Let the star-clusters grow,
Let the sweet waters flow,

And cross quickly to me.
“ You night moths that hover where honey brims over

From sycamore blossoms, or settle or sleep;
You glowworms shine out, and the pathway discover
To him that comes darkling along the rough steep.

Ah, my sailor, make haste,
For the time runs to waste,

And my love lieth deep-
“Too deep for swift telling; and yet, my one lover,

I've conned thee an answer, raits thee to-night.”
By the sycamore passed he, and through the white clover,
Then all the sweet speech I had fashioned took flight;

But I'll love him more, more
Than e'er wife loved before,
Be the days dark or bright.

SEVEN TIMES FOUR. MATERNITY.
Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,

Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall !
When the wind wakes how they rock in the grasses,

And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender and small !
Here's two bonny boys, and here's mother's own lasses

Eager to gather them all.

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups !

Mother shall thread them a daisy chain; Sing them a song of the pretty hedge sparrow,

That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain: Sing, “ Heart, thou art wide though the house be but nar

row Sing once, and sing it again. Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,

Sweet wagging cowslips they bend and they bow; A ship sails afar over warm ocean waters,

And haply one musing doth stand at her prow. O bonny brown sons, and O sweet little daughters,

Maybe he thinks on you now! Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,

Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall!

A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure,

And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall ! Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure,

God that is over us all !

SEVEN TIMES FIVE. WIDOWHOOD.
I sleep and rest, my heart makes moan

Before I am well awake;
“Let me bleed! O let me alone,

Since I must not break !”

For children wake, though fathers sleep

With a stone at foot and head :
O sleepless God, forever keep,

Keep both living and dead !
I lift mine eyes, and what to see

But a world happy and fair!
I have not wished it to mourn with me -

Comfort is not there.
O what anear but golden brooms,

And a waste of reedy rills!
O what afar but the fine glooms

On the rare blue hills !

I shall not die, but live forlore

How bitter it is to part!
O to meet thee, my love, once more !

O my heart, my heart!
No more to hear, no more to see!

O that an echo might wake
And waft one note of thy psalm to me

Ere my heart-strings break !
I should know it how faint soe'er,

And with angel voices blent;
O once to feel thy spirit anear;

I could be content!
Or once between the gates of gold,

While an entering angel trod,
But once — thee sitting to behold

On the hills of God!

BEVEN TIMES SIX. GIVING IN MARRIAGE.
To bear, to nurse, to rear,

To watch, and then to lose :
To see my bright ones disappear,

Drawn up like morning dews —
To bear, to nurse, to rear,

To watch, and then to lose :
This have I done when God drew near

Among his own to choose.
To hear, to heed, to wed,

And with thy lord depart
In tears that he, as soon as shed,

Will let no longer smart.
To hear, to heed, to wed,

This while thou didst I smiled,
For now it was not God who said

“Mother, give me thy child."
O fond, O fool, and blind !

To God I gave with tears ;
But when a man like grace would find,

My soul put by her fears —
O fond, O fool, and blind!

God guards in happier spheres;
That man will guard where he did bind

Is hope for unknown years.
To hear, to heed, to wed,

Fair lot that maidens choose,
Thy mother's tenderest words are aid,

Thy face no more she views :
Thy mother's lot, my dear,

She doth in nought accuse;
Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear,

To love — and then to lose.

SEVEN TIMES SEVEN. LONGING FOR HOME.

I. A song of a boat: There was once a boat on a billow: Lightly she rocked to her port remote, And the foam was white in her wake like snow, And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow,

And bent like a wand of willow.

II.

I shaded mine eyes one day when a boat

Went curtseying over the billow,
I marked her course till a dancing mote
She faded out on the moonlit foam,
And I stayed behind in the dear loved home;
And my thoughts all day were about the boat

And my dreams upon the pillow.

III.
I pray you hear my song of a boat,

For it is but short:
My boat you shall find none fairer afloat,

In river or port.
Long I looked out for the lad she bore,

On the open desolate sea,
And I think he sailed to the heavenly shore,
For he came not back to me

Ah me!

IV.

A song of a nest :
There was once a nest in a hollow :
Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed,
Soft and warm, and full to the brim
Vetches leaned over it purple and dim,
.: With buttercup buds to follow.

v.

I pray you hear my song of a nest,

For it is not long:
You shall never light, in a summer quest,

The bushes among -
Shall never light on a prouder sitter,

A fairer nestful, nor ever know
A softer sound than their tender twitter,

That wind-like did come and go.

VI.
I had a nestful once of my own,

Ah, happy, happy I !
Right dearly I loved them: but when they were grown

They spread out their wings to fly O, one after one they flew away

Far up to the heavenly blue,
To the better country, the upper day,

And — I wish I was going too.

VII.

I pray you what is the nest to me,

My empty nest?
And what is the shore where I stood to see

My boat sail down to the west ?
Can I call that home where I anchor yet,

Though my good man has sailed ?
Can I call that home where my nest was set,

Now all its hope hath failed ?
Nay, but the port where my sailor went,

And the land where my nestlings be:
There is the home where my thoughts are sent,
The only home for me

Ah me!

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 !
Play 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 naught of strange, beside
The flights 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.