Lady Lorgnette, of the lifted lash,
  The curling lip and the dainty nose,
The shell-like ear where the jewels flash,
  The arching brow and the languid pose,
The rare old lace and the subtle scents,
  The slender foot and the fingers frail,—­
I may act till the world grows wild and tense,
  But never a flush on your features pale. 
The footlights glimmer between us two,—­
  You in the box and I on the boards,—­
I am only an actor, Madame, to you,
  A mimic king ’mid his mimic lords,
For you are the belle of the smartest set,
             Lady Lorgnette.

II

Little Babette, with your eyes of jet,
  Your midnight hair and your piquant chin,
Your lips whose odours of violet
  Drive men to madness and saints to sin,—­
I see you over the footlights’ glare
  Down in the pit ’mid the common mob,—­
Your throat is burning, and brown, and bare,
  You lean, and listen, and pulse, and throb;
The viols are dreaming between us two,
  And my gilded crown is no make-believe,
I am more than an actor, dear, to you,
  For you called me your king but yester eve,
And your heart is my golden coronet,
             Little Babette.

LOW TIDE AT ST. ANDREWS

(NEW BRUNSWICK)

The long red flats stretch open to the sky,
Breathing their moisture on the August air. 
The seaweeds cling with flesh-like fingers where
The rocks give shelter that the sands deny;
And wrapped in all her summer harmonies
St. Andrews sleeps beside her sleeping seas.

The far-off shores swim blue and indistinct,
Like half-lost memories of some old dream. 
The listless waves that catch each sunny gleam
Are idling up the waterways land-linked,
And, yellowing along the harbour’s breast,
The light is leaping shoreward from the west.

And naked-footed children, tripping down,
Light with young laughter, daily come at eve
To gather dulse and sea clams and then heave
Their loads, returning laden to the town,
Leaving a strange grey silence when they go,—­
The silence of the sands when tides are low.

BEYOND THE BLUE

I

Speak of you, sir?  You bet he did.  Ben Fields was far too sound
To go back on a fellow just because he weren’t around. 
Why, sir, he thought a lot of you, and only three months back
Says he, “The Squire will some time come a-snuffing out our track
And give us the surprise.”  And so I got to thinking then
That any day you might drop down on Rove, and me, and Ben. 
And now you’ve come for nothing, for the lad has left us two,
And six long weeks ago, sir, he went up beyond the blue.