From their distant flight

Through realms of light

It falls into our world of night,

With the murmuring sound of rhyme.

THE OPEN WINDOW.

THE old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravelled pathway
The light and shadow played.

I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air;

But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there.

The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door;
He looked for his little playmates,
Who would return no more.

They walked not under the lindens,
They played not in the hall;

But shadow, and silence, and sadness,
Were hanging over all.

The birds sang in the branches

With sweet, familiar tone;

But the voices of the children

Will be heard in dreams alone!

And the boy that walked beside me,
He could not understand

Why closer in mine, ah! closer,

I pressed his warm, soft hand!

KING WITLAF'S DRINKING-HORN.

WITLAF, a king of the Saxons,
Ere yet his last he breathed,
To the merry monks of Croyland
His drinking-horn bequeathed,-

That, whenever they sat at their revels,
And drank from the golden bowl,

They might remember the donor,
And breathe a prayer for his soul.

So sat they once at Christmas,
And bade the goblet pass;

In their beards the red wine glistened,
Like dew-drops in the grass.

They drank to the soul of Witlaf,
They drank to Christ the Lord,
And to each of the Twelve Apostles,
Who had preached his holy word.

They drank to the Saints and Martyrs
Of the dismal days of yore,

And as soon as the horn was empty
They remembered one Saint more.

And the reader droned from the pulpit,
Like the murmur of many bees,
The legend of good Saint Guthlac,
And Saint Basil's homilies;

Till the great bells of the convent,
From their prison in the tower,
Guthlac and Bartholomæus,

Proclaimed the midnight hour.

And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney, And the Abbot bowed his head,

And the flamelets flapped and flickered, But the Abbot was stark and dead.

Yet still in his pallid fingers

He clutched the golden bowl,

In which, like a pearl dissolving,
Had sunk and dissolved his soul.

M

But not for this their revels

The jovial monks forbore,

For they cried, "Fill high the goblet!
We must drink to one Saint more !"

GASPAR BECERRA.

By his evening fire the artist
Pondered o'er his secret shame;

Baffled, weary, and disheartened,

Still he mused, and dreamed of fame.

'Twas an image of the Virgin

That had tasked his utmost skill;

But, alas! his fair ideal

Vanished and escaped him still.

From a distant eastern island

Had the precious wood been brought ;
Day and night the anxious master
At his toil untiring wrought;

Till, discouraged and desponding,
Sat he now in shadows deep,

And the day's humiliation

Found oblivion in sleep.

Then a voice cried, "Rise, O master!
From the burning brand of oak

Shape the thought that stirs within thee !"
And the startled artist woke,—

Woke, and from the smoking embers

Seized and quenched the glowing wood;

And therefrom he carved an image,
And he saw that it was good.

O thou sculptor, painter, poet!
Take this lesson to thy heart:
That is best which lieth nearest ;
Shape from that thy work of art.

PEGASUS IN POUND.

ONCE into a quiet village,

Without haste and without heed,
In the golden prime of morning,
Strayed the poet's winged steed.

It was Autumn, and incessant

Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves,

And, like living coals, the apples

Burned among the withering leaves.