'  I  wander  o'er  the  earth  ;  and  common  make
"  All  that  to  thee  great  faith  had  sanctified  :

1  Yet  hoard  this  grace  of  flowers  for  my  bad   sake,
"And  tend  it  as  thy  child  with  mother's  pride  ;
"  It  to  thy  inmost  bower  of  musing  take  ;
"  Be  with  it  ever  whilst  its  roses  bloom,
"And  thou  alone  its  time-dried  stem  entomb!"

XXVIII.
She  read,  and  wept ;   and  wept,  and  read,  and  read  ;

And  with  her  tears  the  tree  gleam'd  dewily :

The  delicate  leaves  which  she  had  scattered

She,  one  by  one,  collected  heedfully,

And  made  her  bosom  their  sad  funeral-bed  ;

And  wofully  her  trembling  hand  upbraided,

Whose  ignorance  their  sacred  source  invaded.
HELENA.  f5i

XXIX.
What  human  hands  had  in  the  night  convcy'd
That  Rose-tree  to  her  garden's  far  recesses
Could  no  one  tell :    and  so,  her  maidens  made
Strange  stories  of  it,  as  they  wreathed  their  tresses
Where  in  dim  light  dull  chamber-shadows  play'd  ;
And  made  their  own  inventions  their  belief,
And  superstitions  of  their  lady's  grief.
XXX.
Unnoted  now  of  mourning  Helena

The  little  flowers  that  love  the  grass  and  moss  :

Upon  her  Rose-tree  tendeth  she  alway  ;

And  every  moment  deems  eternal  loss

In  which  she  near  it  doth  not  weep  and  pray,

Or  sit  in  dreamings  of  the  awful  past,

And  of  the  lulling  death  that  comes  at  last.
XXXI.
One  night,  she  slumber'd  on  a  couch  star-lit,
Her  Rose-tree  breathing  balm  o'er  her  soft  sleeping ;
When  slowly  all  its  flowers  grew  interknit,
And  clung  together  in  a  dewy',weeping  ;
And  mystic  lights  did  thro'  their  blent  leaves  flit —
Like  gemm'd  rings  twinkling  thro'  a  silken  glove,
Or  stars  thro'  cloudlets  on  heaven's  zone  of  love.
152  THOMAS  WADE.
XXXII.
