the arts of all the modernists,--not "Maud," with its garden-song,--not
the caged birds of Killingworth, singing up and down the
village-street,--not the heather-bells out of which the springy step of
Jean Ingelow crushes perfume,--shall make me forget the old, sweet, even
flow of the "Deserted Village."

Down with it, my boy, from the third shelf! G-O-L-D-S-M-I-T-H--a worker
in gold--is on the back.

And I sit reading it to myself, as a fog comes weltering in from the
sea, covering all the landscape, save some half-dozen of the
city-spires, which peer above the drift-like beacons.

* * * * *

THE REAPER'S DREAM.


The road was lone; the grass was dank
With night-dews on the briery bank
Whereon a weary reaper sank.
His garb was old,--his visage tanned;
The rusty sickle in his hand
Could find no work in all the land.

He saw the evening's chilly star
Above his native vale afar;
A moment on the horizon's bar
It hung,--then sank as with a sigh:
And there the crescent moon went by,