'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: Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip:

I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn. 'I go, but I return: I would I were The pilot of the darkness and the dream. Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.'

So sang we each to either, Francis

James. That? Sir Edward Head's: But he's abroad: the place is to be sold. John. Oh, his. He was not broken. James. No, sir, he,

Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face

From all men, and commercing with himself,

He lost the sense that handles daily life

That keeps us all in order more or less And sick of home went overseas for

James. He left her, yes. I met my lady once:

A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs. John. Oh yet but I remember, ten years back

'Tis now at least ten years — and then she was

You could not light upon a sweeter thing: A body slight and round, and like a pear In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin As clean and white as privet when it flowers.

James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they that loved

At first like dove and dove were cat and dog.

She was the daughter of a cottager, Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride,

New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd

And fear of change at home, that drove him hence.

James. That was the last drop in the cup of gall.

I once was near him, when his bailiff brought

A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince

As from a venomous thing: he thought himself

A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes

Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs

Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you know

That these two parties still divide the world.

We took them all, till she was left alone Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine, And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty. John. They found you out?

James. Not they. John. Well-after allWhat know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound,

That we should mimic this raw fool the world,

Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites,

As ruthless as a baby with a worm,
As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows
To Pity-more from ignorance than will.
But put your best foot forward, or I
fear

That we shall miss the mail: and here it

comes

With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand As you shall see — three pyebalds and a

roan.

EDWIN MORRIS;

OR, THE LAKE.

O ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake, My sweet, wild, fresh three quarters of a year,

My one Oasis in the dust and drouth
Of city life! I was a sketcher then:
See here, my doing: curves of mountain,

bridge,

Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built

When men knew how to build, upon a

rock

With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock: And here, new-comers in an ancient hold,

New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires,

Here lived the Hills - -a Tudor-chimnied

bulk

Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.

O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull

The curate; he was fatter than his cure.

But Edwin Morris, he that knew the

names,

G

So spoke I knowing not the things that were.

Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull:

'God made the woman for the use of man,

And for the good and increase of the world.'

And I and Edwin laughed; and now we paused

About the windings of the marge to hear The soft wind blowing over meadowy 'holms

And alders, garden-isles; and now we left The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran By ripply shallows of the lisping lake, Delighted with the freshness and the sound.

But, when the bracken rusted on their

crags,

My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him

That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk, The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles. 'Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no

more:

She sent a note, the seal an Elle vous suit,

The close, 'Your Letty, only yours; and this

Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn

Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with beating heart

The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel;

And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved,

They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, To lands in Kent and messuages in York, And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile

And educated whisker. But for me,

They set an ancient creditor to work :
It seems I broke a close with force and
arms:

There came a mystic token from the king
To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy !
I read, and fled by night, and flying
turn'd:

Her taper glimmer'd in the lake below:
I turn'd once more, close-button'd to the
storm;

So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear.

Nor cared to hear? perhaps: yet long ago

I have pardon'd little Letty; not indeed, It may be, for her own dear sake but this, She seems a part of those fresh days to me; For in the dust and drouth of London life She moves among my visions of the lake, While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then

Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still

Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear, Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd

My spirit flat before thee.

O Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first,

For I was strong and hale of body then; And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt

away,