A GREAT, dim barn with the fragrant bay
Up to the beam with the winter's hay,
And its shrunken siding, wasp-nest gray,
Where the cracks, between, run up and down,
Like the narrow lines in a striped gown,
And let in light of a golden brown.
2. They are bars of bronze, they are silver snow,
As the sunshine falls, or, sifting slow,
The white flakes drift on the wealth below
Of the clover blossoms, faint with June,
That had heard, all day, his small bassoon,
As the ground-bee played his hum-drum tune.
3. Ah, what would you give to have again
Your pulse keep time with the dancing rain,
When, flashing through at the diamond pane,
You saw the swallows' rapier wings,
As they cut the air in ripples and rings,
And laughed and talked like human things,—
4. When they drank each other's health, you thought,—
For the creak of the corks you surely caught,-
And all day long at their cabins wrought,
Till the mud-walled homes, with a foreign look,—
A pictured street in an Aztec book,-
Began to show in each raftered nook?
5. Never again! Alack and alas!
Like a breath of life on the looking-glass,
Like a censer smoke, the pictures pass.
6. "Well, Jack and Jim," said the farmer gray,
"The flour is out, and we'll thrash to-day!".
A hand is on the granary door,
And a step is on the threshing-floor,-
It is not his, and it is not theirs,—
He went above by the Golden Stairs;
The boys are men, and the nicknames grown,— 'Tis James, Esquire, and Reverend John.
7. How they waltzed the portly sheaves about,
As they loosed their belts, and shook them out
In double rows on the threshing-floor,
Clean as the deck of a seventy-four!
And, down the midst, in a tawny braid,
The sculptured heads of the straw were laid.
It looked a poor man's family bed!
Ah, more than that, 't was a carpet fair,
Whereon the flails, with their measured tread, Should time the step of the answered prayer,"Give us this day our daily bread!"
8. Then, the light half-whirl and the hickory clash,
With the full, free swing of a buckskin lash,
And the trump-tramp-trump, when the bed is new,
In regular, dull, monotonous stroke,
And the click-clack-click, on the floor of oak,
When straw grows thin and the blows strike through;
And the French-clock ticks to the dancing feet,
With the small tattoo of the driven sleet,
When the bouncing kernels, bright and brown,
Leap lightly up, as the flails come down.
9. Hang up the flails by the big barn door! Bring out the mill of the one-boy power!
Nothing at all but a breeze in a box,
Clumsy and red, it rattles and rocks,
Sieves to be shaken and hopper to feed,
A Chinaman's hat turned upside down,
The grain slips through at a hole in the crown
Out with the chaff and in with the speed!
10. The crank clanks round with a boy's quick will,
The fan flies fast, till it fills the mill
With its breezy vanes, as the whirled leaves fly
In an open book, when the gust goes by,
And the jerky jar and the zigzag jolt
Of the shaken sieves, and the jingling bolt,
And the grate of cogs, and the axle's clank,
And the rowlock jog of the crazy crank,
And the dusty rush of the gusty chaff,
The worthless wreck of the harvest's raff,
And never a lull, the brisk breeze blows
From the troubled grain its tattered clothes,
Till, tumbled and tossed, it downward goes,
The rickety route by the rackety stair,
Clean as the sand that the simoom snows,
And drifts, at last, in a bank so fair,
You know you have found the Answered Prayer.
VER the hill the farm-boy goes:
His shadow lengthens along the land,
A giant staff in giant hand;
In the poplar-tree above the spring
The katydid begins to sing;
The early dews are falling:
Into the stone-heap darts the mink,
The swallows skim the river's brink,
And home to the woodland fly the crows,
When over the hill the farm-boy goes,
Cheerily calling
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"
Farther, farther over the hill,
Faintly calling, calling still
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'!"
2. Into the yard the farmer goes,
With grateful heart, at the close of day:
Harness and chain are hung away;
In the wagon-shed stand yoke and plough;
The straw 's in the stack, the hay in the mow;
The cooling dews are falling:
The friendly sheep his welcome bleat,
The pigs come grunting to his feet,
The whinnying mare her master knows,
When into the yard the farmer goes,
His cattle calling-
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"
While still the cow-boy far away,
Goes seeking those that have gone astray.
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'!"
3. Now to her task the milkmaid goes; The cattle come crowding through the gate, Lowing, pushing, little and great;
About the trough, by the farm-yard pump,
The frolicsome yearlings frisk and jump,
While the pleasant dews are falling:
The new milch heifer is quick and shy,
But the old cow waits with tranquil eye;
And the white stream into the bright pail flows,
When to her task the milkmaid goes,
Soothingly calling →
"So, boss! so, boss! so! so! so!"
The cheerful milkmaid takes her stool,
And sits and milks in the twilight cool,
Saying, "So, so, boss! so! so!"
4. To supper at last the farmer goes:
The apples are pared, the paper read,
The stories are told, then all to bed:
Without, the cricket's ceaseless song
Makes shrill the silence all night long;
The heavy dews are falling:
The housewife's hand has turned the lock;
Drowsily ticks the kitchen clock;
The household sinks to deep repose;
But still in sleep the farm-boy goes
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"
And oft the milkmaid, in her dreams,
Drums in the pail with the flashing streams,
Murmuring, "So, boss! so!"
TOM BROWN'S VISIT TO DR. ARNOLD'S TOMB.
THERE
HERE was no flag flying on the round tower; the
school-house windows were all shuttered up; and when the flag went up again, and the shutters came down, it would be to welcome a stranger. All that was left on earth of him whom he had honored was lying cold and still under the chapel floor. He would go in and see the place once more, and then leave it once for all. New
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