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Cornell University Library 
 PR 4699.E83P7 
 
 Poems and music; with memorial pref. by An 
 
 -3 1QO/1 013 456 888 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013456888 
 
POEMS. 
 
^ 
 
ANNE EVANS 
 
 POEMS AND MUSIC 
 
 WITH MEMORIAL PREFACE BY 
 
 ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1880. 
 
NOVELLO, EWER & CO., 
 
 PRINTERS, 
 
 D9 & 70, DEAN STREET SOHO, (W.] 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 
 
 
 
 
 
 . vii 
 
 Roses and Rosemary 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 Two Red Roses on a Tree 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 A Dirge 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 3 
 
 Summer Gifts 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 4 
 
 Nancy 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 5 
 
 Apart 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 6 
 
 The Deadly Arbour 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 7 
 
 Over 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 8 
 
 Tirlywirly . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 9 
 
 Red and White Roses 
 
 
 
 
 
 lO 
 
 The Early Summer Weather 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 12 
 
 The Cherry-Tree 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 13 
 
 May Marjory 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 14 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 15 
 
 Sir Faithful 
 
 
 
 
 
 . i6 
 
 The Hard Rider 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ I? 
 
 " Con Espressione " 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 20 
 
 Blackbird 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 22 
 
 Fragments . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 23 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 27 
 
 A Deserted Hall 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 28 
 
 Letter to John Ella, Esq 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 30 
 
 Words to a " Lied ohne Worte " 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 32 
 
 Peradventure ! 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 34 
 
 Colin 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 35 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 36 
 
 The Blew-Ey'd Ladie 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 37 
 
 Sonnets 
 
 
 
 
 
 38-46 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Maurice Clifton 
 Sir Ralph Duguay . 
 Orinda 
 Flora's Lesson 
 
 PAGE 
 
 • 47 
 
 ■ 58 
 
 93 
 
 , 107 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 3- 
 
 4- 
 5- 
 6. 
 
 7- 
 
 8. 
 
 9- 
 10. 
 II. 
 12. 
 
 13- 
 
 14. 
 
 15- 
 i5. 
 
 17- 
 18. 
 ig. 
 20. 
 21. 
 22. 
 23- 
 
 Quadrille : 
 
 En Russie 
 En Allemagne 
 En Ecosse 
 En Pologne 
 En Angleterre 
 
 Polka . . 
 
 Waltz .. 
 
 Polonaise 
 
 Waltz . . 
 
 En Allemagne . 
 
 Air (a la Russe 
 Chauffe-main 
 
 La Reverie 
 
 The Blew-Ey'd Ladie 
 
 I walk'd thro' my Garden 
 
 Colin . . 
 
 Peradventure . 
 
 Round . . 
 
 Gar9on volage 
 
 Roses . . 
 
 Dirge 
 
 114 
 116 
 118 
 120 
 122 
 124 
 126 
 128 
 130 
 132 
 134 
 137 
 139 
 140 
 141 
 142 
 
 143 
 144 
 146 
 150 
 
 152 
 15 + 
 155 
 156 
 157 
 158 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Oh ! happy, if haply one or two, 
 
 My secret of secrets sharing, 
 Shall have learnt that to be is more than to do, 
 
 And suffering better than daring. 
 
 Sebastian Evans. 
 
 This little collection of rhyme and music would be, 
 perhaps, incomplete without a few words of remembrance 
 concerning the writer, whose name and memory are a 
 music indeed to those who loved her. Others, who may 
 not have met her face to face, will discern something of 
 what she was, of her truth of heart, and poetic, contem- 
 plative nature, in these records of her passing moods and 
 impressions. Her life was a very tranquil one, her ac- 
 quaintance in her later years was not unlimited, most of 
 her time jvas passed within the four walls of her own 
 home, and the days were filled for her by her own pur- 
 suits, by the mingled cares and interests of a united 
 family. She never married, but for that very reason was 
 able to give more of herself to those whose interests she 
 adopted. The writer of these few lines was one of those 
 whose welfare and interests Anne Evans took to her kind 
 heart. I was not ungrateful at the time, but it is only 
 
viii A FIRST MEETING. 
 
 now, after many, many years, that I have learned how 
 deep this friendship was, so scrupulous was my friend of 
 overstating her feeling, of protesting overmuch. With 
 many of us words approximate as nearly as may be to 
 the fact; with Anne Evans almost every word was a part 
 of herself, of her own inner life and conviction. 
 
 Among the different gifts b}' which human beings in- 
 fluence each other, some persuading, some teaching, some 
 leading by example, there is also that most precious gift of 
 feeling truly. Anne Evans, who was a diffident woman, 
 who would have shrunk from seeming to obtrude her 
 opinion, nevertheless unconsciously touched and influenced 
 us all b}' her intense sincerity of heart and purpose. There 
 was something, at once original and delicate, in her nature 
 which made itself felt through very silence ; and in truth it 
 is this essence of a human being that we love in those we 
 care for. We may be proud of their success, we may 
 delight in their gifts, but it is they themselves whom we 
 love. 
 
 The first time I ever saw her was one sunny autumn 
 afternoon, many years ago, when my sister and I walked 
 to the house where she was staying, taking a note from 
 our father, who had sent us to her. He had been telling 
 us that it was possible she might come for a time to live 
 in our home, and be a friend and chaperon to two girls 
 who were considered too young to be entirely left alone 
 through the long hours during which he was necessarily 
 engaged and at work. 
 
 Miss Evans had been ill ; her doctor, who was also our 
 own, had prescribed entire change of scene and life, and 
 had spoken of this plan to our father. His patient, he 
 suggested, might come and pay us a long and indefinite 
 
A PASSING PROJECT. ix 
 
 visit, and we should be infinitely the gainers by such an 
 arrangement, which might at the same time be of benefit 
 to her. 
 
 We were naturally in some trepidation as we were 
 ushered into the room. It was just turning gray in the 
 sunset. I remember that my first impression was one of 
 almost surprise, and certainly of relief, when somebody 
 not so tall as myself came quickly to meet us, greeting 
 us with very shy cordiality. The lady had a low voice 
 with a gentle quiver in it, two clear brown eyes, a face, 
 not handsome, perhaps, as some faces are, but with a 
 very tranquil yet wistful charm of its own. As I think 
 of it now, it seems to me our friend never changed in all 
 the years we knew her, nor looked older nor different from 
 that first day. After our first meeting we left her with 
 a feeling that she was an old friend, with all the charm 
 and mysteriousness of a new one ; we went home full 
 of pleasure in the anticipation of her coming. The doctor 
 rubbed his hands in triumph at the success of his com- 
 binations ; but it was destined to be only a passing project. 
 Anne Evans actually paid us a short preliminary visit; 
 but she was summoned away to her father's sick bed ; 
 nor did the time ever come for her to return to the 
 little spare room that was waiting for her, with the win- 
 dow looking out on the scraggy elm-tree avenue and the 
 slated roofs of Baron Marochetti's big studios. 
 
 It must have been during her visit to us that she copied 
 out, in her beautiful even handwriting, much of the MS. of 
 " The Rose and the Ring " for my father. The story had 
 been originally written on the boards of the drawing block, 
 upon which the pictures were also drawn. 
 
 Among the letters which her sister has let me read, I find 
 
X BRITWELL COURT. 
 
 one written at this time from Bosworth, where the family 
 had hved for so many years. 
 
 " I mean, after this uncheering account, to send you a few 
 more Hnes to-morrow, if mamma does not. I do hope, dear, 
 that we may have more favourable news for you. ... I 
 wrote to Mr. Thackeray on Tuesday, and, things being as 
 they are, quite declined to enter on a settled residence with 
 him and his daughters. If they go off to Rome, or elsewhere 
 abroad, which seems likely, how could I go with them? and 
 if mamma were in want of me here at any moment, how 
 could I let anything stand in the way of my corning ? So, 
 as, of course, Mr. Thackeray wants a settled inmate, and I 
 could not be one, I set him free to look out for another, 
 offering myself at the same time as a visitor while he made 
 his search. To this came such a very nice, kind, gentleman- 
 like, Thackeray answer. . . . He still asks me to come 
 and occupy the vacant room, and, indeed, I hope to see 
 more of them." Her letter ends with " So much love to 
 you and around you." 
 
 " Bosworth was not Anne's first home," writes her 
 sister. " Anne was between eight and nine before she 
 first saw Bosworth, and eight or nine is a sort of middle 
 age for a nature like hers. Home to her was a lovely old 
 house in Buckinghamshire, Britwell Court, near Burnham ; 
 a two-storied house, with a high brown roof and a good 
 cornice underneath ; built round a quandrangle, and stand- 
 ing in a great, shady, flowery, fruity garden. Anne learnt 
 to love Bosworth afterwards, but not so much while she 
 was still living there as when she had left the place. The 
 school-house was new (Dr. Evans was the head-master of 
 
HER FATHER. xi 
 
 the Market Bosworth Grammar School), and it stood in the 
 little market-place; and the garden was new and unshady 
 but for two old walnut-trees. The Leicestershire climate is 
 not genial, — she used to speak of the ' raw green ' of the 
 Midlands, — so no wonder the change seemed at first a 
 cheerless one to her, and I grew up to hear traditions of 
 Britwell that had about them a mythical flavour as of a lost 
 paradise." 
 
 This may be the place to say a few words of the father to 
 whom Anne Evans was so tenderly and proudly attached, 
 and who died soon after our first acquaintance with her. I 
 never knew Dr. Evans except through her vivid and con- 
 stant remembrance of him — that remembrance which breaks 
 down the barriers of time and separation, and even of 
 death itself. In the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 
 1855, there is a notice of Dr. Arthur Evans — of his varied 
 attainments, of his earnest, happy spirit, and influence. 
 " To him," says the writer, in conclusion, " it was given 
 to look on nature with the eye of the painter and the 
 heart of the poet ; and it was perhaps from this source 
 of gratification, more than from any other, that he drew 
 his continual cheerfulness and unfailing enjoyment of life. 
 He was never harassed by any fretful craving for dis- 
 tinction or fame. He had learned early to seek for the 
 poet's true reward — not in the praises of men, but in his 
 own capacities of keener appreciation of the blessings of 
 life, and in the exercise of that genial love towards nature 
 which is part and parcel of the love towards nature's God — 
 the highest and holiest characteristic of all true genius. 
 Hence, although isolated from communion with his equals 
 in intellect, unbeneficed and almost unknown, hard-worked 
 
xii KENSINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 and hard-working to the last, none ever heard from his lips 
 one murmur of impatience or discontent. Careful only to 
 do his duty nobly in that state of life to which it had pleased 
 God to call him, he kept the even tenor of his way, peaceful 
 and contented, a faithful minister and steward of Him to 
 whose service he had devoted his life." Of Dr. Evans's 
 four sons only two are surviving. The elder is Mr. John 
 Evans, so well known to well-known men as an explorer in 
 the past, more especially in the border-land between geology 
 and archaeology. His antiquarian researches, however, 
 have not prevented him from most practical and effectual 
 work in the present. 
 
 After the break up of their home at Bosworth, Mrs. 
 Evans and her two daughters and her youngest son came 
 to live in Kensington Square, in a pleasant rambling old 
 house, with windows looking out between two gardens. 
 There were several rooms on each landing, there was a 
 pretty old wooden staircase, there were cross lights, quaint 
 cupboards, corners, and light closets. The house is gone 
 now, but it seemed to suit its inmates somehow. Its kind 
 and handsome mistress, " the Mrs.," as her daughters used 
 to call her, would receive us with her bright smile of wel- 
 come — long may she continue to gladden her friends with 
 it — and Anne would come, with her kind looks, out of 
 some inner garden-room. 
 
 In a room upstairs was an amusing bit of decoration, 
 peculiarly her own. The old house had veined marble 
 chimney-pieces in the bed-rooms, and Anne, as she sat 
 by her fire, often too ill to read or talk, or be talked to, 
 interpreted with her pencil all the wandering lines and 
 marks of the marble into faces and figures full of character 
 and meaning. When Mrs. Evans left Kensington Square 
 
A WORK OF ART. xiii 
 
 this chimney-piece was brought away and replaced by a 
 blank one. This is how Anne describes it in a letter to 
 her sister, with a numbered sketch on one page : — 
 
 "J. made acquaintance with my 'fireside circle,' the little 
 folk I wish to show you. Compartment one appears to repre- 
 sent some scientific experiment, of a meteorological nature. 
 The apparatus, I own, resembles an umbrella, but with diffe- 
 rences ; four spectators look on on the left, two scientific 
 noblemen and two young engineers, with such delightful 
 faces ! One, open-mouthed, holds the stick of the appa- 
 ratus, but all have the look of spectators, and it was not 
 for some time that I discovered the inventor himself, on 
 the right, with upturned face and 'judicious nose,' who 
 is now carefully adjusting some strings. Below, in the 
 foreground, is a heavy, stupid smoker, who cares not a 
 rush for the ingenious experiment, but smokes lumpishly. 
 Two is a draped head, which I take as Italian art. Three 
 is an exile, standing among Siberian rocks, in such a be- 
 coming white fur cap ! Four is a very amiable commodore, 
 discussing the news (he holds the newspaper) with some- 
 body not included in the picture, while his wife, a very fine 
 lady, leans back on a picturesque carved chair, with nil 
 admirari complacence, her bonnet and shawl falling off, 
 and a fan raised. Five is an interesting ' Quidan ' (ask 
 W. what that is) of the French nation, as I guess, and the 
 sixteenth or seventeenth century. He is walking alone 
 in a fine country, looking over his shoulder, and wears a 
 cap and a feather, a cloak and a frill. Six is a miscella- 
 neous rout of about sixty faces, with adjuncts, and I want 
 you to see them." 
 
xiv AUNT ANNE. 
 
 When her younger sister married, Anne and her 
 mother lived on in the house alone, except, indeed, for the 
 procession of the little feet of small nephews and nieces 
 and grandchildren to be met constantly upon the stairs. 
 To me it always seemed an ideal grandmamma's or aunt's 
 house, not the less so that it stood in Kensington Square, 
 our own early London home ; but Kensington, with all its 
 associations, is not entirely satisfying to a country-bred 
 woman. This one writes in one of her letters to her sister, 
 Mrs. Hubbard : " I want to breathe the breath of fallen 
 leaves somewhere deep in the country. Can't you fancy 
 the kind of silly longing ? One thing has pleased me more 
 than you might think. Our neighbours at No. 15 have 
 been cultivating sunflowers in their little front garden, and 
 close by our palisades grew a noble one ; and by and by, 
 when it began to die, the way it hung its broad face over 
 the earth, weighing its stiff stem forward, till I tied it up 
 in pity, brought home to me so very strikingly my very 
 favourite morsel of Tennyson. You don't know the in- 
 terest I took in those sunflowers. Bees found them out ; 
 you might see two or three different kinds at once on the 
 same beautiful green disc." 
 
 Here is a little sea-side rhapsody : — 
 
 "The Pavilion, Aldeburgh, Sept. 13, 1861. 
 " Many happy returns of this day to j'ou, my dear E. 
 How I should like to have you here and be able to say so, 
 and sit and talk with you a little among the agreeable odd 
 shingles by the old, old sea. It is so good to see and hear 
 it again. I do both here at my desk by an open French 
 door-window, with a little balcony before it. Even the room 
 would, I think, be in itself a pleasure to you. It is a little 
 
ALDEBURGH. xv 
 
 room upstairs (both downstairs and upstairs must you go, 
 Aldeburgh-fashion, to reach it from the drawing room). . . . 
 The wall towards the sea is straight, with the French 
 window in the middle, and classical vases on pedestals in 
 niches. The rest of the room is one /He champUre, amid 
 green foliage, flowing water, and imposing objects of archi- 
 tecture and sculpture. The corners at the back of the room 
 are rounded, the door merely cut in the paper ; the sky- 
 colour continued over the ceiling. Groups of gay and 
 polite ladies and gentlemen are taking their pleasure in 
 these superb retreats. The costume very marked — that of 
 the early part of the present century. The ladies wear short 
 waists and limp skirts, bonnets prononces, or short curly 
 hair, bare arms, and long gloves drawn up nearly to the short 
 sleeve ; often bare necks too, with, perhaps, a degagi strip 
 of a scarf. The gentlemen are in attitudes to correspond. 
 Here's a boat-launch just behind me, with a waterfall and a 
 rocky cave amid woods in the enchanting background. 
 The lady of distinction just being deferentially handed into 
 the ornamental skiff appears to be clad in a muslin gown 
 over a pale face-coloured slip, relieved by a green bonnet 
 with umbrageous feathers and elegant green shoes en suite. 
 She can hardly be persuaded to place her long green foot in 
 the boat, therefore he of the bright blue coat and orange- 
 coloured trousers gesticulates gently with a reassuring 
 simper ; while the lady in the shiny black spencer and frill 
 gingerly embraces the too timid lady in the yellow gown, as 
 they wait already seated at the stern. Near these is a 
 musical group, on and by a long bench under a tree. The 
 effect of the air (probably Rousseau's dream) will be de- 
 liciously romantic, heard from the water." So the letter 
 goes on. 
 
xvi CORNELIANS. 
 
