Remembering the day when first she came, And all the things that had been. She bowed down And wept in secret; and the reapers reaped, And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise To God, that helped her in her widowhood. And Dora said: "My uncle took the boy; But, Mary, let me live and work with you: He says that he will never see me more.” Then answered Mary: "This shall never be, That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself: And, now I think, he shall not have the boy, For he will teach him hardness, and to slight His mother; therefore thou and I will go, And I will have my boy, and bring him home; And I will beg of him to take thee back; But if he will not take thee back again, Then thou and I will live within one house, And work for William's child, until he grows Of age to help us.'
Each other, and set out and reached the farın. The door was off the latch; they peeped and saw The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees, Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm,
And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, Like one that loved him: and the lad stretched out And babbled for the golden seal, that hung From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire. Then they came in; but when the boy beheld His mother, he cried out to come to her : And Allan sat him down, and Mary said: "O Father!—if you let me call you so- I never came a-begging for myself,
Or William, or this child; but now I come For Dora: take her back; she loves you well. O Sir, when William died, he died at peace
With all men; for I asked him, and he said, He could not ever rue his marrying me.- I had been a patient wife: but, Sir, he said That he was wrong to cross his father thus: 'God bless him!' he said, ' and may he never know The troubles I have gone through!' Then he turned His face and passed-unhappy that I am! But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight His father's memory; and take Dora back, And let all this be as it was before."
So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silence in the room; And all at once the old man burst in sobs:-
"I have been to blame-to blame! I have killed my son!
I have killed him-but I loved him-my dear son! May God forgive me!—I have been to blame. Kiss me, my children!"
Then they clung about The old man's neck, and kissed him many times. And all the man was broken with remorse; And all his love came back a hundred fold;
And for three hours he sobbed o'er William's child, Thinking of William.
So those four abode Within one house together; and as years Went forward, Mary took another mate; But Dora lived unmarried till her death.
"THE Bull, the Fleece are crammed, and not a
For love or money. Let us picnic there
I spoke, while Audley feast
Hummed like a hive all round the narrow quay, To Francis, with a basket on his arm, To Francis just alighted from the boat, And breathing of the sea. "With all my heart."
Said Francis. Then we shouldered through the
And rounded by the stillness of the beach To where the bay runs up its latest horn. We left the dying ebb that faintly lipped The flat red granite; so by many a sweep Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reached The griffin-guarded gates, and passed through all The pillared dusk of sounding sycamores, And crossed the garden to the gardener's lodge, With all its casements bedded, and its walls And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine.
There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound, Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home, And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made, Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks Imbedded and injellied; last, with these, A flask of cider from his father's vats, Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat And talked old matters over: who was dead, Who married, who was like to be, and how The races went, and who would rent the hall: Then touched upon the game, how scarce it was This season: glancing thence, discussed the farm, The fourfield system and the price of grain; And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split, And came again together on the king With heated faces; till he laughed aloud; And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang- "O! who would fight and march and counter- march,
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,
And shovelled up into a bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life. "O! who would cast and balance at a desk, Perched like a crow upon a three-legged stool, Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints Are full of chalk? but let me live my life. "Who'd serve the state? for if I carved my name Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, I might as well have traced it in the sands; The sea wastes all: but let me live my life. "O! who would love? I wooed a woman once, But she was sharper than an eastern wind, And all my heart turned from her, as a thorn Turns from the sea: but let me live my life." He sang his song, and I replied with mine: I found it in a volume, all of songs,
Knocked down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride, His books-the more the pity, so I said—
Came to the hammer here in March-and thisI set the words, and added names I knew.
Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of me: Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm,
And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm
Emilia, fairer than all else but thou,
For thou art fairer than all else that is.
Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast:
Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip: I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn. "I go, but I return: I would I were The pilot of the darkness and the dream. Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me." So sang we each to either, Francis Hale, The farmer's son who lived across the bay, My friend; and I, that having wherewithal, And in the fallow leisure of my life A rolling stone of here and everywhere, Did what I would; but ere the night we rose And sauntered home beneath a moon, that, just
In crescent, dimly rained about the leaf Twilights of airy silver, till we reached The limit of the hills; and as we sank From rock to rock upon the glooming quay, 'The town was hushed beneath us: lower down The bay was oily calm; the harbor-buoy With one green sparkle ever and anon Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.
John. I'm glad I walked. How fresh the meadows look
Above the river, and, but a month ago, The whole hill-side was redder than a fox. Is yon plantation where this by-way joins The turnpike?
John. And when does this come by?
James. The mail? At one o'clock.
John. Whose house is that I see
James. Sir Edward Head's:
But he's abroad: the place is to be sold. John. O, his. He was not broken.
Vexed with a morbid devil in his blood
That veiled the world with jaundice, hid his face From all men, and commercing with himself, He lost the sense that handles daily life- That keeps us all in order more or less- And sick of home, went overseas for change. John. And whither?
James. Nay, who knows? he's here and there.
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