With the mere dregs and rinsings of the world?

Well, if my nature find her pleasure so,
I am content, nor need to blush; I take
My little gift of being clean from God,
Not haggling for a better, holding it
Good as was ever any in the world,
My days as good and full of miracle.
I pluck my nutriment from any bush,
Finding out poison as the first men did
By tasting and then suffering, if I must.
Sometimes my bush burns, and some-
times it is

A leafless wilding shivering by the wall;
But I have known when winterbarberries
Pricked the effeminate palate with sur-
prise

Of savor whose mere harshness seemed divine.

Then the brow of the King swelled crimson

With a flush of angry scorn: "Well have ye spoken, my two eldest, And chosen as ye were born;

"But she like a thing of peasant race, That is happy binding the sheaves" Then he saw her dead mother in her face,

And said, "Thou shalt have thy leaves."

II.

He mounted and rode three days and nights

Till he came to Vanity Fair, And 't was easy to buy the gems and the silk,

But no Singing Leaves were there.

Then deep in the greenwood rode he,
And asked of every tree,
"O, if you have ever a Singing Leaf,
I pray you give it me!"

But the trees all kept their counsel,

And never a word said they, Only there sighed from the pine-tops A music of seas far away.

Only the pattering aspen

Made a sound of growing rain, That fell ever faster and faster,

Then faltered to silence again.

"O, where shall I find a little foot-page That would win both hose and shoon, And will bring to me the Singing Leaves If they grow under the moon?"

Then lightly turned him Walter the page,

By the stirrup as he ran : "Now pledge ye me the truesome word Of a king and gentleman,

"That you will give me the first, first thing

You meet at your castle-gate, And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves,

Or mine be a traitor's fate."

The King's head dropt upon his breast
A moment, as it might be ;
"T will be my dog, he thought, and said,
"My faith I plight to thee."

Then Walter took from next his heart
A packet small and thin,
"Now give you this to the Princess
Anne,

The Singing Leaves are therein."

III.

As the King rode in at his castle-gate,
A maiden to meet him ran,
And "Welcome, father!" she laughed
and cried

Together, the Princess Anne.

"Lo, here the Singing Leaves," quoth he,

"And woe, but they cost me dear!" She took the packet, and the smile Deepened down beneath the tear.

It deepened down till it reached her heart,

And then gushed up again,
And lighted her tears as the sudden sun
Transfigures the summer rain.

And the first Leaf, when it was opened,
Sang: "I am Walter the page,
And the songs I sing 'neath thy window
Are my only heritage."

And the second Leaf sang: "But in the land

That is neither on earth or sea, My lute and I are lords of more

Than thrice this kingdom's fee."

And the third Leaf sång, "Be mine! Be mine!"

And ever it sang, "Be mine!" Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter,

And said, "I am thine, thine, thine!"

At the first Leaf she grew pale enough,
At the second she turned aside,
At the third, 't was as if a lily flushed
With a rose's red heart's tide.

"Good counsel gave the bird," said she, "I have my hope thrice o'er,