied;
“But my feet never roam from the ‘Kingdom of Home,’
So I know not the way,” and she sighed.
I looked on the cottage; how restful it seemed!
And the maid was as fair as a dove.
Great light glorified my soul as I cried:
“Why home is the ‘Kingdom of Love!’”

UNDER THE SHEET.

HAT a terrible night! Does the Night, I wonder—
The Night, with her black veil down to her feet
Like an ordained nun, know what lies under
That awful, motionless, snow-white sheet?
The winds seem crazed, and, wildly howling,
Over the sad earth blindly go.
Do they and the dark clouds over them scowling,
Do they dream or know?

Why, here in the room, not a week or over—
Tho’ it must be a week, not more than one—
(I cannot reckon of late or discover
When one day is ended or one begun),
But here in this room we were laughing lightly,
And glad was the measure our two hearts beat;
And the royal face that was smiling so brightly
Lies under that sheet.

I know not why—it is strange and fearful,
But I am afraid of her, lying there;
She who was always so gay and cheerful,
Lying so still with that stony stare:
She who was so like some grand sultana,
Fond of color and glow and heat,
To lie there clothed in that awful manner
In a stark white sheet.

She who was made out of summer blisses,
Tropical, beautiful, gracious, fair,
To lie and stare at my fondest kisses—
God! no wonder it whitens my hair.
Shriek, oh, wind! for the world is lonely;
Trail cloud-veil to the nun Night’s feet!
For all that I prized in life is only
A shape and a sheet.

HIS YOUTH.

YING? I am not dying. Are you mad?
You think I need to ask for heavenly grace?
I think you are a fiend, who would be glad
To see me struggle in death’s cold embrace.

“But, man, you lie! for I am strong—in truth
Stronger than I have been in years; and soon
I shall feel young again as in my youth,
My glorious youth—life’s one great priceless boon.

“O youth, youth, youth! O God, that golden time,
When proud and glad I laughed the hours away.
Why, there’s no sacrifice (perhaps no crime)
I’d pause at, could it make me young to-day.

“But I’m not old! I grew—just ill, somehow;
Grew stiff of limb, and weak, and dim of sight.
It was but sickness. I am better now,
Oh, vastly better, ever since last night.

“And I could weep warm floods of happy tears
To think my strength is coming back at last,
For I have dreamed of such an hour for years,
As I lay thinking of my glorious past.

“You shake your head? Why, man, if you were sane
I’d strike you to my feet, I would, in truth.
How dare you tell me that my hopes are vain?
How dare you say I have outlived my youth?

“‘In heaven I may regain it?’ Oh, be still!
I want no heaven but what my glad youth gave.
Its long, bright hours, its rapture and its thrill—
O youth, youth, youth! it is my youth I crave.

“There is no heaven! There’s nothing but a deep
And yawning grave from which I shrink in fear.
I am not sure of even rest or sleep;
Perhaps we lie and think, as I have here.

“Think, think, think, think, as we lie there and rot,
And hear the young above us laugh in glee.
How dare you say I’m dying! I am not.
I would curse God if such a thing could be.

“Why, see me stand! why, hear this strong, full breath—
Dare you repeat that silly, base untruth?”
A cry—a fall—the silence known as death
Hushed his wild words. Well, has he found his youth?

WANTED—A LITTLE GIRL.

HERE have they gone to—the little girls
With natural manners and natural curls;
Who love their dollies and like their toys,
And talk of something besides the boys?

Little old women in plenty I find,
Mature in manners and old of mind;
Little old flirts who talk of their “beaux,”
And vie with each other in stylish clothes.

Little old belles who, at nine and ten,
Are sick of pleasure and tired of men;
Weary of travel, of balls, of fun,
And find no new thing under the sun.

Once, in the beautiful long ago,
Some dear little children I used to know;
Girls who were merry as lambs at play,
And laughed and rollicked the livelong day.

They thought not at all of the “style” of their clothes,
They never imagined that boys were “beaux”—
“Other girls’ brothers” and “mates” were they;
Splendid fellows to help them play.

Where have they gone to? If you see
One of them anywhere send her to me.
I would give a medal of purest gold
To one of those dear little girls of old,
With an innocent heart and an open smile,
Who knows not the meaning of “flirt” or “style.”

