He saddened if my cheer was sad,

But gay

he grew if I was gay;

We never differed on a hair,

My yes his yes, my nay his nay.

The wedding hour was come, the aisles

Were flushed with sun and flowers that day; I pacing balanced in my thoughts: "It's quite too late to think of nay."

My bridegroom answered in his turn,
Myself had almost answered "yea :"
When through the flashing nave I heard
A struggle and resounding "nay."

Bridemaids and bridegroom shrank in fear,
But I stood high who stood at bay:
"And if I answer yea, fair Sir,

What man art thou to bar with nay?"

He was a strong man from the north,
Light-locked, with eyes of dangerous grey:

"Put yea by for another time

In which I will not say thee nay."

He took me in his strong white arms,
He bore me on his horse away
O'er crag, morass, and hairbreadth pass,
But never asked me yea or nay.

He made me fast with book and bell,
With links of love he makes me stay;

Till now I've neither heart nor power
Nor will nor wish to say him nay.

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OU must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,

For I'm Lady of the Manor now stately to see;

And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy

'Twill be little lord or lady at my knee.

Oh, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,

That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost? You're as white as I turned once down by the mill, When one told me you and ship and crew were lost :

Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl (It was the Miller's Nancy told it to me), Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,

Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!

I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;
I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,
Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint
For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.

They said I looked so pale-some say so fair-
My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:
I know I missed a ringlet from my hair

Next morning; and now I am his wife.

Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,
I'm all crimson and gold from top to toe:
All day long I sit in the sun and sing,

Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.

And I'm the rose of roses, says my lord;

And to him I'm more than the sun in the sky. While I hold him fast with the golden cord

Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.

His mother said "fie," and his sisters cried "shame,"
His highborn ladies cried "shame" from their place:
They said "fie" when they only heard my name,
But fell silent when they saw my face.

Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think
I was so fair when we played boy and girl
Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink
Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent awhirl?

If I was fair then sure I'm fairer now,

Sitting where a score of servants stand, With a coronet on high days for my brow And almost a sceptre for my hand.

You're but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown,
A stranger on land and at home on the sea,
Coasting as best you may from town to town:
Coasting along do you often think of me?

I'm a great lady in a sheltered bower,

With hands grown white through having nought to

do:

Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour
Till I nigh wish myself a child with you.

FROM SUNSET TO STAR RISE.

O from me, summer friends, and tarry not:
I am no summer friend, but wintry cold,
A silly sheep benighted from the fold,

A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot.
Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,

Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;
Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,

Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.
For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge,

I live alone, I look to die alone:

Yet sometimes when a wind sighs through the sedge Ghosts of my buried years and friends come back,

My heart goes sighing after swallows flown

On sometime summer's unreturning track.

SPRING QUIET.

GONE

ONE were but the Winter,
Come were but the Spring,

I would go to a covert

Where the birds sing.

Where in the whitethorn

Singeth a thrush,

And a robin sings

In the holly-bush.

Full of fresh scents

Are the budding boughs

Arching high over

A cool green house :

Full of sweet scents,

And whispering air Which sayeth softly:

"We spread no snare,

"Here dwell in safety,

Here dwell alone,

With a clear stream

And a mossy stone.

"Here the sun shineth

Most shadily;

Here is heard an echo

Of the far sea,
Though far off it be."

F