TO ALFRED TENNYSON

MY GRANDSON.

GOLDEN-HAIR'D Ally whose name is one with mine,

Crazy with laughter and babble and earth's new wine,

Now that the flower of a year and a half is thine, O little blossom, O mine, and mine of mine, Glorious who never hast written a line, poet Laugh, for the name at the head of my verse is thine.

May'st thou never be wrong'd by the name that is mine!

THE FIRST QUARREL.

(IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.)

I.

'WAIT a little,' you say, 'you are sure it'll all come right,'

But the boy was born i' trouble, an' looks so wan an' so white:

Wait! an' once I ha' waited - - I hadn't to wait for long.

Now I wait, wait, wait for Harry. - No, no, you are doing, me wrong! Harry and I were married: the boy can hold up his head,

The boy was born in wedlock, but after my man was dead;

I ha' work'd for him fifteen years, an' I work an' I wait to the end.

I am all alone in the world, an' you are my only friend.

III.

There was a farmer in Dorset of Harry's kin, that had need

Of a good stout lad at his farm; he sent, an' the father agreed;

So Harry was bound to the Dorsetshire farm for years an' for years;

I walked with him down to the quay, poor lad, an' we parted in tears. The boat was beginning to move, we heard them a-ringing the bell, 'I'll never love any but you, God bless you, my own little Nell.'

IV.

I was a child, an' he was a child, an' he came to harm;

There was a girl, a hussy, that workt with him up at the farm,

One had deceived her an' left her alone with her sin an' her shame, An' so she was wicked with Harry; the girl was the most to blame.

V.

An' years went over till I that was little had grown so tall,

The men would say of the maids, 'Our Nelly's the flower of 'em all.'

I didn't take heed o' them, but I taught myself all I could

To make a good wife for Harry, when Harry came home for good.

VI.

Often I seem'd unhappy, and often as happy too,

For I heard it abroad in the fields 'I'll never love any but you;'

'I'll never love any but you' the morning song of the lark,

'I'll never love any but you' the nightingale's hymn in the dark.

VII.

And Harry came home at last, but he look'd at me sidelong and shy, Vext me a bit, till he told me that so many years had gone by,

I had grown so handsome and tall — that I might ha' forgot him somehowFor he thought there were other lads he was fear'd to look at me now.

'I had sooner be cursed than kiss'd!'I didn't know well what I meant, But I turn'd my face from him, an' he turned his face an' he went.

XVI.

And then he sent me a letter, 'I've gotten my work to do;

You wouldn't kiss me, my lass, an' I never loved any but you;

I am sorry for all the quarrel an' sorry for what she wrote,

I ha' six weeks' work in Jersey an' go tonight by the boat.'

XVII.

An' the wind began to rise, an' I thought of him out at sea,

An' I felt I had been to blame; he was always kind to me.

'Wait a little, my lass, I am sure it 'ill all come right'

An' the boat went down that nightthe boat went down that night.

RIZPAH.

17-. I.

WAILING, wailing, wailing, the wind over

land and sea

And Willy's voice in the wind, 'O mother come out to me.' Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go?

For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow.

II.

We should be seen, my dear; they would spy us out of the town.

The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down, When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain, And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the

rain.

Nay

VI.

for it's kind of you, Madam, to sit by an old dying wife.

But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life.

I kiss'd my boy in the prison, before he went out to die.

'They dared me to do it,' he said, and he never has told me a lie.

I whipt him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child 'The farmer dared me to do it,' he said; he was always so wild

And idle and couldn't be idle - my Willy he never could rest. The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his best.

Sin? O yes- we are sinners, I know— let all that be,

And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's good will toward men

'Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord' - let me hear it again; Full of compassion and mercy-longsuffering.' Yes, O yes! For the lawyer is born but to murder the Saviour lives but to bless. He'll never put on the black cap except for the worst of the worst,

And the first may be last - I have heard it in church- and the last may be first.

Suffering long-suffering - yes, as the Lord must know,

Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow.