So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells, 80 And merrily ran the years, seven happy years, Seven happy years of health and competence, And mutual love and honourable toil; With children; first a daughter. In him woke, With his first babe’s first cry, the noble wish 85 To save all earnings to the uttermost, And give his child a better bringing up Than his had been, or hers; a wish renew’d, When two years after came a boy to be The rosy idol of her solitudes, 90 While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas, Or often journeying landward; for in truth Enoch’s white horse, and Enoch’s ocean-spoil In ocean-smelling osier and his face, Rough-redden’d with a thousand winter gales, 95 Not only to the market-cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down, Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, Whose Friday fare was Enoch’s ministering. 100 Then came a change, as all things human change. Ten miles to northward of the narrow port Open’d a larger haven: thither used Enoch at times to go by land or sea; And once when there, and clambering on a mast 105 In harbour, by mischance he slipt and fell: A limb was broken when they lifted him; And while he lay recovering there, his wife Bore him another son, a sickly one: Another hand crept too across his trade 110 Taking her bread and theirs: and on him fell, Altho’ a grave and staid God-fearing man, Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. He seem’d, as in a nightmare of the night, To see his children leading evermore 115 Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray’d ‘Save them from this, whatever comes to me.’ And while he pray’d, the master of that ship Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance, 120 Came, for he knew the man and valued him, Reporting of his vessel China-bound, And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go? There yet were many weeks before she sail’d, Sail’d from this port. Would Enoch have the place? 125 And Enoch all at once assented to it, Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer.