So then he kissed the child, and went his way;
  But many troubles rolled above his head;
The sun arose on many an evil day,
  And cruel deeds were done, and tears were shed;
And hope was lost, and loyal hearts were fain
In dust to hide,—­ere they two met again.

So passed the little child from thought, from view—­
  (The snowdrop blossoms, and then is not there,
Forgotten till men welcome it anew),
  He found her in his heavy days of care,
And with her dimples was again beguiled,
As on her nurse’s knee she sat and smiled.

And he became a voyager by sea,
  And took the child to share his wandering state;
Since from his native land compelled to flee,
  And hopeless to avert her monarch’s fate;
For all was lost that might have made him pause,
And, past a soldier’s help, the royal cause.

And thus rolled on long days, long months and years,
  And Margaret within the Xebec sailed;
The lulling wind made music in her ears,
  And nothing to her life’s completeness failed. 
Her pastime ’twas to see the dolphins spring,
And wonderful live rainbows glimmering.

The gay sea-plants familiar were to her,
  As daisies to the children of the land;
Red wavy dulse the sunburnt mariner
  Raised from its bed to glisten in her hand;
The vessel and the sea were her life’s stage—­
Her house, her garden, and her hermitage.

Also she had a cabin of her own,
  For beauty like an elfin palace bright,
With Venice glass adorned, and crystal stone
  That trembled with a many-colored light;
And there with two caged ringdoves she did play,
And feed them carefully from day to day.

Her bed with silken curtains was enclosed,
  White as the snowy rose of Guelderland;
On Turkish pillows her young head reposed,
  And love had gathered with a careful hand
Fair playthings to the little maiden’s side,
From distant ports, and cities parted wide.

She had two myrtle-plants that she did tend,
  And think all trees were like to them that grew;
For things on land she did confuse and blend,
  And chiefly from the deck the land she knew,
And in her heart she pitied more and more
The steadfast dwellers on the changeless shore.

Green fields and inland meadows faded out
  Of mind, or with sea-images were linked;
And yet she had her childish thoughts about
  The country she had left—­though indistinct
And faint as mist the mountain-head that shrouds,
Or dim through distance as Magellan’s clouds.

And when to frame a forest scene she tried,
  The ever-present sea would yet intrude,
And all her towns were by the water’s side,
  It murmured in all moorland solitude,
Where rocks and the ribbed sand would intervene,
And waves would edge her fancied village green;

Because her heart was like an ocean shell,
  That holds (men say) a message from the deep,
And yet the land was strong, she knew its spell,
  And harbor lights could draw her in her sleep;
And minster chimes from pierced towers that swim,
Were the land-angels making God a hymn.