!

THE MUSIC-HALL

THE curtain on the grouping dancers falls, The heaven of color has vanished from our eyes;

Stirred in our seats we wait with vague

surmise

What haply comes that pleases or that palls.

Touched on the stand the thrice-struck baton calls,

Once more I watch the unfolding curtain rise,

I hear the exultant violins premise

The well-known tune that thrills me and enthralls.

Then trembling in my joy I see you flash Before the footlights to the cymbals' clash, With laughing lips, swift feet, and brilliant glance,

You, fair as heaven and as a rainbow bright,

You, queen of song and empress of the dance,

Flower of mine eyes, my love, my heart's delight!

EXPECTATION

COME while the afternoon of May Is sweet with many a lilac-spray,

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Come while the sparrows chirping fare From branch to branch across the square.

Come like the dawn and bring to me
The fresh winds of an open sea,
Come like the stars of night and bear
All consolation in thine hair.

Bring me release from ancient pain, Bring me the hopes of joy found vain, Bring me thy sweetness of the dove, Come, sweet, and bring thyself and love!

A VAIN DESIRE

DEAR, did you know how sweet to me Was every glance of yours, how sweet The laugh that lights your face with glee, The passing murmur of your feet,

And seeing perchance with grief how vain

The love that makes you sadly dear Did grant for my unuttered pain

A whispered word, a smile, a tear

Dropped like a star from Paradise,
Then might I bless my weary state,
Though you behold me from the skies
And I on earth am desolate.

The wail of the Night came fitful-faint,

I heard her stifled sobbing:

The cold salt drops fell slowly, slowly, gray into gulfs of gray.

There through the darkness the great

world reeled, and the great tides roared, assembling-Murmuring hidden things that are past,

and secret things that shall be ; There at the limits of life we met, and touched with a rapturous trembling

One with each other, I and the Night, and the skies, and the stars, and

sea.

THE FAIRY THRALL

ON gossamer nights when the moon is low,
And stars in the mist are hiding,
Over the hill where the foxgloves grow
You may see the fairies riding.
Kling! Klang! Kling!

Their stirrups and their bridles ring,

And their horns are loud and their bugles blow,

When the moon is low.

They sweep through the night like a whistling wind,

They pass and have left no traces; But one of them lingers far behind The flight of the fairy faces.

She makes no moan,

She sorrows in the dark alone,
She wails for the love of human kind,
Like a whistling wind.

"Ah! why did I roam where the elfins ride,

Their glimmering steps to follow ? They bore me far from my loved one's side,

To wander o'er hill and hollow.
Kling! Klang! Kling!

Their stirrups and their bridles ring, But my heart is cold in the cold nighttide,

Where the elfins ride."

THE SEVEN WHISTLERS WHISTLING strangely, whistling sadly, whistling sweet and clear, The Seven Whistlers have passed thy house, Pentruan of Porthmeor;

It was not in the morning, nor the noonday's golden grace,

It was in the dead waste midnight, when the tide yelped loud in the Race ; The tide swings round in the Race, and they're plaining whisht and low, And they come from the gray sea-marshes,

where the gray sea-lavenders grow; And the cotton grass sways to and fro ; And the gore-sprent sundews thrive With oozy hands alive. Canst hear the curlews' whistle through thy dreamings dark and drear, How they're crying, crying, crying, Pentruan of Porthmeor?

Shall thy hatchment, mouldering grimly in yon church amid the sands,

When in the bay all shining the fishers set the seine;

The fishers cast the seine, and 't is "Heva!"

in the town,

And from the watch-rock on the hill the huers are shouting down;

And ye hoist the mainsail brown,
As over the deep-sea roll

The lurker follows the shoal;

To follow and to follow, in the moonshine

silver-clear,

When the halyards creak to thy dipping

sail, Pentruan of Porthmeor!

And wailing, and complaining, and whistling whisht and clear,

The Seven Whistlers have passed thy house, Pentruan of Porthmeor!

It was not in the morning, nor the noonday's golden grace,

It was in the fearsome midnight, when the tide-dogs yelped in the Race: The tide swings round in the Race, and they're whistling whisht and low, And they come from the lonely heather, where the fur-edged foxgloves blow ; And the moor-grass sways to and fro ; Where the yellow moor-birds sigh, And the sea-cooled wind sweeps by. Canst hear the curlews' whistle through the darkness wild and drear, How they're calling, calling, calling, Pentruan of Porthmeor?