And if the girl spake more, I heard not her,
For only I saw what I shall see when dead,
A kingly flower of knights, a sunflower,
That shone against the sunlight like the sun,
And like a fire, O heart, consuming thee,
The fire of love that lights the pyre of death.

Howbeit I shall not die an evil death
Who have loved in such a sad and sinless way,
That this my love, lord, was no shame to thee.
So when mine eyes are shut against the sun,
O my soul's sun, O the world's sunflower,
Thou nor no man will quite despise me dead.
And dying I pray with all my low last breath
That thy whole life may be as was that day,
That feast-day that made troth-plight death and me,
Giving the world light of thy great deeds done;
And that fair face brightening thy bridal bed,
That God be good as God hath been to her.

That all things goodly and glad remain with her,
All things that make glad life and goodly death;
That as a bee sucks from a sunflower

Honey, when summer draws delighted breath,
Her soul may drink of thy soul in like way,
And love make life a fruitful marriage-bed
Where day may bring forth fruits of joy to day
And night to night till days and nights be dead.
And as she gives light of her love to thee,
Give thou to her the old glory of days long done;
And either give some heat of light to me,
To warm me where I sleep without the sun.

O sunflower made drunken with the sun,
O knight whose lady's heart draws thine to her,
Great king, glad lover, I have a word to thee.
There is a weed lives out of the sun's way,
Hid from the heat deep in the meadow's bed,
That swoons and whitens at the wind's least breath,
A flower star-shaped, that all a summer day
Will gaze her soul out on the sunflower
For very love till twilight finds her dead.

But the great sunflower heeds not her poor death,
Knows not when all her loving life is done;
And so much knows my lord the king of me.

Aye, all day long he has no eye for me;
With golden eye following the golden sun
From rose-coloured to purple-pillowed bed,
From birth-place to the flame-lit place of death,
From eastern end to western of his way.
So mine eye follows thee, my sunflower,

So the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee,
The sick weak weed, not well alive or dead,
Trod underfoot if any pass by her,

Pale, without colour of summer or summer breath
In the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done
No work but love, and die before the day.

But thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day,
Be glad and great, O love whose love slays me.
Thy fervent flower made fruitful from the sun
Shall drop its golden seed in the world's way,
That all men thereof nourished shall praise thee
For grain and flower and fruit of works well done;
Till thy shed seed, O shining sunflower,
Bring forth such growth of the world's garden-bed
As like the sun shall outlive age and death.
And yet I would thine heart had heed of her

Who loves thee alive; but not till she be dead.

Come, love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath.

Song, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead;

From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee,

To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death
Down the sun's way after the flying sun,
For love of her that gave thee wings and breath,
Ere day be done, to seek the sunflower.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

ON THE FORFEITURE OF PROPERTY BY

MARRIED WOMEN.

As the session of Parliament approaches, our thoughts are apt to turn from the theoretical to the practical aspect of public affairs. During the recess numerous volunteers meet in various parts of the country, write in public journals, interchange their ideas, explode many crotchets, find some that will stand the wear and tear of discussion, prepare, on all tenable views of a question, that mysterious and spiritual, but very real, power called Public Opinion, and so clear the field for action. And this, doubtless, is the great originating and determining force of modern society. The man who has carried his point through the open public arena of discussion, will surely, sooner or later, carry it through the Legislature. It may be a long time first; the Legislature is the last body to be moved; and quite rightly so, for laws ought not to be altered lightly, nor without clear proof that mischief flows from them, and that reasonable grounds exist for expecting better results from the alterations propounded. It is therefore natural that when Parliament meets we should look to see which of the subjects that occupy the national attention will be selected for actual operations, and what course the operations are likely to take.

The important subject indicated by the heading of this paper is one on which the Legislature will certainly be asked to act in the ensuing session; possibly by the Government, but if not, then by private members of Parliament. And it seems not inopportune to take a brief review of the position of the case, and to direct some observations to the only features of it which possess any novelty or are left uncovered by argument. The subject is one of those which have been agitated for many years, and has gone through the usual stages of a novel truth. It was the wildest of dreams; it was an impious and unholy attempt to loosen the sacred bonds of marriage; its promoters, when not fanatics or dreamers, were dangerous and sinister revolutionists. Then there was something in what they said; after all, there was a good deal of cruelty and hardship in the present system; after all, the law of property seemed to have very little to do with the bond of marriage; after all, the law of England was peculiar, and seemed to resemble the old barbarous codes much more closely than those adopted by civilised nations. Finally, a large number of people found out that what the advocates of a change were saying was exactly what they themselves had been thinking all along.

