What joy in dreaming ease to lie
Amid a field new shorn,
And see all round on sun-lit slope,
The piled-up stacks of corn,
And send the fancy wandering o'er
All pleasant harvest-fields of yore.
I feel the day; I see the field;
The quivering of the leaves;
And good old Jacob, and his house
Binding the yellow sheaves;
And at the very hour I seem
To be with Joseph in his dream.
I see the fields of Bethlehem,
And reapers many a one,
Bending with their sickles' stroke,
And Boaz looking on;
And Ruth, the Moabitess fair,
Among the gleaners stooping there.
Again, I see a little child,
His mother's sole delight; God's living gift of love unto
The kind, good Shunamite;
To mortal pangs I see him yield,
And the lad bears him from the field.
The sun-bathed quiet of the hills,
The fields of Galilee,
That eighteen hundred years agone,
Were full of corn, I see;
And the dear Saviour take his way
'Mid ripe ears on the sabbath-day.
O golden fields of bending corn,
How beautiful they seem!-
The reaper-folk, the piled-up sheaves,
To me are like a dream;
The sunshine and the very air
Seem of old time, and take me there!
THE NORTHERN SEAS.
Up! up! let us a voyage take,
Why sit we here at ease?
Find us a vessel tight and snug,
Bound for the Northern Seas.
I long to see the Northern Lights,
With their rushing splendours fly;
Like living things with flaming wings,
Wide o'er the wond'rous sky.
I long to see those icebergs vast,
With heads all crowned with snow; Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep, Two hundred fathoms low!
I long to hear the thund'ring crash
Of their terrific fall,
And the echoes from a thousand cliffs,
Like lonely voices call.
There shall we see the fierce white bear,
The sleepy seals aground,
And the spouting whales that to and fro
Sail with a dreary sound.
We'll pass the shores of solemn pine,
Where wolves and black bears prowl;
And away to the rocky isles of mist,
To rouse the northern fowl.
And there in wastes of the silent sky,
With silent earth below,
We shall see far off to his lonely rock,
The lonely eagle go.
Then softly, softly will we tread
By inland streams to see,
Where the cormorant of the silent north, Sits there all silently.
We've visited the northern clime,
Its cold and ice-bound main;
So now, let us back to a dearer land
To Britain back again!
THE CHILDREN AND THE BELLS.
FROM "RUNG INTO HEAVEN" IN "GOOD WORDS."
One moonlit Yuletide, long ago:
When all the land was wrapt in snow,
The merry bells rang to and fro.
Snow ribbed the tower from base to vane;
Bright shone the little belfry pane:
The bells rang on with might and main.
Three children stood beside a door,
Counting the bells,-one, two, three, four;
Catching the flakes that downward pour.
The parson, hurrying, homeward goes;
Calls them the fairest three he knows-
Stout Alan, Frank, and little Rose.
"Now let us climb the steeple-stair,
And see the bells a-swinging there,"
Said Alan, Frank thought he would dare.
But little Rosie dropped a tear:
"If we must see the bells so near,
I think that I shall die for fear."
Straightway it chanced the leader bade
Rest in the belfry; all obeyed:
And every bell was deftly stayed;
The slouching ringers lounge at ease:
Nor any sound came on the breeze
But whispers in snow-muffled trees.
And now the little children dare
Unseen, unheard, to climb the stair,
And gaze on all the marvels there;
Where, as if bound by wizard's spell,
Yawned roofward every wide-mouthed bell,
On stays of iron balanced well.
And ever, as the moonlight streams,
They see dark wheels and massy beams,
Like dens of torture in our dreams.
Not long their little heads were strained
Within the door, with courage feigned,
When all the terror was unchained.
Unknowing, the stout ringing men
Rose to the ropes, and whirled amain
The grim, dark-waisted bells again.
Ten thousand clamours seem to rise
And struggle outward to the skies;
The swift wheels daze the children's eyes.
Alan and Frank, though trembling, bore
The horror of that deafening roar:
But little Rose dropped on the floor.
Down the dark staircase Alan gropes,
He yet may be in time, he hopes:
He stands before the dancing ropes.
The ringers ceased and stared. He said,
66 My little sister Rose is dead:
The bells have killed her overhead."
They found her on the belfry floor:
She spoke and moved not any more:
One gentle sigh, and all was o'er.
THE WINDS.
Come to the woods away.
In summer's pleasant hours!
The winds at play make music gay
Among the leaves and flowers;
Now loud and wild they blow-
Now softly sink and die;
The flow'rs that grow and bloom below
Scarce feel them moving by.
We'll listen as they sweep
Far through the forest shades,
And when they sleep will silence creep
Through all the woodland glades.
Lady-bird! lady-bird! pretty one! stay!
Come sit on my finger, so happy and gay;
With me shall no mischief betide thee;
No harm would I do thee, no foeman is near,
I only would gaze on thy beauties so dear,
Those beautiful winglets beside thee.
Lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home;
Thy house is a-fire, thy children will roam!
List! list! to their cry and bewailing!
The pitiless spider is weaving their doom,
Then, lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home!
Hark! hark! to thy children's bewailing.
Fly back again, back again, lady-bird dear!
Thy neighbours will merrily welcome thee here;
With them shall no perils attend thee!
They'll guard thee so safely from danger or care,
They'll gaze on thy beautiful winglets so fair,
And comfort, and love, and befriend thee.
From the German.
I come to earth on the northern blast,
Which scatters the leaves away,
And over the forest a robe I fling,
Of a thousand colours gay;
I whiten the meadows with crusting dews,
And open the chestnut buds,
And throw a chill o'er the swimmer's limbs,
Who would tempt the tossing floods.
I shake from the boughs the ripen'd fruit,
As the merry gath'rers come;
With laugh and with jest they gladly bear,
The golden treasures home;
The nuts I fling from the highest twig,
Where the squirrel could scarcely climb;
And many a curious prank I play,
That cannot be told in rhyme.
I call for fire on the cottage hearth,
It blazes strong and clear,
The shivering children gather round,
And sit to the embers near;
I paint the school-boy's ruddy cheek,
With a hue like the summer rose,
He cries to his playmates "Jack Frost has come!"
Though the story each one knows.
I lay my finger on rosy buds,
That hang on the garden spray,
They shrink from my cold and cruel touch,
And quickly wither away.
Ye think I am rude, but a Power Divine,
Hath sent me to earth once more,
To do his bidding I hasten on,
When the summer bloom is o'er.
THE IRISH HARPER AND HIS DOG.
On the green banks of Shannon, when Sheelah was nigh,
No blithe Irish lad was so happy as I;
No harp like my own could so cheerily play,
And wherever I went was my poor dog, Tray.
When at last I was forced from my Sheelah to part,
She said while the sorrow was big at her heart-
"Oh! remember your Sheelah, when far, far away,
And be kind, my dear Pat, to our poor dog, Tray."
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