Like a cloud of mist, the blackness Rolled from the magic stone, And a marvellous picture mingled The unknown and the known. Still ran the stream to the river, And river and ocean joined; And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line, And cold north hills behind. But the mighty forest was broken By many a steepled town, By many a white-walled farm-house And many a garner brown. Turning a score of mill-wheels, The stream no more ran free; White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea. Below in the noisy village The flags were floating gay, And shone on a thousand faces The light of a holiday. Swiftly the rival ploughmen Turned the brown earth from their shares; Here were the farmer's treasures, There were the craftsman's wares. Golden the good-wife's butter, Ruby her currant-wine; Grand were the strutting turkeys, Fat were the beeves and swine. Yellow and red were the apples, And the ripe pears russet-brown, And the peaches had stolen blushes From the girls who shook them down. And with blooms of hill and wild-wood, That shame the toil of art, Mingled the gorgeous blossoms Of the garden's tropic heart. "What is it I see?" said Keezar: "Am I here, or am I there? Is it a fête at Bingen? Do I look on Frankfort fair? "But where are the clowns and puppets, And imps with horns and tail? And where are the Rhenish flagons? And where is the foaming ale? "Strange things, I know, will happen,-- Strange things the Lord permits; But that droughty folk should be jolly Puzzles my poor old wits. "Here are smiling manly faces, And the maiden's step is gay; Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking, Nor mopes, nor fools are they. "Hero's pleasure without regretting, And good without abuse, The holiday and the bridal Of beauty and of use. "Here's a priest and there is a Quaker,-- Do the cat and the dog agree? Have they burned the stocks for oven-wood? Have they cut down the gallows-tree? "Would the old folk know their children? Would they own the graceless town, With never a ranter to worry And never a witch to drown?" Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, Laughed like a school-boy gay; Tossing his arms above him, The lapstone rolled away. It rolled down the rugged hill-side, It spun like a wheel bewitched, It plunged through the leaning willows, And into the river pitched. There, in the deep, dark water, The magic stone lies still, Under the leaning willows In the shadow of the hill. But oft the idle fisher Sits on the shadowy bank, And his dreams make marvellous pictures Where the wizard's moonstone sank. And still, in the summer twilights, When the river seems to run Out from the inner glory, Warm with the melted sun, The weary mill-girl lingers Beside the charmed stream, And the sky and the golden water Shape and color her dream.