LOCKSLEY HALL.

303 Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing Every gate is thronged with suitors; all the to his drunken sleep, markets overflow. To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the I have but an angry fancy: what is that tears that thou wilt weep. which I should do?

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whis- I had been content to perish, falling on the pered by the phantom years, foeman's ground,

And a song from out the distance in the ring-When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the ing of thine ears; winds are laid with sound.

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt kindness on thy pain. that honor feels,

Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee And the nations do but murmur, snarling at to thy rest again. each other's heels.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that tender voice will cry; earlier page.

'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wonthy trouble dry. drous Mother-Age!

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt rival brings thee restbefore the strife,

Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from When I heard my days before me, and the the mother's breast. tumult of my life;

O, the child, too, clothes the father with a Yearning for the large excitement that the dearness not his due; coming years would yield-

Half is thine, and half is his-it will be Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves worthy of the two. his father's field,

O, I see thee, old and formal, fitted to thy pet- And at night along the dusky highway near ty part, and nearer drawn, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down Sees in heaven the light of London flaring a daughter's heart: like a dreary dawn;

"They were dangerous guides the feelings And his spirit leaps within him to be gone she herself was not exemptbefore him then,

Truly, she herself had suffered."-Perish in Underneath the light he looks at, in among thy self-contempt!

the throngs of men-

Overlive it lower yet-be happy! wherefore Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever should I care? reaping something new:

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither That which they have done but earnest of the by despair. things that they shall do;

What is that which I should turn to, lighting For I dipt into the future, far as human eye upon days like these? could see

Every door is barred with gold, and opens Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be

but to golden keys.

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies | Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers; and I

of magic sails,

linger on the shore,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down And the individual withers, and the world is with costly bales-

more and more.

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and there rained a ghastly dew he bears a laden breast,

From the nations' airy navies grappling in Full of sad experience moving toward the the central blue; stillness of his rest.

Far along the world-wide whisper of the Hark! my merry comrades call me, sounding south-wind rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples plunging

through the thunder-storm;

on the bugle horn

They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn;

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a the battle-flags were furled

mouldered string?

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of I am shamed through all my nature to have the world. loved so slight a thing.

There the common sense of most shall hold a Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain

fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in Nature made them blinder motions bounded universal law. in a shallower brain;

So I triumphed, ere my passion sweeping Woman is the lesser man, and all thy pasthrough me,left me dry, sions, matched with mine,

Left me with the palsied heart, and left me Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water with the jaundiced eye

unto wine

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here Here at least, where Nature sickens, nothing. are out of joint. Ah, for some retreat Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life on from point to point;

began to beat!

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father, evil-starred;

creeping nigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish slowly-dying fire. uncle's ward.

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increas- Or to burst all links of habit-there to waning purpose runs, der far away, And the thoughts of men are widened with On from island unto island at the gateways the process of the suns. of the day

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of Larger constellations burning, mellow moons his youthful joys, and happy skies,

Though the deep heart of existence beat for Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster,

ever like a boy's?

knots of Paradise.

ORPHEUS TO BEASTS.

Never comes the trader, never floats an Eu- Through the shadow of the globe we sweep ropean flaginto the younger day: Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, droops Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of

Not with blinded eyesight poring over mis- Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail,