Do you hear? do you know Why the gendarmes put you there, in the

row,

You, with those Commune wretches tall, With your face to the wall?"

"Know? To be sure I know! why not? We're here to be shot;

And there, by the pillar's the very spot, Fighting for France, my father fell:

Ah, well!

That's just the way I would choose to fall, With my back to the wall!"

("Sacré ! Fair, open fight, I say, Is something right gallant in its way, And fine for warming the blood; but who Wants wolfish work like this to do? Bah! 't is a butcher's business!) How? (The boy is beckoning to me now:

I knew that his poor child's heart would fail,

Yet his cheek 's not pale:)

Quick! say your say, for don't you see, When the church-clock yonder tolls out

Three,

"Parbleu! Come out of the line, I say, Come out! (who said that his name was Ney?)

Ha! France will hear of him yet one day!"

A GRAVE IN HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY, RICHMOND

(J. R. T.)

I READ the marble-lettered name,
And half in bitterness I said:
"As Dante from Ravenna came,

Our poet came from exile - dead."
And yet, had it been asked of him
Where he would rather lay his head,
This spot he would have chosen. Dim

The city's hum drifts o'er his grave, And green above the hollies wave Their jagged leaves, as when a boy, On blissful summer afternoons,

He came to sing the birds his runes, And tell the river of his joy.

Who dreams that in his wanderings wide, By stern misfortunes tossed and

driven,

His soul's electric strands were riven From home and country? Let betide What might, what would, his boast, his pride,

Was in his stricken mother-land,

That could but bless and bid him go, Because no crust was in her hand

To stay her children's need. We know The mystic cable sank too deep

For surface storm or stress to strain, Or from his answering heart to keep The spark from flashing back again !

Think of the thousand mellow rhymes,

The pure idyllic passion-flowers, Wherewith, in far gone, happier times, He garlanded this South of ours. Provençal-like, he wandered long,

And sang at many a stranger's board, Yet 't was Virginia's name that poured The tenderest pathos through his song. We owe the Poet praise and tears,

Whose ringing ballad sends the brave, Bold Stuart riding down the years What have we given him? grave!

Just a

MASSA'S IN DE COLD GROUND

ROUND de meadows am a-ringing

De darkeys' mournful song,
While de mocking-bird am singing,
Happy as de day am long.
Where de ivy am a-creeping,
O'er de grassy mound,
Dere old massa am a-sleeping,
Sleeping in de cold, cold ground.

Down in de corn-field

Hear dat mournful sound:
All de darkeys am a-weeping,
Massa's in de cold, cold ground.

When de autumn leaves were falling,
When de days were cold,

'T was hard to hear old massa calling, Cayse he was so weak and old.

Now de orange tree am blooming On de sandy shore,

Now de summer days am coming, Massa nebber calls no more.

Massa make de darkeys love him,
Cayse he was so kind;
Now dey sadly weep above him,
Mourning cayse he leave dem behind.
I cannot work before to-morrow,
Cayse de tear-drop flow;
I try to drive away my sorrow,
Pickin' on de old banjo.

Down in de corn-field

Hear dat mournful sound: All de darkeys am a-weeping, Massa's in de cold, cold ground.

SEGOVIA AND MADRID

Ir sings to me in sunshine,
It whispers all day long,
My heartache like an echo
Repeats the wistful song:
Only a quaint old love-lilt,
Wherein my life is hid,
"My body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid !"

I dream, and wake, and wonder,
For dream and day are one,
Alight with vanished faces,
And days forever done.
They smile and shine around me
As long ago they did;
For my body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid!

Through inland hills and forests
I hear the ocean breeze,
The creak of straining cordage,
The rush of mighty seas,
The lift of angry billows
Through which a swift keel slid;
For my body is in Segovia,
But
my soul is in Madrid.

She fashions it and knows it good,
By instinct's strong and sacred laws.

No tenuous threads to weave her nest,
She seeks and gathers there or here;
But spins it from her faithful breast,
Renewing still, till leaves are sere.

Then, worn with toil, and tired of life,
In vain her shining traps are set.
Her frost hath hushed the insect strife
And gilded flies her charm forget.

But swinging in the snares she spun,
She sways to every wintry wind:
Her joy, her toil, her errand done,
Her corse the sport of storms unkind.

Poor sister of the spinster clan!
I too from out my store within
My daily life and living plan,
My home, my rest, my pleasure spin.

I know thy heart when heartless hands
Sweep all that hard-earned web away:
Destroy its pearled and glittering bands,
And leave thee homeless by the way.

I know thy peace when all is done.
Each anchored thread, each tiny knot,
Soft shining in the autumn sun;
A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot.

I know what thou hast never known, —
Sad presage to a soul allowed,
That not for life I spin, alone,
But day by day I spin my shroud.

BLUEBEARD'S CLOSET

FASTEN the chamber!
Hide the red key;
Cover the portal,
That eyes may not see.
Get thee to market,
To wedding and prayer;
Labor or revel,
The chamber is there!

In comes a stranger
"Thy pictures how fine,
Titian or Guido,
Whose is the sign?"

Looks he behind them? Ah! have a care! "Here is a finer."

The chamber is there!

Fair spreads the banquet,
Rich the array;
See the bright torches
Mimicking day;
When harp and viol
Thrill the soft air,
Comes a light whisper:
The chamber is there!

Marble and painting,
Jasper and gold,
Purple from Tyrus,
Fold upon fold,
Blossoms and jewels,
Thy palace prepare:
Pale grows the monarch;
The chamber is there!

Once it was open
As shore to the sea;
White were the turrets,
Goodly to see;

All through the casements
Flowed the sweet air;
Now it is darkness;
The chamber is there!

Silence and horror
Brood on the walls;
Through every crevice
A little voice calls:
"Quicken, mad footsteps,
On pavement and stair;
Look not behind thee,
The chamber is there!"

Out of the gateway,
Through the wide world,
Into the tempest
Beaten and hurled,
Vain is thy wandering,
Sure thy despair,
Flying or staying,
The chamber is there!

LISE

If I were a cloud in heaven, I would hang over thee;

If I were a star of even,
I'd rise and set for thee;
For love, life, light, were given
Thy ministers to be.

If I were a wind's low laughter,
I'd kiss thy hair;
Or a sunbeam coming after,

Lie on thy forehead fair;

For the world and its wide hereafter
Have nought with thee to compare.

If I were a fountain leaping,
Thy name should be

The burden of my sweet weeping;
If I were a bee,

My honeyed treasures keeping,
"T were all for thee!

There's never a tided ocean

Without a shore;

Nor a leaf whose downward motion

No dews deplore;

And I dream that my devotion

May move thee to sigh once more.

DONE FOR

A WEEK ago to-day, when red-haired Sally Down to the sugar-camp came to see me, I saw her checked frock coming down the valley,

Far as anybody's eyes could see. Now I sit before the camp-fire,

And I can't see the pine-knots blaze, Nor Sally's pretty face a-shining, Though I hear the good words she says.

A week ago to-night I was tired and lonely,
Sally was gone back to Mason's fort,
And the boys by the sugar-kettles left me
only;

They were hunting coons for sport.
By there snaked a painted Pawnee,
I was asleep before the fire;

He creased my two eyes with his hatchet,
And scalped me to his heart's desire.

There they found me on the dry tussocks lying,

Bloody and cold as a live man could be; A hoot-owl on the branches overhead was