I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty

years ago.

All along the valley, while I walk'd today,

The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away;

For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed,

Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead,

And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,

The voice of the dead was a living voice

to me.

IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON.

NIGHTINGALES warbled without,
Within was weeping for thee:
Shadows of three dead men
Walk'd in the walks with me,

Shadows of three dead men and thou
wast one of the three.

Nightingales sang in his woods:
The Master was far away:
Nightingales warbled and sang

Of a passion that lasts but a day;
Still in the house in his coffin the Prince
of courtesy lay.

Two dead men have I known

In courtesy like to thee:

Two dead men have I loved

With a love that will ever be :

Three dead men have I loved and thou art last of the three.

THE FLOWER.

ONCE in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went

Thro' my garden-bower, And muttering discontent

Cursed me and my flower.

'WHITHER, O whither, love, shall we go,' For a score of sweet little summers or so? The sweet little wife of the singer said, On the day that follow'd the day she was wed,

'Whither, O whither, love, shall we go?' And the singer shaking his curly head Turn'd as he sat, and struck the keys There at his right with a sudden crash, Singing, And shall it be over the seas With a crew that is neither rude nor rash,

But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheek'd,
In a shallop of crystal ivory-beak'd,
With a satin sail of a ruby glow,

To a sweet little Eden on earth that I know,

A mountain islet pointed and peak'd?
Waves on a diamond shingle dash,
Cataract brooks to the ocean run,

Fairily-delicate palaces shine

Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine,
And overstream'd and silvery-streak'd
With many a rivulet high against the

Sun

CHILD-SONGS.

II.

MINNIE AND WINNIE. MINNIE and Winnie

Slept in a shell. Sleep, little ladies!

And they slept well.

Pink was the shell within, Silver without;

Sounds of the great sea Wander'd about.

Sleep, little ladies!

Wake not soon!

Echo on echo

Dies to the moon.

Two bright stars

Peep'd into the shell.

'What are they dreaming of? Who can tell?'

Started a green linnet Out of the croft;

Wake, little ladies,

The sun is aloft!

THE SPITEFUL LETTER.

HERE, it is here, the close of the year,
And with it a spiteful letter.

My name in song has done him much

wrong,

For himself has done much better.

O little bard, is your lot so hard,

If men neglect your pages?

I think not much of yours or of mine, I hear the roll of the ages.

Rhymes and rhymes in the range of the times!

Are mine for the moment stronger?
Yet hate me not, but abide your lot,
I last but a moment longer.

This faded leaf, our names are as brief;
What room is left for a hater?
Yet the yellow leaf hates the greener
leaf,

For it hangs one moment later.

Greater than I is that your cry?

And men will live to see it.

Well if it be so-so it is, you know;

And if it be so, so be it.

Brief, brief is a summer leaf,

But this is the time of hollies.
O hollies and ivies and evergreens,

How I hate the spites and the follies!

LITERARY SQUABBLES.

AH God! the petty fools of rhyme That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars Before the stony face of Time,

And look'd at by the silent stars:

Who hate each other for a song,
And do their little best to bite
And pinch their brethren in the throng,
And scratch the very dead for spite:

And strain to make an inch of room

For their sweet selves, and cannot hear The sullen Lethe rolling doom

On them and theirs and all things here:

When one small touch of Charity

Could lift them nearer God-like state Than if the crowded Orb should cry

Like those who cried Diana great:

And I too, talk, and lose the touch
I talk of. Surely, after all,
The noblest answer unto such

Is perfect stillness when they brawl.

THE VICTIM.

I.

A PLAGUE upon the people fell,

A famine after laid them low, Then thorpe and byre arose in fire,

For on them brake the sudden foe; So thick they died the people cried, 'The Gods are moved against the land. The Priest in horror about his altar To Thor and Odin lifted a hand: 'Help us from famine

And plague and strife!

What would you have of us?
Human life?

Were it our nearest,

Were it our dearest,

(Answer, O answer)
We give you his life.'

II.

But still the foeman spoil'd and burn'd,
And cattle died, and deer in wood,
And bird in air, and fishes turn'd
And whiten'd all the rolling flood;

And dead men lay all over the way, Or down in a furrow scathed with flame:

And ever and aye the Priesthood moan'd, Till at last it seem'd that an answer

came.

'The King is happy In child and wife; Take you his dearest, Give us a life.'

III.

The Priest went out by heath and hill;
The King was hunting in the wild;
They found the mother sitting still;

She cast her arms about the child.
The child was only eight summers old,
His beauty still with his years in-
creased,

His face was ruddy, his hair was gold,
He seem'd a victim due to the priest.
The Priest beheld him,

And cried with joy,
'The Gods have answer'd:
We give them the boy.'

IV.

The King return'd from out the wild,
He bore but little game in hand;
The mother said, 'They have taken the
child

To spill his blood and heal the land: The land is sick, the people diseased, And blight and famine on all the lea:

The holy Gods, they must be appeased, So I pray you tell the truth to me.

They have taken our son,
They will have his life.
Is he your dearest?

Or I, the wife?'

The King bent low, with hand on brow, He stay'd his arms upon his knee: 'O wife, what use to answer now?

For now the Priest has judged for me.' The King was shaken with holy fear; 'The Gods,' he said, 'would have chosen well;

Yet both are near, and both are dear,
And which the dearest I cannot tell!'
But the Priest was happy,

His victim won:
'We have his dearest,
His only son!'

VI.

The rites prepared, the victim bared,
The knife uprising toward the blow
To the altar-stone she sprang alone,
'Me, not my darling, no!'

He caught her away with a sudden cry;
Suddenly from him brake his wife,
And shrieking 'I am his dearest, I-
I am his dearest!' rush'd on the
knife.

And the Priest was happy,
'O, Father Odin,

We give you a life.
Which was his nearest?
Who was his dearest?
The Gods have answer'd;
We give them the wife!'

me.

of risolation.