And so I waste my time: for I am changed;

And to myself,' said she, 'have done much wrong
And to this helpless infant. I have slept

Weeping, and weeping have I waked; my tears
Have flowed as if my body were not such
As others are; and I could never die.
But I am now in mind and in my heart
More easy; and I hope,' said she, 'that God
Will give me patience to endure the things
Which I behold at home.'

Your very soul to see her.

It would have grieved
Sir, I feel

The story linger in my heart; I fear
"Tis long and tedious; but my spirit clings
To that poor Woman :-so familiarly
Do I perceive her manner, and her look,
And presence; and so deeply do I feel
Her goodness, that, not seldom, in my walks
A momentary trance comes over me;
And to myself I seem to muse on One
By sorrow laid asleep; or borne away,
A human being destined to awake
To human life, or something very near
To human life, when he shall come again

For whom she suffered. Yes, it would have grieved
Your very soul to see her: evermore

Her eyelids drooped, her eyes downward were cast; And when she at her table gave me food,

She did not look at me. Her voice was low,

Her body was subdued. In every act
Pertaining to her house-affairs, appeared
The careless stillness of a thinking mind
Self-occupied; to which all outward things
Are like an idle matter. Still she sighed,

But yet no motion of the

No heaving of the heart.

breast was seen,

While by the fire

We sate together, sighs came on my ear,

I knew not how, and hardly whence they came.

Ere my departure, to her care I gave,
For her son's use, some tokens of regard,
Which with a look of welcome she received;
And I exhorted her to place her trust

In God's good love, and seek his help by prayer.
I took my staff, and, when I kissed her babe,
The tears stood in her eyes. I left her then
With the best hope and comfort I could give:
She thanked me for my wish ;-but for my hope
It seemed she did not thank me.

I returned,

And took my rounds along this road again
When on its sunny bank the primrose flower
Peeped forth, to give an earnest of the Spring.
I found her sad and drooping: she had learned
No tidings of her husband; if he lived,

She knew not that he lived; if he were dead,
She knew not he was dead. She seemed the same
In person and appearance; but her house

Bespake a sleepy hand of negligence;

The floor was neither dry nor neat, the hearth
Was comfortless, and her small lot of books,
Which, in the cottage-window, heretofore
Had been piled up against the corner panes
In seemly order, now, with straggling leaves
Lay scattered here and there, open or shut,
As they had chanced to fall. Her infant Babe
Had from its Mother caught the trick of grief,
And sighed among its playthings. I withdrew
And once again entering the garden saw,
More plainly still, that poverty and grief
Were now come nearer to her: weeds defaced
The hardened soil, and knots of withered grass:
No ridges there appeared of clear black mold,
No winter greenness; of her herbs and flowers,
It seemed the better part were gnawed away
Or trampled into earth; a chain of straw,
Which had been twined about the slender stem
Of a young apple-tree, lay at its root;
The bark was nibbled round by truant sheep.
-Margaret stood near, her infant in her arms,
And, noting that my eye was on the tree,
She said, 'I fear it will be dead and gone
Ere Robert come again.' When to the House
We had returned together, she enquired
If I had any hope :-but for her babe

And for her little orphan boy, she said,

She had no wish to live, that she must die

Of sorrow.

Yet I saw the idle loom

Still in its place; his sunday garments hung
Upon the self-same nail; his very staff

Stood undisturbed behind the door.

And when,

In bleak December, I retraced this way,
She told me that her little babe was dead,
And she was left alone. She now, released
From her maternal cares, had taken up

The employment common through these wilds, and gained,
By spinning hemp, a pittance for herself;

And for this end had hired a neighbour's boy

To give her needful help.

That very time
Most willingly she put her work aside,
And walked with me along the miry road,
Heedless how far; and, in such piteous sort
That any heart had ached to hear her, begged
That, wheresoe'er I went, I still would ask
For him whom she had lost. We parted then-
Our final parting; for from that time forth
Did many seasons pass ere I returned

Into this tract again.

Nine tedious years;

From their first separation, nine long years,

She lingered in unquiet widowhood;

A Wife and Widow. Needs must it have been

A sore heart-wasting! I have heard, my Friend,
That in yon arbour oftentimes she sate

Alone, through half the vacant sabbath day;
And, if a dog passed by, she still would quit
The shade, and look abroad. On this old bench
For hours she sate; and evermore her eye
Was busy in the distance, shaping things

That made her heart beat quick. You see that path,
Now faint, the grass has crept o'er its grey line;
There, to and fro, she paced through many a day
Of the warm summer, from a belt of hemp
That girt her waist, spinning the long-drawn thread
With backward steps. Yet ever as there passed
A man whose garments showed the soldier's red,
Or crippled mendicant in sailor's garb,

The little child who sate to turn the wheel
Ceased from his task; and she with faltering voice
Made many a fond enquiry; and when they,
Whose presence gave no comfort, were gone by,
Her heart was still more sad. And by yon gate,
That bars the traveller's road, she often stood,
And when a stranger horseman came, the latch
Would lift, and in his face look wistfully:
Most happy, if, from aught discovered there
Of tender feeling, she might dare repeat
The same sad question. Meanwhile her poor Hut
Sank to decay; for he was gone, whose hand,

At the first nipping of October frost,

Closed up

each chink, and with fresh bands of straw green-grown thatch. And so she lived

Chequered the