If her heart does ache,

Then let Lyca wake;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.

Frowning, frowning night, O'er this desert bright

Let thy moon arise,

While I close my eyes.'

Sleeping Lyca lay

While the beasts of prey,

Come from caverns deep,
View'd the maid asleep.

The kingly lion stood
And the virgin view'd,
Then he gambol'd round
O'er the hallow'd ground;

Leopards, tigers, play
Round her as she lay,

While the lion old

Bow'd his mane of gold,

And her breast did lick
And upon her neck,
From his eyes of flame,
Ruby tears there came;

While the lioness

Loos'd her slender dress, And naked they conveyed To caves the sleeping maid.

THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND.

ALL the night in woe

Lyca's parents go

Over valleys deep,

While the deserts weep.

Tired and woe-begone,

Hoarse with making moan,
Arm in arm, seven days

They tread the desert ways.

Seven nights they sleep

Among shadows deep,

And dream they see their child

Starved in desert wild.

Pale thro' pathless ways
The fancied image strays
Famish'd, weeping, weak,
With hollow piteous shriek.

Rising from unrest,

The trembling woman prest
With feet of weary woe;

She could no further go.

In his arms he bore

Her, armed with sorrows sore;

Till before their way

A couching lion lay.

THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER.

A LITTLE black thing among the snow,
Crying 'weep! weep!' in notes of woe!
Where are thy father and mother? Say :-
They are both gone up to the church to pra

'Because I was happy upon the heath,
'And smil'd among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
'And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

'And because I am happy and dance and sing,

'They think they have done me no injury,

'And are gone to praise God and His Priest and King, Who make up a heaven of our misery.'

NURSE'S SONG.

WHEN the voices of children are heard on the green,

And whisperings are in the dale,

The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,

My face turns green and pale.

Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,

And the dews of night arise;

Your spring and your day are wasted in play,
And your winter and night in disguise.

THE SICK ROSE.

O ROSE, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.