falls      'Tim chequered shade of quivering limes.       'They come from field and wharf and street With dewy hair and veined throat, One fluor to tread with reverent feet,—      One hour of rest for ball and boat:       Like swallows gathering for their flight, When autumn whispers, play no more, They check the laugh, with fancies bright Still hovering round the sacred door. Lo! childhood swelling into seed, Lo! manhood bursting from the bud:      Two growths, unlike; yet all agreed To trust the movement of the blood. They toil at games, and play with books:      They love the winner of the race, If only he that prospers looks On prizes with a simple grace. The many leave the few to choose; They scorn not him who turns aside To woo alone a milder Muse, If shielded by a tranquil pride. When thought is claimed, when pain is borne, Whate'er is done in this sweet isle, There's none that may not lift his horn, If only lifted with a smile. So here dwells freedom; nor could she, Who ruled in every clime on earth, Find any spring more fit to be The fountain of her festal mirth. Elsewhere she sought for lore and art, But hither came for vernal joy:      Nor was this all: she smote the heart And woke the hero in the boy. 

  

       MOON-SET     

      Sweet moon, twice rounded in a blithe July, Once down a wandering English stream thou leddest My lonely boat; swans gleamed around; the sky Throbbed overhead with meteors. Now thou sheddest Faint radiance on a cold Arvernian plain, Where I, far severed from that youthful crew, Far from the gay disguise thy witcheries threw On wave and dripping oar, still own thy reign, Travelling with thee through many a sleepless hour. Now shrink, like my weak will: a sterner power Empurpleth yonder hills beneath thee piled,      Hills, where Cæsarian sovereignty was won On high basaltic levels blood-defiled, The Druid moonlight quenched beneath the Roman sun. 

  

       AFTER READING "MAUD"     

       September, 1855     

      Twelve years ago, if he had died, His critic friends had surely cried:      "Death does us wrong, the fates are cross; Nor will this age repair the loss. Fine was the promise of his youth; Time would have brought him deeper truth. Some earnest of his wealth he 

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