That cities will crowd to its edge

In a blacker incessanter line ;

That the din will be more on its banks,
Denser the trade on its stream,

Flatter the plain where it flows,
Fiercer the sun overhead.

That never will those on its breast
See an ennobling sight,

Drink of the feeling of quiet again.

But what was before us we know not.
And we know not what shall succeed.
Haply the River of Time,

As it grows, as the towns on its marge
Fling their wavering lights.

On a wider statelier stream-
May acquire, if not the calm
Of its early mountainous shore,

Yet a solemn peace of its own.

And the width of the waters, the hush
Of the gray expanse where he floats,
Freshening its current and spotted with foam
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike

Peace to the soul of the man on its breast:
As the pale waste widens around him—
As the banks fade dimmer away—

As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream

Murmurs and scents of the infinite Sea.

Matthew Arnold.

A GREYPORT LEGEND.

151

A GREYPORT LEGEND.

1797.

HEY ran through the streets of the seaport town,

THE

They peered from the decks of the ships that lay;

The cold sea-fog that came whitening down

Was never so cold or white as they. "Ho! Starbuck, Pinckney, and Tenterden ! Run for your shallops, gather your men,

Scatter your boats on the lower bay."

Good cause for fear! In the thick mid-day,
The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,
Filled with the children in happy play,
Parted its moorings and drifted clear,—
Drifted clear beyond reach or call,-
Thirteen children they were in all,—
All adrift in the lower bay!

Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!
She will not float till the turning tide!”
Said his wife, "My darling will hear my call,
Whether in sea or heaven she bide."

And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
Wild and strange as the sea-bird's cry,

Till they shuddered and wondered at her side

The fog drove down on each laboring crew,
Veiled each from each, and the sky and shore.
There was not a sound but the breath they drew,
And the lap of water and creak of oar;

And they felt the breath of the downs fresh blown O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,

But not from the lips that had gone before. They came no more. But they tell the tale That, when fogs are thick on the harbor-reef, The mackerel fishers shorten sail,

For the signal they know will bring relief, For the voices of children still at play

In a phantom hulk that drifts away

Through channels whose waters never fail.

It is but a foolish shipman's tale,
A theme for a poet's idle page;

But still when the mists of doubt prevail,
And we lie becalmed by the shores of age,
We hear from the misty troubled shore
The voice of the children gone before,
Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

Bret Harte.

THE EARL O' QUARTERDECK.

A NEW OLD BALLAD.

'HE wind it blew and the ship it flew ;

TH

And it was "Hey for hame!

And ho for hame!" But the skipper cried,

"Haud her oot o'er the saut sea faem."

Then up and spoke the king himsel' : "Haud on for Dumferline!"

Quoth the skipper, "Ye're king upo' the land— I'm king upo' the brine."

THE EARL O QUARTERDECK.
And he took the helm intil his hand,
And he steered the ship sae free;
Wi' the wind astarn, he crowded sail,
And stood right out to sea.

153

Quo' the king, “There's treason in this, I vow; This is something underhand!

'Bout ship!" Quo' the skipper, "Yer grace forgets Ye are king but o' the land!”

And still he held to the open sea;

And the east wind sank behind;

And the west had a bitter word to say,
Wi' a white-sea roarin' wind.

And he turned her head into the north.
Said the king: "Gar fling him o'er."
Quo' the fearless skipper: "It's a' ye're worth;
Ye'll ne'er see Scotland more."

The king crept down the cabin stair,
To drink the gude French wine,
And up she came, his daughter fair,
And luikit ower the brine.

She turned her face to the drivin' hail,
To the hail but and the weet;

Her snood it brak', and, as lang's hersel',
Her hair drave out in the sleet.

She turned her face frae the drivin' win'-
"What's that ahead?" quo' she.

The skipper he threw himsel' frae the win',
And he drove the helm a-lee.

"Put to yer hand, my lady fair!

Put to yer hand," quoth he;

"Gin she dinna face the win' the mair,

It the waur for you and me.”

For the skipper kenned that strength is strength,
Whether woman's or man's at last.

To the tiller the lady she laid her han',
And the ship laid her cheek to the blast.

For that slender body was full o' soul,
And the will is mair than shape;

As the skipper saw when they cleared the berg,
And he heard her quarter scrape.

Quo' the skipper: "Ye are a lady fair,
And a princess grand to see;

But ye are a woman, and a man wad sail
To hell in yer company."

She liftit a pale and a queenly face;
Her een flashed, and syne they swam.
"And what for no to heaven?" she says,

And she turned awa' frae him.

But she took na her han' frae the good ship's helm,

Until the day did daw' ;

And the skipper he spak', but what he said

It was said atween them twa.

And then the good ship, she lay to,
With the land far on the lee ;

And up came the king upo' the deck,
Wi' wan face and bluidshot ee.