never show a lass
As hard and unforgiving or as wicked as you was!'

_Queen Bess was Harry's daughter. Now kiss your
partners all!_

The Queen was in her chamber; her sins were on her head.
She looked the spirits up and down and statelily she said:--
Backwards and forwards and sideways though I've been,
Yet I am Harry's daughter and I am England's Queen!'
And she faced the looking-glass (and whatever else there was),
And she saw her day was over and she saw her beauty pass
In the cruel looking-glass, that can always hurt a lass
More hard than any ghost there is or any man there was!

THE QUEEN'S MEN

Valour and Innocence
Have latterly gone hence
To certain death by certain shame attended.
Envy--ah! even to tears!--
The fortune of their years
Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.

Scarce had they lifted up
Life's full and fiery cup,
Than they had set it down untouched before them.
Before their day arose
They beckoned it to close--
Close in confusion and destruction o'er them.

They did not stay to ask
What prize should crown their task,
Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;
But passed into eclipse,
Her kiss upon their lips--
Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!

THE CITY OF SLEEP

Over the edge of the purple down,
Where the single lamplight gleams.
Know ye the road to the Merciful Town
That is hard by the Sea of Dreams--
Where the poor may lay their wrongs away,
And the sick may forget to-weep?
But we--pity us! Oh, pity us!
We wakeful; ah, pity us!--
We must go back with Policeman Day--
Back from the City of Sleep!

Weary they turn from the scroll and crown,
Fetter and prayer and plough--
They that go up to the Merciful Town,
For her gates are closing now.
It is their right in the Baths of Night
Body and soul to steep,
But we--pity us! ah, pity us!
We wakeful; oh, pity us!--
We must go back with Policeman Day--
Back from the City of Sleep!

Over the edge of the purple down,
Ere the tender dreams begin,
Look--we may look--at the Merciful Towns
But we may not enter in!
Outcasts all, from her guarded wall
Back to our watch we creep:
We--pity us! ah, pity us!
We wakeful; oh, pity us!--
We that go back with Policeman Day--
Back from the City of Sleep!

THE WIDOWER

For a season there must be pain--
For a little, little space
I shall lose