On she passed to a Frenchman, his arm carried off by a ball: Kneeling, "O more than my brother! how shall I thank thee for all? "Each of the heroes around us has fought for his land and line, But thou hast fought for a stranger, in hate of a wrong not thine. "Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed: But blessed are those among nations, who dare to be strong for the rest!" Ever she passed on her way, and came to a couch where pined One with a face from Venetia, white with a hope out of mind. Long she stood and gazed, and twice she tried at the name, But two great crystal tears were all that faltered and came. Only a tear for Venice?—she turned as in passion and loss, And stooped to his forehead and kissed it, as if she were kissing the cross. Faint with that strain of heart she moved on then to another, Stern and strong in his death. "And dost thou suffer, my brother?" Holding his hands in hers:-"Out of the Piedmont lion Cometh the sweetness of freedom! sweetest to live or to die on." Holding his cold rough hands,-"Well, oh, well have ye done In noble, noble Piedmont, who would not be noble alone." Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a spring, "That was a Piedmontese! and this is the Court of the King." Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861] THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE (1571) THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, The ringers ran by two, by three; "Pull, if ye never pulled before; Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. "Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Play all your changes, all your swells, Play uppe, 'The Brides of Enderby'." Men say it was a stolen tyde— The Lord that sent it, He knows all; But in myne ears doth still abide The message that the bells let fall: And there was naught of strange, beside The flight of mews and peewits pied By millions crouched on the old sea wall. I sat and spun within the doore, My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes; The level sun, like ruddy ore, Lay sinking in the barren skies; "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Where the reedy Lindis floweth, Floweth, floweth, From the meads where melick groweth Faintly came her milking song "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow; Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow, Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot, Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow, If it be long, ay, long ago, When I beginne to think howe long, Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong; Alle fresh the level pasture lay, And not a shadowe mote be seene, The swanherds where their sedges are Then some looked uppe into the sky, And all along where Lindis flows To where the goodly vessels lie, And where the lordly steeple shows. They sayde, "And why should this thing be? What danger lowers by land or sea? They ring the tune of Enderby! "For evil news from Mablethorpe, They have not spared to wake the towne: But while the west bin red to see, And storms be none, and pyrates flee, I looked without, and lo! my sonne (A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath "The olde sea wall (he cried) is downe, Go sailing uppe the market-place." He shook as one that looks on death: "God save you, mother!" straight he saith; "Where is my wife, Elizabeth?" "Good sonne, where Lindis winds her way, He looked across the grassy lea, With that he cried and beat his breast; And rearing Lindis backward pressed, Flung uppe her weltering walls again. So farre, so fast the eygre drave, The heart had hardly time to beat Before a shallow seething wave Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet: The feet had hardly time to flee Before it brake against the knee, And all the world was in the sea. Upon the roofe we sate that night, The noise of bells went sweeping by; I marked the lofty beacon light Stream from the church tower, red and high A lurid mark and dread to see; And awsome bells they were to mee, That in the dark rang "Enderby." They rang the sailor lads to guide From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed; And I-my sonne was at my side, And yet the ruddy beacon glowed: And yet he moaned beneath his breath, "O come in life, or come in death! O lost! my love, Elizabeth!" And didst thou visit him no more? Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare; The waters laid thee at his doore, Ere yet the early dawn was clear. Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, |