Arms upraised and fingers pointing,

Eldred figures, half concealed ;

Heads in profile, bold, gigantic,
Pigmy forms with smirk and antic,

Ghostly shapes with aspect frantic,

Forms on tiptoe upward reaching;

Gaudy mimes with bow and caper,

Spiral stairways, statues taper,
Long dull lakes of moony vapour,

Figures knelt, hands clasped, beseeching.

Here, a splintered column sleeping,

There, a woman bowed and weeping,
Close behind, a maiden peeping,

There, a poet brooding lorn.

Snowhills yonder, seamed and drifted,
Here, a wind-blown garment lifted,
There, a fortress, shattered, rifted,

'Neath a curtain rent and torn,

Through the which the sunlight flashes
Out, in long and milky lashes,

And the sullen landscape dashes

With a hundred burning dots,

With the clouds, dream-moving, veering,
Opening, closing, widening, nearing,

Fading, dying, re-appearing

Everywhere in varying spots.

'Tis a land-stretch, villa-studded,

Here and there be-rocked and wooded,
Vales with April waters flooded;

Lofty spires in each direction.

Torpent hillocks bound the vision,
Height on height in rude precision,
Cleft with many a deep incision,

Flanked with many a huge projection.

This the frame: the picture, nearer,
Lies in outline firmer, clearer,
Vision-swept and cherished dearer ;

Memory haunts each feature doting!

Larch-serrated uplands sleeping,
Where a windmill watch is keeping ;

Up a gorge, a steam-horse creeping,

Clouds a sluice and barges floating.

Hills 'mid valleys, scalloped, shaded,
Heath embrowned and hedgerow braided,
Furze be-ruffled, brook-cascaded,

Mottled o'er with ivied dwellings;

Shaded cots and fat farmhouses,

Steaming byres where Milcher drowses,

Pastures brown where Dobbin browses,

Brambled hollows, hillock-swellings.

Nearer still-a sloping valley

Where the shadows longest dally,

And the mist-wraiths, still and palely,

Linger over dell and gloom;

Through the which a streamlet, brawling, Shrieks when o'er the boulders falling, Scrambling, hustling, whimpering, sprawling, Straggleth towards an old mill-flume.

Deep within-a marshy meadow,
Where the noonlight faints to shadow;

Chilly now; at midnight wed to

Will-o'-th'-wisp and goblin chases.

Patrolled round with hedgerow marches,
Sentinelled with dragoon larches,

Flanked with oaks, whose branching arches
Lift the shade in bridge-like spaces.

There a flock of rooks are vieing

With each other; fiercely plying

For the acorns underlying,

Hidden deep in autumn weather.

Some from far are hasting for them,
Some are circling, wheeling o'er them,
Some down-dropping swell the quorum,
Swaying, mingling all together.

Some amid the shadows loiter,

Some where glows the linting brighter,

Some on outposts reconnoitre,

Till relieved by sable brothers.

Some among the oaks are sitting,
Some are coming, some are quitting,
Ever restless, swaying, flitting—

Stealing booty of each others.

Rubbing beaks with ancient amours,
Hailing friends with boisterous clamours,
While the ether titters, stammers,

With their ceaseless cawing, cawing.

But the vision dims before me,'
And a haunting gathers o'er me;
Comes a presence to restore me

To the past-the veil withdrawing.

In the morning's glowing, golden,
Up a pathway, shaded, olden,
Satchel hung and tippet folden,

Two fair sisters and a brother,

Burnished, ringlet-hung, are tripping,
Laughing gaily, jumping, skipping,
Now behind, and now outstripping,
In their joyance, one another.

Suddenly they pause and listen,

Upward glance with eyes that glisten,

For a bickering sound has risen

Up the dawning red and cool.

Flocks of rooks are gliding, flowing
Through the dreaming and the glowing;

F

Say the children, "They are going,
Just as we are now, to school."

Hailing them, they kisses blow them,
And a low obeisance do them;
Hope their dame is kindly to them,

Bow again and say "good morning."

And to those who croak and linger
Talk they of the truant-stinger,
Deal with stern and upraised finger

Many a grave and solemn warning.

Passing on, they quiz and wonder
If their school is where the thunder

Mutters awfully; or under

Forest roofs of leaves a-quiver.

If on clouds or branches perching,
Drone they 'neath great goggles, searching
Luckless trifler for a birching;

If they wear the dunce-cap ever.

And at night when home returning,
Free from all the quags of learning,
Glancing upwards toward the burning,

Once again they hear and see them.

Gathering o'er the sunset, swooping,
Chasing, wheeling, tumbling, whooping ;-
"Playing at tick," say they, "while trooping

Home from school, rejoiced with freedom."