Or swam in the wooded Artichoke,
Or coiled by the Northman's Written
Rock,

Nothing on record is left to show;
Only the fact that he lived, we know,
And left the cast of a double head

In the scaly mask which he yearly shed. For he carried a head where his tail should be,

And the two, of course, could never agree, But wriggled about with main and might, Now to the left and now to the right; 50 Pulling and twisting this way and that Neither knew what the other was at.

60

A snake with two heads, lurking so near!
Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear!
Think what ancient gossips might say,
Shaking their heads in their dreary way,
Between the meetings on Sabbath-day!
How urchins, searching at day's decline
The Common Pasture for sheep or kine,
The terrible double-ganger heard
In leafy rustle or whir of bird!
Think what a zest it gave to the sport,
In berry-time, if the younger sort,
As over pastures blackberry-twined,
Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind,
And closer and closer, for fear of harm,
The maiden clung to her lover's arm;

And how the spark, who was forced to stay,

By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day,

Thanked the snake for the fond delay! 70

Far and wide the tale was told,

Like a snowball growing while it rolled.
The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry;
And it served, in the worthy minister's
eye,

To paint the primitive serpent by.
Cotton Mather came galloping down
All the way to Newbury town,
With his eyes agog and his ears set wide,
And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;
Stirring the while in the shallow pool 80
Of his brains for the lore he learned at
school,

To garnish the story, with here a streak
Of Latin, and there another of Greek:
And the tales he heard and the notes he
took,

Behold! are they not in his WonderBook?

Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill.
If the snake does not, the tale runs still
In Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill.
And still, whenever husband and wife
Publish the shame of their daily strife, 90
And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and
strain

At either end of the marriage-chain,
The gossips say, with a knowing shake
Of their gray heads, "Look at the Double
Snake!

One in body and two in will,
The Amphisbæna is living still!"

The Atlantic Monthly, March, 1859.

BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE

John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day:

"I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay.

But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free,

With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!"

John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die;

And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh.

Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew mild, As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child!

The shadows of his stormy life that moment fell apart;

10

And they who blamed the bloody hand forgave the loving heart. That kiss from all its guilty means redeemed the good intent,

And round the grisly fighter's hair the martyr's aureole bent!

Perish with him the folly that seeks through evil good!

Long live the generous purpose unstained with human blood!

Not the raid of midnight terror, but the thought which underlies;

Not the borderer's pride of daring, but the Christian's sacrifice.

Nevermore may yon Blue Ridges the Northern rifle hear,

Nor see the light of blazing homes flash on the negro's spear.

But let the free-winged angel Truth their guarded passes scale,

To teach that right is more than might, and justice more than mail!

20

TO THE MEMORY OF THE HOUSEHOLD IT DESCRIBES THIS POEM IS DEDI. CATED BY THE AUTHOR

As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common VVood Fire; and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of VVood doth the same. COR. AGRIPPA, Occult Philosophy, Book I. ch. v.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

EMERSON. The Snow Storm.

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.

1 The inmates of the family at the Whittier homestead who are referred to in the poem were my father, mother, my brother and two sisters, and my uncle and aunt, both unmarried. In addition, there was the district school-master, who boarded with us.

In my boyhood, in our lonely farm-house, we had scanty sources of information; few books and only a small weekly newspaper. Our only annual was the Almanac. Under such circumstances story-telling was a necessary resource in the long winter evenings. My father when a young man had traversed the wilderness to Canada, and could tell us of his adventures with Indians and wild beasts, and of his sojourn in the French villages. My uncle was ready with his record of hunting and fishing and, it must be confessed, with stories, which he at least half believed, of witchcraft and apparitions. My mother, who was born in the Indian-haunted region of Somersworth, New Hampshire, between Dover and Portsmouth, told us of the

Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, 10
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

:

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,-
Brought in the wood from out of doors, 20
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows:
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent. 30

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingèd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line
posts

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 40

inroads of the savages, and the narrow escape of her ancestors. She described strange people who lived on the Piscataqua and Cocheco, among whom was Bantam the sorcerer. I have in my possession the wizard's "conjuring book," which he solemnly opened when consulted. It is a copy of Cornelius Agrippa's Magic, printed in 1651, dedicated to Dr. Robert Child, who, like Michael Scott, had learned

the art of glammorie

In Padua beyond the sea,

and who is famous in the annals of Massachusetts, where he was at one time a resident, as the first man who dared petition the General Court for liberty of conscience. The full title of the book is Three Books of Occult Philosophy, by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Knight, Doctor of both Laws Counsellor to Casar's Sacred Majesty and Judge of Prerogative Court. (Author's Note.)