And I turned and looked; she was sitting there,
In a dim box over the stage; and drest

In that muslin dress, with that full soft hair,
And that Jasmine in her breast!

I was here, and she was there;

And the glittering horse-shoe curved between;
From my bride betrothed, with her raven hair
And her sumptuous scornful mien,

To my early love with her eyes downcast,
And over her primrose face the shade,

(In short from the future back to the past)
There was but a step to be made.

To my early love from my future bride

One moment I looked, then I stole to the door,
I traversed the passage; and down at her side
I was sitting a moment more.

My thinking of her or the music's strain,
Or something which never will be expressed,
Had brought her back from the grave again,
With the Jasmine in her breast.

She is not dead, and she is not wed!

But she loves me now and she loved me then! And the very first words that her sweet lips said, My heart grew youthful again.

The Marchioness there, of Carabas,

She is wealthy and young and handsome still,

And but for her well, we'll let that pass;

She may marry whomever she will.

But I will marry my own first love,

With her primrose face, for old things are best;

And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above
The brooch in my lady's breast.

The world is filled with folly and sin,

And love must cling where it can, I say,

For beauty is easy enough to win,

And I think in the lives of most women and men,

There's a moment when all would go smooth and even,

If only the dead could find out when

To come back and be forgiven.

But O! the smell of that Jasmine flower!

And O that music! and O the way

That voice rang out from the donjon tower,

He'll come back to claim his bride,
Pretty Bobby Shafto!"

So she sang, the winter long,
Till the sun came, golden-strong,
And the blue birds caught her song:
All of Bobby Shafto.

Days went by, and autumn came,
Eyes grew dim, and feet went lame,
But the song, it was the same,
All of Bobby Shafto.

Never came across the sea,
Silver buckles on his knee,
Bobby to his bride-to-be,
Fickle Bobby Shafto!

For where midnight never dies,
In the Storm-King's caves of ice,
Stiff and stark, poor Bobby lies -
Heigho! Bobby Shafto.

CARCASSONNE

GUSTAV NADAUD, translated by M. E. W. SHERWOOD

"How old I am! I'm eighty years!

I've worked both hard and long;

Yet patient as my life has been,
One dearest sight I have not seen,
It almost seems a wrong.

A dream I had when life was new;
Alas, our dreams! they come not true;
I thought to see fair Carcassonne, —
That lovely city, Carcassonne !

"One sees it dimly from the height
Beyond the mountains blue,

Fain would I walk five weary leagues, -
I do not mind the road's fatigues,

Through morn and evening's dew;

But bitter frost would fall at night;
And on the grapes, - that yellow blight!
I could not go to Carcassonne,

I never went to Carcassonne.

"They say it is as gay all times

As holidays at home!

The Gentiles ride in gay attire,
And in the sun each gilded spire

Shoots up like those of Rome!

The bishop the procession leads,
The generals curb their prancing steeds.
Alas! I know not Carcassonne

Alas! I saw not Carcassonne !

"Our Vicar's right! he preaches loud,
And bids us to beware;

He says, 'O guard the weakest part,
And most that traitor in the heart

Against ambition's snare.'

Perhaps in autumn I can find

Two sunny days with gentle wind;
I then could go to Carcassonne,

I still could go to Carcassonne.

"My God, my Father! pardon me
If this my wish offends;

One sees some hope more high than his,

In age, as in his infancy,

To which his heart ascends!

My wife, my son have seen Narbonne,
My grandson went to Perpignan,

But I have not seen Carcassonne,

But I have not seen Carcassonne."

Thus sighed a peasant bent with age,
Half-dreaming in his chair;

I said, "My friend, come go with me.
To-morrow, then thine eyes shall see

Those streets that seem so fair."
That night there came for passing soul
The church-bell's low and solemn toll.
He never saw gay Carcassonne. .
Who has not known a Carcassonne?

THE CHILD-WIFE

CHARLES DICKENS

All this time I had gone on loving Dora harder than ever. If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, I was saturated through and through. I took night walks to Norwood where she lived, and perambulated round and round the house and garden for hours together, looking through crevices in the palings, using violent exertions to get my chin above the rusty nails on the top, blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling on the night to shield my Dora, - I don't exactly know from what, I suppose from fire, perhaps from mice, to which she had a great objection.

Dora had a discreet friend, comparatively stricken in years, almost of the ripe age of twenty, I should say, whose name was Miss Mills. Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom friend of Dora. Happy Miss Mills!

One day Miss Mills said: "Dora is coming to stay with me,