ng to the land--
I saw the dumb land striving with the sea.

SONNET.

(_Written in the Stone Gallery of St Paul's._)

The drowsing city sparkles in the heat,
And murmur in mine ears unceasingly
The surging tides of that vast human sea--
The billows of life that break with muffled beat
And vibrate through this high and lone retreat;
While over all, serene, and fair, and free,
Thy dome is reared in naked majesty
Grey, old St Paul's ... In thee the Ages meet,
Slumbering amidst the trophies of their strife.
And in their dreams thou hearest, while the cries
Of triumph and despair ascend from Life,
The murmurings of immortality--
Thou Sentinel of Hope that doth despise
What was and is not, waiting what shall be!

"OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES."

"Is baby dead?" he whispered, with wide eyes
Tearless, but full of eloquent regret,
His childish face grown prematurely wise--
Pond'ring the problem death before him set.

"Baby is dead," I answered, as I laid
My hand on her frail forehead with a sigh;
"Oh! daddy, why did God do this?" he said,
And silently my heart made answer, "Why?"

He touched her white, worn face, and said, "How cold
Is our wee baby now." ... His eyes were deep ...
Then came his little brother, two years old,
He looked, and lisped, "The baby is asleep."

NOTES.

_The Wee Folk_.--In Gaelic they are usually called "The Peace People"
(sithchean). Other names are "Wee Folk" (daoine beaga); "Light Folk"
(slaugh eutrom), etc. As in the Lowlands, they are also referred to as
"guid fowk" and "guid neighbours."

_The Banshee_ (Beanshith).--Sometimes referred to as "The Fairy Queen,"
sometimes as "The Green Lady." She sings a song while she washes the
clothes of one about to meet a swift and tragic fate. In the Fian poems
she converses with those who see her, and foretells the fate of warriors
going to battle.

_The Blue Men of the Minch_ (Na Fir Ghorm).--Between the Shant Isles
(Charmed Isles) and Lewis is the "Stream of the Blue Men." They are the
"sea-horses" of the island Gaels. Their presence in the strait was
believed to be the cause of its billowy restlessness and swift currents.

_The Changeling_.--When the fairies robbed a mother of her babe, they
left behind a useless, old, and peevish fairy, who took the form of a
child. This belief may have originated in the assumption that when a
baby became ill and fretful, it was a changeling.

_The Urisk_ is, if any