Would quarrel with our lot; Thy care is, under polish'd tins, To serve the hot-and-hot ;

To come and go, and come again,
Returning like the pewit,
And watch'd by silent gentlemen,
That trifle with the cruet.

A song that pleased us from its worth;
No public life was is on earth,
No blazon'd statesma he, nor king.

He gave the people of his best:
His worst he kept his best he gave.
My Shakespeare's curse on clown and
knave

Who will not let his ashes rest!

Who make it seem more sweet to be

The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tro,

Than he that warbles long and loud And drops at Glory's temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before theowd!

TO E. L., OF HIS TRAVELS IN
GREECE.

ILLYRIAN Woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,

With such a pencil, such a pen, You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there :

And trust me while I turn'd the page,
And track'd you still on classic ground,
I grew in gladness till I found
My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour'd
And glisten'd-here and there alone
The broad-limb'd Gods at random
thrown
By fountain-urns; and Naiads oar'd

A glimmering shoulder under gloom Of cavern pillars; on the swell The silver lily heaved and fell; And many a slope was rich in bloom

From him that on the mountain lea

By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea.

"As God's above," said Alice the nurse, "I speak the truth: you are my child.

"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;

I speak the truth, as I live by bread! I buried her like my own sweet child, And put my child in her stead."

"Falsely, falsely have ye done,

O mother," she said, "if this be true, To keep the best man under the sun So many years from his due.'

“Nay now, my child," said Alice the

nurse,

"But keep the secret for your life, And all you have will be Lord Ronald's, When you are man and wife."

"If I'm a beggar born," she said,

"I will speak out, for I dare not lie. Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold,

And fling the diamond necklace by."

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the

nurse,

"But keep the secret all ye can." She said, "Not so: but I will know If there be any faith in man."

"Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the

nurse,

"The man will cleave unto his right." "And he shall have it," the lady replied, "Tho' I should die to-night."

"Yet give one kiss to your mother dear! Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee." "O mother, mother, mother," she said, "So strange it seems to me.

"Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, My mother dear, if this be so, And lay your hand upon my head,,

And bless me, mother, ere I go."

She clad herself in a russet gown,

She was no longer Lady Clare: She went by dale, and she went by down, With a single rose in her hair.

The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought

Leapt up from where she lay,
Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,
And follow'd her all the way.

Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:

"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth! Why come you drest like a village maid, That are the flower of the earth?"

"If I come drest like a village maid,
I am but as my fortunes are:
I am a beggar born," she said,
"And not the Lady Clare."

"Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, • For 1 am yours in word and in deed. Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 66 Your riddle is hard to read."

O and proudly stood she up!

Her heart within her did not fail: She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, And told him all her nurse's tale.

He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn: He turn'd and kiss'd her where she stood:

"If you are not the heiress born,

And I," said he, "the next in blood

THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. IN her ear he whispers gayly,

"If my heart by signs can tell, Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily,

And I think thou lov'st me well." She replies, in accents fainter,

"There is none I love like thee." He is but a landscape-painter, And a village maiden she. He to lips, that fondly falter,

Presses his without reproof: Leads her to the village altar,

And they leave her father's roof. "I can make no marriage present: Little can I give my wife. Love will make our cottage pleasant, And I love thee more than life." They by parks and lodges going

See the lordly castles stand: Summer woods, about them blowing, Made a murmur in the land. From deep thought himself he rouses, Says to her that loves him well, "Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell."

So she goes by him attended,

Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid

;

Lay betwixt his home and hers
Parks with oak and chestnut shady,
Parks and order'd gardens great,
Ancient homes of lord and lady,

Built for pleasure and for state.
All he shows her makes him dearer:
Evermore she seems to gaze
On that cot age growing nearer,

Where they twain will spend their
days.

O but she will love him truly!

He shall have a cheerful home;
She will order all things duly,
When beneath his roof they come.
Thus her heart rejoices greatly,
Till a gateway she discerns
With armorial bearings stately,
And beneath the gate she turns;
Sees a mansion more majestic

Than all those she saw before:
Many a gallant gay domestic

Bows before him at the door.
And they speak in gentle murmur,
When they answer to his call,
While he treads with footstep firmer,
Leading on from hall to hall.
And, while now she wonders blindly,
Nor the meaning can divine,
Proudly turns he round and kindly,
"All of this is mine and thine.'
Here he lives in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,
Not a lord in all the county

Is so great a lord as he.
All at once the color flushes

Her sweet face from brow to chin: As it were with shame she blushes,

And her spirit changed within. Then her countenance all over

Pale again as death did prove : But he clasp'd her like a lover,

And he cheer'd her soul with love. So she strove against her weakness, Tho' at times her spirit sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meekness To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he,

And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady,

And the people loved her much. But a trouble weigh'd upon her, And perplex'd her, night and morn, With the burden of an honor

Unto which she was not born.

Faint she grew, and ever fainter,

And she murmur'd, "O, that he Were once more that landscape-painter, Which did win my heart from me!' So she droop'd and droop'd before him, Fading slowly from his side :

Three fair children first she bore him, Then before her time she died. Weeping, weeping late and early, Walking up and pacing down, Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. And he came to look upon her,

And he look'd at her and said,
"Bring the dress and put it on her,
That she wore when she was wed."
Then her people, softly treading,

Bore to earth her body, drest
In the dress that she was wed in,
That her spirit might have rest.

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN

GUINEVERE.

A FRAGMENT.

LIKE Souls that balance joy and pain, With tears and smiles from heaven again The maiden Spring upon the plain Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elmtree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.
Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring:
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,

In mosses mixt with violet
Her cream-white mule his pastern set:
And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,
When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

A FAREWELL.

FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,

For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, A rivulet then a river:

No where by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree, And here thine aspen shiver; And here by thee will hum the bee,

For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee, A thousand moons will quiver; But not by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever.

THE BEGGAR MAID.

HER arms across her breast she laid; She was more fair than words can say: Bare-footed came the beggar maid

Before the king Cophetua.

In robe and crown the king stept down, To meet and greet her on her way; "It is no wonder," said the lords,

"She is more beautiful than day."

As shines the moon in clouded skies,
She in her poor attire was seen :
One praised her ankles, one her eyes,
One her dark hair and lovesome mien.

I HAD a vision when the night was late: A youth came riding toward a palace-gate. He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,

But that his heavy rider kept him down. And from the palace came a child of sin, And took him by the curls, and led him in, Where sat a company with heated eyes, Expecting when a fountain should arise: A sleepy light upon their brows and lipsAs when the sun, a crescent of eclipse, Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes

Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,

By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes.

II.

Then methought I heard a mellow sound, Gathering up from all the lower ground ; Narrowing in to where they sat assembled Low voluptuous music winding trembled, Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sigh'd,

Panted hand in hand with faces pale, Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;

Till the fountain spouted, showering wide Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail; Then the music touch'd the gates and died;

Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale; Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,

As 't were a hundred-throated nightingale,

The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpitated;

Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles,
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round:
Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,