"Qui e?" "I am Ginevra." And I thought, And bid me hence." But, lo, a moment more I know not, I care not which, be welcome here! It was high noontide when I woke again, Dead, they cared nothing; living, I was theirs. This was the verdict given: "A woman who has been to burial borne, dead! O, blessed words! That very day we knelt before the priest, Now go, my dearest. When they wake thee up, THE HIGH TIDE AT LINCOLNSHIRE JEAN INGELOW The old mayor climbed the belfry tower, Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. Men say it was a stolen tyde The Lord that sent it, He knows all; But in myne ears doth still abide The message that the bells let fall: And there was naught of strange, beside The flight of mews and peewits pied By millions crouched on the old sea-wall. I sat and spun within the doore, My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes; The level sun, like ruddy ore, Lay sinking in the barren skies, And dark against day's golden death She moved where Lindis wandereth, My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth. "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling From the meads where melick groweth, 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. I looked without, and lo! my sonne Came riding down with might and main: He raised a shout as he drew on, 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, 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, With her two bairns I marked her long; And ere yon bells beganne to play With that he cried and beat his breast; So farre, so fast the eygre drave, The heart had hardly time to beat, Before a shallow, seething wave Upon the roofe we sat that night, Stream from the church tower, red and high – A lurid mark and dread to see; And awesome bells they were to me, That in the dark rang "Enderby." They rang the sailor lads to guide From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed, And I my sonne was at my side, And yet the ruddy beacon glowed; And yet he moaned beneath his breath, "O come in life, or come in death! O lost! my love, Elizabeth." And didst thou visit him no more? Thou didst, thou didst, 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, Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place. That flow strewed wrecks about the grass, That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea; A fatal ebbe and flow, alas! To manye more than myne and me: |