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GRANDMOTHER.

Another new gown, as I declare!
How many more is it going to be?
And your forehead all hid in a cloud of hair-
'Tis nothing but folly, that I can see !
The maidens of nowaday make too free;
To right and to left is the money flung;

We used to dress as became our degree-
But things have altered since I was young.

Stuff, in my time, was made to wear;

Gowns we had never but two or three; Did we fancy them spoilt, if they chanced to tear? And shrink from a patch, or a darn? not we! For pleasure, a gossiping dish of tea,

Or a mushroom hunt, while the dew yet hung, And no need, next day, for the doctor's feeBut things have altered since I was young.

The yellow gig, and a drive to the fair;

A keepsake bought in a booth on the lea; A sixpence, perhaps, to break and shareThat's how your grandfather courted me.

Did your grandmother blush, do you thinknot she!

When he found her, the churn and the pails among? Or your grandfather like her the less? not he! But things have altered since I was young.

Envoi.

Child! you pout, and you urge your plea— Better it were that you held your tongue!

Maids should learn at their elders' kneeBut things have altered since I was young.

MAY PROBYN.

A BALLADE OF PHILOMELA.

From gab of jay and chatter of crake

The dusk wood covered me utterly.
And here the tongue of the thrush was awake.
Flame-floods out of the low bright sky
Lighted the gloom with gold-brown dye,
Before dark; and a manifold chorussing

Arose of thrushes remote and nigh,—
For the tongue of the singer needs must sing.
Midmost a close green covert of brake
A brown bird listening silently

Sat; and I thought "She grieves for the sake
Of Itylus, for the stains that lie

In her heritage of sad memory.`

But the thrushes were hushed at evening.

Then I waited to hear the brown bird try," For the tongue of the singer needs must sing.

And I said "The thought of the thrushes will shake With rapture remembered her heart; and her

shy

Tongue of the dear times dead will take

To make her a living song, when sigh
The soft night winds disburthened by.
Hark now!" for the upraised quivering wing,
The throat exultant, I could descry,--
For the tongue of the singer needs must sing.

L' Envoi.

But the bird dropped dead with only a cry:

I found its tongue was withered, poor thing!

Then I no whit wondered, for well knew I

That the heart of the singer will break or sing.
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS.

A BALLADE OF CALYPSO.

The loud black flight of the storm diverges
Over a spot in the loud mouthed main,
Where, crowned with summer and sun, emerges
An isle unbeaten of wind or rain.

And here, of its sweet queen grown full fain,
By whose kisses the whole broad earth seems poor,
Tarries the wave-worn prince, Troy's bane,
In the green Ogygian Isle secure.

To her voice our sweetest songs are dirges.

She gives him all things, counting it gain. Ringed with the rocks and ancient surges,

How could Fate dissever these twain?
But him no loves nor delights retain ;
New knowledge, new lands, new loves allure;
Forgotten the perils, and toils, and pain,
In the green Ogygian Isle secure.

So he spurns her kisses and gifts, and urges
His weak skiff over the wind-vext plain,
Till the grey of the sky in the grey sea merges,
And nights reel round, and waver and wane.
He sits once more in his own domain.

No more the remote sea-walls immure.—

But ah, for the love he shall clasp not again In the green Ogygian Isle secure.

L'Envoi.

Princes, and ye whose delights remain,

To the one good gift of the gods hold sure,

Lest ye, too, mourn, in vain, in vain,

Your green Ogygian Isle secure.

CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS

A BALLAD OF FORGOTTEN TUNES.

To V. L.

Forgotten seers of lost repute

That haunt the banks of Acheron,
Where have you dropped the broken lute
You played in Troy or Calydon?
O ye that sang in Babylon

By foreign willows cold and grey,

Fall'n are the harps ye hanged thereon,

Dead are the tunes of yesterday!

De Coucy, is your music mute,

The quaint old plain-chant woe-begone That served so many a lover's suit?

Oh, dead as Adam or Guédron ! Then, sweet De Caurroy, try upon Your virginals a virelay;

Or play Orlando, one pavonneDead are the tunes of yesterday!

But ye whose praises none refute,

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Who have the immortal laurel won;
Trill me your quavering close acute,
Astorga, dear unhappy Don!
One air, Galuppi! Sarti cne
So many fingers used to play !—
Dead as the ladies of Villon,
Dead are the tunes of yesterday!

Envoy.

Vernon, in vain you stoop to con

The slender, faded notes to-day

The Soul that dwelt in them is gone:

Dead are the tunes of yesterday!

A. MARY F. ROBINSON.

BALLADE OF A GARDEN.

With plash of the light oars swiftly plying,
The sharp prow furrows the watery way;
The ripples' reach as the bank is dying,

And soft shades slender, and long lights play
In the still dead heat of the drowsy day,
As on I sweep with the stream that flows
By sleeping lilies that lie astray

In the Garden of Grace whose name none knows.

There ever a whispering wind goes sighing,
Filled with the scent of the new-mown hay,
Over the flower hedge peering and prying,

Wooing the rose as with words that pray;
And the waves from the broad bright river bay
Slide through clear channels to dream and doze,
Or rise in a fountain's silver spray

In the Garden of Grace whose name none knows.

The sweet white rose with the red rose dying,

Blooms where the summer follows the May,
Till the streams be hid by the lost leaves lying,
That autumn shakes where the lilies lay.
But now all bowers and beds are gay
And no rain ruffles the flower that blows,

And still on the water soft dreams stay
In the Garden of Grace whose name none knows.

Envoi.

Before the blue of the sky grows grey

And the frayed leaves fall from the faded rose,
Love's lips shall sing what the day-dreams say

In the Garden of Grace whose name none knows.
ARTHUR REED ROPES.

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