"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hairA tress o' golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam
To her grave beside the sea:

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee!

EARL HALDAN'S DAUGHTER. A BALLAD-A. D. 1400.

Ir was Earl Haldan's daughter,

She looked across the sea;
She looked across the water,
And long and loud laughed she:
"The locks of six princesses
Must be my marriage-fee,

So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat!
Who comes a-wooing me!"

It was Earl Haldan's daughter,
She walked along the sand:

When she was aware of a knight so fair,
Come sailing to the land.

His sails were all of velvet,
His mast of beaten gold,

And "hey bonny boat, and bo bonny boat,
Who saileth here so bold:"

"The locks of five princesses I won beyond the sea;

I shore their golden tresses, To fringe a cloak for thee.

One handful yet is wanting,

But one of all the tale;

So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat! Furl up thy velvet sail!"

He leapt into the water,

That rover young and bold;

He gript Earl Haldan's daughter,
He shore her locks of gold;

"Go weep, go weep, proud maiden,
The tale is full to-day.

Now hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat! Sail Westward ho, and away!"

THE LAST BUCCANEER.

A BALLAD-A. D. 1740.

Oн England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high;

But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I;

And such a port for mariners I ne'er shall see again,

As the pleasant Isle of Avès, beside the Spanish main.

There were forty craft in Avès that were both swift and stout,

All furnished well with small arms and cannons round about;

And a thousand men in Avès made laws so fair and free

To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally.

Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his

hoards of plate and gold,

Which he wrung by cruel tortures from the Indian folk of old;

Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone,

Which flog men and keel-haul them and starve them to the bone.

Oh the palms grew high in Avès and fruits that shone like gold,

And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold;

And the negro maids to Avès from bondage fast did flee,

To welcome gallant sailors a-sweeping in from sea.

Oh sweet it was in Avès to hear the landward breeze A-swing with good tobacco in a net between the

trees,

With a negro lass to fan you while you listened

to the roar

Of the breakers on the reef outside that never touched the shore.

But Scripture saith, an ending to all fine things must be,

So the King's ships sailed on Avès and quite put down were we.

All day we fought like bull-dogs, but they burst the booms at night;

And I fled in a piragua sore wounded from the fight.

Nine days I floated starving, and a negro lass beside,

Till for all I tried to cheer her, the poor young thing she died;

But as I lay a-gasping a Bristol sail came by, And brought me home to England here to beg until I die.

And now I'm old and going I'm sure I can't tell where;

One comfort is, this world's so hard I can't be worse off there:

If I might but be a sea-dove I'd fly across the main,

To the pleasant Isle of Avès, to look at it once again.

THE THREE FISHERS.

THREE fishers went sailing out into the West,
Out into the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the
best,

And the children stood watching them out of

the town;

For men must work, and women must weep, And there's little to earn, and many to keep, Though the harbor bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the light-house tower, And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down,

They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,

And the night rack came rolling up ragged and

brown!

But men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, And the harbor bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands

In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands

For those who will never come back to the town;

For men must work, and women must weep, And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep

And good-by to the bar and its moaning.

A MYTH.

A FLOATING, a floating
Across the sleeping sea,

All night I heard a singing bird
Upon the topmost tree.

"Oh, came you from the isles of Greece, Or from the banks of Seine,

Or off some tree in forests free,
Which fringe the Western main?"

"I came not off the old world—
Nor yet from off the new-
But I am one of the birds of God
Which sing the whole night through."
"Oh sing and wake the dawning,
Oh whistle for the wind;

The night is long, the current strong,
My boat it lags behind."

"The current sweeps the old world,
The current sweeps the new;

The wind will blow, the dawn will glow Ere thou hast sailed them through."

THERE SITS A BIRD.

THERE sits a bird on every tree,
With a heigh-ho!

There sits a bird on every tree,
Sings to his love, as I to thee,

With a heigh-ho, and a heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.

There grows a flower on every bough,
With a heigh-ho!

There grows a flower on every bough,
Its gay leaves kiss-I'll show you how;
With a heigh-ho, and a heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.

The sun's a bridegroom, earth a bride,
With a heigh-ho!

The sun's a bridegroom, earth a bride,
They court from morn to eventide:
The earth shall pass, but love abide.
With a heigh-ho, and a heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.

SONG.

THE world goes up, and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown,
Can never come over again,

Sweet wife,

No, never come over again.

For woman is warm though man be cold,
And the night will hallow the day;
Till the heart which at even was weary and old,
Can rise in the morning gay,

Sweet wife,
To its work in the morning gay.

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay

With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail at dawn of day

Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried; When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,

And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the self same seas By each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so-but why the tale reveal

Of those whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew to feel,

Astounded, soul from soul enstranged? At dead of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered :Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,

Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,

Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,

Through winds and tides one compass guides,
To that, and your own selves, be true.
But O blithe breeze, and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,

Together lead them home at last!
One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,-

O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,
At last, at last, unite them there!

THE SONG OF LAMECH.

