On Esek Harden's oaken floor,

With many an autumn 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.

And jests went round, and laughs that made
The house-dog answer with his howl,
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl;

But still the sweetest voice was mute
That river-valley ever heard
From lip of maid or throat of bird;

For Mabel Martin sat apart,

And let the hay-mow's shadow fall
Upon the loveliest face of all.

She sat apart, as one forbid,

Who knew that none would condescend To own the Witch-wife's child a friend.

The seasons scarce had gone their round,
Since curious thousands thronged to see
Her mother on the gallows-tree.

Few questioned of the sorrowing child,
Or, when they saw the mother die,
Dreamed of the daughter's agony.

Poor Mabel from her mother's grave
Crept to her desolate hearth-stone,
And wrestled with her fate alone.

With love, and anger, and despair,
The phantoms of disordered sense,
The awful doubts of Providence!

The school-boys jeered her as they passed,
And, when she sought the house of prayer,
Her mother's curse pursued her there.

And still o'er many a neighboring door
She saw the horseshoe's curvéd charm,
To guard against her mother's harm ;—

That mother, poor, and sick, and lame,
Who daily, by the old arm-chair,
Folded her withered hands in prayer;-

Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail,
Her worn old bible o'er and o'er,
When her dim eyes could read no more!
Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept
Her faith, and trusted that her way,
So dark, would somewhere meet the day.
So in the shadow Mabel sits;

Untouched by mirth she sees and hears,
Her smile is sadder than her tears.

But cruel eyes have found her out,
And cruel lips repeat her name,

And taunt her with her mother's shame.

She answered not with railing words,
But drew her apron o'er her face,
And, sobbing, glided from the place.

And only pausing at the door,

Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze
Of one who, in her better days,

Had been her warm and steady friend,
Ere yet her mother's doom had made
Even Esek Harden half afraid.

He felt that mute appeal of tears,
And, starting, with an angry frown
Hushed all the wicked murmurs down.

"Good neighbors mine," he sternly said, "This passes harmless mirth or jest; I brook no insult to my guest."

The broadest lands in all the town,
The skill to guide, the power to awe,
Were Harden's; and his word was law.

None dared withstand him to his face,
But one sly maiden spake aside :
"The little witch is evil-eyed!

"Her mother only killed a cow,

Or witched a churn or dairy-pan;

But she, forsooth, must charm a man!"

Poor Mabel, in her lonely home,
Sat by the window's narrow pane,
White in the moonlight's silver rain.

She strove to drown her sense of wrong,
And, in her old and simple way,
To teach her bitter heart to pray.

Poor child! the prayer, begun in faith,
Grew to a low, despairing cry

Of utter misery: "Let me die!

"O God! have mercy on Thy child,

Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small, And take me ere I lose it all!"

A shadow on the moonlight fell,

And murmuring wind and wave became
A voice whose burden was her name.

Had then God heard her? Had He sent
His angel down? In flesh and blood,
Before her Esek Harden stood.

He laid his hand upon her arm;

"Dear Mabel, this no more shall be ; Who scoffs at you must scoff at me.

"You know rough Esek Harden well; And if he seems no suitor gay,

And if his hair is touched with gray,

"The maiden grown shall never find

His heart less warm than when she smiled,
Upon his knees, a little child !”

"O truest friend of all !" she said,
"God bless you for your kindly thought,
And make me worthy of my lot!"

He led her through his dewy fields,

To where the swinging lanterns glowed, And through the doors the huskers showed.

"Good friends and neighbors!" Esek said,
"I'm weary of this lonely life;
In Mabel see my chosen wife!

"She greets you kindly, one and all;
The past is past, and all offence
Falls harmless from her innocence.

"Henceforth she stands no more alone; You know what Esek Harden is;He brooks no wrong to him or his."

O, pleasantly the harvest moon,

Between the shadows of the mows,
Looked on them through the great elm-boughs.

On Mabel's curls of golden hair,

On Esek's shaggy strength it fell;

And the wind whispered, "It is well!"

Whittier (Abridged).

THE KING'S DAUGHTERS.

THE King's three little daughters, 'neath the palace windows straying,

Had fallen into earnest talk that put an end to playing,

And the weary King smiled once again to hear what they were saying.

"It is I who love our father best!" the eldest daughter said;

"I am the oldest princess!" and her pretty face grew red.