Pride and humiliation hand in hand

Walked with them through the world where'er they went; Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,

And yet unshaken as the continent.

For in the background figures vague and vast

Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime, And all the great traditions of the Past

They saw reflected in the coming time.

And thus for ever with reverted look

The mystic volume of the world they read, Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,

Till life became a Legend of the Dead.

But ah! what once has been shall be no more!

The groaning earth in travail and in pain Brings forth its races, but does not restore,

And the dead nations never rise again.

VICTOR GALBRAITH.

UNDER the walls of Monterey
At day break the bugles began to play,

Victor Galbraith!
In the mist of the morning damp and grey,
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;
“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 grey
The sentinels hear the sound, and say,

“ That is the wraith
Of Victor Galbraith!”

DAYLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT.

IN broad daylight, and at noon,
Yesterday I saw the moon
Sailing high, but faint and white,
As a schoolboy's paper kite.
In broad daylight yesterday,
I read a Poet's mystic lay ;
And it seemed to me at most
As a phantom, or a ghost.
But at length the feverish day
Like a passion died away,

And the night, serene and still,
Fell on village, vale, and hill.
Then the moon, in all her pride,
Like a spirit glorified,
Filled and overflowed the night
With revelations of her light.

And the Poet's song again
Passed like music through my brain ;
Night interpreted to me
All its grace and mystery.

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 iny 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 bill;
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

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 throngh 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 schoolboy'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'a 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, | As the bucket mounts apace,
With its windows all a-row,

| With it mounts her own fair face, Like the port-holes of a hulk,

As at some magician's spell.
Human spiders spin and spin,
Backward down their threads so thin

Then an old man in a tower,

Ringing loud the noontide hour, Dropping, each a hempen bulk.

| While the rope coils round and round, At the end, an open door;

Like a serpent at his feet, Squares of sunshine on the floor And again, in swift retreat,

Light the long and dusky lane ; Nearly lifts him from the ground. And the whirring of a wheel,

Then within a prison-yard, Dull and drowsy, makes me feel

Faces fixed, and stern, and bard, All its spokes are in my brain.

Laughter and indecent mirth; As the spinners to the end

Ah! it is the gallows-tree;

Breath of Christian charity,
Downward go and reascend,
Gleam the long threads in the sun ;

Blow, and sweep it from the earth! While within this brain of mine Then a 'schoolboy, with his kite Cobwebs brighter and more fine

Gleaming in a sky of light, By the busy wheel are spun.

And an eager, upward look ; Two fair maidens in a swing,

Steeds pursued through lane and field;

Fowlers with their snares concealed;
Like white doves upon the wing,

And an angler by a brook.
First before my vision pass;
Laughing, as their gentle hands Ships rejoicing in the breeze,
Closely clasp the twisted strands, Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas,
At their shadow on the grass.

Anchors dragged through faithless

sand; Then a booth of mountebanks, Sea-fog drifting overhead, With its smell of tan and planks,

| And, with lessening line and lead, And a girl poised high in air

Sailors feeling for the land.
On a cord, in spangled dress,
With a faded loveliness,

| All these scenes do I behold, And a weary look of care.

These, and many left untold,

| In that building long and low; Then a homestead among farms, While the wheel goes round and round, And a woman with bare arms

With a drowsy, dreamy sound, Drawing water from a well ;

And the spinners backward go.

THE GOLDEN MILESTONE.

LEAFLESS are the trees; their purple branches
Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral,

Rising silent
In the Red Sea of the Winter sunset.