1. PART VI. November days are dusk and dull, 2. We breathe at whiles so charmed an air, By sound each leaf's light fall we learn; Soon heaves within the boundless frame, 'Mid boom, and clang, and stormy swell, And shadows dashed by blast and rain, Leaves heaped, whirled, routed, sweep the dell, And glimpses course the leaden main. 5. And yet, though inward drawn and still, There beats a hidden heart of joy; Beneath the old year's mantle chill Sleeps, mute and numb, the unconscious boy. 16. His love was no unblest device 17. He woke the sense, he warned the breast, Affirming truths supreme, And let the voice within attest 18. Each feeling thus that moved the child, To its fixed law was reconciled, 19. So still the God revealed below He stood with zeal the untaught to As one great Will of Good to all, teach, He taught for Sire and Judge to know, On whom for aid all needs may call. 20. Amid his poor, unknowing throng And when the exhausted aching frame He thought how high the teacher's aim, What seeds his sleep would leave suppressed. 22. So have I seen upon a hill A fair green tree of milk-white flowers, Where bees sucked out their honeyed fill Through all the long day's basking hours. 23. To its green cells and vases white, 24. But dark decay may mine the tree, The winter pressed with gloom and chill 26. And while at solitary night ringing; She oped the door for breath, the bell She knew that Henry was not there, His candle showed some ancient page, Nor sunbright face in sunshine free. And like a deft familiar sprite Evoked for him the buried sage; 27. While from the distant snow-clad world The clown, belated, marked the beam, Nor guessed of what the glimmering told, What human task, or goblin dream,- The lonely student oft would shrink, And seek at last reluctant rest. 29. Yet once again did Jane and he 30. 'Twas then a cold and misty morn, The churchyard seemed a cave of As if 'twould ring for ever more. death; They saw the Yew, by cold unshorn, breath. 31. And e'en while now the lovers spoke, 41. She could not rise upon her feet, 42. At last the service all was done, And masked them each in vague dis- But still she could not be alone, guise. VOL. XLIV. 2 She must beside her father stay. |