TWO SINNERS.

HERE was a man, it was said one time,
Who went astray in his youthful prime.
Can the brain keep cool and the heart keep quiet
When the blood is a river that’s running riot?
And boys will be boys, the old folks say,
And a man is the better who’s had his day.

The sinner reformed; and the preacher told
Of the prodigal son who came back to the fold.
And Christian people threw open the door,
With a warmer welcome than ever before.
Wealth and honor were his to command,
And a spotless woman gave him her hand.

And the world strewed their pathway with blossoms abloom,
Crying, “God bless layde, and God bless groom!”

There was a maiden who went astray,
In the golden dawn of her life’s young day.
She had more passion and heart than head,
And she followed blindly where fond Love led.
And Love unchecked is a dangerous guide
To wander at will by a fair girl’s side.

The woman repented and turned from sin,
But no door opened to let her in.
The preacher prayed that she might be forgiven,
But told her to look for mercy—in heaven
For this is the law of the earth, we know:
That the woman is stoned, while the man may go.

A brave man wedded her after all,
But the world said, frowning, “We shall not call.”

MEG’S CURSE.

HE sun rode high in a cloudless sky
Of a perfect summer morn.
She stood and gazed out into the street,
And wondered why she was born.
On the topmost branch of a maple-tree
That close by the window grew,
A robin called to his mate enthralled:
“I love but you, but you, but you.”

A soft look came in her hardened face—
She had not wept for years;
But the robin’s trill, as some sounds will,
Jarred open the door of tears.
She thought of the old home far away;
She heard the whir-r-r of the mill;
She heard the turtle’s wild, sweet call,
And the wail of the whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.

She saw again that dusty road
Whence he came riding down;
She smelled once more the flower she wore
In the breast of her simple gown.
Out on the new-mown meadow she heard
Two blue-jays quarrel and fret,
And the warning cry of a Phœbe bird:
“More wet, more wet, more wet.”

With a blithe “hello” to the men below
Who were spreading the new-mown hay,
The rider drew rein at her window-pane—
How it all came back to-day!
How young she was, and how fair she was;
What innocence crowned her brow!
The future seemed fair, for Love was there—
And now—and now—and now.

In a dingy glass on the wall near by
She gazed on her faded face.
“Well, Meg, I declare, what a beauty you are!”
She sneered, “What an angel of grace!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
What a thing of beauty and grace!”
She reached out her arms with a moaning sob.
“Oh, if I could go back!”
Then, swift and strange, came a sudden change;
Her brow grew hard and black.

“A curse on the day and a curse on that man,
And on all who are his,” she cried.
“May he starve and be cold, may he live to be old
When all who loved him have died.”
Her wild voice frightened the robin away
From the branch by the window-sill;
And little he knew as away he flew,
Of the memories stirred by his trill.

He called to his mate on the grass below,
“Follow me,” as he soared on high;
And as mates have done since the world begun
She followed, and asked not why.
The dingy room seemed curtained with gloom;
Meg shivered with nameless dread.
The ghost of her youth and her murdered truth
Seemed risen up from the dead.

She hurried out into the noisy street,
For the silence made her afraid;
To flee from thought was all she sought,
She cared not whither she strayed.
Still on she pressed in her wild unrest
Up avenues skirting the park,
Where fashion’s throng moved gayly along
In Vanity Fair—when hark!

A clatter of hoofs down the stony street,
The snort of a frightened horse
That was running wild, and a laughing child
At play in its very course.
With one swift glance Meg saw it all.
“His child—my God! his child!”
She cried aloud, as she rushed through the crowd
Like one grown suddenly wild.

There, almost under the iron feet,
Hemmed in by a passing cart,
Stood the baby boy—the pride and joy
Of the man who had broken her heart.
Past swooning women and shouting men
She fled like a flash of light;
With her slender arm she gathered from harm
The form of the laughing sprite.

The death-shod feet of the mad horse beat
Her down on the pavings gray;
But the baby laughed out with a merry shout,
And thought it splendid play.
He pulled her gown and called to her: “Say,
Dit up and do dat some more;
Das jus’ ze way my papa play
Wiz me on ze nursery floor.”

