So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me, And from it melt the dews of Paradise, Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense.

Ah! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints: I trust

That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. [God,

Speak, if there be a priest, a man of Among you there, and let him presently Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft,

And climbing up into my airy home,
Deliver me the blessed sacrament;
For by the warning of the Holy Ghost,
I prophesy that I shall die to-night,
A quarter before twelve.

But thou, O Lord, Aid all this foolish people; let them take

Example, pattern; lead them to thy light.

THE TALKING OAK. ONCE more the gate behind me falls; Once more before my face I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,

That stand within the chace.

Beyond the lodge the city lies,
Beneath its drift of smoke;

And ah! with what delighted eyes
I turn to yonder oak.

For when my passion first began,
Ere that, which in me burn'd,

The love, that makes me thrice a man,
Could hope itself return'd;

To yonder oak within the field

I spoke without restraint,
And with a larger faith appeal'd
Than Papist unto Saint.

For oft I talk'd with him apart,
And told him of my choice,
Until he plagiarized a heart,

And answer'd with a voice.

"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence,
And number'd bead and shrift,
Bluff Harry broke into the spence,
And turn'd the cowls adrift:
"And I have seen some score of those
Fresh faces that would thrive
When his man-minded offset rose
To chase the deer at five;

"And all that from the town would stroll,

Till that wild wind made work
In which the gloomy brewer's soul
Went by me, like a stork:

"The slight she-slips of loyal blood,
And others, passing praise,
Strait-laced, but all-too-full in bud
For puritanic stays :

"And I have shadow'd many a group
Of beauties that were born
In teacup-times of hood and hoop,
Or while the patch was worn;

And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,
About me leap'd and laugh'd
The modish Cupid of the day,

And shrill'd his tinsel shaft.

"I swear (and else may insects prick Each leaf into a gall)

This girl, for whom your heart is sick, Is three times worth them all;

"For those and theirs, by Nature's law, Have faded long ago;

But in these latter springs I saw
Your own Olivia blow,

If ever maid or spouse,

As fair as my Olivia, came

To rest beneath thy boughs.

"O Walter, I have shelter'd here

Whatever maiden grace

The good old Summers, year by year, Made ripe in Sumner-chace: "Old Summers, when the monk was. fat,

And, issuing shorn and sleek, Would twist his girdle tight, and pat The girls upon the check,

"For as to fairies, that will flit To make the greensward fresh, I hold them exquisitely knit,

But far too spare of flesh."

O, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
And overlook the chace;
And from thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place.

But thou, whereon I carved her name,
That oft has heard my vows,
Declare when last Olivia came
To sport beneath thy boughs.
"O yesterday, you know, the fair
Was holden at the town:
Her father left his good arm-chair,
And rode his hunter down.

"And with him Albert came on his,
I look'd at him with joy:
-As cowslip unto oxlip is,
So seems she to the boy.

"An hour had past—and, straight

Within the low-wheel'd chaise, Her mother trundled to the gate Behind the dappled grays.

"And here she came, and round me play'd,

And sang to me the whole Of those three stanzas that you made About my 'giant bole';

"But, as for her, she stay'd at home,
And on the roof she went,

And down the way you use to come
She look'd with discontent.

"She left the novel half-uncut
Upon the rosewood shelf;
She left the new piano shut:
She could not please herself.
"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,
And livelier than a lark
She sent her voice thro' all the holt
Before her, and the park.

"A light wind chased her on the wing,
And in the chase grew wild,
As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child:

"But light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir,

The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and

rose,

And turn'd to look at her.

But tell me, did she read the name
I carved with many vows
When last with throbbing heart I came
To rest beneath thy boughs?

"O yes, she wander'd round and round
These knotted knees of mine,
And found, and kiss'd the name she
found,

And sweetly murmur'd thine.

"A teardrop trembled from its source,
And down my surface crept.
My sense of touch is something coarse,
But I believe she wept.

"Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light,

She glanced across the plain;
But not a creature was in sight:
She kiss'd me once again.

