The hedge broke in, the banner blew,
The butler drank, the steward scrawled,
The fire shot up, the martin flew,

The parrot screamed, the peacock squalled, The maid and page renewed their strife,

The palace banged, and buzzed and clackt, And all the long-pent stream of life

Dashed downward in a cataract.

And last of all the king awoke,

And in his chair himself upreared,

And yawned, and rubbed his face, and spoke,
By holy rood, a royal beard!

How say you? we have slept, my lords.
My beard has grown into my lap."
The barons swore, with many words,
'Twas but an after-dinner's nap.

"Pardy," returned the king, "but still
My joints are something stiff or so.
My lord, and shall we pass the bill
I mentioned half an hour ago?"

The chancellor, sedate and vain,

In courteous words returned reply: But dallied with his golden chain,

And, smiling, put the question by.

THE DEPARTURE.

And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went

In that new world which is the old :
Across the hills, and far away

Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day

The happy princess followed him.

“I'd sleep another hundred years,

O love, for such another kiss ; "O wake forever, love," she hears,

"O love, 't was such as this and this."

And o'er them many a sliding star,

And many a merry wind was borne, And, streamed through many a golden bar, The twilight melted into morn.

"O eyes long laid in happy sleep!
"O happy sleep, that lightly fled!

"O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!

"O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!"

And o'er them many a flowing range
Of vapor buoyed the crescent-bark,
And, rapt through many a rosy change,
The twilight died into the dark.

"A hundred summers! can it be?

And whither goest thou, tell me where !

"O seek my father's court with me,
For there are greater wonders there."

And o'er the hills, and far away

Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Through all the world she followed him.

MORAL.

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair.

O, to what uses shall we put

The wildweed-flower that simply blows?

And is there any moral shut

Within the bosom of the rose ?

But any man that walks the mead,
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humors lead,

A meaning suited to his mind.
And liberal applications lie

In Art like Nature, dearest friend; So 't were to cramp its use, if I

Should hook it to some useful end.

L'ENVOI.

You shake your head. A random string Your finer female sense offends.

Well

were it not a pleasant thing

To fall asleep with all one's friends;

To pass with all our social ties

To silence from the paths of men ;

And every hundred years to rise

And learn the world, and sleep again; To sleep through terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars,

As wild as aught of fairy lore;

And all that else the years will show,
The Poet-forms of stronger hours,

The vast Republics that may grow,
The Federations and the Powers;
Titanic forces taking birth

In divers seasons, divers climes
For we are Ancients of the earth,

;

And in the morning of the times.

So sleeping, so aroused from sleep
Through sunny decades new and strange,

Or gay quinquenniads, would we reap
The flower and quintessence of change.

Ah, yet would I — and would I might !
So much your eyes my fancy take-
Be still the first to leap to light,

That I might kiss those eyes awake!
For, am I right or am I wrong,

To choose your own you did not care;
You'd have my moral from the song,
And I will take my pleasure there:

VOL. II.

And, am I right or am I wrong,

My fancy, ranging through and through, To search a meaning for the song,

Perforce will still revert to you;

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