THE THREE FISHERS.
BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.
Charles Kingsley was born in Devonshire in 1819; he died in 1875. His poetical works consist of “The Saint’s Tragedy” and “Andromeda and Other Poems.”
Three fishers went sailing out into the West,
Out into the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best;
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work and women must weep,
And there’s little to earn, and many to keep;
Though the harbor bar be moaning.
Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the squall and they looked at the shower,
And the rack it came rolling up ragged and brown!
But men must work and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden and waters deep,
And the harbor bar be moaning.
Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
In the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come back to the town;
For men must work and women must weep,
And the sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep—
And good-by to the bar and its moaning.
PSALM XLVIII.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
In the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness,
Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth,
Is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.
God is known in her palaces for a refuge,
For, lo, the kings were assembled,
They passed by together.
They saw it and so they marveled;
They were troubled, and hasted away.
Fear took hold upon them there,
And pain, as of a woman in travail.
Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind,
As we have heard, so have we seen
In the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God;
God will establish it forever.
We have thought of thy loving-kindness, O God,
In the midst of thy temple.
According to thy name, O God,
So is thy praise unto the ends of the earth;
Thy right hand is full of righteousness.
Let Mount Zion rejoice,
Let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments.
Walk about Zion, and go round about her;
Tell the towers thereof.
Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces;
That ye may tell it to the generation following.
For this God is our God for ever and ever;
He will be our guide even unto death.
THE ISLES OF GREECE.
BY LORD BYRON.
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace—
Where Delos rose and Phœbus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun, is set.
The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And, musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave
I could not deem myself a slave.