Audley Court


-The Bull, the Fleece are cramm-d, and not a room
For love or money. Let us picnic there
At Audley Court.-

I spoke, while Audley feast

Humm-d like a hive all round the narrow quay,
To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
To Francis just alighted from the boat,
And breathing of the sea. -With all my heart,-
Said Francis. Then we shoulder-d thro- the swarm,
And rounded by the stillness of the beach
To where the bay runs up its latest horn.

We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp-d
The flat red granite; so by many a sweep
Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach-d
The griffin-guarded gates, and pass-d thro- all
The pillar-d dusk of sounding sycamores,
And cross-d the garden to the gardener-s lodge,
With all its casements bedded, and its walls
And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine.


There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid
A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound,
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,
And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay,
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
Imbedded and injellied; last, with these,
A flask of cider from his father-s vats,
Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat
And talk-d old matters over; who was dead,
Who married, who was like to be, and how
The races went, and who would rent the hall:
Then touch-d upon the game, how scarce it was
This season; glancing thence, discuss-d the farm,
The four-field system, and the price of grain;
And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split,
And came again together on the king
With heated faces; till he laugh-d aloud;
And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung
To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang-


-Oh! who would fight and march and countermarch,
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,
And shovell-d up into some bloody trench
Where no one knows? but let me live my life.
-Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk,
Perch-d like a crow upon a three-legg-d stool,
Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints
Are full of chalk? but let me live my life.
-Who-d serve the state? for if I carved my name
Upon the cliffs that guard my native land,
I might as well have traced it in the sands;
The sea wastes all: but let me live my life.
-Oh! who would love? I woo-d a woman once,
But she was sharper than an eastern wind,
And all my heart turn-d from her, as a thorn
Turns from the sea; but let me live my life.-


He sang his song, and I replied with mine:
I found it in a volume, all of songs,
Knock-d down to me, when old Sir Robert-s pride,
His books-the more the pity, so I said-
Came to the hammer here in March-and this-
I set the words, and added names I knew.


-Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of me:
Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister-s arm,
And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine.
-Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia-s arm;
Emilia, fairer than all else but thou,
For thou art fairer than all else that is.
-Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast:
Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip:
I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn.
-I go, but I return: I would I were
The pilot of the darkness and the dream.
Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.-


So sang we each to either, Francis Hale,
The farmer-s son, who lived across the bay,
My friend; and I, that having wherewithal,
And in the fallow leisure of my life
A rolling stone of here and everywhere,
Did what I would; but ere the night we rose
And saunter-d home beneath a moon, that, just
In crescent, dimly rain-d about the leaf
Twilights of airy silver, till we reach-d
The limit of the hills; and as we sank
From rock to rock upon the glooming quay,
The town was hush-d beneath us: lower down
The bay was oily calm; the harbour-buoy,
Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm,
With one green sparkle ever and anon
Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.