ound my weary heart.

Song of the Cattle-Hunters

While the morning light beams on the fern-matted streams,
And the water-pools flash in its glow,
Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry--
Down the ridges and gullies we go!
And the cattle we hunt--they are racing in front,
With a roar like the thunder of waves,
As the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet
Start the echoes away from their caves!
As the beat and the beat
Of our swift horses' feet
Start the echoes away from their caves!

Like a wintry shore that the waters ride o'er,
All the lowlands are filling with sound;
For swiftly we gain where the herds on the plain,
Like a tempest, are tearing the ground!
And we'll follow them hard to the rails of the yard,
O'er the gulches and mountain-tops grey,
Where the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet
Will die with the echoes away!
Where the beat and the beat
Of our swift horses' feet
Will die with the echoes away!

Footfalls

The embers were blinking and clinking away,
The casement half open was thrown;
There was nothing but cloud on the skirts of the Day,
And I sat on the threshold alone!

And said to the river which flowed by my door
With its beautiful face to the hill,
"I have waited and waited, all wearied and sore,
But my love is a wanderer still!"

And said to the wind, as it paused in its flight
To look through the shivering pane,
"There are memories moaning and homeless to-night
That can never be tranquil again!"

And said to the woods, as their burdens were borne
With a flutter and sigh to the eaves,
"They are wrinkled and wasted, and tattered and torn,
And we too have our withering leaves."

Did I hear a low echo of footfalls about,
Whilst watching those forest trees stark?
Or was it a dream that I hurried without
To clutch at and grapple the dark?

In the shadow I stood for a moment and spake--
"Bright thing that was loved in the past,
Oh! am I asleep--or abroad and awake?
And are you so near me at last?

"Oh, roamer from lands where the vanished years go,
Oh, waif from those mystical zones,
Come here where I long for you, broken and low,
On the mosses and watery stones!

"Come out of your silence and tell me if Life
Is so fair in that world