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,
When the river seems to run

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
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!

S they who watch by sick-beds find relief

Unwittingly from the great stress of 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,

With meek persistence baffling brutal force,
And trusting God against the universe, —
We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share
With other weapons than the patriot's prayer,
Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes,
The awful beauty of self-sacrifice,

And wrung by keenest sympathy for all

Who give their loved ones for the living wall

'Twixt law and treason,

in this evil day

May haply find, through automatic play

Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain,

And hearten others with the strength we gain.
I know it has been said our times require
No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre,
No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform
To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm,
But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets
The battle's teeth of serried bayonets,
And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these
Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys

Relieve the storm-stunned ear.

sweet,

Let us keep

If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat

The bitter harvest of our own device
And half a century's moral cowardice.
As Nürnberg sang while Wittenberg defied,
And Kranach painted by his Luther's side,
And through the war-march of the Puritan
The silver stream of Marvell's music ran,
So let the household melodies be sung,
The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung, -
So let us hold against the hosts of night
And slavery all our vantage-ground of light.
Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake
From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake,
Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan,
And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man,
And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull

By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull, -
But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease,