103 THE ROPEWALK. In 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 thread so thin Dropping, each a hempen bulk. At the end, an open door; As the spinners to the end Two fair maidens in a swing, Then a booth of mountebanks, th And a weary look of care. : Ta Then a homestead among farms, As the bucket mounts apace, As at some magician's spell. 1 Then an old man in a tower, While the rope coils round and round Like a serpent at his feet, Nearly lifts him from the ground. Then within a prison-yard, Laughter and indecent mirth; Ah! it is the gallows-tree! 7 Blow, and sweep it from the earth Then a schoolboy, with his kite And an eager, upward look; Ships rejoicing in the breeze, 17 Anchors dragged through faithless sand; Sea-fog drifting overhead, ٢٠٠ And, with lessening line and lead Sailors feeling for the land.Í HITA These, and many left untold, In that building long and low; al While the wheel goes round and round, 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, A AT Tower aloft into the air of ambersusahu At the window winks the flickering fire-light; Social watch-fires Answering one another through the darkness. On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing, For its freedom Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them. By the fireside there are old men seated, Asking sadly Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them od By the fireside there are youthful dreamers, Building castles fair, with stately stairways, Asking blindly Of the Future what it cannot give them. And above them God the sole spectator. By the fireside there are peace and comfort, Waiting, watching For a well-known footstep in the passage. Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-stone; Every distance Through the gateways of the world around him. In his farthest wanderings still he sees it; As he heard them When he sat with those who were, but are not. Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,... Nor the march of the encroaching city, ) From the hearth of his ancestral homestead.." We may build more splendid habitations, But we cannot Buy with gold the old associations! 10 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. It is not a song From warm Carolinian valleys, And the Muscadel That bask in our garden alleys. |