hung

To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang

"Oh! who would fight and march and countermarch,

Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, And shovell'd up into a bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life.

"Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk,

Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd

stool,

Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half A score of gables.

James. That? Sir Edward Head's: But he 's abroad: the place is to be sold. John. O, his. He was not broken. James. No, sir, he, Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face

From all men, and commercing with himself,

He lost the sense that handles daily lifeThat keeps us all in order more or less And sick of home went overseas for change. John. And whither ?

James. Nay, who knows? he 's here

and there.

But let him go; his devil goes with him, As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes. John. What's that?

James. You saw the man-on Mon

day, was it?

stands up

And bristles; half has fall'n and made a

lady once:

A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs. John. O yet but I remember, ten years back.

'T is now at least ten years—and then she was

You could not light upon a sweeter thing: A body slight and round, and like a pear

In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin As clean and white as privet when it flowers.

James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they that loved

At first like dove and dove were cat and dog.

She was the daughter of a cottager, Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride,

New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd

To what she is: a nature never kind! Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say.

next

That fit us like a nature second-hand; Which are indeed the manners of the great.

John. But I had heard it was this bill that past,

And fear of change at home, that drove him hence.

James. That was the last drop in the cup of gall.

I once was near him, when his bailiff brought

A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince

As from a venomous thing: he thought himself

A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry

Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes

Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs

Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you know

That these two parties still divide the world

Of those that want, and those that have : and still

The same old sore breaks out from age
to age
With much the same result.
Now I my-

self,

A Tory to the quick, was as a boy Destructive, when I had not what I would. I was at school a college in the South: There lived a flayflint near; we stole his fruit,

this

As never sow was higher in this worldMight have been happy: but what lot is pure?

We took them all, till she was left alone Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine, And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty. John. They found you out?

James. Not they. John. Well after all What know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound,

That we should mimic this raw fool the world,

Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites,

As ruthless as a baby with a worm,
As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows
To Pity more from ignorance than will.
But put your best foot forward, or I fear

That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes

With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand As you shall see - three pyebalds and a

roan.

EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE.

O ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake, My sweet, wild, fresh three quarters of a year,

My one Oasis in the dust and drouth

Of city life! I was a sketcher then : See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge,

Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built When men knew how to build, upon a rock,

With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock : And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, New-comers from the Mersey, millionnaires,

Here lived the Hills-a Tudor-chimneyed bulk

Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.

O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull The curate; he was fatter than his cure.

But Edwin Morris, he that knew the

names,

rocks,

All-perfect, finish'd to the finger nail.

And once I ask'd him of his early life, And his first passion; and he answer'd me; And well his words became him: was he not

A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.

"My love for Nature is as old as I ; But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that, And three rich sennights more, my love for her.

My love for Nature and my love for her,
Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew,
Twin-sisters differently beautiful.
And some full music seem'd to move and
To some full music rose and sank the sun,

change

With all the varied changes of the dark, And either twilight and the day between; Revolving toward fulfilment, made it For daily hope fulfill'd, to rise again

sweet

To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to

breathe.'

"Parson," said I, "you pitch the pipe too low :

But I have sudden touches, and can run

fern,

Were not his words delicious, I a beast To take them as I did? but something jarr'd ;

Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem'd

A touch of something false, some selfconceit,

Or over-smoothness: howsoe'er it was, He scarcely hit my humor, and I said :

"Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone

Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, As in the Latin song I learnt at school, Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left?

But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein: I have, I think, Heaven knows much within ;

The friendly mist

Thrice underscored. of morn Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with beating heart

The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel;

And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved, Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers:

Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she,

She turn'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, I breathed

In some new planet: a silent cousin stole Upon us and departed: "Leave, "she cried, "O leave me! "Never, dearest, never: here

66

:

Have, or should have, but for a thought or two,

That like a purple beech among the greens Looks out of place: 't is from no want in her:

It is my shyness, or my self-distrust,
Or something of a wayward modern mind
Dissecting passion. Time will set me
right."

So spoke I knowing not the things
that were.

Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull:

Embracing, all at once a score of pugs And poodles yell'd within, and out they

came

Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. "What, with him!

Go" (shrill'd the cotton-spinning chorus); "him!"

I choked. Again they shriek'd the burden - "Him!"

Again with hands of wild rejection "Go!Girl, get you in!" She went and in one month

They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds,

And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile

And educated whisker. But for me,
They set an ancient creditor to work:
It seems I broke a close with force and

thy rest,

Denying not these weather-beaten limbs The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm.

O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe,

Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still

Less burden, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear,

Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd

My spirit flat before thee.

O Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, For I was strong and hale of body then; And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt

away,

Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard

Was tagg'd with icy fringes in the moon, I drown'd the whoopings of the owl with sound

Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw

An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. Now am I feeble grown; my end draws nigh;

I hope my end draws nigh: half deaf I am, So that I scarce can hear the people hum About the column's base, and almost blind,

And scarce can recognize the fields I know; And both my thighs are rotted with the dew;

Yet cease I not to clamor and to cry, While my stiff spine can hold my weary head,

Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone,

Have mercy, mercy take away my sin.

O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, Who may be saved? who is it may be saved?

Who may be made a saint, if I fail here ? Show me the man hath suffer'd more than I.

For did not all thy martyrs die one death? For either they were stoned, or crucified, Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here To-day, and whole years long, a life of death.

Bear witness, if I could have found a way