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diff --git a/9586.txt b/9586.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ea8105 --- /dev/null +++ b/9586.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11149 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Whittier, Volume IV (of VII), by +John Greenleaf Whittier + +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 Works of Whittier, Volume IV (of VII) + Personal Poems + +Author: John Greenleaf Whittier + +Release Date: December 2005 [EBook #9586] +Posting Date: July 10, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF WHITTIER *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE WORKS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, Volume IV. (of VII) + +PERSONAL POEMS + + +By John Greenleaf Whittier + + + CONTENTS + + PERSONAL POEMS + A LAMENT + TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS + LINES ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY + TO ----, WITH A COPY OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL + LEGGETT'S MONUMENT + TO A FRIEND, ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE + LUCY HOOPER + FOLLEN + TO J. P. + CHALKLEY HALL + GONE + TO RONGE + CHANNING + TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER + DANIEL WHEELER + TO FREDRIKA BREMER + TO AVIS KEENE + THE HILL-TOP + ELLIOTT + ICHABOD + THE LOST OCCASION + WORDSWORTH + TO ---- LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION + IN PEACE + BENEDICITE + KOSSUTH + TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER + THE CROSS + THE HERO + RANTOUL + WILLIAM FORSTER + TO CHARLES SUMNER + BURNS + TO GEORGE B. CHEEVER + TO JAMES T. FIELDS + THE MEMORY OF BURNS + IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGER + BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE + NAPLES + A MEMORIAL + BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY + THOMAS STARR KING + LINES ON A FLY-LEAF + GEORGE L. STEARNS + GARIBALDI + TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD + THE SINGER + HOW MARY GREW + SUMNER + THIERS + FITZ-GREENE HALLECK + WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT + BAYARD TAYLOR + OUR AUTOCRAT + WITHIN THE GATE + IN MEMORY: JAMES T. FIELDS + WILSON + THE POET AND THE CHILDREN + A WELCOME TO LOWELL + AN ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL + MULFORD + TO A CAPE ANN SCHOONER + SAMUEL J. TILDEN + + OCCASIONAL POEMS. + EVA + A LAY OF OLD TIME + A SONG OF HARVEST + KENOZA LAKE + FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL + THE QUAKER ALUMNI + OUR RIVER + REVISITED + "THE LAURELS" + JUNE ON THE MERRIMAC + HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR KING'S HOUSE OF WORSHIP + HYMN FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN, ERECTED IN MEMORY + OF A MOTHER + A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION + CHICAGO + KINSMAN + THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD + HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA + LEXINGTON + THE LIBRARY + "I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN" + CENTENNIAL HYMN + AT SCHOOL-CLOSE + HYMN OF THE CHILDREN + THE LANDMARKS + GARDEN + A GREETING + GODSPEED + WINTER ROSES + THE REUNION + NORUMBEGA HALL + THE BARTHOLDI STATUE + ONE OF THE SIGNERS + + THE TENT ON THE BEACH. + PRELUDE + THE TENT ON THE BEACH + THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH + THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE + THE BROTHER OF MERCY + THE CHANGELING + THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH + KALLUNDBORG CHURCH + THE CABLE HYMN + THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL + THE PALATINE + ABRAHAM DAVENPORT + THE WORSHIP OF NATURE + + AT SUNDOWN. + TO E. C. S. + THE CHRISTMAS OF 1888. + THE Vow OF WASHINGTON + THE CAPTAIN'S WELL + AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION + R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON THE MERRIMAC + BURNING DRIFT-WOOD. + O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + HAVERHILL. 1640-1890 + To G. G. + PRESTON POWERS, INSCRIPTION FOR BASS-RELIEF + LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY, INSCRIPTION ON TABLET + MILTON, ON MEMORIAL WINDOW + THE BIRTHDAY WREATH + THE WIND OF MARCH + BETWEEN THE GATES + THE LAST EVE OF SUMMER + TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 8TH Mo. 29TH, 1892 + + + +NOTE. The portrait prefacing this volume is from an engraving on steel +by J. A. J. WILCOX in 1888, after a photograph taken by Miss ISA E. GRAY +in July, 1885. + + + + +A LAMENT + + "The parted spirit, + Knoweth it not our sorrow? Answereth not + Its blessing to our tears?" + + The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken, + One bud from the tree of our friendship is shaken; + One heart from among us no longer shall thrill + With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill. + + Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering now + The light of her glances, the pride of her brow; + Weep! sadly and long shall we listen in vain + To hear the soft tones of her welcome again. + + Give our tears to the dead! For humanity's claim + From its silence and darkness is ever the same; + The hope of that world whose existence is bliss + May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this. + + For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throw + On the scene of its troubled probation below, + Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the dead, + To that glance will be dearer the tears which we shed. + + Oh, who can forget the mild light of her smile, + Over lips moved with music and feeling the while, + The eye's deep enchantment, dark, dream-like, and clear, + In the glow of its gladness, the shade of its tear. + + And the charm of her features, while over the whole + Played the hues of the heart and the sunshine of soul; + And the tones of her voice, like the music which seems + Murmured low in our ears by the Angel of dreams! + + But holier and dearer our memories hold + Those treasures of feeling, more precious than gold, + The love and the kindness and pity which gave + Fresh flowers for the bridal, green wreaths for the grave! + + The heart ever open to Charity's claim, + Unmoved from its purpose by censure and blame, + While vainly alike on her eye and her ear + Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting and jeer. + + How true to our hearts was that beautiful sleeper + With smiles for the joyful, with tears for the weeper, + Yet, evermore prompt, whether mournful or gay, + With warnings in love to the passing astray. + + For, though spotless herself, she could sorrow for them + Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem; + And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove, + And the sting of reproof was still tempered by love. + + As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in heaven, + As a star that is lost when the daylight is given, + As a glad dream of slumber, which wakens in bliss, + She hath passed to the world of the holy from this. + + 1834. + + + + +TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS, + +Late President of Western Reserve College, who died at his post of duty, +overworn by his strenuous labors with tongue and pen in the cause of +Human Freedom. + + + Thou hast fallen in thine armor, + Thou martyr of the Lord + With thy last breath crying "Onward!" + And thy hand upon the sword. + The haughty heart derideth, + And the sinful lip reviles, + But the blessing of the perishing + Around thy pillow smiles! + + When to our cup of trembling + The added drop is given, + And the long-suspended thunder + Falls terribly from Heaven,-- + When a new and fearful freedom + Is proffered of the Lord + To the slow-consuming Famine, + The Pestilence and Sword! + + When the refuges of Falsehood + Shall be swept away in wrath, + And the temple shall be shaken, + With its idol, to the earth, + Shall not thy words of warning + Be all remembered then? + And thy now unheeded message + Burn in the hearts of men? + + Oppression's hand may scatter + Its nettles on thy tomb, + And even Christian bosoms + Deny thy memory room; + For lying lips shall torture + Thy mercy into crime, + And the slanderer shall flourish + As the bay-tree for a time. + + But where the south-wind lingers + On Carolina's pines, + Or falls the careless sunbeam + Down Georgia's golden mines; + Where now beneath his burthen + The toiling slave is driven; + Where now a tyrant's mockery + Is offered unto Heaven; + + Where Mammon hath its altars + Wet o'er with human blood, + And pride and lust debases + The workmanship of God,-- + There shall thy praise be spoken, + Redeemed from Falsehood's ban, + When the fetters shall be broken, + And the slave shall be a man! + + Joy to thy spirit, brother! + A thousand hearts are warm, + A thousand kindred bosoms + Are baring to the storm. + What though red-handed Violence + With secret Fraud combine? + The wall of fire is round us, + Our Present Help was thine. + + Lo, the waking up of nations, + From Slavery's fatal sleep; + The murmur of a Universe, + Deep calling unto Deep! + Joy to thy spirit, brother! + On every wind of heaven + The onward cheer and summons + Of Freedom's voice is given! + + Glory to God forever! + Beyond the despot's will + The soul of Freedom liveth + Imperishable still. + The words which thou hast uttered + Are of that soul a part, + And the good seed thou hast scattered + Is springing from the heart. + + In the evil days before us, + And the trials yet to come, + In the shadow of the prison, + Or the cruel martyrdom,-- + We will think of thee, O brother! + And thy sainted name shall be + In the blessing of the captive, + And the anthem of the free. + + 1834 + + + + +LINES ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY, + +SECRETARY OF THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN'S ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. + + Gone before us, O our brother, + To the spirit-land! + Vainly look we for another + In thy place to stand. + Who shall offer youth and beauty + On the wasting shrine + Of a stern and lofty duty, + With a faith like thine? + + Oh, thy gentle smile of greeting + Who again shall see? + Who amidst the solemn meeting + Gaze again on thee? + Who when peril gathers o'er us, + Wear so calm a brow? + Who, with evil men before us, + So serene as thou? + + Early hath the spoiler found thee, + Brother of our love! + Autumn's faded earth around thee, + And its storms above! + Evermore that turf lie lightly, + And, with future showers, + O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly + Blow the summer flowers + + In the locks thy forehead gracing, + Not a silvery streak; + Nor a line of sorrow's tracing + On thy fair young cheek; + Eyes of light and lips of roses, + Such as Hylas wore,-- + Over all that curtain closes, + Which shall rise no more! + + Will the vigil Love is keeping + Round that grave of thine, + Mournfully, like Jazer weeping + Over Sibmah's vine; + Will the pleasant memories, swelling + Gentle hearts, of thee, + In the spirit's distant dwelling + All unheeded be? + + If the spirit ever gazes, + From its journeyings, back; + If the immortal ever traces + O'er its mortal track; + Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us + Sometimes on our way, + And, in hours of sadness, greet us + As a spirit may? + + Peace be with thee, O our brother, + In the spirit-land + Vainly look we for another + In thy place to stand. + Unto Truth and Freedom giving + All thy early powers, + Be thy virtues with the living, + And thy spirit ours! + + 1837. + + + + +TO ------, + +WITH A COPY OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL. + +"Get the writings of John Woolman by heart."--Essays of Elia. + + + Maiden! with the fair brown tresses + Shading o'er thy dreamy eye, + Floating on thy thoughtful forehead + Cloud wreaths of its sky. + + Youthful years and maiden beauty, + Joy with them should still abide,-- + Instinct take the place of Duty, + Love, not Reason, guide. + + Ever in the New rejoicing, + Kindly beckoning back the Old, + Turning, with the gift of Midas, + All things into gold. + + And the passing shades of sadness + Wearing even a welcome guise, + As, when some bright lake lies open + To the sunny skies, + + Every wing of bird above it, + Every light cloud floating on, + Glitters like that flashing mirror + In the self-same sun. + + But upon thy youthful forehead + Something like a shadow lies; + And a serious soul is looking + From thy earnest eyes. + + With an early introversion, + Through the forms of outward things, + Seeking for the subtle essence, + And the bidden springs. + + Deeper than the gilded surface + Hath thy wakeful vision seen, + Farther than the narrow present + Have thy journeyings been. + + Thou hast midst Life's empty noises + Heard the solemn steps of Time, + And the low mysterious voices + Of another clime. + + All the mystery of Being + Hath upon thy spirit pressed,-- + Thoughts which, like the Deluge wanderer, + Find no place of rest: + + That which mystic Plato pondered, + That which Zeno heard with awe, + And the star-rapt Zoroaster + In his night-watch saw. + + From the doubt and darkness springing + Of the dim, uncertain Past, + Moving to the dark still shadows + O'er the Future cast, + + Early hath Life's mighty question + Thrilled within thy heart of youth, + With a deep and strong beseeching + What and where is Truth? + + Hollow creed and ceremonial, + Whence the ancient life hath fled, + Idle faith unknown to action, + Dull and cold and dead. + + Oracles, whose wire-worked meanings + Only wake a quiet scorn,-- + Not from these thy seeking spirit + Hath its answer drawn. + + But, like some tired child at even, + On thy mother Nature's breast, + Thou, methinks, art vainly seeking + Truth, and peace, and rest. + + O'er that mother's rugged features + Thou art throwing Fancy's veil, + Light and soft as woven moonbeams, + Beautiful and frail + + O'er the rough chart of Existence, + Rocks of sin and wastes of woe, + Soft airs breathe, and green leaves tremble, + And cool fountains flow. + + And to thee an answer cometh + From the earth and from the sky, + And to thee the hills and waters + And the stars reply. + + But a soul-sufficing answer + Hath no outward origin; + More than Nature's many voices + May be heard within. + + Even as the great Augustine + Questioned earth and sea and sky, + And the dusty tomes of learning + And old poesy. + + But his earnest spirit needed + More than outward Nature taught; + More than blest the poet's vision + Or the sage's thought. + + Only in the gathered silence + Of a calm and waiting frame, + Light and wisdom as from Heaven + To the seeker came. + + Not to ease and aimless quiet + Doth that inward answer tend, + But to works of love and duty + As our being's end; + + Not to idle dreams and trances, + Length of face, and solemn tone, + But to Faith, in daily striving + And performance shown. + + Earnest toil and strong endeavor + Of a spirit which within + Wrestles with familiar evil + And besetting sin; + + And without, with tireless vigor, + Steady heart, and weapon strong, + In the power of truth assailing + Every form of wrong. + + Guided thus, how passing lovely + Is the track of Woolman's feet! + And his brief and simple record + How serenely sweet! + + O'er life's humblest duties throwing + Light the earthling never knew, + Freshening all its dark waste places + As with Hermon's dew. + + All which glows in Pascal's pages, + All which sainted Guion sought, + Or the blue-eyed German Rahel + Half-unconscious taught + + Beauty, such as Goethe pictured, + Such as Shelley dreamed of, shed + Living warmth and starry brightness + Round that poor man's head. + + Not a vain and cold ideal, + Not a poet's dream alone, + But a presence warm and real, + Seen and felt and known. + + When the red right-hand of slaughter + Moulders with the steel it swung, + When the name of seer and poet + Dies on Memory's tongue, + + All bright thoughts and pure shall gather + Round that meek and suffering one,-- + Glorious, like the seer-seen angel + Standing in the sun! + + Take the good man's book and ponder + What its pages say to thee; + Blessed as the hand of healing + May its lesson be. + + If it only serves to strengthen + Yearnings for a higher good, + For the fount of living waters + And diviner food; + + If the pride of human reason + Feels its meek and still rebuke, + Quailing like the eye of Peter + From the Just One's look! + + If with readier ear thou heedest + What the Inward Teacher saith, + Listening with a willing spirit + And a childlike faith,-- + + Thou mayst live to bless the giver, + Who, himself but frail and weak, + Would at least the highest welfare + Of another seek; + + And his gift, though poor and lowly + It may seem to other eyes, + Yet may prove an angel holy + In a pilgrim's guise. + + 1840. + + + + +LEGGETT'S MONUMENT. + +William Leggett, who died in 1839 at the age of thirty-seven, was the +intrepid editor of the New York Evening Post and afterward of The Plain +Dealer. His vigorous assault upon the system of slavery brought down +upon him the enmity of political defenders of the system. + +"Ye build the tombs of the prophets."