When the frightened father reached the scene,
His boy looked up and smiled
From the stiffening fold of the arm, death-cold,
Of Meg, who had died for his child.
Oh! idle words are a woman’s curse
Who loves as woman can;
For put to the test, she will bare her breast
And die for the sake of the man.

A FABLE.

OME cawing Crows, a hooting Owl,
A Hawk, a Canary, an old Marsh-Fowl,
One day all met together
To hold a caucus and settle the fate
Of a certain bird (without a mate),
A bird of another feather.

“My friends,” said the Owl, with a look most wise,
“The Eagle is soaring too near the skies,
In a way that is quite improper;
Yet the world is praising her, so I’m told,
And I think her actions have grown so bold
That some of us ought to stop her.”

“I have heard it said,” quoth Hawk with a sigh,
“That young lambs died at the glance of her eye,
And I wholly scorn and despise her.
This and more, I am told, they say;
And I think that the only proper way
Is never to recognize her.”

“I am quite convinced,” said Crow with a caw,
“That the Eagle minds no moral law;
She’s a most unruly creature.”
“She’s an ugly thing,” piped Canary Bird;
“Some call her handsome; it’s so absurd—
She hasn’t a decent feature!”

Then the old Marsh Hen went hopping about;
She said she was sure—she hadn’t a doubt—
Of the truth of each bird’s story;
And she thought it her duty to stop her flight,
To pull her down from her lofty height,
And take the gilt from her glory.

But, lo! from a peak on the mountain grand,
That looks out over the smiling land,
And over the mighty ocean,
The Eagle is spreading her splendid wings—
She rises, rises, and upward swings,
With a slow, majestic motion.

Up in the blue of God’s own skies,
With a cry of rapture, away she flies,
Close to the Great Eternal.
She sweeps the world with her piercing sight;
Her soul is filled with the Infinite
And the joy of things supernal.

Thus rise forever the chosen of God,
The genius-crowned or the power-shod,
Over the dust-world sailing;
And back like splinters blown by the winds,
Must fall the missiles of silly minds,
Useless and unavailing.

THE WAY OF IT.

HIS is the way of it, wide world over,
One is beloved, and one is the lover,
One gives and the other receives,
One lavishes all in wild emotion,
One offers a smile for a life’s devotion,
One hopes and the other believes.
One lies awake in the night to weep,
And the other drifts off in a sweet, sound sleep.

One soul is aflame with a godlike passion,
One plays with love in an idler’s fashion,
One speaks and the other hears.
One sobs “I love you,” and wet eyes show it,
And one laughs lightly, and says “I know it,”
With smiles for the other’s tears.
One lives for the other and nothing beside,
And the other remembers the world is wide.

This is the way of it, sad earth over,
The heart that breaks is the heart of the lover,
And the other learns to forget.
“For what is the use of endless sorrow?
Though the sun goes down, it will rise to-morrow;
And life is not over yet.”
Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other,
That passionate Love is Pain’s own mother.

THE SUICIDE.

AST was the wealth I carried in life’s pack—
Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust; but Time
And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime,
Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.
Before me lay a long and lonely track
Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb;
Behind me lay in shadows the sublime
Lost lands of Love’s delight. Alack! Alack!

Unwearied, and with springing steps elate,
I had conveyed my wealth along the road.
The empty sack proved now a heavier load:
I was borne down beneath its worthless weight.
I stumbled on, and knocked at Death’s dark gate.
There was no answer. Stung by sorrow’s goad,
I forced my way into that grim abode,
And laughed, and flung Life’s empty sack to Fate.

Unknown and uninvited I passed in
To that strange land that hangs between two goals,
Round which a dark and solemn river rolls—
More dread its silence than the loud earth’s din.
And now, where was the peace I hoped to win?
Black-masted ships slid past me in great shoals,
Their bloody decks thronged with mistaken souls.
(God punishes mistakes sometimes like sin.)

Not rest and not oblivion I found.
My suffering self dwelt with me just the same;
But here no sleep was, and no sweet dreams came
To give me respite. Tyrant Death, uncrowned
By my own hand, still King of Terrors, frowned
Upon my shuddering soul, that shrank in shame
Before those eyes where sorrow blent with blame,
And those accusing lips that made no sound.

