The races went, and who would rent the hall: Then touch'd upon the game, how scarce it

was

This season; glancing thence, discuss'd the farm,

The fourfield system, and the price of grain; And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split,

And came again together on the king
With heated faces; till he laugh'd aloud;
And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung
To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and
sang:

"O, who would fight and march and countermarch,

Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,
And shovell'd up into a bloody trench
Where no one knows? but let me live my
life.

"O, who would cast and balance at a desk, Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd stool, Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints Are full of chalk? but let me live my life. "Who'd serve the state? for if I carved my name

Upon the cliffs that guard my native land,
I might as well have traced it in the sands;
The sea wastes all but let me live my life.
"O, who would love? I woo'd a woman

Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm, And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. "Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm; Emilia, fairer than all else but thou, For thou art fairer than all else that is. "Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast:

Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip:

I go to-night I come to-morrow morn.
"I go, but I return: I would I were
The pilot of the darkness and the dream.
Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of

me."

So sang we each to either, Francis Hale, The farmer's son who lived across the bay, My friend; and I, that having wherewithal, And in the fallow leisure of my life,

Did what I would: but ere the night we

And when does this come by? James. The mail? At one o'clock. John.

James. A quarter to.

John.

What is it now?

Whose house is that I see: No, not the County Member's with the vane: Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half A score of gables. James.

That? Sir Edward Head's:
But he's abroad: the place is to be sold.
John. O, his. He was not broken.
James.
No, sir, he,
Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood
That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his i
face

From all men, and commercing with himself,
He lost the sense that handles daily life-
That keeps us all in order more or less
And sick of home went overseas for change.
John. And whither?

James. Nay, who knows? he's here and there.

But let him go; his devil goes with him,
As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes.
John. What's that?

James. You saw the man-on Monday, was it?

There by the humpback'd willow; half stands

And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd: The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,

And all his household stuff: and with his boy Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, "What!

You 're flitting!" "Yes, we 're flitting," says the ghost,

(For they had pack'd the thing among the beds,)

was

You could not light upon a sweeter thing:
A body slight and round, and like a pear
In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot
Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin
As clean and white as privet when it flowers.
James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and
they that loved

At first like dove and dove were cat and dog.
She was the daughter of a cottager,

Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride,

New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd

To what she is: a nature never kind!

And on the leads we kept her till she pigg'd.
Large range of prospect had the mother sow,
And but for daily loss of one she loved,
As one by one we took them - but for this-
As never sow was higher in this world-
Might have been happy: but what lot is
pure?

We took them all, till she was left alone
Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine,
And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty.
John. They found you out?
James.
Not they.
John.

Well after all--
What know we of the secret of a man?
His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who

are sound,

That we should mimic this raw fool the world,

Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites,

As ruthless as a baby with a worm,
As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows
To Pity-more from ignorance than will.
But put your best foot forward, or I fear
That we shall miss the mail and here it

comes

they say.

Kind nature is the best: those manners next
That fit us like a nature second-hand;
Which are indeed the manners of the great.
John. But I had heard it was this bill
that past,

And fear of change at home, that drove him hence.

James. That was the last drop in his cup of gall.

I once was near him, when his bailiff brought A Chartist pike. You should have seen him

wince

As from a venomous thing: he thought himself

A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry Should break his sleep by night, and his nice

eyes

Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you know

That these two parties still divide the worldOf those that want, and those that have: and still

The same old sore breaks out from age to age
With much the same result. Now I myself,
A Tory to the quick, was as a boy.
Destructive, when I had not what I would.
I was at school-a college in the South:
There lived a flayflint near; we stole his fruit,
His hens, his eggs; but there was law for us;
We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She,
With meditative grunts of much content,
Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and
mud.

By night we dragg'd her to the college tower
From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew

stair

With hand and rope we haled the groaning

Sow,

EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE.

O ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake. My sweet, wild, fresh three quarters of a year,

My one Oasis in the dust and drouth
Of city life; I was a sketcher then:
See here, my doing: curves of mountain,
bridge,

Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built
When men knew how to build, upon a rock,
With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock:
And here, new-comers in an ancient hold,
New-comers from the Mersey, millionnaires,
Here lived the Hills - a Tudor-chimneyed

bulk

"My love for Nature is as old as I ; But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that, And three rich sennights more, my love for her.

My love for Nature and my love for her,
Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew,
Twin-sisters differently beautiful.

To some full music rose and sank the sun, And some full music seem'd to move and change

With all the varied changes of the dark, And either twilight and the day between; For daily hope fulfill'd, to rise again Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet To walk, to sit, to sleep, to breathe, to wake."

Or this or something like to this he spoke. Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull:

"I take it, God made the woman for the

man,

And for the good and increase of the world. A pretty face is well, and this is well,

To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff. I say, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world."

"Parson," said I, "you pitch the pipe too low:

But I have sudden touches, and can run
My faith beyond my practice into his :
Tho' if, in dancing after Letty Hill,
I do not hear the bells upon my cap,
I scarce hear other music: yet say on.
What should one give to light on such a
dream?"

I ask'd him half-sardonically.

"Give?

Give all thou art," he answer'd, and a light Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek; "I would have hid her needle in my heart, To save her little finger from a scratch No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear Her lightest breaths: her least remark was worth

The experience of the wise. I went and

came;

Her voice fled always thro' the summer land; I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! The flower of each, those moments when we met,

The crown of all, we met to part no more."