--Holy Writ. + + + Yes, pile the marble o'er him! It is well + That ye who mocked him in his long stern strife, + And planted in the pathway of his life + The ploughshares of your hatred hot from hell, + Who clamored down the bold reformer when + He pleaded for his captive fellow-men, + Who spurned him in the market-place, and sought + Within thy walls, St. Tammany, to bind + In party chains the free and honest thought, + The angel utterance of an upright mind, + Well is it now that o'er his grave ye raise + The stony tribute of your tardy praise, + For not alone that pile shall tell to Fame + Of the brave heart beneath, but of the builders' shame! + + 1841. + + + + +TO A FRIEND, ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE. + + How smiled the land of France + Under thy blue eye's glance, + Light-hearted rover + Old walls of chateaux gray, + Towers of an early day, + Which the Three Colors play + Flauntingly over. + + Now midst the brilliant train + Thronging the banks of Seine + Now midst the splendor + Of the wild Alpine range, + Waking with change on change + Thoughts in thy young heart strange, + Lovely, and tender. + + Vales, soft Elysian, + Like those in the vision + Of Mirza, when, dreaming, + He saw the long hollow dell, + Touched by the prophet's spell, + Into an ocean swell + With its isles teeming. + + Cliffs wrapped in snows of years, + Splintering with icy spears + Autumn's blue heaven + Loose rock and frozen slide, + Hung on the mountain-side, + Waiting their hour to glide + Downward, storm-driven! + + Rhine-stream, by castle old, + Baron's and robber's hold, + Peacefully flowing; + Sweeping through vineyards green, + Or where the cliffs are seen + O'er the broad wave between + Grim shadows throwing. + + Or, where St. Peter's dome + Swells o'er eternal Rome, + Vast, dim, and solemn; + Hymns ever chanting low, + Censers swung to and fro, + Sable stoles sweeping slow + Cornice and column! + + Oh, as from each and all + Will there not voices call + Evermore back again? + In the mind's gallery + Wilt thou not always see + Dim phantoms beckon thee + O'er that old track again? + + New forms thy presence haunt, + New voices softly chant, + New faces greet thee! + Pilgrims from many a shrine + Hallowed by poet's line, + At memory's magic sign, + Rising to meet thee. + + And when such visions come + Unto thy olden home, + Will they not waken + Deep thoughts of Him whose hand + Led thee o'er sea and land + Back to the household band + Whence thou wast taken? + + While, at the sunset time, + Swells the cathedral's chime, + Yet, in thy dreaming, + While to thy spirit's eye + Yet the vast mountains lie + Piled in the Switzer's sky, + Icy and gleaming: + + Prompter of silent prayer, + Be the wild picture there + In the mind's chamber, + And, through each coming day + Him who, as staff and stay, + Watched o'er thy wandering way, + Freshly remember. + + So, when the call shall be + Soon or late unto thee, + As to all given, + Still may that picture live, + All its fair forms survive, + And to thy spirit give + Gladness in Heaven! + + 1841 + + + + +LUCY HOOPER. + +Lucy Hooper died at Brooklyn, L. I., on the 1st of 8th mo., 1841, aged +twenty-four years. + + + They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, + That all of thee we loved and cherished + Has with thy summer roses perished; + And left, as its young beauty fled, + An ashen memory in its stead, + The twilight of a parted day + Whose fading light is cold and vain, + The heart's faint echo of a strain + Of low, sweet music passed away. + That true and loving heart, that gift + Of a mind, earnest, clear, profound, + Bestowing, with a glad unthrift, + Its sunny light on all around, + Affinities which only could + Cleave to the pure, the true, and good; + And sympathies which found no rest, + Save with the loveliest and best. + Of them--of thee--remains there naught + But sorrow in the mourner's breast? + A shadow in the land of thought? + No! Even my weak and trembling faith + Can lift for thee the veil which doubt + And human fear have drawn about + The all-awaiting scene of death. + + Even as thou wast I see thee still; + And, save the absence of all ill + And pain and weariness, which here + Summoned the sigh or wrung the tear, + The same as when, two summers back, + Beside our childhood's Merrimac, + I saw thy dark eye wander o'er + Stream, sunny upland, rocky shore, + And heard thy low, soft voice alone + Midst lapse of waters, and the tone + Of pine-leaves by the west-wind blown, + There's not a charm of soul or brow, + Of all we knew and loved in thee, + But lives in holier beauty now, + Baptized in immortality! + Not mine the sad and freezing dream + Of souls that, with their earthly mould, + Cast off the loves and joys of old, + Unbodied, like a pale moonbeam, + As pure, as passionless, and cold; + Nor mine the hope of Indra's son, + Of slumbering in oblivion's rest, + Life's myriads blending into one, + In blank annihilation blest; + Dust-atoms of the infinite, + Sparks scattered from the central light, + And winning back through mortal pain + Their old unconsciousness again. + No! I have friends in Spirit Land, + Not shadows in a shadowy band, + Not others, but themselves are they. + And still I think of them the same + As when the Master's summons came; + Their change,--the holy morn-light breaking + Upon the dream-worn sleeper, waking,-- + A change from twilight into day. + + They 've laid thee midst the household graves, + Where father, brother, sister lie; + Below thee sweep the dark blue waves, + Above thee bends the summer sky. + Thy own loved church in sadness read + Her solemn ritual o'er thy head, + And blessed and hallowed with her prayer + The turf laid lightly o'er thee there. + That church, whose rites and liturgy, + Sublime and old, were truth to thee, + Undoubted to thy bosom taken, + As symbols of a faith unshaken. + Even I, of simpler views, could feel + The beauty of thy trust and zeal; + And, owning not thy creed, could see + How deep a truth it seemed to thee, + And how thy fervent heart had thrown + O'er all, a coloring of its own, + And kindled up, intense and warm, + A life in every rite and form, + As. when on Chebar's banks of old, + The Hebrew's gorgeous vision rolled, + A spirit filled the vast machine, + A life, "within the wheels" was seen. + + Farewell! A little time, and we + Who knew thee well, and loved thee here, + One after one shall follow thee + As pilgrims through the gate of fear, + Which opens on eternity. + Yet shall we cherish not the less + All that is left our hearts meanwhile; + The memory of thy loveliness + Shall round our weary pathway smile, + Like moonlight when the sun has set, + A sweet and tender radiance yet. + Thoughts of thy clear-eyed sense of duty, + Thy generous scorn of all things wrong, + The truth, the strength, the graceful beauty + Which blended in thy song. + All lovely things, by thee beloved, + Shall whisper to our hearts of thee; + These green hills, where thy childhood roved, + Yon river winding to the sea, + The sunset light of autumn eves + Reflecting on the deep, still floods, + Cloud, crimson sky, and trembling leaves + Of rainbow-tinted woods, + These, in our view, shall henceforth take + A tenderer meaning for thy sake; + And all thou lovedst of earth and sky, + Seem sacred to thy memory. + + 1841. + + + + +FOLLEN. ON READING HIS ESSAY ON THE "FUTURE STATE." + +Charles Follen, one of the noblest contributions of Germany to American +citizenship, was at an early age driven from his professorship in the +University of Jena, and compelled to seek shelter from official +prosecution in Switzerland, on account of his liberal political +opinions. He became Professor of Civil Law in the University of Basle. +The governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia united in demanding his +delivery as a political offender; and, in consequence, he left +Switzerland, and came to the United States. At the time of the formation +of the American Anti-Slavery Society he was a Professor in Harvard +University, honored for his genius, learning, and estimable character. +His love of liberty and hatred of oppression led him to seek an +interview with Garrison and express his sympathy with him. Soon after, +he attended a meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. An able +speech was made by Rev. A. A. Phelps, and a letter of mine addressed to +the Secretary of the Society was read. Whereupon he rose and stated that +his views were in unison with those of the Society, and that after +hearing the speech and the letter, he was ready to join it, and abide +the probable consequences of such an unpopular act. He lost by so doing +his professorship. He was an able member of the Executive Committee of +the American Anti-Slavery Society. He perished in the ill-fated steamer +Lexington, which was burned on its passage from New York, January 13, +1840. The few writings left behind him show him to have been a profound +thinker of rare spiritual insight. + + + Friend of my soul! as with moist eye + I look up from this page of thine, + Is it a dream that thou art nigh, + Thy mild face gazing into mine? + + That presence seems before me now, + A placid heaven of sweet moonrise, + When, dew-like, on the earth below + Descends the quiet of the skies. + + The calm brow through the parted hair, + The gentle lips which knew no guile, + Softening the blue eye's thoughtful care + With the bland beauty of their smile. + + Ah me! at times that last dread scene + Of Frost and Fire and moaning Sea + Will cast its shade of doubt between + The failing eyes of Faith and thee. + + Yet, lingering o'er thy charmed page, + Where through the twilight air of earth, + Alike enthusiast and sage, + Prophet and bard, thou gazest forth, + + Lifting the Future's solemn veil; + The reaching of a mortal hand + To put aside the cold and pale + Cloud-curtains of the Unseen Land; + + Shall these poor elements outlive + The mind whose kingly will, they wrought? + Their gross unconsciousness survive + Thy godlike energy of thought? + + In thoughts which answer to my own, + In words which reach my inward ear, + Like whispers from the void Unknown, + I feel thy living presence here. + + The waves which lull thy body's rest, + The dust thy pilgrim footsteps trod, + Unwasted, through each change, attest + The fixed economy of God. + + Thou livest, Follen! not in vain + Hath thy fine spirit meekly borne + The burthen of Life's cross of pain, + And the thorned crown of suffering worn. + + Oh, while Life's solemn mystery glooms + Around us like a dungeon's wall, + Silent earth's pale and crowded tombs, + Silent the heaven which bends o'er all! + + While day by day our loved ones glide + In spectral silence, hushed and lone, + To the cold shadows which divide + The living from the dread Unknown; + + While even on the closing eye, + And on the lip which moves in vain, + The seals of that stern mystery + Their undiscovered trust retain; + + And only midst the gloom of death, + Its mournful doubts and haunting fears, + Two pale, sweet angels, Hope and Faith, + Smile dimly on us through their tears; + + 'T is something to a heart like mine + To think of thee as living yet; + To feel that such a light as thine + Could not in utter darkness set. + + Less dreary seems the untried way + Since thou hast left thy footprints there, + And beams of mournful beauty play + Round the sad Angel's sable hair. + + Oh! at this hour when half the sky + Is glorious with its evening light, + And fair broad fields of summer lie + Hung o'er with greenness in my sight; + + While through these elm-boughs wet with rain + The sunset's golden walls are seen, + With clover-bloom and yellow grain + And wood-draped hill and stream between; + + I long to know if scenes like this + Are hidden from an angel's eyes; + If earth's familiar loveliness + Haunts not thy heaven's serener skies. + + For sweetly here upon thee grew + The lesson which that beauty gave, + The ideal of the pure and true + In earth and sky and gliding wave. + + And it may be that all which lends + The soul an upward impulse here, + With a diviner beauty blends, + And greets us in a holier sphere. + + Through groves where blighting never fell + The humbler flowers of earth may twine; + And simple draughts-from childhood's well + Blend with the angel-tasted wine. + + But be the prying vision veiled, + And let the seeking lips be dumb, + Where even seraph eyes have failed + Shall mortal blindness seek to come? + + We only know that thou hast gone, + And that the same returnless tide + Which bore thee from us still glides on, + And we who mourn thee with it glide. + + On all thou lookest we shall look, + And to our gaze erelong shall turn + That page of God's mysterious book + We so much wish yet dread to learn. + + With Him, before whose awful power + Thy spirit bent its trembling knee; + Who, in the silent greeting flower, + And forest leaf, looked out on thee, + + We leave thee, with a trust serene, + Which Time, nor Change, nor Death can move, + While with thy childlike faith we lean + On Him whose dearest name is Love! + + 1842. + + + + +TO J. P. + +John Pierpont, the eloquent preacher and poet of Boston. + + + Not as a poor requital of the joy + With which my childhood heard that lay of thine, + Which, like an echo of the song divine + At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy, + Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine,-- + Not to the poet, but the man I bring + In friendship's fearless trust my offering + How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt see, + Yet well I know that thou Last deemed with me + Life all too earnest, and its time too short + For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport; + And girded for thy constant strife with wrong, + Like Nehemiah fighting while he wrought + The broken walls of Zion, even thy song + Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought! + + 1843. + + + + +CHALKLEY HALL. + + Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Pa., was the residence of Thomas + Chalkley, an eminent minister of the Friends' denomination. He was + one of the early settlers of the Colony, and his Journal, which was + published in 1749, presents a quaint but beautiful picture of a + life of unostentatious and simple goodness. He was the master of a + merchant vessel, and, in his visits to the west Indies and Great + Britain, omitted no opportunity to labor for the highest interests + of his fellow-men. During a temporary residence in Philadelphia, in + the summer of 1838, the quiet and beautiful scenery around the + ancient village of Frankford frequently attracted me from the heat + and bustle of the city. I have referred to my youthful acquaintance + with his writings in Snow-Bound. + + + How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze + To him who flies + From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam, + Till far behind him like a hideous dream + The close dark city lies + Here, while the market murmurs, while men throng + The marble floor + Of Mammon's altar, from the crush and din + Of the world's madness let me gather in + My better thoughts once more. + + Oh, once again revive, while on my ear + The cry of Gain + And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away, + Ye blessed memories of my early day + Like sere grass wet with rain! + + Once more let God's green earth and sunset air + Old feelings waken; + Through weary years of toil and strife and ill, + Oh, let me feel that my good angel still + Hath not his trust forsaken. + + And well do time and place befit my mood + Beneath the arms + Of this embracing wood, a good man made + His home, like Abraham resting in the shade + Of Mamre's lonely palms. + + Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years, + The virgin soil + Turned from the share he guided, and in rain + And summer sunshine throve the fruits and grain + Which blessed his honest toil. + + Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas, + Weary and worn, + He came to meet his children and to bless + The Giver of all good in thankfulness + And praise for his return. + + And here his neighbors gathered in to greet + Their friend again, + Safe from the wave and the destroying gales, + Which reap untimely green Bermuda's vales, + And vex the Carib main. + + To hear the good man tell of simple truth, + Sown in an hour + Of weakness in some far-off Indian isle, + From the parched bosom of a barren soil, + Raised up in life and power. + + How at those gatherings in Barbadian vales, + A tendering love + Came o'er him, like the gentle rain from heaven, + And words of fitness to his lips were given, + And strength as from above. + + How the sad captive listened to the Word, + Until his chain + Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit felt + The healing balm of consolation melt + Upon its life-long pain + + How the armed warrior sat him down to hear + Of Peace and Truth, + And the proud ruler and his Creole dame, + Jewelled and gorgeous in her beauty came, + And fair and bright-eyed youth. + + Oh, far away beneath New England's sky, + Even when a boy, + Following my plough by Merrimac's green shore, + His simple record I have pondered o'er + With deep and quiet joy. + + And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm,-- + Its woods around, + Its still stream winding on in light and shade, + Its soft, green meadows and its upland glade,-- + To me is holy ground. + + And dearer far than haunts where Genius keeps + His vigils still; + Than that where Avon's son of song is laid, + Or Vaucluse hallowed by its Petrarch's shade, + Or Virgil's laurelled hill. + + To the gray walls of fallen Paraclete, + To Juliet's urn, + Fair Arno and Sorrento's orange-grove, + Where Tasso sang, let young Romance and Love + Like brother pilgrims turn. + + But here a deeper and serener charm + To all is given; + And blessed memories of the faithful dead + O'er wood and vale and meadow-stream have shed + The holy hues of Heaven! + + 1843. + + + + +GONE + + Another hand is beckoning us, + Another call is given; + And glows once more with Angel-steps + The path which reaches Heaven. + + Our young and gentle friend, whose smile + Made brighter summer hours, + Amid the frosts of autumn time + Has left us with the flowers. + + No paling of the cheek of bloom + Forewarned us of decay; + No shadow from the Silent Land + Fell round our sister's way. + + The light of her young life went down, + As sinks behind the hill + The glory of a setting star, + Clear, suddenly, and still. + + As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed + Eternal as the sky; + And like the brook's low song, her voice,-- + A sound which could not die. + + And half we deemed she needed not + The changing of her sphere, + To give to Heaven a Shining One, + Who walked an Angel here. + + The blessing of her quiet life + Fell on us like the dew; + And good thoughts where her footsteps pressed + Like fairy blossoms grew. + + Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds + Were in her very look; + We read her face, as one who reads + A true and holy book, + + The measure of a blessed hymn, + To which our hearts could move; + The breathing of an inward psalm, + A canticle of love. + + We miss her in the place of prayer, + And by the hearth-fire's light; + We pause beside her door to hear + Once more her sweet "Good-night!" + + There seems a shadow on the day, + Her smile no longer cheers; + A dimness on the stars of night, + Like eyes that look through tears. + + Alone unto our Father's will + One thought hath reconciled; + That He whose love exceedeth ours + Hath taken home His child. + + Fold her, O Father! in Thine arms, + And let her henceforth be + A messenger of love between + Our human hearts and Thee. + + Still let her mild rebuking stand + Between us and the wrong, + And