HOME BALLADS.

I CALL the old time back: I bring these lays
To thee, in memory of the summer days
When, by our native streams and forest ways,

We dreamed them over; while the rivulets made Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid On warın noon-lights the masses of their shade.

And she was with us, living o'er again
Her life in ours, despite of years and pain,-
The Autumn's brightness after latter rain.

Beautiful in her holy peace as one

Who stands, at evening, when the work is done, Glorified in the setting of the sun!

Her memory makes our common landscape seem
Fairer than any of which painters dream,
Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream;

For she whose speech was always truth's pure gold
Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told,
And loved with us the beautiful and old.

HOME BALLADS.

THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER.

It was the pleasant harvest time,
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,

And the old swallow-haunted barns-
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Through which the moted sunlight streams,

And winds blow freshly in, to shake
The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
And the loose hay-mow's scented locks—

Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.

On Esek Harden's oaken floor,

With many an autumn threshing worn,
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.

And thither came young men and maids,
Beneath a moon that, large and low,
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.

They took their places; some by chance,
And others by a merry voice

Or sweet smile guided to their choice.