like an Eastern King,
O Autumn, splendid widowed Queen,
O Winter, alabaster tomb
Where lie the regal twain serene,
Gone to their yearly doom.

But all you bought with that spent year,--
Ah, friends! it was as nothing, was it?
Nothing at all to hold compare
With what you buy with this New Year.
A home! ah me, you could not buy
Another half so precious toy,
With all the other years to come
As that grown-up doll's house--a home.

O wine upon its threshold stone,
And horse-shoes on the lintel of it,
And happy hearts to keep it warm,
And God Himself to love it!
Dear little nest built snug on bough
Within the World-Tree's mighty arms,
I would I knew a spell that charms
Eternal safety from the storm;

To give you always stars above,
And always roses on the bough--
But then the Tree's own root is Love,
Love, love, all love, I vow.

_New Year_ 1893.

SNATCH

From tavern to tavern
Youth passes along,
With an armful of girl
And a heart full of song.

From flower to flower
The butterfly sips,
O passionate limbs
And importunate lips!

From candle to candle
The moth loves to fly,
O sweet, sweet to burn!
And still sweeter to die!

MY MAIDEN VOTE

(TO JOHN FRASER)

There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay,
My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day.
It seemed a sort of maidenhood,
My little power for public good,--
Oh keep it uncorrupted, pray!
And, when it must be given away,
See it be given with a sense
Of most uncanvassed innocence.
Alas!--but few there be that know't--
How grave a thing it is to vote!
For most men's votes are given, I hear,
Either for rhetoric or--beer.

A young man's vote--O fair estate!
Of the great tree electorate
A living leaf, of this great sea
A motive wave of empire I,
On this stupendous wheel--a fly.
O maiden vote, how pure must be
The party that is worthy thee!
And thereupon my mind began
That perfect government to plan,
The high millennium of man.

Then in my dream I saw arise
An England, ah! so fair and wise,
An England generously great,
No selfish island, but a state
Upon the world's bright forehead worn,
A mighty star of mighty morn.

And statesmen in that dream became
No tricksters of the petty aim,
Mere speculators in the rise
Of programmes and of party cries,
Expert in all those turns and tricks
That make this senate-house of ours,
Westminster, with its lordly towers,
The stock-exchange of politics.
But that ideal Parliament
Did al