To the belfry, one by one, went the ringers from the sun, _Toll slowly_. And the oldest ringer said, "Ours is music for the dead, When the rebecks are all done." Six abeles i' the churchyard grow on the north side in a row, _Toll slowly_. And the shadow of their tops rock across the little slopes Of the grassy graves below. On the south side and the west a small river runs in haste, _Toll slowly_. And between the river flowing and the fair green trees agrowing, Do the dead lie at their rest. On the east I sat that day, up against a willow grey: _Toll slowly_. Through the rain of willow-branches I could see the low hill ranges, And the river on its way. This is like the direct opening notes of the overture of a dirge. Whatever may be said about such writing we feel at once that it comes from a master's hand. So the poem opens, but alas for the close! Some chord seems to snap; it is no longer the spirit of the ancient rhymer, but Miss Mitford's friend who catches up the lyre and will have her last word. The poem passes, still in the same metre, out of the definite materialism, the ghastly excitements of the story into a species of pious churchyard meditation; and the pity of it is that we cannot say that this is not characteristic. Then closely connected with the last comes a class of poems, of so-called modern life, of which "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" shall stand for an example. This is a poem of nineteenth-century adventure, which is as impossible in design and as fantastic in detail as a poem may well be. The reader does not know whether to be most amazed at the fire and glow of the whole story, or at the hopeless ignorance of the world betrayed by it. The impossible Earls with their immeasurable pride and intolerable pomposities; the fashionable ladies with their delicate exteriors and callous hearts,--these are like the creations of Charlotte Brontë, and recall Blanche and Baroness Ingram of Ingram Park. And at the same time, when we have said all this, we read the poem and we can forgive all or nearly all--the spirit is so high, the passion is so fierce and glowing, the poetry that bursts out, stanza after stanza, contrives to involve even these dolorous mistakes in such a glamour, that we can only admire the genius that could contend against such visionary errors.