 " i6 K. S., Friday, Oct. ii, 1861. 
 
 " My dear E, — Did not Charles Lamb find out that he 
 wanted each one of his friends for some one thing the others 
 would not do for ? I consider you as the friend to enjoy 
 little stones with. I do not say that that is your only 
 qualification, but what a rare qualification it is ! Others 
 have their useful and agreeable points ; but I want you to 
 look at my Aldeburgh box with me — can't you guess I do ? 
 Not that you need fancy the acquisitions of this year either 
 very many or generally large in size. I doubt whether 
 there are thirty, indeed I think not (even reckoning a price- 
 less bit of glass), and few which are not small among these. 
 But, then, the quality ! the varieties of rich, subdued colour, 
 of texture, of surface, marking, outline, the engaging indivi- 
 dualities ! and yet how few spectators perceive how much is 
 lost by ' cutting and polishing ' ! To follow my principle of 
 'quality before quantity,' Lewis says I gave him a hundred. 
 Some he bottled, as you might bottle your less tidy mush- 
 rooms for ketchup (well if they be ' real mushrooms,' 
 Mrs. Emma !). The ' Mrs.,' Fanny, children, servants 
 went a-hunting, and some choice treasures were found. 
 Fanny may have told you of hers, and of her exultation on 
 finding that she could find them ! though a geological 
 clergyman did come in before breakfast one day, and on 
 seeing mine, coolly remarked that they found bigger on his 
 part of the coast. There is much more to be said on the 
 subject, but perhaps that is enough to write. 
 
 " It is such a comfort, dear E., to have the cheerful news 
 you send us of yourself and the other H.'s, and the house 
 (an inferior kind of H., but an important one, nevertheless). 
 ... I should like to walk in and look at you ; and how I 
 should like you to walk in and look, not particularly at me, 
 
THE PEBBLE-TEST. xvii 
 
 for that cannot be so satisfactory to my friends as I could 
 wish — but at my ' 'Nelians.' This, understand, is to give 
 expression to some of my sentiments concerning them in a 
 quarter where they will find sympathy ; but, for a letter, I 
 refer you to our 'Mrs.' Besides, there is an organ going on 
 — so I leave off. My love to W., and to A., G., and M., and 
 all kind neighbours who may care for it, 
 
 " Your very affectionate A." 
 
 Here is a quaint little conceit, which seems to have been 
 suggested by the pleasant Aldeburgh experiences. We are 
 all used to see men and women classify minerals, but this is 
 a contrary experience. 
 
 " THE PEBBLE-TEST. 
 
 " (For Mrs. Emma.) 
 
 " My dear E, — Allow me to call your attention to the 
 value of the Pebble-test as an aid in attempting the classifi- 
 cation of the human race. 
 
 "The following interesting results were obtained by means 
 of a small apparatus formed of Aldeburgh materials. 
 
 " Each subject of the experiments may perhaps be taken 
 
 to represent a class. 
 
 " I remain, &c., A. 
 
 Miss . '■'No. I appeared to consider the pebbles as — 
 
 Objects with which (they not being really of sugar) humanity 
 has nothing whatever to do : unless, indeed, with a view to 
 brooches, &c." 
 
 Mrs. B . "No. 2, as — Substances which it is cre- 
 ditable and becoming to be aJDle to distinguish readily by 
 
xvii! THE PEBBLE-TEST. 
 
 their scientific names ; which done, there is no more to he 
 said." 
 
 Mr. G. . ''No. 3, as — Things to pick up : the bigger 
 
 the better." 
 
 J. M. H . "No. 4, as — Phenomena which by beautiful 
 
 combinations of form, colour, &c., are capable of affording 
 refined and exalted pleasure, like any other beautiful pheno- 
 mena — clouds, for instance." 
 
 . "No. 5, as — Properties to he prized for their 
 
 engaging individualities. (Only three or four specimens of 
 this class at present known in England, or very few more.) " 
 
 Among her papers I have seen a packet labelled 
 " Mr. Thackeray," in the beautiful handwriting my father 
 used so much to admire. It contains extracts and cuttings 
 from the newspapers about him, such as we ourselves 
 might have chosen to keep. 
 
 Another envelope bears the touching inscription, " Mv 
 darling B." These are papers about some very remarkable 
 sonnets by her brother Sebastian, then quite a young man ; 
 and she has copied out, at length, a letter from Sir James 
 Stephen about these poems — a letter of discriminating 
 praise and criticism. When our father died, the same 
 young poet wrote an ode, full of beautiful things which I 
 cannot help speaking of now, though so many, many years 
 have passed. 
 
 This young brother was verj' dear to Anne, and much of 
 her heart's interest was centred upon him. It was indeed 
 a most tender bond that always united her to him. 
 
 On one occasion, while still at college, Mr. vSebastian 
 Evans thought himself ill-used by his family, who had not 
 
A FRAGMENT. xix 
 
 written to him as regularly as they were used to do. He 
 sent home a letter full of extraordinary news : described 
 himself as married, with a resident mother-in-law ; as 
 having given up his college career to turn coal-merchant in 
 the neighbourhood of Cambridge ; and also inclosed a little 
 bunch of hair off a paint-brush as a specimen of his bride's 
 locks. In reply to this Anne sent the following little poem : — 
 
 OUR BAS. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Oure Bas hee rode to ye College, 
 The College in Cambrydge towne, 
 
 There to consort with learned men, 
 AUe clad in cappe and gowne. 
 
 " My sisters twain they sit att home, 
 They can both reade and spell : 
 I'll e'en go write a faire Letter ; 
 They like of soche full well." 
 
 His sisters twayne they sit att home, 
 
 A breaking of their fast : 
 The yonger one gives over anone. 
 
 But the elder is Lagge Laste. 
 
 " Who steppes soe nimbly over the stones. 
 So nimbly to ye Gate ? 
 Methinkes itt is the Poste-man, 
 Now see hee doe not wayte." 
 
 B 2 
 
X A FRAGMENT. 
 
 " welcome hither, Poste-man, 
 I fain wolde understande 
 Whose are those same ystampt Lettres 
 Thou bringest in thy Hande ? 
 
 " I see a Lettre for Will ye Millar, 
 And another for Maistre Ball ; 
 But I see a Lettre from faire Cambridge 
 To mee is woorth them, alle." 
 
 " Read now the newes of our yonge brother. 
 Come, read them straight away." 
 
 " O here bee passing straunge tydinges 
 I read of hym this daye. 
 
 " For hee will none of his brave lernynge. 
 But, forsooth, a brave yonge bride ; 
 And he dwelleth in a dwelling-house. 
 With a mother-in-law besyde. 
 
 " He may not wend to gay Bosworth 
 Never no more at alle ; 
 But he sends a tuft of his wyfe her haire, 
 A short one and a smalle. 
 
 " I have seen many Gentilwomen, 
 Uncomely ones and faire ; 
 But I never sawe no Gentilwoman 
 With the lyke motley haire ! " 
 
 + ^ ^ =ls ^i* 
 
 March 23, 1852. 
 
DEFINITIONS. xxi 
 
 " It seems to me that if I look hard enough at anything 
 in this world it brings the tears into my eyes," she once 
 wrote. Anne Evans found other good things beside tears 
 in what she looked at long; kindest laughter and sympathy, 
 quaint fancies and humours, unexpected bits of philosophy. 
 Her mood was not always a sad one — though such moods 
 are more often written down than lighter ones, for the 
 happier moods are content to be happy in silence. 
 
 She was one of those who take pleasure easily in the 
 common daily events and minor happinesses of life. A 
 friend's well-doing and success, a pleasant visit, a country 
 breath, the sunflowers next door, the bird's song somebody 
 else may have heard, all delight her in their turn. It is 
 true she also felt more painful things acutely ; but she her- 
 self says, " If any one expects to find poetry without suscep- 
 tibility, let him look in the sky for a rainbow without rain." 
 
 She has left many of these definitions and fancies, some 
 humorous, some tender, revealing the drifting impressions 
 of her thoughtful and innocent heart. How happy was her 
 definition of Humour — " Thinking in fun, while we feel in 
 earnest." Indeed, among these notes and fly-leaves which 
 I am quoting, almost at hazard, from the papers Mrs. 
 Hubbard has let me see, are numbers of neat definitions 
 and epigrammatic scraps, all bearing witness to her con- 
 stant endeavour after strict accuracy of thought and ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Here, for instance, are the " Possible meanings of some 
 common phrases ": — 
 
 " I. A Moderate Man. — Onewho agrees with Neighbour 
 White as far as he can without contradicting Neighbour 
 Black. 
 
xxii DEFINITIONS. 
 
 " 2. A Privileged Person.— One who is so much a savage 
 when thwarted that civilised persons avoid thwarting him. 
 
 "3. A Practical Man. — One whose judgment is not dis- 
 tracted by the power of seeing far before him. 
 
 "4. A Musical Woman. —One who has strength enough 
 to make much noise, and obtuseness enough not to mind it. 
 
 " 5. A Good-Ternpered Man. — One who is so free from 
 feehng himself as not to be disagreeably affected by the 
 absence of it in others. 
 
 " 6. Nice People. — People who always behave like other 
 people. 
 
 "7. A Popular Man. — One who is so boldly vulgar that 
 the timidly vulgar admire him. 
 
 " 8. A Liheral-Minded Man. — One who disdains to prefer 
 right to wrong. 
 
 "g. A Judicious Man. — One whose principles are con- 
 trolled by circumstances. 
 
 " 10. A Domestic Woman. — A woman like a domestic. 
 
 "II. Radicals. — Men who maintain the supposed right 
 of each of us to help ruin all. 
 
 " 12. Liberals. — Men who flatter Radicals. 
 
 " 13. Conservatives. — Men who give way to Radicals. " 
 
 Many again are of a graver cast. 
 
 " Any risk which it is not your duty to incur, consider 
 that it is your duty to avoid." 
 
 " Everything is significant in itself, because all things 
 are connected ; but, not tracing the connection, we miss 
 the significancies." 
 
 This, on Heredity, is curious as having been written as 
 early as 1859 : — 
 
DEFINITIONS. xxiii 
 
 " Some characters, showing, I suppose, the effects of a 
 heterogeneous ancestry, are composed of elements which 
 will not amalgamate into a consistent whole. If you judge 
 of these characters by one fact, you are set at fault by 
 another." 
 
 " It is uphill work acting on other people's principles." 
 
 "Would you call a man 'that fellow,' or a woman 
 ' that creature ' ? Do not halve the true title. Join the 
 two words thus : ' fellow-creature.' " 
 
 "As a test of principle and self-control see whether you 
 always refrain from repeating a profane joke, or one that 
 may do harm to your hearers, or by their spreading it. If 
 you do not refrain in this little instance, how will you 
 excuse it ? " 
 
 " Do not put on your dignity like a coat ; but wear it 
 like your skin, which is always on, and never thought of." 
 
 " When a man of thought takes any road of action let 
 him beware of two dreadful phantoms awaiting him, one 
 on either hand, and called severally, Non possum, and Cui 
 bono ? " 
 
 " Some people are said to lead their lives ; but some let 
 their lives lead them." 
 
 " How many people seem to me to take the good, the 
 true, and the beautiful, tnainly on trust ! " 
 
 " One may be too poor for economical ways, or too sick 
 for healthy ways ; and they who are not poor, or who are 
 not sick, may fail to see it." 
 
 " If we go to abstruse things we may show our meaning 
 by words, but probably not in words." 
 
 " I fancy there are some minds which, without being more 
 crooked than others, yet work in so complicated a manner 
 that others hardly believe them direct." 
 
XXIV DEFINITIONS. 
 
 " O the false dignity of stolidity as it looks on the aberra- 
 tions of genius !" 
 
 "Compromise is not charity, but a miserable modern 
 counterfeit or substitute." 
 
 " The real lady is refined without being consequential ; 
 the false lady is consequential without being refined." 
 
 " Vulgarity, I think, often shows itself in estimating 
 things positively instead of relatively." 
 
 " Courtesy is the art of taking your fellow-creatures by 
 the right handle instead of the wrong. You, therefore, 
 show neither real wisdom nor worldly wisdom in neglecting 
 courtesy." 
 
 "'Deeds, not words.' And yet sometimes words are 
 perhaps a surer test of love than deeds. The deeds may 
 be done from one or more of a variety of other motives, by 
 persons who shrink from loving words unless they feel they 
 can use them sincerely." 
 
 " Writing novels is the way in which grown-up people 
 play with dolls." 
 
 " We are morally as well as physically omnivorous 
 creatures. Therefore, let the mind as well as the body 
 have its due share of vegetable diet." 
 
 "'Pity akin to contempt,' says some one? No, to 
 respect." 
 
 " Do not throw cold guineas at the poor." 
 
 " Wit is a thing of form — humour a thing of colour." 
 
 " If ladies would but lace their stays as loosely as they 
 express their thoughts ! " 
 
 " We sometimes feel a reason we cannot see." 
 
 " The term ' good temper,' as in general use, includes a 
 variety of dispositions. They who strive to maintain or 
 restore peace and kindness because dissension and unkind- 
 
SOCIETY. XXV 
 
 ness wound them, may be called sweet tempered. They 
 who live in quiet because such things do not wound them, 
 might rather, perhaps, be called thick tempered." 
 
 " Talent — a superior natural power of comprehending 
 and managing the qualities of anything which may be 
 made the material of art, taking the word in its widest 
 sense — language, for example, or music." 
 
 " Talent may be partial — the qualities which raise it into 
 genius pervade the whole character. You cannot have a 
 ' genius ' for music and only a ' talent ' for painting. If you 
 have any such fancy and sensibility as are necessary to a 
 ' genius ' for music, they will also show themselves through 
 every other ' talent ' you may possess." 
 
 Anne Evans could not help being fastidious — almost 
 dainty — in her choice of associates ; but she tried to look 
 candidly at the duties as well as the pleasures of com- 
 panionship. 
 
 " We have to cultivate society of two kinds ; the first kind 
 for our own pleasure and benefit, the second kind for the 
 pleasure and benefit of others. Each kind is necessary — 
 the first to our well-being, the second to our well-doing. 
 I. We are to associate with persons as refined, liberal- 
 minded, and cultivated as ourselves, and with persons more 
 so than ourselves, because this is necessary to our due en- 
 joyment of life, and to the maintenance and development of 
 our higher mental qualities. 2. We are to associate with 
 persons less refined, liberal-minded, and cultivated than 
 ourselves, on the broad ground of Christian charity, and to 
 fulfil the various social duties into which Christian charity 
 branches. But to offer the latter kind of society instead of 
 the former, is to offer toil instead of ease, and depression 
 
xxvi MUSIC. 
 
 instead of exhilaration. A person needs an intellectual 
 tonic — you give him a lowering mixture, and then you say, 
 ' You wanted medicine, you have had medicine — why are 
 you not well ? ' " 
 
 "A real poet can as much help being sensitive as a 
 damask rose can help being red. But people understand 
 damask roses better than they do poets, and don't try to 
 talk them white ! " 
 
 " It seems that our happiest state is that in which we can 
 best exercise our best faculties." 
 
 This is from Dr. Sebastian Evans : 
 
 " Something, even in the most fragmentary sketch of her 
 life and character, should be said of her music. Her music 
 was part of her. It was the art she most keenly appreciated 
 and best understood. It was perhaps the only scientific 
 study she ever seriously attempted ; and after the failure of 
 health and strength had rendered it impossible for her to sit 
 at the piano, she still for a time could beguile the long 
 watches of lonely and sleepless suffering by noting down 
 some of her exercises in counterpoint, or occasionally a 
 phrase or theme which she hoped some day to elaborate. 
 Her love of music, however, which was the source of one of 
 the few abiding enjoyments of her existence, had also been 
 the source of much pain. A false note or false time was 
 intolerable to her ; and the false taste which in music as in 
 other arts is one of the salient characteristics of a lamentably 
 large proportion of popular productions, had for her some- 
 thing of the sting and humiliation of a personal insult. 
 
 " In one respect music appealed to her peculiar genius in a 
 way no other art could. While offering to the artist perhaps 
 a larger freedom than any other, it is subject to a code of 
 
MUSIC. xxvii 
 
 laws not only immutable, but capable of being to a very 
 great extent accurately ascertained and definitely formu- 
 lated. A false chord in painting jars on the eye of the 
 colourist ; but the law of which it is a violation is seldom 
 palpable, often undiscoverable, never, perhaps, of universal 
 application. A false chord in music not only jars on the 
 ear of the musician, but can be demonstrated on satisfactory 
 evidence to be a definite offence against a definite law in 
 that case made and provided. To have a law to appeal to 
 and to work in obedience to it, was with her an instinct of 
 nature. ' The weight of too much liberty ' was a trouble 
 and distress ; and she felt the tangible restraints of music 
 as a help and encouragement, while the more indefinite 
 freedom of painting and poetry often oppressed and alarmed 
 her. It was, therefore, a constant regret to her that she 
 had never felt able to work at thorough-bass as continuously 
 as she wished. 
 
