Now when the dead man come to life beheld
His wife, his wife no more, and saw the babe,
Hers, yet not his, upon the father’s knee,
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness. 
And his own children tall and beautiful,
And him, that other, reigning in his place,
Lord of his rights and of his children’s love,
Then he, tho’ Miriam Lane had told him all,
Because things seen are mightier than things heard,
Staggered and shook, holding the branch, and feared
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom,
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.

He, therefore, turning softly like a thief,
Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot,
And feeling all along the garden wall,
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found,
Crept to the gate, and opened it, and closed,
As lightly as a sick man’s chamber door,
Behind him, and came out upon the waste. 
And there he would have knelt but that his knees
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug
His fingers into the wet earth, and prayed.

“Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence? 
O God Almighty, blessed Savior, Thou
That did’st uphold me on my lonely isle,
Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness
A little longer! aid me, give me strength
Not to tell her, never to let her know. 
Help me not to break in upon her peace. 
My children too! must I not speak to these? 
They know me not.  I should betray myself. 
Never!—­no father’s kiss for me!—­the girl
So like her mother, and the boy, my son!”

There speech and thought and nature failed a little,
And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced
Back toward his solitary home again,
All down the long and narrow street he went
Beating it in upon his weary brain,
As tho’ it were the burden of a song,
“Not to tell her, never to let her know.”

Note.—­Enoch Arden had been wrecked on an uninhabited island, and was supposed to be dead.  After many years he was rescued, and returned home, where he found his wife happily married a second time.  For her happiness, he kept his existence a secret, but soon died of a broken heart.

XCVIII.  LOCHINVAR. (350)

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword, he weapon had none,
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone! 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar!

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone,
He swam the Eske River where ford there was none;
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had consented, the gallant came late: 
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar!