All the wide valley blushes green, While, in far depths below, Wharfe flashes out a great bright eye, Then hides his shining flow;-- Wharfe, busy, restless, rapid Wharfe, The glory of our dale; O I could of the River Wharfe Tell such a fairy tale! "The Boy of Egremond," you cry,-- "And all the 'bootless bene:' We know that poem, every word, And we the Strid have seen." No, clever damsels: though the tale Seems still to bear a part, In every lave of Wharfe's bright wave, The broken mother's heart-- Little you know of broken hearts, My Kitty, blithe and wise, Grave Mary, with the woman soul Dawning through childish eyes. And long, long distant may God keep The day when each shall know The entrance to His kingdom through His baptism of woe! But yet 'tis good to hear of grief Which He permits to be; Even as in our green inland home We talk of wrecks at sea. So on this lovely day, when spring Wakes soft o'er moor and dale, I'll tell--not quite your wish--but yet A noble "fairy" tale. * * * * * 'Twas six o'clock in the morning, The sea like crystal lay, When the good troop-ship Birkenhead Set sail from Simon's Bay. The Cape of Good Hope on her right Gloomed at her through the noon: Brief tropic twilight fled, and night Fell suddenly and soon. At eight o'clock in the evening Dim grew the pleasant land; O'er smoothest seas the southern heaven Its starry arch out-spanned. The soldiers on the bulwarks leaned, Smoked, chatted; and below The soldiers' wives sang babes to sleep, While on the ship sailed slow. Six hundred and thirty souls held she, Good, bad, old, young, rich, poor; Six hundred and thirty living souls-- God knew them all.--Secure He counted them in His right hand, That held the hungering seas; And to four hundred came a voice-- "The Master hath need of these." * * * * * On, onward, still the vessel went Till, with a sudden shock, Like one that's clutched by unseen Death, She struck upon a rock. She filled. Not hours, not minutes left; Each second a life's gone: Drowned in their berths, washed overboard, Lost, swimming, one by one;