They all climbed up on a high board-fence-- Nine little Goblins, with green-glass eyes-- Nine little Goblins that had no sense, And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies; And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat-- And I asked them what they were staring at. And the first one said, as he scratched his head With a queer little arm that reached out of his ear And rasped its claws in his hair so red-- "This is what this little arm is fer!" And he scratched and stared, and the next one said, "How on earth do _you_ scratch your head?" And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge-- Laughed and laughed till his face grew black; And when he choked, with a final twinge Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back With a fist that grew on the end of his tail Till the breath came back to his lips so pale. [Illustration: The Nine Little Goblins] And the third little Goblin leered round at me-- And there were no lids on his eyes at all-- And he clucked one eye, and he says, says he, "What is the style of your socks this fall?" And he clapped his heels--and I sighed to see That he had hands where his feet should be. Then a bald-faced Goblin, gray and grim, Bowed his head, and I saw him slip His eyebrows off, as I looked at him, And paste them over his upper lip; And then he moaned in remorseful pain-- "Would--Ah, would I'd me brows again!" And then the whole of the Goblin band Rocked on the fence-top to and fro, And clung, in a long row, hand in hand, Singing the songs that they used to know-- Singing the songs that their grandsires sung In the goo-goo days of the Goblin-tongue. And ever they kept their green-glass eyes Fixed on me with a stony stare-- Till my own grew glazed with a dread surmise, And my hat whooped up on my lifted hair, And I felt the heart in my breast snap to As you've heard the lid of a snuff-box do. And they sang "You're asleep! There is no board-fence, And never a Goblin with green-glass eyes!-- 'Tis only a vision the mind invents After a supper of cold mince-pies,-- And you're doomed to dream this way," they said,-- "_And you sha'n't wake up till you're clean plum dead!_" [Illustration: The Nine Little Goblins--Tailpiece] TIME OF CLEARER TWITTERINGS [Illustration: Time of Clearer Twitterings--Title] I. Time of crisp and tawny leaves, And of tarnished harvest sheaves, And of dusty grasses--weeds-- Thistles, with their tufted seeds Voyaging the Autumn breeze Like as fairy argosies: Time of quicker flash of wings, And of clearer twitterings In the grove, or deeper shade Of the tangled everglade,-- Where the spotted water-snake Coils him in the sunniest brake; And the bittern, as in fright, Darts, in sudden, slanting flight, Southward, while the startled crane Films his eyes in dreams again. II