Watched and waited, spur on heel;
But the poet sang for sport
Songs that rang
Another clang,

Songs that lowlier hearts could feel.

In the convent, clad in gray,
Sat the monks in lonely cells,
Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray,
And the poet heard their bells;
But his rhymes

Found other chimes,

Nearer to the earth than they.

Gone are all the barons bold,

Gone are all the knights and squires,
Gone the abbot stern and cold,
And the brotherhood of friars;
Not a name

Remains to fame,

From those mouldering days of old!

But the poet's memory here

Of the landscape makes a part;
Like the river, swift and clear,

Flows his song through many a heart;
Haunting still

That ancient mill,

In the Valley of the Vire.

VICTOR GALBRAITH.

UNDER the walls of Monterey
At daybreak the bugles began to play,
Victor Galbraith!

In the mist of the morning damp and gray, These were the words they seemed to say: "Come forth to thy death,

Victor Galbraith!

Forth he came, with a martial tread;
Firm was his step, erect his head;
Victor Galbraith,

He who so well the bugle played,
Could not mistake the words it said:
"Come forth to thy death,
Victor Galbraith!

He looked at the earth, he looked at the sky,
He looked at the files of musketry,

Victor Galbraith!

And he said, with a steady voice and eye, "Take good aim; I am ready to die!" Thus challenges death

Victor Galbraith.

Twelve fiery tongues flashed straight and red,
Six leaden balls on their errand sped;

Victor Galbraith

Falls to the ground, but he is not dead;
His name was not stamped on those balls of lead,
And they only scathe

Victor Galbraith.

Three balls are in his breast and brain,
But he rises out of the dust again,

Victor Galbraith!

The water he drinks has a bloody stain;
"O kill me, and put me out of my pain!"
In his agony prayeth

Victor Galbraith.

Forth dart once more those tongues of flame,
And the bugler has died a death of shame,
Victor Galbraith!

His soul has gone back to whence it came,
And no one answers to the name,
When the Sergeant saith,
"Victor Galbraith!"

Under the walls of Monterey

By night a bugle is heard to play,

Victor Galbraith!

Through the mist of the valley damp and gray The sentinels hear the sound, and say,

"That is the wraith

Of Victor Galbraith!"

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 comes 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 sun-rise 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 school-boy'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, 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."

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!