Find an answer in each heart;
But the mirth

Of this green earth

Laughed and revelled in his line.

From the alehouse and the inn,
Opening on the narrow street,
Came the loud, convivial din,
Singing and applause of feet,
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 GALBRAITH.

Written April 1, 1855. Mr. Longfellow found in a newspaper paragraph the fact upon which the poem was founded. "Victor Galbraith," he said in a note, when first publishing the poem,

66

was a bugler in a company of volunteer cavalry; and was shot in Mexico for some breach of discipline. It is a common superstition among soldiers, that no balls will kill them unless their names are written on them. The old proverb says, 'Every bul

let has its billet.'"

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 scath

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;
"Oh 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.

During one of his visits to Portland in 1846, Mr. Longfellow relates how he took a long walk round Munjoy's hill and down to the old Fort Lawrence. "I lay down," he says, "in one of the embrasures and listened to the lashing, lulling sound of the sea just at my feet. It was a beautiful afternoon, and the harbor was full of white sails, coming and departing. Meditated a poem on the Old Fort." It does not appear that any poem was then written, but the theme remained, and in 1855, when in Cambridge, he notes in his diary, March 29: 'A day of pain; cowering over the fire. At night, as I lie in bed, a poem comes into my mind, a memory of Portland, my native town, the city

by the sea.

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Siede la terra dove nato fui

Sulla marina.

"March 30. Wrote the poem; and am rather pleased with it, and with the bringing in of the two lines of the old Lapland song,

A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

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 sunrise 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