"Her kisses were so close and kind,
That, trust me on my word,
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
But yet my sap was stirr'd:

"And even into my inmost ring

A pleasure I discern'd, Like those blind motions of the Spring, That show the year is turn'd. "Thrice-happy he that may caress The ringlet's waving balmThe cushions of whose touch may press

The maiden's tender palm.

"I, rooted here among the groves, But languidly adjust

My vapid vegetable loves

With anthers and with dust:

"For ah! my friend, the days were brief

Whereof the poets talk, When that, which breathes within the leaf,

Could slip its bark and walk.

"But could I, as in times foregone, From spray, and branch, and stem, Have suck'd and gather'd into one The life that spreads in them,

"She had not found me so remiss;
But lightly issuing thro',

I would have paid her kiss for kiss
With usury thereto."

O flourish high, with leafy towers,
And overlook the lea,
Pursue thy loves among the bowers,
But leave thou mine to me.

O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, I love thee well;
A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell.

"'Tis little more; the day was warm;
At last, tired out with play,
She sank her head upon her arm,
And at my feet she lay.

"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken

eaves.

I breathed upon her eyes Thro' all the summer of my leaves A welcome mix'd with sighs.

"I took the swarming sound of life-
The music from the town-
The murmurs of the drum and fife
And lull'd them in my own.

"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;
A second flutter'd round her lip
Like a golden butterfly;

"A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck,

From head to ankle fine.

"Then close and dark my arms I spread,

And shadow'd all her restDropt dews upon her golden head, An acorn in her breast.

"But in a pet she started up,

And pluck'd it out, and drew
My little oakling from the cup,
And flung him in the dew.
"And yet it was a graceful gift-
I felt a pang within

As when I see the woodman lift
His axe to slay my kin.

"I sho k him down because he was
The finest on the tree.

He lies beside thee on the grass.

O kiss him once for me.

"O kiss him twice and thrice for me,
That have no lips to kiss,
For never yet was oak on lea
Shall grow so fair as this.".

Step deeper yet in herb and fern,
Look further thro' the chace,
Spread upward till thy boughs discern
The front of Sumner-place.

This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
That but a moment lay

Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
Some happy future day.

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,

The warmth it thence shall win
To riper life may magnetize
The baby-oak within.

But thou, while kingdoms overset,

Or lapse from hand to hand,
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
Thine acorn in the land.

May never saw dismember thee,
Nor wielded axe disjoint,
That art the fairest-spoken tree
From here to Lizard-point.

rock upon thy towery top
All throats that gurgle sweet!
All starry culmination drop

Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!

All grass of silky feather grow

And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells.

The fat earth feed thy branchy root,

That under deeply strikes! The northern morning o'er thee shoot, High up, in silver spikes!

Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
But, rolling as in sleep,
Low thunders bring the mellow rain,
That makes thee broad and deep!

And hear me swear a solemn oath,
That only by thy side

Will I to Olive plight my troth,
And gain her for my bride.

LOVE AND DUTY. OF love that never found his earthly close, [breaking hearts? What sequel? Streaming eyes and Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time [gart shout Still father Truth? O shall the bragFor some blind glimpse of freedom work itself [law Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?

And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust! or year by year

alone

Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!

[all, If this were thus, if this, indeed, were Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,

[days, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro' thy love? O three times less unworthy! likewise [thy years. Art more thro' Love, and greater than The Sun will run his orbit, and the

thou

Moon

Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring [changed to fruit

She, Dryad-like, shall wear

Alternate leaf and acorn-ball

In wreath about her hair.

And I will work in prose and rhyme,
And praise thee more in both
Than bard has-honor'd beech or lime,
Or that Thessalian growth,
In which the swarthy ringdoves sat,
And mystic sentence spoke;
And more than England honors that,
Thy famous brother-oak,
Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And humm'd a surly hymn.

Of wisdom.

in Time,

Wait: my faith is large

[fect end.

And that which shapes it to some perWill some one say, then why not ill for good? [that man Why took ye not your pastime? To My work shall answer, since I knew the right

And did it; for a man is not as God, But then most Godlike being most a [and me

man.

-So let me think 'tis well for thee Ill fated that I am, what lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow [me, To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to