To market she on market-days, To church on Sundays came; All seemed the same: all seemed so, Sir! But all was not the same!
Had Ellen lost her mirth? Oh! no! But she was seldom cheerful; And Edward look'd as if he thought That Ellen's mirth was fearful.
When by herself, she to herself Must sing some merry rhyme; She could not now be glad for hours, Yet silent all the time.
And when she soothed her friend, through all Her soothing words 'twas plain She had a sore grief of her own, A haunting in her brain.
And oft she said, I'm not grown thin! And then her wrist she spanned; And once when Mary was down-cast, She took her by the hand, And gazed upon her, and at first She gently pressed her hand;
Then harder, till her grasp at length Did gripe like a convulsion! "Alas!" said she, "we ne'er can be Made happy by compulsion!"
And once her both arms suddenly Round Mary's neck she flung, And her heart panted, and she felt The words upon her tongue.
She felt them coming, but no power Had she the words to smother; And with a kind of shriek she cried, "Oh Christ! you're like your mother!"
So gentle Ellen now no more Could make this sad house cheery; And Mary's melancholy ways Drove Edward wild and weary.
Lingering he raised his latch at eve, Though tired in heart and limb: He loved no other place, and yet Home was no home to him.
One evening he took up a book, And nothing in it read; Then flung it down, and groaning cried, "O! Heaven! that I were dead."
Mary looked up into his face, And nothing to him said; She tried to smile, and on his arm Mournfully leaned her head.
And he burst into tears, and fell Upon his knees in prayer: "Her heart is broke! O God! my grief, It is too great to bear!"
'Twas such a foggy time as makes Old sextons, Sir! like me, Rest on their spades to cough; the spring Was late uncommonly.
And then the hot days, all at once, They came, we knew not how: You looked about for shade, when scarce A leaf was on a bough.
It happened then ('twas in the bower, A furlong up the wood: Perhaps you know the place, and yet I scarce know how you should,)
No path leads thither, 'tis not nigh To any pasture-plot; But clustered near the chattering brook, Lone hollies marked the spot.
Those hollies of themselves a shape As of an arbour took, A close, round arbour; and it stands Not three strides from a brook.