We bath'd his hurts, and bound them soft,

While west the wind played through the croft,

And the low sun dyed the pinks blood red, And, straying near the mint-flower shed, A wild bee wanton'd o'er the bed.

He told how my son, at the shepherd's door, kept guard in Monmouth's clothes, While Monmouth donned the shepherd's frock, in hope to cheat his foes. A couple of troopers spied him stand, And bade him yield to the King's command:

"Surrender, thou rebel as good as
dead,

A price is set on thy traitor head!"
My soldier son, with secret smile,
Held both at bay for a little while,
Dealt them such death-blow as he fell,
Neither was left the tale to tell ;
With dying eyes, that asked no grace,
They stared on him for a minute's
space,

And felt that it was not Monmouth's

face. Crimson'd through was Monmouth's cloak, when the soldier dropped at their side

"Those knaves will carry no word," he said, and he smil'd in his pain, and died.

"Two days," told the messenger, "did we lie

Hid in the field of peas and rye,
Hid in the ditch of brake and sedge,
With the enemy's scouts down every
hedge,

Till Grey was seized, and Monmouth seized,

that under the fern did crouch, Starved, and haggard, and all unshaved, with a few raw peas in his pouch."

SPRING'S IMMORTALITY

AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON SHAKESPEARE, thy legacy of peerless song Reveals mankind in every age and place, In every joy, in every grief and wrong: 'Tis England's legacy to all our race. Little we know of all thine inner life, Little of all thy swift, thy wondrous years Years filled with toil, rich years whose days were rife

With strains that bring us mirth, that bring us tears.

Little we know, and yet this much we know,

Sense was thy guiding star sense guided thee

To live in this thy Stratford long ago,
To live content in calm simplicity;
Greatest of those who wrought with soul
aflame

At honest daily work- then found it fame.

OUR CASUARINA TREE

LIKE a huge Python, winding round and round

The rugged trunk, indented deep with

scars,

Up to its very summit near the stars, A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound

No other tree could live. But gallantly The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung

Life is the shade that clouds her thought, As Death's the eclipse of man's.

Time seems but as a bitter thing
Remembered from of yore :

Yet ah (she thinks) her song she 'll sing
When Time's long reign is o'er.

Erstwhiles she bends alow to hear
What the swift water sings,
The torrent running darkly clear
With secrets of all things.

And then she smiles a strange sad smile
And lets her harp lie long ;

The death-waves oft may rise the while,
She greets them with no song.

Few ever cross that dreary moor,
Few see that flower-crowned head;
But whoso knows that wild song's lure
Knoweth that he is dead.

FROM "SOSPIRI DI ROMA"

SUSURRO

BREATH o' the grass,
Ripple of wandering wind,
Murmur of tremulous leaves :
A moonbeam moving white
Like a ghost across the plain :
A shadow on the road:
And high up, high,

From the cypress-bough,
A long sweet melancholy note.
Silence.

And the topmost spray
Of the cypress-bough is still
As a wavelet in a pool:
The road lies duskily bare:
The plain is a misty gloom:
Still are the tremulous leaves;
Scarce a last ripple of wind,
Scarce a breath i' the grass.
Hush the tired wind sleeps:
Is it the wind's breath, or
Breath o' the grass?