dding the moss like silver; and again
Returning to their places, there would come
A murmur from the touched and stirring leaves,
That like a far-off instrument, beguiled
Your mood into the idleness of sleep.

Here did I win thee, Viola! We came--
Thou knowest how carelessly--and never thought
Love lived in such a wilderness; and thou--
I had a cousin's kindness for thy lip,
And in the meshes of thy chesnut hair
I loved to hide my fingers--that was all!
And when I saw thy figure on the grass,
And thy straw bonnet flung aside, I thought
A fairy would be pretty, painted so
Upon a ground of green--but that was all!

And when thou playfully wouldst bathe thy foot,
And the clear water of the stream ran off
And left the white skin polished, why, I thought
It looked like ivory--but that was all!
And when thou wouldst be serious, and I
Was serious too, and thy mere fairy's hand
Lay carelessly in mine, and just for thought
I mused upon thy innocence and gaz'd
Upon the pure transparence of thy brow--
I pressed thy fingers half unconsciously,
And fell in love. Was _that_ all, Viola?

THE EARL'S MINSTREL.

I had a passion when I was a child
For a most pleasant idleness. In June,
When the thick masses of the leaves were stirr'd
With a just audible murmur, and the streams
Fainted in their cool places to a low
Unnotic'd tinkle, and the reapers hung
Their sickles in the trees and went to sleep,
Then might you find me in an antique chair
Cushion'd with cunning luxury, which stood
In the old study corner, by a nook
Crowded with volumes of the old romance;
And there, the long and quiet summer day,
Lay I with half clos'd eyelids, turning o'er
Leaf after leaf, until the twilight blurr'd
Their singular and time-stain'd characters.
'Twas a forgetful lore, and it is blent
With dreams that in my fitful slumber came,
And is remember'd faintly. But to-day
With the strange waywardness of human thought,
A story has come back to me which I
Had long forgotten, and I tell it now
Because it hath a savour that I find
But seldom in the temper of the world.

Angelo turn'd away. He was a poor
Unhonor'd minstrel, and he might not breathe
Love to the daughter of an Earl. She rais'd
Proudly her beautiful head, and s