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 fulness 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 hand.

my

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 sccial 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.

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

to proof,

put

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.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whispered by the phantom years,

And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine

ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy

pain.

Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest

again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry;

'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby-lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee

rest

Baby-fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

Oh, the child, too, clothes the father with a dearness not his due;

Half is thine, and half is his—it will be worthy of the two.

Oh, I see thee, old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart:

66

'They were dangerous guides, the feelings-she herself was

not exempt

Truly, she herself had suffered."-- Perish in thy selfcontempt!

Overlive it—lower yet-be happy! wherefore should I

care?

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?

Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is thronged with suitors; all the markets over

flow.

I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are rolled in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honour feels,

And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous MotherAge!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,

When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my

life;