What gruesome shapes dawned on my startled sight!
What awful sighs broke on my listening ear!
The anguish of the earth, augmented here
A thousand-fold, made one continuous night.
The sack I flung away in impious spite
Hung yet upon me, filled, I saw in fear,
With tears that rained from earth’s adjacent sphere,
And turned to stones in falling from that height.

And close about me pressed a grieving throng,
Each with his heavy sack, which bowed him so
His face was hidden. One of these mourned: “Know
Who enters here but finds the way more long
To those fair realms where sounds the angels’ song.
There is no man-made exit out of woe;
Ye cannot dash the locked door down and go
To claim thy rightful joy through paths of wrong.”

He passed into the shadows dim and gray,
And left me to pursue my path alone.
With terror greater than I yet had known.
Hard on my soul the awful knowledge lay,
Death had not ended life nor found God’s way;
But, with my same sad sorrows still my own,
Where by-roads led to by-roads, thistle-sown,
I had but wandered off and gone astray.

With earth still near enough to hear its sighs,
With heaven afar and hell but just below,
Still on and on my lonely soul must go
Until I earn the right to Paradise.
We cannot force our way into God’s skies,
Nor rush into the rest we long to know;
But patiently, with bleeding steps and slow,
Toil on to where selfhood in Godhood dies.

“NOW I LAY ME.”

HEN I pass from earth away,
Palsied though I be and gray,
May my spirit keep so young
That my failing, faltering tongue
Frames that prayer so dear to me,
Taught me at my mother’s knee:
“Now I lay me down to sleep,”
(Passing to Eternal rest
On the loving parent breast)
“I pray the Lord my soul to keep;”
(From all danger safe and calm
In the hollow of His palm;)
“If I should die before I wake,”
(Drifting with a bated breath
Out of slumber into death,)
“I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
(From the body’s claim set free
Sheltered in the Great to be.)
Simple prayer of trust and truth,
Taught me in my early youth—
Let my soul its beauty keep
When I lay me down to sleep.

THE MESSENGER.

HE rose up in the early dawn,
And white and silently she moved
About the house. Four men had gone
To battle for the land they loved,
And she, the mother and the wife,
Waited for tidings from the strife.
How still the house seemed! and her tread
Was like the footsteps of the dead.

The long day passed; the dark night came.
She had not seen a human face.
Some voice spoke suddenly her name.
How loud it echoed in that place,
Where, day on day, no sound was heard
But her own footsteps. “Bring you word,”
She cried to whom she could not see,
“Word from the battle-plain to me?”

A soldier entered at the door,
And stood within the dim firelight:
“I bring you tidings of the four,”
He said, “who left you for the fight.”
“God bless you, friend,” she cried, “speak on!
For I can bear it. One is gone?”
“Ay, one is gone!” he said. “Which one?”
“Dear lady, he, your eldest son.”

A deathly pallor shot across
Her withered face; she did not weep.
She said: “It is a grievous loss,
But God gives His belovèd sleep.
What of the living—of the three?
And when can they come back to me?”
The soldier turned away his head:
“Lady, your husband, too, is dead.”

She put her hand upon her brow;
A wild, sharp pain was in her eyes.
“My husband! Oh, God, help me now!”
The soldier heard her shuddering sighs.
The task was harder than he thought.
“Your youngest son, dear madam, fought
Close at his father’s side; both fell
Dead, by the bursting of a shell.”

She moved her lips and seemed to moan.
Her face had paled to ashen gray:
“Then one is left me—one alone,”
She said, “of four who marched away.
Oh, overruling, All-wise God,
How can I pass beneath Thy rod!”
The soldier walked across the floor,
Paused at the window, at the door,
Wiped the cold dew-drops from his cheek
And sought the mourner’s side again.
“Once more, dear lady, I must speak:
Your last remaining son was slain
Just at the closing of the fight,
’Twas he who sent me here to-night.”
“God knows,” the man said afterward,
“The fight itself was not so hard.”

ILLOGICAL.

