Painful results since precious, just

Were fitly exchanged, in wise disgust,

For two cheeks freshened by youth and sea?

66 6

XX.

All for a nosegay!--what came first;
With fields in flower, untried each side;
I rally, need my books and men,

And find a nosegay:' drop it, then,
No match yet made for best or worst!"

XXI.

That ended me. You judged the porch
We left by, Norman; took our look
At sea and sky; wondered so few

Find out the place for air and view;
Remarked the sun began to scorch;

XXII.

Descended, soon regained the baths,
And then, good-by! Years ten since then!
Ten years! We meet you tell me, now,
By a window-seat for that cliff-brow,
On carpet-stripes for those sand-paths.

XXIII.

Now I may speak: you fool, for all
Your lore! WHO made things plain in vain ?
What was the sea for? What, the gray
Sad church, that solitary day,
Crosses and graves and swallows' call?

CROSSES AND GRAVES.

XXIV.

Was there naught better than to enjoy ?
No feat which, done, would make

time break,

And let us pent-up creatures through
Into eternity, our due?

No forcing earth teach heaven's em-
ploy?

XXV.

No wise beginning, here and now,
What cannot grow complete (earth's

feat)

And heaven must finish, there and then?

No tasting earth's true food for men, Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet?

XXVI.

No grasping at love, gaining a share
O' the sole spark from God's life at strife
With death, so, sure of range above

The limits here? For us and love,
Failure; but, when God fails, despair.

XXVII.

add

This you call wisdom? Thus you
Good unto good again, in vain?
You loved, with body worn and weak;

I loved, with faculties to seek :

Were both loves worthless since ill-clad ?

XXVIII.

Let the mere star-fish in his vault

Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed, Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips:

He, whole in body and soul, outstrips Man, found with either in default.

XXIX.

But what's whole, can increase no more,
Is dwarfed and dies, since here's its sphere.
The Devil laughed at you in his sleeve!

You knew not? That I well believe;
Or you had saved two souls: nay, four.

XXX.

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For Stephanie sprained last night her wrist, Ankle or something. Pooh," cry you? At any rate she danced, all say,

Vilely her vogue has had its day. Here comes my husband from his whist.

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?'

Ah, reverend sir, not I!

II.

What I viewed there once, what I view again

Where the physic bottles stand

On the table's edge,—is a suburb lane,

With a wall to my bedside hand,

III.

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry

O'er the garden-wall is the curtain blue
Or green to a healthy eye?

IV.

To mine, it serves for the old June weather
Blue above lane and wall;

And that farthest bottle labeled " Ether"
Is the house o'er-topping all.

v.

At a terrace, somewhat near the stopper,
There watched for me one June,

A girl I know, sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune.

VI.

Only, there was a way

you crept

Close by the side, to dodge

Eyes in the house, two eyes except:

They styled their house "The Lodge."

VII.

What right had a lounger up their lane?
But, by creeping very close,

With the good wall's help,-their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to Oes,

VIII.

Yet never catch her and me together,

As she left the attic, there,

By the rim of the bottle labeled "Ether,"

And stole from stair to stair,

IX.

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir-used to meet :

How sad and bad and mad it was

But then, how it was sweet!

THE HOUSEHOLDER.

I.

SAVAGE I was, sitting in my house, late, lone :
Dreary, weary with the long day's work:
Head of me, heart of me, stupid as a stone :
Tongue-tied now, now blaspheming like a Turk;

When, in a moment, just a knock, call, cry,

Half a pang and all a rapture, there again were we !—
What, and is it really you again?"quoth I:

“I again, what else did you expect," quoth She.

II.

"Never mind, hie away from this old house

Every crumbling brick embrowned with sin and shame!
Quick, in its corners ere certain shapes arouse !

Let them—every devil of the night—lay claim,
Make and mend, or rap and rend, for me! Good-by!
God be their guard from disturbance at their glee,

Till, crash, comes down the carcass in a heap!" quoth I:
Nay, but there's a decency required!" quoth She.

66

66

III.

Ah, but if you knew how time has dragged, days, nights! All the neighbor-talk with man and maid-such men ! All the fuss and trouble of street-sounds, window-sights:

All the worry of flapping door and echoing roof; and then, All the fancies . . . Who were they had leave, dared try Darker arts that almost struck despair in me?

If you knew but how I dwelt down here!" quoth I:
And was I so better off up there?” quoth She.

66

IV.

Help and get it over! Re-united to his wife

(How draw up the paper lets the parish-people know!) Lies M. or N., departed from this life,

Day the this or that, month and year the so and so, What i̇' the way of final flourish? Prose, verse? Try! Affliction sore long time he bore, or, what is it to be? Till God did please to grant him ease. Do end!" quoth I: "I end with-Love is all and Death is naught!" quoth She.

TRAY.

SING me a hero! Quench my thirst

Of soul, ye bards!

66

Quoth Bard the first:

'Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don

His helm and eke his habergeon"

Sir Olaf and his bard!

"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second),
“That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned
My hero to some steep, beneath

Which precipice smiled tempting death "
You too without your host have reckoned!

"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third !)
Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird
Sang to herself at careless play,
And fell into the stream. Dismay!
Help, you the standers-by!' None stirrred.

“By-standers reason, think of wives
And children ere they risk their lives.
Over the balustrade has bounced

A mere instinctive dog, and pounced
Plumb on the prize. How well he dives!

"Up he comes with the child, see, tight
In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite
A depth of ten feet-twelve, I bet!
Good dog! What, off again? There's yet
Another child to save? All right!

"How strange we saw no other fall!
It's instinct in the animal.

Good dog! But he's a long while under:
If he got drowned I should not wonder-
Strong current, that against the wall!

666

"Here he comes, holds in mouth this time -What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!

Now, did you ever? Reason reigns

In man alone, since all Tray's pains

Have fished-the child's doll from the slime!'
And so, amid the laughter gay,
Trotted my hero off,-old Tray,-