A place by violence beneath the sun.
I took my pleasures madly as by force,
Even the air of heaven was a prize.

I stood a plunderer at death's very gate,
And all the lands of life I did o'errun
With sack and pillage. Then I scorned to
die,

Save as a conqueror. The treasuries

Of love I ransacked; pity, pride and hate. All that can make hearts beat or brim men's eyes

With living tears I took as robes to wear. - But see, now time has struck me on the hip.

I cannot hate nor love. My senses are Struck silent with the silence of my lip. No courage kindles in my heart to dare, No strength to do. The world's last phantoms slip

Out of my grasp, and naught is left but pain.

Love, life, vain strength!-Oh who would live again?

XCI. LAUGHTER AND DEATH

THERE is no laughter in the natural world Of beast or fish or bird, though no sad doubt

Of their futurity to them unfurled
Has dared to check the mirth-compelling
shout.

The lion roars his solemn thunder out
To the sleeping woods. The eagle screams

her cry.

Even the lark must strain a serious throat
To hurl his blest defiance at the sky.
Fear, anger, jealousy have found a voice.
Love's pain or rapture the brute bosoms
swell.

Nature has symbols for her nobler joys, Her nobler sorrows. Who had dared foretell

That only man, by some sad mockery, Should learn to laugh who learns that he must die?

XCV. HE IS NOT A POET

I WOULD not, if I could, be called a poet.
I have no natural love of the "chaste muse."
If aught be worth the doing I would do it;
And others, if they will, may tell the news.
I care not for their laurels but would
choose

On the world's field to fight or fall or run.
My soul's ambition will not take excuse
To play the dial rather than the sun.
The faith I held I hold, as when a boy
I left my books for cricket-bat and gun.

And thou too, Sorrow, tender-hearted Sor

row.

Thou grey-eyed mourner, fly not yet

away.

For I fain would borrow

Thy sad weeds to-morrow

To make a mourning for love's yesterday.

The voice of Pity, Time's divine dear Pity, Moved me to tears.. I dared not say them nay,

But went forth from the city
Making thus my ditty

Of fair love lost for ever and a day.

THE STRICKEN HART

THE stricken hart had fled the brake,
His courage spent for life's dear sake.
He came to die beside the lake.

The golden trout leaped up to view,
The moorfowl clapped his wings and crew,
The swallow brushed him as she flew.

He looked upon the glorious sun,
His blood dropped slowly on the stone,
He loved the life so nearly won,
And then he died. The ravens found
A carcase couched upon the ground,
They said their god had dealt the wound.

The Eternal Father calmly shook
One page untitled from life's book.
Few words. None ever cared to look.

Yet woe for life thus idly riven.
He blindly loved what God had given,
And love, some say, has conquered Heaven.

sum

Of the world's courage in its martyrdom;

LI

WHEN I hear music from a tavern door,

When I see crowds agape and in the rain Watching on tiptoe and with stifled roar To see a rocket fired or a bull slain, When misers handle gold, when orators

Touch strong men's hearts with glory till they weep,

When cities deck their streets for barren

wars

Which have laid waste their youth, and when I keep

Calmly the count of my own life and see On what poor stuff my manhood's dreams were fed

Till I too learned what dole of vanity Will serve a human soul for daily bread, Then I remember that I once was young And lived with Esther the world's gods among.

FROM A CHILD'S GARDEN

OF VERSES

[1885.]

TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

FROM HER BOY

FOR the long nights you lay awake
And watched for my unworthy sake;
For your most comfortable hand
That led me through the uneven land;
For all the story-books you read;
For all the pains you comforted;
For all you pitied, all you bore,
In sad and happy days of yore;
My second Mother, my first Wife,
The angel of my infant life-
From the sick child, now well and old,
Take, nurse, the little book you hold!

And grant it, Heaven, that all who read
May find as dear a nurse at need,
And every child who lists my rhyme,
In the bright, fireside, nursery clime,
May hear it in as kind a voice

As made my childish days rejoice!

