POETRY.

COLONEL FA NTOCK.

rims spoke the lady underneath the trees : "I was a member of a family Whose legend was of hunting—(all the rare And unattainable brightness of the air)— A race whose fabled skill in falconry Was used on the small song-birds and a winged And blinded Destiny. . . I think that only Winged ones know the highest eyrie is so lonely.

There in a land austere and elegant The castle seemed an arabesque in music ; We moved in an hallucination born Of silence, which like music gave us lotus To eat, perfuming lips and our long eyelids As we trailed over the sad summer grass Or sat beneath a smooth and mournful tree.

And Time passed, suavely, imperceptibly.

But Dagobert and Peregrine and I Were children then ; we walked like shy gazelles Among the music of the thin flower-bells.

And life still held some promise,—never ask Of what,—but life seemed less a stranger then Than ever after in this cold existence.

I always was a little outsid.e life,—

And so the things we tout+ could comfort me,

I loved the shy dreams we could hear and see,—

For I was like one dead, like a small ghost, A little cold air, wandering and lost.

All day within the straw-roofed arabesque Of the towered castle and the sleepy gardens wandered We; those delicate paladins the waves Told us fantastic legends that we pondered, And the soft leaves were breasted like a dove, Crooning old mournful tales of untrue love.

When night came sounding like the growth of trees, My great-grandmother bent to say good-night And the enchanted moonlight seemed transformed Into the Silvery tinkling of an old

And gentle music-btix that played a tune

Of Circean enchantments and far seas,— Her voice was lulling like the splash of these. When she had given me her good-night kiss There, in her lengthened shadow, I saw this Old military ghost with mayfly whiskers,— Poor harmless creature, blown by the cold wind, Boasting of unseen unreal victories" _ To a harsh unbelieving world unkind,- - For all the battles that this warrior fought Were with cold poverty and helpless age— His spoils were shelters from the winter's rage.

• And so for ever through his braggart ;voice, Through all that martial trUmpet's 'sound, his soul Wept with a little sound, so pitiful, Knowing that he is outside life for ever, With no one that will warm or comfort him. . • • He is not even dead,—but Death's buffoon On a bare stage,—a shrunken pantaloon.

His military banner never fell, Nor his account of victories,—the stories Of old apocryphal misfortunes, glories Which comforted his heart in later life When he was the Napoleon of the schoolroom And all the victories he gained were over Little boys who would not learn to spell.

All day within the sweet and ancient gardens

He had my childish self for audience,—

Whose body flat and strange, whose pale straight hair

Made me appear as though I had been drowned— (We all have the remote air of a legend)—

And Dagobert my brother whose large strength, Great body and grave beauty still reflects The Merovingian kings from whom we spring ; And sweet as the young tender winds that Stir In thickets when the earliest flower-bells sing Upon the boughs, was his just character ;

And .Peregrine the youngest, with a naive .

Shy grace like a faun's, whose slant eyes seemed The warm green light beneath eternal boughs ; His hair was like the fronds of feathers, life

In him was changing ever, springing fresh

As the dark songs of birds . . . the furry warmth And purring sound of fires was in his voice Which never failed to warm and comfort me.

And there were haunted summers in Troy Park When all the stillness budded into leaves ; We listened, like Ophelia drowned in blond And fluid hair, beneath stag-antlered trees ; And in the ancient park the country-pleasant Shadows fell as brown as any pheasant,— And Colonel Fantock seemed like one of these. Sometimes for comfort, in the castle kitchen He drowsed, where with a sweet and velvet lip, The snapdragons within the fire Of their red summer never tire.

And Colonel Fantock liked our company. For us he wandered over each old lie, Changing the flowering hawthorn, full of bees, Into the silver helm of Hercules, For us defended Troy from the top stair Outside the nursery, when the calm full moon Was like the sound within the growth of trees.

But then came one cruel day in deepest June When pink flowers seemed it sweet Mozartian tune, And Colonel Fantock pondered o'er a book. A gay 'oice like a honeysuckle nook, So sweet, said, 'It is Colonel Fantock's age • Which makes him babble . . .' Blown by winter's rage The poor old man then knew his creeping fate, The darkening shadow which would take his sight And hearing; and he thought of his saved pence Which scarce would rent a grave . . . that youthful voice Was a dark bell which ever clanged Too late '— A creeping shadow that would steal from him Even the little boys who would not spell,— His only Prisoners . . . on that June day

Cold -Death had taken his first citadel."

EDITH SrrwELL.