g
The hempen rope and gallows tree,
And eventide to happy bride
Love's crown of love in Arcady.

THE FETTERED VULTURES.

(Battleships of the Coronation Naval Review, Spithead, England, June 24,
1911.)

Hail, sceptered Mars, great god of wars!
Hail, Carnage, queen of blood!
And hail those muffled armaments--
Thy fettered vulture brood!
Their sable wings are laureled and
Their necks are ribboned gay,
And silken folds their talons hide
This kingly holiday.

Grotesque and grim, in chains of gold,
They go with solemn mien,
Their horrid plumes bedizened for
The eyes of king and queen;
But padded claw and mummer's crest
Have served not to disguise
Those iron beaks that thirst for blood,
Those wakeful, wolfish eyes.

Ten condors with unsated maws,
Four lesser birds of prey,
An eagle with undaunted eye
From Shasta, far away;
A score of birds from many seas,
All purged of grime and blood,
Keep truckling pace the fete to grace,--
Mars' fettered vulture brood.

But see ye not, great god of wars,
And ye, Britannia's king,
The day when these black birds shall fly
On fierce unshackled wing?
When they shall meet 'twixt sea and sky,
Rend flesh and break the bone,
And blood shall trickle through the waves
To gray old Triton's throne?

Hail, sceptered Mars, great god of wars!
Hail, Carnage, queen of blood!
And hail those muffled armaments,--
Thy fettered vulture brood!
And yet Christ's gentle teaching scrolls
Prophetic on the sky:
"Behold! some day thy vulture brood
Shall go unfed and die!"

THE DEAD CHILD.

Life to her was a perfect flower,
And every petal a jeweled hour,
Till all at once--we know not why--
God sent a frost from His clear blue sky.

Life to her was a fairy rune;
Her light feet tripped to the lilting tune,
Till all at once--we know not why--
God stopped th' enchanting melody.

Life to her was a picture book
That her glad eyes searched with eager look
Till all at once--we know not why--
God put the wondrous volume by.

NIGHT IN MAY.

The snowy clouds, soft sleeping lambkins, lie
Along the dark blue meadows of the sky,
And the bright stars, like golden daffodils,
Are blooming thickly