THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER.

I SEE the wealthy miller yet,

His double chin, his portly size,
And who that knew him could forget
The busy wrinkles round his eyes?

The slow wise smile that, round about
His dusty forehead drily curl'd,
Seem'd half-within and half-without,

And full of dealings with the world?

In yonder chair I see him sit,

Three fingers round the old silver cup—

I see his gray eyes twinkle yet

At his own jest-gray eyes lit

up

With summer lightnings of a soul

So full of summer warmth, so glad, So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, His memory scarce can make me sad.

Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss :
My own sweet Alice, we must die.

There's somewhat in this world amiss
Shall be unriddled by and by.

There's somewhat flows to us in life,
But more is taken quite away.
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,

That we may die the self-same day.

Have I not found a happy earth?

I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again.

So sweet it seems with thee to walk,

And once again to woo thee mine— It seems in after-dinner talk

Across the walnuts and the wine

To be the long and listless boy

Late-left an orphan of the squire, Where this old mansion mounted high Looks down upon the village spire: For even here, where I and you

Have lived and loved alone so long, Each morn my sleep was broken thro' By some wild skylark's matin song.

And oft I heard the tender dove

In firry woodlands making moan;

But ere I saw your eyes, my love,

I had no motion of my own.

For scarce my life with fancy play'd

Before I dream'd that pleasant dream—

Still hither thither idly sway'd

Like those long mosses in the stream.

Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear

The milldam rushing down with noise,

And see the minnows everywhere

In crystal eddies glance and poise,

The tall flag-flowers, where they sprung

Below the range of stepping-stones,

And those three chestnuts near, that hung In masses thick with milky cones.

But, Alice, what an hour was that,
When after roving in the woods
('Twas April then), I came and sat
Below the chestnuts, when their buds

Were glistening to the breezy blue;
And on the slope, an absent fool,

I cast me down, nor thought of you,
But angled in the higher pool.

A love-song I had somewhere read,
An echo from a measured strain,
Beat time to nothing in my head

From some odd corner of the brain.

It haunted me, the morning long,

With weary sameness in the rhymes,

The phantom of a silent song,

That went and came a thousand times.

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood

I watch'd the little circles die; They past into the level flood,

And there a vision caught my eye; The reflex of a beauteous form,

A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, As when a sunbeam wavers warm

Within the dark and dimpled beck.

For

you

remember, you had set,

That morning, on the casement's edge

A long green box of mignonette,

And you were leaning from the ledge: And when I raised my eyes, above

They met with two so full and bright— Such eyes! I swear to you, my love, That these have never lost their light.

I loved, and love dispell'd the fear

That I should die an early death:

For love possess'd the atmosphere,

And fill'd the breast with

purer

breath.