The Waterfall and the Eglantine. 225 "Ah!" said the Briar, "blame me not: You stirred me on my rocky bed— My leaves you freshened and bedewed: That did your cares repay. "When spring came on with bud and bell, Among the rocks did I, Before you hang my wreaths to tell I sheltered you with leaves and flowers; Had little voice or none. "But now proud thoughts are in your breast,What grief is mine you see, Ah! would you think, even yet how blest Together we might be ! Q "Though of both leaf and flower bereft, Some ornaments to me are left- What more he said I cannot tell, I listened, nor aught else could hear; Wordsworth. THE SANDS OF DEE. "O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the sands o' Dee!" The western wind was wild and dank with foam, And all alone went she. The creeping tide came up along the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see; The blinding mist came down and hid the land, And never home came she. Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair? Of drowned maiden's hair Above the nets at sea: Was never salmon got that shone so fair 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 o' Dee. Kingsley. THE THREE FISHERS. Three fishers went sailing out into the West, Out into the West as the sun went down ; Each thought of 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 harbour-bar be moaning. Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, down, And they looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the rack it came rolling up, ragged and brown; But men must work, and women must weep, Three corpses lay out on the shining sands, In the morning gleam, as the tide went down, And the women are watching and wringing their hands, For those who will never come home to the town. But men must work, and women must weep, And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep, And good-bye to the bar and its moaning. Kingsley. LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT. I'm sittin' on the stile, Mary, Where we sat side by side On a bright May mornin' long ago, The place is little changed, Mary, |