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"Ellen Adair she loved me well,

Against her father's and mother's will:

To-day I sat for an hour and wept,

By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill. "Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the

sea;

Fill'd I was with folly and spite, When Ellen Adair was dying for me. "Cruel, cruel the words I said!

Cruelly came they back to-day:
'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,

To trouble the heart of Edward
Gray.'

"There I put my face in the grass-
Whisper'd, Listen to my despair:
I repent me of all I did:

Speak a little, Ellen Adair!' "Then I took a pencil, and wrote On the mossy stone, as I lay, Here lies the body of Ellen Adair; And here the heart of Edward Gray!' "Love may come, and love may go, And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree: But I will love no more, no more,

Till Ellen Adair come back to me. "Bitterly wept I over the stone:

Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: There lies the body of Ellen Adair! And there the heart of Edward Gray!"

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.

MADE AT THE COCK.

O PLUMP head waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,

How goes the time? "Tis five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:

But let it not be such as that

You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat On Lusitanian summers.

No vain libation to the Muse,

But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind,

To make me write my random rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten;
Nor add and alter, many times,

Till all be ripe and rotten.

I pledge her, and she comes and dips
Her laurel in the wine,
And lays it thrice upon my lips,
These favor'd lips of mine;
Until the charm have power to make
New lifeblood warm the bosom,
And barren commonplaces break
In full and kindly blossom.

I pledge her silent at the board;
Her gradual fingers steal
And touch upon the master-chord
Of all I felt and feel.

Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
And phantom hopes assemble;
And that child's heart within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.
Thro' many an hour of summer suns,
By many pleasant ways,
Against its fountain upward runs
The current of my days:
I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd;
The gas-light wavers dimmer.
And softly, thro' a vinous mist,

My college friendships glimmer.
I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,
Unboding critic-pen,

Or that eternal want of pence,
Which vexes public men,
Who hold their hands to all, and ery
For that which all deny them—
Who sweep the crossing, wet or dry,
And all the world go by them.
Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake,
Tho' fortune clip my wings,

I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;
There must be stormy weather;
But for some true result of good

All parties work together.

Let there be thistles, there are grapes;
If old things, there are new:
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,
Yet glimpses of the true.

Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme,
We lack not rhymes and reasons,
As on this whirligig of Time

We circle with the seasons.

This earth is rich in man and maid;
With fair horizons bound:

This whole wide earth of light and shade

Comes out, a perfect round.
High over roaring Temple-bar,

And, set in Heaven's third story,
I look at all things as they are,
But thro' a kind of glory.

Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest
Half-mused, or reeling ripe,

The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe.
But tho' the port surpasses praise,
My nerves have dealt with stiffer.
Is there some magic in the place?
Or do my peptics differ?

For since I came to live and learn,
No pint of white or red
Had ever half the power to turn
This wheel within my head,
Which bears a season'd brain about,
Unsubject to confusion,

Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out,
Thro' every convolution.

For I am of a numerous house,
With many kinsmen gay,
Where long and largely we carouse
As who shall say me nay:

The sphere thy fate allots : Thy latter days increased with pence Go down among the pots: Thou battenest by the greasy gleam In haunts of hungry sinners, Old boxes, larded with the steam

Of thirty thousand dinners.

We fret, we fume, would shift our skins,

Would quarrel with our lot;
Thy care is, under polish'd tins,
To serve the hot-and-hot;
To come and go, and come again,
Returning like the pewit,
And watch'd by silent gentlemen,
That trifle with the cruet.

Live long, ere from thy topmost head
The thick-set hazel dies;

Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread
The corners of thine eyes:
Live long, nor feel in head or chest
Our changeful equinoxes,
Till mellow Death, like some late guest
Shall call thee from the boxes.

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease
To pace the gritted floor,
And, laying down an unctuous lease
Of life, shalt earn no more;

No carved cross-bones, the types of
Death,

Shall show thee past to Heaven: But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,

A pint-pot neatly graven.

TO

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS.
"Cursed be he that moves my bones."
Shakespeare's Epitaph.
Yor might have won the Poet's name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gain'd a laurel for your brow'
Of sounder leaf than I can claim;
But you have made the wiser choice,
A life that moves to gracious ends
Thro' troops of unrecording friends,
A deedful life, a silent voice:
And you have miss'd the irreverent
doom

Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. For now the Poet cannot die

Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry:

Proclaim the faults he would not show:

Break lock and seal: betray the trust: Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just The many-headed beast should know." Ah shameless! for he did but sing A song that pleased us from its worth;

No public life was his on earth,

No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.
He gave the people of his best:

His worst he kept, his best he gave. My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave

Who will not let his ashes rest!
Who make it seem more sweet to be

The little life of bank and brier,
The bird that pips his lone desire
And dies unheard within his tree,
Than he that warbles long and loud

And drops at Glory's temple-gates, For whoin the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd!

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN
GREECE.

