Across the meadows, by the grey old

manse,

The historic river flowed;

I was as one who wanders in a trance, Unconscious of his road.

The faces of familiar friends seemed strange:

Their voices I could hear, And yet the words they uttered seemed to change

Their meaning to my ear.

For the one face I looked for was not there,

The one low voice was mute; Only an unseen presence filled the air, And baffled my pursuit.

Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream

Dimly my thought defines;
I only see a dream within a dream-
The hill-top hearsed with pines.

I only hear above his place of rest
Their tender undertone,

The infinite longings of a troubled breast,

The voice so like his own.

There in seclusion and remote from men
The wizard hand lies cold,
Which at its topmost speed let fall the

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men !
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound

The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men! It was as if an earthquake rent The hearthstones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said; "For hate is strong

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep! The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men!”

KAMBALU.

INTO the city of Kambalu,

By the road that leadeth to Ispahan, At the head of his dusty caravan, Laden with treasure from realms afar, Baldacca and Kelat and Kandahar, Rode the great captain Aläu.

The Khan from his palace-window gazed, And saw in the thronging street beneath, In the light of the setting sun that blazed

Through the clouds of dust by the caravan raised,

The flash of harness and jewelled sheath,

416%

hammed:

withered hands,

was subdued.

sands;

Then the flicker of the blaze
Gleams on volumes of old days,

Written by masters of the art, Loud through whose majestic pages Rolls the melody of ages,

Throb the harp-strings of the heart. And again the tongues of flame Start exulting and exclaim : "These are prophets, bards, and

seers;

In the horoscope of nations,
Like ascendant constellations,

They control the coming years."

But the night-wind cries: "Despair! Those who walk with feet of air

Leave no long-enduring marks ; At God's forges incandescent Mighty hammers beat incessant,

These are but the flying sparks. "Dust are all the hands that wrought; Books are sepulchres of thought;

The dead laurels of the dead
Rustle for a moment only,
Like the withered leaves in lonely
Churchyards at some passing tread."

Suddenly the flame sinks down ;
Sink the rumours of renown ;

And alone the night-wind drear
Clamours louder, wilder, vaguer, -
'Tis the brand of Meleager
Dying on the hearthstone here!"
And I answer,- -Though it be,
Why should that discomfort me?
No endeavour is in vain ;
Its reward is in the doing,
And the rapture of pursuing

Is the prize the vanquished gain.

THE BELLS OF LYNN,

HEARD AT NAHANT.

( CURFEW of the setting sun! O Bells of Lynn!

O requiem of the dying day! O Bells of Lynn !

From the dark belfries of yon cloudcathedral wafted,

Your sounds aerial seem to float, O Bells of Lynn !

Born on the evening wind across the crimson twilight,

O'er land and sea they rise and fall, O Bells of Lynn!

The fisherman in his boat, far out beyond the headland,

Listens, and leisurely rows ashore, O Bells of Lynn !

Over the shining sands the wandering cattle homeward

Follow each other at your call, O Bells of Lynn !

The distant lighthouse hears, and with his flaming signal

Answers you, passing the watchword on, O Bells of Lynn!

And down the darkening coast run the tumultuous surges,

And clap their hands, and shout to you, O Bells of Lynn!

Till from the shuddering sea, with your wild incantations,

Ye summon up the spectral moon, ()
Bells of Lynn!

And startled at the sight, like the weird
woman of Endor,
Ye cry aloud, and then are still, O
Bells of Lynn!

KILLED AT THE FORD.

HE is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honour, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call,
Whom all eyes followed with one con-
sent,

The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,

Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along
Down the dark of the mountain-gap,
To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,
He was humming the words of some
old song:

"Two red roses he had on his cap, And another he bore at the point of his sword."

Sudden and swift a whistling ball Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;

Something I heard in the darkness fall, And for a moment my blood grew chill;

I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks In a room where some one is lying dead;

But he made no answer to what I said.

We lifted him up to his saddle again, And through the mire and the mist and the rain

Carried him back to the silent camp,
And laid him as if asleep on his bed;
And I saw by the light of the surgeon's
lamp

Two white roses upon his cheeks,
And one, just over his heart, blood-red!

And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
That fatal bullet went speeding forth
Till it reached a town in the distant