CAMP-FIRE LYRICS.

Against the darkness sharply lined Our still white tents gleamed overhead, And dancing cones of shadow cast When sudden flashed the camp-fire red, Where fragrant hummed the moist swamp-spruce, And tongues unknown the cedar spoke, While half a century's silent growth Went up in cheery flame and smoke. Pile on the logs! A flickering spire Of ruby flame the birch-bark gives, And as we track its leaping sparks, Behold in heaven the North-light lives! An arch of deep supremest blue, A band above of silver shade, And, like the frost-work's crystal spears, A thousand lances grow and fade, Or shiver, touched with palest tints Of pink and blue, and changing die, Or toss in one triumphant blaze Their golden banners up the sky, With faint, swift, silken murmurings, A noise as of an angel's flight, Heard like the whispers of a dream Across the cool clear northern night. Our pipes are out, the camp-fire fades, The wild auroral ghost-lights die, And stealing up the distant wood The moon's white spectre floats on high, And lingering sets in awful light A blackened pine tree's ghastly cross, Then swiftly pays in silver white The faded fire, the aurora's loss. Edward Kearsley.