O NCE. MARTHA once upon a time Over and over again, Martha would tell us her stories, In the hazel glen. Hers were those clear grey eyes You watch, and the story seems She would sit with her two slim hands Clasped round her bended knees; While we on our elbows lolled, And stared at ease. Her voice and her narrow chin, "Once once upon a time. Like a dream you dream in the night, Fairies and gnomes stole out In the leaf-green light. And her beauty far away Would fade, as her voice ran on, Till hazel and summer sun And all were gone; All fordone and forgot; And like clouds in the height of the sky, Our hearts stood still in the hush Of an age gone by. WALTER DE LA MARE THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S JEST HEN spring-time flushes the desert grass, WHI Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass. Lean are the camels but fat the frails, Light are the purses but heavy the bales, As the snowbound trade of the North comes down To the market-square of Peshawur town. In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill, And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food; A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke, To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke. Patching his bridles and counting his gear, So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease, We lay on the mats and were filled with peace, And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south, With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth. Four things greater than all things are,— Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes Quoth he; "Of the Russians who can say? But we look that the gloom of the night shall die Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise. To warn a King of his enemies? We know what Heaven or Hell may bring, "His sire was leaky of tongue and pen, Saw naught, said naught, and—did not die! With each new spring and the winter grass. |