But when he haunts your door... the town

Marks coming and marks going... You seem to have stitched your eyelids down

To that long piece of sewing !

IV.

You never give a look, not you,

Nor drop him a “Good morning," To keep his long day warm and blue,

So fretted by your scorning.

V.

No matter how or where we loved,

Or when we 'll wed, or what befall;
I only feel she 's mine at last,
I only know I 'll hold her fast,

Though to dust crumbles Moreton Hall.
Her pedigree - good sooth, 't is long !

Her grim sires stare from every wall ;
And centuries of ancestral grace
Revive in her sweet girlish face,

As meek she glides through Moreton Hall. Whilst I have nothing; save, perhaps,

Some worthless heaps of idle gold
And a true heart, the which her eye
Through glittering dross spied, womanly ;

Therefore they say her heart was sold !
I laugh ; she laughs ; the hills and vales

Laugh as we ride 'neath chestnuts tall,
Or start the deer that silent graze,
And up, large-eyed, with soft gaze,

At the fair maid of Moreton Hall;

She shook her head : “The mouse and bee

For crumb or flower will linger; The dog is happy at my knee,

The cat purrs at my finger.

VI.

“But he... to him, the least thing given

Means great things at a distance ; He wants my world, my sun, my heaven,

Soul, body, whole existence.

VII.

They say love gives as well as takes ;

But I'm a simple maiden, My mother's first smile when she wakes

I still have smiled and prayed in.

We let the neighbors talk their fill,

Fo” life is sweet, and love is strong, And two, close knit in 'marriage ties, The whole world's shams may well despise,

Its folly, madness, shame, and wrong.

VIII.

“I only know my mother's love

Which gives all and asks nothing,

And this new loving sets the groove

Too much the way of loathing.

IX.

“Unless he gives me all in change,

I forfeit all things by him : The risk is terrible and strange -

I tremble, doubt, ... deny him.

X.

“He's sweetest friend, or hardest foe,

Best angel, or worst devil ;
I either hate or ... love him so,

I can't be merely civil !

XI.

"You trust a woman who puts forth

Her blossoms thick as summer's ? You think she dreams what love is worth,

Who casts it to new-comers ?

That thou hast kept a portion back,

While I have staked the whole,
Let no false pity spare the blow,
But in true mercy tell me so.
Is there within thy heart a need

That mine cannot fulfil ?
One chord that any other hand

Could better wake or still ?
Speak now, lest at some future day
My whole life wither and decay.
Lives there within thy nature hid

The demon-spirit, change,
Shedding a passing glory still

On all things new and strange ?
It may not be thy fault alone,
But shield my heart against thine own.
Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day

And answer to my claim,
That fate, and that to-day's mistake,

Not thou, had been to blame ?
Some soothe their conscience thus ; but thou
Wilt surely warn and save me now.
Nay, answer not, - I dare not hear,

The words would come too late ; Yet I would spare thee all remorse,

So comfort thee, my fate : Whatever on my heart may fall, Remember, I would risk it all !

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER

THE LADY'S “YES."

A WOMAN'S QUESTION. BEFORE I trust my fate to thee,

Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give

Color and form to mine,
Before I peril all for thee,
Question thy soul to-night for me.
I break all slighter bonds, nor feel

A shadow of regret :
Is there one link within the past

That holds thy spirit yet ?
Or is thy faith as clear and free
As that which I can pledge to thee ?
Does there within thy dimmest dreams

A possible future shine,
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,

Untouched, unshared by mine?
If so, at any pain or cost,
O, tell me before all is lost !
Look deeper still : if thou canst feel,

Within thy inmost soul,

“YES," I answered you last night ;

“No," this morning, sir, I say. Colors seen by candle-light

Will not look the same by day. When the viols played their best,

Lamps above, and laughs below, Love me sounded like a jest,

Fit for yes or fit for no. Call me false or call me free,

Vow, whatever light may shine, No man on your face shall see

Any grief for change on mine. Yet the sin is on us both;

Time to dance is not to woo ; Wooing light makes fickle troth

Scorn of me recoils on you. Learn to win a lady's faith

Nobly, as the thing is high, Bravely, ns for life and death,

With a loyal gravity.