HE stood beside me while I gave an order for a bonnet.
She shuddered when I said, “And put a bright bird’s wing upon it.”
A member of the Audubon Society was she;
And cutting were her comments made on worldly folks like me.

She spoke about the helpless birds we wickedly were harming;
She quoted the statistics, and they really were alarming;
She said God meant His little birds to sing in trees and skies;
And there was pathos in her voice, and tears were in her eyes.

“Oh, surely, in this beauteous world you can find lovely things
Enough to trim your hats,” she said, “without the dear birds’ wings.”
I sat beside her that same day, in her own house at dinner—
Angelic being that she was to entertain a sinner!

Her well-appointed table groaned beneath the ample spread;
Course followed appetizing course, and hunger, sated, fled.
But still my charming hostess urged: “Do have a reed-bird, dear;
They are so delicate and sweet at this time of the year.”

A SERVIAN LEGEND.

ONG, long ago, ere yet our race began,
When earth was empty, waiting still for man,
Before the breath of life to him was given
The angels fell into a strife in heaven.

At length one furious demon grasped the sun
And sped away as fast as he could run,
And with a ringing laugh of fiendish mirth,
He leaped the battlements and fell to earth.

Dark was it then in heaven, but light below;
For there the demon wandered to and fro,
Tilting aloft upon a slender pole
The orb of day—the pilfering old soul.

The angels wept and wailed; but through the dark
The Great Creator’s voice cried sternly: “Hark!
Who will restore to me the orb of Light,
Him will I honor in all heaven’s sight.”

Then over the battlements there dropped another.
(A shrewder angel well there could not be.)
Quoth he: “Behold my love for thee, my brother,
For I have left all heaven to stay with thee.

“Thy loneliness and wanderings I will share,
Thy heavy burden I will help thee bear.”
“Well said,” the demon answered, “and well done,
But I’ll not tax you with this heavy sun.

“Your company will cheer me, it is true,
And I could never think of burdening you.”
Idly they wandered onward, side by side,
Till, by and by, they neared a silvery tide.

“Let’s bathe,” the angel suddenly suggested.
“Agreed,” the demon answered. “I’ll go last,
Because I needs must leave quite unmolested
This tiresome sun, which I will now make fast.”

He set the pole well in the sandy turf,
And called a jackdaw near to watch the place.
Meanwhile the angel paddled in the surf,
And playfully dared his brother to a race.

They swam around together for awhile,
The demon always keeping near his prize,
Till presently the angel, with a smile,
Proposed a healthful diving exercise.

The demon hesitated. “But,” thought he,
“The jackdaw will inform me with a cry
If this good brother tries deceiving me;
I will not be outdone by him—not I!”

Down, down they went. The angel in a trice
Rose up again, and swift to shore he sped.
The jackdaw shrieked, but lo! a mile of ice
The demon found had frozen o’er his head.

He swore an oath, and gathered all his force,
And broke the ice, to see the sun, of course,
Held firmly in the radiant angel’s hand,
Who sailed away toward the heavenly land.

He gave pursuit. Wrath lent speed to his chase;
All heaven leaned down to watch the exciting race.
On, on they came, and still the Evil One
Gained on the angel burdened with the sun.

With bated breath and faces white as ghosts,
Over the walls leaned heaven’s affrighted hosts.
Up, up, still up, the angel almost spent,
Threw one foot forward o’er the battlement.

The demon seized the other with a shout;
So fierce his clutch he pulled the bottom out,
As the good angel, fainting, laid the sun
Down by the throne of God, who cried: “Well done!
Thy great misfortune shall be made divine:
Man will I create with a foot like thine!”

PEEK-A-BOO.

HE cunningest thing that a baby can do
Is the very first time it plays peek-a-boo;

When it hides its pink little face in its hands,
And crows, and shows that it understands

What nurse, and mamma and papa, too,
Mean when they hide and cry, “Peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.”

Oh, what a wonderful thing it is,
When they find that baby can play like this;

And everyone listens, and thinks it true
That baby’s gurgle means “Peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo”;

And over and over the changes are rung
On the marvelous infant who talks so young.

I wonder if any one ever knew
A baby that never played peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo?

’Tis old as the hills are. I believe
Cain was taught it by Mother Eve;
For Cain was an innocent baby, too,
And I am sure he played peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.

