ETHEL CHURCHILL.
19
CHAPTER III.
ALTERATION.
My heart hath turned aside
From its early dreams;
To me their course has been
Like mountain streams.
Bright and pure they left
Their place of birth;
Soon on every wave
Came taints of earth.
Weeds grew upon the banks,
And, as the waters swept,
A bad or useless part
Of all they kept.
Till it reached the plain below,
An altered thing
Bearing gloomy trace,—
Of its wandering.
Walter again pursued his way, lost in a very mixed reverie; sometimes writhing under an
