Like a wonderful Tree of Knowledge, my dear, the Tree of our evil
and good;
But I dare not tell you the terrible vision that gave the toad-stool
birth,
The dream of a heart that breaks, my dear, and a Tree that is
bitter with blood.

X

"Oh, Love may wander wide as the wind that blows from sea to sea,
But a wooden dream, for me, my dear, and a painted memory;
For the God that has bidden the toad-stool grow has writ in his
cosmic rune,
_Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._"

XI

Then he stared at the child and he laughed aloud, and she suddenly
screamed and fled,
As he dreamed of enticing her out thro' the ferns to a quarry
that gapped the hill,
To hurtle her down and grin as her gold hair scattered around
her head
Far, far below, like a sunflower disk, so crimson-spattered
and still.

XII

"Ah, hush!" he cried; and his dark old eyes were wet with a sacred love
As he kissed the wooden face of his doll and winked at the skies above,
"I know, I know why the toad-stools grow, and the rest of the world
will, soon;
_Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._"

XIII

"_Blue and red and yellow and green they are all mixed up in the white;
Hey! but the wise old world was wrong and my idiot heart was right;
Yes; and the merry-go-round of the stars rolls to my cracked old tune,
Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the moon._"

THE BARREL-ORGAN

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street
In the City as the sun sinks low;
And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet
And fulfilled it with the sunset glow;
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain
That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light;
And they've given it a glory and a part to play again
In the Symphony that rules the day and night.

And now it's marching onward through the realms of old romance,
And trolling out a fond familiar tune,
And now it's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France,
And now it's prattling softly to the moon,
And all around the organ there's a sea without a shore
Of human joys and wonders