Pike County Ballads | Page 9

good-bye
She gave me a kiss to sting and stain
My broken life to a
rosy dye.
Second Voice.
I loved a woman with love well tried, -
And I swear I believe she
loves me still.
But it was not I who stood by her side
When she
answered the priest and said "I will."
Third Voice.
I loved two girls, one fond, one shy,
And I never divined which one
loved me.
One married, and now, though I can't tell why,
Of the

four in the story I count but three.
The three weird voices whispered low
Where the eagles swept in
their circling ward;
But only one shadow scarred the snow
As I
clambered down from Pitz Languard.
BOUDOIR PROPHECIES.
One day in the Tuileries,
When a south-west Spanish breeze

Brought scandalous news of the Queen,
The fair, proud Empress said,

"My good friend loses her head;
If matters go on this way,
I shall
see her shopping, some day,
In the Boulevard des Capucines."
The saying swiftly went
To the Place of the Orient,
And the stout
Queen sneered, "Ah, well!
You are proud and prude, ma belle!
But
I think I will hazard a guess
I shall see you one day playing chess

With the Cure of Carabanchel."
Both ladies, though not over wise,
Were lucky in prophecies.
For
the Boulevard shopmen well
Know the form of stout Isabel
As she
buys her modes de Paris;
And after Sedan in despair
The Empress
prude and fair
Went to visit Madame sa Mere
In her villa at
Carabanchel -
But the Queen was not there to see.
A TRIUMPH OF ORDER.
A squad of regular infantry,
In the Commune's closing days,
Had
captured a crowd of rebels
By the wall of Pere-la-Chaise.
There were desperate men, wild women,
And dark-eyed Amazon
girls,
And one little boy, with a peach-down cheek
And yellow
clustering curls.
The captain seized the little waif,
And said, "What dost thou here?"

"Sapristi, Citizen captain!
I'm a Communist, my dear!"

"Very well! Then you die with the others!"
--"Very well! That's my
affair;
But first let me take to my mother,
Who lives by the
wine-shop there,
"My father's watch. You see it;
A gay old thing, is it not?
It would
please the old lady to have it;
Then I'll come back here, and be shot."
"That is the last we shall see of him,"
The grizzled captain grinned,

As the little man skimmed down the hill
Like a swallow down the
wind.
For the joy of killing had lost its zest
In the glut of those awful days,

And Death writhed, gorged like a greedy snake,
From the Arch to
Pere-la-Chaise.
But before the last platoon had fired
The child's shrill voice was
heard;
"Houp-la! the old girl made such a row
I feared I should
break my word."
Against the bullet-pitted wall
He took his place with the rest,
A
button was lost from his ragged blouse,
Which showed his soft white
breast.
"Now blaze away, my children!
With your little one-two-three!"

The Chassepots tore the stout young heart,
And saved Society.
ERNST OF EDELSHEIM.
I'll tell the story, kissing
This white hand for my pains:
No sweeter
heart, nor falser,
E'er filled such fine, blue veins.
I'll sing a song of true love,
My Lilith, dear! to you;
Contraria
contrariis -
The rule is old and true.
The happiest of all lovers
Was Ernst of Edelsheim;
And why he
was the happiest,
I'll tell you in my rhyme.

One summer night he wandered
Within a lonely glade,
And,
couched in moss and moonlight,
He found a sleeping maid.
The stars of midnight sifted
Above her sands of gold;
She seemed a
slumbering statue,
So fair and white and cold.
Fair and white and cold she lay
Beneath the starry skies;
Rosy was
her waking
Beneath the Ritter's eyes.
He won her drowsy fancy,
He bore her to his towers,
And swift
with love and laughter
Flew morning's purpled hours.
But when the thickening sunbeams
Had drunk the gleaming dew,
A
misty cloud of sorrow
Swept o'er her eyes' deep blue.
She hung upon the Ritter's neck,
She wept with love and pain,
She
showered her sweet, warm kisses
Like fragrant summer rain.
"I am no Christian soul," she sobbed,
As in his arms she lay;
"I'm
half the day a woman,
A serpent half the day.
"And when from yonder bell-tower
Rings out the noonday chime,

Farewell! farewell for ever,
Sir Ernst of Edelsheim!"
"Ah! not farewell for ever!"
The Ritter wildly cried;
"I will be
saved or lost with thee,
My lovely Wili-Bride!"
Loud from the lordly bell-tower
Rang out the noon of day,
And
from the bower of roses
A serpent slid away.
But when the mid-watch moonlight
Was shimmering through the
grove,
He clasped his bride thrice dowered
With beauty and with
love.
The happiest of all lovers
Was Ernst of Edelsheim -
His true love

was a serpent
Only half the time!
MY CASTLE IN SPAIN.
There was never a castle seen
So fair as mine in Spain:
It stands
embowered in green,
Crowning the gentle slope
Of a hill by the
Xenil's shore
And at eve its shade flaunts o'er
The storied Vega
plain,
And its towers are hid in the mists of Hope;
And I toil
through years of pain
Its glimmering gates to gain.
In visions wild and sweet
Sometimes its courts I greet:
Sometimes
in joy its shining halls
I tread with favoured feet;
But