Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/292

284 with me to my home on the Hudson, after we have finished our hunt after those Western lands, you shall see her, together with the loveliest pair of children that ever made two proud parents happy.

"And here," added Westwood, "we have arrived at the end of our day's journey; we have had the Romance of the Glove, and now—let's have some supper."

thought! Who would not rather hear
 * The songs to Love and Friendship sung,
 * Than those which move the stranger's tongue

And feed his unselected ear?

Our social joys are more than fame;
 * Life withers in the public look:
 * Why mount the pillory of a book,

Or barter comfort for a name?

Who in a house of glass would dwell,
 * With curious eyes at every pane?
 * To ring him in and out again

Who wants the public crier's bell?

To see the angel in one's way,
 * Who wants to play the ass's part,
 * Bear on his back the wizard Art,

And in his service speak or bray?

And who his manly locks would shave
 * And quench the eyes of common sense,
 * To share the noisy recompense

That mocked the shorn and blinded slave?

The heart has needs beyond the head,
 * And, starving in the plenitude
 * Of strange gifts, craves its common food,

Our human nature's daily bread.

We are but men: no gods are we
 * To sit in mid-heaven, cold and bleak,
 * Each separate, on his painful peak,

Thin-cloaked in self-complacency!

Better his lot whose axe is swung
 * In Wartburg woods, or that poor girl's
 * Who by the Ilm her spindle whirls

And sings the songs that Luther sung,