Ballads in Blue China | Page 6

chanting priestly clan Walk'd Ramses, and the high sun kiss'd This stone, with blessing scored and ban - This monument in London mist.
The stone endures though gods be numb; Though human effort, plot, and plan Be sifted, drifted, like the sum Of sands in wastes Arabian. What king may deem him more than man, What priest says Faith can Time resist While THIS endures to mark their span - This monument in London mist?
ENVOY.
Prince, the stone's shade on your divan Falls; it is longer than ye wist: It preaches, as Time's gnomon can, This monument in London mist!

BALLADE OF ROULETTE. TO R. R.

This life--one was thinking to-day, In the midst of a medley of fancies - Is a game, and the board where we play Green earth with her poppies and pansies. Let manque be faded romances, Be passe remorse and regret; Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances - The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette.
The lover will stake as he may His heart on his Peggies and Nancies; The girl has her beauty to lay; The saint has his prayers and his trances; The poet bets endless expanses In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt: How they gaze at the wheel as it glances - The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette!
The Kaiser will stake his array Of sabres, of Krupps, and of lances; An Englishman punts with his pay, And glory the jeton of France is; Your artists, or Whistlers or Vances, Have voices or colours to bet; Will you moan that its motion askance is - The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette?
ENVOY.
The prize that the pleasure enhances? The prize is--at last to forget The changes, the chops, and the chances - The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette.

BALLADE OF SLEEP.

The hours are passing slow, I hear their weary tread Clang from the tower, and go Back to their kinsfolk dead. Sleep! death's twin brother dread! Why dost thou scorn me so? The wind's voice overhead Long wakeful here I know, And music from the steep Where waters fall and flow. Wilt thou not hear sue, Sleep?
All sounds that might bestow Rest on the fever'd bed, All slumb'rous sounds and low Are mingled here and wed, And bring no drowsihed. Shy dreams flit to and fro With shadowy hair dispread; With wistful eyes that glow, And silent robes that sweep. Thou wilt not hear me; no? Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
What cause hast thou to show Of sacrifice unsped? Of all thy slaves below I most have laboured With service sung and said; Have cull'd such buds as blow, Soft poppies white and red, Where thy still gardens grow, And Lethe's waters weep. Why, then, art thou my foe? Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
ENVOY.
Prince, ere the dark be shred By golden shafts, ere now And long the shadows creep: Lord of the wand of lead, Soft-footed as the snow, Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep!

BALLADE OF THE MIDNIGHT FOREST. AFTER THEODORE DE BANVILLE.

Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old, Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree; The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold, And wolves still dread Diana roaming free In secret woodland with her company. 'Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite When now the wolds are bathed in silver light, And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey, Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright, And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee, Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be, The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy; Then 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright, The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white, With one long sigh for summers pass'd away; The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
She gleans her silvan trophies; down the wold She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee Mixed with the music of the hunting roll'd, But her delight is all in archery, And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she More than her hounds that follow on the flight; The goddess draws a golden bow of might And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay. She tosses loose her locks upon the night, And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
ENVOY.
Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite, The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight: Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray There is the mystic home of our delight, And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.

BALLADE OF THE TWEED. (LOWLAND SCOTCH.) TO T. W. LANG.

The ferox rins in rough Loch Awe, A weary cry frae ony toun; The Spey, that loups