Or down the walls,

With tipsy calls,

Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls.

The fisher's child,

With tresses wild,

Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled,
With glowing lips

Sings as she skips,

Or gazes at the far-off ships.

Yon deep bark goes

Where traffic blows,

From lands of sun to lands of snows;
This happier one,

Its course is run

From lands of snow to lands of sun.

O happy ship,

To rise and dip,

With the blue crystal at your lip!
O happy crew,

My heart with you

Sails, and sails, and sings anew!

No more, no more

The worldly shore

Upbraids me with its loud uproar:
With dreamful eyes

My spirit lies

Under the walls of Paradise!

XXI-757

SHERIDAN'S RIDE

P FROM the south at break of day,

U Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,

The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;

And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled;
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good broad highway leading down:

And there, through the flush of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight,
As if he knew the terrible need;

He stretched away with his utmost speed:
Hills rose and fell; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south,
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth,
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.

The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;

Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Under his spurning feet the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,

And the landscape sped away behind

Like an ocean flying before the wind;

And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,

Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.

But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire;

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

The first that the general saw were the groups

Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops:

What was done? what to do? a glance told him both. Then striking his spurs, with a terrible oath,

He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas,

And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye and the red nostril's play

He seemed to the whole great army to say, "I have brought you Sheridan all the way From Winchester down, to save the day."

Hurrah! hurrah! for Sheridan!

Hurrah! hurrah! for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldier's Temple of Fame,
There with the glorious general's name,
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright: -
"Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,

From Winchester - twenty miles away!"

THE CLOSING SCENE

ITHIN his sober realm of leafless trees

WIT

The russet year inhaled the dreamy air;
Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.

The gray barns looking from their lazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales,
Sent down the air a greeting to the mills,

On the dull thunder of alternate flails.

All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued;
The hills seemed farther and the streams sang low;
As in a dream, the distant woodman hewed
His winter log with many a muffled blow.

The embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood, like some sad beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue.

On slumberous wings the vulture held his flight;
The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's complaint;

And like a star slow drowning in the light,

The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint.

The sentinel-cock upon the hillside crew —

Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before,

Silent till some replying warder blew

His alien horn, and then was heard no more.

Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest,
Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young,
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest,

By every light wind like a censer swung;

Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves,
The busy swallows, circling ever near,
Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,

An early harvest and a plenteous year;

Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn,

To warn the reaper of the rosy east,

All now was songless, empty, and forlorn.

Alone from out the stubble piped the quail,

And croaked the crow through all the dreamy gloom; Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale,

Made echo to the distant cottage loom.

There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;

The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night; The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers,

Sailed slowly by, passed noiseless out of sight.

Amid all this, in this most cheerless air,

And where the woodbine shed upon the porch Its crimson leaves, as if the Year stood there Firing the floor with his inverted torch; —

Amid all this, the centre of the scene,

The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread,
Plied the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien
Sat like a Fate, and watched the flying thread.

She had known Sorrow,- he had walked with her,
Oft supped and broke the bitter ashen crust;
And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir
Of his black mantle trailing in the dust.

While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom,
Her country summoned and she gave her all;
And twice War bowed to her his sable plume-
Regave the swords to rust upon her wall.

Regave the swords,- but not the hand that drew
And struck for Liberty its dying blow;
Nor him who, to his sire and country true,
Fell 'mid the ranks of the invading foe.

Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmur of a hive at noon;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone

Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune.

At last the thread was snapped - her head was bowed;
Life dropped the distaff through his hands serene:
And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud,
While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene.

D

INEZ

OWN behind the hidden village, fringed around with hazel

brake,

(Like a holy hermit dreaming, half asleep and half awake, One who loveth the sweet quiet for the happy quiet's sake,) Dozing, murmuring in its visions, lay the heaven-enamored lake.

And within a doll where shadows through the brightest days

abide,

Like the silvery swimming gossamer by breezes scattered wide,
Fell a shining skein of water that ran down the lakelet's side,
As within the brain by beauty lulled, a pleasant thought may

glide.

When the sinking sun of August, growing large in the decline, Shot his arrows long and golden through the maple and the pine; And the russet-thrush fled singing from the alder to the vine, While the cat-bird in the hazel gave its melancholy whine;

And the little squirrel chattered, peering round the hickory bole,
And, a-sudden like a meteor, gleamed along the oriole ; —
There I walked beside fair Inez, and her gentle beauty stole
Like the scene athwart my senses, like the sunshine through my
soul.

And her fairy feet that pressed the leaves, a pleasant music made, And they dimpled the sweet beds of moss with blossoms thick in