And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that

were,

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,
With its windows all a-row,

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;
Squares of sunshine on the floor

Light the long and dusky lane;
And the whirring of a wheel,
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel
All its spokes are in my brain.

As the spinners to the end
Downward go and reascend,

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,
Ringing loud the noontide hour,
While the rope coils round and round
Like a serpent at his feet,
And again, in swift retreat,
Nearly lifts him from the ground.
Then within a prison-yard,
Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,
Laughter and indecent mirth;
Ah! it is the gallows-tree!
Breath of Christian charity,

Blow, and sweep it from the earth!

Then a school-boy, with his kite
Gleaming in a sky of light,

And an eager, upward look ;
Steeds pursued through lane and field;
Fowlers with their snares concealed;

And an angler by a brook.

Ships rejoicing in the breeze,
Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas,
Anchors dragged through faithless
sand;

Sea-fog drifting overhead,
And, with lessening line and lead,
Sailors feeling for the land.

All these scenes do I behold,
These, and many left untold,

In that building long and low; While the wheel goes round and round, With a drowsy, dreamy sound,

And the spinners backward go.

THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE.

LEAFLESS are the trees; their purple branches

Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral, Ring silent

In the Red Sea of the winter sunset.

From the hundred chimneys of the vil lage,

Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,
Smoky columns

Tower aloft into the air of amber.

At the window winks the flickering firelight;

Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,

Social watch-fires Answering one another through the darkness.

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,
Whose clusters hang
O'er the waves of the Colorado,
And the fiery flood

Of whose purple blood
Has a dash of Spanish bravado.

For richest and best

Is the wine of the West,
That grows by the Beautiful River;
Whose sweet perfume
Fills all the room
With a benison on the giver.

And as hollow trees
Are the haunts of bees,
Forever going and coming;
So this crystal hive
Is all alive

around him.

As he heard them

ming.

But Catawba wine

Has a taste more divine,

are not.

And there we hunted the walrus, The narwhale, and the seal; Ha! 't was a noble game!

How far I fain would know ;

So at last I sallied forth,
And three days sailed due north,
As far as the whale-ships go.

"To the west of me was the ocean,
To the right the desolate shore,
But I did not slacken sail
For the walrus or the whale,

Till after three days more.

"The days grew longer and longer,
Till they became as one,
And northward through the haze
I saw the sullen blaze

Of the red midnight sun.

"And then uprose before me,
Upon the water's edge,
The huge and haggard shape
Of that unknown North Cape,
Whose form is like a wedge.

"The sea was rough and storiny, 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.

"There were six of us all together, Norsemen of Helgoland;

In two days and no more
We killed of them threescore,

And dragged them to the strand !"

Here Alfred the Truth-Teller
Suddenly closed his book,
And lifted his blue eyes,
With doubt and strange surmise
Depicted in their look.

And Othere the old sea-captain

Stared at him wild and weird, Then smiled, till his shining teeth Gleamed white from underneath

His tawny, quivering beard.

And to the King of the Saxons,
In witness of the truth,

Raising his noble head,

He stretched his brown hand, and said, "Behold this walrus-tooth !"

DAYBREAK.

A WIND came up out of the sea,

And said, "O mists, make room for me."