her dear memory serve to make + Our faith in Goodness strong. + + And grant that she who, trembling, here + Distrusted all her powers, + May welcome to her holier home + The well-beloved of ours. + + 1845. + + + + +TO RONGE. + +This was written after reading the powerful and manly protest of +Johannes Ronge against the "pious fraud" of the Bishop of Treves. The +bold movement of the young Catholic priest of Prussian Silesia seemed to +me full of promise to the cause of political as well as religious +liberty in Europe. That it failed was due partly to the faults of the +reformer, but mainly to the disagreement of the Liberals of Germany upon +a matter of dogma, which prevented them from unity of action. Rouge was +born in Silesia in 1813 and died in October, 1887. His autobiography was +translated into English and published in London in 1846. + + + Strike home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root + Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel. + Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then + Put nerve into thy task. Let other men + Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit + The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal. + Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy blows + Fall heavy as the Suabian's iron hand, + On crown or crosier, which shall interpose + Between thee and the weal of Fatherland. + Leave creeds to closet idlers. First of all, + Shake thou all German dream-land with the fall + Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk + Was spared of old by Erfurt's stalwart monk. + Fight not with ghosts and shadows. Let us hear + The snap of chain-links. Let our gladdened ear + Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as the light + Follows thy axe-stroke, through his cell of night. + Be faithful to both worlds; nor think to feed + Earth's starving millions with the husks of creed. + Servant of Him whose mission high and holy + Was to the wronged, the sorrowing, and the lowly, + Thrust not his Eden promise from our sphere, + Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's span; + Like him of Patmos, see it, now and here, + The New Jerusalem comes down to man + Be warned by Luther's error. Nor like him, + When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb + The rusted chain of ages, help to bind + His hands for whom thou claim'st the freedom of the mind. + + 1846. + + + + +CHANNING. + +The last time I saw Dr. Channing was in the summer of 1841, when, in +company with my English friend, Joseph Sturge, so well known for his +philanthropic labors and liberal political opinions, I visited him in +his summer residence in Rhode Island. In recalling the impressions of +that visit, it can scarcely be necessary to say, that I have no +reference to the peculiar religious opinions of a man whose life, +beautifully and truly manifested above the atmosphere of sect, is now +the world's common legacy. + + + Not vainly did old poets tell, + Nor vainly did old genius paint + God's great and crowning miracle, + The hero and the saint! + + For even in a faithless day + Can we our sainted ones discern; + And feel, while with them on the way, + Our hearts within us burn. + + And thus the common tongue and pen + Which, world-wide, echo Channing's fame, + As one of Heaven's anointed men, + Have sanctified his name. + + In vain shall Rome her portals bar, + And shut from him her saintly prize, + Whom, in the world's great calendar, + All men shall canonize. + + By Narragansett's sunny bay, + Beneath his green embowering wood, + To me it seems but yesterday + Since at his side I stood. + + The slopes lay green with summer rains, + The western wind blew fresh and free, + And glimmered down the orchard lanes + The white surf of the sea. + + With us was one, who, calm and true, + Life's highest purpose understood, + And, like his blessed Master, knew + The joy of doing good. + + Unlearned, unknown to lettered fame, + Yet on the lips of England's poor + And toiling millions dwelt his name, + With blessings evermore. + + Unknown to power or place, yet where + The sun looks o'er the Carib sea, + It blended with the freeman's prayer + And song of jubilee. + + He told of England's sin and wrong, + The ills her suffering children know, + The squalor of the city's throng, + The green field's want and woe. + + O'er Channing's face the tenderness + Of sympathetic sorrow stole, + Like a still shadow, passionless, + The sorrow of the soul. + + But when the generous Briton told + How hearts were answering to his own, + And Freedom's rising murmur rolled + Up to the dull-eared throne, + + I saw, methought, a glad surprise + Thrill through that frail and pain-worn frame, + And, kindling in those deep, calm eyes, + A still and earnest flame. + + His few, brief words were such as move + The human heart,--the Faith-sown seeds + Which ripen in the soil of love + To high heroic deeds. + + No bars of sect or clime were felt, + The Babel strife of tongues had ceased, + And at one common altar knelt + The Quaker and the priest. + + And not in vain: with strength renewed, + And zeal refreshed, and hope less dim, + For that brief meeting, each pursued + The path allotted him. + + How echoes yet each Western hill + And vale with Channing's dying word! + How are the hearts of freemen still + By that great warning stirred. + + The stranger treads his native soil, + And pleads, with zeal unfelt before, + The honest right of British toil, + The claim of England's poor. + + Before him time-wrought barriers fall, + Old fears subside, old hatreds melt, + And, stretching o'er the sea's blue wall, + The Saxon greets the Celt. + + The yeoman on the Scottish lines, + The Sheffield grinder, worn and grim, + The delver in the Cornwall mines, + Look up with hope to him. + + Swart smiters of the glowing steel, + Dark feeders of the forge's flame, + Pale watchers at the loom and wheel, + Repeat his honored name. + + And thus the influence of that hour + Of converse on Rhode Island's strand + Lives in the calm, resistless power + Which moves our fatherland. + + God blesses still the generous thought, + And still the fitting word He speeds + And Truth, at His requiring taught, + He quickens into deeds. + + Where is the victory of the grave? + What dust upon the spirit lies? + God keeps the sacred life he gave,-- + The prophet never dies! + + 1844. + + + + +TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER. + +Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of +the British Complete Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 1845. +She was the colleague, counsellor, and ever-ready helpmate of her +brother in all his vast designs of beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot +says of her: "Never, perhaps, were the active and passive virtues of the +human character more harmoniously and beautifully blended than in this +excellent woman." + + + Thine is a grief, the depth of which another + May never know; + Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken brother! + To thee I go. + + I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding + Thy hand in mine; + With even the weakness of my soul upholding + The strength of thine. + + I never knew, like thee, the dear departed; + I stood not by + When, in calm trust, the pure and tranquil-hearted + Lay down to die. + + And on thy ears my words of weak condoling + Must vainly fall + The funeral bell which in thy heart is tolling, + Sounds over all! + + I will not mock thee with the poor world's common + And heartless phrase, + Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman + With idle praise. + + With silence only as their benediction, + God's angels come + Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, + The soul sits dumb! + + Yet, would I say what thy own heart approveth + Our Father's will, + Calling to Him the dear one whom He loveth, + Is mercy still. + + Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel + Hath evil wrought + Her funeral anthem is a glad evangel,-- + The good die not! + + God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly + What He hath given; + They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly + As in His heaven. + + And she is with thee; in thy path of trial + She walketh yet; + Still with the baptism of thy self-denial + Her locks are wet. + + Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest + Lie white in view + She lives and loves thee, and the God thou servest + To both is true. + + Thrust in thy sickle! England's toilworn peasants + Thy call abide; + And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy presence, + Shall glean beside! + 1845. + + + + +DANIEL WHEELER + +Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of Friends, who had labored in +the cause of his Divine Master in Great Britain, Russia, and the islands +of the Pacific, died in New York in the spring of 1840, while on a +religious visit to this country. + + + O Dearly loved! + And worthy of our love! No more + Thy aged form shall rise before + The bushed and waiting worshiper, + In meek obedience utterance giving + To words of truth, so fresh and living, + That, even to the inward sense, + They bore unquestioned evidence + Of an anointed Messenger! + Or, bowing down thy silver hair + In reverent awfulness of prayer, + The world, its time and sense, shut out + The brightness of Faith's holy trance + Gathered upon thy countenance, + As if each lingering cloud of doubt, + The cold, dark shadows resting here + In Time's unluminous atmosphere, + Were lifted by an angel's hand, + And through them on thy spiritual eye + Shone down the blessedness on high, + The glory of the Better Land! + + The oak has fallen! + While, meet for no good work, the vine + May yet its worthless branches twine, + Who knoweth not that with thee fell + A great man in our Israel? + Fallen, while thy loins were girded still, + Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet, + And in thy hand retaining yet + The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell + Unharmed and safe, where, wild and free, + Across the Neva's cold morass + The breezes from the Frozen Sea + With winter's arrowy keenness pass; + Or where the unwarning tropic gale + Smote to the waves thy tattered sail, + Or where the noon-hour's fervid heat + Against Tahiti's mountains beat; + The same mysterious Hand which gave + Deliverance upon land and wave, + Tempered for thee the blasts which blew + Ladaga's frozen surface o'er, + And blessed for thee the baleful dew + Of evening upon Eimeo's shore, + Beneath this sunny heaven of ours, + Midst our soft airs and opening flowers + Hath given thee a grave! + + His will be done, + Who seeth not as man, whose way + Is not as ours! 'T is well with thee! + Nor anxious doubt nor dark dismay + Disquieted thy closing day, + But, evermore, thy soul could say, + "My Father careth still for me!" + Called from thy hearth and home,--from her, + The last bud on thy household tree, + The last dear one to minister + In duty and in love to thee, + From all which nature holdeth dear, + Feeble with years and worn with pain, + To seek our distant land again, + Bound in the spirit, yet unknowing + The things which should befall thee here, + Whether for labor or for death, + In childlike trust serenely going + To that last trial of thy faith! + Oh, far away, + Where never shines our Northern star + On that dark waste which Balboa saw + From Darien's mountains stretching far, + So strange, heaven-broad, and lone, that there, + With forehead to its damp wind bare, + He bent his mailed knee in awe; + In many an isle whose coral feet + The surges of that ocean beat, + In thy palm shadows, Oahu, + And Honolulu's silver bay, + Amidst Owyhee's hills of blue, + And taro-plains of Tooboonai, + Are gentle hearts, which long shall be + Sad as our own at thought of thee, + Worn sowers of Truth's holy seed, + Whose souls in weariness and need + Were strengthened and refreshed by thine. + For blessed by our Father's hand + Was thy deep love and tender care, + Thy ministry and fervent prayer,-- + Grateful as Eshcol's clustered vine + To Israel in a weary land. + + And they who drew + By thousands round thee, in the hour + Of prayerful waiting, hushed and deep, + That He who bade the islands keep + Silence before Him, might renew + Their strength with His unslumbering power, + They too shall mourn that thou art gone, + That nevermore thy aged lip + Shall soothe the weak, the erring warn, + Of those who first, rejoicing, heard + Through thee the Gospel's glorious word,-- + Seals of thy true apostleship. + And, if the brightest diadem, + Whose gems of glory purely burn + Around the ransomed ones in bliss, + Be evermore reserved for them + Who here, through toil and sorrow, turn + Many to righteousness, + May we not think of thee as wearing + That star-like crown of light, and bearing, + Amidst Heaven's white and blissful band, + Th' unfading palm-branch in thy hand; + And joining with a seraph's tongue + In that new song the elders sung, + Ascribing to its blessed Giver + Thanksgiving, love, and praise forever! + + Farewell! + And though the ways of Zion mourn + When her strong ones are called away, + Who like thyself have calmly borne + The heat and burden of the day, + Yet He who slumbereth not nor sleepeth + His ancient watch around us keepeth; + Still, sent from His creating hand, + New witnesses for Truth shall stand, + New instruments to sound abroad + The Gospel of a risen Lord; + To gather to the fold once more + The desolate and gone astray, + The scattered of a cloudy day, + And Zion's broken walls restore; + And, through the travail and the toil + Of true obedience, minister + Beauty for ashes, and the oil + Of joy for mourning, unto her! + So shall her holy bounds increase + With walls of praise and gates of peace + So shall the Vine, which martyr tears + And blood sustained in other years, + With fresher life be clothed upon; + And to the world in beauty show + Like the rose-plant of Jericho, + And glorious as Lebanon! + + 1847 + + + + +TO FREDRIKA BREMER. + +It is proper to say that these lines are the joint impromptus of my +sister and myself. They are inserted here as an expression of our +admiration of the gifted stranger whom we have since learned to love as +a friend. + + + Seeress of the misty Norland, + Daughter of the Vikings bold, + Welcome to the sunny Vineland, + Which thy fathers sought of old! + + Soft as flow of Siija's waters, + When the moon of summer shines, + Strong as Winter from his mountains + Roaring through the sleeted pines. + + Heart and ear, we long have listened + To thy saga, rune, and song; + As a household joy and presence + We have known and loved thee long. + + By the mansion's marble mantel, + Round the log-walled cabin's hearth, + Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies + Meet and mingle with our mirth. + + And o'er weary spirits keeping + Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill, + Shine they like thy sun of summer + Over midnight vale and hill. + + We alone to thee are strangers, + Thou our friend and teacher art; + Come, and know us as we know thee; + Let us meet thee heart to heart! + + To our homes and household altars + We, in turn, thy steps would lead, + As thy loving hand has led us + O'er the threshold of the Swede. + + 1849. + + + + +TO AVIS KEENE ON RECEIVING A BASKET OF SEA-MOSSES. + + Thanks for thy gift + Of ocean flowers, + Born where the golden drift + Of the slant sunshine falls + Down the green, tremulous walls + Of water, to the cool, still coral bowers, + Where, under rainbows of perpetual showers, + God's gardens of the deep + His patient angels keep; + Gladdening the dim, strange solitude + With fairest forms and hues, and thus + Forever teaching us + The lesson which the many-colored skies, + The flowers, and leaves, and painted butterflies, + The deer's branched antlers, the gay bird that flings + The tropic sunshine from its golden wings, + The brightness of the human countenance, + Its play of smiles, the magic of a glance, + Forevermore repeat, + In varied tones and sweet, + That beauty, in and of itself, is good. + + O kind and generous friend, o'er whom + The sunset hues of Time are cast, + Painting, upon the overpast + And scattered clouds of noonday sorrow + The promise of a fairer morrow, + An earnest of the better life to come; + The binding of the spirit broken, + The warning to the erring spoken, + The comfort of the sad, + The eye to see, the hand to cull + Of common things the beautiful, + The absent heart made glad + By simple gift or graceful token + Of love it needs as daily food, + All own one Source, and all are good + Hence, tracking sunny cove and reach, + Where spent waves glimmer up the beach, + And toss their gifts of weed and shell + From foamy curve and combing swell, + No unbefitting task was thine + To weave these flowers so soft and fair + In unison with His design + Who loveth beauty everywhere; + And makes in every zone and clime, + In ocean and in upper air, + All things beautiful in their time. + + For not alone in tones of awe and power + He speaks to Inan; + The cloudy horror of the thunder-shower + His rainbows span; + And where the caravan + Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in air + The crane-flock leaves, no trace of passage there, + He gives the weary eye + The palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon hours, + And on its branches dry + Calls out the acacia's flowers; + And where the dark shaft pierces down + Beneath the mountain roots, + Seen by the miner's lamp alone, + The star-like crystal shoots; + So, where, the winds and waves below, + The coral-branched gardens grow, + His climbing weeds and mosses show, + Like foliage, on each stony bough, + Of varied hues more strangely gay + Than forest leaves in autumn's day;-- + Thus evermore, + On sky, and wave, and shore, + An all-pervading beauty seems to say + God's love and power are one; and they, + Who, like the thunder of a sultry day, + Smite to restore, + And they, who, like the gentle wind, uplift + The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and drift + Their perfume on the air, + Alike may serve Him, each, with their own gift, + Making their lives a prayer! + + 1850 + + + + +THE HILL-TOP + + The burly driver at my side, + We slowly climbed the hill, + Whose summit, in the hot noontide, + Seemed rising, rising still. + At last, our short noon-shadows bid + The top-stone, bare and brown, + From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid, + The