THE HIGH TIDE, (1571); OR, THE BRIDES HE old THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, The ringers rang by two, by three; "Pull, if ye never pulled before; Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. Men say it was a stolen tyde The Lord that sent it, He knows all; The message that the bells let fall: By millions crouched on the old sea-wall, I sat and spun within the doore, My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes; Lay sinking in the barren skies, Where the reedy Lindis floweth, From the meads where melick groweth, Faintly came her milking song "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow; Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow, From the clovers lift your head; Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot, If it be long, ay, long ago, When I beginne to think howe long, Againe I hear the Lindis flow, Swift as an arrowe, sharp and strong; And all the aire, it seemeth mee, Alle fresh the level pasture lay, And not a shadowe mote be seene, Save where full fyve good miles away The steeple towered from out the greene; And lo! the great bell farre and wide Was heard in all the country side That Saturday at eventide. The swanherds where there sedges are Till floating o'er the grassy sea Then some looked uppe into the sky, And where the lordly steeple shows, "For evil news from Mablethorpe, Of pyrate galleys warping downe; For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe, They have not spared to wake the towne: I looked without, and lo! my sonne Till all the welkin rang again, "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" (A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.) "The old sea wall (he cried) is downe, The rising tide comes on apace, And boats adrift in yonder towne Go sailing uppe the market-place." He shook as one that looks on death: "God save you, mother!" straight he saith, "Where is my wife, Elizabeth?" Good sonne, where Lindis winds away, Afar I heard her milking song. With that he cried and beat his breast; And uppe the Lindis raging sped. And rearing Lindis backward pressed, Flung uppe her weltering walls again. So farre, so fast the eygre drave, The heart had hardly time to beat, Before a shallow, seething wave Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet, The feet had hardly time to flee Before it brake against the knee, And all the world was in the sea. Upon the roofe we sat that night, The noise of bells went sweeping by; I marked the lofty beacon light Stream from the church tower, red and highA lurid mark and dread to see; And awesome bells they were to mee, That in the dark rang "Enderby." They rang the sailor lads to guide From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed, O lost! my love, Elizabeth." And did'st thou visit him no more? Thou did'st, thou did'st, my daughter deare; The waters laid thee at his doore, Ere yet the early dawn was clear, Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, The lifted sun shone on thy face, That flow strewed wrecks about the grass, That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea; A fatal ebbe and flow, alas! and me: Το manye more than myne I shall never hear her more |