Playmates, old playmates, hear my invocation!
In the close town I waste this golden summer,
Where piercing cries and sounds of wheels in mo-
tion

Ceaselessly mingle.

When shall I feel your breath upon my forehead ? When shall I hear you in the elm-trees' branches? When shall we wrestle in the briny surges,

Friends of my boyhood?

Epes Sargent.

"THE EAGER SUN COMES GLADLY FROM

THE

THE SEA."

HE eager sun comes gladly from the sea;
Remembering that one short year ago

He rose from unknown worlds of light below
Those same far waves, to shine on you and me
Standing together on the shore ;-but we

Are strangely far apart to-day; and so

The saddened sun with lingering step and slow
Climbs the horizon, wondering not to see
Your face with mine; nor can he understand
As we do, dear, that you and I to-day,—
Though million miles of ocean or of land
And centuries of time between us lay,-
Are nearer to each other than when hand
Touched hand, before we gave our hearts away.
Alice W. Rollins.

THE VOICE OF THE SEA.

105

J

CHRYSAOR.

UST above yon sandy bar,

As the day grows fainter and dimmer, Lonely and lovely, a single star

Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.

Into the ocean faint and far

Falls the trail of its golden splendor,
And the gleam of that single star
Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.

Chrysaor rising out of the sea,

Showed thus glorious and thus cmulous, Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe,

Forever tender, soft, and tremulous.

Thus o'er the ocean faint and far

Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly;

Is it a God, or is it a star

That, entranced, I gaze on nightly!

I

H. W. Longfellow.

THE VOICE OF THE SEA.

N the hush of the autumn night

I hear the voice of the sea,
In the hush of the autumn night
It seems to say to me-
Mine are the winds above,
Mine are the caves below,
Mine are the dead of yesterday
And the dead of long ago!

A

And I think of the fleet that sailed
From the lovely Gloucester shore,
I think of the fleet that sailed

And came back nevermore !

T. B. Aldrich.

MY LIGHTHOUSES.

T westward window of a palace gray,
Which its own secret still so safely keeps

That no man now its builder's name can say,

I lie and idly sun myself to-day,

Dreaming awake far more than one who sleeps,
Serenely glad, although my gladness weeps.

I look across the harbor's misty blue,

And find and lose that magic shifting line

Where sky one shade less blue meets sea, and through

The air I catch one flush as if it knew

Some secret of that meeting, which no sign
Can show to eyes so far and dim as mine.

More ships than I can count build mast by mast
Gay lattice-work with waving green and red
Across my window panes. The voyage past,
They crowd to anchorage so glad, so fast,

Gliding like ghosts, with noiseless breath and tread,
Mooring like ghosts, with noiseless iron and lead.

"O ships and patient men who fare by sea,” I stretch my hands and vainly questioning cry, "Sailed ye from West? How many nights could ye Tell by the lights just where my dear and free

MY LIGHTHOUSES.

And lovely land lay sleeping? Passed ye by
Some danger safe, because her fires were nigh?"

Ah me! my selfish yearning thoughts forget
How darkness but a hand's breath from the coast
With danger in an evil league is set!

107

Ah! helpless ships and men more helpless yet,
Who trust the land-lights' short and empty boast;
The lights ye bear aloft and prayers avail ye most.

But I—ah, patient men who fare by sea,
Ye would but smile to hear this empty speech,—
I have such beacon lights to burn for me,
In that dear west so lovely, new and free,
That evil league by day, by night, can teach
No spell whose harm my little bark can reach.

No towers of stone uphold those beacon-lights;
No distance hides them, and no storm can shake;
In valleys they light up the darkest nights,
They outshine sunny days on sunny heights;
They blaze from every house where sleep or wake
My own who love me for my own poor sake.

Each thought they think of me lights road of flame
Across the seas; no travel on it tires
My heart. I go if they but speak my name;
From Heaven I should come and go the same,
And find this glow forestalling my desires.
My darlings do you hear me? Trim the fires!

H. H.

S

SONG.

WEET and low, sweet and low,

Wind of the western sea,

Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go;

Come from the dying moon, and blow,

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

Father will come to thee soon;

Rest, rest, on Mother's breast,

Father will come to thee soon;

Father will come to his babe in the nest :

Silver sails all out of the west

Under the silver moon :

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

HERE, MANY A TIME.

Tennyson.

HERE, many a time she must have walked,

The dull sand brightening 'neath her feet,

The cool air quivering as she talked,

Or laughed, or warbled sweet.

The shifting sand no trace of her,

No trace the wandering wind retains, But breaking where the footsteps were Loudly the sea complains.

Robert Weeks.