Of city life! I was a sketcher then :
See here, my doing: curves of mountain,
bridge,

Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built

And three rich sennights more, my love
for her.

My love for Nature and my love for her,
Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew,

When men knew how to build, upon a Twin-sisters differently beautiful.

rock

To some full music rose and sank the sun,

With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock :
And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, And some full music seem'd to move and
New-comers from the Mersey, million-

aires,

change

With all the varied changes of the dark,

Here lived the Hills-a Tudor-chimnied And either twilight and the day between ; For daily hope fulfill'd, to rise again

bulk

sweet

Of mellow brickwork on an isle of Revolving toward fulfilment, made it
bowers.
O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to
With Edwin Morris and with Edward

Bull

The curate; he was fatter than his cure.

But Edwin Morris, he that knew the

names,

Long learned names of agaric, moss and fern,

Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks,

breathe.'

Or this or something like to this he
spoke.

Then said the fat-faced curate Edward
Bull,

'I take it, God made the woman for
the man,

And for the good and increase of the world.

A pretty face is well, and this is well,

Who taught me how to skate, to row, to To have a dame indoors, that trims us

94

EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE.

What should one give to light on such a But you can talk : yours is a kindly vein : I have, I think,-Heaven knows-as

dream?'

I ask'd him half-sardonically.

'Give?

Give all thou art,' he answer'd, and a

light

much within;

Have, or should have, but for a thought or two,

That like a purple beech among the greens Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy Looks out of place: 'tis from no want in

cheek;

her:

'I would have hid her needle in my It is my shyness, or my self-distrust,

The experience of the wise. I went and Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward

came;

Bull:

Her voice fled always thro' the summer God make the woman for the use of man, And for the good and increase of the world.'

land;

I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days!

The flower of each, those moments when we met,

And I and Edwin laugh'd; and now we

paused

About the windings of the marge to hear The crown of all, we met to part no The soft wind blowing over meadowy

more.'

Were not his words delicious, I a beast

holms

And alders, garden-isles; and now we left

The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran

To take them as I did? but something By ripply shallows of the lisping lake,

My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him

That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk,

'Friend Edwin, do not think yourself The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles.

alone

Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me,
As in the Latin song I learnt at school,
Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and
left?

'Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no

more :

She sent a note, the seal an Elle vous suit, The close Your Letty, only yours ;' and this

Thrice underscored. The friendly mist There came a mystic token from the king

of morn

To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy !
I read, and fled by night, and flying
turn'd:

Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with beating heart Her taper glimmer'd in the lake below : The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving I turn'd once more, close-button'd to the keel; And out I stept, and up I crept : she So left the place, left Edwin, nor have moved, Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared

flowers :

Then low and sweet I whistled thrice;

and she,

She turn'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, I breathed

In some new planet: a silent cousin stole Upon us and departed: 'Leave,' she cried,

'O leave me!' 'Never, dearest, never:

here

storm;

seen

to hear.

Nor cared to hear? perhaps : yet long

ago

I have pardon'd little Letty; not indeed,
It may be, for her own dear sake but this,
She seems a part of those fresh days to

me;

For in the dust and drouth of London life
She moves among my visions of the lake,

I brave the worst:' and while we stood While the prime swallow dips his wing,

like fools

Embracing, all at once a score of pugs
And poodles yell'd within, and out they

came

Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. What,

with him!

Go' (shrill'd the cotton-spinning chorus); 'him!'

I choked.

or then

While the gold-lily blows, and overhead
The light cloud smoulders on the summer

crag.

ST. SIMEON STYLITES.

ALTHO' I be the basest of mankind,

Again they shriek'd the From scalp to sole one slough and crust burthen-Him!'

Again with hands of wild rejection 'Go!

Girl, get you in!' She went-and in one month

of sin,

Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce

meet

For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, They wedded her to sixty thousand I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold

This not be all in vain, that thrice ten I hope my end draws nigh: half deaf I

Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry, And I had hoped that ere this period While my stiff spine can hold my weary

Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy Tiil all my limbs drop piecemeal from

Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to For either they were stoned, or crucified, Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn

Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that In twain beneath the ribs ; but I die here To-day, and whole years long, a life of

Would chatter with the cold, and all my Not this alone I bore: but while I lived In the white convent down the valley

And yet I know not well,

Betray'd my secret penance, so that all
My brethren marvell'd greatly. More For that the evil ones come here, and say,

than this

I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all.
Three winters, that my soul might
grow to thee,

I lived up there on yonder mountain side.
My right leg chain'd into the crag, I lay
Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones;
Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist,
and twice

Black'd with thy branding thunder, and

sometimes

Sucking the damps for drink, and eating

not,

Except the spare chance-gift of those that

came

Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast suffer'd

long

For ages and for ages!' then they prate
Of penances I cannot have gone thro',
Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall,
Maybe for months, in such blind lethar-
gies,

That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are
choked.
But yet

Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints

Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth

House in the shade of comfortable roofs, To touch my body and be heal'd, and Sit with their wives by fires, eat whole

some food,

live: And they say then that I work'd miracles, And wear warm clothes, and even beasts Whereof my fame is loud amongst man

have stalls,

I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light,

Bow down one thousand and two hundred
times,

To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the
Saints;

Or in the night, after a little sleep,

I wake the chill stars sparkle; I am wet With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost.

And twice three years I crouch'd on one I wear an undress'd goatskin on my

Twenty by measure; last of all, I grew | A grazing iron collar grinds my neck;
Twice ten long weary weary years to this, And in my weak, lean arms I lift the
That numbers forty cubits from the soil.
I think that I have borne as much as
this-

Or else I dream-and for so long a time,
If I may measure time by yon slow light,
And this high dial, which my sorrow

crowns

So much-even so.

cross,

And strive and wrestle with thee till I die :
O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin.

O Lord, thou knowest what a man I

am;

A sinful man, conceived and born in sin : 'Tis their own doing; this is none of mine;

H