THE FLIGHT OF THE WILD SWANS.

(From "Prince Amadis.")

But away and away, in the midnight blue, That fleet of white creatures went steering through ;

And away and away through the sweet daybreak

From the white Alps flashed, their road to take

Through the tingling noon and the evening vapour,

Which Hesper lights with his little taper, Through the tremulous smiles of moonlight

·

mirth, And the balmy descents of dew to the earth.

Through the calms, through the winds, when the hailstones ring,

The convoy passed with untiring wing, And oft from their course for hours they drove,

As though they winnowed the air for love.

And now they would mount and now they would stoop,

And almost to earth or river droop. And harshly would pipe through the sheer delight

Of their boisterous wings, and their strength of flight.

They saw the young Save in the next night's

moon,

They were over Belgrade, by the afternoon, And ere the sun set their journey was o'er On a willow-isle by the Danube's shore.

PRINCIPAL J. C. SHAIRP. 1815-1885 A REMEMBRANCE

Within the ancient College-gate I passed,. Looked round once more upon the wellknown, square boom van 10

Change had been busy since I saw it last, Replacing crumbled walls by new and

fair;

f

The old chapel gone a roof of statelier show!

Soared high I wondered if it sees below As pure heart-worship,

as confiding

But though walls, chapel, garden, all are changed,

And through these courts' quick-genera!

There are whom still I see round table ranged,

In chapel snowy-stoled for matins meet;

Though many faces since have come and gone,

Changeless in memory these still live on, A scholar brotherhood, high-souled and complete.

From old foundations where the nation

rears

Her darlings, came that flower of England's youth,

1

And here in latest teens, or riper years,

Stood drinking in all nobleness and truth. By streams of Isis 'twas a fervid time, When zeal and young devotion held their prime,

Whereof not unreceptive these in sooth.

The voice that weekly from St. Mary's spake,

As from the unseen world oracular, Strong as another Wesley, to rewake

The sluggish heart of England, near and

far,

1

Voice so intense to win men, or repel, Piercing yet tender, on these spirits fell, Making them other, higher than they

were.

Foremost one1 stood, with forehead high and broad,

Sculptor ne'er moulded grander dome of thought,

1 Clough.

Beneath it, eyes dark-lustred rolled and glowed,

Deep wells of feeling where the full soul wrought;

Yet lithe of limb, and strong as shepherd boy, He roamed the wastes and drank the mountain joy,

To cool a heart too cruelly distraught...

The voice that from St. Mary's thrilled the hour,

He could not choose but let it in, though

Yet a far other voice with earlier power

Had touched his soul and won his first

heart-troth,

In school-days heard, not far from Avon's stream:

Anon there dawned on him a wilder dream, Opening strange tracts of thought remote from both.

All travail pangs of thought too soon he knew, [years,

All currents felt, that shake these anxious Striving to walk to tender conscience true, And bear his load alone, nor vex his

peers.

From these, alas! too soon he moved apart; Sorrowing they saw him go, with loyal [reveres. Such heart as greatly loves, but more

heart,

Away o'er Highland Bens and glens, away He roamed, rejoicing withoutlet or f bound.

1

And, yearning still to vast América, #

A simpler life, more freedom, sought, not found. unit but sativ i boute Now the world listens to his lone soul-songs; But he, for all its miseries and wrongs [ Sad no more, sleeps beneath Italian ground...

Beside that elder scholar one 1 there stood, On Sunday mornings 'mid the band

As deep of thought, but chastened more of mood,

"Devout, affectionate, and humble-souled. There, as he stood in chapel, week by week, Lines of deep feeling furrowed down his "cheek"

Lent him, even then, an aspect strangely old.

Not from the great foundations of the land, But from a wise and learned father's roof, His place he won amid the scholar band, Where 'finest gifts of mind were puť to proof;

And if some things he missed which great schools teach,