THE twilight is sad and cloudy,

The wind blows wild and free, And like the wings of sea-birds Flash the white caps of the sea.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,
As if those childish eyes

Were looking into the darkness,

To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,

Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, bleak and wild,

As they beat at the

crazy casement,

Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, wild and bleak, As they beat at the heart of the mother, Drive the colour from her cheek?

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice

Sailed the corsair Death;

Wild and fast blew the blast,

And the east-wind was his breath.

His lordly ships of ice

Glistened in the sun;

On each side, like pennons wide,

Flashing crystal streamlets run.

His sails of white sea-mist

Dripped with silver rain;

But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.

Eastward from Campobello

Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed ;

Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.

Alas! the land-wind failed,

And ice-cold grew the night;

And never more, on sea or shore,

Should Sir Humphrey see the light.

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

53

He sat upon the deck,

The Book was in his hand;

"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,"

He said, "by water as by land!"

In the first watch of the night,

Without a signal's sound,

Out of the sea, mysteriously,

The fleet of Death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star

Were hanging in the shrouds ;

Every mast, as it passed,

Seemed to rake the passing clouds.

They grappled with their prize,

At midnight black and cold!

As of a rock was the shock;

Heavily the ground-swell rolled.

Southward through day and dark,

They drift in close embrace,

With mist and rain, to the Spanish Main; Yet there seems no change of place.

Southward, for ever southward,

They drift through dark and day; And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream

Sinking, vanish all away.

THE rocky ledge runs far into the sea,

And on its outer point, some miles away, The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,

A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.

Even at this distance I can see the tides, Upheaving, break unheard along its base, A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides

In the white lip and tremour of the face.