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:

66 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 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

Come over me like a chill;

song

"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'er shadow 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 fain,
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."

Henry W. Longfellow.

*166*

MY PLAYMATE.

The pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home,

And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine;
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May:
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns
But she came back no more.

I walk with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years;

Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.

There haply with her jewelled hands
She smooths her silken gown,—
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.

The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nuts on the hill,

And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,-
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice;
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?

What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours,-
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time;
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.

The winds so sweet with birch and fern
A sweeter memory blow;

And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.

And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,-

The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee.

* 167 *

GLENARA.

John G. Whittier.

O heard ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale,
Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail?
'Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear;
And her sire, and the people, are called to her bier.

Glenara came first with the mourners and shroud;
Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud:
Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around;
They march'd all in silence,—they look'd on the ground.

In silence they reached over mountain and moor,
To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar:
"Now here let us place the grey stone of her cairn;
Why speak ye no word ?"-said Glenara the stern.

"And tell me, I charge you! ye clan of my spouse,
Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows? "
So spake the rude chieftain: no answer is made:
But each mantle unfolding a dagger displayed.