We revel in their visions,

And we love the songs they sing, When they strike the harp of glory Like the Israelitish king.

They have read the starry heavens
These diviners of the stars-
Read Uranus and the Pleiades,
And the fiery planet Mars;
They have soared among the planets,
They have swept the fields of Time;
They have soared up in the spirit—
Bards heroic and sublime!

And they gather from the planets,

Where their spirit-feet have trod, Light and supernal wisdom,

And a lucid proof of God;

And feel the truth eternal

O'er their yearning spirits steal,

That the Real is the Ideal,

That the Ideal is the Real!

They come, like John the Baptist,
In the wilderness of Thought,
Preaching in the world's Judea
What the holy Teacher taught;
They come with lips of wisdom,

And they strike the sounding lyre-Lips radiant with the glow of love And high prophetic fire.

They summon white-browed Helen
From the old-forgotten strife,
And Platea's men, and Marathon's,
To the vestibule of life.

We see the glittering of the steel
Under the Latian stars,

The backs of the Roman eagles,

And the red, round shield of Mars.

They tell of brave old legends,

Legends of the priestly age; Of ladye fair, with golden hair, Courtly peer and gentle page. We see the knights and barons, Coming forth in martial line, And Richard of the Lion-heart On the plains of Palestine.

We mark the pennon and the plume,
We see the shivering lance,
And Cressy with its bowmen,

And the troubadours of France.
We mark the knights of Chevy Chase,
We see the banners fly,

And the royal Stuart riding down
To Flodden Hill to die.

Ah! the Past with all its visions
Comes before us in its prime-

All the olden, golden glory
Of the golden, olden time.
Thus in high heroic measure,
And in high heroic truth,
Live the bards throughout all ages,
In the quenchless fire of youth.

Unlike the men who speak alone
For the passing things of time,
The bards speak for all ages

In the lofty words of rhyme.
Not for the coming morrow,
Not for the brief to-day,

Stir the bards the harp's wild pulses, Sing the bards their noble lay.

And they die not, these heroic bards,
They live on with the stars,
With Uranus and the Pleiades,
And the fiery planet Mars.

They are spirits of Earth and Aiden,
Earth and Aiden hear them sing,
When they strike the harp of glory,
Like the Israelitish king.

AT NIGHTFALL

By ALBERT PHELPS

[Atlantic Monthly, July, 1899.]

Sunk is the sun behind the western trees;
And the long shadows melt into the dusk;
The garden-flowers look palely from hushed leaves,
Scenting the breeze with heavy-laden sweets.

Sleep.

Now falls the night, down-sifting through the air Lulled waftures of soft-dripping silences;

And slumber-breathing darkness shrouds thine eyes. Sleep.

The idle hands lie folded in the lap,
Forgetting the long travail of the day;
The playthings we call work are all put by;
And all the rankling of the bitter world,
Like a dull snake, coils up itself to sleep;
And peace falls, like a flutter of white doves.
Sleep.

For sin and pain and passion and all ills
That tear the unshielded weakness of our souls;
The power that bids us suffer gives us sleep;
And he that says he has no faith lies down,
And in all faith resigns his soul to sleep;
Sure of the morning and the light again,
Forth ebbs the soul upon the tide of dreams.
Sleep.

And all alike are folded in one love;

And all alike are guided by one will;

And on each heart fall the cool dews of rest.
Sleep.

Love, thou art weary, and thine eyes are wet.
Sleep.

ABSENCE

By LUCIEN V. RULE

['The Shrine of Love and Other Poems,' 1898.]

The western skies are starless now;
No beauty's beacon sweet,

When evening comes, smiles softly down
Where happy lovers meet.

Thus from the heavens of my heart
I miss a tender light:

For she my song, and hope, and cheer.
Is far from me to-night.

CONSTANCY

By LUCIEN V. RULE

['The Shrine of Love and Other Poems,' 1898.]

I love thee when the morning hours
Are joyous, fresh, and new;

I love thee when the noontide calm
Descends the forest through.

I love thee when the sunset skies,
Aflame with glory, burn;

I love thee when the twilight birds
Back to their nests return.

I love thee when the silvery moon
Smiles down on vale and hill;
I love thee when the midnight stars
Are glowing far and still.

I love thee when the dawning east
Proclaims the darkness o'er;

Ah, sweetheart, wouldst thou know the truth?
I love thee evermore.

THE MOTHER'S SONG

By JAMES T. SMITH

['The Louisiana Book,' 1894.]

There lay an atom in a darksome tomb,
And there it grew till in periods nine
It came from its hiding-place of gloom—
A lovely babe with a face divine;

And it cried when it came from its lurking-place,
For it feared to look on its father's face.

But when it gazed all the couch around,

And saw the kind faces that greeted it there, Its father, its mother, its brother it found,

The grandmother, too, with her silvery hairIt laughed; and its mother, to hear its voice, That a man had been born did rejoice, rejoice.

And the babe it grew, grew to a man,

And it looked on the garniture spread for the earth; The forests, the rivers, the mountains, he'd scan;

And he said, Yes, I feared on the day of my birth, But now I rejoice that I was brought from the womb, That terrible place of the darkness and gloom.

Yet he knew not then that his soul had been made

To find yet a higher and higher doom,

Till the vision at night came to him and said,
This world, O man, is thy second womb,

And thou must be born to another place
Before thou canst look on thy Father's face,