With hands unclasped, uncrossed,
They weep, on separate ways.
Ah! darling, shall we ever learn
Love's tidal hours and days?

H. H.

SONG.

WE sail toward evening's lonely star,

That trembles in the tender blue;

One single cloud, a dusky bar,

Burnt with dull carmine through and through, Slow smouldering in the summer sky, Lies low along the fading west; How sweet to watch its splendors die, Wave-cradled thus, and wind-caressed!

The soft breeze freshens; leaps the spray
To kiss our cheeks with sudden cheer.
Upon the dark edge of the bay

Lighthouses kindle far and near,
And through the warm deeps of the sky
Steal faint star-clusters, while we rest
In deep refreshment, thou and I,

Wave-cradled thus, and wind-caressed.

How like a dream are earth and heaven,
Star-beam and darkness, sky and sea;
Thy face, pale in the shadowy even,
Thy quiet eyes that gaze on me!

A WET SHEET AND FLOWING SEA. 199

Oh, realize the moment's charm,

Thou dearest! We are at life's best,
Folded in God's encircling arm,

Wave-cradled thus, and wind-caressed!

CELIA THAXTER

A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA.

AWET sheet and a flowing sea,

wind that follows fast,

That fills the white and rustling sail,

And bends the gallant mast,

And bends the gallant mast, my boys,

While, like the eagle free,

Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.

Oh for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze,

And white waves heaving high,

And white waves heaving high, my boys,
The good ship tight and free ;
The world of waters is our home,

And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon hornèd moon,

And lightning in yon cloud;

And hark the music, mariners!

The wind is piping loud, —

The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashing free;
While the hollow oak our palace is,

Our heritage the sea.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

THE

SONG.

HERE be none of beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me;

When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,

The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lulled winds seem dreaming,

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep;

So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee
With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of summer's ocean.

BYRON.

THE FISHING-SONG.

201

THE FISHING-SONG.

DOWN in the wide, gray river

The current is sweeping strong:

Over the wide, gray river

Floats the fisherman's song.

The oar-stroke times the singing,
The song falls with the oar;
And an echo in both is ringing
I thought to hear no more.

Out of a deeper current

The song brings back to me A cry from mortal silence

Of mortal agony.

Life that was spent and vanished,
Love that had died of wrong,

Hearts that are dead in living,
Come back in the fisherman's song.

I see the maples leafing

Just as they leafed before;

The green grass comes no greener
Down to the very shore, —

With the rude strain, swelling, sinking,
In the cadence of days gone by,
As the oar, from the water drinking,
Ripples the mirrored sky.

Yet the soul hath life diviner;
Its past returns no more,

But in echoes, that answer the minor
Of the boat-song from the shore.

And the ways of God are darkness ;
His judgment waiteth long;
He breaks the heart of a woman
With a fisherman's careless song.

ROSE TERRY.

"BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.”

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

Oh, well for the fisherman's boy

That he shouts with his sister at play! Oh, well for the sailor lad

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To the haven under the hill;

But oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

ALFRED TENNYSON.