226 BARTHRAM'S DIRGE All night the silence seems to flow A weary, weary way I go, When Norland winds pipe down the sea, I walk, I dare not think of thee, Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree, Oriana. I hear the roaring of the sea, Oriana. Alfred Tennyson. BARTHRAM'S DIRGE THEY shot him dead on the Nine-Stone Rig, Beside the Headless Cross, And they left him lying in his blood, They made a bier of the broken bough, A lady came to that lonely bower, She tore her ling (long) yellow hair, She bathed him in the Lady-Well And she plaited a garland for his breast, They rowed him in a lily sheet, And the Gray Friars sung the dead man's mass They buried him at the mirk midnight, They dug his grave but a bare foot deep, And they covered him o'er with the heather-flower The moss and the Lady fern. A Gray Friar stayed upon the grave, And sang till the morning tide, And a friar shall sing for Barthram's soul, While Headless Cross shall bide. Surtees. 228 THE YOUNG MAY MOON THE YOUNG MAY MOON THE young May moon is beaming, love, Through Morna's grove When the drowsy world is dreaming, love! To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear. Now all the world is sleeping, love, But the Sage, his star-watch keeping, love, More glorious far, Is the eye from that casement peeping, love. Of bodies of light, He might happen to take thee for one, my dear. Thomas Moore. ON A FAVORITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLDFISHES1 'T WAS on a lofty vase's side The azure flowers that blow, Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclined, Her conscious tail her joy declared: Her coat that with the tortoise vies, Still had she gazed, but 'midst the tide Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue, Betrayed a golden gleam. The hapless Nymph with wonder saw . With many an ardent wish, She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize, What cat's averse to fish? 1 Note 18. Presumptuous maid! with looks intent, Eight times emerging from the flood, No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred, From hence, ye Beauties! undeceived, Not all that tempts your wandering eyes Nor all that glisters gold! Thomas Gray COUNTY GUY Aн, County Guy! the hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea, The orange flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea. The lark, his lay who trilled all day, Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour, |