Forbid you, Dora?" Dora said again, "Do with me as you will, but take the child

And bless him for the sake of him that's gone!"

And Allan said, "I see it is a trick Got up betwixt you and the woman there.

I must be taught my duty, and by you! You knew my word was law, and yet you dared

To slight it. Well-for I will take the boy;

But go you hence, and never see me more." [aloud So saying, he took the boy, that cried And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell

At Dora's feet. She bow'd upon her hands,

And the boy's cry came to her from the field,

More and more distant. She bow'd down her head, Remembering the day when first she

And Dora said, "My uncle took the boy; [you: But, Mary, let me live and work with He says that he will never see me more."

Then answer'd Mary, "This shall never be,

That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself:

And, now I think, he shall not have the boy,

For he will teach him hardness, and to slight

His mother; therefore thou and I will go

And I will have my boy, and bring him home;

And I will beg of him to take thee back;

But if he will not take thee back again, Then thou and I will live within one

house,

And work for William's child, until he grows Of age to help us."

So the women kiss'd Each other, and set out, and reach'd the farm.

The door was off the latch: they peep'd and saw

The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees,

[arm, Who thrust him in the hollows of his And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks,

Like one that loved him; and the lad stretch'd out

And babbled for the golden seal that hung

From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire.

Then they came in: but when the boy

beheld

Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight

His father's memory; and take Dora back,

And let all this be as it was before."

So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silencè in the room;

And all at once the old man burst in sobs:

"I have been to blame-to blame. I

have kill'd my son.

I have kill'd him-but I loved himmy dear son. May God forgive me!-I have been to blame.

Kiss me, my children."

Then they clung about The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times.

And all the man was broken with re

morse;

And all his love came back a hundredfold;

And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child,

Thinking of William.

So those four abode Within one house together; and as time [mate; Went forward, Mary took another But Dora lived unmarried till her death.

"THE Bull, the Fleece are cramm'd, and not a room Let us picnic

For love or money. there

At Audley Court."

I spoke, while Audley feast Humm'd like a hive all round the narrow quay,

To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
To Francis just alighted from the boat,
And breathing of the sea. "With all
my heart,"
Said Francis.

Then we shoulder'd thro' the swarm,

And rounded by the stillness of the beach [horn. To where the bay runs up its latest We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp'd

The Hat red granite; so by many a

With all its casements bedded, and its walls

And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine. There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid

A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound,

Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,

And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly made,

Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay,

Like fossils of the rock, with golden yokes

Imbedded and injellied; last, with these,

A flask of cider from his father's vats, Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat [dead, And talk'd old matters over: who was

Who married, who was like to be, and how

The races went, and who would rent the hall:

Then touch'd upon the game, how scarce it was

This season; glancing thence, discuss'd the farm,

The fourfield system, and the price of grain;

And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split,

And came again together on the king With heated faces; till he laugh'd aloud;

[hung And, while the blackbird on the pippin 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 shovell'd up into a bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life. [desk, "O, who would cast and balance at a Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd 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, [sands; I might as well have traced it in the The sea wastes all: but let me live my life.

"O, who would love? I woo'd a woman once, [wind, But she was sharper than an eastern And all my heart turn'd from her, as a thorn

Turns from the sea: but let me live my life."

He sang his song, and I replied with mine:

I found it in a volume, all of songs, Knock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride,

His books-the more the pity, so I said

years back

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

[thing: You could not light upon a sweeter A body slight and round, and like a pear [foot In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a 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

[dog. At first like dove and dove were cat and 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

To what she is: a nature never kind! Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say.

Kind nature is the best: those manners

next

That fit us like a nature second-hand; Which are indeed the manners of the great.

John. But I had heard it was this bill that past,

As never sow was higher in this worldMight have been happy: but what lot is pure?

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 school-boy 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-inhand

As you shall see-three piebalds 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,

[aires, New-comers from the Mersey, millionHere lived the Hills-a Tudor-chimneyed bulk

Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.