I

SAND MARTINS

PASSED an inland 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 hearkening, 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 takes 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 slumbrous azure pools clear as the air,
Where rosy-winged flamingoes fish all day,

Stalking amid the lotus blossoms 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? Oh, haply there

Some dawn, white-wingèd 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 therewithal

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.'"

THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE

(1571)

HE old mayor climbed the belfry tower;

THE

The ringers ran by two, by three:

"Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Play 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

The message that the bells let fall:
And there was naught of strange, beside
The flights 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! Cusha!" all along;
Where the reedy Lindis floweth
Floweth, floweth,

From the meads where melick groweth
Faintly came her milking-song:-

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
"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,
Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,

Jetty, to the milking-shed."

If it be long, aye, long ago,

When I beginne to think howe long,
Againe I hear the Lindis flow,

Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong;

And all the aire it seemeth mee

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,
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 swannerds 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.'

Then some looked uppe into the sky,

And all along where Lindis flows,

To where the goodly vessels lie,

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'!

"For evil news from Mablethorpe

Of pyrate galleys warping down, For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,

They have not spared to wake the towne; But while the west bin red to see,

And storms be none, and pyrates flee,
Why ring The Brides of Enderby'?"

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."

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 sea,

To right, to left,-"Ho Enderby!"
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

Flung uppe her weltering walls again.

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 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

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.'

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 mee: But each will mourn his own (she saith), And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.