Left by the ebbing sea,
But richer than man may understand
In magic and mystery--
Transient bubbles rainbow-bright,
Myriad-hued and strange,
Tremble and throb in the noonday light,
Flower and flush and change.
A million tides have come and gone,
Great gales of autumn and spring,
A million summoning moons have shone
To bring to birth this thing--
A foam-fleck left on the ribbed wet sand
By the wave of an outgoing sea,
With all the colour of Faeryland,
Wonder and mystery.
TERESA HOOLEY
A PETITION
All that a man might ask, thou hast given me, England,
Birth-right and happy childhood's long heart's-ease,
And love whose range is deep beyond all sounding
And wider than all seas.
A heart to front the world and find God in it,
Eyes blind enow, but not too blind to see
The lovely things behind the dross and darkness,
And lovelier things to be.
And friends whose loyalty time nor death shall weaken,
And quenchless hope and laughter's golden store;
All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England,
Yet grant thou one thing more:
That now when envious foes would spoil thy splendour,
Unversed in arms, a dreamer such as I
May in thy ranks be deemed not all unworthy,
England, for thee to die.
R. E. VERNÈDE
BLACK AND WHITE
I met a man along the road
To Withernsea;
Was ever anything so dark, so pale
As he?
His hat, his clothes, his tie, his boots
Were black as black
Could be,
And midst of all was a cold white face,
And eyes that looked wearily.
The road was bleak and straight and flat
To Withernsea,
Gaunt poles with shrilling wires their weird
Did dree;
On the sky stood out, on the swollen sky
The black blood veins
Of tree
After tree, as they beat from the face
Of the wind which they could not flee.
And in the fields along the road
To Withernsea,
[Illustration]
"MIDST OF ALL WAS A COLD WHITE FACE"
Swart crows sat huddled on the ground
Disconsolately,
While overhead the seamews wheeled, and skirled
In glee;
But the black cows stood, and cropped where
they stood,
And never heeded thee,
O dark pale man, with the weary eyes,
On the road to Withernsea.
H. H. ABBOTT
THE OXEN
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few believe
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve
"Come; see the oxen kneel
In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
THOMAS HARDY