Once a convent, old and brown, Whose sunny gleam In that darksome mill of stone, Songs that fill That ancient mill With a splendor of its own. Never feeling of unrest Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed; Only made to be his nest, All the lovely valley seemed; No desire Of soaring higher Stirred or fluttered in his breast. True, his songs were not divine; Were not songs of that high art, Which, as winds do in the pine, Find an answer in each heart; Of this green earth Laughed and revelled in his line. From the alehouse and the inn, The laughing lays That in those days Sang the poet Basselin. In the castle, cased in steel, Knights, who fought at Agincourt, 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 GALBRAIΤΗ. 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; He who so well the bugle played, "Come forth to thy death, |