 " She had no very striking powers of execution either as a 
 singer or pianist. Her voice was sweet, and of a very 
 pleasant texture ; but her fastidious taste demanded more 
 than she was capable of realising as a vocalist, and by 
 degrees she ceased to sing, although some of her songs 
 are among the latest of her compositions. Her pla3dngwas 
 not brilliant, but it had a charm of a rare kind. Always 
 correct, sympathetic, and in perfect taste, it impressed one 
 as the playing of an artist of singular intellectual force, cul- 
 tivation, and refinement. It had an interest beyond the 
 music. It was not so much a manifestation of mechanical 
 ability or even of musical talent, as of mind, and thought, 
 and knowledge. What made it impressive was not so 
 much the skill of the artist, though this was of a high order, 
 as the genius of the woman. 
 
xxviu MUSIC. 
 
 " Whatever was good ofits kind appealed to her sympathies, 
 whether it came in the shape of a nigger melody, or a fugue 
 of Bach's, a wild Russian air, or a symphony of Beethoven's. 
 Beethoven was the master for whom she cared most of all ; 
 but she thoroughly felt and understood the special power 
 and merit of all the greater composers, amongst whom she 
 often complained that Arcangelo Corelli was most inade- 
 quately appreciated. All kinds of national music, whether 
 dance or ballad, had a strong attraction for her, especially 
 perhaps the old melodies of France and Russia. Her own 
 compositions were nearly all of a similar order. Music to sing 
 to, and music to dance to, form the greater part of that 
 which she has left. In dance music she was singularly 
 successful. ' I am often amused,' writes one who knows 
 and plays her music better than any one else, ' as well as 
 pleased at the crowd of breathless young dancers who have 
 rushed to the piano the moment I ceased playing, to ask the 
 name and composer of "that delicious polka," and I have 
 been quite sorry I could not give both, with the name of 
 the publisher.' The same old friend writes, ' Her songs will, 
 I think, be a treasure to all real lovers of music. It is so 
 rarely that one finds both words and music written by 
 the same person, that there is an unusual completeness 
 as well as originality in Anne's sopgs.' She speaks of 
 their pathos and quaint humour, and of their ' haunting 
 melody '; and adds, ' their only fault is that they are 
 rather short ; but then how often one hears songs that are 
 too long !'" 
 
 Her health, never strong, broke down completely in 
 1867, and for many long months she was condemned to an 
 invalid life ; sometimes able to leave her room and seeming: 
 
A LAST MEETING. xxix 
 
 better for a time ; at others, obliged to deny herself to us 
 all for weeks together. 
 
 One day, after she had even ceased to rise from her bed, 
 she sent for me, and I sat with her for some little while. 
 She did not care to speak of herself, but asked me about 
 my own concerns and interests. Something had troubled me 
 at that time, and I made some complaint. She, who had 
 so heavy a burden of suffering to bear, entered into my very 
 minor anxieties with a serious kindness which made me 
 both ashamed and more happy. 
 
 " Perhaps you may scarcely believe me," she said, "but 
 as I lie here I can honestly say that I am content ; I would 
 not have it otherwise;" and as she spoke she looked 
 earnestly at me. The thought of this tender spirit facing 
 death with heroic calmness has come before me again and 
 again since then. 
 
 With so much love and depth of heart, hers might have 
 indeed been a happier life, as this world goes ; but it 
 was fated to be something different, at once more tender 
 and more austere in its self-renunciation. The world 
 would be but an empty place without a few such hearts 
 beating in it. The Catholics pray to their saints : some 
 of us Protestants have a way of loving ours, not the less 
 because they are merely human beings, and we have 
 known them and held their hands and felt the blessing of 
 their help and sympathy. 
 
 Anne Evans was born June 4, 1820, and died February 
 ig, 1870. 
 
SONGS AND POEMS. 
 
 ROSES AND ROSEMARY. 
 
 I walked through my garden to cull me fresh posies, 
 Well I remember, on Midsummer's day : 
 
 I bound the sweet bay 
 
 With pansies rich and gay, 
 And with red, red roses ! 
 
 O, garlands will wither, and seasons will vary : 
 To-night I have plucked me a garland anew ; 
 
 Of cypress, and yew. 
 
 And the bitter, bitter rue. 
 And the pale rosemary ! 
 
TWO RED ROSES ON A TREE. 
 
 Two red roses on a tree : 
 
 Wind along, cold river ! 
 One for him, and one for me : 
 
 Shiver, willow, shiver ! 
 Not a word of love we said : 
 
 Wind along, cold river ! 
 Roses told the truth instead : 
 
 Shiver, willow, shiver I 
 Other roses bud and blow : 
 
 Wind along, cold river ! 
 Other summers come and go : 
 
 Shiver, willow, shiver I 
 Summer days to me are dim : 
 
 Wind along, cold river ! 
 Never comes a word from him : 
 
 Shiver, willow, shiver ! 
 Roses tell the truth instead : 
 
 Wind along, cold river I 
 Others bloom, but mine is dead : 
 
 Shiver, willow, shiver ! 
 
A DIRGE. 
 
 Close the eyes which were so bright : 
 Fold the hands above the heart : 
 Eyes and hands have done their part : 
 
 O'er the noon hath dropped the night. 
 
 Gently lay the sleeping form, 
 In that shelter calm and meet ; 
 There to rest while weary feet 
 
 Walk above in sun and storm. 
 
 Faith and hope, all grief above. 
 Guide us on till grief be past : 
 Guide us thither where at last 
 
 Faith and hope are lost in love ! 
 
SUMMER GIFTS. 
 
 So early on a May morning 
 
 I heard the cuckoo call — 
 " I bring again the blithe summer, 
 
 With gifts for one and all." 
 
 O what do you bring my tall schoolboy, 
 My schoolboy bold and bright ? — 
 
 " I bring the schoolboy a sword and a flag. 
 To carry amid the iight." 
 
 And what do you bring my sweet maiden. 
 
 My maiden mild and fair ? — 
 " I bring the maiden a sonnet to read, 
 
 And a wedding-ring to wear." 
 
 But what do you bring my dear baby, 
 
 Hath seen no summer yet ? — 
 " I bring the baby a little white shroud. 
 
 And a daisy coverlet ! " 
 
NANCY. 
 
 Why do you smile, Nancy, Nancy ? 
 
 Why do smile, Nancy ? 
 Why do you smile so readily 
 At a quick-passing fancy ? 
 
 Look in your heart, Nancy, Nancy ; 
 
 Look down deep : 
 Look in your heart, poor Nancy — 
 And weep ! 
 
 What is the hope, Nancy, Nancy ? 
 
 What is the hope, Nancy ? 
 What is the hope that comes and goes 
 With a quick-passing fancy ? 
 
 Look in your heart, Nancy, Nancy ; 
 
 Look down deep : 
 Look in your heart, poor Nancy — 
 And weep 1 
 
 c 2 
 
APART. 
 
 You this day may quite forget 
 That which all days I remember : 
 — O the damp leaves of November 
 Falling round me ! — You may yet 
 Live your life with joy ; but I 
 
 Slowly die. 
 
 You may willingly forget 
 That which weeping I remember, 
 In the stillness of November 
 Walking lonely. You may yet 
 Laugh and love again ; but I 
 
 Slowly die. 
 
THE DEADLY ARBOUR. 
 
 There stood an arbour in the spring, 
 
 Flowers above and flints below ; 
 
 " Pretty maid, come in and sing " — 
 
 Flow, tears, flow. 
 
 " The flowers above are spicy sweet," 
 
 Flowers above and flints below ; 
 " The flints below they cut my feet," 
 
 Flow, tears, flow. 
 
 " I would I were at home again," 
 
 Flowers above and flints below ; 
 " My mother calls to me in vain," 
 
 Flow, tears, flow. 
 
 " I cannot sing, I cannot stand," 
 
 Flowers above and flints below ; 
 " Make me a grave here out of hand," 
 
 Flow, tears, flow. 
 
OVER! 
 
 A knight came prancing on his way. 
 And across the path a lady lay : 
 " Stoop a little and hear me speak ! " 
 Then, " You are strong, and I am weak : 
 
 Ride over me now, and kill me." 
 
 He opened wide his gay blue eyes, 
 Like one o'ermastered by surprise ; 
 His cheek and brow grew burning red, 
 " Long looked-for, come at last," she said, 
 
 " Ride over me now, and kill me. 
 
 Then softly spoke the knight, and smiled : 
 " Fair maiden, whence this mood so wild ?" 
 " Smile on," said she, " my reign is o'er, 
 But do my bidding yet once more : 
 
 Ride over me now, and kill me." 
 
 He smote his steed of dapple-gray, 
 And lightly cleared her where she lay ; 
 But still, as he sped on amain, 
 She murmured ever, " Turn again : 
 
 Ride over me now, and kill me." 
 
TIRLYWIRLY. 
 
 Tirl}rwirly, all alone, 
 Spinning under a yew ; 
 
 Something came with no noise, 
 But Tirlywirly knew. 
 
 Tirlywirly sate spinning, 
 
 Never looked around ; 
 Something made a black shadow 
 
 Creep on the ground. 
 
 Tirlywirly sate spinning, 
 Spinning fast for fear ; 
 
 Something spoke a dark word 
 Close at her ear. 
 
 Tirlywirly sang a song. 
 Loud, and clear, and gay ; 
 
 Then, when Tirlywirly sang. 
 Something fled away. 
 
RED AND WHITE ROSES. 
 
 O, roses red and roses white, 
 You are my garden's rare delight ! 
 I'll reap my roses, dewy sweet. 
 And lay them at my lady's feet. 
 
 In a wide, rich harvest. 
 
 Sing loud, blithe birds, among the trees. 
 For there's a death-bell on the breeze ; 
 And how shall I go to and fro. 
 To pluck my roses where they blow. 
 
 With a death-bell tolling ? 
 
 Last night, my lady sang to me. 
 Her soul elate with melody ; 
 And tuning so the tranquil air, 
 Methought she grew more lovely fair 
 
 In the pale still moonshine. 
 
 But in the moonshine pale and still. 
 Her beauty struck me with a chill : 
 Her voice went soaring crystal-clear. 
 And yet my heart went fast for fear. 
 
 Where the shade fell round me. 
 
RED AND WHITE ROSES. 
 
 Now welcome shines the light of day, 
 To chase the shadows all away ; 
 For who would fold his hands and grieve 
 O'er phantasies of yestereve, 
 
 On a gay June morning ? 
 
 I come to greet my lady bright, 
 With new-blown roses, red and white. 
 " Bring in the white, but leave the red : 
 Your lady lies here cold and dead. 
 
 In a death-deep silence. 
 
THE EARLY SUMMER WEATHER. 
 
 He loved her ; ay, and she loved him, 
 
 Or I am far mistaken : 
 I little thought, a while ago. 
 
 To hear he was forsaken. 
 I saw them very often then. 
 
 They used to stray together. 
 Below the woods on yonder hill, 
 
 In the early summer weather. 
 
 She gave him up, as they tell me. 
 
 To please her lady mother : 
 They say she's to be married soon 
 
 To some rich lord or other. 
 And now the poor lad strays alone. 
 
 Where once they strayed together ; 
 O, but a fair dream passed away. 
 
 With the early summer weather ! 
 
13 
 
 THE CHERRY-TREE. 
 
 O, Willy, if thou needs must roam, 
 How many thoughts wilt send me home ? 
 " As many,'' gaily answers he, 
 " As green leaves hang on the cherry-tree ! ' 
 
 Dance in the sun. 
 
 Dance every one, 
 Ye green leaves on the cherry-tree ! 
 
 'Twas summer then : 'tis autumn now : 
 O, Willy, Willy, where art thou ? 
 I wander here alone, and see 
 The light leaves fall from the cherry-tree ! 
 Sigh in the blast. 
 For fair days past. 
 Of thine and mine, old cherry-tree 1 
 
14 
 
 MAY MARyORY. 
 
 Beautiful May Marjory, 
 
 Walking sadly in the sun, 
 Passing the ripe roses by, 
 Plucking ne'er a one ; 
 
 What should ail her so to sigh, 
 Wild and wilful Marjory ? 
 
 Here it was May Marjory 
 
 Met young Allan yestermorn ; 
 Here she gave her heart the lie, 
 With her words of scorn. 
 
 Many a morrow may she sigh, 
 Weary-wandering Marjory. 
 
15 
 
 FRAIL FLOWERS. 
 
 Pluck not the eglantine, 
 
 But leave it there to hloom through sun and shade. 
 
 Wilt call it thine ? 
 
 Poor eglantine 1 
 Then look to see it fade ! 
 
 Ah, grasp not earth's delight, 
 
 But only take its fragrance, passing by. 
 
 Our paths are bright. 
 
 Through earth's delight, 
 Which in our grasp would die ! 
 
i6 
 
 SIR FAITHFUL. 
 
 Sir Faithful was a noble knight, 
 
 Who fought for love of truth : 
 He rode a-tilt against the world, 
 
 And perished in his youth. 
 
 He rode a-tilt against the world, 
 
 That proud and stubborn foe ; 
 Struck down one feather from his crest. 
 
 Then got a deadly blow. 
 
 He waved the feather in his hand, 
 
 While men around 'gan weep : 
 " Methinks," quoth he, right cheerily, 
 
 " My life hath bought it cheap ! " 
 
 Then some cried, " Would that he had known, 
 
 To let the strong world be ! " 
 But I cry, " Would that we had more 
 
 Of such bold knights as he ! " 
 
J7 
 
 THE HARD RIDER. 
 
 Taveller of mien so high, 
 Tell me who thou art, and why 
 Toward the mountain's cloudy brow 
 Spurring up the rocky steep ? 
 Very brilliant is thine eye ; 
 Yet methinks to view it now 
 That proud eye would never weep, 
 Never warm with kindly glee — 
 And thou lookest fixedly, 
 As one a-moving in his sleep : 
 Thou hast ridden many a mile : 
 Turn and rest thee here awhile ! 
 
 " I am Mind ! I cannot stay ! 
 I have far to ride to-day ! 
 I have much to mark and measure, 
 Scorning pain and slighting pleasure 
 If I linger, death may find me ! 
 Dost not hear the cry behind me ? 
 Time is at my heels — away! 
 I am Mind : I cannot stay ! " 
 
THE HARD RIDER. 
 
 What is that thou ridest on, 
 All so ghastly, worn and wan, 
 Piteously faint and lame ? 
 
 " 'Tis the lazy Mortal Frame ! 
 Let it be ! Whate'er betide, 
 I am master : I must ride ! " 
 
 Tarry yet : I fain would see 
 What that hidden weight may be. 
 Is thy cloak so gaily spread 
 Over something cold and dead ? 
 
 " Nay, it is a living Heart 1 
 Now and then I feel it start ; 
 But through fasting on the way 
 Droop it doth, and droop it may ! 
 'Tis a weak and idle thing : 
 In the morning it would sing: 
 Ere the noon it fell to weeping : 
 Let it be : 'tis better sleeping ! " 
 
 Sleeping, dying, who can tell ? 
 Wake it up, thou tyrant fell ! 
 Simple food the heart will nourish, 
 Fruits which by the roadside flourish ; 
 Cruel ! couldst thou never stay 
 These to pluck upon thy way ? 
 
THE HARD RIDER. 19 
 
 Wake it up, or naught avail thee 
 All the riches thou canst earn : 
 If the heart's alliance fail thee, 
 Into clay thy gold will turn ! 
 Spare the spur ! Thy wretched steed, 
 Once so comely, strong, and brave, 
 Madly urged beyond his speed, 
 Doth but drag thee to the grave ! 
 
■CON ESPRESSIONE." 
 
 Melodious lady, still be singing ! 
 
 With notes impassioned ringing 
 
 Wild changes on the deep according tones 
 
 The tranced spirit owns, — 
 
 Unheard harmonics, fraught with rare delight ; 
 
 Sing on to-night ! 
 If e'er the time should come when thou 
 Dost feel those moods thou feignest now. 
 
 Wilt thou sing on ? 
 Ah, trust me, lady, never try 
 The art and the reality 
 Blent in that overwhelming unison ! 
 
 Nay, cease even now ! 
 For even now methinks I see 
 Within thy song too much of thee ! 
 O, woman of the mantling brow. 
 Cease even now ! 
 The piercing diction 
 Of all thine eloquent fiction 
 Let echo rock to death, 
 With every breath 
 
" CON BSPRBSSIONE." 
 
 Of that so little nourishing applause 
 The artist from the undiscerning draws ; 
 Ay, and the dear thanl^s of the finer few 
 Who base the beautiful upon the true ! 
 
 Wilt thou put on, thou lady gay, 
 
 Like any other festival-array. 
 
 The living treasures of the soul itself ? 
 
