In careless patches through the wood
The clumps of yellow primrose stood,
And sheets of white anemones,
Like driven snow against the trees,
Had covered up the violet,
But left the blue-bell bluer yet.

Along the narrow carpet ride,
With primroses on either side,
Between their shadows and the sun,
The cows came slowly, one by one,
Breathing the early morning air
And leaving it still sweeter there.
And, one by one, intent upon
Their purposes, they followed on
In ordered silence . . . and were gone.

But all the little wood was still,
As if it waited so, until
Some blackbird on an outpost yew,
Watching the slow procession through,
Lifted his yellow beak at last
To whistle that the line had passed. . . .
Then all the wood began to sing
Its morning anthem to the spring.

A sailor leaned o'er the vessel's side,
And gazed in the rippling sea—
"Christ save us!" said he, and started back,
"A shark swims under the lee."

His comrades looked close under the lee,
With a fixed and glassy stare;
They saw a fin and a glittering back
Now sink, and now rise in air.

Ho! bait a strong line, the captain cried,
Then muttered a passing curse;
For the greedy shark still followed on,
Like mourner the gloomy herse.

All day, all night, the daintiest bait
Towed close to the shark's fell jaw—
"He follows the ship, and not the bait!"
"Yet," quoth Ned, "he'll fill his maw."

The sick man lay on his restless bed,
A fever had scorched his brain;
While the hot blood gushed in lava tides,
And hissed through each bursting vein.

Black Edward leaned o'er the sick man's bed,
And glared on his enemy;
His head, like a coiléd snake, he bent—
"A shark swims under the lee!"

Great God, but it was a fearful thing
To hear the poor sufferer rave!
To see the red flushes come and go,
Like sun-beams over the wave!

And ever he muttered in low tones
Of the bitterest agony,
While his heart boomed like a tolling bell,
"A shark swims under the lee!"

He bounded up from his narrow bed,
And fell on his bended knee;
"Christ save me," cried he, and loudly wept,
"From the shark under the lee!"

Black Edward laughed o'er the vessel's side
As the sun set bloody red;
The shark lept up as for very joy—
Quoth one, "The sick man is dead."

They poised the corse o'er the rushing waves;
Alas! how their spirits sank!
"Don't throw him," they cried, "to yonder shark!"
Black Ned kicked over the plank.

With a bound sprang forth the greedy shark,
And his horrid jaws upraised,
He tore the shroud like a rotten rag—
The crew in pale horror gazed.

He dragged the torn body from the shroud,
And the sea was red with gore—
"God shield us!" they cried, and closed their eyes;
But the shark was ne'er seen more.