What summer meant I had forgot;
Except that it was glaring hot
Through tedious days, and heavy hot
Through dreadful nights.

This drooping bough
Is elm; the shadow lies below.
Gathering flowers, we used to creep
Along the hedgerows, where the sun.
Came through like this; then, every one,
Find out some arbour thick and cool,
To weave them in our rushy caps,—
Primroses, bluebells, such a heap.
The children do so still, perhaps.
Some, too, were quite tall girls.
You fool!

Is it for this you've made your way
To Morley Park by night and day?
-A million times I used to say
These two words, lest they might be lost:

I heard them. . . . This is his domain;
Each tree is his, each blade of grass
Under my feet. How dare I pass,
A tatter'd vagrant, half insane,
Scarce fit to slink by the roadside,
These lordly bounds, where, with his
Bride-

I tell you, kneeling on this sod,
He is, before the face of God,
My husband!

I was innocent
The day I first set eyes on him,
Eyes that no tears had yet made dim,
Nor fever wild. The day he went,
(That day, O God of Heaven!) I found,
In the sick brain slow turning round,
Dreadful forebodings of my fate.
A week was not so long to wait :
Another pass'd,—and then a third.
My face grew thin-eyes fix'd-I heard
And started if a feather stirr'd.
Each night "to-morrow!" heard me say,
Each morning "he will come to-day."
Who taps upon the chamber door?—
A letter he will come no more.
Then stupor.

Then a horrid strife Trampling my brain and soul and life,Hunting me out as with a knife From home-from home

...

What is this! Who comes in sight?

Through all my feeble body. Hush! Which way which way? which way? that bush

Hides them-they're coming-do they

pause?

He points, almost to me !-he draws
Her tow'rds him, and I know the smile
That's on his face-O guile, guile, guile !
Nay, it was more the selfish pride
And arrogance of wealth. Your Bride
Is tall, I see, and graceful too.
That arch of green invites you through.
I follow. Why should I be loth

To hurt her? . . . Ha! I'll find them both.

Both, both shall hear-it must be so.
Six words suffice to make her know."

Here's our way.

Autumn is in its last decay;
The hills have misty solitude
And silence; dead leaves drop in the
wood.

And free in Morley Park we stray,
Where only the too-much freedom baulks.
The tangling grass, the shrubberies
choked

With briars, the runnel which has soak'd
Its lawn-foot to a marsh, between
The treacherous tufts of brighter green,
The garden, plann'd with costly care,
Now wilder'd as a maniac's hair;
The blinded mansion's constant gloom,
Winter and summer, night and day,
Save when the stealthy hours let fall
A sunbeam, or more pallid ray,
Creeping across the floor and wall
From solitary room to room,
Το

pry and vanish, like the rest, Weary of a useless quest;

The sombre face of hill and grove,
The very clouds which seem to move

Sadly, be it swift or slow,—
How unlike this, you scarcely know,
Was Morley Park seven years ago.

Human Spirits, line by line,
Have left hereon their visible trace;
As doubtless, to an Eye Divine,
Human history, and each one's share,
Is closely written everywhere
Over the solid planet's face.

A sour old Witch,-a surly Youth, Her grandson,-three great dogs, uncouth

To strangers (I'm on terms with all),
Are household now. Sometimes, at fall
Of dusk, a Shape is said to move
Amid the drear entangled grove,
Or seems lamentingly to stand
Beside a pool that 's close at hand.
Rare are the human steps that pass
On mossy walk or tufted grass.

Let's force the brushwood barrier,
No path remaining. Here's a chair,
Once a cool delightful seat,
Now the warty toad's retreat,
Cushion'd with fungus, sprouting rank,
Greenly painted with the dank;
That Ghost, no doubt, sits often there-
A Female Shadow with wide eyes
And dripping garments. This way lies
The pool, the little pleasure-lake,
Which cost a pretty sum to make.
Stoop for this bough, and see it now
A dismal solitary slough,
Scummy, weedy, ragged, rotten,
Shut in jail, forsook, forgotten.

Most of the story you have heard : The bower of bliss at length prepared To the last wreath, and line of gilding, (Never such a dainty building)

One day, Bride and Bridegroom came;
The hills at dusk with merry flame
Crowning their welcome: it was June,
Grand weather-and a honeymoon!
Came, to go away too soon,
And never come again.

The Bride

Was in her old home when she died,
On a winter's day, in the time of snow,
(She never saw that year to an end),
And he has wander'd far and wide,
And look'd on many a distant hill,
But not on these he used to know,
Round Morley Park that wave and bend,
And people say he never will.

Like sunny light within the wave, Dearer to me than sunny light.

It rose, and look'd away my night; Whose phantoms, of desire or dread, Like fogs and shades and dreams are fled."

III. THROUGH THE WOOD.

"A fire keeps burning in this breast.
The smoke ascending to my brain
Sometimes stupefies the pain.
Sometimes my senses drop, no doubt.
I do not always feel the pain:
Though my head is a weary weary load.