 Wilt thou, for praise or pelf. 
 Withdraw them from their inner shade 
 And flaunt withal in broad factitious glare ? 
 Beware, 
 
 Lest even so they fade 1 
 
 D 2 
 
BLACKBIRD. 
 
 Singing loud and singing gay, 
 
 'Mid the dewy dawning, 
 Blackbird welcomes in the day 
 
 Under his green awning: 
 Welcomes in the rising day, 
 While the shadows haste away, 
 Singing loud and singing gay 
 'iVTid the dewy dawning. 
 
 Singing sweet and singing clear 
 
 While the day is waning, 
 Blackbird spreads a pensive cheer 
 
 Through the light remaining: 
 Spreads a calm and pensive cheer 
 Through the stillness far and near, 
 Singing sweet and singing clear 
 While the day is waning. 
 
23 
 
 FRAGMENTS. 
 
 Up sprang the merry grasshoppers 
 
 Around her very feet ; 
 A charm of many Httle wings 
 
 O'erspread the herbage sweet. 
 
 And from their city in the earth 
 
 To sunny thyme and heather. 
 The Httle conies in their mirth 
 
 Were come to play together. 
 
 The cuckoo's note came floating by, 
 
 To greet the sad new-comer ; 
 But she stood frozen through and through, 
 
 Against the glee of summer. 
 
 " I have not happiness enow 
 
 To keep me warm," said she ; 
 " What should I do with all the daj's 
 
 That may remain to me?" 
 
24 FRAGMENTS. 
 
 Alone along the garden walk 
 
 The lady paces to and fro : 
 Beside her in their lovely prime 
 
 Rich-hearted summer roses blow. 
 
 Sweet songs above her swell and blend. 
 Far floating in the joyous blue : 
 
 Around her all is festival 
 
 Of sound, and scent, and form, and hue. 
 
 She hears the songs without a smile : 
 She greets the roses with a tear : 
 
 Her soul aches with a golden weight. 
 In this high lifetime of the 3'ear. 
 
 Within her all is one dumb cr}' : 
 " Let me too live, before I die ! " 
 
 The rains came down so heavily 
 They swept the very earth away, 
 Whereon the little flowers grew 
 That made her poor home gav. 
 
 They swept away the earth, and left 
 The rock below all bare and cold : 
 She fell down weeping thereupon. 
 And saw it bright with gold ! 
 
FRAGMENTS. 25 
 
 IV. 
 
 The summer sward is somewhat hard 
 
 Methinks as here I lie ; 
 Yet here I stay, because I love 
 
 To look into the sky, 
 To place behind me for a while 
 
 The world and all its ill, 
 And gaze into the space of space, 
 
 How pure, and O, how still ! 
 
 V. 
 
 You'll say, perhaps, that a cup of hot tea 
 
 Taken, sans souci, 
 In a cheerful, curtained room, 
 With chattering friends around. 
 
 Is pleasanter fai 
 
 Than blackberries are. 
 Devoured in the gloom 
 
 Of a hermit's cell. 
 Without any carpet, but only the ground. 
 
 Ah, well ! 
 You mayn't like his lodging and diet, 
 But think of his quiet ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 In broidered cloak he passes to and fro : 
 
 He hears the people say, 
 
 " 'Tis well to go so gay : 
 This bravery above doth only show 
 How festal-rich the doublet is below !" 
 
26 FRAGMENTS. 
 
 Upon a stormy day 
 The cloak is blown away, 
 And there he stands in threadbare weeds of woe! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Lose not the hopeful moments, thou whose eye. 
 By love and thought through many a grief refined, 
 Can trace disquiet in the trifler's mind. 
 Even through the looks that pity would defy ; 
 
 But touch thou tenderly the little store 
 Of mean and frail to which his spirit clings : 
 So may'st thou win him to accept the more 
 From thine own treasury of better things. 
 
27 
 
 OUTCRY. 
 
 Away with loving ! Let it all go by ; 
 
 For losing is too grievous, 
 
 And our beloved successively 
 
 Turn cold and leave us 1 
 
 What matter whence the cold may come 
 
 Which makes them deaf to us, and blind, and dumb- 
 
 Whether from dark thoughts clouding old regard, 
 
 Or from their lodging out in the churchyard ? 
 
 Friends ? We may lose our best 
 
 Through some poor jest, 
 
 And all our after-days lament the losing ! 
 
 Besides, there is no choosing 
 
 One of them all on whom to reckon 
 
 If death should beckon. 
 
 O miserable men ! 
 
 O dreary doom ! 
 
 Our love's delight is hollow — 
 
 Hcllow as treachery, hollow as the tomb ! 
 
 Away, away with loving then, 
 
 With hoping and believing ; 
 
 For what should follow, 
 
 But grieving, grieving ? 
 
28 
 
 A DESERTED HALL. 
 
 The jasmine bloomed unsought-for 
 Against the garden wall : 
 
 The morning-glory tangled 
 The poppies, great and small. 
 
 The moss crept unmolested 
 
 Across the basin's brink: 
 The marble dolphin thirsted, 
 
 With none to give him drink. 
 
 The birds among the branches 
 
 Were singing far and near, 
 Through groves and winding woodwalks, 
 
 With nobody to hear. 
 
 Along the southern terrace 
 
 The grass grew bold and rank : 
 
 No step was on the threshold, 
 The windows all were blank. 
 
A DESERTED HALL. 29 
 
 The dial above the doorway 
 
 (His face was hoary gray), 
 As in a dream did measure 
 
 The sultry summer day. 
 
 And ever, " Tempus fugit : 
 
 Hoc age," said the stone. 
 But who should mind the warning ? 
 
 The preacher preached alone. 
 
30 
 
 LETTER TO JOHN ELLA, ESQ., 
 Musical Union. 
 
 Bassi, violini, violoncelli ! 
 Where is Corelli ? 
 Let grateful acknowledgments greet 
 Mr. Ella : how few for a musical treat 
 So willing and able to cater ! 
 He brings to us Beethoven, greater 
 Than mortal admirer can measure, 
 
 Mozart with a treasure 
 Of pleasure — 
 Ah ! well !— 
 Beyond what our speaking can tell : 
 Blythe Haydn, who so playfully reigns 
 O'er flowery Arcadian domains ; 
 
 And the amiable Spohr, 
 
 Who charms us the more 
 
 By blending the pure gold of joy 
 
 With subtle discordant alloy. 
 
 We 've these and we 've others, 
 
 Their generous brothers : 
 
LETTER TO yOHN ELLA, ESQ. 
 
 31 
 
 Each from the wealth of his mind 
 Gives in his kind. 
 But amid the profusion, 
 Wherefore CorelH's exclusion ? 
 
 What, will the passion 
 For music be subject to fashion ? 
 Nay, might it not now be improving 
 
 To show as a fact 
 That a work of art can be compact, 
 Yet dignified, elegant, moving ? 
 Might nobody thence 
 Discover the value of form. 
 As opposed to the prevalent storm 
 Of musical sound without sense? 
 And is it not really a duty 
 To recognise all kinds of beauty ? 
 Bassi, violini, violoncelli ! 
 Forget not Corelli ! 
 
32 
 
 WORDS TO A '^LIED OHNE WORTE." 
 
 Mendelssohn. 
 
 ( Allegro NONTROPPO, IN C minor, Book III. 14, Ed. Pauer.) 
 
 I'm a song that sing to myself, 
 
 Although I have no name ; 
 
 And having lost one leg out of four 
 
 I do go rather lame. 
 
 Mister Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, 
 
 A remarkable man is he. 
 
 To drive a coach with one wheel off 
 
 So very pleasantly. 
 
 For there's something that jerks or jars — 
 
 You may hear it in all the bars ; — 
 
 And perhaps it is he wrote me out. 
 
 Not minding what he was about, 
 At some old piano where certain keys were dumb. 
 And left out the notes he meant to put in, 
 
 Because they would not come. 
 
 (A fine idea, to leave out the notes, 
 
 Because the keys were dumb !) 
 
 Mister Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 
 
WORDS TO A "LIED OHNE WORTE." 33 
 
 Might be proud of a song like me ; 
 And the reason why I have no words 
 I really do not see. 
 But I fancy, if the truth were known, 
 'Tis quite as well to go alone. 
 Escaping foreign words high-flown, 
 To speak the language all my own — 
 To speak the language fine and free 
 That is all composed of melody and harmony — 
 
 Like beating with one hand and rubbing with the other 
 while you're beating — so 1 
 Ha! ha! 
 
34 
 
 PERADVENTURE ! 
 
 My love he 's gone to London town ; 
 
 Hey, ho, and who should say him nay ? 
 Wait a year, and he '11 come down 
 Twice as rich as he went away, — 
 With a peradventure, hey, with a peradventure . 
 
 11. 
 
 My love he 's gone to London town ; 
 
 Hey, ho, I'll bear it as I may ! 
 Wait a year, and he '11 come down 
 All as true as he went away, — 
 With a peradventure, hey, with a peradventure . 
 
35 
 
 COLIN. 
 
 I. 
 
 Take thy crook and go, Colin, 
 Bitter winds do blow, Colin, 
 Drifting fast the snow, Colin, 
 
 Down the Deep Holm Lane. 
 If the night be wild and dreary, 
 If the way do make thee weary. 
 Think we parted with a cheery 
 
 Hope to meet again. 
 Take thy crook and go, Colin, &c. 
 
 Haply next in May, Colin, 
 Some long sunny day, Colin, 
 Thou may'st take thy way, Colin, 
 
 Down the Deep Holm Lane. 
 When the new green leaves are growing, 
 When the frozen brook is flowing. 
 Primrose tufts and daisies blowing 
 
 O'er the bank again. 
 Haply next in May, Colin, &c. 
 
36 
 
 GARgON VOLAGE. 
 
 IR COUPLET. 
 
 ' Gargon volage, 
 
 Gar9on volage," 
 Une bergere 
 Jeune et sincere, 
 
 Dit, "Ton hommage, 
 
 Gar9on volage, 
 
 Ne me plait gu&res, 
 Lan lire Ian la. 
 
 3ME COUPLET. 
 
 ' Moi, j'ai un coeur, 
 
 Moi, j'ai un coeur, 
 
 Veux-tu cueillir 
 
 Pour voir fletrir 
 
 De pareils fleurs ? 
 
 Moi, j'ai un cceur 
 
 Qui peut souffrir, 
 
 Lan lire lan la. 
 
 2'-'^ COUPLET. 
 
 ' Pour tes cadeaux, 
 Pour tes cadeaux, 
 
 (Nouveir houlette, 
 
 Douce musette), 
 Tant qu'ils soient beaux, 
 Point de cadeaux 
 
 Ne veut Lucette. 
 
 Lan lire lan la. 
 
 ^ME COUPLET. 
 
 ' Mais, mon ami, 
 Mais, mon ami, 
 
 Je veux garder, 
 
 Moi, le coeur gai, 
 Si je le puis. 
 Va, mon ami. 
 
 Can est assez. 
 
 Lan lire lan la." 
 
37 
 
 THE BLEW-EY'D LADIE. 
 
 My Ladie's Eyes are blew and brighte, 
 iff these of mine doe see arighte ; 
 My Ladie's Hand doth seeme to me 
 soe white as whyter scarce could bee. 
 Yet naught recke I of azure Blew 
 in Eies that speake and speake so trew ; 
 To me those Wordes the Hande hath writ 
 show fairer far than itt. 
 
 The Spring may decke in braver Dye 
 eche short-lived Budd and Butterflie ; 
 My Ladie's worth I can not tell 
 by fleeting Hews which these excell. 
 Who hath the Witte a Booke to read 
 its costlie Guise doth slightly heede, 
 When he in everie Leafe can finde 
 wherewith to charm the Minde ! 
 
 E 2 
 
38 
 
 SONNET. 
 Lucid Intervals. 
 
 Some fragment of the Beautiful, some ray 
 
 Refracted from the Truth he fails to find, 
 
 Care's very slave may hoard within his mind : 
 Some prison-plant, wan for the want of day. 
 And there are times when he would thrust away 
 
 His vaunted lore of base and narrow kind, 
 
 His cramped fancy piteously inclined 
 In wider and in loftier paths to stray : 
 When he, the strong adept in worldly art, 
 
 Would court the simpler man he shunned before. 
 To him disclose a long-forgotten heart. 
 
 Through mere neglect grown timid, and deplore, 
 As in a trance from all his life apart, 
 
 Those earthl}' bonds which bind him more and more ! 
 
39 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Still journeying onward in this " vale of tears," 
 
 Where shades of cypress ever overspread, 
 
 The wayworn traveller turns his weary head. 
 And muses on the uneven track of years. 
 Far in the hazy distance there appears 
 
 A little path bright as a golden thread ; 
 
 But here o'er rugged stones and flowers dead 
 His way must lie ; while uncouth phantom fears, 
 Risen from behind him, ever glide before. 
 
 Faint is he now ; yet would he all retrace 
 To pass unhurt the slippery footing o'er 
 
 Whereon he lamed himself; and in his face 
 The keen regret comes deepening, till once more 
 
 His wistful eyes are toward the resting-place. 
 
40 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 The world shut out, as here I sit and sigh 
 By fading midnight embers, o'er its cold 
 Caprice and colder craft, my heart, grown bold 
 
 In solitude, cries loudly, " Why, O why 
 
 Must earth-grown tangles intercept the sky ? 
 Why must one live and labour and wax old 
 Beneath this hateful league of vulgar gold, 
 
 Oppressive pride, and empty vanity ? " 
 
 Thou poor fond heart, on present rest and bliss 
 So strongly bent — and O, how much in vain 1 — 
 
 Look farther on ; remembering that this 
 Brief stage for trial is, of toil and pain, 
 
 Wherein no single lot is cast amiss 
 
 Which human choice may turn to loss or gain. 
 
41 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Poor lonely heart, aching with passionate woe ! 
 
 If that keen fire must needs burn down and die 
 
 Beyond the reach of mortal ear and eye, 
 Turn pain to patience : prove its virtue so. 
 Didst thou then hope thy fellow-hearts could know 
 
 What riches there within thy dark ward lie ? 
 
 O hope forlorn ! The many passing by 
 Dream not of ores the common dust below. 
 Of shallow streams the herd are fain to drink, 
 
 Which dry and leave them at their utmost need ; 
 Yet spy they not the spring within its cave. 
 
 Whose deeper waters ever touch the brink ; 
 While day by day, through screening rock and weed, 
 
 Blind echoes idly move them in their grave ! 
 
42 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Blind to all bars, the Artist fain would try 
 
 To shadow forth the Rainbow ; and in vain ! 
 
 Earth hath not wherewithal to give again 
 Those heavenliest hues of the ethereal sky. 
 Far less the Poet finds a fitting dye 
 
 To sketch the airy castles of the brain ; 
 
 His pencil mars them with rude touch mundane, 
 Bright though they gleam on his enchanted 63-6. 
 Yet will he toil to make his lone world free 
 
 To alien minds. Alas ! the fond endeavour ! 
 E'en through his glass that realm they dimly see 
 
 Which, from their own, unmeasured spaces sever; 
 For ages on his words may echoed be. 
 
 The while his thought remains unread for ever ! 
 
43 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 A mighty voice once echoed o'er the sad 
 
 And sinful world, for evermore to be 
 
 Re-echoed on ; bidding the slave be free, 
 The guilty reconciled, the wretched glad ; 
 Preaching a conquest over all things bad, 
 
 Revealing Truth and Life : so blest are we. 
 
 Yet says the man of facts, " 'Tis ours to see : 
 What need of hearing ?" Miserably mad. 
 He leaves his place, too narrow as he thinks, 
 
 To wander in strange deserts, far and wide ; 
 And grasping as a clue some curious links 
 
 Whereof the last falls earthward at his side, 
 Confronts the blank face of a heathen sphinx, 
 
 And cries, " We have no better hope, nor guide 
 
44 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Midnight ! I love thee for thine own true sake 
 
 Not as they love thee who thy grand array 
 
 Bid thee relinquish for disguises gay, 
 Till thy dim reign of noontide blaze partake : 
 Not as the toil-worn, for the needful break 
 
 Thou bringest to their life-consuming day : 
 
 I, following leisurely my quiet way, 
 Earn not, nor prize, their interval opaque. 
 For through thy darkness gleams unearthly light ; 
 
 Whether in dreams the unresting spirit, free 
 From weight of Reason, climb the wildest height 
 
 Of Wonder, and strange Beauty, Power, and Glee ; 
 Or whether, wakeful, lost to sound and sight. 
 
 Dead to the world, we face Eternity ! 
 
45 
 
 SONNET. 
 Pevensey and Hurstmonceaux. 
 
 I looked upon two corpses in one day, 
 Two noble corpses, lying by the shore : 
 First, one who on his large proportions bore 
 
 The stamp of heathen warrior ; where he lay, 
 
 Harmless and helpless in his disarray. 
 
