And in the garden kneels a child,
    She weeds or merely dallies,
  A lily plucks with gesture mild
    And wanders down the alleys.

  A shepherd group in distance dim
    Lie stretched upon the heather,
  And with a simple evening hymn
    Wake the still breeze together.

  And from the roomy threshing hall
    The hammer strokes ring cheery,
  The plane gives forth a crunching drawl,
    The rasping saw sounds weary.

  The evening star now greets the scene
    And smoothly soars above it,
  And o’er the cottage stands serene;
    He seems in truth to love it.

  A vision with such beauty crowned,
    Had pious monks observed it,
  They straight upon a golden ground
    Had painted and preserved it.

  The carpenter, the herdsmen there
    A pious choral sounding;
  The maiden with the lily fair,
    And peace the whole surrounding;

  The wondrous star that beams on all
    From out the fields of heaven—­
  May it not be that in the stall
    The Christ is born this even?

[Illustration:  HANS AM ENDE THE FARM HOUSE]

* * * * *

  THE BOY ON THE MOOR[36] (1841)

  ’Tis an eerie thing o’er the moor to fare
    When the eddies of peat-smoke justle,
  When the wraiths of mist whirl here and there
    And wind-blown tendrils tussle,
      When every step starts a hidden spring
      And the trodden moss-tufts hiss and sing
  ’Tis an eerie thing o’er the moor to fare
    When the tangled reed-beds rustle.

  The child with his primer sets out alone
    And speeds as if he were hunted,
  The wind goes by with a hollow moan—­
    There’s a noise in the hedge-row stunted. 
      ’Tis the turf-digger’s ghost, near-by he dwells,
      And for drink his master’s turf he sells. 
  “Whoo! whoo!” comes a sound like a stray cow’s groan;
    The poor boy’s courage is daunted.

  Then stumps loom up beside the ditch,
    Uncannily nod the bushes,
  The boy running on, each nerve a twitch,
    Through a jungle of spear-grass pushes. 
      And where it trickles and crackles apace
      Is the Spinner’s unholy hiding-place,
  The home of the cursed Spinning-witch
    Who turns her wheel ’mid the rushes.

  On, ever on, goes the fearsome rout,
    In pursuit through that region fenny,
  At each wild stride the bubbles burst out,
    And the sounds from beneath are many. 
      Until at length from the midst of the din
      Comes the squeak of a spectral violin,
  That must be the rascally fiddler lout
    Who ran off with the bridal penny!

  The turf splits open, and from the hole
    Bursts forth an unhappy sighing,
  “Alas, alas, for my wretched soul!”
    ’Tis poor damned Margaret crying! 
      The lad he leaps like a wounded deer,
      And were not his guardian angel near
  Some digger might find in a marshy knoll
    Where his little bleached bones were lying.