'Twas then through the hall the King was 'ware Of a little boy with golden hair,

As bright as the golden poppy is

That the beach breeds for the surf to kiss:

Yet pale his cheek as the thorn in Spring,
And his garb black like the raven's wing.

Nothing heard but his foot through the hall,
For now the lords were silent all.

And the King wondered, and said, “Alack!
Who sends me a fair boy dressed in black?

"Why, sweet heart, do you pace through the hall As though my court were a funeral?"

Then lowly knelt the child at the dais,
And looked up weeping in the King's face.

"O wherefore black, O King, ye may say,
For white is the hue of death to-day.

"Your son and all his fellowship

Lie low in the sea with the White Ship."

King Henry fell as a man struck dead;
And speechless still he stared from his bed
When to him next day my rede I read.

There's many an hour must needs beguile
A King's high heart that he should smile,——

Full many a lordly hour, full fain

Of his realm's rule and pride of his reign:

But this King never smiled again.

Jiriczek, Englische Dichter.

21

By none but me can the tale be told,
The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.
(Lands are swayed by a King on a throne.)
'Twas a royal train put forth to sea,
Yet the tale can be told by none but me.
(The sea hath no King but God alone.)

SUDDEN LIGHT.

[Poems, an Offering to Lancashire 1863.]

I HAVE been here before,

But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,

The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,

How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turned so,

Some veil did fall,-I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?

And shall not thus time's eddying flight Still with our lives our love restore

In death's despite,

And day and night yield one delight once more?

A LITTLE WHILE.

[Poems 1870.]

A LITTLE while a little love

The hour yet bears for thee and me
Who have not drawn the veil to see

If still our heaven be lit above.

Thou merely, at the day's last sigh,
Hast felt thy soul prolong the tone;
And I have heard the night-wind cry

And deemed its speech mine own.

A little while a little love

The scattering autumn hoards for us
Whose bower is not yet ruinous
Nor quite unleaved our songless grove.
Only across the shaken boughs

We hear the flood-tides seek the sea,
And deep in both our hearts they rouse
One wail for thee and me.

A little while a little love

May yet be ours who have not said.
The word it makes our eyes afraid
To know that each is thinking of.
Not yet the end: be our lips dumb
In smiles a little season yet:
I'll tell thee, when the end is come,
How we may best forget.

A DEATH-PARTING.

[Ballads and Sonnets 1881.]

LEAVES and rain and the days of the year, (Water-willow and wellaway,)

All these fall, and my soul gives ear, And she is hence who once was here. (With a wind blown night and day.)

Ah! but now, for a secret sign,

(The willow's wan and the water white,) In the held breath of the day's decline Her very face seemed pressed to mine. (With a wind blown day and night.)

O love, of my death my life is fain;

(The willows wave on the water-way,) Your cheek and mine are cold in the rain, But warm they'll be when we meet again. (With a wind blown night and day.)

Mists are heaved and cover the sky;

(The willows wail in the waning light,) O loose your lips, leave space for a sigh,They seal my soul, I cannot die.

(With a wind blown day and night.)

Leaves and rain and the days of the year, (Water-willow and wellaway,)

All still fall, and I still give ear,
And she is hence, and I am here.
(With a wind blown night and day.)

SPHERAL CHANGE.

[Ballads and Sonnets 1881.]

In this new shade of Death, the show
Passes me still of form and face;
Some bent, some gazing as they go,
Some swiftly, some at a dull pace,
Not one that speaks in any case.

If only one might speak!-the one
Who never waits till I come near;
But always seated all alone

As listening to the sunken air,
Is gone before I come to her.

O dearest! while we lived and died.
A living death in every day,

Some hours we still were side by side,
When where I was you too might stay
And rest and need not go away.

O nearest, furthest! Can there be

At length some hard-earned heart-won home, Where, -exile changed for sanctuary,—

Our lot may fill indeed its sum,
And you may wait and I may come?

ALAS, SO LONG!

[Ballads and Sonnets 1881.]

Ан! dear one, we were young so long,
It seemed that youth would never go,
For skies and trees were ever in song
And water in singing flow

In the days we never again shall know.
Alas, so long!

Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.

Ah! dear one, I've been old so long,
It seems that age is loth to part,
Though days and years have never a song,
And oh! have they still the art

That warmed the pulses of heart to heart?
Alas, so long!

Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.

Ah! dear one, you've been dead so long,-
How long until we meet again,

Where hours may never lose their song
Nor flowers forget the rain