BED IN SUMMER

R. L. S.

IN winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

A THOUGHT

It is very nice to think

The world is full of meat and drink,
With little children saying grace
In every Christian kind of place.

YOUNG NIGHT THOUGHT
ALL night long and every night,
When my mama puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day, before my eye.

Armies and emperors and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.

So fine a show was never seen
At the great circus on the green;
For every kind of beast and man
Is marching in that caravan.

At first they move a little slow,
But still the faster on they go,
And still beside them close I keep
Until we reach the Town of Sleep.

WHOLE DUTY OF CHILDREN A CHILD should always say what's true And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table; At least as far as he is able.

RAIN

THE rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,

It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

PIRATE STORY

THREE of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,

Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea.

Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,

And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.

Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat,

Wary of the weather and steering by a star?

Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat.

To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?

Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea

Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!

Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be,

The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.

FOREIGN LANDS

UP into the cherry tree

Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I saw the next door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.

I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sky's blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people tramping into town.

If I could find a higher tree
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sea among the ships,

To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy-land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.

TRAVEL

I SHOULD like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,

And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,

And the rich goods from near and far
Hang for sale in the bazaar;

Where the Great Wall round China goes,
And on one side the desert blows,
And with bell and voice and drum,
Cities on the other hum;
Where are forests, hot as fire,
Wide as England, tall as a spire,
Full of apes and cocoa-nuts
And the negro hunters' huts;
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes;
Where in jungles, near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear,
Lest the hunt be drawing near,
Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in a palanquin;
Where among the desert sands
Some deserted city stands,

All its children, sweep and prince,
Grown to manhood ages since,
Not a foot in street or house,
Not a stir of child or mouse,

And when kindly falls the night,
In all the town no spark of light.
There I'll come when I'm a man
With a camel caravan;
Light a fire in the gloom
Of some dusty dining room;
See the pictures on the walls,
Heroes, fights and festivals;
And in a corner find the toys
Of the old Egyptian boys.

SINGING

OF speckled eggs the birdie sings
And nests among the trees;
The sailor sings of ropes and things
In ships upon the seas.

The children sing in far Japan,
The children sing in Spain;
The organ with the organ man
Is singing in the rain.

LOOKING FORWARD WHEN I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great, And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys.

AUNTIE'S SKIRTS

WHENEVER Auntie moves around,
Her dresses make a curious sound;
They trail behind her up the floor,
And trundle after through the door.

THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE
WHEN I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant Land of Counterpane.

THE LAND OF NOD

FROM breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad

Afar into the Land of Nod.

All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do --
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the Land of Nod.

Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.

MY SHADOW

I HAVE a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

-

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stands so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun

was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

SYSTEM

EVERY night my prayers I say,
And get my dinner every day;
And every day that I've been good,
I get an orange after food.

The child that is not plain and neat,
With lots of toys and things to eat,
He is a naughty child, I'm sure-
Or else his dear papa is poor.

ESCAPE AT BEDTIME

THE lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out

Through the blinds and the windows and bars;

And high overhead and all moving about, There were thousands of millions of stars.

There ne'er were such thousands of leaves on a tree,

Nor of people in church or the Park, As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me,

And that glittered and winked in the dark.

The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all,

And the star of the sailor, and Mars, These shone in the sky, and the pail by the wall

Would be half full of water and stars. They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries,

And they soon had me packed into bed; But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes,

And the stars going round in my head.

THE COW

THE friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:

She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.

She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,

The pleasant light of day;

And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.

HAPPY THOUGHT

THE world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

GOOD AND BAD CHILDREN
CHILDREN, you are very little,
And your bones are very brittle;
If you would grow great and stately,
You must try to walk sedately.

You must still be bright and quiet,
And content with simple diet;
And remain, through all bewild'ring,
Innocent and honest children.