HEARKEN to me, ye mothers of my tent:
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech:
Adah, let Jubal hither lead his goats;
And Tubal Cain, O Zillah, hush the forge;
Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou,
My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.
Yea, Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.
Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent,
Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For Eve made answer, "Cain, my son, my own,
O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned,
And He that heard me, heard, and said me Nay:
My first, my only one, thou shalt not go."
And Adam answered also, "Cain, my son,
He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive:
Rob not thy mother of two sons at once;
My child abide with us and comfort us.'

Hear ye my voice; Adah and Zillah, hear;
Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For Cain replied not. But, an hour more, sat Where the night through he sat; his knit brows

seen,

Scarce seen, amid the foldings of his limbs.
But when the sun was bright upon the field,
To Adam still, and Eve still waiting by,
And weeping, lift he up his voice and spake.
Cain said, "The sun is risen upon the earth;
The day demands my going, and I go.-
As you from Paradise, so I from you :
As you to exile, into exile I:

My father and my mother, I depart.
As betwixt you and Paradise of old,
So betwixt me, my parents, now, and you,
Cherubim I discern, and in their hand
A flaming sword that turneth every way,
To keep the way of my one tree of life,
The way my spirit yearns to, of my love.
Yet not, O Adam and O Eve, fear not.
Who called me cursed from the earth, and said,
For He that asked me, Where is Abel? He
A fugitive and vagabond thou art,

He also said, when fear had slain my soul,
There shall not touch thee man nor be ist. Fear not.
Lo, I have spoke with God, and He hath said,
Fear not ;-and let me go as He hath said."
Cain also said (O Jubal, touch thy string),-
"Moreover, in the darkness of my mind,
When the night's night of misery was most black,
A little star came twinkling up within,
And in myself I had a guide that led
And in myself had knowledge of a soul.
Fear not, O Adam and O Eve: I go."
Children of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For when the years were multiplied, and Cain
Eastward of Eden, in this land of Nod,
Had sons, and sons of sons, and sons of them,
Enoch and Irad and Mehujael

(My father, and my children's grandsire he),
It came to pass that Cain, who dwelt alone,
Met Adam, at the nightfall, in the field:
Who fell upon his neck, and wept, and said,
My son, has God not spoken to thee, Cain?'
And Cain replied, when weeping loosed his voice,
My dreams are double, O my father, good
And evil:-terror to my soul by night,
And agony by day, when Abel stands

A dead, black shade, and speaks not, neither looks,
Nor makes me any answer when I cry,
Curse me, but let me know thou art alive!

BROTHER AND SISTER.

I.

I CANNOT choose but think upon the time

And here the Lady-fingers in deep shade;

Here sloping toward the Moat the rushes

grew,

kiss

At lightest thrill from the bee's swinging

chime,

Because the one so near the other is.
He was the elder and a little man
Of forty inches, bound to show no dread,
And I the girl that puppy-like now ran,
Now lagged behind my brother's larger tread.
I held him wise, and when he talked to me

And made a happy strange solemnity,

A deep-toned chant from life unknown to me.

IV.

Our meadow-path had memorable spots:
One where it bridged a tiny rivulet,
Deep hid by tangled blue Forget-me-nots;
And all along the waving grasses inet
My little palm, or nodded to my cheek,

Long years have left their writing on my brow,

But yet the freshness and the dew-fed beam
Of those young mornings are about me now,
When we
two wandered toward the far-off

stream With rod and line. Our basket held a store Baked for us only, and I thought with joy That I should have my share, though he had more,

Because he was the elder and a boy.
The firmaments of daisies since to me
Have had those mornings in their opening eyes,
The bunched cowslip's pale transparency
Carries that sunshine of sweet memories,
And wild-rose branches take their finest

scent

From those blest hours of infantine content.

III.

Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways, Stroked down my tippet, set my brother's frill.

Then with the benediction of her gaze
Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still
Across the homestead to the rookery elms,
Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy
mound,

So rich for us, we counted them as realms
With varied products; here were earth-nuts
found.

My wonder downward, seeming all to speak With eyes of souls that dumbly heard and

knew.

Then came the copse, where wild things rushed

unseen,

And black-scathed grass betrayed the past abode

Of mystic gypsies, who still lurked between
Me and each hidden distance of the road,

A gypsy once had startled me at play,
Blotting with her dark smile my sunny day.

V.

Thus rambling we were schooled in deepest lore,

And learned the meanings that give words a soul,

The fear, the love, the primal passionate store,
Whose shaping impulses make manhood whole.
Those hours were seed to all my after good;
My infant gladness, through eye, ear, and touch,
Took easily as warmth a various food
To nourish the sweet skill of loving much.
For who in age shall roam the earth, and find
Reasons for loving that will strike out love
With sudden rod from the hard year-pressed
mind?

Were reasons sown as thick as stars above,

'Tis love must see them, as the eye sees light: Day is but Number to the darkened sight.

VI.

Our brown canal was endless to my thought;
And on its banks I sat in dreamy peace,
Unknowing how the good I loved was wrought,
Untroubled by the fear that it would cease.
Slowly the barges floated into view
Rounding a grassy hill to me sublime
With some Unknown beyond it, whither flew
The parting cuckoo toward a fresh spring time.