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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,

But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry :

'Proclaim the faults he would not show :
Break lock and seal betray the trust:
Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just
The many-headed beast should know.'

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!

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN
GREECE.

ILLYRIAN Woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair, With such a pencil, such a pen, You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there :

And trust me while I turn'd the page, And track'd you still on classic ground, I grew in gladness till I found

My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour'd

And glisten'd-here and there alone The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown

By fountain-urns ;-and Naiads oar'd

A glimmering shoulder under gloom

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.

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

ENOCH ARDEN.

LONG lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm ;

And in the chasm are foam and yellow

sands;

Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher

A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd

mill;

And high in heaven behind it a gray down With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes Green in a cuplike hollow of the down.

Here on this beach a hundred years ago, Three children of three houses, Annie Lee, The prettiest little damsel in the port, And Philip Ray the miller's only son, And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd Among the waste and lumber of the shore, Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishingnets,

Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn ;

And built their castles of dissolving sand To watch them overflow'd, or following up And flying the white breaker, daily left The little footprint daily wash'd away.

A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: In this the children play'd at keeping house.

Enoch was host one day, Philip the next, While Annie still was mistress; but at times

Enoch would hold possession for a week : "This is my house and this my little wife.' 'Mine too' said Philip 'turn and turn about :'

When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch strongermade

Was master: then would Philip, his blue eyes

All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears,

Shriek out I hate you, Enoch,' and at

Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a

year

On board a merchantman, and made himself

Full sailor; and he thrice had pluck'd a life

From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas:

And all men look'd upon him favourably: And ere he touch'd his one-and-twentieth

May

He purchased his own boat, and made a home

For Annie, neat and nestlike, halfway up The narrow street that clamber'd toward the mill.

Then, on a golden autumn eventide, The younger people making holiday, With bag and sack and basket, great and small,

Went nutting to the hazels. Philip stay'd (His father lying sick and needing him) An hour behind; but as he climb'd the hill, Just where the prone edge of the wood began

To feather toward the hollow, saw the

pair,

Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand, His large gray 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 merrymaking,

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 competence,

And mutual love and honourable toil; With children; first a daughter. In him woke,

With his first babe's first cry, the noble wish

To save all earnings to the uttermost, And give his child a better bringing-up Than his had been, or hers; a wish renew'd,

When two years after came a boy to be The rosy idol of her solitudes,

While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas, Or often journeying landward; for in truth Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's oceanspoil

In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales,

Not only to the market-cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down, Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering.

Then came a change, as all things human change.

Ten miles to northward of the narrow port Open'd a larger haven: thither used Enoch at times to go by land or sea; And once when there, and clambering on

a mast

In harbour, by mischance he slipt and fell: A limb was broken when they lifted him ; And while he lay recovering there, his wife Bore him another son, a sickly one : Another hand crept too across his trade

:

Taking her bread and theirs and on him fell,

Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man,
Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom.
He seem'd, as in a nightmare of the night,
To see his children leading evermore
Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth,
And her, he loved, a beggar: then he
pray'd

'Save them from this, whatever comes to me.'

And while he pray'd, the master of that ship

Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance,

Came, for he knew the man and valued him,

Reporting of his vessel China-bound, And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go?

There yet were many weeks before she sail'd,

Sail'd from this port. Would Enoch

have the place?

And Enoch all at once assented to it, Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer.

So now that shadow of mischance
appear'd

No graver than as when some little cloud
Cuts off the fiery highway of the sun,
And isles a light in the offing: yet the
wife--

When he was gone-the children-what to do?

Then Enoch lay long-pondering on his

plans;

To sell the boat-and yet he loved her well

How many a rough sea had he weather'd in her!

He knew her, as a horseman knows his

horse