1877. Is it Cupid? Who knows! Yet you used not to sigh, "A ON A NANKIN PLATE. (VILLANELLE.) H me, but it might have been! Was there ever so dismal a fate?" Quoth the little blue mandarin. "Such a maid as was never seen! She passed, tho' I cried to her 'Wait,'— Ah me, but it might have been ! "I cried, "O my Flower, my Queen, Be mine!' 'Twas precipitate,"Quoth the little blue mandarin,— "But then.. she was just sixteen,- "As it was, from her palankeen, She laughed 'You're a week too late!'" (Quoth the little blue mandarin.) Q “That is why, in a mist of spleen, I mourn on this Nankin Plate. Ah me, but it might have been !"— Quoth the little blue mandarin. 1881. FOR A COPY OF THEOCRITUS. O (VILLANELLE.) SINGER of the field and fold, THEOCRITUS! Pan's pipe was thine,— Thine was the happier Age of Gold. For thee the scent of new-turned mould, Thou sang'st the simple feasts of old,— Thou bad'st the rustic loves be told,- And round thee, ever-laughing, rolled |