ON REVISITING STATEN ISLAND. Again ye fields, again ye woods and farms The night-blue sky is etched with dusky boughs The whisper spreads, from new-born larch to fir, Thence to the chestnut tender yet of bur, And now the fragrant blackberry on the moor Says the same word the white beech mutters o'er; A spice-birch on the fringes of the wood. Has lain in wait, has heard and understood; Tree-tops have sped the name to Prince's Bay! A 2ang. ALME MATRES. (ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865.) St. Andrews by the Northern Sea, The gray North Ocean girds it round, And o'er the rocks, and up the bay, The long sea-rollers surge and sound. And still the thin and biting spray Drives down the melancholy street, And still endure, and still decay, Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. Ghost-like and shadowy they stand O, ruined chapel, long ago We loitered idly where the tall Fresh-budded mountain-ashes blow Within thy desecrated wall: The tough roots broke the tomb below, The April birds sang clamorous, We did not dream, we could not know How soon the Fates would sunder us! O, broken minster, looking forth O, college of the scarlet gown, And stretch of links beyond the sand, And therefore art thou yet more dear, O, little city, gray and sere, Though shrunken from thine ancient pride And lonely by thy lonely sea, Than these fair halls on Isis' side, Where Youth an hour came back to me! A land of waters green and clear, And summer rides by marsh and wold, About the towers of Magdalen* rolled; And strange enchantments from the past, And memories of the friends of old, And strong Tradition, binding fast The "flying terms " with bands of gold,— All these hath Oxford: all are dear, But dearer far the little town, The drifting surf, the wintry year, * Pronounced "Maudlin." TWILIGHT ON TWEED. Three crests against the saffron sky, Of Tweed once more again. Wan water from the border hills, Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood A mist of memory broods and floats, The border waters flow; The air is full of ballad notes, Borne out of long ago. Old songs that sung themselves to me, * Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill, You tell me that the voice is still That should have welcomed me. HOMER. Homer, thy song men liken to the sea, With tides that wash the dim dominion Of Hades, and light waves that laugh in glee Thy verse seems as the River of source unknown That glasses Egypt's temples overthrown No wiser we than men of heretofore To find thy sacred fountains guarded fast; Enough, thy flood makes green our human shore, As Nilus Egypt, rolling down his vast His fertile flood, that murmurs evermore Of God's dethroned, and empires in the past. ROMANCE. My love dwelt in a Northern land. Was his, and far away the sand And gray wash of the waves was seen And through the Northern summer night |