At which the parson, sent to sleep with

sound,

And waked with silence, grunted 'Good!' but we

Sat rapt: it was the tone with which he read

Perhaps some modern touches here and there

Redeem'd it from the charge of nothingness

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Or else we loved the man, and prized his work;

I know not; but we sitting, as I said, The cock crew loud, as at that time of year

The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn.

Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used,

'There now-that's nothing!' drew a little back,

And drove his heel into the smoulder'd log,

That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue.

And so to bed, where yet in sleep I seem'd

To sail with Arthur under looming shores,

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My words were half in earnest, half in jest:

"T is not your work, but Love's Love, unperceived,

A more ideal artist he than all, Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes

Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair

More black than ashbuds in the front of March.'

Christmas morn.

and see

News from the humming city comes io it

In sound of funeral or of marriage bells;

And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear

The windy clanging of the minster clock;

Altho' between it and the garden lies A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream,

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That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar,

Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge
Crown'd with the minster-towers.
The fields between
Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-
udder'd kine,

And all about the large lime feathers low

The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.

In that still place she, hoarded in herself,

Grew, seldom seen; not less among us lived

Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard

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Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter? Where was he,

So blunt in memory, so old at heart, At such a distance from his youth in grief,

That, having seen, forgot? The com

mon mouth,

So gross to express delight, in praise

of her

Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, And Beauty such a mistress of the world.

And if I said that Fancy, led by Love,

Would play with flying forms and images,

Yet this is also true, that, long before

Flutter'd about my senses and my soul;

And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm

To one that travels quickly, made the air

His happy home, the ground. To left and right,

The cuckoo told his name to all the hills;

The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm ; The redcap whistled; and the nightingale

Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day.

And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me:

'Hear how the bushes echo! by my life,

These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing

Like poets, from the vanity of song? Or have they any sense of why they sing?

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And would they praise the heavens for what they have?'

And I made answer: Were there nothing else

For which to praise the heavens but only love,

That only love were cause enough for praise.'

Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought, And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd,

We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North,

Down which a well-worn pathway courted us

To one green wicket in a privet hedge.

This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk

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And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there.

For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose,

That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught

And blown across the walk. One arm aloft

Gown'd in pure white that fitted to the shape

Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood,

A single stream of all her soft brown hair

Pour'd on one side; the shadow of the flowers

Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering

Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist

Ah,

But,

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happy shade! - and still went wavering down,

ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced

The greensward into greener circles, dipt,

mix'd with shadows of the common ground.

And

So rapt, we near'd the house; but she, a Rose

In roses, mingled with her fragrant

toil,

Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn'd

Into the world without; till close at hand,

And almost ere I knew mine own intent,

This murmur broke the stillness of that air

Which brooded round about her: 'Ah, one rose,

Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt.

Light pretexts drew me: sometimes a Dutch love

For tulips; then for roses, moss or musk,

To

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grace my city rooms; or fruits and cream Served in the weeping elm; and more and more

A word could bring the color to my cheek;

A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew;

Love trebled life within me, and with each The year increased.

The daughters of the year, One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd;

Each garlanded with her peculiar flower

Danced into light, and died into the shade;

And each in passing touch'd with some new grace

Or

seem'd to touch her, so that day by day,

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