The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings;

And he look'd up.

There stood a maiden near,

Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared

On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair

In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell

Divides threefold to show the fruit within:

Then, wondering, ask'd her "Are you from the

farm?"

"Yes" answer'd she. "Pray stay a little: pardon

me;

What do they call you?" "Katie."

strange.

What surname ?" "Willows."

is my name."

"That were

"No!" 66 That

"Indeed!" and here he look'd so self-perplext,

That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes,

Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream.

Then looking at her; "Too happy, fresh and fair,

Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom,

To be the ghost of one who bore your name

About these meadows, twenty years ago."

"Have you not heard?" said Katie,

back.

We bought the farm we tenanted before.
Am I so like her? so they said on board.

Sir, if you knew her in her English days,

My mother, as it seems you did, the days
That most she loves to talk of, come with me.
My brother James is in the harvest-field:

But she-you will be welcome-O, come in!"

TILL on the tower stood the vane,

A black yew gloom'd the stagnant

air,

I peer'd athwart the chancel pane

And saw the altar cold and bare.

A clog of lead was round my feet,
A band of pain across my brow;
"Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet

Before you hear my marriage vow."

II.

I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song

That mock'd the wholesome human heart,

And then we met in wrath and wrong,

We met, but only meant to part.

Full cold my greeting was and dry ;

She faintly smiled, she hardly moved;

I saw with half-unconscious eye

She wore the colours I approved.

III.

She took the little ivory chest,

With half a sigh she turn'd the key,

Then raised her head with lips comprest,
And gave my letters back to me.

And gave the trinkets and the rings,

My gifts, when gifts of mine could please;

As looks a father on the things

Of his dead son, I look'd on these.

IV.

She told me all her friends had said;
I raged against the public liar ;

She talk'd as if her love were dead,
But in my words were seeds of fire.
"No more of love; your sex is known:
I never will be twice deceived.

Henceforth I trust the man alone,

The woman cannot be believed.

V.

"Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell

(And women's slander is the worst), And you, whom once I loved so well,

Thro' you, my life will be accurst."