Then a school-boy, with his kite Ships rejoicing in the breeze, Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas, And, with lessening line and lead, Sailors feeling for the land. All these scenes do I behold, In that building long and low; THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE. LEAFLESS are the trees; their purple branches Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral, Rising silent In the Red Sea of the Winter sunset. From the hundred chimneys of the village, Tower aloft into the air of amber. At the window winks the flickering fire-light; Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer, Social watch-fires Answering one another through the darkness. On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing, Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them. By the fireside there are old men seated, Asking sadly Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them. By the fireside there are youthful dreamers, Of the Future what it cannot give them. By the fireside tragedies are acted And above them God the sole spectator. By the fireside there are peace and comfort, For a well-known footstep in the passage. Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-stone; Through the gateways of the world around him. In his farthest wanderings still he sees it; Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind, As he heard them When he sat with those who were, but are not. Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, Drives an exile From the hearth of his ancestral homestead. We may build more splendid habitations, Buy with gold the old associations! Nor the red Mustang, Of whose purple blood Has a dash of Spanish bravado. For richest and best Is the wine of the West, Fills all the room And as hollow trees Are the haunts of bees, For ever going and coming; 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, There grows no vine 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; Is such Borgia wine, Or at best but a Devil's Elixir. While pure as a spring And to praise it, one needs but name it; For Catawba wine Has need of no sign, No tavern-bush to proclaim it. And this Song of the Vine, The winds and the birds shall deliver In her garlands dressed, On the banks of the Beautiful River. SANTA FILOMENA. WHENE'ER a noble deed is wrought, The tidal wave of deeper souls Out of all meaner cares. Honour to those whose words or deeds And by their overflow Raise us from what is low! Thus thought I, as by night I read The trenches cold and damp, The wounded from the battle-plain, The cheerless corridors, Lo! in that house of misery A lady with a lamp I see Pass through the glimmering gloom, And slow, as in a dream of bliss, Upon the darkening walls. As if a door in heaven should be The light shone and was spent. On England's annals, through the long A Lady with a Lamp shall stand Nor even shall be wanting here THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE. A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS. OTHERE, the old sea-captain, Who dwelt in Helgoland, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, Which he held in his brown right hand. His figure was tall and stately, Hearty and hale was Othere, His cheek had the colour of oak; And Alfred, King of the Saxons, "So far I live to the northward, No man lives north of me; |