Were living nerves to feel the rent; and burnt,
Now chafing at his own great self defied,
Now striking on huge stumbling-blocks of scorn
In babyisms, and dear diminutives

Scatter'd all over the vocabulary

Of such a love as like a chidden babe,
After much wailing, hush'd itself at last
Hopeless of answer: then tho' Averill wrote
And bade him with good heart sustain himself-
All would be well- the lover heeded not,
But passionately restless came and went,
And rustling once at night about the place,
There by a keeper shot at, slightly hurt,
Raging return'd: nor was it well for her
Kept to the garden now, and grove of pines,
Watch'd even there; and one was set to watch
The watcher, and Sir Aylmer watch'd them all,
Yet bitterer from his readings: once indeed,
Warm'd with his wines, or taking pride in her,
She look'd so sweet, he kiss'd her tenderly
Not knowing what possess'd him: that one kiss
Was Leolin's one strong rival upon earth;
Seconded, for my lady follow'd suit,

Seem'd hope's returning rose: and then ensued
A Martin's summer of his faded love,
Or ordeal by kindness; after this

He seldom crost his child without a sneer;
The mother flow'd in shallower acrimonies:
Never one kindly smile, one kindly word:
So that the gentle creature shut from all
Her charitable use, and face to face
With twenty months of silence, slowly lost
Nor greatly cared to lose, her hold on life.
Last, some low fever ranging round to spy
The weakness of a people or a house,
Like flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or men,
Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt —

Save Christ as we believe him—found the girl

And flung her down upon a couch of fire,
Where careless of the household faces near,
And crying upon the name of Leolin,

She, and with her the race of Aylmer, past.

Star to star vibrates light; may soul to soul Strike thro' a finer element of her own? So,from afar, — touch as at once? or why That night, that moment, when she named his name, Did the keen shriek 'yes love, yes Edith, yes,' Shrill, till the comrade of his chambers woke, And came upon him half-arisen from sleep, With a weird bright eye, sweating and trembling, His hair as it were crackling into flames, His body half flung forward in pursuit, And his long arms stretch'd as to grasp a flyer: Nor knew he wherefore he had made the cry; And being much befool'd and idioted By the rough amity of the other, sank As into sleep again. The second day, My lady's Indian kinsman rushing in, A breaker of the bitter news from home, Found a dead man, a letter edged with death Beside him, and the dagger which himself Gave Edith, redden'd with no bandit's blood: 'From Edith' was engraven on the blade.

Then Averill went and gazed upon his death. And when he came again, his flock believed Beholding how the years which are not Time's Had blasted him that many thousand days Were clipt by horror from his term of life. Yet the sad mother, for the second death Scarce touch'd her thro' that nearness of the first, And being used to find her pastor texts, Sent to the harrow'd brother, praying him To speak before the people of her child, And fixt the Sabbath. Darkly that day rose :

Autumn's mock sunshine of the faded woods
Was all the life of it; for hard on these,
A breathless burthen of low-folded heavens
Stifled and chill'd at once: but every roof
Sent out a listener: many too had known
Edith among the hamlets round, and since
The parents' harshness and the hapless loves
And double death were widely murmur'd, left
Their own gray tower, or plain-faced tabernacle,
To hear him; all in mourning these, and those
With blots of it about them, ribbon, glove
Or kerchief; while the church, - one night, except
For greenish glimmerings thro' the lancets, -made
Still paler the pale head of him, who tower'd
Above them, with his hopes in either grave.

Long o'er his bent brows linger'd Averill, His face magnetic to the hand from which Livid he pluck'd it forth, and labor'd thro' His brief prayer-prelude, gave the verse 'Behold, Your house is left unto you desolate!' But lapsed into so long a pause again As half amazed half frighted all his flock: Then from his height and loneliness of grief Bore down in flood, and dash'd his angry heart Against the desolations of the world.

Never since our bad earth became one sea,
Which rolling o'er the palaces of the proud,
And all but those who knew the living God-
Eight that were left to make a purer world-
When since had flood, fire, earthquake, thunder,
wrought

Such waste and havoc as the idolatries,
Which from the low light of mortality

Shot up their shadows to the Heaven of Heavens, And worshipt their own darkness as the Highest? 'Gash thyself, priest, and honor thy brute Baäl,

For with thy worst self hast thou clothed thy God.' Then came a Lord in no wise like to Baäl.

The babe shall lead the lion.

Surely now The wilderness shall blossom as the rose.

Crown thyself, worm, and worship thine own lusts!

No coarse and blockish God of acreage
Stands at thy gate for thee to grovel to
Thy God is far diffused in noble groves

And princely halls, and farms, and flowing lawns,
And heaps of living gold that daily grow,
And title-scrolls and gorgeous heraldries.
In such a shape dost thou behold thy God.
Thou wilt not gash thy flesh for him; for thine
Fares richly, in fine linen, not a hair
Ruffled upon the scarfskin, even while
The deathless ruler of thy dying house
Is wounded to the death that cannot die;
And tho' thou numberest with the followers
Of One who cried 'leave all and follow me.'
Thee therefore with His light about thy feet,
Thee with His message ringing in thine ears,
Thee shall thy brother man, the Lord from Heaven,
Born of a village girl, carpenter's son,
Wonderful, Prince of peace, the Mighty God,
Count the more base idolater of the two;
Crueller: as not passing thro' the fire

Bodies, but souls-thy children's-thro' the smoke,

The blight of low desires

To thine own likeness; or if one of these,

Thy better born unhappily from thee,

Should, as by miracle, grow straight and fair-
Friends, I was bid to speak of such a one

By those who most have cause to sorrow for her-
Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well,
Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn,
Fair as the Angel that said 'hail' she seem'd,

Who entering fill'd the house with sudden light. For so mine own was brighten'd: where indeed The roof so lowly but that beam of Heaven Dawn'd sometime thro' the doorway? whose the babe

Too ragged to be fondled on her lap,

Warm'd at her bosom? The poor child of shame,
The common care whom no one cared for, leapt
To greet her, wasting his forgotten heart,
As with the mother he had never known,
In gambols; for her fresh and innocent eyes
Had such a star of morning in their blue,
That all neglected places of the field
Broke into nature's music when they saw her.
Low was her voice, but won mysterious way
Thro' the seal'd ear to which a louder one
Was all but silence free of alms her hand-
The hand that robed your cottage-walls with flowers
Has often toil'd to clothe your little ones;
How often placed upon the sick man's brow
Cool'd it, or laid his feverous pillow smooth!
Had you one sorrow and she shared it not?
One burthen and she would not lighten it?
One spiritual doubt she did not soothe ?

Or when some heat of difference sparkled out,
How sweetly would she glide between your wraths
And steal you from each other! for she walk'd
Wearing the light yoke of that Lord of love,
Who still❜d the rolling wave of Galilee!
And one of him I was not bid to speak
Was always with her, whom you also knew.
Him too you loved, for he was worthy love.
And these had been together from the first;
They might have been together till the last.
Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely tried,
May wreck itself without the pilot's guilt,
Without the captain's knowledge: hope with me.
Whose shame is that, if he went hence with shame?