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BALLADE OF HIS LADY.

My lady's heart 'twere hard to touch,
And sighs and vows she'd soon repel ;
But if she liked one twice as much,

One would not like her half as well;
She careth not for sage or swell,
For guardsman stout or poet lean,
Who haunt Parnassus or Pall Mall;
My lady-love is just thirteen.

She loves a rabbit in a hutch
(A fat Aquinas in his cell),

She loves an aged cat, whose clutch
At breakfast-time exerts a spell,
A most ungracious Florizel."

In fact it's easy to be seen,

Were she at all averse to tell,

My lady-love is just thirteen.

Although she reads the Higher Dutch,
On culture's peaks apart to dwell,
She feigns not; nor of things 'as such'
Does she discourse, nor parallel
Dante and Dante Gabriel;

Yet she has 'views' advanced and keen,
On chocolate and caramel,-

My lady-love is just thirteen.

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Envoy.

Madam, just homage you compel,

Mature, self-conscious, and serene,

One heart alone you cannot quell;

My lady-love is just thirteen.

J. B. B. NICHOLS.

BALLADE OF EXMOOR.

Fly westward, westward, gentle wind,
Where erst we trod the windy ways;
And wake within her wayward mind
The memory of forgotten days.
The stars step forth aslant the bays,
The still moon silvers tower and tree,

And never sound the silence frays
Athwart the slumberous Severn Sea.

So soft, so strange the light that lined
The ferny moors, the forest maze,
Till all the west was smitten blind

With glamour of the golden haze;
What time we watch'd the stag upraise

His lordly brow by linn and lea,

To fright the morris of the fays

Athwart the slumberous Severn Sea.

O'er the dim passes flung behind

The dying daylight all ablaze, About those dainty tresses twined One aureole of dreamy rays,

And many a winged lamp that strays Darkling his weird in heaven to dree,

Lit the rare eyne downdrops to gaze Athwart the slumberous Severn Sea.

Envoy.

O westward wind, whose low breath sways Her locks, whereto night's shadows flee,

Bear hence a lilt of summer lays

Athwart the slumberous Severn Sea.

F. S. P.

BALLAD OF PAST DELIGHT.

Where are the dreams of the days gone by,
The hopes of honour, the glancing play
Of fire-new fancies that filled our sky-

The songs we sang in the middle May,
Carol and ballad and roundelay ?

Where are the garlands our young hands twined ?
Life's but a memory, well-away!

All else flits past on the wings of the wind.

Where are the ladies fair and high

Marie and Alice and Maud and May And merry Madge with the laughing eyeAnd all the gallants of yesterday

That held us merry--ah, where are they? Under the mould we must look to find

Some; and the others are worn and grey. All else flits past on the wings of the wind.

I know of nothing that lasts, not I,

Save a heart that is true to its love alwayA love that is won with tear and sigh

And never changes or fades away,
In a breast that is oftener sad than gay;
A tender look and a constant mind-

These are the only things that stay:
All else flits past on the wings of the wind.

Envoy.

Prince, I counsel you, never say,

Alack for the years that are left behind! Look you keep love when your dreams decay; All else flits past on the wings of the wind. JOHN PAYNE.

THE PIXIES.

The frost hath spread a shining net
Where late the autumn roses blew,
On lake and stream a seal is set

Where floating lilies charmed the view;
So silently the wonder grew
Beneath pale Dian's mystic light,

I know my fancies whisper true,
The Pixies are abroad to-night.

When at the midnight chime are met
Together elves of every hue,

I trow the gazer will regret

That peers upon their retinue; For limb awry and eye askew Have oft proclaimed a fairy's spitePeep slyly, gallants, lest ye rue,

The Pixies are abroad to-night.

'Tis said their forms are tiny, yet

All human ills they can subdue, Or with a wand or amulet

Can win a maiden's heart for you; And many a blessing know to strew To make the way to wedlock bright; Give honour to the dainty crew, The Pixies are abroad to-night.

Envoy.

Prince, e'en a prince might vainly sue,
Unaided by a fairy's might;

Remember Cinderella's shoe,

The Pixies are abroad to-night.

SAMUEL MINTURN PECK.

A BALLADE OF THE THUNER-SEE.

Soft on the lake's soft bosom we twain

Float in the haze of a dim delight,
While the wavelets cradle the sleepless brain,

And the eyes are glad of the lessening light,
And the east with a fading glory is bright-
The lingering smile of a sun that is set,-

And the earth in its tender sorrow is dight, And the shadow that falleth hath spared us yet.

Oh, the mellow beam of the suns that wane,

Oh the joys, ah me! that are taking flight,
Oh, the sting of a rapture too near to pain,
And of love that loveth in death's despite.
But the hour is ours, and its beauty's might
Subdues our souls to a still regret,

While the Blumlis-alp unveils to the night,
And the shadow that falleth hath spared us yet.

Now we set our prow to the land again,

And our backs to those splendours ghostly white, But a mirrored star with a watery train

We hold in our wake as a golden kite;
When we near the shore with its darkening height,

And its darker shade on the waters set,

Lo! the dim shade fleeth before our sight, And the shadow that falleth hath spared us yet.

Envoy.

From the jewelled circles where I indite

This song which my faithless tears make wet,
We trail the light till its gemmed rings smite

The shadow-that falleth! and spares us yet.
EMILY PFEIFFER.

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