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LOCKSLEY HALL.

137

Should he ever be a suitor

Unto sweeter eyes than mine,
Sunshine gild them,

Angels shield them,

Whatsoever eyes terrene

Be the sweetest HIS have seen!

ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

CON

Locksley Hall.

OMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn:

Leave me here, and when you want me, souna upon the bugle horn.

'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews

call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley

Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy

tracts,

And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,

Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade,

Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sub

lime

With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's

breast;

In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another

crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,

And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance

hung.

And I said, “My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth

to me;

Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turned-her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs

All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes—

Saying, “I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;"

Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long.'

LOCKSLEY HALL.

139

Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing

hands;

Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,

And her whisper thronged my pulses with the fullness of the Spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,

And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have

sung,

Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy?—having known me—to decline On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than

mine!

Yet it shall be thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy-think not they are glazed with wine.

Go to him; it is thy duty-kiss him: take his hand in thine.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought— Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand— Better thou wert dead before me, though I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's dis

grace,

Rolled in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!

Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's

rule!

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened forehead of the fool!

Well-'tis well that I should bluster!-Hadst thou less

unworthy proved

Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter

fruit?

I will pluck it from my bosom, though my heart be at the

root!

LOCKSLEY HALL.

141

Never though my mortal summers to such length of years

should come

As the many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perished; sweetly did she speak and

move:

Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she

bore?

No-she never loved me truly love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorned of devils! this is truth the poet

sings,

That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to

proof,

In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the

wall,

Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise

and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,

To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt

weep.

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