It was night, and it is daytime,—­
  The morning sun is bland,
  The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking,
  In to the smiling land.

  The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking,
  In the sun so soft and bright,
  And toss and play with the dead man
  Drowned in the storm last night.

  VI.

  I remember the burning brushwood,
  Glimmering all day long
  Yellow and weak in the sunlight,
  Now leaped up red and strong,

  And fired the old dead chestnut,
  That all our years had stood,
  Gaunt and gray and ghostly,
  Apart from the sombre wood;

  And, flushed with sudden summer,
  The leafless boughs on high
  Blossomed in dreadful beauty
  Against the darkened sky.

  We children sat telling stories,
  And boasting what we should be,
  When we were men like our fathers,
  And watched the blazing tree,

  That showered its fiery blossoms,
  Like a rain of stars, we said,
  Of crimson and azure and purple. 
  That night, when I lay in bed,

  I could not sleep for seeing,
  Whenever I closed my eyes,
  The tree in its dazzling splendor
  Against the darkened skies.

  I cannot sleep for seeing,
  With closed eyes to-night,
  The tree in its dazzling splendor
  Dropping its blossoms bright;

  And old, old dreams of childhood
  Come thronging my weary brain. 
  Dear foolish beliefs and longings;—­
  I doubt, are they real again?

  It is nothing, and nothing, and nothing,
  That I either think or see;—­
  The phantoms of dead illusions
  To-night are haunting me.

CENTRAL BRITISH AMERICA.

Even before the announcement of the discovery of gold upon the Frazer River and its tributaries, the people of Canada West had induced the Parliament of England to institute the inquiry, whether the region of British America, extending from Lakes Superior and Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains, is not adapted by fertility of soil, a favorable climate, and natural advantages of internal communication, for the support of a prosperous colony of England.

The Parliamentary investigation had a wider scope.  The select committee of the House of Commons was appointed “to consider the state of those British possessions in North America which are under the administration of the Hudson Bay Company, or over which they possess a license to trade”; and therefore witnesses were called to the organization and management of the Company itself, as well as the natural features of the country under its administration.