Home friends and far-off hospitalities,

And filled with gracious and memorial fame
Lands loved of summer or washed by violent seas,
Towns populous and many unfooted ways,

And alien lips and native with their own.

But when white age and venerable death

Mow down the strength and life within their limbs,
Drain out the blood and darken their clear eyes,
Immortal honour is on them, having past
Through splendid life and death desirable
To the clear seat and remote throne of souls,
Lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of west,
Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea
Rolls without wind for ever, and the snow
There shows not her white wings and windy feet,
Nor thunder nor swift rain saith anything,
Nor the sun burns, but all things rest and thrive;
And these, filled full of life, divine and dead,
Sages and singers, fiery from the god,

And such as loved their land and all things good
And, best beloved of best men, liberty,

Free lives and lips, free hands of men free-born,
And whatsoever on earth was honourable
And whosoever of all the ephemeral seed,
Live there a life no liker to the gods
But nearer than their life of terrene days.
Love thou such life and look for such a death.

Human

SAMUEL WADDINGTON

ACROSS the trackless skies thou may'st not

wander;

Thou may'st not tread the infinite beyond;
In peace possess thy soul, reflect and ponder,
Full brief thy gaze tho' Nature's magic wand
Light up an universe, and bid thee wonder!
What though beyond the sea there may be land
Where grows the vine, where blooms the oleander,
Where verdure gleams amid the desert sand,—
Yet not for thee those foreign, fertile spaces,
Remote, unseen, unknown, though known to be !
Thy home is here, and here beloved faces
Make sweet and fair the home and heart of thee;
Thy home is here, and here thy heart embraces
Life's joy and hope, love, truth, and liberty!

To One in Town

COME back, come back, 'tis Nature bids you

come !

Come back once more to tarn and tangled wood,— Come back to glen, and stream, and torrent

flood,

Come back, and 'mid the woodlands make your home :

Too long you quit the birds, the flowers, the dome Of forest-boughs, the dell, where once you stood Life-thrilled, and living knew that life was good ; Too long you miss the bees, the busy hum

Of painted bodies, and the ceaseless stir

Of wings, the sounds, the joy, the passing whirr Of drone, or dragon-fly,—these, these are thine, And yet you have them not,-what have you then?

The dusky shapes, and care-worn ways of men : Come back, come back, to Nature and her shrine !

Nature's Voices

THE

HE bee goes humming 'mid the honeyed bells;
The bird of morning, as he upward soars,

High at the gate of Paradise outpours

His matin melody; the breezy dells

Are carol-haunted; hark, the cuckoo tells

Of faery worlds unseen; past cottage doors The rill runs whispering, while full loudly roars The thundering torrent down the echoing fells.

And these are Nature's voices, these the choir
That bid the poet join their band and sing;
Thrice-happy choristers, no poet's lyre

Should mar the rapture that your voices bring: Sing on, O sing, and let our sole desire

Be, at your feet, to still lie listening.

Nature

THIS

'HIS mount shall be our fane, a holy place! No acolyte shall swing the thurible,

Nor whispering worshipper his rosary tell ; No priest shall here stand robed in lawn and lace; But the Eternal shall look down through space, And we will gaze and wonder :-it is well! Here where the heath-flower and the wild thyme dwell,

How sweet is life, how fair, how full of grace !

In place of prayer we'll chant our joyous praise,
And with glad voices sing in Nature's choir :
These lines of fir shall see on Sabbath-days
Our faces flushing with our heart's desire,
As up the mountain-side, through wooded ways,
We seek that peace to which our souls aspire.

Wood-Wanderings

(Summer)

T is the heat of summer, and I lie

Couched, by the rillet's brink, on mosses green;
Here 'neath the leafy forest's tangled screen

So cool it is and quiet Time flits by

On noiseless wing where hamadryads sigh,Where hyacinth and wind-flower bloom between The ancient boles of elms, and where unseen

Trim fairies trip in moonlit revelry.
Here kindly Nature to each wandering child
Bids gracious welcome to her forest-shrine;
'Come ye', she cries, 'ye still unreconciled,

Come ye, and gather roses, and be mine;
See, here are orchids, and here's eglantine,
And young buds peeping where the spring has
smiled.'

On the Heights

ERE where the heather blooms

HE

'Neath the blue skies,

Here let us rest awhile,

What if time flies,

Joy yet awaiteth us

Ere the day dies.

See how the pathway creeps
Round the cliff side;
Serpent-like seemeth it

Upward to glide :

Here 'mid the heather long

We will abide.

Nature around us lies

Placid and still,—

Nature! thy children, we

Wait on thy will;