COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.* HE beaver cut his timber TH With patient teeth that day, The minks were fish-wards, and the crows Surveyors of highway, When Keezar sat on the hillside Upon his cobbler's form, With a pan of coals on either hand To keep his waxed-ends warm. *This ballad was written on the occasion of a Horticultural Festival. Cobbler Keezar was a noted character among the first settlers in the valley of the Merrimack. E And there, in the golden weather, He stitched and hammered and sung; In the brook he moistened his leather, In the pewter mug his tongue. Well knew the tough old Teuton The songs they still are singing The tales that haunt the Brocken Woodsy and wild and lonesome, Flashing in foam and spray, Down on the sharp-horned ledges Plunging in steep cascade, Tossing its white-maned waters Against the hemlock's shade. Woodsy and wild and lonesome, East and west and north and south; Only the village of fishers Down at the river's mouth; Only here and there a clearing, And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, No shout of home-bound reapers, And on the green no dancing feet The merry violin stirred. "Why should folk be glum," said Keezar, "When Nature herself is glad, And the painted woods are laughing Small heed had the careless cobbler Who travailed in pain with the births of God, Hunting of witches and warlocks, One hand on the mason's trowel, But give him his ale and cider, Or the balance of right and wrong. |