BABETTE (sings). "One was the Friend I left One was the Wife that died Long, long ago; One was the Love I lost... M. VIEUXBOIS (murmuring). Ah, Paul!... old Paul! . . . Eulalie too! BABETTE (sings). "One had my Mother's eyes, Wistful and mild; One had my Father's face; One was a child: All of them bent to me— Bent down and smiled!" (He is asleep!) M. VIEUXBOIS (almost inaudibly). "How I forget!" "I am so old!"... "Good-night, Babette!" TO LORD DE TABLEY Still may the Muses foster thee, O Friend, Still climb'st the clear-cold attitudes of Song, Or ling'ring "by the shore of Old Romance," Heed'st not the vogue, how little or how long, Of marvels made in France. Still to the summits may thy face be set, And long may we, that heard thy morning rhyme, Hang on thy noon-day music, nor forget In the hushed even-time? "IN AFTER DAYS" In after days when grasses high I shall not see the morning sky; But yet, now living, fain were I DR. RICHARD GARNETT. THE BALLAD OF THE BOAT The stream was smooth as glass, we said: Arise, and let's away; The Siren sang beside the boat that in the rushes lay, And spread the sail, and strong the oar, we gaily took our way. When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? find the bay? When shall we The broadening flood swells slowly out o'er cattle-dotted plains ; The stream is strong and turbulent, and dark with heavy rains ; The labourer looks up to see our shallop speed away. When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? When shall we find the bay? Now are the clouds like fiery shrouds; the sun superbly large, Slow as an oak to woodman's stroke sinks flaming at their marge; The waves are bright with mirror'd light as jacinths on our way. When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? When shall we find the way? The moon is high up in the sky, and now no more we see The spreading river's either bank, and surging distantly There booms a sullen thunder as of breakers far away, Now shall the sandy bar be cross'd, now shall we find the bay. The sea-gull shrieks high overhead, and dimly to our sight The moonlit crests of foaming waves gleam towering through the night. We'll steal upon the mermaid soon, and start her from her lay, When once the sandy bar is cross'd, and we are in the bay. What rises white and awful, as a shroud-enfolded ghost? What roar of rampant tumult bursts in clangour on the coast? Pull back! pull back! The raging flood sweeps every oar away. O stream, is this thy bar of sand? O boat, is this the bay? WILLIAM ALEXANDER, D.D., Primate of all Ireland OXFORD AND HER CHANCELLOR Fair as that woman whom the prophet old Methought I met a lady yestereven; A passionless grief, that had nor tear nor wail, She spake: "On this pale brow are looks of youth, Nine hundred years and more. And Isis knows what time-grey towers reared up, He knows how night by night my lamps are lit, And discipline severe. It may be long ago my dizzied brain |