Behold the chosen room he sought Each year, as chill November brought There hung the rapier blade he wore, Bent in its flattened sheath; The coat the shrieking woman tore Caught in her clenching teeth; The coat with tarnished silver lace And down upon her death-white face And look along the wooded plains That stretch on either hand, The broken forest walls define He cut his vista through. If further story you shall crave, Go see old Julia, born a slave She told me half that I have told, The mansion as it looked of old Before its glories fell; The box, when round the terraced square Its glossy wall was drawn ; The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, The roses on the lawn. And Julia says, with truthful look That in her own black hands she took The coat with silver lace. And you may hold the story light, Or, if you like, believe; But there it was, the woman's bite, A mouthful from the sleeve. Now go your ways:- I need not tell The moral of my rhyme ; But, youths and maidens, ponder well, This tale of olden time! THE PLOUGHMAN. (ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OCT. 4, 1849.) CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam! Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, First in the field before the reddening sun, Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod; Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay, These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men; O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time! We stain thy flowers, they blossom o'er the dead; We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; |