AH—it’s the skeleton of a lady’s sunshade, Here at my feet in the hard rock’s chink, Merely a naked sheaf of wires!— Twenty years have gone with their livers and diers Since it was silked in its white or pink. Noonshine riddles the ribs of the sunshade, No more a screen from the weakest ray; Nothing to tell us the hue of its dyes, Nothing but rusty bones as it lies In its coffin of stone, unseen till to-day. Where is the woman who carried that sun-shade Up and down this seaside place?— Little thumb standing against its stem, Thoughts perhaps bent on a love-stratagem, Softening yet more the already soft face! Is the fair woman who carried that sunshade A skeleton just as her property is, Laid in the chink that none may scan? And does she regret—if regret dust can— The vain things thought when she flourished this? SWANAGE CLIFFS. THE AGEING HOUSE WHEN the walls were red That now are seen To be overspread With a mouldy green, A fresh fair head Would often lean From the sunny casement And scan the scene, While blithely spoke the wind to the little sycamore tree. But storms have raged Those walls about, And the head has aged That once looked out; And zest is suaged And trust is doubt, And slow effacement Is rife throughout, While fiercely girds the wind at the long-limbed sycamore tree! THE CAGED GOLDFINCH WITHIN a churchyard, on a recent grave, I saw a little cage That jailed a goldfinch. All was silence save Its hops from stage to stage. There was inquiry in its wistful eye, And once it tried to sing; Of him or her who placed it there, and why, No one knew anything. AT MADAME TUSSAUD’S IN VICTORIAN YEARS “THAT same first fiddler who leads the orchéstra to-night Here fiddled four decades of years ago; He bears the same babe-like smile of self-centred delight, Same trinket on watch-chain, same ring on the hand with the bow. “But his face, if regarded, is woefully wanner, and drier, And his once dark beard has grown straggling and gray; Yet a blissful existence he seems to have led with his lyre, In a trance of his own, where no wearing or tearing had sway. “Mid these wax figures, who nothing can do, it may seem That to do but a little thing counts a great deal; To be watched by kings, councillors, queens, may be flattering to him— With their glass eyes longing they too could wake notes that appeal.” * * * Ah, but he played staunchly—that fiddler—whoever he was, With the innocent heart and the soul-touching string: May he find the Fair Haven! For did he not smile with good cause? Yes; gamuts that graced forty years’-flight were not a small thing! THE BALLET