To the little gray church on the windy hill.

From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,

Come away, away, children;
Come, children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.

She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;

But we stood without in the cold blowing She will hear the winds howling, airs.

We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,

And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.

75

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.

Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,

A pavement of pearl.
Singing: "Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starred with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanched sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
85 Up the creeks we will hie,

She sits at her wheel in the humming town,

Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child
with its toy!

Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;

At the church on the hill-side:
And then come back down,

90

For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;

For the wheel where I spun,

Of pregnant parts and quick inventive But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he

Whereat he answered, that the gipsy- For most, I know, thou lov'st retired