They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.

All their lives long, with the unleavened bread
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears,
The wasting famine of the heart they fed,

And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.

Anathema maranatha! was the cry

That rang from town to town, from street to street; At every gate the accursed Mordecai

Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.

Pride and humiliation hand in hand

Walked with them through the world where'er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.

For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,
And all the great traditions of the Past
They saw reflected in the coming time.

And thus for ever with reverted look

The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a Legend of the Dead.

But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.

OLIVER BASSELIN.78

IN the Valley of the Vire
Still is seen an ancient mill,
With its gables quaint and queer,
And beneath the window sill,
On the stone,

These words alone:

"Oliver Basselin lived here."

Far above it, on the steep,

Ruined stands the old Château;

Nothing but the donjon-keep
Left for shelter or for show.
Its vacant eyes

Stare at the skies,

Stare at the valley green and deep.

Once a convent, old and brown,
Looked, but ah! it looks no more,
From the neighbouring hillside down
On the rushing and the roar
Of the stream

Whose sunny gleam

Cheers the little Norman town.

In that darksome mill of stone,
To the water's dash and din,
Careless, humble, and unknown,
Sang the poet Basselin,
Songs that fill

That ancient mill

With a splendour of its own.

Never feeling of unrest

Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed;

Only made to be his nest,

All the lovely valley seemed:

No desire

Of soaring higher

Stirred or fluttered in his breast

True, his songs were not divine;
Were not songs of that high art,
Which as winds do in the pine,
Find an answer in each heart;
But the mirth

Of this green earth
Laughed and revelled in his line.

From the alehouse and the inn,
Opening on the narrow street,
Came the loud, convivial din,
Singing and applause of feet,
The laughing lays

That in those days

Sang the poet Basselin.

In the castle, cased in steel,

Knights, who fought at Agincourt,
Watched and waited spur on heel;
But the poet sang for sport
Songs that rang
Another clang,

Songs that lowlier hearts could feel.

In the convent, clad in gray,
Sat the monks in lonely cells,
Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray,
And the poet heard their bells;
But his rhymes

Found other chimes,

Nearer to the earth than they.

Gone are all the barons bold,

Gone are all the knights and squires,
Gone the abbot stern and cold,
And the brotherhood of friars;
Not a name

Remains to fame,

From those mouldering days of old!
But the poet's memory here

Of the landscape makes a part;
Like the river, swift and clear,

Flows his song through many a heart
Haunting still

That ancient mill,

In the Valley of the Vire.

VICTOR GALBRAITH.79

UNDER the walls of Monterey

At daybreak the bugles began to play,
Victor Galbraith!

In the mist of the morning damp and gray,
These were the words they seemed to say:
"Come forth to thy death,

Victor Galbraith!"

Forth he came, with a martial tread;
Firm was his step, erect his head;
Victor Galbraith,

He who so well the bugle played,
Could not mistake the words it said:
"Come forth to thy death,

Victor Galbraith!"

He looked at the earth, he looked at the sky,
He looked at the files of musketry,

Victor Galbraith!

And he said, with a steady voice and eye, "Take good aim; I am ready to die!"

Thus challenges death

Victor Galbraith.

Twelve fiery tongues flashed straight and red,
Six laden balls on their errand sped;

Victor Galbraith

Falls to the ground, but he is not dead;
His name was not stamped on those balls of lead,
And they only scathe

Victor Galbraith.

Three balls are in his breast and brain,
But he rises out of the dust again,

Victor Galbraith!

The water he drinks has a bloody stain
"O kill me, and put me out of my pain!"

In his agony prayeth
Victor Galbraith.

Forth dart once more those tongues of flame,
And the bugler has died the death of shame,
Victor Galbraith!

His soul has gone back to whence it came,
And no one answers to the name,

When the Sergeant saith,
"Victor Galbraith!"

Under the wall of Monterey

By night a bugle is heard to play
Victor Galbraith!

Through the mist of the valley damp and gray
The sentinels hear the sound, and say,

"That is the wraith
Of Victor Galbraith!"

MY LOST YOUTH.

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 listens still :

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

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;

And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.

And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:

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

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

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,

And the fort upon the hill;

The sun-rise 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 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, 80
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 neighbourhoods.

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.

66

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,

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."