"And others, like discoloured flakes of snow
On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair,
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
"Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained
"Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained The track in which we moved. After brief space, From every form the beauty slowly waned;
"From every firmest limb and fairest face
The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left
The action and the shape without the grace
"Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft
With care; and in those eyes where once hope shone,
Desire, like a lioness bereft
"Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly
These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown
"In autumn evening from a poplar tree.
Each like himself and like each other were
At first; but some distorted seemed to be
"Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air;
And of this stuff the car's creative ray
Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there,
"As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way
Mask after mask fell from the countenance
And form of all; and long before the day
Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died; And some grew weary of the ghastly dance,
"And fell, as I have fallen, by the way-side ;-
Those soonest from whose forms most shadows past,
And least of strength and beauty did abide.
"Then, what is life? I cried."-
STANZA, WRITTEN AT BRACKNELL
THY dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there;
Thou hast disturbed the only rest
That was the portion of despair!
Subdued to Duty's hard controul,
I could have borne my wayward lot:
The chains that bind this ruined soul
Had cankered then-but crushed it not.
TO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
MINE eyes were dim with tears unshed;
Yes, I was firm-thus wert not thou;-
My baffled looks did fear yet dread
To meet thy looks-I could not know
How anxiously they sought to shine
With soothing pity upon mine.
To sit and curb the soul's mute rage
Which preys upon itself alone;
To curse the life which is the cage
Of fettered grief that dares not groan,
Hiding from many a careless eye
The scorned load of agony.
Whilst thou alone, then not regarded,
The
thou alone should be,
To spend years thus, and be rewarded,
As thou, sweet love, requited me
When none were near-Oh! I did wake
From torture for that moment's sake.
Upon my heart thy accents sweet
Of peace and pity fell like dew
On flowers half dead;-thy lips did meet
Mine tremblingly; thy dark eyes threw
Their soft persuasion on my brain,
Charming away its dream of pain.
We are not happy, sweet! our state
Is strange and full of doubt and fear;
More need of words that ills abate ;-
Reserve or censure come not near
Our sacred friendship, lest there be
No solace left for thee and me.
Gentle and good and mild thou art,
Nor can I live if thou appear
Aught but thyself, or turn thine heart
Away from me, or stoop to wear
The mask of scorn, although it be
To hide the love thou feel'st for me.
YET look on me-take not thine eyes away, Which feed upon the love within mine own, Which is indeed but the reflected ray
Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown. Yet speak to me-thy voice is as the tone Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear
That thou yet lovest me; yet thou alone Like one before a mirror, without care
Of aught but thine own features, imaged there; And yet I wear out life in watching thee;
A toil so sweet at times, and thou indeed Art kind when I am sick, and pity me.
THERE late was One within whose subtle being,
As light and wind within some delicate cloud
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky,
Genius and death contended. None may know
The sweetness of the joy which made his breath
Fail, like the trances of the summer air,
When, with the Lady of his love, who then
First knew the unreserve of mingled being,
He walked along the pathway of a field
Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er,
But to the west was open to the sky.
There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold
Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points
Of the far level grass and nodding flowers
And the old dandelion's hoary beard,
And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay
On the brown massy woods-and in the east
The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose
Between the black trunks of the crowded trees,
While the faint stars were gathering overhead.-
"Is it not strange, Isabel," said the youth,
"I never saw the sun? We will walk here
To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me."
That night the youth and lady mingled lay
In love and sleep-but when the morning came
The lady found her lover dead and cold.
Let none believe that God in mercy gave
That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild,
But year by year lived on-in truth I think
Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles,
And that she did not die, but lived to tend
Her aged father, were a kind of madness,
If madness 'tis to be unlike the world.
For but to see her were to read the tale
Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts
Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief;—
Her eyes were black and lustreless and wan:
Her eyelashes were worn away with tears,
Her lips and cheeks were like things dead-so pale;
Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins
And weak articulations might be seen
Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self
Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day,
Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!
"Inheritor of more than earth can give,
Passionless calm and silence unreproved,
Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest,
And are the uncomplaining things they seem,
Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love;
Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were-Peace ! "
This was the only moan she ever made.
DEAR home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys,
The least of which wronged Memory ever makes
Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.
FRAGMENT OF A GHOST-STORY.
A SHOVEL of his ashes took
From the hearth's obscurest nook,
Muttering mysteries as she went.
Helen and Henry knew that Granny
Was as much afraid of ghosts as any,
And so they followed hard-
But Helen clung to her brother's arm,
And her own spasm made her shake.
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