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,

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,

Arc 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 areams 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."

THE ROPEWALK.

IN that building, long and low, With its windows all a-row,

Like the port-holes of a hulk, Human spiders spin and spin, Backward down their threads so thin Dropping each a hempen bulk.

At the end, an open door;
Squares of sunshine on the floor

Light the long and dusky lane;
And the whirring of a wheel,
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel
All its spokes are in my brain.

As the spinners to the end
Downward go and reascend,
Gleam the long threads in the sun;
While within this brain of mine
Cobwebs brighter and more fine

By the busy wheel are spun.

Two fair maidens in a swing, Like white doves upon the wing,

First before my vision pass; Laughing, as their gentle hands Closely clasp the twisted strands, At their shadow on the grass.

Then a booth of mountebanks, With its smell of tan and planks,

And a girl poised high in air On a cord, in spangled dress, With a faded loveliness,

And a weary look of care.

Then a homestead among farms, And a woman with bare arms

Drawing water from a well; As the bucket mounts apace, With it mounts her own fair face, As at some magician's spell.

Then an old man in a tower,
Ringing loud the noontide hour,

While the rope coils round and round

Like a serpent at his feet,

And again, in swift retreat,
Nearly lifts him from the ground.

Then within a prison-yard,
Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,
Laughter and indecent mirth;
Ah! it is the gallows-tree!
Breath of Christian charity,

Blow, and sweep it from the earth!

Then a schoolboy, with his kite
Gleaming in a sky of light,

And an eager, upward look;
Steeds pursued through lane and field;
Fowlers with their snares concealed;
And an angler by a brook.

Ships rejoicing in the breeze,
Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas,
Anchors dragged through faithless
sand;

Sea-fog drifting overhead,

And, with lessening line and lead,
Sailors feeling for the land.

All these scenes do I behold,
These, and many left untold,

In that building long and low; While the wheel goes round and round, With a drowsy, dreamy sound,

And the spinners backward go.

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,

Like the Afreet in the Arabian story, Smoky columns

Tower aloft into the air of amber.

Every distance

fire-light;

around him.