ENVOY.

In the work-a-day world, for its needs and woes. There is place and enough for the pains of prose; But whenever the May-bells clash and chime Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!

A BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH.

OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.

King Philip had vaunted his claims;

He had sworn for a year he would sack us,
With an army of heathenish names

He was coming to fagot and stack us;
Like the thieves of the sea he would track us,
And shatter our ships on the main :
But we had bold Neptune to back us,-
And where are the galleons of Spain?

His carackes were christened of dames

To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;
With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,
He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us;
Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,

And Drake to his Devon again,

And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,—
For where are the galleons of Spain?

Let his Majesty hang to St. James

The axe that he whetted to hack us;
He must play at some lustier games

Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us;
To his mines at Peru he would pack us
To tug at his bullet and chain;
Alas! that his Greatness should lack us!

But where are the galleons of Spain?

ENVOY.

Gloriana! the Don may attack us

Whenever his stomach be fain;

He must reach us before he can rack us, And where are the galleons of Spain?

THE PARADOX OF TIME.

(A VARIATION ON RONSARD.)

"Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, madame! Las le temps non: mais nous nous en allons !"

Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas! Time stays, we go;

Or else, were this not so,
What need to chain the hours,
For youth were always ours?
Time goes, you say?—ah no!

Ours is the eye's deceit

Of men whose flying feet

Lead through some landscape low;

We pass, and think we see

The earth's fixed surface flee :

Alas, Time stays,—we go!

Once in the days of old

Your locks were curling gold,

And mine had shamed the crow.

Now in the self-same stage,

We've reached the silver age;

Time goes, you say?— ah no!

Many Shapes Broze

THE TWO MYSTERIES.

We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still;
The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill;
The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call;
The strange, white solitude of peace that settles over all.

We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heart-pain;
This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it again;
We know not to what other sphere the loved who leave us go,
Nor why we're left to wonder still, nor why we do not know.

But this we know: Our loved and dead, if they should come this day—

Should come and ask us, "What is life?" not one of us could

say.

Life is a mystery as deep as ever death can be;

Yet oh, how dear it is to us, this life we live and see!

Then might they say-these vanished ones—and blessed is the thought;

"So death is sweet to us, beloved! though we may show you

naught;

We may not to the quick reveal the mystery of death—
Ye cannot tell us, if ye would, the mystery of breath."

The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent,
So these who enter death must go as little children sent.
Nothing is known. But I believe that God is overhead;
And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.

INVERTED.

Youth has its griefs, its disappointments keen,
Its baffled longings and its memories;
Its anguish in a joy that once hath been;
Its languid settling in a sinful ease.

And age has pleasures, rosy, fresh and warm,
And glad beguilements and expectancies;
Its heart of boldness for a threatened storm;
Its eager launching upon sunny seas.

Youth has its losses, sad and desolate;

Its wreck of precious freight where all was sent;

Its blight of trust, its helpless heart of fate,
Its dreary knowledge of illusion spent.

For life is but a day; and, dawn or eve,

The shadows must be long when suns are low.

Old age may be surprised and loth to leave,
And youth may weary wait and long to go.

THE GRASS-WORLD.

Oh, life is rife in the heart of the year,
When midsummer suns sail high;
And under the shadow of spike and spear,
In the depth of the daisy-sky,