COBBLER KEEZAR’S VISION.

  The beaver cut his timber
  With patient teeth that day,
  The minks were fish-wards, and the cows
  Surveyors of highway,—­

  When Keezar sat on the hillside
  Upon his cobbler’s form,
  With a pan of coals on either hand
  To keep his waxed-ends warm.

  And there, in the golden weather,
  He stitched and hammered and sung;
  In the brook he moistened his leather,
  In the pewter mug his tongue.

  Well knew the tough old Teuton
  Who brewed the stoutest ale,
  And he paid the good-wife’s reckoning
  In the coin of song and tale.

  The songs they still are singing
  Who dress the hills of vine,
  The tales that haunt the Brocken
  And whisper down the Rhine.

  Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
  The swift stream wound away,
  Through birches and scarlet maples
  Flashing in foam and spray,—­

  Down on the sharp-horned ledges
  Plunging in steep cascade,
  Tossing its white-maned waters
  Against the hemlock’s shade.

  Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
  East and west and north and south;
  Only the village of fishers
  Down at the river’s mouth;

  Only here and there a clearing
  With its farm-house rude and new,
  And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,
  Where the scanty harvest grew.

  No shout of home-bound reapers,
  No vintage-song he heard,
  And on the green no dancing feet
  The merry violin stirred.

  “Why should folk be glum,” said Keezar,
  “When Nature herself is glad,
  And the painted woods are laughing
  At the faces so sour and sad?”

  Small heed had the careless cobbler
  What sorrow of heart was theirs
  Who travailed in pain with the births of God,
  And planted a state with prayers,—­

  Hunting of witches and warlocks,
  Smiting the heathen horde,—­
  One hand on the mason’s trowel,
  And one on the soldier’s sword!

  But give him his ale and cider,
  Give him his pipe and song,
  Little he cared for church or state,
  Or the balance of right and wrong.

  “’Tis work, work, work,” he muttered,—­
  “And for rest a snuffle of psalms!”
  He smote on his leathern apron
  With his brown and waxen palms.

  “Oh for the purple harvests
  Of the days when I was young! 
  For the merry grape-stained maidens,
  And the pleasant songs they sung!

  “Oh for the breath of vineyards,
  Of apples and nuts and wine! 
  For an oar to row and a breeze to blow
  Down the grand old river Rhine!”

  A tear in his blue eye glistened
  And dropped on his beard so gray. 
  “Old, old am I,” said Keezar,
  “And the Rhine flows far away!”

  But a cunning man was the cobbler;
  He could call the birds from the trees,
  Charm the black snake out of the ledges,
  And bring back the swarming bees.