By THOMAS HARDY.
[From King Albert's Book.]
I dreamt that people from the Land of Chimes
Arrived one Autumn morning with their bells,
To hoist them on the towers and citadels
Of my own country, that the musical rhymes
Rung by them into space at measured times
Amid the market's daily stir and stress,
And the night's empty starlit silentness,
Might solace souls of this and kindred climes.
Then I awoke; and, lo, before me stood
The visioned ones, but pale and full of fear;
From Bruges they came, and Antwerp, and Ostend,
No carillons in their train. Vicissitude
Had left these tinkling to the invaders' ear,
And ravaged street, and smoldering gable-end.