THE ROPEWALK.

N that building, long and low,
With its windows all a-row,

Like the port-holes of a hulk,

Human spiders spin and spin, Backward down their threads so thin Dropping, each a hempen bulk.

At the end, an open door;
Squares of sunshine on the floor
Light the long and dusky lane;
And the whirring of a wheel,
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel
All its spokes are in my brain.

As the spinners to the end
Downward go and reascend,

Gleam the long threads in the sun;
While within this brain of mine
Cobwebs brighter and more fine
By the busy wheel are spun.

Two fair maidens in a swing,
Like white doves upon the wing,

First before my vision pass;

Laughing, as their gentle hands
Closely clasp the twisted strands,
At their shadow on the grass.

Then a booth of mountebanks,
With its smell of tan and planks,
And a girl poised high in air
On a cord, in spangled dress,
With a faded loveliness,

And a weary look of care.

Then a homestead among farms,
And a woman with bare arms
Drawing water from a well;
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!

Then a school-boy, with his kite
Gleaming in a sky of light,

And an eager, upward look ;
Steeds pursued through lane and field;
Fowlers with their snares concealed;
And an angler, by a brook.

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.

All these scenes do I behold,
These, and many left untold,

In that building long and low;
While the wheel goes round and round,
With a drowsy, dreamy sound,

And the spinners backward go.

THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE.

EAFLESS 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 vil

lage,

Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,
Smoky columns

Tower aloft into the air of amber.

At the window winks the flickering fire

light;

Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,

Social watch-fires

Answering one another through the dark

ness.

On the hearth the lighted logs are glow

ing,

And like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree

For its freedom

Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.

By the fireside there are old men seated, Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,

Asking sadly

Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them.

By the fireside there are youthful dream

ers,

Building castles fair, with stately stair

ways,

Asking blindly

Of the Future what it cannot give them.

By the fireside tragedies are acted
In whose scenes appear two actors only,
Wife and husband,

And above them God the sole spectator.

By the fireside there are peace and comfort,

Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,

Waiting, watching

For a well-known footstep in the passage.