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Each stately beeve bespeaks the hand
That fed him unrepining;
The fatness of a goodly land

In each dun hide is shining.

We've sought them where, in warmest nooks,
The freshest feed is growing,
By sweetest springs and clearest brooks
Through honeysuckle flowing;
Wherever hill-sides, sloping south,
Are bright with early grasses,
Or, tracking green the lowland's drouth,
The mountain streamlet passes.

But now the day is closing cool,
The woods are dim before us,
The white fog of the way-side pool
Is creeping slowly o'er us.
The cricket to the frog's bassoon
His shrillest time is keeping;
The sickle of yon setting moon
The meadow-mist is reaping.

The night is falling, comrades mine,
Our foot-sore beasts are weary,
And through yon elms the tavern sign
Looks out upon us cheery.
To-morrow, eastward with our charge
We'll go to meet the dawning,
Ere yet the pines of Kéarsarge
Have seen the sun of morning.

When snow-flakes o'er the frozen earth,
Instead of birds, are flitting;
When children throng the glowing hearth,
And quiet wives are knitting;
While in the fire-light strong and clear
Young eyes of pleasure glisten,

To tales of all we see and hear
The ears of home shall listen.

THE FISHERMEN.

By many a Northern lake and hill,
From many a mountain pasture,
Shall Fancy play the Drover still,
And speed the long night faster.
Then let us on, through shower and sun,
And heat and cold, be driving;
There's life alone in duty done,
And rest alone in striving.

THE FISHERMEN.

HURRAH! the seaward breezes
Sweep down the bay amain;
Heave up, my lads, the anchor !
Run up the sail again!
Leave to the lubber landsmen
The rail-car and the steed;
The stars of heaven shall guide us,
The breath of heaver shall speed.

From the hill-top looks the steeple,
And the light-house from the sand;
And the scattered pines are waving
Their farewell from the land.
One glance, my lads, behind us,
For the homes we leave one sigh,
Ere we take the change and chances
Of the ocean and the sky.

Now brothers, for the icebergs
Of frozen Labrador,
Floating spectral in the moonshine,
Along the low, black shore!
Where like snow the gannet's feathers
On Brador's rocks are shed,

And the noisy murr are flying,

Like black scuds, overhead;

13

Where in mist the rock is hiding,
And the sharp reef lurks below,
And the white squall smites in summer,
And the autumn tempests blow;
Where, through gray and rolling vapor,
From evening unto morn,

A thousand boats are hailing,
Horn answering unto horn.

Hurrah! for the Red Island,

With the white cross on its crown!
Hurrah! for Meccatina,

And its mountains bare and brown
Where the Caribou's tall antlers
O'er the dwarf-wood freely toss,
And the footstep of the Mickmack
Has no sound upon the moss.

There we'll drop our lines, and gather
Old Ocean's treasures in,

Where'er the mottled mackerel
Turns up a steel-dark fin.
The sea's our field of harvest,
Its scaly tribes our grain ;
We'll reap the teeming waters
As at home they reap the plain!

Our wet hands spread the carpet,
And light the hearth of home;
From our fish, as in the old time,
The silver coin shall come.
As the demon fled the chamber
Where the fish of Tobit lay,
So ours from all our dwellings
Shall frighten Want away.

Though the mist upon our jackets
In the bitter air congeals,
And our lines wind stiff and slowly
From off the frozen reels;

THE HUSKERS.

Though the fog be dark around us,
And the storm blow high and loud,
We will whistle down the wild wind,

And laugh beneath the cloud!

In the darkness as in daylight,
On the water as on land,
God's eye is looking on us,

And beneath us is his hand!
Death will find us soon or later,
On the deck or in the cot;
And we cannot meet him better
Than in working out our lot.

Hurrah!-hurrah!-the west wind
Comes freshening down the bay,
The rising sails are filling-
Give way, my lads, give way!
Leave the coward landsman clinging
To the dull earth, like a weed-
The stars of heaven shall guide us,
The breath of heaven shall speed!

15

THE HUSKERS.

It was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain

Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again;

The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay

With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadowflowers of May.

Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red,

At first a rayless disc of fire, he brightened as he sped;

Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued,

On the corn-fields and the orchards, and softly pictured wood.

And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night,

He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow

light;

Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill;

And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still.

And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of that sky,

Flecked by the many-tinted leaves, and laughed, they knew not why;

And school-girls, gay with aster-flowers, beside the meadow brooks,

Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine of sweet looks.

From spire and barn, looked westerly the patient weather-cocks;

But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks.

No sound was in the woodlands, save the squirrel's dropping shell,

And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low rustling as they fell.

The summer grains were harvested; the stubblefields lay dry,

Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale-green waves of rye;

But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys fringed with wood,

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