Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/280



sweeter thing than children's ways and wiles, Surely, we say, can gladden eyes and ears: Yet sometime sweeter than their words or smiles Are even their tears.

To one for once a piteous tale was read, How, when the murderous mother crocodile Was slain, her fierce brood famished, and lay dead, Starved, by the Nile.

In vast green reed-beds on the vast grey slime Those monsters motherless and helpless lay, Perishing only for the parent's crime Whose seed were they.

Hours after, toward the dusk, our blithe small bird Of Paradise, who has our hearts in keeping, Was heard or seen, but hardly seen or heard, For pity weeping.

He was so sorry, sitting still apart, For the poor little crocodiles, he said. Six years had given him, for an angel's heart, A child's instead.