LOCKSLEY HALL.

163

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose

runs,

And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,

Though the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers; and I linger on the

shore,

And the individual withers, and the world is more and

more:

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,

Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his

rest.

Hark! my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle

horn,

They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their

scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a mouldered

string?

I am shamed through all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain—

Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain :

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, matched

with mine,

Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some

retreat

Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my lite began to beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starred; I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy

skies,

Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, droops the trailer from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited

tree

Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,

In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and breathing-space;

I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky

race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive, and they shall

run,

Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the

sun;

LOCKSLEY HALL.

165

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the

brooks,

Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books.—

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,

But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian .child.

I to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious

gains,

Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower

pains!

Mated with a squalid savage-what to me were sun o

clime?

I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time—

I, that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us

range;

Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.

Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day:

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun

Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun;

Ó, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set; Ancient founts of inspiration well through all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley

Hall!

Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over heath and

holt,

Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire o▾

snow;

For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. ALFRED TENNYSON.

M

Maud Muller.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MAUD MULLER.

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed :
That I the Judge's bride might be !

"Ah me!

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

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

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