Then, when they caught my watching face, And, like some sombre thing beguiled ACT THE SECOND. Yes they were gone, the stage was bare,— Half vexed, I knew not wherefore, The boy, it seemed, to add a force To words found unavailing, Had pushed a striped and spotted horse Chattered some half-articulate Excited explanation. Meanwhile, the girl, with upturned face, Stood motionless, and listened; Had lifted it, as rain at night The eyes had lost their listless way,- She only, yearning upward, found Ah, tyrant Time! you hold the book, Pleased for a meagre minute; Thus ended Act the Second. ACT THE THIRD. Or so it proved. For while I still And lo, once more appeared the head, The girl came back without a thought; If more restraint had not been taught For these your code was all too stiff, Manners were not invented. Then on the scene,—by happy fate, And bore him sourly off, despite His well-directed kicking. The girl stood silent, with a look Then, with a sudden gesture took And, passing in, I saw her press It made the dull room brighter, The Gladiator almost gay, And e'en "The Lancet " lighter. AN AUTUMN IDYLL. "Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song." LAWRENCE. SPENSER. FRANK. JACK. LAWRENCE. HERE, where the beech-nuts drop among the grasses, Push the boat in, and throw the rope ashore. Jack, hand me out the claret and the glasses; FRANK. Jack's undecided. Say, formose puer, Bent in a dream above the "water wan,' Shall we row higher, for the reeds are fewer, ЈАСК. Hist! That's a pike. Look-nose against the river Enter a gudgeon. Snap,-a gulp, a shiver ;— |