PHANTASTES' SONG.

LADY, thy lover is dead," they cried;
"He is dead, but hath slain the foe;
He hath left a name to be magnified
In a song of wonder and woe."

"Alas! I am well repaid," said she,
"With a pain that stings like joy;
For I feared, from his tenderness to me,
That he was but a feeble boy.

"Now I shall hold my head on high,
The queen among my kind.

If ye hear a sound, 'tis only a sigh
For a glory left behind."

GEORGE MACDONALD.

[From Phantasies, chap. xx. :-"I tried to repay them with song, and many were the tears they shed over my ballads and dirges."]

DIAMOND'S SONG.

HERE did you come from, baby dear?
Out of everywhere into here.

Where did you get your eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.

What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry spikes left in.

Where did you get that little tear?

I found it waiting when I got here.

What makes your forehead so smooth and high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.

What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I saw something better than any one knows.

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss ?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.

Where did you get this pearly ear?

God spoke, and it came out to hear.

Where did you get those arms and hands?

Love made itself into hooks and bands.

Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?

From the same box as the cherubs' wings.

How did they all just come to be you?

God thought about me, and so I grew.

But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you, and so I am here.

GEORGE MACDONALD.

[From At the Back of the North Wind, chap. xviii. :-"You never made that song, Diamond,' said his mother. 'No mother, I wish I had. But it's mine for all that.' 'What makes it yours?' 'I love it so.""]

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."]