103 THE ROPEWALK. In that building, long and low, Like the port-holes of a hulk, At the end, an open door; As the spinners to the end Gleam the long threads in the sun; Two fair maidens in a swing, First before my vision pass; At their shadow on the grass. Then a booth of mountebanks, back And a girl poised high in air And a weary look of care. Then a homestead among farms, Drawing water from a well; bat. As the bucket mounts apace, With it mounts her own fair face, As at some magician's spell. ་་་ Then an old man in a tower, Ringing loud the noontide hour, While the rope coils round and round Like a serpent at his feet, And again, in swift_retreat, Nearly lifts him from the ground. Then within a prison-yard, Faces fixed, and stern, and hard, Laughter and indecent mirth; Ah! it is the gallows-tree! Breath of Christian charity, Blow, and sweep it from the earth!ierd Then a schoolboy, with his kite Gleaming in a sky of light, And an eager, upward look;tep 11 Ships rejoicing in the breeze, Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas, Anchors dragged through faithless sand; Sea-fog drifting overhead, And, with lessening line and lead, Sailors feeling for the land. Í at 41 All these scenes do I behold, These, and many left untold, In that building long and low; And the spinners backward go, LEAFLESS are the trees; their purple branches Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral, Rising silent In the Red Sea of the Winter sunset. From the hundred chimneys of the village, At the window winks the flickering fire-light; Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer, H Answering one another through the darkness. Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them. Asking sadly Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them. By the fireside there are youthful dreamers, Of the Future what it cannot give them. By the fireside tragedies are acted And above them God the sole spectator. By the fireside there are peace and comfort, For a well-known footstep in the passage. Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-stone; Through the gateways of the world around him. In his farthest wanderings still he sees it; When he sat with those who were, but are not. Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, From the hearth of his ancestral homestead.." We may build more splendid habitations, Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, But we cannot Buy with gold the old associations! :0 CATAWBA WINE. THIS song of mine Is a Song of the Vine, To be sung by the glowing embers When the rain begins To darken the drear Novembers. |