After a while I find a blank succeed:

After a while she little has to say,

I'm silent too, although I wish to stay;
What would it be all day, day after day?

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Ah! but I ask, I do not doubt, too much;
I think of love as if it should be such
As to fulfil and occupy in whole

The naught-else-seeking, naught-essaying soul.
Therefore it is my mind with doubts I urge;

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Hence are these fears and shiverings on the verge;

By books, not nature, thus have we been schooled,
By poetry and novels been befooled;

Wiser tradition says, the affections' claim

Will be supplied, the rest will be the same.

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I think too much of love, 'tis true: I know

It is not all, was ne'er intended so;

Yet such a change, so entire, I feel, 'twould be,

So potent, so omnipotent with me;

My former self I never should recall,·

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Indeed I think it must be all in all."

"I thought that Love was winged; without a sound, His purple pinions bore him o'er the ground,

Wafted without an effort here or there,

He came
But panting, toiling, clambering up the hill,
Am I to assist him? I, put forth my will

and we too trod as if in air:

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To upbear his lagging footsteps, lame and slow,
And help him on and tell him where to go,

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And ease him of his quiver and his bow?"

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Erotion! I saw it in a book;

Why did I notice it, why did I look?
Yea, is it so, ye powers that see above?
I do not love, I want, I try to love!
This is not love, but lack of love instead!
Merciless thought! I would I had been dead,
Or e'er the phrase had come into my head."
She also wrote: and here may find a place,
Of her and of her thoughts some slender trace.

"He is not vain; if proud, he quells his pride,

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And somehow really likes to be defied;
Rejoices if you humble him: indeed

Gives way at once, and leaves you to succeed."

Easy it were with such a mind to play, And foolish not to do so, some would say; One almost smiles to look and see the way: But come what will, I will not play a part, Indeed, I dare not condescend to art."

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Easy 'twere not, perhaps, with him to live;
He looks for more than anyone can give :
So dulled at times and disappointed; still
Expecting what depends not of my will:
My inspiration comes not at my call,

Seek me as I am, if seek you do at all.”

Like him I do, and think of him I must; But more I dare not and I cannot trust.

This more he brings say, is it more or less
Than that no fruitage ever came to bless,
The old wild flower of love-in-idleness?"

Me when he leaves and others when he sees,
What is my fate who am not there to please?
Me he has left; already may have seen

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One, who for me forgotten here has been;

And he, the while is balancing between.

If the heart spoke, the heart I knew were bound;
What if it utter an uncertain sound?"

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So quick to vary, so rejoiced to change,
From this to that his feelings surely range;
His fancies wander, and his thoughts as well;
And if the heart be constant, who can tell?
Far off to fly, to abandon me, and go,
He seems returning then before I know:
With every accident he seems to move,
Is now below me and is now above,
Now far aside, — O, does he really love?”

"Absence were hard; yet let the trial be;
His nature's aim and purpose he would free,
And in the world his course of action see.
O should he lose, not learn; pervert his scope;

O should I lose! and yet to win I hope.

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I win not now; his way if now I went,
Brief joy I gave, for years of discontent."

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'Gone, is it true? but oft he went before, And came again before a month was o'er.

Gone — though I could not venture upon art,
It was perhaps a foolish pride in part;

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He had such ready fancies in his head,

And really was so easy to be led;

One might have failed; and yet I feel 'twas pride,
And can't but half repent I never tried.

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Gone, is it true? but he again will come,

Wandering he loves, and loves returning home."
Gone, it was true; nor came so soon again,
Came, after travelling, pleasure half, half pain,
Came, but a half of Europe first o'erran;
Arrived, his father found a ruined man.
Rich they had been, and rich was Emma too.
Heiress of wealth she knew not, Edmund knew.
Farewell to her! In a new home obscure,
Food for his helpless parents to secure,

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From early morning to advancing dark,

He toiled and labored as a merchant's clerk.

Three years his heavy load he bore, nor quailed,

Then all his health, though scarce his spirit, failed;

Friends interposed, insisted it must be,

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Enforced their help, and sent him to the sea.
Wandering about with little here to do,
His old thoughts mingling dimly with his new,
Wandering one morn, he met upon the shore,
Her, whom he quitted five long years before.

Alas! why quitted? Say that charms are, naught,
Nor grace, nor beauty worth one serious thought;
Was there no mystic virtue in the sense
That joined your boyish girlish innocence?

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Is constancy a thing to throw away,

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And loving faithfulness a chance of every day?
Alas! why quitted? is she changed? but now
The weight of intellect is in her brow;

Changed, or but truer seen, one sees in her

Something to wake the soul, the interior sense to stir.

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Alone they met, from alien eyes away,

The high shore hid them in a tiny bay.
Alone was he, was she; in sweet surprise

They met, before they knew it, in their eyes.
In his a wondering admiration glowed,
In hers, a world of tenderness o'erflowed;
In a brief moment all was known and seen,
That of slow years the wearying work had been:
Morn's early odorous breath perchance in sooth,
Awoke the old natural feeling of their youth:
The sea, perchance, and solitude had charms,
They met I know not-in each other's arms.
Why linger now - why waste the sands of life?
A few sweet weeks, and they were man and wife.
To his old frailty do not be severe,

His latest theory with patience hear:
"I sought not, truly would to seek disdain,
A kind, soft pillow for a wearying pain,
Fatigues and cares to lighten, to relieve;
But love is fellow-service, I believe."
"No, truly no, it was not to obtain,
Though that alone were happiness, were gain,
A tender breast to fall upon and weep,

A heart, the secrets of my heart to keep;

To share my hopes, and in my griefs to grieve;
Yet love is fellow-service, I believe."

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Yet in the eye of life's all-seeing sun
We shall behold a something we have done,
Shall of the work together we have wrought,
Beyond our aspiration and our thought,
Some not unworthy issue yet receive;
For love is fellow-service, I believe."

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY.

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!

No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,

Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,

Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head;

But when the fields are still,

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And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,

And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd green,

ΙΟ

Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!

Here, where the reaper was at work of late

In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use
Here will I sit and wait,

While to my ear from uplands far away

The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, With distant cries of reapers in the corn All the live murmur of a summer's day.

Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field,
And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be.

Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep;

And air-swept lindens yield

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