The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman

Front matter

THE POEMS OF EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

THE POEMS

OF

In War Time

IN WAR TIME

HOW OLD BROWN TOOK HARPER'S FERRY

John Brown in Kansas settled, like a steadfast Yankee farmer, Brave and godly, with four sons, all stalwart men of might. There he spoke aloud for freedom, and the Border-strife grew warmer, Till the Rangers fired his dwelling, in his absence, in the night; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Came homeward in the morning—to find his house burned down.

Then he grasped his trusty rifle and boldly fought for freedom; Smote from border unto border the fierce, invading band; And he and his brave boys vowed—so might Heaven help and speed 'em!— They would save those grand old prairies from the curse that blights the land; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Said, "Boys, the Lord will aid us!" and he shoved his ramrod down.

And the Lord did aid these men, and they labored day and even, Saving Kansas from its peril; and their very lives seemed charmed, Till the ruffians killed one son, in the blessed light of Heaven,— In cold blood the fellows slew him, as he journeyed all unarmed; Then Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Shed not a tear, but shut his teeth, and frowned a terrible frown!

Then they seized another brave boy,—not amid the heat of battle, But in peace, behind his ploughshare,—and they loaded him with chains, And with pikes, before their horses, even as they goad their cattle, Drove him cruelly, for their sport, and at last blew out his brains; Then Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Raised his right hand up to Heaven, calling Heaven's vengeance down.

And he swore a fearful oath, by the name of the Almighty, He would hunt this ravening evil that had scathed and torn him so; He would seize it by the vitals; he would crush it day and night; he Would so pursue its footsteps, so return it blow for blow, That Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Should be a name to swear by, in backwoods or in town!

Then his beard became more grizzled, and his wild blue eye grew wilder, And more sharply curved his hawk's-nose, snuffing battle from afar; And he and the two boys left, though the Kansas strife waxed milder, Grew more sullen, till was over the bloody Border War, And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Had gone crazy, as they reckoned by his fearful glare and frown.

So he left the plains of Kansas and their bitter woes behind him, Slipt off into Virginia, where the statesmen all are born, Hired a farm by Harper's Ferry, and no one knew where to find him, Or whether he'd turned parson, or was jacketed and shorn; For Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Mad as he was, knew texts enough to wear a parson's gown.

He bought no ploughs and harrows, spades and shovels, and such trifles; But quietly to his rancho there came, by every train, Boxes full of pikes and pistols, and his well-beloved Sharps rifles; And eighteen other madmen joined their leader there again. Says Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, "Boys, we've got an army large enough to march and take the town!

"Take the town, and seize the muskets, free the negroes and then arm them; Carry the County and the State, ay, and all the potent South. On their own heads be the slaughter, if their victims rise to harm them— These Virginians! who believed not, nor would heed the warning mouth." Says Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, "The world shall see a Republic, or my name is not John Brown."

'T was the sixteenth of October, on the evening of a Sunday: "This good work," declared the captain, "shall be on a holy night!" It was on a Sunday evening, and before the noon of Monday, With two sons, and Captain Stephens, fifteen privates—black and white, Captain Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Marched across the bridged Potomac, and knocked the sentry down;

Took the guarded armory-building, and the muskets and the cannon; Captured all the county majors and the colonels, one by one; Scared to death each gallant scion of Virginia they ran on, And before the noon of Monday, I say, the deed was done. Mad Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, With his eighteen other crazy men, went in and took the town.

Very little noise and bluster, little smell of powder made he; It was all done in the midnight, like the Emperor's coup d'état. "Cut the wires! Stop the rail-cars! Hold the streets and bridges!" said he, Then declared the new Republic, with himself for guiding star,— This Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown; And the bold two thousand citizens ran off and left the town.

Then was riding and railroading and expressing here and thither; And the Martinsburg Sharpshooters and the Charlestown Volunteers, And the Shepherdstown and Winchester Militia hastened whither Old Brown was said to muster his ten thousand grenadiers. General Brown! Osawatomie Brown!! Behind whose rampant banner all the North was pouring down.

