Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell Divides three-fold 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.' strange. What surname?' my name.' That were • Willows.' "No!'- • That is 'Indeed!' and here he look'd so self-perplext, That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he 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, 'we came 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 My brother James is in the harvest-field : But she you will be welcome - O, come in!' THE LETTERS. 1. STILL on the tower stood the vane, A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air, I peer'd athwart the chancel pane And saw the altar cold and bare. A clog of lead was round my feet, 'Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet Before you hear my marriage vow.' 2. I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song That mock'd the wholesome human heart, And then we met in wrath and wrong, We met, but only meant to part. Full cold my greeting was and dry; She faintly smiled, she hardly moved ; I saw with half-unconscious eye She wore the colors I approved. 3. She took the little ivory chest, With half a sigh she turn'd the key, Then raised her head with lips comprest, And gave the trinkets and the rings, My gifts, when gifts of mine could please ; As looks a father on the things Of his dead son, I look'd on these. |