'I go, but I return: I would I were

The pilot of the darkness and the dream. Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.'

So sang we each to either, Francis Hale,
The farmer's son, who lived across the bay,
My friend; and I, that having wherewithal,
And in the fallow leisure of my life

A rolling stone of here and everywhere,
Did what I would; but ere the night we rose
And saunter'd home beneath a moon, that, just
In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf
Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd

The limit of the hills; and as we sank
From rock to rock upon the glooming quay,

The town was hush'd beneath us: lower down
The bay was oily calm; the harbour-buoy,
Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm,
With one green sparkle ever and anon
Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.

WALKING TO THE MAIL.

John. I'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the mea

dows look

Above the river, and, but a month ago,

The whole hill-side was redder than a fox.

Is yon plantation where this byway joins

No, not the County Member's with the vane:

Up higher with the yew-tree by it, and half

A score of gables.

James.

That? Sir Edward Head's:

But he's abroad: the place is to be sold.

John. Oh, his. He was not broken.
James.

No, sir, he,

Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood

That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face From all men, and commercing with himself,

He lost the sense that handles daily life—

That keeps us all in order more or less—
And sick of home went overseas for change.
John. And whither?

James. Nay, who knows? he's here and there. But let him go; his devil goes with him,

As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes.
John. What's that?

James. You saw the man-on Monday, was

it ?

There by the humpback'd willow; half stands up And bristles; half has fall'n and made a bridge;

And there he caught the younker tickling troutCaught in flagrante-what's the Latin word ?-Delicto: but his house, for so they say,

Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors, And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd: The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs, And all his household stuff; and with his boy Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt,

Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, 'What!

You're flitting!' 'Yes, we're flitting,' says the

ghost

(For they had pack'd the thing among the beds,) 'Oh well,' says he, 'you flitting with us tooJack, turn the horses' heads and home again.' John. He left his wife behind; for so I heard. James. He left her, yes. I met my lady once: A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs.

John. Oh yet but I remember, ten years back

'Tis now at least ten years—and then she was—
You could not light upon a sweeter thing:
A body slight and round, and like a pear
In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot
Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin
As clean and white as privet when it flowers.
James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they

that loved

At first like dove and dove were cat and dog.
She was the daughter of a cottager,

Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and

pride,

New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd To what she is: a nature never kind!

Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they

say:

Kind nature is the best: those manners next

That fit us like a nature second-hand;

Which are indeed the manners of the great.

John. But I had heard it was this bill that past,