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Widely as heav and hell, contrast That brave old jurist of the past And the cunning trickster and knave of courts

Who the holy featus of Truth distorts,

Ruling as right the will of the strong,
Poverty, crime, and w akness wrong;
Wide-eared to power, to the wronged
and weak

Deaf as Egypt's gods: leek;
Scoffing aside at party's nod
Order of nature and law of God;
For whose dabbled ermi e respect were
waste,

Reverence folly, and awe misplaced;
Justice of whom 't were vain to seek
As from Koordish robber or Syrian
Sheik !

O, leave the wretch to h bribes and

sins;

Let him rot in the web of li he spins! To the saintly soul of the early day, To the Christian judge, let us turn and say:

"Praise and thanks for an honest man!

Glory to God for the Puritan ! "

I see, far southward, this quiet day, The hills of Newbury rolling away, With the many tints of the season gay, Dreamily blending in autumn mist Crimson, and gold, and amethyst. dwarf trees Long and low, with

crowned, Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, A stone's toss over the narrow sound. Inland, as far as the eye can go, The hills curve round like a bended bow;

A silver arrow from out them sprung,
I see the shine of the Quasycung;
And, round and round, over valley and
hill,

Old roads winding, as old roads will,
Here to a ferry, and there to a mill;
And glimpses of chimneys and gabled

eaves,

Through green elm arches and maple leaves,

Old homesteads sacred to all that can Gladden or sadden the heart of man, -Over whose thresholds of oak and stone Life and Death have come and gone! There pictured tiles in the fireplace show,

Great beams sag from the ceiling low, The dresser glitters with polished wares, The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs,

And the low, broad chimney shows the crack

By the earthquake made a century back.

Up from their midst springs the village spire

With the crest of its cock in the sun afire ;

Beyond are orchards and planting lands, And great salt marshes and glimmering sands,

And, where north and south the coastlines run,

The blink of the sea in breeze and sun!

I see it all like a chart unrolled, But my thoughts are full of the past and old,

"As long as Plum Island, to guard the coast

As God appointed, shall keep its post; As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep

Of Merrimack River, or sturgeon leap;
As long as pickerel swift and slim,
Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond
swim ;

As long as the annual sea-fowl know Their time to come and their time to go;

As long as cattle shall roam at will
The green, grass meadows by Turkey
Hill;

As long as sheep shall look from the

side

Of all the rides since the birth of time,
Told in story or sung in rhyme,
On Apuleius's Golden Ass,
Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass,
Witch astride of a human hack,
Islam's prophet on Al-Borák,
The strangest ride that ever was sped
Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead !
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in
a cart

By the women of Marblehead !

Body of turkey, head of owl,
Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
Feathered and ruffled in every part,
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,
Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,

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Through the street, on either side,
Up flew windows, doors swung wide;
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground,
Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,
And cracked with curses the hoarse
refrain:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd
horrt,

Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt

By the women o' Morble'ead!"

Sweetly along the Salem road
Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
Little the wicked skipper knew

Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.

Riding there in his sorry trim,
Like an Indian idol glum and grim,
Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear
Of voices shouting, far and near:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd
horrt,

Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt

By the women o' Morble'ead!" "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,

"What to me is this noisy ride?
What is the shame that clothes the skin
To the nameless horror that lives within?
Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,
And hear a cry from a reeling deck!
Hate me and curse me, I only dread
The hand of God and the face of the
dead!"

Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,

Tarred and feathered and carried in

And gave him a cloak to hide him in, And left him alone with his shame and sin.

Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart

By the women of Marblehead !

TELLING THE BEES.66

HERE is the place; right over the hill Runs the path I took;

You can see the gap in the old wall still,

And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate redbarred,

And the poplars tall;

And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,

And the white horns tossing above the wall.

There are the beehives ranged in the

sun;

And down by the brink

Of the brook are her poor flowers, weedo'errun,

Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, Heavy and slow;

And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,

And the same brook sings of a year ago.

There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;

And the June sun warm
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.

I mind me how with a lover's care
From my Sunday coat

I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,

And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.

THE SYCAMORES.

In the outskirts of the village,
On the river's winding shores,
Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
Stand the ancient sycamores.

One long century hath been numbered,
And another half-way told,
Since the rustic Irish gleeman
Broke for them the virgin mould.

Deftly set to Celtic music,

At his violin's sound they grew, Through the moonlit eves of summer, Making Amphion's fable true.

Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant !
Pass in jerkin green along,
With thy eyes brimful of laughter,
And thy mouth as full of song.

Pioneer of Erin's outcasts,

With his fiddle and his pack; Little dreamed the village Saxons Of the myriads at his back.

How he wrought with spade and fiddle, Delved by day and sang by night, With a hand that never wearied,

And a heart forever light,

Still the gay tradition mingles With a record grave and drear, Like the rolic air of Cluny,

With the solemn march of Mear.

When the box-tree, white with blossoms, Made the sweet May woodlands glad, And the Aronia by the river

Lighted up the swarming shad,

And the bulging nets swept shoreward,
With their silver-sided haul,
Midst the shouts of dripping fishers,
He was merriest of them all.

When, among the jovial huskers, Love stole in at Labor's side With the lusty airs of England, Soft his Celtic measures vied.

Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake, And the merry fair's carouse;

Of the wild Red Fox of Erin
And the Woman of Three Cows,

By the blazing hearths of winter,

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