I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy's brain;

The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.

And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
There are things of which I may not speak;

There are dreams that cannot die!

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,

And a mist before the eye.

And the words of that fatal song

Come over me like a chill:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meet

When I visit the dear old town;

But the native air is pure and sweet,

And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,

Are singing the beautiful song,

Are sighing and whispering still: "A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,

And with joy that is almost pain

My heart goes back to wander there,

And among the dreams of the days that were

I find my lost youth again.

And the strange and beautiful song,

The groves are repeating it still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

SANTA FILOMENA.

["At Pisa the church of San Francisco contains a chapel dedicated lately to Santa Filomena; over the altar is a picture, by Sabatelli, representing the Saint as a beautiful, nymph-like figure, floating down from heaven, attended by two angels, bearing the lily, palm, and javelin, and beneath, in the foreground, the sick and maimed, who are healed by her intercession."-MRS. JAMESON, Sacred and Legendary Art, II. 298.]

WHENE'ER a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares.

Honour to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,-
The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,

The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see

Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls

Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,

The light shone and was spent.
On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.

SANDALPHON.

HAVE you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,—

τι

Have you
read it, the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymu, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song

With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below;

From the spirits on earth that adore,
From the souls that entreat and implore
In the fervour and passion of prayer;
From the hearts that are broken with losses,
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;

And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,
A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;
Yet the old medieval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,

But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon, the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.

DAYBREAK.

A WIND came up out of the sea,
And said, "O mists, make room for me."

It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone."
And hurried landward far away,
Crying, "Awake! it is the day."
It said unto the forest, "Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!"
It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,
And said, “O bird, awake and sing.”
And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow, the day is near.

It whispered to the fields of corn,
"Bow down, and hail the coming morn.'

It shouted through the belfry-tower,
Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."

66

It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie."

Nor the red Mustang,
Whose clusters hang
O'er the waves of the Colorado,
And the fiery flood

Of whose purple blood
Has a dash of Spanish bravado.

For richest and best

Is the wine of the West,
That grows by the Beautiful River:
Whose sweet perfume

Fills all the room
With a benison on the giver.

And as hollow trees

Are the haunts of bees,

For ever going and coming;

So this crystal hive

Is all alive

With a swarming and buzzing and humming.

Very good in its way

Is the Verzenay,

Or the Sillery soft and creamy;

But Catawba wine

Has a taste more divine,
More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.

There grows no vine
By the haunted Rhine,
By Danube or Guadalquivir,
Nor on island or cape,
That bears such a grape

As grows by the Beautiful River.

Drugged is their juice

For foreign use,

When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
To rack our brains

With the fever-pains

That have driven the Old World frantic.

To the sewers and sinks
With all such drinks,

And after them tumble the mixer;

For a poison malign

Is such Borgia wine,

Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.

While pure as a spring

Is the wine I sing,

And to praise it, one needs but name it,