Part II

She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese), And spake not a word. While a lady speaks There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze. She sat, with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese); She gave up mending her father's breeks, And let the cat roll in her new chemise. She sat, with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese), And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks; Then she follow'd him out o'er the misty leas. Her sheep follow'd her, as their tails did them (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese), And this song is consider'd a perfect gem, And as to the meaning, it's what you please. Charles S. Calverley.

FAIR-TINTED cheeks, clear eyelids drawn In crescent curves above the light Of eyes, whose dim, uncertain dawn Becomes not day: a forehead white Beneath long yellow heaps of hair: She is so strange she must be fair. Had she sharp, slant-wise wings outspread, She were an angel; but she stands With flat dead gold behind her head, And lilies in her long thin hands: Her folded mantle, gathered in, Falls to her feet as it were tin. Her nose is keen as pointed flame; Her crimson lips no thing express; And never dread of saintly blame Held down her heavy eyelashes: To guess what she were thinking of Precludeth any meaner love. An azure carpet, fringed with gold, Sprinkled with scarlet spots, I laid Before her straight, cool feet unrolled; But she nor sound nor movement made (Albeit I heard a soft, shy smile, Printing her neck a moment's while). And I was shamed through all my mind For that she spake not, neither kissed, But stared right past me. Lo! behind Me stood, in pink and amethyst, Sword-girt and velvet-doubleted, A tall, gaunt youth, with frowzy head. Wide nostrils in the air, dull eyes, Thick lips that simpered, but, ah me! I saw, with most forlorn surprise, He was the Thirteenth Century, I but the Nineteenth; then despair Curdled beneath my curling hair. O Love and Fate! How could she choose My rounded outlines, broader brain, And my resuscitated Muse? Some tears she shed, but whether pain Or joy in him unlocked their source, I could not fathom which, of course. But I from missals quaintly bound, With cither and with clavichord, Will sing her songs of sovran sound: Belike her pity will afford Such fain return as suits a saint So sweetly done in verse and paint. Bayard Taylor.

THE blessed Poster girl leaned out From a pinky-purple heaven. One eye was red and one was green; Her bang was cut uneven; She had three fingers on her hand, And the hairs on her head were seven. Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, No sunflowers did adorn, But a heavy Turkish portière Was very neatly worn; And the hat that lay along her back Was yellow, like canned corn. It was a kind of wobbly wave That she was standing on, And high aloft she flung a scarf That must have weighed a ton; And she was rather tall—at least She reached up to the sun. She curved and writhed, and then she said Less green of speech than blue: "Perhaps I am absurd—perhaps I don't appeal to you; But my artistic worth depends Upon the point of view." I saw her smile, although her eyes Were only smudgy smears; And then she swished her swirling arms, And wagged her gorgeous ears. She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob, And wept some purple tears. Carolyn Wells.