COME HOME, COME HOME.

COME home, come home, and where is home for me,
Whose ship is driving o'er the trackless sea?
To the frail bark here plunging on its way,
To the wild waters, shall I turn and say
To the plunging bark, or to the salt sea foam,
You are my home?

Fields once I walked in, faces once I knew,
Familiar things so old my heart believed them true,
These far, far back, behind me lie, before

The dark clouds mutter, and the deep seas roar,
And speak to them that 'neath and o'er them roam
No words of home.

Beyond the clouds, beyond the waves that roar,
There may indeed, or may not be, a shore,
Where fields as green, and hands and hearts as true,
The old forgotten semblance may renew,

And offer exiles driven far o'er the salt sea foam
Another home.

But toil and pain must wear out many a day,
And days bear weeks, and weeks bear months away,
Ere, if at all, the weary traveller hear,

With accents whispered in his wayworn ear,

A voice he dares to listen to, say, Come

To thy true home.

Come home, come home! And where a home hath he Whose ship is driving o'er the driving sea?

Through clouds that mutter, and o'er waves that roar,
Say, shall we find, or shall we not, a shore

That is, as is not ship or ocean foam,
Indeed our home?

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day

Are scarce long leagues apart descried;

When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so-but why the tale reveal

Of those, whom year by year unchanged,
Brief absence joined anew to feel,

Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered-
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,
Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides—
To that, and your own selves, be true.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!

"WHAT WENT YE OUT FOR TO SEE?"

ACROSS the sea, along the shore,

In numbers ever more and more,
From lonely hut and busy town,

The valley through, the mountain down,
What was it ye went out to see,

Ye silly folk of Galilee?

The reed that in the wind doth shake?

The weed that washes in the lake?

The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?

"A young man preaching in a boat."

What was it ye went out to hear,
By sea and land, from far and near?
A teacher? Rather seek the feet

Of those who sit in Moses' seat,
Go humbly seek, and bow to them,
Far off in great Jerusalem.

From them that in her courts ye saw,
Her perfect doctors of the law,
What is it came ye here to note?—
"A young man preaching in a boat."

A prophet! Boys and women weak!
Declare, or cease to rave;

Whence is it he hath learned to speak?
Say, who his doctrine gave?

A prophet? Prophet wherefore he
Of all in Israel tribes?-

He teacheth with authority,

And not as do the Scribes.

WHERE ARE THE GREAT, WHOM THOU WOULDST WISH TO PRAISE THEE?

WHERE are the great, whom thou wouldst wish to praise thee? Where are the pure, whom thou wouldst choose to love thee? Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee,

Whose high commands would cheer, whose chiding raise thee? Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find

In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Born 1819. Died 1875.

THE SANDS OF DEE.

O MARY, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o' Dee;"

The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam,
And all alone went she.

The creeping tide crept up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see.

The blinding mist came down, and hid the land-
And never home came she.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair—
A tress o' golden hair,

O' drownèd maiden's hair,

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee."

A FAREWELL.

My fairest child, I have no song to give you ;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray:
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you,

For every day.

I'll teach you how to sing a clearer carol

Than lark's, who hails the dawn o'er breezy down, To earn yourself a purer poet's laurel

Than Shakespeare's crown.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever ;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long :
And so make Life, Death, and that vast For-Ever
One grand, sweet song,

LORRAINE.

"Are you ready or your steeple-chase, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe?
Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree.
You're booked to ride your capping race to-day at Coulterlee,
You're booked to ride Vindictive, for all the world to see,

To keep him straight, and keep him first, and win the run for me."
Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree.

She clasped her new-born baby, poor Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree.

"I cannot ride Vindictive, as any man might see,

And I will not ride Vindictive, with this baby on my knee,

He's killed a boy, he's killed a man, and why should he kill me?"

"Unless you ride Vindictive, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe,
Unless you ride Vindictive, to-day at Coulterlee,

And land him safe across the brook, and win the blank for me,
It's you may keep your baby, for you'll get no keep from me.

"That husbands could be cruel," said Lorraine Lorraine, Lorrèe, "That husbands could be cruel, I have known for seasons three; But oh! to ride Vindictive, while a baby cries for me,

And be killed across a fence at last for all the world to see!"

She mastered young Vindictive,-oh! the gallant lass was she!
And kept him straight, and won the race, as near as near could be;
But he killed her at the brook against a pollard willow tree,
Oh, he killed her at the brook, the brute, for all the world to see,—
And no one but the baby cried for poor Lorraine, Lorrèe.

MINOR POETS.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

Born 1785. Died 1806.

TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.

MILD offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine,
Was nursed in whirling storms,
And cradled in the winds.

Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter's sway,
And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,

Thee on this bank he threw

To mark his victory.

In this low vale, the promise of the year,
Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale,
Unnoticed and alone,

Thy tender elegance.

So virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity; in some lone walk

Of life she rears her head,

Obscure and unobserved;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows,
Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear
Serene the ills of life.

CHARLES WOLFE.

Born 1791. Died 1823.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him :
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!