Some figure like a wizard's pentagram wrong ?' (Claspt hands and that petitionary grace Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke) • O would I take her father for one hour, For one half-hour, and let him talk to me!' And even while she spoke, I saw where James Made toward us, like a wader in the surf, Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow-sweet. " Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake! For in I went, and call’d old Philip out To show the farm : full willingly be rose : He led me thro’ the short sweet-smelling lanes Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went. He praised his land, his horses, his machines; He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs; He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens ; His pigeons, who in session on their roofs Approved him, bowing at their own deserts : Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, And naming those, his friends, for whom they were: Then crost the common into Darnley chase Of how the Squire had seen the colt at grass, them line : and how by chance at last (It might be May or April, he forgot, The last of April or the first of May) He found the bailiff riding by the farm, And, talking from the point, he drew him in, And there he mellow'd all his heart with ale, Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand. “ Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, Poor fellow, could he help it ? recommenced, And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle, Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, Till, not to die a listener, I arose, And with me Philip, talking still; and so We turn’d our foreheads from the falling sun, And following our own shadows thrice as long As when they follow'd us from Philip's door, Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well. I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel covers ; That grow for happy lovers. I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows ; Against my sandy shallows. I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses ; I loiter round my cresses ; And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river, But I go on forever. Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, All are gone." farm ?" “ Yes," answer'd she." Pray stay a little: pardon me; my name.” What do they call you ?”—Katie.”—“That were strange. What surname? “ Willows." No!”_6 That is “ Indeed !” and here he look'd so self-perplext, That Katie laugh’d, and laughing blush'd, till he Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes, Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream. Then looking at her; “Too happy, fresh and fair, Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom, To be the ghost of one who bore your name About these meadows, twenty years ago.” we came “ Have you not heard ?” said Katie, back. THE LETTERS. 1. STILL on the tower stood the vane, A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air, I peer'd athwart the chancel pane And saw the altar cold and bare. A clog of lead was round my feet, A band of pain across my brow; " Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet Before you hear my marriage vow." 2. I turn'd and humm’d a bitter song That mock'd the wholesome human heart, And then we met in wrath and wrong, We met, but only meant to part. She faintly smiled, she hardly moved ; 3. With half a sigh she turn'd the key, Then raised her head with lips comprest, And gave my letters back to me. And gave the trinkets and the rings, My gifts, when gifts of mine could please ; As looks a father on the things Of his dead son, I look'd on these. 4. I raged against the public liar; 11 VOL. II. |