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like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;

The muskrat plied the mason's trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls
laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped
his shell.
Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see
and hear,--
The sweetest woman ever Fate

Perverse denied a
household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace
in love's unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe'er she went,
A calm
and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income

And womanly atmosphere of home,--
Called up her girlhood
memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and
the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And
homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.

[Illustration]
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of
maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed
across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others,
glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care
From
glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The
virgin fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who
hath for such but thought of scorn.
[Illustration]
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;

A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,

Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a
fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give
thee,--rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a
poor one's blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent

Whose curtain never outward swings!
As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart

Against the household bosom lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat

Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking
eyes,
Now bathed within the fadeless green
And holy peace of
Paradise.
O, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of
saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes
behold me still?
With me one little year ago:--
[Illustration]
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon
her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow,
And
brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I
see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak

The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where'er I
went

[Illustration]
With dark eyes full of love's content.
The birds are
glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch
green to June's unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For
something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,

In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart!
remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy
immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What
chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?

And while in life's late afternoon,
Where cool and long the
shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and
shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need
the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see
thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The
welcome of thy beckoning hand?
Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school

Held at the fire his favored place;
Its warm glow lit a laughing face

Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
[Illustration]
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the
mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat,
Sang songs,
and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth's college halls.
Born
the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father
wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet
not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant
way;
Could doff at ease his scholar's gown

To peddle wares from
town to town;
Or through the long vacation's reach
In lonely
lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At
stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater's keen delight,

The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its
rough
Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff,
[Illustration]
And whirling plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a
pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his

merry violin,
Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good
dame's winding yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic
legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
[Illustration]
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed
at best the odds
'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where
Pindus-born Araxes took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And
dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.
A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look

And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future
took
In trainéd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained,
clear-eyed,--of such as he
Shall Freedom's young apostles be,
Who,
following in War's bloody trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;

All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;

Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,

The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason's
monstrous growth,
Made murder pastime, and the hell
Of
prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms
remould, and substitute
For Slavery's lash the