But the men at sea did that night agree
They heard a drowning cry.
And when the morning brake.
Fast rolled the river's tide,
With the green trees waving overhead,
And a white corse laid beside.

Margret, Margret.

XXvt.

A knight's bloodhound and he
The funeral watch did keep:
With a thought o' the chase he stroked
its face

As it howled to see him weep.
A fair child kissed the dead,
But shrank before the cold:
And alone yet proudly in his hall,
Did stand a haron old.

Margret, Margret.

XXvtt.

Hang up my harp again—
I have no voice for song.
Not song but wail, and mourners pale
Not hards, to love belong.
O failing human love!

O light by darkness known!
O false the while thou treadest earth!
O deaf beneath the stone!

Margret, Margret.

ISO BEL'S CHILD.

ao find we profit,

By ■■ of our pmyen,

t.

To rest the weary nurse has gone; An eight-day watch had watched she,

Rocking beneath the sun and moon

The haby on her knee: Till Isobel its mother said 'The fever waneth—wend to bed—

For now the watch comes round to me.'

n.

Then wearily the nurse did throw
Her pallet in the darkest place

Of that sick room, and slept and

dreamed. . And as the gusty wind did blow The night-lamp's flare across her face.

She saw or seemed to see but dreamed,

That the poplars tall on the opposite hill.

The seven tall poplars on the hill, Did clasp the setting sun until His rays dropped from him, pined and still

As blossoms in frost: Till he waned and paled, so weirdly crossed,

To the colour of moonlight which doth pass

Over the dank ridged churchyard grass.

The poplars held the sun, and he The eyes of the nurse that they should not see.

Not for a moment, the habe on her knee,

Though she shuddered to feel that it grew to be Too chill, and lay too heavily.

ni.

She only dreamed: for all the while
'Twas Lady Isobel that kept
The little haby ; and it slept
Fast, warm, as if its mother's smile,
Laden with love's dewy weight.
And red as rose of Harpocrate
Dropt upon its eyelids, pressed
Lashes to cheek in a sealed rest.

iv.

And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the haby sleep so well —
She knew not that she smiled.
Against the lattice, dull and wild
Drive the heavy droning drops.
Drop by drop, the sound being one—
As momently time's segments fall
On the ear of God who hears through
all

Eternity's unbroken monotone. And more and more smiled Isobel To see the haby sleep so well—

She knew not that she sniileu. The wind in intermission stop;. Down in the beechen forest.

Then cries aloud

As one at the sorest,

Self-stung, self-driven, And ris*s up to its very tops. Stiffening erect the branches bowed; Dilating with a tempest soul The trees that ^ith their dark hands break

Through their o n outline and heavily roll

Shadows as massive as clouds in heaven, Across the castle lake. And more and more smiled Isobel To see the haby sleep so well; She knew not that she smiled— She knew not that the storm was wild. Through the uproar drear she could not hear

The castle clock which struck anear— She heard the low, light breathing of her child.

v.

O sight for wondering look!
While the external nature broke
Into such ahandonment;
While the very mist heart-rent
By the lightning, seemed to eddy
Against nature, with a din—
A sense of silence and of steady
Natural calm appeared to come
Jrom things without, and enter in

The human creature's room.

vt.

So motionless she sate,
The habe asleep upon her knees.
You might have dreamed their souls had
gone

Away to things inanimate.
In such, to live, in such to moan;
And that their bodies had ta'en had;.
In mystic change, all silences
That cross the sky in cloudy rack,
Or dwell beneath the reedy ground
.In waters safe from their own sound.

Only she wore The deepening smile I named before, And that a deepening love expressed— And who at once can love and rest 1

vtt.

In sooth the smile that then was keeping
Watch upon the haby sleeping,
Floated with its tender light
Downward, from the drooping eyes.
Upward, from the lips apart,
Over cheeks which had grown white

With an eight-day weeping.
All smiles come in such a wise,
Where tears shall fall or have of old—
Like northern lights that fill the heart

Of heaven in sign of cold.

vttt.

