brave in the wave are lying.       'T was a king's fair son with a king's fair daughter, And full three hundred beside, they say, —      Revelling on for the lone, cold slaughter So soon to seize them and hide them for aye; But they danced and they drank and their souls grew gay, Nor ever they knew of a ghoul's eye spying Their splendor a flickering phantom to stray Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying. Through the mist of a drunken dream they brought her       (This wild white bird) for the sea-fiend's prey:      The pitiless reef in his hard clutch caught her, And hurled her down where the dead men stay. A torturing silence of wan dismay —      Shrieks and curses of mad souls dying —       Then down they sank to slumber and sway Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying. ENVOY Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds' crying? —      Or does love still shudder and steel still slay, Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying? 

  

       Ballade by the Fire     

      Slowly I smoke and hug my knee, The while a witless masquerade Of things that only children see Floats in a mist of light and shade:       They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, And with a weak, remindful glow, The falling embers break and fade, As one by one the phantoms go. Then, with a melancholy glee To think where once my fancy strayed, I muse on what the years may be Whose coming tales are all unsaid, Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid Within their shadowed niches, grow By grim degrees to pick and spade, As one by one the phantoms go. But then, what though the mystic Three Around me ply their merry trade? —      And Charon soon may carry me Across the gloomy Stygian glade? —       Be up, my soul! nor be afraid Of what some unborn year may show; But mind your human debts are paid, As one by one the phantoms go. ENVOY Life is the game that must be played:       This truth at least, good friend, we know; So live and laugh, nor be dismayed As one by one the phantoms go. 

  

       Ballade of Broken Flutes     

      (To A. T. Schumann.) 

      In dreams I crossed a barren land, A land of ruin, far away; Around me hung on every hand A deathful stillness of decay; 

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