can only think of Peterkin:
Come back, come back to father, for to-day he'd let us tear
His newest book to make a paper-boat for little Peterkin.

PART III

THE HIDEOUS HERMIT

Ah, what wonders round us rose
When we dared to pause and look,
Curious things that seemed all toes,
Goblins from a picture-book;
Ants like witches, four feet high,
Waving all their skinny arms,
Glared at us and wandered by,
Muttering their ancestral charms.

Stately forms in green and gold
Armour strutted through the glades,
Just as Hamlet's ghost, we're told,
Mooned among the midnight shades:

Once a sort of devil came
Scattering broken trees about,
Winged with leather, eyed with flame,--
He was but a moth, no doubt.

Here and there, above us clomb
Feathery clumps of palm on high:
Those were ferns, of course, but some
Really seemed to touch the sky;
Yes; and down one fragrant glade,
Listening as we onward stole,
Half delighted, half afraid,
_Dong_, we heard the hare-bells toll!

Something told us what that gleam
Down the glen was brooding o'er;
Something told us in a dream
What the bells were tolling for!
Something told us there was fear,
Horror, peril, on our way!
Was it far or was it near?
_Near_, we heard the night-wind say.

_Toll_, the music reeled and pealed
Through the vast and sombre trees,
Where a rosy light revealed
Dimmer, sweeter mysteries;
And, like petals of the rose,
Fairy fans in beauty beat,
Light in light--ah, what were those
Rhymes we heard the night repeat?

_Toll_, a dream within a dream,
Up an aisle of rose and blue,
Up the music's perfumed stream
Came the words, and then we knew,

Knew that in that distant glen
Once again the case was tried,
Hark!--_Who killed Cock Robin, then?_
And a tiny voice replied,
"_I
killed
Cock
Robin!_"

"_I!_ And who are _You_, sir, pray?"
Growled a voice that froze our marrow:
"Who!" we heard the murderer say,
"Lord, sir, I'm the famous Sparrow,
And this 'ere's my bow and arrow!
_I
killed
Cock
Robin!_"

Then, with one great indrawn breath,
Such a sighin' and a sobb