The very cock crows lonesomely at morn--
Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides--
Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn
Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.

Shut up the door: who loves me must not look
Upon the withered world, but haste to bring
His lighted candle, and his story-book,
And live with me the poetry of spring.


* * * * *


POEMS BY CHARLES KINGSLEY


THE THREE FISHERS


Three fishers went sailing away to the west--
Away to the west as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep;
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbor bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
And they trimm'd the lamps as the sun went down;