AN ANTE-CHRISTMAS RONDEAU

“'Tis a sad story, mates.”—_Marie Corelli._

It's up to me—the winds are chill

And snow clouds drift from o'er the hill,

At dawn the rime is on the grass,

At five o'clock we light the gas,

And long gone is the daffodil.

Jack Frost draws flowers upon the glass

And blasts the growing ones—alas!

Whene'er he comes to scar and kill,

It's up to me.

I run not in the croaker class,

But when I see the autumn pass,

Of crushing woes I have my fill—

To buy a Christmas gift for Jill

A horde of gold I must amass—

It's up to me.

[Illustration]

Ventures Into Verse Being various ballads, ballades, rondeaux, triolets, songs, quatrains, odes and roundels, all rescued from the potters' field of old files and here given decent burial · 第 26 / 51 题