A Poetry of Exiles Author:Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3MEMENTOS. OCOOL Southwind, From icebergs blowing and the world of sea, You mist my mind With memories of the North, and wing to me With your crisp breath A whiff of breezy sprin... more »g and that wind flower, Which blossometh In Kentish woods in March's merry hour. And you, ye waves Spring from the ice which girds the Southern pole, The tide that laves My country, knows you but as soul knows soul, Alike in kind But moving in its own and separate sphere. Yet as the wind You waft me memories of Northlands dear. 0 threatening sky, You are not beautiful, but when there be Dark clouds on high, They conjure up remembrances for me Of tones now dumb, And dear ones drawing closer round the fire; And with them come Storms of regret and rain-drops of desire. 1 love the sun, Blue heavens, southern air, and sea in calm ; The summer done, I feel as in a northern clime, a palm Torn from its home ; And, yet whenever clouds and cold appear Or fierce sea foam, I welcome them, as if old friends drew near. Section 4MY LONGFELLOW. T T THEN the news lightened o'er the seas, which said » V That Longfellow was dead, I rose and took his volume from the shelf, Made roughly by myself, With dust-browned title-leaf, twice over bound, Each page with marks all round Instinct with sweet and sad interpretings ; Those neat soft pencillings Point out the lines my mother chose in turn For me by heart to learn : Those now faint underlinings mark the joy That seized me when a boy, At some fresh touch of Nature, or a shout Of victory or rout, In an Icelandic legend, or a tale, Quaint and fantastical, Of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee, Or rude mythology Of the Red Indian, or the sober life, Free from the ancient strife, Le...« less