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 gray
The sentinels hear the sound, and say,

"That is the wraith

Of Victor Galbraith!"

CHILDREN.

COME to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,
That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows,
And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklet's flow;
But in mine is the wind of Autumn,
And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us,
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.

What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,

Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood,—
That to the world are children;

Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

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 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 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 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'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;

This was the engagement between the Enterprise and Boxer, off the harbour of Portland, in which both captains were slain. They were buried side by side, in the cemetery on Mountjoy.

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."

SANTA FILOMENA.

["At Pisa the church of San Francisco contains a chapel dedicated lately to Santa Filomena; over the altar is a picture, by Sabatelli, representing the Saint as a beautiful, nymph-like figure, floating down from heaven, attended by two angels, bearing the lily, palm, and javelin, and beneath, in the foreground, the sick and maimed, who are healed by her intercession."-Mrs JAMESON, Sacred and Legendary Art, ii, 298.]

WHENE'ER a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal waves of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares.

Honour to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,

And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,

The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,-
The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery

A lady with a lamp I see

Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls

Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,

The light shone and was spent.
On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.

SANDALPHON.

HAVE you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,-
Have you read it, the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?
How, erect at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light, That, crowded with angels unnumbered, By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder

By music they throb to express. But serene in the rapturous throng, Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow, Among the dead angels, the deathless Sandalphon stands listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below;

From the spirits on earth that adore, From the souls that entreat and implore