Till one arose, and from his pack’s scant treasure
    A hoarded volume drew, 10
  And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure,
    To hear the tale anew;

  And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,
    And as the firelight fell,
  He read aloud the book wherein the Master[2] 15
    Had writ of “Little Nell."[3]

  Perhaps ’twas boyish fancy,—­for the reader
    Was youngest of them all,—­
  But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
    A silence seemed to fall; 20

  The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
    Listened in every spray,
  While the whole camp, with “Nell,” on English meadows
    Wandered and lost their way.

  And so in mountain solitudes—­o’ertaken 25
    As by some spell divine—­
  Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
    From out the gusty pine.

  Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire: 
    And he who wrought that spell?—­ 30
  Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,[4]
    Ye have one tale[5] to tell!

  Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story[6]
    Blend with the breath that thrills
  With hop-vines’ incense[7] all the pensive glory 35
    That fills the Kentish hills.

  And on that grave where English oak and holly
    And laurel wreaths intwine,[8]
  Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,—­
    This spray of Western pine. 40

      —­Harte.

[1] Sierra.  A Spanish term, meaning a mountain range.  The name Sierra was applied, of course, to a great many different ranges.

[2] the Master.  Dickens.

[3] Little Nell.  The heroine of Dickens’ novel, The Old Curiosity Shop.

[4] Dickens died at Gadshill, Kent, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

[5] one tale.  Both they who heard the story, and he who wrote it, are dead.

[6] Let the fragrance of the western pine blend with the incense of the hop-vines in memory of Dickens.  In other words, let me add this story as another tribute to his memory.

[7] hop-vines’ incense.  The smell of the hop-vines.  Kent is the chief hop-growing county of England.

[8] The great writers of England have done honour to Dickens.

  A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

  I

  What was he doing, the great god Pan,[1]
    Down in the reeds by the river! 
  Spreading ruin, and scattering ban,
  Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
  And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5
    With the dragon-fly on the river.

  II

  He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
    From the deep, cool bed of the river. 
  The limpid water turbidly ran,
  And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 10
  And the dragon-fly had fled away,
    Ere he brought it out of the river.