Nor mine the fault, if losing both of these
I cry to vacant chairs and widow'd walls,
My house is left unto me desolate."

66

While thus he spoke, his hearers wept; but some, Sons of the glebe, with other frowns than those That knit themselves for summer shadow, scowl'd At their great lord. He, when it seem'd he saw No pale sheet-lightnings from afar, but fork'd Of the near storm, and aiming at his head, Sat anger-charm'd from sorrow, soldierlike, Erect: but when the preacher's cadence flow'd Softening thro' all the gentle attributes

Of his lost child, the wife, who watch'd his face, Paled at a sudden twitch of his iron mouth; And O pray God that he hold up' she thought 'Or surely I shall shame myself and him.'

'Nor yours the blame for who beside your

hearths

Can take her place if echoing me you cry
"Our house is left unto us desolate ?"

But thou, O thou that killest, hadst thou known,
O thou that stonest, hadst thou understood
The things belonging to thy peace and ours!
Is there no prophet but the voice that calls
Doom upon kings, or in the waste' Repent'?
Is not our own child on the narrow way,
Who down to those that saunter in the broad
Cries come up hither,' as a prophet to us?
Is there no stoning save with flint and rock?
Yes, as the dead we weep for testify -
No desolation but by sword and fire?
Yes, as your moanings witness, and myself
Am lonelier, darker, earthlier for my loss.
Give me your prayers, for he is past your prayers,
Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven.
But I that thought myself long-suffering, meek,

Exceeding "poor in spirit".

how the words

Have twisted back upon themselves, and mean Vileness, we are grown so proud-I wish'd my

voice

A rushing tempest of the wrath of God
To blow these sacrifices thro' the world-
Sent like the twelve-divided concubine
To inflame the tribes: but there

earth

Lightens from her own central Hell
The red fruit of an old idolatry -

out yonder

The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast,
They cling together in the ghastly sack
The land all shambles-naked marriages
Flash from the bridge, and ever-murder'd France,
By shores that darken with the gathering wolf,
Runs in a river of blood to the sick sea.

Is this a time to madden madness then ?
Was this a time for these to flaunt their pride ?
May Pharaoh's darkness, folds as dense as those
Which hid the Holiest from the people's eyes
Ere the great death, shroud this great sin from all:
Doubtless our narrow world must canvass it:
O rather pray for those and pity them,

Who thro' their own desire accomplish'd bring
Their own gray hairs with sorrow to the grave
Who broke the bond which they desired to break,
Which else had link'd their race with times to

Who wove coarse webs to snare her purity,
Grossly contriving their dear daughter's good
Poor souls, and knew not what they did, but sat
Ignorant, devising their own daughter's death!
May not that earthly chastisement suffice?
Have not our love and reverence left them bare?
Will not another take their heritage ?

Will there be children's laughter in their hall
For ever and for ever, or one stone

Left on another, or is it a light thing

That I their guest, their host, their ancient friend,
I made by these the last of all my race
Must cry to these the last of theirs, as cried
Christ ere His agony to those that swore
Not by the temple but the gold, and made
Their own traditions God, and slew the Lord,
And left their memories a world's curse "Behold,
Your house is left unto you desolate ?""

Ended he had not, but she brook'd no more:
Long since her heart had beat remorselessly,
Her crampt-up sorrow pain'd her, and a sense
Of meanness in her unresisting life.

Then their eyes vext her; for on entering
He had cast the curtains of their seat aside
Black velvet of the costliest she herself

Had seen to that: fain had she closed them now,
Yet dared not stir to do it, only near'd
Her husband inch by inch, but when she laid,
Wifelike, her hand in one of his, he veil'd
His face with the other, and at once, as falls
A creeper when the prop is broken, fell
The woman shrieking at his feet, and swoon'd.
Then her own people bore along the nave
Her pendent hands, and narrow meagre face
Seam'd with the shallow cares of fifty years:
And her the Lord of all the landscape round
Ev'n to its last horizon, and of all

Who peer'd at him so keenly, follow'd out
Tall and erect, but in the middle aisle
Reel'd, as a footsore ox in crowded ways
Stumbling across the market to his death,
Unpitied; for he groped as blind, and seem'd
Always about to fall, grasping the pews
And oaken finials till he touch'd the door;
Yet to the lychgate, where his chariot stood,
Strode from the porch, tall and erect again.

But nevermore did either pass the gate
Save under pall with bearers. In one month,
Thro' weary and yet ever wearier hours,
The childless mother went to seek her child;
And when he felt the silence of his house
About him, and the change and not the change,
And those fixt eyes of painted ancestors
Staring for ever from their gilded walls
On him their last descendant, his own head
Began to droop, to fall; the man became
Imbecile; his one word was 'desolate ';
Dead for two years before his death was he;
But when the second Christmas came, escaped
His keepers, and the silence which he felt,
To find a deeper in the narrow gloom
By wife and child; nor wanted at his end
The dark retinue reverencing death

At golden thresholds; nor from tender hearts,
And those who sorrow'd o'er a vanish'd race,
Pity, the violet on the tyrant's grave.

Then the great Hall was wholly broken down,
And the broad woodland parcell'd into farms;
And where the two contrived their daughter's good,
Lies the hawk's cast, the mole has made his run,
The hedgehog underneath the plaintain bores,
The rabbit fondles his own harmless face,
The slow-worm creeps, and the thin weasel there
Follows the mouse, and all is open field.

NORTHERN FARMER.

OLD STYLE.

I.

WHEER 'asta beän saw long and meä liggin' 'ere aloän?

Noorse ? thoort nowt o' a noorse: whoy, doctor's abeän an' agoän:

Says that I moänt 'a naw moor yaäle: but I beänt a fool:

Git ma my yaäle, for I beänt a-gooin' to break my rule.

II.

Doctors, they knaws nowt, for a says what's nawways true:

Naw soort o' koind o' use to saäy the things that a do.

I've 'ed my point o' yaäle ivry noight sin' I beän

'ere,

An' I've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year.

III.

Parson's a beän loikewoise, an' a sittin 'ere o' my bed.

‹ The amoighty's a taäkin o' you to ’issen, my friend,' 'a said,