Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it,
Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan.

While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud,
While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud,

Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit.

BEAVER BROOK.

HUSHED with broad sunlight lies the hill,
And, minuting the long day's loss,
The cedar's shadow, slow and still,
Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss.

Warm noon brims full the valley's cup,
The aspen's leaves are scarce astir,
Only the little mill sends up
Its busy, never-ceasing burr.

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems
The road along the mill-pond's brink,
From 'neath the arching barberry-stems,
My footstep scares the shy chewink.

Beneath a bony button wood
The mill's red door lets forth the din;
The whitened miller, dust-imbued,
Flits past the square of dark within.

No mountain torrent's strength is here;
Sweet Beaver, child of forest still,
Heaps its small pitcher to the ear,
And gently waits the miller's will.

Swift slips Undine along the race

Unheard, and then, with flashing bound,
Floods the dull wheel with light and grace,
And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round.

The miller dreams not at what cost
The quivering mill-stones hum and whirl,
Nor how for every turn, are tost

Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.

But Summer cleared my happier eyes
With drops of some celestial juice,
To see how Beauty underlies
For evermore each form of Use.

And more: methought I saw that flood,
Which now so dull and darkling steals,
Thick, here and there, with human blood,
To turn the world's laborious wheels.

No more than doth the miller there,
Shut in our several cells, do we
Know with what waste of beauty rare
Moves every day's machinery.

Surely the wiser time shall come
When this fine overplus of might,
No longer sullen, slow, and dumb,
Shall leap to music and to light.

In that new childhood of the Earth
Life of itself shall dance and play,

Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth,
And labor meet delight half-way.

APPLEDORE.

How looks Appledore in a storm?

I have seen it when its crags seemed frantic,
Butting against the maddened Atlantic,
When surge after surge would heap enorme,
Cliffs of Emerald topped with snow,
That lifted and lifted and then let go
A great white avalanche of thunder,
A grinding, blinding, deafening ire
Monadnock might have trembled under;

And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below
To where they are warmed with the central fire,

You could feel its granite fibres racked,

As it seemed to plunge with a shudder and thrill
Right at the breast of the swooping hill,

And to rise again, snorting a cataract

Of rage-froth from every cranny and ledge,

While the sea drew its breath in hoarse and deep,

And the next vast breaker curled its edge,
Gathering itself for a mighty leap.

North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers,
You would never dream of in smooth weather,
That toss and gore the sea for acres,

Bellowing and gnashing and snarling together; Look northward, where Duck Island lies, And over its crown you will see arise, Against a background of slaty skies, A row of pillars still and white

That glimmer and then are out of sight, As if the moon should suddenly kiss,

While you crossed the gusty desert by night,
The long colonnades of Persepolis,

And then as sudden a darkness should follow
To gulp the whole scene at single swallow,
The city's ghost, the drear, brown waste,
And the string of camels, clumsy-paced :
Look southward for White Island light,

The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the tide;
There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight,
Of dash and roar and tumble and fright,

And surging bewilderment wild and wide, Where the breakers struggle left and right, Then a mile or more of rushing sea,

And then the light-house slim and lone;

And whenever the whole weight of ocean is thrown Full and fair on White Island head,

A great mist-jotun you will see

Lifting himself up silently

High and huge o'er the light-house top,

With hands of wavering spray outspread,

Groping after the little tower,

That seems to shrink, and shorten and cower,

Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop,
And silently and fruitlessly

He sinks again into the sea.

You, meanwhile, where drenched you stand,
Awaken once more to the rush and roar
And on the rock-point tighten your hand,
As you turn and see a valley deep,

That was not there a moment before, Suck rattling down between you and a heap Of toppling billow, whose instant fall Must sink the whole island once for all Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas

Feeling their way to you more and more; If they once should clutch you high as the knees They would whirl you down like a sprig of kelp, Beyond all reach of hope or help; And such in a storm is Appledore.

DARA.

WHEN Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand
Wilted by harem-heats, and all the land
Was hovered over by those vulture ills
That snuff decaying empire from afar,
Then, with a nature balanced as a star,
Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He, who had governed fleecy subjects well,
Made his own village, by the self-same spell,
Secure and peaceful as a guarded fold,
Till, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees,
Under his sway, to neighbor villages

Order returned, and faith and justice old.

Now, when it fortuned that a king more wise
Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes,
He sought on every side men brave and just,
And having heard the mountain-shepherd's praise,
How he rendered the mould of elder days,
To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide,
Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride
Than in his crook before; but Envy finds
More soil in cities than on mountains bare,
And the frank sun of spirits clear and rare
Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

Soon it was whispered at the royal ear
That, though wise Dara's province, year by year,
Like a great sponge, drew wealth and plenty up,
Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's behest,
Some golden drops, more rich than all the rest,
Went to the filling of his private cup.

For proof, they said that whereso'er he went
A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent,
Went guarded, and no other eye had seen
What was therein, save only Dara's own,
Yet, when 't was opened, all his tent was known
To glow and lighten with heapt jewels' sheen.

The king set forth for Dara's province straight,
Where, as was fit, outside his city's gate

The viceroy met him with a stately train;
And there, with archers circled, close at hand,
A camel with the chest was seen to stand,

The king grew red, for thus the guilt was plain.

"Open me now," he cried, "yon treasure-chest!" 'T was done, and only a worn shepherd's vest

Was found within; some blushed and hung the head, Not Dara; open as the sky's blue roof

He stood, and "O, my lord, behold the proof
That I was worthy of my trust!" he said.

"For ruling men, lo! all the charm I had; My soul, in those coarse vestments ever clad,

Still to the unstained past kept true and leal, Still on these plains could breathe her mountain air, And Fortune's heaviest gifts serenely bear,

Which bend men from the truth, and make them reel.

"To govern wisely I had shown small skill Were I not lord of simple Dara still;

That sceptre kept, I cannot lose my way!" Strange dew in royal eyes grew round and bright And thrilled the trembling lids; before 't was night Two added provinces blest Dara's sway.