And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, I find my lost youth again. And the strange and beautiful song, The groves are repeating it still : "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." THE ROPEWALK. IN that building, long and low, Like the port-holes of a hulk, Human spiders spin and spin, Backward down their threads so thin Dropping, each a hempen bulk. At the end, an open door; Light the long and dusky lane; As the spinners to the end Gleam the long threads in the sun; While within this brain of mine Cobwebs brighter and more fine By the busy wheel are spun. Two fair maidens in a swing, Like white doves upon the wing, First before my vision pass; Laughing, as their gentle hands Closely clasp the twisted strands, At their shadow on the grass. Then a booth of mountebanks, With its smell of tan and planks, And a girl poised high in air On a cord, in spangled dress, With a faded loveliness, And a weary look of care. Then a homestead among farms, And a woman with bare arms Drawing water from a well; As the bucket mounts apace, With it mounts her own fair face, As at some magician's spell. Then an old man in a tower, Blow, and sweep it from the earth! Then a school-boy, with his kite And an eager, upward look ; And an angler by a brook. Ships rejoicing in the breeze, Sea-fog drifting overhead, All these scenes do I behold, In that building long and low; While the wheel goes round and round, With a drowsy, dreamy sound, And the spinners backward go. Every distance CATAWBA WINE. THIS song of mine Is a Song of the Vine, To be sung by the glowing embers Of wayside inns, When the rain begins To darken the drear Novembers. It is not a song Of the Scuppernong, From warm Carolinian valleys, Nor the Isabel And the Muscadel That bask in our garden alleys. Nor the red Mustang, Of whose purple blood For richest and best Is the wine of the West, Fills all the room And as hollow trees Through the gateways of the world With a swarming and buzzing and hum around him. As he heard them Or ming. Very good in its way the Sillery soft and creamy; Is the Verzenay, But Catawba wine Has a taste more divine, When he sat with those who were, but More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy. are not. Honor to those whose words or deeds And by their overflow Raise us from what is low! Thus thought I, as by night I read The trenches cold and damp, The cheerless corridors, Lo in that house of misery Pass through the glimmering gloom, And slow, as in a dream of bliss, As if a door in heaven should be The light shone and was spent. On England's annals, through the long That light its rays shall cast A Lady with a Lamp shall stand Nor even shall be wanting here The palm, the lily, and the spear The symbols that of yore Saint Filomena bore. THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE. A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS. OTHERE, the old sea-captain, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, His figure was tall and stately, Like a boy's his eye appeared; His hair was yellow as hay, But threads of a silvery gray Gleamed in his tawny beard. Hearty and hale was Othere, His cheek had the color of oak; With a kind of laugh in his speech, Like the sea-tide on a beach, As unto the King he spoke. And Alfred, King of the Saxons, "So far I live to the northward, "And there we hunted the walrus, The narwhale, and the seal; Ha! 't was a noble game! "To the northward stretched the desert, And like the lightning's flame How far I fain would know; So at last I sallied forth, "To the west of me was the ocean, Till after three days more. "The days grew longer and longer, Of the red midnight sun. "And then uprose before me, "The sea was rough and stormy, The tempest howled and wailed, And the sea-fog, like a ghost, Haunted that dreary coast, But onward still I sailed. "Four days I steered to eastward, Four days without a night: Flew our harpoons of steel. |