Motionless she sate:
Her hair had fallen by its weight
On each side of her smile, and lay
Very blackly on the arm
Where the haby nestled warm;
Pale as haby carved in stone
Seen by glimpses of the moon

Up a dark cathedral aisle: But, through the storm, no moonbeam fell

Upon the child of Isobel—
Perhaps you saw it by the ray
Alone of her still smile.

tX.

A solemn thing it is to me

To look upon a habe that sleeps—

Wearing m its spirit-deeps

The undeveloped mystery

Of its Adam's taint and woe.

Which, when they developed be,

Will not let it slumber so:

Lying new in life beneath

The shadow of the coming death.

With that soft, low, quiet breath,

As if it felt the sun! Knowing all things by their blooms, Not their roots ; yea,—sun and sky, Only by the warmth that comes Out of each; earth only by The pleasant hues that o'er it run; And human love, by drops of sweet White nourishment still hanging round The little month so slumber-hound.

All which broken sentiency

And conclusion incomplete.

Will gather and unite and climb

To an immortality

Good or evil, each sublime,

Through life and death to life again .'

O little lids, now folded fast,

Must ye learn to drop at last

Oar large and burning tears?

O warm quick body, must thou lie.

When the time comes round to die,

Still from all the whirl of years.

Bare of all the joy and pain?

O small frail being, wilt thou stand

At God's right hand. Iufting up those sleeping eyes Dilated by great destinies, To an endless waking? Thrones and

seraphim.

Through the long ranks of their solemnities.

Sunning thee with calm looks of

Heaven's surprise—

But thine alone on Him ?— Or else, self-willed, to tread the godless

place,

((Jod keep thy will I) feel thine own energies

Cold, strong, objectless, like a dead

man's clasp. The sleepless deathless life within thee,

grasp;

While myriad faces, like one changeless face,

With woe not love's, shall glass thee everywhere,

And overcome thee with thine own despair?

x.

More soft, less solemn images
Drifted o'er the lady's heart,

Silently as snow:
She had seen eight days depart
Hour by hour, on bended knees,
With pale-wrung hands and prayingslow
And broken—through which came the

sound

Of tears that fell against the ground, Making sad stops ;—' Dear Lord, dear Lord!'

She still had prayed—(the heavenly word.

[ Broken by an earthly sigh),
* Thou, who didst not erst deny
The mother-joy to Mary mild.
Blessed in the blessed child,
Which hearkened in meek habyhood
Her cradle-hymn, albeit used
To all that music interfused
In breasts of angels high and good!
Oh, take not, Lord, my habe away—
Oh, take not to thy songful heaven,
The pretty haby thou hast given,
Or ere that I have seen him play
Around his father's knees and known
That he knew how my love hath gone

From all the world to him.
Think, God among the cherubim.
How I shall shiver every day
In thy June sunshine, knowing where
The grave-grass keeps it from his fair
Still cheeks! and feel at every tread
His little body which is dead
And hidden in the turfy fold,
Doth make thy whole warm earth ;,-
cold!

0 God, I am so young, so young—

I am not used to tears at nights
Instead of slumber—nor to prayer
With sobbing lips and hands out-wrung:
Thou knowest all my prayings were

'I bless thee, God, for past delights— I'hank God I' I am not used to bear Hard thoughts of death. The earth

doth cover No face from me of friend or lover: And must the first who teacheth me The form of shrouds and funerals, he Mine own first-born beloved? he Who taught me first this mother-love'! Dear Lord, who spreadest out above Thy loving, transpierced hands to meet All lifted hearts with blessing sweet,— Pierce not my heart, my tender heart. Thou madest tender! Thou who art So happy in thy heaven alway. Take not mine only bliss away!'

Xt.

She so had prayed : and God, who hears
Through seraph-songs the sound of tears,
From that beloved habe had ta'en
The fever and the beating pain.
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the haby sleep so well—

(She knew not that she smiled, I wis,)