The dear lumpish baby,
Humming with the May-bee,

Hails us with his bright eye, stumbling through the grass;
The honey-dropping moon,
On a night in June,

Kisses our pale pathway leaves, that felt the bridegroom

pass.

Age, the withered clinger,
On us mutely gazes,

And wraps the thought of his last bed in his childhood's daisies.

See and scorn all duller

Taste, how Heaven loves color;

How great Nature, clearly, joys in red and green;
What sweet thoughts she thinks
Of violets and pinks,

And a thousand flushing hues made solely to be seen;
See her whitest lilies

Chill the silver showers,

And what a red mouth is the rose, the woman of her flowers.

Uselessness divinest
Of a use the finest,

Painteth us, the teachers of the end of use;

Travellers, weary-eyed,
Bless us, far and wide;

Unto sick and prisoned thoughts, we give a sudden truce; Not a poor town window

Loves its sickliest planting,

But its wall speaks loftier truth than Babylonian vaunting.

Sagest yet the uses

Mixed with our sweet juices,

Whether man or May-fly profit by the balm;

As fair fingers healed

Knights from the olden field,

We hold cups of the mightiest force to give the wildest,

calm.

Even the terror, poison,

Hath its plea for blooming;

Life it gives to reverent lips, though death to the presum

ing.

And, oh! our sweet soul-taker,

The thief, the honey-maker,

What a house hath he by the thymy glen!
In his talking rooms

How the feasting fumes

'Till the gold cups overflow to the mouths of men! The butterflies come aping

Those fine thieves of ours,

And flutter round our rifled tops like tickled flowers with flowers.

See those tops, how beauteous!
What fair service duteous

Round some idol waits, as on their lord, the Nine.
Elfin court 'twould seem,

And taught, perchance, that dream

Which the old Greek mountain dreamed upon nights divine. To expound such wonder

Human speech avails not,

Yet there dies no poorest weed, that such a glory exhales

not.

Think of all these treasures,
Matchless works and pleasures,

Every one a marvel, more than thought can say;
Then think in what bright showers
We thicken fields and bowers,

And with what heaps of sweetness half stifle wanton May;
Think of the mossy forests

By the bee-birds haunted,

And all those Amazonian plains, lone-lying as enchanted.

Trees themselves are ours;
Fruits are born of flowers;

Peach, and roughest nut were blossoms in the Spring;
The lusty bee knows well

The news, and comes pell-mell

And dances in the gloomy thicks with darksome anthem

ing;

Beneath the very burden
Of planet pressing ocean,

We wash our smiling cheeks in peace, a thought for meek devotion,

Tears of Phoebus, missings
Of Cytherea's kissings,

Have in us been found, and wise men find them still;
Drooping grace unfurls
Still Hyacinthus' curls,

And Narcissus loves himself in the selfish rill;
Thy red lip, Adonis,

Still is wet with morning;

And the step that bled for thee, the rosy brier adorning.

Oh! true things are fables,
Fit for sagest tables,

And the flowers are true things--yet no fables they;

Fables were not more
Bright, nor loved of

yore

Yet they grew not, like the flowers, by every old pathway; Grossest hand can test us-

Fools can prize us never

Yet we rise, and rise, and rise-marvels sweet forever.

Who shall say that flowers

Dress not Heavens own bowers?

Who its love, without us, can fancy,—or sweet floor?
Who shall even dare

To say we sprang not there

And came not down that love might bring one piece of Heaven the more?

Oh pray believe that angels
From those blue dominions

Brought us in their white laps down, 'twixt their golden

*76*

THE MILLER OF DEE.

There dwelt a miller, hale and bold,

Beside the river Dee;

He worked and sang from morn till night,
No lark more blithe than he;
And this the burden of his song

Forever used to be,

"I envy nobody-no, not I,

And nobody envies me."

"Thou'rt wrong, my friend," said good king Hal;

"As wrong as wrong can be;

For could my heart be light as thine,

I'd gladly change with thee:

And tell me now, what makes thee sing,

With voice so loud and free,

While I am sad, though I'm the king,
Beside the river Dee."

The miller smiled and doffed his cap, "I earn my bread," quoth he;

"I love my wife, I love my friend, I love my children three;

I owe no penny I can not pay;

I thank the river Dee,

That turns the mill that grinds the corn

That feeds my babes and me."

"Good friend," said Hal, and sighed the while,

"Farewell, and happy be:

But say no more, if thou'dst be true,

That no one envies thee:

Thy mealy cap is worth my crown;

Thy mill, my kingdom's fee;

Such men as thou are England's boast,

O Miller of the Dee."

Chas. Mackay

113

* 77 *

ROBERT OF LINCOLN.

Merrily swinging on briar and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink,

Snug and safe is this nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers.
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln is gaily dressed,
Wearing a bright black wedding-coat;
White are his shoulders, and white his crest,
Hear him call in his merry note:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,

Look, what a nice new coat is mine;
Sure there was never a bird so fine.
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,

Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,

Broods in the grass while her husband sings:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink,

Brood, kind creature; you need not fear
Thieves and robbers while I am here.

Chee, chee, chee.

Modest and shy as a nun is she;
One weak chirp is her only note;
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he,
Pouring boasts from his little throat:
Bob-o-link, bob-o'-link,