green figure, looking like a
greenwood spray against their soft ivory glow. The
fairy music dies. He sinks to his knees and holds up
his hands. Immediately a voice is heard singing and
drawing nearer thro' the forest._]

[_Song--drawing nearer._]

Knight on the narrow way,
Where wouldst thou ride?
"Onward," I heard him say,
"Love, to thy side!"

"Nay," sang a bird above,
"Stay, for I see
Death in the mask of love
Waiting for thee."

[_Enter BLONDEL, leading a great white steed. He stops and looks
at the kneeling figure._]

BLONDEL

Shadow-of-a-Leaf!

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

[_Rising to his feet._]

Blondel!

BLONDEL

I go to seek
My King!

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

[_In passionate grief._]

The King is dead!

BLONDEL

[_In yet more passionate joy and triumph._]

The great King lives!

[_Then more tenderly._]

Will you not come and look for Him with me?

[_They go slowly together through the forest and are lost to sight.
BLONDEL'S voice is heard singing the third stanza
of the song in the distance, further and further away._]

"Death? What is Death?" he cried.
"I must ride on!"

[_Curtain._]

TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN

I

A KNIGHT OF THE OCEAN-SEA

Under that foggy sunset London glowed,
Like one huge cob-webbed flagon of old wine.
And, as I walked down Fleet Street, the soft sky
Mowed thro' the roaring thoroughfares, transfused
Their hard sharp outlines, blurred the throngs of black
On either pavement, blurred the rolling stream
Of red and yellow busses, till the town
Turned to a golden suburb of the clouds.
And, round that mighty bubble of St. Paul's,
Over the up-turned faces of the street,
An air-ship slowly sailed, with whirring fans,
A voyager in the new-found realms of gold,
A shadowy silken chrysalis whence should break
What radiant wings in centuries to be.

So, wandering on, while all the shores of Time
Softened into Eternity, it seemed
A dead man touched me with his living hand,
A flaming legend passed me in the streets
Of London--laugh who will--that City of Clouds,
Where what a dreamer yet, in spite of all,
Is man, that splendid visionary child
Wh