I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy'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;

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;

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."

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And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,

And with joy that is almost pain

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."

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT

Southward with fleet of ice

Sailed the corsair Death;

Wild and fast blew the blast,

And the east wind was his breath.

His lordly ships of ice

Glistened in the sun;

On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.

His sails of white sea-mist

Dripped with silver rain;

But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.

Eastward from Campobello

Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;

Three days or more seaward he bore,

Then, alas! the land-wind failed.

Alas! the land-wind failed,

And ice-cold grew the night;
And never more, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.

He sat upon the deck,

The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! Heaven is near,
He said, "by water as by land!"

In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,

Out of the sea, mysteriously,

The fleet of Death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,

Seemed to rake the passing clouds.

They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;

Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark,
They drift in close embrace,

With mist and rain o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.

Southward, for ever southward,

They drift through dark and day; And like a dream in the Gulf-stream Sinking, vanish all away.

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A DUTCH PICTURE

Simon Danz has come home again,

From cruising about with his buccaneers;

He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,
And carried away the Dean of Jaen

And sold him in Algiers

In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles
And weathercocks flying aloft in air,

There are silver tankards of antique styles,
Plunder of convent and castle, and piles

Of carpets rich and rare.

In his tulip garden there by the town
Overlooking the sluggish stream,
With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown
The old sea-captain, hale and brown,
Walks in a waking dream.

A smile in his gray mustachio lurks

Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain,
And the listed tulips look like Turks,

And the silent gardener as he works

Is changed to the Dean of Jaen.

The windmills on the outermost
Verge of the landscape in the haze,
To him are towers on the Spanish coast,
With whiskered sentinels at their post,
Though this is the river Maese.

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But when the winter rains begin,

He sits and smokes by the blazing brands,
And old sea-faring men come in,
Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin,
And rings upon their hands.

They sit there in the shadow and shine
Of the flickering fire of the winter night:
Figures in color and design

Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine,
Half darkness and half light.

And they talk of their ventures lost or won,
And their talk is ever and ever the same,
While they drink the red wine of Tarragon,
From the cellars of some Spanish Don,
Or convent set on flame.

Restless at times, with heavy strides
He paces his parlor to and fro;

He is like a ship that at anchor rides,

And swings with the rising and falling tides,
And tugs at her anchor-tow.

Voices mysterious far and near,

Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in his ear,
"Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here?
Come forth and follow me!"