But at last, 't is said, some prisoners escaped from Old Brown's durance, And the effervescent valor of the Chivalry broke out, When they learned that nineteen madmen had the marvellous assurance— Only nineteen—thus to seize the place and drive them straight about; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Found an army come to take him, encamped around the town.

But to storm, with all the forces I have mentioned, was too risky; So they hurried off to Richmond for the Government Marines, Tore them from their weeping matrons, fired their souls with Bourbon whiskey, Till they battered down Brown's castle with their ladders and machines; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Received three bayonet stabs, and a cut on his brave old crown.

Tallyho! the old Virginia gentry gather to the baying! In they rushed and killed the game, shooting lustily away; And whene'er they slew a rebel, those who came too late for slaying, Not to lose a share of glory, fired their bullets in his clay; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Saw his sons fall dead beside him, and between them laid him down.

How the conquerors wore their laurels; how they hastened on the trial; How Old Brown was placed, half dying, on the Charlestown court-house floor; How he spoke his grand oration, in the scorn of all denial; What the brave old madman told them,—these are known the country o'er. Osawatomie Brown," Said the judge, "and all such rebels!" with his most judicial frown.

But, Virginians, don't do it! for I tell you that the flagon, Filled with blood of Old Brown's offspring, was first poured by Southern hands; And each drop from Old Brown's life-veins, like the red gore of the dragon, May spring up a vengeful Fury, hissing through your slave-worn lands! And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, May trouble you more than ever, when you've nailed his coffin down!

November, 1859.

SUMTER

April 12, 1861

Came the morning of that day When the God to whom we pray Gave the soul of Henry Clay To the land; How we loved him, living, dying! But his birthday banners flying Saw us asking and replying Hand to hand.

For we knew that far away, Round the fort in Charleston Bay, Hung the dark impending fray, Soon to fall; And that Sumter's brave defender Had the summons to surrender Seventy loyal hearts and tender,— (Those were all!)

And we knew the April sun Lit the length of many a gun,— Hosts of batteries to the one Island crag: Guns and mortars grimly frowning, Johnson, Moultrie, Pinckney, crowning, And ten thousand men disowning The old flag.

O, the fury of the fight Even then was at its height! Yet no breath, from noon till night, Reached us here; We had almost ceased to wonder, And the day had faded under, When the echo of the thunder Filled each ear!

Then our hearts more fiercely beat, As we crowded on the street, Hot to gather and repeat All the tale; All the doubtful chances turning, Till our souls with shame were burning, As if twice our bitter yearning Could avail!

Who had fired the earliest gun? Was the fort by traitors won? Was there succor? What was done Who could know? And once more our thoughts would wander To the gallant, lone commander, On his battered ramparts grander Than the foe.

Not too long the brave shall wait: On their own heads be their fate, Who against the hallowed State Dare begin; Flag defied and compact riven! In the record of high Heaven How shall Southern men be shriven For the sin?

KEARNY AT SEVEN PINES

So that soldierly legend is still on its journey,— That story of Kearny who knew not to yield! 'T was the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney, Against twenty thousand he rallied the field. Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest, Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine, Where the aim from the thicket was surest and nighest,— No charge like Phil Kearny's along the whole line.

When the battle went ill, and the bravest were solemn, Near the dark Seven Pines, where we still held our ground, He rode down the length of the withering column, And his heart at our war-cry leapt up with a bound; He snuffed, like his charger, the wind of the powder,— His sword waved us on and we answered the sign: Loud our cheer as we rushed, but his laugh rang the louder, "There's the devil's own fun, boys, along the whole line!"

How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth! He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten, But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath. Up came the reserves to the mellay infernal, Asking where to go in,—through the clearing or pine? "O, anywhere! Forward! 'T is all the same, Colonel: You'll find lovely fighting along the whole line!"

O, evil the black shroud of night at Chantilly, That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried! Foul, foul sped the bullet that clipped the white lily, The flower of our knighthood, the whole army's pride! Yet we dream that he still,—in that shadowy region Where the dead form their ranks at the wan drummer's sign,— Rides on, as of old, down the length of his legion, And the word still is Forward! along the whole line.

