Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell; If old things remain old things all is well,
For thou art grateful as becomes man best: And hadst thou only heard me play one tune, Or viewed me from a window, not so soon
With thee would such things fade as with the rest.
I seem to see! we meet and part: 'tis brief: The book I opened keeps a folded leaf,
The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank; That is a portrait of me on the wall- Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call; And for all this, one little hour's to thank.
But now, because the hour through years was fixed, Because our inmost beings met and mixed,
Because thou once hast loved me-wilt thou dare Say to thy soul and Who may list beside, "Therefore she is immortally my bride,
Chance cannot change that love, nor time impair.
"So, what if in the dusk of life that's left, I, a tired traveller, of my son bereft,
Look from my path when, mimicking the same, The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone? - Where was it till the sunset? where anon It will be at the sunrise! what's to blame?"
Is it so helpfull to thee? canst thou take The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake, Put gently by such efforts at a beam?
Is the remainder of the way so long
Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong?
Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream!
Ah, but the fresher faces! Is it true,"
some eyes are beautiful and new?
Some hair, how can one choose but grasp such wealth? And if a man would press his lips to lips
Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth? VOL. XCVII.
"It cannot change the love kept still for Her, Much more than, such a picture to prefer
Passing a day with, to a room's bare side. The painted form takes nothing she possessed, Yet while the Titian's Venus lies at rest
A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide ?"
So must I see, from where I sit and watch, My own self sell myself, my hand attach
Its warrant to the very thefts from me- Thy singleness of soul that made me proud, Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,
Thy man's truth I was bold to bid God see!
Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst Away to the new faces-disentranced- (Say it and think it) obdurate no more, Re-issue looks and words from the old mint- Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print Image and superscription once they bore!
Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,- It all comes to the same thing at the end,
Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be, Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum
Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come
Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee!
Only, why should it be with stain at all? Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal,
Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow? Why need the other women know so much And talk together, "Such the look and such
The smile he used to love with, then as now !"
Might I die last and show thee! Should I find Such hardship in the few years left behind,
If free to take and light my lamp, and go Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit Seeing thy face on those four sides of it
The better that they are so blank, I know!
Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er Within my mind each look, get more and more By heart each word, too much to learn at first, And join thee all the fitter for the pause 'Neath the low door-way's lintel. That were cause For lingering, though thou calledst, if I durst!
And yet thou art the nobler of us two. What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do, Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride? I'll say then, here's a trial and a task-
Is it to bear?-if easy, I'll not ask—
Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride.
Pride?-when those eyes forestall the life behind The death I have to go through !-when I find, Now that I want thy help most, all of thee! What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast Until the little minute's sleep is past
And I wake saved.—And yet, it will not be!
BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead,
Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass.
Little has yet been changed, I think— The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name- It was not her time to love: beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir- Till God's hand beckoned unawares, And the sweet white brow is all of her.
And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was nought to each, must I be told? We were fellow mortals, nought beside?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love,- I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few— Much is to learn and much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come,-at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say, In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red- And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead.
I have lived, I shall say, so much since then, Given up myself so many times, Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed, or itself missed me- And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see!
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;
My heart seemed full as it could holdThere was place and to spare for the frank
young smile And the red young mouth and the hair's young gold. So, hush, I will give you this leaf to keep
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.
There, that is our secret! go to sleep;
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
[N.B. The figures between [] refer to the History.]
ACCIDENTS-In coal mines, return of the
Government inspectors, 2; at the cen- tral station at Leeds, 3; locomotive ex- plosion on the North Eastern Railway, and at Gloucester, 12; on the ice in St. James's Park, 13; through the intense frost, 24; fall of a house at Islington, seven lives lost, 30; mysterious death of maj. Young, at Portsmouth, 38; fall of a bridge at Bristol, 55; boat accident on Loch Gowna, four gentlemen drowned, 60; sinking of a ferry boat on the Se- vern, loss of seven lives, 76; fall of the Atlas Iron Works, Southwark, 85; fall of the South Lambeth Water Works, four lives lost, 95; fatal cliff accidents; to miss Wetherby, at Broadstairs; miss Oxley, at Bridlington; miss Fitzpatrick, at Llandudno, 115; on the Aberdeen railway, 117; at the railway bridge, Rochester, 126; fatal boiler explosions at Sheffield, 127; singular accident at the Cremorne Gardens, during a mili- tary fête, 128; singular and fatal acci- dent on Westminster Bridge, 129; on the New York and Philadelphia rail- way, 21 persons killed, 140; railway accident at Reading, four persons killed, 148; on the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire line, three persons killed, 149; dreadful railway accidents in France-on the Paris and Versailles line, many persons killed; on the Lyons railway, 16 persons killed, 150; fatal boat accidents on the Medway, in Ply- mouth harbour, and at Broadstairs, 151; fire-work factory exploded by lightning, 151; numerous railway accidents and suicide, 152; boiler explosion at New- castle, eight persons killed, 153; fright- ful gas explosion in Birmingham work- house, 165; dreadful railway accident in America, 22 persons killed, 170; ex- traordinary deaths of a father and son at Brighton, 171; boiler explosion in Whitechapel, five lives lost, 174; dread- ful explosion of a magazine in the
Accidents-continued.
French lines before Sebastopol, 175; an actress burnt to death on the stage, at the Portsmouth theatre, 177; colli- sion on the Great Western Railway, 178; frightful colliery accidents, 178; explosion at Woolwich arsenal, several lives lost, 181; accident on the North Kent Railway, 181; furnace explosion at Bilston, five persons burnt to death, 196; fatal gunpowder explosion at Sedgley, four persons killed, 197; acci- dents on the Medway, three officers drowned, 197.
ACTS, LIST OF, 18 & 19 VICT.-i. Public General Acts, 437; ij. Local and Per- sonal Acts, declared public and to be judicially noticed, 442; iij. Private Acts, printed, 450; Private Acts, not printed, 451. AFRICA-Horrible destruction of Caffres by the Dutch settlers, at the Cape, 53; English war in Sennegambia, 120. Antiquities-Sale of Mr. Bernal's collec- tion of antiquity and art, 41. AUSTRALIA-Riots or insurrection at the gold diggings, 48.
AUSTRIA-Concordat of the Emperor with the Pope, immense concessions to the Papal See [279] (for the part taken by Austria in the War with Russia, see PARLIAMENT, Negotiations at Vienna).
Colliery Accidents and Explosions-Re- port of accidents in coal mines, 2; at the Cwmannan colliery, Aberdare, eight persons killed, 178; near Dukinfield, four men killed, 179. CORN, HAY, STRAW, CLOVER, BUTCHER'S MEAT, Prices of, 470.
DEATHS-Abbot, hon. P. H. 315; Abdy, col. 316; Abercromby, sir R. 292; Adair, rt. hon. sir R. 310; Adams, mrs. E. 249; Adams, mrs. F. L. 331;
« EelmineJätka » |