And how the bailiff swore that he was mad,
But he stood firm; and so the matter hung;

He gave them line: and five days after that
He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece,

Who then and there had offer'd something more,
But he stood firm; and so the matter hung;

He knew the man; the colt would fetch its price; He

gave them line: and how by chance at last

(It might be May or April, he forgot,

The last of April or the first of May)

He found the bailiff riding by the farm,
And, talking from the point, he drew him in,
And there he mellow'd all his heart with ale,
Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand.

'Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, Poor fellow, could he help it? recommenced,

And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle,
Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho,

Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt,

Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest,

Till, not to die a listener, I arose,

And with me Philip, talking still; and so
We turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun,
And following our own shadows thrice as long
As when they follow'd us from Philip's door,
Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content
Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;

I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome

Of Brunelleschi; sleeps in peace: and he,

Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words
Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb:

I scraped the lichen from it: Katie walks

By the long wash of Australasian seas

Far off, and holds her head to other stars,
And breathes in converse seasons. All are gone.'

So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a style

In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind.

Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook

A tonsured head in middle age forlorn,

Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath

Of tender air made tremble in the hedge
The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings;
And he look'd up. There stood a maiden near,

Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared
On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair

In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell

Divides threefold to show the fruit within:

Then, wondering, ask'd her 'Are you from the

farm?'

'Yes' answer'd she. Pray stay a little pardon

me;

What do they call you?' 'Katie.'

"That were

strange.

What surname?' 'Willows.' 'No!' 'That is

my name.'

'Indeed!' and here he look'd so self-perplext,

That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes,

Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream.

Then looking at her; "Too happy, fresh and fair, Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom,

To be the ghost of one who bore your name

About these meadows, twenty years ago.'

'Have you not heard?' said Katie,

back.

We bought the farm we tenanted before.
Am I so like her? so they said on board.
Sir, if you knew her in her English days,

My mother, as it seems you did, the days
That most she loves to talk of, come with me.
My brother James is in the harvest-field:

But she-you will be welcome-O, come in!'

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