Inthat building, long and low,With its windows all a-row,Like the port-holes of a hulk,Human spiders spin and spin,Backward down their threads so thinDropping, each a hempen bulk.At the end, an open door;Squares of sunshine on the floorLight the long and dusky lane;And the whirring of a wheel,Dull and drowsy, makes me feelAll its spokes are in my brain.As the spinners to the endDownward go and reascend,Gleam the long threads in the sun;While within this brain of mineCobwebs brighter and more fineBy the busy wheel are spun.Two fair maidens in a swing,Like white doves upon the wing,First before my vision pass;Laughing, as their gentle handsClosely clasp the twisted strands,At their shadow on the grass.Then a booth of mountebanks,With its smell of tan and planks,And a girl poised high in airOn a cord, in spangled dress,With a faded loveliness,And a weary look of care.Then a homestead among farms,And a woman with bare armsDrawing water from a well;As the bucket mounts apace,With it mounts her own fair face,As at some magician’s spell.Then an old man in a tower,Ringing loud the noontide hour,While the rope coils round and roundLike a serpent at his feet,And again, in swift retreat,Nearly lifts him from the ground.Then within a prison-yard,Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,Laughter and indecent mirth;Ah! it is the gallows-tree!Breath of Christian charity,Blow, and sweep it from the earth!Then a school-boy, with his kiteGleaming in a sky of light,And an eager, upward look;Steeds pursued through lane and field;Fowlers with their snares concealed;And an angler by a brook.Ships rejoicing in the breeze,Wrecks that float o’er unknown seas,Anchors dragged through faithless sand;Sea-fog drifting overhead,And, with lessening line and lead,Sailors feeling for the land.All these scenes do I behold,These, and many left untold,In that building long and low;While the wheel goes round and round,With a drowsy, dreamy sound,And the spinners backward go.
Inthat building, long and low,With its windows all a-row,Like the port-holes of a hulk,Human spiders spin and spin,Backward down their threads so thinDropping, each a hempen bulk.At the end, an open door;Squares of sunshine on the floorLight the long and dusky lane;And the whirring of a wheel,Dull and drowsy, makes me feelAll its spokes are in my brain.As the spinners to the endDownward go and reascend,Gleam the long threads in the sun;While within this brain of mineCobwebs brighter and more fineBy the busy wheel are spun.Two fair maidens in a swing,Like white doves upon the wing,First before my vision pass;Laughing, as their gentle handsClosely clasp the twisted strands,At their shadow on the grass.Then a booth of mountebanks,With its smell of tan and planks,And a girl poised high in airOn a cord, in spangled dress,With a faded loveliness,And a weary look of care.Then a homestead among farms,And a woman with bare armsDrawing water from a well;As the bucket mounts apace,With it mounts her own fair face,As at some magician’s spell.Then an old man in a tower,Ringing loud the noontide hour,While the rope coils round and roundLike a serpent at his feet,And again, in swift retreat,Nearly lifts him from the ground.Then within a prison-yard,Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,Laughter and indecent mirth;Ah! it is the gallows-tree!Breath of Christian charity,Blow, and sweep it from the earth!Then a school-boy, with his kiteGleaming in a sky of light,And an eager, upward look;Steeds pursued through lane and field;Fowlers with their snares concealed;And an angler by a brook.Ships rejoicing in the breeze,Wrecks that float o’er unknown seas,Anchors dragged through faithless sand;Sea-fog drifting overhead,And, with lessening line and lead,Sailors feeling for the land.All these scenes do I behold,These, and many left untold,In that building long and low;While the wheel goes round and round,With a drowsy, dreamy sound,And the spinners backward go.
Inthat building, long and low,With its windows all a-row,Like the port-holes of a hulk,Human spiders spin and spin,Backward down their threads so thinDropping, each a hempen bulk.
At the end, an open door;Squares of sunshine on the floorLight the long and dusky lane;And the whirring of a wheel,Dull and drowsy, makes me feelAll its spokes are in my brain.
As the spinners to the endDownward go and reascend,Gleam the long threads in the sun;While within this brain of mineCobwebs brighter and more fineBy the busy wheel are spun.
Two fair maidens in a swing,Like white doves upon the wing,First before my vision pass;Laughing, as their gentle handsClosely clasp the twisted strands,At their shadow on the grass.
Then a booth of mountebanks,With its smell of tan and planks,And a girl poised high in airOn a cord, in spangled dress,With a faded loveliness,And a weary look of care.
Then a homestead among farms,And a woman with bare armsDrawing water from a well;As the bucket mounts apace,With it mounts her own fair face,As at some magician’s spell.
Then an old man in a tower,Ringing loud the noontide hour,While the rope coils round and roundLike a serpent at his feet,And again, in swift retreat,Nearly lifts him from the ground.
