About the bough to help his housekeep

ing, Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck,

Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, Divines the providence that hides and helps.

Heave, ho! Heave, ho! he whistles as the twine

Slackens its hold; once more, now! and a flash

Lightens across the sunlight to the elm

Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt.

Nor all his booty is the thread; he trails

My loosened thought with it along the air,

And I must follow, would I ever find The inward rhyme to all this wealth of life.

His deep-ridged trunk with upward slant diverse,

In outline like enormous beaker, fit For hand of Jotun, where 'mid snow and mist

He holds unwieldly revel. This tree, spared,

I know not by what grace, blood

-for in the

Of our New World subduers lingers yet Hereditary feud with trees, they being (They and the red-man most) our fathers' foes,

Is one of six, a willow Pleiades,

The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink

Where the steep upland dips into the marsh,

Their roots, like molten metal cooled in flowing,

Stiffened in coils and runnels down the bank.

The friend of all the winds, wide-armed he towers

And glints his steely aglets in the sun, Or whitens fitfully with sudden bloom Of leaves breeze-lifted, much as when a shoal

Of devious minnows wheel from where a pike

Lurks balanced 'neath the lily-pads, and whirl

A rood of silver bellies to the day.

Alas! no acorn from the British oak 'Neath which slim fairies tripping wrought those rings

Of greenest emerald, wherewith fireside life

Did with the invisible spirit of Nature wed,

Was ever planted here! No darnel fancy

Might choke one useful blade in Puritan fields;

With horn and hoof the good old Devil came,

The witch's broomstick was not contra

band,

But all that superstition had of fair.