East, West, I looked. The lie was dead,
And damned, and truth stood up instead.

This glads me most, that I enjoyed
The heart of the joy, with my content
In watching Gismond unalloyed

By any doubt of the event:

God took that on him, I was bid
Watch Gismond for my part: I did.

Did I not watch him while he let

His armorer just brace his greaves,

Rivet his hauberk, on the fret

The while! His foot. . . my memory leaves

No least stamp out, nor how anon

He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.

And e'en before the trumpet's sound

Was finished, prone lay the false Knight, Prone as his lie upon the ground:

Gismond flew at him, used no sleight
Of the sword, but open-breasted drove,
Cleaving till out the truth he clove.

Which done, he dragged him to my feet
And said, "Here die, but end thy breath
In full confession, lest thou fleet

From my first, to God's second death!
Say hast thou lied?" And "I have lied
To God and her," he said, and died.

Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked

What safe my heart holds, though no word

Could I repeat now, if I tasked

My powers forever, to a third

Dear even as you are. Pass the rest

Until I sank upon his breast.

Over my head his arm he flung

Against the world; and scarce I felt

For he began to say the while

How South our home lay many a mile.

So 'mid the shouting multitude

We two walked forth to never more Return. My cousins have pursued Their life, untroubled as before

I vexed them.

Gauthier's dwelling-place

God lighten! May his soul find grace!

Our elder boy has got the clear

Great brow; tho' when his brother's black
Full eye shows scorn, it . . . Gismond here?

And have you brought my tercel back?

I just was telling Adela

How many birds it struck since May.

J

THE LOST LEADER.

UST for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat,-
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was their's who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags, were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering,

not through his presence;

Songs may inspirit us, -not from his lyre;

Deeds will be done, while he boasts his quiescence,

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:

THE LOST MISTRESS.

Blot out his name, then, - record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more triumph for devils, and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,
Forced praise on our part, the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him, — strike gallantly,
Aim at our heart ere we pierce through his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne!

THE LOST MISTRESS.

LL'S over, then, - does truth sound bitter

A As one at first believes?

Hark, 't is the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,

I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully,

- You know the red turns gray.

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we, well, friends the merest
Keep much that I'll resign:

For each glance of that eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavor,
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stays in my soul forever!-

27

-Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD.

H, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows, -
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops, - - at the bent spray's edge,
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine, careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower,
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!