And rises again

Like a swimming gull!

I wish a hundred years to come, and forever
All lovers could know the rapture

Of the lake boats sailing the first spring days
To coverts of hepatica,

With the whole world sphering round you,

And the whole of the sky beyond you.

I knew the Captain of the City of Grand Rapids.

He had sailed the seas as a boy.

And he stood on deck against the railing

Puffing a cigar,

Showing in his eyes the cinema flash of the sun on the waves.

It was June and life was easy.

One could lie on deck and sleep,

Or sit in the sun and dream.

People were walking the decks and talking,

Children were singing.

And down on the purser's deck
A man was dancing by himself,
Whirling around like a dervish.
And this captain said to me:
"No life is better than this.

I could live forever,

And do nothing but run this boat

From the dock at Chicago to the dock at Holland

And back again."

One time I went to Grand Haven

On the Alabama with Charley Shippey.

It was dawn, but white dawn only,
Under the reign of Leucothea,

As we volplaned, so it seemed, from the lake
Past the lighthouse into the river;

And afterward, laughing and talking,
Hurried to Van Dreezer's restaurant

For breakfast.

(Charley knew him and talked of things

Unknown to me as he cooked the breakfast.)

Then we fished the mile's length of the pier
In a gale full of warmth and moisture
Which blew the gulls about like confetti,
And flapped like a flag the linen duster
Of a fisherman who paced the pier-
(Charley called him Rip Van Winkle).
The only thing that could be better
Than this day on the pier

Would be its counterpart in heaven,

As Swedenborg would say—

Charley is fishing somewhere now, I think.

There is a grove of oaks on a bluff by the river

At Berrien Springs.

There is a cottage that eyes the lake

Between pines and silver birches

At South Haven.

There is the inviolable wonder of wooded shore

Curving for miles at Saugatuck;

And at Holland a beach like Scheveningen's;

And at Charlevoix the sudden quaintness

Of an old-world place by the sea.

There are the hills around Elk Lake

Where the blue of the sky is so still and clear
It seems it was rubbed above them

By the swipe of a giant thumb.

And beyond these the Little Traverse Bay

Where the roar of the breeze goes round

Like a roulette ball in the groove of the wheel,

Circling the bay;

And beyond these Mackinac and the Cheneaux Islands

And beyond these a great mystery!

Neither ice floes, nor winter's palsy

Stays the tide in the river.

And under the shadows of cliffs of brick

The lake boats,

Huddled like swans,

Turn and sigh like sleepers

They are longing for the spring!

Charlotte Mew

THE FARMER'S BRIDE

Three summers since I chose a maid,—
Too young maybe-but more's to do
At harvest-time than bide and woo.

When us was wed she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter's day.

Her smile went out, and 'twasn't a woman-
More like a little frightened fay.

One night, in the fall, she runned away.

"Out 'mong the sheep, her be," they said. Should properly have been abed;

But sure enough she wasn't there

Lying awake with her wide brown stare.

So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down
We chased her, flying like a hare

Before our lanterns. To Church-town
All in a shiver and a scare

We caught her, fetched her home at last
And turned the key upon her, fast.

She does the work about the house

As well as most, but like a mouse:
Happy enough to chat and play

With birds and rabbits and such as they,
So long as men-folk keep away.

"Not near, not near!" her eyes beseech
When one of us comes within reach.

The women say that beasts in stall
Look round like children at her call.
I've hardly heard her speak at all.

Shy as a leveret, swift as he;

Straight and slight as a young larch tree;

Sweet as the first wild violets, she,

To her wild self. But what to me?

The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,
The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,
One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,
A magpie's spotted feathers lie

On the black earth spread white with rime,
The berries redden up to Christmas-time.
What's Christmas-time without there be
Some other in the house than we!

She sleeps up in the attic there
Alone, poor maid. 'Tis but a stair
Betwixt us. Oh, my God!-the down,

The soft young down of her; the brown,
The brown of her her eyes, her hair, her hair!

BESIDE THE BED

Someone has shut the shining eyes, straightened and folded

The wandering hands quietly covering the unquiet breast: So, smoothed and silenced you lie, like a child, not again to be questioned or scolded;

But, for you, not one of us believes that this is rest.

Not so to close the windows down can cloud and deaden

The blue beyond; or to screen the wavering flame subdue its breath:

Why, if I lay my cheek to your cheek, your gray lips, like dawn, would quiver and redden,

Breaking into the old odd smile at this fraud of death.

Because all night you have not turned to us or spoken

It is time for you to wake; your dreams were never very deep: I, for one, have seen the thin bright twisted threads of them dimmed suddenly and broken;

This is only a most piteous pretence of sleep!

Alice Meynell

MATERNITY

One wept whose only child was dead New-born, ten years ago.

"Weep not; he is in bliss," they said. She answered, "Even so.

"Ten years ago was born in pain A child not now forlorn.

But oh, ten years ago, in vain

A mother, a mother was born."

CHIMES

Brief on a flying night,

From the shaken tower, A flock of bells take flight, And go with the hour.

Like birds from the cote to the gales,

Abrupt-oh, hark!

A fleet of bells set sails,

And go to the dark.

Sudden the cold airs swing:
Alone, aloud,

A verse of bells takes wing

And flies with the cloud.