O'Shea," says he. "Faith an' if it's to obleege a rale gintleman like yersilf, I will," I says. The curtain riz, an' there wuz twinty payple shtandin' around dressed illigantly. Pat whispered 't wuz the king an' quane. Wan young feller seemed varry sad, an' had on full mournin', the natest I ever saw an' me five years a widdy. "Who's that feller in mournin' fer?" I says to Pat. "His father," whispered O'Shea. "Who wuz his father?" says I. kape quiet!" says Pat.

66

"The ghost

When I looked agin, the young feller in black wuz alone, but sum' of the men what saw the ghost, kem in and told him about it. He was all of a thremble, an' nothin' wud do but he must go out the nixt night an' see if the ghost wud come agin. Well, the nixt thing the room seemed to go away, an' there was the mournin' feller waitin' for the ghost. I med up me mind not to schrame, but whin the ould sphook kem movhin' along, I had to put me two hands over me mouth. Thin the ghost's son says, "Arrah," says he, "vy the divil air ye walkin' round instid o' layin' quiet and paceable in the cimetery, where we put ye? A'n't ye contint wid wan o' the most expinsive grave-stuns in the country, widout bustin out an' chasin' up an' down the alley, scarin' the life out uv us ?" Thin the ghost motioned wid his shtick for 'im to foller. The men grabbed him, but he shpoke up dacent to the ghost, "I'll foller ye," says he, "an' if any thinks he can shtop me I'll make him into a sphook in four siconds." Bully for ye," says I, out loud: jist then the ghost began to shpake. "Kape yer ears open to phat I'm tellin' ye," says he, in a vice like the rumblin of a horse car, "for I must git back to the place all brimstone an' fire, where I'm at prisent sphending me time to make up for the diviltries I did before I kem. If I wuz to tell what kind uv a picnic we have down there," says he, "'t would sind plows an' harrows over yer sowl, turn yer blud ter ice, an' make yer hair schtick up like squills on a parkypine.". "What's ailin' uv ye?" says the feller in mournin'. “I'll tell ye," says the shpook. "I wuz kilt by that baste of a brother, who is now king an' yer mother's husband." The thayeter wuz still as a church, an' the young feller wuz a sight to see as he begun to ketch on to the racket. "Yis," says the ghost, "yer uncle is the feller that did the business for me, an' I think it showed schmall judgment in yer mother to marry a murd'rin villin like him whin she'd jist lost so dacent a man as myself.

"They turned pizen into me ears whin I wuz schlapin' in me back yard, an' off I went widout sayin' a praste or havin' a chance to ordher a mass fer me sowl. If ye 're the b'y I take ye fer, ye'll make it hot fer yer uncle, an' I carn't rest quiet in the warrum climate I'm residin' in till ye do." The sphook thin walked off, an' the b'y made em swear they would n't tell, bekase he wanted to catch his ould blaggard of an' uncle whin he was onsushpictin, do ye moind: thin the curtain kem down. "How do ye like the play?" says Patsy. "Does n't it make ye blush fer yer sex, to think of a woman pizenin' her husband to git another man?” "Ye'd bether be careful yerself, O'Shea," says I, "or the ghost of Tim Calligan will be walkin' about yer bed sum night. Pizenin' a man is wan thing, an' kapin' him underground is another." It's a long shtory I'm tellin', an' sure I can't remember half, but the ould sphalpeen went into the pizen business agin; he put some on the swords an' inter the wine. The quane drank the wine, the fellers struck with the swords, an' the ghost's b'y, seein' through the game, shtabbed his uncle. In two minutes they wuz all dead-an' uv course that wuz the last uv it

I dreamed I was with my Antony,
And in his arms I lay;

Ah me! the vision has vanished,—

The music has died away.

The flame and the perfume have perished-
As this spiced aromatic pastille

That wound the blue smoke of its odor

Is now but an ashy hill.

Scatter upon me rose leaves,
They cool me after my sleep,
And with sandal odors fan me

Till into my veins they creep;

Reach down the lute and play me
A melancholy tune,

To rhyme with the dream that has vanished,
And the slumbering afternoon.

There, drowsing in golden sunlight,
Loiters the slow, smooth Nile,
Through slender papyri, that cover
The wary crocodile.

The lotus lolls on the water,

And opens its heart of gold,
And over its broad leaf pavement
Never a ripple is rolled.
The twilight breeze is too lazy
Those feathery palms to wave,
And
yon little cloud is as motionless
As a stone above a grave.

Ah me! this lifeless nature
Oppresses my heart and brain!
O for a storm and thunder,

For lightning and wild fierce rain!
Fling down that lute-I hate it!

Take rather his buckler and sword, And crash them and clash them together Till this sleeping world is stirred.

Hark to my Indian beauty!-
My cockatoo, creamy white,

With roses under his feathers

That flashes across the light.

Look! listen! as backward and forward

To his hoop of gold he clings; How he trembles, with crest uplifted,

And shrieks as he madly swings!

With its bright black eyes so meaningless,

And its silly, tinkling bell!

Take him-my nerves he vexes

The thing without blood or brain,

Or, by the body of Isis,

· I'll snap his neck in twain !

I will lie and dream of the past time,
Eons of thought away,

And through the jungle of memory
Loosen my fancy to play;
When, a smooth and velvety tiger,
Ribbed with yellow and black,
Supple and cushion-footed,

I wandered where never the track
Of a human creature had rustled

The silence of mighty woods, And fierce in a tyrannous freedom, my moods.

I knew but the law of

The elephant, trumpeting, started
When he heard my footsteps near,
And the spotted giraffes fled wildly
In a yellow cloud of fear.

I sucked in the noontide splendor
Quivering along the glade,

Or yawning, panting, and dreaming,
Basked in the Tamarisk shade,
Till I heard my wild mate roaring
As the shadows of night came on
To brood in the trees' thick branches,
And the shadow of sleep was gone:
Then I roused and roared in answer,

And unsheathed from my cushioned feet

My curving claws, and stretched me,
And wandered my mate to greet.
We toyed in the amber moonlight
Upon the warm flat sand,

And struck at each other our massive arms-
How powerful he was, and grand!
His yellow eyes flashed fiercely

As he crouched and gazed at me,
And his quivering tail, like a serpent,
Twitched curving nervously.

Then like a storm he seized me

With a wild, triumphant cry;
And we met as two clouds in heaven
When the thunders before them fly.

Often another suitor

For I was flexile and fair-
Fought for me in the moonlight,
While I lay crouching there,

Till his blood was drained by the desert,
And, ruffled with triumph and power,

He licked me, and lay beside me

To breathe him a vast half-hour;

That was a life to live for!

Not this weak human life,

With its frivolous, bloodless passions,
Its poor and petty strife!
Come to my arms, my hero!

The shadows of twilight grow,
And the tiger's ancient fierceness
In my veins begins to flow.
Come not cringing to sue me!

Take me with triumph and power,

As a warrior storms a fortress!

I will not shrink, or cower.
Come as you came in the desert,
Ere we were women and men,
When the tiger passions were in us,
And love as you loved me then!

-William W. Story.