Not like the timid corn-craik scudding fast

From his own voice, he with him takes his song
Heavenward, then, striking sideways, shoots along,
Happy as sailor-boy that, from the mast,
Runs out upon the yard-arm, till at last
He sinks into his nest, those clover tufts among.

HARVEST-HOME.

IATE in September came our corn-crops home,
Late, but full-eared-by many a merry noise
Of matron and of maid, young girls and boys,
Preceded, flanked, and followed, did they come ;
A general joy! for piles of unwrought food
For man and beast, on those broad axles pressed,
And strained those sinewy necks in garlands dressed;
The harebell and the ragwort wondering stood
As the slow teams wound up that grassy lane;
All knew the husbandman's long task was done;
While, as they crossed his disk, the setting sun
Blazed momently betwixt each rolling wain
And that which followed, piled with golden grain,
As if to gratulate the harvest won,

TIME AND TWILIGHT.

N the dark twilight of an autumn morn

IN

I stood within a little country-town, Wherefrom a long acquainted path went down To the dear village haunts where I was born;

The low of oxen on the rainy wind,

mind

Death and the Past, came up the well-known road,
And bathed my heart with tears, but stirred my
To tread once more the track so long untrod;
But I was warned, "Regrets which are not thrust
Upon thee, seek not; for this sobbing breeze
Will but unman thee; thou art bold to trust
Thy woe-worn thoughts among these roaring trees,
And gleams of bygone playgrounds-Is't no crime
To rush by night into the arms of Time?"

Coventry Patmore.

HONORIA.

I.

RESTLESS and sick of long exile

From those sweet friends, I rode to see

The church-repairs; and, after a while,
Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea,
They introduced the cousin Fred

I'd heard of, Honour's favourite; grave,
Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred,
And with an air of the salt wave.

He stared, and gave his hand, and I

Stared too: then donned we smiles, the shrouds

Of ire, best hid while she was by,

A sweet moon 'twixt her lighted clouds.

IL

Whether this Cousin was the cause

I know not, but I seemed to see,

The first time then, how fair she was,

How much the fairest of the three. Each stopped to let the other go;

But he, being time-bound, rose the first. Stayed he in Sarum long? If so,

I hoped to see him at the Hurst.

No: he had called here on his way

To Portsmouth, where the Arrogant, His ship, was; and should leave next day, For two years' cruise in the Levant. I watched her face, suspecting germs

Of love her farewell showed me plain She loved, on the majestic terms

That she should not be loved again. And so her cousin, parting, felt,

For all his rough sea face

grew red. Compassion did my malice melt:

Then went I home to a restless bed.

I, who admired her too, could see

His infinite remorse at this Great mystery, that she should be

So beautiful, yet not be his,

And, pitying, longed to plead his part;

But scarce could tell, so strange my whim,

Whether the weight upon my heart

Was sorrow for myself or him.

III.

She was all mildness; yet 'twas writ
Upon her beauty legibly,

"He that's for heaven itself unfit,

Let him not hope to merit me.”

And such a challenge, quite apart

From thoughts of love, humbled, and thus To sweet repentance moved my heart,

And made me more magnanimous, And led me to review my life,

Inquiring where in aught the least, If question were of her for wife,

Ill might be mended, hope increased: Not that I soared so far above

Myself, as this great hope to dare: And yet I half foresaw that love

Might hope where reason would despair.

IV.

As drowsiness my brain relieved,
A shrill defiance of all to arms,
Shrieked by the stable-cock, received
An angry answer from three farms.
And, first, I dreamt that I, her knight,
A clarion's haughty pathos heard,
And rode securely to the fight,

Cased in the scarf she had conferred;
And there, the bristling lists behind,
Saw many, and vanquished all I saw
Of her unnumbered cousin-kind,

In Navy, Army, Church, and Law;
Then warriors, stern and Norman-nosed,
Seemed Sarum choristers, whose song,

Mixed with celestial grief, disclosed
More joy than memory can prolong;
And phantasms as absurd and sweet
Merged each in each, in endless chase,

And everywhere I seemed to meet

The haunting fairness of her face.

THE CHASE.

I.

HE wearies with an ill unknown;

SHE

In sleep she sobs and seems to float, A water-lily, all alone

Within a lonely castle-moat;
And as the full-moon, spectral, lies
Within the crescent's gleaming arms,
The present shows her heedless eyes
A future dim with vague alarms:
She sees, and yet she scarcely sees;
For, life-in-life not yet begun,
Too many are life's mysteries
For thought to fix 'tward any one.

11.

She's told that maidens are by youths
Extremely honoured and desired;
And sighs, "If those sweet tales be truths,
What bliss to be so much admired!”

The suitors come; she sees them grieve:
Her coldness fills them with despair:

She'd pity if she could believe:

She's sorry that she cannot care.

III.

Who's this that meets her on her way?

Comes he as enemy, or friend;