Last the Musician, as he stood

Illumined by that fire of wood;

Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe,
His figure tall and straight and lithe,
And every feature of his face
Revealing his Norwegian race;

A radiance, streaming from within,
Around his eyes and forehead beamed,

The Angel with the violin,

Painted by Raphael, he seemed.

He lived in that ideal world

Whose language is not speech, but song; Around him evermore the throng

Of elves and sprites their dances whirled; The Strömkarl sang, the cataract hurled Its headlong waters from the height;

And mingled in the wild delight

The scream of sea-birds in their flight,

The rumor of the forest trees,

The plunge of the implacable seas,

The tumult of the wind at night,

Voices of eld, like trumpets blowing,
Old ballads, and wild melodies

Through mist and darkness pouring forth,

Like Elivagar's river flowing

Out of the glaciers of the North.

The instrument on which he played
Was in Cremona's workshops made,
By a great master of the past,
Ere yet was lost the art divine;

Fashioned of maple and of pine,

That in Tyrolian forests vast

Had rocked and wrestled with the blast:

Exquisite was it in design,

Perfect in each minutest part,

A marvel of the lutist's art;

And in its hollow chamber, thus,

The maker from whose hands it came

Had written his unrivalled name,

"Antonius Stradivarius."

And when he played, the atmosphere
Was filled with magic, and the ear
Caught echoes of that Harp of Gold,
Whose music had so weird a sound,
The hunted stag forgot to bound,
The leaping rivulet backward rolled,
The birds came down from bush and tree,

The dead came from beneath the sea,
The maiden to the harper's knee!

The music ceased; the applause was loud,
The pleased musician smiled and bowed;
The wood-fire clapped its hands of flame,
The shadows on the wainscot stirred,
And from the harpsichord there came
A ghostly murmur of acclaim,

A sound like that sent down at night

By birds of passage in their flight, From the remotest distance heard.

Then silence followed; then began A clamor for the Landlord's tale, The story promised them of old, They said, but always left untold; And he, although a bashful man, And all his courage seemed to fail, Finding excuse of no avail,

Yielded; and thus the story ran.

THE LANDLORD'S TALE.

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower as a signal light,

One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,