But if he will not take thee back again, So the women kissed Each other, and set out and reached the farm. Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire. "O Father! — if you let me call you so 'God bless him!' he said, 'and may he never know The troubles I have gone through!' Then he turned His face and passed- unhappy that I am! But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silence in the room; "I have been to blame my son! to blame! I have killed I have killed him - but I loved him- my dear son! Kiss me, my children!” Then they clung about The old man's neck, and kissed him many times. And all the man was broken with remorse ; And all his love came back a hundredfold; And for three hours he sobbed o'er William's child, So those four abode Within one house together; and as years AUDLEY COURT. "THE Bull, the Fleece are crammed, and not a room For love or money. Let us picnic there At Audley Court." I spoke, while Audley feast Hummed like a hive all round the narrow quay, To Francis just alighted from the boat, And breathing of the sea. “With all my heart," Said Francis. Then we shouldered through the swarm, And rounded by the stillness of the beach To where the bay runs up its latest horn. We left the dying ebb that faintly lipped And crossed the garden to the gardener's lodge, With all its casements bedded, and its walls There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang"O! who would fight and march and countermarch, Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, And shovelled up into a bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life. "O! who would cast and balance at a desk, Perched like a crow upon a three-legged stool, Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints Are full of chalk ? but let me live my life. "Who 'd serve the state? for if I carved my name Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, I might as well have traced it in the sands; The sea wastes all: but let me live my life. Knocked down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride, Came to the hammer here in March — and this I set the words, and added names I knew. Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of me : Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm, And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm; Emilia, fairer than all else but thou, For thou art fairer than all else that is. "Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast: |