Putting a sadness where the beauty was, Taking a lustre from the hair; the days Saw each a sadder image in the glass. And when December came, fouling the ways, And ashless beech-logs made a Christmas blaze, Some talk of Michael came; a rumour ran, Someone had called him "wild" to some returning mail, Who, travelling through that cattle-range, had heard Nothing more sure than this; but this he told At second-hand upon a cowboy’s word. It struck on Mary’s heart and turned her cold. That winter was an age which made her old. "But soon," she thought, "soon the third year will end; March, April, May, and June, then I shall see my friend. "He promised he would come; he will not fail. Oh, Michael, my beloved man, come soon; Stay not to make a home for me, but sail. Love and the hour will put the world in tune. You in my life for always is the boon I ask from life--we two, together, lovers." So leaden time went by who eats things and discovers. Then, in the winds of March, her father rode, Hunting the Welland country on Black Ned; The tenor cry gave tongue past Clencher’s Lode, And on he galloped, giving the nag his head; Then, at the brook, he fell, was picked up dead. Hounds were whipped off; men muttered with one breath, "We knew that hard-mouthed brute would some day be his death." They bore his body on a hurdle home; Then came the burial, then the sadder day When the peaked lawyer entered like a gnome, With word to quit and lists of debts to pay. There was a sale; the Foxholes passed away To strangers, who discussed the points of cows, Where love had put such glory on the lovers’ brows. Kind Lion Occleve helped the maid’s affairs. Her sorrow brought him much beside her; he Caused her to settle, having stilled her cares, In the long cottage under Spital Gree. He had no hope that she would love him; she Still waited for her lover, but her eyes Thanked Lion to the soul; he made the look suffice. By this the yearling bull-calf had so grown That all men talked of him; mighty he grew, Huge-shouldered, scaled above a hundred stone, With deep chest many-wrinkled with great thew, Plain-loined and playful-eyed; the Occleves knew That he surpassed his pasture; breeders came From far to see this bull; he brought the Occleves fame. Till a meat-breeding rancher on the plains Where Michael wasted, sent to buy the beast, Meaning to cross his cows with heavier strains Until his yield of meat and bone increased. He paid a mighty price; the yearling ceased To be the wonder of the countryside. He sailed in Lion’s charge, south, to the Plate’s red tide. There Lion landed with the bull, and there The great beast raised his head and bellowed loud, Challenging that expanse and that new air; Trembling, but full of wrath and thunder-browed, Far from the daffodil fields and friends, but proud, His wild eye kindled at the great expanse. Two scraps of Shropshire life they stood there; their advance