Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night!

Scorn! Would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven?

Let not the land, once proud of him,
Insult him now;

Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonour'd brow!

But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,

A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make!

Of all we loved and honour'd, nought
Save power remains,-

A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has filed:

When faith is lost, when honour dies,
The man is dead!

Then, pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;

Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!

TELLING THE BEES.*

HERE is the place; right over the hill
Runs the path I took;

You can see the gap in the old wall still,

And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

*See Note 15.

There is the house, with the gate red-barr'd,

And the poplars tall;

And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, And the white horns tossing above the wall.

There are the beehives ranged in the sun;

And down by the brink

Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'er-run, Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.

A year has gone, as the tortoise

Heavy and slow;

goes,

And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, And the same brook sings, of a year ago.

There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;
And the June sun warm

Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as then, over Fernside Farm.

I mind me how with a lover's care
From my Sunday coat

I brush'd off the burrs, and smooth'd my hair,
And cool'd at the brookside my brow and throat.

Since we parted, a month had pass'd,

To love, a year;

Down through the beeches I look'd at last

On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.

I can see it all now,-the slantwise rain

Of light through the leaves,

The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,
The bloom of her roses under the eaves.

Just the same as a month before,—

The house and the trees,

The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,—
Nothing changed but the hives of bees.

Before them, under the garden wall,
Forward and back,

Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.
Trembling, I listen'd: the summer sun
Had the chill of snow;

For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!
Then I said to myself-"My Mary weeps
For the dead to-day:

Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps

The fret and the pain of his age away."

But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
With his cane to his chin,

The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
Sang to the bees stealing out and in.

And the song she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on :-

"Stay at home, pretty bees! fly not hence: Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"

THE RIVER PATH.

No bird-song floated down the hill,
The tangled bank below was still;
No rustle from the birchen stem,
No ripple from the water's hem.
The dusk of twilight round us grew,
We felt the falling of the dew;

For from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.

But on the river's farther side
We saw the hill-tops glorified,-
A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.

With us the damp, the chill, the gloom:
With them the sunset's rosy bloom;

While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river roll'd in shade between.

From out the darkness where we trod,
We gazed upon those hills of God,

Whose light seem'd not of moon or sun.
We spake not, but our thought was one.

We paused, as if from that bright shore
Beckon'd our dear ones gone before;

And still'd our beating hearts to hear
The voices lost to mortal ear.

Sudden our pathway turn'd from night;
The hills swung open to the light;

Through their green gates the sunshine show'd,
A long slant splendour downward flow'd.

Down glade and glen and bank it roll'd;
It bridged the shaded stream with gold;
And, borne on piers of mist, allied

The shadowy with the sunlit side.

"So "-pray'd we- "when our feet draw near The river dark, with mortal fear,

"And the night cometh chill with dew,
O Father! let thy light break through!

"So let the hills of doubt divide,
So bridge with faith the sunless tide!

"So let the eyes that fail on earth
On thy eternal hills look forth;

"And in thy beckoning angels know The dear ones whom we loved below!"

IN SCHOOL-DAYS.

STILL Sits the school-house by the road—
A ragged beggar sunning:
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry-vines are running.

Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarr'd by raps official;
The warping floor, the batter'd seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;

The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!

It touch'd the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delay'd
When all the school were leaving.

For near her stood the little boy
Her childish favour singled;

His cap pull'd low upon a face
Where pride and shame were mingled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow
To right and left, he linger'd,
As restlessly her tiny hands

The blue-check'd apron finger'd.

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hand's light caressing;
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,

Because," the brown eyes lower fell,— “Because, you see, I love

you.