the dark

Lights the moon's evanescent arc : Same Love lights up the glow

worm's spark:

Love rears the great: Love tends

the small:

Breaks off the yoke, breaks down the wall:

Accepteth all, fulfilleth all.

O ye who taste that Love is sweet, Set waymarks for the doubtful feet That stumble on in search of it.

Sing hymns of Love, that those who hear

Far off in pain may lend an ear, Rise up and wonder and draw near.

Lead lives of Love, that others who Behold your lives may kindle too With Love and cast their lots with you.

27 August 1859.

COUSIN KATE

I WAS a cottage-maiden
Hardened by sun and air,
Contented with my cottage-mates,
Not mindful I was fair.
Why did a great lord find me out

And praise my flaxen hair? Why did a great lord find me out

To fill my heart with care?

He lured me to his palace-home— Woe's me for joy thereof—

To lead a shameless shameful life, His plaything and his love.

He changed me like a glove : So now I moan an unclean thing Who might have been a dove.

O Lady Kate, my Cousin Kate,
You grew more fair than I:
He saw you at your father's gate,
Chose you and cast me by.,
He watched your steps along the lane,
Your sport among the rye :
He lifted you from mean estate

To sit with him on high.

Because you were so good and pure
He bound you with his ring:
The neighbours call you good and
pure,

Call me an outcast thing.
Even so I sit and howl in dust,

You sit in gold and sing:
Now which of us has tenderer heart?
You had the stronger wing.

O Cousin Kate, my love was true,
Your love was writ in sand:
If he had fooled not me but you,
If you stood where I stand,
He had not won me with his love
Nor bought me with his land:
I would have spit into his face

And not have taken his hand.
Yet I've a gift you have not got
And seem not like to get :
For all your clothes and wedding-
ring

I've little doubt you fret. My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,

Cling closer, closer yet:

Your sire would give broad lands for

one

To wear his coronet.

18 November 1859.

SISTER MAUDE

WHO told my mother of my shame, Who told my father of my dear? Oh who but Maude, my sister Maude, Who lurked to spy and peer.

Cold he lies, as cold as stone,

With his clotted curls about his face:

The comeliest corpse in all the world And worthy of a queen's embrace.

You might have spared his soul, sister,

Have spared my soul, your own

soul too:

Though I had not been born at all,

He'd never have looked at you.

My father may sleep in Paradise,

My mother at Heaven-gate: But sister Maude shall get no sleep

Either early or late.

My father may wear a golden gown,

My mother a crown may win;

If my dear and I knocked at Heavengate

Perhaps they'd let us in: But sister Maude, O sister Maude, Bide you with death and sin.

Circa 1860.

NOBLE SISTERS

'Now did you mark a falcon, Sister dear, sister dear, Flying toward my window

In the morning cool and clear? With jingling bells about her neck, But what beneath her wing?

It may have been a ribbon,
Or it may have been a ring.'--
'I marked a falcon swooping
At the break of day:

And for your love, my sister
dove,

I 'frayed the thief away.'

'Or did you spy a ruddy hound, Sister fair and tall,

Went snuffing round my garden bound,

Or crouched by my bower wall? With a silken leash about his neck; But in his mouth may be

A chain of gold and silver links,
Or a letter writ to me.'-

'I heard a hound, highborn
sister,

Stood baying at the moon :
I rose and drove him from

you.'

Towards January 1860.

before;

I'll wink at your untruth.

Let

'NO, THANK YOU, JOHN'

us strike hands as hearty friends;

I NEVER said I loved you, John;

No more, no less; and friendship's good: