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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7400.txt b/7400.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68e64af --- /dev/null +++ b/7400.txt @@ -0,0 +1,28582 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Complete, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: October 27, 2006 [EBook #7400] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF HOLMES *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + [1893 three volume set] + + + +CONTENTS: + +TO MY READERS + +EARLIER POEMS (1830-1836). + OLD IRONSIDES + THE LAST LEAF + THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD + TO AN INSECT + THE DILEMMA + MY AUNT + REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN + DAILY TRIALS, BY A SENSITIVE MAN + EVENING, BY A TAILOR + THE DORCHESTER GIANT + TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A LADY" + THE COMET + THE Music-GRINDERS + THE TREADMILL SONG + THE SEPTEMBER GALE + THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS + THE LAST READER + POETRY: A METRICAL ESSAY + +ADDITIONAL POEMS (1837-1848): + THE PILGRIM'S VISION + THE STEAMBOAT + LEXINGTON + ON LENDING A PUNCH BOWL + A SONG FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, + THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG + DEPARTED DAYS + THE ONLY DAUGHTER + SONG WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO CHARLES + DICKENS, BY THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1, 1842 + LINES RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE + NUX POSTCOENATICA + VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER + A MODEST REQUEST, COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE + DINNER AT PRESIDENT EVERETT'S INAUGURATION + THE PARTING WORD + A SONG OF OTHER DAYS + SONG FOR A TEMPERANCE DINNER TO WHICH LADIES WERE INVITED + (NEW YORK MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, NOVEMBER, 1842) + A SENTIMENT + A RHYMED LESSON (URANIA) + AN AFTER-DINNER POEM (TERPSICHORE) + +MEDICAL POEMS: + THE MORNING VISIT + THE TWO ARMIES + THE STETHOSCOPE SONG + EXTRACTS FROM A MEDICAL POEM + A POEM FOR THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION + AT NEW YORK, MAY 5, 1853 + A SENTIMENT + RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. + +SONGS IN MANY KEYS (1849-1861) + PROLOGUE + AGNES + THE PLOUGHMAN + SPRING + THE STUDY + THE BELLS + NON-RESISTANCE + THE MORAL BULLY + THE MIND'S DIET + OUR LIMITATIONS + THE OLD PLAYER + A POEM DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, SEPTEMBER 9,1850 + TO GOVERNOR SWAIN + TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND + AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH + AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE + AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS + AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY + AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES + THE HUDSON + THE NEW EDEN + SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY, + NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22,1855 + FAREWELL TO J. R. LOWELL + FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB, 1856 + ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY + BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER + THE VOICELESS + THE TWO STREAMS + THE PROMISE + AVIS + THE LIVING TEMPLE + AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL: TO J. R. LOWELL + A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO J. F. CLARKE + THE GRAY CHIEF + THE LAST LOOK: W. W. SWAIN + IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. + MARTHA + MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE + THE PARTING SONG + FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL SANITARY ASSOCIATION + FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, + AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS + BOSTON COMMON: THREE PICTURES + THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA + INTERNATIONAL ODE + VIVE LA FRANCE + BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE + +NOTES + + + + +[Volume 2 of the 1893 three volume set] + +CONTENTS: + +POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 (1851-1889) + BILL AND JOE + A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE" + QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS + AN IMPROMPTU + THE OLD MAN DREAMS + REMEMBER--FORGET + OUR INDIAN SUMMER + MARE RUBRUM + THE Boys + LINES + A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH + J. D. R. + VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION + "CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE" + F. W. C. + THE LAST CHARGE + OUR OLDEST FRIEND + SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH + MY ANNUAL + ALL HERE + ONCE MORE + THE OLD CRUISER + HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING + EVEN-SONG + THE SMILING LISTENER + OUR SWEET SINGER: J. A. + H. C. M., H. S., J. K. W. + WHAT I HAVE COME FOR + OUR BANKER + FOR CLASS-MEETING + "AD AMICOS" + HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT + THE LAST SURVIVOR + THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS + THE SHADOWS + BENJAMIN PEIRCE + IN THE TWILIGHT + A LOVING-CUP SONG + THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP + THE LYRE OF ANACREON + THE OLD TUNE + THE BROKEN CIRCLE + THE ANGEL-THIEF + AFTER THE CURFEW + +POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1857-1858) + THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS + SUN AND SHADOW + MUSA + A PARTING HEALTH: To J. L. MOTLEY + WHAT WE ALL THINK + SPRING HAS COME + PROLOGUE + LATTER-DAY WARNINGS + ALBUM VERSES + A GOOD TIME GOING! + THE LAST BLOSSOM + CONTENTMENT + AESTIVATION + THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSE SHAY" + PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY; OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR + ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER + +POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1858-1859) + UNDER THE VIOLETS + HYMN OF TRUST + A SUN-DAY HYMN + THE CROOKED FOOTPATH + IRIS, HER BOOK + ROBINSON OF LEYDEN + ST ANTHONY THE REFORMER + THE OPENING OF THE PIANO + MIDSUMMER + DE SAUTY + +POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1871-1872) + HOMESICK IN HEAVEN + FANTASIA + AUNT TABITHA + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS + EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES + +SONGS OF MANY SEASONS (1862-1874) + OPENING THE WINDOW + PROGRAMME + + IN THE QUIET DAYS + AN OLD-YEAR SONG + DOROTHY Q: A FAMILY PORTRAIT + THE ORGAN-BLOWER + AT THE PANTOMIME + AFTER THE FIRE + A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY + NEARING THE SNOW-LINE + + IN WAR TIME + TO CANAAN: A PURITAN WAR-SONG + "THUS SAITH THE LORD, I OFFER THEE THREE THINGS" + NEVER OR NOW + ONE COUNTRY + GOD SAVE THE FLAG! + HYMN AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION + HYMN FOR THE FAIR AT CHICAGO + UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE + FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN + ARMY HYMN + PARTING HYMN + THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY + THE SWEET LITTLE MAN + UNION AND LIBERTY + + SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL + AMERICA TO RUSSIA + WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY + AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY + BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ + AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT + AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT + To H W LONGFELLOW + To CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG + A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS + + MEMORIAL VERSES + FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BOSTON, 1865 + FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES, CAMBRIDGE JULY 21, 1865 + EDWARD EVERETT: JANUARY 30, 1865 + SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, APRIL 23, 1864 + IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE, MAY 25, 1864 + HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY: CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869 + POEM AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1869 + HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF + HARVARD MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER 6, 1870 + HYMN FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL AT CAMBRIDGE, 1874 + HYMN AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES SUMNER, APRIL 29, 1874 + + RHYMES OF AN HOUR + ADDRESS FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, N. Y. 1873 + A SEA DIALOGUE + CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC + FOR THE CENTENNIAL DINNER, PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER, 1873 + A POEM SERVED TO ORDER + THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH + No TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME + A HYMN OF PEACE, TO THE MUSIC OF KELLER'S "AMERICAN HYMN" + +NOTES + + + +[Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set] + +CONTENTS + +BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS + GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER, DECEMBER 15, 1874 + "LUCY." FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + HYMN FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW, HINGHAM, + OCTOBER 7, 1875 + A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + OLD CAMBRIDGE, JULY 3, 1875 + WELCOME TO THE NATIONS, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + A FAMILIAR LETTER + UNSATISFIED + HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + THE FIRST FAN + To R. B. H. + THE SHIP OF STATE + A FAMILY RECORD + +THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS. + THE IRON GATE + VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETRORSUM + MY AVIARY + ON THE THRESHOLD + TO GEORGE PEABODY + AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB + FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + TWO SONNETS: HARVARD + THE COMING ERA + IN RESPONSE + FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE + WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB + AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + THE SCHOOL-BOY + THE SILENT MELODY + OUR HOME--OUR COUNTRY + POEM AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS + MEDICAL SOCIETY + RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME + +BEFORE THE CURFEW + AT MY FIRESIDE + AT THE SATURDAY CLUB + OUR DEAD SINGER. H. W. L. + TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. + I. AT THE SUMMIT + II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS + FOR THE BLIND + BOSTON TO FLORENCE + AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL, MARCH 8, 1882 + POEM FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF + HARVARD COLLEGE + POST-PRANDIAL: PHI BETA KAPPA, 1881 + THE FLANEUR: DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS, 1882 + AVE + KING'S CHAPEL READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY + HYMN FOR THE SAME OCCASION + HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + HYMN READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL AT + HUDSON, WISCONSIN, JUNE 7, 1887 + ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + THE GOLDEN FLOWER + HAIL, COLUMBIA! + POEM FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON, + PRESENTED + BY GEORGE CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + TO THE POETS WHO ONLY READ AND LISTEN + FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY + FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S + JAMES RUSSELL LO WELL: 1819-1891 + +POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS. + TO THE ELEVEN LADIES WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP + THE PEAU DE CHAGRIN OF STATE STREET + CACOETHES SCRIBENDI + THE ROSE AND THE FERN + I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU + LA MAISON D'OR BAR HARBOR + TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE + THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES + TARTARUS + AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD + INVITA MINERVA + +READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS + TO MY OLD READERS + THE BANKER'S SECRET + THE EXILE'S SECRET + THE LOVER'S SECRET + THE STATESMAN'S SECRET + THE MOTHER'S SECRET + THE SECRET OF THE STARS + +VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO + FIRST VERSES: TRANSLATION FROM THE THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS + THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR + THE TOADSTOOL + THE SPECTRE PIG + TO A CAGED LION + THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY + ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE: "A SPANISH GIRL REVERIE" + A ROMAN AQUEDUCT + FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOURNAL + LA GRISETTE + OUR YANKEE GIRLS + L'INCONNUE + STANZAS + LINES BY A CLERK + THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE + THE POET'S LOT + TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER + TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A GENTLEMAN" IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY + THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN + A NOONTIDE LYRIC + THE HOT SEASON + A PORTRAIT + AN EVENING THOUGHT. WRITTEN AT SEA + THE WASP AND THE HORNET + "QUI VIVE?" + +NOTES + + + + +TO MY READERS + +NAY, blame me not; I might have spared +Your patience many a trivial verse, +Yet these my earlier welcome shared, +So, let the better shield the worse. + +And some might say, "Those ruder songs +Had freshness which the new have lost; +To spring the opening leaf belongs, +The chestnut-burs await the frost." + +When those I wrote, my locks were brown, +When these I write--ah, well a-day! +The autumn thistle's silvery down +Is not the purple bloom of May. + +Go, little book, whose pages hold +Those garnered years in loving trust; +How long before your blue and gold +Shall fade and whiten in the dust? + +O sexton of the alcoved tomb, +Where souls in leathern cerements lie, +Tell me each living poet's doom! +How long before his book shall die? + +It matters little, soon or late, +A day, a month, a year, an age,-- +I read oblivion in its date, +And Finis on its title-page. + +Before we sighed, our griefs were told; +Before we smiled, our joys were sung; +And all our passions shaped of old +In accents lost to mortal tongue. + +In vain a fresher mould we seek,-- +Can all the varied phrases tell +That Babel's wandering children speak +How thrushes sing or lilacs smell? + +Caged in the poet's lonely heart, +Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; +The soul that sings must dwell apart, +Its inward melodies unknown. + +Deal gently with us, ye who read +Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- +The promise still outruns the deed,-- +The tower, but not the spire, we build. + +Our whitest pearl we never find; +Our ripest fruit we never reach; +The flowering moments of the mind +Drop half their petals in our speech. + +These are my blossoms; if they wear +One streak of morn or evening's glow, +Accept them; but to me more fair +The buds of song that never blow. +April 8, 1862. + + + + + + EARLIER POEMS + + 1830-1836 OLD IRONSIDES + +This was the popular name by which the frigate Constitution +was known. The poem was first printed in the Boston Daily +Advertiser, at the time when it was proposed to break up the +old ship as unfit for service. I subjoin the paragraph which +led to the writing of the poem. It is from the Advertiser of +Tuesday, September 14, 1830:-- + +"Old Ironsides.--It has been affirmed upon good authority +that the Secretary of the Navy has recommended to the Board of +Navy Commissioners to dispose of the frigate Constitution. Since +it has been understood that such a step was in contemplation we +have heard but one opinion expressed, and that in decided +disapprobation of the measure. Such a national object of interest, +so endeared to our national pride as Old Ironsides is, should +never by any act of our government cease to belong to the Navy, +so long as our country is to be found upon the map of nations. +In England it was lately determined by the Admiralty to cut the +Victory, a one-hundred gun ship (which it will be recollected bore +the flag of Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar,) down to a +seventy-four, but so loud were the lamentations of the people upon +the proposed measure that the intention was abandoned. We +confidently anticipate that the Secretary of the Navy will in like +manner consult the general wish in regard to the Constitution, and +either let her remain in ordinary or rebuild her whenever the +public service may require."--New York Journal of Commerce. + +The poem was an impromptu outburst of feeling and was published +on the next day but one after reading the above paragraph. + +AY, tear her tattered ensign down +Long has it waved on high, +And many an eye has danced to see +That banner in the sky; +Beneath it rung the battle shout, +And burst the cannon's roar;-- +The meteor of the ocean air +Shall sweep the clouds no more. + +Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, +Where knelt the vanquished foe, +When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, +And waves were white below, +No more shall feel the victor's tread, +Or know the conquered knee;-- +The harpies of the shore shall pluck +The eagle of the sea! + +Oh better that her shattered hulk +Should sink beneath the wave; +Her thunders shook the mighty deep, +And there should be her grave; +Nail to the mast her holy flag, +Set every threadbare sail, +And give her to the god of storms, +The lightning and the gale! + + + + + +THE LAST LEAF + +This poem was suggested by the appearance in one of our +streets of a venerable relic of the Revolution, said to be one +of the party who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He +was a fine monumental specimen in his cocked hat and knee +breeches, with his buckled shoes and his sturdy cane. The smile +with which I, as a young man, greeted him, meant no disrespect to +an honored fellow-citizen whose costume was out of date, but whose +patriotism never changed with years. I do not recall any earlier +example of this form of verse, which was commended by the fastidious +Edgar Allan Poe, who made a copy of the whole poem which I have +in his own handwriting. Good Abraham Lincoln had a great liking +for the poem, and repeated it from memory to Governor Andrew, +as the governor himself told me. + +I SAW him once before, +As he passed by the door, +And again +The pavement stones resound, +As he totters o'er the ground +With his cane. + +They say that in his prime, +Ere the pruning-knife of Time +Cut him down, +Not a better man was found +By the Crier on his round +Through the town. + +But now he walks the streets, +And he looks at all he meets +Sad and wan, +And he shakes his feeble head, +That it seems as if he said, +"They are gone." + +The mossy marbles rest +On the lips that he has prest +In their bloom, +And the names he loved to hear +Have been carved for many a year +On the tomb. + +My grandmamma has said-- +Poor old lady, she is dead +Long ago-- +That he had a Roman nose, +And his cheek was like a rose +In the snow. + +But now his nose is thin, +And it rests upon his chin +Like a staff, +And a crook is in his back, +And a melancholy crack +In his laugh. + +I know it is a sin +For me to sit and grin +At him here; +But the old three-cornered hat, +And the breeches, and all that, +Are so queer! + +And if I should live to be +The last leaf upon the tree +In the spring, +Let them smile, as I do now, +At the old forsaken bough +Where I cling. + + + + + +THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD + +OUR ancient church! its lowly tower, +Beneath the loftier spire, +Is shadowed when the sunset hour +Clothes the tall shaft in fire; +It sinks beyond the distant eye +Long ere the glittering vane, +High wheeling in the western sky, +Has faded o'er the plain. + +Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep +Their vigil on the green; +One seems to guard, and one to weep, +The dead that lie between; +And both roll out, so full and near, +Their music's mingling waves, +They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear +Leans on the narrow graves. + +The stranger parts the flaunting weeds, +Whose seeds the winds have strown +So thick, beneath the line he reads, +They shade the sculptured stone; +The child unveils his clustered brow, +And ponders for a while +The graven willow's pendent bough, +Or rudest cherub's smile. + +But what to them the dirge, the knell? +These were the mourner's share,-- +The sullen clang, whose heavy swell +Throbbed through the beating air; +The rattling cord, the rolling stone, +The shelving sand that slid, +And, far beneath, with hollow tone +Rung on the coffin's lid. + +The slumberer's mound grows fresh and green, +Then slowly disappears; +The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, +Earth hides his date and years; +But, long before the once-loved name +Is sunk or worn away, +No lip the silent dust may claim, +That pressed the breathing clay. + +Go where the ancient pathway guides, +See where our sires laid down +Their smiling babes, their cherished brides, +The patriarchs of the town; +Hast thou a tear for buried love? +A sigh for transient power? +All that a century left above, +Go, read it in an hour! + +The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball, +The sabre's thirsting edge, +The hot shell, shattering in its fall, +The bayonet's rending wedge,-- +Here scattered death; yet, seek the spot, +No trace thine eye can see, +No altar,--and they need it not +Who leave their children free! + +Look where the turbid rain-drops stand +In many a chiselled square; +The knightly crest, the shield, the brand +Of honored names were there;-- +Alas! for every tear is dried +Those blazoned tablets knew, +Save when the icy marble's side +Drips with the evening dew. + +Or gaze upon yon pillared stone, +The empty urn of pride; +There stand the Goblet and the Sun,-- +What need of more beside? +Where lives the memory of the dead, +Who made their tomb a toy? +Whose ashes press that nameless bed? +Go, ask the village boy! + +Lean o'er the slender western wall, +Ye ever-roaming girls; +The breath that bids the blossom fall +May lift your floating curls, +To sweep the simple lines that tell +An exile's date and doom; +And sigh, for where his daughters dwell, +They wreathe the stranger's tomb. + +And one amid these shades was born, +Beneath this turf who lies, +Once beaming as the summer's morn, +That closed her gentle eyes; +If sinless angels love as we, +Who stood thy grave beside, +Three seraph welcomes waited thee, +The daughter, sister, bride. + +I wandered to thy buried mound +When earth was hid below +The level of the glaring ground, +Choked to its gates with snow, +And when with summer's flowery waves +The lake of verdure rolled, +As if a Sultan's white-robed slaves +Had scattered pearls and gold. + +Nay, the soft pinions of the air, +That lift this trembling tone, +Its breath of love may almost bear +To kiss thy funeral stone; +And, now thy smiles have passed away, +For all the joy they gave, +May sweetest dews and warmest ray +Lie on thine early grave! + +When damps beneath and storms above +Have bowed these fragile towers, +Still o'er the graves yon locust grove +Shall swing its Orient flowers; +And I would ask no mouldering bust, +If e'er this humble line, +Which breathed a sigh o'er other's dust, +Might call a tear on mine. + + + + + +TO AN INSECT + +The Katydid is "a species of grasshopper found in the United +States, so called from the sound which it makes."--Worcester. +I used to hear this insect in Providence, Rhode Island, but I +do not remember hearing it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where +I passed my boyhood. It is well known in other towns in the +neighborhood of Boston. + +I LOVE to hear thine earnest voice, +Wherever thou art hid, +Thou testy little dogmatist, +Thou pretty Katydid +Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,-- +Old gentlefolks are they,-- +Thou say'st an undisputed thing +In such a solemn way. + +Thou art a female, Katydid +I know it by the trill +That quivers through thy piercing notes, +So petulant and shrill; +I think there is a knot of you +Beneath the hollow tree,-- +A knot of spinster Katydids,--- +Do Katydids drink tea? + +Oh tell me where did Katy live, +And what did Katy do? +And was she very fair and young, +And yet so wicked, too? +Did Katy love a naughty man, +Or kiss more cheeks than one? +I warrant Katy did no more +Than many a Kate has done. + +Dear me! I'll tell you all about +My fuss with little Jane, +And Ann, with whom I used to walk +So often down the lane, +And all that tore their locks of black, +Or wet their eyes of blue,-- +Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, +What did poor Katy do? + +Ah no! the living oak shall crash, +That stood for ages still, +The rock shall rend its mossy base +And thunder down the hill, +Before the little Katydid +Shall add one word, to tell +The mystic story of the maid +Whose name she knows so well. + +Peace to the ever-murmuring race! +And when the latest one +Shall fold in death her feeble wings +Beneath the autumn sun, +Then shall she raise her fainting voice, +And lift her drooping lid, +And then the child of future years +Shall hear what Katy did. + + + + + +THE DILEMMA + +Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, +Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen; +By every name I cut on bark +Before my morning star grew dark; +By Hymen's torch, by Cupid's dart, +By all that thrills the beating heart; +The bright black eye, the melting blue,-- +I cannot choose between the two. + +I had a vision in my dreams;-- +I saw a row of twenty beams; +From every beam a rope was hung, +In every rope a lover swung; +I asked the hue of every eye +That bade each luckless lover die; +Ten shadowy lips said, heavenly blue, +And ten accused the darker hue. + +I asked a matron which she deemed +With fairest light of beauty beamed; +She answered, some thought both were fair,-- +Give her blue eyes and golden hair. +I might have liked her judgment well, +But, as she spoke, she rung the bell, +And all her girls, nor small nor few, +Came marching in,--their eyes were blue. + +I asked a maiden; back she flung +The locks that round her forehead hung, +And turned her eye, a glorious one, +Bright as a diamond in the sun, +On me, until beneath its rays +I felt as if my hair would blaze; +She liked all eyes but eyes of green; +She looked at me; what could she mean? + +Ah! many lids Love lurks between, +Nor heeds the coloring of his screen; +And when his random arrows fly, +The victim falls, but knows not why. +Gaze not upon his shield of jet, +The shaft upon the string is set; +Look not beneath his azure veil, +Though every limb were cased in mail. + +Well, both might make a martyr break +The chain that bound him to the stake; +And both, with but a single ray, +Can melt our very hearts away; +And both, when balanced, hardly seem +To stir the scales, or rock the beam; +But that is dearest, all the while, +That wears for us the sweetest smile. + + + + + +MY AUNT + +MY aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! +Long years have o'er her flown; +Yet still she strains the aching clasp +That binds her virgin zone; +I know it hurts her,--though she looks +As cheerful as she can; +Her waist is ampler than her life, +For life is but a span. + +My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! +Her hair is almost gray; +Why will she train that winter curl +In such a spring-like way? +How can she lay her glasses down, +And say she reads as well, +When through a double convex lens +She just makes out to spell? + +Her father--grandpapa I forgive +This erring lip its smiles-- +Vowed she should make the finest girl +Within a hundred miles; +He sent her to a stylish school; +'T was in her thirteenth June; +And with her, as the rules required, +"Two towels and a spoon." + +They braced my aunt against a board, +To make her straight and tall; +They laced her up, they starved her down, +To make her light and small; +They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, +They screwed it up with pins;-- +Oh never mortal suffered more +In penance for her sins. + +So, when my precious aunt was done, +My grandsire brought her back; +(By daylight, lest some rabid youth +Might follow on the track;) +"Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook +Some powder in his pan, +"What could this lovely creature do +Against a desperate man!" + +Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, +Nor bandit cavalcade, +Tore from the trembling father's arms +His all-accomplished maid. +For her how happy had it been +And Heaven had spared to me +To see one sad, ungathered rose +On my ancestral tree. + + + + + +REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN + +I SAW the curl of his waving lash, +And the glance of his knowing eye, +And I knew that he thought he was cutting a dash, +As his steed went thundering by. + +And he may ride in the rattling gig, +Or flourish the Stanhope gay, +And dream that he looks exceeding big +To the people that walk in the way; + +But he shall think, when the night is still, +On the stable-boy's gathering numbers, +And the ghost of many a veteran bill +Shall hover around his slumbers; + +The ghastly dun shall worry his sleep, +And constables cluster around him, +And he shall creep from the wood-hole deep +Where their spectre eyes have found him! + +Ay! gather your reins, and crack your thong, +And bid your steed go faster; +He does not know, as he scrambles along, +That he has a fool for his master; + +And hurry away on your lonely ride, +Nor deign from the mire to save me; +I will paddle it stoutly at your side +With the tandem that nature gave me! + + + + + +DAILY TRIALS + +BY A SENSITIVE MAN + +OH, there are times +When all this fret and tumult that we hear +Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear +His own dull chimes. + +Ding dong! ding dong! +The world is in a simmer like a sea +Over a pent volcano,--woe is me +All the day long! + +From crib to shroud! +Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby, +And friends in boots tramp round us as we die, +Snuffling aloud. + +At morning's call +The small-voiced pug-dog welcomes in the sun, +And flea-bit mongrels, wakening one by one, +Give answer all. + +When evening dim +Draws round us, then the lonely caterwaul, +Tart solo, sour duet, and general squall,-- +These are our hymn. + +Women, with tongues +Like polar needles, ever on the jar; +Men, plugless word-spouts, whose deep fountains are +Within their lungs. + +Children, with drums +Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass; +Peripatetics with a blade of grass +Between their thumbs. + +Vagrants, whose arts +Have caged some devil in their mad machine, +Which grinding, squeaks, with husky groans between, +Come out by starts. + +Cockneys that kill +Thin horses of a Sunday,--men, with clams, +Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their dams +From hill to hill. + +Soldiers, with guns, +Making a nuisance of the blessed air, +Child-crying bellmen, children in despair, +Screeching for buns. + +Storms, thunders, waves! +Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill; +Ye sometimes rest; men never can be still +But in their graves. + + + + + +EVENING + +BY A TAILOR + +DAY hath put on his jacket, and around +His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. +Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, +That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs, +And hold communion with the things about me. +Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid +That binds the skirt of night's descending robe! +The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, +Do make a music like to rustling satin, +As the light breezes smooth their downy nap. + +Ha! what is this that rises to my touch, +So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage? +It is, it is that deeply injured flower, +Which boys do flout us with;--but yet I love thee, +Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout. +Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright +As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath +Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air; +But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, +Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences, +And growing portly in his sober garments. + +Is that a swan that rides upon the water? +Oh no, it is that other gentle bird, +Which is the patron of our noble calling. +I well remember, in my early years, +When these young hands first closed upon a goose; +I have a scar upon my thimble finger, +Which chronicles the hour of young ambition. +My father was a tailor, and his father, +And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors; +They had an ancient goose,--it was an heirloom +From some remoter tailor of our race. +It happened I did see it on a time +When none was near, and I did deal with it, +And it did burn me,--oh, most fearfully! + +It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs, +And leap elastic from the level counter, +Leaving the petty grievances of earth, +The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, +And all the needles that do wound the spirit, +For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. +Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, +Lays bare her shady bosom;--I can feel +With all around me;--I can hail the flowers +That sprig earth's mantle,--and yon quiet bird, +That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. +The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, +Where Nature stows away her loveliness. +But this unnatural posture of the legs +Cramps my extended calves, and I must go +Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion. + + + + + +THE DORCHESTER GIANT + +The "pudding-stone" is a remarkable conglomerate found very +abundantly in the towns mentioned, all of which are in the neighborhood +of Boston. We used in those primitive days to ask friends to _ride_ +with us when we meant to take them to _drive_ with us. + +THERE was a giant in time of old, +A mighty one was he; +He had a wife, but she was a scold, +So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold; +And he had children three. + +It happened to be an election day, +And the giants were choosing a king +The people were not democrats then, +They did not talk of the rights of men, +And all that sort of thing. + +Then the giant took his children three, +And fastened them in the pen; +The children roared; quoth the giant, "Be still!" +And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill +Rolled back the sound again. + +Then he brought them a pudding stuffed with plums, +As big as the State-House dome; +Quoth he, "There 's something for you to eat; +So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat, +And wait till your dad comes home." + +So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout, +And whittled the boughs away; +The boys and their mother set up a shout, +Said he, "You 're in, and you can't get out, +Bellow as loud as you may." + +Off he went, and he growled a tune +As he strode the fields along; +'T is said a buffalo fainted away, +And fell as cold as a lump of clay, +When he heard the giant's song. + +But whether the story 's true or not, +It is n't for me to show; +There 's many a thing that 's twice as queer +In somebody's lectures that we hear, +And those are true, you know. + +What are those lone ones doing now, +The wife and the children sad? +Oh, they are in a terrible rout, +Screaming, and throwing their pudding about, +Acting as they were mad. + +They flung it over to Roxbury hills, +They flung it over the plain, +And all over Milton and Dorchester too +Great lumps of pudding the giants threw; +They tumbled as thick as rain. + +Giant and mammoth have passed away, +For ages have floated by; +The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, +And every plum is turned to a stone, +But there the puddings lie. + +And if, some pleasant afternoon, +You 'll ask me out to ride, +The whole of the story I will tell, +And you shall see where the puddings fell, +And pay for the punch beside. + + + + + +TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A LADY" +IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY + +WELL, Miss, I wonder where you live, +I wonder what's your name, +I wonder how you came to be +In such a stylish frame; +Perhaps you were a favorite child, +Perhaps an only one; +Perhaps your friends were not aware +You had your portrait done. + +Yet you must be a harmless soul; +I cannot think that Sin +Would care to throw his loaded dice, +With such a stake to win; +I cannot think you would provoke +The poet's wicked pen, +Or make young women bite their lips, +Or ruin fine young men. + +Pray, did you ever hear, my love, +Of boys that go about, +Who, for a very trifling sum, +Will snip one's picture out? +I'm not averse to red and white, +But all things have their place, +I think a profile cut in black +Would suit your style of face! + +I love sweet features; I will own +That I should like myself +To see my portrait on a wall, +Or bust upon a shelf; +But nature sometimes makes one up +Of such sad odds and ends, +It really might be quite as well +Hushed up among one's friends! + + + + + +THE COMET + +THE Comet! He is on his way, +And singing as he flies; +The whizzing planets shrink before +The spectre of the skies; +Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue, +And satellites turn pale, +Ten million cubic miles of head, +Ten billion leagues of tail! + +On, on by whistling spheres of light +He flashes and he flames; +He turns not to the left nor right, +He asks them not their names; +One spurn from his demoniac heel,-- +Away, away they fly, +Where darkness might be bottled up +And sold for "Tyrian dye." + +And what would happen to the land, +And how would look the sea, +If in the bearded devil's path +Our earth should chance to be? +Full hot and high the sea would boil, +Full red the forests gleam; +Methought I saw and heard it all +In a dyspeptic dream! + +I saw a tutor take his tube +The Comet's course to spy; +I heard a scream,--the gathered rays +Had stewed the tutor's eye; +I saw a fort,--the soldiers all +Were armed with goggles green; +Pop cracked the guns! whiz flew the balls! +Bang went the magazine! + +I saw a poet dip a scroll +Each moment in a tub, +I read upon the warping back, +"The Dream of Beelzebub;" +He could not see his verses burn, +Although his brain was fried, +And ever and anon he bent +To wet them as they dried. + +I saw the scalding pitch roll down +The crackling, sweating pines, +And streams of smoke, like water-spouts, +Burst through the rumbling mines; +I asked the firemen why they made +Such noise about the town; +They answered not,--but all the while +The brakes went up and down. + +I saw a roasting pullet sit +Upon a baking egg; +I saw a cripple scorch his hand +Extinguishing his leg; +I saw nine geese upon the wing +Towards the frozen pole, +And every mother's gosling fell +Crisped to a crackling coal. + +I saw the ox that browsed the grass +Writhe in the blistering rays, +The herbage in his shrinking jaws +Was all a fiery blaze; +I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags, +Bob through the bubbling brine; +And thoughts of supper crossed my soul; +I had been rash at mine. + +Strange sights! strange sounds! Oh fearful dream! +Its memory haunts me still, +The steaming sea, the crimson glare, +That wreathed each wooded hill; +Stranger! if through thy reeling brain +Such midnight visions sweep, +Spare, spare, oh, spare thine evening meal, +And sweet shall be thy sleep! + + + + + +THE MUSIC-GRINDERS + +THERE are three ways in which men take +One's money from his purse, +And very hard it is to tell +Which of the three is worse; +But all of them are bad enough +To make a body curse. + +You're riding out some pleasant day, +And counting up your gains; +A fellow jumps from out a bush, +And takes your horse's reins, +Another hints some words about +A bullet in your brains. + +It's hard to meet such pressing friends +In such a lonely spot; +It's very hard to lose your cash, +But harder to be shot; +And so you take your wallet out, +Though you would rather not. + +Perhaps you're going out to dine,-- +Some odious creature begs +You'll hear about the cannon-ball +That carried off his pegs, +And says it is a dreadful thing +For men to lose their legs. + +He tells you of his starving wife, +His children to be fed, +Poor little, lovely innocents, +All clamorous for bread,-- +And so you kindly help to put +A bachelor to bed. + +You're sitting on your window-seat, +Beneath a cloudless moon; +You hear a sound, that seems to wear +The semblance of a tune, +As if a broken fife should strive +To drown a cracked bassoon. + +And nearer, nearer still, the tide +Of music seems to come, +There's something like a human voice, +And something like a drum; +You sit in speechless agony, +Until your ear is numb. + +Poor "home, sweet home" should seem to be +A very dismal place; +Your "auld acquaintance" all at once +Is altered in the face; +Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, +Like hedgehogs dressed in lace. + +You think they are crusaders, sent +From some infernal clime, +To pluck the eyes of Sentiment, +And dock the tail of Rhyme, +To crack the voice of Melody, +And break the legs of Time. + +But hark! the air again is still, +The music all is ground, +And silence, like a poultice, comes +To heal the blows of sound; +It cannot be,--it is,--it is,-- +A hat is going round! + +No! Pay the dentist when he leaves +A fracture in your jaw, +And pay the owner of the bear +That stunned you with his paw, +And buy the lobster that has had +Your knuckles in his claw; + +But if you are a portly man, +Put on your fiercest frown, +And talk about a constable +To turn them out of town; +Then close your sentence with an oath, +And shut the window down! + +And if you are a slender man, +Not big enough for that, +Or, if you cannot make a speech, +Because you are a flat, +Go very quietly and drop +A button in the hat! + + + + + +THE TREADMILL SONG + +THE stars are rolling in the sky, +The earth rolls on below, +And we can feel the rattling wheel +Revolving as we go. +Then tread away, my gallant boys, +And make the axle fly; +Why should not wheels go round about, +Like planets in the sky? + +Wake up, wake up, my duck-legged man, +And stir your solid pegs +Arouse, arouse, my gawky friend, +And shake your spider legs; +What though you're awkward at the trade, +There's time enough to learn,-- +So lean upon the rail, my lad, +And take another turn. + +They've built us up a noble wall, +To keep the vulgar out; +We've nothing in the world to do +But just to walk about; +So faster, now, you middle men, +And try to beat the ends,-- +It's pleasant work to ramble round +Among one's honest friends. + +Here, tread upon the long man's toes, +He sha'n't be lazy here,-- +And punch the little fellow's ribs, +And tweak that lubber's ear,-- +He's lost them both,--don't pull his hair, +Because he wears a scratch, +But poke him in the further eye, +That is n't in the patch. + +Hark! fellows, there 's the supper-bell, +And so our work is done; +It's pretty sport,--suppose we take +A round or two for fun! +If ever they should turn me out, +When I have better grown, +Now hang me, but I mean to have +A treadmill of my own! + + + + + +THE SEPTEMBER GALE + + This tremendous hurricane occurred on the 23d of September, 1815. + I remember it well, being then seven years old. A full account of + it was published, I think, in the records of the American Academy + of Arts and Sciences. Some of my recollections are given in The + Seasons, an article to be found in a book of mine entitled Pages + from an Old Volume of Life. + +I'M not a chicken; I have seen +Full many a chill September, +And though I was a youngster then, +That gale I well remember; +The day before, my kite-string snapped, +And I, my kite pursuing, +The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat; +For me two storms were brewing! + +It came as quarrels sometimes do, +When married folks get clashing; +There was a heavy sigh or two, +Before the fire was flashing,-- +A little stir among the clouds, +Before they rent asunder,-- +A little rocking of the trees, +And then came on the thunder. + +Lord! how the ponds and rivers boiled! +They seemed like bursting craters! +And oaks lay scattered on the ground +As if they were p'taters; +And all above was in a howl, +And all below a clatter,-- +The earth was like a frying-pan, +Or some such hissing matter. + +It chanced to be our washing-day, +And all our things were drying; +The storm came roaring through the lines, +And set them all a flying; +I saw the shirts and petticoats +Go riding off like witches; +I lost, ah! bitterly I wept,-- +I lost my Sunday breeches! + +I saw them straddling through the air, +Alas! too late to win them; +I saw them chase the clouds, as if +The devil had been in them; +They were my darlings and my pride, +My boyhood's only riches,-- +"Farewell, farewell," I faintly cried,-- +"My breeches! Oh my breeches!" + +That night I saw them in my dreams, +How changed from what I knew them! +The dews had steeped their faded threads, +The winds had whistled through them +I saw the wide and ghastly rents +Where demon claws had torn them; +A hole was in their amplest part, +As if an imp had worn them. + +I have had many happy years, +And tailors kind and clever, +But those young pantaloons have gone +Forever and forever! +And not till fate has cut the last +Of all my earthly stitches, +This aching heart shall cease to mourn +My loved, my long-lost breeches! + + + + + +THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS + +I WROTE some lines once on a time +In wondrous merry mood, +And thought, as usual, men would say +They were exceeding good. + +They were so queer, so very queer, +I laughed as I would die; +Albeit, in the general way, +A sober man am I. + +I called my servant, and he came; +How kind it was of him +To mind a slender man like me, +He of the mighty limb. + +"These to the printer," I exclaimed, +And, in my humorous way, +I added, (as a trifling jest,) +"There'll be the devil to pay." + +He took the paper, and I watched, +And saw him peep within; +At the first line he read, his face +Was all upon the grin. + +He read the next; the grin grew broad, +And shot from ear to ear; +He read the third; a chuckling noise +I now began to hear. + +The fourth; he broke into a roar; +The fifth; his waistband split; +The sixth; he burst five buttons off, +And tumbled in a fit. + +Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, +I watched that wretched man, +And since, I never dare to write +As funny as I can. + + + + + +THE LAST READER + +I SOMETIMES sit beneath a tree +And read my own sweet songs; +Though naught they may to others be, +Each humble line prolongs +A tone that might have passed away +But for that scarce remembered lay. + +I keep them like a lock or leaf +That some dear girl has given; +Frail record of an hour, as brief +As sunset clouds in heaven, +But spreading purple twilight still +High over memory's shadowed hill. + +They lie upon my pathway bleak, +Those flowers that once ran wild, +As on a father's careworn cheek +The ringlets of his child; +The golden mingling with the gray, +And stealing half its snows away. + +What care I though the dust is spread +Around these yellow leaves, +Or o'er them his sarcastic thread +Oblivion's insect weaves +Though weeds are tangled on the stream, +It still reflects my morning's beam. + +And therefore love I such as smile +On these neglected songs, +Nor deem that flattery's needless wile +My opening bosom wrongs; +For who would trample, at my side, +A few pale buds, my garden's pride? + +It may be that my scanty ore +Long years have washed away, +And where were golden sands before +Is naught but common clay; +Still something sparkles in the sun +For memory to look back upon. + +And when my name no more is heard, +My lyre no more is known, +Still let me, like a winter's bird, +In silence and alone, +Fold over them the weary wing +Once flashing through the dews of spring. + +Yes, let my fancy fondly wrap +My youth in its decline, +And riot in the rosy lap +Of thoughts that once were mine, +And give the worm my little store +When the last reader reads no more! + + + + + + POETRY: + + A METRICAL ESSAY, READ BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, + HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AUGUST, 1836 + + TO CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, THE FOLLOWING METRICAL ESSAY IS +AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. + +This Academic Poem presents the simple and partial views of a young +person trained after the schools of classical English verse as +represented by Pope, Goldsmith, and Campbell, with whose lines his +memory was early stocked. It will be observed that it deals chiefly with +the constructive side of the poet's function. That which makes him a +poet is not the power of writing melodious rhymes, it is not the +possession of ordinary human sensibilities nor even of both these +qualities in connection with each other. I should rather say, if I were +now called upon to define it, it is the power of transfiguring the +experiences and shows of life into an aspect which comes from his +imagination and kindles that of others. Emotion is its stimulus and +language furnishes its expression; but these are not all, as some might +infer was the doctrine of the poem before the reader. + +A common mistake made by young persons who suppose themselves to have +the poetical gift is that their own spiritual exaltation finds a true +expression in the conventional phrases which are borrowed from the +voices of the singers whose inspiration they think they share. + +Looking at this poem as an expression of some aspects of the _ars +poetica_, with some passages which I can read even at this mature period +of life without blushing for them, it may stand as the most serious +representation of my early efforts. Intended as it was for public +delivery, many of its paragraphs may betray the fact by their somewhat +rhetorical and sonorous character. + +SCENES of my youth! awake its slumbering fire! +Ye winds of Memory, sweep the silent lyre! +Ray of the past, if yet thou canst appear, +Break through the clouds of Fancy's waning year; +Chase from her breast the thin autumnal snow, +If leaf or blossom still is fresh below! + +Long have I wandered; the returning tide +Brought back an exile to his cradle's side; +And as my bark her time-worn flag unrolled, +To greet the land-breeze with its faded fold, +So, in remembrance of my boyhood's time, +I lift these ensigns of neglected rhyme; +Oh, more than blest, that, all my wanderings through, +My anchor falls where first my pennons flew! + + . . . . . . . . . + +The morning light, which rains its quivering beams +Wide o'er the plains, the summits, and the streams, +In one broad blaze expands its golden glow +On all that answers to its glance below; +Yet, changed on earth, each far reflected ray +Braids with fresh hues the shining brow of day; +Now, clothed in blushes by the painted flowers, +Tracks on their cheeks the rosy-fingered hours; +Now, lost in shades, whose dark entangled leaves +Drip at the noontide from their pendent eaves, +Fades into gloom, or gleams in light again +From every dew-drop on the jewelled plain. + + +We, like the leaf, the summit, or the wave, +Reflect the light our common nature gave, +But every sunbeam, falling from her throne, +Wears on our hearts some coloring of our own +Chilled in the slave, and burning in the free, +Like the sealed cavern by the sparkling sea; +Lost, like the lightning in the sullen clod, +Or shedding radiance, like the smiles of God; +Pure, pale in Virtue, as the star above, +Or quivering roseate on the leaves of Love; +Glaring like noontide, where it glows upon +Ambition's sands,--the desert in the sun,-- +Or soft suffusing o'er the varied scene +Life's common coloring,--intellectual green. + +Thus Heaven, repeating its material plan, +Arched over all the rainbow mind of man; +But he who, blind to universal laws, +Sees but effects, unconscious of their cause,-- +Believes each image in itself is bright, +Not robed in drapery of reflected light,-- +Is like the rustic who, amidst his toil, +Has found some crystal in his meagre soil, +And, lost in rapture, thinks for him alone +Earth worked her wonders on the sparkling stone, +Nor dreams that Nature, with as nice a line, +Carved countless angles through the boundless mine. + +Thus err the many, who, entranced to find +Unwonted lustre in some clearer mind, +Believe that Genius sets the laws at naught +Which chain the pinions of our wildest thought; +Untaught to measure, with the eye of art, +The wandering fancy or the wayward heart; +Who match the little only with the less, +And gaze in rapture at its slight excess, +Proud of a pebble, as the brightest gem +Whose light might crown an emperor's diadem. + +And, most of all, the pure ethereal fire +Which seems to radiate from the poet's lyre +Is to the world a mystery and a charm, +An AEgis wielded on a mortal's arm, +While Reason turns her dazzled eye away, +And bows her sceptre to her subject's sway; +And thus the poet, clothed with godlike state, +Usurped his Maker's title--to create; +He, whose thoughts differing not in shape, but dress, +What others feel more fitly can express, +Sits like the maniac on his fancied throne, +Peeps through the bars, and calls the world his own. + +There breathes no being but has some pretence +To that fine instinct called poetic sense +The rudest savage, roaming through the wild; +The simplest rustic, bending o'er his child; +The infant, listening to the warbling bird; +The mother, smiling at its half-formed word; +The boy uncaged, who tracks the fields at large; +The girl, turned matron to her babe-like charge; +The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand +The vote that shakes the turret of the land; +The slave, who, slumbering on his rusted chain, +Dreams of the palm-trees on his burning plain; +The hot-cheeked reveller, tossing down the wine, +To join the chorus pealing "Auld lang syne"; +The gentle maid, whose azure eye grows dim, +While Heaven is listening to her evening hymn; +The jewelled beauty, when her steps draw near +The circling dance and dazzling chandelier; +E'en trembling age, when Spring's renewing air +Waves the thin ringlets of his silvered hair;-- +All, all are glowing with the inward flame, +Whose wider halo wreathes the poet's name, +While, unenbalmed, the silent dreamer dies, +His memory passing with his smiles and sighs! + +If glorious visions, born for all mankind, +The bright auroras of our twilight mind; +If fancies, varying as the shapes that lie +Stained on the windows of the sunset sky; +If hopes, that beckon with delusive gleams, +Till the eye dances in the void of dreams; +If passions, following with the winds that urge +Earth's wildest wanderer to her farthest verge;-- +If these on all some transient hours bestow +Of rapture tingling with its hectic glow, +Then all are poets; and if earth had rolled +Her myriad centuries, and her doom were told, +Each moaning billow of her shoreless wave +Would wail its requiem o'er a poet's grave! + +If to embody in a breathing word +Tones that the spirit trembled when it heard; +To fix the image all unveiled and warm, +And carve in language its ethereal form, +So pure, so perfect, that the lines express +No meagre shrinking, no unlaced excess; +To feel that art, in living truth, has taught +Ourselves, reflected in the sculptured thought;-- +If this alone bestow the right to claim +The deathless garland and the sacred name, +Then none are poets save the saints on high, +Whose harps can murmur all that words deny! + +But though to none is granted to reveal +In perfect semblance all that each may feel, +As withered flowers recall forgotten love, +So, warmed to life, our faded passions move +In every line, where kindling fancy throws +The gleam of pleasures or the shade of woes. + +When, schooled by time, the stately queen of art +Had smoothed the pathways leading to the heart, +Assumed her measured tread, her solemn tone, +And round her courts the clouds of fable thrown, +The wreaths of heaven descended on her shrine, +And wondering earth proclaimed the Muse divine. +Yet if her votaries had but dared profane +The mystic symbols of her sacred reign, +How had they smiled beneath the veil to find +What slender threads can chain the mighty mind! + + +Poets, like painters, their machinery claim, +And verse bestows the varnish and the frame; +Our grating English, whose Teutonic jar +Shakes the racked axle of Art's rattling car, +Fits like mosaic in the lines that gird +Fast in its place each many-angled word; +From Saxon lips Anacreon's numbers glide, +As once they melted on the Teian tide, +And, fresh transfused, the Iliad thrills again +From Albion's cliffs as o'er Achaia's plain +The proud heroic, with, its pulse-like beat, +Rings like the cymbals clashing as they meet; +The sweet Spenserian, gathering as it flows, +Sweeps gently onward to its dying close, +Where waves on waves in long succession pour, +Till the ninth billow melts along the shore; +The lonely spirit of the mournful lay, +Which lives immortal as the verse of Gray, +In sable plumage slowly drifts along, +On eagle pinion, through the air of song; +The glittering lyric bounds elastic by, +With flashing ringlets and exulting eye, +While every image, in her airy whirl, +Gleams like a diamond on a dancing girl! + +Born with mankind, with man's expanded range +And varying fates the poet's numbers change; +Thus in his history may we hope to find +Some clearer epochs of the poet's mind, +As from the cradle of its birth we trace, +Slow wandering forth, the patriarchal race. + + + + I. + +When the green earth, beneath the zephyr's wing, +Wears on her breast the varnished buds of Spring; +When the loosed current, as its folds uncoil, +Slides in the channels of the mellowed soil; +When the young hyacinth returns to seek +The air and sunshine with her emerald beak; +When the light snowdrops, starting from their cells, +Hang each pagoda with its silver bells; +When the frail willow twines her trailing bow +With pallid leaves that sweep the soil below; +When the broad elm, sole empress of the plain, +Whose circling shadow speaks a century's reign, +Wreathes in the clouds her regal diadem,-- +A forest waving on a single stem;-- +Then mark the poet; though to him unknown +The quaint-mouthed titles, such as scholars own, +See how his eye in ecstasy pursues +The steps of Nature tracked in radiant hues; +Nay, in thyself, whate'er may be thy fate, +Pallid with toil or surfeited with state, +Mark how thy fancies, with the vernal rose, +Awake, all sweetness, from their long repose; +Then turn to ponder o'er the classic page, +Traced with the idyls of a greener age, +And learn the instinct which arose to warm +Art's earliest essay and her simplest form. + +To themes like these her narrow path confined +The first-born impulse moving in the mind; +In vales unshaken by the trumpet's sound, +Where peaceful Labor tills his fertile ground, +The silent changes of the rolling years, +Marked on the soil or dialled on the spheres, +The crested forests and the colored flowers, +The dewy grottos and the blushing bowers,-- +These, and their guardians, who, with liquid names, +Strephons and Chloes, melt in mutual flames, +Woo the young Muses from their mountain shade, +To make Arcadias in the lonely glade. + +Nor think they visit only with their smiles +The fabled valleys and Elysian isles; +He who is wearied of his village plain +May roam the Edens of the world in vain. +'T is not the star-crowned cliff, the cataract's flow, +The softer foliage or the greener glow, +The lake of sapphire or the spar-hung cave, +The brighter sunset or the broader wave, +Can warm his heart whom every wind has blown +To every shore, forgetful of his own. + +Home of our childhood! how affection clings +And hovers round thee with her seraph wings! +Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown, +Than fairest summits which the cedars crown! +Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze +Than all Arabia breathes along the seas! +The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh, +For the heart's temple is its own blue sky! + +Oh happiest they, whose early love unchanged, +Hopes undissolved, and friendship unestranged, +Tired of their wanderings, still can deign to see +Love, hopes, and friendship, centring all in thee! + +And thou, my village! as again I tread +Amidst thy living and above thy dead; +Though some fair playmates guard with charter fears +Their cheeks, grown holy with the lapse of years; +Though with the dust some reverend locks may blend, +Where life's last mile-stone marks the journey's end; +On every bud the changing year recalls, +The brightening glance of morning memory falls, +Still following onward as the months unclose +The balmy lilac or the bridal rose; +And still shall follow, till they sink once more +Beneath the snow-drifts of the frozen shore, +As when my bark, long tossing in the gale, +Furled in her port her tempest-rended sail! + +What shall I give thee? Can a simple lay, +Flung on thy bosom like a girl's bouquet, +Do more than deck thee for an idle hour, +Then fall unheeded, fading like the flower? +Yet, when I trod, with footsteps wild and free, +The crackling leaves beneath yon linden-tree, +Panting from play or dripping from the stream, +How bright the visions of my boyish dream +Or, modest Charles, along thy broken edge, +Black with soft ooze and fringed with arrowy sedge, +As once I wandered in the morning sun, +With reeking sandal and superfluous gun, +How oft, as Fancy whispered in the gale, +Thou wast the Avon of her flattering tale! +Ye hills, whose foliage, fretted on the skies, +Prints shadowy arches on their evening dyes, +How should my song with holiest charm invest +Each dark ravine and forest-lifting crest! +How clothe in beauty each familiar scene, +Till all was classic on my native green! + +As the drained fountain, filled with autumn leaves, +The field swept naked of its garnered sheaves, +So wastes at noon the promise of our dawn, +The springs all choking, and the harvest gone. + +Yet hear the lay of one whose natal star +Still seemed the brightest when it shone afar; +Whose cheek, grown pallid with ungracious toil, +Glows in the welcome of his parent soil; +And ask no garlands sought beyond the tide, +But take the leaflets gathered at your side. + + + + II. + +But times were changed; the torch of terror came, +To light the summits with the beacon's flame; +The streams ran crimson, the tall mountain pines +Rose a new forest o'er embattled lines; +The bloodless sickle lent the warrior's steel, +The harvest bowed beneath his chariot wheel; +Where late the wood-dove sheltered her repose +The raven waited for the conflict's close; +The cuirassed sentry walked his sleepless round +Where Daphne smiled or Amaryllis frowned; +Where timid minstrels sung their blushing charms, +Some wild Tyrtaeus called aloud, "To arms!" + +When Glory wakes, when fiery spirits leap, +Roused by her accents from their tranquil sleep, +The ray that flashes from the soldier's crest +Lights, as it glances, in the poet's breast;-- +Not in pale dreamers, whose fantastic lay +Toys with smooth trifles like a child at play, +But men, who act the passions they inspire, +Who wave the sabre as they sweep the lyre! + +Ye mild enthusiasts, whose pacific frowns +Are lost like dew-drops caught in burning towns, +Pluck as ye will the radiant plumes of fame, +Break Caesar's bust to make yourselves a name; +But if your country bares the avenger's blade +For wrongs unpunished or for debts unpaid, +When the roused nation bids her armies form, +And screams her eagle through the gathering storm, +When from your ports the bannered frigate rides, +Her black bows scowling to the crested tides, +Your hour has past; in vain your feeble cry +As the babe's wailings to the thundering sky! + +Scourge of mankind! with all the dread array +That wraps in wrath thy desolating way, +As the wild tempest wakes the slumbering sea, +Thou only teachest all that man can be. +Alike thy tocsin has the power to charm +The toil-knit sinews of the rustic's arm, +Or swell the pulses in the poet's veins, +And bid the nations tremble at his strains. + +The city slept beneath the moonbeam's glance, +Her white walls gleaming through the vines of France, +And all was hushed, save where the footsteps fell, +On some high tower, of midnight sentinel. +But one still watched; no self-encircled woes +Chased from his lids the angel of repose; +He watched, he wept, for thoughts of bitter years +Bowed his dark lashes, wet with burning tears +His country's sufferings and her children's shame +Streamed o'er his memory like a forest's flame; +Each treasured insult, each remembered wrong, +Rolled through his heart and kindled into song. +His taper faded; and the morning gales +Swept through the world the war-song of Marseilles! + +Now, while around the smiles of Peace expand, +And Plenty's wreaths festoon the laughing land; +While France ships outward her reluctant ore, +And half our navy basks upon the shore; +From ruder themes our meek-eyed Muses turn +To crown with roses their enamelled urn. + +If e'er again return those awful days +Whose clouds were crimsoned with the beacon's blaze, +Whose grass was trampled by the soldier's heel, +Whose tides were reddened round the rushing keel, +God grant some lyre may wake a nobler strain +To rend the silence of our tented plain! +When Gallia's flag its triple fold displays, +Her marshalled legions peal the Marseillaise; +When round the German close the war-clouds dim, +Far through their shadows floats his battle-hymn; +When, crowned with joy, the camps' of England ring, +A thousand voices shout, "God save the King!" +When victory follows with our eagle's glance, +Our nation's anthem pipes a country dance! + +Some prouder Muse, when comes the hour at last, +May shake our hillsides with her bugle-blast; +Not ours the task; but since the lyric dress +Relieves the statelier with its sprightliness, +Hear an old song, which some, perchance, have seen +In stale gazette or cobwebbed magazine. +There was an hour when patriots dared profane +The mast that Britain strove to bow in vain; +And one, who listened to the tale of shame, +Whose heart still answered to that sacred name, +Whose eye still followed o'er his country's tides +Thy glorious flag, our brave Old Ironsides +From yon lone attic, on a smiling morn, +Thus mocked the spoilers with his school-boy scorn. + + + + III. + +When florid Peace resumed her golden reign, +And arts revived, and valleys bloomed again, +While War still panted on his-broken blade, +Once more the Muse her heavenly wing essayed. +Rude was the song: some ballad, stern and wild, +Lulled the light slumbers of the soldier's child; +Or young romancer, with his threatening glance +And fearful fables of his bloodless lance, +Scared the soft fancy of the clinging girls, +Whose snowy fingers smoothed his raven curls. +But when long years the stately form had bent, +And faithless Memory her illusions lent, +So vast the outlines of Tradition grew +That History wondered at the shapes she drew, +And veiled at length their too ambitious hues +Beneath the pinions of the Epic Muse. + +Far swept her wing; for stormier days had brought +With darker passions deeper tides of thought. +The camp's harsh tumult and the conflict's glow, +The thrill of triumph and the gasp of woe, +The tender parting and the glad return, +The festal banquet and the funeral urn, +And all the drama which at once uprears +Its spectral shadows through the clash of spears, +From camp and field to echoing verse transferred, +Swelled the proud song that listening nations heard. +Why floats the amaranth in eternal bloom +O'er Ilium's turrets and Achilles' tomb? +Why lingers fancy where the sunbeams smile +On Circe's gardens and Calypso's isle? +Why follows memory to the gate of Troy +Her plumed defender and his trembling boy? +Lo! the blind dreamer, kneeling on the sand +To trace these records with his doubtful hand; +In fabled tones his own emotion flows, +And other lips repeat his silent woes; +In Hector's infant see the babes that shun +Those deathlike eyes, unconscious of the sun, +Or in his hero hear himself implore, +"Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more!" + +Thus live undying through the lapse of time +The solemn legends of the warrior's clime; +Like Egypt's pyramid or Paestum's fane, +They stand the heralds of the voiceless plain. +Yet not like them, for Time, by slow degrees, +Saps the gray stone and wears the embroidered frieze, +And Isis sleeps beneath her subject Nile, +And crumbled Neptune strews his Dorian pile; +But Art's fair fabric, strengthening as it rears +Its laurelled columns through the mist of years, +As the blue arches of the bending skies +Still gird the torrent, following as it flies, +Spreads, with the surges bearing on mankind, +Its starred pavilion o'er the tides of mind! + +In vain the patriot asks some lofty lay +To dress in state our wars of yesterday. +The classic days, those mothers of romance, +That roused a nation for a woman's glance; +The age of mystery, with its hoarded power, +That girt the tyrant in his storied tower, +Have passed and faded like a dream of youth, +And riper eras ask for history's truth. + +On other shores, above their mouldering towns, +In sullen pomp the tall cathedral frowns, +Pride in its aisles and paupers at the door, +Which feeds the beggars whom it fleeced of yore. +Simple and frail, our lowly temples throw +Their slender shadows on the paths below; +Scarce steal the winds, that sweep his woodland tracks, +The larch's perfume from the settler's axe, +Ere, like a vision of the morning air, +His slight--framed steeple marks the house of prayer; +Its planks all reeking and its paint undried, +Its rafters sprouting on the shady side, +It sheds the raindrops from its shingled eaves +Ere its green brothers once have changed their leaves. + +Yet Faith's pure hymn, beneath its shelter rude, +Breathes out as sweetly to the tangled wood +As where the rays through pictured glories pour +On marble shaft and tessellated floor;-- +Heaven asks no surplice round the heart that feels, +And all is holy where devotion kneels. +Thus on the soil the patriot's knee should bend +Which holds the dust once living to defend; +Where'er the hireling shrinks before the free, +Each pass becomes "a new Thermopylae"! +Where'er the battles of the brave are won, +There every mountain "looks on Marathon"! + +Our fathers live; they guard in glory still +The grass-grown bastions of the fortressed hill; +Still ring the echoes of the trampled gorge, +With _God and Freedom. England and Saint George_! +The royal cipher on the captured gun +Mocks the sharp night-dews and the blistering sun; +The red-cross banner shades its captor's bust, +Its folds still loaded with the conflict's dust; +The drum, suspended by its tattered marge, +Once rolled and rattled to the Hessian's charge; +The stars have floated from Britannia's mast, +The redcoat's trumpets blown the rebel's blast. + +Point to the summits where the brave have bled, +Where every village claims its glorious dead; +Say, when their bosoms met the bayonet's shock, +Their only corselet was the rustic frock; +Say, when they mustered to the gathering horn, +The titled chieftain curled his lip in scorn, +Yet, when their leader bade his lines advance, +No musket wavered in the lion's glance; +Say, when they fainted in the forced retreat, +They tracked the snow-drifts with their bleeding feet, +Yet still their banners, tossing in the blast, +Bore Ever Ready, faithful to the last, +Through storm and battle, till they waved again +On Yorktown's hills and Saratoga's plain. + +Then, if so fierce the insatiate patriot's flame, +Truth looks too pale and history seems too tame, +Bid him await some new Columbiad's page, +To gild the tablets of an iron age, +And save his tears, which yet may fall upon +Some fabled field, some fancied Washington! + + + + IV. + +But once again, from their AEolian cave, +The winds of Genius wandered on the wave. +Tired of the scenes the timid pencil drew, +Sick of the notes the sounding clarion blew, +Sated with heroes who had worn so long +The shadowy plumage of historic song, +The new-born poet left the beaten course, +To track the passions to their living source. + +Then rose the Drama;--and the world admired +Her varied page with deeper thought inspired +Bound to no clime, for Passion's throb is one +In Greenland's twilight or in India's sun; +Born for no age, for all the thoughts that roll +In the dark vortex of the stormy soul, +Unchained in song, no freezing years can tame; +God gave them birth, and man is still the same. +So full on life her magic mirror shone, +Her sister Arts paid tribute to her throne; +One reared her temple, one her canvas warmed, +And Music thrilled, while Eloquence informed. +The weary rustic left his stinted task +For smiles and tears, the dagger and the mask; +The sage, turned scholar, half forgot his lore, +To be the woman he despised before. +O'er sense and thought she threw her golden chain, +And Time, the anarch, spares her deathless reign. + +Thus lives Medea, in our tamer age, +As when her buskin pressed the Grecian stage; +Not in the cells where frigid learning delves +In Aldine folios mouldering on their shelves, +But breathing, burning in the glittering throng, +Whose thousand bravoes roll untired along, +Circling and spreading through the gilded halls, +From London's galleries to San Carlo's walls! + +Thus shall he live whose more than mortal name +Mocks with its ray the pallid torch of Fame; +So proudly lifted that it seems afar +No earthly Pharos, but a heavenly star, +Who, unconfined to Art's diurnal bound, +Girds her whole zodiac in his flaming round, +And leads the passions, like the orb that guides, +From pole to pole, the palpitating tides! + + + + V. + +Though round the Muse the robe of song is thrown, +Think not the poet lives in verse alone. +Long ere the chisel of the sculptor taught +The lifeless stone to mock the living thought; +Long ere the painter bade the canvas glow +With every line the forms of beauty know; +Long ere the iris of the Muses threw +On every leaf its own celestial hue, +In fable's dress the breath of genius poured, +And warmed the shapes that later times adored. + +Untaught by Science how to forge the keys +That loose the gates of Nature's mysteries; +Unschooled by Faith, who, with her angel tread, +Leads through the labyrinth with a single thread, +His fancy, hovering round her guarded tower, +Rained through its bars like Danae's golden shower. + +He spoke; the sea-nymph answered from her cave +He called; the naiad left her mountain wave +He dreamed of beauty; lo, amidst his dream, +Narcissus, mirrored in the breathless stream; +And night's chaste empress, in her bridal play, +Laughed through the foliage where Endymion lay; +And ocean dimpled, as the languid swell +Kissed the red lip of Cytherea's shell. + +Of power,--Bellona swept the crimson field, +And blue-eyed Pallas shook her Gorgon shield; +O'er the hushed waves their mightier monarch drove, +And Ida trembled to the tread of Jove! + +So every grace that plastic language knows +To nameless poets its perfection owes. +The rough-hewn words to simplest thoughts confined +Were cut and polished in their nicer mind; +Caught on their edge, imagination's ray +Splits into rainbows, shooting far away;-- +From sense to soul, from soul to sense, it flies, +And through all nature links analogies; +He who reads right will rarely look upon +A better poet than his lexicon! + +There is a race which cold, ungenial skies +Breed from decay, as fungous growths arise; +Though dying fast, yet springing fast again, +Which still usurps an unsubstantial reign, +With frames too languid for the charms of sense, +And minds worn down with action too intense; +Tired of a world whose joys they never knew, +Themselves deceived, yet thinking all untrue; +Scarce men without, and less than girls within, +Sick of their life before its cares begin;-- +The dull disease, which drains their feeble hearts, +To life's decay some hectic thrill's imparts, +And lends a force which, like the maniac's power, +Pays with blank years the frenzy of an hour. + +And this is Genius! Say, does Heaven degrade +The manly frame, for health, for action made? +Break down the sinews, rack the brow with pains, +Blanch the right cheek and drain the purple veins, +To clothe the mind with more extended sway, +Thus faintly struggling in degenerate clay? + +No! gentle maid, too ready to admire, +Though false its notes, the pale enthusiast's lyre; +If this be genius, though its bitter springs +Glowed like the morn beneath Aurora's wings, +Seek not the source whose sullen bosom feeds +But fruitless flowers and dark, envenomed weeds. + +But, if so bright the dear illusion seems, +Thou wouldst be partner of thy poet's dreams, +And hang in rapture on his bloodless charms, +Or die, like Raphael, in his angel arms, +Go and enjoy thy blessed lot,--to share +In Cowper's gloom or Chatterton's despair! + +Not such were they whom, wandering o'er the waves, +I looked to meet, but only found their graves; +If friendship's smile, the better part of fame, +Should lend my song the only wreath I claim, +Whose voice would greet me with a sweeter tone, +Whose living hand more kindly press my own, +Than theirs,--could Memory, as her silent tread +Prints the pale flowers that blossom o'er the dead, +Those breathless lips, now closed in peace, restore, +Or wake those pulses hushed to beat no more? + +Thou calm, chaste scholar! I can see thee now, +The first young laurels on thy pallid brow, +O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down +In graceful folds the academic gown, +On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught +How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought, +And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye, +Too bright to live,--but oh, too fair to die! + +And thou, dear friend, whom Science still deplores, +And Love still mourns, on ocean-severed shores, +Though the bleak forest twice has bowed with snow +Since thou wast laid its budding leaves below, +Thine image mingles with my closing strain, +As when we wandered by the turbid Seine, +Both blessed with hopes, which revelled, bright and free, +On all we longed or all we dreamed to be; +To thee the amaranth and the cypress fell,-- +And I was spared to breathe this last farewell! + +But lived there one in unremembered days, +Or lives there still, who spurns the poet's bays, +Whose fingers, dewy from Castalia's springs, +Rest on the lyre, yet scorn to touch the strings? +Who shakes the senate with the silver tone +The groves of Pindus might have sighed to own? +Have such e'er been? Remember Canning's name! +Do such still live? Let "Alaric's Dirge" proclaim! + +Immortal Art! where'er the rounded sky +Bends o'er the cradle where thy children lie, +Their home is earth, their herald every tongue +Whose accents echo to the voice that sung. +One leap of Ocean scatters on the sand +The quarried bulwarks of the loosening land; +One thrill of earth dissolves a century's toil +Strewed like the leaves that vanish in the soil; +One hill o'erflows, and cities sink below, +Their marbles splintering in the lava's glow; +But one sweet tone, scarce whispered to the air, +From shore to shore the blasts of ages bear; +One humble name, which oft, perchance, has borne +The tyrant's mockery and the courtier's scorn, +Towers o'er the dust of earth's forgotten graves, +As once, emerging through the waste of waves, +The rocky Titan, round whose shattered spear +Coiled the last whirlpool of the drowning sphere! + + + + + + + ADDITIONAL POEMS + + 1837-1848 + + + THE PILGRIM'S VISION + +IN the hour of twilight shadows +The Pilgrim sire looked out; +He thought of the "bloudy Salvages" +That lurked all round about, +Of Wituwamet's pictured knife +And Pecksuot's whooping shout; +For the baby's limbs were feeble, +Though his father's arms were stout. + +His home was a freezing cabin, +Too bare for the hungry rat; +Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, +And bald enough of that; +The hole that served for casement +Was glazed with an ancient hat, +And the ice was gently thawing +From the log whereon he sat. + +Along the dreary landscape +His eyes went to and fro, + +The trees all clad in icicles, +The streams that did not flow; +A sudden thought flashed o'er him,-- +A dream of long ago,-- +He smote his leathern jerkin, +And murmured, "Even so!" + +"Come hither, God-be-Glorified, +And sit upon my knee; +Behold the dream unfolding, +Whereof I spake to thee +By the winter's hearth in Leyden +And on the stormy sea. +True is the dream's beginning,-- +So may its ending be! + +"I saw in the naked forest +Our scattered remnant cast, +A screen of shivering branches +Between them and the blast; +The snow was falling round them, +The dying fell as fast; +I looked to see them perish, +When lo, the vision passed. + +"Again mine eyes were opened;-- +The feeble had waxed strong, +The babes had grown to sturdy men, +The remnant was a throng; +By shadowed lake and winding stream, +And all the shores along, +The howling demons quaked to hear +The Christian's godly song. + +"They slept, the village fathers, +By river, lake, and shore, +When far adown the steep of Time +The vision rose once more +I saw along the winter snow +A spectral column pour, +And high above their broken ranks +A tattered flag they bore. + +"Their Leader rode before them, +Of bearing calm and high, +The light of Heaven's own kindling +Throned in his awful eye; +These were a Nation's champions +Her dread appeal to try. +God for the right! I faltered, +And lo, the train passed by. + +"Once more;--the strife is ended, +The solemn issue tried, +The Lord of Hosts, his mighty arm +Has helped our Israel's side; +Gray stone and grassy hillock +Tell where our martyrs died, +But peaceful smiles the harvest, +And stainless flows the tide. + +"A crash, as when some swollen cloud +Cracks o'er the tangled trees +With side to side, and spar to spar, +Whose smoking decks are these? +I know Saint George's blood-red cross, +Thou Mistress of the Seas, +But what is she whose streaming bars +Roll out before the breeze? + +"Ah, well her iron ribs are knit, +Whose thunders strive to quell +The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, +That pealed the Armada's knell! +The mist was cleared,--a wreath of stars +Rose o'er the crimsoned swell, +And, wavering from its haughty peak, +The cross of England fell! + +"O trembling Faith! though dark the morn, +A heavenly torch is thine; +While feebler races melt away, +And paler orbs decline, +Still shall the fiery pillar's ray +Along thy pathway shine, +To light the chosen tribe that sought +This Western Palestine. + +"I see the living tide roll on; +It crowns with flaming towers +The icy capes of Labrador, +The Spaniard's 'land of flowers'! +It streams beyond the splintered ridge +That parts the northern showers; +From eastern rock to sunset wave +The Continent is ours!" + +He ceased, the grim old soldier-saint, +Then softly bent to cheer +The Pilgrim-child, whose wasting face +Was meekly turned to hear; +And drew his toil-worn sleeve across +To brush the manly tear +From cheeks that never changed in woe, +And never blanched in fear. + +The weary Pilgrim slumbers, +His resting-place unknown; +His hands were crossed, his lips were closed, +The dust was o'er him strown; +The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf, +Along the sod were blown; +His mound has melted into earth, +His memory lives alone. + +So let it live unfading, +The memory of the dead, +Long as the pale anemone +Springs where their tears were shed, +Or, raining in the summer's wind +In flakes of burning red, +The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves +The turf where once they bled! + +Yea, when the frowning bulwarks +That guard this holy strand +Have sunk beneath the trampling surge +In beds of sparkling sand, +While in the waste of ocean +One hoary rock shall stand, +Be this its latest legend,-- +HERE WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND! + + + + + +THE STEAMBOAT + +SEE how yon flaming herald treads +The ridged and rolling waves, +As, crashing o'er their crested heads, +She bows her surly slaves! +With foam before and fire behind, +She rends the clinging sea, +That flies before the roaring wind, +Beneath her hissing lee. + +The morning spray, like sea-born flowers, +With heaped and glistening bells, +Falls round her fast, in ringing showers, +With every wave that swells; +And, burning o'er the midnight deep, +In lurid fringes thrown, +The living gems of ocean sweep +Along her flashing zone. + +With clashing wheel and lifting keel, +And smoking torch on high, +When winds are loud and billows reel, +She thunders foaming by; +When seas are silent and serene, +With even beam she glides, +The sunshine glimmering through the green +That skirts her gleaming sides. + +Now, like a wild, nymph, far apart +She veils her shadowy form, +The beating of her restless heart +Still sounding through the storm; +Now answers, like a courtly dame, +The reddening surges o'er, +With flying scarf of spangled flame, +The Pharos of the shore. + +To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, +Who trims his narrowed sail; +To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep +Her broad breast to the gale; +And many a foresail, scooped and strained, +Shall break from yard and stay, +Before this smoky wreath has stained +The rising mist of day. + +Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, +I see yon quivering mast; +The black throat of the hunted cloud +Is panting forth the blast! +An hour, and, whirled like winnowing chaff, +The giant surge shall fling +His tresses o'er yon pennon staff, +White as the sea-bird's wing. + +Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; +Nor wind nor wave shall tire +Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap +With floods of living fire; +Sleep on, and, when the morning light +Streams o'er the shining bay, +Oh think of those for whom the night +Shall never wake in day. + + + + + +LEXINGTON + +SLOWLY the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, +Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, +When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, +Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. +Waving her golden veil +Over the silent dale, +Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; +Hushed was his parting sigh, +While from his noble eye +Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. + +On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing +Calmly the first-born of glory have met; +Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing! +Look! with their life-blood the young grass is wet +Faint is the feeble breath, +Murmuring low in death, +"Tell to our sons how their fathers have died;" +Nerveless the iron hand, +Raised for its native land, +Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. + +Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, +From their far hamlets the yeomanry come; +As through the storm-clouds the thunder-burst rolling, +Circles the beat of the mustering drum. +Fast on the soldier's path +Darken the waves of wrath,-- +Long have they gathered and loud shall they fall; +Red glares the musket's flash, +Sharp rings the rifle's crash, +Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall. + +Gayly the plume of the horseman was dancing, +Never to shadow his cold brow again; +Proudly at morning the war-steed was prancing, +Reeking and panting he droops on the rein; +Pale is the lip of scorn, +Voiceless the trumpet horn, +Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on high; +Many a belted breast +Low on the turf shall rest +Ere the dark hunters the herd have passed by. + +Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is raving, +Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, +Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, +Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale; +Far as the tempest thrills +Over the darkened hills, +Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, +Roused by the tyrant band, +Woke all the mighty land, +Girded for battle, from mountain to main. + +Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying! +Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest, +While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying +Wraps the proud eagle they roused from his nest. +Borne on her Northern pine, +Long o'er the foaming brine +Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun; +Heaven keep her ever free, +Wide as o'er land and sea +Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won. + + + + + +ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL + +This "punch-bowl" was, according to old family tradition, a caudle-cup. +It is a massive piece of silver, its cherubs and other ornaments of +coarse repousse work, and has two handles like a loving-cup, by which +it was held, or passed from guest to guest. + +THIS ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times, +Of joyous days and jolly nights, and merry Christmas times; +They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true, +Who dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new. + +A Spanish galleon brought the bar,--so runs the ancient tale; +'T was hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail; +And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail, +He wiped his brow and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale. + +'T was purchased by an English squire to please his loving dame, +Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; +And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found, +'T was filled with candle spiced and hot, and handed smoking round. + +But, changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan divine, +Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine, +But hated punch and prelacy; and so it was, perhaps, +He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and schnapps. + +And then, of course, you know what's next: it left the Dutchman's shore +With those that in the Mayflower came,--a hundred souls and more,-- +Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes,-- +To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred loads. + +'T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing, dim, +When brave Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to the brim; +The little Captain stood and stirred the posset with his sword, +And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board. + +He poured the fiery Hollands in,--the man that never feared,-- +He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard; +And one by one the musketeers--the men that fought and prayed-- +All drank as 't were their mother's milk, and not a man afraid. + +That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle flew, +He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild halloo; +And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith and kin, +Run from the white man when you find he smells of "Hollands gin!" + +A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves and snows, +A thousand rubs had flattened down each little cherub's nose, +When once again the bowl was filled, but not in mirth or joy,-- +'T was mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting boy. + +Drink, John, she said, 't will do you good,--poor child, +you'll never bear +This working in the dismal trench, out in the midnight air; +And if--God bless me!--you were hurt, 't would keep away the chill. +So John did drink,--and well he wrought that night at Bunker's Hill! + +I tell you, there was generous warmth in good old English cheer; +I tell you, 't was a pleasant thought to bring its symbol here. +'T is but the fool that loves excess; hast thou a drunken soul? +Thy bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my silver bowl! + +I love the memory of the past,--its pressed yet fragrant flowers,-- +The moss that clothes its broken walls, the ivy on its towers; +Nay, this poor bauble it bequeathed,--my eyes grow moist and dim, +To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its brim. + +Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to me; +The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er the liquid be; +And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the sin +That dooms one to those dreadful words,--"My dear, where HAVE you been?" + + + + + +A SONG + +FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 1836 + +This song, which I had the temerity to sing myself (_felix auda-cia_, +Mr. Franklin Dexter had the goodness to call it), was sent in a little +too late to be printed with the official account of the celebration. It +was written at the suggestion of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who thought the +popular tune "The Poacher's Song" would be a good model for a lively +ballad or ditty. He himself wrote the admirable Latin song to be found +in the record of the meeting. + +WHEN the Puritans came over +Our hills and swamps to clear, +The woods were full of catamounts, +And Indians red as deer, +With tomahawks and scalping-knives, +That make folks' heads look queer; +Oh the ship from England used to bring +A hundred wigs a year! + +The crows came cawing through the air +To pluck the Pilgrims' corn, +The bears came snuffing round the door +Whene'er a babe was born, +The rattlesnakes were bigger round +Than the but of the old rams horn +The deacon blew at meeting time +On every "Sabbath" morn. + +But soon they knocked the wigwams down, +And pine-tree trunk and limb +Began to sprout among the leaves +In shape of steeples slim; +And out the little wharves were stretched +Along the ocean's rim, +And up the little school-house shot +To keep the boys in trim. + +And when at length the College rose, +The sachem cocked his eye +At every tutor's meagre ribs +Whose coat-tails whistled by +But when the Greek and Hebrew words +Came tumbling from his jaws, +The copper-colored children all +Ran screaming to the squaws. + +And who was on the Catalogue +When college was begun? +Two nephews of the President, +And the Professor's son; +(They turned a little Indian by, +As brown as any bun;) +Lord! how the seniors knocked about +The freshman class of one! + +They had not then the dainty things +That commons now afford, +But succotash and hominy +Were smoking on the board; +They did not rattle round in gigs, +Or dash in long-tailed blues, +But always on Commencement days +The tutors blacked their shoes. + +God bless the ancient Puritans! +Their lot was hard enough; +But honest hearts make iron arms, +And tender maids are tough; +So love and faith have formed and fed +Our true-born Yankee stuff, +And keep the kernel in the shell +The British found so rough! + + + + + +THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG + +The island referred to is a domain of princely proportions, which has +long been the seat of a generous hospitality. Naushon is its old Indian +name. William Swain, Esq., commonly known as "the Governor," was the +proprietor of it at the time when this song was written. Mr. John M. +Forbes is his worthy successor in territorial rights and as a hospitable +entertainer. The Island Book has been the recipient of many poems from +visitors and friends of the owners of the old mansion. + +No more the summer floweret charms, +The leaves will soon be sere, +And Autumn folds his jewelled arms +Around the dying year; +So, ere the waning seasons claim +Our leafless groves awhile, +With golden wine and glowing flame +We 'll crown our lonely isle. + +Once more the merry voices sound +Within the antlered hall, +And long and loud the baying hounds +Return the hunter's call; +And through the woods, and o'er the hill, +And far along the bay, +The driver's horn is sounding shrill,-- +Up, sportsmen, and away! + +No bars of steel or walls of stone +Our little empire bound, +But, circling with his azure zone, +The sea runs foaming round; +The whitening wave, the purpled skies, +The blue and lifted shore, +Braid with their dim and blending dyes +Our wide horizon o'er. + +And who will leave the grave debate +That shakes the smoky town, +To rule amid our island-state, +And wear our oak-leaf crown? +And who will be awhile content +To hunt our woodland game, +And leave the vulgar pack that scent +The reeking track of fame? + +Ah, who that shares in toils like these +Will sigh not to prolong +Our days beneath the broad-leaved trees, +Our nights of mirth and song? +Then leave the dust of noisy streets, +Ye outlaws of the wood, +And follow through his green retreats +Your noble Robin Hood. + + + + + +DEPARTED DAYS + +YES, dear departed, cherished days, +Could Memory's hand restore +Your morning light, your evening rays, +From Time's gray urn once more, +Then might this restless heart be still, +This straining eye might close, +And Hope her fainting pinions fold, +While the fair phantoms rose. + +But, like a child in ocean's arms, +We strive against the stream, +Each moment farther from the shore +Where life's young fountains gleam; +Each moment fainter wave the fields, +And wider rolls the sea; +The mist grows dark,--the sun goes down,-- +Day breaks,--and where are we? + + + + + +THE ONLY DAUGHTER + +ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE + +THEY bid me strike the idle strings, +As if my summer days +Had shaken sunbeams from their wings +To warm my autumn lays; +They bring to me their painted urn, +As if it were not time +To lift my gauntlet and to spurn +The lists of boyish rhyme; +And were it not that I have still +Some weakness in my heart +That clings around my stronger will +And pleads for gentler art, +Perchance I had not turned away +The thoughts grown tame with toil, +To cheat this lone and pallid ray, +That wastes the midnight oil. + +Alas! with every year I feel +Some roses leave my brow; +Too young for wisdom's tardy seal, +Too old for garlands now. +Yet, while the dewy breath of spring +Steals o'er the tingling air, +And spreads and fans each emerald wing +The forest soon shall wear. +How bright the opening year would seem, +Had I one look like thine +To meet me when the morning beam +Unseals these lids of mine! +Too long I bear this lonely lot, +That bids my heart run wild +To press the lips that love me not, +To clasp the stranger's child. + +How oft beyond the dashing seas, +Amidst those royal bowers, +Where danced the lilacs in the breeze, +And swung the chestnut-flowers, +I wandered like a wearied slave +Whose morning task is done, +To watch the little hands that gave +Their whiteness to the sun; +To revel in the bright young eyes, +Whose lustre sparkled through +The sable fringe of Southern skies +Or gleamed in Saxon blue! +How oft I heard another's name +Called in some truant's tone; +Sweet accents! which I longed to claim, +To learn and lisp my own! + +Too soon the gentle hands, that pressed +The ringlets of the child, +Are folded on the faithful breast +Where first he breathed and smiled; +Too oft the clinging arms untwine, +The melting lips forget, +And darkness veils the bridal shrine +Where wreaths and torches met; +If Heaven but leaves a single thread +Of Hope's dissolving chain, +Even when her parting plumes are spread, +It bids them fold again; +The cradle rocks beside the tomb; +The cheek now changed and chill +Smiles on us in the morning bloom +Of one that loves us still. + +Sweet image! I have done thee wrong +To claim this destined lay; +The leaf that asked an idle song +Must bear my tears away. +Yet, in thy memory shouldst thou keep +This else forgotten strain, +Till years have taught thine eyes to weep, +And flattery's voice is vain; +Oh then, thou fledgling of the nest, +Like the long-wandering dove, +Thy weary heart may faint for rest, +As mine, on changeless love; +And while these sculptured lines retrace +The hours now dancing by, +This vision of thy girlish grace +May cost thee, too, a sigh. + + + + + +SONG + +WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO CHARLES DICKENS +BY THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1, 1842 + +THE stars their early vigils keep, +The silent hours are near, +When drooping eyes forget to weep,-- +Yet still we linger here; +And what--the passing churl may ask-- +Can claim such wondrous power, +That Toil forgets his wonted task, +And Love his promised hour? + +The Irish harp no longer thrills, +Or breathes a fainter tone; +The clarion blast from Scotland's hills, +Alas! no more is blown; +And Passion's burning lip bewails +Her Harold's wasted fire, +Still lingering o'er the dust that veils +The Lord of England's lyre. + +But grieve not o'er its broken strings, +Nor think its soul hath died, +While yet the lark at heaven's gate sings, +As once o'er Avon's side; +While gentle summer sheds her bloom, +And dewy blossoms wave, +Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb +And Nelly's nameless grave. + +Thou glorious island of the sea! +Though wide the wasting flood +That parts our distant land from thee, +We claim thy generous blood; +Nor o'er thy far horizon springs +One hallowed star of fame, +But kindles, like an angel's wings, +Our western skies in flame! + + + + + +LINES + +RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE, +PITTSFIELD, MASS., AUGUST 23, 1844 + +COME back to your mother, ye children, for shame, +Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! +With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, +She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. + +Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes, +And breathe, like young eagles, the air of our plains; +Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives +Will declare it 's all nonsense insuring your lives. + +Come you of the law, who can talk, if you please, +Till the man in the moon will allow it's a cheese, +And leave "the old lady, that never tells lies," +To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes. + +Ye healers of men, for a moment decline +Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac line; +While you shut up your turnpike, your neighbors can go +The old roundabout road to the regions below. + +You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens, +And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens, +Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still +As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill. + +Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels, +With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels +No dodger behind, his bandannas to share, +No constable grumbling, "You must n't walk there!" + +In yonder green meadow, to memory dear, +He slaps a mosquito and brushes a tear; +The dew-drops hang round him on blossoms and shoots, +He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots. + +There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church; +That tree at its side had the flavor of birch; +Oh, sweet were the days of his juvenile tricks, +Though the prairie of youth had so many "big licks." + +By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps, +The boots fill with water, as if they were pumps, +Till, sated with rapture, he steals to his bed, +With a glow in his heart and a cold in his head. + +'T is past,--he is dreaming,--I see him again; +The ledger returns as by legerdemain; +His neckcloth is damp with an easterly flaw, +And he holds in his fingers an omnibus straw. + +He dreams the chill gust is a blossomy gale, +That the straw is a rose from his dear native vale; +And murmurs, unconscious of space and of time, +"A 1. Extra super. Ah, is n't it PRIME!" + +Oh, what are the prizes we perish to win +To the first little "shiner" we caught with a pin! +No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes +As the soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies! + +Then come from all parties and parts to our feast; +Though not at the "Astor," we'll give you at least +A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass, +And the best of old--water--at nothing a glass. + + + + + +NUX POSTCOENATICA + +I WAS sitting with my microscope, upon my parlor rug, +With a very heavy quarto and a very lively bug; +The true bug had been organized with only two antennae, +But the humbug in the copperplate would have them twice as many. + +And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the emptiness of art, +How we take a fragment for the whole, and call the whole a part, +When I heard a heavy footstep that was loud enough for two, +And a man of forty entered, exclaiming, "How d' ye do?" + +He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid flesh and bone; +He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was twenty stone; +(It's odd how hats expand their brims as riper years invade, +As if when life had reached its noon it wanted them for shade!) + +I lost my focus,--dropped my book,--the bug, who was a flea, +At once exploded, and commenced experiments on me. +They have a certain heartiness that frequently appalls,-- +Those mediaeval gentlemen in semilunar smalls! + +"My boy," he said, (colloquial ways,--the vast, broad-hatted man,) +"Come dine with us on Thursday next,--you must, you know you can; +We're going to have a roaring time, with lots of fun and noise, +Distinguished guests, et cetera, the JUDGE, and all the boys." + +Not so,--I said,--my temporal bones are showing pretty clear. +It 's time to stop,--just look and see that hair above this ear; +My golden days are more than spent,--and, what is very strange, +If these are real silver hairs, I'm getting lots of change. + +Besides--my prospects--don't you know that people won't employ +A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a boy? +And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot, +As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root? + +It's a very fine reflection, when you 're etching out a smile +On a copperplate of faces that would stretch at least a mile, +That, what with sneers from enemies and cheapening shrugs of friends, +It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labor lends! + +It's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you're screwing out a laugh, +That your very next year's income is diminished by a half, +And a little boy trips barefoot that Pegasus may go, +And the baby's milk is watered that your Helicon may flow! + +No;--the joke has been a good one,--but I'm getting fond of quiet, +And I don't like deviations from my customary diet; +So I think I will not go with you to hear the toasts and speeches, +But stick to old Montgomery Place, and have some pig and peaches. + +The fat man answered: Shut your mouth, and hear the genuine creed; +The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed; +The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, +And that young earthquake t' other day was great at shaking props. + +I tell you what, philosopher, if all the longest heads +That ever knocked their sinciputs in stretching on their beds +Were round one great mahogany, I'd beat those fine old folks +With twenty dishes, twenty fools, and twenty clever jokes! + +Why, if Columbus should be there, the company would beg +He'd show that little trick of his of balancing the egg! +Milton to Stilton would give in, and Solomon to Salmon, +And Roger Bacon be a bore, and Francis Bacon gammon! + +And as for all the "patronage" of all the clowns and boors +That squint their little narrow eyes at any freak of yours, +Do leave them to your prosier friends,--such fellows ought to die +When rhubarb is so very scarce and ipecac so high! + +And so I come,--like Lochinvar, to tread a single measure,-- +To purchase with a loaf of bread a sugar-plum of pleasure, +To enter for the cup of glass that's run for after dinner, +Which yields a single sparkling draught, +then breaks and cuts the winner. + +Ah, that's the way delusion comes,--a glass of old Madeira, +A pair of visual diaphragms revolved by Jane or Sarah, +And down go vows and promises without the slightest question +If eating words won't compromise the organs of digestion! + +And yet, among my native shades, beside my nursing mother, +Where every stranger seems a friend, and every friend a brother, +I feel the old convivial glow (unaided) o'er me stealing,-- +The warm, champagny, the old-particular brandy-punchy feeling. + +We're all alike;--Vesuvius flings the scoriae from his fountain, +But down they come in volleying rain back to the burning mountain; +We leave, like those volcanic stones, our precious Alma Mater, +But will keep dropping in again to see the dear old crater. + + + + + +VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER +PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, 1844 + +I WAS thinking last night, as I sat in the cars, +With the charmingest prospect of cinders and stars, +Next Thursday is--bless me!--how hard it will be, +If that cannibal president calls upon me! + +There is nothing on earth that he will not devour, +From a tutor in seed to a freshman in flower; +No sage is too gray, and no youth is too green, +And you can't be too plump, though you're never too lean. + +While others enlarge on the boiled and the roast, +He serves a raw clergyman up with a toast, +Or catches some doctor, quite tender and young, +And basely insists on a bit of his tongue. + +Poor victim, prepared for his classical spit, +With a stuffing of praise and a basting of wit, +You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle your brow, +But you're up on your legs, and you're in for it now. + +Oh think of your friends,--they are waiting to hear +Those jokes that are thought so remarkably queer; +And all the Jack Horners of metrical buns +Are prying and fingering to pick out the puns. + +Those thoughts which, like chickens, will always thrive best +When reared by the heat of the natural nest, +Will perish if hatched from their embryo dream +In the mist and the glow of convivial steam. + +Oh pardon me, then, if I meekly retire, +With a very small flash of ethereal fire; +No rubbing will kindle your Lucifer match, +If the fiz does not follow the primitive scratch. + +Dear friends, who are listening so sweetly the while, +With your lips double--reefed in a snug little smile, +I leave you two fables, both drawn from the deep,-- +The shells you can drop, but the pearls you may keep. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +The fish called the FLOUNDER, perhaps you may know, +Has one side for use and another for show; +One side for the public, a delicate brown, +And one that is white, which he always keeps down. + +A very young flounder, the flattest of flats, +(And they 're none of them thicker than opera hats,) +Was speaking more freely than charity taught +Of a friend and relation that just had been caught. + +"My! what an exposure! just see what a sight! +I blush for my race,--he is showing his white +Such spinning and wriggling,--why, what does he wish? +How painfully small to respectable fish!" + +Then said an Old SCULPIN,--"My freedom excuse, +You're playing the cobbler with holes in your shoes; +Your brown side is up,--but just wait till you're tried +And you'll find that all flounders are white on one side." + + . . . . . . . . . . + +There's a slice near the PICKEREL'S pectoral fins, +Where the thorax leaves off and the venter begins, +Which his brother, survivor of fish-hooks and lines, +Though fond of his family, never declines. + +He loves his relations; he feels they'll be missed; +But that one little tidbit he cannot resist; +So your bait may be swallowed, no matter how fast, +For you catch your next fish with a piece of the last. + +And thus, O survivor, whose merciless fate +Is to take the next hook with the president's bait, +You are lost while you snatch from the end of his line +The morsel he rent from this bosom of mine! + + + + + +A MODEST REQUEST + +COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE DINNER AT +PRESIDENT EVERETT'S INAUGURATION + +SCENE,--a back parlor in a certain square, +Or court, or lane,--in short, no matter where; +Time,--early morning, dear to simple souls +Who love its sunshine and its fresh-baked rolls; +Persons,--take pity on this telltale blush, +That, like the AEthiop, whispers, "Hush, oh hush!" + +Delightful scene! where smiling comfort broods, +Nor business frets, nor anxious care intrudes; +_O si sic omnia_ I were it ever so! +But what is stable in this world below? +_Medio e fonte_,--Virtue has her faults,-- +The clearest fountains taste of Epsom salts; +We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry,-- +Its central dimple holds a drowning fly +Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams, +But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams; +No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, +Can keep out death, the postman, or the bore. +Oh for a world where peace and silence reign, +And blunted dulness verebrates in vain! +--The door-bell jingles,--enter Richard Fox, +And takes this letter from his leathern box. + +"Dear Sir,-- + In writing on a former day, +One little matter I forgot to say; +I now inform you in a single line, +On Thursday next our purpose is to dine. +The act of feeding, as you understand, +Is but a fraction of the work in hand; +Its nobler half is that ethereal meat +The papers call 'the intellectual treat;' +Songs, speeches, toasts, around the festive board +Drowned in the juice the College pumps afford; +For only water flanks our knives and forks, +So, sink or float, we swim without the corks. +Yours is the art, by native genius taught, +To clothe in eloquence the naked thought; +Yours is the skill its music to prolong +Through the sweet effluence of mellifluous song; +Yours the quaint trick to cram the pithy line +That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine; +And since success your various gifts attends, +We--that is, I and all your numerous friends-- +Expect from you--your single self a host-- +A speech, a song, excuse me, and a toast; +Nay, not to haggle on so small a claim, +A few of each, or several of the same. +(Signed), Yours, most truly, ________" + + No! my sight must fail,-- +If that ain't Judas on the largest scale! +Well, this is modest;--nothing else than that? +My coat? my boots? my pantaloons? my hat? +My stick? my gloves? as well as all my wits, +Learning and linen,--everything that fits! + +Jack, said my lady, is it grog you'll try, +Or punch, or toddy, if perhaps you're dry? +Ah, said the sailor, though I can't refuse, +You know, my lady, 't ain't for me to choose; +I'll take the grog to finish off my lunch, +And drink the toddy while you mix the punch. + + . . . . . . . . + +THE SPEECH. (The speaker, rising to be seen, +Looks very red, because so very green.) +I rise--I rise--with unaffected fear, +(Louder!--speak louder!--who the deuce can hear?) +I rise--I said--with undisguised dismay +--Such are my feelings as I rise, I say +Quite unprepared to face this learned throng, +Already gorged with eloquence and song; +Around my view are ranged on either hand +The genius, wisdom, virtue of the land; +"Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed" +Close at my elbow stir their lemonade; +Would you like Homer learn to write and speak, +That bench is groaning with its weight of Greek; +Behold the naturalist who in his teens +Found six new species in a dish of greens; +And lo, the master in a statelier walk, +Whose annual ciphering takes a ton of chalk; +And there the linguist, who by common roots +Thro' all their nurseries tracks old Noah's shoots,-- +How Shem's proud children reared the Assyrian piles, +While Ham's were scattered through the Sandwich Isles! + +--Fired at the thought of all the present shows, +My kindling fancy down the future flows: +I see the glory of the coming days +O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming rays; +Near and more near the radiant morning draws +In living lustre (rapturous applause); +From east to west the blazing heralds run, +Loosed from the chariot of the ascending sun, +Through the long vista of uncounted years +In cloudless splendor (three tremendous cheers). +My eye prophetic, as the depths unfold, +Sees a new advent of the age of gold; +While o'er the scene new generations press, +New heroes rise the coming time to bless,-- +Not such as Homer's, who, we read in Pope, +Dined without forks and never heard of soap,-- +Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel brings, +Lean, hungry, savage, anti-everythings, +Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style,-- +But genuine articles, the true Carlyle; +While far on high the blazing orb shall shed +Its central light on Harvard's holy head, +And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled +Here in the focus of the new-born world +The speaker stops, and, trampling down the pause, +Roars through the hall the thunder of applause, +One stormy gust of long-suspended Ahs! +One whirlwind chaos of insane hurrahs! + + . . . . . . . . + +THE SONG. But this demands a briefer line,-- +A shorter muse, and not the old long Nine; +Long metre answers for a common song, +Though common metre does not answer long. + +She came beneath the forest dome +To seek its peaceful shade, +An exile from her ancient home, +A poor, forsaken maid; +No banner, flaunting high above, +No blazoned cross, she bore; +One holy book of light and love +Was all her worldly store. + +The dark brown shadows passed away, +And wider spread the green, +And where the savage used to stray +The rising mart was seen; +So, when the laden winds had brought +Their showers of golden rain, +Her lap some precious gleanings caught, +Like Ruth's amid the grain. + +But wrath soon gathered uncontrolled +Among the baser churls, +To see her ankles red with gold, +Her forehead white with pearls. +"Who gave to thee the glittering bands +That lace thine azure veins? +Who bade thee lift those snow-white hands +We bound in gilded chains?" + +"These are the gems my children gave," +The stately dame replied; +"The wise, the gentle, and the brave, +I nurtured at my side. +If envy still your bosom stings, +Take back their rims of gold; +My sons will melt their wedding-rings, +And give a hundred-fold!" + + . . . . . . . . + +THE TOAST. Oh tell me, ye who thoughtless ask +Exhausted nature for a threefold task, +In wit or pathos if one share remains, +A safe investment for an ounce of brains! +Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun, +A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one. +Turned by the current of some stronger wit +Back from the object that you mean to hit, +Like the strange missile which the Australian throws, +Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose. +One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, +One trivial letter ruins all, left out; +A knot can choke a felon into clay, +A not will save him, spelt without the k; +The smallest word has some unguarded spot, +And danger lurks in i without a dot. + +Thus great Achilles, who had shown his zeal +In healing wounds, died of a wounded heel; +Unhappy chief, who, when in childhood doused, +Had saved his bacon had his feet been soused +Accursed heel that killed a hero stout +Oh, had your mother known that you were out, +Death had not entered at the trifling part +That still defies the small chirurgeon's art +With corns and bunions,--not the glorious John, +Who wrote the book we all have pondered on, +But other bunions, bound in fleecy hose, +To "Pilgrim's Progress" unrelenting foes! + + . . . . . . . . + +A HEALTH, unmingled with the reveller's wine, +To him whose title is indeed divine; +Truth's sleepless watchman on her midnight tower, +Whose lamp burns brightest when the tempests lower. +Oh, who can tell with what a leaden flight +Drag the long watches of his weary night, +While at his feet the hoarse and blinding gale +Strews the torn wreck and bursts the fragile sail, +When stars have faded, when the wave is dark, +When rocks and sands embrace the foundering bark! +But still he pleads with unavailing cry, +Behold the light, O wanderer, look or die! + +A health, fair Themis! Would the enchanted vine +Wreathed its green tendrils round this cup of thine! +If Learning's radiance fill thy modern court, +Its glorious sunshine streams through Blackstone's port. + +Lawyers are thirsty, and their clients too, +Witness at least, if memory serve me true, +Those old tribunals, famed for dusty suits, +Where men sought justice ere they brushed their boots; +And what can match, to solve a learned doubt, +The warmth within that comes from "cold with-out"? + +Health to the art whose glory is to give +The crowning boon that makes it life to live. +Ask not her home;--the rock where nature flings +Her arctic lichen, last of living things; +The gardens, fragrant with the orient's balm, +From the low jasmine to the star-like palm, +Hail her as mistress o'er the distant waves, +And yield their tribute to her wandering slaves. +Wherever, moistening the ungrateful soil, +The tear of suffering tracks the path of toil, +There, in the anguish of his fevered hours, +Her gracious finger points to healing flowers; +Where the lost felon steals away to die, +Her soft hand waves before his closing eye; +Where hunted misery finds his darkest lair, +The midnight taper shows her kneeling there! +VIRTUE,--the guide that men and nations own; +And LAW,--the bulwark that protects her throne; +And HEALTH,--to all its happiest charm that lends; +These and their servants, man's untiring friends +Pour the bright lymph that Heaven itself lets fall, +In one fair bumper let us toast them all! + + + + + +THE PARTING WORD + +I MUST leave thee, lady sweet +Months shall waste before we meet; +Winds are fair and sails are spread, +Anchors leave their ocean bed; +Ere this shining day grow dark, +Skies shall gird my shoreless bark. +Through thy tears, O lady mine, +Read thy lover's parting line. + +When the first sad sun shall set, +Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet; +When the morning star shall rise, +Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes; +When the second sun goes down, +Thou more tranquil shalt be grown, +Taught too well that wild despair +Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair. + +All the first unquiet week +Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek; +In the first month's second half +Thou shalt once attempt to laugh; +Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip, +Slightly puckering round the lip, +Till at last, in sorrow's spite, +Samuel makes thee laugh outright. + +While the first seven mornings last, +Round thy chamber bolted fast +Many a youth shall fume and pout, +"Hang the girl, she's always out!" +While the second week goes round, +Vainly shall they ring and pound; +When the third week shall begin, +"Martha, let the creature in." + +Now once more the flattering throng +Round thee flock with smile and song, +But thy lips, unweaned as yet, +Lisp, "Oh, how can I forget!" +Men and devils both contrive +Traps for catching girls alive; +Eve was duped, and Helen kissed,-- +How, oh how can you resist? + +First be careful of your fan, +Trust it not to youth or man; +Love has filled a pirate's sail +Often with its perfumed gale. +Mind your kerchief most of all, +Fingers touch when kerchiefs fall; +Shorter ell than mercers clip +Is the space from hand to lip. + +Trust not such as talk in tropes, +Full of pistols, daggers, ropes; +All the hemp that Russia bears +Scarce would answer lovers' prayers; +Never thread was spun so fine, +Never spider stretched the line, +Would not hold the lovers true +That would really swing for you. + +Fiercely some shall storm and swear, +Beating breasts in black despair; +Others murmur with a sigh, +You must melt, or they will die: +Painted words on empty lies, +Grubs with wings like butterflies; +Let them die, and welcome, too; +Pray what better could they do? + +Fare thee well: if years efface +From thy heart love's burning trace, +Keep, oh keep that hallowed seat +From the tread of vulgar feet; +If the blue lips of the sea +Wait with icy kiss for me, +Let not thine forget the vow, +Sealed how often, Love, as now. + + + + + +A SONG OF OTHER DAYS + +As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet +Breathes soft the Alpine rose, +So through life's desert springing sweet +The flower of friendship grows; +And as where'er the roses grow +Some rain or dew descends, +'T is nature's law that wine should flow +To wet the lips of friends. +Then once again, before we part, +My empty glass shall ring; +And he that has the warmest heart +Shall loudest laugh and sing. + +They say we were not born to eat; +But gray-haired sages think +It means, Be moderate in your meat, +And partly live to drink. +For baser tribes the rivers flow +That know not wine or song; +Man wants but little drink below, +But wants that little strong. +Then once again, etc. + +If one bright drop is like the gem +That decks a monarch's crown, +One goblet holds a diadem +Of rubies melted down! +A fig for Caesar's blazing brow, +But, like the Egyptian queen, +Bid each dissolving jewel glow +My thirsty lips between. +Then once again, etc. + +The Grecian's mound, the Roman's urn, +Are silent when we call, +Yet still the purple grapes return +To cluster on the wall; +It was a bright Immortal's head +They circled with the vine, +And o'er their best and bravest dead +They poured the dark-red wine. +Then once again, etc. + +Methinks o'er every sparkling glass +Young Eros waves his wings, +And echoes o'er its dimples pass +From dead Anacreon's strings; +And, tossing round its beaded brim +Their locks of floating gold, +With bacchant dance and choral hymn +Return the nymphs of old. +Then once again, etc. + +A welcome then to joy and mirth, +From hearts as fresh as ours, +To scatter o'er the dust of earth +Their sweetly mingled flowers; +'T is Wisdom's self the cup that fills +In spite of Folly's frown, +And Nature, from her vine-clad hills, +That rains her life-blood down! +Then once again, before we part, +My empty glass shall ring; +And he that has the warmest heart +Shall loudest laugh and sing. + + + + + +SONG + +FOR A TEMPERANCE DINNER TO WHICH LADIES WERE +INVITED (NEW YORK MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, +NOVEMBER, 1842) + +A HEALTH to dear woman! She bids us untwine, +From the cup it encircles, the fast-clinging vine; +But her cheek in its crystal with pleasure will glow, +And mirror its bloom in the bright wave below. + +A health to sweet woman! The days are no more +When she watched for her lord till the revel was o'er, +And smoothed the white pillow, and blushed when he came, +As she pressed her cold lips on his forehead of flame. + +Alas for the loved one! too spotless and fair +The joys of his banquet to chasten and share; +Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, +And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine. + +Joy smiles in the fountain, health flows in the rills, +As their ribbons of silver unwind from the hills; +They breathe not the mist of the bacchanal's dream, +But the lilies of innocence float on their stream. + +Then a health and a welcome to woman once more! +She brings us a passport that laughs at our door; +It is written on crimson,--its letters are pearls,-- +It is countersigned Nature.--So, room for the Girls! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT + +THE pledge of Friendship! it is still divine, +Though watery floods have quenched its burning wine; +Whatever vase the sacred drops may hold, +The gourd, the shell, the cup of beaten gold, +Around its brim the hand of Nature throws +A garland sweeter than the banquet's rose. +Bright are the blushes of the vine-wreathed bowl, +Warm with the sunshine of Anacreon's soul, +But dearer memories gild the tasteless wave +That fainting Sidney perished as he gave. +'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow, +Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow,-- +The diamond dew-drops sparkling through the sand, +Scooped by the Arab in his sunburnt hand, +Or the dark streamlet oozing from the snow, +Where creep and crouch the shuddering Esquimaux; +Ay, in the stream that, ere again we meet, +Shall burst the pavement, glistening at our feet, +And, stealing silent from its leafy hills, +Thread all our alleys with its thousand rills,-- +In each pale draught if generous feeling blend, +And o'er the goblet friend shall smile on friend, +Even cold Cochituate every heart shall warm, +And genial Nature still defy reform! + + + + + +A RHYMED LESSON (URANIA) + +This poem was delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library +Association, October 14, 1846. + +YES, dear Enchantress,--wandering far and long, +In realms unperfumed by the breath of song, +Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets around, +And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground, +Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, +Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, +Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, +Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, +Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme +That blue-eyed misses warble out of time;-- +Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, +Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, +Freed for a moment from the chains of toil, +I tread once more thy consecrated soil; +Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, +Thy subject still, and loyal to thy throne! + +My dazzled glance explores the crowded hall; +Alas, how vain to hope the smiles of all! +I know my audience. All the gay and young +Love the light antics of a playful tongue; +And these, remembering some expansive line +My lips let loose among the nuts and wine, +Are all impatience till the opening pun +Proclaims the witty shamfight is begun. +Two fifths at least, if not the total half, +Have come infuriate for an earthquake laugh; +I know full well what alderman has tied +His red bandanna tight about his side; +I see the mother, who, aware that boys +Perform their laughter with superfluous noise, +Beside her kerchief brought an extra one +To stop the explosions of her bursting son; +I know a tailor, once a friend of mine, +Expects great doings in the button line,-- +For mirth's concussions rip the outward case, +And plant the stitches in a tenderer place. +I know my audience,--these shall have their due; +A smile awaits them ere my song is through! + +I know myself. Not servile for applause, +My Muse permits no deprecating clause; +Modest or vain, she will not be denied +One bold confession due to honest pride; +And well she knows the drooping veil of song +Shall save her boldness from the caviller's wrong. +Her sweeter voice the Heavenly Maid imparts +To tell the secrets of our aching hearts +For this, a suppliant, captive, prostrate, bound, +She kneels imploring at the feet of sound; +For this, convulsed in thought's maternal pains, +She loads her arms with rhyme's resounding chains; +Faint though the music of her fetters be, +It lends one charm,--her lips are ever free! + +Think not I come, in manhood's fiery noon, +To steal his laurels from the stage buffoon; +His sword of lath the harlequin may wield; +Behold the star upon my lifted shield +Though the just critic pass my humble name, +And sweeter lips have drained the cup of fame, +While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's lords, +The soul within was tuned to deeper chords! +Say, shall my arms, in other conflicts taught +To swing aloft the ponderous mace of thought, +Lift, in obedience to a school-girl's law, +Mirth's tinsel wand or laughter's tickling straw? +Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling spear +The pure, warm hearts that bid me welcome here? +No! while I wander through the land of dreams, +To strive with great and play with trifling themes, +Let some kind meaning fill the varied line. +You have your judgment; will you trust to mine? + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Between two breaths what crowded mysteries lie,-- +The first short gasp, the last and long-drawn sigh! +Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, +Forth from the darkness of the past we glide, +As living shadows for a moment seen +In airy pageant on the eternal screen, +Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame, +Then seek the dust and stillness whence we came. + +But whence and why, our trembling souls inquire, +Caught these dim visions their awakening fire? +Oh, who forgets when first the piercing thought +Through childhood's musings found its way unsought? +I AM;--I LIVE. The mystery and the fear +When the dread question, WHAT HAS BROUGHT ME HERE? +Burst through life's twilight, as before the sun +Roll the deep thunders of the morning gun! + +Are angel faces, silent and serene, +Bent on the conflicts of this little scene, +Whose dream-like efforts, whose unreal strife, +Are but the preludes to a larger life? + +Or does life's summer see the end of all, +These leaves of being mouldering as they fall, +As the old poet vaguely used to deem, +As WESLEY questioned in his youthful dream? +Oh, could such mockery reach our souls indeed, +Give back the Pharaohs' or the Athenian's creed; +Better than this a Heaven of man's device,-- +The Indian's sports, the Moslem's paradise! + +Or is our being's only end and aim +To add new glories to our Maker's name, +As the poor insect, shrivelling in the blaze, +Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming rays? +Does earth send upward to the Eternal's ear +The mingled discords of her jarring sphere +To swell his anthem, while creation rings +With notes of anguish from its shattered strings? +Is it for this the immortal Artist means +These conscious, throbbing, agonized machines? + +Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can bind +In chains like these the all-embracing Mind; +No! two-faced bigot, thou dost ill reprove +The sensual, selfish, yet benignant Jove, +And praise a tyrant throned in lonely pride, +Who loves himself, and cares for naught beside; +Who gave thee, summoned from primeval night, +A thousand laws, and not a single right,-- +A heart to feel, and quivering nerves to thrill, +The sense of wrong, the death-defying will; +Who girt thy senses with this goodly frame, +Its earthly glories and its orbs of flame, +Not for thyself, unworthy of a thought, +Poor helpless victim of a life unsought, +But all for him, unchanging and supreme, +The heartless centre of thy frozen scheme. + +Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll, +Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul; +The God of love, who gave the breath that warms +All living dust in all its varied forms, +Asks not the tribute of a world like this +To fill the measure of his perfect bliss. +Though winged with life through all its radiant shores, +Creation flowed with unexhausted stores +Cherub and seraph had not yet enjoyed; +For this he called thee from the quickening void! +Nor this alone; a larger gift was thine, +A mightier purpose swelled his vast design +Thought,--conscience,--will,--to make them all thine own, +He rent a pillar from the eternal throne! + +Made in his image, thou must nobly dare +The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. +With eye uplifted, it is thine to view, +From thine own centre, Heaven's o'erarching blue; +So round thy heart a beaming circle lies +No fiend can blot, no hypocrite disguise; +From all its orbs one cheering voice is heard, +Full to thine ear it bears the Father's word, +Now, as in Eden where his first-born trod +"Seek thine own welfare, true to man and God!" +Think not too meanly of thy low estate; +Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create! +Remember whose the sacred lips that tell, +Angels approve thee when thy choice is well; +Remember, One, a judge of righteous men, +Swore to spare Sodom if she held but ten! +Use well the freedom which thy Master gave, +(Think'st thou that Heaven can tolerate a slave?) +And He who made thee to be just and true +Will bless thee, love thee,--ay, respect thee too! + +Nature has placed thee on a changeful tide, +To breast its waves, but not without a guide; +Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, +Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, +As the true current it will falsely feel, +Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; +So will thy CONSCIENCE lose its balanced truth +If passion's lightning fall upon thy youth, +So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold +Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. +Go to yon tower, where busy science plies +Her vast antennae, feeling through the skies +That little vernier on whose slender lines +The midnight taper trembles as it shines, +A silent index, tracks the planets' march +In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch; +Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns, +And marks the spot where Uranus returns. +So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, +The living index which thy Maker traced +Repeats the line each starry Virtue draws +Through the wide circuit of creation's laws; +Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray +Where the dark shadows of temptation stray, +But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light, +And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of night. + +"What is thy creed?" a hundred lips inquire; +"Thou seekest God beneath what Christian spire?" +Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies +Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice; +When man's first incense rose above the plain, +Of earth's two altars one was built by Cain! +Uncursed by doubt, our earliest creed we take; +We love the precepts for the teacher's sake; +The simple lessons which the nursery taught +Fell soft and stainless on the buds of thought, +And the full blossom owes its fairest hue +To those sweet tear-drops of affection's dew. +Too oft the light that led our earlier hours +Fades with the perfume of our cradle flowers; +The clear, cold question chills to frozen doubt; +Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without +Oh then, if Reason waver at thy side, +Let humbler Memory be thy gentle guide; +Go to thy birthplace, and, if faith was there, +Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer! + +Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying arm, +And age, like distance, lends a double charm; +In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom, +What holy awe invests the saintly tomb! +There pride will bow, and anxious care expand, +And creeping avarice come with open hand; +The gay can weep, the impious can adore, +From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel floor +Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains +Through the faint halos of the irised panes. +Yet there are graves, whose rudely-shapen sod +Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod; +Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot, +Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root, +Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name, +The eternal record shall at length proclaim +Pure as the holiest in the long array +Of hooded, mitred, or tiaraed clay! + +Come, seek the air; some pictures we may gain +Whose passing shadows shall not be in vain; +Not from the scenes that crowd the stranger's soil, +Not from our own amidst the stir of toil, +But when the Sabbath brings its kind release, +And Care lies slumbering on the lap of Peace. + +The air is hushed, the street is holy ground; +Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound +As one by one awakes each silent tongue, +It tells the turret whence its voice is flung. +The Chapel, last of sublunary things +That stirs our echoes with the name of Kings, +Whose bell, just glistening from the font and forge, +Rolled its proud requiem for the second George, +Solemn and swelling, as of old it rang, +Flings to the wind its deep, sonorous clang; +The simpler pile, that, mindful of the hour +When Howe's artillery shook its half-built tower, +Wears on its bosom, as a bride might do, +The iron breastpin which the "Rebels" threw, +Wakes the sharp echoes with the quivering thrill +Of keen vibrations, tremulous and shrill; +Aloft, suspended in the morning's fire, +Crash the vast cymbals from the Southern spire; +The Giant, standing by the elm-clad green, +His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene, +Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, +Swings from its brim the swollen floods of sound; +While, sad with memories of the olden time, +Throbs from his tower the Northern Minstrel's chime,-- +Faint, single tones, that spell their ancient song, +But tears still follow as they breathe along. + +Child of the soil, whom fortune sends to range +Where man and nature, faith and customs change, +Borne in thy memory, each familiar tone +Mourns on the winds that sigh in every zone. +When Ceylon sweeps thee with her perfumed breeze +Through the warm billows of the Indian seas; +When--ship and shadow blended both in one-- +Flames o'er thy mast the equatorial sun, +From sparkling midnight to refulgent noon +Thy canvas swelling with the still monsoon; +When through thy shrouds the wild tornado sings, +And thy poor sea-bird folds her tattered wings,-- +Oft will delusion o'er thy senses steal, +And airy echoes ring the Sabbath peal +Then, dim with grateful tears, in long array +Rise the fair town, the island-studded bay, +Home, with its smiling board, its cheering fire, +The half-choked welcome of the expecting sire, +The mother's kiss, and, still if aught remain, +Our whispering hearts shall aid the silent strain. +Ah, let the dreamer o'er the taffrail lean +To muse unheeded, and to weep unseen; +Fear not the tropic's dews, the evening's chills, +His heart lies warm among his triple hills! + +Turned from her path by this deceitful gleam, +My wayward fancy half forgets her theme. +See through the streets that slumbered in repose +The living current of devotion flows, +Its varied forms in one harmonious band +Age leading childhood by its dimpled hand; +Want, in the robe whose faded edges fall +To tell of rags beneath the tartan shawl; +And wealth, in silks that, fluttering to appear, +Lift the deep borders of the proud cashmere. +See, but glance briefly, sorrow-worn and pale, +Those sunken cheeks beneath the widow's veil; +Alone she wanders where with HIM she trod, +No arm to stay her, but she leans on God. +While other doublets deviate here and there, +What secret handcuff binds that pretty pair? +Compactest couple! pressing side to side,-- +Ah, the white bonnet that reveals the bride! +By the white neckcloth, with its straitened tie, +The sober hat, the Sabbath-speaking eye, +Severe and smileless, he that runs may read +The stern disciple of Geneva's creed +Decent and slow, behold his solemn march; +Silent he enters through yon crowded arch. +A livelier bearing of the outward man, +The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan, +Now smartly raised or half profanely twirled,-- +A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day world,-- +Tell their plain story; yes, thine eyes behold +A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. +Down the chill street that curves in gloomiest shade +What marks betray yon solitary maid? +The cheek's red rose that speaks of balmier air, +The Celtic hue that shades her braided hair, +The gilded missal in her kerchief tied,-- +Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side! +Sister in toil, though blanched by colder skies, +That left their azure in her downcast eyes, +See pallid Margaret, Labor's patient child, +Scarce weaned from home, the nursling of the wild, +Where white Katahdin o'er the horizon shines, +And broad Penobscot dashes through the pines. +Still, as she hastes, her careful fingers hold +The unfailing hymn-book in its cambric fold. +Six days at drudgery's heavy wheel she stands, +The seventh sweet morning folds her weary hands. +Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure +He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor! + +This weekly picture faithful Memory draws, +Nor claims the noisy tribute of applause; +Faint is the glow such barren hopes can lend, +And frail the line that asks no loftier end. +Trust me, kind listener, I will yet beguile +Thy saddened features of the promised smile. +This magic mantle thou must well divide, +It has its sable and its ermine side; +Yet, ere the lining of the robe appears, +Take thou in silence what I give in tears. + +Dear listening soul, this transitory scene +Of murmuring stillness, busily serene,-- +This solemn pause, the breathing-space of man, +The halt of toil's exhausted caravan,-- +Comes sweet with music to thy wearied ear; +Rise with its anthems to a holier sphere! + +Deal meekly, gently, with the hopes that guide +The lowliest brother straying from thy side +If right, they bid thee tremble for thine own; +If wrong, the verdict is for God alone. + +What though the champions of thy faith esteem +The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream; +Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife +Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life? + +Let my free soul, expanding as it can, +Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan; +But Calvin's dogma shall my lips deride? +In that stern faith my angel Mary died; +Or ask if mercy's milder creed can save, +Sweet sister, risen from thy new-made grave? + +True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled +That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child; +Must thou be raking in the crumbled past +For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast? +See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile +The whitened skull of old Servetus smile! +Round her young heart thy "Romish Upas" threw +Its firm, deep fibres, strengthening as she grew; +Thy sneering voice may call them "Popish tricks," +Her Latin prayers, her dangling crucifix, +But De Profundis blessed her father's grave, +That "idol" cross her dying mother gave! +What if some angel looks with equal eyes +On her and thee, the simple and the wise, +Writes each dark fault against thy brighter creed, +And drops a tear with every foolish bead! +Grieve, as thou must, o'er history's reeking page; +Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age; +Strive with the wanderer from the better path, +Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath; +Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, +Have thine own faith,--but hope and pray for all! + +Faith; Conscience; Love. A meaner task remains, +And humbler thoughts must creep in lowlier strains. +Shalt thou be honest? Ask the worldly schools, +And all will tell thee knaves are busier fools; +Prudent? Industrious? Let not modern pens +Instruct "Poor Richard's" fellow-citizens. + +Be firm! One constant element in luck +Is genuine solid old Teutonic pluck. +See yon tall shaft; it felt the earthquake's thrill, +Clung to its base, and greets the sunrise still. + +Stick to your aim: the mongrel's hold will slip, +But only crowbars loose the bulldog's grip; +Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields +Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields! + +Yet in opinions look not always back,-- +Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track; +Leave what you've done for what you have to do; +Don't be "consistent," but be simply true. + +Don't catch the fidgets; you have found your place +Just in the focus of a nervous race, +Fretful to change and rabid to discuss, +Full of excitements, always in a fuss. +Think of the patriarchs; then compare as men +These lean-cheeked maniacs of the tongue and pen! +Run, if you like, but try to keep your breath; +Work like a man, but don't be worked to death; +And with new notions,--let me change the rule,-- +Don't strike the iron till it 's slightly cool. + +Choose well your set; our feeble nature seeks +The aid of clubs, the countenance of cliques; +And with this object settle first of all +Your weight of metal and your size of ball. +Track not the steps of such as hold you cheap, +Too mean to prize, though good enough to keep; +The "real, genuine, no-mistake Tom Thumbs" +Are little people fed on great men's crumbs. +Yet keep no followers of that hateful brood +That basely mingles with its wholesome food +The tumid reptile, which, the poet said, +Doth wear a precious jewel in his head. + +If the wild filly, "Progress," thou wouldst ride, +Have young companions ever at thy side; +But wouldst thou stride the stanch old mare, "Success," +Go with thine elders, though they please thee less. +Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves, +And on thy dial write, "Beware of thieves!" +Felon of minutes, never taught to feel +The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal, +Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, +But spare the right,--it holds my golden time! + +Does praise delight thee? Choose some _ultra_ side,-- +A sure old recipe, and often tried; +Be its apostle, congressman, or bard, +Spokesman or jokesman, only drive it hard; +But know the forfeit which thy choice abides, +For on two wheels the poor reformer rides,-- +One black with epithets the _anti_ throws, +One white with flattery painted by the pros. + +Though books on MANNERS are not out of print, +An honest tongue may drop a harmless hint. +Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet, +To spin your wordy fabric in the street; +While you are emptying your colloquial pack, +The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back. +Nor cloud his features with the unwelcome tale +Of how he looks, if haply thin and pale; +Health is a subject for his child, his wife, +And the rude office that insures his life. +Look in his face, to meet thy neighbor's soul, +Not on his garments, to detect a hole; +"How to observe" is what thy pages show, +Pride of thy sex, Miss Harriet Martineau! +Oh, what a precious book the one would be +That taught observers what they 're NOT to see! + +I tell in verse--'t were better done in prose-- +One curious trick that everybody knows; +Once form this habit, and it's very strange +How long it sticks, how hard it is to change. +Two friendly people, both disposed to smile, +Who meet, like others, every little while, +Instead of passing with a pleasant bow, +And "How d' ye do?" or "How 's your uncle now?" + +Impelled by feelings in their nature kind, +But slightly weak and somewhat undefined, +Rush at each other, make a sudden stand, +Begin to talk, expatiate, and expand; +Each looks quite radiant, seems extremely struck, +Their meeting so was such a piece of luck; +Each thinks the other thinks he 's greatly pleased +To screw the vice in which they both are squeezed; +So there they talk, in dust, or mud, or snow, +Both bored to death, and both afraid to go! +Your hat once lifted, do not hang your fire, +Nor, like slow Ajax, fighting still, retire; +When your old castor on your crown you clap, +Go off; you've mounted your percussion cap. + +Some words on LANGUAGE may be well applied, +And take them kindly, though they touch your pride. +Words lead to things; a scale is more precise,-- +Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking, vice. +Our cold Northeaster's icy fetter clips +The native freedom of the Saxon lips; +See the brown peasant of the plastic South, +How all his passions play about his mouth! +With us, the feature that transmits the soul, +A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole. +The crampy shackles of the ploughboy's walk +Tie the small muscles when he strives to talk; +Not all the pumice of the polished town +Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down; +Rich, honored, titled, he betrays his race +By this one mark,--he's awkward in the face;-- +Nature's rude impress, long before he knew +The sunny street that holds the sifted few. +It can't be helped, though, if we're taken young, +We gain some freedom of the lips and tongue; +But school and college often try in vain +To break the padlock of our boyhood's chain +One stubborn word will prove this axiom true,-- +No quondam rustic can enunciate view. + +A few brief stanzas may be well employed +To speak of errors we can all avoid. +Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope +The careless lips that speak of so'ap for soap; +Her edict exiles from her fair abode +The clownish voice that utters ro'ad for road +Less stern to him who calls his coat a co'at, +And steers his boat, believing it a bo'at, +She pardoned one, our classic city's boast, +Who said at Cambridge mo'st instead of most, +But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot +To hear a Teacher call a root a ro'ot. + +Once more: speak clearly, if you speak at all; +Carve every word before you let it fall; +Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star, +Try over-hard to roll the British R; +Do put your accents in the proper spot; +Don't,--let me beg you,--don't say "How?" for "What?" +And when you stick on conversation's burs, +Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_. + +From little matters let us pass to less, +And lightly touch the mysteries of DRESS; +The outward forms the inner man reveal,-- +We guess the pulp before we cut the peel. + +I leave the broadcloth,--coats and all the rest,-- +The dangerous waistcoat, called by cockneys "vest," +The things named "pants" in certain documents, +A word not made for gentlemen, but "gents;" +One single precept might the whole condense +Be sure your tailor is a man of sense; +But add a little care, a decent pride, +And always err upon the sober side. + +Three pairs of boots one pair of feet demands, +If polished daily by the owner's hands; +If the dark menial's visit save from this, +Have twice the number,--for he 'll sometimes miss. +One pair for critics of the nicer sex, +Close in the instep's clinging circumflex, +Long, narrow, light; the Gallic boot of love, +A kind of cross between a boot and glove. +Compact, but easy, strong, substantial, square, +Let native art compile the medium pair. +The third remains, and let your tasteful skill +Here show some relics of affection still; +Let no stiff cowhide, reeking from the tan, +No rough caoutchoue, no deformed brogan, +Disgrace the tapering outline of your feet, +Though yellow torrents gurgle through the street. + +Wear seemly gloves; not black, nor yet too light, +And least of all the pair that once was white; +Let the dead party where you told your loves +Bury in peace its dead bouquets and gloves; +Shave like the goat, if so your fancy bids, +But be a parent,--don't neglect your kids. + +Have a good hat; the secret of your looks +Lives with the beaver in Canadian brooks; +Virtue may flourish in an old cravat, +But man and nature scorn the shocking hat. +Does beauty slight you from her gay abodes? +Like bright Apollo, you must take to Rhoades,-- +Mount the new castor,--ice itself will melt; +Boots, gloves, may fail; the hat is always felt. + +Be shy of breastpins; plain, well-ironed white, +With small pearl buttons,--two of them in sight,-- +Is always genuine, while your gems may pass, +Though real diamonds, for ignoble glass. +But spurn those paltry Cisatlantic lies +That round his breast the shabby rustic ties; +Breathe not the name profaned to hallow things +The indignant laundress blushes when she brings! + +Our freeborn race, averse to every check, +Has tossed the yoke of Europe from its _neck_; +From the green prairie to the sea-girt town, +The whole wide nation turns its collars down. +The stately neck is manhood's manliest part; +It takes the life-blood freshest from the heart. +With short, curled ringlets close around it spread, +How light and strong it lifts the Grecian head! +Thine, fair Erechtheus of Minerva's wall; +Or thine, young athlete of the Louvre's hall, +Smooth as the pillar flashing in the sun +That filled the arena where thy wreaths were won, +Firm as the band that clasps the antlered spoil +Strained in the winding anaconda's coil +I spare the contrast; it were only kind +To be a little, nay, intensely blind. +Choose for yourself: I know it cuts your ear; +I know the points will sometimes interfere; +I know that often, like the filial John, +Whom sleep surprised with half his drapery on, +You show your features to the astonished town +With one side standing and the other down;-- +But, O, my friend! my favorite fellow-man! +If Nature made you on her modern plan, +Sooner than wander with your windpipe bare,-- +The fruit of Eden ripening in the air,-- +With that lean head-stalk, that protruding chin, +Wear standing collars, were they made of tin! +And have a neckcloth--by the throat of Jove!-- +Cut from the funnel of a rusty stove! + +The long-drawn lesson narrows to its close, +Chill, slender, slow, the dwindled current flows; +Tired of the ripples on its feeble springs, +Once more the Muse unfolds her upward wings. + +Land of my birth, with this unhallowed tongue, +Thy hopes, thy dangers, I perchance had sung; +But who shall sing, in brutal disregard +Of all the essentials of the "native bard"? +Lake, sea, shore, prairie, forest, mountain, fall, +His eye omnivorous must devour them all; +The tallest summits and the broadest tides +His foot must compass with its giant strides, +Where Ocean thunders, where Missouri rolls, +And tread at once the tropics and the poles; +His food all forms of earth, fire, water, air, +His home all space, his birthplace everywhere. + +Some grave compatriot, having seen perhaps +The pictured page that goes in Worcester's Maps, +And, read in earnest what was said in jest, +"Who drives fat oxen"--please to add the rest,-- +Sprung the odd notion that the poet's dreams +Grow in the ratio of his hills and streams; +And hence insisted that the aforesaid "bard," +Pink of the future, fancy's pattern-card, +The babe of nature in the "giant West," +Must be of course her biggest and her best. + +Oh! when at length the expected bard shall come, +Land of our pride, to strike thine echoes dumb, +(And many a voice exclaims in prose and rhyme, +It's getting late, and he's behind his time,) +When all thy mountains clap their hands in joy, +And all thy cataracts thunder, "That 's the boy,"-- +Say if with him the reign of song shall end, +And Heaven declare its final dividend! + +Becalm, dear brother! whose impassioned strain +Comes from an alley watered by a drain; +The little Mincio, dribbling to the Po, +Beats all the epics of the Hoang Ho; +If loved in earnest by the tuneful maid, +Don't mind their nonsense,--never be afraid! + +The nurse of poets feeds her winged brood +By common firesides, on familiar food; +In a low hamlet, by a narrow stream, +Where bovine rustics used to doze and dream, +She filled young William's fiery fancy full, +While old John Shakespeare talked of beeves and wool! + +No Alpine needle, with its climbing spire, +Brings down for mortals the Promethean fire, +If careless nature have forgot to frame +An altar worthy of the sacred flame. +Unblest by any save the goatherd's lines, +Mont Blanc rose soaring through his "sea of pines;" +In vain the rivers from their ice-caves flash; +No hymn salutes them but the Ranz des Vaches, +Till lazy Coleridge, by the morning's light, +Gazed for a moment on the fields of white, +And lo! the glaciers found at length a tongue, +Mont Blanc was vocal, and Chamouni sung! + +Children of wealth or want, to each is given +One spot of green, and all the blue of heaven! +Enough if these their outward shows impart; +The rest is thine,--the scenery of the heart. + +If passion's hectic in thy stanzas glow, +Thy heart's best life-blood ebbing as they flow; +If with thy verse thy strength and bloom distil, +Drained by the pulses of the fevered thrill; +If sound's sweet effluence polarize thy brain, +And thoughts turn crystals in thy fluid strain,-- +Nor rolling ocean, nor the prairie's bloom, +Nor streaming cliffs, nor rayless cavern's gloom, +Need'st thou, young poet, to inform thy line; +Thy own broad signet stamps thy song divine! +Let others gaze where silvery streams are rolled, +And chase the rainbow for its cup of gold; +To thee all landscapes wear a heavenly dye, +Changed in the glance of thy prismatic eye; +Nature evoked thee in sublimer throes, +For thee her inmost Arethusa flows,-- +The mighty mother's living depths are stirred,-- +Thou art the starred Osiris of the herd! + +A few brief lines; they touch on solemn chords, +And hearts may leap to hear their honest words; +Yet, ere the jarring bugle-blast is blown, +The softer lyre shall breathe its soothing tone. + +New England! proudly may thy children claim +Their honored birthright by its humblest name +Cold are thy skies, but, ever fresh and clear, +No rank malaria stains thine atmosphere; +No fungous weeds invade thy scanty soil, +Scarred by the ploughshares of unslumbering toil. +Long may the doctrines by thy sages taught, +Raised from the quarries where their sires have wrought, +Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed land,-- +As slow to rear, as obdurate to stand; +And as the ice that leaves thy crystal mine +Chills the fierce alcohol in the Creole's wine, +So may the doctrines of thy sober school +Keep the hot theories of thy neighbors cool! + +If ever, trampling on her ancient path, +Cankered by treachery or inflamed by wrath, +With smooth "Resolves" or with discordant cries, +The mad Briareus of disunion rise, +Chiefs of New England! by your sires' renown, +Dash the red torches of the rebel down! +Flood his black hearthstone till its flames expire, +Though your old Sachem fanned his council-fire! + +But if at last, her fading cycle run, +The tongue must forfeit what the arm has won, +Then rise, wild Ocean! roll thy surging shock +Full on old Plymouth's desecrated rock! +Scale the proud shaft degenerate hands have hewn, +Where bleeding Valor stained the flowers of June! +Sweep in one tide her spires and turrets down, +And howl her dirge above Monadnock's crown! + +List not the tale; the Pilgrim's hallowed shore, +Though strewn with weeds, is granite at the core; +Oh, rather trust that He who made her free +Will keep her true as long as faith shall be! +Farewell! yet lingering through the destined hour, +Leave, sweet Enchantress, one memorial flower! + +An Angel, floating o'er the waste of snow +That clad our Western desert, long ago, +(The same fair spirit who, unseen by day, +Shone as a star along the Mayflower's way,)-- +Sent, the first herald of the Heavenly plan, +To choose on earth a resting-place for man,-- +Tired with his flight along the unvaried field, +Turned to soar upwards, when his glance revealed +A calm, bright bay enclosed in rocky bounds, +And at its entrance stood three sister mounds. + +The Angel spake: "This threefold hill shall be +The home of Arts, the nurse of Liberty! +One stately summit from its shaft shall pour +Its deep-red blaze along the darkened shore; +Emblem of thoughts that, kindling far and wide, +In danger's night shall be a nation's guide. +One swelling crest the citadel shall crown, +Its slanted bastions black with battle's frown, +And bid the sons that tread its scowling heights +Bare their strong arms for man and all his rights! +One silent steep along the northern wave +Shall hold the patriarch's and the hero's grave; +When fades the torch, when o'er the peaceful scene +The embattled fortress smiles in living green, +The cross of Faith, the anchor staff of Hope, +Shall stand eternal on its grassy slope; +There through all time shall faithful Memory tell, +'Here Virtue toiled, and Patriot Valor fell; +Thy free, proud fathers slumber at thy side; +Live as they lived, or perish as they died!'" + + + + + +AN AFTER-DINNER POEM + +(TERPSICHORE) + +Read at the Annual Dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at +Cambridge, August 24, 1843. + +IN narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse, +In closest frock and Cinderella shoes, +Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display, +One zephyr step, and then dissolve away! + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Short is the space that gods and men can spare +To Song's twin brother when she is not there. +Let others water every lusty line, +As Homer's heroes did their purple wine; +Pierian revellers! Know in strains like these +The native juice, the real honest squeeze,--- +Strains that, diluted to the twentieth power, +In yon grave temple might have filled an hour. +Small room for Fancy's many-chorded lyre, +For Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire, +For Pathos, struggling vainly to surprise +The iron tutor's tear-denying eyes, +For Mirth, whose finger with delusive wile +Turns the grim key of many a rusty smile, +For Satire, emptying his corrosive flood +On hissing Folly's gas-exhaling brood, +The pun, the fun, the moral, and the joke, +The hit, the thrust, the pugilistic poke,-- +Small space for these, so pressed by niggard Time, +Like that false matron, known to nursery rhyme,-- +Insidious Morey,--scarce her tale begun, +Ere listening infants weep the story done. + +Oh, had we room to rip the mighty bags +That Time, the harlequin, has stuffed with rags! +Grant us one moment to unloose the strings, +While the old graybeard shuts his leather wings. +But what a heap of motley trash appears +Crammed in the bundles of successive years! +As the lost rustic on some festal day +Stares through the concourse in its vast array,-- +Where in one cake a throng of faces runs, +All stuck together like a sheet of buns,-- +And throws the bait of some unheeded name, +Or shoots a wink with most uncertain aim, +So roams my vision, wandering over all, +And strives to choose, but knows not where to fall. + +Skins of flayed authors, husks of dead reviews, +The turn-coat's clothes, the office-seeker's shoes, +Scraps from cold feasts, where conversation runs +Through mouldy toasts to oxidated puns, +And grating songs a listening crowd endures, +Rasped from the throats of bellowing amateurs; +Sermons, whose writers played such dangerous tricks +Their own heresiarchs called them heretics, +(Strange that one term such distant poles should link, +The Priestleyan's copper and the Puseyan's zinc); +Poems that shuffle with superfluous legs +A blindfold minuet over addled eggs, +Where all the syllables that end in ed, +Like old dragoons, have cuts across the head; +Essays so dark Champollion might despair +To guess what mummy of a thought was there, +Where our poor English, striped with foreign phrase, +Looks like a zebra in a parson's chaise; +Lectures that cut our dinners down to roots, +Or prove (by monkeys) men should stick to fruits,-- +Delusive error, as at trifling charge +Professor Gripes will certify at large; +Mesmeric pamphlets, which to facts appeal, +Each fact as slippery as a fresh-caught eel; +And figured heads, whose hieroglyphs invite +To wandering knaves that discount fools at sight: +Such things as these, with heaps of unpaid bills, +And candy puffs and homoeopathic pills, +And ancient bell-crowns with contracted rim, +And bonnets hideous with expanded brim, +And coats whose memory turns the sartor pale, +Their sequels tapering like a lizard's tale,-- +How might we spread them to the smiling day, +And toss them, fluttering like the new-mown hay, +To laughter's light or sorrow's pitying shower, +Were these brief minutes lengthened to an hour. + +The narrow moments fit like Sunday shoes,-- +How vast the heap, how quickly must we choose! +A few small scraps from out his mountain mass +We snatch in haste, and let the vagrant pass. +This shrunken CRUST that Cerberus could not bite, +Stamped (in one corner) "Pickwick copyright," +Kneaded by youngsters, raised by flattery's yeast, +Was once a loaf, and helped to make a feast. +He for whose sake the glittering show appears +Has sown the world with laughter and with tears, +And they whose welcome wets the bumper's brim +Have wit and wisdom,--for they all quote him. +So, many a tongue the evening hour prolongs +With spangled speeches,--let alone the songs; +Statesmen grow merry, lean attorneys laugh, +And weak teetotals warm to half and half, +And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes, +Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens, +And wits stand ready for impromptu claps, +With loaded barrels and percussion caps, +And Pathos, cantering through the minor keys, +Waves all her onions to the trembling breeze; +While the great Feasted views with silent glee +His scattered limbs in Yankee fricassee. + +Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays +The pleasing game of interchanging praise. +Self-love, grimalkin of the human heart, +Is ever pliant to the master's art; +Soothed with a word, she peacefully withdraws +And sheathes in velvet her obnoxious claws, +And thrills the hand that smooths her glossy fur +With the light tremor of her grateful purr. + +But what sad music fills the quiet hall, +If on her back a feline rival fall! +And oh, what noises shake the tranquil house +If old Self-interest cheats her of a mouse. + +Thou, O my country, hast thy foolish ways, +Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise; +But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws, +Off goes the velvet and out come the claws! +And thou, Illustrious! but too poorly paid +In toasts from Pickwick for thy great crusade, +Though, while the echoes labored with thy name, +The public trap denied thy little game, +Let other lips our jealous laws revile,-- +The marble Talfourd or the rude Carlyle,-- +But on thy lids, which Heaven forbids to close +Where'er the light of kindly nature glows, +Let not the dollars that a churl denies +Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's eyes! +Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind, +Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined. +Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms smile +That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle. +There white-cheeked Luxury weaves a thousand charms; +Here sun-browned Labor swings his naked arms. +Long are the furrows he must trace between +The ocean's azure and the prairie's green; +Full many a blank his destined realm displays, +Yet sees the promise of his riper days +Far through yon depths the panting engine moves, +His chariots ringing in their steel-shod grooves; +And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave +O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave! +While tasks like these employ his anxious hours, +What if his cornfields are not edged with flowers? +Though bright as silver the meridian beams +Shine through the crystal of thine English streams, +Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled +That drains our Andes and divides a world! + +But lo! a PARCHMENT! Surely it would seem +The sculptured impress speaks of power supreme; +Some grave design the solemn page must claim +That shows so broadly an emblazoned name. +A sovereign's promise! Look, the lines afford +All Honor gives when Caution asks his word: +There sacred Faith has laid her snow-white hands, +And awful Justice knit her iron bands; +Yet every leaf is stained with treachery's dye, +And every letter crusted with a lie. +Alas! no treason has degraded yet +The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet; +A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's pledge, +Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's edge; +While jockeying senates stop to sign and seal, +And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal. +Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load, +Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest abode, +And round her forehead, wreathed with heavenly flame, +Bind the dark garland of her daughter's shame! +Ye ocean clouds, that wrap the angry blast, +Coil her stained ensign round its haughty mast, +Or tear the fold that wears so foul a scar, +And drive a bolt through every blackened star! +Once more,--once only,--- we must stop so soon: +What have we here? A GERMAN-SILVER SPOON; +A cheap utensil, which we often see +Used by the dabblers in aesthetic tea, +Of slender fabric, somewhat light and thin, +Made of mixed metal, chiefly lead and tin; +The bowl is shallow, and the handle small, +Marked in large letters with the name JEAN PAUL. +Small as it is, its powers are passing strange, +For all who use it show a wondrous change; +And first, a fact to make the barbers stare, +It beats Macassar for the growth of hair. +See those small youngsters whose expansive ears +Maternal kindness grazed with frequent shears; +Each bristling crop a dangling mass becomes, +And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms +Nor this alone its magic power displays, +It alters strangely all their works and ways; +With uncouth words they tire their tender lungs, +The same bald phrases on their hundred tongues +"Ever" "The Ages" in their page appear, +"Alway" the bedlamite is called a "Seer;" +On every leaf the "earnest" sage may scan, +Portentous bore! their "many-sided" man,-- +A weak eclectic, groping vague and dim, +Whose every angle is a half-starved whim, +Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx, +Who rides a beetle, which he calls a "Sphinx." +And oh, what questions asked in clubfoot rhyme +Of Earth the tongueless and the deaf-mute Time! + +Here babbling "Insight" shouts in Nature's ears +His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres; +There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb, +With "Whence am I?" and "Wherefore did I come?" +Deluded infants! will they ever know +Some doubts must darken o'er the world below, +Though all the Platos of the nursery trail +Their "clouds of glory" at the go-cart's tail? +Oh might these couplets their attention claim +That gain their author the Philistine's name +(A stubborn race, that, spurning foreign law, +Was much belabored with an ass's jaw.) + +Melodious Laura! From the sad retreats +That hold thee, smothered with excess of sweets, +Shade of a shadow, spectre of a dream, +Glance thy wan eye across the Stygian stream! +The slipshod dreamer treads thy fragrant halls, +The sophist's cobwebs hang thy roseate walls, +And o'er the crotchets of thy jingling tunes +The bard of mystery scrawls his crooked "runes." +Yes, thou art gone, with all the tuneful hordes +That candied thoughts in amber-colored words, +And in the precincts of thy late abodes +The clattering verse-wright hammers Orphic odes. +Thou, soft as zephyr, wast content to fly +On the gilt pinions of a balmy sigh; +He, vast as Phoebus on his burning wheels, +Would stride through ether at Orion's heels. +Thy emblem, Laura, was a perfume-jar, +And thine, young Orpheus, is a pewter star. +The balance trembles,--be its verdict told +When the new jargon slumbers with the old! + + . . . . . . . . + +Cease, playful goddess! From thine airy bound +Drop like a feather softly to the ground; +This light bolero grows a ticklish dance, +And there is mischief in thy kindling glance. +To-morrow bids thee, with rebuking frown, +Change thy gauze tunic for a home-made gown, +Too blest by fortune if the passing day +Adorn thy bosom with its frail bouquet, +But oh, still happier if the next forgets +Thy daring steps and dangerous pirouettes! + + + + + + + MEDICAL POEMS + + +THE MORNING VISIT + +A sick man's chamber, though it often boast +The grateful presence of a literal toast, +Can hardly claim, amidst its various wealth, +The right unchallenged to propose a health; +Yet though its tenant is denied the feast, +Friendship must launch his sentiment at least, +As prisoned damsels, locked from lovers' lips, +Toss them a kiss from off their fingers' tips. + +The morning visit,--not till sickness falls +In the charmed circles of your own safe walls; +Till fever's throb and pain's relentless rack +Stretch you all helpless on your aching back; +Not till you play the patient in your turn, +The morning visit's mystery shall you learn. + +'T is a small matter in your neighbor's case, +To charge your fee for showing him your face; +You skip up-stairs, inquire, inspect, and touch, +Prescribe, take leave, and off to twenty such. + +But when at length, by fate's transferred decree, +The visitor becomes the visitee, +Oh, then, indeed, it pulls another string; +Your ox is gored, and that's a different thing! +Your friend is sick: phlegmatic as a Turk, +You write your recipe and let it work; +Not yours to stand the shiver and the frown, +And sometimes worse, with which your draught goes down. +Calm as a clock your knowing hand directs, +_Rhei, jalapae ana grana sex_, +Or traces on some tender missive's back, +_Scrupulos duos pulveris ipecac_; +And leaves your patient to his qualms and gripes, +Cool as a sportsman banging at his snipes. +But change the time, the person, and the place, +And be yourself "the interesting case," +You'll gain some knowledge which it's well to learn; +In future practice it may serve your turn. +Leeches, for instance,--pleasing creatures quite; +Try them,--and bless you,--don't you find they bite? +You raise a blister for the smallest cause, +But be yourself the sitter whom it draws, +And trust my statement, you will not deny +The worst of draughtsmen is your Spanish fly! +It's mighty easy ordering when you please, +_Infusi sennae capiat uncias tres_; +It's mighty different when you quackle down +Your own three ounces of the liquid brown. +_Pilula, pulvis_,--pleasant words enough, +When other throats receive the shocking stuff; +But oh, what flattery can disguise the groan +That meets the gulp which sends it through your own! +Be gentle, then, though Art's unsparing rules +Give you the handling of her sharpest tools; +Use them not rashly,--sickness is enough; +Be always "ready," but be never "rough." + +Of all the ills that suffering man endures, +The largest fraction liberal Nature cures; +Of those remaining, 't is the smallest part +Yields to the efforts of judicious Art; +But simple _Kindness_, kneeling by the bed +To shift the pillow for the sick man's head, +Give the fresh draught to cool the lips that burn, +Fan the hot brow, the weary frame to turn,-- +Kindness, untutored by our grave M. D.'s, +But Nature's graduate, when she schools to please, +Wins back more sufferers with her voice and smile +Than all the trumpery in the druggist's pile. + +Once more, be quiet: coming up the stair, +Don't be a plantigrade, a human bear, +But, stealing softly on the silent toe, +Reach the sick chamber ere you're heard below. +Whatever changes there may greet your eyes, +Let not your looks proclaim the least surprise; +It's not your business by your face to show +All that your patient does not want to know; +Nay, use your optics with considerate care, +And don't abuse your privilege to stare. +But if your eyes may probe him overmuch, +Beware still further how you rudely touch; +Don't clutch his carpus in your icy fist, +But warm your fingers ere you take the wrist. +If the poor victim needs must be percussed, +Don't make an anvil of his aching bust; +(Doctors exist within a hundred miles +Who thump a thorax as they'd hammer piles;) +If you must listen to his doubtful chest, +Catch the essentials, and ignore the rest. +Spare him; the sufferer wants of you and art +A track to steer by, not a finished chart. +So of your questions: don't in mercy try +To pump your patient absolutely dry; +He's not a mollusk squirming in a dish, +You're not Agassiz; and he's not a fish. + +And last, not least, in each perplexing case, +Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face; +Not always smiling, but at least serene, +When grief and anguish cloud the anxious scene. +Each look, each movement, every word and tone, +Should tell your patient you are all his own; +Not the mere artist, purchased to attend, +But the warm, ready, self-forgetting friend, +Whose genial visit in itself combines +The best of cordials, tonics, anodynes. + +Such is the _visit_ that from day to day +Sheds o'er my chamber its benignant ray. +I give his health, who never cared to claim +Her babbling homage from the tongue of Fame; +Unmoved by praise, he stands by all confest, +The truest, noblest, wisest, kindest, best. + +1849. + + + + + +THE TWO ARMIES + +As Life's unending column pours, +Two marshalled hosts are seen,-- +Two armies on the trampled shores +That Death flows black between. + +One marches to the drum-beat's roll, +The wide-mouthed clarion's bray, +And bears upon a crimson scroll, +"Our glory is to slay." + +One moves in silence by the stream, +With sad, yet watchful eyes, +Calm as the patient planet's gleam +That walks the clouded skies. + +Along its front no sabres shine, +No blood-red pennons wave; +Its banner bears the single line, +"Our duty is to save." + +For those no death-bed's lingering shade; +At Honor's trumpet-call, +With knitted brow and lifted blade +In Glory's arms they fall. + +For these no clashing falchions bright, +No stirring battle-cry; +The bloodless stabber calls by night,-- +Each answers, "Here am I!" + +For those the sculptor's laurelled bust, +The builder's marble piles, +The anthems pealing o'er their dust +Through long cathedral aisles. + +For these the blossom-sprinkled turf +That floods the lonely graves +When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf +In flowery-foaming waves. + +Two paths lead upward from below, +And angels wait above, +Who count each burning life-drop's flow, +Each falling tear of Love. + +Though from the Hero's bleeding breast +Her pulses Freedom drew, +Though the white lilies in her crest +Sprang from that scarlet dew,-- + +While Valor's haughty champions wait +Till all their scars are shown, +Love walks unchallenged through the gate, +To sit beside the Throne. + + + + + +THE STETHOSCOPE SONG + +A PROFESSIONAL BALLAD + +THERE was a young man in Boston town, +He bought him a stethoscope nice and new, +All mounted and finished and polished down, +With an ivory cap and a stopper too. + +It happened a spider within did crawl, +And spun him a web of ample size, +Wherein there chanced one day to fall +A couple of very imprudent flies. + +The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue, +The second was smaller, and thin and long; +So there was a concert between the two, +Like an octave flute and a tavern gong. + +Now being from Paris but recently, +This fine young man would show his skill; +And so they gave him, his hand to try, +A hospital patient extremely ill. + +Some said that his liver was short of bile, +And some that his heart was over size, +While some kept arguing, all the while, +He was crammed with tubercles up to his eyes. + +This fine young man then up stepped he, +And all the doctors made a pause; +Said he, The man must die, you see, +By the fifty-seventh of Louis's laws. + +But since the case is a desperate one, +To explore his chest it may be well; +For if he should die and it were not done, +You know the autopsy would not tell. + +Then out his stethoscope he took, +And on it placed his curious ear; +Mon Dieu! said he, with a knowing look, +Why, here is a sound that 's mighty queer. + +The bourdonnement is very clear,-- +Amphoric buzzing, as I'm alive +Five doctors took their turn to hear; +Amphoric buzzing, said all the five. + +There's empyema beyond a doubt; +We'll plunge a trocar in his side. +The diagnosis was made out,-- +They tapped the patient; so he died. + +Now such as hate new-fashioned toys +Began to look extremely glum; +They said that rattles were made for boys, +And vowed that his buzzing was all a hum. + +There was an old lady had long been sick, +And what was the matter none did know +Her pulse was slow, though her tongue was quick; +To her this knowing youth must go. + +So there the nice old lady sat, +With phials and boxes all in a row; +She asked the young doctor what he was at, +To thump her and tumble her ruffles so. + +Now, when the stethoscope came out, +The flies began to buzz and whiz +Oh ho! the matter is clear, no doubt; +An aneurism there plainly is. + +The bruit de rape and the bruit de scie +And the bruit de diable are all combined; +How happy Bouillaud would be, +If he a case like this could find! + +Now, when the neighboring doctors found +A case so rare had been descried, +They every day her ribs did pound +In squads of twenty; so she died. + +Then six young damsels, slight and frail, +Received this kind young doctor's cares; +They all were getting slim and pale, +And short of breath on mounting stairs. + +They all made rhymes with "sighs" and "skies," +And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls, +And dieted, much to their friends' surprise, +On pickles and pencils and chalk and coals. + +So fast their little hearts did bound, +The frightened insects buzzed the more; +So over all their chests he found +The rale sifflant and the rale sonore. + +He shook his head. There's grave disease,-- +I greatly fear you all must die; +A slight post-mortem, if you please, +Surviving friends would gratify. + +The six young damsels wept aloud, +Which so prevailed on six young men +That each his honest love avowed, +Whereat they all got well again. + +This poor young man was all aghast; +The price of stethoscopes came down; +And so he was reduced at last +To practise in a country town. + +The doctors being very sore, +A stethoscope they did devise +That had a rammer to clear the bore, +With a knob at the end to kill the flies. + +Now use your ears, all you that can, +But don't forget to mind your eyes, +Or you may be cheated, like this young man, +By a couple of silly, abnormal flies. + + + + + +EXTRACTS FROM A MEDICAL POEM + +THE STABILITY OF SCIENCE + +THE feeble sea-birds, blinded in the storms, +On some tall lighthouse dash their little forms, +And the rude granite scatters for their pains +Those small deposits that were meant for brains. +Yet the proud fabric in the morning's sun +Stands all unconscious of the mischief done; +Still the red beacon pours its evening rays +For the lost pilot with as full a blaze,-- +Nay, shines, all radiance, o'er the scattered fleet +Of gulls and boobies brainless at its feet. + +I tell their fate, though courtesy disclaims +To call our kind by such ungentle names; +Yet, if your rashness bid you vainly dare, +Think of their doom, ye simple, and beware. + +See where aloft its hoary forehead rears +The towering pride of twice a thousand years! +Far, far below the vast incumbent pile +Sleeps the gray rock from art's AEgean isle +Its massive courses, circling as they rise, +Swell from the waves to mingle with the skies; +There every quarry lends its marble spoil, +And clustering ages blend their common toil; +The Greek, the Roman, reared its ancient walls, +The silent Arab arched its mystic halls; +In that fair niche, by countless billows laved, +Trace the deep lines that Sydenham engraved; +On yon broad front that breasts the changing swell, +Mark where the ponderous sledge of Hunter fell; +By that square buttress look where Louis stands, +The stone yet warm from his uplifted hands; +And say, O Science, shall thy life-blood freeze, +When fluttering folly flaps on walls like these? + + +A PORTRAIT + +Thoughtful in youth, but not austere in age; +Calm, but not cold, and cheerful though a sage; +Too true to flatter and too kind to sneer, +And only just when seemingly severe; +So gently blending courtesy and art +That wisdom's lips seemed borrowing friendship's heart. + +Taught by the sorrows that his age had known +In others' trials to forget his own, +As hour by hour his lengthened day declined, +A sweeter radiance lingered o'er his mind. +Cold were the lips that spoke his early praise, +And hushed the voices of his morning days, +Yet the same accents dwelt on every tongue, +And love renewing kept him ever young. + + +A SENTIMENT +_O Bios Bpaxus_,--life is but a song; +_H rexvn uakpn_,--art is wondrous long; +Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair, +And Patience smiles, though Genius may despair. +Give us but knowledge, though by slow degrees, +And blend our toil with moments bright as these; +Let Friendship's accents cheer our doubtful way, +And Love's pure planet lend its guiding ray,-- +Our tardy Art shall wear an angel's wings, +And life shall lengthen with the joy it brings! + + + + + +A POEM + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION +AT NEW YORK, MAY 5, 1853 + +I HOLD a letter in my hand,-- +A flattering letter, more's the pity,-- +By some contriving junto planned, +And signed _per order of Committee_. +It touches every tenderest spot,-- +My patriotic predilections, +My well-known-something--don't ask what,-- +My poor old songs, my kind affections. + +They make a feast on Thursday next, +And hope to make the feasters merry; +They own they're something more perplexed +For poets than for port and sherry. +They want the men of--(word torn out); +Our friends will come with anxious faces, +(To see our blankets off, no doubt, +And trot us out and show our paces.) + +They hint that papers by the score +Are rather musty kind of rations,-- +They don't exactly mean a bore, +But only trying to the patience; +That such as--you know who I mean-- +Distinguished for their--what d' ye call 'em-- +Should bring the dews of Hippocrene +To sprinkle on the faces solemn. + +--The same old story: that's the chaff +To catch the birds that sing the ditties; +Upon my soul, it makes me laugh +To read these letters from Committees! +They're all so loving and so fair,-- +All for your sake such kind compunction; +'T would save your carriage half its wear +To touch its wheels with such an unction! + +Why, who am I, to lift me here +And beg such learned folk to listen, +To ask a smile, or coax a tear +Beneath these stoic lids to glisten? +As well might some arterial thread +Ask the whole frame to feel it gushing, +While throbbing fierce from heel to head +The vast aortic tide was rushing. + +As well some hair-like nerve might strain +To set its special streamlet going, +While through the myriad-channelled brain +The burning flood of thought was flowing; +Or trembling fibre strive to keep +The springing haunches gathered shorter, +While the scourged racer, leap on leap, +Was stretching through the last hot quarter! + +Ah me! you take the bud that came +Self-sown in your poor garden's borders, +And hand it to the stately dame +That florists breed for, all she orders. +She thanks you,--it was kindly meant,-- +(A pale afair, not worth the keeping,)-- +Good morning; and your bud is sent +To join the tea-leaves used for sweeping. + +Not always so, kind hearts and true,-- +For such I know are round me beating; +Is not the bud I offer you, +Fresh gathered for the hour of meeting, +Pale though its outer leaves may be, +Rose-red in all its inner petals?-- +Where the warm life we cannot see-- +The life of love that gave it--settles. + + +We meet from regions far away, +Like rills from distant mountains streaming; +The sun is on Francisco's bay, +O'er Chesapeake the lighthouse gleaming; +While summer girds the still bayou +In chains of bloom, her bridal token, +Monadnock sees the sky grow blue, +His crystal bracelet yet unbroken. + +Yet Nature bears the selfsame heart +Beneath her russet-mantled bosom +As where, with burning lips apart, +She breathes and white magnolias blossom; +The selfsame founts her chalice fill +With showery sunlight running over, +On fiery plain and frozen hill, +On myrtle-beds and fields of clover. + +I give you Home! its crossing lines +United in one golden suture, +And showing every day that shines +The present growing to the future,-- +A flag that bears a hundred stars +In one bright ring, with love for centre, +Fenced round with white and crimson bars +No prowling treason dares to enter! + +O brothers, home may be a word +To make affection's living treasure, +The wave an angel might have stirred, +A stagnant pool of selfish pleasure; +HOME! It is where the day-star springs +And where the evening sun reposes, +Where'er the eagle spreads his wings, +From northern pines to southern roses! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT + +A TRIPLE health to Friendship, Science, Art, +From heads and hands that own a common heart! +Each in its turn the others' willing slave, +Each in its season strong to heal and save. + +Friendship's blind service, in the hour of need, +Wipes the pale face, and lets the victim bleed. +Science must stop to reason and explain; +ART claps his finger on the streaming vein. + +But Art's brief memory fails the hand at last; +Then SCIENCE lifts the flambeau of the past. +When both their equal impotence deplore, +When Learning sighs, and Skill can do no more, +The tear of FRIENDSHIP pours its heavenly balm, +And soothes the pang no anodyne may calm +May 1, 1855. + + + + + +RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. + +AN AFTER-DINNER PRESCRIPTION TAKEN BY THE MASSACHUSETTS +MEDICAL SOCIETY, AT THEIR MEETING HELD MAY 25, 1870 + + +CANTO FIRST + +OLD Rip Van Winkle had a grandson, Rip, +Of the paternal block a genuine chip,-- +A lazy, sleepy, curious kind of chap; +He, like his grandsire, took a mighty nap, +Whereof the story I propose to tell +In two brief cantos, if you listen well. + +The times were hard when Rip to manhood grew; +They always will be when there's work to do. +He tried at farming,--found it rather slow,-- +And then at teaching--what he did n't know; +Then took to hanging round the tavern bars, +To frequent toddies and long-nine cigars, +Till Dame Van Winkle, out of patience, vexed +With preaching homilies, having for their text +A mop, a broomstick, aught that might avail +To point a moral or adorn a tale, +Exclaimed, "I have it! Now, then, Mr. V. +He's good for something,--make him an M. D.!" + +The die was cast; the youngster was content; +They packed his shirts and stockings, and he went. +How hard he studied it were vain to tell; +He drowsed through Wistar, nodded over Bell, +Slept sound with Cooper, snored aloud on Good; +Heard heaps of lectures,--doubtless understood,-- +A constant listener, for he did not fail +To carve his name on every bench and rail. + +Months grew to years; at last he counted three, +And Rip Van Winkle found himself M. D. +Illustrious title! in a gilded frame +He set the sheepskin with his Latin name, +RIPUM VAN WINKLUM, QUEM we--SCIMUS--know +IDONEUM ESSE--to do so and so. +He hired an office; soon its walls displayed +His new diploma and his stock in trade, +A mighty arsenal to subdue disease, +Of various names, whereof I mention these +Lancets and bougies, great and little squirt, +Rhubarb and Senna, Snakeroot, Thoroughwort, +Ant. Tart., Vin. Colch., Pil. Cochiae, and Black Drop, +Tinctures of Opium, Gentian, Henbane, Hop, +Pulv. Ipecacuanhae, which for lack +Of breath to utter men call Ipecac, +Camphor and Kino, Turpentine, Tolu, +Cubebs, "Copeevy," Vitriol,--white and blue,-- +Fennel and Flaxseed, Slippery Elm and Squill, +And roots of Sassafras, and "Sassaf'rill," +Brandy,--for colics,--Pinkroot, death on worms,-- +Valerian, calmer of hysteric squirms, +Musk, Assafoetida, the resinous gum +Named from its odor,--well, it does smell some,-- +Jalap, that works not wisely, but too well, +Ten pounds of Bark and six of Calomel. + +For outward griefs he had an ample store, +Some twenty jars and gallipots, or more: +_Ceratum simplex_--housewives oft compile +The same at home, and call it "wax and ile;" +_Unguentum resinosum_--change its name, +The "drawing salve" of many an ancient dame; +_Argenti Nitras_, also Spanish flies, +Whose virtue makes the water-bladders rise-- +(Some say that spread upon a toper's skin +They draw no water, only rum or gin); +Leeches, sweet vermin! don't they charm the sick? +And Sticking-plaster--how it hates to stick +_Emplastrum Ferri_--ditto _Picis_, Pitch; +Washes and Powders, Brimstone for the--which, +_Scabies_ or _Psora_, is thy chosen name +Since Hahnemann's goose-quill scratched thee into fame, +Proved thee the source of every nameless ill, +Whose sole specific is a moonshine pill, +Till saucy Science, with a quiet grin, +Held up the Acarus, crawling on a pin? +--Mountains have labored and have brought forth mice +The Dutchman's theory hatched a brood of--twice +I've well-nigh said them--words unfitting quite +For these fair precincts and for ears polite. + +The surest foot may chance at last to slip, +And so at length it proved with Doctor Rip. +One full-sized bottle stood upon the shelf, +Which held the medicine that he took himself; +Whate'er the reason, it must be confessed +He filled that bottle oftener than the rest; +What drug it held I don't presume to know-- +The gilded label said "Elixir Pro." + +One day the Doctor found the bottle full, +And, being thirsty, took a vigorous pull, +Put back the "Elixir" where 't was always found, +And had old Dobbin saddled and brought round. +--You know those old-time rhubarb-colored nags +That carried Doctors and their saddle-bags; +Sagacious beasts! they stopped at every place +Where blinds were shut--knew every patient's case-- +Looked up and thought--The baby's in a fit-- +That won't last long--he'll soon be through with it; +But shook their heads before the knockered door +Where some old lady told the story o'er +Whose endless stream of tribulation flows +For gastric griefs and peristaltic woes. + +What jack-o'-lantern led him from his way, +And where it led him, it were hard to say; +Enough that wandering many a weary mile +Through paths the mountain sheep trod single file, +O'ercome by feelings such as patients know +Who dose too freely with "Elixir Pro.," +He tumbl--dismounted, slightly in a heap, +And lay, promiscuous, lapped in balmy sleep. + +Night followed night, and day succeeded day, +But snoring still the slumbering Doctor lay. +Poor Dobbin, starving, thought upon his stall, +And straggled homeward, saddle-bags and all. +The village people hunted all around, +But Rip was missing,--never could be found. +"Drownded," they guessed;--for more than half a year +The pouts and eels did taste uncommon queer; +Some said of apple-brandy--other some +Found a strong flavor of New England rum. + +Why can't a fellow hear the fine things said +About a fellow when a fellow's dead? +The best of doctors--so the press declared-- +A public blessing while his life was spared, +True to his country, bounteous to the poor, +In all things temperate, sober, just, and pure; +The best of husbands! echoed Mrs. Van, +And set her cap to catch another man. + +So ends this Canto--if it's quantum suff., +We'll just stop here and say we've had enough, +And leave poor Rip to sleep for thirty years; +I grind the organ--if you lend your ears +To hear my second Canto, after that +We 'll send around the monkey with the hat. + + +CANTO SECOND + +So thirty years had passed--but not a word +In all that time of Rip was ever heard; +The world wagged on--it never does go back-- +The widow Van was now the widow Mac---- +France was an Empire--Andrew J. was dead, +And Abraham L. was reigning in his stead. +Four murderous years had passed in savage strife, +Yet still the rebel held his bloody knife. + +--At last one morning--who forgets the day +When the black cloud of war dissolved away +The joyous tidings spread o'er land and sea, +Rebellion done for! Grant has captured Lee! +Up every flagstaff sprang the Stars and Stripes-- +Out rushed the Extras wild with mammoth types-- +Down went the laborer's hod, the school-boy's book-- +"Hooraw!" he cried, "the rebel army's took!" +Ah! what a time! the folks all mad with joy +Each fond, pale mother thinking of her boy; +Old gray-haired fathers meeting--"Have--you--heard?" +And then a choke--and not another word; +Sisters all smiling--maidens, not less dear, +In trembling poise between a smile and tear; +Poor Bridget thinking how she 'll stuff the plums +In that big cake for Johnny when he comes; +Cripples afoot; rheumatics on the jump; +Old girls so loving they could hug the pump; +Guns going bang! from every fort and ship; +They banged so loud at last they wakened Rip. + +I spare the picture, how a man appears +Who's been asleep a score or two of years; +You all have seen it to perfection done +By Joe Van Wink--I mean Rip Jefferson. +Well, so it was; old Rip at last came back, +Claimed his old wife--the present widow Mac---- +Had his old sign regilded, and began +To practise physic on the same old plan. +Some weeks went by--it was not long to wait-- +And "please to call" grew frequent on the slate. +He had, in fact, an ancient, mildewed air, +A long gray beard, a plenteous lack of hair,-- +The musty look that always recommends +Your good old Doctor to his ailing friends. +--Talk of your science! after all is said +There's nothing like a bare and shiny head; +Age lends the graces that are sure to please; +Folks want their Doctors mouldy, like their cheese. + +So Rip began to look at people's tongues +And thump their briskets (called it "sound their lungs"), +Brushed up his knowledge smartly as he could, +Read in old Cullen and in Doctor Good. +The town was healthy; for a month or two +He gave the sexton little work to do. + +About the time when dog-day heats begin, +The summer's usual maladies set in; +With autumn evenings dysentery came, +And dusky typhoid lit his smouldering flame; +The blacksmith ailed, the carpenter was down, +And half the children sickened in the town. +The sexton's face grew shorter than before-- +The sexton's wife a brand-new bonnet wore-- +Things looked quite serious--Death had got a grip +On old and young, in spite of Doctor Rip. + +And now the Squire was taken with a chill-- +Wife gave "hot-drops"--at night an Indian pill; +Next morning, feverish--bedtime, getting worse-- +Out of his head--began to rave and curse; +The Doctor sent for--double quick he came +_Ant. Tart. gran. duo_, and repeat the same +If no et cetera. Third day--nothing new; +Percussed his thorax till 't was black and blue-- +Lung-fever threatening--something of the sort-- +Out with the lancet--let him bleed--a quart-- +Ten leeches next--then blisters to his side; +Ten grains of calomel; just then he died. + +The Deacon next required the Doctor's care-- +Took cold by sitting in a draught of air-- +Pains in the back, but what the matter is +Not quite so clear,--wife calls it "rheumatiz." +Rubs back with flannel--gives him something hot-- +"Ah!" says the Deacon, "that goes nigh the spot." +Next day a rigor--"Run, my little man, +And say the Deacon sends for Doctor Van." +The Doctor came--percussion as before, +Thumping and banging till his ribs were sore-- +"Right side the flattest"--then more vigorous raps-- +"Fever--that's certain--pleurisy, perhaps. +A quart of blood will ease the pain, no doubt, +Ten leeches next will help to suck it out, +Then clap a blister on the painful part-- +But first two grains of _Antimonium Tart_. +Last with a dose of cleansing calomel +Unload the portal system--(that sounds well!)" + +But when the selfsame remedies were tried, +As all the village knew, the Squire had died; + +The neighbors hinted. "This will never do; +He's killed the Squire--he'll kill the Deacon too." + +Now when a doctor's patients are perplexed, +A consultation comes in order next-- +You know what that is? In a certain place +Meet certain doctors to discuss a case +And other matters, such as weather, crops, +Potatoes, pumpkins, lager-beer, and hops. +For what's the use?--there 's little to be said, +Nine times in ten your man's as good as dead; +At best a talk (the secret to disclose) +Where three men guess and sometimes one man knows. + +The counsel summoned came without delay-- +Young Doctor Green and shrewd old Doctor Gray-- +They heard the story--"Bleed!" says Doctor Green, +"That's downright murder! cut his throat, you mean +Leeches! the reptiles! Why, for pity's sake, +Not try an adder or a rattlesnake? +Blisters! Why bless you, they 're against the law-- +It's rank assault and battery if they draw +Tartrate of Antimony! shade of Luke, +Stomachs turn pale at thought of such rebuke! +The portal system! What's the man about? +Unload your nonsense! Calomel's played out! +You've been asleep--you'd better sleep away +Till some one calls you." + +"Stop!" says Doctor Gray-- +"The story is you slept for thirty years; +With brother Green, I own that it appears +You must have slumbered most amazing sound; +But sleep once more till thirty years come round, +You'll find the lancet in its honored place, +Leeches and blisters rescued from disgrace, +Your drugs redeemed from fashion's passing scorn, +And counted safe to give to babes unborn." + +Poor sleepy Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D., +A puzzled, serious, saddened man was he; +Home from the Deacon's house he plodded slow +And filled one bumper of "Elixir Pro." +"Good-by," he faltered, "Mrs. Van, my dear! +I'm going to sleep, but wake me once a year; +I don't like bleaching in the frost and dew, +I'll take the barn, if all the same to you. +Just once a year--remember! no mistake! +Cry, 'Rip Van Winkle! time for you to wake!' +Watch for the week in May when laylocks blow, +For then the Doctors meet, and I must go." + +Just once a year the Doctor's worthy dame +Goes to the barn and shouts her husband's name; +"Come, Rip Van Winkle!" (giving him a shake) +"Rip! Rip Van Winkle! time for you to wake! +Laylocks in blossom! 't is the month of May-- +The Doctors' meeting is this blessed day, +And come what will, you know I heard you swear +You'd never miss it, but be always there!" + +And so it is, as every year comes round +Old Rip Van Winkle here is always found. +You'll quickly know him by his mildewed air, +The hayseed sprinkled through his scanty hair, +The lichens growing on his rusty suit-- +I've seen a toadstool sprouting on his boot-- +Who says I lie? Does any man presume?-- +Toadstool? No matter--call it a mushroom. +Where is his seat? He moves it every year; +But look, you'll find him,--he is always here,-- +Perhaps you'll track him by a whiff you know-- +A certain flavor of "Elixir Pro." + +Now, then, I give you--as you seem to think +We can give toasts without a drop to drink-- +Health to the mighty sleeper,--long live he! +Our brother Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D.! + + + + + + + SONGS IN MANY KEYS + + 1849-1861 + +THE piping of our slender, peaceful reeds +Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray; +Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play +Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds, +Following the mighty van that Freedom leads, +Her glorious standard flaming to the day! +The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleeds +Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay. +Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are better worth +Than strains that sing the ravished echoes dumb. +Hark! 't is the loud reverberating drum +Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock-bound North +The myriad-handed Future stretches forth +Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come,--we come! + +Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as these +Were not unsought for, as, in languid dreams, +We lay beside our lotus-feeding streams, +And nursed our fancies in forgetful ease. +It matters little if they pall or please, +Dropping untimely, while the sudden gleams +Glare from the mustering clouds whose blackness seems +Too swollen to hold its lightning from the trees. +Yet, in some lull of passion, when at last +These calm revolving moons that come and go-- +Turning our months to years, they creep so slow-- +Have brought us rest, the not unwelcome past +May flutter to thee through these leaflets, cast +On the wild winds that all around us blow. +May 1, 1861. + + + AGNES + +The story of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage is told in the +ballad with a very strict adhesion to the facts. These were obtained +from information afforded me by the Rev. Mr. Webster, of Hopkinton, in +company with whom I visited the Frankland Mansion in that town, then +standing; from a very interesting Memoir, by the Rev. Elias Nason, of +Medford; and from the manuscript diary of Sir Harry, or more properly +Sir Charles Henry Frankland, now in the library of the Massachusetts +Historical Society. + +At the time of the visit referred to, old Julia was living, and on our +return we called at the house where she resided.--[She was living June +10, 1861, when this ballad was published]--Her account is little more +than paraphrased in the poem. If the incidents are treated with a +certain liberality at the close of the fifth part, the essential fact +that Agnes rescued Sir Harry from the ruins after the earthquake, and +their subsequent marriage as related, may be accepted as literal truth. +So with regard to most of the trifling details which are given; they are +taken from the record. It is greatly to be regretted that the Frankland +Mansion no longer exists. It was accidentally burned on the 23d of +January, 1858, a year or two after the first sketch of this ballad was +written. A visit to it was like stepping out of the century into the +years before the Revolution. A new house, similar in plan and +arrangements to the old one, has been built upon its site, and the +terraces, the clump of box, and the lilacs doubtless remain to bear +witness to the truth of this story. + +The story, which I have told literally in rhyme, has been made +the subject of a carefully studied and interesting romance by Mr. +E. L. Bynner. + + + +PART FIRST + +THE KNIGHT + +THE tale I tell is gospel true, +As all the bookmen know, +And pilgrims who have strayed to view +The wrecks still left to show. + +The old, old story,--fair, and young, +And fond,--and not too wise,-- +That matrons tell, with sharpened tongue, +To maids with downcast eyes. + +Ah! maidens err and matrons warn +Beneath the coldest sky; +Love lurks amid the tasselled corn +As in the bearded rye! + +But who would dream our sober sires +Had learned the old world's ways, +And warmed their hearths with lawless fires +In Shirley's homespun days? + +'T is like some poet's pictured trance +His idle rhymes recite,-- +This old New England-born romance +Of Agnes and the Knight; + +Yet, known to all the country round, +Their home is standing still, +Between Wachusett's lonely mound +And Shawmut's threefold hill. + +One hour we rumble on the rail, +One half-hour guide the rein, +We reach at last, o'er hill and dale, +The village on the plain. + +With blackening wall and mossy roof, +With stained and warping floor, +A stately mansion stands aloof +And bars its haughty door. + +This lowlier portal may be tried, +That breaks the gable wall; +And lo! with arches opening wide, +Sir Harry Frankland's hall! + +'T was in the second George's day +They sought the forest shade, +The knotted trunks they cleared away, +The massive beams they laid, + +They piled the rock-hewn chimney tall, +They smoothed the terraced ground, +They reared the marble-pillared wall +That fenced the mansion round. + +Far stretched beyond the village bound +The Master's broad domain; +With page and valet, horse and hound, +He kept a goodly train. + +And, all the midland county through, +The ploughman stopped to gaze +Whene'er his chariot swept in view +Behind the shining bays, + +With mute obeisance, grave and slow, +Repaid by nod polite,-- +For such the way with high and low +Till after Concord fight. + +Nor less to courtly circles known +That graced the three-hilled town +With far-off splendors of the Throne, +And glimmerings from the Crown; + +Wise Phipps, who held the seals of state +For Shirley over sea; +Brave Knowles, whose press-gang moved of late +The King Street mob's decree; + +And judges grave, and colonels grand, +Fair dames and stately men, +The mighty people of the land, +The "World" of there and then. + +'T was strange no Chloe's "beauteous Form," +And "Eyes' celestial Blew," +This Strephon of the West could warm, +No Nymph his Heart subdue. + +Perchance he wooed as gallants use, +Whom fleeting loves enchain, +But still unfettered, free to choose, +Would brook no bridle-rein. + +He saw the fairest of the fair, +But smiled alike on all; +No band his roving foot might snare, +No ring his hand enthrall. + + + +PART SECOND + +THE MAIDEN + +Why seeks the knight that rocky cape +Beyond the Bay of Lynn? +What chance his wayward course may shape +To reach its village inn? + +No story tells; whate'er we guess, +The past lies deaf and still, +But Fate, who rules to blight or bless, +Can lead us where she will. + +Make way! Sir Harry's coach and four, +And liveried grooms that ride! +They cross the ferry, touch the shore +On Winnisimmet's side. + +They hear the wash on Chelsea Beach,-- +The level marsh they pass, +Where miles on miles the desert reach +Is rough with bitter grass. + +The shining horses foam and pant, +And now the smells begin +Of fishy Swampscott, salt Nahant, +And leather-scented Lynn. + +Next, on their left, the slender spires +And glittering vanes that crown +The home of Salem's frugal sires, +The old, witch-haunted town. + +So onward, o'er the rugged way +That runs through rocks and sand, +Showered by the tempest-driven spray, +From bays on either hand, + +That shut between their outstretched arms +The crews of Marblehead, +The lords of ocean's watery farms, +Who plough the waves for bread. + +At last the ancient inn appears, +The spreading elm below, +Whose flapping sign these fifty years +Has seesawed to and fro. + +How fair the azure fields in sight +Before the low-browed inn +The tumbling billows fringe with light +The crescent shore of Lynn; + +Nahant thrusts outward through the waves +Her arm of yellow sand, +And breaks the roaring surge that braves +The gauntlet on her hand; + +With eddying whirl the waters lock +Yon treeless mound forlorn, +The sharp-winged sea-fowl's breeding-rock, +That fronts the Spouting Horn; + +Then free the white-sailed shallops glide, +And wide the ocean smiles, +Till, shoreward bent, his streams divide +The two bare Misery Isles. + +The master's silent signal stays +The wearied cavalcade; +The coachman reins his smoking bays +Beneath the elm-tree's shade. + +A gathering on the village green! +The cocked-hats crowd to see, +On legs in ancient velveteen, +With buckles at the knee. + +A clustering round the tavern-door +Of square-toed village boys, +Still wearing, as their grandsires wore, +The old-world corduroys! + +A scampering at the "Fountain" inn,--- +A rush of great and small,-- +With hurrying servants' mingled din +And screaming matron's call. + +Poor Agnes! with her work half done +They caught her unaware; +As, humbly, like a praying nun, +She knelt upon the stair; + +Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien +She knelt, but not to pray,-- +Her little hands must keep them clean, +And wash their stains away. + +A foot, an ankle, bare and white, +Her girlish shapes betrayed,-- +"Ha! Nymphs and Graces!" spoke the Knight; +"Look up, my beauteous Maid!" + +She turned,--a reddening rose in bud, +Its calyx half withdrawn,-- +Her cheek on fire with damasked blood +Of girlhood's glowing dawn! + +He searched her features through and through, +As royal lovers look +On lowly maidens, when they woo +Without the ring and book. + +"Come hither, Fair one! Here, my Sweet! +Nay, prithee, look not down! +Take this to shoe those little feet,"-- +He tossed a silver crown. + +A sudden paleness struck her brow,-- +A swifter blush succeeds; +It burns her cheek; it kindles now +Beneath her golden beads. + +She flitted, but the glittering eye +Still sought the lovely face. +Who was she? What, and whence? and why +Doomed to such menial place? + +A skipper's daughter,--so they said,-- +Left orphan by the gale +That cost the fleet of Marblehead +And Gloucester thirty sail. + +Ah! many a lonely home is found +Along the Essex shore, +That cheered its goodman outward bound, +And sees his face no more! + +"Not so," the matron whispered,--"sure +No orphan girl is she,-- +The Surriage folk are deadly poor +Since Edward left the sea, + +"And Mary, with her growing brood, +Has work enough to do +To find the children clothes and food +With Thomas, John, and Hugh. + +"This girl of Mary's, growing tall,-- +(Just turned her sixteenth year,)-- +To earn her bread and help them all, +Would work as housemaid here." + +So Agnes, with her golden beads, +And naught beside as dower, +Grew at the wayside with the weeds, +Herself a garden-flower. + +'T was strange, 't was sad,--so fresh, so fair! +Thus Pity's voice began. +Such grace! an angel's shape and air! +The half-heard whisper ran. + +For eyes could see in George's time, +As now in later days, +And lips could shape, in prose and rhyme, +The honeyed breath of praise. + +No time to woo! The train must go +Long ere the sun is down, +To reach, before the night-winds blow, +The many-steepled town. + +'T is midnight,--street and square are still; +Dark roll the whispering waves +That lap the piers beneath the hill +Ridged thick with ancient graves. + +Ah, gentle sleep! thy hand will smooth +The weary couch of pain, +When all thy poppies fail to soothe +The lover's throbbing brain! + +'T is morn,--the orange-mantled sun +Breaks through the fading gray, +And long and loud the Castle gun +Peals o'er the glistening bay. + +"Thank God 't is day!" With eager eye +He hails the morning shine:-- +"If art can win, or gold can buy, +The maiden shall be mine!" + + + +PART THIRD + +THE CONQUEST + +"Who saw this hussy when she came? +What is the wench, and who?" +They whisper. "Agnes--is her name? +Pray what has she to do?" + +The housemaids parley at the gate, +The scullions on the stair, +And in the footmen's grave debate +The butler deigns to share. + +Black Dinah, stolen when a child, +And sold on Boston pier, +Grown up in service, petted, spoiled, +Speaks in the coachman's ear: + +"What, all this household at his will? +And all are yet too few? +More servants, and more servants still,-- +This pert young madam too!" + +"_Servant!_ fine servant!" laughed aloud +The man of coach and steeds; +"She looks too fair, she steps too proud, +This girl with golden beads! + +"I tell you, you may fret and frown, +And call her what you choose, +You 'll find my Lady in her gown, +Your Mistress in her shoes!" + +Ah, gentle maidens, free from blame, +God grant you never know +The little whisper, loud with shame, +That makes the world your foe! + +Why tell the lordly flatterer's art, +That won the maiden's ear,-- +The fluttering of the frightened heart, +The blush, the smile, the tear? + +Alas! it were the saddening tale +That every language knows,-- +The wooing wind, the yielding sail, +The sunbeam and the rose. + +And now the gown of sober stuff +Has changed to fair brocade, +With broidered hem, and hanging cuff, +And flower of silken braid; + +And clasped around her blanching wrist +A jewelled bracelet shines, +Her flowing tresses' massive twist +A glittering net confines; + +And mingling with their truant wave +A fretted chain is hung; +But ah! the gift her mother gave,-- +Its beads are all unstrung! + +Her place is at the master's board, +Where none disputes her claim; +She walks beside the mansion's lord, +His bride in all but name. + +The busy tongues have ceased to talk, +Or speak in softened tone, +So gracious in her daily walk +The angel light has shown. + +No want that kindness may relieve +Assails her heart in vain, +The lifting of a ragged sleeve +Will check her palfrey's rein. + +A thoughtful calm, a quiet grace +In every movement shown, +Reveal her moulded for the place +She may not call her own. + +And, save that on her youthful brow +There broods a shadowy care, +No matron sealed with holy vow +In all the land so fair. + + + +PART FOURTH + +THE RESCUE + +A ship comes foaming up the bay, +Along the pier she glides; +Before her furrow melts away, +A courier mounts and rides. + +"Haste, Haste, post Haste!" the letters bear; +"Sir Harry Frankland, These." +Sad news to tell the loving pair! +The knight must cross the seas. + +"Alas! we part!"--the lips that spoke +Lost all their rosy red, +As when a crystal cup is broke, +And all its wine is shed. + +"Nay, droop not thus,--where'er," he cried, +"I go by land or sea, +My love, my life, my joy, my pride, +Thy place is still by me!" + +Through town and city, far and wide, +Their wandering feet have strayed, +From Alpine lake to ocean tide, +And cold Sierra's shade. + +At length they see the waters gleam +Amid the fragrant bowers +Where Lisbon mirrors in the stream +Her belt of ancient towers. + +Red is the orange on its bough, +To-morrow's sun shall fling +O'er Cintra's hazel-shaded brow +The flush of April's wing. + +The streets are loud with noisy mirth, +They dance on every green; +The morning's dial marks the birth +Of proud Braganza's queen. + +At eve beneath their pictured dome +The gilded courtiers throng; +The broad moidores have cheated Rome +Of all her lords of song. + +AH! Lisbon dreams not of the day-- +Pleased with her painted scenes-- +When all her towers shall slide away +As now these canvas screens! + +The spring has passed, the summer fled, +And yet they linger still, +Though autumn's rustling leaves have spread +The flank of Cintra's hill. + +The town has learned their Saxon name, +And touched their English gold, +Nor tale of doubt nor hint of blame +From over sea is told. + +Three hours the first November dawn +Has climbed with feeble ray +Through mists like heavy curtains drawn +Before the darkened day. + +How still the muffled echoes sleep! +Hark! hark! a hollow sound,-- +A noise like chariots rumbling deep +Beneath the solid ground. + +The channel lifts, the water slides +And bares its bar of sand, +Anon a mountain billow strides +And crashes o'er the land. + +The turrets lean, the steeples reel +Like masts on ocean's swell, +And clash a long discordant peal, +The death-doomed city's knell. + +The pavement bursts, the earth upheaves +Beneath the staggering town! +The turrets crack--the castle cleaves-- +The spires come rushing down. + +Around, the lurid mountains glow +With strange unearthly gleams; +While black abysses gape below, +Then close in jagged seams. + +And all is over. Street and square +In ruined heaps are piled; +Ah! where is she, so frail, so fair, +Amid the tumult wild? + +Unscathed, she treads the wreck-piled street, +Whose narrow gaps afford +A pathway for her bleeding feet, +To seek her absent lord. + +A temple's broken walls arrest +Her wild and wandering eyes; +Beneath its shattered portal pressed, +Her lord unconscious lies. + +The power that living hearts obey +Shall lifeless blocks withstand? +Love led her footsteps where he lay,-- +Love nerves her woman's hand. + +One cry,--the marble shaft she grasps,-- +Up heaves the ponderous stone:-- +He breathes,--her fainting form he clasps,-- +Her life has bought his own! + + + +PART FIFTH + +THE REWARD + +How like the starless night of death +Our being's brief eclipse, +When faltering heart and failing breath +Have bleached the fading lips! + +The earth has folded like a wave, +And thrice a thousand score, +Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave, +The sun shall see no more! + +She lives! What guerdon shall repay +His debt of ransomed life? +One word can charm all wrongs away,-- +The sacred name of WIFE! + +The love that won her girlish charms +Must shield her matron fame, +And write beneath the Frankland arms +The village beauty's name. + +Go, call the priest! no vain delay +Shall dim the sacred ring! +Who knows what change the passing day, +The fleeting hour, may bring? + +Before the holy altar bent, +There kneels a goodly pair; +A stately man, of high descent, +A woman, passing fair. + +No jewels lend the blinding sheen +That meaner beauty needs, +But on her bosom heaves unseen +A string of golden beads. + +The vow is spoke,--the prayer is said,-- +And with a gentle pride +The Lady Agnes lifts her head, +Sir Harry Frankland's bride. + +No more her faithful heart shall bear +Those griefs so meekly borne,-- +The passing sneer, the freezing stare, +The icy look of scorn; + +No more the blue-eyed English dames +Their haughty lips shall curl, +Whene'er a hissing whisper names +The poor New England girl. + +But stay!--his mother's haughty brow,-- +The pride of ancient race,-- +Will plighted faith, and holy vow, +Win back her fond embrace? + +Too well she knew the saddening tale +Of love no vow had blest, +That turned his blushing honors pale +And stained his knightly crest. + +They seek his Northern home,--alas +He goes alone before;-- +His own dear Agnes may not pass +The proud, ancestral door. + +He stood before the stately dame; +He spoke; she calmly heard, +But not to pity, nor to blame; +She breathed no single word. + +He told his love,--her faith betrayed; +She heard with tearless eyes; +Could she forgive the erring maid? +She stared in cold surprise. + +How fond her heart, he told,--how true; +The haughty eyelids fell;-- +The kindly deeds she loved to do; +She murmured, "It is well." + +But when he told that fearful day, +And how her feet were led +To where entombed in life he lay, +The breathing with the dead, + +And how she bruised her tender breasts +Against the crushing stone, +That still the strong-armed clown protests +No man can lift alone,-- + +Oh! then the frozen spring was broke; +By turns she wept and smiled;-- +"Sweet Agnes!" so the mother spoke, +"God bless my angel child. + +"She saved thee from the jaws of death,-- +'T is thine to right her wrongs; +I tell thee,--I, who gave thee breath,-- +To her thy life belongs!" + +Thus Agnes won her noble name, +Her lawless lover's hand; +The lowly maiden so became +A lady in the land! + + + +PART SIXTH + +CONCLUSION + +The tale is done; it little needs +To track their after ways, +And string again the golden beads +Of love's uncounted days. + +They leave the fair ancestral isle +For bleak New England's shore; +How gracious is the courtly smile +Of all who frowned before! + +Again through Lisbon's orange bowers +They watch the river's gleam, +And shudder as her shadowy towers +Shake in the trembling stream. + +Fate parts at length the fondest pair; +His cheek, alas! grows pale; +The breast that trampling death could spare +His noiseless shafts assail. + +He longs to change the heaven of blue +For England's clouded sky,-- +To breathe the air his boyhood knew; +He seeks then but to die. + +Hard by the terraced hillside town, +Where healing streamlets run, +Still sparkling with their old renown,-- +The "Waters of the Sun,"-- + +The Lady Agnes raised the stone +That marks his honored grave, +And there Sir Harry sleeps alone +By Wiltshire Avon's wave. + +The home of early love was dear; +She sought its peaceful shade, +And kept her state for many a year, +With none to make afraid. + +At last the evil days were come +That saw the red cross fall; +She hears the rebels' rattling drum,-- +Farewell to Frankland Hall! + +I tell you, as my tale began, +The hall is standing still; +And you, kind listener, maid or man, +May see it if you will. + +The box is glistening huge and green, +Like trees the lilacs grow, +Three elms high-arching still are seen, +And one lies stretched below. + +The hangings, rough with velvet flowers, +Flap on the latticed wall; +And o'er the mossy ridge-pole towers +The rock-hewn chimney tall. + +The doors on mighty hinges clash +With massive bolt and bar, +The heavy English-moulded sash +Scarce can the night-winds jar. + +Behold the chosen room he sought +Alone, to fast and pray, +Each year, as chill November brought +The dismal earthquake day. + +There hung the rapier blade he wore, +Bent in its flattened sheath; +The coat the shrieking woman tore +Caught in her clenching teeth;-- + +The coat with tarnished silver lace +She snapped at as she slid, +And down upon her death-white face +Crashed the huge coffin's lid. + +A graded terrace yet remains; +If on its turf you stand +And look along the wooded plains +That stretch on either hand, + +The broken forest walls define +A dim, receding view, +Where, on the far horizon's line, +He cut his vista through. + +If further story you shall crave, +Or ask for living proof, +Go see old Julia, born a slave +Beneath Sir Harry's roof. + +She told me half that I have told, +And she remembers well +The mansion as it looked of old +Before its glories fell;-- + +The box, when round the terraced square +Its glossy wall was drawn; +The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, +The roses on the lawn. + +And Julia says, with truthful look +Stamped on her wrinkled face, +That in her own black hands she took +The coat with silver lace. + +And you may hold the story light, +Or, if you like, believe; +But there it was, the woman's bite,-- +A mouthful from the sleeve. + +Now go your ways;--I need not tell +The moral of my rhyme; +But, youths and maidens, ponder well +This tale of olden time! + + + + +THE PLOUGHMAN +ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, +OCTOBER 4, 1849 + +CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam! +Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, +With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow, +The lord of earth, the hero of the plough! + +First in the field before the reddening sun, +Last in the shadows when the day is done, +Line after line, along the bursting sod, +Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod; +Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide, +The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide; +Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves, +Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves; +Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train +Slants the long track that scores the level plain; +Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay, +The patient convoy breaks its destined way; +At every turn the loosening chains resound, +The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round, +Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, +And wearied hands unbind the panting steers. + +These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings +The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; +This is the page, whose letters shall be seen +Changed by the sun to words of living green; +This is the scholar, whose immortal pen +Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men; +These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil +Shows on his deed,--the charter of the soil. + +O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast +Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, +How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, +Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time +We stain thy flowers,--they blossom o'er the dead; +We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; +O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, +Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; +Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain, +Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. +Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms +Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms, +Let not our virtues in thy love decay, +And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. + +No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed +In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed; +By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests +The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests; +By these fair plains the mountain circle screens, +And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines, +True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil +To crown with peace their own untainted soil; +And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind, +If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind, +These stately forms, that bending even now +Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough, +Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, +The same stern iron in the same right hand, +Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run, +The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won! + + + +SPRING + +WINTER is past; the heart of Nature warms +Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms; +Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen, +The southern slopes are fringed with tender green; +On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves, +Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves, +Bright with the hues from wider pictures won, +White, azure, golden,--drift, or sky, or sun,-- +The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast +The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest; +The violet, gazing on the arch of blue +Till her own iris wears its deepened hue; +The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould +Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. +Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high +Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky +On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves +The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves; +The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave, +Drugged with the opiate that November gave, +Beats with faint wing against the sunny pane, +Or crawls, tenacious, o'er its lucid plain; +From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls, +In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls; +The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep, +Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap; +On floating rails that face the softening noons +The still shy turtles range their dark platoons, +Or, toiling aimless o'er the mellowing fields, +Trail through the grass their tessellated shields. + +At last young April, ever frail and fair, +Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, +Chased to the margin of receding floods +O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds, +In tears and blushes sighs herself away, +And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May. + +Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, +Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays; +O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis, +Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free; +With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, +And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose; +Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge +The rival lily hastens to emerge, +Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, +Till morn is sultan of her parted lips. + +Then bursts the song from every leafy glade, +The yielding season's bridal serenade; +Then flash the wings returning Summer calls +Through the deep arches of her forest halls,-- +The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes +The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; +The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, +Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; +The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire +Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. +The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, +Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; +The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, +Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; +Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, +Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings. + +Why dream I here within these caging walls, +Deaf to her voice, while blooming Nature calls; +Peering and gazing with insatiate looks +Through blinding lenses, or in wearying books? +Off, gloomy spectres of the shrivelled past! +Fly with the leaves that fill the autumn blast +Ye imps of Science, whose relentless chains +Lock the warm tides within these living veins, +Close your dim cavern, while its captive strays +Dazzled and giddy in the morning's blaze! + + + + +THE STUDY + +YET in the darksome crypt I left so late, +Whose only altar is its rusted grate,-- +Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, +Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams,-- +While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train, +Its paler splendors were not quite in vain. +From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow +Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; +Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will +On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, +Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard, +And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, +Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone, +Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone. + +Not all unblest the mild interior scene +When the red curtain spread its falling screen; +O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, +And the long evening only flew too fast; +Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend +In genial welcome to some easy friend, +Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves, +Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves; +Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, +In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed. +Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring +To the round table its expected ring, +And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,-- +Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard,-- +Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour +The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower. + +Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, +Not quite deserted when its guests were flown; +Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, +Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, +Ready to answer, never known to ask, +Claiming no service, prompt for every task. +On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes, +O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns; +A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, +That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime, +Each knows his place, and each may claim his part +In some quaint corner of his master's heart. +This old Decretal, won from Moss's hoards, +Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards, +Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, +Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close; +Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, +With glistening letters wrought in red and blue. +There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, +The Aldine anchor on his opening page; +There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind, +In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confused, +"Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?) +Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine! +In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill +The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville; +High over all, in close, compact array, +Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. +In lower regions of the sacred space +Range the dense volumes of a humbler race; +There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach, +In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech; +Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, +Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, +Lully and Geber, and the learned crew +That loved to talk of all they could not do. + +Why count the rest,--those names of later days +That many love, and all agree to praise,-- +Or point the titles, where a glance may read +The dangerous lines of party or of creed? +Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show +What few may care and none can claim to know. +Each has his features, whose exterior seal +A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal; +Go to his study,--on the nearest shelf +Stands the mosaic portrait of himself. + +What though for months the tranquil dust descends, +Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends, +While the damp offspring of the modern press +Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress; +Not less I love each dull familiar face, +Nor less should miss it from the appointed place; +I snatch the book, along whose burning leaves +His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, +Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share, +My old MAGNALIA must be standing _there_! + + + + +THE BELLS + +WHEN o'er the street the morning peal is flung +From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue, +Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale, +To each far listener tell a different tale. +The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor +Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar, +Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one, +Each dull concussion, till his task is done. +Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note +Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat, +Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street, +Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet; +The bell, responsive to her secret flame, +With every note repeats her lover's name. +The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane, +Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, +Hears the stern accents, as they come and go, +Their only burden one despairing No! +Ocean's rough child, whom many a shore has known +Ere homeward breezes swept him to his own, +Starts at the echo as it circles round, +A thousand memories kindling with the sound; +The early favorite's unforgotten charms, +Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms; +His first farewell, the flapping canvas spread, +The seaward streamers crackling overhead, +His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to weep +Her first-born's bridal with the haggard deep, +While the brave father stood with tearless eye, +Smiling and choking with his last good-by. + +'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats, +With the same impulse, every nerve it meets, +Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride +On the round surge of that aerial tide! + +O child of earth! If floating sounds like these +Steal from thyself their power to wound or please, +If here or there thy changing will inclines, +As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs, +Look at thy heart, and when its depths are known, +Then try thy brother's, judging by thine own, +But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range, +While its own standards are the sport of change, +Nor count us rebels when we disobey +The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway. + + + + +NON-RESISTANCE + +PERHAPS too far in these considerate days +Has patience carried her submissive ways; +Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, +To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; +It is not written what a man shall do, +If the rude caitiff smite the other too! + +Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need +God help thee, guarded by the passive creed! +As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl, +When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl; +As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow +When the black corsair slants athwart her bow; +As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien, +Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green, +When the dark plumage with the crimson beak +Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,-- +So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm +The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm, +Thy torches ready for the answering peal +From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel! + + + + +THE MORAL BULLY + +YON whey-faced brother, who delights to wear +A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair, +Seems of the sort that in a crowded place +One elbows freely into smallest space; +A timid creature, lax of knee and hip, +Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip; +One of those harmless spectacled machines, +The Holy-Week of Protestants convenes; +Whom school-boys question if their walk transcends +The last advices of maternal friends; +Whom John, obedient to his master's sign, +Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine, +While Peter, glistening with luxurious scorn, +Husks his white ivories like an ear of corn; +Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek, +Whose yellowish linen flowers but once a week, +Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare suits, +And the laced high-lows which they call their boots, +Well mayst thou shun that dingy front severe, +But him, O stranger, him thou canst not _fear_. + +Be slow to judge, and slower to despise, +Man of broad shoulders and heroic size +The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings, +Drops at the fountain where the cobra stings. +In that lean phantom, whose extended glove +Points to the text of universal love, +Behold the master that can tame thee down +To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown; +His velvet throat against thy corded wrist, +His loosened tongue against thy doubled fist. + +The MORAL BULLY, though he never swears, +Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, +Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, +And non-resistance ties his white cravat, +Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen +In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, +Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast +That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, +Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear +That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, +Feels the same comfort while his acrid words +Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds, +Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate, +That all we love is worthiest of our hate, +As the scarred ruffian of the pirate's deck, +When his long swivel rakes the staggering wreck! + +Heaven keep us all! Is every rascal clown +Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down? +Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul +Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole, +Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace +Of angel visits on his hungry face, +From lack of marrow or the coins to pay, +Has dodged some vices in a shabby way, +The right to stick us with his cutthroat terms, +And bait his homilies with his brother worms? + + + + +THE MIND'S DIET + +No life worth naming ever comes to good +If always nourished on the selfsame food; +The creeping mite may live so if he please, +And feed on Stilton till he turns to cheese, +But cool Magendie proves beyond a doubt, +If mammals try it, that their eyes drop out. + +No reasoning natures find it safe to feed, +For their sole diet, on a single creed; +It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their tongues, +And starves the heart to feed the noisy lungs. + +When the first larvae on the elm are seen, +The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are green; +Ere chill October shakes the latest down, +They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown; +On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy, +You stretch to pluck it--'tis a butterfly; +The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark, +They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark; +The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, +Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood; +So by long living on a single lie, +Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye; +Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,-- +Except when squabbling turns them black and blue! + + + + +OUR LIMITATIONS + +WE trust and fear, we question and believe, +From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave, +Frail as the web that misty night has spun, +Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun. +While the calm centuries spell their lessons out, +Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt; +When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne, +The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone; +When Pilate's hall that awful question heard, +The Heavenly Captive answered not a word. + +Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears +Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! +From age to age, while History carves sublime +On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, +How the wild swayings of our planet show +That worlds unseen surround the world we know. + + + + +THE OLD PLAYER + +THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud +The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed. +In flaming line the telltales of the stage +Showed on his brow the autograph of age; +Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair, +And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care; +Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,-- +He strove to speak,--his voice was but a sigh. + +Year after year had seen its short-lived race +Flit past the scenes and others take their place; +Yet the old prompter watched his accents still, +His name still flaunted on the evening's bill. +Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor, +Had died in earnest and were heard no more; +Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread +They faced the footlights in unborrowed red, +Had faded slowly through successive shades +To gray duennas, foils of younger maids; +Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start +With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart, +While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky +With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry. +Yet there he stood,--the man of other days, +In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze, +As on the oak a faded leaf that clings +While a new April spreads its burnished wings. + +How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier, +Their central sun the flashing chandelier! +How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim +Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim +How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold! +Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told. +No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue; +Again, again, the crashing galleries rung. +As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast +Hears in its strain the echoes of the past, +So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round, +A life of memories startled at the sound. +He lived again,--the page of earliest days,-- +Days of small fee and parsimonious praise; +Then lithe young Romeo--hark that silvered tone, +From those smooth lips--alas! they were his own. +Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe, +Told his strange tale of midnight melting snow; +And dark--plumed Hamlet, with his cloak and blade, +Looked on the royal ghost, himself a shade. +All in one flash, his youthful memories came, +Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame, +As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong dream, +While the last bubble rises through the stream. + +Call him not old, whose visionary brain +Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. +For him in vain the envious seasons roll +Who bears eternal summer in his soul. +If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, +Spring with her birds, or children at their play, +Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art, +Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, +Turn to the record where his years are told,-- +Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old! +What magic power has changed the faded mime? +One breath of memory on the dust of time. +As the last window in the buttressed wall +Of some gray minster tottering to its fall, +Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread, +A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red, +Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows +When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows, +And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane +See angels glow in every shapeless stain; +So streamed the vision through his sunken eye, +Clad in the splendors of his morning sky. +All the wild hopes his eager boyhood knew, +All the young fancies riper years proved true, +The sweet, low-whispered words, the winning glance +From queens of song, from Houris of the dance, +Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing phrase, +And Beauty's silence when her blush was praise, +And melting Pride, her lashes wet with tears, +Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns and cheers, +Pangs of wild joy that perish on the tongue, +And all that poets dream, but leave unsung! + +In every heart some viewless founts are fed +From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed; +On the worn features of the weariest face +Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace, +As in old gardens left by exiled kings +The marble basins tell of hidden springs, +But, gray with dust, and overgrown with weeds, +Their choking jets the passer little heeds, +Till time's revenges break their seals away, +And, clad in rainbow light, the waters play. + +Good night, fond dreamer! let the curtain fall +The world's a stage, and we are players all. +A strange rehearsal! Kings without their crowns, +And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing clowns, +Speak the vain words that mock their throbbing hearts, +As Want, stern prompter! spells them out their parts. +The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay +Is twice an actor in a twofold play. +We smile at children when a painted screen +Seems to their simple eyes a real scene; +Ask the poor hireling, who has left his throne +To seek the cheerless home he calls his own, +Which of his double lives most real seems, +The world of solid fact or scenic dreams? +Canvas, or clouds,--the footlights, or the spheres,-- +The play of two short hours, or seventy years? +Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes, +Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies; +Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this; +The cheating future lends the present's bliss; +Life is a running shade, with fettered hands, +That chases phantoms over shifting sands; +Death a still spectre on a marble seat, +With ever clutching palms and shackled feet; +The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain, +The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain, +Death only grasps; to live is to pursue,-- +Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true! + + + + + +A POEM + +DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, +SEPTEMBER 9,1850 + +ANGEL of Death! extend thy silent reign! +Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new domain +No sable car along the winding road +Has borne to earth its unresisting load; +No sudden mound has risen yet to show +Where the pale slumberer folds his arms below; +No marble gleams to bid his memory live +In the brief lines that hurrying Time can give; +Yet, O Destroyer! from thy shrouded throne +Look on our gift; this realm is all thine own! + +Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft beguiled +From their dim paths the children of the wild; +The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy dells, +The feathered warrior claimed its wooded swells, +Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges show +The pointed flints that left his fatal bow, +Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian toil,-- +Last of his wrecks that strews the alien soil! +Here spread the fields that heaped their ripened store +Till the brown arms of Labor held no more; +The scythe's broad meadow with its dusky blush; +The sickle's harvest with its velvet flush; +The green-haired maize, her silken tresses laid, +In soft luxuriance, on her harsh brocade; +The gourd that swells beneath her tossing plume; +The coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of bloom,-- +Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive +With the wide murmurs of the scattered hive; +Here glowed the apple with the pencilled streak +Of morning painted on its southern cheek; +The pear's long necklace strung with golden drops, +Arched, like the banian, o'er its pillared props; +Here crept the growths that paid the laborer's care +With the cheap luxuries wealth consents to spare; +Here sprang the healing herbs which could not save +The hand that reared them from the neighboring grave. + +Yet all its varied charms, forever free +From task and tribute, Labor yields to thee +No more, when April sheds her fitful rain, +The sower's hand shall cast its flying grain; +No more, when Autumn strews the flaming leaves, +The reaper's band shall gird its yellow sheaves; +For thee alike the circling seasons flow +Till the first blossoms heave the latest snow. +In the stiff clod below the whirling drifts, +In the loose soil the springing herbage lifts, +In the hot dust beneath the parching weeds, +Life's withering flower shall drop its shrivelled seeds; +Its germ entranced in thy unbreathing sleep +Till what thou sowest mightier angels reap! + +Spirit of Beauty! let thy graces blend +With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. +Come from the bowers where Summer's life-blood flows +Through the red lips of June's half-open rose, +Dressed in bright hues, the loving sunshine's dower; +For tranquil Nature owns no mourning flower. +Come from the forest where the beech's screen +Bars the fierce moonbeam with its flakes of green; +Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy plains, +Stanch the deep wound That dries the maple's veins. +Come with the stream whose silver-braided rills +Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills, +Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings, +Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs. +Come from the steeps where look majestic forth +From their twin thrones the Giants of the North +On the huge shapes, that, crouching at their knees, +Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees. +Through the wide waste of ether, not in vain, +Their softened gaze shall reach our distant plain; +There, while the mourner turns his aching eyes +On the blue mounds that print the bluer skies, +Nature shall whisper that the fading view +Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly hue. +Cherub of Wisdom! let thy marble page +Leave its sad lesson, new to every age; +Teach us to live, not grudging every breath +To the chill winds that waft us on to death, +But ruling calmly every pulse it warms, +And tempering gently every word it forms. +Seraph of Love! in heaven's adoring zone, +Nearest of all around the central throne, +While with soft hands the pillowed turf we spread +That soon shall hold us in its dreamless bed, +With the low whisper,--Who shall first be laid +In the dark chamber's yet unbroken shade?-- +Let thy sweet radiance shine rekindled here, +And all we cherish grow more truly dear. +Here in the gates of Death's o'erhanging vault, +Oh, teach us kindness for our brother's fault +Lay all our wrongs beneath this peaceful sod, +And lead our hearts to Mercy and its God. + +FATHER of all! in Death's relentless claim +We read thy mercy by its sterner name; +In the bright flower that decks the solemn bier, +We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; +In the deep lessons that affliction draws, +We trace the curves of thy encircling laws; +In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, +We own the love that calls us back to Thee! + +Through the hushed street, along the silent plain, +The spectral future leads its mourning train, +Dark with the shadows of uncounted bands, +Where man's white lips and woman's wringing hands +Track the still burden, rolling slow before, +That love and kindness can protect no more; +The smiling babe that, called to mortal strife, +Shuts its meek eyes and drops its little life; +The drooping child who prays in vain to live, +And pleads for help its parent cannot give; +The pride of beauty stricken in its flower; +The strength of manhood broken in an hour; +Age in its weakness, bowed by toil and care, +Traced in sad lines beneath its silvered hair. + +The sun shall set, and heaven's resplendent spheres +Gild the smooth turf unhallowed yet by tears, +But ah! how soon the evening stars will shed +Their sleepless light around the slumbering dead! + +Take them, O Father, in immortal trust! +Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, +Till the last angel rolls the stone away, +And a new morning brings eternal day! + + + + + +TO GOVERNOR SWAIN + +DEAR GOVERNOR, if my skiff might brave +The winds that lift the ocean wave, +The mountain stream that loops and swerves +Through my broad meadow's channelled curves +Should waft me on from bound to bound +To where the River weds the Sound, +The Sound should give me to the Sea, +That to the Bay, the Bay to thee. + +It may not be; too long the track +To follow down or struggle back. +The sun has set on fair Naushon +Long ere my western blaze is gone; +The ocean disk is rolling dark +In shadows round your swinging bark, +While yet the yellow sunset fills +The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills; +The day-star wakes your island deer +Long ere my barnyard chanticleer; +Your mists are soaring in the blue +While mine are sparks of glittering dew. + +It may not be; oh, would it might, +Could I live o'er that glowing night! +What golden hours would come to life, +What goodly feats of peaceful strife,-- +Such jests, that, drained of every joke, +The very bank of language broke,-- +Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died +With stitches in his belted side; +While Time, caught fast in pleasure's chain, +His double goblet snapped in twain, +And stood with half in either hand,-- +Both brimming full,--but not of sand! + +It may not be; I strive in vain +To break my slender household chain,-- +Three pairs of little clasping hands, +One voice, that whispers, not commands. +Even while my spirit flies away, +My gentle jailers murmur nay; +All shapes of elemental wrath +They raise along my threatened path; +The storm grows black, the waters rise, +The mountains mingle with the skies, +The mad tornado scoops the ground, +The midnight robber prowls around,-- +Thus, kissing every limb they tie, +They draw a knot and heave a sigh, +Till, fairly netted in the toil, +My feet are rooted to the soil. +Only the soaring wish is free!-- +And that, dear Governor, flies to thee! +PITTSFIELD, 1851. + + + + + +TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND + +THE seed that wasteful autumn cast +To waver on its stormy blast, +Long o'er the wintry desert tost, +Its living germ has never lost. +Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, +It feels the kindling ray of spring, +And, starting from its dream of death, +Pours on the air its perfumed breath. + +So, parted by the rolling flood, +The love that springs from common blood +Needs but a single sunlit hour +Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; +Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, +From shore to shore, from zone to zone, +Where summer's falling roses stain +The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, +Or where the lichen creeps below +Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow. + +Though fiery sun and stiffening cold +May change the fair ancestral mould, +No winter chills, no summer drains +The life-blood drawn from English veins, +Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows +The love that with its fountain rose, +Unchanged by space, unwronged by time, +From age to age, from clime to clime! +1852. + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH + +COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, +And leave the crowded hall +For where the eyes of twilight shine +O'er evening's western wall. + +These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, +Each with its leafy crown; +Hark! from their sides a thousand rills +Come singing sweetly down. + +A thousand rills; they leap and shine, +Strained through the shadowy nooks, +Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, +They swell a hundred brooks. + +A hundred brooks, and still they run +With ripple, shade, and gleam, +Till, clustering all their braids in one, +They flow a single stream. + +A bracelet spun from mountain mist, +A silvery sash unwound, +With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist +It writhes to reach the Sound. + +This is my bark,--a pygmy's ship; +Beneath a child it rolls; +Fear not,--one body makes it dip, +But not a thousand souls. + +Float we the grassy banks between; +Without an oar we glide; +The meadows, drest in living green, +Unroll on either side. + +Come, take the book we love so well, +And let us read and dream +We see whate'er its pages tell, +And sail an English stream. + +Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, +Still trilling as he flies; +The linnet sings as there he sung; +The unseen cuckoo cries, + +And daisies strew the banks along, +And yellow kingcups shine, +With cowslips, and a primrose throng, +And humble celandine. + +Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed +Her daughter in the West, +The fount was drained that opened first; +She bared her other breast. + +On the young planet's orient shore +Her morning hand she tried; +Then turned the broad medallion o'er +And stamped the sunset side. + +Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, +Her elm with hanging spray; +She wears her mountain diadem +Still in her own proud way. + +Look on the forests' ancient kings, +The hemlock's towering pride +Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, +And fell before it died. + +Nor think that Nature saves her bloom +And slights our grassy plain; +For us she wears her court costume,-- +Look on its broidered train; + +The lily with the sprinkled dots, +Brands of the noontide beam; +The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, +Its double in the stream, + +As if some wounded eagle's breast, +Slow throbbing o'er the plain, +Had left its airy path impressed +In drops of scarlet rain. + +And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; +There thrilled the thrush's soul; +And look! that flash of flamy wings,-- +The fire-plumed oriole! + +Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, +Flung from the bright, blue sky; +Below, the robin hops, and whoops +His piercing, Indian cry. + +Beauty runs virgin in the woods +Robed in her rustic green, +And oft a longing thought intrudes, +As if we might have seen. + +Her every finger's every joint +Ringed with some golden line, +Poet whom Nature did anoint +Had our wild home been thine. + +Yet think not so; Old England's blood +Runs warm in English veins; +But wafted o'er the icy flood +Its better life remains. + +Our children know each wildwood smell, +The bayberry and the fern, +The man who does not know them well +Is all too old to learn. + +Be patient! On the breathing page +Still pants our hurried past; +Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, +The poet comes the last! + +Though still the lark-voiced matins ring +The world has known so long; +The wood-thrush of the West shall sing +Earth's last sweet even-song! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE + +SHINE soft, ye trembling tears of light +That strew the mourning skies; +Hushed in the silent dews of night +The harp of Erin lies. + +What though her thousand years have past +Of poets, saints, and kings,-- +Her echoes only hear the last +That swept those golden strings. + +Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, +The balmiest wreaths ye wear, +Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers +Heaven's own ambrosial air. + +Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, +By shadowy grove and rill; +Thy song will soothe us while we own +That his was sweeter still. + +Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him +Who gave thee swifter wings, +Nor let thine envious shadow dim +The light his glory flings. + +If in his cheek unholy blood +Burned for one youthful hour, +'T was but the flushing of the bud +That blooms a milk-white flower. + +Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, +Who loved thy smiles so well, +And spread thy mantle o'er his rest +Of rose and asphodel. + +The bark has sailed the midnight sea, +The sea without a shore, +That waved its parting sign to thee,-- +"A health to thee, Tom Moore!" + +And thine, long lingering on the strand, +Its bright-hued streamers furled, +Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, +To seek the silent world. + +Not silent! no, the radiant stars +Still singing as they shine, +Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, +Have voices sweet as thine. + +Wake, then, in happier realms above, +The songs of bygone years, +Till angels learn those airs of love +That ravished mortal ears! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS + +"Purpureos spargam flores." + +THE wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave +Is lying on thy Roman grave, +Yet on its turf young April sets +Her store of slender violets; +Though all the Gods their garlands shower, +I too may bring one purple flower. +Alas! what blossom shall I bring, +That opens in my Northern spring? +The garden beds have all run wild, +So trim when I was yet a child; +Flat plantains and unseemly stalks +Have crept across the gravel walks; +The vines are dead, long, long ago, +The almond buds no longer blow. +No more upon its mound I see +The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; +Where once the tulips used to show, +In straggling tufts the pansies grow; +The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem, +The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," +Though its long blade of glossy green +And pallid stripe may still be seen. +Nature, who treads her nobles down, +And gives their birthright to the clown, +Has sown her base-born weedy things +Above the garden's queens and kings. +Yet one sweet flower of ancient race +Springs in the old familiar place. +When snows were melting down the vale, +And Earth unlaced her icy mail, +And March his stormy trumpet blew, +And tender green came peeping through, +I loved the earliest one to seek +That broke the soil with emerald beak, +And watch the trembling bells so blue +Spread on the column as it grew. +Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame +The sweet, dead poet's holy name; +The God of music gave thee birth, +Called from the crimson-spotted earth, +Where, sobbing his young life away, +His own fair Hyacinthus lay. +The hyacinth my garden gave +Shall lie upon that Roman grave! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY + +ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay +On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I +The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; +The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there. + +Morning: a woman looking on the sea; +Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; +Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee! +Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns. + +And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, +And torches flaring in the weedy caves, +Where'er the waters lay with icy hands +The shapes uplifted from their coral graves. + +Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; +The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks, +And lean, wild children gather from the shore +To the black hovels bedded in the rocks. + +But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, +"One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!" +Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, +Raised the pale burden on his level shield. + +Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire; +His form a nobler element shall claim; +Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, +And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame. + +Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; +Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; +Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; +All else has risen in yon silvery cloud. + +Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, +Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, +Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, +Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art. + +Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh, +O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim,-- +In all the mansions of the house on high, +Say not that Mercy has not one for him! + + + + + +AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES + +As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream, +As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream, +There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me,-- +The vision is over,--the rivulet free. + +We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March, +Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch, +And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day, +We hear the warm panting of beautiful May. + +We will part before Summer has opened her wing, +And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring, +While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud, +And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood. + +It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, +The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground; +No hand shall replace it,--it rests where it fell,--- +It is but one word that we all know too well. + +Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye, +If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky; +The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain +Will turn for a moment and look at his chain. + +Our parting is not as the friendship of years, +That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears; +We have walked in a garden, and, looking around, +Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found. + +But now at the gate of the garden we stand, +And the moment has come for unclasping the hand; +Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat +Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat? + +Nay! hold it one moment,--the last we may share,-- +I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare; +You may pass through the doorway in rank or in file, +If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile. + +For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part, +When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; +And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, +We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell. + + + + + +THE HUDSON + +AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY + + +'T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn, +Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn; +The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long, +And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song. + +"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,"-- +She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; +"Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played; +Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid." + +I wandered afar from the land of my birth, +I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, +But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream +With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream. + +I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, +Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine; +I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide +Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side. + +But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves +That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; +If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, +I care not who sees it,--no blush for it here! + +Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West! +I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; +Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, +Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled! + +December, 1854. + + + + + +THE NEW EDEN + +MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, +AT STOCKBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 13,1854 + +SCARCE could the parting ocean close, +Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow, +When o'er the rugged desert rose +The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough. + +Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field +The rippling grass, the nodding grain, +Such growths as English meadows yield +To scanty sun and frequent rain. + +But when the fiery days were done, +And Autumn brought his purple haze, +Then, kindling in the slanted sun, +The hillsides gleamed with golden maize. + +The food was scant, the fruits were few +A red-streak glistening here and there; +Perchance in statelier precincts grew +Some stern old Puritanic pear. + +Austere in taste, and tough at core, +Its unrelenting bulk was shed, +To ripen in the Pilgrim's store +When all the summer sweets were fled. + +Such was his lot, to front the storm +With iron heart and marble brow, +Nor ripen till his earthly form +Was cast from life's autumnal bough. + +But ever on the bleakest rock +We bid the brightest beacon glow, +And still upon the thorniest stock +The sweetest roses love to blow. + +So on our rude and wintry soil +We feed the kindling flame of art, +And steal the tropic's blushing spoil +To bloom on Nature's ice-clad heart. + +See how the softening Mother's breast +Warms to her children's patient wiles, +Her lips by loving Labor pressed +Break in a thousand dimpling smiles, + +From when the flushing bud of June +Dawns with its first auroral hue, +Till shines the rounded harvest-moon, +And velvet dahlias drink the dew. + +Nor these the only gifts she brings; +Look where the laboring orchard groans, +And yields its beryl-threaded strings +For chestnut burs and hemlock cones. + +Dear though the shadowy maple be, +And dearer still the whispering pine, +Dearest yon russet-laden tree +Browned by the heavy rubbing kine! + +There childhood flung its rustling stone, +There venturous boyhood learned to climb,-- +How well the early graft was known +Whose fruit was ripe ere harvest-time! + +Nor be the Fleming's pride forgot, +With swinging drops and drooping bells, +Freckled and splashed with streak and spot, +On the warm-breasted, sloping swells; + +Nor Persia's painted garden-queen,-- +Frail Houri of the trellised wall,-- +Her deep-cleft bosom scarfed with green,-- +Fairest to see, and first to fall. + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +When man provoked his mortal doom, +And Eden trembled as he fell, +When blossoms sighed their last perfume, +And branches waved their long farewell, + +One sucker crept beneath the gate, +One seed was wafted o'er the wall, +One bough sustained his trembling weight; +These left the garden,--these were all. + +And far o'er many a distant zone +These wrecks of Eden still are flung +The fruits that Paradise hath known +Are still in earthly gardens hung. + +Yes, by our own unstoried stream +The pink-white apple-blossoms burst +That saw the young Euphrates gleam,-- +That Gihon's circling waters nursed. + +For us the ambrosial pear--displays +The wealth its arching branches hold, +Bathed by a hundred summery days +In floods of mingling fire and gold. + +And here, where beauty's cheek of flame +With morning's earliest beam is fed, +The sunset-painted peach may claim +To rival its celestial red. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +What though in some unmoistened vale +The summer leaf grow brown and sere, +Say, shall our star of promise fail +That circles half the rolling sphere, + +From beaches salt with bitter spray, +O'er prairies green with softest rain, +And ridges bright with evening's ray, +To rocks that shade the stormless main? + +If by our slender-threaded streams +The blade and leaf and blossom die, +If, drained by noontide's parching beams, +The milky veins of Nature dry, + +See, with her swelling bosom bare, +Yon wild-eyed Sister in the West,-- +The ring of Empire round her hair, +The Indian's wampum on her breast! + +We saw the August sun descend, +Day after day, with blood-red stain, +And the blue mountains dimly blend +With smoke-wreaths from the burning plain; + +Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings +We sat and told the withering hours, +Till Heaven unsealed its hoarded springs, +And bade them leap in flashing showers. + +Yet in our Ishmael's thirst we knew +The mercy of the Sovereign hand +Would pour the fountain's quickening dew +To feed some harvest of the land. + +No flaming swords of wrath surround +Our second Garden of the Blest; +It spreads beyond its rocky bound, +It climbs Nevada's glittering crest. + +God keep the tempter from its gate! +God shield the children, lest they fall +From their stern fathers' free estate,-- +Till Ocean is its only wall! + + + + + +SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY +NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1855 + +NEW ENGLAND, we love thee; no time can erase +From the hearts of thy children the smile on thy face. +'T is the mother's fond look of affection and pride, +As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride. + +His bride may be fresher in beauty's young flower; +She may blaze in the jewels she brings with her dower. +But passion must chill in Time's pitiless blast; +The one that first loved us will love to the last. + +You have left the dear land of the lake and the hill, +But its winds and its waters will talk with you still. +"Forget not," they whisper, "your love is our debt," +And echo breathes softly, "We never forget." + +The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming around, +But your hearts have flown back o'er the waves of the Sound; +They have found the brown home where their pulses were born; +They are throbbing their way through the trees and the corn. + +There are roofs you remember,--their glory is fled; +There are mounds in the churchyard,--one sigh for the dead. +There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scattered around; +But Earth has no spot like that corner of ground. + +Come, let us be cheerful,--remember last night, +How they cheered us, and--never mind--meant it all right; +To-night, we harm nothing,--we love in the lump; +Here's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of the pump! + +Here 's to all the good people, wherever they be, +Who have grown in the shade of the liberty-tree; +We all love its leaves, and its blossoms and fruit, +But pray have a care of the fence round its root. + +We should like to talk big; it's a kind of a right, +When the tongue has got loose and the waistband grown tight; +But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau, +On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow. + +Enough! There are gentlemen waiting to talk, +Whose words are to mine as the flower to the stalk. +Stand by your old mother whatever befall; +God bless all her children! Good night to you all! + + + + + +FAREWELL + +TO J. R. LOWELL + +FAREWELL, for the bark has her breast to the tide, +And the rough arms of Ocean are stretched for his bride; +The winds from the mountain stream over the bay; +One clasp of the hand, then away and away! + +I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore; +The sun is declining, I see it once more; +To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field, +To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield. + +Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath, +With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death; +Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail +Has left her unaided to strive with the gale. + +There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast, +That will light the dark hour till its danger has past; +There are prayers that will plead with the storm when it raves, +And whisper "Be still!" to the turbulent waves. + + +Nay, think not that Friendship has called us in vain +To join the fair ring ere we break it again; +There is strength in its circle,--you lose the bright star, +But its sisters still chain it, though shining afar. + +I give you one health in the juice of the vine, +The blood of the vineyard shall mingle with mine; +Thus, thus let us drain the last dew-drops of gold, +As we empty our hearts of the blessings they hold. + +April 29, 1855. + + + + + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB + +THE mountains glitter in the snow +A thousand leagues asunder; +Yet here, amid the banquet's glow, +I hear their voice of thunder; +Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks; +A flowing stream is summoned; +Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks; +Monadnock to Ben Lomond! + +Though years have clipped the eagle's plume +That crowned the chieftain's bonnet, +The sun still sees the heather bloom, +The silver mists lie on it; + +With tartan kilt and philibeg, +What stride was ever bolder +Than his who showed the naked leg +Beneath the plaided shoulder? + +The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills, +That heard the bugles blowing +When down their sides the crimson rills +With mingled blood were flowing; +The hunts where gallant hearts were game, +The slashing on the border, +The raid that swooped with sword and flame, +Give place to "law and order." + +Not while the rocking steeples reel +With midnight tocsins ringing, +Not while the crashing war-notes peal, +God sets his poets singing; +The bird is silent in the night, +Or shrieks a cry of warning +While fluttering round the beacon-light,-- +But hear him greet the morning! + +The lark of Scotia's morning sky! +Whose voice may sing his praises? +With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye, +He walked among the daisies, +Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong +He soared to fields of glory; +But left his land her sweetest song +And earth her saddest story. + +'T is not the forts the builder piles +That chain the earth together; +The wedded crowns, the sister isles, +Would laugh at such a tether; +The kindling thought, the throbbing words, +That set the pulses beating, +Are stronger than the myriad swords +Of mighty armies meeting. + +Thus while within the banquet glows, +Without, the wild winds whistle, +We drink a triple health,--the Rose, +The Shamrock, and the Thistle +Their blended hues shall never fade +Till War has hushed his cannon,-- +Close-twined as ocean-currents braid +The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon! + + + + + +ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY + +CELEBRATION OF THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, +FEBRUARY 22, 1856 + +WELCOME to the day returning, +Dearer still as ages flow, +While the torch of Faith is burning, +Long as Freedom's altars glow! +See the hero whom it gave us +Slumbering on a mother's breast; +For the arm he stretched to save us, +Be its morn forever blest! + +Hear the tale of youthful glory, +While of Britain's rescued band +Friend and foe repeat the story, +Spread his fame o'er sea and land, +Where the red cross, proudly streaming, +Flaps above the frigate's deck, +Where the golden lilies, gleaming, +Star the watch-towers of Quebec. + +Look! The shadow on the dial +Marks the hour of deadlier strife; +Days of terror, years of trial, +Scourge a nation into life. +Lo, the youth, become her leader +All her baffled tyrants yield; +Through his arm the Lord hath freed her; +Crown him on the tented field! + +Vain is Empire's mad temptation +Not for him an earthly crown +He whose sword hath freed a nation +Strikes the offered sceptre down. +See the throneless Conqueror seated, +Ruler by a people's choice; +See the Patriot's task completed; +Hear the Father's dying voice! + +"By the name that you inherit, +By the sufferings you recall, +Cherish the fraternal spirit; +Love your country first of all! +Listen not to idle questions +If its bands maybe untied; +Doubt the patriot whose suggestions +Strive a nation to divide!" + +Father! We, whose ears have tingled +With the discord-notes of shame,-- +We, whose sires their blood have mingled +In the battle's thunder-flame,-- +Gathering, while this holy morning +Lights the land from sea to sea, +Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning; +Trust us, while we honor thee! + + + + + +BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER + +JANUARY 18, 1856 + +WHEN life hath run its largest round +Of toil and triumph, joy and woe, +How brief a storied page is found +To compass all its outward show! + +The world-tried sailor tires and droops; +His flag is rent, his keel forgot; +His farthest voyages seem but loops +That float from life's entangled knot. + +But when within the narrow space +Some larger soul hath lived and wrought, +Whose sight was open to embrace +The boundless realms of deed and thought,-- + +When, stricken by the freezing blast, +A nation's living pillars fall, +How rich the storied page, how vast, +A word, a whisper, can recall! + +No medal lifts its fretted face, +Nor speaking marble cheats your eye, +Yet, while these pictured lines I trace, +A living image passes by: + +A roof beneath the mountain pines; +The cloisters of a hill-girt plain; +The front of life's embattled lines; +A mound beside the heaving main. + +These are the scenes: a boy appears; +Set life's round dial in the sun, +Count the swift arc of seventy years, +His frame is dust; his task is done. + +Yet pause upon the noontide hour, +Ere the declining sun has laid +His bleaching rays on manhood's power, +And look upon the mighty shade. + +No gloom that stately shape can hide, +No change uncrown its brow; behold I +Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, +Earth has no double from its mould. + +Ere from the fields by valor won +The battle-smoke had rolled away, +And bared the blood-red setting sun, +His eyes were opened on the day. + +His land was but a shelving strip +Black with the strife that made it free +He lived to see its banners dip +Their fringes in the Western sea. + +The boundless prairies learned his name, +His words the mountain echoes knew, +The Northern breezes swept his fame +From icy lake to warm bayou. + +In toil he lived; in peace he died; +When life's full cycle was complete, +Put off his robes of power and pride, +And laid them at his Master's feet. + +His rest is by the storm-swept waves +Whom life's wild tempests roughly trie +Whose heart was like the streaming eaves +Of ocean, throbbing at his side. + +Death's cold white hand is like the snow +Laid softly on the furrowed hill, +It hides the broken seams below, +And leaves the summit brighter still. + +In vain the envious tongue upbraids; +His name a nation's heart shall keep +Till morning's latest sunlight fades +On the blue tablet of the deep. + + + + + +THE VOICELESS + +WE count the broken lyres that rest +Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, +But o'er their silent sister's breast +The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? +A few can touch the magic string, +And noisy Fame is proud to win them:-- +Alas for those that never sing, +But die with all their music in them! + +Nay, grieve not for the dead alone +Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- +Weep for the voiceless, who have known +The cross without the crown of glory +Not where Leucadian breezes sweep +O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, +But where the glistening night-dews weep +On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + +O hearts that break and give no sign +Save whitening lip and fading tresses, +Till Death pours out his longed-for wine +Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- +If singing breath or echoing chord +To every hidden pang were given, +What endless melodies were poured, +As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! + + + + + +THE TWO STREAMS + +BEHOLD the rocky wall +That down its sloping sides +Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, +In rushing river-tides! + +Yon stream, whose sources run +Turned by a pebble's edge, +Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun +Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + +The slender rill had strayed, +But for the slanting stone, +To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid +Of foam-flecked Oregon. + +So from the heights of Will +Life's parting stream descends, +And, as a moment turns its slender rill, +Each widening torrent bends,-- + +From the same cradle's side, +From the same mother's knee,-- +One to long darkness and the frozen tide, +One to the Peaceful Sea! + + + + + +THE PROMISE + +NOT charity we ask, +Nor yet thy gift refuse; +Please thy light fancy with the easy task +Only to look and choose. + +The little-heeded toy +That wins thy treasured gold +May be the dearest memory, holiest joy, +Of coming years untold. + +Heaven rains on every heart, +But there its showers divide, +The drops of mercy choosing, as they part, +The dark or glowing side. + +One kindly deed may turn +The fountain of thy soul +To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee burn +Long as its currents roll. + +The pleasures thou hast planned,-- +Where shall their memory be +When the white angel with the freezing hand +Shall sit and watch by thee? + +Living, thou dost not live, +If mercy's spring run dry; +What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely give, +Dying, thou shalt not die. + +HE promised even so! +To thee his lips repeat,-- +Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe +Have washed thy Master's feet! + +March 20, 1859. + + + + + +AVIS + +I MAY not rightly call thy name,-- +Alas! thy forehead never knew +The kiss that happier children claim, +Nor glistened with baptismal dew. + +Daughter of want and wrong and woe, +I saw thee with thy sister-band, +Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow +By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand. + +"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek, +At once a woman and a child, +The saint uncrowned I came to seek +Drew near to greet us,--spoke, and smiled. + +God gave that sweet sad smile she wore +All wrong to shame, all souls to win,-- +A heavenly sunbeam sent before +Her footsteps through a world of sin. + +"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale +The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,-- +The story known through all the vale +Where Avis and her sisters dwell. + +With the lost children running wild, +Strayed from the hand of human care, +They find one little refuse child +Left helpless in its poisoned lair. + +The primal mark is on her face,-- +The chattel-stamp,--the pariah-stain +That follows still her hunted race,-- +The curse without the crime of Cain. + +How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate +The little suffering outcast's ail? +Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate +So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale. + +Ah, veil the living death from sight +That wounds our beauty-loving eye! +The children turn in selfish fright, +The white-lipped nurses hurry by. + +Take her, dread Angel! Break in love +This bruised reed and make it thine!-- +No voice descended from above, +But Avis answered, "She is mine." + +The task that dainty menials spurn +The fair young girl has made her own; +Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn +The toils, the duties yet unknown. + +So Love and Death in lingering strife +Stand face to face from day to day, +Still battling for the spoil of Life +While the slow seasons creep away. + +Love conquers Death; the prize is won; +See to her joyous bosom pressed +The dusky daughter of the sun,-- +The bronze against the marble breast! + +Her task is done; no voice divine +Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame. +No eye can see the aureole shine +That rings her brow with heavenly flame. + +Yet what has holy page more sweet, +Or what had woman's love more fair, +When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet +With flowing eyes and streaming hair? + +Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown, +The Angel of that earthly throng, +And let thine image live alone +To hallow this unstudied song! + + + + + +THE LIVING TEMPLE + +NOT in the world of light alone, +Where God has built his blazing throne, +Nor yet alone in earth below, +With belted seas that come and go, +And endless isles of sunlit green, +Is all thy Maker's glory seen: +Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-- +Eternal wisdom still the same! + +The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves +Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, +Whose streams of brightening purple rush, +Fired with a new and livelier blush, +While all their burden of decay +The ebbing current steals away, +And red with Nature's flame they start +From the warm fountains of the heart. + +No rest that throbbing slave may ask, +Forever quivering o'er his task, +While far and wide a crimson jet +Leaps forth to fill the woven net +Which in unnumbered crossing tides +The flood of burning life divides, +Then, kindling each decaying part, +Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. + +But warmed with that unchanging flame +Behold the outward moving frame, +Its living marbles jointed strong +With glistening band and silvery thong, +And linked to reason's guiding reins +By myriad rings in trembling chains, +Each graven with the threaded zone +Which claims it as the master's own. + +See how yon beam of seeming white +Is braided out of seven-hued light, +Yet in those lucid globes no ray +By any chance shall break astray. +Hark how the rolling surge of sound, +Arches and spirals circling round, +Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear +With music it is heaven to hear. + +Then mark the cloven sphere that holds +All thought in its mysterious folds; +That feels sensation's faintest thrill, +And flashes forth the sovereign will; +Think on the stormy world that dwells +Locked in its dim and clustering cells! +The lightning gleams of power it sheds +Along its hollow glassy threads! + +O Father! grant thy love divine +To make these mystic temples thine! +When wasting age and wearying strife +Have sapped the leaning walls of life, +When darkness gathers over all, +And the last tottering pillars fall, +Take the poor dust thy mercy warms, +And mould it into heavenly forms! + + + + + +AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL + +TO J. R. LOWELL + +WE will not speak of years to-night,-- +For what have years to bring +But larger floods of love and light, +And sweeter songs to sing? + +We will not drown in wordy praise +The kindly thoughts that rise; +If Friendship own one tender phrase, +He reads it in our eyes. + +We need not waste our school-boy art +To gild this notch of Time;-- +Forgive me if my wayward heart +Has throbbed in artless rhyme. + +Enough for him the silent grasp +That knits us hand in hand, +And he the bracelet's radiant clasp +That locks our circling band. + +Strength to his hours of manly toil! +Peace to his starlit dreams! +Who loves alike the furrowed soil, +The music-haunted streams! + +Sweet smiles to keep forever bright +The sunshine on his lips, +And faith that sees the ring of light +Round nature's last eclipse! + +February 22, 1859. + + + + + +A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE + +TO J. F. CLARKE + +WHO is the shepherd sent to lead, +Through pastures green, the Master's sheep? +What guileless "Israelite indeed" +The folded flock may watch and keep? + +He who with manliest spirit joins +The heart of gentlest human mould, +With burning light and girded loins, +To guide the flock, or watch the fold; + +True to all Truth the world denies, +Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; +Not always right in all men's eyes, +But faithful to the light within; + +Who asks no meed of earthly fame, +Who knows no earthly master's call, +Who hopes for man, through guilt and shame, +Still answering, "God is over all"; + +Who makes another's grief his own, +Whose smile lends joy a double cheer; +Where lives the saint, if such be known?-- +Speak softly,--such an one is here! + +O faithful shepherd! thou hast borne +The heat and burden of the clay; +Yet, o'er thee, bright with beams unshorn, +The sun still shows thine onward way. + +To thee our fragrant love we bring, +In buds that April half displays, +Sweet first-born angels of the spring, +Caught in their opening hymn of praise. + +What though our faltering accents fail, +Our captives know their message well, +Our words unbreathed their lips exhale, +And sigh more love than ours can tell. + +April 4, 1860. + + + + + +THE GRAY CHIEF + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS +MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1859 + +'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er, +And crown with honest praise +The gray old chief, who strikes no more +The blow of better days. + +Before the true and trusted sage +With willing hearts we bend, +When years have touched with hallowing age +Our Master, Guide, and Friend. + +For all his manhood's labor past, +For love and faith long tried, +His age is honored to the last, +Though strength and will have died. + +But when, untamed by toil and strife, +Full in our front he stands, +The torch of light, the shield of life, +Still lifted in his hands, + +No temple, though its walls resound +With bursts of ringing cheers, +Can hold the honors that surround +His manhood's twice-told years! + + + + + +THE LAST LOOK + +W. W. SWAIN + +BEHOLD--not him we knew! +This was the prison which his soul looked through, +Tender, and brave, and true. + +His voice no more is heard; +And his dead name--that dear familiar word-- +Lies on our lips unstirred. + +He spake with poet's tongue; +Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung: +He shall not die unsung. + +Grief tried his love, and pain; +And the long bondage of his martyr-chain +Vexed his sweet soul,--in vain! + +It felt life's surges break, +As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake, +Smiling while tempests wake. + +How can we sorrow more? +Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before +To that untrodden shore! + +Lo, through its leafy screen, +A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green, +Untrodden, half unseen! + +Here let his body rest, +Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best +May slide above his breast. + +Smooth his uncurtained bed; +And if some natural tears are softly shed, +It is not for the dead. + +Fold the green turf aright +For the long hours before the morning's light, +And say the last Good Night! + +And plant a clear white stone +Close by those mounds which hold his loved, his own,-- +Lonely, but not alone. + +Here let him sleeping lie, +Till Heaven's bright watchers slumber in the sky +And Death himself shall die! + +Naushon, September 22, 1858. + + + + + +IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. + +HE was all sunshine; in his face +The very soul of sweetness shone; +Fairest and gentlest of his race; +None like him we can call our own. + +Something there was of one that died +In her fresh spring-time long ago, +Our first dear Mary, angel-eyed, +Whose smile it was a bliss to know. + +Something of her whose love imparts +Such radiance to her day's decline, +We feel its twilight in our hearts +Bright as the earliest morning-shine. + +Yet richer strains our eye could trace +That made our plainer mould more fair, +That curved the lip with happier grace, +That waved the soft and silken hair. + +Dust unto dust! the lips are still +That only spoke to cheer and bless; +The folded hands lie white and chill +Unclasped from sorrow's last caress. + +Leave him in peace; he will not heed +These idle tears we vainly pour, +Give back to earth the fading weed +Of mortal shape his spirit wore. + +"Shall I not weep my heartstrings torn, +My flower of love that falls half blown, +My youth uncrowned, my life forlorn, +A thorny path to walk alone?" + +O Mary! one who bore thy name, +Whose Friend and Master was divine, +Sat waiting silent till He came, +Bowed down in speechless grief like thine. + +"Where have ye laid him?" "Come," they say, +Pointing to where the loved one slept; +Weeping, the sister led the way,-- +And, seeing Mary, "Jesus wept." + +He weeps with thee, with all that mourn, +And He shall wipe thy streaming eyes +Who knew all sorrows, woman-born,-- +Trust in his word; thy dead shall rise! + +April 15, 1860. + + + + + +MARTHA + +DIED JANUARY 7, 1861 + +SEXTON! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +Her weary hands their labor cease; +Good night, poor Martha,--sleep in peace! +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +For many a year has Martha said, +"I'm old and poor,--would I were dead!" +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +She'll bring no more, by day or night, +Her basket full of linen white. +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +'T is fitting she should lie below +A pure white sheet of drifted snow. +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +Sleep, Martha, sleep, to wake in light, +Where all the robes are stainless white. +Toll the bell! + + + + + +MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE + +1857 + +I THANK you, MR. PRESIDENT, you've kindly broke the ice; +Virtue should always be the first,--I 'm only SECOND VICE-- +(A vice is something with a screw that's made to hold its jaw +Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw). + +Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the babes of days gone by, +All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose milk is never dry, +We come again, like half-grown boys, and gather at her beck +About her knees, and on her lap, and clinging round her neck. + +We find her at her stately door, and in her ancient chair, +Dressed in the robes of red and green she always loved to wear. +Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek its morning flame; +We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish still the same. + +We have been playing many an hour, and far away we've strayed, +Some laughing in the cheerful sun, some lingering in the shade; +And some have tired, and laid them down where darker shadows fall, +Dear as her loving voice may be, they cannot hear its call. + +What miles we 've travelled since we shook the dew-drops from our shoes +We gathered on this classic green, so famed for heavy dues! +How many boys have joined the game, how many slipped away, +Since we've been running up and down, and having out our play! + +One boy at work with book and brief, and one with gown and band, +One sailing vessels on the pool, one digging sand, +One flying paper kites on change, one planting little pills,-- +The seeds of certain annual flowers well known as little bills. + +What maidens met us on our way, and clasped us hand in hand! +What cherubs,--not the legless kind, that fly, but never stand! +How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver crown +What sudden changes back again to youth's empurpled brown! + +But fairer sights have met our eyes, and broader lights have shone, +Since others lit their midnight lamps where once we trimmed our own; +A thousand trains that flap the sky with flags of rushing fire, +And, throbbing in the Thunderer's hand, Thought's million-chorded lyre. + +We've seen the sparks of Empire fly beyond the mountain bars, +Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they joined the setting stars; +And ocean trodden into paths that trampling giants ford, +To find the planet's vertebrae and sink its spinal cord. + +We've tried reform,--and chloroform,--and both have turned our brain; +When France called up the photograph, we roused the foe to pain; +Just so those earlier sages shared the chaplet of renown,-- +Hers sent a bladder to the clouds, ours brought their lightning down. + +We've seen the little tricks of life, its varnish and veneer, +Its stucco-fronts of character flake off and disappear, +We 've learned that oft the brownest hands will heap the biggest pile, +And met with many a "perfect brick" beneath a rimless "tile." + +What dreams we 've had of deathless name, as scholars, statesmen, bards, +While Fame, the lady with the trump, held up her picture cards! +Till, having nearly played our game, she gayly whispered, "Ah! +I said you should be something grand,--you'll soon be grandpapa." + +Well, well, the old have had their day, the young must take their turn; +There's something always to forget, and something still to learn; +But how to tell what's old or young, the tap-root from the sprigs, +Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs? + +The wisest was a Freshman once, just freed from bar and bolt, +As noisy as a kettle-drum, as leggy as a colt; +Don't be too savage with the boys,--the Primer does not say +The kitten ought to go to church because the cat doth prey. + +The law of merit and of age is not the rule of three; +Non constat that A. M. must prove as busy as A. B. +When Wise the father tracked the son, ballooning through the skies, +He taught a lesson to the old,--go thou and do like Wise! + +Now then, old boys, and reverend youth, of high or low degree, +Remember how we only get one annual out of three, +And such as dare to simmer down three dinners into one +Must cut their salads mighty short, and pepper well with fun. + +I've passed my zenith long ago, it's time for me to set; +A dozen planets wait to shine, and I am lingering yet, +As sometimes in the blaze of day a milk-and-watery moon +Stains with its dim and fading ray the lustrous blue of noon. + +Farewell! yet let one echo rise to shake our ancient hall; +God save the Queen,--whose throne is here,--the Mother of us all +Till dawns the great commencement-day on every shore and sea, +And "Expectantur" all mankind, to take their last Degree! + + + + + +THE PARTING SONG + +FESTIVAL OF THE ALUMNI, 1857 + +THE noon of summer sheds its ray +On Harvard's holy ground; +The Matron calls, the sons obey, +And gather smiling round. + + +CHORUS. +Then old and young together stand, +The sunshine and the snow, +As heart to heart, and hand in hand, +We sing before we go! + + +Her hundred opening doors have swung +Through every storied hall +The pealing echoes loud have rung, +"Thrice welcome one and all!" +Then old and young, etc. + +We floated through her peaceful bay, +To sail life's stormy seas +But left our anchor where it lay +Beneath her green old trees. +Then old and young, etc. + +As now we lift its lengthening chain, +That held us fast of old, +The rusted rings grow bright again,-- +Their iron turns to gold. +Then old and young, etc. + +Though scattered ere the setting sun, +As leaves when wild winds blow, +Our home is here, our hearts are one, +Till Charles forgets to flow. +Then old and young, etc. + + + + + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL +SANITARY ASSOCIATION + +1860 + +WHAT makes the Healing Art divine? +The bitter drug we buy and sell, +The brands that scorch, the blades that shine, +The scars we leave, the "cures" we tell? + +Are these thy glories, holiest Art,-- +The trophies that adorn thee best,-- +Or but thy triumph's meanest part,-- +Where mortal weakness stands confessed? + +We take the arms that Heaven supplies +For Life's long battle with Disease, +Taught by our various need to prize +Our frailest weapons, even these. + +But ah! when Science drops her shield-- +Its peaceful shelter proved in vain-- +And bares her snow-white arm to wield +The sad, stern ministry of pain; + +When shuddering o'er the fount of life, +She folds her heaven-anointed wings, +To lift unmoved the glittering knife +That searches all its crimson springs; + +When, faithful to her ancient lore, +She thrusts aside her fragrant balm +For blistering juice, or cankering ore, +And tames them till they cure or calm; + +When in her gracious hand are seen +The dregs and scum of earth and seas, +Her kindness counting all things clean +That lend the sighing sufferer ease; + +Though on the field that Death has won, +She save some stragglers in retreat;-- +These single acts of mercy done +Are but confessions of defeat. + +What though our tempered poisons save +Some wrecks of life from aches and ails; +Those grand specifics Nature gave +Were never poised by weights or scales! + +God lent his creatures light and air, +And waters open to the skies; +Man locks him in a stifling lair, +And wonders why his brother dies! + +In vain our pitying tears are shed, +In vain we rear the sheltering pile +Where Art weeds out from bed to bed +The plagues we planted by the mile! + +Be that the glory of the past; +With these our sacred toils begin +So flies in tatters from its mast +The yellow flag of sloth and sin, + +And lo! the starry folds reveal +The blazoned truth we hold so dear +To guard is better than to heal,-- +The shield is nobler than the spear! + + + + + +FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +JANUARY 25, 1859 + +His birthday.--Nay, we need not speak +The name each heart is beating,-- +Each glistening eye and flushing cheek +In light and flame repeating! + +We come in one tumultuous tide,-- +One surge of wild emotion,-- +As crowding through the Frith of Clyde +Rolls in the Western Ocean; + +As when yon cloudless, quartered moon +Hangs o'er each storied river, +The swelling breasts of Ayr and Doon +With sea green wavelets quiver. + +The century shrivels like a scroll,-- +The past becomes the present,-- +And face to face, and soul to soul, +We greet the monarch-peasant. + +While Shenstone strained in feeble flights +With Corydon and Phillis,-- +While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's heights +To snatch the Bourbon lilies,-- + +Who heard the wailing infant's cry, +The babe beneath the sheeliug, +Whose song to-night in every sky +Will shake earth's starry ceiling,-- + +Whose passion-breathing voice ascends +And floats like incense o'er us, +Whose ringing lay of friendship blends +With labor's anvil chorus? + +We love him, not for sweetest song, +Though never tone so tender; +We love him, even in his wrong,-- +His wasteful self-surrender. + +We praise him, not for gifts divine,-- +His Muse was born of woman,-- +His manhood breathes in every line,-- +Was ever heart more human? + +We love him, praise him, just for this +In every form and feature, +Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss, +He saw his fellow-creature! + +No soul could sink beneath his love,-- +Not even angel blasted; +No mortal power could soar above +The pride that all outlasted! + +Ay! Heaven had set one living man +Beyond the pedant's tether,-- +His virtues, frailties, HE may scan, +Who weighs them all together! + +I fling my pebble on the cairn +Of him, though dead, undying; +Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn +Beneath her daisies lying. + +The waning suns, the wasting globe, +Shall spare the minstrel's story,-- +The centuries weave his purple robe, +The mountain-mist of glory! + + + + + +AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS + + +AUGUST 29, 1859 + +I REMEMBER--why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago? +I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know; +It must have been in 'forty--I would say 'thirty-nine-- +We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine. + +He said, "Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I, +If we act like other people, shall be older by and by; +What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be, +There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea. + +"We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange, +For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change; +But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill, +And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill." + +"I know it," I said, "old fellow; you speak the solemn truth; +A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth; +But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair, +You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care. + +"At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise; +Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys; +No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes, +But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose." + +But one fine August morning I found myself awake +My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake! +Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold, +That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old! + +But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their +foolish stuff; +A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough; +At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray; +I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say. + +At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine; +Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine, +And when on the western summits the fading light appears, +It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years. + +There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, +But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old"; +So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years, +Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers. + +Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round; +Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned, +Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told; +Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict _old_. + +No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim; +Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb, +Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends, +The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends. + + + + + +FOR THE FAIR IN AID OF THE FUND TO PROCURE +BALL'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON + + +1630 + +ALL overgrown with bush and fern, +And straggling clumps of tangled trees, +With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, +Bent eastward by the mastering breeze,-- +With spongy bogs that drip and fill +A yellow pond with muddy rain, +Beneath the shaggy southern hill +Lies wet and low the Shawinut plain. +And hark! the trodden branches crack; +A crow flaps off with startled scream; +A straying woodchuck canters back; +A bittern rises from the stream; +Leaps from his lair a frightened deer; +An otter plunges in the pool;-- +Here comes old Shawmut's pioneer, +The parson on his brindled bull! + + +1774 + +The streets are thronged with trampling feet, +The northern hill is ridged with graves, +But night and morn the drum is beat +To frighten down the "rebel knaves." +The stones of King Street still are red, +And yet the bloody red-coats come +I hear their pacing sentry's tread, +The click of steel, the tap of drum, +And over all the open green, +Where grazed of late the harmless kine, +The cannon's deepening ruts are seen, +The war-horse stamps, the bayonets shine. +The clouds are dark with crimson rain +Above the murderous hirelings' den, +And soon their whistling showers shall stain +The pipe-clayed belts of Gage's men. + + +186- + +Around the green, in morning light, +The spired and palaced summits blaze, +And, sunlike, from her Beacon-height +The dome-crowned city spreads her rays; +They span the waves, they belt the plains, +They skirt the roads with bands of white, +Till with a flash of gilded panes +Yon farthest hillside bounds the sight. +Peace, Freedom, Wealth! no fairer view, +Though with the wild-bird's restless wings +We sailed beneath the noontide's blue +Or chased the moonlight's endless rings! +Here, fitly raised by grateful hands +His holiest memory to recall, +The Hero's, Patriot's image stands; +He led our sires who won them all! + +November 14, 1859. + + + + + +THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA +A NIGHTMARE DREAM BY DAYLIGHT + +Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea? +Have you met with that dreadful old man? +If you have n't been caught, you will be, you will be; +For catch you he must and he can. + +He does n't hold on by your throat, by your throat, +As of old in the terrible tale; +But he grapples you tight by the coat, by the coat, +Till its buttons and button-holes fail. + +There's the charm of a snake in his eye, in his eye, +And a polypus-grip in his hands; +You cannot go back, nor get by, nor get by, +If you look at the spot where he stands. + +Oh, you're grabbed! See his claw on your sleeve, on your sleeve! +It is Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea! +You're a Christian, no doubt you believe, you believe +You're a martyr, whatever you be! + +Is the breakfast-hour past? They must wait, they must wait, +While the coffee boils sullenly down, +While the Johnny-cake burns on the grate, on the grate, +And the toast is done frightfully brown. + +Yes, your dinner will keep; let it cool, let it cool, +And Madam may worry and fret, +And children half-starved go to school, go to school; +He can't think of sparing you yet. + +Hark! the bell for the train! "Come along! Come along! +For there is n't a second to lose." +"ALL ABOARD!" (He holds on.) "Fsht I ding-dong! Fsht! ding-dong!"-- +You can follow on foot, if you choose. + +There's a maid with a cheek like a peach, like a peach, +That is waiting for you in the church;-- +But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, +And you leave your lost bride in the lurch. + +There's a babe in a fit,--hurry quick! hurry quick! +To the doctor's as fast as you can! +The baby is off, while you stick, while you stick, +In the grip of the dreadful Old Man! + +I have looked on the face of the Bore, of the Bore; +The voice of the Simple I know; +I have welcomed the Flat at my door, at my door; +I have sat by the side of the Slow; + +I have walked like a lamb by the friend, by the friend, +That stuck to my skirts like a bur; +I have borne the stale talk without end, without end, +Of the sitter whom nothing could stir. + +But my hamstrings grow loose, and I shake, and I shake, +At the sight of the dreadful Old Man; +Yea, I quiver and quake, and I take, and I take, +To my legs with what vigor I can! + +Oh the dreadful Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea +He's come back like the Wandering Jew! +He has had his cold claw upon me, upon me,-- +And be sure that he 'll have it on you! + + + + + +INTERNATIONAL ODE + +OUR FATHERS' LAND + +GOD bless our Fathers' Land! +Keep her in heart and hand +One with our own! +From all her foes defend, +Be her brave People's Friend, +On all her realms descend, +Protect her Throne! + +Father, with loving care +Guard Thou her kingdom's Heir, +Guide all his ways +Thine arm his shelter be, +From him by land and sea +Bid storm and danger flee, +Prolong his days! + +Lord, let War's tempest cease, +Fold the whole Earth in peace +Under thy wings +Make all thy nations one, +All hearts beneath the sun, +Till Thou shalt reign alone, +Great King of kings! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT OFFERED AT THE DINNER TO H. I. H. +THE PRINCE NAPOLEON, AT THE REVERE HOUSE, +SEPTEMBER 25,1861 + +THE land of sunshine and of song! +Her name your hearts divine; +To her the banquet's vows belong +Whose breasts have poured its wine; +Our trusty friend, our true ally +Through varied change and chance +So, fill your flashing goblets high,-- +I give you, VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Above our hosts in triple folds +The selfsame colors spread, +Where Valor's faithful arm upholds +The blue, the white, the red; +Alike each nation's glittering crest +Reflects the morning's glance,-- +Twin eagles, soaring east and west +Once more, then, VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Sister in trial! who shall count +Thy generous friendship's claim, +Whose blood ran mingling in the fount +That gave our land its name, +Till Yorktown saw in blended line +Our conquering arms advance, +And victory's double garlands twine +Our banners? VIVE LA FRANCE! + +O land of heroes! in our need +One gift from Heaven we crave +To stanch these wounds that vainly bleed,-- +The wise to lead the brave! +Call back one Captain of thy past +From glory's marble trance, +Whose name shall be a bugle-blast +To rouse us! VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Pluck Conde's baton from the trench, +Wake up stout Charles Martel, +Or find some woman's hand to clench +The sword of La Pucelle! +Give us one hour of old Turenne,-- +One lift of Bayard's lance,-- +Nay, call Marengo's Chief again +To lead us! VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Ah, hush! our welcome Guest shall hear +But sounds of peace and joy; +No angry echo vex thine ear, +Fair Daughter of Savoy +Once more! the land of arms and arts, +Of glory, grace, romance; +Her love lies warm in all our hearts +God bless her! VIVE LA FRANCE! + + + + + +BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE + +SHE has gone,--she has left us in passion and pride,-- +Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side! +She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, +And turned on her brother the face of a foe! + +Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, +We can never forget that our hearts have been one,-- +Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name, +From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame! + +You were always too ready to fire at a touch; +But we said, "She is hasty,--she does not mean much." +We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent threat; +But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!" + +Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold? +Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? +Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain +That her petulant children would sever in vain. + +They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil, +Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil, +Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their eaves, +And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves: + +In vain is the strife! When its fury is past, +Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last, +As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow +Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below. + +Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky +Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts the die! +Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with steel, +The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal! + +Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, +There are battles with Fate that can never be won! +The star-flowering banner must never be furled, +For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world! + +Go, then, our rash sister! afar and aloof, +Run wild in the sunshine away from our roof; +But when your heart aches and your feet have grown sore, +Remember the pathway that leads to our door! + +March 25, 1861. + + + +NOTES: (For original print volume one) + +[There stand the Goblet and the Sun.] +The Goblet and the Sun (Vas-Sol), sculptured on a free-stone slab +supported by five pillars, are the only designation of the family tomb +of the Vassalls. + +[Thus mocked the spoilers with his school-boy scorn.] +See "Old Ironsides," of this volume. + +[On other shores, above their mouldering towns.] +Daniel Webster quoted several of the verses which follow, in his address +at the laying of the corner-stone of the addition to the Capitol at +Washington, July 4, 1851. + +[Thou calm, chaste scholar.] +Charles Chauncy Emerson; died May 9, 1836. + +[And thou, dear friend, whom Science still deplores.] +James Jackson, Jr., M. D.; died March 28, 1834. + +[THE STEAMBOAT.] +Mr. Emerson has quoted some lines from this poem, but +somewhat disguised as he recalled them. It is never safe to +quote poetry without referring to the original. + +[Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound.] +The churches referred to in the lines which follow are,-- +1. King's Chapel, the foundation of which was laid by Governor Shirley +in 1749. +2. Brattle Street Church, consecrated in 1773. The completion of this +edifice, the design of which included a spire, was prevented by the +troubles of the Revolution, and its plain, square tower presented +nothing more attractive than a massive simplicity. In the front of this +tower, till the church was demolished in 1872, there was to be seen, +half imbedded in the brick-work, a cannon-ball, which was thrown from +the American fortifications at Cambridge, during the bombard-ment of the +city, then occupied by the British troops. +3. The Old South, first occupied for public worship in 1730. +4. Park Street Church, built in 1809, the tall white steeple of which is +the most conspicuous of all the Boston spires. +5. Christ Church, opened for public worship in 1723, and containing a +set of eight bells, long the only chime in Boston. + +[INTERNATIONAL ODE.] +This ode was sung in unison by twelve hundred children of the public +schools, to the air of "God save the Queen," at the visit of the Prince +of Wales to Boston, October 18, 1860. + + + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + [Volume 2 or the 1893 three volume set] + + +CONTENTS: + +POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 (1851-1889) + BILL AND JOE + A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE" + QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS + AN IMPROMPTU + THE OLD MAN DREAMS + REMEMBER--FORGET + OUR INDIAN SUMMER + MARE RUBRUM + THE Boys + LINES + A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH + J. D. R. + VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION + "CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE" + F. W. C. + THE LAST CHARGE + OUR OLDEST FRIEND + SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH + MY ANNUAL + ALL HERE + ONCE MORE + THE OLD CRUISER + HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING + EVEN-SONG + THE SMILING LISTENER + OUR SWEET SINGER: J. A. + H. C. M., H. S., J. K. W. + WHAT I HAVE COME FOR + OUR BANKER + FOR CLASS-MEETING + "AD AMICOS" + HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT + THE LAST SURVIVOR + THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS + THE SHADOWS + BENJAMIN PEIRCE + IN THE TWILIGHT + A LOVING-CUP SONG + THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP + THE LYRE OF ANACREON + THE OLD TUNE + THE BROKEN CIRCLE + THE ANGEL-THIEF + AFTER THE CURFEW + +POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1857-1858) + THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS + SUN AND SHADOW + MUSA + A PARTING HEALTH: To J. L. MOTLEY + WHAT WE ALL THINK + SPRING HAS COME + PROLOGUE + LATTER-DAY WARNINGS + ALBUM VERSES + A GOOD TIME GOING! + THE LAST BLOSSOM + CONTENTMENT + AESTIVATION + THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSE SHAY" + PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY; OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR + ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER + +POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1858-1859) + UNDER THE VIOLETS + HYMN OF TRUST + A SUN-DAY HYMN + THE CROOKED FOOTPATH + IRIS, HER BOOK + ROBINSON OF LEYDEN + ST ANTHONY THE REFORMER + THE OPENING OF THE PIANO + MIDSUMMER + DE SAUTY + +POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1871-1872) + HOMESICK IN HEAVEN + FANTASIA + AUNT TABITHA + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS + EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES + +SONGS OF MANY SEASONS (1862-1874) + OPENING THE WINDOW + PROGRAMME + + IN THE QUIET DAYS + AN OLD-YEAR SONG + DOROTHY Q: A FAMILY PORTRAIT + THE ORGAN-BLOWER + AT THE PANTOMIME + AFTER THE FIRE + A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY + NEARING THE SNOW-LINE + + IN WAR TIME + TO CANAAN: A PURITAN WAR-SONG + "THUS SAITH THE LORD, I OFFER THEE THREE THINGS" + NEVER OR NOW + ONE COUNTRY + GOD SAVE THE FLAG! + HYMN AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION + HYMN FOR THE FAIR AT CHICAGO + UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE + FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN + ARMY HYMN + PARTING HYMN + THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY + THE SWEET LITTLE MAN + UNION AND LIBERTY + + SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL + AMERICA TO RUSSIA + WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY + AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY + BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ + AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT + AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT + To H W LONGFELLOW + To CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG + A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS + + MEMORIAL VERSES + FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BOSTON, 1865 + FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES, CAMBRIDGE JULY 21, 1865 + EDWARD EVERETT: JANUARY 30, 1865 + SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, APRIL 23, 1864 + IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE, MAY 25, 1864 + HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY: CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869 + POEM AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1869 + HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF + HARVARD MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER 6, 1870 + HYMN FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL AT CAMBRIDGE, 1874 + HYMN AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES SUMNER, APRIL 29, 1874 + + RHYMES OF AN HOUR + ADDRESS FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, N. Y. 1873 + A SEA DIALOGUE + CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC + FOR THE CENTENNIAL DINNER, PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER, 1873 + A POEM SERVED TO ORDER + THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH + No TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME + A HYMN OF PEACE, TO THE MUSIC OF KELLER'S "AMERICAN HYMN" + +NOTES + + + + + + POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 + + 1851-1889 + + +BILL AND JOE + +COME, dear old comrade, you and I +Will steal an hour from days gone by, +The shining days when life was new, +And all was bright with morning dew, +The lusty days of long ago, +When you were Bill and I was Joe. + +Your name may flaunt a titled trail +Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail, +And mine as brief appendix wear +As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare; +To-day, old friend, remember still +That I am Joe and you are Bill. + +You've won the great world's envied prize, +And grand you look in people's eyes, +With H O N. and L L. D. +In big brave letters, fair to see,-- +Your fist, old fellow! off they go!-- +How are you, Bill? How are you, Joe? + +You've worn the judge's ermined robe; +You 've taught your name to half the globe; +You've sung mankind a deathless strain; +You've made the dead past live again +The world may call you what it will, +But you and I are Joe and Bill. + +The chaffing young folks stare and say +"See those old buffers, bent and gray,-- +They talk like fellows in their teens! +Mad, poor old boys! That's what it means,"-- +And shake their heads; they little know +The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe!-- + +How Bill forgets his hour of pride, +While Joe sits smiling at his side; +How Joe, in spite of time's disguise, +Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes,-- +Those calm, stern eyes that melt and fill +As Joe looks fondly up at Bill. + +Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame? +A fitful tongue of leaping flame; +A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust, +That lifts a pinch of mortal dust; +A few swift years, and who can show +Which dust was Bill and which was Joe? + +The weary idol takes his stand, +Holds out his bruised and aching hand, +While gaping thousands come and go,-- +How vain it seems, this empty show! +Till all at once his pulses thrill;-- +'T is poor old Joe's "God bless you, Bill!" + +And shall we breathe in happier spheres +The names that pleased our mortal ears; +In some sweet lull of harp and song +For earth-born spirits none too long, +Just whispering of the world below +Where this was Bill and that was Joe? + +No matter; while our home is here +No sounding name is half so dear; +When fades at length our lingering day, +Who cares what pompous tombstones say? +Read on the hearts that love us still, +_Hic jacet_ Joe. _Hic jacet_ Bill. + + + + + +A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE" + +1851 + +THE summer dawn is breaking +On Auburn's tangled bowers, +The golden light is waking +On Harvard's ancient towers; +The sun is in the sky +That must see us do or die, +Ere it shine on the line +Of the CLASS OF '29. + +At last the day is ended, +The tutor screws no more, +By doubt and fear attended +Each hovers round the door, +Till the good old Praeses cries, +While the tears stand in his eyes, +"You have passed, and are classed +With the Boys of '29." + +Not long are they in making +The college halls their own, +Instead of standing shaking, +Too bashful to be known; +But they kick the Seniors' shins +Ere the second week begins, +When they stray in the way +Of the BOYS OF '29. + +If a jolly set is trolling +The last _Der Freischutz_ airs, +Or a "cannon bullet" rolling +Comes bouncing down the stairs, +The tutors, looking out, +Sigh, "Alas! there is no doubt, +'T is the noise of the Boys +Of the CLASS OF '29." + +Four happy years together, +By storm and sunshine tried, +In changing wind and weather, +They rough it side by side, +Till they hear their Mother cry, +"You are fledged, and you must fly," +And the bell tolls the knell +Of the days of '29. + +Since then, in peace or trouble, +Full many a year has rolled, +And life has counted double +The days that then we told; +Yet we'll end as we've begun, +For though scattered, we are one, +While each year sees us here, +Round the board of '29. + +Though fate may throw between us +The mountains or the sea, +No time shall ever wean us, +No distance set us free; +But around the yearly board, +When the flaming pledge is poured, +It shall claim every name +On the roll of '29. + +To yonder peaceful ocean +That glows with sunset fires, +Shall reach the warm emotion +This welcome day inspires, +Beyond the ridges cold +Where a brother toils for gold, +Till it shine through the mine +Round the Boy of '29. + +If one whom fate has broken +Shall lift a moistened eye, +We'll say, before he 's spoken-- +"Old Classmate, don't you cry! +Here, take the purse I hold, +There 's a tear upon the gold-- +It was mine-it is thine-- +A'n't we BOYS OF '29?" + +As nearer still and nearer +The fatal stars appear, +The living shall be dearer +With each encircling year, +Till a few old men shall say, +"We remember 't is the day-- +Let it pass with a glass +For the CLASS OF '29." + +As one by one is falling +Beneath the leaves or snows, +Each memory still recalling, +The broken ring shall close, +Till the nightwinds softly pass +O'er the green and growing grass, +Where it waves on the graves +Of the BOYS OF '29! + + + + + +QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS + +1852 + +WHERE, oh where are the visions of morning, +Fresh as the dews of our prime? +Gone, like tenants that quit without warning, +Down the back entry of time. + +Where, oh where are life's lilies and roses, +Nursed in the golden dawn's smile? +Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses, +On the old banks of the Nile. + +Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas, +Loving and lovely of yore? +Look in the columns of old Advertisers,-- +Married and dead by the score. + +Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies, +Saturday's triumph and joy? +Gone, like our friend (--Greek--) Achilles, +Homer's ferocious old boy. + +Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion, +Hopes like young eagles at play, +Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion, +How ye have faded away! + +Yet, through the ebbing of Time's mighty river +Leave our young blossoms to die, +Let him roll smooth in his current forever, +Till the last pebble is dry. + + + + + +AN IMPROMPTU + +Not premeditated + +1853 + +THE clock has struck noon; ere it thrice tell the hours +We shall meet round the table that blushes with flowers, +And I shall blush deeper with shame-driven blood +That I came to the banquet and brought not a bud. + +Who cares that his verse is a beggar in art +If you see through its rags the full throb of his heart? +Who asks if his comrade is battered and tanned +When he feels his warm soul in the clasp of his hand? + +No! be it an epic, or be it a line, +The Boys will all love it because it is mine; +I sung their last song on the morn of the day +That tore from their lives the last blossom of May. + +It is not the sunset that glows in the wine, +But the smile that beams over it, makes it divine; +I scatter these drops, and behold, as they fall, +The day-star of memory shines through them all! + +And these are the last; they are drops that I stole +From a wine-press that crushes the life from the soul, +But they ran through my heart and they sprang to my brain +Till our twentieth sweet summer was smiling again! + + + + + +THE OLD MAN DREAMS + +1854 + +OH for one hour of youthful joy! +Give back my twentieth spring! +I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy, +Than reign, a gray-beard king. + +Off with the spoils of wrinkled age! +Away with Learning's crown! +Tear out life's Wisdom-written page, +And dash its trophies down! + +One moment let my life-blood stream +From boyhood's fount of flame! +Give me one giddy, reeling dream +Of life all love and fame. + +My listening angel heard the prayer, +And, calmly smiling, said, +"If I but touch thy silvered hair +Thy hasty wish hath sped. + +"But is there nothing in thy track, +To bid thee fondly stay, +While the swift seasons hurry back +To find the wished-for day?" + +"Ah, truest soul of womankind! +Without thee what were life? +One bliss I cannot leave behind: +I'll take--my--precious--wife!" + +The angel took a sapphire pen +And wrote in rainbow dew, +_The man would be a boy again, +And be a husband too!_ + +"And is there nothing yet unsaid, +Before the change appears? +Remember, all their gifts have fled +With those dissolving years." + +"Why, yes;" for memory would recall +My fond paternal joys; +"I could not bear to leave them all +I'll take--my--girl--and--boys." + +The smiling angel dropped his pen,-- +"Why, this will never do; +The man would be a boy again, +And be a father too!" + +And so I laughed,--my laughter woke +The household with its noise,-- +And wrote my dream, when morning broke, +To please the gray-haired boys. + + + + + +REMEMBER--FORGET + +1855 + +AND what shall be the song to-night, +If song there needs must be? +If every year that brings us here +Must steal an hour from me? +Say, shall it ring a merry peal, +Or heave a mourning sigh +O'er shadows cast, by years long past, +On moments flitting by? + +Nay, take the first unbidden line +The idle hour may send, +No studied grace can mend the face +That smiles as friend on friend; +The balsam oozes from the pine, +The sweetness from the rose, +And so, unsought, a kindly thought +Finds language as it flows. + +The years rush by in sounding flight, +I hear their ceaseless wings; +Their songs I hear, some far, some near, +And thus the burden rings +"The morn has fled, the noon has past, +The sun will soon be set, +The twilight fade to midnight shade; +Remember-and Forget!" + +Remember all that time has brought-- +The starry hope on high, +The strength attained, the courage gained, +The love that cannot die. +Forget the bitter, brooding thought,-- +The word too harshly said, +The living blame love hates to name, +The frailties of the dead! + +We have been younger, so they say, +But let the seasons roll, +He doth not lack an almanac +Whose youth is in his soul. +The snows may clog life's iron track, +But does the axle tire, +While bearing swift through bank and drift +The engine's heart of fire? + +I lift a goblet in my hand; +If good old wine it hold, +An ancient skin to keep it in +Is just the thing, we 're told. +We 're grayer than the dusty flask,-- +We 're older than our wine; +Our corks reveal the "white top" seal, +The stamp of '29. + +Ah, Boys! we clustered in the dawn, +To sever in the dark; +A merry crew, with loud halloo, +We climbed our painted bark; +We sailed her through the four years' cruise, +We 'll sail her to the last, +Our dear old flag, though but a rag, +Still flying on her mast. + +So gliding on, each winter's gale +Shall pipe us all on deck, +Till, faint and few, the gathering crew +Creep o'er the parting wreck, +Her sails and streamers spread aloft +To fortune's rain or shine, +Till storm or sun shall all be one, +And down goes TWENTY-NINE! + + + + + +OUR INDIAN SUMMER + +1856 + +You 'll believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to rise, +With a welcome like this in your darling old eyes; +To meet the same smiles and to hear the same tone +Which have greeted me oft in the years that have flown. + +Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the wall, +My locks would turn brown at the sight of you all; +If my heart were as dry as the shell on the sand, +It would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand. + +There are noontides of autumn when summer returns. +Though the leaves are all garnered and sealed in their urns, +And the bird on his perch, that was silent so long, +Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into song. + +We have caged the young birds of our beautiful June; +Their plumes are still bright and their voices in tune; +One moment of sunshine from faces like these +And they sing as they sung in the green-growing trees. + +The voices of morning! how sweet is their thrill +When the shadows have turned, and the evening grows still! +The text of our lives may get wiser with age, +But the print was so fair on its twentieth page! + +Look off from your goblet and up from your plate, +Come, take the last journal, and glance at its date: +Then think what we fellows should say and should do, +If the 6 were a 9 and the 5 were a 2. + +Ah, no! for the shapes that would meet with as here, +From the far land of shadows, are ever too dear! +Though youth flung around us its pride and its charms, +We should see but the comrades we clasped in our arms. + +A health to our future--a sigh for our past, +We love, we remember, we hope to the last; +And for all the base lies that the almanacs hold, +While we've youth in our hearts we can never grow old! + + + + + +MARE RUBRUM + +1858 + +FLASH out a stream of blood-red wine, +For I would drink to other days, +And brighter shall their memory shine, +Seen flaming through its crimson blaze! +The roses die, the summers fade, +But every ghost of boyhood's dream +By nature's magic power is laid +To sleep beneath this blood-red stream! + +It filled the purple grapes that lay, +And drank the splendors of the sun, +Where the long summer's cloudless day +Is mirrored in the broad Garonne; +It pictures still the bacchant shapes +That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,-- +The maidens dancing on the grapes,-- +Their milk-white ankles splashed with red. + +Beneath these waves of crimson lie, +In rosy fetters prisoned fast, +Those flitting shapes that never die,-- +The swift-winged visions of the past. +Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim, +Each shadow rends its flowery chain, +Springs in a bubble from its brim, +And walks the chambers of the brain. + +Poor beauty! Time and fortune's wrong +No shape nor feature may withstand; +Thy wrecks are scattered all along, +Like emptied sea-shells on the sand; +Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain, +The dust restores each blooming girl, +As if the sea-shells moved again +Their glistening lips of pink and pearl. + +Here lies the home of school-boy life, +With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, +And, scarred by many a truant knife, +Our old initials on the wall; +Here rest, their keen vibrations mute, +The shout of voices known so well, +The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, +The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell. + +Here, clad in burning robes, are laid +Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed, +And here those cherished forms have strayed +We miss awhile, and call them dead. +What wizard fills the wondrous glass? +What soil the enchanted clusters grew? +That buried passions wake and pass +In beaded drops of fiery dew? + +Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,-- +Our hearts can boast a warmer glow, +Filled from a vintage more divine, +Calmed, but not chilled, by winter's snow! +To-night the palest wave we sip +Rich as the priceless draught shall be +That wet the bride of Cana's lip,-- +The wedding wine of Galilee! + + + + + +THE BOYS + +1859 + +HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? +If there has, take him out, without making a noise. +Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! +Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night! + +We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? +He's tipsy,--young jackanapes!--show him the door! +"Gray temples at twenty?"--Yes! white if we please; +Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! + +Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! +Look close,--you will see not a sign of a flake! +We want some new garlands for those we have shed,-- +And these are white roses in place of the red. + +We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, +Of talking (in public) as if we were old:-- +That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;" +It 's a neat little fiction,--of course it 's all fudge. + +That fellow's the "Speaker,"--the one on the right; +"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? +That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; +There's the "Reverend" What's his name?--don't make me laugh. + +That boy with the grave mathematical look +Made believe he had written a wonderful book, +And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was _true_! +So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too! + +There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, +That could harness a team with a logical chain; +When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, +We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squire." + +And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,-- +Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; +But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,-- +Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee!" + +You hear that boy laughing?--You think he's all fun; +But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; +The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, +And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all! + +Yes, we 're boys,--always playing with tongue or with pen,-- +And I sometimes have asked,--Shall we ever be men? +Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, +Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? + +Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! +The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! +And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, +Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS! + + + + + +LINES + +1860 + +I 'm ashamed,--that 's the fact,--it 's a pitiful case,-- +Won't any kind classmate get up in my place? +Just remember how often I've risen before,-- +I blush as I straighten my legs on the floor! + +There are stories, once pleasing, too many times told,-- +There are beauties once charming, too fearfully old,-- +There are voices we've heard till we know them so well, +Though they talked for an hour they'd have nothing to tell. + +Yet, Classmates! Friends! Brothers! Dear blessed old boys! +Made one by a lifetime of sorrows and joys, +What lips have such sounds as the poorest of these, +Though honeyed, like Plato's, by musical bees? + +What voice is so sweet and what greeting so dear +As the simple, warm welcome that waits for us here? +The love of our boyhood still breathes in its tone, +And our hearts throb the answer, "He's one of our own!" + +Nay! count not our numbers; some sixty we know, +But these are above, and those under the snow; +And thoughts are still mingled wherever we meet +For those we remember with those that we greet. + +We have rolled on life's journey,--how fast and how far! +One round of humanity's many-wheeled car, +But up-hill and down-hill, through rattle and rub, +Old, true Twenty-niners! we've stuck to our hub! + +While a brain lives to think, or a bosom to feel, +We will cling to it still like the spokes of a wheel! +And age, as it chills us, shall fasten the tire +That youth fitted round in his circle of fire! + + + + +A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH + + +1861 + +JANUARY THIRD + +WE sing "Our Country's" song to-night +With saddened voice and eye; +Her banner droops in clouded light +Beneath the wintry sky. +We'll pledge her once in golden wine +Before her stars have set +Though dim one reddening orb may shine, +We have a Country yet. + +'T were vain to sigh o'er errors past, +The fault of sires or sons; +Our soldier heard the threatening blast, +And spiked his useless guns; +He saw the star-wreathed ensign fall, +By mad invaders torn; +But saw it from the bastioned wall +That laughed their rage to scorn! + +What though their angry cry is flung +Across the howling wave,-- +They smite the air with idle tongue +The gathering storm who brave; +Enough of speech! the trumpet rings; +Be silent, patient, calm,-- +God help them if the tempest swings +The pine against the palm! + +Our toilsome years have made us tame; +Our strength has slept unfelt; +The furnace-fire is slow to flame +That bids our ploughshares melt; +'T is hard to lose the bread they win +In spite of Nature's frowns,-- +To drop the iron threads we spin +That weave our web of towns, + +To see the rusting turbines stand +Before the emptied flumes, +To fold the arms that flood the land +With rivers from their looms,-- +But harder still for those who learn +The truth forgot so long; +When once their slumbering passions burn, +The peaceful are the strong! + +The Lord have mercy on the weak, +And calm their frenzied ire, +And save our brothers ere they shriek, +"We played with Northern fire!" +The eagle hold his mountain height,-- +The tiger pace his den +Give all their country, each his right! +God keep us all! Amen! + + + + + +J. D. R. + +1862 + +THE friends that are, and friends that were, +What shallow waves divide! +I miss the form for many a year +Still seated at my side. + +I miss him, yet I feel him still +Amidst our faithful band, +As if not death itself could chill +The warmth of friendship's hand. + +His story other lips may tell,-- +For me the veil is drawn; +I only knew he loved me well, +He loved me--and is gone! + + + + + +VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION + +1862 + +'T is midnight: through my troubled dream +Loud wails the tempest's cry; +Before the gale, with tattered sail, +A ship goes plunging by. +What name? Where bound?--The rocks around +Repeat the loud halloo. +--The good ship Union, Southward bound: +God help her and her crew! + +And is the old flag flying still +That o'er your fathers flew, +With bands of white and rosy light, +And field of starry blue? +--Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft +Have braved the roaring blast, +And still shall fly when from the sky +This black typhoon has past! + +Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark! +May I thy peril share? +--O landsman, there are fearful seas +The brave alone may dare! +--Nay, ruler of the rebel deep, +What matters wind or wave? +The rocks that wreck your reeling deck +Will leave me naught to save! + +O landsman, art thou false or true? +What sign hast thou to show? +--The crimson stains from loyal veins +That hold my heart-blood's flow +--Enough! what more shall honor claim? +I know the sacred sign; +Above thy head our flag shall spread, +Our ocean path be thine! + +The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape +Lies low along her lee, +Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes +To lock the shore and sea. +No treason here! it cost too dear +To win this barren realm +And true and free the hands must be +That hold the whaler's helm! + +Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay +No rebel cruiser scars; +Her waters feel no pirate's keel +That flaunts the fallen stars! +--But watch the light on yonder height,-- +Ay, pilot, have a care! +Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud +The capes of Delaware! + +Say, pilot, what this fort may be, +Whose sentinels look down +From moated walls that show the sea +Their deep embrasures' frown? +The Rebel host claims all the coast, +But these are friends, we know, +Whose footprints spoil the "sacred soil," +And this is?--Fort Monroe! + +The breakers roar,--how bears the shore? +--The traitorous wreckers' hands +Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays +Along the Hatteras sands. +--Ha! say not so! I see its glow! +Again the shoals display +The beacon light that shines by night, +The Union Stars by day! + +The good ship flies to milder skies, +The wave more gently flows, +The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas +The breath of Beaufort's rose. +What fold is this the sweet winds kiss, +Fair-striped and many-starred, +Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls, +The twins of Beauregard? + +What! heard you not Port Royal's doom? +How the black war-ships came +And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom +To redder wreaths of flame? +How from Rebellion's broken reed +We saw his emblem fall, +As soon his cursed poison-weed +Shall drop from Sumter's wall? + +On! on! Pulaski's iron hail +Falls harmless on Tybee! +The good ship feels the freshening gales, +She strikes the open sea; +She rounds the point, she threads the keys +That guard the Land of Flowers, +And rides at last where firm and fast +Her own Gibraltar towers! + +The good ship Union's voyage is o'er, +At anchor safe she swings, +And loud and clear with cheer on cheer +Her joyous welcome rings: +Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave, +It thunders on the shore,-- +One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, +One Nation, evermore! + + + + + + +"CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE" + +1863 + +YES, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while you hate +The self-ruling, chain-breaking, throne-shaking State! +The night-birds dread morning,--your instinct is true,-- +The day-star of Freedom brings midnight for you! + +Why plead with the deaf for the cause of mankind? +The owl hoots at noon that the eagle is blind! +We ask not your reasons,--'t were wasting our time,-- +Our life is a menace, our welfare a crime! + +We have battles to fight, we have foes to subdue,-- +Time waits not for us, and we wait not for you! +The mower mows on, though the adder may writhe +And the copper-head coil round the blade of his +scythe! + +"No sides in this quarrel," your statesmen may urge, +Of school-house and wages with slave-pen scourge!-- +No sides in the quarrel! proclaim it as well +To the angels that fight with the legions of hell! + +They kneel in God's temple, the North and the South, +With blood on each weapon and prayers in each mouth. +Whose cry shall be answered? Ye Heavens, attend +The lords of the lash as their voices ascend! + +"O Lord, we are shaped in the image of Thee,-- +Smite down the base millions that claim to be free, +And lend thy strong arm to the soft-handed race +Who eat not their bread in the sweat of their face!" + +So pleads the proud planter. What echoes are these? +The bay of his bloodhound is borne on the breeze, +And, lost in the shriek of his victim's despair, +His voice dies unheard.--Hear the Puritan's prayer! + +"O Lord, that didst smother mankind in thy flood, +The sun is as sackcloth, the moon is as blood, +The stars fall to earth as untimely are cast +The figs from the fig-tree that shakes in the blast! + +"All nations, all tribes in whose nostrils is breath +Stand gazing at Sin as she travails with Death! +Lord, strangle the monster that struggles to birth, +Or mock us no more with thy 'Kingdom on Earth!' + +"If Ammon and Moab must reign in the land +Thou gavest thine Israel, fresh from thy hand, +Call Baal and Ashtaroth out of their graves +To be the new gods for the empire of slaves!" + +Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of men? +Will ye build you new shrines in the slave-breeder's den? +Or bow with the children of light, as they call +On the Judge of the Earth and the Father of All? + +Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time moves apace,-- +Each day is an age in the life of our race! +Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in fear +From the fast-rising flood that shall girdle the sphere! + + + + + +F. W. C. + +1864 + +FAST as the rolling seasons bring +The hour of fate to those we love, +Each pearl that leaves the broken string +Is set in Friendship's crown above. +As narrower grows the earthly chain, +The circle widens in the sky; +These are our treasures that remain, +But those are stars that beam on high. + + +We miss--oh, how we miss!--his face,-- +With trembling accents speak his name. +Earth cannot fill his shadowed place +From all her rolls of pride and fame; +Our song has lost the silvery thread +That carolled through his jocund lips; +Our laugh is mute, our smile is fled, +And all our sunshine in eclipse. + +And what and whence the wondrous charm +That kept his manhood boylike still,-- +That life's hard censors could disarm +And lead them captive at his will? +His heart was shaped of rosier clay,-- +His veins were filled with ruddier fire,-- +Time could not chill him, fortune sway, +Nor toil with all its burdens tire. + +His speech burst throbbing from its fount +And set our colder thoughts aglow, +As the hot leaping geysers mount +And falling melt the Iceland snow. +Some word, perchance, we counted rash,-- +Some phrase our calmness might disclaim, +Yet 't was the sunset's lightning's flash, +No angry bolt, but harmless flame. + +Man judges all, God knoweth each; +We read the rule, He sees the law; +How oft his laughing children teach +The truths his prophets never saw +O friend, whose wisdom flowered in mirth, +Our hearts are sad, our eyes are dim; +He gave thy smiles to brighten earth,-- +We trust thy joyous soul to Him! + +Alas!--our weakness Heaven forgive! +We murmur, even while we trust, +"How long earth's breathing burdens live, +Whose hearts, before they die, are dust!" +But thou!--through grief's untimely tears +We ask with half-reproachful sigh-- +"Couldst thou not watch a few brief years +Till Friendship faltered, 'Thou mayst die'?" + +Who loved our boyish years so well? +Who knew so well their pleasant tales, +And all those livelier freaks could tell +Whose oft-told story never fails? +In vain we turn our aching eyes,-- +In vain we stretch our eager hands,-- +Cold in his wintry shroud he lies +Beneath the dreary drifting sands! + +Ah, speak not thus! _He_ lies not there! +We see him, hear him as of old! +He comes! He claims his wonted chair; +His beaming face we still behold! +His voice rings clear in all our songs, +And loud his mirthful accents rise; +To us our brother's life belongs,-- +Dear friends, a classmate never dies! + + + + + +THE LAST CHARGE + +1864 + +Now, men of the North! will you join in the strife +For country, for freedom, for honor, for life? +The giant grows blind in his fury and spite,-- +One blow on his forehead will settle the fight! + +Flash full in his eyes the blue lightning of steel, +And stun him with cannon-bolts, peal upon peal! +Mount, troopers, and follow your game to its lair, +As the hound tracks the wolf and the beagle the hare! + +Blow, trumpets, your summons, till sluggards awake! +Beat, drums, till the roofs of the faint-hearted shake! +Yet, yet, ere the signet is stamped on the scroll, +Their names may be traced on the blood-sprinkled roll! + +Trust not the false herald that painted your shield +True honor to-day must be sought on the field! +Her scutcheon shows white with a blazon of red,-- +The life-drops of crimson for liberty shed. + +The hour is at hand, and the moment draws nigh; +The dog-star of treason grows dim in the sky; +Shine forth from the battle-cloud, light of the morn, +Call back the bright hour when the Nation was born! + +The rivers of peace through our valleys shall run, +As the glaciers of tyranny melt in the sun; +Smite, smite the proud parricide down from his throne,-- +His sceptre once broken, the world is our own! + + + + + +OUR OLDEST FRIEND + +1865 + +I GIVE you the health of the oldest friend +That, short of eternity, earth can lend,-- +A friend so faithful and tried and true +That nothing can wean him from me and you. + +When first we screeched in the sudden blaze +Of the daylight's blinding and blasting rays, +And gulped at the gaseous, groggy air, +This old, old friend stood waiting there. + +And when, with a kind of mortal strife, +We had gasped and choked into breathing life, +He watched by the cradle, day and night, +And held our hands till we stood upright. + +From gristle and pulp our frames have grown +To stringy muscle and solid bone; +While we were changing, he altered not; +We might forget, but he never forgot. + +He came with us to the college class,-- +Little cared he for the steward's pass! +All the rest must pay their fee, +Put the grim old dead-head entered free. + +He stayed with us while we counted o'er +Four times each of the seasons four; +And with every season, from year to year, +The dear name Classmate he made more dear. + +He never leaves us,--he never will, +Till our hands are cold and our hearts are still; +On birthdays, and Christmas, and New-Year's too, +He always remembers both me and you. + +Every year this faithful friend +His little present is sure to send; +Every year, wheresoe'er we be, +He wants a keepsake from you and me. + +How he loves us! he pats our heads, +And, lo! they are gleaming with silver threads; +And he 's always begging one lock of hair, +Till our shining crowns have nothing to wear. + +At length he will tell us, one by one, +"My child, your labor on earth is done; +And now you must journey afar to see +My elder brother,--Eternity!" + +And so, when long, long years have passed, +Some dear old fellow will be the last,-- +Never a boy alive but he +Of all our goodly company! + +When he lies down, but not till then, +Our kind Class-Angel will drop the pen +That writes in the day-book kept above +Our lifelong record of faith and love. + +So here's a health in homely rhyme +To our oldest classmate, Father Time! +May our last survivor live to be +As bald and as wise and as tough as he! + + + + + +SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH + +A HALF-RHYMED IMPROMPTU + +1865 + +LIKE the tribes of Israel, +Fed on quails and manna, +Sherman and his glorious band +Journeyed through the rebel land, +Fed from Heaven's all-bounteous hand, +Marching on Savannah! + +As the moving pillar shone, +Streamed the starry banner +All day long in rosy light, +Flaming splendor all the night, +Till it swooped in eagle flight +Down on doomed Savannah! + +Glory be to God on high! +Shout the loud Hosanna! +Treason's wilderness is past, +Canaan's shore is won at last, +Peal a nation's trumpet-blast,-- +Sherman 's in Savannah! + +Soon shall Richmond's tough old hide +Find a tough old tanner! +Soon from every rebel wall +Shall the rag of treason fall, +Till our banner flaps o'er all +As it crowns Savannah! + + + + + +MY ANNUAL + +1866 + +How long will this harp which you once loved to hear +Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear? +How long stir the echoes it wakened of old, +While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold? + +Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong; +The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song; +It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,-- +"We will bid our old harper play on till he dies." + +Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings, +Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings, +Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone +It is still the old harp that was always your own. + +I claim not its music,--each note it affords +I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords; +I know you will listen and love to the last, +For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past. + +Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold +No craftsman could string and no artisan mould; +He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres +That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs. + +Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings, +Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings; +Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled, +Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed. + +Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this, +Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss; +The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will, +Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still. + +The bird wanders careless while summer is green, +The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen; +When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed, +The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest. + +Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling +Is the light of our year, is the gem of its ring, +So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget +The rays it has lost, and its border of jet. + +While round us the many-hued halo is shed, +How dear are the living, how near are the dead! +One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below, +Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow! + +Not life shall enlarge it nor death shall divide,-- +No brother new-born finds his place at my side; +No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest, +His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest. + +Some won the world's homage, their names we hold dear,-- +But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here; +Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife +For the comrade that limps from the battle of life! + +What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard +In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word; +It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave, +It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave. + +Peace, Peace comes at last, with her garland of white; +Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night; +The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun; +We echo its words,--We are one! We are one! + + + + +ALL HERE + +1867 + +IT is not what we say or sing, +That keeps our charm so long unbroken, +Though every lightest leaf we bring +May touch the heart as friendship's token; +Not what we sing or what we say +Can make us dearer to each other; +We love the singer and his lay, +But love as well the silent brother. + +Yet bring whate'er your garden grows, +Thrice welcome to our smiles and praises; +Thanks for the myrtle and the rose, +Thanks for the marigolds and daisies; +One flower erelong we all shall claim, +Alas! unloved of Amaryllis-- +Nature's last blossom-need I name +The wreath of threescore's silver lilies? + +How many, brothers, meet to-night +Around our boyhood's covered embers? +Go read the treasured names aright +The old triennial list remembers; +Though twenty wear the starry sign +That tells a life has broke its tether, +The fifty-eight of 'twenty-nine-- +God bless THE Boys!--are all together! + +These come with joyous look and word, +With friendly grasp and cheerful greeting,-- +Those smile unseen, and move unheard, +The angel guests of every meeting; +They cast no shadow in the flame +That flushes from the gilded lustre, +But count us--we are still the same; +One earthly band, one heavenly cluster! + +Love dies not when he bows his head +To pass beyond the narrow portals,-- +The light these glowing moments shed +Wakes from their sleep our lost immortals; +They come as in their joyous prime, +Before their morning days were numbered,-- +Death stays the envious hand of Time,-- +The eyes have not grown dim that slumbered! + +The paths that loving souls have trod +Arch o'er the dust where worldlings grovel +High as the zenith o'er the sod,-- +The cross above the sexton's shovel! +We rise beyond the realms of day; +They seem to stoop from spheres of glory +With us one happy hour to stray, +While youth comes back in song and story. + +Ah! ours is friendship true as steel +That war has tried in edge and temper; +It writes upon its sacred seal +The priest's _ubique--omnes--semper_! +It lends the sky a fairer sun +That cheers our lives with rays as steady +As if our footsteps had begun +To print the golden streets already! + +The tangling years have clinched its knot +Too fast for mortal strength to sunder; +The lightning bolts of noon are shot; +No fear of evening's idle thunder! +Too late! too late!--no graceless hand +Shall stretch its cords in vain endeavor +To rive the close encircling band +That made and keeps us one forever! + +So when upon the fated scroll +The falling stars have all descended, +And, blotted from the breathing roll, +Our little page of life is ended, +We ask but one memorial line +Traced on thy tablet, Gracious Mother +"My children. Boys of '29. +In pace. How they loved each other!" +ONCE MORE + + + + + +ONCE MORE + +1868 + +"Will I come?" That is pleasant! I beg to inquire +If the gun that I carry has ever missed fire? +And which was the muster-roll-mention but one-- +That missed your old comrade who carries the gun? + +You see me as always, my hand on the lock, +The cap on the nipple, the hammer full cock; +It is rusty, some tell me; I heed not the scoff; +It is battered and bruised, but it always goes off! + +"Is it loaded?" I'll bet you! What doesn't it hold? +Rammed full to the muzzle with memories untold; +Why, it scares me to fire, lest the pieces should fly +Like the cannons that burst on the Fourth of July. + +One charge is a remnant of College-day dreams +(Its wadding is made of forensics and themes); +Ah, visions of fame! what a flash in the pan +As the trigger was pulled by each clever young man! + +And love! Bless my stars, what a cartridge is there! +With a wadding of rose-leaves and ribbons and hair,-- +All crammed in one verse to go off at a shot! +"Were there ever such sweethearts?" Of course there were not! + +And next,--what a load! it wall split the old gun,-- +Three fingers,--four fingers,--five fingers of fun! +Come tell me, gray sages, for mischief and noise +Was there ever a lot like us fellows, "The Boys"? + +Bump I bump! down the staircase the cannon-ball goes,-- +Aha, old Professor! Look out for your toes! +Don't think, my poor Tutor, to sleep in your bed,-- +Two "Boys"--'twenty-niners-room over your head! + +Remember the nights when the tar-barrel blazed! +From red "Massachusetts" the war-cry was raised; +And "Hollis" and "Stoughton" reechoed the call; +Till P----- poked his head out of Holworthy Hall! + +Old P----, as we called him,--at fifty or so,-- +Not exactly a bud, but not quite in full blow; +In ripening manhood, suppose we should say, +Just nearing his prime, as we boys are to-day! + +Oh say, can you look through the vista of age +To the time when old Morse drove the regular stage? +When Lyon told tales of the long-vanished years, +And Lenox crept round with the rings in his ears? + +And dost thou, my brother, remember indeed +The days of our dealings with Willard and Read? +When "Dolly" was kicking and running away, +And punch came up smoking on Fillebrown's tray? + +But where are the Tutors, my brother, oh tell!-- +And where the Professors, remembered so well? +The sturdy old Grecian of Holworthy Hall, +And Latin, and Logic, and Hebrew, and all? + +"They are dead, the old fellows" (we called them so then, +Though we since have found out they were lusty young men). +They are dead, do you tell me?--but how do you know? +You've filled once too often. I doubt if it's so. + +I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Is this 'sixty-eight? +It's not quite so clear. It admits of debate. +I may have been dreaming. I rather incline +To think--yes, I'm certain--it is 'twenty-nine! + +"By Zhorzhe!"--as friend Sales is accustomed to cry,-- +You tell me they're dead, but I know it's a lie! +Is Jackson not President?--What was 't you said? +It can't be; you're joking; what,--all of 'em dead? + +Jim,--Harry,--Fred,--Isaac,--all gone from our side? +They could n't have left us,--no, not if they tried. +Look,--there 's our old Prises,--he can't find his text; +See,--P----- rubs his leg, as he growls out "The next!" + +I told you 't was nonsense. Joe, give us a song! +Go harness up "Dolly," and fetch her along!-- +Dead! Dead! You false graybeard, I swear they are not! +Hurrah for Old Hickory!--Oh, I forgot! + +Well, _one_ we have with us (how could he contrive +To deal with us youngsters and still to survive?) +Who wore for our guidance authority's robe,-- +No wonder he took to the study of Job! + +And now, as my load was uncommonly large, +Let me taper it off with a classical charge; +When that has gone off, I shall drop my old gun-- +And then stand at ease, for my service is done. + +_Bibamus ad Classem vocatam_ "The Boys" +_Et eorum Tutorem cui nomen est "Noyes";_ +_Et floreant, valeant, vigeant tam,_ +_Non Peircius ipse enumeret quam!_ + + + + + +THE OLD CRUISER + +1869 + +HERE 's the old cruiser, 'Twenty-nine, +Forty times she 's crossed the line; +Same old masts and sails and crew, +Tight and tough and as good as new. + +Into the harbor she bravely steers +Just as she 's done for these forty years, +Over her anchor goes, splash and clang! +Down her sails drop, rattle and bang! + +Comes a vessel out of the dock +Fresh and spry as a fighting-cock, +Feathered with sails and spurred with steam, +Heading out of the classic stream. + +Crew of a hundred all aboard, +Every man as fine as a lord. +Gay they look and proud they feel, +Bowling along on even keel. + +On they float with wind and tide,-- +Gain at last the old ship's side; +Every man looks down in turn,-- +Reads the name that's on her stern. + +"Twenty-nine!--Diable you say! +That was in Skipper Kirkland's day! +What was the Flying Dutchman's name? +This old rover must be the same. + +"Ho! you Boatswain that walks the deck, +How does it happen you're not a wreck? +One and another have come to grief, +How have you dodged by rock and reef?" + +Boatswain, lifting one knowing lid, +Hitches his breeches and shifts his quid +"Hey? What is it? Who 's come to grief +Louder, young swab, I 'm a little deaf." + +"I say, old fellow, what keeps your boat +With all you jolly old boys afloat, +When scores of vessels as good as she +Have swallowed the salt of the bitter sea? + +"Many a crew from many a craft +Goes drifting by on a broken raft +Pieced from a vessel that clove the brine +Taller and prouder than 'Twenty-nine. + +"Some capsized in an angry breeze, +Some were lost in the narrow seas, +Some on snags and some on sands +Struck and perished and lost their hands. + +"Tell us young ones, you gray old man, +What is your secret, if you can. +We have a ship as good as you, +Show us how to keep our crew." + +So in his ear the youngster cries; +Then the gray Boatswain straight replies:-- +"All your crew be sure you know,-- +Never let one of your shipmates go. + +"If he leaves you, change your tack, +Follow him close and fetch him back; +When you've hauled him in at last, +Grapple his flipper and hold him fast. + +"If you've wronged him, speak him fair, +Say you're sorry and make it square; +If he's wronged you, wink so tight +None of you see what 's plain in sight. + +"When the world goes hard and wrong, +Lend a hand to help him along; +When his stockings have holes to darn, +Don't you grudge him your ball of yarn. + +"Once in a twelvemonth, come what may, +Anchor your ship in a quiet bay, +Call all hands and read the log, +And give 'em a taste of grub and grog. + +"Stick to each other through thick and thin; +All the closer as age leaks in; +Squalls will blow and clouds will frown, +But stay by your ship till you all go down!" + + + + + +ADDED FOR THE ALUMNI MEETING, JUNE 29, + +1869. + +So the gray Boatswain of 'Twenty-nine +Piped to "The Boys" as they crossed the line; +Round the cabin sat thirty guests, +Babes of the nurse with a thousand breasts. + +There were the judges, grave and grand, +Flanked by the priests on either hand; +There was the lord of wealth untold, +And the dear good fellow in broadcloth old. + +Thirty men, from twenty towns, +Sires and grandsires with silvered crowns,-- +Thirty school-boys all in a row,-- +Bens and Georges and Bill and Joe. + +In thirty goblets the wine was poured, +But threescore gathered around the board,-- +For lo! at the side of every chair +A shadow hovered--we all were there! + + + + + +HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING + +1869 + +THOU Gracious Power, whose mercy lends +The light of home, the smile of friends, +Our gathered flock thine arms infold +As in the peaceful days of old. + +Wilt thou not hear us while we raise, +In sweet accord of solemn praise, +The voices that have mingled long +In joyous flow of mirth and song? + +For all the blessings life has brought, +For all its sorrowing hours have taught, +For all we mourn, for all we keep, +The hands we clasp, the loved that sleep; + +The noontide sunshine of the past, +These brief, bright moments fading fast, +The stars that gild our darkening years, +The twilight ray from holier spheres; + +We thank thee, Father! let thy grace +Our narrowing circle still embrace, +Thy mercy shed its heavenly store, +Thy peace be with us evermore! + + + + + +EVEN-SONG. + +1870 + +IT may be, yes, it must be, Time that brings +An end to mortal things, +That sends the beggar Winter in the train +Of Autumn's burdened wain,-- +Time, that is heir of all our earthly state, +And knoweth well to wait +Till sea hath turned to shore and shore to sea, +If so it need must be, +Ere he make good his claim and call his own +Old empires overthrown,-- +Time, who can find no heavenly orb too large +To hold its fee in charge, +Nor any motes that fill its beam so small, +But he shall care for all,-- +It may be, must be,--yes, he soon shall tire +This hand that holds the lyre. + +Then ye who listened in that earlier day +When to my careless lay +I matched its chords and stole their first-born thrill, +With untaught rudest skill +Vexing a treble from the slender strings +Thin as the locust sings +When the shrill-crying child of summer's heat +Pipes from its leafy seat, +The dim pavilion of embowering green +Beneath whose shadowy screen +The small sopranist tries his single note +Against the song-bird's throat, +And all the echoes listen, but in vain; +They hear no answering strain,-- +Then ye who listened in that earlier day +Shall sadly turn away, + +Saying, "The fire burns low, the hearth is cold +That warmed our blood of old; +Cover its embers and its half-burnt brands, +And let us stretch our hands +Over a brighter and fresh-kindled flame; +Lo, this is not the same, +The joyous singer of our morning time, +Flushed high with lusty rhyme! +Speak kindly, for he bears a human heart, +But whisper him apart,-- +Tell him the woods their autumn robes have shed +And all their birds have fled, +And shouting winds unbuild the naked nests +They warmed with patient breasts; +Tell him the sky is dark, the summer o'er, +And bid him sing no more!" + +Ah, welladay! if words so cruel-kind +A listening ear might find! +But who that hears the music in his soul +Of rhythmic waves that roll +Crested with gleams of fire, and as they flow +Stir all the deeps below +Till the great pearls no calm might ever reach +Leap glistening on the beach,-- +Who that has known the passion and the pain, +The rush through heart and brain, +The joy so like a pang his hand is pressed +Hard on his throbbing breast, +When thou, whose smile is life and bliss and fame +Hast set his pulse aflame, +Muse of the lyre! can say farewell to thee? +Alas! and must it be? + +In many a clime, in many a stately tongue, +The mighty bards have sung; +To these the immemorial thrones belong +And purple robes of song; +Yet the slight minstrel loves the slender tone +His lips may call his own, +And finds the measure of the verse more sweet, +Timed by his pulse's beat, +Than all the hymnings of the laurelled throng. +Say not I do him wrong, +For Nature spoils her warblers,--them she feeds +In lotus-growing meads +And pours them subtle draughts from haunted streams +That fill their souls with dreams. + +Full well I know the gracious mother's wiles +And dear delusive smiles! +No callow fledgling of her singing brood +But tastes that witching food, +And hearing overhead the eagle's wing, +And how the thrushes sing, +Vents his exiguous chirp, and from his nest +Flaps forth--we know the rest. +I own the weakness of the tuneful kind,-- +Are not all harpers blind? +I sang too early, must I sing too late? +The lengthening shadows wait +The first pale stars of twilight,--yet how sweet +The flattering whisper's cheat,-- +"Thou hast the fire no evening chill can tame, +Whose coals outlast its flame!" + +Farewell, ye carols of the laughing morn, +Of earliest sunshine born! +The sower flings the seed and looks not back +Along his furrowed track; +The reaper leaves the stalks for other hands +To gird with circling bands; +The wind, earth's careless servant, truant-born, +Blows clean the beaten corn +And quits the thresher's floor, and goes his way +To sport with ocean's spray; +The headlong-stumbling rivulet scrambling down +To wash the sea-girt town, +Still babbling of the green and billowy waste +Whose salt he longs to taste, +Ere his warm wave its chilling clasp may feel +Has twirled the miller's wheel. + +The song has done its task that makes us bold +With secrets else untold,-- +And mine has run its errand; through the dews +I tracked the flying Muse; +The daughter of the morning touched my lips +With roseate finger-tips; +Whether I would or would not, I must sing +With the new choirs of spring; +Now, as I watch the fading autumn day +And trill my softened lay, +I think of all that listened, and of one +For whom a brighter sun +Dawned at high summer's noon. Ah, comrades dear, +Are not all gathered here? +Our hearts have answered.--Yes! they hear our call: +All gathered here! all! all! + + + + + +THE SMILING LISTENER + +1871 +PRECISELY. I see it. You all want to say +That a tear is too sad and a laugh is too gay; +You could stand a faint smile, you could manage a sigh, +But you value your ribs, and you don't want to cry. + +And why at our feast of the clasping of hands +Need we turn on the stream of our lachrymal glands? +Though we see the white breakers of age on our bow, +Let us take a good pull in the jolly-boat now! + +It's hard if a fellow cannot feel content +When a banquet like this does n't cost him a cent, +When his goblet and plate he may empty at will, +And our kind Class Committee will settle the bill. + +And here's your old friend, the identical bard +Who has rhymed and recited you verse by the yard +Since the days of the empire of Andrew the First +Till you 're full to the brim and feel ready to burst. + +It's awful to think of,--how year after year +With his piece in his pocket he waits for you here; +No matter who's missing, there always is one +To lug out his manuscript, sure as a gun. + +"Why won't he stop writing?" Humanity cries +The answer is briefly, "He can't if he tries; +He has played with his foolish old feather so long, +That the goose-quill in spite of him cackles in song." + +You have watched him with patience from morning to dusk +Since the tassel was bright o'er the green of the husk, +And now--it 's too bad--it 's a pitiful job-- +He has shelled the ripe ear till he's come to the cob. + +I see one face beaming--it listens so well +There must be some music yet left in my shell-- +The wine of my soul is not thick on the lees; +One string is unbroken, one friend I can please! + +Dear comrade, the sunshine of seasons gone by +Looks out from your tender and tear-moistened eye, +A pharos of love on an ice-girdled coast,-- +Kind soul!--Don't you hear me?--He's deaf as a post! + +Can it be one of Nature's benevolent tricks +That you grow hard of hearing as I grow prolix? +And that look of delight which would angels beguile +Is the deaf man's prolonged unintelligent smile? + +Ah! the ear may grow dull, and the eye may wax dim, +But they still know a classmate--they can't mistake him; +There is something to tell us, "That's one of our band," +Though we groped in the dark for a touch of his hand. + +Well, Time with his snuffers is prowling about +And his shaky old fingers will soon snuff us out; +There's a hint for us all in each pendulum tick, +For we're low in the tallow and long in the wick. + +You remember Rossini--you 've been at the play? +How his overture-endings keep crashing away +Till you think, "It 's all over--it can't but stop now-- +That 's the screech and the bang of the final bow-wow." + +And you find you 're mistaken; there 's lots more to come, +More banging, more screeching of fiddle and drum, +Till when the last ending is finished and done, +You feel like a horse when the winning-post 's won. + +So I, who have sung to you, merry or sad, +Since the days when they called me a promising lad, +Though I 've made you more rhymes than a tutor could scan, +Have a few more still left, like the razor-strop man. + +Now pray don't be frightened--I 'm ready to stop +My galloping anapests' clatter and pop-- +In fact, if you say so, retire from to-day +To the garret I left, on a poet's half-pay. + +And yet--I can't help it--perhaps--who can tell? +You might miss the poor singer you treated so well, +And confess you could stand him five minutes or so, +"It was so like old times we remember, you know." + +'T is not that the music can signify much, +But then there are chords that awake with a touch,-- +And our hearts can find echoes of sorrow and joy +To the winch of the minstrel who hails from Savoy. + +So this hand-organ tune that I cheerfully grind +May bring the old places and faces to mind, +And seen in the light of the past we recall +The flowers that have faded bloom fairest of all! + + + + + +OUR SWEET SINGER + +J. A. + +1872 + +ONE memory trembles on our lips; +It throbs in every breast; +In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse, +The shadow stands confessed. + +O silent voice, that cheered so long +Our manhood's marching day, +Without thy breath of heavenly song, +How weary seems the way! + +Vain every pictured phrase to tell +Our sorrowing heart's desire,-- +The shattered harp, the broken shell, +The silent unstrung lyre; + +For youth was round us while he sang; +It glowed in every tone; +With bridal chimes the echoes rang, +And made the past our own. + +Oh blissful dream! Our nursery joys +We know must have an end, +But love and friendship's broken toys +May God's good angels mend! + +The cheering smile, the voice of mirth +And laughter's gay surprise +That please the children born of earth. +Why deem that Heaven denies? + +Methinks in that refulgent sphere +That knows not sun or moon, +An earth-born saint might long to hear +One verse of "Bonny Doon"; + +Or walking through the streets of gold +In heaven's unclouded light, +His lips recall the song of old +And hum "The sky is bright." + +And can we smile when thou art dead? +Ah, brothers, even so! +The rose of summer will be red, +In spite of winter's snow. + +Thou wouldst not leave us all in gloom +Because thy song is still, +Nor blight the banquet-garland's bloom +With grief's untimely chill. + +The sighing wintry winds complain,-- +The singing bird has flown,-- +Hark! heard I not that ringing strain, +That clear celestial tone? + +How poor these pallid phrases seem, +How weak this tinkling line, +As warbles through my waking dream +That angel voice of thine! + +Thy requiem asks a sweeter lay; +It falters on my tongue; +For all we vainly strive to say, +Thou shouldst thyself have sung! + + + + + +H. C. M. H. S. J. K. W. + +1873 + +THE dirge is played, the throbbing death-peal rung, +The sad-voiced requiem sung; +On each white urn where memory dwells +The wreath of rustling immortelles +Our loving hands have hung, +And balmiest leaves have strown and tenderest blossoms flung. + +The birds that filled the air with songs have flown, +The wintry blasts have blown, +And these for whom the voice of spring +Bade the sweet choirs their carols sing +Sleep in those chambers lone +Where snows untrodden lie, unheard the night-winds moan. + +We clasp them all in memory, as the vine +Whose running stems intwine +The marble shaft, and steal around +The lowly stone, the nameless mound; +With sorrowing hearts resign +Our brothers true and tried, and close our broken line. + +How fast the lamps of life grow dim and die +Beneath our sunset sky! +Still fading, as along our track +We cast our saddened glances back, +And while we vainly sigh +The shadowy day recedes, the starry night draws nigh. + +As when from pier to pier across the tide +With even keel we glide, +The lights we left along the shore +Grow less and less, while more, yet more +New vistas open wide +Of fair illumined streets and casements golden-eyed. + +Each closing circle of our sunlit sphere +Seems to bring heaven more near +Can we not dream that those we love +Are listening in the world above +And smiling as they hear +The voices known so well of friends that still are dear? + +Does all that made us human fade away +With this dissolving clay? +Nay, rather deem the blessed isles +Are bright and gay with joyous smiles, +That angels have their play, +And saints that tire of song may claim their holiday. + +All else of earth may perish; love alone +Not heaven shall find outgrown! +Are they not here, our spirit guests, +With love still throbbing in their breasts? +Once more let flowers be strown. +Welcome, ye shadowy forms, we count you still our own! + + + + + +WHAT I HAVE COME FOR + +1873 + +I HAVE come with my verses--I think I may claim +It is not the first time I have tried on the same. +They were puckered in rhyme, they were wrinkled in wit; +But your hearts were so large that they made them a fit. + +I have come--not to tease you with more of my rhyme, +But to feel as I did in the blessed old time; +I want to hear him with the Brobdingnag laugh-- +We count him at least as three men and a half. + +I have come to meet judges so wise and so grand +That I shake in my shoes while they're shaking my hand; +And the prince among merchants who put back the crown +When they tried to enthrone him the King of the Town. + +I have come to see George--Yes, I think there are four, +If they all were like these I could wish there were more. +I have come to see one whom we used to call "Jim," +I want to see--oh, don't I want to see him? + +I have come to grow young--on my word I declare +I have thought I detected a change in my hair! +One hour with "The Boys" will restore it to brown-- +And a wrinkle or two I expect to rub down. + +Yes, that's what I've come for, as all of us come; +When I meet the dear Boys I could wish I were dumb. +You asked me, you know, but it's spoiling the fun; +I have told what I came for; my ditty is done. + + +OUR BANKER + +1874 + +OLD TIME, in whose bank we deposit our notes, +Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats; +He keeps all his customers still in arrears +By lending them minutes and charging them years. + +The twelvemonth rolls round and we never forget +On the counter before us to pay him our debt. +We reckon the marks he has chalked on the door, +Pay up and shake hands and begin a new score. + +How long he will lend us, how much we may owe, +No angel will tell us, no mortal may know. +At fivescore, at fourscore, at threescore and ten, +He may close the account with a stroke of his pen. + +This only we know,--amid sorrows and joys +Old Time has been easy and kind with "The Boys." +Though he must have and will have and does have his pay, +We have found him good-natured enough in his way. + +He never forgets us, as others will do,-- +I am sure he knows me, and I think he knows you, +For I see on your foreheads a mark that he lends +As a sign he remembers to visit his friends. + +In the shape of a classmate (a wig on his crown,-- +His day-book and ledger laid carefully down) +He has welcomed us yearly, a glass in his hand, +And pledged the good health of our brotherly band. + +He 's a thief, we must own, but how many there be +That rob us less gently and fairly than he +He has stripped the green leaves that were over us all, +But they let in the sunshine as fast as they fall. + +Young beauties may ravish the world with a glance +As they languish in song, as they float in the dance,-- +They are grandmothers now we remember as girls, +And the comely white cap takes the place of the curls. + +But the sighing and moaning and groaning are o'er, +We are pining and moping and sleepless no more, +And the hearts that were thumping like ships on the rocks +Beat as quiet and steady as meeting-house clocks. + +The trump of ambition, loud sounding and shrill, +May blow its long blast, but the echoes are still, +The spring-tides are past, but no billow may reach +The spoils they have landed far up on the beach. + +We see that Time robs us, we know that he cheats, +But we still find a charm in his pleasant deceits, +While he leaves the remembrance of all that was best, +Love, friendship, and hope, and the promise of rest. + +Sweet shadows of twilight! how calm their repose, +While the dewdrops fall soft in the breast of the rose! +How blest to the toiler his hour of release +When the vesper is heard with its whisper of peace! + +Then here's to the wrinkled old miser, our friend; +May he send us his bills to the century's end, +And lend us the moments no sorrow alloys, +Till he squares his account with the last of "The Boys." + + + + + +FOR CLASS MEETING + +1875 + +IT is a pity and a shame--alas! alas! I know it is, +To tread the trodden grapes again, but so it has been, +so it is; +The purple vintage long is past, with ripened +clusters bursting so +They filled the wine-vats to the brim,-'t is strange +you will be thirsting so! + +Too well our faithful memory tells what might be +rhymed or sung about, +For all have sighed and some have wept since last +year's snows were flung about; +The beacon flame that fired the sky, the modest +ray that gladdened us, +A little breath has quenched their light, and +deepening shades have saddened us. + +No more our brother's life is ours for cheering or +for grieving us, +One only sadness they bequeathed, the sorrow of +their leaving us; +Farewell! Farewell!--I turn the leaf I read my +chiming measure in; +Who knows but something still is there a friend +may find a pleasure in? +For who can tell by what he likes what other +people's fancies are? +How all men think the best of wives their own +particular Nancies are? +If what I sing you brings a smile, you will not stop +to catechise, +Nor read Bceotia's lumbering line with nicely +scanning Attic eyes. + +Perhaps the alabaster box that Mary broke so +lovingly, +While Judas looked so sternly on, the Master so +approvingly, +Was not so fairly wrought as those that Pilate's +wife and daughters had, +Or many a dame of Judah's line that drank of +Jordan's waters had. + +Perhaps the balm that cost so dear, as some +remarked officiously, +The precious nard that filled the room with +fragrance so deliciously, +So oft recalled in storied page and sung in verse +melodious, +The dancing girl had thought too cheap,--that +daughter of Herodias. + +Where now are all the mighty deeds that Herod +boasted loudest of? +Where now the flashing jewelry the tetrarch's wife +was proudest of? +Yet still to hear how Mary loved, all tribes of men +are listening, +And still the sinful woman's tears like stars +heaven are glistening. + +'T is not the gift our hands have brought, the love +it is we bring with it,-- +The minstrel's lips may shape the song, his heart +in tune must sing with it; +And so we love the simple lays, and wish we might +have more of them, +Our poet brothers sing for us,--there must be half +a score of them. + +It may be that of fame and name our voices once +were emulous,-- +With deeper thoughts, with tenderer throbs their +softening tones are tremulous; +The dead seem listening as of old, ere friendship +was bereft of them; +The living wear a kinder smile, the remnant that +is left of them. + +Though on the once unfurrowed brows the harrow- +teeth of Time may show, +Though all the strain of crippling years the halting +feet of rhyme may show, +We look and hear with melting hearts, for what +we all remember is +The morn of Spring, nor heed how chill the sky of +gray November is. + +Thanks to the gracious powers above from all mankind +that singled us, +And dropped the pearl of friendship in the cup they +kindly mingled us, +And bound us in a wreath of flowers with hoops of +steel knit under it;-- +Nor time, nor space, nor chance, nor change, nor +death himself shall sunder it! + + + + + +"AD AMICOS" + +1876 + +"Dumque virent genua +Et decet, obducta solvatur fonte senectus." + +THE muse of boyhood's fervid hour +Grows tame as skies get chill and hazy; +Where once she sought a passion-flower, +She only hopes to find a daisy. +Well, who the changing world bewails? +Who asks to have it stay unaltered? +Shall grown-up kittens chase their tails? +Shall colts be never shod or haltered? + +Are we "The Boys" that used to make +The tables ring with noisy follies? +Whose deep-lunged laughter oft would shake +The ceiling with its thunder-volleys? +Are we the youths with lips unshorn, +At beauty's feet unwrinkled suitors, +Whose memories reach tradition's morn,-- +The days of prehistoric tutors? + +"The Boys" we knew,--but who are these +Whose heads might serve for Plutarch's sages, +Or Fox's martyrs, if you please, +Or hermits of the dismal ages? +"The Boys" we knew--can these be those? +Their cheeks with morning's blush were painted;-- +Where are the Harrys, Jims, and Joes +With whom we once were well acquainted? + +If we are they, we're not the same; +If they are we, why then they're masking; +Do tell us, neighbor What 's--your--name, +Who are you?--What's the use of asking? +You once were George, or Bill, or Ben; +There's you, yourself--there 's you, that other-- +I know you now--I knew you then-- +You used to be your younger brother! + +You both are all our own to-day,-- +But ah! I hear a warning whisper; +Yon roseate hour that flits away +Repeats the Roman's sad _paulisper_. +Come back! come back! we've need of you +To pay you for your word of warning; +We'll bathe your wings in brighter dew +Than ever wet the lids of morning! + +Behold this cup; its mystic wine +No alien's lip has ever tasted; +The blood of friendship's clinging vine, +Still flowing, flowing, yet unwasted +Old Time forgot his running sand +And laid his hour-glass down to fill it, +And Death himself with gentle hand +Has touched the chalice, not to spill it. + +Each bubble rounding at the brim +Is rainbowed with its magic story; +The shining days with age grown dim +Are dressed again in robes of glory; +In all its freshness spring returns +With song of birds and blossoms tender; +Once more the torch of passion burns, +And youth is here in all its splendor! + +Hope swings her anchor like a toy, +Love laughs and shows the silver arrow +We knew so well as man and boy,-- +The shaft that stings through bone and marrow; +Again our kindling pulses beat, +With tangled curls our fingers dally, +And bygone beauties smile as sweet +As fresh-blown lilies of the valley. + +O blessed hour! we may forget +Its wreaths, its rhymes, its songs, its laughter, +But not the loving eyes we met, +Whose light shall gild the dim hereafter. +How every heart to each grows warm! +Is one in sunshine's ray? We share it. +Is one in sorrow's blinding storm? +A look, a word, shall help him bear it. + +"The Boys" we were, "The Boys" we 'll be +As long as three, as two, are creeping; +Then here 's to him--ah! which is he?-- +Who lives till all the rest are sleeping; +A life with tranquil comfort blest, +The young man's health, the rich man's plenty, +All earth can give that earth has best, +And heaven at fourscore years and twenty. + + + + + + +HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT + +1877 + +I LIKE, at times, to hear the steeples' chimes +With sober thoughts impressively that mingle; +But sometimes, too, I rather like--don't you?-- +To hear the music of the sleigh bells' jingle. + +I like full well the deep resounding swell +Of mighty symphonies with chords inwoven; +But sometimes, too, a song of Burns--don't you? +After a solemn storm-blast of Beethoven. + +Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels +When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; +A page of Hood may do a fellow good +After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin. + +Some works I find,--say Watts upon the Mind,-- +No matter though at first they seemed amusing, +Not quite the same, but just a little tame +After some five or six times' reperusing. + +So, too, at times when melancholy rhymes +Or solemn speeches sober down a dinner, +I've seen it 's true, quite often,--have n't you?-- +The best-fed guests perceptibly grow thinner. + +Better some jest (in proper terms expressed) +Or story (strictly moral) even if musty, +Or song we sung when these old throats were young,-- +Something to keep our souls from getting rusty. + +The poorest scrap from memory's ragged lap +Comes like an heirloom from a dear dead mother-- +Hush! there's a tear that has no business here, +A half-formed sigh that ere its birth we smother. + +We cry, we laugh; ah, life is half and half, +Now bright and joyous as a song of Herrick's, +Then chill and bare as funeral-minded Blair; +As fickle as a female in hysterics. + +If I could make you cry I would n't try; +If you have hidden smiles I'd like to find them, +And that although, as well I ought to know, +The lips of laughter have a skull behind them. + +Yet when I think we may be on the brink +Of having Freedom's banner to dispose of, +All crimson-hued, because the Nation would +Insist on cutting its own precious nose off, + +I feel indeed as if we rather need +A sermon such as preachers tie a text on. +If Freedom dies because a ballot lies, +She earns her grave; 't is time to call the sexton! + +But if a fight can make the matter right, +Here are we, classmates, thirty men of mettle; +We're strong and tough, we've lived nigh long enough,-- +What if the Nation gave it us to settle? + +The tale would read like that illustrious deed +When Curtius took the leap the gap that filled in, +Thus: "Fivescore years, good friends, as it appears, +At last this people split on Hayes and Tilden. + +"One half cried, 'See! the choice is S. J. T.!' +And one half swore as stoutly it was t' other; +Both drew the knife to save the Nation's life +By wholesale vivisection of each other. + +"Then rose in mass that monumental Class,-- +'Hold! hold!' they cried, 'give us, give us the daggers!' +'Content! content!' exclaimed with one consent +The gaunt ex-rebels and the carpet-baggers. + +"Fifteen each side, the combatants divide, +So nicely balanced are their predilections; +And first of all a tear-drop each lets fall, +A tribute to their obsolete affections. + +"Man facing man, the sanguine strife began, +Jack, Jim and Joe against Tom, Dick and Harry, +Each several pair its own account to square, +Till both were down or one stood solitary. + +"And the great fight raged furious all the night +Till every integer was made a fraction; +Reader, wouldst know what history has to show +As net result of the above transaction? + +"Whole coat-tails, four; stray fragments, several score; +A heap of spectacles; a deaf man's trumpet; +Six lawyers' briefs; seven pocket-handkerchiefs; +Twelve canes wherewith the owners used to stump it; + +"Odd rubber-shoes; old gloves of different hues; +Tax--bills,--unpaid,--and several empty purses; +And, saved from harm by some protecting charm, +A printed page with Smith's immortal verses; + +"Trifles that claim no very special name,-- +Some useful, others chiefly ornamental; +Pins, buttons, rings, and other trivial things, +With various wrecks, capillary and dental. + +"Also, one flag,--'t was nothing but a rag, +And what device it bore it little matters; +Red, white, and blue, but rent all through and through, +'Union forever' torn to shreds and tatters. + +"They fought so well not one was left to tell +Which got the largest share of cuts and slashes; +When heroes meet, both sides are bound to beat; +They telescoped like cars in railroad smashes. + +"So the great split that baffled human wit +And might have cost the lives of twenty millions, +As all may see that know the rule of three, +Was settled just as well by these civilians. + +"As well. Just so. Not worse, not better. No, +Next morning found the Nation still divided; +Since all were slain, the inference is plain +They left the point they fought for undecided." + +If not quite true, as I have told it you, +This tale of mutual extermination, +To minds perplexed with threats of what comes next, +Perhaps may furnish food for contemplation. + +To cut men's throats to help them count their votes +Is asinine--nay, worse--ascidian folly; +Blindness like that would scare the mole and bat, +And make the liveliest monkey melancholy. + +I say once more, as I have said before, +If voting for our Tildens and our Hayeses +Means only fight, then, Liberty, good night! +Pack up your ballot-box and go to blazes. + +Unfurl your blood-red flags, you murderous hags, +You petroleuses of Paris, fierce and foamy; +We'll sell our stock in Plymouth's blasted rock, +Pull up our stakes and migrate to Dahomey! + + + + + +THE LAST SURVIVOR + +1878 + +YES! the vacant chairs tell sadly we are going, going fast, +And the thought comes strangely o'er me, who will live to be the last? +When the twentieth century's sunbeams climb the far-off eastern hill, +With his ninety winters burdened, will he greet the morning still? + +Will he stand with Harvard's nurslings when they hear their mother's call +And the old and young are gathered in the many alcoved hall? +Will he answer to the summons when they range themselves in line +And the young mustachioed marshal calls out "Class of '29 "? + +Methinks I see the column as its lengthened ranks appear +In the sunshine of the morrow of the nineteen hundredth year; +Through the yard 't is creeping, winding, by the walls of dusky red,-- +What shape is that which totters at the long procession's head? + +Who knows this ancient graduate of fourscore years and ten,-- +What place he held, what name he bore among the sons of men? +So speeds the curious question; its answer travels slow; +"'T is the last of sixty classmates of seventy years ago." + +His figure shows but dimly, his face I scarce can see,-- +There's something that reminds me,--it looks like--is it he? +He? Who? No voice may whisper what wrinkled brow shall claim +The wreath of stars that circles our last survivor's name. + +Will he be some veteran minstrel, left to pipe in feeble rhyme +All the stories and the glories of our gay and golden time? +Or some quiet, voiceless brother in whose lonely,loving breast +Fond memory broods in silence, like a dove upon her nest? + +Will it be some old Emeritus, who taught so long ago +The boys that heard him lecture have heads as white as snow? +Or a pious, painful preacher, holding forth from year to year +Till his colleague got a colleague whom the young folks flocked to hear? + +Will it be a rich old merchant in a square-tied white cravat, +Or select-man of a village in a pre-historic hat? +Will his dwelling be a mansion in a marble-fronted row, +Or a homestead by a hillside where the huckleberries grow? + +I can see our one survivor, sitting lonely by himself,-- +All his college text-books round him, ranged in order on their shelf; +There are classic "interliners" filled with learning's choicest pith, +Each _cum notis variorum, quas recensuit doctus_ Smith; + +Physics, metaphysics, logic, mathematics--all the lot +Every wisdom--crammed octavo he has mastered and forgot, +With the ghosts of dead professors standing guard beside them all; +And the room is fall of shadows which their lettered backs recall. + +How the past spreads out in vision with its far receding train, +Like a long embroidered arras in the chambers of the brain, +From opening manhood's morning when first we learned to grieve +To the fond regretful moments of our sorrow-saddened eve! + +What early shadows darkened our idle summer's joy +When death snatched roughly from us that lovely bright-eyed boy! +The years move swiftly onwards; the deadly shafts fall fast,-- +Till all have dropped around him--lo, there he stands,--the last! + +Their faces flit before him, some rosy-hued and fair, +Some strong in iron manhood, some worn with toil and care; +Their smiles no more shall greet him on cheeks with pleasure flushed! +The friendly hands are folded, the pleasant voices hushed! + +My picture sets me dreaming; alas! and can it be +Those two familiar faces we never more may see? +In every entering footfall I think them drawing near, +With every door that opens I say, "At last they 're here!" + +The willow bends unbroken when angry tempests blow, +The stately oak is levelled and all its strength laid low; +So fell that tower of manhood, undaunted, patient, strong, +White with the gathering snowflakes, who faced the storm so long. + +And he,--what subtle phrases their varying light must blend +To paint as each remembers our many-featured friend! +His wit a flash auroral that laughed in every look, +His talk a sunbeam broken on the ripples of a brook, + +Or, fed from thousand sources, a fountain's glittering jet, +Or careless handfuls scattered of diamond sparks unset; +Ah, sketch him, paint him, mould him in every shape you will, +He was himself--the only--the one unpictured still! + +Farewell! our skies are darkened and--yet the stars will shine, +We 'll close our ranks together and still fall into line +Till one is left, one only, to mourn for all the rest; +And Heaven bequeath their memories to him who loves us best! + + + + + +THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS + +A MODERNIZED VERSION + +1879 + +I DON'T think I feel much older; I'm aware I'm rather gray, +But so are many young folks; I meet 'em every day. +I confess I 'm more particular in what I eat and drink, +But one's taste improves with culture; that is all it means, I think. + +_Can you read as once you used to?_ Well, the printing is so bad, +No young folks' eyes can read it like the books that once we had. +_Are you quite as quick of hearing?_ Please to say that once again. +_Don't I use plain words, your Reverence?_ Yes, I often use a cane, + +But it's not because I need it,--no, I always liked a stick; +And as one might lean upon it, 't is as well it should be thick. +Oh, I'm smart, I'm spry, I'm lively,--I can walk, yes, that I can, +On the days I feel like walking, just as well as you, young man! + +_Don't you get a little sleepy after dinner every day?_ +Well, I doze a little, sometimes, but that always was my way. +_Don't you cry a little easier than some twenty years ago?_ +Well, my heart is very tender, but I think 't was always so. + +_Don't you find it sometimes happens that you can't recall a name?_ +Yes, I know such lots of people,--but my memory 's not to blame. +What! You think my memory's failing! Why, it's just as bright and clear, +I remember my great-grandma! She's been dead these sixty year! + +_Is your voice a little trembly?_ Well, it may be, now and then, +But I write as well as ever with a good old-fashioned pen; +It 's the Gillotts make the trouble,--not at all my finger-ends,-- +That is why my hand looks shaky when I sign for dividends. + +_Don't you stoop a little, walking?_ It 's a way I 've always had, +I have always been round-shouldered, ever since I was a lad. +_Don't you hate to tie your shoe-strings?_ Yes, I own it--that is true. +_Don't you tell old stories over?_ I am not aware I do. + +_Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat_ +_In a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?_ +_Don't you wear warm fleecy flannels? Don't you muffle up your throat_ +_Don't you like to have one help you when you're putting on your coat?_ + +_Don't you like old books you've dogs-eared, you can't remember when?_ +_Don't you call it late at nine o'clock and go to bed at ten?_ +_How many cronies can you count of all you used to know_ +_Who called you by your Christian name some fifty years ago?_ + +_How look the prizes to you that used to fire your brain?_ +_You've reared your mound-how high is it above the level plain?_ +_You 've drained the brimming golden cup that made your fancy reel,_ +_You've slept the giddy potion off,--now tell us how you feel!_ + +_You've watched the harvest ripening till every stem was cropped,_ +_You 've seen the rose of beauty fade till every petal dropped,_ +_You've told your thought, you 've done your task, you've tracked your + dial round,_ +--I backing down! Thank Heaven, not yet! I'm hale and brisk and sound, + +And good for many a tussle, as you shall live to see; +My shoes are not quite ready yet,--don't think you're rid of me! +Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he was older far, +And where will you be if I live to beat old Thomas Parr? + +_Ah well,--I know,--at every age life has a certain charm,_-- +_You're going? Come, permit me, please, I beg you'll take my arm._ +I take your arm! Why take your arm? I 'd thank you to be told +I 'm old enough to walk alone, but not so _very_ old! + + + + + +THE SHADOWS + +1880 + +"How many have gone?" was the question of old +Ere Time our bright ring of its jewels bereft; +Alas! for too often the death-bell has tolled, +And the question we ask is, "How many are left?" + +Bright sparkled the wine; there were fifty that quaffed; +For a decade had slipped and had taken but three. +How they frolicked and sung, how they shouted and laughed, +Like a school full of boys from their benches set free! + +There were speeches and toasts, there were stories and rhymes, +The hall shook its sides with their merriment's noise; +As they talked and lived over the college-day times,-- +No wonder they kept their old name of "The Boys"! + +The seasons moved on in their rhythmical flow +With mornings like maidens that pouted or smiled, +With the bud and the leaf and the fruit and the snow, +And the year-books of Time in his alcoves were piled. + +There were forty that gathered where fifty had met; +Some locks had got silvered, some lives had grown sere, +But the laugh of the laughers was lusty as yet, +And the song of the singers rose ringing and clear. + +Still flitted the years; there were thirty that came; +"The Boys" they were still, and they answered their call; +There were foreheads of care, but the smiles were the same, +And the chorus rang loud through the garlanded hall. + +The hour-hand moved on, and they gathered again; +There were twenty that joined in the hymn that was sung; +But ah! for our song-bird we listened in vain,-- +The crystalline tones like a seraph's that rung! + +How narrow the circle that holds us to-night! +How many the loved ones that greet us no more, +As we meet like the stragglers that come from the fight, +Like the mariners flung from a wreck on the shore! + +We look through the twilight for those we have lost; +The stream rolls between us, and yet they seem near; +Already outnumbered by those who have crossed, +Our band is transplanted, its home is not here! + +They smile on us still--is it only a dream?-- +While fondly or proudly their names we recall; +They beckon--they come--they are crossing the stream-- +Lo! the Shadows! the Shadows! room--room for them all! + + + + + +BENJAMIN PEIRCE + +ASTRONOMER, MATHEMATICIAN. 1809-1890 + +1881 + +FOR him the Architect of all +Unroofed our planet's starlit hall; +Through voids unknown to worlds unseen +His clearer vision rose serene. + +With us on earth he walked by day, +His midnight path how far away! +We knew him not so well who knew +The patient eyes his soul looked through; + +For who his untrod realm could share +Of us that breathe this mortal air, +Or camp in that celestial tent +Whose fringes gild our firmament? + +How vast the workroom where he brought +The viewless implements of thought! +The wit how subtle, how profound, +That Nature's tangled webs unwound; + +That through the clouded matrix saw +The crystal planes of shaping law, +Through these the sovereign skill that planned,-- +The Father's care, the Master's hand! + +To him the wandering stars revealed +The secrets in their cradle sealed +The far-off, frozen sphere that swings +Through ether, zoned with lucid rings; + +The orb that rolls in dim eclipse +Wide wheeling round its long ellipse,-- +His name Urania writes with these +And stamps it on her Pleiades. + +We knew him not? Ah, well we knew +The manly soul, so brave, so true, +The cheerful heart that conquered age, +The childlike silver-bearded sage. + +No more his tireless thought explores +The azure sea with golden shores; +Rest, wearied frame I the stars shall keep +A loving watch where thou shalt sleep. + +Farewell! the spirit needs must rise, +So long a tenant of the skies,-- +Rise to that home all worlds above +Whose sun is God, whose light is love. + + + + + +IN THE TWILIGHT + +1882 + +NOT bed-time yet! The night-winds blow, +The stars are out,--full well we know +The nurse is on the stair, +With hand of ice and cheek of snow, +And frozen lips that whisper low, +"Come, children, it is time to go +My peaceful couch to share." + +No years a wakeful heart can tire; +Not bed-time yet! Come, stir the fire +And warm your dear old hands; +Kind Mother Earth we love so well +Has pleasant stories yet to tell +Before we hear the curfew bell; +Still glow the burning brands. + +Not bed-time yet! We long to know +What wonders time has yet to show, +What unborn years shall bring; +What ship the Arctic pole shall reach, +What lessons Science waits to teach, +What sermons there are left to preach. +What poems yet to sing. + +What next? we ask; and is it true +The sunshine falls on nothing new, +As Israel's king declared? +Was ocean ploughed with harnessed fire? +Were nations coupled with a wire? +Did Tarshish telegraph to Tyre? +How Hiram would have stared! + +And what if Sheba's curious queen, +Who came to see,--and to be seen,-- +Or something new to seek, +And swooned, as ladies sometimes do, +At sights that thrilled her through and through, +Had heard, as she was "coming to," +A locomotive's shriek, + +And seen a rushing railway train +As she looked out along the plain +From David's lofty tower,-- +A mile of smoke that blots the sky +And blinds the eagles as they fly +Behind the cars that thunder by +A score of leagues an hour! + +See to my _fiat lux_ respond +This little slumbering fire-tipped wand,-- +One touch,--it bursts in flame! +Steal me a portrait from the sun,-- +One look,--and to! the picture done! +Are these old tricks, King Solomon, +We lying moderns claim? + +Could you have spectroscoped a star? +If both those mothers at your bar, +The cruel and the mild, +The young and tender, old and tough, +Had said, "Divide,--you're right, though rough,"-- +Did old Judea know enough +To etherize the child? + +These births of time our eyes have seen, +With but a few brief years between; +What wonder if the text, +For other ages doubtless true, +For coming years will never do,-- +Whereof we all should like a few, +If but to see what next. + +If such things have been, such may be; +Who would not like to live and see-- +If Heaven may so ordain-- +What waifs undreamed of, yet in store, +The waves that roll forevermore +On life's long beach may east ashore +From out the mist-clad main? + +Will Earth to pagan dreams return +To find from misery's painted urn +That all save hope has flown,-- +Of Book and Church and Priest bereft, +The Rock of Ages vainly cleft, +Life's compass gone, its anchor left, +Left,--lost,--in depths unknown? + +Shall Faith the trodden path pursue +The _crux ansata_ wearers knew +Who sleep with folded hands, +Where, like a naked, lidless eye, +The staring Nile rolls wandering by +Those mountain slopes that climb the sky +Above the drifting sands? + +Or shall a nobler Faith return, +Its fanes a purer gospel learn, +With holier anthems ring, +And teach us that our transient creeds +Were but the perishable seeds +Of harvests sown for larger needs, +That ripening years shall bring? + +Well, let the present do its best, +We trust our Maker for the rest, +As on our way we plod; +Our souls, full dressed in fleshly suits, +Love air and sunshine, flowers and fruits, +The daisies better than their roots +Beneath the grassy sod. + +Not bed-time yet! The full-blown flower +Of all the year--this evening hour-- +With friendship's flame is bright; +Life still is sweet, the heavens are fair, +Though fields are brown and woods are bare, +And many a joy is left to share +Before we say Good-night! + +And when, our cheerful evening past, +The nurse, long waiting, comes at last, +Ere on her lap we lie +In wearied nature's sweet repose, +At peace with all her waking foes, +Our lips shall murmur, ere they close, +Good-night! and not Good-by! + + + + + +A LOVING-CUP SONG + +1883 + +COME, heap the fagots! Ere we go +Again the cheerful hearth shall glow; +We 'll have another blaze, my boys! +When clouds are black and snows are white, +Then Christmas logs lend ruddy light +They stole from summer days, my boys, +They stole from summer days. + +And let the Loving-Cup go round, +The Cup with blessed memories crowned, +That flows whene'er we meet, my boys; +No draught will hold a drop of sin +If love is only well stirred in +To keep it sound and sweet, my boys, +To keep it sound and sweet. + +Give me, to pin upon my breast, +The blossoms twain I love the best, +A rosebud and a pink, my boys; +Their leaves shall nestle next my heart, +Their perfumed breath shall own its part +In every health we drink, my boys, +In every health we drink. + +The breathing blossoms stir my blood, +Methinks I see the lilacs bud +And hear the bluebirds sing, my boys; +Why not? Yon lusty oak has seen +Full tenscore years, yet leaflets green +Peep out with every spring, my boys, +Peep out with every spring. + +Old Time his rusty scythe may whet, +The unmowed grass is glowing yet +Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys; +And if the crazy dotard ask, +Is love worn out? Is life a task? +We'll bravely answer No! my boys, +We 'll bravely answer No! + +For life's bright taper is the same +Love tipped of old with rosy flame +That heaven's own altar lent, my boys, +To glow in every cup we fill +Till lips are mute and hearts are still, +Till life and love are spent, my boys, +Till life and love are spent. + + + + + +THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP + +1884 + +SHE gathered at her slender waist +The beauteous robe she wore; +Its folds a golden belt embraced, +One rose-hued gem it bore. + +The girdle shrank; its lessening round +Still kept the shining gem, +But now her flowing locks it bound, +A lustrous diadem. + +And narrower still the circlet grew; +Behold! a glittering band, +Its roseate diamond set anew, +Her neck's white column spanned. + +Suns rise and set; the straining clasp +The shortened links resist, +Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp +The diamond, on her wrist. + +At length, the round of changes past +The thieving years could bring, +The jewel, glittering to the last, +Still sparkles in a ring. + +So, link by link, our friendships part, +So loosen, break, and fall, +A narrowing zone; the loving heart +Lives changeless through them all. + + + + + +THE LYRE OF ANACREON + +1885 + +THE minstrel of the classic lay +Of love and wine who sings +Still found the fingers run astray +That touched the rebel strings. + +Of Cadmus he would fain have sung, +Of Atreus and his line; +But all the jocund echoes rung +With songs of love and wine. + +Ah, brothers! I would fain have caught +Some fresher fancy's gleam; +My truant accents find, unsought, +The old familiar theme. + +Love, Love! but not the sportive child +With shaft and twanging bow, +Whose random arrows drove us wild +Some threescore years ago; + +Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, +The urchin blind and bare, +But Love, with spectacles and staff, +And scanty, silvered hair. + +Our heads with frosted locks are white, +Our roofs are thatched with snow, +But red, in chilling winter's spite, +Our hearts and hearthstones glow. + +Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, +And while the running sands +Their golden thread unheeded spin, +He warms his frozen hands. + +Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, +And waft this message o'er +To all we miss, from all we meet +On life's fast-crumbling shore: + +Say that, to old affection true, +We hug the narrowing chain +That binds our hearts,--alas, how few +The links that yet remain! + +The fatal touch awaits them all +That turns the rocks to dust; +From year to year they break and fall,-- +They break, but never rust. + +Say if one note of happier strain +This worn-out harp afford,-- +One throb that trembles, not in vain,-- +Their memory lent its chord. + +Say that when Fancy closed her wings +And Passion quenched his fire, +Love, Love, still echoed from the strings +As from Anacreon's lyre! + + + + + +THE OLD TUNE + +THIRTY-SIXTH VARIATION + +1886 + +THIS shred of song you bid me bring +Is snatched from fancy's embers; +Ah, when the lips forget to sing, +The faithful heart remembers! + +Too swift the wings of envious Time +To wait for dallying phrases, +Or woven strands of labored rhyme +To thread their cunning mazes. + +A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain +Its magic breath discloses +Our life's long vista through a lane +Of threescore summers' roses! + +One language years alone can teach +Its roots are young affections +That feel their way to simplest speech +Through silent recollections. + +That tongue is ours. How few the words +We need to know a brother! +As simple are the notes of birds, +Yet well they know each other. + +This freezing month of ice and snow +That brings our lives together +Lends to our year a living glow +That warms its wintry weather. + +So let us meet as eve draws nigh, +And life matures and mellows, +Till Nature whispers with a sigh, +"Good-night, my dear old fellows!" + + + + + +THE BROKEN CIRCLE + +1887 + +I STOOD On Sarum's treeless plain, +The waste that careless Nature owns; +Lone tenants of her bleak domain, +Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones. + +Upheaved in many a billowy mound +The sea-like, naked turf arose, +Where wandering flocks went nibbling round +The mingled graves of friends and foes. + +The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, +This windy desert roamed in turn; +Unmoved these mighty blocks remain +Whose story none that lives may learn. + +Erect, half buried, slant or prone, +These awful listeners, blind and dumb, +Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown, +As wave on wave they go and come. + +"Who are you, giants, whence and why?" +I stand and ask in blank amaze; +My soul accepts their mute reply +"A mystery, as are you that gaze. + +"A silent Orpheus wrought the charm +From riven rocks their spoils to bring; +A nameless Titan lent his arm +To range us in our magic ring. + +"But Time with still and stealthy stride, +That climbs and treads and levels all, +That bids the loosening keystone slide, +And topples down the crumbling wall,-- + +"Time, that unbuilds the quarried past, +Leans on these wrecks that press the sod; +They slant, they stoop, they fall at last, +And strew the turf their priests have trod. + +"No more our altar's wreath of smoke +Floats up with morning's fragrant dew; +The fires are dead, the ring is broke, +Where stood the many stand the few." + +My thoughts had wandered far away, +Borne off on Memory's outspread wing, +To where in deepening twilight lay +The wrecks of friendship's broken ring. + +Ah me! of all our goodly train +How few will find our banquet hall! +Yet why with coward lips complain +That this must lean, and that must fall? + +Cold is the Druid's altar-stone, +Its vanished flame no more returns; +But ours no chilling damp has known,-- +Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns. + +So let our broken circle stand +A wreck, a remnant, yet the same, +While one last, loving, faithful hand +Still lives to feed its altar-flame! + + + + + +THE ANGEL-THIEF + +1888 + +TIME is a thief who leaves his tools behind him; +He comes by night, he vanishes at dawn; +We track his footsteps, but we never find him +Strong locks are broken, massive bolts are drawn, + +And all around are left the bars and borers, +The splitting wedges and the prying keys, +Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-explorers +To crack, wrench open, rifle as they please. + +Ah, these are tools which Heaven in mercy lends us +When gathering rust has clenched our shackles fast, +Time is the angel-thief that Nature sends us +To break the cramping fetters of our past. + +Mourn as we may for treasures he has taken, +Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft, +More precious are those implements forsaken, +Found in the wreck his ruthless hands have left. + +Some lever that a casket's hinge has broken +Pries off a bolt, and lo! our souls are free; +Each year some Open Sesame is spoken, +And every decade drops its master-key. + +So as from year to year we count our treasure, +Our loss seems less, and larger look our gains; +Time's wrongs repaid in more than even measure,-- +We lose our jewels, but we break our chains. + + + + + +AFTER THE CURFEW + +1889 + +THE Play is over. While the light +Yet lingers in the darkening hall, +I come to say a last Good-night +Before the final _Exeunt all_. + +We gathered once, a joyous throng: +The jovial toasts went gayly round; +With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song, +We made the floors and walls resound. + +We come with feeble steps and slow, +A little band of four or five, +Left from the wrecks of long ago, +Still pleased to find ourselves alive. + +Alive! How living, too, are they +Whose memories it is ours to share! +Spread the long table's full array,-- +There sits a ghost in every chair! + +One breathing form no more, alas! +Amid our slender group we see; +With him we still remained "The Class,"-- +Without his presence what are we? + +The hand we ever loved to clasp,-- +That tireless hand which knew no rest,-- +Loosed from affection's clinging grasp, +Lies nerveless on the peaceful breast. + +The beaming eye, the cheering voice, +That lent to life a generous glow, +Whose every meaning said "Rejoice," +We see, we hear, no more below. + +The air seems darkened by his loss, +Earth's shadowed features look less fair, +And heavier weighs the daily cross +His willing shoulders helped us bear. + +Why mourn that we, the favored few +Whom grasping Time so long has spared +Life's sweet illusions to pursue, +The common lot of age have shared? + +In every pulse of Friendship's heart +There breeds unfelt a throb of pain,-- +One hour must rend its links apart, +Though years on years have forged the chain. + + . . . . . . . . . . . . + +So ends "The Boys,"--a lifelong play. +We too must hear the Prompter's call +To fairer scenes and brighter day +Farewell! I let the curtain fall. + + + + + + +POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE + +1857-1858 + +THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS + +THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, +Sails the unshadowed main,-- +The venturous bark that flings +On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings +In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, +And coral reefs lie bare, +Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. + +Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; +Wrecked is the ship of pearl! +And every chambered cell, +Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, +As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, +Before thee lies revealed,-- +Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! + +Year after year beheld the silent toil +That spread his lustrous coil; +Still, as the spiral grew, +He left the past year's dwelling for the new, +Stole with soft step its shining archway through, +Built up its idle door, +Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. + +Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, +Child of the wandering sea, +Cast from her lap, forlorn! +From thy dead lips a clearer note is born +Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn +While on mine ear it rings, +Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:-- + +Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, +As the swift seasons roll! +Leave thy low-vaulted past! +Let each new temple, nobler than the last, +Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, +Till thou at length art free, +Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! + + + + + +SUN AND SHADOW + +As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, +To the billows of foam-crested blue, +Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, +Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue +Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray +As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; +Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, +The sun gleaming bright on her sail. + +Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,-- +Of breakers that whiten and roar; +How little he cares, if in shadow or sun +They see him who gaze from the shore! +He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, +To the rock that is under his lee, +As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, +O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. + +Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves +Where life and its ventures are laid, +The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves +May see us in sunshine or shade; +Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark, +We'll trim our broad sail as before, +And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, +Nor ask how we look from the shore! + + + + + +MUSA + +O MY lost beauty!--hast thou folded quite +Thy wings of morning light +Beyond those iron gates +Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates, +And Age upon his mound of ashes waits +To chill our fiery dreams, +Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams? + +Leave me not fading in these weeds of care, +Whose flowers are silvered hair! +Have I not loved thee long, +Though my young lips have often done thee wrong, +And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song? +Ah, wilt thou yet return, +Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn? + +Come to me!--I will flood thy silent shrine +With my soul's sacred wine, +And heap thy marble floors +As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores, +In leafy islands walled with madrepores +And lapped in Orient seas, +When all their feathery palms toss, plume-like, in the breeze. + +Come to me!--thou shalt feed on honeyed words, +Sweeter than song of birds;-- +No wailing bulbul's throat, +No melting dulcimer's melodious note +When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float, +Thy ravished sense might soothe +With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth. + +Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen, +Sought in those bowers of green +Where loop the clustered vines +And the close-clinging dulcamara twines,-- +Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, +And Summer's fruited gems, +And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems. + +Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves,-- +Or stretched by grass-grown graves, +Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, +Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, +Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones +Still slumbering where they lay +While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away. + +Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing! +Still let me dream and sing,-- +Dream of that winding shore +Where scarlet cardinals bloom-for me no more,-- +The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, +And clustering nenuphars +Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars! + +Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!-- +Come while the rose is red,-- +While blue-eyed Summer smiles +On the green ripples round yon sunken piles +Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, +And on the sultry air +The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer! + +Oh for thy burning lips to fire my brain +With thrills of wild, sweet pain!-- +On life's autumnal blast, +Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast,-- +Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!-- +Behold thy new-decked shrine, +And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!" + + + + + +A PARTING HEALTH + +TO J. L. MOTLEY + +YES, we knew we must lose him,--though friendship may claim +To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame; +Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, +'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. + +As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, +As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, +As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, +He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring. + +What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom, +Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, +While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes +That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies! + +In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of timid, +Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, +There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, +There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue! + +Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed! +From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! +Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, +Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom! + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake +On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, +To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, +With incense they stole from the rose and the pine. + +So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed +When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed: +THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,--the world holds him dear,-- +Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career! + +1857. + + + + + +WHAT WE ALL THINK + +THAT age was older once than now, +In spite of locks untimely shed, +Or silvered on the youthful brow; +That babes make love and children wed. + +That sunshine had a heavenly glow, +Which faded with those "good old days" +When winters came with deeper snow, +And autumns with a softer haze. + +That--mother, sister, wife, or child-- +The "best of women" each has known. +Were school-boys ever half so wild? +How young the grandpapas have grown! + +That but for this our souls were free, +And but for that our lives were blest; +That in some season yet to be +Our cares will leave us time to rest. + +Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,-- +Some common ailment of the race,-- +Though doctors think the matter plain,-- +That ours is "a peculiar case." + +That when like babes with fingers burned +We count one bitter maxim more, +Our lesson all the world has learned, +And men are wiser than before. + +That when we sob o'er fancied woes, +The angels hovering overhead +Count every pitying drop that flows, +And love us for the tears we shed. + +That when we stand with tearless eye +And turn the beggar from our door, +They still approve us when we sigh, +"Ah, had I but one thousand more!" + +Though temples crowd the crumbled brink +O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, +Their tablets bold with what we think, +Their echoes dumb to what we know; + +That one unquestioned text we read, +All doubt beyond, all fear above, +Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed +Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE! + + + + + +SPRING HAS COME + +INTRA MUROS + +THE sunbeams, lost for half a year, +Slant through my pane their morning rays; +For dry northwesters cold and clear, +The east blows in its thin blue haze. + +And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, +Then close against the sheltering wall +The tulip's horn of dusky green, +The peony's dark unfolding ball. + +The golden-chaliced crocus burns; +The long narcissus-blades appear; +The cone-beaked hyacinth returns +To light her blue-flamed chandelier. + +The willow's whistling lashes, wrung +By the wild winds of gusty March, +With sallow leaflets lightly strung, +Are swaying by the tufted larch. + +The elms have robed their slender spray +With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; +Wide o'er the clasping arch of day +Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. + +See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, +That flames in glory for an hour,-- +Behold it withering,--then look up,-- +How meek the forest monarch's flower! + +When wake the violets, Winter dies; +When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near: +When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, +"Bud, little roses! Spring is here!" + +The windows blush with fresh bouquets, +Cut with the May-dew on their lips; +The radish all its bloom displays, +Pink as Aurora's finger-tips. + +Nor less the flood of light that showers +On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- +The walks are gay as bridal bowers +With rows of many-petalled maids. + +The scarlet shell-fish click and clash +In the blue barrow where they slide; +The horseman, proud of streak and splash, +Creeps homeward from his morning ride. + +Here comes the dealer's awkward string, +With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- +Rough colts, with careless country-swing, +In lazy walk or slouching trot. + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +Wild filly from the mountain-side, +Doomed to the close and chafing thills, +Lend me thy long, untiring stride +To seek with thee thy western hills! + +I hear the whispering voice of Spring, +The thrush's trill, the robin's cry, +Like some poor bird with prisoned wing +That sits and sings, but longs to fly. + +Oh for one spot of living greed,-- +One little spot where leaves can grow,-- +To love unblamed, to walk unseen, +To dream above, to sleep below! + + + + + + +PROLOGUE + +A PROLOGUE? Well, of course the ladies know,-- +I have my doubts. No matter,--here we go! +What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: +Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. +'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings, +The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings; +Prologues in metre are to other pros +As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. +"The world's a stage,"--as Shakespeare said, one day; +The stage a world--was what he meant to say. +The outside world's a blunder, that is clear; +The real world that Nature meant is here. +Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; +Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa; +Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, +The cheats are taken in the traps they laid; +One after one the troubles all are past +Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, +When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, +Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. +Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, +And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. +When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, +And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, +Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her knees +On the green--baize,--beneath the (canvas) trees,-- +See to her side avenging Valor fly:-- +"Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!" +When the poor hero flounders in despair, +Some dear lost uncle turns up millionaire, +Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, +Sobs on his neck, "My boy! MY BOY!! _MY BOY_!!!" + +Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night, +Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. +Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt +Wrong the soft passion in the world without, +Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, +One thing is certain: Love will triumph here! +Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,-- +The world's great masters, when you 're out of school,-- +Learn the brief moral of our evening's play +Man has his will,--but woman has her way! +While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, +Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,-- +The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves +Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. +All earthly powers confess your sovereign art +But that one rebel,--woman's wilful heart. +All foes you master, but a woman's wit +Lets daylight through you ere you know you 're hit. +So, just to picture what her art can do, +Hear an old story, made as good as new. + +Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, +Alike was famous for his arm and blade. +One day a prisoner Justice had to kill +Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. +Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, +Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. +His falchion lighted with a sudden gleam, +As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. +He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go; +The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. +"Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act," +The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) +"Friend, I have struck," the artist straight replied; +"Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." +He held his snuff-box,--"Now then, if you please!" +The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, +Off his head tumbled,--bowled along the floor,-- +Bounced down the steps;--the prisoner said no more! +Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye; +If death lurk in it, oh how sweet to die! +Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head; +We die with love, and never dream we're dead! + + + + + + +LATTER-DAY WARNINGS + +WHEN legislators keep the law, +When banks dispense with bolts and looks, +When berries--whortle, rasp, and straw-- +Grow bigger downwards through the box,-- + +When he that selleth house or land +Shows leak in roof or flaw in right,-- +When haberdashers choose the stand +Whose window hath the broadest light,-- + +When preachers tell us all they think, +And party leaders all they mean,-- +When what we pay for, that we drink, +From real grape and coffee-bean,-- + +When lawyers take what they would give, +And doctors give what they would take,-- +When city fathers eat to live, +Save when they fast for conscience' sake,-- + +When one that hath a horse on sale +Shall bring his merit to the proof, +Without a lie for every nail +That holds the iron on the hoof,-- + +When in the usual place for rips +Our gloves are stitched with special care, +And guarded well the whalebone tips +Where first umbrellas need repair,-- + +When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot +The power of suction to resist, +And claret-bottles harbor not +Such dimples as would hold your fist,-- + +When publishers no longer steal, +And pay for what they stole before,-- +When the first locomotive's wheel +Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore;-- + +Till then let Cumming blaze away, +And Miller's saints blow up the globe; +But when you see that blessed day, +Then order your ascension robe. + + + + + +ALBUM VERSES + +WHEN Eve had led her lord away, +And Cain had killed his brother, +The stars and flowers, the poets say, +Agreed with one another. + +To cheat the cunning tempter's art, +And teach the race its duty, +By keeping on its wicked heart +Their eyes of light and beauty. + +A million sleepless lids, they say, +Will be at least a warning; +And so the flowers would watch by day, +The stars from eve to morning. + +On hill and prairie, field and lawn, +Their dewy eyes upturning, +The flowers still watch from reddening dawn +Till western skies are burning. + +Alas! each hour of daylight tells +A tale of shame so crushing, +That some turn white as sea-bleached shells, +And some are always blushing. + +But when the patient stars look down +On all their light discovers, +The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown, +The lips of lying lovers, + +They try to shut their saddening eyes, +And in the vain endeavor +We see them twinkling in the skies, +And so they wink forever. + + + + + +A GOOD TIME GOING! + +BRAVE singer of the coming time, +Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, +Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, +The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, +Good by! Good by!--Our hearts and hands, +Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, +Cry, God be with him, till he stands +His feet among the English daisies! + +'T is here we part;--for other eyes +The busy deck, the fluttering streamer, +The dripping arms that plunge and rise, +The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, +The kerchiefs waving from the pier, +The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him, +The deep blue desert, lone and drear, +With heaven above and home before him! + +His home!--the Western giant smiles, +And twirls the spotty globe to find it; +This little speck the British Isles? +'T is but a freckle,--never mind it! +He laughs, and all his prairies roll, +Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, +And ridges stretched from pole to pole +Heave till they crack their iron knuckles! + +But Memory blushes at the sneer, +And Honor turns with frown defiant, +And Freedom, leaning on her spear, +Laughs louder than the laughing giant +"An islet is a world," she said, +"When glory with its dust has blended, +And Britain keeps her noble dead +Till earth and seas and skies are rended!" + +Beneath each swinging forest-bough +Some arm as stout in death reposes,-- +From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow +Her valor's life-blood runs in roses; +Nay, let our brothers of the West +Write smiling in their florid pages, +One half her soil has walked the rest +In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages! + +Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, +From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, +The British oak with rooted grasp +Her slender handful holds together;-- +With cliffs of white and bowers of green, +And Ocean narrowing to caress her, +And hills and threaded streams between,-- +Our little mother isle, God bless her! + +In earth's broad temple where we stand, +Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us, +We hold the missal in our hand, +Bright with the lines our Mother taught us. +Where'er its blazoned page betrays +The glistening links of gilded fetters, +Behold, the half-turned leaf displays +Her rubric stained in crimson letters! + +Enough! To speed a parting friend +'T is vain alike to speak and listen;-- +Yet stay,--these feeble accents blend +With rays of light from eyes that glisten. +Good by! once more,--and kindly tell +In words of peace the young world's story,-- +And say, besides, we love too well +Our mothers' soil, our fathers' glory. + + + + + +THE LAST BLOSSOM + +THOUGH young no more, we still would dream +Of beauty's dear deluding wiles; +The leagues of life to graybeards seem +Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles. + +Who knows a woman's wild caprice? +'It played with Goethe's silvered hair, +And many a Holy Father's "niece" +Has softly smoothed the papal chair. + +When sixty bids us sigh in vain +To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, +We think upon those ladies twain +Who loved so well the tough old Dean. + +We see the Patriarch's wintry face, +The maid of Egypt's dusky glow, +And dream that Youth and Age embrace, +As April violets fill with snow. + +Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile +His lotus-loving Memphian lies,-- +The musky daughter of the Nile, +With plaited hair and almond eyes. + +Might we but share one wild caress +Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall, +And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress +The long cold kiss that waits us all! + +My bosom heaves, remembering yet +The morning of that blissful day, +When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, +And gave my raptured soul away. + +Flung from her eyes of purest blue, +A lasso, with its leaping chain, +Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew +O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain. + +Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, +Sweet vision, waited for so long! +Dove that would seek the poet's cage +Lured by the magic breath of song! + +She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid, +Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told! +O' er girlhood's yielding barricade +Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold! + +Come to my arms!--love heeds not years; +No frost the bud of passion knows. +Ha! what is this my frenzy hears? +A voice behind me uttered,--Rose! + +Sweet was her smile,--but not for me; +Alas! when woman looks too kind, +Just turn your foolish head and see,-- +Some youth is walking close behind! + + + + + +CONTENTMENT + +"Man wants but little here below" + +LITTLE I ask; my wants are few; +I only wish a hut of stone, +(A _very plain_ brown stone will do,) +That I may call my own;-- +And close at hand is such a one, +In yonder street that fronts the sun. + +Plain food is quite enough for me; +Three courses are as good as ten;-- +If Nature can subsist on three, +Thank Heaven for three. Amen +I always thought cold victual nice;-- +My _choice_ would be vanilla-ice. + +I care not much for gold or land;-- +Give me a mortgage here and there,-- +Some good bank-stock, some note of hand, +Or trifling railroad share,-- +I only ask that Fortune send +A _little_ more than I shall spend. + +Honors are silly toys, I know, +And titles are but empty names; +I would, _perhaps_, be Plenipo,-- +But only near St. James; +I'm very sure I should not care +To fill our Gubernator's chair. + +Jewels are baubles; 't is a sin +To care for such unfruitful things;-- +One good-sized diamond in a pin,-- +Some, not so large, in rings,-- +A ruby, and a pearl, or so, +Will do for me;--I laugh at show. + +My dame should dress in cheap attire; +(Good, heavy silks are never dear;)-- +I own perhaps I might desire +Some shawls of true Cashmere,-- +Some marrowy crapes of China silk, +Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. + +I would not have the horse I drive +So fast that folks must stop and stare; +An easy gait--two, forty-five-- +Suits me; I do not care;-- +Perhaps, for just a _single spurt_, +Some seconds less would do no hurt. + +Of pictures, I should like to own +Titians and Raphaels three or four,-- +I love so much their style and tone, +One Turner, and no more, +(A landscape,--foreground golden dirt,-- +The sunshine painted with a squirt.) + +Of books but few,--some fifty score +For daily use, and bound for wear; +The rest upon an upper floor;-- +Some _little_ luxury _there_ +Of red morocco's gilded gleam +And vellum rich as country cream. + +Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these, +Which others often show for pride, +I value for their power to please, +And selfish churls deride;-- +_One_ Stradivarius, I confess, +_Two_ Meerschaums, I would fain possess. + +Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, +Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;-- +Shall not carved tables serve my turn, +But _all_ must be of buhl? +Give grasping pomp its double share,-- +I ask but _one_ recumbent chair. + +Thus humble let me live and die, +Nor long for Midas' golden touch; +If Heaven more generous gifts deny, +I shall not miss them much,-- +Too grateful for the blessing lent +Of simple tastes and mind content! + + + + + +AESTIVATION + +AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR + +IN candent ire the solar splendor flames; +The foles, langueseent, pend from arid rames; +His humid front the Give, anheling, wipes, +And dreams of erring on ventiferous riper. + +How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, +Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, +Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, +And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine! + +To me, alas! no verdurous visions come, +Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum,-- +No concave vast repeats the tender hue +That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue! + +Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades! +Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids! +Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,-- +Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump! + + + + + +THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE + +OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" + +A LOGICAL STORY + +HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, +That was built in such a logical way +It ran a hundred years to a day, +And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay, +I 'll tell you what happened without delay, +Scaring the parson into fits, +Frightening people out of their wits,-- +Have you ever heard of that, I say? + +Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. +_Georgius Secundus_ was then alive,-- +Snuffy old drone from the German hive. +That was the year when Lisbon-town +Saw the earth open and gulp her down, +And Braddock's army was done so brown, +Left without a scalp to its crown. +It was on the terrible Earthquake-day +That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. + + +Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, +There is always _somewhere_ a weakest spot,-- +In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, +In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, +In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still, +Find it somewhere you must and will,-- +Above or below, or within or without,-- +And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, +That a chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out. + +But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, +With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou ") +He would build one shay to beat the taown +'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; +It should be so built that it couldn' break daown +"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t 's mighty plain +Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; +'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, + Is only jest +T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." + +So the Deacon inquired of the village folk +Where he could find the strongest oak, +That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,-- +That was for spokes and floor and sills; +He sent for lancewood to make the thills; +The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, +The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, +But lasts like iron for things like these; +The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"-- +Last of its timber,--they could n't sell 'em, +Never an axe had seen their chips, +And the wedges flew from between their lips, +Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; +Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, +Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, +Steel of the finest, bright and blue; +Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; +Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide +Found in the pit when the tanner died. +That was the way he "put her through." +"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she 'll dew!" + +Do! I tell you, I rather guess +She was a wonder, and nothing less! +Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, +Deacon and deaconess dropped away, +Children and grandchildren--where were they? +But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay +As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! + +EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--it came and found +The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. +Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-- +"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. +Eighteen hundred and twenty came;-- +Running as usual; much the same. +Thirty and forty at last arrive, +And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE. +First of November, 'Fifty-five! +This morning the parson takes a drive. +Now, small boys, get out of the way! +Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, + +Little of all we value here +Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year +Without both feeling and looking queer. +In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its youth, +So far as I know, but a tree and truth. +(This is a moral that runs at large; +Take it.--You 're welcome.--No extra charge.) + +FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day,-- +There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, +A general flavor of mild decay, +But nothing local, as one may say. +There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art +Had made it so like in every part +That there was n't a chance for one to start. +For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, +And the floor was just as strong as the sills, +And the panels just as strong as the floor, +And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, +And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, +And spring and axle and hub encore. +And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt +In another hour it will be worn out! + +Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. +"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they. +The parson was working his Sunday's text,-- +Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed +At what the--Moses--was coming next. +All at once the horse stood still, +Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. +First a shiver, and then a thrill, +Then something decidedly like a spill,-- +And the parson was sitting upon a rock, +At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,-- +Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! +What do you think the parson found, +When he got up and stared around? +The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, +As if it had been to the mill and ground! +You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, +How it went to pieces all at once,-- +All at once, and nothing first,-- +Just as bubbles do when they burst. + +End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. +Logic is logic. That's all I say. + + + + +PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY + +OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR + +A MATHEMATICAL STORY + +FACTS respecting an old arm-chair. +At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. +Seems but little the worse for wear. +That 's remarkable when I say +It was old in President Holyoke's day. +(One of his boys, perhaps you know, +Died, _at one hundred_, years ago.) +He took lodgings for rain or shine +Under green bed-clothes in '69. + +Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.-- +Born there? Don't say so! I was, too. +(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,-- +Standing still, if you must have proof.-- +"Gambrel?--Gambrel?"--Let me beg +You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,-- +First great angle above the hoof,-- +That 's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) +Nicest place that ever was seen,-- +Colleges red and Common green, +Sidewalks brownish with trees between. +Sweetest spot beneath the skies +When the canker-worms don't rise,-- +When the dust, that sometimes flies +Into your mouth and ears and eyes, +In a quiet slumber lies, +_Not_ in the shape of umbaked pies +Such as barefoot children prize. + +A kind of harbor it seems to be, +Facing the flow of a boundless sea. +Rows of gray old Tutors stand +Ranged like rocks above the sand; +Rolling beneath them, soft and green, +Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,-- +One wave, two waves, three waves, four,-- +Sliding up the sparkling floor. + +Then it ebbs to flow no more, +Wandering off from shore to shore +With its freight of golden ore! +Pleasant place for boys to play;-- +Better keep your girls away; +Hearts get rolled as pebbles do +Which countless fingering waves pursue, +And every classic beach is strown +With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. + +But this is neither here nor there; +I'm talking about an old arm-chair. +You 've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL? +Over at Medford he used to dwell; +Married one of the Mathers' folk; +Got with his wife a chair of oak,-- +Funny old chair with seat like wedge, +Sharp behind and broad front edge,-- +One of the oddest of human things, +Turned all over with knobs and rings,-- +But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,-- +Fit for the worthies of the land,-- +Chief Justice Sewall a cause to try in, +Or Cotton Mather to sit--and lie--in. +Parson Turell bequeathed the same +To a certain student,--SMITH by name; +These were the terms, as we are told: +"Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde; +When he doth graduate, then to passe +To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe. +On payment of "--(naming a certain sum)-- +"By him to whom ye Chaire shall come; +He to ye oldest Senior next, +And soe forever,"--(thus runs the text,)-- +"But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, +That being his Debte for use of same." +Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS, +And took his money,--five silver crowns. +Brown delivered it up to MOORE, +Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. +Moore made over the chair to LEE, +Who gave him crowns of silver three. +Lee conveyed it unto DREW, +And now the payment, of course, was two. +Drew gave up the chair to DUNN,-- +All he got, as you see, was one. +Dunn released the chair to HALL, +And got by the bargain no crown at all. +And now it passed to a second BROWN, +Who took it and likewise claimed a crown. +When Brown conveyed it unto WARE, +Having had one crown, to make it fair, +He paid him two crowns to take the chair; +And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,) +He paid one POTTER, who took it, three. +Four got ROBINSON; five got Dix; +JOHNSON primus demanded six; +And so the sum kept gathering still +Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. + +When paper money became so cheap, +Folks would n't count it, but said "a heap," +A certain RICHARDS,--the books declare,-- +(A. M. in '90? I've looked with care +Through the Triennial,--name not there,)-- +This person, Richards, was offered then +Eightscore pounds, but would have ten; +Nine, I think, was the sum he took,-- +Not quite certain,--but see the book. +By and by the wars were still, +But nothing had altered the Parson's will. +The old arm-chair was solid yet, +But saddled with such a monstrous debt! +Things grew quite too bad to bear, +Paying such sums to get rid of the chair +But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, +And there was the will in black and white, +Plain enough for a child to spell. +What should be done no man could tell, +For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, +And every season but made it worse. + +As a last resort, to clear the doubt, +They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. +The Governor came with his Lighthorse Troop +And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop; +Halberds glittered and colors flew, +French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, +The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth, +And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; +So he rode with all his band, +Till the President met him, cap in hand. +The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said,-- +"A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." +The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he,-- +"There is your p'int. And here 's my fee. + +"These are the terms you must fulfil,-- +On such conditions I BREAK THE WILL!" +The Governor mentioned what these should be. +(Just wait a minute and then you 'll see.) +The President prayed. Then all was still, +And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL! +"About those conditions?" Well, now you go +And do as I tell you, and then you'll know. +Once a year, on Commencement day, +If you 'll only take the pains to stay, +You'll see the President in the CHAIR, +Likewise the Governor sitting there. +The President rises; both old and young +May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, +The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, +Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair? +And then his Excellency bows, +As much as to say that he allows. +The Vice-Gub. next is called by name; +He bows like t' other, which means the same. +And all the officers round 'em bow, +As much as to say that they allow. +And a lot of parchments about the chair +Are handed to witnesses then and there, +And then the lawyers hold it clear +That the chair is safe for another year. + +God bless you, Gentlemen! Learn to give +Money to colleges while you live. +Don't be silly and think you'll try +To bother the colleges, when you die, +With codicil this, and codicil that, +That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat; +For there never was pitcher that wouldn't spill, +And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will! + + + + + +ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING + +WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER--(...) + +COME! fill a fresh bumper, for why should we go +While the nectar (logwood) still reddens our cups as they flow? +Pour out the rich juices (decoction) still bright with the sun, +Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies (dye-stuff) shall run. + +The purple-globed clusters (half-ripened apples) their life-dews have + bled; +How sweet is the breath (taste) of the fragrance they shed!(sugar of +lead) +For summer's last roses (rank poisons) lie hid in the wines (wines!!!) +That were garnered by maidens who laughed through the vines (stable-boys +smoking long-nines) + +Then a smile (scowl) and a glass (howl) and a toast (scoff) and a cheer +(sneer); +For all the good wine, and we 've some of it here! (strychnine and +whiskey, and ratsbane and beer!) +In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, +Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all! (Down, down with the +tyrant that masters us all!) + + + + + +POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE + +1858-1859 + +UNDER THE VIOLETS + +HER hands are cold; her face is white; +No more her pulses come and go; +Her eyes are shut to life and light;-- +Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, +And lay her where the violets blow. + +But not beneath a graven stone, +To plead for tears with alien eyes; +A slender cross of wood alone +Shall say, that here a maiden lies +In peace beneath the peaceful skies. + +And gray old trees of hugest limb +Shall wheel their circling shadows round +To make the scorching sunlight dim +That drinks the greenness from the ground, +And drop their dead leaves on her mound. + +When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, +And through their leaves the robins call, +And, ripening in the autumn sun, +The acorns and the chestnuts fall, +Doubt not that she will heed them all. + +For her the morning choir shall sing +Its matins from the branches high, +And every minstrel-voice of Spring, +That trills beneath the April sky, +Shall greet her with its earliest cry. + +When, turning round their dial-track, +Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, +Her little mourners, clad in black, +The crickets, sliding through the grass, +Shall pipe for her an evening mass. + +At last the rootlets of the trees +Shall find the prison where she lies, +And bear the buried dust they seize +In leaves and blossoms to the skies. +So may the soul that warmed it rise! + +If any, born of kindlier blood, +Should ask, What maiden lies below? +Say only this: A tender bud, +That tried to blossom in the snow, +Lies withered where the violets blow. + + + + + +HYMN OF TRUST + +O Love Divine, that stooped to share +Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, +On Thee we cast each earth-born care, +We smile at pain while Thou art near! + +Though long the weary way we tread, +And sorrow crown each lingering year, +No path we shun, no darkness dread, +Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near! + +When drooping pleasure turns to grief, +And trembling faith is changed to fear, +The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf, +Shall softly tell us, Thou art near! + +On Thee we fling our burdening woe, +O Love Divine, forever dear, +Content to suffer while we know, +Living and dying, Thou art near! + + + + + +A SUN-DAY HYMN + +LORD of all being! throned afar, +Thy glory flames from sun and star; +Centre and soul of every sphere, +Yet to each loving heart how near! + +Sun of our life, thy quickening ray +Sheds on our path the glow of day; +Star of our hope, thy softened light +Cheers the long watches of the night. + +Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn; +Our noontide is thy gracious dawn; +Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign; +All, save the clouds of sin, are thin! + +Lord of all life, below, above, +Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, +Before thy ever-blazing throne +We ask no lustre of our own. + +Grant us thy truth to make us free, +And kindling hearts that burn for thee, +Till all thy living altars claim +One holy light, one heavenly flame! + + + + + +THE CROOKED FOOTPATH + +AH, here it is! the sliding rail +That marks the old remembered spot,-- +The gap that struck our school-boy trail,-- +The crooked path across the lot. + +It left the road by school and church, +A pencilled shadow, nothing more, +That parted from the silver-birch +And ended at the farm-house door. + +No line or compass traced its plan; +With frequent bends to left or right, +In aimless, wayward curves it ran, +But always kept the door in sight. + +The gabled porch, with woodbine green,-- +The broken millstone at the sill,-- +Though many a rood might stretch between, +The truant child could see them still. + +No rocks across the pathway lie,-- +No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown,-- +And yet it winds, we know not why, +And turns as if for tree or stone. + +Perhaps some lover trod the way +With shaking knees and leaping heart,-- +And so it often runs astray +With sinuous sweep or sudden start. + +Or one, perchance, with clouded brain +From some unholy banquet reeled,-- +And since, our devious steps maintain +His track across the trodden field. + +Nay, deem not thus,--no earthborn will +Could ever trace a faultless line; +Our truest steps are human still,-- +To walk unswerving were divine! + +Truants from love, we dream of wrath; +Oh, rather let us trust the more! +Through all the wanderings of the path, +We still can see our Father's door! + + + + + +IRIS, HER BOOK + +I PRAY thee by the soul of her that bore thee, +By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee, +Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee! + +For Iris had no mother to infold her, +Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder, +Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her. + +She had not learned the mystery of awaking +Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching, +Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking. + +Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token +Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, +Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken? + +She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies,-- +Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances, +And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances. + +Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing: +Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring, +Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. + +Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her? +What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her? +Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. + +And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven, +Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, +Save me! Oh, save me! Shall I die forgiven? + +And then--Ah, God! But nay, it little matters: +Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters, +The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters! + +If she had--Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore. +Had the world nothing she might live to care for? +No second self to say her evening prayer for? + +She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, +Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming +Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming. + +Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher. +What if a lonely and unsistered creature +Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature, + +Saying, unsaddened,--This shall soon be faded, +And double-hued the shining tresses braided, +And all the sunlight of the morning shaded? + +This her poor book is full of saddest follies, +Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, +With summer roses twined and wintry hollies. + +In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, +Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances +May fall her little book of dreams and fancies. + +Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee, +Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee, +Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee. + +Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping, +Peace with her! she has had her hour of weeping. +No more! She leaves her memory in thy keeping. + + + + + +ROBINSON OF LEYDEN + +HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer +His wandering flock had gone before, +But he, the shepherd, might not share +Their sorrows on the wintry shore. + +Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, +Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, +While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, +The pastor spake, and thus he said:-- + +"Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! +God calls you hence from over sea; +Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, +Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. + +"Ye go to bear the saving word +To tribes unnamed and shores untrod; +Heed well the lessons ye have heard +From those old teachers taught of God. + +"Yet think not unto them was lent +All light for all the coming days, +And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent +In making straight the ancient ways; + +"The living fountain overflows +For every flock, for every lamb, +Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose +With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." + +He spake; with lingering, long embrace, +With tears of love and partings fond, +They floated down the creeping Maas, +Along the isle of Ysselmond. + +They passed the frowning towers of Briel, +The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, +And grated soon with lifting keel +The sullen shores of Fatherland. + +No home for these!--too well they knew +The mitred king behind the throne;-- +The sails were set, the pennons flew, +And westward ho! for worlds unknown. + +And these were they who gave us birth, +The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, +Who won for us this virgin earth, +And freedom with the soil they gave. + +The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,-- +In alien earth the exiles lie,-- +Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, +His words our noblest battle-cry! + +Still cry them, and the world shall hear, +Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! +Ye _have_ not built by Haerlem Meer, +Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! + + + + + +ST. ANTHONY THE REFORMER + +HIS TEMPTATION + +No fear lest praise should make us proud! +We know how cheaply that is won; +The idle homage of the crowd +Is proof of tasks as idly done. + +A surface-smile may pay the toil +That follows still the conquering Right, +With soft, white hands to dress the spoil +That sun-browned valor clutched in fight. + +Sing the sweet song of other days, +Serenely placid, safely true, +And o'er the present's parching ways +The verse distils like evening dew. + +But speak in words of living power,-- +They fall like drops of scalding rain +That plashed before the burning shower +Swept o' er the cities of the plain! + +Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale,-- +Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, +And, smitten through their leprous mail, +Strike right and left in hope to sting. + +If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, +Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, +Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, +Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,-- + +Too kind for bitter words to grieve, +Too firm for clamor to dismay, +When Faith forbids thee to believe, +And Meekness calls to disobey,-- + +Ah, then beware of mortal pride! +The smiling pride that calmly scorns +Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed +In laboring on thy crown of thorns! + + + + + +THE OPENING OF THE PIANO + +IN the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen +With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, +At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, +Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night! + +Ah me I how I remember the evening when it came! +What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, +When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over seas, +With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys! + +Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, +For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, +Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, +But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play." + +For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; +She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, +In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, +Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills. + +So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, +Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys. +Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, +As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn." + +Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, +(Wedded since, and a widow,--something like ten years dead,) +Hearing a gush of music such as none before, +Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door. + +Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies, +"Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries, +(For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,) +"Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the _bird!_" + + + + + +MIDSUMMER + +HERE! sweep these foolish leaves away, +I will not crush my brains to-day! +Look! are the southern curtains drawn? +Fetch me a fan, and so begone! + +Not that,--the palm-tree's rustling leaf +Brought from a parching coral-reef +Its breath is heated;--I would swing +The broad gray plumes,--the eagle's wing. + +I hate these roses' feverish blood! +Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, +A long-stemmed lily from the lake, +Cold as a coiling water-snake. + +Rain me sweet odors on the air, +And wheel me up my Indian chair, +And spread some book not overwise +Flat out before my sleepy eyes. + +Who knows it not,--this dead recoil +Of weary fibres stretched with toil,-- +The pulse that flutters faint and low +When Summer's seething breezes blow! + +O Nature! bare thy loving breast, +And give thy child one hour of rest,-- +One little hour to lie unseen +Beneath thy scarf of leafy green! + +So, curtained by a singing pine, +Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, +Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay +In sweeter music dies away. + + + + +DE SAUTY + +AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE + +The first messages received through the submarine cable +were sent by an electrical expert, a mysterious personage +who signed himself De Sauty. + + Professor Blue-Nose + +PROFESSOR +TELL me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! +Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, +Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, +Holding talk with nations? + +Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, +Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in nightcap, +Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature +Three times daily patent? + +Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal? +Or is he a _mythus_,--ancient word for "humbug"-- +Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed +Romulus and Remus? + +Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? +Or a living product of galvanic action, +Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution? +Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal! + + +BLUE-NOSE +Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, +Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster! +Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, +Thou shall hear them answered. + +When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, +At the polar focus of the wire electric +Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us +Called himself "DE SAUTY." + +As the small opossum held in pouch maternal +Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, +So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, +Sucking in the current. + +When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger,-- +Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy,-- +And from time to time, in sharp articulation, +Said, "All right! DE SAUTY." + +From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading +Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, +Till the land was filled with loud reverberations +Of "_All right_ DE SAUTY." + +When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger,-- +Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker,-- +Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor +Of disintegration. + +Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, +Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, +Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, +There was no De Sauty. + +Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, +C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chlor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, +Cale. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang. (?) +Alumin. (?) Cuprum, (?) +Such as man is made of. + +Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished! +There is no De Sauty now there is no current! +Give us a new cable, then again we'll hear him +Cry, "All right! DE SAUTY." + + + + + + +POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE + +1871-1872 + +HOMESICK IN HEAVEN + +THE DIVINE VOICE +Go seek thine earth-born sisters,--thus the Voice +That all obey,--the sad and silent three; +These only, while the hosts of Heaven rejoice, +Smile never; ask them what their sorrows be; + +And when the secret of their griefs they tell, +Look on them with thy mild, half-human eyes; +Say what thou wast on earth; thou knowest well; +So shall they cease from unavailing sighs. + + +THE ANGEL +Why thus, apart,--the swift-winged herald spake,-- +Sit ye with silent lips and unstrung lyres +While the trisagion's blending chords awake +In shouts of joy from all the heavenly choirs? + +FIRST SPIRIT +Chide not thy sisters,--thus the answer came;-- +Children of earth, our half-weaned nature clings +To earth's fond memories, and her whispered name +Untunes our quivering lips, our saddened strings; + +For there we loved, and where we love is home, +Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts, +Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome:-- +The chain may lengthen, but it never parts! + +Sometimes a sunlit sphere comes rolling by, +And then we softly whisper,--can it be? +And leaning toward the silvery orb, we try +To hear the music of its murmuring sea; + +To catch, perchance, some flashing glimpse of green, +Or breathe some wild-wood fragrance, wafted through +The opening gates of pearl, that fold between +The blinding splendors and the changeless blue. + + +THE ANGEL +Nay, sister, nay! a single healing leaf +Plucked from the bough of yon twelve-fruited tree +Would soothe such anguish,--deeper stabbing grief +Has pierced thy throbbing heart-- + + +THE FIRST SPIRIT +Ah, woe is me! I from my clinging babe was rudely torn; +His tender lips a loveless bosom pressed; +Can I forget him in my life new born? +Oh that my darling lay upon my breast! + + +THE ANGEL +And thou?-- + + +THE SECOND SPIRIT +I was a fair and youthful bride, +The kiss of love still burns upon my cheek, +He whom I worshipped, ever at my side,-- +Him through the spirit realm in vain I seek. + +Sweet faces turn their beaming eyes on mine; +Ah! not in these the wished-for look I read; +Still for that one dear human smile I pine; +_Thou and none other!_--is the lover's creed. + + +THE ANGEL +And whence thy sadness in a world of bliss +Where never parting comes, nor mourner's tear? +Art thou, too, dreaming of a mortal's kiss +Amid the seraphs of the heavenly sphere? + + +THE THIRD SPIRIT +Nay, tax not me with passion's wasting fire; +When the swift message set my spirit free, +Blind, helpless, lone, I left my gray-haired sire; +My friends were many, he had none save me. + +I left him, orphaned, in the starless night; +Alas, for him no cheerful morning's dawn +I wear the ransomed spirit's robe of white, +Yet still I hear him moaning, _She is gone!_ + + +THE ANGEL +Ye know me not, sweet sisters?--All in vain +Ye seek your lost ones in the shapes they wore; +The flower once opened may not bud again, +The fruit once fallen finds the stem no more. + +Child, lover, sire,--yea, all things loved below,-- +Fair pictures damasked on a vapor's fold,-- +Fade like the roseate flush, the golden glow, +When the bright curtain of the day is rolled. + +I was the babe that slumbered on thy breast. +And, sister, mine the lips that called thee bride. +Mine were the silvered locks thy hand caressed, +That faithful hand, my faltering footstep's guide! + +Each changing form, frail vesture of decay, +The soul unclad forgets it once hath worn, +Stained with the travel of the weary day, +And shamed with rents from every wayside +thorn. + +To lie, an infant, in thy fond embrace,-- +To come with love's warm kisses back to thee,-- +To show thine eyes thy gray-haired father's face, +Not Heaven itself could grant; this may not be! + +Then spread your folded wings, and leave to earth +The dust once breathing ye have mourned so long, +Till Love, new risen, owns his heavenly birth, +And sorrow's discords sweeten into song! + + + + + +FANTASIA + +THE YOUNG GIRL'S POEM + +KISS mine eyelids, beauteous Morn, +Blushing into life new-born! +Lend me violets for my hair, +And thy russet robe to wear, +And thy ring of rosiest hue +Set in drops of diamond dew! + +Kiss my cheek, thou noontide ray, +From my Love so far away +Let thy splendor streaming down +Turn its pallid lilies brown, +Till its darkening shades reveal +Where his passion pressed its seal! + +Kiss my lips, thou Lord of light, +Kiss my lips a soft good-night! +Westward sinks thy golden car; +Leave me but the evening star, +And my solace that shall be, +Borrowing all its light from thee! + + + + + +AUNT TABITHA + +THE YOUNG GIRL'S POEM + +WHATEVER I do, and whatever I say, +Aunt Tabitha tells me that is n't the way; +When she was a girl (forty summers ago) +Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so. + +Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice! +But I like my own way, and I find it so nice +And besides, I forget half the things I am told; +But they all will come back to me--when I am old. + +If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt, +He may chance to look in as I chance to look out; +She would never endure an impertinent stare,-- +It is horrid, she says, and I must n't sit there. + +A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own, +But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone; +So I take a lad's arm,--just for safety, you know,-- +But Aunt Tabitha tells me they did n't do so. + +How wicked we are, and how good they were then! +They kept at arm's length those detestable men; +What an era of virtue she lived in!--But stay-- +Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day? + +If the men were so wicked, I 'll ask my papa +How he dared to propose to my darling mamma; +Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! Who knows? +And what shall I say, if a wretch should propose? + +I am thinking if Aunt knew so little of sin, +What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been! +And her grand-aunt--it scares me--how shockingly sad +That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad! + +A martyr will save us, and nothing else can; +Let me perish--to rescue some wretched young man! +Though when to the altar a victim I go, +Aunt Tabitha 'll tell me she never did so. + + + + + +WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS + +FROM THE YOUNG ASTRONOMER'S POEM + +I. + +AMBITION + +ANOTHER clouded night; the stars are hid, +The orb that waits my search is hid with them. +Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year, +To plant my ladder and to gain the round +That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame, +Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won? +Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear +That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel +Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust; +But the fair garland whose undying green +Not time can change, nor wrath of gods or men! + +With quickened heart-beats I shall hear tongues +That speak my praise; but better far the sense +That in the unshaped ages, buried deep +In the dark mines of unaccomplished time +Yet to be stamped with morning's royal die +And coined in golden days,--in those dim years +I shall be reckoned with the undying dead, +My name emblazoned on the fiery arch, +Unfading till the stars themselves shall fade. +Then, as they call the roll of shining worlds, +Sages of race unborn in accents new +Shall count me with the Olympian ones of old, +Whose glories kindle through the midnight sky +Here glows the God of Battles; this recalls +The Lord of Ocean, and yon far-off sphere +The Sire of Him who gave his ancient name +To the dim planet with the wondrous rings; +Here flames the Queen of Beauty's silver lamp, +And there the moon-girt orb of mighty Jove; +But this, unseen through all earth's ions past, +A youth who watched beneath the western star +Sought in the darkness, found, and shewed to men; +Linked with his name thenceforth and evermore +So shall that name be syllabled anew +In all the tongues of all the tribes of men: +I that have been through immemorial years +Dust in the dust of my forgotten time +Shall live in accents shaped of blood-warm breath, +Yea, rise in mortal semblance, newly born +In shining stone, in undecaying bronze, +And stand on high, and look serenely down +On the new race that calls the earth its own. + +Is this a cloud, that, blown athwart my soul, +Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain +Where worlds beyond the world their mingling rays +Blend in soft white,--a cloud that, born of earth, +Would cheat the soul that looks for light from heaven? +Must every coral-insect leave his sign +On each poor grain he lent to build the reef, +As Babel's builders stamped their sunburnt clay, +Or deem his patient service all in vain? +What if another sit beneath the shade +Of the broad elm I planted by the way,-- +What if another heed the beacon light +I set upon the rock that wrecked my keel,-- +Have I not done my task and served my kind? +Nay, rather act thy part, unnamed, unknown, +And let Fame blow her trumpet through the world +With noisy wind to swell a fool's renown, +Joined with some truth he stumbled blindly o'er, +Or coupled with some single shining deed +That in the great account of all his days +Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet +His pitying angel shows the clerk of Heaven. +The noblest service comes from nameless hands, +And the best servant does his work unseen. +Who found the seeds of fire and made them shoot, +Fed by his breath, in buds and flowers of flame? +Who forged in roaring flames the ponderous stone, +And shaped the moulded metal to his need? +Who gave the dragging car its rolling wheel, +And tamed the steed that whirls its circling round? +All these have left their work and not their names,-- +Why should I murmur at a fate like theirs? +This is the heavenly light; the pearly stain +Was but a wind-cloud drifting o'er the stars! + + + +II. + +REGRETS + +BRIEF glimpses of the bright celestial spheres, +False lights, false shadows, vague, uncertain gleams, +Pale vaporous mists, wan streaks of lurid flame, +The climbing of the upward-sailing cloud, +The sinking of the downward-falling star,-- +All these are pictures of the changing moods +Borne through the midnight stillness of my soul. + +Here am I, bound upon this pillared rock, +Prey to the vulture of a vast desire +That feeds upon my life. I burst my bands +And steal a moment's freedom from the beak, +The clinging talons and the shadowing plumes; +Then comes the false enchantress, with her song; + +"Thou wouldst not lay thy forehead in the dust +Like the base herd that feeds and breeds and dies +Lo, the fair garlands that I weave for thee, +Unchanging as the belt Orion wears, +Bright as the jewels of the seven-starred Crown, +The spangled stream of Berenice's hair!" +And so she twines the fetters with the flowers +Around my yielding limbs, and the fierce bird +Stoops to his quarry,--then to feed his rage +Of ravening hunger I must drain my blood +And let the dew-drenched, poison-breeding night +Steal all the freshness from my fading cheek, +And leave its shadows round my caverned eyes. +All for a line in some unheeded scroll; +All for a stone that tells to gaping clowns, +"Here lies a restless wretch beneath a clod +Where squats the jealous nightmare men call +Fame!" + +I marvel not at him who scorns his kind +And thinks not sadly of the time foretold +When the old hulk we tread shall be a wreck, +A slag, a cinder drifting through the sky +Without its crew of fools! We live too long, +And even so are not content to die, +But load the mould that covers up our bones +With stones that stand like beggars by the road +And show death's grievous wound and ask for tears; +Write our great books to teach men who we are, +Sing our fine songs that tell in artful phrase +The secrets of our lives, and plead and pray +For alms of memory with the after time, +Those few swift seasons while the earth shall wear +Its leafy summers, ere its core grows cold +And the moist life of all that breathes shall die; +Or as the new-born seer, perchance more wise, +Would have us deem, before its growing mass, +Pelted with star-dust, stoned with meteor-balls, +Heats like a hammered anvil, till at last +Man and his works and all that stirred itself +Of its own motion, in the fiery glow +Turns to a flaming vapor, and our orb +Shines a new sun for earths that shall be born. + +I am as old as Egypt to myself, +Brother to them that squared the pyramids +By the same stars I watch. I read the page +Where every letter is a glittering world, +With them who looked from Shinar's clay-built towers, +Ere yet the wanderer of the Midland sea +Had missed the fallen sister of the seven. +I dwell in spaces vague, remote, unknown, +Save to the silent few, who, leaving earth, +Quit all communion with their living time. +I lose myself in that ethereal void, +Till I have tired my wings and long to fill +My breast with denser air, to stand, to walk +With eyes not raised above my fellow-men. +Sick of my unwalled, solitary realm, +I ask to change the myriad lifeless worlds +I visit as mine own for one poor patch +Of this dull spheroid and a little breath +To shape in word or deed to serve my kind. +Was ever giant's dungeon dug so deep, +Was ever tyrant's fetter forged so strong, +Was e'er such deadly poison in the draught +The false wife mingles for the trusting fool, +As he whose willing victim is himself, +Digs, forges, mingles, for his captive soul? + + + +III. + +SYMPATHIES + +THE snows that glittered on the disk of Mars +Have melted, and the planet's fiery orb +Rolls in the crimson summer of its year; +But what to me the summer or the snow +Of worlds that throb with life in forms unknown, +If life indeed be theirs; I heed not these. +My heart is simply human; all my care +For them whose dust is fashioned like mine own; +These ache with cold and hunger, live in pain, +And shake with fear of worlds more full of woe; +There may be others worthier of my love, +But such I know not save through these I know. + +There are two veils of language, hid beneath +Whose sheltering folds, we dare to be ourselves; +And not that other self which nods and smiles +And babbles in our name; the one is Prayer, +Lending its licensed freedom to the tongue +That tells our sorrows and our sins to Heaven; +The other, Verse, that throws its spangled web +Around our naked speech and makes it bold. +I, whose best prayer is silence; sitting dumb +In the great temple where I nightly serve +Him who is throned in light, have dared to claim +The poet's franchise, though I may not hope +To wear his garland; hear me while I tell +My story in such form as poets use, +But breathed in fitful whispers, as the wind +Sighs and then slumbers, wakes and sighs again. + +Thou Vision, floating in the breathless air +Between me and the fairest of the stars, +I tell my lonely thoughts as unto thee. +Look not for marvels of the scholar's pen +In my rude measure; I can only show +A slender-margined, unillumined page, +And trust its meaning to the flattering eye +That reads it in the gracious light of love. +Ah, wouldst thou clothe thyself in breathing shape +And nestle at my side, my voice should lend +Whate'er my verse may lack of tender rhythm +To make thee listen. + + I have stood entranced +When, with her fingers wandering o'er the keys, +The white enchantress with the golden hair +Breathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme; +Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom; +Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang! +The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo, +Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones, +And the pale minstrel's passion lived again, +Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose +The wind has shaken till it fills the air +With light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charm +A song can borrow when the bosom throbs +That lends it breath. + + So from the poet's lips +His verse sounds doubly sweet, for none like him +Feels every cadence of its wave-like flow; +He lives the passion over, while he reads, +That shook him as he sang his lofty strain, +And pours his life through each resounding line, +As ocean, when the stormy winds are hushed, +Still rolls and thunders through his billowy caves. + + +IV. + +MASTER AND SCHOLAR + +LET me retrace the record of the years +That made me what I am. A man most wise, +But overworn with toil and bent with age, +Sought me to be his scholar,-me, run wild +From books and teachers,-kindled in my soul +The love of knowledge; led me to his tower, +Showed me the wonders of the midnight realm +His hollow sceptre ruled, or seemed to rule, +Taught me the mighty secrets of the spheres, +Trained me to find the glimmering specks of light +Beyond the unaided sense, and on my chart +To string them one by one, in order due, +As on a rosary a saint his beads. +I was his only scholar; I became +The echo to his thought; whate'er he knew +Was mine for asking; so from year to year +W e wrought together, till there came a time +When I, the learner, was the master half +Of the twinned being in the dome-crowned tower. + +Minds roll in paths like planets; they revolve, +This in a larger, that a narrower ring, +But round they come at last to that same phase, +That selfsame light and shade they showed before. +I learned his annual and his monthly tale, +His weekly axiom and his daily phrase, +I felt them coming in the laden air, +And watched them laboring up to vocal breath, +Even as the first-born at his father's board +Knows ere he speaks the too familiar jest +Is on its way, by some mysterious sign +Forewarned, the click before the striking bell. + +He shrivelled as I spread my growing leaves, +Till trust and reverence changed to pitying care; +He lived for me in what he once had been, +But I for him, a shadow, a defence, +The guardian of his fame, his guide, his staff, +Leaned on so long he fell if left alone. +I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand, +Love was my spur and longing after fame, +But his the goading thorn of sleepless age +That sees its shortening span, its lengthening shades, +That clutches what it may with eager grasp, +And drops at last with empty, outstretched hands. +All this he dreamed not. He would sit him down +Thinking to work his problems as of old, +And find the star he thought so plain a blur, +The columned figures labyrinthine wilds +Without my comment, blind and senseless scrawls +That vexed him with their riddles; he would strive +And struggle for a while, and then his eye +Would lose its light, and over all his mind +The cold gray mist would settle; and erelong +The darkness fell, and I was left alone. + + +V. + +ALONE + +ALONE! no climber of an Alpine cliff, +No Arctic venturer on the waveless sea, +Feels the dread stillness round him as it chills +The heart of him who leaves the slumbering earth +To watch the silent worlds that crowd the sky. +Alone! And as the shepherd leaves his flock +To feed upon the hillside, he meanwhile +Finds converse in the warblings of the pipe +Himself has fashioned for his vacant hour, +So have I grown companion to myself, +And to the wandering spirits of the air +That smile and whisper round us in our dreams. +Thus have I learned to search if I may know +The whence and why of all beneath the stars +And all beyond them, and to weigh my life +As in a balance,--poising good and ill +Against each other,--asking of the Power +That flung me forth among the whirling worlds, +If I am heir to any inborn right, +Or only as an atom of the dust +That every wind may blow where'er it will. + + +VI. + +QUESTIONING + +I AM not humble; I was shown my place, +Clad in such robes as Nature had at hand; +Took what she gave, not chose; I know no shame, +No fear for being simply what I am. +I am not proud, I hold my every breath +At Nature's mercy. I am as a babe +Borne in a giant's arms, he knows not where; +Each several heart-beat, counted like the coin +A miser reckons, is a special gift +As from an unseen hand; if that withhold +Its bounty for a moment, I am left +A clod upon the earth to which I fall. + +Something I find in me that well might claim +The love of beings in a sphere above +This doubtful twilight world of right and wrong; +Something that shows me of the self-same clay +That creeps or swims or flies in humblest form. +Had I been asked, before I left my bed +Of shapeless dust, what clothing I would wear, +I would have said, More angel and less worm; +But for their sake who are even such as I, +Of the same mingled blood, I would not choose +To hate that meaner portion of myself +Which makes me brother to the least of men. + +I dare not be a coward with my lips +Who dare to question all things in my soul; +Some men may find their wisdom on their knees, +Some prone and grovelling in the dust like slaves; +Let the meek glowworm glisten in the dew; +I ask to lift my taper to the sky +As they who hold their lamps above their heads, +Trusting the larger currents up aloft, +Rather than crossing eddies round their breast, +Threatening with every puff the flickering blaze. + +My life shall be a challenge, not a truce! +This is my homage to the mightier powers, +To ask my boldest question, undismayed +By muttered threats that some hysteric sense +Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne +Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err, +They all must err who have to feel their way +As bats that fly at noon; for what are we +But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, +Who needs must stumble, and with stammering steps +Spell out their paths in syllables of pain? + +Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who dares +Look up to Thee, the Father,--dares to ask +More than thy wisdom answers. From thy hand +The worlds were cast; yet every leaflet claims +From that same hand its little shining sphere +Of star-lit dew; thine image, the great sun, +Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame, +Glares in mid-heaven; but to his noon-tide blaze +The slender violet lifts its lidless eye, +And from his splendor steals its fairest hue, +Its sweetest perfume from his scorching fire. + + +VII. + +WORSHIP + +FROM my lone turret as I look around +O'er the green meadows to the ring of blue, +From slope, from summit, and from half-hid vale +The sky is stabbed with dagger-pointed spires, +Their gilded symbols whirling in the wind, +Their brazen tongues proclaiming to the world, +"Here truth is sold, the only genuine ware; +See that it has our trade-mark! You will buy +Poison instead of food across the way, +The lies of -----" this or that, each several name +The standard's blazon and the battle-cry +Of some true-gospel faction, and again +The token of the Beast to all beside. +And grouped round each I see a huddling crowd +Alike in all things save the words they use; +In love, in longing, hate and fear the same. + +Whom do we trust and serve? We speak of one +And bow to many; Athens still would find +The shrines of all she worshipped safe within +Our tall barbarian temples, and the thrones +That crowned Olympus mighty as of old. +The god of music rules the Sabbath choir; +The lyric muse must leave the sacred nine +To help us please the dilettante's ear; +Plutus limps homeward with us, as we leave +The portals of the temple where we knelt +And listened while the god of eloquence +(Hermes of ancient days, but now disguised +In sable vestments) with that other god +Somnus, the son of Erebus and Nox, +Fights in unequal contest for our souls; +The dreadful sovereign of the under world +Still shakes his sceptre at us, and we hear +The baying of the triple-throated hound; +Eros is young as ever, and as fair +The lovely Goddess born of ocean's foam. + +These be thy gods, O Israel! Who is he, +The one ye name and tell us that ye serve, +Whom ye would call me from my lonely tower +To worship with the many-headed throng? +Is it the God that walked in Eden's grove +In the cool hour to seek our guilty sire? +The God who dealt with Abraham as the sons +Of that old patriarch deal with other men? +The jealous God of Moses, one who feels +An image as an insult, and is wroth +With him who made it and his child unborn? +The God who plagued his people for the sin +Of their adulterous king, beloved of him,-- +The same who offers to a chosen few +The right to praise him in eternal song +While a vast shrieking world of endless woe +Blends its dread chorus with their rapturous hymn? +Is this the God ye mean, or is it he +Who heeds the sparrow's fall, whose loving heart +Is as the pitying father's to his child, +Whose lesson to his children is "Forgive," +Whose plea for all, "They know not what they do"? + + +VIII. + +MANHOOD + +I CLAIM the right of knowing whom I serve, +Else is my service idle; He that asks +My homage asks it from a reasoning soul. +To crawl is not to worship; we have learned +A drill of eyelids, bended neck and knee, +Hanging our prayers on hinges, till we ape +The flexures of the many-jointed worm. +Asia has taught her Allahs and salaams +To the world's children,-we have grown to men! +We who have rolled the sphere beneath our feet +To find a virgin forest, as we lay +The beams of our rude temple, first of all +Must frame its doorway high enough for man +To pass unstooping; knowing as we do +That He who shaped us last of living forms +Has long enough been served by creeping things, +Reptiles that left their footprints in the sand +Of old sea-margins that have turned to stone, +And men who learned their ritual; we demand +To know Him first, then trust Him and then love +When we have found Him worthy of our love, +Tried by our own poor hearts and not before; +He must be truer than the truest friend, +He must be tenderer than a woman's love, +A father better than the best of sires; +Kinder than she who bore us, though we sin +Oftener than did the brother we are told +We--poor ill-tempered mortals--must forgive, +Though seven times sinning threescore times and +ten. + +This is the new world's gospel: Be ye men! +Try well the legends of the children's time; +Ye are the chosen people, God has led +Your steps across the desert of the deep +As now across the desert of the shore; +Mountains are cleft before you as the sea +Before the wandering tribe of Israel's sons; +Still onward rolls the thunderous caravan, +Its coming printed on the western sky, +A cloud by day, by night a pillared flame; +Your prophets are a hundred unto one +Of them of old who cried, "Thus saith the Lord;" +They told of cities that should fall in heaps, +But yours of mightier cities that shall rise +Where yet the lonely fishers spread their nets, +Where hides the fox and hoots the midnight owl; +The tree of knowledge in your garden grows +Not single, but at every humble door; +Its branches lend you their immortal food, +That fills you with the sense of what ye are, +No servants of an altar hewed and carved +From senseless stone by craft of human hands, +Rabbi, or dervish, brahmin, bishop, bonze, +But masters of the charm with which they work +To keep your hands from that forbidden tree! + +Ye that have tasted that divinest fruit, +Look on this world of yours with opened eyes! +Y e are as gods! Nay, makers of your gods,-- +Each day ye break an image in your shrine +And plant a fairer image where it stood +Where is the Moloch of your fathers' creed, +Whose fires of torment burned for span--long babes? +Fit object for a tender mother's love! +Why not? It was a bargain duly made +For these same infants through the surety's act +Intrusted with their all for earth and heaven, +By Him who chose their guardian, knowing well +His fitness for the task,--this, even this, +Was the true doctrine only yesterday +As thoughts are reckoned,--and to--day you hear +In words that sound as if from human tongues +Those monstrous, uncouth horrors of the past +That blot the blue of heaven and shame the earth +As would the saurians of the age of slime, +Awaking from their stony sepulchres +And wallowing hateful in the eye of day! + + +IX. + +RIGHTS + +WHAT am I but the creature Thou hast made? +What have I save the blessings Thou hast lent? +What hope I but thy mercy and thy love? +Who but myself shall cloud my soul with fear? +Whose hand protect me from myself but thine? +I claim the rights of weakness, I, the babe, +Call on my sire to shield me from the ills +That still beset my path, not trying me +With snares beyond my wisdom or my strength, +He knowing I shall use them to my harm, +And find a tenfold misery in the sense +That in my childlike folly I have sprung +The trap upon myself as vermin use, +Drawn by the cunning bait to certain doom. +Who wrought the wondrous charm that leads us on +To sweet perdition, but the selfsame power +That set the fearful engine to destroy +His wretched offspring (as the Rabbis tell), +And hid its yawning jaws and treacherous springs +In such a show of innocent sweet flowers +It lured the sinless angels and they fell? +Ah! He who prayed the prayer of all mankind +Summed in those few brief words the mightiest plea +For erring souls before the courts of heaven,-- +_Save us from being tempted_,--lest we fall! + +If we are only as the potter's clay +Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, +And broken into shards if we offend +The eye of Him who made us, it is well; +Such love as the insensate lump of clay +That spins upon the swift-revolving wheel +Bears to the hand that shapes its growing form,-- +Such love, no more, will be our hearts' return +To the great Master-workman for his care,-- +Or would be, save that this, our breathing clay, +Is intertwined with fine innumerous threads +That make it conscious in its framer's hand; +And this He must remember who has filled +These vessels with the deadly draught of life,-- +Life, that means death to all it claims. Our love +Must kindle in the ray that streams from heaven, +A faint reflection of the light divine; +The sun must warm the earth before the rose +Can show her inmost heart-leaves to the sun. + +He yields some fraction of the Maker's right +Who gives the quivering nerve its sense of pain; +Is there not something in the pleading eye +Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns +The law that bids it suffer? Has it not +A claim for some remembrance in the book +That fills its pages with the idle words +Spoken of men? Or is it only clay, +Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand, +Yet all his own to treat it as He will +And when He will to cast it at his feet, +Shattered, dishonored, lost forevermore? +My dog loves me, but could he look beyond +His earthly master, would his love extend +To Him who--Hush! I will not doubt that He +Is better than our fears, and will not wrong +The least, the meanest of created things! + +He would not trust me with the smallest orb +That circles through the sky; He would not give +A meteor to my guidance; would not leave +The coloring of a cloudlet to my hand; +He locks my beating heart beneath its bars +And keeps the key himself; He measures out +The draughts of vital breath that warm my blood, +Winds up the springs of instinct which uncoil, +Each in its season; ties me to my home, +My race, my time, my nation, and my creed +So closely that if I but slip my wrist +Out of the band that cuts it to the bone, +Men say, "He hath a devil;" He has lent +All that I hold in trust, as unto one +By reason of his weakness and his years +Not fit to hold the smallest shred in fee +Of those most common things he calls his own,-- +And yet--my Rabbi tells me--He has left +The care of that to which a million worlds +Filled with unconscious life were less than naught, +Has left that mighty universe, the Soul, +To the weak guidance of our baby hands, +Let the foul fiends have access at their will, +Taking the shape of angels, to our hearts,-- +Our hearts already poisoned through and through +With the fierce virus of ancestral sin; +Turned us adrift with our immortal charge, +To wreck ourselves in gulfs of endless woe. + +If what my Rabbi tells me is the truth +Why did the choir of angels sing for joy? +Heaven must be compassed in a narrow space, +And offer more than room enough for all +That pass its portals; but the under-world, +The godless realm, the place where demons forge +Their fiery darts and adamantine chains, +Must swarm with ghosts that for a little while +Had worn the garb of flesh, and being heirs +Of all the dulness of their stolid sires, +And all the erring instincts of their tribe, +Nature's own teaching, rudiments of "sin," +Fell headlong in the snare that could not fail +To trap the wretched creatures shaped of clay +And cursed with sense enough to lose their souls! + +Brother, thy heart is troubled at my word; +Sister, I see the cloud is on thy brow. +He will not blame me, He who sends not peace, +But sends a sword, and bids us strike amain +At Error's gilded crest, where in the van +Of earth's great army, mingling with the best +And bravest of its leaders, shouting loud +The battle-cries that yesterday have led +The host of Truth to victory, but to-day +Are watchwords of the laggard and the slave, +He leads his dazzled cohorts. God has made +This world a strife of atoms and of spheres; +With every breath I sigh myself away +And take my tribute from the wandering wind +To fan the flame of life's consuming fire; +So, while my thought has life, it needs must burn, +And, burning, set the stubble-fields ablaze, +Where all the harvest long ago was reaped +And safely garnered in the ancient barns. +But still the gleaners, groping for their food, +Go blindly feeling through the close-shorn straw, +While the young reapers flash, their glittering steel +Where later suns have ripened nobler grain! + + +X. + +TRUTHS + +THE time is racked with birth-pangs; every hour +Brings forth some gasping truth, and truth newborn +Looks a misshapen and untimely growth, +The terror of the household and its shame, +A monster coiling in its nurse's lap +That some would strangle, some would only starve; +But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand, +And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts, +Comes slowly to its stature and its form, +Calms the rough ridges of its dragon-scales, +Changes to shining locks its snaky hair, +And moves transfigured into angel guise, +Welcomed by all that cursed its hour of birth, +And folded in the same encircling arms +That cast it like a serpent from their hold! + +If thou wouldst live in honor, die in peace, +Have the fine words the marble-workers learn +To carve so well, upon thy funeral-stone, +And earn a fair obituary, dressed +In all the many-colored robes of praise, +Be deafer than the adder to the cry +Of that same foundling truth, until it grows +To seemly favor, and at length has won +The smiles of hard-mouthed men and light-lipped dames; +Then snatch it from its meagre nurse's breast, +Fold it in silk and give it food from gold; +So shalt thou share its glory when at last +It drops its mortal vesture, and, revealed +In all the splendor of its heavenly form, +Spreads on the startled air its mighty wings! + +Alas! how much that seemed immortal truth +That heroes fought for, martyrs died to save, +Reveals its earth-born lineage, growing old +And limping in its march, its wings unplumed, +Its heavenly semblance faded like a dream! +Here in this painted casket, just unsealed, +Lies what was once a breathing shape like thine, +Once loved as thou art loved; there beamed the eyes +That looked on Memphis in its hour of pride, +That saw the walls of hundred-gated Thebes, +And all the mirrored glories of the Nile. +See how they toiled that all-consuming time +Might leave the frame immortal in its tomb; +Filled it with fragrant balms and odorous gums +That still diffuse their sweetness through the air, +And wound and wound with patient fold on fold +The flaxen bands thy hand has rudely torn! +Perchance thou yet canst see the faded stain +Of the sad mourner's tear. + + +XI. + +IDOLS + +BUT what is this? +The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast +Of the blind heathen! Snatch the curious prize, +Give it a place among thy treasured spoils, +Fossil and relic,--corals, encrinites, +The fly in amber and the fish in stone, +The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold, +Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring,-- +Place for the Memphian beetle with thine hoard! + +AM longer than thy creed has blest the world +This toy, thus ravished from thy brother's breast, +Was to the heart of Mizraim as divine, +As holy, as the symbol that we lay +On the still bosom of our white-robed dead, +And raise above their dust that all may know +Here sleeps an heir of glory. Loving friends, +With tears of trembling faith and choking sobs, +And prayers to those who judge of mortal deeds, +Wrapped this poor image in the cerement's fold +That Isis and Osiris, friends of man, +Might know their own and claim the ransomed soul. + +An idol? Man was born to worship such! +An idol is an image of his thought; +Sometimes he carves it out of gleaming stone, +And sometimes moulds it out of glittering gold, +Or rounds it in a mighty frescoed dome, +Or lifts it heavenward in a lofty spire, +Or shapes it in a cunning frame of words, +Or pays his priest to make it day by day; +For sense must have its god as well as soul; +A new-born Dian calls for silver shrines, +And Egypt's holiest symbol is our own, +The sign we worship as did they of old +When Isis and Osiris ruled the world. + +Let us be true to our most subtle selves, +We long to have our idols like the rest. +Think! when the men of Israel had their God +Encamped among them, talking with their chief, +Leading them in the pillar of the cloud +And watching o'er them in the shaft of fire, +They still must have an image; still they longed +For somewhat of substantial, solid form +Whereon to hang their garlands, and to fix +Their wandering thoughts and gain a stronger hold +For their uncertain faith, not yet assured +If those same meteors of the day and night +Were not mere exhalations of the soil. +Are we less earthly than the chosen race? +Are we more neighbors of the living God +Than they who gathered manna every morn, +Reaping where none had sown, and heard the voice +Of him who met the Highest in the mount, +And brought them tables, graven with His hand? +Yet these must have their idol, brought their gold, +That star-browed Apis might be god again; +Yea, from their ears the women brake the rings +That lent such splendors to the gypsy brown +Of sunburnt cheeks,--what more could woman do +To show her pious zeal? They went astray, +But nature led them as it leads us all. +We too, who mock at Israel's golden calf +And scoff at Egypt's sacred scarabee, +Would have our amulets to clasp and kiss, +And flood with rapturous tears, and bear with us +To be our dear companions in the dust; +Such magic works an image in our souls. + +Man is an embryo; see at twenty years +His bones, the columns that uphold his frame +Not yet cemented, shaft and capital, +Mere fragments of the temple incomplete. +At twoscore, threescore, is he then full grown? +Nay, still a child, and as the little maids +Dress and undress their puppets, so he tries +To dress a lifeless creed, as if it lived, +And change its raiment when the world cries shame! + +We smile to see our little ones at play +So grave, so thoughtful, with maternal care +Nursing the wisps of rags they call their babes;-- +Does He not smile who sees us with the toys +We call by sacred names, and idly feign +To be what we have called them? He is still +The Father of this helpless nursery-brood, +Whose second childhood joins so close its first, +That in the crowding, hurrying years between +We scarce have trained our senses to their task +Before the gathering mist has dimmed our eyes, +And with our hollowed palm we help our ear, +And trace with trembling hand our wrinkled names, +And then begin to tell our stories o'er, +And see--not hear--the whispering lips that say, +"You know? Your father knew him.--This is he, +Tottering and leaning on the hireling's arm,"-- +And so, at length, disrobed of all that clad +The simple life we share with weed and worm, +Go to our cradles, naked as we came. + + +XII. + +LOVE + +WHAT if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved +While yet on earth and was beloved in turn, +And still remembered every look and tone +Of that dear earthly sister who was left +Among the unwise virgins at the gate,-- +Itself admitted with the bridegroom's train,-- +What if this spirit redeemed, amid the host +Of chanting angels, in some transient lull +Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry +Of its lost darling, whom in evil hour +Some wilder pulse of nature led astray +And left an outcast in a world of fire, +Condemned to be the sport of cruel fiends, +Sleepless, unpitying, masters of the skill +To wring the maddest ecstasies of pain +From worn-out souls that only ask to die,-- +Would it not long to leave the bliss of heaven,-- +Bearing a little water in its hand +To moisten those poor lips that plead in vain +With Him we call our Father? Or is all +So changed in such as taste celestial joy +They hear unmoved the endless wail of woe; +The daughter in the same dear tones that hushed +Her cradle slumbers; she who once had held +A babe upon her bosom from its voice +Hoarse with its cry of anguish, yet the same? + +No! not in ages when the Dreadful Bird +Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fearful Beast +Strode with the flesh about those fossil bones +We build to mimic life with pygmy hands,-- +Not in those earliest days when men ran wild +And gashed each other with their knives of stone, +When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows +And their flat hands were callous in the palm +With walking in the fashion of their sires, +Grope as they might to find a cruel god +To work their will on such as human wrath +Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left +With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, +Could hate have shaped a demon more malign +Than him the dead men mummied in their creed +And taught their trembling children to adore! + +Made in his image! Sweet and gracious souls +Dear to my heart by nature's fondest names, +Is not your memory still the precious mould +That lends its form to Him who hears my prayer? +Thus only I behold Him, like to them, +Long-suffering, gentle, ever slow to wrath, +If wrath it be that only wounds to heal, +Ready to meet the wanderer ere he reach +The door he seeks, forgetful of his sin, +Longing to clasp him in a father's arms, +And seal his pardon with a pitying tear! + +Four gospels tell their story to mankind, +And none so full of soft, caressing words +That bring the Maid of Bethlehem and her Babe +Before our tear-dimmed eyes, as his who learned +In the meek service of his gracious art +The tones which, like the medicinal balms +That calm the sufferer's anguish, soothe our souls. +Oh that the loving woman, she who sat +So long a listener at her Master's feet, +Had left us Mary's Gospel,--all she heard +Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man! +Mark how the tender-hearted mothers read +The messages of love between the lines +Of the same page that loads the bitter tongue +Of him who deals in terror as his trade +With threatening words of wrath that scorch like flame +They tell of angels whispering round the bed +Of the sweet infant smiling in its dream, +Of lambs enfolded in the Shepherd's arms, +Of Him who blessed the children; of the land +Where crystal rivers feed unfading flowers, +Of cities golden-paved with streets of pearl, +Of the white robes the winged creatures wear, +The crowns and harps from whose melodious strings +One long, sweet anthem flows forevermore! +We too had human mothers, even as Thou, +Whom we have learned to worship as remote +From mortal kindred, wast a cradled babe. +The milk of woman filled our branching veins, +She lulled us with her tender nursery-song, +And folded round us her untiring arms, +While the first unremembered twilight yeas +Shaped us to conscious being; still we feel +Her pulses in our own,--too faintly feel; +Would that the heart of woman warmed our creeds! + +Not from the sad-eyed hermit's lonely cell, +Not from the conclave where the holy men +Glare on each other, as with angry eyes +They battle for God's glory and their own, +Till, sick of wordy strife, a show of hands +Fixes the faith of ages yet unborn,-- +Ah, not from these the listening soul can hear +The Father's voice that speaks itself divine! +Love must be still our Master; till we learn +What he can teach us of a woman's heart, +We know not His whose love embraces all. + + + + + +EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES +AUTOCRAT-PROFESSOR-POET + +AT A BOOKSTORE + +Anno Domini 1972 + +A CRAZY bookcase, placed before +A low-price dealer's open door; +Therein arrayed in broken rows +A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, +The homeless vagrants, waifs, and strays +Whose low estate this line betrays +(Set forth the lesser birds to lime) +YOUR CHOICE AMONG THESE BOORS 1 DIME! + +Ho! dealer; for its motto's sake +This scarecrow from the shelf I take; +Three starveling volumes bound in one, +Its covers warping in the sun. +Methinks it hath a musty smell, +I like its flavor none too well, +But Yorick's brain was far from dull, +Though Hamlet pah!'d, and dropped his skull. + +Why, here comes rain! The sky grows dark,-- +Was that the roll of thunder? Hark! +The shop affords a safe retreat, +A chair extends its welcome seat, +The tradesman has a civil look +(I 've paid, impromptu, for my book), +The clouds portend a sudden shower,-- +I 'll read my purchase for an hour. + +What have I rescued from the shelf? +A Boswell, writing out himself! +For though he changes dress and name, +The man beneath is still the same, +Laughing or sad, by fits and starts, +One actor in a dozen parts, +And whatsoe'er the mask may be, +The voice assures us, This is he. + +I say not this to cry him down; +I find my Shakespeare in his clown, +His rogues the selfsame parent own; +Nay! Satan talks in Milton's tone! +Where'er the ocean inlet strays, +The salt sea wave its source betrays; +Where'er the queen of summer blows, +She tells the zephyr, "I'm the rose!" + +And his is not the playwright's page; +His table does not ape the stage; +What matter if the figures seen +Are only shadows on a screen, +He finds in them his lurking thought, +And on their lips the words he sought, +Like one who sits before the keys +And plays a tune himself to please. + +And was he noted in his day? +Read, flattered, honored? Who shall say? +Poor wreck of time the wave has cast +To find a peaceful shore at last, +Once glorying in thy gilded name +And freighted deep with hopes of fame, +Thy leaf is moistened with a tear, +The first for many a long, long year. + +For be it more or less of art +That veils the lowliest human heart +Where passion throbs, where friendship glows, +Where pity's tender tribute flows, +Where love has lit its fragrant fire, +And sorrow quenched its vain desire, +For me the altar is divine, +Its flame, its ashes,--all are mine! + +And thou, my brother, as I look +And see thee pictured in thy book, +Thy years on every page confessed +In shadows lengthening from the west, +Thy glance that wanders, as it sought +Some freshly opening flower of thought, +Thy hopeful nature, light and free, +I start to find myself in thee! + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Come, vagrant, outcast, wretch forlorn +In leather jerkin stained and torn, +Whose talk has filled my idle hour +And made me half forget the shower, +I'll do at least as much for you, +Your coat I'll patch, your gilt renew, +Read you--perhaps--some other time. +Not bad, my bargain! Price one dime! + + + + + + +SONGS OF MANY SEASONS + +1862-1874 + +OPENING THE WINDOW + +THUS I lift the sash, so long +Shut against the flight of song; +All too late for vain excuse,-- +Lo, my captive rhymes are loose. + +Rhymes that, flitting through my brain, +Beat against my window-pane, +Some with gayly colored wings, +Some, alas! with venomed stings. + +Shall they bask in sunny rays? +Shall they feed on sugared praise? +Shall they stick with tangled feet +On the critic's poisoned sheet? + +Are the outside winds too rough? +Is the world not wide enough? +Go, my winged verse, and try,-- +Go, like Uncle Toby's fly! + + + + + +PROGRAMME + +READER--gentle--if so be +Such still live, and live for me, +Will it please you to be told +What my tenscore pages hold? + +Here are verses that in spite +Of myself I needs must write, +Like the wine that oozes first +When the unsqueezed grapes have burst. + +Here are angry lines, "too hard!" +Says the soldier, battle-scarred. +Could I smile his scars away +I would blot the bitter lay, + +Written with a knitted brow, +Read with placid wonder now. +Throbbed such passion in my heart? +Did his wounds once really smart? + +Here are varied strains that sing +All the changes life can bring, +Songs when joyous friends have met, +Songs the mourner's tears have wet. + +See the banquet's dead bouquet, +Fair and fragrant in its day; +Do they read the selfsame lines,-- +He that fasts and he that dines? + +Year by year, like milestones placed, +Mark the record Friendship traced. +Prisoned in the walls of time +Life has notched itself in rhyme. + +As its seasons slid along, +Every year a notch of song, +From the June of long ago, +When the rose was full in blow, + +Till the scarlet sage has come +And the cold chrysanthemum. +Read, but not to praise or blame; +Are not all our hearts the same? + +For the rest, they take their chance,-- +Some may pay a passing glance; +Others,-well, they served a turn,-- +Wherefore written, would you learn? + +Not for glory, not for pelf, +Not, be sure, to please myself, +Not for any meaner ends,-- +Always "by request of friends." + +Here's the cousin of a king,-- +Would I do the civil thing? +Here 's the first-born of a queen; +Here 's a slant-eyed Mandarin. + +Would I polish off Japan? +Would I greet this famous man, +Prince or Prelate, Sheik or Shah?-- +Figaro gi and Figaro la! + +Would I just this once comply?-- +So they teased and teased till I +(Be the truth at once confessed) +Wavered--yielded--did my best. + +Turn my pages,--never mind +If you like not all you find; +Think not all the grains are gold +Sacramento's sand-banks hold. + +Every kernel has its shell, +Every chime its harshest bell, +Every face its weariest look, +Every shelf its emptiest book, + +Every field its leanest sheaf, +Every book its dullest leaf, +Every leaf its weakest line,-- +Shall it not be so with mine? + +Best for worst shall make amends, +Find us, keep us, leave us friends +Till, perchance, we meet again. +Benedicite.--Amen! + +October 7, 1874. + + + + + +IN THE QUIET DAYS + +AN OLD-YEAR SONG + +As through the forest, disarrayed +By chill November, late I strayed, +A lonely minstrel of the wood +Was singing to the solitude +I loved thy music, thus I said, +When o'er thy perch the leaves were spread +Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now +Thy carol on the leafless bough. +Sing, little bird! thy note shall cheer +The sadness of the dying year. + +When violets pranked the turf with blue +And morning filled their cups with dew, +Thy slender voice with rippling trill +The budding April bowers would fill, +Nor passed its joyous tones away +When April rounded into May: +Thy life shall hail no second dawn,-- +Sing, little bird! the spring is gone. + +And I remember--well-a-day!-- +Thy full-blown summer roundelay, +As when behind a broidered screen +Some holy maiden sings unseen +With answering notes the woodland rung, +And every tree-top found a tongue. +How deep the shade! the groves how fair! +Sing, little bird! the woods are bare. + +The summer's throbbing chant is done +And mute the choral antiphon; +The birds have left the shivering pines +To flit among the trellised vines, +Or fan the air with scented plumes +Amid the love-sick orange-blooms, +And thou art here alone,--alone,-- +Sing, little bird! the rest have flown. + +The snow has capped yon distant hill, +At morn the running brook was still, +From driven herds the clouds that rise +Are like the smoke of sacrifice; +Erelong the frozen sod shall mock +The ploughshare, changed to stubborn rock, +The brawling streams shall soon be dumb,-- +Sing, little bird! the frosts have come. + +Fast, fast the lengthening shadows creep, +The songless fowls are half asleep, +The air grows chill, the setting sun +May leave thee ere thy song is done, +The pulse that warms thy breast grow cold, +Thy secret die with thee, untold +The lingering sunset still is bright,-- +Sing, little bird! 't will soon be night. + +1874. + + + + +DOROTHY Q. + +A FAMILY PORTRAIT + +I cannot tell the story of Dorothy Q. more simply in prose than I have +told it in verse, but I can add something to it. Dorothy was the daughter +of Judge Edmund Quincy, and the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, the young +patriot and orator who died just before the American Revolution, of which +he was one of the most eloquent and effective promoters. The son of the +latter, Josiah Quincy, the first mayor of Boston bearing that name, lived +to a great age, one of the most useful and honored citizens of his time. +The canvas of the painting was so much decayed that it had to be replaced +by a new one, in doing which the rapier thrust was of course filled up. + +GRANDMOTHER'S mother: her age, I guess, +Thirteen summers, or something less; +Girlish bust, but womanly air; +Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; +Lips that lover has never kissed; +Taper fingers and slender wrist; +Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; +So they painted the little maid. + +On her hand a parrot green +Sits unmoving and broods serene. +Hold up the canvas full in view,-- +Look! there's a rent the light shines through, +Dark with a century's fringe of dust,-- +That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust! +Such is the tale the lady old, +Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told. + +Who the painter was none may tell,-- +One whose best was not over well; +Hard and dry, it must be confessed, +Flat as a rose that has long been pressed; +Yet in her cheek the hues are bright, +Dainty colors of red and white, +And in her slender shape are seen +Hint and promise of stately mien. + +Look not on her with eyes of scorn,-- +Dorothy Q. was a lady born! +Ay! since the galloping Normans came, +England's annals have known her name; +And still to the three-billed rebel town +Dear is that ancient name's renown, +For many a civic wreath they won, +The youthful sire and the gray-haired son. + +O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.! +Strange is the gift that I owe to you; +Such a gift as never a king +Save to daughter or son might bring,-- +All my tenure of heart and hand, +All my title to house and land; +Mother and sister and child and wife +And joy and sorrow and death and life! + +What if a hundred years ago +Those close-shut lips had answered No, +When forth the tremulous question came +That cost the maiden her Norman name, +And under the folds that look so still +The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill? +Should I be I, or would it be +One tenth another, to nine tenths me? + +Soft is the breath of a maiden's YES +Not the light gossamer stirs with less; +But never a cable that holds so fast +Through all the battles of wave and blast, +And never an echo of speech or song +That lives in the babbling air so long! +There were tones in the voice that whispered then +You may hear to-day in a hundred men. + +O lady and lover, how faint and far +Your images hover,--and here we are, +Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,-- +Edward's and Dorothy's--all their own,-- +A goodly record for Time to show +Of a syllable spoken so long ago!-- +Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive +For the tender whisper that bade me live? + +It shall be a blessing, my little maid! +I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade, +And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, +And gild with a rhyme your household name; +So you shall smile on us brave and bright +As first you greeted the morning's light, +And live untroubled by woes and fears +Through a second youth of a hundred years. + +1871. + + + + + +THE ORGAN-BLOWER + +DEVOUTEST of My Sunday friends, +The patient Organ-blower bends; +I see his figure sink and rise, +(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!) +A moment lost, the next half seen, +His head above the scanty screen, +Still measuring out his deep salaams +Through quavering hymns and panting psalms. + +No priest that prays in gilded stole, +To save a rich man's mortgaged soul; +No sister, fresh from holy vows, +So humbly stoops, so meekly bows; +His large obeisance puts to shame +The proudest genuflecting dame, +Whose Easter bonnet low descends +With all the grace devotion lends. + +O brother with the supple spine, +How much we owe those bows of thine +Without thine arm to lend the breeze, +How vain the finger on the keys! +Though all unmatched the player's skill, +Those thousand throats were dumb and still: +Another's art may shape the tone, +The breath that fills it is thine own. + +Six days the silent Memnon waits +Behind his temple's folded gates; +But when the seventh day's sunshine falls +Through rainbowed windows on the walls, +He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills +The quivering air with rapturous thrills; +The roof resounds, the pillars shake, +And all the slumbering echoes wake! + +The Preacher from the Bible-text +With weary words my soul has vexed +(Some stranger, fumbling far astray +To find the lesson for the day); +He tells us truths too plainly true, +And reads the service all askew,-- +Why, why the--mischief--can't he look +Beforehand in the service-book? + +But thou, with decent mien and face, +Art always ready in thy place; +Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune, +As steady as the strong monsoon; +Thy only dread a leathery creak, +Or small residual extra squeak, +To send along the shadowy aisles +A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles. + +Not all the preaching, O my friend, +Comes from the church's pulpit end! +Not all that bend the knee and bow +Yield service half so true as thou! +One simple task performed aright, +With slender skill, but all thy might, +Where honest labor does its best, +And leaves the player all the rest. + +This many-diapasoned maze, +Through which the breath of being strays, +Whose music makes our earth divine, +Has work for mortal hands like mine. +My duty lies before me. Lo, +The lever there! Take hold and blow +And He whose hand is on the keys +Will play the tune as He shall please. + +1812. + + + + + +AT THE PANTOMIME + +THE house was crammed from roof to floor, +Heads piled on heads at every door; +Half dead with August's seething heat +I crowded on and found my seat, +My patience slightly out of joint, +My temper short of boiling-point, +Not quite at _Hate mankind as such_, +Nor yet at _Love them overmuch_. + +Amidst the throng the pageant drew +Were gathered Hebrews not a few, +Black-bearded, swarthy,--at their side +Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed: +If scarce a Christian hopes for grace +Who crowds one in his narrow place, +What will the savage victim do +Whose ribs are kneaded by a Jew? + +Next on my left a breathing form +Wedged up against me, close and warm; +The beak that crowned the bistred face +Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race,-- +That coal-black hair, that smoke-brown hue,-- +Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew +I started, shuddering, to the right, +And squeezed--a second Israelite. + +Then woke the evil brood of rage +That slumber, tongueless, in their cage; +I stabbed in turn with silent oaths +The hook-nosed kite of carrion clothes, +The snaky usurer, him that crawls +And cheats beneath the golden balls, +Moses and Levi, all the horde, +Spawn of the race that slew its Lord. + +Up came their murderous deeds of old, +The grisly story Chaucer told, +And many an ugly tale beside +Of children caught and crucified; +I heard the ducat-sweating thieves +Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves, +And, thrust beyond the tented green, +The lepers cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" + +The show went on, but, ill at ease, +My sullen eye it could not please, +In vain my conscience whispered, "Shame! +Who but their Maker is to blame?" +I thought of Judas and his bribe, +And steeled my soul against their tribe +My neighbors stirred; I looked again +Full on the younger of the twain. + +A fresh young cheek whose olive hue +The mantling blood shows faintly through; +Locks dark as midnight, that divide +And shade the neck on either side; +Soft, gentle, loving eyes that gleam +Clear as a starlit mountain stream;-- +So looked that other child of Shem, +The Maiden's Boy of Bethlehem! + +And thou couldst scorn the peerless blood +That flows immingled from the Flood,-- +Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains +Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes! +The New World's foundling, in thy pride +Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side, +And lo! the very semblance there +The Lord of Glory deigned to wear! + +I see that radiant image rise, +The flowing hair, the pitying eyes, +The faintly crimsoned cheek that shows +The blush of Sharon's opening rose,-- +Thy hands would clasp his hallowed feet +Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat, +Thy lips would press his garment's hem +That curl in wrathful scorn for them! + +A sudden mist, a watery screen, +Dropped like a veil before the scene; +The shadow floated from my soul, +And to my lips a whisper stole,-- +"Thy prophets caught the Spirit's flame, +From thee the Son of Mary came, +With thee the Father deigned to dwell,-- +Peace be upon thee, Israel!" + +18--. Rewritten 1874. + + + + + +AFTER THE FIRE + +WHILE far along the eastern sky +I saw the flags of Havoc fly, +As if his forces would assault +The sovereign of the starry vault +And hurl Him back the burning rain +That seared the cities of the plain, +I read as on a crimson page +The words of Israel's sceptred sage:-- + +_For riches make them wings, and they +Do as an eagle fly away_. + +O vision of that sleepless night, +What hue shall paint the mocking light +That burned and stained the orient skies +Where peaceful morning loves to rise, +As if the sun had lost his way +And dawned to make a second day,-- +Above how red with fiery glow, +How dark to those it woke below! + +On roof and wall, on dome and spire, +Flashed the false jewels of the fire; +Girt with her belt of glittering panes, +And crowned with starry-gleaming vanes, +Our northern queen in glory shone +With new-born splendors not her own, +And stood, transfigured in our eyes, +A victim decked for sacrifice! + +The cloud still hovers overhead, +And still the midnight sky is red; +As the lost wanderer strays alone +To seek the place he called his own, +His devious footprints sadly tell +How changed the pathways known so well; +The scene, how new! The tale, how old +Ere yet the ashes have grown cold! + +Again I read the words that came +Writ in the rubric of the flame +Howe'r we trust to mortal things, +Each hath its pair of folded wings; +Though long their terrors rest unspread +Their fatal plumes are never shed; +At last, at last they spread in flight, +And blot the day and blast then night! + +Hope, only Hope, of all that clings +Around us, never spreads her wings; +Love, though he break his earthly chain, +Still whispers he will come again; +But Faith that soars to seek the sky +Shall teach our half-fledged souls to fly, +And find, beyond the smoke and flame, +The cloudless azure whence they came! + +1872. + + + + + +A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY + +Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society. + +No! never such a draught was poured +Since Hebe served with nectar +The bright Olympians and their Lord, +Her over-kind protector,-- +Since Father Noah squeezed the grape +And took to such behaving +As would have shamed our grandsire ape +Before the days of shaving,-- +No! ne'er was mingled such a draught +In palace, hall, or arbor, +As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed +That night in Boston Harbor! +The Western war-cloud's crimson stained +The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon; +Full many a six-foot grenadier +The flattened grass had measured, +And many a mother many a year +Her tearful memories treasured; +Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall, +The mighty realms were troubled, +The storm broke loose, but first of all +The Boston teapot bubbled! + +An evening party,--only that, +No formal invitation, +No gold-laced coat, no stiff cravat, +No feast in contemplation, +No silk-robed dames, no fiddling band, +No flowers, no songs, no dancing,-- +A tribe of red men, axe in hand,-- +Behold the guests advancing! +How fast the stragglers join the throng, +From stall and workshop gathered! +The lively barber skips along +And leaves a chin half-lathered; +The smith has flung his hammer down, +The horseshoe still is glowing; +The truant tapster at the Crown +Has left a beer-cask flowing; +The cooper's boys have dropped the adze, +And trot behind their master; +Up run the tarry ship-yard lads,-- +The crowd is hurrying faster,-- +Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush +The streams of white-faced millers, +And down their slippery alleys rush +The lusty young Fort-Hillers-- +The ropewalk lends its 'prentice crew,-- +The tories seize the omen: +"Ay, boys, you'll soon have work to do +For England's rebel foemen, +'King Hancock,' Adams, and their gang, +That fire the mob with treason,-- +When these we shoot and those we hang +The town will come to reason." + +On--on to where the tea-ships ride! +And now their ranks are forming,-- +A rush, and up the Dartmouth's side +The Mohawk band is swarming! +See the fierce natives! What a glimpse +Of paint and fur and feather, +As all at once the full-grown imps +Light on the deck together! +A scarf the pigtail's secret keeps, +A blanket hides the breeches,-- +And out the cursed cargo leaps, +And overboard it pitches! + +O woman, at the evening board +So gracious, sweet, and purring, +So happy while the tea is poured, +So blest while spoons are stirring, +What martyr can compare with thee, +The mother, wife, or daughter, +That night, instead of best Bohea, +Condemned to milk and water! + +Ah, little dreams the quiet dame +Who plies with' rock and spindle +The patient flax, how great a flame +Yon little spark shall kindle! +The lurid morning shall reveal +A fire no king can smother +Where British flint and Boston steel +Have clashed against each other! +Old charters shrivel in its track, +His Worship's bench has crumbled, + +It climbs and clasps the union-jack, +Its blazoned pomp is humbled, +The flags go down on land and sea +Like corn before the reapers; +So burned the fire that brewed the tea +That Boston served her keepers! + +The waves that wrought a century's wreck +Have rolled o'er whig and tory; +The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck +Still live in song and story; +The waters in the rebel bay +Have kept the tea-leaf savor; +Our old North-Enders in their spray +Still taste a Hyson flavor; +And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows +With ever fresh libations, +To cheat of slumber all her foes +And cheer the wakening nations. + +1874. + + + + + +NEARING THE SNOW-LINE + +SLOW toiling upward from' the misty vale, +I leave the bright enamelled zones below; +No more for me their beauteous bloom shall glow, +Their lingering sweetness load the morning gale; +Few are the slender flowerets, scentless, pale, +That on their ice-clad stems all trembling blow +Along the margin of unmelting snow; +Yet with unsaddened voice thy verge I hail, +White realm of peace above the flowering line; +Welcome thy frozen domes, thy rocky spires! +O'er thee undimmed the moon-girt planets shine, +On thy majestic altars fade the fires +That filled the air with smoke of vain desires, +And all the unclouded blue of heaven is thine! + +1870. + + + + + + IN WARTIME + + +TO CANAAN + +A PURITAN WAR SONG + +This poem, published anonymously in the Boston Evening Transcript, was +claimed by several persons, three, if I remember correctly, whose names I +have or have had, but never thought it worth while to publish. + +WHERE are you going, soldiers, +With banner, gun, and sword? +We 're marching South to Canaan +To battle for the Lord +What Captain leads your armies +Along the rebel coasts? +The Mighty One of Israel, +His name is Lord of Hosts! +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To blow before the heathen walls +The trumpets of the North! + +What flag is this you carry +Along the sea and shore? +The same our grandsires lifted up,-- +The same our fathers bore +In many a battle's tempest +It shed the crimson rain,-- +What God has woven in his loom +Let no man rend in twain! +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To plant upon the rebel towers +The banners of the North! + +What troop is this that follows, +All armed with picks and spades? +These are the swarthy bondsmen,-- +The iron-skin brigades! +They'll pile up Freedom's breastwork, +They 'LL scoop out rebels' graves; +Who then will be their owner +And march them off for slaves? +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To strike upon the captive's chain +The hammers of the North! + +What song is this you're singing? +The same that Israel sung +When Moses led the mighty choir, +And Miriam's timbrel rung! +To Canaan! To Canaan! +The priests and maidens cried: +To Canaan! To Canaan! +The people's voice replied. +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To thunder through its adder dens +The anthems of the North. + +When Canaan's hosts are scattered, +And all her walls lie flat, +What follows next in order? +The Lord will see to that +We'll break the tyrant's sceptre,-- +We 'll build the people's throne,-- +When half the world is Freedom's, +Then all the world's our own +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To sweep the rebel threshing-floors, +A whirlwind from the North. + +August 12, 1862. + + + + + +"THUS SAITH THE LORD, I OFFER THEE THREE THINGS." + +IN poisonous dens, where traitors hide +Like bats that fear the day, +While all the land our charters claim +Is sweating blood and breathing flame, +Dead to their country's woe and shame, +The recreants whisper STAY! + +In peaceful homes, where patriot fires +On Love's own altars glow, +The mother hides her trembling fear, +The wife, the sister, checks a tear, +To breathe the parting word of cheer, +Soldier of Freedom, Go! + +In halls where Luxury lies at ease, +And Mammon keeps his state, +Where flatterers fawn and menials crouch, +The dreamer, startled from his couch, +Wrings a few counters from his pouch, +And murmurs faintly WAIT! + +In weary camps, on trampled plains +That ring with fife and drum, +The battling host, whose harness gleams +Along the crimson-flowing streams, +Calls, like a warning voice in dreams, +We want you, Brother! COME! + +Choose ye whose bidding ye will do,-- +To go, to wait, to stay! +Sons of the Freedom-loving town, +Heirs of the Fathers' old renown, +The servile yoke, the civic crown, +Await your choice To-DAY! + +The stake is laid! O gallant youth +With yet unsilvered brow, +If Heaven should lose and Hell should win, +On whom shall lie the mortal sin, +That cries aloud, It might have been? +God calls you--answer NOW. + +1862. + + + + + +NEVER OR NOW + +AN APPEAL + +LISTEN, young heroes! your country is calling! +Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true! +Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling, +Fill up the ranks that have opened for you! + +You whom the fathers made free and defended, +Stain not the scroll that emblazons their fame +You whose fair heritage spotless descended, +Leave not your children a birthright of shame! + +Stay not for questions while Freedom stands gasping! +Wait not till Honor lies wrapped in his pall! +Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' clasping,-- +"Off for the wars!" is enough for them all! + +Break from the arms that would fondly caress you! +Hark! 't is the bugle-blast, sabres are drawn! +Mothers shall pray for you, fathers shall bless you, +Maidens shall weep for you when you are gone! + +Never or now! cries the blood of a nation, +Poured on the turf where the red rose should bloom; +Now is the day and the hour of salvation,-- +Never or now! peals the trumpet of doom! + +Never or now! roars the hoarse-throated cannon +Through the black canopy blotting the skies; +Never or now! flaps the shell-blasted pennon +O'er the deep ooze where the Cumberland lies! + +From the foul dens where our brothers are dying, +Aliens and foes in the land of their birth,-- +From the rank swamps where our martyrs are lying +Pleading in vain for a handful of earth,-- + +From the hot plains where they perish outnumbered, +Furrowed and ridged by the battle-field's plough, +Comes the loud summons; too long you have slumbered, +Hear the last Angel-trump,--Never or Now! + +1862. + + + + + +ONE COUNTRY + +ONE country! Treason's writhing asp +Struck madly at her girdle's clasp, +And Hatred wrenched with might and main +To rend its welded links in twain, +While Mammon hugged his golden calf +Content to take one broken half, +While thankless churls stood idly by +And heard unmoved a nation's cry! + +One country! "Nay,"--the tyrant crew +Shrieked from their dens,--"it shall be two! +Ill bodes to us this monstrous birth, +That scowls on all the thrones of earth, +Too broad yon starry cluster shines, +Too proudly tower the New-World pines, +Tear down the 'banner of the free,' +And cleave their land from sea to sea!" + +One country still, though foe and "friend" +Our seamless empire strove to rend; +Safe! safe' though all the fiends of hell +Join the red murderers' battle-yell! +What though the lifted sabres gleam, +The cannons frown by shore and stream,-- +The sabres clash, the cannons thrill, +In wild accord, One country still! + +One country! in her stress and strain +We heard the breaking of a chain! +Look where the conquering Nation swings +Her iron flail,--its shivered rings! +Forged by the rebels' crimson hand, +That bolt of wrath shall scourge the land +Till Peace proclaims on sea and shore +One Country now and evermore! + +1865. + + + + + +GOD SAVE THE FLAG + +WASHED in the blood of the brave and the blooming, +Snatched from the altars of insolent foes, +Burning with star-fires, but never consuming, +Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose. + +Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it, +Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall; +Thousands have died for it, millions defend it, +Emblem of justice and mercy to all: + +Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors, +Mercy that comes with her white-handed train, +Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors, +'Sheathing the sabre and breaking the chain. + +Borne on the deluge of old usurpations, +Drifted our Ark o'er the desolate seas, +Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nations, +Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze! + +God bless the Flag and its loyal defenders, +While its broad folds o'er the battle-field wave, +Till the dim star-wreath rekindle its splendors, +Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave! + +1865. + + + + + +HYMN AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION + +GIVER of all that crowns our days, +With grateful hearts we sing thy praise; +Through deep and desert led by Thee, +Our promised land at last we see. + +Ruler of Nations, judge our cause! +If we have kept thy holy laws, +The sons of Belial curse in vain +The day that rends the captive's chain. + +Thou God of vengeance! Israel's Lord! +Break in their grasp the shield and sword, +And make thy righteous judgments known +Till all thy foes are overthrown! + +Then, Father, lay thy healing hand +In mercy on our stricken land; +Lead all its wanderers to the fold, +And be their Shepherd as of old. + +So shall one Nation's song ascend +To Thee, our Ruler, Father, Friend, +While Heaven's wide arch resounds again +With Peace on earth, good-will to men! + +1865. + + + + + +HYMN FOR THE FAIR AT CHICAGO + +O GOD! in danger's darkest hour, +In battle's deadliest field, +Thy name has been our Nation's tower, +Thy truth her help and shield. + +Our lips should fill the air with praise, +Nor pay the debt we owe, +So high above the songs we raise +The floods of mercy flow. + +Yet Thou wilt hear the prayer we speak, +The song of praise we sing,-- +Thy children, who thine altar seek +Their grateful gifts to bring. + +Thine altar is the sufferer's bed, +The home of woe and pain, +The soldier's turfy pillow, red +With battle's crimson rain. + +No smoke of burning stains the air, +No incense-clouds arise; +Thy peaceful servants, Lord, prepare +A bloodless sacrifice. + +Lo! for our wounded brothers' need, +We bear the wine and oil; +For us they faint, for us they bleed, +For them our gracious toil! + +O Father, bless the gifts we bring! +Cause Thou thy face to shine, +Till every nation owns her King, +And all the earth is thine. + +1865. + + + + + +UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE + +APRIL 27,1861 + +EIGHTY years have passed, and more, +Since under the brave old tree +Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore +They would follow the sign their banners bore, +And fight till the land was free. + +Half of their work was done, +Half is left to do,-- +Cambridge, and Concord, and Lexington! +When the battle is fought and won, +What shall be told of you? + +Hark!--'t is the south-wind moans,-- +Who are the martyrs down? +Ah, the marrow was true in your children's bones +That sprinkled with blood the cursed stones +Of the murder-haunted town! + +What if the storm-clouds blow? +What if the green leaves fall? +Better the crashing tempest's throe +Than the army of worms that gnawed below; +Trample them one and all! + +Then, when the battle is won, +And the land from traitors free, +Our children shall tell of the strife begun +When Liberty's second April sun +Was bright on our brave old tree! + + + + + +FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN + +LAND where the banners wave last in the sun, +Blazoned with star-clusters, many in one, +Floating o'er prairie and mountain and sea; +Hark! 't is the voice of thy children to thee! + +Here at thine altar our vows we renew +Still in thy cause to be loyal and true,-- +True to thy flag on the field and the wave, +Living to honor it, dying to save! + +Mother of heroes! if perfidy's blight +Fall on a star in thy garland of light, +Sound but one bugle-blast! Lo! at the sign +Armies all panoplied wheel into line! + +Hope of the world! thou'hast broken its chains,-- +Wear thy bright arms while a tyrant remains, +Stand for the right till the nations shall own +Freedom their sovereign, with Law for her throne! + +Freedom! sweet Freedom! our voices resound, +Queen by God's blessing, unsceptred, uncrowned! +Freedom, sweet Freedom, our pulses repeat, +Warm with her life-blood, as long as they beat! + +Fold the broad banner-stripes over her breast,-- +Crown her with star-jewels Queen of the West! +Earth for her heritage, God for her friend, +She shall reign over us, world without end! + + + + + +ARMY HYMN + +"OLD HUNDRED" + +O LORD of Hosts! Almighty King! +Behold the sacrifice we bring +To every arm thy strength impart, +Thy spirit shed through every heart! + +Wake in our breasts the living fires, +The holy faith that warmed our sires; +Thy hand hath made our Nation free; +To die for her is serving Thee. + +Be Thou a pillared flame to show +The midnight snare, the silent foe; +And when the battle thunders loud, +Still guide us in its moving cloud. + +God of all Nations! Sovereign Lord +In thy dread name we draw the sword, +We lift the starry flag on high +That fills with light our stormy sky. + +From treason's rent, from murder's stain, +Guard Thou its folds till Peace shall reign,-- +Till fort and field, till shore and sea, +Join our loud anthem, PRAISE TO THEE! + + + + + +PARTING HYMN +"DUNDEE" + +FATHER of Mercies, Heavenly Friend, +We seek thy gracious throne; +To Thee our faltering prayers ascend, +Our fainting hearts are known. + +From blasts that chill, from suns that smite, +From every plague that harms; +In camp and march, in siege and fight, +Protect our men-at-arms. + +Though from our darkened lives they take +What makes our life most dear, +We yield them for their country's sake +With no relenting tear. + +Our blood their flowing veins will shed, +Their wounds our breasts will share; +Oh, save us from the woes we dread, +Or grant us strength to bear! + +Let each unhallowed cause that brings +The stern destroyer cease, +Thy flaming angel fold his wings, +And seraphs whisper Peace! + +Thine are the sceptre and the sword, +Stretch forth thy mighty hand,-- +Reign Thou our kingless nation's Lord, +Rule Thou our throneless land! + + + + + +THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY + +WHAT flower is this that greets the morn, +Its hues from Heaven so freshly born? +With burning star and flaming band +It kindles all the sunset land +Oh tell us what its name may be,-- +Is this the Flower of Liberty? +It is the banner of the free, +The starry Flower of Liberty! + +In savage Nature's far abode +Its tender seed our fathers sowed; +The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud, +Its opening leaves were streaked with blood, +Till Lo! earth's tyrants shook to see +The full-blown Flower of Liberty +Then hail the banner of the free, +The starry Flower of Liberty! + +Behold its streaming rays unite, +One mingling flood of braided light,-- +The red that fires the Southern rose, +With spotless white from Northern snows, +And, spangled o'er its azure, see +The sister Stars of Liberty! +Then hail the banner of the free, +The starry Flower of Liberty! + +The blades of heroes fence it round, +Where'er it springs is holy ground; +From tower and dome its glories spread; +It waves where lonely sentries tread; +It makes the land as ocean free, +And plants an empire on the sea! +Then hail the banner of the free, +The starry Flower of Liberty! + +Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower, +Shall ever float on dome and tower, +To all their heavenly colors true, +In blackening frost or crimson dew,-- +And God love us as we love thee, +Thrice holy Flower of Liberty! +Then hail the banner of the free, +The starry FLOWER OF LIBERTY! + + + + + +THE SWEET LITTLE MAN + +DEDICATED TO THE STAY-AT-HOME RANGERS + +Now, while our soldiers are fighting our battles, +Each at his post to do all that he can, +Down among rebels and contraband chattels, +What are you doing, my sweet little man? + +All the brave boys under canvas are sleeping, +All of them pressing to march with the van, +Far from the home where their sweethearts are weeping; +What are you waiting for, sweet little man? + +You with the terrible warlike mustaches, +Fit for a colonel or chief of a clan, +You with the waist made for sword-belts and sashes, +Where are your shoulder-straps, sweet little man? + +Bring him the buttonless garment of woman! +Cover his face lest it freckle and tan; +Muster the Apron-String Guards on the Common, +That is the corps for the sweet little man! + +Give him for escort a file of young misses, +Each of them armed with a deadly rattan; +They shall defend him from laughter and hisses, +Aimed by low boys at the sweet little man. + +All the fair maidens about him shall cluster, +Pluck the white feathers from bonnet and fan, +Make him a plume like a turkey-wing duster,-- +That is the crest for the sweet little man! + +Oh, but the Apron-String Guards are the fellows +Drilling each day since our troubles began,-- +"Handle your walking-sticks!" "Shoulder umbrellas!" +That is the style for the sweet little man! + +Have we a nation to save? In the first place +Saving ourselves is the sensible plan,-- +Surely the spot where there's shooting's the worst place +Where I can stand, says the sweet little man. + +Catch me confiding my person with strangers! +Think how the cowardly Bull-Runners ran! +In the brigade of the Stay-at-Home Rangers +Marches my corps, says the sweet little man. + +Such was the stuff of the Malakoff-takers, +Such were the soldiers that scaled the Redan; +Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers, +Brave not the wrath of the sweet little man! + +Yield him the sidewalk, ye nursery maidens! +_Sauve qui peut_! Bridget, and right about! Ann;-- +Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens, +See him advancing, the sweet little man! + +When the red flails of the battle-field's threshers +Beat out the continent's wheat from its bran, +While the wind scatters the chaffy seceshers, +What will become of our sweet little man? + +When the brown soldiers come back from the borders, +How will he look while his features they scan? +How will he feel when he gets marching orders, +Signed by his lady love? sweet little man! + +Fear not for him, though the rebels expect him,-- +Life is too precious to shorten its span; +Woman her broomstick shall raise to protect him, +Will she not fight for the sweet little man? + +Now then, nine cheers for the Stay-at-Home Ranger! +Blow the great fish-horn and beat the big pan! +First in the field that is farthest from danger, +Take your white-feather plume, sweet little man! + + + + + +UNION AND LIBERTY + +FLAG of the heroes who left us their glory, +Borne through their battle-fields' thunder and flame, +Blazoned in song and illumined in story, +Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame! + +Up with our banner bright, +Sprinkled with starry light, +Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, +While through the sounding sky +Loud rings the Nation's cry,-- +UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE! + + +Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation, +Pride of her children, and honored afar, +Let the wide beams of thy full constellation +Scatter each cloud that would darken a star +Up with our banner bright, etc. + +Empire unsceptred! what foe shall assail thee, +Bearing the standard of Liberty's van? +Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail thee, +Striving with men for the birthright of man! +Up with our banner bright, etc. + +Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted, +Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw, +Then with the arms of thy millions united, +Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law! +Up with our banner bright, etc. + +Lord of the Universe! shield us and guide us, +Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun! +Thou hast united us, who shall divide us? +Keep us, oh keep us the MANY IN ONE! +Up with our banner bright, +Sprinkled with starry light, +Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, +While through the sounding sky +Loud rings the Nation's cry,-- +UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE! + + + + + + SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL + +AMERICA TO RUSSIA + +AUGUST 5, 1866 +Read by Hon. G. V. Fox at a dinner given to the Mission from the United +States, St. Petersburg. + +THOUGH watery deserts hold apart +The worlds of East and West, +Still beats the selfsame human heart +In each proud Nation's breast. + +Our floating turret tempts the main +And dares the howling blast +To clasp more close the golden chain +That long has bound them fast. + +In vain the gales of ocean sweep, +In vain the billows roar +That chafe the wild and stormy steep +Of storied Elsinore. + +She comes! She comes! her banners dip +In Neva's flashing tide, +With greetings on her cannon's lip, +The storm-god's iron bride! + +Peace garlands with the olive-bough +Her thunder-bearing tower, +And plants before her cleaving prow +The sea-foam's milk-white flower. + +No prairies heaped their garnered store +To fill her sunless hold, +Not rich Nevada's gleaming ore +Its hidden caves infold, + +But lightly as the sea-bird swings +She floats the depths above, +A breath of flame to lend her wings, +Her freight a people's love! + +When darkness hid the starry skies +In war's long winter night, +One ray still cheered our straining eyes, +The far-off Northern light. + +And now the friendly rays return +From lights that glow afar, +Those clustered lamps of Heaven that burn +Around the Western Star. + +A nation's love in tears and smiles +We bear across the sea, +O Neva of the banded isles, +We moor our hearts in thee! + + + + + +WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + +MUSIC HALL, DECEMBER 6, 1871 + +Sung to the Russian national air by the children of the public schools. + +SHADOWED so long by the storm-cloud of danger, +Thou whom the prayers of an empire defend, +Welcome, thrice welcome! but not as a stranger, +Come to the nation that calls thee its friend! + +Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December, +Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow; +Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember +Who was our friend when the world was our foe. + +Look on the lips that are smiling to greet thee, +See the fresh flowers that a people has strewn +Count them thy sisters and brothers that meet thee; +Guest of the Nation, her heart is thine own! + +Fires of the North, in eternal communion, +Blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star! +God bless the Empire that loves the Great Union; +Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar! + + + + + +AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + +DECEMBER 9, 1871 + +ONE word to the guest we have gathered to greet! +The echoes are longing that word to repeat,-- +It springs to the lips that are waiting to part, +For its syllables spell themselves first in the heart. + +Its accents may vary, its sound may be strange, +But it bears a kind message that nothing can change; +The dwellers by Neva its meaning can tell, +For the smile, its interpreter, shows it full well. + +That word! How it gladdened the Pilgrim yore, +As he stood in the snow on the desolate shore! +When the shout of the sagamore startled his ear +In the phrase of the Saxon, 't was music to hear! + +Ah, little could Samoset offer our sire,-- +The cabin, the corn-cake, the seat by the fire; +He had nothing to give,--the poor lord of the land,-- +But he gave him a WELCOME,--his heart in his hand! + +The tribe of the sachem has melted away, +But the word that he spoke is remembered to-day, +And the page that is red with the record of shame +The tear-drops have whitened round Samoset's name. + +The word that he spoke to the Pilgrim of old +May sound like a tale that has often been told; +But the welcome we speak is as fresh as the dew,-- +As the kiss of a lover, that always is new! + +Ay, Guest of the Nation! each roof is thine own +Through all the broad continent's star-bannered zone; +From the shore where the curtain of morn is uprolled, +To the billows that flow through the gateway of gold. + +The snow-crested mountains are calling aloud; +Nevada to Ural speaks out of the cloud, +And Shasta shouts forth, from his throne in the sky, +To the storm-splintered summits, the peaks of Altai! + +You must leave him, they say, till the summer is green! +Both shores are his home, though the waves roll between; +And then we'll return him, with thanks for the same, +As fresh and as smiling and tall as he came. + +But ours is the region of arctic delight; +We can show him auroras and pole-stars by night; +There's a Muscovy sting in the ice-tempered air, +And our firesides are warm and our maidens are fair. + +The flowers are full-blown in the garlanded hall,-- +They will bloom round his footsteps wherever they fall; +For the splendors of youth and the sunshine they bring +Make the roses believe 't is the summons of Spring. + +One word of our language he needs must know well, +But another remains that is harder to spell; +We shall speak it so ill, if he wishes to learn +How we utter Farewell, he will have to return! + + + + + +AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY + +AUGUST 21, 1868 + +BROTHERS, whom we may not reach +Through the veil of alien speech, +Welcome! welcome! eyes can tell +What the lips in vain would spell,-- +Words that hearts can understand, +Brothers from the Flowery Land! + +We, the evening's latest born, +Hail the children of the morn! +We, the new creation's birth, +Greet the lords of ancient earth, +From their storied walls and towers +Wandering to these tents of ours! + +Land of wonders, fair Cathay, +Who long hast shunned the staring day, +Hid in mists of poet's dreams +By thy blue and yellow streams,-- +Let us thy shadowed form behold,-- +Teach us as thou didst of old. + +Knowledge dwells with length of days; +Wisdom walks in ancient ways; +Thine the compass that could guide +A nation o'er the stormy tide, +Scourged by passions, doubts, and fears, +Safe through thrice a thousand years! + +Looking from thy turrets gray +Thou hast seen the world's decay,-- +Egypt drowning in her sands,-- +Athens rent by robbers' hands,-- +Rome, the wild barbarian's prey, +Like a storm-cloud swept away: + +Looking from thy turrets gray +Still we see thee. Where are they? +And to I a new-born nation waits, +Sitting at the golden gates +That glitter by the sunset sea,-- +Waits with outspread arms for thee! + +Open wide, ye gates of gold, +To the Dragon's banner-fold! +Builders of the mighty wall, +Bid your mountain barriers fall! +So may the girdle of the sun. +Bind the East and West in one, + +Till Mount Shasta's breezes fan +The snowy peaks of Ta Sieue-Shan,-- +Till Erie blends its waters blue +With the waves of Tung-Ting-Hu,-- +Till deep Missouri lends its flow +To swell the rushing Hoang-Ho! + + + + + +AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY + +AUGUST 2, 1872 + +WE welcome you, Lords of the Land of the Sun! +The voice of the many sounds feebly through one; +Ah! would 't were a voice of more musical tone, +But the dog-star is here, and the song-birds have flown. + +And what shall I sing that can cheat you of smiles, +Ye heralds of peace from the Orient isles? +If only the Jubilee--Why did you wait? +You are welcome, but oh! you're a little too late! + +We have greeted our brothers of Ireland and France, +Round the fiddle of Strauss we have joined in the dance, +We have lagered Herr Saro, that fine-looking man, +And glorified Godfrey, whose name it is Dan. + +What a pity! we've missed it and you've missed it too, +We had a day ready and waiting for you; +We'd have shown you--provided, of course, you had come-- +You 'd have heard--no, you would n't, because it was dumb. + +And then the great organ! The chorus's shout +Like the mixture teetotalers call "Cold without"-- +A mingling of elements, strong, but not sweet; +And the drum, just referred to, that "couldn't be beat." + +The shrines of our pilgrims are not like your own, +Where white Fusiyama lifts proudly its cone, +(The snow-mantled mountain we see on the fan +That cools our hot cheeks with a breeze from Japan.) + +But ours the wide temple where worship is free +As the wind of the prairie, the wave of the sea; +You may build your own altar wherever you will, +For the roof of that temple is over you still. + +One dome overarches the star-bannered shore; +You may enter the Pope's or the Puritan's door, +Or pass with the Buddhist his gateway of bronze, +For a priest is but Man, be he bishop or bonze. + +And the lesson we teach with the sword and the pen +Is to all of God's children, "We also are men! +If you wrong us we smart, if you prick us we bleed, +If you love us, no quarrel with color or creed!" + +You'll find us a well-meaning, free-spoken crowd, +Good-natured enough, but a little too loud,-- +To be sure, there is always a bit of a row +When we choose our Tycoon, and especially now. + +You'll take it all calmly,--we want you to see +What a peaceable fight such a contest can be, +And of one thing be certain, however it ends, +You will find that our voters have chosen your friends. + +If the horse that stands saddled is first in the race, +You will greet your old friend with the weed in his face; +And if the white hat and the White House agree, +You'll find H. G. really as loving as he. + +But oh, what a pity--once more I must say-- +That we could not have joined in a "Japanese day"! +Such greeting we give you to-night as we can; +Long life to our brothers and friends of Japan! + +The Lord of the mountain looks down from his crest +As the banner of morning unfurls in the West; +The Eagle was always the friend of the Sun; +You are welcome!--The song of the cage-bird is done. + + + + + +BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + +NOVEMBER 3, 1864 + +O EVEN-HANDED Nature! we confess +This life that men so honor, love, and bless +Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less. + +We count the precious seasons that remain; +Strike not the level of the golden grain, +But heap it high with years, that earth may gain. + +What heaven can lose,--for heaven is rich in song +Do not all poets, dying, still prolong +Their broken chants amid the seraph throng, + +Where, blind no more, Ionia's bard is seen, +And England's heavenly minstrel sits between +The Mantuan and the wan-cheeked Florentine? + +This was the first sweet singer in the cage +Of our close-woven life. A new-born age +Claims in his vesper song its heritage. + +Spare us, oh spare us long our heart's desire! +Moloch, who calls our children through the fire, +Leaves us the gentle master of the lyre. + +We count not on the dial of the sun +The hours, the minutes, that his sands have run; +Rather, as on those flowers that one by one. + +From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display +Till evening's planet with her guiding ray +Leads in the blind old mother of the day, + +We reckon by his songs, each song a flower, +The long, long daylight, numbering hour by hour, +Each breathing sweetness like a bridal bower. + +His morning glory shall we e'er forget? +His noontide's full-blown lily coronet? +His evening primrose has not opened yet; + +Nay, even if creeping Time should hide the skies +In midnight from his century-laden eyes, +Darkened like his who sang of Paradise, + +Would not some hidden song-bud open bright +As the resplendent cactus of the night +That floods the gloom with fragrance and with +light? + +How can we praise the verse whose music flows +With solemn cadence and majestic close, +Pure as the dew that filters through the rose? + +How shall we thank him that in evil days +He faltered never,--nor for blame, nor praise, +Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier lays? + +But as his boyhood was of manliest hue, +So to his youth his manly years were true, +All dyed in royal purple through and through! + +He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is strung +Needs not the flattering toil of mortal tongue +Let not the singer grieve to die unsung! + +Marbles forget their message to mankind: +In his own verse the poet still we find, +In his own page his memory lives enshrined, + +As in their amber sweets the smothered bees,-- +As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, +Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees. + +Poets, like youngest children, never grow +Out of their mother's fondness. Nature so +Holds their soft hands, and will not let them go, + +Till at the last they track with even feet +Her rhythmic footsteps, and their pulses beat +Twinned with her pulses, and their lips repeat. + +The secrets she has told them, as their own +Thus is the inmost soul of Nature known, +And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne! + +O lover of her mountains and her woods, +Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudes, +Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudes, + +Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred fire +Far be the day that claims thy sounding lyre +To join the music of the angel choir! + +Yet, since life's amplest measure must be filled, +Since throbbing hearts must be forever stilled, +And all must fade that evening sunsets gild, + +Grant, Father, ere he close the mortal eyes +That see a Nation's reeking sacrifice, +Its smoke may vanish from these blackened skies! + +Then, when his summons comes, since come it must, +And, looking heavenward with unfaltering trust, +He wraps his drapery round him for the dust, + +His last fond glance will show him o'er his head +The Northern fires beyond the zenith spread +In lambent glory, blue and white and red,-- + +The Southern cross without its bleeding load, +The milky way of peace all freshly strowed, +And every white-throned star fixed in its lost +abode! + + + + + +A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ + +How the mountains talked together, +Looking down upon the weather, +When they heard our friend had planned his +Little trip among the Andes! +How they'll bare their snowy scalps +To the climber of the Alps +When the cry goes through their passes, +"Here comes the great Agassiz!" +"Yes, I'm tall," says Chimborazo, +"But I wait for him to say so,-- +That's the only thing that lacks,--he +Must see me, Cotopaxi!" +"Ay! ay!" the fire-peak thunders, +"And he must view my wonders! +I'm but a lonely crater +Till I have him for spectator!" +The mountain hearts are yearning, +The lava-torches burning, +The rivers bend to meet him, +The forests bow to greet him, +It thrills the spinal column +Of fossil fishes solemn, +And glaciers crawl the faster +To the feet of their old master! +Heaven keep him well and hearty, +Both him and all his party! +From the sun that broils and smites, +From the centipede that bites, +From the hail-storm and the thunder, +From the vampire and the condor, +From the gust upon the river, +From the sudden earthquake shiver, +From the trip of mule or donkey, +From the midnight howling monkey, +From the stroke of knife or dagger, +From the puma and the jaguar, +From the horrid boa-constrictor +That has scared us in the pictur', +From the Indians of the Pampas +Who would dine upon their grampas, +From every beast and vermin +That to think of sets us squirmin', +From every snake that tries on +The traveller his p'ison, +From every pest of Natur', +Likewise the alligator, +And from two things left behind him,-- +(Be sure they'll try to find him,) +The tax-bill and assessor,-- +Heaven keep the great Professor +May he find, with his apostles, +That the land is full of fossils, +That the waters swarm with fishes +Shaped according to his wishes, +That every pool is fertile +In fancy kinds of turtle, +New birds around him singing, +New insects, never stinging, +With a million novel data +About the articulata, +And facts that strip off all husks +From the history of mollusks. +And when, with loud Te Deum, +He returns to his Museum, +May he find the monstrous reptile +That so long the land has kept ill +By Grant and Sherman throttled, +And by Father Abraham bottled, +(All specked and streaked and mottled +With the scars of murderous battles, +Where he clashed the iron rattles +That gods and men he shook at,) +For all the world to look at. + +God bless the great Professor! +And Madam, too, God bless her! +Bless him and all his band, +On the sea and on the land, +Bless them head and heart and hand, +Till their glorious raid is o'er, +And they touch our ransomed shore! +Then the welcome of a nation, +With its shout of exultation, +Shall awake the dumb creation, +And the shapes of buried aeons +Join the living creatures' poeans, +Till the fossil echoes roar; +While the mighty megalosaurus +Leads the palaeozoic chorus,-- +God bless the great Professor, +And the land his proud possessor,-- +Bless them now and evermore! + +1865. + + + + + +AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT + +JULY 6, 1865 + +Now, smiling friends and shipmates all, +Since half our battle 's won, +A broadside for our Admiral! +Load every crystal gun +Stand ready till I give the word,-- +You won't have time to tire,-- +And when that glorious name is heard, +Then hip! hurrah! and fire! + +Bow foremost sinks the rebel craft,-- +Our eyes not sadly turn +And see the pirates huddling aft +To drop their raft astern; +Soon o'er the sea-worm's destined prey +The lifted wave shall close,-- +So perish from the face of day +All Freedom's banded foes! + +But ah! what splendors fire the sky +What glories greet the morn! +The storm-tost banner streams on high, +Its heavenly hues new-born! +Its red fresh dyed in heroes' blood, +Its peaceful white more pure, +To float unstained o'er field and flood +While earth and seas endure! + +All shapes before the driving blast +Must glide from mortal view; +Black roll the billows of the past +Behind the present's blue, +Fast, fast, are lessening in the light +The names of high renown,-- +Van Tromp's proud besom fades from sight, +And Nelson's half hull down! + +Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea +Or skirts the safer shores +Of all that bore to victory +Our stout old commodores; +Hull, Bainbridge, Porter,--where are they? +The waves their answer roll, +"Still bright in memory's sunset ray,-- +God rest each gallant soul!" + +A brighter name must dim their light +With more than noontide ray, +The Sea-King of the "River Fight," +The Conqueror of the Bay,-- +Now then the broadside! cheer on cheer +To greet him safe on shore! +Health, peace, and many a bloodless year +To fight his battles o'er! + + + + + +AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT + +JULY 31, 1865 + +WHEN treason first began the strife +That crimsoned sea and shore, +The Nation poured her hoarded life +On Freedom's threshing-floor; +From field and prairie, east and west, +From coast and hill and plain, +The sheaves of ripening manhood pressed +Thick as the bearded grain. + +Rich was the harvest; souls as true +As ever battle tried; +But fiercer still the conflict grew, +The floor of death more wide; +Ah, who forgets that dreadful day +Whose blot of grief and shame +Four bitter years scarce wash away +In seas of blood and flame? + +Vain, vain the Nation's lofty boasts,-- +Vain all her sacrifice! +"Give me a man to lead my hosts, +O God in heaven!" she cries. +While Battle whirls his crushing flail, +And plies his winnowing fan,-- +Thick flies the chaff on every gale,-- +She cannot find her man! + +Bravely they fought who failed to win,-- +Our leaders battle-scarred,-- +Fighting the hosts of hell and sin, +But devils die always hard! +Blame not the broken tools of God +That helped our sorest needs; +Through paths that martyr feet have trod +The conqueror's steps He leads. + +But now the heavens grow black with doubt, +The ravens fill the sky, +"Friends" plot within, foes storm without, +Hark,--that despairing cry, +"Where is the heart, the hand, the brain +To dare, to do, to plan?" +The bleeding Nation shrieks in vain,-- +She has not found her man! + +A little echo stirs the air,-- +Some tale, whate'er it be, +Of rebels routed in their lair +Along the Tennessee. +The little echo spreads and grows, +And soon the trump of Fame +Has taught the Nation's friends and foes +The "man on horseback"'s name. + +So well his warlike wooing sped, +No fortress might resist +His billets-doux of lisping lead, +The bayonets in his fist,-- +With kisses from his cannons' mouth +He made his passion known +Till Vicksburg, vestal of the South, +Unbound her virgin zone. + +And still where'er his banners led +He conquered as he came, +The trembling hosts of treason fled +Before his breath of flame, +And Fame's still gathering echoes grew +Till high o'er Richmond's towers +The starry fold of Freedom flew, +And all the land was ours. + +Welcome from fields where valor fought +To feasts where pleasure waits; +A Nation gives you smiles unbought +At all her opening gates! +Forgive us when we press your hand,-- +Your war-worn features scan,-- +God sent you to a bleeding land; +Our Nation found its man! + + + + + +TO H. W. LONGFELLOW + +BEFORE HIS DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE, MAY 27, 1868 + +OUR Poet, who has taught the Western breeze +To waft his songs before him o'er the seas, +Will find them wheresoe'er his wanderings reach +Borne on the spreading tide of English speech +Twin with the rhythmic waves that kiss the farthest beach. + +Where shall the singing bird a stranger be +That finds a nest for him in every tree? +How shall he travel who can never go +Where his own voice the echoes do not know, +Where his own garden flowers no longer learn to grow? + +Ah! gentlest soul! how gracious, how benign +Breathes through our troubled life that voice of thine, +Filled with a sweetness born of happier spheres, +That wins and warms, that kindles, softens, cheers, +That calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears! + +Forgive the simple words that sound like praise; +The mist before me dims my gilded phrase; +Our speech at best is half alive and cold, +And save that tenderer moments make us bold +Our whitening lips would close, their truest truth untold. + +We who behold our autumn sun below +The Scorpion's sign, against the Archer's bow, +Know well what parting means of friend from friend; +After the snows no freshening dews descend, +And what the frost has marred, the sunshine will not mend. + +So we all count the months, the weeks, the days, +That keep thee from us in unwonted ways, +Grudging to alien hearths our widowed time; +And one has shaped a breath in artless rhyme +That sighs, "We track thee still through each remotest clime." + +What wishes, longings, blessings, prayers shall be +The more than golden freight that floats with thee! +And know, whatever welcome thou shalt find,-- +Thou who hast won the hearts of half mankind,-- +The proudest, fondest love thou leavest still behind! + + + + + +TO CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG + +FOR HIS "JUBILAEUM" AT BERLIN, NOVEMBER 5, 1868 + +This poem was written at the suggestion of Mr. George Bancroft, the +historian. + +THOU who hast taught the teachers of mankind +How from the least of things the mightiest grow, +What marvel jealous Nature made thee blind, +Lest man should learn what angels long to know? +Thou in the flinty rock, the river's flow, +In the thick-moted sunbeam's sifted light +Hast trained thy downward-pointed tube to show +Worlds within worlds unveiled to mortal sight, +Even as the patient watchers of the night,-- +The cyclope gleaners of the fruitful skies,-- +Show the wide misty way where heaven is white +All paved with suns that daze our wondering eyes. + +Far o'er the stormy deep an empire lies, +Beyond the storied islands of the blest, +That waits to see the lingering day-star rise; +The forest-tinctured Eden of the West; +Whose queen, fair Freedom, twines her iron crest +With leaves from every wreath that mortals wear, +But loves the sober garland ever best +That science lends the sage's silvered hair;-- +Science, who makes life's heritage more fair, +Forging for every lock its mastering key, +Filling with life and hope the stagnant air, +Pouring the light of Heaven o'er land and sea! +From her unsceptred realm we come to thee, +Bearing our slender tribute in our hands; +Deem it not worthless, humble though it be, +Set by the larger gifts of older lands +The smallest fibres weave the strongest bands,-- +In narrowest tubes the sovereign nerves are spun,-- +A little cord along the deep sea-sands +Makes the live thought of severed nations one +Thy fame has journeyed westering with the sun, +Prairies and lone sierras know thy name +And the long day of service nobly done +That crowns thy darkened evening with its flame! + +One with the grateful world, we own thy claim,-- +Nay, rather claim our right to join the throng +Who come with varied tongues, but hearts the same, +To hail thy festal morn with smiles and song; +Ah, happy they to whom the joys belong +Of peaceful triumphs that can never die +From History's record,--not of gilded wrong, +But golden truths that, while the world goes by +With all its empty pageant, blazoned high +Around the Master's name forever shine +So shines thy name illumined in the sky,-- +Such joys, such triumphs, such remembrance thine! + + + + + +A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS + +FEBRUARY 16, 1874 + +THE painter's and the poet's fame +Shed their twinned lustre round his name, +To gild our story-teller's art, +Where each in turn must play his part. + +What scenes from Wilkie's pencil sprung, +The minstrel saw but left unsung! +What shapes the pen of Collins drew, +No painter clad in living hue! + +But on our artist's shadowy screen +A stranger miracle is seen +Than priest unveils or pilgrim seeks,-- +The poem breathes, the picture speaks! + +And so his double name comes true, +They christened better than they knew, +And Art proclaims him twice her son,-- +Painter and poet, both in one! + + + + + + + MEMORIAL VERSES + + +FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + +CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1865 + +CHORAL: "LUTHER'S JUDGMENT HYMN." + +O THOU of soul and sense and breath +The ever-present Giver, +Unto thy mighty Angel, Death, +All flesh thou dost deliver; +What most we cherish we resign, +For life and death alike are thine, +Who reignest Lord forever! + +Our hearts lie buried in the dust +With him so true and tender, +The patriot's stay, the people's trust, +The shield of the offender; +Yet every murmuring voice is still, +As, bowing to thy sovereign will, +Our best-loved we surrender. + +Dear Lord, with pitying eye behold +This martyr generation, +Which thou, through trials manifold, +Art showing thy salvation +Oh let the blood by murder spilt +Wash out thy stricken children's guilt +And sanctify our nation! + +Be thou thy orphaned Israel's friend, +Forsake thy people never, +In One our broken Many blend, +That none again may sever! +Hear us, O Father, while we raise +With trembling lips our song of praise, +And bless thy name forever! + + + + + +FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES + +CAMBRIDGE, JULY 21, 1865 + +FOUR summers coined their golden light in leaves, +Four wasteful autumns flung them to the gale, +Four winters wore the shroud the tempest weaves, +The fourth wan April weeps o'er hill and vale; + +And still the war-clouds scowl on sea and land, +With the red gleams of battle staining through, +When lo! as parted by an angel's hand, +They open, and the heavens again are blue! + +Which is the dream, the present or the past? +The night of anguish or the joyous morn? +The long, long years with horrors overcast, +Or the sweet promise of the day new-born? + +Tell us, O father, as thine arms infold +Thy belted first-born in their fast embrace, +Murmuring the prayer the patriarch breathed of old,-- +"Now let me die, for I have seen thy face!" + +Tell us, O mother,--nay, thou canst not speak, +But thy fond eyes shall answer, brimmed with joy,-- +Press thy mute lips against the sunbrowned cheek, +Is this a phantom,--thy returning boy? + +Tell us, O maiden,--ah, what canst thou tell +That Nature's record is not first to teach,-- +The open volume all can read so well, +With its twin rose-hued pages full of speech? + +And ye who mourn your dead,--how sternly true +The crushing hour that wrenched their lives away, +Shadowed with sorrow's midnight veil for you, +For them the dawning of immortal day! + +Dream-like these years of conflict, not a dream! +Death, ruin, ashes tell the awful tale, +Read by the flaming war-track's lurid gleam +No dream, but truth that turns the nations pale. + +For on the pillar raised by martyr hands +Burns the rekindled beacon of the right, + +Sowing its seeds of fire o'er all the lands,-- +Thrones look a century older in its light! + +Rome had her triumphs; round the conqueror's car +The ensigns waved, the brazen clarions blew, +And o'er the reeking spoils of bandit war +With outspread wings the cruel eagles flew; + +Arms, treasures, captives, kings in clanking chains +Urged on by trampling cohorts bronzed and scarred, +And wild-eyed wonders snared on Lybian plains, +Lion and ostrich and camelopard. + +Vain all that praetors clutched, that consuls brought +When Rome's returning legions crowned their lord; +Less than the least brave deed these hands have wrought, +We clasp, unclinching from the bloody sword. + +Theirs was the mighty work that seers foretold; +They know not half their glorious toil has won, +For this is Heaven's same battle,-joined of old +When Athens fought for us at Marathon! + +Behold a vision none hath understood! +The breaking of the Apocalyptic seal; +Twice rings the summons.--Hail and fire and blood! +Then the third angel blows his trumpet-peal. + +Loud wail the dwellers on the myrtled coasts, +The green savannas swell the maddened cry, +And with a yell from all the demon hosts +Falls the great star called Wormwood from the sky! + +Bitter it mingles with the poisoned flow +Of the warm rivers winding to the shore, +Thousands must drink the waves of death and woe, +But the star Wormwood stains the heavens no more! + +Peace smiles at last; the Nation calls her sons +To sheathe the sword; her battle-flag she furls, +Speaks in glad thunders from unspotted guns, +No terror shrouded in the smoke-wreath's curls. + +O ye that fought for Freedom, living, dead, +One sacred host of God's anointed Queen, +For every holy, drop your veins have shed +We breathe a welcome to our bowers of green! + +Welcome, ye living! from the foeman's gripe +Your country's banner it was yours to wrest,-- +Ah, many a forehead shows the banner-stripe, +And stars, once crimson, hallow many a breast. + +And ye, pale heroes, who from glory's bed +Mark when your old battalions form in line, +Move in their marching ranks with noiseless tread, +And shape unheard the evening countersign, + +Come with your comrades, the returning brave; +Shoulder to shoulder they await you here; +These lent the life their martyr-brothers gave,-- +Living and dead alike forever dear! + + + + + +EDWARD EVERETT + +"OUR FIRST CITIZEN" + +Read at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, +January 30, 1865. + +WINTER'S cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast; +For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold +What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed, +What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told. + +Even as the bells, in one consenting chime, +Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air, +So joined all voices, in that mournful time, +His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare. + +What place is left for words of measured praise, +Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen, +Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase +That shapes his image in the souls of men? + +Yet while the echoes still repeat his name, +While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse, +Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim +The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse,-- + +Verse that, in ever-changing ebb and flow, +Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush and rest, +Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and slow, +Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast. + +This was a mind so rounded, so complete, +No partial gift of Nature in excess, +That, like a single stream where many meet, +Each separate talent counted something less. + +A little hillock, if it lonely stand, +Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign; +While the broad summit of the table-land +Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain. + + +Servant of all his powers, that faithful slave, +Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with his toils, +To every ruder task his shoulder gave, +And loaded every day with golden spoils. + +Order, the law of Heaven, was throned supreme +O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, thought; +True as the dial's shadow to the beam, +Each hour was equal to the charge it brought. + +Too large his compass for the nicer skill +That weighs the world of science grain by grain; +All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will +That claimed the franchise of its whole domain. + +Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, +Art, history, song,--what meanings lie in each +Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre, +And poured their mingling music through his speech. + +Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days, +Whose ravishing division held apart +The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, +Moved in all breasts the selfsame human heart. + +Subdued his accents, as of one who tries +To press some care, some haunting sadness down; +His smile half shadow; and to stranger eyes +The kingly forehead wore an iron crown. + +He was not armed to wrestle with the storm, +To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; +Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form, +The rose of Academe,--the perfect flower! + +Such was the stately scholar whom we knew +In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, +Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew +Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm. + +Ah, God forgive us! did we hold too cheap +The heart we might have known, but would not see, +And look to find the nation's friend asleep +Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane? + +That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death +With all a hero's honors round his name; +As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath, +And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame. + +So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise,-- +Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years,-- +"He who had lived the mark of all men's praise +Died with the tribute of a Nation's tears." + + + + + +SHAKESPEARE + +TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +APRIL 23, 1864 + +"Who claims our Shakespeare from that realm unknown, +Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the deep, +Where Genoa's roving mariner was blown? +Her twofold Saint's-day let our England keep; +Shall warring aliens share her holy task?" +The Old World echoes ask. + +O land of Shakespeare! ours with all thy past, +Till these last years that make the sea so wide; +Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast +Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride +In every noble word thy sons bequeathed +The air our fathers breathed! + +War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife, +We turn to other days and far-off lands, + +Live o'er in dreams the Poet's faded life, +Come with fresh lilies in our fevered hands +To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple flowers,-- +Not his the need, but ours! + +We call those poets who are first to mark +Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,-- +Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, +While others only note that day is gone; +For him the Lord of light the curtain rent +That veils the firmament. + +The greatest for its greatness is half known, +Stretching beyond our narrow quadrant-lines,-- +As in that world of Nature all outgrown +Where Calaveras lifts his awful pines, +And cast from Mariposa's mountain-wall +Nevada's cataracts fall. + +Yet heaven's remotest orb is partly ours, +Throbbing its radiance like a beating heart; +In the wide compass of angelic powers +The instinct of the blindworm has its part; +So in God's kingliest creature we behold +The flower our buds infold. + +With no vain praise we mock the stone-carved name +Stamped once on dust that moved with pulse and breath, +As thinking to enlarge that amplest fame +Whose undimmed glories gild the night of death: +We praise not star or sun; in these we see +Thee, Father, only thee! + +Thy gifts are beauty, wisdom, power, and love: +We read, we reverence on this human soul,-- +Earth's clearest mirror of the light above,-- +Plain as the record on thy prophet's scroll, +When o'er his page the effluent splendors poured, +Thine own "Thus saith the Lord!" + +This player was a prophet from on high, +Thine own elected. Statesman, poet, sage, +For him thy sovereign pleasure passed them by; +Sidney's fair youth, and Raleigh's ripened age, +Spenser's chaste soul, and his imperial mind +Who taught and shamed mankind. + +Therefore we bid our hearts' Te Deum rise, +Nor fear to make thy worship less divine, +And hear the shouted choral shake the skies, +Counting all glory, power, and wisdom thine; +For thy great gift thy greater name adore, +And praise thee evermore! + +In this dread hour of Nature's utmost need, +Thanks for these unstained drops of freshening dew! +Oh, while our martyrs fall, our heroes bleed, +Keep us to every sweet remembrance true, +Till from this blood-red sunset springs new-born +Our Nation's second morn! + + + + + +IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE + +Read at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society, +May 25, 1864. + +No mystic charm, no mortal art, +Can bid our loved companions stay; +The bands that clasp them to our heart +Snap in death's frost and fall apart; +Like shadows fading with the day, +They pass away. + +The young are stricken in their pride, +The old, long tottering, faint and fall; +Master and scholar, side by side, +Through the dark portals silent glide, +That open in life's mouldering wall +And close on all. + +Our friend's, our teacher's task was done, +When Mercy called him from on high; +A little cloud had dimmed the sun, +The saddening hours had just begun, +And darker days were drawing nigh: +'T was time to die. + +A whiter soul, a fairer mind, +A life with purer course and aim, +A gentler eye, a voice more kind, +We may not look on earth to find. +The love that lingers o'er his name +Is more than fame. + +These blood-red summers ripen fast; +The sons are older than the sires; +Ere yet the tree to earth is cast, +The sapling falls before the blast; +Life's ashes keep their covered fires,-- +Its flame expires. + +Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe, +Whose deadlier breath than shot or shell +Has laid the best and bravest low, +His boy, all bright in morning's glow, +That high-souled youth he loved so well, +Untimely fell. + +Yet still he wore his placid smile, +And, trustful in the cheering creed +That strives all sorrow to beguile, +Walked calmly on his way awhile +Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed +Must ever bleed! + +So they both left us, sire and son, +With opening leaf, with laden bough +The youth whose race was just begun, +The wearied man whose course was run, +Its record written on his brow, +Are brothers now. + +Brothers!--The music of the sound +Breathes softly through my closing strain; +The floor we tread is holy ground, +Those gentle spirits hovering round, +While our fair circle joins again +Its broken chain. + +1864. + + + + + +HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY + +CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869 + +BONAPARTE, AUGUST 15, 1769.-HUMBOLDT, SEPTEMBER 14, 1769 + +ERE yet the warning chimes of midnight sound, +Set back the flaming index of the year, +Track the swift-shifting seasons in their round +Through fivescore circles of the swinging sphere! + +Lo, in yon islet of the midland sea +That cleaves the storm-cloud with its snowy crest, +The embryo-heir of Empires yet to be, +A month-old babe upon his mother's breast. + +Those little hands that soon shall grow so strong +In their rude grasp great thrones shall rock and fall, +Press her soft bosom, while a nursery song +Holds the world's master in its slender thrall. + +Look! a new crescent bends its silver bow; +A new-lit star has fired the eastern sky; +Hark! by the river where the lindens blow +A waiting household hears an infant's cry. + +This, too, a conqueror! His the vast domain, +Wider than widest sceptre-shadowed lands; +Earth and the weltering kingdom of the main +Laid their broad charters in his royal hands. + +His was no taper lit in cloistered cage, +Its glimmer borrowed from the grove or porch; +He read the record of the planet's page +By Etna's glare and Cotopaxi's torch. + +He heard the voices of the pathless woods; +On the salt steppes he saw the starlight shine; +He scaled the mountain's windy solitudes, +And trod the galleries of the breathless mine. + +For him no fingering of the love-strung lyre, +No problem vague, by torturing schoolmen vexed; +He fed no broken altar's dying fire, +Nor skulked and scowled behind a Rabbi's text. + +For God's new truth he claimed the kingly robe +That priestly shoulders counted all their own, +Unrolled the gospel of the storied globe +And led young Science to her empty throne. + +While the round planet on its axle spins +One fruitful year shall boast its double birth, +And show the cradles of its mighty twins, +Master and Servant of the sons of earth. + +Which wears the garland that shall never fade, +Sweet with fair memories that can never die? +Ask not the marbles where their bones are laid, +But bow thine ear to hear thy brothers' cry:-- + +"Tear up the despot's laurels by the root, +Like mandrakes, shrieking as they quit the soil! +Feed us no more upon the blood-red fruit +That sucks its crimson from the heart of Toil! + +"We claim the food that fixed our mortal fate,-- +Bend to our reach the long-forbidden tree! +The angel frowned at Eden's eastern gate,-- +Its western portal is forever free! + +"Bring the white blossoms of the waning year, +Heap with full hands the peaceful conqueror's shrine +Whose bloodless triumphs cost no sufferer's tear! +Hero of knowledge, be our tribute thine!" + + + + + +POEM + +AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1869 + +SAY not the Poet dies! +Though in the dust he lies, +He cannot forfeit his melodious breath, +Unsphered by envious death! +Life drops the voiceless myriads from its roll; +Their fate he cannot share, +Who, in the enchanted air +Sweet with the lingering strains that Echo stole, +Has left his dearer self, the music of his soul! + +We o'er his turf may raise +Our notes of feeble praise, +And carve with pious care for after eyes +The stone with "Here he lies;" +He for himself has built a nobler shrine, +Whose walls of stately rhyme +Roll back the tides of time, +While o'er their gates the gleaming tablets shine +That wear his name inwrought with many a golden line! + +Call not our Poet dead, +Though on his turf we tread! +Green is the wreath their brows so long have worn,-- +The minstrels of the morn, +Who, while the Orient burned with new-born flame, +Caught that celestial fire +And struck a Nation's lyre +These taught the western winds the poet's name; +Theirs the first opening buds, the maiden flowers of fame! + +Count not our Poet dead! +The stars shall watch his bed, +The rose of June its fragrant life renew +His blushing mound to strew, +And all the tuneful throats of summer swell +With trills as crystal-clear +As when he wooed the ear +Of the young muse that haunts each wooded dell, +With songs of that "rough land" he loved so long and well! + +He sleeps; he cannot die! +As evening's long-drawn sigh, +Lifting the rose-leaves on his peaceful mound, +Spreads all their sweets around, +So, laden with his song, the breezes blow +From where the rustling sedge +Frets our rude ocean's edge +To the smooth sea beyond the peaks of snow. +His soul the air enshrines and leaves but dust below! + + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNERSTONE +OF HARVARD MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, +OCTOBER 6, 1870 + +NOT with the anguish of hearts that are breaking +Come we as mourners to weep for our dead; +Grief in our breasts has grown weary of aching, +Green is the turf where our tears we have shed. + +While o'er their marbles the mosses are creeping, +Stealing each name and its legend away, +Give their proud story to Memory's keeping, +Shrined in the temple we hallow to-day. + +Hushed are their battle-fields, ended their marches, +Deaf are their ears to the drum-beat of morn,-- + +Rise from the sod, ye fair columns and arches +Tell their bright deeds to the ages unborn! + +Emblem and legend may fade from the portal, +Keystone may crumble and pillar may fall; +They were the builders whose work is immortal, +Crowned with the dome that is over us all! + + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL AT CAMBRIDGE, +JUNE 23, 1874 + +WHERE, girt around by savage foes, +Our nurturing Mother's shelter rose, +Behold, the lofty temple stands, +Reared by her children's grateful hands! + +Firm are the pillars that defy +The volleyed thunders of the sky; +Sweet are the summer wreaths that twine +With bud and flower our martyrs' shrine. + +The hues their tattered colors bore +Fall mingling on the sunlit floor +Till evening spreads her spangled pall, +And wraps in shade the storied hall. + +Firm were their hearts in danger's hour, +Sweet was their manhood's morning flower, +Their hopes with rainbow hues were bright,-- +How swiftly winged the sudden night! + +O Mother! on thy marble page +Thy children read, from age to age, +The mighty word that upward leads +Through noble thought to nobler deeds. + +TRUTH, heaven-born TRUTH, their fearless guide, +Thy saints have lived, thy heroes died; +Our love has reared their earthly shrine, +Their glory be forever thine! + + + + + +HYMN + +AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES SUMNER, +APRIL 29, 1874 + +SUNG BY MALE VOICES TO A NATIONAL AIR OF HOLLAND + +ONCE more, ye sacred towers, +Your solemn dirges sound; +Strew, loving hands, the April flowers, +Once more to deck his mound. +A nation mourns its dead, +Its sorrowing voices one, +As Israel's monarch bowed his head +And cried, "My son! My son!" + +Why mourn for him?--For him +The welcome angel came +Ere yet his eye with age was dim +Or bent his stately frame; +His weapon still was bright, +His shield was lifted high +To slay the wrong, to save the right,-- +What happier hour to die? + +Thou orderest all things well; +Thy servant's work was done; +He lived to hear Oppression's knell, +The shouts for Freedom won. +Hark!! from the opening skies +The anthem's echoing swell,-- +"O mourning Land, lift up thine eyes! +God reigneth. All is well!" + + + + + + + RHYMES OF AN HOUR + + +ADDRESS + +FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, +NEW YORK, DECEMBER 3, 1873 + +HANG out our banners on the stately tower +It dawns at last--the long-expected hour I +The steep is climbed, the star-lit summit won, +The builder's task, the artist's labor done; +Before the finished work the herald stands, +And asks the verdict of your lips and hands! + +Shall rosy daybreak make us all forget +The golden sun that yester-evening set? +Fair was the fabric doomed to pass away +Ere the last headaches born of New Year's Day; +With blasting breath the fierce destroyer came +And wrapped the victim in his robes of flame; +The pictured sky with redder morning blushed, +With scorching streams the naiad's fountain gushed, +With kindling mountains glowed the funeral pyre, +Forests ablaze and rivers all on fire,-- +The scenes dissolved, the shrivelling curtain fell,-- +Art spread her wings and sighed a long farewell! + +Mourn o'er the Player's melancholy plight,-- +Falstaff in tears, Othello deadly white,-- +Poor Romeo reckoning what his doublet cost, +And Juliet whimpering for her dresses lost,-- +Their wardrobes burned, their salaries all undrawn, +Their cues cut short, their occupation gone! + +"Lie there in dust," the red-winged demon cried, +"Wreck of the lordly city's hope and pride!" +Silent they stand, and stare with vacant gaze, +While o'er the embers leaps the fitful blaze; +When, to! a hand, before the startled train, +Writes in the ashes, "It shall rise again,-- +Rise and confront its elemental foes!" +The word was spoken, and the walls arose, +And ere the seasons round their brief career +The new-born temple waits the unborn year. + +Ours was the toil of many a weary day +Your smiles, your plaudits, only can repay; +We are the monarchs of the painted scenes, +You, you alone the real Kings and Queens! +Lords of the little kingdom where we meet, +We lay our gilded sceptres at your feet, +Place in your grasp our portal's silvered keys +With one brief utterance: We have tried to please. +Tell us, ye sovereigns of the new domain, +Are you content-or have we toiled in vain? + +With no irreverent glances look around +The realm you rule, for this is haunted ground! +Here stalks the Sorcerer, here the Fairy trips, +Here limps the Witch with malice-working lips, +The Graces here their snowy arms entwine, +Here dwell the fairest sisters of the Nine,-- +She who, with jocund voice and twinkling eye, +Laughs at the brood of follies as they fly; +She of the dagger and the deadly bowl, +Whose charming horrors thrill the trembling soul; +She who, a truant from celestial spheres, +In mortal semblance now and then appears, +Stealing the fairest earthly shape she can-- +Sontag or Nilsson, Lind or Malibran; +With these the spangled houri of the dance,-- +What shaft so dangerous as her melting glance, +As poised in air she spurns the earth below, +And points aloft her heavenly-minded toe! + +What were our life, with all its rents and seams, +Stripped of its purple robes, our waking dreams? +The poet's song, the bright romancer's page, +The tinselled shows that cheat us on the stage +Lead all our fancies captive at their will; +Three years or threescore, we are children still. +The little listener on his father's knee, +With wandering Sindbad ploughs the stormy sea, +With Gotham's sages hears the billows roll +(Illustrious trio of the venturous bowl, +Too early shipwrecked, for they died too soon +To see their offspring launch the great balloon); +Tracks the dark brigand to his mountain lair, +Slays the grim giant, saves the lady fair, +Fights all his country's battles o'er again +From Bunker's blazing height to Lundy's Lane; +Floats with the mighty captains as they sailed, +Before whose flag the flaming red-cross paled, +And claims the oft-told story of the scars +Scarce yet grown white, that saved the stripes and +stars! + +Children of later growth, we love the PLAY, +We love its heroes, be they grave or gay, +From squeaking, peppery, devil-defying Punch +To roaring Richard with his camel-hunch; +Adore its heroines, those immortal dames, +Time's only rivals, whom he never tames, +Whose youth, unchanging, lives while thrones decay +(Age spares the Pyramids-and Dejazet); +The saucy-aproned, razor-tongued soubrette, +The blond-haired beauty with the eyes of jet, +The gorgeous Beings whom the viewless wires +Lift to the skies in strontian-crimsoned fires, +And all the wealth of splendor that awaits +The throng that enters those Elysian gates. + +See where the hurrying crowd impatient pours, +With noise of trampling feet and flapping doors, +Streams to the numbered seat each pasteboard fits +And smooths its caudal plumage as it sits; +Waits while the slow musicians saunter in, +Till the bald leader taps his violin; +Till the old overture we know so well, +Zampa or Magic Flute or William Tell, +Has done its worst-then hark! the tinkling bell! +The crash is o'er--the crinkling curtain furled, +And to! the glories of that brighter world! + +Behold the offspring of the Thespian cart, +This full-grown temple of the magic art, +Where all the conjurers of illusion meet, +And please us all the more, the more they cheat. +These are the wizards and the witches too +Who win their honest bread by cheating you +With cheeks that drown in artificial tears +And lying skull-caps white with seventy years, +Sweet-tempered matrons changed to scolding Kates, +Maids mild as moonbeams crazed with murderous hates, +Kind, simple souls that stab and slash and slay +And stick at nothing, if it 's in the play! + +Would all the world told half as harmless lies! +Would all its real fools were half as wise +As he who blinks through dull Dundreary's eyes I +Would all the unhanged bandits of the age +Were like the peaceful ruffians of the stage! +Would all the cankers wasting town and state, +The mob of rascals, little thieves and great, +Dealers in watered milk and watered stocks, +Who lead us lambs to pasture on the rocks,-- +Shepherds--Jack Sheppards--of their city flocks,-- +The rings of rogues that rob the luckless town, +Those evil angels creeping up and down +The Jacob's ladder of the treasury stairs,-- +Not stage, but real Turpins and Macaires,-- +Could doff, like us, their knavery with their clothes, +And find it easy as forgetting oaths! + +Welcome, thrice welcome to our virgin dome, +The Muses' shrine, the Drama's new-found home +Here shall the Statesman rest his weary brain, +The worn-out Artist find his wits again; +Here Trade forget his ledger and his cares, +And sweet communion mingle Bulls and Bears; +Here shall the youthful Lover, nestling near +The shrinking maiden, her he holds most dear, +Gaze on the mimic moonlight as it falls +On painted groves, on sliding canvas walls, +And sigh, "My angel! What a life of bliss +We two could live in such a world as this!" +Here shall the timid pedants of the schools, +The gilded boors, the labor-scorning fools, +The grass-green rustic and the smoke-dried cit, +Feel each in turn the stinging lash of wit, +And as it tingles on some tender part +Each find a balsam in his neighbor's smart; +So every folly prove a fresh delight +As in the picture of our play to-night. + +Farewell! The Players wait the Prompter's call; +Friends, lovers, listeners! Welcome one and all! + + + + + +A SEA DIALOGUE + +Cabin Passenger. Man at Wheel. + +CABIN PASSENGER. +FRIEND, you seem thoughtful. I not wonder much +That he who sails the ocean should be sad. +I am myself reflective. When I think +Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked +Between his sharp, thin lips, the wedgy waves, +What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls; +What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns, +What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls, +Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes, +Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man, +The half-starved workman, and the well-fed worm; +What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books; +What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains; +Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw,-- +I, too, am silent; for all language seems +A mockery, and the speech of man is vain. +O mariner, we look upon the waves +And they rebuke our babbling. "Peace!" they say,-- +"Mortal, be still!" My noisy tongue is hushed, +And with my trembling finger on my lips +My soul exclaims in ecstasy-- + +MAN AT WHEEL. +Belay! + +CABIN PASSENGER. +Ah yes! "Delay,"--it calls, "nor haste to break +The charm of stillness with an idle word!" +O mariner, I love thee, for thy thought +Strides even with my own, nay, flies before. +Thou art a brother to the wind and wave; +Have they not music for thine ear as mine, +When the wild tempest makes thy ship his lyre, +Smiting a cavernous basso from the shrouds +And climbing up his gamut through the stays, +Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till it shrills +An alto keener than the locust sings, +And all the great Aeolian orchestra +Storms out its mad sonata in the gale? +Is not the scene a wondrous and-- + +MAN AT WHEEL. + A vast! + +CABIN PASSENGER. +Ah yes, a vast, a vast and wondrous scene! +I see thy soul is open as the day +That holds the sunshine in its azure bowl +To all the solemn glories of the deep. +Tell me, O mariner, dost thou never feel +The grandeur of thine office,--to control +The keel that cuts the ocean like a knife +And leaves a wake behind it like a seam +In the great shining garment of the world? + +MAN AT WHEEL. +Belay y'r jaw, y' swab! y' hoss-marine! +(To the Captain.) +Ay, ay, Sir! Stiddy, Sir! Sou'wes' b' sou'! + +November 10, 1864. + + + + + +CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC + +BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF DEAD AND LIVE LANGUAGES + + +PHI BETA KAPPA.--CAMBRIDGE, 1867 + +You bid me sing,--can I forget +The classic ode of days gone by,-- +How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette +Exclaimed, "Anacreon, geron ei"? +"Regardez done," those ladies said,-- +"You're getting bald and wrinkled too +When summer's roses all are shed, +Love 's nullum ite, voyez-vous!" + +In vain ce brave Anacreon's cry, +"Of Love alone my banjo sings" +(Erota mounon). "Etiam si,-- +Eh b'en?" replied the saucy things,-- +"Go find a maid whose hair is gray, +And strike your lyre,--we sha'n't complain; +But parce nobis, s'il vous plait,-- +Voila Adolphe! Voila Eugene!" + +Ah, jeune Lisette! Ah, belle Fifine! +Anacreon's lesson all must learn; +O kairos oxiis; Spring is green, +But Acer Hyems waits his turn +I hear you whispering from the dust, +"Tiens, mon cher, c'est toujours so,-- +The brightest blade grows dim with rust, +The fairest meadow white with snow!" + +You do not mean it! _Not_ encore? +Another string of playday rhymes? +You 've heard me--nonne est?-before, +Multoties,-more than twenty times; +Non possum,--vraiment,--pas du tout, +I cannot! I am loath to shirk; +But who will listen if I do, +My memory makes such shocking work? + +Ginosko. Scio. Yes, I 'm told +Some ancients like my rusty lay, +As Grandpa Noah loved the old +Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day. +I used to carol like the birds, +But time my wits has quite unfixed, +Et quoad verba,--for my words,-- +Ciel! Eheu! Whe-ew!--how they're mixed! + +Mehercle! Zeu! Diable! how +My thoughts were dressed when I was young, +But tempus fugit! see them now +Half clad in rags of every tongue! +O philoi, fratres, chers amis +I dare not court the youthful Muse, +For fear her sharp response should be, +"Papa Anacreon, please excuse!" + +Adieu! I 've trod my annual track +How long!--let others count the miles,-- +And peddled out my rhyming pack +To friends who always paid in smiles. +So, laissez-moi! some youthful wit +No doubt has wares he wants to show; +And I am asking, "Let me sit," +Dum ille clamat, "Dos pou sto!" + + + + + +FOR THE CENTENNIAL DINNER + +OF THE PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER, OR THE LONG WHARF, +APRIL 16, 1873 + +DEAR friends, we are strangers; we never before +Have suspected what love to each other we bore; +But each of us all to his neighbor is dear, +Whose heart has a throb for our time-honored pier. + +As I look on each brother proprietor's face, +I could open my arms in a loving embrace; +What wonder that feelings, undreamed of so long, +Should burst all at once in a blossom of song! + +While I turn my fond glance on the monarch of piers, +Whose throne has stood firm through his eightscore of years, +My thought travels backward and reaches the day +When they drove the first pile on the edge of the bay. + + +See! The joiner, the shipwright, the smith from his forge, +The redcoat, who shoulders his gun for King George, +The shopman, the 'prentice, the boys from the lane, +The parson, the doctor with gold-headed cane, + +Come trooping down King Street, where now may be seen +The pulleys and ropes of a mighty machine; +The weight rises slowly; it drops with a thud; +And, to! the great timber sinks deep in the mud! + +They are gone, the stout craftsmen that hammered the piles, +And the square-toed old boys in the three-cornered tiles; +The breeches, the buckles, have faded from view, +And the parson's white wig and the ribbon-tied queue. + +The redcoats have vanished; the last grenadier +Stepped into the boat from the end of our pier; +They found that our hills were not easy to climb, +And the order came, "Countermarch, double-quick time!" + +They are gone, friend and foe,--anchored fast at the pier, +Whence no vessel brings back its pale passengers here; +But our wharf, like a lily, still floats on the flood, +Its breast in the sunshine, its roots in the mud. + +Who--who that has loved it so long and so well-- +The flower of his birthright would barter or sell? +No: pride of the bay, while its ripples shall run, +You shall pass, as an heirloom, from father to son! + +Let me part with the acres my grandfather bought, +With the bonds that my uncle's kind legacy brought, +With my bank-shares,--old "Union," whose ten per cent stock +Stands stiff through the storms as the Eddystone rock; + +With my rights (or my wrongs) in the "Erie,"--alas! +With my claims on the mournful and "Mutual Mass.;" +With my "Phil. Wil. and Balt.," with my "C. B. and Q.;" +But I never, no never, will sell out of you. + +We drink to thy past and thy future to-day, +Strong right arm of Boston, stretched out o'er the bay. +May the winds waft the wealth of all nations to thee, +And thy dividends flow like the waves of the sea! + + + + + +A POEM SERVED TO ORDER + +PHI BETA KAPPA, JUNE 26, 1873 + +THE Caliph ordered up his cook, +And, scowling with a fearful look +That meant,--We stand no gammon,-- +"To-morrow, just at two," he said, +"Hassan, our cook, will lose his head, +Or serve us up a salmon." + +"Great sire," the trembling chef replied, +"Lord of the Earth and all beside, +Sun, Moon, and Stars, and so on +(Look in Eothen,-there you'll find +A list of titles. Never mind; +I have n't time to go on:) + +"Great sire," and so forth, thus he spoke, +"Your Highness must intend a joke; +It doesn't stand to reason +For one to order salmon brought, +Unless that fish is sometimes caught, +And also is in season. + +"Our luck of late is shocking bad, +In fact, the latest catch we had +(We kept the matter shady), +But, hauling in our nets,--alack! +We found no salmon, but a sack +That held your honored Lady!" + +"Allah is great!" the Caliph said, +"My poor Zuleika, you are dead, +I once took interest in you." +"Perhaps, my Lord, you'd like to know +We cut the lines and let her go." +"Allah be praised! Continue." + +"It is n't hard one's hook to bait, +And, squatting down, to watch and wait, +To see the cork go under; +At last suppose you've got your bite, +You twitch away with all your might,-- +You've hooked an eel, by thunder!" + +The Caliph patted Hassan's head +"Slave, thou hast spoken well," he said, +"And won thy master's favor. +Yes; since what happened t' other morn +The salmon of the Golden Horn +Might have a doubtful flavor. + +"That last remark about the eel +Has also justice that we feel +Quite to our satisfaction. +To-morrow we dispense with fish, +And, for the present, if you wish, +You'll keep your bulbous fraction." + +"Thanks! thanks!" the grateful chef replied, +His nutrient feature showing wide +The gleam of arches dental: +"To cut my head off wouldn't pay, +I find it useful every day, +As well as ornamental." + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +Brothers, I hope you will not fail +To see the moral of my tale +And kindly to receive it. +You know your anniversary pie +Must have its crust, though hard and dry, +And some prefer to leave it. + +How oft before these youths were born +I've fished in Fancy's Golden Horn +For what the Muse might send me! +How gayly then I cast the line, +When all the morning sky was mine, +And Hope her flies would lend me! + +And now I hear our despot's call, +And come, like Hassan, to the hall,-- +If there's a slave, I am one,-- +My bait no longer flies, but worms! +I 've caught--Lord bless me! how he squirms! +An eel, and not a salmon! + + + + + +THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH + +READ AT THE MEETING OF THE HARVARD ALUMNI +ASSOCIATION, JUNE 25, 1873 + +THE fount the Spaniard sought in vain +Through all the land of flowers +Leaps glittering from the sandy plain +Our classic grove embowers; +Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles, +Here dwells eternal spring, +And warm from Hope's elysian isles +The winds their perfume bring. + +Here every leaf is in the bud, +Each singing throat in tune, +And bright o'er evening's silver flood +Shines the young crescent moon. +What wonder Age forgets his staff +And lays his glasses down, +And gray-haired grandsires look and laugh +As when their locks were brown! + +With ears grown dull and eyes grown dim +They greet the joyous day +That calls them to the fountain's brim +To wash their years away. +What change has clothed the ancient sire +In sudden youth? For, to! +The Judge, the Doctor, and the Squire +Are Jack and Bill and Joe! + +And be his titles what they will, +In spite of manhood's claim +The graybeard is a school-boy still +And loves his school-boy name; +It calms the ruler's stormy breast +Whom hurrying care pursues, +And brings a sense of peace and rest, +Like slippers after shoes.-- + +And what are all the prizes won +To youth's enchanted view? +And what is all the man has done +To what the boy may do? +O blessed fount, whose waters flow +Alike for sire and son, +That melts our winter's frost and snow +And makes all ages one! + +I pledge the sparkling fountain's tide, +That flings its golden shower +With age to fill and youth to guide, +Still fresh in morning flower +Flow on with ever-widening stream, +In ever-brightening morn,-- +Our story's pride, our future's dream, +The hope of times unborn! + + + + + +NO TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME + +THERE is no time like the old time, when you and I were young, +When the buds of April blossomed, and the birds of spring-time sung! +The garden's brightest glories by summer suns are nursed, +But oh, the sweet, sweet violets, the flowers that opened first! + +There is no place like the old place, where you and I were born, +Where we lifted first our eyelids on the splendors of the morn +From the milk-white breast that warmed us, from the clinging arms that + bore, +Where the dear eyes glistened o'er us that will look on us no more! + +There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days, +No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise +Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold; +But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold. + + +There is no love like the old love, that we courted in our pride; +Though our leaves are falling, falling, and we're fading side by side, +There are blossoms all around us with the colors of our dawn, +And we live in borrowed sunshine when the day-star is withdrawn. + +There are no times like the old times,--they shall never be forgot! +There is no place like the old place,--keep green the dear old spot! +There are no friends like our old friends,--may Heaven prolong their +lives +There are no loves like our old loves,--God bless our loving wives! + +1865. + + + + + +A HYMN OF PEACE + +SUNG AT THE "JUBILEE," JUNE 15, 1869, +TO THE MUSIC OF SELLER'S "AMERICAN HYMN" + +ANGEL of Peace, thou hast wandered too long! +Spread thy white wings to the sunshine of love! +Come while our voices are blended in song,-- +Fly to our ark like the storm-beaten dove! +Fly to our ark on the wings of the dove,-- +Speed o'er the far-sounding billows of song, +Crowned with thine olive-leaf garland of love,-- +Angel of Peace, thou hast waited too long! + +Joyous we meet, on this altar of thine +Mingling the gifts we have gathered for thee, +Sweet with the odors of myrtle and pine, +Breeze of the prairie and breath of the sea,-- +Meadow and mountain and forest and sea! +Sweet is the fragrance of myrtle and pine, +Sweeter the incense we offer to thee, +Brothers once more round this altar of thine! + +Angels of Bethlehem, answer the strain! +Hark! a new birth-song is filling the sky!-- +Loud as the storm-wind that tumbles the main +Bid the full breath of the organ reply,-- +Let the loud tempest of voices reply,-- +Roll its long surge like the-earth-shaking main! +Swell the vast song till it mounts to the sky! +Angels of Bethlehem, echo the strain! + + + + + + + NOTES. + +THE BOYS. +The members of the Harvard College class of 1829 referred to in this poem +are: "Doctor," Francis Thomas; "Judge," G. T. Bigelow, Chief Justice of +the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; "O Speaker," Hon. Francis B. +Crowninshield, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; +"Mr. Mayor," G. W. Richardson, of Worcester,Mass.; "Member of Congress," +Hon. George T. Davis; "Reverend," James Freeman Clarke; "boy with the +grave mathematical look," Benjamin Peirce; "boy with a three-decker +brain," Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, of the Supreme Court of the United +States; "nice youngster of excellent pith," S. F. Smith, author of "My +Country, 't is of Thee." + +"That lovely, bright-eyed boy." William Sturgis. + +"Who faced the storm so long." Francis B. Crowninshield. + +"Our many featured friend." George T. Davis. + +"The close-clinging dulcamara." The "bitter-sweet" of New England is the +_Celastrus scandens_, "bourreau des arbres" of the Canadian French. + +"All armed with picks and spades." The captured slaves were at this time +organized as pioneers. + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + VOL. III + + + +CONTENTS + +BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS + GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER, DECEMBER 15, 1874 + "LUCY." FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + HYMN FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW, HINGHAM, + OCTOBER 7, 1875 + A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + OLD CAMBRIDGE, JULY 3, 1875 + WELCOME TO THE NATIONS, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + A FAMILIAR LETTER + UNSATISFIED + HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + THE FIRST FAN + To R. B. H. + THE SHIP OF STATE + A FAMILY RECORD + +THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS. + THE IRON GATE + VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETRORSUM + MY AVIARY + ON THE THRESHOLD + TO GEORGE PEABODY + AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB + FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + TWO SONNETS: HARVARD + THE COMING ERA + IN RESPONSE + FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE + WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB + AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + THE SCHOOL-BOY + THE SILENT MELODY + OUR HOME--OUR COUNTRY + POEM AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS + MEDICAL SOCIETY + RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME + +BEFORE THE CURFEW + AT MY FIRESIDE + AT THE SATURDAY CLUB + OUR DEAD SINGER. H. W. L. + TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. + I. AT THE SUMMIT + II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS + FOR THE BLIND + BOSTON TO FLORENCE + AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL, MARCH 8, 1882 + POEM FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF + HARVARD COLLEGE + POST-PRANDIAL: PHI BETA KAPPA, 1881 + THE FLANEUR: DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS, 1882 + AVE + KING'S CHAPEL READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY + HYMN FOR THE SAME OCCASION + HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + HYMN READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL AT + HUDSON, WISCONSIN, JUNE 7, 1887 + ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + THE GOLDEN FLOWER + HAIL, COLUMBIA! + POEM FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON, + PRESENTED + BY GEORGE CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + TO THE POETS WHO ONLY READ AND LISTEN + FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY + FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S + JAMES RUSSELL LO WELL: 1819-1891 + +POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS. + TO THE ELEVEN LADIES WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP + THE PEAU DE CHAGRIN OF STATE STREET + CACOETHES SCRIBENDI + THE ROSE AND THE FERN + I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU + LA MAISON D'OR BAR HARBOR + TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE + THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES + TARTARUS + AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD + INVITA MINERVA + +READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS + TO MY OLD READERS + THE BANKER'S SECRET + THE EXILE'S SECRET + THE LOVER'S SECRET + THE STATESMAN'S SECRET + THE MOTHER'S SECRET + THE SECRET OF THE STARS + +VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO + FIRST VERSES: TRANSLATION FROM THE THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS + THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR + THE TOADSTOOL + THE SPECTRE PIG + TO A CAGED LION + THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY + ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE: "A SPANISH GIRL REVERIE" + A ROMAN AQUEDUCT + FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOURNAL + LA GRISETTE + OUR YANKEE GIRLS + L'INCONNUE + STANZAS + LINES BY A CLERK + THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE + THE POET'S LOT + TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER + TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A GENTLEMAN" IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY + THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN + A NOONTIDE LYRIC + THE HOT SEASON + A PORTRAIT + AN EVENING THOUGHT. WRITTEN AT SEA + THE WASP AND THE HORNET + "QUI VIVE?" + +NOTES + + + + + + BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + + AND OTHER POEMS + + 1874-1877 + + + +GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + +AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY + +'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers +All the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls"; +When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story, +To you the words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals. + +I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April running battle; +Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red-coats still; +But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day looms up before me, +When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of Bunker's Hill. + +'T was a peaceful summer's morning, when the first thing gave us warning +Was the booming of the cannon from the river and the shore: +"Child," says grandma, "what 's the matter, what is all this noise and + clatter? +Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder us once more?" + +Poor old soul! my sides were shaking in the midst of all my quaking, +To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began to roar: +She had seen the burning village, and the slaughter and the pillage, +When the Mohawks killed her father with their bullets through his door. + +Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't you fret and worry any, +For I'll soon come back and tell you whether this is work or play; +There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a minute"-- +For a minute then I started. I was gone the live-long day. + +No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grimacing; +Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels; +God forbid your ever knowing, when there's blood around her flowing, +How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet house-hold feels! + +In the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping +Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, +With a knot of women round him,-it was lucky I had found him, +So I followed with the others, and the Corporal marched before. + +They were making for the steeple,--the old soldier and his people; +The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creaking stair. +Just across the narrow river--oh, so close it made me shiver!-- +Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but yesterday was bare. + +Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew who stood behind it, +Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stubborn walls were dumb +Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon each other, +And their lips were white with terror as they said, THE HOUR HAS COME! + +The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we tasted, +And our heads were almost splitting with the cannons' deafening thrill, +When a figure tall and stately round the rampart strode sedately; +It was PRESCOTT, one since told me; he commanded on the hill. + +Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his manly figure, +With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so straight and tall; +Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for pleasure, +Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he walked around the wall. + +At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' ranks were + forming; +At noon in marching order they were moving to the piers; +How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked far down, and + listened +To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted grenadiers! + +At length the men have started, with a cheer (it seemed faint-hearted), +In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on their backs, +And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea-fight's slaughter, +Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along their tracks. + +So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order; +And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers, soldiers still: +The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting,-- +At last they're moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill. + +We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing,-- +Now the front rank fires a volley,--they have thrown away their shot; +For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying, +Our people need not hurry; so they wait and answer not. + +Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear sometimes and tipple), +He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French war) before,-- +Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were hearing,-- +And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty belfry floor:-- + +"Oh! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's shillin's, +But ye 'll waste a ton of powder afore a 'rebel' falls; +You may bang the dirt and welcome, they're as safe as Dan'l Malcolm +Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splintered with your balls!" + +In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepidation +Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh breathless all; +Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety belfry railing, +We are crowding up against them like the waves against a wall. + +Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are nearer,--nearer,--nearer, +When a flash--a curling smoke-wreath--then a crash--the steeple shakes-- +The deadly truce is ended; the tempest's shroud is rended; +Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud it breaks! + +Oh the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black smoke blows over! +The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower rakes his hay; +Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong crowd is flying +Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into spray. + +Then we cried, "The troops are routed! they are beat--it can't be + doubted! +God be thanked, the fight is over!"--Ah! the grim old soldier's smile! +"Tell us, tell us why you look so?" (we could hardly speak, we shook so), +"Are they beaten? Are they beaten? ARE they beaten?"--"Wait a while." + +Oh the trembling and the terror! for too soon we saw our error: +They are baffled, not defeated; we have driven them back in vain; +And the columns that were scattered, round the colors that were tattered, +Toward the sullen, silent fortress turn their belted breasts again. + +All at once, as we are gazing, lo the roofs of Charlestown blazing! +They have fired the harmless village; in an hour it will be down! +The Lord in heaven confound them, rain his fire and brimstone round them, +The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a peaceful town! + +They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see each massive column +As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting walls so steep. +Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste departed? +Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep? + +Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder! +Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earth-work they will swarm! +But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is broken, +And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm! + +So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water, +Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe; +And we shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they have run + for: +They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle 's over now!" + +And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough old soldier's features, +Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask: +"Not sure," he said; "keep quiet,--once more, I guess, they 'll try it-- +Here's damnation to the cut-throats!"--then he handed me his flask, + +Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of old Jamaiky; +I 'm afeard there 'll be more trouble afore the job is done"; +So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow, +Standing there from early morning when the firing was begun. + +All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial, +As the hands kept creeping, creeping,--they were creeping round to four, +When the old man said, "They're forming with their bagonets fixed for + storming: +It 's the death-grip that's a coming,--they will try the works once + more." + +With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring, +The deadly wall before them, in close array they come; +Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling,-- +Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum. + +Over heaps all torn and gory--shall I tell the fearful story, +How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck; +How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated, +With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck? + +It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted, +And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair: +When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted,-- +On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare. + +And I heard through all the flurry, "Send for WARREN! hurry! hurry! +Tell him here's a soldier bleeding, and he 'll come and dress his + wound!" +Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death and sorrow, +How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark and bloody ground. + +Who the youth was, what his name was, where the place from which he came +was, +Who had brought him from the battle, and had left him at our door, +He could not speak to tell us; but 't was one of our brave fellows, +As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying soldier wore. + +For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered round him crying,-- +And they said, "Oh, how they'll miss him!" and, "What will his mother + do?" +Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has been dozing, +He faintly murmured, "Mother!"--and--I saw his eyes were blue. + +"Why, grandma, how you 're winking!" Ah, my child, it sets me thinking +Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived along; +So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like a--mother, +Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-checked, and strong. + +And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant summer weather,-- +"Please to tell us what his name was?" Just your own, my little dear,-- +There's his picture Copley painted: we became so well acquainted, +That--in short, that's why I 'm grandma, and you children all are here! + + + + + +AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER + +DECEMBER 15, 1874 + +I SUPPOSE it's myself that you're making allusion to +And bringing the sense of dismay and confusion to. +Of course some must speak,--they are always selected to, +But pray what's the reason that I am expected to? +I'm not fond of wasting my breath as those fellows do; +That want to be blowing forever as bellows do; +Their legs are uneasy, but why will you jog any +That long to stay quiet beneath the mahogany? + +Why, why call me up with your battery of flatteries? +You say "He writes poetry,"--that 's what the matter is +"It costs him no trouble--a pen full of ink or two +And the poem is done in the time of a wink or two; +As for thoughts--never mind--take the ones that lie uppermost, +And the rhymes used by Milton and Byron and Tupper most; +The lines come so easy! at one end he jingles 'em, +At the other with capital letters he shingles 'em,-- +Why, the thing writes itself, and before he's half done with it +He hates to stop writing, he has such good fun with it!" + +Ah, that is the way in which simple ones go about +And draw a fine picture of things they don't know about! +We all know a kitten, but come to a catamount +The beast is a stranger when grown up to that amount, +(A stranger we rather prefer should n't visit us, +A _felis_ whose advent is far from felicitous.) +The boy who can boast that his trap has just got a mouse +Must n't draw it and write underneath "hippopotamus"; +Or say unveraciously, "This is an elephant,"-- +Don't think, let me beg, these examples irrelevant,-- +What they mean is just this--that a thing to be painted well +Should always be something with which we're acquainted well. + +You call on your victim for "things he has plenty of,-- +Those copies of verses no doubt at least twenty of; +His desk is crammed full, for he always keeps writing 'em +And reading to friends as his way of delighting 'em!" +I tell you this writing of verses means business,-- +It makes the brain whirl in a vortex of dizziness +You think they are scrawled in the languor of laziness-- +I tell you they're squeezed by a spasm of craziness, +A fit half as bad as the staggering vertigos +That seize a poor fellow and down in the dirt he goes! + +And therefore it chimes with the word's etytology +That the sons of Apollo are great on apology, +For the writing of verse is a struggle mysterious +And the gayest of rhymes is a matter that's serious. +For myself, I'm relied on by friends in extremities, +And I don't mind so much if a comfort to them it is; +'T is a pleasure to please, and the straw that can tickle us +Is a source of enjoyment though slightly ridiculous. + +I am up for a--something--and since I 've begun with it, +I must give you a toast now before I have done with it. +Let me pump at my wits as they pumped the Cochituate +That moistened--it may be--the very last bit you ate: +Success to our publishers, authors and editors +To our debtors good luck,--pleasant dreams to our creditors; +May the monthly grow yearly, till all we are groping for +Has reached the fulfilment we're all of us hoping for; +Till the bore through the tunnel--it makes me let off a sigh +To think it may possibly ruin my prophecy-- +Has been punned on so often 't will never provoke again +One mild adolescent to make the old joke again; +Till abstinent, all-go-to-meeting society +Has forgotten the sense of the word inebriety; +Till the work that poor Hannah and Bridget and Phillis do +The humanized, civilized female gorillas do; +Till the roughs, as we call them, grown loving and dutiful, +Shall worship the true and the pure and the beautiful, +And, preying no longer as tiger and vulture do, +All read the "Atlantic" as persons of culture do! + + + + + +"LUCY" + +FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + +"Lucy."--The old familiar name +Is now, as always, pleasant, +Its liquid melody the same +Alike in past or present; +Let others call you what they will, +I know you'll let me use it; +To me your name is Lucy still, +I cannot bear to lose it. + +What visions of the past return +With Lucy's image blended! +What memories from the silent urn +Of gentle lives long ended! +What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn, +What starry aspirations, +That filled the misty days unborn +With fancy's coruscations! + +Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly sped +From April to November; +The summer blossoms all are shed +That you and I remember; +But while the vanished years we share +With mingling recollections, +How all their shadowy features wear +The hue of old affections! + +Love called you. He who stole your heart +Of sunshine half bereft us; +Our household's garland fell apart +The morning that you left us; +The tears of tender girlhood streamed +Through sorrow's opening sluices; +Less sweet our garden's roses seemed, +Less blue its flower-de-luces. + +That old regret is turned to smiles, +That parting sigh to greeting; +I send my heart-throb fifty miles +Through every line 't is beating; +God grant you many and happy years, +Till when the last has crowned you +The dawn of endless day appears, +And heaven is shining round you! + +October 11, 1875. + + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR +ANDREW, HINGHAM, OCTOBER 7, 1875 + +BEHOLD the shape our eyes have known! +It lives once more in changeless stone; +So looked in mortal face and form +Our guide through peril's deadly storm. + +But hushed the beating heart we knew, +That heart so tender, brave, and true, +Firm as the rooted mountain rock, +Pure as the quarry's whitest block! + +Not his beneath the blood-red star +To win the soldier's envied sear; +Unarmed he battled for the right, +In Duty's never-ending fight. + +Unconquered will, unslumbering eye, +Faith such as bids the martyr die, +The prophet's glance, the master's hand +To mould the work his foresight planned, + +These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent +For justice, mercy, truth, he spent, +First to avenge the traitorous blow, +And first to lift the vanquished foe. + +Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait +The pilot of the Pilgrim State! +Too large his fame for her alone,-- +A nation claims him as her own! + + + + + +A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE + +READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC HALL, +FEBRUARY 8, 1876, IN MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + + +I. + +LEADER of armies, Israel's God, +Thy soldier's fight is won! +Master, whose lowly path he trod, +Thy servant's work is done! + +No voice is heard from Sinai's steep +Our wandering feet to guide; +From Horeb's rock no waters leap; +No Jordan's waves divide; + +No prophet cleaves our western sky +On wheels of whirling fire; +No shepherds hear the song on high +Of heaven's angelic choir. + +Yet here as to the patriarch's tent +God's angel comes a guest; +He comes on heaven's high errand sent, +In earth's poor raiment drest. + +We see no halo round his brow +Till love its own recalls, +And, like a leaf that quits the bough, +The mortal vesture falls. + +In autumn's chill declining day, +Ere winter's killing frost, +The message came; so passed away +The friend our earth has lost. + +Still, Father, in thy love we trust; +Forgive us if we mourn +The saddening hour that laid in dust +His robe of flesh outworn. + + +II. + +How long the wreck-strewn journey seems +To reach the far-off past +That woke his youth from peaceful dreams +With Freedom's trumpet-blast. + +Along her classic hillsides rung +The Paynim's battle-cry, +And like a red-cross knight he sprung +For her to live or die. + +No trustier service claimed the wreath +For Sparta's bravest son; +No truer soldier sleeps beneath +The mound of Marathon; + +Yet not for him the warrior's grave +In front of angry foes; +To lift, to shield, to help, to save, +The holier task he chose. + +He touched the eyelids of the blind, +And lo! the veil withdrawn, +As o'er the midnight of the mind +He led the light of dawn. + +He asked not whence the fountains roll +No traveller's foot has found, +But mapped the desert of the soul +Untracked by sight or sound. + +What prayers have reached the sapphire throne, +By silent fingers spelt, +For him who first through depths unknown +His doubtful pathway felt, + +Who sought the slumbering sense that lay +Close shut with bolt and bar, +And showed awakening thought the ray +Of reason's morning star. + +Where'er he moved, his shadowy form +The sightless orbs would seek, +And smiles of welcome light and warm +The lips that could not speak. + +No labored line, no sculptor's art, +Such hallowed memory needs; +His tablet is the human heart, +His record loving deeds. + + +III. + +The rest that earth denied is thine,-- +Ah, is it rest? we ask, +Or, traced by knowledge more divine, +Some larger, nobler task? + +Had but those boundless fields of blue +One darkened sphere like this; +But what has heaven for thee to do +In realms of perfect bliss? + +No cloud to lift, no mind to clear, +No rugged path to smooth, +No struggling soul to help and cheer, +No mortal grief to soothe! + +Enough; is there a world of love, +No more we ask to know; +The hand will guide thy ways above +That shaped thy task below. + + + + + +JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + +TRAINED in the holy art whose lifted shield +Wards off the darts a never-slumbering foe, +By hearth and wayside lurking, waits to throw, +Oppression taught his helpful arm to wield +The slayer's weapon: on the murderous field +The fiery bolt he challenged laid him low, +Seeking its noblest victim. Even so +The charter of a nation must be sealed! +The healer's brow the hero's honors crowned, +From lowliest duty called to loftiest deed. +Living, the oak-leaf wreath his temples bound; +Dying, the conqueror's laurel was his meed, +Last on the broken ramparts' turf to bleed +Where Freedom's victory in defeat was found. + +June 11, 1875. + + + + + +OLD CAMBRIDGE + +JULY 3, 1875 + +AND can it be you've found a place +Within this consecrated space, +That makes so fine a show, +For one of Rip Van Winkle's race? +And is it really so? +Who wants an old receipted bill? +Who fishes in the Frog-pond still? +Who digs last year's potato hill?-- +That's what he'd like to know! + +And were it any spot on earth +Save this dear home that gave him birth +Some scores of years ago, +He had not come to spoil your mirth +And chill your festive glow; +But round his baby-nest he strays, +With tearful eye the scene surveys, +His heart unchanged by changing days, +That's what he'd have you know. + +Can you whose eyes not yet are dim +Live o'er the buried past with him, +And see the roses blow +When white-haired men were Joe and Jim +Untouched by winter's snow? +Or roll the years back one by one +As Judah's monarch backed the sun, +And see the century just begun?-- +That's what he'd like to know! + +I come, but as the swallow dips, +Just touching with her feather-tips +The shining wave below, +To sit with pleasure-murmuring lips +And listen to the flow +Of Elmwood's sparkling Hippocrene, +To tread once more my native green, +To sigh unheard, to smile unseen,-- +That's what I'd have you know. + +But since the common lot I've shared +(We all are sitting "unprepared," +Like culprits in a row, +Whose heads are down, whose necks are bared +To wait the headsman's blow), +I'd like to shift my task to you, +By asking just a thing or two +About the good old times I knew,-- +Here's what I want to know. + +The yellow meetin' house--can you tell +Just where it stood before it fell +Prey of the vandal foe,-- +Our dear old temple, loved so well, +By ruthless hands laid low? +Where, tell me, was the Deacon's pew? +Whose hair was braided in a queue? +(For there were pig-tails not a few,)-- +That's what I'd like to know. + +The bell--can you recall its clang? +And how the seats would slam and bang? +The voices high and low? +The basso's trump before he sang? +The viol and its bow? +Where was it old Judge Winthrop sat? +Who wore the last three-cornered hat? +Was Israel Porter lean or fat?-- +That's what I'd like to know. + +Tell where the market used to be +That stood beside the murdered tree? +Whose dog to church would go? +Old Marcus Reemie, who was he? +Who were the brothers Snow? +Does not your memory slightly fail +About that great September gale?-- +Whereof one told a moving tale, +As Cambridge boys should know. + +When Cambridge was a simple town, +Say just when Deacon William Brown +(Last door in yonder row), +For honest silver counted down, +His groceries would bestow?-- +For those were days when money meant +Something that jingled as you went,-- +No hybrid like the nickel cent, +I'd have you all to know, + +But quarter, ninepence, pistareen, +And fourpence hapennies in between, +All metal fit to show, +Instead of rags in stagnant green, +The scum of debts we owe; +How sad to think such stuff should be +Our Wendell's cure-all recipe,-- +Not Wendell H., but Wendell P.,-- +The one you all must know! + +I question--but you answer not-- +Dear me! and have I quite forgot +How fivescore years ago, +Just on this very blessed spot, +The summer leaves below, +Before his homespun ranks arrayed +In green New England's elmbough shade +The great Virginian drew the blade +King George full soon should know! + +O George the Third! you found it true +Our George was more than double you, +For nature made him so. +Not much an empire's crown can do +If brains are scant and slow,-- +Ah, not like that his laurel crown +Whose presence gilded with renown +Our brave old Academic town, +As all her children know! + +So here we meet with loud acclaim +To tell mankind that here he came, +With hearts that throb and glow; +Ours is a portion of his fame +Our trumpets needs must blow! +On yonder hill the Lion fell, +But here was chipped the eagle's shell,-- +That little hatchet did it well, +As all the world shall know! + + + + + +WELCOME TO THE NATIONS + +PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + +BRIGHT on the banners of lily and rose +Lo! the last sun of our century sets! +Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes, +All but her friendships the nation forgets +All but her friends and their welcome forgets! +These are around her; but where are her foes? +Lo, while the sun of her century sets, +Peace with her garlands of lily and rose! + +Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell +Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around +Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell; +Welcome! the walls of her temple resound! +Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound +Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell; +Welcome! still whisper the echoes around; +Welcome I still trembles on Liberty's bell! + +Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea +Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine; +Welcome, once more, to the land of the free, +Shadowed alike by the pahn and the pine; +Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine, +"Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free"; +Over your children their branches entwine, +Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea! + + + + + +A FAMILIAR LETTER + +TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS + +YES, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying; +Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold? +I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying, +If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold. + +Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies, +As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool; +Just think! all the poems and plays and romances +Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool! + +You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes, +And take all you want,--not a copper they cost,-- +What is there to hinder your picking out phrases +For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"? + +Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero, +Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean; +Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero +Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine. + +There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother +That boarding-school flavor of which we 're afraid,-- +There is "lush" is a good one, and "swirl" another,-- +Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made. + +With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes +You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell; +You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses, +And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!" + +Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions +For winning the laurels to which you aspire, +By docking the tails of the two prepositions +I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire. + +As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty +For ringing the changes on metrical chimes; +A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty +Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes. + +Let me show you a picture--'tis far from irrelevant-- +By a famous old hand in the arts of design; +'T is only a photographed sketch of an elephant,-- +The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine. + +How easy! no troublesome colors to lay on, +It can't have fatigued him,--no, not in the least,-- +A dash here and there with a hap-hazard crayon, +And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast. + +Just so with your verse,--'t is as easy as sketching,-- +You--can reel off a song without knitting your brow, +As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching; +It is nothing at all, if you only know how. + +Well; imagine you've printed your volume of verses: +Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame, +Your poems the eloquent school-boy rehearses, +Her album the school-girl presents for your name; + +Each morning the post brings you autograph letters; +You'll answer them promptly,--an hour is n't much +For the honor of sharing a page with your betters, +With magistrates, members of Congress, and such. + +Of course you're delighted to serve the committees +That come with requests from the country all round, +You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties +When they've got a new schoolhouse, or poor-house, or pound. + +With a hymn for the saints and a song for the sinners, +You go and are welcome wherever you please; +You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners, +You've a seat on the platform among the grandees. + +At length your mere presence becomes a sensation, +Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim +With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration, +As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That Is him!" + +But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous, +So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched, +Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us, +The ovum was human from which you were hatched. + +No will of your own with its puny compulsion +Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre; +It comes, if at all, like the Sibyl's convulsion +And touches the brain with a finger of fire. + +So perhaps, after all, it's as well to be quiet, +If you've nothing you think is worth saying in prose, +As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet +To the critics, by publishing, as you propose. + +But it's all of no use, and I 'm sorry I've written,-- +I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf; +For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten, +And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself. + + + + + +UNSATISFIED + +"ONLY a housemaid!" She looked from the kitchen,-- +Neat was the kitchen and tidy was she; +There at her window a sempstress sat stitching; +"Were I a sempstress, how happy I'd be!" + +"Only a Queen!" She looked over the waters,-- +Fair was her kingdom and mighty was she; +There sat an Empress, with Queens for her daughters; +"Were I an Empress, how happy I'd be!" + +Still the old frailty they all of them trip in! +Eve in her daughters is ever the same; +Give her all Eden, she sighs for a pippin; +Give her an Empire, she pines for a name! + +May 8, 1876. + + + + + +HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + +DEDICATED BY A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE COLLEGIAN, +1830, TO THE EDITORS OF THE HARVARD ADVOCATE, 1876. + +'T WAS on the famous trotting-ground, +The betting men were gathered round +From far and near; the "cracks" were there +Whose deeds the sporting prints declare +The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, +The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, +With these a third--and who is he +That stands beside his fast b. g.? +Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name +So fills the nasal trump of fame. +There too stood many a noted steed +Of Messenger and Morgan breed; +Green horses also, not a few; +Unknown as yet what they could do; +And all the hacks that know so well +The scourgings of the Sunday swell. + +Blue are the skies of opening day; +The bordering turf is green with May; +The sunshine's golden gleam is thrown +On sorrel, chestnut, bay, and roan; +The horses paw and prance and neigh, +Fillies and colts like kittens play, +And dance and toss their rippled manes +Shining and soft as silken skeins; +Wagons and gigs are ranged about, +And fashion flaunts her gay turn-out; +Here stands--each youthful Jehu's dream +The jointed tandem, ticklish team! +And there in ampler breadth expand +The splendors of the four-in-hand; +On faultless ties and glossy tiles +The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; +(The style's the man, so books avow; +The style's the woman, anyhow); +From flounces frothed with creamy lace +Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, +Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, +Or stares the wiry pet of Skye,-- +O woman, in your hours of ease +So shy with us, so free with these! + +"Come on! I 'll bet you two to one +I 'll make him do it!" "Will you? Done!" + +What was it who was bound to do? +I did not hear and can't tell you,-- +Pray listen till my story's through. + +Scarce noticed, back behind the rest, +By cart and wagon rudely prest, +The parson's lean and bony bay +Stood harnessed in his one-horse shay-- +Lent to his sexton for the day; +(A funeral--so the sexton said; +His mother's uncle's wife was dead.) + +Like Lazarus bid to Dives' feast, +So looked the poor forlorn old beast; +His coat was rough, his tail was bare, +The gray was sprinkled in his hair; +Sportsmen and jockeys knew him not, +And yet they say he once could trot +Among the fleetest of the town, +Till something cracked and broke him down,-- +The steed's, the statesman's, common lot! +"And are we then so soon forgot?" +Ah me! I doubt if one of you +Has ever heard the name "Old Blue," +Whose fame through all this region rung +In those old days when I was young! + +"Bring forth the horse!" Alas! he showed +Not like the one Mazeppa rode; +Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, +The wreck of what was once a steed, +Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; +Yet not without his knowing points. +The sexton laughing in his sleeve, +As if 't were all a make-believe, +Led forth the horse, and as he laughed +Unhitched the breeching from a shaft, +Unclasped the rusty belt beneath, +Drew forth the snaffle from his teeth, +Slipped off his head-stall, set him free +From strap and rein,--a sight to see! + +So worn, so lean in every limb, +It can't be they are saddling him! +It is! his back the pig-skin strides +And flaps his lank, rheumatic sides; +With look of mingled scorn and mirth +They buckle round the saddle-girth; +With horsey wink and saucy toss +A youngster throws his leg across, +And so, his rider on his back, +They lead him, limping, to the track, +Far up behind the starting-point, +To limber out each stiffened joint. + +As through the jeering crowd he past, +One pitying look Old Hiram cast; +"Go it, ye cripple, while ye can!" +Cried out unsentimental Dan; +"A Fast-Day dinner for the crows!" +Budd Doble's scoffing shout arose. + +Slowly, as when the walking-beam +First feels the gathering head of steam, +With warning cough and threatening wheeze +The stiff old charger crooks his knees; +At first with cautious step sedate, +As if he dragged a coach of state +He's not a colt; he knows full well +That time is weight and sure to tell; +No horse so sturdy but he fears +The handicap of twenty years. + +As through the throng on either hand +The old horse nears the judges' stand, +Beneath his jockey's feather-weight +He warms a little to his gait, +And now and then a step is tried +That hints of something like a stride. + +"Go!"--Through his ear the summons stung +As if a battle-trump had rung; +The slumbering instincts long unstirred +Start at the old familiar word; +It thrills like flame through every limb,-- +What mean his twenty years to him? +The savage blow his rider dealt +Fell on his hollow flanks unfelt; +The spur that pricked his staring hide +Unheeded tore his bleeding side; +Alike to him are spur and rein,-- +He steps a five-year-old again! + +Before the quarter pole was past, +Old Hiram said, "He's going fast." +Long ere the quarter was a half, +The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh; +Tighter his frightened jockey clung +As in a mighty stride he swung, +The gravel flying in his track, +His neck stretched out, his ears laid back, +His tail extended all the while +Behind him like a rat-tail file! +Off went a shoe,--away it spun, +Shot like a bullet from a gun; + +The quaking jockey shapes a prayer +From scraps of oaths he used to swear; +He drops his whip, he drops his rein, +He clutches fiercely for a mane; +He'll lose his hold--he sways and reels-- +He'll slide beneath those trampling heels! +The knees of many a horseman quake, +The flowers on many a bonnet shake, +And shouts arise from left and right, +"Stick on! Stick on!" "Hould tight! Hould tight!" +"Cling round his neck and don't let go--" +"That pace can't hold--there! steady! whoa!" +But like the sable steed that bore +The spectral lover of Lenore, +His nostrils snorting foam and fire, +No stretch his bony limbs can tire; +And now the stand he rushes by, +And "Stop him!--stop him!" is the cry. +Stand back! he 's only just begun-- +He's having out three heats in one! + +"Don't rush in front! he'll smash your brains; +But follow up and grab the reins!" +Old Hiram spoke. Dan Pfeiffer heard, +And sprang impatient at the word; +Budd Doble started on his bay, +Old Hiram followed on his gray, +And off they spring, and round they go, +The fast ones doing "all they know." +Look! twice they follow at his heels, +As round the circling course he wheels, +And whirls with him that clinging boy +Like Hector round the walls of Troy; +Still on, and on, the third time round +They're tailing off! they're losing ground! +Budd Doble's nag begins to fail! +Dan Pfeiffer's sorrel whisks his tail! +And see! in spite of whip and shout, +Old Hiram's mare is giving out! +Now for the finish! at the turn, +The old horse--all the rest astern-- +Comes swinging in, with easy trot; +By Jove! he's distanced all the lot! + +That trot no mortal could explain; +Some said, "Old Dutchman come again!" +Some took his time,--at least they tried, +But what it was could none decide; +One said he couldn't understand +What happened to his second hand; +One said 2.10; that could n't be-- +More like two twenty-two or three; +Old Hiram settled it at last; +"The time was two--too dee-vel-ish fast!" + +The parson's horse had won the bet; +It cost him something of a sweat; +Back in the one-horse shay he went; +The parson wondered what it meant, +And murmured, with a mild surprise +And pleasant twinkle of the eyes, +That funeral must have been a trick, +Or corpses drive at double-quick; +I should n't wonder, I declare, +If brother--Jehu--made the prayer! + +And this is all I have to say +About that tough old trotting bay, +Huddup! Huddup! G'lang! Good day! +Moral for which this tale is told +A horse can trot, for all he 's old. + + + + + +AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + +"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; +When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall." + +FULL sevenscore years our city's pride-- +The comely Southern spire-- +Has cast its shadow, and defied +The storm, the foe, the fire; +Sad is the sight our eyes behold; +Woe to the three-hilled town, +When through the land the tale is told-- +"The brave 'Old South' is down!" + +Let darkness blot the starless dawn +That hears our children tell, +"Here rose the walls, now wrecked and gone, +Our fathers loved so well; +Here, while his brethren stood aloof, +The herald's blast was blown +That shook St. Stephen's pillared roof +And rocked King George's throne! + +"The home-bound wanderer of the main +Looked from his deck afar, +To where the gilded, glittering vane +Shone like the evening star, +And pilgrim feet from every clime +The floor with reverence trod, +Where holy memories made sublime +The shrine of Freedom's God!" + +The darkened skies, alas! have seen +Our monarch tree laid low, +And spread in ruins o'er the green, +But Nature struck the blow; +No scheming thrift its downfall planned, +It felt no edge of steel, +No soulless hireling raised his hand +The deadly stroke to deal. + +In bridal garlands, pale and mute, +Still pleads the storied tower; +These are the blossoms, but the fruit +Awaits the golden shower; +The spire still greets the morning sun,-- +Say, shall it stand or fall? +Help, ere the spoiler has begun! +Help, each, and God help all! + + + + + +THE FIRST FAN + +READ AT A MEETING OF THE BOSTON BRIC-A-BRAC +CLUB, FEBRUARY 21, 1877 + +WHEN rose the cry "Great Pan is dead!" +And Jove's high palace closed its portal, +The fallen gods, before they fled, +Sold out their frippery to a mortal. + +"To whom?" you ask. I ask of you. +The answer hardly needs suggestion; +Of course it was the Wandering Jew,-- +How could you put me such a question? + +A purple robe, a little worn, +The Thunderer deigned himself to offer; +The bearded wanderer laughed in scorn,-- +You know he always was a scoffer. + +"Vife shillins! 't is a monstrous price; +Say two and six and further talk shun." +"Take it," cried Jove; "we can't be nice,-- +'T would fetch twice that at Leonard's auction." + +The ice was broken; up they came, +All sharp for bargains, god and goddess, +Each ready with the price to name +For robe or head-dress, scarf or bodice. + +First Juno, out of temper, too,-- +Her queenly forehead somewhat cloudy; +Then Pallas in her stockings blue, +Imposing, but a little dowdy. + +The scowling queen of heaven unrolled +Before the Jew a threadbare turban +"Three shillings." "One. 'T will suit some old +Terrific feminine suburban." + +But as for Pallas,--how to tell +In seemly phrase a fact so shocking? +She pointed,--pray excuse me,--well, +She pointed to her azure stocking. + +And if the honest truth were told, +Its heel confessed the need of darning; +"Gods!" low-bred Vulcan cried, "behold! +There! that's what comes of too much larning!" + +Pale Proserpine came groping round, +Her pupils dreadfully dilated +With too much living underground,-- +A residence quite overrated; + +This kerchief's what you want, I know,-- +Don't cheat poor Venus of her cestus,-- +You'll find it handy when you go +To--you know where; it's pure asbestus. + +Then Phoebus of the silverr bow, +And Hebe, dimpled as a baby, +And Dian with the breast of snow, +Chaser and chased--and caught, it may be: + +One took the quiver from her back, +One held the cap he spent the night in, +And one a bit of bric-a-brac, +Such as the gods themselves delight in. + +Then Mars, the foe of human kind, +Strode up and showed his suit of armor; +So none at last was left behind +Save Venus, the celestial charmer. + +Poor Venus! What had she to sell? +For all she looked so fresh and jaunty, +Her wardrobe, as I blush' to tell, +Already seemed but quite too scanty. + +Her gems were sold, her sandals gone,-- +She always would be rash and flighty,-- +Her winter garments all in pawn, +Alas for charming Aphrodite. + +The lady of a thousand loves, +The darling of the old religion, +Had only left of all the doves +That drew her car one fan-tailed pigeon. + +How oft upon her finger-tips +He perched, afraid of Cupid's arrow, +Or kissed her on the rosebud lips, +Like Roman Lesbia's loving sparrow! + +"My bird, I want your train," she cried; +"Come, don't let's have a fuss about it; +I'll make it beauty's pet and pride, +And you'll be better off without it. + +"So vulgar! Have you noticed, pray, +An earthly belle or dashing bride walk, +And how her flounces track her way, +Like slimy serpents on the sidewalk? + +"A lover's heart it quickly cools; +In mine it kindles up enough rage +To wring their necks. How can such fools +Ask men to vote for woman suffrage?" + +The goddess spoke, and gently stripped +Her bird of every caudal feather; +A strand of gold-bright hair she clipped, +And bound the glossy plumes together, + +And lo, the Fan! for beauty's hand, +The lovely queen of beauty made it; +The price she named was hard to stand, +But Venus smiled: the Hebrew paid it. + +Jove, Juno, Venus, where are you? +Mars, Mercury, Phoebus, Neptune, Saturn? +But o'er the world the Wandering Jew +Has borne the Fan's celestial pattern. + +So everywhere we find the Fan,-- +In lonely isles of the Pacific, +In farthest China and Japan,-- +Wherever suns are sudorific. + +Nay, even the oily Esquimaux +In summer court its cooling breezes,-- +In fact, in every clime 't is so, +No matter if it fries or freezes. + +And since from Aphrodite's dove +The pattern of the fan was given, +No wonder that it breathes of love +And wafts the perfumed gales of heaven! + +Before this new Pandora's gift +In slavery woman's tyrant kept her, +But now he kneels her glove to lift,-- +The fan is mightier than the sceptre. + +The tap it gives how arch and sly! +The breath it wakes how fresh and grateful! +Behind its shield how soft the sigh! +The whispered tale of shame how fateful! + +Its empire shadows every throne +And every shore that man is tost on; +It rules the lords of every zone, +Nay, even the bluest blood of Boston! + +But every one that swings to-night, +Of fairest shape, from farthest region, +May trace its pedigree aright +To Aphrodite's fan-tailed pigeon. + + + + +TO R. B. H. + +AT THE DINNER TO THE PRESIDENT, +BOSTON, JUNE 26, 1877 + +How to address him? awkward, it is true +Call him "Great Father," as the Red Men do? +Borrow some title? this is not the place +That christens men Your Highness and Your Grace; +We tried such names as these awhile, you know, +But left them off a century ago. + +His Majesty? We've had enough of that +Besides, that needs a crown; he wears a hat. +What if, to make the nicer ears content, +We say His Honesty, the President? + +Sir, we believed you honest, truthful, brave, +When to your hands their precious trust we gave, +And we have found you better than we knew, +Braver, and not less honest, not less true! +So every heart has opened, every hand +Tingles with welcome, and through all the land +All voices greet you in one broad acclaim, +Healer of strife! Has earth a nobler name? + +What phrases mean you do not need to learn; +We must be civil, and they serve our turn +"Your most obedient humble" means--means what? +Something the well-bred signer just is not. + +Yet there are tokens, sir, you must believe; +There is one language never can deceive +The lover knew it when the maiden smiled; +The mother knows it when she clasps her child; +Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale, +Words grope and stumble; this will tell their tale +Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence, +But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence. +Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits you there,-- +North, South, East, West, from all and everywhere! + + + + + +THE SHIP OF STATE + +A SENTIMENT + +This "sentiment" was read on the same occasion as the "Family Record," +which immediately follows it. The latter poem is the dutiful tribute of a +son to his father and his father's ancestors, residents of Woodstock from +its first settlement. + +THE Ship of State! above her skies are blue, +But still she rocks a little, it is true, +And there are passengers whose faces white +Show they don't feel as happy as they might; +Yet on the whole her crew are quite content, +Since its wild fury the typhoon has spent, +And willing, if her pilot thinks it best, +To head a little nearer south by west. +And this they feel: the ship came too near wreck, +In the long quarrel for the quarter-deck, +Now when she glides serenely on her way,-- +The shallows past where dread explosives lay,-- +The stiff obstructive's churlish game to try +Let sleeping dogs and still torpedoes lie! +And so I give you all the Ship of State; +Freedom's last venture is her priceless freight; +God speed her, keep her, bless her, while she steers +Amid the breakers of unsounded years; +Lead her through danger's paths with even keel, +And guide the honest hand that holds her wheel! + +WOODSTOCK, CONN., July 4, 1877. + + + + + +A FAMILY RECORD + +WOODSTOCK, CONN., JULY 4, 1877 + +NOT to myself this breath of vesper song, +Not to these patient friends, this kindly throng, +Not to this hallowed morning, though it be +Our summer Christmas, Freedom's jubilee, +When every summit, topmast, steeple, tower, +That owns her empire spreads her starry flower, +Its blood-streaked leaves in heaven's benignant dew +Washed clean from every crimson stain they knew,-- +No, not to these the passing thrills belong +That steal my breath to hush themselves with song. +These moments all are memory's; I have come +To speak with lips that rather should be dumb; +For what are words? At every step I tread +The dust that wore the footprints of the dead +But for whose life my life had never known +This faded vesture which it calls its own. +Here sleeps my father's sire, and they who gave +That earlier life here found their peaceful grave. +In days gone by I sought the hallowed ground; +Climbed yon long slope; the sacred spot I found +Where all unsullied lies the winter snow, +Where all ungathered spring's pale violets blow, +And tracked from stone to stone the Saxon name +That marks the blood I need not blush to claim, +Blood such as warmed the Pilgrim sons of toil, +Who held from God the charter of the soil. +I come an alien to your hills and plains, +Yet feel your birthright tingling in my veins; +Mine are this changing prospect's sun and shade, +In full-blown summer's bridal pomp arrayed; +Mine these fair hillsides and the vales between; +Mine the sweet streams that lend their brightening green; +I breathed your air--the sunlit landscape smiled; +I touch your soil--it knows its children's child; +Throned in my heart your heritage is mine; +I claim it all by memory's right divine +Waking, I dream. Before my vacant eyes +In long procession shadowy forms arise; +Far through the vista of the silent years +I see a venturous band; the pioneers, +Who let the sunlight through the forest's gloom, +Who bade the harvest wave, the garden bloom. +Hark! loud resounds the bare-armed settler's axe, +See where the stealthy panther left his tracks! +As fierce, as stealthy creeps the skulking foe +With stone-tipped shaft and sinew-corded bow; +Soon shall he vanish from his ancient reign, +Leave his last cornfield to the coming train, +Quit the green margin of the wave he drinks, +For haunts that hide the wild-cat and the lynx. + +But who the Youth his glistening axe that swings +To smite the pine that shows a hundred rings? +His features?--something in his look I find +That calls the semblance of my race to mind. +His name?--my own; and that which goes before +The same that once the loved disciple bore. +Young, brave, discreet, the father of a line +Whose voiceless lives have found a voice in mine; +Thinned by unnumbered currents though they be, +Thanks for the ruddy drops I claim from thee! + +The seasons pass; the roses come and go; +Snows fall and melt; the waters freeze and flow; +The boys are men; the girls, grown tall and fair, +Have found their mates; a gravestone here and there +Tells where the fathers lie; the silvered hair +Of some bent patriarch yet recalls the time +That saw his feet the northern hillside climb, +A pilgrim from the pilgrims far away, +The godly men, the dwellers by the bay. +On many a hearthstone burns the cheerful fire; +The schoolhouse porch, the heavenward pointing spire +Proclaim in letters every eye can read, +Knowledge and Faith, the new world's simple creed. +Hush! 't is the Sabbath's silence-stricken morn +No feet must wander through the tasselled corn; +No merry children laugh around the door, +No idle playthings strew the sanded floor; +The law of Moses lays its awful ban +On all that stirs; here comes the tithing-man +At last the solemn hour of worship calls; +Slowly they gather in the sacred walls; +Man in his strength and age with knotted staff, +And boyhood aching for its week-day laugh, +The toil-worn mother with the child she leads, +The maiden, lovely in her golden beads,-- +The popish symbols round her neck she wears, +But on them counts her lovers, not her prayers,-- +Those youths in homespun suits and ribboned queues, +Whose hearts are beating in the high-backed pews. +The pastor rises; looks along the seats +With searching eye; each wonted face he meets; +Asks heavenly guidance; finds the chapter's place +That tells some tale of Israel's stubborn race; +Gives out the sacred song; all voices join, +For no quartette extorts their scanty coin; +Then while both hands their black-gloved palms display, +Lifts his gray head, and murmurs, "Let us pray!" +And pray he does! as one that never fears +To plead unanswered by the God that hears; +What if he dwells on many a fact as though +Some things Heaven knew not which it ought to know,-- +Thanks God for all his favors past, and yet, +Tells Him there's something He must not forget; +Such are the prayers his people love to hear,-- +See how the Deacon slants his listening ear! +What! look once more! Nay, surely there I trace +The hinted outlines of a well-known face! +Not those the lips for laughter to beguile, +Yet round their corners lurks an embryo smile, +The same on other lips my childhood knew +That scarce the Sabbath's mastery could subdue. +Him too my lineage gives me leave to claim,-- +The good, grave man that bears the Psalmist's name. + +And still in ceaseless round the seasons passed; +Spring piped her carol; Autumn blew his blast; +Babes waxed to manhood; manhood shrunk to age; +Life's worn-out players tottered off the stage; +The few are many; boys have grown to men +Since Putnam dragged the wolf from Pomfret's den; +Our new-old Woodstock is a thriving town; +Brave are her children; faithful to the crown; +Her soldiers' steel the savage redskin knows; +Their blood has crimsoned his Canadian snows. +And now once more along the quiet vale +Rings the dread call that turns the mothers pale; +Full well they know the valorous heat that runs +In every pulse-beat of their loyal sons; +Who would not bleed in good King George's cause +When England's lion shows his teeth and claws? +With glittering firelocks on the village green +In proud array a martial band is seen; +You know what names those ancient rosters hold,-- +Whose belts were buckled when the drum-beat rolled,-- +But mark their Captain! tell us, who is he? +On his brown face that same old look I see +Yes! from the homestead's still retreat he came, +Whose peaceful owner bore the Psalmist's name; +The same his own. Well, Israel's glorious king +Who struck the harp could also whirl the sling,-- +Breathe in his song a penitential sigh +And smite the sons of Amalek hip and thigh: +These shared their task; one deaconed out the psalm, +One slashed the scalping hell-hounds of calm; +The praying father's pious work is done, +Now sword in hand steps forth the fighting son. +On many a field he fought in wilds afar; +See on his swarthy cheek the bullet's scar! +There hangs a murderous tomahawk; beneath, +Without its blade, a knife's embroidered sheath; +Save for the stroke his trusty weapon dealt +His scalp had dangled at their owner's belt; +But not for him such fate; he lived to see +The bloodier strife that made our nation free, +To serve with willing toil, with skilful hand, +The war-worn saviors of the bleeding land. +His wasting life to others' needs he gave,-- +Sought rest in home and found it in the grave. +See where the stones life's brief memorials keep, +The tablet telling where he "fell on sleep,"-- +Watched by a winged cherub's rayless eye,-- +A scroll above that says we all must die,-- +Those saddening lines beneath, the "Night-Thoughts" lent: +So stands the Soldier's, Surgeon's monument. +Ah! at a glance my filial eye divines +The scholar son in those remembered lines. + +The Scholar Son. His hand my footsteps led. +No more the dim unreal past I tread. +O thou whose breathing form was once so dear, +Whose cheering voice was music to my ear, +Art thou not with me as my feet pursue +The village paths so well thy boyhood knew, +Along the tangled margin of the stream +Whose murmurs blended with thine infant dream, +Or climb the hill, or thread the wooded vale, +Or seek the wave where gleams yon distant sail, +Or the old homestead's narrowed bounds explore, +Where sloped the roof that sheds the rains no more, +Where one last relic still remains to tell +Here stood thy home,--the memory-haunted well, +Whose waters quench a deeper thirst than thine, +Changed at my lips to sacramental wine,-- +Art thou not with me, as I fondly trace +The scanty records of thine honored race, +Call up the forms that earlier years have known, +And spell the legend of each slanted stone? +With thoughts of thee my loving verse began, +Not for the critic's curious eye to scan, +Not for the many listeners, but the few +Whose fathers trod the paths my fathers knew; +Still in my heart thy loved remembrance burns; +Still to my lips thy cherished name returns; +Could I but feel thy gracious presence near +Amid the groves that once to thee were dear +Could but my trembling lips with mortal speech +Thy listening ear for one brief moment reach! +How vain the dream! The pallid voyager's track +No sign betrays; he sends no message back. +No word from thee since evening's shadow fell +On thy cold forehead with my long farewell,-- +Now from the margin of the silent sea, +Take my last offering ere I cross to thee! + + + + + + + THE IRON GATE + + AND OTHER POEMS + + 1877-1881 + + + +THE IRON GATE + +Read at the Breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes's Seventieth Birthday +by the publishers of the "Atlantic Monthly," Boston, December 3, 1879. + +WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting? +Not unfamiliar to my ear his name, +Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting +In days long vanished,--is he still the same, + +Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting, +Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought, +Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting, +Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought? + +Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him,-- +Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey; +In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem, +Oft have I met him from my earliest day. + +In my old AEsop, toiling with his bundle,-- +His load of sticks,--politely asking Death, +Who comes when called for,--would he lug or trundle +His fagot for him?--he was scant of breath. + +And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher,"-- +Has he not stamped the image on my soul, +In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher +Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl? + +Yes, long, indeed, I've known him at a distance, +And now my lifted door-latch shows him here; +I take his shrivelled hand without resistance, +And find him smiling as his step draws near. + +What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us, +Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime; +Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us, +The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time! + +Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant, +Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep, +Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant, +Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep! + +Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender, +Its lightened task-work tugs with lessening strain, +Hands get more helpful, voices, grown more tender, +Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous brain. + +Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers, +Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, +Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers +That warm its creeping life-blood till the last. + +Dear to its heart is every loving token +That comes unbidden ere its pulse grows cold, +Ere the last lingering ties of life are broken, +Its labors ended and its story told. + +Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices, +For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh, +And through the chorus of its jocund voices +Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry. + +As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying +From some far orb I track our watery sphere, +Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying, +The silvered globule seems a glistening tear. + +But Nature lends her mirror of illusion +To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes, +And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion +The wintry landscape and the summer skies. + +So when the iron portal shuts behind us, +And life forgets us in its noise and whirl, +Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us, +And glimmering starlight shows the gates of pearl. + +I come not here your morning hour to sadden, +A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff,-- +I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden +This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh. + +If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, +Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came; +If hand of mine another's task has lightened, +It felt the guidance that it dares not claim. + +But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers, +These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release; +These feebler pulses bid me leave to others +The tasks once welcome; evening asks for peace. + +Time claims his tribute; silence now is golden; +Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre; +Though to your love untiring still beholden, +The curfew tells me--cover up the fire. + +And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful, +And warmer heart than look or word can tell, +In simplest phrase--these traitorous eyes are tearful-- +Thanks, Brothers, Sisters,--Children,--and farewell! + + + + + +VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETRORSUM + +AN ACADEMIC POEM + +1829-1879 + +Read at the Commencement Dinner of the Alumni of Harvard +University, June 25, 1879. + +WHILE fond, sad memories all around us throng, +Silence were sweeter than the sweetest song; +Yet when the leaves are green and heaven is blue, +The choral tribute of the grove is due, +And when the lengthening nights have chilled the skies, +We fain would hear the song-bird ere be flies, +And greet with kindly welcome, even as now, +The lonely minstrel on his leafless bough. + +This is our golden year,--its golden day; +Its bridal memories soon must pass away; +Soon shall its dying music cease to ring, +And every year must loose some silver string, +Till the last trembling chords no longer thrill,-- +Hands all at rest and hearts forever still. + +A few gray heads have joined the forming line; +We hear our summons,--"Class of 'Twenty-Nine!" +Close on the foremost, and, alas, how few! +Are these "The Boys" our dear old Mother knew? +Sixty brave swimmers. Twenty--something more-- +Have passed the stream and reached this frosty shore! + +How near the banks these fifty years divide +When memory crosses with a single stride! +'T is the first year of stern "Old Hickory" 's rule +When our good Mother lets us out of school, +Half glad, half sorrowing, it must be confessed, +To leave her quiet lap, her bounteous breast, +Armed with our dainty, ribbon-tied degrees, +Pleased and yet pensive, exiles and A. B.'s. + +Look back, O comrades, with your faded eyes, +And see the phantoms as I bid them rise. +Whose smile is that? Its pattern Nature gave, +A sunbeam dancing in a dimpled wave; +KIRKLAND alone such grace from Heaven could win, +His features radiant as the soul within; +That smile would let him through Saint Peter's gate +While sad-eyed martyrs had to stand and wait. +Here flits mercurial _Farrar_; standing there, +See mild, benignant, cautious, learned _Ware_, +And sturdy, patient, faithful, honest _Hedge_, +Whose grinding logic gave our wits their edge; +_Ticknor_, with honeyed voice and courtly grace; +And _Willard_, larynxed like a double bass; +And _Channing_, with his bland, superior look, +Cool as a moonbeam on a frozen brook, + +While the pale student, shivering in his shoes, +Sees from his theme the turgid rhetoric ooze; +And the born soldier, fate decreed to wreak +His martial manhood on a class in Greek, +_Popkin_! How that explosive name recalls +The grand old Busby of our ancient halls +Such faces looked from Skippon's grim platoons, +Such figures rode with Ireton's stout dragoons: +He gave his strength to learning's gentle charms, +But every accent sounded "Shoulder arms!" + +Names,--empty names! Save only here and there +Some white-haired listener, dozing in his chair, +Starts at the sound he often used to hear, +And upward slants his Sunday-sermon ear. +And we--our blooming manhood we regain; +Smiling we join the long Commencement train, +One point first battled in discussion hot,-- +Shall we wear gowns? and settled: We will not. +How strange the scene,--that noisy boy-debate +Where embryo-speakers learn to rule the State! +This broad-browed youth, sedate and sober-eyed, +Shall wear the ermined robe at Taney's side; +And he, the stripling, smooth of face and slight, +Whose slender form scarce intercepts the light, +Shall rule the Bench where Parsons gave the law, +And sphinx-like sat uncouth, majestic Shaw +Ah, many a star has shed its fatal ray +On names we loved--our brothers--where are they? + +Nor these alone; our hearts in silence claim +Names not less dear, unsyllabled by fame. + +How brief the space! and yet it sweeps us back +Far, far along our new-born history's track +Five strides like this;--the sachem rules the land; +The Indian wigwams cluster where we stand. + +The second. Lo! a scene of deadly strife-- +A nation struggling into infant life; +Not yet the fatal game at Yorktown won +Where failing Empire fired its sunset gun. +LANGDON sits restless in the ancient chair,-- +Harvard's grave Head,--these echoes heard his prayer +When from yon mansion, dear to memory still, +The banded yeomen marched for Bunker's Hill. +Count on the grave triennial's thick-starred roll +What names were numbered on the lengthening scroll,-- +Not unfamiliar in our ears they ring,-- +Winthrop, Hale, Eliot, Everett, Dexter, Tyng. + +Another stride. Once more at 'twenty-nine,-- +GOD SAVE KING GEORGE, the Second of his line! +And is Sir Isaac living? Nay, not so,-- +He followed Flainsteed two short years ago,-- +And what about the little hump-backed man +Who pleased the bygone days of good Queen Anne? +What, Pope? another book he's just put out,-- +"The Dunciad,"--witty, but profane, no doubt. + +Where's Cotton Mather? he was always here. +And so he would be, but he died last year. +Who is this preacher our Northampton claims, +Whose rhetoric blazes with sulphureous flames +And torches stolen from Tartarean mines? +Edwards, the salamander of divines. +A deep, strong nature, pure and undefiled; +Faith, firm as his who stabbed his sleeping child; +Alas for him who blindly strays apart, +And seeking God has lost his human heart! +Fall where they might, no flying cinders caught +These sober halls where WADSWORTH ruled and +taught. + +One footstep more; the fourth receding stride +Leaves the round century on the nearer side. +GOD SAVE KING CHARLES! God knows that pleasant knave +His grace will find it hard enough to save. +Ten years and more, and now the Plague, the Fire, +Talk of all tongues, at last begin to tire; +One fear prevails, all other frights forgot,-- +White lips are whispering,--hark! The Popish Plot! +Happy New England, from such troubles free +In health and peace beyond the stormy sea! +No Romish daggers threat her children's throats, +No gibbering nightmare mutters "Titus Oates;" +Philip is slain, the Quaker graves are green, +Not yet the witch has entered on the scene; +Happy our Harvard; pleased her graduates four; +URIAN OAKES the name their parchments bore. + +Two centuries past, our hurried feet arrive +At the last footprint of the scanty five; +Take the fifth stride; our wandering eyes explore +A tangled forest on a trackless shore; +Here, where we stand, the savage sorcerer howls, +The wild cat snarls, the stealthy gray wolf prowls, +The slouching bear, perchance the trampling moose +Starts the brown squaw and scares her red pappoose; +At every step the lurking foe is near; +His Demons reign; God has no temple here! + +Lift up your eyes! behold these pictured walls; +Look where the flood of western glory falls +Through the great sunflower disk of blazing panes +In ruby, saffron, azure, emerald stains; +With reverent step the marble pavement tread +Where our proud Mother's martyr-roll is read; +See the great halls that cluster, gathering round +This lofty shrine with holiest memories crowned; +See the fair Matron in her summer bower, +Fresh as a rose in bright perennial flower; +Read on her standard, always in the van, +"TRUTH,"--the one word that makes a slave a man; +Think whose the hands that fed her altar-fires, +Then count the debt we owe our scholar-sires! + +Brothers, farewell! the fast declining ray +Fades to the twilight of our golden day; +Some lesson yet our wearied brains may learn, +Some leaves, perhaps, in life's thin volume turn. +How few they seem as in our waning age +We count them backwards to the title-page! +Oh let us trust with holy men of old +Not all the story here begun is told; +So the tired spirit, waiting to be freed, +On life's last leaf with tranquil eye shall read +By the pale glimmer of the torch reversed, +Not Finis, but _The End of Volume First_! + + + + + +MY AVIARY + +Through my north window, in the wintry weather,-- +My airy oriel on the river shore,-- +I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together +Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar. + +The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen, +Lets the loose water waft him as it will; +The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden, +Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still. + +I see the solemn gulls in council sitting +On some broad ice-floe pondering long and late, +While overhead the home-bound ducks are flitting, +And leave the tardy conclave in debate, + +Those weighty questions in their breasts revolving +Whose deeper meaning science never learns, +Till at some reverend elder's look dissolving, +The speechless senate silently adjourns. + +But when along the waves the shrill north-easter +Shrieks through the laboring coaster's shrouds "Beware!" +The pale bird, kindling like a Christmas feaster +When some wild chorus shakes the vinous air, + +Flaps from the leaden wave in fierce rejoicing, +Feels heaven's dumb lightning thrill his torpid nerves, +Now on the blast his whistling plumage poising, +Now wheeling, whirling in fantastic curves. + +Such is our gull; a gentleman of leisure, +Less fleshed than feathered; bagged you'll find him such; +His virtue silence; his employment pleasure; +Not bad to look at, and not good for much. + +What of our duck? He has some high-bred cousins,-- +His Grace the Canvas-back, My Lord the Brant,-- +Anas and Anser,--both served up by dozens, +At Boston's Rocher, half-way to Nahant. + +As for himself, he seems alert and thriving,-- +Grubs up a living somehow--what, who knows? +Crabs? mussels? weeds?--Look quick! there 's one just diving! +Flop! Splash! his white breast glistens--down he goes! + +And while he 's under--just about a minute-- +I take advantage of the fact to say +His fishy carcase has no virtue in it +The gunning idiot's worthless hire to pay. + +Shrewd is our bird; not easy to outwit him! +Sharp is the outlook of those pin-head eyes; +Still, he is mortal and a shot may hit him, +One cannot always miss him if he tries. + +He knows you! "sportsmen" from suburban alleys, +Stretched under seaweed in the treacherous punt; +Knows every lazy, shiftless lout that sallies +Forth to waste powder--as he says, to "hunt." + +I watch you with a patient satisfaction, +Well pleased to discount your predestined luck; +The float that figures in your sly transaction +Will carry back a goose, but not a duck. + +Look! there's a young one, dreaming not of danger; +Sees a flat log come floating down the stream; +Stares undismayed upon the harmless stranger; +Ah! were all strangers harmless as they seem! + +_Habet_! a leaden shower his breast has shattered; +Vainly he flutters, not again to rise; +His soft white plumes along the waves are scattered; +Helpless the wing that braved the tempest lies. + +He sees his comrades high above him flying +To seek their nests among the island reeds; +Strong is their flight; all lonely he is lying +Washed by the crimsoned water as he bleeds. + +O Thou who carest for the falling sparrow, +Canst Thou the sinless sufferer's pang forget? +Or is thy dread account-book's page so narrow +Its one long column scores thy creatures' debt? + +Poor gentle guest, by nature kindly cherished, +A world grows dark with thee in blinding death; +One little gasp--thy universe has perished, +Wrecked by the idle thief who stole thy breath! + +Is this the whole sad story of creation, +Lived by its breathing myriads o'er and o'er,-- +One glimpse of day, then black annihilation,-- +A sunlit passage to a sunless shore? + +Give back our faith, ye mystery-solving lynxes! +Robe us once more in heaven-aspiring creeds +Happier was dreaming Egypt with her sphinxes, +The stony convent with its cross and beads! + +How often gazing where a bird reposes, +Rocked on the wavelets, drifting with the tide, +I lose myself in strange metempsychosis +And float a sea-fowl at a sea-fowl's side; + +From rain, hail, snow in feathery mantle muffled, +Clear-eyed, strong-limbed, with keenest sense to hear +My mate soft murmuring, who, with plumes unruffled, +Where'er I wander still is nestling near; + +The great blue hollow like a garment o'er me; +Space all unmeasured, unrecorded time; +While seen with inward eye moves on before me +Thought's pictured train in wordless pantomime. + +A voice recalls me.--From my window turning +I find myself a plumeless biped still; +No beak, no claws, no sign of wings discerning,-- +In fact with nothing bird-like but my quill. + + + + + +ON THE THRESHOLD + +INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION OF POEMS BYDIFFERENT AUTHORS + +AN usher standing at the door +I show my white rosette; +A smile of welcome, nothing more, +Will pay my trifling debt; +Why should I bid you idly wait +Like lovers at the swinging gate? + +Can I forget the wedding guest? +The veteran of the sea? +In vain the listener smites his breast,-- +"There was a ship," cries he! +Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale, +He needs must listen to the tale. + +He sees the gilded throng within, +The sparkling goblets gleam, +The music and the merry din +Through every window stream, +But there he shivers in the cold +Till all the crazy dream is told. + +Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye +That held his captive still +To hold my silent prisoners by +And let me have my will; +Nay, I were like the three-years' child, +To think you could be so beguiled! + +My verse is but the curtain's fold +That hides the painted scene, +The mist by morning's ray unrolled +That veils the meadow's green, +The cloud that needs must drift away +To show the rose of opening day. + +See, from the tinkling rill you hear +In hollowed palm I bring +These scanty drops, but ah, how near +The founts that heavenward spring! +Thus, open wide the gates are thrown +And founts and flowers are all your own! + + + + + +TO GEORGE PEABODY + +DANVERS, 1866 + +BANKRUPT! our pockets inside out! +Empty of words to speak his praises! +Worcester and Webster up the spout! +Dead broke of laudatory phrases! +Yet why with flowery speeches tease, +With vain superlatives distress him? +Has language better words than these? +THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD BLESS HIM! + +A simple prayer--but words more sweet +By human lips were never uttered, +Since Adam left the country seat +Where angel wings around him fluttered. +The old look on with tear-dimmed eyes, +The children cluster to caress him, +And every voice unbidden cries, +THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD BLESS HIM! + + + + + +AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB + +A LOVELY show for eyes to see +I looked upon this morning,-- +A bright-hued, feathered company +Of nature's own adorning; +But ah! those minstrels would not sing +A listening ear while I lent,-- +The lark sat still and preened his wing, +The nightingale was silent; +I longed for what they gave me not-- +Their warblings sweet and fluty, +But grateful still for all I got +I thanked them for their beauty. + +A fairer vision meets my view +Of Claras, Margarets, Marys, +In silken robes of varied hue, +Like bluebirds and canaries; +The roses blush, the jewels gleam, +The silks and satins glisten, +The black eyes flash, the blue eyes beam, +We look--and then we listen +Behold the flock we cage to-night-- +Was ever such a capture? +To see them is a pure delight; +To hear them--ah! what rapture! + +Methinks I hear Delilah's laugh +At Samson bound in fetters; +"We captured!" shrieks each lovelier half, +"Men think themselves our betters! +We push the bolt, we turn the key +On warriors, poets, sages, +Too happy, all of them, to be +Locked in our golden cages!" +Beware! the boy with bandaged eyes +Has flung away his blinder; + +He 's lost his mother--so he cries-- +And here he knows he'll find her: +The rogue! 't is but a new device,-- +Look out for flying arrows +Whene'er the birds of Paradise +Are perched amid the sparrows! + + + + + +FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + +DECEMBER 17, 1877 + +I BELIEVE that the copies of verses I've spun, +Like Scheherezade's tales, are a thousand and one; +You remember the story,--those mornings in bed,-- +'T was the turn of a copper,--a tale or a head. + +A doom like Scheherezade's falls upon me +In a mandate as stern as the Sultan's decree +I'm a florist in verse, and what would people say +If I came to a banquet without my bouquet? + +It is trying, no doubt, when the company knows +Just the look and the smell of each lily and rose, +The green of each leaf in the sprigs that I bring, +And the shape of the bunch and the knot of the string. + +Yes,--"the style is the man," and the nib of one's pen +Makes the same mark at twenty, and threescore and ten; +It is so in all matters, if truth may be told; +Let one look at the cast he can tell you the mould. + +How we all know each other! no use in disguise; +Through the holes in the mask comes the flash of the eyes; +We can tell by his--somewhat--each one of our tribe, +As we know the old hat which we cannot describe. + +Though in Hebrew, in Sanscrit, in Choctaw you write, +Sweet singer who gave us the Voices of Night, +Though in buskin or slipper your song may be shod; +Or the velvety verse that Evangeline trod, + +We shall say, "You can't cheat us,--we know it is you," +There is one voice like that, but there cannot be two, +Maestro, whose chant like the dulcimer rings +And the woods will be hushed while the nightingale sings. + +And he, so serene, so majestic, so true, +Whose temple hypethral the planets shine through, +Let us catch but five words from that mystical pen, +We should know our one sage from all children of men. + +And he whose bright image no distance can dim, +Through a hundred disguises we can't mistake him, +Whose play is all earnest, whose wit is the edge +(With a beetle behind) of a sham-splitting wedge. + +Do you know whom we send you, Hidalgos of Spain? +Do you know your old friends when you see them again? +Hosea was Sancho! you Dons of Madrid, +But Sancho that wielded the lance of the Cid! + +And the wood-thrush of Essex,--you know whom I mean, +Whose song echoes round us while he sits unseen, +Whose heart-throbs of verse through our memories thrill +Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze from the hill, + +So fervid, so simple, so loving, so pure, +We hear but one strain and our verdict is sure,-- +Thee cannot elude us,--no further we search,-- +'T is Holy George Herbert cut loose from his church! + +We think it the voice of a seraph that sings,-- +Alas! we remember that angels have wings,-- +What story is this of the day of his birth? +Let him live to a hundred! we want him on earth! + +One life has been paid him (in gold) by the sun; +One account has been squared and another begun; +But he never will die if he lingers below +Till we've paid him in love half the balance we owe! + + + + + +TWO SONNETS: HARVARD + +At the meeting of the New York Harvard Club, +February 21, 1878. + +"CHRISTO ET ECCLESLE." 1700 + +To GOD'S ANOINTED AND HIS CHOSEN FLOCK +So ran the phrase the black-robed conclave chose +To guard the sacred cloisters that arose +Like David's altar on Moriah's rock. +Unshaken still those ancient arches mock +The ram's-horn summons of the windy foes +Who stand like Joshua's army while it blows +And wait to see them toppling with the shock. +Christ and the Church. Their church, whose narrow door +Shut out the many, who if overbold +Like hunted wolves were driven from the fold, +Bruised with the flails these godly zealots bore, +Mindful that Israel's altar stood of old +Where echoed once Araunah's threshing-floor. + + +1643 "VERITAS." 1878 + +TRUTH: So the frontlet's older legend ran, +On the brief record's opening page displayed; +Not yet those clear-eyed scholars were afraid +Lest the fair fruit that wrought the woe of man +By far Euphrates--where our sire began +His search for truth, and, seeking, was betrayed-- +Might work new treason in their forest shade, +Doubling the curse that brought life's shortened span. +Nurse of the future, daughter of the past, +That stern phylactery best becomes thee now +Lift to the morning star thy marble brow +Cast thy brave truth on every warring blast! +Stretch thy white hand to that forbidden bough, +And let thine earliest symbol be thy last! + + + + + +THE COMING ERA + +THEY tell us that the Muse is soon to fly hence, +Leaving the bowers of song that once were dear, +Her robes bequeathing to her sister, Science, +The groves of Pindus for the axe to clear. + +Optics will claim the wandering eye of fancy, +Physics will grasp imagination's wings, +Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy, +The workshop hammer where the minstrel sings, + +No more with laugher at Thalia's frolics +Our eyes shall twinkle till the tears run down, +But in her place the lecturer on hydraulics +Spout forth his watery science to the town. + +No more our foolish passions and affections +The tragic Muse with mimic grief shall try, +But, nobler far, a course of vivisections +Teach what it costs a tortured brute to die. + +The unearthed monad, long in buried rocks hid, +Shall tell the secret whence our being came; +The chemist show us death is life's black oxide, +Left when the breath no longer fans its flame. + +Instead of crack-brained poets in their attics +Filling thin volumes with their flowery talk, +There shall be books of wholesome mathematics; +The tutor with his blackboard and his chalk. + +No longer bards with madrigal and sonnet +Shall woo to moonlight walks the ribboned sex, +But side by side the beaver and the bonnet +Stroll, calmly pondering on some problem's x. + +The sober bliss of serious calculation +Shall mock the trivial joys that fancy drew, +And, oh, the rapture of a solved equation,-- +One self-same answer on the lips of two! + +So speak in solemn tones our youthful sages, +Patient, severe, laborious, slow, exact, +As o'er creation's protoplasmic pages +They browse and munch the thistle crops of fact. + +And yet we 've sometimes found it rather pleasant +To dream again the scenes that Shakespeare drew,-- +To walk the hill-side with the Scottish peasant +Among the daisies wet with morning's dew; + +To leave awhile the daylight of the real, +Led by the guidance of the master's hand, +For the strange radiance of the far ideal,-- +"The light that never was on sea or land." + +Well, Time alone can lift the future's curtain,-- +Science may teach our children all she knows, +But Love will kindle fresh young hearts, 't is certain, +And June will not forget her blushing rose. + +And so, in spite of all that Time is bringing,-- +Treasures of truth and miracles of art, +Beauty and Love will keep the poet singing, +And song still live, the science of the heart. + + + + + +IN RESPONSE + +Breakfast at the Century Club, New York, May, 1879. + +SUCH kindness! the scowl of a cynic would soften, +His pulse beat its way to some eloquent words, +Alas! my poor accents have echoed too often, +Like that Pinafore music you've some of you heard. + +Do you know me, dear strangers--the hundredth time comer +At banquets and feasts since the days of my Spring? +Ah! would I could borrow one rose of my Summer, +But this is a leaf of my Autumn I bring. + + +I look at your faces,--I'm sure there are some from +The three-breasted mother I count as my own; +You think you remember the place you have come from, +But how it has changed in the years that have flown! + +Unaltered, 't is true, is the hall we call "Funnel," +Still fights the "Old South" in the battle for life, +But we've opened our door to the West through the tunnel, +And we've cut off Fort Hill with our Amazon knife. + +You should see the new Westminster Boston has builded,-- +Its mansions, its spires, its museums of arts,-- +You should see the great dome we have gorgeously gilded,-- +'T is the light of our eyes, 't is the joy of our hearts. + +When first in his path a young asteroid found it, +As he sailed through the skies with the stars in his wake, +He thought 't was the sun, and kept circling around it +Till Edison signalled, "You've made a mistake." + +We are proud of our city,--her fast-growing figure, +The warp and the woof of her brain and her hands,-- +But we're proudest of all that her heart has grown bigger, +And warms with fresh blood as her girdle expands. + +One lesson the rubric of conflict has taught her +Though parted awhile by war's earth-rending shock, +The lines that divide us are written in water, +The love that unites us cut deep in the rock. + +As well might the Judas of treason endeavor +To write his black name on the disk of the sun +As try the bright star-wreath that binds us to sever +And blot the fair legend of "Many in One." + +We love You, tall sister, the stately, the splendid,-- +The banner of empire floats high on your towers, +Yet ever in welcome your arms are extended,-- +We share in your splendors, your glory is ours. + +Yes, Queen of the Continent! All of us own thee,-- +The gold-freighted argosies flock at thy call, +The naiads, the sea-nymphs have met to enthrone thee, +But the Broadway of one is the Highway of all! + +I thank you. Three words that can hardly be mended, +Though phrases on phrases their eloquence pile, +If you hear the heart's throb with their eloquence blended, +And read all they mean in a sunshiny smile. + + + + + +FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +MAY 28, 1879. + +ENCHANTER of Erin, whose magic has bound us, +Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim, +Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us +That blush into life at the sound of thy name. + +The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers,-- +I hear the old song with its tender refrain,-- +What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers +What perfume of youth in each exquisite strain! + +The home of my childhood comes back as a vision,-- +Hark! Hark! A soft chord from its song-haunted room,-- +'T is a morning of May, when the air is Elysian,-- +The syringa in bud and the lilac in bloom,-- + +We are clustered around the "Clementi" piano,-- +There were six of us then,--there are two of us now,-- +She is singing--the girl with the silver soprano-- +How "The Lord of the Valley" was false to his vow; + +"Let Erin remember" the echoes are calling; +Through "The Vale of Avoca" the waters are rolled; +"The Exile" laments while the night-dews falling; +"The Morning of Life" dawns again as of old. + +But ah! those warm love-songs of fresh adolescence! +Around us such raptures celestial they flung +That it seemed as if Paradise breathed its quintessence +Through the seraph-toned lips of the maiden that sung! + +Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted +As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred, +Yet still with their music is memory haunted, +And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard. + +I feel like the priest to his altar returning,-- +The crowd that was kneeling no longer is there, +The flame has died down, but the brands are still burning, +And sandal and cinnamon sweeten the air. + + +II. +The veil for her bridal young Summer is weaving +In her azure-domed hall with its tapestried floor, +And Spring the last tear-drop of May-dew is leaving +On the daisy of Burns and the shamrock of Moore. + +How like, how unlike, as we view them together, +The song of the minstrels whose record we scan,-- +One fresh as the breeze blowing over the heather, +One sweet as the breath from an odalisque's fan! + +Ah, passion can glow mid a palace's splendor; +The cage does not alter the song of the bird; +And the curtain of silk has known whispers as tender +As ever the blossoming hawthorn has heard. + +No fear lest the step of the soft-slippered Graces +Should fright the young Loves from their warm little nest, +For the heart of a queen, under jewels and laces, +Beats time with the pulse in the peasant girl's breast! + +Thrice welcome each gift of kind Nature's bestowing! +Her fountain heeds little the goblet we hold; +Alike, when its musical waters are flowing, +The shell from the seaside, the chalice of gold. + +The twins of the lyre to her voices had listened; +Both laid their best gifts upon Liberty's shrine; +For Coila's loved minstrel the holly-wreath glistened; +For Erin's the rose and the myrtle entwine. + +And while the fresh blossoms of summer are braided +For the sea-girdled, stream-silvered, lake-jewelled isle, +While her mantle of verdure is woven unfaded, +While Shannon and Liffey shall dimple and smile, + +The land where the staff of Saint Patrick was planted, +Where the shamrock grows green from the cliffs to the shore, +The land of fair maidens and heroes undaunted, +Shall wreathe her bright harp with the garlands of Moore! + + + + + +TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE + +APRIL 4, 1880 + +I BRING the simplest pledge of love, +Friend of my earlier days; +Mine is the hand without the glove, +The heart-beat, not the phrase. + +How few still breathe this mortal air +We called by school-boy names! +You still, whatever robe you wear, +To me are always James. + +That name the kind apostle bore +Who shames the sullen creeds, +Not trusting less, but loving more, +And showing faith by deeds. + +What blending thoughts our memories share! +What visions yours and mine +Of May-days in whose morning air +The dews were golden wine, + +Of vistas bright with opening day, +Whose all-awakening sun +Showed in life's landscape, far away, +The summits to be won! + +The heights are gained. Ah, say not so +For him who smiles at time, +Leaves his tired comrades down below, +And only lives to climb! + +His labors,--will they ever cease,-- +With hand and tongue and pen? +Shall wearied Nature ask release +At threescore years and ten? + +Our strength the clustered seasons tax,-- +For him new life they mean; +Like rods around the lictor's axe +They keep him bright and keen. + +The wise, the brave, the strong, we know,-- +We mark them here or there, +But he,--we roll our eyes, and lo! +We find him everywhere! + +With truth's bold cohorts, or alone, +He strides through error's field; +His lance is ever manhood's own, +His breast is woman's shield. + +Count not his years while earth has need +Of souls that Heaven inflames +With sacred zeal to save, to lead,-- +Long live our dear Saint James! + + + + + +WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB + +January 14, 1880 + +CHICAGO sounds rough to the maker of verse; +One comfort we have--Cincinnati sounds worse; +If we only were licensed to say Chicago! +But Worcester and Webster won't let us, you know. + +No matter, we songsters must sing as we can; +We can make some nice couplets with Lake Michigan, +And what more resembles a nightingale's voice, +Than the oily trisyllable, sweet Illinois? + +Your waters are fresh, while our harbor is salt, +But we know you can't help it--it is n't your fault; +Our city is old and your city is new, +But the railroad men tell us we're greener than you. + +You have seen our gilt dome, and no doubt you've been told +That the orbs of the universe round it are rolled; +But I'll own it to you, and I ought to know best, +That this is n't quite true of all stars of the West. + +You'll go to Mount Auburn,--we'll show you the track,-- +And can stay there,--unless you prefer to come back; +And Bunker's tall shaft you can climb if you will, +But you'll puff like a paragraph praising a pill. + +You must see--but you have seen--our old Faneuil Hall, +Our churches, our school-rooms, our sample-rooms, all; +And, perhaps, though the idiots must have their jokes, +You have found our good people much like other folks. + +There are cities by rivers, by lakes, and by seas, +Each as full of itself as a cheese-mite of cheese; +And a city will brag as a game-cock will crow +Don't your cockerels at home--just a little, you know? + +But we'll crow for you now--here's a health to the boys, +Men, maidens, and matrons of fair Illinois, +And the rainbow of friendship that arches its span +From the green of the sea to the blue Michigan! + + + + + +AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +MAY 26, 1880 + +SIRE, son, and grandson; so the century glides; +Three lives, three strides, three foot-prints in the sand; +Silent as midnight's falling meteor slides +Into the stillness of the far-off land; +How dim the space its little arc has spanned! + +See on this opening page the names renowned +Tombed in these records on our dusty shelves, +Scarce on the scroll of living memory found, +Save where the wan-eyed antiquarian delves; +Shadows they seem; ab, what are we ourselves? + +Pale ghosts of Bowdoin, Winthrop, Willard, West, +Sages of busy brain and wrinkled brow, +Searchers of Nature's secrets unconfessed, +Asking of all things Whence and Why and How-- +What problems meet your larger vision now? + +Has Gannett tracked the wild Aurora's path? +Has Bowdoin found his all-surrounding sphere? +What question puzzles ciphering Philomath? +Could Williams make the hidden causes clear +Of the Dark Day that filled the land with fear? + +Dear ancient school-boys! Nature taught to them +The simple lessons of the star and flower, +Showed them strange sights; how on a single stem,-- +Admire the marvels of Creative Power!-- +Twin apples grew, one sweet, the other sour; + +How from the hill-top where our eyes beheld +In even ranks the plumed and bannered maize +Range its long columns, in the days of old +The live volcano shot its angry blaze,-- +Dead since the showers of Noah's watery days; + +How, when the lightning split the mighty rock, +The spreading fury of the shaft was spent! +How the young scion joined the alien stock, +And when and where the homeless swallows went +To pass the winter of their discontent. + +Scant were the gleanings in those years of dearth; +No Cuvier yet had clothed the fossil bones +That slumbered, waiting for their second birth; +No Lyell read the legend of the stones; +Science still pointed to her empty thrones. + +Dreaming of orbs to eyes of earth unknown, +Herschel looked heavenwards in the starlight pale; +Lost in those awful depths he trod alone, +Laplace stood mute before the lifted veil; +While home-bred Humboldt trimmed his toy ship's sail. + +No mortal feet these loftier heights had gained +Whence the wide realms of Nature we descry; +In vain their eyes our longing fathers strained +To scan with wondering gaze the summits high +That far beneath their children's footpaths lie. + +Smile at their first small ventures as we may, +The school-boy's copy shapes the scholar's hand, +Their grateful memory fills our hearts to-day; +Brave, hopeful, wise, this bower of peace they planned, +While war's dread ploughshare scarred the suffering land. + +Child of our children's children yet unborn, +When on this yellow page you turn your eyes, +Where the brief record of this May-day morn +In phrase antique and faded letters lies, +How vague, how pale our flitting ghosts will rise! + +Yet in our veins the blood ran warm and red, +For us the fields were green, the skies were blue, +Though from our dust the spirit long has fled, +We lived, we loved, we toiled, we dreamed like you, +Smiled at our sires and thought how much we knew. + +Oh might our spirits for one hour return, +When the next century rounds its hundredth ring, +All the strange secrets it shall teach to learn, +To hear the larger truths its years shall bring, +Its wiser sages talk, its sweeter minstrels sing! + + + + + +THE SCHOOL-BOY + +Read at the Centennial Celebration of the +foundation of Phillips Academy, Andover. + +1778-1878 + +THESE hallowed precincts, long to memory dear, +Smile with fresh welcome as our feet draw near; +With softer gales the opening leaves are fanned, +With fairer hues the kindling flowers expand, +The rose-bush reddens with the blush of June, +The groves are vocal with their minstrels' tune, +The mighty elm, beneath whose arching shade +The wandering children of the forest strayed, +Greets the bright morning in its bridal dress, +And spreads its arms the gladsome dawn to bless. +Is it an idle dream that nature shares +Our joys, our griefs, our pastimes, and our cares? +Is there no summons when, at morning's call, +The sable vestments of the darkness fall? +Does not meek evening's low-voiced Ave blend +With the soft vesper as its notes ascend? +Is there no whisper in the perfumed air +When the sweet bosom of the rose is bare? +Does not the sunshine call us to rejoice? +Is there no meaning in the storm-cloud's voice? +No silent message when from midnight skies +Heaven looks upon us with its myriad eyes? + +Or shift the mirror; say our dreams diffuse +O'er life's pale landscape their celestial hues, +Lend heaven the rainbow it has never known, +And robe the earth in glories not its own, +Sing their own music in the summer breeze, +With fresher foliage clothe the stately trees, +Stain the June blossoms with a livelier dye +And spread a bluer azure on the sky,-- +Blest be the power that works its lawless will +And finds the weediest patch an Eden still; +No walls so fair as those our fancies build,-- +No views so bright as those our visions gild! + +So ran my lines, as pen and paper met, +The truant goose-quill travelling like Planchette; +Too ready servant, whose deceitful ways +Full many a slipshod line, alas! betrays; +Hence of the rhyming thousand not a few +Have builded worse--a great deal--than they knew. + +What need of idle fancy to adorn +Our mother's birthplace on her birthday morn? +Hers are the blossoms of eternal spring, +From these green boughs her new-fledged birds take wing, +These echoes hear their earliest carols sung, +In this old nest the brood is ever young. +If some tired wanderer, resting from his flight, +Amid the gay young choristers alight, +These gather round him, mark his faded plumes +That faintly still the far-off grove perfumes, +And listen, wondering if some feeble note +Yet lingers, quavering in his weary throat:-- +I, whose fresh voice yon red-faced temple knew, +What tune is left me, fit to sing to you? +Ask not the grandeurs of a labored song, +But let my easy couplets slide along; +Much could I tell you that you know too well; +Much I remember, but I will not tell; +Age brings experience; graybeards oft are wise, +But oh! how sharp a youngster's ears and eyes! + +My cheek was bare of adolescent down +When first I sought the academic town; +Slow rolls the coach along the dusty road, +Big with its filial and parental load; +The frequent hills, the lonely woods are past, +The school-boy's chosen home is reached at last. +I see it now, the same unchanging spot, +The swinging gate, the little garden plot, +The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor, +The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, +The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, +The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still; +Two, creased with age,--or what I then called age,-- +Life's volume open at its fiftieth page; +One, a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet +As the first snow-drop, which the sunbeams greet; +One, the last nursling's; slight she was, and fair, +Her smooth white forehead warmed with auburn hair; +Last came the virgin Hymen long had spared, +Whose daily cares the grateful household shared, +Strong, patient, humble; her substantial frame +Stretched the chaste draperies I forbear to name. +Brave, but with effort, had the school-boy come +To the cold comfort of a stranger's home; +How like a dagger to my sinking heart +Came the dry summons, "It is time to part; +Good-by!" "Goo-ood-by!" one fond maternal kiss. . . . +Homesick as death! Was ever pang like this? +Too young as yet with willing feet to stray +From the tame fireside, glad to get away,-- +Too old to let my watery grief appear,-- +And what so bitter as a swallowed tear! +One figure still my vagrant thoughts pursue; +First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you? +Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how +You learned it all,--are you an angel now, +Or tottering gently down the slope of years, +Your face grown sober in the vale of tears? +Forgive my freedom if you are breathing still; + +If in a happier world, I know you will. +You were a school-boy--what beneath the sun +So like a monkey? I was also one. +Strange, sure enough, to see what curious shoots +The nursery raises from the study's roots! +In those old days the very, very good +Took up more room--a little--than they should; +Something too much one's eyes encountered then +Of serious youth and funeral-visaged men; +The solemn elders saw life's mournful half,-- +Heaven sent this boy, whose mission was to laugh, +Drollest of buffos, Nature's odd protest, +A catbird squealing in a blackbird's nest. +Kind, faithful Nature! While the sour-eyed Scot-- +Her cheerful smiles forbidden or forgot-- +Talks only of his preacher and his kirk,-- +Hears five-hour sermons for his Sunday work,-- +Praying and fasting till his meagre face +Gains its due length, the genuine sign of grace,-- +An Ayrshire mother in the land of Knox +Her embryo poet in his cradle rocks;-- +Nature, long shivering in her dim eclipse, +Steals in a sunbeam to those baby lips; +So to its home her banished smile returns, +And Scotland sweetens with the song of Burns! + +The morning came; I reached the classic hall; +A clock-face eyed me, staring from the wall; +Beneath its hands a printed line I read +YOUTH IS LIFE'S SEED-TIME: so the clock-face said: +Some took its counsel, as the sequel showed,-- +Sowed,--their wild oats,--and reaped as they had sowed. +How all comes back! the upward slanting floor,-- +The masters' thrones that flank the central door,-- +The long, outstretching alleys that divide +The rows of desks that stand on either side,-- +The staring boys, a face to every desk, +Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, picturesque. +Grave is the Master's look; his forehead wears +Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares; +Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule, +His most of all whose kingdom is a school. +Supreme he sits; before the awful frown +That bends his brows the boldest eye goes down; +Not more submissive Israel heard and saw +At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. +Less stern he seems, who sits in equal Mate +On the twin throne and shares the empire's weight; +Around his lips the subtle life that plays +Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting phrase; +A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, +Pleasant when pleased; rough-handled, not so safe; +Some tingling memories vaguely I recall, +But to forgive him. God forgive us all! + +One yet remains, whose well-remembered name +Pleads in my grateful heart its tender claim; +His was the charm magnetic, the bright look +That sheds its sunshine on the dreariest book; +A loving soul to every task he brought +That sweetly mingled with the lore he taught; +Sprung from a saintly race that never could +From youth to age be anything but good, +His few brief years in holiest labors spent, +Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had lent. +Kindest of teachers, studious to divine +Some hint of promise in my earliest line, +These faint and faltering words thou canst not hear +Throb from a heart that holds thy memory dear. +As to the traveller's eye the varied plain +Shows through the window of the flying train, +A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, +A gravelly bank, a sudden flash of green, +A tangled wood, a glittering stream that flows +Through the cleft summit where the cliff once rose, +All strangely blended in a hurried gleam, +Rock, wood, waste, meadow, village, hill-side, stream,-- +So, as we look behind us, life appears, +Seen through the vista of our bygone years. +Yet in the dead past's shadow-filled domain, +Some vanished shapes the hues of life retain; +Unbidden, oft, before our dreaming eyes +From the vague mists in memory's path they rise. +So comes his blooming image to my view, +The friend of joyous days when life was new, +Hope yet untamed, the blood of youth unchilled, +No blank arrear of promise unfulfilled, +Life's flower yet hidden in its sheltering fold, +Its pictured canvas yet to be unrolled. +His the frank smile I vainly look to greet, +His the warm grasp my clasping hand should meet; +How would our lips renew their school-boy talk, +Our feet retrace the old familiar walk! +For thee no more earth's cheerful morning shines +Through the green fringes of the tented pines; +Ah me! is heaven so far thou canst not hear, +Or is thy viewless spirit hovering near, +A fair young presence, bright with morning's glow, +The fresh-cheeked boy of fifty years ago? +Yes, fifty years, with all their circling suns, +Behind them all my glance reverted runs; +Where now that time remote, its griefs, its joys, +Where are its gray-haired men, its bright-haired boys? +Where is the patriarch time could hardly tire,-- +The good old, wrinkled, immemorial "squire "? +(An honest treasurer, like a black-plumed swan, +Not every day our eyes may look upon.) +Where the tough champion who, with Calvin's sword, +In wordy conflicts battled for the Lord? +Where the grave scholar, lonely, calm, austere, +Whose voice like music charmed the listening ear, +Whose light rekindled, like the morning star +Still shines upon us through the gates ajar? +Where the still, solemn, weary, sad-eyed man, +Whose care-worn face and wandering eyes would scan,-- +His features wasted in the lingering strife +With the pale foe that drains the student's life? +Where my old friend, the scholar, teacher, saint, +Whose creed, some hinted, showed a speck of taint; +He broached his own opinion, which is not +Lightly to be forgiven or forgot; +Some riddle's point,--I scarce remember now,-- +Homoi-, perhaps, where they said homo-ou. +(If the unlettered greatly wish to know +Where lies the difference betwixt oi and o, +Those of the curious who have time may search +Among the stale conundrums of their church.) +Beneath his roof his peaceful life I shared, +And for his modes of faith I little cared,-- +I, taught to judge men's dogmas by their deeds, +Long ere the days of india-rubber creeds. + +Why should we look one common faith to find, +Where one in every score is color-blind? +If here on earth they know not red from green, +Will they see better into things unseen! +Once more to time's old graveyard I return +And scrape the moss from memory's pictured urn. +Who, in these days when all things go by steam, +Recalls the stage-coach with its four-horse team? +Its sturdy driver,--who remembers him? +Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim, +Who left our hill-top for a new abode +And reared his sign-post farther down the road? +Still in the waters of the dark Shawshine +Do the young bathers splash and think they're clean? +Do pilgrims find their way to Indian Ridge, +Or journey onward to the far-off bridge, +And bring to younger ears the story back +Of the broad stream, the mighty Merrimac? +Are there still truant feet that stray beyond +These circling bounds to Pomp's or Haggett's Pond, +Or where the legendary name recalls +The forest's earlier tenant,--"Deerjump Falls"? +Yes, every nook these youthful feet explore, +Just as our sires and grand sires did of yore; +So all life's opening paths, where nature led +Their father's feet, the children's children tread. +Roll the round century's fivescore years away, +Call from our storied past that earliest day +When great Eliphalet (I can see him now,-- +Big name, big frame, big voice, and beetling brow), +Then young Eliphalet,--ruled the rows of boys +In homespun gray or old-world corduroys,-- +And save for fashion's whims, the benches show +The self-same youths, the very boys we know. +Time works strange marvels: since I trod the green +And swung the gates, what wonders I have seen! +But come what will,--the sky itself may fall,-- +As things of course the boy accepts them all. +The prophet's chariot, drawn by steeds of flame, +For daily use our travelling millions claim; +The face we love a sunbeam makes our own; +No more the surgeon hears the sufferer's groan; +What unwrit histories wrapped in darkness lay +Till shovelling Schliemann bared them to the day! +Your Richelieu says, and says it well, my lord, +The pen is (sometimes) mightier than the sword; +Great is the goosequill, say we all; Amen! +Sometimes the spade is mightier than the pen; +It shows where Babel's terraced walls were raised, +The slabs that cracked when Nimrod's palace blazed, +Unearths Mycenee, rediscovers Troy,-- +Calmly he listens, that immortal boy. +A new Prometheus tips our wands with fire, +A mightier Orpheus strains the whispering wire, +Whose lightning thrills the lazy winds outrun +And hold the hours as Joshua stayed the sun,-- +So swift, in truth, we hardly find a place +For those dim fictions known as time and space. +Still a new miracle each year supplies,-- +See at his work the chemist of the skies, +Who questions Sirius in his tortured rays +And steals the secret of the solar blaze; +Hush! while the window-rattling bugles play +The nation's airs a hundred miles away! +That wicked phonograph! hark! how it swears! +Turn it again and make it say its prayers! +And was it true, then, what the story said +Of Oxford's friar and his brazen head? +While wondering Science stands, herself perplexed +At each day's miracle, and asks "What next?" +The immortal boy, the coming heir of all, +Springs from his desk to "urge the flying ball," +Cleaves with his bending oar the glassy waves, +With sinewy arm the dashing current braves, +The same bright creature in these haunts of ours +That Eton shadowed with her "antique towers." + +Boy! Where is he? the long-limbed youth inquires, +Whom his rough chin with manly pride inspires; +Ah, when the ruddy cheek no longer glows, +When the bright hair is white as winter snows, +When the dim eye has lost its lambent flame, +Sweet to his ear will be his school-boy name +Nor think the difference mighty as it seems +Between life's morning and its evening dreams; +Fourscore, like twenty, has its tasks and toys; +In earth's wide school-house all are girls and boys. + +Brothers, forgive my wayward fancy. Who +Can guess beforehand what his pen will do? +Too light my strain for listeners such as these, +Whom graver thoughts and soberer speech shall please. +Is he not here whose breath of holy song +Has raised the downcast eyes of Faith so long? +Are they not here, the strangers in your gates, +For whom the wearied ear impatient waits,-- +The large-brained scholars whom their toils release,-- +The bannered heralds of the Prince of Peace? + +Such was the gentle friend whose youth unblamed +In years long past our student-benches claimed; +Whose name, illumined on the sacred page, +Lives in the labors of his riper age; +Such he whose record time's destroying march +Leaves uneffaced on Zion's springing arch +Not to the scanty phrase of measured song, +Cramped in its fetters, names like these belong; +One ray they lend to gild my slender line,-- +Their praise I leave to sweeter lips than mine. + +Homes of our sires, where Learning's temple rose, +While vet they struggled with their banded foes, +As in the West thy century's sun descends, +One parting gleam its dying radiance lends. +Darker and deeper though the shadows fall +From the gray towers on Doubting Castle's wall, +Though Pope and Pagan re-array their hosts, +And her new armor youthful Science boasts, +Truth, for whose altar rose this holy shrine, +Shall fly for refuge to these bowers of thine; +No past shall chain her with its rusted vow, +No Jew's phylactery bind her Christian brow, +But Faith shall smile to find her sister free, +And nobler manhood draw its life from thee. + +Long as the arching skies above thee spread, +As on thy groves the dews of heaven are shed, +With currents widening still from year to year, +And deepening channels, calm, untroubled, clear, +Flow the twin streamlets from thy sacred hill-- +Pieria's fount and Siloam's shaded rill! + + + + + +THE SILENT MELODY + +"BRING me my broken harp," he said; +"We both are wrecks,--but as ye will,-- +Though all its ringing tones have fled, +Their echoes linger round it still; +It had some golden strings, I know, +But that was long--how long!--ago. + +"I cannot see its tarnished gold, +I cannot hear its vanished tone, +Scarce can my trembling fingers hold +The pillared frame so long their own; +We both are wrecks,--a while ago +It had some silver strings, I know, + +"But on them Time too long has played +The solemn strain that knows no change, +And where of old my fingers strayed +The chords they find are new and strange,-- +Yes! iron strings,--I know,--I know,-- +We both are wrecks of long ago. + +"We both are wrecks,--a shattered pair,-- +Strange to ourselves in time's disguise. +What say ye to the lovesick air +That brought the tears from Marian's eyes? +Ay! trust me,--under breasts of snow +Hearts could be melted long ago! + +"Or will ye hear the storm-song's crash +That from his dreams the soldier woke, +And bade him face the lightning flash +When battle's cloud in thunder broke? . . . +Wrecks,--nought but wrecks!--the time was when +We two were worth a thousand men!" + +And so the broken harp they bring +With pitying smiles that none could blame; +Alas! there's not a single string +Of all that filled the tarnished frame! +But see! like children overjoyed, +His fingers rambling through the void! + +"I clasp thee! Ay . . . mine ancient lyre . . . +Nay, guide my wandering fingers. . . There +They love to dally with the wire +As Isaac played with Esau's hair. +Hush! ye shall hear the famous tune +That Marian called the Breath of June!" + +And so they softly gather round +Rapt in his tuneful trance he seems +His fingers move: but not a sound! +A silence like the song of dreams. . . . +"There! ye have heard the air," he cries, +"That brought the tears from Marian's eyes!" + +Ah, smile not at his fond conceit, +Nor deem his fancy wrought in vain; +To him the unreal sounds are sweet,-- +No discord mars the silent strain +Scored on life's latest, starlit page-- +The voiceless melody of age. + +Sweet are the lips, of all that sing, +When Nature's music breathes unsought, +But never yet could voice or string +So truly shape our tenderest thought +As when by life's decaying fire +Our fingers sweep the stringless lyre! + + + + + +OUR HOME--OUR COUNTRY + +FOR THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE +SETTLEMENT OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS., DECEMBER 28, 1880 + +YOUR home was mine,--kind Nature's gift; +My love no years can chill; +In vain their flakes the storm-winds sift, +The snow-drop hides beneath the drift, +A living blossom still. + +Mute are a hundred long-famed lyres, +Hushed all their golden strings; +One lay the coldest bosom fires, +One song, one only, never tires +While sweet-voiced memory sings. + +No spot so lone but echo knows +That dear familiar strain; +In tropic isles, on arctic snows, +Through burning lips its music flows +And rings its fond refrain. + +From Pisa's tower my straining sight +Roamed wandering leagues away, +When lo! a frigate's banner bright, +The starry blue, the red, the white, +In far Livorno's bay. + +Hot leaps the life-blood from my heart, +Forth springs the sudden tear; +The ship that rocks by yonder mart +Is of my land, my life, a part,-- +Home, home, sweet home, is here! + +Fades from my view the sunlit scene,-- +My vision spans the waves; +I see the elm-encircled green, +The tower,--the steeple,--and, between, +The field of ancient graves. + +There runs the path my feet would tread +When first they learned to stray; +There stands the gambrel roof that spread +Its quaint old angles o'er my head +When first I saw the day. + +The sounds that met my boyish ear +My inward sense salute,-- +The woodnotes wild I loved to hear,-- +The robin's challenge, sharp and clear,-- +The breath of evening's flute. + +The faces loved from cradle days,-- +Unseen, alas, how long! +As fond remembrance round them plays, +Touched with its softening moonlight rays, +Through fancy's portal throng. + +And see! as if the opening skies +Some angel form had spared +Us wingless mortals to surprise, +The little maid with light-blue eyes, +White necked and golden haired! + + . . . . . . . . . . + +So rose the picture full in view +I paint in feebler song; +Such power the seamless banner knew +Of red and white and starry blue +For exiles banished long. + +Oh, boys, dear boys, who wait as men +To guard its heaven-bright folds, +Blest are the eyes that see again +That banner, seamless now, as then,-- +The fairest earth beholds! + +Sweet was the Tuscan air and soft +In that unfading hour, +And fancy leads my footsteps oft +Up the round galleries, high aloft +On Pisa's threatening tower. + +And still in Memory's holiest shrine +I read with pride and joy, +"For me those stars of empire shine; +That empire's dearest home is mine; +I am a Cambridge boy!" + + + + + +POEM + +AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE +MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 8, 1881 + +THREE paths there be where Learning's favored sons, +Trained in the schools which hold her favored ones, +Follow their several stars with separate aim; +Each has its honors, each its special claim. +Bred in the fruitful cradle of the East, +First, as of oldest lineage, comes the Priest; +The Lawyer next, in wordy conflict strong, +Full armed to battle for the right,--or wrong; +Last, he whose calling finds its voice in deeds, +Frail Nature's helper in her sharpest needs. + +Each has his gifts, his losses and his gains, +Each his own share of pleasures and of pains; +No life-long aim with steadfast eye pursued +Finds a smooth pathway all with roses strewed; +Trouble belongs to man of woman born,-- +Tread where he may, his foot will find its thorn. + +Of all the guests at life's perennial feast, +Who of her children sits above the Priest? +For him the broidered robe, the carven seat, +Pride at his beck, and beauty at his feet, +For him the incense fumes, the wine is poured, +Himself a God, adoring and adored! +His the first welcome when our hearts rejoice, +His in our dying ear the latest voice, +Font, altar, grave, his steps on all attend, +Our staff, our stay, our all but heavenly friend! + +Where is the meddling hand that dares to probe +The secret grief beneath his sable robe? +How grave his port! how every gesture tells +Here truth abides, here peace forever dwells; +Vex not his lofty soul with comments vain; +Faith asks no questions; silence, ye profane! + +Alas! too oft while all is calm without +The stormy spirit wars with endless doubt; +This is the mocking spectre, scarce concealed +Behind tradition's bruised and battered shield. +He sees the sleepless critic, age by age, +Scrawl his new readings on the hallowed page, +The wondrous deeds that priests and prophets saw +Dissolved in legend, crystallized in law, +And on the soil where saints and martyrs trod +Altars new builded to the Unknown God; +His shrines imperilled, his evangels torn,-- +He dares not limp, but ah! how sharp his thorn! + +Yet while God's herald questions as he reads +The outworn dogmas of his ancient creeds, +Drops from his ritual the exploded verse, +Blots from its page the Athanasian curse, +Though by the critic's dangerous art perplexed, +His holy life is Heaven's unquestioned text; +That shining guidance doubt can never mar,-- +The pillar's flame, the light of Bethlehem's star! + + +Strong is the moral blister that will draw +Laid on the conscience of the Man of Law +Whom blindfold Justice lends her eyes to see +Truth in the scale that holds his promised fee. +What! Has not every lie its truthful side, +Its honest fraction, not to be denied? +Per contra,--ask the moralist,--in sooth +Has not a lie its share in every truth? +Then what forbids an honest man to try +To find the truth that lurks in every lie, +And just as fairly call on truth to yield +The lying fraction in its breast concealed? +So the worst rogue shall claim a ready friend +His modest virtues boldly to defend, +And he who shows the record of a saint +See himself blacker than the devil could paint. + +What struggles to his captive soul belong +Who loves the right, yet combats for the wrong, +Who fights the battle he would fain refuse, +And wins, well knowing that he ought to lose, +Who speaks with glowing lips and look sincere +In spangled words that make the worse appear +The better reason; who, behind his mask, +Hides his true self and blushes at his task,-- +What quips, what quillets cheat the inward scorn +That mocks such triumph? Has he not his thorn? + +Yet stay thy judgment; were thy life the prize, +Thy death the forfeit, would thy cynic eyes +See fault in him who bravely dares defend +The cause forlorn, the wretch without a friend +Nay, though the rightful side is wisdom's choice, +Wrong has its rights and claims a champion's voice; +Let the strong arm be lifted for the weak, +For the dumb lips the fluent pleader speak;-- +When with warm "rebel" blood our street was dyed +Who took, unawed, the hated hirelings' side? +No greener civic wreath can Adams claim, +No brighter page the youthful Quincy's name! + + +How blest is he who knows no meaner strife +Than Art's long battle with the foes of life! +No doubt assails him, doing still his best, +And trusting kindly Nature for the rest; +No mocking conscience tears the thin disguise +That wraps his breast, and tells him that he lies. +He comes: the languid sufferer lifts his head +And smiles a welcome from his weary bed; +He speaks: what music like the tones that tell, +"Past is the hour of danger,--all is well!" +How can he feel the petty stings of grief +Whose cheering presence always brings relief? +What ugly dreams can trouble his repose +Who yields himself to soothe another's woes? + +Hour after hour the busy day has found +The good physician on his lonely round; +Mansion and hovel, low and lofty door, +He knows, his journeys every path explore,-- +Where the cold blast has struck with deadly chill +The sturdy dweller on the storm-swept hill, +Where by the stagnant marsh the sickening gale +Has blanched the poisoned tenants of the vale, +Where crushed and maimed the bleeding victim lies, +Where madness raves, where melancholy sighs, +And where the solemn whisper tells too plain +That all his science, all his art, were vain. + +How sweet his fireside when the day is done +And cares have vanished with the setting sun! +Evening at last its hour of respite brings +And on his couch his weary length he flings. +Soft be thy pillow, servant of mankind, +Lulled by an opiate Art could never find; +Sweet be thy slumber,--thou hast earned it well,-- +Pleasant thy dreams! Clang! goes the midnight bell! + +Darkness and storm! the home is far away +That waits his coming ere the break of day; +The snow-clad pines their wintry plumage toss,-- +Doubtful the frozen stream his road must cross; +Deep lie the drifts, the slanted heaps have shut +The hardy woodman in his mountain hut,-- +Why should thy softer frame the tempest brave? +Hast thou no life, no health, to lose or save? +Look! read the answer in his patient eyes,-- +For him no other voice when suffering cries; +Deaf to the gale that all around him blows, +A feeble whisper calls him,--and he goes. + +Or seek the crowded city,--summer's heat +Glares burning, blinding, in the narrow street, +Still, noisome, deadly, sleeps the envenomed air, +Unstirred the yellow flag that says "Beware!" +Tempt not thy fate,--one little moment's breath +Bears on its viewless wing the seeds of death; +Thou at whose door the gilded chariots stand, +Whose dear-bought skill unclasps the miser's hand, +Turn from thy fatal quest, nor cast away +That life so precious; let a meaner prey +Feed the destroyer's hunger; live to bless +Those happier homes that need thy care no less! + +Smiling he listens; has he then a charm +Whose magic virtues peril can disarm? +No safeguard his; no amulet he wears, +Too well he knows that Nature never spares +Her truest servant, powerless to defend +From her own weapons her unshrinking friend. +He dares the fate the bravest well might shun, +Nor asks reward save only Heaven's "Well done!" + +Such are the toils, the perils that he knows, +Days without rest and nights without repose, +Yet all unheeded for the love he bears +His art, his kind, whose every grief he shares. + +Harder than these to know how small the part +Nature's proud empire yields to striving Art; +How, as the tide that rolls around the sphere +Laughs at the mounds that delving arms uprear,-- +Spares some few roods of oozy earth, but still +Wastes and rebuilds the planet at its will, +Comes at its ordered season, night or noon, +Led by the silver magnet of the moon,-- +So life's vast tide forever comes and goes, +Unchecked, resistless, as it ebbs and flows. + +Hardest of all, when Art has done her best, +To find the cuckoo brooding in her nest; +The shrewd adventurer, fresh from parts unknown, +Kills off the patients Science thought her own; +Towns from a nostrum-vender get their name, +Fences and walls the cure-all drug proclaim, +Plasters and pads the willing world beguile, +Fair Lydia greets us with astringent smile, +Munchausen's fellow-countryman unlocks +His new Pandora's globule-holding box, +And as King George inquired, with puzzled grin, +"How--how the devil get the apple in?" +So we ask how,--with wonder-opening eyes,-- +Such pygmy pills can hold such giant lies! + +Yes, sharp the trials, stern the daily tasks +That suffering Nature from her servant asks; +His the kind office dainty menials scorn, +His path how hard,--at every step a thorn! +What does his saddening, restless slavery buy? +What save a right to live, a chance to die,-- +To live companion of disease and pain, +To die by poisoned shafts untimely slain? + +Answer from hoary eld, majestic shades,-- +From Memphian courts, from Delphic colonnades, +Speak in the tones that Persia's despot heard +When nations treasured every golden word +The wandering echoes wafted o'er the seas, +From the far isle that held Hippocrates; +And thou, best gift that Pergamus could send +Imperial Rome, her noblest Caesar's friend, +Master of masters, whose unchallenged sway +Not bold Vesalius dared to disobey; +Ye who while prophets dreamed of dawning times +Taught your rude lessons in Salerno's rhymes, +And ye, the nearer sires, to whom we owe +The better share of all the best we know, +In every land an ever-growing train, +Since wakening Science broke her rusted chain,-- +Speak from the past, and say what prize was sent +To crown the toiling years so freely spent! + +List while they speak: + In life's uneven road +Our willing hands have eased our brothers' load; +One forehead smoothed, one pang of torture less, +One peaceful hour a sufferer's couch to bless, +The smile brought back to fever's parching lips, +The light restored to reason in eclipse, +Life's treasure rescued like a burning brand +Snatched from the dread destroyer's wasteful hand; +Such were our simple records day by day, +For gains like these we wore our lives away. +In toilsome paths our daily bread we sought, +But bread from heaven attending angels brought; +Pain was our teacher, speaking to the heart, +Mother of pity, nurse of pitying art; +Our lesson learned, we reached the peaceful shore +Where the pale sufferer asks our aid no more,-- +These gracious words our welcome, our reward +Ye served your brothers; ye have served your Lord! + + + + + +RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME + +FROM the first gleam of morning to the gray +Of peaceful evening, lo, a life unrolled! +In woven pictures all its changes told, +Its lights, its shadows, every flitting ray, +Till the long curtain, falling, dims the day, +Steals from the dial's disk the sunlight's gold, +And all the graven hours grow dark and cold +Where late the glowing blaze of noontide lay. +Ah! the warm blood runs wild in youthful veins,-- +Let me no longer play with painted fire; +New songs for new-born days! I would not tire +The listening ears that wait for fresher strains +In phrase new-moulded, new-forged rhythmic chains, +With plaintive measures from a worn-out lyre. +August 2, 1881. + + +=== + + + + + BEFORE THE CURFEW + +AT MY FIRESIDE + +ALONE, beneath the darkened sky, +With saddened heart and unstrung lyre, +I heap the spoils of years gone by, +And leave them with a long-drawn sigh, +Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie, +Before the ashes hide the fire. + +Let not these slow declining days +The rosy light of dawn outlast; +Still round my lonely hearth it plays, +And gilds the east with borrowed rays, +While memory's mirrored sunset blaze +Flames on the windows of the past. + +March 1, 1888. + + + + + +AT THE SATURDAY CLUB +THIS is our place of meeting; opposite +That towered and pillared building: look at it; +King's Chapel in the Second George's day, +Rebellion stole its regal name away,-- +Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last +The poisoned name of our provincial past +Had lost its ancient venom; then once more +Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before. +(So let rechristened North Street, when it can, +Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!) +Next the old church your wandering eye will meet-- +A granite pile that stares upon the street-- +Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said +Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head, +Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by +Say Boston always held her head too high. +Turn half-way round, and let your look survey +The white facade that gleams across the way,-- +The many-windowed building, tall and wide, +The palace-inn that shows its northern side +In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat +The granite wall in summer's scorching heat. +This is the place; whether its name you spell +Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel. +Would I could steal its echoes! you should find +Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind +Such feasts! the laughs of many a jocund hour +That shook the mortar from King George's tower; +Such guests! What famous names its record boasts, +Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts! +Such stories! Every beam and plank is filled +With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, +Ready to ooze, as once the mountain pine +The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine! + +A month had flitted since The Club had met; +The day came round; I found the table set, +The waiters lounging round the marble stairs, +Empty as yet the double row of chairs. +I was a full half hour before the rest, +Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest. +So from the table's side a chair I took, +And having neither company nor book +To keep me waking, by degrees there crept +A torpor over me,--in short, I slept. + +Loosed from its chain, along the wreck-strown track +Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back; +My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it seems +Dreaming is life; nay, life less life than dreams, +So real are the shapes that meet my eyes. +They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, +No hint of other than an earth-born source; +All seems plain daylight, everything of course. + +How dim the colors are, how poor and faint +This palette of weak words with which I paint! +Here sit my friends; if I could fix them so +As to my eyes they seem, my page would glow +Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush +Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush +Of life into their features. Ay de mi! +If syllables were pigments, you should see +Such breathing portraitures as never man +Found in the Pitti or the Vatican. + +Here sits our POET, Laureate, if you will. +Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it still. +Dead? Nay, not so; and yet they say his bust +Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, +Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's grace; +Dead! No! Alive! I see him in his place, +Full-featured, with the bloom that heaven denies +Her children, pinched by cold New England skies, +Too often, while the nursery's happier few +Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue. +Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there shines +The ray serene that filled Evangeline's. +Modest he seems, not shy; content to wait +Amid the noisy clamor of debate +The looked-for moment when a peaceful word +Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have stirred. +In every tone I mark his tender grace +And all his poems hinted in his face; +What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives! +How could. I think him dead? He lives! He lives! + +There, at the table's further end I see +In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, +The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square, +In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. +His social hour no leaden care alloys, +His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's,-- +That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot,-- +What ear has heard it and remembers not? +How often, halting at some wide crevasse +Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, +High up the cliffs, the climbing mountaineer, +Listening the far-off avalanche to hear, +Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, +Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing laugh, +From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls +Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls +How does vast Nature lead her living train +In ordered sequence through that spacious brain, +As in the primal hour when Adam named +The new-born tribes that young creation claimed!-- +How will her realm be darkened, losing thee, +Her darling, whom we call _our_ AGASSIZ! + +But who is he whose massive frame belies +The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes? +Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, +Some answer struggles from his laboring breast? +An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, +Locked in his studio with a human heart, +Tracking its eaverned passions to their lair, +And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare. +Count it no marvel that he broods alone +Over the heart he studies,--'t is his own; +So in his page, whatever shape it wear, +The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there,-- +The great ROMANCER, hid beneath his veil +Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; +Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, +Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl. + +From his mild throng of worshippers released, +Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, +Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, +By every title always welcome here. +Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe? +You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, +The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulders' droop, +The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, +The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, +Carved by the edge of keen New England air. +List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose +The jewels for his bride, he might refuse +This diamond for its flaw,--find that less bright +Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white +Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, +The fairest gems are chosen, and made fast +In golden fetters; so, with light delays +He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase; +Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, +His chosen word is sure to prove the best. +Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, +Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong? +He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, +Born to unlock the secrets of the skies; +And which the nobler calling,--if 't is fair +Terrestrial with celestial to compare,-- +To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, +Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came, +Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, +And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre? +If lost at times in vague aerial flights, +None treads with firmer footstep when he lights; +A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, +Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, +In every Bible he has faith to read, +And every altar helps to shape his creed. +Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears +While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares? +Till angels greet him with a sweeter one +In heaven, on earth we call him EMERSON. + +I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn; +Its figures fading like the stars at dawn; +Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names, +And memory's pictures fading in their frames; +Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams +Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams! + + + + + +OUR DEAD SINGER + +H. W. L. + +PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own, +We claim with her that spotless fame of thine, +White as her snow and fragrant as her pine! +Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone +Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown +Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine +Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine, +On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown. +Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command,-- +The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild,-- +Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled, +Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand? +Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned +Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child. + +Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould, +Will grateful Memory fondly try her best +The mortal vesture from decay to wrest; +His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how cold! +No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold, +No throb can heave the statue's stony breast; +"He is not here, but risen," will stand confest +In all we miss, in all our eyes behold. +How Nature loved him! On his placid brow, +Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred sign +That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine, +Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough +That envious Time might clutch or disallow, +To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine. + +On many a saddened hearth the evening fire +Burns paler as the children's hour draws near,-- +That joyous hour his song made doubly dear,-- +And tender memories touch the faltering choir. +He sings no more on earth; our vain desire +Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear +In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear,-- +The sweet contralto that could never tire. +Deafened with listening to a harsher strain, +The Maenad's scream, the stark barbarian's cry, +Still for those soothing, loving tones we sigh; +Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again! +The shadowy silence hears us call in vain! +His lips are hushed; his song shall never die. + + + + + +TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + +ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, JUNE 14, 1882 + + +I. AT THE SUMMIT + +SISTER, we bid you welcome,--we who stand +On the high table-land; +We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope, +And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope, +Looking along the silent Mer de Glace, +Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse +Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass,-- +Sister, we clasp your hand! + +Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent +Before the swift descent. +Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice; +See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss; +The mated eagles fan the frosty air; +Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere, +And, in their time, the darkening hours that bear +Sweet memories, peace, content. + +Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show +Amid their rubrics' glow, +But search the blazoned record's starry line, +What halo's radiance fills the page like thine? +Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find +The way to all the hearts of all mankind, +On thee, already canonized, enshrined, +What more can Heaven bestow! + + +II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + +IF every tongue that speaks her praise +For whom I shape my tinkling phrase +Were summoned to the table, +The vocal chorus that would meet +Of mingling accents harsh or sweet, +From every land and tribe, would beat +The polyglots at Babel. + +Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane, +Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine, +Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi, +High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too, +The Russian serf, the Polish Jew, +Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo, +Would shout, "We know the lady!" + +Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom +And her he learned his gospel from +Has never heard of Moses; +Full well the brave black hand we know +That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe +That killed the weed that used to grow +Among the Southern roses. + +When Archimedes, long ago, +Spoke out so grandly, "_dos pou sto_-- +Give me a place to stand on, +I'll move your planet for you, now,"-- +He little dreamed or fancied how +The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_ +For woman's faith to land on. + +Her lever was the wand of art, +Her fulcrum was the human heart, +Whence all unfailing aid is; +She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed, +Its mountains shook, its temples reeled, +The blood-red fountains were unsealed, +And Moloch sunk to Hades. + +All through the conflict, up and down +Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown, +One ghost, one form ideal; +And which was false and which was true, +And which was mightier of the two, +The wisest sibyl never knew, +For both alike were real. + +Sister, the holy maid does well +Who counts her beads in convent cell, +Where pale devotion lingers; +But she who serves the sufferer's needs, +Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds, +May trust the Lord will count her beads +As well as human fingers. + +When Truth herself was Slavery's slave, +Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave +The rainbow wings of fiction. +And Truth who soared descends to-day +Bearing an angel's wreath away, +Its lilies at thy feet to lay +With Heaven's own benediction. + + + + + +A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + +ON HIS RETURN FROM SOUTH AMERICA + +AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS DEVOTED TO CATALOGUING THE +STARS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE + +Read at the Dinner given at the Hotel Vendome, May 6,1885. + +ONCE more Orion and the sister Seven +Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth,-- +How shall we welcome thee, whose home was heaven, +From thy celestial wanderings back to earth? + +Science has kept her midnight taper burning +To greet thy coming with its vestal flame; +Friendship has murmured, "When art thou returning?" +"Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came. + +Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion, +While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore,-- +Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean, +Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador. + +Through the long nights I see thee ever waking, +Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemisphere, +While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching, +Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier. + +The souls that voyaged the azure depths before thee +Watch with thy tireless vigils, all unseen,-- +Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er thee, +And with his toy-like tube the Florentine,-- + +He at whose word the orb that bore him shivered +To find her central sovereignty disowned, +While the wan lips of priest and pontiff quivered, +Their jargon stilled, their Baal disenthroned. + +Flamsteed and Newton look with brows unclouded, +Their strife forgotten with its faded scars,-- +(Titans, who found the world of space too crowded +To walk in peace among its myriad stars.) + +All cluster round thee,--seers of earliest ages, +Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned kings, +From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages +To his who weighed the planet's fluid rings. + +And we, for whom the northern heavens are lighted, +For whom the storm has passed, the sun has smiled, +Our clouds all scattered, all our stars united, +We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long-lost child. + +Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arching splendor, +Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome, +In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, tender, +We bid thee welcome to thine earthly home! + + + + + +TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE + +AT A DINNER GIVEN HIM ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, +DECEMBER 12, 1885 + +With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury, +presented by a few friends. + +FIT emblem for the altar's side, +And him who serves its daily need, +The stay, the solace, and the guide +Of mortal men, whate'er his creed! + +Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze, +He feeds the upward-climbing fire, +Still teaching, like the deathless bronze, +Man's noblest lesson,--to aspire. + +Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove, +Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car, +And o'er Dodona's silent grove +Streams the white, ray from Bethlehem's star. + +Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch, +A godlike shape, that human hands +Have fired with Art's electric touch, +The herald of Olympus stands. + +Ask not what ore the furnace knew; +Love mingled with the flowing mass, +And lends its own unchanging hue, +Like gold in Corinth's molten brass. + +Take then our gift; this airy form +Whose bronze our benedictions gild, +The hearts of all its givers warm +With love by freezing years unchilled. + +With eye undimmed, with strength unworn, +Still toiling in your Master's field, +Before you wave the growths unshorn, +Their ripened harvest yet to yield. + +True servant of the Heavenly Sire, +To you our tried affection clings, +Bids you still labor, still aspire, +But clasps your feet and steals their wings. + + + + +TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + +THIS is your month, the month of "perfect days," +Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze. +Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes, +Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes; +Carpets her paths for your returning feet, +Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet; +And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune +When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June. +These blessed days are waning all too fast, +And June's bright visions mingling with the past; + +Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose +Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows, +And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets; +The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites; +The dandelion, which you sang of old, +Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold, +But still displays its feathery-mantled globe, +Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe. +These were your humble friends; your opened eyes +Nature had trained her common gifts to prize; +Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise +Charles, with his muddy margin and the harsh, +Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh. +New England's home-bred scholar, well you knew +Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through, +And loved them ever with the love that holds +All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds. +Though far and wide your winged words have flown, +Your daily presence kept you all our own, +Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride, +We heard your summons, and you left our side +For larger duties and for tasks untried. + +How pleased the Spaniards for a while to claim +This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name, +Who stored their classics on his crowded shelves +And loved their Calderon as they did themselves! +Before his eyes what changing pageants pass! +The bridal feast how near the funeral mass! +The death-stroke falls,--the Misereres wail; +The joy-bells ring,--the tear-stained cheeks unveil, +While, as the playwright shifts his pictured scene, +The royal mourner crowns his second queen. + +From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride,-- +Madrid and London long-stretched leagues divide. +What if I send him, "Uncle S., says he," +To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B."? +A nation's servants go where they are sent,-- +He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went. +By what enchantments, what alluring arts, +Our truthful James led captive British hearts,-- +Whether his shrewdness made their statesmen halt, +Or if his learning found their Dons at fault, +Or if his virtue was a strange surprise, +Or if his wit flung star-dust in their eyes,-- +Like honest Yankees we can simply guess; +But that he did it all must needs confess. +England herself without a blush may claim +Her only conqueror since the Norman came. +Eight years an exile! What a weary while +Since first our herald sought the mother isle! +His snow-white flag no churlish wrong has soiled,--- +He left unchallenged, he returns unspoiled. + +Here let us keep him, here he saw the light,-- +His genius, wisdom, wit, are ours by right; +And if we lose him our lament will be +We have "five hundred"--_not_ "as good as he." + + + + + +TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + +ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + +1887 + +FRIEND, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear +Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek +Burned in the flush of manhood's manliest year, +Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak +Thy feet have reached, and mine have climbed so near! +Close on thy footsteps 'mid the landscape drear +I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek, +Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can speak! +Look backward! From thy lofty height survey +Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won, +Of dreams made real, largest hopes outrun! +Look forward! Brighter than earth's morning ray +Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun, +The unclouded dawn of life's immortal day! + + + + + +PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN +RAISED LETTERS FOR THE BLIND + +DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse +That veils the noonday,--you whose finger-tips +A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find +Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. +This wreath of verse how dare I offer you +To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? +The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, +Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers? + +Nay, those I have I bring you,--at their birth +Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth; +If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds, +And here and there you light on saucy weeds +Among the fairer growths, remember still +Song comes of grace, and not of human will: +We get a jarring note when most we try, +Then strike the chord we know not how or why; +Our stately verse with too aspiring art +Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart, +While the rude rhyme one human throb endears +Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears. +Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read, +From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed; +The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame, +The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim, +Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold +A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold. + + + + + +BOSTON TO FLORENCE + +Sent to "The Philological Circle" of Florence for its +meeting in commemoration of Dante, January 27, 1881, +the anniversary of his first condemnation. + +PROUD of her clustering spires, her new-built towers, +Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering sea, +A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to thee, +Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its flowers! +Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love embowers, +Yet none with truer homage bends the knee, +Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than we, +Whose poets make thy dead Immortal ours. +Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how near! +Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse of thine +Like the stern river from its Apennine +Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled with fear: +Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is dear, +And every language knows the Song Divine! + + + + + +AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL + +MARCH 8, 1882 + +THE waves unbuild the wasting shore; +Where mountains towered the billows sweep, +Yet still their borrowed spoils restore, +And build new empires from the deep. +So while the floods of thought lay waste +The proud domain of priestly creeds, +Its heaven-appointed tides will haste +To plant new homes for human needs. +Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled +The change an outworn church deplores; +The legend sinks, but Faith shall build +A fairer throne on new-found shores. + + + + +POEM + +FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY +OF THE FOUNDING OF HARVARD COLLEGE + +TWICE had the mellowing sun of autumn crowned +The hundredth circle of his yearly round, +When, as we meet to-day, our fathers met: +That joyous gathering who can e'er forget, +When Harvard's nurslings, scattered far and wide, +Through mart and village, lake's and ocean's side, +Came, with one impulse, one fraternal throng, +And crowned the hours with banquet, speech, and song? + +Once more revived in fancy's magic glass, +I see in state the long procession pass +Tall, courtly, leader as by right divine, +Winthrop, our Winthrop, rules the marshalled line, +Still seen in front, as on that far-off day +His ribboned baton showed the column's way. +Not all are gone who marched in manly pride +And waved their truncheons at their leader's side; +Gray, Lowell, Dixwell, who his empire shared, +These to be with us envious Time has spared. + +Few are the faces, so familiar then, +Our eyes still meet amid the haunts of men; +Scarce one of all the living gathered there, +Whose unthinned locks betrayed a silver hair, +Greets us to-day, and yet we seem the same +As our own sires and grandsires, save in name. +There are the patriarchs, looking vaguely round +For classmates' faces, hardly known if found; +See the cold brow that rules the busy mart; +Close at its side the pallid son of art, +Whose purchased skill with borrowed meaning clothes, +And stolen hues, the smirking face he loathes. +Here is the patient scholar; in his looks +You read the titles of his learned books; +What classic lore those spidery crow's-feet speak! +What problems figure on that wrinkled cheek! +For never thought but left its stiffened trace, +Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face, +As the swift record of a raindrop stands, +Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands. +On every face as on the written page +Each year renews the autograph of age; +One trait alone may wasting years defy,-- +The fire still lingering in the poet's eye, +While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest strain,-- +_Non omnis moriar_ is its proud refrain. + +Sadly we gaze upon the vacant chair; +He who should claim its honors is not there,-- +Otis, whose lips the listening crowd enthrall +That press and pack the floor of Boston's hall. +But Kirkland smiles, released from toil and care +Since the silk mantle younger shoulders wear,-- +Quincy's, whose spirit breathes the selfsame fire +That filled the bosom of his youthful sire, +Who for the altar bore the kindled torch +To freedom's temple, dying in its porch. + +Three grave professions in their sons appear, +Whose words well studied all well pleased will hear +Palfrey, ordained in varied walks to shine, +Statesman, historian, critic, and divine; +Solid and square behold majestic Shaw, +A mass of wisdom and a mine of law; +Warren, whose arm the doughtiest warriors fear, +Asks of the startled crowd to lend its ear,-- +Proud of his calling, him the world loves best, +Not as the coming, but the parting guest. + +Look on that form,--with eye dilating scan +The stately mould of nature's kingliest man! +Tower-like he stands in life's unfaded prime; +Ask you his name? None asks a second time +He from the land his outward semblance takes, +Where storm-swept mountains watch o'er slumbering lakes. +See in the impress which the body wears +How its imperial might the soul declares +The forehead's large expansion, lofty, wide, +That locks unsilvered vainly strive to hide; +The lines of thought that plough the sober cheek; +Lips that betray their wisdom ere they speak +In tones like answers from Dodona's grove; +An eye like Juno's when she frowns on Jove. +I look and wonder; will he be content-- +This man, this monarch, for the purple meant-- +The meaner duties of his tribe to share, +Clad in the garb that common mortals wear? +Ah, wild Ambition, spread thy restless wings, +Beneath whose plumes the hidden cestrum stings; + +Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's vulgar crowds, +And like the eagle soar above the clouds, +Must feel the pang that fallen angels know +When the red lightning strikes thee from below! + +Less bronze, more silver, mingles in the mould +Of him whom next my roving eyes behold; +His, more the scholar's than the statesman's face, +Proclaims him born of academic race. +Weary his look, as if an aching brain +Left on his brow the frozen prints of pain; +His voice far-reaching, grave, sonorous, owns +A shade of sadness in its plaintive tones, +Yet when its breath some loftier thought inspires +Glows with a heat that every bosom fires. +Such Everett seems; no chance-sown wild flower knows +The full-blown charms of culture's double rose,-- +Alas, how soon, by death's unsparing frost, +Its bloom is faded and its fragrance lost! + +Two voices, only two, to earth belong, +Of all whose accents met the listening throng: +Winthrop, alike for speech and guidance framed, +On that proud day a twofold duty claimed; +One other yet,--remembered or forgot,-- +Forgive my silence if I name him not. +Can I believe it? I, whose youthful voice +Claimed a brief gamut,--notes not over choice, +Stood undismayed before the solemn throng, +And _propria voce_ sung that saucy song +Which even in memory turns my soul aghast,-- +_Felix audacia_ was the verdict cast. + +What were the glory of these festal days +Shorn of their grand illumination's blaze? +Night comes at last with all her starry train +To find a light in every glittering pane. +From "Harvard's" windows see the sudden flash,-- +Old "Massachusetts" glares through every sash; +From wall to wall the kindling splendors run +Till all is glorious as the noonday sun. + +How to the scholar's mind each object brings +What some historian tells, some poet sings! +The good gray teacher whom we all revered-- +Loved, honored, laughed at, and by freshmen feared, +As from old "Harvard," where its light began, +From hall to hall the clustering splendors ran-- +Took down his well-worn Eschylus and read, +Lit by the rays a thousand tapers shed, +How the swift herald crossed the leagues between +Mycenae's monarch and his faithless queen; +And thus he read,--my verse but ill displays +The Attic picture, clad in modern phrase. + +On Ida's summit flames the kindling pile, +And Lemnos answers from his rocky isle; +From Athos next it climbs the reddening skies, +Thence where the watch-towers of Macistus rise. +The sentries of Mesapius in their turn +Bid the dry heath in high piled masses burn, +Cithoeron's crag the crimson billows stain, +Far AEgiplanctus joins the fiery train. +Thus the swift courier through the pathless night +Has gained at length the Arachnoean height, +Whence the glad tidings, borne on wings offlame, +"Ilium has fallen!" reach the royal dame. + +So ends the day; before the midnight stroke +The lights expiring cloud the air with smoke; +While these the toil of younger hands employ, +The slumbering Grecian dreams of smouldering Troy. + +As to that hour with backward steps I turn, +Midway I pause; behold a funeral urn! +Ah, sad memorial! known but all too well +The tale which thus its golden letters tell: + +This dust, once breathing, changed its joyous life +For toil and hunger, wounds and mortal strife; +Love, friendship, learning's all prevailing charms, +For the cold bivouac and the clash of arms. +The cause of freedom won, a race enslaved +Called back to manhood, and a nation saved, +These sons of Harvard, falling ere their prime, +Leave their proud memory to the coming time. + +While in their still retreats our scholars turn +The mildewed pages of the past, to learn +With endless labor of the sleepless brain +What once has been and ne'er shall be again, +We reap the harvest of their ceaseless toil +And find a fragrance in their midnight oil. +But let a purblind mortal dare the task +The embryo future of itself to ask, +The world reminds him, with a scornful laugh, +That times have changed since Prospero broke his staff. +Could all the wisdom of the schools foretell +The dismal hour when Lisbon shook and fell, +Or name the shuddering night that toppled down +Our sister's pride, beneath whose mural crown +Scarce had the scowl forgot its angry lines, +When earth's blind prisoners fired their fatal mines? + +New realms, new worlds, exulting Science claims, +Still the dim future unexplored remains; +Her trembling scales the far-off planet weigh, +Her torturing prisms its elements betray,-- +We know what ores the fires of Sirius melt, +What vaporous metals gild Orion's belt; +Angels, archangels, may have yet to learn +Those hidden truths our heaven-taught eyes discern; +Yet vain is Knowledge, with her mystic wand, +To pierce the cloudy screen and read beyond; +Once to the silent stars the fates were known, +To us they tell no secrets but their own. + +At Israel's altar still we humbly bow, +But where, oh where, are Israel's prophets now? +Where is the sibyl with her hoarded leaves? +Where is the charm the weird enchantress weaves? +No croaking raven turns the auspex pale, +No reeking altars tell the morrow's tale; +The measured footsteps of the Fates are dumb, +Unseen, unheard, unheralded, they come, +Prophet and priest and all their following fail. +Who then is left to rend the future's veil? +Who but the poet, he whose nicer sense +No film can baffle with its slight defence, +Whose finer vision marks the waves that stray, +Felt, but unseen, beyond the violet ray?-- +Who, while the storm-wind waits its darkening shroud, +Foretells the tempest ere he sees the cloud,-- +Stays not for time his secrets to reveal, +But reads his message ere he breaks the seal. +So Mantua's bard foretold the coming day +Ere Bethlehem's infant in the manger lay; +The promise trusted to a mortal tongue +Found listening ears before the angels sung. +So while his load the creeping pack-horse galled, +While inch by inch the dull canal-boat crawled, +Darwin beheld a Titan from "afar +Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car," +That panting giant fed by air and flame, +The mightiest forges task their strength to tame. + +Happy the poet! him no tyrant fact +Holds in its clutches to be chained and racked; +Him shall no mouldy document convict, +No stern statistics gravely contradict; +No rival sceptre threats his airy throne; +He rules o'er shadows, but he reigns alone. +Shall I the poet's broad dominion claim +Because you bid me wear his sacred name +For these few moments? Shall I boldly clash +My flint and steel, and by the sudden flash +Read the fair vision which my soul descries +Through the wide pupils of its wondering eyes? +List then awhile; the fifty years have sped; +The third full century's opened scroll is spread, +Blank to all eyes save his who dimly sees +The shadowy future told in words like these. + +How strange the prospect to my sight appears, +Changed by the busy hands of fifty years! +Full well I know our ocean-salted Charles, +Filling and emptying through the sands and marls +That wall his restless stream on either bank, +Not all unlovely when the sedges rank +Lend their coarse veil the sable ooze to hide +That bares its blackness with the ebbing tide. +In other shapes to my illumined eyes +Those ragged margins of our stream arise +Through walls of stone the sparkling waters flow, +In clearer depths the golden sunsets glow, +On purer waves the lamps of midnight gleam, +That silver o'er the unpolluted stream. +Along his shores what stately temples rise, +What spires, what turrets, print the shadowed skies! +Our smiling Mother sees her broad domain +Spread its tall roofs along the western plain; +Those blazoned windows' blushing glories tell +Of grateful hearts that loved her long and well; +Yon gilded dome that glitters in the sun +Was Dives' gift,--alas, his only one! +These buttressed walls enshrine a banker's name, +That hallowed chapel hides a miser's shame; +Their wealth they left,--their memory cannot fade +Though age shall crumble every stone they laid. + +Great lord of millions,--let me call thee great, +Since countless servants at thy bidding wait,-- +Richesse oblige: no mortal must be blind +To all but self, or look at human kind +Laboring and suffering,--all its want and woe,-- +Through sheets of crystal, as a pleasing show +That makes life happier for the chosen few +Duty for whom is something not to do. +When thy last page of life at length is filled, +What shall thine heirs to keep thy memory build? +Will piles of stone in Auburn's mournful shade +Save from neglect the spot where thou art laid? +Nay, deem not thus; the sauntering stranger's eye +Will pass unmoved thy columned tombstone by, +No memory wakened, not a teardrop shed, +Thy name uncared for and thy date unread. +But if thy record thou indeed dost prize, +Bid from the soil some stately temple rise,-- +Some hall of learning, some memorial shrine, +With names long honored to associate thine: +So shall thy fame outlive thy shattered bust +When all around thee slumber in the dust. +Thus England's Henry lives in Eton's towers, +Saved from the spoil oblivion's gulf devours; +Our later records with as fair a fame +Have wreathed each uncrowned benefactor's name; +The walls they reared the memories still retain +That churchyard marbles try to keep in vain. +In vain the delving antiquary tries +To find the tomb where generous Harvard lies +Here, here, his lasting monument is found, +Where every spot is consecrated ground! +O'er Stoughton's dust the crumbling stone decays, +Fast fade its lines of lapidary praise; +There the wild bramble weaves its ragged nets, +There the dry lichen spreads its gray rosettes; +Still in yon walls his memory lives unspent, +Nor asks a braver, nobler monument. +Thus Hollis lives, and Holden, honored, praised, +And good Sir Matthew, in the halls they raised; +Thus live the worthies of these later times, +Who shine in deeds, less brilliant, grouped in rhymes. +Say, shall the Muse with faltering steps retreat, +Or dare these names in rhythmic form repeat? +Why not as boldly as from Homer's lips +The long array, of Argive battle-ships? +When o'er our graves a thousand years have past +(If to such date our threatened globe shall last) +These classic precincts, myriad feet have pressed, +Will show on high, in beauteous garlands dressed, +Those honored names that grace our later day,-- +Weld, Matthews, Sever, Thayer, Austin, Gray, +Sears, Phillips, Lawrence, Hemenway,--to the list +Add Sanders, Sibley,--all the Muse has missed. + +Once more I turn to read the pictured page +Bright with the promise of the coming age. +Ye unborn sons of children yet unborn, +Whose youthful eyes shall greet that far-off morn, +Blest are those eyes that all undimmed behold +The sights so longed for by the wise of old. +From high-arched alcoves, through resounding halls, +Clad in full robes majestic Science calls, +Tireless, unsleeping, still at Nature's feet, +Whate'er she utters fearless to repeat, +Her lips at last from every cramp released +That Israel's prophet caught from Egypt's priest. +I see the statesman, firm, sagacious, bold, +For life's long conflict cast in amplest mould; +Not his to clamor with the senseless throng +That shouts unshamed, "Our party, right or wrong," +But in the patriot's never-ending fight +To side with Truth, who changes wrong to right. +I see the scholar; in that wondrous time +Men, women, children, all can write in rhyme. +These four brief lines addressed to youth inclined +To idle rhyming in his notes I find: + +Who writes in verse that should have writ in prose +Is like a traveller walking on his toes; +Happy the rhymester who in time has found +The heels he lifts were made to touch the ground. + +I see gray teachers,--on their work intent, +Their lavished lives, in endless labor spent, +Had closed at last in age and penury wrecked, +Martyrs, not burned, but frozen in neglect, +Save for the generous hands that stretched in aid +Of worn-out servants left to die half paid. +Ah, many a year will pass, I thought, ere we +Such kindly forethought shall rejoice to see,-- +Monarchs are mindful of the sacred debt +That cold republics hasten to forget. +I see the priest,--if such a name he bears +Who without pride his sacred vestment wears; +And while the symbols of his tribe I seek +Thus my first impulse bids me think and speak: + +Let not the mitre England's prelate wears +Next to the crown whose regal pomp it shares, +Though low before it courtly Christians bow, +Leave its red mark on Younger England's brow. +We love, we honor, the maternal dame, +But let her priesthood wear a modest name, +While through the waters of the Pilgrim's bay +A new-born Mayflower shows her keels the way. +Too old grew Britain for her mother's beads,-- +Must we be necklaced with her children's creeds? +Welcome alike in surplice or in gown +The loyal lieges of the Heavenly Crown! +We greet with cheerful, not submissive, mien +A sister church, but not a mitred Queen! + +A few brief flutters, and the unwilling Muse, +Who feared the flight she hated to refuse, +Shall fold the wings whose gayer plumes are shed, +Here where at first her half-fledged pinions spread. +Well I remember in the long ago +How in the forest shades of Fontainebleau, +Strained through a fissure in a rocky cell, +One crystal drop with measured cadence fell. +Still, as of old, forever bright and clear, +The fissured cavern drops its wonted tear, +And wondrous virtue, simple folk aver, +Lies in that teardrop of la roche qui pleure. + +Of old I wandered by the river's side +Between whose banks the mighty waters glide, +Where vast Niagara, hurrying to its fall, +Builds and unbuilds its ever-tumbling wall; +Oft in my dreams I hear the rush and roar +Of battling floods, and feel the trembling shore, +As the huge torrent, girded for its leap, +With bellowing thunders plunges down the steep. +Not less distinct, from memory's pictured urn, +The gray old rock, the leafy woods, return; +Robed in their pride the lofty oaks appear, +And once again with quickened sense I hear, +Through the low murmur of the leaves that stir, +The tinkling teardrop of _la roche qui pleure_. + +So when the third ripe century stands complete, +As once again the sons of Harvard meet, +Rejoicing, numerous as the seashore sands, +Drawn from all quarters,--farthest distant lands, +Where through the reeds the scaly saurian steals, +Where cold Alaska feeds her floundering seals, +Where Plymouth, glorying, wears her iron crown, +Where Sacramento sees the suns go down; +Nay, from the cloisters whence the refluent tide +Wafts their pale students to our Mother's side,-- +Mid all the tumult that the day shall bring, +While all the echoes shout, and roar, and ring, +These tinkling lines, oblivion's easy prey, +Once more emerging to the light of day, +Not all unpleasing to the listening ear +Shall wake the memories of this bygone year, +Heard as I hear the measured drops that flow +From the gray rock of wooded Fontainebleau. + +Yet, ere I leave, one loving word for all +Those fresh young lives that wait our Mother's call: +One gift is yours, kind Nature's richest dower,-- +Youth, the fair bud that holds life's opening flower, +Full of high hopes no coward doubts enchain, +With all the future throbbing in its brain, +And mightiest instincts which the beating heart +Fills with the fire its burning waves impart. + +O joyous youth, whose glory is to dare,-- +Thy foot firm planted on the lowest stair, +Thine eye uplifted to the loftiest height +Where Fame stands beckoning in the rosy light, +Thanks for thy flattering tales, thy fond deceits, +Thy loving lies, thy cheerful smiling cheats +Nature's rash promise every day is broke,-- +A thousand acorns breed a single oak, +The myriad blooms that make the orchard gay +In barren beauty throw their lives away; +Yet shall we quarrel with the sap that yields +The painted blossoms which adorn the fields, +When the fair orchard wears its May-day suit +Of pink-white petals, for its scanty fruit? +Thrice happy hours, in hope's illusion dressed, +In fancy's cradle nurtured and caressed, +Though rich the spoils that ripening years may bring, +To thee the dewdrops of the Orient cling,-- +Not all the dye-stuffs from the vats of truth +Can match the rainbow on the robes of youth! + +Dear unborn children, to our Mother's trust +We leave you, fearless, when we lie in dust: +While o'er these walls the Christian banner waves +From hallowed lips shall flow the truth that saves; +While o'er those portals Veritas you read +No church shall bind you with its human creed. +Take from the past the best its toil has won, +But learn betimes its slavish ruts to shun. +Pass the old tree whose withered leaves are shed, +Quit the old paths that error loved to tread, +And a new wreath of living blossoms seek, +A narrower pathway up a loftier peak; +Lose not your reverence, but unmanly fear +Leave far behind you, all who enter here! + +As once of old from Ida's lofty height +The flaming signal flashed across the night, +So Harvard's beacon sheds its unspent rays +Till every watch-tower shows its kindling blaze. +Caught from a spark and fanned by every gale, +A brighter radiance gilds the roofs of Yale; +Amherst and Williams bid their flambeaus shine, +And Bowdoin answers through her groves of pine; +O'er Princeton's sands the far reflections steal, +Where mighty Edwards stamped his iron heel; +Nay, on the hill where old beliefs were bound +Fast as if Styx had girt them nine times round, +Bursts such a light that trembling souls inquire +If the whole church of Calvin is on fire! +Well may they ask, for what so brightly burns +As a dry creed that nothing ever learns? +Thus link by link is knit the flaming chain +Lit by the torch of Harvard's hallowed plain. + +Thy son, thy servant, dearest Mother mine, +Lays this poor offering on thy holy shrine, +An autumn leaflet to the wild winds tost, +Touched by the finger of November's frost, +With sweet, sad memories of that earlier day, +And all that listened to my first-born lay. +With grateful heart this glorious morn I see,-- +Would that my tribute worthier were of thee! + + + + +POST-PRANDIAL + +PHI BETA KAPPA + +WENDELL PHILLIPS, ORATOR; CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, POET + +1881 + +"THE Dutch have taken Holland,"--so the schoolboys used to say; +The Dutch have taken Harvard,--no doubt of that to-day! +For the Wendells were low Dutchmen, and all their vrows were Vans; +And the Breitmanns are high Dutchmen, and here is honest Hans. + +Mynheers, you both are welcome! Fair cousin Wendell P., +Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee; +Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we, +And Vondel was our namesake, though he spelt it with a V. + +It is well old Evert Jansen sought a dwelling over sea +On the margin of the Hudson, where he sampled you and me +Through our grandsires and great-grandsires, for you would n't quite +agree +With the steady-going burghers along the Zuyder Zee. + +Like our Motley's John of Barnveld, you have always been inclined +To speak,--well,--somewhat frankly,--to let us know your mind, +And the Mynheers would have told you to be cautious what you said, +Or else that silver tongue of yours might cost your precious head. + +But we're very glad you've kept it; it was always Freedom's own, +And whenever Reason chose it she found a royal throne; +You have whacked us with your sceptre; our backs were little harmed, +And while we rubbed our bruises we owned we had been charmed. + +And you, our quasi Dutchman, what welcome should be yours +For all the wise prescriptions that work your laughter-cures? +"Shake before taking"?--not a bit,--the bottle-cure's a sham; +Take before shaking, and you 'll find it shakes your diaphragm. + +"Hans Breitmann gif a barty,--vhere is dot barty now?" +On every shelf where wit is stored to smooth the careworn brow +A health to stout Hans Breitmann! How long before we see +Another Hans as handsome,--as bright a man as he! + + + + +THE FLANEUR + +BOSTON COMMON, DECEMBER 6, 1882 + +DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS + +I LOVE all sights of earth and skies, +From flowers that glow to stars that shine; +The comet and the penny show, +All curious things, above, below, +Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: +I claim the Christian Pagan's line, +_Humani nihil_,--even so,-- +And is not human life divine? +When soft the western breezes blow, +And strolling youths meet sauntering maids, +I love to watch the stirring trades +Beneath the Vallombrosa shades +Our much-enduring elms bestow; +The vender and his rhetoric's flow, +That lambent stream of liquid lies; +The bait he dangles from his line, +The gudgeon and his gold-washed prize. +I halt before the blazoned sign +That bids me linger to admire +The drama time can never tire, +The little hero of the hunch, +With iron arm and soul of fire, +And will that works his fierce desire,-- +Untamed, unscared, unconquered Punch +My ear a pleasing torture finds +In tones the withered sibyl grinds,-- +The dame sans merci's broken strain, +Whom I erewhile, perchance, have known, +When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne, +A siren singing by the Seine. + +But most I love the tube that spies +The orbs celestial in their march; +That shows the comet as it whisks +Its tail across the planets' disks, +As if to blind their blood-shot eyes; +Or wheels so close against the sun +We tremble at the thought of risks +Our little spinning ball may run, +To pop like corn that children parch, +From summer something overdone, +And roll, a cinder, through the skies. + +Grudge not to-day the scanty fee +To him who farms the firmament, +To whom the Milky Way is free; +Who holds the wondrous crystal key, +The silent Open Sesame +That Science to her sons has lent; +Who takes his toll, and lifts the bar +That shuts the road to sun and star. +If Venus only comes to time, +(And prophets say she must and shall,) +To-day will hear the tinkling chime +Of many a ringing silver dime, +For him whose optic glass supplies +The crowd with astronomic eyes,-- +The Galileo of the Mall. + +Dimly the transit morning broke; +The sun seemed doubting what to do, +As one who questions how to dress, +And takes his doublets from the press, +And halts between the old and new. +Please Heaven he wear his suit of blue, +Or don, at least, his ragged cloak, +With rents that show the azure through! + +I go the patient crowd to join +That round the tube my eyes discern, +The last new-comer of the file, +And wait, and wait, a weary while, + +And gape, and stretch, and shrug, and smile, +(For each his place must fairly earn, +Hindmost and foremost, in his turn,) +Till hitching onward, pace by pace, +I gain at last the envied place, +And pay the white exiguous coin: +The sun and I are face to face; +He glares at me, I stare at him; +And lo! my straining eye has found +A little spot that, black and round, +Lies near the crimsoned fire-orb's rim. +O blessed, beauteous evening star, +Well named for her whom earth adores,-- +The Lady of the dove-drawn car,-- +I know thee in thy white simar; +But veiled in black, a rayless spot, +Blank as a careless scribbler's blot, +Stripped of thy robe of silvery flame,-- +The stolen robe that Night restores +When Day has shut his golden doors,-- +I see thee, yet I know thee not; +And canst thou call thyself the same? + +A black, round spot,--and that is all; +And such a speck our earth would be +If he who looks upon the stars +Through the red atmosphere of Mars +Could see our little creeping ball +Across the disk of crimson crawl +As I our sister planet see. + +And art thou, then, a world like ours, +Flung from the orb that whirled our own +A molten pebble from its zone? +How must thy burning sands absorb +The fire-waves of the blazing orb, +Thy chain so short, thy path so near, +Thy flame-defying creatures hear +The maelstroms of the photosphere! +And is thy bosom decked with flowers +That steal their bloom from scalding showers? +And bast thou cities, domes, and towers, +And life, and love that makes it dear, +And death that fills thy tribes with fear? + +Lost in my dream, my spirit soars +Through paths the wandering angels know; +My all-pervading thought explores +The azure ocean's lucent shores; +I leave my mortal self below, +As up the star-lit stairs I climb, +And still the widening view reveals +In endless rounds the circling wheels +That build the horologe of time. +New spheres, new suns, new systems gleam; +The voice no earth-born echo hears +Steals softly on my ravished ears +I hear them "singing as they shine"-- +A mortal's voice dissolves my dream: +My patient neighbor, next in line, +Hints gently there are those who wait. +O guardian of the starry gate, +What coin shall pay this debt of mine? +Too slight thy claim, too small the fee +That bids thee turn the potent key. + +The Tuscan's hand has placed in thine. +Forgive my own the small affront, +The insult of the proffered dime; +Take it, O friend, since this thy wont, +But still shall faithful memory be +A bankrupt debtor unto thee, +And pay thee with a grateful rhyme. + + + + +AVE + +PRELUDE TO "ILLUSTRATED POEMS" + +FULL well I know the frozen hand has come +That smites the songs of grove and garden dumb, +And chills sad autumn's last chrysanthemum; + +Yet would I find one blossom, if I might, +Ere the dark loom that weaves the robe of white +Hides all the wrecks of summer out of sight. + +Sometimes in dim November's narrowing day, +When all the season's pride has passed away, +As mid the blackened stems and leaves we stray, + +We spy in sheltered nook or rocky cleft +A starry disk the hurrying winds have left, +Of all its blooming sisterhood bereft. + +Some pansy, with its wondering baby eyes +Poor wayside nursling!--fixed in blank surprise +At the rough welcome of unfriendly skies; + +Or golden daisy,--will it dare disclaim +The lion's tooth, to wear this gentler name? +Or blood-red salvia, with its lips aflame. + +The storms have stripped the lily and the rose, +Still on its cheek the flush of summer glows, +And all its heart-leaves kindle as it blows. + +So had I looked some bud of song to find +The careless winds of autumn left behind, +With these of earlier seasons' growth to bind. + +Ah me! my skies are dark with sudden grief, +A flower lies faded on my garnered sheaf; +Yet let the sunshine gild this virgin leaf, + +The joyous, blessed sunshine of the past, +Still with me, though the heavens are overcast,-- +The light that shines while life and memory last. + +Go, pictured rhymes, for loving readers meant; +Bring back the smiles your jocund morning lent, +And warm their hearts with sunbeams yet unspent! + +BEVERLY FARMS, July 24, 1884. + + + + +KING'S CHAPEL + +READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY + +Is it a weanling's weakness for the past +That in the stormy, rebel-breeding town, +Swept clean of relics by the levelling blast, + +Still keeps our gray old chapel's name of "King's," +Still to its outworn symbols fondly clings,-- +Its unchurched mitres and its empty crown? + +Poor harmless emblems! All has shrunk away +That made them gorgons in the patriot's eyes; +The priestly plaything harms us not to-day; +The gilded crown is but a pleasing show, +An old-world heirloom, left from long ago, +Wreck of the past that memory bids us prize, + +Lightly we glance the fresh-cut marbles o'er; +Those two of earlier date our eyes enthrall: +The proud old Briton's by the western door, +And hers, the Lady of Colonial days, +Whose virtues live in long-drawn classic phrase,-- +The fair Francesca of the southern wall. + +Ay! those were goodly men that Reynolds drew, +And stately dames our Copley's canvas holds, +To their old Church, their Royal Master, true, +Proud of the claim their valiant sires had earned, +That "gentle blood," not lightly to be spurned, +Save by the churl ungenerous Nature moulds. + +All vanished! It were idle to complain +That ere the fruits shall come the flowers must fall; +Yet somewhat we have lost amidst our gain, +Some rare ideals time may not restore,-- +The charm of courtly breeding, seen no more, +And reverence, dearest ornament of all. + +Thus musing, to the western wall I came, +Departing: lo! a tablet fresh and fair, +Where glistened many a youth's remembered name +In golden letters on the snow-white stone,-- +Young lives these aisles and arches once have known, +Their country's bleeding altar might not spare. + +These died that we might claim a soil unstained, +Save by the blood of heroes; their bequests +A realm unsevered and a race unchained. +Has purer blood through Norman veins come down +From the rough knights that clutched the Saxon's crown +Than warmed the pulses in these faithful breasts? + +These, too, shall live in history's deathless page, +High on the slow-wrought pedestals of fame, +Ranged with the heroes of remoter age; +They could not die who left their nation free, +Firm as the rock, unfettered as the sea, +Its heaven unshadowed by the cloud of shame. + +While on the storied past our memory dwells, +Our grateful tribute shall not be denied,-- +The wreath, the cross of rustling immortelles; +And willing hands shall clear each darkening bust, +As year by year sifts down the clinging dust +On Shirley's beauty and on Vassall's pride. + +But for our own, our loved and lost, we bring +With throbbing hearts and tears that still must flow, +In full-heaped hands, the opening flowers of spring, +Lilies half-blown, and budding roses, red +As their young cheeks, before the blood was shed +That lent their morning bloom its generous glow. + +Ah, who shall count a rescued nation's debt, +Or sum in words our martyrs' silent claims? +Who shall our heroes' dread exchange forget,-- +All life, youth, hope, could promise to allure +For all that soul could brave or flesh endure? +They shaped our future; we but carve their names. + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE SAME OCCASION + +SUNG BY THE CONGREGATION TO THE TUNE OF +TALLIS'S EVENING HYMN + +O'ERSHADOWED by the walls that climb, +Piled up in air by living hands, +A rock amid the waves of time, +Our gray old house of worship stands. + +High o'er the pillared aisles we love +The symbols of the past look down; +Unharmed, unharming, throned above, +Behold the mitre and the crown! + +Let not our younger faith forget +The loyal souls that held them dear; +The prayers we read their tears have wet, +The hymns we sing they loved to hear. + +The memory of their earthly throne +Still to our holy temple clings, +But here the kneeling suppliants own +One only Lord, the King of kings. + +Hark! while our hymn of grateful praise +The solemn echoing vaults prolong, +The far-off voice of earlier days +Blends with our own in hallowed song: + +To Him who ever lives and reigns, +Whom all the hosts of heaven adore, +Who lent the life His breath sustains, +Be glory now and evermore! + + + + +HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + +(by supposition) + +An Hymn set forth to be sung by the Great Assembly +at Newtown, [Mass.] Mo. 12. 1. 1636. + +[Written by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, eldest son of Rev. +ABIEL HOLMES, eighth Pastor of the First Church in +Cambridge, Massachusetts.] + +LORD, Thou hast led us as of old +Thine Arm led forth the chosen Race +Through Foes that raged, through Floods that roll'd, +To Canaan's far-off Dwelling-Place. + +Here is Thy bounteous Table spread, +Thy Manna falls on every Field, +Thy Grace our hungering Souls hath fed, +Thy Might hath been our Spear and Shield. + +Lift high Thy Buckler, Lord of Hosts! +Guard Thou Thy Servants, Sons and Sires, +While on the Godless heathen Coasts +They light Thine Israel's Altar-fires! + +The salvage Wilderness remote +Shall hear Thy Works and Wonders sung; +So from the Rock that Moses smote +The Fountain of the Desart sprung. + +Soon shall the slumbering Morn awake, +From wandering Stars of Errour freed, +When Christ the Bread of Heaven shall break +For Saints that own a common Creed. + +The Walls that fence His Flocks apart +Shall crack and crumble in Decay, +And every Tongue and every Heart +Shall welcome in the new-born Day. + +Then shall His glorious Church rejoice +His Word of Promise to recall,-- +ONE SHELTERING FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD'S VOICE, +ONE GOD AND FATHER OVER ALL! + + + + +HYMN + +READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES +HOSPITAL AT HUDSON, WISCONSIN + +JUNE 7, 1877 + +ANGEL of love, for every grief +Its soothing balm thy mercy brings, +For every pang its healing leaf, +For homeless want, thine outspread, wings. + +Enough for thee the pleading eye, +The knitted brow of silent pain; +The portals open to a sigh +Without the clank of bolt or chain. + +Who is our brother? He that lies +Left at the wayside, bruised and sore +His need our open hand supplies, +His welcome waits him at our door. + +Not ours to ask in freezing tones +His race, his calling, or his creed; +Each heart the tie of kinship owns, +When those are human veins that bleed. + +Here stand the champions to defend +From every wound that flesh can feel; +Here science, patience, skill, shall blend +To save, to calm, to help, to heal. + +Father of Mercies! Weak and frail, +Thy guiding hand Thy children ask; +Let not the Great Physician fail +To aid us in our holy task. + +Source of all truth, and love, and light, +That warm and cheer our earthly days, +Be ours to serve Thy will aright, +Be Thine the glory and the praise! + + + + +ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + +I. + +FALLEN with autumn's falling leaf +Ere yet his summer's noon was past, +Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief,-- +What words can match a woe so vast! + +And whose the chartered claim to speak +The sacred grief where all have part, +Where sorrow saddens every cheek +And broods in every aching heart? + +Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase +That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall, +The loud lament, the sorrowing praise, +The silent tear that love lets fall. + +In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme, +Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir,--- +The singers of the new-born time, +And trembling age with outworn lyre. + +No room for pride, no place for blame,-- +We fling our blossoms on the grave, +Pale,--scentless,--faded,--all we claim, +This only,--what we had we gave. + +Ah, could the grief of all who mourn +Blend in one voice its bitter cry, +The wail to heaven's high arches borne +Would echo through the caverned sky. + + +II. + +O happiest land, whose peaceful choice +Fills with a breath its empty throne! +God, speaking through thy people's voice, +Has made that voice for once His own. + +No angry passion shakes the state +Whose weary servant seeks for rest; +And who could fear that scowling hate +Would strike at that unguarded breast? + +He stands, unconscious of his doom, +In manly strength, erect, serene; +Around him Summer spreads her bloom; +He falls,--what horror clothes the scene! + +How swift the sudden flash of woe +Where all was bright as childhood's dream! +As if from heaven's ethereal bow +Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam. + +Blot the foul deed from history's page; +Let not the all-betraying sun +Blush for the day that stains an age +When murder's blackest wreath was won. + + +III. + +Pale on his couch the sufferer lies, +The weary battle-ground of pain +Love tends his pillow; Science tries +Her every art, alas! in vain. + +The strife endures how long! how long! +Life, death, seem balanced in the scale, +While round his bed a viewless throng +Await each morrow's changing tale. + +In realms the desert ocean parts +What myriads watch with tear-filled eyes, +His pulse-beats echoing in their hearts, +His breathings counted with their sighs! + +Slowly the stores of life are spent, +Yet hope still battles with despair; +Will Heaven not yield when knees are bent? +Answer, O thou that hearest prayer. + +But silent is the brazen sky; +On sweeps the meteor's threatening train, +Unswerving Nature's mute reply, +Bound in her adamantine chain. + +Not ours the verdict to decide +Whom death shall claim or skill shall save; +The hero's life though Heaven denied, +It gave our land a martyr's grave. + +Nor count the teaching vainly sent +How human hearts their griefs may share,-- +The lesson woman's love has lent, +What hope may do, what faith can bear! + +Farewell! the leaf-strown earth enfolds +Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears, +And autumn's golden sun beholds +A nation bowed, a world in tears. + + + + +THE GOLDEN FLOWER + +WHEN Advent dawns with lessening days, +While earth awaits the angels' hymn; +When bare as branching coral sways +In whistling winds each leafless limb; +When spring is but a spendthrift's dream, +And summer's wealth a wasted dower, +Nor dews nor sunshine may redeem,-- +Then autumn coins his Golden Flower. + +Soft was the violet's vernal hue, +Fresh was the rose's morning red, +Full-orbed the stately dahlia grew,-- +All gone! their short-lived splendors shed. +The shadows, lengthening, stretch at noon; +The fields are stripped, the groves are dumb; +The frost-flowers greet the icy moon,-- +Then blooms the bright chrysanthemum. + +The stiffening turf is white with snow, +Yet still its radiant disks are seen +Where soon the hallowed morn will show +The wreath and cross of Christmas green; +As if in autumn's dying days +It heard the heavenly song afar, +And opened all its glowing rays, +The herald lamp of Bethlehem's star. + +Orphan of summer, kindly sent +To cheer the fading year's decline, +In all that pitying Heaven has lent +No fairer pledge of hope than thine. +Yes! June lies hid beneath the snow, +And winter's unborn heir shall claim +For every seed that sleeps below +A spark that kindles into flame. + +Thy smile the scowl of winter braves +Last of the bright-robed, flowery train, +Soft sighing o'er the garden graves, +"Farewell! farewell! we meet again!" +So may life's chill November bring +Hope's golden flower, the last of all, +Before we hear the angels sing +Where blossoms never fade and fall! + + + + +HAIL, COLUMBIA! + +1798 + +THE FIRST VERSE OF THE SONG + +BY JOSEPH HOPKINSON + + "HAIL, Columbia! Happy land! + Hail, ye heroes, heaven-born band, + Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, + Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, + And when the storm of war was gone + Enjoy'd the peace your valor won. + Let independence be our boast, + Ever mindful what it cost; + Ever grateful for the prize, + Let its altar reach the skies. + + "Firm--united--let us be, + Rallying round our Liberty; + As a band of brothers join'd, + Peace and safety we shall find." + + +ADDITIONAL VERSES + +WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE +CONSTITUTIONAL CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT PHILADELPHIA, + +1887 + +LOOK our ransomed shores around, +Peace and safety we have found! +Welcome, friends who once were foes! +Welcome, friends who once were foes, +To all the conquering years have gained,-- +A nation's rights, a race unchained! + +Children of the day new-born, +Mindful of its glorious morn, +Let the pledge our fathers signed +Heart to heart forever bind! + +While the stars of heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever may the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + +Graven deep with edge of steel, +Crowned with Victory's crimson seal, +All the world their names shall read! +All the world their names shall read, +Enrolled with his, the Chief that led +The hosts whose blood for us was shed. +Pay our sires their children's debt, +Love and honor, nor forget +Only Union's golden key +Guards the Ark of Liberty! + +While the stars of heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever may the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + +Hail, Columbia! strong and free, +Throned in hearts from sea to sea +Thy march triumphant still pursue! +Thy march triumphant still pursue +With peaceful stride from zone to zone, +Till Freedom finds the world her own. + +Blest in Union's holy ties, +Let our grateful song arise, +Every voice its tribute lend, +All in loving chorus blend! + +While the stars in heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever shall the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + + + + +POEM + +FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT +STRATFORD-ON-AVON, PRESENTED BY +GEORGE W. CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + +WELCOME, thrice welcome is thy silvery gleam, +Thou long-imprisoned stream! +Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads +As plashing raindrops to the flowery meads, +As summer's breath to Avon's whispering reeds! +From rock-walled channels, drowned in rayless night, +Leap forth to life and light; +Wake from the darkness of thy troubled dream, +And greet with answering smile the morning's beam! + +No purer lymph the white-limbed Naiad knows +Than from thy chalice flows; +Not the bright spring of Afric's sunny shores, +Starry with spangles washed from golden ores, +Nor glassy stream Bandusia's fountain pours, +Nor wave translucent where Sabrina fair +Braids her loose-flowing hair, +Nor the swift current, stainless as it rose +Where chill Arveiron steals from Alpine snows. + +Here shall the traveller stay his weary feet +To seek thy calm retreat; +Here at high noon the brown-armed reaper rest; +Here, when the shadows, lengthening from the west, +Call the mute song-bird to his leafy nest, +Matron and maid shall chat the cares away +That brooded o'er the day, +While flocking round them troops of children meet, +And all the arches ring with laughter sweet. + +Here shall the steed, his patient life who spends +In toil that never ends, +Hot from his thirsty tramp o'er hill and plain, +Plunge his red nostrils, while the torturing rein +Drops in loose loops beside his floating mane; +Nor the poor brute that shares his master's lot +Find his small needs forgot,-- +Truest of humble, long-enduring friends, +Whose presence cheers, whose guardian care +defends! + +Here lark and thrush and nightingale shall sip, +And skimming swallows dip, +And strange shy wanderers fold their lustrous plumes +Fragrant from bowers that lent their sweet perfumes +Where Paestum's rose or Persia's lilac blooms; +Here from his cloud the eagle stoop to drink +At the full basin's brink, +And whet his beak against its rounded lip, +His glossy feathers glistening as they drip. + +Here shall the dreaming poet linger long, +Far from his listening throng,-- +Nor lute nor lyre his trembling hand shall bring; +Here no frail Muse shall imp her crippled wing, +No faltering minstrel strain his throat to sing! +These hallowed echoes who shall dare to claim +Whose tuneless voice would shame, +Whose jangling chords with jarring notes would wrong +The nymphs that heard the Swan if Avon's song? + +What visions greet the pilgrim's raptured eyes! +What ghosts made real rise! +The dead return,--they breathe,--they live again, +Joined by the host of Fancy's airy train, +Fresh from the springs of Shakespeare's quickening brain! +The stream that slakes the soul's diviner thirst +Here found the sunbeams first; +Rich with his fame, not less shall memory prize +The gracious gift that humbler wants supplies. + +O'er the wide waters reached the hand that gave +To all this bounteous wave, +With health and strength and joyous beauty fraught; +Blest be the generous pledge of friendship, brought +From the far home of brothers' love, unbought! +Long may fair Avon's fountain flow, enrolled +With storied shrines of old, +Castalia's spring, Egeria's dewy cave, +And Horeb's rock the God of Israel slave! + +Land of our fathers, ocean makes us two, +But heart to heart is true! +Proud is your towering daughter in the West, +Yet in her burning life-blood reign confest +Her mother's pulses beating in her breast. +This holy fount, whose rills from heaven descend, +Its gracious drops shall lend,-- +Both foreheads bathed in that baptismal dew, +And love make one the old home and the new! + +August 29, 1887. + + + + +TO THE POETS WHO ONLY +READ AND LISTEN + +WHEN evening's shadowy fingers fold +The flowers of every hue, +Some shy, half-opened bud will hold +Its drop of morning's dew. + +Sweeter with every sunlit hour +The trembling sphere has grown, +Till all the fragrance of the flower +Becomes at last its own. + +We that have sung perchance may find +Our little meed of praise, +And round our pallid temples bind +The wreath of fading bays. + +Ah, Poet, who hast never spent +Thy breath in idle strains, +For thee the dewdrop morning lent +Still in thy heart remains; + +Unwasted, in its perfumed cell +It waits the evening gale; +Then to the azure whence it fell +Its lingering sweets exhale. + + + + +FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE +NEW CITY LIBRARY, BOSTON + +PROUDLY, beneath her glittering dome, +Our three-hilled city greets the morn; +Here Freedom found her virgin home,-- +The Bethlehem where her babe was born. + +The lordly roofs of traffic rise +Amid the smoke of household fires; +High o'er them in the peaceful skies +Faith points to heaven her clustering spires. + +Can Freedom breathe if ignorance reign? +Shall Commerce thrive where anarchs rule? +Will Faith her half-fledged brood retain +If darkening counsels cloud the school? + +Let in the light! from every age +Some gleams of garnered wisdom pour, +And, fixed on thought's electric page, +Wait all their radiance to restore. + +Let in the light! in diamond mines +Their gems invite the hand that delves; +So learning's treasured jewels shine +Ranged on the alcove's ordered shelves. + +From history's scroll the splendor streams, +From science leaps the living ray; +Flashed from the poet's glowing dreams +The opal fires of fancy play. + +Let in the light! these windowed walls +Shall brook no shadowing colonnades, +But day shall flood the silent halls +Till o'er yon hills the sunset fades. + +Behind the ever open gate +No pikes shall fence a crumbling throne, +No lackeys cringe, no courtiers wait, +This palace is the people's own! + +Heirs of our narrow-girdled past, +How fair the prospect we survey, +Where howled unheard the wintry blast, +And rolled unchecked the storm-swept bay! + +These chosen precincts, set apart +For learned toil and holy shrines, +Yield willing homes to every art +That trains, or strengthens, or refines. + +Here shall the sceptred mistress reign +Who heeds her meanest subject's call, +Sovereign of all their vast domain, +The queen, the handmaid of them all! + +November 26, 1888. + + + + +FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S +IN MEMORY OF A SON OF ARCHDEACON FARRAR + +AFAR he sleeps whose name is graven here, +Where loving hearts his early doom deplore; +Youth, promise, virtue, all that made him dear +Heaven lent, earth borrowed, sorrowing to restore. + +BOSTON, April 12, 1891. + + + + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + +1819-1891 + +THOU shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir +That filled our groves with music till the day +Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire, +And evening listened for thy lingering lay. + +But thou hast found thy voice in realms afar +Where strains celestial blend their notes with thine; +Some cloudless sphere beneath a happier star +Welcomes the bright-winged spirit we resign. + +How Nature mourns thee in the still retreat +Where passed in peace thy love-enchanted hours! +Where shall she find an eye like thine to greet +Spring's earliest footprints on her opening flowers? + +Have the pale wayside weeds no fond regret +For him who read the secrets they enfold? +Shall the proud spangles of the field forget +The verse that lent new glory to their gold? + +And ye whose carols wooed his infant ear, +Whose chants with answering woodnotes he repaid, +Have ye no song his spirit still may hear +From Elmwood's vaults of overarching shade? + +Friends of his studious hours, who thronged to teach +The deep-read scholar all your varied lore, +Shall he no longer seek your shelves to reach +The treasure missing from his world-wide store? + +This singer whom we long have held so dear +Was Nature's darling, shapely, strong, and fair; +Of keenest wit, of judgment crystal-clear, +Easy of converse, courteous, debonair, + +Fit for the loftiest or the lowliest lot, +Self-poised, imperial, yet of simplest ways; +At home alike in castle or in cot, +True to his aim, let others blame or praise. + +Freedom he found an heirloom from his sires; +Song, letters, statecraft, shared his years in turn; +All went to feed the nation's altar-fires +Whose mourning children wreathe his funeral urn. + +He loved New England,--people, language, soil, +Unweaned by exile from her arid breast. +Farewell awhile, white-handed son of toil, +Go with her brown-armed laborers to thy rest. + +Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade! +Poet and patriot, every gift was thine; +Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade, +And grateful Memory guard thy leafy shrine! + +=== + + + + + POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS + + + +TO THE ELEVEN LADIES + +WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP +ON THE TWENTY-NINTH OF AUGUST, M DCCC LXXXIX + +"WHO gave this cup?" The secret thou wouldst steal +Its brimming flood forbids it to reveal: +No mortal's eye shall read it till he first +Cool the red throat of thirst. + +If on the golden floor one draught remain, +Trust me, thy careful search will be in vain; +Not till the bowl is emptied shalt thou know +The names enrolled below. + +Deeper than Truth lies buried in her well +Those modest names the graven letters spell +Hide from the sight; but wait, and thou shalt see +Who the good angels be. + +Whose bounty glistens in the beauteous gift +That friendly hands to loving lips shall lift +Turn the fair goblet when its floor is dry,-- +Their names shall meet thine eye. + +Count thou their number on the beads of Heaven +Alas! the clustered Pleiads are but seven; +Nay, the nine sister Muses are too few,-- +The Graces must add two. + +"For whom this gift?" For one who all too long +Clings to his bough among the groves of song; +Autumn's last leaf, that spreads its faded wing +To greet a second spring. + +Dear friends, kind friends, whate'er the cup may hold, +Bathing its burnished depths, will change to gold +Its last bright drop let thirsty Maenads drain, +Its fragrance will remain. + +Better love's perfume in the empty bowl +Than wine's nepenthe for the aching soul; +Sweeter than song that ever poet sung, +It makes an old heart young! + + + + +THE PEAU DE CHAGRIN OF STATE STREET + +How beauteous is the bond +In the manifold array +Of its promises to pay, +While the eight per cent it gives +And the rate at which one lives +Correspond! + +But at last the bough is bare +Where the coupons one by one +Through their ripening days have run, +And the bond, a beggar now, +Seeks investment anyhow, +Anywhere! + + + + +CACOETHES SCRIBENDI + +IF all the trees in all the woods were men; +And each and every blade of grass a pen; +If every leaf on every shrub and tree +Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea +Were changed to ink, and all earth's living tribes +Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, +And for ten thousand ages, day and night, +The human race should write, and write, and write, +Till all the pens and paper were used up, +And the huge inkstand was an empty cup, +Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink +Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink. + + + + +THE ROSE AND THE FERN + +LADY, life's sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn, +Come thou with me to Love's enchanted bower +High overhead the trellised roses burn; +Beneath thy feet behold the feathery fern,-- +A leaf without a flower. + +What though the rose leaves fall? They still are sweet, +And have been lovely in their beauteous prime, +While the bare frond seems ever to repeat, +"For us no bud, no blossom, wakes to greet +The joyous flowering time!" + +Heed thou the lesson. Life has leaves to tread +And flowers to cherish; summer round thee glows; +Wait not till autumn's fading robes are shed, +But while its petals still are burning red +Gather life's full-blown rose! + + + + +I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU + +I LIKE YOU Met I LOVE You, face to face; +The path was narrow, and they could not pass. +I LIKE YOU smiled; I LOVE YOU cried, Alas! +And so they halted for a little space. + +"Turn thou and go before," I LOVE YOU said, +"Down the green pathway, bright with many a flower; +Deep in the valley, lo! my bridal bower +Awaits thee." But I LIKE YOU shook his head. + +Then while they lingered on the span-wide shelf +That shaped a pathway round the rocky ledge, +I LIKE You bared his icy dagger's edge, +And first he slew I LOVE You,--then himself. + + + + +LA MAISON D'OR + +(BAR HARBOR) + +FROM this fair home behold on either side +The restful mountains or the restless sea +So the warm sheltering walls of life divide +Time and its tides from still eternity. + +Look on the waves: their stormy voices teach +That not on earth may toil and struggle cease. +Look on the mountains: better far than speech +Their silent promise of eternal peace. + + + + +TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE + +Too young for love? +Ah, say not so! +Tell reddening rose-buds not to blow +Wait not for spring to pass away,-- +Love's summer months begin with May! +Too young for love? +Ah, say not so! +Too young? Too young? +Ah, no! no! no! + +Too young for love? +Ah, say not so, +To practise all love learned in May. +June soon will come with lengthened day +While daisies bloom and tulips glow! + +Too young for love? +Ah, say not so! +Too young? Too young? +Ah, no! no! no! + + + + +THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, +THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES + +LOOK out! Look out, boys! Clear the track! +The witches are here! They've all come back! +They hanged them high,--No use! No use! +What cares a witch for a hangman's noose? +They buried them deep, but they wouldn't lie still, +For cats and witches are hard to kill; +They swore they shouldn't and wouldn't die,-- +Books said they did, but they lie! they lie! + +A couple of hundred years, or so, +They had knocked about in the world below, +When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call, +And a homesick feeling seized them all; +For he came from a place they knew full well, +And many a tale he had to tell. +They longed to visit the haunts of men, +To see the old dwellings they knew again, +And ride on their broomsticks all around +Their wide domain of unhallowed ground. + +In Essex county there's many a roof +Well known to him of the cloven hoof; +The small square windows are full in view +Which the midnight hags went sailing through, +On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high, +Seen like shadows against the sky; +Crossing the track of owls and bats, +Hugging before them their coal-black cats. + +Well did they know, those gray old wives, +The sights we see in our daily drives +Shimmer of lake and shine of sea, +Browne's bare hill with its lonely tree, +(It was n't then as we see it now, +With one scant scalp-lock to shade its brow;) +Dusky nooks in the Essex woods, +Dark, dim, Dante-like solitudes, +Where the tree-toad watches the sinuous snake +Glide through his forests of fern and brake; +Ipswich River; its old stone bridge; +Far off Andover's Indian Ridge, +And many a scene where history tells +Some shadow of bygone terror dwells,-- +Of "Norman's Woe" with its tale of dread, +Of the Screeching Woman of Marblehead, +(The fearful story that turns men pale +Don't bid me tell it,--my speech would fail.) + +Who would not, will not, if he can, +Bathe in the breezes of fair Cape Ann,-- +Rest in the bowers her bays enfold, +Loved by the sachems and squaws of old? +Home where the white magnolias bloom, +Sweet with the bayberry's chaste perfume, +Hugged by the woods and kissed by the sea! +Where is the Eden like to thee? +For that "couple of hundred years, or so," +There had been no peace in the world below; +The witches still grumbling, "It is n't fair; +Come, give us a taste of the upper air! +We 've had enough of your sulphur springs, +And the evil odor that round them clings; +We long for a drink that is cool and nice,-- +Great buckets of water with Wenham ice; +We've served you well up-stairs, you know; +You 're a good old--fellow--come, let us go!" + +I don't feel sure of his being good, +But he happened to be in a pleasant mood,-- +As fiends with their skins full sometimes are,-- +(He'd been drinking with "roughs" at a Boston bar.) +So what does he do but up and shout +To a graybeard turnkey, "Let 'em out!" + +To mind his orders was all he knew; +The gates swung open, and out they flew. +"Where are our broomsticks?" the beldams cried. +"Here are your broomsticks," an imp replied. +"They 've been in--the place you know--so long +They smell of brimstone uncommon strong; +But they've gained by being left alone,-- +Just look, and you'll see how tall they've grown." +"And where is my cat?" a vixen squalled. +"Yes, where are our cats?" the witches bawled, +And began to call them all by name +As fast as they called the cats, they came +There was bob-tailed Tommy and long-tailed Tim, +And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim, +And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged Beau, +And Skinny and Squally, and Jerry and Joe, +And many another that came at call,-- +It would take too long to count them all. +All black,--one could hardly tell which was which, +But every cat knew his own old witch; +And she knew hers as hers knew her,-- +Ah, didn't they curl their tails and purr! + +No sooner the withered hags were free +Than out they swarmed for a midnight spree; +I couldn't tell all they did in rhymes, +But the Essex people had dreadful times. +The Swampscott fishermen still relate +How a strange sea-monster stole their bait; +How their nets were tangled in loops and knots, +And they found dead crabs in their lobster-pots. +Poor Danvers grieved for her blasted crops, +And Wilmington mourned over mildewed hops. +A blight played havoc with Beverly beans,-- +It was all the work of those hateful queans! +A dreadful panic began at "Pride's," +Where the witches stopped in their midnight rides, +And there rose strange rumors and vague alarms +'Mid the peaceful dwellers at Beverly Farms. + +Now when the Boss of the Beldams found +That without his leave they were ramping round, +He called,--they could hear him twenty miles, +From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles; +The deafest old granny knew his tone +Without the trick of the telephone. +"Come here, you witches! Come here!" says he,-- +"At your games of old, without asking me! +I'll give you a little job to do +That will keep you stirring, you godless crew!" + +They came, of course, at their master's call, +The witches, the broomsticks, the cats, and all; +He led the hags to a railway train +The horses were trying to drag in vain. +"Now, then," says he, "you've had your fun, +And here are the cars you've got to run. +The driver may just unhitch his team, +We don't want horses, we don't want steam; +You may keep your old black cats to hug, +But the loaded train you've got to lug." + +Since then on many a car you 'll see +A broomstick plain as plain can be; +On every stick there's a witch astride,-- +The string you see to her leg is tied. +She will do a mischief if she can, +But the string is held by a careful man, +And whenever the evil-minded witch +Would cut some caper, he gives a twitch. +As for the hag, you can't see her, +But hark! you can hear her black cat's purr, +And now and then, as a car goes by, +You may catch a gleam from her wicked eye. + +Often you've looked on a rushing train, +But just what moved it was not so plain. +It couldn't be those wires above, +For they could neither pull nor shove; +Where was the motor that made it go +You couldn't guess, but now you know. + +Remember my rhymes when you ride again +On the rattling rail by the broomstick train! + + + + +TARTARUS + +WHILE in my simple gospel creed +That "God is Love" so plain I read, +Shall dreams of heathen birth affright +My pathway through the coming night? +Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale +Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, +With Thee my faltering steps to aid, +How can I dare to be afraid? + +Shall mouldering page or fading scroll +Outface the charter of the soul? +Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect +The wrong our human hearts reject, +And smite the lips whose shuddering cry +Proclaims a cruel creed a lie? +The wizard's rope we disallow +Was justice once,--is murder now! + +Is there a world of blank despair, +And dwells the Omnipresent there? +Does He behold with smile serene +The shows of that unending scene, +Where sleepless, hopeless anguish lies, +And, ever dying, never dies? +Say, does He hear the sufferer's groan, +And is that child of wrath his own? + +O mortal, wavering in thy trust, +Lift thy pale forehead from the dust! +The mists that cloud thy darkened eyes +Fade ere they reach the o'erarching skies +When the blind heralds of despair +Would bid thee doubt a Father's care, +Look up from earth, and read above +On heaven's blue tablet, GOD IS LOVE! + + + + +AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD + +THE glory has passed from the goldenrod's plume, +The purple-hued asters still linger in bloom +The birch is bright yellow, the sumachs are red, +The maples like torches aflame overhead. + +But what if the joy of the summer is past, +And winter's wild herald is blowing his blast? +For me dull November is sweeter than May, +For my love is its sunshine,--she meets me to-day! + +Will she come? Will the ring-dove return to her nest? +Will the needle swing back from the east or the west? +At the stroke of the hour she will be at her gate; +A friend may prove laggard,--love never comes late. + +Do I see her afar in the distance? Not yet. +Too early! Too early! She could not forget! +When I cross the old bridge where the brook overflowed, +She will flash full in sight at the turn of the road. + +I pass the low wall where the ivy entwines; +I tread the brown pathway that leads through the pines; +I haste by the boulder that lies in the field, +Where her promise at parting was lovingly sealed. + +Will she come by the hillside or round through the wood? +Will she wear her brown dress or her mantle and hood? +The minute draws near,--but her watch may go wrong; +My heart will be asking, What keeps her so long? + +Why doubt for a moment? More shame if I do! +Why question? Why tremble? Are angels more true? +She would come to the lover who calls her his own +Though she trod in the track of a whirling cyclone! + +I crossed the old bridge ere the minute had passed. +I looked: lo! my Love stood before me at last. +Her eyes, how they sparkled, her cheeks, how they glowed, +As we met, face to face, at the turn of the road! + + + + +IN VITA MINERVA + +VEX not the Muse with idle prayers,-- +She will not hear thy call; +She steals upon thee unawares, +Or seeks thee not at all. + +Soft as the moonbeams when they sought +Endymion's fragrant bower, +She parts the whispering leaves of thought +To show her full-blown flower. + +For thee her wooing hour has passed, +The singing birds have flown, +And winter comes with icy blast +To chill thy buds unblown. + +Yet, though the woods no longer thrill +As once their arches rung, +Sweet echoes hover round thee still +Of songs thy summer sung. + +Live in thy past; await no more +The rush of heaven-sent wings; +Earth still has music left in store +While Memory sighs and sings. + + + + + + READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS + + FIVE STORIES AND A SEQUEL + + +TO MY OLD READERS + +You know "The Teacups," that congenial set +Which round the Teapot you have often met; +The grave DICTATOR, him you knew of old,-- +Knew as the shepherd of another fold +Grayer he looks, less youthful, but the same +As when you called him by a different name. +Near him the MISTRESS, whose experienced skill +Has taught her duly every cup to fill; +"Weak;" "strong;" "cool;" "lukewarm;" "hot as you can pour;" +"No sweetening;" "sugared;" "two lumps;" "one lump more." +Next, the PROFESSOR, whose scholastic phrase +At every turn the teacher's tongue betrays, +Trying so hard to make his speech precise +The captious listener finds it overnice. + +Nor be forgotten our ANNEXES twain, +Nor HE, the owner of the squinting brain, +Which, while its curious fancies we pursue, +Oft makes us question, "Are we crack-brained too?" + +Along the board our growing list extends, +As one by one we count our clustering friends,-- +The youthful DOCTOR waiting for his share +Of fits and fevers when his crown gets bare; +In strong, dark lines our square-nibbed pen should draw +The lordly presence of the MAN OF LAW; +Our bashful TUTOR claims a humbler place, +A lighter touch, his slender form to trace. +Mark the fair lady he is seated by,-- +Some say he is her lover,--some deny,-- +Watch them together,--time alone can show +If dead-ripe friendship turns to love or no. +Where in my list of phrases shall I seek +The fitting words of NUMBER FIVE to speak? +Such task demands a readier pen than mine,-- +What if I steal the Tutor's Valentine? + +Why should I call her gracious, winning, fair? +Why with the loveliest of her sex compare? +Those varied charms have many a Muse inspired,-- +At last their worn superlatives have tired; +Wit, beauty, sweetness, each alluring grace, +All these in honeyed verse have found their place; +I need them not,--two little words I find +Which hold them all in happiest form combined; +No more with baffled language will I strive,-- +All in one breath I utter: Number Five! + +Now count our teaspoons--if you care to learn +How many tinkling cups were served in turn,-- +Add all together, you will find them ten,-- +Our young MUSICIAN joined us now and then. +Our bright DELILAH you must needs recall, +The comely handmaid, youngest of us all; +Need I remind you how the little maid +Came at a pinch to our Professor's aid,-- +Trimmed his long locks with unrelenting shears +And eased his looks of half a score of years? + +Sometimes, at table, as you well must know, +The stream of talk will all at once run low, +The air seems smitten with a sudden chill, +The wit grows silent and the gossip still; +This was our poet's chance, the hour of need, +When rhymes and stories we were used to read. +One day a whisper round the teacups stole,-- +"No scrap of paper in the silver bowl!" +(Our "poet's corner" may I not expect +My kindly reader still may recollect?) +"What! not a line to keep our souls alive?" +Spoke in her silvery accents Number Five. +"No matter, something we must find to read,-- +Find it or make it,--yes, we must indeed! +Now I remember I have seen at times +Some curious stories in a book of rhymes,-- +How certain secrets, long in silence sealed, +In after days were guessed at or revealed. +Those stories, doubtless, some of you must know,-- +They all were written many a year ago; +But an old story, be it false or true, +Twice told, well told, is twice as good as new; +Wait but three sips and I will go myself, +And fetch the book of verses from its shelf." +No time was lost in finding what she sought,-- +Gone but one moment,--lo! the book is brought. + +"Now, then, Professor, fortune has decreed +That you, this evening, shall be first to read,-- +Lucky for us that listen, for in fact +Who reads this poem must know how to _act_." +Right well she knew that in his greener age +He had a mighty hankering for the stage. +The patient audience had not long to wait; +Pleased with his chance, he smiled and took the bait; +Through his wild hair his coaxing fingers ran,-- +He spread the page before him and began. + + + + +THE BANKER'S SECRET + +THE Banker's dinner is the stateliest feast +The town has heard of for a year, at least; +The sparry lustres shed their broadest blaze, +Damask and silver catch and spread the rays; +The florist's triumphs crown the daintier spoil +Won from the sea, the forest, or the soil; +The steaming hot-house yields its largest pines, +The sunless vaults unearth their oldest wines; +With one admiring look the scene survey, +And turn a moment from the bright display. + +Of all the joys of earthly pride or power, +What gives most life, worth living, in an hour? +When Victory settles on the doubtful fight +And the last foeman wheels in panting flight, +No thrill like this is felt beneath the sun; +Life's sovereign moment is a battle won. +But say what next? To shape a Senate's choice, +By the strong magic of the master's voice; +To ride the stormy tempest of debate +That whirls the wavering fortunes of the state. +Third in the list, the happy lover's prize +Is won by honeyed words from women's eyes. +If some would have it first instead of third, +So let it be,--I answer not a word. +The fourth,--sweet readers, let the thoughtless half +Have its small shrug and inoffensive laugh; +Let the grave quarter wear its virtuous frown, +The stern half-quarter try to scowl us down; +But the last eighth, the choice and sifted few, +Will hear my words, and, pleased, confess them true. + +Among the great whom Heaven has made to shine, +How few have learned the art of arts,--to dine! +Nature, indulgent to our daily need, +Kind-hearted mother! taught us all to feed; +But the chief art,--how rarely Nature flings +This choicest gift among her social kings +Say, man of truth, has life a brighter hour +Than waits the chosen guest who knows his power? +He moves with ease, itself an angel charm,-- +Lifts with light touch my lady's jewelled arm, +Slides to his seat, half leading and half led, +Smiling but quiet till the grace is said, +Then gently kindles, while by slow degrees +Creep softly out the little arts that please; +Bright looks, the cheerful language of the eye, +The neat, crisp question and the gay reply,-- +Talk light and airy, such as well may pass +Between the rested fork and lifted glass;-- +With play like this the earlier evening flies, +Till rustling silks proclaim the ladies rise. +His hour has come,--he looks along the chairs, +As the Great Duke surveyed his iron squares. +That's the young traveller,--is n't much to show,-- +Fast on the road, but at the table slow. +Next him,--you see the author in his look,-- +His forehead lined with wrinkles like a book,-- +Wrote the great history of the ancient Huns,-- +Holds back to fire among the heavy guns. +Oh, there's our poet seated at his side, +Beloved of ladies, soft, cerulean-eyed. +Poets are prosy in their common talk, +As the fast trotters, for the most part, walk. +And there's our well-dressed gentleman, who sits, +By right divine, no doubt, among the wits, +Who airs his tailor's patterns when he walks, +The man that often speaks, but never talks. +Why should he talk, whose presence lends a grace +To every table where he shows his face? +He knows the manual of the silver fork, +Can name his claret--if he sees the cork,-- +Remark that "White-top" was considered fine, +But swear the "Juno" is the better wine;-- +Is not this talking? Ask Quintilian's rules; +If they say No, the town has many fools. +Pause for a moment,--for our eyes behold +The plain unsceptred king, the man of gold, +The thrice illustrious threefold millionnaire; +Mark his slow-creeping, dead, metallic stare; +His eyes, dull glimmering, like the balance-pan +That weighs its guinea as he weighs his man. +Who's next? An artist in a satin tie +Whose ample folds defeat the curious eye. +And there 's the cousin,--must be asked, you know,-- +Looks like a spinster at a baby-show. +Hope he is cool,--they set him next the door,-- +And likes his place, between the gap and bore. +Next comes a Congressman, distinguished guest +We don't count him,--they asked him with the rest; +And then some white cravats, with well-shaped ties, +And heads above them which their owners prize. + +Of all that cluster round the genial board, +Not one so radiant as the banquet's lord. +Some say they fancy, but they know not why, +A shade of trouble brooding in his eye, +Nothing, perhaps,--the rooms are overhot,-- +Yet see his cheek,--the dull-red burning spot,-- +Taste the brown sherry which he does not pass,-- +Ha! That is brandy; see him fill his glass! +But not forgetful of his feasting friends, +To each in turn some lively word he sends; +See how he throws his baited lines about, +And plays his men as anglers play their trout. +A question drops among the listening crew +And hits the traveller, pat on Timbuctoo. +We're on the Niger, somewhere near its source,-- +Not the least hurry, take the river's course +Through Kissi, Foota, Kankan, Bammakoo, +Bambarra, Sego, so to Timbuctoo, +Thence down to Youri;--stop him if we can, +We can't fare worse,--wake up the Congressman! +The Congressman, once on his talking legs, +Stirs up his knowledge to its thickest dregs; +Tremendous draught for dining men to quaff! +Nothing will choke him but a purpling laugh. +A word,--a shout,--a mighty roar,--'t is done; +Extinguished; lassoed by a treacherous pun. +A laugh is priming to the loaded soul; +The scattering shots become a steady roll, +Broke by sharp cracks that run along the line, +The light artillery of the talker's wine. +The kindling goblets flame with golden dews, +The hoarded flasks their tawny fire diffuse, +And the Rhine's breast-milk gushes cold and bright, +Pale as the moon and maddening as her light; +With crimson juice the thirsty southern sky +Sucks from the hills where buried armies lie, +So that the dreamy passion it imparts +Is drawn from heroes' bones and lovers' hearts. +But lulls will come; the flashing soul transmits +Its gleams of light in alternating fits. +The shower of talk that rattled down amain +Ends in small patterings like an April's rain; + +With the dry sticks all bonfires are begun; +Bring the first fagot, proser number one +The voices halt; the game is at a stand; +Now for a solo from the master-hand +'T is but a story,--quite a simple thing,-- +An aria touched upon a single string, +But every accent comes with such a grace +The stupid servants listen in their place, +Each with his waiter in his lifted hands, +Still as a well-bred pointer when he stands. +A query checks him: "Is he quite exact?" +(This from a grizzled, square-jawed man of fact.) +The sparkling story leaves him to his fate, +Crushed by a witness, smothered with a date, +As a swift river, sown with many a star, +Runs brighter, rippling on a shallow bar. +The smooth divine suggests a graver doubt; +A neat quotation bowls the parson out; +Then, sliding gayly from his own display, +He laughs the learned dulness all away. +So, with the merry tale and jovial song, +The jocund evening whirls itself along, +Till the last chorus shrieks its loud encore, +And the white neckcloths vanish through the door. + +One savage word!--The menials know its tone, +And slink away; the master stands alone. +"Well played, by ---"; breathe not what were best unheard; +His goblet shivers while he speaks the word,-- +"If wine tells truth,--and so have said the wise,-- +It makes me laugh to think how brandy lies! +Bankrupt to-morrow,--millionnaire to-day,-- +The farce is over,--now begins the play!" +The spring he touches lets a panel glide; +An iron closet harks beneath the slide, +Bright with such treasures as a search might bring +From the deep pockets of a truant king. +Two diamonds, eyeballs of a god of bronze, +Bought from his faithful priest, a pious bonze; +A string of brilliants; rubies, three or four; +Bags of old coin and bars of virgin ore; +A jewelled poniard and a Turkish knife, +Noiseless and useful if we come to strife. +Gone! As a pirate flies before the wind, +And not one tear for all he leaves behind +From all the love his better years have known +Fled like a felon,--ah! but not alone! +The chariot flashes through a lantern's glare,-- +Oh the wild eyes! the storm of sable hair! +Still to his side the broken heart will cling,-- +The bride of shame, the wife without the ring +Hark, the deep oath,--the wail of frenzied woe,-- +Lost! lost to hope of Heaven and peace below! + +He kept his secret; but the seed of crime +Bursts of itself in God's appointed time. +The lives he wrecked were scattered far and wide; +One never blamed nor wept,--she only died. +None knew his lot, though idle tongues would say +He sought a lonely refuge far away, +And there, with borrowed name and altered mien, +He died unheeded, as he lived unseen. +The moral market had the usual chills +Of Virtue suffering from protested bills; +The White Cravats, to friendship's memory true, +Sighed for the past, surveyed the future too; +Their sorrow breathed in one expressive line,-- +"Gave pleasant dinners; who has got his wine?" + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +The reader paused,--the Teacups knew his ways,-- +He, like the rest, was not averse to praise. +Voices and hands united; every one +Joined in approval: "Number Three, well done!" + +"Now for the Exile's story; if my wits +Are not at fault, his curious record fits +Neatly as sequel to the tale we've heard; +Not wholly wild the fancy, nor absurd +That this our island hermit well might be +That story's hero, fled from over sea. +Come, Number Seven, we would not have you strain +The fertile powers of that inventive brain. +Read us 'The Exile's Secret'; there's enough +Of dream-like fiction and fantastic stuff +In the strange web of mystery that invests +The lonely isle where sea birds build their nests." + +"Lies! naught but lies!" so Number Seven began,-- +No harm was known of that secluded man. +He lived alone,--who would n't if he might, +And leave the rogues and idiots out of sight? +A foolish story,--still, I'll do my best,-- +The house was real,--don't believe the rest. +How could a ruined dwelling last so long +Without its legends shaped in tale and song? +Who was this man of whom they tell the lies? +Perhaps--why not?--NAPOLEON! in disguise,-- +So some said, kidnapped from his ocean coop, +Brought to this island in a coasting sloop,-- +Meanwhile a sham Napoleon in his place +Played Nap. and saved Sir Hudson from disgrace. +Such was one story; others used to say, +"No,--not Napoleon,--it was Marshal Ney." +"Shot?" Yes, no doubt, but not with balls of lead, +But balls of pith that never shoot folks dead. +He wandered round, lived South for many a year, +At last came North and fixed his dwelling here. +Choose which you will of all the tales that pile +Their mingling fables on the tree-crowned isle. +Who wrote this modest version I suppose +That truthful Teacup, our Dictator, knows; +Made up of various legends, it would seem, +The sailor's yarn, the crazy poet's dream. +Such tales as this, by simple souls received, +At first are stared at and at last believed; +From threads like this the grave historians try +To weave their webs, and never know they lie. +Hear, then, the fables that have gathered round +The lonely home an exiled stranger found. + + +THE EXILE'S SECRET + +YE that have faced the billows and the spray +Of good St. Botolph's island-studded bay, +As from the gliding bark your eye has scanned +The beaconed rocks, the wave-girt hills of sand, +Have ye not marked one elm-o'ershadowed isle, +Round as the dimple chased in beauty's smile,-- +A stain of verdure on an azure field, +Set like a jewel in a battered shield? +Fixed in the narrow gorge of Ocean's path, +Peaceful it meets him in his hour of wrath; +When the mailed Titan, scourged by hissing gales, +Writhes in his glistening coat of clashing scales, +The storm-beat island spreads its tranquil green, +Calm as an emerald on an angry queen. +So fair when distant should be fairer near; +A boat shall waft us from the outstretched pier. +The breeze blows fresh; we reach the island's edge, +Our shallop rustling through the yielding sedge. +No welcome greets us on the desert isle; +Those elms, far-shadowing, hide no stately pile +Yet these green ridges mark an ancient road; +And to! the traces of a fair abode; +The long gray line that marks a garden-wall, +And heaps of fallen beams,--fire-branded all. + +Who sees unmoved, a ruin at his feet, +The lowliest home where human hearts have beat? +Its hearthstone, shaded with the bistre stain +A century's showery torrents wash in vain; +Its starving orchard, where the thistle blows +And mossy trunks still mark the broken rows; +Its chimney-loving poplar, oftenest seen +Next an old roof, or where a roof has been; +Its knot-grass, plantain,--all the social weeds, +Man's mute companions, following where he leads; +Its dwarfed, pale flowers, that show their straggling heads, +Sown by the wind from grass-choked garden-beds; +Its woodbine, creeping where it used to climb; +Its roses, breathing of the olden time; +All the poor shows the curious idler sees, +As life's thin shadows waste by slow degrees, +Till naught remains, the saddening tale to tell, +Save home's last wrecks,--the cellar and the well? + +And whose the home that strews in black decay +The one green-glowing island of the bay? +Some dark-browed pirate's, jealous of the fate +That seized the strangled wretch of "Nix's Mate"? +Some forger's, skulking in a borrowed name, +Whom Tyburn's dangling halter yet may claim? +Some wan-eyed exile's, wealth and sorrow's heir, +Who sought a lone retreat for tears and prayer? +Some brooding poet's, sure of deathless fame, +Had not his epic perished in the flame? +Or some gray wooer's, whom a girlish frown +Chased from his solid friends and sober town? +Or some plain tradesman's, fond of shade and ease, +Who sought them both beneath these quiet trees? +Why question mutes no question can unlock, +Dumb as the legend on the Dighton rock? +One thing at least these ruined heaps declare,-- +They were a shelter once; a man lived there. + +But where the charred and crumbling records fail, +Some breathing lips may piece the half-told tale; +No man may live with neighbors such as these, +Though girt with walls of rock and angry seas, +And shield his home, his children, or his wife, +His ways, his means, his vote, his creed, his life, +From the dread sovereignty of Ears and Eyes +And the small member that beneath them lies. +They told strange things of that mysterious man; +Believe who will, deny them such as can; +Why should we fret if every passing sail +Had its old seaman talking on the rail? +The deep-sunk schooner stuffed with Eastern lime, +Slow wedging on, as if the waves were slime; +The knife-edged clipper with her ruffled spars, +The pawing steamer with her inane of stars, +The bull-browed galliot butting through the stream, +The wide-sailed yacht that slipped along her beam, +The deck-piled sloops, the pinched chebacco-boats, +The frigate, black with thunder-freighted throats, +All had their talk about the lonely man; +And thus, in varying phrase, the story ran. +His name had cost him little care to seek, +Plain, honest, brief, a decent name to speak, +Common, not vulgar, just the kind that slips +With least suggestion from a stranger's lips. +His birthplace England, as his speech might show, +Or his hale cheek, that wore the red-streak's glow; +His mouth sharp-moulded; in its mirth or scorn +There came a flash as from the milky corn, +When from the ear you rip the rustling sheath, +And the white ridges show their even teeth. +His stature moderate, but his strength confessed, +In spite of broadcloth, by his ample breast; +Full-armed, thick-handed; one that had been strong, +And might be dangerous still, if things went wrong. +He lived at ease beneath his elm-trees' shade, +Did naught for gain, yet all his debts were paid; +Rich, so 't was thought, but careful of his store; +Had all he needed, claimed to have no more. + +But some that lingered round the isle at night +Spoke of strange stealthy doings in their sight; +Of creeping lonely visits that he made +To nooks and corners, with a torch and spade. +Some said they saw the hollow of a cave; +One, given to fables, swore it was a grave; +Whereat some shuddered, others boldly cried, +Those prowling boatmen lied, and knew they lied. +They said his house was framed with curious cares, +Lest some old friend might enter unawares; +That on the platform at his chamber's door +Hinged a loose square that opened through the floor; +Touch the black silken tassel next the bell, +Down, with a crash, the flapping trap-door fell; +Three stories deep the falling wretch would strike, +To writhe at leisure on a boarder's pike. +By day armed always; double-armed at night, + +His tools lay round him; wake him such as might. +A carbine hung beside his India fan, +His hand could reach a Turkish ataghan; +Pistols, with quaint-carved stocks and barrels gilt, +Crossed a long dagger with a jewelled hilt; +A slashing cutlass stretched along the bed;-- +All this was what those lying boatmen said. +Then some were full of wondrous stories told +Of great oak chests and cupboards full of gold; +Of the wedged ingots and the silver bars +That cost old pirates ugly sabre-scars; +How his laced wallet often would disgorge +The fresh-faced guinea of an English George, +Or sweated ducat, palmed by Jews of yore, +Or double Joe, or Portuguese moidore; +And how his finger wore a rubied ring +Fit for the white-necked play-girl of a king. +But these fine legends, told with staring eyes, +Met with small credence from the old and wise. + +Why tell each idle guess, each whisper vain? +Enough: the scorched and cindered beams remain. +He came, a silent pilgrim to the West, +Some old-world mystery throbbing in his breast; +Close to the thronging mart he dwelt alone; +He lived; he died. The rest is all unknown. + +Stranger, whose eyes the shadowy isle survey, +As the black steamer dashes through the bay, +Why ask his buried secret to divine? +He was thy brother; speak, and tell us thine! + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Silence at first, a kind of spell-bound pause; +Then all the Teacups tinkled their applause; +When that was hushed no sound the stillness broke +Till once again the soft-voiced lady spoke: + +"The Lover's Secret,--surely that must need +The youngest voice our table holds to read. +Which of our two 'Annexes' shall we choose? +Either were charming, neither will refuse; +But choose we must,--what better can we do +Than take the younger of the youthful two?" + +True to the primal instinct of her sex, +"Why, that means me," half whispered each Annex. +"What if it does?" the voiceless question came, +That set those pale New England cheeks aflame; +"Our old-world scholar may have ways to teach +Of Oxford English, Britain's purest speech,-- +She shall be youngest,--youngest for _to-day_,-- +Our dates we'll fix hereafter as we may; +_All rights reserved_,--the words we know so well, +That guard the claims of books which never sell." +The British maiden bowed a pleased assent, +Her two long ringlets swinging as she bent; +The glistening eyes her eager soul looked through +Betrayed her lineage in their Saxon blue. +Backward she flung each too obtrusive curl +And thus began,--the rose-lipped English girl. + + +THE LOVER'S SECRET + +WHAT ailed young Lucius? Art had vainly tried +To guess his ill, and found herself defied. +The Augur plied his legendary skill; +Useless; the fair young Roman languished still. +His chariot took him every cloudless day +Along the Pincian Hill or Appian Way; +They rubbed his wasted limbs with sulphurous oil, +Oozed from the far-off Orient's heated soil; +They led him tottering down the steamy path +Where bubbling fountains filled the thermal bath; +Borne in his litter to Egeria's cave, +They washed him, shivering, in her icy wave. +They sought all curious herbs and costly stones, +They scraped the moss that grew on dead men's bones, +They tried all cures the votive tablets taught, +Scoured every place whence healing drugs were brought, +O'er Thracian hills his breathless couriers ran, +His slaves waylaid the Syrian caravan. +At last a servant heard a stranger speak +A new chirurgeon's name; a clever Greek, +Skilled in his art; from Pergamus he came +To Rome but lately; GALEN was the name. +The Greek was called: a man with piercing eyes, +Who must be cunning, and who might be wise. +He spoke but little,--if they pleased, he said, +He 'd wait awhile beside the sufferer's bed. +So by his side he sat, serene and calm, +His very accents soft as healing balm; +Not curious seemed, but every movement spied, +His sharp eyes searching where they seemed to glide; +Asked a few questions,--what he felt, and where? +"A pain just here," "A constant beating there." +Who ordered bathing for his aches and ails? +"Charmis, the water-doctor from Marseilles." +What was the last prescription in his case? +"A draught of wine with powdered chrysoprase." +Had he no secret grief he nursed alone? +A pause; a little tremor; answer,--"None." +Thoughtful, a moment, sat the cunning leech, +And muttered "Eros!" in his native speech. +In the broad atrium various friends await +The last new utterance from the lips of fate; +Men, matrons, maids, they talk the question o'er, +And, restless, pace the tessellated floor. +Not unobserved the youth so long had pined +By gentle-hearted dames and damsels kind; +One with the rest, a rich Patrician's pride, +The lady Hermia, called "the golden-eyed"; +The same the old Proconsul fain must woo, +Whom, one dark night, a masked sicarius slew; +The same black Crassus over roughly pressed +To hear his suit,--the Tiber knows the rest. +(Crassus was missed next morning by his set; +Next week the fishers found him in their net.) +She with the others paced the ample hall, +Fairest, alas! and saddest of them all. + +At length the Greek declared, with puzzled face, +Some strange enchantment mingled in the case, +And naught would serve to act as counter-charm +Save a warm bracelet from a maiden's arm. +Not every maiden's,--many might be tried; +Which not in vain, experience must decide. +Were there no damsels willing to attend +And do such service for a suffering friend? +The message passed among the waiting crowd, +First in a whisper, then proclaimed aloud. +Some wore no jewels; some were disinclined, +For reasons better guessed at than defined; +Though all were saints,--at least professed to be,-- +The list all counted, there were named but three. +The leech, still seated by the patient's side, +Held his thin wrist, and watched him, eagle-eyed. +Aurelia first, a fair-haired Tuscan girl, +Slipped off her golden asp, with eyes of pearl. +His solemn head the grave physician shook; +The waxen features thanked her with a look. +Olympia next, a creature half divine, +Sprung from the blood of old Evander's line, +Held her white arm, that wore a twisted chain +Clasped with an opal-sheeny cymophane. +In vain, O daughter I said the baffled Greek. +The patient sighed the thanks he could not speak. + +Last, Hermia entered; look, that sudden start! +The pallium heaves above his leaping heart; +The beating pulse, the cheek's rekindled flame, +Those quivering lips, the secret all proclaim. +The deep disease long throbbing in the breast, +The dread enchantment, all at once confessed! +The case was plain; the treatment was begun; +And Love soon cured the mischief he had done. + +Young Love, too oft thy treacherous bandage slips +Down from the eyes it blinded to the lips! +Ask not the Gods, O youth, for clearer sight, +But the bold heart to plead thy cause aright. +And thou, fair maiden, when thy lovers sigh, +Suspect thy flattering ear, but trust thine eye; +And learn this secret from the tale of old +No love so true as love that dies untold. + + . . . . . . . . . . + +"Bravo, Annex!" they shouted, every one,-- +"Not Mrs. Kemble's self had better done." +"Quite so," she stammered in her awkward way,-- +Not just the thing, but something she must say. + +The teaspoon chorus tinkled to its close +When from his chair the MAN OF LAW arose, +Called by her voice whose mandate all obeyed, +And took the open volume she displayed. +Tall, stately, strong, his form begins to own +Some slight exuberance in its central zone,-- +That comely fulness of the growing girth +Which fifty summers lend the sons of earth. +A smooth, round disk about whose margin stray, +Above the temples, glistening threads of gray; +Strong, deep-cut grooves by toilsome decades wrought +On brow and mouth, the battle-fields of thought; +A voice that lingers in the listener's ear, +Grave, calm, far-reaching, every accent clear,-- +(Those tones resistless many a foreman knew +That shaped their verdict ere the twelve withdrew;) +A statesman's forehead, athlete's throat and jaw, +Such the proud semblance of the Man of Law. +His eye just lighted on the printed leaf, +Held as a practised pleader holds his brief. +One whispered softly from behind his cup, +"He does not read,--his book is wrong side up! +He knows the story that it holds by heart,-- +So like his own! How well he'll act his part!" +Then all were silent; not a rustling fan +Stirred the deep stillness as the voice began. + + +THE STATESMAN'S SECRET + +WHO of all statesmen is his country's pride, +Her councils' prompter and her leaders' guide? +He speaks; the nation holds its breath to hear; +He nods, and shakes the sunset hemisphere. +Born where the primal fount of Nature springs +By the rude cradles of her throneless kings, +In his proud eye her royal signet flames, +By his own lips her Monarch she proclaims. +Why name his countless triumphs, whom to meet +Is to be famous, envied in defeat? +The keen debaters, trained to brawls and strife, +Who fire one shot, and finish with the knife, +Tried him but once, and, cowering in their shame, +Ground their hacked blades to strike at meaner game. +The lordly chief, his party's central stay, +Whose lightest word a hundred votes obey, +Found a new listener seated at his side, +Looked in his eye, and felt himself defied, +Flung his rash gauntlet on the startled floor, +Met the all-conquering, fought,--and ruled no more. +See where he moves, what eager crowds attend! +What shouts of thronging multitudes ascend! +If this is life,--to mark with every hour +The purple deepening in his robes of power, +To see the painted fruits of honor fall +Thick at his feet, and choose among them all, +To hear the sounds that shape his spreading name +Peal through the myriad organ-stops of fame, +Stamp the lone isle that spots the seaman's chart, +And crown the pillared glory of the mart, +To count as peers the few supremely wise +Who mark their planet in the angels' eyes,-- +If this is life-- +What savage man is he +Who strides alone beside the sounding sea? +Alone he wanders by the murmuring shore, +His thoughts as restless as the waves that roar; +Looks on the sullen sky as stormy-browed +As on the waves yon tempest-brooding cloud, +Heaves from his aching breast a wailing sigh, +Sad as the gust that sweeps the clouded sky. +Ask him his griefs; what midnight demons plough +The lines of torture on his lofty brow; +Unlock those marble lips, and bid them speak +The mystery freezing in his bloodless cheek. +His secret? Hid beneath a flimsy word; +One foolish whisper that ambition heard; +And thus it spake: "Behold yon gilded chair, +The world's one vacant throne,--thy plate is there!" + +Ah, fatal dream! What warning spectres meet +In ghastly circle round its shadowy seat! +Yet still the Tempter murmurs in his ear +The maddening taunt he cannot choose but hear +"Meanest of slaves, by gods and men accurst, +He who is second when he might be first +Climb with bold front the ladder's topmost round, +Or chain thy creeping footsteps to the ground!" +Illustrious Dupe! Have those majestic eyes +Lost their proud fire for such a vulgar prize? +Art thou the last of all mankind to know +That party-fights are won by aiming low? +Thou, stamped by Nature with her royal sign, +That party-hirelings hate a look like thine? +Shake from thy sense the wild delusive dream +Without the purple, art thou not supreme? +And soothed by love unbought, thy heart shall own +A nation's homage nobler than its throne! + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Loud rang the plaudits; with them rose the thought, +"Would he had learned the lesson he has taught!" +Used to the tributes of the noisy crowd, +The stately speaker calmly smiled and bowed; +The fire within a flushing cheek betrayed, +And eyes that burned beneath their penthouse shade. + +"The clock strikes ten, the hours are flying fast,-- +Now, Number Five, we've kept you till the last!" + +What music charms like those caressing tones +Whose magic influence every listener owns,-- +Where all the woman finds herself expressed, +And Heaven's divinest effluence breathes confessed? +Such was the breath that wooed our ravished ears, +Sweet as the voice a dreaming vestal hears; +Soft as the murmur of a brooding dove, +It told the mystery of a mother's love. + + +THE MOTHER'S SECRET + +How sweet the sacred legend--if unblamed +In my slight verse such holy things are named-- +Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, +Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy! +Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong +Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song! +The choral host had closed the Angel's strain +Sung to the listening watch on Bethlehem's plain, +And now the shepherds, hastening on their way, +Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay. +They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled o'er,-- +They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor +Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn, +Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn; +And some remembered how the holy scribe, +Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe, +Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son +To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. +So fared they on to seek the promised sign, +That marked the anointed heir of David's line. +At last, by forms of earthly semblance led, +They found the crowded inn, the oxen's shed. + +No pomp was there, no glory shone around +On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground; +One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed,-- +In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid +The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale +Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale; +Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed, +Told how the shining multitude proclaimed, +"Joy, joy to earth! Behold the hallowed morn +In David's city Christ the Lord is born! +'Glory to God!' let angels shout on high, +'Good-will to men!' the listening earth reply!" +They spoke with hurried words and accents wild; +Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. +No trembling word the mother's joy revealed,-- +One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed; +Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, +But kept their words to ponder in her heart. + +Twelve years had passed; the boy was fair and tall, +Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. +The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to fill +Their balanced urns beside the mountain rill, +The gathered matrons, as they sat and spun, +Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son. +No voice had reached the Galilean vale +Of star-led kings, or awe-struck shepherd's tale; +In the meek, studious child they only saw +The future Rabbi, learned in Israel's law. + +Beyond the hills that girt the village green; +Save when at midnight, o'er the starlit sands, +Snatched from the steel of Herod's murdering bands, +A babe, close folded to his mother's breast, +Through Edom's wilds he sought the sheltering West. +Then Joseph spake: "Thy boy hath largely grown; +Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown; +Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest; +Goes he not with us to the holy feast?" +And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white; +Till eve she spun; she spun till morning light. +The thread was twined; its parting meshes through +From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew, +Till the full web was wound upon the beam; +Love's curious toil,--a vest without a seam! +They reach the Holy Place, fulfil the days +To solemn feasting given, and grateful praise. +At last they turn, and far Moriah's height +Melts in the southern sky and fades from sight. +All day the dusky caravan has flowed +In devious trails along the winding road; +(For many a step their homeward path attends, +And all the sons of Abraham are as friends.) +Evening has come,--the hour of rest and joy,-- +Hush! Hush! That whisper,--"Where is Mary's boy?" +Oh, weary hour! Oh, aching days that passed +Filled with strange fears each wilder than the last,-- +The soldier's lance, the fierce centurion's sword, +The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord, +The midnight crypt that sucks the captive's breath, +The blistering sun on Hinnom's vale of death! +Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light; +Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night, +Crouched by a sheltering column's shining plinth, +Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth. +At last, in desperate mood, they sought once more +The Temple's porches, searched in vain before; +They found him seated with the ancient men,-- +The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen,-- +Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near, +Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear, +Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise +That lips so fresh should utter words so wise. +And Mary said,--as one who, tried too long, +Tells all her grief and half her sense of wrong,-- +What is this thoughtless thing which thou hast done? +Lo, we have sought thee sorrowing, O my son! +Few words he spake, and scarce of filial tone, +Strange words, their sense a mystery yet unknown; +Then turned with them and left the holy hill, +To all their mild commands obedient still. +The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men, +And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again; +The maids retold it at the fountain's side, +The youthful shepherds doubted or denied; +It passed around among the listening friends, +With all that fancy adds and fiction lends, +Till newer marvels dimmed the young renown +Of Joseph's son, who talked the Rabbis down. + +But Mary, faithful to its lightest word, +Kept in her heart the sayings she had heard, +Till the dread morning rent the Temple's veil, +And shuddering earth confirmed the wondrous tale. + +Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall +A mother's secret hope outlives them all. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Hushed was the voice, but still its accents thrilled +The throbbing hearts its lingering sweetness filled. +The simple story which a tear repays +Asks not to share the noisy breath of praise. +A trance-like stillness,--scarce a whisper heard, +No tinkling teaspoon in its saucer stirred; +A deep-drawn sigh that would not be suppressed, +A sob, a lifted kerchief told the rest. + +"Come now, Dictator," so the lady spoke, +"You too must fit your shoulder to the yoke; +You'll find there's something, doubtless, if you look, +To serve your purpose,--so, now take the book." +"Ah, my dear lady, you must know full well, +'Story, God bless you, I have none to tell.' +To those five stories which these pages hold +You all have listened,--every one is told. +There's nothing left to make you smile or weep,-- +A few grave thoughts may work you off to sleep." + + +THE SECRET OF THE STARS + +Is man's the only throbbing heart that hides +The silent spring that feeds its whispering tides? +Speak from thy caverns, mystery-breeding Earth, +Tell the half-hinted story of thy birth, +And calm the noisy champions who have thrown +The book of types against the book of stone! + +Have ye not secrets, ye refulgent spheres, +No sleepless listener of the starlight hears? +In vain the sweeping equatorial pries +Through every world-sown corner of the skies, +To the far orb that so remotely strays +Our midnight darkness is its noonday blaze; +In vain the climbing soul of creeping man +Metes out the heavenly concave with a span, +Tracks into space the long-lost meteor's trail, +And weighs an unseen planet in the scale; +Still o'er their doubts the wan-eyed watchers sigh, +And Science lifts her still unanswered cry +"Are all these worlds, that speed their circling flight, +Dumb, vacant, soulless,--baubles of the night? +Warmed with God's smile and wafted by his breath, +To weave in ceaseless round the dance of Death? +Or rolls a sphere in each expanding zone, +Crowned with a life as varied as our own?" + +Maker of earth and stars! If thou hast taught +By what thy voice hath spoke, thy hand hath wrought, +By all that Science proves, or guesses true, +More than thy poet dreamed, thy prophet knew,-- +The heavens still bow in darkness at thy feet, +And shadows veil thy cloud-pavilioned seat! +Not for ourselves we ask thee to reveal +One awful word beneath the future's seal; +What thou shalt tell us, grant us strength to bear; +What thou withholdest is thy single care. +Not for ourselves; the present clings too fast, +Moored to the mighty anchors of the past; +But when, with angry snap, some cable parts, +The sound re-echoing in our startled hearts,-- +When, through the wall that clasps the harbor round, +And shuts the raving ocean from its bound, +Shattered and rent by sacrilegious hands, +The first mad billow leaps upon the sands,-- +Then to the Future's awful page we turn, +And what we question hardly dare to learn. +Still let us hope! for while we seem to tread +The time-worn pathway of the nations dead, +Though Sparta laughs at all our warlike deeds, +And buried Athens claims our stolen creeds, +Though Rome, a spectre on her broken throne, +Beholds our eagle and recalls her own, +Though England fling her pennons on the breeze +And reign before us Mistress of the seas,-- +While calm-eyed History tracks us circling round +Fate's iron pillar where they all were bound, +Still in our path a larger curve she finds, +The spiral widening as the chain unwinds +Still sees new beacons crowned with brighter flame +Than the old watch-fires, like, but not the same +No shameless haste shall spot with bandit-crime +Our destined empire snatched before its time. +Wait,--wait, undoubting, for the winds have caught +From our bold speech the heritage of thought; +No marble form that sculptured truth can wear +Vies with the image shaped in viewless air; +And thought unfettered grows through speech to deeds, +As the broad forest marches in its seeds. +What though we perish ere the day is won? +Enough to see its glorious work begun! +The thistle falls before a trampling clown, +But who can chain the flying thistle-down? +Wait while the fiery seeds of freedom fly, +The prairie blazes when the grass is dry! +What arms might ravish, leave to peaceful arts, +Wisdom and love shall win the roughest hearts; +So shall the angel who has closed for man +The blissful garden since his woes began +Swing wide the golden portals of the West, +And Eden's secret stand at length confessed! + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +The reader paused; in truth he thought it time,-- +Some threatening signs accused the drowsy rhyme. +The Mistress nodded, the Professor dozed, +The two Annexes sat with eyelids closed,-- +Not sleeping,--no! But when one shuts one's eyes, +That one hears better no one, sure, denies. +The Doctor whispered in Delilah's ear, +Or seemed to whisper, for their heads drew near. +Not all the owner's efforts could restrain +The wild vagaries of the squinting brain,-- +Last of the listeners Number Five alone +The patient reader still could call his own. + +"Teacups, arouse!" 'T was thus the spell I broke; +The drowsy started and the slumberers woke. +"The sleep I promised you have now enjoyed, +Due to your hour of labor well employed. +Swiftly the busy moments have been passed; +This, our first 'Teacups,' must not be our last. +Here, on this spot, now consecrated ground, +The Order of 'The Teacups' let us found! +By winter's fireside and in summer's bower +Still shall it claim its ever-welcome hour, +In distant regions where our feet may roam +The magic teapot find or make a home; +Long may its floods their bright infusion pour, +Till time and teacups both shall be no more!" + + + + + + + VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO + + FROM THE "COLLEGIAN," 1830, ILLUSTRATED ANNUALS, ETC. + + Nescit vox missa reverti.--Horat. Ars Poetica. + Ab lis qua non adjuvant quam mollissime oportet pedem referre.-- + Quintillian, L. VI. C. 4. + +These verses have always been printed in my collected poems, and as the +best of them may bear a single reading, I allow them to appear, but in a +less conspicuous position than the other productions. A chick, before +his shell is off his back, is hardly a fair subject for severe criticism. +If one has written anything worth preserving, his first efforts may be +objects of interest and curiosity. Other young authors may take +encouragement from seeing how tame, how feeble, how commonplace were the +rudimentary attempts of the half-fledged poet. If the boy or youth had +anything in him, there will probably be some sign of it in the midst of +his imitative mediocrities and ambitious failures. These "first verses" +of mine, written before I was sixteen, have little beyond a common +academy boy's ordinary performance. Yet a kindly critic said there was +one line which showed a poetical quality:-- + + "The boiling ocean trembled into calm." + +One of these poems--the reader may guess which--won fair words from +Thackeray. The Spectre Pig was a wicked suggestion which came into my +head after reading Dana's Buccaneer. Nobody seemed to find it out, and +I never mentioned it to the venerable poet, who might not have been +pleased with the parody. This is enough to say of these unvalued copies +of verses. + + + FIRST VERSES + + PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASS., 1824 OR 1825 + + +TRANSLATION FROM THE ENEID, BOOK I. + +THE god looked out upon the troubled deep +Waked into tumult from its placid sleep; +The flame of anger kindles in his eye +As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky; +He lifts his head above their awful height +And to the distant fleet directs his sight, +Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest, +Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed, +And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire +Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that fire. +On rapid pinions as they whistled by +He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh +Is this your glory in a noble line +To leave your confines and to ravage mine? +Whom I--but let these troubled waves subside-- +Another tempest and I'll quell your pride! +Go--bear our message to your master's ear, +That wide as ocean I am despot here; +Let him sit monarch in his barren caves, +I wield the trident and control the waves +He said, and as the gathered vapors break +The swelling ocean seemed a peaceful lake; +To lift their ships the graceful nymphs essayed +And the strong trident lent its powerful aid; +The dangerous banks are sunk beneath the main, +And the light chariot skims the unruffled plain. +As when sedition fires the public mind, +And maddening fury leads the rabble blind, +The blazing torch lights up the dread alarm, +Rage points the steel and fury nerves the arm, +Then, if some reverend Sage appear in sight, +They stand--they gaze, and check their headlong flight,-- +He turns the current of each wandering breast +And hushes every passion into rest,-- +Thus by the power of his imperial arm +The boiling ocean trembled into calm; +With flowing reins the father sped his way +And smiled serene upon rekindled day. + + + + +THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS + +Written after a general pruning of the trees around Harvard College. +A little poem, on a similar occasion, may be found in the works of Swift, +from which, perhaps, the idea was borrowed; although I was as much +surprised as amused to meet with it some time after writing the following +lines. + +IT was not many centuries since, +When, gathered on the moonlit green, +Beneath the Tree of Liberty, +A ring of weeping sprites was seen. + +The freshman's lamp had long been dim, +The voice of busy day was mute, +And tortured Melody had ceased +Her sufferings on the evening flute. + +They met not as they once had met, +To laugh o'er many a jocund tale +But every pulse was beating low, +And every cheek was cold and pale. + +There rose a fair but faded one, +Who oft had cheered them with her song; +She waved a mutilated arm, +And silence held the listening throng. + +"Sweet friends," the gentle nymph began, +"From opening bud to withering leaf, +One common lot has bound us all, +In every change of joy and grief. + +"While all around has felt decay, +We rose in ever-living prime, +With broader shade and fresher green, +Beneath the crumbling step of Time. + +"When often by our feet has past +Some biped, Nature's walking whim, +Say, have we trimmed one awkward shape, +Or lopped away one crooked limb? + +"Go on, fair Science; soon to thee +Shall. Nature yield her idle boast; +Her vulgar fingers formed a tree, +But thou halt trained it to a post. + +"Go, paint the birch's silver rind, +And quilt the peach with softer down; +Up with the willow's trailing threads, +Off with the sunflower's radiant crown! + +"Go, plant the lily on the shore, +And set the rose among the waves, +And bid the tropic bud unbind +Its silken zone in arctic caves; + +"Bring bellows for the panting winds, +Hang up a lantern by the moon, +And give the nightingale a fife, +And lend the eagle a balloon! + +"I cannot smile,--the tide of scorn, +That rolled through every bleeding vein, +Comes kindling fiercer as it flows +Back to its burning source again. + +"Again in every quivering leaf +That moment's agony I feel, +When limbs, that spurned the northern blast, +Shrunk from the sacrilegious steel. + +"A curse upon the wretch who dared +To crop us with his felon saw! +May every fruit his lip shall taste +Lie like a bullet in his maw. + +"In every julep that he drinks, +May gout, and bile, and headache be; +And when he strives to calm his pain, +May colic mingle with his tea. + +"May nightshade cluster round his path, +And thistles shoot, and brambles cling; +May blistering ivy scorch his veins, +And dogwood burn, and nettles sting. + +"On him may never shadow fall, +When fever racks his throbbing brow, +And his last shilling buy a rope +To hang him on my highest bough!" + +She spoke;--the morning's herald beam +Sprang from the bosom of the sea, +And every mangled sprite returned +In sadness to her wounded tree. + + + + +THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR + +THERE was a sound of hurrying feet, +A tramp on echoing stairs, +There was a rush along the aisles,-- +It was the hour of prayers. + +And on, like Ocean's midnight wave, +The current rolled along, +When, suddenly, a stranger form +Was seen amidst the throng. + +He was a dark and swarthy man, +That uninvited guest; +A faded coat of bottle-green +Was buttoned round his breast. + +There was not one among them all +Could say from whence he came; +Nor beardless boy, nor ancient man, +Could tell that stranger's name. + +All silent as the sheeted dead, +In spite of sneer and frown, +Fast by a gray-haired senior's side +He sat him boldly down. + +There was a look of horror flashed +From out the tutor's eyes; +When all around him rose to pray, +The stranger did not rise! + +A murmur broke along the crowd, +The prayer was at an end; +With ringing heels and measured tread, +A hundred forms descend. + +Through sounding aisle, o'er grating stair, +The long procession poured, +Till all were gathered on the seats +Around the Commons board. + +That fearful stranger! down he sat, +Unasked, yet undismayed; +And on his lip a rising smile +Of scorn or pleasure played. + +He took his hat and hung it up, +With slow but earnest air; +He stripped his coat from off his back, +And placed it on a chair. + +Then from his nearest neighbor's side +A knife and plate he drew; +And, reaching out his hand again, +He took his teacup too. + +How fled the sugar from the bowl +How sunk the azure cream! +They vanished like the shapes that float +Upon a summer's dream. + +A long, long draught,--an outstretched hand,-- +And crackers, toast, and tea, +They faded from the stranger's touch, +Like dew upon the sea. + +Then clouds were dark on many a brow, +Fear sat upon their souls, +And, in a bitter agony, +They clasped their buttered rolls. + +A whisper trembled through the crowd, +Who could the stranger be? +And some were silent, for they thought +A cannibal was he. + +What if the creature should arise,-- +For he was stout and tall,-- +And swallow down a sophomore, +Coat, crow's-foot, cap, and all! + +All sullenly the stranger rose; +They sat in mute despair; +He took his hat from off the peg, +His coat from off the chair. + +Four freshmen fainted on the seat, +Six swooned upon the floor; +Yet on the fearful being passed, +And shut the chapel door. + +There is full many a starving man, +That walks in bottle green, +But never more that hungry one +In Commons hall was seen. + +Yet often at the sunset hour, +When tolls the evening bell, +The freshman lingers on the steps, +That frightful tale to tell. + + + + +THE TOADSTOOL + +THERE 's a thing that grows by the fainting flower, +And springs in the shade of the lady's bower; +The lily shrinks, and the rose turns pale, +When they feel its breath in the summer gale, +And the tulip curls its leaves in pride, +And the blue-eyed violet starts aside; +But the lily may flaunt, and the tulip stare, +For what does the honest toadstool care? +She does not glow in a painted vest, +And she never blooms on the maiden's breast; +But she comes, as the saintly sisters do, +In a modest suit of a Quaker hue. +And, when the stars in the evening skies +Are weeping dew from their gentle eyes, +The toad comes out from his hermit cell, +The tale of his faithful love to tell. + +Oh, there is light in her lover's glance, +That flies to her heart like a silver lance; +His breeches are made of spotted skin, +His jacket 'is tight, and his pumps are thin; +In a cloudless night you may hear his song, +As its pensive melody floats along, +And, if you will look by the moonlight fair, +The trembling form of the toad is there. + +And he twines his arms round her slender stem, +In the shade of her velvet diadem; +But she turns away in her maiden shame, +And will not breathe on the kindling flame; +He sings at her feet through the live-long night, +And creeps to his cave at the break of light; +And whenever he comes to the air above, +His throat is swelling with baffled love. + + + + +THE SPECTRE PIG + +A BALLAD + +IT was the stalwart butcher man, +That knit his swarthy brow, +And said the gentle Pig must die, +And sealed it with a vow. + +And oh! it was the gentle Pig +Lay stretched upon the ground, +And ah! it was the cruel knife +His little heart that found. + +They took him then, those wicked men, +They trailed him all along; +They put a stick between his lips, +And through his heels a thong; + +And round and round an oaken beam +A hempen cord they flung, +And, like a mighty pendulum, +All solemnly he swung! + +Now say thy prayers, thou sinful man, +And think what thou hast done, +And read thy catechism well, +Thou bloody-minded one; + +For if his sprite should walk by night, +It better were for thee, +That thou wert mouldering in the ground, +Or bleaching in the sea. + +It was the savage butcher then, +That made a mock of sin, +And swore a very wicked oath, +He did not care a pin. + +It was the butcher's youngest son,-- +His voice was broke with sighs, +And with his pocket-handkerchief +He wiped his little eyes; + +All young and ignorant was he, +But innocent and mild, +And, in his soft simplicity, +Out spoke the tender child:-- + +"Oh, father, father, list to me; +The Pig is deadly sick, +And men have hung him by his heels, +And fed him with a stick." + +It was the bloody butcher then, +That laughed as he would die, +Yet did he soothe the sorrowing child, +And bid him not to cry;-- + +"Oh, Nathan, Nathan, what's a Pig, +That thou shouldst weep and wail? +Come, bear thee like a butcher's child, +And thou shalt have his tail!" + +It was the butcher's daughter then, +So slender and so fair, +That sobbed as it her heart would break, +And tore her yellow hair; + +And thus she spoke in thrilling tone,-- +Fast fell the tear-drops big:-- +"Ah! woe is me! Alas! Alas! +The Pig! The Pig! The Pig!" + +Then did her wicked father's lips +Make merry with her woe, +And call her many a naughty name, +Because she whimpered so. + +Ye need not weep, ye gentle ones, +In vain your tears are shed, +Ye cannot wash his crimson hand, +Ye cannot soothe the dead. + +The bright sun folded on his breast +His robes of rosy flame, +And softly over all the west +The shades of evening came. + +He slept, and troops of murdered Pigs +Were busy with his dreams; +Loud rang their wild, unearthly shrieks, +Wide yawned their mortal seams. + +The clock struck twelve; the Dead hath heard; +He opened both his eyes, +And sullenly he shook his tail +To lash the feeding flies. + +One quiver of the hempen cord,-- +One struggle and one bound,-- +With stiffened limb and leaden eye, +The Pig was on the ground. + +And straight towards the sleeper's house +His fearful way he wended; +And hooting owl and hovering bat +On midnight wing attended. + +Back flew the bolt, up rose the latch, +And open swung the door, +And little mincing feet were heard +Pat, pat along the floor. + +Two hoofs upon the sanded floor, +And two upon the bed; +And they are breathing side by side, +The living and the dead! + +"Now wake, now wake, thou butcher man! +What makes thy cheek so pale? +Take hold! take hold! thou dost not fear +To clasp a spectre's tail?" + +Untwisted every winding coil; +The shuddering wretch took hold, +All like an icicle it seemed, +So tapering and so cold. + +"Thou com'st with me, thou butcher man!"-- +He strives to loose his grasp, +But, faster than the clinging vine, +Those twining spirals clasp; + +And open, open swung the door, +And, fleeter than the wind, +The shadowy spectre swept before, +The butcher trailed behind. + +Fast fled the darkness of the night, +And morn rose faint and dim; +They called full loud, they knocked full long, +They did not waken him. + +Straight, straight towards that oaken beam, +A trampled pathway ran; +A ghastly shape was swinging there,-- +It was the butcher man. + + + + +TO A CAGED LION + +Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance +Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time, +And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread +Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime;-- +Fettered by things that shudder at thy roar, +Torn from thy pathless wilds to pace this narrow floor! + +Thou wast the victor, and all nature shrunk +Before the thunders of thine awful wrath; +The steel-armed hunter viewed thee from afar, +Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path! +The famished tiger closed his flaming eye, +And crouched and panted as thy step went by! + +Thou art the vanquished, and insulting man +Bars thy broad bosom as a sparrow's wing; +His nerveless arms thine iron sinews bind, +And lead in chains the desert's fallen king; +Are these the beings that have dared to twine +Their feeble threads around those limbs of thine? + +So must it be; the weaker, wiser race, +That wields the tempest and that rides the sea, +Even in the stillness of thy solitude +Must teach the lesson of its power to thee; +And thou, the terror of the trembling wild, +Must bow thy savage strength, the mockery of a child! + + + + +THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY + +THE sun stepped down from his golden throne. +And lay in the silent sea, +And the Lily had folded her satin leaves, +For a sleepy thing was she; +What is the Lily dreaming of? +Why crisp the waters blue? +See, see, she is lifting her varnished lid! +Her white leaves are glistening through! + +The Rose is cooling his burning cheek +In the lap of the breathless tide;-- +The Lily hath sisters fresh and fair, +That would lie by the Rose's side; +He would love her better than all the rest, +And he would be fond and true;-- +But the Lily unfolded her weary lids, +And looked at the sky so blue. + +Remember, remember, thou silly one, +How fast will thy summer glide, +And wilt thou wither a virgin pale, +Or flourish a blooming bride? +Oh, the Rose is old, and thorny, and cold, +"And he lives on earth," said she; +"But the Star is fair and he lives in the air, +And he shall my bridegroom be." + +But what if the stormy cloud should come, +And ruffle the silver sea? +Would he turn his eye from the distant sky, +To smile on a thing like thee? +Oh no, fair Lily, he will not send +One ray from his far-off throne; +The winds shall blow and the waves shall flow, +And thou wilt be left alone. + +There is not a leaf on the mountain-top, +Nor a drop of evening dew, +Nor a golden sand on the sparkling shore, +Nor a pearl in the waters blue, +That he has not cheered with his fickle smile, +And warmed with his faithless beam,-- +And will he be true to a pallid flower, +That floats on the quiet stream? + +Alas for the Lily! she would not heed, +But turned to the skies afar, +And bared her breast to the trembling ray +That shot from the rising star; +The cloud came over the darkened sky, +And over the waters wide +She looked in vain through the beating rain, +And sank in the stormy tide. + + + + +ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE + +"A SPANISH GIRL IN REVERIE," + +SHE twirled the string of golden beads, +That round her neck was hung,--- +My grandsire's gift; the good old man +Loved girls when he was young; +And, bending lightly o'er the cord, +And turning half away, +With something like a youthful sigh, +Thus spoke the maiden gray:-- + +"Well, one may trail her silken robe, +And bind her locks with pearls, +And one may wreathe the woodland rose +Among her floating curls; +And one may tread the dewy grass, +And one the marble floor, +Nor half-hid bosom heave the less, +Nor broidered corset more! + +"Some years ago, a dark-eyed girl +Was sitting in the shade,-- +There's something brings her to my mind +In that young dreaming maid,-- +And in her hand she held a flower, +A flower, whose speaking hue +Said, in the language of the heart, +'Believe the giver true.' + +"And, as she looked upon its leaves, +The maiden made a vow +To wear it when the bridal wreath +Was woven for her brow; +She watched the flower, as, day by day, +The leaflets curled and died; +But he who gave it never came +To claim her for his bride. + +"Oh, many a summer's morning glow +Has lent the rose its ray, +And many a winter's drifting snow +Has swept its bloom away; +But she has kept that faithless pledge +To this, her winter hour, +And keeps it still, herself alone, +And wasted like the flower." + +Her pale lip quivered, and the light +Gleamed in her moistening eyes;-- +I asked her how she liked the tints +In those Castilian skies? +"She thought them misty,--'t was perhaps +Because she stood too near;" +She turned away, and as she turned +I saw her wipe a tear. + + + + +A ROMAN AQUEDUCT + +THE sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline +When noon her languid hand has laid +Hot on the green flakes of the pine, +Beneath its narrow disk of shade; + +As, through the flickering noontide glare, +She gazes on the rainbow chain +Of arches, lifting once in air +The rivers of the Roman's plain;-- + +Say, does her wandering eye recall +The mountain-current's icy wave,-- +Or for the dead one tear let fall, +Whose founts are broken by their grave? + +From stone to stone the ivy weaves +Her braided tracery's winding veil, +And lacing stalks and tangled leaves +Nod heavy in the drowsy gale. + +And lightly floats the pendent vine, +That swings beneath her slender bow, +Arch answering arch,--whose rounded line +Seems mirrored in the wreath below. + +How patient Nature smiles at Fame! +The weeds, that strewed the victor's way, +Feed on his dust to shroud his name, +Green where his proudest towers decay. + +See, through that channel, empty now, +The scanty rain its tribute pours,-- +Which cooled the lip and laved the brow +Of conquerors from a hundred shores. + +Thus bending o'er the nation's bier, +Whose wants the captive earth supplied, +The dew of Memory's passing tear +Falls on the arches of her pride! + + + + +FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOURNAL + +SWEET Mary, I have never breathed +The love it were in vain to name; +Though round my heart a serpent wreathed, +I smiled, or strove to smile, the same. + +Once more the pulse of Nature glows +With faster throb and fresher fire, +While music round her pathway flows, +Like echoes from a hidden lyre. + +And is there none with me to share +The glories of the earth and sky? +The eagle through the pathless air +Is followed by one burning eye. + +Ah no! the cradled flowers may wake, +Again may flow the frozen sea, +From every cloud a star may break,-- +There conies no second spring to me. + +Go,--ere the painted toys of youth +Are crushed beneath the tread of years; +Ere visions have been chilled to truth, +And hopes are washed away in tears. + +Go,--for I will not bid thee weep,-- +Too soon my sorrows will be thine, +And evening's troubled air shall sweep +The incense from the broken shrine. + +If Heaven can hear the dying tone +Of chords that soon will cease to thrill, +The prayer that Heaven has heard alone +May bless thee when those chords are still. + + + + +LA GRISETTE + +As Clemence! when I saw thee last +Trip down the Rue de Seine, +And turning, when thy form had past, +I said, "We meet again,"-- +I dreamed not in that idle glance +Thy latest image came, +And only left to memory's trance +A shadow and a name. + +The few strange words my lips had taught +Thy timid voice to speak, +Their gentler signs, which often brought +Fresh roses to thy cheek, +The trailing of thy long loose hair +Bent o'er my couch of pain, +All, all returned, more sweet, more fair; +Oh, had we met again! + +I walked where saint and virgin keep +The vigil lights of Heaven, +I knew that thou hadst woes to weep, +And sins to be forgiven; +I watched where Genevieve was laid, +I knelt by Mary's shrine, +Beside me low, soft voices prayed; +Alas! but where was thine? + +And when the morning sun was bright, +When wind and wave were calm, +And flamed, in thousand-tinted light, +The rose of Notre Dame, +I wandered through the haunts of men, +From Boulevard to Quai, +Till, frowning o'er Saint Etienne, +The Pantheon's shadow lay. + +In vain, in vain; we meet no more, +Nor dream what fates befall; +And long upon the stranger's shore +My voice on thee may call, +When years have clothed the line in moss +That tells thy name and days, +And withered, on thy simple cross, +The wreaths of Pere-la-Chaise! + + + + +OUR YANKEE GIRLS + +LET greener lands and bluer skies, +If such the wide earth shows, +With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes, +Match us the star and rose; +The winds that lift the Georgian's veil, +Or wave Circassia's curls, +Waft to their shores the sultan's sail,-- +Who buys our Yankee girls? + +The gay grisette, whose fingers touch +Love's thousand chords so well; +The dark Italian, loving much, +But more than one can tell; +And England's fair-haired, blue-eyed dame, +Who binds her brow with pearls;-- +Ye who have seen them, can they shame +Our own sweet Yankee girls? + +And what if court or castle vaunt +Its children loftier born?-- +Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt +Beside the golden corn? +They ask not for the dainty toil +Of ribboned knights and earls, +The daughters of the virgin soil, +Our freeborn Yankee girls! + +By every hill whose stately pines +Wave their dark arms above +The home where some fair being shines, +To warm the wilds with love, +From barest rock to bleakest shore +Where farthest sail unfurls, +That stars and stripes are streaming o'er,-- +God bless our Yankee girls! + + + + +L'INCONNUE + +Is thy name Mary, maiden fair? +Such should, methinks, its music be; +The sweetest name that mortals bear +Were best befitting thee; +And she to whom it once was given, +Was half of earth and half of heaven. + +I hear thy voice, I see thy smile, +I look upon thy folded hair; +Ah! while we dream not they beguile, +Our hearts are in the snare; +And she who chains a wild bird's wing +Must start not if her captive sing. + +So, lady, take the leaf that falls, +To all but thee unseen, unknown; +When evening shades thy silent walls, +Then read it all alone; +In stillness read, in darkness seal, +Forget, despise, but not reveal! + + + + +STANZAS + +STRANGE! that one lightly whispered tone +Is far, far sweeter unto me, +Than all the sounds that kiss the earth, +Or breathe along the sea; +But, lady, when thy voice I greet, +Not heavenly music seems so sweet. + +I look upon the fair blue skies, +And naught but empty air I see; +But when I turn me to thin eyes, +It seemeth unto me +Ten thousand angels spread their wings +Within those little azure rings. + +The lily bath the softest leaf +That ever western breeze bath fanned, +But thou shalt have the tender flower, +So I may take thy hand; +That little hand to me doth yield +More joy than all the broidered field. + +O lady! there be many things +That seem right fair, below, above; +But sure not one among them all +Is half so sweet as love;-- +Let us not pay our vows alone, +But join two altars both in one. + + + + +LINES BY A CLERK + +OH! I did love her dearly, +And gave her toys and rings, +And I thought she meant sincerely, +When she took my pretty things. +But her heart has grown as icy +As a fountain in the fall, +And her love, that was so spicy, +It did not last at all. + +I gave her once a locket, +It was filled with my own hair, +And she put it in her pocket +With very special care. +But a jeweller has got it,-- +He offered it to me,-- +And another that is not it +Around her neck I see. + +For my cooings and my billings +I do not now complain, +But my dollars and my shillings +Will never come again; +They were earned with toil and sorrow, +But I never told her that, +And now I have to borrow, +And want another hat. + +Think, think, thou cruel Emma, +When thou shalt hear my woe, +And know my sad dilemma, +That thou hast made it so. +See, see my beaver rusty, +Look, look upon this hole, +This coat is dim and dusty; +Oh let it rend thy soul! + +Before the gates of fashion +I daily bent my knee, +But I sought the shrine of passion, +And found my idol,--thee. +Though never love intenser +Had bowed a soul before it, +Thine eye was on the censer, +And not the hand that bore it. + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE + +DEAREST, a look is but a ray +Reflected in a certain way; +A word, whatever tone it wear, +Is but a trembling wave of air; +A touch, obedience to a clause +In nature's pure material laws. + +The very flowers that bend and meet, +In sweetening others, grow more sweet; +The clouds by day, the stars by night, +Inweave their floating locks of light; +The rainbow, Heaven's own forehead's braid, +Is but the embrace of sun and shade. + +Oh! in the hour when I shall feel +Those shadows round my senses steal, +When gentle eyes are weeping o'er +The clay that feels their tears no more, +Then let thy spirit with me be, +Or some sweet angel, likest thee! + +How few that love us have we found! +How wide the world that girds them round +Like mountain streams we meet and part, +Each living in the other's heart, +Our course unknown, our hope to be +Yet mingled in the distant sea. + +But Ocean coils and heaves in vain, +Bound in the subtle moonbeam's chain; +And love and hope do but obey +Some cold, capricious planet's ray, +Which lights and leads the tide it charms +To Death's dark caves and icy arms. + +Alas! one narrow line is drawn, +That links our sunset with our dawn; +In mist and shade life's morning rose, +And clouds are round it at its close; +But ah! no twilight beam ascends +To whisper where that evening ends. + + + + +THE POET'S LOT + +WHAT is a poet's love?-- +To write a girl a sonnet, +To get a ring, or some such thing, +And fustianize upon it. + +What is a poet's fame?-- +Sad hints about his reason, +And sadder praise from garreteers, +To be returned in season. + +Where go the poet's lines?-- +Answer, ye evening tapers! +Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls, +Speak from your folded papers! + +Child of the ploughshare, smile; +Boy of the counter, grieve not, +Though muses round thy trundle-bed +Their broidered tissue weave not. + +The poet's future holds +No civic wreath above him; +Nor slated roof, nor varnished chaise, +Nor wife nor child to love him. + +Maid of the village inn, +Who workest woe on satin, +(The grass in black, the graves in green, +The epitaph in Latin,) + +Trust not to them who say, +In stanzas, they adore thee; +Oh rather sleep in churchyard clay, +With urn and cherub o'er thee! + + + + +TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER + +WAN-VISAGED thing! thy virgin leaf +To me looks more than deadly pale, +Unknowing what may stain thee yet,-- +A poem or a tale. + +Who can thy unborn meaning scan? +Can Seer or Sibyl read thee now? +No,--seek to trace the fate of man +Writ on his infant brow. + +Love may light on thy snowy cheek, +And shake his Eden-breathing plumes; +Then shalt thou tell how Lelia smiles, +Or Angelina blooms. + +Satire may lift his bearded lance, +Forestalling Time's slow-moving scythe, +And, scattered on thy little field, +Disjointed bards may writhe. + +Perchance a vision of the night, +Some grizzled spectre, gaunt and thin, +Or sheeted corpse, may stalk along, +Or skeleton may grin. + +If it should be in pensive hour +Some sorrow-moving theme I try, +Ah, maiden, how thy tears will fall, +For all I doom to die! + +But if in merry mood I touch +Thy leaves, then shall the sight of thee +Sow smiles as thick on rosy lips +As ripples on the sea. + +The Weekly press shall gladly stoop +To bind thee up among its sheaves; +The Daily steal thy shining ore, +To gild its leaden leaves. + +Thou hast no tongue, yet thou canst speak, +Till distant shores shall hear the sound; +Thou hast no life, yet thou canst breathe +Fresh life on all around. + +Thou art the arena of the wise, +The noiseless battle-ground of fame; +The sky where halos may be wreathed +Around the humblest name. + +Take, then, this treasure to thy trust, +To win some idle reader's smile, +Then fade and moulder in the dust, +Or swell some bonfire's pile. + + + + +TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A GENTLEMAN" + +IN THE ATHENIEUM GALLERY + +IT may be so,--perhaps thou hast +A warm and loving heart; +I will not blame thee for thy face, +Poor devil as thou art. + +That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose, +Unsightly though it be,-- +In spite of all the cold world's scorn, +It may be much to thee. + +Those eyes,--among thine elder friends +Perhaps they pass for blue,-- +No matter,--if a man can see, +What more have eyes to do? + +Thy mouth,--that fissure in thy face, +By something like a chin,-- +May be a very useful place +To put thy victual in. + +I know thou hast a wife at home, +I know thou hast a child, +By that subdued, domestic smile +Upon thy features mild. + +That wife sits fearless by thy side, +That cherub on thy knee; +They do not shudder at thy looks, +They do not shrink from thee. + +Above thy mantel is a hook,-- +A portrait once was there; +It was thine only ornament,-- +Alas! that hook is bare. + +She begged thee not to let it go, +She begged thee all in vain; +She wept,--and breathed a trembling prayer +To meet it safe again. + +It was a bitter sight to see +That picture torn away; +It was a solemn thought to think +What all her friends would say! + +And often in her calmer hours, +And in her happy dreams, +Upon its long-deserted hook +The absent portrait seems. + +Thy wretched infant turns his head +In melancholy wise, +And looks to meet the placid stare +Of those unbending eyes. + +I never saw thee, lovely one,-- +Perchance I never may; +It is not often that we cross +Such people in our way; + +But if we meet in distant years, +Or on some foreign shore, +Sure I can take my Bible oath, +I've seen that face before. + + + + +THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN + +IT was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side, +His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on the tide; +The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim, +Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him. + +It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely maid, +Upon a moonlight evening, a sitting in the shade; +He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as if to say, +"I 'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all the folks away." + +Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself said he, +"I guess I 'll leave the skiff at home, for fear that folks should see +I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his dear, +Leander swam the Hellespont,--and I will swim this here." + +And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed the shining stream, +And he has clambered up the bank, all in the moonlight gleam; +Oh there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as soft as rain,-- +But they have heard her father's step, and in he leaps again! + +Out spoke the ancient fisherman,--"Oh, what was that, my daughter?" +"'T was nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into the water." +"And what is that, pray tell me, love, that paddles off so fast?" +"It's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that 's been a swimming past." + +Out spoke the ancient fisherman,--"Now bring me my harpoon! +I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow soon." +Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb, +Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like sea-weed on a clam. + +Alas for those two loving ones! she waked not from her swound, +And he was taken with the cramp, and in the waves was drowned; +But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their woe, +And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down below. + + + + +A NOONTIDE LYRIC + +THE dinner-bell, the dinner-bell +Is ringing loud and clear; +Through hill and plain, through street and lane, +It echoes far and near; +From curtained hall and whitewashed stall, +Wherever men can hide, +Like bursting waves from ocean caves, +They float upon the tide. + +I smell the smell of roasted meat! +I hear the hissing fry +The beggars know where they can go, +But where, oh where shall I? +At twelve o'clock men took my hand, +At two they only stare, +And eye me with a fearful look, +As if I were a bear! + +The poet lays his laurels down, +And hastens to his greens; +The happy tailor quits his goose, +To riot on his beans; +The weary cobbler snaps his thread, +The printer leaves his pi; +His very devil hath a home, +But what, oh what have I? + +Methinks I hear an angel voice, +That softly seems to say +"Pale stranger, all may yet be well, +Then wipe thy tears away; +Erect thy head, and cock thy hat, +And follow me afar, +And thou shalt have a jolly meal, +And charge it at the bar." + +I hear the voice! I go! I go! +Prepare your meat and wine! +They little heed their future need +Who pay not when they dine. +Give me to-day the rosy bowl, +Give me one golden dream,-- +To-morrow kick away the stool, +And dangle from the beam! + + + + +THE HOT SEASON + +THE folks, that on the first of May +Wore winter coats and hose, +Began to say, the first of June, +"Good Lord! how hot it grows!" +At last two Fahrenheits blew up, +And killed two children small, +And one barometer shot dead +A tutor with its ball! + +Now all day long the locusts sang +Among the leafless trees; +Three new hotels warped inside out, +The pumps could only wheeze; +And ripe old wine, that twenty years +Had cobwebbed o'er in vain, +Came spouting through the rotten corks +Like Joly's best champagne. + +The Worcester locomotives did +Their trip in half an hour; +The Lowell cars ran forty miles +Before they checked the power; +Roll brimstone soon became a drug, +And loco-focos fell; +All asked for ice, but everywhere +Saltpetre was to sell. + +Plump men of mornings ordered tights, +But, ere the scorching noons, +Their candle-moulds had grown as loose +As Cossack pantaloons! +The dogs ran mad,--men could not try +If water they would choose; +A horse fell dead,--he only left +Four red-hot, rusty shoes! + +But soon the people could not bear +The slightest hint of fire; +Allusions to caloric drew +A flood of savage ire; + +The leaves on heat were all torn out +From every book at school, +And many blackguards kicked and caned, +Because they said, "Keep cool!" + +The gas-light companies were mobbed, +The bakers all were shot, +The penny press began to talk +Of lynching Doctor Nott; +And all about the warehouse steps +Were angry men in droves, +Crashing and splintering through the doors +To smash the patent stoves! + +The abolition men and maids +Were tanned to such a hue, +You scarce could tell them from their friends, +Unless their eyes were blue; +And, when I left, society +Had burst its ancient guards, +And Brattle Street and Temple Place +Were interchanging cards. + + + + +A PORTRAIT + +A STILL, sweet, placid, moonlight face, +And slightly nonchalant, +Which seems to claim a middle place +Between one's love and aunt, +Where childhood's star has left a ray +In woman's sunniest sky, +As morning dew and blushing day +On fruit and blossom lie. + +And yet,--and yet I cannot love +Those lovely lines on steel; +They beam too much of heaven above, +Earth's darker shades to feel; +Perchance some early weeds of care +Around my heart have grown, +And brows unfurrowed seem not fair, +Because they mock my own. + +Alas! when Eden's gates were sealed, +How oft some sheltered flower +Breathed o'er the wanderers of the field, +Like their own bridal bower; +Yet, saddened by its loveliness, +And humbled by its pride, +Earth's fairest child they could not bless, +It mocked them when they sighed. + + + + +AN EVENING THOUGHT + +WRITTEN AT SEA + +IF sometimes in the dark blue eye, +Or in the deep red wine, +Or soothed by gentlest melody, +Still warms this heart of mine, +Yet something colder in the blood, +And calmer in the brain, +Have whispered that my youth's bright flood +Ebbs, not to flow again. + +If by Helvetia's azure lake, +Or Arno's yellow stream, +Each star of memory could awake, +As in my first young dream, +I know that when mine eye shall greet +The hillsides bleak and bare, +That gird my home, it will not meet +My childhood's sunsets there. + + +Oh, when love's first, sweet, stolen kiss +Burned on my boyish brow, +Was that young forehead worn as this? +Was that flushed cheek as now? +Were that wild pulse and throbbing heart +Like these, which vainly strive, +In thankless strains of soulless art, +To dream themselves alive? + +Alas! the morning dew is gone, +Gone ere the full of day; +Life's iron fetter still is on, +Its wreaths all torn away; +Happy if still some casual hour +Can warm the fading shrine, +Too soon to chill beyond the power +Of love, or song, or wine! + + + + +THE WASP AND THE HORNET + +THE two proud sisters of the sea, +In glory and in doom!-- +Well may the eternal waters be +Their broad, unsculptured tomb! +The wind that rings along the wave, +The clear, unshadowed sun, +Are torch and trumpet o'er the brave, +Whose last green wreath is won! + +No stranger-hand their banners furled, +No victor's shout they heard; +Unseen, above them ocean curled, +Safe by his own pale bird; +The gnashing billows heaved and fell; +Wild shrieked the midnight gale; +Far, far beneath the morning swell +Were pennon, spar, and sail. + +The land of Freedom! Sea and shore +Are guarded now, as when +Her ebbing waves to victory bore +Fair barks and gallant men; +Oh, many a ship of prouder name +May wave her starry fold, +Nor trail, with deeper light of fame, +The paths they swept of old! + + + + +"QUI VIVE?" + +"Qui vive?" The sentry's musket rings, +The channelled bayonet gleams; +High o'er him, like a raven's wings +The broad tricolored banner flings +Its shadow, rustling as it swings +Pale in the moonlight beams; +Pass on! while steel-clad sentries keep +Their vigil o'er the monarch's sleep, +Thy bare, unguarded breast +Asks not the unbroken, bristling zone +That girds yon sceptred trembler's throne;-- +Pass on, and take thy rest! + +"Qui vive?" How oft the midnight air +That startling cry has borne! +How oft the evening breeze has fanned +The banner of this haughty land, +O'er mountain snow and desert sand, +Ere yet its folds were torn! +Through Jena's carnage flying red, +Or tossing o'er Marengo's dead, +Or curling on the towers +Where Austria's eagle quivers yet, +And suns the ruffled plumage, wet +With battle's crimson showers! + +"Qui vive?" And is the sentry's cry,-- +The sleepless soldier's hand,-- +Are these--the painted folds that fly +And lift their emblems, printed high +On morning mist and sunset sky-- +The guardians of a land? +No! If the patriot's pulses sleep, +How vain the watch that hirelings keep, +The idle flag that waves, +When Conquest, with his iron heel, +Treads down the standards and the steel +That belt the soil of slaves! + + + + + + +NOTES. + +Page 6. "They're as safe as Dan'l Malcolm." +The following epitaph is still to be read on a tall grave-stone standing +as yet undisturbed among the transplanted monuments of the dead in Copp's +Hill Burial-Ground, one of the three city cemeteries which have been +desecrated and ruined within my own remembrance:-- + + "Here lies buried in a + Stone Grave 10 feet deep, + Cap' DANIEL MALCOLM Merch' + Who departed this Life + October 23d, 1769, + Aged 44 years, + a true son of Liberty, + a Friend to the Publick, + an Enemy to oppression, + and one of the foremost + in opposing the Revenue Acts + on America." + +Page 62. This broad-browed youth. +Benjamin Robbins Curtis. + +Page 62. The stripling smooth of face and slight. +George Tyler Bigelow. