What are they, if they know their calling high,
But crushed perfumes exhaling to the sky?

Or weeping clouds, that but a while are seen,
Yet keep the earth they haste to, bright and green?

Once, and but once,-nor with a scornful face Tried worth will hear,-that scene again took place. Partly by chance they met, partly to see The spot where they had last gone cheerfully, But most, from failure of all self-support ;— And oh the meeting in that loved resort! No peevishness there was, no loud distress, No mean retort of sorry selfishness

But a mute gush of hiding tears from one Clasped to the core of him, who yet shed none,—

And self-accusings then, which he began,

And into which her tearful sweetness ran;

And then kind looks, with meeting eyes again,
Starting to deprecate each other's pain;

Till half persuasions they could scarce do wrong,
And sudden sense of wretchedness, more strong,

And why should I add more?-again they parted, He doubly torn for her, and she nigh broken-hearted.

She never ventured in that spot again;

And Paulo knew it, but could not refrain;
He went again one day; and how it looked!
The calm, old shade!-his presence felt rebuked.
It seemed, as if the hopes of his young heart,
His kindness, and his generous scorn of art,
Had all been mere a dream, or at the best

A vain negation, that could stand no test;
And that on waking from his idle fit,

He found himself (how could he think of it!)

A selfish boaster, and a hypocrite.

That thought before had grieved him; but the

pain

Cut sharp and sudden, now it came again.

Sick thoughts of late had made his body sick,

And this, in turn, to them grown strangely quick ;

And pale he stood, and seemed to burst all o'er

Into moist anguish never felt before,

And with a dreadful certainty to know,

His

peace was gone, and all to come was woe.
Francesca too, the being, made to bless,—
Destined by him to the same wretchedness,-
It seemed as if such whelming thoughts must find
Some props for them, or he should lose his mind.--
And find he did, not what the worse disease
Of want of charity calls sophistries,-

Nor what can cure a generous heart of pain,-
But humble guesses, helping to sustain.

He thought, with quick philosophy, of things
Rarely found out except through sufferings,--
Of habit, circumstance, design, degree,

Merit, and will, and thoughtful charity:
And these, although they pushed down, as they rose,
His self-respect, and all those morning shews
Of true and perfect, which his youth had built,
Pushed with them too the worst of others' guilt;

And furnished him, at least, with something kind, On which to lean a sad and startled mind:

Till youth, and natural vigour, and the dread

Of self-betrayal, and a thought that spread

From time to time in gladness o'er his face,
That she he loved could have done nothing base,
Helped to restore him to his usual life,

Though grave at heart, and with himself at strife ;
And he would rise betimes, day after day,

And mount his favourite horse, and ride away
Miles in the country, looking round about,

As he glode by, to force his thoughts without;

And, when he found it vain, would pierce the shade

Of some enwooded field or closer glade,

And there dismounting, idly sit, and sigh,

Or pluck the grass beside him with vague eye,
And almost envy the poor beast, that went
Cropping it, here and there, with dumb content.

But thus, at least, he exercised his blood,

And kept it livelier than inaction could;

And thus he earned for his thought-working head

The power of sleeping when he went to bed,

And was enabled still to wear away

That task of loaded hearts, another day.

But she, the gentler frame,—the shaken flower,
Plucked up to wither in a foreign bower,-
The struggling, virtue-loving, fallen she,
The wife that was, the mother that might be,-
What could she do, unable thus to keep

Her strength alive, but sit, and think, and weep,
For ever stooping o'er her broidery frame,
Half blind, and longing till the night-time came,
When worn and wearied out with the day's sorrow,
She might be still and senseless till the morrow?

And oh, the morrow, how it used to rise!
How would she open her despairing eyes,
And from the sense of the long lingering day,

Rushing upon her, almost turn away,