THE GORSE.

As I lingered at the window,

Weary of the summer heat,

Looking out upon the shadows

Of the now deserted street,

Came with gleam of yellow blossoms

Scattered memories faintly glad,

Wakened by the gorse and heather

In the cap of country lad.

Ah! the moor, horizon-bounded,

With its wealth of blossom-gold;

Ah! the reach of swelling upland,

Boulder-dotted, bare and cold;

Ah! the sweep across the bracken

Of the breezes, wild and free,

Bringing from the land of sunrise

Distant murmurs of the sea.

In the grayness of the dawning,

Ere the sun had tinged the deep

With the glory of his coming,

And the hills were yet asleep,

Merrily we pressed the heather

As we went towards the sea,

For the world was all before us,

And the day was yet to be.

There we planned a noble future;

As the heralds of the light

Bearing messages of succour

To the children of the night.

We would face the world together,

Fight the evil hand in hand,

As the knights in ancient legend

Slew the tyrants of the land.

Thus we dreamed, and thus we purposed

With the eager hearts of youth,

And we gathered yellow blossoms

As the emblems of our truth;

For the ridicule and scoffing

Would be thorns upon our way,

But the gold of love would sweeten

All the labours of the day.

But our dreaming never deepened

Into deeds of hero might;

For the Shadow Angel beckoned

At the coming of the night.

One obeyed the spirit-summons,

And the waking comrade wept,

While the darkening mists of sorrow

O’er the plains of morning crept.

Through the summer and the winter,

Through the sunshine and the cold,

Evermore the gorse is blooming,

Crowning all the heath with gold;

And a toiler in the city

Dreams of moments grave and glad

As he sees the sprig of heather

In the cap of country lad.

C. A. Dawson.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.