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 noise, 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.

281

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,

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.

AFTER THE RAIN.

283

THE rain has ceased, and in my room
The sunshine pours an airy flood;
And on the church's dizzy vane
The ancient Cross is bathed in blood.

From out the dripping ivy-leaves, Antiquely carven, gray and high, A dormer, facing westward, looks Upon the village like an eye:

And now it glimmers in the sun, A square of gold, a disk, a speck: And in the belfry sits a Dove With purple ripples on her neck.

PISCATAQUA RIVER.

THOU singest by the gleaming isles,
By woods, and fields of corn,
Thou singest, and the heaven smiles
Upon my birthday morn.

But I within a city, I,

So full of vague unrest, Would almost give my life to lie An hour upon thy breast!

To let the wherry listless go, And, wrapt in dreamy joy, Dip, and surge idly to and fro, Like the red harbor-buoy;

To sit in happy indolence,

To rest upon the oars, And catch the heavy earthy scents That blow from summer shores;

To see the rounded sun go down,
And with its parting fires
Light up the windows of the town
And burn the tapering spires;

And then to hear the muffled tolls

From steeples slim and white, And watch, among the Isles of Shoals, The Beacon's orange light.

O River! flowing to the main

Through woods, and fields of corn,