With shut-up senses, Edward lay :
That brook e'en on a working day
Might chatter one to sleep.

And he had passed a restless night,
And was not well in health;
The women sat down by his side,

And talked as 'twere by stealth.

"The sun peeps through the close thick leaves,

See, dearest Ellen! see!

'Tis in the leaves, a little sun,

No bigger than your ee;

"A tiny sun, and it has got

A perfect glory too;

Ten thousand threads and hairs of light,

Make up a glory, gay and bright,

Round that small orb, so blue."

And then they argued of those rays,
What color they might be;

Says this, "they're mostly green;" says that,

They're amber-like to me.

So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts.
Were troubling Edward's rest;

But soon they heard his hard quick pants,
And the thumping in his breast.

"A mother too!"' these self-same words
Did Edward mutter plain;

His face was drawn back on itself,
With horror and huge pain.

Both groaned at once, for both knew well
What thoughts were in his mind ;
When he waked up, and stared like one
That had been just struck blind.

He sat upright; and ere the dream
Had had time to depart,

Then Ellen shrieked, and forthwith burst

Into ungentle laughter;

And Mary shivered, where she sat,

And never she smiled after.

Carmen reliquum in futurum tempus relegatum. To-morrow! and To

morrow! and To-morrow!

WELL! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence;
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Eolian lute,
Which better far were mute.

For lo the New-moon winter-bright!
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o'erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling

The coming on of rain and squally blast.

And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,

And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast!

Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,

And sent my soul abroad,

Might now, perhaps, their wonted impulse give,

Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!

II.

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,

Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear—

O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,

All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze-and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen :
Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all so excellently fair,

I see,

not feel how beautiful they are!

My genial spirits fail ;

III.

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavor,

Though I should gaze forever

On that green light that lingers in the west:

I

may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within,

IV.

'O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live :
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth-

And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, 'of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

V.

O pure of heart; thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.

Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,

Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power

Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower,
A new Earth and new Heaven,

Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud

Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud-
We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,

All colors a suffusion from that light.

VI.

There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress,

And all misfortunes were but as the stuff

Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:
For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,
And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.
But now afflictions bow me down to earth :
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,
But oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.

For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can ;

And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural manThis was my sole resource, my only plan: Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.