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Complete, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF HOLMES *** + +***** This file should be named 7400.txt or 7400.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/4/0/7400/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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D. + +SONGS IN MANY KEYS (1849-1861) + PROLOGUE + AGNES + THE PLOUGHMAN + SPRING + THE STUDY + THE BELLS + NON-RESISTANCE + THE MORAL BULLY + THE MIND'S DIET + OUR LIMITATIONS + THE OLD PLAYER + A POEM DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, SEPTEMBER 9,1850 + TO GOVERNOR SWAIN + TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND + AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH + AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE + AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS + AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY + AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES + THE HUDSON + THE NEW EDEN + SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY, + NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22,1855 + FAREWELL TO J. R. LOWELL + FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB, 1856 + ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY + BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER + THE VOICELESS + THE TWO STREAMS + THE PROMISE + AVIS + THE LIVING TEMPLE + AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL: TO J. R. LOWELL + A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO J. F. CLARKE + THE GRAY CHIEF + THE LAST LOOK: W. W. SWAIN + IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. + MARTHA + MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE + THE PARTING SONG + FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL SANITARY ASSOCIATION + FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, + AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS + BOSTON COMMON: THREE PICTURES + THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA + INTERNATIONAL ODE + VIVE LA FRANCE + BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE + +NOTES + + + + +[Volume 2 of the 1893 three volume set] + +CONTENTS: + +POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 (1851-1889) + BILL AND JOE + A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE" + QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS + AN IMPROMPTU + THE OLD MAN DREAMS + REMEMBER--FORGET + OUR INDIAN SUMMER + MARE RUBRUM + THE Boys + LINES + A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH + J. D. R. + VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION + "CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE" + F. W. C. + THE LAST CHARGE + OUR OLDEST FRIEND + SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH + MY ANNUAL + ALL HERE + ONCE MORE + THE OLD CRUISER + HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING + EVEN-SONG + THE SMILING LISTENER + OUR SWEET SINGER: J. A. + H. C. M., H. S., J. K. W. + WHAT I HAVE COME FOR + OUR BANKER + FOR CLASS-MEETING + "AD AMICOS " + HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT + THE LAST SURVIVOR + THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS + THE SHADOWS + BENJAMIN PEIRCE + IN THE TWILIGHT + A LOVING-CUP SONG + THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP + THE LYRE OF ANACREON + THE OLD TUNE + THE BROKEN CIRCLE + THE ANGEL-THIEF + AFTER THE CURFEW + +POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1857-1858) + THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS + SUN AND SHADOW + MUSA + A PARTING HEALTH: To J. L. MOTLEY + WHAT WE ALL THINK + SPRING HAS COME + PROLOGUE + LATTER-DAY WARNINGS + ALBUM VERSES + A GOOD TIME GOING! + THE LAST BLOSSOM + CONTENTMENT + AESTIVATION + THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE ; OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSE SHAY " + PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY ; OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR + ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER + +POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1858-1859) + UNDER THE VIOLETS + HYMN OF TRUST + A SUN-DAY HYMN + THE CROOKED FOOTPATH + IRIS, HER BOOK + ROBINSON OF LEYDEN + ST ANTHONY THE REFORMER + THE OPENING OF THE PIANO + MIDSUMMER + DE SAUTY + +POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1871-1872) + HOMESICK IN HEAVEN + FANTASIA + AUNT TABITHA + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS + EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES + +SONGS OF MANY SEASONS (1862-1874) + OPENING THE WINDOW + PROGRAMME + + IN THE QUIET DAYS + AN OLD-YEAR SONG + DOROTHY Q: A FAMILY PORTRAIT + THE ORGAN-BLOWER + AT THE PANTOMIME + AFTER THE FIRE + A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY + NEARING THE SNOW-LINE + + IN WAR TIME + TO CANAAN: A PURITAN WAR-SONG + "THUS SAITH THE LORD, I OFFER THEE THREE THINGS" + NEVER OR NOW + ONE COUNTRY + GOD SAVE THE FLAG! + HYMN AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION + HYMN FOR THE FAIR AT CHICAGO + UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE + FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN + ARMY HYMN + PARTING HYMN + THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY + THE SWEET LITTLE MAN + UNION AND LIBERTY + + SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL + AMERICA TO RUSSIA + WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY + AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY + BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ + AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT + AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT + To H W LONGFELLOW + To CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG + A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS + + MEMORIAL VERSES + FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BOSTON, 1865 + FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES, CAMBRIDGE JULY 21, 1865 + EDWARD EVERETT: JANUARY 30, 1865 + SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, APRIL 23, 1864 + IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE, MAY 25, 1864 + HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY: CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869 + POEM AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1869 + HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF + HARVARD MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER 6, 1870 + HYMN FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL AT CAMBRIDGE, 1874 + HYMN AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES SUMNER, APRIL 29, 1874 + + RHYMES OF AN HOUR + ADDRESS FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, N. Y. 1873 + A SEA DIALOGUE + CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC + FOR THE CENTENNIAL DINNER, PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER, 1873 + A POEM SERVED TO ORDER + THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH + No TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME + A HYMN OF PEACE, TO THE MUSIC OF KELLER'S "AMERICAN HYMN" + +NOTES + + + +[Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set] + +CONTENTS + +BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS + GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER, DECEMBER 15, 1874 + "LUCY." FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + HYMN FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW, HINGHAM, + OCTOBER 7, 1875 + A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + OLD CAMBRIDGE, JULY 3, 1875 + WELCOME TO THE NATIONS, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + A FAMILIAR LETTER + UNSATISFIED + HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + THE FIRST FAN + To R. B. H. + THE SHIP OF STATE + A FAMILY RECORD + +THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS. + THE IRON GATE + VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETRORSUM + MY AVIARY + ON THE THRESHOLD + TO GEORGE PEABODY + AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB + FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + TWO SONNETS: HARVARD + THE COMING ERA + IN RESPONSE + FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE + WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB + AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + THE SCHOOL-BOY + THE SILENT MELODY + OUR HOME--OUR COUNTRY + POEM AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS + MEDICAL SOCIETY + RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME + +BEFORE THE CURFEW + AT MY FIRESIDE + AT THE SATURDAY CLUB + OUR DEAD SINGER. H. W. L. + TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. + I. AT THE SUMMIT + II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS + FOR THE BLIND + BOSTON TO FLORENCE + AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL, MARCH 8, 1882 + POEM FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF + HARVARD COLLEGE + POST-PRANDIAL: PHI BETA KAPPA, 1881 + THE FLANEUR: DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS, 1882 + AVE + KING'S CHAPEL READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY + HYMN FOR THE SAME OCCASION + HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + HYMN READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL AT + HUDSON, WISCONSIN, JUNE 7, 1887 + ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + THE GOLDEN FLOWER + HAIL, COLUMBIA! + POEM FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON, + PRESENTED + BY GEORGE CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + TO THE POETS WHO ONLY READ AND LISTEN + FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY + FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S + JAMES RUSSELL LO WELL: 1819-1891 + +POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS. + TO THE ELEVEN LADIES WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP + THE PEAU DE CHAGRIN OF STATE STREET + CACOETHES SCRIBENDI + THE ROSE AND THE FERN + I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU + LA MAISON D'OR BAR HARBOR + TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE + THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES + TARTARUS + AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD + INVITA MINERVA + +READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS + TO MY OLD READERS + THE BANKER'S SECRET + THE EXILE'S SECRET + THE LOVER'S SECRET + THE STATESMAN'S SECRET + THE MOTHER'S SECRET + THE SECRET OF THE STARS + +VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO + FIRST VERSES: TRANSLATION FROM THE THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS + THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR + THE TOADSTOOL + THE SPECTRE PIG + TO A CAGED LION + THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY + ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE: "A SPANISH GIRL REVERIE" + A ROMAN AQUEDUCT + FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOURNAL + LA GRISETTE + OUR YANKEE GIRLS + L'INCONNUE + STANZAS + LINES BY A CLERK + THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE + THE POET'S LOT + TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER + TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A GENTLEMAN" IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY + THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN + A NOONTIDE LYRIC + THE HOT SEASON + A PORTRAIT + AN EVENING THOUGHT. WRITTEN AT SEA + THE WASP AND THE HORNET + "QUI VIVE?" + +NOTES + + + + +TO MY READERS + +NAY, blame me not; I might have spared +Your patience many a trivial verse, +Yet these my earlier welcome shared, +So, let the better shield the worse. + +And some might say, "Those ruder songs +Had freshness which the new have lost; +To spring the opening leaf belongs, +The chestnut-burs await the frost." + +When those I wrote, my locks were brown, +When these I write--ah, well a-day! +The autumn thistle's silvery down +Is not the purple bloom of May + +Go, little book, whose pages hold +Those garnered years in loving trust; +How long before your blue and gold +Shall fade and whiten in the dust? + +O sexton of the alcoved tomb, +Where souls in leathern cerements lie, +Tell me each living poet's doom! +How long before his book shall die? + +It matters little, soon or late, +A day, a month, a year, an age,-- +I read oblivion in its date, +And Finis on its title-page. + +Before we sighed, our griefs were told; +Before we smiled, our joys were sung; +And all our passions shaped of old +In accents lost to mortal tongue. + +In vain a fresher mould we seek,-- +Can all the varied phrases tell +That Babel's wandering children speak +How thrushes sing or lilacs smell? + +Caged in the poet's lonely heart, +Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; +The soul that sings must dwell apart, +Its inward melodies unknown. + +Deal gently with us, ye who read +Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- +The promise still outruns the deed,-- +The tower, but not the spire, we build. + +Our whitest pearl we never find; +Our ripest fruit we never reach; +The flowering moments of the mind +Drop half their petals in our speech. + +These are my blossoms; if they wear +One streak of morn or evening's glow, +Accept them; but to me more fair +The buds of song that never blow. +April 8, 1862. + + + + + + EARLIER POEMS + + 1830-1836 OLD IRONSIDES + +This was the popular name by which the frigate Constitution +was known. The poem was first printed in the Boston Daily +Advertiser, at the time when it was proposed to break up the +old ship as unfit for service. I subjoin the paragraph which +led to the writing of the poem. It is from the Advertiser of +Tuesday, September 14, 1830:-- + +"Old Ironsides.--It has been affirmed upon good authority +that the Secretary of the Navy has recommended to the Board of +Navy Commissioners to dispose of the frigate Constitution. Since +it has been understood that such a step was in contemplation we +have heard but one opinion expressed, and that in decided +disapprobation of the measure. Such a national object of interest, +so endeared to our national pride as Old Ironsides is, should +never by any act of our government cease to belong to the Navy, +so long as our country is to be found upon the map of nations. +In England it was lately determined by the Admiralty to cut the +Victory, a one-hundred gun ship (which it will be recollected bore +the flag of Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar,) down to a +seventy-four, but so loud were the lamentations of the people upon +the proposed measure that the intention was abandoned. We +confidently anticipate that the Secretary of the Navy will in like +manner consult the general wish in regard to the Constitution, and +either let her remain in ordinary or rebuild her whenever the +public service may require."--New York Journal of Commerce. + +The poem was an impromptu outburst of feeling and was published +on the next day but one after reading the above paragraph. + +AY, tear her tattered ensign down +Long has it waved on high, +And many an eye has danced to see +That banner in the sky; +Beneath it rung the battle shout, +And burst the cannon's roar;-- +The meteor of the ocean air +Shall sweep the clouds no more. + +Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, +Where knelt the vanquished foe, +When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, +And waves were white below, +No more shall feel the victor's tread, +Or know the conquered knee;-- +The harpies of the shore shall pluck +The eagle of the sea! + +Oh better that her shattered hulk +Should sink beneath the wave; +Her thunders shook the mighty deep, +And there should be her grave; +Nail to the mast her holy flag, +Set every threadbare sail, +And give her to the god of storms, +The lightning and the gale! + + + + + +THE LAST LEAF + +This poem was suggested by the appearance in one of our +streets of a venerable relic of the Revolution, said to be one +of the party who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He +was a fine monumental specimen in his cocked hat and knee +breeches, with his buckled shoes and his sturdy cane. The smile +with which I, as a young man, greeted him, meant no disrespect to +an honored fellow-citizen whose costume was out of date, but whose +patriotism never changed with years. I do not recall any earlier +example of this form of verse, which was commended by the fastidious +Edgar Allan Poe, who made a copy of the whole poem which I have +in his own handwriting. Good Abraham Lincoln had a great liking +for the poem, and repeated it from memory to Governor Andrew, +as the governor himself told me. + +I SAW him once before, +As he passed by the door, +And again +The pavement stones resound, +As he totters o'er the ground +With his cane. + +They say that in his prime, +Ere the pruning-knife of Time +Cut him down, +Not a better man was found +By the Crier on his round +Through the town. + +But now he walks the streets, +And he looks at all he meets +Sad and wan, +And he shakes his feeble head, +That it seems as if he said, +"They are gone." + +The mossy marbles rest +On the lips that he has prest +In their bloom, +And the names he loved to hear +Have been carved for many a year +On the tomb. + +My grandmamma has said-- +Poor old lady, she is dead +Long ago-- +That he had a Roman nose, +And his cheek was like a rose +In the snow. + +But now his nose is thin, +And it rests upon his chin +Like a staff, +And a crook is in his back, +And a melancholy crack +In his laugh. + +I know it is a sin +For me to sit and grin +At him here; +But the old three-cornered hat, +And the breeches, and all that, +Are so queer! + +And if I should live to be +The last leaf upon the tree +In the spring, +Let them smile, as I do now, +At the old forsaken bough +Where I cling. + + + + + +THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD + +OUR ancient church! its lowly tower, +Beneath the loftier spire, +Is shadowed when the sunset hour +Clothes the tall shaft in fire; +It sinks beyond the distant eye +Long ere the glittering vane, +High wheeling in the western sky, +Has faded o'er the plain. + +Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep +Their vigil on the green; +One seems to guard, and one to weep, +The dead that lie between; +And both roll out, so full and near, +Their music's mingling waves, +They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear +Leans on the narrow graves. + +The stranger parts the flaunting weeds, +Whose seeds the winds have strown +So thick, beneath the line he reads, +They shade the sculptured stone; +The child unveils his clustered brow, +And ponders for a while +The graven willow's pendent bough, +Or rudest cherub's smile. + +But what to them the dirge, the knell? +These were the mourner's share,-- +The sullen clang, whose heavy swell +Throbbed through the beating air; +The rattling cord, the rolling stone, +The shelving sand that slid, +And, far beneath, with hollow tone +Rung on the coffin's lid. + +The slumberer's mound grows fresh and green, +Then slowly disappears; +The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, +Earth hides his date and years; +But, long before the once-loved name +Is sunk or worn away, +No lip the silent dust may claim, +That pressed the breathing clay. + +Go where the ancient pathway guides, +See where our sires laid down +Their smiling babes, their cherished brides, +The patriarchs of the town; +Hast thou a tear for buried love? +A sigh for transient power? +All that a century left above, +Go, read it in an hour! + +The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball, +The sabre's thirsting edge, +The hot shell, shattering in its fall, +The bayonet's rending wedge,-- +Here scattered death; yet, seek the spot, +No trace thine eye can see, +No altar,--and they need it not +Who leave their children free! + +Look where the turbid rain-drops stand +In many a chiselled square; +The knightly crest, the shield, the brand +Of honored names were there;-- +Alas! for every tear is dried +Those blazoned tablets knew, +Save when the icy marble's side +Drips with the evening dew. + +Or gaze upon yon pillared stone, +The empty urn of pride; +There stand the Goblet and the Sun,-- +What need of more beside? +Where lives the memory of the dead, +Who made their tomb a toy? +Whose ashes press that nameless bed? +Go, ask the village boy! + +Lean o'er the slender western wall, +Ye ever-roaming girls; +The breath that bids the blossom fall +May lift your floating curls, +To sweep the simple lines that tell +An exile's date and doom; +And sigh, for where his daughters dwell, +They wreathe the stranger's tomb. + +And one amid these shades was born, +Beneath this turf who lies, +Once beaming as the summer's morn, +That closed her gentle eyes; +If sinless angels love as we, +Who stood thy grave beside, +Three seraph welcomes waited thee, +The daughter, sister, bride + +I wandered to thy buried mound +When earth was hid below +The level of the glaring ground, +Choked to its gates with snow, +And when with summer's flowery waves +The lake of verdure rolled, +As if a Sultan's white-robed slaves +Had scattered pearls and gold. + +Nay, the soft pinions of the air, +That lift this trembling tone, +Its breath of love may almost bear +To kiss thy funeral stone; +And, now thy smiles have passed away, +For all the joy they gave, +May sweetest dews and warmest ray +Lie on thine early grave! + +When damps beneath and storms above +Have bowed these fragile towers, +Still o'er the graves yon locust grove +Shall swing its Orient flowers; +And I would ask no mouldering bust, +If e'er this humble line, +Which breathed a sigh o'er other's dust, +Might call a tear on mine. + + + + + +TO AN INSECT + +The Katydid is "a species of grasshopper found in the United +States, so called from the sound which it makes."--Worcester. +I used to hear this insect in Providence, Rhode Island, but I +do not remember hearing it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where +I passed my boyhood. It is well known in other towns in the +neighborhood of Boston. + +I LOVE to hear thine earnest voice, +Wherever thou art hid, +Thou testy little dogmatist, +Thou pretty Katydid +Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,-- +Old gentlefolks are they,-- +Thou say'st an undisputed thing +In such a solemn way. + +Thou art a female, Katydid +I know it by the trill +That quivers through thy piercing notes, +So petulant and shrill; +I think there is a knot of you +Beneath the hollow tree,-- +A knot of spinster Katydids,--- +Do Katydids drink tea? + +Oh tell me where did Katy live, +And what did Katy do? +And was she very fair and young, +And yet so wicked, too? +Did Katy love a naughty man, +Or kiss more cheeks than one? +I warrant Katy did no more +Than many a Kate has done. + +Dear me! I'll tell you all about +My fuss with little Jane, +And Ann, with whom I used to walk +So often down the lane, +And all that tore their locks of black, +Or wet their eyes of blue,-- +Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, +What did poor Katy do? + +Ah no! the living oak shall crash, +That stood for ages still, +The rock shall rend its mossy base +And thunder down the hill, +Before the little Katydid +Shall add one word, to tell +The mystic story of the maid +Whose name she knows so well. + +Peace to the ever-murmuring race! +And when the latest one +Shall fold in death her feeble wings +Beneath the autumn sun, +Then shall she raise her fainting voice, +And lift her drooping lid, +And then the child of future years +Shall hear what Katy did. + + + + + +THE DILEMMA + +Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, +Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen; +By every name I cut on bark +Before my morning star grew dark; +By Hymen's torch, by Cupid's dart, +By all that thrills the beating heart; +The bright black eye, the melting blue,-- +I cannot choose between the two. + +I had a vision in my dreams;-- +I saw a row of twenty beams; +From every beam a rope was hung, +In every rope a lover swung; +I asked the hue of every eye +That bade each luckless lover die; +Ten shadowy lips said, heavenly blue, +And ten accused the darker hue. + +I asked a matron which she deemed +With fairest light of beauty beamed; +She answered, some thought both were fair,-- +Give her blue eyes and golden hair. +I might have liked her judgment well, +But, as she spoke, she rung the bell, +And all her girls, nor small nor few, +Came marching in,--their eyes were blue. + +I asked a maiden; back she flung +The locks that round her forehead hung, +And turned her eye, a glorious one, +Bright as a diamond in the sun, +On me, until beneath its rays +I felt as if my hair would blaze; +She liked all eyes but eyes of green; +She looked at me; what could she mean? + +Ah! many lids Love lurks between, +Nor heeds the coloring of his screen; +And when his random arrows fly, +The victim falls, but knows not why. +Gaze not upon his shield of jet, +The shaft upon the string is set; +Look not beneath his azure veil, +Though every limb were cased in mail. + +Well, both might make a martyr break +The chain that bound him to the stake; +And both, with but a single ray, +Can melt our very hearts away; +And both, when balanced, hardly seem +To stir the scales, or rock the beam; +But that is dearest, all the while, +That wears for us the sweetest smile. + + + + + +MY AUNT + +MY aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! +Long years have o'er her flown; +Yet still she strains the aching clasp +That binds her virgin zone; +I know it hurts her,--though she looks +As cheerful as she can; +Her waist is ampler than her life, +For life is but a span. + +My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! +Her hair is almost gray; +Why will she train that winter curl +In such a spring-like way? +How can she lay her glasses down, +And say she reads as well, +When through a double convex lens +She just makes out to spell? + +Her father--grandpapa I forgive +This erring lip its smiles-- +Vowed she should make the finest girl +Within a hundred miles; +He sent her to a stylish school; +'T was in her thirteenth June; +And with her, as the rules required, +"Two towels and a spoon." + +They braced my aunt against a board, +To make her straight and tall; +They laced her up, they starved her down, +To make her light and small; +They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, +They screwed it up with pins;-- +Oh never mortal suffered more +In penance for her sins. + +So, when my precious aunt was done, +My grandsire brought her back; +(By daylight, lest some rabid youth +Might follow on the track;) +"Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook +Some powder in his pan, +"What could this lovely creature do +Against a desperate man!" + +Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, +Nor bandit cavalcade, +Tore from the trembling father's arms +His all-accomplished maid. +For her how happy had it been +And Heaven had spared to me +To see one sad, ungathered rose +On my ancestral tree. + + + + + +REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN + +I SAW the curl of his waving lash, +And the glance of his knowing eye, +And I knew that he thought he was cutting a dash, +As his steed went thundering by. + +And he may ride in the rattling gig, +Or flourish the Stanhope gay, +And dream that he looks exceeding big +To the people that walk in the way; + +But he shall think, when the night is still, +On the stable-boy's gathering numbers, +And the ghost of many a veteran bill +Shall hover around his slumbers; + +The ghastly dun shall worry his sleep, +And constables cluster around him, +And he shall creep from the wood-hole deep +Where their spectre eyes have found him! + +Ay! gather your reins, and crack your thong, +And bid your steed go faster; +He does not know, as he scrambles along, +That he has a fool for his master; + +And hurry away on your lonely ride, +Nor deign from the mire to save me; +I will paddle it stoutly at your side +With the tandem that nature gave me! + + + + + +DAILY TRIALS + +BY A SENSITIVE MAN + +OH, there are times +When all this fret and tumult that we hear +Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear +His own dull chimes. + +Ding dong! ding dong! +The world is in a simmer like a sea +Over a pent volcano,--woe is me +All the day long! + +From crib to shroud! +Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby, +And friends in boots tramp round us as we die, +Snuffling aloud. + +At morning's call +The small-voiced pug-dog welcomes in the sun, +And flea-bit mongrels, wakening one by one, +Give answer all. + +When evening dim +Draws round us, then the lonely caterwaul, +Tart solo, sour duet, and general squall,-- +These are our hymn. + +Women, with tongues +Like polar needles, ever on the jar; +Men, plugless word-spouts, whose deep fountains are +Within their lungs. + +Children, with drums +Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass; +Peripatetics with a blade of grass +Between their thumbs. + +Vagrants, whose arts +Have caged some devil in their mad machine, +Which grinding, squeaks, with husky groans between, +Come out by starts. + +Cockneys that kill +Thin horses of a Sunday,--men, with clams, +Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their dams +From hill to hill. + +Soldiers, with guns, +Making a nuisance of the blessed air, +Child-crying bellmen, children in despair, +Screeching for buns. + +Storms, thunders, waves! +Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill; +Ye sometimes rest; men never can be still +But in their graves. + + + + + +EVENING + +BY A TAILOR + +DAY hath put on his jacket, and around +His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. +Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, +That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs, +And hold communion with the things about me. +Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid +That binds the skirt of night's descending robe! +The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, +Do make a music like to rustling satin, +As the light breezes smooth their downy nap. + +Ha! what is this that rises to my touch, +So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage? +It is, it is that deeply injured flower, +Which boys do flout us with;--but yet I love thee, +Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout. +Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright +As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath +Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air; +But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, +Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences, +And growing portly in his sober garments. + +Is that a swan that rides upon the water? +Oh no, it is that other gentle bird, +Which is the patron of our noble calling. +I well remember, in my early years, +When these young hands first closed upon a goose; +I have a scar upon my thimble finger, +Which chronicles the hour of young ambition. +My father was a tailor, and his father, +And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors; +They had an ancient goose,--it was an heirloom +From some remoter tailor of our race. +It happened I did see it on a time +When none was near, and I did deal with it, +And it did burn me,--oh, most fearfully! + +It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs, +And leap elastic from the level counter, +Leaving the petty grievances of earth, +The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, +And all the needles that do wound the spirit, +For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. +Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, +Lays bare her shady bosom;--I can feel +With all around me;--I can hail the flowers +That sprig earth's mantle,--and yon quiet bird, +That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. +The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, +Where Nature stows away her loveliness. +But this unnatural posture of the legs +Cramps my extended calves, and I must go +Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion. + + + + + +THE DORCHESTER GIANT + +The "pudding-stone" is a remarkable conglomerate found very +abundantly in the towns mentioned, all of which are in the neighborhood +of Boston. We used in those primitive days to ask friends to _ride_ +with us when we meant to take them to _drive_ with us. + +THERE was a giant in time of old, +A mighty one was he; +He had a wife, but she was a scold, +So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold; +And he had children three. + +It happened to be an election day, +And the giants were choosing a king +The people were not democrats then, +They did not talk of the rights of men, +And all that sort of thing. + +Then the giant took his children three, +And fastened them in the pen; +The children roared; quoth the giant, "Be still!" +And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill +Rolled back the sound again. + +Then he brought them a pudding stuffed with plums, +As big as the State-House dome; +Quoth he, "There 's something for you to eat; +So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat, +And wait till your dad comes home." + +So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout, +And whittled the boughs away; +The boys and their mother set up a shout, +Said he, "You 're in, and you can't get out, +Bellow as loud as you may." + +Off he went, and he growled a tune +As he strode the fields along; +'T is said a buffalo fainted away, +And fell as cold as a lump of clay, +When he heard the giant's song. + +But whether the story 's true or not, +It is n't for me to show; +There 's many a thing that 's twice as queer +In somebody's lectures that we hear, +And those are true, you know. + +What are those lone ones doing now, +The wife and the children sad? +Oh, they are in a terrible rout, +Screaming, and throwing their pudding about, +Acting as they were mad. + +They flung it over to Roxbury hills, +They flung it over the plain, +And all over Milton and Dorchester too +Great lumps of pudding the giants threw; +They tumbled as thick as rain. + +Giant and mammoth have passed away, +For ages have floated by; +The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, +And every plum is turned to a stone, +But there the puddings lie. + +And if, some pleasant afternoon, +You 'll ask me out to ride, +The whole of the story I will tell, +And you shall see where the puddings fell, +And pay for the punch beside. + + + + + +TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A LADY" +IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY + +WELL, Miss, I wonder where you live, +I wonder what's your name, +I wonder how you came to be +In such a stylish frame; +Perhaps you were a favorite child, +Perhaps an only one; +Perhaps your friends were not aware +You had your portrait done + +Yet you must be a harmless soul; +I cannot think that Sin +Would care to throw his loaded dice, +With such a stake to win; +I cannot think you would provoke +The poet's wicked pen, +Or make young women bite their lips, +Or ruin fine young men. + +Pray, did you ever hear, my love, +Of boys that go about, +Who, for a very trifling sum, +Will snip one's picture out? +I'm not averse to red and white, +But all things have their place, +I think a profile cut in black +Would suit your style of face! + +I love sweet features; I will own +That I should like myself +To see my portrait on a wall, +Or bust upon a shelf; +But nature sometimes makes one up +Of such sad odds and ends, +It really might be quite as well +Hushed up among one's friends! + + + + + +THE COMET + +THE Comet! He is on his way, +And singing as he flies; +The whizzing planets shrink before +The spectre of the skies; +Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue, +And satellites turn pale, +Ten million cubic miles of head, +Ten billion leagues of tail! + +On, on by whistling spheres of light +He flashes and he flames; +He turns not to the left nor right, +He asks them not their names; +One spurn from his demoniac heel,-- +Away, away they fly, +Where darkness might be bottled up +And sold for "Tyrian dye." + +And what would happen to the land, +And how would look the sea, +If in the bearded devil's path +Our earth should chance to be? +Full hot and high the sea would boil, +Full red the forests gleam; +Methought I saw and heard it all +In a dyspeptic dream! + +I saw a tutor take his tube +The Comet's course to spy; +I heard a scream,--the gathered rays +Had stewed the tutor's eye; +I saw a fort,--the soldiers all +Were armed with goggles green; +Pop cracked the guns! whiz flew the balls! +Bang went the magazine! + +I saw a poet dip a scroll +Each moment in a tub, +I read upon the warping back, +"The Dream of Beelzebub;" +He could not see his verses burn, +Although his brain was fried, +And ever and anon he bent +To wet them as they dried. + +I saw the scalding pitch roll down +The crackling, sweating pines, +And streams of smoke, like water-spouts, +Burst through the rumbling mines; +I asked the firemen why they made +Such noise about the town; +They answered not,--but all the while +The brakes went up and down. + +I saw a roasting pullet sit +Upon a baking egg; +I saw a cripple scorch his hand +Extinguishing his leg; +I saw nine geese upon the wing +Towards the frozen pole, +And every mother's gosling fell +Crisped to a crackling coal. + +I saw the ox that browsed the grass +Writhe in the blistering rays, +The herbage in his shrinking jaws +Was all a fiery blaze; +I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags, +Bob through the bubbling brine; +And thoughts of supper crossed my soul; +I had been rash at mine. + +Strange sights! strange sounds! Oh fearful dream! +Its memory haunts me still, +The steaming sea, the crimson glare, +That wreathed each wooded hill; +Stranger! if through thy reeling brain +Such midnight visions sweep, +Spare, spare, oh, spare thine evening meal, +And sweet shall be thy sleep! + + + + + +THE MUSIC-GRINDERS + +THERE are three ways in which men take +One's money from his purse, +And very hard it is to tell +Which of the three is worse; +But all of them are bad enough +To make a body curse. + +You're riding out some pleasant day, +And counting up your gains; +A fellow jumps from out a bush, +And takes your horse's reins, +Another hints some words about +A bullet in your brains. + +It's hard to meet such pressing friends +In such a lonely spot; +It's very hard to lose your cash, +But harder to be shot; +And so you take your wallet out, +Though you would rather not. + +Perhaps you're going out to dine,-- +Some odious creature begs +You'll hear about the cannon-ball +That carried off his pegs, +And says it is a dreadful thing +For men to lose their legs. + +He tells you of his starving wife, +His children to be fed, +Poor little, lovely innocents, +All clamorous for bread,-- +And so you kindly help to put +A bachelor to bed. + +You're sitting on your window-seat, +Beneath a cloudless moon; +You hear a sound, that seems to wear +The semblance of a tune, +As if a broken fife should strive +To drown a cracked bassoon. + +And nearer, nearer still, the tide +Of music seems to come, +There's something like a human voice, +And something like a drum; +You sit in speechless agony, +Until your ear is numb. + +Poor "home, sweet home" should seem to be +A very dismal place; +Your "auld acquaintance" all at once +Is altered in the face; +Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, +Like hedgehogs dressed in lace. + +You think they are crusaders, sent +From some infernal clime, +To pluck the eyes of Sentiment, +And dock the tail of Rhyme, +To crack the voice of Melody, +And break the legs of Time. + +But hark! the air again is still, +The music all is ground, +And silence, like a poultice, comes +To heal the blows of sound; +It cannot be,--it is,--it is,-- +A hat is going round! + +No! Pay the dentist when he leaves +A fracture in your jaw, +And pay the owner of the bear +That stunned you with his paw, +And buy the lobster that has had +Your knuckles in his claw; + +But if you are a portly man, +Put on your fiercest frown, +And talk about a constable +To turn them out of town; +Then close your sentence with an oath, +And shut the window down! + +And if you are a slender man, +Not big enough for that, +Or, if you cannot make a speech, +Because you are a flat, +Go very quietly and drop +A button in the hat! + + + + + +THE TREADMILL SONG + +THE stars are rolling in the sky, +The earth rolls on below, +And we can feel the rattling wheel +Revolving as we go. +Then tread away, my gallant boys, +And make the axle fly; +Why should not wheels go round about, +Like planets in the sky? + +Wake up, wake up, my duck-legged man, +And stir your solid pegs +Arouse, arouse, my gawky friend, +And shake your spider legs; +What though you're awkward at the trade, +There's time enough to learn,-- +So lean upon the rail, my lad, +And take another turn. + +They've built us up a noble wall, +To keep the vulgar out; +We've nothing in the world to do +But just to walk about; +So faster, now, you middle men, +And try to beat the ends,-- +It's pleasant work to ramble round +Among one's honest friends. + +Here, tread upon the long man's toes, +He sha'n't be lazy here,-- +And punch the little fellow's ribs, +And tweak that lubber's ear,-- +He's lost them both,--don't pull his hair, +Because he wears a scratch, +But poke him in the further eye, +That is n't in the patch. + +Hark! fellows, there 's the supper-bell, +And so our work is done; +It's pretty sport,--suppose we take +A round or two for fun! +If ever they should turn me out, +When I have better grown, +Now hang me, but I mean to have +A treadmill of my own! + + + + + +THE SEPTEMBER GALE + + This tremendous hurricane occurred on the 23d of September, 1815. + I remember it well, being then seven years old. A full account of + it was published, I think, in the records of the American Academy + of Arts and Sciences. Some of my recollections are given in The + Seasons, an article to be found in a book of mine entitled Pages + from an Old Volume of Life. + +I'M not a chicken; I have seen +Full many a chill September, +And though I was a youngster then, +That gale I well remember; +The day before, my kite-string snapped, +And I, my kite pursuing, +The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat; +For me two storms were brewing! + +It came as quarrels sometimes do, +When married folks get clashing; +There was a heavy sigh or two, +Before the fire was flashing,-- +A little stir among the clouds, +Before they rent asunder,-- +A little rocking of the trees, +And then came on the thunder. + +Lord! how the ponds and rivers boiled! +They seemed like bursting craters! +And oaks lay scattered on the ground +As if they were p'taters; +And all above was in a howl, +And all below a clatter,-- +The earth was like a frying-pan, +Or some such hissing matter. + +It chanced to be our washing-day, +And all our things were drying; +The storm came roaring through the lines, +And set them all a flying; +I saw the shirts and petticoats +Go riding off like witches; +I lost, ah! bitterly I wept,-- +I lost my Sunday breeches! + +I saw them straddling through the air, +Alas! too late to win them; +I saw them chase the clouds, as if +The devil had been in them; +They were my darlings and my pride, +My boyhood's only riches,-- +"Farewell, farewell," I faintly cried,-- +"My breeches! Oh my breeches!" + +That night I saw them in my dreams, +How changed from what I knew them! +The dews had steeped their faded threads, +The winds had whistled through them +I saw the wide and ghastly rents +Where demon claws had torn them; +A hole was in their amplest part, +As if an imp had worn them. + +I have had many happy years, +And tailors kind and clever, +But those young pantaloons have gone +Forever and forever! +And not till fate has cut the last +Of all my earthly stitches, +This aching heart shall cease to mourn +My loved, my long-lost breeches! + + + + + +THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS + +I WROTE some lines once on a time +In wondrous merry mood, +And thought, as usual, men would say +They were exceeding good. + +They were so queer, so very queer, +I laughed as I would die; +Albeit, in the general way, +A sober man am I. + +I called my servant, and he came; +How kind it was of him +To mind a slender man like me, +He of the mighty limb. + +"These to the printer," I exclaimed, +And, in my humorous way, +I added, (as a trifling jest,) +"There'll be the devil to pay." + +He took the paper, and I watched, +And saw him peep within; +At the first line he read, his face +Was all upon the grin. + +He read the next; the grin grew broad, +And shot from ear to ear; +He read the third; a chuckling noise +I now began to hear. + +The fourth; he broke into a roar; +The fifth; his waistband split; +The sixth; he burst five buttons off, +And tumbled in a fit. + +Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, +I watched that wretched man, +And since, I never dare to write +As funny as I can. + + + + + +THE LAST READER + +I SOMETIMES sit beneath a tree +And read my own sweet songs; +Though naught they may to others be, +Each humble line prolongs +A tone that might have passed away +But for that scarce remembered lay. + +I keep them like a lock or leaf +That some dear girl has given; +Frail record of an hour, as brief +As sunset clouds in heaven, +But spreading purple twilight still +High over memory's shadowed hill. + +They lie upon my pathway bleak, +Those flowers that once ran wild, +As on a father's careworn cheek +The ringlets of his child; +The golden mingling with the gray, +And stealing half its snows away. + +What care I though the dust is spread +Around these yellow leaves, +Or o'er them his sarcastic thread +Oblivion's insect weaves +Though weeds are tangled on the stream, +It still reflects my morning's beam. + +And therefore love I such as smile +On these neglected songs, +Nor deem that flattery's needless wile +My opening bosom wrongs; +For who would trample, at my side, +A few pale buds, my garden's pride? + +It may be that my scanty ore +Long years have washed away, +And where were golden sands before +Is naught but common clay; +Still something sparkles in the sun +For memory to look back upon. + +And when my name no more is heard, +My lyre no more is known, +Still let me, like a winter's bird, +In silence and alone, +Fold over them the weary wing +Once flashing through the dews of spring. + +Yes, let my fancy fondly wrap +My youth in its decline, +And riot in the rosy lap +Of thoughts that once were mine, +And give the worm my little store +When the last reader reads no more! + + + + + + POETRY: + + A METRICAL ESSAY, READ BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, + HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AUGUST, 1836 + + TO CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, THE FOLLOWING METRICAL ESSAY IS +AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. + +This Academic Poem presents the simple and partial views of a young +person trained after the schools of classical English verse as +represented by Pope, Goldsmith, and Campbell, with whose lines his +memory was early stocked. It will be observed that it deals chiefly with +the constructive side of the poet's function. That which makes him a +poet is not the power of writing melodious rhymes, it is not the +possession of ordinary human sensibilities nor even of both these +qualities in connection with each other. I should rather say, if I were +now called upon to define it, it is the power of transfiguring the +experiences and shows of life into an aspect which comes from his +imagination and kindles that of others. Emotion is its stimulus and +language furnishes its expression; but these are not all, as some might +infer was the doctrine of the poem before the reader. + +A common mistake made by young persons who suppose themselves to have +the poetical gift is that their own spiritual exaltation finds a true +expression in the conventional phrases which are borrowed from the +voices of the singers whose inspiration they think they share. + +Looking at this poem as an expression of some aspects of the /ars +poetica/, with some passages which I can read even at this mature period +of life without blushing for them, it may stand as the most serious +representation of my early efforts. Intended as it was for public +delivery, many of its paragraphs may betray the fact by their somewhat +rhetorical and sonorous character. + +SCENES of my youth! awake its slumbering fire! +Ye winds of Memory, sweep the silent lyre! +Ray of the past, if yet thou canst appear, +Break through the clouds of Fancy's waning year; +Chase from her breast the thin autumnal snow, +If leaf or blossom still is fresh below! + +Long have I wandered; the returning tide +Brought back an exile to his cradle's side; +And as my bark her time-worn flag unrolled, +To greet the land-breeze with its faded fold, +So, in remembrance of my boyhood's time, +I lift these ensigns of neglected rhyme; +Oh, more than blest, that, all my wanderings through, +My anchor falls where first my pennons flew! + + . . . . . . . . . + +The morning light, which rains its quivering beams +Wide o'er the plains, the summits, and the streams, +In one broad blaze expands its golden glow +On all that answers to its glance below; +Yet, changed on earth, each far reflected ray +Braids with fresh hues the shining brow of day; +Now, clothed in blushes by the painted flowers, +Tracks on their cheeks the rosy-fingered hours; +Now, lost in shades, whose dark entangled leaves +Drip at the noontide from their pendent eaves, +Fades into gloom, or gleams in light again +From every dew-drop on the jewelled plain. + + +We, like the leaf, the summit, or the wave, +Reflect the light our common nature gave, +But every sunbeam, falling from her throne, +Wears on our hearts some coloring of our own +Chilled in the slave, and burning in the free, +Like the sealed cavern by the sparkling sea; +Lost, like the lightning in the sullen clod, +Or shedding radiance, like the smiles of God; +Pure, pale in Virtue, as the star above, +Or quivering roseate on the leaves of Love; +Glaring like noontide, where it glows upon +Ambition's sands,--the desert in the sun,-- +Or soft suffusing o'er the varied scene +Life's common coloring,--intellectual green. + +Thus Heaven, repeating its material plan, +Arched over all the rainbow mind of man; +But he who, blind to universal laws, +Sees but effects, unconscious of their cause,-- +Believes each image in itself is bright, +Not robed in drapery of reflected light,-- +Is like the rustic who, amidst his toil, +Has found some crystal in his meagre soil, +And, lost in rapture, thinks for him alone +Earth worked her wonders on the sparkling stone, +Nor dreams that Nature, with as nice a line, +Carved countless angles through the boundless mine. + +Thus err the many, who, entranced to find +Unwonted lustre in some clearer mind, +Believe that Genius sets the laws at naught +Which chain the pinions of our wildest thought; +Untaught to measure, with the eye of art, +The wandering fancy or the wayward heart; +Who match the little only with the less, +And gaze in rapture at its slight excess, +Proud of a pebble, as the brightest gem +Whose light might crown an emperor's diadem. + +And, most of all, the pure ethereal fire +Which seems to radiate from the poet's lyre +Is to the world a mystery and a charm, +An AEgis wielded on a mortal's arm, +While Reason turns her dazzled eye away, +And bows her sceptre to her subject's sway; +And thus the poet, clothed with godlike state, +Usurped his Maker's title--to create; +He, whose thoughts differing not in shape, but dress, +What others feel more fitly can express, +Sits like the maniac on his fancied throne, +Peeps through the bars, and calls the world his own. + +There breathes no being but has some pretence +To that fine instinct called poetic sense +The rudest savage, roaming through the wild; +The simplest rustic, bending o'er his child; +The infant, listening to the warbling bird; +The mother, smiling at its half-formed word; +The boy uncaged, who tracks the fields at large; +The girl, turned matron to her babe-like charge; +The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand +The vote that shakes the turret of the land; +The slave, who, slumbering on his rusted chain, +Dreams of the palm-trees on his burning plain; +The hot-cheeked reveller, tossing down the wine, +To join the chorus pealing "Auld lang syne"; +The gentle maid, whose azure eye grows dim, +While Heaven is listening to her evening hymn; +The jewelled beauty, when her steps draw near +The circling dance and dazzling chandelier; +E'en trembling age, when Spring's renewing air +Waves the thin ringlets of his silvered hair;-- +All, all are glowing with the inward flame, +Whose wider halo wreathes the poet's name, +While, unenbalmed, the silent dreamer dies, +His memory passing with his smiles and sighs! + +If glorious visions, born for all mankind, +The bright auroras of our twilight mind; +If fancies, varying as the shapes that lie +Stained on the windows of the sunset sky; +If hopes, that beckon with delusive gleams, +Till the eye dances in the void of dreams; +If passions, following with the winds that urge +Earth's wildest wanderer to her farthest verge;-- +If these on all some transient hours bestow +Of rapture tingling with its hectic glow, +Then all are poets; and if earth had rolled +Her myriad centuries, and her doom were told, +Each moaning billow of her shoreless wave +Would wail its requiem o'er a poet's grave! + +If to embody in a breathing word +Tones that the spirit trembled when it heard; +To fix the image all unveiled and warm, +And carve in language its ethereal form, +So pure, so perfect, that the lines express +No meagre shrinking, no unlaced excess; +To feel that art, in living truth, has taught +Ourselves, reflected in the sculptured thought;-- +If this alone bestow the right to claim +The deathless garland and the sacred name, +Then none are poets save the saints on high, +Whose harps can murmur all that words deny! + +But though to none is granted to reveal +In perfect semblance all that each may feel, +As withered flowers recall forgotten love, +So, warmed to life, our faded passions move +In every line, where kindling fancy throws +The gleam of pleasures or the shade of woes. + +When, schooled by time, the stately queen of art +Had smoothed the pathways leading to the heart, +Assumed her measured tread, her solemn tone, +And round her courts the clouds of fable thrown, +The wreaths of heaven descended on her shrine, +And wondering earth proclaimed the Muse divine. +Yet if her votaries had but dared profane +The mystic symbols of her sacred reign, +How had they smiled beneath the veil to find +What slender threads can chain the mighty mind! + + +Poets, like painters, their machinery claim, +And verse bestows the varnish and the frame; +Our grating English, whose Teutonic jar +Shakes the racked axle of Art's rattling car, +Fits like mosaic in the lines that gird +Fast in its place each many-angled word; +From Saxon lips Anacreon's numbers glide, +As once they melted on the Teian tide, +And, fresh transfused, the Iliad thrills again +From Albion's cliffs as o'er Achaia's plain +The proud heroic, with, its pulse-like beat, +Rings like the cymbals clashing as they meet; +The sweet Spenserian, gathering as it flows, +Sweeps gently onward to its dying close, +Where waves on waves in long succession pour, +Till the ninth billow melts along the shore; +The lonely spirit of the mournful lay, +Which lives immortal as the verse of Gray, +In sable plumage slowly drifts along, +On eagle pinion, through the air of song; +The glittering lyric bounds elastic by, +With flashing ringlets and exulting eye, +While every image, in her airy whirl, +Gleams like a diamond on a dancing girl! + +Born with mankind, with man's expanded range +And varying fates the poet's numbers change; +Thus in his history may we hope to find +Some clearer epochs of the poet's mind, +As from the cradle of its birth we trace, +Slow wandering forth, the patriarchal race. + + + + I. + +When the green earth, beneath the zephyr's wing, +Wears on her breast the varnished buds of Spring; +When the loosed current, as its folds uncoil, +Slides in the channels of the mellowed soil; +When the young hyacinth returns to seek +The air and sunshine with her emerald beak; +When the light snowdrops, starting from their cells, +Hang each pagoda with its silver bells; +When the frail willow twines her trailing bow +With pallid leaves that sweep the soil below; +When the broad elm, sole empress of the plain, +Whose circling shadow speaks a century's reign, +Wreathes in the clouds her regal diadem,-- +A forest waving on a single stem;-- +Then mark the poet; though to him unknown +The quaint-mouthed titles, such as scholars own, +See how his eye in ecstasy pursues +The steps of Nature tracked in radiant hues; +Nay, in thyself, whate'er may be thy fate, +Pallid with toil or surfeited with state, +Mark how thy fancies, with the vernal rose, +Awake, all sweetness, from their long repose; +Then turn to ponder o'er the classic page, +Traced with the idyls of a greener age, +And learn the instinct which arose to warm +Art's earliest essay and her simplest form. + +To themes like these her narrow path confined +The first-born impulse moving in the mind; +In vales unshaken by the trumpet's sound, +Where peaceful Labor tills his fertile ground, +The silent changes of the rolling years, +Marked on the soil or dialled on the spheres, +The crested forests and the colored flowers, +The dewy grottos and the blushing bowers,-- +These, and their guardians, who, with liquid names, +Strephons and Chloes, melt in mutual flames, +Woo the young Muses from their mountain shade, +To make Arcadias in the lonely glade. + +Nor think they visit only with their smiles +The fabled valleys and Elysian isles; +He who is wearied of his village plain +May roam the Edens of the world in vain. +'T is not the star-crowned cliff, the cataract's flow, +The softer foliage or the greener glow, +The lake of sapphire or the spar-hung cave, +The brighter sunset or the broader wave, +Can warm his heart whom every wind has blown +To every shore, forgetful of his own. + +Home of our childhood! how affection clings +And hovers round thee with her seraph wings! +Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown, +Than fairest summits which the cedars crown! +Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze +Than all Arabia breathes along the seas! +The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh, +For the heart's temple is its own blue sky! + +Oh happiest they, whose early love unchanged, +Hopes undissolved, and friendship unestranged, +Tired of their wanderings, still can deign to see +Love, hopes, and friendship, centring all in thee! + +And thou, my village! as again I tread +Amidst thy living and above thy dead; +Though some fair playmates guard with charter fears +Their cheeks, grown holy with the lapse of years; +Though with the dust some reverend locks may blend, +Where life's last mile-stone marks the journey's end; +On every bud the changing year recalls, +The brightening glance of morning memory falls, +Still following onward as the months unclose +The balmy lilac or the bridal rose; +And still shall follow, till they sink once more +Beneath the snow-drifts of the frozen shore, +As when my bark, long tossing in the gale, +Furled in her port her tempest-rended sail! + +What shall I give thee? Can a simple lay, +Flung on thy bosom like a girl's bouquet, +Do more than deck thee for an idle hour, +Then fall unheeded, fading like the flower? +Yet, when I trod, with footsteps wild and free, +The crackling leaves beneath yon linden-tree, +Panting from play or dripping from the stream, +How bright the visions of my boyish dream +Or, modest Charles, along thy broken edge, +Black with soft ooze and fringed with arrowy sedge, +As once I wandered in the morning sun, +With reeking sandal and superfluous gun, +How oft, as Fancy whispered in the gale, +Thou wast the Avon of her flattering tale! +Ye hills, whose foliage, fretted on the skies, +Prints shadowy arches on their evening dyes, +How should my song with holiest charm invest +Each dark ravine and forest-lifting crest! +How clothe in beauty each familiar scene, +Till all was classic on my native green! + +As the drained fountain, filled with autumn leaves, +The field swept naked of its garnered sheaves, +So wastes at noon the promise of our dawn, +The springs all choking, and the harvest gone. + +Yet hear the lay of one whose natal star +Still seemed the brightest when it shone afar; +Whose cheek, grown pallid with ungracious toil, +Glows in the welcome of his parent soil; +And ask no garlands sought beyond the tide, +But take the leaflets gathered at your side. + + + + II. + +But times were changed; the torch of terror came, +To light the summits with the beacon's flame; +The streams ran crimson, the tall mountain pines +Rose a new forest o'er embattled lines; +The bloodless sickle lent the warrior's steel, +The harvest bowed beneath his chariot wheel; +Where late the wood-dove sheltered her repose +The raven waited for the conflict's close; +The cuirassed sentry walked his sleepless round +Where Daphne smiled or Amaryllis frowned; +Where timid minstrels sung their blushing charms, +Some wild Tyrtaeus called aloud, "To arms!" + +When Glory wakes, when fiery spirits leap, +Roused by her accents from their tranquil sleep, +The ray that flashes from the soldier's crest +Lights, as it glances, in the poet's breast;-- +Not in pale dreamers, whose fantastic lay +Toys with smooth trifles like a child at play, +But men, who act the passions they inspire, +Who wave the sabre as they sweep the lyre! + +Ye mild enthusiasts, whose pacific frowns +Are lost like dew-drops caught in burning towns, +Pluck as ye will the radiant plumes of fame, +Break Caesar's bust to make yourselves a name; +But if your country bares the avenger's blade +For wrongs unpunished or for debts unpaid, +When the roused nation bids her armies form, +And screams her eagle through the gathering storm, +When from your ports the bannered frigate rides, +Her black bows scowling to the crested tides, +Your hour has past; in vain your feeble cry +As the babe's wailings to the thundering sky! + +Scourge of mankind! with all the dread array +That wraps in wrath thy desolating way, +As the wild tempest wakes the slumbering sea, +Thou only teachest all that man can be. +Alike thy tocsin has the power to charm +The toil-knit sinews of the rustic's arm, +Or swell the pulses in the poet's veins, +And bid the nations tremble at his strains. + +The city slept beneath the moonbeam's glance, +Her white walls gleaming through the vines of France, +And all was hushed, save where the footsteps fell, +On some high tower, of midnight sentinel. +But one still watched; no self-encircled woes +Chased from his lids the angel of repose; +He watched, he wept, for thoughts of bitter years +Bowed his dark lashes, wet with burning tears +His country's sufferings and her children's shame +Streamed o'er his memory like a forest's flame; +Each treasured insult, each remembered wrong, +Rolled through his heart and kindled into song. +His taper faded; and the morning gales +Swept through the world the war-song of Marseilles! + +Now, while around the smiles of Peace expand, +And Plenty's wreaths festoon the laughing land; +While France ships outward her reluctant ore, +And half our navy basks upon the shore; +From ruder themes our meek-eyed Muses turn +To crown with roses their enamelled urn. + +If e'er again return those awful days +Whose clouds were crimsoned with the beacon's blaze, +Whose grass was trampled by the soldier's heel, +Whose tides were reddened round the rushing keel, +God grant some lyre may wake a nobler strain +To rend the silence of our tented plain! +When Gallia's flag its triple fold displays, +Her marshalled legions peal the Marseillaise; +When round the German close the war-clouds dim, +Far through their shadows floats his battle-hymn; +When, crowned with joy, the camps' of England ring, +A thousand voices shout, "God save the King!" +When victory follows with our eagle's glance, +Our nation's anthem pipes a country dance! + +Some prouder Muse, when comes the hour at last, +May shake our hillsides with her bugle-blast; +Not ours the task; but since the lyric dress +Relieves the statelier with its sprightliness, +Hear an old song, which some, perchance, have seen +In stale gazette or cobwebbed magazine. +There was an hour when patriots dared profane +The mast that Britain strove to bow in vain; +And one, who listened to the tale of shame, +Whose heart still answered to that sacred name, +Whose eye still followed o'er his country's tides +Thy glorious flag, our brave Old Ironsides +From yon lone attic, on a smiling morn, +Thus mocked the spoilers with his school-boy scorn. + + + + III. + +When florid Peace resumed her golden reign, +And arts revived, and valleys bloomed again, +While War still panted on his-broken blade, +Once more the Muse her heavenly wing essayed. +Rude was the song: some ballad, stern and wild, +Lulled the light slumbers of the soldier's child; +Or young romancer, with his threatening glance +And fearful fables of his bloodless lance, +Scared the soft fancy of the clinging girls, +Whose snowy fingers smoothed his raven curls. +But when long years the stately form had bent, +And faithless Memory her illusions lent, +So vast the outlines of Tradition grew +That History wondered at the shapes she drew, +And veiled at length their too ambitious hues +Beneath the pinions of the Epic Muse. + +Far swept her wing; for stormier days had brought +With darker passions deeper tides of thought. +The camp's harsh tumult and the conflict's glow, +The thrill of triumph and the gasp of woe, +The tender parting and the glad return, +The festal banquet and the funeral urn, +And all the drama which at once uprears +Its spectral shadows through the clash of spears, +From camp and field to echoing verse transferred, +Swelled the proud song that listening nations heard. +Why floats the amaranth in eternal bloom +O'er Ilium's turrets and Achilles' tomb? +Why lingers fancy where the sunbeams smile +On Circe's gardens and Calypso's isle? +Why follows memory to the gate of Troy +Her plumed defender and his trembling boy? +Lo! the blind dreamer, kneeling on the sand +To trace these records with his doubtful hand; +In fabled tones his own emotion flows, +And other lips repeat his silent woes; +In Hector's infant see the babes that shun +Those deathlike eyes, unconscious of the sun, +Or in his hero hear himself implore, +"Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more!" + +Thus live undying through the lapse of time +The solemn legends of the warrior's clime; +Like Egypt's pyramid or Paestum's fane, +They stand the heralds of the voiceless plain. +Yet not like them, for Time, by slow degrees, +Saps the gray stone and wears the embroidered frieze, +And Isis sleeps beneath her subject Nile, +And crumbled Neptune strews his Dorian pile; +But Art's fair fabric, strengthening as it rears +Its laurelled columns through the mist of years, +As the blue arches of the bending skies +Still gird the torrent, following as it flies, +Spreads, with the surges bearing on mankind, +Its starred pavilion o'er the tides of mind! + +In vain the patriot asks some lofty lay +To dress in state our wars of yesterday. +The classic days, those mothers of romance, +That roused a nation for a woman's glance; +The age of mystery, with its hoarded power, +That girt the tyrant in his storied tower, +Have passed and faded like a dream of youth, +And riper eras ask for history's truth. + +On other shores, above their mouldering towns, +In sullen pomp the tall cathedral frowns, +Pride in its aisles and paupers at the door, +Which feeds the beggars whom it fleeced of yore. +Simple and frail, our lowly temples throw +Their slender shadows on the paths below; +Scarce steal the winds, that sweep his woodland tracks, +The larch's perfume from the settler's axe, +Ere, like a vision of the morning air, +His slight--framed steeple marks the house of prayer; +Its planks all reeking and its paint undried, +Its rafters sprouting on the shady side, +It sheds the raindrops from its shingled eaves +Ere its green brothers once have changed their leaves. + +Yet Faith's pure hymn, beneath its shelter rude, +Breathes out as sweetly to the tangled wood +As where the rays through pictured glories pour +On marble shaft and tessellated floor;-- +Heaven asks no surplice round the heart that feels, +And all is holy where devotion kneels. +Thus on the soil the patriot's knee should bend +Which holds the dust once living to defend; +Where'er the hireling shrinks before the free, +Each pass becomes "a new Thermopylae"! +Where'er the battles of the brave are won, +There every mountain "looks on Marathon"! + +Our fathers live; they guard in glory still +The grass-grown bastions of the fortressed hill; +Still ring the echoes of the trampled gorge, +With /God and Freedom. England and Saint George/! +The royal cipher on the captured gun +Mocks the sharp night-dews and the blistering sun; +The red-cross banner shades its captor's bust, +Its folds still loaded with the conflict's dust; +The drum, suspended by its tattered marge, +Once rolled and rattled to the Hessian's charge; +The stars have floated from Britannia's mast, +The redcoat's trumpets blown the rebel's blast. + +Point to the summits where the brave have bled, +Where every village claims its glorious dead; +Say, when their bosoms met the bayonet's shock, +Their only corselet was the rustic frock; +Say, when they mustered to the gathering horn, +The titled chieftain curled his lip in scorn, +Yet, when their leader bade his lines advance, +No musket wavered in the lion's glance; +Say, when they fainted in the forced retreat, +They tracked the snow-drifts with their bleeding feet, +Yet still their banners, tossing in the blast, +Bore Ever Ready, faithful to the last, +Through storm and battle, till they waved again +On Yorktown's hills and Saratoga's plain + +Then, if so fierce the insatiate patriot's flame, +Truth looks too pale and history seems too tame, +Bid him await some new Columbiad's page, +To gild the tablets of an iron age, +And save his tears, which yet may fall upon +Some fabled field, some fancied Washington! + + + + IV. + +But once again, from their AEolian cave, +The winds of Genius wandered on the wave. +Tired of the scenes the timid pencil drew, +Sick of the notes the sounding clarion blew, +Sated with heroes who had worn so long +The shadowy plumage of historic song, +The new-born poet left the beaten course, +To track the passions to their living source. + +Then rose the Drama;--and the world admired +Her varied page with deeper thought inspired +Bound to no clime, for Passion's throb is one +In Greenland's twilight or in India's sun; +Born for no age, for all the thoughts that roll +In the dark vortex of the stormy soul, +Unchained in song, no freezing years can tame; +God gave them birth, and man is still the same. +So full on life her magic mirror shone, +Her sister Arts paid tribute to her throne; +One reared her temple, one her canvas warmed, +And Music thrilled, while Eloquence informed. +The weary rustic left his stinted task +For smiles and tears, the dagger and the mask; +The sage, turned scholar, half forgot his lore, +To be the woman he despised before. +O'er sense and thought she threw her golden chain, +And Time, the anarch, spares her deathless reign. + +Thus lives Medea, in our tamer age, +As when her buskin pressed the Grecian stage; +Not in the cells where frigid learning delves +In Aldine folios mouldering on their shelves, +But breathing, burning in the glittering throng, +Whose thousand bravoes roll untired along, +Circling and spreading through the gilded halls, +From London's galleries to San Carlo's walls! + +Thus shall he live whose more than mortal name +Mocks with its ray the pallid torch of Fame; +So proudly lifted that it seems afar +No earthly Pharos, but a heavenly star, +Who, unconfined to Art's diurnal bound, +Girds her whole zodiac in his flaming round, +And leads the passions, like the orb that guides, +From pole to pole, the palpitating tides! + + + + V. + +Though round the Muse the robe of song is thrown, +Think not the poet lives in verse alone. +Long ere the chisel of the sculptor taught +The lifeless stone to mock the living thought; +Long ere the painter bade the canvas glow +With every line the forms of beauty know; +Long ere the iris of the Muses threw +On every leaf its own celestial hue, +In fable's dress the breath of genius poured, +And warmed the shapes that later times adored. + +Untaught by Science how to forge the keys +That loose the gates of Nature's mysteries; +Unschooled by Faith, who, with her angel tread, +Leads through the labyrinth with a single thread, +His fancy, hovering round her guarded tower, +Rained through its bars like Danae's golden shower. + +He spoke; the sea-nymph answered from her cave +He called; the naiad left her mountain wave +He dreamed of beauty; lo, amidst his dream, +Narcissus, mirrored in the breathless stream; +And night's chaste empress, in her bridal play, +Laughed through the foliage where Endymion lay; +And ocean dimpled, as the languid swell +Kissed the red lip of Cytherea's shell + +Of power,--Bellona swept the crimson field, +And blue-eyed Pallas shook her Gorgon shield; +O'er the hushed waves their mightier monarch drove, +And Ida trembled to the tread of Jove! + +So every grace that plastic language knows +To nameless poets its perfection owes. +The rough-hewn words to simplest thoughts confined +Were cut and polished in their nicer mind; +Caught on their edge, imagination's ray +Splits into rainbows, shooting far away;-- +From sense to soul, from soul to sense, it flies, +And through all nature links analogies; +He who reads right will rarely look upon +A better poet than his lexicon! + +There is a race which cold, ungenial skies +Breed from decay, as fungous growths arise; +Though dying fast, yet springing fast again, +Which still usurps an unsubstantial reign, +With frames too languid for the charms of sense, +And minds worn down with action too intense; +Tired of a world whose joys they never knew, +Themselves deceived, yet thinking all untrue; +Scarce men without, and less than girls within, +Sick of their life before its cares begin;-- +The dull disease, which drains their feeble hearts, +To life's decay some hectic thrill's imparts, +And lends a force which, like the maniac's power, +Pays with blank years the frenzy of an hour. + +And this is Genius! Say, does Heaven degrade +The manly frame, for health, for action made? +Break down the sinews, rack the brow with pains, +Blanch the right cheek and drain the purple veins, +To clothe the mind with more extended sway, +Thus faintly struggling in degenerate clay? + +No! gentle maid, too ready to admire, +Though false its notes, the pale enthusiast's lyre; +If this be genius, though its bitter springs +Glowed like the morn beneath Aurora's wings, +Seek not the source whose sullen bosom feeds +But fruitless flowers and dark, envenomed weeds. + +But, if so bright the dear illusion seems, +Thou wouldst be partner of thy poet's dreams, +And hang in rapture on his bloodless charms, +Or die, like Raphael, in his angel arms, +Go and enjoy thy blessed lot,--to share +In Cowper's gloom or Chatterton's despair! + +Not such were they whom, wandering o'er the waves, +I looked to meet, but only found their graves; +If friendship's smile, the better part of fame, +Should lend my song the only wreath I claim, +Whose voice would greet me with a sweeter tone, +Whose living hand more kindly press my own, +Than theirs,--could Memory, as her silent tread +Prints the pale flowers that blossom o'er the dead, +Those breathless lips, now closed in peace, restore, +Or wake those pulses hushed to beat no more? + +Thou calm, chaste scholar! I can see thee now, +The first young laurels on thy pallid brow, +O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down +In graceful folds the academic gown, +On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught +How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought, +And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye, +Too bright to live,--but oh, too fair to die! + +And thou, dear friend, whom Science still deplores, +And Love still mourns, on ocean-severed shores, +Though the bleak forest twice has bowed with snow +Since thou wast laid its budding leaves below, +Thine image mingles with my closing strain, +As when we wandered by the turbid Seine, +Both blessed with hopes, which revelled, bright and free, +On all we longed or all we dreamed to be; +To thee the amaranth and the cypress fell,-- +And I was spared to breathe this last farewell! + +But lived there one in unremembered days, +Or lives there still, who spurns the poet's bays, +Whose fingers, dewy from Castalia's springs, +Rest on the lyre, yet scorn to touch the strings? +Who shakes the senate with the silver tone +The groves of Pindus might have sighed to own? +Have such e'er been? Remember Canning's name! +Do such still live? Let "Alaric's Dirge" proclaim! + +Immortal Art! where'er the rounded sky +Bends o'er the cradle where thy children lie, +Their home is earth, their herald every tongue +Whose accents echo to the voice that sung. +One leap of Ocean scatters on the sand +The quarried bulwarks of the loosening land; +One thrill of earth dissolves a century's toil +Strewed like the leaves that vanish in the soil; +One hill o'erflows, and cities sink below, +Their marbles splintering in the lava's glow; +But one sweet tone, scarce whispered to the air, +From shore to shore the blasts of ages bear; +One humble name, which oft, perchance, has borne +The tyrant's mockery and the courtier's scorn, +Towers o'er the dust of earth's forgotten graves, +As once, emerging through the waste of waves, +The rocky Titan, round whose shattered spear +Coiled the last whirlpool of the drowning sphere! + + + + + + + ADDITIONAL POEMS + + 1837-1848 + + + THE PILGRIM'S VISION + +IN the hour of twilight shadows +The Pilgrim sire looked out; +He thought of the "bloudy Salvages " +That lurked all round about, +Of Wituwamet's pictured knife +And Pecksuot's whooping shout; +For the baby's limbs were feeble, +Though his father's arms were stout. + +His home was a freezing cabin, +Too bare for the hungry rat; +Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, +And bald enough of that; +The hole that served for casement +Was glazed with an ancient hat, +And the ice was gently thawing +From the log whereon he sat. + +Along the dreary landscape +His eyes went to and fro, + +The trees all clad in icicles, +The streams that did not flow; +A sudden thought flashed o'er him,-- +A dream of long ago,-- +He smote his leathern jerkin, +And murmured, "Even so!" + +"Come hither, God-be-Glorified, +And sit upon my knee; +Behold the dream unfolding, +Whereof I spake to thee +By the winter's hearth in Leyden +And on the stormy sea. +True is the dream's beginning,-- +So may its ending be! + +"I saw in the naked forest +Our scattered remnant cast, +A screen of shivering branches +Between them and the blast; +The snow was falling round them, +The dying fell as fast; +I looked to see them perish, +When lo, the vision passed. + +"Again mine eyes were opened;-- +The feeble had waxed strong, +The babes had grown to sturdy men, +The remnant was a throng; +By shadowed lake and winding stream, +And all the shores along, +The howling demons quaked to hear +The Christian's godly song. + +"They slept, the village fathers, +By river, lake, and shore, +When far adown the steep of Time +The vision rose once more +I saw along the winter snow +A spectral column pour, +And high above their broken ranks +A tattered flag they bore. + +"Their Leader rode before them, +Of bearing calm and high, +The light of Heaven's own kindling +Throned in his awful eye; +These were a Nation's champions +Her dread appeal to try. +God for the right! I faltered, +And lo, the train passed by. + +"Once more;--the strife is ended, +The solemn issue tried, +The Lord of Hosts, his mighty arm +Has helped our Israel's side; +Gray stone and grassy hillock +Tell where our martyrs died, +But peaceful smiles the harvest, +And stainless flows the tide. + +"A crash, as when some swollen cloud +Cracks o'er the tangled trees +With side to side, and spar to spar, +Whose smoking decks are these? +I know Saint George's blood-red cross, +Thou Mistress of the Seas, +But what is she whose streaming bars +Roll out before the breeze? + +"Ah, well her iron ribs are knit, +Whose thunders strive to quell +The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, +That pealed the Armada's knell! +The mist was cleared,--a wreath of stars +Rose o'er the crimsoned swell, +And, wavering from its haughty peak, +The cross of England fell + +"O trembling Faith! though dark the morn, +A heavenly torch is thine; +While feebler races melt away, +And paler orbs decline, +Still shall the fiery pillar's ray +Along thy pathway shine, +To light the chosen tribe that sought +This Western Palestine + +"I see the living tide roll on; +It crowns with flaming towers +The icy capes of Labrador, +The Spaniard's 'land of flowers'! +It streams beyond the splintered ridge +That parts the northern showers; +From eastern rock to sunset wave +The Continent is ours!" + +He ceased, the grim old soldier-saint, +Then softly bent to cheer +The Pilgrim-child, whose wasting face +Was meekly turned to hear; +And drew his toil-worn sleeve across +To brush the manly tear +From cheeks that never changed in woe, +And never blanched in fear. + +The weary Pilgrim slumbers, +His resting-place unknown; +His hands were crossed, his lips were closed, +The dust was o'er him strown; +The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf, +Along the sod were blown; +His mound has melted into earth, +His memory lives alone. + +So let it live unfading, +The memory of the dead, +Long as the pale anemone +Springs where their tears were shed, +Or, raining in the summer's wind +In flakes of burning red, +The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves +The turf where once they bled! + +Yea, when the frowning bulwarks +That guard this holy strand +Have sunk beneath the trampling surge +In beds of sparkling sand, +While in the waste of ocean +One hoary rock shall stand, +Be this its latest legend,-- +HERE WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND! + + + + + +THE STEAMBOAT + +SEE how yon flaming herald treads +The ridged and rolling waves, +As, crashing o'er their crested heads, +She bows her surly slaves! +With foam before and fire behind, +She rends the clinging sea, +That flies before the roaring wind, +Beneath her hissing lee. + +The morning spray, like sea-born flowers, +With heaped and glistening bells, +Falls round her fast, in ringing showers, +With every wave that swells; +And, burning o'er the midnight deep, +In lurid fringes thrown, +The living gems of ocean sweep +Along her flashing zone. + +With clashing wheel and lifting keel, +And smoking torch on high, +When winds are loud and billows reel, +She thunders foaming by; +When seas are silent and serene, +With even beam she glides, +The sunshine glimmering through the green +That skirts her gleaming sides. + +Now, like a wild, nymph, far apart +She veils her shadowy form, +The beating of her restless heart +Still sounding through the storm; +Now answers, like a courtly dame, +The reddening surges o'er, +With flying scarf of spangled flame, +The Pharos of the shore. + +To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, +Who trims his narrowed sail; +To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep +Her broad breast to the gale; +And many a foresail, scooped and strained, +Shall break from yard and stay, +Before this smoky wreath has stained +The rising mist of day. + +Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, +I see yon quivering mast; +The black throat of the hunted cloud +Is panting forth the blast! +An hour, and, whirled like winnowing chaff, +The giant surge shall fling +His tresses o'er yon pennon staff, +White as the sea-bird's wing + +Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; +Nor wind nor wave shall tire +Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap +With floods of living fire; +Sleep on, and, when the morning light +Streams o'er the shining bay, +Oh think of those for whom the night +Shall never wake in day + + + + + +LEXINGTON + +SLOWLY the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, +Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, +When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, +Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. +Waving her golden veil +Over the silent dale, +Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; +Hushed was his parting sigh, +While from his noble eye +Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. + +On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing +Calmly the first-born of glory have met; +Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing! +Look! with their life-blood the young grass is wet +Faint is the feeble breath, +Murmuring low in death, +"Tell to our sons how their fathers have died;" +Nerveless the iron hand, +Raised for its native land, +Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. + +Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, +From their far hamlets the yeomanry come; +As through the storm-clouds the thunder-burst rolling, +Circles the beat of the mustering drum. +Fast on the soldier's path +Darken the waves of wrath,-- +Long have they gathered and loud shall they fall; +Red glares the musket's flash, +Sharp rings the rifle's crash, +Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall. + +Gayly the plume of the horseman was dancing, +Never to shadow his cold brow again; +Proudly at morning the war-steed was prancing, +Reeking and panting he droops on the rein; +Pale is the lip of scorn, +Voiceless the trumpet horn, +Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on high; +Many a belted breast +Low on the turf shall rest +Ere the dark hunters the herd have passed by. + +Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is raving, +Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, +Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, +Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale; +Far as the tempest thrills +Over the darkened hills, +Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, +Roused by the tyrant band, +Woke all the mighty land, +Girded for battle, from mountain to main. + +Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying! +Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest, +While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying +Wraps the proud eagle they roused from his nest. +Borne on her Northern pine, +Long o'er the foaming brine +Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun; +Heaven keep her ever free, +Wide as o'er land and sea +Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won + + + + + +ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL + +This "punch-bowl" was, according to old family tradition, a caudle-cup. +It is a massive piece of silver, its cherubs and other ornaments of +coarse repousse work, and has two handles like a loving-cup, by which +it was held, or passed from guest to guest. + +THIS ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times, +Of joyous days and jolly nights, and merry Christmas times; +They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true, +Who dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new. + +A Spanish galleon brought the bar,--so runs the ancient tale; +'T was hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail; +And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail, +He wiped his brow and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale. + +'T was purchased by an English squire to please his loving dame, +Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; +And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found, +'T was filled with candle spiced and hot, and handed smoking round. + +But, changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan divine, +Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine, +But hated punch and prelacy; and so it was, perhaps, +He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and schnapps. + +And then, of course, you know what's next: it left the Dutchman's shore +With those that in the Mayflower came,--a hundred souls and more,-- +Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes,-- +To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred loads. + +'T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing, dim, +When brave Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to the brim; +The little Captain stood and stirred the posset with his sword, +And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board. + +He poured the fiery Hollands in,--the man that never feared,-- +He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard; +And one by one the musketeers--the men that fought and prayed-- +All drank as 't were their mother's milk, and not a man afraid. + +That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle flew, +He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild halloo; +And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith and kin, +Run from the white man when you find he smells of "Hollands gin!" + +A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves and snows, +A thousand rubs had flattened down each little cherub's nose, +When once again the bowl was filled, but not in mirth or joy,-- +'T was mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting boy. + +Drink, John, she said, 't will do you good,--poor child, +you'll never bear +This working in the dismal trench, out in the midnight air; +And if--God bless me!--you were hurt, 't would keep away the chill. +So John did drink,--and well he wrought that night at Bunker's Hill! + +I tell you, there was generous warmth in good old English cheer; +I tell you, 't was a pleasant thought to bring its symbol here. +'T is but the fool that loves excess; hast thou a drunken soul? +Thy bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my silver bowl! + +I love the memory of the past,--its pressed yet fragrant flowers,-- +The moss that clothes its broken walls, the ivy on its towers; +Nay, this poor bauble it bequeathed,--my eyes grow moist and dim, +To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its brim. + +Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to me; +The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er the liquid be; +And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the sin +That dooms one to those dreadful words,--"My dear, where HAVE you been?" + + + + + +A SONG + +FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 1836 + +This song, which I had the temerity to sing myself (/felix auda-cia/, +Mr. Franklin Dexter had the goodness to call it), was sent in a little +too late to be printed with the official account of the celebration. It +was written at the suggestion of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who thought the +popular tune "The Poacher's Song" would be a good model for a lively +ballad or ditty. He himself wrote the admirable Latin song to be found +in the record of the meeting. + +WHEN the Puritans came over +Our hills and swamps to clear, +The woods were full of catamounts, +And Indians red as deer, +With tomahawks and scalping-knives, +That make folks' heads look queer; +Oh the ship from England used to bring +A hundred wigs a year! + +The crows came cawing through the air +To pluck the Pilgrims' corn, +The bears came snuffing round the door +Whene'er a babe was born, +The rattlesnakes were bigger round +Than the but of the old rams horn +The deacon blew at meeting time +On every "Sabbath" morn. + +But soon they knocked the wigwams down, +And pine-tree trunk and limb +Began to sprout among the leaves +In shape of steeples slim; +And out the little wharves were stretched +Along the ocean's rim, +And up the little school-house shot +To keep the boys in trim. + +And when at length the College rose, +The sachem cocked his eye +At every tutor's meagre ribs +Whose coat-tails whistled by +But when the Greek and Hebrew words +Came tumbling from his jaws, +The copper-colored children all +Ran screaming to the squaws. + +And who was on the Catalogue +When college was begun? +Two nephews of the President, +And the Professor's son; +(They turned a little Indian by, +As brown as any bun;) +Lord! how the seniors knocked about +The freshman class of one! + +They had not then the dainty things +That commons now afford, +But succotash and hominy +Were smoking on the board; +They did not rattle round in gigs, +Or dash in long-tailed blues, +But always on Commencement days +The tutors blacked their shoes. + +God bless the ancient Puritans! +Their lot was hard enough; +But honest hearts make iron arms, +And tender maids are tough; +So love and faith have formed and fed +Our true-born Yankee stuff, +And keep the kernel in the shell +The British found so rough! + + + + + +THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG + +The island referred to is a domain of princely proportions, which has +long been the seat of a generous hospitality. Naushon is its old Indian +name. William Swain, Esq., commonly known as "the Governor," was the +proprietor of it at the time when this song was written. Mr. John M. +Forbes is his worthy successor in territorial rights and as a hospitable +entertainer. The Island Book has been the recipient of many poems from +visitors and friends of the owners of the old mansion. + +No more the summer floweret charms, +The leaves will soon be sere, +And Autumn folds his jewelled arms +Around the dying year; +So, ere the waning seasons claim +Our leafless groves awhile, +With golden wine and glowing flame +We 'll crown our lonely isle. + +Once more the merry voices sound +Within the antlered hall, +And long and loud the baying hounds +Return the hunter's call; +And through the woods, and o'er the hill, +And far along the bay, +The driver's horn is sounding shrill,-- +Up, sportsmen, and away! + +No bars of steel or walls of stone +Our little empire bound, +But, circling with his azure zone, +The sea runs foaming round; +The whitening wave, the purpled skies, +The blue and lifted shore, +Braid with their dim and blending dyes +Our wide horizon o'er. + +And who will leave the grave debate +That shakes the smoky town, +To rule amid our island-state, +And wear our oak-leaf crown? +And who will be awhile content +To hunt our woodland game, +And leave the vulgar pack that scent +The reeking track of fame? + +Ah, who that shares in toils like these +Will sigh not to prolong +Our days beneath the broad-leaved trees, +Our nights of mirth and song? +Then leave the dust of noisy streets, +Ye outlaws of the wood, +And follow through his green retreats +Your noble Robin Hood. + + + + + +DEPARTED DAYS + +YES, dear departed, cherished days, +Could Memory's hand restore +Your morning light, your evening rays, +From Time's gray urn once more, +Then might this restless heart be still, +This straining eye might close, +And Hope her fainting pinions fold, +While the fair phantoms rose. + +But, like a child in ocean's arms, +We strive against the stream, +Each moment farther from the shore +Where life's young fountains gleam; +Each moment fainter wave the fields, +And wider rolls the sea; +The mist grows dark,--the sun goes down,-- +Day breaks,--and where are we? + + + + + +THE ONLY DAUGHTER + +ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE + +THEY bid me strike the idle strings, +As if my summer days +Had shaken sunbeams from their wings +To warm my autumn lays; +They bring to me their painted urn, +As if it were not time +To lift my gauntlet and to spurn +The lists of boyish rhyme; +And were it not that I have still +Some weakness in my heart +That clings around my stronger will +And pleads for gentler art, +Perchance I had not turned away +The thoughts grown tame with toil, +To cheat this lone and pallid ray, +That wastes the midnight oil. + +Alas! with every year I feel +Some roses leave my brow; +Too young for wisdom's tardy seal, +Too old for garlands now. +Yet, while the dewy breath of spring +Steals o'er the tingling air, +And spreads and fans each emerald wing +The forest soon shall wear. +How bright the opening year would seem, +Had I one look like thine +To meet me when the morning beam +Unseals these lids of mine! +Too long I bear this lonely lot, +That bids my heart run wild +To press the lips that love me not, +To clasp the stranger's child. + +How oft beyond the dashing seas, +Amidst those royal bowers, +Where danced the lilacs in the breeze, +And swung the chestnut-flowers, +I wandered like a wearied slave +Whose morning task is done, +To watch the little hands that gave +Their whiteness to the sun; +To revel in the bright young eyes, +Whose lustre sparkled through +The sable fringe of Southern skies +Or gleamed in Saxon blue! +How oft I heard another's name +Called in some truant's tone; +Sweet accents! which I longed to claim, +To learn and lisp my own! + +Too soon the gentle hands, that pressed +The ringlets of the child, +Are folded on the faithful breast +Where first he breathed and smiled; +Too oft the clinging arms untwine, +The melting lips forget, +And darkness veils the bridal shrine +Where wreaths and torches met; +If Heaven but leaves a single thread +Of Hope's dissolving chain, +Even when her parting plumes are spread, +It bids them fold again; +The cradle rocks beside the tomb; +The cheek now changed and chill +Smiles on us in the morning bloom +Of one that loves us still. + +Sweet image! I have done thee wrong +To claim this destined lay; +The leaf that asked an idle song +Must bear my tears away. +Yet, in thy memory shouldst thou keep +This else forgotten strain, +Till years have taught thine eyes to weep, +And flattery's voice is vain; +Oh then, thou fledgling of the nest, +Like the long-wandering dove, +Thy weary heart may faint for rest, +As mine, on changeless love; +And while these sculptured lines retrace +The hours now dancing by, +This vision of thy girlish grace +May cost thee, too, a sigh. + + + + + +SONG + +WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO CHARLES DICKENS +BY THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1, 1842 + +THE stars their early vigils keep, +The silent hours are near, +When drooping eyes forget to weep,-- +Yet still we linger here; +And what--the passing churl may ask-- +Can claim such wondrous power, +That Toil forgets his wonted task, +And Love his promised hour? + +The Irish harp no longer thrills, +Or breathes a fainter tone; +The clarion blast from Scotland's hills, +Alas! no more is blown; +And Passion's burning lip bewails +Her Harold's wasted fire, +Still lingering o'er the dust that veils +The Lord of England's lyre. + +But grieve not o'er its broken strings, +Nor think its soul hath died, +While yet the lark at heaven's gate sings, +As once o'er Avon's side; +While gentle summer sheds her bloom, +And dewy blossoms wave, +Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb +And Nelly's nameless grave. + +Thou glorious island of the sea! +Though wide the wasting flood +That parts our distant land from thee, +We claim thy generous blood; +Nor o'er thy far horizon springs +One hallowed star of fame, +But kindles, like an angel's wings, +Our western skies in flame! + + + + + +LINES + +RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE, +PITTSFIELD, MASS., AUGUST 23, 1844 + +COME back to your mother, ye children, for shame, +Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! +With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, +She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. + +Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes, +And breathe, like young eagles, the air of our plains; +Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives +Will declare it 's all nonsense insuring your lives. + +Come you of the law, who can talk, if you please, +Till the man in the moon will allow it's a cheese, +And leave "the old lady, that never tells lies," +To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes. + +Ye healers of men, for a moment decline +Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac line; +While you shut up your turnpike, your neighbors can go +The old roundabout road to the regions below. + +You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens, +And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens, +Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still +As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill. + +Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels, +With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels +No dodger behind, his bandannas to share, +No constable grumbling, "You must n't walk there!" + +In yonder green meadow, to memory dear, +He slaps a mosquito and brushes a tear; +The dew-drops hang round him on blossoms and shoots, +He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots. + +There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church; +That tree at its side had the flavor of birch; +Oh, sweet were the days of his juvenile tricks, +Though the prairie of youth had so many "big licks." + +By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps, +The boots fill with water, as if they were pumps, +Till, sated with rapture, he steals to his bed, +With a glow in his heart and a cold in his head. + +'T is past,--he is dreaming,--I see him again; +The ledger returns as by legerdemain; +His neckcloth is damp with an easterly flaw, +And he holds in his fingers an omnibus straw. + +He dreams the chill gust is a blossomy gale, +That the straw is a rose from his dear native vale; +And murmurs, unconscious of space and of time, +"A 1. Extra super. Ah, is n't it PRIME!" + +Oh, what are the prizes we perish to win +To the first little "shiner" we caught with a pin! +No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes +As the soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies! + +Then come from all parties and parts to our feast; +Though not at the "Astor," we'll give you at least +A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass, +And the best of old--water--at nothing a glass. + + + + + +NUX POSTCOENATICA + +I WAS sitting with my microscope, upon my parlor rug, +With a very heavy quarto and a very lively bug; +The true bug had been organized with only two antennae, +But the humbug in the copperplate would have them twice as many. + +And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the emptiness of art, +How we take a fragment for the whole, and call the whole a part, +When I heard a heavy footstep that was loud enough for two, +And a man of forty entered, exclaiming, "How d' ye do?" + +He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid flesh and bone; +He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was twenty stone; +(It's odd how hats expand their brims as riper years invade, +As if when life had reached its noon it wanted them for shade!) + +I lost my focus,--dropped my book,--the bug, who was a flea, +At once exploded, and commenced experiments on me. +They have a certain heartiness that frequently appalls,-- +Those mediaeval gentlemen in semilunar smalls! + +"My boy," he said, (colloquial ways,--the vast, broad-hatted man,) +"Come dine with us on Thursday next,--you must, you know you can; +We're going to have a roaring time, with lots of fun and noise, +Distinguished guests, et cetera, the JUDGE, and all the boys." + +Not so,--I said,--my temporal bones are showing pretty clear. +It 's time to stop,--just look and see that hair above this ear; +My golden days are more than spent,--and, what is very strange, +If these are real silver hairs, I'm getting lots of change. + +Besides--my prospects--don't you know that people won't employ +A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a boy? +And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot, +As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root? + +It's a very fine reflection, when you 're etching out a smile +On a copperplate of faces that would stretch at least a mile, +That, what with sneers from enemies and cheapening shrugs of friends, +It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labor lends! + +It's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you're screwing out a laugh, +That your very next year's income is diminished by a half, +And a little boy trips barefoot that Pegasus may go, +And the baby's milk is watered that your Helicon may flow! + +No;--the joke has been a good one,--but I'm getting fond of quiet, +And I don't like deviations from my customary diet; +So I think I will not go with you to hear the toasts and speeches, +But stick to old Montgomery Place, and have some pig and peaches. + +The fat man answered: Shut your mouth, and hear the genuine creed; +The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed; +The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, +And that young earthquake t' other day was great at shaking props. + +I tell you what, philosopher, if all the longest heads +That ever knocked their sinciputs in stretching on their beds +Were round one great mahogany, I'd beat those fine old folks +With twenty dishes, twenty fools, and twenty clever jokes! + +Why, if Columbus should be there, the company would beg +He'd show that little trick of his of balancing the egg! +Milton to Stilton would give in, and Solomon to Salmon, +And Roger Bacon be a bore, and Francis Bacon gammon! + +And as for all the "patronage" of all the clowns and boors +That squint their little narrow eyes at any freak of yours, +Do leave them to your prosier friends,--such fellows ought to die +When rhubarb is so very scarce and ipecac so high! + +And so I come,--like Lochinvar, to tread a single measure,-- +To purchase with a loaf of bread a sugar-plum of pleasure, +To enter for the cup of glass that's run for after dinner, +Which yields a single sparkling draught, +then breaks and cuts the winner. + +Ah, that's the way delusion comes,--a glass of old Madeira, +A pair of visual diaphragms revolved by Jane or Sarah, +And down go vows and promises without the slightest question +If eating words won't compromise the organs of digestion! + +And yet, among my native shades, beside my nursing mother, +Where every stranger seems a friend, and every friend a brother, +I feel the old convivial glow (unaided) o'er me stealing,-- +The warm, champagny, the old-particular brandy-punchy feeling. + +We're all alike;--Vesuvius flings the scoriae from his fountain, +But down they come in volleying rain back to the burning mountain; +We leave, like those volcanic stones, our precious Alma Mater, +But will keep dropping in again to see the dear old crater. + + + + + +VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER +PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, 1844 + +I WAS thinking last night, as I sat in the cars, +With the charmingest prospect of cinders and stars, +Next Thursday is--bless me!--how hard it will be, +If that cannibal president calls upon me! + +There is nothing on earth that he will not devour, +From a tutor in seed to a freshman in flower; +No sage is too gray, and no youth is too green, +And you can't be too plump, though you're never too lean. + +While others enlarge on the boiled and the roast, +He serves a raw clergyman up with a toast, +Or catches some doctor, quite tender and young, +And basely insists on a bit of his tongue. + +Poor victim, prepared for his classical spit, +With a stuffing of praise and a basting of wit, +You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle your brow, +But you're up on your legs, and you're in for it now. + +Oh think of your friends,--they are waiting to hear +Those jokes that are thought so remarkably queer; +And all the Jack Horners of metrical buns +Are prying and fingering to pick out the puns. + +Those thoughts which, like chickens, will always thrive best +When reared by the heat of the natural nest, +Will perish if hatched from their embryo dream +In the mist and the glow of convivial steam. + +Oh pardon me, then, if I meekly retire, +With a very small flash of ethereal fire; +No rubbing will kindle your Lucifer match, +If the fiz does not follow the primitive scratch. + +Dear friends, who are listening so sweetly the while, +With your lips double--reefed in a snug little smile, +I leave you two fables, both drawn from the deep,-- +The shells you can drop, but the pearls you may keep. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +The fish called the FLOUNDER, perhaps you may know, +Has one side for use and another for show; +One side for the public, a delicate brown, +And one that is white, which he always keeps down. + +A very young flounder, the flattest of flats, +(And they 're none of them thicker than opera hats,) +Was speaking more freely than charity taught +Of a friend and relation that just had been caught. + +"My! what an exposure! just see what a sight! +I blush for my race,--be is showing his white +Such spinning and wriggling,--why, what does he wish? +How painfully small to respectable fish!" + +Then said an Old SCULPIN,--"My freedom excuse, +You're playing the cobbler with holes in your shoes; +Your brown side is up,--but just wait till you're tried +And you'll find that all flounders are white on one side." + + . . . . . . . . . . + +There's a slice near the PICKEREL'S pectoral fins, +Where the thorax leaves off and the venter begins, +Which his brother, survivor of fish-hooks and lines, +Though fond of his family, never declines. + +He loves his relations; he feels they'll be missed; +But that one little tidbit he cannot resist; +So your bait may be swallowed, no matter how fast, +For you catch your next fish with a piece of the last. + +And thus, O survivor, whose merciless fate +Is to take the next hook with the president's bait, +You are lost while you snatch from the end of his line +The morsel he rent from this bosom of mine! + + + + + +A MODEST REQUEST + +COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE DINNER AT +PRESIDENT EVERETT'S INAUGURATION + +SCENE,--a back parlor in a certain square, +Or court, or lane,--in short, no matter where; +Time,--early morning, dear to simple souls +Who love its sunshine and its fresh-baked rolls; +Persons,--take pity on this telltale blush, +That, like the AEthiop, whispers, "Hush, oh hush!" + +Delightful scene! where smiling comfort broods, +Nor business frets, nor anxious care intrudes; +/O si sic omnia/ I were it ever so! +But what is stable in this world below? +/Medio e fonte/,--Virtue has her faults,-- +The clearest fountains taste of Epsom salts; +We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry,-- +Its central dimple holds a drowning fly +Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams, +But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams; +No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, +Can keep out death, the postman, or the bore. +Oh for a world where peace and silence reign, +And blunted dulness terebrates in vain! +--The door-bell jingles,--enter Richard Fox, +And takes this letter from his leathern box. + +"Dear Sir,-- + In writing on a former day, +One little matter I forgot to say; +I now inform you in a single line, +On Thursday next our purpose is to dine. +The act of feeding, as you understand, +Is but a fraction of the work in hand; +Its nobler half is that ethereal meat +The papers call 'the intellectual treat;' +Songs, speeches, toasts, around the festive board +Drowned in the juice the College pumps afford; +For only water flanks our knives and forks, +So, sink or float, we swim without the corks. +Yours is the art, by native genius taught, +To clothe in eloquence the naked thought; +Yours is the skill its music to prolong +Through the sweet effluence of mellifluous song; +Yours the quaint trick to cram the pithy line +That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine; +And since success your various gifts attends, +We--that is, I and all your numerous friends-- +Expect from you--your single self a host-- +A speech, a song, excuse me, and a toast; +Nay, not to haggle on so small a claim, +A few of each, or several of the same. +(Signed), Yours, most truly, ________ + + No! my sight must fail,-- +If that ain't Judas on the largest scale! +Well, this is modest;--nothing else than that? +My coat? my boots? my pantaloons? my hat? +My stick? my gloves? as well as all my wits, +Learning and linen,--everything that fits! + +Jack, said my lady, is it grog you'll try, +Or punch, or toddy, if perhaps you're dry? +Ah, said the sailor, though I can't refuse, +You know, my lady, 't ain't for me to choose; +I'll take the grog to finish off my lunch, +And drink the toddy while you mix the punch. + + . . . . . . . . + +THE SPEECH. (The speaker, rising to be seen, +Looks very red, because so very green.) +I rise--I rise--with unaffected fear, +(Louder!--speak louder!--who the deuce can hear?) +I rise--I said--with undisguised dismay-- +--Such are my feelings as I rise, I say +Quite unprepared to face this learned throng, +Already gorged with eloquence and song; +Around my view are ranged on either hand +The genius, wisdom, virtue of the land; +"Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed" +Close at my elbow stir their lemonade; +Would you like Homer learn to write and speak, +That bench is groaning with its weight of Greek; +Behold the naturalist who in his teens +Found six new species in a dish of greens; +And lo, the master in a statelier walk, +Whose annual ciphering takes a ton of chalk; +And there the linguist, who by common roots +Thro' all their nurseries tracks old Noah's shoots,-- +How Shem's proud children reared the Assyrian piles, +While Ham's were scattered through the Sandwich Isles! + +--Fired at the thought of all the present shows, +My kindling fancy down the future flows: +I see the glory of the coming days +O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming rays; +Near and more near the radiant morning draws +In living lustre (rapturous applause); +From east to west the blazing heralds run, +Loosed from the chariot of the ascending sun, +Through the long vista of uncounted years +In cloudless splendor (three tremendous cheers). +My eye prophetic, as the depths unfold, +Sees a new advent of the age of gold; +While o'er the scene new generations press, +New heroes rise the coming time to bless,-- +Not such as Homer's, who, we read in Pope, +Dined without forks and never heard of soap,-- +Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel brings, +Lean, hungry, savage, anti-everythings, +Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style,-- +But genuine articles, the true Carlyle; +While far on high the blazing orb shall shed +Its central light on Harvard's holy head, +And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled +Here in the focus of the new-born world +The speaker stops, and, trampling down the pause, +Roars through the hall the thunder of applause, +One stormy gust of long-suspended Ahs! +One whirlwind chaos of insane hurrahs! + + . . . . . . . . + +THE SONG. But this demands a briefer line,-- +A shorter muse, and not the old long Nine; +Long metre answers for a common song, +Though common metre does not answer long. + +She came beneath the forest dome +To seek its peaceful shade, +An exile from her ancient home, +A poor, forsaken maid; +No banner, flaunting high above, +No blazoned cross, she bore; +One holy book of light and love +Was all her worldly store. + +The dark brown shadows passed away, +And wider spread the green, +And where the savage used to stray +The rising mart was seen; +So, when the laden winds had brought +Their showers of golden rain, +Her lap some precious gleanings caught, +Like Ruth's amid the grain. + +But wrath soon gathered uncontrolled +Among the baser churls, +To see her ankles red with gold, +Her forehead white with pearls. +"Who gave to thee the glittering bands +That lace thine azure veins? +Who bade thee lift those snow-white hands +We bound in gilded chains?" + +"These are the gems my children gave," +The stately dame replied; +"The wise, the gentle, and the brave, +I nurtured at my side. +If envy still your bosom stings, +Take back their rims of gold; +My sons will melt their wedding-rings, +And give a hundred-fold!" + + . . . . . . . . + +THE TOAST. Oh tell me, ye who thoughtless ask +Exhausted nature for a threefold task, +In wit or pathos if one share remains, +A safe investment for an ounce of brains! +Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun, +A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one. +Turned by the current of some stronger wit +Back from the object that you mean to hit, +Like the strange missile which the Australian throws, +Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose. +One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, +One trivial letter ruins all, left out; +A knot can choke a felon into clay, +A not will save him, spelt without the k; +The smallest word has some unguarded spot, +And danger lurks in i without a dot. + +Thus great Achilles, who had shown his zeal +In healing wounds, died of a wounded heel; +Unhappy chief, who, when in childhood doused, +Had saved his bacon had his feet been soused +Accursed heel that killed a hero stout +Oh, had your mother known that you were out, +Death had not entered at the trifling part +That still defies the small chirurgeon's art +With corns and bunions,--not the glorious John, +Who wrote the book we all have pondered on, +But other bunions, bound in fleecy hose, +To "Pilgrim's Progress" unrelenting foes! + + . . . . . . . . + +A HEALTH, unmingled with the reveller's wine, +To him whose title is indeed divine; +Truth's sleepless watchman on her midnight tower, +Whose lamp burns brightest when the tempests lower. +Oh, who can tell with what a leaden flight +Drag the long watches of his weary night, +While at his feet the hoarse and blinding gale +Strews the torn wreck and bursts the fragile sail, +When stars have faded, when the wave is dark, +When rocks and sands embrace the foundering bark! +But still he pleads with unavailing cry, +Behold the light, O wanderer, look or die! + +A health, fair Themis! Would the enchanted vine +Wreathed its green tendrils round this cup of thine! +If Learning's radiance fill thy modern court, +Its glorious sunshine streams through Blackstone's port + +Lawyers are thirsty, and their clients too, +Witness at least, if memory serve me true, +Those old tribunals, famed for dusty suits, +Where men sought justice ere they brushed their boots; +And what can match, to solve a learned doubt, +The warmth within that comes from "cold with-out "? + +Health to the art whose glory is to give +The crowning boon that makes it life to live. +Ask not her home;--the rock where nature flings +Her arctic lichen, last of living things; +The gardens, fragrant with the orient's balm, +From the low jasmine to the star-like palm, +Hail her as mistress o'er the distant waves, +And yield their tribute to her wandering slaves. +Wherever, moistening the ungrateful soil, +The tear of suffering tracks the path of toil, +There, in the anguish of his fevered hours, +Her gracious finger points to healing flowers; +Where the lost felon steals away to die, +Her soft hand waves before his closing eye; +Where hunted misery finds his darkest lair, +The midnight taper shows her kneeling there! +VIRTUE,--the guide that men and nations own; +And LAW,--the bulwark that protects her throne; +And HEALTH,--to all its happiest charm that lends; +These and their servants, man's untiring friends +Pour the bright lymph that Heaven itself lets fall, +In one fair bumper let us toast them all! + + + + + +THE PARTING WORD + +I MUST leave thee, lady sweet +Months shall waste before we meet; +Winds are fair and sails are spread, +Anchors leave their ocean bed; +Ere this shining day grow dark, +Skies shall gird my shoreless bark. +Through thy tears, O lady mine, +Read thy lover's parting line. + +When the first sad sun shall set, +Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet; +When the morning star shall rise, +Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes; +When the second sun goes down, +Thou more tranquil shalt be grown, +Taught too well that wild despair +Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair. + +All the first unquiet week +Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek; +In the first month's second half +Thou shalt once attempt to laugh; +Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip, +Slightly puckering round the lip, +Till at last, in sorrow's spite, +Samuel makes thee laugh outright. + +While the first seven mornings last, +Round thy chamber bolted fast +Many a youth shall fume and pout, +"Hang the girl, she's always out!" +While the second week goes round, +Vainly shall they ring and pound; +When the third week shall begin, +"Martha, let the creature in." + +Now once more the flattering throng +Round thee flock with smile and song, +But thy lips, unweaned as yet, +Lisp, "Oh, how can I forget!" +Men and devils both contrive +Traps for catching girls alive; +Eve was duped, and Helen kissed,-- +How, oh how can you resist? + +First be careful of your fan, +Trust it not to youth or man; +Love has filled a pirate's sail +Often with its perfumed gale. +Mind your kerchief most of all, +Fingers touch when kerchiefs fall; +Shorter ell than mercers clip +Is the space from hand to lip. + +Trust not such as talk in tropes, +Full of pistols, daggers, ropes; +All the hemp that Russia bears +Scarce would answer lovers' prayers; +Never thread was spun so fine, +Never spider stretched the line, +Would not hold the lovers true +That would really swing for you. + +Fiercely some shall storm and swear, +Beating breasts in black despair; +Others murmur with a sigh, +You must melt, or they will die: +Painted words on empty lies, +Grubs with wings like butterflies; +Let them die, and welcome, too; +Pray what better could they do? + +Fare thee well: if years efface +From thy heart love's burning trace, +Keep, oh keep that hallowed seat +From the tread of vulgar feet; +If the blue lips of the sea +Wait with icy kiss for me, +Let not thine forget the vow, +Sealed how often, Love, as now. + + + + + +A SONG OF OTHER DAYS + +As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet +Breathes soft the Alpine rose, +So through life's desert springing sweet +The flower of friendship grows; +And as where'er the roses grow +Some rain or dew descends, +'T is nature's law that wine should flow +To wet the lips of friends. +Then once again, before we part, +My empty glass shall ring; +And he that has the warmest heart +Shall loudest laugh and sing. + +They say we were not born to eat; +But gray-haired sages think +It means, Be moderate in your meat, +And partly live to drink. +For baser tribes the rivers flow +That know not wine or song; +Man wants but little drink below, +But wants that little strong. +Then once again, etc. + +If one bright drop is like the gem +That decks a monarch's crown, +One goblet holds a diadem +Of rubies melted down! +A fig for Caesar's blazing brow, +But, like the Egyptian queen, +Bid each dissolving jewel glow +My thirsty lips between. +Then once again, etc. + +The Grecian's mound, the Roman's urn, +Are silent when we call, +Yet still the purple grapes return +To cluster on the wall; +It was a bright Immortal's head +They circled with the vine, +And o'er their best and bravest dead +They poured the dark-red wine. +Then once again, etc. + +Methinks o'er every sparkling glass +Young Eros waves his wings, +And echoes o'er its dimples pass +From dead Anacreon's strings; +And, tossing round its beaded brim +Their locks of floating gold, +With bacchant dance and choral hymn +Return the nymphs of old. +Then once again, etc. + +A welcome then to joy and mirth, +From hearts as fresh as ours, +To scatter o'er the dust of earth +Their sweetly mingled flowers; +'T is Wisdom's self the cup that fills +In spite of Folly's frown, +And Nature, from her vine-clad hills, +That rains her life-blood down! +Then once again, before we part, +My empty glass shall ring; +And he that has the warmest heart +Shall loudest laugh and sing. + + + + + +SONG + +FOR A TEMPERANCE DINNER TO WHICH LADIES WERE +INVITED (NEW YORK MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, +NOVEMBER, 1842) + +A HEALTH to dear woman! She bids us untwine, +From the cup it encircles, the fast-clinging vine; +But her cheek in its crystal with pleasure will glow, +And mirror its bloom in the bright wave below. + +A health to sweet woman! The days are no more +When she watched for her lord till the revel was o'er, +And smoothed the white pillow, and blushed when he came, +As she pressed her cold lips on his forehead of flame. + +Alas for the loved one! too spotless and fair +The joys of his banquet to chasten and share; +Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, +And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine. + +Joy smiles in the fountain, health flows in the rills, +As their ribbons of silver unwind from the hills; +They breathe not the mist of the bacchanal's dream, +But the lilies of innocence float on their stream. + +Then a health and a welcome to woman once more! +She brings us a passport that laughs at our door; +It is written on crimson,--its letters are pearls,-- +It is countersigned Nature.--So, room for the Girls! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT + +THE pledge of Friendship! it is still divine, +Though watery floods have quenched its burning wine; +Whatever vase the sacred drops may hold, +The gourd, the shell, the cup of beaten gold, +Around its brim the hand of Nature throws +A garland sweeter than the banquet's rose. +Bright are the blushes of the vine-wreathed bowl, +Warm with the sunshine of Anacreon's soul, +But dearer memories gild the tasteless wave +That fainting Sidney perished as he gave. +'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow, +Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow,-- +The diamond dew-drops sparkling through the sand, +Scooped by the Arab in his sunburnt hand, +Or the dark streamlet oozing from the snow, +Where creep and crouch the shuddering Esquimaux; +Ay, in the stream that, ere again we meet, +Shall burst the pavement, glistening at our feet, +And, stealing silent from its leafy hills, +Thread all our alleys with its thousand rills,-- +In each pale draught if generous feeling blend, +And o'er the goblet friend shall smile on friend, +Even cold Cochituate every heart shall warm, +And genial Nature still defy reform! + + + + + +A RHYMED LESSON(URANIA) + +This poem was delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library +Association, October 14, 1846. + +YES, dear Enchantress,--wandering far and long, +In realms unperfumed by the breath of song, +Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets around, +And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground, +Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, +Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, +Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, +Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, +Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme +That blue-eyed misses warble out of time;-- +Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, +Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, +Freed for a moment from the chains of toil, +I tread once more thy consecrated soil; +Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, +Thy subject still, and loyal to thy throne! + +My dazzled glance explores the crowded hall; +Alas, how vain to hope the smiles of all! +I know my audience. All the gay and young +Love the light antics of a playful tongue; +And these, remembering some expansive line +My lips let loose among the nuts and wine, +Are all impatience till the opening pun +Proclaims the witty shamfight is begun. +Two fifths at least, if not the total half, +Have come infuriate for an earthquake laugh; +I know full well what alderman has tied +His red bandanna tight about his side; +I see the mother, who, aware that boys +Perform their laughter with superfluous noise, +Beside her kerchief brought an extra one +To stop the explosions of her bursting son; +I know a tailor, once a friend of mine, +Expects great doings in the button line,-- +For mirth's concussions rip the outward case, +And plant the stitches in a tenderer place. +I know my audience,--these shall have their due; +A smile awaits them ere my song is through! + +I know myself. Not servile for applause, +My Muse permits no deprecating clause; +Modest or vain, she will not be denied +One bold confession due to honest pride; +And well she knows the drooping veil of song +Shall save her boldness from the caviller's wrong. +Her sweeter voice the Heavenly Maid imparts +To tell the secrets of our aching hearts +For this, a suppliant, captive, prostrate, bound, +She kneels imploring at the feet of sound; +For this, convulsed in thought's maternal pains, +She loads her arms with rhyme's resounding chains; +Faint though the music of her fetters be, +It lends one charm,--her lips are ever free! + +Think not I come, in manhood's fiery noon, +To steal his laurels from the stage buffoon; +His sword of lath the harlequin may wield; +Behold the star upon my lifted shield +Though the just critic pass my humble name, +And sweeter lips have drained the cup of fame, +While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's lords, +The soul within was tuned to deeper chords! +Say, shall my arms, in other conflicts taught +To swing aloft the ponderous mace of thought, +Lift, in obedience to a school-girl's law, +Mirth's tinsel wand or laughter's tickling straw? +Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling spear +The pure, warm hearts that bid me welcome here? +No! while I wander through the land of dreams, +To strive with great and play with trifling themes, +Let some kind meaning fill the varied line. +You have your judgment; will you trust to mine? + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Between two breaths what crowded mysteries lie,-- +The first short gasp, the last and long-drawn sigh! +Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, +Forth from the darkness of the past we glide, +As living shadows for a moment seen +In airy pageant on the eternal screen, +Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame, +Then seek the dust and stillness whence we came. + +But whence and why, our trembling souls inquire, +Caught these dim visions their awakening fire? +Oh, who forgets when first the piercing thought +Through childhood's musings found its way unsought? +I AM;--I LIVE. The mystery and the fear +When the dread question, WHAT HAS BROUGHT ME HERE? +Burst through life's twilight, as before the sun +Roll the deep thunders of the morning gun! + +Are angel faces, silent and serene, +Bent on the conflicts of this little scene, +Whose dream-like efforts, whose unreal strife, +Are but the preludes to a larger life? + +Or does life's summer see the end of all, +These leaves of being mouldering as they fall, +As the old poet vaguely used to deem, +As WESLEY questioned in his youthful dream? +Oh, could such mockery reach our souls indeed, +Give back the Pharaohs' or the Athenian's creed; +Better than this a Heaven of man's device,-- +The Indian's sports, the Moslem's paradise! + +Or is our being's only end and aim +To add new glories to our Maker's name, +As the poor insect, shrivelling in the blaze, +Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming rays? +Does earth send upward to the Eternal's ear +The mingled discords of her jarring sphere +To swell his anthem, while creation rings +With notes of anguish from its shattered strings? +Is it for this the immortal Artist means +These conscious, throbbing, agonized machines? + +Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can bind +In chains like these the all-embracing Mind; +No! two-faced bigot, thou dost ill reprove +The sensual, selfish, yet benignant Jove, +And praise a tyrant throned in lonely pride, +Who loves himself, and cares for naught beside; +Who gave thee, summoned from primeval night, +A thousand laws, and not a single right,-- +A heart to feel, and quivering nerves to thrill, +The sense of wrong, the death-defying will; +Who girt thy senses with this goodly frame, +Its earthly glories and its orbs of flame, +Not for thyself, unworthy of a thought, +Poor helpless victim of a life unsought, +But all for him, unchanging and supreme, +The heartless centre of thy frozen scheme + +Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll, +Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul; +The God of love, who gave the breath that warms +All living dust in all its varied forms, +Asks not the tribute of a world like this +To fill the measure of his perfect bliss. +Though winged with life through all its radiant shores, +Creation flowed with unexhausted stores +Cherub and seraph had not yet enjoyed; +For this he called thee from the quickening void! +Nor this alone; a larger gift was thine, +A mightier purpose swelled his vast design +Thought,--conscience,--will,--to make them all thine own, +He rent a pillar from the eternal throne! + +Made in his image, thou must nobly dare +The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. +With eye uplifted, it is thine to view, +From thine own centre, Heaven's o'erarching blue; +So round thy heart a beaming circle lies +No fiend can blot, no hypocrite disguise; +From all its orbs one cheering voice is heard, +Full to thine ear it bears the Father's word, +Now, as in Eden where his first-born trod +"Seek thine own welfare, true to man and God!" +Think not too meanly of thy low estate; +Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create! +Remember whose the sacred lips that tell, +Angels approve thee when thy choice is well; +Remember, One, a judge of righteous men, +Swore to spare Sodom if she held but ten! +Use well the freedom which thy Master gave, +(Think'st thou that Heaven can tolerate a slave?) +And He who made thee to be just and true +Will bless thee, love thee,--ay, respect thee too! + +Nature has placed thee on a changeful tide, +To breast its waves, but not without a guide; +Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, +Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, +As the true current it will falsely feel, +Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; +So will thy CONSCIENCE lose its balanced truth +If passion's lightning fall upon thy youth, +So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold +Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. +Go to yon tower, where busy science plies +Her vast antennae, feeling through the skies +That little vernier on whose slender lines +The midnight taper trembles as it shines, +A silent index, tracks the planets' march +In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch; +Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns, +And marks the spot where Uranus returns. +So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, +The living index which thy Maker traced +Repeats the line each starry Virtue draws +Through the wide circuit of creation's laws; +Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray +Where the dark shadows of temptation stray, +But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light, +And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of night. + +"What is thy creed?" a hundred lips inquire; +"Thou seekest God beneath what Christian spire?" +Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies +Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice; +When man's first incense rose above the plain, +Of earth's two altars one was built by Cain! +Uncursed by doubt, our earliest creed we take; +We love the precepts for the teacher's sake; +The simple lessons which the nursery taught +Fell soft and stainless on the buds of thought, +And the full blossom owes its fairest hue +To those sweet tear-drops of affection's dew. +Too oft the light that led our earlier hours +Fades with the perfume of our cradle flowers; +The clear, cold question chills to frozen doubt; +Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without +Oh then, if Reason waver at thy side, +Let humbler Memory be thy gentle guide; +Go to thy birthplace, and, if faith was there, +Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer! + +Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying arm, +And age, like distance, lends a double charm; +In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom, +What holy awe invests the saintly tomb! +There pride will bow, and anxious care expand, +And creeping avarice come with open hand; +The gay can weep, the impious can adore, +From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel floor +Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains +Through the faint halos of the irised panes. +Yet there are graves, whose rudely-shapen sod +Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod; +Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot, +Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root, +Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name, +The eternal record shall at length proclaim +Pure as the holiest in the long array +Of hooded, mitred, or tiaraed clay! + +Come, seek the air; some pictures we may gain +Whose passing shadows shall not be in vain; +Not from the scenes that crowd the stranger's soil, +Not from our own amidst the stir of toil, +But when the Sabbath brings its kind release, +And Care lies slumbering on the lap of Peace. + +The air is hushed, the street is holy ground; +Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound +As one by one awakes each silent tongue, +It tells the turret whence its voice is flung. +The Chapel, last of sublunary things +That stirs our echoes with the name of Kings, +Whose bell, just glistening from the font and forge, +Rolled its proud requiem for the second George, +Solemn and swelling, as of old it rang, +Flings to the wind its deep, sonorous clang; +The simpler pile, that, mindful of the hour +When Howe's artillery shook its half-built tower, +Wears on its bosom, as a bride might do, +The iron breastpin which the "Rebels" threw, +Wakes the sharp echoes with the quivering thrill +Of keen vibrations, tremulous and shrill; +Aloft, suspended in the morning's fire, +Crash the vast cymbals from the Southern spire; +The Giant, standing by the elm-clad green, +His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene, +Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, +Swings from its brim the swollen floods of sound; +While, sad with memories of the olden time, +Throbs from his tower the Northern Minstrel's chime,-- +Faint, single tones, that spell their ancient song, +But tears still follow as they breathe along. + +Child of the soil, whom fortune sends to range +Where man and nature, faith and customs change, +Borne in thy memory, each familiar tone +Mourns on the winds that sigh in every zone. +When Ceylon sweeps thee with her perfumed breeze +Through the warm billows of the Indian seas; +When--ship and shadow blended both in one-- +Flames o'er thy mast the equatorial sun, +From sparkling midnight to refulgent noon +Thy canvas swelling with the still monsoon; +When through thy shrouds the wild tornado sings, +And thy poor sea-bird folds her tattered wings,-- +Oft will delusion o'er thy senses steal, +And airy echoes ring the Sabbath peal +Then, dim with grateful tears, in long array +Rise the fair town, the island-studded bay, +Home, with its smiling board, its cheering fire, +The half-choked welcome of the expecting sire, +The mother's kiss, and, still if aught remain, +Our whispering hearts shall aid the silent strain. +Ah, let the dreamer o'er the taffrail lean +To muse unheeded, and to weep unseen; +Fear not the tropic's dews, the evening's chills, +His heart lies warm among his triple hills! + +Turned from her path by this deceitful gleam, +My wayward fancy half forgets her theme. +See through the streets that slumbered in repose +The living current of devotion flows, +Its varied forms in one harmonious band +Age leading childhood by its dimpled hand; +Want, in the robe whose faded edges fall +To tell of rags beneath the tartan shawl; +And wealth, in silks that, fluttering to appear, +Lift the deep borders of the proud cashmere. +See, but glance briefly, sorrow-worn and pale, +Those sunken cheeks beneath the widow's veil; +Alone she wanders where with HIM she trod, +No arm to stay her, but she leans on God. +While other doublets deviate here and there, +What secret handcuff binds that pretty pair? +Compactest couple! pressing side to side,-- +Ah, the white bonnet that reveals the bride! +By the white neckcloth, with its straitened tie, +The sober hat, the Sabbath-speaking eye, +Severe and smileless, he that runs may read +The stern disciple of Geneva's creed +Decent and slow, behold his solemn march; +Silent he enters through yon crowded arch. +A livelier bearing of the outward man, +The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan, +Now smartly raised or half profanely twirled,-- +A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day world,-- +Tell their plain story; yes, thine eyes behold +A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. +Down the chill street that curves in gloomiest shade +What marks betray yon solitary maid? +The cheek's red rose that speaks of balmier air, +The Celtic hue that shades her braided hair, +The gilded missal in her kerchief tied,-- +Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side! +Sister in toil, though blanched by colder skies, +That left their azure in her downcast eyes, +See pallid Margaret, Labor's patient child, +Scarce weaned from home, the nursling of the wild, +Where white Katahdin o'er the horizon shines, +And broad Penobscot dashes through the pines. +Still, as she hastes, her careful fingers hold +The unfailing hymn-book in its cambric fold. +Six days at drudgery's heavy wheel she stands, +The seventh sweet morning folds her weary hands. +Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure +He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor! + +This weekly picture faithful Memory draws, +Nor claims the noisy tribute of applause; +Faint is the glow such barren hopes can lend, +And frail the line that asks no loftier end. +Trust me, kind listener, I will yet beguile +Thy saddened features of the promised smile. +This magic mantle thou must well divide, +It has its sable and its ermine side; +Yet, ere the lining of the robe appears, +Take thou in silence what I give in tears. + +Dear listening soul, this transitory scene +Of murmuring stillness, busily serene,-- +This solemn pause, the breathing-space of man, +The halt of toil's exhausted caravan,-- +Comes sweet with music to thy wearied ear; +Rise with its anthems to a holier sphere! + +Deal meekly, gently, with the hopes that guide +The lowliest brother straying from thy side +If right, they bid thee tremble for thine own; +If wrong, the verdict is for God alone + +What though the champions of thy faith esteem +The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream; +Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife +Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life? + +Let my free soul, expanding as it can, +Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan; +But Calvin's dogma shall my lips deride? +In that stern faith my angel Mary died; +Or ask if mercy's milder creed can save, +Sweet sister, risen from thy new-made grave? + +True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled +That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child; +Must thou be raking in the crumbled past +For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast? +See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile +The whitened skull of old Servetus smile! +Round her young heart thy "Romish Upas" threw +Its firm, deep fibres, strengthening as she grew; +Thy sneering voice may call them "Popish tricks," +Her Latin prayers, her dangling crucifix, +But De Profundis blessed her father's grave, +That "idol" cross her dying mother gave! +What if some angel looks with equal eyes +On her and thee, the simple and the wise, +Writes each dark fault against thy brighter creed, +And drops a tear with every foolish bead! +Grieve, as thou must, o'er history's reeking page; +Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age; +Strive with the wanderer from the better path, +Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath; +Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, +Have thine own faith,--but hope and pray for all! + +Faith; Conscience; Love. A meaner task remains, +And humbler thoughts must creep in lowlier strains. +Shalt thou be honest? Ask the worldly schools, +And all will tell thee knaves are busier fools; +Prudent? Industrious? Let not modern pens +Instruct "Poor Richard's" fellow-citizens. + +Be firm! One constant element in luck +Is genuine solid old Teutonic pluck. +See yon tall shaft; it felt the earthquake's thrill, +Clung to its base, and greets the sunrise still. + +Stick to your aim: the mongrel's hold will slip, +But only crowbars loose the bulldog's grip; +Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields +Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields! + +Yet in opinions look not always back,-- +Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track; +Leave what you've done for what you have to do; +Don't be "consistent," but be simply true. + +Don't catch the fidgets; you have found your place +Just in the focus of a nervous race, +Fretful to change and rabid to discuss, +Full of excitements, always in a fuss. +Think of the patriarchs; then compare as men +These lean-cheeked maniacs of the tongue and pen! +Run, if you like, but try to keep your breath; +Work like a man, but don't be worked to death; +And with new notions,--let me change the rule,-- +Don't strike the iron till it 's slightly cool. + +Choose well your set; our feeble nature seeks +The aid of clubs, the countenance of cliques; +And with this object settle first of all +Your weight of metal and your size of ball. +Track not the steps of such as hold you cheap, +Too mean to prize, though good enough to keep; +The "real, genuine, no-mistake Tom Thumbs" +Are little people fed on great men's crumbs. +Yet keep no followers of that hateful brood +That basely mingles with its wholesome food +The tumid reptile, which, the poet said, +Doth wear a precious jewel in his head. + +If the wild filly, "Progress," thou wouldst ride, +Have young companions ever at thy side; +But wouldst thou stride the stanch old mare, "Success," +Go with thine elders, though they please thee less. +Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves, +And on thy dial write, "Beware of thieves!" +Felon of minutes, never taught to feel +The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal, +Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, +But spare the right,--it holds my golden time! + +Does praise delight thee? Choose some _ultra_ side,-- +A sure old recipe, and often tried; +Be its apostle, congressman, or bard, +Spokesman or jokesman, only drive it hard; +But know the forfeit which thy choice abides, +For on two wheels the poor reformer rides,-- +One black with epithets the _anti_ throws, +One white with flattery painted by the pros. + +Though books on MANNERS are not out of print, +An honest tongue may drop a harmless hint. +Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet, +To spin your wordy fabric in the street; +While you are emptying your colloquial pack, +The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back. +Nor cloud his features with the unwelcome tale +Of how he looks, if haply thin and pale; +Health is a subject for his child, his wife, +And the rude office that insures his life. +Look in his face, to meet thy neighbor's soul, +Not on his garments, to detect a hole; +"How to observe" is what thy pages show, +Pride of thy sex, Miss Harriet Martineau! +Oh, what a precious book the one would be +That taught observers what they 're NOT to see! + +I tell in verse--'t were better done in prose-- +One curious trick that everybody knows; +Once form this habit, and it's very strange +How long it sticks, how hard it is to change. +Two friendly people, both disposed to smile, +Who meet, like others, every little while, +Instead of passing with a pleasant bow, +And "How d' ye do?" or "How 's your uncle now?" + +Impelled by feelings in their nature kind, +But slightly weak and somewhat undefined, +Rush at each other, make a sudden stand, +Begin to talk, expatiate, and expand; +Each looks quite radiant, seems extremely struck, +Their meeting so was such a piece of luck; +Each thinks the other thinks he 's greatly pleased +To screw the vice in which they both are squeezed; +So there they talk, in dust, or mud, or snow, +Both bored to death, and both afraid to go! +Your hat once lifted, do not hang your fire, +Nor, like slow Ajax, fighting still, retire; +When your old castor on your crown you clap, +Go off; you've mounted your percussion cap. + +Some words on LANGUAGE may be well applied, +And take them kindly, though they touch your pride. +Words lead to things; a scale is more precise,-- +Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking, vice. +Our cold Northeaster's icy fetter clips +The native freedom of the Saxon lips; +See the brown peasant of the plastic South, +How all his passions play about his mouth! +With us, the feature that transmits the soul, +A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole. +The crampy shackles of the ploughboy's walk +Tie the small muscles when he strives to talk; +Not all the pumice of the polished town +Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down; +Rich, honored, titled, he betrays his race +By this one mark,--he's awkward in the face;-- +Nature's rude impress, long before he knew +The sunny street that holds the sifted few. +It can't be helped, though, if we're taken young, +We gain some freedom of the lips and tongue; +But school and college often try in vain +To break the padlock of our boyhood's chain +One stubborn word will prove this axiom true,-- +No quondam rustic can enunciate view. + +A few brief stanzas may be well employed +To speak of errors we can all avoid. +Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope +The careless lips that speak of so'ap for soap; +Her edict exiles from her fair abode +The clownish voice that utters ro'ad for road +Less stern to him who calls his coat a co'at, +And steers his boat, believing it a bo'at, +She pardoned one, our classic city's boast, +Who said at Cambridge mo'st instead of most, +But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot +To hear a Teacher call a root a ro'ot. + +Once more: speak clearly, if you speak at all; +Carve every word before you let it fall; +Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star, +Try over-hard to roll the British R; +Do put your accents in the proper spot; +Don't,--let me beg you,--don't say "How?" for "What?" +And when you stick on conversation's burs, +Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_. + +From little matters let us pass to less, +And lightly touch the mysteries of DRESS; +The outward forms the inner man reveal,-- +We guess the pulp before we cut the peel. + +I leave the broadcloth,--coats and all the rest,-- +The dangerous waistcoat, called by cockneys "vest," +The things named "pants" in certain documents, +A word not made for gentlemen, but "gents;" +One single precept might the whole condense +Be sure your tailor is a man of sense; +But add a little care, a decent pride, +And always err upon the sober side. + +Three pairs of boots one pair of feet demands, +If polished daily by the owner's hands; +If the dark menial's visit save from this, +Have twice the number,--for he 'll sometimes miss. +One pair for critics of the nicer sex, +Close in the instep's clinging circumflex, +Long, narrow, light; the Gallic boot of love, +A kind of cross between a boot and glove. +Compact, but easy, strong, substantial, square, +Let native art compile the medium pair. +The third remains, and let your tasteful skill +Here show some relics of affection still; +Let no stiff cowhide, reeking from the tan, +No rough caoutchoue, no deformed brogan, +Disgrace the tapering outline of your feet, +Though yellow torrents gurgle through the street. + +Wear seemly gloves; not black, nor yet too light, +And least of all the pair that once was white; +Let the dead party where you told your loves +Bury in peace its dead bouquets and gloves; +Shave like the goat, if so your fancy bids, +But be a parent,--don't neglect your kids. + +Have a good hat; the secret of your looks +Lives with the beaver in Canadian brooks; +Virtue may flourish in an old cravat, +But man and nature scorn the shocking hat. +Does beauty slight you from her gay abodes? +Like bright Apollo, you must take to Rhoades,-- +Mount the new castor,--ice itself will melt; +Boots, gloves, may fail; the hat is always felt + +Be shy of breastpins; plain, well-ironed white, +With small pearl buttons,--two of them in sight,-- +Is always genuine, while your gems may pass, +Though real diamonds, for ignoble glass. +But spurn those paltry Cisatlantic lies +That round his breast the shabby rustic ties; +Breathe not the name profaned to hallow things +The indignant laundress blushes when she brings! + +Our freeborn race, averse to every check, +Has tossed the yoke of Europe from its _neck_; +From the green prairie to the sea-girt town, +The whole wide nation turns its collars down. +The stately neck is manhood's manliest part; +It takes the life-blood freshest from the heart. +With short, curled ringlets close around it spread, +How light and strong it lifts the Grecian head! +Thine, fair Erechtheus of Minerva's wall; +Or thine, young athlete of the Louvre's hall, +Smooth as the pillar flashing in the sun +That filled the arena where thy wreaths were won, +Firm as the band that clasps the antlered spoil +Strained in the winding anaconda's coil +I spare the contrast; it were only kind +To be a little, nay, intensely blind. +Choose for yourself: I know it cuts your ear; +I know the points will sometimes interfere; +I know that often, like the filial John, +Whom sleep surprised with half his drapery on, +You show your features to the astonished town +With one side standing and the other down;-- +But, O, my friend! my favorite fellow-man! +If Nature made you on her modern plan, +Sooner than wander with your windpipe bare,-- +The fruit of Eden ripening in the air,-- +With that lean head-stalk, that protruding chin, +Wear standing collars, were they made of tin! +And have a neckcloth--by the throat of Jove!-- +Cut from the funnel of a rusty stove! + +The long-drawn lesson narrows to its close, +Chill, slender, slow, the dwindled current flows; +Tired of the ripples on its feeble springs, +Once more the Muse unfolds her upward wings. + +Land of my birth, with this unhallowed tongue, +Thy hopes, thy dangers, I perchance had sung; +But who shall sing, in brutal disregard +Of all the essentials of the "native bard"? +Lake, sea, shore, prairie, forest, mountain, fall, +His eye omnivorous must devour them all; +The tallest summits and the broadest tides +His foot must compass with its giant strides, +Where Ocean thunders, where Missouri rolls, +And tread at once the tropics and the poles; +His food all forms of earth, fire, water, air, +His home all space, his birthplace everywhere. + +Some grave compatriot, having seen perhaps +The pictured page that goes in Worcester's Maps, +And, read in earnest what was said in jest, +"Who drives fat oxen"--please to add the rest,-- +Sprung the odd notion that the poet's dreams +Grow in the ratio of his hills and streams; +And hence insisted that the aforesaid "bard," +Pink of the future, fancy's pattern-card, +The babe of nature in the "giant West," +Must be of course her biggest and her best. + +Oh! when at length the expected bard shall come, +Land of our pride, to strike thine echoes dumb, +(And many a voice exclaims in prose and rhyme, +It's getting late, and he's behind his time,) +When all thy mountains clap their hands in joy, +And all thy cataracts thunder, "That 's the boy,"-- +Say if with him the reign of song shall end, +And Heaven declare its final dividend! + +Becalm, dear brother! whose impassioned strain +Comes from an alley watered by a drain; +The little Mincio, dribbling to the Po, +Beats all the epics of the Hoang Ho; +If loved in earnest by the tuneful maid, +Don't mind their nonsense,--never be afraid! + +The nurse of poets feeds her winged brood +By common firesides, on familiar food; +In a low hamlet, by a narrow stream, +Where bovine rustics used to doze and dream, +She filled young William's fiery fancy full, +While old John Shakespeare talked of beeves and wool! + +No Alpine needle, with its climbing spire, +Brings down for mortals the Promethean fire, +If careless nature have forgot to frame +An altar worthy of the sacred flame. +Unblest by any save the goatherd's lines, +Mont Blanc rose soaring through his "sea of pines;" +In vain the rivers from their ice-caves flash; +No hymn salutes them but the Ranz des Vaches, +Till lazy Coleridge, by the morning's light, +Gazed for a moment on the fields of white, +And lo! the glaciers found at length a tongue, +Mont Blanc was vocal, and Chamouni sung! + +Children of wealth or want, to each is given +One spot of green, and all the blue of heaven! +Enough if these their outward shows impart; +The rest is thine,--the scenery of the heart. + +If passion's hectic in thy stanzas glow, +Thy heart's best life-blood ebbing as they flow; +If with thy verse thy strength and bloom distil, +Drained by the pulses of the fevered thrill; +If sound's sweet effluence polarize thy brain, +And thoughts turn crystals in thy fluid strain,-- +Nor rolling ocean, nor the prairie's bloom, +Nor streaming cliffs, nor rayless cavern's gloom, +Need'st thou, young poet, to inform thy line; +Thy own broad signet stamps thy song divine! +Let others gaze where silvery streams are rolled, +And chase the rainbow for its cup of gold; +To thee all landscapes wear a heavenly dye, +Changed in the glance of thy prismatic eye; +Nature evoked thee in sublimer throes, +For thee her inmost Arethusa flows,-- +The mighty mother's living depths are stirred,-- +Thou art the starred Osiris of the herd! + +A few brief lines; they touch on solemn chords, +And hearts may leap to hear their honest words; +Yet, ere the jarring bugle-blast is blown, +The softer lyre shall breathe its soothing tone. + +New England! proudly may thy children claim +Their honored birthright by its humblest name +Cold are thy skies, but, ever fresh and clear, +No rank malaria stains thine atmosphere; +No fungous weeds invade thy scanty soil, +Scarred by the ploughshares of unslumbering toil. +Long may the doctrines by thy sages taught, +Raised from the quarries where their sires have wrought, +Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed land,-- +As slow to rear, as obdurate to stand; +And as the ice that leaves thy crystal mine +Chills the fierce alcohol in the Creole's wine, +So may the doctrines of thy sober school +Keep the hot theories of thy neighbors cool! + +If ever, trampling on her ancient path, +Cankered by treachery or inflamed by wrath, +With smooth "Resolves" or with discordant cries, +The mad Briareus of disunion rise, +Chiefs of New England! by your sires' renown, +Dash the red torches of the rebel down! +Flood his black hearthstone till its flames expire, +Though your old Sachem fanned his council-fire! + +But if at last, her fading cycle run, +The tongue must forfeit what the arm has won, +Then rise, wild Ocean! roll thy surging shock +Full on old Plymouth's desecrated rock! +Scale the proud shaft degenerate hands have hewn, +Where bleeding Valor stained the flowers of June! +Sweep in one tide her spires and turrets down, +And howl her dirge above Monadnock's crown! + +List not the tale; the Pilgrim's hallowed shore, +Though strewn with weeds, is granite at the core; +Oh, rather trust that He who made her free +Will keep her true as long as faith shall be! +Farewell! yet lingering through the destined hour, +Leave, sweet Enchantress, one memorial flower! + +An Angel, floating o'er the waste of snow +That clad our Western desert, long ago, +(The same fair spirit who, unseen by day, +Shone as a star along the Mayflower's way,)-- +Sent, the first herald of the Heavenly plan, +To choose on earth a resting-place for man,-- +Tired with his flight along the unvaried field, +Turned to soar upwards, when his glance revealed +A calm, bright bay enclosed in rocky bounds, +And at its entrance stood three sister mounds. + +The Angel spake: "This threefold hill shall be +The home of Arts, the nurse of Liberty! +One stately summit from its shaft shall pour +Its deep-red blaze along the darkened shore; +Emblem of thoughts that, kindling far and wide, +In danger's night shall be a nation's guide. +One swelling crest the citadel shall crown, +Its slanted bastions black with battle's frown, +And bid the sons that tread its scowling heights +Bare their strong arms for man and all his rights! +One silent steep along the northern wave +Shall hold the patriarch's and the hero's grave; +When fades the torch, when o'er the peaceful scene +The embattled fortress smiles in living green, +The cross of Faith, the anchor staff of Hope, +Shall stand eternal on its grassy slope; +There through all time shall faithful Memory tell, +'Here Virtue toiled, and Patriot Valor fell; +Thy free, proud fathers slumber at thy side; +Live as they lived, or perish as they died!'" + + + + + +AN AFTER-DINNER POEM + +(TERPSICHORE) + +Read at the Annual Dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at +Cambridge, August 24, 1843. + +IN narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse, +In closest frock and Cinderella shoes, +Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display, +One zephyr step, and then dissolve away! + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Short is the space that gods and men can spare +To Song's twin brother when she is not there. +Let others water every lusty line, +As Homer's heroes did their purple wine; +Pierian revellers! Know in strains like these +The native juice, the real honest squeeze,--- +Strains that, diluted to the twentieth power, +In yon grave temple might have filled an hour. +Small room for Fancy's many-chorded lyre, +For Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire, +For Pathos, struggling vainly to surprise +The iron tutor's tear-denying eyes, +For Mirth, whose finger with delusive wile +Turns the grim key of many a rusty smile, +For Satire, emptying his corrosive flood +On hissing Folly's gas-exhaling brood, +The pun, the fun, the moral, and the joke, +The hit, the thrust, the pugilistic poke,-- +Small space for these, so pressed by niggard Time, +Like that false matron, known to nursery rhyme,-- +Insidious Morey,--scarce her tale begun, +Ere listening infants weep the story done. + +Oh, had we room to rip the mighty bags +That Time, the harlequin, has stuffed with rags! +Grant us one moment to unloose the strings, +While the old graybeard shuts his leather wings. +But what a heap of motley trash appears +Crammed in the bundles of successive years! +As the lost rustic on some festal day +Stares through the concourse in its vast array,-- +Where in one cake a throng of faces runs, +All stuck together like a sheet of buns,-- +And throws the bait of some unheeded name, +Or shoots a wink with most uncertain aim, +So roams my vision, wandering over all, +And strives to choose, but knows not where to fall. + +Skins of flayed authors, husks of dead reviews, +The turn-coat's clothes, the office-seeker's shoes, +Scraps from cold feasts, where conversation runs +Through mouldy toasts to oxidated puns, +And grating songs a listening crowd endures, +Rasped from the throats of bellowing amateurs; +Sermons, whose writers played such dangerous tricks +Their own heresiarchs called them heretics, +(Strange that one term such distant poles should link, +The Priestleyan's copper and the Puseyan's zinc); +Poems that shuffle with superfluous legs +A blindfold minuet over addled eggs, +Where all the syllables that end in ed, +Like old dragoons, have cuts across the head; +Essays so dark Champollion might despair +To guess what mummy of a thought was there, +Where our poor English, striped with foreign phrase, +Looks like a zebra in a parson's chaise; +Lectures that cut our dinners down to roots, +Or prove (by monkeys) men should stick to fruits,-- +Delusive error, as at trifling charge +Professor Gripes will certify at large; +Mesmeric pamphlets, which to facts appeal, +Each fact as slippery as a fresh-caught eel; +And figured heads, whose hieroglyphs invite +To wandering knaves that discount fools at sight: +Such things as these, with heaps of unpaid bills, +And candy puffs and homoeopathic pills, +And ancient bell-crowns with contracted rim, +And bonnets hideous with expanded brim, +And coats whose memory turns the sartor pale, +Their sequels tapering like a lizard's tale,-- +How might we spread them to the smiling day, +And toss them, fluttering like the new-mown hay, +To laughter's light or sorrow's pitying shower, +Were these brief minutes lengthened to an hour. + +The narrow moments fit like Sunday shoes,-- +How vast the heap, how quickly must we choose! +A few small scraps from out his mountain mass +We snatch in haste, and let the vagrant pass. +This shrunken CRUST that Cerberus could not bite, +Stamped (in one corner) "Pickwick copyright," +Kneaded by youngsters, raised by flattery's yeast, +Was once a loaf, and helped to make a feast. +He for whose sake the glittering show appears +Has sown the world with laughter and with tears, +And they whose welcome wets the bumper's brim +Have wit and wisdom,--for they all quote him. +So, many a tongue the evening hour prolongs +With spangled speeches,--let alone the songs; +Statesmen grow merry, lean attorneys laugh, +And weak teetotals warm to half and half, +And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes, +Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens, +And wits stand ready for impromptu claps, +With loaded barrels and percussion caps, +And Pathos, cantering through the minor keys, +Waves all her onions to the trembling breeze; +While the great Feasted views with silent glee +His scattered limbs in Yankee fricassee. + +Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays +The pleasing game of interchanging praise. +Self-love, grimalkin of the human heart, +Is ever pliant to the master's art; +Soothed with a word, she peacefully withdraws +And sheathes in velvet her obnoxious claws, +And thrills the hand that smooths her glossy fur +With the light tremor of her grateful purr. + +But what sad music fills the quiet hall, +If on her back a feline rival fall! +And oh, what noises shake the tranquil house +If old Self-interest cheats her of a mouse + +Thou, O my country, hast thy foolish ways, +Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise; +But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws, +Off goes the velvet and out come the claws! +And thou, Illustrious! but too poorly paid +In toasts from Pickwick for thy great crusade, +Though, while the echoes labored with thy name, +The public trap denied thy little game, +Let other lips our jealous laws revile,-- +The marble Talfourd or the rude Carlyle,-- +But on thy lids, which Heaven forbids to close +Where'er the light of kindly nature glows, +Let not the dollars that a churl denies +Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's eyes! +Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind, +Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined. +Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms smile +That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle. +There white-cheeked Luxury weaves a thousand charms; +Here sun-browned Labor swings his naked arms. +Long are the furrows he must trace between +The ocean's azure and the prairie's green; +Full many a blank his destined realm displays, +Yet sees the promise of his riper days +Far through yon depths the panting engine moves, +His chariots ringing in their steel-shod grooves; +And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave +O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave! +While tasks like these employ his anxious hours, +What if his cornfields are not edged with flowers? +Though bright as silver the meridian beams +Shine through the crystal of thine English streams, +Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled +That drains our Andes and divides a world! + +But lo! a PARCHMENT! Surely it would seem +The sculptured impress speaks of power supreme; +Some grave design the solemn page must claim +That shows so broadly an emblazoned name. +A sovereign's promise! Look, the lines afford +All Honor gives when Caution asks his word: +There sacred Faith has laid her snow-white hands, +And awful Justice knit her iron bands; +Yet every leaf is stained with treachery's dye, +And every letter crusted with a lie. +Alas! no treason has degraded yet +The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet; +A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's pledge, +Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's edge; +While jockeying senates stop to sign and seal, +And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal. +Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load, +Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest abode, +And round her forehead, wreathed with heavenly flame, +Bind the dark garland of her daughter's shame! +Ye ocean clouds, that wrap the angry blast, +Coil her stained ensign round its haughty mast, +Or tear the fold that wears so foul a scar, +And drive a bolt through every blackened star! +Once more,--once only,--- we must stop so soon: +What have we here? A GERMAN-SILVER SPOON; +A cheap utensil, which we often see +Used by the dabblers in aesthetic tea, +Of slender fabric, somewhat light and thin, +Made of mixed metal, chiefly lead and tin; +The bowl is shallow, and the handle small, +Marked in large letters with the name JEAN PAUL. +Small as it is, its powers are passing strange, +For all who use it show a wondrous change; +And first, a fact to make the barbers stare, +It beats Macassar for the growth of hair. +See those small youngsters whose expansive ears +Maternal kindness grazed with frequent shears; +Each bristling crop a dangling mass becomes, +And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms +Nor this alone its magic power displays, +It alters strangely all their works and ways; +With uncouth words they tire their tender lungs, +The same bald phrases on their hundred tongues +"Ever" "The Ages" in their page appear, +"Alway" the bedlamite is called a "Seer;" +On every leaf the "earnest" sage may scan, +Portentous bore! their "many-sided" man,-- +A weak eclectic, groping vague and dim, +Whose every angle is a half-starved whim, +Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx, +Who rides a beetle, which he calls a "Sphinx." +And oh, what questions asked in clubfoot rhyme +Of Earth the tongueless and the deaf-mute Time! + +Here babbling "Insight" shouts in Nature's ears +His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres; +There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb, +With "Whence am I?" and "Wherefore did I come?" +Deluded infants! will they ever know +Some doubts must darken o'er the world below, +Though all the Platos of the nursery trail +Their "clouds of glory" at the go-cart's tail? +Oh might these couplets their attention claim +That gain their author the Philistine's name +(A stubborn race, that, spurning foreign law, +Was much belabored with an ass's jaw.) + +Melodious Laura! From the sad retreats +That hold thee, smothered with excess of sweets, +Shade of a shadow, spectre of a dream, +Glance thy wan eye across the Stygian stream! +The slipshod dreamer treads thy fragrant halls, +The sophist's cobwebs hang thy roseate walls, +And o'er the crotchets of thy jingling tunes +The bard of mystery scrawls his crooked "runes." +Yes, thou art gone, with all the tuneful hordes +That candied thoughts in amber-colored words, +And in the precincts of thy late abodes +The clattering verse-wright hammers Orphic odes. +Thou, soft as zephyr, wast content to fly +On the gilt pinions of a balmy sigh; +He, vast as Phoebus on his burning wheels, +Would stride through ether at Orion's heels. +Thy emblem, Laura, was a perfume-jar, +And thine, young Orpheus, is a pewter star. +The balance trembles,--be its verdict told +When the new jargon slumbers with the old! + + . . . . . . . . + +Cease, playful goddess! From thine airy bound +Drop like a feather softly to the ground; +This light bolero grows a ticklish dance, +And there is mischief in thy kindling glance. +To-morrow bids thee, with rebuking frown, +Change thy gauze tunic for a home-made gown, +Too blest by fortune if the passing day +Adorn thy bosom with its frail bouquet, +But oh, still happier if the next forgets +Thy daring steps and dangerous pirouettes! + + + + + + + MEDICAL POEMS + + +THE MORNING VISIT + +A sick man's chamber, though it often boast +The grateful presence of a literal toast, +Can hardly claim, amidst its various wealth, +The right unchallenged to propose a health; +Yet though its tenant is denied the feast, +Friendship must launch his sentiment at least, +As prisoned damsels, locked from lovers' lips, +Toss them a kiss from off their fingers' tips. + +The morning visit,--not till sickness falls +In the charmed circles of your own safe walls; +Till fever's throb and pain's relentless rack +Stretch you all helpless on your aching back; +Not till you play the patient in your turn, +The morning visit's mystery shall you learn. + +'T is a small matter in your neighbor's case, +To charge your fee for showing him your face; +You skip up-stairs, inquire, inspect, and touch, +Prescribe, take leave, and off to twenty such. + +But when at length, by fate's transferred decree, +The visitor becomes the visitee, +Oh, then, indeed, it pulls another string; +Your ox is gored, and that's a different thing! +Your friend is sick: phlegmatic as a Turk, +You write your recipe and let it work; +Not yours to stand the shiver and the frown, +And sometimes worse, with which your draught goes down. +Calm as a clock your knowing hand directs, +/Rhei, jalapae ana grana sex/, +Or traces on some tender missive's back, +/Scrupulos duos pulveris ipecac/; +And leaves your patient to his qualms and gripes, +Cool as a sportsman banging at his snipes. +But change the time, the person, and the place, +And be yourself "the interesting case," +You'll gain some knowledge which it's well to learn; +In future practice it may serve your turn. +Leeches, for instance,--pleasing creatures quite; +Try them,--and bless you,--don't you find they bite? +You raise a blister for the smallest cause, +But be yourself the sitter whom it draws, +And trust my statement, you will not deny +The worst of draughtsmen is your Spanish fly! +It's mighty easy ordering when you please, +/Infusi sennae capiat uncias tres/; +It's mighty different when you quackle down +Your own three ounces of the liquid brown. +/Pilula, pulvis/,--pleasant words enough, +When other throats receive the shocking stuff; +But oh, what flattery can disguise the groan +That meets the gulp which sends it through your own! +Be gentle, then, though Art's unsparing rules +Give you the handling of her sharpest tools; +Use them not rashly,--sickness is enough; +Be always "ready," but be never "rough." + +Of all the ills that suffering man endures, +The largest fraction liberal Nature cures; +Of those remaining, 't is the smallest part +Yields to the efforts of judicious Art; +But simple _Kindness_, kneeling by the bed +To shift the pillow for the sick man's head, +Give the fresh draught to cool the lips that burn, +Fan the hot brow, the weary frame to turn,-- +Kindness, untutored by our grave M. D.'s, +But Nature's graduate, when she schools to please, +Wins back more sufferers with her voice and smile +Than all the trumpery in the druggist's pile. + +Once more, be quiet: coming up the stair, +Don't be a plantigrade, a human bear, +But, stealing softly on the silent toe, +Reach the sick chamber ere you're heard below. +Whatever changes there may greet your eyes, +Let not your looks proclaim the least surprise; +It's not your business by your face to show +All that your patient does not want to know; +Nay, use your optics with considerate care, +And don't abuse your privilege to stare. +But if your eyes may probe him overmuch, +Beware still further how you rudely touch; +Don't clutch his carpus in your icy fist, +But warm your fingers ere you take the wrist. +If the poor victim needs must be percussed, +Don't make an anvil of his aching bust; +(Doctors exist within a hundred miles +Who thump a thorax as they'd hammer piles;) +If you must listen to his doubtful chest, +Catch the essentials, and ignore the rest. +Spare him; the sufferer wants of you and art +A track to steer by, not a finished chart. +So of your questions: don't in mercy try +To pump your patient absolutely dry; +He's not a mollusk squirming in a dish, +You're not Agassiz; and he's not a fish. + +And last, not least, in each perplexing case, +Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face; +Not always smiling, but at least serene, +When grief and anguish cloud the anxious scene. +Each look, each movement, every word and tone, +Should tell your patient you are all his own; +Not the mere artist, purchased to attend, +But the warm, ready, self-forgetting friend, +Whose genial visit in itself combines +The best of cordials, tonics, anodynes. + +Such is the _visit_ that from day to day +Sheds o'er my chamber its benignant ray. +I give his health, who never cared to claim +Her babbling homage from the tongue of Fame; +Unmoved by praise, he stands by all confest, +The truest, noblest, wisest, kindest, best. + +1849. + + + + + +THE TWO ARMIES + +As Life's unending column pours, +Two marshalled hosts are seen,-- +Two armies on the trampled shores +That Death flows black between. + +One marches to the drum-beat's roll, +The wide-mouthed clarion's bray, +And bears upon a crimson scroll, +"Our glory is to slay." + +One moves in silence by the stream, +With sad, yet watchful eyes, +Calm as the patient planet's gleam +That walks the clouded skies. + +Along its front no sabres shine, +No blood-red pennons wave; +Its banner bears the single line, +"Our duty is to save." + +For those no death-bed's lingering shade; +At Honor's trumpet-call, +With knitted brow and lifted blade +In Glory's arms they fall. + +For these no clashing falchions bright, +No stirring battle-cry; +The bloodless stabber calls by night,-- +Each answers, "Here am I!" + +For those the sculptor's laurelled bust, +The builder's marble piles, +The anthems pealing o'er their dust +Through long cathedral aisles. + +For these the blossom-sprinkled turf +That floods the lonely graves +When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf +In flowery-foaming waves. + +Two paths lead upward from below, +And angels wait above, +Who count each burning life-drop's flow, +Each falling tear of Love. + +Though from the Hero's bleeding breast +Her pulses Freedom drew, +Though the white lilies in her crest +Sprang from that scarlet dew,-- + +While Valor's haughty champions wait +Till all their scars are shown, +Love walks unchallenged through the gate, +To sit beside the Throne + + + + + +THE STETHOSCOPE SONG + +A PROFESSIONAL BALLAD + +THERE was a young man in Boston town, +He bought him a stethoscope nice and new, +All mounted and finished and polished down, +With an ivory cap and a stopper too. + +It happened a spider within did crawl, +And spun him a web of ample size, +Wherein there chanced one day to fall +A couple of very imprudent flies. + +The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue, +The second was smaller, and thin and long; +So there was a concert between the two, +Like an octave flute and a tavern gong. + +Now being from Paris but recently, +This fine young man would show his skill; +And so they gave him, his hand to try, +A hospital patient extremely ill. + +Some said that his liver was short of bile, +And some that his heart was over size, +While some kept arguing, all the while, +He was crammed with tubercles up to his eyes. + +This fine young man then up stepped he, +And all the doctors made a pause; +Said he, The man must die, you see, +By the fifty-seventh of Louis's laws. + +But since the case is a desperate one, +To explore his chest it may be well; +For if he should die and it were not done, +You know the autopsy would not tell. + +Then out his stethoscope he took, +And on it placed his curious ear; +Mon Dieu! said he, with a knowing look, +Why, here is a sound that 's mighty queer + +The bourdonnement is very clear,-- +Amphoric buzzing, as I'm alive +Five doctors took their turn to hear; +Amphoric buzzing, said all the five. + +There's empyema beyond a doubt; +We'll plunge a trocar in his side. +The diagnosis was made out,-- +They tapped the patient; so he died. + +Now such as hate new-fashioned toys +Began to look extremely glum; +They said that rattles were made for boys, +And vowed that his buzzing was all a hum. + +There was an old lady had long been sick, +And what was the matter none did know +Her pulse was slow, though her tongue was quick; +To her this knowing youth must go. + +So there the nice old lady sat, +With phials and boxes all in a row; +She asked the young doctor what he was at, +To thump her and tumble her ruffles so. + +Now, when the stethoscope came out, +The flies began to buzz and whiz +Oh ho I the matter is clear, no doubt; +An aneurism there plainly is. + +The bruit de rape and the bruit de scie +And the bruit de diable are all combined; +How happy Bouillaud would be, +If he a case like this could find! + +Now, when the neighboring doctors found +A case so rare had been descried, +They every day her ribs did pound +In squads of twenty; so she died. + +Then six young damsels, slight and frail, +Received this kind young doctor's cares; +They all were getting slim and pale, +And short of breath on mounting stairs. + +They all made rhymes with "sighs" and "skies," +And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls, +And dieted, much to their friends' surprise, +On pickles and pencils and chalk and coals. + +So fast their little hearts did bound, +The frightened insects buzzed the more; +So over all their chests he found +The rale sifflant and the rale sonore. + +He shook his head. There's grave disease,-- +I greatly fear you all must die; +A slight post-mortem, if you please, +Surviving friends would gratify. + +The six young damsels wept aloud, +Which so prevailed on six young men +That each his honest love avowed, +Whereat they all got well again. + +This poor young man was all aghast; +The price of stethoscopes came down; +And so he was reduced at last +To practise in a country town. + +The doctors being very sore, +A stethoscope they did devise +That had a rammer to clear the bore, +With a knob at the end to kill the flies. + +Now use your ears, all you that can, +But don't forget to mind your eyes, +Or you may be cheated, like this young man, +By a couple of silly, abnormal flies. + + + + + +EXTRACTS FROM A MEDICAL POEM + +THE STABILITY OF SCIENCE + +THE feeble sea-birds, blinded in the storms, +On some tall lighthouse dash their little forms, +And the rude granite scatters for their pains +Those small deposits that were meant for brains. +Yet the proud fabric in the morning's sun +Stands all unconscious of the mischief done; +Still the red beacon pours its evening rays +For the lost pilot with as full a blaze,-- +Nay, shines, all radiance, o'er the scattered fleet +Of gulls and boobies brainless at its feet. + +I tell their fate, though courtesy disclaims +To call our kind by such ungentle names; +Yet, if your rashness bid you vainly dare, +Think of their doom, ye simple, and beware + +See where aloft its hoary forehead rears +The towering pride of twice a thousand years! +Far, far below the vast incumbent pile +Sleeps the gray rock from art's AEgean isle +Its massive courses, circling as they rise, +Swell from the waves to mingle with the skies; +There every quarry lends its marble spoil, +And clustering ages blend their common toil; +The Greek, the Roman, reared its ancient walls, +The silent Arab arched its mystic halls; +In that fair niche, by countless billows laved, +Trace the deep lines that Sydenham engraved; +On yon broad front that breasts the changing swell, +Mark where the ponderous sledge of Hunter fell; +By that square buttress look where Louis stands, +The stone yet warm from his uplifted hands; +And say, O Science, shall thy life-blood freeze, +When fluttering folly flaps on walls like these? + + +A PORTRAIT + +Thoughtful in youth, but not austere in age; +Calm, but not cold, and cheerful though a sage; +Too true to flatter and too kind to sneer, +And only just when seemingly severe; +So gently blending courtesy and art +That wisdom's lips seemed borrowing friendship's heart. + +Taught by the sorrows that his age had known +In others' trials to forget his own, +As hour by hour his lengthened day declined, +A sweeter radiance lingered o'er his mind. +Cold were the lips that spoke his early praise, +And hushed the voices of his morning days, +Yet the same accents dwelt on every tongue, +And love renewing kept him ever young. + + +A SENTIMENT +/O Bios Bpaxus/,--life is but a song; +/H rexvn uakpn/,--art is wondrous long; +Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair, +And Patience smiles, though Genius may despair. +Give us but knowledge, though by slow degrees, +And blend our toil with moments bright as these; +Let Friendship's accents cheer our doubtful way, +And Love's pure planet lend its guiding ray,-- +Our tardy Art shall wear an angel's wings, +And life shall lengthen with the joy it brings I + + + + + +A POEM + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION +AT NEW YORK, MAY 5, 1853 + +I HOLD a letter in my hand,-- +A flattering letter, more's the pity,-- +By some contriving junto planned, +And signed _per order of Committee_. +It touches every tenderest spot,-- +My patriotic predilections, +My well-known-something-don't ask what,-- +My poor old songs, my kind affections. + +They make a feast on Thursday next, +And hope to make the feasters merry; +They own they're something more perplexed +For poets than for port and sherry. +They want the men of--(word torn out); +Our friends will come with anxious faces, +(To see our blankets off, no doubt, +And trot us out and show our paces.) + +They hint that papers by the score +Are rather musty kind of rations,-- +They don't exactly mean a bore, +But only trying to the patience; +That such as--you know who I mean-- +Distinguished for their--what d' ye call 'em-- +Should bring the dews of Hippocrene +To sprinkle on the faces solemn. + +--The same old story: that's the chaff +To catch the birds that sing the ditties; +Upon my soul, it makes me laugh +To read these letters from Committees! +They're all so loving and so fair,-- +All for your sake such kind compunction; +'T would save your carriage half its wear +To touch its wheels with such an unction! + +Why, who am I, to lift me here +And beg such learned folk to listen, +To ask a smile, or coax a tear +Beneath these stoic lids to glisten? +As well might some arterial thread +Ask the whole frame to feel it gushing, +While throbbing fierce from heel to head +The vast aortic tide was rushing. + +As well some hair-like nerve might strain +To set its special streamlet going, +While through the myriad-channelled brain +The burning flood of thought was flowing; +Or trembling fibre strive to keep +The springing haunches gathered shorter, +While the scourged racer, leap on leap, +Was stretching through the last hot quarter! + +Ah me! you take the bud that came +Self-sown in your poor garden's borders, +And hand it to the stately dame +That florists breed for, all she orders. +She thanks you,--it was kindly meant,-- +(A pale afair, not worth the keeping,)-- +Good morning; and your bud is sent +To join the tea-leaves used for sweeping. + +Not always so, kind hearts and true,-- +For such I know are round me beating; +Is not the bud I offer you, +Fresh gathered for the hour of meeting, +Pale though its outer leaves may be, +Rose-red in all its inner petals?-- +Where the warm life we cannot see-- +The life of love that gave it--settles. + + +We meet from regions far away, +Like rills from distant mountains streaming; +The sun is on Francisco's bay, +O'er Chesapeake the lighthouse gleaming; +While summer girds the still bayou +In chains of bloom, her bridal token, +Monadnock sees the sky grow blue, +His crystal bracelet yet unbroken. + +Yet Nature bears the selfsame heart +Beneath her russet-mantled bosom +As where, with burning lips apart, +She breathes and white magnolias blossom; +The selfsame founts her chalice fill +With showery sunlight running over, +On fiery plain and frozen hill, +On myrtle-beds and fields of clover. + +I give you Home! its crossing lines +United in one golden suture, +And showing every day that shines +The present growing to the future,-- +A flag that bears a hundred stars +In one bright ring, with love for centre, +Fenced round with white and crimson bars +No prowling treason dares to enter! + +O brothers, home may be a word +To make affection's living treasure, +The wave an angel might have stirred, +A stagnant pool of selfish pleasure; +HOME! It is where the day-star springs +And where the evening sun reposes, +Where'er the eagle spreads his wings, +From northern pines to southern roses! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT + +A TRIPLE health to Friendship, Science, Art, +From heads and hands that own a common heart! +Each in its turn the others' willing slave, +Each in its season strong to heal and save. + +Friendship's blind service, in the hour of need, +Wipes the pale face, and lets the victim bleed. +Science must stop to reason and explain; +ART claps his finger on the streaming vein. + +But Art's brief memory fails the hand at last; +Then SCIENCE lifts the flambeau of the past. +When both their equal impotence deplore, +When Learning sighs, and Skill can do no more, +The tear of FRIENDSHIP pours its heavenly balm, +And soothes the pang no anodyne may calm +May 1, 1855. + + + + + +RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. + +AN AFTER-DINNER PRESCRIPTION TAKEN BY THE MASSACHUSETTS +MEDICAL SOCIETY, AT THEIR MEETING HELD MAY 25, 1870 + + +CANTO FIRST + +OLD Rip Van Winkle had a grandson, Rip, +Of the paternal block a genuine chip,-- +A lazy, sleepy, curious kind of chap; +He, like his grandsire, took a mighty nap, +Whereof the story I propose to tell +In two brief cantos, if you listen well. + +The times were hard when Rip to manhood grew; +They always will be when there's work to do. +He tried at farming,--found it rather slow,-- +And then at teaching--what he did n't know; +Then took to hanging round the tavern bars, +To frequent toddies and long-nine cigars, +Till Dame Van Winkle, out of patience, vexed +With preaching homilies, having for their text +A mop, a broomstick, aught that might avail +To point a moral or adorn a tale, +Exclaimed, "I have it! Now, then, Mr. V. +He's good for something,--make him an M. D.!" + +The die was cast; the youngster was content; +They packed his shirts and stockings, and he went. +How hard he studied it were vain to tell; +He drowsed through Wistar, nodded over Bell, +Slept sound with Cooper, snored aloud on Good; +Heard heaps of lectures,--doubtless understood,-- +A constant listener, for he did not fail +To carve his name on every bench and rail. + +Months grew to years; at last he counted three, +And Rip Van Winkle found himself M. D. +Illustrious title! in a gilded frame +He set the sheepskin with his Latin name, +RIPUM VAN WINKLUM, QUEM we--SCIMUS--know +IDONEUM ESSE--to do so and so. +He hired an office; soon its walls displayed +His new diploma and his stock in trade, +A mighty arsenal to subdue disease, +Of various names, whereof I mention these +Lancets and bougies, great and little squirt, +Rhubarb and Senna, Snakeroot, Thoroughwort, +Ant. Tart., Vin. Colch., Pil. Cochiae, and Black Drop, +Tinctures of Opium, Gentian, Henbane, Hop, +Pulv. Ipecacuanhae, which for lack +Of breath to utter men call Ipecac, +Camphor and Kino, Turpentine, Tolu, +Cubebs, "Copeevy," Vitriol,--white and blue,-- +Fennel and Flaxseed, Slippery Elm and Squill, +And roots of Sassafras, and "Sassaf'rill," +Brandy,--for colics,--Pinkroot, death on worms,-- +Valerian, calmer of hysteric squirms, +Musk, Assafoetida, the resinous gum +Named from its odor,--well, it does smell some,-- +Jalap, that works not wisely, but too well, +Ten pounds of Bark and six of Calomel. + +For outward griefs he had an ample store, +Some twenty jars and gallipots, or more: +/Ceratum simplex/--housewives oft compile +The same at home, and call it "wax and ile;" +/Unguentum resinosum/--change its name, +The "drawing salve" of many an ancient dame; +/Argenti Nitras/, also Spanish flies, +Whose virtue makes the water-bladders rise-- +(Some say that spread upon a toper's skin +They draw no water, only rum or gin); +Leeches, sweet vermin! don't they charm the sick? +And Sticking-plaster--how it hates to stick +/Emplastrum Ferri/--ditto /Picis/, Pitch; +Washes and Powders, Brimstone for the--which, +/Scabies/ or /Psora/, is thy chosen name +Since Hahnemann's goose-quill scratched thee into fame, +Proved thee the source of every nameless ill, +Whose sole specific is a moonshine pill, +Till saucy Science, with a quiet grin, +Held up the Acarus, crawling on a pin? +--Mountains have labored and have brought forth mice +The Dutchman's theory hatched a brood of--twice +I've well-nigh said them--words unfitting quite +For these fair precincts and for ears polite. + +The surest foot may chance at last to slip, +And so at length it proved with Doctor Rip. +One full-sized bottle stood upon the shelf, +Which held the medicine that he took himself; +Whate'er the reason, it must be confessed +He filled that bottle oftener than the rest; +What drug it held I don't presume to know-- +The gilded label said "Elixir Pro." + +One day the Doctor found the bottle full, +And, being thirsty, took a vigorous pull, +Put back the "Elixir" where 't was always found, +And had old Dobbin saddled and brought round. +--You know those old-time rhubarb-colored nags +That carried Doctors and their saddle-bags; +Sagacious beasts! they stopped at every place +Where blinds were shut--knew every patient's case-- +Looked up and thought--The baby's in a fit-- +That won't last long--he'll soon be through with it; +But shook their heads before the knockered door +Where some old lady told the story o'er +Whose endless stream of tribulation flows +For gastric griefs and peristaltic woes. + +What jack-o'-lantern led him from his way, +And where it led him, it were hard to say; +Enough that wandering many a weary mile +Through paths the mountain sheep trod single file, +O'ercome by feelings such as patients know +Who dose too freely with "Elixir Pro.," +He tumbl--dismounted, slightly in a heap, +And lay, promiscuous, lapped in balmy sleep. + +Night followed night, and day succeeded day, +But snoring still the slumbering Doctor lay. +Poor Dobbin, starving, thought upon his stall, +And straggled homeward, saddle-bags and all. +The village people hunted all around, +But Rip was missing,--never could be found. +"Drownded," they guessed;--for more than half a year +The pouts and eels did taste uncommon queer; +Some said of apple-brandy--other some +Found a strong flavor of New England rum. + +Why can't a fellow hear the fine things said +About a fellow when a fellow's dead? +The best of doctors--so the press declared-- +A public blessing while his life was spared, +True to his country, bounteous to the poor, +In all things temperate, sober, just, and pure; +The best of husbands! echoed Mrs. Van, +And set her cap to catch another man. + +So ends this Canto--if it's quantum suff., +We'll just stop here and say we've had enough, +And leave poor Rip to sleep for thirty years; +I grind the organ--if you lend your ears +To hear my second Canto, after that +We 'll send around the monkey with the hat. + + +CANTO SECOND + +So thirty years had passed--but not a word +In all that time of Rip was ever heard; +The world wagged on--it never does go back-- +The widow Van was now the widow Mac---- +France was an Empire--Andrew J. was dead, +And Abraham L. was reigning in his stead. +Four murderous years had passed in savage strife, +Yet still the rebel held his bloody knife. + +--At last one morning--who forgets the day +When the black cloud of war dissolved away +The joyous tidings spread o'er land and sea, +Rebellion done for! Grant has captured Lee! +Up every flagstaff sprang the Stars and Stripes-- +Out rushed the Extras wild with mammoth types-- +Down went the laborer's hod, the school-boy's book-- +"Hooraw!" he cried, "the rebel army's took!" +Ah! what a time! the folks all mad with joy +Each fond, pale mother thinking of her boy; +Old gray-haired fathers meeting--"Have--you--heard?" +And then a choke--and not another word; +Sisters all smiling--maidens, not less dear, +In trembling poise between a smile and tear; +Poor Bridget thinking how she 'll stuff the plums +In that big cake for Johnny when he comes; +Cripples afoot; rheumatics on the jump; +Old girls so loving they could hug the pump; +Guns going bang! from every fort and ship; +They banged so loud at last they wakened Rip. + +I spare the picture, how a man appears +Who's been asleep a score or two of years; +You all have seen it to perfection done +By Joe Van Wink--I mean Rip Jefferson. +Well, so it was; old Rip at last came back, +Claimed his old wife--the present widow Mac---- +Had his old sign regilded, and began +To practise physic on the same old plan. +Some weeks went by--it was not long to wait-- +And "please to call" grew frequent on the slate. +He had, in fact, an ancient, mildewed air, +A long gray beard, a plenteous lack of hair,-- +The musty look that always recommends +Your good old Doctor to his ailing friends. +--Talk of your science! after all is said +There's nothing like a bare and shiny head; +Age lends the graces that are sure to please; +Folks want their Doctors mouldy, like their cheese. + +So Rip began to look at people's tongues +And thump their briskets (called it "sound their lungs"), +Brushed up his knowledge smartly as he could, +Read in old Cullen and in Doctor Good. +The town was healthy; for a month or two +He gave the sexton little work to do. + +About the time when dog-day heats begin, +The summer's usual maladies set in; +With autumn evenings dysentery came, +And dusky typhoid lit his smouldering flame; +The blacksmith ailed, the carpenter was down, +And half the children sickened in the town. +The sexton's face grew shorter than before-- +The sexton's wife a brand-new bonnet wore-- +Things looked quite serious--Death had got a grip +On old and young, in spite of Doctor Rip. + +And now the Squire was taken with a chill-- +Wife gave "hot-drops"--at night an Indian pill; +Next morning, feverish--bedtime, getting worse-- +Out of his head--began to rave and curse; +The Doctor sent for--double quick he came +/Ant. Tart. gran. duo/, and repeat the same +If no et cetera. Third day--nothing new; +Percussed his thorax till 't was black and blue-- +Lung-fever threatening--something of the sort-- +Out with the lancet--let him bleed--a quart-- +Ten leeches next--then blisters to his side; +Ten grains of calomel; just then he died. + +The Deacon next required the Doctor's care-- +Took cold by sitting in a draught of air-- +Pains in the back, but what the matter is +Not quite so clear,--wife calls it "rheumatiz." +Rubs back with flannel--gives him something hot-- +"Ah!" says the Deacon, "that goes nigh the spot." +Next day a rigor--"Run, my little man, +And say the Deacon sends for Doctor Van." +The Doctor came--percussion as before, +Thumping and banging till his ribs were sore-- +"Right side the flattest"--then more vigorous raps-- +"Fever--that's certain--pleurisy, perhaps. +A quart of blood will ease the pain, no doubt, +Ten leeches next will help to suck it out, +Then clap a blister on the painful part-- +But first two grains of /Antimonium Tart/. +Last with a dose of cleansing calomel +Unload the portal system--(that sounds well!)" + +But when the selfsame remedies were tried, +As all the village knew, the Squire had died; + +The neighbors hinted. "This will never do; +He's killed the Squire--he'll kill the Deacon too." + +Now when a doctor's patients are perplexed, +A consultation comes in order next-- +You know what that is? In a certain place +Meet certain doctors to discuss a case +And other matters, such as weather, crops, +Potatoes, pumpkins, lager-beer, and hops. +For what's the use?--there 's little to be said, +Nine times in ten your man's as good as dead; +At best a talk (the secret to disclose) +Where three men guess and sometimes one man knows. + +The counsel summoned came without delay-- +Young Doctor Green and shrewd old Doctor Gray-- +They heard the story--"Bleed!" says Doctor Green, +"That's downright murder! cut his throat, you mean +Leeches! the reptiles! Why, for pity's sake, +Not try an adder or a rattlesnake? +Blisters! Why bless you, they 're against the law-- +It's rank assault and battery if they draw +Tartrate of Antimony! shade of Luke, +Stomachs turn pale at thought of such rebuke! +The portal system! What's the man about? +Unload your nonsense! Calomel's played out! +You've been asleep--you'd better sleep away +Till some one calls you." + +"Stop!" says Doctor Gray-- +"The story is you slept for thirty years; +With brother Green, I own that it appears +You must have slumbered most amazing sound; +But sleep once more till thirty years come round, +You'll find the lancet in its honored place, +Leeches and blisters rescued from disgrace, +Your drugs redeemed from fashion's passing scorn, +And counted safe to give to babes unborn." + +Poor sleepy Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D., +A puzzled, serious, saddened man was he; +Home from the Deacon's house he plodded slow +And filled one bumper of "Elixir Pro." +"Good-by," he faltered, "Mrs. Van, my dear! +I'm going to sleep, but wake me once a year; +I don't like bleaching in the frost and dew, +I'll take the barn, if all the same to you. +Just once a year--remember! no mistake! +Cry, 'Rip Van Winkle! time for you to wake!' +Watch for the week in May when laylocks blow, +For then the Doctors meet, and I must go." + +Just once a year the Doctor's worthy dame +Goes to the barn and shouts her husband's name; +"Come, Rip Van Winkle!" (giving him a shake) +"Rip! Rip Van Winkle! time for you to wake! +Laylocks in blossom! 't is the month of May-- +The Doctors' meeting is this blessed day, +And come what will, you know I heard you swear +You'd never miss it, but be always there!" + +And so it is, as every year comes round +Old Rip Van Winkle here is always found. +You'll quickly know him by his mildewed air, +The hayseed sprinkled through his scanty hair, +The lichens growing on his rusty suit-- +I've seen a toadstool sprouting on his boot-- +Who says I lie? Does any man presume?-- +Toadstool? No matter--call it a mushroom. +Where is his seat? He moves it every year; +But look, you'll find him,--he is always here,-- +Perhaps you'll track him by a whiff you know-- +A certain flavor of "Elixir Pro." + +Now, then, I give you--as you seem to think +We can give toasts without a drop to drink-- +Health to the mighty sleeper,--long live he! +Our brother Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D.! + + + + + + + SONGS IN MANY KEYS + + 1849-1861 + +THE piping of our slender, peaceful reeds +Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray; +Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play +Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds, +Following the mighty van that Freedom leads, +Her glorious standard flaming to the day! +The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleeds +Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay. +Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are better worth +Than strains that sing the ravished echoes dumb. +Hark! 't is the loud reverberating drum +Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock-bound North +The myriad-handed Future stretches forth +Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come,--we come! + +Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as these +Were not unsought for, as, in languid dreams, +We lay beside our lotus-feeding streams, +And nursed our fancies in forgetful ease. +It matters little if they pall or please, +Dropping untimely, while the sudden gleams +Glare from the mustering clouds whose blackness seems +Too swollen to hold its lightning from the trees. +Yet, in some lull of passion, when at last +These calm revolving moons that come and go-- +Turning our months to years, they creep so slow-- +Have brought us rest, the not unwelcome past +May flutter to thee through these leaflets, cast +On the wild winds that all around us blow. +May 1, 1861. + + + AGNES + +The story of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage is told in the +ballad with a very strict adhesion to the facts. These were obtained +from information afforded me by the Rev. Mr. Webster, of Hopkinton, in +company with whom I visited the Frankland Mansion in that town, then +standing; from a very interesting Memoir, by the Rev. Elias Nason, of +Medford; and from the manuscript diary of Sir Harry, or more properly +Sir Charles Henry Frankland, now in the library of the Massachusetts +Historical Society. + +At the time of the visit referred to, old Julia was living, and on our +return we called at the house where she resided.--[She was living June +10, 1861, when this ballad was published]--Her account is little more +than paraphrased in the poem. If the incidents are treated with a +certain liberality at the close of the fifth part, the essential fact +that Agnes rescued Sir Harry from the ruins after the earthquake, and +their subsequent marriage as related, may be accepted as literal truth. +So with regard to most of the trifling details which are given; they are +taken from the record. It is greatly to be regretted that the Frankland +Mansion no longer exists. It was accidentally burned on the 23d of +January, 1858, a year or two after the first sketch of this ballad was +written. A visit to it was like stepping out of the century into the +years before the Revolution. A new house, similar in plan and +arrangements to the old one, has been built upon its site, and the +terraces, the clump of box, and the lilacs doubtless remain to bear +witness to the truth of this story. + +The story, which I have told literally in rhyme, has been made +the subject of a carefully studied and interesting romance by Mr. +E. L. Bynner. + + + +PART FIRST + +THE KNIGHT + +THE tale I tell is gospel true, +As all the bookmen know, +And pilgrims who have strayed to view +The wrecks still left to show. + +The old, old story,--fair, and young, +And fond,--and not too wise,-- +That matrons tell, with sharpened tongue, +To maids with downcast eyes. + +Ah! maidens err and matrons warn +Beneath the coldest sky; +Love lurks amid the tasselled corn +As in the bearded rye! + +But who would dream our sober sires +Had learned the old world's ways, +And warmed their hearths with lawless fires +In Shirley's homespun days? + +'T is like some poet's pictured trance +His idle rhymes recite,-- +This old New England-born romance +Of Agnes and the Knight; + +Yet, known to all the country round, +Their home is standing still, +Between Wachusett's lonely mound +And Shawmut's threefold hill. + +One hour we rumble on the rail, +One half-hour guide the rein, +We reach at last, o'er hill and dale, +The village on the plain. + +With blackening wall and mossy roof, +With stained and warping floor, +A stately mansion stands aloof +And bars its haughty door. + +This lowlier portal may be tried, +That breaks the gable wall; +And lo! with arches opening wide, +Sir Harry Frankland's hall! + +'T was in the second George's day +They sought the forest shade, +The knotted trunks they cleared away, +The massive beams they laid, + +They piled the rock-hewn chimney tall, +They smoothed the terraced ground, +They reared the marble-pillared wall +That fenced the mansion round. + +Far stretched beyond the village bound +The Master's broad domain; +With page and valet, horse and hound, +He kept a goodly train. + +And, all the midland county through, +The ploughman stopped to gaze +Whene'er his chariot swept in view +Behind the shining bays, + +With mute obeisance, grave and slow, +Repaid by nod polite,-- +For such the way with high and low +Till after Concord fight. + +Nor less to courtly circles known +That graced the three-hilled town +With far-off splendors of the Throne, +And glimmerings from the Crown; + +Wise Phipps, who held the seals of state +For Shirley over sea; +Brave Knowles, whose press-gang moved of late +The King Street mob's decree; + +And judges grave, and colonels grand, +Fair dames and stately men, +The mighty people of the land, +The "World" of there and then. + +'T was strange no Chloe's "beauteous Form," +And "Eyes' ccelestial Blew," +This Strephon of the West could warm, +No Nymph his Heart subdue + +Perchance he wooed as gallants use, +Whom fleeting loves enchain, +But still unfettered, free to choose, +Would brook no bridle-rein. + +He saw the fairest of the fair, +But smiled alike on all; +No band his roving foot might snare, +No ring his hand enthrall. + + + +PART SECOND + +THE MAIDEN + +Why seeks the knight that rocky cape +Beyond the Bay of Lynn? +What chance his wayward course may shape +To reach its village inn? + +No story tells; whate'er we guess, +The past lies deaf and still, +But Fate, who rules to blight or bless, +Can lead us where she will. + +Make way! Sir Harry's coach and four, +And liveried grooms that ride! +They cross the ferry, touch the shore +On Winnisimmet's side. + +They hear the wash on Chelsea Beach,-- +The level marsh they pass, +Where miles on miles the desert reach +Is rough with bitter grass. + +The shining horses foam and pant, +And now the smells begin +Of fishy Swampscott, salt Nahant, +And leather-scented Lynn. + +Next, on their left, the slender spires +And glittering vanes that crown +The home of Salem's frugal sires, +The old, witch-haunted town. + +So onward, o'er the rugged way +That runs through rocks and sand, +Showered by the tempest-driven spray, +From bays on either hand, + +That shut between their outstretched arms +The crews of Marblehead, +The lords of ocean's watery farms, +Who plough the waves for bread. + +At last the ancient inn appears, +The spreading elm below, +Whose flapping sign these fifty years +Has seesawed to and fro. + +How fair the azure fields in sight +Before the low-browed inn +The tumbling billows fringe with light +The crescent shore of Lynn; + +Nahant thrusts outward through the waves +Her arm of yellow sand, +And breaks the roaring surge that braves +The gauntlet on her hand; + +With eddying whirl the waters lock +Yon treeless mound forlorn, +The sharp-winged sea-fowl's breeding-rock, +That fronts the Spouting Horn; + +Then free the white-sailed shallops glide, +And wide the ocean smiles, +Till, shoreward bent, his streams divide +The two bare Misery Isles. + +The master's silent signal stays +The wearied cavalcade; +The coachman reins his smoking bays +Beneath the elm-tree's shade. + +A gathering on the village green! +The cocked-hats crowd to see, +On legs in ancient velveteen, +With buckles at the knee. + +A clustering round the tavern-door +Of square-toed village boys, +Still wearing, as their grandsires wore, +The old-world corduroys! + +A scampering at the "Fountain" inn,--- +A rush of great and small,-- +With hurrying servants' mingled din +And screaming matron's call + +Poor Agnes! with her work half done +They caught her unaware; +As, humbly, like a praying nun, +She knelt upon the stair; + +Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien +She knelt, but not to pray,-- +Her little hands must keep them clean, +And wash their stains away. + +A foot, an ankle, bare and white, +Her girlish shapes betrayed,-- +"Ha! Nymphs and Graces!" spoke the Knight; +"Look up, my beauteous Maid!" + +She turned,--a reddening rose in bud, +Its calyx half withdrawn,-- +Her cheek on fire with damasked blood +Of girlhood's glowing dawn! + +He searched her features through and through, +As royal lovers look +On lowly maidens, when they woo +Without the ring and book. + +"Come hither, Fair one! Here, my Sweet! +Nay, prithee, look not down! +Take this to shoe those little feet,"-- +He tossed a silver crown. + +A sudden paleness struck her brow,-- +A swifter blush succeeds; +It burns her cheek; it kindles now +Beneath her golden beads. + +She flitted, but the glittering eye +Still sought the lovely face. +Who was she? What, and whence? and why +Doomed to such menial place? + +A skipper's daughter,--so they said,-- +Left orphan by the gale +That cost the fleet of Marblehead +And Gloucester thirty sail. + +Ah! many a lonely home is found +Along the Essex shore, +That cheered its goodman outward bound, +And sees his face no more! + +"Not so," the matron whispered,--"sure +No orphan girl is she,-- +The Surriage folk are deadly poor +Since Edward left the sea, + +"And Mary, with her growing brood, +Has work enough to do +To find the children clothes and food +With Thomas, John, and Hugh. + +"This girl of Mary's, growing tall,-- +(Just turned her sixteenth year,)-- +To earn her bread and help them all, +Would work as housemaid here." + +So Agnes, with her golden beads, +And naught beside as dower, +Grew at the wayside with the weeds, +Herself a garden-flower. + +'T was strange, 't was sad,--so fresh, so fair! +Thus Pity's voice began. +Such grace! an angel's shape and air! +The half-heard whisper ran. + +For eyes could see in George's time, +As now in later days, +And lips could shape, in prose and rhyme, +The honeyed breath of praise. + +No time to woo! The train must go +Long ere the sun is down, +To reach, before the night-winds blow, +The many-steepled town. + +'T is midnight,--street and square are still; +Dark roll the whispering waves +That lap the piers beneath the hill +Ridged thick with ancient graves. + +Ah, gentle sleep! thy hand will smooth +The weary couch of pain, +When all thy poppies fail to soothe +The lover's throbbing brain! + +'T is morn,--the orange-mantled sun +Breaks through the fading gray, +And long and loud the Castle gun +Peals o'er the glistening bay. + +"Thank God 't is day!" With eager eye +He hails the morning shine:-- +"If art can win, or gold can buy, +The maiden shall be mine!" + + + +PART THIRD + +THE CONQUEST + +"Who saw this hussy when she came? +What is the wench, and who?" +They whisper. "Agnes--is her name? +Pray what has she to do?" + +The housemaids parley at the gate, +The scullions on the stair, +And in the footmen's grave debate +The butler deigns to share. + +Black Dinah, stolen when a child, +And sold on Boston pier, +Grown up in service, petted, spoiled, +Speaks in the coachman's ear: + +"What, all this household at his will? +And all are yet too few? +More servants, and more servants still,-- +This pert young madam too!" + +"_Servant!_ fine servant!" laughed aloud +The man of coach and steeds; +"She looks too fair, she steps too proud, +This girl with golden beads! + +"I tell you, you may fret and frown, +And call her what you choose, +You 'll find my Lady in her gown, +Your Mistress in her shoes!" + +Ah, gentle maidens, free from blame, +God grant you never know +The little whisper, loud with shame, +That makes the world your foe! + +Why tell the lordly flatterer's art, +That won the maiden's ear,-- +The fluttering of the frightened heart, +The blush, the smile, the tear? + +Alas! it were the saddening tale +That every language knows,-- +The wooing wind, the yielding sail, +The sunbeam and the rose. + +And now the gown of sober stuff +Has changed to fair brocade, +With broidered hem, and hanging cuff, +And flower of silken braid; + +And clasped around her blanching wrist +A jewelled bracelet shines, +Her flowing tresses' massive twist +A glittering net confines; + +And mingling with their truant wave +A fretted chain is hung; +But ah! the gift her mother gave,-- +Its beads are all unstrung! + +Her place is at the master's board, +Where none disputes her claim; +She walks beside the mansion's lord, +His bride in all but name. + +The busy tongues have ceased to talk, +Or speak in softened tone, +So gracious in her daily walk +The angel light has shown. + +No want that kindness may relieve +Assails her heart in vain, +The lifting of a ragged sleeve +Will check her palfrey's rein. + +A thoughtful calm, a quiet grace +In every movement shown, +Reveal her moulded for the place +She may not call her own. + +And, save that on her youthful brow +There broods a shadowy care, +No matron sealed with holy vow +In all the land so fair + + + +PART FOURTH + +THE RESCUE + +A ship comes foaming up the bay, +Along the pier she glides; +Before her furrow melts away, +A courier mounts and rides. + +"Haste, Haste, post Haste!" the letters bear; +"Sir Harry Frankland, These." +Sad news to tell the loving pair! +The knight must cross the seas. + +"Alas! we part!"--the lips that spoke +Lost all their rosy red, +As when a crystal cup is broke, +And all its wine is shed. + +"Nay, droop not thus,--where'er," he cried, +"I go by land or sea, +My love, my life, my joy, my pride, +Thy place is still by me!" + +Through town and city, far and wide, +Their wandering feet have strayed, +From Alpine lake to ocean tide, +And cold Sierra's shade. + +At length they see the waters gleam +Amid the fragrant bowers +Where Lisbon mirrors in the stream +Her belt of ancient towers. + +Red is the orange on its bough, +To-morrow's sun shall fling +O'er Cintra's hazel-shaded brow +The flush of April's wing. + +The streets are loud with noisy mirth, +They dance on every green; +The morning's dial marks the birth +Of proud Braganza's queen. + +At eve beneath their pictured dome +The gilded courtiers throng; +The broad moidores have cheated Rome +Of all her lords of song. + +AH! Lisbon dreams not of the day-- +Pleased with her painted scenes-- +When all her towers shall slide away +As now these canvas screens! + +The spring has passed, the summer fled, +And yet they linger still, +Though autumn's rustling leaves have spread +The flank of Cintra's hill. + +The town has learned their Saxon name, +And touched their English gold, +Nor tale of doubt nor hint of blame +From over sea is told. + +Three hours the first November dawn +Has climbed with feeble ray +Through mists like heavy curtains drawn +Before the darkened day. + +How still the muffled echoes sleep! +Hark! hark! a hollow sound,-- +A noise like chariots rumbling deep +Beneath the solid ground. + +The channel lifts, the water slides +And bares its bar of sand, +Anon a mountain billow strides +And crashes o'er the land. + +The turrets lean, the steeples reel +Like masts on ocean's swell, +And clash a long discordant peal, +The death-doomed city's knell. + +The pavement bursts, the earth upheaves +Beneath the staggering town! +The turrets crack--the castle cleaves-- +The spires come rushing down. + +Around, the lurid mountains glow +With strange unearthly gleams; +While black abysses gape below, +Then close in jagged seams. + +And all is over. Street and square +In ruined heaps are piled; +Ah! where is she, so frail, so fair, +Amid the tumult wild? + +Unscathed, she treads the wreck-piled street, +Whose narrow gaps afford +A pathway for her bleeding feet, +To seek her absent lord. + +A temple's broken walls arrest +Her wild and wandering eyes; +Beneath its shattered portal pressed, +Her lord unconscious lies. + +The power that living hearts obey +Shall lifeless blocks withstand? +Love led her footsteps where he lay,-- +Love nerves her woman's hand + +One cry,--the marble shaft she grasps,-- +Up heaves the ponderous stone:-- +He breathes,--her fainting form he clasps,-- +Her life has bought his own! + + + +PART FIFTH + +THE REWARD + +How like the starless night of death +Our being's brief eclipse, +When faltering heart and failing breath +Have bleached the fading lips! + +The earth has folded like a wave, +And thrice a thousand score, +Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave, +The sun shall see no more! + +She lives! What guerdon shall repay +His debt of ransomed life? +One word can charm all wrongs away,-- +The sacred name of WIFE! + +The love that won her girlish charms +Must shield her matron fame, +And write beneath the Frankland arms +The village beauty's name. + +Go, call the priest! no vain delay +Shall dim the sacred ring! +Who knows what change the passing day, +The fleeting hour, may bring? + +Before the holy altar bent, +There kneels a goodly pair; +A stately man, of high descent, +A woman, passing fair. + +No jewels lend the blinding sheen +That meaner beauty needs, +But on her bosom heaves unseen +A string of golden beads. + +The vow is spoke,--the prayer is said,-- +And with a gentle pride +The Lady Agnes lifts her head, +Sir Harry Frankland's bride. + +No more her faithful heart shall bear +Those griefs so meekly borne,-- +The passing sneer, the freezing stare, +The icy look of scorn; + +No more the blue-eyed English dames +Their haughty lips shall curl, +Whene'er a hissing whisper names +The poor New England girl. + +But stay!--his mother's haughty brow,-- +The pride of ancient race,-- +Will plighted faith, and holy vow, +Win back her fond embrace? + +Too well she knew the saddening tale +Of love no vow had blest, +That turned his blushing honors pale +And stained his knightly crest. + +They seek his Northern home,--alas +He goes alone before;-- +His own dear Agnes may not pass +The proud, ancestral door. + +He stood before the stately dame; +He spoke; she calmly heard, +But not to pity, nor to blame; +She breathed no single word. + +He told his love,--her faith betrayed; +She heard with tearless eyes; +Could she forgive the erring maid? +She stared in cold surprise. + +How fond her heart, he told,--how true; +The haughty eyelids fell;-- +The kindly deeds she loved to do; +She murmured, "It is well." + +But when he told that fearful day, +And how her feet were led +To where entombed in life he lay, +The breathing with the dead, + +And how she bruised her tender breasts +Against the crushing stone, +That still the strong-armed clown protests +No man can lift alone,-- + +Oh! then the frozen spring was broke; +By turns she wept and smiled;-- +"Sweet Agnes!" so the mother spoke, +"God bless my angel child + +"She saved thee from the jaws of death,-- +'T is thine to right her wrongs; +I tell thee,--I, who gave thee breath,-- +To her thy life belongs!" + +Thus Agnes won her noble name, +Her lawless lover's hand; +The lowly maiden so became +A lady in the land! + + + +PART SIXTH + +CONCLUSION + +The tale is done; it little needs +To track their after ways, +And string again the golden beads +Of love's uncounted days. + +They leave the fair ancestral isle +For bleak New England's shore; +How gracious is the courtly smile +Of all who frowned before! + +Again through Lisbon's orange bowers +They watch the river's gleam, +And shudder as her shadowy towers +Shake in the trembling stream. + +Fate parts at length the fondest pair; +His cheek, alas! grows pale; +The breast that trampling death could spare +His noiseless shafts assail. + +He longs to change the heaven of blue +For England's clouded sky,-- +To breathe the air his boyhood knew; +He seeks then but to die. + +Hard by the terraced hillside town, +Where healing streamlets run, +Still sparkling with their old renown,-- +The "Waters of the Sun,"-- + +The Lady Agnes raised the stone +That marks his honored grave, +And there Sir Harry sleeps alone +By Wiltshire Avon's wave. + +The home of early love was dear; +She sought its peaceful shade, +And kept her state for many a year, +With none to make afraid. + +At last the evil days were come +That saw the red cross fall; +She hears the rebels' rattling drum,-- +Farewell to Frankland Hall! + +I tell you, as my tale began, +The hall is standing still; +And you, kind listener, maid or man, +May see it if you will. + +The box is glistening huge and green, +Like trees the lilacs grow, +Three elms high-arching still are seen, +And one lies stretched below. + +The hangings, rough with velvet flowers, +Flap on the latticed wall; +And o'er the mossy ridge-pole towers +The rock-hewn chimney tall. + +The doors on mighty hinges clash +With massive bolt and bar, +The heavy English-moulded sash +Scarce can the night-winds jar. + +Behold the chosen room he sought +Alone, to fast and pray, +Each year, as chill November brought +The dismal earthquake day. + +There hung the rapier blade he wore, +Bent in its flattened sheath; +The coat the shrieking woman tore +Caught in her clenching teeth;-- + +The coat with tarnished silver lace +She snapped at as she slid, +And down upon her death-white face +Crashed the huge coffin's lid. + +A graded terrace yet remains; +If on its turf you stand +And look along the wooded plains +That stretch on either hand, + +The broken forest walls define +A dim, receding view, +Where, on the far horizon's line, +He cut his vista through. + +If further story you shall crave, +Or ask for living proof, +Go see old Julia, born a slave +Beneath Sir Harry's roof. + +She told me half that I have told, +And she remembers well +The mansion as it looked of old +Before its glories fell;-- + +The box, when round the terraced square +Its glossy wall was drawn; +The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, +The roses on the lawn. + +And Julia says, with truthful look +Stamped on her wrinkled face, +That in her own black hands she took +The coat with silver lace. + +And you may hold the story light, +Or, if you like, believe; +But there it was, the woman's bite,-- +A mouthful from the sleeve. + +Now go your ways;--I need not tell +The moral of my rhyme; +But, youths and maidens, ponder well +This tale of olden time! + + + + +THE PLOUGHMAN +ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, +OCTOBER 4, 1849 + +CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam! +Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, +With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow, +The lord of earth, the hero of the plough! + +First in the field before the reddening sun, +Last in the shadows when the day is done, +Line after line, along the bursting sod, +Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod; +Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide, +The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide; +Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves, +Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves; +Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train +Slants the long track that scores the level plain; +Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay, +The patient convoy breaks its destined way; +At every turn the loosening chains resound, +The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round, +Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, +And wearied hands unbind the panting steers. + +These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings +The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; +This is the page, whose letters shall be seen +Changed by the sun to words of living green; +This is the scholar, whose immortal pen +Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men; +These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil +Shows on his deed,--the charter of the soil + +O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast +Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, +How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, +Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time +We stain thy flowers,--they blossom o'er the dead; +We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; +O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, +Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; +Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain, +Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. +Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms +Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms, +Let not our virtues in thy love decay, +And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. + +No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed +In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed; +By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests +The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests; +By these fair plains the mountain circle screens, +And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines, +True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil +To crown with peace their own untainted soil; +And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind, +If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind, +These stately forms, that bending even now +Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough, +Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, +The same stern iron in the same right hand, +Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run, +The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won! + + + +SPRING + +WINTER is past; the heart of Nature warms +Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms; +Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen, +The southern slopes are fringed with tender green; +On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves, +Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves, +Bright with the hues from wider pictures won, +White, azure, golden,--drift, or sky, or sun,-- +The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast +The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest; +The violet, gazing on the arch of blue +Till her own iris wears its deepened hue; +The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould +Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. +Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high +Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky +On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves +The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves; +The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave, +Drugged with the opiate that November gave, +Beats with faint wing against the sunny pane, +Or crawls, tenacious, o'er its lucid plain; +From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls, +In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls; +The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep, +Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap; +On floating rails that face the softening noons +The still shy turtles range their dark platoons, +Or, toiling aimless o'er the mellowing fields, +Trail through the grass their tessellated shields. + +At last young April, ever frail and fair, +Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, +Chased to the margin of receding floods +O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds, +In tears and blushes sighs herself away, +And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May. + +Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, +Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays; +O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis, +Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free; +With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, +And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose; +Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge +The rival lily hastens to emerge, +Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, +Till morn is sultan of her parted lips. + +Then bursts the song from every leafy glade, +The yielding season's bridal serenade; +Then flash the wings returning Summer calls +Through the deep arches of her forest halls,-- +The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes +The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; +The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, +Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; +The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire +Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. +The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, +Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; +The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, +Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; +Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, +Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings. + +Why dream I here within these caging walls, +Deaf to her voice, while blooming Nature calls; +Peering and gazing with insatiate looks +Through blinding lenses, or in wearying books? +Off, gloomy spectres of the shrivelled past! +Fly with the leaves that fill the autumn blast +Ye imps of Science, whose relentless chains +Lock the warm tides within these living veins, +Close your dim cavern, while its captive strays +Dazzled and giddy in the morning's blaze! + + + + +THE STUDY + +YET in the darksome crypt I left so late, +Whose only altar is its rusted grate,-- +Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, +Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams,-- +While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train, +Its paler splendors were not quite in vain. +From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow +Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; +Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will +On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, +Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard, +And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, +Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone, +Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone. + +Not all unblest the mild interior scene +When the red curtain spread its falling screen; +O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, +And the long evening only flew too fast; +Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend +In genial welcome to some easy friend, +Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves, +Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves; +Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, +In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed. +Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring +To the round table its expected ring, +And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,-- +Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard,-- +Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour +The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower. + +Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, +Not quite deserted when its guests were flown; +Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, +Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, +Ready to answer, never known to ask, +Claiming no service, prompt for every task. +On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes, +O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns; +A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, +That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime, +Each knows his place, and each may claim his part +In some quaint corner of his master's heart. +This old Decretal, won from Moss's hoards, +Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards, +Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, +Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close; +Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, +With glistening letters wrought in red and blue. +There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, +The Aldine anchor on his opening page; +There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind, +In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confused, +"Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?) +Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine! +In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill +The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville; +High over all, in close, compact array, +Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. +In lower regions of the sacred space +Range the dense volumes of a humbler race; +There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach, +In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech; +Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, +Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, +Lully and Geber, and the learned crew +That loved to talk of all they could not do. + +Why count the rest,--those names of later days +That many love, and all agree to praise,-- +Or point the titles, where a glance may read +The dangerous lines of party or of creed? +Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show +What few may care and none can claim to know. +Each has his features, whose exterior seal +A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal; +Go to his study,--on the nearest shelf +Stands the mosaic portrait of himself. + +What though for months the tranquil dust descends, +Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends, +While the damp offspring of the modern press +Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress; +Not less I love each dull familiar face, +Nor less should miss it from the appointed place; +I snatch the book, along whose burning leaves +His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, +Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share, +My old MAGNALIA must be standing _there_! + + + + +THE BELLS + +WHEN o'er the street the morning peal is flung +From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue, +Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale, +To each far listener tell a different tale. +The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor +Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar, +Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one, +Each dull concussion, till his task is done. +Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note +Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat, +Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street, +Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet; +The bell, responsive to her secret flame, +With every note repeats her lover's name. +The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane, +Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, +Hears the stern accents, as they come and go, +Their only burden one despairing No! +Ocean's rough child, whom many a shore has known +Ere homeward breezes swept him to his own, +Starts at the echo as it circles round, +A thousand memories kindling with the sound; +The early favorite's unforgotten charms, +Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms; +His first farewell, the flapping canvas spread, +The seaward streamers crackling overhead, +His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to weep +Her first-born's bridal with the haggard deep, +While the brave father stood with tearless eye, +Smiling and choking with his last good-by. + +'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats, +With the same impulse, every nerve it meets, +Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride +On the round surge of that aerial tide! + +O child of earth! If floating sounds like these +Steal from thyself their power to wound or please, +If here or there thy changing will inclines, +As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs, +Look at thy heart, and when its depths are known, +Then try thy brother's, judging by thine own, +But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range, +While its own standards are the sport of change, +Nor count us rebels when we disobey +The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway. + + + + +NON-RESISTANCE + +PERHAPS too far in these considerate days +Has patience carried her submissive ways; +Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, +To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; +It is not written what a man shall do, +If the rude caitiff smite the other too! + +Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need +God help thee, guarded by the passive creed! +As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl, +When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl; +As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow +When the black corsair slants athwart her bow; +As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien, +Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green, +When the dark plumage with the crimson beak +Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,-- +So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm +The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm, +Thy torches ready for the answering peal +From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel! + + + + +THE MORAL BULLY + +YON whey-faced brother, who delights to wear +A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair, +Seems of the sort that in a crowded place +One elbows freely into smallest space; +A timid creature, lax of knee and hip, +Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip; +One of those harmless spectacled machines, +The Holy-Week of Protestants convenes; +Whom school-boys question if their walk transcends +The last advices of maternal friends; +Whom John, obedient to his master's sign, +Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine, +While Peter, glistening with luxurious scorn, +Husks his white ivories like an ear of corn; +Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek, +Whose yellowish linen flowers but once a week, +Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare suits, +And the laced high-lows which they call their boots, +Well mayst thou shun that dingy front severe, +But him, O stranger, him thou canst not _fear_. + +Be slow to judge, and slower to despise, +Man of broad shoulders and heroic size +The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings, +Drops at the fountain where the cobra stings. +In that lean phantom, whose extended glove +Points to the text of universal love, +Behold the master that can tame thee down +To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown; +His velvet throat against thy corded wrist, +His loosened tongue against thy doubled fist + +The MORAL BULLY, though he never swears, +Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, +Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, +And non-resistance ties his white cravat, +Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen +In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, +Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast +That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, +Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear +That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, +Feels the same comfort while his acrid words +Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds, +Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate, +That all we love is worthiest of our hate, +As the scarred ruffian of the pirate's deck, +When his long swivel rakes the staggering wreck! + +Heaven keep us all! Is every rascal clown +Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down? +Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul +Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole, +Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace +Of angel visits on his hungry face, +From lack of marrow or the coins to pay, +Has dodged some vices in a shabby way, +The right to stick us with his cutthroat terms, +And bait his homilies with his brother worms? + + + + +THE MIND'S DIET + +No life worth naming ever comes to good +If always nourished on the selfsame food; +The creeping mite may live so if he please, +And feed on Stilton till he turns to cheese, +But cool Magendie proves beyond a doubt, +If mammals try it, that their eyes drop out. + +No reasoning natures find it safe to feed, +For their sole diet, on a single creed; +It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their tongues, +And starves the heart to feed the noisy lungs. + +When the first larvae on the elm are seen, +The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are green; +Ere chill October shakes the latest down, +They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown; +On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy, +You stretch to pluck it--'tis a butterfly; +The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark, +They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark; +The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, +Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood; +So by long living on a single lie, +Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye; +Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,-- +Except when squabbling turns them black and blue! + + + + +OUR LIMITATIONS + +WE trust and fear, we question and believe, +From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave, +Frail as the web that misty night has spun, +Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun. +While the calm centuries spell their lessons out, +Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt; +When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne, +The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone; +When Pilate's hall that awful question heard, +The Heavenly Captive answered not a word. + +Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears +Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! +From age to age, while History carves sublime +On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, +How the wild swayings of our planet show +That worlds unseen surround the world we know. + + + + +THE OLD PLAYER + +THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud +The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed. +In flaming line the telltales of the stage +Showed on his brow the autograph of age; +Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair, +And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care; +Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,-- +He strove to speak,--his voice was but a sigh. + +Year after year had seen its short-lived race +Flit past the scenes and others take their place; +Yet the old prompter watched his accents still, +His name still flaunted on the evening's bill. +Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor, +Had died in earnest and were heard no more; +Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread +They faced the footlights in unborrowed red, +Had faded slowly through successive shades +To gray duennas, foils of younger maids; +Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start +With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart, +While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky +With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry. +Yet there he stood,--the man of other days, +In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze, +As on the oak a faded leaf that clings +While a new April spreads its burnished wings. + +How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier, +Their central sun the flashing chandelier! +How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim +Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim +How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold! +Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told. +No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue; +Again, again, the crashing galleries rung. +As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast +Hears in its strain the echoes of the past, +So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round, +A life of memories startled at the sound. +He lived again,--the page of earliest days,-- +Days of small fee and parsimonious praise; +Then lithe young Romeo--hark that silvered tone, +From those smooth lips--alas! they were his own. +Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe, +Told his strange tale of midnight melting snow; +And dark--plumed Hamlet, with his cloak and blade, +Looked on the royal ghost, himself a shade. +All in one flash, his youthful memories came, +Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame, +As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong dream, +While the last bubble rises through the stream. + +Call him not old, whose visionary brain +Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. +For him in vain the envious seasons roll +Who bears eternal summer in his soul. +If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, +Spring with her birds, or children at their play, +Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art, +Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, +Turn to the record where his years are told,-- +Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old! +What magic power has changed the faded mime? +One breath of memory on the dust of time. +As the last window in the buttressed wall +Of some gray minster tottering to its fall, +Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread, +A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red, +Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows +When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows, +And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane +See angels glow in every shapeless stain; +So streamed the vision through his sunken eye, +Clad in the splendors of his morning sky. +All the wild hopes his eager boyhood knew, +All the young fancies riper years proved true, +The sweet, low-whispered words, the winning glance +From queens of song, from Houris of the dance, +Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing phrase, +And Beauty's silence when her blush was praise, +And melting Pride, her lashes wet with tears, +Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns and cheers, +Pangs of wild joy that perish on the tongue, +And all that poets dream, but leave unsung! + +In every heart some viewless founts are fed +From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed; +On the worn features of the weariest face +Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace, +As in old gardens left by exiled kings +The marble basins tell of hidden springs, +But, gray with dust, and overgrown with weeds, +Their choking jets the passer little heeds, +Till time's revenges break their seals away, +And, clad in rainbow light, the waters play. + +Good night, fond dreamer! let the curtain fall +The world's a stage, and we are players all. +A strange rehearsal! Kings without their crowns, +And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing clowns, +Speak the vain words that mock their throbbing hearts, +As Want, stern prompter! spells them out their parts. +The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay +Is twice an actor in a twofold play. +We smile at children when a painted screen +Seems to their simple eyes a real scene; +Ask the poor hireling, who has left his throne +To seek the cheerless home he calls his own, +Which of his double lives most real seems, +The world of solid fact or scenic dreams? +Canvas, or clouds,--the footlights, or the spheres,-- +The play of two short hours, or seventy years? +Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes, +Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies; +Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this; +The cheating future lends the present's bliss; +Life is a running shade, with fettered hands, +That chases phantoms over shifting sands; +Death a still spectre on a marble seat, +With ever clutching palms and shackled feet; +The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain, +The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain, +Death only grasps; to live is to pursue,-- +Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true! + + + + + +A POEM + +DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, +SEPTEMBER 9,1850 + +ANGEL of Death! extend thy silent reign! +Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new domain +No sable car along the winding road +Has borne to earth its unresisting load; +No sudden mound has risen yet to show +Where the pale slumberer folds his arms below; +No marble gleams to bid his memory live +In the brief lines that hurrying Time can give; +Yet, O Destroyer! from thy shrouded throne +Look on our gift; this realm is all thine own! + +Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft beguiled +From their dim paths the children of the wild; +The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy dells, +The feathered warrior claimed its wooded swells, +Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges show +The pointed flints that left his fatal bow, +Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian toil,-- +Last of his wrecks that strews the alien soil! +Here spread the fields that heaped their ripened store +Till the brown arms of Labor held no more; +The scythe's broad meadow with its dusky blush; +The sickle's harvest with its velvet flush; +The green-haired maize, her silken tresses laid, +In soft luxuriance, on her harsh brocade; +The gourd that swells beneath her tossing plume; +The coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of bloom,-- +Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive +With the wide murmurs of the scattered hive; +Here glowed the apple with the pencilled streak +Of morning painted on its southern cheek; +The pear's long necklace strung with golden drops, +Arched, like the banian, o'er its pillared props; +Here crept the growths that paid the laborer's care +With the cheap luxuries wealth consents to spare; +Here sprang the healing herbs which could not save +The hand that reared them from the neighboring grave. + +Yet all its varied charms, forever free +From task and tribute, Labor yields to thee +No more, when April sheds her fitful rain, +The sower's hand shall cast its flying grain; +No more, when Autumn strews the flaming leaves, +The reaper's band shall gird its yellow sheaves; +For thee alike the circling seasons flow +Till the first blossoms heave the latest snow. +In the stiff clod below the whirling drifts, +In the loose soil the springing herbage lifts, +In the hot dust beneath the parching weeds, +Life's withering flower shall drop its shrivelled seeds; +Its germ entranced in thy unbreathing sleep +Till what thou sowest mightier angels reap! + +Spirit of Beauty! let thy graces blend +With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. +Come from the bowers where Summer's life-blood flows +Through the red lips of June's half-open rose, +Dressed in bright hues, the loving sunshine's dower; +For tranquil Nature owns no mourning flower. +Come from the forest where the beech's screen +Bars the fierce noonbeam with its flakes of green; +Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy plains, +Stanch the deep wound That dries the maple's veins. +Come with the stream whose silver-braided rills +Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills, +Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings, +Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs. +Come from the steeps where look majestic forth +From their twin thrones the Giants of the North +On the huge shapes, that, crouching at their knees, +Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees. +Through the wide waste of ether, not in vain, +Their softened gaze shall reach our distant plain; +There, while the mourner turns his aching eyes +On the blue mounds that print the bluer skies, +Nature shall whisper that the fading view +Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly hue. +Cherub of Wisdom! let thy marble page +Leave its sad lesson, new to every age; +Teach us to live, not grudging every breath +To the chill winds that waft us on to death, +But ruling calmly every pulse it warms, +And tempering gently every word it forms. +Seraph of Love! in heaven's adoring zone, +Nearest of all around the central throne, +While with soft hands the pillowed turf we spread +That soon shall hold us in its dreamless bed, +With the low whisper,--Who shall first be laid +In the dark chamber's yet unbroken shade?