Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow
Deepest fell, his rein he drew :
On his stately head, uncovered,
Cool and soft the west-wind blew.

And he stood up in his stirrups,
Looking up and looking down
On the hills of Gold and Silver
Rimming round the little town, —

On the river, full of sunshine,

To the lap of greenest vales Winding down from wooded headlands, Willow-skirted, white with sails.

And he said, the landscape sweeping
Slowly with his ungloved hand,
"I have seen no prospect fairer
In this goodly Eastern land."

Then the bugles of his escort

Stirred to life the cavalcade : And that head, so bare and stately, Vanished down the depths of shade.

Ever since, in town and farm-house, Life has had its ebb and flow; Thrice hath passed the human harvest To its garner green and low.

But the trees the gleeman planted, Through the changes, changeless stand;

As the marble calm of Tadmor

Marks the desert's shifting sand.

Still the level moon at rising

Silvers o'er each stately shaft; Still beneath them, half in shadow, Singing, glides the pleasure craft.

Still beneath them, arm-enfolded,

Love and Youth together stray; While, as heart to heart beats faster, More and more their feet delay. Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, On the open hillside wrought, Singing, as he drew his stitches,

Songs his German masters taught,
Singing, with his gray hair floating
Round his rosy ample face,

Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen Stitch and hammer in his place.

All the pastoral lanes so grassy
Now are Traffic's dusty streets;
From the village, grown a city,
Fast the rural grace retreats.

But, still green, and tall, and stately
On the river's winding shores,
Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores.

THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE

OF NEWBURY.

"Concerning ye Amphisbæna, as soon as I received your commands, I made diligent inquiry: . . . . he assures me yt it had really two heads, one at each end; two mouths, two stings or tongues." - REV. CHRISTOPHER TOPPAN to COTTON MA

THER.

FAR away in the twilight time
Of every people, in every clime,
Dragons and griffins and monsters dire,
Born of water, and air, and fire,
Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud
And ooze of the old Deucalion flood,
Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage,
Through dusk tradition and ballad age.
So from the childhood of Newbury town
And its time of fable the tale comes
down

Of a terror which haunted bush and brake,

The Amphisbæna, the Double Snake!

Thou who makest the tale thy mirth, Consider that strip of Christian earth On the desolate shore of a sailless sea, Full of terror and mystery,

Half redeemed from the evil hold Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and old,

Which drank with its lips of leaves the dew

When Time was young, and the world

was new,

And wove its shadows with sun and moon,

Ere the stones of Cheops were squared and hewn.

279

Or swam in the wooded Artichoke,
Or coiled by the Northman's Written
Rock,

Nothing on record is left to show;
Only the fact that he lived, we know,
And left the cast of a double head
In the scaly mask which he yearly shed.
For he carried a head where his tail
should be,

And the two, of course, could never agree,

Butwriggled about with main and might,
Now to the left and now to the right;
Pulling and twisting this way and that,
Neither knew what the other was at.
A snake with two heads, lurking so
near!-

Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear!
Think what ancient gossips might say,
Shaking their heads in their dreary
way,

Between the meetings n Sabbathday!

How urchins, searching at day's decline The Common Pasture for sheep or kine,

The terrible double-ganger heard
In leafy rustle or whir of bird!
Think what a zest it gave to the sport,
In berry-time, of the younger sort,
As over pastures blackberry-twined,
Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind,
And closer and closer, for fear of harm,
The maiden clung to her lover's arm;
And how the spark, who was forced to
stay,

By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day,

Thanked the snake for the fond delay!

Far and wide the tale was told,
Like a snowball growing while it rolled.
The nurse hushed with it the baby's
cry;

And it served, in the worthy minister's eye,

To paint the primitive serpent by. Cotton Mather came galloping down All the way to Newbury town,

With his eyes agog and his ears set

wide,

And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;

Stirring the while in the shallow pool Of his brains for the lore he learned at school,

To garnish the story, with here a streak Of Latin, and there another of Greek: And the tales he heard and the notes he took,

Behold! are they not in his WonderBook?

Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill. If the snake does not, the tale runs still

In Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill. And still, whenever husband and wife Publish the shame of their daily strife, And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and strain

At either end of the marriage-chain,
The gossips say, with a knowing shake
Of their gray heads, "Look at the
Double Snake!

One in body and two in will,
The Amphisbæna is living still!"

Take the captives he has ta'en;
Let the land have peace again!

As the words died on his tongue,
Wide apart his warriors swung;
Parted, at the sign he gave,
Right and left, like Egypt's wave.

And, like Israel passing free
Through the prophet-charmed sea,
Captive mother, wife, and child
Through the dusky terror filed.

One alone, a little maid,
Middleway her steps delayed,
Glancing, with quick, troubled sight,
Round about from red to white.

Then his hand the Indian laid On the little maiden's head, Lightly from her forehead fair Smoothing back her yellow hair.

"Gift or favor ask I none;
What I have is all my own :
Never yet the birds have sung,
'Squando hath a beggar's tongue.'

"Yet for her who waits at home,
For the dead who cannot come,
Let the little Gold-hair be
In the place of Menewee!

"Mishanock, my little star!
Come to Saco's pines afar ;

Where the sad one waits at home,
Wequashim, my moonlight, come!"

"What!" quoth Waldron, "leave a child

Christian-born to heathens wild?
As God lives, from Satan's hand
I will pluck her as a brand!"

"Hear me, white man!" Squando cried;

"Let the little one decide.
Wequashim, my moonlight, say,
Wilt thou go with me, or stay?"

Slowly, sadly, half afraid,
Half regretfully, the maid

Cwned the ties of blood and race, -
Turned from Squando's pleading facs