The duel is fought, but it is the guilty one who falls; and “AFTER” gives the words of his adversary—­his boyhood’s friend—­struck with bitter remorse for what he has done.  As the man who wronged him lies wrapped in the majesty of death, his offence dwindles into insignificance; and the survivor can only feel how disproportionate has been the punishment, and above all, how unavailing.  “Would,” he exclaims, “that the past could be recalled, and they were boys again together!  It would be so easy then to endure!”

“MEMORABILIA” shows the perspective of memory in a tribute to the poet Shelley.  His fugitive contact with a commonplace life, like the trace of an eagle’s passage across the moor, leaves an illumined spot amidst blankness.

“THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER” depicts the emotions of a ride, which a finally dismissed lover has been allowed to take with his beloved.  He has vainly passed his youth in loving her.  But as this boon is granted, she lies for a moment on his breast.  “She might have loved him more; she might also have liked him less.”  As they ride away side by side, a sense of resignation comes over him.  His life is not alone in its failure.  Every one strives.  Few or none succeed.  The best success proves itself to be shallow.  And if it were otherwise—­if the goal could be reached on earth—­what care would one take for heaven?  Then the peace which is in him absorbs the consciousness of reality.  He fancies himself riding with the loved one till the end of time; and he asks himself if his destined heaven may not prove to be this.

“A GRAMMARIAN’S FUNERAL” describes the rendering of the last honours to one whose life has consumed itself in the pursuit of knowledge.  The knowledge pursued has been pedantic and minute, but for him it represented a mighty truth; and he has refused to live, in the world’s sense, till he had mastered that truth, co-extensive, as he believed it, with life everlasting.  Like Sordello, though in a different way, he would KNOW before he allowed himself to BE.  He would realize the Whole; he would not discount it.  His disciples are bearing him to a mountain-top, that the loftiness of his endeavour may be symbolized by his last resting-place.  He is to lie

                       “where meteors shoot, clouds form,
       Lightnings are loosened.” (vol. v. p. 159.)

where the new morning for which he waited will figuratively first break upon him.

“JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION” is a glowing and fantastic description of the privileges of the “elect,” cast in the form of a monologue, and illustrated in the person of the speaker.  Johannes Agricola was a German reformer of the sixteenth century, and alleged founder of the sect of the Antinomians:  a class of Christians who extended the Low Church doctrine of the insufficiency of good works, and declared the children of God to be exempt from the necessity of performing them; absolved from doing right, because