"Thou hast not toiled at the fishing when the sodden trammels freeze,

Nor worked the war-boats outward, through the rush of the rock-staked seas,

Yet they bring thee fish and plunder-full meal and an easy bed—

And all for the sake of thy pictures." And Ung held down his head.

"Thou hast not stood to the aurochs when the red snow reeks of the fight;

Men have no time at the houghing to count his curls aright:

And the heart of the hairy mammoth thou sayest they do not see,

Yet they save it whole from the beaches and broil the best for thee.

"And now do they press to thy pictures, with open mouth and eye,

And a little gift in the doorway, and the praise no gift can buy:

But-sure they have doubted thy pictures, and that is a grievous stain—

Son that can see so clearly, return them their gifts again.'

And Ung looked down at his deerskins-their

broad shell-tasselled bands

And Ung drew downward his mitten and looked at his naked hands;

And he gloved himself and departed, and he heard his father, behind:

"Son that can see so clearly, rejoice that thy tribe is blind!"

Straight on that glittering ice-field, by the caves of the lost Dordogne,

Ung, a maker of pictures, fell to his scribing on bone

Even to mammoth editions. Gaily he whistled and sung,

Blessing his tribe for their blindness. Heed ye the Story of Ung!

THE THREE-DECKER.

"The three-volume novel is extinct."

FULL thirty foot she towered from waterline to

rail.

It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten

sail;

But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and

best

The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.

Fair held our breeze behind us-'twas warm with

lovers' prayers:

We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing

heirs;

They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,

And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.

Carambas and serapés we waved to every wind, We smoked good Corpo Bacco when our sweethearts proved unkind;

With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed

We also took our manners to the Islands of the Blest.

We asked no social questions-we pumped no hidden shame

We never talked obstetrics when the little stranger

came:

We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in

Hell.

We weren't exactly Yussufs, but-Zuleika didn't

tell!

No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we

neared,

The villain got his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.

'Twas fiddles in the foc'sle-'twas garlands on the

mast,

For every one got married, and I went ashore at

last.

I left 'em all in couples akissing on the decks. I left the lovers loving and the parents signing checks.

In endless English comfort by county-folk ca

ressed,

I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the

Blest!

That route is barred to steamers: you'll never lift

again

Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.

They're just beyond the skyline, howe'er so far you cruise

In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.

Swing round your aching search-light-'twill show no haven's peace!

Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, graybearded seas!

Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's

unrest

But you aren't a knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest.