A WALL.

I.

O THE old wall here! How I could pass
Life in a long midsummer day,
My feet confined to a plot of grass,
My eyes from a wall not once away!

II.

And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:
Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath,

In lappets of tangle they laugh between.

III.

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?

Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims The body-the house no eye can probe— Divined as, beneath a robe, the limbs?

IV.

And there again! But my heart may guess
Who tripped behind; and she sang perhaps ;
So the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess
Died out and away in the leafy wraps!

V.

Wall upon wall are between us; life

And song should away from heart to heart! I-prison-bird, with a ruddy strife

5

ΤΟ

15

At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start— 20

VI.

Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing
That's spirit: though cloistered fast, soar free;
Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring

Of the rueful neighbours, and-forth to thee!

PRELUDE TO 'DRAMATIC IDYLS.'

(SECOND SERIES.)

'You are sick, that's sure'-they say:
'Sick of what?'-they disagree.
"T is the brain '-thinks Dr. A.,
"T is the heart'-holds Dr. B.,
'The liver-my life I'd lay!'
'The lungs!' 'The lights!'

So ignorant of man's whole

Ah me!

Of bodily organs plain to see—
So sage and certain, frank and free,
About what's under lock and key—
Man's soul!

Time- between 1833 and 15

PIPPA PASSES.

A DRAMA.

NEW-YEAR'S DAY AT ASOLO IN THE TREVISAN.-A large, mean, airy chamber. A girl, PIPPA, from the silk-mills, springing out of bed.

DAY!

Faster and more fast,

O'er night's brim, day boils at last;

Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay:
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray

Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;

But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,

Rose, reddened, and its seething breast

Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,

A mite of my twelve hours' treasure,

The least of thy gazes or glances

(Be they grants thou art bound to, or gifts above measure), One of thy choices, or one of thy chances

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(Be they tasks God imposed thee, or freaks at thy pleasure)My Day, if I squander such labour or leisure,

Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me!

Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing,

Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good

20

Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going,

In which earth turns from work in gamesome mood—

All shall be mine! But thou must treat me not

As the prosperous are treated, those who live
At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot,
In readiness to take what thou wilt give,
And free to let alone what thou refusest;
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest

Me, who am only Pippa-old-year's sorrow,
Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow:
Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow
Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's sorrow.
All other men and women that this earth
Belongs to, who all days alike possess,
Make general plenty cure particular dearth,
Get more joy one way, if another less:
Thou art my single day God lends to leaven
What were all earth else with a feel of heaven;
Sole light that helps me through the year, thy sun's!
Try, now! Take Asolo's Four Happiest Ones-
And let thy morning rain on that superb
Great haughty Ottima, can rain disturb
Her Sebald's homage? All the while thy rain
Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window-pane,
He will but press the closer, breathe more warm
Against her cheek; how should she mind the storm?
And, morning past, if midday shed a gloom
O'er Jules and Phene, what care bride and groom
Save for their dear selves? 'T is their marriage-day;
And while they leave church, and go home their way
Hand clasping hand, within each breast would be
Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of thee.
Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve

With mist, will Luigi and his mother grieve

The lady and her child, unmatched, forsooth,

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