There on the stream I still might mark
Its fading path of ripples quiver,
And hear the shore-wave running after,
Like childhood with a voice of laughter.

'Twas evening, and the autumn fire
Was feasting at the well-built pyre,
Where every log, with glowing mirth,
Poured from its breast of ample girth
Some memory of April birth,

To cheer the hearthstone of October. There, conscious of his place and worth, One lordly hound, with visage sober, Sheathed his large eyes in sleep's eclipse,

While visions of the woodland chase

Disturbed the slumber on his face With twinklings at his ears and lips.

That honored hearth was like a gate
Wide with the welcome of old days;

No sulphur-fuming, modern grate,
Which black bitumen daily crams,
But waved between its ample jambs
Its flag of hospitable blaze.

A century gone 'twas lined with tiles,

Like those the hearths of Holland show;

And still each Scripture picture smiles
And brightens in the hickory glow.

Oft from those painted sermons rude,
In musing hours of solitude,

A voiceless thought hath searched the heart
Beyond the theologian's art.

A moral winged with verse may reach
A soul no weightier words will teach,
As arrow from the archer's bow

Has cleaved where falchion failed to go;
And truths from out a picture oft,
In colors as the iris soft,

May shed an influence to remain

Where argument would strive in vain.

The chairs were quaint, antique, and tall,
As in some old baronial hall;

And in an alcove dusk and dim,

Like Denmark's mailed and phantom king, A suit of armor tall and grim

With upraised glaive seemed beckoning. And had it walked, the gazer, drawn, Must needs have followed on and on!

The perforated steel confessed

What death had pierced the wearer's breast.

Near by, upon a throne upreared,
A harp of bygone times appeared:
The graceful form was deftly made,
With pearl and precious woods inlaid;
And in the firelight, as of old,

It flushed the shadowy niche with gold.

In all the orchestras which lift

The soul with rapture caught from far, As in a bright triumphal car Round which celestial splendors shift, No instrument of earth affords

An influence so divine and deep, As when the flying fingers sweep The harp, with all its wondrous chords. Around its honored form there lives

Romance mysterious, vague, and old: I see the shapes which history gives The bards in dim traditions told,— With visions of great kingly halls, Where red, barbaric splendor falls; But chiefly I behold and hearWhile bends a troop of seraphs near— The angels, with their locks of gold.

Such shadowy halls of deep repose
A New-World homestead seldom shows;
But such the traveller frequent sees,
Embowered within ancestral trees,

In that maternal isle whose breast
First warmed our eagle into life,
And then, with rude, unnatural strife,
Pushed the brave offspring from her nest,—
Which, launched upon its sunward track,
No voice on earth could summon back.

Here, while I slowly paced the room,
Strange visions filled the fitful gloom.
On soft, invisible feet they came;

I heard them speak,—or was't the flame
That muttered in the chimney wide?
Faint shadows wavered at my side,
My spirit heard a spirit sigh,
While gauzy garments rustled by!
A pallid phantom of the fire

Leapt o'er the high flame wildly higher,

A blaze that vanished with a bound!

A whine escaped the sleeping hound,-
A sudden wind swept up the lane,

And drove the leaves like frighted herds;

Some, like the ghosts of summer-birds, Fluttered against the window-pane.

Hawthorne, my friend, had I your wand,
How, at the waving of my hand,
The place, and all its grandeur gone,
Should on the marvelling vision dawn!
Each shepherdess, or warrior bold,

Each knight and dame, in ruff and frill,
Obedient to the wizard will,

Should step from antique oak or gold;
Bright eyes should glance, sweet voices sing,
And light feet trip the waxen floor;
And round the festive board should ring
The friendly goblets, as of yore;
And Love's sweet grief be newly told
Under the elm-trees, as of old.

But, ah! the hazel wand you wield

Was grown by that enchanted stream Which sometimes flashes through my dream, But flows not through my barren field!

The host came in: he took my hand:
He saw the wonder on my face,
And said, "Ah, yes: I understand:

You marvel at this curious place,