“Hark! ’tis the train; the mother’s ear leans to the sound.”
Mary, Queen of Scots.
[First Honor at Commencement of the Mt. Vernon Institute of Elocution and Languages, 1885.]
I looked far back[169] into other years, and lo! in bright array,
I saw, as in a dream, the forms of ages passed away.
It was a stately convent, with its old and lofty walls,
And gardens with their broad green walks, where soft the footstep[170] falls;
And o’er the antique dial stone[171] the creeping shadow passed,
And all around,[172] the noonday sun a drowsy radiance cast.
No sound of busy life was heard, save from the cloister[173] dim,