There are feet of air
On every stair —
Through every hall,
Through every gusty door,
There ’s a jostle and bustle,
With a silken rustle,
Like the meeting of guests at a festival !
Alow and aloof,
Over the roof,
How the stormy tempests swell !
And make the vane
On the spire complain ;
They heave at the steeple with might and main,
And burst and sweep
Into the belfry, on the bell !
They smite it so hard, and they smite it so well,
That the sexton tosses his arms in sleep,
And dreams he is ringing a funeral knell !
— Thomas Buchanan Read.
By permission of the publishers — J. B. Lippincott Company.
THE BROOK
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
4
