But if he will not take thee back again, So the women kissed Each other, and set out and reached the farm. The door was off the latch: they peeped and saw The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees, Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire. And Allan sat him down, and Mary said: I never came a-begging for myself, Or William, or this child; but now I come For Dora take her back; she loves you well. 'God bless him!' he said, ' and may he never know The troubles I have gone through!' Then he turned His face and passed— unhappy that I am! But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silence in the room; "I have been to blame-to blame! I have killed my son! I have killed him — but I loved him - my dear son! Kiss me, my children!" Then they clung about The old man's neck, and kissed him many times. And all his love came back a hundredfold; And for three hours he sobbed o'er William's child, So those four abode Within one house together; and as years AUDLEY COURT. "THE Bull, the Fleece are crammed, and not a room For love or money. At Audley Court." Let us picnic there I spoke, while Audley feast Hummed like a hive all round the narrow quay, To Francis just alighted from the boat, And breathing of the sea. "With all my heart," And rounded by the stillness of the beach And crossed the garden to the gardener's lodge, With all its casements bedded, and its walls There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang— Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, And shovelled up into a bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life. "O! who would cast and balance at a desk, Perched like a crow upon a three-legged stool, Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints Are full of chalk? but let me live my life. "Who 'd serve the state? for if I carved my name Upon the cliffs that guard my native land. I might as well have traced it in the sands; The sea wastes all: but let me live my life. Knocked down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride, - the more the pity, so I said — Came to the hammer here in March—and this I set the words, and added names I knew. Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of me: Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm, And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. "Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm; Emilia, fairer than all else but thou, For thou art fairer than all else that is. |