proud,
He walked on stilts
To be seen by the crowd.

Up above the chimney pots,
Tall as a mast,
And all the people ran about
Shouting till he passed.

"A splendid match surely,"
Neighbours saw it plain,
"Although she is so careless,
Although he is so vain."

But the lady played bobcherry,
Did not see or care,
As the vain man went by her
Aloft in the air.

This gentle-born couple
Lived and died apart.
Water will not mix with oil,
Nor vain with careless heart.

NINE O'CLOCK.

I.

Nine of the clock, oh!
Wake my lazy head!
Your shoes of red morocco,
Your silk bed-gown:
Rouse, rouse, speck-eyed Mary
In your high bed!
A yawn, a smile, sleepy-starey,
Mary climbs down.
"Good-morning to my brothers,
Good-day to the Sun,
Halloo, halloo to the lily-white sheep
That up the mountain run."

II.

Good-night to the meadow, farewell to the nine o'clock Sun,
"He loves me not, loves me, he loves me not" (O jealous one!)
"He loves me, he loves me not, loves me"--O soft nights of June,
A bird sang for love on the cherry-bough: up swam the Moon.

THE PICTURE BOOK.

When I was not quite five years old
I first saw the blue picture book,
And Fraulein Spitzenburger told
Stories that sent me hot and cold;
I loathed it, yet I had to look:
It was a German book.

I smiled at first, for she'd begun
With a back-garden broad and green,
And rabbits nibbling there: page one
Turned; and the gardener fired his gun
From the low hedge: he lay unseen
Behind: oh, it was mean!

They're hurt, they can't escape, and so
He stuffs them head-down in a sack,
Not quite dead, wriggling in a row,
And Fraulein laughed, "Ho, ho! Ho, ho!"
And gave my middle a hard smack,
I wish that I'd hit back.

Then when I cried she laughed again;
On the next page was a dead boy
Murdered by robbers in a lane;
His clothes were red with a big stain
Of blood, he held a broken toy,
The poor, poor little boy!

I had to look: there was a town
Burning where every one got caught,
Then a fish pulled a nigger down
Into the lake and made him drown,
And a