POEMS OLD AND NEW

The Vicar, I believe, would like to offer public praye

for the return of the wanderer.
And the Doctor, I know, is a little unhinged, an<

curing people out of pure absence of mind.
For my part, I have hope ; and the trousers I dis

carded last week will not be given away just yet

E. V. LUCAS

THE CHANGELING
TOLL no bell for me, dear Father, dear Mother,
Waste no sighs ;
There are my sisters, there is my little brother
Who plays in the place called Paradise,
Your children all, your children for ever :
But I, so wild,
Your disgrace, with the queer brown face, was never,
Never, I know, but half your child ! n
In the garden at play, all day, last summer,
Far and away I heard
The sweet " tweet-tweet " of a strange new-comer,
The dearest, clearest call of a bird.
It lived down there in the deep green hollow,
My own old home, and the fairies say
The word of a bird is a thing to follow,
So I was away a night and a day.
One evening, too, by the nursery fire, 20
We snuggled close and sat round so still.
When suddenly as the wind blew higher,
Something scratched on the window-sill,
A pinched brown face peered in—I shivered ;
No one listened or seemed to see ;
The arms of it waved and the wings of it quivered,
Whoo—I knew it had come for me !
Some are as bad as bad can be !
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