Then within a prison-yard,Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,Laughter and indecent mirth;Ah! it is the gallows-tree!Breath of Christian charity,Blow, and sweep it from the earth!
Then a school-boy, with his kiteGleaming in a sky of light,And an eager, upward look;Steeds pursued through lane and field;Fowlers with their snares concealed;And an angler by a brook.
Ships rejoicing in the breeze,Wrecks that float o’er unknown seas,Anchors dragged through faithless sand;Sea-fog drifting overhead,And, with lessening line and lead,Sailors feeling for the land.
All these scenes do I behold,These, and many left untold,In that building long and low;While the wheel goes round and round,With a drowsy, dreamy sound,And the spinners backward go.
Leaflessare the trees; their purple branchesSpread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral,Rising silentIn the Red Sea of the Winter sunset.From the hundred chimneys of the village,Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,Smoky columnsTower aloft into the air of amber.At the window winks the flickering fire-light;Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,Social watch-firesAnswering one another through the darkness.On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,And like Ariel in the cloven pine-treeFor its freedomGroans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.By the fireside there are old men seated,Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,Asking sadlyOf the Past what it can ne’er restore them.By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,Building castles fair, with stately stairways,Asking blindlyOf the Future what it cannot give them.By the fireside tragedies are actedIn whose scenes appear two actors only,Wife and husband,And above them God the sole spectator.By the fireside there are peace and comfort,Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,Waiting, watchingFor a well-known footstep in the passage.Each man’s chimney is his Golden Mile-stone;Is the central point, from which he measuresEvery distanceThrough the gateways of the world around him.In his farthest wanderings still he sees it;Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind,As he heard themWhen he sat with those who were, but are not.Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,Nor the march of the encroaching city,Drives an exileFrom the hearth of his ancestral homestead.We may build more splendid habitations,Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,But we cannotBuy with gold the old associations!
Leaflessare the trees; their purple branchesSpread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral,Rising silentIn the Red Sea of the Winter sunset.From the hundred chimneys of the village,Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,Smoky columnsTower aloft into the air of amber.At the window winks the flickering fire-light;Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,Social watch-firesAnswering one another through the darkness.On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,And like Ariel in the cloven pine-treeFor its freedomGroans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.By the fireside there are old men seated,Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,Asking sadlyOf the Past what it can ne’er restore them.By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,Building castles fair, with stately stairways,Asking blindlyOf the Future what it cannot give them.By the fireside tragedies are actedIn whose scenes appear two actors only,Wife and husband,And above them God the sole spectator.By the fireside there are peace and comfort,Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,Waiting, watchingFor a well-known footstep in the passage.Each man’s chimney is his Golden Mile-stone;Is the central point, from which he measuresEvery distanceThrough the gateways of the world around him.In his farthest wanderings still he sees it;Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind,As he heard themWhen he sat with those who were, but are not.Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,Nor the march of the encroaching city,Drives an exileFrom the hearth of his ancestral homestead.We may build more splendid habitations,Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,But we cannotBuy with gold the old associations!
Leaflessare the trees; their purple branchesSpread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral,Rising silentIn the Red Sea of the Winter sunset.
From the hundred chimneys of the village,Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,Smoky columnsTower aloft into the air of amber.
At the window winks the flickering fire-light;Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,Social watch-firesAnswering one another through the darkness.
On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,And like Ariel in the cloven pine-treeFor its freedomGroans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.
By the fireside there are old men seated,Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,Asking sadlyOf the Past what it can ne’er restore them.
By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,Building castles fair, with stately stairways,Asking blindlyOf the Future what it cannot give them.
By the fireside tragedies are actedIn whose scenes appear two actors only,Wife and husband,And above them God the sole spectator.
By the fireside there are peace and comfort,Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,Waiting, watchingFor a well-known footstep in the passage.
Each man’s chimney is his Golden Mile-stone;Is the central point, from which he measuresEvery distanceThrough the gateways of the world around him.
In his farthest wanderings still he sees it;Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind,As he heard themWhen he sat with those who were, but are not.
Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,Nor the march of the encroaching city,Drives an exileFrom the hearth of his ancestral homestead.
We may build more splendid habitations,Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,But we cannotBuy with gold the old associations!
