66

O, why was I born with a different face?
Why was I not born like this envious race?
Why did Heaven adorn me with bountiful hand,
And then set me down in an envious land?

"To be weak as a lamb and smooth as a dove,
And not to raise envy is call'd Christian love;
But if you raise envy your merit's to blame,
For planting such spite in the weak and the tame.

"I will humble my beauty: I will not dress fine ;
I will keep from the ball and my eyes shall not shine;
And if any girl's lover forsake her for me,
I'll refuse him my hand and from envy be free."

She went out in morning, attired plain and neat ;
"Proud Mary's gone mad!" said the child in the street.
She went out in morning in plain neat attire
And came home in evening bespatter'd with mire.

She trembled and wept, sitting on the bed-side,
She forgot it was night, and she trembled and cried;
She forgot it was night, she forgot it was morn,
Her soft memory imprinted with faces of scorn.

With faces of scorn and with eyes of disdain, Like foul fiends inhabiting Mary's mild brain: She remembers no face like the human divine, All faces have envy, sweet Mary, but thine.

And thine is a face of sweet love in despair, And thine is a face of mild sorrow and care, And thine is a face of wild terror and fear, That shall never be quiet till laid on its bier.

THE CRYSTAL CABINET.

THE

HE Maiden caught me in the wild,
Where I was dancing merrily,

She put me into her cabinet

And lock'd me up with a golden key.

This cabinet is form'd of gold

And pearl and crystal shining bright, And within it opens into a world, And a little lovely moony night.

Another England there I saw,

Another London with its Tower,

Another Thames and other hills,

And another pleasant Surrey bower.

Another maiden, like herself,

Translucent, lovely, shining clear, Threefold each in the other closed;

O what a pleasant trembling fear!

O what a smile, a threefold smile,

Fill'd me, that like a flame I burn'd; I bent to kiss the lovely maid

And found a threefold kiss return'd.

I strove to seize the inmost Form

With ardour fierce and hands of flame,

But burst the crystal cabinet,

And like a weeping babe became—

A weeping babe upon the wild

And weeping woman pale reclined; And in the outward air again

I fill'd with woes the passing wind.

66

"I

THE GREY MONK.

DIE, I die!" the Mother said,

"My children die for lack of bread.

What more has the merciless tyrant said ?" The Monk sat down on the stony bed.

The blood red ran from the grey monk's side,
His hands and feet were wounded wide,
His body bent, his arms and knees

Like to the roots of ancient trees.

His eye was dry—no tear could flow,
A hollow groan first spoke his woe.
He trembled and shudder'd upon the bed;
At length with a feeble cry he said—

"When God commanded this hand to write
In the studious hours of deep midnight,
He told me the writing I wrote should prove
The bane of all that on earth I love.