rough mass slanted down. + + I felt the cool breath of the North; + Between me and the sun, + O'er deep, still lake, and ridgy earth, + I saw the cloud-shades run. + Before me, stretched for glistening miles, + Lay mountain-girdled Squam; + Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles + Upon its bosom swam. + + And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm, + Far as the eye could roam, + Dark billows of an earthquake storm + Beflecked with clouds like foam, + Their vales in misty shadow deep, + Their rugged peaks in shine, + I saw the mountain ranges sweep + The horizon's northern line. + + There towered Chocorua's peak; and west, + Moosehillock's woods were seem, + With many a nameless slide-scarred crest + And pine-dark gorge between. + Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud, + The great Notch mountains shone, + Watched over by the solemn-browed + And awful face of stone! + + "A good look-off!" the driver spake; + "About this time, last year, + I drove a party to the Lake, + And stopped, at evening, here. + 'T was duskish down below; but all + These hills stood in the sun, + Till, dipped behind yon purple wall, + He left them, one by one. + + "A lady, who, from Thornton hill, + Had held her place outside, + And, as a pleasant woman will, + Had cheered the long, dull ride, + Besought me, with so sweet a smile, + That--though I hate delays-- + I could not choose but rest awhile,-- + (These women have such ways!) + + "On yonder mossy ledge she sat, + Her sketch upon her knees, + A stray brown lock beneath her hat + Unrolling in the breeze; + Her sweet face, in the sunset light + Upraised and glorified,-- + I never saw a prettier sight + In all my mountain ride. + + "As good as fair; it seemed her joy + To comfort and to give; + My poor, sick wife, and cripple boy, + Will bless her while they live!" + The tremor in the driver's tone + His manhood did not shame + "I dare say, sir, you may have known"-- + He named a well-known name. + + Then sank the pyramidal mounds, + The blue lake fled away; + For mountain-scope a parlor's bounds, + A lighted hearth for day! + From lonely years and weary miles + The shadows fell apart; + Kind voices cheered, sweet human smiles + Shone warm into my heart. + + We journeyed on; but earth and sky + Had power to charm no more; + Still dreamed my inward-turning eye + The dream of memory o'er. + Ah! human kindness, human love,-- + To few who seek denied; + Too late we learn to prize above + The whole round world beside! + + 1850 + + + +ELLIOTT. + +Ebenezer Elliott was to the artisans of England what Burns was to the +peasantry of Scotland. His Corn-law Rhymes contributed not a little to +that overwhelming tide of popular opinion and feeling which resulted in +the repeal of the tax on bread. Well has the eloquent author of The +Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain said of him, "Not corn-law +repealers alone, but all Britons who moisten their scanty bread with the +sweat of the brow, are largely indebted to his inspiring lay, for the +mighty bound which the laboring mind of England has taken in our day." + + + Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play + No trick of priestcraft here! + Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay + A hand on Elliott's bier? + Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust, + Beneath his feet he trod. + + He knew the locust swarm that cursed + The harvest-fields of God. + On these pale lips, the smothered thought + Which England's millions feel, + A fierce and fearful splendor caught, + As from his forge the steel. + Strong-armed as Thor, a shower of fire + His smitten anvil flung; + God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire, + He gave them all a tongue! + + Then let the poor man's horny hands + Bear up the mighty dead, + And labor's swart and stalwart bands + Behind as mourners tread. + Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds, + Leave rank its minster floor; + Give England's green and daisied grounds + The poet of the poor! + + Lay down upon his Sheaf's green verge + That brave old heart of oak, + With fitting dirge from sounding forge, + And pall of furnace smoke! + Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds, + And axe and sledge are swung, + And, timing to their stormy sounds, + His stormy lays are sung. + + There let the peasant's step be heard, + The grinder chant his rhyme, + Nor patron's praise nor dainty word + Befits the man or time. + No soft lament nor dreamer's sigh + For him whose words were bread; + The Runic rhyme and spell whereby + The foodless poor were fed! + + Pile up the tombs of rank and pride, + O England, as thou wilt! + With pomp to nameless worth denied, + Emblazon titled guilt! + No part or lot in these we claim; + But, o'er the sounding wave, + A common right to Elliott's name, + A freehold in his grave! + + 1850 + + + + +ICHABOD + +This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and forecast of evil +consequences which I felt on reading the seventh of March speech of +Daniel Webster in support of the "compromise," and the Fugitive Slave +Law. No partisan or personal enmity dictated it. On the contrary my +admiration of the splendid personality and intellectual power of the +great Senator was never stronger than when I laid down his speech, and, +in one of the saddest moments of my life, penned my protest. I saw, as I +wrote, with painful clearness its sure results,--the Slave Power +arrogant and defiant, strengthened and encouraged to carry out its +scheme for the extension of its baleful system, or the dissolution of +the Union, the guaranties of personal liberty in the free States broken +down, and the whole country made the hunting-ground of slave-catchers. +In the horror of such a vision, so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one +spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of stern and sorrowful +rebuke. But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a +common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity of +judgment. Years after, in _The Lost Occasion_ I gave utterance to an +almost universal regret that the great statesman did not live to see the +flag which he loved trampled under the feet of Slavery, and, in view of +this desecration, make his last days glorious in defence of "Liberty and +Union, one and inseparable." + + + So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn + Which once he wore! + The glory from his gray hairs gone + Forevermore! + + Revile him not, the Tempter hath + A snare for all; + And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, + Befit his fall! + + Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage, + When he who might + Have lighted up and led his age, + Falls back in night. + + Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark + A bright soul driven, + Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, + From hope and heaven! + + Let not the land once proud of him + Insult him now, + Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, + Dishonored brow. + + But let its humbled sons, instead, + From sea to lake, + A long lament, as for the dead, + In sadness make. + + Of all we loved and honored, naught + Save power remains; + A fallen angel's pride of thought, + Still strong in chains. + + All else is gone; from those great eyes + The soul has fled + When faith is lost, when honor dies, + The man is dead! + + Then, pay the reverence of old days + To his dead fame; + Walk backward, with averted gaze, + And hide the shame! + + 1850 + + + + +THE LOST OCCASION. + + Some die too late and some too soon, + At early morning, heat of noon, + Or the chill evening twilight. Thou, + Whom the rich heavens did so endow + With eyes of power and Jove's own brow, + With all the massive strength that fills + Thy home-horizon's granite hills, + With rarest gifts of heart and head + From manliest stock inherited, + New England's stateliest type of man, + In port and speech Olympian; + + Whom no one met, at first, but took + A second awed and wondering look + (As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece + On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece); + Whose words in simplest homespun clad, + The Saxon strength of Caedmon's had, + With power reserved at need to reach + The Roman forum's loftiest speech, + Sweet with persuasion, eloquent + In passion, cool in argument, + Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes + As fell the Norse god's hammer blows, + Crushing as if with Talus' flail + Through Error's logic-woven mail, + And failing only when they tried + The adamant of the righteous side,-- + Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved + Of old friends, by the new deceived, + Too soon for us, too soon for thee, + Beside thy lonely Northern sea, + Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, + Laid wearily down thy August head. + + Thou shouldst have lived to feel below + Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow; + The late-sprung mine that underlaid + Thy sad concessions vainly made. + Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall + The star-flag of the Union fall, + And armed rebellion pressing on + The broken lines of Washington! + No stronger voice than thine had then + Called out the utmost might of men, + To make the Union's charter free + And strengthen law by liberty. + How had that stern arbitrament + To thy gray age youth's vigor lent, + Shaming ambition's paltry prize + Before thy disillusioned eyes; + Breaking the spell about thee wound + Like the green withes that Samson bound; + Redeeming in one effort grand, + Thyself and thy imperilled land! + Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, + O sleeper by the Northern sea, + The gates of opportunity! + God fills the gaps of human need, + Each crisis brings its word and deed. + Wise men and strong we did not lack; + But still, with memory turning back, + In the dark hours we thought of thee, + And thy lone grave beside the sea. + + Above that grave the east winds blow, + And from the marsh-lands drifting slow + The sea-fog comes, with evermore + The wave-wash of a lonely shore, + And sea-bird's melancholy cry, + As Nature fain would typify + The sadness of a closing scene, + The loss of that which should have been. + But, where thy native mountains bare + Their foreheads to diviner air, + Fit emblem of enduring fame, + One lofty summit keeps thy name. + For thee the cosmic forces did + The rearing of that pyramid, + The prescient ages shaping with + Fire, flood, and frost thy monolith. + Sunrise and sunset lay thereon + With hands of light their benison, + The stars of midnight pause to set + Their jewels in its coronet. + And evermore that mountain mass + Seems climbing from the shadowy pass + To light, as if to manifest + Thy nobler self, thy life at best! + + 1880 + + + + +WORDSWORTH, WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF HIS MEMOIRS. + + Dear friends, who read the world aright, + And in its common forms discern + A beauty and a harmony + The many never learn! + + Kindred in soul of him who found + In simple flower and leaf and stone + The impulse of the sweetest lays + Our Saxon tongue has known,-- + + Accept this record of a life + As sweet and pure, as calm and good, + As a long day of blandest June + In green field and in wood. + + How welcome to our ears, long pained + By strife of sect and party noise, + The brook-like murmur of his song + Of nature's simple joys! + + The violet' by its mossy stone, + The primrose by the river's brim, + And chance-sown daffodil, have found + Immortal life through him. + + The sunrise on his breezy lake, + The rosy tints his sunset brought, + World-seen, are gladdening all the vales + And mountain-peaks of thought. + + Art builds on sand; the works of pride + And human passion change and fall; + But that which shares the life of God + With Him surviveth all. + + 1851. + + + + +TO ------, LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION. + + Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom, + In hieroglyph of bud and bloom, + Her mysteries are told; + Who, wise in lore of wood and mead, + The seasons' pictured scrolls can read, + In lessons manifold! + + Thanks for the courtesy, and gay + Good-humor, which on Washing Day + Our ill-timed visit bore; + Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke + The morning dreams of Artichoke, + Along his wooded shore! + + Varied as varying Nature's ways, + Sprites of the river, woodland fays, + Or mountain nymphs, ye seem; + Free-limbed Dianas on the green, + Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine, + Upon your favorite stream. + + The forms of which the poets told, + The fair benignities of old, + Were doubtless such as you; + What more than Artichoke the rill + Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill + Arcadia's mountain-view? + + No sweeter bowers the bee delayed, + In wild Hymettus' scented shade, + Than those you dwell among; + Snow-flowered azaleas, intertwined + With roses, over banks inclined + With trembling harebells hung! + + A charmed life unknown to death, + Immortal freshness Nature hath; + Her fabled fount and glen + Are now and here: Dodona's shrine + Still murmurs in the wind-swept pine,-- + All is that e'er hath been. + + The Beauty which old Greece or Rome + Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home; + We need but eye and ear + In all our daily walks to trace + The outlines of incarnate grace, + The hymns of gods to hear! + + 1851 + + + +IN PEACE. + + A track of moonlight on a quiet lake, + Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore + Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make + Such harmonies as keep the woods awake, + And listening all night long for their sweet sake + A green-waved slope of meadow, hovered o'er + By angel-troops of lilies, swaying light + On viewless stems, with folded wings of white; + A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far seen + Where the low westering day, with gold and green, + Purple and amber, softly blended, fills + The wooded vales, and melts among the hills; + A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest + On the calm bosom of a stormless sea, + Bearing alike upon its placid breast, + With earthly flowers and heavenly' stars impressed, + The hues of time and of eternity + Such are the pictures which the thought of thee, + O friend, awakeneth,--charming the keen pain + Of thy departure, and our sense of loss + Requiting with the fullness of thy gain. + Lo! on the quiet grave thy life-borne cross, + Dropped only at its side, methinks doth shine, + Of thy beatitude the radiant sign! + No sob of grief, no wild lament be there, + To break the Sabbath of the holy air; + But, in their stead, the silent-breathing prayer + Of hearts still waiting for a rest like thine. + O spirit redeemed! Forgive us, if henceforth, + With sweet and pure similitudes of earth, + We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green, + Of love's inheritance a priceless part, + Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is seen + To paint, forgetful of the tricks of art, + With pencil dipped alone in colors of the heart. + + 1851. + + + + +BENEDICITE. + + God's love and peace be with thee, where + Soe'er this soft autumnal air + Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair. + + Whether through city casements comes + Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms, + Or, out among the woodland blooms, + + It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face, + Imparting, in its glad embrace, + Beauty to beauty, grace to grace! + + Fair Nature's book together read, + The old wood-paths that knew our tread, + The maple shadows overhead,-- + + The hills we climbed, the river seen + By gleams along its deep ravine,-- + All keep thy memory fresh and green. + + Where'er I look, where'er I stray, + Thy thought goes with me on my way, + And hence the prayer I breathe to-day; + + O'er lapse of time and change of scene, + The weary waste which lies between + Thyself and me, my heart I lean. + + Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, nor + The half-unconscious power to draw + All hearts to thine by Love's sweet law. + + With these good gifts of God is cast + Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast + To hold the blessed angels fast. + + If, then, a fervent wish for thee + The gracious heavens will heed from me, + What should, dear heart, its burden be? + + The sighing of a shaken reed,-- + What can I more than meekly plead + The greatness of our common need? + + God's love,--unchanging, pure, and true,-- + The Paraclete white-shining through + His peace,--the fall of Hermon's dew! + + With such a prayer, on this sweet day, + As thou mayst hear and I may say, + I greet thee, dearest, far away! + + 1851. + + + + +KOSSUTH + +It can scarcely be necessary to say that there are elements in the +character and passages in the history of the great Hungarian statesman +and orator, which necessarily command the admiration of those, even, who +believe that no political revolution was ever worth the price of human +blood. + + + Type of two mighty continents!--combining + The strength of Europe with the warmth and glow + Of Asian song and prophecy,--the shining + Of Orient splendors over Northern snow! + Who shall receive him? Who, unblushing, speak + Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break + The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off + At the same blow the fetters of the serf, + Rearing the altar of his Fatherland + On the firm base of freedom, and thereby + Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand, + Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie! + Who shall be Freedom's mouthpiece? Who shall give + Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive? + Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying, + Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain + The swarthy Kossuths of our land again! + Not he whose utterance now from lips designed + The bugle-march of Liberty to wind, + And call her hosts beneath the breaking light, + The keen reveille of her morn of fight, + Is but the hoarse note of the blood-hound's baying, + The wolf's long howl behind the bondman's flight! + Oh for the tongue of him who lies at rest + In Quincy's shade of patrimonial trees, + Last of the Puritan tribunes and the best, + To lend a voice to Freedom's sympathies, + And hail the coming of the noblest guest + The Old World's wrong has given the New World of the West! + + 1851. + + + + +TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER. + +AN EPISTLE NOT AFTER THE MANNER OF HORACE + +These lines were addressed to my worthy friend Joshua Coffin, teacher, +historian, and antiquarian. He was one of the twelve persons who with +William Lloyd Garrison formed the first anti-slavery society in New +England. + + + Old friend, kind friend! lightly down + Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown! + Never be thy shadow less, + Never fail thy cheerfulness; + Care, that kills the cat, may, plough + Wrinkles in the miser's brow, + Deepen envy's spiteful frown, + Draw the mouths of bigots down, + Plague ambition's dream, and sit + Heavy on the hypocrite, + Haunt the rich man's door, and ride + In the gilded coach of pride;-- + Let the fiend pass!