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THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL.

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torts,

Ruling as right the will of the strong,
Poverty, crime, and w akness wrong;
Wide-eared to power, to the wronged
and weak

Deaf as Egypt's godsleek;
Scoffing aside at party's nod

Order of nature and law of God;
For whose dabbled ermi e respect were
waste,

Reverence folly, and awe misplaced; Justice of whom 't were in to seek As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik !

O, leave the wretch to hi bribes and sins;

Let him rot in the web of li he spins!
To the saintly soul of the early day,
To the Christian judge, let us turn and
say:

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"Praise and thanks for an honest man!

Glory to God for the Puritan ! "

I see, far southward, this quiet day, The hills of Newbury rolling away, With the many tints of the season gay, Dreamily blending in autumn mist Crimson, and gold, and amethyst. Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned,

Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, A stone's toss over the narrow sound. Inland, as far as the eye can go,

The hills curve round like a bended

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SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.

Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, Shouting and singing the shrill refrain: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,

Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt

By the women o' Morble'ead!"

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Through the street, on either side,
Up flew windows, doors swung wide;
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground,
Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,
And cracked with curses the hoarse
refrain:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd

horrt,

Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt

By the women o' Morble'ead!"

Sweetly along the Salem road
Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
Little the wicked skipper knew

Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.

Riding there in his sorry trim,
Like an Indian idol glum and grim,
Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear
Of voices shouting, far and near:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,

Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt

By the women o' Morble'ead!”

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THE SYCAMORES.

THE SYCAMORES.

In the outskirts of the village,
On the river's winding shores,
Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
Stand the ancient sycamores.

One long century hath been numbered,
And another half-way told,
Since the rustic Irish gleeman
Broke for them the virgin mould.

Deftly set to Celtic music,

At his violin's sound they grew, Through the moonlit eves of summer, Making Amphion's fable true.

Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant !
Pass in jerkin green along,
With thy eyes brimful of laughter,
And thy mouth as full of song.

Pioneer of Erin's outcasts,
With his fiddle and his pack;
Little dreamed the village Saxons
Of the myriads at his back.

How he wrought with spade and fiddle,
Delved by day and sang by night,
With a hand that never wearied,
And a heart forever light,

Still the gay tradition mingles With a record grave and drear, Like the rolic air of Cluny,

With the solemn march of Mear.

When the box-tree, white with blossoms, Made the sweet May woodlands glad, And the Aronia by the river

Lighted up the swarming shad,

And the bulging nets swept shoreward,
With their silver-sided haul,
Midst the shouts of dripping fishers,
He was merriest of them all.

When, among the jovial huskers,
Love stole in at Labor's side
With the lusty airs of England,

Soft his Celtic measures vied.

Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake, And the merry fair's carouse;

Of the wild Red Fox of Erin
And the Woman of Three Cows,

By the blazing hearths of winter,

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Pleasant seemed his simple tales, Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends And the mountain myths of Wales. How the souls in Purgatory

Scrambled up from fate forlorn, On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder, Slyly hitched to Satan's horn.

Of the fiddler who at Tara

Played all night to ghosts of kings; Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies Dancing in their moorland rings !

Jolliest of our birds of singing,

Best he loved the Bob-o-link. "Hush!" he 'd say, "the tipsy fairies! Hear the little folks in drink!"

Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle, Singing through the ancient town, Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant, Hath Tradition handed down.

Not a stone his grave discloses ;
But if yet his spirit walks,
'T is beneath the trees he planted,
And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks;

Green memorials of the gleeman ! Linking still the river-shores, With their shadows cast by sunset, Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores!

When the Father of his Country

Through the north-land riding came, And the roofs were starred with banners, And the steeples rang acclaim,

When each war-scarred Continental,
Leaving smithy, mill, and farm,
Waved his rusted sword in welcome,
And shot off his old king's arm, —

Slowly passed that august Presence Down the thronged and shouting street;

Village girls as white as angels,
Scattering flowers around his feet.

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