 The mild autumnal cheer was clouded o'er 
 By uncouth shades which haunt him evermore, 
 
 Darl< horrors of his harsh rule past away. 
 
 Then a fair lady, barbarously slain : 
 stately pleasantness, untimely cold ! 
 
 There might one grieve till sad night should enfold 
 The appealing form ; and gaze, and gaze again, 
 
 As though through longing one might yet behold 
 The vanished life. Ah, longing all in vain 1 
 
46 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 If I and mine were all below the grass 
 
 Beside that old and solemn Church you know, 
 Would you forget us ? Nay ! in fitful show 
 
 Fair early friendships through lone memory pass, 
 
 Like sunny glimpses caught in a cold glass. 
 And there, serenely sheltered, come and go 
 The undying dead ; ay, better sheltered so 
 
 Than under sepulchres of stone and brass. 
 
 But for the rest, whose mortal hands to-day 
 Might clasp your own as warmly as before, 
 
 To whom your voice, your looks, might now convey 
 The joy Time crowns with pathos, and restore 
 
 The strength of trust in absence worn away, — 
 
 Let these, through memory, mutely plead for more. 
 
47 
 
 MAURICE CLIFTON. 
 
 PART I, 
 
 Scene, Clifton Park. Time, Evening. Speaker, Maurice. 
 Hearer, Dick, his Friend. 
 
 Hi ! hi ! come along, Dick, and see the West Gate ; 
 
 I'm going there now, and I don't mean to wait. 
 
 My uncle, is that ? If it is, I shall bolt. 
 
 It's not. Well, then, look to your right. That's the Holt. 
 
 Her aunt took the place about two months ago — 
 
 In June. It belongs to my uncle, you know. 
 
 You see it ? those chimneys behind the Scotch firs ; 
 
 And one little window — I fancy that hers. 
 
 O, Dick, I've no words to describe her! And she 
 
 Mewed up there, and snubbed, and tormented for me ! 
 
 Break off our engagement we certainly shan't ; 
 
 My uncle's mistaken, and likewise her aunt. 
 
 Why should we break off our engagement ? Look here : 
 
 I've got rather over four hundred a-year. 
 
 Which most younger brothers would think pretty well ; 
 
 Besides my profession, which doesn't much tell 
 
 At present, I own ; but it may by and bye. 
 
 The law's not my passion ; but never say die ! 
 
48 MAURICE CLIFTON. 
 
 And Helen has something, though not very much ; 
 
 Enough for a lady to Hve on as such. 
 
 Together we surely might manage with ease. 
 
 Oh, no. Not at all. She must wait, if you please, 
 
 For somebody else with a proper estate. 
 
 And get a grand house, and a service of plate. 
 
 And make herself wretched thereby, and me too. 
 
 Yes. That they consider a fine thing to do. 
 
 Oh, young people's fancies, of course, are absurd ! 
 
 But, I say, Dick, how about keeping your word ? 
 
 My uncle's tyrannical — horribly so ; 
 
 He's upright, and downright, and generous, though ; 
 
 But as for her aunt, she's so sneaking and spiteful. 
 
 Poor Helen's position must be something frightful ! 
 
 That aunt— well, I won't call her names. Take the facts, 
 
 And guess what she is, when you hear how she acts. 
 
 She had an old butler, who's just gone away, 
 
 A real honest, capital fellow, named Gray ; 
 
 A servant, now, such as you don't often find ; 
 
 A worse may be more to her ladyship's mind ! 
 
 I told you of yesterday's row. After that. 
 
 By way of reaction, I put on my hat 
 
 And trudged round the country some ten miles or more ; 
 
 It's fine for the temper : I've tried it before. 
 
 And on my way homeward, out there by the Holt, 
 
 I fall in with Gray, in a state of revolt, 
 
 And gratified highly at lighting on me. 
 
 " It's you, IVIr. IMaurice, I wanted to see ! 
 
 A nice piece of work, sir, we've had with 3'our letter ! 
 
 And I'm to be off ; and the sooner the better ! 
 
 To-morrow per eight o'clock train I'm to start ! 
 
 I've now been across there to speak for the cart." 
 
MAURICE CLIFTON. 49 
 
 Poor Gray ! in the midst of his fuming and fuss 
 
 I really believe that he cared more for us — ■ 
 
 For Helen, that is — than he did for himself ; 
 
 Although it's no joke to be laid on the shelf, 
 
 At his time of life. Why, he cried like a child 
 
 In speaking of Helen. It made me so wild, 
 
 I wanted to thrust myself in then and there, 
 
 And carry her off once for all. Only, where ? 
 
 And so we two walked up and down in the lane : 
 
 I can't give the whole of it over again, 
 
 But here's just the substance of what Gray told me. 
 
 That morning, as Helen was pouring out tea. 
 
 He took in the postbag, and saw, well enough. 
 
 There were but two letters, and one was a puff, 
 
 With printing outside, and the other my own 
 
 To Helen. My writing was very well known 
 
 To Gray, I may tell you ; my sentiments, too. 
 
 For that matter. Well, he had no more to do 
 
 Just then in the room, and he therefore came out 
 
 And spent some few moments in looking about 
 
 For one of her ladyship's gloves, which she thought 
 
 She'd left in the hall, when a message was brought 
 
 Which made him go back to the breakfast-room. Dick, 
 
 That woman — 
 
 (I thought so. I've broken my stick. 
 No matter!) 
 
 Well, there she sat up in her place, 
 A sort of detestable smirk on her face, 
 Perusing my letter ! Yes. That! And what's more. 
 Gray says from the time he was gone he feels sure 
 That Helen could never have read it half through, 
 If even she opened it ! What could she do. 
 
50 MAURICE CLIFTON. 
 
 Shut up with that — ruffianly woman ? But wait ; 
 
 Oh, that isn't all. It appears that of late 
 
 The aunt has adopted a notable plan 
 
 For stuffing her cushions without any — bran, 
 
 Or wool, or whatever they use. This is all : 
 
 You tear up old papers uncommonly small, 
 
 And stuff in instead. And her ladyship keeps 
 
 A basket in which she accumulates heaps 
 
 Of this sort of stuffing. Well, what does she do, 
 
 But first read my letter composedly through, 
 
 Then pick up her basket, and coolly begin 
 
 To mince the said letter, and stir the hits in ! 
 
 Poor Helen stood up, and turned round towards the door. 
 
 And fainted away — Yes ! fell down on the floor ! 
 
 Then Gray's indignation burst out on the spot ; 
 
 And rather plain language her ladyship got ; 
 
 And very superbly her ladyship stared, 
 
 For that dtmonstration she was not prepared, 
 
 Apparently. Still, she was pretty collected, 
 
 And straightway gave warning to Gray, as expected. 
 
 Well, Gray rang the bell, and had down Helen's maid, 
 
 And did what was wanted, without the least aid 
 
 From Helen's own aunt, who got bonnet and shawl. 
 
 And called for her ponies, and drove to the Hall, 
 
 And rated my uncle, who then rated me. 
 
 I told you this morning. And then — let me see : 
 
 I went, as I say, for a jolly long walk. 
 
 And stumbled on Gray, and came in for this talk. 
 
 The gist of the talk, though, you haven't heard yet. 
 
 Of course the mam question was, how could I get 
 
 More letters to Helen ? I heard with disgust 
 
 That Gray knew of nobody there he could trust. 
 
MAURICE CLIFTON. 51 
 
 " Keep clear of the lot, sir," said he, looking glum ; 
 
 " They're all of 'em under her ladyship's thumb." 
 
 At last, though, I hit on a capital dodge, 
 
 I've set up a post-office here at the lodge. 
 
 The aunt of the woman who opens the gate, 
 
 Was Tom's and my nurse, and she sits there in state 
 
 And knits in the little front parlour ; and so 
 
 I rushed off and found her : a word and a blow. 
 
 Said I, " Mrs. Chapman, perhaps you've not heard, 
 
 They're wishing to make me go back from my word. 
 
 And treat a young lady exceedingly ill." 
 
 Said she, " Mr. Maurice, I don't think you will." 
 
 "■I don't think I shall, Mrs. Chapman," said I ; 
 
 " But now will you help me ?" Said she, " Sir, I'll try." 
 
 Of course I sent Helen a message by Gray, 
 
 To ask her to call for a letter to-day 
 
 (The fun was to fancy how neatly she could, 
 
 Because the Holt shrubbery joins this West wood). 
 
 Of course, too, I wrote it and took it last night. 
 
 And hope to hear now that she got it all right. 
 
 Look out by that haystack, beyond the two carts : 
 
 You just get a glimpse of the paling which parts 
 
 The Holt from the lane where we met. Gray and I ; 
 
 And where I had rather a fright, by the bye. 
 
 Within that same paling I certainly heard 
 
 A something which rustled ; and not like a bird. 
 
 Nor yet like a beast, as it sounded to me ; 
 
 And close at my elbow. Now, what might that be ? 
 
 Gray said it was nothing. To me, I confess. 
 
 It sounded remarkably like a silk dress. 
 
 One could not see over at all from the ground ; 
 
 And, when I took hold of the paling, I found 
 
52 MAURICE CLIFTON. 
 
 The wood in so shaky and rotten a state, 
 
 The question arose, would it carry my weight ? 
 
 Which question Gray answered with, " Well, if you do. 
 
 And bring it all down, sir, I wouldn't be you." 
 
 — I wish though I'd cleared up the point while I might. 
 
 H'm. Gray called it nonsense. ' Let's hope he was right. 
 
 I say, here we are, so we part, I suppose. 
 
 Now just cut across to that footpath. It goes 
 
 Right through the old chestnuts 3'ou wanted to see, 
 
 And into the avenue. Don't wait for me. 
 
MAURICE CLIFTON. 53 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Scene, the Front Parlour at the Lodge. Time, Five Minutes 
 later. Speaker, Mrs. Chapman. Hearer, Maurice. 
 
 Come, come, Mr. Maurice, now don't ye look so ; 
 I meant ye no harm, sir, but how should I know ? 
 She walks in straight-forrard, and asks for your letter; 
 I puts on my glasses to see her the better ; 
 The room's rayther dark, for they boughs be so shady ; 
 Thinks I to myself though, " You looks like a lady!" 
 She didn't speak pleasant ; I can't say she did. 
 (Let them as belongs to her do as they're bid !) 
 I gives her the letter, and curcheys, ye know : 
 She takes it like this now ; and looks at it so : 
 No " thankee," no nothing ; not even " Good day " ; 
 But picks up her flounces, and marches away! 
 I felt myself quite colour up, 1 declare ! 
 Thinks I, " If they marry, they won't be no pair ! 
 And what shall I do if the match turns out bad ? 
 I doubt it's no kindness to screen him, poor lad !" 
 A great mind I had to set off to the Hall, 
 And ask for the Squire, and confess to it all ! 
 Well, then I bethought me — I hadn't afore, 
 " He said she wa'n't twenty. She ain't, for she's more. 
 
 F 2 
 
54 MAURICE CLIFTON. 
 
 Not twenty ? She's that, and the rest, if she's ten ! 
 
 I'm out if she'll see five-and-thirty agen ! 
 
 Why, what will she make that poor boy believe next ? 
 
 Not twenty, indeed ! " I was properly vexed. 
 
 She'd got a smart hat on, like I don't know what. 
 
 They now-a-days dresses so young, when they 're not ; 
 
 As if you could put back your age with a hat ! 
 
 / goes by the face, and they can't put back that ! 
 
 I watcht her a bit ; and she hadn't got fur, 
 
 When all of a sudden says I, " It aint her " — 
 
 That's Roger goes there, lookee, out by the deer ; 
 
 I'd give him a call, but I don't think he'd hear. 
 
 The wind sets this way, and he's deafer than me ; 
 
 He 's out in all weathers, is Roger, ye see. 
 
 We've let off the Holt, but that don't touch the game ; 
 
 Our squire kep' the shootin', ye know, all the same ; 
 
 So Roger he just takes and goes his old rounds. 
 
 And he's seen them ladies, odd times, in the grounds. 
 
 And so I was thinking he ma3'be could say 
 
 Which lady it was as come in here to-day. 
 
 Go you now and ask him. I think, sir, you'd better. 
 
 It runs in my head that the aunt got that letter. 
 
MAURICE CLIFTON. 53 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Scene, the FsiTk. Time, Ten Minutes later. Speaker,MAVRiCE. 
 Hearer, Dick. 
 
 O, why have you waited ? Don't speak to me, Dick ! 
 Don't speak to me yet ! Here's another vile trick ! 
 That noise in the bushes — why, what should it be 
 Except that' — that woman 1 And so, there were we 
 Parading, like dolts, in the lane, to and fro, 
 And telling her just what she wanted to know ! 
 And chuckling, moreover : the thing seemed so pat 1 
 Imagine her nice counter-chuckling at that ! 
 I heard her, I tell you, again and again, 
 Though Gray would not have it. I heard her quite plain, 
 And might have confronted her there on the spot : 
 I'd rather have brought down the paling than not ! 
 I gave into Gray with that stupid submission 
 Through shame, I believe, for the very suspicion 1 
 And so, we talk on, and the spy wins the day ! 
 I had one resource, and I've thrown it away ! 
 
MAURICE CLIFTON. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Scene, the Library at the Holt. Time, a Week later. 
 Letter-writer, the Aunt. 
 
 My dearest Augusta, my preface might be, 
 
 " Congratulate Helen : commiserate me, 
 
 Deserted so soon !" But I will not complain. 
 
 On such an occasion as this one is fain 
 
 To silence one's poor selfish feelings. If only 
 
 Her lot be so bright, then be mine dull and lonely ! 
 
 Dear Helen engaged herself ten days ago 
 
 To young Maurice Clifton. You possibly know 
 
 At least who he is, for his family hold 
 
 An ancient position down here. I am told 
 
 Of certain old records from which it appears 
 
 The land has been theirs nearly five hundred years. 
 
 An uncle reigns now, who behaves like a bear ; 
 
 But Maurice's own elder brother 's the heir. 
 
 Not Maurice himself; which perhaps you'll regret. 
 
 For my part, however, I don't mean to fret. 
 
 We cannot have everything : nobody can ! 
 
 And what are the acres, compared with the man ? 
 
 My Helen considers all that such a trifle. 
 
 If Maurice had nothing on earth but his rifle 
 
MAURICE CLIFTON. 57 
 
 I think she would marry him first, and then say 
 
 " Suppose you shoot something for dinner to-day !" 
 
 And Maurice, indeed, is so great as a shot, 
 
 They might have a dinner where others would not. 
 
 He rides, too, superbly. And get him indoors, 
 
 Where other young riders and shots are such bores. 
 
 You find him quite charming — so bright, so well-bred, 
 
 With very fine brains in a very fine head. 
 
 And then — my dear Helen's peculiar ambition — 
 
 Besides all the rest, a delightfiil musician ! 
 
 I fancied it merely from hearing him speak. 
 
 But stay — I've not mentioned that Maurice, last week, 
 
 Came into a fortune which, somehow or other. 
 
 Was always expected to go to his brother ; 
 
 A property worth full six thousand a year, 
 
 (While this does not quite bring in five — so I hear). 
 
 And now the clock warns me this gossip must end, 
 
 Believe me your truly affectionate friend. 
 
 Oh, Helen confesses she teased you one day 
 About a late servant of mine, Willi3.m Gray. 
 She now sends her love, and says Maurice and she 
 Intend to engage him. They don't consult me. 
 
58 
 
 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 A Ballad in Two Parts. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 It fell upon a merry day, 
 
 When hawthorn boughs were white, 
 Two brothers met in green Broad wood, 
 
 Betwixt the noon and night. 
 
 The one was called Sir Ralph Duguay, 
 
 A stately knight and tall : 
 The other was the young Walter, 
 
 Beloved of great and small. 
 
 They sate them down beneath an oak. 
 
 All on the grassy ground, 
 Young Walter with his gay viol, 
 
 Sir Ralph with his great hound. 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 59 
 
 Young Walter took his viol up, 
 
 And tun6d every string, 
 Then gaily 'gan he play thereon. 
 
 And gaily 'gan he sing. 
 
 He sang a song of chivalry, 
 Made long ago in France, 
 
 Which set Sir Ralph his heart astir, 
 With deeds of sword and lance. 
 
 " A brave old song is that, Walter, 
 
 And bravely sung to boot : 
 The bird on the tree may fly for me, 
 
 So thou sing at the root." 
 
 Young Walter took his viol up. 
 
 And tuned it again ; 
 And again he sang till Broadvi^ood rang. 
 
 But in another strain. 
 
 A roundel of a sweet lady. 
 That vi^itty was and fair. 
 
 The daughter of a puissant prince. 
 His only child and heir. 
 
 Sir Ralph uprose before the close. 
 
 And loudly laughed he : 
 " Now be she fair as the fair moon, 
 
 May'st have her thyself, for me. 
 
6 J SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 " She may be witty as thou wilt, 
 
 Right royal of degree : 
 She may have castles, and counties eke. 
 
 And thou may'st have all, for me. 
 
