on the hill;
Yet soft along Alulvan's walks
The ghost at noonday stalks.

His eyes in shadow of his hat
Stare on the ruins of his house;
His cloak, up-fastened with a brooch,
Of faded velvet grey as mouse,
Brushes the roses as he goes:
Yet wavers not one rose.

The wild birds in a cloud fly up
From their sweet feeding in the fruit;
The droning of the bees and flies
Rises gradual as a lute;
Is it for fear the birds are flown,
And shrills the insect-drone?

Thick is the ivy over Alulvan,
And crisp with summer-heat its turf;
Far, far across its empty pastures
Alulvan's sands are white with surf:
And he himself is grey as the sea,
Watching beneath an elder-tree.

All night the fretful, shrill Banshee
Lurks in the ivy's dark festoons,
Calling for ever, o'er garden and river,
Through magpie changing of the moons:
"Alulvan, O, alas! Alulvan,
The doom of lone Alulvan!"

THE PEDLAR

There came a pedlar to an evening house;
Sweet Lettice, from her lattice looking down,
Wondered what man he was, so curious
His black hair dangled on his tattered gown:
Then lifts he up his face, with glittering eyes,--
"What will you buy, sweetheart?--Here's honeycomb,
And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies,
Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom,
To keep in water for to make night sweet:
All that you want, sweetheart,--come, taste and eat!"

Even with his sugared words, returned to her
The clear remembrance of a gentle voice:
"And O! my child, should ever a flatterer
Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys,
And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be,
Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song,
Confuse his magic who is all mockery:
His sweets are death." Yet, still how she doth long
But just to taste, then shut the lattice tight,
And hide her eyes from the delicious sight!

"What must I pay?" she whispered. "Pay!" says he,
"Pedlar I am who through this wood to roam,
One lock of her hair is gold enough for me,
For apple, peach, comfit, or honeycomb!"
But from her bough a drowsy squirrel cried,
"Trust him not, Lettice, trust, oh trust him not!"
And many another woodland tongue beside
Rose softly in the silence--"Trust him not!"
Then cried the Pedlar in a bitter voice,
"What, in the thicket, is this idle noise?"

A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings,
As through the glade, dark in the dim, she flew;
Yet still the Pedlar his old burden sings,--
"What, p