This song of mineIs a Song of the Vine,To be sung by the glowing embersOf wayside inns,When the rain beginsTo darken the drear Novembers.It is not a songOf the Scuppernong,From warm Carolinian valleys,Nor the IsabelAnd the MuscadelThat bask in our garden alleys.Nor the red Mustang,Whose clusters hangO’er the waves of the Colorado,And the fiery floodOf whose purple bloodHas a dash of Spanish bravado.For richest and bestIs the wine of the West,That grows by the Beautiful River;Whose sweet perfumeFills all the roomWith a benison on the giver.And as hollow treesAre the haunts of bees,Forever going and coming;So this crystal hiveIs all aliveWith a swarming and buzzing and humming.Very good in its wayIs the Verzenay,Or the Sillery soft and creamy;But Catawba wineHas a taste more divine,More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.There grows no vineBy the haunted Rhine,By Danube or Guadalquivir,Nor on island or cape,That bears such a grapeAs grows by the Beautiful River.Drugged is their juiceFor foreign use,When shipped o’er the reeling Atlantic,To rack our brainsWith the fever pains,That have driven the Old World frantic.To the sewers and sinksWith all such drinks,And after them tumble the mixer;For a poison malignIs such Borgia wine,Or at best but a Devil’s Elixir.While pure as a springIs the wine I sing,And to praise it, one needs but name it;For Catawba wineHas need of no sign,No tavern-bush to proclaim it.And this Song of the Vine,This greeting of mine,The winds and the birds shall deliverTo the Queen of the West,In her garlands dressed,On the banks of the Beautiful River.
This song of mineIs a Song of the Vine,To be sung by the glowing embersOf wayside inns,When the rain beginsTo darken the drear Novembers.It is not a songOf the Scuppernong,From warm Carolinian valleys,Nor the IsabelAnd the MuscadelThat bask in our garden alleys.Nor the red Mustang,Whose clusters hangO’er the waves of the Colorado,And the fiery floodOf whose purple bloodHas a dash of Spanish bravado.For richest and bestIs the wine of the West,That grows by the Beautiful River;Whose sweet perfumeFills all the roomWith a benison on the giver.And as hollow treesAre the haunts of bees,Forever going and coming;So this crystal hiveIs all aliveWith a swarming and buzzing and humming.Very good in its wayIs the Verzenay,Or the Sillery soft and creamy;But Catawba wineHas a taste more divine,More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.There grows no vineBy the haunted Rhine,By Danube or Guadalquivir,Nor on island or cape,That bears such a grapeAs grows by the Beautiful River.Drugged is their juiceFor foreign use,When shipped o’er the reeling Atlantic,To rack our brainsWith the fever pains,That have driven the Old World frantic.To the sewers and sinksWith all such drinks,And after them tumble the mixer;For a poison malignIs such Borgia wine,Or at best but a Devil’s Elixir.While pure as a springIs the wine I sing,And to praise it, one needs but name it;For Catawba wineHas need of no sign,No tavern-bush to proclaim it.And this Song of the Vine,This greeting of mine,The winds and the birds shall deliverTo the Queen of the West,In her garlands dressed,On the banks of the Beautiful River.
This song of mineIs a Song of the Vine,To be sung by the glowing embersOf wayside inns,When the rain beginsTo darken the drear Novembers.
It is not a songOf the Scuppernong,From warm Carolinian valleys,Nor the IsabelAnd the MuscadelThat bask in our garden alleys.
Nor the red Mustang,Whose clusters hangO’er the waves of the Colorado,And the fiery floodOf whose purple bloodHas a dash of Spanish bravado.
For richest and bestIs the wine of the West,That grows by the Beautiful River;Whose sweet perfumeFills all the roomWith a benison on the giver.
And as hollow treesAre the haunts of bees,Forever going and coming;So this crystal hiveIs all aliveWith a swarming and buzzing and humming.
Very good in its wayIs the Verzenay,Or the Sillery soft and creamy;But Catawba wineHas a taste more divine,More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.
There grows no vineBy the haunted Rhine,By Danube or Guadalquivir,Nor on island or cape,That bears such a grapeAs grows by the Beautiful River.
Drugged is their juiceFor foreign use,When shipped o’er the reeling Atlantic,To rack our brainsWith the fever pains,That have driven the Old World frantic.
To the sewers and sinksWith all such drinks,And after them tumble the mixer;For a poison malignIs such Borgia wine,Or at best but a Devil’s Elixir.
While pure as a springIs the wine I sing,And to praise it, one needs but name it;For Catawba wineHas need of no sign,No tavern-bush to proclaim it.
And this Song of the Vine,This greeting of mine,The winds and the birds shall deliverTo the Queen of the West,In her garlands dressed,On the banks of the Beautiful River.
