!
One said:
"Away! he is dead!
Upon my foam I have flung his head!
Go back to your cote, you shall never wed!--
(Nor he!)"

Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me.
Two brake.
The third with a quake
Cried loud, "O maid, I'll find for thy sake
His dead lost body: prepare his wake!"
(And back it plunged to the sea!)

Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me.
One bore--
And swept on the shore--
His pale, pale face I shall kiss no more!
Ah, woe to women death passes o'er!
(Woe's me!)

THE DEATH-SPRITE

(_A ballad for God_)

_A. D._ 909

Three kings with naught of a care
To a hunting went;
Three kings of stirrup fair
And of yew-bow bent.

Away they rode with a song
On the summer tide;
Away from thrid and throng
By the blue lake side.

And "Ho!" they vaunted aloud
To the morning hills.
And "Ha!"--What reck the proud
For the God of Ills?

Naught! so they swagged thro the glade
Where the roe-buck rose:
She nosed the wind, affrayed
By the blod "Ho, hos!"

"Three arrows now to her heart!"
They shouted, and sped,
Each king, an evil dart
With a flinten head.

And O she staggered down--
O unpitied, slain!
But in her dreadful swoun
There was more than pain!

For Horror sprang from her blood,
A Spectre of Death!
It drew them thro the wood--
Where a Chapel saith

Masses for souls that are lost
In the wilds of sin--
There mumbled, "Ye'll pay cost
Ere to shrift ye win!"

Then led them to a bay tree
By an open grave,
Where three ghost-kings in three
Stony coffins clave.

Which spake, "Lo, we too were fair!"--
"Unto this ye'll come!"--
"Ay ye, who of naught beware!"--
So spake--and were dumb.

Then of fright and dread the kings flung
Away yew-tree bow
(The Chapel bell slow rung
With the bleak wind's blow).

And fast they fled thro the glade
To the castle hall.
_But God had not been stayed--
They were lepers, all!_

Woe then to kings! to the pelf
That men call pride!
Christ shrive us all from self,
From the Death-sprite hide!

WORMWOOD

(_In Old England_)

What is he whispering to her there
Under the hedge-row spray?
"Spring, Spring, Spring?"--Is the world so fair
To him, fool, that he has no care
As he cuckoos it all da