blossoms,—

p. 95X.

p. 95

Quite à la mode. Alas! for prose,—  My vagrant fancies only rambled Back to the red-walled Rectory close, Where first my graceless boyhood gambolled, Climbed on the dial, teased the fish, And chased the kitten round the beeches, Till widening instincts made me wish For certain slowly-ripening peaches.

XI.

Three peaches. Not the Graces three Had more equality of beauty: I would not look, yet went to see; I wrestled with Desire and Duty; I felt the pangs of those who feel The Laws of Property beset them; The conflict made my reason reel, And, half-abstractedly, I ate them;—

XII.

Or Two of them. Forthwith Despair—  More keen than one of these was rotten— Moved me to seek some forest lair Where I might hide and dwell forgotten, Attired in skins, by berries stained, Absolved from brushes and ablution;— But, ere my sylvan haunt was gained, Fate gave me up to execution.

XIII.

I saw it all but now. The grin That gnarled old Gardener Sandy’s features; p. 96My father, scholar-like and thin, Unroused, the tenderest of creatures; I saw—ah me—I saw again My dear and deprecating mother; And then, remembering the cane, Regretted—THAT I’D LEFT THE OTHER.

p. 96

THAT I’D LEFT THE OTHER

p. 97THINGS GONE BY.

p. 97

Is it that things go by, or is it that people go by the things? If the former, it is no wonder that a good deal of gloom hangs about the matter. To be standing still, and to have a panorama constantly moving by one, bearing on its face all things fair and beautiful—happy love scenes, kindly friends, pleasant meetings, wise speeches, noble acts, stirring words, national epochs, as well as gay landscapes of hill and dale, and river and sun, and shade and trees, and cottages and labouring men and grazing cattle; to have all things moving by one, and oneself to stagnate and alone to be left behind, as all else moves on to greet the young, the 

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