 " Let him who will go seek for care, 
 
 And carry home a wife : 
 If she have wealth, he payeth for that 
 
 Full dearly in his life. 
 
 " If she be great, his scutcheon therefor 
 
 May all the braver be ; 
 But the higher name, the higher dame, 
 
 And the lower falleth he. 
 
 " If she be fair, her beauty fleeth 
 
 Like any summer's day ; 
 But the monstrous vain conceit of it 
 
 No time will do away. 
 
 " If she have wit, she turneth it 
 
 To mischief every hour : 
 Her spouse may scarce abide in peace. 
 
 Nor he never will in power. 
 
 " Be what she may, let him give her straight 
 
 (Or he shall fare the worse) 
 A jangling pack of mincing maids. 
 
 And gold to stuff her purse. 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 6i 
 
 " She must have trinkets quaint and rare, 
 
 And gowns both rich and trim : 
 Of such, I wot, she wearieth not. 
 
 But she wearieth soon of him." 
 
 " Now nay, now nay,'' quoth his young brother: 
 
 " Now put these gibes away : 
 His heart is cold which weddeth for gold, 
 
 And rue it well he may. 
 
 " For gold were vain, and also wit. 
 
 Nobility, and beauty. 
 To him who therewithal should lack 
 
 His lady's loving duty. 
 
 " But a hard life, with a loving wife. 
 
 Were pleasanter to me 
 Than the King his throne, and I thereon 
 
 A lonely man to be." 
 
 " O hold thy peace, thou simple Walter ! 
 
 Hold thou thy peace, and list : 
 The bachelor he hath trouble enow. 
 
 But much more hath he missed. 
 
 " Thou hast read in thy brave books, Walter, 
 
 Of things which never were : 
 May'st look till thou art blind, Walter, 
 
 For damsels limned there. 
 
62 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 " This thing I credit not a whit, 
 For all the minstrels say, 
 
 That ever a lady held one mind 
 For twelve months and a day. 
 
 " On such if I should ever light 
 (As never I look to do), 
 
 Methinks I will cry mercy then 
 All womankind unto. 
 
 " Fast heart were better than fair face, 
 Wit, wealth, or high degree : 
 
 Till such I find, it is my mind 
 A bachelor to be. 
 
 " And for that he who doth not seek, 
 
 The slower is to gain, 
 Therefore I think until my death 
 
 A bachelor to remain." 
 
 He has taken to him his strong cross-bow. 
 He has whistled to him his hound ; 
 
 And away again through green Broadwood 
 Sir Ralph Duguay is bound. 
 
 Of all the paths in green Broadwood 
 
 The nighest taketh he ; 
 And that is a path doth lead him out 
 
 Over against the sea. 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 63 
 
 " I'll thread the woods no more to-day, 
 
 But on the Heights I'll go ; 
 For I fain would see what ship doth ride 
 
 At anchor there below." 
 
 The ship lay moored without the bay 
 
 The rocky reef beside : 
 A royal ship all outward bound, 
 
 A waiting for the tide. 
 
 " Now hie thee home, hound Forester, 
 
 Now hie thee home, I say ! 
 Bid them be ware of a hungry man. 
 
 Would sup with small delay." 
 
 The hound leapt up with one short note. 
 
 Then bounded off amain, 
 Around the skirts of fair Broadwood, 
 
 Nor ever turned again. 
 
 Sir Ralph looked out along the cliff 
 
 To see what might be seen. 
 And so he saw Earl Peregrine 
 
 Come riding over the green, 
 
 Who had been thorough two shires 
 
 All on the King's behests, 
 And now rode homeward merrily. 
 
 With a score of gallant guests. 
 
64 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 And ever as he ambled on 
 
 He looked across the bay, 
 Where stood so strong his castle walls — ■ 
 
 The walls of Warenstay. 
 
 The walls rise up above the rock, 
 
 The rock from out of the sea, 
 From the water's edge to the postern-gate 
 
 Full fourscore steps there be. 
 
 And looking o'er to Warenstay, 
 
 He spied upon the stair 
 His daughter, Lady Margaret, 
 
 That was so young and fair. 
 
 She waved her white scarf o'er her head. 
 
 But stepping forward so, 
 Down from the stair that lady fell. 
 
 Into the waves below. 
 
 Then sprang the Earl upon the ground 
 
 Like one of wit bereft : 
 And " If ye leave my child to drown 
 
 I have never another left ! 
 
 "01 have never another child 
 
 Save her in the surging sea. 
 And I'll give him a king's ransom 
 
 Who bringeth her safe to me ! 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 65 
 
 " Across the bay is a little way, 
 
 A bowshot and no more, 
 And I'll give him a king's ransom 
 
 Who bringeth her ashore ! " 
 
 Across the bay is a little way, 
 Though it runneth far inland ; 
 
 But fearful high above the sea 
 The Heights of Whindon stand. 
 
 On Whindon Heights the old shepherd 
 
 Hath sat full many a day ; 
 But never swimmer saw he yet 
 
 Leap down into the bay. 
 
 And all the Earl's brave company, 
 
 So sound of neck and limb. 
 Deemed he who that great leap should try 
 
 Might never live to swim. 
 
 Then loud and louder cried the Earl, 
 
 . " Will any save her life. 
 So he be come of gentle kin, 
 My daughter is his wife ! " 
 
 Sir Ralph could hear no word of that : 
 
 A furlong off was he. 
 But presently he turned and spied 
 
 A woman in the sea. 
 
65 SIR RALPH DUG U AY. 
 
 He dropped his cross-bow then and there 
 
 With never a but nor if, 
 Stripped off" his coat of Lincoln green, 
 
 And flung him from the chff. 
 
 He flung him down into the waves, 
 And the waves went over his head, 
 
 But Hghtly rose he up again, 
 And Hghtly forth he sped. 
 
 Right forward steering swift and true 
 
 He stoutly cleft his way 
 Up to the goal he started for. 
 
 Beneath dark Warenstay. 
 
 He caught her by the silken sleeve. 
 And by the long, long hair. 
 
 And safe and sound he landed her 
 Upon the castle stair. 
 
 " I marvel," quoth Earl Peregrine, 
 
 " What stranger this may be • 
 
 Hath won, without the knowing it. 
 Mine only child from me ? " 
 
 Out and spoke a saucy squire, 
 
 As they to ride began : 
 " And what if this same gentle wight 
 
 Do prove a married man ? " 
 
SIR RALPH DUOUAY. 67 
 
 " Nay," said the Earl, " I give him then 
 
 This jewel in my hat : 
 The King himself were fain I trow 
 
 To bid broad lands for that." 
 
 They found the coat of Lincoln green. 
 
 And eke the rare cross-bow : 
 " Ho," quoth the Earl, " methinks no churl 
 
 Such gear as this doth owe." 
 
 They rode, round by the head of the bay, 
 
 And up to the castle gate : 
 The gray-haired porter at his post 
 
 Their coming doth await. 
 
 " Now hither, hither, Hilary, 
 
 And say who this may be 
 Hath saved the Lady Margaret 
 
 From drowning in the sea ? " 
 
 " Fair fall him ay by sea and land 1 " 
 
 Replied the porter old : 
 " Sir Ralph Duguay it was, my lord. 
 
 That knight renowned and bold." 
 
 " A bold knight ! " cried the company : 
 " Long live he with his bride ! " 
 
 " A bold knight ! " said Earl Peregrine, 
 And nought said he beside. 
 
 G 
 
68 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 The saucy squire he laughed apart : 
 " The stone may stick by the hat ; 
 
 For Ralph Duguay is a bachelor, 
 And there's an end of that. 
 
 " But yet, I doubt, an he were asked 
 Herein to choose his own. 
 
 The bauble he were fain to take, 
 The bride to leave alone : 
 
 " Because of all blythe bachelors 
 
 I wot of east or west, 
 Methinks this very Ralph Duguay 
 
 Doth love his freedom best." 
 
 So rode they all into the court, 
 
 And lighted by the door : 
 The Earl he walked into his hall 
 
 With gallant guests a score. 
 
 In there came the gay Countess, 
 
 Arrayed in scarlet pall : 
 " Now welcome home, mine own dear lord. 
 
 And welcome, gentles all ! " 
 
 And in there came sweet Margaret, 
 
 All freshly clad and fair ; 
 But still the damp of the salt sea waves 
 
 Lay on her yellow hair. 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. #9 
 
 " O Elinor, my dear lady, 
 
 Great news there be to-day : 
 How to a knight of high renown 
 
 I have given our child away." 
 
 " Great news are these indeed, my lord," 
 
 The Countess said, and smiled : 
 " Now where is the knight hath won the right 
 
 To marry our only child ? " 
 
 " An if thou ask me where, Madame, 
 
 I cannot surely say : 
 But here or there or anywhere 
 
 His name is Ralph Duguay." 
 
 The smile went off that lady's face 
 Then when she heard the name : 
 
 The smile went off her face thereat. 
 And the colour went and came. 
 
 Up and spoke a prattling page, 
 
 The youngest and the least : 
 " Were 't not well done to seek this knight, 
 
 And bid him to the feast ? 
 
 " For yonder in the Hollow Way, 
 
 As I came through but now, 
 
 I saw one sleeping on the bank, 
 
 And he it was, I trow." 
 
 G 2 
 
70 SIR RALPH DUOUAY. 
 
 " It were vi'ell done," replied the Earl, 
 "And best methinks by me." 
 
 With that he turned him on his heel, 
 And went forth suddenly. 
 
 Down from the wold into the vale 
 There runs the Hollow Way, 
 
 Wherein he looked to find Sir Ralph ; 
 As, certes, there he lay. 
 
 But him a-sleeping on the bank 
 
 The Earl had scarce espied, 
 When he was ware of his own lady 
 
 A stepping at his side. 
 
 Out and spoke the Countess then, 
 
 And roundly speaketh she : 
 " For all that's come and gone, my lord. 
 
 This match shall never be. 
 
 " I had liefer this same bold swimmer 
 Lay a fathom under water : 
 
 His father was my father's foe : 
 He never shall wed my daughter." 
 
 The Earl he stood and knit his brow, 
 
 As one perplexed sore : 
 " O, Elinor, their hearts which beat 
 
 In anger, beat no more. 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 71 
 
 " No challenge from the chantry comes, 
 
 No answer from the nave : 
 Leave them alone : their swords, Madame, 
 
 Are sheathed in the grave. 
 
 " What boots it now to stir again 
 The reliques of their strife ? 
 
 I have given herein my knightly word, 
 To keep it with my life." 
 
 Lightly laughed the lady then, 
 Took up the Earl his hand : 
 
 " Stout fist was here, upon a time, 
 For battle-axe or brand. 
 
 " To break a lance with any man 
 
 Earl Peregrine would dare ; 
 And is he now afeared to break 
 
 A rash word made of air ? " 
 
 " For honour I would break a lance," 
 
 He sadly made reply ; 
 " But if I break my plighted word, 
 
 I honour lose thereby." 
 
 " Ah, mockery ! " then the Countess cried, 
 " For as stout as stout men be, 
 
 Will honour bind them hand and foot, 
 In bonds one cannot see ! 
 
72 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 " Hey, go thy ways, my lord," she said 
 " Leave me to work alone ; 
 
 And trust thou ay to woman's wit 
 What things do pass thine own. 
 
 " Go home to thy brave company, 
 
 That loiter by the gate ; 
 And bid them in to meat and drink. 
 
 For idle tongues will prate. 
 
 " Put off these dumpish looks, and say, 
 
 In merry speech and free, 
 ' Thou art ever best with the old friends, 
 
 And th3 new are best with me.' 
 
 " But send me four men secretly, 
 
 And a rope to every man ; 
 And warn them that they make no noise 
 
 But all the speed they can." 
 
 " A parous dame thou art, truly, 
 
 And ready of thy wit ! 
 But mark me, if he come to harm, 
 
 'Tis thou must answer it. 
 
 " The case is so, that friend or foe, 
 
 His debtors much are we." 
 " for his safety never fear ! 
 
 I'll care for that," quoth she. 
 
SIR RALPH DUG U AY. 73 
 
 The Earl he gnawed his nether lip, 
 
 I^ke one who boded ill ; 
 Then turned him homeward grudgingly 
 
 To work his lady's will. 
 
 The Countess stood and watched Sir Ralph : 
 
 No mischief boded he : 
 In sooth he was a wearied man, 
 
 And so slept heavily. 
 
 O, comely was that lady's face, 
 
 But crafty was her thought ; 
 And dainty fair her fingers were. 
 
 But a sorry deed they wrought. 
 
 She crept beside him where he lay, 
 With his arm thrown over a stone : 
 
 She drew the ring from off his hand, 
 And slipped it on her own. 
 
 Sir Ralph he dreamed a troublous dream, 
 
 There lying on the ground : 
 He thought that he was set upon 
 
 At unawares, and bound. 
 
 He tossed and muttered in his sleep. 
 
 But waking up ere long. 
 He found himself made fast in sooth 
 
 With cords both new and strong. 
 
74 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 " How now, how now, ye false varlets ! 
 
 Speak out, ye knaves, for shame ! 
 Where learnt ye this new-fangled trick ? 
 
 How call ye 3'onder dame ? " 
 
 She turned upon him suddenly, 
 
 With rancour in her face : 
 " Thou hast known me ere to-day," she said, 
 
 " My name, and eke my race." 
 
 " I've known you ere to-day, Madame, 
 
 And I should know you still ; 
 And I would the most I knew of you 
 
 Were good, as it is ill." 
 
 " Take up, take up this hold fardel," 
 
 Cry'd she, " this valiant load ! 
 An he will needs discourse to us, 
 
 E'en be it on the road." 
 
 They carried him to a high tower. 
 And the Countess went before : 
 
 She drew a key from her gay girdle. 
 And so unmade the door. 
 
 The)' passed in at the narrow doonvav, 
 And up by the narrow stair : 
 
 Then when his shoulder struck the wall, 
 She never said " Have a care 1 " 
 
SIR RALPH DUG U AY. 75 
 
 They carried him into a Httle chamber, 
 
 With roof and floor of stone : 
 For hempen bands they did on iron, 
 
 And left him there alone. 
 
 Then laughed the Countess to herself, 
 
 And to herself said she, 
 " Now I have laid him by the heels, 
 
 I'll do what liketh me ! " 
 
 The purse hung heavy at her side 
 With pieces broad and bright ; 
 
 But ere she parted from those men. 
 The purse hung very light. 
 
 She bribed them all to hold them dumb 
 
 And her intent fulfil ; 
 And if her gold was strong enow 
 
 Her threats were stronger still. 
 
 So hied she to the banquet-hall 
 Where all the folk were set ; 
 
 But never spoke until she came 
 Beside fair Margaret. 
 
 Then drew she off Sir Ralph his ring : 
 
 " A token, child, for thee ! 
 The knight who gave it me in charge 
 
 Sails yonder on the sea. 
 
ye SIR RALPH DUG U AY. 
 
 " No word of mine would bring him back, 
 Nor he never will claim his wife, 
 
 Till he have won a wider name, 
 At peril of his life. 
 
 " ' I'm not my lady's peer,' said he, 
 
 ' In having, nor in birth : 
 The more 's the need that every man 
 
 Should hold me so in worth : 
 
 " ' And therefore I'll to France, Madame, 
 
 To seek what fame I may ! ' 
 Look out, for yonder goes the ship 
 
 Wherein he sails away ! " 
 
 Then rushed forth all that compan}'. 
 
 And mounted on the wall : 
 The Countess, laughing to herself, 
 
 Was foremost of them all. 
 
 They watched the ship which sailed away, 
 
 And shouted o'er and o'er 
 Farewell to bold Sir Ralph Duguay, 
 
 Who yet remained ashore. 
 
SIR RALPH DUG U AY. 77 
 
 PART II. 
 
 O'er Whindon Heights and Broadwood glades 
 
 The summer waned away, 
 But thorough wood or over wold 
 
 Went never Ralph Duguay. 
 
 O'er Whindon Heights and Broadwood glades 
 
 A year went round and still 
 Sir Ralph Duguay at Warenstay 
 
 Was lodged against his will. 
 
 The Countess to her daughter spoke 
 
 (And that high tower in sight), 
 " Sweet heart, no tidings come to us 
 
 Of yonder errant knight. 
 
 " Gay ladies plenty dwell in France : 
 
 Men are a fickle kind ; 
 And truly she that 's out of sight 
 
 Will soon be out of mind. 
 
78 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 " Reck nought of him recks nought of thee : 
 'Twere shame to stoop so low : 
 
 Hey, never mope for a false traitor, 
 But laugh and let him go ! 
 
 " Why here's the Duke, the king's cousin. 
 
 Will wed thee if he may : 
 Go to," said she, " be ruled by me, 
 
 And never say him nay." 
 
 Fair Margaret's face waxed red apace : 
 " Sir Ralph Duguay his name 
 
 I have heard it spoken with little love. 
 But never, methinks, with blame. 
 
 " Never before, nor never more. 
 
