It seemed the loveliness of things
      Did teach him all their use,
    For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,
      He found a healing power profuse.

    Men granted that his speech was wise,
      But, when a glance they caught
    Of his slim grace and woman’s eyes,
      They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.

    Yet after he was dead and gone,
      And e’en his memory dim,
    Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,
      More full of love, because of him.

    And day by day more holy grew
      Each spot where he had trod,
    Till after-poets only knew
      Their first-born brother as a god.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

 HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.

I have an old essay written by a lad of fourteen years on “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.”  I should judge from this essay that any boy at that age would like the poem, even if he had not himself been over the ground as this boy had. (1812-89.)

    I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
    I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
   “Good speed!” cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew;
   “Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
    Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
    And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

    Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
    Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
    I turned in my saddle and made its girth tight,
    Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
    Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
    Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

   ’Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
    Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
    At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
    At Dueffeld, ’twas morning as plain as could be;
    And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
    So Joris broke silence with, “Yet there is time!”

    At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
    And against him the cattle stood black every one,
    To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
    And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
    With resolute shoulders, each butting away
    The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray: 

    And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
    For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
    And one eye’s black intelligence,—­ever that glance
    O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance! 
    And the thick, heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
    His fierce lips shook upward in galloping on.

    By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, “Stay spur! 
    Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault’s not in her,
    We’ll remember at Aix”—­for one heard the quick wheeze
    Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
    And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
    As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.