We droop our dreamy eyes
  Where our reflection lies
    Steeped in the sea,
  And, in an endless fit
  Of languor, smile on it
    And its sweet mimicry. 
      Where shall we land?

  “Where shall we land?” God’s grace! 
  I know not any place
    So fair as this—­
  Swung here between the blue
  Of sea and sky, with you
    To ask me, with a kiss,
      “Where shall we land?”

AN OLD SETTLER’S STORY

William Williams his name was—­or so he said;—­Bill Williams they called him, and them ’at knowed him best called him Bill Bills.

The first I seed o’ Bills was about two weeks after he got here.  The Settlement wasn’t nothin’ but a baby in them days, far I mind ’at old Ezry Sturgiss had jist got his saw and griss-mill a-goin’, and Bills had come along and claimed to know all about millin’, and got a job with him; and millers in them times was wanted worse’n congerss-men, and I reckon got better wages; far afore Ezry built, ther wasn’t a dust o’ meal er flour to be had short o’ the White Water, better’n sixty mild from here, the way we had to fetch it.  And they used to come to Ezry’s far ther grindin’ as far as that; and one feller I knowed to come from what used to be the old South Fork, over eighty mild from here, and in the wettest, rainyest weather; and mud! Law!

Well, this-here Bills was a-workin’ far Ezry at the time—­part the time a-grindin’, and part the time a-lookin’ after the sawin’, and gittin’ out timber and the like.  Bills was a queer-lookin’ feller, shore!  About as tall a build man as Tom Carter—­but of course you don’t know nothin’ o’ Tom Carter.  A great big hulk of a feller, Tom was; and as far back as Fifty-eight used to make his brags that he could cut and put up his seven cord a day.

Well, what give Bills this queer look, as I was a-goin’ on to say, was a great big ugly scar a-runnin’ from the corner o’ one eye clean down his face and neck, and I don’t know how far down his breast—­awful lookin’; and he never shaved, and ther wasn’t a hair a-growin’ in that scar, and it looked like a—­some kind o’ pizen snake er somepin’ a crawlin’ in the grass and weeds.  I never seed sich a’ out-an’-out onry-lookin’ chap, and I’ll never fergit the first time I set eyes on him.

Steve and me—­Steve was my youngest brother; Steve’s be’n in Californy now far, le’ me see,—­well, anyways, I reckon, over thirty year.—­Steve was a-drivin’ the team at the time—­I allus let Steve drive; ’peared like Steve was made a-purpose far hosses.  The beatin’est hand with hosses ’at ever you did see-an’-I-know!  W’y, a hoss, after he got kind o’ used to Steve a-handlin’ of him, would do anything far him!  And I’ve knowed that boy to swap far hosses ’at cou’dn’t hardly make a shadder; and, afore you knowed it, Steve would have ’em a-cavortin’ around a-lookin’ as peert and fat and slick!