he heart to think that
such unspeakable ruin of a human soul was ever wrought by any system
that even professed to be Christian. Moloch was truly divine, compared
with the God of the Spanish Inquisition. But the gloom of the tragedy is
not allowed to linger. The poet scatters it by the story of the merry
"Birds of Killingworth," which appears elsewhere in the pages of this
number of the "Atlantic." The blithe beauty of the verses is
captivating, and the argument of the shy preceptor is the most poetic
plea that ever wooed a world to justice. What an airy felicity in the
lines,--

"'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents from shore to shore
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."

And so, amid sunshine and the carolling of birds, the legendary rural
romance of the Yankee shore, we turn the page, and find, with real
sorrow, that the last tale is told in the Wayside Inn. The finale is
brief. The guests arose and said good night. The drowsy squire remains
to rake the embers of the fire. The scattered lamps gleam a moment at
the windows. The Red Horse inn seems, in the misty night, the sinking
constellation of the Bear,--and then,

"Far off the village-clock struck one."

So ends this ripe and mellow work, leaving the reader like one who
listens still for pleasant music i' the air which sounds no more. Those
who will may compare it with the rippling strangeness of "Hiawatha," the
mournfully rolling cadence of "Evangeline," the mediaeval romance of "The
Golden Legend." For ourselves, its beauty does not clash with theirs.
The simple old form of the group of guests telling stories, the thread
of so many precious rosaries, has a new charm from this poem. The Tabard
inn is gone; but who, henceforth, will ride through Sudbury town without
seeing the purple light shining around the Red Horse tavern?

The volume closes with a few poems, classed as "Birds of Passage." It is
the "second flight,"--the first being those at the end of the "Miles
Standish" volume. Some of these have a pathos and interest which all
will perceive, but the depth and tenderness of which not all can know.
"The Children's Hour" is a strain of parental love, which haunts the
memory with its melody, its sportive, affectionate, and yearning lay.

"They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his mouse-tower on the Rhine.

"Do y