Out into the sunny street:
There, at hitching-post and gate
Do the steeds and waggons wait.
Drawn in groups, the gossips talk,
Shaking hands before they walk ;
Maids and lovers steal away,
Smiling hand in hand, to stray
By the river, and to say
Drowsy love in the old way-
Till the sleepy sun shines down
On the roofs of Drowsietown.

In the great marsh, far beyond
Street and building, lies the Pond,
Gleaming like a silver shield

In the midst of wood and field;
There on sombre days you see

Anglers old in reverie,

Fishing feebly morn to night
For the pickerel so bright.

From the woods of beech and fir,
Dull blows of the woodcutter
Faintly sound; and haply, too,
Comes the cat-owl's wild "tuhoo"!
Drown'd by distance, dull and deep,
Like a dark sound heard in sleep ;-

And a cock may answer, down
In the depths of Drowsietown.

Such is Drowsietown-but nay!
Was, not is, my song should say—
Such was summer long ago

In this town so sleepy and slow.
Change has come: thro' wood and dale
Runs the demon of the rail,
And the Drowsietown of yore
Is not drowsy any more!

P

WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE

Born 1842

FROM "THE PARADISE OF BIRDS"

CHORUS OF HUMAN SOULS

Mortals who attempt the seas

Where man's breath and blood must freeze

You whom Fortune, by despite,

Destiny, or daring, carry

Farther in the four months' night

Than M'Clintock, Sabine, Parry,

Hayes, or Kane—

Say, we charge ye, why ye come

Where humanity is dumb;

Is it but to reive and harry,

Or for gain,

That you break the arctic barriers where feathered spirits reign?

Are you whalers, blown astray

In the chase through Baffin's Bay?

Or men tired of the sun,

Human thought and speech and feature,
That you seek, what all things shun,

Night, that hides each kind and creature?
Have hard times

Driven you up, in hopes of food,

To this landless latitude?

Know ye not, indeed, that Nature

In these climes

For our race produces nothing but requital for our crimes?

Back, we do beseech ye, back
To the ice-floe and the pack!

If your hand has driven a quill,
Clipped a wing, or plucked a feather,
Were your purpose good or ill,
Ye are ruined altogether,

Body and soul !

We were men who speak these words,

But for harm we did the birds

Now are beaten in this weather,

Past control,

Round the Paradise that holds the Aviary of the Pole.

For our crimes are here decreed

Pains proportioned to each deed:

!

As on earth we played our parts,
Such in Purgatory our measure:
But behold our human hearts
Are transfigured, and old pleasure
Here is pain:

Some become the birds they slew;

Some fruitlessly pursue

Feathered phantoms; all at leisure,

In one strain,

Swear the birds should live for ever could they live their lives again.

Therefore, back! and if one bird
By your dwelling still be heard
(Since for all this winter none
Pass our barriers), we implore ye
Leave this singer in the sun,
Telling the live world our story;
For 'tis meet

That the infidel should so

By report believe the woe,

Waiting all in Purgatory,

Who entreat

Cruelly with death or dungeon things so simple and so sweet.