'Ah God' and we turn'd to each other, we kiss'd, we embraced, she and I. Knowing the Love we were used to be lieve everlasting would die: We had read their know-nothing books and we lean'd to the darker sideAh God, should we find Him, perhaps, perhaps, if we died, if we died;

We never had found Him on earth, this earth is a fatherless Hell—

'Dear Love, for ever and ever, for ever and ever farewell,'

Never a cry so desolate not since the world began,

Never a kiss so sad, no, not since the coming of man!

XII.

Why should I live? one son had forged on his father and fled, And if I believed in a God, I would thank him, the other is dead, And there was a baby-girl, that had never look'd on the light: Happiest she of us all, for she past from the night to the night.

XIII.

But the crime, if a crime, of her eldestborn, her glory, her boast, Struck hard at the tender heart of the mother, and broke it almost; Tho', glory and shame dying out for ever in endless time,

Does it matter so much whether crown'd for a virtue, or hang'd for a crime? XIV.