The Hundred Best English Poems | Page 6

blow;
Now the salt tides seawards flow;

Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the
spray.
Children dear, let us away.
This way, this way.
Call her once before you go.
Call once yet.
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once
more) to a mother's ear:
Children's voices, wild with pain.
Surely she will come again.
Call her once and come away.
This way, this way.
"Mother dear, we cannot stay."
The wild white
horses foam and fret.
Margaret! Margaret!
Come, dear children, come away down.
Call no more.
One last look at the white-wall'd town,
And the little
grey church on the windy shore.
Then come down.
She will not come though you call all day.

Come away, come away.
Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?

In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the
swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool
and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights
quiver and gleam;
Where the salt weed sways in the stream;
Where
the sea-beasts rang'd all round
Feed in the ooze of their
pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their
mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,

Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?

Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of
the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb'd its bright
hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of the
far-off bell.
She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea.

She said; "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on
the shore to-day.
'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!
And I
lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee."
I said; "Go up, dear
heart, through the waves.
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind
sea-caves."
She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay.

Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, were we long alone?
"The sea grows stormy, the little
ones moan.
Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say.
Come," I
said, and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach,
by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd
town.
Through the narrow pav'd streets, where all was still,
To the
little grey church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur
of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.

We climb'd on the graves, on the stones, worn with rains,
And we

gaz'd up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the
pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.

Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone.
The sea grows stormy, the
little ones moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes
were seal'd to the holy book.
"Loud prays the priest; shut stands the
door."
Come away, children, call no more.
Come away, come down,
call no more.
Down, down, down.
Down to the depths of the sea.
She sits at her
wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark, what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the
humming street, and the child with its toy.
For the priest, and the bell,
and the holy well.
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun."
And
so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the shuttle falls
from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand;
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And
anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a
sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh.

For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.
Come away, away children.
Come children, come down.
The
hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start
from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the
winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above
us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of
pearl.
Singing, "Here came a mortal,

But faithless was she.
And
alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow;
When clear
falls the moonlight;
When spring-tides are low:
When sweet airs
come seaward
From heaths starr'd with broom;
And high rocks
throw mildly
On the blanch'd sands a gloom:
Up the still, glistening
beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie;
Over banks of bright seaweed

The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the
white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side--
And then
come back down.
Singing, "There dwells a lov'd one,
But cruel is
she.
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea."
1857 Edition.

ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD.
3. Life.
Animula, vagula, blandula.
Life! I know not what thou art,
But know that