Bethlehem, N. H.

MOUNT AGASSIZ.

EFORE this mountain bore his well-loved name

BEFORE

Whose greatness runs through both the hemispheres, Whose life-work, after death, but swells his fame, Whose sudden loss set Science' self in tears, I stood upon it; now if I were there Among the flocking thoughts would this one brood, Mount Agassiz! It must have known such prayer As rose at Penikese where once he stood Pleading with Heaven, yet uttering not a word, Leading the face and spirit of that throng

:

On through an awe-hinged gate, that swung unheard,
Into His presence where all souls belong:
So doubtless, here, with noisy words unshod,
Went Prayer in Horeb silence unto God.

Charlotte Fiske Bates.

POOR

Beverly, Mass.

HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

lone Hannah,

Sitting at the window, binding shoes.
Faded, wrinkled,

Sitting, stitching, in a mournful muse.

Bright-eyed beauty once was she,
When the bloom was on the tree:
Spring and winter,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Not a neighbor

Passing nod or answer will refuse
To her whisper,

"Is there from the fishers any news?"
Oh, her heart's adrift, with one
On an endless voyage gone!

Night and morning,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Fair young Hannah,

Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gayly wooes:
Hale and clever,

For a willing heart and hand he sues.
May-day skies are all aglow,

And the waves are laughing so!

For her wedding

Hannah leaves her window and her shoes.

May is passing :

Mid the apple boughs a pigeon cooes.

Hannah shudders,

For the mild southwester mischief brews.
Round the rocks of Marblehead,

Outward bound, a schooner sped:
Silent, lonesome,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

'Tis November,

Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews.
From Newfoundland

Not a sail returning will she lose,
Whispering hoarsely, "Fishermen,
Have you, have you heard of Ben?"
Old with watching,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Twenty winters

Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views.

Twenty seasons:

Never one has brought her any news.

Still her dim eyes silently

Chase the white sails o'er the sea:

Hopeless, faithful,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

SKIPPER BEN.

Lucy Larcom.

MAILING away!

SAILIN

Losing the breath of the shores in May,

Dropping down from the beautiful bay,

Over the sea-slope vast and gray!

And the skipper's eyes with a mist are blind;

For a vision comes on the rising wind,

Of a gentle face, that he leaves behind,

And a heart that throbs through the fog-bank dim, Thinking of him.

Far into night

He watches the gleam of the lessening light
Fixed on the dangerous island height,

That bars the harbor he loves from sight.
And he wishes, at dawn, he could tell the tale
Of how they had weathered the southwest gale,
To brighten the cheek that had grown so pale
With a wakeful night among spectres grim,
Terrors for him.

Yo-heave-yo!

Here's the Bank where the fishermen go.
Over the schooner's sides they throw
Tackle and bait to the deeps below.

And Skipper Ben in the water sees,

When its ripples curl to the light land breeze,
Something that stirs like his apple-trees;

And two soft eyes that beneath them swim,
Lifted to him.

Hear the wind roar,

And the rain through the slit sails tear and pour!
"Steady! we'll scud by the Cape Ann shore,
Then hark to the Beverly bells once more!"
And each man worked with the will of ten ;
While up in the rigging, now and then,
The lightning glared in the face of Ben,
Turned to the black horizon's rim,

Scowling on him.

Into his brain

Burned with the iron of hopeless pain,

Into thoughts that grapple, and eyes that strain,
Pierces the memory, cruel and vain!

Never again shall he walk at ease,
Under his blossoming apple-trees,

That whisper and sway to the sunset breeze,

While the soft eyes float where the sea-gulls skim, Gazing with him.

How they went down

Never was known in the still old town.

Nobody guessed how the fisherman brown,

With the look of despair that was half a frown,

Faced his fate in the furious night,

Faced the mad billows with hunger white,

Just within hail of the beacon-light

That shone on a woman sweet and trim,
Waiting for him.

Beverly bells,

Ring to the tide as it ebbs and swells!
His was the anguish a moment tells, -
The passionate sorrow death quickly knells.
But the wearing wash of a lifelong woe
Is left for the desolate heart to know,
Whose tides with the dull years come and go
Till hope drifts dead to its stagnant brim,

Thinking of him.

Lucy Larcom.