And the whole world full of the children of men,
Have all of them played that game since then.

Kings and princes and beggars, too,
Everyone has played peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.

Thief and robber and ruffian bold,
The crazy tramp and the drunkard old,

All have been babies who laughed and knew
How to hide, and play peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo.

THE FALLING OF THRONES.

BOVE the din of commerce, above the clamor and rattle
Of labor disputing with riches, of Anarchists’ threats and groans,
Above the hurry and hustle and roar of that bloodless battle,
Where men are fighting for riches, I hear the falling of thrones.

I see no savage host, I hear no martial drumming,
But down in the dust at our feet lie the useless crowns of kings;
And the mighty spirit of Progress is steadily coming, coming,
And the flag of one republic abroad to the world he flings.

The Universal Republic, where worth not birth is royal;
Where the lowliest born may climb on a self-made ladder to fame;
Where the highest and proudest born, if he be not true and loyal,
Shall find no masking title to cover and gild his shame.

Not with the bellow of guns and not with sabres whetting,
But with growing minds of men is waged this swordless fray;
While over the dim horizon the sun of royalty, setting,
Lights, with a dying splendor, the humblest toiler’s way.

HER LAST LETTER.

ITTING alone by the window,
Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen
To the well-known sound of your feet,
I have been wondering, darling,
How I can bear the pain,
When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes,
And wait for your coming in vain.

For I know that a day approaches
When your heart will tire of me;
When by door and gate I may watch and wait
For a form I shall not see.
When the love that is now my heaven,
The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,
And that other will be—your wife.

You will grow weary of sinning
(Though you do not call it so),
You will long for a love that is purer
Than the love that we two know.
God knows I have loved you dearly,
With a passion strong as true;
But you will grow tired and leave me,
Though I gave up all for you.

I was as pure as the morning
When I first looked on your face;
I knew I never could reach you
In your high, exalted place.
But I looked and loved and worshiped
As a flower might worship a star,
And your eyes shone down upon me,
And you seemed so far—so far.

And then? Well, then, you loved me,
Loved me with all your heart;
But we could not stand at the altar,
We were so far apart.
If a star should wed with a flower
The star must drop from the sky,
Or the flower in trying to reach it
Would droop on its stalk and die.

But you said that you loved me, darling,
And swore by the heavens above
That the Lord and all of His angels
Would sanction and bless our love.
And I? I was weak, not wicked.
My love was as pure as true,
And sin itself seemed a virtue
If only shared by you.

We have been happy together,
Though under the cloud of sin,
But I know that the day approaches
When my chastening must begin.
You have been faithful and tender,
But you will not always be,
And I think I had better leave you
While your thoughts are kind of me.

I know my beauty is fading—
Sin furrows the fairest brow—
And I know that your heart will weary
Of the face you smile on now.
You will take a bride to your bosom
After you turn from me;
You will sit with your wife in the moonlight,
And hold her babe on your knee.

Oh, God! I never could bear it;
It would madden my brain, I know;
And so while you love me dearly
I think I had better go.
It is sweeter to feel, my darling—
To know as I fall asleep—
That some one will mourn me and miss me,
That some one is left to weep,

Than to die as I should in the future,
To drop in the street some day,
Unknown, unwept and forgotten
After you cast me away.
Perhaps the blood of the Saviour
Can wash my garments clean;
Perchance I may drink of the waters
That flow through pastures green.

Perchance we may meet in heaven,
And walk in the streets above,
With nothing to grieve us or part us
Since our sinning was all through love.
God says, “Love one another,”
And down to the depths of hell
Will he send the soul of a woman
Because she loved—and fell?

* * * * * *

And so in the moonlight he found her,
Or found her beautiful clay,
Lifeless and pallid as marble,
For the spirit had flown away.
The farewell words she had written
She held to her cold, white breast,
And the buried blade of a dagger
Told how she had gone to rest.

BABYLAND.

AVE you heard of the Valley of Babyland,
The realm where the dear little darlings stay,
Till the kind storks go, as all men know,
And oh, so tenderly bring them away?
The paths are winding and past all finding
By all save the storks, who understand
The gates and the highways and the intricate by-ways
That lead to Babyland.

