Ships rejoicing in the breeze, Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas, Anchors dragged through faithless sand; And, with lessening line and lead, All these scenes do I behold, In that building long and low; And the spinners backward go. THE GOLDEN MILESTONE. LEAFLESS are the trees; their purple branches Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral, Rising silent In the Red Sea of the Winter sunset. From the hundred chimneys of the village, Tower aloft into the air of amber. At the window winks the flickering fire-light; Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer, Social watch-fires Answering one another through the darkness, On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing, Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them. By the fireside there are old men seated, Asking sadly Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them. By the fireside there are youthful dreamers, Of the future what it cannot give them. By the fireside tragedies are acted And above them God the sole spectator. By the fireside there are peace and comfort, For a well-known footstep in the passage. Each man's chimney is his Golden Milestone; Through the gateways of the world around him. In his farthest wanderings still he sees it; When he sat with those who were, but are not. Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, From the hearth of his ancestral homestead. We may build more splendid habitations, Buy with gold the old associations! CATAWBA WINE. THIS song of mine Is a Song of the Vine, To be sung by the glowing embers When the rain begins To darken the drear Novembers. For richest and best Is the wine of the West, That grows by the Beautiful River; Fills all the room With a benison on the giver. And as hollow trees Are the haunts of bees, For ever going and coming; So this crystal hive Is all alive With a swarming and buzzing and humming. Very good in its way Is the Verzenay, Or the Sillery soft and creamy; But Catawba wine Has a taste more divine, More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy. There grows no vine By the haunted Rhine, By Danube or Guadalquivir, Nor on island or cape, That bears such a grape As grows by the Beautiful River. Drugged is their juice For foreign use, When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic, With the fever pains That have driven the Old World frantic. To the sewers and sinks And after them tumble the mixer; Is such Borgia wine, Or at best but a Devil's Elixir. While pure as a spring Is the wine I sing, And to praise it, one needs but name it; For Catawba wine Has need of no sign, No tavern-bush to proclaim it. And this Song of the Vine, The winds and the birds shall deliver In her garlands dressed, On the banks of the Beautiful River. |