THE PUPIL: RHINELAND

“Mister, I do not like the task.

‘ Tis dull to-day, you're tired, too.

But, Mister, I've a thing to ask;—

Am I not beautiful? Speak true.”

Now, God save all poor tutor-men

From Innocence so rapt and sly,

And send the plainest student-girls

To one so passion-starved as I.

She sat within my student's room

In the twilight hour when the shadows stir;

Red lights of sunset swirled the gloom

And rested, glimmering, on her hair.

Coil upon coil it wreathed her crown

In a crushing aureole of flame.

And her brows of alabaster shone

As pure as Mary's of Bethlehem.

Her eyes,— I never knew their hue —

Drowsed, smouldering, in the burning dusk.

And somewhere out of the earth's view

A planet sang, and the air breathed musk.