They sold their gear, and over the sea

To a foreign land they went, Over the sea-but wha can flee His appointed punishment?

The ship swam over the water clear,
Wi' the help o' the eastern breeze;
But the vera first sound in guilty fear,
O'er the wide, smooth deck, that fell on their ear
Was the tapping o' them twa knees.

In the woods of wild America

Their weary feet they set;

But Stumpie was there the first, they say,
And he haunted them onto their dying day,
And he follows their children yet.

I haud ye, never the voice of blood
Call'd from the earth in vain ;
And never has crime won worldly good,
But it brought its after-pain.

This is the story o' Stumpie's Brae,
And the murderers' fearin' fate:
Young man, your face is turn'd that way,
Ye'll be ganging the night that gate.

Ye'll ken it weel, through the few fir-trees,
The house where they wont to dwell;
Gin ye meet ane there, as daylight flees,
Stumping about on the banes of his knees
It'll just be Stumpie himsel'.

THERE IS A GREEN HILL

HERE is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,

Th

Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell
What pains he had to bear,
But we believe it was for us

He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by his precious blood.

There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.

O dearly, dearly has he loved,
And we must love him too,
And trust in his redeeming blood,
And try his works to do.

WILLIAM ALEXANDER (1824

VERY FAR AWAY

NE touch there is of magic white,

O Surpassing southern mountain's snow

That to far sails the dying light

Lends, where the dark ships onward go
Upon the golden highway broad

That leads up to the isles of God.

One touch of light more magic yet,
Of rarer snow 'neath moon or star,
Where, with her graceful sails all set,
Some happy vessel seen afar,
As if in an enchanted sleep

Steers o'er the tremulous stretching deep.

O ship! O sail! far must ye be
Ere gleams like that upon ye light.
O'er golden spaces of the sea,

From mysteries of the lucent night,
Such touch comes never to the boat
Wherein across the waves we float.

O gleams, more magic and divine,
Life's whitest sail ye still refuse,
And flying on before us shine

Upon some distant bark ye choose.
By night or day, across the spray,
That sail is very far away.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM (1824-1889)

ABBEY ASAROE

RAY, gray is Abbey Asaroe, by Ballyshanny town,

GR

It has neither door nor window, the walls are

broken down;

The carven stones lie scattered in briars and nettle

bed;

The only feet are those that come at burial of the

dead.

A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in

pride;

The bore-tree and the lightsome ash across the portal

grow,

And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Asaroe.

It looks beyond the harbor-stream to Gulban mountain

blue;

It hears the voice of Erna's fall,-Atlantic breakers

too;

High ships go sailing past it; the sturdy clank of oars Brings in the salmon-boat to haul a net upon the shores;

And this way to his home-creek, when the summer day is done,

Slow sculls the weary fisherman across the setting sun; While green with corn is Sheegus Hill, his cottage white below;

But gray at every season is Abbey Asaroe.

There stood one day a poor old man above its broken

bridge;

He heard no running rivulet, he saw no mountain ridge;

He turned his back on Sheegus Hill, and viewed with misty sight

The abbey walls, the burial-ground with crosses ghostly white;

Under a weary weight of years he bowed upon his staff,

Perusing in the present time the former's epitaph;
For, gray and wasted like the walls, a figure full of

woe,

This man
Asaroe.

was of the blood of them who founded

From Derry to Dundrowas Tower, Tirconnell broad was theirs ;

Spearmen and plunder, bards and wine, and holy abbot's prayers;

With chanting always in the house which they had builded high

To God and to Saint Bernard,-whereto they came to

die.

At worst, no workhouse grave for him! the ruins of

his race

Shall rest among the ruined stones of this their saintly place.

The fond old man was weeping; and tremulous and

slow

Along the rough and crooked lane he crept from Asaroe.