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("Fr'res, vous avez vos journ'es.")

[I., July, 1830.]


Youth of France, sons of the bold,
Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold!
Our civic-laurels - honored dead!...

AS o'er their wine one day, three gossips sat,
Discoursing various pranks in pleasant chat,
Each had a loving friend, and two of these
Most clearly managed matters at their ease.
...

Spirit of Earth! thy hand is chill:
I've felt its icy clasp;
And, shuddering, I remember still
That stony-hearted grasp.
Thine eye bids love and joy depart:
Oh, turn its gaze from me!...

Three old hermits took the air
By a cold and desolate sea,
First was muttering a prayer,
Second rummaged for a flea;
On a windy stone, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year,...

There were three hills that stood alone
With woods about their feet.
They dreamed quiet when the sun shone
And whispered when the rain beat.

They wore all three their coronals...

What shall I be?--I will be a knight
Walled up in armour black,
With a sword of sharpness, a hammer of might.
And a spear that will not crack--
So black, so blank, no glimmer of light...

(December 9th, 1908.)

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John."

Three hundred years have left their telltale rings
Upon the tree of Time since he appeared -...

Trio East is dead and the West is done, and again our course lies thus
South-east by Fate and the Rising Sun where the Three Kings* wait for us....

Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,...

There were three niggers of Chickeraboo
Pacifico, Bang-Bang, Popchop who
Exclaimed, one terribly sultry day,
"Oh, let's be kings in a humble way."

The first was a highly-accomplished "bones,"...

From out Cologne there came three kings
To worship Jesus Christ, their King.
To Him they sought fine herbs they brought,
And many a beauteous golden thing;
They brought their gifts to Bethlehem town,...

There were three little kittens
Put on their mittens
To eat some Christmas pie.
Mew, mew,
Mew, mew,
Mew, mew, mew.

These three little kittens
They lost their mittens,...

Knit, knit, knit, knit!
See old white-capped Pussy sit,
Fairly gray with worry and care,
In her little straight-backed rocking-chair?
Knit, knit, knit,
Till she is tired of it!
...

Ah, very, very poor was she--
Old Dame Pig, with her children three!
Robust, beautiful little ones
Were those three sons,
Each wearing always, without fail,
A little fanciful knot in his tail.
...

They hold their public meetings where
Our most renowned patriots stand,
One among the birds of the air,
A stumpier on either hand;
And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State...

We, three men of commerce,
Striving wealth to raise,
See but little promise
In the coming days;
Though our hearts are brittle,
Hardened near to stone,
We can think a little...

In days, when the fruit of men's labour was sparing,
And hearts were weary and nigh to break,
A sweet grave man with a beautiful bearing
Came to us once in the fields and spake.
...

'Tis daily this baste
Will prosade to the fayste,
The best that Ould Oireland has seen;
The P's are but three,
But they're plenty for me, -
The Pratie, the Pig, the Poteen.
...

There is a quiet gentleman a-motoring in France
(Oh, don't you hear the honking of a British motor-car?),
Like any quiet gentleman that you may meet by chance,...

The Texts of these two variations on the same theme are taken from T. Ravenscroft's Melismata, 1611, and Scott's Minstrelsy, 1803, respectively. There are several other versions of the Scots ballad, while Motherwell prints The ...