Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath

On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair

In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell

Divides three-fold to show the fruit within:

Then, wondering, ask'd her 'Are you from the

farm?'

'Yes' answer'd she.

Pray stay a little pardon

me;

What do they call you?'-'Katie.'

strange.

• That were

What surname ?' 'Willows.' — 'No!' — 'That is

my name.'

'Indeed!' and here he look'd so self-perplext,

That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he
Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes,

Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream.

Then looking at her; Too happy, fresh and fair,
Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom,

To be the ghost of one who bore your name

About these meadows, twenty years ago.'

'Have you not heard?' said Katie, 'we came

back.

We bought the farm we tenanted before.

Am I so like her? so they said on board.

Sir, if you knew her in her English days,

My mother, as it seems you did, the days

That most she loves to talk of, come with me.

My brother James is in the harvest-field :

But she you

will be welcome-O, come in!'

Ꭲ Ꮋ Ꭼ Ꮮ Ꭼ Ꭲ Ꭲ Ꭼ Ꭱ Ꮪ .

1.

STILL on the tower stood the vane,

A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air,

I peer'd athwart the chancel pane

And saw the altar cold and bare.

A clog of lead was round my feet, A band of pain across my brow ; 'Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet

Before you hear my marriage vow.'

2.

I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song

That mock'd the wholesome human heart,

And then we met in wrath and wrong,

We met, but only meant to part.

Full cold my greeting was and dry;

She faintly smiled, she hardly moved;

I saw with half-unconscious eye

She wore the colors I approved.

3.

She took the little ivory chest,

With half a sigh she turn'd the key,

Then raised her head with lips comprest,
And gave my letters back to me.

And gave the trinkets and the rings,

My gifts, when gifts of mine could please ;

As looks a father on the things

Of his dead son, I look'd on these.