* * * * * [Illustration: UNLUCKY SPEECHES. "WOULDN'T YOU LIKE SOME MUSIC, PROFESSOR?" "NO, THANKS. I'M QUITE HAPPY AS I AM. TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH, I PREFER THE WORST POSSIBLE CONVERSATION TO THE BEST MUSIC THERE IS!"] * * * * * LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. A BALLAD OF BIRD SLAUGHTER. (_With Apologies to the Shade of Keats._) "The new style of women's head-gear--called mixed plumes--threatens to add the extermination of Birds of Paradise to that of several species of herons.... It is for this 'use' that whole heronries in Florida and elsewhere have been utterly destroyed; it is for this that Birds of Paradise are being persecuted even to extinction."--_Mrs. E. Phillips, Vice-President of the Society for the Preservation of Birds._ I. Oh, what can ail thee, poet-man, Alone and palely loitering? "The wings are banished from the woods, And no birds sing." II. Oh, what can ail thee, bird-lover, So haggard and so woe-begone? "The heronry no more is full, And the cranes are flown." III. I see there's sorrow on thy brow, At dawn's rose-flush, at eve's cool dew. "Bird-song is gone from the garden rose, And the field flowers too. IV. "I met a lady on the way, Fell, beautiful, cold Fashion's child; Her hair was golden, her plume was high, And her eyes were wild. V. "She made a mixed plume for her head, Of heron crest and aureole. She looked at me as void of love, And cold of soul. VI. "She slaughtered Birds of Paradise, And little cared for all day long Save silencing the whirr of wings, And the trill of song. VII. "She found the task of relish sweet; The warbling wildwood choir she slew. Till the larks were mute, and the linnets dead, And the robins few. VIII. "She took me to her milliner's And showed with glee a sight full sore, Her new mixed plume, with aureoles six, And egrets four. IX. "'Twas there she lulled all love asleep, And her heart grew hard--ah, woe betide!-- As the granite-boulder that gleameth white On the cold hill-side. X. "I saw dead songsters heaped to view. From field, wood, mere, came one sad call: They cried, '_La Belle Dame sans Merci_ Will slay us all!' XI. "Beauty no more will flash a-wing, Music no more full-throated flush. Fashion will curse the fields of Spring With the Winter's hush. XII. "I saw poor bird-beaks in that room With fruitless warning gaping wide; And the lady wore their stolen plumes With a cruel pride. XIII. "'The Feathered Woman' was she hight; But all reproof, compassion-born, The modish _Belle Dame sans Merci_ Doth laugh to scorn. XIV.