pressive purple eyes; So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed, The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed. "Oh, holy father," Alice said, "'t would grieve you, would it not? To discover that I was a most disreputable lot! Of all unhappy sinners I'm the most unhappy one! The padre said, "Whatever have you been and gone and done?" "I have helped mamma to steal a little kiddy from its dad, I've assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad. I've planned a little burglary and forged a little check, And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!" The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear And said, "You mustn't judge yourself too heavily, my dear It's wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece; But sins like these one expiates at half-acrown apiece. "Girls will be girls-you're very young, and flighty in your mind; Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find: We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks Let's see five crimes at half-a-crown exactly twelve-and-six." "Oh, father," little Alice cried, "your kindness makes me weep, You do these little things for me so singularly cheap Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget; But, O, there is another crime I haven't mentioned yet!" "A pleasant-looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes, I've noticed at my window, as I've sat acatching flies; He passes by it every day as certain as can be I blush to say I've winked at him and he has winked at me!" "For shame," said Father Paul, "my erring daughter! On my word This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard. Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!" "This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parents so! They are the most remunerative customers I know; For many many years they've kept starvation from my doors, I never knew so criminal a family as yours!" "The common country folk in this insipid neighborhood Have nothing to confess, they're so ridiculously good; And if you marry any one respectable at all, Why, you'll reform, and what will then become of Father Paul?" The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown, And started off in haste to tell the news to Robber Brown; To tell him how his daughter, who now was for marriage fit, Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it. Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well, He said "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell; I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits, And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits. "I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two, Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do — Wast thou born to the sound of sea trumpets, Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess Of the sponges - thy muffins and crumpets, Of the seaweed-thy mustard and cress? Wast thou nurtured in caverns of coral, Lithe limbs, curling free, as a creeper In a silent and stealthy embrace, O breast, that 'twere rapture to writhe on! When she maketh her murderous meal! Ah! thy red lips, lascivious and luscious, We are sick with the poison of pleasure, I ask'd him if he'd take a whiff (A pipe was all he needed,) Till of the tinker's life, I think, I knew as much as he did. "I loiter down by thorp and town; “I deal in every ware in turn, I've rings for buddin' Sally "I steal from th' parson's strawberry-plots, I hide by th' squire's covers; I teach the sweet young housemaids what's The art of trapping lovers. "The things I've done 'neath moon and stars Have got me into messes; I've seen the sky through prison bars, "I've sat, I've sigh'd, I've gloom'd, I've glanced With envy at the swallows That through the window slid, and danced (Quite happy) round the gallows; "But out again I come, and show Thus on he prattled like a babbling brook. So in all love we parted; I to the Hall, They to the village. It was noised next Why, whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover: Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over. Two and two may be four, but four and four are not eight: Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate. Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels: God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels. Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which: The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch. More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole: Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul? One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two: Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true. Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were as common as cocks: Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox. Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew: Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's appalled agitation, Fainter with fear of the fires of the future that pale with the promise of pride in the past; Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation, Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast? Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death: Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitudes' breath. Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as it may be, While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of men's rapiers, resigned to the rod; Made meek as a mother whose bosombeats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby, As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of God. Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is blacker than bluer: Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the bloodshed of things; Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is freed from the fangs that pursue her, WILL there never come a season And a boy's eccentric blunder When mankind shall be delivered J. K. STEPHEN. GEORGE MEREDITH [1828-1909] THE WOODS OF WESTERMAIN [1862.] I ENTER these enchanted woods, You who dare. Nothing harms beneath the leaves Only at a dread of dark Quaver, and they quit their form: Enter these enchanted woods, II Here the snake across your path Low to laugh from branches dim: Shudder all the haunted roods, III Open hither, open hence, Scarce a bramble weaves a fence, Rich of wreathing sun and rain; Foliage lustreful around Shadowed leagues of slumbering sound. Wavy tree-tops, yellow whins, Shelter eager minikins, Myriads, free to peck and pipe: Read their pool of vision through, Loved of Earth of old they were, And the sterner worship bars None whom Song has made her stars. You have seen the huntress moon Dusky meads between them strewn |