Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round, Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee. She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well, Children dear, were we long alone? 'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book! Down, down, down! Down to the depths of the sea! She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark what she sings: 'O joy, O joy, For the humming street, and the child with its toy! For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; For the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun!' And so she sings her fill, Singing most joyfully, Till the spindle drops from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And over the sand at the sea; And her eyes are set in a stare; And anon there drops a tear, From a sorrow-clouded eye, A long, long sigh; For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden And the gleam of her golden hair. Come away, away children; She will start from her slumber A pavement of pearl. Singing: 'Here came a mortal, But faithless was she! And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea.' But, children, at midnight, Over banks of bright seaweed We will gaze, from the sand-hills, At the church on the hill-side And then come back down. Singing There dwells a loved one, She left lonely for ever SONNETS. Austerity of Poetry. THAT SON of Italy who tried to blow, Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay! Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay, Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground Of thought and of austerity within. A Picture at Newstead. WHAT made my heart, at Newstead, fullest swell?— 'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry Stormily sweet, his Titan-agony; It was the sight of that Lord Arundel |