From a Hillside.

THE black procession wound below;
I, perched amid the heather's glow,
Half dazed with sunlight and excess
Of life and of life's loveliness,
Saw that slow shadow sadly pass
Across the sloping hill-side grass,

And heard the bell, with measured tongue,
Toll for the dead that died too young.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

Poor passionate hearts, what aching trust
Was yours, what heaviness of woe!
"I am the Resurrection," so

The words fell softly," and the Life."
Safe harboured from our human strife
She lay, close-wrapped in painless rest,
Poor tired brain, sweet virgin breast.

And still the heather shook and glowed,
And still the seeding thistle snowed
Its down upon the burning sand.

And still I saw, on every hand,

Life spring from death, and death seem good In one embracive fatherhood.

Westward.

I KNOW a western dell where springtime flushes
The cool green floor with gold, the banks with blue;
I know a dell of dreams where wayward thrushes
Sing all the mad day through.

There daffodils, gold-gowned, bow all together

Like queens encompassed by great lords of state; There primrose stars shine clear in clearing weather, There violets crowd the gate.

And when the west blows all these shine and shimme
Beneath wet skies and flying gleams of sun;
And when the south blows all these glow and glimmer,
A million lives as one.

There the slow ebb of silence falls and lingers;
There the full tide of music leaps and sings;
There the great lyrist Spring with master-fingers
Touches melodious strings.

All the world's peace and music there lie hidden;
All the world's heart that no false light beguiles;
It is a place where smiles and tears unchidden
Are friends with tears and smiles.

I know a dell of dreams, remote and lonely,
Far westward, in a land of seas and streams;
The wind blows west to-day-ah, is it only,
Only a dell of dreams?

Heights and Depths.

He walked in glory on the hills;
We dalesmen envied from afar
The heights and rose-lit pinnacles

Which placed him nigh the evening star.

Upon the peaks they found him dead;
And now we wonder if he sighed
For our low grass beneath his head,
For our rude huts, before he died.

The Comrades.

IN solitary rooms, when dusk is falling,

I hear from fields beyond the haunted mountains, Beyond the unrepenetrable forests,

I hear the voices of my comrades calling "Home! home! home!"

Strange ghostly voices, when the dusk is falling,
Come from the ancient years; and I remember
The schoolboy shout, from plain and wood and
river,

The signal-cry of scattered comrades, calling
"Home! home! home!"

And home we wended when the dusk was falling; The pledged companions, talking, laughing, singing; Home through the grey French country, no one missing.

And now I hear the old-time voices calling "Home! home! home!"

I pause and listen while the dusk is falling;

My heart leaps back through all the long estrange

ment

Of changing faith, lost hopes, paths disenchanted; And tears drop as I hear the voices calling

"Home! home! home!"

I hear you while the dolorous dusk is falling;
I sigh your names-the living-the departed!
O vanished comrades, is it yours the poignant
Pathetic note among the voices calling
"Home! home! home?"

Call, and still call me, for the dusk is falling.
Call, for I fain, I fain would come, but cannot.
Call, as the shepherd calls upon the moorland.
Though mute, with beating heart I hear your calling,
"Home! home! home!"