"GIVE me a fillet, Love," quoth I,
"To bind my Sweeting's heart to me,
So ne'er a chance of earth or sky
Shall part us ruthlessly:

A fillet, Love, but not to chafe

My Sweeting's soul, to cause her pain;
But just to bind her close and safe

Through snow and blossom and sun and rain:
A fillet, boy!"

Love said, "Here's joy."

"Give me a fetter, Life," quoth I,
"To bind to mine my Sweeting's heart,
So Death himself must fail to pry
With Time the two apart:

A fetter, Life, that each shall wear,
Whose precious bondage each shall know.
I prithee, Life, no more forbear
Why dost thou wait and falter so?
Haste, Life be brief!"

Said Life: "Here's grief."

STONE WALLS

ALONG the country roadside, stone on stone, Past waving grain-field, and near broken stile,

The walls stretch onward, an uneven pile, With rankling vines and lichen overgrown: So stand they sentinel. Unchanged, alone, They're left to watch the seasons' passing slow:

The summer's sunlight or the winter's snow,

The spring-time's birdling, or the autumn's

THE SOUL

AN heritage of hopes and fears

And dreams and memory,
And vices of ten thousand years
God gives to thee.

A house of clay, the home of Fate,
Haunted of Love and Sin,

Where Death stands knocking at the gate
To let him in.

THE CREEK-ROAD

CALLING, the heron flies athwart the blue
That sleeps above it; reach on rocky reach
Of water sings by sycamore and beech,
In whose warm shade bloom lilies not a few.
It is a page whereon the sun and dew
Scrawl sparkling words in dawn's delicious
speech;

A laboratory where the wood-winds teach,
Dissect each scent and analyze each hue.
Not otherwise than beautiful, doth it
Record the happenings of each summer
day ;

Where we may read, as in a catalogue, When passed a thresher; when a load of hay;

Or when a rabbit; or a bird that lit;
And now a barefoot truant and his dog.

KU KLUX

WE have sent him seeds of the melon's core,

And nailed a warning upon his door;
By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.

Down in the hollow, mid crib and stack, The roof of his low-porched house looms black,

Not a line of light at the doorsill's crack.

Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride! The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!

And for a word too much men oft have died.

The clouds blow heavy towards the moon. The edge of the storm will reach it soon. The killdee cries and the lonesome loon.