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VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told In the spring a livelier iris changes on the

her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek; she pined in thought;
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed?

burnished dove;

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,

We men may say more, swear more: but, indeed, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute

Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.

LOCKSLEY HALL.

SHAKESPEARE.

observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me;

Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color 't is early morn, and a light, Leave me here, and when you want me, sound As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the upon the bugle horn. northern night.

'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the And she turned, her bosom shaken with a curlews call, sudden storm of sighs; Dreary gleams about the moorland, flying over All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of Locksley Hall :

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hazel eyes,

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";

Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."

Love took up the glass of time, and turned it in his glowing hands;

Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the mellow shade, the chords with might;

Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed braid. in music out of sight.

Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the youth sublime copses ring, With the fairy tales of science, and the long And her whisper thronged my pulses with the result of time; fulness of the spring.

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful Many an evening by the waters did we watch the land reposed;

stately ships,

When I clung to all the present for the promise And our spirits rushed together at the touching that it closed;

of the lips.

When I dipt into the future far as human eye O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, could see, mine no more! Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, that would be. barren shore !

In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs robin's breast; have sung,

In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

another crest;

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Is it well to wish thee happy?— having known | Never! though my mortal summers to such length me; to decline of years should come

On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart As the many-wintered crow that leads the clang. than mine! ing rookery home.

Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day Where is comfort? in division of the records of by day, the mind? What is fine within thee growing coarse to sym- Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I pathize with clay. knew her, kind?

As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated I remember one that perished; sweetly did she with a clown, speak and move;

And the grossness of his nature will have weight Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to drag thee down.

to love.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have | Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the spent its novel force, love she bore?

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than No,

his horse.

- she never loved me truly; love is love for

evermore.

What is this? his eyes are heavy, - think not Comfort? comfort scorned of devils! this is truth they are glazed with wine. the poet sings,

Go to him; it is thy duty, -kiss him; take his That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering hand in thine. happier things.

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It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy overwrought, heart be put to proof, Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with In the dead, unhappy night, and when the rain thy lighter thought. is on the roof.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to un- Like a dog, he hunts in dreams; and thou art derstand,staring at the wall, Better thou wert dead before me, though I slew Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the

thee with my hands.

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,

Rolled in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!

Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,

To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears
that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whispered
by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing
of thine ears;

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindnature's rule!

ness on thy pain.

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened fore- Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to head of the fool!

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thy rest again.

but nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry;

a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest,

Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the

mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dear- | And his spirit leaps within him to be gone beness not his due. fore him then, Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy Underneath the light he looks at, in among the of the two. throngs of men;

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reappart, ing something new: With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a That which they have done but earnest of the daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings-she herself was not exempt

Truly, she herself had suffered " - Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it lower yet-be happy! wherefore should I care?

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?

Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could

see,

Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew

From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the Far along the world-wide whisper of the southmarkets overflow. wind rushing warm,

I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I With the standards of the peoples plunging through should do? the thunder-storm;

I had been content to perish, falling on the foe- Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the man's ground, battle-flags were furled When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the In the parliament of man, the federation of the winds are laid with sound.

world.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt There the common sense of most shall hold a that honor feels, fretful realm in awe, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in uniother's heels. versal law.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that So I triumphed ere my passion sweeping through

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Yearning for the large excitement that the com- Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping years would yield,

ing nigher,

Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly

father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,

dying fire.

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing

Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a And the thoughts of men are widened with the

dreary dawn;

purpose runs,

process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his | Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree,

youthful joys, Though the deep heart of existence beat forever Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres like a boy's?

of sea.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers; and I There, methinks, would be enjoyment more than linger on the shore, in this march of mind

And the individual withers, and the world is more In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts and more. that shake mankind.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have bears a laden breast, scope and breathing-space;

Full of sad experience moving toward the still- I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my ness of his rest. dusky race.

Hark! my merry comrades call me, sounding on Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive, and the bugle horn, they shall run, They to whom my foolish passion were a target Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their for their scorn; lances in the sun,

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainmouldered string? bows of the brooks,

I am shamed through all my nature to have loved Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable so slight a thing. books

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my pleasure, woman's pain — words are wild,

Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a But I count the gray barbarian lower than the 'shallower brain; Christian child.

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our matched with mine, glorious gains,

Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast unto winewith lower pains!

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah Mated with a squalid savage, — what to me were for some retreat sun or clime? Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of began to beat! time,

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father, I, that rather held it better men should perish evil-starred; one by one,

I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's ward. moon in Ajalon !

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Or to burst all links of habit, there to wander Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, far away, forward let us range;

On from island unto island at the gateways of the Let the great world spin forever down the ringday, ing grooves of change.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into happy skies, the younger day: Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,

Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag,

Cathay.

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0, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath |O, had he whispered, when his sweetest kiss not set; Was warm upon my mouth in fancied bliss, Ancient founts of inspiration well through all my He had kissed another woman even as this, fancy yet. It were less bitter! Sometimes I could weep Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to To be thus cheated, like a child asleep ; · Locksley Hall!

Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Were not my anguish far too dry and deep.

So I built my house upon another's ground;
Mocked with a heart just caught at the rebound, -

Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over A cankered thing that looked so firm and sound.

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