"O lovely bubble on a troubl'd sea,
"I would not thou shoulds't lose thyself again
"In the black ocean whence thy life emerg'd,
"But skyward steal on gales as soft as love,
"And hang in some bright rainbow overhead,
"If only such bright rainbow spann'd the earth."
Then shouted loudly, till the silent air
Rous'd like a frighten'd bird, and on its wings
Caught up his cry and bore it to the farm.
There Malcolm, leaping from his noontide sleep,
Upstarted as at midnight, crying out,
"She shall not wed him--rest you, wife, in peace!'
They found him, Alfred, haggard-ey'd and faint,
But holding Katie ever towards the sun,
Unhurt, and waking in the fervent heat.
And now it came that Alfred being sick
Of his sharp hurts and tended by them both,
With what was like to love, being born of thanks,
Had choice of hours most politic to woo,
And used his deed as one might use the sun,
To ripen unmellow'd fruit; and from the core
Of Katie's gratitude hop'd yet to nurse
A flow'r all to his liking--Katie's love.
But Katie's mind was like the plain, broad shield
Of a table di'mond, nor had a score of sides;
And in its shield, so precious and so plain,
Was cut, thro' all its clear depths--Max's name!
And so she said him "Nay" at last, in words
Of such true sounding silver, that he knew
He might not win her at the present hour,
But smil'd and thought--"I go, and come again!
"Then shall we see.
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