When by herself, she to herself
Must sing some merry rhyme;

She could not now be glad for hours,
Yet silent all the time.

And when she soothed her friend, through all

Her soothing words 'twas plain

She had a sore grief of her own,
A haunting in her brain.

And oft she said, I'm not grown thin!
And then her wrist she spanned :
And once when Mary was down-cast,
She took her by the hand,

And gazed upon her, and at first
She gently pressed her hand;

Then harder, till her grasp at length
Did gripe like a convulsion!
Alas! said she, we ne'er can be
Made happy by compulsion!

And once her both arms suddenly
Round Mary's neck she flung,
And her heart panted, and she felt
upon her tongue.

The words

She felt them coming, but no power

Had she the words to smother; And with a kind of shriek she cried,

"Oh Christ! you're like

your

Mother!"

So gentle Ellen now no more

Could make this sad house cheery;

And Mary's melancholy ways
Drove Edward wild and weary.

Lingering he raised his latch at eve,
Though tired in heart and limb:
He loved no other place, and yet
Home was no home to him.

One evening he took up a book,

And nothing in it read;

Then flung it down, and groaning cried, "Oh! Heaven! that I were dead."

Mary looked up into his face,

And nothing to him said;
She tried to smile, and on his arm

Mournfully leaned her head.

And he burst into tears, and fell

Upon his knees in prayer:

"Her heart is broke! O God! my grief, It is too great to bear!"

'Twas such a foggy time as makes

Old Sextons, Sir! like me,

Rest on their spades to cough; the spring Was late uncommonly.

And then the hot days, all at once,
They came, we knew not how:

You looked about for shade, when scarce
A leaf was on a bough.

It happened then ('twas in the bower
A furlong up the wood:

Perhaps you know the place, and yet
I scarce know how you should)

No path leads thither, 'tis not nigh

To any pasture-plot;

But clustered near the chattering brook,

Lone hollies marked the spot.

Those hollies of themselves a shape

As of an arbour took,

A close, round arbour; and it stands
Not three strides from a brook.

Within this arbour, which was still

With scarlet berries hung,

Were these three friends, one Sunday morn, Just as the first bell rung.

'Tis sweet to hear a brook, 'tis sweet To hear the Sabbath-bell,

"Tis sweet to hear them both at once,

Deep in a woody dell.

His limbs along the moss, his head
Upon a mossy heap,

With shut-up senses, Edward lay :
That brook e'en on a working day
Might chatter one to sleep.

And he had passed a restless night,
And was not well in health;
The women sat down by his side,

And talked as 'twere by stealth.

"The Sun peeps through the close thick leaves,

"See, dearest Ellen! see!

""Tis in the leaves, a little Sun,

"No bigger than your ee;

"A tiny Sun, and it has got

"A perfect glory too:

"Ten thousand threads and hairs of light,

"Make up a glory, gay and bright,

"Round that small orb, so blue."

And then they argued of those rays,
What colour they might be :

Says this," they're mostly green;" says that,

So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts,
Were troubling Edward's rest;

But soon they heard his hard quick pants,
And the thumping in his breast.

"A Mother, too!" these self-same words Did Edward mutter plain;

His face was drawn back on itself,

With horror and huge pain.