They drew the gurgling water from its deep;

Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags, Then turning homewards said: The sunset flushes

Those furthest loftiest crags;

Come, Laura, not another maiden lags,
No wilful squirrel wags,

The beasts and birds are fast asleep.'

But Laura loitered still among the rushes And said the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still,
The dew not fall'n, the wind not chill:
Listening ever, but not catching

The customary cry,
'Come buy, come buy,'
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching

Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds

That used to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,

Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

Till Lizzie urged, 'O Laura, come;

I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.

The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glowworm winks her spark.

Let us get home before the night grows dark:

For clouds may gather

Though this is summer weather,

Put out the lights and drench us through; Then if we lost our way what should we do?'

Laura turned cold as stone

To find her sister heard that cry alone, That goblin cry,

'Come buy our fruits, come buy.'

Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?

Must she no more such succous pasture find,

Gone deaf and blind?

Her tree of life drooped from the root: She said not one word in her heart's sore ache;

But peering thro' the dimness, nought discerning,

Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;

So crept to bed, and lay

Silent till Lizzie slept;

Then sat up in a passionate yearning,

And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire,

and wept

As if her heart would break.

Day after day, night after night, Laura kept watch in vain

In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
'Come buy, come buy;'

She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon waxed bright
Her hair grew thin and grey;

She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth

turn

To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.

One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watched for a waxing shoot,
But there came none;

It never saw the sun,

It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dreamed of melons, as a traveller

sees

False waves in desert drouth

With shade of leaf-crowned trees,

And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

She no more swept the house, Tended the fowls or cows,

Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat, Brought water from the brook,

But sat down listless in the chimney-nook And would not eat.

Tender Lizzie could not bear

To watch her sister's cankerous care
Yet not to share.

She night and morning
Caught the goblins' cry:

'Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy;'

Beside the brook, along the glen,

She heard the tramp of goblin men,
The voice and stir

Poor Laura could not hear;
Longed to buy fruit to comfort her
But feared to pay too dear.

She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;

But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died

In her gay prime,

In earliest Winter time,
With the first glazing rime,

With the first snow-fall of crisp Winter time.

Till Laura dwindling

Seemed knocking at Death's door: Then Lizzie weighed no more Better and worse;

But put a silver penny in her purse,

Kissed Laura, crossed the heath with

clumps of furze

At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.

Laughed every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel- and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter skelter, hurry skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes,

Hugged her and kissed her:
Squeezed and caressed her:
Stretched up their dishes,
Panniers, and plates:
'Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,

Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs.'-

'Good folk,' said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie:
'Give me much and many:'-
Held out her apron,
Tossed them her penny.
'Nay, take a seat with us,
Honour and eat with us,'
They answered grinning:
'Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew-pearly,
Wakeful and starry:

Such fruits as these

No man can carry;

Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,

Half their flavour would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,

Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you, and rest with us.'.

'Thank you,' said Lizzie: 'But one waits At home alone for me:

So without further parleying,

If you will not sell me any

Of your fruits though much and many, Give me back my silver penny

I tossed you for a fee.'

They began to scratch their pates,

No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails

They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,

Clawed with their nails,

Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,

Tore her gown and soiled her stocking, Twitched her hair out by the roots,

Stamped upon her tender feet,

Held her hands and squeezed their fruits Against her mouth to make her eat.

White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,

Like a rock of blue-veined stone
Lashed by tides obstreperously, -
Like a beacon left alone

In a hoary roaring sea,

Sending up a golden fire,

Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee,
Like a royal virgin town
Topped with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguered by a fleet
Mad to tug her standard down.

One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.

Though the goblins cuffed and caught her, Coaxed and fought her,

Bullied and besought her,

Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,

Kicked and knocked her,

Mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word;

Would not open lip from lip

Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laughed in heart to feel the drip

Of juice that syrupped all her face,

And lodged in dimples of her chin,

And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.

At last the evil people

Worn out by her resistance

Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit

Along whichever road they took,

Not leaving root or stone or shoot;

Some writhed into the ground,

Some dived into the brook

With ring and ripple,

Some scudded on the gale without a sound, Some vanished in the distance.

Straight toward the sun,

Or like a caged thing freed,

Or like a flying flag when armies run.

Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart,

Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser flame;

She gorged on bitterness without a name:
Ah! fool, to choose such part

Of soul-consuming care!

Sense failed in the mortal strife:
Like the watch-tower of a town

Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree
Spun about,

Like a foam-topped waterspout
Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;

Pleasure past and anguish past,
Is it death or is it life?

Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own

Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone

Of not-returning time:

Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poisons in the blood;

(Men sell not such in any town:)
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands

Ан, woe is me for pleasure that is vain,
Ah, woe is me for glory that is past:
Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last,
Glory that at the last bringeth no gain!
So saith the sinking heart; and so again

It shall say till the mighty angel-blast Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast

And showering down the stars like sudden rain.

And evermore men shall go fearfully

Bending beneath their weight of heaviness;

And ancient men shall lie down wearily, And strong men shall rise up in weari

ness;

Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly Saying one to another: How vain it is!

DREAM LAND

[Published 1850. Reprinted 1862.]
WHERE sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmèd sleep:
Awake her not.

Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn

And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:

A BIRTHDAY

[Published 1861. Reprinted 1862.]

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise me a dais of silk and down;

Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,

In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

REMEMBER [1862.]

REMEMBER me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the
hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day

This was the promise of the days of old! Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould,

Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies:

We hoped for better things as years would rise,

But it is over as a tale once told.

All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore,

All lost the present and the future time, All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before: So lost till death shut-to the opened door,

So lost from chime to everlasting chime, So cold and lost for ever evermore.

REST [1862.]

O EARTH, lie heavily upon her eyes;
Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching,
Earth;

Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth

With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.

She hath no questions, she hath no replies, Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth

Of all that irked her from the hour of birth:

With stillness that is almost Paradise. Darkness more clear than noon-day holdeth her.

Silence more musical than any song; Even her very heart has ceased to stir: Until the morning of Eternity

Her rest shalt not begin nor end, but be; And when she wakes she will not think it long.