And low on his body she droppeth adown"Didst call me thine own wife, beloved-thine own? Then take thine own with thee! thy coldness is warm To the world's cold without thee. Come, keep me from harm

In a calm of thy teaching !".

She looked in his face earnest-long, as in sooth

There were hope of an answer, and then kissed his mouth;

And, with head on his bosom, wept, wept bitterly,— 66 Now, O God, take pity—take pity on me!

God, hear my beseeching!"

She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay,
She was 'ware of a presence that withered the day :
Wild she sprang to her feet,-" I surrender to thee
The broken vow's pledge, the accursed rosary,—
I am ready for dying!"

She dashed it in scorn to the marble-paved ground
Where it fell mute as snow, and a weird music-sound
Crept up, like a chill, up the aisles long and dim,—
As the fiends tried to mock at the choristers' hymn
And moaned in the trying.

FOURTH PART.

ONORA looketh listlessly adown the garden walk :
"I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender talk.
I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro,
Of the steadfast skies above, the running brooks below.
All things are the same but I,—only I am dreary,
And, mother, of my dreariness behold me very weary.

“Mother, brother, pull the flowers I planted in the spring

And smiled to think I should smile more upon their

gathering:

The bees will find out other flowers-oh, pull them, dearest mine,

And carry them and carry me before St. Agnes' shrine !" -Whereat they pulled the summer flowers she planted in the spring,

And her and them all mournfully to Agnes' shrine did bring.

She looked up to the pictured saint and gently shook her

head

"The picture is too calm for me too calm for me," she said:

"The little flowers we brought with us, before it we may

lay,

For those are used to look at heaven,—but I must turn

away,

Because no sinner under sun can dare or bear to gaze On God's or angel's holiness, except in Jesu's face."

She spoke with passion after pause_" And were it wisely

done

If we who cannot gaze above, should walk the earth

alone?

If we whose virtue is so weak should have a will so

strong,

And stand blind on the rocks to choose the right path from the wrong?

"To choose perhaps a lovelit hearth, instead of love and heaven,

A single rose, for a rose-tree which beareth seven times

seven?

A rose that droppeth from the hand, that fadeth in the breast,

Until, in grieving for the worst, we learn what is the best!"

Then breaking into tears,-" Dear God," she cried, "and must we see

All blissful things depart from us or e'er we go to THEE? We cannot guess Thee in the wood or hear Thee in the

wind?

Our cedars must fall round us ere we see the light behind?

Ay sooth, we feel too strong, in weal, to need Thee on that road,

But woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on 'God.'"

Her mother could not speak for tears; she ever musëd

thus,

"The bees will find out other flowers,—but what is left for us?"

But her young brother stayed his sobs and knelt beside her knee,

"Thou sweetest sister in the world, hast never a word for me?"

She passed her hand across his face, she pressed it on his cheek,

So tenderly, so tenderly—she needed not to speak.

The wreath which lay on shrine that day, at vespers bloomed no more.

The woman fair who placed it there, had died an hour before.

Both perished mute for lack of root, earth's nourishment to reach.

O reader, breathe (the ballad saith) some sweetness out of each!

117

A REED.

I AM no trumpet, but a reed;

No flattering breath shall from me lead
A silver sound, a hollow sound :

I will not ring, for priest or king,

One blast that in re-echoing

Would leave a bondsman faster bound.

I am no trumpet, but a reed,-
A broken reed, the wind indeed
Left flat upon a dismal shore;
Yet if a little maid or child
Should sigh within it, earnest-mild
This reed will answer evermore.

I am no trumpet, but a reed;
Go, tell the fishers, as they spread

Their nets along the river's edge,

I will not tear their nets at all,

Nor pierce their hands, if they should fall:
Then let them leave me in the sedge.

TO FLUSH, MY DOG.

LOVING friend, the gift of one
Who her own true faith has run
Through thy lower nature,

Be my benediction said

With my hand upon thy head,

Gentle fellow-creature!

Like a lady's ringlets brown,
Flow thy silken ears adown
Either side demurely
Of thy silver-suited breast
Shining out from all the rest
Of thy body purely.

Darkly brown thy body is,
Till the sunshine striking this
Alchemize its dulness,

When the sleek curls manifold
Flash all over into gold

With a burnished fulness.

Underneath my stroking hand,
Startled eyes of hazel bland
Kindling, growing larger,
Up thou leapest with a spring,
Full of prank and curveting,
Leaping like a charger.

Leap! thy broad tail waves a light,
Leap! thy slender feet are bright,
Canopied in fringes ;

Leap! those tasselled ears of thine Flicker strangely, fair and fine

Down their golden inches.

Yet, my pretty, sportive friend,
Little is 't to such an end

That I praise thy rareness;
Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears
And this glossy fairness.

But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed

Day and night unweary,