ead dust and factory's frown,--

In stainless daylight saw the pure seas roll,
Saw mountains pillaring the perfect sky:
Then journeyed home, to carry in his soul
The torment of the difference till he die.

THE BALLAD OF THE "BRITAIN'S PRIDE"

It was a skipper of Lowestoft
That trawled the northern sea,
In a smack of thrice ten tons and seven,
And the _Britain's Pride_ was she.
And the waves were high to windward,
And the waves were high to lee,
And he said as he lost his trawl-net,
"What is to be, will be."

His craft she reeled and staggered,
But he headed her for the hithe,
In a storm that threatened to mow her down
As grass is mown by the scythe;
When suddenly through the cloud-rift
The moon came sailing soft,
And he saw one mast of a sunken ship
Like a dead arm held aloft.

And a voice came faint from the rigging--
"Help! help!" it whispered and sighed--
And a single form to the sole mast clung,
In the roaring darkness wide.
Oh the crew were but four hands all told,
On board of the _Britain's Pride_,
And ever "Hold on till daybreak!"
Across the night they cried.

Slowly melted the darkness,
Slowly rose the sun,
And only the lad in the rigging
Was left, out of thirty-one,
To tell the tale of his captain,
The English sailor true,
That did his duty and met his death
As English sailors do.

Peace to the gallant spirit,
The greatly proved and tried,
And to all who have fed the hungry sea
That is still unsatisfied;
And honour and glory for ever,
While rolls the unresting tide,
To the skipper of little Lowestoft,
And the crew of the _Britain's Pride_.

LINES

(WITH A VOLUME OF THE AUTHOR'S POEMS SENT TO M.R.C.)

Go, Verse, nor let the grass of tarrying grow
Beneath thy feet iambic. Southward go
O'er Thamesis his stream, nor halt until
Thou reach the summit of a suburb hill
To lettered fame not unfamiliar: there
Crave rest and shelter of a scholiast fair,
Who dwelleth in a world of old romance,
Magic emprise and faery chevisaunce.
Tell her, that he who made thee, years ago,
By northern stream and mountain, and where blow
Great breaths from the sea-sunset, at this day
One half thy fabric fain would rase away;
But she must take thee faults and all, my Verse,
Forgive thy better and forget thy worse.
Thee, doubtless, she shall place, not scorned, among
More famous songs by happier minstrels sung;--
In Shakespeare's shadow thou shalt find a