And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,

And as the firelight fell,

He read aloud the book wherein the Master

Had writ of "Little Nell."

Perhaps 't was boyish fancy, for the reader
Was youngest of them all,

5

10

15

But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall;

The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,

Listened in every spray,

While the whole camp, with "Nell" on English mead

Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire:
And he who wrought that spell? -

Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story
Bland with the breath that thrills
With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.

5

And on that grave where English oak and holly

And laurel wreaths entwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,

This spray of Western pine!

July, 1870

THE ANGELUS

Heard at the Mission Dolores, 1868

Bells of the Past, whose long-forgotten music

Still fills the wide expanse,

Tingeing the sober twilight of the Present
With colour of romance:

I hear your call, and see the sun descending
On rock and wave and sand,

As down the coast the Mission voices blending
Girdle the heathen land.

Within the circle of your incantation

No blight nor mildew falls;

Nor fierce unrest, nor lust, nor low ambition
Passes those airy walls.

Borne on the swell of your long waves receding,
I touch the farther Past,

I see the dying glow of Spanish glory,

The sunset dream and last!

Before me rise the dome-shaped Mission towers,

The white Presidio;

5

The swart commander in his leathern jerkin,

The priest in stole of snow.

Once more I see Portala's cross uplifting

Above the setting sun;

And past the headland, northward, slowly drifting

The freighted galleon.

O solemn bells! whose consecrated masses

Recall the faith of old,

O tinkling bells! that lulled with twilight music
The spiritual fold!

Your voices break and falter in the darkness, -
Break, falter, and are still;

And veiled and mystic, like the Host descending,
The sun sinks from the hill!

10

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

THE FOOL'S PRAYER

The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,

Kneel now,

and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile

Behind the painted grin he wore.