ROBERT OF LINCOLN Merrily swinging on briar and weed, Near to the nest of his little dame, Over the mountain-side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name.

And then Noah began to labor for his livelihood with his sons, and began to till the earth, to destroy briars and thorns and to plant vines.

He asked me for my knife, and I gave him my sharp-pointed bowie, with which he dug the prickly pear briars out of his foot.

In awful silence each of us produced his wrappings and his caskets, extracted the shining briar, smeared it with cosmetics, and polished it more reverently than a peace time Guardsman polishes his buttons when warned for duty next day at "Buck.

He held aside an encroaching briar, stretching its thorny arm across the path.

Presently he removed the briar from his lips, and said abruptly: "Jasperson, you assert that you showed down in church.

He would be smoking an ancient briar, and his thick red hands would be clasped behind his back....

He touched a briar and was converted.

Again, if a girl found a branch of a briar-thorn which had bent over and grown into the ground so as to form a loop, she would creep through the loop thrice late in the evening in the devil's name, then cut the briar and put it under her pillow, all without speaking a word.

O! He twined the wild briar, red and white, Upon his head the garland dight, The green leaves withered black as night, And burnt into his brain O!