An actress:  but she holds her work bravely and healthily and well in her grasp, with her foot always on a grave, as one might say, and God very near above.  And it may be, that, when her work is nearer done, and she comes closer to the land where all things are clearly seen at last in their real laws, she will know that the faces of those who loved her wait kindly for her, and of whatever happiness has been given to them they will not deem her quite unworthy.

Perhaps they have turned Lizzy out of the church.  I do not know.  But her Friend, the world’s Christ, they could not make dead to her by shutting him up in formula or church.  He never was dead.  From the girding sepulchre he passed to save the spirits long in prison; and from the visible church now he lives and works out from every soul that has learned, like Lizzy, the truths of life,—­to love, to succor, to renounce.

* * * * *

BY THE RIVER.

I.

    In the beautiful greenwood’s charmed light,
    And down through the meadows wide and bright,
    Deep in the silence, and smooth in the gleam,
    For ever and ever flows the stream.

    Where the mandrakes grow, and the pale, thin grass
    The airy scarf of the woodland weaves,
    By dim, enchanted paths I pass,
    Crushing the twigs and the last year’s leaves.

    Over the wave, by the crystal brink,
    A kingfisher sits on a low, dead limb: 
    He is always sitting there, I think,—­
    And another, within the crystal brink,
    Is always looking up at him.

    I know where an old tree leans across
    From bank to bank, an ancient tree,
    Quaintly cushioned with curious moss,
    A bridge for the cool wood-nymphs and me: 
    Half seen they flit, while here I sit
    By the magical water, watching it.

    In its bosom swims the fair phantasm
    Of a subterraneous azure chasm,
    So soft and clear, you would say the stream
    Was dreaming of heaven a visible dream.

    Where the noontide basks, and its warm rays tint
    The nettles and clover and scented mint,
    And the crinkled airs, that curl and quiver,
    Drop their wreaths in the mirroring river,—­
    Under the shaggy magnificent drapery
    Of many a wild-woven native grapery,—­
    By ivy-bowers, and banks of violets,
    And golden hillocks, and emerald islets,
    Along its sinuous shining bed,
    In sheets of splendor it lies outspread.

    In the twilight stillness and solitude
    Of green caves roofed by the brooding wood,
    Where the woodbine swings, and beneath the trailing
    Sprays of the queenly elm-tree sailing,—­
    By ribbed and wave-worn ledges shimmering,
    Gilding the rocks with a rippled glimmering,
    All pictured over in shade and sun,
    The wavering silken waters run.