"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, "Strange things, I know, will happen,— But that droughty folk should be jolly "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. ३ "Here's pleasure without regretting, And good without abuse, The holiday and the bridal Of beauty and of use. "Here's a priest and there is a quaker,Do the cat and the 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?" Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, 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, Under the leaning willows 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, Out from the inner glory, Warm with the melted sun, The weary mill-girl lingers Beside the charmed stream, And the sky and the golden water Fair wave the sunset gardens, The rosy signals fly; Her homestead beckons from the cloud, And love goes sailing by! A grief And anxious care in fantasies outwrought From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet, Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why They scarcely know or ask,-so, thou and I, Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong In the endurance which outwearies Wrong, |