That tremble round a nightingale-in sighs
Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance,
Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell
Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given,

And

Vows, where there was never need of vows, And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars ; Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit, Spread the light haze along the river-shores, And in the hollows; or as once we met Unheedful, though beneath a whispering rain Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind, And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep.

But this whole hour your eyes have been intent On that veil'd picture-veil'd, for what it holds May not be dwelt on by the common day.

This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul; Make thine heart ready with thine eyes: the time Is come to raise the veil.

Behold her there,

As I beheld her ere she knew my heart,
My first, last love; the idol of my youth,
The darling of my manhood, and, alas!

Now the most blessed memory of mine age.

Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach'd
The griffin-guarded gates, and pass'd thro' all
The pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores,
And cross'd 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 yokes
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 talk'd 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 touch'd upon the game, how scarce it was
This season; glancing thence, discuss'd 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 laugh'd aloud;

And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung

To hear him, clapp'd his hand in mine and sang— "Oh! who would fight and march and countermarch, Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,

And shovell'd up into a bloody trench

Where no one knows? but let me live my life.

"Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk, Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd 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.

"Oh! who would love? I woo'd a woman once,

But she was sharper than an eastern wind,

And all my heart turn'd 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,

Knock'd 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 this

I 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.
66 Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm,
Emilia, fairer than all else but thou,

For thou art fairer than all else that is.

66

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,

Did what I would; but ere the night we rose
And saunter'd home beneath a moon, that, just