And rounded by the stillness of the beach To where the bay runs up its latest horn. We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp'd

The flat red granite; so by many a sweep 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 yolks 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, clapt 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

And in the fallow leisure of my life
A rolling stone of here and everywhere,
Did what I would; but ere the night we

rose

And saunter'd home beneath a moon, that, just

In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd The limit of the hills; and as we sank From rock to 10ck upon the glooming quay,

The town was hush'd beneath us: lower down

The bay was oily calm; the harbor-buoy Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm, With one green sparkle ever and anon Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.

WALKING TO THE MAIL.

Delicto: but his house, for so they say, Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors,

And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd:

The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,

And all his household stuff; and with his boy

Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, "What!

You 're flitting!" "Yes, we're flitting," says the ghost,

(For they had pack'd the thing among the beds,)

"O well," says he, "you flitting with

Kind nature is the best: those manners

next

That fit us like a nature second-hand; Which are indeed the manners of the great.

John. But I had heard it was this bill that past,

And fear of change at home, that drove him hence.

James. That was the last drop in the cup of gall.

I once was near him, when his bailiff brought

A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince

As from a venomous thing: he thought himself

A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry

Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes

Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs

Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you know

That

these two parties still divide the

As one by one we took them this

As never sow was higher in this world Might have been happy: but what lot is pure?

We took them all, till she was left alone Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine, And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty. John. They found you out?

James.

John.

Not they. Well after allWhat know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong. What ails who are sound,

us,

That we should mimic this raw fool the world,

Which charts us all in its coarse blacks

EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE.

O ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake, My sweet, wild, fresh three quarters of a year,

My one Oasis in the dust and drouth

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

Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built When men knew how to build, upon a rock,

With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock : And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, New-comers from the Mersey, millionnaires,

Here lived the Hills-a Tudor-chimneyed bulk

Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.

O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake 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 read me rhymes elaborately good, His own - I call'd him Crichton, for he seem'd

All-perfect, finish'd to the finger nail.

And once I ask'd him of his early life, And his first passion; and he answer'd me; And well his words became him: was he not

A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.

"My love for Nature is as old as I ; But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that, 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,
Twin-sisters differently beautiful.
And some full music seem'd to move and
To some full music rose and sank the sun,

change

With all the varied changes of the dark,
And either twilight and the day between;
For daily hope fulfill'd, to rise again
Revolving toward fulfilment, made it
sweet
To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to

breathe."

"God made the woman for the use of man,

And for the good and increase of the world.'

And I and Edwin laugh'd; and now we paused

About the windings of the marge to hear The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms

And alders, garden-isles; and now we left The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran By ripply shallows of the lisping lake, Delighted with the freshness and the sound.

But, when the bracken rusted on their

crags, My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk, The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles. "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 of morn

Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with beating heart

The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel;

And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved, Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering 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