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 rumors of renown;

And alone the night-wind drear Clamors 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 endeavor is in vain ; Its reward is in the doing,

And the rapture of pursuing

Is the prize the vanquished gain."

THE BELLS OF LYNN

HEARD AT NAHANT

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 aerial 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 !

H

KILLED AT THE FORD

E is dead, the beautiful youth,

The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,

He, the life and light of us all,

Whose voice was 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 picket-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,

He was humming the words of some old song :

"Two red roses he had on his cap,

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

Sudden and swift a whistling ball

Came out of a 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 where some one is lying dead;
But he made no answer to what I said.