broken Nature's plan;
_When all that was not youth was age,
And men knew less of Man;_--

"Or when the works of time shall reach
The goal to which they tend,
And knowledge, being perfect, shall
At last in wisdom end--
That wisdom to end knowledge--or
Some change comes, yet unkenn'd;

"It perhaps may be again, that men,
Like orange plants, will bear,
At once, the many fine effects
To which God made them heir--
Large souls, large forms, and love like that
Between this childish pair.

"Two summers pass'd away, and then--
_Though yet young Merton's eyes,
Wide with their language, spake of youth's
Habitual surprise_--
He felt that pleasures such as these
No longer could suffice."

What the meaning of the three stanzas beginning with--

"It may have been in the ancient time,"

may be, we are utterly at a loss to conjecture. We seek in vain to
invest them with a shadow of sense. Perhaps they are thrown in to
redeem, by their profound unintelligibility, the shallow trifling of the
rest of the poem. But it was not enough for young Merton that the girl
accepted the fruits which he offered to her in a _sullen_ tone. He had
now reached the age so naturally and lucidly described as the period of
life when the "eyes, wide with their language, speak of youth's habitual
surprise," and he began to seek "new joys from books," communicating the
results of his studies to Maud, whose turn it now was to be surprised.

"So when to-morrow came, while Maud
Stood listening with surprise,
He told the tale learnt over night,
And, if he met her eyes,
_Perhaps_ said how far the stars were, _and
Talk'd on about the skies_."

The effect of these lucid revelations upon the mind of Maud was very
overpowering.

"She wept for joy if the cushat sang
Its low song in the fir;
The cat, _perhaps_, broke the quiet with
Its regular slow purr;
'Twas music now, and her wheel gave forth
A rhythm in its whirr.

"She once had read, When lovers die,
And go where angels are,
Each pair of lover's souls, _perhaps_,
Will make a double star;
_So stars grew dearer, and she thought
They did not look so far._

"But being ignorant, and still
So young as to be prone
To think all very great delights
Peculiarly her own,
She guess'd not wh