665 His home, he walk'd. Bright was that afternoon,
Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either chasm,
Where either haven open'd on the deeps,
Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in gray;
Cut off the length of highway on before,
670 And left but narrow breadth to left and right
Of wither'd holt or tilth or pasturage.

On the nigh-naked tree the robin piped
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down:
675 Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom;
Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light
Flared on him, and he came upon the place.

Then down the long street having slowly stolen, His heart foreshadowing all calamity, 680 His eyes upon the stones, he reach'd the home Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes In those far-off seven happy years were born; But finding neither light nor murmur there (A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept 685 Still downward thinking, "dead, or dead to me! "

Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went,
Seeking a tavern which of old he knew,
A front of timber-crost antiquity,

So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old,

690 He thought it must have gone; but he was gone Who kept it; and his widow, Miriam Lane, With daily-dwindling profits held the house;

667. See line 102.

688. A house of plaster crossed with timbers, "half-timbered "as it is called; a style of architecture made familiar by the pictures of Shakespeare's birthplace.

A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. 695 There Enoch rested silent many days.

But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous, Nor let him be, but often breaking in, Told him, with other annals of the port, Not knowing-Enoch was so brown, so bow'd, 700 So broken-all the story of his house. His baby's death, her growing poverty, How Philip put her little ones to school, And kept them in it, his long wooing her, Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth 705 Of Philip's child: and o'er his countenance No shadow past, nor motion: any one, Regarding, well had deem'd he felt the tale Less than the teller; only when she closed,

66

Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost," 710 He, shaking his gray head pathetically,

Repeated muttering, "cast away and lost;
Again in deeper inward whispers, "lost!

But Enoch yearned to see her face again; "If I might look on her sweet face again. 715 And know that she is happy." So the thought Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth, At evening when the dull November day Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. There he sat down gazing on all below; 720 There did a thousand memories roll upon him, Unspeakable for sadness. By and by

The ruddy square of comfortable light,
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house,
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures

725 The bird of passage, till he madly strikes Against it, and beats out his weary life.

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street,
The latest house to landward; but behind,
With one small gate that open'd on the waste,
730 Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd:
And in it throve an ancient evergreen,

A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk
Of shingle, and a walk divided it:

But Enoch shunn'd the middle walk and stole 735 Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence That which he better might have shunn'd, if griefs Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.

For cups and silver on the burnish'd board
Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth:
740 And on the right hand of the hearth he saw
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees;
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl,
A later but a loftier Annie Lee,

745 Fair-hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring

To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy arms, Caught at, and ever miss'd it, and they laugh'd: And on the left hand of the hearth he saw 750 The mother glancing often toward her babe, But turning now and then to speak with him, Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong, And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled.

728. Latest, last.

733. Shingle, gravel from the seashore.

Now when the dead man come to life beheld 755 His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee, And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness, And his own children tall and beautiful, And him, that other, reigning in his place, 760 Lord of his rights and of his children's love,— Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all, Because things seen are mightier than things heard, Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,

765 Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.

He therefore turning softly like a thief,
Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot,
And feeling all along the garden wall,

770 Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found,
Crept to the gate, and open'd it, and closed,
As lightly as a sick man's chamber-door,
Behind him, and came out upon the waste.

And there he would have knelt, but that his knees

775 Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug

His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd.

"Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence? O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou That didst uphold me on my lonely isle, 780 Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness

A little longer! aid me, give me strength
Not to tell her, never to let her know.
Help me not to break in upon her peace.
My children too! must I not speak to these?

785 They know me not. I should betray myself. Never no father's kiss for me the girl

So like her mother, and the boy, my son."

There speech and thought and nature fail'd a little And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced 790 Back toward his solitary home again,

795

All down the long and narrow street he went
Beating it in upon his weary brain,

As tho' it were the burthen of a song,
"Not to tell her, never to let her know."

He was not all unhappy. His resolve Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore Prayer from a living source within the will, And beating up thro' all the bitter world, Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, 800 Kept him a living soul. "This miller's wife," He said to Miriam, " that you spoke about, Has she no fear that her first husband lives?" "Ay, ay, poor soul," said Miriam, "fear enow! If you could tell her you had seen him dead, 805 Why, that would be her comfort ;" and he thought "After the Lord has call'd me she shall know, I wait His time;" and Enoch set himself, Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live. Almost to all things could he turn his hand. 810 Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help'd At lading and unlading the tall barks, That brought the stinted commerce of those days; Thus earn'd a scanty living for himself: 815 Yet since he did but labor for himself, 799. See line 638.