70

For an oar to row and a breeze to blow
Down the grand old river Rhine!”

A tear in his blue eye glistened,

And dropped on his beard so gray. "Old, old am I," said Keezar,

"And the Rhine flows far away!"

But a cunning man was the cobbler;
He could call the birds from the trees,
75 Charm the black snake out of the ledges,
And bring back the swarming bees.

80

All the virtues of herbs and metals,
All the lore of the woods, he knew,
And the arts of the Old World mingled
With the marvels of the New.

Well he knew the tricks of magic,
And the lapstone on his knee
Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles,
Or the stone of Doctor Dee.

85 For the mighty master Agrippa
Wrought it with spell and rhyme
From a fragment of mystic moonstone
In the tower of Nettesheim.

90

To a cobbler Minnesinger

The marvellous stone gave he,

84. Dr. John Dee was a man of vast knowledge, who had an extensive museum, library, and apparatus; he claimed to be an astrologer, and had acquired the reputation of having dealings with evil spirits, and a mob was raised which destroyed the greater part of his possessions. He professed to raise the dead and had a magic crystal. He died a pauper in 1608.

85. Henry Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) was an alchemist.

And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar,
Who brought it over the sea.

He held up that mystic lapstone,
He held it up like a lens,

95 And he counted the long years coming
By twenties and by tens.

"One hundred years," quoth Keezar,
"And fifty have I told:

Now open the new before me,

And shut me out the old!"

Like a cloud of mist, the blackness
Rolled from the magic stone,
And a marvellous picture mingled
The unknown and the known.

105 Still ran the stream to the river, And river and ocean joined;

And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line,
And cold north hills behind.

But the mighty forest was broken
By many a steepled town,

By many a white-walled farm-house,
And many a garner brown.

Turning a score of mill-wheels,

The stream no more ran free; 15 White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea.

Below in the noisy village

The flags were floating gay,

And shone on a thousand faces

120

The light of a holiday.

Swiftly the rival ploughmen

Turned the brown earth from their shares; Here were the farmer's treasures,

There were the craftsman's wares.

125 Golden the goodwife's butter,
Ruby her currant-wine;
Grand were the strutting turkeys,
Fat were the beeves and swine.

130

Yellow and red were the apples,
And the ripe pears russet-brown,
And the peaches had stolen blushes

From the girls who shook them down.

And with blooms of hill and wild-wood,
That shame the toil of art,

135 Mingled the gorgeous blossoms

140

Of the garden's tropic heart.

"What is it I see?" said Keezar:

"Am I here, or am I there?

Is it a fête at Bingen?

Do I look on Frankfort fair?

"But where are the clowns and puppets,
And imps with horns and tail?

And where are the Rhenish flagons?
And where is the foaming ale?

66

145 Strange things, I know, will happen,

Strange things the Lord permits;

150

But that droughty folk should be jolly
Puzzles my poor old wits.

"Here are smiling manly faces,

And the maiden's step is gay;

Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking,
Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.

"Here's pleasure without regretting,

And good without abuse,

155 The holiday and the bridal

160

Of beauty and of use.

"Here's a priest and there is a Quaker,
Do the cat and dog agree?

Have they burned the stocks for oven-wood?
Have they cut down the gallows-tree?

"Would the old folk know their children? Would they own the graceless town,

With never a ranter to worry

And never a witch to drown?"

165 Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, Laughed like a school-boy gay;

70

Tossing his arms above him,
The lapstone rolled away.

It rolled down the rugged hillside,

It

spun like a wheel bewitched,

It plunged through the leaning willows,

And into the river pitched.

There, in the deep, dark water,

The magic stone lies still,

175 Under the leaning willows

180

In the shadow of the hill.

But oft the idle fisher

Sits on the shadowy bank,

And his dreams make marvellous pictures
Where the wizard's lapstone sank.

And still, in the summer twilights,
When the river seems to run
Out from the inner glory,

Warm with the melted sun,

185 The weary mill-girl lingers Beside the charméd stream,

190

And the sky and the golden water
Shape and color her dream.

Fair wave the sunset gardens,

The rosy signals fly;

Her homestead beckons from the cloud,
And love goes sailing by!

V.

BARCLAY OF URY.

AMONG the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at