In Merry And then came his horse, a clustering sound, Mood Of shapely potency forward bound. Glossy black steeds, and riders tall Rank after rank, each looking like all; 'Midst moving repose and a threatening calm, And ever and anon the kettledrums beat, And ever and anon the drums and fifes He, nevertheless, rode, indifferent-eyed, scorn, And thought him the noblest man ever was born, And hearts swell'd after him double their size, And all that was weak, and all that was strong, In Merry Seem'd to think wrong's self in him could not be Mood wrong, Such love, though with bosom about to be gored, So half that night, as he stopped in the town, LEIGH HUNT. Story Poems: Romance and Reality When the King in Lowell's poem asked his three daughters what fairings he should bring them on his homecoming, the two elder ones demanded jewels and rings, silks that would stand alone, and golden combs for the hair. But the youngest Princess, she that was whiter than thistledown-somehow it is always the youngest princess who is beloved of the poets and romancersasked as her fairing the Singing Leaves. The King could not buy them in Vanity Fair, but in the deep heart of the greenwood he found Walter, the little footpage, who drew a thin packet from his bosom and said, "Now give you this to the Princess Anne, The Singing Leaves are therein." She took them when the King met her at the castle gate, the lovely little Princess with the golden crown shining dim in the blithesome gold of her hair; took them with a smile that 66 Lighted her tears as the summer sun The poems we give you here, young princes and princesses of the twentieth century, are all Singing Leaves of one sort or another. There are leaves that sing 66 66 tragedies, like those in Earl Haldan's Daughter,' "The High Tide," or The Sands o' Dee"; there are leaves that sing fantasies, like "The Forsaken Merman," "The Pied Piper," or the enchanting" Lady of Shalott," weaving her magic web of colors gay. There are Singing Leaves that grew on the Tree of Reality; leaves that tell stories like Bret Harte's "Greyport Legend" or Browning's "Hervé Riel "; while in "Seven Times Two," the "Swan's Nest," "Lord Ullin," "Young Lochinvar," and "Jock o' Hazledean " you have pure romances, sweet and youthful, gay and daring. |