What is it makes the trembling look of trouble

About her tender mouth and eyelids fair?

Ah me, ah me! she feels her heart beat double,

Without the mother's prayer, And her wild fears are more than she can bear.

To the poor sightless lark new powers are given,

Not only with a golden tongue to sing,

But still to make her wavering way toward heaven

With undiscerning wing;

But what to her doth her sick sorrow bring?

Her days she turns, and yet keeps

overturning,

For 'gainst her will she thinks hard things concerning

The everlasting God,

And longs to be insensate like the clod.

Sweet Heaven, be pitiful! rain down upon her [such:

The saintly charities ordained for She was so poor in everything but honor, much!

And she loved much-loved Would, Lord, she had thy garment's hem to touch.

Haply, it was the hungry heart within her,

The woman's heart, denied its natural right,

That made of her the thing which men call sinner,

Even in her own despite;

the rod;

their sight!

No matter who the deed was done By one or both, and there it lies; The smile from the lip forever gone, And darkness over the beautiful

eyes.

Our love is dead, and our hope is wrecked;

So what does it profit to talk and

rave,

Whether it perished by my neglect, Or whether your cruelty dug its grave!

Why should you say that I am to blame,

Or why should I charge the sin on you?

Our work is before us all the same, And the guilt of it lies between us two.

We have praised our love for its beauty and grace;

Now we stand here, and hardly dare

To turn the face-cloth back from the face,

And, since we cannot lessen the sin

By mourning over the deed we did, Let us draw the winding-sheet up to the chin,

Ay, up till the death-blind eyes are hid!

THE LADY JAQUELINE. "FALSE and fickle, or fair and sweet, I care not for the rest, The lover that knelt last night at my feet

Was the bravest and the best. Let them perish all, for their power has waned,

And their glory waxed dim; They were well enough while they lived and reigned,

But never was one like him! And never one from the past would I bring

Again, and call him mine; The King is dead, long live the King!"

Said the Lady Jaqueline.

new,

And the world upon me smiled,

last,

And the beautiful life of our life is o'er,

And when we have buried and left the past,

We two, together, can walk no

more.

You might stretch yourself on the dead, and weep,

And pray as the prophet prayed, in pain;

But not like him could you break the sleep,

And bring the soul to the clay again.

Its head in my bosom I can lay,

And shower my woe there, kiss on kiss,

But there never was resurrection-day In the world for a love so dead as this.

Whom I loved with the heart of a

child.

When the buried sun of yesterday

Comes back from the shadows dim, Then may his love return to me,

And the love I had for him! But since to-day hath a better thing To give, I'll ne'er repine;The King is dead, long live the King!"

Said the Lady Jaqueline.

"And yet it almost makes me weep, Aye! weep, and cry, alas! When I think of one who lies asleep Down under the quiet grass. For he loved me well, and I loved again,

And low in homage bent, And prayed for his long and prosperous reign,

In our realin of sweet content.

"By the hand of one I held most dear,

And called my liege, my own! I was set aside in a single year,

And a new queen shares his throne. To him who is false, and him who is wed,

Shall I give my fealty? Nay, the dead one is not half so dead

As the false one is to me!

My faith to the faithful now I bring, The faithless I resign;

The King is dead, long live the King!"

Said the Lady Jaqueline.

We have been fashioned for earth,

and not heaven;

Angels are perfect, I am but a

woman;

were

Are dead, and hid away,

In the past, as in a sepulchre,
Shut up till the judgment-day.
False or fickle, or weak or wed,
They are all alike to me;

And mine eyes no more can be misled,

They have looked on loyalty! Then bring me wine, and garlands bring

For my king of the right divine;The King is dead, long live the King!" Said the Lady Jaqueline.

human.

Say not that heaven hath tenderer blisses

To her on whose brow drops the soft rain of kisses;

Preach not the promise of priests or evangels,

Love-crowned, who asks for the crown of the angels? Yea, all that the wall of pure jasper encloses,

Takes not the sweetness from sweet bridal roses!