All the virtues of herbs and metals,
  All the lore of the woods he knew,
  And the arts of the Old World mingled
  With the marvels of the New.

  Well he knew the tricks of magic,
  And the lapstone on his knee
  Had the gift of the Mormon’s goggles
  Or the stone of Doctor Dee.

  For the mighty master Agrippa
  Wrought it with spell and rhyme
  From a fragment of mystic moonstone
  In the tower of Nettesheim.

  To a cobbler Minnesinger
  The marvellous stone gave he,—­
  And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar,
  Who brought it over the sea.

  He held up that mystic lapstone,
  He held it up like a lens,
  And he counted the long years coming
  By twenties and by tens.

  “One hundred years,” quoth Keezar,
  “And fifty have I told: 
  Now open the new before me,
  And shut me out the old!”

  Like a cloud of mist, the blackness
  Rolled from the magic stone,
  And a marvellous picture mingled
  The unknown and the known.

  Still ran the stream to the river,
  And river and ocean joined;
  And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line,
  And cold north hills behind.

  But the mighty forest was broken
  By many a steepled town,
  By many a white-walled farm-house
  And many a garner brown.

  Turning a score of mill-wheels,
  The stream no more ran free;
  White sails on the winding river,
  White sails on the far-off sea.

  Below in the noisy village
  The flags were floating gay,
  And shone on a thousand faces
  The light of a holiday.

  Swiftly the rival ploughmen
  Turned the brown earth from their shares;
  Here were the farmer’s treasures,
  There were the craftsman’s wares.

  Golden the good-wife’s butter,
  Ruby her currant-wine;
  Grand were the strutting turkeys,
  Fat were the beeves and swine.

  Yellow and red were the apples,
  And the ripe pears russet-brown,
  And the peaches had stolen blushes
  From the girls who shook them down.

  And with blooms of hill and wild-wood,
  That shame the toil of art,
  Mingled the gorgeous blossoms
  Of the garden’s tropic heart.

  “What is it I see?” said Keezar: 
  “Am I here, or am I there? 
  Is it a fete at Bingen? 
  Do I look on Frankfort fair?

  “But where are the clowns and puppets,
  And imps with horns and tail? 
  And where are the Rhenish flagons? 
  And where is the foaming ale?

  “Strange things, I know, will happen,—­
  Strange things the Lord permits;
  But that droughty folk should be jolly
  Puzzles my poor old wits.

  “Here are smiling manly faces,
  And the maiden’s step is gay;
  Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking,
  Nor mopes, nor fools are they.