He slammed the door, and went clod, clod, clod,
  But while in the porch she bides,
He squealed so fierce, ’twas as much as she could
  To keep from cracking her sides, her sides,
    To keep from cracking her sides.

He threw a pumpkin over the wall,
  And melons and apples beside,
So thick in the air that to see them all fall,
  She laughed, and laughed, till she cried, cried, cried;
    Jane laughed and laughed till she cried.

Down fell her teardrops a pit-apat-pat,
  And red as a rose she grew;—­
“Kah! kah,” said the dwarf, “is it crying you’re at? 
  It’s the very worst thing you could do, do, do,
    It’s the very worst thing you could do.”

He slipped like a monkey up into a tree,
  He shook her down cherries like rain;
“See now,” says he, cheeping, “a blackbird I be,
  Laugh, laugh, little Jinnie, again—­gain—­gain,
    Laugh, laugh, little Jinnie, again.”

Ah me! what a strange, what a gladsome duet
  From a house in the deeps of a wood! 
Such shrill and such harsh voices never met yet
A-laughing as loud as they could, could, could,
    A-laughing as loud as they could.

Come Jinnie, come dwarf, cocksparrow, and bee,
  There’s a ring gaudy-green in the dell,
Sing, sing, ye sweet cherubs, that flit in the tree;
  La! who can draw tears from a well, well, well,
    Who ever drew tears from a well!

ALULVAN

The sun is clear of bird and cloud,
  The grass shines windless, grey and still,
In dusky ruin the owl dreams on,
  The cuckoo echoes on the hill;
Yet soft along Alulvan’s walks
    The ghost at noonday stalks.

His eyes in shadow of his hat
  Stare on the ruins of his house;
His cloak, up-fastened with a brooch,
  Of faded velvet grey as mouse,
Brushes the roses as he goes: 
    Yet wavers not one rose.

The wild birds in a cloud fly up
  From their sweet feeding in the fruit;
The droning of the bees and flies
  Rises gradual as a lute;
Is it for fear the birds are flown,
    And shrills the insect-drone?

Thick is the ivy over Alulvan,
  And crisp with summer-heat its turf;
Far, far across its empty pastures
  Alulvan’s sands are white with surf: 
And he himself is grey as the sea,
    Watching beneath an elder-tree.

All night the fretful, shrill Banshee
  Lurks in the ivy’s dark festoons,
Calling for ever, o’er garden and river,
  Through magpie changing of the moons: 
“Alulvan, O, alas!  Alulvan,
  The doom of lone Alulvan!”

THE PEDLAR

There came a pedlar to an evening house;
Sweet Lettice, from her lattice looking down,
Wondered what man he was, so curious
His black hair dangled on his tattered gown: 
Then lifts he up his face, with glittering eyes,—­
“What will you buy, sweetheart?—­Here’s honeycomb,
And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies,
Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom,
To keep in water for to make night sweet: 
All that you want, sweetheart,—­come, taste and eat!”