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 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. 361 Playing on the virginals, WALT WHITMAN. Who but I! Sae glad, sae free, Smelling for all cordials, The green mint and marjorie ; By my side I made him room : 'Like me, love me, girl o' gowd,' Till my heartstrings rang again; In my heart I made him room : 20 Pipe and play, dear heart,' sang he, For an answer yea or nay; And I waited till the flocks Panted in yon waters stilly, And the corn stood in the shocks : 20 I thought first when thou didst come 25 But the year told out its sum Ere again thou sat'st by me; Thou hadst naught to ask that day I said neither yea nor nay: JEAN INGELOW. 362 THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF The old mayor climbed the belfry tower, Good ringers, pull your best,' quoth he. 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; 'Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!' calling, Floweth, floweth, From the meads where melick groweth 15 20 25 'Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!' calling, 30 For the dews will soone be falling; Leave your meadow grasses 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, 41 Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee), Alle fresh the level pasture lay, And not a shadowe mote be seene, 50 Save where full fyve good miles away The swanherds where their sedges are 1; Then some looked uppe into the sky, To where the goodly vessels lie, 55 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, 80 I looked without, and lo! my sonne (A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath 'The olde sea wall (he cried) is downe, And boats adrift in yonder towne 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, He looked across the grassy lea, 91 95 They rang ‘The Brides of Enderby!' With that he cried and beat his breast; A mighty eygre reared his crest, And rearing Lindis backward pressed 100 105 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, Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet: Upon the roofe we sate that night, The noise of bells went sweeping by : I marked the lofty beacon light 115 120 Stream from the church tower, red and high A lurid mark and dread to see ; And awesome bells they were to mee, 125 |