HOME BALLADS. THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER. Ir was the pleasant harvest time, When cellar-bins are closely stowed, And garrets bend beneath their load, And the old swallow-haunted barnsBrown-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 anautumn 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. How pleasantly the rising moon, On sturdy boyhood sun-embrowned, nerves ! And jests went round, and laughs that made The house-dog answer with his howl, And kept astir the barn-yard fowl; And quaint old songs their fathers sung, In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, Ere Norman William trod their shores; And tales, whose merry license shook But still the sweetest voice was mute For Mabel Martin sat apart, She sat apart, as one forbid, Who knew that none would condescend To own the Witch-wife's child a friend. The seasonsscarce had gone their round, Since curious thousands thronged to see Her mother on the gallows-tree; And mocked the palsied limbs of age, Few questioned of the sorrowing child, |