Whene’era noble deed is wrought,Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,Our hearts, in glad surprise,To higher levels rise.The tidal wave of deeper soulsInto our inmost being rolls,And lifts us unawaresOut of all meaner cares.Honor to those whose words or deedsThus help us in our daily needs,And by their overflowRaise us from what is low!Thus thought I, as by night I readOf the great army of the dead,The trenches cold and damp,The starved and frozen camp,—The wounded from the battle-plain,In dreary hospitals of pain,The cheerless corridors,The cold and stony floors.Lo! in that house of miseryA lady with a lamp I seePass through the glimmering gloom,And flit from room to room.And slow, as in a dream of bliss,The speechless sufferer turns to kissHer shadow, as it fallsUpon the darkening walls.As if a door in heaven should beOpened and then closed suddenly,The vision came and went,The light shone and was spent.On England’s annals, through the longHereafter of her speech and song,That light its rays shall castFrom portals of the past.A Lady with a Lamp shall standIn the great history of the land,A noble type of good,Heroic womanhood.Nor even shall be wanting hereThe palm, the lily, and the spear,The symbols that of yoreSaint Filomena bore.
Whene’era noble deed is wrought,Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,Our hearts, in glad surprise,To higher levels rise.The tidal wave of deeper soulsInto our inmost being rolls,And lifts us unawaresOut of all meaner cares.Honor to those whose words or deedsThus help us in our daily needs,And by their overflowRaise us from what is low!Thus thought I, as by night I readOf the great army of the dead,The trenches cold and damp,The starved and frozen camp,—The wounded from the battle-plain,In dreary hospitals of pain,The cheerless corridors,The cold and stony floors.Lo! in that house of miseryA lady with a lamp I seePass through the glimmering gloom,And flit from room to room.And slow, as in a dream of bliss,The speechless sufferer turns to kissHer shadow, as it fallsUpon the darkening walls.As if a door in heaven should beOpened and then closed suddenly,The vision came and went,The light shone and was spent.On England’s annals, through the longHereafter of her speech and song,That light its rays shall castFrom portals of the past.A Lady with a Lamp shall standIn the great history of the land,A noble type of good,Heroic womanhood.Nor even shall be wanting hereThe palm, the lily, and the spear,The symbols that of yoreSaint Filomena bore.
Whene’era noble deed is wrought,Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,Our hearts, in glad surprise,To higher levels rise.
The tidal wave of deeper soulsInto our inmost being rolls,And lifts us unawaresOut of all meaner cares.
Honor to those whose words or deedsThus help us in our daily needs,And by their overflowRaise us from what is low!
Thus thought I, as by night I readOf the great army of the dead,The trenches cold and damp,The starved and frozen camp,—
The wounded from the battle-plain,In dreary hospitals of pain,The cheerless corridors,The cold and stony floors.
Lo! in that house of miseryA lady with a lamp I seePass through the glimmering gloom,And flit from room to room.
And slow, as in a dream of bliss,The speechless sufferer turns to kissHer shadow, as it fallsUpon the darkening walls.
As if a door in heaven should beOpened and then closed suddenly,The vision came and went,The light shone and was spent.
On England’s annals, through the longHereafter of her speech and song,That light its rays shall castFrom portals of the past.
A Lady with a Lamp shall standIn the great history of the land,A noble type of good,Heroic womanhood.
Nor even shall be wanting hereThe palm, the lily, and the spear,The symbols that of yoreSaint Filomena bore.
A windcame up out of the sea,And said, “O mists, make room for me.â€It hailed the ships, and cried, “Sail on,Ye mariners, the night is gone.â€And hurried landward far away,Crying, “Awake! it is the day.â€It said unto the forest, “Shout!Hang all your leafy banners out!â€It touched the wood-bird’s folded wing,And said, “O bird, awake and sing.â€And o’er the farms, “O chanticleer,Your clarion blow; the day is near.â€It whispered to the fields of corn,“Bow down, and hail the coming morn.â€It shouted through the belfry-tower,“Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour.â€It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,And said, “Not yet! in quiet lie.â€
A windcame up out of the sea,And said, “O mists, make room for me.â€It hailed the ships, and cried, “Sail on,Ye mariners, the night is gone.â€And hurried landward far away,Crying, “Awake! it is the day.â€It said unto the forest, “Shout!Hang all your leafy banners out!â€It touched the wood-bird’s folded wing,And said, “O bird, awake and sing.â€And o’er the farms, “O chanticleer,Your clarion blow; the day is near.â€It whispered to the fields of corn,“Bow down, and hail the coming morn.â€It shouted through the belfry-tower,“Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour.â€It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,And said, “Not yet! in quiet lie.â€
A windcame up out of the sea,And said, “O mists, make room for me.â€
It hailed the ships, and cried, “Sail on,Ye mariners, the night is gone.â€
And hurried landward far away,Crying, “Awake! it is the day.â€
It said unto the forest, “Shout!Hang all your leafy banners out!â€
It touched the wood-bird’s folded wing,And said, “O bird, awake and sing.â€
And o’er the farms, “O chanticleer,Your clarion blow; the day is near.â€
It whispered to the fields of corn,“Bow down, and hail the coming morn.â€
It shouted through the belfry-tower,“Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour.â€
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,And said, “Not yet! in quiet lie.â€