""Tis work, work, work," he muttered, "O for the purple harvests Of the days when I was young! For the merry grape-stained maidens, And the pleasant songs they sung! 66 For an oar to row and a breeze to blow 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, Charm the black snake out of the ledges, And bring back the swarming bees. 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, For the mighty master Agrippa Wrought it with spell and rhyme From a fragment of mystic moonstone To a cobbler Minnesinger The marvellous stone gave he, And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, He held up that mystic lapstone, 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 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 white-walled farm-house, Turning a score of mill-wheels, The stream no more ran free; 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 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. Golden the good-wife's butter, Ruby her currant-wine; Grand were the strutting turkeys, Yellow and red were the apples, And the ripe pears russet-brown, And the peaches had stolen blushes And with blooms of hill and wild-wood, |