Singing airily, Standing about the charmed root. Round about all is mute, As the snow-field on the mountain-peaks, As the sand-field at the mountain-foot. Sleep and stir not: all is mute. If ye sing not, if ye make false measure, Worth eternal want of rest. Laugh not loudly: watch the treasure Of the wisdom of the west. In a corner wisdom whispers. Five and three (Let it not be preached abroad) make an awful mystery. For the blossom unto threefold music bloweth ; Evermore it is born anew; And the sap to threefold music floweth, From the root Drawn in the dark, Up to the fruit, Creeping under the fragrant bark, Liquid gold, honey-sweet, through and through. Keen-eyed sisters, singing airily, Looking warily Every way, Guard the apple night and day, Lest one from the east come and take it away. II. Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, ever and aye, Looking under silver hair with a silver eye. uine a poem to be left out of his "complete edition," and we print it here because we think it worthy of the bard of "Locksley Hall" and "The Lady of Shalott." Father, twinkle not thy steadfast sight; Kingdoms lapse, and climates change, and races die; Hoarded wisdom brings delight. Number, tell them over and number Look to him, father, lest he wink, and the golden apple be stolen away, For his ancient heart is drunk with overwatchings night and day, Round about the hallowed fruit-tree curled: Sing away, sing aloud evermore in the wind, without stop, Lest his scaled eyelid drop, For he is older than the world. If he waken, we waken, Dropping the eyelid over the eyes. Five links, a golden chain, are we, III. Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, night and day, Lest the old wound of the world be healed, The glory unsealed, The golden apple stolen away, Father, old Himala weakens, Caucasus is bold and strong. Wandering waters unto wandering waters call; Let them clash together, foam and fall. Out of watchings, out of wiles, All things are not told to all. Half-round the mantling night is drawn, Hesper hateth Phosphor, evening hateth morn. IV. Every flower and every fruit the redolent breath Arching the billow in his sleep; For the western sun and the western star, The end of day and beginning of night, Make the apple holy and bright; Holy and bright, round and full, bright and blest, Mellowed in a land of rest; Watch it warily day and night; All good things are in the west. Till midnoon the cool east light Is shut out by the round of the tall hill-brow; Sunset-ripened above on the tree. The world is wasted with fire and sword, Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three, Daughters three, Bound about All round about The gnarled bole of the charmed tree. The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit, Guard it well, guard it warily, THE ASHEN FAGOT. BY THOMAS HUGHES, AUTHOR OF "TOM BROWN AT OXFORD," ETC. AT CHAPTER I. T about four o'clock on Christmas Eve, a year or two back, two men trudged briskly up the little village street of Lilburne, in the county of Wilts. They were both dressed in rough shooting-suits, and one carried a common game-bag, and the other a knapsack. Each of them had a stout stick in his hand. The elder, who might be six or seven and twenty, wore a strong reddish-brown beard. The rest of his rather broad face was well tanned by exposure to weather; he had a clear, merry gray eye, and an air of very British self-reliance about him. The younger, in his twentieth year, or thereabouts, wore also as much beard as nature had yet bestowed on him, and was tanned a ruddy brown. He was darker than his companion, and his complexion would have been sallow, but for the work of sun and air on it. There was the possibility of great nervous irritability and excitableness in the look of him; but this natural tendency of his constitution and temperament seemed, at least for the present, to be counteracted by robust health. The two stopped at the door of "The Wagoner's Rest," the only public house of Lilburne village. "Well, here we are then, at the last stage. How much farther do you say it is?" |