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And he wandered away and away

With Nature, the dear old nurse,

Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,

She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale.

So she keeps him still a child,

And will not let him go

Though at times his heart beats wild

For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;

Though at times he hears in his dreams The Ranz des Vaches of old,

And the rush of mountain streams

From glaciers clear and cold;

And the mother at home says, “Hark!

For his voice I listen and yearn;

It is growing late and dark,

And my boy does not return!"

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In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,

In your thoughts the brooklets flow,

But in mine is the wind of Autumn,

And the first fall of the snow.

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And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing

In your sunny atmosphere.

For what are all our contrivings,

And the wisdom of our books,

When compared with your caresses,

And the gladness of your looks?

Ye are better than all the ballads

That ever were sung or said;

For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

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
Chaunt 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.

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