Sailed slowly by, passed noiseless out of sight.

Amid all this, in this most cheerless air, And where the woodbine shed upon the porch

his flight;

The dove scarce heard its sighing mate's complaint;

And like a star slow drowning in the light, The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint.

The sentinel-cock upon the hillside crew, Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before,

Silent till some replying warder blew His alien horn, and then was heard no

more.

Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall

crest,

Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young,

there

summer bloom,

JEAN INGELOW.

My thread brake off, I raised myne

LINCOLNSHIRE.

(1571.)

THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, The ringers ran by two, by three; "Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. "Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Ply all your changes, all your swells, Play uppe 'The Brides of Enderby.'

Men say it was a stolen tyde

The Lord that sent it, he knows all; But in myne ears doth still abide

The message that the bells let fall: And there was naught of strange, beside The flights of mews and peewits pied By millions crouched on the old sea

wall.

Swift as an arrowe, sharp and strong; And all the aire it seemeth me Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee), That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,

And not a shadowe mote be seene, Save where full fyve good miles away

The steeple towered from out the greene. And lo! the great bell farre and wide Was heard in all the country side That Saturday at eventide.

The swannerds where their sedges are Moved on in sunset's golden breath, The shepherde lads I heard afarre,

And my sonne's wife, Elizabeth; Till floating o'er the grassy sea Came downe that kyndly message free, The "Brides of Mavis Enderby.'

Then some looked uppe into the sky,
And all along where Lindis flows
To where the goodly vessels lie,
And where the lordly steeple shows.
They sayde, "And why should this
thing be,

What danger lowers by land or sea?
They ring the tune of Enderby!

"For evil news from Mablethorpe,
Of pyrate galleys warping down;
For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,
They have not spared to wake the
towne;

But while the west bin red to see,
And storms be none, and pyrates flee,
Why ring 'The Brides of Enderby'?"

I looked without, and lo! my sonne Came riding downe with might and main,

He raised a shout as he drew on,

Till all the welkin rang again, "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!

(A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.)

"The olde sea-wall (he cried) is downe, The rising tide comes on apace, And boats adrift in yonder towne

Go sailing uppe the market-place." He shook as one that looks on death: "God save you, mother!" straight he saith;

"Where is my wife, Elizabeth?"

"Good sonne, where Lindis winds away With her two bairns I marked her long;

And ere yon bells beganne to play
Afar I heard her milking song."
He looked across the grassy sea,
To right, to left, "Ho Enderby!"
They rang, "The Brides of Enderby!"

With that he cried and beat his breast;
For lo! along the river's bed
A mighty eygre reared his crest,

And uppe the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noise, loud;
Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis backward pressed, Shook all her trembling bankes amaine;

Then madly at the eygre's breast

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Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout,

Then beaten foam flew round about, -
Then all the mighty floods were out.

So farre, so fast the eygre drave,

The heart had hardly time to beat, Before a shallow seething wave

Sobbed in the grasses at our feet: The feet had hardly time to flee Before it brake against the knee, And all the world was in the sea.

Upon the roofe we sate that night,

The noise of bells went sweeping by: I marked the lofty beacon-light

Stream from the church-tower, red and
high,

A lurid mark and dread to see;
And awesome bells they were to mee,
That in the dark rang "Enderby."

They rang the sailor-lads to guide

From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed; And I-my sonne was at my side,

And yet the ruddy beacon glowed: And yet he moaned beneath his breath, "O come in life, or come in death! O lost! my love, Elizabeth."

And didst thou visit him no more? Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;

The waters laid thee at his doore,

Ere yet the early dawn was clear. The pretty bairns in fast embrace, The lifted sun shone on thy face, Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.

That flow strewed wrecks about the grass, That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea; A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!

To manye more than myne and me: But each will mourn his own (she saith). And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.

I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
"Cusha, Cusha, Cusha!" calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
"Cusha, Cusha!" all along,
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
Goeth, floweth ;

mother's own lasses,

Eager to gather them all.

For it is but short:

Shall never light on a prouder sitter,
A fairer nestful, nor ever know
A softer sound than their tender twitter,
That wind-like did come and go.

I had a nestful once of my own,
Ah, happy, happy I!
Right dearly I loved them; but when
they were grown

They spread out their wings to fly.
O, one after one they flew away,
Far up to the heavenly blue,

To the better country, the upper day,
And I wish I was going too.

I pray you, what is the nest to me,
My empty nest?

And what is the shore where I stood to

see

My boat sail down to the west? Can I call that home where I anchor yet, Though my good man has sailed? Can I call that home where my nest was set,

Now all its hope hath failed?

Nay, but the port where my sailor went,
And the land where my nestlings be:
There is the home where my thoughts
are sent,
The only home for me-

Ah me!

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

[U. S. A.]

BEFORE THE RAIN.

We knew it would rain, for all the morn,
A spirit on slender ropes of mist
Was lowering its golden buckets down
Into the vapory amethyst

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens,—
Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,
Dipping the jewels out of the sea,
To sprinkle them over the land in
showers.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed

The white of their leaves, the amber grain

Shrunk in the wind, and the lightning

now

Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain!

AFTER THE RAIN.

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THE rain has ceased, and in my room
The sunshine pours an airy flood;
And on the church's dizzy vane
The ancient Cross is bathed in blood.

From out the dripping ivy-leaves, Antiquely carven, gray and high, A dormer, facing westward, looks Upon the village like an eye:

And now it glimmers in the sun, A square of gold, a disk, a speck: And in the belfry sits a Dove With purple ripples on her neck.

PISCATAQUA RIVER.

THOU singest by the gleaming isles, By woods, and fields of corn, Thou singest, and the heaven smiles Upon my birthday morn.

But I within a city, I,

So full of vague unrest, Would almost give my life to lie An hour upon thy breast!

To let the wherry listless go, And, wrapt in dreamy joy, Dip, and surge idly to and fro, Like the red harbor-buoy ;

To sit in happy indolence,

To rest upon the oars, And catch the heavy earthy scents That blow from summer shores;

To see the rounded sun go down,
And with its parting fires
Light up the windows of the town
And burn the tapering spires;

And then to hear the muffled tolls
From steeples slim and white,
And watch, among the Isles of Shoals,
The Beacon's orange light.

O River! flowing to the main

Through woods, and fields of corn,