Who spake as never man did, bade us view The untended lilies of the desert-plain: “They toil not,” said he, “neither do they spin; And yet I say to you that Solomon, In all his glory, was not clad like these.” Michael De Mas knew not this holy truth; Alas! _his_ thought was ever of the morrow: And yet he was no foolish homesick swain, Such as, amid the perils of the strife, The conflict of existence, pine and sigh To flee to some ideal resting-place, To feed on contemplation, or to woo Some simple Thestylis in beechen groves. To him the cry of subjugate despair Rang, like a trumpet of encouragement; And brave resistance did but seem to him Another step that led him to the heights. Ten years had poured their various gifts on earth Of death and life, of sunshine and of shade, Since Michael left his little school disgraced By acts of lawless violence; and went Back to a ruined parent’s ruined home, To feed his heart on innutritious dreams And idle scorn of those he would not know. Once when the lights of English Autumn time, Clear, vigorous, spirit-cheering, morning lights, Were dancing on a thousand thousand trees, Were streaming on a thousand fertile fields, And smoking on a hundred cottage tops, He felt that these, once his, were his no more: A stranger ploughed his very garden plots; The Halls, where his forefathers fed the shire, Were fallen, and the stones and timbers sold; One-tenth of all the house, one-hundredth part Of the broad lands, and how much less part still Of the respect and power that graced the name, Would cleave to him the heir. So slow had been The gradual alienation, that till now He had not felt it fully; but that morn (’Twas Sabbath) they had been to worship God, And even in the very Church, where once The service staid for them, and bells rang on Till good Sir Marmaduke, in coach of state, Drawn by six solemn Flanders steeds, and girt By a full score of stalwart serving men, Approaching, gave the signal to begin, Even there a London Scrivener, with his brood Of pale and purse-proud children of the fog, Sate in their ancient place, beneath the crest Which Black Sir Walter wore at Agincourt; Ay, over the cold stones, where lies at peace The knight who fell at Naseby, by his King, There sate his steward’s grandson. “Ah,” thought Michael, “The desolate abomination stands Most proudly where it ought not; ’tis not these I blame, but gold, the cursed cause of all, Gold that o’erthrew my fathers, and raised these, These—and why not me also?” till he swore