And sadly I heard the weird gusts rave

Through the crumbling walls near my mother's grave.

Up on the hill, where beds are made
Narrow and deep with pick and spade;
Up on the hill, where death-flowers grow,
Over a grave a child bent low,

Picking the weeds off a new-formed plot;
Up on the hill, on a Sabbath morn,
(Works of mercy that day adorn),
Guardian spirits around the spot.

AT SUNSET.

OUT on the beach when night was creeping-
Robed in shadows-across the dome
We watched the waves, as, shoreward leaping,
They fringed the sand with streaks of foam.

Ocean's heart, with its ceaseless throbbing,
Beat 'gainst billows that rose and fell;
Sometimes singing, and sometimes sobbing,
Sea-ghosts came on each foamy swell.

I stood dreaming of some old story,
Picturing forms on each white crest,
Tranced in thought, till a flash of glory
Limned the skirts of the distant west.

"Look!" you cried, and we gazed, in wonder,
Over the deep where sea and sky
Met and kissed, as the sun danced under
Beams of gold in the archway high.

O the splendour that tipped the mountains!
O the beauty that rimmed the lea!
Streams of brilliants, from rainbow fountains,
Sparkling fell on the purple sea.

Calmness stole o'er the deep, and lowly
Whispers floated upon the breeze:
"Hail to Thee, Holy, Holy, Holy!
Painted of shores and skies and seas!"

Not by us were the pure words spoken,
Not by us were the pure words said;
We were mute till the spell was broken,
We but gazed at the Heaven ahead-

Gazed, and worshipped, and prayed, and wondered
If that glory would gild the way

When life's sun sets, and friends are sundered,
And spirits 'scape from their shells of clay.

JOHN BRIGHT,

[A South Australian comrade of Adam Lindsay Gordon's, an "overlander" constantly on the rove: when last heard of, was on the shores of Carpentaria. Has published a little paper volume of poems entitled Wattle Blossoms and Wild Flowers Gathered by the Way (Crabb & Bretherton, St. Kilda, Melbourne).]

THE LAND OF DREAMS-A SONG.*

A PLEASANT land is the land of dreams,
At the back of the shining air!

It hath sunnier skies and sheenier streams,
And gardens than Earth's more fair.

* This poem reached the editor in a very mutilated condition— the parts printed in italics are his own.

And, oft as my heart feels weary and sad,

For a rest I wander away

To the realm where it all is happy and glad,
'Neath the light of an endless day.

There I see the faces I knew of old,

The friends that were true and kind;

And we meet as we met ere our hearts grew cold
With the care that is left behind.

For there is no sorrow or doubt or care,

But Hope, like a sunrise, gleams,
And shadows come not between us there-
In my wonderful land of dreams.

You may ask the road, but I cannot tell,
Though oft in its track I stray,

And my spirit knoweth the path right well,
And oft doth it long to stay:

But it lies in the womb of the clouds somewhere,
And in sorrow aye nearer seems;—

When my soul would rest from trouble and care,
It flies to this land of dreams.

SIR FREDERICK NAPIER BROOME.

[The present Governor of West Australia, son of the Rev. R. F. Broome, Rector of Adderley, Shropshire. Born in Canada, 1842, emigrated to Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1857. After ten years in New Zealand came to England, and then became a special correspondent of the Times newspaper for five years. He has been a contributor in prose and verse to the Cornhill, Macmillan's Magazine, &c., and has published two volumes of poems-Poems from New Zealand (Houlston & Wright, 1886), and The Stranger of Seriphos, 1869. He was appointed in

February 1875 Colonial Secretary of Natal, and in February 1878, Colonial Secretary of the Mauritius, after which he received his present appointment.]

A TEMPLE SERVICE.

(ORDAINED IN ISRAEL AFTER THE DELIVERANCE FROM MOAB.)

PRIESTS.

THE days were drawn towards the sun,
Kissed, every one,

By lips red-ripe with summer sweet,
From brow to feet.

Dawn's cold pale forehead with the black
Night-hair pushed back,

Flushed feet of eve, that walk the west,
Were caught and pressed.

PEOPLE.

Yet ere the months had failed of flower,
Their branch of time

Grew heavy with a ripening hour,

God's plant of prime,

More precious than the whitening wheat
Or swollen fig;

Sweeter than palm fruit peeled to eat,
Or grapes grown big.

PRIESTS.

Made-music of the harps we string,
The silver ring

Of beaten cymbals which we raise

On feasting days,

And on the lips of sweetest singers,
Between the fingers

Of those that pluck at silver wires
Of writhen lyres.

PEOPLE.

A psalm upon the psalteries,
On shawms a song,

Upon the horns great harmonies,
Blown loud and long;

A writing for the scrolls of scribes,
The graven gates

That tell the triumphs of the tribes
On brazen plates.

PRIESTS.

Wherefore the heavy hearts and sad
Be grown all glad,

And rainbow light in eyes yet rimmed
By grief that dimmed.

Wherefore the mouth by mourning mute,
The feeble foot,

Hath joy in it as meat and bread,
Is strong of tread.

PEOPLE.

In garden ground the summer burns,
Not yet grown old,

And from the corn whose colour turns
From green to gold;