And gossamer web-work on the sleeping trees;
E'en the tall pines, that rear
Their plumes to catch the breeze—
The slightest breeze from the unfreshening westPartake the general languor and deep rest.
Stretch'd on his back, in homely bean-vine bower, While the voluptuous bee
Robs each surrounding flower,
And prattling childhood clambers o'er his breast,— The husbandman enjoys his noonday rest.
The thin and fleecy clouds, unmoving, rest;
Beneath them far, yet high
In the dim distant west,
The vulture, scenting thence its carrion-fare,
Sails, slowly circling in the sunny air.
Repose the patient cow, and toil-worn ox,—
Or in the shoal stream wade,
Shelter'd by jutting rocks;
The fleecy flock, fly-scourged and restless, rush
Madly from fence to fence, from bush to bush.
Tediously pass the hours;
And vegetation wilts, with blister'd root,
And droop the thirsting flowers,
Where the slant sunbeams shoot:
But of each tall old tree the lengthening line,
Slow-creeping eastward, marks the day's decline.
Moves now the shade, and on the meadows' edge : The kine are forth again,
The bird flits in the hedge.
Now in the molten west sinks the hot sun.
Welcome, mild eve!--the sultry day is done.
Pleasantly comèst thou,
Dew of the evening! to the crisp'd-up grass;
And the curl'd corn-blades bow,
As the light breezes pass,
That their parch'd lips may feel thee, and expand,
Thou sweet reviver of the fever'd land!
So, to the thirsting soul,
Cometh the dew of the Almighty's love;
And the scathed heart, made whole,
Turneth in joy above,
To where the spirit freely may expand,
And rove, untrammel'd, in that "better land."
Born at Cambridge, Mass: 1809.
GRANDMOTHER's mother! her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air,
Smooth, square forehead, with uproll'd hair,
Lips that lover has never kiss'd,
Taper fingers and slender wrist,
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade,-
So they painted the little maid.
On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene;
Hold up the canvas full in view!
Look! there's a rent the light shines through,
Dark with a century's fringe of dust,
That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust!
Such is the tale the lady old
Dorothy's daughter's daughter-told.
Who the painter was none may tell,-
One whose best was not over well;
Hard and dry, it must be confess'd,
Flat as a rose that has long been press'd;
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright,
Dainty colours of red and white;
And in her slender shape are seen
Hint and promise of stately mien.
Look not on her with eyes of scorn!
Dorothy Q. was a lady born!
Ay! since the galloping Normans came,
England's annals have known her name:
And still to the three-hill'd rebel town
Dear is that ancient name's renown,
For many a civic wreath they own,
The youthful sire and the grayhair'd son.
O damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.!
Strange is the gift that I owe to you;
Such a gift as never a king
Save to daughter or son might bring:
All my tenure of heart and hand,
All my title to house and land,
Mother and sister, and child and wife,
And joy and sorrow, and death and life.
What if a hundred years ago
Those close-shut lips had answered-No!
When forth the tremulous question came
That cost the maiden her Norman name;
And under the folds that look so still
The bodice swell'd with the bosom's thrill?
Should I be I, or would it be
One-tenth another to nine-tenths me?
Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes:
Not the light gossamer stirs with less;
But never a cable that holds so fast
Through all the battles of wave and blast,
And never an echo of speech or song
That lives in the babbling air so long!
There were tones in the voice that whisper'd then
You may hear to-day in a hundred men!
O lady and lover! how faint and far
Your images hover, and here we are,
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,—
Edwards and Dorothys-all their own—
A goodly record for time to show
Of a syllable spoken so long ago!—
Shall I bless you, Dorothy! or forgive,
For the tender whisper that bade me live?
It shall be a blessing, my little maid!
I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade,
And freshen the gold of the tarnish'd frame,
And gild with a rhyme your household name;
-So
you shall smile on us brave and bright
As first you greeted the morning's light,
And live untroubled by woes and fears
Through a second youth of a hundred years.
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE:
OR THE WONDERFUL ONE-HOSS SHAY."
HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it
I'll tell you what happen'd without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,--
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five!
Georgius Secundus was then alive,—
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finish'd the one-hoss shay.
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot,-
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring, or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,-lurking still:
Find it somewhere you must and will,-
Above or below, or within or without,-
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.
But the Deacon swore, (as deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn' break daown:
"Fur"—said the Deacon-"'t's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain ;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,—
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees ;
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settlers' ellum"
Last of its timber, they couldn't sell 'em,-
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
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