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I know that sunshine, through whatever | Slept and its shadow slept; the wooden rift

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So mused I once within my willow-tent One brave June morning, when the bluff northwest,

Thrusting aside a dank and snuffling day

That made us bitter at our neighbors' sins,

bridge

Thundered, and then was silent; on the roofs

The sun-warped shingles rippled with the heat;

Summer on field and hill, in heart and brain,

All life washed clean in this high tide of June.

DARA.

WHEN Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand

Wilted with harem-heats, and all the land

Was hovered over by those vulture ills That snuff decaying empire from afar, Then, with a nature balanced as a star, Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He who had governed fleecy subjects well

Made his own village by the selfsame spell

Secure and quiet as a guarded fold ; Then, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees

Under his sway, to neighbor villages Order returned, and faith and justice old.

Brimmed the great cup of heaven with Now when it fortuned that a king more

sparkling cheer

And roared a lusty stave; the sliding Charles,

Blue toward the west, and bluer and

more blue,

Living and lustrous as a woman's eyes Look once and look no more, with southward curve

Ran crinkling sunniness, like Helen's hair

Glimpsed in Elysium, insubstantial gold;

From blossom-clouded orchards, far

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wise

Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes,

He sought on every side men brave and just;

And having heard our mountain shep-
How he refilled the mould of elder days,
herd's praise,
To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide, Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride

Than in his crook before; but envy finds

More food in cities than on mountains

bare;

And the frank sun of natures clear and

rare

Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

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"WHAT fairings will ye that I bring?" Said the King to his daughters three ; "For I to Vanity Fair am boun,

Now say what shall they be?

Then up and spake the eldest daughter,
That lady tall and grand :
"O, bring me pearls and diamonds great,
And gold rings for my hand."

Thereafter spake the second daughter,
That was both white and red:
"For me bring silks that will stand
alone,

And a gold comb for my head."

Then came the turn of the least daughter,

That was whiter than thistle-down, And among the gold of her blithesome hair

Dim shone the golden crown.

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II.

He mounted and rode three days and nights

Till he came to Vanity Fair, And 't was easy to buy the gems and the silk,

But no Singing Leaves were there.

Then deep in the greenwood rode he,
And asked of every tree,
"O, if you have ever a Singing Leaf,
I pray you give it me!"

But the trees all kept their counsel,
And never a word said they,
Only there sighed from the pine-tops
A music of seas far away.

Only the pattering aspen

Made a sound of growing rain, That fell ever faster and faster, Then faltered to silence again.

"O, where shall I find a little foot-page

That would win both hose and shoon, And will bring to me the Singing Leaves If they grow under the moon?"

Then lightly turned him Walter the page,

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By the stirrup as he ran :

Now pledge you me the truesome word Of a king and gentleman,

"That you will give me the first, first thing

You meet at your castle-gate, And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves,

Or mine be a traitor's fate."

The King's head dropt upon his breast
A moment, as it might be ;
'T will be my dog, he thought, and said,
"My faith I plight to thee."

Then Walter took from next his heart
A packet small and thin,
"Now give you this to the Princess
Anne,

The Singing Leaves are therein."

III.

And said, "Thou shalt have thy As the King rode in at his castle-gate,

leaves."

A maiden to meet him ran,

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And "Welcome, father!" she laughed | And all the mint and anise that I pay But swells my debt and deepens my self-blame.

and cried

Together, the Princess Anne.

"Lo, here the Singing Leaves," quoth

he,

"And woe, but they cost me dear!" She took the packet, and the smile

Deepened down beneath the tear.

It deepened down till it reached her heart,

And then gushed up again,
And lighted her tears as the sudden sun
Transfigures the summer rain.

And the first Leaf, when it was opened,
Sang: "I am Walter the page,
And the songs I sing 'neath thy window
Are my only heritage."

And the second Leaf sang: "But in the land

That is neither on earth or sea, My lute and I are lords of more Than thrice this kingdom's fee."

And the third Leaf sang, "Be mine!

"Be mine!"

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