I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.

"I read you by your bugle-horn
And by your palfrey good,

I read you for a ranger sworn
To keep the king's greenwood."
"A Ranger, lady, winds his horn,
And 'tis at peep of light;

His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night."
Yet sung she, "Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay;

I would I were with Edmund there
To reign his Queen of May!

"With burnish'd brand and musketoon So gallantly you come.

I read you for a bold Dragoon
That lists the tuck of drum."

-"I list no more the tuck of drum, No more the trumpet hear;

But when the beetle sounds his hum

My comrades take the spear.

And, oh, though Brignall banks be fair

And Greta woods be gay,

Yet mickle must the maiden dare

Would reign my Queen of May!

"Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I'll die!

The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!

And when I'm with my comrades met
Beneath the greenwood bough,

What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now."

Chorus

Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

AN IRISH MELODY

Ан, sweet Kitty Neil! rise up from your wheel

Your neat little foot will be weary from spinning Come, trip down with me to the sycamore tree;

Half the parish is there, and the dance is beginning. The sun is gone down, but the full harvest moon Shines sweetly and cool on the dew-whitened valley, While all the air rings with the soft, loving things

Each little bird sings in the green shaded alley.

With a blush and a smile, Kitty rose up the while, Her eye in the glass, as she bound her hair, glancing. 'Tis hard to refuse when a young lover sues,

So she couldn't but choose to go off to the dancing. And now on the green the glad groups are seen

Each gay-hearted lad with the lass of his choosing; And Pat, without fail, leads out sweet Kitty Neil Somehow, when he asked, she ne'er thought of refusing.

Now Felix Magee puts his pipes to his knee,

And, with flourish so free, sets each couple in motion; With a cheer and a bound, the lads patter the ground The maids move around just like swans on the ocean.

Cheeks bright as the rose - feet light as the doe's

Now cozily retiring, now boldly advancing;

Search the world all around from the sky to the ground No such sight can be found as an Irish lass dancing!

Poor Pat feels his heart, as he gazes, depart,

Subdued by the smart of such painful yet sweet love; The sight leaves his eye as he cries with a sigh,

66

Dance light, for my heart it lies under your feet, love!"

DENIS MCCARTHY.

FLYING FISH

OUT where the sky and the sky-blue sea

Merge in a mist of sheen,

There started a vision of silver things,

A leap and a quiver, a flash of wings
The sky and sea between.

Is it of birds from the blue above,
Or fish from the depths that be?
Or is it the ghosts

In silver hosts

Of birds that were drowned at sea?

MARY FENOLLOSA.

Copyright, 1899, by Little, Brown & Company.

THOMAS RHYMER

TRUE THOMAS lay on yon grassy bank,
And he beheld a lady gay,

A lady that was brisk and bold,
Come riding o'er the fernie brae.1

Her skirt was of the grass-green silk,
Her mantle of the velvet fine,
At every hair of her horse's mane

Hung fifty silver bells and nine.

True Thomas he took off his hat

And bowed him low down to the knee: "All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven! For your peer on earth I did never see." "Oh no, oh no, True Thomas," she says, "That name does not belong to me; I am but the queen of fair Elfland, And I'm come here for to visit thee.

"But ye must go with me now, Thomas, True Thomas, ye must go with me,

For ye must serve me seven years,

Thro' weal or woe as may chance to be."

1 brae hillside.