“Cast out his corse to sink or swim
With the toss o’ the turning tide!
Let it ne’er be said that Christian maid
Would be a rover’s bride!”
Up and spake the mermaiden—
“Ho, ho, for his pallid lips!
Ho for the merry fish that swim
Among the sunken ships!
“Ho, ho! for see where he comes to
A-floating down so fast!
I laid my love on a mortal man,
And he is mine at last!”
BALLAD OF ALL SOULS’ EVE
Between the shrouded fen, and the desolate dunes of sand
Where the fretting seas gnash white, there lies a lonely land.
No heights about it couch their grim flanks seamed with scars;
But it hath the wider heaven, and the sky more full of stars.
Like the verge of the ultimate seas are its long horizon lines;
Like the moan of mourning waves the song of its sombre pines.
The minstrel’s out on the moor; while far and faint in the wind
Ring the bells of All Souls’ Eve in the town he has left behind.
Beneath the sombre pine he has laid him down to sleep,
With his harp beside his head; and night grows dark and deep.
Softly the wind came sighing, and as it sighed he heard
In the harp a voice that moaned and mourned on a woeful word;