class="line">And drifted to a lonelier spot;

THE GRIEF

A grief came unto me at noon of night

Blown on a breath of silky, southern air

With scent of myrtles and a crown of light

For aureole: vanished loveliness was there

And old, lost, magical things, all gracious and all rare.

Wings of cloud-purple from the Inland Sea,

Foam-tipped, my Grief outspread; the southern sun

Burned for a diadem, and mystery,

From the dim smoke of olive orchards won,

Arrayed that delicate shape in silver they had spun.

How little, little 'twixt our joy and woe!

Not sorrow then, but glad epiphanies

Of treasured happiness from long ago,

Had been my dreaming; but in bitter wise

The Grief looked on my face with a dead woman's eyes.

ON THE EBB

The tide fell fast and foaming, the empty sand shone bright,

And by the ocean roaming, upon the edge of night,

I found a something stranded with sea-fowl mewing high--

A wondrous atom landed and left all high and dry.

Whoever yet suspected mer-babies on a beach?

Yet here, by tide neglected, lay one within my reach--

A dainty, winsome creature as pink as any rose,

His golden tail a feature to take the place of toes.

And through the billows splashing, the sunset in her hair,

Over the white foam flashing, there rode a lady fair.

His blue-eyed, wild mer-mother swam wailing on the sea.

She sparkled through the smother and clamoured mournfully.

In gentle hands and steady, I lifted her delight,

Made sure that she was ready, then flung with all my might.

She sprang, like salmon leaping; she laughed in radiant

And gathered to safe keeping her rosy, golden boy.

I'd earned a mother's blessing--a good thing any day;

But now one fell to guessing what Science had to say:

For such authentic wonders, upon an ebbing tide,

Show zoologic blunders that cannot be denied.

SCANDAL

An owl alighted in the yew

Beside a poet's little house;

The hour was nearly half-past two,

And, as he ate his juicy mouse,

A cuckoo clock made cheerful chime

Within and shouted out the time.

"O gracious God!" the owl began,

And rolled his round eyes at the moon,

"What a black piece of work is man--

Well might we miss cuckoo in June.

How mad, misguided, inhumane

To keep cuckoo upon a chain!

"But all the feathered folk must know;

This infamy I'll bring to light,

And hoot the horror high and low

And scream the crime by day and night.

No bird shall sing to him again

Who keeps a cuckoo on a chain."