Sir John.

The little leaves on every tree, the rivers winding to the sea,

The swinging tides, the wheeling winds, the rolling heavens above,

Around the May-pole Igdrasil, they worked the Morrice-master's will,

Persuaded into measure by the all-creative Love.

That hour I saw, from depth to height, this wildering universe unite!

The lambs of God around us and His passion in every flower!

The Fool.

His grandeur in the dust, His dust a blaze of blinding majesty,

And all His immortality in one poor mortal hour.

And Death was but a change of key in Life the golden melody,

And Time became Eternity, and Heaven a fleeting smile;
For all was each and each was all, and all a wedded unity,
Her heart in mine, and mine in my companion of a mile.

Thwack! Thwack! He whirled his bauble round about,
"This fellow beats them all," he cried, "the worst
Those others wrote was that I hopped from York
To Paris with a mortar on my head.

This fellow sends me leaping through the clouds
To buss the moon! The best is yet to come;

Strike up, Sir John! Ha! ha! You know no more?"
Kemp leapt upon a table. "Clear the way,"
He cried, and with a great stamp of his foot
And a wild crackling laugh, drew all to hark.

"With hey and ho, through thick and thin,
The hobby-horse is forgotten.

But I must finish what I begin,

Tho' all the roads be rotten,

"By all those twenty thousand chariots, Ben, Hear this true tale they shall! Now, let me see,

Where was Will Kemp? Bussing the moon's pale mouth?
Ah, yes!" He crouched above the listening throng,-
"Good as a play," I heard one whispering quean,-
And, waving his bauble, shuffling with his feet
In a dance that marked the time, he sank his voice
As if to breathe great secrets, and so sang:-

III.

At Melford town, at Melford town, at little grey-roofed Melford town,

A long mile from Sudbury, upon the village green,

We danced into a merry rout of country-folk that skipt about
A hobby - horse, a May - pole, and a laughing white - pot

queen.

They thronged about us as we stayed, and there I gave my sunshine maid

An English crown for cakes and ale-her dancing was so true!

And "Nay," she said, "I danced my mile for love!" I answered

with a smile,

""Tis but a silver token, lass, thou'st won that wager, too."

I took my leash of morrice-bells, my treble, bass and tenor bells,

They pealed like distant marriage - bells! And up came

William Bee

With Georgie Sprat, my overseer, and Thomas Slye, my tabourer,

"Farewell," she laughed, and vanished with a Suffolk

courtesie.

I leapt away to Rockland, and from Rockland on to Hingham, From Hingham on to Norwich, sirs! I hardly heard

a-while

The throngs that followed after, with their shouting and their laughter,

For a shadow danced beside me, my companion of a mile!

At Norwich, by St Giles his gate, I entered, and the Mayor in state,

With all the rosy knights and squires for twenty miles

about,

With trumpets and with minstrelsy, was waiting there to welcome me;

And, as I skipt into the street, the City raised a shout.

They gave me what I did not seek! I fed on roasted swans a week!

They pledged me in their malmsey, and they lined me warm

with ale!

They sleeked my skin with red-deer pies, and all that runs and

swims and flies;

But, through the clashing wine-cups, O, I heard her olanking pail.

And, rising from his crimson chair, the worshipful and portly

Mayor

Bequeathed me forty shillings every year that I should live, With five good angels in my hand that I might drink while I could stand!

They gave me golden angels! What I lacked they could not give.

They made Will Kemp, thenceforward, sirs, Freeman of Marchaunt Venturers!

They hoped that I would dance again from Norwich up to York;

Then they asked me, all together, had I met with right May weather,

And they praised my heels of feather, and my heart, my heart of cork.

As I came home by Sudbury, by little red-roofed Sudbury, I waited for my bare-foot maid, among her satin kine! I heard a peal of wedding-bells, of treble, bass and tenor bells: "Ring well," I cried, "this bridal morn! You soon shall ring for mine!"

I found her foot-prints in the grass, just where she stood and saw me pass,

I stood within her own sweet field and waited for my May. I laughed. The dance has turned about! I stand within: she'll pass without,

And-down the road the wedding came, the road I danced that day!

I saw the wedding-folk go by, with laughter and with minstrelsy, I gazed across her own sweet hedge, I caught her happy smile, I saw the tall young butcher pass to little red-roofed Sudbury, His bride upon his arm, my lost companion of a mile.

Down from his table leapt the motley Fool.

His bladder bounced from head to ducking head,
His crackling laugh rang high,-"Sir John, I danced
In February, and the song says May!

A fig for all your poets, liars all!

Away to Fenchurch Street, lasses and lads,
They hold high revel there this May-day morn.
Away!" The mad-cap throng echoed the cry.
He drove them with his bauble through the door;
Then, as the last gay kerchief fluttered out,
He gave one little sharp sad lingering cry
As of a lute-string breaking. He turned back

And threw himself along a low dark bench;
His jingling cap was crumpled in his fist,
And, as he lay there, all along Cheapside
The happy voices of his comrades rang:-

Out of the woods we'll dance and sing
Under the morning-star of Spring,
Into the town with our fresh boughs
And knock at every sleeping house,
Not sighing,

Or crying,

Though Love knows no denying!

Then, round your summer queen and king,
Come, young lovers, dance and sing,
Dance and sing!

His motley shoulders heaved. I touched his arm,
"What ails you, sir?" He raised his thin white face,
Wet with the May-dew still. A few stray petals
Clung in his tangled hair. He leapt to his feet,
""Twas February, but I danced, boy, danced
In May! Can you do this?" Forward he bent
Over his feet, and shuffled it, heel and toe,
Out of the Mermaid, singing his old song-
A-maying,
A-playing,

For Love knows no gain-saying!
Wisdom trips not? Even so,-
Come, young lovers, trip and go,
Trip and go.

Five minutes later, over the roaring Strand,
Chorus, I heard him crow, and half the town
Reeled into music under his crimson comb.

MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD.

MR ASQUITH'S DECLINE AND FALL-AN INSTRUMENT OF REVOLUTION-TAMMANY JUDGES- ·AN OLD YELLOW BOOK-'THE RING AND THE BOOK -PROSE AND POETRY.