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LOCKSLEY HALL.

147

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,

Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,

But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious

gains,

Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower

pains!

Mated with a squalid savage-what to me were sun or clime?

I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time—

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in

Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us

range.

Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.

Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day:

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun

Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set; Ancient founts of inspiration well through all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley

Hall!

Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over heath and

holt,

Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or

snow;

For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. ALFRED TENNYSON.

M

Maud Muller.

AUD MULLER, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast—

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

MAUD MULLER.

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow, across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

"Thanks!” said the Judge, "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing-birds and the humming-bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles, bare and brown,

And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay

Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be !

"He would dress me up in silks so fine,

And praise and toast me at his wine.

'My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat,

149

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day.

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

66

'And her modest answer and graceful air: Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay.

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

"But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words."

But he thought of his sister, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,

When he hummed in court an old love tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell..

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

MAUD MULLER.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a bright picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms;

And the proud man sighed with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day

Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay.”

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring-brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And gazing down with a timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls

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