WANTED—A MAN

Back from the trebly crimsoned field Terrible words are thunder-tost; Full of the wrath that will not yield, Full of revenge for battles lost! Hark to their echo, as it crost The Capital, making faces wan: "End this murderous holocaust; Abraham Lincoln, give us a man!

Born to marshal his fellow-men; One whose fame is not bought and sold At the stroke of a politician's pen; Give us the man of thousands ten, Fit to do as well as to plan; Give us a rallying-cry, and then, Abraham Lincoln, give us a man!

And to march and countermarch our brave, Till they fall like ghosts in the marshes low, And swamp-grass covers each nameless grave; Nor another, whose fatal banners wave Aye in Disaster's shameful van; Nor another, to bluster, and lie, and rave;— Abraham Lincoln, give us a man!

While the sister rivers seek the main, Red with our life-blood flowing forth,— Who shall gather it up again? Though we march to the battle-plain Firmly as when the strife began, Shall all our offering be in vain?— Abraham Lincoln, give us a man!

One on whose might the Cause may lean? Are all the common ones so grand, And all the titled ones so mean? What if your failure may have been In trying to make good bread from bran, From worthless metal a weapon keen?— Abraham Lincoln, find us a man!

Where the foeman's fiercest columns are! O, we will use our latest breath, Cheering for every sacred star! His to marshal us high and far; Ours to battle, as patriots can When a Hero leads the Holy War!— Abraham Lincoln, give us a man!"

TREASON'S LAST DEVICE

Sons of New England, in the fray, Do you hear the clamor behind your back? Do you hear the yelping of Blanche, and Tray, Sweetheart, and all the mongrel pack? Girded well with her ocean crags, Little our mother heeds their noise; Her eyes are fixed on crimsoned flags: But you—do you hear it, Yankee boys?

Do you hear them say that the patriot fire Burns on her altars too pure and bright, To the darkened heavens leaping higher, Though drenched with the blood of every fight; That in the light of its searching flame Treason and tyrants stand revealed, And the yielding craven is put to shame, On Capitol floor or foughten field?

Do you hear the hissing voice, which saith That she—who bore through all the land The lyre of Freedom, the torch of Faith, And young Invention's mystic wand— Should gather her skirts and dwell apart, With not one of her sisters to share her fate,— A Hagar, wandering sick at heart; A pariah, bearing the Nation's hate?

Sons, who have peopled the distant West, And planted the Pilgrim vine anew, Where, by a richer soil carest, It grows as ever its parent grew, Say, do you hear,—while the very bells Of your churches ring with her ancient voice, And the song of your children sweetly tells How true was the land of your fathers' choice,—

Do you hear the traitors who bid you speak The word that shall sever the sacred tie? And ye, who dwell by the golden Peak, Has the subtle whisper glided by? Has it crost the immemorial plains, To coasts where the gray Pacific roars And the Pilgrim blood in the people's veins Is pure as the wealth of their mountain ores?

Spirits of sons who, side by side, In a hundred battles fought and fell, Whom now no East and West divide, In the isles where the shades of heroes dwell; Say, has it reached your glorious rest, And ruffled the calm which crowns you there,— The shame that recreants have confest, The plot that floats in the troubled air?

Sons of New England, here and there, Wherever men are still holding by The honor our fathers left so fair! Say, do you hear the cowards' cry? Crouching among her grand old crags, Lightly our mother heeds their noise, With her fond eyes fixed on distant flags; But you—do you hear it, Yankee boys?

Washington, January 19, 1863.

ALICE OF MONMOUTH

I

1

Hendrick Van Ghelt of Monmouth shore, His fame still rings the county o'er! The stock that he raised, the stallion he rode, The fertile acres his farmers sowed; The dinners he gave; the yacht which lay At his fishing-dock in the Lower Bay; The suits he waged, through many a year, For a rood of land behind his pier,— Of these the chronicles yet remain From Navesink Heights to Freehold Plain.

2

The Shrewsbury people in autumn help Their sandy toplands with marl and kelp, And their peach and apple orchards fill The gurgling vats of the cross-road mill. They tell, as each twirls his tavern-can, Wonderful tales of that stanch old man, And they boast, of the draught they have tasted and smelt,

3

Were he alive, and at his prime, In this, our boisterous modern time, He would surely be, as he could not then, A stalwart leader of mounted men,— A ranger, shouting his battle-cry, Who knew how to fight and dared to die; And the fame which a county's limit spanned Might have grown a legend throughout the land.

