Shall Babylon be cast into the sea; Then comes the close." The gentlehearted wife

Sat shuddering at the ruin of a world; Heat his own but when the wordy storm Had ended, forth they came and paced the shore,

Ran in and out the long sea-framing caves, Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce believed

(The sootflake of so many a summer still Clung to their fancies) that they saw, the sea.

So now on sand they walk'd, and now on cliff,

Lingering about the thymy promontories, Till all the sails were darken'd in the west,

And rosed in the east: then homeward and to bed:

Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope

Haunting a holy text, and still to that Returning, as the bird returns, at night, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,"

Said, "Love, forgive him" but he did not speak;

And silenced by that silence lay the wife, Remembering her dear Lord who died for all,

And musing on the little lives of men, And how they mar this little by their feuds.

But while the two were sleeping, a full tide

Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks

Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild seasmoke,

And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam,

and fell

In vast sea-cataracts - - ever and anon

Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs

Heard thro' the living roar. At this the babe,

Their Margaret cradled near them, wail'd and woke

The mother, and the father suddenly cried, "A wreck, a wreck!" then turn'd, and groaning said,

"Forgive! How many will say, 'forgive,' and find

A sort of absolution in the sound
To hate a little longer! No; the sin
That neither God nor man can well for-

give,

one

Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs.

I thought the motion of the boundless deep

Bore through the cave, and I was heaved upon it

In darkness then I saw one lovely star Larger and larger. What a world,' I thought,

To live in!' but in moving on I found Only the landward exit of the cave, Bright with the sun upon the stream beyond:

And near the light a giant woman sat,
All over earthy, like a piece of earth,
A pickaxe in her hand then out I slipt
Into a land all sun and blossom, trees
As high as heaven, and every bird that
sings:

And here the night - light flickering in my eyes

Awoke me.

lay,

Down in the water, a long reef of gold, Or what seem'd gold and I was glad at first

To think that in our often-ransack'd world Still so much gold was left; and then I fear'd

Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it,

And fearing waved my arm to warn them off;

An idle signal, for the brittle fleet (I thought I could have died to save it) near'd,

Touch'd, clink'd, and clash'd, and vanish'd, and I woke,

I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see My dream was Life; the woman honest Work;

And my poor venture but a fleet of glass Wreck'd on a reef of visionary gold.”

"Nay," said the kindly wife to comfort him,

and broke

you went.

I stood like one that had received a blow: I found a hard friend in his loose accounts, A loose one in the hard grip of his hand, A curse in his God-bless-you: then my eyes

Pursued him down the street, and far away,

Among the honest shoulders of the crowd, Read rascal in the motions of his back, And scoundrel in the supple sliding knee."

"Was he so bound, poor soul?" said the good wife;

"So are we all but do not call him, love,

Before you prove him, rogue, and proved, forgive.

His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend

Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemn'd: And that drags down his life: then comes what comes

Hereafter: and he meant, he said he meant, Perhaps he meant, or partly meant, you well."

"With all his conscience and one eye askew '

Love, let me quote these lines, that you may learn

A man is likewise counsel for himself, Too often, in that silent court of yours 'With all his conscience and one eye askew,

So false, he partly took himself for true; Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry,

Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye;

Who, never naming God except for gain, So never took that useful name in vain; Made Him his catspaw and the Cross

his tool,

And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool;

Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he

forged,

And snakelike slimed his victim ere he gorged;

no more,

But huge cathedral fronts of every age, Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see, One after one: and then the great ridge drew,

Lessening to the lessening music, back, And past into the belt and swell'd again Slowly to music: ever when it broke The statues, king or saint, or founder fell; Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left

Came men and women in dark clusters round,

Some crying, 'Set them up! they shall not fall!'

And others 'Let them lie, for they have fall'n.'

And still they strove and wrangled: and she grieved

In her strange dream, she knew not why, to find

Their wildest wailings never out of tune With that sweet note; and ever as their shrieks

And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,

That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,

flower of the flock;

Never a man could fling him: for Willy

stood like a rock.

"Here's a leg for a babe of a week!" says

doctor; and he would be bound, There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round.

IV.

Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue!

matter to fight.

IX.

And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day; And all things look'd half-dead, tho' it was the middle of May. Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been!

But soiling another, Annie, will never make one's self clean.