When I watched the out-bound sail fading over the water's edge, and losing itself in the blue mists of the sea, my heart went with it.

MAIDEN.

OUTRE-MER.

Ah, that is the ship from over the sea,
That is bringing my lover back to me,
Bringing my lover so fond and true,
Who does not change with the wind like

WEATHERCOCK.

If I change with all the winds that blow,
It is only because they made me so,

you.

And people would think it wondrous strange,
If I, a Weathercock, should not change.
O pretty Maiden, so fine and fair,

With your dreamy eyes and your golden hair,
When you and your lover meet to-day,

You will thank me for looking some other way!

MAIDEN AND WEATHERCOCK.

The leaves fell, russet-golden and blood-red,
Love-letters thought the poet fancy-led,
Or Jove descending in a shower of gold
Into the lap of Danae of old;

For poets cherish many a strange conceit,
And love transmutes all nature by its heat.

EMMA AND EGINHARD, Tales of a Wayside Inn.

John Evelyn, 1620; C. Anstey, 1724.

THREE FRIENDS OF MINE.

RIVER, that stealest with such silent pace

Around the City of the Dead, where lies

A friend who bore thy name, and whom these

eyes

Shall see no more in his accustomed place,

Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace

And say good night, for now the western skies
Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise
Like damps that gather on a dead man's face.
Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said

Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days

That are no more, and shall no more return. Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed; I stay a little longer, as one stays

To cover up the embers that still burn.