sadness with. The gray dust gathered on the leaf unturned, And then the spider drew his thread across. Certain bright coins that he was used to count With thrill at fingers' ends uncounted lay, Suddenly worthless, like the conjurer's gold That midst the jeers and laughter of the crowd Turns into ashes in the rustic's hand. Soft idleness itself bore now a thorn Two-pronged with meditation and desire. The cold Griselda that would none of him! The fair Griselda! Not alone by day, With this most solid earth beneath his feet, But in the weird and unsubstantial sphere Of slumber did her beauty hold him thrall. Herself of late he saw not; 't was a wraith He worshipped, a vain shadow. Thus he pined From dawn to dusk, and then from dusk to dawn, Of that miraculous infection caught From any-colored eyes, so they be sweet. Strange that a man should let a maid's slim foot Stamp on his happiness and quench it quite! With what snail-pace the traitor time creeps by When one is out with fortune and undone! how tauntingly upon the dial's plate The shadow's finger points the dismal hour! Thus Wyndham, with hands clasped behind his back, Watching the languid and reluctant sun Fade from the metal disk beside the door. The hours hung heavy up there on the hill, Where life was little various at best And merriment had long since ta'en its flight. Sometimes he sat and conned the flying clouds Till on dusk's bosom nestled her one star, And spoke no word, nor seemed alive at all, But a mere shape and counterfeit of life; Or, urged by some swift hunger for green boughs, Would bid the hound to heel, and disappear Into the forest, with himself communing For lack of gossip. So do lonely men Make themselves tedious to their tedious selves. Thus passed he once in a white blaze of noon Under his oaks, and muttered as he went:         “'My father's daughter' and 'your father's son'!      Faith, but it was a shrewd and nimble phrase, And left me with no fitting word at tongue. The wench hath wit and matter of her own, And beauty, that doth seldom mate with wit, Nature hath painted her a proper brown—      A russet-colored wench that knows her worth. And mincing, too—should have her ruff propt up With supertasses, like a dame at Court, And go in cloth-of-gold. I'll get a suit Of Genoa velvet, and so take her eye. Has she a heart? The ladies of Whitehall Are not so skittish, else does Darrell lie Most villainously. Often hath he said The art of blushing 's a lost art at Court. If so, good riddance! This one 

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