And the gathered power of my soul was moving
So swiftly it seemed to be at rest
Under cities of cloud and under

Spheres of silver and changing worlds:
Until I saw a flash of trumpets

Above the battlements over Time!

Edgar Lee Masters.

25

RICHARD CORY*

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich,-yes, richer than a king,—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

8

12

*From "The Children of the Night"; copyright, 1896, 1897, by Edwin Arlington Robinson; published by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the publishers.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head. ró
Edwin Arlington Robinson.

THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY

WHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;

I read in my book of songs

I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,

He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,

And the merry love the fiddle,

And the merry love to dance:

16

And when the folk there spy me,

They will all come up to me,

With "Here is the fiddler of Dooney!"

And dance like a wave of the sea.

.20

W. B. Yeats.

AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS*

O TO have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!

The heaped up sods upon the fire,

The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!

A dresser filled with shining delft,

Speckled and white and blue and brown! 8

I could be busy all the day

Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,

And fixing on their shelf again

My white and blue and speckled store!

12

I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave

The ticking clock and the shining delft!

16

Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,

And roads where there's never a house nor bush,

*Used by permission of the author and his publishers, The Macmillan Company.

And tired I am of bog and road,

And the crying wind and the lonesome hush! 20

And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house-a house of my own-
Out of the wind's and the rain's way.

Padraic Colum.

24

SHE HEARS THE STORM

THERE was a time in former years—
While my roof-tree was his-
When I should have been distressed by fears
At such a night as this.

I should have murmured anxiously,
“The pricking rain strikes cold;
His road is bare of hedge or tree,
And he is getting old."

But now the fitful chimney-roar,
The drone of Thorncombe trees,
The Froom in flood upon the moor,

The mud of Mellstock Leaze,

The candle slanting sooty wick'd,

The thuds upon the thatch,

The eaves-drops on the window flicked,

The clacking garden-hatch,

8

12

16

And what they mean to wayfarers,

I scarcely heed or mind;

He has won that storm-tight roof of hers
Which Earth grants all her kind.

Thomas Hardy.

20

"GRANDMITHER, THINK NOT I FORGET"

GRANDMITHER, think not I forget, when I come back to town,.

An' wander the old ways again, an' tread them up and down.

I never smell the clover bloom, nor see the swallows

pass,

Wi'out I mind how good ye were unto a little lass; I never hear the winter rain a-pelting all night

through

Wi'out I think and mind me of how cold it falls on

you.

An' if I come not often to your bed beneath the thyme,

Mayhap 't is that I'd change wi' ye, and gie my bed for thine,

Would like to sleep in thine.

I never hear the summer winds among the roses blow

ΙΟ

Wi'out I wonder why it was ye loved the lassie so. Ye gave me cakes and lollipops and pretty toys a

score