--what can he + Find to do with such as thee? + Seldom comes that evil guest + Where the conscience lies at rest, + And brown health and quiet wit + Smiling on the threshold sit. + + I, the urchin unto whom, + In that smoked and dingy room, + Where the district gave thee rule + O'er its ragged winter school, + Thou didst teach the mysteries + Of those weary A B C's,-- + Where, to fill the every pause + Of thy wise and learned saws, + Through the cracked and crazy wall + Came the cradle-rock and squall, + And the goodman's voice, at strife + With his shrill and tipsy wife, + Luring us by stories old, + With a comic unction told, + More than by the eloquence + Of terse birchen arguments + (Doubtful gain, I fear), to look + With complacence on a book!-- + Where the genial pedagogue + Half forgot his rogues to flog, + Citing tale or apologue, + Wise and merry in its drift + As was Phaedrus' twofold gift, + Had the little rebels known it, + Risum et prudentiam monet! + I,--the man of middle years, + In whose sable locks appears + Many a warning fleck of gray,-- + Looking back to that far day, + And thy primal lessons, feel + Grateful smiles my lips unseal, + As, remembering thee, I blend + Olden teacher, present friend, + Wise with antiquarian search, + In the scrolls of State and Church + Named on history's title-page, + Parish-clerk and justice sage; + For the ferule's wholesome awe + Wielding now the sword of law. + + Threshing Time's neglected sheaves, + Gathering up the scattered leaves + Which the wrinkled sibyl cast + Careless from her as she passed,-- + Twofold citizen art thou, + Freeman of the past and now. + He who bore thy name of old + Midway in the heavens did hold + Over Gibeon moon and sun; + Thou hast bidden them backward run; + Of to-day the present ray + Flinging over yesterday! + + Let the busy ones deride + What I deem of right thy pride + Let the fools their treadmills grind, + Look not forward nor behind, + Shuffle in and wriggle out, + Veer with every breeze about, + Turning like a windmill sail, + Or a dog that seeks his tail; + Let them laugh to see thee fast + Tabernacled in the Past, + Working out with eye and lip, + Riddles of old penmanship, + Patient as Belzoni there + Sorting out, with loving care, + Mummies of dead questions stripped + From their sevenfold manuscript. + + Dabbling, in their noisy way, + In the puddles of to-day, + Little know they of that vast + Solemn ocean of the past, + On whose margin, wreck-bespread, + Thou art walking with the dead, + Questioning the stranded years, + Waking smiles, by turns, and tears, + As thou callest up again + Shapes the dust has long o'erlain,-- + Fair-haired woman, bearded man, + Cavalier and Puritan; + In an age whose eager view + Seeks but present things, and new, + Mad for party, sect and gold, + Teaching reverence for the old. + + On that shore, with fowler's tact, + Coolly bagging fact on fact, + Naught amiss to thee can float, + Tale, or song, or anecdote; + Village gossip, centuries old, + Scandals by our grandams told, + What the pilgrim's table spread, + Where he lived, and whom he wed, + Long-drawn bill of wine and beer + For his ordination cheer, + Or the flip that wellnigh made + Glad his funeral cavalcade; + Weary prose, and poet's lines, + Flavored by their age, like wines, + Eulogistic of some quaint, + Doubtful, puritanic saint; + Lays that quickened husking jigs, + Jests that shook grave periwigs, + When the parson had his jokes + And his glass, like other folks; + Sermons that, for mortal hours, + Taxed our fathers' vital powers, + As the long nineteenthlies poured + Downward from the sounding-board, + And, for fire of Pentecost, + Touched their beards December's frost. + + Time is hastening on, and we + What our fathers are shall be,-- + Shadow-shapes of memory! + Joined to that vast multitude + Where the great are but the good, + And the mind of strength shall prove + Weaker than the heart of love; + Pride of graybeard wisdom less + Than the infant's guilelessness, + And his song of sorrow more + Than the crown the Psalmist wore + Who shall then, with pious zeal, + At our moss-grown thresholds kneel, + From a stained and stony page + Reading to a careless age, + With a patient eye like thine, + Prosing tale and limping line, + Names and words the hoary rime + Of the Past has made sublime? + Who shall work for us as well + The antiquarian's miracle? + Who to seeming life recall + Teacher grave and pupil small? + Who shall give to thee and me + Freeholds in futurity? + + Well, whatever lot be mine, + Long and happy days be thine, + Ere thy full and honored age + Dates of time its latest page! + Squire for master, State for school, + Wisely lenient, live and rule; + Over grown-up knave and rogue + Play the watchful pedagogue; + Or, while pleasure smiles on duty, + At the call of youth and beauty, + Speak for them the spell of law + Which shall bar and bolt withdraw, + And the flaming sword remove + From the Paradise of Love. + Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore + Ancient tome and record o'er; + Still thy week-day lyrics croon, + Pitch in church the Sunday tune, + Showing something, in thy part, + Of the old Puritanic art, + Singer after Sternhold's heart + In thy pew, for many a year, + Homilies from Oldbug hear, + Who to wit like that of South, + And the Syrian's golden mouth, + Doth the homely pathos add + Which the pilgrim preachers had; + Breaking, like a child at play, + Gilded idols of the day, + Cant of knave and pomp of fool + Tossing with his ridicule, + Yet, in earnest or in jest, + Ever keeping truth abreast. + And, when thou art called, at last, + To thy townsmen of the past, + Not as stranger shalt thou come; + Thou shalt find thyself at home + With the little and the big, + Woollen cap and periwig, + Madam in her high-laced ruff, + Goody in her home-made stuff,-- + Wise and simple, rich and poor, + Thou hast known them all before! + + 1851 + + + +THE CROSS. + +Richard Dillingham, a young member of the Society of Friends, died in +the Nashville penitentiary, where he was confined for the act of aiding +the escape of fugitive slaves. + + + "The cross, if rightly borne, shall be + No burden, but support to thee;" + So, moved of old time for our sake, + The holy monk of Kempen spake. + + Thou brave and true one! upon whom + Was laid the cross of martyrdom, + How didst thou, in thy generous youth, + Bear witness to this blessed truth! + + Thy cross of suffering and of shame + A staff within thy hands became, + In paths where faith alone could see + The Master's steps supporting thee. + + Thine was the seed-time; God alone + Beholds the end of what is sown; + Beyond our vision, weak and dim, + The harvest-time is hid with Him. + + Yet, unforgotten where it lies, + That seed of generous sacrifice, + Though seeming on the desert cast, + Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last. + + 1852. + + + + +THE HERO. + +The hero of the incident related in this poem was Dr. Samuel Gridley +Howe, the well-known philanthropist, who when a young man volunteered +his aid in the Greek struggle for independence. + + + "Oh for a knight like Bayard, + Without reproach or fear; + My light glove on his casque of steel, + My love-knot on his spear! + + "Oh for the white plume floating + Sad Zutphen's field above,-- + The lion heart in battle, + The woman's heart in love! + + "Oh that man once more were manly, + Woman's pride, and not her scorn: + That once more the pale young mother + Dared to boast 'a man is born'! + + "But, now life's slumberous current + No sun-bowed cascade wakes; + No tall, heroic manhood + The level dulness breaks. + + "Oh for a knight like Bayard, + Without reproach or fear! + My light glove on his casque of steel, + My love-knot on his spear!" + + Then I said, my own heart throbbing + To the time her proud pulse beat, + "Life hath its regal natures yet, + True, tender, brave, and sweet! + + "Smile not, fair unbeliever! + One man, at least, I know, + Who might wear the crest of Bayard + Or Sidney's plume of snow. + + "Once, when over purple mountains + Died away the Grecian sun, + And the far Cyllenian ranges + Paled and darkened, one by one,-- + + "Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder, + Cleaving all the quiet sky, + And against his sharp steel lightnings + Stood the Suliote but to die. + + "Woe for the weak and halting! + The crescent blazed behind + A curving line of sabres, + Like fire before the wind! + + "Last to fly, and first to rally, + Rode he of whom I speak, + When, groaning in his bridle-path, + Sank down a wounded Greek. + + "With the rich Albanian costume + Wet with many a ghastly stain, + Gazing on earth and sky as one + Who might not gaze again. + + "He looked forward to the mountains, + Back on foes that never spare, + Then flung him from his saddle, + And placed the stranger there. + + "'Allah! hu!' Through flashing sabres, + Through a stormy hail of lead, + The good Thessalian charger + Up the slopes of olives sped. + + "Hot spurred the turbaned riders; + He almost felt their breath, + Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down + Between the hills and death. + + "One brave and manful struggle,-- + He gained the solid land, + And the cover of the mountains, + And the carbines of his band!" + + "It was very great and noble," + Said the moist-eyed listener then, + "But one brave deed makes no hero; + Tell me what he since hath been!" + + "Still a brave and generous manhood, + Still an honor without stain, + In the prison of the Kaiser, + By the barricades of Seine. + + "But dream not helm and harness + The sign of valor true; + Peace hath higher tests of manhood + Than battle ever knew. + + "Wouldst know him now? Behold him, + The Cadmus of the blind, + Giving the dumb lip language, + The idiot-clay a mind. + + "Walking his round of duty + Serenely day by day, + With the strong man's hand of labor + And childhood's heart of play. + + "True as the knights of story, + Sir Lancelot and his peers, + Brave in his calm endurance + As they in tilt of spears. + + "As waves in stillest waters, + As stars in noonday skies, + All that wakes to noble action + In his noon of calmness lies. + + "Wherever outraged Nature + Asks word or action brave, + Wherever struggles labor, + Wherever groans a slave,-- + + "Wherever rise the peoples, + Wherever sinks a throne, + The throbbing heart of Freedom finds + An answer in his own. + + "Knight of a better era, + Without reproach or fear! + Said I not well that Bayards + And Sidneys still are here?" + + 1853. + + + + +RANTOUL. + +No more fitting inscription could be placed on the tombstone of Robert +Rantoul than this: "He died at his post in Congress, and his last words +were a protest in the name of Democracy against the Fugitive-Slave Law." + + + One day, along the electric wire + His manly word for Freedom sped; + We came next morn: that tongue of fire + Said only, "He who spake is dead!" + + Dead! while his voice was living yet, + In echoes round the pillared dome! + Dead! while his blotted page lay wet + With themes of state and loves of home! + + Dead! in that crowning grace of time, + That triumph of life's zenith hour! + Dead! while we watched his manhood's prime + Break from the slow bud into flower! + + Dead! he so great, and strong, and wise, + While the mean thousands yet drew breath; + How deepened, through that dread surprise, + The mystery and the awe of death! + + From the high place whereon our votes + Had borne him, clear, calm, earnest, fell + His first words, like the prelude notes + Of some great anthem yet to swell. + + We seemed to see our flag unfurled, + Our champion waiting in his place + For the last battle of the world, + The Armageddon of the race. + + Through him we hoped to speak the word + Which wins the freedom of a land; + And lift, for human right, the sword + Which dropped from Hampden's dying hand. + + For he had sat at Sidney's feet, + And walked with Pym and Vane apart; + And, through the centuries, felt the beat + Of Freedom's march in Cromwell's heart. + + He knew the paths the worthies held, + Where England's best and wisest trod; + And, lingering, drank the springs that welled + Beneath the touch of Milton's rod. + + No wild enthusiast of the right, + Self-poised and clear, he showed alway + The coolness of his northern night, + The ripe repose of autumn's day. + + His steps were slow, yet forward still + He pressed where others paused or failed; + The calm star clomb with constant will, + The restless meteor flashed and paled. + + Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew + And owned the higher ends of Law; + Still rose majestic on his view + The awful Shape the schoolman saw. + + Her home the heart of God; her voice + The choral harmonies whereby + The stars, through all their spheres, rejoice, + The rhythmic rule of earth and sky. + + We saw his great powers misapplied + To poor ambitions; yet, through all, + We saw him take the weaker side, + And right the wronged, and free the thrall. + + Now, looking o'er the frozen North, + For one like him in word and act, + To call her old, free spirit forth, + And give her faith the life of fact,-- + + To break her party bonds of shame, + And labor with the zeal of him + To make the Democratic name + Of Liberty the synonyme,-- + + We sweep the land from hill to strand, + We seek the strong, the wise, the brave, + And, sad of heart, return to stand + In silence by a new-made grave! + + There, where his breezy hills of home + Look out upon his sail-white seas, + The sounds of winds and waters come, + And shape themselves to words like these. + + "Why, murmuring, mourn that he, whose power + Was lent to Party over-long, + Heard the still whisper at the hour + He set his foot on Party wrong? + + "The human life that closed so well + No lapse of folly now can stain + The lips whence Freedom's protest fell + No meaner thought can now profane. + + "Mightier than living voice his grave + That lofty protest utters o'er; + Through roaring wind and smiting wave + It speaks his hate of wrong once more. + + "Men of the North! your weak regret + Is wasted here; arise and pay + To freedom and to him your debt, + By following where he led the way!" + + 1853. + + + + +WILLIAM FORSTER. + +William Forster, of Norwich, England, died in East Tennessee, in the 1st +month, 1854, while engaged in presenting to the governors of the States +of this Union the address of his religious society on the evils of +slavery. He was the relative and coadjutor of the Buxtons, Gurneys, and +Frys; and his whole life, extending al-most to threescore and ten years, +was a pore and beautiful example of Christian benevolence. He had +travelled over Europe, and visited most of its sovereigns, to plead +against the slave-trade and slavery; and had twice before made visits to +this country, under impressions of religious duty. He was the father of +the Right Hon. William Edward Forster. He visited my father's house in +Haverhill during his first tour in the United States. + + + The years are many since his hand + Was laid upon my head, + Too weak and young to understand + The serious words he said. + + Yet often now the good man's look + Before me seems to swim, + As if some inward feeling took + The outward guise of him. + + As if, in passion's heated war, + Or near temptation's charm, + Through him the low-voiced monitor + Forewarned me of the harm. + + Stranger and pilgrim! from that day + Of meeting, first and last, + Wherever Duty's pathway lay, + His reverent steps have passed. + + The poor to feed, the lost to seek, + To proffer life to death, + Hope to the erring,--to the weak + The strength of his own faith. + + To plead the captive's right; remove + The sting of hate from Law; + And soften in the fire of love + The hardened steel of War. + + He walked the dark world, in the mild, + Still guidance of the Light; + In tearful tenderness a child, + A strong man in the right. + + From what great perils, on his way, + He found, in prayer, release; + Through what abysmal shadows lay + His pathway unto peace, + + God knoweth: we could only see + The tranquil strength he gained; + The bondage lost in liberty, + The fear in love unfeigned. + + And I,--my youthful fancies grown + The habit of the man, + Whose field of life by angels sown + The wilding vines o'erran,-- + + Low bowed in silent gratitude, + My manhood's heart enjoys + That reverence for the pure and good + Which blessed the dreaming boy's. + + Still shines the light of holy lives + Like star-beams over doubt; + Each sainted memory, Christlike, drives + Some dark possession out. + + O friend! O brother I not in vain + Thy life so calm and true, + The silver dropping of the rain, + The fall of summer dew! + + How many burdened hearts have prayed + Their lives like thine might be + But more shall pray henceforth for aid + To lay them down like thee. + + With weary hand, yet steadfast will, + In old age as in youth, + Thy Master found thee sowing still + The good seed of His truth. + + As on thy task-field closed the day + In golden-skied decline, + His angel met thee on the way, + And lent his arm to thine. + + Thy latest care for man,--thy last + Of earthly thought a prayer,-- + Oh, who thy mantle, backward cast, + Is worthy now to wear? + + Methinks the mound which marks thy bed + Might bless our land and save, + As rose, of old, to life the dead + Who touched the prophet's grave + + 1854. + + + + +TO CHARLES SUMNER. + + If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong + Than praise the right; if seldom to thine ear + My voice hath mingled with the exultant cheer + Borne upon all our Northern winds along; + If I have failed to join the fickle throng + In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest strong + In victory, surprised in thee to find + Brougham's scathing power with Canning's grace combined; + That he, for whom the ninefold Muses sang, + From their twined arms a giant athlete sprang, + Barbing the arrows of his native tongue + With the spent shafts Latona's archer flung, + To smite the Python of our land and time, + Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime, + Like the blind bard who in Castalian springs + Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings, + And on the shrine of England's freedom laid + The gifts of Cumve and of Delphi's' shade,-- + Small need hast thou of words of praise from me. + Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess + That, even though silent, I have not the less + Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree + With the large future which I shaped for thee, + When, years ago, beside the summer sea, + White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall + Baffled and broken from the rocky wall, + That, to the menace of the brawling flood, + Opposed alone its massive quietude, + Calm as a fate; with not a leaf nor vine + Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine, + Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think + That night-scene by the sea prophetical, + (For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs, + And through her pictures human fate divines), + That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink + In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall + In the white light of heaven, the type of one + Who, momently by Error's host assailed, + Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed; + And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all + The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done! + + 1854. + + + + +BURNS, ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM. + + No more these simple flowers belong + To Scottish maid and lover; + Sown in the common soil of song, + They bloom the wide world over. + + In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, + The minstrel and the heather, + The deathless singer and the flowers + He sang of live together. + + Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns + The moorland flower and peasant! + How, at their mention, memory turns + Her pages old and pleasant! + + The gray sky wears again its gold + And purple of adorning, + And manhood's noonday shadows hold + The dews of boyhood's morning. + + The dews that washed the dust and soil + From off the wings of pleasure, + The sky, that flecked the ground of toil + With golden threads of leisure. + + I call to mind the summer day, + The early harvest mowing, + The sky with sun and clouds at play, + And flowers with breezes blowing. + + I hear the blackbird in the corn, + The locust in the haying; + And, like the fabled hunter's horn, + Old tunes my heart is playing. + + How oft that day, with fond delay, + I sought the maple's shadow, + And sang with Burns the hours away, + Forgetful of the meadow. + + Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead + I heard the squirrels leaping, + The good dog listened while I read, + And wagged his tail in keeping. + + I watched him while in sportive mood + I read "_The Twa Dogs_" story, + And half believed he understood + The poet's allegory. + + Sweet day, sweet songs! The golden hours + Grew brighter for that singing, + From brook and bird and meadow flowers + A dearer welcome bringing. + + New light on home-seen Nature beamed, + New glory over Woman; + And daily life and duty seemed + No longer poor and common. + + I woke to find the simple truth + Of fact and feeling better + Than all the dreams that held my youth + A still repining debtor, + + That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, + The themes of sweet discoursing; + The tender idyls of the heart + In every tongue rehearsing. + + Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, + Of loving knight and lady, + When farmer boy and barefoot girl + Were wandering there already? + + I saw through all familiar things + The romance underlying; + The joys and griefs that plume the wings + Of Fancy skyward flying. + + I saw the same blithe day return, + The same sweet fall of even, + That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, + And sank on crystal Devon. + + I matched with Scotland's heathery hills + The sweetbrier and the clover; + With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, + Their wood-hymns chanting over. + + O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, + I saw the Man uprising; + No longer common or unclean, + The child of God's baptizing! + + With clearer eyes I saw the worth + Of life among the lowly; + The Bible at his Cotter's hearth + Had made my own more holy. + + And if at times an evil strain, + To lawless love appealing, + Broke in upon the sweet refrain + Of pure and healthful feeling, + + It died upon the eye and ear, + No inward answer gaining; + No heart had I to see or hear + The discord and the staining. + + Let those who never erred forget + His worth, in vain bewailings; + Sweet Soul of Song! I own my debt + Uncancelled by his failings! + + Lament who will the ribald line + Which tells his lapse from duty, + How kissed the maddening lips of wine + Or wanton ones of beauty; + + But think, while falls that shade between + The erring one and Heaven, + That he who loved like Magdalen, + Like her may be forgiven. + + Not his the song whose thunderous chime + Eternal echoes render; + The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, + And Milton's starry splendor! + + But who his human heart has laid + To Nature's bosom nearer? + Who sweetened toil like him, or paid + To love a tribute dearer? + + Through all his tuneful art, how strong + The human feeling gushes + The very moonlight of his song + Is warm with smiles and blushes! + + Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, + So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry; + Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, + But spare his Highland Mary! + + 1854. + + + + +TO GEORGE B. CHEEVER + + So spake Esaias: so, in words of flame, + Tekoa's prophet-herdsman smote with blame + The traffickers in men, and put to shame, + All earth and heaven before, + The sacerdotal robbers of the poor. + + All the dread Scripture lives for thee again, + To smite like lightning on the hands profane + Lifted to bless the slave-whip and the chain. + Once more the old Hebrew tongue + Bends with the shafts of God a bow new-strung! + + Take up the mantle which the prophets wore; + Warn with their warnings, show the Christ once more + Bound, scourged, and crucified in His blameless poor; + And shake above our land + The unquenched bolts that blazed in Hosea's hand! + + Not vainly shalt thou cast upon our years + The solemn burdens of the Orient seers, + And smite with truth a guilty nation's ears. + Mightier was Luther's word + Than Seckingen's mailed arm or Hutton's sword! + + 1858. + + + + +TO JAMES T. FIELDS + +ON A BLANK LEAF OF "POEMS PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED." + + Well thought! who would not rather hear + The songs to Love and Friendship sung + Than those which move the stranger's tongue, + And feed his unselected ear? + + Our social joys are more than fame; + Life withers in the public look. + Why mount the pillory of a book, + Or barter comfort for a name? + + Who in a house of glass would dwell, + With curious eyes at every pane? + To ring him in and out again, + Who wants the public crier's bell? + + To see the angel in one's way, + Who wants to play the ass's part,-- + Bear on his back the wizard Art, + And in his service speak or bray? + + And who his manly locks would shave, + And quench the eyes of common sense, + To share the noisy recompense + That mocked the shorn and blinded slave? + + The heart has needs beyond the head, + And, starving in the plenitude + Of strange gifts, craves its common food,-- + Our human nature's daily bread. + + We are but men: no gods are we, + To sit in mid-heaven, cold and bleak, + Each separate, on his painful peak, + Thin-cloaked in self-complacency. + + Better his lot whose axe is swung + In Wartburg woods, or that poor girl's + Who by the him her spindle whirls + And sings the songs that Luther sung, + + Than his who, old, and cold, and vain, + At Weimar sat, a demigod, + And bowed with Jove's imperial nod + His votaries in and out again! + + Ply, Vanity, thy winged feet! + Ambition, hew thy rocky stair! + Who envies him who feeds on air + The icy splendor of his seat? + + I see your Alps, above me, cut + The dark, cold sky; and dim and lone + I see ye sitting,--stone on stone,-- + With human senses dulled and shut. + + I could not reach you, if I would, + Nor sit among your cloudy shapes; + And (spare the fable of the grapes + And fox) I would not if I could. + + Keep to your lofty pedestals! + The safer plain below I choose + Who never wins can rarely lose, + Who never climbs as rarely falls. + + Let such as love the eagle's scream + Divide with him his home of ice + For me shall gentler notes suffice,-- + The valley-song of bird and stream; + + The pastoral bleat, the drone of bees, + The flail-beat chiming far away, + The cattle-low, at shut of day, + The voice of God in leaf and breeze; + + Then lend thy hand, my wiser friend, + And help me to the vales below, + (In truth, I have not far to go,) + Where sweet with flowers the fields extend. + + 1858. + + + + +THE MEMORY OF BURNS. + +Read at the Boston celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth +of Robert Burns, 25th 1st mo., 1859. In my absence these lines were read +by Ralph Waldo Emerson. + + + How sweetly come the holy psalms + From saints and martyrs down, + The waving of triumphal palms + Above the thorny crown + The choral praise, the chanted prayers + From harps by angels strung, + The hunted Cameron's mountain airs, + The hymns that Luther sung! + + Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes, + The sounds of earth are heard, + As through the open minster floats + The song of breeze and bird + Not less the wonder of the sky + That daisies bloom below; + The brook sings on, though loud and high + The cloudy organs blow! + + And, if the tender ear be jarred + That, haply, hears by turns + The saintly harp of Olney's bard, + The pastoral pipe of Burns, + No discord mars His perfect plan + Who gave them both a tongue; + For he who sings the love of man + The love of God hath sung! + + To-day be every fault forgiven + Of him in whom we joy + We take, with thanks, the gold of Heaven + And leave the earth's alloy. + Be ours his music as of spring, + His sweetness as of flowers, + The songs the bard himself might sing + In holier ears than ours. + + Sweet airs of love and home, the hum + Of household melodies, + Come singing, as the robins come + To sing in door-yard trees. + And, heart to heart, two nations lean, + No rival wreaths to twine, + But blending in eternal green + The holly and the pine! + + + + +IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE. + + In the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's mountains, + Across the charmed bay + Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver fountains + Perpetual holiday, + + A king lies dead, his wafer duly eaten, + His gold-bought masses given; + And Rome's great altar smokes with gums to sweeten + Her foulest gift to Heaven. + + And while all Naples thrills with mute thanksgiving, + The court of England's queen + For the dead monster so abhorred while living + In mourning garb is seen. + + With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning; + By lone Edgbaston's side + Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining, + Bareheaded and wet-eyed! + + Silent for once the restless hive of labor, + Save the low funeral tread, + Or voice of craftsman whispering to his neighbor + The good deeds of the dead. + + For him no minster's chant of the immortals + Rose from the lips of sin; + No mitred priest swung back the heavenly portals + To let the white soul in. + + But Age and Sickness framed their tearful faces + In the low hovel's door, + And prayers went up from all the dark by-places + And Ghettos of the poor. + + The pallid toiler and the negro chattel, + The vagrant of the street, + The human dice wherewith in games of battle + The lords of earth compete, + + Touched with a grief that needs no outward draping, + All swelled the long lament, + Of grateful hearts, instead of marble, shaping + His viewless monument! + + For never yet, with ritual pomp and splendor, + In the long heretofore, + A heart more loyal, warm, and true, and tender, + Has England's turf closed o'er. + + And if there fell from out her grand old steeples + No crash of brazen wail, + The murmurous woe of kindreds, tongues, and peoples + Swept in on every gale. + + It came from Holstein's birchen-belted meadows, + And from the tropic calms + Of Indian islands in the sunlit shadows + Of Occidental palms; + + From the locked roadsteads of the Bothniaii peasants, + And harbors of the Finn, + Where war's worn victims saw his gentle presence + Come sailing, Christ-like, in, + + To seek the lost, to build the old waste places, + To link the hostile shores + Of severing seas, and sow with England's daisies + The moss of Finland's moors. + + Thanks for the good man's beautiful example, + Who in the vilest saw + Some sacred crypt or altar of a temple + Still vocal with God's law; + + And heard with tender ear the spirit sighing + As from its prison cell, + Praying for pity, like the mournful crying + Of Jonah out of hell. + + Not his the golden pen's or lip's persuasion, + But a fine sense of right, + And Truth's directness, meeting each occasion + Straight as a line of light. + + His faith and works, like streams that intermingle, + In the same channel ran + The crystal clearness of an eye kept single + Shamed all the frauds of man. + + The very gentlest of all human natures + He joined to courage strong, + And love outreaching unto all God's creatures + With sturdy hate of wrong. + + Tender as woman, manliness and meekness + In him were so allied + That they who judged him by his strength or weakness + Saw but a single side. + + Men failed, betrayed him, but his zeal seemed nourished + By failure and by fall; + Still a large faith in human-kind he cherished, + And in God's love for all. + + And now he rests: his greatness and his sweetness + No more shall seem at strife, + And death has moulded into calm completeness + The statue of his life. + + Where the dews glisten and the songbirds warble, + His dust to dust is laid, + In Nature's keeping, with no pomp of marble + To shame his modest shade. + + The forges glow, the hammers all are ringing; + Beneath its smoky vale, + Hard by, the city of his love is swinging + Its clamorous iron flail. + + + But round his grave are quietude and beauty, + And the sweet heaven above,-- + The fitting symbols of a life of duty + Transfigured into love! + + 1859. + + + + +BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE + + John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day: + "I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay. + But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free, + With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!" + + John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die; + And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh. + Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew mild, + As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child. + + The shadows of his stormy life that moment fell apart; + And they who blamed the bloody hand forgave the loving heart. + That kiss from all its guilty means redeemed the good intent, + And round the grisly fighter's hair the martyr's aureole bent! + + Perish with him the folly that seeks through evil good + Long live the generous purpose unstained with human blood! + Not the raid of midnight terror, but the thought which underlies; + Not the borderer's pride of daring, but the Christian's sacrifice. + + Nevermore may yon Blue Ridges the Northern rifle hear, + Nor see the light of blazing homes flash on the negro's spear. + But let the free-winged angel Truth their guarded passes scale, + To teach that right is more than might, and justice more than mail! + + So vainly shall Virginia set her battle in array; + In vain her trampling squadrons knead the winter snow with clay. + She may strike the pouncing eagle, but she dares not harm the dove; + And every gate she bars to Hate shall open wide to Love! + + 1859. + + + + +NAPLES + +INSCRIBED TO ROBERT C. WATERSTON, OF BOSTON. + +Helen Waterston died at Naples in her eighteenth year, and lies buried +in the Protestant cemetery there. The stone over her grave bears the +lines, + + Fold her, O Father, in Thine arms, + And let her henceforth be + A messenger of love between + Our human hearts and Thee. + + + I give thee joy!