Tied the helpless things together,
Drove them in the burning weather,
In his slave-gang many a league,
Till they dropped from wild fatigue. 
Up he caught his whip of hide,
Lashed each soft brown back and side
Till their little brains were burst
With sharp pain, and heat, and thirst,
Over her the poor boy lay,
Tried to keep the blows away,
Till they stiffened into clay,
And the ruffian rode away: 
Swooping o’er the tainted ground,
Carrion vultures gathered round,
And the gaunt hyenas ran
Tracking up the caravan. 
But—­ah, wonder! that was gone
Which they meant to feast upon. 
And, for each, a yellow wren,
One a cock, and one a hen,
Sweetly warbling, flitted forth
O’er the desert toward the north. 
But a shade of bygone sorrow,
Like a dream upon the morrow,
Round his tiny brainlet clinging,
Sets the wee cock ever singing,
’Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet you, sweet you,
Did he beat you?  Did he beat you?’
Vultures croaked, and hopped, and flopped,
But their evening meal was stopped. 
And the gaunt hyenas foul
Sat down on their tails to howl. 
Northward towards the cool spring weather,
Those two wrens fled on together,
On to England o’er the sea,
Where all folks alike are free. 
There they built a cabin, wattled
Like the huts where first they prattled,
Hatched and fed, as safe as may be,
Many a tiny feathered baby. 
But in autumn south they go
Past the Straits and Atlas’ snow,
Over desert, over mountain,
To the palms beside the fountain,
Where, when once they lived before, he
Told her first the old, old story. 
’What do the doves say?  Curuck Coo,
You love me and I love you.’

1872.

VALENTINE’S DAY

Oh!  I wish I were a tiny browny bird from out the south,
   Settled among the alder-holts, and twittering by the stream;
I would put my tiny tail down, and put up my tiny mouth,
   And sing my tiny life away in one melodious dream.

I would sing about the blossoms, and the sunshine and the sky,
   And the tiny wife I mean to have in such a cosy nest;
And if some one came and shot me dead, why then I could but die,
   With my tiny life and tiny song just ended at their best.

Eversley, 1873

BALLAD:  LORRAINE, LORRAINE, LORREE

1

’Are you ready for your steeple-chase, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree? 
   Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree,
You’re booked to ride your capping race to-day at Coulterlee,
You’re booked to ride Vindictive, for all the world to see,
To keep him straight, to keep him first, and win the run for me. 
   Barum, Barum,’ etc.

2

She clasped her new-born baby, poor Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree,
’I cannot ride Vindictive, as any man might see,
And I will not ride Vindictive, with this baby on my knee;
He’s killed a boy, he’s killed a man, and why must he kill me?’