M. VIEUXBOIS (murmuring)

Ah, Paul!-old Paul! — Eulalie too!

M. VIEUXBOIS (almost inaudibly)

'How I forget!'

'I am so old!'-'Good-night, Babette!'

BEFORE SEDAN.

'The dead hand clasped a letter?

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

HERE, in this leafy place,

Quiet he lies,

Cold, with his sightless face

Turned to the skies; 'Tis but another dead; All you can say is said.

Carry his body hence,

Kings must have slaves;
Kings climb to eminence

Over men's graves:
So this man's eye is dim;-
Throw the earth over him.

YES, he was well-nigh gone and near his rest,
The year could not renew him; nor the cry
Of building nightingales about the nest;

Nor that soft freshness of the May-wind's sigh,

That fell before the garden scents, and died
Between the ampler leafage of the trees :
All these he knew not, lying open-eyed,
Deep in a dream that was not pain nor ease,

But death not yet.
His wife she was

Outside a woman talked —
whose clicking needles sped

To faded phrases of complaint that balked
My rising words of comfort. Overhead,

A cage that hung amid the jasmine stars

Trembled a little, and a blossom dropped.
Then notes came pouring through the wicker bars,
Climbed half a rapid arc of song, and stopped.

Is it a thrush?' I asked. 'A thrush,' she said. 'That was Will's tune. Will taught him that before He left the doorway settle for his bed,

Sick as you see, and could n't teach him more.

'He'd bring his Bible here o' nights, would Will,
Following the light, and whiles when it was dark
And days were warm, he 'd sit there whistling still,
Teaching the bird. He whistled like a lark.'

'Jack! Jack!' A joyous flutter stirred the cage,
Shaking the blossoms down. The bird began;
The woman turned again to want and wage,
And in the inner chamber sighed the man.

How clear the song was! Musing as I heard,
My fancies wandered from the droning wife
To sad comparison of man and bird,

The broken song, the uncompleted life,

That seemed a broken song; and of the two,

My thought a moment deemed the bird more blest, That, when the sun shone, sang the notes it knew, Without desire or knowledge of the rest.

Nay, happier man.

For him futurity

Still hides a hope that this his earthly praise Finds heavenly end, for surely will not He,

Solver of all, above his Flower of Days,

Teach him the song that no one living knows? Let the man die, with that half-chant of his, What Now discovers not Hereafter shows,

And God will surely teach him more than this.

Again the bird. I turned, and passed along;

But Time and Death, Eternity and Change, Talked with me ever, and the climbing song Rose in my hearing, beautiful and strange.

THE WANDERER.

RONDEL.

LOVE comes back to his vacant dwelling,
The old, old Love that we knew of yore!
We see him stand by the open door,
With his great eyes sad, and his bosom swelling.

He makes as though in our arms repelling,
He fain would lie as he lay before;·
Love comes back to his vacant dwelling, -
The old, old Love that we knew of yore!

Ah, who shall help us from over-telling
That sweet forgotten, forbidden lore!
E'en as we doubt in our heart once more,
With a rush of tears to our eyelids welling,
Love comes back to his vacant dwelling.

THE CHILD-MUSICIAN.

HE had played for his lordship's levee, He had played for her ladyship's whim, Till the poor little head was heavy,

And the poor little brain would swim.

And the face grew peaked and eerie,
And the large eyes strange and bright,
And they said- too late- ' He is weary!
He shall rest for, at least, To-night!'

But at dawn, when the birds were waking,
As they watched in the silent room,
With the sound of a strained cord breaking,
A something snapped in the gloom.

'Twas a string of his violoncello,

And they heard him stir in his bed:

:

'Make room for a tired little fellow,

Kind God!-' was the last that he said.

WITH PIPE AND FLUTE.

RONDEAU.

WITH pipe and flute the rustic Pan
Of old made music sweet for man;

And wonder hushed the warbling bird,
And closer drew the calm-eyed herd, -
The rolling river slowlier ran.

-

Ah! would, ah! would, a little span,
Some air of Arcady could fan

This age of ours, too seldom stirred
With pipe and flute!