Crooked legs with cruel nails.

Yet again, oh, faint and far,
Came the shadow of a cry,
Like the calling of a star
To its brother in the sky;
Like an echo in a cave
Where young mermen sound their shells,
Like the wind across a grave
Bright with scent of lily-bells.

Like a fairy hunter's horn
Sounding in some purple glen
Sweet revelly to the morn
And the fairy quest again:
Then, all round it surged a song
We could never understand
Though it lingered with us long,
And it seemed so sad and grand.

SONG

_Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn,
Summon the day of deliverance in:
We are weary of bearing the burden of scorn
As we yearn for the home that we never shall win;
For here there is weeping and sorrow and sin.
And the poor and the weak are a spoil for the strong!
Ah, when shall the song of the ransomed begin?
The world is grown weary with waiting so long._

_Little Boy Blue, you are gallant and brave,
There was never a doubt in those clear bright eyes.
Come, challenge the grim dark Gates of the Grave
As the skylark sings to those infinite skies!
This world is a dream, say the old and the wise,
And its rainbows arise o'er the false and the true;
But the mists of the morning are made of our sighs,--
Ah, shatter them, scatter them, Little Boy Blue!_

_Little Boy Blue, if the child-heart knows,
Sound but a note as a little one may;
And the thorns of the desert shall bloom with the rose,
And the Healer shall wipe all tears away;
Little Boy Blue, we are all astray,
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn,
Ah, set the world right, as a little one may;
Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn!_

Yes; and there between the trees
Circled with a misty gleam
Like the light a mourner sees
Round an angel in a dream;
Was it he? oh, brave and slim,
Straight and clad in aery blue,
Lifting to his lips the dim
Golden horn? We never knew!

Never; for a witch's hair
Flooded all the moonlit sky,
And he vanished, then and there,
In the twinkling of an eye:
Just as either boyish cheek
Puffed to set the world aright,
Ere the golden horn could speak
Round him flowed the purple night.

* * * *

At last we ca