Come back, O ghostly mariners, "Hail and farewell, O voyager! Thyself must read the waves; What we have learned of sun and storm What we have learned of sun and storm Is ours alone to know. The winds are blowing out to sea, Take up thy life and go." Ellen M. Hutchinson. C COME BACK. OME back, come back, across the flying foam, We hear faint far-off voices call us home; Come back, ye seem to say; ye seek in vain ; We went, we sought, and homeward turned again. Come back, come back. Come back, come back; and whither back or why? To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try; Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street; Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete. Come back, come back. "THE NINETEENTH CENTURY." 45 Come back, come back; and whither and for what? Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, Come back, come back! Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back; The long smoke wavers on the homeward track, Back fly with winds things which the winds obey, The strong ship follows its appointed way. A. H. Clough. PREFATORY SONNET TO "THE NINE- HOSE that of late had flitted far and fast Of diverse tongue, but with a common will In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt. Tennyson. MOUNTAIN-TOP. I STAND on high, Close to the sky, Kissed by unsullied lips of light; Fanned by soft airs That seem like prayers Floating to God through ether bright. The emerald lands, With love-clasped hands, In smiling peace below outspread ; Around me rise The amber skies, A dome of glory o'er my head. Wind-swept and bare The fields of air Give the weaned eagles room for play; On mightier wing My soul doth spring To unseen summits far away. C. G. Ames. A A DAY ON THE HILLS. DAY on the hills!-true king am I In my solitude public to earth and sky: Fret inhales not this atmosphere; Winged thoughts only can follow here : 47 SUNDAY ON THE HILL-TOP. Folly and falsehood and babble stay In the ground-smoke somewhere far away, In the narrow street: Who cares what all the newspapers say? W. Allingham. SUNDAY ON THE HILL-TOP. NLY ten miles from the city, ΟΝ And how I am lifted away To the peace that passeth knowing, All alone on the hill-top, The river's laugh in the valley, Eternities past and future Seem clinging to all I see, That pebble is older than Adam ; These rocks-they cry out history, Could I but listen well. That pool knows the ocean-feeling The sun finds its east and west therein, That lichen's crinkled circle Still creeps with the Life Divine, Where the Holy Spirit loitered On its way to this face of mine,— On its way to the shining faces I can hear these violets' chorus On the bosom of Infinite Love. I, I am a part of the poem ; Of its every sight and sound: Oh the peace at the heart of Nature! W. C. Gannett. |