426 THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY.. But in myne ears doth still abide The message that the bells let fall: By millions crouched on the old sea-wall. I sat and spun within the doore, My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes; Lay sinking in the barren skies, From the meads where melick groweth Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow; Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot, Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow, From the clovers lift your head; Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot, Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow, THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY. And all the aire, it seemeth mee, Bin full of floating bells (saith shee), Alle fresh the level pasture lay, And not a shadowe mote be seene, The swanherds where there sedges are Then some looked uppe into the sky, To where the goodly vessels lie, And where the lordly steeple shows; "For evil news from Mablethorpe, Of pyrate galleys warping downe; I looked without, and lo! my sonne Till all the welkin rang again, 427 428 THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY. "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" (A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath "The old sea-wall (he cried) is downe, Go sailing uppe the market-place." "Good sonne, where Lindis winds away, With that he cried and beat his breast; And rearing Lindis backward pressed, Flung uppe her weltering walls again. Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout Then beaten foam flew round about Then all the mighty floods were out. So farre, so fast the eygre drave, The heart had hardly time to beat, Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet; THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY. The feet had hardly time to flee Upon the roofe we sat that night, Stream from the church-tower, red and high- And awesome bells they were to mee, They rang the sailor lads to guide From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed; And yet he moaned beneath his breath, "O come in life, or come in death! O lost! my love, Elizabeth!" And did'st thou visit him no more? Thou did'st, thou did'st, my daughter deare; The waters laid thee at his doore, Ere yet the early dawn was clear; Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, That flow strewed wrecks about the grass, To manye more than myne and me: I shall never hear her more 429 430 LADY MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY. I shall never hear her song, From the meads where melick groweth, Onward floweth to the town. I shall never see her more Stand beside the sobbing river, Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow; Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot; Come uppe, Lightfoot, rise and follow; Lightfoot, Whitefoot, From your clovers lift the head; LADY MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY.-SHAKESPEARE. GLAMIS thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised.-Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition; but without The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win; thou'dst have, great Glamis, That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it; |