Now doors as bidden Do open fly, And in they throng-- The prisoners all With a merry song. Here’s Old King Cole To lead the ball! How merrily His fiddlers three Strike up the air That pleases his soul-- A mighty sound As of wind in chimneys When trees are bare.... Round and round In smoke-wreaths whirl Prince, Shepherd-girl, King, goose-girl, queen, All who have been For joy of children, And company, Since tales began: All that a man Can believe and be Never again; Save when in fire (Apple-logs green Crossed cunningly) He sees it plain, As I have seen, This thronged night-fire: Such light that shines Through Poetry and Small tumbling strain Of song, or from a window-pane As daylight fails, As evening pales In a sweet land Shadowed with pines, Peopled with children-haunted pines Murmuring fairy-tales. THE LIFE THAT’S UNDER THE GROUND It’s funny to think of the life that’s under the ground. The mole that snouted up that loose red mound Of earth; the worm that turned those worm-casts; now, _They_ are enough to pucker any man’s brow. Once (I was only a boy) I caught a mole, And he was angry, and bit a little hole In the ball of my thumb. Worms I have often found, Glow-worms, and ones like this that slithe around. * * * * * It’s funny to think of the life that’s under ground. EPITAPH This little girl In brown earth lies. She shall sweeten the sweet air Of Paradise With her slow lovely speech And wondering eyes. INVOCATION--AND REPLY Hear me, brave words, You who of old Came singing birds To a poet’s call: “_Many have called us, yet we served not all._” Come words of jade To make green eyes Of a little maid, Come words that sing And let her linnet speech now softly ring. Ivory words Denote her breasts, Two fluttering birds That sit and sing For joy of some unseen delicious spring. Dusky words weave Her falling hair, The world bereave Of shadows long And shake them in a sombre tangled throng. Come you most durable Shining words, ’Gainst the incurable Drift of Time Guard me her sweetness safe within a rhyme. * * * * *