 Dear mother, let it be ; 
 But as you find me true to him. 
 
 Ay think him true to me." 
 
 The Countess talked no more with her, 
 
 But on that self-same day, 
 Unto the Duke she writ boldly. 
 
 And promised her away. 
 
 Within a se'nnight from that time, 
 
 All at the twilight hour. 
 Came she again to her young daughter, 
 
 A spinning in her bower. 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 79 
 
 " O here be news enow from France ! 
 
 A battle late hath been, 
 And a woful price the winning on 't 
 
 Hath cost our King, I ween ! 
 
 " For many a stout heart lieth cold, 
 Which never to none would yield ; 
 
 And among the rest Sir Ralph Duguay 
 Was slain upon the field. 
 
 " 'Tis pity, yet he died the death 
 
 A soldier ay loves best : 
 Who falls in fight falls like a knight : 
 
 So let his memory rest ! 
 
 " But other knights are left on live, 
 
 Whereof the Duke is one : 
 Now art thou free as bird on tree. 
 
 And naysay shall he none." 
 
 " O what is this device, mother," 
 
 Sad Margaret replied, 
 " To take a woful fresh widow, 
 
 And make of her a bride ? " 
 
 Little thought fair Margaret, 
 
 A-mourning in her bower. 
 How safe and sound Sir Ralph was lodged 
 
 Anigh her in the tower. 
 
So SIR RALPH DUG U AY. 
 
 Little thought Sir Ralph the while, 
 Within his prison dim, 
 
 How Margaret in her gay bower 
 Wept all alone for him. 
 
 Sir Ralph looked forth at the narrow loophole, 
 
 And saw the jackdaws fly : 
 " Ay, tarry," quoth he, " by the old tower : 
 
 You love it better than I." 
 
 O strong, strong is the thick freestone 
 
 And strong is the iron gray ; 
 But stronger still is the steadfast will, 
 
 And wears them both away. 
 
 He wrought by day, he wrought by night, 
 He wrought with might and main : 
 
 When he had wrought a year and a week 
 He went at large again. 
 
 Abroad amid the gay morning 
 
 The daws flew to and fro ; 
 And Ralph Duguay as well as the}' 
 
 Was free to come and go. 
 
 He wandered down upon the shore : 
 " My limbs are something stiff, 
 
 Else would I fain go swim again. 
 And double Whindon Cliff'.'" 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 8i 
 
 Anon he looked across the land, 
 
 A-doubting of his way ; 
 And a voice came by with a heavy sigh, 
 
 " Farewell, Sir Ralph Duguay !" 
 
 Then he was ware of a sad lady 
 
 Sate weeping by the sea. 
 " Now of all the knights that ever wore spurs, 
 
 What makes her light on me ? 
 
 " Of all the knights in broad England, 
 
 Fair lady, tell me true, 
 Why call you on this Ralph Duguay, 
 
 Who calleth not on you ? " 
 
 She never rose, nor turned her head. 
 
 But her voice came like a moan : 
 " It is no blame to speak that name 
 
 Which should have been mine own. 
 
 " When he was living, as now he is dead, 
 
 I looked to be his wife : 
 He won me on my father's word. 
 
 By saving of my life." 
 
 Quoth he, " There be more bars than one 
 
 This marriage well may let ; 
 But certes Ralph his death is none, 
 
 For that he liveth yet." 
 
82 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 She rose and looked him in the face 
 O wan she was that day ! — 
 
 " In very sooth, do you know aught 
 Of this Sir Ralph Duguay ? " 
 
 Said he, " In very sooth I do : 
 I've known him many's the year, 
 
 And every word I listen to, 
 I warrant he shall hear." 
 
 She drew a ring from her fair finger : 
 
 " If this be so," said she, 
 " As you would help one in distress. 
 
 Give him this ring from me. 
 
 " And tell him here at Warenstay 
 They count him to be dead ; 
 
 And they would marr}' me forthwith 
 Unto the Duke instead." 
 
 He took the ring of wreathen gold : 
 
 He knew it well enow ; 
 And still he shook the tangled hair 
 
 The thicker o'er his brow. 
 
 " Yet ponder well, fair damosel. 
 And make this choice aright : 
 
 Is not the one a princely duke. 
 And the other only a knight ? " 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 83 
 
 " Were the knight a simple squire," she said, 
 
 " And the Duke a crowned King, 
 The heart were due to the promise true, 
 
 And the hand unto the ring." 
 
 " Take back the ring, thou rare lady ! 
 
 Take back the ring, I say ! 
 And take therewith my love and troth. 
 
 For I'm that Ralph Duguay. 
 
 " I thought whilere of ladies fair 
 
 Things bitter and untrue ; 
 But from my very heart this day 
 
 Those ill thoughts do I rue." 
 
 Fair Margaret stepped two paces back : 
 She scanned him o'er and o'er : 
 
 " O sorely art thou changed, my knight ! 
 I had known thee else before." 
 
 He swept aside the tangled hair 
 From off his cheek and brow : 
 
 " O sorely art thou changed, my knight 
 But well I know thee now." 
 
 Earl Peregrine was set in state 
 
 Within his hall that day, 
 And around him all, both great and small, 
 
 In festival array. 
 
S4 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 And next beside him sate the Duke : 
 
 As richly dight was he 
 As it had been his wedding day : 
 
 He thought it so to be. 
 
 In there walked Sir Ralph Duguay, 
 Unshorn, unkempt, unclean ; 
 
 A-leading lovely Margaret, 
 Apparelled like a queen. 
 
 Uprose the Duke in stark amaze : 
 
 " I fain would understand 
 How dares yon strange unsightly man 
 
 To touch my lady's hand ? " 
 
 Straight replied fair Margaret : 
 Her voice was low and clear: 
 
 " No lady am I of yours. Lord Duke, 
 But his which standeth here." 
 
 O, then the Duke laid hand on sword 
 " My lord, I fain would know, 
 
 Is this some mime to pass the time. 
 Or may the truth be so ? " 
 
 The Earl sate silent whilst he spoke. 
 And eke when he had done : 
 
 He gazed upon him dolefully. 
 But answer made he none. 
 
SrR RALPH DUGUAY. 85 
 
 Then laughed Sir Ralph a little laugh : 
 
 Said, " Lords and ladies gay, 
 And all the rest, hear now a geste 
 
 Upon this merry day." 
 
 So presently before them all 
 
 He told his own true tale: 
 The Earl did quake whereas he sate 
 
 Beside his Countess pale. 
 
 The Duke stood still and heard him through, 
 
 Then laughed so loud and free, 
 Stepped forth and shook him by the hand, 
 
 And spoke out heartily. 
 
 " Gramercy for this merry geste, 
 
 This rare new geste of thine, 
 And I wish thee joy of thy wedding-day, 
 
 Though I thought it had been mine. 
 
 " For I would not part a lady's hand 
 From her own true love his ring. 
 
 For all the breadth of the broad acres 
 That lady ever should bring. 
 
 " I wish you joy of your wedding-day. 
 
 Sir Ralph Duguay," he cried: 
 
 " Have you for me the mother-in-law. 
 
 And the father-in-law beside. 
 
 H 2 
 
86 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 " For I would not call them mine," said he, 
 
 " As they sit there this day, 
 For the bravest bride in all England 
 
 Was ever given away, 
 
 " To horse, to horse, and home again! 
 
 Mine errand here is done." 
 With that he flung him forth straightway, 
 
 And his following every one. 
 
 Then, like a hunted hind at bay. 
 
 Uprose that Countess bold : 
 " Is this our thanks, to be defied, 
 
 In our own house and hold ? " 
 
 Outspoke Sir Ralph: "Of thanks, Madame 
 You have earned you double meed : 
 
 His friend that's gone you were in will. 
 And mine you were in deed. 
 
 " For had you asked my mind herein 
 That day I won your daughter, 
 
 I had given her up as readily 
 
 As another might have sought her. 
 
 " And had you not this trial shaped. 
 
 And done my doubts away, 
 I might have lived a bachelor 
 
 Up to my dying day. 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 " My heart is full of gay joyance : 
 
 Let anger go!" said he; 
 " And here's my hand for all present 
 
 Will give their hands to me." 
 
 Forthwith uprose Earl Peregrine, 
 
 In answer to that call : 
 Stepped lightly past his proud Countess ; 
 
 " Now hear me, one and all 1 
 
 " I have given way this many a day 
 
 To wicked woman-craft ; 
 But I'll be master henceforward." 
 
 The saucy squire he laughed. 
 
 " The tide is turned," quoth the proud Countess, 
 
 " And all the work undone : 
 I had liefer sewn my daughter's shroud 
 
 Than call Duguay my son. 
 
 " But yet, if better may not be, 
 
 Why battle any more ? 
 Have here my hand, Sir Ralph," she said, 
 
 " And let oui- strife be o'er." 
 
 Then rose a shout amid the hall. 
 And rang from side to side : 
 
 " Now happy live the true bridegroom, 
 And happy live the bride! " 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 "An uncouth bridegroom," quoth Sir Ralph: 
 
 " I'll mend him if I can : 
 Let me go seek a coat to wear, 
 
 And bid mine own best man." 
 
 They set him on a swift courser, 
 
 And home he rode full fain : 
 A joyful wight was young Walter 
 
 To look on him again. 
 
 And " Dearly welcome home, brother, 
 
 And welcome home to me ; 
 But O thou comest home at last 
 
 In sorry plight," said he. 
 
 " No coat upon thy back, brother, 
 
 No hat upon thy head : 
 I doubt it hath gone hard with thee 
 
 In France, dear Ralph," he said. 
 
 " I have not been in France, Walter, 
 
 Nor I have not been in Spain ; 
 But on English ground, where I have found 
 
 Small choice but to remain." 
 
 " If I speak wide now, brother Ralph,, 
 
 I speak but after thee. 
 And after that same fair letter 
 
 Which thou didst write to me." 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. ^j 
 
 " O fair may yet be false, Walter, 
 
 And well methinks I wot 
 Who writ this fair and false lettei. 
 
 Which I myself writ not." 
 
 Then 'gan he shout, " Ho, Forester, 
 
 To greet me in time past 
 Wast wont to be the foremost ay. 
 
 Art now, my hound, the last ? " 
 
 " Nay cease thy calling, brother Ralph, 
 
 Or call some other hound ; 
 For Forester is dead and gone : 
 
 His bones lie under ground. 
 
 " He sought thee far and wide, brother, 
 
 And so he pined away: 
 We found his carcase on the Heights : 
 
 We buried it where it lay." 
 
 Sir Ralph thereto made answer none ; 
 
 But only from his eye 
 A tear dropped down on the broad hearthstone 
 
 Where the hound had used to lie. 
 
 " Now, Walter, put thy sad suit off. 
 
 And lightly don thy best ; 
 For a wedding is to do this day, 
 
 And thou must be a guest." 
 
go SIR RALPH DUG U AY. 
 
 Right speedily they clad them both 
 
 In seemly rich array, 
 And so they rode forth side by side, 
 
 And up to Warenstay. 
 
 As they two rode amid the throng, 
 Quoth one, " Whoe'er they be. 
 
 These are the comeliest gentlemen 
 Of all the company." 
 
 When they two stepped into the hall. 
 Young Walter spoke aside: 
 
 " I see no groom save one, brother, 
 To match with yonder bride: 
 
 " No king but one for 3'onder queen 
 Throughout the banquet-hall ; 
 
 And he's the King of the Bachelors, 
 Will crown no Queen at all." 
 
 " Hey, live and learn, my boy Walter : 
 I have lived and learned herein ; 
 
 For yonder bride is mine, Walter, 
 And let them laugh who win." 
 
 " O am I waking, brother Ralph, 
 Or dreaming where I stand ? 
 
 If yon fair Queen my sister is, 
 Then let me kiss her hand. 
 
SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 91 
 
 So into chapel presently 
 
 They passed in order due; 
 And there Sir Ralph Duguay espoused 
 
 That lady tried and true. 
 
 " A heart that's fast I have won at last, 
 
 Even in mine own despite : 
 With wit, and wealth, and high degree, 
 
 And beauty passing bright ! " 
 
 When Ralph Duguay rode home again, 
 
 His courser carried double. 
 And home rode he right merrily, 
 
 Forgetting care and trouble. 
 
 O earthly joy doth come and go. 
 But nowhere may abide : 
 
 Grief o'er his shoulder ever peers. 
 And thrusts him soon aside. 
 
 Sir Ralph unto his lady spoke. 
 
 Upon a summer's day ; 
 " What is it ails our young brother, 
 
 To fade and fall away? " 
 
 Young Walter stood in green Broadwood, 
 With his back against a tree: 
 
 He took his viol in his hand. 
 And sweetly carolled he : 
 
92 SIR RALPH DUGUAY. 
 
 " Upon a time, methought that I, 
 
 Of all birds in the air, 
 Would fainest be the Ger-falcon 
 
 On lady's fist so fair. 
 
 " Methought there flew no bird so blest 
 
 As he, by wold or wood ; 
 But now I'm in another mind : 
 
 I'll none of jess nor hood. 
 
 " I had liefer be the little Lark, 
 Which soareth up so high : 
 
 The Falcon he is well at home, 
 But the Lark more free doth fly. 
 
 " O happy, happy little Lark 
 Which soarest up so high ! 
 
 The earth shows wondrous beautiful. 
 But brighter is the sky 1 " 
 
 Young Walter he grew very sick 
 
 Ere harvesting began ; 
 But when All-hallowmas came round 
 
 He lay a dying man. 
 
 At dawn of that All-hallowmas 
 He sang surpassing well : 
 
 At noon of that All-hallowmas 
 They tolled young Walter's knell. 
 
93 
 
 ORINDA . 
 
 A Ballad. 
 
 At sundown of a summer's day, 
 When the world was growing still, 
 
 Came sad Orinda forth alone 
 And climbed the stony hill. 
 
 She sought the wide and dreary moor, 
 Where tracks were few and small ; 
 
 But where Orinda set her foot 
 Was never a track at all. 
 
 Nor man nor beast she met abroad 
 
 Amid the gorse and ling, 
 Only the little flittermouse 
 
 Was chirping on the wing. 
 
 The moor lay bleak on either hand, 
 But as far as one might see, 
 
 Right on before Orinda's face, 
 There stood a single tree. 
 
94 ORINDA. 
 
 And on that tree, as on a mark, 
 
 Her two blue eyes were set : 
 She held her course through ling and gorse, 
 
 Nor turned for any let. 
 
 What time she rose above the hill 
 
 The sky was glowing red ; 
 But ay on the way the twilight gray 
 
 Came thickening overhead. 
 
 And when she drew anigh the tree, 
 The moon shone broad and bright : 
 
 A sighing silvery tree it stood 
 Alone there in the night. 
 
 Across the shadow of the tree 
 There flowed a glittering brook : 
 
 Orinda turned and followed it, 
 With never a backwood look. 
 
 The brook flowed on from East to West, 
 Flowed on from North to South ; 
 
 Flowed on below a rugged rock, 
 And past a cavern's mouth. 
 
 And when she saw that same cavern 
 
 She balanced never a whit, 
 But waded through the chill water 
 
 And entered into it. 
 
ORINDA. 95 
 
 All in the low and black cavern 
 
 She reckoned slowly o'er 
 Twenty paces at the side ; 
 
 Twenty, and no more. 
 
 Thereby a hidden opening was, 
 
 The trick'whereof she knew, 
 Which groping in the damp darkness 
 
 She found, and so passed through. 
 
 Thence mounted she a winding stair 
 
 Up to a narrow door : 
 The key which should that door undo 
 
 On a silken string she wore. 
 
 She kissed the faded silken string, 
 
 She kissed the little key: 
 " O mother dear 1 O mother dead! 
 
 Thy lost love rescues mel" 
 
 So entered she a dim chapel. 
 
 By veined vaulting spanned. 
 On many clustered marble shafts 
 
 Upreared on either hand ; 
 
 Wherein, through mazy masonry, 
 
 Deep-set in arches old. 
 Fell window-slants of stained moonshine 
 
 Across the pavement cold. 
 
ORINDA. 
 
 And as Orinda lightly trod 
 
 Adown that chapel fair, 
 The lustres rose up one by one, 
 
 And glided over her hair. 
 
 Into an ancient rich cloister 
 She from the chapel passed, 
 
 And where the shadow shrouded her. 
 Made she her halt at last. 
 
 All black and white, in the clear moonlight, 
 
 Stood up the chapel wall : 
 Right to the tip of the pinnacles 
 
 You might scan the tracery small ; 
 
 And eke the grim and starkthroat crew 
 
 Of gurgoj'les gaping wide. 
 Which, weather-scarred, with eyeballs hard. 
 
 Into the cloister pried. 
 
 So quiet was all, that high on the wall, 
 
 In a little whiff of wind, 
 You might hear the edge of an ivy-leaf 
 
 Grate on the stone behind. 
 
 Also the beat of the old clock 
 
 At work within his tower : 
 Orinda hearkened wistfully 
 
 What time he told the hour. 
 
