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His little fair page now follows alone,

For strength and for courage trying! The king looked back at that faithful child; Wan was the face that answering smiled; They passed the drawbridge with clattering din, Then he dropped; and only the king rode in Where his rose of the isles lay dying!

The king blew a blast on his bugle horn;
(Silence !)

No answer came; but faint and forlorn
An echo returned on the cold gray morn,
Like the breath of a spirit sighing.

The castle portal stood grimly wide;
None welcomed the king from that weary ride ;
For dead, in the light of the dawning day,
The pale sweet form of the welcomer lay,
Who had yearned for his voice while dying!

The panting steed, with a drooping crest,
Stood weary.

The king returned from her chamber of rest,
The thick sobs choking in his breast;

And, that dumb companion eying,

The tears gushed forth which he strove to check;
He bowed his head on his charger's neck:
"O steed, that every nerve didst strain,
Dear steed, our ride hath been in vain
To the halls where my love lay dying!

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CAROLINE NORTON.

HIGH-TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE.

THE 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 hee.

"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Ply all your changes, all your swells!

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 soone 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,
Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee),
That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,

And not a shadowe mote be seene, Save where, full fyve good miles away,

The steeple towered from out the greene. And lo! the great bell farre and wide Was heard in all the country side That Saturday at eventide.

The swannerds, where their sedges are,
Moved on in sunset's golden breath;
The shepherde lads I heard afarre,
And my sonne's wife, Elizabeth;
Till, floating o'er the grassy sea,
Came downe that kyndly message free,
The Brides of Mavis Enderby.

Then some looked uppe into the sky,
And all along where Lindis flows
To where the goodly vessels lie,

And where the lordly steeple shows.

They sayde, "And why should this thing be,
What danger lowers by land or sea?
They ring the tune of Enderby.

"For evil news from Mablethorpe,
Of pyrate galleys, warping down, -
For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,

They have not spared to wake the towne;
But while the west bin red to see,
And storms be none, and pyrates flee,
Why ring The Brides of Enderby?

I looked without, and lo! my sonne

Came riding downe with might and main ;

He raised a shout as he drew on,

Till all the welkin rang again : "Elizabeth Elizabeth!"

(A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.)

"The olde sea-wall" (he cryed) "is downe!

The rising tide comes on apace; And boats adrift in yonder towne

Go sailing uppe the market-place!"

He shook as one that looks on death:

"God save you, mother!" straight he sayth; "Where is my wife, Elizabeth?"

"Good sonne, where Lindis winds away With her two bairns I marked her long; And ere yon bells beganne to play,

Afar I heard her milking-song."
He looked across the grassy sea,
To right, to left, Ho, Enderby!
They rang The Brides of Enderby.

With that he cried and beat his breast;
For lo! along the river's bed
A mighty eygre reared his crest,
And uppe the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noises loud,
Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis, backward pressed, Shook all her trembling bankes amaine; Then madly at the eygre's breast

Flung uppe her weltering walls again.

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Upon the roofe we sate that night;
The noise of bells went sweeping by ;

I marked the lofty beacon light

Stream from the church tower, red and high,A lurid mark, and dread to see; And awsome bells they were to mee, That in the dark rang Enderby.

They rang the sailor lads to guide,

From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed; And I, - my sonne was at my side, And yet the ruddy beacon glowed; And yet he moaned beneath his breath, "O, come in life, or come in death!

O lost my love, Elizabeth!"

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There is a solitary tomb, with rankling weeds o'ergrown,

A single palm bends mournfully beside the mouldering stone

Amidst whose leaves the passing breeze with fitful gust and slow

Seems sighing forth a feeble dirge for him who sleeps below.

Beside, its sparkling drops of foam a desert fountain showers;

And, floating calm, the lotus wreathes its red and scented flowers,

Here lurks the mountain fox unseen beside the vulture's nest;

And steals the wild hyena forth, in lone and silent quest.

Is this deserted resting-place the couch of fallen might?

And ends the path of glory thus, and fame's inspiring light?

Chief of a progeny of kings renowned and feared afar,

How is thy boasted name forgot, and dimmed thine honor's star!

Approach, what saith the graven verse? "Alas for human pride!

Dominion's envied gifts were mine, nor earth her praise denied.

Thou traveller, if a suppliant's voice find echo in thy breast,

O, envy not the little dust that hides my mortal rest!"

HELVELLYN.

ANONYMOUS.

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Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land,
From trace of human foot or hand.
There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak
In symphony austere ;

Thither the rainbow comes, the cloud,
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past,
But that enormous barrier holds it fast.
Not free from boding thoughts, awhile
The shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the dog
As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground.
The appalled discoverer with a sigh
Looks round to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear.
He instantly recalled the name,
And who he was, and whence he came;
Remembered, too, the very day

On which the traveller passed this way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!

A lasting monument of words

This wonder merits well.

The dog, which still was hovering nigh,

Repeating the same timid cry,

This dog had been through three months' space

A dweller in that savage place.

Yes, proof was plain, that, since the day

When this ill-fated traveller died,

The dog had watched about the spot,

Or by his master's side.

How nourished here through such long time
He knows who gave that love sublime,
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate !

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

HELVELLYN.

[In the spring of 1805 a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Helvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months af terwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide:

All was still, save, by fits, when the eagle was And more stately thy couch by this desert lake yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.
On the right, Striden Edge round the Red Tarn
was bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,
One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,
When I marked the sad spot where the wan-
derer had died.

Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain heather,

lying,

Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

CŒUR DE LION AT THE BIER OF HIS
FATHER.

[The body of Henry the Second lay in state in the abbey-church of Fontevraud, where it was visited by Richard Coeur de Lion, who

Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in on beholding it, was struck with horror and remorse, and bitterly

decay,

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But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,
To lay down thy head like the meek mountain
lamb,

reproached himself for that rebellious conduct which had been the
means of bringing his father to an untimely grave.}

TORCHES were blazing clear,
Hymns pealing deep and slow,
Where a king lay stately on his bier

In the church of Fontevraud.

Banners of battle o'er him hung,

And warriors slept beneath,
And light, as noon's broad light was flung
On the settled face of death.

On the settled face of death
A strong and ruddy glare,
Though dimmed at times by the censer's breath,
Yet it fell still brightest there;
As if each deeply furrowed trace

Of earthly years to show,
Alas! that sceptred mortal's race
Had surely closed in woe!

The marble floor was swept

By many a long dark stole,

As the kneeling priests, round him that slept,
Sang mass for the parted soul;
And solemn were the strains they poured

Through the stillness of the night,
With the cross above, and the crown and sword,
And the silent king in sight.

There was heard a heavy clang,
As of steel-girt men the tread,
And the tombs and the hollow pavement rang
With a sounding thrill of dread ;
And the holy chant was hushed awhile,

As, by the torch's flame,

A gleam of arms up the sweeping aisle
With a mail-clad leader came.

He came with haughty look,
An eagle glance and clear;

But his proud heart through its breastplate shook
When he stood beside the bier!

When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge He stood there still with a drooping brow,
And clasped hands o'er it raised;
And draws his last sob by the side of his For his father lay before him low,

in stature,

dam.

It was Cœur de Lion gazed!

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