rapidity expressed.

Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock

By night, with noises of the northern sea. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him

Three times, and drew him under in the

mere.

Three times, and drew him under in the mere.'

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:

My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone.

Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,

And bear me to the margin; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.'

So saying, from the pavement he half rose,

Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bevidere Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not words;

Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,

O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,

And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs.

But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard,

Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King,

Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick!

I fear it is too late, and I shall die.' But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,

Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd,

Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before. His own thought drove him, like a goad.

Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right

ness

Or else we loved the man, and prized his work;

I know not: but we sitting, as I said, The cock crew loud; as at that time of year

The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn: Then Francis, muttering, like a man illused,

'There now- that's nothing!' drew a little back,

And drove his heel into the smoulder'd log,

That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue: And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seem'd To sail with Arthur under looming shores, Point after point; till on to dawn, when dreams

Begin to feel the truth and stir of day, To me, methought, who waited with a crowd,

There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore

1

King Arthur, like a modern gentleman Of stateliest port; and all the people cried,

Arthur is come again: he cannot die.' Then those that stood upon the hills behind

Repeated Come again, and thrice as fair; ' And, further inland, voices echo'd 'Come With all good things, and war shall be

no more.'

71

At this a hundred bells began to peal, That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed

The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas-morn.

THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; OR, THE PICTURES.

THIS morning is the morning of the day, When I and Eustace from the city went To see the gardener's daughter; I and he, Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete Portion'd in halves between us, that we grew

The fable of the city where we dwelt.

My Eustace might have sat for Hercules;

And up we rose, and on the spur we went. Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. News from the humming city comes to it In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you

hear

The windy clanging of the minster clock; Although between it and the garden lies A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream,

That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar,
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge
Crown'd with the minster-towers.
The fields between
Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd
kine,

And all about the large lime feathers low, The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.

In that still place she, hoarded in herself, Grew, seldom seen; not less among us lived

Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard

Of Rose, the gardener's daughter? Where was he,

So blunt in memory, so old at heart,
At such a distance from his youth in grief,
That, having seen, forgot? The common
mouth,

So gross to express delight, in praise of

her

Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love,
And Beauty such a mistress of the world.

And if I said that Fancy, led by Love,
Would play with flying forms and images,
Yet this is also true, that, long before
I look'd upon her, when I heard her name
My heart was like a prophet to my heart,
And told me I should love. A crowd of
hopes,

That sought to Sow themselves like winged seeds,

Born out of everything I heard and saw, Flutter'd about my senses and my soul; And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm

To one that travels quickly, made the air Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream

Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark
East,

Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn.
And sure this orbit of the memory folds
For ever in itself the day we went
To see her. All the land in flowery

squares,

Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud

Drew downward: but all else of heaven was pure

Up to the Sun, and May from verge to

verge,

And May with me from head to heel. And now,

As tho' 'twere yesterday, as tho' it were The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound,

(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,) Rings in mine ears. graze,

The steer forgot to

And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood,

Leaning his horns into the neighbour field,

And lowing to his fellows. From the woods

Came voices of the well-contented doves. The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy,

But shook his song together as he near'd His happy home, the ground. To left and right,

The cuckoo told his name to all the hills;
The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm;
The redcap whistled; and the nightingale
Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of
day.

And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said

to me,

'Hear how the bushes echo! by my life, These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing

Like poets, from the vanity of song? Or have they any sense of why they sing? And would they praise the heavens for what they have?' And I made answer, Were there nothing else

•

For which to praise the heavens but only love,

That only love were cause enough for praise.'

Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought,

And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd,

We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North;

Down which a well-worn pathway courted

us

To one green wicket in a privet hedge; This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned;

And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew

Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. The garden stretches southward. In the midst

A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.

The garden-glasses glanced, and momently

The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights. 'Eustace,' I said, 'this wonder keeps the house.'

He nodded, but a moment afterwards
He cried, Look! look!' Before he
ceased I turn'd,
And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there.
For up the porch there grew an Eastern

rose,

That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught,

And blown across the walk. One arm aloft

Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape

Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood, A single stream of all her soft brown hair Pour'd on one side: the shadow of the flowers

Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering Lovingly lower, trembled on her waistAh, happy shade — and still went wavering down,

-

But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced

The greensward into greener circles, dipt, And mix'd with shadows of the common ground! But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd