HONORIA.

Grown weary with a week's exile

From those fair friends, I rode to see

The church-restorings; lounged awhile,

And met the Dean; was ask'd to tea,

And found their cousin, Frederick Graham

At Honor's side. Was I concern'd,

If, when she sang, his colour came,

That mine, as with a buffet, burn'd?

A man to please a girl! thought I,

Retorting his forced smiles, the shrouds

Of wrath, so hid as she was by,

Sweet moon between her lighted clouds!

Whether this Cousin was the cause

I know not, but I seem'd to see,

The first time then, how fair she was,

How much the fairest of the three.

Each stopp'd to let the other go;

But, time-bound, he arose the first.

Stay'd he in Sarum long? If so

I hoped to see him at the Hurst.

No: he had call'd here, on his way

To Portsmouth, where the Arrogant,

His ship, was; he should leave next day,

For two years’ cruise in the Levant.

Had love in her yet struck its germs?

I watch'd. Her farewell show'd me plain

She loved, on the majestic terms

That she should not be loved again;

And so her cousin, parting, felt.

Hope in his voice and eye was dead.

Compassion did my malice melt;

Then went I home to a restless bed.

I, who admired her too, could see

His infinite remorse at this

Great mystery, that she should be

So beautiful, yet not be his,

And, pitying, long'd to plead his part;

But scarce could tell, so strange my whim,

Whether the weight upon my heart

Was sorrow for myself or him.

She was all mildness; yet‘ twas writ

In all her grace, most legibly,

‘ He that's for heaven itself unfit,

Let him not hope to merit me.’

And such a challenge, quite apart

From thoughts of love, humbled, and thus

To sweet repentance moved my heart,

And made me more magnanimous,

And led me to review my life,

Inquiring where in aught the least,

If question were of her for wife,

Ill might be mended, hope increas'd.

Not that I soar'd so far above

Myself, as this great hope to dare;

And yet I well foresaw that love

Might hope where reason must despair;

And, half-resenting the sweet pride

Which would not ask me to admire,

‘ Oh,’ to my secret heart I sigh'd,

‘ That I were worthy to desire!’

As drowsiness my brain reliev'd,

A shrill defiance of all to arms,

Shriek'd by the stable-cock, receiv'd

An angry answer from three farms.

And, then, I dream'd that I, her knight,

A clarion's haughty pathos heard,

And rode securely to the fight,

Cased in the scarf she had conferr'd;

And there, the bristling lists behind,

Saw many, and vanquish'd all I saw

Of her unnumber'd cousin-kind,

In Navy, Army, Church, and Law;

Smitten, the warriors somehow turn'd

To Sarum choristers, whose song,

Mix'd with celestial sorrow, yearn'd

With joy no memory can prolong;

And phantasms as absurd and sweet

Merged each in each in endless chace,

And everywhere I seem'd to meet

The haunting fairness of her face.