LESLIE'S SONG.

H her cheek, her cheek was pale,

Her voice was hardly musical;

But your proud grey eyes grew tender,

Child, when mine they met,

With a piteous self-surrender,

Margaret.

Child, what have I done to thee?

Child, what hast thou done to me?

How you froze me with your tone

That last day we met!

Your sad eyes then were cold as stone,
Margaret.

Oh, it all now seems to me

A far-off weary mystery!

Yet-and yet her last sad frown

Awes me still, and yet

In vain I laugh your memory down,

Margaret.

W. H. MALLOCK.

[From The New Republic, book i. chap. iv. :-" Curiosity and criticism were both lost in surprise at the first sound of his rich and flexible voice, and still more so at the real passion which he breathed into the following words, rude and artless as they were."]

[From The Shaving of Shagpat (The Story of Bhanavar):-"Almeryl stretched his arm to the lattice, and drew it open, letting in the soft night wind, and the sound of the fountain and the bulbul and the beam of the stars, and versed to her in languor of deep love."]

[From The Shaving of Shagpat (The Story of Bhanavar) :-" Almeryl hung over Bhanavar, and his heart ached to see the freshness of her wondrous loveliness; and he sang, looking on her."

And the dew shakes green as the horsemen rear,
And a thousand feathers they flutter with fear,
And a pang drives quick to the heart of the deer,
For the Kaiser's out a hunting,

Tra-ra !

Ta, ta, ta, ta,

Tra-ra, tra-ra,

Ta, ta, tra-ra, tra-ra,

The wild boar lay a-grunting,

A-grunting, tra-ra !

And boom! comes the Kaiser to hunt up me?
Or, queak! the small birdie that hops on the tree?
Tra-ra !

O birdie, and boar, and deer, lie tame!

For a maid in a bloom, or a full-blown dame,
Are the daintiest prey, and the windingest game,
When the Kaisers go a-hunting,

Tra-ra !

Ha, ha, ha, ha,

Tra-ra, tra-ra,

Ha-ha, tra-ra, tra-ra!

GEORGE MEREDITE

[From Farina: a Legend of Cologne:-"Voices singing a hunting glee, popular in that age, swelled up the clear morning air; and gradually the words became distinct. . . the voices held long on the last note, and let it die in a forest cadence."]

KING ALFRED'S SONGS.-I.

STRIKE my harp with fetter'd hand,
I sing to alien ear,

And yet my song is sweet to me,
And yet my harp is dear.

My foot is set on native soil,
A soil that is not free;

My kin are slain, my love is lost,
My harp remains to me.

The ruin'd home that shelter'd me,
The burnt and wasted plain,

A smiling cot, a fertile vale,
I find in song again.

And where I go, or friend or foe

A welcome free affords

The voice that sings to every heart,

The hand that rules the chords.

JAMES PAYN.

[From A Grape from a Thorn, chap. xliv., where it occurs in the course of a poem on King Alfred's visit to the Danish camp. The king is supposed to sing this and the following song in his disguise as a minstrel.]