-- +Let thy sweet radiance shine rekindled here, +And all we cherish grow more truly dear. +Here in the gates of Death's o'erhanging vault, +Oh, teach us kindness for our brother's fault +Lay all our wrongs beneath this peaceful sod, +And lead our hearts to Mercy and its God. + +FATHER of all! in Death's relentless claim +We read thy mercy by its sterner name; +In the bright flower that decks the solemn bier, +We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; +In the deep lessons that affliction draws, +We trace the curves of thy encircling laws; +In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, +We own the love that calls us back to Thee! + +Through the hushed street, along the silent plain, +The spectral future leads its mourning train, +Dark with the shadows of uncounted bands, +Where man's white lips and woman's wringing hands +Track the still burden, rolling slow before, +That love and kindness can protect no more; +The smiling babe that, called to mortal strife, +Shuts its meek eyes and drops its little life; +The drooping child who prays in vain to live, +And pleads for help its parent cannot give; +The pride of beauty stricken in its flower; +The strength of manhood broken in an hour; +Age in its weakness, bowed by toil and care, +Traced in sad lines beneath its silvered hair. + +The sun shall set, and heaven's resplendent spheres +Gild the smooth turf unhallowed yet by tears, +But ah! how soon the evening stars will shed +Their sleepless light around the slumbering dead! + +Take them, O Father, in immortal trust! +Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, +Till the last angel rolls the stone away, +And a new morning brings eternal day! + + + + + +TO GOVERNOR SWAIN + +DEAR GOVERNOR, if my skiff might brave +The winds that lift the ocean wave, +The mountain stream that loops and swerves +Through my broad meadow's channelled curves +Should waft me on from bound to bound +To where the River weds the Sound, +The Sound should give me to the Sea, +That to the Bay, the Bay to thee. + +It may not be; too long the track +To follow down or struggle back. +The sun has set on fair Naushon +Long ere my western blaze is gone; +The ocean disk is rolling dark +In shadows round your swinging bark, +While yet the yellow sunset fills +The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills; +The day-star wakes your island deer +Long ere my barnyard chanticleer; +Your mists are soaring in the blue +While mine are sparks of glittering dew. + +It may not be; oh, would it might, +Could I live o'er that glowing night! +What golden hours would come to life, +What goodly feats of peaceful strife,-- +Such jests, that, drained of every joke, +The very bank of language broke,-- +Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died +With stitches in his belted side; +While Time, caught fast in pleasure's chain, +His double goblet snapped in twain, +And stood with half in either hand,-- +Both brimming full,--but not of sand! + +It may not be; I strive in vain +To break my slender household chain,-- +Three pairs of little clasping hands, +One voice, that whispers, not commands. +Even while my spirit flies away, +My gentle jailers murmur nay; +All shapes of elemental wrath +They raise along my threatened path; +The storm grows black, the waters rise, +The mountains mingle with the skies, +The mad tornado scoops the ground, +The midnight robber prowls around,-- +Thus, kissing every limb they tie, +They draw a knot and heave a sigh, +Till, fairly netted in the toil, +My feet are rooted to the soil. +Only the soaring wish is free!-- +And that, dear Governor, flies to thee! +PITTSFIELD, 1851. + + + + + +TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND + +THE seed that wasteful autumn cast +To waver on its stormy blast, +Long o'er the wintry desert tost, +Its living germ has never lost. +Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, +It feels the kindling ray of spring, +And, starting from its dream of death, +Pours on the air its perfumed breath. + +So, parted by the rolling flood, +The love that springs from common blood +Needs but a single sunlit hour +Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; +Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, +From shore to shore, from zone to zone, +Where summer's falling roses stain +The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, +Or where the lichen creeps below +Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow. + +Though fiery sun and stiffening cold +May change the fair ancestral mould, +No winter chills, no summer drains +The life-blood drawn from English veins, +Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows +The love that with its fountain rose, +Unchanged by space, unwronged by time, +From age to age, from clime to clime! +1852. + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH + +COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, +And leave the crowded hall +For where the eyes of twilight shine +O'er evening's western wall. + +These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, +Each with its leafy crown; +Hark! from their sides a thousand rills +Come singing sweetly down. + +A thousand rills; they leap and shine, +Strained through the shadowy nooks, +Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, +They swell a hundred brooks. + +A hundred brooks, and still they run +With ripple, shade, and gleam, +Till, clustering all their braids in one, +They flow a single stream. + +A bracelet spun from mountain mist, +A silvery sash unwound, +With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist +It writhes to reach the Sound. + +This is my bark,--a pygmy's ship; +Beneath a child it rolls; +Fear not,--one body makes it dip, +But not a thousand souls. + +Float we the grassy banks between; +Without an oar we glide; +The meadows, drest in living green, +Unroll on either side. + +Come, take the book we love so well, +And let us read and dream +We see whate'er its pages tell, +And sail an English stream. + +Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, +Still trilling as he flies; +The linnet sings as there he sung; +The unseen cuckoo cries, + +And daisies strew the banks along, +And yellow kingcups shine, +With cowslips, and a primrose throng, +And humble celandine. + +Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed +Her daughter in the West, +The fount was drained that opened first; +She bared her other breast. + +On the young planet's orient shore +Her morning hand she tried; +Then turned the broad medallion o'er +And stamped the sunset side. + +Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, +Her elm with hanging spray; +She wears her mountain diadem +Still in her own proud way. + +Look on the forests' ancient kings, +The hemlock's towering pride +Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, +And fell before it died. + +Nor think that Nature saves her bloom +And slights our grassy plain; +For us she wears her court costume,-- +Look on its broidered train; + +The lily with the sprinkled dots, +Brands of the noontide beam; +The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, +Its double in the stream, + +As if some wounded eagle's breast, +Slow throbbing o'er the plain, +Had left its airy path impressed +In drops of scarlet rain. + +And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; +There thrilled the thrush's soul; +And look! that flash of flamy wings,-- +The fire-plumed oriole! + +Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, +Flung from the bright, blue sky; +Below, the robin hops, and whoops +His piercing, Indian cry. + +Beauty runs virgin in the woods +Robed in her rustic green, +And oft a longing thought intrudes, +As if we might have seen + +Her every finger's every joint +Ringed with some golden line, +Poet whom Nature did anoint +Had our wild home been thine. + +Yet think not so; Old England's blood +Runs warm in English veins; +But wafted o'er the icy flood +Its better life remains + +Our children know each wildwood smell, +The bayberry and the fern, +The man who does not know them well +Is all too old to learn. + +Be patient! On the breathing page +Still pants our hurried past; +Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, +The poet comes the last! + +Though still the lark-voiced matins ring +The world has known so long; +The wood-thrush of the West shall sing +Earth's last sweet even-song! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE + +SHINE soft, ye trembling tears of light +That strew the mourning skies; +Hushed in the silent dews of night +The harp of Erin lies. + +What though her thousand years have past +Of poets, saints, and kings,-- +Her echoes only hear the last +That swept those golden strings. + +Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, +The balmiest wreaths ye wear, +Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers +Heaven's own ambrosial air. + +Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, +By shadowy grove and rill; +Thy song will soothe us while we own +That his was sweeter still. + +Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him +Who gave thee swifter wings, +Nor let thine envious shadow dim +The light his glory flings. + +If in his cheek unholy blood +Burned for one youthful hour, +'T was but the flushing of the bud +That blooms a milk-white flower. + +Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, +Who loved thy smiles so well, +And spread thy mantle o'er his rest +Of rose and asphodel. + +The bark has sailed the midnight sea, +The sea without a shore, +That waved its parting sign to thee,-- +"A health to thee, Tom Moore!" + +And thine, long lingering on the strand, +Its bright-hued streamers furled, +Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, +To seek the silent world. + +Not silent! no, the radiant stars +Still singing as they shine, +Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, +Have voices sweet as thine. + +Wake, then, in happier realms above, +The songs of bygone years, +Till angels learn those airs of love +That ravished mortal ears! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS + +"Purpureos spargam flores." + +THE wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave +Is lying on thy Roman grave, +Yet on its turf young April sets +Her store of slender violets; +Though all the Gods their garlands shower, +I too may bring one purple flower. +Alas! what blossom shall I bring, +That opens in my Northern spring? +The garden beds have all run wild, +So trim when I was yet a child; +Flat plantains and unseemly stalks +Have crept across the gravel walks; +The vines are dead, long, long ago, +The almond buds no longer blow. +No more upon its mound I see +The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; +Where once the tulips used to show, +In straggling tufts the pansies grow; +The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem, +The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," +Though its long blade of glossy green +And pallid stripe may still be seen. +Nature, who treads her nobles down, +And gives their birthright to the clown, +Has sown her base-born weedy things +Above the garden's queens and kings. +Yet one sweet flower of ancient race +Springs in the old familiar place. +When snows were melting down the vale, +And Earth unlaced her icy mail, +And March his stormy trumpet blew, +And tender green came peeping through, +I loved the earliest one to seek +That broke the soil with emerald beak, +And watch the trembling bells so blue +Spread on the column as it grew. +Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame +The sweet, dead poet's holy name; +The God of music gave thee birth, +Called from the crimson-spotted earth, +Where, sobbing his young life away, +His own fair Hyacinthus lay. +The hyacinth my garden gave +Shall lie upon that Roman grave! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY + +ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay +On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I +The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; +The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there. + +Morning: a woman looking on the sea; +Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; +Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee! +Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns. + +And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, +And torches flaring in the weedy caves, +Where'er the waters lay with icy hands +The shapes uplifted from their coral graves. + +Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; +The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks, +And lean, wild children gather from the shore +To the black hovels bedded in the rocks. + +But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, +"One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!" +Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, +Raised the pale burden on his level shield. + +Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire; +His form a nobler element shall claim; +Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, +And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame. + +Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; +Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; +Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; +All else has risen in yon silvery cloud. + +Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, +Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, +Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, +Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art. + +Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh, +O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim,-- +In all the mansions of the house on high, +Say not that Mercy has not one for him! + + + + + +AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES + +As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream, +As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream, +There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me,-- +The vision is over,--the rivulet free + +We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March, +Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch, +And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day, +We hear the warm panting of beautiful May. + +We will part before Summer has opened her wing, +And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring, +While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud, +And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood. + +It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, +The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground; +No hand shall replace it,--it rests where it fell,--- +It is but one word that we all know too well. + +Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye, +If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky; +The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain +Will turn for a moment and look at his chain. + +Our parting is not as the friendship of years, +That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears; +We have walked in a garden, and, looking around, +Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found. + +But now at the gate of the garden we stand, +And the moment has come for unclasping the hand; +Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat +Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat? + +Nay! hold it one moment,--the last we may share,-- +I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare; +You may pass through the doorway in rank or in file, +If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile. + +For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part, +When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; +And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, +We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell. + + + + + +THE HUDSON + +AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY + + +'T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn, +Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn; +The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long, +And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song. + +"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,"-- +She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; +"Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played; +Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid." + +I wandered afar from the land of my birth, +I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, +But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream +With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream. + +I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, +Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine; +I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide +Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side. + +But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves +That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; +If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, +I care not who sees it,--no blush for it here! + +Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West! +I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; +Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, +Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled! + +December, 1854. + + + + + +THE NEW EDEN + +MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, +AT STOCKBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 13,1854 + +SCARCE could the parting ocean close, +Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow, +When o'er the rugged desert rose +The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough. + +Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field +The rippling grass, the nodding grain, +Such growths as English meadows yield +To scanty sun and frequent rain. + +But when the fiery days were done, +And Autumn brought his purple haze, +Then, kindling in the slanted sun, +The hillsides gleamed with golden maize. + +The food was scant, the fruits were few +A red-streak glistening here and there; +Perchance in statelier precincts grew +Some stern old Puritanic pear. + +Austere in taste, and tough at core, +Its unrelenting bulk was shed, +To ripen in the Pilgrim's store +When all the summer sweets were fled. + +Such was his lot, to front the storm +With iron heart and marble brow, +Nor ripen till his earthly form +Was cast from life's autumnal bough. + +But ever on the bleakest rock +We bid the brightest beacon glow, +And still upon the thorniest stock +The sweetest roses love to blow. + +So on our rude and wintry soil +We feed the kindling flame of art, +And steal the tropic's blushing spoil +To bloom on Nature's ice-clad heart. + +See how the softening Mother's breast +Warms to her children's patient wiles, +Her lips by loving Labor pressed +Break in a thousand dimpling smiles, + +From when the flushing bud of June +Dawns with its first auroral hue, +Till shines the rounded harvest-moon, +And velvet dahlias drink the dew. + +Nor these the only gifts she brings; +Look where the laboring orchard groans, +And yields its beryl-threaded strings +For chestnut burs and hemlock cones. + +Dear though the shadowy maple be, +And dearer still the whispering pine, +Dearest yon russet-laden tree +Browned by the heavy rubbing kine! + +There childhood flung its rustling stone, +There venturous boyhood learned to climb,-- +How well the early graft was known +Whose fruit was ripe ere harvest-time! + +Nor be the Fleming's pride forgot, +With swinging drops and drooping bells, +Freckled and splashed with streak and spot, +On the warm-breasted, sloping swells; + +Nor Persia's painted garden-queen,-- +Frail Houri of the trellised wall,-- +Her deep-cleft bosom scarfed with green,-- +Fairest to see, and first to fall. + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +When man provoked his mortal doom, +And Eden trembled as he fell, +When blossoms sighed their last perfume, +And branches waved their long farewell, + +One sucker crept beneath the gate, +One seed was wafted o'er the wall, +One bough sustained his trembling weight; +These left the garden,--these were all. + +And far o'er many a distant zone +These wrecks of Eden still are flung +The fruits that Paradise hath known +Are still in earthly gardens hung. + +Yes, by our own unstoried stream +The pink-white apple-blossoms burst +That saw the young Euphrates gleam,-- +That Gihon's circling waters nursed. + +For us the ambrosial pear--displays +The wealth its arching branches hold, +Bathed by a hundred summery days +In floods of mingling fire and gold. + +And here, where beauty's cheek of flame +With morning's earliest beam is fed, +The sunset-painted peach may claim +To rival its celestial red. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +What though in some unmoistened vale +The summer leaf grow brown and sere, +Say, shall our star of promise fail +That circles half the rolling sphere, + +From beaches salt with bitter spray, +O'er prairies green with softest rain, +And ridges bright with evening's ray, +To rocks that shade the stormless main? + +If by our slender-threaded streams +The blade and leaf and blossom die, +If, drained by noontide's parching beams, +The milky veins of Nature dry, + +See, with her swelling bosom bare, +Yon wild-eyed Sister in the West,-- +The ring of Empire round her hair, +The Indian's wampum on her breast! + +We saw the August sun descend, +Day after day, with blood-red stain, +And the blue mountains dimly blend +With smoke-wreaths from the burning plain; + +Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings +We sat and told the withering hours, +Till Heaven unsealed its hoarded springs, +And bade them leap in flashing showers. + +Yet in our Ishmael's thirst we knew +The mercy of the Sovereign hand +Would pour the fountain's quickening dew +To feed some harvest of the land. + +No flaming swords of wrath surround +Our second Garden of the Blest; +It spreads beyond its rocky bound, +It climbs Nevada's glittering crest. + +God keep the tempter from its gate! +God shield the children, lest they fall +From their stern fathers' free estate,-- +Till Ocean is its only wall! + + + + + +SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY +NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1855 + +NEW ENGLAND, we love thee; no time can erase +From the hearts of thy children the smile on thy face. +'T is the mother's fond look of affection and pride, +As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride. + +His bride may be fresher in beauty's young flower; +She may blaze in the jewels she brings with her dower. +But passion must chill in Time's pitiless blast; +The one that first loved us will love to the last. + +You have left the dear land of the lake and the hill, +But its winds and its waters will talk with you still. +"Forget not," they whisper, "your love is our debt," +And echo breathes softly, "We never forget." + +The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming around, +But your hearts have flown back o'er the waves of the Sound; +They have found the brown home where their pulses were born; +They are throbbing their way through the trees and the corn. + +There are roofs you remember,--their glory is fled; +There are mounds in the churchyard,--one sigh for the dead. +There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scattered around; +But Earth has no spot like that corner of ground. + +Come, let us be cheerful,--remember last night, +How they cheered us, and--never mind--meant it all right; +To-night, we harm nothing,--we love in the lump; +Here's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of the pump! + +Here 's to all the good people, wherever they be, +Who have grown in the shade of the liberty-tree; +We all love its leaves, and its blossoms and fruit, +But pray have a care of the fence round its root. + +We should like to talk big; it's a kind of a right, +When the tongue has got loose and the waistband grown tight; +But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau, +On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow. + +Enough! There are gentlemen waiting to talk, +Whose words are to mine as the flower to the stalk. +Stand by your old mother whatever befall; +God bless all her children! Good night to you all! + + + + + +FAREWELL + +TO J. R. LOWELL + +FAREWELL, for the bark has her breast to the tide, +And the rough arms of Ocean are stretched for his bride; +The winds from the mountain stream over the bay; +One clasp of the hand, then away and away! + +I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore; +The sun is declining, I see it once more; +To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field, +To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield. + +Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath, +With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death; +Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail +Has left her unaided to strive with the gale. + +There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast, +That will light the dark hour till its danger has past; +There are prayers that will plead with the storm when it raves, +And whisper "Be still!" to the turbulent waves. + + +Nay, think not that Friendship has called us in vain +To join the fair ring ere we break it again; +There is strength in its circle,--you lose the bright star, +But its sisters still chain it, though shining afar. + +I give you one health in the juice of the vine, +The blood of the vineyard shall mingle with mine; +Thus, thus let us drain the last dew-drops of gold, +As we empty our hearts of the blessings they hold. + +April 29, 1855. + + + + + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB + +THE mountains glitter in the snow +A thousand leagues asunder; +Yet here, amid the banquet's glow, +I hear their voice of thunder; +Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks; +A flowing stream is summoned; +Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks; +Monadnock to Ben Lomond! + +Though years have clipped the eagle's plume +That crowned the chieftain's bonnet, +The sun still sees the heather bloom, +The silver mists lie on it; + +With tartan kilt and philibeg, +What stride was ever bolder +Than his who showed the naked leg +Beneath the plaided shoulder? + +The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills, +That heard the bugles blowing +When down their sides the crimson rills +With mingled blood were flowing; +The hunts where gallant hearts were game, +The slashing on the border, +The raid that swooped with sword and flame, +Give place to "law and order." + +Not while the rocking steeples reel +With midnight tocsins ringing, +Not while the crashing war-notes peal, +God sets his poets singing; +The bird is silent in the night, +Or shrieks a cry of warning +While fluttering round the beacon-light,-- +But hear him greet the morning! + +The lark of Scotia's morning sky! +Whose voice may sing his praises? +With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye, +He walked among the daisies, +Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong +He soared to fields of glory; +But left his land her sweetest song +And earth her saddest story. + +'T is not the forts the builder piles +That chain the earth together; +The wedded crowns, the sister isles, +Would laugh at such a tether; +The kindling thought, the throbbing words, +That set the pulses beating, +Are stronger than the myriad swords +Of mighty armies meeting. + +Thus while within the banquet glows, +Without, the wild winds whistle, +We drink a triple health,--the Rose, +The Shamrock, and the Thistle +Their blended hues shall never fade +Till War has hushed his cannon,-- +Close-twined as ocean-currents braid +The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon! + + + + + +ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY + +CELEBRATION OF THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, +FEBRUARY 22, 1856 + +WELCOME to the day returning, +Dearer still as ages flow, +While the torch of Faith is burning, +Long as Freedom's altars glow! +See the hero whom it gave us +Slumbering on a mother's breast; +For the arm he stretched to save us, +Be its morn forever blest! + +Hear the tale of youthful glory, +While of Britain's rescued band +Friend and foe repeat the story, +Spread his fame o'er sea and land, +Where the red cross, proudly streaming, +Flaps above the frigate's deck, +Where the golden lilies, gleaming, +Star the watch-towers of Quebec. + +Look! The shadow on the dial +Marks the hour of deadlier strife; +Days of terror, years of trial, +Scourge a nation into life. +Lo, the youth, become her leader +All her baffled tyrants yield; +Through his arm the Lord hath freed her; +Crown him on the tented field! + +Vain is Empire's mad temptation +Not for him an earthly crown +He whose sword hath freed a nation +Strikes the offered sceptre down. +See the throneless Conqueror seated, +Ruler by a people's choice; +See the Patriot's task completed; +Hear the Father's dying voice! + +"By the name that you inherit, +By the sufferings you recall, +Cherish the fraternal spirit; +Love your country first of all! +Listen not to idle questions +If its bands maybe untied; +Doubt the patriot whose suggestions +Strive a nation to divide!" + +Father! We, whose ears have tingled +With the discord-notes of shame,-- +We, whose sires their blood have mingled +In the battle's thunder-flame,-- +Gathering, while this holy morning +Lights the land from sea to sea, +Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning; +Trust us, while we honor thee! + + + + + +BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER + +JANUARY 18, 1856 + +WHEN life hath run its largest round +Of toil and triumph, joy and woe, +How brief a storied page is found +To compass all its outward show! + +The world-tried sailor tires and droops; +His flag is rent, his keel forgot; +His farthest voyages seem but loops +That float from life's entangled knot. + +But when within the narrow space +Some larger soul hath lived and wrought, +Whose sight was open to embrace +The boundless realms of deed and thought,-- + +When, stricken by the freezing blast, +A nation's living pillars fall, +How rich the storied page, how vast, +A word, a whisper, can recall! + +No medal lifts its fretted face, +Nor speaking marble cheats your eye, +Yet, while these pictured lines I trace, +A living image passes by: + +A roof beneath the mountain pines; +The cloisters of a hill-girt plain; +The front of life's embattled lines; +A mound beside the heaving main. + +These are the scenes: a boy appears; +Set life's round dial in the sun, +Count the swift arc of seventy years, +His frame is dust; his task is done. + +Yet pause upon the noontide hour, +Ere the declining sun has laid +His bleaching rays on manhood's power, +And look upon the mighty shade. + +No gloom that stately shape can hide, +No change uncrown its brow; behold I +Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, +Earth has no double from its mould + +Ere from the fields by valor won +The battle-smoke had rolled away, +And bared the blood-red setting sun, +His eyes were opened on the day. + +His land was but a shelving strip +Black with the strife that made it free +He lived to see its banners dip +Their fringes in the Western sea. + +The boundless prairies learned his name, +His words the mountain echoes knew, +The Northern breezes swept his fame +From icy lake to warm bayou. + +In toil he lived; in peace he died; +When life's full cycle was complete, +Put off his robes of power and pride, +And laid them at his Master's feet. + +His rest is by the storm-swept waves +Whom life's wild tempests roughly trie +Whose heart was like the streaming eaves +Of ocean, throbbing at his side. + +Death's cold white hand is like the snow +Laid softly on the furrowed hill, +It hides the broken seams below, +And leaves the summit brighter still. + +In vain the envious tongue upbraids; +His name a nation's heart shall keep +Till morning's latest sunlight fades +On the blue tablet of the deep + + + + + +THE VOICELESS + +WE count the broken lyres that rest +Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, +But o'er their silent sister's breast +The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? +A few can touch the magic string, +And noisy Fame is proud to win them :-- +Alas for those that never sing, +But die with all their music in them! + +Nay, grieve not for the dead alone +Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- +Weep for the voiceless, who have known +The cross without the crown of glory +Not where Leucadian breezes sweep +O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, +But where the glistening night-dews weep +On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + +O hearts that break and give no sign +Save whitening lip and fading tresses, +Till Death pours out his longed-for wine +Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- +If singing breath or echoing chord +To every hidden pang were given, +What endless melodies were poured, +As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! + + + + + +THE TWO STREAMS + +BEHOLD the rocky wall +That down its sloping sides +Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, +In rushing river-tides! + +Yon stream, whose sources run +Turned by a pebble's edge, +Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun +Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + +The slender rill had strayed, +But for the slanting stone, +To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid +Of foam-flecked Oregon. + +So from the heights of Will +Life's parting stream descends, +And, as a moment turns its slender rill, +Each widening torrent bends,-- + +From the same cradle's side, +From the same mother's knee,-- +One to long darkness and the frozen tide, +One to the Peaceful Sea! + + + + + +THE PROMISE + +NOT charity we ask, +Nor yet thy gift refuse; +Please thy light fancy with the easy task +Only to look and choose. + +The little-heeded toy +That wins thy treasured gold +May be the dearest memory, holiest joy, +Of coming years untold. + +Heaven rains on every heart, +But there its showers divide, +The drops of mercy choosing, as they part, +The dark or glowing side. + +One kindly deed may turn +The fountain of thy soul +To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee burn +Long as its currents roll + +The pleasures thou hast planned,-- +Where shall their memory be +When the white angel with the freezing hand +Shall sit and watch by thee? + +Living, thou dost not live, +If mercy's spring run dry; +What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely give, +Dying, thou shalt not die + +HE promised even so! +To thee his lips repeat,-- +Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe +Have washed thy Master's feet! + +March 20, 1859. + + + + + +AVIS + +I MAY not rightly call thy name,-- +Alas! thy forehead never knew +The kiss that happier children claim, +Nor glistened with baptismal dew. + +Daughter of want and wrong and woe, +I saw thee with thy sister-band, +Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow +By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand. + +"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek, +At once a woman and a child, +The saint uncrowned I came to seek +Drew near to greet us,--spoke, and smiled. + +God gave that sweet sad smile she wore +All wrong to shame, all souls to win,-- +A heavenly sunbeam sent before +Her footsteps through a world of sin. + +"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale +The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,-- +The story known through all the vale +Where Avis and her sisters dwell. + +With the lost children running wild, +Strayed from the hand of human care, +They find one little refuse child +Left helpless in its poisoned lair. + +The primal mark is on her face,-- +The chattel-stamp,--the pariah-stain +That follows still her hunted race,-- +The curse without the crime of Cain. + +How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate +The little suffering outcast's ail? +Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate +So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale. + +Ah, veil the living death from sight +That wounds our beauty-loving eye! +The children turn in selfish fright, +The white-lipped nurses hurry by. + +Take her, dread Angel! Break in love +This bruised reed and make it thine!-- +No voice descended from above, +But Avis answered, "She is mine." + +The task that dainty menials spurn +The fair young girl has made her own; +Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn +The toils, the duties yet unknown. + +So Love and Death in lingering strife +Stand face to face from day to day, +Still battling for the spoil of Life +While the slow seasons creep away. + +Love conquers Death; the prize is won; +See to her joyous bosom pressed +The dusky daughter of the sun,-- +The bronze against the marble breast! + +Her task is done; no voice divine +Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame. +No eye can see the aureole shine +That rings her brow with heavenly flame. + +Yet what has holy page more sweet, +Or what had woman's love more fair, +When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet +With flowing eyes and streaming hair? + +Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown, +The Angel of that earthly throng, +And let thine image live alone +To hallow this unstudied song! + + + + + +THE LIVING TEMPLE + +NOT in the world of light alone, +Where God has built his blazing throne, +Nor yet alone in earth below, +With belted seas that come and go, +And endless isles of sunlit green, +Is all thy Maker's glory seen: +Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-- +Eternal wisdom still the same! + +The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves +Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, +Whose streams of brightening purple rush, +Fired with a new and livelier blush, +While all their burden of decay +The ebbing current steals away, +And red with Nature's flame they start +From the warm fountains of the heart. + +No rest that throbbing slave may ask, +Forever quivering o'er his task, +While far and wide a crimson jet +Leaps forth to fill the woven net +Which in unnumbered crossing tides +The flood of burning life divides, +Then, kindling each decaying part, +Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. + +But warmed with that unchanging flame +Behold the outward moving frame, +Its living marbles jointed strong +With glistening band and silvery thong, +And linked to reason's guiding reins +By myriad rings in trembling chains, +Each graven with the threaded zone +Which claims it as the master's own. + +See how yon beam of seeming white +Is braided out of seven-hued light, +Yet in those lucid globes no ray +By any chance shall break astray. +Hark how the rolling surge of sound, +Arches and spirals circling round, +Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear +With music it is heaven to hear. + +Then mark the cloven sphere that holds +All thought in its mysterious folds; +That feels sensation's faintest thrill, +And flashes forth the sovereign will; +Think on the stormy world that dwells +Locked in its dim and clustering cells! +The lightning gleams of power it sheds +Along its hollow glassy threads! + +O Father! grant thy love divine +To make these mystic temples thine! +When wasting age and wearying strife +Have sapped the leaning walls of life, +When darkness gathers over all, +And the last tottering pillars fall, +Take the poor dust thy mercy warms, +And mould it into heavenly forms! + + + + + +AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL + +TO J. R. LOWELL + +WE will not speak of years to-night,-- +For what have years to bring +But larger floods of love and light, +And sweeter songs to sing? + +We will not drown in wordy praise +The kindly thoughts that rise; +If Friendship own one tender phrase, +He reads it in our eyes. + +We need not waste our school-boy art +To gild this notch of Time;-- +Forgive me if my wayward heart +Has throbbed in artless rhyme. + +Enough for him the silent grasp +That knits us hand in hand, +And he the bracelet's radiant clasp +That locks our, circling band. + +Strength to his hours of manly toil! +Peace to his starlit dreams! +Who loves alike the furrowed soil, +The music-haunted streams! + +Sweet smiles to keep forever bright +The sunshine on his lips, +And faith that sees the ring of light +Round nature's last eclipse! + +February 22, 1859. + + + + + +A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE + +TO J. F. CLARKE + +WHO is the shepherd sent to lead, +Through pastures green, the Master's sheep? +What guileless "Israelite indeed" +The folded flock may watch and keep? + +He who with manliest spirit joins +The heart of gentlest human mould, +With burning light and girded loins, +To guide the flock, or watch the fold; + +True to all Truth the world denies, +Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; +Not always right in all men's eyes, +But faithful to the light within; + +Who asks no meed of earthly fame, +Who knows no earthly master's call, +Who hopes for man, through guilt and shame, +Still answering, "God is over all"; + +Who makes another's grief his own, +Whose smile lends joy a double cheer; +Where lives the saint, if such be known?-- +Speak softly,--such an one is here! + +O faithful shepherd! thou hast borne +The heat and burden of the clay; +Yet, o'er thee, bright with beams unshorn, +The sun still shows thine onward way. + +To thee our fragrant love we bring, +In buds that April half displays, +Sweet first-born angels of the spring, +Caught in their opening hymn of praise. + +What though our faltering accents fail, +Our captives know their message well, +Our words unbreathed their lips exhale, +And sigh more love than ours can tell. + +April 4, 1860. + + + + + +THE GRAY CHIEF + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS +MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1859 + +'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er, +And crown with honest praise +The gray old chief, who strikes no more +The blow of better days. + +Before the true and trusted sage +With willing hearts we bend, +When years have touched with hallowing age +Our Master, Guide, and Friend. + +For all his manhood's labor past, +For love and faith long tried, +His age is honored to the last, +Though strength and will have died. + +But when, untamed by toil and strife, +Full in our front he stands, +The torch of light, the shield of life, +Still lifted in his hands, + +No temple, though its walls resound +With bursts of ringing cheers, +Can hold the honors that surround +His manhood's twice-told years! + + + + + +THE LAST LOOK + +W. W. SWAIN + +BEHOLD--not him we knew! +This was the prison which his soul looked through, +Tender, and brave, and true. + +His voice no more is heard; +And his dead name--that dear familiar word-- +Lies on our lips unstirred. + +He spake with poet's tongue; +Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung: +He shall not die unsung + +Grief tried his love, and pain; +And the long bondage of his martyr-chain +Vexed his sweet soul,--in vain! + +It felt life's surges break, +As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake, +Smiling while tempests wake. + +How can we sorrow more? +Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before +To that untrodden shore! + +Lo, through its leafy screen, +A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green, +Untrodden, half unseen! + +Here let his body rest, +Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best +May slide above his breast. + +Smooth his uncurtained bed; +And if some natural tears are softly shed, +It is not for the dead. + +Fold the green turf aright +For the long hours before the morning's light, +And say the last Good Night! + +And plant a clear white stone +Close by those mounds which hold his loved, his own,-- +Lonely, but not alone. + +Here let him sleeping lie, +Till Heaven's bright watchers slumber in the sky +And Death himself shall die! + +Naushon, September 22, 1858. + + + + + +IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. + +HE was all sunshine; in his face +The very soul of sweetness shone; +Fairest and gentlest of his race; +None like him we can call our own. + +Something there was of one that died +In her fresh spring-time long ago, +Our first dear Mary, angel-eyed, +Whose smile it was a bliss to know. + +Something of her whose love imparts +Such radiance to her day's decline, +We feel its twilight in our hearts +Bright as the earliest morning-shine. + +Yet richer strains our eye could trace +That made our plainer mould more fair, +That curved the lip with happier grace, +That waved the soft and silken hair. + +Dust unto dust! the lips are still +That only spoke to cheer and bless; +The folded hands lie white and chill +Unclasped from sorrow's last caress. + +Leave him in peace; he will not heed +These idle tears we vainly pour, +Give back to earth the fading weed +Of mortal shape his spirit wore. + +"Shall I not weep my heartstrings torn, +My flower of love that falls half blown, +My youth uncrowned, my life forlorn, +A thorny path to walk alone?" + +O Mary! one who bore thy name, +Whose Friend and Master was divine, +Sat waiting silent till He came, +Bowed down in speechless grief like thine. + +"Where have ye laid him?" "Come," they say, +Pointing to where the loved one slept; +Weeping, the sister led the way,-- +And, seeing Mary, "Jesus wept." + +He weeps with thee, with all that mourn, +And He shall wipe thy streaming eyes +Who knew all sorrows, woman-born,-- +Trust in his word; thy dead shall rise! + +April 15, 1860. + + + + + +MARTHA + +DIED JANUARY 7, 1861 + +SEXTON! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +Her weary hands their labor cease; +Good night, poor Martha,--sleep in peace! +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +For many a year has Martha said, +"I'm old and poor,--would I were dead!" +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +She'll bring no more, by day or night, +Her basket full of linen white. +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +'T is fitting she should lie below +A pure white sheet of drifted snow. +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +Sleep, Martha, sleep, to wake in light, +Where all the robes are stainless white. +Toll the bell! + + + + + +MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE + +1857 + +I THANK you, MR. PRESIDENT, you've kindly broke the ice; +Virtue should always be the first,--I 'm only SECOND VICE-- +(A vice is something with a screw that's made to hold its jaw +Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw). + +Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the babes of days gone by, +All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose milk is never dry, +We come again, like half-grown boys, and gather at her beck +About her knees, and on her lap, and clinging round her neck. + +We find her at her stately door, and in her ancient chair, +Dressed in the robes of red and green she always loved to wear. +Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek its morning flame; +We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish still the same. + +We have been playing many an hour, and far away we've strayed, +Some laughing in the cheerful sun, some lingering in the shade; +And some have tired, and laid them down where darker shadows fall, +Dear as her loving voice may be, they cannot hear its call. + +What miles we 've travelled since we shook the dew-drops from our shoes +We gathered on this classic green, so famed for heavy dues! +How many boys have joined the game, how many slipped away, +Since we've been running up and down, and having out our play! + +One boy at work with book and brief, and one with gown and band, +One sailing vessels on the pool, one digging sand, +One flying paper kites on change, one planting little pills,-- +The seeds of certain annual flowers well known as little bills. + +What maidens met us on our way, and clasped us hand in hand! +What cherubs,--not the legless kind, that fly, but never stand! +How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver crown +What sudden changes back again to youth's empurpled brown! + +But fairer sights have met our eyes, and broader lights have shone, +Since others lit their midnight lamps where once we trimmed our own; +A thousand trains that flap the sky with flags of rushing fire, +And, throbbing in the Thunderer's hand, Thought's million-chorded lyre. + +We've seen the sparks of Empire fly beyond the mountain bars, +Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they joined the setting stars; +And ocean trodden into paths that trampling giants ford, +To find the planet's vertebrae and sink its spinal cord. + +We've tried reform,--and chloroform,--and both have turned our brain; +When France called up the photograph, we roused the foe to pain; +Just so those earlier sages shared the chaplet of renown,-- +Hers sent a bladder to the clouds, ours brought their lightning down. + +We've seen the little tricks of life, its varnish and veneer, +Its stucco-fronts of character flake off and disappear, +We 've learned that oft the brownest hands will heap the biggest pile, +And met with many a "perfect brick" beneath a rimless "tile." + +What dreams we 've had of deathless name, as scholars, statesmen, bards, +While Fame, the lady with the trump, held up her picture cards! +Till, having nearly played our game, she gayly whispered, "Ah! +I said you should be something grand,--you'll soon be grandpapa." + +Well, well, the old have had their day, the young must take their turn; +There's something always to forget, and something still to learn; +But how to tell what's old or young, the tap-root from the sprigs, +Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs? + +The wisest was a Freshman once, just freed from bar and bolt, +As noisy as a kettle-drum, as leggy as a colt; +Don't be too savage with the boys,--the Primer does not say +The kitten ought to go to church because the cat doth prey. + +The law of merit and of age is not the rule of three; +Non constat that A. M. must prove as busy as A. B. +When Wise the father tracked the son, ballooning through the skies, +He taught a lesson to the old,--go thou and do like Wise! + +Now then, old boys, and reverend youth, of high or low degree, +Remember how we only get one annual out of three, +And such as dare to simmer down three dinners into one +Must cut their salads mighty short, and pepper well with fun. + +I've passed my zenith long ago, it's time for me to set; +A dozen planets wait to shine, and I am lingering yet, +As sometimes in the blaze of day a milk-and-watery moon +Stains with its dim and fading ray the lustrous blue of noon. + +Farewell! yet let one echo rise to shake our ancient hall; +God save the Queen,--whose throne is here,--the Mother of us all +Till dawns the great commencement-day on every shore and sea, +And "Expectantur" all mankind, to take their last Degree! + + + + + +THE PARTING SONG + +FESTIVAL OF THE ALUMNI, 1857 + +THE noon of summer sheds its ray +On Harvard's holy ground; +The Matron calls, the sons obey, +And gather smiling round. + + +CHORUS. +Then old and young together stand, +The sunshine and the snow, +As heart to heart, and hand in hand, +We sing before we go! + + +Her hundred opening doors have swung +Through every storied hall +The pealing echoes loud have rung, +"Thrice welcome one and all!" +Then old and young, etc. + +We floated through her peaceful bay, +To sail life's stormy seas +But left our anchor where it lay +Beneath her green old trees. +Then old and young, etc. + +As now we lift its lengthening chain, +That held us fast of old, +The rusted rings grow bright again,-- +Their iron turns to gold. +Then old and young, etc. + +Though scattered ere the setting sun, +As leaves when wild winds blow, +Our home is here, our hearts are one, +Till Charles forgets to flow. +Then old and young, etc. + + + + + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL +SANITARY ASSOCIATION + +1860 + +WHAT makes the Healing Art divine? +The bitter drug we buy and sell, +The brands that scorch, the blades that shine, +The scars we leave, the "cures" we tell? + +Are these thy glories, holiest Art,-- +The trophies that adorn thee best,-- +Or but thy triumph's meanest part,-- +Where mortal weakness stands confessed? + +We take the arms that Heaven supplies +For Life's long battle with Disease, +Taught by our various need to prize +Our frailest weapons, even these. + +But ah! when Science drops her shield-- +Its peaceful shelter proved in vain-- +And bares her snow-white arm to wield +The sad, stern ministry of pain; + +When shuddering o'er the fount of life, +She folds her heaven-anointed wings, +To lift unmoved the glittering knife +That searches all its crimson springs; + +When, faithful to her ancient lore, +She thrusts aside her fragrant balm +For blistering juice, or cankering ore, +And tames them till they cure or calm; + +When in her gracious hand are seen +The dregs and scum of earth and seas, +Her kindness counting all things clean +That lend the sighing sufferer ease; + +Though on the field that Death has won, +She save some stragglers in retreat;-- +These single acts of mercy done +Are but confessions of defeat. + +What though our tempered poisons save +Some wrecks of life from aches and ails; +Those grand specifics Nature gave +Were never poised by weights or scales! + +God lent his creatures light and air, +And waters open to the skies; +Man locks him in a stifling lair, +And wonders why his brother dies! + +In vain our pitying tears are shed, +In vain we rear the sheltering pile +Where Art weeds out from bed to bed +The plagues we planted by the mile! + +Be that the glory of the past; +With these our sacred toils begin +So flies in tatters from its mast +The yellow flag of sloth and sin, + +And lo! the starry folds reveal +The blazoned truth we hold so dear +To guard is better than to heal,-- +The shield is nobler than the spear! + + + + + +FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +JANUARY 25, 1859 + +His birthday.--Nay, we need not speak +The name each heart is beating,-- +Each glistening eye and flushing cheek +In light and flame repeating! + +We come in one tumultuous tide,-- +One surge of wild emotion,-- +As crowding through the Frith of Clyde +Rolls in the Western Ocean; + +As when yon cloudless, quartered moon +Hangs o'er each storied river, +The swelling breasts of Ayr and Doon +With sea green wavelets quiver. + +The century shrivels like a scroll,-- +The past becomes the present,-- +And face to face, and soul to soul, +We greet the monarch-peasant. + +While Shenstone strained in feeble flights +With Corydon and Phillis,-- +While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's heights +To snatch the Bourbon lilies,-- + +Who heard the wailing infant's cry, +The babe beneath the sheeliug, +Whose song to-night in every sky +Will shake earth's starry ceiling,-- + +Whose passion-breathing voice ascends +And floats like incense o'er us, +Whose ringing lay of friendship blends +With labor's anvil chorus? + +We love him, not for sweetest song, +Though never tone so tender; +We love him, even in his wrong,-- +His wasteful self-surrender. + +We praise him, not for gifts divine,-- +His Muse was born of woman,-- +His manhood breathes in every line,-- +Was ever heart more human? + +We love him, praise him, just for this +In every form and feature, +Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss, +He saw his fellow-creature! + +No soul could sink beneath his love,-- +Not even angel blasted; +No mortal power could soar above +The pride that all outlasted! + +Ay! Heaven had set one living man +Beyond the pedant's tether,-- +His virtues, frailties, HE may scan, +Who weighs them all together! + +I fling my pebble on the cairn +Of him, though dead, undying; +Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn +Beneath her daisies lying. + +The waning suns, the wasting globe, +Shall spare the minstrel's story,-- +The centuries weave his purple robe, +The mountain-mist of glory! + + + + + +AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS + + +AUGUST 29, 1859 + +I REMEMBER--why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago? +I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know; +It must have been in 'forty--I would say 'thirty-nine-- +We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine. + +He said, "Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I, +If we act like other people, shall be older by and by; +What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be, +There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea. + +"We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange, +For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change; +But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill, +And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill." + +"I know it," I said, "old fellow; you speak the solemn truth; +A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth; +But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair, +You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care. + +"At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise; +Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys; +No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes, +But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose." + +But one fine August morning I found myself awake +My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake! +Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold, +That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old! + +But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their +foolish stuff; +A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough; +At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray; +I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say. + +At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine; +Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine, +And when on the western summits the fading light appears, +It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years. + +There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, +But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old"; +So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years, +Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers. + +Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round; +Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned, +Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told; +Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict _old_ + +No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim; +Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb, +Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends, +The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends. + + + + + +FOR THE FAIR IN AID OF THE FUND TO PROCURE +BALL'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON + + +1630 + +ALL overgrown with bush and fern, +And straggling clumps of tangled trees, +With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, +Bent eastward by the mastering breeze,-- +With spongy bogs that drip and fill +A yellow pond with muddy rain, +Beneath the shaggy southern hill +Lies wet and low the Shawinut plain. +And hark! the trodden branches crack; +A crow flaps off with startled scream; +A straying woodchuck canters back; +A bittern rises from the stream; +Leaps from his lair a frightened deer; +An otter plunges in the pool;-- +Here comes old Shawmut's pioneer, +The parson on his brindled bull! + + +1774 + +The streets are thronged with trampling feet, +The northern hill is ridged with graves, +But night and morn the drum is beat +To frighten down the "rebel knaves." +The stones of King Street still are red, +And yet the bloody red-coats come +I hear their pacing sentry's tread, +The click of steel, the tap of drum, +And over all the open green, +Where grazed of late the harmless kine, +The cannon's deepening ruts are seen, +The war-horse stamps, the bayonets shine. +The clouds are dark with crimson rain +Above the murderous hirelings' den, +And soon their whistling showers shall stain +The pipe-clayed belts of Gage's men. + + +186- + +Around the green, in morning light, +The spired and palaced summits blaze, +And, sunlike, from her Beacon-height +The dome-crowned city spreads her rays; +They span the waves, they belt the plains, +They skirt the roads with bands of white, +Till with a flash of gilded panes +Yon farthest hillside bounds the sight. +Peace, Freedom, Wealth! no fairer view, +Though with the wild-bird's restless wings +We sailed beneath the noontide's blue +Or chased the moonlight's endless rings! +Here, fitly raised by grateful hands +His holiest memory to recall, +The Hero's, Patriot's image stands; +He led our sires who won them all! + +November 14, 1859. + + + + + +THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA +A NIGHTMARE DREAM BY DAYLIGHT + +Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea? +Have you met with that dreadful old man? +If you have n't been caught, you will be, you will be; +For catch you he must and he can. + +He does n't hold on by your throat, by your throat, +As of old in the terrible tale; +But he grapples you tight by the coat, by the coat, +Till its buttons and button-holes fail. + +There's the charm of a snake in his eye, in his eye, +And a polypus-grip in his hands; +You cannot go back, nor get by, nor get by, +If you look at the spot where he stands. + +Oh, you're grabbed! See his claw on your sleeve, on your sleeve! +It is Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea! +You're a Christian, no doubt you believe, you believe +You're a martyr, whatever you be! + +Is the breakfast-hour past? They must wait, they must wait, +While the coffee boils sullenly down, +While the Johnny-cake burns on the grate, on the grate, +And the toast is done frightfully brown. + +Yes, your dinner will keep; let it cool, let it cool, +And Madam may worry and fret, +And children half-starved go to school, go to school; +He can't think of sparing you yet. + +Hark! the bell for the train! "Come along! Come along! +For there is n't a second to lose." +"ALL ABOARD!" (He holds on.) "Fsht I ding-dong! Fsht! ding-dong!"-- +You can follow on foot, if you choose. + +There's a maid with a cheek like a peach, like a peach, +That is waiting for you in the church;-- +But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, +And you leave your lost bride in the lurch. + +There's a babe in a fit,--hurry quick! hurry quick! +To the doctor's as fast as you can! +The baby is off, while you stick, while you stick, +In the grip of the dreadful Old Man! + +I have looked on the face of the Bore, of the Bore; +The voice of the Simple I know; +I have welcomed the Flat at my door, at my door; +I have sat by the side of the Slow; + +I have walked like a lamb by the friend, by the friend, +That stuck to my skirts like a bur; +I have borne the stale talk without end, without end, +Of the sitter whom nothing could stir + +But my hamstrings grow loose, and I shake, and I shake, +At the sight of the dreadful Old Man; +Yea, I quiver and quake, and I take, and I take, +To my legs with what vigor I can! + +Oh the dreadful Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea +He's come back like the Wandering Jew! +He has had his cold claw upon me, upon me,-- +And be sure that he 'll have it on you! + + + + + +INTERNATIONAL ODE + +OUR FATHERS' LAND + +GOD bless our Fathers' Land! +Keep her in heart and hand +One with our own! +From all her foes defend, +Be her brave People's Friend, +On all her realms descend, +Protect her Throne! + +Father, with loving care +Guard Thou her kingdom's Heir, +Guide all his ways +Thine arm his shelter be, +From him by land and sea +Bid storm and danger flee, +Prolong his days! + +Lord, let War's tempest cease, +Fold the whole Earth in peace +Under thy wings +Make all thy nations one, +All hearts beneath the sun, +Till Thou shalt reign alone, +Great King of kings! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT OFFERED AT THE DINNER TO H. I. H. +THE PRINCE NAPOLEON, AT THE REVERE HOUSE, +SEPTEMBER 25,1861 + +THE land of sunshine and of song! +Her name your hearts divine; +To her the banquet's vows belong +Whose breasts have poured its wine; +Our trusty friend, our true ally +Through varied change and chance +So, fill your flashing goblets high,-- +I give you, VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Above our hosts in triple folds +The selfsame colors spread, +Where Valor's faithful arm upholds +The blue, the white, the red; +Alike each nation's glittering crest +Reflects the morning's glance,-- +Twin eagles, soaring east and west +Once more, then, VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Sister in trial! who shall count +Thy generous friendship's claim, +Whose blood ran mingling in the fount +That gave our land its name, +Till Yorktown saw in blended line +Our conquering arms advance, +And victory's double garlands twine +Our banners? VIVE LA FRANCE! + +O land of heroes! in our need +One gift from Heaven we crave +To stanch these wounds that vainly bleed,-- +The wise to lead the brave! +Call back one Captain of thy past +From glory's marble trance, +Whose name shall be a bugle-blast +To rouse us! VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Pluck Conde's baton from the trench, +Wake up stout Charles Martel, +Or find some woman's hand to clench +The sword of La Pucelle! +Give us one hour of old Turenne,-- +One lift of Bayard's lance,-- +Nay, call Marengo's Chief again +To lead us! VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Ah, hush! our welcome Guest shall hear +But sounds of peace and joy; +No angry echo vex thine ear, +Fair Daughter of Savoy +Once more! the land of arms and arts, +Of glory, grace, romance; +Her love lies warm in all our hearts +God bless her! VIVE LA FRANCE! + + + + + +BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE + +SHE has gone,--she has left us in passion and pride,-- +Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side! +She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, +And turned on her brother the face of a foe! + +Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, +We can never forget that our hearts have been one,-- +Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name, +From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame! + +You were always too ready to fire at a touch; +But we said, "She is hasty,--she does not mean much." +We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent threat; +But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!" + +Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold? +Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? +Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain +That her petulant children would sever in vain. + +They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil, +Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil, +Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their eaves, +And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves: + +In vain is the strife! When its fury is past, +Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last, +As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow +Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below. + +Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky +Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts the die! +Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with steel, +The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal! + +Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, +There are battles with Fate that can never be won! +The star-flowering banner must never be furled, +For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world! + +Go, then, our rash sister! afar and aloof, +Run wild in the sunshine away from our roof; +But when your heart aches and your feet have grown sore, +Remember the pathway that leads to our door! + +March 25, 1861. + + + +NOTES: (For original print volume one) + +[There stand the Goblet and the Sun.] +The Goblet and the Sun (Vas-Sol), sculptured on a free-stone slab +supported by five pillars, are the only designation of the family tomb +of the Vassalls. + +[Thus mocked the spoilers with his school-boy scorn.] +See "Old Ironsides," of this volume. + +[On other shores, above their mouldering towns.] +Daniel Webster quoted several of the verses which follow, in his address +at the laying of the corner-stone of the addition to the Capitol at +Washington, July 4, 1851. + +[Thou calm, chaste scholar.] +Charles Chauncy Emerson; died May 9, 1836. + +[And thou, dear friend, whom Science still deplores.] +James Jackson, Jr., M. D.; died March 28, 1834. + +[THE STEAMBOAT.] +Mr. Emerson has quoted some lines from this poem, but +somewhat disguised as he recalled them. It is never safe to +quote poetry without referring to the original. + +[Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound.] +The churches referred to in the lines which follow are,-- +1. King's Chapel, the foundation of which was laid by Governor Shirley +in 1749. +2. Brattle Street Church, consecrated in 1773. The completion of this +edifice, the design of which included a spire, was prevented by the +troubles of the Revolution, and its plain, square tower presented +nothing more attractive than a massive simplicity. In the front of this +tower, till the church was demolished in 1872, there was to be seen, +half imbedded in the brick-work, a cannon-ball, which was thrown from +the American fortifications at Cambridge, during the bombard-ment of the +city, then occupied by the British troops. +3. The Old South, first occupied for public worship in 1730. +4. Park Street Church, built in 1809, the tall white steeple of which is +the most conspicuous of all the Boston spires. +5. Christ Church, opened for public worship in 1723, and containing a +set of eight bells, long the only chime in Boston. + +[INTERNATIONAL ODE.] +This ode was sung in unison by twelve hundred children of the public +schools, to the air of "God save the Queen," at the visit of the Prince +of Wales to Boston, October 18, 1860. + + + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + [Volume 2 or the 1893 three volume set] + + +CONTENTS: + +POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 (1851-1889) + BILL AND JOE + A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE" + QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS + AN IMPROMPTU + THE OLD MAN DREAMS + REMEMBER--FORGET + OUR INDIAN SUMMER + MARE RUBRUM + THE Boys + LINES + A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH + J. D. R. + VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION + "CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE" + F. W. C. + THE LAST CHARGE + OUR OLDEST FRIEND + SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH + MY ANNUAL + ALL HERE + ONCE MORE + THE OLD CRUISER + HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING + EVEN-SONG + THE SMILING LISTENER + OUR SWEET SINGER: J. A. + H. C. M., H. S., J. K. W. + WHAT I HAVE COME FOR + OUR BANKER + FOR CLASS-MEETING + "AD AMICOS " + HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT + THE LAST SURVIVOR + THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS + THE SHADOWS + BENJAMIN PEIRCE + IN THE TWILIGHT + A LOVING-CUP SONG + THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP + THE LYRE OF ANACREON + THE OLD TUNE + THE BROKEN CIRCLE + THE ANGEL-THIEF + AFTER THE CURFEW + +POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1857-1858) + THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS + SUN AND SHADOW + MUSA + A PARTING HEALTH: To J. L. MOTLEY + WHAT WE ALL THINK + SPRING HAS COME + PROLOGUE + LATTER-DAY WARNINGS + ALBUM VERSES + A GOOD TIME GOING! + THE LAST BLOSSOM + CONTENTMENT + AESTIVATION + THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE ; OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSE SHAY " + PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY ; OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR + ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER + +POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1858-1859) + UNDER THE VIOLETS + HYMN OF TRUST + A SUN-DAY HYMN + THE CROOKED FOOTPATH + IRIS, HER BOOK + ROBINSON OF LEYDEN + ST ANTHONY THE REFORMER + THE OPENING OF THE PIANO + MIDSUMMER + DE SAUTY + +POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1871-1872) + HOMESICK IN HEAVEN + FANTASIA + AUNT TABITHA + WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS + EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES + +SONGS OF MANY SEASONS (1862-1874) + OPENING THE WINDOW + PROGRAMME + + IN THE QUIET DAYS + AN OLD-YEAR SONG + DOROTHY Q: A FAMILY PORTRAIT + THE ORGAN-BLOWER + AT THE PANTOMIME + AFTER THE FIRE + A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY + NEARING THE SNOW-LINE + + IN WAR TIME + TO CANAAN: A PURITAN WAR-SONG + "THUS SAITH THE LORD, I OFFER THEE THREE THINGS" + NEVER OR NOW + ONE COUNTRY + GOD SAVE THE FLAG! + HYMN AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION + HYMN FOR THE FAIR AT CHICAGO + UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE + FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN + ARMY HYMN + PARTING HYMN + THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY + THE SWEET LITTLE MAN + UNION AND LIBERTY + + SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL + AMERICA TO RUSSIA + WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY + AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY + BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ + AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT + AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT + To H W LONGFELLOW + To CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG + A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS + + MEMORIAL VERSES + FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BOSTON, 1865 + FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES, CAMBRIDGE JULY 21, 1865 + EDWARD EVERETT: JANUARY 30, 1865 + SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, APRIL 23, 1864 + IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE, MAY 25, 1864 + HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY: CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869 + POEM AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1869 + HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF + HARVARD MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER 6, 1870 + HYMN FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL AT CAMBRIDGE, 1874 + HYMN AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES SUMNER, APRIL 29, 1874 + + RHYMES OF AN HOUR + ADDRESS FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, N. Y. 1873 + A SEA DIALOGUE + CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC + FOR THE CENTENNIAL DINNER, PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER, 1873 + A POEM SERVED TO ORDER + THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH + No TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME + A HYMN OF PEACE, TO THE MUSIC OF KELLER'S "AMERICAN HYMN" + +NOTES + + + + + + POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 + + 1851-1889 + + +BILL AND JOE + +COME, dear old comrade, you and I +Will steal an hour from days gone by, +The shining days when life was new, +And all was bright with morning dew, +The lusty days of long ago, +When you were Bill and I was Joe. + +Your name may flaunt a titled trail +Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail, +And mine as brief appendix wear +As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare; +To-day, old friend, remember still +That I am Joe and you are Bill. + +You've won the great world's envied prize, +And grand you look in people's eyes, +With H O N. and L L. D. +In big brave letters, fair to see,-- +Your fist, old fellow! off they go!-- +How are you, Bill? How are you, Joe? + +You've worn the judge's ermined robe; +You 've taught your name to half the globe; +You've sung mankind a deathless strain; +You've made the dead past live again +The world may call you what it will, +But you and I are Joe and Bill. + +The chaffing young folks stare and say +"See those old buffers, bent and gray,-- +They talk like fellows in their teens! +Mad, poor old boys! That's what it means,"-- +And shake their heads; they little know +The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe!-- + +How Bill forgets his hour of pride, +While Joe sits smiling at his side; +How Joe, in spite of time's disguise, +Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes,-- +Those calm, stern eyes that melt and fill +As Joe looks fondly up at Bill. + +Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame? +A fitful tongue of leaping flame; +A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust, +That lifts a pinch of mortal dust; +A few swift years, and who can show +Which dust was Bill and which was Joe? + +The weary idol takes his stand, +Holds out his bruised and aching hand, +While gaping thousands come and go,-- +How vain it seems, this empty show! +Till all at once his pulses thrill;-- +'T is poor old Joe's "God bless you, Bill!" + +And shall we breathe in happier spheres +The names that pleased our mortal ears; +In some sweet lull of harp and song +For earth-born spirits none too long, +Just whispering of the world below +Where this was Bill and that was Joe? + +No matter; while our home is here +No sounding name is half so dear; +When fades at length our lingering day, +Who cares what pompous tombstones say? +Read on the hearts that love us still, +/Hic jacet/ Joe. /Hic jacet/ Bill. + + + + + +A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE " + +1851 + +THE summer dawn is breaking +On Auburn's tangled bowers, +The golden light is waking +On Harvard's ancient towers; +The sun is in the sky +That must see us do or die, +Ere it shine on the line +Of the CLASS OF '29. + +At last the day is ended, +The tutor screws no more, +By doubt and fear attended +Each hovers round the door, +Till the good old Praeses cries, +While the tears stand in his eyes, +"You have passed, and are classed +With the Boys of '29." + +Not long are they in making +The college halls their own, +Instead of standing shaking, +Too bashful to be known; +But they kick the Seniors' shins +Ere the second week begins, +When they stray in the way +Of the BOYS OF '29. + +If a jolly set is trolling +The last /Der Freischutz/ airs, +Or a "cannon bullet" rolling +Comes bouncing down the stairs, +The tutors, looking out, +Sigh, "Alas! there is no doubt, +'T is the noise of the Boys +Of the CLASS OF '29." + +Four happy years together, +By storm and sunshine tried, +In changing wind and weather, +They rough it side by side, +Till they hear their Mother cry, +"You are fledged, and you must fly," +And the bell tolls the knell +Of the days of '29. + +Since then, in peace or trouble, +Full many a year has rolled, +And life has counted double +The days that then we told; +Yet we'll end as we've begun, +For though scattered, we are one, +While each year sees us here, +Round the board of '29. + +Though fate may throw between us +The mountains or the sea, +No time shall ever wean us, +No distance set us free; +But around the yearly board, +When the flaming pledge is poured, +It shall claim every name +On the roll of '29. + +To yonder peaceful ocean +That glows with sunset fires, +Shall reach the warm emotion +This welcome day inspires, +Beyond the ridges cold +Where a brother toils for gold, +Till it shine through the mine +Round the Boy of '29. + +If one whom fate has broken +Shall lift a moistened eye, +We'll say, before he 's spoken-- +"Old Classmate, don't you cry! +Here, take the purse I hold, +There 's a tear upon the gold-- +It was mine-it is thine-- +A'n't we BOYS OF '29?" + +As nearer still and nearer +The fatal stars appear, +The living shall be dearer +With each encircling year, +Till a few old men shall say, +"We remember 't is the day-- +Let it pass with a glass +For the CLASS OF '29." + +As one by one is falling +Beneath the leaves or snows, +Each memory still recalling, +The broken ring shall close, +Till the nightwinds softly pass +O'er the green and growing grass, +Where it waves on the graves +Of the BOYS OF '29! + + + + + +QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS + +1852 + +WHERE, oh where are the visions of morning, +Fresh as the dews of our prime? +Gone, like tenants that quit without warning, +Down the back entry of time. + +Where, oh where are life's lilies and roses, +Nursed in the golden dawn's smile? +Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses, +On the old banks of the Nile. + +Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas, +Loving and lovely of yore? +Look in the columns of old Advertisers,-- +Married and dead by the score. + +Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies, +Saturday's triumph and joy? +Gone, like our friend --Greek-- Achilles, +Homer's ferocious old boy. + +Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion, +Hopes like young eagles at play, +Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion, +How ye have faded away! + +Yet, through the ebbing of Time's mighty river +Leave our young blossoms to die, +Let him roll smooth in his current forever, +Till the last pebble is dry. + + + + + +AN IMPROMPTU + +Not premeditated + +1853 + +THE clock has struck noon; ere it thrice tell the hours +We shall meet round the table that blushes with flowers, +And I shall blush deeper with shame-driven blood +That I came to the banquet and brought not a bud. + +Who cares that his verse is a beggar in art +If you see through its rags the full throb of his heart? +Who asks if his comrade is battered and tanned +When he feels his warm soul in the clasp of his hand? + +No! be it an epic, or be it a line, +The Boys will all love it because it is mine; +I sung their last song on the morn of the day +That tore from their lives the last blossom of May. + +It is not the sunset that glows in the wine, +But the smile that beams over it, makes it divine; +I scatter these drops, and behold, as they fall, +The day-star of memory shines through them all! + +And these are the last; they are drops that I stole +From a wine-press that crushes the life from the soul, +But they ran through my heart and they sprang to my brain +Till our twentieth sweet summer was smiling again! + + + + + +THE OLD MAN DREAMS + +1854 + +OH for one hour of youthful joy! +Give back my twentieth spring! +I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy, +Than reign, a gray-beard king. + +Off with the spoils of wrinkled age! +Away with Learning's crown! +Tear out life's Wisdom-written page, +And dash its trophies down! + +One moment let my life-blood stream +From boyhood's fount of flame! +Give me one giddy, reeling dream +Of life all love and fame + +My listening angel heard the prayer, +And, calmly smiling, said, +"If I but touch thy silvered hair +Thy hasty wish hath sped. + +"But is there nothing in thy track, +To bid thee fondly stay, +While the swift seasons hurry back +To find the wished-for day? " + +"Ah, truest soul of womankind! +Without thee what were life? +One bliss I cannot leave behind: +I'll take--my--precious--wife!" + +The angel took a sapphire pen +And wrote in rainbow dew, +/The man would be a boy again, +And be a husband too!/ + +"And is there nothing yet unsaid, +Before the change appears? +Remember, all their gifts have fled +With those dissolving years." + +"Why, yes;" for memory would recall +My fond paternal joys; +"I could not bear to leave them all +I'll take--my--girl--and--boys." + +The smiling angel dropped his pen,-- +"Why, this will never do; +The man would be a boy again, +And be a father too!" + +And so I laughed,--my laughter woke +The household with its noise,-- +And wrote my dream, when morning broke, +To please the gray-haired boys. + + + + + +REMEMBER--FORGET + +1855 + +AND what shall be the song to-night, +If song there needs must be? +If every year that brings us here +Must steal an hour from me? +Say, shall it ring a merry peal, +Or heave a mourning sigh +O'er shadows cast, by years long past, +On moments flitting by? + +Nay, take the first unbidden line +The idle hour may send, +No studied grace can mend the face +That smiles as friend on friend; +The balsam oozes from the pine, +The sweetness from the rose, +And so, unsought, a kindly thought +Finds language as it flows. + +The years rush by in sounding flight, +I hear their ceaseless wings; +Their songs I hear, some far, some near, +And thus the burden rings +"The morn has fled, the noon has past, +The sun will soon be set, +The twilight fade to midnight shade; +Remember-and Forget!" + +Remember all that time has brought-- +The starry hope on high, +The strength attained, the courage gained, +The love that cannot die. +Forget the bitter, brooding thought,-- +The word too harshly said, +The living blame love hates to name, +The frailties of the dead! + +We have been younger, so they say, +But let the seasons roll, +He doth not lack an almanac +Whose youth is in his soul. +The snows may clog life's iron track, +But does the axle tire, +While bearing swift through bank and drift +The engine's heart of fire? + +I lift a goblet in my hand; +If good old wine it hold, +An ancient skin to keep it in +Is just the thing, we 're told. +We 're grayer than the dusty flask,-- +We 're older than our wine; +Our corks reveal the "white top" seal, +The stamp of '29. + +Ah, Boys! we clustered in the dawn, +To sever in the dark; +A merry crew, with loud halloo, +We climbed our painted bark; +We sailed her through the four years' cruise, +We 'll sail her to the last, +Our dear old flag, though but a rag, +Still flying on her mast. + +So gliding on, each winter's gale +Shall pipe us all on deck, +Till, faint and few, the gathering crew +Creep o'er the parting wreck, +Her sails and streamers spread aloft +To fortune's rain or shine, +Till storm or sun shall all be one, +And down goes TWENTY-NINE! + + + + + +OUR INDIAN SUMMER + +1856 + +You 'll believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to rise, +With a welcome like this in your darling old eyes; +To meet the same smiles and to hear the same tone +Which have greeted me oft in the years that have flown. + +Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the wall, +My locks would turn brown at the sight of you all; +If my heart were as dry as the shell on the sand, +It would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand. + +There are noontides of autumn when summer returns. +Though the leaves are all garnered and sealed in their urns, +And the bird on his perch, that was silent so long, +Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into song. + +We have caged the young birds of our beautiful June; +Their plumes are still bright and their voices in tune; +One mcment of sunshine from faces like these +And they sing as they sung in the green-growing trees. + +The voices of morning! how sweet is their thrill +When the shadows have turned, and the evening grows still! +The text of our lives may get wiser with age, +But the print was so fair on its twentieth page! + +Look off from your goblet and up from your plate, +Come, take the last journal, and glance at its date: +Then think what we fellows should say and should do, +If the 6 were a 9 and the 5 were a 2. + +Ah, no! for the shapes that would meet with as here, +From the far land of shadows, are ever too dear! +Though youth flung around us its pride and its charms, +We should see but the comrades we clasped in our arms. + +A health to our future--a sigh for our past, +We love, we remember, we hope to the last; +And for all the base lies that the almanacs hold, +While we've youth in our hearts we can never grow old! + + + + + +MARE RUBRUM + +1858 + +FLASH out a stream of blood-red wine, +For I would drink to other days, +And brighter shall their memory shine, +Seen flaming through its crimson blaze! +The roses die, the summers fade, +But every ghost of boyhood's dream +By nature's magic power is laid +To sleep beneath this blood-red stream! + +It filled the purple grapes that lay, +And drank the splendors of the sun, +Where the long summer's cloudless day +Is mirrored in the broad Garonne; +It pictures still the bacchant shapes +That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,-- +The maidens dancing on the grapes,-- +Their milk-white ankles splashed with red. + +Beneath these waves of crimson lie, +In rosy fetters prisoned fast, +Those flitting shapes that never die,-- +The swift-winged visions of the past. +Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim, +Each shadow rends its flowery chain, +Springs in a bubble from its brim, +And walks the chambers of the brain. + +Poor beauty! Time and fortune's wrong +No shape nor feature may withstand; +Thy wrecks are scattered all along, +Like emptied sea-shells on the sand; +Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain, +The dust restores each blooming girl, +As if the sea-shells moved again +Their glistening lips of pink and pearl. + +Here lies the home of school-boy life, +With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, +And, scarred by many a truant knife, +Our old initials on the wall; +Here rest, their keen vibrations mute, +The shout of voices known so well, +The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, +The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell. + +Here, clad in burning robes, are laid +Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed, +And here those cherished forms have strayed +We miss awhile, and call them dead. +What wizard fills the wondrous glass? +What soil the enchanted clusters grew? +That buried passions wake and pass +In beaded drops of fiery dew? + +Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,-- +Our hearts can boast a warmer glow, +Filled from a vintage more divine, +Calmed, but not chilled, by winter's snow! +To-night the palest wave we sip +Rich as the priceless draught sball be +That wet the bride of Cana's lip,-- +The wedding wine of Galilee! + + + + + +THE BOYS + +1859 + +HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? +If there has, take him out, without making a noise. +Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! +Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night! + +We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? +He's tipsy,--young jackanapes!--show him the door! +"Gray temples at twenty?"--Yes! white if we please; +Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! + +Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! +Look close,--you will see not a sign of a flake! +We want some new garlands for those we have shed,-- +And these are white roses in place of the red. + +We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, +Of talking (in public) as if we were old:-- +That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;" +It 's a neat little fiction,--of course it 's all fudge. + +That fellow's the "Speaker,"--the one on the right; +"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? +That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; +There's the "Reverend" What's his name?--don't make me laugh. + +That boy with the grave mathematical look +Made believe he had written a wonderful book, +And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was /true/! +So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too! + +There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, +That could harness a team with a logical chain; +When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, +We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squire." + +And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,-- +Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; +But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,-- +Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee!" + +You hear that boy laughing?--You think he's all fun; +But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; +The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, +And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all! + +Yes, we 're boys,--always playing with tongue or with pen,-- +And I sometimes have asked,--Shall we ever be men? +Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, +Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? + +Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! +The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! +And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, +Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS! + + + + + +LINES + +1860 + +I 'm ashamed,--that 's the fact,--it 's a pitiful case,-- +Won't any kind classmate get up in my place? +Just remember how often I've risen before,-- +I blush as I straighten my legs on the floor! + +There are stories, once pleasing, too many times told,-- +There are beauties once charming, too fearfully old,-- +There are voices we've heard till we know them so well, +Though they talked for an hour they'd have nothing to tell. + +Yet, Classmates! Friends! Brothers! Dear blessed old boys! +Made one by a lifetime of sorrows and joys, +What lips have such sounds as the poorest of these, +Though honeyed, like Plato's, by musical bees? + +What voice is so sweet and what greeting so dear +As the simple, warm welcome that waits for us here? +The love of our boyhood still breathes in its tone, +And our hearts throb the answer, "He's one of our own!" + +Nay! count not our numbers; some sixty we know, +But these are above, and those under the snow; +And thoughts are still mingled wherever we meet +For those we remember with those that we greet. + +We have rolled on life's journey,--how fast and how far! +One round of humanity's many-wheeled car, +But up-hill and down-hill, through rattle and rub, +Old, true Twenty-niners! we've stuck to our hub! + +While a brain lives to think, or a bosom to feel, +We will cling to it still like the spokes of a wheel! +And age, as it chills us, shall fasten the tire +That youth fitted round in his circle of fire! + + + + +A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH + + +1861 + +JANUARY THIRD) + +WE sing "Our Country's" song to-night +With saddened voice and eye; +Her banner droops in clouded light +Beneath the wintry sky. +We'll pledge her once in golden wine +Before her stars have set +Though dim one reddening orb may shine, +We have a Country yet. + +'T were vain to sigh o'er errors past, +The fault of sires or sons; +Our soldier heard the threatening blast, +And spiked his useless guns; +He saw the star-wreathed ensign fall, +By mad invaders torn; +But saw it from the bastioned wall +That laughed their rage to scorn! + +What though their angry cry is flung +Across the howling wave,-- +They smite the air with idle tongue +The gathering storm who brave; +Enough of speech! the trumpet rings; +Be silent, patient, calm,-- +God help them if the tempest swings +The pine against the palm! + +Our toilsome years have made us tame; +Our strength has slept unfelt; +The furnace-fire is slow to flame +That bids our ploughshares melt; +'T is hard to lose the bread they win +In spite of Nature's frowns,-- +To drop the iron threads we spin +That weave our web of towns, + +To see the rusting turbines stand +Before the emptied flumes, +To fold the arms that flood the land +With rivers from their looms,-- +But harder still for those who learn +The truth forgot so long; +When once their slumbering passions burn, +The peaceful are the strong! + +The Lord have mercy on the weak, +And calm their frenzied ire, +And save our brothers ere they shriek, +"We played with Northern fire!" +The eagle hold his mountain height,-- +The tiger pace his den +Give all their country, each his right! +God keep us all! Amen! + + + + + +J. D. R. + +1862 + +THE friends that are, and friends that were, +What shallow waves divide! +I miss the form for many a year +Still seated at my side. + +I miss him, yet I feel him still +Amidst our faithful band, +As if not death itself could chill +The warmth of friendship's hand. + +His story other lips may tell,-- +For me the veil is drawn; +I only knew he loved me well, +He loved me--and is gone! + + + + + +VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION + +1862 + +'T is midnight: through my troubled dream +Loud wails the tempest's cry; +Before the gale, with tattered sail, +A ship goes plunging by. +What name? Where bound?--The rocks around +Repeat the loud halloo. +--The good ship Union, Southward bound: +God help her and her crew! + +And is the old flag flying still +That o'er your fathers flew, +With bands of white and rosy light, +And field of starry blue? +--Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft +Have braved the roaring blast, +And still shall fly when from the sky +This black typhoon has past! + +Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark! +May I thy peril share? +--O landsman, there are fearful seas +The brave alone may dare! +--Nay, ruler of the rebel deep, +What matters wind or wave? +The rocks that wreck your reeling deck +Will leave me naught to save! + +O landsman, art thou false or true? +What sign hast thou to show? +--The crimson stains from loyal veins +That hold my heart-blood's flow +--Enough! what more shall honor claim? +I know the sacred sign; +Above thy head our flag shall spread, +Our ocean path be thine! + +The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape +Lies low along her lee, +Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes +To lock the shore and sea. +No treason here! it cost too dear +To win this barren realm +And true and free the hands must be +That hold the whaler's helm! + +Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay +No rebel cruiser scars; +Her waters feel no pirate's keel +That flaunts the fallen stars! +--But watch the light on yonder height,-- +Ay, pilot, have a care! +Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud +The capes of Delaware! + +Say, pilot, what this fort may be, +Whose sentinels look down +From moated walls that show the sea +Their deep embrasures' frown? +The Rebel host claims all the coast, +But these are friends, we know, +Whose footprints spoil the "sacred soil," +And this is?--Fort Monroe! + +The breakers roar,--how bears the shore? +--The traitorous wreckers' hands +Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays +Along the Hatteras sands. +--Ha! say not so! I see its glow! +Again the shoals display +The beacon light that shines by night, +The Union Stars by day! + +The good ship flies to milder skies, +The wave more gently flows, +The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas +The breath of Beaufort's rose. +What fold is this the sweet winds kiss, +Fair-striped and many-starred, +Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls, +The twins of Beauregard? + +What! heard you not Port Royal's doom? +How the black war-ships came +And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom +To redder wreaths of flame? +How from Rebellion's broken reed +We saw his emblem fall, +As soon his cursed poison-weed +Shall drop from Sumter's wall? + +On! on! Pulaski's iron hail +Falls harmless on Tybee! +The good ship feels the freshening gales, +She strikes the open sea; +She rounds the point, she threads the keys +That guard the Land of Flowers, +And rides at last where firm and fast +Her own Gibraltar towers! + +The good ship Union's voyage is o'er, +At anchor safe she swings, +And loud and clear with cheer on cheer +Her joyous welcome rings: +Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave, +It thunders on the shore,-- +One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, +One Nation, evermore! + + + + + + +"CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE " + +1863 + +YES, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while you hate +The self-ruling, chain-breaking, throne-shaking State! +The night-birds dread morning,--your instinct is true,-- +The day-star of Freedom brings midnight for you! + +Why plead with the deaf for the cause of mankind? +The owl hoots at noon that the eagle is blind! +We ask not your reasons,--'t were wasting our time,-- +Our life is a menace, our welfare a crime! + +We have battles to fight, we have foes to subdue,-- +Time waits not for us, and we wait not for you! +The mower mows on, though the adder may writhe +And the copper-head coil round the blade of his +scythe! + +"No sides in this quarrel," your statesmen may urge, +Of school-house and wages with slave-pen scourge!-- +No sides in the quarrel! proclaim it as well +To the angels that fight with the legions of hell! + +They kneel in God's temple, the North and the South, +With blood on each weapon and prayers in each mouth. +Whose cry shall be answered? Ye Heavens, attend +The lords of the lash as their voices ascend! + +"O Lord, we are shaped in the image of Thee,-- +Smite down the base millions that claim to be free, +And lend thy strong arm to the soft-handed race +Who eat not their bread in the sweat of their face!" + +So pleads the proud planter. What echoes are these? +The bay of his bloodhound is borne on the breeze, +And, lost in the shriek of his victim's despair, +His voice dies unheard.--Hear the Puritan's prayer! + +"O Lord, that didst smother mankind in thy flood, +The sun is as sackcloth, the moon is as blood, +The stars fall to earth as untimely are cast +The figs from the fig-tree that shakes in the blast! + +"All nations, all tribes in whose nostrils is breath +Stand gazing at Sin as she travails with Death! +Lord, strangle the monster that struggles to birth, +Or mock us no more with thy 'Kingdom on Earth!' + +"If Ammon and Moab must reign in the land +Thou gavest thine Israel, fresh from thy hand, +Call Baal and Ashtaroth out of their graves +To be the new gods for the empire of slaves!" + +Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of men? +Will ye build you new shrines in the slave-breeder's den? +Or bow with the children of light, as they call +On the Judge of the Earth and the Father of All? + +Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time moves apace,-- +Each day is an age in the life of our race! +Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in fear +From the fast-rising flood that shall girdle the sphere! + + + + + +F. W. C. + +1864 + +FAST as the rolling seasons bring +The hour of fate to those we love, +Each pearl that leaves the broken string +Is set in Friendship's crown above. +As narrower grows the earthly chain, +The circle widens in the sky; +These are our treasures that remain, +But those are stars that beam on high. + + +We miss--oh, how we miss!--his face,-- +With trembling accents speak his name. +Earth cannot fill his shadowed place +From all her rolls of pride and fame; +Our song has lost the silvery thread +That carolled through his jocund lips; +Our laugh is mute, our smile is fled, +And all our sunshine in eclipse. + +And what and whence the wondrous charm +That kept his manhood boylike still,-- +That life's hard censors could disarm +And lead them captive at his will? +His heart was shaped of rosier clay,-- +His veins were filled with ruddier fire,-- +Time could not chill him, fortune sway, +Nor toil with all its burdens tire. + +His speech burst throbbing from its fount +And set our colder thoughts aglow, +As the hot leaping geysers mount +And falling melt the Iceland snow. +Some word, perchance, we counted rash,-- +Some phrase our calmness might disclaim, +Yet 't was the sunset's lightning's flash, +No angry bolt, but harmless flame. + +Man judges all, God knoweth each; +We read the rule, He sees the law; +How oft his laughing children teach +The truths his prophets never saw +O friend, whose wisdom flowered in mirth, +Our hearts are sad, our eyes are dim; +He gave thy smiles to brighten earth,-- +We trust thy joyous soul to Him! + +Alas!--our weakness Heaven forgive! +We murmur, even while we trust, +"How long earth's breathing burdens live, +Whose hearts, before they die, are dust!" +But thou!--through grief's untimely tears +We ask with half-reproachful sigh-- +"Couldst thou not watch a few brief years +Till Friendship faltered, ' Thou mayst die'?" + +Who loved our boyish years so well? +Who knew so well their pleasant tales, +And all those livelier freaks could tell +Whose oft-told story never fails? +In vain we turn our aching eyes,-- +In vain we stretch our eager hands,-- +Cold in his wintry shroud he lies +Beneath the dreary drifting sands! + +Ah, speak not thus! _He_ lies not there! +We see him, hear him as of old! +He comes! He claims his wonted chair; +His beaming face we still behold! +His voice rings clear in all our songs, +And loud his mirthful accents rise; +To us our brother's life belongs,-- +Dear friends, a classmate never dies! + + + + + +THE LAST CHARGE + +1864 + +Now, men of the North! will you join in the strife +For country, for freedom, for honor, for life? +The giant grows blind in his fury and spite,-- +One blow on his forehead will settle the fight! + +Flash full in his eyes the blue lightning of steel, +And stun him with cannon-bolts, peal upon peal! +Mount, troopers, and follow your game to its lair, +As the hound tracks the wolf and the beagle the hare! + +Blow, trumpets, your summons, till sluggards awake! +Beat, drums, till the roofs of the faint-hearted shake! +Yet, yet, ere the signet is stamped on the scroll, +Their names may be traced on the blood-sprinkled roll! + +Trust not the false herald that painted your shield +True honor to-day must be sought on the field! +Her scutcheon shows white with a blazon of red,-- +The life-drops of crimson for liberty shed + +The hour is at hand, and the moment draws nigh; +The dog-star of treason grows dim in the sky; +Shine forth from the battle-cloud, light of the morn, +Call back the bright hour when the Nation was born! + +The rivers of peace through our valleys shall run, +As the glaciers of tyranny melt in the sun; +Smite, smite the proud parricide down from his throne,-- +His sceptre once broken, the world is our own! + + + + + +OUR OLDEST FRIEND + +1865 + +I GIVE you the health of the oldest friend +That, short of eternity, earth can lend,-- +A friend so faithful and tried and true +That nothing can wean him from me and you. + +When first we screeched in the sudden blaze +Of the daylight's blinding and blasting rays, +And gulped at the gaseous, groggy air, +This old, old friend stood waiting there. + +And when, with a kind of mortal strife, +We had gasped and choked into breathing life, +He watched by the cradle, day and night, +And held our hands till we stood upright. + +From gristle and pulp our frames have grown +To stringy muscle and solid bone; +While we were changing, he altered not; +We might forget, but he never forgot. + +He came with us to the college class,-- +Little cared he for the steward's pass! +All the rest must pay their fee, +Put the grim old dead-head entered free. + +He stayed with us while we counted o'er +Four times each of the seasons four; +And with every season, from year to year, +The dear name Classmate he made more dear. + +He never leaves us,--he never will, +Till our hands are cold and our hearts are still; +On birthdays, and Christmas, and New-Year's too, +He always remembers both me and you. + +Every year this faithful friend +His little present is sure to send; +Every year, wheresoe'er we be, +He wants a keepsake from you and me. + +How he loves us! he pats our heads, +And, lo! they are gleaming with silver threads; +And he 's always begging one lock of hair, +Till our shining crowns have nothing to wear. + +At length he will tell us, one by one, +"My child, your labor on earth is done; +And now you must journey afar to see +My elder brother,--Eternity!" + +And so, when long, long years have passed, +Some dear old fellow will be the last,-- +Never a boy alive but he +Of all our goodly company! + +When he lies down, but not till then, +Our kind Class-Angel will drop the pen +That writes in the day-book kept above +Our lifelong record of faith and love. + +So here's a health in homely rhyme +To our oldest classmate, Father Time! +May our last survivor live to be +As bald and as wise and as tough as he! + + + + + +SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH + +A HALF-RHYMED IMPROMPTU + +1865 + +LIKE the tribes of Israel, +Fed on quails and manna, +Sherman and his glorious band +Journeyed through the rebel land, +Fed from Heaven's all-bounteous hand, +Marching on Savannah! + +As the moving pillar shone, +Streamed the starry banner +All day long in rosy light, +Flaming splendor all the night, +Till it swooped in eagle flight +Down on doomed Savannah! + +Glory be to God on high! +Shout the loud Hosanna! +Treason's wilderness is past, +Canaan's shore is won at last, +Peal a nation's trumpet-blast,-- +Sherman 's in Savannah! + +Soon shall Richmond's tough old hide +Find a tough old tanner! +Soon from every rebel wall +Shall the rag of treason fall, +Till our banner flaps o'er all +As it crowns Savannah! + + + + + +MY ANNUAL + +1866 + +How long will this harp which you once loved to hear +Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear? +How long stir the echoes it wakened of old, +While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold? + +Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong; +The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song; +It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,-- +"We will bid our old harper play on till he dies." + +Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings, +Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings, +Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone +It is still the old harp that was always your own. + +I claim not its music,--each note it affords +I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords; +I know you will listen and love to the last, +For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past. + +Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold +No craftsman could string and no artisan mould; +He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres +That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs. + +Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings, +Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings; +Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled, +Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed. + +Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this, +Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss; +The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will, +Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still. + +The bird wanders careless while summer is green, +The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen; +When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed, +The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest. + +Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling +Is the light of our year, is the gem of its ring, +So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget +The rays it has lost, and its border of jet. + +While round us the many-hued halo is shed, +How dear are the living, how near are the dead! +One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below, +Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow! + +Not life shall enlarge it nor death shall divide,-- +No brother new-born finds his place at my side; +No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest, . +His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest. + +Some won the world's homage, their names we hold dear,-- +But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here; +Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife +For the comrade that limps from the battle of life! + +What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard +In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word; +It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave, +It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave. + +Peace, Peace comes at last, with her garland of white; +Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night; +The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun; +We echo its words,--We are one! We are one! + + + + +ALL HERE + +1867 + +IT is not what we say or sing, +That keeps our charm so long unbroken, +Though every lightest leaf we bring +May touch the heart as friendship's token; +Not what we sing or what we say +Can make us dearer to each other; +We love the singer and his lay, +But love as well the silent brother. + +Yet bring whate'er your garden grows, +Thrice welcome to our smiles and praises; +Thanks for the myrtle and the rose, +Thanks for the marigolds and daisies; +One flower erelong we all shall claim, +Alas! unloved of Amaryllis-- +Nature's last blossom-need I name +The wreath of threescore's silver lilies? + +How many, brothers, meet to-night +Around our boyhood's covered embers? +Go read the treasured names aright +The old triennial list remembers; +Though twenty wear the starry sign +That tells a life has broke its tether, +The fifty-eight of 'twenty-nine- +God bless THE Boys!--are all together! + +These come with joyous look and word, +With friendly grasp and cheerful greeting,-- +Those smile unseen, and move unheard, +The angel guests of every meeting; +They cast no shadow in the flame +That flushes from the gilded lustre, +But count us--we are still the same; +One earthly band, one heavenly cluster! + +Love dies not when he bows his head +To pass beyond the narrow portals,-- +The light these glowing moments shed +Wakes from their sleep our lost immortals; +They come as in their joyous prime, +Before their morning days were numbered,-- +Death stays the envious hand of Time,-- +The eyes have not grown dim that slumbered! + +The paths that loving souls have trod +Arch o'er the dust where worldlings grovel +High as the zenith o'er the sod,-- +The cross above the sexton's shovel! +We rise beyond the realms of day; +They seem to stoop from spheres of glory +With us one happy hour to stray, +While youth comes back in song and story. + +Ah! ours is friendship true as steel +That war has tried in edge and temper; +It writes upon its sacred seal +The priest's /ubique--omnes--semper/! +It lends the sky a fairer sun +That cheers our lives with rays as steady +As if our footsteps had begun +To print the golden streets already! + +The tangling years have clinched its knot +Too fast for mortal strength to sunder; +The lightning bolts of noon are shot; +No fear of evening's idle thunder! +Too late! too late!--no graceless hand +Shall stretch its cords in vain endeavor +To rive the close encircling band +That made and keeps us one forever! + +So when upon the fated scroll +The falling stars have all descended, +And, blotted from the breathing roll, +Our little page of life is ended, +We ask but one memorial line +Traced on thy tablet, Gracious Mother +"My children. Boys of '29. +In pace. How they loved each other!" +ONCE MORE + + + + + +ONCE MORE + +1868 + +"Will I come?" That is pleasant! I beg to inquire +If the gun that I carry has ever missed fire? +And which was the muster-roll-mention but one-- +That missed your old comrade who carries the gun? + +You see me as always, my hand on the lock, +The cap on the nipple, the hammer full cock; +It is rusty, some tell me; I heed not the scoff; +It is battered and bruised, but it always goes off! + +"Is it loaded?" I'll bet you! What doesn't it hold? +Rammed full to the muzzle with memories untold; +Why, it scares me to fire, lest the pieces should fly +Like the cannons that burst on the Fourth of July + +One charge is a remnant of College-day dreams +(Its wadding is made of forensics and themes); +Ah, visions of fame! what a flash in the pan +As the trigger was pulled by each clever young man! + +And love! Bless my stars, what a cartridge is there! +With a wadding of rose-leaves and ribbons and hair,-- +All crammed in one verse to go off at a shot! +"Were there ever such sweethearts?" Of course there were not! + +And next,--what a load! it wall split the old gun,-- +Three fingers,--four fingers,--five fingers of fun! +Come tell me, gray sages, for mischief and noise +Was there ever a lot like us fellows, "The Boys"? + +Bump I bump! down the staircase the cannon-ball goes,-- +Aha, old Professor! Look out for your toes! +Don't think, my poor Tutor, to sleep in your bed,-- +Two "Boys"--'twenty-niners-room over your head! + +Remember the nights when the tar-barrel blazed! +From red "Massachusetts" the war-cry was raised; +And "Hollis " and "Stoughton " reechoed the call; +Till P----- poked his head out of Holworthy Hall! + +Old P----, as we called him,--at fifty or so,-- +Not exactly a bud, but not quite in full blow; +In ripening manhood, suppose we should say, +Just nearing his prime, as we boys are to-day! + +Oh say, can you look through the vista of age +To the time when old Morse drove the regular stage? +When Lyon told tales of the long-vanished years, +And Lenox crept round with the rings in his ears? + +And dost thou, my brother, remember indeed +The days of our dealings with Willard and Read? +When "Dolly" was kicking and running away, +And punch came up smoking on Fillebrown's tray? + +But where are the Tutors, my brother, oh tell!-- +And where the Professors, remembered so well? +The sturdy old Grecian of Holworthy Hall, +And Latin, and Logic, and Hebrew, and all? + +"They are dead, the old fellows " (we called them so then, +Though we since have found out they were lusty young men). +They are dead, do you tell me?--but how do you know? +You've filled once too often. I doubt if it's so. + +I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Is this 'sixty-eight? +It's not quite so clear. It admits of debate. +I may have been dreaming. I rather incline +To think--yes, I'm certain--it is 'twenty-nine! + +"By Zhorzhe!--as friend Sales is accustomed to cry,-- +You tell me they're dead, but I know it's a lie! +Is Jackson not President?--What was 't you said? +It can't be; you're joking; what,--all of 'em dead? + +Jim,--Harry,--Fred,--Isaac,--all gone from our side? +They could n't have left us,--no, not if they tried. +Look,--there 's our old Prises,--he can't find his text; +See,--P----- rubs his leg, as he growls out "The next!" + +I told you 't was nonsense. Joe, give us a song! +Go harness up "Dolly," and fetch her along!-- +Dead! Dead! You false graybeard, I swear they are not! +Hurrah for Old Hickory!--Oh, I forgot! + +Well, _one_ we have with us (how could he contrive +To deal with us youngsters and still to survive?) +Who wore for our guidance authority's robe,-- +No wonder he took to the study of Job! + +And now, as my load was uncommonly large, +Let me taper it off with a classical charge; +When that has gone off, I shall drop my old gun-- +And then stand at ease, for my service is done. + +/Bibamus ad Classem vocatam/ "The Boys" +/Et eorum Tutorem cui nomen est "Noyes";/ +/Et floreant, valeant, vigeant tam,/ +/Non Peircius ipse enumeret quam!/ + + + + + +THE OLD CRUISER + +1869 + +HERE 's the old cruiser, 'Twenty-nine, +Forty times she 's crossed the line; +Same old masts and sails and crew, +Tight and tough and as good as new. + +Into the harbor she bravely steers +Just as she 's done for these forty years, +Over her anchor goes, splash and clang! +Down her sails drop, rattle and bang! + +Comes a vessel out of the dock +Fresh and spry as a fighting-cock, +Feathered with sails and spurred with steam, +Heading out of the classic stream. + +Crew of a hundred all aboard, +Every man as fine as a lord. +Gay they look and proud they feel, +Bowling along on even keel. + +On they float with wind and tide,-- +Gain at last the old ship's side; +Every man looks down in turn,-- +Reads the name that's on her stern. + +"Twenty-nine!--Diable you say! +That was in Skipper Kirkland's day! +What was the Flying Dutchman's name? +This old rover must be the same. + +"Ho! you Boatswain that walks the deck, +How does it happen you're not a wreck? +One and another have come to grief, +How have you dodged by rock and reef?" + +Boatswain, lifting one knowing lid, +Hitches his breeches and shifts his quid +"Hey? What is it? Who 's come to grief +Louder, young swab, I 'm a little deaf." + +"I say, old fellow, what keeps your boat +With all you jolly old boys afloat, +When scores of vessels as good as she +Have swallowed the salt of the bitter sea? + +"Many a crew from many a craft +Goes drifting by on a broken raft +Pieced from a vessel that clove the brine +Taller and prouder than 'Twenty-nine. + +"Some capsized in an angry breeze, +Some were lost in the narrow seas, +Some on snags and some on sands +Struck and perished and lost their hands. + +"Tell us young ones, you gray old man, +What is your secret, if you can. +We have a ship as good as you, +Show us how to keep our crew." + +So in his ear the youngster cries; +Then the gray Boatswain straight replies:-- +"All your crew be sure you know,-- +Never let one of your shipmates go. + +"If he leaves you, change your tack, +Follow him close and fetch him back; +When you've hauled him in at last, +Grapple his flipper and hold him fast. + +"If you've wronged him, speak him fair, +Say you're sorry and make it square; +If he's wronged you, wink so tight +None of you see what 's plain in sight. + +"When the world goes hard and wrong, +Lend a hand to help him along; +When his stockings have holes to darn, +Don't you grudge him your ball of yarn. + +"Once in a twelvemonth, come what may, +Anchor your ship in a quiet bay, +Call all hands and read the log, +And give 'em a taste of grub and grog. + +"Stick to each other through thick and thin; +All the closer as age leaks in; +Squalls will blow and clouds will frown, +But stay by your ship till you all go down!" + + + + + +ADDED FOR THE ALUMNI MEETING, JUNE 29, + +1869. + +So the gray Boatswain of 'Twenty-nine +Piped to "The Boys" as they crossed the line; +Round the cabin sat thirty guests, +Babes of the nurse with a thousand breasts. + +There were the judges, grave and grand, +Flanked by the priests on either hand; +There was the lord of wealth untold, +And the dear good fellow in broadcloth old. + +Thirty men, from twenty towns, +Sires and grandsires with silvered crowns,-- +Thirty school-boys all in a row,-- +Bens and Georges and Bill and Joe. + +In thirty goblets the wine was poured, +But threescore gathered around the board,-- +For lo! at the side of every chair +A shadow hovered--we all were there! + + + + + +HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING + +1869 + +THOU Gracious Power, whose mercy lends +The light of home, the smile of friends, +Our gathered flock thine arms infold +As in the peaceful days of old. + +Wilt thou not hear us while we raise, +In sweet accord of solemn praise, +The voices that have mingled long +In joyous flow of mirth and song? + +For all the blessings life has brought, +For all its sorrowing hours have taught, +For all we mourn, for all we keep, +The hands we clasp, the loved that sleep; + +The noontide sunshine of the past, +These brief, bright moments fading fast, +The stars that gild our darkening years, +The twilight ray from holier spheres; + +We thank thee, Father! let thy grace +Our narrowing circle still embrace, +Thy mercy shed its heavenly store, +Thy peace be with us evermore! + + + + + +EVEN-SONG. + +1870 + +IT may be, yes, it must be, Time that brings +An end to mortal things, +That sends the beggar Winter in the train +Of Autumn's burdened wain,-- +Time, that is heir of all our earthly state, +And knoweth well to wait +Till sea hath turned to shore and shore to sea, +If so it need must be, +Ere he make good his claim and call his own +Old empires overthrown,-- +Time, who can find no heavenly orb too large +To hold its fee in charge, +Nor any motes that fill its beam so small, +But he shall care for all,-- +It may be, must be,--yes, he soon shall tire +This hand that holds the lyre. + +Then ye who listened in that earlier day +When to my careless lay +I matched its chords and stole their first-born thrill, +With untaught rudest skill +Vexing a treble from the slender strings +Thin as the locust sings +When the shrill-crying child of summer's heat +Pipes from its leafy seat, +The dim pavilion of embowering green +Beneath whose shadowy screen +The small sopranist tries his single note +Against the song-bird's throat, +And all the echoes listen, but in vain; +They hear no answering strain,-- +Then ye who listened in that earlier day +Shall sadly turn away, + +Saying, "The fire burns low, the hearth is cold +That warmed our blood of old; +Cover its embers and its half-burnt brands, +And let us stretch our hands +Over a brighter and fresh-kindled flame; +Lo, this is not the same, +The joyous singer of our morning time, +Flushed high with lusty rhyme! +Speak kindly, for he bears a human heart, +But whisper him apart,-- +Tell him the woods their autumn robes have shed +And all their birds have fled, +And shouting winds unbuild the naked nests +They warmed with patient breasts; +Tell him the sky is dark, the summer o'er, +And bid him sing no more!" + +Ah, welladay! if words so cruel-kind +A listening ear might find! +But who that hears the music in his soul +Of rhythmic waves that roll +Crested with gleams of fire, and as they flow +Stir all the deeps below +Till the great pearls no calm might ever reach +Leap glistening on the beach,-- +Who that has known the passion and the pain, +The rush through heart and brain, +The joy so like a pang his hand is pressed +Hard on his throbbing breast, +When thou, whose smile is life and bliss and fame +Hast set his pulse aflame, +Muse of the lyre! can say farewell to thee? +Alas! and must it be? + +In many a clime, in many a stately tongue, +The mighty bards have sung; +To these the immemorial thrones belong +And purple robes of song; +Yet the slight minstrel loves the slender tone +His lips may call his own, +And finds the measure of the verse more sweet, +Timed by his pulse's beat, +Than all the hymnings of the laurelled throng. +Say not I do him wrong, +For Nature spoils her warblers,--them she feeds +In lotus-growing meads +And pours them subtle draughts from haunted streams +That fill their souls with dreams. + +Full well I know the gracious mother's wiles +And dear delusive smiles! +No callow fledgling of her singing brood +But tastes that witching food, +And hearing overhead the eagle's wing, +And how the thrushes sing, +Vents his exiguous chirp, and from his nest +Flaps forth--we know the rest. +I own the weakness of the tuneful kind,-- +Are not all harpers blind? +I sang too early, must I sing too late? +The lengthening shadows wait +The first pale stars of twilight,--yet how sweet +The flattering whisper's cheat,-- +"Thou hast the fire no evening chill can tame, +Whose coals outlast its flame!" + +Farewell, ye carols of the laughing morn, +Of earliest sunshine born! +The sower flings the seed and looks not back +Along his furrowed track; +The reaper leaves the stalks for other hands +To gird with circling bands; +The wind, earth's careless servant, truant-born, +Blows clean the beaten corn +And quits the thresher's floor, and goes his way +To sport with ocean's spray; +The headlong-stumbling rivulet scrambling down +To wash the sea-girt town, +Still babbling of the green and billowy waste +Whose salt he longs to taste, +Ere his warm wave its chilling clasp may feel +Has twirled the miller's wheel. + +The song has done its task that makes us bold +With secrets else untold,-- +And mine has run its errand; through the dews +I tracked the flying Muse; +The daughter of the morning touched my lips +With roseate finger-tips; +Whether I would or would not, I must sing +With the new choirs of spring; +Now, as I watch the fading autumn day +And trill my softened lay, +I think of all that listened, and of one +For whom a brighter sun +Dawned at high summer's noon. Ah, comrades dear, +Are not all gathered here? +Our hearts have answered.--Yes! they hear our call: +All gathered here! all! all! + + + + + +THE SMILING LISTENER + +1871 +PRECISELY. I see it. You all want to say +That a tear is too sad and a laugh is too gay; +You could stand a faint smile, you could manage a sigh, +But you value your ribs, and you don't want to cry. + +And why at our feast of the clasping of hands +Need we turn on the stream of our lachrymal glands? +Though we see the white breakers of age on our bow, +Let us take a good pull in the jolly-boat now! + +It's hard if a fellow cannot feel content +When a banquet like this does n't cost him a cent, +When his goblet and plate he may empty at will, +And our kind Class Committee will settle the bill. + +And here's your old friend, the identical bard +Who has rhymed and recited you verse by the yard +Since the days of the empire of Andrew the First +Till you 're full to the brim and feel ready to burst. + +It's awful to think of,--how year after year +With his piece in his pocket he waits for you here; +No matter who's missing, there always is one +To lug out his manuscript, sure as a gun. + +"Why won't he stop writing?" Humanity cries +The answer is briefly, "He can't if he tries; +He has played with his foolish old feather so long, +That the goose-quill in spite of him cackles in song." + +You have watched him with patience from morning to dusk +Since the tassel was bright o'er the green of the husk, +And now--it 's too bad--it 's a pitiful job-- +He has shelled the ripe ear till he's come to the cob. + +I see one face beaming--it listens so well +There must be some music yet left in my shell-- +The wine of my soul is not thick on the lees; +One string is unbroken, one friend I can please! + +Dear comrade, the sunshine of seasons gone by +Looks out from your tender and tear-moistened eye, +A pharos of love on an ice-girdled coast,-- +Kind soul!--Don't you hear me?--He's deaf as a post! + +Can it be one of Nature's benevolent tricks +That you grow hard of hearing as I grow prolix? +And that look of delight which would angels beguile +Is the deaf man's prolonged unintelligent smile? + +Ah! the ear may grow dull, and the eye may wax dim, +But they still know a classmate--they can't mistake him; +There is something to tell us, "That's one of our band," +Though we groped in the dark for a touch of his hand. + +Well, Time with his snuffers is prowling about +And his shaky old fingers will soon snuff us out; +There's a hint for us all in each pendulum tick, +For we're low in the tallow and long in the wick. + +You remember Rossini--you 've been at the play? +How his overture-endings keep crashing away +Till you think, "It 's all over--it can't but stop now-- +That 's the screech and the bang of the final bow-wow." + +And you find you 're mistaken; there 's lots more to come, +More banging, more screeching of fiddle and drum, +Till when the last ending is finished and done, +You feel like a horse when the winning-post 's won. + +So I, who have sung to you, merry or sad, +Since the days when they called me a promising lad, +Though I 've made you more rhymes than a tutor could scan, +Have a few more still left, like the razor-strop man. + +Now pray don't be frightened--I 'm ready to stop +My galloping anapests' clatter and pop-- +In fact, if you say so, retire from to-day +To the garret I left, on a poet's half-pay. + +And yet--I can't help it--perhaps--who can tell? +You might miss the poor singer you treated so well, +And confess you could stand him five minutes or so, +"It was so like old times we remember, you know." + +'T is not that the music can signify much, +But then there are chords that awake with a touch,-- +And our hearts can find echoes of sorrow and joy +To the winch of the minstrel who hails from Savoy. + +So this hand-organ tune that I cheerfully grind +May bring the old places and faces to mind, +And seen in the light of the past we recall +The flowers that have faded bloom fairest of all! + + + + + +OUR SWEET SINGER + +J. A. + +1872 + +ONE memory trembles on our lips; +It throbs in every breast; +In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse, +The shadow stands confessed. + +O silent voice, that cheered so long +Our manhood's marching day, +Without thy breath of heavenly song, +How weary seems the way! + +Vain every pictured phrase to tell +Our sorrowing heart's desire,-- +The shattered harp, the broken shell, +The silent unstrung lyre; + +For youth was round us while he sang; +It glowed in every tone; +With bridal chimes the echoes rang, +And made the past our own. + +Oh blissful dream! Our nursery joys +We know must have an end, +But love and friendship's broken toys +May God's good angels mend! + +The cheering smile, the voice of mirth +And laughter's gay surprise +That please the children born of earth. +Why deem that Heaven denies? + +Methinks in that refulgent sphere +That knows not sun or moon, +An earth-born saint might long to hear +One verse of "Bonny Doon "; + +Or walking through the streets of gold +In heaven's unclouded light, +His lips recall the song of old +And hum "The sky is bright." + +And can we smile when thou art dead? +Ah, brothers, even so! +The rose of summer will be red, +In spite of winter's snow. + +Thou wouldst not leave us all in gloom +Because thy song is still, +Nor blight the banquet-garland's bloom +With grief's untimely chill. + +The sighing wintry winds complain,-- +The singing bird has flown,-- +Hark! heard I not that ringing strain, +That clear celestial tone? + +How poor these pallid phrases seem, +How weak this tinkling line, +As warbles through my waking dream +That angel voice of thine! + +Thy requiem asks a sweeter lay; +It falters on my tongue; +For all we vainly strive to say, +Thou shouldst thyself have sung! + + + + + +H. C. M. H. S. J. K. W. + +1873 + +THE dirge is played, the throbbing death-peal rung, +The sad-voiced requiem sung; +On each white urn where memory dwells +The wreath of rustling immortelles +Our loving hands have hung, +And balmiest leaves have strown and tenderest blossoms flung. + +The birds that filled the air with songs have flown, +The wintry blasts have blown, +And these for whom the voice of spring +Bade the sweet choirs their carols sing +Sleep in those chambers lone +Where snows untrodden lie, unheard the night-winds moan. + +We clasp them all in memory, as the vine +Whose running stems intwine +The marble shaft, and steal around +The lowly stone, the nameless mound; +With sorrowing hearts resign +Our brothers true and tried, and close our broken line. + +How fast the lamps of life grow dim and die +Beneath our sunset sky! +Still fading, as along our track +We cast our saddened glances back, +And while we vainly sigh +The shadowy day recedes, the starry night draws nigh. + +As when from pier to pier across the tide +With even keel we glide, +The lights we left along the shore +Grow less and less, while more, yet more +New vistas open wide +Of fair illumined streets and casements golden-eyed. + +Each closing circle of our sunlit sphere +Seems to bring heaven more near +Can we not dream that those we love +Are listening in the world above +And smiling as they hear +The voices known so well of friends that still are dear? + +Does all that made us human fade away +With this dissolving clay? +Nay, rather deem the blessed isles +Are bright and gay with joyous smiles, +That angels have their play, +And saints that tire of song may claim their holiday. + +All else of earth may perish; love alone +Not heaven shall find outgrown! +Are they not here, our spirit guests, +With love still throbbing in their breasts? +Once more let flowers be strown. +Welcome, ye shadowy forms, we count you still our own! + + + + + +WHAT I HAVE COME FOR + +1873 + +I HAVE come with my verses--I think I may claim +It is not the first time I have tried on the same. +They were puckered in rhyme, they were wrinkled in wit; +But your hearts were so large that they made them a fit. + +I have come--not to tease you with more of my rhyme, +But to feel as I did in the blessed old time; +I want to hear him with the Brobdingnag laugh-- +We count him at least as three men and a half. + +I have come to meet judges so wise and so grand +That I shake in my shoes while they're shaking my hand; +And the prince among merchants who put back the crown +When they tried to enthrone him the King of the Town. + +I have come to see George--Yes, I think there are four, +If they all were like these I could wish there were more. +I have come to see one whom we used to call "Jim," +I want to see--oh, don't I want to see him? + +I have come to grow young--on my word I declare +I have thought I detected a change in my hair! +One hour with "The Boys " will restore it to brown-- +And a wrinkle or two I expect to rub down. + +Yes, that's what I've come for, as all of us come; +When I meet the dear Boys I could wish I were dumb. +You asked me, you know, but it's spoiling the fun; +I have told what I came for; my ditty is done. + + +OUR BANKER + +1874 + +OLD TIME, in whose bank we deposit our notes, +Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats; +He keeps all his customers still in arrears +By lending them minutes and charging them years. + +The twelvemonth rolls round and we never forget +On the counter before us to pay him our debt. +We reckon the marks he has chalked on the door, +Pay up and shake hands and begin a new score. + +How long he will lend us, how much we may owe, +No angel will tell us, no mortal may know. +At fivescore, at fourscore, at threescore and ten, +He may close the account with a stroke of his pen. + +This only we know,--amid sorrows and joys +Old Time has been easy and kind with "The Boys." +Though he must have and will have and does have his pay, +We have found him good-natured enough in his way. + +He never forgets us, as others will do,-- +I am sure he knows me, and I think he knows you, +For I see on your foreheads a mark that he lends +As a sign he remembers to visit his friends. + +In the shape of a classmate (a wig on his crown,-- +His day-book and ledger laid carefully down) +He has welcomed us yearly, a glass in his hand, +And pledged the good health of our brotherly band. + +He 's a thief, we must own, but how many there be +That rob us less gently and fairly than he +He has stripped the green leaves that were over us all, +But they let in the sunshine as fast as they fall. + +Young beauties may ravish the world with a glance +As they languish in song, as they float in the dance,-- +They are grandmothers now we remember as girls, +And the comely white cap takes the place of the curls. + +But the sighing and moaning and groaning are o'er, +We are pining and moping and sleepless no more, +And the hearts that were thumping like ships on the rocks +Beat as quiet and steady as meeting-house clocks. + +The trump of ambition, loud sounding and shrill, +May blow its long blast, but the echoes are still, +The spring-tides are past, but no billow may reach +The spoils they have landed far up on the beach. + +We see that Time robs us, we know that he cheats, +But we still find a charm in his pleasant deceits, +While he leaves the remembrance of all that was best, +Love, friendship, and hope, and the promise of rest. + +Sweet shadows of twilight! how calm their repose, +While the dewdrops fall soft in the breast of the rose! +How blest to the toiler his hour of release +When the vesper is heard with its whisper of peace! + +Then here's to the wrinkled old miser, our friend; +May he send us his bills to the century's end, +And lend us the moments no sorrow alloys, +Till he squares his account with the last of "The Boys." + + + + + +FOR CLASS MEETING + +1875 + +IT is a pity and a shame--alas! alas! I know it is, +To tread the trodden grapes again, but so it has been, +so it is; +The purple vintage long is past, with ripened +clusters bursting so +They filled the wine-vats to the brim,-'t is strange +you will be thirsting so! + +Too well our faithful memory tells what might be +rhymed or sung about, +For all have sighed and some have wept since last +year's snows were flung about; +The beacon flame that fired the sky, the modest +ray that gladdened us, +A little breath has quenched their light, and deep- +ening shades have saddened us. + +No more our brother's life is ours for cheering or +for grieving us, +One only sadness they bequeathed, the sorrow of +their leaving us; +Farewell! Farewell!--I turn the leaf I read my +chiming measure in; +Who knows but something still is there a friend +may find a pleasure in? +For who can tell by what he likes what other +people's fancies are? +How all men think the best of wives their own +particular Nancies are? +If what I sing you brings a smile, you will not stop +to catechise, +Nor read Bceotia's lumbering line with nicely scan- +ning Attic eyes. + +Perhaps the alabaster box that Mary broke so +lovingly, +While Judas looked so sternly on, the Master so +approvingly, +Was not so fairly wrought as those that Pilate's +wife and daughters had, +Or many a dame of Judah's line that drank of +Jordan's waters had. + +Perhaps the balm that cost so dear, as some +remarked officiously, +The precious nard that filled the room with +fragrance so deliciously, +So oft recalled in storied page and sung in verse +melodious, +The dancing girl had thought too cheap,--that +daughter of Herodias. + +Where now are all the mighty deeds that Herod +boasted loudest of? +Where now the flashing jewelry the tetrarch's wife +was proudest of? +Yet still to hear how Mary loved, all tribes of men +are listening, +And still the sinful woman's tears like stars +heaven are glistening. + +'T is not the gift our hands have brought, the love +it is we bring with it,-- +The minstrel's lips may shape the song, his heart +in tune must sing with it; +And so we love the simple lays, and wish we might +have more of them, +Our poet brothers sing for us,--there must be half +a score of them. + +It may be that of fame and name our voices once +were emulous,-- +With deeper thoughts, with tenderer throbs their +softening tones are tremulous; +The dead seem listening as of old, ere friendship +was bereft of them; +The living wear a kinder smile, the remnant that +is left of them. + +Though on the once unfurrowed brows the harrow- +teeth of Time may show, +Though all the strain of crippling. years the halting +feet of rhyme may show, +We look and hear with melting hearts, for what +we all remember is +The morn of Spring, nor heed how chill the sky of +gray November is. + +Thanks to the gracious powers above from all mankind +that singled us, +And dropped the pearl of friendship in the cup they +kindly mingled us, +And bound us in a wreath of flowers with hoops of +steel knit under it;-- +Nor time, nor space, nor chance, nor change, nor +death himself shall sunder it! + + + + + +"AD AMICOS" + +1876 + +"Dumque virent genua +Et decet, obducta solvatur fonte senectus." + +THE muse of boyhood's fervid hour +Grows tame as skies get chill and hazy; +Where once she sought a passion-flower, +She only hopes to find a daisy. +Well, who the changing world bewails? +Who asks to have it stay unaltered? +Shall grown-up kittens chase their tails? +Shall colts be never shod or haltered? + +Are we "The Boys" that used to make +The tables ring with noisy follies? +Whose deep-lunged laughter oft would shake +The ceiling with its thunder-volleys? +Are we the youths with lips unshorn, +At beauty's feet unwrinkled suitors, +Whose memories reach tradition's morn,-- +The days of prehistoric tutors? + +"The Boys " we knew,--but who are these +Whose heads might serve for Plutarch's sages, +Or Fox's martyrs, if you please, +Or hermits of the dismal ages? +"The Boys" we knew--can these be those? +Their cheeks with morning's blush were painted;-- +Where are the Harrys, Jims, and Joes +With whom we once were well acquainted? + +If we are they, we're not the same; +If they are we, why then they're masking; +Do tell us, neighbor What 's--your--name, +Who are you?--What's the use of asking? +You once were George, or Bill, or Ben; +There's you, yourself--there 's you, that other-- +I know you now--I knew you then-- +You used to be your younger brother! + +You both are all our own to-day,-- +But ah! I hear a warning whisper; +Yon roseate hour that flits away +Repeats the Roman's sad /paulisper/. +Come back! come back! we've need of you +To pay you for your word of warning; +We'll bathe your wings in brighter dew +Than ever wet the lids of morning! + +Behold this cup; its mystic wine +No alien's lip has ever tasted; +The blood of friendship's clinging vine, +Still flowing, flowing, yet unwasted +Old Time forgot his running sand +And laid his hour-glass down to fill it, +And Death himself with gentle hand +Has touched the chalice, not to spill it. + +Each bubble rounding at the brim +Is rainbowed with its magic story; +The shining days with age grown dim +Are dressed again in robes of glory; +In all its freshness spring returns +With song of birds and blossoms tender; +Once more the torch of passion burns, +And youth is here in all its splendor! + +Hope swings her anchor like a toy, +Love laughs and shows the silver arrow +We knew so well as man and boy,-- +The shaft that stings through bone and marrow; +Again our kindling pulses beat, +With tangled curls our fingers dally, +And bygone beauties smile as sweet +As fresh-blown lilies of the valley. + +O blessed hour! we may forget +Its wreaths, its rhymes, its songs, its laughter, +But not the loving eyes we met, +Whose light shall gild the dim hereafter. +How every heart to each grows warm! +Is one in sunshine's ray? We share it. +Is one in sorrow's blinding storm? +A look, a word, shall help him bear it. + +"The Boys" we were, "The Boys" we 'll be +As long as three, as two, are creeping; +Then here 's to him--ah! which is he?-- +Who lives till all the rest are sleeping; +A life with tranquil comfort blest, +The young man's health, the rich man's plenty, +All earth can give that earth has best, +And heaven at fourscore years and twenty. + + + + + + +HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT + +1877 + +I LIKE, at times, to hear the steeples' chimes +With sober thoughts impressively that mingle; +But sometimes, too, I rather like--don't you?-- +To hear the music of the sleigh bells' jingle. + +I like full well the deep resounding swell +Of mighty symphonies with chords inwoven; +But sometimes, too, a song of Burns--don't you? +After a solemn storm-blast of Beethoven. + +Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels +When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; +A page of Hood may do a fellow good +After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin. + +Some works I find,--say Watts upon the Mind,-- +No matter though at first they seemed amusing, +Not quite the same, but just a little tame +After some five or six times' reperusing. + +So, too, at times when melancholy rhymes +Or solemn speeches sober down a dinner, +I've seen it 's true, quite often,--have n't you?-- +The best-fed guests perceptibly grow thinner. + +Better some jest (in proper terms expressed) +Or story (strictly moral) even if musty, +Or song we sung when these old throats were young,-- +Something to keep our souls from getting rusty. + +The poorest scrap from memory's ragged lap +Comes like an heirloom from a dear dead mother-- +Hush! there's a tear that has no business here, +A half-formed sigh that ere its birth we smother. + +We cry, we laugh; ah, life is half and half, +Now bright and joyous as a song of Herrick's, +Then chill and bare as funeral-minded Blair; +As fickle as a female in hysterics. + +If I could make you cry I would n't try; +If you have hidden smiles I'd like to find them, +And that although, as well I ought to know, +The lips of laughter have a skull behind them. + +Yet when I think we may be on the brink +Of having Freedom's banner to dispose of, +All crimson-hued, because the Nation would +Insist on cutting its own precious nose off, + +I feel indeed as if we rather need +A sermon such as preachers tie a text on. +If Freedom dies because a ballot lies, +She earns her grave; 't is time to call the sexton! + +But if a fight can make the matter right, +Here are we, classmates, thirty men of mettle; +We're strong and tough, we've lived nigh long enough,-- +What if the Nation gave it us to settle? + +The tale would read like that illustrious deed +When Curtius took the leap the gap that filled in, +Thus: "Fivescore years, good friends, as it appears, +At last this people split on Hayes and Tilden. + +"One half cried, 'See! the choice is S. J. T.!' +And one half swore as stoutly it was t' other; +Both drew the knife to save the Nation's life +By wholesale vivisection of each other. + +"Then rose in mass that monumental Class,-- +'Hold! hold!' they cried, 'give us, give us the daggers!' +'Content! content!' exclaimed with one consent +The gaunt ex-rebels and the carpet-baggers. + +"Fifteen each side, the combatants divide, +So nicely balanced are their predilections; +And first of all a tear-drop each lets fall, +A tribute to their obsolete affections. + +"Man facing man, the sanguine strife began, +Jack, Jim and Joe against Tom, Dick and Harry, +Each several pair its own account to square, +Till both were down or one stood solitary. + +"And the great fight raged furious all the night +Till every integer was made a fraction; +Reader, wouldst know what history has to show +As net result of the above transaction? + +"Whole coat-tails, four; stray fragments, several score; +A heap of spectacles; a deaf man's trumpet; +Six lawyers' briefs; seven pocket-handkerchiefs; +Twelve canes wherewith the owners used to stump it; + +"Odd rubber-shoes; old gloves of different hues; +Tax--bills,--unpaid,--and several empty purses; +And, saved from harm by some protecting charm, +A printed page with Smith's immortal verses; + +"Trifles that claim no very special name,-- + +Some useful, others chiefly ornamental; +Pins, buttons, rings, and other trivial things, +With various wrecks, capillary and dental. + +"Also, one flag,--'t was nothing but a rag, +And what device it bore it little matters; +Red, white, and blue, but rent all through and through, +'Union forever' torn to shreds and tatters. + +"They fought so well not one was left to tell +Which got the largest share of cuts and slashes; +When heroes meet, both sides are bound to beat; +They telescoped like cars in railroad smashes. + +"So the great split that baffled human wit +And might have cost the lives of twenty millions, +As all may see that know the rule of three, +Was settled just as well by these civilians. + +"As well. Just so. Not worse, not better. No, +Next morning found the Nation still divided; +Since all were slain, the inference is plain +They left the point they fought for undecided." + +If not quite true, as I have told it you, +This tale of mutual extermination, +To minds perplexed with threats of what comes next, +Perhaps may furnish food for contemplation. + +To cut men's throats to help them count their votes +Is asinine--nay, worse--ascidian folly; +Blindness like that would scare the mole and bat, +And make the liveliest monkey melancholy. + +I say once more, as I have said before, +If voting for our Tildens and our Hayeses +Means only fight, then, Liberty, good night! +Pack up your ballot-box and go to blazes + +Unfurl your blood-red flags, you murderous hags, +You petroleuses of Paris, fierce and foamy; +We'll sell our stock in Plymouth's blasted rock, +Pull up our stakes and migrate to Dahomey! + + + + + +THE LAST SURVIVOR + +1878 + +YES! the vacant chairs tell sadly we are going, going fast, +And the thought comes strangely o'er me, who will live to be the last? +When the twentieth century's sunbeams climb the far-off eastern hill, +With his ninety winters burdened, will he greet the morning still? + +Will he stand with Harvard's nurslings when they hear their mother's call +And the old and young are gathered in the many alcoved hall? +Will he answer to the summons when they range themselves in line +And the young mustachioed marshal calls out "Class of '29 "? + +Methinks I see the column as its lengthened ranks appear +In the sunshine of the morrow of the nineteen hundredth year; +Through the yard 't is creeping, winding, by the walls of dusky red,-- +What shape is that which totters at the long procession's head? + +Who knows this ancient graduate of fourscore years and ten,-- +What place he held, what name he bore among the sons of men? +So speeds the curious question; its answer travels slow; +"'T is the last of sixty classmates of seventy years ago." + +His figure shows but dimly, his face I scarce can see,-- +There's something that reminds me,--it looks like--is it he? +He? Who? No voice may whisper what wrinkled brow shall claim +The wreath of stars that circles our last survivor's name. + +Will he be some veteran minstrel, left to pipe in feeble rhyme +All the stories and the glories of our gay and golden time? +Or some quiet, voiceless brother in whose lonely,loving breast +Fond memory broods in silence, like a dove upon her nest? + +Will it be some old Emeritus, who taught so long ago +The boys that heard him lecture have heads as white as snow? +Or a pious, painful preacher, holding forth from year to year +Till his colleague got a colleague whom the young folks flocked to hear? + +Will it be a rich old merchant in a square-tied white cravat, +Or select-man of a village in a pre-historic hat? +Will his dwelling be a mansion in a marble-fronted row, +Or a homestead by a hillside where the huckleberries grow? + +I can see our one survivor, sitting lonely by himself,-- +All his college text-books round him, ranged in order on their shelf; +There are classic "interliners" filled with learning's choicest pith, +Each /cum notis variorum, quas recensuit doctus/ Smith; + +Physics, metaphysics, logic, mathematics--all the lot +Every wisdom--crammed octavo he has mastered and forgot, +With the ghosts of dead professors standing guard beside them all; +And the room is fall of shadows which their lettered backs recall. + +How the past spreads out in vision with its far receding train, +Like a long embroidered arras in the chambers of the brain, +From opening manhood's morning when first we learned to grieve +To the fond regretful moments of our sorrow-saddened eve! + +What early shadows darkened our idle summer's joy +When death snatched roughly from us that lovely bright-eyed boy! +The years move swiftly onwards; the deadly shafts fall fast,-- +Till all have dropped around him--lo, there he stands,--the last! + +Their faces flit before him, some rosy-hued and fair, +Some strong in iron manhood, some worn with toil and care; +Their smiles no more shall greet him on cheeks with pleasure flushed! +The friendly hands are folded, the pleasant voices hushed! + +My picture sets me dreaming; alas! and can it be +Those two familiar faces we never more may see? +In every entering footfall I think them drawing near, +With every door that opens I say, "At last they 're here!" + +The willow bends unbroken when angry tempests blow, +The stately oak is levelled and all its strength laid low; +So fell that tower of manhood, undaunted, patient, strong, +White with the gathering snowflakes, who faced the storm so long. + +And he,--what subtle phrases their varying light must blend +To paint as each remembers our many-featured friend! +His wit a flash auroral that laughed in every look, +His talk a sunbeam broken on the ripples of a brook, + +Or, fed from thousand sources, a fountain's glittering jet, +Or careless handfuls scattered of diamond sparks unset; +Ah, sketch him, paint him, mould him in every shape you will, +He was himself--the only--the one unpictured still! + +Farewell! our skies are darkened and--yet the stars will shine, +We 'll close our ranks together and still fall into line +Till one is left, one only, to mourn for all the rest; +And Heaven bequeath their memories to him who loves us best! + + + + + +THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS + +A MODERNIZED VERSION + +1879 + +I DON'T think I feel much older; I'm aware I'm rather gray, +But so are many young folks; I meet 'em every day. +I confess I 'm more particular in what I eat and drink, +But one's taste improves with culture; that is all it means, I think. + +_Can you read as once you used to?_ Well, the printing is so bad, +No young folks' eyes can read it like the books that once we had. +_Are you quite as quick of hearing?_ Please to say that once again. +_Don't I use plain words, your Reverence?_ Yes, I often use a cane, + +But it's not because I need it,--no, I always liked a stick; +And as one might lean upon it, 't is as well it should be thick. +Oh, I'm smart, I'm spry, I'm lively,--I can walk, yes, that I can, +On the days I feel like walking, just as well as you, young man! + +_Don't you get a little sleepy after dinner every day?_ +Well, I doze a little, sometimes, but that always was my way. +_Don't you cry a little easier than some twenty years ago?_ +Well, my heart is very tender, but I think 't was always so. + +_Don't you find it sometimes happens that you can't recall a name?_ +Yes, I know such lots of people,--but my memory 's not to blame. +What! You think my memory's failing! Why, it's just as bright and clear, +I remember my great-grandma! She's been dead these sixty year! + +_Is your voice a little trembly?_ Well, it may be, now and then, +But I write as well as ever with a good old-fashioned pen; +It 's the Gillotts make the trouble,--not at all my finger-ends,-- +That is why my hand looks shaky when I sign for dividends. + +_Don't you stoop a little, walking?_ It 's a way I 've always had, +I have always been round-shouldered, ever since I was a lad. +_Don't you hate to tie your shoe-strings?_ Yes, I own it--that is true. +_Don't you tell old stories over?_ I am not aware I do. + +_Don't you stay at home of evenings ? Don't you love a cushioned seat_ +_In a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?_ +_Don't you wear warm fleecy flannels ? Don't you muffle up your throat_ +_Don't you like to have one help you when you're putting on your coat?_ + +_Don't you like old books you've dogs-eared, you can't remember when?_ +_Don't you call it late at nine o'clock and go to bed at ten?_ +_How many cronies can you count of all you used to know_ +_Who called you by your Christian name some fifty years ago?_ + +_How look the prizes to you that used to fire your brain?_ +_You've reared your mound-how high is it above the level plain?_ +_You 've drained the brimming golden cup that made your fancy reel,_ +_You've slept the giddy potion off,--now tell us how you feel!_ + +_You've watched the harvest ripening till every stem was cropped,_ +_You 've seen the rose of beauty fade till every petal dropped,_ +_You've told your thought, you 've done your task, you've tracked your + dial round,_ +--I backing down! Thank Heaven, not yet! I'm hale and brisk and sound, + +And good for many a tussle, as you shall live to see; +My shoes are not quite ready yet,--don't think you're rid of me! +Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he was older far, +And where will you be if I live to beat old Thomas Parr? + +_Ah well,--I know,--at every age life has a certain charm,-- +_You're going? Come, permit me, please, I beg you'll take my arm._ +I take your arm! Why take your arm? I 'd thank you to be told +I 'm old enough to walk alone, but not so _very_ old! + + + + + +THE SHADOWS + +1880 + +"How many have gone?" was the question of old +Ere Time our bright ring of its jewels bereft; +Alas! for too often the death-bell has tolled, +And the question we ask is, "How many are left?" + +Bright sparkled the wine; there were fifty that quaffed; +For a decade had slipped and had taken but three. +How they frolicked and sung, how they shouted and laughed, +Like a school full of boys from their benches set free! + +There were speeches and toasts, there were stories and rhymes, +The hall shook its sides with their merriment's noise; +As they talked and lived over the college-day times,-- +No wonder they kept their old name of "The Boys"! + +The seasons moved on in their rhythmical flow +With mornings like maidens that pouted or smiled, +With the bud and the leaf and the fruit and the snow, +And the year-books of Time in his alcoves were piled. + +There were forty that gathered where fifty had met; +Some locks had got silvered, some lives had grown sere, +But the laugh of the laughers was lusty as yet, +And the song of the singers rose ringing and clear. + +Still flitted the years; there were thirty that came; +"The Boys" they were still, and they answered their call; +There were foreheads of care, but the smiles were the same, +And the chorus rang loud through the garlanded hall. + +The hour-hand moved on, and they gathered again; +There were twenty that joined in the hymn that was sung; +But ah! for our song-bird we listened in vain,-- +The crystalline tones like a seraph's that rung! + +How narrow the circle that holds us to-night! +How many the loved ones that greet us no more, +As we meet like the stragglers that come from the fight, +Like the mariners flung from a wreck on the shore! + +We look through the twilight for those we have lost; +The stream rolls between us, and yet they seem near; +Already outnumbered by those who have crossed, +Our band is transplanted, its home is not here! + +They smile on us still--is it only a dream?-- +While fondly or proudly their names we recall; +They beckon--they come--they are crossing the stream-- +Lo! the Shadows! the Shadows! room--room for them all! + + + + + +BENJAMIN PEIRCE + +ASTRONOMER, MATHEMATICIAN. 1809-1890 + +1881 + +FOR him the Architect of all +Unroofed our planet's starlit hall; +Through voids unknown to worlds unseen +His clearer vision rose serene. + +With us on earth he walked by day, +His midnight path how far away! +We knew him not so well who knew +The patient eyes his soul looked through; + +For who his untrod realm could share +Of us that breathe this mortal air, +Or camp in that celestial tent +Whose fringes gild our firmament? + +How vast the workroom where he brought +The viewless implements of thought! +The wit how subtle, how profound, +That Nature's tangled webs unwound; + +That through the clouded matrix saw +The crystal planes of shaping law, +Through these the sovereign skill that planned,-- +The Father's care, the Master's hand! + +To him the wandering stars revealed +The secrets in their cradle sealed +The far-off, frozen sphere that swings +Through ether, zoned with lucid rings; + +The orb that rolls in dim eclipse +Wide wheeling round its long ellipse,-- +His name Urania writes with these +And stamps it on her Pleiades. + +We knew him not? Ah, well we knew +The manly soul, so brave, so true, +The cheerful heart that conquered age, +The childlike silver-bearded sage. + +No more his tireless thought explores +The azure sea with golden shores; +Rest, wearied frame I the stars shall keep +A loving watch where thou shalt sleep. + +Farewell! the spirit needs must rise, +So long a tenant of the skies,-- +Rise to that home all worlds above +Whose sun is God, whose light is love. + + + + + +IN THE TWILIGHT + +1882 + +NOT bed-time yet! The night-winds blow, +The stars are out,--full well we know +The nurse is on the stair, +With hand of ice and cheek of snow, +And frozen lips that whisper low, +"Come, children, it is time to go +My peaceful couch to share." + +No years a wakeful heart can tire; +Not bed-time yet! Come, stir the fire +And warm your dear old hands; +Kind Mother Earth we love so well +Has pleasant stories yet to tell +Before we hear the curfew bell; +Still glow the burning brands. + +Not bed-time yet! We long to know +What wonders time has yet to show, +What unborn years shall bring; +What ship the Arctic pole shall reach, +What lessons Science waits to teach, +What sermons there are left to preach. +What poems yet to sing. + +What next? we ask; and is it true +The sunshine falls on nothing new, +As Israel's king declared? +Was ocean ploughed with harnessed fire? +Were nations coupled with a wire? +Did Tarshish telegraph to Tyre? +How Hiram would have stared! + +And what if Sheba's curious queen, +Who came to see,--and to be seen,-- +Or something new to seek, +And swooned, as ladies sometimes do, +At sights that thrilled her through and through, +Had heard, as she was "coming to," +A locomotive's shriek, + +And seen a rushing railway train +As she looked out along the plain +From David's lofty tower,-- +A mile of smoke that blots the sky +And blinds the eagles as they fly +Behind the cars that thunder by +A score of leagues an hour! + +See to my /fiat lux/ respond +This little slumbering fire-tipped wand,-- +One touch,--it bursts in flame! +Steal me a portrait from the sun,-- +One look,--and to! the picture done! +Are these old tricks, King Solomon, +We lying moderns claim? + +Could you have spectroscoped a star? +If both those mothers at your bar, +The cruel and the mild, +The young and tender, old and tough, +Had said, "Divide,--you're right, though rough,"-- +Did old Judea know enough +To etherize the child? + +These births of time our eyes have seen, +With but a few brief years between; +What wonder if the text, +For other ages doubtless true, +For coming years will never do,-- +Whereof we all should like a few, +If but to see what next. + +If such things have been, such may be; +Who would not like to live and see-- +If Heaven may so ordain-- +What waifs undreamed of, yet in store, +The waves that roll forevermore +On life's long beach may east ashore +From out the mist-clad main? + +Will Earth to pagan dreams return +To find from misery's painted urn +That all save hope has flown,-- +Of Book and Church and Priest bereft, +The Rock of Ages vainly cleft, +Life's compass gone, its anchor left, +Left,--lost,--in depths unknown? + +Shall Faith the trodden path pursue +The /crux ansata/ wearers knew +Who sleep with folded hands, +Where, like a naked, lidless eye, +The staring Nile rolls wandering by +Those mountain slopes that climb the sky +Above the drifting sands? + +Or shall a nobler Faith return, +Its fanes a purer gospel learn, +With holier anthems ring, +And teach us that our transient creeds +Were but the perishable seeds +Of harvests sown for larger needs, +That ripening years shall bring? + +Well, let the present do its best, +We trust our Maker for the rest, +As on our way we plod; +Our souls, full dressed in fleshly suits, +Love air and sunshine, flowers and fruits, +The daisies better than their roots +Beneath the grassy sod. + +Not bed-time yet! The full-blown flower +Of all the year--this evening hour-- +With friendship's flame is bright; +Life still is sweet, the heavens are fair, +Though fields are brown and woods are bare, +And many a joy is left to share +Before we say Good-night! + +And when, our cheerful evening past, +The nurse, long waiting, comes at last, +Ere on her lap we lie +In wearied nature's sweet repose, +At peace with all her waking foes, +Our lips shall murmur, ere they close, +Good-night! and not Good-by! + + + + + +A LOVING-CUP SONG + +1883 + +COME, heap the fagots! Ere we go +Again the cheerful hearth shall glow; +We 'll have another blaze, my boys! +When clouds are black and snows are white, +Then Christmas logs lend ruddy light +They stole from summer days, my boys, +They stole from summer days. + +And let the Loving-Cup go round, +The Cup with blessed memories crowned, +That flows whene'er we meet, my boys; +No draught will hold a drop of sin +If love is only well stirred in +To keep it sound and sweet, my boys, +To keep it sound and sweet. + +Give me, to pin upon my breast, +The blossoms twain I love the best, +A rosebud and a pink, my boys; +Their leaves shall nestle next my heart, +Their perfumed breath shall own its part +In every health we drink, my boys, +In every health we drink. + +The breathing blossoms stir my blood, +Methinks I see the lilacs bud +And hear the bluebirds sing, my boys; +Why not? Yon lusty oak has seen +Full tenscore years, yet leaflets green +Peep out with every spring, my boys, +Peep out with every spring. + +Old Time his rusty scythe may whet, +The unmowed grass is glowing yet +Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys; +And if the crazy dotard ask, +Is love worn out? Is life a task? +We'll bravely answer No! my boys, +We 'll bravely answer No! + +For life's bright taper is the same +Love tipped of old with rosy flame +That heaven's own altar lent, my boys, +To glow in every cup we fill +Till lips are mute and hearts are still, +Till life and love are spent, my boys, +Till life and love are spent. + + + + + +THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP + +1884 + +SHE gathered at her slender waist +The beauteous robe she wore; +Its folds a golden belt embraced, +One rose-hued gem it bore. + +The girdle shrank; its lessening round +Still kept the shining gem, +But now her flowing locks it bound, +A lustrous diadem. + +And narrower still the circlet grew; +Behold! a glittering band, +Its roseate diamond set anew, +Her neck's white column spanned. + +Suns rise and set; the straining clasp +The shortened links resist, +Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp +The diamond, on her wrist. + +At length, the round of changes past +The thieving years could bring, +The jewel, glittering to the last, +Still sparkles in a ring. + +So, link by link, our friendships part, +So loosen, break, and fall, +A narrowing zone; the loving heart +Lives changeless through them all. + + + + + +THE LYRE OF ANACREON + +1885 + +THE minstrel of the classic lay +Of love and wine who sings +Still found the fingers run astray +That touched the rebel strings. + +Of Cadmus he would fain have sung, +Of Atreus and his line; +But all the jocund echoes rung +With songs of love and wine. + +Ah, brothers! I would fain have caught +Some fresher fancy's gleam; +My truant accents find, unsought, +The old familiar theme. + +Love, Love! but not the sportive child +With shaft and twanging bow, +Whose random arrows drove us wild +Some threescore years ago; + +Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, +The urchin blind and bare, +But Love, with spectacles and staff, +And scanty, silvered hair. + +Our heads with frosted locks are white, +Our roofs are thatched with snow, +But red, in chilling winter's spite, +Our hearts and hearthstones glow. + +Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, +And while the running sands +Their golden thread unheeded spin, +He warms his frozen hands. + +Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, +And waft this message o'er +To all we miss, from all we meet +On life's fast-crumbling shore: + +Say that, to old affection true, +We hug the narrowing chain +That binds our hearts,--alas, how few +The links that yet remain! + +The fatal touch awaits them all +That turns the rocks to dust; +From year to year they break and fall,-- +They break, but never rust. + +Say if one note of happier strain +This worn-out harp afford,-- +One throb that trembles, not in vain,-- +Their memory lent its chord. + +Say that when Fancy closed her wings +And Passion quenched his fire, +Love, Love, still echoed from the strings +As from Anacreon's lyre! + + + + + +THE OLD TUNE + +THIRTY-SIXTH VARIATION + +1886 + +THIS shred of song you bid me bring +Is snatched from fancy's embers; +Ah, when the lips forget to sing, +The faithful heart remembers! + +Too swift the wings of envious Time +To wait for dallying phrases, +Or woven strands of labored rhyme +To thread their cunning mazes. + +A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain +Its magic breath discloses +Our life's long vista through a lane +Of threescore summers' roses! + +One language years alone can teach +Its roots are young affections +That feel their way to simplest speech +Through silent recollections. + +That tongue is ours. How few the words +We need to know a brother! +As simple are the notes of birds, +Yet well they know each other. + +This freezing month of ice and snow +That brings our lives together +Lends to our year a living glow +That warms its wintry weather. + +So let us meet as eve draws nigh, +And life matures and mellows, +Till Nature whispers with a sigh, +"Good-night, my dear old fellows!" + + + + + +THE BROKEN CIRCLE + +1887 + +I STOOD On Sarum's treeless plain, +The waste that careless Nature owns; +Lone tenants of her bleak domain, +Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones. + +Upheaved in many a billowy mound +The sea-like, naked turf arose, +Where wandering flocks went nibbling round +The mingled graves of friends and foes. + +The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, +This windy desert roamed in turn; +Unmoved these mighty blocks remain +Whose story none that lives may learn. + +Erect, half buried, slant or prone, +These awful listeners, blind and dumb, +Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown, +As wave on wave they go and come. + +"Who are you, giants, whence and why?" +I stand and ask in blank amaze; +My soul accepts their mute reply +"A mystery, as are you that gaze. + +"A silent Orpheus wrought the charm +From riven rocks their spoils to bring; +A nameless Titan lent his arm +To range us in our magic ring. + +"But Time with still and stealthy stride, +That climbs and treads and levels all, +That bids the loosening keystone slide, +And topples down the crumbling wall,-- + +"Time, that unbuilds the quarried past, +Leans on these wrecks that press the sod; +They slant, they stoop, they fall at last, +And strew the turf their priests have trod. + +"No more our altar's wreath of smoke +Floats up with morning's fragrant dew; +The fires are dead, the ring is broke, +Where stood the many stand the few." + +My thoughts had wandered far away, +Borne off on Memory's outspread wing, +To where in deepening twilight lay +The wrecks of friendship's broken ring. + +Ah me! of all our goodly train +How few will find our banquet hall! +Yet why with coward lips complain +That this must lean, and that must fall? + +Cold is the Druid's altar-stone, +Its vanished flame no more returns; +But ours no chilling damp has known,-- +Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns. + +So let our broken circle stand +A wreck, a remnant, yet the same, +While one last, loving, faithful hand +Still lives to feed its altar-flame! + + + + + +THE ANGEL-THIEF + +1888 + +TIME is a thief who leaves his tools behind him; +He comes by night, he vanishes at dawn; +We track his footsteps, but we never find him +Strong locks are broken, massive bolts are drawn, + +And all around are left the bars and borers, +The splitting wedges and the prying keys, +Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-explorers +To crack, wrench open, rifle as they please. + +Ah, these are tools which Heaven in mercy lends us +When gathering rust has clenched our shackles fast, +Time is the angel-thief that Nature sends us +To break the cramping fetters of our past. + +Mourn as we may for treasures he has taken, +Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft, +More precious are those implements forsaken, +Found in the wreck his ruthless hands have left. + +Some lever that a casket's hinge has broken +Pries off a bolt, and lo! our souls are free; +Each year some Open Sesame is spoken, +And every decade drops its master-key. + +So as from year to year we count our treasure, +Our loss seems less, and larger look our gains; +Time's wrongs repaid in more than even measure,-- +We lose our jewels, but we break our chains. + + + + + +AFTER THE CURFEW + +1889 + +THE Play is over. While the light +Yet lingers in the darkening hall, +I come to say a last Good-night +Before the final /Exeunt all/. + +We gathered once, a joyous throng: +The jovial toasts went gayly round; +With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song, +We made the floors and walls resound. + +We come with feeble steps and slow, +A little band of four or five, +Left from the wrecks of long ago, +Still pleased to find ourselves alive. + +Alive! How living, too, are they +Whose memories it is ours to share! +Spread the long table's full array,-- +There sits a ghost in every chair! + +One breathing form no more, alas! +Amid our slender group we see; +With him we still remained "The Class,"-- +Without his presence what are we? + +The hand we ever loved to clasp,-- +That tireless hand which knew no rest,-- +Loosed from affection's clinging grasp, +Lies nerveless on the peaceful breast. + +The beaming eye, the cheering voice, +That lent to life a generous glow, +Whose every meaning said "Rejoice," +We see, we hear, no more below. + +The air seems darkened by his loss, +Earth's shadowed features look less fair, +And heavier weighs the daily cross +His willing shoulders helped us bear. + +Why mourn that we, the favored few +Whom grasping Time so long has spared +Life's sweet illusions to pursue, +The common lot of age have shared? + +In every pulse of Friendship's heart +There breeds unfelt a throb of pain,-- +One hour must rend its links apart, +Though years on years have forged the chain. + + . . . . . . . . . . . . + +So ends "The Boys,"--a lifelong play. +We too must hear the Prompter's call +To fairer scenes and brighter day +Farewell! I let the curtain fall. + + + + + + +POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE + +1857-1858 + +THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS + +THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, +Sails the unshadowed main,-- +The venturous bark that flings +On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings +In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, +And coral reefs lie bare, +Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. + +Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; +Wrecked is the ship of pearl! +And every chambered cell, +Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, +As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, +Before thee lies revealed,-- +Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! + +Year after year beheld the silent toil +That spread his lustrous coil; +Still, as the spiral grew, +He left the past year's dwelling for the new, +Stole with soft step its shining archway through, +Built up its idle door, +Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. + +Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, +Child of the wandering sea, +Cast from her lap, forlorn! +From thy dead lips a clearer note is born +Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn +While on mine ear it rings, +Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:-- + +Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, +As the swift seasons roll! +Leave thy low-vaulted past! +Let each new temple, nobler than the last, +Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, +Till thou at length art free, +Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! + + + + + +SUN AND SHADOW + +As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, +To the billows of foam-crested blue, +Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, +Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue +Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray +As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; +Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, +The sun gleaming bright on her sail. + +Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,-- +Of breakers that whiten and roar; +How little he cares, if in shadow or sun +They see him who gaze from the shore! +He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, +To the rock that is under his lee, +As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, +O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. + +Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves +Where life and its ventures are laid, +The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves +May see us in sunshine or shade; +Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark, +We'll trim our broad sail as before, +And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, +Nor ask how we look from the shore! + + + + + +MUSA + +O MY lost beauty!--hast thou folded quite +Thy wings of morning light +Beyond those iron gates +Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates, +And Age upon his mound of ashes waits +To chill our fiery dreams, +Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams? + +Leave me not fading in these weeds of care, +Whose flowers are silvered hair! +Have I not loved thee long, +Though my young lips have often done thee wrong, +And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song? +Ah, wilt thou yet return, +Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn? + +Come to me!--I will flood thy silent shrine +With my soul's sacred wine, +And heap thy marble floors +As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores, +In leafy islands walled with madrepores +And lapped in Orient seas, +When all their feathery palms toss, plume-like, in the breeze. + +Come to me!--thou shalt feed on honeyed words, +Sweeter than song of birds;-- +No wailing bulbul's throat, +No melting dulcimer's melodious note +When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float, +Thy ravished sense might soothe +With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth. + +Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen, +Sought in those bowers of green +Where loop the clustered vines +And the close-clinging dulcamara twines,-- +Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, +And Summer's fruited gems, +And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems. + +Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves,-- +Or stretched by grass-grown graves, +Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, +Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, +Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones +Still slumbering where they lay +While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away. + +Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing! +Still let me dream and sing,-- +Dream of that winding shore +Where scarlet cardinals bloom-for me no more,-- +The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, +And clustering nenuphars +Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars! + +Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!-- +Come while the rose is red,-- +While blue-eyed Summer smiles +On the green ripples round yon sunken piles +Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, +And on the sultry air +The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer! + +Oh for thy burning lips to fire my brain +With thrills of wild, sweet pain!-- +On life's autumnal blast, +Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast,-- +Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!-- +Behold thy new-decked shrine, +And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!" + + + + + +A PARTING HEALTH + +TO J. L. MOTLEY + +YES, we knew we must lose him,--though friendship may claim +To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame; +Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, +'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. + +As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, +As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, +As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, +He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring. + +What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom, +Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, +While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes +That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies! + +In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of timd, +Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, +There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, +There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue! + +Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed! +From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! +Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, +Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom! + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake +On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, +To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, +With incense they stole from the rose and the pine. + +So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed +When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed: +THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,--the world holds him dear,-- +Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career! + +1857. + + + + + +WHAT WE ALL THINK + +THAT age was older once than now, +In spite of locks untimely shed, +Or silvered on the youthful brow; +That babes make love and children wed. + +That sunshine had a heavenly glow, +Which faded with those "good old days" +When winters came with deeper snow, +And autumns with a softer haze. + +That--mother, sister, wife, or child-- +The "best of women" each has known. +Were school-boys ever half so wild? +How young the grandpapas have grown! + +That but for this our souls were free, +And but for that our lives were blest; +That in some season yet to be +Our cares will leave us time to rest. + +Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,-- +Some common ailment of the race,-- +Though doctors think the matter plain,-- +That ours is "a peculiar case." + +That when like babes with fingers burned +We count one bitter maxim more, +Our lesson all the world has learned, +And men are wiser than before. + +That when we sob o'er fancied woes, +The angels hovering overhead +Count every pitying drop that flows, +And love us for the tears we shed. + +That when we stand with tearless eye +And turn the beggar from our door, +They still approve us when we sigh, +"Ah, had I but one thousand more!" + +Though temples crowd the crumbled brink +O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, +Their tablets bold with what we think, +Their echoes dumb to what we know; + +That one unquestioned text we read, +All doubt beyond, all fear above, +Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed +Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE! + + + + + +SPRING HAS COME + +INTRA MUROS + +THE sunbeams, lost for half a year, +Slant through my pane their morning rays; +For dry northwesters cold and clear, +The east blows in its thin blue haze. + +And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, +Then close against the sheltering wall +The tulip's horn of dusky green, +The peony's dark unfolding ball. + +The golden-chaliced crocus burns; +The long narcissus-blades appear; +The cone-beaked hyacinth returns +To light her blue-flamed chandelier. + +The willow's whistling lashes, wrung +By the wild winds of gusty March, +With sallow leaflets lightly strung, +Are swaying by the tufted larch. + +The elms have robed their slender spray +With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; +Wide o'er the clasping arch of day +Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. + +See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, +That flames in glory for an hour,-- +Behold it withering,--then look up,-- +How meek the forest monarch's flower! + +When wake the violets, Winter dies; +When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near: +When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, +"Bud, little roses! Spring is here!" + +The windows blush with fresh bouquets, +Cut with the May-dew on their lips; +The radish all its bloom displays, +Pink as Aurora's finger-tips. + +Nor less the flood of light that showers +On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- +The walks are gay as bridal bowers +With rows of many-petalled maids. + +The scarlet shell-fish click and clash +In the blue barrow where they slide; +The horseman, proud of streak and splash, +Creeps homeward from his morning ride. + +Here comes the dealer's awkward string, +With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- +Rough colts, with careless country-swing, +In lazy walk or slouching trot. + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +Wild filly from the mountain-side, +Doomed to the close and chafing thills, +Lend me thy long, untiring stride +To seek with thee thy western hills! + +I hear the whispering voice of Spring, +The thrush's trill, the robin's cry, +Like some poor bird with prisoned wing +That sits and sings, but longs to fly. + +Oh for one spot of living greed,-- +One little spot where leaves can grow,-- +To love unblamed, to walk unseen, +To dream above, to sleep below! + + + + + + +PROLOGUE + +A PROLOGUE? Well, of course the ladies know,-- +I have my doubts. No matter,--here we go! +What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: +Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. +'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings, +The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings; +Prologues in metre are to other pros +As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. +"The world's a stage,"--as Shakespeare said, one day; +The stage a world--was what he meant to say. +The outside world's a blunder, that is clear; +The real world that Nature meant is here. +Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; +Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa; +Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, +The cheats are taken in the traps they laid; +One after one the troubles all are past +Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, +When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, +Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. +Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, +And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. +When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, +And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, +Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven! " and drops upon her knees +On the green--baize,--beneath the (canvas) trees,-- +See to her side avenging Valor fly:-- +"Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!" +When the poor hero flounders in despair, +Some dear lost uncle turns up millionaire, +Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, +Sobs on his neck, "My boy! MY BOY!! _MY BOY_!!!" + +Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night, +Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. +Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt +Wrong the soft passion in the world without, +Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, +One thing is certain: Love will triumph here! +Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,-- +The world's great masters, when you 're out of school,-- +Learn the brief moral of our evening's play +Man has his will,--but woman has her way! +While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, +Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,-- +The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves +Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. +All earthly powers confess your sovereign art +But that one rebel,--woman's wilful heart. +All foes you master, but a woman's wit +Lets daylight through you ere you know you 're hit. +So, just to picture what her art can do, +Hear an old story, made as good as new. + +Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, +Alike was famous for his arm and blade. +One day a prisoner Justice had to kill +Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. +Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, +Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. +His falchion lighted with a sudden gleam, +As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. +He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go; +The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. +"Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act," +The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) +"Friend, I have struck," the artist straight replied; +"Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." +He held his snuff-box,--"Now then, if you please!" +The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, +Off his head tumbled,--bowled along the floor,-- +Bounced down the steps;--the prisoner said no more! +Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye; +If death lurk in it, oh how sweet to die! +Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head; +We die with love, and never dream we're dead! + + + + + + +LATTER-DAY WARNINGS + +WHEN legislators keep the law, +When banks dispense with bolts and looks, +When berries--whortle, rasp, and straw-- +Grow bigger downwards through the box,-- + +When he that selleth house or land +Shows leak in roof or flaw in right,-- +When haberdashers choose the stand +Whose window hath the broadest light,-- + +When preachers tell us all they think, +And party leaders all they mean,-- +When what we pay for, that we drink, +From real grape and coffee-bean,-- + +When lawyers take what they would give, +And doctors give what they would take,-- +When city fathers eat to live, +Save when they fast for conscience' sake,-- + +When one that hath a horse on sale +Shall bring his merit to the proof, +Without a lie for every nail +That holds the iron on the hoof,-- + +When in the usual place for rips +Our gloves are stitched with special care, +And guarded well the whalebone tips +Where first umbrellas need repair,-- + +When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot +The power of suction to resist, +And claret-bottles harbor not +Such dimples as would hold your fist,-- + +When publishers no longer steal, +And pay for what they stole before,-- +When the first locomotive's wheel +Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore;-- + +Till then let Cumming blaze away, +And Miller's saints blow up the globe; +But when you see that blessed day, +Then order your ascension robe + + + + + +ALBUM VERSES + +WHEN Eve had led her lord away, +And Cain had killed his brother, +The stars and flowers, the poets say, +Agreed with one another + +To cheat the cunning tempter's art, +And teach the race its duty, +By keeping on its wicked heart +Their eyes of light and beauty. + +A million sleepless lids, they say, +Will be at least a warning; +And so the flowers would watch by day, +The stars from eve to morning. + +On hill and prairie, field and lawn, +Their dewy eyes upturning, +The flowers still watch from reddening dawn +Till western skies are burning. + +Alas! each hour of daylight tells +A tale of shame so crushing, +That some turn white as sea-bleached shells, +And some are always blushing. + +But when the patient stars look down +On all their light discovers, +The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown, +The lips of lying lovers, + +They try to shut their saddening eyes, +And in the vain endeavor +We see them twinkling in the skies, +And so they wink forever. + + + + + +A GOOD TIME GOING! + +BRAVE singer of the coming time, +Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, +Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, +The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, +Good by! Good by!--Our hearts and hands, +Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, +Cry, God be with him, till he stands +His feet among the English daisies! + +'T is here we part;--for other eyes +The busy deck, the fluttering streamer, +The dripping arms that plunge and rise, +The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, +The kerchiefs waving from the pier, +The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him, +The deep blue desert, lone and drear, +With heaven above and home before him! + +His home!--the Western giant smiles, +And twirls the spotty globe to find it; +This little speck the British Isles? +'T is but a freckle,--never mind it! +He laughs, and all his prairies roll, +Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, +And ridges stretched from pole to pole +Heave till they crack their iron knuckles! + +But Memory blushes at the sneer, +And Honor turns with frown defiant, +And Freedom, leaning on her spear, +Laughs louder than the laughing giant +"An islet is a world," she said, +"When glory with its dust has blended, +And Britain keeps her noble dead +Till earth and seas and skies are rended!" + +Beneath each swinging forest-bough +Some arm as stout in death reposes,-- +From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow +Her valor's life-blood runs in roses; +Nay, let our brothers of the West +Write smiling in their florid pages, +One half her soil has walked the rest +In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages! + +Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, +From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, +The British oak with rooted grasp +Her slender handful holds together;-- +With cliffs of white and bowers of green, +And Ocean narrowing to caress her, +And hills and threaded streams between,-- +Our little mother isle, God bless her! + +In earth's broad temple where we stand, +Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us, +We hold the missal in our hand, +Bright with the lines our Mother taught us. +Where'er its blazoned page betrays +The glistening links of gilded fetters, +Behold, the half-turned leaf displays +Her rubric stained in crimson letters! + +Enough! To speed a parting friend +'T is vain alike to speak and listen;-- +Yet stay,--these feeble accents blend +With rays of light from eyes that glisten. +Good by! once more,--and kindly tell +In words of peace the young world's story,-- +And say, besides, we love too well +Our mothers' soil, our fathers' glory + + + + + +THE LAST BLOSSOM + +THOUGH young no more, we still would dream +Of beauty's dear deluding wiles; +The leagues of life to graybeards seem +Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles. + +Who knows a woman's wild caprice? +'It played with Goethe's silvered hair, +And many a Holy Father's "niece" +Has softly smoothed the papal chair. + +When sixty bids us sigh in vain +To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, +We think upon those ladies twain +Who loved so well the tough old Dean. + +We see the Patriarch's wintry face, +The maid of Egypt's dusky glow, +And dream that Youth and Age embrace, +As April violets fill with snow. + +Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile +His lotus-loving Memphian lies,-- +The musky daughter of the Nile, +With plaited hair and almond eyes. + +Might we but share one wild caress +Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall, +And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress +The long cold kiss that waits us all! + +My bosom heaves, remembering yet +The morning of that blissful day, +When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, +And gave my raptured soul away. + +Flung from her eyes of purest blue, +A lasso, with its leaping chain, +Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew +O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain. + +Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, +Sweet vision, waited for so long! +Dove that would seek the poet's cage +Lured by the magic breath of song! + +She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid, +Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told! +O' er girlhood's yielding barricade +Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold! + +Come to my arms!--love heeds not years; +No frost the bud of passion knows. +Ha! what is this my frenzy hears? +A voice behind me uttered,--Rose! + +Sweet was her smile,--but not for me; +Alas! when woman looks too kind, +Just turn your foolish head and see,-- +Some youth is walking close behind! + + + + + +CONTENTMENT + +"Man wants but little here below " + +LITTLE I ask; my wants are few; +I only wish a hut of stone, +(A _very plain_ brown stone will do,) +That I may call my own;-- +And close at hand is such a one, +In yonder street that fronts the sun. + +Plain food is quite enough for me; +Three courses are as good as ten;-- +If Nature can subsist on three, +Thank Heaven for three. Amen +I always thought cold victual nice;-- +My _choice_ would be vanilla-ice. + +I care not much for gold or land;-- +Give me a mortgage here and there,-- +Some good bank-stock, some note of hand, +Or trifling railroad share,-- +I only ask that Fortune send +A _little_ more than I shall spend. + +Honors are silly toys, I know, +And titles are but empty names; +I would, _perhaps_, be Plenipo,-- +But only near St. James; +I'm very sure I should not care +To fill our Gubernator's chair. + +Jewels are baubles; 't is a sin +To care for such unfruitful things;-- +One good-sized diamond in a pin,-- +Some, not so large, in rings,-- +A ruby, and a pearl, or so, +Will do for me;--I laugh at show. + +My dame should dress in cheap attire; +(Good, heavy silks are never dear;)-- +I own perhaps I might desire +Some shawls of true Cashmere,-- +Some marrowy crapes of China silk, +Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. + +I would not have the horse I drive +So fast that folks must stop and stare; +An easy gait--two, forty-five-- +Suits me; I do not care;-- +Perhaps, for just a _single spurt_, +Some seconds less would do no hurt. + +Of pictures, I should like to own +Titians and Raphaels three or four,-- +I love so much their style and tone, +One Turner, and no more, +(A landscape,--foreground golden dirt,-- +The sunshine painted with a squirt.) + +Of books but few,--some fifty score +For daily use, and bound for wear; +The rest upon an upper floor;-- +Some _little_ luxury _there_ +Of red morocco's gilded gleam +And vellum rich as country cream + +Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these, +Which others often show for pride, +I value for their power to please, +And selfish churls deride;-- +_One_ Stradivarius, I confess, +-Two_ Meerschaums, I would fain possess. + +Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, +Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;-- +Shall not carved tables serve my turn, +But _all_ must be of buhl? +Give grasping pomp its double share,-- +I ask but _one_ recumbent chair. + +Thus humble let me live and die, +Nor long for Midas' golden touch; +If Heaven more generous gifts deny, +I shall not miss them much,-- +Too grateful for the blessing lent +Of simple tastes and mind content! + + + + + +AESTIVATION + +AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR + +IN candent ire the solar splendor flames; +The foles, langueseent, pend from arid rames; +His humid front the Give, anheling, wipes, +And dreams of erring on ventiferous riper. + +How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, +Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, +Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, +And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine! + +To me, alas! no verdurous visions come, +Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum,-- +No concave vast repeats the tender hue +That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue! + +Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades! +Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids! +Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,-- +Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump! + + + + + +THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE + +OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY " + +A LOGICAL STORY + +HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, +That was built in such a logical way +It ran a hundred years to a day, +And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay, +I 'll tell you what happened without delay, +Searing the parson into fits, +Frightening people out of their wits,-- +Have you ever heard of that, I say? + +Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. +/Georgius Secundus/ was then alive,-- +Snuffy old drone from the German hive. +That was the year when Lisbon-town +Saw the earth open and gulp her down, +And Braddock's army was done so brown, +Left without a scalp to its crown. +It was on the terrible Earthquake-day +That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. + + +Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, +There is always _somewhere_ a weakest spot,-- +In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, +In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, +In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still, +Find it somewhere you must and will,-- +Above or below, or within or without,-- +And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, +That a chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out. + +But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, +With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou ") +He would build one shay to beat the taown +'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; +It should be so built that it couldn' break daown +"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t 's mighty plain +Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; +'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, + Is only jest +T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." + +So the Deacon inquired of the village folk +Where he could find the strongest oak, +That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,-- +That was for spokes and floor and sills; +He sent for lancewood to make the thills; +The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, +The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, +But lasts like iron for things like these; +The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"-- +Last of its timber,--they could n't sell 'em, +Never an axe had seen their chips, +And the wedges flew from between their lips, +Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; +Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, +Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, +Steel of the finest, bright and blue; +Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; +Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide +Found in the pit when the tanner died. +That was the way he "put her through." +"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she 'll dew!" + +Do! I tell you, I rather guess +She was a wonder, and nothing less! +Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, +Deacon and deaconess dropped away, +Children and grandchildren--where were they? +But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay +As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! + +EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--it came and found +The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. +Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-- +"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. +Eighteen hundred and twenty came;-- +Running as usual; much the same. +Thirty and forty at last arrive, +And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE. +First of November, 'Fifty-five! +This morning the parson takes a drive. +Now, small boys, get out of the way! +Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, + +Little of all we value here +Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year +Without both feeling and looking queer. +In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its youth, +So far as I know, but a tree and truth. +(This is a moral that runs at large; +Take it.--You 're welcome.--No extra charge.) + +FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day,-- +There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, +A general flavor of mild decay, +But nothing local, as one may say. +There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art +Had made it so like in every part +That there was n't a chance for one to start. +For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, +And the floor was just as strong as the sills, +And the panels just as strong as the floor, +And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, +And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, +And spring and axle and hub encore. +And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt +In another hour it will be worn out! + +Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. +"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they. +The parson was working his Sunday's text,-- +Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed +At what the--Moses--was coming next. +All at once the horse stood still, +Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. +First a shiver, and then a thrill, +Then something decidedly like a spill,-- +And the parson was sitting upon a rock, +At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,-- +Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! +What do you think the parson found, +When he got up and stared around? +The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, +As if it had been to the mill and ground! +You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, +How it went to pieces all at once,-- +All at once, and nothing first,-- +Just as bubbles do when they burst. + +End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. +Logic is logic. That's all I say. + + + + +PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY + +OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR + +A MATHEMATICAL STORY + +FACTS respecting an old arm-chair. +At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. +Seems but little the worse for wear. +That 's remarkable when I say +It was old in President Holyoke's day. +(One of his boys, perhaps you know, +Died, _at one hundred_, years ago.) +He took lodgings for rain or shine +Under green bed-clothes in '69. + +Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.-- +Born there? Don't say so! I was, too. +(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,-- +Standing still, if you must have proof.-- +"Gambrel?--Gambrel?"--Let me beg +You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,-- +First great angle above the hoof,-- +That 's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) +Nicest place that ever was seen,-- +Colleges red and Common green, +Sidewalks brownish with trees between. +Sweetest spot beneath the skies +When the canker-worms don't rise,-- +When the dust, that sometimes flies +Into your mouth and ears and eyes, +In a quiet slumber lies, +_Not_ in the shape of umbaked pies +Such as barefoot children prize. + +A kind of harbor it seems to be, +Facing the flow of a boundless sea. +Rows of gray old Tutors stand +Ranged like rocks above the sand; +Rolling beneath them, soft and green, +Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,-- +One wave, two waves, three waves, four,-- +Sliding up the sparkling floor + +Then it ebbs to flow no more, +Wandering off from shore to shore +With its freight of golden ore! +Pleasant place for boys to play;-- +Better keep your girls away; +Hearts get rolled as pebbles do +Which countless fingering waves pursue, +And every classic beach is strown +With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. + +But this is neither here nor there; +I'm talking about an old arm-chair. +You 've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL? +Over at Medford he used to dwell; +Married one of the Mathers' folk; +Got with his wife a chair of oak,-- +Funny old chair with seat like wedge, +Sharp behind and broad front edge,-- +One of the oddest of human things, +Turned all over with knobs and rings,-- +But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,-- +Fit for the worthies of the land,-- +Chief Justice Sewall a cause to try in, +Or Cotton Mather to sit--and lie--in. +Parson Turell bequeathed the same +To a certain student,--SMITH by name; +These were the terms, as we are told: +"Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde; +When he doth graduate, then to passe +To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe. +On payment of "--(naming a certain sum)-- +"By him to whom ye Chaire shall come; +He to ye oldest Senior next, +And soe forever,"--(thus runs the text,)-- +"But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, +That being his Debte for use of same." +Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS, +And took his money,--five silver crowns. +Brown delivered it up to MOORE, +Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. +Moore made over the chair to LEE, +Who gave him crowns of silver three. +Lee conveyed it unto DREW, +And now the payment, of course, was two. +Drew gave up the chair to DUNN,-- +All he got, as you see, was one. +Dunn released the chair to HALL, +And got by the bargain no crown at all. +And now it passed to a second BROWN, +Who took it and likewise claimed a crown. +When Brown conveyed it unto WARE, +Having had one crown, to make it fair, +He paid him two crowns to take the chair; +And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,) +He paid one POTTER, who took it, three. +Four got ROBINSON; five got Dix; +JOHNSON primus demanded six; +And so the sum kept gathering still +Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. + +When paper money became so cheap, +Folks would n't count it, but said "a heap," +A certain RICHARDS,--the books declare,-- +(A. M. in '90? I've looked with care +Through the Triennial,--name not there,)-- +This person, Richards, was offered then +Eightscore pounds, but would have ten; +Nine, I think, was the sum he took,-- +Not quite certain,--but see the book. +By and by the wars were still, +But nothing had altered the Parson's will. +The old arm-chair was solid yet, +But saddled with such a monstrous debt! +Things grew quite too bad to bear, +Paying such sums to get rid of the chair +But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, +And there was the will in black and white, +Plain enough for a child to spell. +What should be done no man could tell, +For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, +And every season but made it worse. + +As a last resort, to clear the doubt, +They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out. +The Governor came with his Lighthorse Troop +And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop; +Halberds glittered and colors flew, +French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, +The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth, +And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; +So he rode with all his band, +Till the President met him, cap in hand. +The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said,-- +"A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." +The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he,-- +"There is your p'int. And here 's my fee. + +These are the terms you must fulfil,-- +On such conditions I BREAK THE WILL!" +The Governor mentioned what these should be. +(Just wait a minute and then you 'll see.) +The President prayed. Then all was still, +And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL! +"About those conditions?" Well, now you go +And do as I tell you, and then you'll know. +Once a year, on Commencement day, +If you 'll only take the pains to stay, +You'll see the President in the CHAIR, +Likewise the Governor sitting there. +The President rises; both old and young +May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, +The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, +Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair? +And then his Excellency bows, +As much as to say that he allows. +The Vice-Gub. next is called by name; +He bows like t' other, which means the same. +And all the officers round 'em bow, +As much as to say that they allow. +And a lot of parchments about the chair +Are handed to witnesses then and there, +And then the lawyers hold it clear +That the chair is safe for another year. + +God bless you, Gentlemen! Learn to give +Money to colleges while you live. +Don't be silly and think you'll try +To bother the colleges, when you die, +With codicil this, and codicil that, +That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat; +For there never was pitcher that wouldn't spill, +And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will! + + + + + +ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING + +WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER--(...) + +COME! fill a fresh bumper, for why should we go +While the nectar (logwood) still reddens our cups as they flow? +Pour out the rich juices (decoction) still bright with the sun, +Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies (dye-stuff) shall run. + +The purple-globed clusters (half-ripened apples) their life-dews have + bled; +How sweet is the breath (taste) of the fragrance they shed!(sugar of +lead) +For summer's last roses (rank poisons) lie hid in the wines (wines!!!) +That were garnered by maidens who laughed through the vines (stable-boys +smoking long-nines) + +Then a smile (scowl) and a glass (howl) and a toast (scoff) and a cheer +(sneer); +For all the good wine, and we 've some of it here! (strychnine and +whiskey, and ratsbane and beer!) +In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, +Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all! (Down, down with the +tyrant that masters us all!) + + + + + +POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE + +1858-1859 + +UNDER THE VIOLETS + +HER hands are cold; her face is white; +No more her pulses come and go; +Her eyes are shut to life and light;-- +Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, +And lay her where the violets blow. + +But not beneath a graven stone, +To plead for tears with alien eyes; +A slender cross of wood alone +Shall say, that here a maiden lies +In peace beneath the peaceful skies. + +And gray old trees of hugest limb +Shall wheel their circling shadows round +To make the scorching sunlight dim +That drinks the greenness from the ground, +And drop their dead leaves on her mound. + +When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, +And through their leaves the robins call, +And, ripening in the autumn sun, +The acorns and the chestnuts fall, +Doubt not that she will heed them all. + +For her the morning choir shall sing +Its matins from the branches high, +And every minstrel-voice of Spring, +That trills beneath the April sky, +Shall greet her with its earliest cry. + +When, turning round their dial-track, +Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, +Her little mourners, clad in black, +The crickets, sliding through the grass, +Shall pipe for her an evening mass. + +At last the rootlets of the trees +Shall find the prison where she lies, +And bear the buried dust they seize +In leaves and blossoms to the skies. +So may the soul that warmed it rise! + +If any, born of kindlier blood, +Should ask, What maiden lies below? +Say only this: A tender bud, +That tried to blossom in the snow, +Lies withered where the violets blow. + + + + + +HYMN OF TRUST + +O Love Divine, that stooped to share +Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, +On Thee we cast each earth-born care, +We smile at pain while Thou art near! + +Though long the weary way we tread, +And sorrow crown each lingering year, +No path we shun, no darkness dread, +Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near! + +When drooping pleasure turns to grief, +And trembling faith is changed to fear, +The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf, +Shall softly tell us, Thou art near! + +On Thee we fling our burdening woe, +O Love Divine, forever dear, +Content to suffer while we know, +Living and dying, Thou art near! + + + + + +A SUN-DAY HYMN + +LORD of all being! throned afar, +Thy glory flames from sun and star; +Centre and soul of every sphere, +Yet to each loving heart how near! + +Sun of our life, thy quickening ray +Sheds on our path the glow of day; +Star of our hope, thy softened light +Cheers the long watches of the night. + +Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn; +Our noontide is thy gracious dawn; +Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign; +All, save the clouds of sin, are thin! + +Lord of all life, below, above, +Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, +Before thy ever-blazing throne +We ask no lustre of our own. + +Grant us thy truth to make us free, +And kindling hearts that burn for thee, +Till all thy living altars claim +One holy light, one heavenly flame! + + + + + +THE CROOKED FOOTPATH + +AH, here it is! the sliding rail +That marks the old remembered spot,-- +The gap that struck our school-boy trail,-- +The crooked path across the lot. + +It left the road by school and church, +A pencilled shadow, nothing more, +That parted from the silver-birch +And ended at the farm-house door. + +No line or compass traced its plan; +With frequent bends to left or right, +In aimless, wayward curves it ran, +But always kept the door in sight. + +The gabled porch, with woodbine green,-- +The broken millstone at the sill,-- +Though many a rood might stretch between, +The truant child could see them still. + +No rocks across the pathway lie,-- +No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown,-- +And yet it winds, we know not why, +And turns as if for tree or stone. + +Perhaps some lover trod the way +With shaking knees and leaping heart,-- +And so it often runs astray +With sinuous sweep or sudden start. + +Or one, perchance, with clouded brain +From some unholy banquet reeled,-- +And since, our devious steps maintain +His track across the trodden field. + +Nay, deem not thus,--no earthborn will +Could ever trace a faultless line; +Our truest steps are human still,-- +To walk unswerving were divine! + +Truants from love, we dream of wrath; +Oh, rather let us trust the more! +Through all the wanderings of the path, +We still can see our Father's door! + + + + + +IRIS, HER BOOK + +I PRAY thee by the soul of her that bore thee, +By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee, +Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee! + +For Iris had no mother to infold her, +Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder, +Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her. + +She had not learned the mystery of awaking +Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching, +Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking. + +Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token +Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, +Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken? + +She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies,-- +Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances, +And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances. + +Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing: +Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring, +Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. + +Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her? +What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her? +Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. + +And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven, +Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, +Save me! Oh, save me! Shall I die forgiven? + +And then--Ah, God! But nay, it little matters: +Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters, +The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters! + +If she had--Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore. +Had the world nothing she might live to care for? +No second self to say her evening prayer for? + +She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, +Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming +Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming. + +Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher. +What if a lonely and unsistered creature +Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature, + +Saying, unsaddened,--This shall soon be faded, +And double-hued the shining tresses braided, +And all the sunlight of the morning shaded? + +This her poor book is full of saddest follies, +Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, +With summer roses twined and wintry hollies. + +In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, +Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances +May fall her little book of dreams and fancies. + +Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee, +Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee, +Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee. + +Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping, +Peace with her! she has had her hour of weeping. +No more! She leaves her memory in thy keeping. + + + + + +ROBINSON OF LEYDEN + +HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer +His wandering flock had gone before, +But he, the shepherd, might not share +Their sorrows on the wintry shore. + +Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, +Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, +While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, +The pastor spake, and thus he said:-- + +"Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! +God calls you hence from over sea; +Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, +Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. + +"Ye go to bear the saving word +To tribes unnamed and shores untrod; +Heed well the lessons ye have heard +From those old teachers taught of God. + +"Yet think not unto them was lent +All light for all the coming days, +And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent +In making straight the ancient ways; + +"The living fountain overflows +For every flock, for every lamb, +Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose +With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." + +He spake; with lingering, long embrace, +With tears of love and partings fond, +They floated down the creeping Maas, +Along the isle of Ysselmond. + +They passed the frowning towers of Briel, +The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, +And grated soon with lifting keel +The sullen shores of Fatherland. + +No home for these!--too well they knew +The mitred king behind the throne;-- +The sails were set, the pennons flew, +And westward ho! for worlds unknown. + +And these were they who gave us birth, +The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, +Who won for us this virgin earth, +And freedom with the soil they gave. + +The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,-- +In alien earth the exiles lie,-- +Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, +His words our noblest battle-cry! + +Still cry them, and the world shall hear, +Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! +Ye _have_ not built by Haerlem Meer, +Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! + + + + + +ST. ANTHONY THE REFORMER + +HIS TEMPTATION + +No fear lest praise should make us proud! +We know how cheaply that is won; +The idle homage of the crowd +Is proof of tasks as idly done. + +A surface-smile may pay the toil +That follows still the conquering Right, +With soft, white hands to dress the spoil +That sun-browned valor clutched in fight. + +Sing the sweet song of other days, +Serenely placid, safely true, +And o'er the present's parching ways +The verse distils like evening dew. + +But speak in words of living power,-- +They fall like drops of scalding rain +That plashed before the burning shower +Swept o' er the cities of the plain! + +Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale,-- +Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, +And, smitten through their leprous mail, +Strike right and left in hope to sting. + +If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, +Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, +Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, +Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,-- + +Too kind for bitter words to grieve, +Too firm for clamor to dismay, +When Faith forbids thee to believe, +And Meekness calls to disobey,-- + +Ah, then beware of mortal pride! +The smiling pride that calmly scorns +Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed +In laboring on thy crown of thorns! + + + + + +THE OPENING OF THE PIANO + +IN the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen +With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, +At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, +Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night! + +Ah me I how I remember the evening when it came! +What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, +When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over seas, +With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys! + +Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, +For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, +Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, +But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play." + +For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; +She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, +In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, +Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills. + +So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, +Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys. +Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, +As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn." + +Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, +(Wedded since, and a widow,--something like ten years dead,) +Hearing a gush of music such as none before, +Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door. + +Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies, +"Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries, +(For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,) +Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the _bird!_" + + + + + +MIDSUMMER + +HERE! sweep these foolish leaves away, +I will not crush my brains to-day! +Look! are the southern curtains drawn? +Fetch me a fan, and so begone! + +Not that,--the palm-tree's rustling leaf +Brought from a parching coral-reef +Its breath is heated;--I would swing +The broad gray plumes,--the eagle's wing. + +I hate these roses' feverish blood! +Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, +A long-stemmed lily from the lake, +Cold as a coiling water-snake. + +Rain me sweet odors on the air, +And wheel me up my Indian chair, +And spread some book not overwise +Flat out before my sleepy eyes. + +Who knows it not,--this dead recoil +Of weary fibres stretched with toil,-- +The pulse that flutters faint and low +When Summer's seething breezes blow! + +O Nature! bare thy loving breast, +And give thy child one hour of rest,-- +One little hour to lie unseen +Beneath thy scarf of leafy green! + +So, curtained by a singing pine, +Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, +Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay +In sweeter music dies away. + + + + +DE SAUTY + +AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE + +The first messages received through the submarine cable +were sent by an electrical expert, a mysterious personage +who signed himself De Sauty. + + Professor Blue-Nose + +PROFESSOR +TELL me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! +Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, +Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, +Holding talk with nations? + +Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, +Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in nightcap, +Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature +Three times daily patent? + +Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal? +Or is he a /mythus/,--ancient word for "humbug"-- +Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed +Romulus and Remus? + +Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? +Or a living product of galvanic action, +Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution? +Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal! + + +BLUE-NOSE +Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, +Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster! +Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, +Thou shall hear them answered. + +When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, +At the polar focus of the wire electric +Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us +Called himself "DE SAUTY." + +As the small opossum held in pouch maternal +Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, +So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, +Sucking in the current. + +When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger,-- +Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy,-- +And from time to time, in sharp articulation, +Said, "All right! DE SAUTY." + +From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading +Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, +Till the land was filled with loud reverberations +Of "_All right_ DE SAUTY." + +When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger,-- +Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker,-- +Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor +Of disintegration. + +Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, +Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, +Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, +There was no De Sauty. + +Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, +C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chlor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, +Cale. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang. (?) +Alumin. (?) Cuprum, (?) +Such as man is made of. + +Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished! +There is no De Sauty now there is no current! +Give us a new cable, then again we'll hear him +Cry, "All right! DE SAUTY." + + + + + + +POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE + +1871-1872 + +HOMESICK IN HEAVEN + +THE DIVINE VOICE +Go seek thine earth-born sisters,--thus the Voice +That all obey,--the sad and silent three; +These only, while the hosts of Heaven rejoice, +Smile never; ask them what their sorrows be; + +And when the secret of their griefs they tell, +Look on them with thy mild, half-human eyes; +Say what thou wast on earth; thou knowest well; +So shall they cease from unavailing sighs. + + +THE ANGEL +Why thus, apart,--the swift-winged herald spake,-- +Sit ye with silent lips and unstrung lyres +While the trisagion's blending chords awake +In shouts of joy from all the heavenly choirs? + +FIRST SPIRIT +Chide not thy sisters,--thus the answer came;-- +Children of earth, our half-weaned nature clings +To earth's fond memories, and her whispered name +Untunes our quivering lips, our saddened strings; + +For there we loved, and where we love is home, +Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts, +Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome:-- +The chain may lengthen, but it never parts! + +Sometimes a sunlit sphere comes rolling by, +And then we softly whisper,--can it be? +And leaning toward the silvery orb, we try +To hear the music of its murmuring sea; + +To catch, perchance, some flashing glimpse of green, +Or breathe some wild-wood fragrance, wafted through +The opening gates of pearl, that fold between +The blinding splendors and the changeless blue. + + +THE ANGEL +Nay, sister, nay! a single healing leaf +Plucked from the bough of yon twelve-fruited tree +Would soothe such anguish,--deeper stabbing grief +Has pierced thy throbbing heart-- + + +THE FIRST SPIRIT +Ah, woe is me! I from my clinging babe was rudely torn; +His tender lips a loveless bosom pressed; +Can I forget him in my life new born? +Oh that my darling lay upon my breast! + + +THE ANGEL +And thou?-- + + +THE SECOND SPIRIT +I was a fair and youthful bride, +The kiss of love still burns upon my cheek, +He whom I worshipped, ever at my side,-- +Him through the spirit realm in vain I seek. + +Sweet faces turn their beaming eyes on mine; +Ah! not in these the wished-for look I read; +Still for that one dear human smile I pine; +_Thou and none other!_--is the lover's creed. + + +THE ANGEL +And whence thy sadness in a world of bliss +Where never parting comes, nor mourner's tear? +Art thou, too, dreaming of a mortal's kiss +Amid the seraphs of the heavenly sphere? + + +THE THIRD SPIRIT +Nay, tax not me with passion's wasting fire; +When the swift message set my spirit free, +Blind, helpless, lone, I left my gray-haired sire; +My friends were many, he had none save me. + +I left him, orphaned, in the starless night; +Alas, for him no cheerful morning's dawn +I wear the ransomed spirit's robe of white, +Yet still I hear him moaning, _She is gone!_ + + +THE ANGEL +Ye know me not, sweet sisters?--All in vain +Ye seek your lost ones in the shapes they wore; +The flower once opened may not bud again, +The fruit once fallen finds the stem no more. + +Child, lover, sire,--yea, all things loved below,-- +Fair pictures damasked on a vapor's fold,-- +Fade like the roseate flush, the golden glow, +When the bright curtain of the day is rolled. + +I was the babe that slumbered on thy breast. +And, sister, mine the lips that called thee bride. +Mine were the silvered locks thy hand caressed, +That faithful hand, my faltering footstep's guide! + +Each changing form, frail vesture of decay, +The soul unclad forgets it once hath worn, +Stained with the travel of the weary day, +And shamed with rents from every wayside +thorn. + +To lie, an infant, in thy fond embrace,-- +To come with love's warm kisses back to thee,-- +To show thine eyes thy gray-haired father's face, +Not Heaven itself could grant; this may not be! + +Then spread your folded wings, and leave to earth +The dust once breathing ye have mourned so long, +Till Love, new risen, owns his heavenly birth, +And sorrow's discords sweeten into song! + + + + + +FANTASIA + +THE YOUNG GIRL'S POEM + +KISS mine eyelids, beauteous Morn, +Blushing into life new-born! +Lend me violets for my hair, +And thy russet robe to wear, +And thy ring of rosiest hue +Set in drops of diamond dew! + +Kiss my cheek, thou noontide ray, +From my Love so far away +Let thy splendor streaming down +Turn its pallid lilies brown, +Till its darkening shades reveal +Where his passion pressed its seal! + +Kiss my lips, thou Lord of light, +Kiss my lips a soft good-night! +Westward sinks thy golden car; +Leave me but the evening star, +And my solace that shall be, +Borrowing all its light from thee! + + + + + +AUNT TABITHA + +THE YOUNG GIRL'S POEM + +WHATEVER I do, and whatever I say, +Aunt Tabitha tells me that is n't the way; +When she was a girl (forty summers ago) +Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so. + +Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice! +But I like my own way, and I find it so nice +And besides, I forget half the things I am told; +But they all will come back to me--when I am old. + +If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt, +He may chance to look in as I chance to look out; +She would never endure an impertinent stare,-- +It is horrid, she says, and I must n't sit there. + +A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own, +But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone; +So I take a lad's arm,--just for safety, you know,-- +But Aunt Tabitha tells me they did n't do so. + +How wicked we are, and how good they were then! +They kept at arm's length those detestable men; +What an era of virtue she lived in!--But stay-- +Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day? + +If the men were so wicked, I 'll ask my papa +How he dared to propose to my darling mamma; +Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! Who knows? +And what shall I say, if a wretch should propose? + +I am thinking if Aunt knew so little of sin, +What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been! +And her grand-aunt--it scares me--how shockingly sad +That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad! + +A martyr will save us, and nothing else can; +Let me perish--to rescue some wretched young man! +Though when to the altar a victim I go, +Aunt Tabitha 'll tell me she never did so + + + + + +WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS + +FROM THE YOUNG ASTRONOMER'S POEM + +I. + +AMBITION + +ANOTHER clouded night; the stars are hid, +The orb that waits my search is hid with them. +Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year, +To plant my ladder and to gain the round +That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame, +Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won? +Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear +That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel +Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust; +But the fair garland whose undying green +Not time can change, nor wrath of gods or men! + +With quickened heart-beats I shall hear tongues +That speak my praise; but better far the sense +That in the unshaped ages, buried deep +In the dark mines of unaccomplished time +Yet to be stamped with morning's royal die +And coined in golden days,--in those dim years +I shall be reckoned with the undying dead, +My name emblazoned on the fiery arch, +Unfading till the stars themselves shall fade. +Then, as they call the roll of shining worlds, +Sages of race unborn in accents new +Shall count me with the Olympian ones of old, +Whose glories kindle through the midnight sky +Here glows the God of Battles; this recalls +The Lord of Ocean, and yon far-off sphere +The Sire of Him who gave his ancient name +To the dim planet with the wondrous rings; +Here flames the Queen of Beauty's silver lamp, +And there the moon-girt orb of mighty Jove; +But this, unseen through all earth's ions past, +A youth who watched beneath the western star +Sought in the darkness, found, and shewed to men; +Linked with his name thenceforth and evermore +So shall that name be syllabled anew +In all the tongues of all the tribes of men: +I that have been through immemorial years +Dust in the dust of my forgotten time +Shall live in accents shaped of blood-warm breath, +Yea, rise in mortal semblance, newly born +In shining stone, in undecaying bronze, +And stand on high, and look serenely down +On the new race that calls the earth its own. + +Is this a cloud, that, blown athwart my soul, +Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain +Where worlds beyond the world their mingling rays +Blend in soft white,--a cloud that, born of earth, +Would cheat the soul that looks for light from heaven? +Must every coral-insect leave his sign +On each poor grain he lent to build the reef, +As Babel's builders stamped their sunburnt clay, +Or deem his patient service all in vain? +What if another sit beneath the shade +Of the broad elm I planted by the way,-- +What if another heed the beacon light +I set upon the rock that wrecked my keel,-- +Have I not done my task and served my kind? +Nay, rather act thy part, unnamed, unknown, +And let Fame blow her trumpet through the world +With noisy wind to swell a fool's renown, +Joined with some truth he stumbled blindly o'er, +Or coupled with some single shining deed +That in the great account of all his days +Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet +His pitying angel shows the clerk of Heaven. +The noblest service comes from nameless hands, +And the best servant does his work unseen. +Who found the seeds of fire and made them shoot, +Fed by his breath, in buds and flowers of flame? +Who forged in roaring flames the ponderous stone, +And shaped the moulded metal to his need? +Who gave the dragging car its rolling wheel, +And tamed the steed that whirls its circling round? +All these have left their work and not their names,-- +Why should I murmur at a fate like theirs? +This is the heavenly light; the pearly stain +Was but a wind-cloud drifting o'er the stars! + + + +II. + +REGRETS + +BRIEF glimpses of the bright celestial spheres, +False lights, false shadows, vague, uncertain gleams, +Pale vaporous mists, wan streaks of lurid flame, +The climbing of the upward-sailing cloud, +The sinking of the downward-falling star,-- +All these are pictures of the changing moods +Borne through the midnight stillness of my soul. + +Here am I, bound upon this pillared rock, +Prey to the vulture of a vast desire +That feeds upon my life. I burst my bands +And steal a moment's freedom from the beak, +The clinging talons and the shadowing plumes; +Then comes the false enchantress, with her song; + +"Thou wouldst not lay thy forehead in the dust +Like the base herd that feeds and breeds and dies +Lo, the fair garlands that I weave for thee, +Unchanging as the belt Orion wears, +Bright as the jewels of the seven-starred Crown, +The spangled stream of Berenice's hair!" +And so she twines the fetters with the flowers +Around my yielding limbs, and the fierce bird +Stoops to his quarry,--then to feed his rage +Of ravening hunger I must drain my blood +And let the dew-drenched, poison-breeding night +Steal all the freshness from my fading cheek, +And leave its shadows round my caverned eyes. +All for a line in some unheeded scroll; +All for a stone that tells to gaping clowns, +"Here lies a restless wretch beneath a clod +Where squats the jealous nightmare men call +Fame!" + +I marvel not at him who scorns his kind +And thinks not sadly of the time foretold +When the old hulk we tread shall be a wreck, +A slag, a cinder drifting through the sky +Without its crew of fools! We live too long, +And even so are not content to die, +But load the mould that covers up our bones +With stones that stand like beggars by the road +And show death's grievous wound and ask for tears; +Write our great books to teach men who we are, +Sing our fine songs that tell in artful phrase +The secrets of our lives, and plead and pray +For alms of memory with the after time, +Those few swift seasons while the earth shall wear +Its leafy summers, ere its core grows cold +And the moist life of all that breathes shall die; +Or as the new-born seer, perchance more wise, +Would have us deem, before its growing mass, +Pelted with star-dust, stoned with meteor-balls, +Heats like a hammered anvil, till at last +Man and his works and all that stirred itself +Of its own motion, in the fiery glow +Turns to a flaming vapor, anI our orb +Shines a new sun for earths that shall be born. + +I am as old as Egypt to myself, +Brother to them that squared the pyramids +By the same stars I watch. I read the page +Where every letter is a glittering world, +With them who looked from Shinar's clay-built towers, +Ere yet the wanderer of the Midland sea +Had missed the fallen sister of the seven. +I dwell in spaces vague, remote, unknown, +Save to the silent few, who, leaving earth, +Quit all communion with their living time. +I lose myself in that ethereal void, +Till I have tired my wings and long to fill +My breast with denser air, to stand, to walk +With eyes not raised above my fellow-men. +Sick of my unwalled, solitary realm, +I ask to change the myriad lifeless worlds +I visit as mine own for one poor patch +Of this dull spheroid and a little breath +To shape in word or deed to serve my kind. +Was ever giant's dungeon dug so deep, +Was ever tyrant's fetter forged so strong, +Was e'er such deadly poison in the draught +The false wife mingles for the trusting fool, +As he whose willing victim is himself, +Digs, forges, mingles, for his captive soul? + + + +III. + +SYMPATHIES + +THE snows that glittered on the disk of Mars +Have melted, and the planet's fiery orb +Rolls in the crimson summer of its year; +But what to me the summer or the snow +Of worlds that throb with life in forms unknown, +If life indeed be theirs; I heed not these. +My heart is simply human; all my care +For them whose dust is fashioned like mine own; +These ache with cold and hunger, live in pain, +And shake with fear of worlds more full of woe; +There may be others worthier of my love, +But such I know not save through these I know. + +There are two veils of language, hid beneath +Whose sheltering folds, we dare to be ourselves; +And not that other self which nods and smiles +And babbles in our name; the one is Prayer, +Lending its licensed freedom to the tongue +That tells our sorrows and our sins to Heaven; +The other, Verse, that throws its spangled web +Around our naked speech and makes it bold. +I, whose best prayer is silence; sitting dumb +In the great temple where I nightly serve +Him who is throned in light, have dared to claim +The poet's franchise, though I may not hope +To wear his garland; hear me while I tell +My story in such form as poets use, +But breathed in fitful whispers, as the wind +Sighs and then slumbers, wakes and sighs again. + +Thou Vision, floating in the breathless air +Between me and the fairest of the stars, +I tell my lonely thoughts as unto thee. +Look not for marvels of the scholar's pen +In my rude measure; I can only show +A slender-margined, unillumined page, +And trust its meaning to the flattering eye +That reads it in the gracious light of love. +Ah, wouldst thou clothe thyself in breathing shape +And nestle at my side, my voice should lend +Whate'er my verse may lack of tender rhythm +To make thee listen. + + I have stood entranced +When, with her fingers wandering o'er the keys, +The white enchantress with the golden hair +Breathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme; +Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom; +Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang! +The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo, +Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones, +And the pale minstrel's passion lived again, +Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose +The wind has shaken till it fills the air +With light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charm +A song can borrow when the bosom throbs +That lends it breath. + + So from the poet's lips +His verse sounds doubly sweet, for none like him +Feels every cadence of its wave-like flow; +He lives the passion over, while he reads, +That shook him as he sang his lofty strain, +And pours his life through each resounding line, +As ocean, when the stormy winds are hushed, +Still rolls and thunders through his billowy caves. + + +IV. + +MASTER AND SCHOLAR + +LET me retrace the record of the years +That made me what I am. A man most wise, +But overworn with toil and bent with age, +Sought me to be his scholar,-me, run wild +From books and teachers,-kindled in my soul +The love of knowledge; led me to his tower, +Showed me the wonders of the midnight realm +His hollow sceptre ruled, or seemed to rule, +Taught me the mighty secrets of the spheres, +Trained me to find the glimmering specks of light +Beyond the unaided sense, and on my chart +To string them one by one, in order due, +As on a rosary a saint his beads. +I was his only scholar; I became +The echo to his thought; whate'er he knew +Was mine for asking; so from year to year +W e wrought together, till there came a time +When I, the learner, was the master half +Of the twinned being in the dome-crowned tower. + +Minds roll in paths like planets; they revolve, +This in a larger, that a narrower ring, +But round they come at last to that same phase, +That selfsame light and shade they showed before. +I learned his annual and his monthly tale, +His weekly axiom and his daily phrase, +I felt them coming in the laden air, +And watched them laboring up to vocal breath, +Even as the first-born at his father's board +Knows ere he speaks the too familiar jest +Is on its way, by some mysterious sign +Forewarned, the click before the striking bell. + +He shrivelled as I spread my growing leaves, +Till trust and reverence changed to pitying care; +He lived for me in what he once had been, +But I for him, a shadow, a defence, +The guardian of his fame, his guide, his staff, +Leaned on so long he fell if left alone. +I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand, +Love was my spur and longing after fame, +But his the goading thorn of sleepless age +That sees its shortening span, its lengthening shades, +That clutches what it may with eager grasp, +And drops at last with empty, outstretched hands. +All this he dreamed not. He would sit him down +Thinking to work his problems as of old, +And find the star he thought so plain a blur, +The columned figures labyrinthine wilds +Without my comment, blind and senseless scrawls +That vexed him with their riddles; he would strive +And struggle for a while, and then his eye +Would lose its light, and over all his mind +The cold gray mist would settle; and erelong +The darkness fell, and I was left alone. + + +V. + +ALONE + +ALONE! no climber of an Alpine cliff, +No Arctic venturer on the waveless sea, +Feels the dread stillness round him as it chills +The heart of him who leaves the slumbering earth +To watch the silent worlds that crowd the sky. +Alone! And as the shepherd leaves his flock +To feed upon the hillside, he meanwhile +Finds converse in the warblings of the pipe +Himself has fashioned for his vacant hour, +So have I grown companion to myself, +And to the wandering spirits of the air +That smile and whisper round us in our dreams. +Thus have I learned to search if I may know +The whence and why of all beneath the stars +And all beyond them, and to weigh my life +As in a balance,--poising good and ill +Against each other,--asking of the Power +That flung me forth among the whirling worlds, +If I am heir to any inborn right, +Or only as an atom of the dust +That every wind may blow where'er it will. + + +VI. + +QUESTIONING + +I AM not humble; I was shown my place, +Clad in such robes as Nature had at hand; +Took what she gave, not chose; I know no shame, +No fear for being simply what I am. +I am not proud, I hold my every breath +At Nature's mercy. I am as a babe +Borne in a giant's arms, he knows not where; +Each several heart-beat, counted like the coin +A miser reckons, is a special gift +As from an unseen hand; if that withhold +Its bounty for a moment, I am left +A clod upon the earth to which I fall. + +Something I find in me that well might claim +The love of beings in a sphere above +This doubtful twilight world of right and wrong; +Something that shows me of the self-same clay +That creeps or swims or flies in humblest form. +Had I been asked, before I left my bed +Of shapeless dust, what clothing I would wear, +I would have said, More angel and less worm; +But for their sake who are even such as I, +Of the same mingled blood, I would not choose +To hate that meaner portion of myself +Which makes me brother to the least of men. + +I dare not be a coward with my lips +Who dare to question all things in my soul; +Some men may find their wisdom on their knees, +Some prone and grovelling in the dust like slaves; +Let the meek glowworm glisten in the dew; +I ask to lift my taper to the sky +As they who hold their lamps above their heads, +Trusting the larger currents up aloft, +Rather than crossing eddies round their breast, +Threatening with every puff the flickering blaze. + +My life shall be a challenge, not a truce! +This is my homage to the mightier powers, +To ask my boldest question, undismayed +By muttered threats that some hysteric sense +Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne +Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err, +They all must err who have to feel their way +As bats that fly at noon; for what are we +But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, +Who needs must stumble, and with stammering steps +Spell out their paths in syllables of pain? + +Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who dares +Look up to Thee, the Father,--dares to ask +More than thy wisdom answers. From thy hand +The worlds were cast; yet every leaflet claims +From that same hand its little shining sphere +Of star-lit dew; thine image, the great sun, +Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame, +Glares in mid-heaven; but to his noon-tide blaze +The slender violet lifts its lidless eye, +And from his splendor steals its fairest hue, +Its sweetest perfume from his scorching fire. + + +VII. + +WORSHIP + +FROM my lone turret as I look around +O'er the green meadows to the ring of blue, +From slope, from summit, and from half-hid vale +The sky is stabbed with dagger-pointed spires, +Their gilded symbols whirling in the wind, +Their brazen tongues proclaiming to the world, +"Here truth is sold, the only genuine ware; +See that it has our trade-mark! You will buy +Poison instead of food across the way, +The lies of -----" this or that, each several name +The standard's blazon and the battle-cry +Of some true-gospel faction, and again +The token of the Beast to all beside. +And grouped round each I see a huddling crowd +Alike in all things save the words they use; +In love, in longing, hate and fear the same. + +Whom do we trust and serve? We speak of one +And bow to many; Athens still would find +The shrines of all she worshipped safe within +Our tall barbarian temples, and the thrones +That crowned Olympus mighty as of old. +The god of music rules the Sabbath choir; +The lyric muse must leave the sacred nine +To help us please the dilettante's ear; +Plutus limps homeward with us, as we leave +The portals of the temple where we knelt +And listened while the god of eloquence +(Hermes of ancient days, but now disguised +In sable vestments) with that other god +Somnus, the son of Erebus and Nox, +Fights in unequal contest for our souls; +The dreadful sovereign of the under world +Still shakes his sceptre at us, and we hear +The baying of the triple-throated hound; +Eros is young as ever, and as fair +The lovely Goddess born of ocean's foam. + +These be thy gods, O Israel! Who is he, +The one ye name and tell us that ye serve, +Whom ye would call me from my lonely tower +To worship with the many-headed throng? +Is it the God that walked in Eden's grove +In the cool hour to seek our guilty sire? +The God who dealt with Abraham as the sons +Of that old patriarch deal with other men? +The jealous God of Moses, one who feels +An image as an insult, and is wroth +With him who made it and his child unborn? +The God who plagued his people for the sin +Of their adulterous king, beloved of him,-- +The same who offers to a chosen few +The right to praise him in eternal song +While a vast shrieking world of endless woe +Blends its dread chorus with their rapturous hymn? +Is this the God ye mean, or is it he +Who heeds the sparrow's fall, whose loving heart +Is as the pitying father's to his child, +Whose lesson to his children is "Forgive," +Whose plea for all, "They know not what they do"? + + +VIII. + +MANHOOD + +I CLAIM the right of knowing whom I serve, +Else is my service idle; He that asks +My homage asks it from a reasoning soul. +To crawl is not to worship; we have learned +A drill of eyelids, bended neck and knee, +Hanging our prayers on hinges, till we ape +The flexures of the many-jointed worm. +Asia has taught her Allahs and salaams +To the world's children,-we have grown to men! +We who have rolled the sphere beneath our feet +To find a virgin forest, as we lay +The beams of our rude temple, first of all +Must frame its doorway high enough for man +To pass unstooping; knowing as we do +That He who shaped us last of living forms +Has long enough been served by creeping things, +Reptiles that left their footprints in the sand +Of old sea-margins that have turned to stone, +And men who learned their ritual; we demand +To know Him first, then trust Him and then love +When we have found Him worthy of our love, +Tried by our own poor hearts and not before; +He must be truer than the truest friend, +He must be tenderer than a woman's love, +A father better than the best of sires; +Kinder than she who bore us, though we sin +Oftener than did the brother we are told +We--poor ill-tempered mortals--must forgive, +Though seven times sinning threescore times and +ten. + +This is the new world's gospel: Be ye men! +Try well the legends of the children's time; +Ye are the chosen people, God has led +Your steps across the desert of the deep +As now across the desert of the shore; +Mountains are cleft before you as the sea +Before the wandering tribe of Israel's sons; +Still onward rolls the thunderous caravan, +Its coming printed on the western sky, +A cloud by day, by night a pillared flame; +Your prophets are a hundred unto one +Of them of old who cried, "Thus saith the Lord;" +They told of cities that should fall in heaps, +But yours of mightier cities that shall rise +Where yet the lonely fishers spread their nets, +Where hides the fox and hoots the midnight owl; +The tree of knowledge in your garden grows +Not single, but at every humble door; +Its branches lend you their immortal food, +That fills you with the sense of what ye are, +No servants of an altar hewed and carved +From senseless stone by craft of human hands, +Rabbi, or dervish, brahmin, bishop, bonze, +But masters of the charm with which they work +To keep your hands from that forbidden tree! + +Ye that have tasted that divinest fruit, +Look on this world of yours with opened eyes! +Y e are as gods! Nay, makers of your gods,-- +Each day ye break an image in your shrine +And plant a fairer image where it stood +Where is the Moloch of your fathers' creed, +Whose fires of torment burned for span--long babes? +Fit object for a tender mother's love! +Why not? It was a bargain duly made +For these same infants through the surety's act +Intrusted with their all for earth and heaven, +By Him who chose their guardian, knowing well +His fitness for the task,--this, even this, +Was the true doctrine only yesterday +As thoughts are reckoned,--and to--day you hear +In words that sound as if from human tongues +Those monstrous, uncouth horrors of the past +That blot the blue of heaven and shame the earth +As would the saurians of the age of slime, +Awaking from their stony sepulchres +And wallowing hateful in the eye of day! + + +IX. + +RIGHTS + +WHAT am I but the creature Thou hast made? +What have I save the blessings Thou hast lent? +What hope I but thy mercy and thy love? +Who but myself shall cloud my soul with fear? +Whose hand protect me from myself but thine? +I claim the rights of weakness, I, the babe, +Call on my sire to shield me from the ills +That still beset my path, not trying me +With snares beyond my wisdom or my strength, +He knowing I shall use them to my harm, +And find a tenfold misery in the sense +That in my childlike folly I have sprung +The trap upon myself as vermin use, +Drawn by the cunning bait to certain doom. +Who wrought the wondrous charm that leads us on +To sweet perdition, but the selfsame power +That set the fearful engine to destroy +His wretched offspring (as the Rabbis tell), +And hid its yawning jaws and treacherous springs +In such a show of innocent sweet flowers +It lured the sinless angels and they fell? +Ah! He who prayed the prayer of all mankind +Summed in those few brief words the mightiest plea +For erring souls before the courts of heaven,-- +_Save us from being tempted_,--lest we fall! + +If we are only as the potter's clay +Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, +And broken into shards if we offend +The eye of Him who made us, it is well; +Such love as the insensate lump of clay +That spins upon the swift-revolving wheel +Bears to the hand that shapes its growing form,-- +Such love, no more, will be our hearts' return +To the great Master-workman for his care,-- +Or would be, save that this, our breathing clay, +Is intertwined with fine innumerous threads +That make it conscious in its framer's hand; +And this He must remember who has filled +These vessels with the deadly draught of life,-- +Life, that means death to all it claims. Our love +Must kindle in the ray that streams from heaven, +A faint reflection of the light divine; +The sun must warm the earth before the rose +Can show her inmost heart-leaves to the sun. + +He yields some fraction of the Maker's right +Who gives the quivering nerve its sense of pain; +Is there not something in the pleading eye +Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns +The law that bids it suffer? Has it not +A claim for some remembrance in the book +That fills its pages with the idle words +Spoken of men? Or is it only clay, +Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand, +Yet all his own to treat it as He will +And when He will to cast it at his feet, +Shattered, dishonored, lost forevermore? +My dog loves me, but could he look beyond +His earthly master, would his love extend +To Him who--Hush! I will not doubt that He +Is better than our fears, and will not wrong +The least, the meanest of created things! + +He would not trust me with the smallest orb +That circles through the sky; He would not give +A meteor to my guidance; would not leave +The coloring of a cloudlet to my hand; +He locks my beating heart beneath its bars +And keeps the key himself; He measures out +The draughts of vital breath that warm my blood, +Winds up the springs of instinct which uncoil, +Each in its season; ties me to my home, +My race, my time, my nation, and my creed +So closely that if I but slip my wrist +Out of the band that cuts it to the bone, +Men say, "He hath a devil;" He has lent +All that I hold in trust, as unto one +By reason of his weakness and his years +Not fit to hold the smallest shred in fee +Of those most common things he calls his own,-- +And yet--my Rabbi tells me--He has left +The care of that to which a million worlds +Filled with unconscious life were less than naught, +Has left that mighty universe, the Soul, +To the weak guidance of our baby hands, +Let the foul fiends have access at their will, +Taking the shape of angels, to our hearts,-- +Our hearts already poisoned through and through +With the fierce virus of ancestral sin; +Turned us adrift with our immortal charge, +To wreck ourselves in gulfs of endless woe. + +If what my Rabbi tells me is the truth +Why did the choir of angels sing for joy? +Heaven must be compassed in a narrow space, +And offer more than room enough for all +That pass its portals; but the under-world, +The godless realm, the place where demons forge +Their fiery darts and adamantine chains, +Must swarm with ghosts that for a little while +Had worn the garb of flesh, and being heirs +Of all the dulness of their stolid sires, +And all the erring instincts of their tribe, +Nature's own teaching, rudiments of "sin," +Fell headlong in the snare that could not fail +To trap the wretched creatures shaped of clay +And cursed with sense enough to lose their souls! + +Brother, thy heart is troubled at my word; +Sister, I see the cloud is on thy brow. +He will not blame me, He who sends not peace, +But sends a sword, and bids us strike amain +At Error's gilded crest, where in the van +Of earth's great army, mingling with the best +And bravest of its leaders, shouting loud +The battle-cries that yesterday have led +The host of Truth to victory, but to-day +Are watchwords of the laggard and the slave, +He leads his dazzled cohorts. God has made +This world a strife of atoms and of spheres; +With every breath I sigh myself away +And take my tribute from the wandering wind +To fan the flame of life's consuming fire; +So, while my thought has life, it needs must burn, +And, burning, set the stubble-fields ablaze, +Where all the harvest long ago was reaped +And safely garnered in the ancient barns. +But still the gleaners, groping for their food, +Go blindly feeling through the close-shorn straw, +While the young reapers flash, their glittering steel +Where later suns have ripened nobler grain! + + +X. + +TRUTHS + +THE time is racked with birth-pangs; every hour +Brings forth some gasping truth, and truth newborn +Looks a misshapen and untimely growth, +The terror of the household and its shame, +A monster coiling in its nurse's lap +That some would strangle, some would only starve; +But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand, +And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts, +Comes slowly to its stature and its form, +Calms the rough ridges of its dragon-scales, +Changes to shining locks its snaky hair, +And moves transfigured into angel guise, +Welcomed by all that cursed its hour of birth, +And folded in the same encircling arms +That cast it like a serpent from their hold! + +If thou wouldst live in honor, die in peace, +Have the fine words the marble-workers learn +To carve so well, upon thy funeral-stone, +And earn a fair obituary, dressed +In all the many-colored robes of praise, +Be deafer than the adder to the cry +Of that same foundling truth, until it grows +To seemly favor, and at length has won +The smiles of hard-mouthed men and light-lipped dames; +Then snatch it from its meagre nurse's breast, +Fold it in silk and give it food from gold; +So shalt thou share its glory when at last +It drops its mortal vesture, and, revealed +In all the splendor of its heavenly form, +Spreads on the startled air its mighty wings! + +Alas! how much that seemed immortal truth +That heroes fought for, martyrs died to save, +Reveals its earth-born lineage, growing old +And limping in its march, its wings unplumed, +Its heavenly semblance faded like a dream! +Here in this painted casket, just unsealed, +Lies what was once a breathing shape like thine, +Once loved as thou art loved; there beamed the eyes +That looked on Memphis in its hour of pride, +That saw the walls of hundred-gated Thebes, +And all the mirrored glories of the Nile. +See how they toiled that all-consuming time +Might leave the frame immortal in its tomb; +Filled it with fragrant balms and odorous gums +That still diffuse their sweetness through the air, +And wound and wound with patient fold on fold +The flaxen bands thy hand has rudely torn! +Perchance thou yet canst see the faded stain +Of the sad mourner's tear. + + +XI. + +IDOLS + +BUT what is this? +The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast +Of the blind heathen! Snatch the curious prize, +Give it a place among thy treasured spoils, +Fossil and relic,--corals, encrinites, +The fly in amber and the fish in stone, +The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold, +Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring,-- +Place for the Memphian beetle with thine hoard! + +AM longer than thy creed has blest the world +This toy, thus ravished from thy brother's breast, +Was to the heart of Mizraim as divine, +As holy, as the symbol that we lay +On the still bosom of our white-robed dead, +And raise above their dust that all may know +Here sleeps an heir of glory. Loving friends, +With tears of trembling faith and choking sobs, +And prayers to those who judge of mortal deeds, +Wrapped this poor image in the cerement's fold +That Isis and Osiris, friends of man, +Might know their own and claim the ransomed soul. + +An idol? Man was born to worship such! +An idol is an image of his thought; +Sometimes he carves it out of gleaming stone, +And sometimes moulds it out of glittering gold, +Or rounds it in a mighty frescoed dome, +Or lifts it heavenward in a lofty spire, +Or shapes it in a cunning frame of words, +Or pays his priest to make it day by day; +For sense must have its god as well as soul; +A new-born Dian calls for silver shrines, +And Egypt's holiest symbol is our own, +The sign we worship as did they of old +When Isis and Osiris ruled the world. + +Let us be true to our most subtle selves, +We long to have our idols like the rest. +Think! when the men of Israel had their God +Encamped among them, talking with their chief, +Leading them in the pillar of the cloud +And watching o'er them in the shaft of fire, +They still must have an image; still they longed +For somewhat of substantial, solid form +Whereon to hang their garlands, and to fix +Their wandering thoughts and gain a stronger hold +For their uncertain faith, not yet assured +If those same meteors of the day and night +Were not mere exhalations of the soil. +Are we less earthly than the chosen race? +Are we more neighbors of the living God +Than they who gathered manna every morn, +Reaping where none had sown, and heard the voice +Of him who met the Highest in the mount, +And brought them tables, graven with His hand? +Yet these must have their idol, brought their gold, +That star-browed Apis might be god again; +Yea, from their ears the women brake the rings +That lent such splendors to the gypsy brown +Of sunburnt cheeks,--what more could woman do +To show her pious zeal? They went astray, +But nature led them as it leads us all. +We too, who mock at Israel's golden calf +And scoff at Egypt's sacred scarabee, +Would have our amulets to clasp and kiss, +And flood with rapturous tears, and bear with us +To be our dear companions in the dust; +Such magic works an image in our souls + +Man is an embryo; see at twenty years +His bones, the columns that uphold his frame +Not yet cemented, shaft and capital, +Mere fragments of the temple incomplete. +At twoscore, threescore, is he then full grown? +Nay, still a child, and as the little maids +Dress and undress their puppets, so he tries +To dress a lifeless creed, as if it lived, +And change its raiment when the world cries shame! + +We smile to see our little ones at play +So grave, so thoughtful, with maternal care +Nursing the wisps of rags they call their babes;-- +Does He not smile who sees us with the toys +We call by sacred names, and idly feign +To be what we have called them? He is still +The Father of this helpless nursery-brood, +Whose second childhood joins so close its first, +That in the crowding, hurrying years between +We scarce have trained our senses to their task +Before the gathering mist has dimmed our eyes, +And with our hollowed palm we help our ear, +And trace with trembling hand our wrinkled names, +And then begin to tell our stories o'er, +And see--not hear--the whispering lips that say, +"You know? Your father knew him.--This is he, +Tottering and leaning on the hireling's arm,"-- +And so, at length, disrobed of all that clad +The simple life we share with weed and worm, +Go to our cradles, naked as we came. + + +XII. + +LOVE + +WHAT if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved +While yet on earth and was beloved in turn, +And still remembered every look and tone +Of that dear earthly sister who was left +Among the unwise virgins at the gate,-- +Itself admitted with the bridegroom's train,-- +What if this spirit redeemed, amid the host +Of chanting angels, in some transient lull +Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry +Of its lost darling, whom in evil hour +Some wilder pulse of nature led astray +And left an outcast in a world of fire, +Condemned to be the sport of cruel fiends, +Sleepless, unpitying, masters of the skill +To wring the maddest ecstasies of pain +From worn-out souls that only ask to die,-- +Would it not long to leave the bliss of heaven,-- +Bearing a little water in its hand +To moisten those poor lips that plead in vain +With Him we call our Father? Or is all +So changed in such as taste celestial joy +They hear unmoved the endless wail of woe; +The daughter in the same dear tones that hushed +Her cradle slumbers; she who once had held +A babe upon her bosom from its voice +Hoarse with its cry of anguish, yet the same? + +No! not in ages when the Dreadful Bird +Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fearful Beast +Strode with the flesh about those fossil bones +We build to mimic life with pygmy hands,-- +Not in those earliest days when men ran wild +And gashed each other with their knives of stone, +When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows +And their flat hands were callous in the palm +With walking in the fashion of their sires, +Grope as they might to find a cruel god +To work their will on such as human wrath +Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left +With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, +Could hate have shaped a demon more malign +Than him the dead men mummied in their creed +And taught their trembling children to adore! + +Made in his image! Sweet and gracious souls +Dear to my heart by nature's fondest names, +Is not your memory still the precious mould +That lends its form to Him who hears my prayer? +Thus only I behold Him, like to them, +Long-suffering, gentle, ever slow to wrath, +If wrath it be that only wounds to heal, +Ready to meet the wanderer ere he reach +The door he seeks, forgetful of his sin, +Longing to clasp him in a father's arms, +And seal his pardon with a pitying tear! + +Four gospels tell their story to mankind, +And none so full of soft, caressing words +That bring the Maid of Bethlehem and her Babe +Before our tear-dimmed eyes, as his who learned +In the meek service of his gracious art +The tones which, like the medicinal balms +That calm the sufferer's anguish, soothe our souls. +Oh that the loving woman, she who sat +So long a listener at her Master's feet, +Had left us Mary's Gospel,--all she heard +Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man! +Mark how the tender-hearted mothers read +The messages of love between the lines +Of the same page that loads the bitter tongue +Of him who deals in terror as his trade +With threatening words of wrath that scorch like flame +They tell of angels whispering round the bed +Of the sweet infant smiling in its dream, +Of lambs enfolded in the Shepherd's arms, +Of Him who blessed the children; of the land +Where crystal rivers feed unfading flowers, +Of cities golden-paved with streets of pearl, +Of the white robes the winged creatures wear, +The crowns and harps from whose melodious strings +One long, sweet anthem flows forevermore! +We too had human mothers, even as Thou, +Whom we have learned to worship as remote +From mortal kindred, wast a cradled babe. +The milk of woman filled our branching veins, +She lulled us with her tender nursery-song, +And folded round us her untiring arms, +While the first unremembered twilight yeas +Shaped us to conscious being; still we feel +Her pulses in our own,--too faintly feel; +Would that the heart of woman warmed our creeds! + +Not from the sad-eyed hermit's lonely cell, +Not from the conclave where the holy men +Glare on each other, as with angry eyes +They battle for God's glory and their own, +Till, sick of wordy strife, a show of hands +Fixes the faith of ages yet unborn,-- +Ah, not from these the listening soul can hear +The Father's voice that speaks itself divine! +Love must be still our Master; till we learn +What he can teach us of a woman's heart, +We know not His whose love embraces all. + + + + + +EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES +AUTOCRAT-PROFESSOR-POET + +AT A BOOKSTORE + +Anno Domini 1972 + +A CRAZY bookcase, placed before +A low-price dealer's open door; +Therein arrayed in broken rows +A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, +The homeless vagrants, waifs, and strays +Whose low estate this line betrays +(Set forth the lesser birds to lime) +YOUR CHOICE AMONG THESE BOORS 1 DIME! + +Ho! dealer; for its motto's sake +This scarecrow from the shelf I take; +Three starveling volumes bound in one, +Its covers warping in the sun. +Methinks it hath a musty smell, +I like its flavor none too well, +But Yorick's brain was far from dull, +Though Hamlet pah!'d, and dropped his skull. + +Why, here comes rain! The sky grows dark,-- +Was that the roll of thunder? Hark! +The shop affords a safe retreat, +A chair extends its welcome seat, +The tradesman has a civil look +(I 've paid, impromptu, for my book), +The clouds portend a sudden shower,-- +I 'll read my purchase for an hour. + +What have I rescued from the shelf? +A Boswell, writing out himself! +For though he changes dress and name, +The man beneath is still the same, +Laughing or sad, by fits and starts, +One actor in a dozen parts, +And whatsoe'er the mask may be, +The voice assures us, This is he. + +I say not this to cry him down; +I find my Shakespeare in his clown, +His rogues the selfsame parent own; +Nay! Satan talks in Milton's tone! +Where'er the ocean inlet strays, +The salt sea wave its source betrays; +Where'er the queen of summer blows, +She tells the zephyr, "I'm the rose!" + +And his is not the playwright's page; +His table does not ape the stage; +What matter if the figures seen +Are only shadows on a screen, +He finds in them his lurking thought, +And on their lips the words he sought, +Like one who sits before the keys +And plays a tune himself to please. + +And was he noted in his day? +Read, flattered, honored? Who shall say? +Poor wreck of time the wave has cast +To find a peaceful shore at last, +Once glorying in thy gilded name +And freighted deep with hopes of fame, +Thy leaf is moistened with a tear, +The first for many a long, long year + +For be it more or less of art +That veils the lowliest human heart +Where passion throbs, where friendship glows, +Where pity's tender tribute flows, +Where love has lit its fragrant fire, +And sorrow quenched its vain desire, +For me the altar is divine, +Its flame, its ashes,--all are mine! + +And thou, my brother, as I look +And see thee pictured in thy book, +Thy years on every page confessed +In shadows lengthening from the west, +Thy glance that wanders, as it sought +Some freshly opening flower of thought, +Thy hopeful nature, light and free, +I start to find myself in thee! + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Come, vagrant, outcast, wretch forlorn +In leather jerkin stained and torn, +Whose talk has filled my idle hour +And made me half forget the shower, +I'll do at least as much for you, +Your coat I'll patch, your gilt renew, +Read you--perhaps--some other time. +Not bad, my bargain! Price one dime! + + + + + + +SONGS OF MANY SEASONS + +1862-1874 + +OPENING THE WINDOW + +THUS I lift the sash, so long +Shut against the flight of song; +All too late for vain excuse,-- +Lo, my captive rhymes are loose + +Rhymes that, flitting through my brain, +Beat against my window-pane, +Some with gayly colored wings, +Some, alas! with venomed stings. + +Shall they bask in sunny rays? +Shall they feed on sugared praise? +Shall they stick with tangled feet +On the critic's poisoned sheet? + +Are the outside winds too rough? +Is the world not wide enough? +Go, my winged verse, and try,-- +Go, like Uncle Toby's fly! + + + + + +PROGRAMME + +READER--gentle--if so be +Such still live, and live for me, +Will it please you to be told +What my tenscore pages hold? + +Here are verses that in spite +Of myself I needs must write, +Like the wine that oozes first +When the unsqueezed grapes have burst. + +Here are angry lines, "too hard!" +Says the soldier, battle-scarred. +Could I smile his scars away +I would blot the bitter lay, + +Written with a knitted brow, +Read with placid wonder now. +Throbbed such passion in my heart? +Did his wounds once really smart? + +Here are varied strains that sing +All the changes life can bring, +Songs when joyous friends have met, +Songs the mourner's tears have wet. + +See the banquet's dead bouquet, +Fair and fragrant in its day; +Do they read the selfsame lines,-- +He that fasts and he that dines? + +Year by year, like milestones placed, +Mark the record Friendship traced. +Prisoned in the walls of time +Life has notched itself in rhyme + +As its seasons slid along, +Every year a notch of song, +From the June of long ago, +When the rose was full in blow, + +Till the scarlet sage has come +And the cold chrysanthemum. +Read, but not to praise or blame; +Are not all our hearts the same? + +For the rest, they take their chance,-- +Some may pay a passing glance; +Others,-well, they served a turn,-- +Wherefore written, would you learn? + +Not for glory, not for pelf, +Not, be sure, to please myself, +Not for any meaner ends,-- +Always "by request of friends." + +Here's the cousin of a king,-- +Would I do the civil thing? +Here 's the first-born of a queen; +Here 's a slant-eyed Mandarin. + +Would I polish off Japan? +Would I greet this famous man, +Prince or Prelate, Sheik or Shah?-- +Figaro gi and Figaro la! + +Would I just this once comply?-- +So they teased and teased till I +(Be the truth at once confessed) +Wavered--yielded--did my best. + +Turn my pages,--never mind +If you like not all you find; +Think not all the grains are gold +Sacramento's sand-banks hold. + +Every kernel has its shell, +Every chime its harshest bell, +Every face its weariest look, +Every shelf its emptiest book, + +Every field its leanest sheaf, +Every book its dullest leaf, +Every leaf its weakest line,-- +Shall it not be so with mine? + +Best for worst shall make amends, +Find us, keep us, leave us friends +Till, perchance, we meet again. +Benedicite.--Amen! + +October 7, 1874. + + + + + +IN THE QUIET DAYS + +AN OLD-YEAR SONG + +As through the forest, disarrayed +By chill November, late I strayed, +A lonely minstrel of the wood +Was singing to the solitude +I loved thy music, thus I said, +When o'er thy perch the leaves were spread +Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now +Thy carol on the leafless bough. +Sing, little bird! thy note shall cheer +The sadness of the dying year. + +When violets pranked the turf with blue +And morning filled their cups with dew, +Thy slender voice with rippling trill +The budding April bowers would fill, +Nor passed its joyous tones away +When April rounded into May: +Thy life shall hail no second dawn,-- +Sing, little bird! the spring is gone. + +And I remember--well-a-day!-- +Thy full-blown summer roundelay, +As when behind a broidered screen +Some holy maiden sings unseen +With answering notes the woodland rung, +And every tree-top found a tongue. +How deep the shade! the groves how fair! +Sing, little bird! the woods are bare. + +The summer's throbbing chant is done +And mute the choral antiphon; +The birds have left the shivering pines +To flit among the trellised vines, +Or fan the air with scented plumes +Amid the love-sick orange-blooms, +And thou art here alone,--alone,-- +Sing, little bird! the rest have flown. + +The snow has capped yon distant hill, +At morn the running brook was still, +From driven herds the clouds that rise +Are like the smoke of sacrifice; +Erelong the frozen sod shall mock +The ploughshare, changed to stubborn rock, +The brawling streams shall soon be dumb,-- +Sing, little bird! the frosts have come. + +Fast, fast the lengthening shadows creep, +The songless fowls are half asleep, +The air grows chill, the setting sun +May leave thee ere thy song is done, +The pulse that warms thy breast grow cold, +Thy secret die with thee, untold +The lingering sunset still is bright,-- +Sing, little bird! 't will soon be night. + +1874. + + + + +DOROTHY Q. + +A FAMILY PORTRAIT + +I cannot tell the story of Dorothy Q. more simply in prose than I have +told it in verse, but I can add something to it. Dorothy was the daughter +of Judge Edmund Quincy, and the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, the young +patriot and orator who died just before the American Revolution, of which +he was one of the most eloquent and effective promoters. The son of the +latter, Josiah Quincy, the first mayor of Boston bearing that name, lived +to a great age, one of the most useful and honored citizens of his time. +The canvas of the painting was so much decayed that it had to be replaced +by a new one, in doing which the rapier thrust was of course filled up. + +GRANDMOTHER'S mother: her age, I guess, +Thirteen summers, or something less; +Girlish bust, but womanly air; +Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; +Lips that lover has never kissed; +Taper fingers and slender wrist; +Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; +So they painted the little maid. + +On her hand a parrot green +Sits unmoving and broods serene. +Hold up the canvas full in view,-- +Look! there's a rent the light shines through, +Dark with a century's fringe of dust,-- +That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust! +Such is the tale the lady old, +Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told. + +Who the painter was none may tell,-- +One whose best was not over well; +Hard and dry, it must be confessed, +Flat as a rose that has long been pressed; +Yet in her cheek the hues are bright, +Dainty colors of red and white, +And in her slender shape are seen +Hint and promise of stately mien. + +Look not on her with eyes of scorn,-- +Dorothy Q. was a lady born! +Ay! since the galloping Normans came, +England's annals have known her name; +And still to the three-billed rebel town +Dear is that ancient name's renown, +For many a civic wreath they won, +The youthful sire and the gray-haired son. + +O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.! +Strange is the gift that I owe to you; +Such a gift as never a king +Save to daughter or son might bring,-- +All my tenure of heart and hand, +All my title to house and land; +Mother and sister and child and wife +And joy and sorrow and death and life! + +What if a hundred years ago +Those close-shut lips had answered No, +When forth the tremulous question came +That cost the maiden her Norman name, +And under the folds that look so still +The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill? +Should I be I, or would it be +One tenth another, to nine tenths me? + +Soft is the breath of a maiden's YES +Not the light gossamer stirs with less; +But never a cable that holds so fast +Through all the battles of wave and blast, +And never an echo of speech or song +That lives in the babbling air so long! +There were tones in the voice that whispered then +You may hear to-day in a hundred men. + +O lady and lover, how faint and far +Your images hover,-- and here we are, +Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,-- +Edward's and Dorothy's--all their own,-- +A goodly record for Time to show +Of a syllable spoken so long ago!-- +Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive +For the tender whisper that bade me live? + +It shall be a blessing, my little maid! +I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade, +And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, +And gild with a rhyme your household name; +So you shall smile on us brave and bright +As first you greeted the morning's light, +And live untroubled by woes and fears +Through a second youth of a hundred years. + +1871. + + + + + +THE ORGAN-BLOWER + +DEVOUTEST of My Sunday friends, +The patient Organ-blower bends; +I see his figure sink and rise, +(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!) +A moment lost, the next half seen, +His head above the scanty screen, +Still measuring out his deep salaams +Through quavering hymns and panting psalms. + +No priest that prays in gilded stole, +To save a rich man's mortgaged soul; +No sister, fresh from holy vows, +So humbly stoops, so meekly bows; +His large obeisance puts to shame +The proudest genuflecting dame, +Whose Easter bonnet low descends +With all the grace devotion lends. + +O brother with the supple spine, +How much we owe those bows of thine +Without thine arm to lend the breeze, +How vain the finger on the keys! +Though all unmatched the player's skill, +Those thousand throats were dumb and still: +Another's art may shape the tone, +The breath that fills it is thine own. + +Six days the silent Memnon waits +Behind his temple's folded gates; +But when the seventh day's sunshine falls +Through rainbowed windows on the walls, +He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills +The quivering air with rapturous thrills; +The roof resounds, the pillars shake, +And all the slumbering echoes wake! + +The Preacher from the Bible-text +With weary words my soul has vexed +(Some stranger, fumbling far astray +To find the lesson for the day); +He tells us truths too plainly true, +And reads the service all askew,-- +Why, why the--mischief--can't he look +Beforehand in the service-book? + +But thou, with decent mien and face, +Art always ready in thy place; +Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune, +As steady as the strong monsoon; +Thy only dread a leathery creak, +Or small residual extra squeak, +To send along the shadowy aisles +A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles. + +Not all the preaching, O my friend, +Comes from the church's pulpit end! +Not all that bend the knee and bow +Yield service half so true as thou! +One simple task performed aright, +With slender skill, but all thy might, +Where honest labor does its best, +And leaves the player all the rest. + +This many-diapasoned maze, +Through which the breath of being strays, +Whose music makes our earth divine, +Has work for mortal hands like mine. +My duty lies before me. Lo, +The lever there! Take hold and blow +And He whose hand is on the keys +Will play the tune as He shall please. + +1812. + + + + + +AT THE PANTOMIME + +THE house was crammed from roof to floor, +Heads piled on heads at every door; +Half dead with August's seething heat +I crowded on and found my seat, +My patience slightly out of joint, +My temper short of boiling-point, +Not quite at _Hate mankind as such_, +Nor yet at _Love them overmuch_. + +Amidst the throng the pageant drew +Were gathered Hebrews not a few, +Black-bearded, swarthy,--at their side +Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed: +If scarce a Christian hopes for grace +Who crowds one in his narrow place, +What will the savage victim do +Whose ribs are kneaded by a Jew? + +Next on my left a breathing form +Wedged up against me, close and warm; +The beak that crowned the bistred face +Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race,-- +That coal-black hair, that smoke-brown hue,-- +Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew +I started, shuddering, to the right, +And squeezed--a second Israelite + +Then woke the evil brood of rage +That slumber, tongueless, in their cage; +I stabbed in turn with silent oaths +The hook-nosed kite of carrion clothes, +The snaky usurer, him that crawls +And cheats beneath the golden balls, +Moses and Levi, all the horde, +Spawn of the race that slew its Lord. + +Up came their murderous deeds of old, +The grisly story Chaucer told, +And many an ugly tale beside +Of children caught and crucified; +I heard the ducat-sweating thieves +Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves, +And, thrust beyond the tented green, +The lepers cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" + +The show went on, but, ill at ease, +My sullen eye it could not please, +In vain my conscience whispered, "Shame! +Who but their Maker is to blame?" +I thought of Judas and his bribe, +And steeled my soul against their tribe +My neighbors stirred; I looked again +Full on the younger of the twain. + +A fresh young cheek whose olive hue +The mantling blood shows faintly through; +Locks dark as midnight, that divide +And shade the neck on either side; +Soft, gentle, loving eyes that gleam +Clear as a starlit mountain stream;-- +So looked that other child of Shem, +The Maiden's Boy of Bethlehem! + +And thou couldst scorn the peerless blood +That flows immingled from the Flood,-- +Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains +Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes! +The New World's foundling, in thy pride +Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side, +And lo! the very semblance there +The Lord of Glory deigned to wear! + +I see that radiant image rise, +The flowing hair, the pitying eyes, +The faintly crimsoned cheek that shows +The blush of Sharon's opening rose,-- +Thy hands would clasp his hallowed feet +Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat, +Thy lips would press his garment's hem +That curl in wrathful scorn for them! + +A sudden mist, a watery screen, +Dropped like a veil before the scene; +The shadow floated from my soul, +And to my lips a whisper stole,-- +"Thy prophets caught the Spirit's flame, +From thee the Son of Mary came, +With thee the Father deigned to dwell,-- +Peace be upon thee, Israel!" + +18--. Rewritten 1874. + + + + + +AFTER THE FIRE + +WHILE far along the eastern sky +I saw the flags of Havoc fly, +As if his forces would assault +The sovereign of the starry vault +And hurl Him back the burning rain +That seared the cities of the plain, +I read as on a crimson page +The words of Israel's sceptred sage :-- + +_For riches make them wings, and they +Do as an eagle fly away_. + +O vision of that sleepless night, +What hue shall paint the mocking light +That burned and stained the orient skies +Where peaceful morning loves to rise, +As if the sun had lost his way +And dawned to make a second day,-- +Above how red with fiery glow, +How dark to those it woke below! + +On roof and wall, on dome and spire, +Flashed the false jewels of the fire; +Girt with her belt of glittering panes, +And crowned with starry-gleaming vanes, +Our northern queen in glory shone +With new-born splendors not her own, +And stood, transfigured in our eyes, +A victim decked for sacrifice! + +The cloud still hovers overhead, +And still the midnight sky is red; +As the lost wanderer strays alone +To seek the place he called his own, +His devious footprints sadly tell +How changed the pathways known so well; +The scene, how new! The tale, how old +Ere yet the ashes have grown cold! + +Again I read the words that came +Writ in the rubric of the flame +Howe'r we trust to mortal things, +Each hath its pair of folded wings; +Though long their terrors rest unspread +Their fatal plumes are never shed; +At last, at last they spread in flight, +And blot the day and blast then night! + +Hope, only Hope, of all that clings +Around us, never spreads her wings; +Love, though he break his earthly chain, +Still whispers he will come again; +But Faith that soars to seek the sky +Shall teach our half-fledged souls to fly, +And find, beyond the smoke and flame, +The cloudless azure whence they came! + +1872. + + + + + +A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY + +Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society. + +No! never such a draught was poured +Since Hebe served with nectar +The bright Olympians and their Lord, +Her over-kind protector,-- +Since Father Noah squeezed the grape +And took to such behaving +As would have shamed our grandsire ape +Before the days of shaving,-- +No! ne'er was mingled such a draught +In palace, hall, or arbor, +As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed +That night in Boston Harbor! +The Western war-cloud's crimson stained +The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon; +Full many a six-foot grenadier +The flattened grass had measured, +And many a mother many a year +Her tearful memories treasured; +Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall, +The mighty realms were troubled, +The storm broke loose, but first of all +The Boston teapot bubbled! + +An evening party,--only that, +No formal invitation, +No gold-laced coat, no stiff cravat, +No feast in contemplation, +No silk-robed dames, no fiddling band, +No flowers, no songs, no dancing,-- +A tribe of red men, axe in hand,-- +Behold the guests advancing! +How fast the stragglers join the throng, +From stall and workshop gathered! +The lively barber skips along +And leaves a chin half-lathered; +The smith has flung his hammer down, +The horseshoe still is glowing; +The truant tapster at the Crown +Has left a beer-cask flowing; +The cooper's boys have dropped the adze, +And trot behind their master; +Up run the tarry ship-yard lads,-- +The crowd is hurrying faster,-- +Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush +The streams of white-faced millers, +And down their slippery alleys rush +The lusty young Fort-Hillers-- +The ropewalk lends its 'prentice crew,-- +The tories seize the omen: +"Ay, boys, you'll soon have work to do +For England's rebel foemen, +'King Hancock,' Adams, and their gang, +That fire the mob with treason,-- +When these we shoot and those we hang +The town will come to reason." + +On--on to where the tea-ships ride! +And now their ranks are forming,-- +A rush, and up the Dartmouth's side +The Mohawk band is swarming! +See the fierce natives! What a glimpse +Of paint and fur and feather, +As all at once the full-grown imps +Light on the deck together! +A scarf the pigtail's secret keeps, +A blanket hides the breeches,-- +And out the cursed cargo leaps, +And overboard it pitches! + +O woman, at the evening board +So gracious, sweet, and purring, +So happy while the tea is poured, +So blest while spoons are stirring, +What martyr can compare with thee, +The mother, wife, or daughter, +That night, instead of best Bohea, +Condemned to milk and water! + +Ah, little dreams the quiet dame +Who plies with' rock and spindle +The patient flax, how great a flame +Yon little spark shall kindle! +The lurid morning shall reveal +A fire no king can smother +Where British flint and Boston steel +Have clashed against each other! +Old charters shrivel in its track, +His Worship's bench has crumbled, + +It climbs and clasps the union-jack, +Its blazoned pomp is humbled, +The flags go down on land and sea +Like corn before the reapers; +So burned the fire that brewed the tea +That Boston served her keepers! + +The waves that wrought a century's wreck +Have rolled o'er whig and tory; +The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck +Still live in song and story; +The waters in the rebel bay +Have kept the tea-leaf savor; +Our old North-Enders in their spray +Still taste a Hyson flavor; +And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows +With ever fresh libations, +To cheat of slumber all her foes +And cheer the wakening nations + +1874. + + + + + +NEARING THE SNOW-LINE + +SLOW toiling upward from' the misty vale, +I leave the bright enamelled zones below; +No more for me their beauteous bloom shall glow, +Their lingering sweetness load the morning gale; +Few are the slender flowerets, scentless, pale, +That on their ice-clad stems all trembling blow +Along the margin of unmelting snow; +Yet with unsaddened voice thy verge I hail, +White realm of peace above the flowering line; +Welcome thy frozen domes, thy rocky spires! +O'er thee undimmed the moon-girt planets shine, +On thy majestic altars fade the fires +That filled the air with smoke of vain desires, +And all the unclouded blue of heaven is thine! + +1870. + + + + + + IN WARTIME + + +TO CANAAN + +A PURITAN WAR SONG + +This poem, published anonymously in the Boston Evening Transcript, was +claimed by several persons, three, if I remember correctly, whose names I +have or have had, but never thought it worth while to publish. + +WHERE are you going, soldiers, +With banner, gun, and sword? +We 're marching South to Canaan +To battle for the Lord +What Captain leads your armies +Along the rebel coasts? +The Mighty One of Israel, +His name is Lord of Hosts! +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To blow before the heathen walls +The trumpets of the North! + +What flag is this you carry +Along the sea and shore? +The same our grandsires lifted up,-- +The same our fathers bore +In many a battle's tempest +It shed the crimson rain,-- +What God has woven in his loom +Let no man rend in twain! +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To plant upon the rebel towers +The banners of the North! + +What troop is this that follows, +All armed with picks and spades? +These are the swarthy bondsmen,-- +The iron-skin brigades! +They'll pile up Freedom's breastwork, +They 'LL scoop out rebels' graves; +Who then will be their owner +And march them off for slaves? +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To strike upon the captive's chain +The hammers of the North! + +What song is this you're singing? +The same that Israel sung +When Moses led the mighty choir, +And Miriam's timbrel rung! +To Canaan! To Canaan! +The priests and maidens cried: +To Canaan! To Canaan! +The people's voice replied. +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To thunder through its adder dens +The anthems of the North + +When Canaan's hosts are scattered, +And all her walls lie flat, +What follows next in order? +The Lord will see to that +We'll break the tyrant's sceptre,-- +We 'll build the people's throne,-- +When half the world is Freedom's, +Then all the world's our own +To Canaan, to Canaan +The Lord has led us forth, +To sweep the rebel threshing-floors, +A whirlwind from the North + +August 12, 1862. + + + + + +"THUS SAITH THE LORD, I OFFER THEE THREE THINGS." + +IN poisonous dens, where traitors hide +Like bats that fear the day, +While all the land our charters claim +Is sweating blood and breathing flame, +Dead to their country's woe and shame, +The recreants whisper STAY! + +In peaceful homes, where patriot fires +On Love's own altars glow, +The mother hides her trembling fear, +The wife, the sister, checks a tear, +To breathe the parting word of cheer, +Soldier of Freedom, Go! + +In halls where Luxury lies at ease, +And Mammon keeps his state, +Where flatterers fawn and menials crouch, +The dreamer, startled from his couch, +Wrings a few counters from his pouch, +And murmurs faintly WAIT! + +In weary camps, on trampled plains +That ring with fife and drum, +The battling host, whose harness gleams +Along the crimson-flowing streams, +Calls, like a warning voice in dreams, +We want you, Brother! COME! + +Choose ye whose bidding ye will do,-- +To go, to wait, to stay! +Sons of the Freedom-loving town, +Heirs of the Fathers' old renown, +The servile yoke, the civic crown, +Await your choice To-DAY! + +The stake is laid! O gallant youth +With yet unsilvered brow, +If Heaven should lose and Hell should win, +On whom shall lie the mortal sin, +That cries aloud, It might have been? +God calls you--answer NOW. + +1862. + + + + + +NEVER OR NOW + +AN APPEAL + +LISTEN, young heroes! your country is calling! +Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true! +Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling, +Fill up the ranks that have opened for you! + +You whom the fathers made free and defended, +Stain not the scroll that emblazons their fame +You whose fair heritage spotless descended, +Leave not your children a birthright of shame! + +Stay not for questions while Freedom. stands gasping! +Wait not till Honor lies wrapped in his pall! +Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' clasping,-- +"Off for the wars!" is enough for them all! + +Break from the arms that would fondly caress you! +Hark! 't is the bugle-blast, sabres are drawn! +Mothers shall pray for you, fathers shall bless you, +Maidens shall weep for you when you are gone! + +Never or now! cries the blood of a nation, +Poured on the turf where the red rose should bloom; +Now is the day and the hour of salvation,-- +Never or now! peals the trumpet of doom! + +Never or now! roars the hoarse-throated cannon +Through the black canopy blotting the skies; +Never or now! flaps the shell-blasted pennon +O'er the deep ooze where the Cumberland lies! + +From the foul dens where our brothers are dying, +Aliens and foes in the land of their birth,-- +From the rank swamps where our martyrs are lying +Pleading in vain for a handful of earth,-- + +From the hot plains where they perish outnumbered, +Furrowed and ridged by the battle-field's plough, +Comes the loud summons; too long you have slumbered, +Hear the last Angel-trump,--Never or Now! + +1862. + + + + + +ONE COUNTRY + +ONE country! Treason's writhing asp +Struck madly at her girdle's clasp, +And Hatred wrenched with might and main +To rend its welded links in twain, +While Mammon hugged his golden calf +Content to take one broken half, +While thankless churls stood idly by +And heard unmoved a nation's cry! + +One country! "Nay,"--the tyrant crew +Shrieked from their dens,--"it shall be two! +Ill bodes to us this monstrous birth, +That scowls on all the thrones of earth, +Too broad yon starry cluster shines, +Too proudly tower the New-World pines, +Tear down the 'banner of the free,' +And cleave their land from sea to sea!" + +One country still, though foe and "friend" +Our seamless empire strove to rend; +Safe! safe' though all the fiends of hell +Join the red murderers' battle-yell! +What though the lifted sabres gleam, +The cannons frown by shore and stream,-- +The sabres clash, the cannons thrill, +In wild accord, One country still! + +One country! in her stress and strain +We heard the breaking of a chain! +Look where the conquering Nation swings +Her iron flail,--its shivered rings! +Forged by the rebels' crimson hand, +That bolt of wrath shall scourge the land +Till Peace proclaims on sea and shore +One Country now and evermore! + +1865. + + + + + +GOD SAVE THE FLAG + +WASHED in the blood of the brave and the blooming, +Snatched from the altars of insolent foes, +Burning with star-fires, but never consuming, +Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose. + +Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it, +Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall; +Thousands have died for it, millions defend it, +Emblem of justice and mercy to all: + +Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors, +Mercy that comes with her white-handed train, +Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors, +'Sheathing the sabre and breaking the chain. + +Borne on the deluge of old usurpations, +Drifted our Ark o'er the desolate seas, +Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nations, +Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze! + +God bless the Flag and its loyal defenders, +While its broad folds o'er the battle-field wave, +Till the dim star-wreath rekindle its splendors, +Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave! + +1865. + + + + + +HYMN AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION + +GIVER of all that crowns our days, +With grateful hearts we sing thy praise; +Through deep and desert led by Thee, +Our promised land at last we see. + +Ruler of Nations, judge our cause! +If we have kept thy holy laws, +The sons of Belial curse in vain +The day that rends the captive's chain. + +Thou God of vengeance! Israel's Lord! +Break in their grasp the shield and sword, +And make thy righteous judgments known +Till all thy foes are overthrown! + +Then, Father, lay thy healing hand +In mercy on our stricken land; +Lead all its wanderers to the fold, +And be their Shepherd as of old. + +So shall one Nation's song ascend +To Thee, our Ruler, Father, Friend, +While Heaven's wide arch resounds again +With Peace on earth, good-will to men! + +1865. + + + + + +HYMN FOR THE FAIR AT CHICAGO + +O GOD! in danger's darkest hour, +In battle's deadliest field, +Thy name has been our Nation's tower, +Thy truth her help and shield. + +Our lips should fill the air with praise, +Nor pay the debt we owe, +So high above the songs we raise +The floods of mercy flow. + +Yet Thou wilt hear the prayer we speak, +The song of praise we sing,-- +Thy children, who thine altar seek +Their grateful gifts to bring. + +Thine altar is the sufferer's bed, +The home of woe and pain, +The soldier's turfy pillow, red +With battle's crimson rain. + +No smoke of burning stains the air, +No incense-clouds arise; +Thy peaceful servants, Lord, prepare +A bloodless sacrifice. + +Lo! for our wounded brothers' need, +We bear the wine and oil; +For us they faint, for us they bleed, +For them our gracious toil! + +O Father, bless the gifts we bring! +Cause Thou thy face to shine, +Till every nation owns her King, +And all the earth is thine. + +1865. + + + + + +UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE + +APRIL 27,1861 + +EIGHTY years have passed, and more, +Since under the brave old tree +Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore +They would follow the sign their banners bore, +And fight till the land was free. + +Half of their work was done, +Half is left to do,-- +Cambridge, and Concord, and Lexington! +When the battle is fought and won, +What shall be told of you? + +Hark!--'t is the south-wind moans,-- +Who are the martyrs down? +Ah, the marrow was true in your children's bones +That sprinkled with blood the cursed stones +Of the murder-haunted town! + +What if the storm-clouds blow? +What if the green leaves fall? +Better the crashing tempest's throe +Than the army of worms that gnawed below; +Trample them one and all! + +Then, when the battle is won, +And the land from traitors free, +Our children shall tell of the strife begun +When Liberty's second April sun +Was bright on our brave old tree! + + + + + +FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN + +LAND where the banners wave last in the sun, +Blazoned with star-clusters, many in one, +Floating o'er prairie and mountain and sea; +Hark! 't is the voice of thy children to thee! + +Here at thine altar our vows we renew +Still in thy cause to be loyal and true,-- +True to thy flag on the field and the wave, +Living to honor it, dying to save! + +Mother of heroes! if perfidy's blight +Fall on a star in thy garland of light, +Sound but one bugle-blast! Lo! at the sign +Armies all panoplied wheel into line! + +Hope of the world! thou'hast broken its chains,-- +Wear thy bright arms while a tyrant remains, +Stand for the right till the nations shall own +Freedom their sovereign, with Law for her throne! + +Freedom! sweet Freedom! our voices resound, +Queen by God's blessing, unsceptred, uncrowned! +Freedom, sweet Freedom, our pulses repeat, +Warm with her life-blood, as long as they beat! + +Fold the broad banner-stripes over her breast,-- +Crown her with star-jewels Queen of the West! +Earth for her heritage, God for her friend, +She shall reign over us, world without end! + + + + + +ARMY HYMN + +"OLD HUNDRED" + +O LORD of Hosts! Almighty King! +Behold the sacrifice we bring +To every arm thy strength impart, +Thy spirit shed through every heart! + +Wake in our breasts the living fires, +The holy faith that warmed our sires; +Thy hand hath made our Nation free; +To die for her is serving Thee. + +Be Thou a pillared flame to show +The midnight snare, the silent foe; +And when the battle thunders loud, +Still guide us in its moving cloud. + +God of all Nations! Sovereign Lord +In thy dread name we draw the sword, +We lift the starry flag on high +That fills with light our stormy sky. + +From treason's rent, from murder's stain, +Guard Thou its folds till Peace shall reign,-- +Till fort and field, till shore and sea, +Join our loud anthem, PRAISE TO THEE! + + + + + +PARTING HYMN +"DUNDEE" + +FATHER of Mercies, Heavenly Friend, +We seek thy gracious throne; +To Thee our faltering prayers ascend, +Our fainting hearts are known + +From blasts that chill, from suns that smite, +From every plague that harms; +In camp and march, in siege and fight, +Protect our men-at-arms + +Though from our darkened lives they take +What makes our life most dear, +We yield them for their country's sake +With no relenting tear. + +Our blood their flowing veins will shed, +Their wounds our breasts will share; +Oh, save us from the woes we dread, +Or grant us strength to bear! + +Let each unhallowed cause that brings +The stern destroyer cease, +Thy flaming angel fold his wings, +And seraphs whisper Peace! + +Thine are the sceptre and the sword, +Stretch forth thy mighty hand,-- +Reign Thou our kingless nation's Lord, +Rule Thou our throneless land! + + + + + +THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY + +WHAT flower is this that greets the morn, +Its hues from Heaven so freshly born? +With burning star and flaming band +It kindles all the sunset land +Oh tell us what its name may be,-- +Is this the Flower of Liberty? +It is the banner of the free, +The starry Flower of Liberty! + +In savage Nature's far abode +Its tender seed our fathers sowed; +The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud, +Its opening leaves were streaked with blood, +Till Lo! earth's tyrants shook to see +The full-blown Flower of Liberty +Then hail the banner of the free, +The starry Flower of Liberty! + +Behold its streaming rays unite, +One mingling flood of braided light,-- +The red that fires the Southern rose, +With spotless white from Northern snows, +And, spangled o'er its azure, see +The sister Stars of Liberty! +Then hail the banner of the free, +The starry Flower of Liberty! + +The blades of heroes fence it round, +Where'er it springs is holy ground; +From tower and dome its glories spread; +It waves where lonely sentries tread; +It makes the land as ocean free, +And plants an empire on the sea! +Then hail the banner of the free, +The starry Flower of Liberty! + +Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower, +Shall ever float on dome and tower, +To all their heavenly colors true, +In blackening frost or crimson dew,-- +And God love us as we love thee, +Thrice holy Flower of Liberty! +Then hail the banner of the free, +The starry FLOWER OF LIBERTY! + + + + + +THE SWEET LITTLE MAN + +DEDICATED TO THE STAY-AT-HOME RANGERS + +Now, while our soldiers are fighting our battles, +Each at his post to do all that he can, +Down among rebels and contraband chattels, +What are you doing, my sweet little man? + +All the brave boys under canvas are sleeping, +All of them pressing to march with the van, +Far from the home where their sweethearts are weeping; +What are you waiting for, sweet little man? + +You with the terrible warlike mustaches, +Fit for a colonel or chief of a clan, +You with the waist made for sword-belts and sashes, +Where are your shoulder-straps, sweet little man? + +Bring him the buttonless garment of woman! +Cover his face lest it freckle and tan; +Muster the Apron-String Guards on the Common, +That is the corps for the sweet little man! + +Give him for escort a file of young misses, +Each of them armed with a deadly rattan; +They shall defend him from laughter and hisses, +Aimed by low boys at the sweet little man. + +All the fair maidens about him shall cluster, +Pluck the white feathers from bonnet and fan, +Make him a plume like a turkey-wing duster,-- +That is the crest for the sweet little man! + +Oh, but the Apron-String Guards are the fellows +Drilling each day since our troubles began,-- +"Handle your walking-sticks!" "Shoulder umbrellas!" +That is the style for the sweet little man! + +Have we a nation to save? In the first place +Saving ourselves is the sensible plan,-- +Surely the spot where there's shooting's the worst place +Where I can stand, says the sweet little man. + +Catch me confiding my person with strangers! +Think how the cowardly Bull-Runners ran! +In the brigade of the Stay-at-Home Rangers +Marches my corps, says the sweet little man. + +Such was the stuff of the Malakoff-takers, +Such were the soldiers that scaled the Redan; +Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers, +Brave not the wrath of the sweet little man! + +Yield him the sidewalk, ye nursery maidens! +/Sauve qui peut/! Bridget, and right about! Ann;-- +Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens, +See him advancing, the sweet little man! + +When the red flails of the battle-field's threshers +Beat out the continent's wheat from its bran, +While the wind scatters the chaffy seceshers, +What will become of our sweet little man? + +When the brown soldiers come back from the borders, +How will he look while his features they scan? +How will he feel when he gets marching orders, +Signed by his lady love? sweet little man! + +Fear not for him, though the rebels expect him,-- +Life is too precious to shorten its span; +Woman her broomstick shall raise to protect him, +Will she not fight for the sweet little man? + +Now then, nine cheers for the Stay-at-Home Ranger! +Blow the great fish-horn and beat the big pan! +First in the field that is farthest from danger, +Take your white-feather plume, sweet little man! + + + + + +UNION AND LIBERTY + +FLAG of the heroes who left us their glory, +Borne through their battle-fields' thunder and flame, +Blazoned in song and illumined in story, +Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame! + +Up with our banner bright, +Sprinkled with starry light, +Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, +While through the sounding sky +Loud rings the Nation's cry,-- +UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE! + + +Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation, +Pride of her children, and honored afar, +Let the wide beams of thy full constellation +Scatter each cloud that would darken a star +Up with our banner bright, etc. + +Empire unsceptred! what foe shall assail thee, +Bearing the standard of Liberty's van? +Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail thee, +Striving with men for the birthright of man! +Up with our banner bright, etc. + +Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted, +Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw, +Then with the arms of thy millions united, +Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law! +Up with our banner bright, etc. + +Lord of the Universe! shield us and guide us, +Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun! +Thou hast united us, who shall divide us? +Keep us, oh keep us the MANY IN ONE! +Up with our banner bright, +Sprinkled with starry light, +Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, +While through the sounding sky +Loud rings the Nation's cry,-- +UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE! + + + + + + SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL + +AMERICA TO RUSSIA + +AUGUST 5, 1866 +Read by Hon. G. V. Fox at a dinner given to the Mission from the United +States, St. Petersburg. + +THOUGH watery deserts hold apart +The worlds of East and West, +Still beats the selfsame human heart +In each proud Nation's breast. + +Our floating turret tempts the main +And dares the howling blast +To clasp more close the golden chain +That long has bound them fast. + +In vain the gales of ocean sweep, +In vain the billows roar +That chafe the wild and stormy steep +Of storied Elsinore. + +She comes! She comes! her banners dip +In Neva's flashing tide, +With greetings on her cannon's lip, +The storm-god's iron bride! + +Peace garlands with the olive-bough +Her thunder-bearing tower, +And plants before her cleaving prow +The sea-foam's milk-white flower. + +No prairies heaped their garnered store +To fill her sunless hold, +Not rich Nevada's gleaming ore +Its hidden caves infold, + +But lightly as the sea-bird swings +She floats the depths above, +A breath of flame to lend her wings, +Her freight a people's love! + +When darkness hid the starry skies +In war's long winter night, +One ray still cheered our straining eyes, +The far-off Northern light + +And now the friendly rays return +From lights that glow afar, +Those clustered lamps of Heaven that burn +Around the Western Star. + +A nation's love in tears and smiles +We bear across the sea, +O Neva of the banded isles, +We moor our hearts in thee! + + + + + +WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + +MUSIC HALL, DECEMBER 6, 1871 + +Sung to the Russian national air by the children of the public schools. + +SHADOWED so long by the storm-cloud of danger, +Thou whom the prayers of an empire defend, +Welcome, thrice welcome! but not as a stranger, +Come to the nation that calls thee its friend! + +Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December, +Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow; +Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember +Who was our friend when the world was our foe. + +Look on the lips that are smiling to greet thee, +See the fresh flowers that a people has strewn +Count them thy sisters and brothers that meet thee; +Guest of the Nation, her heart is thine own! + +Fires of the North, in eternal communion, +Blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star! +God bless the Empire that loves the Great Union; +Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar! + + + + + +AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS + +DECEMBER 9, 1871 + +ONE word to the guest we have gathered to greet! +The echoes are longing that word to repeat,-- +It springs to the lips that are waiting to part, +For its syllables spell themselves first in the heart. + +Its accents may vary, its sound may be strange, +But it bears a kind message that nothing can change; +The dwellers by Neva its meaning can tell, +For the smile, its interpreter, shows it full well. + +That word! How it gladdened the Pilgrim yore, +As he stood in the snow on the desolate shore! +When the shout of the sagamore startled his ear +In the phrase of the Saxon, 't was music to hear! + +Ah, little could Samoset offer our sire,-- +The cabin, the corn-cake, the seat by the fire; +He had nothing to give,--the poor lord of the land,-- +But he gave him a WELCOME,--his heart in his hand! + +The tribe of the sachem has melted away, +But the word that he spoke is remembered to-day, +And the page that is red with the record of shame +The tear-drops have whitened round Samoset's name. + +The word that he spoke to the Pilgrim of old +May sound like a tale that has often been told; +But the welcome we speak is as fresh as the dew,-- +As the kiss of a lover, that always is new! + +Ay, Guest of the Nation! each roof is thine own +Through all the broad continent's star-bannered zone; +From the shore where the curtain of morn is uprolled, +To the billows that flow through the gateway of gold. + +The snow-crested mountains are calling aloud; +Nevada to Ural speaks out of the cloud, +And Shasta shouts forth, from his throne in the sky, +To the storm-splintered summits, the peaks of Altai! + +You must leave him, they say, till the summer is green! +Both shores are his home, though the waves roll between; +And then we'll return him, with thanks for the same, +As fresh and as smiling and tall as he came. + +But ours is the region of arctic delight; +We can show him auroras and pole-stars by night; +There's a Muscovy sting in the ice-tempered air, +And our firesides are warm and our maidens are fair. + +The flowers are full-blown in the garlanded hall,-- +They will bloom round his footsteps wherever they fall; +For the splendors of youth and the sunshine they bring +Make the roses believe 't is the summons of Spring. + +One word of our language he needs must know well, +But another remains that is harder to spell; +We shall speak it so ill, if he wishes to learn +How we utter Farewell, he will have to return! + + + + + +AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY + +AUGUST 21, 1868 + +BROTHERS, whom we may not reach +Through the veil of alien speech, +Welcome! welcome! eyes can tell +What the lips in vain would spell,-- +Words that hearts can understand, +Brothers from the Flowery Land! + +We, the evening's latest born, +Hail the children of the morn! +We, the new creation's birth, +Greet the lords of ancient earth, +From their storied walls and towers +Wandering to these tents of ours! + +Land of wonders, fair Cathay, +Who long hast shunned the staring day, +Hid in mists of poet's dreams +By thy blue and yellow streams,-- +Let us thy shadowed form behold,-- +Teach us as thou didst of old. + +Knowledge dwells with length of days; +Wisdom walks in ancient ways; +Thine the compass that could guide +A nation o'er the stormy tide, +Scourged by passions, doubts, and fears, +Safe through thrice a thousand years! + +Looking from thy turrets gray +Thou hast seen the world's decay,-- +Egypt drowning in her sands,-- +Athens rent by robbers' hands,-- +Rome, the wild barbarian's prey, +Like a storm-cloud swept away: + +Looking from thy turrets gray +Still we see thee. Where are they? +And to I a new-born nation waits, +Sitting at the golden gates +That glitter by the sunset sea,-- +Waits with outspread arms for thee! + +Open wide, ye gates of gold, +To the Dragon's banner-fold! +Builders of the mighty wall, +Bid your mountain barriers fall! +So may the girdle of the sun. +Bind the East and West in one, + +Till Mount Shasta's breezes fan +The snowy peaks of Ta Sieue-Shan,-- +Till Erie blends its waters blue +With the waves of Tung-Ting-Hu,-- +Till deep Missouri lends its flow +To swell the rushing Hoang-Ho! + + + + + +AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY + +AUGUST 2, 1872 + +WE welcome you, Lords of the Land of the Sun! +The voice of the many sounds feebly through one; +Ah! would 't were a voice of more musical tone, +But the dog-star is here, and the song-birds have flown. + +And what shall I sing that can cheat you of smiles, +Ye heralds of peace from the Orient isles? +If only the Jubilee--Why did you wait? +You are welcome, but oh! you're a little too late! + +We have greeted our brothers of Ireland and France, +Round the fiddle of Strauss we have joined in the dance, +We have lagered Herr Saro, that fine-looking man, +And glorified Godfrey, whose name it is Dan. + +What a pity! we've missed it and you've missed it too, +We had a day ready and waiting for you; +We'd have shown you--provided, of course, you had come-- +You 'd have heard--no, you would n't, because it was dumb. + +And then the great organ! The chorus's shout +Like the mixture teetotalers call "Cold without"-- +A mingling of elements, strong, but not sweet; +And the drum, just referred to, that "couldn't be beat." + +The shrines of our pilgrims are not like your own, +Where white Fusiyama lifts proudly its cone, +(The snow-mantled mountain we see on the fan +That cools our hot cheeks with a breeze from Japan.) + +But ours the wide temple where worship is free +As the wind of the prairie, the wave of the sea; +You may build your own altar wherever you will, +For the roof of that temple is over you still. + +One dome overarches the star-bannered shore; +You may enter the Pope's or the Puritan's door, +Or pass with the Buddhist his gateway of bronze, +For a priest is but Man, be he bishop or bonze. + +And the lesson we teach with the sword and the pen +Is to all of God's children, "We also are men! +If you wrong us we smart, if you prick us we bleed, +If you love us, no quarrel with color or creed!" + +You'll find us a well-meaning, free-spoken crowd, +Good-natured enough, but a little too loud,-- +To be sure, there is always a bit of a row +When we choose our Tycoon, and especially now. + +You'll take it all calmly,--we want you to see +What a peaceable fight such a contest can be, +And of one thing be certain, however it ends, +You will find that our voters have chosen your friends. + +If the horse that stands saddled is first in the race, +You will greet your old friend with the weed in his face; +And if the white hat and the White House agree, +You'll find H. G. really as loving as he. + +But oh, what a pity--once more I must say-- +That we could not have joined in a "Japanese day"! +Such greeting we give you to-night as we can; +Long life to our brothers and friends of Japan! + +The Lord of the mountain looks down from his crest +As the banner of morning unfurls in the West; +The Eagle was always the friend of the Sun; +You are welcome!--The song of the cage-bird is done. + + + + + +BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + +NOVEMBER 3, 1864 + +O EVEN-HANDED Nature! we confess +This life that men so honor, love, and bless +Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less + +We count the precious seasons that remain; +Strike not the level of the golden grain, +But heap it high with years, that earth may gain + +What heaven can lose,--for heaven is rich in song +Do not all poets, dying, still prolong +Their broken chants amid the seraph throng, + +Where, blind no more, Ionia's bard is seen, +And England's heavenly minstrel sits between +The Mantuan and the wan-cheeked Florentine? + +This was the first sweet singer in the cage +Of our close-woven life. A new-born age +Claims in his vesper song its heritage + +Spare us, oh spare us long our heart's desire! +Moloch, who calls our children through the fire, +Leaves us the gentle master of the lyre. + +We count not on the dial of the sun +The hours, the minutes, that his sands have run; +Rather, as on those flowers that one by one + +From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display +Till evening's planet with her guiding ray +Leads in the blind old mother of the day, + +We reckon by his songs, each song a flower, +The long, long daylight, numbering hour by hour, +Each breathing sweetness like a bridal bower. + +His morning glory shall we e'er forget? +His noontide's full-blown lily coronet? +His evening primrose has not opened yet; + +Nay, even if creeping Time should hide the skies +In midnight from his century-laden eyes, +Darkened like his who sang of Paradise, + +Would not some hidden song-bud open bright +As the resplendent cactus of the night +That floods the gloom with fragrance and with +light? + +How can we praise the verse whose music flows +With solemn cadence and majestic close, +Pure as the dew that filters through the rose? + +How shall we thank him that in evil days +He faltered never,--nor for blame, nor praise, +Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier lays? + +But as his boyhood was of manliest hue, +So to his youth his manly years were true, +All dyed in royal purple through and through! + +He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is strung +Needs not the flattering toil of mortal tongue +Let not the singer grieve to die unsung! + +Marbles forget their message to mankind: +In his own verse the poet still we find, +In his own page his memory lives enshrined, + +As in their amber sweets the smothered bees,-- +As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, +Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees. + +Poets, like youngest children, never grow +Out of their mother's fondness. Nature so +Holds their soft hands, and will not let them go, + +Till at the last they track with even feet +Her rhythmic footsteps, and their pulses beat +Twinned with her pulses, and their lips repeat + +The secrets she has told them, as their own +Thus is the inmost soul of Nature known, +And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne! + +O lover of her mountains and her woods, +Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudes, +Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudes, + +Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred fire +Far be the day that claims thy sounding lyre +To join the music of the angel choir! + +Yet, since life's amplest measure must be filled, +Since throbbing hearts must be forever stilled, +And all must fade that evening sunsets gild, + +Grant, Father, ere he close the mortal eyes +That see a Nation's reeking sacrifice, +Its smoke may vanish from these blackened skies! + +Then, when his summons comes, since come it must, +And, looking heavenward with unfaltering trust, +He wraps his drapery round him for the dust, + +His last fond glance will show him o'er his head +The Northern fires beyond the zenith spread +In lambent glory, blue and white and red,-- + +The Southern cross without its bleeding load, +The milky way of peace all freshly strowed, +And every white-throned star fixed in its lost +abode! + + + + + +A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ + +How the mountains talked together, +Looking down upon the weather, +When they heard our friend had planned his +Little trip among the Andes! +How they'll bare their snowy scalps +To the climber of the Alps +When the cry goes through their passes, +"Here comes the great Agassiz!" +"Yes, I'm tall," says Chimborazo, +"But I wait for him to say so,-- +That's the only thing that lacks,--he +Must see me, Cotopaxi!" +"Ay! ay!" the fire-peak thunders, +"And he must view my wonders! +I'm but a lonely crater +Till I have him for spectator!" +The mountain hearts are yearning, +The lava-torches burning, +The rivers bend to meet him, +The forests bow to greet him, +It thrills the spinal column +Of fossil fishes solemn, +And glaciers crawl the faster +To the feet of their old master! +Heaven keep him well and hearty, +Both him and all his party! +From the sun that broils and smites, +From the centipede that bites, +From the hail-storm and the thunder, +From the vampire and the condor, +From the gust upon the river, +From the sudden earthquake shiver, +From the trip of mule or donkey, +From the midnight howling monkey, +From the stroke of knife or dagger, +From the puma and the jaguar, +From the horrid boa-constrictor +That has scared us in the pictur', +From the Indians of the Pampas +Who would dine upon their grampas, +From every beast and vermin +That to think of sets us squirmin', +From every snake that tries on +The traveller his p'ison, +From every pest of Natur', +Likewise the alligator, +And from two things left behind him,-- +(Be sure they'll try to find him,) +The tax-bill and assessor,-- +Heaven keep the great Professor +May he find, with his apostles, +That the land is full of fossils, +That the waters swarm with fishes +Shaped according to his wishes, +That every pool is fertile +In fancy kinds of turtle, +New birds around him singing, +New insects, never stinging, +With a million novel data +About the articulata, +And facts that strip off all husks +From the history of mollusks. +And when, with loud Te Deum, +He returns to his Museum, +May he find the monstrous reptile +That so long the land has kept ill +By Grant and Sherman throttled, +And by Father Abraham bottled, +(All specked and streaked and mottled +With the scars of murderous battles, +Where he clashed the iron rattles +That gods and men he shook at,) +For all the world to look at + +God bless the great Professor! +And Madam, too, God bless her! +Bless him and all his band, +On the sea and on the land, +Bless them head and heart and hand, +Till their glorious raid is o'er, +And they touch our ransomed shore! +Then the welcome of a nation, +With its shout of exultation, +Shall awake the dumb creation, +And the shapes of buried aeons +Join the living creatures' poeans, +Till the fossil echoes roar; +While the mighty megalosaurus +Leads the palaeozoic chorus,-- +God bless the great Professor, +And the land his proud possessor,-- +Bless them now and evermore! + +1865. + + + + + +AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT + +JULY 6, 1865 + +Now, smiling friends and shipmates all, +Since half our battle 's won, +A broadside for our Admiral! +Load every crystal gun +Stand ready till I give the word,-- +You won't have time to tire,-- +And when that glorious name is heard, +Then hip! hurrah! and fire! + +Bow foremost sinks the rebel craft,-- +Our eyes not sadly turn +And see the pirates huddling aft +To drop their raft astern; +Soon o'er the sea-worm's destined prey +The lifted wave shall close,-- +So perish from the face of day +All Freedom's banded foes! + +But ah! what splendors fire the sky +What glories greet the morn! +The storm-tost banner streams on high, +Its heavenly hues new-born! +Its red fresh dyed in heroes' blood, +Its peaceful white more pure, +To float unstained o'er field and flood +While earth and seas endure! + +All shapes before the driving blast +Must glide from mortal view; +Black roll the billows of the past +Behind the present's blue, +Fast, fast, are lessening in the light +The names of high renown,-- +Van Tromp's proud besom fades from sight, +And Nelson's half hull down! + +Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea +Or skirts the safer shores +Of all that bore to victory +Our stout old commodores; +Hull, Bainbridge, Porter,--where are they? +The waves their answer roll, +"Still bright in memory's sunset ray,-- +God rest each gallant soul!" + +A brighter name must dim their light +With more than noontide ray, +The Sea-King of the "River Fight," +The Conqueror of the Bay,-- +Now then the broadside! cheer on cheer +To greet him safe on shore! +Health, peace, and many a bloodless year +To fight his battles o'er! + + + + + +AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT + +JULY 31, 1865 + +WHEN treason first began the strife +That crimsoned sea and shore, +The Nation poured her hoarded life +On Freedom's threshing-floor; +From field and prairie, east and west, +From coast and hill and plain, +The sheaves of ripening manhood pressed +Thick as the bearded grain. + +Rich was the harvest; souls as true +As ever battle tried; +But fiercer still the conflict grew, +The floor of death more wide; +Ah, who forgets that dreadful day +Whose blot of grief and shame +Four bitter years scarce wash away +In seas of blood and flame? + +Vain, vain the Nation's lofty boasts,-- +Vain all her sacrifice! +"Give me a man to lead my hosts, +O God in heaven! " she cries. +While Battle whirls his crushing flail, +And plies his winnowing fan,-- +Thick flies the chaff on every gale,-- +She cannot find her man! + +Bravely they fought who failed to win,-- +Our leaders battle-scarred,-- +Fighting the hosts of hell and sin, +But devils die always hard! +Blame not the broken tools of God +That helped our sorest needs; +Through paths that martyr feet have trod +The conqueror's steps He leads. + +But now the heavens grow black with doubt, +The ravens fill the sky, +"Friends" plot within, foes storm without, +Hark,--that despairing cry, +"Where is the heart, the hand, the brain +To dare, to do, to plan?" +The bleeding Nation shrieks in vain,-- +She has not found her man! + +A little echo stirs the air,-- +Some tale, whate'er it be, +Of rebels routed in their lair +Along the Tennessee. +The little echo spreads and grows, +And soon the trump of Fame +Has taught the Nation's friends and foes +The "man on horseback"'s name. + +So well his warlike wooing sped, +No fortress might resist +His billets-doux of lisping lead, +The bayonets in his fist,-- +With kisses from his cannons' mouth +He made his passion known +Till Vicksburg, vestal of the South, +Unbound her virgin zone. + +And still where'er his banners led +He conquered as he came, +The trembling hosts of treason fled +Before his breath of flame, +And Fame's still gathering echoes grew +Till high o'er Richmond's towers +The starry fold of Freedom flew, +And all the land was ours. + +Welcome from fields where valor fought +To feasts where pleasure waits; +A Nation gives you smiles unbought +At all her opening gates! +Forgive us when we press your hand,-- +Your war-worn features scan,-- +God sent you to a bleeding land; +Our Nation found its man! + + + + + +TO H. W. LONGFELLOW + +BEFORE HIS DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE, MAY 27, 1868 + +OUR Poet, who has taught the Western breeze +To waft his songs before him o'er the seas, +Will find them wheresoe'er his wanderings reach +Borne on the spreading tide of English speech +Twin with the rhythmic waves that kiss the farthest beach. + +Where shall the singing bird a stranger be +That finds a nest for him in every tree? +How shall he travel who can never go +Where his own voice the echoes do not know, +Where his own garden flowers no longer learn to grow? + +Ah! gentlest soul! how gracious, how benign +Breathes through our troubled life that voice of thine, +Filled with a sweetness born of happier spheres, +That wins and warms, that kindles, softens, cheers, +That calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears! + +Forgive the simple words that sound like praise; +The mist before me dims my gilded phrase; +Our speech at best is half alive and cold, +And save that tenderer moments make us bold +Our whitening lips would close, their truest truth untold. + +We who behold our autumn sun below +The Scorpion's sign, against the Archer's bow, +Know well what parting means of friend from friend; +After the snows no freshening dews descend, +And what the frost has marred, the sunshine will not mend. + +So we all count the months, the weeks, the days, +That keep thee from us in unwonted ways, +Grudging to alien hearths our widowed time; +And one has shaped a breath in artless rhyme +That sighs, " We track thee still through each remotest clime." + +What wishes, longings, blessings, prayers shall be +The more than golden freight that floats with thee! +And know, whatever welcome thou shalt find,-- +Thou who hast won the hearts of half mankind,-- +The proudest, fondest love thou leavest still behind! + + + + + +TO CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG + +FOR HIS "JUBILAEUM" AT BERLIN, NOVEMBER 5, 1868 + +This poem was written at the suggestion of Mr. George Bancroft, the +historian. + +THOU who hast taught the teachers of mankind +How from the least of things the mightiest grow, +What marvel jealous Nature made thee blind, +Lest man should learn what angels long to know? +Thou in the flinty rock, the river's flow, +In the thick-moted sunbeam's sifted light +Hast trained thy downward-pointed tube to show +Worlds within worlds unveiled to mortal sight, +Even as the patient watchers of the night,-- +The cyclope gleaners of the fruitful skies,-- +Show the wide misty way where heaven is white +All paved with suns that daze our wondering eyes. + +Far o'er the stormy deep an empire lies, +Beyond the storied islands of the blest, +That waits to see the lingering day-star rise; +The forest-tinctured Eden of the West; +Whose queen, fair Freedom, twines her iron crest +With leaves from every wreath that mortals wear, +But loves the sober garland ever best +That science lends the sage's silvered hair;-- +Science, who makes life's heritage more fair, +Forging for every lock its mastering key, +Filling with life and hope the stagnant air, +Pouring the light of Heaven o'er land and sea! +From her unsceptred realm we come to thee, +Bearing our slender tribute in our hands; +Deem it not worthless, humble though it be, +Set by the larger gifts of older lands +The smallest fibres weave the strongest bands,-- +In narrowest tubes the sovereign nerves are spun,- +A little cord along the deep sea-sands +Makes the live thought of severed nations one +Thy fame has journeyed westering with the sun, +Prairies and lone sierras know thy name +And the long day of service nobly done +That crowns thy darkened evening with its flame! + +One with the grateful world, we own thy claim,-- +Nay, rather claim our right to join the throng +Who come with varied tongues, but hearts the same, +To hail thy festal morn with smiles and song; +Ah, happy they to whom the joys belong +Of peaceful triumphs that can never die +From History's record,--not of gilded wrong, +But golden truths that, while the world goes by +With all its empty pageant, blazoned high +Around the Master's name forever shine +So shines thy name illumined in the sky,-- +Such joys, such triumphs, such remembrance thine! + + + + + +A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS + +FEBRUARY 16, 1874 + +THE painter's and the poet's fame +Shed their twinned lustre round his name, +To gild our story-teller's art, +Where each in turn must play his part. + +What scenes from Wilkie's pencil sprung, +The minstrel saw but left unsung! +What shapes the pen of Collins drew, +No painter clad in living hue! + +But on our artist's shadowy screen +A stranger miracle is seen +Than priest unveils or pilgrim seeks,-- +The poem breathes, the picture speaks! + +And so his double name comes true, +They christened better than they knew, +And Art proclaims him twice her son,-- +Painter and poet, both in one! + + + + + + + MEMORIAL VERSES + + +FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + +CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1865 + +CHORAL: "LUTHER'S JUDGMENT HYMN." + +O THOU of soul and sense and breath +The ever-present Giver, +Unto thy mighty Angel, Death, +All flesh thou dost deliver; +What most we cherish we resign, +For life and death alike are thine, +Who reignest Lord forever! + +Our hearts lie buried in the dust +With him so true and tender, +The patriot's stay, the people's trust, +The shield of the offender; +Yet every murmuring voice is still, +As, bowing to thy sovereign will, +Our best-loved we surrender. + +Dear Lord, with pitying eye behold +This martyr generation, +Which thou, through trials manifold, +Art showing thy salvation +Oh let the blood by murder spilt +Wash out thy stricken children's guilt +And sanctify our nation! + +Be thou thy orphaned Israel's friend, +Forsake thy people never, +In One our broken Many blend, +That none again may sever! +Hear us, O Father, while we raise +With trembling lips our song of praise, +And bless thy name forever! + + + + + +FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES + +CAMBRIDGE, JULY 21, 1865 + +FOUR summers coined their golden light in leaves, +Four wasteful autumns flung them to the gale, +Four winters wore the shroud the tempest weaves, +The fourth wan April weeps o'er hill and vale; + +And still the war-clouds scowl on sea and land, +With the red gleams of battle staining through, +When lo! as parted by an angel's hand, +They open, and the heavens again are blue! + +Which is the dream, the present or the past? +The night of anguish or the joyous morn? +The long, long years with horrors overcast, +Or the sweet promise of the day new-born? + +Tell us, O father, as thine arms infold +Thy belted first-born in their fast embrace, +Murmuring the prayer the patriarch breathed of old,-- +"Now let me die, for I have seen thy face!" + +Tell us, O mother,--nay, thou canst not speak, +But thy fond eyes shall answer, brimmed with joy,-- +Press thy mute lips against the sunbrowned cheek, +Is this a phantom,--thy returning boy? + +Tell us, O maiden,--ah, what canst thou tell +That Nature's record is not first to teach,-- +The open volume all can read so well, +With its twin rose-hued pages full of speech? + +And ye who mourn your dead,--how sternly true +The crushing hour that wrenched their lives away, +Shadowed with sorrow's midnight veil for you, +For them the dawning of immortal day! + +Dream-like these years of conflict, not a dream! +Death, ruin, ashes tell the awful tale, +Read by the flaming war-track's lurid gleam +No dream, but truth that turns the nations pale + +For on the pillar raised by martyr hands +Burns the rekindled beacon of the right, + +Sowing its seeds of fire o'er all the lands,-- +Thrones look a century older in its light! + +Rome had her triumphs; round the conqueror's car +The ensigns waved, the brazen clarions blew, +And o'er the reeking spoils of bandit war +With outspread wings the cruel eagles flew; + +Arms, treasures, captives, kings in clanking chains +Urged on by trampling cohorts bronzed and scarred, +And wild-eyed wonders snared on Lybian plains, +Lion and ostrich and camelopard. + +Vain all that praetors clutched, that consuls brought +When Rome's returning legions crowned their lord; +Less than the least brave deed these hands have wrought, +We clasp, unclinching from the bloody sword. + +Theirs was the mighty work that seers foretold; +They know not half their glorious toil has won, +For this is Heaven's same battle,-joined of old +When Athens fought for us at Marathon! + +Behold a vision none hath understood! +The breaking of the Apocalyptic seal; +Twice rings the summons.--Hail and fire and blood! +Then the third angel blows his trumpet-peal. + +Loud wail the dwellers on the myrtled coasts, +The green savannas swell the maddened cry, +And with a yell from all the demon hosts +Falls the great star called Wormwood from the sky! + +Bitter it mingles with the poisoned flow +Of the warm rivers winding to the shore, +Thousands must drink the waves of death and woe, +But the star Wormwood stains the heavens no more! + +Peace smiles at last; the Nation calls her sons +To sheathe the sword; her battle-flag she furls, +Speaks in glad thunders from unspotted guns, +No terror shrouded in the smoke-wreath's curls. + +O ye that fought for Freedom, living, dead, +One sacred host of God's anointed Queen, +For every holy, drop your veins have shed +We breathe a welcome to our bowers of green! + +Welcome, ye living! from the foeman's gripe +Your country's banner it was yours to wrest,-- +Ah, many a forehead shows the banner-stripe, +And stars, once crimson, hallow many a breast. + +And ye, pale heroes, who from glory's bed +Mark when your old battalions form in line, +Move in their marching ranks with noiseless tread, +And shape unheard the evening countersign, + +Come with your comrades, the returning brave; +Shoulder to shoulder they await you here; +These lent the life their martyr-brothers gave,-- +Living and dead alike forever dear! + + + + + +EDWARD EVERETT + +"OUR FIRST CITIZEN" + +Read at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, +January 30, 1865. + +WINTER'S cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast; +For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold +What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed, +What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told. + +Even as the bells, in one consenting chime, +Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air, +So joined all voices, in that mournful time, +His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare. + +What place is left for words of measured praise, +Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen, +Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase +That shapes his image in the souls of men? + +Yet while the echoes still repeat his name, +While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse, +Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim +The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse,-- + +Verse that, in ever-changing ebb and flow, +Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush and rest, +Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and slow, +Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast. + +This was a mind so rounded, so complete, +No partial gift of Nature in excess, +That, like a single stream where many meet, +Each separate talent counted something less. + +A little hillock, if it lonely stand, +Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign; +While the broad summit of the table-land +Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain. + + +Servant of all his powers, that faithful slave, +Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with his toils, +To every ruder task his shoulder gave, +And loaded every day with golden spoils. + +Order, the law of Heaven, was throned supreme +O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, thought; +True as the dial's shadow to the beam, +Each hour was equal to the charge it brought. + +Too large his compass for the nicer skill +That weighs the world of science grain by grain; +All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will +That claimed the franchise of its whole domain. + +Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, +Art, history, song,--what meanings lie in each +Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre, +And poured their mingling music through his speech. + +Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days, +Whose ravishing division held apart +The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, +Moved in all breasts the selfsame human heart. + +Subdued his accents, as of one who tries +To press some care, some haunting sadness down; +His smile half shadow; and to stranger eyes +The kingly forehead wore an iron crown. + +He was not armed to wrestle with the storm, +To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; +Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form, +The rose of Academe,--the perfect flower! + +Such was the stately scholar whom we knew +In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, +Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew +Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm. + +Ah, God forgive us! did we hold too cheap +The heart we might have known, but would not see, +And look to find the nation's friend asleep +Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane? + +That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death +With all a hero's honors round his name; +As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath, +And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame. + +So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise, - +Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years, --- +"He who had lived the mark of all men's praise +Died with the tribute of a Nation's tears." + + + + + +SHAKESPEARE + +TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +APRIL 23, 1864 + +"Who claims our Shakespeare from that realm unknown, +Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the deep, +Where Genoa's roving mariner was blown? +Her twofold Saint's-day let our England keep; +Shall warring aliens share her holy task?" +The Old World echoes ask. + +O land of Shakespeare! ours with all thy past, +Till these last years that make the sea so wide; +Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast +Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride +In every noble word thy sons bequeathed +The air our fathers breathed! + +War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife, +We turn to other days and far-off lands, + +Live o'er in dreams the Poet's faded life, +Come with fresh lilies in our fevered hands +To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple flowers,-- +Not his the need, but ours! + +We call those poets who are first to mark +Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,-- +Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, +While others only note that day is gone; +For him the Lord of light the curtain rent +That veils the firmament. + +The greatest for its greatness is half known, +Stretching beyond our narrow quadrant-lines,-- +As in that world of Nature all outgrown +Where Calaveras lifts his awful pines, +And cast from Mariposa's mountain-wall +Nevada's cataracts fall. + +Yet heaven's remotest orb is partly ours, +Throbbing its radiance like a beating heart; +In the wide compass of angelic powers +The instinct of the blindworm has its part; +So in God's kingliest creature we behold +The flower our buds infold. + +With no vain praise we mock the stone-carved name +Stamped once on dust that moved with pulse and breath, +As thinking to enlarge that amplest fame +Whose undimmed glories gild the night of death: +We praise not star or sun; in these we see +Thee, Father, only thee! + +Thy gifts are beauty, wisdom, power, and love: +We read, we reverence on this human soul,-- +Earth's clearest mirror of the light above,-- +Plain as the record on thy prophet's scroll, +When o'er his page the effluent splendors poured, +Thine own "Thus saith the Lord!" + +This player was a prophet from on high, +Thine own elected. Statesman, poet, sage, +For him thy sovereign pleasure passed them by; +Sidney's fair youth, and Raleigh's ripened age, +Spenser's chaste soul, and his imperial mind +Who taught and shamed mankind. + +Therefore we bid our hearts' Te Deum rise, +Nor fear to make thy worship less divine, +And hear the shouted choral shake the skies, +Counting all glory, power, and wisdom thine; +For thy great gift thy greater name adore, +And praise thee evermore! + +In this dread hour of Nature's utmost need, +Thanks for these unstained drops of freshening dew! +Oh, while our martyrs fall, our heroes bleed, +Keep us to every sweet remembrance true, +Till from this blood-red sunset springs new-born +Our Nation's second morn! + + + + + +IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE + +Read at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society, +May 25, 1864. + +No mystic charm, no mortal art, +Can bid our loved companions stay; +The bands that clasp them to our heart +Snap in death's frost and fall apart; +Like shadows fading with the day, +They pass away. + +The young are stricken in their pride, +The old, long tottering, faint and fall; +Master and scholar, side by side, +Through the dark portals silent glide, +That open in life's mouldering wall +And close on all. + +Our friend's, our teacher's task was done, +When Mercy called him from on high; +A little cloud had dimmed the sun, +The saddening hours had just begun, +And darker days were drawing nigh: +'T was time to die. + +A whiter soul, a fairer mind, +A life with purer course and aim, +A gentler eye, a voice more kind, +We may not look on earth to find. +The love that lingers o'er his name +Is more than fame. + +These blood-red summers ripen fast; +The sons are older than the sires; +Ere yet the tree to earth is cast, +The sapling falls before the blast; +Life's ashes keep their covered fires,-- +Its flame expires. + +Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe, +Whose deadlier breath than shot or shell +Has laid the best and bravest low, +His boy, all bright in morning's glow, +That high-souled youth he loved so well, +Untimely fell. + +Yet still he wore his placid smile, +And, trustful in the cheering creed +That strives all sorrow to beguile, +Walked calmly on his way awhile +Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed +Must ever bleed! + +So they both left us, sire and son, +With opening leaf, with laden bough +The youth whose race was just begun, +The wearied man whose course was run, +Its record written on his brow, +Are brothers now. + +Brothers!--The music of the sound +Breathes softly through my closing strain; +The floor we tread is holy ground, +Those gentle spirits hovering round, +While our fair circle joins again +Its broken chain. + +1864. + + + + + +HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY + +CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869 + +BONAPARTE, AUGUST 15, 1769.-HUMBOLDT, SEPTEMBER 14, 1769 + +ERE yet the warning chimes of midnight sound, +Set back the flaming index of the year, +Track the swift-shifting seasons in their round +Through fivescore circles of the swinging sphere! + +Lo, in yon islet of the midland sea +That cleaves the storm-cloud with its snowy crest, +The embryo-heir of Empires yet to be, +A month-old babe upon his mother's breast. + +Those little hands that soon shall grow so strong +In their rude grasp great thrones shall rock and fall, +Press her soft bosom, while a nursery song +Holds the world's master in its slender thrall. + +Look! a new crescent bends its silver bow; +A new-lit star has fired the eastern sky; +Hark! by the river where the lindens blow +A waiting household hears an infant's cry. + +This, too, a conqueror! His the vast domain, +Wider than widest sceptre-shadowed lands; +Earth and the weltering kingdom of the main +Laid their broad charters in his royal hands. + +His was no taper lit in cloistered cage, +Its glimmer borrowed from the grove or porch; +He read the record of the planet's page +By Etna's glare and Cotopaxi's torch. + +He heard the voices of the pathless woods; +On the salt steppes he saw the starlight shine; +He scaled the mountain's windy solitudes, +And trod the galleries of the breathless mine. + +For him no fingering of the love-strung lyre, +No problem vague, by torturing schoolmen vexed; +He fed no broken altar's dying fire, +Nor skulked and scowled behind a Rabbi's text. + +For God's new truth he claimed the kingly robe +That priestly shoulders counted all their own, +Unrolled the gospel of the storied globe +And led young Science to her empty throne. + +While the round planet on its axle spins +One fruitful year shall boast its double birth, +And show the cradles of its mighty twins, +Master and Servant of the sons of earth. + +Which wears the garland that shall never fade, +Sweet with fair memories that can never die? +Ask not the marbles where their bones are laid, +But bow thine ear to hear thy brothers' cry:-- + +"Tear up the despot's laurels by the root, +Like mandrakes, shrieking as they quit the soil! +Feed us no more upon the blood-red fruit +That sucks its crimson from the heart of Toil! + +"We claim the food that fixed our mortal fate,-- +Bend to our reach the long-forbidden tree! +The angel frowned at Eden's eastern gate,-- +Its western portal is forever free! + +"Bring the white blossoms of the waning year, +Heap with full hands the peaceful conqueror's shrine +Whose bloodless triumphs cost no sufferer's tear! +Hero of knowledge, be our tribute thine!" + + + + + +POEM + +AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1869 + +SAY not the Poet dies! +Though in the dust he lies, +He cannot forfeit his melodious breath, +Unsphered by envious death! +Life drops the voiceless myriads from its roll; +Their fate he cannot share, +Who, in the enchanted air +Sweet with the lingering strains that Echo stole, +Has left his dearer self, the music of his soul! + +We o'er his turf may raise +Our notes of feeble praise, +And carve with pious care for after eyes +The stone with "Here he lies;" +He for himself has built a nobler shrine, +Whose walls of stately rhyme +Roll back the tides of time, +While o'er their gates the gleaming tablets shine +That wear his name inwrought with many a golden line! + +Call not our Poet dead, +Though on his turf we tread! +Green is the wreath their brows so long have worn,-- +The minstrels of the morn, +Who, while the Orient burned with new-born flame, +Caught that celestial fire +And struck a Nation's lyre +These taught the western winds the poet's name; +Theirs the first opening buds, the maiden flowers of fame! + +Count not our Poet dead! +The stars shall watch his bed, +The rose of June its fragrant life renew +His blushing mound to strew, +And all the tuneful throats of summer swell +With trills as crystal-clear +As when he wooed the ear +Of the young muse that haunts each wooded dell, +With songs of that "rough land" he loved so long and well! + +He sleeps; he cannot die! +As evening's long-drawn sigh, +Lifting the rose-leaves on his peaceful mound, +Spreads all their sweets around, +So, laden with his song, the breezes blow +From where the rustling sedge +Frets our rude ocean's edge +To the smooth sea beyond the peaks of snow. +His soul the air enshrines and leaves but dust below! + + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNERSTONE +OF HARVARD MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, +OCTOBER 6, 1870 + +NOT with the anguish of hearts that are breaking +Come we as mourners to weep for our dead; +Grief in our breasts has grown weary of aching, +Green is the turf where our tears we have shed. + +While o'er their marbles the mosses are creeping, +Stealing each name and its legend away, +Give their proud story to Memory's keeping, +Shrined in the temple we hallow to-day. + +Hushed are their battle-fields, ended their marches, +Deaf are their ears to the drum-beat of morn,-- + +Rise from the sod, ye fair columns and arches +Tell their bright deeds to the ages unborn! + +Emblem and legend may fade from the portal, +Keystone may crumble and pillar may fall; +They were the builders whose work is immortal, +Crowned with the dome that is over us all! + + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL AT CAMBRIDGE, +JUNE 23, 1874 + +WHERE, girt around by savage foes, +Our nurturing Mother's shelter rose, +Behold, the lofty temple stands, +Reared by her children's grateful hands! + +Firm are the pillars that defy +The volleyed thunders of the sky; +Sweet are the summer wreaths that twine +With bud and flower our martyrs' shrine. + +The hues their tattered colors bore +Fall mingling on the sunlit floor +Till evening spreads her spangled pall, +And wraps in shade the storied hall. + +Firm were their hearts in danger's hour, +Sweet was their manhood's morning flower, +Their hopes with rainbow hues were bright,-- +How swiftly winged the sudden night! + +O Mother! on thy marble page +Thy children read, from age to age, +The mighty word that upward leads +Through noble thought to nobler deeds. + +TRUTH, heaven-born TRUTH, their fearless guide, +Thy saints have lived, thy heroes died; +Our love has reared their earthly shrine, +Their glory be forever thine! + + + + + +HYMN + +AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES SUMNER, +APRIL 29, 1874 + +SUNG BY MALE VOICES TO A NATIONAL AIR OF HOLLAND + +ONCE more, ye sacred towers, +Your solemn dirges sound; +Strew, loving hands, the April flowers, +Once more to deck his mound. +A nation mourns its dead, +Its sorrowing voices one, +As Israel's monarch bowed his head +And cried, "My son! My son!" + +Why mourn for him?--For him +The welcome angel came +Ere yet his eye with age was dim +Or bent his stately frame; +His weapon still was bright, +His shield was lifted high +To slay the wrong, to save the right,-- +What happier hour to die? + +Thou orderest all things well; +Thy servant's work was done; +He lived to hear Oppression's knell, +The shouts for Freedom won. +Hark!! from the opening skies +The anthem's echoing swell,-- +"O mourning Land, lift up thine eyes! +God reigneth. All is well!" + + + + + + + RHYMES OF AN HOUR + + +ADDRESS + +FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, +NEW YORK, DECEMBER 3, 1873 + +HANG out our banners on the stately tower +It dawns at last--the long-expected hour I +The steep is climbed, the star-lit summit won, +The builder's task, the artist's labor done; +Before the finished work the herald stands, +And asks the verdict of your lips and hands! + +Shall rosy daybreak make us all forget +The golden sun that yester-evening set? +Fair was the fabric doomed to pass away +Ere the last headaches born of New Year's Day; +With blasting breath the fierce destroyer came +And wrapped the victim in his robes of flame; +The pictured sky with redder morning blushed, +With scorching streams the naiad's fountain gushed, +With kindling mountains glowed the funeral pyre, +Forests ablaze and rivers all on fire,-- +The scenes dissolved, the shrivelling curtain fell,-- +Art spread her wings and sighed a long farewell! + +Mourn o'er the Player's melancholy plight,-- +Falstaff in tears, Othello deadly white,-- +Poor Romeo reckoning what his doublet cost, +And Juliet whimpering for her dresses lost,-- +Their wardrobes burned, their salaries all undrawn, +Their cues cut short, their occupation gone! + +"Lie there in dust," the red-winged demon cried, +"Wreck of the lordly city's hope and pride!" +Silent they stand, and stare with vacant gaze, +While o'er the embers leaps the fitful blaze; +When, to! a hand, before the startled train, +Writes in the ashes, "It shall rise again,-- +Rise and confront its elemental foes! " +The word was spoken, and the walls arose, +And ere the seasons round their brief career +The new-born temple waits the unborn year. + +Ours was the toil of many a weary day +Your smiles, your plaudits, only can repay; +We are the monarchs of the painted scenes, +You, you alone the real Kings and Queens! +Lords of the little kingdom where we meet, +We lay our gilded sceptres at your feet, +Place in your grasp our portal's silvered keys +With one brief utterance: We have tried to please. +Tell us, ye sovereigns of the new domain, +Are you content-or have we toiled in vain? + +With no irreverent glances look around +The realm you rule, for this is haunted ground! +Here stalks the Sorcerer, here the Fairy trips, +Here limps the Witch with malice-working lips, +The Graces here their snowy arms entwine, +Here dwell the fairest sisters of the Nine,-- +She who, with jocund voice and twinkling eye, +Laughs at the brood of follies as they fly; +She of the dagger and the deadly bowl, +Whose charming horrors thrill the trembling soul; +She who, a truant from celestial spheres, +In mortal semblance now and then appears, +Stealing the fairest earthly shape she can-- +Sontag or Nilsson, Lind or Malibran; +With these the spangled houri of the dance,-- +What shaft so dangerous as her melting glance, +As poised in air she spurns the earth below, +And points aloft her heavenly-minded toe! + +What were our life, with all its rents and seams, +Stripped of its purple robes, our waking dreams? +The poet's song, the bright romancer's page, +The tinselled shows that cheat us on the stage +Lead all our fancies captive at their will; +Three years or threescore, we are children still. +The little listener on his father's knee, +With wandering Sindbad ploughs the stormy sea, +With Gotham's sages hears the billows roll +(Illustrious trio of the venturous bowl, +Too early shipwrecked, for they died too soon +To see their offspring launch the great balloon); +Tracks the dark brigand to his mountain lair, +Slays the grim giant, saves the lady fair, +Fights all his country's battles o'er again +From Bunker's blazing height to Lundy's Lane; +Floats with the mighty captains as they sailed, +Before whose flag the flaming red-cross paled, +And claims the oft-told story of the scars +Scarce yet grown white, that saved the stripes and +stars! + +Children of later growth, we love the PLAY, +We love its heroes, be they grave or gay, +From squeaking, peppery, devil-defying Punch +To roaring Richard with his camel-hunch; +Adore its heroines, those immortal dames, +Time's only rivals, whom he never tames, +Whose youth, unchanging, lives while thrones decay +(Age spares the Pyramids-and Dejazet); +The saucy-aproned, razor-tongued soubrette, +The blond-haired beauty with the eyes of jet, +The gorgeous Beings whom the viewless wires +Lift to the skies in strontian-crimsoned fires, +And all the wealth of splendor that awaits +The throng that enters those Elysian gates. + +See where the hurrying crowd impatient pours, +With noise of trampling feet and flapping doors, +Streams to the numbered seat each pasteboard fits +And smooths its caudal plumage as it sits; +Waits while the slow musicians saunter in, +Till the bald leader taps his violin; +Till the old overture we know so well, +Zampa or Magic Flute or William Tell, +Has done its worst-then hark! the tinkling bell! +The crash is o'er--the crinkling curtain furled, +And to! the glories of that brighter world! + +Behold the offspring of the Thespian cart, +This full-grown temple of the magic art, +Where all the conjurers of illusion meet, +And please us all the more, the more they cheat. +These are the wizards and the witches too +Who win their honest bread by cheating you +With cheeks that drown in artificial tears +And lying skull-caps white with seventy years, +Sweet-tempered matrons changed to scolding Kates, +Maids mild as moonbeams crazed with murderous hates, +Kind, simple souls that stab and slash and slay +And stick at nothing, if it 's in the play! + +Would all the world told half as harmless lies! +Would all its real fools were half as wise +As he who blinks through dull Dundreary's eyes I +Would all the unhanged bandits of the age +Were like the peaceful ruffians of the stage! +Would all the cankers wasting town and state, +The mob of rascals, little thieves and great, +Dealers in watered milk and watered stocks, +Who lead us laxnbs to pasture on the rocks,- +Shepherds--Jack Sheppards--of their city flocks,-- +The rings of rogues that rob the luckless town, +Those evil angels creeping up and down +The Jacob's ladder of the treasury stairs,- +Not stage, but real Turpins and Macaires,- +Could doff, like us, their knavery with their clothes, +And find it easy as forgetting oaths! + +Welcome, thrice welcome to our virgin dome, +The Muses' shrine, the Drama's new-found home +Here shall the Statesman rest his weary brain, +The worn-out Artist find his wits again; +Here Trade forget his ledger and his cares, +And sweet communion mingle Bulls and Bears; +Here shall the youthful Lover, nestling near +The shrinking maiden, her he holds most dear, +Gaze on the mimic moonlight as it falls +On painted groves, on sliding canvas walls, +And sigh, "My angel! What a life of bliss +We two could live in such a world as this! " +Here shall the timid pedants of the schools, +The gilded boors, the labor-scorning fools, +The grass-green rustic and the smoke-dried cit, +Feel each in turn the stinging lash of wit, +And as it tingles on some tender part +Each find a balsam in his neighbor's smart; +So every folly prove a fresh delight +As in the picture of our play to-night. + +Farewell! The Players wait the Prompter's call; +Friends, lovers, listeners! Welcome one and all! + + + + + +A SEA DIALOGUE + +Cabin Passenger. Man at Wheel. + +CABIN PASSENGER. +FRIEND, you seem thoughtful. I not wonder much +That he who sails the ocean should be sad. +I am myself reflective. When I think +Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked +Between his sharp, thin lips, the wedgy waves, +What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls; +What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns, +What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls, +Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes, +Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man, +The half-starved workman, and the well-fed worm; +What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books; +What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains; +Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw,-- +I, too, am silent; for all language seems +A mockery, and the speech of man is vain. +O mariner, we look upon the waves +And they rebuke our babbling. "Peace!" they say,-- +" Mortal, be still! " My noisy tongue is hushed, +And with my trembling finger on my lips +My soul exclaims in ecstasy-- + +MAN AT WHEEL. +Belay! + +CABIN PASSENGER. +Ah yes! "Delay,"--it calls, "nor haste to break +The charm of stillness with an idle word! " +O mariner, I love thee, for thy thought +Strides even with my own, nay, flies before. +Thou art a brother to the wind and wave; +Have they not music for thine ear as mine, +When the wild tempest makes thy ship his lyre, +Smiting a cavernous basso from the shrouds +And climbing up his gamut through the stays, +Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till it shrills +An alto keener than the locust sings, +And all the great A olian orchestra +Storms out its mad sonata in the gale? +Is not the scene a wondrous and-- + +MAN AT WHEEL. + A vast! + +CABIN PASSENGER. +Ah yes, a vast, a vast and wondrous scene! +I see thy soul is open as the day +That holds the sunshine in its azure bowl +To all the solemn glories of the deep. +Tell me, O mariner, dost thou never feel +The grandeur of thine office,--to control +The keel that cuts the ocean like a knife +And leaves a wake behind it like a seam +In the great shining garment of the world? + +MAN AT WHEEL. +Belay y'r jaw, y' swab! y' hoss-marine! +(To the Captain.) +Ay, ay, Sir! Stiddy, Sir! Sou'wes' b' sou'! + +November 10, 1864. + + + + + +CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC + +BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF DEAD AND LIVE LANGUAGES + + +PHI BETA KAPPA.--CAMBRIDGE, 1867 + +You bid me sing, - can I forget +The classic ode of days gone by, - +How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette +Exclaimed, "Anacreon, geron ei"? +"Regardez done," those ladies said,-- +"You're getting bald and wrinkled too +When summer's roses all are shed, +Love 's nullum ite, voyez-vous!" + +In vain ce brave Anacreon's cry, +"Of Love alone my banjo sings" +(Erota mounon). "Etiam si,-- +Eh b'en?" replied the saucy things,-- +"Go find a maid whose hair is gray, +And strike your lyre,--we sha'n't complain; +But parce nobis, s'il vous plait,-- +Voila Adolphe! Voila Eugene!" + +Ah, j eune Lisette! Ah, belle Fifine! +Anacreon's lesson all must learn; +O kairos oxiis; Spring is green, +But Acer Hyems waits his turn +I hear you whispering from the dust, +"Tiens, mon cher, c'est toujours so,-- +The brightest blade grows dim with rust, +The fairest meadow white with snow!" + +You do not mean it! _Not_ encore? +Another string of playday rhymes? +You 've heard me--nonne est?-before, +Multoties,-more than twenty times; +Non possum,--vraiment,--pas du tout, +I cannot! I am loath to shirk; +But who will listen if I do, +My memory makes such shocking work? + +Ginosko. Scio. Yes, I 'm told +Some ancients like my rusty lay, +As Grandpa Noah loved the old +Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day. +I used to carol like the birds, +But time my wits has quite unfixed, +Et quoad verba,--for my words,-- +Ciel! Eheu! Whe-ew!--how they're mixed! + +Mehercle! Zeu! Diable! how +My thoughts were dressed when I was young, +But tempus fugit! see them now +Half clad in rags of every tongue! +O philoi, fratres, chers amis +I dare not court the youthful Muse, +For fear her sharp response should be, +"Papa Anacreon, please excuse!" + +Adieu! I 've trod my annual track +How long!--let others count the miles,-- +And peddled out my rhyming pack +To friends who always paid in smiles. +So, laissez-moi! some youthful wit +No doubt has wares he wants to show; +And I am asking, "Let me sit," +Dum ille clamat, "Dos pou sto!" + + + + + +FOR THE CENTENNIAL DINNER + +OF THE PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER, OR THE LONG WHARF, +APRIL 16, 1873 + +DEAR friends, we are strangers; we never before +Have suspected what love to each other we bore; +But each of us all to his neighbor is dear, +Whose heart has a throb for our time-honored pier. + +As I look on each brother proprietor's face, +I could open my arms in a loving embrace; +What wonder that feelings, undreamed of so long, +Should burst all at once in a blossom of song! + +While I turn my fond glance on the monarch of piers, +Whose throne has stood firm through his eightscore of years, +My thought travels backward and reaches the day +When they drove the first pile on the edge of the bay. + + +See! The joiner, the shipwright, the smith from his forge, +The redcoat, who shoulders his gun for King George, +The shopman, the 'prentice, the boys from the lane, +The parson, the doctor with gold-headed cane, + +Come trooping down King Street, where now may be seen +The pulleys and ropes of a mighty machine; +The weight rises slowly; it drops with a thud; +And, to! the great timber sinks deep in the mud! + +They are gone, the stout craftsmen that hammered the piles, +And the square-toed old boys in the three-cornered tiles; +The breeches, the buckles, have faded from view, +And the parson's white wig and the ribbon-tied queue. + +The redcoats have vanished; the last grenadier +Stepped into the boat from the end of our pier; +They found that our hills were not easy to climb, +And the order came, "Countermarch, double-quick time!" + +They are gone, friend and foe,--anchored fast at the pier, +Whence no vessel brings back its pale passengers here; +But our wharf, like a lily, still floats on the flood, +Its breast in the sunshine, its roots in the mud. + +Who--who that has loved it so long and so well-- +The flower of his birthright would barter or sell? +No: pride of the bay, while its ripples shall run, +You shall pass, as an heirloom, from father to son! + +Let me part with the acres my grandfather bought, +With the bonds that my uncle's kind legacy brought, +With my bank-shares,--old "Union," whose ten per cent stock +Stands stiff through the storms as the Eddystone rock; + +With my rights (or my wrongs) in the "Erie,"--alas! +With my claims on the mournful and "Mutual Mass.;" +With my "Phil. Wil. and Balt.,"with my "C. B. and Q.;" +But I never, no never, will sell out of you. + +We drink to thy past and thy future to-day, +Strong right arm of Boston, stretched out o'er the bay. +May the winds waft the wealth of all nations to thee, +And thy dividends flow like the waves of the sea! + + + + + +A POEM SERVED TO ORDER + +PHI BETA KAPPA, JUNE 26, 1873 + +THE Caliph ordered up his cook, +And, scowling with a fearful look +That meant,--We stand no gammon,-- +"To-morrow, just at two," he said, +"Hassan, our cook, will lose his head, +Or serve us up a salmon." + +"Great sire," the trembling chef replied, +"Lord of the Earth and all beside, +Sun, Moon, and Stars, and so on +(Look in Eothen,-there you'll find +A list of titles. Never mind; +I have n't time to go on:) + +"Great sire," and so forth, thus he spoke, +"Your Highness must intend a joke; +It doesn't stand to reason +For one to order salmon brought, +Unless that fish is sometimes caught, +And also is in season. + +"Our luck of late is shocking bad, +In fact, the latest catch we had +(We kept the matter shady), +But, hauling in our nets,--alack! +We found no salmon, but a sack +That held your honored Lady!" + +"Allah is great!" the Caliph said, +"My poor Zuleika, you are dead, +I once took interest in you." +"Perhaps, my Lord, you'd like to know +We cut the lines and let her go." +"Allah be praised! Continue." + +"It is n't hard one's hook to bait, +And, squatting down, to watch and wait, +To see the cork go under; +At last suppose you've got your bite, +You twitch away with all your might,-- +You've hooked an eel, by thunder!" + +The Caliph patted Hassan's head +"Slave, thou hast spoken well," he said, +"And won thy master's favor. +Yes; since what happened t' other morn +The salmon of the Golden Horn +Might have a doubtful flavor. + +"That last remark about the eel +Has also justice that we feel +Quite to our satisfaction. +To-morrow we dispense with fish, +And, for the present, if you wish, +You'll keep your bulbous fraction." + +"Thanks! thanks!" the grateful chef replied, +His nutrient feature showing wide +The gleam of arches dental: +"To cut my head off wouldn't pay, +I find it useful every day, +As well as ornamental." + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +Brothers, I hope you will not fail +To see the moral of my tale +And kindly to receive it. +You know your anniversary pie +Must have its crust, though hard and dry, +And some prefer to leave it. + +How oft before these youths were born +I've fished in Fancy's Golden Horn +For what the Muse might send me! +How gayly then I cast the line, +When all the morning sky was mine, +And Hope her flies would lend me! + +And now I hear our despot's call, +And come, like Hassan, to the hall,-- +If there's a slave, I am one,-- +My bait no longer flies, but worms! +I 've caught--Lord bless me! how he squirms! +An eel, and not a salmon! + + + + + +THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH + +READ AT THE MEETING OF THE HARVARD ALUMNI +ASSOCIATION, JUNE 25, 1873 + +THE fount the Spaniard sought in vain +Through all the land of flowers +Leaps glittering from the sandy plain +Our classic grove embowers; +Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles, +Here dwells eternal spring, +And warm from Hope's elysian isles +The winds their perfume bring. + +Here every leaf is in the bud, +Each singing throat in tune, +And bright o'er evening's silver flood +Shines the young crescent moon. +What wonder Age forgets his staff +And lays his glasses down, +And gray-haired grandsires look and laugh +As when their locks were brown! + +With ears grown dull and eyes grown dim +They greet the joyous day +That calls them to the fountain's brim +To wash their years away. +What change has clothed the ancient sire +In sudden youth? For, to! +The Judge, the Doctor, and the Squire +Are Jack and Bill and Joe! + +And be his titles what they will, +In spite of manhood's claim +The graybeard is a school-boy still +And loves his school-boy name; +It calms the ruler's stormy breast +Whom hurrying care pursues, +And brings a sense of peace and rest, +Like slippers after shoes.-- + +And what are all the prizes won +To youth's enchanted view? +And what is all the man has done +To what the boy may do? +O blessed fount, whose waters flow +Alike for sire and son, +That melts our winter's frost and snow +And makes all ages one! + +I pledge the sparkling fountain's tide, +That flings its golden shower +With age to fill and youth to guide, +Still fresh in morning flower +Flow on with ever-widening stream, +In ever-brightening morn,-- +Our story's pride, our future's dream, +The hope of times unborn! + + + + + +NO TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME + +THERE is no time like the old time, when you and I were young, +When the buds of April blossomed, and the birds of spring-time sung! +The garden's brightest glories by summer suns are nursed, +But oh, the sweet, sweet violets, the flowers that opened first! + +There is no place like the old place, where you and I were born, +Where we lifted first our eyelids on the splendors of the morn +From the milk-white breast that warmed us, from the clinging arms that + bore, +Where the dear eyes glistened o'er us that will look on us no more! + +There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days, +No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise +Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold; +But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold. + + +There is no love like the old love, that we courted in our pride; +Though our leaves are falling, falling, and we're fading side by side, +There are blossoms all around us with the colors of our dawn, +And we live in borrowed sunshine when the day-star is withdrawn. + +There are no times like the old times,--they shall never be forgot! +There is no place like the old place,--keep green the dear old spot! +There are no friends like our old friends,--may Heaven prolong their +lives +There are no loves like our old loves,--God bless our loving wives! + +1865. + + + + + +A HYMN OF PEACE + +SUNG AT THE "JUBILEE," JUNE 15, 1869, +TO THE MUSIC OF SELLER'S "AMERICAN HYMN" + +ANGEL of Peace, thou hast wandered too long! +Spread thy white wings to the sunshine of love! +Come while our voices are blended in song,-- +Fly to our ark like the storm-beaten dove! +Fly to our ark on the wings of the dove,-- +Speed o'er the far-sounding billows of song, +Crowned with thine olive-leaf garland of love,-- +Angel of Peace, thou hast waited too long! + +Joyous we meet, on this altar of thine +Mingling the gifts we have gathered for thee, +Sweet with the odors of myrtle and pine, +Breeze of the prairie and breath of the sea,-- +Meadow and mountain and forest and sea! +Sweet is the fragrance of myrtle and pine, +Sweeter the incense we offer to thee, +Brothers once more round this altar of thine! + +Angels of Bethlehem, answer the strain! +Hark! a new birth-song is filling the sky!- +Loud as the storm-wind that tumbles the main +Bid the full breath of the organ reply,-- +Let the loud tempest of voices reply,-- +Roll its long surge like the-earth-shaking main! +Swell the vast song till it mounts to the sky! +Angels of Bethlehem, echo the strain! + + + + + + + NOTES. + +THE BOYS. +The members of the Harvard College class of 1829 referred to in this poem +are: "Doctor," Francis Thomas; "Judge," G. T. Bigelow, Chief Justice of +the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; "O Speaker," Hon. Francis B. +Crowninshield, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; +"Mr. Mayor," G. W. Richardson, of Worcester,Mass.; "Member of Congress," +Hon. George T. Davis; "Reverend," James Freeman Clarke; "boy with the +grave mathematical look," Benjamin Peirce; "boy with a three-decker +brain," Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, of the Supreme Court of the United +States; "nice youngster of excellent pith," S. F. Smith, author of "My +Country, 't is of Thee." + +"That lovely, bright-eyed boy." William Sturgis. + +"Who faced the storm so long." Francis B. Crowninshield. + +"Our many featured friend." George T. Davis. + +"The close-clinging dulcamara." The "bitter-sweet" of New England is the +/Celastrus scandens/, "bourreau des arbres" of the Canadian French. + +"All armed with picks and spades." The captured slaves were at this time +organized as pioneers. + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + VOL. III + + + +CONTENTS + +BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS + GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER, DECEMBER 15, 1874 + "LUCY." FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + HYMN FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW, HINGHAM, + OCTOBER 7, 1875 + A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + OLD CAMBRIDGE, JULY 3, 1875 + WELCOME TO THE NATIONS, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + A FAMILIAR LETTER + UNSATISFIED + HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + THE FIRST FAN + To R. B. H. + THE SHIP OF STATE + A FAMILY RECORD + +THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS. + THE IRON GATE + VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETRORSUM + MY AVIARY + ON THE THRESHOLD + TO GEORGE PEABODY + AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB + FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + TWO SONNETS: HARVARD + THE COMING ERA + IN RESPONSE + FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE + WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB + AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + THE SCHOOL-BOY + THE SILENT MELODY + OUR HOME--OUR COUNTRY + POEM AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS + MEDICAL SOCIETY + RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME + +BEFORE THE CURFEW + AT MY FIRESIDE + AT THE SATURDAY CLUB + OUR DEAD SINGER. H. W. L. + TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. + I. AT THE SUMMIT + II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS + FOR THE BLIND + BOSTON TO FLORENCE + AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL, MARCH 8, 1882 + POEM FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF + HARVARD COLLEGE + POST-PRANDIAL: PHI BETA KAPPA, 1881 + THE FLANEUR: DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS, 1882 + AVE + KING'S CHAPEL READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY + HYMN FOR THE SAME OCCASION + HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + HYMN READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL AT + HUDSON, WISCONSIN, JUNE 7, 1887 + ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + THE GOLDEN FLOWER + HAIL, COLUMBIA! + POEM FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON, + PRESENTED + BY GEORGE CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + TO THE POETS WHO ONLY READ AND LISTEN + FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY + FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S + JAMES RUSSELL LO WELL: 1819-1891 + +POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS. + TO THE ELEVEN LADIES WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP + THE PEAU DE CHAGRIN OF STATE STREET + CACOETHES SCRIBENDI + THE ROSE AND THE FERN + I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU + LA MAISON D'OR BAR HARBOR + TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE + THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES + TARTARUS + AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD + INVITA MINERVA + +READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS + TO MY OLD READERS + THE BANKER'S SECRET + THE EXILE'S SECRET + THE LOVER'S SECRET + THE STATESMAN'S SECRET + THE MOTHER'S SECRET + THE SECRET OF THE STARS + +VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO + FIRST VERSES: TRANSLATION FROM THE THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS + THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR + THE TOADSTOOL + THE SPECTRE PIG + TO A CAGED LION + THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY + ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE: "A SPANISH GIRL REVERIE" + A ROMAN AQUEDUCT + FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOURNAL + LA GRISETTE + OUR YANKEE GIRLS + L'INCONNUE + STANZAS + LINES BY A CLERK + THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE + THE POET'S LOT + TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER + TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A GENTLEMAN" IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY + THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN + A NOONTIDE LYRIC + THE HOT SEASON + A PORTRAIT + AN EVENING THOUGHT. WRITTEN AT SEA + THE WASP AND THE HORNET + "QUI VIVE?" + +NOTES + + + + + + BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + + AND OTHER POEMS + + 1874-1877 + + + +GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + +AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY + +'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers +All the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls"; +When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story, +To you the words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals. + +I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April running battle; +Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red-coats still; +But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day looms up before me, +When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of Bunker's Hill. + +'T was a peaceful summer's morning, when the first thing gave us warning +Was the booming of the cannon from the river and the shore: +"Child," says grandma, "what 's the matter, what is all this noise and + clatter? +Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder us once more?" + +Poor old soul! my sides were shaking in the midst of all my quaking, +To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began to roar: +She had seen the burning village, and the slaughter and the pillage, +When the Mohawks killed her father with their bullets through his door. + +Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't you fret and worry any, +For I'll soon come back and tell you whether this is work or play; +There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a minute"-- +For a minute then I started. I was gone the live-long day. + +No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grimacing; +Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels; +God forbid your ever knowing, when there's blood around her flowing, +How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet house-hold feels! + +In the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping +Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, +With a knot of women round him,-it was lucky I had found him, +So I followed with the others, and the Corporal marched before. + +They were making for the steeple,--the old soldier and his people; +The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creaking stair. +Just across the narrow river--oh, so close it made me shiver!-- +Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but yesterday was bare. + +Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew who stood behind it, +Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stubborn walls were dumb +Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon each other, +And their lips were white with terror as they said, THE HOUR HAS COME! + +The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we tasted, +And our heads were almost splitting with the cannons' deafening thrill, +When a figure tall and stately round the rampart strode sedately; +It was PRESCOTT, one since told me; he commanded on the hill. + +Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his manly figure, +With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so straight and tall; +Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for pleasure, +Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he walked around the wall. + +At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' ranks were + forming; +At noon in marching order they were moving to the piers; +How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked far down, and + listened +To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted grenadiers! + +At length the men have started, with a cheer (it seemed faint-hearted), +In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on their backs, +And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea-fight's slaughter, +Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along their tracks. + +So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order; +And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers, soldiers still: +The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting,-- +At last they're moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill. + +We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing,-- +Now the front rank fires a volley,--they have thrown away their shot; +For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying, +Our people need not hurry; so they wait and answer not. + +Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear sometimes and tipple), +He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French war) before,-- +Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were hearing,-- +And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty belfry floor:-- + +"Oh! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's shillin's, +But ye 'll waste a ton of powder afore a 'rebel' falls; +You may bang the dirt and welcome, they're as safe as Dan'l Malcolm +Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splintered with your balls!" + +In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepidation +Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh breathless all; +Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety belfry railing, +We are crowding up against them like the waves against a wall. + +Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are nearer,--nearer,--nearer, +When a flash--a curling smoke-wreath--then a crash--the steeple shakes-- +The deadly truce is ended; the tempest's shroud is rended; +Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud it breaks! + +Oh the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black smoke blows over! +The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower rakes his hay; +Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong crowd is flying +Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into spray. + +Then we cried, "The troops are routed! they are beat--it can't be + doubted! +God be thanked, the fight is over!"--Ah! the grim old soldier's smile! +"Tell us, tell us why you look so?" (we could hardly speak, we shook so), +"Are they beaten? Are they beaten? ARE they beaten?"--"Wait a while." + +Oh the trembling and the terror! for too soon we saw our error: +They are baffled, not defeated; we have driven them back in vain; +And the columns that were scattered, round the colors that were tattered, +Toward the sullen, silent fortress turn their belted breasts again. + +All at once, as we are gazing, lo the roofs of Charlestown blazing! +They have fired the harmless village; in an hour it will be down! +The Lord in heaven confound them, rain his fire and brimstone round them, +The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a peaceful town! + +They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see each massive column +As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting walls so steep. +Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste departed? +Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep? + +Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder! +Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earth-work they will swarm! +But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is broken, +And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm! + +So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water, +Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe; +And we shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they have run + for: +They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle 's over now!" + +And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough old soldier's features, +Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask: +"Not sure," he said; "keep quiet,--once more, I guess, they 'll try it-- +Here's damnation to the cut-throats!"--then he handed me his flask, + +Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of old Jamaiky; +I 'm afeard there 'll be more trouble afore the job is done"; +So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow, +Standing there from early morning when the firing was begun. + +All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial, +As the hands kept creeping, creeping,--they were creeping round to four, +When the old man said, "They're forming with their bagonets fixed for + storming: +It 's the death-grip that's a coming,--they will try the works once + more." + +With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring, +The deadly wall before them, in close array they come; +Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling,-- +Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum + +Over heaps all torn and gory--shall I tell the fearful story, +How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck; +How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated, +With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck? + +It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted, +And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair: +When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted,-- +On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare. + +And I heard through all the flurry, "Send for WARREN! hurry! hurry! +Tell him here's a soldier bleeding, and he 'll come and dress his + wound!" +Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death and sorrow, +How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark and bloody ground. + +Who the youth was, what his name was, where the place from which he came +was, +Who had brought him from the battle, and had left him at our door, +He could not speak to tell us; but 't was one of our brave fellows, +As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying soldier wore. + +For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered round him crying,-- +And they said, "Oh, how they'll miss him!" and, "What will his mother + do?" +Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has been dozing, +He faintly murmured, "Mother!"--and--I saw his eyes were blue. + +"Why, grandma, how you 're winking!" Ah, my child, it sets me thinking +Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived along; +So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like a--mother, +Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-checked, and strong. + +And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant summer weather,-- +"Please to tell us what his name was?" Just your own, my little dear,-- +There's his picture Copley painted: we became so well acquainted, +That--in short, that's why I 'm grandma, and you children all are here! + + + + + +AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER + +DECEMBER 15, 1874 + +I SUPPOSE it's myself that you're making allusion to +And bringing the sense of dismay and confusion to. +Of course some must speak,--they are always selected to, +But pray what's the reason that I am expected to? +I'm not fond of wasting my breath as those fellows do; +That want to be blowing forever as bellows do; +Their legs are uneasy, but why will you jog any +That long to stay quiet beneath the mahogany? + +Why, why call me up with your battery of flatteries? +You say "He writes poetry,"--that 's what the matter is +"It costs him no trouble--a pen full of ink or two +And the poem is done in the time of a wink or two; +As for thoughts--never mind--take the ones that lie uppermost, +And the rhymes used by Milton and Byron and Tupper most; +The lines come so easy! at one end he jingles 'em, +At the other with capital letters he shingles 'em,-- +Why, the thing writes itself, and before he's half done with it +He hates to stop writing, he has such good fun with it!" + +Ah, that is the way in which simple ones go about +And draw a fine picture of things they don't know about! +We all know a kitten, but come to a catamount +The beast is a stranger when grown up to that amount, +(A stranger we rather prefer should n't visit us, +A _felis_ whose advent is far from felicitous.) +The boy who can boast that his trap has just got a mouse +Must n't draw it and write underneath "hippopotamus"; +Or say unveraciously, "This is an elephant,"-- +Don't think, let me beg, these examples irrelevant,-- +What they mean is just this--that a thing to be painted well +Should always be something with which we're acquainted well. + +You call on your victim for "things he has plenty of,-- +Those copies of verses no doubt at least twenty of; +His desk is crammed full, for he always keeps writing 'em +And reading to friends as his way of delighting 'em!" +I tell you this writing of verses means business,-- +It makes the brain whirl in a vortex of dizziness +You think they are scrawled in the languor of laziness-- +I tell you they're squeezed by a spasm of craziness, +A fit half as bad as the staggering vertigos +That seize a poor fellow and down in the dirt he goes! + +And therefore it chimes with the word's etytology +That the sons of Apollo are great on apology, +For the writing of verse is a struggle mysterious +And the gayest of rhymes is a matter that's serious. +For myself, I'm relied on by friends in extremities, +And I don't mind so much if a comfort to them it is; +'T is a pleasure to please, and the straw that can tickle us +Is a source of enjoyment though slightly ridiculous. + +I am up for a--something--and since I 've begun with it, +I must give you a toast now before I have done with it. +Let me pump at my wits as they pumped the Cochituate +That moistened--it may be--the very last bit you ate: +Success to our publishers, authors and editors +To our debtors good luck,--pleasant dreams to our creditors; +May the monthly grow yearly, till all we are groping for +Has reached the fulfilment we're all of us hoping for; +Till the bore through the tunnel--it makes me let off a sigh +To think it may possibly ruin my prophecy-- +Has been punned on so often 't will never provoke again +One mild adolescent to make the old joke again; +Till abstinent, all-go-to-meeting society +Has forgotten the sense of the word inebriety; +Till the work that poor Hannah and Bridget and Phillis do +The humanized, civilized female gorillas do; +Till the roughs, as we call them, grown loving and dutiful, +Shall worship the true and the pure and the beautiful, +And, preying no longer as tiger and vulture do, +All read the "Atlantic" as persons of culture do! + + + + + +"LUCY" + +FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + +"Lucy."--The old familiar name +Is now, as always, pleasant, +Its liquid melody the same +Alike in past or present; +Let others call you what they will, +I know you'll let me use it; +To me your name is Lucy still, +I cannot bear to lose it. + +What visions of the past return +With Lucy's image blended! +What memories from the silent urn +Of gentle lives long ended! +What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn, +What starry aspirations, +That filled the misty days unborn +With fancy's coruscations! + +Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly sped +From April to November; +The summer blossoms all are shed +That you and I remember; +But while the vanished years we share +With mingling recollections, +How all their shadowy features wear +The hue of old affections! + +Love called you. He who stole your heart +Of sunshine half bereft us; +Our household's garland fell apart +The morning that you left us; +The tears of tender girlhood streamed +Through sorrow's opening sluices; +Less sweet our garden's roses seemed, +Less blue its flower-de-luces. + +That old regret is turned to smiles, +That parting sigh to greeting; +I send my heart-throb fifty miles +Through every line 't is beating; +God grant you many and happy years, +Till when the last has crowned you +The dawn of endless day appears, +And heaven is shining round you! + +October 11, 1875. + + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR +ANDREW, HINGHAM, OCTOBER 7, 1875 + +BEHOLD the shape our eyes have known! +It lives once more in changeless stone; +So looked in mortal face and form +Our guide through peril's deadly storm. + +But hushed the beating heart we knew, +That heart so tender, brave, and true, +Firm as the rooted mountain rock, +Pure as the quarry's whitest block! + +Not his beneath the blood-red star +To win the soldier's envied sear; +Unarmed he battled for the right, +In Duty's never-ending fight. + +Unconquered will, unslumbering eye, +Faith such as bids the martyr die, +The prophet's glance, the master's hand +To mould the work his foresight planned, + +These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent +For justice, mercy, truth, he spent, +First to avenge the traitorous blow, +And first to lift the vanquished foe. + +Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait +The pilot of the Pilgrim State! +Too large his fame for her alone,-- +A nation claims him as her own! + + + + + +A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE + +READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC HALL, +FEBRUARY 8, 1876, IN MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + + +I. + +LEADER of armies, Israel's God, +Thy soldier's fight is won! +Master, whose lowly path he trod, +Thy servant's work is done! + +No voice is heard from Sinai's steep +Our wandering feet to guide; +From Horeb's rock no waters leap; +No Jordan's waves divide; + +No prophet cleaves our western sky +On wheels of whirling fire; +No shepherds hear the song on high +Of heaven's angelic choir + +Yet here as to the patriarch's tent +God's angel comes a guest; +He comes on heaven's high errand sent, +In earth's poor raiment drest. + +We see no halo round his brow +Till love its own recalls, +And, like a leaf that quits the bough, +The mortal vesture falls. + +In autumn's chill declining day, +Ere winter's killing frost, +The message came; so passed away +The friend our earth has lost. + +Still, Father, in thy love we trust; +Forgive us if we mourn +The saddening hour that laid in dust +His robe of flesh outworn. + + +II. + +How long the wreck-strewn journey seems +To reach the far-off past +That woke his youth from peaceful dreams +With Freedom's trumpet-blast + +Along her classic hillsides rung +The Paynim's battle-cry, +And like a red-cross knight he sprung +For her to live or die. + +No trustier service claimed the wreath +For Sparta's bravest son; +No truer soldier sleeps beneath +The mound of Marathon; + +Yet not for him the warrior's grave +In front of angry foes; +To lift, to shield, to help, to save, +The holier task he chose. + +He touched the eyelids of the blind, +And lo! the veil withdrawn, +As o'er the midnight of the mind +He led the light of dawn. + +He asked not whence the fountains roll +No traveller's foot has found, +But mapped the desert of the soul +Untracked by sight or sound. + +What prayers have reached the sapphire throne, +By silent fingers spelt, +For him who first through depths unknown +His doubtful pathway felt, + +Who sought the slumbering sense that lay +Close shut with bolt and bar, +And showed awakening thought the ray +Of reason's morning star + +Where'er he moved, his shadowy form +The sightless orbs would seek, +And smiles of welcome light and warm +The lips that could not speak. + +No labored line, no sculptor's art, +Such hallowed memory needs; +His tablet is the human heart, +His record loving deeds. + + +III. + +The rest that earth denied is thine,-- +Ah, is it rest? we ask, +Or, traced by knowledge more divine, +Some larger, nobler task? + +Had but those boundless fields of blue +One darkened sphere like this; +But what has heaven for thee to do +In realms of perfect bliss? + +No cloud to lift, no mind to clear, +No rugged path to smooth, +No struggling soul to help and cheer, +No mortal grief to soothe! + +Enough; is there a world of love, +No more we ask to know; +The hand will guide thy ways above +That shaped thy task below. + + + + + +JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + +TRAINED in the holy art whose lifted shield +Wards off the darts a never-slumbering foe, +By hearth and wayside lurking, waits to throw, +Oppression taught his helpful arm to wield +The slayer's weapon : on the murderous field +The fiery bolt he challenged laid him low, +Seeking its noblest victim. Even so +The charter of a nation must be sealed! +The healer's brow the hero's honors crowned, +From lowliest duty called to loftiest deed. +Living, the oak-leaf wreath his temples bound; +Dying, the conqueror's laurel was his meed, +Last on the broken ramparts' turf to bleed +Where Freedom's victory in defeat was found. + +June 11, 1875. + + + + + +OLD CAMBRIDGE + +JULY 3, 1875 + +AND can it be you've found a place +Within this consecrated space, +That makes so fine a show, +For one of Rip Van Winkle's race? +And is it really so? +Who wants an old receipted bill? +Who fishes in the Frog-pond still? +Who digs last year's potato hill?-- +That's what he'd like to know! + +And were it any spot on earth +Save this dear home that gave him birth +Some scores of years ago, +He had not come to spoil your mirth +And chill your festive glow; +But round his baby-nest he strays, +With tearful eye the scene surveys, +His heart unchanged by changing days, +That's what he'd have you know. + +Can you whose eyes not yet are dim +Live o'er the buried past with him, +And see the roses blow +When white-haired men were Joe and Jim +Untouched by winter's snow? +Or roll the years back one by one +As Judah's monarch backed the sun, +And see the century just begun?-- +That's what he'd like to know! + +I come, but as the swallow dips, +Just touching with her feather-tips +The shining wave below, +To sit with pleasure-murmuring lips +And listen to the flow +Of Elmwood's sparkling Hippocrene, +To tread once more my native green, +To sigh unheard, to smile unseen,-- +That's what I'd have you know. + +But since the common lot I've shared +(We all are sitting "unprepared," +Like culprits in a row, +Whose heads are down, whose necks are bared +To wait the headsman's blow), +I'd like to shift my task to you, +By asking just a thing or two +About the good old times I knew,-- +Here's what I want to know + +The yellow meetin' house--can you tell +Just where it stood before it fell +Prey of the vandal foe,-- +Our dear old temple, loved so well, +By ruthless hands laid low? +Where, tell me, was the Deacon's pew? +Whose hair was braided in a queue? +(For there were pig-tails not a few,)-- +That's what I'd like to know. + +The bell--can you recall its clang? +And how the seats would slam and bang? +The voices high and low? +The basso's trump before he sang? +The viol and its bow? +Where was it old Judge Winthrop sat? +Who wore the last three-cornered hat? +Was Israel Porter lean or fat?-- +That's what I'd like to know. + +Tell where the market used to be +That stood beside the murdered tree? +Whose dog to church would go? +Old Marcus Reemie, who was he? +Who were the brothers Snow? +Does not your memory slightly fail +About that great September gale?-- +Whereof one told a moving tale, +As Cambridge boys should know. + +When Cambridge was a simple town, +Say just when Deacon William Brown +(Last door in yonder row), +For honest silver counted down, +His groceries would bestow?-- +For those were days when money meant +Something that jingled as you went,-- +No hybrid like the nickel cent, +I'd have you all to know, + +But quarter, ninepence, pistareen, +And fourpence hapennies in between, +All metal fit to show, +Instead of rags in stagnant green, +The scum of debts we owe; +How sad to think such stuff should be +Our Wendell's cure-all recipe,-- +Not Wendell H., but Wendell P.,-- +The one you all must know! + +I question--but you answer not-- +Dear me! and have I quite forgot +How fivescore years ago, +Just on this very blessed spot, +The summer leaves below, +Before his homespun ranks arrayed +In green New England's elmbough shade +The great Virginian drew the blade +King George full soon should know! + +O George the Third! you found it true +Our George was more than double you, +For nature made him so. +Not much an empire's crown can do +If brains are scant and slow,-- +Ah, not like that his laurel crown +Whose presence gilded with renown +Our brave old Academic town, +As all her children know! + +So here we meet with loud acclaim +To tell mankind that here he came, +With hearts that throb and glow; +Ours is a portion of his fame +Our trumpets needs must blow! +On yonder hill the Lion fell, +But here was chipped the eagle's shell,-- +That little hatchet did it well, +As all the world shall know! + + + + + +WELCOME TO THE NATIONS + +PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + +BRIGHT on the banners of lily and rose +Lo! the last sun of our century sets! +Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes, +All but her friendships the nation forgets +All but her friends and their welcome forgets! +These are around her; but where are her foes? +Lo, while the sun of her century sets, +Peace with her garlands of lily and rose! + +Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell +Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around +Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell; +Welcome! the walls of her temple resound! +Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound +Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell; +Welcome! still whisper the echoes around; +Welcome I still trembles on Liberty's bell! + +Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea +Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine; +Welcome, once more, to the land of the free, +Shadowed alike by the pahn and the pine; +Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine, +"Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free"; +Over your children their branches entwine, +Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea! + + + + + +A FAMILIAR LETTER + +TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS + +YES, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying; +Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold? +I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying, +If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold. + +Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies, +As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool; +Just think! all the poems and plays and romances +Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool! + +You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes, +And take all you want,--not a copper they cost,-- +What is there to hinder your picking out phrases +For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"? + +Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero, +Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean; +Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero +Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine. + +There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother +That boarding-school flavor of which we 're afraid,-- +There is "lush" is a good one, and "swirl" another,-- +Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made. + +With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes +You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell; +You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses, +And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!" + +Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions +For winning the laurels to which you aspire, +By docking the tails of the two prepositions +I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire. + +As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty +For ringing the changes on metrical chimes; +A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty +Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes. + +Let me show you a picture--'tis far from irrelevant-- +By a famous old hand in the arts of design; +'T is only a photographed sketch of an elephant,-- +The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine. + +How easy! no troublesome colors to lay on, +It can't have fatigued him,--no, not in the least,-- +A dash here and there with a hap-hazard crayon, +And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast. + +Just so with your verse,--'t is as easy as sketching,-- +You--can reel off a song without knitting your brow, +As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching; +It is nothing at all, if you only know how. + +Well; imagine you've printed your volume of verses: +Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame, +Your poems the eloquent school-boy rehearses, +Her album the school-girl presents for your name; + +Each morning the post brings you autograph letters; +You'll answer them promptly,--an hour is n't much +For the honor of sharing a page with your betters, +With magistrates, members of Congress, and such. + +Of course you're delighted to serve the committees +That come with requests from the country all round, +You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties +When they've got a new schoolhouse, or poor-house, or pound. + +With a hymn for the saints and a song for the sinners, +You go and are welcome wherever you please; +You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners, +You've a seat on the platform among the grandees. + +At length your mere presence becomes a sensation, +Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim +With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration, +As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That Is him!" + +But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous, +So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched, +Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us, +The ovum was human from which you were hatched. + +No will of your own with its puny compulsion +Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre; +It comes, if at all, like the Sibyl's convulsion +And touches the brain with a finger of fire. + +So perhaps, after all, it's as well to be quiet, +If you've nothing you think is worth saying in prose, +As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet +To the critics, by publishing, as you propose. + +But it's all of no use, and I 'm sorry I've written,-- +I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf; +For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten, +And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself. + + + + + +UNSATISFIED + +"ONLY a housemaid!" She looked from the kitchen,-- +Neat was the kitchen and tidy was she; +There at her window a sempstress sat stitching; +"Were I a sempstress, how happy I'd be!" + +"Only a Queen!" She looked over the waters,-- +Fair was her kingdom and mighty was she; +There sat an Empress, with Queens for her daughters; +Were I an Empress, how happy I'd be!" + +Still the old frailty they all of them trip in! +Eve in her daughters is ever the same; +Give her all Eden, she sighs for a pippin; +Give her an Empire, she pines for a name! + +May 8, 1876. + + + + + +HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + +DEDICATED BY A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE COLLEGIAN, +1830, TO THE EDITORS OF THE HARVARD ADVOCATE, 1876. + +'T WAS on the famous trotting-ground, +The betting men were gathered round +From far and near; the "cracks" were there +Whose deeds the sporting prints declare +The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, +The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, +With these a third--and who is he +That stands beside his fast b. g.? +Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name +So fills the nasal trump of fame. +There too stood many a noted steed +Of Messenger and Morgan breed; +Green horses also, not a few; +Unknown as yet what they could do; +And all the hacks that know so well +The scourgings of the Sunday swell. + +Blue are the skies of opening day; +The bordering turf is green with May; +The sunshine's golden gleam is thrown +On sorrel, chestnut, bay, and roan; +The horses paw and prance and neigh, +Fillies and colts like kittens play, +And dance and toss their rippled manes +Shining and soft as silken skeins; +Wagons and gigs are ranged about, +And fashion flaunts her gay turn-out; +Here stands--each youthful Jehu's dream +The jointed tandem, ticklish team! +And there in ampler breadth expand +The splendors of the four-in-hand; +On faultless ties and glossy tiles +The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; +(The style's the man, so books avow; +The style's the woman, anyhow); +From flounces frothed with creamy lace +Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, +Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, +Or stares the wiry pet of Skye,-- +O woman, in your hours of ease +So shy with us, so free with these! + +"Come on! I 'll bet you two to one +I 'll make him do it!" "Will you? Done!" + +What was it who was bound to do? +I did not hear and can't tell you,-- +Pray listen till my story's through. + +Scarce noticed, back behind the rest, +By cart and wagon rudely prest, +The parson's lean and bony bay +Stood harnessed in his one-horse shay-- +Lent to his sexton for the day; +(A funeral--so the sexton said; +His mother's uncle's wife was dead.) + +Like Lazarus bid to Dives' feast, +So looked the poor forlorn old beast; +His coat was rough, his tail was bare, +The gray was sprinkled in his hair; +Sportsmen and jockeys knew him not, +And yet they say he once could trot +Among the fleetest of the town, +Till something cracked and broke him down,-- +The steed's, the statesman's, common lot! +"And are we then so soon forgot?" +Ah me! I doubt if one of you +Has ever heard the name "Old Blue," +Whose fame through all this region rung +In those old days when I was young! + +"Bring forth the horse!" Alas! he showed +Not like the one Mazeppa rode; +Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, +The wreck of what was once a steed, +Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; +Yet not without his knowing points. +The sexton laughing in his sleeve, +As if 't were all a make-believe, +Led forth the horse, and as he laughed +Unhitched the breeching from a shaft, +Unclasped the rusty belt beneath, +Drew forth the snaffle from his teeth, +Slipped off his head-stall, set him free +From strap and rein,--a sight to see! + +So worn, so lean in every limb, +It can't be they are saddling him! +It is! his back the pig-skin strides +And flaps his lank, rheumatic sides; +With look of mingled scorn and mirth +They buckle round the saddle-girth; +With horsey wink and saucy toss +A youngster throws his leg across, +And so, his rider on his back, +They lead him, limping, to the track, +Far up behind the starting-point, +To limber out each stiffened joint. + +As through the jeering crowd he past, +One pitying look Old Hiram cast; +"Go it, ye cripple, while ye can!" +Cried out unsentimental Dan; +"A Fast-Day dinner for the crows!" +Budd Doble's scoffing shout arose. + +Slowly, as when the walking-beam +First feels the gathering head of steam, +With warning cough and threatening wheeze +The stiff old charger crooks his knees; +At first with cautious step sedate, +As if he dragged a coach of state +He's not a colt; he knows full well +That time is weight and sure to tell; +No horse so sturdy but he fears +The handicap of twenty years. + +As through the throng on either hand +The old horse nears the judges' stand, +Beneath his jockey's feather-weight +He warms a little to his gait, +And now and then a step is tried +That hints of something like a stride. + +"Go!"--Through his ear the summons stung +As if a battle-trump had rung; +The slumbering instincts long unstirred +Start at the old familiar word; +It thrills like flame through every limb,-- +What mean his twenty years to him? +The savage blow his rider dealt +Fell on his hollow flanks unfelt; +The spur that pricked his staring hide +Unheeded tore his bleeding side; +Alike to him are spur and rein,-- +He steps a five-year-old again! + +Before the quarter pole was past, +Old Hiram said, "He's going fast." +Long ere the quarter was a half, +The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh; +Tighter his frightened jockey clung +As in a mighty stride he swung, +The gravel flying in his track, +His neck stretched out, his ears laid back, +His tail extended all the while +Behind him like a rat-tail file! +Off went a shoe,--away it spun, +Shot like a bullet from a gun; + +The quaking jockey shapes a prayer +From scraps of oaths he used to swear; +He drops his whip, he drops his rein, +He clutches fiercely for a mane; +He'll lose his hold--he sways and reels-- +He'll slide beneath those trampling heels! +The knees of many a horseman quake, +The flowers on many a bonnet shake, +And shouts arise from left and right, +"Stick on! Stick on!" "Hould tight! Hould tight!" +"Cling round his neck and don't let go-- +"That pace can't hold--there! steady! whoa!" +But like the sable steed that bore +The spectral lover of Lenore, +His nostrils snorting foam and fire, +No stretch his bony limbs can tire; +And now the stand he rushes by, +And "Stop him!--stop him!" is the cry. +Stand back! he 's only just begun-- +He's having out three heats in one! + +"Don't rush in front! he'll smash your brains; +But follow up and grab the reins!" +Old Hiram spoke. Dan Pfeiffer heard, +And sprang impatient at the word; +Budd Doble started on his bay, +Old Hiram followed on his gray, +And off they spring, and round they go, +The fast ones doing "all they know." +Look! twice they follow at his heels, +As round the circling course he wheels, +And whirls with him that clinging boy +Like Hector round the walls of Troy; +Still on, and on, the third time round +They're tailing off! they're losing ground! +Budd Doble's nag begins to fail! +Dan Pfeiffer's sorrel whisks his tail! +And see! in spite of whip and shout, +Old Hiram's mare is giving out! +Now for the finish! at the turn, +The old horse--all the rest astern-- +Comes swinging in, with easy trot; +By Jove! he's distanced all the lot! + +That trot no mortal could explain; +Some said, "Old Dutchman come again!" +Some took his time,--at least they tried, +But what it was could none decide; +One said he couldn't understand +What happened to his second hand; +One said 2.10; that could n't be-- +More like two twenty-two or three; +Old Hiram settled it at last; +"The time was two--too dee-vel-ish fast!" + +The parson's horse had won the bet; +It cost him something of a sweat; +Back in the one-horse shay he went; +The parson wondered what it meant, +And murmured, with a mild surprise +And pleasant twinkle of the eyes, +That funeral must have been a trick, +Or corpses drive at double-quick; +I should n't wonder, I declare, +If brother--Jehu--made the prayer! + +And this is all I have to say +About that tough old trotting bay, +Huddup! Huddup! G'lang! Good day! +Moral for which this tale is told +A horse can trot, for all he 's old. + + + + + +AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + +"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; +When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall." + +FULL sevenscore years our city's pride-- +The comely Southern spire-- +Has cast its shadow, and defied +The storm, the foe, the fire; +Sad is the sight our eyes behold; +Woe to the three-hilled town, +When through the land the tale is told-- +"The brave 'Old South' is down!" + +Let darkness blot the starless dawn +That hears our children tell, +"Here rose the walls, now wrecked and gone, +Our fathers loved so well; +Here, while his brethren stood aloof, +The herald's blast was blown +That shook St. Stephen's pillared roof +And rocked King George's throne! + +"The home-bound wanderer of the main +Looked from his deck afar, +To where the gilded, glittering vane +Shone like the evening star, +And pilgrim feet from every clime +The floor with reverence trod, +Where holy memories made sublime +The shrine of Freedom's God!" + +The darkened skies, alas! have seen +Our monarch tree laid low, +And spread in ruins o'er the green, +But Nature struck the blow; +No scheming thrift its downfall planned, +It felt no edge of steel, +No soulless hireling raised his hand +The deadly stroke to deal. + +In bridal garlands, pale and mute, +Still pleads the storied tower; +These are the blossoms, but the fruit +Awaits the golden shower; +The spire still greets the morning sun,-- +Say, shall it stand or fall? +Help, ere the spoiler has begun! +Help, each, and God help all! + + + + + +THE FIRST FAN + +READ AT A MEETING OF THE BOSTON BRIC-A-BRAC +CLUB, FEBRUARY 21, 1877 + +WHEN rose the cry "Great Pan is dead!" +And Jove's high palace closed its portal, +The fallen gods, before they fled, +Sold out their frippery to a mortal. + +"To whom?" you ask. I ask of you. +The answer hardly needs suggestion; +Of course it was the Wandering Jew,-- +How could you put me such a question? + +A purple robe, a little worn, +The Thunderer deigned himself to offer; +The bearded wanderer laughed in scorn,-- +You know he always was a scoffer. + +"Vife shillins! 't is a monstrous price; +Say two and six and further talk shun." +"Take it," cried Jove; "we can't be nice,-- +'T would fetch twice that at Leonard's auction." + +The ice was broken; up they came, +All sharp for bargains, god and goddess, +Each ready with the price to name +For robe or head-dress, scarf or bodice. + +First Juno, out of temper, too,-- +Her queenly forehead somewhat cloudy; +Then Pallas in her stockings blue, +Imposing, but a little dowdy. + +The scowling queen of heaven unrolled +Before the Jew a threadbare turban +"Three shillings." "One. 'T will suit some old +Terrific feminine suburban." + +But as for Pallas,--how to tell +In seemly phrase a fact so shocking? +She pointed,--pray excuse me,--well, +She pointed to her azure stocking. + +And if the honest truth were told, +Its heel confessed the need of darning; +"Gods!" low-bred Vulcan cried, "behold! +There! that's what comes of too much larning!" + +Pale Proserpine came groping round, +Her pupils dreadfully dilated +With too much living underground,-- +A residence quite overrated; + +This kerchief's what you want, I know,-- +Don't cheat poor Venus of her cestus,-- +You'll find it handy when you go +To--you know where; it's pure asbestus. + +Then Phoebus of the silverr bow, +And Hebe, dimpled as a baby, +And Dian with the breast of snow, +Chaser and chased--and caught, it may be: + +One took the quiver from her back, +One held the cap he spent the night in, +And one a bit of bric-a-brac, +Such as the gods themselves delight in. + +Then Mars, the foe of human kind, +Strode up and showed his suit of armor; +So none at last was left behind +Save Venus, the celestial charmer. + +Poor Venus! What had she to sell? +For all she looked so fresh and jaunty, +Her wardrobe, as I blush' to tell, +Already seemed but quite too scanty. + +Her gems were sold, her sandals gone,-- +She always would be rash and flighty,-- +Her winter garments all in pawn, +Alas for charming Aphrodite + +The lady of a thousand loves, +The darling of the old religion, +Had only left of all the doves +That drew her car one fan-tailed pigeon. + +How oft upon her finger-tips +He perched, afraid of Cupid's arrow, +Or kissed her on the rosebud lips, +Like Roman Lesbia's loving sparrow! + +"My bird, I want your train," she cried; +"Come, don't let's have a fuss about it; +I'll make it beauty's pet and pride, +And you'll be better off without it. + +"So vulgar! Have you noticed, pray, +An earthly belle or dashing bride walk, +And how her flounces track her way, +Like slimy serpents on the sidewalk? + +"A lover's heart it quickly cools; +In mine it kindles up enough rage +To wring their necks. How can such fools +Ask men to vote for woman suffrage?" + +The goddess spoke, and gently stripped +Her bird of every caudal feather; +A strand of gold-bright hair she clipped, +And bound the glossy plumes together, + +And lo, the Fan! for beauty's hand, +The lovely queen of beauty made it; +The price she named was hard to stand, +But Venus smiled: the Hebrew paid it. + +Jove, Juno, Venus, where are you? +Mars, Mercury, Phoebus, Neptune, Saturn? +But o'er the world the Wandering Jew +Has borne the Fan's celestial pattern. + +So everywhere we find the Fan,-- +In lonely isles of the Pacific, +In farthest China and Japan,-- +Wherever suns are sudorific. + +Nay, even the oily Esquimaux +In summer court its cooling breezes,-- +In fact, in every clime 't is so, +No matter if it fries or freezes. + +And since from Aphrodite's dove +The pattern of the fan was given, +No wonder that it breathes of love +And wafts the perfumed gales of heaven! + +Before this new Pandora's gift +In slavery woman's tyrant kept her, +But now he kneels her glove to lift,-- +The fan is mightier than the sceptre. + +The tap it gives how arch and sly! +The breath it wakes how fresh and grateful! +Behind its shield how soft the sigh! +The whispered tale of shame how fateful! + +Its empire shadows every throne +And every shore that man is tost on; +It rules the lords of every zone, +Nay, even the bluest blood of Boston! + +But every one that swings to-night, +Of fairest shape, from farthest region, +May trace its pedigree aright +To Aphrodite's fan-tailed pigeon. + + + + +TO R. B. H. + +AT THE DINNER TO THE PRESIDENT, +BOSTON, JUNE 26, 1877 + +How to address him? awkward, it is true +Call him "Great Father," as the Red Men do? +Borrow some title? this is not the place +That christens men Your Highness and Your Grace; +We tried such names as these awhile, you know, +But left them off a century ago. + +His Majesty? We've had enough of that +Besides, that needs a crown; he wears a hat. +What if, to make the nicer ears content, +We say His Honesty, the President? + +Sir, we believed you honest, truthful, brave, +When to your hands their precious trust we gave, +And we have found you better than we knew, +Braver, and not less honest, not less true! +So every heart has opened, every hand +Tingles with welcome, and through all the land +All voices greet you in one broad acclaim, +Healer of strife! Has earth a nobler name? + +What phrases mean you do not need to learn; +We must be civil, and they serve our turn +"Your most obedient humble" means--means what? +Something the well-bred signer just is not. + +Yet there are tokens, sir, you must believe; +There is one language never can deceive +The lover knew it when the maiden smiled; +The mother knows it when she clasps her child; +Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale, +Words grope and stumble; this will tell their tale +Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence, +But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence. +Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits you there,-- +North, South, East, West, from all and everywhere! + + + + + +THE SHIP OF STATE + +A SENTIMENT + +This "sentiment" was read on the same occasion as the "Family Record," +which immediately follows it. The latter poem is the dutiful tribute of a +son to his father and his father's ancestors, residents of Woodstock from +its first settlement. + +THE Ship of State! above her skies are blue, +But still she rocks a little, it is true, +And there are passengers whose faces white +Show they don't feel as happy as they might; +Yet on the whole her crew are quite content, +Since its wild fury the typhoon has spent, +And willing, if her pilot thinks it best, +To head a little nearer south by west. +And this they feel: the ship came too near wreck, +In the long quarrel for the quarter-deck, +Now when she glides serenely on her way,-- +The shallows past where dread explosives lay,-- +The stiff obstructive's churlish game to try +Let sleeping dogs and still torpedoes lie! +And so I give you all the Ship of State; +Freedom's last venture is her priceless freight; +God speed her, keep her, bless her, while she steers +Amid the breakers of unsounded years; +Lead her through danger's paths with even keel, +And guide the honest hand that holds her wheel! + +WOODSTOCK, CONN., July 4, 1877. + + + + + +A FAMILY RECORD + +WOODSTOCK, CONN., JULY 4, 1877 + +NOT to myself this breath of vesper song, +Not to these patient friends, this kindly throng, +Not to this hallowed morning, though it be +Our summer Christmas, Freedom's jubilee, +When every summit, topmast, steeple, tower, +That owns her empire spreads her starry flower, +Its blood-streaked leaves in heaven's benignant dew +Washed clean from every crimson stain they knew,-- +No, not to these the passing thrills belong +That steal my breath to hush themselves with song. +These moments all are memory's; I have come +To speak with lips that rather should be dumb; +For what are words? At every step I tread +The dust that wore the footprints of the dead +But for whose life my life had never known +This faded vesture which it calls its own. +Here sleeps my father's sire, and they who gave +That earlier life here found their peaceful grave. +In days gone by I sought the hallowed ground; +Climbed yon long slope; the sacred spot I found +Where all unsullied lies the winter snow, +Where all ungathered spring's pale violets blow, +And tracked from stone to stone the Saxon name +That marks the blood I need not blush to claim, +Blood such as warmed the Pilgrim sons of toil, +Who held from God the charter of the soil. +I come an alien to your hills and plains, +Yet feel your birthright tingling in my veins; +Mine are this changing prospect's sun and shade, +In full-blown summer's bridal pomp arrayed; +Mine these fair hillsides and the vales between; +Mine the sweet streams that lend their brightening green; +I breathed your air--the sunlit landscape smiled; +I touch your soil--it knows its children's child; +Throned in my heart your heritage is mine; +I claim it all by memory's right divine +Waking, I dream. Before my vacant eyes +In long procession shadowy forms arise; +Far through the vista of the silent years +I see a venturous band; the pioneers, +Who let the sunlight through the forest's gloom, +Who bade the harvest wave, the garden bloom. +Hark! loud resounds the bare-armed settler's axe, +See where the stealthy panther left his tracks! +As fierce, as stealthy creeps the skulking foe +With stone-tipped shaft and sinew-corded bow; +Soon shall he vanish from his ancient reign, +Leave his last cornfield to the coming train, +Quit the green margin of the wave he drinks, +For haunts that hide the wild-cat and the lynx. + +But who the Youth his glistening axe that swings +To smite the pine that shows a hundred rings? +His features?--something in his look I find +That calls the semblance of my race to mind. +His name?--my own; and that which goes before +The same that once the loved disciple bore. +Young, brave, discreet, the father of a line +Whose voiceless lives have found a voice in mine; +Thinned by unnumbered currents though they be, +Thanks for the ruddy drops I claim from thee! + +The seasons pass; the roses come and go; +Snows fall and melt; the waters freeze and flow; +The boys are men; the girls, grown tall and fair, +Have found their mates; a gravestone here and there +Tells where the fathers lie; the silvered hair +Of some bent patriarch yet recalls the time +That saw his feet the northern hillside climb, +A pilgrim from the pilgrims far away, +The godly men, the dwellers by the bay. +On many a hearthstone burns the cheerful fire; +The schoolhouse porch, the heavenward pointing spire +Proclaim in letters every eye can read, +Knowledge and Faith, the new world's simple creed. +Hush! 't is the Sabbath's silence-stricken morn +No feet must wander through the tasselled corn; +No merry children laugh around the door, +No idle playthings strew the sanded floor; +The law of Moses lays its awful ban +On all that stirs; here comes the tithing-man +At last the solemn hour of worship calls; +Slowly they gather in the sacred walls; +Man in his strength and age with knotted staff, +And boyhood aching for its week-day laugh, +The toil-worn mother with the child she leads, +The maiden, lovely in her golden beads,-- +The popish symbols round her neck she wears, +But on them counts her lovers, not her prayers,-- +Those youths in homespun suits and ribboned queues, +Whose hearts are beating in the high-backed pews. +The pastor rises; looks along the seats +With searching eye; each wonted face he meets; +Asks heavenly guidance; finds the chapter's place +That tells some tale of Israel's stubborn race; +Gives out the sacred song; all voices join, +For no quartette extorts their scanty coin; +Then while both hands their black-gloved palms display, +Lifts his gray head, and murmurs, "Let us pray!" +And pray he does! as one that never fears +To plead unanswered by the God that hears; +What if he dwells on many a fact as though +Some things Heaven knew not which it ought to know,-- +Thanks God for all his favors past, and yet, +Tells Him there's something He must not forget; +Such are the prayers his people love to hear,-- +See how the Deacon slants his listening ear! +What! look once more! Nay, surely there I trace +The hinted outlines of a well-known face! +Not those the lips for laughter to beguile, +Yet round their corners lurks an embryo smile, +The same on other lips my childhood knew +That scarce the Sabbath's mastery could subdue. +Him too my lineage gives me leave to claim,-- +The good, grave man that bears the Psalmist's name. + +And still in ceaseless round the seasons passed; +Spring piped her carol; Autumn blew his blast; +Babes waxed to manhood; manhood shrunk to age; +Life's worn-out players tottered off the stage; +The few are many; boys have grown to men +Since Putnam dragged the wolf from Pomfret's den; +Our new-old Woodstock is a thriving town; +Brave are her children; faithful to the crown; +Her soldiers' steel the savage redskin knows; +Their blood has crimsoned his Canadian snows. +And now once more along the quiet vale +Rings the dread call that turns the mothers pale; +Full well they know the valorous heat that runs +In every pulse-beat of their loyal sons; +Who would not bleed in good King George's cause +When England's lion shows his teeth and claws? +With glittering firelocks on the village green +In proud array a martial band is seen; +You know what names those ancient rosters hold,-- +Whose belts were buckled when the drum-beat rolled,-- +But mark their Captain! tell us, who is he? +On his brown face that same old look I see +Yes! from the homestead's still retreat he came, +Whose peaceful owner bore the Psalmist's name; +The same his own. Well, Israel's glorious king +Who struck the harp could also whirl the sling,-- +Breathe in his song a penitential sigh +And smite the sons of Amalek hip and thigh: +These shared their task; one deaconed out the psalm, +One slashed the scalping hell-hounds of calm; +The praying father's pious work is done, +Now sword in hand steps forth the fighting son. +On many a field he fought in wilds afar; +See on his swarthy cheek the bullet's scar! +There hangs a murderous tomahawk; beneath, +Without its blade, a knife's embroidered sheath; +Save for the stroke his trusty weapon dealt +His scalp had dangled at their owner's belt; +But not for him such fate; he lived to see +The bloodier strife that made our nation free, +To serve with willing toil, with skilful hand, +The war-worn saviors of the bleeding land. +His wasting life to others' needs he gave,-- +Sought rest in home and found it in the grave. +See where the stones life's brief memorials keep, +The tablet telling where he "fell on sleep,"-- +Watched by a winged cherub's rayless eye,-- +A scroll above that says we all must die,-- +Those saddening lines beneath, the "Night-Thoughts" lent: +So stands the Soldier's, Surgeon's monument. +Ah! at a glance my filial eye divines +The scholar son in those remembered lines. + +The Scholar Son. His hand my footsteps led. +No more the dim unreal past I tread. +O thou whose breathing form was once so dear, +Whose cheering voice was music to my ear, +Art thou not with me as my feet pursue +The village paths so well thy boyhood knew, +Along the tangled margin of the stream +Whose murmurs blended with thine infant dream, +Or climb the hill, or thread the wooded vale, +Or seek the wave where gleams yon distant sail, +Or the old homestead's narrowed bounds explore, +Where sloped the roof that sheds the rains no more, +Where one last relic still remains to tell +Here stood thy home,--the memory-haunted well, +Whose waters quench a deeper thirst than thine, +Changed at my lips to sacramental wine,-- +Art thou not with me, as I fondly trace +The scanty records of thine honored race, +Call up the forms that earlier years have known, +And spell the legend of each slanted stone? +With thoughts of thee my loving verse began, +Not for the critic's curious eye to scan, +Not for the many listeners, but the few +Whose fathers trod the paths my fathers knew; +Still in my heart thy loved remembrance burns; +Still to my lips thy cherished name returns; +Could I but feel thy gracious presence near +Amid the groves that once to thee were dear +Could but my trembling lips with mortal speech +Thy listening ear for one brief moment reach! +How vain the dream! The pallid voyager's track +No sign betrays; he sends no message back. +No word from thee since evening's shadow fell +On thy cold forehead with my long farewell,-- +Now from the margin of the silent sea, +Take my last offering ere I cross to thee! + + + + + + + THE IRON GATE + + AND OTHER POEMS + + 1877-1881 + + + +THE IRON GATE + +Read at the Breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes's Seventieth Birthday +by the publishers of the "Atlantic Monthly," Boston, December 3, 1879. + +WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting? +Not unfamiliar to my ear his name, +Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting +In days long vanished,--is he still the same, + +Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting, +Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought, +Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting, +Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought? + +Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him,-- +Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey; +In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem, +Oft have I met him from my earliest day + +In my old AEsop, toiling with his bundle,-- +His load of sticks,--politely asking Death, +Who comes when called for,--would he lug or trundle +His fagot for him?--he was scant of breath. + +And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher,"-- +Has he not stamped the image on my soul, +In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher +Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl? + +Yes, long, indeed, I've known him at a distance, +And now my lifted door-latch shows him here; +I take his shrivelled hand without resistance, +And find him smiling as his step draws near. + +What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us, +Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime; +Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us, +The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time! + +Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant, +Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep, +Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant, +Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep! + +Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender, +Its lightened task-work tugs with lessening strain, +Hands get more helpful, voices, grown more tender, +Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous brain. + +Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers, +Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, +Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers +That warm its creeping life-blood till the last. + +Dear to its heart is every loving token +That comes unbidden ere its pulse grows cold, +Ere the last lingering ties of life are broken, +Its labors ended and its story told. + +Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices, +For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh, +And through the chorus of its jocund voices +Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry. + +As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying +From some far orb I track our watery sphere, +Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying, +The silvered globule seems a glistening tear. + +But Nature lends her mirror of illusion +To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes, +And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion +The wintry landscape and the summer skies. + +So when the iron portal shuts behind us, +And life forgets us in its noise and whirl, +Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us, +And glimmering starlight shows the gates of pearl. + +I come not here your morning hour to sadden, +A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff,-- +I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden +This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh. + +If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, +Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came; +If hand of mine another's task has lightened, +It felt the guidance that it dares not claim. + +But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers, +These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release; +These feebler pulses bid me leave to others +The tasks once welcome; evening asks for peace. + +Time claims his tribute; silence now is golden; +Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre; +Though to your love untiring still beholden, +The curfew tells me--cover up the fire. + +And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful, +And warmer heart than look or word can tell, +In simplest phrase--these traitorous eyes are tearful-- +Thanks, Brothers, Sisters,--Children,--and farewell! + + + + + +VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETRORSUM + +AN ACADEMIC POEM + +1829-1879 + +Read at the Commencement Dinner of the Alumni of Harvard +University, June 25, 1879. + +WHILE fond, sad memories all around us throng, +Silence were sweeter than the sweetest song; +Yet when the leaves are green and heaven is blue, +The choral tribute of the grove is due, +And when the lengthening nights have chilled the skies, +We fain would hear the song-bird ere be flies, +And greet with kindly welcome, even as now, +The lonely minstrel on his leafless bough. + +This is our golden year,--its golden day; +Its bridal memories soon must pass away; +Soon shall its dying music cease to ring, +And every year must loose some silver string, +Till the last trembling chords no longer thrill,-- +Hands all at rest and hearts forever still. + +A few gray heads have joined the forming line; +We hear our summons,--"Class of 'Twenty-Nine!" +Close on the foremost, and, alas, how few! +Are these "The Boys" our dear old Mother knew? +Sixty brave swimmers. Twenty--something more-- +Have passed the stream and reached this frosty shore! + +How near the banks these fifty years divide +When memory crosses with a single stride! +'T is the first year of stern "Old Hickory" 's rule +When our good Mother lets us out of school, +Half glad, half sorrowing, it must be confessed, +To leave her quiet lap, her bounteous breast, +Armed with our dainty, ribbon-tied degrees, +Pleased and yet pensive, exiles and A. B.'s. + +Look back, O comrades, with your faded eyes, +And see the phantoms as I bid them rise. +Whose smile is that? Its pattern Nature gave, +A sunbeam dancing in a dimpled wave; +KIRKLAND alone such grace from Heaven could win, +His features radiant as the soul within; +That smile would let him through Saint Peter's gate +While sad-eyed martyrs had to stand and wait. +Here flits mercurial _Farrar_; standing there, +See mild, benignant, cautious, learned _Ware_, +And sturdy, patient, faithful, honest _Hedge_, +Whose grinding logic gave our wits their edge; +_Ticknor_, with honeyed voice and courtly grace; +And _Willard_, larynxed like a double bass; +And _Channing_, with his bland, superior look, +Cool as a moonbeam on a frozen brook, + +While the pale student, shivering in his shoes, +Sees from his theme the turgid rhetoric ooze; +And the born soldier, fate decreed to wreak +His martial manhood on a class in Greek, +_Popkin_! How that explosive name recalls +The grand old Busby of our ancient halls +Such faces looked from Skippon's grim platoons, +Such figures rode with Ireton's stout dragoons: +He gave his strength to learning's gentle charms, +But every accent sounded "Shoulder arms!" + +Names,--empty names! Save only here and there +Some white-haired listener, dozing in his chair, +Starts at the sound he often used to hear, +And upward slants his Sunday-sermon ear. +And we--our blooming manhood we regain; +Smiling we join the long Commencement train, +One point first battled in discussion hot,-- +Shall we wear gowns? and settled: We will not. +How strange the scene,--that noisy boy-debate +Where embryo-speakers learn to rule the State! +This broad-browed youth, sedate and sober-eyed, +Shall wear the ermined robe at Taney's side; +And he, the stripling, smooth of face and slight, +Whose slender form scarce intercepts the light, +Shall rule the Bench where Parsons gave the law, +And sphinx-like sat uncouth, majestic Shaw +Ah, many a star has shed its fatal ray +On names we loved--our brothers--where are they? + +Nor these alone; our hearts in silence claim +Names not less dear, unsyllabled by fame. + +How brief the space! and yet it sweeps us back +Far, far along our new-born history's track +Five strides like this;--the sachem rules the land; +The Indian wigwams cluster where we stand. + +The second. Lo! a scene of deadly strife-- +A nation struggling into infant life; +Not yet the fatal game at Yorktown won +Where failing Empire fired its sunset gun. +LANGDON sits restless in the ancient chair,-- +Harvard's grave Head,--these echoes heard his prayer +When from yon mansion, dear to memory still, +The banded yeomen marched for Bunker's Hill. +Count on the grave triennial's thick-starred roll +What names were numbered on the lengthening scroll,-- +Not unfamiliar in our ears they ring,-- +Winthrop, Hale, Eliot, Everett, Dexter, Tyng. + +Another stride. Once more at 'twenty-nine,-- +GOD SAVE KING GEORGE, the Second of his line! +And is Sir Isaac living? Nay, not so,-- +He followed Flainsteed two short years ago,-- +And what about the little hump-backed man +Who pleased the bygone days of good Queen Anne? +What, Pope? another book he's just put out,-- +"The Dunciad,"--witty, but profane, no doubt. + +Where's Cotton Mather? he was always here. +And so he would be, but he died last year. +Who is this preacher our Northampton claims, +Whose rhetoric blazes with sulphureous flames +And torches stolen from Tartarean mines? +Edwards, the salamander of divines. +A deep, strong nature, pure and undefiled; +Faith, firm as his who stabbed his sleeping child; +Alas for him who blindly strays apart, +And seeking God has lost his human heart! +Fall where they might, no flying cinders caught +These sober halls where WADSWORTH ruled and +taught. + +One footstep more; the fourth receding stride +Leaves the round century on the nearer side. +GOD SAVE KING CHARLES! God knows that pleasant knave +His grace will find it hard enough to save. +Ten years and more, and now the Plague, the Fire, +Talk of all tongues, at last begin to tire; +One fear prevails, all other frights forgot,-- +White lips are whispering,--hark! The Popish Plot! +Happy New England, from such troubles free +In health and peace beyond the stormy sea! +No Romish daggers threat her children's throats, +No gibbering nightmare mutters "Titus Oates;" +Philip is slain, the Quaker graves are green, +Not yet the witch has entered on the scene; +Happy our Harvard; pleased her graduates four; +URIAN OAKES the name their parchments bore. + +Two centuries past, our hurried feet arrive +At the last footprint of the scanty five; +Take the fifth stride; our wandering eyes explore +A tangled forest on a trackless shore; +Here, where we stand, the savage sorcerer howls, +The wild cat snarls, the stealthy gray wolf prowls, +The slouching bear, perchance the trampling moose +Starts the brown squaw and scares her red pappoose; +At every step the lurking foe is near; +His Demons reign; God has no temple here! + +Lift up your eyes! behold these pictured walls; +Look where the flood of western glory falls +Through the great sunflower disk of blazing panes +In ruby, saffron, azure, emerald stains; +With reverent step the marble pavement tread +Where our proud Mother's martyr-roll is read; +See the great halls that cluster, gathering round +This lofty shrine with holiest memories crowned; +See the fair Matron in her summer bower, +Fresh as a rose in bright perennial flower; +Read on her standard, always in the van, +"TRUTH,"--the one word that makes a slave a man; +Think whose the hands that fed her altar-fires, +Then count the debt we owe our scholar-sires! + +Brothers, farewell! the fast declining ray +Fades to the twilight of our golden day; +Some lesson yet our wearied brains may learn, +Some leaves, perhaps, in life's thin volume turn. +How few they seem as in our waning age +We count them backwards to the title-page! +Oh let us trust with holy men of old +Not all the story here begun is told; +So the tired spirit, waiting to be freed, +On life's last leaf with tranquil eye shall read +By the pale glimmer of the torch reversed, +Not Finis, but _The End of Volume First_! + + + + + +MY AVIARY + +Through my north window, in the wintry weather,-- +My airy oriel on the river shore,-- +I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together +Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar. + +The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen, +Lets the loose water waft him as it will; +The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden, +Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still. + +I see the solemn gulls in council sitting +On some broad ice-floe pondering long and late, +While overhead the home-bound ducks are flitting, +And leave the tardy conclave in debate, + +Those weighty questions in their breasts revolving +Whose deeper meaning science never learns, +Till at some reverend elder's look dissolving, +The speechless senate silently adjourns. + +But when along the waves the shrill north-easter +Shrieks through the laboring coaster's shrouds "Beware!" +The pale bird, kindling like a Christmas feaster +When some wild chorus shakes the vinous air, + +Flaps from the leaden wave in fierce rejoicing, +Feels heaven's dumb lightning thrill his torpid nerves, +Now on the blast his whistling plumage poising, +Now wheeling, whirling in fantastic curves. + +Such is our gull; a gentleman of leisure, +Less fleshed than feathered; bagged you'll find him such; +His virtue silence; his employment pleasure; +Not bad to look at, and not good for much. + +What of our duck? He has some high-bred cousins,-- +His Grace the Canvas-back, My Lord the Brant,-- +Anas and Anser,--both served up by dozens, +At Boston's Rocher, half-way to Nahant. + +As for himself, he seems alert and thriving,-- +Grubs up a living somehow--what, who knows? +Crabs? mussels? weeds?--Look quick! there 's one just diving! +Flop! Splash! his white breast glistens--down he goes! + +And while he 's under--just about a minute-- +I take advantage of the fact to say +His fishy carcase has no virtue in it +The gunning idiot's worthless hire to pay. + +Shrewd is our bird; not easy to outwit him! +Sharp is the outlook of those pin-head eyes; +Still, he is mortal and a shot may hit him, +One cannot always miss him if he tries. + +He knows you! "sportsmen" from suburban alleys, +Stretched under seaweed in the treacherous punt; +Knows every lazy, shiftless lout that sallies +Forth to waste powder--as he says, to "hunt." + +I watch you with a patient satisfaction, +Well pleased to discount your predestined luck; +The float that figures in your sly transaction +Will carry back a goose, but not a duck. + +Look! there's a young one, dreaming not of danger; +Sees a flat log come floating down the stream; +Stares undismayed upon the harmless stranger; +Ah! were all strangers harmless as they seem! + +_Habet_! a leaden shower his breast has shattered; +Vainly he flutters, not again to rise; +His soft white plumes along the waves are scattered; +Helpless the wing that braved the tempest lies. + +He sees his comrades high above him flying +To seek their nests among the island reeds; +Strong is their flight; all lonely he is lying +Washed by the crimsoned water as he bleeds. + +O Thou who carest for the falling sparrow, +Canst Thou the sinless sufferer's pang forget? +Or is thy dread account-book's page so narrow +Its one long column scores thy creatures' debt? + +Poor gentle guest, by nature kindly cherished, +A world grows dark with thee in blinding death; +One little gasp--thy universe has perished, +Wrecked by the idle thief who stole thy breath! + +Is this the whole sad story of creation, +Lived by its breathing myriads o'er and o'er,-- +One glimpse of day, then black annihilation,-- +A sunlit passage to a sunless shore? + +Give back our faith, ye mystery-solving lynxes! +Robe us once more in heaven-aspiring creeds +Happier was dreaming Egypt with her sphinxes, +The stony convent with its cross and beads! + +How often gazing where a bird reposes, +Rocked on the wavelets, drifting with the tide, +I lose myself in strange metempsychosis +And float a sea-fowl at a sea-fowl's side; + +From rain, hail, snow in feathery mantle muffled, +Clear-eyed, strong-limbed, with keenest sense to hear +My mate soft murmuring, who, with plumes unruffled, +Where'er I wander still is nestling near; + +The great blue hollow like a garment o'er me; +Space all unmeasured, unrecorded time; +While seen with inward eye moves on before me +Thought's pictured train in wordless pantomime. + +A voice recalls me.--From my window turning +I find myself a plumeless biped still; +No beak, no claws, no sign of wings discerning,-- +In fact with nothing bird-like but my quill. + + + + + +ON THE THRESHOLD + +INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION OF POEMS BYDIFFERENT AUTHORS + +AN usher standing at the door +I show my white rosette; +A smile of welcome, nothing more, +Will pay my trifling debt; +Why should I bid you idly wait +Like lovers at the swinging gate? + +Can I forget the wedding guest? +The veteran of the sea? +In vain the listener smites his breast,-- +"There was a ship," cries he! +Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale, +He needs must listen to the tale. + +He sees the gilded throng within, +The sparkling goblets gleam, +The music and the merry din +Through every window stream, +But there he shivers in the cold +Till all the crazy dream is told. + +Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye +That held his captive still +To hold my silent prisoners by +And let me have my will; +Nay, I were like the three-years' child, +To think you could be so beguiled! + +My verse is but the curtain's fold +That hides the painted scene, +The mist by morning's ray unrolled +That veils the meadow's green, +The cloud that needs must drift away +To show the rose of opening day. + +See, from the tinkling rill you hear +In hollowed palm I bring +These scanty drops, but ah, how near +The founts that heavenward spring! +Thus, open wide the gates are thrown +And founts and flowers are all your own! + + + + + +TO GEORGE PEABODY + +DANVERS, 1866 + +BANKRUPT! our pockets inside out! +Empty of words to speak his praises! +Worcester and Webster up the spout! +Dead broke of laudatory phrases! +Yet why with flowery speeches tease, +With vain superlatives distress him? +Has language better words than these? +THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD BLESS HIM! + +A simple prayer--but words more sweet +By human lips were never uttered, +Since Adam left the country seat +Where angel wings around him fluttered. +The old look on with tear-dimmed eyes, +The children cluster to caress him, +And every voice unbidden cries, +THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD BLESS HIM! + + + + + +AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB + +A LOVELY show for eyes to see +I looked upon this morning,-- +A bright-hued, feathered company +Of nature's own adorning; +But ah! those minstrels would not sing +A listening ear while I lent,-- +The lark sat still and preened his wing, +The nightingale was silent; +I longed for what they gave me not-- +Their warblings sweet and fluty, +But grateful still for all I got +I thanked them for their beauty. + +A fairer vision meets my view +Of Claras, Margarets, Marys, +In silken robes of varied hue, +Like bluebirds and canaries; +The roses blush, the jewels gleam, +The silks and satins glisten, +The black eyes flash, the blue eyes beam, +We look--and then we listen +Behold the flock we cage to-night-- +Was ever such a capture? +To see them is a pure delight; +To hear them--ah! what rapture! + +Methinks I hear Delilah's laugh +At Samson bound in fetters; +"We captured!" shrieks each lovelier half, +"Men think themselves our betters! +We push the bolt, we turn the key +On warriors, poets, sages, +Too happy, all of them, to be +Locked in our golden cages!" +Beware! the boy with bandaged eyes +Has flung away his blinder; + +He 's lost his mother--so he cries-- +And here he knows he'll find her: +The rogue! 't is but a new device,-- +Look out for flying arrows +Whene'er the birds of Paradise +Are perched amid the sparrows! + + + + + +FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + +DECEMBER 17, 1877 + +I BELIEVE that the copies of verses I've spun, +Like Scheherezade's tales, are a thousand and one; +You remember the story,--those mornings in bed,-- +'T was the turn of a copper,--a tale or a head. + +A doom like Scheherezade's falls upon me +In a mandate as stern as the Sultan's decree +I'm a florist in verse, and what would people say +If I came to a banquet without my bouquet? + +It is trying, no doubt, when the company knows +Just the look and the smell of each lily and rose, +The green of each leaf in the sprigs that I bring, +And the shape of the bunch and the knot of the string. + +Yes,--"the style is the man," and the nib of one's pen +Makes the same mark at twenty, and threescore and ten; +It is so in all matters, if truth may be told; +Let one look at the cast he can tell you the mould. + +How we all know each other! no use in disguise; +Through the holes in the mask comes the flash of the eyes; +We can tell by his--somewhat--each one of our tribe, +As we know the old hat which we cannot describe. + +Though in Hebrew, in Sanscrit, in Choctaw you write, +Sweet singer who gave us the Voices of Night, +Though in buskin or slipper your song may be shod; +Or the velvety verse that Evangeline trod, + +We shall say, "You can't cheat us,--we know it is you," +There is one voice like that, but there cannot be two, +Maestro, whose chant like the dulcimer rings +And the woods will be hushed while the nightingale sings. + +And he, so serene, so majestic, so true, +Whose temple hypethral the planets shine through, +Let us catch but five words from that mystical pen, +We should know our one sage from all children of men. + +And he whose bright image no distance can dim, +Through a hundred disguises we can't mistake him, +Whose play is all earnest, whose wit is the edge +(With a beetle behind) of a sham-splitting wedge. + +Do you know whom we send you, Hidalgos of Spain? +Do you know your old friends when you see them again? +Hosea was Sancho! you Dons of Madrid, +But Sancho that wielded the lance of the Cid! + +And the wood-thrush of Essex,--you know whom I mean, +Whose song echoes round us while he sits unseen, +Whose heart-throbs of verse through our memories thrill +Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze from the hill, + +So fervid, so simple, so loving, so pure, +We hear but one strain and our verdict is sure,-- +Thee cannot elude us,--no further we search,-- +'T is Holy George Herbert cut loose from his church! + +We think it the voice of a seraph that sings,-- +Alas! we remember that angels have wings,-- +What story is this of the day of his birth? +Let him live to a hundred! we want him on earth! + +One life has been paid him (in gold) by the sun; +One account has been squared and another begun; +But he never will die if he lingers below +Till we've paid him in love half the balance we owe! + + + + + +TWO SONNETS: HARVARD + +At the meeting of the New York Harvard Club, +February 21, 1878. + +"CHRISTO ET ECCLESLE." 1700 + +To GOD'S ANOINTED AND HIS CHOSEN FLOCK +So ran the phrase the black-robed conclave chose +To guard the sacred cloisters that arose +Like David's altar on Moriah's rock. +Unshaken still those ancient arches mock +The ram's-horn summons of the windy foes +Who stand like Joshua's army while it blows +And wait to see them toppling with the shock. +Christ and the Church. Their church, whose narrow door +Shut out the many, who if overbold +Like hunted wolves were driven from the fold, +Bruised with the flails these godly zealots bore, +Mindful that Israel's altar stood of old +Where echoed once Araunah's threshing-floor. + + +1643 "VERITAS." 1878 + +TRUTH: So the frontlet's older legend ran, +On the brief record's opening page displayed; +Not yet those clear-eyed scholars were afraid +Lest the fair fruit that wrought the woe of man +By far Euphrates--where our sire began +His search for truth, and, seeking, was betrayed-- +Might work new treason in their forest shade, +Doubling the curse that brought life's shortened span. +Nurse of the future, daughter of the past, +That stern phylactery best becomes thee now +Lift to the morning star thy marble brow +Cast thy brave truth on every warring blast! +Stretch thy white hand to that forbidden bough, +And let thine earliest symbol be thy last! + + + + + +THE COMING ERA + +THEY tell us that the Muse is soon to fly hence, +Leaving the bowers of song that once were dear, +Her robes bequeathing to her sister, Science, +The groves of Pindus for the axe to clear. + +Optics will claim the wandering eye of fancy, +Physics will grasp imagination's wings, +Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy, +The workshop hammer where the minstrel sings, + +No more with laugher at Thalia's frolics +Our eyes shall twinkle till the tears run down, +But in her place the lecturer on hydraulics +Spout forth his watery science to the town. + +No more our foolish passions and affections +The tragic Muse with mimic grief shall try, +But, nobler far, a course of vivisections +Teach what it costs a tortured brute to die. + +The unearthed monad, long in buried rocks hid, +Shall tell the secret whence our being came; +The chemist show us death is life's black oxide, +Left when the breath no longer fans its flame. + +Instead of crack-brained poets in their attics +Filling thin volumes with their flowery talk, +There shall be books of wholesome mathematics; +The tutor with his blackboard and his chalk. + +No longer bards with madrigal and sonnet +Shall woo to moonlight walks the ribboned sex, +But side by side the beaver and the bonnet +Stroll, calmly pondering on some problem's x. + +The sober bliss of serious calculation +Shall mock the trivial joys that fancy drew, +And, oh, the rapture of a solved equation,-- +One self-same answer on the lips of two! + +So speak in solemn tones our youthful sages, +Patient, severe, laborious, slow, exact, +As o'er creation's protoplasmic pages +They browse and munch the thistle crops of fact. + +And yet we 've sometimes found it rather pleasant +To dream again the scenes that Shakespeare drew,-- +To walk the hill-side with the Scottish peasant +Among the daisies wet with morning's dew; + +To leave awhile the daylight of the real, +Led by the guidance of the master's hand, +For the strange radiance of the far ideal,-- +"The light that never was on sea or land." + +Well, Time alone can lift the future's curtain,-- +Science may teach our children all she knows, +But Love will kindle fresh young hearts, 't is certain, +And June will not forget her blushing rose. + +And so, in spite of all that Time is bringing,-- +Treasures of truth and miracles of art, +Beauty and Love will keep the poet singing, +And song still live, the science of the heart. + + + + + +IN RESPONSE + +Breakfast at the Century Club, New York, May, 1879. + +SUCH kindness! the scowl of a cynic would soften, +His pulse beat its way to some eloquent words, +Alas! my poor accents have echoed too often, +Like that Pinafore music you've some of you heard. + +Do you know me, dear strangers--the hundredth time comer +At banquets and feasts since the days of my Spring? +Ah! would I could borrow one rose of my Summer, +But this is a leaf of my Autumn I bring. + + +I look at your faces,--I'm sure there are some from +The three-breasted mother I count as my own; +You think you remember the place you have come from, +But how it has changed in the years that have flown! + +Unaltered, 't is true, is the hall we call "Funnel," +Still fights the "Old South" in the battle for life, +But we've opened our door to the West through the tunnel, +And we've cut off Fort Hill with our Amazon knife. + +You should see the new Westminster Boston has builded,-- +Its mansions, its spires, its museums of arts,-- +You should see the great dome we have gorgeously gilded,-- +'T is the light of our eyes, 't is the joy of our hearts. + +When first in his path a young asteroid found it, +As he sailed through the skies with the stars in his wake, +He thought 't was the sun, and kept circling around it +Till Edison signalled, "You've made a mistake." + +We are proud of our city,--her fast-growing figure, +The warp and the woof of her brain and her hands,-- +But we're proudest of all that her heart has grown bigger, +And warms with fresh blood as her girdle expands. + +One lesson the rubric of conflict has taught her +Though parted awhile by war's earth-rending shock, +The lines that divide us are written in water, +The love that unites us cut deep in the rock. + +As well might the Judas of treason endeavor +To write his black name on the disk of the sun +As try the bright star-wreath that binds us to sever +And blot the fair legend of "Many in One." + +We love You, tall sister, the stately, the splendid,-- +The banner of empire floats high on your towers, +Yet ever in welcome your arms are extended,-- +We share in your splendors, your glory is ours. + +Yes, Queen of the Continent! All of us own thee,-- +The gold-freighted argosies flock at thy call, +The naiads, the sea-nymphs have met to enthrone thee, +But the Broadway of one is the Highway of all! + +I thank you. Three words that can hardly be mended, +Though phrases on phrases their eloquence pile, +If you hear the heart's throb with their eloquence blended, +And read all they mean in a sunshiny smile. + + + + + +FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +MAY 28, 1879. + +ENCHANTER of Erin, whose magic has bound us, +Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim, +Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us +That blush into life at the sound of thy name. + +The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers,-- +I hear the old song with its tender refrain,-- +What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers +What perfume of youth in each exquisite strain! + +The home of my childhood comes back as a vision,-- +Hark! Hark! A soft chord from its song-haunted room,-- +'T is a morning of May, when the air is Elysian,-- +The syringa in bud and the lilac in bloom,-- + +We are clustered around the "Clementi" piano,-- +There were six of us then,--there are two of us now,-- +She is singing--the girl with the silver soprano-- +How "The Lord of the Valley" was false to his vow; + +"Let Erin remember" the echoes are calling; +Through "The Vale of Avoca" the waters are rolled; +"The Exile" laments while the night-dews falling; +"The Morning of Life" dawns again as of old. + +But ah! those warm love-songs of fresh adolescence! +Around us such raptures celestial they flung +That it seemed as if Paradise breathed its quintessence +Through the seraph-toned lips of the maiden that sung! + +Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted +As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred, +Yet still with their music is memory haunted, +And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard. + +I feel like the priest to his altar returning,-- +The crowd that was kneeling no longer is there, +The flame has died down, but the brands are still burning, +And sandal and cinnamon sweeten the air. + + +II. +The veil for her bridal young Summer is weaving +In her azure-domed hall with its tapestried floor, +And Spring the last tear-drop of May-dew is leaving +On the daisy of Burns and the shamrock of Moore. + +How like, how unlike, as we view them together, +The song of the minstrels whose record we scan,-- +One fresh as the breeze blowing over the heather, +One sweet as the breath from an odalisque's fan! + +Ah, passion can glow mid a palace's splendor; +The cage does not alter the song of the bird; +And the curtain of silk has known whispers as tender +As ever the blossoming hawthorn has heard. + +No fear lest the step of the soft-slippered Graces +Should fright the young Loves from their warm little nest, +For the heart of a queen, under jewels and laces, +Beats time with the pulse in the peasant girl's breast! + +Thrice welcome each gift of kind Nature's bestowing! +Her fountain heeds little the goblet we hold; +Alike, when its musical waters are flowing, +The shell from the seaside, the chalice of gold. + +The twins of the lyre to her voices had listened; +Both laid their best gifts upon Liberty's shrine; +For Coila's loved minstrel the holly-wreath glistened; +For Erin's the rose and the myrtle entwine. + +And while the fresh blossoms of summer are braided +For the sea-girdled, stream-silvered, lake-jewelled isle, +While her mantle of verdure is woven unfaded, +While Shannon and Liffey shall dimple and smile, + +The land where the staff of Saint Patrick was planted, +Where the shamrock grows green from the cliffs to the shore, +The land of fair maidens and heroes undaunted, +Shall wreathe her bright harp with the garlands of Moore! + + + + + +TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE + +APRIL 4, 1880 + +I BRING the simplest pledge of love, +Friend of my earlier days; +Mine is the hand without the glove, +The heart-beat, not the phrase. + +How few still breathe this mortal air +We called by school-boy names! +You still, whatever robe you wear, +To me are always James. + +That name the kind apostle bore +Who shames the sullen creeds, +Not trusting less, but loving more, +And showing faith by deeds. + +What blending thoughts our memories share! +What visions yours and mine +Of May-days in whose morning air +The dews were golden wine, + +Of vistas bright with opening day, +Whose all-awakening sun +Showed in life's landscape, far away, +The summits to be won! + +The heights are gained. Ah, say not so +For him who smiles at time, +Leaves his tired comrades down below, +And only lives to climb! + +His labors,--will they ever cease,-- +With hand and tongue and pen? +Shall wearied Nature ask release +At threescore years and ten? + +Our strength the clustered seasons tax,-- +For him new life they mean; +Like rods around the lictor's axe +They keep him bright and keen. + +The wise, the brave, the strong, we know,-- +We mark them here or there, +But he,--we roll our eyes, and lo! +We find him everywhere! + +With truth's bold cohorts, or alone, +He strides through error's field; +His lance is ever manhood's own, +His breast is woman's shield. + +Count not his years while earth has need +Of souls that Heaven inflames +With sacred zeal to save, to lead,-- +Long live our dear Saint James! + + + + + +WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB + +January 14, 1880 + +CHICAGO sounds rough to the maker of verse; +One comfort we have--Cincinnati sounds worse; +If we only were licensed to say Chicago! +But Worcester and Webster won't let us, you know. + +No matter, we songsters must sing as we can; +We can make some nice couplets with Lake Michigan, +And what more resembles a nightingale's voice, +Than the oily trisyllable, sweet Illinois? + +Your waters are fresh, while our harbor is salt, +But we know you can't help it--it is n't your fault; +Our city is old and your city is new, +But the railroad men tell us we're greener than you. + +You have seen our gilt dome, and no doubt you've been told +That the orbs of the universe round it are rolled; +But I'll own it to you, and I ought to know best, +That this is n't quite true of all stars of the West. + +You'll go to Mount Auburn,--we'll show you the track,-- +And can stay there,--unless you prefer to come back; +And Bunker's tall shaft you can climb if you will, +But you'll puff like a paragraph praising a pill. + +You must see--but you have seen--our old Faneuil Hall, +Our churches, our school-rooms, our sample-rooms, all; +And, perhaps, though the idiots must have their jokes, +You have found our good people much like other folks. + +There are cities by rivers, by lakes, and by seas, +Each as full of itself as a cheese-mite of cheese; +And a city will brag as a game-cock will crow +Don't your cockerels at home--just a little, you know? + +But we'll crow for you now--here's a health to the boys, +Men, maidens, and matrons of fair Illinois, +And the rainbow of friendship that arches its span +From the green of the sea to the blue Michigan! + + + + + +AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +MAY 26, 1880 + +SIRE, son, and grandson; so the century glides; +Three lives, three strides, three foot-prints in the sand; +Silent as midnight's falling meteor slides +Into the stillness of the far-off land; +How dim the space its little arc has spanned! + +See on this opening page the names renowned +Tombed in these records on our dusty shelves, +Scarce on the scroll of living memory found, +Save where the wan-eyed antiquarian delves; +Shadows they seem; ab, what are we ourselves? + +Pale ghosts of Bowdoin, Winthrop, Willard, West, +Sages of busy brain and wrinkled brow, +Searchers of Nature's secrets unconfessed, +Asking of all things Whence and Why and How-- +What problems meet your larger vision now? + +Has Gannett tracked the wild Aurora's path? +Has Bowdoin found his all-surrounding sphere? +What question puzzles ciphering Philomath? +Could Williams make the hidden causes clear +Of the Dark Day that filled the land with fear? + +Dear ancient school-boys! Nature taught to them +The simple lessons of the star and flower, +Showed them strange sights; how on a single stem,-- +Admire the marvels of Creative Power!-- +Twin apples grew, one sweet, the other sour; + +How from the hill-top where our eyes beheld +In even ranks the plumed and bannered maize +Range its long columns, in the days of old +The live volcano shot its angry blaze,-- +Dead since the showers of Noah's watery days; + +How, when the lightning split the mighty rock, +The spreading fury of the shaft was spent! +How the young scion joined the alien stock, +And when and where the homeless swallows went +To pass the winter of their discontent. + +Scant were the gleanings in those years of dearth; +No Cuvier yet had clothed the fossil bones +That slumbered, waiting for their second birth; +No Lyell read the legend of the stones; +Science still pointed to her empty thrones. + +Dreaming of orbs to eyes of earth unknown, +Herschel looked heavenwards in the starlight pale; +Lost in those awful depths he trod alone, +Laplace stood mute before the lifted veil; +While home-bred Humboldt trimmed his toy ship's sail. + +No mortal feet these loftier heights had gained +Whence the wide realms of Nature we descry; +In vain their eyes our longing fathers strained +To scan with wondering gaze the summits high +That far beneath their children's footpaths lie. + +Smile at their first small ventures as we may, +The school-boy's copy shapes the scholar's hand, +Their grateful memory fills our hearts to-day; +Brave, hopeful, wise, this bower of peace they planned, +While war's dread ploughshare scarred the suffering land. + +Child of our children's children yet unborn, +When on this yellow page you turn your eyes, +Where the brief record of this May-day morn +In phrase antique and faded letters lies, +How vague, how pale our flitting ghosts will rise! + +Yet in our veins the blood ran warm and red, +For us the fields were green, the skies were blue, +Though from our dust the spirit long has fled, +We lived, we loved, we toiled, we dreamed like you, +Smiled at our sires and thought how much we knew. + +Oh might our spirits for one hour return, +When the next century rounds its hundredth ring, +All the strange secrets it shall teach to learn, +To hear the larger truths its years shall bring, +Its wiser sages talk, its sweeter minstrels sing! + + + + + +THE SCHOOL-BOY + +Read at the Centennial Celebration of the +foundation of Phillips Academy, Andover. + +1778-1878 + +THESE hallowed precincts, long to memory dear, +Smile with fresh welcome as our feet draw near; +With softer gales the opening leaves are fanned, +With fairer hues the kindling flowers expand, +The rose-bush reddens with the blush of June, +The groves are vocal with their minstrels' tune, +The mighty elm, beneath whose arching shade +The wandering children of the forest strayed, +Greets the bright morning in its bridal dress, +And spreads its arms the gladsome dawn to bless. +Is it an idle dream that nature shares +Our joys, our griefs, our pastimes, and our cares? +Is there no summons when, at morning's call, +The sable vestments of the darkness fall? +Does not meek evening's low-voiced Ave blend +With the soft vesper as its notes ascend? +Is there no whisper in the perfumed air +When the sweet bosom of the rose is bare? +Does not the sunshine call us to rejoice? +Is there no meaning in the storm-cloud's voice? +No silent message when from midnight skies +Heaven looks upon us with its myriad eyes? + +Or shift the mirror; say our dreams diffuse +O'er life's pale landscape their celestial hues, +Lend heaven the rainbow it has never known, +And robe the earth in glories not its own, +Sing their own music in the summer breeze, +With fresher foliage clothe the stately trees, +Stain the June blossoms with a livelier dye +And spread a bluer azure on the sky,-- +Blest be the power that works its lawless will +And finds the weediest patch an Eden still; +No walls so fair as those our fancies build,-- +No views so bright as those our visions gild! + +So ran my lines, as pen and paper met, +The truant goose-quill travelling like Planchette; +Too ready servant, whose deceitful ways +Full many a slipshod line, alas! betrays; +Hence of the rhyming thousand not a few +Have builded worse--a great deal--than they knew. + +What need of idle fancy to adorn +Our mother's birthplace on her birthday morn? +Hers are the blossoms of eternal spring, +From these green boughs her new-fledged birds take wing, +These echoes hear their earliest carols sung, +In this old nest the brood is ever young. +If some tired wanderer, resting from his flight, +Amid the gay young choristers alight, +These gather round him, mark his faded plumes +That faintly still the far-off grove perfumes, +And listen, wondering if some feeble note +Yet lingers, quavering in his weary throat:-- +I, whose fresh voice yon red-faced temple knew, +What tune is left me, fit to sing to you? +Ask not the grandeurs of a labored song, +But let my easy couplets slide along; +Much could I tell you that you know too well; +Much I remember, but I will not tell; +Age brings experience; graybeards oft are wise, +But oh! how sharp a youngster's ears and eyes! + +My cheek was bare of adolescent down +When first I sought the academic town; +Slow rolls the coach along the dusty road, +Big with its filial and parental load; +The frequent hills, the lonely woods are past, +The school-boy's chosen home is reached at last. +I see it now, the same unchanging spot, +The swinging gate, the little garden plot, +The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor, +The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, +The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, +The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still; +Two, creased with age,--or what I then called age,-- +Life's volume open at its fiftieth page; +One, a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet +As the first snow-drop, which the sunbeams greet; +One, the last nursling's; slight she was, and fair, +Her smooth white forehead warmed with auburn hair; +Last came the virgin Hymen long had spared, +Whose daily cares the grateful household shared, +Strong, patient, humble; her substantial frame +Stretched the chaste draperies I forbear to name. +Brave, but with effort, had the school-boy come +To the cold comfort of a stranger's home; +How like a dagger to my sinking heart +Came the dry summons, "It is time to part; +Good-by!" "Goo-ood-by!" one fond maternal kiss. . . . +Homesick as death! Was ever pang like this? +Too young as yet with willing feet to stray +From the tame fireside, glad to get away,-- +Too old to let my watery grief appear,-- +And what so bitter as a swallowed tear! +One figure still my vagrant thoughts pursue; +First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you? +Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how +You learned it all,--are you an angel now, +Or tottering gently down the slope of years, +Your face grown sober in the vale of tears? +Forgive my freedom if you are breathing still; + +If in a happier world, I know you will. +You were a school-boy--what beneath the sun +So like a monkey? I was also one. +Strange, sure enough, to see what curious shoots +The nursery raises from the study's roots! +In those old days the very, very good +Took up more room--a little--than they should; +Something too much one's eyes encountered then +Of serious youth and funeral-visaged men; +The solemn elders saw life's mournful half,-- +Heaven sent this boy, whose mission was to laugh, +Drollest of buffos, Nature's odd protest, +A catbird squealing in a blackbird's nest. +Kind, faithful Nature! While the sour-eyed Scot-- +Her cheerful smiles forbidden or forgot-- +Talks only of his preacher and his kirk,-- +Hears five-hour sermons for his Sunday work,-- +Praying and fasting till his meagre face +Gains its due length, the genuine sign of grace,-- +An Ayrshire mother in the land of Knox +Her embryo poet in his cradle rocks;-- +Nature, long shivering in her dim eclipse, +Steals in a sunbeam to those baby lips; +So to its home her banished smile returns, +And Scotland sweetens with the song of Burns! + +The morning came; I reached the classic hall; +A clock-face eyed me, staring from the wall; +Beneath its hands a printed line I read +YOUTH IS LIFE'S SEED-TIME: so the clock-face said: +Some took its counsel, as the sequel showed,-- +Sowed,--their wild oats,--and reaped as they had sowed. +How all comes back! the upward slanting floor,-- +The masters' thrones that flank the central door,-- +The long, outstretching alleys that divide +The rows of desks that stand on either side,-- +The staring boys, a face to every desk, +Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, picturesque. +Grave is the Master's look; his forehead wears +Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares; +Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule, +His most of all whose kingdom is a school. +Supreme he sits; before the awful frown +That bends his brows the boldest eye goes down; +Not more submissive Israel heard and saw +At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. +Less stern he seems, who sits in equal Mate +On the twin throne and shares the empire's weight; +Around his lips the subtle life that plays +Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting phrase; +A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, +Pleasant when pleased; rough-handled, not so safe; +Some tingling memories vaguely I recall, +But to forgive him. God forgive us all! + +One yet remains, whose well-remembered name +Pleads in my grateful heart its tender claim; +His was the charm magnetic, the bright look +That sheds its sunshine on the dreariest book; +A loving soul to every task he brought +That sweetly mingled with the lore he taught; +Sprung from a saintly race that never could +From youth to age be anything but good, +His few brief years in holiest labors spent, +Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had lent. +Kindest of teachers, studious to divine +Some hint of promise in my earliest line, +These faint and faltering words thou canst not hear +Throb from a heart that holds thy memory dear. +As to the traveller's eye the varied plain +Shows through the window of the flying train, +A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, +A gravelly bank, a sudden flash of green, +A tangled wood, a glittering stream that flows +Through the cleft summit where the cliff once rose, +All strangely blended in a hurried gleam, +Rock, wood, waste, meadow, village, hill-side, stream,-- +So, as we look behind us, life appears, +Seen through the vista of our bygone years. +Yet in the dead past's shadow-filled domain, +Some vanished shapes the hues of life retain; +Unbidden, oft, before our dreaming eyes +From the vague mists in memory's path they rise. +So comes his blooming image to my view, +The friend of joyous days when life was new, +Hope yet untamed, the blood of youth unchilled, +No blank arrear of promise unfulfilled, +Life's flower yet hidden in its sheltering fold, +Its pictured canvas yet to be unrolled. +His the frank smile I vainly look to greet, +His the warm grasp my clasping hand should meet; +How would our lips renew their school-boy talk, +Our feet retrace the old familiar walk! +For thee no more earth's cheerful morning shines +Through the green fringes of the tented pines; +Ah me! is heaven so far thou canst not hear, +Or is thy viewless spirit hovering near, +A fair young presence, bright with morning's glow, +The fresh-cheeked boy of fifty years ago? +Yes, fifty years, with all their circling suns, +Behind them all my glance reverted runs; +Where now that time remote, its griefs, its joys, +Where are its gray-haired men, its bright-haired boys? +Where is the patriarch time could hardly tire,-- +The good old, wrinkled, immemorial "squire "? +(An honest treasurer, like a black-plumed swan, +Not every day our eyes may look upon.) +Where the tough champion who, with Calvin's sword, +In wordy conflicts battled for the Lord? +Where the grave scholar, lonely, calm, austere, +Whose voice like music charmed the listening ear, +Whose light rekindled, like the morning star +Still shines upon us through the gates ajar? +Where the still, solemn, weary, sad-eyed man, +Whose care-worn face nf'y wandering eyes would scan,-- +His features wasted in the lingering strife +With the pale foe that drains the student's life? +Where my old friend, the scholar, teacher, saint, +Whose creed, some hinted, showed a speck of taint; +He broached his own opinion, which is not +Lightly to be forgiven or forgot; +Some riddle's point,--I scarce remember now,-- +Homoi-, perhaps, where they said homo-ou. +(If the unlettered greatly wish to know +Where lies the difference betwixt oi and o, +Those of the curious who have time may search +Among the stale conundrums of their church.) +Beneath his roof his peaceful life I shared, +And for his modes of faith I little cared,-- +I, taught to judge men's dogmas by their deeds, +Long ere the days of india-rubber creeds. + +Why should we look one common faith to find, +Where one in every score is color-blind? +If here on earth they know not red from green, +Will they see better into things unseen! +Once more to time's old graveyard I return +And scrape the moss from memory's pictured urn. +Who, in these days when all things go by steam, +Recalls the stage-coach with its four-horse team? +Its sturdy driver,--who remembers him? +Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim, +Who left our hill-top for a new abode +And reared his sign-post farther down the road? +Still in the waters of the dark Shawshine +Do the young bathers splash and think they're clean? +Do pilgrims find their way to Indian Ridge, +Or journey onward to the far-off bridge, +And bring to younger ears the story back +Of the broad stream, the mighty Merrimac? +Are there still truant feet that stray beyond +These circling bounds to Pomp's or Haggett's Pond, +Or where the legendary name recalls +The forest's earlier tenant,--"Deerjump Falls"? +Yes, every nook these youthful feet explore, +Just as our sires and grand sires did of yore; +So all life's opening paths, where nature led +Their father's feet, the children's children tread. +Roll the round century's fivescore years away, +Call from our storied past that earliest day +When great Eliphalet (I can see him now,-- +Big name, big frame, big voice, and beetling brow), +Then young Eliphalet,--ruled the rows of boys +In homespun gray or old-world corduroys,-- +And save for fashion's whims, the benches show +The self-same youths, the very boys we know. +Time works strange marvels: since I trod the green +And swung the gates, what wonders I have seen! +But come what will,--the sky itself may fall,-- +As things of course the boy accepts them all. +The prophet's chariot, drawn by steeds of flame, +For daily use our travelling millions claim; +The face we love a sunbeam makes our own; +No more the surgeon hears the sufferer's groan; +What unwrit histories wrapped in darkness lay +Till shovelling Schliemann bared them to the day! +Your Richelieu says, and says it well, my lord, +The pen is (sometimes) mightier than the sword; +Great is the goosequill, say we all; Amen! +Sometimes the spade is mightier than the pen; +It shows where Babel's terraced walls were raised, +The slabs that cracked when Nimrod's palace blazed, +Unearths Mycenee, rediscovers Troy,-- +Calmly he listens, that immortal boy. +A new Prometheus tips our wands with fire, +A mightier Orpheus strains the whispering wire, +Whose lightning thrills the lazy winds outrun +And hold the hours as Joshua stayed the sun,-- +So swift, in truth, we hardly find a place +For those dim fictions known as time and space. +Still a new miracle each year supplies,-- +See at his work the chemist of the skies, +Who questions Sirius in his tortured rays +And steals the secret of the solar blaze; +Hush! while the window-rattling bugles play +The nation's airs a hundred miles away! +That wicked phonograph! hark! how it swears! +Turn it again and make it say its prayers! +And was it true, then, what the story said +Of Oxford's friar and his brazen head? +While wondering Science stands, herself perplexed +At each day's miracle, and asks "What next?" +The immortal boy, the coming heir of all, +Springs from his desk to "urge the flying ball," +Cleaves with his bending oar the glassy waves, +With sinewy arm the dashing current braves, +The same bright creature in these haunts of ours +That Eton shadowed with her "antique towers." + +Boy! Where is he? the long-limbed youth inquires, +Whom his rough chin with manly pride inspires; +Ah, when the ruddy cheek no longer glows, +When the bright hair is white as winter snows, +When the dim eye has lost its lambent flame, +Sweet to his ear will be his school-boy name +Nor think the difference mighty as it seems +Between life's morning and its evening dreams; +Fourscore, like twenty, has its tasks and toys; +In earth's wide school-house all are girls and boys. + +Brothers, forgive my wayward fancy. Who +Can guess beforehand what his pen will do? +Too light my strain for listeners such as these, +Whom graver thoughts and soberer speech shall please. +Is he not here whose breath of holy song +Has raised the downcast eyes of Faith so long? +Are they not here, the strangers in your gates, +For whom the wearied ear impatient waits,-- +The large-brained scholars whom their toils release,-- +The bannered heralds of the Prince of Peace? + +Such was the gentle friend whose youth unblamed +In years long past our student-benches claimed; +Whose name, illumined on the sacred page, +Lives in the labors of his riper age; +Such he whose record time's destroying march +Leaves uneffaced on Zion's springing arch +Not to the scanty phrase of measured song, +Cramped in its fetters, names like these belong; +One ray they lend to gild my slender line,-- +Their praise I leave to sweeter lips than mine. + +Homes of our sires, where Learning's temple rose, +While vet they struggled with their banded foes, +As in the West thy century's sun descends, +One parting gleam its dying radiance lends. +Darker and deeper though the shadows fall +From the gray towers on Doubting Castle's wall, +Though Pope and Pagan re-array their hosts, +And her new armor youthful Science boasts, +Truth, for whose altar rose this holy shrine, +Shall fly for refuge to these bowers of thine; +No past shall chain her with its rusted vow, +No Jew's phylactery bind her Christian brow, +But Faith shall smile to find her sister free, +And nobler manhood draw its life from thee. + +Long as the arching skies above thee spread, +As on thy groves the dews of heaven are shed, +With currents widening still from year to year, +And deepening channels, calm, untroubled, clear, +Flow the twin streamlets from thy sacred hill-- +Pieria's fount and Siloam's shaded rill! + + + + + +THE SILENT MELODY + +"BRING me my broken harp," he said; +"We both are wrecks,--but as ye will,-- +Though all its ringing tones have fled, +Their echoes linger round it still; +It had some golden strings, I know, +But that was long--how long!--ago. + +"I cannot see its tarnished gold, +I cannot hear its vanished tone, +Scarce can my trembling fingers hold +The pillared frame so long their own; +We both are wrecks,--a while ago +It had some silver strings, I know, + +"But on them Time too long has played +The solemn strain that knows no change, +And where of old my fingers strayed +The chords they find are new and strange,-- +Yes! iron strings,--I know,--I know,-- +We both are wrecks of long ago. + +"We both are wrecks,--a shattered pair,-- +Strange to ourselves in time's disguise . +What say ye to the lovesick air +That brought the tears from Marian's eyes? +Ay! trust me,--under breasts of snow +Hearts could be melted long ago! + +"Or will ye hear the storm-song's crash +That from his dreams the soldier woke, +And bade him face the lightning flash +When battle's cloud in thunder broke? . . . +Wrecks,--nought but wrecks!--the time was when +We two were worth a thousand men!" + +And so the broken harp they bring +With pitying smiles that none could blame; +Alas! there's not a single string +Of all that filled the tarnished frame! +But see! like children overjoyed, +His fingers rambling through the void! + +"I clasp thee! Ay . . . mine ancient lyre . . . +Nay, guide my wandering fingers. . . There +They love to dally with the wire +As Isaac played with Esau's hair. +Hush! ye shall hear the famous tune +That Marian called the Breath of June!" + +And so they softly gather round +Rapt in his tuneful trance he seems +His fingers move: but not a sound! +A silence like the song of dreams. . . . +"There! ye have heard the air," he cries, +"That brought the tears from Marian's eyes!" + +Ah, smile not at his fond conceit, +Nor deem his fancy wrought in vain; +To him the unreal sounds are sweet,-- +No discord mars the silent strain +Scored on life's latest, starlit page-- +The voiceless melody of age. + +Sweet are the lips, of all that sing, +When Nature's music breathes unsought, +But never yet could voice or string +So truly shape our tenderest thought +As when by life's decaying fire +Our fingers sweep the stringless lyre! + + + + + +OUR HOME--OUR COUNTRY + +FOR THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE +SETTLEMENT OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS., DECEMBER 28, 1880 + +YOUR home was mine,--kind Nature's gift; +My love no years can chill; +In vain their flakes the storm-winds sift, +The snow-drop hides beneath the drift, +A living blossom still. + +Mute are a hundred long-famed lyres, +Hushed all their golden strings; +One lay the coldest bosom fires, +One song, one only, never tires +While sweet-voiced memory sings. + +No spot so lone but echo knows +That dear familiar strain; +In tropic isles, on arctic snows, +Through burning lips its music flows +And rings its fond refrain. + +From Pisa's tower my straining sight +Roamed wandering leagues away, +When lo! a frigate's banner bright, +The starry blue, the red, the white, +In far Livorno's bay. + +Hot leaps the life-blood from my heart, +Forth springs the sudden tear; +The ship that rocks by yonder mart +Is of my land, my life, a part,-- +Home, home, sweet home, is here! + +Fades from my view the sunlit scene,-- +My vision spans the waves; +I see the elm-encircled green, +The tower,--the steeple,--and, between, +The field of ancient graves. + +There runs the path my feet would tread +When first they learned to stray; +There stands the gambrel roof that spread +Its quaint old angles o'er my head +When first I saw the day. + +The sounds that met my boyish ear +My inward sense salute,-- +The woodnotes wild I loved to hear,-- +The robin's challenge, sharp and clear,-- +The breath of evening's flute. + +The faces loved from cradle days,-- +Unseen, alas, how long! +As fond remembrance round them plays, +Touched with its softening moonlight rays, +Through fancy's portal throng. + +And see! as if the opening skies +Some angel form had spared +Us wingless mortals to surprise, +The little maid with light-blue eyes, +White necked and golden haired! + + . . . . . . . . . . + +So rose the picture full in view +I paint in feebler song; +Such power the seamless banner knew +Of red and white and starry blue +For exiles banished long. + +Oh, boys, dear boys, who wait as men +To guard its heaven-bright folds, +Blest are the eyes that see again +That banner, seamless now, as then,-- +The fairest earth beholds! + +Sweet was the Tuscan air and soft +In that unfading hour, +And fancy leads my footsteps oft +Up the round galleries, high aloft +On Pisa's threatening tower. + +And still in Memory's holiest shrine +I read with pride and joy, +"For me those stars of empire shine; +That empire's dearest home is mine; +I am a Cambridge boy!" + + + + + +POEM + +AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE +MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 8, 1881 + +THREE paths there be where Learning's favored sons, +Trained in the schools which hold her favored ones, +Follow their several stars with separate aim; +Each has its honors, each its special claim. +Bred in the fruitful cradle of the East, +First, as of oldest lineage, comes the Priest; +The Lawyer next, in wordy conflict strong, +Full armed to battle for the right,--or wrong; +Last, he whose calling finds its voice in deeds, +Frail Nature's helper in her sharpest needs. + +Each has his gifts, his losses and his gains, +Each his own share of pleasures and of pains; +No life-long aim with steadfast eye pursued +Finds a smooth pathway all with roses strewed; +Trouble belongs to man of woman born,-- +Tread where he may, his foot will find its thorn. + +Of all the guests at life's perennial feast, +Who of her children sits above the Priest? +For him the broidered robe, the carven seat, +Pride at his beck, and beauty at his feet, +For him the incense fumes, the wine is poured, +Himself a God, adoring and adored! +His the first welcome when our hearts rejoice, +His in our dying ear the latest voice, +Font, altar, grave, his steps on all attend, +Our staff, our stay, our all but heavenly friend! + +Where is the meddling hand that dares to probe +The secret grief beneath his sable robe? +How grave his port! how every gesture tells +Here truth abides, here peace forever dwells; +Vex not his lofty soul with comments vain; +Faith asks no questions; silence, ye profane! + +Alas! too oft while all is calm without +The stormy spirit wars with endless doubt; +This is the mocking spectre, scarce concealed +Behind tradition's bruised and battered shield. +He sees the sleepless critic, age by age, +Scrawl his new readings on the hallowed page, +The wondrous deeds that priests and prophets saw +Dissolved in legend, crystallized in law, +And on the soil where saints and martyrs trod +Altars new builded to the Unknown God; +His shrines imperilled, his evangels torn,-- +He dares not limp, but ah! how sharp his thorn! + +Yet while God's herald questions as he reads +The outworn dogmas of his ancient creeds, +Drops from his ritual the exploded verse, +Blots from its page the Athanasian curse, +Though by the critic's dangerous art perplexed, +His holy life is Heaven's unquestioned text; +That shining guidance doubt can never mar,-- +The pillar's flame, the light of Bethlehem's star! + + +Strong is the moral blister that will draw +Laid on the conscience of the Man of Law +Whom blindfold Justice lends her eyes to see +Truth in the scale that holds his promised fee. +What! Has not every lie its truthful side, +Its honest fraction, not to be denied? +Per contra,--ask the moralist,--in sooth +Has not a lie its share in every truth? +Then what forbids an honest man to try +To find the truth that lurks in every lie, +And just as fairly call on truth to yield +The lying fraction in its breast concealed? +So the worst rogue shall claim a ready friend +His modest virtues boldly to defend, +And he who shows the record of a saint +See himself blacker than the devil could paint. + +What struggles to his captive soul belong +Who loves the right, yet combats for the wrong, +Who fights the battle he would fain refuse, +And wins, well knowing that he ought to lose, +Who speaks with glowing lips and look sincere +In spangled words that make the worse appear +The better reason; who, behind his mask, +Hides his true self and blushes at his task,-- +What quips, what quillets cheat the inward scorn +That mocks such triumph? Has he not his thorn? + +Yet stay thy judgment; were thy life the prize, +Thy death the forfeit, would thy cynic eyes +See fault in him who bravely dares defend +The cause forlorn, the wretch without a friend +Nay, though the rightful side is wisdom's choice, +Wrong has its rights and claims a champion's voice; +Let the strong arm be lifted for the weak, +For the dumb lips the fluent pleader speak;-- +When with warm "rebel" blood our street was dyed +Who took, unawed, the hated hirelings' side? +No greener civic wreath can Adams claim, +No brighter page the youthful Quincy's name! + + +How blest is he who knows no meaner strife +Than Art's long battle with the foes of life! +No doubt assails him, doing still his best, +And trusting kindly Nature for the rest; +No mocking conscience tears the thin disguise +That wraps his breast, and tells him that he lies. +He comes: the languid sufferer lifts his head +And smiles a welcome from his weary bed; +He speaks: what music like the tones that tell, +"Past is the hour of danger,--all is well!" +How can he feel the petty stings of grief +Whose cheering presence always brings relief? +What ugly dreams can trouble his repose +Who yields himself to soothe another's woes? + +Hour after hour the busy day has found +The good physician on his lonely round; +Mansion and hovel, low and lofty door, +He knows, his journeys every path explore,-- +Where the cold blast has struck with deadly chill +The sturdy dweller on the storm-swept hill, +Where by the stagnant marsh the sickening gale +Has blanched the poisoned tenants of the vale, +Where crushed and maimed the bleeding victim lies, +Where madness raves, where melancholy sighs, +And where the solemn whisper tells too plain +That all his science, all his art, were vain. + +How sweet his fireside when the day is done +And cares have vanished with the setting sun! +Evening at last its hour of respite brings +And on his couch his weary length he flings. +Soft be thy pillow, servant of mankind, +Lulled by an opiate Art could never find; +Sweet be thy slumber,--thou hast earned it well,-- +Pleasant thy dreams! Clang! goes the midnight bell! + +Darkness and storm! the home is far away +That waits his coming ere the break of day; +The snow-clad pines their wintry plumage toss,-- +Doubtful the frozen stream his road must cross; +Deep lie the drifts, the slanted heaps have shut +The hardy woodman in his mountain hut,-- +Why should thy softer frame the tempest brave? +Hast thou no life, no health, to lose or save? +Look! read the answer in his patient eyes,-- +For him no other voice when suffering cries; +Deaf to the gale that all around him blows, +A feeble whisper calls him,--and he goes. + +Or seek the crowded city,--summer's heat +Glares burning, blinding, in the narrow street, +Still, noisome, deadly, sleeps the envenomed air, +Unstirred the yellow flag that says "Beware!" +Tempt not thy fate,--one little moment's breath +Bears on its viewless wing the seeds of death; +Thou at whose door the gilded chariots stand, +Whose dear-bought skill unclasps the miser's hand, +Turn from thy fatal quest, nor cast away +That life so precious; let a meaner prey +Feed the destroyer's hunger; live to bless +Those happier homes that need thy care no less! + +Smiling he listens; has he then a charm +Whose magic virtues peril can disarm? +No safeguard his; no amulet he wears, +Too well he knows that Nature never spares +Her truest servant, powerless to defend +From her own weapons her unshrinking friend. +He dares the fate the bravest well might shun, +Nor asks reward save only Heaven's "Well done!" + +Such are the toils, the perils that he knows, +Days without rest and nights without repose, +Yet all unheeded for the love he bears +His art, his kind, whose every grief he shares. + +Harder than these to know how small the part +Nature's proud empire yields to striving Art; +How, as the tide that rolls around the sphere +Laughs at the mounds that delving arms uprear,-- +Spares some few roods of oozy earth, but still +Wastes and rebuilds the planet at its will, +Comes at its ordered season, night or noon, +Led by the silver magnet of the moon,-- +So life's vast tide forever comes and goes, +Unchecked, resistless, as it ebbs and flows. + +Hardest of all, when Art has done her best, +To find the cuckoo brooding in her nest; +The shrewd adventurer, fresh from parts unknown, +Kills off the patients Science thought her own; +Towns from a nostrum-vender get their name, +Fences and walls the cure-all drug proclaim, +Plasters and pads the willing world beguile, +Fair Lydia greets us with astringent smile, +Munchausen's fellow-countryman unlocks +His new Pandora's globule-holding box, +And as King George inquired, with puzzled grin, +"How--how the devil get the apple in?" +So we ask how,--with wonder-opening eyes,-- +Such pygmy pills can hold such giant lies! + +Yes, sharp the trials, stern the daily tasks +That suffering Nature from her servant asks; +His the kind office dainty menials scorn, +His path how hard,--at every step a thorn! +What does his saddening, restless slavery buy? +What save a right to live, a chance to die,-- +To live companion of disease and pain, +To die by poisoned shafts untimely slain? + +Answer from hoary eld, majestic shades,-- +From Memphian courts, from Delphic colonnades, +Speak in the tones that Persia's despot heard +When nations treasured every golden word +The wandering echoes wafted o'er the seas, +From the far isle that held Hippocrates; +And thou, best gift that Pergamus could send +Imperial Rome, her noblest Caesar's friend, +Master of masters, whose unchallenged sway +Not bold Vesalius dared to disobey; +Ye who while prophets dreamed of dawning times +Taught your rude lessons in Salerno's rhymes, +And ye, the nearer sires, to whom we owe +The better share of all the best we know, +In every land an ever-growing train, +Since wakening Science broke her rusted chain,-- +Speak from the past, and say what prize was sent +To crown the toiling years so freely spent! + +List while they speak: + In life's uneven road +Our willing hands have eased our brothers' load; +One forehead smoothed, one pang of torture less, +One peaceful hour a sufferer's couch to bless, +The smile brought back to fever's parching lips, +The light restored to reason in eclipse, +Life's treasure rescued like a burning brand +Snatched from the dread destroyer's wasteful hand; +Such were our simple records day by day, +For gains like these we wore our lives away. +In toilsome paths our daily bread we sought, +But bread from heaven attending angels brought; +Pain was our teacher, speaking to the heart, +Mother of pity, nurse of pitying art; +Our lesson learned, we reached the peaceful shore +Where the pale sufferer asks our aid no more,-- +These gracious words our welcome, our reward +Ye served your brothers; ye have served your Lord! + + + + + +RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME + +FROM the first gleam of morning to the gray +Of peaceful evening, lo, a life unrolled! +In woven pictures all its changes told, +Its lights, its shadows, every flitting ray, +Till the long curtain, falling, dims the day, +Steals from the dial's disk the sunlight's gold, +And all the graven hours grow dark and cold +Where late the glowing blaze of noontide lay. +Ah! the warm blood runs wild in youthful veins,-- +Let me no longer play with painted fire; +New songs for new-born days! I would not tire +The listening ears that wait for fresher strains +In phrase new-moulded, new-forged rhythmic chains, +With plaintive measures from a worn-out lyre. +August 2, 1881. + + +=== + + + + + BEFORE THE CURFEW + +AT MY FIRESIDE + +ALONE, beneath the darkened sky, +With saddened heart and unstrung lyre, +I heap the spoils of years gone by, +And leave them with a long-drawn sigh, +Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie, +Before the ashes hide the fire. + +Let not these slow declining days +The rosy light of dawn outlast; +Still round my lonely hearth it plays, +And gilds the east with borrowed rays, +While memory's mirrored sunset blaze +Flames on the windows of the past. + +March 1, 1888. + + + + + +AT THE SATURDAY CLUB +THIS is our place of meeting; opposite +That towered and pillared building: look at it; +King's Chapel in the Second George's day, +Rebellion stole its regal name away,-- +Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last +The poisoned name of our provincial past +Had lost its ancient venom; then once more +Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before. +(So let rechristened North Street, when it can, +Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!) +Next the old church your wandering eye will meet-- +A granite pile that stares upon the street-- +Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said +Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head, +Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by +Say Boston always held her head too high. +Turn half-way round, and let your look survey +The white facade that gleams across the way,-- +The many-windowed building, tall and wide, +The palace-inn that shows its northern side +In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat +The granite wall in summer's scorching heat. +This is the place; whether its name you spell +Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel. +Would I could steal its echoes! you should find +Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind +Such feasts! the laughs of many a jocund hour +That shook the mortar from King George's tower; +Such guests! What famous names its record boasts, +Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts! +Such stories! Every beam and plank is filled +With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, +Ready to ooze, as once the mountain pine +The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine! + +A month had flitted since The Club had met; +The day came round; I found the table set, +The waiters lounging round the marble stairs, +Empty as yet the double row of chairs. +I was a full half hour before the rest, +Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest. +So from the table's side a chair I took, +And having neither company nor book +To keep me waking, by degrees there crept +A torpor over me,--in short, I slept. + +Loosed from its chain, along the wreck-strown track +Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back; +My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it seems +Dreaming is life; nay, life less life than dreams, +So real are the shapes that meet my eyes. +They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, +No hint of other than an earth-born source; +All seems plain daylight, everything of course. + +How dim the colors are, how poor and faint +This palette of weak words with which I paint! +Here sit my friends; if I could fix them so +As to my eyes they seem, my page would glow +Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush +Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush +Of life into their features. Ay de mi! +If syllables were pigments, you should see +Such breathing portraitures as never man +Found in the Pitti or the Vatican. + +Here sits our POET, Laureate, if you will. +Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it still. +Dead? Nay, not so; and yet they say his bust +Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, +Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's grace; +Dead! No! Alive! I see him in his place, +Full-featured, with the bloom that heaven denies +Her children, pinched by cold New England skies, +Too often, while the nursery's happier few +Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue. +Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there shines +The ray serene that filled Evangeline's. +Modest he seems, not shy; content to wait +Amid the noisy clamor of debate +The looked-for moment when a peaceful word +Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have stirred. +In every tone I mark his tender grace +And all his poems hinted in his face; +What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives! +How could. I think him dead? He lives! He lives! + +There, at the table's further end I see +In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, +The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square, +In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. +His social hour no leaden care alloys, +His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's,-- +That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot,-- +What ear has heard it and remembers not? +How often, halting at some wide crevasse +Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, +High up the cliffs, the climbing mountaineer, +Listening the far-off avalanche to hear, +Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, +Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing laugh, +From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls +Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls +How does vast Nature lead her living train +In ordered sequence through that spacious brain, +As in the primal hour when Adam named +The new-born tribes that young creation claimed!-- +How will her realm be darkened, losing thee, +Her darling, whom we call _our_ AGASSIZ! + +But who is he whose massive frame belies +The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes? +Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, +Some answer struggles from his laboring breast? +An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, +Locked in his studio with a human heart, +Tracking its eaverned passions to their lair, +And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare. +Count it no marvel that he broods alone +Over the heart he studies,--'t is his own; +So in his page, whatever shape it wear, +The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there,-- +The great ROMANCER, hid beneath his veil +Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; +Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, +Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl. + +From his mild throng of worshippers released, +Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, +Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, +By every title always welcome here. +Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe? +You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, +The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulders' droop, +The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, +The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, +Carved by the edge of keen New England air. +List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose +The jewels for his bride, he might refuse +This diamond for its flaw,--find that less bright +Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white +Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, +The fairest gems are chosen, and made fast +In golden fetters; so, with light delays +He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase; +Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, +His chosen word is sure to prove the best. +Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, +Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong? +He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, +Born to unlock the secrets of the skies; +And which the nobler calling,--if 't is fair +Terrestrial with celestial to compare,-- +To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, +Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came, +Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, +And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre? +If lost at times in vague aerial flights, +None treads with firmer footstep when he lights; +A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, +Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, +In every Bible he has faith to read, +And every altar helps to shape his creed. +Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears +While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares? +Till angels greet him with a sweeter one +In heaven, on earth we call him EMERSON. + +I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn; +Its figures fading like the stars at dawn; +Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names, +And memory's pictures fading in their frames; +Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams +Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams! + + + + + +OUR DEAD SINGER + +H. W. L. + +PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own, +We claim with her that spotless fame of thine, +White as her snow and fragrant as her pine! +Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone +Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown +Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine +Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine, +On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown. +Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command,-- +The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild,-- +Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled, +Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand? +Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned +Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child. + +Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould, +Will grateful Memory fondly try her best +The mortal vesture from decay to wrest; +His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how cold! +No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold, +No throb can heave the statue's stony breast; +"He is not here, but risen," will stand confest +In all we miss, in all our eyes behold. +How Nature loved him! On his placid brow, +Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred sign +That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine, +Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough +That envious Time might clutch or disallow, +To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine. + +On many a saddened hearth the evening fire +Burns paler as the children's hour draws near,-- +That joyous hour his song made doubly dear,-- +And tender memories touch the faltering choir. +He sings no more on earth; our vain desire +Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear +In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear,-- +The sweet contralto that could never tire. +Deafened with listening to a harsher strain, +The Maenad's scream, the stark barbarian's cry, +Still for those soothing, loving tones we sigh; +Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again! +The shadowy silence hears us call in vain! +His lips are hushed; his song shall never die. + + + + + +TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + +ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, JUNE 14, 1882 + + +I. AT THE SUMMIT + +SISTER, we bid you welcome,--we who stand +On the high table-land; +We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope, +And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope, +Looking along the silent Mer de Glace, +Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse +Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass,-- +Sister, we clasp your hand! + +Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent +Before the swift descent. +Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice; +See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss; +The mated eagles fan the frosty air; +Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere, +And, in their time, the darkening hours that bear +Sweet memories, peace, content. + +Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show +Amid their rubrics' glow, +But search the blazoned record's starry line, +What halo's radiance fills the page like thine? +Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find +The way to all the hearts of all mankind, +On thee, already canonized, enshrined, +What more can Heaven bestow! + + +II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + +IF every tongue that speaks her praise +For whom I shape my tinkling phrase +Were summoned to the table, +The vocal chorus that would meet +Of mingling accents harsh or sweet, +From every land and tribe, would beat +The polyglots at Babel. + +Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane, +Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine, +Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi, +High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too, +The Russian serf, the Polish Jew, +Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo, +Would shout, "We know the lady!" + +Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom +And her he learned his gospel from +Has never heard of Moses; +Full well the brave black hand we know +That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe +That killed the weed that used to grow +Among the Southern roses. + +When Archimedes, long ago, +Spoke out so grandly, "_dos pou sto_-- +Give me a place to stand on, +I'll move your planet for you, now,"-- +He little dreamed or fancied how +The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_ +For woman's faith to land on. + +Her lever was the wand of art, +Her fulcrum was the human heart, +Whence all unfailing aid is; +She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed, +Its mountains shook, its temples reeled, +The blood-red fountains were unsealed, +And Moloch sunk to Hades. + +All through the conflict, up and down +Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown, +One ghost, one form ideal; +And which was false and which was true, +And which was mightier of the two, +The wisest sibyl never knew, +For both alike were real. + +Sister, the holy maid does well +Who counts her beads in convent cell, +Where pale devotion lingers; +But she who serves the sufferer's needs, +Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds, +May trust the Lord will count her beads +As well as human fingers. + +When Truth herself was Slavery's slave, +Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave +The rainbow wings of fiction. +And Truth who soared descends to-day +Bearing an angel's wreath away, +Its lilies at thy feet to lay +With Heaven's own benediction. + + + + + +A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + +ON HIS RETURN FROM SOUTH AMERICA + +AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS DEVOTED TO CATALOGUING THE +STARS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE + +Read at the Dinner given at the Hotel Vendome, May 6,1885. + +ONCE more Orion and the sister Seven +Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth,-- +How shall we welcome thee, whose home was heaven, +From thy celestial wanderings back to earth? + +Science has kept her midnight taper burning +To greet thy coming with its vestal flame; +Friendship has murmured, "When art thou returning?" +"Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came. + +Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion, +While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore,-- +Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean, +Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador. + +Through the long nights I see thee ever waking, +Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemisphere, +While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching, +Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier. + +The souls that voyaged the azure depths before thee +Watch with thy tireless vigils, all unseen,-- +Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er thee, +And with his toy-like tube the Florentine,-- + +He at whose word the orb that bore him shivered +To find her central sovereignty disowned, +While the wan lips of priest and pontiff quivered, +Their jargon stilled, their Baal disenthroned. + +Flamsteed and Newton look with brows unclouded, +Their strife forgotten with its faded scars,-- +(Titans, who found the world of space too crowded +To walk in peace among its myriad stars.) + +All cluster round thee,--seers of earliest ages, +Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned kings, +From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages +To his who weighed the planet's fluid rings. + +And we, for whom the northern heavens are lighted, +For whom the storm has passed, the sun has smiled, +Our clouds all scattered, all our stars united, +We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long-lost child. + +Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arching splendor, +Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome, +In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, tender, +We bid thee welcome to thine earthly home! + + + + + +TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE + +AT A DINNER GIVEN HIM ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, +DECEMBER 12, 1885 + +With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury, +presented by a few friends. + +FIT emblem for the altar's side, +And him who serves its daily need, +The stay, the solace, and the guide +Of mortal men, whate'er his creed! + +Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze, +He feeds the upward-climbing fire, +Still teaching, like the deathless bronze, +Man's noblest lesson,--to aspire. + +Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove, +Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car, +And o'er Dodona's silent grove +Streams the white, ray from Bethlehem's star. + +Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch, +A godlike shape, that human hands +Have fired with Art's electric touch, +The herald of Olympus stands. + +Ask not what ore the furnace knew; +Love mingled with the flowing mass, +And lends its own unchanging hue, +Like gold in Corinth's molten brass. + +Take then our gift; this airy form +Whose bronze our benedictions gild, +The hearts of all its givers warm +With love by freezing years unchilled. + +With eye undimmed, with strength unworn, +Still toiling in your Master's field, +Before you wave the growths unshorn, +Their ripened harvest yet to yield. + +True servant of the Heavenly Sire, +To you our tried affection clings, +Bids you still labor, still aspire, +But clasps your feet and steals their wings. + + + + +TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + +THIS is your month, the month of "perfect days," +Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze. +Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes, +Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes; +Carpets her paths for your returning feet, +Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet; +And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune +When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June. +These blessed days are waning all too fast, +And June's bright visions mingling with the past; + +Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose +Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows, +And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets; +The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites; +The dandelion, which you sang of old, +Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold, +But still displays its feathery-mantled globe, +Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe. +These were your humble friends; your opened eyes +Nature had trained her common gifts to prize; +Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise +Charles, with his muddy margin and the harsh, +Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh. +New England's home-bred scholar, well you knew +Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through, +And loved them ever with the love that holds +All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds. +Though far and wide your winged words have flown, +Your daily presence kept you all our own, +Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride, +We heard your summons, and you left our side +For larger duties and for tasks untried. + +How pleased the Spaniards for a while to claim +This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name, +Who stored their classics on his crowded shelves +And loved their Calderon as they did themselves! +Before his eyes what changing pageants pass! +The bridal feast how near the funeral mass! +The death-stroke falls,--the Misereres wail; +The joy-bells ring,--the tear-stained cheeks unveil, +While, as the playwright shifts his pictured scene, +The royal mourner crowns his second queen. + +From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride,-- +Madrid and London long-stretched leagues divide. +What if I send him, "Uncle S., says he," +To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B."? +A nation's servants go where they are sent,-- +He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went. +By what enchantments, what alluring arts, +Our truthful James led captive British hearts,-- +Whether his shrewdness made their statesmen halt, +Or if his learning found their Dons at fault, +Or if his virtue was a strange surprise, +Or if his wit flung star-dust in their eyes,-- +Like honest Yankees we can simply guess; +But that he did it all must needs confess. +England herself without a blush may claim +Her only conqueror since the Norman came. +Eight years an exile! What a weary while +Since first our herald sought the mother isle! +His snow-white flag no churlish wrong has soiled,--- +He left unchallenged, he returns unspoiled. + +Here let us keep him, here he saw the light,-- +His genius, wisdom, wit, are ours by right; +And if we lose him our lament will be +We have "five hundred"--_not_ "as good as he." + + + + + +TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + +ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + +1887 + +FRIEND, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear +Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek +Burned in the flush of manhood's manliest year, +Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak +Thy feet have reached, and mine have climbed so near! +Close on thy footsteps 'mid the landscape drear +I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek, +Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can speak! +Look backward! From thy lofty height survey +Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won, +Of dreams made real, largest hopes outrun! +Look forward! Brighter than earth's morning ray +Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun, +The unclouded dawn of life's immortal day! + + + + + +PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN +RAISED LETTERS FOR THE BLIND + +DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse +That veils the noonday,--you whose finger-tips +A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find +Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. +This wreath of verse how dare I offer you +To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? +The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, +Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers? + +Nay, those I have I bring you,--at their birth +Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth; +If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds, +And here and there you light on saucy weeds +Among the fairer growths, remember still +Song comes of grace, and not of human will: +We get a jarring note when most we try, +Then strike the chord we know not how or why; +Our stately verse with too aspiring art +Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart, +While the rude rhyme one human throb endears +Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears. +Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read, +From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed; +The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame, +The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim, +Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold +A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold. + + + + + +BOSTON TO FLORENCE + +Sent to "The Philological Circle" of Florence for its +meeting in commemoration of Dante, January 27, 1881, +the anniversary of his first condemnation. + +PROUD of her clustering spires, her new-built towers, +Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering sea, +A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to thee, +Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its flowers! +Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love embowers, +Yet none with truer homage bends the knee, +Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than we, +Whose poets make thy dead Immortal ours. +Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how near! +Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse of thine +Like the stern river from its Apennine +Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled with fear: +Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is dear, +And every language knows the Song Divine! + + + + + +AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL + +MARCH 8, 1882 + +THE waves unbuild the wasting shore; +Where mountains towered the billows sweep, +Yet still their borrowed spoils restore, +And build new empires from the deep. +So while the floods of thought lay waste +The proud domain of priestly creeds, +Its heaven-appointed tides will haste +To plant new homes for human needs. +Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled +The change an outworn church deplores; +The legend sinks, but Faith shall build +A fairer throne on new-found shores. + + + + +POEM + +FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY +OF THE FOUNDING OF HARVARD COLLEGE + +TWICE had the mellowing sun of autumn crowned +The hundredth circle of his yearly round, +When, as we meet to-day, our fathers met: +That joyous gathering who can e'er forget, +When Harvard's nurslings, scattered far and wide, +Through mart and village, lake's and ocean's side, +Came, with one impulse, one fraternal throng, +And crowned the hours with banquet, speech, and song? + +Once more revived in fancy's magic glass, +I see in state the long procession pass +Tall, courtly, leader as by right divine, +Winthrop, our Winthrop, rules the marshalled line, +Still seen in front, as on that far-off day +His ribboned baton showed the column's way. +Not all are gone who marched in manly pride +And waved their truncheons at their leader's side; +Gray, Lowell, Dixwell, who his empire shared, +These to be with us envious Time has spared. + +Few are the faces, so familiar then, +Our eyes still meet amid the haunts of men; +Scarce one of all the living gathered there, +Whose unthinned locks betrayed a silver hair, +Greets us to-day, and yet we seem the same +As our own sires and grandsires, save in name. +There are the patriarchs, looking vaguely round +For classmates' faces, hardly known if found; +See the cold brow that rules the busy mart; +Close at its side the pallid son of art, +Whose purchased skill with borrowed meaning clothes, +And stolen hues, the smirking face he loathes. +Here is the patient scholar; in his looks +You read the titles of his learned books; +What classic lore those spidery crow's-feet speak! +What problems figure on that wrinkled cheek! +For never thought but left its stiffened trace, +Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face, +As the swift record of a raindrop stands, +Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands. +On every face as on the written page +Each year renews the autograph of age; +One trait alone may wasting years defy,-- +The fire still lingering in the poet's eye, +While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest strain,-- +_Non omnis moriar_ is its proud refrain. + +Sadly we gaze upon the vacant chair; +He who should claim its honors is not there,-- +Otis, whose lips the listening crowd enthrall +That press and pack the floor of Boston's hall. +But Kirkland smiles, released from toil and care +Since the silk mantle younger shoulders wear,-- +Quincy's, whose spirit breathes the selfsame fire +That filled the bosom of his youthful sire, +Who for the altar bore the kindled torch +To freedom's temple, dying in its porch. + +Three grave professions in their sons appear, +Whose words well studied all well pleased will hear +Palfrey, ordained in varied walks to shine, +Statesman, historian, critic, and divine; +Solid and square behold majestic Shaw, +A mass of wisdom and a mine of law; +Warren, whose arm the doughtiest warriors fear, +Asks of the startled crowd to lend its ear,-- +Proud of his calling, him the world loves best, +Not as the coming, but the parting guest. + +Look on that form,--with eye dilating scan +The stately mould of nature's kingliest man! +Tower-like he stands in life's unfaded prime; +Ask you his name? None asks a second time +He from the land his outward semblance takes, +Where storm-swept mountains watch o'er slumbering lakes. +See in the impress which the body wears +How its imperial might the soul declares +The forehead's large expansion, lofty, wide, +That locks unsilvered vainly strive to hide; +The lines of thought that plough the sober cheek; +Lips that betray their wisdom ere they speak +In tones like answers from Dodona's grove; +An eye like Juno's when she frowns on Jove. +I look and wonder; will he be content-- +This man, this monarch, for the purple meant-- +The meaner duties of his tribe to share, +Clad in the garb that common mortals wear? +Ah, wild Ambition, spread thy restless wings, +Beneath whose plumes the hidden cestrum stings; + +Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's vulgar crowds, +And like the eagle soar above the clouds, +Must feel the pang that fallen angels know +When the red lightning strikes thee from below! + +Less bronze, more silver, mingles in the mould +Of him whom next my roving eyes behold; +His, more the scholar's than the statesman's face, +Proclaims him born of academic race. +Weary his look, as if an aching brain +Left on his brow the frozen prints of pain; +His voice far-reaching, grave, sonorous, owns +A shade of sadness in its plaintive tones, +Yet when its breath some loftier thought inspires +Glows with a heat that every bosom fires. +Such Everett seems; no chance-sown wild flower knows +The full-blown charms of culture's double rose,-- +Alas, how soon, by death's unsparing frost, +Its bloom is faded and its fragrance lost! + +Two voices, only two, to earth belong, +Of all whose accents met the listening throng: +Winthrop, alike for speech and guidance framed, +On that proud day a twofold duty claimed; +One other yet,--remembered or forgot,-- +Forgive my silence if I name him not. +Can I believe it? I, whose youthful voice +Claimed a brief gamut,--notes not over choice, +Stood undismayed before the solemn throng, +And _propria voce_ sung that saucy song +Which even in memory turns my soul aghast,-- +_Felix audacia_ was the verdict cast. + +What were the glory of these festal days +Shorn of their grand illumination's blaze? +Night comes at last with all her starry train +To find a light in every glittering pane. +From "Harvard's" windows see the sudden flash,-- +Old "Massachusetts" glares through every sash; +From wall to wall the kindling splendors run +Till all is glorious as the noonday sun. + +How to the scholar's mind each object brings +What some historian tells, some poet sings! +The good gray teacher whom we all revered-- +Loved, honored, laughed at, and by freshmen feared, +As from old "Harvard," where its light began, +From hall to hall the clustering splendors ran-- +Took down his well-worn Eschylus and read, +Lit by the rays a thousand tapers shed, +How the swift herald crossed the leagues between +Mycenae's monarch and his faithless queen; +And thus he read,--my verse but ill displays +The Attic picture, clad in modern phrase + +On Ida's summit flames the kindling pile, +And Lemnos answers from his rocky isle; +From Athos next it climbs the reddening skies, +Thence where the watch-towers of Macistus rise. +The sentries of Mesapius in their turn +Bid the dry heath in high piled masses burn, +Cithoeron's crag the crimson billows stain, +Far AEgiplanctus joins the fiery train. +Thus the swift courier through the pathless night +Has gained at length the Arachnoean height, +Whence the glad tidings, borne on wings offlame, +"Ilium has fallen!" reach the royal dame. + +So ends the day; before the midnight stroke +The lights expiring cloud the air with smoke; +While these the toil of younger hands employ, +The slumbering Grecian dreams of smouldering Troy. + +As to that hour with backward steps I turn, +Midway I pause; behold a funeral urn! +Ah, sad memorial! known but all too well +The tale which thus its golden letters tell: + +This dust, once breathing, changed its joyous life +For toil and hunger, wounds and mortal strife; +Love, friendship, learning's all prevailing charms, +For the cold bivouac and the clash of arms. +The cause of freedom won, a race enslaved +Called back to manhood, and a nation saved, +These sons of Harvard, falling ere their prime, +Leave their proud memory to the coming time. + +While in their still retreats our scholars turn +The mildewed pages of the past, to learn +With endless labor of the sleepless brain +What once has been and ne'er shall be again, +We reap the harvest of their ceaseless toil +And find a fragrance in their midnight oil. +But let a purblind mortal dare the task +The embryo future of itself to ask, +The world reminds him, with a scornful laugh, +That times have changed since Prospero broke his staff. +Could all the wisdom of the schools foretell +The dismal hour when Lisbon shook and fell, +Or name the shuddering night that toppled down +Our sister's pride, beneath whose mural crown +Scarce had the scowl forgot its angry lines, +When earth's blind prisoners fired their fatal mines? + +New realms, new worlds, exulting Science claims, +Still the dim future unexplored remains; +Her trembling scales the far-off planet weigh, +Her torturing prisms its elements betray,-- +We know what ores the fires of Sirius melt, +What vaporous metals gild Orion's belt; +Angels, archangels, may have yet to learn +Those hidden truths our heaven-taught eyes discern; +Yet vain is Knowledge, with her mystic wand, +To pierce the cloudy screen and read beyond; +Once to the silent stars the fates were known, +To us they tell no secrets but their own. + +At Israel's altar still we humbly bow, +But where, oh where, are Israel's prophets now? +Where is the sibyl with her hoarded leaves? +Where is the charm the weird enchantress weaves? +No croaking raven turns the auspex pale, +No reeking altars tell the morrow's tale; +The measured footsteps of the Fates are dumb, +Unseen, unheard, unheralded, they come, +Prophet and priest and all their following fail. +Who then is left to rend the future's veil? +Who but the poet, he whose nicer sense +No film can baffle with its slight defence, +Whose finer vision marks the waves that stray, +Felt, but unseen, beyond the violet ray?-- +Who, while the storm-wind waits its darkening shroud, +Foretells the tempest ere he sees the cloud,-- +Stays not for time his secrets to reveal, +But reads his message ere he breaks the seal. +So Mantua's bard foretold the coming day +Ere Bethlehem's infant in the manger lay; +The promise trusted to a mortal tongue +Found listening ears before the angels sung. +So while his load the creeping pack-horse galled, +While inch by inch the dull canal-boat crawled, +Darwin beheld a Titan from "afar +Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car," +That panting giant fed by air and flame, +The mightiest forges task their strength to tame. + +Happy the poet! him no tyrant fact +Holds in its clutches to be chained and racked; +Him shall no mouldy document convict, +No stern statistics gravely contradict; +No rival sceptre threats his airy throne; +He rules o'er shadows, but he reigns alone. +Shall I the poet's broad dominion claim +Because you bid me wear his sacred name +For these few moments? Shall I boldly clash +My flint and steel, and by the sudden flash +Read the fair vision which my soul descries +Through the wide pupils of its wondering eyes? +List then awhile; the fifty years have sped; +The third full century's opened scroll is spread, +Blank to all eyes save his who dimly sees +The shadowy future told in words like these + +How strange the prospect to my sight appears, +Changed by the busy hands of fifty years! +Full well I know our ocean-salted Charles, +Filling and emptying through the sands and marls +That wall his restless stream on either bank, +Not all unlovely when the sedges rank +Lend their coarse veil the sable ooze to hide +That bares its blackness with the ebbing tide. +In other shapes to my illumined eyes +Those ragged margins of our stream arise +Through walls of stone the sparkling waters flow, +In clearer depths the golden sunsets glow, +On purer waves the lamps of midnight gleam, +That silver o'er the unpolluted stream. +Along his shores what stately temples rise, +What spires, what turrets, print the shadowed skies! +Our smiling Mother sees her broad domain +Spread its tall roofs along the western plain; +Those blazoned windows' blushing glories tell +Of grateful hearts that loved her long and well; +Yon gilded dome that glitters in the sun +Was Dives' gift,--alas, his only one! +These buttressed walls enshrine a banker's name, +That hallowed chapel hides a miser's shame; +Their wealth they left,--their memory cannot fade +Though age shall crumble every stone they laid. + +Great lord of millions,--let me call thee great, +Since countless servants at thy bidding wait,-- +Richesse oblige: no mortal must be blind +To all but self, or look at human kind +Laboring and suffering,--all its want and woe,-- +Through sheets of crystal, as a pleasing show +That makes life happier for the chosen few +Duty for whom is something not to do. +When thy last page of life at length is filled, +What shall thine heirs to keep thy memory build? +Will piles of stone in Auburn's mournful shade +Save from neglect the spot where thou art laid? +Nay, deem not thus; the sauntering stranger's eye +Will pass unmoved thy columned tombstone by, +No memory wakened, not a teardrop shed, +Thy name uncared for and thy date unread. +But if thy record thou indeed dost prize, +Bid from the soil some stately temple rise,-- +Some hall of learning, some memorial shrine, +With names long honored to associate thine: +So shall thy fame outlive thy shattered bust +When all around thee slumber in the dust. +Thus England's Henry lives in Eton's towers, +Saved from the spoil oblivion's gulf devours; +Our later records with as fair a fame +Have wreathed each uncrowned benefactor's name; +The walls they reared the memories still retain +That churchyard marbles try to keep in vain. +In vain the delving antiquary tries +To find the tomb where generous Harvard lies +Here, here, his lasting monument is found, +Where every spot is consecrated ground! +O'er Stoughton's dust the crumbling stone decays, +Fast fade its lines of lapidary praise; +There the wild bramble weaves its ragged nets, +There the dry lichen spreads its gray rosettes; +Still in yon walls his memory lives unspent, +Nor asks a braver, nobler monument. +Thus Hollis lives, and Holden, honored, praised, +And good Sir Matthew, in the halls they raised; +Thus live the worthies of these later times, +Who shine in deeds, less brilliant, grouped in rhymes. +Say, shall the Muse with faltering steps retreat, +Or dare these names in rhythmic form repeat? +Why not as boldly as from Homer's lips +The long array, of Argive battle-ships? +When o'er our graves a thousand years have past +(If to such date our threatened globe shall last) +These classic precincts, myriad feet have pressed, +Will show on high, in beauteous garlands dressed, +Those honored names that grace our later day,-- +Weld, Matthews, Sever, Thayer, Austin, Gray, +Sears, Phillips, Lawrence, Hemenway,--to the list +Add Sanders, Sibley,--all the Muse has missed. + +Once more I turn to read the pictured page +Bright with the promise of the coming age. +Ye unborn sons of children yet unborn, +Whose youthful eyes shall greet that far-off morn, +Blest are those eyes that all undimmed behold +The sights so longed for by the wise of old. +From high-arched alcoves, through resounding halls, +Clad in full robes majestic Science calls, +Tireless, unsleeping, still at Nature's feet, +Whate'er she utters fearless to repeat, +Her lips at last from every cramp released +That Israel's prophet caught from Egypt's priest. +I see the statesman, firm, sagacious, bold, +For life's long conflict cast in amplest mould; +Not his to clamor with the senseless throng +That shouts unshamed, "Our party, right or wrong," +But in the patriot's never-ending fight +To side with Truth, who changes wrong to right. +I see the scholar; in that wondrous time +Men, women, children, all can write in rhyme. +These four brief lines addressed to youth inclined +To idle rhyming in his notes I find: + +Who writes in verse that should have writ in prose +Is like a traveller walking on his toes; +Happy the rhymester who in time has found +The heels he lifts were made to touch the ground. + +I see gray teachers,--on their work intent, +Their lavished lives, in endless labor spent, +Had closed at last in age and penury wrecked, +Martyrs, not burned, but frozen in neglect, +Save for the generous hands that stretched in aid +Of worn-out servants left to die half paid. +Ah, many a year will pass, I thought, ere we +Such kindly forethought shall rejoice to see,-- +Monarchs are mindful of the sacred debt +That cold republics hasten to forget. +I see the priest,--if such a name he bears +Who without pride his sacred vestment wears; +And while the symbols of his tribe I seek +Thus my first impulse bids me think and speak: + +Let not the mitre England's prelate wears +Next to the crown whose regal pomp it shares, +Though low before it courtly Christians bow, +Leave its red mark on Younger England's brow. +We love, we honor, the maternal dame, +But let her priesthood wear a modest name, +While through the waters of the Pilgrim's bay +A new-born Mayflower shows her keels the way. +Too old grew Britain for her mother's beads,-- +Must we be necklaced with her children's creeds? +Welcome alike in surplice or in gown +The loyal lieges of the Heavenly Crown! +We greet with cheerful, not submissive, mien +A sister church, but not a mitred Queen! + +A few brief flutters, and the unwilling Muse, +Who feared the flight she hated to refuse, +Shall fold the wings whose gayer plumes are shed, +Here where at first her half-fledged pinions spread. +Well I remember in the long ago +How in the forest shades of Fontainebleau, +Strained through a fissure in a rocky cell, +One crystal drop with measured cadence fell. +Still, as of old, forever bright and clear, +The fissured cavern drops its wonted tear, +And wondrous virtue, simple folk aver, +Lies in that teardrop of la roche qui pleure. + +Of old I wandered by the river's side +Between whose banks the mighty waters glide, +Where vast Niagara, hurrying to its fall, +Builds and unbuilds its ever-tumbling wall; +Oft in my dreams I hear the rush and roar +Of battling floods, and feel the trembling shore, +As the huge torrent, girded for its leap, +With bellowing thunders plunges down the steep. +Not less distinct, from memory's pictured urn, +The gray old rock, the leafy woods, return; +Robed in their pride the lofty oaks appear, +And once again with quickened sense I hear, +Through the low murmur of the leaves that stir, +The tinkling teardrop of _la roche qui pleure_. + +So when the third ripe century stands complete, +As once again the sons of Harvard meet, +Rejoicing, numerous as the seashore sands, +Drawn from all quarters,--farthest distant lands, +Where through the reeds the scaly saurian steals, +Where cold Alaska feeds her floundering seals, +Where Plymouth, glorying, wears her iron crown, +Where Sacramento sees the suns go down; +Nay, from the cloisters whence the refluent tide +Wafts their pale students to our Mother's side,-- +Mid all the tumult that the day shall bring, +While all the echoes shout, and roar, and ring, +These tinkling lines, oblivion's easy prey, +Once more emerging to the light of day, +Not all unpleasing to the listening ear +Shall wake the memories of this bygone year, +Heard as I hear the measured drops that flow +From the gray rock of wooded Fontainebleau. + +Yet, ere I leave, one loving word for all +Those fresh young lives that wait our Mother's call: +One gift is yours, kind Nature's richest dower,-- +Youth, the fair bud that holds life's opening flower, +Full of high hopes no coward doubts enchain, +With all the future throbbing in its brain, +And mightiest instincts which the beating heart +Fills with the fire its burning waves impart. + +O joyous youth, whose glory is to dare,-- +Thy foot firm planted on the lowest stair, +Thine eye uplifted to the loftiest height +Where Fame stands beckoning in the rosy light, +Thanks for thy flattering tales, thy fond deceits, +Thy loving lies, thy cheerful smiling cheats +Nature's rash promise every day is broke,-- +A thousand acorns breed a single oak, +The myriad blooms that make the orchard gay +In barren beauty throw their lives away; +Yet shall we quarrel with the sap that yields +The painted blossoms which adorn the fields, +When the fair orchard wears its May-day suit +Of pink-white petals, for its scanty fruit? +Thrice happy hours, in hope's illusion dressed, +In fancy's cradle nurtured and caressed, +Though rich the spoils that ripening years may bring, +To thee the dewdrops of the Orient cling,-- +Not all the dye-stuffs from the vats of truth +Can match the rainbow on the robes of youth! + +Dear unborn children, to our Mother's trust +We leave you, fearless, when we lie in dust: +While o'er these walls the Christian banner waves +From hallowed lips shall flow the truth that saves; +While o'er those portals Veritas you read +No church shall bind you with its human creed. +Take from the past the best its toil has won, +But learn betimes its slavish ruts to shun. +Pass the old tree whose withered leaves are shed, +Quit the old paths that error loved to tread, +And a new wreath of living blossoms seek, +A narrower pathway up a loftier peak; +Lose not your reverence, but unmanly fear +Leave far behind you, all who enter here! + +As once of old from Ida's lofty height +The flaming signal flashed across the night, +So Harvard's beacon sheds its unspent rays +Till every watch-tower shows its kindling blaze. +Caught from a spark and fanned by every gale, +A brighter radiance gilds the roofs of Yale; +Amherst and Williams bid their flambeaus shine, +And Bowdoin answers through her groves of pine; +O'er Princeton's sands the far reflections steal, +Where mighty Edwards stamped his iron heel; +Nay, on the hill where old beliefs were bound +Fast as if Styx had girt them nine times round, +Bursts such a light that trembling souls inquire +If the whole church of Calvin is on fire! +Well may they ask, for what so brightly burns +As a dry creed that nothing ever learns? +Thus link by link is knit the flaming chain +Lit by the torch of Harvard's hallowed plain. + +Thy son, thy servant, dearest Mother mine, +Lays this poor offering on thy holy shrine, +An autumn leaflet to the wild winds tost, +Touched by the finger of November's frost, +With sweet, sad memories of that earlier day, +And all that listened to my first-born lay. +With grateful heart this glorious morn I see,-- +Would that my tribute worthier were of thee! + + + + +POST-PRANDIAL + +PHI BETA KAPPA + +WENDELL PHILLIPS, ORATOR; CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, POET + +1881 + +"THE Dutch have taken Holland,"--so the schoolboys used to say; +The Dutch have taken Harvard,--no doubt of that to-day! +For the Wendells were low Dutchmen, and all their vrows were Vans; +And the Breitmanns are high Dutchmen, and here is honest Hans. + +Mynheers, you both are welcome! Fair cousin Wendell P., +Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee; +Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we, +And Vondel was our namesake, though he spelt it with a V. + +It is well old Evert Jansen sought a dwelling over sea +On the margin of the Hudson, where he sampled you and me +Through our grandsires and great-grandsires, for you would n't quite +agree +With the steady-going burghers along the Zuyder Zee. + +Like our Motley's John of Barnveld, you have always been inclined +To speak,--well,--somewhat frankly,--to let us know your mind, +And the Mynheers would have told you to be cautious what you said, +Or else that silver tongue of yours might cost your precious head. + +But we're very glad you've kept it; it was always Freedom's own, +And whenever Reason chose it she found a royal throne; +You have whacked us with your sceptre; our backs were little harmed, +And while we rubbed our bruises we owned we had been charmed. + +And you, our quasi Dutchman, what welcome should be yours +For all the wise prescriptions that work your laughter-cures? +"Shake before taking"?--not a bit,--the bottle-cure's a sham; +Take before shaking, and you 'll find it shakes your diaphragm. + +"Hans Breitmann gif a barty,--vhere is dot barty now?" +On every shelf where wit is stored to smooth the careworn brow +A health to stout Hans Breitmann! How long before we see +Another Hans as handsome,--as bright a man as he! + + + + +THE FLANEUR + +BOSTON COMMON, DECEMBER 6, 1882 + +DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS + +I LOVE all sights of earth and skies, +From flowers that glow to stars that shine; +The comet and the penny show, +All curious things, above, below, +Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: +I claim the Christian Pagan's line, +_Humani nihil_,--even so,-- +And is not human life divine? +When soft the western breezes blow, +And strolling youths meet sauntering maids, +I love to watch the stirring trades +Beneath the Vallombrosa shades +Our much-enduring elms bestow; +The vender and his rhetoric's flow, +That lambent stream of liquid lies; +The bait he dangles from his line, +The gudgeon and his gold-washed prize. +I halt before the blazoned sign +That bids me linger to admire +The drama time can never tire, +The little hero of the hunch, +With iron arm and soul of fire, +And will that works his fierce desire,-- +Untamed, unscared, unconquered Punch +My ear a pleasing torture finds +In tones the withered sibyl grinds,-- +The dame sans merci's broken strain, +Whom I erewhile, perchance, have known, +When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne, +A siren singing by the Seine. + +But most I love the tube that spies +The orbs celestial in their march; +That shows the comet as it whisks +Its tail across the planets' disks, +As if to blind their blood-shot eyes; +Or wheels so close against the sun +We tremble at the thought of risks +Our little spinning ball may run, +To pop like corn that children parch, +From summer something overdone, +And roll, a cinder, through the skies. + +Grudge not to-day the scanty fee +To him who farms the firmament, +To whom the Milky Way is free; +Who holds the wondrous crystal key, +The silent Open Sesame +That Science to her sons has lent; +Who takes his toll, and lifts the bar +That shuts the road to sun and star. +If Venus only comes to time, +(And prophets say she must and shall,) +To-day will hear the tinkling chime +Of many a ringing silver dime, +For him whose optic glass supplies +The crowd with astronomic eyes,-- +The Galileo of the Mall. + +Dimly the transit morning broke; +The sun seemed doubting what to do, +As one who questions how to dress, +And takes his doublets from the press, +And halts between the old and new. +Please Heaven he wear his suit of blue, +Or don, at least, his ragged cloak, +With rents that show the azure through! + +I go the patient crowd to join +That round the tube my eyes discern, +The last new-comer of the file, +And wait, and wait, a weary while, + +And gape, and stretch, and shrug, and smile, +(For each his place must fairly earn, +Hindmost and foremost, in his turn,) +Till hitching onward, pace by pace, +I gain at last the envied place, +And pay the white exiguous coin: +The sun and I are face to face; +He glares at me, I stare at him; +And lo! my straining eye has found +A little spot that, black and round, +Lies near the crimsoned fire-orb's rim. +O blessed, beauteous evening star, +Well named for her whom earth adores,-- +The Lady of the dove-drawn car,-- +I know thee in thy white simar; +But veiled in black, a rayless spot, +Blank as a careless scribbler's blot, +Stripped of thy robe of silvery flame,-- +The stolen robe that Night restores +When Day has shut his golden doors,-- +I see thee, yet I know thee not; +And canst thou call thyself the same? + +A black, round spot,--and that is all; +And such a speck our earth would be +If he who looks upon the stars +Through the red atmosphere of Mars +Could see our little creeping ball +Across the disk of crimson crawl +As I our sister planet see. + +And art thou, then, a world like ours, +Flung from the orb that whirled our own +A molten pebble from its zone? +How must thy burning sands absorb +The fire-waves of the blazing orb, +Thy chain so short, thy path so near, +Thy flame-defying creatures hear +The maelstroms of the photosphere! +And is thy bosom decked with flowers +That steal their bloom from scalding showers? +And bast thou cities, domes, and towers, +And life, and love that makes it dear, +And death that fills thy tribes with fear? + +Lost in my dream, my spirit soars +Through paths the wandering angels know; +My all-pervading thought explores +The azure ocean's lucent shores; +I leave my mortal self below, +As up the star-lit stairs I climb, +And still the widening view reveals +In endless rounds the circling wheels +That build the horologe of time. +New spheres, new suns, new systems gleam; +The voice no earth-born echo hears +Steals softly on my ravished ears +I hear them "singing as they shine "- +A mortal's voice dissolves my dream: +My patient neighbor, next in line, +Hints gently there are those who wait. +O guardian of the starry gate, +What coin shall pay this debt of mine? +Too slight thy claim, too small the fee +That bids thee turn the potent key + +The Tuscan's hand has placed in thine. +Forgive my own the small affront, +The insult of the proffered dime; +Take it, O friend, since this thy wont, +But still shall faithful memory be +A bankrupt debtor unto thee, +And pay thee with a grateful rhyme. + + + + +AVE + +PRELUDE TO "ILLUSTRATED POEMS" + +FULL well I know the frozen hand has come +That smites the songs of grove and garden dumb, +And chills sad autumn's last chrysanthemum; + +Yet would I find one blossom, if I might, +Ere the dark loom that weaves the robe of white +Hides all the wrecks of summer out of sight. + +Sometimes in dim November's narrowing day, +When all the season's pride has passed away, +As mid the blackened stems and leaves we stray, + +We spy in sheltered nook or rocky cleft +A starry disk the hurrying winds have left, +Of all its blooming sisterhood bereft + +Some pansy, with its wondering baby eyes +Poor wayside nursling!--fixed in blank surprise +At the rough welcome of unfriendly skies; + +Or golden daisy,--will it dare disclaim +The lion's tooth, to wear this gentler name? +Or blood-red salvia, with its lips aflame + +The storms have stripped the lily and the rose, +Still on its cheek the flush of summer glows, +And all its heart-leaves kindle as it blows. + +So had I looked some bud of song to find +The careless winds of autumn left behind, +With these of earlier seasons' growth to bind. + +Ah me! my skies are dark with sudden grief, +A flower lies faded on my garnered sheaf; +Yet let the sunshine gild this virgin leaf, + +The joyous, blessed sunshine of the past, +Still with me, though the heavens are overcast,-- +The light that shines while life and memory last. + +Go, pictured rhymes, for loving readers meant; +Bring back the smiles your jocund morning lent, +And warm their hearts with sunbeams yet unspent! + +BEVERLY FARMS, July 24, 1884. + + + + +KING'S CHAPEL + +READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY + +Is it a weanling's weakness for the past +That in the stormy, rebel-breeding town, +Swept clean of relics by the levelling blast, + +Still keeps our gray old chapel's name of "King's," +Still to its outworn symbols fondly clings,-- +Its unchurched mitres and its empty crown? + +Poor harmless emblems! All has shrunk away +That made them gorgons in the patriot's eyes; +The priestly plaything harms us not to-day; +The gilded crown is but a pleasing show, +An old-world heirloom, left from long ago, +Wreck of the past that memory bids us prize, + +Lightly we glance the fresh-cut marbles o'er; +Those two of earlier date our eyes enthrall: +The proud old Briton's by the western door, +And hers, the Lady of Colonial days, +Whose virtues live in long-drawn classic phrase,-- +The fair Francesca of the southern wall. + +Ay! those were goodly men that Reynolds drew, +And stately dames our Copley's canvas holds, +To their old Church, their Royal Master, true, +Proud of the claim their valiant sires had earned, +That "gentle blood," not lightly to be spurned, +Save by the churl ungenerous Nature moulds. + +All vanished! It were idle to complain +That ere the fruits shall come the flowers must fall; +Yet somewhat we have lost amidst our gain, +Some rare ideals time may not restore,-- +The charm of courtly breeding, seen no more, +And reverence, dearest ornament of all. + +Thus musing, to the western wall I came, +Departing: lo! a tablet fresh and fair, +Where glistened many a youth's remembered name +In golden letters on the snow-white stone,-- +Young lives these aisles and arches once have known, +Their country's bleeding altar might not spare. + +These died that we might claim a soil unstained, +Save by the blood of heroes; their bequests +A realm unsevered and a race unchained. +Has purer blood through Norman veins come down +From the rough knights that clutched the Saxon's crown +Than warmed the pulses in these faithful breasts? + +These, too, shall live in history's deathless page, +High on the slow-wrought pedestals of fame, +Ranged with the heroes of remoter age; +They could not die who left their nation free, +Firm as the rock, unfettered as the sea, +Its heaven unshadowed by the cloud of shame. + +While on the storied past our memory dwells, +Our grateful tribute shall not be denied,-- +The wreath, the cross of rustling immortelles; +And willing hands shall clear each darkening bust, +As year by year sifts down the clinging dust +On Shirley's beauty and on Vassall's pride. + +But for our own, our loved and lost, we bring +With throbbing hearts and tears that still must flow, +In full-heaped hands, the opening flowers of spring, +Lilies half-blown, and budding roses, red +As their young cheeks, before the blood was shed +That lent their morning bloom its generous glow. + +Ah, who shall count a rescued nation's debt, +Or sum in words our martyrs' silent claims? +Who shall our heroes' dread exchange forget,-- +All life, youth, hope, could promise to allure +For all that soul could brave or flesh endure? +They shaped our future; we but carve their names. + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE SAME OCCASION + +SUNG BY THE CONGREGATION TO THE TUNE OF +TALLIS'S EVENING HYMN + +O'ERSHADOWED by the walls that climb, +Piled up in air by living hands, +A rock amid the waves of time, +Our gray old house of worship stands. + +High o'er the pillared aisles we love +The symbols of the past look down; +Unharmed, unharming, throned above, +Behold the mitre and the crown! + +Let not our younger faith forget +The loyal souls that held them dear; +The prayers we read their tears have wet, +The hymns we sing they loved to hear. + +The memory of their earthly throne +Still to our holy temple clings, +But here the kneeling suppliants own +One only Lord, the King of kings. + +Hark! while our hymn of grateful praise +The solemn echoing vaults prolong, +The far-off voice of earlier days +Blends with our own in hallowed song: + +To Him who ever lives and reigns, +Whom all the hosts of heaven adore, +Who lent the life His breath sustains, +Be glory now and evermore! + + + + +HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + +(by supposition) + +An Hymn set forth to be sung by the Great Assembly +at Newtown, [Mass.] Mo. 12. 1. 1636. + +[Written by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, eldest son of Rev. +ABIEL HOLMES, eighth Pastor of the First Church in +Cambridge, Massachusetts.] + +LORD, Thou hast led us as of old +Thine Arm led forth the chosen Race +Through Foes that raged, through Floods that roll'd, +To Canaan's far-off Dwelling-Place. + +Here is Thy bounteous Table spread, +Thy Manna falls on every Field, +Thy Grace our hungering Souls hath fed, +Thy Might hath been our Spear and Shield. + +Lift high Thy Buckler, Lord of Hosts! +Guard Thou Thy Servants, Sons and Sires, +While on the Godless heathen Coasts +They light Thine Israel's Altar-fires! + +The salvage Wilderness remote +Shall hear Thy Works and Wonders sung; +So from the Rock that Moses smote +The Fountain of the Desart sprung. + +Soon shall the slumbering Morn awake, +From wandering Stars of Errour freed, +When Christ the Bread of Heaven shall break +For Saints that own a common Creed. + +The Walls that fence His Flocks apart +Shall crack and crumble in Decay, +And every Tongue and every Heart +Shall welcome in the new-born Day. + +Then shall His glorious Church rejoice +His Word of Promise to recall,-- +ONE SHELTERING FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD'S VOICE, +ONE GOD AND FATHER OVER ALL! + + + + +HYMN + +READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES +HOSPITAL AT HUDSON, WISCONSIN + +JUNE 7, 1877 + +ANGEL of love, for every grief +Its soothing balm thy mercy brings, +For every pang its healing leaf, +For homeless want, thine outspread, wings. + +Enough for thee the pleading eye, +The knitted brow of silent pain; +The portals open to a sigh +Without the clank of bolt or chain. + +Who is our brother? He that lies +Left at the wayside, bruised and sore +His need our open hand supplies, +His welcome waits him at our door. + +Not ours to ask in freezing tones +His race, his calling, or his creed; +Each heart the tie of kinship owns, +When those are human veins that bleed. + +Here stand the champions to defend +From every wound that flesh can feel; +Here science, patience, skill, shall blend +To save, to calm, to help, to heal. + +Father of Mercies! Weak and frail, +Thy guiding hand Thy children ask; +Let not the Great Physician fail +To aid us in our holy task. + +Source of all truth, and love, and light, +That warm and cheer our earthly days, +Be ours to serve Thy will aright, +Be Thine the glory and the praise! + + + + +ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + +I. + +FALLEN with autumn's falling leaf +Ere yet his summer's noon was past, +Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief,-- +What words can match a woe so vast! + +And whose the chartered claim to speak +The sacred grief where all have part, +Where sorrow saddens every cheek +And broods in every aching heart? + +Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase +That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall, +The loud lament, the sorrowing praise, +The silent tear that love lets fall. + +In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme, +Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir,--- +The singers of the new-born time, +And trembling age with outworn lyre. + +No room for pride, no place for blame,-- +We fling our blossoms on the grave, +Pale,--scentless,--faded,--all we claim, +This only,--what we had we gave. + +Ah, could the grief of all who mourn +Blend in one voice its bitter cry, +The wail to heaven's high arches borne +Would echo through the caverned sky. + + +II. + +O happiest land, whose peaceful choice +Fills with a breath its empty throne! +God, speaking through thy people's voice, +Has made that voice for once His own. + +No angry passion shakes the state +Whose weary servant seeks for rest; +And who could fear that scowling hate +Would strike at that unguarded breast? + +He stands, unconscious of his doom, +In manly strength, erect, serene; +Around him Summer spreads her bloom; +He falls,--what horror clothes the scene! + +How swift the sudden flash of woe +Where all was bright as childhood's dream! +As if from heaven's ethereal bow +Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam. + +Blot the foul deed from history's page; +Let not the all-betraying sun +Blush for the day that stains an age +When murder's blackest wreath was won. + + +III. + +Pale on his couch the sufferer lies, +The weary battle-ground of pain +Love tends his pillow; Science tries +Her every art, alas! in vain. + +The strife endures how long! how long! +Life, death, seem balanced in the scale, +While round his bed a viewless throng +Await each morrow's changing tale. + +In realms the desert ocean parts +What myriads watch with tear-filled eyes, +His pulse-beats echoing in their hearts, +His breathings counted with their sighs! + +Slowly the stores of life are spent, +Yet hope still battles with despair; +Will Heaven not yield when knees are bent? +Answer, O thou that hearest prayer + +But silent is the brazen sky; +On sweeps the meteor's threatening train, +Unswerving Nature's mute reply, +Bound in her adamantine chain. + +Not ours the verdict to decide +Whom death shall claim or skill shall save; +The hero's life though Heaven denied, +It gave our land a martyr's grave. + +Nor count the teaching vainly sent +How human hearts their griefs may share,-- +The lesson woman's love has lent, +What hope may do, what faith can bear! + +Farewell! the leaf-strown earth enfolds +Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears, +And autumn's golden sun beholds +A nation bowed, a world in tears. + + + + +THE GOLDEN FLOWER + +WHEN Advent dawns with lessening days, +While earth awaits the angels' hymn; +When bare as branching coral sways +In whistling winds each leafless limb; +When spring is but a spendthrift's dream, +And summer's wealth a wasted dower, +Nor dews nor sunshine may redeem,-- +Then autumn coins his Golden Flower. + +Soft was the violet's vernal hue, +Fresh was the rose's morning red, +Full-orbed the stately dahlia grew,-- +All gone! their short-lived splendors shed. +The shadows, lengthening, stretch at noon; +The fields are stripped, the groves are dumb; +The frost-flowers greet the icy moon,-- +Then blooms the bright chrysanthemum. + +The stiffening turf is white with snow, +Yet still its radiant disks are seen +Where soon the hallowed morn will show +The wreath and cross of Christmas green; +As if in autumn's dying days +It heard the heavenly song afar, +And opened all its glowing rays, +The herald lamp of Bethlehem's star. + +Orphan of summer, kindly sent +To cheer the fading year's decline, +In all that pitying Heaven has lent +No fairer pledge of hope than thine. +Yes! June lies hid beneath the snow, +And winter's unborn heir shall claim +For every seed that sleeps below +A spark that kindles into flame. + +Thy smile the scowl of winter braves +Last of the bright-robed, flowery train, +Soft sighing o'er the garden graves, +"Farewell! farewell! we meet again!" +So may life's chill November bring +Hope's golden flower, the last of all, +Before we hear the angels sing +Where blossoms never fade and fall! + + + + +HAIL, COLUMBIA! + +1798 + +THE FIRST VERSE OF THE SONG + +BY JOSEPH HOPKINSON + + "HAIL, Columbia! Happy land! + Hail, ye heroes, heaven-born band, + Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, + Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, + And when the storm of war was gone + Enjoy'd the peace your valor won. + Let independence be our boast, + Ever mindful what it cost; + Ever grateful for the prize, + Let its altar reach the skies. + + "Firm--united--let us be, + Rallying round our Liberty; + As a band of brothers join'd, + Peace and safety we shall find." + + +ADDITIONAL VERSES + +WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE +CONSTITUTIONAL CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT PHILADELPHIA, + +1887 + +LOOK our ransomed shores around, +Peace and safety we have found! +Welcome, friends who once were foes! +Welcome, friends who once were foes, +To all the conquering years have gained,-- +A nation's rights, a race unchained! + +Children of the day new-born, +Mindful of its glorious morn, +Let the pledge our fathers signed +Heart to heart forever bind! + +While the stars of heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever may the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + +Graven deep with edge of steel, +Crowned with Victory's crimson seal, +All the world their names shall read! +All the world their names shall read, +Enrolled with his, the Chief that led +The hosts whose blood for us was shed. +Pay our sires their children's debt, +Love and honor, nor forget +Only Union's golden key +Guards the Ark of Liberty! + +While the stars of heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever may the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + +Hail, Columbia! strong and free, +Throned in hearts from sea to sea +Thy march triumphant still pursue! +Thy march triumphant still pursue +With peaceful stride from zone to zone, +Till Freedom finds the world her own + +Blest in Union's holy ties, +Let our grateful song arise, +Every voice its tribute lend, +All in loving chorus blend! + +While the stars in heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever shall the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + + + + +POEM + +FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT +STRATFORD-ON-AVON, PRESENTED BY +GEORGE W. CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + +WELCOME, thrice welcome is thy silvery gleam, +Thou long-imprisoned stream! +Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads +As plashing raindrops to the flowery meads, +As summer's breath to Avon's whispering reeds! +From rock-walled channels, drowned in rayless night, +Leap forth to life and light; +Wake from the darkness of thy troubled dream, +And greet with answering smile the morning's beam! + +No purer lymph the white-limbed Naiad knows +Than from thy chalice flows; +Not the bright spring of Afric's sunny shores, +Starry with spangles washed from golden ores, +Nor glassy stream Bandusia's fountain pours, +Nor wave translucent where Sabrina fair +Braids her loose-flowing hair, +Nor the swift current, stainless as it rose +Where chill Arveiron steals from Alpine snows. + +Here shall the traveller stay his weary feet +To seek thy calm retreat; +Here at high noon the brown-armed reaper rest; +Here, when the shadows, lengthening from the west, +Call the mute song-bird to his leafy nest, +Matron and maid shall chat the cares away +That brooded o'er the day, +While flocking round them troops of children meet, +And all the arches ring with laughter sweet. + +Here shall the steed, his patient life who spends +In toil that never ends, +Hot from his thirsty tramp o'er hill and plain, +Plunge his red nostrils, while the torturing rein +Drops in loose loops beside his floating mane; +Nor the poor brute that shares his master's lot +Find his small needs forgot,-- +Truest of humble, long-enduring friends, +Whose presence cheers, whose guardian care +defends! + +Here lark and thrush and nightingale shall sip, +And skimming swallows dip, +And strange shy wanderers fold their lustrous plumes +Fragrant from bowers that lent their sweet perfumes +Where Paestum's rose or Persia's lilac blooms; +Here from his cloud the eagle stoop to drink +At the full basin's brink, +And whet his beak against its rounded lip, +His glossy feathers glistening as they drip. + +Here shall the dreaming poet linger long, +Far from his listening throng,-- +Nor lute nor lyre his trembling hand shall bring; +Here no frail Muse shall imp her crippled wing, +No faltering minstrel strain his throat to sing! +These hallowed echoes who shall dare to claim +Whose tuneless voice would shame, +Whose jangling chords with jarring notes would wrong +The nymphs that heard the Swan if Avon's song? + +What visions greet the pilgrim's raptured eyes! +What ghosts made real rise! +The dead return,--they breathe,--they live again, +Joined by the host of Fancy's airy train, +Fresh from the springs of Shakespeare's quickening brain! +The stream that slakes the soul's diviner thirst +Here found the sunbeams first; +Rich with his fame, not less shall memory prize +The gracious gift that humbler wants supplies. + +O'er the wide waters reached the hand that gave +To all this bounteous wave, +With health and strength and joyous beauty fraught; +Blest be the generous pledge of friendship, brought +From the far home of brothers' love, unbought! +Long may fair Avon's fountain flow, enrolled +With storied shrines of old, +Castalia's spring, Egeria's dewy cave, +And Horeb's rock the God of Israel slave! + +Land of our fathers, ocean makes us two, +But heart to heart is true! +Proud is your towering daughter in the West, +Yet in her burning life-blood reign confest +Her mother's pulses beating in her breast. +This holy fount, whose rills from heaven descend, +Its gracious drops shall lend,-- +Both foreheads bathed in that baptismal dew, +And love make one the old home and the new! + +August 29, 1887. + + + + +TO THE POETS WHO ONLY +READ AND LISTEN + +WHEN evening's shadowy fingers fold +The flowers of every hue, +Some shy, half-opened bud will hold +Its drop of morning's dew. + +Sweeter with every sunlit hour +The trembling sphere has grown, +Till all the fragrance of the flower +Becomes at last its own. + +We that have sung perchance may find +Our little meed of praise, +And round our pallid temples bind +The wreath of fading bays + +Ah, Poet, who hast never spent +Thy breath in idle strains, +For thee the dewdrop morning lent +Still in thy heart remains; + +Unwasted, in its perfumed cell +It waits the evening gale; +Then to the azure whence it fell +Its lingering sweets exhale. + + + + +FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE +NEW CITY LIBRARY, BOSTON + +PROUDLY, beneath her glittering dome, +Our three-hilled city greets the morn; +Here Freedom found her virgin home,-- +The Bethlehem where her babe was born. + +The lordly roofs of traffic rise +Amid the smoke of household fires; +High o'er them in the peaceful skies +Faith points to heaven her clustering spires. + +Can Freedom breathe if ignorance reign? +Shall Commerce thrive where anarchs rule? +Will Faith her half-fledged brood retain +If darkening counsels cloud the school? + +Let in the light! from every age +Some gleams of garnered wisdom pour, +And, fixed on thought's electric page, +Wait all their radiance to restore. + +Let in the light! in diamond mines +Their gems invite the hand that delves; +So learning's treasured jewels shine +Ranged on the alcove's ordered shelves. + +From history's scroll the splendor streams, +From science leaps the living ray; +Flashed from the poet's glowing dreams +The opal fires of fancy play. + +Let in the light! these windowed walls +Shall brook no shadowing colonnades, +But day shall flood the silent halls +Till o'er yon hills the sunset fades. + +Behind the ever open gate +No pikes shall fence a crumbling throne, +No lackeys cringe, no courtiers wait, +This palace is the people's own! + +Heirs of our narrow-girdled past, +How fair the prospect we survey, +Where howled unheard the wintry blast, +And rolled unchecked the storm-swept bay! + +These chosen precincts, set apart +For learned toil and holy shrines, +Yield willing homes to every art +That trains, or strengthens, or refines. + +Here shall the sceptred mistress reign +Who heeds her meanest subject's call, +Sovereign of all their vast domain, +The queen, the handmaid of them all! + +November 26, 1888. + + + + +FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S +IN MEMORY OF A SON OF ARCHDEACON FARRAR + +AFAR he sleeps whose name is graven here, +Where loving hearts his early doom deplore; +Youth, promise, virtue, all that made him dear +Heaven lent, earth borrowed, sorrowing to restore. + +BOSTON, April 12, 1891. + + + + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + +1819-1891 + +THOU shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir +That filled our groves with music till the day +Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire, +And evening listened for thy lingering lay. + +But thou hast found thy voice in realms afar +Where strains celestial blend their notes with thine; +Some cloudless sphere beneath a happier star +Welcomes the bright-winged spirit we resign. + +How Nature mourns thee in the still retreat +Where passed in peace thy love-enchanted hours! +Where shall she find an eye like thine to greet +Spring's earliest footprints on her opening flowers? + +Have the pale wayside weeds no fond regret +For him who read the secrets they enfold? +Shall the proud spangles of the field forget +The verse that lent new glory to their gold? + +And ye whose carols wooed his infant ear, +Whose chants with answering woodnotes he repaid, +Have ye no song his spirit still may hear +From Elmwood's vaults of overarching shade? + +Friends of his studious hours, who thronged to teach +The deep-read scholar all your varied lore, +Shall he no longer seek your shelves to reach +The treasure missing from his world-wide store? + +This singer whom we long have held so dear +Was Nature's darling, shapely, strong, and fair; +Of keenest wit, of judgment crystal-clear, +Easy of converse, courteous, debonair, + +Fit for the loftiest or the lowliest lot, +Self-poised, imperial, yet of simplest ways; +At home alike in castle or in cot, +True to his aim, let others blame or praise. + +Freedom he found an heirloom from his sires; +Song, letters, statecraft, shared his years in turn; +All went to feed the nation's altar-fires +Whose mourning children wreathe his funeral urn. + +He loved New England,--people, language, soil, +Unweaned by exile from her arid breast. +Farewell awhile, white-handed son of toil, +Go with her brown-armed laborers to thy rest. + +Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade! +Poet and patriot, every gift was thine; +Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade, +And grateful Memory guard thy leafy shrine! + +=== + + + + + POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS + + + +TO THE ELEVEN LADIES + +WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP +ON THE TWENTY-NINTH OF AUGUST, M DCCC LXXXIX + +"WHO gave this cup?" The secret thou wouldst steal +Its brimming flood forbids it to reveal: +No mortal's eye shall read it till he first +Cool the red throat of thirst. + +If on the golden floor one draught remain, +Trust me, thy careful search will be in vain; +Not till the bowl is emptied shalt thou know +The names enrolled below. + +Deeper than Truth lies buried in her well +Those modest names the graven letters spell +Hide from the sight; but wait, and thou shalt see +Who the good angels be + +Whose bounty glistens in the beauteous gift +That friendly hands to loving lips shall lift +Turn the fair goblet when its floor is dry,-- +Their names shall meet thine eye. + +Count thou their number on the beads of Heaven +Alas! the clustered Pleiads are but seven; +Nay, the nine sister Muses are too few,-- +The Graces must add two. + +"For whom this gift?" For one who all too long +Clings to his bough among the groves of song; +Autumn's last leaf, that spreads its faded wing +To greet a second spring. + +Dear friends, kind friends, whate'er the cup may hold, +Bathing its burnished depths, will change to gold +Its last bright drop let thirsty Maenads drain, +Its fragrance will remain. + +Better love's perfume in the empty bowl +Than wine's nepenthe for the aching soul; +Sweeter than song that ever poet sung, +It makes an old heart young! + + + + +THE PEAU DE CHAGRIN OF STATE STREET + +How beauteous is the bond +In the manifold array +Of its promises to pay, +While the eight per cent it gives +And the rate at which one lives +Correspond! + +But at last the bough is bare +Where the coupons one by one +Through their ripening days have run, +And the bond, a beggar now, +Seeks investment anyhow, +Anywhere! + + + + +CACOETHES SCRIBENDI + +IF all the trees in all the woods were men; +And each and every blade of grass a pen; +If every leaf on every shrub and tree +Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea +Were changed to ink, and all earth's living tribes +Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, +And for ten thousand ages, day and night, +The human race should write, and write, and write, +Till all the pens and paper were used up, +And the huge inkstand was an empty cup, +Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink +Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink. + + + + +THE ROSE AND THE FERN + +LADY, life's sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn, +Come thou with me to Love's enchanted bower +High overhead the trellised roses burn; +Beneath thy feet behold the feathery fern,-- +A leaf without a flower. + +What though the rose leaves fall? They still are sweet, +And have been lovely in their beauteous prime, +While the bare frond seems ever to repeat, +"For us no bud, no blossom, wakes to greet +The joyous flowering time!" + +Heed thou the lesson. Life has leaves to tread +And flowers to cherish; summer round thee glows; +Wait not till autumn's fading robes are shed, +But while its petals still are burning red +Gather life's full-blown rose! + + + + +I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU + +I LIKE YOU Met I LOVE You, face to face; +The path was narrow, and they could not pass. +I LIKE YOU smiled; I LOVE YOU cried, Alas! +And so they halted for a little space. + +"Turn thou and go before," I LOVE YOU said, +"Down the green pathway, bright with many a flower; +Deep in the valley, lo! my bridal bower +Awaits thee." But I LIKE YOU shook his head. + +Then while they lingered on the span-wide shelf +That shaped a pathway round the rocky ledge, +I LIKE You bared his icy dagger's edge, +And first he slew I LOVE You,--then himself. + + + + +LA MAISON D'OR + +(BAR HARBOR) + +FROM this fair home behold on either side +The restful mountains or the restless sea +So the warm sheltering walls of life divide +Time and its tides from still eternity. + +Look on the waves: their stormy voices teach +That not on earth may toil and struggle cease. +Look on the mountains: better far than speech +Their silent promise of eternal peace. + + + + +TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE + +Too young for love? +Ah, say not so! +Tell reddening rose-buds not to blow +Wait not for spring to pass away,-- +Love's summer months begin with May! +Too young for love? +Ah, say not so! +Too young? Too young? +Ah, no! no! no! + +Too young for love? +Ah, say not so, +To practise all love learned in May. +June soon will come with lengthened day +While daisies bloom and tulips glow! + +Too young for love? +Ah, say not so! +Too young? Too young? +Ah, no! no! no + + + + +THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, +THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES + +LOOK out! Look out, boys! Clear the track! +The witches are here! They've all come back! +They hanged them high,--No use! No use! +What cares a witch for a hangman's noose? +They buried them deep, but they wouldn't lie still, +For cats and witches are hard to kill; +They swore they shouldn't and wouldn't die,-- +Books said they did, but they lie! they lie! + +A couple of hundred years, or so, +They had knocked about in the world below, +When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call, +And a homesick feeling seized them all; +For he came from a place they knew full well, +And many a tale he had to tell. +They longed to visit the haunts of men, +To see the old dwellings they knew again, +And ride on their broomsticks all around +Their wide domain of unhallowed ground. + +In Essex county there's many a roof +Well known to him of the cloven hoof; +The small square windows are full in view +Which the midnight hags went sailing through, +On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high, +Seen like shadows against the sky; +Crossing the track of owls and bats, +Hugging before them their coal-black cats. + +Well did they know, those gray old wives, +The sights we see in our daily drives +Shimmer of lake and shine of sea, +Browne's bare hill with its lonely tree, +(It was n't then as we see it now, +With one scant scalp-lock to shade its brow;) +Dusky nooks in the Essex woods, +Dark, dim, Dante-like solitudes, +Where the tree-toad watches the sinuous snake +Glide through his forests of fern and brake; +Ipswich River; its old stone bridge; +Far off Andover's Indian Ridge, +And many a scene where history tells +Some shadow of bygone terror dwells,-- +Of "Norman's Woe" with its tale of dread, +Of the Screeching Woman of Marblehead, +(The fearful story that turns men pale +Don't bid me tell it,--my speech would fail.) + +Who would not, will not, if he can, +Bathe in the breezes of fair Cape Ann,-- +Rest in the bowers her bays enfold, +Loved by the sachems and squaws of old? +Home where the white magnolias bloom, +Sweet with the bayberry's chaste perfume, +Hugged by the woods and kissed by the sea! +Where is the Eden like to thee? +For that "couple of hundred years, or so," +There had been no peace in the world below; +The witches still grumbling, "It is n't fair; +Come, give us a taste of the upper air! +We 've had enough of your sulphur springs, +And the evil odor that round them clings; +We long for a drink that is cool and nice,-- +Great buckets of water with Wenham ice; +We've served you well up-stairs, you know; +You 're a good old--fellow--come, let us go!" + +I don't feel sure of his being good, +But he happened to be in a pleasant mood,-- +As fiends with their skins full sometimes are,-- +(He'd been drinking with "roughs" at a Boston bar.) +So what does he do but up and shout +To a graybeard turnkey, "Let 'em out!" + +To mind his orders was all he knew; +The gates swung open, and out they flew. +"Where are our broomsticks?" the beldams cried. +"Here are your broomsticks," an imp replied. +"They 've been in--the place you know--so long +They smell of brimstone uncommon strong; +But they've gained by being left alone,-- +Just look, and you'll see how tall they've grown." +"And where is my cat?" a vixen squalled. +"Yes, where are our cats?" the witches bawled, +And began to call them all by name +As fast as they called the cats, they came +There was bob-tailed Tommy and long-tailed Tim, +And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim, +And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged Beau, +And Skinny and Squally, and Jerry and Joe, +And many another that came at call,-- +It would take too long to count them all. +All black,--one could hardly tell which was which, +But every cat knew his own old witch; +And she knew hers as hers knew her,-- +Ah, didn't they curl their tails and purr! + +No sooner the withered hags were free +Than out they swarmed for a midnight spree; +I couldn't tell all they did in rhymes, +But the Essex people had dreadful times. +The Swampscott fishermen still relate +How a strange sea-monster stole their bait; +How their nets were tangled in loops and knots, +And they found dead crabs in their lobster-pots. +Poor Danvers grieved for her blasted crops, +And Wilmington mourned over mildewed hops. +A blight played havoc with Beverly beans,-- +It was all the work of those hateful queans! +A dreadful panic began at "Pride's," +Where the witches stopped in their midnight rides, +And there rose strange rumors and vague alarms +'Mid the peaceful dwellers at Beverly Farms. + +Now when the Boss of the Beldams found +That without his leave they were ramping round, +He called,--they could hear him twenty miles, +From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles; +The deafest old granny knew his tone +Without the trick of the telephone. +"Come here, you witches! Come here!" says he,-- +"At your games of old, without asking me! +I'll give you a little job to do +That will keep you stirring, you godless crew!" + +They came, of course, at their master's call, +The witches, the broomsticks, the cats, and all; +He led the hags to a railway train +The horses were trying to drag in vain. +"Now, then," says he, "you've had your fun, +And here are the cars you've got to run. +The driver may just unhitch his team, +We don't want horses, we don't want steam; +You may keep your old black cats to hug, +But the loaded train you've got to lug." + +Since then on many a car you 'll see +A broomstick plain as plain can be; +On every stick there's a witch astride,-- +The string you see to her leg is tied. +She will do a mischief if she can, +But the string is held by a careful man, +And whenever the evil-minded witch +Would cut some caper, he gives a twitch. +As for the hag, you can't see her, +But hark! you can hear her black cat's purr, +And now and then, as a car goes by, +You may catch a gleam from her wicked eye. + +Often you've looked on a rushing train, +But just what moved it was not so plain. +It couldn't be those wires above, +For they could neither pull nor shove; +Where was the motor that made it go +You couldn't guess, but now you know. + +Remember my rhymes when you ride again +On the rattling rail by the broomstick train! + + + + +TARTARUS + +WHILE in my simple gospel creed +That "God is Love" so plain I read, +Shall dreams of heathen birth affright +My pathway through the coming night? +Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale +Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, +With Thee my faltering steps to aid, +How can I dare to be afraid? + +Shall mouldering page or fading scroll +Outface the charter of the soul? +Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect +The wrong our human hearts reject, +And smite the lips whose shuddering cry +Proclaims a cruel creed a lie? +The wizard's rope we disallow +Was justice once,--is murder now! + +Is there a world of blank despair, +And dwells the Omnipresent there? +Does He behold with smile serene +The shows of that unending scene, +Where sleepless, hopeless anguish lies, +And, ever dying, never dies? +Say, does He hear the sufferer's groan, +And is that child of wrath his own? + +O mortal, wavering in thy trust, +Lift thy pale forehead from the dust! +The mists that cloud thy darkened eyes +Fade ere they reach the o'erarching skies +When the blind heralds of despair +Would bid thee doubt a Father's care, +Look up from earth, and read above +On heaven's blue tablet, GOD IS LOVE! + + + + +AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD + +THE glory has passed from the goldenrod's plume, +The purple-hued asters still linger in bloom +The birch is bright yellow, the sumachs are red, +The maples like torches aflame overhead. + +But what if the joy of the summer is past, +And winter's wild herald is blowing his blast? +For me dull November is sweeter than May, +For my love is its sunshine,--she meets me to-day! + +Will she come? Will the ring-dove return to her nest? +Will the needle swing back from the east or the west? +At the stroke of the hour she will be at her gate; +A friend may prove laggard,--love never comes late. + +Do I see her afar in the distance? Not yet. +Too early! Too early! She could not forget! +When I cross the old bridge where the brook overflowed, +She will flash full in sight at the turn of the road. + +I pass the low wall where the ivy entwines; +I tread the brown pathway that leads through the pines; +I haste by the boulder that lies in the field, +Where her promise at parting was lovingly sealed. + +Will she come by the hillside or round through the wood? +Will she wear her brown dress or her mantle and hood? +The minute draws near,--but her watch may go wrong; +My heart will be asking, What keeps her so long? + +Why doubt for a moment? More shame if I do! +Why question? Why tremble? Are angels more true? +She would come to the lover who calls her his own +Though she trod in the track of a whirling cyclone! + +I crossed the old bridge ere the minute had passed. +I looked: lo! my Love stood before me at last. +Her eyes, how they sparkled, her cheeks, how they glowed, +As we met, face to face, at the turn of the road! + + + + +IN VITA MINERVA + +VEX not the Muse with idle prayers,-- +She will not hear thy call; +She steals upon thee unawares, +Or seeks thee not at all. + +Soft as the moonbeams when they sought +Endymion's fragrant bower, +She parts the whispering leaves of thought +To show her full-blown flower. + +For thee her wooing hour has passed, +The singing birds have flown, +And winter comes with icy blast +To chill thy buds unblown. + +Yet, though the woods no longer thrill +As once their arches rung, +Sweet echoes hover round thee still +Of songs thy summer sung. + +Live in thy past; await no more +The rush of heaven-sent wings; +Earth still has music left in store +While Memory sighs and sings. + + + + + + READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS + + FIVE STORIES AND A SEQUEL + + +TO MY OLD READERS + +You know "The Teacups," that congenial set +Which round the Teapot you have often met; +The grave DICTATOR, him you knew of old,-- +Knew as the shepherd of another fold +Grayer he looks, less youthful, but the same +As when you called him by a different name. +Near him the MISTRESS, whose experienced skill +Has taught her duly every cup to fill; +"Weak;" "strong;" "cool;" "lukewarm; "hot as you can pour;" +"No sweetening;" "sugared;" "two lumps;" "one lump more." +Next, the PROFESSOR, whose scholastic phrase +At every turn the teacher's tongue betrays, +Trying so hard to make his speech precise +The captious listener finds it overnice. + +Nor be forgotten our ANNEXES twain, +Nor HE, the owner of the squinting brain, +Which, while its curious fancies we pursue, +Oft makes us question, "Are we crack-brained too?" + +Along the board our growing list extends, +As one by one we count our clustering friends,-- +The youthful DOCTOR waiting for his share +Of fits and fevers when his crown gets bare; +In strong, dark lines our square-nibbed pen should draw +The lordly presence of the MAN OF LAW; +Our bashful TUTOR claims a humbler place, +A lighter touch, his slender form to trace. +Mark the fair lady he is seated by,-- +Some say he is her lover,--some deny,-- +Watch them together,--time alone can show +If dead-ripe friendship turns to love or no. +Where in my list of phrases shall I seek +The fitting words of NUMBER FIVE to speak? +Such task demands a readier pen than mine,-- +What if I steal the Tutor's Valentine? + +Why should I call her gracious, winning, fair? +Why with the loveliest of her sex compare? +Those varied charms have many a Muse inspired,-- +At last their worn superlatives have tired; +Wit, beauty, sweetness, each alluring grace, +All these in honeyed verse have found their place; +I need them not,--two little words I find +Which hold them all in happiest form combined; +No more with baffled language will I strive,-- +All in one breath I utter: Number Five! + +Now count our teaspoons--if you care to learn +How many tinkling cups were served in turn,-- +Add all together, you will find them ten,-- +Our young MUSICIAN joined us now and then. +Our bright DELILAH you must needs recall, +The comely handmaid, youngest of us all; +Need I remind you how the little maid +Came at a pinch to our Professor's aid,-- +Trimmed his long locks with unrelenting shears +And eased his looks of half a score of years? + +Sometimes, at table, as you well must know, +The stream of talk will all at once run low, +The air seems smitten with a sudden chill, +The wit grows silent and the gossip still; +This was our poet's chance, the hour of need, +When rhymes and stories we were used to read. +One day a whisper round the teacups stole,-- +"No scrap of paper in the silver bowl!" +(Our "poet's corner" may I not expect +My kindly reader still may recollect?) +"What! not a line to keep our souls alive?" +Spoke in her silvery accents Number Five. +"No matter, something we must find to read,-- +Find it or make it,--yes, we must indeed! +Now I remember I have seen at times +Some curious stories in a book of rhymes,-- +How certain secrets, long in silence sealed, +In after days were guessed at or revealed. +Those stories, doubtless, some of you must know,-- +They all were written many a year ago; +But an old story, be it false or true, +Twice told, well told, is twice as good as new; +Wait but three sips and I will go myself, +And fetch the book of verses from its shelf." +No time was lost in finding what she sought,-- +Gone but one moment,--lo! the book is brought. + +"Now, then, Professor, fortune has decreed +That you, this evening, shall be first to read,-- +Lucky for us that listen, for in fact +Who reads this poem must know how to _act_." +Right well she knew that in his greener age +He had a mighty hankering for the stage. +The patient audience had not long to wait; +Pleased with his chance, he smiled and took the bait; +Through his wild hair his coaxing fingers ran,-- +He spread the page before him and began. + + + + +THE BANKER'S SECRET + +THE Banker's dinner is the stateliest feast +The town has heard of for a year, at least; +The sparry lustres shed their broadest blaze, +Damask and silver catch and spread the rays; +The florist's triumphs crown the daintier spoil +Won from the sea, the forest, or the soil; +The steaming hot-house yields its largest pines, +The sunless vaults unearth their oldest wines; +With one admiring look the scene survey, +And turn a moment from the bright display. + +Of all the joys of earthly pride or power, +What gives most life, worth living, in an hour? +When Victory settles on the doubtful fight +And the last foeman wheels in panting flight, +No thrill like this is felt beneath the sun; +Life's sovereign moment is a battle won. +But say what next? To shape a Senate's choice, +By the strong magic of the master's voice; +To ride the stormy tempest of debate +That whirls the wavering fortunes of the state. +Third in the list, the happy lover's prize +Is won by honeyed words from women's eyes. +If some would have it first instead of third, +So let it be,--I answer not a word. +The fourth,--sweet readers, let the thoughtless half +Have its small shrug and inoffensive laugh; +Let the grave quarter wear its virtuous frown, +The stern half-quarter try to scowl us down; +But the last eighth, the choice and sifted few, +Will hear my words, and, pleased, confess them true. + +Among the great whom Heaven has made to shine, +How few have learned the art of arts,--to dine! +Nature, indulgent to our daily need, +Kind-hearted mother! taught us all to feed; +But the chief art,--how rarely Nature flings +This choicest gift among her social kings +Say, man of truth, has life a brighter hour +Than waits the chosen guest who knows his power? +He moves with ease, itself an angel charm,-- +Lifts with light touch my lady's jewelled arm, +Slides to his seat, half leading and half led, +Smiling but quiet till the grace is said, +Then gently kindles, while by slow degrees +Creep softly out the little arts that please; +Bright looks, the cheerful language of the eye, +The neat, crisp question and the gay reply,-- +Talk light and airy, such as well may pass +Between the rested fork and lifted glass;-- +With play like this the earlier evening flies, +Till rustling silks proclaim the ladies rise. +His hour has come,--he looks along the chairs, +As the Great Duke surveyed his iron squares. +That's the young traveller,--is n't much to show,-- +Fast on the road, but at the table slow. +Next him,--you see the author in his look,-- +His forehead lined with wrinkles like a book,-- +Wrote the great history of the ancient Huns,-- +Holds back to fire among the heavy guns. +Oh, there's our poet seated at his side, +Beloved of ladies, soft, cerulean-eyed. +Poets are prosy in their common talk, +As the fast trotters, for the most part, walk. +And there's our well-dressed gentleman, who sits, +By right divine, no doubt, among the wits, +Who airs his tailor's patterns when he walks, +The man that often speaks, but never talks. +Why should he talk, whose presence lends a grace +To every table where he shows his face? +He knows the manual of the silver fork, +Can name his claret--if he sees the cork,-- +Remark that "White-top" was considered fine, +But swear the "Juno" is the better wine;-- +Is not this talking? Ask Quintilian's rules; +If they say No, the town has many fools. +Pause for a moment,--for our eyes behold +The plain unsceptred king, the man of gold, +The thrice illustrious threefold millionnaire; +Mark his slow-creeping, dead, metallic stare; +His eyes, dull glimmering, like the balance-pan +That weighs its guinea as he weighs his man. +Who's next? An artist in a satin tie +Whose ample folds defeat the curious eye. +And there 's the cousin,--must be asked, you know,-- +Looks like a spinster at a baby-show. +Hope he is cool,--they set him next the door,-- +And likes his place, between the gap and bore. +Next comes a Congressman, distinguished guest +We don't count him,--they asked him with the rest; +And then some white cravats, with well-shaped ties, +And heads above them which their owners prize. + +Of all that cluster round the genial board, +Not one so radiant as the banquet's lord. +Some say they fancy, but they know not why, +A shade of trouble brooding in his eye, +Nothing, perhaps,--the rooms are overhot,-- +Yet see his cheek,--the dull-red burning spot,-- +Taste the brown sherry which he does not pass,-- +Ha! That is brandy; see him fill his glass! +But not forgetful of his feasting friends, +To each in turn some lively word he sends; +See how he throws his baited lines about, +And plays his men as anglers play their trout. +A question drops among the listening crew +And hits the traveller, pat on Timbuctoo. +We're on the Niger, somewhere near its source,-- +Not the least hurry, take the river's course +Through Kissi, Foota, Kankan, Bammakoo, +Bambarra, Sego, so to Timbuctoo, +Thence down to Youri;--stop him if we can, +We can't fare worse,--wake up the Congressman! +The Congressman, once on his talking legs, +Stirs up his knowledge to its thickest dregs; +Tremendous draught for dining men to quaff! +Nothing will choke him but a purpling laugh. +A word,--a shout,--a mighty roar,--'t is done; +Extinguished; lassoed by a treacherous pun. +A laugh is priming to the loaded soul; +The scattering shots become a steady roll, +Broke by sharp cracks that run along the line, +The light artillery of the talker's wine. +The kindling goblets flame with golden dews, +The hoarded flasks their tawny fire diffuse, +And the Rhine's breast-milk gushes cold and bright, +Pale as the moon and maddening as her light; +With crimson juice the thirsty southern sky +Sucks from the hills where buried armies lie, +So that the dreamy passion it imparts +Is drawn from heroes' bones and lovers' hearts. +But lulls will come; the flashing soul transmits +Its gleams of light in alternating fits. +The shower of talk that rattled down amain +Ends in small patterings like an April's rain; + +With the dry sticks all bonfires are begun; +Bring the first fagot, proser number one +The voices halt; the game is at a stand; +Now for a solo from the master-hand +'T is but a story,--quite a simple thing,-- +An aria touched upon a single string, +But every accent comes with such a grace +The stupid servants listen in their place, +Each with his waiter in his lifted hands, +Still as a well-bred pointer when he stands. +A query checks him: "Is he quite exact?" +(This from a grizzled, square-jawed man of fact.) +The sparkling story leaves him to his fate, +Crushed by a witness, smothered with a date, +As a swift river, sown with many a star, +Runs brighter, rippling on a shallow bar. +The smooth divine suggests a graver doubt; +A neat quotation bowls the parson out; +Then, sliding gayly from his own display, +He laughs the learned dulness all away. +So, with the merry tale and jovial song, +The jocund evening whirls itself along, +Till the last chorus shrieks its loud encore, +And the white neckcloths vanish through the door. + +One savage word!--The menials know its tone, +And slink away; the master stands alone. +Well played, by ------"; breathe not what were best unheard; +His goblet shivers while he speaks the word,-- +"If wine tells truth,--and so have said the wise,-- +It makes me laugh to think how brandy lies! +Bankrupt to-morrow,--millionnaire to-day,-- +The farce is over,--now begins the play!" +The spring he touches lets a panel glide; +An iron closet harks beneath the slide, +Bright with such treasures as a search might bring +From the deep pockets of a truant king. +Two diamonds, eyeballs of a god of bronze, +Bought from his faithful priest, a pious bonze; +A string of brilliants; rubies, three or four; +Bags of old coin and bars of virgin ore; +A jewelled poniard and a Turkish knife, +Noiseless and useful if we come to strife. +Gone! As a pirate flies before the wind, +And not one tear for all he leaves behind +From all the love his better years have known +Fled like a felon,--ah! but not alone! +The chariot flashes through a lantern's glare,-- +Oh the wild eyes! the storm of sable hair! +Still to his side the broken heart will cling,-- +The bride of shame, the wife without the ring +Hark, the deep oath,--the wail of frenzied woe,-- +Lost! lost to hope of Heaven and peace below! + +He kept his secret; but the seed of crime +Bursts of itself in God's appointed time. +The lives he wrecked were scattered far and wide; +One never blamed nor wept,--she only died. +None knew his lot, though idle tongues would say +He sought a lonely refuge far away, +And there, with borrowed name and altered mien, +He died unheeded, as he lived unseen. +The moral market had the usual chills +Of Virtue suffering from protested bills; +The White Cravats, to friendship's memory true, +Sighed for the past, surveyed the future too; +Their sorrow breathed in one expressive line,-- +"Gave pleasant dinners; who has got his wine?" + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +The reader paused,--the Teacups knew his ways,-- +He, like the rest, was not averse to praise. +Voices and hands united; every one +Joined in approval: "Number Three, well done!" + +"Now for the Exile's story; if my wits +Are not at fault, his curious record fits +Neatly as sequel to the tale we've heard; +Not wholly wild the fancy, nor absurd +That this our island hermit well might be +That story's hero, fled from over sea. +Come, Number Seven, we would not have you strain +The fertile powers of that inventive brain. +Read us 'The Exile's Secret'; there's enough +Of dream-like fiction and fantastic stuff +In the strange web of mystery that invests +The lonely isle where sea birds build their nests." + +"Lies! naught but lies!" so Number Seven began,-- +No harm was known of that secluded man. +He lived alone,--who would n't if he might, +And leave the rogues and idiots out of sight? +A foolish story,--still, I'll do my best,-- +The house was real,--don't believe the rest. +How could a ruined dwelling last so long +Without its legends shaped in tale and song? +Who was this man of whom they tell the lies? +Perhaps--why not?--NAPOLEON! in disguise,-- +So some said, kidnapped from his ocean coop, +Brought to this island in a coasting sloop,-- +Meanwhile a sham Napoleon in his place +Played Nap. and saved Sir Hudson from disgrace. +Such was one story; others used to say, +"No,--not Napoleon,--it was Marshal Ney." +"Shot?" Yes, no doubt, but not with balls of lead, +But balls of pith that never shoot folks dead. +He wandered round, lived South for many a year, +At last came North and fixed his dwelling here. +Choose which you will of all the tales that pile +Their mingling fables on the tree-crowned isle. +Who wrote this modest version I suppose +That truthful Teacup, our Dictator, knows; +Made up of various legends, it would seem, +The sailor's yarn, the crazy poet's dream. +Such tales as this, by simple souls received, +At first are stared at and at last believed; +From threads like this the grave historians try +To weave their webs, and never know they lie. +Hear, then, the fables that have gathered round +The lonely home an exiled stranger found. + + +THE EXILE'S SECRET + +YE that have faced the billows and the spray +Of good St. Botolph's island-studded bay, +As from the gliding bark your eye has scanned +The beaconed rocks, the wave-girt hills of sand, +Have ye not marked one elm-o'ershadowed isle, +Round as the dimple chased in beauty's smile,-- +A stain of verdure on an azure field, +Set like a jewel in a battered shield? +Fixed in the narrow gorge of Ocean's path, +Peaceful it meets him in his hour of wrath; +When the mailed Titan, scourged by hissing gales, +Writhes in his glistening coat of clashing scales, +The storm-beat island spreads its tranquil green, +Calm as an emerald on an angry queen. +So fair when distant should be fairer near; +A boat shall waft us from the outstretched pier. +The breeze blows fresh; we reach the island's edge, +Our shallop rustling through the yielding sedge. +No welcome greets us on the desert isle; +Those elms, far-shadowing, hide no stately pile +Yet these green ridges mark an ancient road; +And to! the traces of a fair abode; +The long gray line that marks a garden-wall, +And heaps of fallen beams,--fire-branded all. + +Who sees unmoved, a ruin at his feet, +The lowliest home where human hearts have beat? +Its hearthstone, shaded with the bistre stain +A century's showery torrents wash in vain; +Its starving orchard, where the thistle blows +And mossy trunks still mark the broken rows; +Its chimney-loving poplar, oftenest seen +Next an old roof, or where a roof has been; +Its knot-grass, plantain,--all the social weeds, +Man's mute companions, following where he leads; +Its dwarfed, pale flowers, that show their straggling heads, +Sown by the wind from grass-choked garden-beds; +Its woodbine, creeping where it used to climb; +Its roses, breathing of the olden time; +All the poor shows the curious idler sees, +As life's thin shadows waste by slow degrees, +Till naught remains, the saddening tale to tell, +Save home's last wrecks,--the cellar and the well? + +And whose the home that strews in black decay +The one green-glowing island of the bay? +Some dark-browed pirate's, jealous of the fate +That seized the strangled wretch of "Nix's Mate"? +Some forger's, skulking in a borrowed name, +Whom Tyburn's dangling halter yet may claim? +Some wan-eyed exile's, wealth and sorrow's heir, +Who sought a lone retreat for tears and prayer? +Some brooding poet's, sure of deathless fame, +Had not his epic perished in the flame? +Or some gray wooer's, whom a girlish frown +Chased from his solid friends and sober town? +Or some plain tradesman's, fond of shade and ease, +Who sought them both beneath these quiet trees? +Why question mutes no question can unlock, +Dumb as the legend on the Dighton rock? +One thing at least these ruined heaps declare,-- +They were a shelter once; a man lived there. + +But where the charred and crumbling records fail, +Some breathing lips may piece the half-told tale; +No man may live with neighbors such as these, +Though girt with walls of rock and angry seas, +And shield his home, his children, or his wife, +His ways, his means, his vote, his creed, his life, +From the dread sovereignty of Ears and Eyes +And the small member that beneath them lies. +They told strange things of that mysterious man; +Believe who will, deny them such as can; +Why should we fret if every passing sail +Had its old seaman talking on the rail? +The deep-sunk schooner stuffed with Eastern lime, +Slow wedging on, as if the waves were slime; +The knife-edged clipper with her ruffled spars, +The pawing steamer with her inane of stars, +The bull-browed galliot butting through the stream, +The wide-sailed yacht that slipped along her beam, +The deck-piled sloops, the pinched chebacco-boats, +The frigate, black with thunder-freighted throats, +All had their talk about the lonely man; +And thus, in varying phrase, the story ran. +His name had cost him little care to seek, +Plain, honest, brief, a decent name to speak, +Common, not vulgar, just the kind that slips +With least suggestion from a stranger's lips. +His birthplace England, as his speech might show, +Or his hale cheek, that wore the red-streak's glow; +His mouth sharp-moulded; in its mirth or scorn +There came a flash as from the milky corn, +When from the ear you rip the rustling sheath, +And the white ridges show their even teeth. +His stature moderate, but his strength confessed, +In spite of broadcloth, by his ample breast; +Full-armed, thick-handed; one that had been strong, +And might be dangerous still, if things went wrong. +He lived at ease beneath his elm-trees' shade, +Did naught for gain, yet all his debts were paid; +Rich, so 't was thought, but careful of his store; +Had all he needed, claimed to have no more. + +But some that lingered round the isle at night +Spoke of strange stealthy doings in their sight; +Of creeping lonely visits that he made +To nooks and corners, with a torch and spade. +Some said they saw the hollow of a cave; +One, given to fables, swore it was a grave; +Whereat some shuddered, others boldly cried, +Those prowling boatmen lied, and knew they lied. +They said his house was framed with curious cares, +Lest some old friend might enter unawares; +That on the platform at his chamber's door +Hinged a loose square that opened through the floor; +Touch the black silken tassel next the bell, +Down, with a crash, the flapping trap-door fell; +Three stories deep the falling wretch would strike, +To writhe at leisure on a boarder's pike. +By day armed always; double-armed at night, + +His tools lay round him; wake him such as might. +A carbine hung beside his India fan, +His hand could reach a Turkish ataghan; +Pistols, with quaint-carved stocks and barrels gilt, +Crossed a long dagger with a jewelled hilt; +A slashing cutlass stretched along the bed;-- +All this was what those lying boatmen said. +Then some were full of wondrous stories told +Of great oak chests and cupboards full of gold; +Of the wedged ingots and the silver bars +That cost old pirates ugly sabre-scars; +How his laced wallet often would disgorge +The fresh-faced guinea of an English George, +Or sweated ducat, palmed by Jews of yore, +Or double Joe, or Portuguese moidore; +And how his finger wore a rubied ring +Fit for the white-necked play-girl of a king. +But these fine legends, told with staring eyes, +Met with small credence from the old and wise. + +Why tell each idle guess, each whisper vain? +Enough : the scorched and cindered beams remain. +He came, a silent pilgrim to the West, +Some old-world mystery throbbing in his breast; +Close to the thronging mart he dwelt alone; +He lived; he died. The rest is all unknown. + +Stranger, whose eyes the shadowy isle survey, +As the black steamer dashes through the bay, +Why ask his buried secret to divine? +He was thy brother; speak, and tell us thine! + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Silence at first, a kind of spell-bound pause; +Then all the Teacups tinkled their applause; +When that was hushed no sound the stillness broke +Till once again the soft-voiced lady spoke: + +"The Lover's Secret,--surely that must need +The youngest voice our table holds to read. +Which of our two 'Annexes' shall we choose? +Either were charming, neither will refuse; +But choose we must,--what better can we do +Than take the younger of the youthful two?" + +True to the primal instinct of her sex, +"Why, that means me," half whispered each Annex. +"What if it does?" the voiceless question came, +That set those pale New England cheeks aflame; +"Our old-world scholar may have ways to teach +Of Oxford English, Britain's purest speech,-- +She shall be youngest,--youngest for _to-day_,-- +Our dates we'll fix hereafter as we may; +_All rights reserved_,--the words we know so well, +That guard the claims of books which never sell." +The British maiden bowed a pleased assent, +Her two long ringlets swinging as she bent; +The glistening eyes her eager soul looked through +Betrayed her lineage in their Saxon blue. +Backward she flung each too obtrusive curl +And thus began,--the rose-lipped English girl. + + +THE LOVER'S SECRET + +WHAT ailed young Lucius? Art had vainly tried +To guess his ill, and found herself defied. +The Augur plied his legendary skill; +Useless; the fair young Roman languished still. +His chariot took him every cloudless day +Along the Pincian Hill or Appian Way; +They rubbed his wasted limbs with sulphurous oil, +Oozed from the far-off Orient's heated soil; +They led him tottering down the steamy path +Where bubbling fountains filled the thermal bath; +Borne in his litter to Egeria's cave, +They washed him, shivering, in her icy wave. +They sought all curious herbs and costly stones, +They scraped the moss that grew on dead men's bones, +They tried all cures the votive tablets taught, +Scoured every place whence healing drugs were brought, +O'er Thracian hills his breathless couriers ran, +His slaves waylaid the Syrian caravan. +At last a servant heard a stranger speak +A new chirurgeon's name; a clever Greek, +Skilled in his art; from Pergamus he came +To Rome but lately; GALEN was the name. +The Greek was called: a man with piercing eyes, +Who must be cunning, and who might be wise. +He spoke but little,--if they pleased, he said, +He 'd wait awhile beside the sufferer's bed. +So by his side he sat, serene and calm, +His very accents soft as healing balm; +Not curious seemed, but every movement spied, +His sharp eyes searching where they seemed to glide; +Asked a few questions,--what he felt, and where? +"A pain just here," "A constant beating there." +Who ordered bathing for his aches and ails? +"Charmis, the water-doctor from Marseilles." +What was the last prescription in his case? +"A draught of wine with powdered chrysoprase." +Had he no secret grief he nursed alone? +A pause; a little tremor; answer,--"None." +Thoughtful, a moment, sat the cunning leech, +And muttered " Eros! " in his native speech. +In the broad atrium various friends await +The last new utterance from the lips of fate; +Men, matrons, maids, they talk the question o'er, +And, restless, pace the tessellated floor. +Not unobserved the youth so long had pined +By gentle-hearted dames and damsels kind; +One with the rest, a rich Patrician's pride, +The lady Hermia, called "the golden-eyed"; +The same the old Proconsul fain must woo, +Whom, one dark night, a masked sicarius slew; +The same black Crassus over roughly pressed +To hear his suit,--the Tiber knows the rest. +(Crassus was missed next morning by his set; +Next week the fishers found him in their net.) +She with the others paced the ample hall, +Fairest, alas! and saddest of them all. + +At length the Greek declared, with puzzled face, +Some strange enchantment mingled in the case, +And naught would serve to act as counter-charm +Save a warm bracelet from a maiden's arm. +Not every maiden's,--many might be tried; +Which not in vain, experience must decide. +Were there no damsels willing to attend +And do such service for a suffering friend? +The message passed among the waiting crowd, +First in a whisper, then proclaimed aloud. +Some wore no jewels; some were disinclined, +For reasons better guessed at than defined; +Though all were saints,--at least professed to be,-- +The list all counted, there were named but three. +The leech, still seated by the patient's side, +Held his thin wrist, and watched him, eagle-eyed. +Aurelia first, a fair-haired Tuscan girl, +Slipped off her golden asp, with eyes of pearl. +His solemn head the grave physician shook; +The waxen features thanked her with a look. +Olympia next, a creature half divine, +Sprung from the blood of old Evander's line, +Held her white arm, that wore a twisted chain +Clasped with an opal-sheeny cymophane. +In vain, O daughter I said the baffled Greek. +The patient sighed the thanks he could not speak. + +Last, Hermia entered; look, that sudden start! +The pallium heaves above his leaping heart; +The beating pulse, the cheek's rekindled flame, +Those quivering lips, the secret all proclaim. +The deep disease long throbbing in the breast, +The dread enchantment, all at once confessed! +The case was plain; the treatment was begun; +And Love soon cured the mischief he had done. + +Young Love, too oft thy treacherous bandage slips +Down from the eyes it blinded to the lips! +Ask not the Gods, O youth, for clearer sight, +But the bold heart to plead thy cause aright. +And thou, fair maiden, when thy lovers sigh, +Suspect thy flattering ear, but trust thine eye; +And learn this secret from the tale of old +No love so true as love that dies untold. + + . . . . . . . . . . + +"Bravo, Annex!" they shouted, every one,-- +"Not Mrs. Kemble's self had better done." +"Quite so," she stammered in her awkward way,-- +Not just the thing, but something she must say. + +The teaspoon chorus tinkled to its close +When from his chair the MAN OF LAW arose, +Called by her voice whose mandate all obeyed, +And took the open volume she displayed. +Tall, stately, strong, his form begins to own +Some slight exuberance in its central zone,-- +That comely fulness of the growing girth +Which fifty summers lend the sons of earth. +A smooth, round disk about whose margin stray, +Above the temples, glistening threads of gray; +Strong, deep-cut grooves by toilsome decades wrought +On brow and mouth, the battle-fields of thought; +A voice that lingers in the listener's ear, +Grave, calm, far-reaching, every accent clear,-- +(Those tones resistless many a foreman knew +That shaped their verdict ere the twelve withdrew;) +A statesman's forehead, athlete's throat and jaw, +Such the proud semblance of the Man of Law. +His eye just lighted on the printed leaf, +Held as a practised pleader holds his brief. +One whispered softly from behind his cup, +"He does not read,--his book is wrong side up! +He knows the story that it holds by heart,-- +So like his own! How well he'll act his part!" +Then all were silent; not a rustling fan +Stirred the deep stillness as the voice began. + + +THE STATESMAN'S SECRET + +WHO of all statesmen is his country's pride, +Her councils' prompter and her leaders' guide? +He speaks; the nation holds its breath to hear; +He nods, and shakes the sunset hemisphere. +Born where the primal fount of Nature springs +By the rude cradles of her throneless kings, +In his proud eye her royal signet flames, +By his own lips her Monarch she proclaims. +Why name his countless triumphs, whom to meet +Is to be famous, envied in defeat? +The keen debaters, trained to brawls and strife, +Who fire one shot, and finish with the knife, +Tried him but once, and, cowering in their shame, +Ground their hacked blades to strike at meaner game. +The lordly chief, his party's central stay, +Whose lightest word a hundred votes obey, +Found a new listener seated at his side, +Looked in his eye, and felt himself defied, +Flung his rash gauntlet on the startled floor, +Met the all-conquering, fought,--and ruled no more. +See where he moves, what eager crowds attend! +What shouts of thronging multitudes ascend! +If this is life,--to mark with every hour +The purple deepening in his robes of power, +To see the painted fruits of honor fall +Thick at his feet, and choose among them all, +To hear the sounds that shape his spreading name +Peal through the myriad organ-stops of fame, +Stamp the lone isle that spots the seaman's chart, +And crown the pillared glory of the mart, +To count as peers the few supremely wise +Who mark their planet in the angels' eyes,-- +If this is life-- +What savage man is he +Who strides alone beside the sounding sea? +Alone he wanders by the murmuring shore, +His thoughts as restless as the waves that roar; +Looks on the sullen sky as stormy-browed +As on the waves yon tempest-brooding cloud, +Heaves from his aching breast a wailing sigh, +Sad as the gust that sweeps the clouded sky. +Ask him his griefs; what midnight demons plough +The lines of torture on his lofty brow; +Unlock those marble lips, and bid them speak +The mystery freezing in his bloodless cheek. +His secret? Hid beneath a flimsy word; +One foolish whisper that ambition heard; +And thus it spake: "Behold yon gilded chair, +The world's one vacant throne,--thy plate is there!" + +Ah, fatal dream! What warning spectres meet +In ghastly circle round its shadowy seat! +Yet still the Tempter murmurs in his ear +The maddening taunt he cannot choose but hear +"Meanest of slaves, by gods and men accurst, +He who is second when he might be first +Climb with bold front the ladder's topmost round, +Or chain thy creeping footsteps to the ground!" +Illustrious Dupe! Have those majestic eyes +Lost their proud fire for such a vulgar prize? +Art thou the last of all mankind to know +That party-fights are won by aiming low? +Thou, stamped by Nature with her royal sign, +That party-hirelings hate a look like thine? +Shake from thy sense the wild delusive dream +Without the purple, art thou not supreme? +And soothed by love unbought, thy heart shall own +A nation's homage nobler than its throne! + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Loud rang the plaudits; with them rose the thought, +"Would he had learned the lesson he has taught!" +Used to the tributes of the noisy crowd, +The stately speaker calmly smiled and bowed; +The fire within a flushing cheek betrayed, +And eyes that burned beneath their penthouse shade. + +"The clock strikes ten, the hours are flying fast,-- +Now, Number Five, we've kept you till the last!" + +What music charms like those caressing tones +Whose magic influence every listener owns,-- +Where all the woman finds herself expressed, +And Heaven's divinest effluence breathes confessed? +Such was the breath that wooed our ravished ears, +Sweet as the voice a dreaming vestal hears; +Soft as the murmur of a brooding dove, +It told the mystery of a mother's love. + + +THE MOTHER'S SECRET + +How sweet the sacred legend--if unblamed +In my slight verse such holy things are named-- +Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, +Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy! +Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong +Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song! +The choral host had closed the Angel's strain +Sung to the listening watch on Bethlehem's plain, +And now the shepherds, hastening on their way, +Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay. +They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled o'er,-- +They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor +Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn, +Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn; +And some remembered how the holy scribe, +Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe, +Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son +To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. +So fared they on to seek the promised sign, +That marked the anointed heir of David's line. +At last, by forms of earthly semblance led, +They found the crowded inn, the oxen's shed. + +No pomp was there, no glory shone around +On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground; +One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed,-- +In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid +The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale +Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale; +Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed, +Told how the shining multitude proclaimed, +"Joy, joy to earth! Behold the hallowed morn +In David's city Christ the Lord is born! +'Glory to God!' let angels shout on high, +'Good-will to men!' the listening earth reply!" +They spoke with hurried words and accents wild; +Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. +No trembling word the mother's joy revealed,-- +One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed; +Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, +But kept their words to ponder in her heart. + +Twelve years had passed; the boy was fair and tall, +Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. +The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to fill +Their balanced urns beside the mountain rill, +The gathered matrons, as they sat and spun, +Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son. +No voice had reached the Galilean vale +Of star-led kings, or awe-struck shepherd's tale; +In the meek, studious child they only saw +The future Rabbi, learned in Israel's law. + +Beyond the hills that girt the village green; +Save when at midnight, o'er the starlit sands, +Snatched from the steel of Herod's murdering bands, +A babe, close folded to his mother's breast, +Through Edom's wilds he sought the sheltering West. +Then Joseph spake: "Thy boy hath largely grown; +Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown; +Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest; +Goes he not with us to the holy feast?" +And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white; +Till eve she spun; she spun till morning light. +The thread was twined; its parting meshes through +From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew, +Till the full web was wound upon the beam; +Love's curious toil,--a vest without a seam! +They reach the Holy Place, fulfil the days +To solemn feasting given, and grateful praise. +At last they turn, and far Moriah's height +Melts in the southern sky and fades from sight. +All day the dusky caravan has flowed +In devious trails along the winding road; +(For many a step their homeward path attends, +And all the sons of Abraham are as friends.) +Evening has come,--the hour of rest and joy,-- +Hush! Hush! That whisper,--"Where is Mary's boy?" +Oh, weary hour! Oh, aching days that passed +Filled with strange fears each wilder than the last,-- +The soldier's lance, the fierce centurion's sword, +The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord, +The midnight crypt that sucks the captive's breath, +The blistering sun on Hinnom's vale of death! +Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light; +Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night, +Crouched by a sheltering column's shining plinth, +Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth. +At last, in desperate mood, they sought once more +The Temple's porches, searched in vain before; +They found him seated with the ancient men,-- +The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen,-- +Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near, +Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear, +Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise +That lips so fresh should utter words so wise. +And Mary said,--as one who, tried too long, +Tells all her grief and half her sense of wrong,-- +What is this thoughtless thing which thou hast done? +Lo, we have sought thee sorrowing, O my son! +Few words he spake, and scarce of filial tone, +Strange words, their sense a mystery yet unknown; +Then turned with them and left the holy hill, +To all their mild commands obedient still. +The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men, +And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again; +The maids retold it at the fountain's side, +The youthful shepherds doubted or denied; +It passed around among the listening friends, +With all that fancy adds and fiction lends, +Till newer marvels dimmed the young renown +Of Joseph's son, who talked the Rabbis down. + +But Mary, faithful to its lightest word, +Kept in her heart the sayings she had heard, +Till the dread morning rent the Temple's veil, +And shuddering earth confirmed the wondrous tale. + +Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall +A mother's secret hope outlives them all. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Hushed was the voice, but still its accents thrilled +The throbbing hearts its lingering sweetness filled. +The simple story which a tear repays +Asks not to share the noisy breath of praise. +A trance-like stillness,--scarce a whisper heard, +No tinkling teaspoon in its saucer stirred; +A deep-drawn sigh that would not be suppressed, +A sob, a lifted kerchief told the rest. + +"Come now, Dictator," so the lady spoke, +"You too must fit your shoulder to the yoke; +You'll find there's something, doubtless, if you look, +To serve your purpose,--so, now take the book." +"Ah, my dear lady, you must know full well, +'Story, God bless you, I have none to tell.' +To those five stories which these pages hold +You all have listened,--every one is told. +There's nothing left to make you smile or weep,-- +A few grave thoughts may work you off to sleep." + + +THE SECRET OF THE STARS + +Is man's the only throbbing heart that hides +The silent spring that feeds its whispering tides? +Speak from thy caverns, mystery-breeding Earth, +Tell the half-hinted story of thy birth, +And calm the noisy champions who have thrown +The book of types against the book of stone! + +Have ye not secrets, ye refulgent spheres, +No sleepless listener of the starlight hears? +In vain the sweeping equatorial pries +Through every world-sown corner of the skies, +To the far orb that so remotely strays +Our midnight darkness is its noonday blaze; +In vain the climbing soul of creeping man +Metes out the heavenly concave with a span, +Tracks into space the long-lost meteor's trail, +And weighs an unseen planet in the scale; +Still o'er their doubts the wan-eyed watchers sigh, +And Science lifts her still unanswered cry +"Are all these worlds, that speed their circling flight, +Dumb, vacant, soulless,--baubles of the night? +Warmed with God's smile and wafted by his breath, +To weave in ceaseless round the dance of Death? +Or rolls a sphere in each expanding zone, +Crowned with a life as varied as our own?" + +Maker of earth and stars! If thou hast taught +By what thy voice hath spoke, thy hand hath wrought, +By all that Science proves, or guesses true, +More than thy poet dreamed, thy prophet knew,-- +The heavens still bow in darkness at thy feet, +And shadows veil thy cloud-pavilioned seat! +Not for ourselves we ask thee to reveal +One awful word beneath the future's seal; +What thou shalt tell us, grant us strength to bear; +What thou withholdest is thy single care. +Not for ourselves; the present clings too fast, +Moored to the mighty anchors of the past; +But when, with angry snap, some cable parts, +The sound re-echoing in our startled hearts,-- +When, through the wall that clasps the harbor round, +And shuts the raving ocean from its bound, +Shattered and rent by sacrilegious hands, +The first mad billow leaps upon the sands,-- +Then to the Future's awful page we turn, +And what we question hardly dare to learn. +Still let us hope! for while we seem to tread +The time-worn pathway of the nations dead, +Though Sparta laughs at all our warlike deeds, +And buried Athens claims our stolen creeds, +Though Rome, a spectre on her broken throne, +Beholds our eagle and recalls her own, +Though England fling her pennons on the breeze +And reign before us Mistress of the seas,-- +While calm-eyed History tracks us circling round +Fate's iron pillar where they all were bound, +Still in our path a larger curve she finds, +The spiral widening as the chain unwinds +Still sees new beacons crowned with brighter flame +Than the old watch-fires, like, but not the same +No shameless haste shall spot with bandit-crime +Our destined empire snatched before its time. +Wait,--wait, undoubting, for the winds have caught +From our bold speech the heritage of thought; +No marble form that sculptured truth can wear +Vies with the image shaped in viewless air; +And thought unfettered grows through speech to deeds, +As the broad forest marches in its seeds. +What though we perish ere the day is won? +Enough to see its glorious work begun! +The thistle falls before a trampling clown, +But who can chain the flying thistle-down? +Wait while the fiery seeds of freedom fly, +The prairie blazes when the grass is dry! +What arms might ravish, leave to peaceful arts, +Wisdom and love shall win the roughest hearts; +So shall the angel who has closed for man +The blissful garden since his woes began +Swing wide the golden portals of the West, +And Eden's secret stand at length confessed! + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +The reader paused; in truth he thought it time,-- +Some threatening signs accused the drowsy rhyme. +The Mistress nodded, the Professor dozed, +The two Annexes sat with eyelids closed,-- +Not sleeping,--no! But when one shuts one's eyes, +That one hears better no one, sure, denies. +The Doctor whispered in Delilah's ear, +Or seemed to whisper, for their heads drew near. +Not all the owner's efforts could restrain +The wild vagaries of the squinting brain,-- +Last of the listeners Number Five alone +The patient reader still could call his own. + +"Teacups, arouse!" 'T was thus the spell I broke; +The drowsy started and the slumberers woke. +"The sleep I promised you have now enjoyed, +Due to your hour of labor well employed. +Swiftly the busy moments have been passed; +This, our first 'Teacups,' must not be our last. +Here, on this spot, now consecrated ground, +The Order of 'The Teacups' let us found! +By winter's fireside and in summer's bower +Still shall it claim its ever-welcome hour, +In distant regions where our feet may roam +The magic teapot find or make a home; +Long may its floods their bright infusion pour, +Till time and teacups both shall be no more!" + + + + + + + VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO + + FROM THE "COLLEGIAN," 1830, ILLUSTRATED ANNUALS, ETC. + + Nescit vox missa reverti.--Horat. Ars Poetica. + Ab lis qua non adjuvant quam mollissime oportet pedem referre.-- + Quintillian, L. VI. C. 4. + +These verses have always been printed in my collected poems, and as the +best of them may bear a single reading, I allow them to appear, but in a +less conspicuous position than the other productions. A chick, before +his shell is off his back, is hardly a fair subject for severe criticism. +If one has written anything worth preserving, his first efforts may be +objects of interest and curiosity. Other young authors may take +encouragement from seeing how tame, how feeble, how commonplace were the +rudimentary attempts of the half-fledged poet. If the boy or youth had +anything in him, there will probably be some sign of it in the midst of +his imitative mediocrities and ambitious failures. These "first verses" +of mine, written before I was sixteen, have little beyond a common +academy boy's ordinary performance. Yet a kindly critic said there was +one line which showed a poetical quality:-- + + "The boiling ocean trembled into calm." + +One of these poems--the reader may guess which--won fair words from +Thackeray. The Spectre Pig was a wicked suggestion which came into my +head after reading Dana's Buccaneer. Nobody seemed to find it out, and +I never mentioned it to the venerable poet, who might not have been +pleased with the parody. This is enough to say of these unvalued copies +of verses. + + + FIRST VERSES + + PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASS., 1824 OR 1825 + + +TRANSLATION FROM THE ENEID, BOOK I. + +THE god looked out upon the troubled deep +Waked into tumult from its placid sleep; +The flame of anger kindles in his eye +As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky; +He lifts his head above their awful height +And to the distant fleet directs his sight, +Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest, +Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed, +And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire +Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that fire. +On rapid pinions as they whistled by +He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh +Is this your glory in a noble line +To leave your confines and to ravage mine? +Whom I--but let these troubled waves subside-- +Another tempest and I'11 quell your pride! +Go--bear our message to your master's ear, +That wide as ocean I am despot here; +Let him sit monarch in his barren caves, +I wield the trident and control the waves +He said, and as the gathered vapors break +The swelling ocean seemed a peaceful lake; +To lift their ships the graceful nymphs essayed +And the strong trident lent its powerful aid; +The dangerous banks are sunk beneath the main, +And the light chariot skims the unruffled plain. +As when sedition fires the public mind, +And maddening fury leads the rabble blind, +The blazing torch lights up the dread alarm, +Rage points the steel and fury nerves the arm, +Then, if some reverend Sage appear in sight, +They stand--they gaze, and check their headlong flight,-- +He turns the current of each wandering breast +And hushes every passion into rest,-- +Thus by the power of his imperial arm +The boiling ocean trembled into calm; +With flowing reins the father sped his way +And smiled serene upon rekindled day. + + + + +THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS + +Written after a general pruning of the trees around Harvard College. +A little poem, on a similar occasion, may be found in the works of Swift, +from which, perhaps, the idea was borrowed; although I was as much +surprised as amused to meet with it some time after writing the following +lines. + +IT was not many centuries since, +When, gathered on the moonlit green, +Beneath the Tree of Liberty, +A ring of weeping sprites was seen. + +The freshman's lamp had long been dim, +The voice of busy day was mute, +And tortured Melody had ceased +Her sufferings on the evening flute. + +They met not as they once had met, +To laugh o'er many a jocund tale +But every pulse was beating low, +And every cheek was cold and pale. + +There rose a fair but faded one, +Who oft had cheered them with her song; +She waved a mutilated arm, +And silence held the listening throng. + +"Sweet friends," the gentle nymph began, +"From opening bud to withering leaf, +One common lot has bound us all, +In every change of joy and grief. + +"While all around has felt decay, +We rose in ever-living prime, +With broader shade and fresher green, +Beneath the crumbling step of Time. + +"When often by our feet has past +Some biped, Nature's walking whim, +Say, have we trimmed one awkward shape, +Or lopped away one crooked limb? + +"Go on, fair Science; soon to thee +Shall. Nature yield her idle boast; +Her vulgar fingers formed a tree, +But thou halt trained it to a post. + +"Go, paint the birch's silver rind, +And quilt the peach with softer down; +Up with the willow's trailing threads, +Off with the sunflower's radiant crown! + +"Go, plant the lily on the shore, +And set the rose among the waves, +And bid the tropic bud unbind +Its silken zone in arctic caves; + +"Bring bellows for the panting winds, +Hang up a lantern by the moon, +And give the nightingale a fife, +And lend the eagle a balloon! + +"I cannot smile,--the tide of scorn, +That rolled through every bleeding vein, +Comes kindling fiercer as it flows +Back to its burning source again. + +"Again in every quivering leaf +That moment's agony I feel, +When limbs, that spurned the northern blast, +Shrunk from the sacrilegious steel. + +"A curse upon the wretch who dared +To crop us with his felon saw! +May every fruit his lip shall taste +Lie like a bullet in his maw. + +"In every julep that he drinks, +May gout, and bile, and headache be; +And when he strives to calm his pain, +May colic mingle with his tea. + +"May nightshade cluster round his path, +And thistles shoot, and brambles cling; +May blistering ivy scorch his veins, +And dogwood burn, and nettles sting. + +"On him may never shadow fall, +When fever racks his throbbing brow, +And his last shilling buy a rope +To hang him on my highest bough!" + +She spoke;--the morning's herald beam +Sprang from the bosom of the sea, +And every mangled sprite returned +In sadness to her wounded tree. + + + + +THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR + +THERE was a sound of hurrying feet, +A tramp on echoing stairs, +There was a rush along the aisles,-- +It was the hour of prayers. + +And on, like Ocean's midnight wave, +The current rolled along, +When, suddenly, a stranger form +Was seen amidst the throng. + +He was a dark and swarthy man, +That uninvited guest; +A faded coat of bottle-green +Was buttoned round his breast. + +There was not one among them all +Could say from whence he came; +Nor beardless boy, nor ancient man, +Could tell that stranger's name. + +All silent as the sheeted dead, +In spite of sneer and frown, +Fast by a gray-haired senior's side +He sat him boldly down. + +There was a look of horror flashed +From out the tutor's eyes; +When all around him rose to pray, +The stranger did not rise! + +A murmur broke along the crowd, +The prayer was at an end; +With ringing heels and measured tread, +A hundred forms descend. + +Through sounding aisle, o'er grating stair, +The long procession poured, +Till all were gathered on the seats +Around the Commons board. + +That fearful stranger! down he sat, +Unasked, yet undismayed; +And on his lip a rising smile +Of scorn or pleasure played. + +He took his hat and hung it up, +With slow but earnest air; +He stripped his coat from off his back, +And placed it on a chair. + +Then from his nearest neighbor's side +A knife and plate he drew; +And, reaching out his hand again, +He took his teacup too. + +How fled the sugar from the bowl +How sunk the azure cream! +They vanished like the shapes that float +Upon a summer's dream. + +A long, long draught,--an outstretched hand,-- +And crackers, toast, and tea, +They faded from the stranger's touch, +Like dew upon the sea. + +Then clouds were dark on many a brow, +Fear sat upon their souls, +And, in a bitter agony, +They clasped their buttered rolls. + +A whisper trembled through the crowd, +Who could the stranger be? +And some were silent, for they thought +A cannibal was he. + +What if the creature should arise,-- +For he was stout and tall,-- +And swallow down a sophomore, +Coat, crow's-foot, cap, and all! + +All sullenly the stranger rose; +They sat in mute despair; +He took his hat from off the peg, +His coat from off the chair. + +Four freshmen fainted on the seat, +Six swooned upon the floor; +Yet on the fearful being passed, +And shut the chapel door. + +There is full many a starving man, +That walks in bottle green, +But never more that hungry one +In Commons hall was seen. + +Yet often at the sunset hour, +When tolls the evening bell, +The freshman lingers on the steps, +That frightful tale to tell. + + + + +THE TOADSTOOL + +THERE 's a thing that grows by the fainting flower, +And springs in the shade of the lady's bower; +The lily shrinks, and the rose turns pale, +When they feel its breath in the summer gale, +And the tulip curls its leaves in pride, +And the blue-eyed violet starts aside; +But the lily may flaunt, and the tulip stare, +For what does the honest toadstool care? +She does not glow in a painted vest, +And she never blooms on the maiden's breast; +But she comes, as the saintly sisters do, +In a modest suit of a Quaker hue. +And, when the stars in the evening skies +Are weeping dew from their gentle eyes, +The toad comes out from his hermit cell, +The tale of his faithful love to tell. + +Oh, there is light in her lover's glance, +That flies to her heart like a silver lance; +His breeches are made of spotted skin, +His jacket 'is tight, and his pumps are thin; +In a cloudless night you may hear his song, +As its pensive melody floats along, +And, if you will look by the moonlight fair, +The trembling form of the toad is there. + +And he twines his arms round her slender stem, +In the shade of her velvet diadem; +But she turns away in her maiden shame, +And will not breathe on the kindling flame; +He sings at her feet through the live-long night, +And creeps to his cave at the break of light; +And whenever he comes to the air above, +His throat is swelling with baffled love. + + + + +THE SPECTRE PIG + +A BALLAD + +IT was the stalwart butcher man, +That knit his swarthy brow, +And said the gentle Pig must die, +And sealed it with a vow. + +And oh! it was the gentle Pig +Lay stretched upon the ground, +And ah! it was the cruel knife +His little heart that found. + +They took him then, those wicked men, +They trailed him all along; +They put a stick between his lips, +And through his heels a thong; + +And round and round an oaken beam +A hempen cord they flung, +And, like a mighty pendulum, +All solemnly he swung! + +Now say thy prayers, thou sinful man, +And think what thou hast done, +And read thy catechism well, +Thou bloody-minded one; + +For if his sprite should walk by night, +It better were for thee, +That thou wert mouldering in the ground, +Or bleaching in the sea. + +It was the savage butcher then, +That made a mock of sin, +And swore a very wicked oath, +He did not care a pin. + +It was the butcher's youngest son,-- +His voice was broke with sighs, +And with his pocket-handkerchief +He wiped his little eyes; + +All young and ignornt was he, +But innocent and mild, +And, in his soft simplicity, +Out spoke the tender child :-- + +"Oh, father, father, list to me; +The Pig is deadly sick, +And men have hung him by his heels, +And fed him with a stick." + +It was the bloody butcher then, +That laughed as he would die, +Yet did he soothe the sorrowing child, +And bid him not to cry;-- + +"Oh, Nathan, Nathan, what's a Pig, +That thou shouldst weep and wail? +Come, bear thee like a butcher's child, +And thou shalt have his tail!" + +It was the butcher's daughter then, +So slender and so fair, +That sobbed as it her heart would break, +And tore her yellow hair; + +And thus she spoke in thrilling tone,-- +Fast fell the tear-drops big:-- +"Ah! woe is me! Alas! Alas! +The Pig! The Pig! The Pig! + +Then did her wicked father's lips +Make merry with her woe, +And call her many a naughty name, +Because she whimpered so. + +Ye need not weep, ye gentle ones, +In vain your tears are shed, +Ye cannot wash his crimson hand, +Ye cannot soothe the dead. + +The bright sun folded on his breast +His robes of rosy flame, +And softly over all the west +The shades of evening came. + +He slept, and troops of murdered Pigs +Were busy with his dreams; +Loud rang their wild, unearthly shrieks, +Wide yawned their mortal seams. + +The clock struck twelve; the Dead hath heard; +He opened both his eyes, +And sullenly he shook his tail +To lash the feeding flies. + +One quiver of the hempen cord,-- +One struggle and one bound,-- +With stiffened limb and leaden eye, +The Pig was on the ground + +And straight towards the sleeper's house +His fearful way he wended; +And hooting owl and hovering bat +On midnight wing attended. + +Back flew the bolt, up rose the latch, +And open swung the door, +And little mincing feet were heard +Pat, pat along the floor. + +Two hoofs upon the sanded floor, +And two upon the bed; +And they are breathing side by side, +The living and the dead! + +"Now wake, now wake, thou butcher man! +What makes thy cheek so pale? +Take hold! take hold! thou dost not fear +To clasp a spectre's tail?" + +Untwisted every winding coil; +The shuddering wretch took hold, +All like an icicle it seemed, +So tapering and so cold. + +"Thou com'st with me, thou butcher man!"-- +He strives to loose his grasp, +But, faster than the clinging vine, +Those twining spirals clasp; + +And open, open swung the door, +And, fleeter than the wind, +The shadowy spectre swept before, +The butcher trailed behind. + +Fast fled the darkness of the night, +And morn rose faint and dim; +They called full loud, they knocked full long, +They did not waken him. + +Straight, straight towards that oaken beam, +A trampled pathway ran; +A ghastly shape was swinging there,-- +It was the butcher man. + + + + +TO A CAGED LION + +Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance +Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time, +And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread +Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime;-- +Fettered by things that shudder at thy roar, +Torn from thy pathless wilds to pace this narrow floor! + +Thou wast the victor, and all nature shrunk +Before the thunders of thine awful wrath; +The steel-armed hunter viewed thee from afar, +Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path! +The famished tiger closed his flaming eye, +And crouched and panted as thy step went by! + +Thou art the vanquished, and insulting man +Bars thy broad bosom as a sparrow's wing; +His nerveless arms thine iron sinews bind, +And lead in chains the desert's fallen king; +Are these the beings that have dared to twine +Their feeble threads around those limbs of thine? + +So must it be; the weaker, wiser race, +That wields the tempest and that rides the sea, +Even in the stillness of thy solitude +Must teach the lesson of its power to thee; +And thou, the terror of the trembling wild, +Must bow thy savage strength, the mockery of a child! + + + + +THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY + +THE sun stepped down from his golden throne. +And lay in the silent sea, +And the Lily had folded her satin leaves, +For a sleepy thing was she; +What is the Lily dreaming of? +Why crisp the waters blue? +See, see, she is lifting her varnished lid! +Her white leaves are glistening through! + +The Rose is cooling his burning cheek +In the lap of the breathless tide;-- +The Lily hath sisters fresh and fair, +That would lie by the Rose's side; +He would love her better than all the rest, +And he would be fond and true;-- +But the Lily unfolded her weary lids, +And looked at the sky so blue. + +Remember, remember, thou silly one, +How fast will thy summer glide, +And wilt thou wither a virgin pale, +Or flourish a blooming bride? +Oh, the Rose is old, and thorny, and cold, +And he lives on earth," said she; +"But the Star is fair and he lives in the air, +And he shall my bridegroom be." + +But what if the stormy cloud should come, +And ruffle the silver sea? +Would he turn his eye from the distant sky, +To smile on a thing like thee? +Oh no, fair Lily, he will not send +One ray from his far-off throne; +The winds shall blow and the waves shall flow, +And thou wilt be left alone. + +There is not a leaf on the mountain-top, +Nor a drop of evening dew, +Nor a golden sand on the sparkling shore, +Nor a pearl in the waters blue, +That he has not cheered with his fickle smile, +And warmed with his faithless beam,-- +And will he be true to a pallid flower, +That floats on the quiet stream? + +Alas for the Lily! she would not heed, +But turned to the skies afar, +And bared her breast to the trembling ray +That shot from the rising star; +The cloud came over the darkened sky, +And over the waters wide +She looked in vain through the beating rain, +And sank in the stormy tide. + + + + +ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE + +"A SPANISH GIRL IN REVERIE," + +SHE twirled the string of golden beads, +That round her neck was hung,--- +My grandsire's gift; the good old man +Loved girls when he was young; +And, bending lightly o'er the cord, +And turning half away, +With something like a youthful sigh, +Thus spoke the maiden gray:-- + +"Well, one may trail her silken robe, +And bind her locks with pearls, +And one may wreathe the woodland rose +Among her floating curls; +And one may tread the dewy grass, +And one the marble floor, +Nor half-hid bosom heave the less, +Nor broidered corset more! + +"Some years ago, a dark-eyed girl +Was sitting in the shade,-- +There's something brings her to my mind +In that young dreaming maid,-- +And in her hand she held a flower, +A flower, whose speaking hue +Said, in the language of the heart, +'Believe the giver true.' + +"And, as she looked upon its leaves, +The maiden made a vow +To wear it when the bridal wreath +Was woven for her brow; +She watched the flower, as, day by day, +The leaflets curled and died; +But he who gave it never came +To claim her for his bride. + +"Oh, many a summer's morning glow +Has lent the rose its ray, +And many a winter's drifting snow +Has swept its bloom away; +But she has kept that faithless pledge +To this, her winter hour, +And keeps it still, herself alone, +And wasted like the flower." + +Her pale lip quivered, and the light +Gleamed in her moistening eyes;-- +I asked her how she liked the tints +In those Castilian skies? +"She thought them misty,--'t was perhaps +Because she stood too near;" +She turned away, and as she turned +I saw her wipe a tear. + + + + +A ROMAN AQUEDUCT + +THE sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline +When noon her languid hand has laid +Hot on the green flakes of the pine, +Beneath its narrow disk of shade; + +As, through the flickering noontide glare, +She gazes on the rainbow chain +Of arches, lifting once in air +The rivers of the Roman's plain;-- + +Say, does her wandering eye recall +The mountain-current's icy wave,-- +Or for the dead one tear let fall, +Whose founts are broken by their grave? + +From stone to stone the ivy weaves +Her braided tracery's winding veil, +And lacing stalks and tangled leaves +Nod heavy in the drowsy gale. + +And lightly floats the pendent vine, +That swings beneath her slender bow, +Arch answering arch,--whose rounded line +Seems mirrored in the wreath below. + +How patient Nature smiles at Fame! +The weeds, that strewed the victor's way, +Feed on his dust to shroud his name, +Green where his proudest towers decay. + +See, through that channel, empty now, +The scanty rain its tribute pours,-- +Which cooled the lip and laved the brow +Of conquerors from a hundred shores. + +Thus bending o'er the nation's bier, +Whose wants the captive earth supplied, +The dew of Memory's passing tear +Falls on the arches of her pride! + + + + +FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOURNAL + +SWEET Mary, I have never breathed +The love it were in vain to name; +Though round my heart a serpent wreathed, +I smiled, or strove to smile, the same. + +Once more the pulse of Nature glows +With faster throb and fresher fire, +While music round her pathway flows, +Like echoes from a hidden lyre. + +And is there none with me to share +The glories of the earth and sky? +The eagle through the pathless air +Is followed by one burning eye. + +Ah no! the cradled flowers may wake, +Again may flow the frozen sea, +From every cloud a star may break,-- +There conies no second spring to me. + +Go,--ere the painted toys of youth +Are crushed beneath the tread of years; +Ere visions have been chilled to truth, +And hopes are washed away in tears. + +Go,--for I will not bid thee weep,-- +Too soon my sorrows will be thine, +And evening's troubled air shall sweep +The incense from the broken shrine. + +If Heaven can hear the dying tone +Of chords that soon will cease to thrill, +The prayer that Heaven has heard alone +May bless thee when those chords are still. + + + + +LA GRISETTE + +As Clemence! when I saw thee last +Trip down the Rue de Seine, +And turning, when thy form had past, +I said, "We meet again,"-- +I dreamed not in that idle glance +Thy latest image came, +And only left to memory's trance +A shadow and a name. + +The few strange words my lips had taught +Thy timid voice to speak, +Their gentler signs, which often brought +Fresh roses to thy cheek, +The trailing of thy long loose hair +Bent o'er my couch of pain, +All, all returned, more sweet, more fair; +Oh, had we met again! + +I walked where saint and virgin keep +The vigil lights of Heaven, +I knew that thou hadst woes to weep, +And sins to be forgiven; +I watched where Genevieve was laid, +I knelt by Mary's shrine, +Beside me low, soft voices prayed; +Alas! but where was thine? + +And when the morning sun was bright, +When wind and wave were calm, +And flamed, in thousand-tinted light, +The rose of Notre Dame, +I wandered through the haunts of men, +From Boulevard to Quai, +Till, frowning o'er Saint Etienne, +The Pantheon's shadow lay. + +In vain, in vain; we meet no more, +Nor dream what fates befall; +And long upon the stranger's shore +My voice on thee may call, +When years have clothed the line in moss +That tells thy name and days, +And withered, on thy simple cross, +The wreaths of Pere-la-Chaise! + + + + +OUR YANKEE GIRLS + +LET greener lands and bluer skies, +If such the wide earth shows, +With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes, +Match us the star and rose; +The winds that lift the Georgian's veil, +Or wave Circassia's curls, +Waft to their shores the sultan's sail,-- +Who buys our Yankee girls? + +The gay grisette, whose fingers touch +Love's thousand chords so well; +The dark Italian, loving much, +But more than one can tell; +And England's fair-haired, blue-eyed dame, +Who binds her brow with pearls;-- +Ye who have seen them, can they shame +Our own sweet Yankee girls? + +And what if court or castle vaunt +Its children loftier born?-- +Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt +Beside the golden corn? +They ask not for the dainty toil +Of ribboned knights and earls, +The daughters of the virgin soil, +Our freeborn Yankee girls! + +By every hill whose stately pines +Wave their dark arms above +The home where some fair being shines, +To warm the wilds with love, +From barest rock to bleakest shore +Where farthest sail unfurls, +That stars and stripes are streaming o'er,-- +God bless our Yankee girls! + + + + +L'INCONNUE + +Is thy name Mary, maiden fair? +Such should, methinks, its music be; +The sweetest name that mortals bear +Were best befitting thee; +And she to whom it once was given, +Was half of earth and half of heaven. + +I hear thy voice, I see thy smile, +I look upon thy folded hair; +Ah! while we dream not they beguile, +Our hearts are in the snare; +And she who chains a wild bird's wing +Must start not if her captive sing. + +So, lady, take the leaf that falls, +To all but thee unseen, unknown; +When evening shades thy silent walls, +Then read it all alone; +In stillness read, in darkness seal, +Forget, despise, but not reveal! + + + + +STANZAS + +STRANGE! that one lightly whispered tone +Is far, far sweeter unto me, +Than all the sounds that kiss the earth, +Or breathe along the sea; +But, lady, when thy voice I greet, +Not heavenly music seems so sweet. + +I look upon the fair blue skies, +And naught but empty air I see; +But when I turn me to thin eyes, +It seemeth unto me +Ten thousand angels spread their wings +Within those little azure rings. + +The lily bath the softest leaf +That ever western breeze bath fanned, +But thou shalt have the tender flower, +So I may take thy hand; +That little hand to me doth yield +More joy than all the broidered field. + +O lady! there be many things +That seem right fair, below, above; +But sure not one among them all +Is half so sweet as love;-- +Let us not pay our vows alone, +But join two altars both in one. + + + + +LINES BY A CLERK + +OH! I did love her dearly, +And gave her toys and rings, +And I thought she meant sincerely, +When she took my pretty things. +But her heart has grown as icy +As a fountain in the fall, +And her love, that was so spicy, +It did not last at all. + +I gave her once a locket, +It was filled with my own hair, +And she put it in her pocket +With very special care. +But a jeweller has got it,-- +He offered it to me,-- +And another that is not it +Around her neck I see. + +For my cooings and my billings +I do not now complain, +But my dollars and my shillings +Will never come again; +They were earned with toil and sorrow, +But I never told her that, +And now I have to borrow, +And want another hat. + +Think, think, thou cruel Emma, +When thou shalt hear my woe, +And know my sad dilemma, +That thou hast made it so. +See, see my beaver rusty, +Look, look upon this hole, +This coat is dim and dusty; +Oh let it rend thy soul! + +Before the gates of fashion +I daily bent my knee, +But I sought the shrine of passion, +And found my idol,--thee. +Though never love intenser +Had bowed a soul before it, +Thine eye was on the censer, +And not the hand that bore it. + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE + +DEAREST, a look is but a ray +Reflected in a certain way; +A word, whatever tone it wear, +Is but a trembling wave of air; +A touch, obedience to a clause +In nature's pure material laws. + +The very flowers that bend and meet, +In sweetening others, grow more sweet; +The clouds by day, the stars by night, +Inweave their floating locks of light; +The rainbow, Heaven's own forehead's braid, +Is but the embrace of sun and shade. + +Oh! in the hour when I shall feel +Those shadows round my senses steal, +When gentle eyes are weeping o'er +The clay that feels their tears no more, +Then let thy spirit with me be, +Or some sweet angel, likest thee! + +How few that love us have we found! +How wide the world that girds them round +Like mountain streams we meet and part, +Each living in the other's heart, +Our course unknown, our hope to be +Yet mingled in the distant sea. + +But Ocean coils and heaves in vain, +Bound in the subtle moonbeam's chain; +And love and hope do but obey +Some cold, capricious planet's ray, +Which lights and leads the tide it charms +To Death's dark caves and icy arms. + +Alas! one narrow line is drawn, +That links our sunset with our dawn; +In mist and shade life's morning rose, +And clouds are round it at its close; +But ah! no twilight beam ascends +To whisper where that evening ends. + + + + +THE POET'S LOT + +WHAT is a poet's love?-- +To write a girl a sonnet, +To get a ring, or some such thing, +And fustianize upon it. + +What is a poet's fame?-- +Sad hints about his reason, +And sadder praise from garreteers, +To be returned in season. + +Where go the poet's lines?-- +Answer, ye evening tapers! +Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls, +Speak from your folded papers! + +Child of the ploughshare, smile; +Boy of the counter, grieve not, +Though muses round thy trundle-bed +Their broidered tissue weave not. + +The poet's future holds +No civic wreath above him; +Nor slated roof, nor varnished chaise, +Nor wife nor child to love him. + +Maid of the village inn, +Who workest woe on satin, +(The grass in black, the graves in green, +The epitaph in Latin,) + +Trust not to them who say, +In stanzas, they adore thee; +Oh rather sleep in churchyard clay, +With urn and cherub o'er thee! + + + + +TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER + +WAN-VISAGED thing! thy virgin leaf +To me looks more than deadly pale, +Unknowing what may stain thee yet,-- +A poem or a tale. + +Who can thy unborn meaning scan? +Can Seer or Sibyl read thee now? +No,--seek to trace the fate of man +Writ on his infant brow. + +Love may light on thy snowy cheek, +And shake his Eden-breathing plumes; +Then shalt thou tell how Lelia smiles, +Or Angelina blooms. + +Satire may lift his bearded lance, +Forestalling Time's slow-moving scythe, +And, scattered on thy little field, +Disjointed bards may writhe. + +Perchance a vision of the night, +Some grizzled spectre, gaunt and thin, +Or sheeted corpse, may stalk along, +Or skeleton may grin + +If it should be in pensive hour +Some sorrow-moving theme I try, +Ah, maiden, how thy tears will fall, +For all I doom to die! + +But if in merry mood I touch +Thy leaves, then shall the sight of thee +Sow smiles as thick on rosy lips +As ripples on the sea. + +The Weekly press shall gladly stoop +To bind thee up among its sheaves; +The Daily steal thy shining ore, +To gild its leaden leaves. + +Thou hast no tongue, yet thou canst speak, +Till distant shores shall hear the sound; +Thou hast no life, yet thou canst breathe +Fresh life on all around. + +Thou art the arena of the wise, +The noiseless battle-ground of fame; +The sky where halos may be wreathed +Around the humblest name. + +Take, then, this treasure to thy trust, +To win some idle reader's smile, +Then fade and moulder in the dust, +Or swell some bonfire's pile. + + + + +TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A GENTLEMAN" + +IN THE ATHENIEUM GALLERY + +IT may be so,--perhaps thou hast +A warm and loving heart; +I will not blame thee for thy face, +Poor devil as thou art. + +That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose, +Unsightly though it be,-- +In spite of all the cold world's scorn, +It may be much to thee. + +Those eyes,--among thine elder friends +Perhaps they pass for blue,-- +No matter,--if a man can see, +What more have eyes to do? + +Thy mouth,--that fissure in thy face, +By something like a chin,-- +May be a very useful place +To put thy victual in. + +I know thou hast a wife at home, +I know thou hast a child, +By that subdued, domestic smile +Upon thy features mild. + +That wife sits fearless by thy side, +That cherub on thy knee; +They do not shudder at thy looks, +They do not shrink from thee. + +Above thy mantel is a hook,-- +A portrait once was there; +It was thine only ornament,-- +Alas! that hook is bare. + +She begged thee not to let it go, +She begged thee all in vain; +She wept,--and breathed a trembling prayer +To meet it safe again. + +It was a bitter sight to see +That picture torn away; +It was a solemn thought to think +What all her friends would say! + +And often in her calmer hours, +And in her happy dreams, +Upon its long-deserted hook +The absent portrait seems. + +Thy wretched infant turns his head +In melancholy wise, +And looks to meet the placid stare +Of those unbending eyes. + +I never saw thee, lovely one,-- +Perchance I never may; +It is not often that we cross +Such people in our way; + +But if we meet in distant years, +Or on some foreign shore, +Sure I can take my Bible oath, +I've seen that face before. + + + + +THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN + +IT was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side, +His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on the tide; +The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim, +Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him. + +It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely maid, +Upon a moonlight evening, a sitting in the shade; +He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as if to say, +"I 'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all the folks away." + +Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself said he, +"I guess I 'll leave the skiff at home, for fear that folks should see +I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his dear, +Leander swam the Hellespont,--and I will swim this here." + +And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed the shining stream, +And he has clambered up the bank, all in the moonlight gleam; +Oh there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as soft as rain,-- +But they have heard her father's step, and in he leaps again! + +Out spoke the ancient fisherman,--"Oh, what was that, my daughter?" +"'T was nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into the water." +"And what is that, pray tell me, love, that paddles off so fast?" +"It's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that 's been a swimming past." + +Out spoke the ancient fisherman,--"Now bring me my harpoon! +I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow soon." +Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb, +Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like sea-weed on a clam. + +Alas for those two loving ones! she waked not from her swound, +And he was taken with the cramp, and in the waves was drowned; +But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their woe, +And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down below. + + + + +A NOONTIDE LYRIC + +THE dinner-bell, the dinner-bell +Is ringing loud and clear; +Through hill and plain, through street and lane, +It echoes far and near; +From curtained hall and whitewashed stall, +Wherever men can hide, +Like bursting waves from ocean caves, +They float upon the tide. + +I smell the smell of roasted meat! +I hear the hissing fry +The beggars know where they can go, +But where, oh where shall I? +At twelve o'clock men took my hand, +At two they only stare, +And eye me with a fearful look, +As if I were a bear! + +The poet lays his laurels down, +And hastens to his greens; +The happy tailor quits his goose, +To riot on his beans; +The weary cobbler snaps his thread, +The printer leaves his pi; +His very devil hath a home, +But what, oh what have I? + +Methinks I hear an angel voice, +That softly seems to say +"Pale stranger, all may yet be well, +Then wipe thy tears away; +Erect thy head, and cock thy hat, +And follow me afar, +And thou shalt have a jolly meal, +And charge it at the bar." + +I hear the voice! I go! I go! +Prepare your meat and wine! +They little heed their future need +Who pay not when they dine. +Give me to-day the rosy bowl, +Give me one golden dream,-- +To-morrow kick away the stool, +And dangle from the beam! + + + + +THE HOT SEASON + +THE folks, that on the first of May +Wore winter coats and hose, +Began to say, the first of June, +"Good Lord! how hot it grows!" +At last two Fahrenheits blew up, +And killed two children small, +And one barometer shot dead +A tutor with its ball! + +Now all day long the locusts sang +Among the leafless trees; +Three new hotels warped inside out, +The pumps could only wheeze; +And ripe old wine, that twenty years +Had cobwebbed o'er in vain, +Came spouting through the rotten corks +Like Joly's best champagne + +The Worcester locomotives did +Their trip in half an hour; +The Lowell cars ran forty miles +Before they checked the power; +Roll brimstone soon became a drug, +And loco-focos fell; +All asked for ice, but everywhere +Saltpetre was to sell. + +Plump men of mornings ordered tights, +But, ere the scorching noons, +Their candle-moulds had grown as loose +As Cossack pantaloons! +The dogs ran mad,--men could not try +If water they would choose; +A horse fell dead,--he only left +Four red-hot, rusty shoes! + +But soon the people could not bear +The slightest hint of fire; +Allusions to caloric drew +A flood of savage ire; + +The leaves on heat were all torn out +From every book at school, +And many blackguards kicked and caned, +Because they said, "Keep cool!" + +The gas-light companies were mobbed, +The bakers all were shot, +The penny press began to talk +Of lynching Doctor Nott; +And all about the warehouse steps +Were angry men in droves, +Crashing and splintering through the doors +To smash the patent stoves! + +The abolition men and maids +Were tanned to such a hue, +You scarce could tell them from their friends, +Unless their eyes were blue; +And, when I left, society +Had burst its ancient guards, +And Brattle Street and Temple Place +Were interchanging cards + + + + +A PORTRAIT + +A STILL, sweet, placid, moonlight face, +And slightly nonchalant, +Which seems to claim a middle place +Between one's love and aunt, +Where childhood's star has left a ray +In woman's sunniest sky, +As morning dew and blushing day +On fruit and blossom lie. + +And yet,--and yet I cannot love +Those lovely lines on steel; +They beam too much of heaven above, +Earth's darker shades to feel; +Perchance some early weeds of care +Around my heart have grown, +And brows unfurrowed seem not fair, +Because they mock my own. + +Alas! when Eden's gates were sealed, +How oft some sheltered flower +Breathed o'er the wanderers of the field, +Like their own bridal bower; +Yet, saddened by its loveliness, +And humbled by its pride, +Earth's fairest child they could not bless, +It mocked them when they sighed. + + + + +AN EVENING THOUGHT + +WRITTEN AT SEA + +IF sometimes in the dark blue eye, +Or in the deep red wine, +Or soothed by gentlest melody, +Still warms this heart of mine, +Yet something colder in the blood, +And calmer in the brain, +Have whispered that my youth's bright flood +Ebbs, not to flow again. + +If by Helvetia's azure lake, +Or Arno's yellow stream, +Each star of memory could awake, +As in my first young dream, +I know that when mine eye shall greet +The hillsides bleak and bare, +That gird my home, it will not meet +My childhood's sunsets there. + + +Oh, when love's first, sweet, stolen kiss +Burned on my boyish brow, +Was that young forehead worn as this? +Was that flushed cheek as now? +Were that wild pulse and throbbing heart +Like these, which vainly strive, +In thankless strains of soulless art, +To dream themselves alive? + +Alas! the morning dew is gone, +Gone ere the full of day; +Life's iron fetter still is on, +Its wreaths all torn away; +Happy if still some casual hour +Can warm the fading shrine, +Too soon to chill beyond the power +Of love, or song, or wine! + + + + +THE WASP AND THE HORNET + +THE two proud sisters of the sea, +In glory and in doom!-- +Well may the eternal waters be +Their broad, unsculptured tomb! +The wind that rings along the wave, +The clear, unshadowed sun, +Are torch and trumpet o'er the brave, +Whose last green wreath is won! + +No stranger-hand their banners furled, +No victor's shout they heard; +Unseen, above them ocean curled, +Safe by his own pale bird; +The gnashing billows heaved and fell; +Wild shrieked the midnight gale; +Far, far beneath the morning swell +Were pennon, spar, and sail. + +The land of Freedom! Sea and shore +Are guarded now, as when +Her ebbing waves to victory bore +Fair barks and gallant men; +Oh, many a ship of prouder name +May wave her starry fold, +Nor trail, with deeper light of fame, +The paths they swept of old! + + + + +"QUI VIVE?" + +"Qui vive?" The sentry's musket rings, +The channelled bayonet gleams; +High o'er him, like a raven's wings +The broad tricolored banner flings +Its shadow, rustling as it swings +Pale in the moonlight beams; +Pass on! while steel-clad sentries keep +Their vigil o'er the monarch's sleep, +Thy bare, unguarded breast +Asks not the unbroken, bristling zone +That girds yon sceptred trembler's throne;-- +Pass on, and take thy rest! + +"Qui vive?" How oft the midnight air +That startling cry has borne! +How oft the evening breeze has fanned +The banner of this haughty land, +O'er mountain snow and desert sand, +Ere yet its folds were torn! +Through Jena's carnage flying red, +Or tossing o'er Marengo's dead, +Or curling on the towers +Where Austria's eagle quivers yet, +And suns the ruffled plumage, wet +With battle's crimson showers! + +"Qui vive?" And is the sentry's cry,-- +The sleepless soldier's hand,-- +Are these--the painted folds that fly +And lift their emblems, printed high +On morning mist and sunset sky-- +The guardians of a land? +No! If the patriot's pulses sleep, +How vain the watch that hirelings keep, +The idle flag that waves, +When Conquest, with his iron heel, +Treads down the standards and the steel +That belt the soil of slaves! + + + + + + +NOTES. + +Page 6. "They're as safe as Dan'l Malcolm." +The following epitaph is still to be read on a tall grave-stone standing +as yet undisturbed among the transplanted monuments of the dead in Copp's +Hill Burial-Ground, one of the three city cemeteries which have been +desecrated and ruined within my own remembrance :-- + + "Here lies buried in a + Stone Grave 10 feet deep, + Cap' DANIEL MALCOLM Merch' + Who departed this Life + October 23d, 1769, + Aged 44 years, + a true son of Liberty, + a Friend to the Publick, + an Enemy to oppression, + and one of the foremost + in opposing the Revenue Acts + on America." + +Page 62. This broad-browed youth. +Benjamin Robbins Curtis. + +Page 62. 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