For always there, as we did go

To church, this tile fld let us through.
With spreading arms that wheel i to guide
Us each in turn to other side.

And first of all the train he took
My wife, with winsome gut and lock;
And then sent on my little maid.
A-skipping onward, over-icyed

To reach again the place of pride.
Her comely mother's left-hand side.
And then, a vheeling round, he took
On me, within his third white neck.
And in the fourth, a-shaking wild,
He sent us on our giddy child.

But yesterday he guided siow
My downcast Jenny, full of woe
And then my little maid in black,
A-walking softly on her track;
And after he'd a-turn'd again
To let me go along the lane,
He had no little boy to fill

His last white arms, and they stood still3

William Barnes.

((See page 114.)

HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

POOR lone Hannah,

Sitting at the window, binding shoes!
Faded, wrinkled,

Sitting, stitching, in a mournful muse!
Bright-eyed beauty once was she,
When the bloom was on the tree:
Spring and winter,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

1 winsome-attractive.

2

comely-good-looking,

3 and they stood still. Observe how the pathos culminates in

this simple incident.

'I'm sorry that I spelt the word :
I hate to go above you,
Because,'-the brown eyes lower fell,-
6 Because, you see, I love you!'

Still memory to a grey-hair'd man
That sweet child-face is showing,
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!

He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
How few who pass above him
Lament their triumph and his loss,

Like her,—because they love him.

John Greenleaf Whittier: born, 1807.

An American poet, a Quaker, like Bernard Barton (see p. 54). Whittier spent his early years on his father's farm, but on coming of age adopted literature as a profession. As a poet Whittier is widely known and greatly admired. He has also been editor of several newspapers, and is the author of some volumes of prose essays.

1

THE TURNSTILE.

AH! sad were we as we did pace

The old church road, with downcast face,

The while the bells, that moan'd so deep

Above our child a-left asleep,

Were now a-singing all alive

With t'other bells to make the five.

But up at one place we came by
'Twas hard to keep one's two eyes dry.
On Stone-cliff road, within the throng,1
Up where, as folk do pass along,
The turning-stile, a-painted white,

Doth shine by day and show by night.

1 throng-in Berkshire dialect drong, a narrow path.

For always there, as we did go

To church, this stile did let us through,
With spreading arms that wheel'd to guide
Us each in turn to t'other side.

And first of all the train he took
My wife, with winsome1 gait and look;
And then sent on my little maid,
A-skipping onward, over-joyed
To reach again the place of pride,
Her comely 2 mother's left-hand side.
And then, a-wheeling round, he took
On me, within his third white nook.
And in the fourth, a-shaking wild,
He sent us on our giddy child.
But yesterday he guided slow
My downcast Jenny, full of woe
And then my little maid in black,
A-walking softly on her track;
And after he'd a-turn'd again
To let me go along the lane,
He had no little boy to fill

His last white arms, and they stood still.3

William Barnes.

[(See page 114.)

HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

POOR lone Hannah,

Sitting at the window, binding shoes!
Faded, wrinkled,

Sitting, stitching, in a mournful muse !
Bright-eyed beauty once was she,
When the bloom was on the tree:
Spring and winter,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

1 winsome-attractive.

2

comely-good-looking.

3 and they stood still. Observe how the pathos culminates in

this simple incident.

Not a neighbour

Passing nod or answer will refuse
To her whisper-

'Is there from the fishers any news?'
Oh, her heart's adrift, with one
On an endless voyage gone!
Night and morning,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Fair young Hannah

Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gaily woos:
Hale and clever,

For a willing heart and hand he sues.1
May-day skies are all aglow,

And the waves are laughing so!
For her wedding

Hannah leaves her window and her shoes.

May is passing:

'Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon coos.
Hannah shudders,

For the mild south-wester mischief brews.
Round the rocks of Marblehead,2
Outward bound, a schooner sped:
Silent, lonesome,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

'Tis November,

Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews;
From Newfoundland

Not a sail returning will she lose,-
Whispering hoarsely-Fishermen !
Have you-have you heard of Ben?'
Old with watching,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Twenty winters

Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views.
Twenty seasons,—

Never one has brought her any news.

1 sues-pleads, begs.

2 Marblehead a seaport on a rocky promontory, a few miles N. E. of Boston, North America.