Still as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!
Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread;
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play

Of the pied frogs' orchestra;

And, to light the noisy choir,

Lit the fly his lamp of fire.

I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!

Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet

Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil:
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;

70

75

95

100

By the women of Marblehead!

Body of turkey, head of owl,

Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
Feathered and ruffled in every part,

Captain Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,

10

15

The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer,

The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls

And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain

Have set in play a thousand waterfalls, Making the dusk and silence of the woods 25 Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams,

While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams

Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again. So, let me hope, the battle storm that beats 30 The land with hail and fire may pass away With its spent thunders at the break of day,

Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats,

A greener earth and fairer sky behind, Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern wind!

Atlantic Monthly, March, 1862.

II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET

35