Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5238, 31 October 1885, Page 1

Select Poetry.

A SPELL.

By Fbancis Gill. There beyond is the surging sea, And around us the rushing rain, And we sit, and listen, and muse On the theme of their blended strain.

The wood fire burns low on the hearth, Its flames flicker wildly, and glow; While the wind wails on round the hOßse, With a sound as of infinite woe.

The roses are dashed 'gainst the pane, We shall find them heavy, and wet With the weight of the wild spring-storm, Bent down o'er the drenched mignonette,

When we walk 'neath the rain-cleared bite, To the sound of the lightsome breeze, And gaze on the garden o'erstrewn With the bonghs of the blossoming trees.

But to-night by these storm tones tossed From the sense of all present things, Each sonl to the land of its lore Flies as swift as thongh borne by wing*.

The book falls at length from the hand, One head settles back with a sigh; And the other droops forward to watch The red fire flames flicker and die.

And one pair of eyes have the light Of a look that is made of dreams, As they gaze on some halcyon land Filled with the singing of streams.

And the other are dim with the tears That the tenderest memories bring, Few they look on some far-off scene, And the time is the time of spring.

And each dreamer still hears the rain, And the load pulsing beat of the storm. But only as something unreal, While the dream has completed form.

For the weird wild tones of the night Have set thought and imagining free, - And they both, on their boundless quest, Hare flown beyond land and sea.