TH

THE RAINY DAY

HE day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; The vine still clings to the moldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold and dark and dreary;
It rains and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

EXCELSIOR

HE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed

A youth, who bore, mid snow and ice,
A banner with a strange device,

Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath;

And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone;
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the pass !" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!

"Oh! stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye;
And the day is dark and dreary.
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"

This was the peasant's last good-night;-
A voice replied far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of St. Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveler, by the faithful hound,
Half buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice,
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

IN

There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay;
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,—
Excelsior!

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THE BELFRY OF BRUGES

N the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;

Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,

And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray,

Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,

But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient

tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;

And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,

With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;

And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;

They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;

All the Foresters of Flanders, mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,

Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dam

pierre.

I beheld the pageants splendid, that adorned those days of old;

Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold;

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep laden argosies;

Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the

ground;

I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,

And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,

Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,

Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;

And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's

throat;

Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,

"I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!"

Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar

Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.

Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,

Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS

OMEWHAT back from the village street

SOMEWHAT old-fashioned country-seat.

Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw.
And from its station in the hall

An ancient timepiece says to all,

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"