The Indianapolis journal., 1884-01-19
An Airy GaIlOp.

While fancy flies, no steed lack
Swift as the breed of AL Borak
That Michael and Mahomet knew,
Led by the angel when they few,
Lighted by eyes of iacinth gem,
From Mecca to Jerusalem,
Then Allahs realms the furthest height
Scaled with the speed of flashing light,
And thence returned so quick the vase,
Still slanting in its standing place,
BY Michael's wing tipped at his call
AIahomet's hand saved from its fall.
o, steed of mine, that have taught
To answer to the spur of thought,
Unto the sunrise turn thy head,
Be thy swift flight by fancy sped,
And may thy airy footballs each
Stride further than the eye can reach
Across the icy Northern wind
And leave the prairied land behind
Thy course be straight as flies the crow
Or as the homing pigeons go,
Nor glance to right nor left your eyes,
Till all about the mountains rise,
That in the moonlight CLEAN and shine,
Save where their sides are dark with pine;
Speed till we breathe the air that stirs
The branches of the sombre frs
That patch the pastures, conform,
Defiant of the winters storm,
In whose black outlines we can trace
The wigwams of a vanished race.
Pause not at CLEAN of farmhouse lamps,
Glide over moonlit sugar-camps
We cross nor mark the rivers track,
Save by the moonbeams glinted back
From spots of icy crystal, where
The north-winds plow has set its share
Above the prisoned rivers flow,
And to the subsoil turned the snow.
'Twixt lines of fence that mark the roads
The cutters glide, with merry loadsi
Upon the air sweet laughter swells
And blends with tnkling of the bells,
While comes a sound the sleighs beneath
Like grinding of the frost-kings teeth,
AS though each runner he would hold
Within his grip of freezing cold.
The chimney smoke the whiteness glooms,
Like waving of gigantic plunes.
The school-house stands devoid of noise
A mausoleum of buried joys
Untenanted, save on the wall
There CLEANS a ghost mathematical;
But Atlas there each night may walk,
And Lindley MuTay's ghost may talk.
l know not what turks in its gloom,
But this feel that, like tomb,
Against its door a stone is rolled
To guard from me what it may hold.
Where light from out the farm-hous glows,
The wood-pile like rampant shows;
Straw-strewn, meath moonbeams pale and cold,
C.. .l.4l e
The barns that from the north wind shield
Throw their black shadows far afield;
Within sleepless fowl complains
And rattle of the stancheon chains
Hints of head in anger tost,
Impatient of the biting frost,
Followed perchance by sighing deep
AS some tired OK drops down to sleep.
At length I open wide the door
My feet so oft have passed before,
And in the hearth-fre's ruddy glare
1 look, but see no vacant chair.
The apple-basket close at hand;
The candle iickers the stand,
1 see the letter in its wick,
And hear the needles rhythmic click
The seed-corn hangs against the wall,
And braids of onions pendant fall
Oer-topped upon the holding-hooks
BY spearmint gathered by the brooks,
L see results of eyes alert
For peppermint and thoroughwort;
The drying pumpkin hangs in view
Like threads of Archimedean screw:
The kettle sings just as it sung,
And quartered apples still are hung
Upon the poles in rich festoon,
The garnered promise of the June;
And, spiderlegged, the spinning
Stands by the mimic windmill reel
And drawn rpon the kitchen wall,
In grotesque lines their shadows fall
A ghostly draught to dreaming eyes
OF all the possibilities
Hid in the wheels crude principle
Slave to the eslilled inventors spell,
When inspiration rendered plain
The shadowed outlines of his brain.
break the household circle through
As in dead days I used to do,
And hold to all the gathered band
The gladness of a coming handi
But in their eyes greeting light,
''If you're asleep, 0, well, good night"
swing the door that opens on
To the low entrys' echelon.
With outstretched hands my way I gropo
Beneath the herb-hung rafters' slope
Unto the couch where l have lain
And many castles built in Spain;
There, throuh riven shingles chink.
see again the starlight's wink.
% steed of mine! as lightning CLEANS,
Away and leave me to my dreamsl
Ben d. House.
MagOg River.
A food there is that flows and falls,
Where elms their pendant branches lean,
Or high above its rocky walls
The frs are ever green.
From Memphremagog's FURNISHED skein
OF silver, tangled in the hills,
Its downward leaping course is ta'en,
Amid the roar of mills.
Not thus of old, the old man knew