PRELUDE.

ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of gold

That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,

Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod,

And the red pennons of the cardinalflowers

Hang motionless upon their upright

staves.

The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind,

Wing-weary with its long flight from the south,

Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf

With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,

Confesses it. The locust by the wall Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.

A single hay-cart down the dusty road Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep

On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill,

Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,

The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still

Defied the dog-star. Through the open door

A drowsy smell of flowers

-gray helio

trope, And white sweet-clover, and shy migno

To task their strength: and (unto Him be praise

Who giveth quietness !) the stress and strain

Of years that did the work of centuries

Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more

Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters Make glad their nooning underneath the elms

With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,

I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn The leaves of Memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er

Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, And human life, as quiet, at their feet.

And yet not idly all. A farmer's son, Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling

All their fine possibilities, how rich And restful even poverty and toil Become when beauty, harmony, and love

Sit at their humble hearth as angels

Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed

(Broom-clean I think they called it); the best room

Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air

In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless

Save the inevitable sampler hung Over the fireplace, or a mourningpiece,

A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath

Impossible willows; the wide-throated hearth

Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing

The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back;

And, in sad keeping with all things

For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink

Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves;

For them in vain October's holocaust Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills,

The sacramental mystery of the woods. Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers,

But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent,

Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls

And winter pork with the least possible outlay

Of salt and sanctity; in daily life Showing as little actual comprehension Of Christian charity and love and duty, As if the Sermon on the Mount had been

Outdated like a last year's almanac: Rich in broad woodlands and in halftilled fields,

And yet so pinched and bare and com fortless,

The veriest straggler limping on h rounds,

The sun and air his sole inheritance, Laughed at a poverty that paid its

taxes,

And hugged his rags in self-compla cency !

Not such should be the homesteads of a land

Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell

As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred

state,

With beauty, art, taste, culture, books,

to make

His hour of leisure richer than a life Of fourscore to the barons of old time, Our yeoman should be equal to his home

Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled,

A man to match his mountains, not to creep

Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain

In this light way (of which I needs

must own

401

Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon

The princely guest, whether in soft attire

Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil.

And, lending life to the dead form of faith,

Give human nature reverence for the sake

Of One who bore it, making it divine With the ineffable tenderness of God; Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer,

The heirship of an unknown destiny, The unsolved mystery round about us, make

A man more precious than the gold of Ophir

Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things Should minister, as outward types and signs

Of the eternal beauty which fulfils The one great purpose of creation, Love,

The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven !

AMONG THE HILLS.

FOR weeks the clouds had raked the hills

And vexed the vales with raining, And all the woods were sad with mist, And all the brooks complaining.

At last, a sudden night-storm tore
The mountain veils asunder,
And swept the valleys clean before
The besom of the thunder.

Through Sandwich notch the westwind sang

Good morrow to the cotter; And once again Chocorua's horn Of shadow pierced the water.

Above his broad lake Ossipee,

Once more the sunshine wearing, Stooped, tracing on that silver shield His grim armorial bearing.

Clear drawn against the hard blue sky The peaks had winter's keenness;

And through them smote the level sur In broken lines of splendor, Touched the gray rocks and made the green

Of the shorn grass more tender.

The maples bending o'er the gate,
Their arch of leaves just tinted
With yellow warmth, the golden glow
Of coming autumn hinted.

Keen white between the farm-house showed,

And smiled on porch and trellis,
The fair democracy of flowers
That equals cot and palace.

And weaving garlands for her dog,
'Twixt chidings and caresses,
A human flower of childhood shook
The sunshine from her tresses.

On either hand we saw the signs
Of fancy and of shrewdness,
Where taste had wound its arms of
vines

Round thrift's uncomely rudeness.

The sun-brown farmer in his frock
Shook hands, and called to Mary:
Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came,
White-aproned from her dairy.

Her air, her smile, her motions, told
Of womanly completeness:
A music as of household songs

Was in her voice of sweetness.

Not beautiful in curve and line,
But something more and better,
The secret charm eluding art,
Its spirit, not its letter;-

An inborn grace that nothing lacked
Of culture or appliance,
The warmth of genial courtesy,
The calm of self-reliance.

Before her queenly womanhood
How dared our hostess utter
The paltry errand of her need
To buy her fresh-churned butter?
She led the way with housewife pride
Her goodly store disclosing