“O, say but one kind word to me, Jessie, Jessie Cameron."

"I'd be too proud to beg," quoth she,

And pride was in her tone.

And pride was in her lifted head,

And in her angry eye,

And in her foot, which might have fled,

But would not fly.

Some say that he had gypsy blood,
That in his heart was guile :

Yet he had gone through fire and flood
Only to win her smile.

Some say his grandam was a witch,

A black witch from beyond the Nile, Who kept an image in a niche

And talked with it the while.

And by her hut far down the lane

Some say they would not pass at night, Lest they should hear an unked strain Or see an unked sight.

Alas, for Jessie Cameron !

The sea crept moaning, moaning nigher : She should have hastened to be gone,

The sea swept higher, breaking by her : She should have hastened to her home. While yet the west was flushed with fire, But now her feet are in the foam, The sea-foam, sweeping higher.

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.

G

SPRING QUIET.

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

I would go to a covert
Where the birds sing;

Where in the white-thorn

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."

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?"