THE EAGLE.

FRAGMENT.

HE clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

I

MOVE eastward, happy earth, and leave Yon orange sunset waning slow: From fringes of the faded eve,

O, happy planet, eastward go; Till over thy dark shoulder glow Thy silver sister-world, and rise To glass herself in dewy eyes That watch me from the glen below.

Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage-morn,
And round again to happy night.

COME not, when I am dead,

To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,

To trample round my fallen head,

And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou, go by.

Child, if it were thine error or thy crime
I care no longer, being all unblest :

Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,
And I desire to rest.

Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie :
Go by, go by.

THE LETTERS.

J.

STILL on the tower stood the vane,
A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air,
I peer'd athwart the chancel pane
And saw the altar cold and bare.
A clog of lead was round my feet,
A band of pain across my brow;
"Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet
Before you hear my marriage vow."

II.

I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song

That mock'd the wholesome human heart, And then we met in wrath and wrong,

We met, but only meant to part.

Full cold my greeting was and dry;
She faintly smiled, she hardly moved;

I saw with half-unconscious eye

She wore the colours I approved.

III.

She took the little ivory chest,

With half a sigh she turn'd the key,
Then raised her head with lips comprest,
And gave my letters back to me.
And gave the trinkets and the rings,

My gifts, when gifts of mine could please; As looks a father on the things

Of his dead son, I look'd on these.

IV.

She told me all her friends had said;
I raged against the public liar ;
She talk'd as if her love were dead,

But in my words were seeds of fire.
"No more of love; your sex is known :
I never will be twice deceived.
Henceforth I trust the man alone,

The woman cannot be believed.

V.

"Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell—
And women's slander is the worst,-
And you, whom once I lov'd so well,

Thro' you, my life will be accurst."