As if she feared some goblin man
Dogged her with gibe or curse

Or something worse:

But not one goblin skurried after,

Nor was she pricked by fear;

The kind heart made her windy-paced

That urged her home quite out of breath with haste And inward laughter.

She cried "Laura," up the garden,

66 Did you miss me?

Come and kiss me.

Never mind my bruises,

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me :

For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men."

Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutched her hair :

"Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing

And ruined in my ruin,

Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?"

She clung about her sister,

Kissed and kissed and kissed her:

Tears once again

Refreshed her shrunken eyes,

Dropping like rain

After long sultry drouth;

Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,

She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.

Her lips began to scorch,

That juice was wormwood to her tongue,

She loathed the feast:

Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,

Rent all her robe, and wrung

Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.

Her locks streamed like the torch

Borne by a racer at full speed,

Or like the mane of horses in their flight,

Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,

Or like a caged thing freed,

Or like a flying flag when armies run.

Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her

heart,

Met the fire smouldering there

And overbore its lesser flame;

She gorged on bitterness without a name:

Ah! fool, to choose such part
Of soul-consuming care!

Sense failed in the mortal strife:

Like the watch-tower of a town

Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree

Spun about,

Like a foam-topped water-spout

Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;

Pleasure past and anguish past,

Is it death or is it life?

Life out of death.

That night long Lizzie watched by her,

Counted her pulse's flagging stir,

Felt for her breath,

Held water to her lips, and cooled her face

With tears and fanning leaves :

But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,

And early reapers plodded to the place

Of golden sheaves,

And dew-wet grass

Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,

And new buds with new day

Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,

Laura awoke as from a dream,

Laughed in the innocent old way,

Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;

Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of gray,

Her breath was sweet as May,

And light danced in her eyes.

Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;

Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:

Would talk about the haunted glen.

The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat,
But poison in the blood;

(Men sell not such in any town ;)

Would tell them how her sister stood

In deadly peril to do her good,

And win the fiery antidote :

Then joining hands to little hands

Would bid them cling together,

"For there is no friend like a sister,
In calm or stormy weather,

To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,

To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."

IN THE ROUND TOWER AT JHANSI,

A

JUNE 8, 1857.

HUNDRED, a thousand to one; even so;

Not a hope in the world remained :

The swarming, howling wretches below
Gained and gained and gained.

Skene looked at his pale young wife :

"Is the time come? "The time is come!"

Young, strong, and so full of life :

The agony struck them dumb.

Close his arm about her now,
Close her cheek to his,
Close the pistol to her brow
God forgive them this!

"Will it hurt much?'

"No, mine own:

I wish I could bear the pang for both.” "I wish I could bear the pang alone : Courage, dear, I am not loth."

Kiss and kiss: "It is not pain

Thus to kiss and die.

One kiss more." - "And yet one again.".

"Good by."- "Good by."

NOTE.-I retain this little poem, not as historically accurate, but as written and published before I heard the supposed facts of its first verse contradicted.