The mariners sleep by the sea.

Far

away there's a shrine by the sea;

The pale women climb up the path to it slowly,

To pray to Our Lady of Storms ere they wholly
Despair of their men from the sea.

The children at play on the sand,

Where once from the shell-broidered sand

They would watch for the sails coming in from far places,

Are forgetting the ships and forgetting the faces
Lying here, lying hid in the sand.

When at night there's a seething of surf,

The grandames look out o'er the surf,

They reckon their dead and their long years of sadness,

And they shake their lean fists at the sea and its madness,

And curse the white fangs of the surf.

But the mariners sleep by the sea.

They hear not the sound of the sea,

Nor the hum from the church where the psalm is uplifted,

Nor the crying of birds that above them are drifted. The mariners sleep by the sea.

An April Song.

O COME across the hillside. The April month is here, The lamb-time, the lark-time, the child-time of the

year.

The wren sings on the sallow,

The lark above the fallow,

The birds sing everywhere,

With whistle and with holloa

The labourers follow

The shining share,

And sing upon the hillside in the seed-time of the year.

O come into the hollow, for Eastertide is here,
And pale below the hillside the budding palms appear.
The silver buds a-blowing

Their yellow blooms are showing

To woo the bee;

The bee awhile yet drowses,

But the drunken moth carouses

All night upon the tree,

And dreams there in the dawning of the Spring-time

of the year.

O come into the woodland, the primroses are here, And down in the woodland beneath the grasses sere, As in a wide dominion,

How many a pretty minion

Of Spring to-day,

Where warm the sunshine passes

Thro' the forest of the grasses,

Awakes to play,

To sport there in the sun-time, the play-time of the year.

O come across the hillside, for now the Spring is here, Come, child with your laughter, your pretty April cheer.

Your fantasy possesses
The airy wildernesses,
The shrill lark's dower,

The forest and the blossom,

The earth and in her bosom

The mouse's bower;

The sunlight and the starlight of the Spring-time of the year.

O come into the wide world! For you the Spring is here, The blue heaven is smiling, the young earth carols clear.

Come happy heart to wonder,

Come eager hands to plunder
The wide world's store,
The meadow's golden glory,
The shining towers of story

On Dreamland's shore,

To reign there all the song-time, the child-time of the

year.

Tottenham Court Road.

IN that far meadow by the water-side
Now Spring is here,

I'd show you (Ah! if I might be your guide!)
Beside the clear

Glad water flowing onward, here and there
A cowslip, 'mid the green grass blades,
A cowslip, growing in the quiet shades.

'Tis true we should disturb the shy wild duck, Forth they would fly.

Three magpies we might see, to bring us luck For by-and-by.

Imagine can you? In this London street You smell the cowslip's scent, delicious, sweet.

Sestina of Sleep.

I SAW the water-lily's petals close,
The dragonfly, joy-sated, fold his wings,
The "water-boatmen " hurry to the shore,
The cold toad crawl beneath the willow tree,
Perched on one leg, the robin, feigning sleep,
And a bat flutter quickly o'er the stream.

I watched the patient ripple of the stream,
So slow, it seemed to shun the sea, its close;
And, like the lily, longed to court sweet Sleep.
I softly prayed that Guardian Angels' wings
Might shade my soul. Whispered the willow tree,
"Breathe gently, breeze, that bloweth from the
shore."

Yearning for Sleep, I scanned the further shore.
Right in my path still rolled the singing stream,
Hurrying past the weeping willow tree,

To whose sweet sorrow never cometh close,
Never an end. But she had spread her wings,
And unavailing were my prayers for Sleep!

Yes, rudely spurning me, once gentle Sleep
From my embraces to the other shore
Fled, calling dreams to open wayward wings
And follow her, their queen, across the stream;
Or, if they wished to stay, their books to close,
Written on dead leaves plucked from Wisdom's tree.