Leopards, tigers, play
Round her as she lay;
While the lion old

Bowed his mane of gold,

And her breast did lick
And upon her neck,
From his eyes of flame,
Ruby tears there came;

While the lioness

Loosed her slender dress,
And naked they conveyed
To caves the sleeping maid.

THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND.

LL the night in woe

Lyca's parents go

Over valleys deep,

While the deserts weep.

Tired and woe-begone,

Hoarse with making moan,

Arm in arm, seven days

They traced the desert ways.

Seven nights they sleep

Among shadows deep,

And dream they see their child

Starved in desert wild.

Pale through pathless ways
The fancied image strays,
Famished, weeping, weak,
With hollow piteous shriek.

Rising from unrest,

The trembling woman pressed
With feet of weary woe;
She could no further go.

In his arms he bore

Her, armed with sorrow sore Till before their way

A couching lion lay.

Turning back was vain:
Soon his heavy mane
Bore them to the ground.
Then he stalked around,

Smelling to his prey;
But their fears allay

When he licks their hands,
And silent by them stands.

They look upon his eyes,
Filled with deep surprise;
And wondering behold
A spirit armed in gold.

On his head a crown,
On his shoulders down
Flowed his golden hair.
Gone was al their care.

"Follow me," he said;

"Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep,
Lyca lies asleep."

Then they followèd

Where the vision led,

And saw their sleeping child

Among tigers wild.

To this day they dwell

In a lonely dell,

Nor fear the wolvish howl

Nor the lion's growl.

66

THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER.

LITTLE black thing among the snow, Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!

"Where are thy father and mother? Say!"

'They are both gone up to the church to pray.

"Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and his priest and king, Who make up a heaven of our misery."

NURSE'S SONG.

M HEN the voices of children are heard on the green,

W

And whisperings are in the dale,

The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,

My face turns green and pale.

Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;

Your spring and your day are wasted in play,
And your winter and night in disguise.

THE SICK ROSE.

ROSE, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy