-winged zephyrs,
To my hearing, voices are.

Voices whose sad intonations
Seemingly, as flit they past,
Bring to memory hopes long shattered,
Blissful dreams too bright to last.

Voices, merry laughing voices,
Fondly loved in other years,
Mournfully are whispering to me
That their mirth was drowned in tears.

Telling of a fairer fortune
Far away 'neath tropic skies,
Telling of a broken circle,
Scattered friends and severed ties.

Other kindly, loving voices,
Winning in the long ago,
Tell me now, as then they told me,
"Thou canst live for weal or woe."

Are these weird and mystic voices
But creations of the brain?
Only in illusive fancy
Must I hear their tones again?

Would some magic power lend me
Aid to stay the witching tone,
Art to pain the beauteous picture
Ere its impress swift has flown.
* * * * * *

While I dreamed the day has faded,
Stars are shining overhead,
Evening winds have ceased to whisper,
Twilight's shadows all have fled.

Thus, too oft, our life-work seemeth,
And we, when disowned its sway,
Find we are pursuing phantoms,
Shadows in the twilight gray.

HOME.

"How many times and oft" has the sweet, sweet word been sung in
song and told in story. And he sang sweetest of home, who had
never a home on earth. If one to whom home was only a poet's
dream, could portray its charms by only imagination, until a
million hearts thrilled with responsive echo, how deeper, how
more intense must be his longings and recollections who
treasures, deep down in his heart the sweet delights and pure
associations that he has known, but never may know again. We do
not appreciate our blessings until they have passed. We do not
try to gather the sunbeams until the clouds have obscured them.

How many and many a youth, brave-hearted and true, answers with
eager haste the war call of his native land all heedless of the
home he is leaving, and the loving arms that sheltered him there.
But when his soldier's blood is crimsoning the sands beneath a
foreign sky, the thoughts that go with his ebbing life are of
home--all of home.

Who rushes from his home out into the world, blind devotee of
fortune's phantom goddess, to realize a phantom indeed, sits down
in his despondency and his despair, to dream of "dear old home".

Yes, too, and the wretch--so seemingly depraved that nothing
beautiful or pure of soul is left--who flings from him