John. Well-after all What know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound, That we should mimic this raw fool the world, Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes As you shall see three pyebalds and a roan. EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. O ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake, Of city life! I was a sketcher then : See here, my doing curves of mountain, bridge, 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, EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks, His own-I call'd him Crichton, for he seem'd And once I ask'd him of his early life, 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, To some full music rose and sank the sun, And some full music seem'd to move and change Or this or something like to this he spoke. Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull, 231 '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, To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, I say, God made the woman for the man, 'Parson' said I 'you pitch the pipe too low : I scarce hear other music: yet say on. What should one give to light on such a dream?' I ask'd him half-sardonically. Give all thou art' he answer'd, and a light Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek; 'I would have hid her needle in my heart, To save her little finger from a scratch 'Give? No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear The flower of each, those moments when we met, The crown of all, we met to part no more.' Were not his words delicious, I a beast To take them as I did? but something jarr'd; Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem'd A touch of something false, some self-conceit, Or over-smoothness: howsoe'er it was, He scarcely hit my humour, and I said : 'Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone I have, I think,-Heaven knows—as much within ; So spoke I knowing not the things that were. |