Beside that milestone where the level sun, Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays On word and work irrevocably done, Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun, I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise, Half doubtful if myself or otherwise. Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke. Thanks not the less. With not unglad surprise I see my life-work through your partial eyes; Assured, in giving to my home-taught songs A higher value than of right belongs, You do but read between the written lines The finer grace of unfulfilled designs. AT EVENTIDE. Poor and inadequate the shadow-play Of gain and loss, of waking and of dream, Against life's solemn background needs must seem At this late hour. Yet, not unthankfully, I call to mind the fountains by the way, The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray, Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of giving And of receiving, the great boon of living In grand historic years when Liberty Had need of word and work, quick sympathies For all who fail and suffer, song's relief, Nature's uncloying loveliness; and chief, The kind restraining hand of Providence, The inward witness, the assuring sense Of an Eternal Good which overlies The sorrow of the world, Love which outlives All sin and wrong, Compassion which forgives To the uttermost, and Justice whose clear eyes Through lapse and failure look to the intent, And judge our frailty by the life we meant. 1878. VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE. The picturesquely situated Wayside Inn at West Ossipee, N. H., is now in ashes; and to its former guests these somewhat careless rhymes may be a not unwelcome reminder of pleasant summers and autumns on the banks of the Bearcamp and Chocorua. To the author himself they have a special interest from the fact that they were written, or improvised, under the eye and for the amusement of a beloved invalid friend whose last earthly sunsets faded from the mountain ranges of Ossipee and Sandwich. A shallow stream, from fountains Deep in the Sandwich mountains, Ran lake ward Bearcamp River; And, between its flood-torn shores, Sped by sail or urged by oars No keel had vexed it ever. Alone the dead trees yielding To the dull axe Time is wielding, The shy mink and the otter, And golden leaves and red, By countless autumns shed, Had floated down its water. From the gray rocks of Cape Ann, Came a skilled seafaring man, With his dory, to the right place; Over hill and plain he brought her, Where the boatless Beareamp water Comes winding down from White-Face. Quoth the skipper: "Ere she floats forth; I'm sure my pretty boat's worth, At least, a name as pretty." On her painted side he wrote it, And the flag that o'er her floated Bore aloft the name of Jettie.