THE beaver cut his timber 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, 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. 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 Who brewed the stoutest ale, And he paid the good-wife's reckoning In the coin of song and tale. The songs they still are singing Who dress the hills of vine, The tales that haunt the Brocken And whisper down the Rhine. Woodsy and wild and lonesome, The swift stream wound away, Through birches and scarlet maples 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, With its farm-house rude and new, And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, Where the scanty harvest grew. No shout of home-bound reapers, No vintage-song he heard, The merry violin stirred. “ Why should folk be glum,” said Keezar, . “When Nature herself is glad, And the painted woods are laughing At the faces so sour and sad?” Small heed had the careless cobbler What sorrow of heart was theirs Who travailed in pain with the births of God, And planted a state with prayers, Hunting of witches and warlocks, Smiting the heathen horde, One hand on the mason’s trowel, And one on the soldier's sword ! But give him his ale and cider, Give him his pipe and song, Little he cared for church or state, Or the balance of right and wrong. |