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 nooki.

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 K^arsarge

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. IS

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 heaven 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;

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 t 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. 15

Though the fog be dark around us,
And the storm blow high and loud,

We Trill 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!

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 lie

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

flimpses of that sky, _ 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'f

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,