Yon deep bark goes

Where traffic blows,

From lands of sun to lands of snows;
This happier one,

Its course is run

From lands of snow to lands of sun.

O happy ship,

To rise and dip,

With the blue crystal at your lip!

O happy crew,

My heart with you

Sails, and sails, and sings anew!

No more, no more

The worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar!
With dreamful eyes

My spirit lies

Under the walls of Paradise!

Thomas Buchanan Read.

THE CLOSING SCENE

WITHIN his sober realm of leafless trees,

The russet year inhaled the dreamy air; Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease, When all the fields are lying brown and bare.

The gray barns looking from their hazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales,
Sent down the air a greeting to the mills

On the dull thunder of alternate flails.

THE CLOSING SCENE

101

All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued,
The hills seemed farther and the streams sang low;
As in a dream the distant woodman hewed

His winter log with many a muffled blow.

The embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood, like some sad, beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue.

On slumbrous wings the vulture held his flight; The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's complaint,

And like a star slow drowning in the light,

The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint.

The sentinel-cock upon the hillside crew,
Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before,
Silent till some replying warder blew

His alien horn, and then was heard no more.

Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest,
Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young,
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest,
By every light wind like a censer swung-

Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves,
The busy swallows, circling ever near,
Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,

An early harvest and a plenteous year;

Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast, Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn,

To warn the reaper of the rosy east,

All now was songless, empty, and forlorn.

Alone from out the stubble piped the quail,

And croaked the crow through all the dreamy

gloom;

Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale,

Made echo to the distant cottage loom.

There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;
The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night;
The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers,

Sailed slowly by, passed noiseless out of sight.

Amid all this, in this most cheerless air,
And where the woodbine shed upon the porch
Its crimson leaves, as if the Year stood there
Firing the floor with his inverted torch;

Amid all this, the center of the scene,

The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread, Plied the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien, Sat, like a Fate, and watched the flying thread.

She had known Sorrow,

he had walked with her, Oft supped, and broke the bitter ashen crust; And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir

Of his black mantle trailing in the dust.

While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom,
Her country summoned and she gave her all;

And twice War bowed to her his sable plume,
Re-gave the swords to rust upon the wall.

THE LAST INVOCATION

Re-gave the swords,

103

but not the hand that drew

And struck for Liberty its dying blow, Nor him who, to his sire and country true,

Fell 'mid the ranks of the invading foe.

Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmur of a hive at noon;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone

Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune.

At last the thread was snapped, her head was bowed;

Life dropped the distaff through his hands serene; And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud, While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene. Thomas Buchanan Read.

THE LAST INVOCATION

Ar the last, tenderly,

From the walls of the powerful, fortressed house, From the clasp of the knitted locks — from the keep

of the well-closed doors,

Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;

With the key of softness unlock the locks

whisper

Set ope the doors, O Soul!

Tenderly! be not impatient!

(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!

Strong is your hold, O love.)

Walt Whitman.

OUT OF THE CRADLE ENDLESSLY ROCKING

OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking,

Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight,

Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wandered alone, bare

headed, barefoot,

Down from the showered halo,

Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,

Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories, sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,

From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,

From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,

From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
From the myriad thence-aroused words,

From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,

A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,

Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and here

after,

Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,

A reminiscence sing.