So grave, so wondering, so content,
  As one new waked to conscious life,
Whose sudden joy with fear is blent,
        He said, “My wife.”

“My wife, how beautiful you are!”
  Then closer at her side reclined,
“The bold brown woman from afar
        Comes, to me blind.

“And by comparison, I see
  The majesty of matron grace,
And learn how pure, how fair can be
        My own wife’s face: 

“Pure with all faithful passion, fair
  With tender smiles that come and go,
And comforting as April air
        After the snow.

“Fool that I was! my spirit frets
  And marvels at the humbling truth,
That I have deigned to spend regrets
        On my bruised youth.

“Its idol mocked thee, seated nigh,
  And shamed me for the mad mistake;
I thank my God he could deny,
        And she forsake.

“Ah, who am I, that God hath saved
  Me from the doom I did desire,
And crossed the lot myself had craved,
        To set me higher?

“What have I done that He should bow
  From heaven to choose a wife for me? 
And what deserved, He should endow
        My home with THEE?

“My wife!” With that she turned her face
  To kiss the hand about her neck;
And I went down and sought the place
        Where leaped the beck—­

The busy beck, that still would run
  And fall, and falter its refrain;
And pause and shimmer in the sun,
        And fall again.

It led me to the sandy shore,
  We sang together, it and I—­
“The daylight comes, the dark is o’er,
        The shadows fly.”

I lost it on the sandy shore,
  “O wife!” its latest murmurs fell,
“O wife, be glad, and fear no more
        The letter L.”

THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE.

(1571.)

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 he. 
“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 nought of strange, beside
The nights 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—­