V.

A FAIRY TALE.

There stands by the wood-path shaded A meek little beggar maid; Close under her mantle faded She is hidden like one afraid.

Yet if you but lifted lightly That mantle of russet brown, She would spring up slender and sightly, In a smoke-blue silken gown.

For she is a princess, fated Disguised in the wood to dwell, And all her life long has awaited The touch that should break the spell;

And the Oak, that has cast around her His root like a wrinkled arm, Is the wild old wizard that bound her. Fast with his cruel charm.

Is the princess worth your knowing? Then haste, for the spring is brief, And find the Hepatica growing, Hid under a last year’s leaf!

LEPAGE’S JOAN OF ARC.

Once, it may be, the soft gray skies were dear, The clouds above in crowds, like sheep below, The bending of each kindly wrinkled tree; Or blossoms at the birth-time of the year, Or lambs unweaned, or water in still flow, In whose brown glass a girl her face might see.

Such days are gone, and strange things come instead; For she has looked on other faces white, Pale bloom of fear, before war’s whirlwind blown; Has stooped, ah Heaven! in some low sheltering shed To tend dark wounds, the leaping arrow’s bite, While the cold death that hovered seemed her own.

And in her hurt heart, o’er some grizzled head, The mother that shall never be has yearned; And love’s fine voice, she else shall never hear, Came to her as the call of saints long dead; And straightway all the passion in her burned, One altar-flame that hourly waxes clear.

Hence goes she ever in a glimmering dream, And very oft will sudden stand at gaze, With blue, dim eyes that still not seem to see: For now the well-known ways with visions teem; Unfelt is toil, and summer one green daze, Till that the king be crowned, and France be free!

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.