For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck 15
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ;

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

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Playing on the virginals,

WALT WHITMAN.

Who but I! Sae glad, sae free,

Smelling for all cordials,

The green mint and marjorie ;
Set among the budding broom,
Kingcup and daffodilly,

By my side I made him room :
O love my Willie !

'Like me, love me, girl o' gowd,'
Sang he to my nimble strain ;
Sweet his ruddy lips o'erflowed

Till my heartstrings rang again;
By the broom, the bonny broom,
Kingcup and daffodilly,

In my heart I made him room :
O love my Willie !

20

Pipe and play, dear heart,' sang he,
I must go, yet pipe and play ;
Soon I'll come and ask of thee

For an answer yea or nay;

And I waited till the flocks

Panted in yon waters stilly,

And the corn stood in the shocks :
O love my Willie !

20

I thought first when thou didst come
I would wear the ring for thee,

25

But the year told out its sum

Ere again thou sat'st by me;

Thou hadst naught to ask that day
By kingcup and daffodilly;

I said neither yea nor nay:
O love my Willie !

JEAN INGELOW.

362

THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF
LINCOLNSHIRE (1571)

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

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

10

The message that the bells let fall:

And there was naught of strange, beside

The flight of mews and peewits pied

By millions crouched on the old sea wall.

I sat and spun within the doore,

My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes ; The level sun, like ruddy ore,

Lay sinking in the barren skies;
And dark against day's golden death
She moved where Lindis wandereth,
My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth.

'Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!' calling,
Ere the early dews were falling,
Farre away I heard her song,
'Cusha! Čusha!' all along;
Where the reedy Lindis floweth,

Floweth, floweth,

From the meads where melick groweth
Faintly came her milking song.

15

20

25

'Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!' calling,

30

For the dews will soone be falling;

Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;

Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot, Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,

Hollow, hollow;

Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,

From the clovers lift your head;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,

36

Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed.'

41

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,

50

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 swanherds 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.'

1;

Then some looked uppe into the sky,
And all along where Lindis flows

To where the goodly vessels lie,

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60

65

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!

70

'For evil news from Mablethorpe,

Of pyrate galleys warping down;

They have not spared to wake the towne :

e:

75

For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,

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

80

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.'

85

’

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 lea,
To right, to left, Ho Enderby!

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95

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 noises 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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105

Flung uppe her weltering walls again.

Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout

Then beaten foam flew round about—

111

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 oure 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

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120

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.'

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