--I know to thee + The dearest spot on earth must be + Where sleeps thy loved one by the summer sea; + + + Where, near her sweetest poet's tomb, + The land of Virgil gave thee room + To lay thy flower with her perpetual bloom. + + I know that when the sky shut down + Behind thee on the gleaming town, + On Baiae's baths and Posilippo's crown; + + And, through thy tears, the mocking day + Burned Ischia's mountain lines away, + And Capri melted in its sunny bay; + + Through thy great farewell sorrow shot + The sharp pang of a bitter thought + That slaves must tread around that holy spot. + + Thou knewest not the land was blest + In giving thy beloved rest, + Holding the fond hope closer to her breast, + + That every sweet and saintly grave + Was freedom's prophecy, and gave + The pledge of Heaven to sanctify and save. + + That pledge is answered. To thy ear + The unchained city sends its cheer, + And, tuned to joy, the muffled bells of fear + + Ring Victor in. The land sits free + And happy by the summer sea, + And Bourbon Naples now is Italy! + + She smiles above her broken chain + The languid smile that follows pain, + Stretching her cramped limbs to the sun again. + + Oh, joy for all, who hear her call + From gray Camaldoli's convent-wall + And Elmo's towers to freedom's carnival! + + A new life breathes among her vines + And olives, like the breath of pines + Blown downward from the breezy Apennines. + + Lean, O my friend, to meet that breath, + Rejoice as one who witnesseth + Beauty from ashes rise, and life from death! + + Thy sorrow shall no more be pain, + Its tears shall fall in sunlit rain, + Writing the grave with flowers: "Arisen again!" + + 1860. + + + + +A MEMORIAL + +Moses Austin Cartland, a dear friend and relation, who led a faithful +life as a teacher and died in the summer of 1863. + + + Oh, thicker, deeper, darker growing, + The solemn vista to the tomb + Must know henceforth another shadow, + And give another cypress room. + + In love surpassing that of brothers, + We walked, O friend, from childhood's day; + And, looking back o'er fifty summers, + Our footprints track a common way. + + One in our faith, and one our longing + To make the world within our reach + Somewhat the better for our living, + And gladder for our human speech. + + Thou heard'st with me the far-off voices, + The old beguiling song of fame, + But life to thee was warm and present, + And love was better than a name. + + To homely joys and loves and friendships + Thy genial nature fondly clung; + And so the shadow on the dial + Ran back and left thee always young. + + And who could blame the generous weakness + Which, only to thyself unjust, + So overprized the worth of others, + And dwarfed thy own with self-distrust? + + All hearts grew warmer in the presence + Of one who, seeking not his own, + Gave freely for the love of giving, + Nor reaped for self the harvest sown. + + Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude + Of generous deeds and kindly words; + In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers, + Open to sunrise and the birds; + + The task was thine to mould and fashion + Life's plastic newness into grace + To make the boyish heart heroic, + And light with thought the maiden's face. + + O'er all the land, in town and prairie, + With bended heads of mourning, stand + The living forms that owe their beauty + And fitness to thy shaping hand. + + Thy call has come in ripened manhood, + The noonday calm of heart and mind, + While I, who dreamed of thy remaining + To mourn me, linger still behind, + + Live on, to own, with self-upbraiding, + A debt of love still due from me,-- + The vain remembrance of occasions, + Forever lost, of serving thee. + + It was not mine among thy kindred + To join the silent funeral prayers, + But all that long sad day of summer + My tears of mourning dropped with theirs. + + All day the sea-waves sobbed with sorrow, + The birds forgot their merry trills + All day I heard the pines lamenting + With thine upon thy homestead hills. + + Green be those hillside pines forever, + And green the meadowy lowlands be, + And green the old memorial beeches, + Name-carven in the woods of Lee. + + Still let them greet thy life companions + Who thither turn their pilgrim feet, + In every mossy line recalling + A tender memory sadly sweet. + + O friend! if thought and sense avail not + To know thee henceforth as thou art, + That all is well with thee forever + I trust the instincts of my heart. + + Thine be the quiet habitations, + Thine the green pastures, blossom-sown, + And smiles of saintly recognition, + As sweet and tender as thy own. + + Thou com'st not from the hush and shadow + To meet us, but to thee we come, + With thee we never can be strangers, + And where thou art must still be home. + + 1863. + + + + +BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY + +Mr. Bryant's seventieth birthday, November 3, 1864, was celebrated by a +festival to which these verses were sent. + + + We praise not now the poet's art, + The rounded beauty of his song; + Who weighs him from his life apart + Must do his nobler nature wrong. + + Not for the eye, familiar grown + With charms to common sight denied, + The marvellous gift he shares alone + With him who walked on Rydal-side; + + Not for rapt hymn nor woodland lay, + Too grave for smiles, too sweet for tears; + We speak his praise who wears to-day + The glory of his seventy years. + + When Peace brings Freedom in her train, + Let happy lips his songs rehearse; + His life is now his noblest strain, + His manhood better than his verse! + + Thank God! his hand on Nature's keys + Its cunning keeps at life's full span; + But, dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these, + The poet seems beside the man! + + So be it! let the garlands die, + The singer's wreath, the painter's meed, + Let our names perish, if thereby + Our country may be saved and freed! + + 1864. + + + + +THOMAS STARR KING + +Published originally as a prelude to the posthumous volume of selections +edited by Richard Frothingham. + + + The great work laid upon his twoscore years + Is done, and well done. If we drop our tears, + Who loved him as few men were ever loved, + We mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan + With him whose life stands rounded and approved + In the full growth and stature of a man. + Mingle, O bells, along the Western slope, + With your deep toll a sound of faith and hope! + Wave cheerily still, O banner, half-way down, + From thousand-masted bay and steepled town! + Let the strong organ with its loftiest swell + Lift the proud sorrow of the land, and tell + That the brave sower saw his ripened grain. + O East and West! O morn and sunset twain + No more forever!--has he lived in vain + Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told + Your bridal service from his lips of gold? + + 1864. + + + + +LINES ON A FLY-LEAF. + + I need not ask thee, for my sake, + To read a book which well may make + Its way by native force of wit + Without my manual sign to it. + Its piquant writer needs from me + No gravely masculine guaranty, + And well might laugh her merriest laugh + At broken spears in her behalf; + Yet, spite of all the critics tell, + I frankly own I like her well. + It may be that she wields a pen + Too sharply nibbed for thin-skinned men, + That her keen arrows search and try + The armor joints of dignity, + And, though alone for error meant, + Sing through the air irreverent. + I blame her not, the young athlete + Who plants her woman's tiny feet, + And dares the chances of debate + Where bearded men might hesitate, + Who, deeply earnest, seeing well + The ludicrous and laughable, + Mingling in eloquent excess + Her anger and her tenderness, + And, chiding with a half-caress, + Strives, less for her own sex than ours, + With principalities and powers, + And points us upward to the clear + Sunned heights of her new atmosphere. + + Heaven mend her faults!--I will not pause + To weigh and doubt and peck at flaws, + Or waste my pity when some fool + Provokes her measureless ridicule. + Strong-minded is she? Better so + Than dulness set for sale or show, + A household folly, capped and belled + In fashion's dance of puppets held, + Or poor pretence of womanhood, + Whose formal, flavorless platitude + Is warranted from all offence + Of robust meaning's violence. + Give me the wine of thought whose head + Sparkles along the page I read,-- + Electric words in which I find + The tonic of the northwest wind; + The wisdom which itself allies + To sweet and pure humanities, + Where scorn of meanness, hate of wrong, + Are underlaid by love as strong; + The genial play of mirth that lights + Grave themes of thought, as when, on nights + Of summer-time, the harmless blaze + Of thunderless heat-lightning plays, + And tree and hill-top resting dim + And doubtful on the sky's vague rim, + Touched by that soft and lambent gleam, + Start sharply outlined from their dream. + + Talk not to me of woman's sphere, + Nor point with Scripture texts a sneer, + Nor wrong the manliest saint of all + By doubt, if he were here, that Paul + Would own the heroines who have lent + Grace to truth's stern arbitrament, + Foregone the praise to woman sweet, + And cast their crowns at Duty's feet; + Like her, who by her strong Appeal + Made Fashion weep and Mammon feel, + Who, earliest summoned to withstand + The color-madness of the land, + Counted her life-long losses gain, + And made her own her sisters' pain; + Or her who, in her greenwood shade, + Heard the sharp call that Freedom made, + And, answering, struck from Sappho's lyre + Of love the Tyrtman carmen's fire + Or that young girl,--Domremy's maid + Revived a nobler cause to aid,-- + Shaking from warning finger-tips + The doom of her apocalypse; + Or her, who world-wide entrance gave + To the log-cabin of the slave, + Made all his want and sorrow known, + And all earth's languages his own. + + 1866. + + + + +GEORGE L. STEARNS + +No man rendered greater service to the cause of freedom than Major +Stearns in the great struggle between invading slave-holders and the +free settlers of Kansas. + + + He has done the work of a true man,-- + Crown him, honor him, love him. + Weep, over him, tears of woman, + Stoop manliest brows above him! + + O dusky mothers and daughters, + Vigils of mourning keep for him! + Up in the mountains, and down by the waters, + Lift up your voices and weep for him, + + For the warmest of hearts is frozen, + The freest of hands is still; + And the gap in our picked and chosen + The long years may not fill. + + No duty could overtask him, + No need his will outrun; + Or ever our lips could ask him, + His hands the work had done. + + He forgot his own soul for others, + Himself to his neighbor lending; + He found the Lord in his suffering brothers, + And not in the clouds descending. + + So the bed was sweet to die on, + Whence he saw the doors wide swung + Against whose bolted iron + The strength of his life was flung. + + And he saw ere his eye was darkened + The sheaves of the harvest-bringing, + And knew while his ear yet hearkened + The voice of the reapers singing. + + Ah, well! The world is discreet; + There are plenty to pause and wait; + But here was a man who set his feet + Sometimes in advance of fate; + + Plucked off the old bark when the inner + Was slow to renew it, + And put to the Lord's work the sinner + When saints failed to do it. + + Never rode to the wrong's redressing + A worthier paladin. + Shall he not hear the blessing, + "Good and faithful, enter in!" + + 1867 + + + + +GARIBALDI + + In trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw + The casting down of thrones. Thou, watching lone + The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy-hilled, + Where, fringing round Caprera's rocky zone + With foam, the slow waves gather and withdraw, + Behold'st the vision of the seer fulfilled, + And hear'st the sea-winds burdened with a sound + Of falling chains, as, one by one, unbound, + The nations lift their right hands up and swear + Their oath of freedom. From the chalk-white wall + Of England, from the black Carpathian range, + Along the Danube and the Theiss, through all + The passes of the Spanish Pyrenees, + And from the Seine's thronged banks, a murmur strange + And glad floats to thee o'er thy summer seas + On the salt wind that stirs thy whitening hair,-- + The song of freedom's bloodless victories! + Rejoice, O Garibaldi! Though thy sword + Failed at Rome's gates, and blood seemed vainly poured + Where, in Christ's name, the crowned infidel + Of France wrought murder with the arms of hell + On that sad mountain slope whose ghostly dead, + Unmindful of the gray exorcist's ban, + Walk, unappeased, the chambered Vatican, + And draw the curtains of Napoleon's bed! + God's providence is not blind, but, full of eyes, + It searches all the refuges of lies; + And in His time and way, the accursed things + Before whose evil feet thy battle-gage + Has clashed defiance from hot youth to age + Shall perish. All men shall be priests and kings, + One royal brotherhood, one church made free + By love, which is the law of liberty. + + 1869. + + + + +TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD, + +ON READING HER POEM IN "THE STANDARD." + +Mrs. Child wrote her lines, beginning, "Again the trees are clothed in +vernal green," May 24, 1859, on the first anniversary of Ellis Gray +Loring's death, but did not publish them for some years afterward, when +I first read them, or I could not have made the reference which I did to +the extinction of slavery. + + + The sweet spring day is glad with music, + But through it sounds a sadder strain; + The worthiest of our narrowing circle + Sings Loring's dirges o'er again. + + O woman greatly loved! I join thee + In tender memories of our friend; + With thee across the awful spaces + The greeting of a soul I send! + + What cheer hath he? How is it with him? + Where lingers he this weary while? + Over what pleasant fields of Heaven + Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile? + + Does he not know our feet are treading + The earth hard down on Slavery's grave? + That, in our crowning exultations, + We miss the charm his presence gave? + + Why on this spring air comes no whisper + From him to tell us all is well? + Why to our flower-time comes no token + Of lily and of asphodel? + + I feel the unutterable longing, + Thy hunger of the heart is mine; + I reach and grope for hands in darkness, + My ear grows sharp for voice or sign. + + Still on the lips of all we question + The finger of God's silence lies; + Will the lost hands in ours be folded? + Will the shut eyelids ever rise? + + O friend! no proof beyond this yearning, + This outreach of our hearts, we need; + God will not mock the hope He giveth, + No love He prompts shall vainly plead. + + Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, + And call our loved ones o'er and o'er; + Some day their arms shall close about us, + And the old voices speak once more. + + No dreary splendors wait our coming + Where rapt ghost sits from ghost apart; + Homeward we go to Heaven's thanksgiving, + The harvest-gathering of the heart. + + 1870. + + + + +THE SINGER. + +This poem was written on the death of Alice Cary. Her sister Phoebe, +heart-broken by her loss, followed soon after. Noble and richly gifted, +lovely in person and character, they left behind them only friends and +admirers. + + + Years since (but names to me before), + Two sisters sought at eve my door; + Two song-birds wandering from their nest, + A gray old farm-house in the West. + + How fresh of life the younger one, + Half smiles, half tears, like rain in sun! + Her gravest mood could scarce displace + The dimples of her nut-brown face. + + Wit sparkled on her lips not less + For quick and tremulous tenderness; + And, following close her merriest glance, + Dreamed through her eyes the heart's romance. + + Timid and still, the elder had + Even then a smile too sweetly sad; + The crown of pain that all must wear + Too early pressed her midnight hair. + + Yet ere the summer eve grew long, + Her modest lips were sweet with song; + A memory haunted all her words + Of clover-fields and singing birds. + + Her dark, dilating eyes expressed + The broad horizons of the west; + Her speech dropped prairie flowers; the gold + Of harvest wheat about her rolled. + + Fore-doomed to song she seemed to me + I queried not with destiny + I knew the trial and the need, + Yet, all the more, I said, God speed? + + What could I other than I did? + Could I a singing-bird forbid? + Deny the wind-stirred leaf? Rebuke + The music of the forest brook? + + She went with morning from my door, + But left me richer than before; + Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer, + The welcome of her partial ear. + + Years passed: through all the land her name + A pleasant household word became + All felt behind the singer stood + A sweet and gracious womanhood. + + Her life was earnest work, not play; + Her tired feet climbed a weary way; + And even through her lightest strain + We heard an undertone of pain. + + Unseen of her her fair fame grew, + The good she did she rarely knew, + Unguessed of her in life the love + That rained its tears her grave above. + + When last I saw her, full of peace, + She waited for her great release; + And that old friend so sage and bland, + Our later Franklin, held her hand. + + For all that patriot bosoms stirs + Had moved that woman's heart of hers, + And men who toiled in storm and sun + Found her their meet companion. + + Our converse, from her suffering bed + To healthful themes of life she led + The out-door world of bud and bloom + And light and sweetness filled her room. + + Yet evermore an underthought + Of loss to come within us wrought, + And all the while we felt the strain + Of the strong will that conquered pain. + + God giveth quietness at last! + The common way that all have passed + She went, with mortal yearnings fond, + To fuller life and love beyond. + + Fold the rapt soul in your embrace, + My dear ones! Give the singer place + To you, to her,--I know not where,-- + I lift the silence of a prayer. + + For only thus our own we find; + The gone before, the left behind, + All mortal voices die between; + The unheard reaches the unseen. + + Again the blackbirds sing; the streams + Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, + And tremble in the April showers + The tassels of the maple flowers. + + But not for her has spring renewed + The sweet surprises of the wood; + And bird and flower are lost to her + Who was their best interpreter. + + What to shut eyes has God revealed? + What hear the ears that death has sealed? + What undreamed beauty passing show + Requites the loss of all we know? + + O silent land, to which we move, + Enough if there alone be love, + And mortal need can ne'er outgrow + What it is waiting to bestow! + + O white soul! from that far-off shore + Float some sweet song the waters o'er. + Our faith confirm, our fears dispel, + With the old voice we loved so well! + + 1871. + + + + +HOW MARY GREW. + +These lines were in answer to an invitation to hear a lecture of Mary +Grew, of Philadelphia, before the Boston Radical Club. The reference in +the last stanza is to an essay on Sappho by T. W. Higginson, read at the +club the preceding month. + + + With wisdom far beyond her years, + And graver than her wondering peers, + So strong, so mild, combining still + The tender heart and queenly will, + To conscience and to duty true, + So, up from childhood, Mary Grew! + + Then in her gracious womanhood + She gave her days to doing good. + She dared the scornful laugh of men, + The hounding mob, the slanderer's pen. + She did the work she found to do,-- + A Christian heroine, Mary Grew! + + The freed slave thanks her; blessing comes + To her from women's weary homes; + The wronged and erring find in her + Their censor mild and comforter. + The world were safe if but a few + Could grow in grace as Mary Grew! + + So, New Year's Eve, I sit and say, + By this low wood-fire, ashen