Then suddenly arose the clang Of waking life; the streets were stirred With country waggons; and a bird Flew to the glistening roofs and sang. But one pale woman all alone, The daylight kissing her wan hair, Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare, With lips of flame and heart of stone. _John Davidson_ John Davidson was born at Barrhead, Renfrewshire, in 1857. His _Ballads and Songs_ (1895) and _New Ballads_ (1897) attained a sudden but too short-lived popularity, and his great promise was quenched by an apathetic public and by his own growing disillusion and despair. His sombre yet direct poetry never tired of repeating his favorite theme: "Man is but the Universe grown conscious." Davidson died by his own hand in 1909. A BALLAD OF HELL 'A letter from my love to-day! Oh, unexpected, dear appeal!' She struck a happy tear away, And broke the crimson seal. 'My love, there is no help on earth, No help in heaven; the dead-man's bell Must toll our wedding; our first hearth Must be the well-paved floor of hell.' The colour died from out her face, Her eyes like ghostly candles shone; She cast dread looks about the place, Then clenched her teeth and read right on. 'I may not pass the prison door; Here must I rot from day to day, Unless I wed whom I abhor, My cousin, Blanche of Valencay. 'At midnight with my dagger keen, I'll take my life; it must be so. Meet me in hell to-night, my queen, For weal and woe.' She laughed although her face was wan, She girded on her golden belt, She took her jewelled ivory fan, And at her glowing missal knelt. Then rose, 'And am I mad?' she said: She broke her fan, her belt untied; With leather girt herself instead, And stuck a dagger at her side. She waited, shuddering in her room, Till sleep had fallen on all the house. She never flinched; she faced her doom: They two must sin to keep their vows. Then out into the night she went, And, stooping, crept by hedge and tree; Her rose-bush flung a snare of scent, And caught a happy memory. She fell, and lay a minute's space; She tore the sward in her distress; The dewy grass refreshed her face; She rose and ran with lifted dress. She started like a morn-caught ghost Once when the moon came out and stood To watch; the naked road she crossed, And dived into the murmuring wood. The branches snatched her streaming cloak; A live thing shrieked; she made no stay! She hurried to the trysting-oak-- Right well she knew the way. Without a pause she bared her breast, And drove her dagger home and fell, And lay like one that takes her rest, And died and wakened up in hell.