Page:Poems of Emma Lazarus vol 2.djvu/22

Rh "Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs.—Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.

is here, soft breezes bow the grass, Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off, The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough. Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth. The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth. After the Southern day of heavy toil. How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil Up from one's pipe-stem through the rayless air. So deem these unused tillers of the soil, Who stretched beneath the shadowing oak-tree, stare Peacefully on the star-unfolding skies, And name their life unbroken paradise. The hounded stag that has escaped the pack, And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell;