In quiet neighbourhoods.

And the verse of that sweet old song,

It flutters and murmurs still:

A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long

thoughts.".

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the school-boy's brain;

The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.

And the voice of that fitful song

Sings on, and is never still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long

thoughts."

There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die;

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There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,

And bring a pallor into the cheek,

And a mist before the eye.

And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long

thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;

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But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-
known street,

As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:
A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long
thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain

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My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.

And the strange and beautiful song,

The groves are repeating it still:

A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

1855

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

CCLXXXV

A LAMENT

O WORLD! O life! O time!

On whose last steps I climb

Trembling at that where I had stood before; When will return the glory of your prime? No more-Oh, never more!

Out of the day and night

A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more-Oh, never more!

1821. 1824.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

"THERE ARE GAINS FOR ALL

1880.

OUR LOSSES "

THERE are gains for all losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.

We are stronger, and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,;
And will never come again.

Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain:
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth, and in the air,
But it never comes again.

Richard Henry Stoddard.

5

10

15

1848.

"IN A DREAR-NIGHTED

DECEMBER "

IN a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,

They stay their crystal fretting,

Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

Ah! would 't were so with many

A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passèd joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,

Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.

John Keats.

8

"I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER"

I REMEMBER, I remember;

The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,-
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh"!

To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then,

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool

The fever on my brow!"

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