'300 GEOEGE JOHN EOMANES 1892 



the wedding-day of a dearly loved friend, Mrs. 

 W. Ingham, his last ' made-to-order ' sonnet. He 

 wrote it in the train as he was going North to this 

 peculiarly bright and happy wedding, and he was 

 much struck with the sunniness and joyousness of 

 the country bathed in June sunshine. Yet in this 

 sonnet there is a touch of sadness, a hint of shadows 

 soon to close in. 



To Annie. 



(June 1, 1892.) 



Through all the gladness of the marriage bells 

 Methinks I hear a distant echo chime, 

 Wherewith their rhythm, wedded to a rhyme, 

 Is wafted by this breeze of June, and tells 

 Of brooding Death in sound of funeral knells. 

 ' The new supplants the old,' it rings, and Time 

 That 'gins to steal our beauty in its prime 

 Shall ever change the heart where Heaven dwells. 

 My heart for tbee can never cease to beat ; 

 But if to thine it so should seem to-day 

 That England never smiled a smile so sweet 

 Among her meadows decked with bridal May, 

 Remember still the moorland far away, 

 Whose heather blushed with joy around thy feet. 



June 1892 brought the first warnings of serious 

 illness. One day Mr. Romanes announced at lunch 

 that he noticed a blind spot in one eye. He con- 

 sulted his friend Mr. Doyne, the well-known oculist, 

 who from the first thought seriously of the case. 



He went up to town, and saw various doctors, 

 and had some thoughts of taking a voyage. He 

 was, however, well enough to attend the Conversa- 

 zione at the Royal Society, and showed some ex- 

 periments on rabbits and rats which bore on questions 

 of acquired characters. He writes : 



