"O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o' Dee !"
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.

The creeping tide came up along the sand,
And o'er and o'er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist cache down and hid the land-
And never home came she.

"Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair-
A tress of golden hair,
A drowned maiden's hair,
Above the nets at sea ?"
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee.

They brought her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
The cruel hungry foam,
To her grave beside tile sea.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,
Across the sands o' Dee. -

Charles Kingsley.

(1819-1875)

Between broad fields of wheat and corn
Is the lowly home where I was born;
The peach tree lean's against the wall,
And the woodbine wanders over all;
There is the shaded doorway still,
But a stranger's foot has crossed the sill.

There is the barn- and, as of yore,
I can smell the hay from the open door,
And see the busy swallows throng,
And hear the pewee's mournful song;
But the stranger comes -- oh! painful proof --
His sheaves are piled to the heated roof.

There is the orchard --the very trees
Where my childhood knew long hours of ease,
And watched the shadowy moments run
Till my life imbibed more shade than sun;
The swing from the bough still sweeps the air,
But the stranger's children are swinging there.

Oh, ye who daily cross the sill,
Step lightly, for I love it still;
And when you crowd the old barn eaves,
Then think what countless harvest sheaves
Have passed within that scented door
To gladden eyes that are no more.

Deal kindly with these orchard trees;
And when your children crowd their knees
Their sweetest fruit they shall impart,
As if old memories stirred their heart;
To youthful sport still leave the swing,
And in sweet reverence hold the spring.

The barn, the trees, the brook, the birds,
The meadows with their lowing herds,
The woodbine on the cottage wall--
My heart still lingers with them all.
Ye strangers on my native sill,
Step lightly, for I love it still.

Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872)

I come from haunts of coot and hern:
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down the valley;

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles;

With many a curve my banks I fret
By, many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow;

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake,
Upon me as I travel,
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers;

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows;

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)