All over the Valley of Babyland
Sweet flowers bloom in the soft green moss,
And under the ferns fair, and under the plants there
Lie little heads like spools of floss.
With a soothing number the river of slumber
Flows o’er a bedway of silver sand;
And angels are keeping watch o’er the sleeping
Babes of Babyland.

The path to the Valley of Babyland
Only the kingly, kind storks know;
If they fly over mountains, or wade through fountains,
No man sees them come or go.
But an angel maybe, who guards some baby,
Or a fairy, perhaps, with her magic wand,
Brings them straightway to the wonderful gateway
That leads to Babyland.

And there, in the Valley of Babyland,
Under the mosses and leaves and ferns,
Like an unfledged starling they find the darling
For whom the heart of a mother yearns;
And they lift him lightly and snug him tightly
In feathers soft as a lady’s hand,
And off with a rockaway step they walk away
Out of Babyland.

As they go from the Valley of Babyland
Forth into the world of great unrest,
Sometimes weeping he wakes from sleeping
Before he reaches the mother’s breast.
Ah, how she blesses him, how she caresses him,
Bonniest bird in the bright home band
That o’er land and water the kind stork brought her
From far-off Babyland.

FISHING.

AYBE this is fun, sitting in the sun,
With a book and parasol, as my angler wishes,
While he dips his line in the ocean brine,
Under the impression that his bait will catch the fishes.

’Tis romantic—yes, but I must confess
Thoughts of shady rooms at home somehow seem more inviting.
But I dare not move—“Quiet there, my love!”
Says my angler, “for I think a monster fish is biting.”

Oh, of course, it’s bliss—but how hot it is!
And the rock I’m sitting on grows harder every minute;
Still my fisher waits, trying various baits,
But the basket at his side, I see, has nothing in it.

Oh, it’s just the way to pass a July day,
Arcadian and sentimental, dreamy, idle, charming;
But how fierce the sunlight falls! and the way that insect crawls
Along my neck and down my back is really quite alarming.

“Any luck?” I gently ask of the angler at his task;
“There’s something pulling at my line,” he says; “I’ve almost caught it.”
But when, with blistered face, we our homeward steps retrace,
We take the little basket just as empty as we brought it.

THE OLD STAGE QUEEN.

ACK in her box by the curtains shaded
She sits alone, by the house unseen;
Her eye is dim and her cheek is faded.
She who once was the people’s queen.

The curtain rolls up, and she sees before her
A vision of beauty and youth and grace.
Ah! no wonder all hearts adore her,
Silver-throated and fair of face.

Out of her box she leans and listens:
O! is it with pleasure or with despair
That her thin cheek pales, and her dim eye glistens
While that fresh young voice sings the grand old air?

She is back again in her past’s bright splendor,
When life was worth living and love was a truth;
Ere Time had told her she must surrender
Her double dower of fame and youth.

It is she herself who stands there singing
To that sea of faces, that shines and stirs;
And the cheers on cheers that go up ringing
And rousing the echoes, are hers, all hers!

Just for one moment the sweet delusion
Quickens her pulses, and blurs her sight,
And wakes within her that wild confusion
Of joy that is anguish and fierce delight.

Then the curtain goes down, and the lights are gleaming
Brightly o’er circle and box and stall;
She starts like a sleeper who wakes from dreaming:
Her youth lies under Time’s funeral pall.

Her day is dead, and her star descended
Never to rise or to shine again;
Her reign is over, her queenship ended—
A new name is sounded and sung by men.

All the glitter and glow and splendor,
All the glory of that lost day,
With the friends that seemed true and the love that seemed tender,
Why, what is it all but a dead bouquet!

She rises to go; has the night turned colder?
The new queen answers to call and shout;
And the old queen looks back over her shoulder
As, all unnoticed, she passes out.

THE PRINCESS’S FINGER-NAIL.
A TALE OF NONSENSE LAND.

