break;

'"Yet now, my leetle son," says I,
A-drifting on the wave,
"That land I see so safe and green
Is England, I believe.

'"And that there wood is English wood,
And this here cruel sea,
The selfsame old blue ocean
Years gone remembers me,

"A-sitting with my bread and butter
Down ahind yon chitterin' mill;
And this same Marinere"--(that's me),
"Is that same leetle Will!--

"That very same wee leetle Will
Eating his bread and butter there,
A-looking on the broad blue sea
Betwixt his yaller hair!"

'And here be I, my son, throwed up
Like corpses from the sea,
Ships, stars, winds, tempests, pirates past,
Yet leetle Will I be!'

He said no more, that sailorman,
But in a reverie
Stared like the figure of a ship
With painted eyes to sea.

THE PHANTOM

'Upstairs in the large closet, child,
This side the blue-room door,
Is an old Bible, bound in leather,
Standing upon the floor;

'Go with this taper, bring it me;
Carry it on your arm;
It is the book on many a sea
Hath stilled the waves' alarm.'

Late the hour, dark the night,
The house is solitary,
Feeble is a taper's light
To light poor Ann to see.

Her eyes are yet with visions bright
Of sylph and river, flower and fay,
Now through a narrow corridor
She takes her lonely way.

Vast shadows on the heedless walls
Gigantic loom, stoop low:
Each little hasty footfall calls
Hollowly to and fro.

In the dim solitude her heart
Remembers tearlessly
White winters when her mother was
Her loving company.

Now in the dark clear glass she sees
A taper mocking hers,--
A phantom face of light blue eyes,
Reflecting phantom fears.

Around her loom the vacant rooms,
Wind the upward stairs,
She climbs on into a loneliness
Only her taper shares.

Her grandmother is deaf with age;
A garden of moonless trees
Would answer not though she should cry
In anguish on her knees.

So that she scarcely heeds--so fast
Her pent-up heart doth beat--
When, faint along the corridor,
Falleth the sound of feet:--

Sounds lighter than silk slippers make
Upon a ballroom floor, when sweet
Violin and 'cello wake
Music fo