Allingham, William. A Dream. (In Charles Welsh's The Golden Treasury of Irish Songs and Lyrics.)
I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night.
I went to the window to see the sight:
All the dead that ever I knew
Going one by one and two by two.
Arnold, Matthew. The Forsaken Merman.
In its delicate loveliness "The Forsaken Merman" ranks high among Mr. Arnold's poems. It is the story of a Sea-King, married to a mortal maiden, who forsook him and her children under the impulse of a Christian conviction that she must return and pray for her soul.—H. W. Paul.
She sate by the pillar: we saw her clear;
"Margaret, hist! Come quick, we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "We are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book.
—— St. Brandan.
. . . a picturesque embodiment of a strange mediaeval legend touching Judas Iscariot, who is supposed to be released from Hell for a few hours every Christmas because he had done in his life a single deed of charity.—H. W. Paul.
Barlow, Jane. Three Throws and One. (In Walter Jerrold's The Book of Living Poets.)
At each throw of my net there's a life must go down into death on the sea.
At each throw of my net it comes laden, O rare, with my wish back to me.
With my choice of all treasures most peerless that lapt in the oceans be.
Boyd, Thomas. The King's Son. (In Padric Gregory's Modern Anglo-Irish Verse.)