Live long, ere from thy topmost head

The thick-set hazel dies;

Long, erc the hateful crow shall tread
The corners of thine eyes:

Live long, nor feel in head or chest
Our changeful equinoxes,
Till mellow Death, like some late
guest,

Shall call thee from the boxes.

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease
To pace the gritted floor,
And, laying down an unctuous lease
Of life, shalt earn no more:
No carved cross-bones, the types of
Death,

Shall show thee past to Heaven : But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,

A pint-pot, neatly graven.

ΤΟ

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS.

"Cursed be he that moves my bones." Shakespeare's Epitaph. You might have won the Poet's name, If such be worth the winning now, And gain'd a laurel for your brow Of sounder leaf, than I can claim ; But you have made the wiser choice, A life that moves to gracious ends Thro' troops of unrecording friends, A deedful life, a silent voice;

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom

Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. For now the poet cannot die

Nor leave his music as of old,

Ah shameless! for he did but sing A song that pleased us from its worth;

No public life was his on earth, No blazon'd statesman he, nor king. He gave the people of his best:

His worst he kept, his best he gave.. My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave

Who will not let his ashes rest! Who make it seem more sweet to be

The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tree, Than he that warbles long and loud

And drops at Glory's temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd!

Break lock and seal: Betray the

trust:

Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just The many-headed beast should know."

Of cavern pillars; on the swell The silver lily heaved and fell; And many a slope was rich in bloom From him that on the mountain lea

By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea.

LADY CLARE.

IT was the time when lilies blow, And clouds are highest up in air, Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe To give his cousin, Lady Clare.

I trow they did not part in scorn: Lovers long-betroth'd were the : They too will wed the morrow morn: God's blessing on the day!

"He does not love me for my birth, Nor for my lands so broad and fair: He loves me for my own true worth,

And that is well," said Lady Clare. In there came old Alice the nurse,

Said, "Who was this that went from thee?"

"It was my cousin," said Lady Clare, "To-morrow he weds with me."

"O God be thank'd!" said Alice the nurse,

"That all comes round so just and fair:

Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, And you are not the Lady Clare." "Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?"

Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild?

"As God's above," said Alice the

"But keep the secret all ye can." She said "Not so: but I will know If there be any faith in man."

'Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse,

"The man will cleave unto his right."

"And he shall have it," the lady replied,

"Tho' I should die to-night."

"Yet give one kiss to your mother dcar!

Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee.") "O mother, mother, mother," she said, So strange it seems to me.

66

"Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear,

My mother dear, if this be so, And lay your hand upon my head.

And bless me, mother, ere I go."

She clad herself in a russet gown,

She was no longer Lady Clare : She went by dale, and she went by down,

With a single rose in her hair The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought

Leapt up from where she lay, Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,

And follow'd her all the way.

Down stept Lord Ronald from his

tower:

"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!

Why come you drest like a village maid,

That are the flower of the earth?" "If I come drest like a village naid, I am but as my fortunes are: I am a beggar born,” she said, "And not the Lady Clare."

"Play me Ronald, "For I am yours in word and in deed.

no tricks," said Lord

Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, "Your riddle is hard to read."

O and proudly stood she up!

Her heart within her did not fail : She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, And told him all her nurse's tale.

He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn: He turn'd, and kiss'd her where she stood:

"If you are not the heiress born, And I," said he, "the next in blood"If you are not the heiress born,

And I," said he, "the lawful heir, We two will wed to-morrow morn, And you shall still be Lady Clare."

THE LORD OF BURLEIGH.

In her ear he whispers gayly,

"If my heart by signs can tell, Maiden, I have watched thee daily, And I think thou lov'st me well.' She replies, in accents fainter,

"There is none I love like thee." He is but a landscape-painter, And a village maiden she. He to lips, that fondly falter, Presses his without reproof: Leads her to the village altar, And they leave her father's roof. "I can make no marriage present; Little can I give my wife. Love will make our cottage pleasant, And I love thee more than life." They by parks and lodges going

See the lordly castles stand; Summer woods, about them blowing, Made a murmur in the land.

From deep thought himself he rouses,
Says to her that loves him well,
"Let us see these handsome houses
Where the wealthy nobles dwell."
So she goes by him attended,

Hears him lovingly converse,
Sees whatever fair and splendid

Lay betwixt his home and hers; Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and order'd gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady,

Built for pleasure and for state.
All he shows her makes him dearer :
Evermore she seems to gaze
On that cottage growing nearer,
Where they twain will spend their
days.

O but she will love him truly!
He shall have a cheerful home;
She will order all things duly,
When beneath his roof they come.
Thus her heart rejoices greatly,

Till a gateway she discerns
With armorial bearings stately,
And beneath the gate she turns;
Sees a mansion more majestic

Than all those she saw before:
Many a gallant gay domestic

Bows before him at the door. And they speak in gentle murmur, When they answer to his call, While he treads with footstep firmer, Leading on from hall to hall. And, while now she wonders blindly, Nor the meaning can divine, Proudly turns he round and kindly,

"All of this is mine and thine." Here he lives in state and bounty, Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, Not a lord in all the county

Is so great a lord as he. All at once the color flushes

Her sweet face from brow to chin: As it were with shame she blushes, And her spirit changed within. Then her countennance all over

Pale again as death did prove; But he clasp'd her like a lover,

And he cheer'd her soul with love. So she strove against her weakness, Tho' at times her spirits sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meek

ness

To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he, And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady,

And the people loved her much.

But a trouble weigh'd upon her,
And perplex'd her, night and morn,
With the burden of an honor

Unto which she was not born.
Faint she grew, and ever fainter,

As she murmur'd, "O, that he Were once more that landscapepainter,

Which did win my heart from me!" So she droop'd and droop'd before him,

Fading slowly from his side: Three fair children first she bore him, Then before her time she died. Weeping, weeping late and early, Walking up and pacing down, Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. And he came to look upon her,

And he look'd at her and said,
"Bring the dress and put it on her,
That she wore when she was wed."
Then her people, softly treading,

Bore to earth her body, drest
In the dress that she was wed in,
That her spirit might have rest.

And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.
Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring:
A grown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet
Her cream-white mule his pastern set;
And fleeter now she skimm'd the
plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings

With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,

GUINEVERE.

A FRAGMENT.

LIKE Souls that balance joy and pain, With tears and smiles from heaven again

The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sunlit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And, far in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green

From draughts of balmy air. Sometimes the linnet piped his song : Sometimes the throstle whistled strong: Sometimes the sparhawk,wheel'd along, Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:

By grassy capes with fuller sound In curves the yellowing river ran,

And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips

A FAREWELL.

FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree

And here thine aspen shiver: And here by thee will hum the bce, Forever and forever.

I HAD a vision when the night was late:

A youth came riding toward a palacegate.

He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,

But that his heavy rider kept him down. And from the palace came a child of sin,

And took him by the curls, and led him in,

Where sat a company with heated eyes, Expecting when a fountain should arise: A sleepy light upon their brows and lips

As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse, Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes

Flung the torrent rainbow round:
Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dash'd together in blinding dew:
Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony,
The nerve-dissolving melody
Flutter'd headlong from the sky.