Say, grave priests, praying In dule and teen, From cells decaying What have ye seen Of the proud and mean, Of Judas and John, Of the foul and clean?— “They are dead and gone!” Say, kings, arraying Loud wars to win, Of your manslaying What gain ye glean? “They are fierce and keen, But they fall anon, On the sword that lean,— They are dead and gone!” ENVOY. Through the mad world’s scene, We are drifting on, To this tune, I ween, “They are dead and gone!” BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA. There’s a joy without canker or cark, There’s a pleasure eternally new, ’Tis to gloat on the glaze and the mark Of china that’s ancient and blue; Unchipp’d all the centuries through It has pass’d, since the chime of it rang, And they fashion’d it, figure and hue, In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. These dragons (their tails, you remark, Into bunches of gillyflowers grew),— When Noah came out of the ark, Did these lie in wait for his crew? They snorted, they snapp’d, and they slew, They were mighty of fin and of fang, And their portraits Celestials drew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. Here’s a pot with a cot in a park, In a park where the peach-blossoms blew, Where the lovers eloped in the dark, Lived, died, and were changed into two Bright birds that eternally flew Through the boughs of the may, as they sang; ’Tis a tale was undoubtedly true In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. ENVOY. Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do, Kind critic, your “tongue has a tang” But—a sage never heeded a shrew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES. (AFTER VILLON.) Nay, tell me now in what strange air The Roman Flora dwells to-day. Where Archippiada hides, and where Beautiful Thais has passed away? Whence answers Echo, afield, astray, By mere or stream,—around, below? Lovelier she than a woman of clay; Nay, but where is the last year’s snow? Where is wise Héloïse, that care Brought on Abeilard, and dismay? All for her love he found a snare, A maimed poor monk in orders grey; And where’s the Queen who willed to slay Buridan, that in a sack must go Afloat down Seine,—a perilous way— Nay, but where is the last year’s snow? Where’s that White Queen, a lily rare, With her sweet song, the Siren’s lay? Where’s Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair? Alys and Ermengarde, where are they? Good Joan, whom English did betray In Rouen town, and burned her? No, Maiden and Queen, no man may say; Nay, but where is the last year’s snow? ENVOY. Prince, all this week thou need’st not pray, Nor yet this year the thing to know. One burden answers, ever and aye, “Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?”