I rather felt than heard
The song of that lone bird:
Yes, I have heard the nightingale.

Yes, I have heard the nightingale.
I heard it, and I followed;
The warm night swallowed
This soul and body of mine,
As burning thirst takes wine,
While on and on I pressed
Close to that singing breast:
Yes, I have heard the nightingale.

Yes, I have heard the nightingale.
Well doth each throbbing ember
The flame remember;

And I, how quick that sound Turned drops from a deep wound! How this heart was the thorn Which pierced that breast forlorn! Yes, I have heard the nightingale.

ABSOLUTION

I

PRIEST of God, unto thee I come;

Day doth dawn, though the mist lies deep. Trembling with dread from my home I fled; I have slain a man in the land of sleep.

Him I met in a region dim,

Where ever the sun shines faint and low,
Where the moon is far as a tiny star,
And rivers speed with a noiseless flow.

In the tangled wood he was lying hid;
But I saw him lurking, and then I knew
'Twas the soul of the one since time begun
That had made me false when I would be
truc.

Thou hast learned how the soul of man
Lifts, through error, its heart on high,
Up from the sin I placed it in,

To the bright, clear light in the starry sky.

Ages hence, when thy world and stars
Fade away in the mist they are,
Thou shalt weep, and in pity creep
Back to the life of some lonely star.

Love shall well in thy heart, and tears
Fall for the sorrows thou couldst not know
But for the years of sins and fears
Spent in the dream of thy life.below.

FROM "WENDELL PHILLIPS"

WHAT shall we mourn? For the prostrate tree that sheltered the young green wood?

For the fallen cliff that fronted the sea, and guarded the fields from the flood? For the eagle that died in the tempest, afar from its cyrie's brood?

Nay, not for these shall we weep; for the

silver cord must be worn,

And the golden fillet shrink back at last, and the dust to its earth return; And tears are never for those who die with their face to the duty done; But we mourn for the fledglings left on the waste, and the fields where the wild

waves run.

From the midst of the flock he defended, the brave one has gone to his rest; And the tears of the poor he befriended their wealth of affliction attest. From the midst of the people is stricken a symbol they daily saw,

Set over against the law books, of a Higher | than human Law;

For his life was a ceaseless protest, and his voice was a prophet's cry

To be true to the Truth and faithful, though the world were arrayed for the Lie.

From the hearing of those who hated, a threatening voice has past;

But the lives of those who believe and die

are not blown like a leaf on the blast. A sower of infinite seed was he, a woodman that hewed toward the light, Who dared to be traitor to Union when Union was traitor to Right!

AT BEST

THE faithful helm commands the keel,
From port to port fair breezes blow;
But the ship must sail the convex sea,
Nor may she straighter go.

So, man to man; in fair accord,

On thought and will the winds may wait;

nail of her.

Write we down faithfully every man's part in her;

Greet we all gratefully every true heart in her.

More than a name to us, sailing the fleetest, Symbol of that which is purest and sweetest: More than a keel to us, steering the straightest,

Emblem of that which is freest and greatest: More than a dove-bosomed sail to the windward,

Flame passing on while the night-clouds fly hindward.

Kiss every plank of her! None shall take rank of her;

Frontward or weatherward, none can eclipse.

Thunder our thanks to her! Cheer from the banks to her!

Mayflower! ships !

Foremost and best of our

FROWNING, the mountain stronghold stood,
Whose front no mortal could assail;
For more than twice three hundred years
The terror of the Indian vale.

By blood and fire the robber band
Answered the helpless village wail.

Hot was his heart and cool his thought,
When Napier from his Englishmen
Up to the bandits' rampart glanced,