And if I sleep, then pierceth he

With pretty slight,
And makes his pillow of my knee,

The livelong night ;
Strike I the lute, he tunes the string,
He music plays, if I but sing:
He lends me every lovely thing,
Yet cruel, he my heart doth sting:

Ah! wanton, will you ? Else I with roses every day

Will whip you hence, And bind you when you long to play,

For your offence ; I'll shut my eyes to keep you in, I'll make you fast it for your sin, I'll count your power not worth a pin, Alas ! what hereby shall I win

If he gainsay me !

CUPID and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses, — Cupid paid ;
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows,
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose

“Thanks, gentle Norah, fair and good,

We'll rest awhile our weary feet ; But though this old man needeth food,

There 's nothing here that he can eat. His taste is strange, he eats alone,

Beneath some ruined cloister's cope, Or on some tottering turret's stone,

While I can only live on — - Hope !

CUPID SWALLOWED.

TOTHER day, as I was twining
Roses for a crown to dine in,
What, of all things, midst the heap,
Should I light on, fast asleep,
But the little desperate elf,
The tiny traitor, - Love himself !
By the wings I pinched him up
Like a bee, and in a cup
Of my wine I plunged and sank him ;
And what d'ye think I did ? – I drank him !
Faith, I thought him dead. Not he!
There he lives with tenfold glee;
And now this moment, with his wings
I feel him tickling my heart-strings.

“A week ago, ere you were wed;

It was the very night before, Upon so many sweets I fed

While passing by your mother's door, — It was that dear, delicious hour

When Owen here the nosegay brought, And found you in the woodbine bower,

Since then, indeed, I've needed naught.”

LEIGH HUNT.

A blush steals over Norah's face,

A smile comes over Owen's brow, A tranquil joy illumes the place,

As if the moon were shining now; The boy beholds the pleasing pain,

The sweet confusion he has done, And shakes the crystal glass again,

And makes the sands more quickly run.

LOVE AND TIME.

“Dear Norah, we are pilgrims, bound

Upon an endless path sublime; We pace the green earth round and round,

And mortals call us LOVE and TIME; He seeks the many, I the few;

I dwell with peasants, he with kings. We seldom meet; but when we do,

I take his glass, and he my wings.

Two pilgrims from the distant plain

Come quickly o'er the mossy ground. One is a boy, with locks of gold

Thick curling round his face so fair ; The other pilgrim, stern and old,

Has snowy beard and silver hair. The youth with many a merry trick

Goes singing on his careless way ; His old companion walks as quick,

But speaks no word by night or day. Where'er the old man treads, the grass

Fast fadeth with a certain doom ; But where the beauteous boy doth pass

Unnumbered flowers are seen to bloom. And thus before the sage, the boy

Trips -lightly o'er the blooming lands, And proudly bears a pretty toy,

A crystal glass with diamond sands.
A smile o'er any brow would pass

To see him frolic in the sun,
To see him shake the crystal glass,

And make the sands more quickly run. And now they leap the streamlet o'er,

A silver thread so white and thin, And now they reach the open door,

And now they lightly enter in :

“And thus together on we go,

Where'er I chance or wish to lead ; And Time, whose lonely steps are slow,

Now sweeps along with lightning speech Now on our bright predestined way

We must to other regions pass ; But take this gift, and night and day

Look well upon its truthful glass.

“How quick or slow the bright sands fall

Is hid from lovers' eyes alone, If you can see them move at all,

Be sure your heart has colder grown.
"T is coldness makes the glass grow dry,

The icy hand, the freezing brow;
But warm the heart and breathe the sigh,

And then they 'll pass you know not how.".