From Allan's watch and sparkled by the fire. And Allan set him down, and Mary said: O father!-if you let me call you so I never came a-begging for myself, Or William, or this child; but now I come I had been a patient wife: but, Sir, he said The troubles I have gone thro'!' Then he His face and pass'd-unhappy that I am! slight His father's memory; and take Dora back, 150 So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silence in the room; And all at once the old man burst in sobs:"I have been to blame-to blame. I have kill'd my son. I have kill'd him-but I loved him-my dear son. May God forgive me!—I have been to blame. Then they clung about The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times. And all the man was broken with remorse; Thinking of William. So those four abode Within one house together; and as years Went forward, Mary took another mate; But Dora lived unmarried till her death. 1842. 160 Lord Tennyson. THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER OR, THE PICTURES THIS morning is the morning of the day, My Eustace might have sat for Hercules; A certain miracle of symmetry, 10 Summ'd up and closed in little;-Juliet, she So light of foot, so light of spirit-oh, she To me myself, for some three careless moons, The summer pilot of an empty heart Unto the shores of nothing! Know you not Such touches are but embassies of love, To tamper with the feelings, ere he found Empire for life? but Eustace painted her, And said to me, she sitting with us then, "When will you paint like this?" and I replied, (My words were half in earnest, half in jest,) ""T is not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived, A more ideal Artist he than all, 20 Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair March." And Juliet answer'd laughing, "Go and see The Gardener's Daughter: trust me, after that, 30 You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece." And up we rose, and on the spur we went. Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. News from the humming city comes to it In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear The windy clanging of the minster clock; Although between it and the garden lies A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream, 40 That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge Crown'd with the minster-towers. The fields between Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd wings. In that still place she, hoarded in herself, Grew, seldom seen; not less among us lived Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard Of Rose, the Gardener's Daughter? Where was he, So blunt in memory, so old at heart, At such a distance from his youth in grief, So gross to express delight, in praise of her 60 And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, Would play with flying forms and images, Yet this is also true, that, long before I look'd upon her, when I heard her name My heart was like a prophet to my heart, And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes, That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, Born out of everything I heard and saw, And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. And sure this orbit of the memory folds For ever in itself the day we went To see her. All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud Drew downward: but all else of heaven was pure 70 Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, And May with me from head to heel. And |