III.

My mother cursed me that I heard
A young man's wooing as I spun.
Thanks, cruel mother, for that word,
For I have, since, a harder known!
And now my spinning is all done.

IV.

I thought-O God!-my first-born's cry
Both voices to my ear would drown:
I listened in mine agony—

It was the silence, made me groan !
And now my spinning is all done.

V.

Bury me 'twixt my mother's grave,

Who cursed me on her death-bed lone, And my dead baby's-(God it save!) Who, not to bless me, would not moan: And now my spinning is all done.

VI.

A stone upon my heart and head,

But no name written on the stone! Sweet neighbours! whisper low instead : "This sinner was a loving one— And now her spinning is all done."

VII.

And let the door ajar remain,
In case he should pass by anon ;
And leave the wheel out very plain,
That HE, when passing in the sun,
May see the spinning is all done.

CHANGE UPON CHANGE.

I.

FIVE months ago, the stream did flow,
The lilies bloomed along the edge;
And we were lingering to and fro,—
Where none will track thee in this snow,
Along the stream, beside the hedge.
Ah, Sweet, be free to love and go!
For if I do not hear thy foot,

The frozen river is as mute,—

The flowers have dried down to the root;
And why, since these be changed since May,
Shouldst thou change less than they?

II.

And slow, slow, as the winter snow,
The tears have drifted to mine eyes;
And my poor cheeks, five months ago,
Set blushing at thy praises so,

Put paleness on for a disguise.
Ah, Sweet, be free to praise and go!
For if my face is turned to pale,
It was thine oath that first did fail,—
It was thy love proved false and frail!
And why, since these be changed, enow,
Should I change less than thou?

THAT DAY.

I.

I STAND by the river where both of us stood,
And there is but one shadow to darken the flood;
And the path leading to it, where both used to pass,
Has the step but of one, to take dew from the grass,—
One forlorn since that day.

II.

The flowers of the margin are many to see,

For none stoops at my bidding to pluck them for me;
The bird in the alder sings loudly and long,

For my low sound of weeping disturbs not his song,

As thy vow did that day!

III.

I stand by the river-I think of the vow-
Oh, calm as the place is, vow-breaker, be thou!
I leave the flower growing-the bird, unreproved ;-
Would I trouble thee, rather than them, my beloved,
And my lover that day?

IV.

Go! be sure of my love-by that treason forgiven;
Of my prayers-by the blessings they win thee from Heaven;
Of my grief-(guess the length of the sword by the sheath's)
By the silence of life, more pathetic than death's!

Go,-be clear of that day!

A REED.

I.

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.

II.

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.

III.

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.

THE DEAD PAN.

Excited by Schiller's Götter Griechenlands, and partly founded on a well-known tradition mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch (De Oraculorum Defectu), according to which, at the hour of the Saviour's agony, a cry of "Great Pan is dead!" swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners,—and the oracles ceased.

It is in all veneration to the memory of the deathless Schiller, that I oppose a doctrine still more dishonouring to poetry than to Christianity.

As Mr. Kenyon's graceful and harmonious paraphrase of the German poem was the first occasion of the turning of my thoughts in this direction, I take advantage of the pretence to indulge my feelings (which overflow on other grounds) by inscribing my lyrie to that dear friend and relative, with the earnestness of appreci ating esteem as well as of affectionate gratitude.-E. B. B.