Call her once before you go.- In a voice that she will know: "Margaret! Margaret!" Children's voices should be dear (Call once more) to a mother's ear; Children's voices, wild with pain,— Surely she will come again! Call her once and come away; This way, this way! "Mother dear, we cannot stay! The wild white horses foam and fret." Come, dear children, come away down; One last look at the white-walled town, And the little gray church on the windy shore; She will not come, though you call all day; Children dear, was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay? In the caverns where we lay, Through the surf and through the swell, When did music come this way? The Forsaken Merman 1005 Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee. She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of the far-off bell. She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; In the little gray church on the shore to-day. And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee." Children dear, were we long alone? Come!" I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay. Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-walled town, From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: For her eyes were sealed to the holy book! Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. Down, down, down! Down to the depths of the sea! She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, From the humming street, and the child with its toy! From the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; From the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun!" And so she sings her fill, Singing most joyfully, Till the spindle drops from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And over the sand at the sea; A long, long sigh; For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden, And the gleam of her golden hair. Come away, away, children; Will hear the waves roar. The waves roar and whirl, A pavement of pearl. Singing: "Here came a mortal, But faithless was she! And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea.” The Portrait 1007 But, children, at midnight, When soft the winds blow, We will gaze, from the sand-hills, Singing: "There dwells a loved one, She left lonely for ever The kings of the sea." Matthew Arnold [1822-1888] THE PORTRAIT MIDNIGHT past! Not a sound of aught Through the silent house, but the wind at his prayers. I sat by the dying fire, and thought Of the dear dead woman up-stairs. A night of tears! for the gusty rain Had ceased, but the eaves were dripping yet; And the moon looked forth, as though in pain, With her face all white and wet: Nobody with me, my watch to keep, But the friend of my bosom, the man I love: And grief had sent him fast to sleep In the chamber up above. Nobody else, in the country place All round, that knew of my loss beside, But the good young Priest with the Raphael-face, Who confessed her when she died. That good young Priest is of gentle nerve, And my grief had moved him beyond control; For his lip grew white, as I could observe, I sat by the dreary hearth alone: I thought of the pleasant days of yore: I said, "The staff of my life is gone: The woman I loved is no more. "On her cold dead bosom my portrait lies, "It is set all round with rubies red, And pearls which a Peri might have kept. For each ruby there my heart hath bled: For each pearl my eyes have wept." And I said "The thing is precious to me: If I do not take it away." I lighted my lamp at the dying flame, And crept up the stairs that creaked for fright, Till into the chamber of death I came, Where she lay all in white. The moon shone over her winding-sheet, |