All honour to those who have fought the losing game till it has

become the winning one. I am not one of them. The work has been done at first by the able and persevering gentlemen who form the United Societies for the Amendment of the Law and the Promotion of Social Science, and finally by Mr. Lefevre and Mr. Russell Gurney, who have taken up the subject in Parliament. And if I recur to what I myself have previously said, it is not because there was any originality in it, but only because it was an attempt to put the controversy into a clear and compendious form, to which it may be useful for any one to refer who desires to study its merits.

The later stages of this discussion have been on this wise. In the session of 1868 Mr. Lefevre introduced into the House of Commons a measure which was referred to a Select Committee. Much evidence was taken, bearing mainly on three points:

1. The existence of hardship under the present law.

2. The avoidance of that hardship by the richer classes through the aid of the Court of Chancery.

3. The practicability of altering the law, as tried in America.

In July 1868 the Committee reported to the effect that the law bore very hardly on all but the richer classes; and that American experience was in favour of altering it; but, for lack of time, they did not decide in what particular mode the law should be altered.

In the month of September, 1868, the Social Science Congress took place at Birmingham; and I then read a paper in which the subject was reviewed. It was then shown that the rule of law to be altered was that of the Common Law, which, speaking broadly, takes all property from the wife and gives it to the husband; that this rule had in effect been abrogated by the Court of Chancery in many cases affecting those rich enough to enjoy its protection, and that rich people were also in the universal habit of excluding its operation by the expensive machinery of private contract and the interposition of trustees. The law, therefore, is divided against itself, and one part of it must be wrong; either that part which has been established in Chancery and which affects rich people, or that rule of the Common Law which affects poor people. And it is the latter rule to which mischief is traced; against the former no charge is brought. Moreover, it is the latter rule which has prevailed in rude and barbarous societies, and has been encroached on as civilisation has advanced.1

The objections put forward were then dealt with; most of them being of a very flimsy character and admitting of obvious specific answers. The most important was that which is founded on the

(1) This idea was worked out with great learning and force by Mr. Jessel in his speech in the House of Commons. His belief is, that the marital rights conferred by the Common Law are simply remnants of the old system of slavery, under which the women of the family were slaves to its head. Nor is it easy for anybody who will fairly weigh his proofs, to deny their cogency.

principle that the husband must, in case of dissension, determine the general course of family affairs, e.g., the common residence, and perhaps the common occupations. To this it was answered, that the wife ought to have due weight in the family councils; that there are many domestic matters in which women are better judges than men ; that there are many women who are wiser and stronger than their husbands; and that it is a monstrous thing to assume that the husband must always be right, and therefore to give him in all cases. the power of stopping the supplies, and so starving into submission, the wife who is not convinced by his arguments nor bent by the weight of his authority. Finally it was urged, that over and above the specific answer to each objection, there was one general and conclusive answer to all, i.e., the answer from experience. For that many of the United States and some of the British Colonies had been making experiments in this direction, that none of them had repented or drawn back from what they had done, but on the contrary, all that had taken more than one step, had advanced towards the complete emancipation of married women from the law of forfeiture, and that the evils, plentifully prophesied on the Western as on the Eastern seaboard of the Atlantic, had not yet made their appearance.

In the session of 1869, a Bill was introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. Russell Gurney, which embodied the principle contended for. It provided in effect, that married women, or at least those married subsequently to the Act, shall be as capable of holding property as single ones. The Bill was referred to a Select Committee, by whom the principle was preserved uninjured. The third reading was carried in the House of Commons by a large majority, but the measure was stopped in the House of Lords, on the ground that its provisions required further consideration.

It is not my object now to discuss the provisions of the Bill in detail. Indeed I have throughout confined myself to discussing principles. It is because there were some, though uncertain, indications in both Houses that alterations might be proposed, which, though in the form of details, would really defeat the whole measure, that I am anxious to recall attention to the previous stages of the discussion, and to add some observations on the threatened danger. And I am the more anxious to do this, because the alterations in question seem to find favour not only with those who, consenting to change merely because the advocates of change are too strong for them, really hate the Bill, and will substitute a changeling for it if they can, but with some who are sincerely convinced of the evils of the present system, and wish to see a remedy applied to them. Neither do I propose to amplify or add to the arguments contained in the Birmingham paper. It is there stated that I had not the