But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely knight,
And how he crossed the mountain wood
Nor rested day or night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright,

And that he knew it was a fiend

This miserable knight;

And that, unknowing what he did,

He leapt among a murderous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept, and clasped his knees, And how she tended him in vain,

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain;

And how she nursed him in a cave,
And how his madness went away
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay;

His dying words-But when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity.

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music, and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love and virgin shame,
And like the murmur of a dream

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved, she stept aside,
As conscious of my look she stept,
Then suddenly with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half inclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me in a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up
And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel than see
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.

How charmingly Milton has fitted his verse to his subject in the "Song on May Morning."

Now the bright Morning Star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May! that dost inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale can boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee and wish thee long.

The wild and desolate stanzas, supposed to be suggested by an equally wild and desolate landscape in Alton Locke, are very touching. I am a neighbor of Mr. Kingsley's now; if I live to write another book I hope to be privileged to call myself his friend.

"O Mary, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

Across the sands o' Dee;"

The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam,

And all alone went she.

The creeping tide came up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see;

The blinding mist came down and hid the land-
And never home came she.

"Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair-
A tress o' golden hair-

O' drowned maiden's hair,
Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair,
Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,

The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea;

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
Across the sands o' Dee.

Another poem, quite as desolate and far more painful, inasmuch as the tale of suffering is reflected back upon the author, is "The Castaway," the last verses that poor Cowper ever wrote. Every one knows that the terrible gloom which overshadowed that fine mind arose from insanity; and I know a story of madness among his near friends, and I believe also his blood relations, almost as affecting.

In early youth I was well acquainted with two old ladies, Mrs. Theodosia and Frances Hill, sisters to the "Joe Hill," the favorite and constant friend, who figures so frequently in Cowper's correspondence. These excellent persons lived at Reading, and were conspicuous through the town for their peculiarities of dress and appearance Shortest and smallest of women, they adhered to the costume of fifty years before, and were never seen without the high-lappeted caps, the enormous hoops, brocaded gowns, ruffles, aprons, and furbelows of our grandmothers. They tottered along upon high-heeled shoes, and flirted fans emblazoned with the history of Pamela. Nevertheless, such was the respect commanded by their thorough gentility, their benevolence, and their courtesy, that the very boys in the streets forgot to laugh at women so blameless and so kind. An old housekeeper, who had been their waiting-maid for half a lifetime, partook of their popularity. Their brother and his wife inhabited a beautiful place in the neighborhood (afterward bequeathed to the celebrated

Whiggish wit, Joseph Jekyl), and until the sisters approached the age of eighty, nothing could be smoother than the current of their calm and virtuous life. At that period Mrs. Theodosia, the elder, sank into imbecility, and Mrs. Frances, a woman of considerable ability and feeling, broke all at once into incurable madness. Both were pronounced to be harmless, and were left in their own house, with two or three female servants, under the care of the favorite attendant who had lived with them so long. For a considerable time no change took place; but one cold winter day, their faithful nurse left her younger charge sitting quietly by the parlor fire, and had not been gone many minutes before she was recalled by sudden screams, and found the poor maniac enveloped in flames. It was supposed that she had held her cambric handkerchief to air within the fireguard, and had thus ignited her apron and other parts of her dress. The old servant, with a true woman's courage, caught her in her arms, and was so fearfully burnt in the vain endeavor to extinguish the flames, that she expired even before her mistress, who lingered many days in dreadful agony, but without any return of recollection. The surviving sister, happily unconscious of the catastrophe, died at last of mere old age. This tragedy occurred not many years after the death of Cowper.

THE CASTAWAY.

Obscurest night involved the sky;
The Atlantic billows roared,
When such a destined wretch as I
Washed headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home forever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,

Nor ever ship left Albion's coast
With warmer wishes sent.

He loved them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine

Expert to swim he lay;

Nor soon he felt his strength decline,

Or courage die away;

He waged with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had failed
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevailed

That, pitiless perforce,

They left their outcast mate behind
And scudded still before the wind.

Some succor yet they could afford
And such as storms allow

The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delayed not to bestow.

But he, they knew, nor ship nor shore
Whate'er they gave should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight in such a sea

Alone could rescue them;

Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted and his friends so nigh.

He long survives who lives an hour
In ocean self-upheld:

And so long he with unspent power
His destiny repelled;

And ever as the minutes flew
Entreated help, or cried Adieu!

At length his transient respite past
His comrades, who before

Had heard his voice in every blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him; but the page
Of narrative sincere

That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear;

And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not or dream,
Descanting on his fate,

To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date.