Free Love has leaped to that innermost chamber,
Oh! the last time, and the hundred before:
Fettered Love, motionless, can but remember,
Yet something that sighs from him passes the door.

Nay, but my heart when it flies to thy bower,
What does it find there that knows it again?
There it must droop like a shower-beaten flower,
Red at the rent core and dark with the rain.
Ah! yet what shelter is still shed above it,—

What waters still image its leaves torn apart?
Thy soul is the shade that clings round it to love it,
And tears are its mirror deep down in thy heart.

What were my prize, could I enter thy bower,
This day, to-morrow, at eve or at morn?
Large lovely arms and a neck like a tower,

Bosom then heaving that now lies forlorn.
Kindled with love-breath, (the sun's kiss is colder!)
Thy sweetness all near me, so distant to-day;
My hand round thy neck and thy hand on my shoulder,
My mouth to thy mouth as the world melts away.

What is it keeps me afar from thy bower,

My spirit, my body, so fain to be there? Waters engulfing or fires that devour?

Earth heaped against me or death in the air? Nay, but in day-dreams, for terror, for pity,

The trees wave their heads with an omen to tell; Nay, but in night-dreams, throughout the dark city, The hours, clashed together, lose count in the bell.

Shall I not one day remember thy bower,

One day when all days are one day to me?— Thinking, "I stirred not, and yet had the power," Yearning, "Ah God, if again it might be!"

Peace, peace! such a small lamp illumes, on this highway.
So dimly so few steps in front of my feet,

Yet shows me that her way is parted from my way.
Out of sight, beyond light, at what goal may we meet?
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882]

Maud Muller

885

SONG

WE break the glass, whose sacred wine
To some beloved health we drain,
Lest future pledges, less divine,

Should e'er the hallowed toy profane;
And thus I broke a heart that poured
Its tide of feelings out for thee,
In draughts, by after-times deplored,
Yet dear to memory.

But still the old, impassioned ways
And habits of my mind remain,
And still unhappy light displays

Thine image chambered in my brain,
And still it looks as when the hours
Went by like flights of singing birds,
Or that soft chain of spoken flowers
And airy gems,-thy words.

Edward Coate Pinkney [1802-1828]

MAUD MULLER

MAUD MULLER on a summer's day
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,—

A wish that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And asked a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay

Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed; "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might bel

"He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine.

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat.

Maud Muller

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy cach day.

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door,"

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still,

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair,

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay;

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

"But low of cattle and song of birds, And health and quiet and loving words."

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold,

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone,

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell,

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;

887

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein;

And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,