O mother, linger at your door,

And light your lamp to make it plain ; But Jessie she comes home no more,

No more again.

They stood together on the strand,
They only, each by each;

Home, her home, was close at hand,
Utterly out of reach.

Her mother in the chimney nook

Heard a startled sea-gull screech,
But never turned her head to look
Towards the darkening beach :
Neighbors here and neighbors there
Heard one scream, as if a bird
Shrilly screaming cleft the air:
That was all they heard.

Jessie she comes home no more,

Comes home never ;

Her lover's step sounds at his door
No more forever.

And boats may search upon the sea

And search along the river,

But none know where the bodies be:
Sea-winds that shiver,

Sea-birds that breast the blast,

Sea-waves swelling,

Keep the secret first and last

Of their dwelling.

Whether the tide so hemmed them round
With its pitiless flow,

That when they would have gone they found

No way to go;

Whether she scorned him to the last

With words flung to and fro,

Or clung to him when hope was past,
None will ever know:

Whether he helped or hindered her,
Threw up his life or lost it well,
The troubled sea, for all its stir,
Finds no voice to tell.

Only watchers by the dying

Have thought they heard one pray,
Wordless, urgent; and replying,
One seem to say him nay:

And watchers by the dead have heard
A windy swell from miles away,
With sobs and screams, but not a word
Distinct for them to say:

And watchers out at sea have caught

Glimpse of a pale gleam here or there, Come and gone as quick as thought,

Which might be hand or hair.

"Here the sun shineth
Most shadily;

Here is heard an echo

Of the far sea,

Though far off it be."

"O

THE POOR GHOST.

WHENCE do you come, my dear friend, to

me,

With your golden hair all fallen below your knee,
And your face as white as snowdrops on the lea,
And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?"

"From the other world I come back to you,
My locks are uncurled with dripping, drenching dew.
You know the old, whilst I know the new :
But to-morrow you shall know this too."

"O, not to-morrow into the dark, I pray ;
O, not to-morrow, too soon to go away:
Here I feel warm and well-content and gay:
Give me another year, another day."

"Am I so changed in a day and a night

That mine own only love shrinks from me with fright,

Is fain to turn away to left or right,

And cover up his eyes from the sight?"

"Indeed I loved you, my chosen friend,
I loved you for life, but life has an end;
Through sickness I was ready to tend;
But death mars all, which we cannot mend.

"Indeed I loved you; I love you yet

If you will stay where your bed is set,

Where I have planted a violet

Which the wind waves, which the dew makes wet."

"Life is gone, then love too is gone,

It was a reed that I leant upon :

Never doubt I will leave you alone

And not wake you rattling bone with bone.

"I go home alone to my bed,

Dug deep at the foot and deep at the head,
Roofed in with a load of lead,

Warm enough for the forgotten dead.

"But why did your tears soak through the clay, And why did your sobs wake me where I lay? I was away, far enough away:

Let me sleep now till the Judgment Day."