She hath a way,
Anne Hathaway;
To make grief bliss, Anne hath a way.
Talk not of gems, the orient list,
The diamond, topaz, amethyst,
The emerald mild, the ruby gay;
Talk of my gem, Anne Hathaway!
She hath a way, with her bright eye,
Their various lustres to defy,
The jewels she, and the foil they,
So sweet to look Anne hath a way;
She hath a way,
To shame bright gems, Anne hath a way.
But were it to my fancy given
To rate her charms, I'd call them heaven;
For though a mortal made of clay,
Angels must love Anne Hathaway;
She hath a way so to control,
To rapture, the imprisoned soul,
And sweetest heaven on earth display,
That to be heaven Anne hath a way;
She hath a way,
To be heaven's self, Anne hath a way.
"BRING me," he said, "that scribe of fame,
Symeon el Siddekah his name:
With parchment skin, and pen in hand,
I would devise my Cornish land.
"Seven goodly manors, fair and wide,
Stretch from the sea to Tamar side:
And Bien-aimé, my hall and bower,
Nestles beneath tall Stratton Tower.
"All these I render to my God,
By seal and signet, knife and sod:
I give and grant to church and poor,
In franc-almoign forevermore.
"Choose ye seven men among the just,
And bid them hold my lands in trust;
On Michael's morn, and Mary's day,
To deal the dole, and watch and pray.
"Then bear me coldly o'er the deep,
Mid my own people I would sleep:
Their hearts shall melt, their prayers will breathe, Where he who loved them rests beneath.
"Mould me in stone as here I lie,
My face upturned to Syria's sky:
Carve ye this good sword at my side,
And write the legend, True and tried.'
"Let mass be said, and requiem sung;
And that sweet chime I loved be rung:
Those sounds along the northern wall
Shall thrill me like a trumpet-call."
Thus said he, and at set of sun
The bold Crusader's race was run.
Seek ye his ruined hall and bower?
Then stand beneath tall Stratton Tower.
A DORSETSHIRE LEGEND.
THORKILL and Thorston from Jutland came
To torture us Saxons with sword and flame, To strip our homesteads and thorps and crofts, To burn our barns and hovels and lofts, To fell our kine and slay our deer, To strip the orchard and drag the mere, To butcher our sheep and reap our corn, To fire our coverts of fern and thorn, Driving the wolves and boars in bands To raven and prey on our Saxon lands. We had watched for their galleys day and night, From sunrise until beacon-light;
But still the sea lay level and dead,
And never a sail came round the Head..
We watched in vain till one autumn day,
When a woolly fog that northward lay
Sullenly rose, and the broad gray sea
Sparkled and danced in the full bright sun
(The shadows were purple as they could be):
Then stealing round by Worbarrow Bay,
Past Lulworth Cove and the White Swyre Head,
The black sails came, and every one
When they saw the sight turned pale as the dead.
The black sails spread in a long curved line,
Like a shoal of dog-fish, or rather of sharks,
When, chasing the porpoise in the moonshine,
They leave behind them a drift of sparks.
Those coal-black sails bore slowly on,
Past Kingsland Bay and Osmington,
By the white cliff of Bindon Hill,
Past Kimmeridge and Gad Cliff Mill;·
Then with a bolder, fiercer swoop
Bore down the Danish robber troop,
Skimming around St. Adhelm's Head,
With its chantry chapel and its rocks
Stained green and brown by tempest shocks,
And its undercliff all moss and heather,
And ivy cable and green fern feather,
And steered straight on for Studland Bay,
Where all our Saxon treasure lay.
Their sails, as black as a starless night,
Came moving on with a sullen might;
Rows of gleaming shields there hung
Over the gunwales, in order slung;
And the broad black banners fluttered and flapped
Like raven's pinions, as dipped and lapped
The Norsemen's galleys; their axes shone.-
Every Dane had a hauberk on,
Glittering gold; how each robber lord
Waved in the air his threatening sword!-
One long swift rush through surf and foam,
And they leapt ere the rolling waves had gone,
On our Saxon shore, their new-found home.
With a clash of collars and targe and spear,
With a laughing shout and a rolling cheer,
Like wolf-hounds when the wolf's at bay
Those bearded warriors leapt ashore
(If there was one there were forty score),
And dragged their galleys with fierce uproar
To where our fishing-vessels lay:
Who dare resist? Woe worth the day!
DR, A RELATION OF A YOUNG MAN, WHO, A MONTH AFTER
HIS DEATH, APPEARED TO HIS SWEETHEART, AND CARRIED
HER ON HORSEBACK BEHIND HIM FOR FORTY MILES IN TWO
HOURS, AND was never SEEN AFTER BUT IN HIS GRAVE.
WONDER stranger ne'er was known
Than what I now shall treat upon.
In Suffolk there did lately dwell
A farmer rich and known full well.
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