Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet even these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelled by the unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relics,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tales relate,
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say:
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And
pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne; Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay

Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH.

HERE rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery (all he had) a tear,

He gained from Heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend.

No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,)

The bosom of his Father and his God.

THE HIGH TIDE

ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE (1571).

BY JEAN INGELOW.

HE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, The ringers ran by two, by three; “Pull, if ye never pulled before; Good ringers, pull your best!" quoth he. Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Ply all your changes, all your swells!

66

Play uppe The Brides of Enderby'!"

Men say it was a stolen tyde,

The Lord that sent it, he knows all; But in myne ears doth still abide

The message that the bells let fall: And there was naught of strange, beside The flights of mews and peewits pied

By millions crouched on the old sea-wall.

I sat and spun within the doore;

My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes : The level sun, like ruddy ore,

Lay sinking in the barren skies;

And dark against day's golden death
She moved where Lindis wandereth,

My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth.

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,

Ere the early dews were falling,

Farre

away

I heard her song.

"Cusha! Cusha!" all along;

Where the reedy Lindis floweth,
Floweth, floweth,

From the meads where melick groweth,
Faintly came her milking-song.

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
"For the dews will soon be falling;
Leave your meadow-grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;

Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot,
Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,

Hollow, hollow;

Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,

From the clovers lift

your

head;

Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot,

Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,

Jetty, to the milking-shed."

If it be long, ay, long ago,

When I beginne to think howe long,

Againe I hear the Lindis flow,

Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong;

And all the aire, it seemeth mee,