Were not his words delicious, I a beast
To take them as I did? but something jarr'd;
Whether he spoke too largely; that there
seem'd

A touch of something false, some self-conceit,
Or over-smoothness: howsoe'er it was,
He scarcely hit my humor, and I said:

"Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone

Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, As in the Latin song I learnt at school,

Sneeze out a full God-bless you right and left?

But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein : I have, I think, - Heaven knows - as much within;

Have, or should have, but for a thought or two,

That like a purple beech among the greens Looks out of place: 't is from no want in her : It is my shyness, or my self-distrust,

Or something of a wayward modern mind Dissecting passion. Time will set me right."

So spoke I knowing not the things that

were.

Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull: "God made the woman for the use of man, And for the good and increase of the world.' And I and Edwin laugh'd; and now we paused

About the windings of the marge to hear
The soft wind blowing over meadowy holn.s
And alders, garden-isles; and now we left
The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran
By ripply shallows of the lisping lake,
Delighted with the freshness and the sound.

But, when the bracken rusted on their

crags,

My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him
That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk,
The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles.
'Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more:
She sent a note, the seal an Elle vous suit,
The close "Your Letty, only yours"; and

this

Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of

morn

Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with beating heart

The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel:

And out stept, and up I crept ; she moved, Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers: Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she,

She turn'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, I breathed

In some new planet: a silent cousin stole Upon us and departed: "Leave," she cried, "O leave me !" "Never, dearest, never: here and while we stood like

I brave the worst

To lands in Kent and messuages in York,
And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile
And educated whisker. But for me,
They set an ancient creditor to work:

It seems I broke a close with force and arms:
There came a mystic token from the king
Το greet the sheriff, needless courtesy !
I read, and fled by night, and flying turn'd:
Her taper glimmer'd in the lake below:

I turn'd once more, close button'd to the

storm;

So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear.

Nor cared to hear? perhaps yet long ago I have pardon'd little Letty: not indeed, It may be, for her own dear sake but this, She seems a part of those fresh days to me; For in the dust and drouth of London life She moves among my visions of the lake, While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then

While the gold-lily blows, and overhead The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag.

ST. SIMEON STYLITES.

ALTHO' I be the basest of mankind,
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of
sin,

Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet
For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy,
I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold
Of saintdom, and to clamor, mourn, and sob,
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of

prayer,

Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin.

Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God,
This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years,
Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs,
In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold,
In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes
and cramps,

A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud,
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne
Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet,
and snow;

And I had hoped that ere this period closed Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest,

Denying not these weather-beaten limbs The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm.

O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe,

Not whisper any murmur of complaint, Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still

Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear, Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd

My spirit flat before thee.

O Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, For I was strong and hale of body then; And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt away,

Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin.

O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, Who may be saved? who is it may be saved? Who may be made a saint, if I fail here? Show me the man hath suffer'd more than I. For did not all thy martyrs die one death? For either they were stoned, or crucified, Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. Bear witness, if I could have found a way (And heedfully I sifted all my thought) More slowly-painful to subdue this home Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, I had not stinted practice, O my God.

For not alone this pillar-punishment, Not this alone I bore: but while I lived In the white convent down the valley there, For many weeks about my loins I wore The rope that haled the buckets from the well, Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose; And spake not of it to a single soul, Until the ulcer, eating thro' my skin, Betray'd my secret penance, so that all My brethren marvell'd greatly. More than

this

I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all. Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee,

I lived up there on yonder mountain side. My right leg chain'd into the crag, I lay Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones; Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice

Black'd with thy branding thunder, and sometimes

Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not, Except the spare chance-gift of those that

came

To touch my body and be heal'd, and live: And they say then that I work'd miracles, Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind,

Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O
God,

Knowest alone whether this was or no
Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin.
Then, that I might be more alone with

thee,

But yet

Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints

Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth

House in the shade of comfortable roofs, Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food,

And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls,

I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light, Bow down one thousand and two hundred times,

To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints;

Or in the night, after a little sleep,

I wake the chill stars sparkle; I am wet With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling

frost,

I wear an undress'd goatskin on my back;
A grazing iron collar grinds my neck;
And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross,
And strive and wrestle with thee till I die:
O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin.

O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am; A sinful man, conceived and born in sin: 'T is their own doing; this is none of mine; Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this, That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha!

They think that I am somewhat. What am I?

The silly people take me for a saint,

And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers: And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here) Have all in all endured as much, and more Than many just and holy men, whose names Are register'd and calendar'd for saints.

Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. What is it I can have done to merit this! I am a sinner viler than you all. It may be I have wrought some miracles, And cured some halt and maim'd; but what

of that?

It may be, no one, even among the saints, May match his pains with mine; but what of that?

Yet do not rise: for you may look on me, And in your looking you may kneel to God. Speak! is there any of you halt or maim'd? I think you know I have some power with Heaven

From my long penance: let him speak his wish.

Yes, I can heal him. Power goes forth from me.

They say that they are they shout

heal'd. Ah, hark! "St. Simeon Stylites." Why, if so, God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul, God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, Can I work miracles and not be saved?

This is not told of any. They were saints.
It cannot be but that I shall be saved;
Yea, crown'd a saint. They shout, "Behold
a saint ! "

And lower voices saint me from above.
Courage, St. Simeon! This dull chrysalis
Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death
Spreads more and more and more, that God
hath now

Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all

My mortal archives.

O my sons, my son
I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname
Stylites, among men; I, Simeon,
The watcher on the column till the end;
I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes;
I, whose bald brows in silent hours become
Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now
From my high nest of penance here proclaim
That Pontius and Iscariot by my side
Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I
lay,

A vessel full of sin all hell beneath
Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my

sleeve;