For I cared so much for my boy that the Lord has look'd into

my care,

And He means me I'm sure to be happy with Willy, I know not where.

XVI.

And if he be lost-but to save my soul, that is all your desire: Do you think I care for my soul if my boy be gone to the fire? I have been with God in the dark-go, go, you may leave me alone

You never have borne a child--you are just as hard as a stone.

XVII.

Madam, I beg your pardon! I think that you mean to be kind, But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice in the

wind

The snow and sky so bright--he used but to call in the dark, And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet--for hark!

Nay-you can hear it yourself-it is coming-shaking the walls

Willy-the moon's in a cloud- Good-night. I am going. He calls.

DEDICATORY POEM TO THE PRINCESS ALICE.

DEAD PRINCESS, living Power, if that, which lived
True life, live on-and if the fatal kiss,
Born of true life and love, divorce thee not
From earthly love and life-if what we call
The spirit flash not all at once from out
This shadow into Substance--then perhaps
The mellow'd murmur of the people's praise

From thine own State, and all our breadth of realm,
Where Love and Longing dress thy deeds in light,
Ascends to thee; and this March morn that sees
Thy Soldier-brother's bridal-orange bloom
Break thro' the yews and cypress of thy grave,
And thine Imperial mother smile again,
May send one ray to thee! and who can tell-
Thou-England's England-loving daughter-thou
Dying so English thou wouldst have her flag
Borne on thy coffin-where is he can swear

But that some broken gleam from our poor earth
May touch thee, while remembering thee, I lay
At thy pale feet this ballad of the deeds
Of England, and her banner in the East?

DE PROFUNDIS.

THE TWO GREETINGS.

I.

OUT of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Where all that was to be in all that was
Whirl'd for a million æons thro' the vast
Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light-
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Thro' all this changing world of changeless law,
And every phase of ever-heightening life,
And nine long months of antenatal gloom,

With this last moon, this crescent-her dark orb
Touch'd with earth's light-thou comest, darling boy;
Our own; a babe in lineament and limb
Perfect, and prophet of the perfect man;

Whose face and form are hers and mine in one,
Indissolubly married like our love;

Live and be happy in thyself, and serve

This mortal race thy kin so well, that men

May bless thee as we bless thee; O young life,
Breaking with laughter from the dark; and may
The fated channel where thy motion lives
Be prosperously shaped, and sway thy course
Along the years of haste and random youth
Unshatter'd, then full-current thro' full man,
And last in kindly curves, with gentlest fall,
By quiet fields, a slowly-dying power,

To that last deep where we and thou are still.

II.

OUT of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
From that great deep before our world begins
Whereon the Spirit of God moves as he will—
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
From that true world within the world we see,
Whereof our world is but the bounding shore-
Out of the deep, Spirit, out of the deep,

With this ninth moon that sends the hidden sun
Down yon dark sea, thou comest, darling boy.

For in the world, which is not ours, They said

Let us make man" and that which should be man,
From that one light no man can look upon,
Drew to this shore lit by the suns and moons
And all the shadows. O dear Spirit, half-lost
In thine own shadow and this fleshy sign
That thou art thou-who wailest being born
And banish'd into mystery, and the pain
Of this divisible-indivisible world
Among the numerable-innumerable

Sun, sun, and sun, thro' finite-infinite space
In finite-infinite time--our mortal veil
And shatter'd phantom of that infinite One,
Who made thee unconceivably thyself

Out of His whole World-self and all in all-
Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape
And ivyberry, choose; and still depart
From death to death thro' life and life, and find
Nearer and ever nearer Him, who wrought
Not Matter, nor the finite-infinite,

But this main miracle, that thou art thou,

With power on thine own, act and on the world.

SONGS FROM THE ANCIENT SAGE.

How far thro' all the bloom and brake
That nightingale is heard!

What power but the bird's could make
This music in the bird?

How summer-bright are yonder skies,
And earth as fair in hue!

And yet what sign of aught that lies
Behind the green and blue?

But man to-day is fancy's fool

As man hath ever been.

The nameless Power, or Powers, that rule

Were never heard or seen.

What Power but the Years that make
And break the vase of clay,

And stir the sleeping earth, and wake
The bloom that fades away?

What rulers but the Days and Hours
That cancel weal with woe,

And wind the front of youth with flowers,
And cap our age with snow?

But vain the tears for darken'd years
As laughter over wine,

And vain the laughter as the tears,
O brother, mine or thine.

For all that laugh, and all that weep
And all that breathe are one
Slight ripple on the boundless deep,
That moves and all is gone!

Yet wine and laughter friends! and set
The lamp's delight, and call
For golden music, and forget
The darkness of the pall?

The years that make the stripling wise
Undo their work again,

And leave him, blind of heart and eyes,
The last and least of men ;

Who clings to earth, and once would dare
Hell-heat or Arctic cold,

And now one breath of cooler air
Would loose him from his hold;
His winter chills him to the root,
He withers marrow and mind;
The kernel of the shrivell'd fruit
Is jutting thro' the rind;
The tiger spasms tear his chest,
The palsy wags his head :

The wife, the sons, who love him best
Would fain that he were dead;

The griefs by which he once was wrung
Were never worth the while,

The shaft of scorn that once had stung
But wakes a dotard smile.

SELECTIONS FROM LOCKSLEY HALL.

SIXTY YEARS AFTER.

LATE, my grandson! half the morning have I paced these sandy

tracts;

Watch'd again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts,

Wander'd back to living boyhood while I heard the curlew's call,

I myself so close on death, and death itself in Locksley Hall.

So your happy suit was blasted-she the faultless, the divine; And you liken-boyish babble-this boy-love of yours with mine.

I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past;
Babble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at

last.

Curse him!" curse your fellow-victim? call him dotard in

your rage?

Eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotard's

age.

Jilted for a wealthier! wealthier? yet perhaps she was not

wise;

I remember how you kiss'd the miniature with those sweet eyes.

In the hall there hangs a painting-Amy's arms about my neck

Happy children in a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck.

In my life there was a picture, she that clasped my neck had flown;

I was left within the shadow sitting on the wreck alone.

Yours has been a slighter ailment, will you sicken for her sake? You, not you! your modern amourist is of easier, earthier make.

Amy lov'd me, Amy fail'd me, Amy was a timid child;

But your Judith-but your worldling-she had never driven me wild.