r than you, whom I quake to see.

"Oh, my husband of flesh and blood,
For whom my mother I left, and brother,
And all I had, accounting it good,

"What do you do there, under the ground,
In the dark hollow? I'm fain to follow.
What do you do there? What have you found?"--

"What I do there I must not tell,
But I have plenty--kind wife, content ye:
It is well with us: it is well.

"Tender hand hath made our nest;
Our fear is ended; our hope is blended
With present pleasure, and we have rest."

"Oh, but Robin, I'm fain to come,
If your present days are so pleasant,
For my days are so wearisome.

"Yet I'll dry my tears for your sake:
Why should I tease you, who cannot please you
Any more with the pains I take?"

HE AND SHE: SIR EDWIN ARNOLD

"She is dead!" they said to him; "come away;
Kiss her and leave her,--thy love is clay!"

They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair;
On her forehead of stone they laid it fair.

Over her eyes that gazed too much
They drew the lids with a gentle touch;

With a tender touch they closed up well
The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell;

Above her brows and beautiful face
They tied her veil and her marriage lace,

And drew on her white feet her white-silk shoes
Which were the whitest no eye could choose,--

And over her bosom they crossed her hands.
"Come away," they said, "God understands."

And there was silence, and nothing there
But silence and scents of eglantere,

And jasmine, and roses and rosemary,
And they said: "As a lady should lie, lies she."

And they held their breath till they left the room,
With a shudder, a glance at its stillness and gloom.

But he who loved her too well to dread
The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead,

He lit his lamp, and he took the key
And turned it--alone again, he and she.

He and she; but she would not speak,
Though he kissed, in the old place, the quiet cheek.

He and she; yet she would not smile,
Though he called her the name she loved erewhile.

He and she; still she did not move
To any passionate whisper of love.

Then he said, "Cold lips and breast without breath,
Is there no voice or language of death,

"Dumb to the ear and still to the sense,
But to heart and soul distinct, intense?

"See now; I will listen with soul, not ear:
What is the secret of dying, dear?

"Was it the infinite wonder of all
That you ever could let life's flower fall?

"Or was it a greater marvel t