Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in

tan,

And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man,

And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull

By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,

But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease,

(God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of peace:

No foes are conquered who the victors teach

Their vandal manners and barbaric speech.

And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bear

Of the great common burden our full share,

Let none upbraid us that the waves entice

Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device,

Rhythmic and sweet, beguiles my pen

Anal the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled

Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.) Something it has

-a flavor of the sea, And the sea's freedom- which reminds of thee.

Its faded picture, dimly smiling down From the blurred fresco of the ancient town,

I have not touched with warmer tints in vain,

If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought from pain.

HER fingers shame the ivory keys
They dance so light along;
The bloom upon her parted lips
Is sweeter than the song.

O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles!
Her thoughts are not of thee;
She better loves the salted wind,
The voices of the sea.

Her heart is like an outbound ship
That at its anchor swings;
The murmur of the stranded shell
Is in the song she sings.

She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise,

But dreams the while of one Who watches from his sea-blown deck The icebergs in the sun.

She questions all the winds that blow,
And every fog-wreath dim,
And bids the sea-birds flying north
Bear messages to him.

She speeds them with the thanks of men
He perilled life to save,
And grateful prayers like holy oil
To smooth for him the wave.

Brown Viking of the fishing-smack!
Fair toast of all the town!-
The skipper's jerkin ill beseems
The lady's silken gown!

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But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear
For him the blush of shame
Who dares to set his manly gifts
Against her ancient name.

The stream is brightest at its spring,
And blood is not like wine;
Nor honored less than he who heirs
Is he who founds a line.

Full lightly shall the prize be won,
If love be Fortune's spur;
And never maiden stoops to him
Who lifts himself to her.

Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street,
With stately stairways worn
By feet of old Colonial knights
And ladies gentle-born.

Still green about its ample porch
The English ivy twines,
Trained back to show in English oak
The herald's carven signs.

And on her, from the wainscot old,
Ancestral faces frown,→

And this has worn the soldier's sword,
And that the judge's gown.

But, strong of will and proud as they,
She walks the gallery floor
As if she trod her sailor's deck
By stormy Labrador !

The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery-side,
And green are Elliot's bowers;
Her garden is the pebbled beach,
The mosses are her flowers.

She looks across the harbor-bar
To see the white gulls fly;
His greeting from the Northern sea
Is in their clanging cry.

She hums a song, and dreams that he,
As in its romance old,
Shall homeward ride with silken sails
And masts of beaten gold!

O, rank is good, and gold is fair,

And high and low mate ill; But love has never known a law Beyond its own sweet will!

The river's steel-blue crescent curves
To meet, in ebb and flow,
The single broken wharf that serves
For sloop and gundelow.

With salt sea-scents along its shores
The heavy hay-boats crawl,"
The long antennæ of their oars
In lazy rise and fall.

Along the gray abutment's wall
The idle shad-net dries;

The toll-man in his cobbler's stall
Sits smoking with closed eyes.

You hear the pier's low undertone

Of waves that chafe and gnaw;
You start, a skipper's horn is blown
To raise the creaking draw.

At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds
With slow and sluggard beat,
Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds
Wakes up the staring street.

A place for idle eyes and ears,

A cobwebbed nook of dreams;

Left by the stream whose waves are years

The stranded village seems.

And there, like other moss and rust,
The native dweller clings,
And keeps, in uninquiring trust,
The old, dull round of things.

The fisher drops his patient lines,
The farmer sows his grain,
Content to hear the murmuring pines
Instead of railroad-train.

Go where, along the tangled steep
That slopes against the west,
The hamlet's buried idlers sleep
In still profounder rest.

Throw back the locust's flowery plume,
The birch's pale-green scarf,

And break the web of brier and bloom From name and epitaph.

A simple muster-roll of death,

Of

pomp and romance shorn,

The dry, old names that common breath Has cheapened and outworn.

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Yet pause by one low mound, and part
The wild vines o'er it laced,
And read the words by rustic art
Upon its headstone traced.

Haply yon white-haired villager
Of fourscore years can say
What means the noble name of her
Who sleeps with common clay.

An exile from the Gascon land
Found refuge here and rest,
And loved, of all the village band,
Its fairest and its best.

He knelt with her on Sabbath morns,
He worshipped through her eyes,
And on the pride that doubts and scorns
Stole in her faith's surprise.

Her simple daily life he saw

By homeliest duties tried,
In all things by an untaught law
Of fitness justified.

For her his rank aside he laid;
He took the hue and tone
Of lowly life and toil, and made

Her simple ways his own.

Yet still, in gay and careless ease,
To harvest-field or dance
He brought the gentle courtesies,
The nameless grace of France.

And she who taught him love not less
From him she loved in turn
Caught in her sweet unconsciousness
What love is quick to learn.

Each grew to each in pleased accord,
Nor knew the gazing town

If she looked upward to her lord
Or he to her looked down.

How sweet, when summer's day was o'er,

His violin's mirth and wail, The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore, The river's moonlit sail !

Ah! life is brief, though love be long;
The altar and the bier,

The burial hymn and bridal song,
Were both in one short year!