Sold in the market of Rome, to meet the expenses of Cesar.

And as I loitered, the Celt cried, ""Tind to your worruk, ye Dagos, Full up yer shovel, Paythro, ye haythen, I'll dock yees a quarther." This he said to the one who resembled the great Imperator;

Meekly the dignified Romau kept on patiently digging.

Such are the changes and chances the cen turies bring to the nations.

Surely, the ups and downs of this world are past calculation.

How the races troop o'er the stage in endless procession!

Persian, and Arab, and Greek, and Hun, and Roman, and Vandal,

Master the world in turn and then disappear in the darkness,

Leaving a remnant as hewers of wood and drawers of water.

"Possibly," this I thought to myself, "the yoke of the Irish

May in turn be lifted from us in the tenth generation.

Now the Celt is on top,- but time may bring his revenges,

Turning the Fenian down once more to be bossed by a Dago.""

THEN AND NOW

To me the earth once seemed to be
Most beautiful and fair;

All living creatures were to me,
In wood or air,

But kindred of a freer class;

I thrilled with keenest joy To find the young quail in the grass: I was a boy.

The robin in the apple-tree,

The brown thrush in the wood,
The meadow larks, all called to me;
I understood:

A sense of union with the whole,
Of love for beast and bird,
Deep chords from man's ancestral soul,
Each wild note stirred.

Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach

I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,-
One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry.
He starts not at my fitful song,

Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong;
He scans me with a fearless eye:
Staunch friends are we, well tried and
strong,

The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night

When the loosed storm breaks furiously? My driftwood fire will burn so bright!

To what warm shelter canst thou fly? I do not fear for thee, though wroth

The tempest rushes through the sky: For are we not God's children both, Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

SONG

WE sail toward evening's lonely star
That trembles in the tender blue;
One single cloud, a dusky bar,

Burnt with dull carmine through and through,

Slow smouldering in the summer sky,
Lies low along the fading west.
How sweet to watch its splendors die,
Wave-cradled thus and wind-caressed!

The soft breeze freshens, leaps the spray
To kiss our cheeks, with sudden cheer;
Upon the dark edge of the bay

Lighthouses kindle, far and near,
And through the warm deeps of the sky
Steal faint star-clusters, while we rest
In deep refreshment, thou and I,

Wave-cradled thus and wind-caressed.

How like a dream are earth and heaven,
Star-beam and darkness, sky and sea;
Thy face, pale in the shadowy even,
Thy quiet eyes that gaze on me!
O realize the moment's charm,

Thou dearest! we are at life's best, Folded in God's encircling arm,

Wave-cradled thus and wind-caressed.

And light green creeps the tender grass, thick-spreading far and near.

Every last year's stalk is set with brown or golden studs;

All the boughs of bayberry are thick with scented buds;

Islanded in turfy velvet, where the ferns uncurl,

Lo the large white duck's egg glimmers like a pearl!

Softly sing the billows, rushing, whispering low;

Freshly, oh, deliciously, the warm, wild wind doth blow!

Plaintive blent of new-washed lambs comes faint from far away; And clearly cry the little birds, alert and blithe and gay.

O happy, happy morning! O dear, familiar place!

O warm, sweet tears of Heaven, fast falling on my face!

O well-remembered, rainy wind, blow all

MY QUEEN1

He loves not well whose love is bold!
I would not have thee come too nigh:
The sun's gold would not seem pure gold
Unless the sun were in the sky;

To take him thence and chain him near
Would make his beauty disappear.

He keeps his state, - keep thou in thine,
And shine upon me from afar !
So shall I bask in light divine,

That falls from love's own guiding star;
So shall thy eminence be high,
And so my passion shall not die.

But all my life shall reach its hands
Of lofty longing toward thy face,
And be as one who speechless stands
In rapture at some perfect grace !
My love, my hope, my all shall be
To look to heaven and look to thee!

And through his heart the tremor ran of grief that cannot weep,

And he said, "My love was weary - God bless her! she's asleep."

THE NIGHT WATCH1
BENEATH the midnight moon of May,
Through dusk on either hand,
One sheet of silver spreads the bay,
One crescent jet the land;

The black ships mirrored in the stream
Their ghostly tresses shake-

When will the dead world cease to dream?
When will the morning break?

Beneath a night no longer May,
Where only cold stars shine,
One glimmering ocean spreads away
This haunted life of mine;

And, shattered on the frozen shore,
My harp can never wake-
When will this night of death be o'er?
When will the morning break?

ON THE VERGE'

OUT in the dark it throbs and glows The wide, wild sea, that no man knows! The wind is chill, the surge is white, And I must sail that sea to-night.

You shall not sail! The breakers roar
On many a mile of iron shore,
The waves are livid in their wrath,
And no man knows the ocean path.

I must not bide for wind or wave;
I must not heed, though tempest rave;
My course is set, my hour is known,
And I must front the dark, alone.

Your eyes are wild, your face is pale, –
This is no night for ships to sail!
The hungry wind is moaning low,
The storm is up— you shall not go !

'Tis not the moaning wind you hear -
It is a sound more dread and drear,
A voice that calls across the tide,
A voice that will not be denied.

Copyright, 1895, by MACMILLAN & Co.