The intuitive decision of a bright

And thorough-edged intellect to part

Error from crime-a prudence to withhold—

The laws of marriage character'd in gold
Upon the blanched tablets of her heart—
A love still burning upward giving light
To read those laws-an accent very low
In blandishment, but a most silver flow

Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
Right to the heart and brain, though undescried,
Winning its way with extreme gentleness
Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride-
A courage to endure and to obey—

A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,
Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.

The mellow'd reflex of a winter moon

A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,
Till in its onward current it absorbs

With swifter movement and in purer light

The vexed eddies of its wayward brother—

A leaning and upbearing parasite,

Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite, With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs

Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other

Shadow forth thee :-the world hath not another (Though all her fairest forms are types of thee, And thou of God in thy great charity)

Of such a finish'd chasten'd purity.

MARIANA.

"Mariana in the moated grange.”—Measure for Measure

I.

WITH blackest moss the flower-plots

Were thickly crusted, one and all, The rusted nails fell from the knots

That held the peach to the garden-wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange, Unlifted was the clinking latch,

Weeded and worn the ancient thatch

Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said " My life is dreary,

He cometh not,” she said;

She said "I am aweary, aweary ;

I would that I were dead !"

IL.

Her tears fell with the dews at even;

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven,

Either at morn or eventide.

After the flitting of the bats,

When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said "The night is dreary,

He cometh not," she said:

She said "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

III.

Upon the middle of the night,

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow :

The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her without hope of change,

In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,

Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn

About the lonely moated grange.

She only said, "The day is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

IV.

About a stone-cast from the wall

A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,

And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.

Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver-green with gnarled bark,
For leagues no other tree did dark
The level waste, the rounding gray.

She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"