“I from the Marne,” the third one sighed, “but these are
    only names. 
Eh bien, mon vieux, one must forget those little strifes
    and fames! 
Here is a host of Golden Lads, that play at golden games.”

But the new boy ran to the turf’s green rim and bent
    with an anxious frown,—­
“It’s the curfew bell!  I hear them cheer!  It’s my little
    own home town! 
I hear my dad!  I can almost see—­” and his eager gaze
    plunged down.

“Soon, mon ami,” soothed the dark-eyed wraith, “these
    teasing dreams will cease! 
One plays all day, one leaps the stars, one seeks the
    Golden Fleece!”
Still the new boy turned his white young face from the
    Land of the Great Release.—­
“But I was killed two hours ago, while they signed the
    terms of peace.”

SEA GHOSTS

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN:  CHARLES GODFREY LELAND

We met the Flying Dutchman,
  By midnight he came,
His hull was all of hell fire,
  His sails were all aflame;
Fire on the main-top,
  Fire on the bow,
Fire on the gun-deck,
  Fire down below.

Four-and-twenty dead men,
  Those were the crew,
The devil on the bowsprit,
  Fiddled as she flew,
We gave her the broadside,
  Right in the dip,
Just like a candle,
  Went out the ship.

THE PHANTOM SHIP:  HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

In Mather’s Magnalia Christi,
  Of the old colonial time,
May be found in prose the legend
  That is here set down in rhyme.

A ship sailed from New Haven,
  And the keen and the frosty airs,
That filled her sails at parting,
  Were heavy with good men’s prayers.

“O Lord, if it be thy pleasure”—­
  Thus prayed the old divine—­
“To bury our friends in the ocean,
  Take them, for they are thine.”

But Master Lamberton muttered,
  And under his breath said he,
“This ship is so crank and walty,
  I fear our grave she will be!”

And the ships that came from England,
  When the winter months were gone,
Brought no tidings of this vessel
  Nor of Master Lamberton.

This put the people to praying
  That the Lord would let them hear
What in his greater wisdom
  He had done with their friends so dear.

And at last their prayers were answered: 
  It was in the month of June,
An hour before the sunset
  Of a windy afternoon.

When steadily steering landward,
  A ship was seen below,
And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,
  Who sailed so long ago.

On she came with a cloud of canvas,
  Right against the wind that blew,
Until the eye could distinguish
  The faces of the crew.

Then fell her straining topmasts,
  Hanging tangled in the shrouds. 
And her sails were loosened and lifted,
  And blown away like clouds.