Across the meadows, by the grey old manse,
The historic river flowed;-

I was as one who wanders in a trance,
Unconscious of his road.

The faces of familiar friends seemed strange;

Their voices I could hear,

And yet the words they uttered seemed to change
Their meaning to the ear.

For the one face I looked for was not there,

The one low voice was mute;

Only an unseen presence filled the air,

And baffled my pursuit.

Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream,

Dimly my thought defines;

I only see a dream within a dream

The hill-top hearsed with pines.

I only hear above his place of rest

Their tender undertone,

The infinite longings of a troubled breast,
The voice so like his own.

There in seclusion and remote from men

The wizard hand lies cold,

Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,

And left the tale half told.

Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,

And the lost clue regain?

The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower,
Unfinished must remain!

THE BELLS OF LYNN.

HEARD AT NAHANT.

O CURFEW of the setting sun! O Bells of Lynn!
O requiem of the dying day! O Bells of Lynn!

From the dark belfries of yon cloud-cathedral wafted,
Your sounds aërial seem to float, O Bells of Lynn!
Borne on the evening wind across the crimson twilight,
O'er land and sea they rise and fall, O Bells of Lynn!
The fisherman in his boat, far out beyond the headland,
Listens, and leisurely rows ashore, O Bells of Lynn!

Over the shining sands the wandering cattle homeward
Follow each other at your call, O Bells of Lynn!

The distant lighthouse hears, and with his flaming signal
Answers you, passing the watchword on, O Bells of Lynn!
And down the darkening coast run the tumultuous surges,
And clap their hands, and shout to you, O Bells of Lynn!
Till from the shuddering sea, with your wild incantations,
Ye summon up the spectral moon, O Bells of Lynn!

And startled at the sight, like the weird woman of Endor,
Ye cry aloud, and then are still, O Bells of Lynn!

Sings the blackened log a tune
Learned in some forgotten June
From a schoolboy in his play,
When they both were young together,
Heart of youth and summer weather
Making all their holiday.

And the night-wind rising, hark!
How above there in the dark,

In the midnight and the snow,
Ever wilder, fiercer, grander,
Like the trumpets of Iskander,
All the noisy chimneys blow!

Every quivering tongue of flame
Seems to murmur some great name,
Seems to say to me, "Aspire!"
But the night-wind answers,-" Hollow
Are the visions that you follow;
Into darkness sinks your fire!"

Then the flicker of the blaze
Gleams on volumes of old days,
Written by masters of the art,
Loud through whose majestic pages
Rolls the melody of ages,

Throb the harp-strings of the heart.

And again the tongues of flame

Start exulting and exclaim,

"These are prophets, bards, and seers;

In the horoscope of nations,

Like ascendant constellations,

They control the coming years."

But the night-wind cries,-" Despair!
Those who walk with feet of air
Leave no long-enduring marks;

At God's forges incandescent
Mighty hammers beat incessant,
These are but the flying sparks.

"Dust are all the hands that wrought;
Books are sepulchres of thought;
The dead laurels of the dead
Rustle for a moment only,

Like the withered leaves in lonely
Churchyards at some passing tread."

Suddenly the flame sinks down;
Sink the rumours of renown;

And alone the night-wind drear
Clamours louder, wilder, vaguer,
""Tis the brand of Meleager
Dying on the hearth-stone here!"

And I answer,-"Though it be,
Why should that discomfort me?
No endeavour is in vain;

Its reward is in the doing,

And the rapture of pursuing

Is the prize the vanquished gain."

Envoyé à M. Agassiz, la veille de Noël, 1864, avec un panier de vins divers.

Ils arrivent trois à trois,

Montent l'escalier de bois
Clopin-clopant! quel gendarme
Peut permettre ce vacarme,
Bons amis,

À la porte d'Agassiz!

"Ouvrez donc, mon bon Seigneur, Ouvrez vite et n'ayez peur; Ouvrez, ouvrez, car nous sommes

Gens de bien et gentilshommes,
Bons amis,

De la famille Agassiz."

Chut, ganaches! taisez-vous !
C'en est trop de vos glouglous
Épargnez aux Philosophes
Vos abominables strophes!
Bons amis,

Respectez mon Agassiz!

KILLED AT THE FORD.

He is dead, the beautiful youth,

The heart of honour, the tongue of truth,—
He, the life and light of us all,

Whose voice was as blithe as a bugle call
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,

The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,

To visit the picquet-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,

He was humming the words of some old
"Two red roses he had on his cap,

song:

And another he bore at the point of his sword."

Sudden and swift a whistling ball

Came out of the wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill:
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a room when some one is lying dead;
But he made no answer to what I said.

We lifted him on his saddle again,

And through the mire, and the mist, and the rain
Carried him back to the silent camp,

And laid him as if asleep on his bed;

And I saw, by the light of the surgeon's lamp,

Two white roses upon his cheeks,

And one just over his heart blood-red!

And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
Till it reached a town in the distant North,
Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat