* And all things work together for the good wife; 6. With all his conscience and one eye askew! Love, let me quote these lines, that you may learn A man is likewise counsel for himself, Too often, in that silent court of yours • With all his conscience and one eye askew, So false, he partly took himself for true; Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry, Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye ; Who, never naming God except for gain, So never took that useful name in vain ; Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool, And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool; Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged, comes 6 And snakelike slimed his victim ere he gorged ; “ Nay,” she said, “I loathe it; he had never kindly heart, or ever cared to better his own kind, Then she told it, having dream'd Of that same coast. a But round the North, a light, A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapour, lay, And ever in it a low musical note Swelld up and died; and, as it swell’d, a ridge Of breaker issued from the belt, and still Grew with the growing note, and when the note Had reach'd a thunderous fulness, on those cliffs Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as that Living within the belt) whereby she saw That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no more, But huge cathedral fronts of every age, Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see, One after one: and then the great ridge drew, Lessening to the lessening music, back, And past into the belt and swellid again Slowly to music: ever when it broke The statues, king or saint, or founder fell; Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left Came men and women in dark clusters round, Some crying, “ Set them up! they shall not fall!" And others “ Let them lie, for they have fall’n ” And still they strove and wrangled : and she grieved “ Then I fixt dreams ? Yours came but from the breaking of a glass, And mine but from the crying of a child.” “ Child? No!” said he, “but this tide's roar, and his, Our Boanerges with his threats of doom, And loud-lung'd Antibabylonianisms (Altho' I grant but little music there) Went both to make your dream : but if there were A music harmonizing our wild cries, Sphere-music such as that you dream'd about, Why, that would make our passions far too like The discords dear to the musician. No One shriek of hate would jar all the hymns of heaven: True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune With nothing but the Devil I” 66. True' indeed! One of our town, but later by an hour news. Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore; you knew. We must forgive the dead.” “ Dead! who is dead ?” “ The man your eye pursued. A little after you had parted with him, He suddenly dropt dead of heart-disease.” “ Dead ? he ? of heart-disease ? what heart had be To die of ? dead I” “Ah, dearest, if there be A devil in man, there is an angel too, And if he did that wrong you charge him with, His angel broke his heart. But your rough voice (You spoke so loud) has roused the child again. Sleep, little birdie, sleep! will she not sleep Without her little birdie ?' well then, sleep, And I will sing you · birdie.'” Saying this, The woman half turn'd round from him she loved, Left him one hand, and reaching thro' the night Her other, found (for it was close beside) And half embraced the basket cradle-head With one soft arm, which, like the pliant bough Thiat moving moves the nest and nestling, sway's The cradle, while she sang this baby song. ورو What does little birdie say VOL. II. 13 Birdie, rest a little longer, Baby too shall fly away. Then the man, “ Thanks, my love,” she said, “ Your own will be the sweeter," and they slept. TITHONUS. THE woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, |