The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels

One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath. Only the wind here hovers and revels

In a round where life seems barren as death.
Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping,
Haply, of lovers none ever will know,

Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping
Years ago.

Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither," Did he whisper? "Look forth from the flowers to

the sea;

For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms

wither,

And men that love lightly may die-but we?” And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened, And or ever the garden's last petals were shed,

In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,

Love was dead.

Or they loved their life through, and then went

whither ?

And were one to the end-but what end who knows? Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,

As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.

Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them?

What love was ever as deep as a grave? They are loveless now as the grass above them Or the wave.

All are at one now, roses and lovers,

Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the

sea.

Not a breath of the time that has been hovers

In the air now soft with a summer to be.

Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or

weep,

When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter

We shall sleep.

Here death may deal not again for ever;

Here change may come not till all change end. From the graves they have made they shall rise up

never,

Who have left nought living to ravage and rend. Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing, When the sun and the rain live, these shall be; Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing Roll the sea.

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,

Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,

Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,

Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.

AUSTIN DOBSON

Born 1840

"GOOD NIGHT, BABETTE !"

"Si vieillesse pouvait l—"

SCENE. A small neat Room. In a high Voltaire Chair sits a white-haired old Gentleman.

MONSIEUR VIEUXBOIS. BABETTE.

M. VIEUXBOIS (turning querulously)
Day of my life! Where can she get?
BABETTE! I say! BABETTE!-BABETTE!!

BABETTE (entering hurriedly)

Coming, M'sieu'! If M'sieu' speaks

So loud he won't be well for weeks!

M. VIEUXBOIS

Where have you been?

BABETTE

Why, M'sieu' knows:

April!... Ville-d'Avray! ... Ma'am'selle ROSE!

M. VIEUXBOIS

Ah! I am old, and I forget.

Was the place growing green, BABETTE?

BABETTE

But of a greenness !—yes, M'sieu'!
And then the sky so blue!-so blue!
And when I dropped my immortelle,
How the birds sang!

(Lifting her apron to her eyes.)

You 're a good girl, BABETTE, but she,—

She was an Angel, verily.

Sometimes I think I see her yet

Stand smiling by the cabinet;

And once, I know, she peeped and laughed

Betwixt the curtains ...

Where's the draught?

(She gives him a cup.)

Now I shall sleep, I think, BAbette;—

Sing me your Norman chansonnette.