eyes,

THE MOUSE AND THE EPITAPH

In moonlight grey the hungry church-yard mouse

Sat on old William Blee--his narrow house.

Climbing the mound, an ancient slate he read,

Then spoke, with rustic frankness, to the dead.

"'A husband and a father dear': What then?

So much is true of mice as well as men.

'Friend to the poor'? That's humbug, Billy Blee!

When did you ever spare a crumb for me?"

ECHO AND NARCISSUS

Through the green dell she went,

Bright haired, with cheeks that burned;

Her passion hardly pent;

Her eyes upon him turned.

Her crocus-coloured gown

Over her white, young breast beat up and down.

Adream, he did not guess,

But dwelt upon his thought

Of perfect loveliness,

Nor heeded when she caught

A sigh his bosom breathed,

And murmured it again with music wreathed.

Oh, wasted wealth of love;

While Echo's heart will break,

Narcissus from above,

Within a glassy lake,

Beholds perfection lie

And, for the vision of himself, must die.

Now, hid in bare-ribbed rock

With crocus-coloured veins,

She guards from windy shock,

She shields from wild March rains,

Where grass and granite meet,

The daffodil that's budding at her feet.

THE SANDHILLS

Oh, naked-footed boy, with the wild hair

And laughing eyes, is it so long ago

Among these windy dunes you made your lair,

Beside the immutable sea's unwearied ebb and flow?

Above you sings the horrent bent; the sun

Finds you and burns your budding limbs to brown;

You race the waves and wade and leap and run,

Then in the sweet, hot sand, contented, cuddle down

You dream great dreams, while all the upper air

Is musical with mews; and round about,

Upon the flats among the sea-ways there,

The dim sea-lavender spreads her purple fingers out.

And still the sandhills roll and still the sea

Flings a straight line of everlasting blue

Athwart their shining hillocks; solemnly

The ships go by, but not the wondrous ships you knew.

When first your path among the sand dunes fell--

The dunes that stretched as now and shone of yore

In their bright nakedness--a magic spell

Of mystery they wove along the shining shore.

This poppy with the horn, this bindweed white

And salicornia in its crimson bands

Meant more, far more than beauty and delight:

They stood for treasure torn from drowning pirates' hands.

These amber weeds were then a garment brave;

These agate stones were gems of splendid size

Once decked a mermaid in a deep sea cave,

Lit by gigantic fish from their green, glimmering eyes.

The sandhills were your giants, cruel or kind;

Each falling billow told another tale;

Fairies and goblins flew upon the wind;

There lurked a tragedy in every sea-bird's wail.

And now the watchful sea doth bid me say;

The salt air whispers me to speak and tell

Where is that little boy from yesterday

Whom wind and wave and sand and sunshine knew so well?

"He was our playmate; us he understood

And ran to us with glory in his eyes;

We loved him and we wrought to work his good;

We made him strong and brave and with our wisdom wise.

"Will he not come again? The flowerets small

Have opened for his eager hands once more;

Among the yellow whins the linnets call,

The wrack and shells he sought still drift along the shore.

"He climbed the crests of all our ridges grey

And sang to us and paddled where our foam

Thins to a crystal film. But yesterday

A happy sprite was he; where now does our boy roam?

"Deep of the many voices, on whose face

No seal is set through all the centuries fled,

Laugh on at time, nor know the hurricane race

Of his few, hurtling years above a human