Then through the night the hoof-beats
Went sounding like a flail;
And Goody Cole at cockcrow
Came forth from Ipswich jail.

"Here is a rhyme: I hardly dare To venture on its theme worn out; What seems so sweet by Doon and Ayr

Sounds simply silly hereabout; And pipes by lips Arcadian blown Are only tin horns at our own. Yet still the muse of pastoral walks with us,

While Hosea Biglow sings, our new Theocritus."

THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH.

IN sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham

Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen, -

When, in the shadow of the ash That dreams its dream in Attitash, In the warm summer weather, Two maidens sat together.

They sat and watched in idle mood The gleam and shade of lake and wood,

The beach the keen light smote,
The white sail of a boat, -

Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying,
In sweetness, not in music, dying,
Hardback, and virgin' bower,
And white-spiked clethra-flower.

With careless ears they heard the plash
And breezy wash of Attitash,

The wood-bird's plaintive cry,
The locust's sharp reply.

And teased the while, with playful hand,
The shaggy dog of Newfoundland,
Whose uncouth frolic spilled
Their baskets berry-filled.

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Then one, the beauty of whose eyes
Was evermore a great surprise,
Tossed back her queenly head,
And, lightly laughing, said, -
"No bridegroom's hand be mine to
hold

That is not lined with yellow gold;
I tread no cottage-floor;
I own no lover poor.

"My love must come on silken wings,
With bridal lights of diamond rings,
Not foul with kitchen smirch,
With tallow-dip for torch."

The other, on whose modest head
Was lesser dower of beauty shed,
With look for home-hearths meet,
And voice exceeding sweet,

He knew, as he wrought, that a loving heart

Was somehow baffling his evil art;
For more than spell of Elf or Troll
Is a maiden's prayer for her lover's soul.

And Esbern listened, and caught the sound

Of a Troll-wife singing underground: "To-morrow comes Fine, father thine: Lie still and hush thee, baby mine!

"Lie still, my darling! next sunrise Thou 't play with Esbern Snare's heart and eyes!"

"Ho! ho!" quoth Esbern, "is that your game?

Thanks to the Troil-wife, I know his name!"

Of sun-graved pictures, ocean wires,

And smoking steamboats of to-day? And this, O lady, by your leave, Recalls your song of yester eve: Pray, let us have that Cable-hymn once

more.'

"Hear, hear!" the Book-man cried, "the lady has the floor.

"These noisy waves below perhaps To such a strain will lend their ear,

With softer voice and lighter lapse

Come stealing up the sands to hear, And what they once refused to do For old King Knut accord to you. Nay, even the fishes shall your listeners be,

As once, the legend runs, they heard St. Anthony."

O lonely bay of Trinity,

O dreary shores, give ear! Lean down unto the white-lipped sea The voice of God to hear!

From world to world his couriers fly, Thought-winged and shod with fire; The angel of His stormy sky

Rides down the sunken wire.

What saith the herald of the Lord? "The world's long strife is done; Close wedded by that mystic cord, Its continents are one.

"And one in heart, as one in blood, Shall all her peoples be;

The hands of human brotherhood Are clasped beneath the sea.

"Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain

And Asian mountains borne, The vigor of the Northern brain Shall nerve the world outworn.

"From clime to clime, from shore to shore,

Shall thrill the magic thread; The new Prometheus steals once more The fire that wakes the dead."

Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat
From answering beach to beach;
Fuse nations in thy kindly heat,
And melt the chains of each!

Wild terror of the sky above,

Glide tamed and dumb below! Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, Thy errands to and fro.

Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord,
Beneath the deep so far,

The bridal robe of earth's accord,
The funeral shroud of war!

For lo! the fall of Ocean's wall

Space mocked and time outrun;

And round the world the thought of all
Is as the thought of one!

The poles unite. the zones agree,
The tongues of striving cease;

As on the Sea of Galilee

The Christ is whispering, Peace!

"Glad prophecy! to this at last," The Reader said, "shall all things

come.

Forgotten be the bugle's blast,

And battle-music of the drum. A little while the world may run Its old mad way, with needle-gun And iron-clad, but truth, at last, shali reign:

The cradle song of Christ was never sung in vain!"

Shifting hisscattered papers, "Here," He said, as died the faint applause, "Is something that I found last year Down on the island known as Orr's. I had it from a fair-haired girl Who, oddly, bore the name of Pearl, (As it by some droll freak of circumstance.)

Classic, or wellnigh so, in Harriet Stowe's romance."

THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPS-
WELL.

WHAT flecks the outer gray beyond
The sundown's golden trail?

379

The white flash of a sea-bird's wing,
Or gleam of slanting sail?
Let young eyes watch from Neck and
Point,

And sea-worn elders pray, -
The ghost of what was once a ship
Is sailing up the bay!

From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from pain,

The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,
O hundred-harbored Maine!
But many a keel shall seaward turn,

And many a sail outstand,

When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms

Against the dusk of land.

She rounds the headland's bristling pines:

She threads the isle-set bay;
No spur of breeze can speed her on,
Ner cbb of tide delay.

Old men still walk the Isle of Orr
Who tell her date and name,
Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards
Who hewed her oaken frame.

What weary doom of baffled quest,
Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine?
What makes thee in the haunts of home
A worder and a sign?
No fort is on thy silent deck,
Upon thy helm no hand;
No ripple hath the soundless wind
That smites thee from the land!

For never comes the ship to port,

Howe'er the breeze may be;
Just when she nears the waiting shore
She drifts again to sea.

No tack of sail, nor turn of helm,
Nor sheer of veering side;
Stern-fore she drives to sea and night,
Against the wind and tide.

In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star
Of evening guides her in;
In vain for her the lamps are lit
Within thy tower, Seguin !
In vain the harbor-boat shall hail,
In vain the pilot call;

No hand shall reef her spectral sail,
Or let her anchor fall.