4

He would have scoured the Valley through, Doing as now our bravest do; Would have tried rough-riding on the border, Punishing raider and marauder; With bearded Ashby crossing swords As he took the Shenandoah fords; Giving bold Stuart a bloody chase Ere he reached again his trysting-place. Horse and horseman of the foe The blast of his bugle-charge should know, And his men should water their steeds, at will, From the banks of Southern river and rill.

5

How many are there of us, in this Discordant social wilderness, Whose thriftiest scions the power gain, Through meet conditions of sun and rain, To yield, on the fairest blossoming shoot, A mellow harvest of perfect fruit? Fashioned after so rare a type, How should his life grow full and ripe, There, in the passionless haunts of Peace, Through trade, and tillage, and wealth's increase?

6

But at his manor-house he dwelt, And royally bore the name Van Ghelt; Nor found a larger part to play Than such as a county magnate may: Ruling the hustings as he would, Lord of the rustic neighborhood; With potent wishes and quiet words Holding an undisputed sway. The broadest meadows, the fattest herds, The fleetest roadsters, the warmest cheer,— These were old Hendrick's many a year. Daughters unto his hearthstone came, And a son—to keep the ancient name.

7

Often, perchance, the old man's eye From a seaward casement would espy, Scanning the harborage in the bay, A ship which idly at anchor lay; Watching her as she rose and fell, Up and down, with the evening swell, Her cordage slackened, her sails unbent, And all her proud life somnolent. And perchance he thought—"My life, it seems, Like her, unfreighted with aught but dreams; Yet I feel within me a strength to dare Some outward voyage, I know not where!" But the forceful impulse wore away In the common life of every day, And for Hendrick Van Ghelt no timely hour Ruffled the calm of that hidden power; Yet in the prelude of my song His storied presence may well belong, As a Lombardy poplar, lithe and hoar, Stands at a Monmouth farmer's door, Set like a spire against the sky, Marking the hours, while lover and maid Linger long in its stately shade, And round its summit the swallows fly.

II

1

Nature a devious by-way finds: solve me her secret whim, That the seed of a gnarled oak should sprout to a sapling straight and prim; That a russet should grow on the pippin stock, on the garden-rose a brier; That a stalwart race, in old Hendrick's son, should smother its wonted fire.

Hermann, fond of his book, and shirking the brawny outdoor sports; Sent to college, and choosing for life the law with her mouldy courts; Proud, and of tender honor, as well became his father's blood, But with cold and courtly self-restraint weighing the ill and good; Wed to a lady whose delicate veins that molten azure held, Ichor of equal birth, wherewith our gentry their couplings weld; Viewing his father's careless modes with half a tolerant eye, As one who honors, regretting not, old fashions passing by.

After a while the moment came when, unto the son and heir, A son and heir was given in turn,—a moment of joy and prayer; For the angel who guards the portals twain oped, in the self-same breath, To the child the pearly gate of life, to the mother the gate of death.

Father, and son, and an infant plucking the daisies over a grave: The swell of a boundless surge keeps on, wave following after wave; Ever the tide of life sets toward the low invisible shore: Whence had the current its distant source? when shall it flow no more?

2

Nature's serene renewals, that make the scion by one remove Bear the ancestral blossom and thrive as the forest wilding throve! Roseate stream of life, which hides the course its ducts pursue, To rise, like that Sicilian fount, in far-off springs anew!

For the grandsire's vigor, rude and rare, asleep in the son had lain, To waken in Hugh, the grandson's frame, with the ancient force again; And ere the boy, said the Monmouth wives, had grown to his seventh year, Well could you tell whose mantling blood swelled in his temples clear.

Tall, and bent in the meeting brows; swarthy of hair and face; Shoulders parting square, but set with the future huntsman's grace; Eyes alive with a fire which yet the old man's visage wore At times, like the flash of a thunder-cloud when the storm is almost o'er.

