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 awsome 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.

Thy 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 ;

From the meads where melick groweth,

When the water winding down,

Onward floweth to the town.

I shall never see her more

Where the reeds and rushes quiver,
Shiver, quiver;

Stand beside the sobbing river,
Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling
To the sandy lonesome shore;
I shall never hear her calling,
"Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
"Mellow, mellow!

"Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;

66

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,

"Quit your pipes of parsley hollow,

66

Hollow, hollow!

Come uppe Lightfoot, rise and follow!

"Lightfoot, Whitefoot,

"From your clovers lift the head;

"Come uppe Jetty, follow, follow,

"Jetty, to the milking shed!"

"

SAND MARTINS.

I passed an island cliff precipitate;
From tiny caves peeped many a sooty poll;

In each a mother-martin sat elate,

And of the news delivered her small soul.

Fantastic chatter! hasty, glad, and gay,

Whereof the meaning was not ill to tell :

Gossip, how wags the world with you to-day?"

Gossip, the world wags well, the world wags well."

And heark'ning, I was sure their little ones

Were in the bird-talk, and discourse was made Concerning hot sea-bights and tropic suns,

For a clear sultriness the tune conveyed;—

And visions of the sky as of a cup

Hailing down light on pagan Pharaoh's sand, And quivering air-waves trembling up and up, And blank stone faces marvelously bland.

When should the young be fledged and with them hie Where costly day drops down in crimson light? (Fortunate countries of the firefly

Swarm with blue diamonds all the sultry night,

'And the immortal moon takeş turn with them.) When should they pass again by that red land, Where lovely mirage works a broidered hem

To fringe with phantom-palms a robe of sand?

"When should they dip their breasts again and play
In slumberous azure pools, clear as the air,
Where rosy-winged flamingoes fish all day,
Stalking amid the lotus blossom fair?

"Then, over podded tamarinds bear their flight, While cassias blossom in the zone of calms, And so betake them to a south sea-bight,

To gossip in the crowns of cocoa-palms

"Whose roots are in the spray. O, haply there

Some dawn, white-winged they might chance to find A frigate standing in to make more fair The loneliness unaltered of mankind.

"A frigate come to water: nuts would fall,

And nimble feet would climb the flower-flushed strand,

While northern talk would ring, and there withal
The martins would desire the cool north land.

"And all would be as it had been before;

Again at eve there would be news to tell;

Who passed should hear them chant it o'er and o'er, 'Gossip, how wags the world?' 'Well, gossip, well.'"

If fragrances were colors, I would liken
A blush that deepens in her thoughtful face
To that aroma which pervades the place

Where woodmen cedars to the heart have stricken;
If tastes were hues, the blissful stain I'd trace
In upland strawberries or winter-green;

If sound, why, then, to shy and mellow bass
Of mountain thrushes, heard, yet seldom seen.

Or, say that hues are felt-then would it seem
Most like to cobwebs borne on southern gales
Against a spray of jasmine. But the glow
Itself is found where sweet-briar petals gleam
Through tenderest hoar-frost, or upon the snow
Of steadfast hills when shadows brim the vales.

THE TORNADO.

Whose eye has marked his gendering? On his throne
He dwells apart in roofless caves of air,
Born of the stagnant, blown of the glassy heat
O'er the still mere Sargasso. When the world
Has fallen voluptuous, and the isles are grown