What place is this?—I sit at rest,
With grass and green leaves round about;
No dust, no noise, no endless road,
No torturing light. Stay, let me think,
Is this the place where I knelt to drink,
And all my hair broke loose and fell
And floated in the cold clear well
Hung with rock-weeds? two children

came

With pitchers, but they scream'd and ran ;
The woman stared, the cursed man
Laugh'd,-no, no, this is not the same.
I now remember. Dragging through
The thorny fence has torn my gown.
These boots are very nearly done.
What matter; so's my journey too.

Nearly done. . . A cool green spot! Flowers touch my hand. It's summer

now.

What summer meant I had forgot;
Except that it was glaring hot
Through tedious days, and heavy hot
Through dreadful nights.

This drooping bough
Is elm; the shadow lies below.
Gathering flowers, we used to creep
Along the hedgerows, where the sun
Came through like this; then, every one,
Find out some arbour thick and cool,
To weave them in our rushy caps,-
Primroses, bluebells, such a heap.
The children do so still, perhaps..
Some, too, were quite tall girls.
You fool!

Is it for this you've made your way
To Morley Park by night and day?
-A million times I used to say
These two words, lest they might be lost:

I heard them.
This is his domain.
Each tree is his, each blade of grass
Under my feet. How dare I pass,
A tatter'd vagrant, half insane,
Scarce fit to slink by the roadside,
These lordly bounds, where, with his
Bride-

I tell you, kneeling on this sod,
He is, before the face of God,
My husband!

I was innocent
The day I first set eyes on him,
Eyes that no tears had yet made dim,
Nor fever wild. The day he went,
(That day, O God of Heaven!) I founl,
In the sick brain slow turning round,
Dreadful forebodings of my fate.
A week was not so long to wait:
Another pass'd,—and then a third.
My face grew thin-eyes fix'd-I heard

And started if a feather stirr'd.
Each night "to-morrow!" heard me say,
Each morning "he will come to-day."
Who taps upon the chamber door?—
A letter-he will come no more.
Then stupor. Then a horrid strife
Trampling my brain and soul and life,-
Hunting me out as with a knife
From home-from home-

And I was young,
And happy. May his heart be wrung
As mine is! learn that even I
Was something, and at least can die
Of such a wound. In any case
He'll see that death is in my face.
To die is still within the power
Of girls with neither rank nor dower.

This is Morley. I am here. The house lay that side as one came. How sick and deadly tired I am! Time has been lost: O this new fear, That I may fall and never rise! Clouds come and go within my eyes. I'm hot and cold, my limbs all slack, My swollen feet the same as dead; A weight like lead draws down my head, The boughs and brambles pull me back. Stay the wood opens to the hill. A moment now. The house is near. But one may view it closer still From these thick laurels on the right. What is this! Who comes in sight?

...

Like sunny light within the wave,
Dearer to me than sunny light.
It rose, and look'd away my night;
Whose phantoms, of desire or dread,
Like fogs and shades and dreams are fled."

III. THROUGH THE WOOD.

"A fire keeps burning in this breast.
The smoke ascending to my brain
Sometimes stupefies the pain.
Sometimes my senses drop, no doubt.
I do not always feel the pain:

Though my head is a weary weary load.
What place is this?—I sit at rest,
With grass and green
leaves round about;
No dust, no noise, no endless road,
No torturing light. Stay, let me think,
Is this the place where I knelt to drink,
And all my hair broke loose and fell
And floated in the cold clear well
Hung with rock-weeds? two children

What summer meant I had forgot;
Except that it was glaring hot
Through tedious days, and heavy hot
Through dreadful nights.

This drooping bough
Is elm; the shadow lies below.
Gathering flowers, we used to creep
Along the hedgerows, where the sun
Came through like this; then, every one,
Find out some arbour thick and cool,
To weave them in our rushy caps,-
Primroses, bluebells, such a heap.
The children do so still, perhaps.
Some, too, were quite tall girls.
You fool!

Is it for this you've made your way
To Morley Park by night and day?

-A million times I used to say

These two words, lest they might be lost:

I heard them. This is his domain;
Each tree is his, each blade of grass
Under my feet. How dare I pass,
A tatter'd vagrant, half insane,
Scarce fit to slink by the roadside,
These lordly bounds, where, with his
Bride-

I tell you, kneeling on this sod,
He is, before the face of God,
My husband!

I was innocent
The day I first set eyes on him,
Eyes that no tears had yet made dim,
Nor fever wild. The day he went,
(That day, O God of Heaven!) I found,
In the sick brain slow turning round,
Dreadful forebodings of my fate.

A week was not so long to wait :
Another pass'd,—and then a third.
My face grew thin-eyes fix'd-I heard
And started if a feather stirr'd.
Each night "to-morrow!" heard me say,
Each morning "he will come to-day."
Who taps upon the chamber door?—
A letter he will come no more.
Then stupor. Then a horrid strife
Trampling my brain and soul and life,-
Hunting me out as with a knife
From home-from home-

This is Morley. I am here. The house lay that side as one came. How sick and deadly tired I am! Time has been lost: O this new fear, That I may fall and never rise! Clouds come and go within my eyes. I'm hot and cold, my limbs all slack, My swollen feet the same as dead; A weight like lead draws down my head, The boughs and brambles pull me back. Stay the wood opens to the hill. A moment now. The house is near. But one may view it closer still From these thick laurels on the right. What is this! Who comes in sight?