This way, this way!

'Mother dear, we cannot stay!

The wild white horses foam and fret.'

Margaret! Margaret !

Come, dear children, come away down ;

Call no more!

One last look at the white-wall'd town,

And the little gray church on the windy shore;
Then come down!

She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday

We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,

Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,

And the youngest sate on her knee.

She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,

When down swung the sound of a far-off bell,

She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea; She said: 'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray

In the little gray church on the shore to-day. 'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.'

I said: 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea

caves !'

She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, were we long alone?

'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; Long prayers,' I said, 'in the world they say;

Come!' I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.

We went up the beach, by the sandy down

Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd

town;

Through the narrow paved streets, where all was

still,

To the little gray church on the windy hill.

From the church came a murmur of folk at their

prayers,

But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.

We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with

rains,

And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded

panes.

She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart,' I said, 'we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.'
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!

Down to the depths of the sea!

She sits at her wheel in the humming town,

Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: 'O joy, O joy,

For the humming street, and the child with its toy!

For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;

For the wheel where I spun,

And the blessed light of the sun!'

And so she sings her fill,

Singing most joyfully,

Till the spindle drops from her hand,

And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And over the sand at the sea;

And her eyes are set in a stare ;

And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;

For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away, children;
Come, children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows coldly;
Lights shine in the town.

She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.

We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,

A pavement of pearl.

Singing: 'Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!

And alone dwell for ever

The kings of the sea.'

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 starr'd with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch'd 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.

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET

At Florés in the Azorés Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from away:

'Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fiftythree !'

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "Fore God I am

no coward;

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of

gear,

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow

quick.

We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fiftythree?'

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: 'I know you are no coward;

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick

ashore.

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.'

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war

that day,

Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer

heaven;

But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land

Very carefully and slow,

Men of Bideford in Devon,

And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,

And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,

And he sail'd away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.

'Shall we fight or shall we fly? Good Sir Richard, tell us now,

For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.' And Sir Richard said again: We be all good English men.

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,

For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet.'

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a

hurrah, and so

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the

foe,

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;

For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left

were seen,

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane

between.

K