All day they loitered by the resting ships,
Telling their beauties over, taking stock;
At night the verdict left my messmate's lips,
“The Wanderer is the finest ship in dock.”

I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned,
Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean,
Saying, “The Wanderer , clipper, outward bound,
The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen—

“Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail.
She sails at sunrise”: but the morrow showed
No Wanderer setting forth for me to hail;
Far down the stream men pointed where she rode,

All day the stormy wind has blown
— From off the dark and rainy sea;
No bird has past the window flown,
The only song has been the moan
— The wind made in the willow-tree.

This is the summer's burial-time:
— She died when dropped the earliest leaves;
And, cold upon her rosy prime,
Fell direful autumn's frosty rime;
— Yet I am not as one that grieves, —

For well I know o'er sunny seas
— The bluebird waits for April skies;
And at the roots of forest trees
The May-flowers sleep in fragrant ease,

All day she sits behind a bright brass rail
Planning proud journeyings in terms that bring
Far places near; high-colored words that sing,
“The Taj Mahal at agrave,” “Kashmir's Vale,”
Spanning wide spaces with her clear detail,
“Sevilla or Fiesole in spring,
Through the fiords in June.” Her words take wing.
She is the minstrel of the great out-trail.
At half past five she puts her maps away,
Pins on a gray, meek hat, and braves the sleet,
A timid eye on traffic. Dully gray
The house that harbors her in a gray street,

All day long the guns at the forts,
With far-off thunders and faint retorts,
Had told the city that down the bay
The fleet of Farragut's war-ships lay;
But now St. Philip and Jackson grim
Were black and silent below the rim
Of the southern sky, where the river sped
Like a war-horse scenting the fight ahead.

And we of the city, the women, and men
Too old for facing the battle then,
Saw all the signs of our weakness there
With a patience born of a great despair.
The river gnawed its neglected bank,

All day long I played in an orchard
Alone with a changeling child,
How should I guess that a little blue bonnet
Shaded a glance so wild?

All day long we played in the orchard
With apples russet and red,
All day long the little blue bonnet
Followed wherever I led.

Never, I think, was such mirth in an orchard
As the mirth betwixt us two,
But at dusk when I lifted her, laughing, laughing,
Over the brook — I knew.

All day I watch the stretch of burning sand;
All night I brood beneath the golden stars;
Amid the silence of a desolate land,
No touch of bitterness my reverie mars.
Built by the proudest of a kingly line,
Over my head the centuries fly fast;
The secrets of the mighty dead are mine;
I hold the key of a forgotten past.
Yet, ever hushed into a rapturous dream,
I see again that night. A halo mild
Shone from the liquid moon. Beneath her beam
Travelled a tired young Mother and her Child.
Within mine arms she slumbered, and alone

All day beneath the hurtling shells,
Before my burning eyes
Hover the dainty demoiselles —
The peacock dragonflies.

Unceasingly they dart and glance
Above the stagnant stream ...
And I am fighting here in France
As in a senseless dream —

A dream of shattering black shells
That hurtle overhead,
And dainty dancing demoiselles
Above the dreamless dead.

All day across the sagebrush flat,
Beneath the sun of June,
My sheep they loaf and feed and bleat
Their never-changin' tune.
And then, at night time, when they lay
As quiet as a stone,
I hear the gray wolf far away,
" Alo-one! " he says, " alo-one! "

A-a! ma-a! ba-a! eh-eh-eh!
The tune the woollies sing;
It's rasped my ears, it seems, for years,
Though really just since Spring;
And nothin', far as I can see
Around the circle's sweep,
But sky and plain, my dreams and me
And them infernal sheep.

All day a steady snow had drifted down,
Hiding the restful hues of dun and brown
On friendly hill-side, and the slender trail,
That bound us world-ward. Did no spirit quail
At the appalling doom looming before us,
With the unsettled snow-mass trembling o'er us?

If any feared, none spoke; the laugh and jest
Rang out as clear, perhaps with added zest
And but that they who worked at night-shift stood
With outstretched palms, in half unwilling mood
To leave the fire, no outward sign betrayed
If any felt discouraged or dismayed.

To the Tune of The Ladies fall ; Or Gather your Rose Buds , and 50 other Tunes.

I.

All Christians and Lay-Elders too,
For shame amend your Lives,
I'll tell you of a Dog-trick now,
Which much concerns your wives.
An Elder's Maid near Temple-bar
(Ah what a Quean was she!)
Did take an ugly Mastiff Cur
Where Christians use to be.
Help House of Commons, House of Peers!
Oh now or never help!