ILLYRIAN Woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine P'eneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls.
Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,

With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there:
And trust me while I turn'd the page
And track'd you still on classic
ground.

I grew in gladness till I found My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour'd

And glisten'd- here and there alone The Broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown

By fountain-urns :-and Naiads oar'd,
A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swoll
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom.
From him that on the mountain lea
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,
To him who sat upon the rocks,
And fluted to the morning sea.

IT was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.

I trow they did not part in scorn:
Lovers long-betroth'd were they:
They too will wed the morrow morn:
God's blessing on the day!
"He does not love me for my birth,

Nor for my lands so broad and fair, He loves me for my own true worth, And that is well," said Lady Clare. In there came old Alice the nurse, Said, "Who was this that went from thee ?"

"It was my cousin,” said Lady Clare, "To-morrow he weds with me."

"Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse,

"The man will cleave unto his right."

"And he shall have it," the lady replied,

"Tho I should die to-night." "Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!

Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee." "O mother, mother, mother," she said,

"So strange it seems to me. "Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, My mother dear, if this be so, And lay your hand upon my head,

And bless me, mother, e'er I go? She clad herself in a russet gown, She was no longer Lady Clare: She went by dale, and she went by down,

With a single rose in her hair. The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought

Leapt up from where she lay, Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, And follow'd her all the way. Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:

"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!

Why come you drest like a village maid,

That are the flower of the earth?” "If I come drest like a village maid, I am but as my fortunes are: I am a beggar born," she said, "And not the Lady Clare.'

"Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald.

"For I am yours in word and in deed.

Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,

"Your riddle is hard to read." O and proudly stood she up!

Her heart within her did not fail: She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, And told him all her nurse's tale. He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn;

He turned and kiss'd her where

she stood:

"If you you are not the heiress born, And I," said he, "the next in blood"If you are not the heiress born,

And I," said he," the lawful heir, We two will wed to-morrow morn, And you shall still be Lady Clare.”

THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. In her ear he whispers gayly,

"If my heart by signs can tell, Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, And I think thou lov'st me well." She replies, in accents fainter, "There is none I love like thee." He is but a landscape painter,

And a village maiden she. He to lips, that fondly falter. Presses his without reproof: Leads her to the village altar,

And they leave her father's roof. "I can make no marriage present: Little can I give my wife. Love will make our cottage pleasant, And I love thee more than life." They by parks and lodges going See the lordly castles stand: Summer woods, about them blowing, Made a murmur in the land. From deep thought himself he rouses, Says to her that loves him well, "Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell.” So she goes by him attended,

Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid

Lay betwixt his home and hers; Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and order'd gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady,

Built for pleasure and for state,

All he shows her makes him dearer :
Evermore she seems to gaze
On that cottage growing nearer,

Where they twain will spend their
days.

O but she will love him truly!

He shall have a che rful home;
She will order all things duly,
When beneath his roof they come.
Thus her heart rejoices greatly,

Till a gateway she discerns
With arinorial bearings stately,
And beneath the gate she turns;
Sees a mansion more majestic

Than all those she saw before;
Many a gallant gay domestic,
Bows before him at the door.
And they speak in gentle murmur,
When they answer to his call,
While he treads with footstep firmer,
Leading on from hall to hall.
And, while now she wonders blindly,
Nor the meaning can divine,
Proudly turns he found and kindly,
"All of this is mine and thine.'
Here he lives in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,
Not a lord in all the county
Is so great a lord as he.
All at once the color flushes

Her sweet face from brow to chin:
As it were with shame she blushes,
And her spirit changed within.
Then her countenance all over
Pale again as death did prove:
But he clasp'd her like a lover,

And he cheer'd her soul with love. So she strove against her weakness, Tho' at times her spirit sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meek

ness

To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he,

And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady,

And the people loved her much. But a trouble weigh'd upon her, And perplex'd her, night and mɔrn, With the burden of an honor

Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew and ever fainter,

And she murmur'd, " O, that he Were once more that landscape-paint

er,

Which did win my heart from me!" So she droop'd and droop'd before him,

Fading slowly from his side: Three fair children first she bore him, Then before her time she died. Weeping, weeping late and early, Walking up and pacing down, Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. And he came to look upon her,

And he look'd at her and said, "Bring the dress and put it on her, That she wore when she was wed." Then her people, softly treading, Bore to earth her body, drest

In the dress that she was wed in, That her spirit might have rest.

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN

GUINEVERE.

A FRAGMENT.

LIKE souls that balance joy and pain, With tears and smiles from heaven again

The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere,
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elmtree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped his song;
Sometimes the throstle whistled
strong:

Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,

Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:

By grassy capes with fuller sound In curves the yellowing river ran, And drooping chestnut-buds began To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground,
Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous
Spring;

A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before,
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.
Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set: And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,
When all the glimmering moorland
rings

With jingling bridle-reins.
As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

A FAREWELL.
FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea;
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river: