With earnest faces bent above their tasks,

Some ten or twelve sat with me in the room.

He at my right hand ever dwelt alone :

A moat of dulness fenced him from the world.

My left hand neighbour was all flame and air,
A restless spirit veering like the wind:

And what a lover! what an amorous heart!

In the pure fire and fervency of love,
Leander, like the image of a star

Within the thrilling sea, was scarce his match.

His love for each new Hero of a week,

No Hellespont could cool. Among the rest,
Sat one with visage red with sun and wind
As the last hip upon the frosted brier

When the blithe huntsman snuffs the hoary morn.

He poached at night in every stream for miles;
Knew nests in every wood. Much did he love
To gather fragments of the broken past;

Swords from old fields; carvings from hollow towers

The wind inhabits; heath from martyrs' graves

Asleep in sunshine on warm summer moors;

And one rude splinter did he cherish much,

Struck from the stone that with unwearied hand

Held up the exulting banner of the Bruce,

Which all that proud day laughed with glorious scorn

Upon its baffled foes. And there was one

Who strove most valiantly to be a man,

Who smoked and still got sick, drank hard and woke

Each morn with headache; his poor timorous voice Trembled beneath the burden of the oaths

His bold heart made it bear. He sneered at love,

Was not so weak as to believe the sex

Cumbered with virtue. O he knew he knew!

He had himself adventured in that sea,

Could tell, Sir, if he would—yet never dared
Speak to a lady in his life without

Blushing hot to the ears. 'Mong these I sat.

The clouds flew from the east unto the west;

St. Stephen, from his airy coronet,

In music told the quarters and the hours.
We talked of all this tangled dance of Deaths,
Wild-haired and naked Pleasures, Satyrs, Drolls,
Which men call Life; of early Love, which makes
A dusty street a sunbeam, daily meals.

Enchanted tables spread by angel hands,

And rough serge glistering gold; of the strange light,
The incredible bliss, summed in the word " beloved,"
When the poor heart, bewildered with its joy,
Half fears that it is fooled; this Pantomime,
In which the speckled Clown wins every trick;
Astonished Pantaloon, the kicks and jeers;
Rich Harlequin, the glittering Columbine,
Brave dress, enjoyment, universal power;
A single slap of his enchanted sword,
Grim caverns open into trees of gold—–

At which, mayhap, an angel audience sits,
Mingling strange comment with its wildness. Then

We talked about the painter, him who dwelt

Within the white house on the moor, alone,

No wife to love or hate, no human bud

To burst in flower beneath his loving eye.
An empire's fall was less in his regard
Than sunshine pouring from the rifted clouds
On an old roof-tree furred with emerald moss;
A wide grey windy sea bespecked with foam,
A ship beneath bare poles against the rain;
Or thunder steeping all the sunny waste

In ominous light. One keen clear autumn day
The place was filled with silent sabled men
Standing in whispering knots. Within an hour
The empty house was left to whistling winds
In which the curlew sailed with wavering cry,
And flying sunny gleams-a dark red mound
Six paces on the moor. Nature he loved,

Death was the priest that wed them; he is hers
Henceforward now for ever. Then I heard
How Charles stood 'mid the roses in the porch;

Within, his Cousin watched the earliest star,

With white hands fluttering o'er the keys,-fair hands

By lingering music kissed! A step-she turned,

Their eyes met, and that swift flash made them one
For ever-in all worlds. A voice then told

How on a certain night, Wat, James, and John
Saw in the moonlight park three giddy girls
Mingling with their own shadows in the dance:
John gave a cry, each darted like a bird,

Leaving a wake of laughter as she flew.

Flushed with the chase, 'mid laughter-smothered shrieks.

Wat robbed a ruffled struggler of a kiss.

Poor Wat-once proud as Chanticleer that struts

Among his dames; faint challenged, claps his wings

And crows defiance to the distant farms

Now meekly sits beneath a shrewish voice,

With children round his knee. We spoke of him
Who drew sweet Mary Hawthorne into shame :
We could remember that for many years,

With her blithe smile and gleam of golden hair,
She like a candle lit her father's hearth,

Making the old man glad.-Now long rank grass