Down along the yellow mosses
That the brook with silver crosses.
Ah! the day is dead, is dead;
And the cold and curdling shadows,
Stretching from the long, low meadows,
Darker, deeper, nearer spread,
Till she cannot see the twining
Of the briers, nor see the lining
Round the porch of roses red,--
Till she cannot see the hollow,
Nor the little steel-winged swallow,
On her clay-built nest o'erhead.

Mona's mother falleth mourning:
O, 't is hard, so hard, to see
Prattling child to woman turning,
As to grander company!
Little heart she lulled with hushes
Beating, burning up with blushes,
All with meditative dreaming
On the dear delicious gleaming
Of the bridal veil and ring;
Finding in the sweet ovations
Of its new, untried relations
Better joys than she can bring.

In her hand her wheel she keepeth,
And her heart within her leapeth,
With a burdened, bashful yearning,
For the babe's weight on her knee,
For the loving lisp of glee,
Sweet as larks' throats in the morning,
Sweet as hum of honey-bee.

"O my child!" cries Mona's mother,
"Will you, can you take another
Name ere mine upon your lips?
Can you, only for the asking,
Give to other hands the clasping
Of your rosy finger-tips?"

Fear on fear her sad soul borrows,--
O the dews are falling fair!
But no fair thing now can move her;
Vainly walks the moon above her,
Turning out her golden furrows
On the cloudy fields of air.

Sudden she is 'ware of shadows,
Coming in across the meadows,
And of murmurs, low as love,--
Murmurs mingled like the meeting
Of the winds, or like the beating
Of the wings of dove with dove.

In her hand the slow wheel stoppeth,
Silken flax from distaff droppeth,
And a cruel, killing pain
Striketh up from heart to brain;
And she knoweth by that token
That the spinning all is vain,
That the troth-plight has been spoken,
And the thread of life thus broken
Never can be joined again.

AT PADUA.

I.

Those of my readers who have frequented the garden of Doctor Rappaccini
no doubt recall with perfect distinctness the quaint old city of Padua.
They remember its miles and miles of dim arcade over-roofing the
sidewalks everywhere, affording excellent opportunity