What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather-
With outward maker's force, or like an inward father.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S Arcadia.

Written December and January, 1850-51.

TO L.P.M.D.

Receive thine own; for I and it are thine.
Thou know'st its story; how for forty days-
Weary with sickness and with social haze,
(After thy hands and lips with love divine
Had somewhat soothed me, made the glory shine,
Though with a watery lustre,) more delays
Of blessedness forbid-I took my ways
Into a solitude, Invention's mine;
There thought and wrote, afar, and yet with thee.
Those days gone past, I came, and brought a book;
My child, developed since in limb and look.
It came in shining vapours from the sea,
And in thy stead sung low sweet songs to me,
When the red life-blood labour would not brook.

May, 1855.