THE UGLY PRINCESS.

I.

My parents bow and lead them forth
For all the crowd to see-

Ah well! the people might not care
To cheer a dwarf like me.

II.

They little know how I could love,
How I could plan and toil,
To swell those drudges' scanty gains,

Their mites of rye and oil.

III.

They little know what dreams have been
My playmates, night and day;
Of equal kindness, helpful care,
A mother's perfect sway.

IV.

Now earth to earth in convent walls,

To earth in churchyard sod: I was not good enough for man, And so am given to God.

A THOUGHT FROM THE RHINE.

I HEARD an Eagle crying all alone

Above the vineyards through the summer night,
Among the skeletons of robber towers,—
The iron homes of iron-hearted lords,
Now crumbling back to ruin year by year,-
Because the ancient eyrie of his race

Is trenched and walled by busy-handed men,
And all his forest-chace and woodland wild,
Wherefrom he fed his young with hare and roe,
Are trim with grapes, which swell from hour to hour
And toss their golden tendrils to the sun
For joy at their own riches :-So, I thought,
The great devourers of the earth shall sit,
Idle and impotent, they know not why,
Down-staring from their barren height of state
On nations grown too wise to slay and slave,
The puppets of the few, while peaceful love
And fellow-help make glad the heart of earth,
With wonders which they fear and hate, as he
The Eagle hates the vineyard slopes below.

SONNET.

THE baby sings not on its mother's breast-
Nor nightingales who nestle side by side-
Nor I by thine but let us only part,

Then lips which should but kiss and so be still,
As having uttered all, must speak again.-

Oh stunted thoughts! Oh chill and fettered rhyme!
Yet my great bliss, though still entirely blest,
Losing its proper home can find no rest:
So-like a child who whiles away the time

With dance and carol till the eventide,

Watching its mother homeward through the glen; Or nightingale, who sitting far apart,

Tells to his listening mate within the nest

The wonder of his star-entranced heart

Till all the wakened woodlands laugh and thrill— Forth all my being bubbles into song,

And rings aloft, not smooth, yet clear and strong.

17

BALLADS.