Eyes like some big polished seed,
Plumed tail curved like half a lyre . . .

We pretended not to heed--
You, as though you would inquire
"Can I trust them?" . . . then a jerk,
And you'd skipped three branches higher,
Jaws again at work;
Like a little clock-work elf,
With all the forest to itself.

She was very fair to see,
She was all the world to me,
She has gone whole worlds away;
Yet it seems as though to-day,
Chipmunk, I can hear her say;
"Get that chipmunk, dear, for me----"
Chipmunk, you can never know
All she was to me.
That's all--it was long ago.




BALLADE OF THE DEAD FACE THAT NEVER DIES

The peril of fair faces all his days
No man shall 'scape: be it for joy or woe,
Each is the thrall of some predestined face
Divinely doomed to work his overthrow,