Page:Enoch Arden, etc - Tennyson - 1864.djvu/21

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ENOCH ARDEN.
5
Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand,
His large gray eyes and weather-beaten face
All-kindled by a still and sacred fire,
That burn’d as on an altar. Philip look’d,
And in their eyes and faces read his doom;
Then, as their faces drew together, groan’d,
And slipt aside, and like a wounded life
Crept down into the hollows of the wood;
There, while the rest were loud in merry-making,
Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past
Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart.

So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells,
And merrily ran the years, seven happy years,
Seven happy years of health and competence,
And mutual love and honourable toil;
With children; first a daughter. In him woke,
With his first babe’s first cry, the noble wish
To save all earnings to the uttermost,
And give his child a better bringing-up