She did not wish to blame him -
But he vext her and perplext her
With his worldly talk and folly:
Was it gentle to reprove her
For stealing out of view
From a little lazy lover

Who but claims her as his due ?
Or for chilling his caresses
By the coldness of her manners,
Nay, the plainness of her dresses?
Now I know her but in two,
Nor can pronounce upon it
If one should ask me whether
The habit, hat, and feather,
Or the frock and gipsy bonnet
Be the neater and completer;
For nothing can be sweeter
Than maiden Maud in either.

X.

goes

In babble and revel and wine. O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,

For one that will never be thine? But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,

"For ever and ever, mine."

VI.

And the soul of the rose went into

my blood,

As the music clash'd in the hall; And long by the garden lake I stood, For I heard your rivulet fall From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,

Our wood, that is dearer than all;

VII.

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet

That whenever a March-wind sighs He sets the jewel-print of your feet In violets blue as your eyes, To the woody hollows in which we

meet

And the valleys of Paradise.

VIII.

The slender acacia would not shake One long milk-bloom on the tree; The white lake-blossom fell into the lake

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea; But the rose was awake all night for your sake,

Knowing your promise to me; The lilies and roses were all awake, They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.

IX.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,

Come hither, the dances are done,

From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear;

She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"

And the white rose weeps, "She is

When her brother ran in his rage to

the gate,

He came with the babe-faced lord;
Heap'd on her terms of disgrace,
And while she wept, and I strove to
be cool,

He fiercely gave me the lie,
Till I with as fierce an anger spoke,
And he struck me, madman, over the
face,

Struck me before the languid fool,
Who was gaping and grinning by:
Struck for himself an evil stroke;
Wrought for his house an irredeem-
able woe;

For front to front in an hour we stood, And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke

From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood,

And thunder'd up into Heaven the
Christless code,

That must have life for a blow.
Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to

Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just,

Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms,

That sting each other here in the dust; We are not worthy to live.

II. I.

See what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well
With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design!

II.

What is it? a learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,
The beauty would be the same.

III.

The tiny cell is forlorn,
Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Thro' his dim water-world?

IV.

Slight, to be crush'd with a tap
Of my finger-nail on the sand,
Small, but a work divine,
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap
The three decker's oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock,
Here on the Breton strand!

V.

Breton, not Briton; here

Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast Of ancient fable and fear