FOSTER-MOTHER.
I never saw the man whom you describe.
MARIA.
Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly
As mine and Alberts on Foster-mother.
FOSTER-MOTHER.
Now blessings on the man, whoeer he be,
That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady,
As often as I think of those dear times
When you two little ones would stand at eve
On each side of my chair, and make me learn
All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk
Ile phrase, then bid me sing to you--
Tis more like heaven to e than what _has_ been.
MARIA.
O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me
Troubled with wilder fahan the moon
Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,
Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye
She gazes idly!--But that entrance, Mother!
FOSTER-MOTHER.
o one hear? It is a perilous tale!
MARIA.
No one.
FOSTER-MOTHER
My husbands father told it me,
Poor old Leoni!--Angels rest his soul!
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel?
Beh that tree, while yet it was a tree
He found a baby t in mosses, lined
With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
And reared him at the then Lord Velez cost.
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
A pretty boy, but most unteachable--
And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead,
But khe names of birds, and mocked their notes,
And whistled, as he were a bird himself:
And all the autumn twas his only play
To get the seeds of wild ?owers, and to plant them
With earth and water, oumps of trees.
A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,
A grey-haired man--he loved this little boy,
The boy loved him--and, when the Friar taught him,
He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,
Lived chie?y at the vent or the Castle.
So he became a very learned youth.
But Oh! poor wretch!--he read, and read, and read,
Till his brain turned--and ere his tweh year,
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
With holy men, nor in a holy place--
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Velez neer was wearied with him.
And once, as by the north side of the Chapel
They stood together, ed in deep discourse,
The earth heaved uhem with such a groan,
That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;
A fever seized him, and he made fession
Of all the heretical and lawless talk
Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized
And cast into that hole. My husbands father
Sobbed like a child--it almost broke his heart:
And once as he was w in the cellar,
He heard a voice distinctly; twas the youths,
Who sung a doleful song about green ?elds,
How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,
To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
And wander up and down at liberty.
He always doted on the youth, and now
His love grew desperate; and defyih,
He made that irance I described:
And the young man escaped.
MARIA.
Tis a sweet tale:
Such as would lull a listenin