field in full beard, where a haggard old reaper laid down his hook,
beseeching charity for the sake of the gods.--"Bread, bread! or I die
mid these sheaves!"

"Thrash out your grain, and want not."

"Alas, masters, this grain is not mine; I plough, I sow, I reap, I
bind, I stack,--Lord Primo garners."

Rambling on, we came to a hamlet, hidden in a hollow; and beneath
weeping willows saw many mournful maidens seated on a bank; beside
each, a wheel that was broken. "Lo, we starve," they cried, "our
distaffs are snapped; no more may we weave and spin!"

Then forth issued from vaults clamorous crowds of men, hands tied to
their backs.--"Bread! Bread!" they cried. "The magician hath turned us
out from our glen, where we labored of yore in the days of the merry
Green Queen. He has pinioned us hip and arm that we starve. Like sheep
we die off with the rot.--Curse on the magician. A curse on his
spell."

Bending our steps toward the glen, roaring down the rocks we descried
a stream from the mountains. But ere those waters gained the sea,
vassal tribute they rendered. Conducted through culverts and moats,
they turned great wheels, giving life to ten thousand fangs and
fingers, whose gripe no power could withstand, yet whose touch was
soft as the velvet paw of a kitten. With brute force, they heaved down
great weights, then daintily wove and spun; like the trunk of the
elephant, which lays lifeless a river-horse, and counts the pulses of
a moth. On all sides, the place seemed alive with its spindles. Round