or down the lawn,
Which bloomed in beauty like a dawn:
Where countless fountains leap alway,
Veiling their silver heights in spray,
The choral people held their way.

There, 'mid the brightest, brightly shone
Dear forms he loved in years agone,--
The earliest loved,--the earliest flown:
He heard a mother's sainted tongue,
A sister's voice who vanished young,
While one still dearer sweetly sung!

No further might the scene unfold,
The gazer's voice could not withhold,
The very rapture made him bold:
He cried aloud, with clasped hands,
"O happy fields! O happy bands,
Who reap the never-failing lands!

"O master of these broad estates,
Behold, before your very gates
A worn and wanting laborer waits!
Let me but toil amid your grain,
Or be a gleaner on the plain,
So I may leave these fields of pain!

"A gleaner, I will follow far,
With never look or word to mar,
Behind the Harvest's yellow car:
All day my hand shall constant be,
And every happy eve shall see
The precious burden borne to Thee!"

At morn some reapers neared the place,
Strong men, whose feet recoiled apace,--
Then gathering round the upturned face,
They saw the lines of pain and care,
Yet read in the expression there
The look as of an answered prayer.

* * * * *

THE NEW-ENGLAND REVOLUTION OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

In the first week of March, 1689, Sir Edmund Andros returned to Boston
from an expedition against the Indians of Maine. He had now governed New
England more than two years for King James II., imitating, in his narrow
sphere, the insolent despotism of his master.

The people had no share in the government, which was conducted by Andros
with the aid of Counsellors appointed by the King. Some of these were
the Governor's creatures,--English adventurers, who came to make their
fortunes. Their associates of a different character were so treated that
they absented themselves from the Council-Board, and at length not even
formal meetings were held. Heavy taxes were arbitrarily imposed on the
inhabitants. Excessive fees were demanded for the transaction of
business in the courts and public offices. Town-meetings were forbidden,
except one to be held in each year for the choice of assessing-officers.
The ancient titles to land in the Colony were declared to be worthles