But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starred with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanched sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side
And then come back down.
Singing There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea.'
SHE was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow
Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways,
While she's still remembered on warm and cold days-
Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face :
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth-
Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke :
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone-
I doubt if she said to you much that could act
As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract
In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer
'Twas her thinking of others, made you think of her—
She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown—
None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;
They knelt more to God than they used,-that was all;
If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went-
The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,
She took as she found them, and did them all good;
It always was so with her see what you have!
She has made the grass greener even here.. with her grave
My dear one!-when thou wast alive with the rest,
I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best :
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part
As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart—
WHEN maidens such as Hester die,
Their place ye may not well supply,
Though ye among a thousand try,
With vain endeavour.
A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.
A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate
Of pride and joy no common rate,
That flushed her spirit.
I know not by what name beside
I shall it call:- if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied,
She did inherit.
Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feeling cool, But she was trained in Nature's school, Nature had blest her.
A waking eye, a prying mind
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.
My sprightly neighbour, gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer morning,
When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet forewarning?
AH! what avails the sceptered race!
Ah! what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.
JENNY kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in ;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in;
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add,
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