And now tall elms from the wet mossed ground
Straight up to the white clouds go.

Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall,
Fall and fall over churchyard or hall.

'O weary hedge, O thorny hedge!'

Quoth she in her lonesome bower,
'Round and round it is all the same;
Days, weeks, have all one hour;
I hear the cushat far overhead,

From the dark heart of that plane;
Sudden rushes of wings I hear,

And silence as sudden again.

Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day
Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay.

'Maiden Minnie she mopes by the fire,
Even now in the warmth of June;
I like not Madge to look in my face,
Japes now hath never a tune.

But, oh, he is so kingly strong,

And, oh, he is kind and true;

Shall not my babe, if God cares for me,

Be his pride and his joy too?

Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall,
Fall and fall over churchyard or hall.

'I lean my faint heart against this tree
Whereon he hath carved my name,
I hold me up by this fair bent bough,
For he held once by the same;
But everything here is dank and cold,
The daisies have sickly eyes,

The clouds like ghosts down into my prison
Look from the barred-out skies.

Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day
Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay.

I tune my lute and I straight forget

What I minded to play, woe 's me!

Till it feebly moans to the sharp short gusts
Aye rushing from tree to tree.
Often that single redbreast comes

To the sill where my Jesu stands;
I speak to him as to a child; he flies,
Afraid of these poor thin hands!

Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall,

Fall and fall over churchyard or hall.

The golden evening burns right through
My dark chamber windows twain:

I listen, all round me is only a grave,
Yet listen I ever again.

Will he come? I pluck the flower-leaves off,
And at each, cry, yes, no, yes!

I blow the down from the dry hawkweed,
Once, twice, ah! it flyeth amiss!

Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day
Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay.

'Hark! he comes! yet his footstep sounds As it sounded never before!

Perhaps he thinks to steal on me,

But I'll hide behind the door.'

She ran, she stopped, stood still as stone

It was Queen Eleänore;

And at once she felt that it was death

The hungering she-wolf bore!

Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall,
Fall and fall over churchyard or hall.

SAINT MARGARET.

THE wan lights freeze on the dark cold floor,
Witch lights and green the high windows adorn;
The cresset is gone out the altar before,
She knows her long hour of life 's nigh worn,
And she kneels here waiting to be re-born,
On the stones of the chancel.

'That door darkly golden, that noiseless door, Through which I can see sometimes,' said she, 'Will it ever be opened to close no more; Will those wet clouds cease pressing on me; Shall I cease to hear the sound of the sea?' Her handmaids miss her and rise.

'I've served in life's prison-house long,' she said,
'Where silver and gold are heavy and bright,
Where children wail and where maidens wed,
Where the day is wearier than the night,
And each would be master if he might.'
Margaret! they seek thee.

The night waxed darker than before;
Scarce could the windows be traced at all,
Only the sharp rain was heard rushing o'er ;
A sick sleeper moaned through the cloister wall,
And a horse neighed shrill from a distant stall,
And the sea sounded on.

'Are all the dear holy ones shut within, That none descend in my strait?' said she; 'Their songs are afar off, far off and thin, The terrible sounds of the prison-house flee About me, and the sound of the sea.'

Lights gleam from room to room.

Slowly a moonshine breaks over the glass,
The black and green witchcraft is there no more;
It spreads and it brightens, and out of it pass
Four angels with glorified hair,— all four
With lutes; and our Lord is in heaven's door.
Margaret! they hail thee.

Her eyes are a-wide to the hallowèd light,
Her head is cast backward, her bosom is clad

With the flickering moonlight pale-purple and white;
Away to the angels her spirit hath fled,

While her body still kneels, - but is it not dead?

She is safe, she is well!

PARTING AND MEETING AGAIN.

LAST time I parted from my dear
The linnet sang from the briar-bush,
The throstle from the dell;

The stream too carolled full and clear,
It was the spring-time of the year,
And both the linnet and the thrush
I love them well,

Since last I parted from my dear.

But when he came again to me
The barley rustled high and low,
Linnet and thrush were still;
Yellowed the apple on the tree,

'T was autumn merry as it could be,
What time the white ships come and go
Under the hill;

They brought him back again to me,

Brought him safely o'er the sea.

OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE.

I.

BIRTH.

I STOOD before the vail of the Unknown,
And round me in this life's dim theatre
Was gathered a whole townsfolk, all astir
With various interludes: I watched alone,
And saw a great hand lift the vail, then shone,
Descending from the innermost expanse,

A goddess to whose eyes my heart at once
Flew up with awe and love, a love full-blown.

Naked and white she was, her fire-girt hair
Eddied on either side her straight high head,
Swaddled within her arms in lambent flame,
An unborn life, a child-soul, did she bear,

And laid it on a young wife's breast and fled,
Yet no one wondered whence the strange gift came !

II.

DEATH.

AGAIN that stage was vacant, that dusk crowd
Was murmuring as before: again that hand
Gathered the curtain; I saw rise and stand
Against the inmost blackness like a cloud,
No feature seen, but o'er his brows a proud
Spiked crown that held the thick mist clothing him,
A strong imperious creature, tall and slim,
And hateful too, thus hid within that shroud.

Stooping he raised within his long thin arms

A scared old man and rolled him up, and fled: