I

Now there was one who came in later days
To play at Emperor: in the dead of night
Stole crown and sceptre, and stood forth to light
In sudden purple. The dawn's straggling rays
Showed Paris fettered, murmuring in amaze,
With red hands at her throat--a piteous sight.
Then the new Cæsar, stricken with affright
At his own daring, shrunk from public gaze

In the Elysée, and had lost the day
But that around him flocked his birds of prey,
Sharp-beaked, voracious, hungry for the deed.

"Come and hire me," I cried, while in the morning I was walking on the stone-paved road.
Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot.
He held my hand and said, "I will hire you with my power."
But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot.

In the heat of the midday the houses stood with shut doors.
I wandered along the crooked lane.
An old man came out with his bag of gold.
He pondered and said, "I will hire you with my money."
He weighed his coins one by one, but I turned away.

The ladye she stood at her lattice high,
Wi' her doggie at her feet;
Thorough the lattice she can spy
The passers in the street,

'There's one that standeth at the door,
And tirleth at the pin:
Now speak and say, my popinjay,
If I sall let him in.'

Then up and spake the popinjay
That flew abune her head:
'Gae let him in that tirls the pin:
He cometh thee to wed.'

O when he cam' the parlour in,
A woeful man was he!
'And dinna ye ken your lover agen,
Sae well that loveth thee?'

HAVE you ever been down to my countree
Where the trees are green and tall?
The days are long and the heavens are high,
But the people there are small.
There is no work there; it is always play;
The sun is sweet in the morn;
But a thousand dark things walk at night
In the land where I was born.

Have you ever been down to my countree
Where the birds made happy Spring?
The parrots screamed from the honey-trees,
And the jays hopped chattering.

The free-born Kosa still doth hold
The fields his fathers held of old;
With club and spear, in jocund ranks,
Still hunts the elk by Chumi's banks:
By Keisi's meads his herds are lowing;
On Debè's slopes his gardens glowing,
Where laughing maids at sunset roam,
To bear the juicy melons home:
And striplings from Kalumna's wood
Bring wild grapes and the pigeon's brood,
With fragrant hoard of honey-bee
Rifled from the hollow tree:
And herdsmen shout from rock to rock;
And through the glen the hamlets smoke;

"Hears not my Phyllis how the birds
Their feathered mates salute?
They tell their passion in their words:
Must I alone be mute?"
Phyllis, without frown or smile,
Sat and knotted all the while.

"The god of love in thy bright eyes
Does like a tyrant reign;
But in thy heart a child he lies,
Without his dart of flame."
Phyllis, without frown or smile,
Sat and knotted all the while.

"So many months in silence past,
And yet in raging love,
Might well deserve one word at last
My passion should approve."

What Stoick could his steely brest containe
(If Zeno self, or who were made beside
Of tougher mold) from being torne in twaine
With the crosse Passions of this wondrous tide?
Grief at ELIZAES toomb, orecomne anone
With greater ioy at her succeeded throne?


Me seems the world at once doth weep & smile,
Washing his smiling cheeks with weeping dew,
Yet chearing still his watered cheeks the while
With merry wrinckles that do laughter shew;
Amongst the rest, I can but smile and weepe,

The hunt is up, the hunt is up,
And it is well nigh day;
And Harry our king is gone hunting,
To bring his deer to bay.

The east is bright with morning light,
And darkness it is fled;
And the merry horn wakes up the morn
To leave his idle bed.

Behold the skies with golden dyes
Are glowing all around;
The grass is green, and so are the treen,
All laughing with the sound.

The horses snort to be at the sport,
The dogs are running free;
The woods rejoice at the merry noise

It was a wet wan hour in spring,
And Nature met King Doom beside a lane,
Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading
   The Mother's smiling reign.

   "Why warbles he that skies are fair
And coombs alight," she cried, "and fallows gay,
When I have placed no sunshine in the air
   Or glow on earth to-day?"

   "'Tis in the comedy of things
That such should be," returned the one of Doom;
"Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,

In 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 will see
Its glistening turrets of Light."

And soon in the distance a city shone fair;
"Look yonder," he said, "there it gleams!"
But alas! for the hopes that were doomed to despair,
It was only the Kingdom of Dreams.