ray you for comforting?
Now that I walk alone
Here where our hands were met,
Must you whisper me every one,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?"

I have mourned with you year and year,
When the Autumn has left you bare,
And now that my heart is sere
Does not one of your roses care?
Oh, help me forget--forget,
Nor question over and over,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?
Where is your lover--your lover?"

THE RETURN

I lost Young Love so long ago
I had forgot him quite,
Until a little lass and lad
Went by my door to-night.

Ah, hand in hand, but not alone,
They passed my open door,
For with them walked that other one
Who paused here Mays before.

And I, who had forgotten long,
Knew suddenly the grace
Of one who in an empty land
Beholds a kinsman's face.

Oh, Young Love, gone these many years,
'Twas you came back to-night,
And laid your hand on my two eyes
That they might see aright,

And took my listless hand in yours
(Your hands without a stain),
And touched me on my tired heart
That it might beat again.

BLACK SHEEP

_"Black Sheep, Black Sheep,_
_Have you any wool?"_
_"That I have, my Master,_
_Three bags full."_

One is for the mother who prays for me at night--
A gift of broken promises to count by candle-light.

One is for the tried friend who raised me when I fell--
A gift of weakling's tinsel oaths that strew the path to hell.

And one is for the true love--the heaviest of all--
That holds the pieces of a faith a careless hand let fall.

_Black Sheep, Black Sheep,_
_Have you ought to say?_
_A word to each, my Master,_
_Ere I go my way._

A word unto my mother to bid her think o' me
Only as a little lad playing at her knee.

A word unto my tried friend to bid him see again
Two laughing lads in Springtime a-racing down the glen.

A word unto my true love--a single word--to pray
If one day I cross her path to turn her eyes away.

MONSEIGNEUR PLAYS

Monseigneur plays his new gavotte--
Within her gilded chair the Queen
Listens, her rustling maids between;
A very tulip-garden stirred
To hear the fluting of a bird;
Faint sunligh