3

Toward the mettled stripling, then, the heart of the old man yearned; And thus—while Hermann Van Ghelt once more, with a restless hunger, turned From the grave of her who died so young, to his books and lawyer's gown, And the ceaseless clangor of mind with mind in the close and wrangling town—

They two, the boy and the grandsire, lived at the manor-house, and grew, The one to all manly arts apace, the other a youth anew— Pleased with the boy's free spirit, and teaching him, step by step, to wield The mastery over living things, and the craft of flood and field.

Apt, indeed, was the scholar; and born with a subtle art to gain The love of all dumb creatures at will; now lifting himself, by the mane, Over the neck of the three-year colt, for a random bareback ride, Now chasing the waves on the rifted beach at the turn of the evening tide.

Proud, in sooth, was the master: the youngster, he oft and roundly swore, Was fit for the life of a gentleman led in the lusty days of yore! And he took the boy wherever he drove,—to a county fair or race; Gave him the reins and watched him guide the span at a spanking pace;

Taught him the sportsman's keen delight: to swallow the air of morn, And start the whistling quail that hides and feeds in the dewy corn; Or in clear November underwoods to bag the squirrels, and flush The brown-winged, mottled partridge a-whir from her nest in the tangled brush;

Taught him the golden harvest laws, and the signs of sun and shower, And the thousand beautiful secret ways of graft and fruit and flower; Set him straight in his saddle, and cheered him galloping over the sand; Sailed with him to the fishing-shoals and placed the helm in his hand.

Often the yacht, with all sail spread, was steered by the fearless twain Around the beacon of Sandy Hook, and out in the open main; Till the great sea-surges rolling in, as south-by-east they wore, Lifted the bows of the dancing craft, and the buoyant hearts she bore.

But in dreamy hours, which young men know, Hugh loved with the tide to float Far up the deep, dark-channeled creeks, alone in his two-oared boat; While a fiery woven tapestry o'erhung the waters low, The warp of the frosted chestnut, the woof with maple and birch aglow;

Picking the grapes which dangled down; or watching the autumn skies, The osprey's slow imperial swoop, the scrawny heron's rise; Nursing a longing for larger life than circled a rural home, An instinct of leadership within, and of action yet to come.

4

Curtain of shifting seasons dropt on moor and meadow and hall, Open your random vistas of changes that come with time to all! Hugh grown up to manhood; foremost, searching the county through, Of the Monmouth youth, in birth and grace, and the strength to will and do.

The father, past the prime of life, and his temples flecked with toil, A bookman still, and leaving to Hugh the care of stock and soil. Hendrick Van Ghelt, a bowed old man in a fireside-corner chair, Counting the porcelain Scripture tiles which frame the chimney there,—

The shade of the stalwart gentleman the people used to know, Forgetful of half the present scenes, but mindful of long-ago; Aroused, mayhap, by growing murmurs of Southern feud, that came And woke anew in his fading eyes a spark of their ancient flame.

5

Gazing on such a group as this, folds of the curtain drop, Hiding the grandsire's form; and the wheels of the sliding picture stop. Gone, that stout old Hendrick, at last! and from miles around they came,— Farmer, and squire, and whispering youths, recalling his manhood's fame.

Dead: and the Van Ghelt manor closed, and the homestead acres leased; For their owner had moved more near the town, where his daily tasks increased, Choosing a home on the blue Passaic, whence the Newark spires and lights Were seen, and over the salt sea-marsh the shadows of Bergen Heights.

Back and forth from his city work, the lawyer, day by day, With the press of eager and toiling men, followed his wonted way; And Hugh,—he dallied with life at home, tending the garden and grounds; But the mansion longed for a woman's voice to soften its lonely sounds.

"Hugh," said Hermann Van Ghelt, at length, "choose for yourself a wife, Comely, and good, and of birth to match the mother who gave you life. No words of woman have charmed my ear since last I heard her voice; And of fairest and proudest maids her son should make a worthy choice." But now the young man's wandering heart from the great world turned away, To long for the healthful Monmouth meads, the shores of the breezy bay; And often the scenes and mates he knew in boyhood he sought again, And roamed through the well-known woods, and lay in the grass where he once had lain.

