that any poem was then written, but the theme remained, and in 1855, when in Cambridge, he notes in his diary, March 29: "A day of pain; cowering over the fire. At night, as I lie in bed, a poem comes into my mind, a memory of Portland, · my native town, the city by the sea.

Siede la terra dove nato fui

Sulla marina.

"March 30. Wrote the poem; and am rather pleased with it, and with the bringing in of the two lines of the old Lapland song,

A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

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 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 neighborhoods.

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 school-boy'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,

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,

Then a homestead among farms, And a woman with bare arms

Drawing water from a well; As the bucket mounts apace, With it mounts her own fair face, As at some magician's spell.

Then an old man in a tower,
Ringing loud the noontide hour,
While the rope coils round and round
Like a serpent at his feet,
And again, in swift retreat,

Nearly lifts him from the ground.

Then within a prison-yard,
Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,
Laughter and indecent mirth;
Ah! it is the gallows-tree!
Breath of Christian charity,

Blow, and sweep it from the earth!

Then a school-boy, with his kite
Gleaming in a sky of light,

And an eager, upward look;

Steeds pursued through lane and field Fowlers with their snares concealed;

And an angler by a brook.

;

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.