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

I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
"Cusha, Cusha, Cusha!" calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
"Cusha, Cusha!" all along,
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
Goeth, floweth ;

From the meads where melick groweth,

HEIGH-HO! daisies and buttercups! Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall!

! Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups! Fair yellow daffodils stately and tall! A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure,

And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall!

Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure,

God that is over us all!

SEVEN TIMES SEVEN.

LONGING FOR HOME.

A SONG of a boat :

There was once a boat on a billow: Lightly she rocked to her port remote, And the foam was white in her wake like

snow,

And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow,

And bent like a wand of willow.

I shaded mine eyes one day when a boat Went curtsying over the billow,

I marked her course till, a dancing mote, She faded out on the moonlit foam, And I stayed behind in the dear-loved home;

the grasses,

And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender

and small!

boat,

And my dreams upon the pillow.

mother's own lasses,

Eager to gather them all.

·

For it is but short:-
My boat you shall find none fairer afloat,
In river or port.

Long I looked out for the lad she bore,
On the open desolate sea,
And I think he sailed to the heavenly
shore,

For he came not back to me

Shall never light on a prouder sitter,
A fairer nestful, nor ever know
A softer sound than their tender twitter,
That wind-like did come and go.

I had a nestful once of my own,
Ah, happy, happy I!
Right dearly I loved them; but when
they were grown

They spread out their wings to fly.
O, one after one they flew away,
Far up to the heavenly blue,
To the better country, the upper day,
And I wish I was going too.

I pray you, what is the nest to me,
My empty nest?

And what is the shore where I stood to

AFTER THE RAIN.

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