III

Ladies, in silks and laces, Lunching with lips that gleam, Know you aught of the places Yielding such fruit and cream?

South from your harbor-islands Glisten the Monmouth hills; There are the ocean highlands, Lowland meadows and rills,

Berries in field and garden, Trees with their fruitage low, Maidens (asking your pardon) Handsome as cities show.

Know you that, night and morning, A beautiful water-fay, Covered with strange adorning, Crosses your rippling bay?

Her sides are white and sparkling; She whistles to the shore; Behind, her hair is darkling, And the waters part before.

Lightly the waves she measures Up to the wharves of the town; There, unlading her treasures, Lovingly puts them down.

Come with me, ladies; cluster Here on the western pier; Look at her jewels' lustre, Changed with the changing year!

First of the months to woo her, June his strawberries flings Over her garniture, Bringing her exquisite things;

Rifling his richest casket; Handing her, everywhere, Garnets in crate and basket; Knowing she soon will wear

Blackberry jet and lava, Raspberries ruby-red, Trinkets that August gave her, Over her toilet spread.

After such gifts have faded, Then the peaches are seen,— Coral and ivory braided, Fit for an Indian queen.

And September will send her, Proud of his wealth, and bold, Melons glowing in splendor, Emeralds set with gold.

So she glides to the Narrows, Where the forts are astir: Her speed is a shining arrow's! Guns are silent for her.

So she glides to the ringing Bells of the belfried town, Kissing the wharves, and flinging All of her jewels down.

Whence she gathers her riches, Ladies, now would you see? Leaving your city niches, Wander awhile with me.

IV

1

The strawberry-vines lie in the sun, Their myriad tendrils twined in one; Spread like a carpet of richest dyes, The strawberry-field in sunshine lies. Each timorous berry, blushing red, Has folded the leaves above her head, The dark green curtains gemmed with dew; But each blushful berry, peering through, Shows like a flock of the underthread,— The crimson woof of a downy cloth Where the elves may kneel and plight their troth.

2

Run through the rustling vines, to show Each picker an even space to go, Leaders of twinkling cord divide The field in lanes from side to side; And here and there with patient care, Lifting the leafage everywhere, Rural maidens and mothers dot The velvet of the strawberry-plot: Fair and freckled, old and young, With baskets at their girdles hung, Searching the plants with no rude haste Lest berries should hang unpicked, and waste:— Of the pulpy, odorous, hidden quest, First gift of the fruity months, and best.

3

Crates of the laden baskets cool Under the trees at the meadow's edge, Covered with grass and dripping sedge, And lily-leaves from the shaded pool; Filled, and ready to be borne To market before the morrow morn. Beside them, gazing at the skies, Hour after hour a young man lies. From the hillside, under the trees, He looks across the field, and sees The waves that ever beyond it climb, Whitening the rye-slope's early prime; At times he listens, listlessly, To the tree-toad singing in the tree, Or sees the catbird peck his fill With feathers adroop and roguish bill. But often, with a pleased unrest, He lifts his glances to the west, Watching the kirtles, red and blue, Which cross the meadow in his view; And he hears, anon, the busy throng Sing the Strawberry-Pickers' Song,— From the far hillside comes again An echo of the old-time strain. Sweetly the group their cadence keep; Swiftly their hands the trailers sweep; The vines are stripped and the song is sung, A joyous labor for old and young; For the blithe children, gleaning behind The women, marvellous treasures find.

4

From the workers a maiden parts: The baskets at her waistband shine With berries that look like bleeding hearts Of a hundred lovers at her shrine; No Eastern girl were girdled so well With silken belt and silver bell. Her slender form is tall and strong; Her voice is the sweetest in the song; Her brown hair, fit to wear a crown, Loose from its bonnet ripples down. Toward the crates, that lie in the shade Of the chestnut copse at the edge of the glade, She moves from her mates, through happy rows Of the children loving her as she goes. Alice, our Alice! one and all, Striving to stay her footsteps, call (For children with skilful choice dispense The largesse of their innocence); But on, with a sister's smile, she moves Into the darkness of the groves, And deftly, daintily, one by one, Shelters her baskets from the sun, Under the network, fresh and cool, Of lily-leaves from the crystal pool.