ORINDA. 97 
 
 And " Dost thou count to me," she said, 
 
 " These hours which come and go ; 
 Or count them to the waiting Dead, 
 
 Whose bodies He below? " 
 
 But when the last of the midnight strokes 
 
 Came shivered in its fall, 
 A sound of rustling raiment rose. 
 
 And pattering feet withal. 
 
 And straight there swept a darksome train 
 
 The lofty cloister through, 
 Of nuns who toward the chapel went 
 
 In silence, two and two. 
 
 And last of all walked slowly by 
 The abbess old and frail, 
 
 Who led a little blooming maid 
 With never a hood nor veil. 
 
 So passed they into chapel all. 
 
 And soon upon the air 
 Came echoes of low orisons 
 
 Across the cloister-square. 
 
 Then suddenly there burst abroad 
 Strong harmony of praise : — 
 
 Orinda stood and wept aloud : 
 So would she end her days ! 
 
98 O RIND A. 
 
 The service o'er, those nuns once more, 
 With dull and muffled sound. 
 
 Swept all before Orinda's face, 
 To lowly pallets bound. 
 
 "Henceforth," she thought, "O tranquil souls, 
 
 Be your calm rest my own ! 
 But yet this night I would be free 
 
 To watch here all alone." 
 
 The last again of the darksome train 
 
 Came by that abbess mild ; 
 And still beside her, hand in hand. 
 
 There walked the blooming child. 
 
 " A solemn masque," Orinda said : 
 " These two play Life and Death : " 
 
 Anon the child began to speak 
 To the abbess, under her breath, 
 
 " I love to stand by the North window; 
 
 But I would I could look through ; 
 For m}' father he dwells in the North, 
 
 And my little brother too." 
 
 "O North and South," the abbess rephed, 
 " 'Tis a world of sorrow and sin : 
 
 Without yon wall it is perilous all : 
 Rest thankful, child, within." 
 
ORINDA. 09 
 
 The child looked out upon the sky, 
 And musing spoke again : 
 
 "One's heart may cry for its liberty 
 Most when the most in vain." 
 
 No further answer uttered then 
 That abbess grave and old ; 
 
 But softly on the child's red lip 
 She laid a finger cold ; 
 
 And softly down the long cloister, 
 
 And by a little door. 
 The unequal footsteps passed away : 
 
 Orinda heard no more. 
 
 She lingered in the lone cloister, 
 Nor marked how time sped by. 
 
 But the clock went on in his old tower 
 And the moon went over the sky. 
 
 The light came gliding to her foot, 
 Came gleaming in her face : 
 
 Then with a sigh departed she 
 From that cold lurking-place. 
 
 She came into a great garden. 
 
 Beside a granite wall : 
 Bright casements there enframed were 
 
 In niches old and small. 
 
ORINDA. 
 
 She stood before a little window, 
 
 The midmost of the row ; 
 With a blowing eglantine above, 
 
 And lily-buds below. 
 
 "Ah, fair white flowers," Orinda said, 
 
 " 'Tis meet ye thrive so well, 
 Where sprights in saintly innocence 
 
 And peace unbroken dwell!" 
 
 There rose a face in that window : 
 Looked right out on her own ; 
 
 All in a woful staring trance. 
 And with a shuddering groan. 
 
 " They took me ere my life was done, 
 
 And laid me here in the pit! 
 I am pent up quick in the close darkness! 
 
 I am mad, I am mad of it ! " 
 
 So ghastly glared the unblinking eyes, 
 
 The fixed eyes of gray. 
 So fierce and frantic was the voice, 
 
 Orinda shrank away. 
 
 And that child's words came back to her. 
 
 With a sharp sudden pain : 
 " One's heart may cry for its liberty, 
 
 Most when the most in vain." 
 
ORINDA. 
 
 She wandered in the still garden, 
 
 All fresh with summer dew, 
 Through hedges of sweet lavender, 
 
 And rosemary, and rue ; 
 
 By old thick-flowering elder-trees 
 
 Low-branching overhead, 
 She wandered with a mind perturbed. 
 
 And with a faltering tread ; 
 
 Till straying down a broad alley, 
 
 When the moon was low in the West, 
 
 She found a little hazel-bower 
 Wherein she sank to rest. 
 
 At length the day began to dawn 
 
 Up in the silent sky ; 
 But she amid the waxing light 
 
 Slept on right heavily. 
 
 The stare looked out from the walnut-tree, 
 
 And piped so sweet and clear: 
 The lark and the throstle 'gan merrily whistle, 
 
 And blithe birds far and near. 
 
 The lightfoot squirrel was astir ; 
 
 The bee flew humming by ; 
 But she amid the wakening all 
 
 Slept on right heavily. 
 
 I 2 
 
102 ORINDA, 
 
 At the convent gate, ere the morn grew late, 
 
 A minstrel took his stand ; 
 With a ragged cloak upon his back 
 
 And a cithern in his hand. 
 
 The nuns' confessor paced the court 
 With measured steps and slow, 
 
 A-reading in a little book 
 As he went to and fro. 
 
 " No good cometh of light music," 
 
 Said he, when he drew near: 
 " Go on thy way; or if thou wilt stay 
 
 And taste of the traveller's cheer, 
 
 "Yet will we none of that thy craft 
 
 Fantastical and vain : 
 Here is no leisure for such-like pleasure 
 
 We sing in another strain." 
 
 With that he turned him into the house. 
 And the minstrel hung his head ; 
 
 But the portress pale brought a draught of ale, 
 And a crust of the wheaten bread. 
 
 Full dearly loved this pale portress 
 The airs of her youth gone by : 
 
 She sent him away, but she bade him play 
 By the garden wall so high. 
 
ORINDA. 103 
 
 There was a broad and smooth alley 
 
 Lay close within the wall ; 
 Screen6d from view by the rows of yew, 
 
 Which stood so trim and tall. 
 
 Of threescore years, and five to that, 
 This portress lacked not much: 
 
 She had been lame for many a day, 
 And went ay with a crutch. 
 
 Yet swiftly stole she from the gate 
 
 To win that alley near; 
 And over the wall came the gay music 
 
 She had a mind to hear. 
 
 She fell a-dancing then and there. 
 
 Her crutch she flung away: 
 Down fell her hood, and down it hung, 
 
 Down fell her locks of gray. 
 
 And eke she prattled while she danced : 
 " I doubt, I doubt," quoth she, 
 
 " There's never a one i' the old house yon 
 Could step so jauntily!" 
 
 When sad Orinda, sleeping on. 
 Heard that same minstrel play. 
 
 She dreamed a dream of a noble knight, 
 And a castle far away. 
 
I04 ORINDA. 
 
 She never minded in her sleep, 
 Though waking well she knew, 
 
 How far away that castle lay. 
 Beyond the waters blue. 
 
 She never minded in her dream 
 How that brave knight was dead ; 
 
 Though her own hands had garlanded 
 The stone above his head. 
 
 Time past arose on that old air, 
 And closed her lightly round ; 
 
 And she lay still in the green arbour. 
 With gentle fancies crowned. 
 
 But when the minstrel changed his tune, 
 
 Her mood was overthrown : 
 A trouble came across her face. 
 
 And from her lips a moan. 
 
 Then opening slow bewildered eyes. 
 
 She marvelled much to spy 
 That silly portress, bent and lame, 
 
 A-frolicking hard by. 
 
 And in a while those very words 
 
 Came back to her again : 
 "One's heart may cry for its liberty 
 
 Most when the most in vain." 
 
ORINDA. 105 
 
 The portress was a scared woman 
 When next she turned her round, 
 
 To light upon that strange lady 
 Within the garden ground. 
 
 And " If you be the portress here, 
 
 As so you seem to be, 
 And that the key of the outer gate, 
 
 Come open it now for me." 
 
 The portress was a scared woman,, 
 A-panting where she stood : 
 
 She pounced upon her crutch anon, 
 And shuffled on her hood. 
 
 She tarried for no parley then, 
 
 But up the alley hied. 
 Betook her to the outer gate, 
 
 And flung it open wide. 
 
 And thus Orinda, once for all. 
 The convent bounds forsook ; 
 
 Back toward the moor she went her way. 
 Beside the winding brook. 
 
io6 ORINDA. 
 
 {L' EN VOL) 
 
 " And tell me, I beseech you, do you not think it possible for 
 a man to have his heart in the World when his leggs and arms 
 are out of it? May it not dwell in his fancy, when he sees it not 
 with his eyes? May he not please himself in the shadow and 
 image >of his old friend which he says is dead and buried? May 
 not .one leave his soul behind when he withdraws his body from 
 all the World? I wish there be not many of such Religious men 
 and women : As, on the contrary, I hope there are not a few whose 
 minds and hearts are shut up from the World, though they are 
 with it every day. Who have made a Cloyster for their souls 
 while their bodies are at liberty. Who bridle their appetites, and 
 lay restraints on their desires; though they live at large, and are 
 under no Vow but that of their Baptism." — Bishop Patrick : 
 "Parable of the Pilgrim." 
 
107 
 
 FLORA'S LESSON. 
 
 (written in 1832, WHEN A. E. WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD.) 
 
 Flora once invited 
 
 The Senses to her bower, 
 Where, in perfection rare, 
 
 Was every lovely flower. 
 
 But Hearing did not come 
 To see these lovely flowers ; 
 
 In Music's cave was she, 
 
 Where she often spent her hours. 
 
 And Taste, too, stayed away, 
 To dine and sup with Fame ; 
 
 And so, instead oifive, 
 Three senses only came. 
 
 Venus in her car 
 
 Came on that very day, 
 To ask a perfect flower 
 
 For her to take away. 
 
io3 FLORA'S LESSON. 
 
 Said she, "You sister ladies 
 Must choose a flower for me ; 
 
 I'll take it not unless 
 
 'Tis liked by all the three." 
 
 Said Flora, " There's a flower, 
 I know you'll like it, when 
 
 I tell 3-ou which I mean : 
 The Tulip of the Fen." 
 
 Said Sight, " It pleases me, 
 'Tis a lovely little bell ;" 
 
 But her sister liked it not, 
 For it had a horrid smell. 
 
 "But say," said she, "What plant 
 
 With the Spice-flower rich can vie?' 
 " I like it not," said Sight, 
 " For it pleases not the eye." 
 
 Said Smell, "The Rose will do, 
 
 It covers Flora's lands ;" 
 But Touch directly said, 
 
 " Thorns always hurt my hands ! " 
 
 So not a single flower 
 
 Had suited all the three ; 
 And Flora, smiling, said, 
 " Let this a lesson be. 
 
FLORA'S LESSON. log 
 
 " From things not perfect quite, 
 
 Turn not away in scorn ; 
 For where was ever found 
 
 The Rose without a thorn ? " 
 
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 THE BLEW-ETD LADIE. 
 
 AN AYRE, 
 
 Invented and sett forth to bee sung with one Voyce to the Sp'uict, 
 Virginalls, or other like Instruinente, 
 
 hy A.E. Practicioner in Mnsicke. 
 
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147 
 
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148 
 
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 Drift - ing fast the snow, Co - lin, Down the Deep Holm lane. 
 
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153 
 
 Take thy crook and go, Co • lin : Bit - ter winds do blow, Co - lin, 
 
 Haply next in May, Colin, 
 Some long sunny day, Colin, 
 Thou mayest take thy way Colin, 
 Down the Deep Holm lane. 
 
 When the new green leaves are growing, 
 When the frozen brook is flowing, 
 Primrose-tufts and daisies blowing 
 O'er the bank again : 
 Haply next in May, Colin, &c. 
 
154 
 
 19. 
 
 PERADVENTURE ! 
 
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 My love he's gone to London town,Hey , ho, and who should say him nay ! 
 
 Moderato. 
 
 ^1 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 i^g 
 
 ^^ 
 
 =S^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ^m 
 
 ^ =^ g=i ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 Wait a year, and he'll comedown Twice as rich as he went a - way,- 
 
 ff^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^te 
 
 ^r"" 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^m 
 
 ig 
 
 =3^ 
 
 With a per - ad - ven- ture, Hey, With a per - ad - ven - ture . . 
 
 /TV /T\ 
 
 My love he's gone to London town: 
 
 Hey, ho, I'll bear it as I may! 
 
 Wait a year, and he'll come down 
 
 All as true as he went away, — 
 
 With a peradventure, Hey, 
 
 With a peradventure . . . 
 
155 
 
 20. 
 
 ROUND. 
 
 (SUGGESTED BY DOVER CRIES.) 
 
 Buy my fine ap -pies and jar - go-nelle pears I 
 
 Nuts all ripe, haz - el nuts, Buy my nuts, O ! 
 
 Fine fresh shrimps ! Here they are Fine large ones 1 
 
156 
 
 21. 
 
 Voice. 
 
 Piano." 
 
 GARQON VOL AGE. 
 
 Gai. 
 
 I. " Gar-?on vo - la - ge, Gar-^on vo - la - ge," U-ne ber - g6 - re, 
 
 ^;! J. I J- ;^ 
 
 Jeune et sin - c6 re, Dit," Ton horn- ma ge, Gar-?on vo - la - ge, 
 
 ^^^^1^^ 
 
 Ne me plait guA-res, Lan li - re Ian la." 
 
 i 
 
 ^f^ 
 
 - » « * * 
 
 * -5- -s- -9- 
 
 ^ 
 
 ==1- 
 
 ^r??^ 
 
 ^^K 
 
 Pour tes cadeaux, 
 Pour tes cadeaux, 
 Nouvelle houlette, 
 Douce musette — 
 Tant qu'ils soient beaux, 
 Point de cadeaux 
 Ne veut Lucette, 
 Lan lire lan la. 
 
 Moi, j'ai un cceur, 
 Moi, j'ai un cceur, 
 Veux-tu cueiilir 
 Pour voir fletrir 
 De pareils fleurs ? 
 Moi, j'ai un cceur 
 Qui peut souffrir 
 Lan lire lan la. 
 
 Mais, mon ami, 
 Mais, mon ami, 
 Je veux garder 
 Mon humeur gai. 
 Si je le puis : — ■ 
 Va, mon ami, 
 C'en est assez, 
 Lan lire lan la. 
 
22. 
 
 157 
 
 ROSES. 
 
 Voice. 
 
 Piano. * 
 
 ^m^^^_^_J^±r^ ^ ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ?^ 
 
 I. O ro-ses red, and ro - ses white, You are my gar- den's 
 
 ^^1^^^^^^ 
 
 rare de- light: I'll reap my ro-ses dew - y sweet, And lay them at my 
 
 M^-^=^=j^ ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 la - dy*s feet, In a wide rich har-vest. No Symphony after last verse. 
 
 Sing loud, blithe birds, among the trees, 
 For there's a death-bell on the breeze, 
 And how shall I go to and fro. 
 To pluck my roses where they blow, 
 With a death-bell tolling. 
 
 3. 
 Last eve my lady sang to me, 
 Her soul elate with melody, 
 And tuning so the tranquil air 
 Methought she grew more lovely fair. 
 In the pale still moonshine. 
 
 " I come to greet my lady bright 
 With new-blown roses, red and white.'* 
 
 "Bring in the white, but leave the red, 
 Your lady lies here, cold and dead, 
 In a death-deep silence." 
 
23. 
 
 Treble. 
 
 Alto. 
 
 Tekor. 
 
 Bass. 
 
 Piano. 
 
 158 
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 |g ^'J=:^^=J = ;Pf^J= 5E i^^ 
 
 ^^^-^^^ ^.i-^i—^^^^-^-^l 
 
 Largo. 
 
 ^^^r-n^=i^fr-r-r-'^^^ ^ 
 
 Close the eyes which were so bright, Fold the hands a 
 
 Close the eyes which were so bright, Fold the hands a 
 
 Close the eyes which were so bright, Fold the hands a 
 
 e^i MiJ- J' J-=^^pi=i^=^ ^ ^r— f— f— p 
 
 Close the eyes which were so 
 Largo. 
 
 bright, Fold the hands a 
 
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 zt= 
 
 bove the heart : All have done their mor - tal part, . 
 
 bove the heart : All have done their mor - tal part, . . . 
 
 ^ 
 
 fe^^^ 
 
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 FF5^=^ 
 
 SE 
 
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 3 3 5 ■» 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 bif 
 
159 
 
 O'er the noon hath dropp'd the night. 
 
 ^ ^ j^TTL^ 
 
 O'er the noon hath droppM the night. 
 
 ^^^^^^^ 
 
 W 
 
 O'er the noon hath dropp'd the night. 
 
 O'er the noon hath dropp'd the night. 
 
 I .3^. * -^ B - 
 
 ^^=*^ 
 
 2 Softly lay the sleeping form 
 In that shelter close and meet ; 
 There to rest while weary feet 
 Walk o'erhead in sun and storm. 
 
 3 Faith and Hope, all grief above, 
 Guide us on till grief be past; 
 Guide us thither, where at last 
 Faith and Hope shall end in Love.