LL through the Castle of High-bred Ease,
Where the chief employment was do-as-you-please,
Spread consternation and wild despair.
The queen was wringing her hands and hair;
The maids of honor were sad and solemn;
The pages looked blank as they stood in column;
The court-jester blubbered, “Boo-hoo, boo-hoo”;
The cook in the kitchen dropped tears in the stew;
And all through the castle went sob and wail,
For the princess had broken her finger-nail:
The beautiful Princess Red-as-a-Rose,
Bride-elect of the Lord High-Nose,
Broken her finger-nail down to the quick—
No wonder the queen and her court were sick.
Never sorrow so dread before
Had dared to enter that castle door.
Oh! what would my Lord His-High-Nose say
When she took off her glove on her wedding-day?
The fairest princess in Nonsense Land,
With a broken finger-nail on her hand!
’Twas a terrible, terrible accident,
And they called a meeting of parliament;
And never before that royal Court
Had come such question of grave import
As “How could you hurry a nail to grow?”
And the skill of the kingdom was called to show.
They sent for Monsieur File-’em-off;
He smoothed down the corners so ragged and rough.
They sent for Madame la Diamond-Dust,
Who lived on the fingers of upper-crust;
They sent for Professor de Chamois-Skin,
Who took her powder and rubbed it in;
They sent for the pudgy nurse Fat-on-the-bone
To bathe her finger in eau de Cologne;
And they called the Court surgeon, Monsieur Red-Tape,
To hear what he thought of the new nail’s shape.
Over the kingdom the telegrams flew
Which told how the finger-nail thrived and grew;
And all through the realm of Nonsense Land
They offered up prayers for the princess’s hand.
At length the glad tidings were heard with a shout
That the princess’s finger-nail had grown out:
Pointed and polished and pink and clean,
Befitting the hand of a some-day queen.
Salutes were fired all over the land
By the home-guard battery pop-gun band;
And great was the joy of my Lord High-Nose,
Who straightway ordered his wedding clothes,
And paid his tailor, Don Wait-for-aye,
Who died of amazement the self-same day.
My lord by a jury was judged insane;
For they said, and the truth of the saying was plain,
That a lord of such very high pedigree
Would never be paying his bills, you see,
Unless he was out of his head; and so
They locked him up without more ado.
And the beautiful Princess Red-as-a-Rose
Pined for her lover, my Lord High-Nose,
Till she entered a convent and took the veil—
And this is the end of my nonsense tale.

A BABY IN THE HOUSE.

KNEW that a baby was hid in the house;
Though I saw no cradle and heard no cry,
But the husband went tiptoeing ’round like a mouse,
And the good wife was humming a soft lullaby;
And there was a look on the face of that mother
That I knew could mean only one thing, and no other.

“The mother” I said to myself; for I knew
That the woman before me was certainly that,
For there lay in the corner a tiny cloth shoe,
And I saw on the stand such a wee little hat;
And the beard of the husband said plain as could be,
“Two fat, chubby hands have been tugging at me.”

And he took from his pocket a gay picture-book,
And a dog that would bark if you pulled on a string;
And the wife laid them up with such a pleased look;
And I said to myself, “There is no other thing
But a babe that could bring about all this, and so
That one is in hiding here somewhere, I know.”

I stayed but a moment, and saw nothing more,
And heard not a sound, yet I knew I was right;
What else could the shoe mean that lay on the floor,
The book and the toy, and the faces so bright?
And what made the husband as still as a mouse?
I am sure, very sure, there’s a babe in that house.

THE FOOLISH ELM.

HE bold young Autumn came riding along
One day where an elm-tree grew.
“You are fair,” he said, as she bent down her head,
“Too fair for your robe’s dull hue.
You are far too young for a garb so old;
Your beauty needs color and sheen.
Oh, I would clothe you in scarlet and gold
Befitting the grace of a queen.

“For one little kiss on your lips, sweet elm,
For one little kiss, no more,
I would give you, I swear, a robe more fair
Than ever a princess wore.
One little kiss on those lips, my pet,
And lo! you shall stand, I say,
Queen of the forest, and, better yet,
Queen of my heart alway.”

She tossed her head, but he took the kiss—
’Tis the way of lovers bold—
And a gorgeous dress for that sweet caress
He gave ere the morning was old.
For a week and a day she ruled a queen
In beauty and splendid attire;
For a week and a day she was loved, I ween,
With the love that is born of desire.