Lady Clara Vere de Vere, you put strange memories

in my head,

Not thrice your branching limes have blown since I

beheld young Laurence dead.

Oh! your sweet eyes, your low replies: a great enchantress you may be;

But there was that across his throat which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, when thus he met his mother's view,

She had the passions of her kind, she spake some certain truths of you.

Indeed, I heard one bitter word that scarce is fit for you to hear;

Her manners had not that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, there stands a spectre in your hall :

The guilt of blood is at your door: you changed a wholesome heart to gall.

You held your course without remorse, to make him trust his modest worth,

And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, and slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, from yon blue heavens above us bent,

The grand old gardener and his wife smile at the claims of long descent.

C

Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'tis only noble to be

good;

Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: you pine among your halls and towers:

The languid light of your proud eyes is wearied of the rolling hours.

In glowing health, with boundless wealth, but sickening of a vague disease,

You know so ill to deal with time, you needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, if time be heavy on your

hands,

Are there no beggars at your gate, nor any poor about your lands?

Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, or teach the orphan-girl to sew,

Pray Heaven for a human heart, and let the foolish yeoman go.

(By permission of the Publishers.)

LADY CLARE.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

IT was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.
I trow they did not part in scorn:
Lovers long-betroth'd were they:
They two will wed the morrow morn;
God's blessing on the day!

"He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well," said Lady Clare.

In there came old Alice the nurse,

Said, "Who was this that went from thee?" "It was my cousin," said Lady Clare, "To-morrow he weds with me."

"O God be thanked!" said Alice the nurse,
"That all comes round so just and fair:
Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,
And you are not the Lady Clare."

"Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?" Said Lady Clare, " that ye speak so wild?"

"As God's above," said Alice the nurse, "I speak the truth: you are my child.

"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;

I speak the truth, as I live by bread! I buried her like my own sweet child, And put my child in her stead."

"Falsely, falsely have ye done,

O mother," she said, "if this be true,
To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due."

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret for your life,
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's,
When you are man and wife.”

"If I'm a beggar born," she said,

"I will speak out, for I dare not lie ; Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold, And fling the diamond necklace by."

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, "But keep the secret all ye can." She said, "Not so: but I will know If there be any faith in man."

"Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse,
"The man will cleave unto his right."
"And he shall have it," the lady replied,
"Tho' I should die to night."

"Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!
Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee."
"O mother, mother, mother," she said,
"So strange it seems to me.

"Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear,
My mother dear, if this be so,
And lay your hand upon my head,

And bless me, mother, ere I go."

She clad herself in a russet gown,
She was no longer Lady Clare:
She went by dale, and she went by down,
With a single rose in her hair.

The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
Leapt up from where she lay,

Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,
And follow'd her all the way.

Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:
"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!
Why come you drest like a village maid,
That are the flower of the earth?"

"If I come drest like a village maid,
I am but as my fortunes are:
I am a beggar born," she said,
"And not the Lady Clare."

"Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
"For I am yours in word and in deed.
Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
"Your riddle is hard to read."

O and proudly stood she up!

Her heart within her did not fail! She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, And told him all her nurse's tale.