Little Phoebe

The rain had pour'd all day, but clear'd at night,
When, with her little basket on her arm,
She left the door-step of that seaside farm;
The weeping tamarisk glisten'd in the light,
And chanticleer's green feathers softly waved
Against the dying sunshine. Forth she fared,
Our host's sweet child, his Phoebe golden-hair'd,
To gather shells, wherewith the beach was paved;
At dusk, she took the homeward path that led
Beneath yon dark-blue ridge, when, sad to tell,
On her fair head the gloomy Lias fell,
Crumbled by storms, — they found her bruised and dead:
Her basket-store was scatter'd by the fall,
But loving hands replaced and kept them all.