Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.

685

The characters of joy and woe,
The monographs of outlived years,

1865.

Dreaming in throngful city ways

Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends-the few
Who yet remain-shall pause to view

These Flemish pictures of old days,
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Or lilies floating in some pond,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense

Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.