e shouts his orders aloud, and gallops his cavalry past the
door to the wash-stand. He creeps over the floor on his hands and knees
to one battalion and another, but he sees only the bright colours of his
soldiers and the beautiful precision of their gestures. He is a lucky
boy to have such fine lead soldiers to enjoy.

Tommy catches his toe in the leg of the wash-stand, and jars the
pitcher. He snatches at it with his hands, but it is too late. The
pitcher falls, and as it goes, he sees the white water flow over its
lip. It slips between his fingers and crashes to the floor. But it is
not water which oozes to the door. The stain is glutinous and dark, a
spark from the firelight heads it to red. In and out, between the fine,
new soldiers, licking over the carpet, squirms the stream of blood,
lapping at the little green platforms, and flapping itself against the
painted uniforms.

The nodding mandarin moves his head slowly, forward and back. The rose
is broken, and where it fell is black blood. The old mandarin leers
under his purple umbrella, and nods--forward and back, staring into
the air with blue-green eyes. Every time his head comes forward a
rosebud pushes between his lips, rushes into full bloom, and drips to
the ground with a splashing sound. The pool of black blood grows and
grows, with each dropped rose, and spreads out to join the stream from
the wash-stand. The beautiful army of lead soldiers steps boldly
forward, but the little green platforms are covered in the rising stream
of blood.

The nursery fire burns brightly and flings fan-bursts of stars up the
chimney, as though a gala flamed a night of victorious wars.

The Painter on Silk

There was a man
Who made his living
By painting roses
Upon silk.

He sat in an upper chamber
And painted,
And the noises of the street
Meant nothing to him.

When he heard bugles, and fifes, and drums,
He thought of red, and yellow, and white roses
Bursting in the sunshine,
And smiled as he worked.

He thought only of roses,
And silk.
When he could get no more silk
He stopped painting
And only thought
Of roses.

The day the conquerors
Entered the city,
The old man
Lay dying.
He heard the bugles and drums,
And wished he could paint the roses
Bursting into sound.

A Ballad of Footmen

Now what in the name of the sun and the stars
Is t