"Mary moves in soft beauty and conscious delight, To augment with sweet smiles all the joys of the

night;

Nor once blushes to own to the rest of the fair That sweet love and beauty are worthy our care."

In the morning the villagers rose with delight And repeated with pleasure the joys of the night, And Mary arose among friends to be free,

But no friend from henceforward thou, Mary, shalt

see.

Some said she was proud; some call'd her a whore,

And some when she passed by, shut-to the door. A damp cold came o'er her, her blushes all fled, Her lilies and roses are blighted and shed.

"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.

TH

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

I fill'd with woes the passing wind.

THE GREY MONK.

DIE, I die!" the Mother said,

66

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.

"My brother starved between two walls,
His children's cry my soul appals;
I mock'd at the rack and grinding chain,
My bent body mocks their torturing pain.

* Vide postea, p. 154.

66 Thy father drew his sword in the North,
With his thousands strong he marched forth;
Thy brother has arm'd himself in steel,
To avenge the wrongs thy children feel.

"But vain the sword and vain the bow,
They never can work war's overthrow.
The hermit's prayer and the widow's tear
Alone can free the world from fear.

"For a tear is an intellectual thing,
And a sigh is the sword of an angel king,
And the bitter groan of the martyr's woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.

"The hand of vengeance found the bed
To which the purple tyrant fled;
The iron hand crush'd the tyrant's head,
And became a tyrant in his stead."

AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE.

T°

see the world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.

L