At length some casual word occurr'd Which somewhat moved the lady's bile; From less to more her anger wax'd-- How sheepish look'd her swain the while!-- And now upon their faces twain There is not seen a single smile. A ring was on the lady's hand, The gift of that dumb-founder'd lover-- In scorn she pluck'd it from her hand, And flung it far the waters over-- Far beyond the power of any Duck or drag-net to recover. Remorse then smote the lady's heart When she had thrown her ring away; She paceth o'er the rocky beach, And resteth neither night nor day; But still the burthen of her song Is, "Oh, my ring! my ring!" alway. Her lover now essays to soothe The dark compunctious visitings, That assail the lady's breast With a thousand thousand stings, For that she had thrown away This, the paragon of rings. But all in vain; at length one day A fisher chanced to draw his net Across the sullen spot that held The gem that made the lady fret, And caught about the finest cod That ever he had captured yet. He had a basket on his back, And he placed his booty in it; The lady's lover bought the fish, And, when the cook began to skin it, She found--incredible surprise!-- She found the ring--was _not_ within it. The next tale, called "The Woodman's Daughter," is a story of seduction, madness, and child-murder. These are powerful materials to work with; yet it is not every man's hand that they will suit. In the hands of common-place, they are simply revolting. In the hands of folly and affectation, their repulsiveness is aggravated by the simpering conceits which usurp the place of the strongest passions of our nature. He only is privileged to unveil these gloomy depths of erring humanity, who can subdue their repulsiveness by touches of ethereal feeling; and whose imagination, buoyant above the waves of passion, bears the heart of the reader into havens of calm beauty, even when following the most deplorable aberrations of a child of sin. Such a man is not Mr Patmore. He has no imagination at all--or, what is the same thing, an imagination which welters in impotence, far below the level of the emotions which it ought to overrule. The pitfalls of his tale of misery are covered over with thin sprinklings of asterisks--the poorest subterfuge of an impoverished imagination; and besotted indeed is the senselessness with which he disports himself around their margin. Maud, the victim, is the daughter of Gerald, the woodman; and Merton, the seducer, is the son of a rich squire in the neighbourhood. Maud used to accompany her father to his employment in the woods. "She merely went to think she help'd; And whilst he hack'd and saw'd, The rich squire's son, a young boy then, For whole days, as if aw'd, Stood by, and gazed alternately At Gerald and at Maud.