CHILDREN.

COME to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,
That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows,
And the brooks of morning run.
In your hearts are the birds and the
sunshine,

In your thoughts the brooklet's flow;
But in mine is the wind of Autumn,
And the first fall of the snow.
Ah! what would the world be to us,
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,

With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood,-
That to the world are children;

Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.

MY LOST YOUTH.

OFTEN I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old
town,

And my youth cames back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.

And the burden of that old song, It murmurs and whispers still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the black wharves and the slips,

And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ships,

And the magic of the sea.

And the voice of that wayward song Is singing and saying still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,

And the bugle wild and shrill. And the music of that old song Throbs in my memory still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

*

I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil
bay,

Where they in battle died.

And the sound of that mournful song Goes through me with a thrill: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the breezy dome of groves, The shadows of Deering's Woods: And the friendships old and the early loves

Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves

In quiet neighbourhoods.

And the verse of that sweet old

song,

It flutters and murmurs still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

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,

* This was the engagement between the Enterprise and Boxer, off the harbour of Portland, in which both captains were slain. They were buried side by side, in the cemetery on Mountjoy.

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.*
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.

* "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, nymphlike 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.

Honour to those whose words or deed,
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,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 hymn, 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 mediæval 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.

CATAWBA WINE.
THIS Song of mine
Is a Song of the Vine,

To be sung by the glowing embers
Of wayside inns,

When the rain begins

To darken the drear Novembers. It is not a song

Of the Scuppernong,
From warm Carolinian valleys,
Nor the Isabel

And the Muscadel
That bask in our garden alleys.
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

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;
For Catawba wine

Has need of no sign,

No tavern-bush to proclaim it.

And this Song of the Vine,
This greeting of mine,

The winds and the birds shall deliver
To the Queen of the West,
In her garlands dressed,

On the banks of the Beautiful River.

EPIMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S
AFTERTHOUGHT.
HAVE I dreamed? or was it real,

What I saw as in a vision,
When to marches hymeneal,
In the land of the ideal,

Moved my thought o'er fields Elysian?

What are these the guests whose glances

Seemed like sunshine gleaming round

me;

These the wild, bewildered fancies, That with dithyrambic dances,

As with magic circles, bound me?

Ah! how cold are their caresses!

Pallid cheeks and haggard bosoms! Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses, And from loose, dishevelled tresses Fall the hyacinthine blossoms!

O my songs! whose winsome measures
Filled my heart with secret rapture!
Children of my golden leisures!
Must even your delights and pleasures
Fade and perish with the capture?
Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,
When they came to me unbidden;
Voices single and in chorus,
Like the wild birds singing o'er us
In the dark of branches hidden.
Disenchantment! Disillusion!
Must each noble aspiration
Come at last to this conclusion,
Jarring discord, wild confusion,
Lassitude, renunciation !

Not with steeper fall nor faster,

From the sun's serene dominions, Not through brighter realms nor vaster, In swift ruin and disaster

Icarus fell with shattered pinions! Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora! Why did mighty Jove create thee Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora, Beautiful as young Aurora,

If to win thee is to hate thee?

No, not hate thee! for this feeling
Óf unrest and long resistance
Is but passionate appealing,
A prophetic whisper stealing

O'er the chords of our existence.
Him whom thou dost once enamour,
Thou, beloved, never leavest;
In life's discord, strife, and clamour,
Still he feels thy spell of glamour;

Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest. Weary hearts by thee are lifted, Struggling souls by thee are strengthened,

Clouds of fear asunder rifted,

Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted

Lives, like days in summer, lengthened. Therefore art thou ever dearer,

O my Sibyl! my deceiver! For thou makest each mystery clearer,