"WHAT fairings will ye that I bring?" Said the King to his daughters three; "For I to Vanity Fair am boun, Now say what shall they be?" Then up and spake the eldest daughter, Thereafter spake the second daughter, And a gold comb for my head." Then came the turn of the least daughter, That was whiter than thistle-down, And among the gold of her blithesome hair Dim shone the golden crown. "There came a bird this morning, And sang 'neath my bower eaves, Till I dreamed, as his music made me, 'Ask thou for the Singing Leaves.'" Then the brow of the King swelled crimson With a flush of angry scorn: "Well have ye spoken, my two eldest, And chosen as ye were born; II. He mounted and rode three days and nights Till he came to Vanity Fair, And 't was easy to buy the gems and the silk, But no Singing Leaves were there. Then deep in the greenwood rode he, But the trees all kept their counsel, Only the pattering aspen Made a sound of growing rain, That fell ever faster and faster, Then faltered to silence again. "O, where shall I find a little foot-page That would win both hose and shoon, And will bring to me the Singing Leaves If they grow under the moon?" Then lightly turned him Walter the page, By the stirrup as he ran : "Now pledge you me the truesome word Of a king and gentleman, "That you will give me the first, first thing You meet at your castle-gate, And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves, Or mine be a traitor's fate." The King's head dropt upon his breast Then Walter took from next his heart The Singing Leaves are therein." III. And said, "Thou shalt have thy As the King rode in at his castle-gate, leaves." A maiden to meet him ran, And "Welcome, father!" she laughed | And all the mint and anise that I pay But swells my debt and deepens my self-blame. and cried Together, the Princess Anne. Lo, here the Singing Leaves," quoth he, "And woe, but they cost me dear!" She took the packet, and the smile Deepened down beneath the tear. It deepened down till it reached her And then gushed up again, And the first Leaf, when it was opened, "Good counsel gave the bird," said she, "I have my hope thrice o'er, For they sing to my very heart," she said, "And it sings to them evermore." She brought to him her beauty and truth, But and broad earldoms three, And he made her queen of the broader lands He held of his lute in fee. SEA-WEED. NOT always unimpeded can I pray, THERE lay upon the ocean's shore Had played with it, and flung it by, Too closely clings the burden of the day, | Cheap burial might provide it. Mornward!" the angelic watchers say, Passed is the sorest trial; No plot of nian can stay The hand upon the dial; THE dandelions and buttercups Gild all the lawn; the drowsy bee Stumbles among the clover-tops, And summer sweetens all but me: Away, unfruitful lore of books, For whose vain idiom we reject The soul's more native dialect, Night is the dark stem of the lily Day." Aliens among the birds and brooks, If we, who watched in valleys here below, Toward streaks, misdeemed of morn, our faces turned When volcan glares set all the east aglow, We are not poorer that we wept yearned; Dull to interpret or conceive snow! Away, my poets, whose sweet spell Can make a garden of a cell! and Though earth swing wide from intent, God's Snap, chord of manhood's tenser | While Roundheads prim, with point of strain! To-day I will be a boy again; The catbird croons in the lilac-bush! Through the dim arbor, himself more dim, Silently hops the hermit-thrush, fox, Probe wainscot-chink and empty box; peace, A willing convert of the trees. How chanced it that so long I tost The withered leaves keep dumb for him; A cable's length from this rich coast, The irreverent buccaneering bee O unestranged birds and bees! Of wood and water, hill and plain; Upon these elm-arched solitudes The good old time, close-hidden here, With foolish anchors hugging close O, might we but of such rare days Alas! though such felicity In our vext world here may not be, And lure some nunlike thoughts to take MASACCIO. (IN THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL.) HE came to Florence long ago, The shadows deepened, and I turned |