Up against the thick-bossed shield of God's judgment in the field,

Though your heart and brain were rash,

Now, your will is all unwilled-now your pulses are all

stilled,

Toll slowly.

Now, ye lie as meek and mild (whereso laid) as Maud the

child,

Whose small grave was lately filled.

Beating heart and burning brow, ye are very patient now,

Toll slowly.

And the children might be bold to pluck the kingcups from your mold

Ere a month had let them grow.

And you let the goldfinch sing in the alder near in spring, Toll slowly.

Let her build her nest and sit all the three weeks out on it, Murmuring not at anything.

In your patience ye are strong; cold and heat ye take not

wrong:

Toll slowly.

When the trumpet of the angel blows eternity's evangel, Time will seem to you not long.

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, Toll slowly.

And I said in underbreath,-all our life is mixed with death, And who knoweth which is best?

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, Toll slowly.

And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our

incompleteness,—

Round our restlessness, His rest.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Lady Geraldine's Courtship.

A ROMANCE OF THE AGE.

A poet writes to his friend. Place-A room in Wycombe Hall. Time-Late in the evening.

DEAR

EAR my friend and fellow student, I would lean my spirit o'er you;

Down the purple of this chamber tears should scarcely run at will:

I am humbled who was humble! Friend,-I bow my head before you!

You should lead me to my peasants :—but their faces are too still!

There's a lady—an earl's daughter; she is proud and she is

noble :

And she treads the crimson carpet, and she breathes the

perfumed air;

And a kingly blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble,

And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her

hair.

She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers,

She has farms and she has manors, she can threaten and

command;

And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her acres, As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of her land.

There are none of England's daughters who can show a prouder presence:

Upon princely suitors praying she has looked in her dis

dain ;

She has sprung of English nobles, I was born of English peasants;

What was I that I should love her-save for competence to pain?

I was only a poor poet, made for singing at her casement, As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other

things.

Oh, she walked so high above me she appeared to my abase

ment,

In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings!

Many vassals bow before her as her carriage sweeps their door-ways;

She has blest their little children,-as a priest or queen were she.

Far too tender or too cruel far, her smile upon the poor was, For I thought it was the same smile which she used to smile on me.

She has voters in the commons, she has lovers in the palace— And of all the fair court-ladies few have jewels half as

fine:

Oft the prince has named her beauty 'twixt the red wine and the chalice:

Oh, and what was I to love her? my Beloved, my Geraldine!

Yet I could not choose but love her-I was born to poet

uses

To love all things set above me, all of good and all of fair; Nymphs of mountain, not of valley, we are wont to call the

Muses

And in nympholeptic climbing poets pass from mount to

star.

And because I was a poet, and because the people praised

me

With their critical deduction for the modern writer's fault!

I could sit at rich men's tables,-though the courtesies that raised me

Still suggested clear between us the pale spectrum of the salt.

And they praised me in her presence :-"Will your book appear this summer?"

Then, returning to each other—“Yes, our plans are for the moors;

Then with whisper dropped behind me―"There he is! the latest comer!

Oh, she only likes his verses! what is over, she endures.

'Quite low born! self-educated! somewhat gifted though by nature;

And we make a point of asking him,—of being very kind ; You may speak, he does not hear you; and besides, he writes no satire,

All these serpents kept by charmers leave their natural sting behind."

I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood up there among them,

Till, as frost intense will burn you, the cold scorning

scorched my brow;

When a sudden silver speaking, gravely cadenced, overrung

them,

And a sudden silken stirring touched my inner nature through.

I looked upward and beheld her! With a calm and regnant spirit,

Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and said clear before

them all

"Have you such superfluous honor, sir, that, able to confer it,

You will come down, Mr. Bertram, as my guest, to Wycombe Hall?"

Here she paused-she had been paler at the first word of her speaking;

But because a silence followed it, blushed somewhat as for

shame;

Then, as scorning her own feeling, resumed calmly—“ I am seeking

More distinction than these gentlemen think worthy of my

claim.

Nevertheless, you see I seek it not because I am a

(Here her smile sprang like a fountain, and so overflowed

her mouth)

"But because my woods in Sussex have some purple shades at gloaming

Which are worthy of a king in state, or poet in his youth.

"I invite you, Mr. Bertram, to no scene for worldly speech

es

Sir, I scarce should dare—but only where God asked the thrushes first—

And if you will sing beside them in the covert of my beeches,

I will thank you for the woodlands,-for the human world at worst."

Then she smiled around right childly, then she gazed around

right queenly;

And I bowed-I could not answer!

gloom

Alternated light and

While, as one who quells the lions, with a steady eye serenely, She, with level fronting eyelids, passed out stately from the

room.