Who look'd all native to her place, and yet

On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce

Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved,

And girdled her with music. Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high

Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall

He shall not blind his soul with clay." "But 1," Said Ida, tremulously, "so all unlikeIt seems you love to cheat yourself with words:

This mother is your model. I have heard Of your strange doubts: they well might be I seem

A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince;

You cannot love me."

"Nay but thee" I said "From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes,

Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw

Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods

That mask'd thee from men's reverence

up, and forced

Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood:

now,

Giv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee,

Indeed I love: the new day comes, the light

Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults

Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts

are dead,

My haunting sense of hollow shows; the change,

This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear,

Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine,

Like yonder morning on the blind halfworld;

Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows;

In that fine air I tremble, all the past Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this

Is morn to more, and all the rich tocome

Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland

reels

assent:

Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven

Together in one sheaf? What style could suit ?

The men required that I should give throughout

The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, With which we banter'd little Lilia first: The women- and perhaps they felt their power,

For something in the ballads which they sang,

Or in their silent influence as they sat, Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque,

Ard drove us, last, to quite a solemn close

They hated banter, wish'd for something real,

A gallant fight, a noble princess-why Not make her true-neroic-true-sublime?

Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? Which yet with such a framework scarce could be.

Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, Betwixt the mockers and the realists: And I, betwixt them both, to please

them both,

And yet to give the story as it rose,
I moved as in a strange diagonal,
And may be neither pleased myself nor
them.

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part

In our dispute: the sequel of the tale

Had touch'd her; and she sat, she

pluck'd the grass,

She flung it from her, thinking: last, she fixt

A showery glance upon her aunt, and said,

"You

tell us what we are" who might have told,

"our

Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams

Are but the needful preludes of the truth:

For me, the genial day,the happy crowd, The sport half-science, fill me with a faith,

This fine old world of ours is but a child

Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time

To learn its limbs: there is a hand that guides."

In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails,

And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood,

Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, Among six boys, head under head, and look'd

No little lily-handed Baronet he,
A great broad-shoulder'd genial Eng-
lishman,

A. lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep,
A raiser of huge melons and of pine,
A patron of some thirty charities,
A pampleteer on guano and on grain,
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler
none;

Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy
morn;

Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those

That stood the nearest-now address'd to speech

Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed

Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year

To follow: a shout rose again, and made

The long line of the approaching rookery swerve

From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer

From slope to slope thro'distant ferns,
and rang

Beyond the bourn of sunset; O, a shout
More joyful than the city-roar that hails
Premier or king! Why should not these

To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair,

Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand, His large grey eyes and weather-beaten face

All-kindled by a still and sacred fire, That burn'd as on an altar. Philip look'd,

And in their eyes and faces read his doom;

Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd,

And slipt aside, and like a wounded life Crept down into the hollows of the wood;

There, while the rest were loud in merry-making.

Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past

Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart.

So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells,

And merrily ran the years, seven happy years,

Seven happy years of health and com