But sometimes the eastmost turret
Gives her brain as weary dreams
Of cities and kiosk'd gardens,

And fountains and golden streams :

For, ever those gardens tending,

A Christian slave is there,

That the bitter scoff of the Paynim hounds Must, smitten and shackled, bear;

Till the knightly heart is broken,
And the haughty eye grows dim,
And the stately form is bow'd and bent,
Till the meanest can scoff at him.

Or, hark! his haughty spirit,

Unbroken, Mahound has curst,

And spat at the dogs who know not Christ, And hath dared them to their worst.

And, crouch'd in that ghastly dungeon,
Where newt and adder crawl,

She sees him, tortured, and crush'd, and worn
By misery worse than all.

O terrors in shapes, how ghastly,

You scare and affray her eyes!

And hope, no fairer visions,

No sweeter dreams, supplies?

Yes; ever the first in glory,
In danger, saved through all,
Joy shows him, Christ's dear soldier,
Not doom'd to sink or fall.

And ever the deadly mêlée,
And burning wastes are trod,
Secure, by him she loveth,
Her warrior, loved of God.

And ever, as on he battles

To where Christ's triumphs were,

His thoughts, she knows, are of his Lord,
His Lord alone, and her.

Then sometimes, calmly sinking
In such sweet dreams to rest,
With a yet-yet dearer vision
Her happier eyes are blest.

O joy of joys ecstatic!

A glad cry strikes her dumb With gladness, calling to her,

"Come down! our lord has come !"

Then-then, the glorious angels

That guard her, smile and know, Heaven's blessedness at times is shown To mortals, yet below.

UFTON COURT.

DIVE, dive, O swallow, dart and dive!
Your joy is changeless, but ours, how short!

So whispers this long-lost home to me,
My boyhood's dwelling of Ufton Court.

O weedy terrace-O silent walks

O echoing porch-O waters green-
For forty years where the palm-tree waves,
Not such have my dreams of Ufton been!

Not so I saw you in that old time

When love, it struggled, but pride, it won, When, choked with passion, I left you last, For the march and camp 'neath an Indian sun.

Not so I saw you, when on our line

The Pindarees' wild horse came down ;

Not so 'mid the yell of the roaring breach,
When we storm'd red Bhurtpore's cloven town.

No-all unchanged, in those eastern dreams,
Your fountain leap'd, and your broad elms swung,
And with one soft laugh—that ever I heard—
With gladness and music your chambers rung.

The oak is green, and the linnet sings
As sweet a song as ever it sung;

But where is the voice that warbled here
A sweeter music when I was young?

Soft falls the sunlight as then it fell,

On gable, and casement, and garden wall; But where is she, to my boyish heart

That made the gladness of Ufton Hall?

"Or you or I should go," they said,
"Or you be homeless, or I depart."

Strange lands they thrust between our love,
But never they thrust us heart from heart!

A differing faith our fathers held;

A differing faith we from them drew; My curse be on the ancient jars

That help'd to part me, love, from you.

My curse be on the bigot hate

That bann'd thy rites, O ancient Hall; And hunted forth thy outlaw'd priests From passaged roof and hollow'd wall.

"A boyish passion, a girlish love—
"Let other faces our fancies fill."

Little they thought would my hair be white,
And her smile in my heart be lonely still.

For forty springs have your thorn-trees bloom'd,
For forty autumns your oaks been gold;
Yet the sight of your rising chimneys shook
My blood, as it thrill'd its throbs of old.

Yet ah! how little, as children here,

When these same garden-walks we paced, We thought that the love we then scarce knew, They fain would have from our hearts effaced.

Effaced!

Our names on the beech then cut, The beech with years may at last resign; But never a change my love could know,

And never a change could come to thine.

Ah, well I mind me of that sweet hour,
When conscious love to your eyes first came,
No, never I knew their depths to leave,
Or shown or hidden-till death the same.

O hazel eyes, 'mid your soft brown curls!

Fain, fain had hidden them, land and sea; But ever they lived before my thought,

And ever they look'd their love to me.

For ever they gazed with that parting look
That sware a love that must endure,
The love of the heiress of Ufton Court
For me, her cousin, scorn'd and poor.

Yet never a breath of that sweet love
Or word or letter to me might bear;
Too keen was that mother's cold, proud watch,
But, utter'd or not, that love was there.

Ay, long they pray'd her to wed the Earl,

And long they scoff'd at her idle gloom; But changeless stole she away from youth, Stole she unto her early tomb.

And therefore, well, to my aged thoughts,

It seems that, heirless, to stranger hands, From those who wither'd our joy to grief, Should pass, old Court, thy hall and lands.

And now, at length, that I look once more,
Old home, on thee-decay thy fate—
On thee, I say, let the curse work on,
Of the hearts thy pride made desolate.

HER JESSAMINE.

PART I.

THERE'S the jessamine she loved so; ah, a curly child she set it

When this garden porch from which it trails so greenly, first was made;

Oh, her joy in its first summers, who that saw it can forget it,

How she wondered at its white sweet stars and shouted in its shade!

Oh, that jessamine-that trellised porch-I never look upon it

But up before me all her little days it seems to bring; How, brown and bare, her little hopes still prattled blossoms on it,

Still looked for leaves in winter and still watched for buds in spring.

That jessamine-its every spray to her was a green sister, For, sisterless, her all of unclaimed love on it was spent ; To her its faint sweet odours still were glad fond lips that kissed her,

Its murmurs, living tongues that whispered back the love

she lent.

That jessamine-oh, how she prized the pleasure of its training!

No hand but hers, its year's new shoots might to its trellis

bind;

'Twas a sound to gladden any heart-her laugh to see it

gaining,

[wind.

May by May, still up the porch's height, along the roof to