Is it well to wish thee happy?—having known | Never! though my mortal summers to such length me; to decline of years should come On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart As the many-wintered crow that leads the clang ing rookery home. than mine! Yet it shall be thou shalt lower to his level day Where is comfort? in division of the records of by day, the mind? What is fine within thee growing coarse to sym- Can I part her from herself, and love her, as 1 pathize with clay. knew her, kind? As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated I remember one that perished; sweetly did she with a clown, speak and move; And the grossness of his nature will have weight Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to drag thee down. to love. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the spent its novel force, love she bore? Something better than his dog, a little dearer than No, his horse. she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore. What is this? his eyes are heavy, - think not Comfort? comfort scorned of devils! this is truth they are glazed with wine. the poet sings, Go to him; it is thy duty, — kiss him; take his That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering hand in thine. happier things. It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy overwrought, heart be put to proof, Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with In the dead, unhappy night, and when the rain thy lighter thought. is on the roof. He will answer to the purpose, easy things to un- Like a dog, he hunts in dreams; and thou art derstand, staring at the wall, Better thou wert dead before me, though I slew Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the thee with my hands. shadows rise and fall. Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to heart's disgrace, his drunken sleep, Rolled in one another's arms, and silent in a last To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears embrace. Cursed be the social wants that sin against the that thou wilt weep. Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest | And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindnature's rule! ness on thy pain. Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened fore- Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to head of the fool! thy rest again. Well 't is well that I should bluster!— Hadst Nay, but nature brings thee solace; for a tender thou less unworthy proved, voice will cry; Would to God-for I had loved thee more than 'T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy ever wife was loved. trouble dry. Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears | Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival but bitter fruit? brings thee rest, mother's breast. I will pluck it from my bosom, though my heart Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the be at the root. 0, the child too clothes the father with a dear- And his spirit leaps within him to be gone beness not his due. fore him then, Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy Underneath the light he looks at, in among the of the two. throngs of men ; 0, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reappart, ing something new : With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a That which they have done but earnest of the daughter's heart. things that they shall do: "They were dangerous guides the feelings-she herself was not exempt Truly, she herself had suffered ' self-contempt! Overlive it-lower yetshould I care? -Perish in thy For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; be happy wherefore Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with despair. What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys. Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do? I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound, But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each costly bales; What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his | Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the youthful joys, heavy-fruited tree, Though the deep heart of existence beat forever Summerisles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres like a boy's? of sea. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers; and I There, methinks, would be enjoyment more than linger on the shore, in this march of mind— And the individual withers, and the world is more In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts and more. that shake mankind. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have bears a laden breast, scope and breathing-space; Full of sad experience moving toward the still-I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my ness of his rest. dusky race. Hark! my merry comrades call me, sounding on Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive, and the bugle horn, they shall run, They to whom my foolish passion were a target Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their for their scorn; lances in the sun, Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainmouldered string? bows of the brooks, I am shamed through all my nature to have loved Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable so slight a thing. books Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my pleasure, woman's pain — words are wild, Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a But I count the gray barbarian lower than the shallower brain; Christian child. Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our matched with mine, glorious gains, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast unto wine with lower pains! Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah Mated with a squalid savage,—what to me were for some retreat sun or clime? Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of began to beat! time, Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father, I, that rather held it better men should perish evil-starred ; one by one, I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's ward. moon in Ajalon! Or to burst all links of habit, there to wander Not. in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range; far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the Let the great world spin forever down the ringday, ing grooves of change. into Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and Through the shadow of the globe we sweep happy skies, the younger day: Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of knots of Paradise. Cathay. 0, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath | O, had he whispered, when his sweetest kiss not set; Was warm upon my mouth in fancied bliss, Ancient founts of inspiration well through all my He had kissed another woman even as this, fancy yet. It were less bitter! Sometimes I could weep Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to To be thus cheated, like a child asleep ;· Locksley Hall! Were not my anguish far too dry and deep. ENOCH ARDEN AT THE WINDOW. BUT Enoch yearned to see her face again; "If I might look on her sweet face again And know that she is happy." So the thought Haunted and harassed him, and drove him fo..! At evening when the dull November day Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. There he sat down gazing on all below : There did a thousand memories roll upon him, Unspeakable for sadness. By and by The ruddy square of comfortable light, Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house, Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures The bird of passage, till he madly strikes Against it, and beats out his weary life. For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, The latest house to landward; but behind, With one small gate that opened on the waste, Flourished a little garden square and walled: And in it throve an ancient evergreen, A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk But Enoch shunned the middle walk and stole |