O, say not so!

Those sounds that flow

In murmurs of delight and woe

Come not from wings of birds.

They are the throngs

Of the poet's songs,

Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,

The sound of winged words.

This is the cry

Of souls, that high

On toiling, beating pinions, fly,

Seeking a warmer clime.

From their distant flight

Through realms of light

It falls into our world of night,

With the murmuring sound of rhyme.

THE OPEN WINDOW.

THE old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,

And on the gravelled pathway
The light and shadow played.

I

saw the

nursery windows

Wide open to the air;

But the faces of the children,

They were no longer there.

The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door;

He looked for his little playmates,
Who would return no more.

They walked not under the lindens, They played not in the hall;

But shadow, and silence, and sadness Were hanging over all.

The birds sang in the branches,
With sweet, familiar tone;

But the voices of the children

Will be heard in dreams alone!

And the boy that walked beside me, He could not understand

Why closer in mine, ah! closer,

I pressed his warm, soft hand!

KING WITLAF'S DRINKING-HORN.

WITLAF, a king of the Saxons,
Ere yet his last he breathed,

To the merry monks of Croyland

His drinking-horn bequeathed,

That, whenever they sat at their revels,
And drank from the golden bowl,

They might remember the donor,
And breathe a prayer for his soul.

So sat they once at Christmas,
And bade the goblet pass;

In their beards the red wine glistened
Like dew-drops in the grass.

They drank to the soul of Witlaf. They drank to Christ the Lord, And to each of the Twelve Apostles, Who had preached his holy word.

They drank to the Saints and Martyrs Of the dismal days of yore,

And as soon as the horn was empty They remembered one Saint more.

And the reader droned from the pulpit, Like the murmur of many bees, The legend of good Saint Guthlac,

And Saint Basil's homilies;