gray; + Just wishing, as the night shuts down, + That I could hear in Boston town, + In pleasant Chestnut Avenue, + From her own lips, how Mary Grew! + + And hear her graceful hostess tell + The silver-voiced oracle + Who lately through her parlors spoke + As through Dodona's sacred oak, + A wiser truth than any told + By Sappho's lips of ruddy gold,-- + The way to make the world anew, + Is just to grow--as Mary Grew. + 1871. + + + + +SUMNER + +"I am not one who has disgraced beauty of sentiment by deformity of +conduct, or the maxims of a freeman by the actions of a slave; but, by +the grace of God, I have kept my life unsullied." --MILTON'S _Defence of +the People of England_. + + + O Mother State! the winds of March + Blew chill o'er Auburn's Field of God, + Where, slow, beneath a leaden arch + Of sky, thy mourning children trod. + + And now, with all thy woods in leaf, + Thy fields in flower, beside thy dead + Thou sittest, in thy robes of grief, + A Rachel yet uncomforted! + + And once again the organ swells, + Once more the flag is half-way hung, + And yet again the mournful bells + In all thy steeple-towers are rung. + + And I, obedient to thy will, + Have come a simple wreath to lay, + Superfluous, on a grave that still + Is sweet with all the flowers of May. + + I take, with awe, the task assigned; + It may be that my friend might miss, + In his new sphere of heart and mind, + Some token from my band in this. + + By many a tender memory moved, + Along the past my thought I send; + The record of the cause he loved + Is the best record of its friend. + + No trumpet sounded in his ear, + He saw not Sinai's cloud and flame, + But never yet to Hebrew seer + A clearer voice of duty came. + + God said: "Break thou these yokes; undo + These heavy burdens. I ordain + A work to last thy whole life through, + A ministry of strife and pain. + + "Forego thy dreams of lettered ease, + Put thou the scholar's promise by, + The rights of man are more than these." + He heard, and answered: "Here am I!" + + He set his face against the blast, + His feet against the flinty shard, + Till the hard service grew, at last, + Its own exceeding great reward. + + Lifted like Saul's above the crowd, + Upon his kingly forehead fell + The first sharp bolt of Slavery's cloud, + Launched at the truth he urged so well. + + Ah! never yet, at rack or stake, + Was sorer loss made Freedom's gain, + Than his, who suffered for her sake + The beak-torn Titan's lingering pain! + + The fixed star of his faith, through all + Loss, doubt, and peril, shone the same; + As through a night of storm, some tall, + Strong lighthouse lifts its steady flame. + + Beyond the dust and smoke he saw + The sheaves of Freedom's large increase, + The holy fanes of equal law, + The New Jerusalem of peace. + + The weak might fear, the worldling mock, + The faint and blind of heart regret; + All knew at last th' eternal rock + On which his forward feet were set. + + The subtlest scheme of compromise + Was folly to his purpose bold; + The strongest mesh of party lies + Weak to the simplest truth he told. + + One language held his heart and lip, + Straight onward to his goal he trod, + And proved the highest statesmanship + Obedience to the voice of God. + + No wail was in his voice,--none heard, + When treason's storm-cloud blackest grew, + The weakness of a doubtful word; + His duty, and the end, he knew. + + The first to smite, the first to spare; + When once the hostile ensigns fell, + He stretched out hands of generous care + To lift the foe he fought so well. + + For there was nothing base or small + Or craven in his soul's broad plan; + Forgiving all things personal, + He hated only wrong to man. + + The old traditions of his State, + The memories of her great and good, + Took from his life a fresher date, + And in himself embodied stood. + + How felt the greed of gold and place, + The venal crew that schemed and planned, + The fine scorn of that haughty face, + The spurning of that bribeless hand! + + If than Rome's tribunes statelier + He wore his senatorial robe, + His lofty port was all for her, + The one dear spot on all the globe. + + If to the master's plea he gave + The vast contempt his manhood felt, + He saw a brother in the slave,-- + With man as equal man he dealt. + + Proud was he? If his presence kept + Its grandeur wheresoe'er he trod, + As if from Plutarch's gallery stepped + The hero and the demigod, + + None failed, at least, to reach his ear, + Nor want nor woe appealed in vain; + The homesick soldier knew his cheer, + And blessed him from his ward of pain. + + Safely his dearest friends may own + The slight defects he never hid, + The surface-blemish in the stone + Of the tall, stately pyramid. + + Suffice it that he never brought + His conscience to the public mart; + But lived himself the truth he taught, + White-souled, clean-handed, pure of heart. + + What if he felt the natural pride + Of power in noble use, too true + With thin humilities to hide + The work he did, the lore he knew? + + Was he not just? Was any wronged + By that assured self-estimate? + He took but what to him belonged, + Unenvious of another's state. + + Well might he heed the words he spake, + And scan with care the written page + Through which he still shall warm and wake + The hearts of men from age to age. + + Ah! who shall blame him now because + He solaced thus his hours of pain! + Should not the o'erworn thresher pause, + And hold to light his golden grain? + + No sense of humor dropped its oil + On the hard ways his purpose went; + Small play of fancy lightened toil; + He spake alone the thing he meant. + + He loved his books, the Art that hints + A beauty veiled behind its own, + The graver's line, the pencil's tints, + The chisel's shape evoked from stone. + + He cherished, void of selfish ends, + The social courtesies that bless + And sweeten life, and loved his friends + With most unworldly tenderness. + + But still his tired eyes rarely learned + The glad relief by Nature brought; + Her mountain ranges never turned + His current of persistent thought. + + The sea rolled chorus to his speech + Three-banked like Latium's' tall trireme, + With laboring oars; the grove and beach + Were Forum and the Academe. + + The sensuous joy from all things fair + His strenuous bent of soul repressed, + And left from youth to silvered hair + Few hours for pleasure, none for rest. + + For all his life was poor without, + O Nature, make the last amends + Train all thy flowers his grave about, + And make thy singing-birds his friends! + + Revive again, thou summer rain, + The broken turf upon his bed + Breathe, summer wind, thy tenderest strain + Of low, sweet music overhead! + + With calm and beauty symbolize + The peace which follows long annoy, + And lend our earth-bent, mourning eyes, + Some hint of his diviner joy. + + For safe with right and truth he is, + As God lives he must live alway; + There is no end for souls like his, + No night for children of the day! + + Nor cant nor poor solicitudes + Made weak his life's great argument; + Small leisure his for frames and moods + Who followed Duty where she went. + + The broad, fair fields of God he saw + Beyond the bigot's narrow bound; + The truths he moulded into law + In Christ's beatitudes he found. + + His state-craft was the Golden Rule, + His right of vote a sacred trust; + Clear, over threat and ridicule, + All heard his challenge: "Is it just?" + + And when the hour supreme had come, + Not for himself a thought he gave; + In that last pang of martyrdom, + His care was for the half-freed slave. + + Not vainly dusky hands upbore, + In prayer, the passing soul to heaven + Whose mercy to His suffering poor + Was service to the Master given. + + Long shall the good State's annals tell, + Her children's children long be taught, + How, praised or blamed, he guarded well + The trust he neither shunned nor sought. + + If for one moment turned thy face, + O Mother, from thy son, not long + He waited calmly in his place + The sure remorse which follows wrong. + + Forgiven be the State he loved + The one brief lapse, the single blot; + Forgotten be the stain removed, + Her righted record shows it not! + + The lifted sword above her shield + With jealous care shall guard his fame; + The pine-tree on her ancient field + To all the winds shall speak his name. + + The marble image of her son + Her loving hands shall yearly crown, + And from her pictured Pantheon + His grand, majestic face look down. + + O State so passing rich before, + Who now shall doubt thy highest claim? + The world that counts thy jewels o'er + Shall longest pause at Sumner's name! + + 1874. + + + + +THEIRS + + I. + Fate summoned, in gray-bearded age, to act + A history stranger than his written fact, + Him who portrayed the splendor and the gloom + Of that great hour when throne and altar fell + With long death-groan which still is audible. + He, when around the walls of Paris rung + The Prussian bugle like the blast of doom, + And every ill which follows unblest war + Maddened all France from Finistere to Var, + The weight of fourscore from his shoulders flung, + And guided Freedom in the path he saw + Lead out of chaos into light and law, + Peace, not imperial, but republican, + And order pledged to all the Rights of Man. + + II. + Death called him from a need as imminent + As that from which the Silent William went + When powers of evil, like the smiting seas + On Holland's dikes, assailed her liberties. + Sadly, while yet in doubtful balance hung + The weal and woe of France, the bells were rung + For her lost leader. Paralyzed of will, + Above his bier the hearts of men stood still. + Then, as if set to his dead lips, the horn + Of Roland wound once more to rouse and warn, + The old voice filled the air! His last brave word + Not vainly France to all her boundaries stirred. + Strong as in life, he still for Freedom wrought, + As the dead Cid at red Toloso fought. + + 1877. + + + + +FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE. + + Among their graven shapes to whom + Thy civic wreaths belong, + O city of his love, make room + For one whose gift was song. + + Not his the soldier's sword to wield, + Nor his the helm of state, + Nor glory of the stricken field, + Nor triumph of debate. + + In common ways, with common men, + He served his race and time + As well as if his clerkly pen + Had never danced to rhyme. + + If, in the thronged and noisy mart, + The Muses found their son, + Could any say his tuneful art + A duty left undone? + + He toiled and sang; and year by year + Men found their homes more sweet, + And through a tenderer atmosphere + Looked down the brick-walled street. + + The Greek's wild onset gall Street knew; + The Red King walked Broadway; + And Alnwick Castle's roses blew + From Palisades to Bay. + + Fair City by the Sea! upraise + His veil with reverent hands; + And mingle with thy own the praise + And pride of other lands. + + Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe + Above her hero-urns; + And Scotland, with her holly, wreathe + The flower he culled for Burns. + + Oh, stately stand thy palace walls, + Thy tall ships ride the seas; + To-day thy poet's name recalls + A prouder thought than these. + + Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat, + Nor less thy tall fleets swim, + That shaded square and dusty street + Are classic ground through him. + + Alive, he loved, like all who sing, + The echoes of his song; + Too late the tardy meed we bring, + The praise delayed so long. + + Too late, alas! Of all who knew + The living man, to-day + Before his unveiled face, how few + Make bare their locks of gray! + + Our lips of praise must soon be dumb, + Our grateful eyes be dim; + O brothers of the days to come, + Take tender charge of him! + + New hands the wires of song may sweep, + New voices challenge fame; + But let no moss of years o'ercreep + The lines of Halleck's name. + + 1877. + + + + +WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT. + + Oh, well may Essex sit forlorn + Beside her sea-blown shore; + Her well beloved, her noblest born, + Is hers in life no more! + + No lapse of years can render less + Her memory's sacred claim; + No fountain of forgetfulness + Can wet the lips of Fame. + + A grief alike to wound and heal, + A thought to soothe and pain, + The sad, sweet pride that mothers feel + To her must still remain. + + Good men and true she has not lacked, + And brave men yet shall be; + The perfect flower, the crowning fact, + Of all her years was he! + + As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage, + What worthier knight was found + To grace in Arthur's golden age + The fabled Table Round? + + A voice, the battle's trumpet-note, + To welcome and restore; + A hand, that all unwilling smote, + To heal and build once more; + + A soul of fire, a tender heart + Too warm for hate, he knew + The generous victor's graceful part + To sheathe the sword he drew. + + When Earth, as if on evil dreams, + Looks back upon her wars, + And the white light of Christ outstreams + From the red disk of Mars, + + His fame who led the stormy van + Of battle well may cease, + But never that which crowns the man + Whose victory was Peace. + + Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore + Thy beautiful and brave, + Whose failing hand the olive bore, + Whose dying lips forgave! + + Let age lament the youthful chief, + And tender eyes be dim; + The tears are more of joy than grief + That fall for one like him! + + 1878. + + + + +BAYARD TAYLOR. + + I. + "And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?" + My sister asked our guest one winter's day. + Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way + Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send! + What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She laughed, + Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow + "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low, + Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft." + "All these and more I soon shall see for thee!" + He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge + On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge, + And Tromso freezing in its winter sea. + He went and came. But no man knows the track + Of his last journey, and he comes not back! + + II. + He brought us wonders of the new and old; + We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent + To him its story-telling secret lent. + And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told. + His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure, + In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought; + From humble home-lays to the heights of thought + Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure. + How, with the generous pride that friendship hath, + We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown + Of civic honor on his brows pressed down, + Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death. + And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears + Two nations speak, we answer but with tears! + + III. + O Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft, + Green as thy June turf keep his memory. Let + Nor wood, nor dell, nor storied stream forget, + Nor winds that blow round lonely Cedarcroft; + Let the home voices greet him in the far, + Strange land that holds him; let the messages + Of love pursue him o'er the chartless seas + And unmapped vastness of his unknown star + Love's language, heard beyond the loud discourse + Of perishable fame, in every sphere + Itself interprets; and its utterance here + Somewhere in God's unfolding universe + Shall reach our traveller, softening the surprise + Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies! + + 1879. + + + +OUR AUTOCRAT. + +Read at the breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes by the publishers of +the Atlantic Monthly, December 3, 1879. + + + His laurels fresh from song and lay, + Romance, art, science, rich in all, + And young of heart, how dare we say + We keep his seventieth festival? + + No sense is here of loss or lack; + Before his sweetness and his light + The dial holds its shadow back, + The charmed hours delay their flight. + + His still the keen analysis + Of men and moods, electric wit, + Free play of mirth, and tenderness + To heal the slightest wound from it. + + And his the pathos touching all + Life's sins and sorrows and regrets, + Its hopes and fears, its final call + And rest beneath the violets. + + His sparkling surface scarce betrays + The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled, + The wisdom of the latter days, + And tender memories of the old. + + What shapes and fancies, grave or gay, + Before us at his bidding come + The Treadmill tramp, the One-Horse Shay, + The dumb despair of Elsie's doom! + + The tale of Avis and the Maid, + The plea for lips that cannot speak, + The holy kiss that Iris laid + On Little Boston's pallid cheek! + + Long may he live to sing for us + His sweetest songs at evening time, + And, like his Chambered Nautilus, + To holier heights of beauty climb, + + Though now unnumbered guests surround + The table that he rules at will, + Its Autocrat, however crowned, + Is but our friend and comrade still. + + The world may keep his honored name, + The wealth of all his varied powers; + A stronger claim has love than fame, + And he himself is only ours! + + + + +WITHIN THE GATE. L. M. C. + +I have more fully expressed my admiration and regard for Lydia Maria +Child in the biographical introduction which I wrote for the volume of +Letters, published after her death. + + + We sat together, last May-day, and talked + Of the dear friends who walked + Beside us, sharers of the hopes and fears + Of five and forty years, + + Since first we met in Freedom's hope forlorn, + And heard her battle-horn + Sound through the valleys of the sleeping North, + Calling her children forth, + + And youth pressed forward with hope-lighted eyes, + And age, with forecast wise + Of the long strife before the triumph won, + Girded his armor on. + + Sadly, ass name by name we called the roll, + We heard the dead-bells toll + For the unanswering many, and we knew + The living were the few. + + And we, who waited our own call before + The inevitable door, + Listened and looked, as all have done, to win + Some token from within. + + No sign we saw, we heard no voices call; + The impenetrable wall + Cast down its shadow, like an awful doubt, + On all who sat without. + + Of many a hint of life beyond the veil, + And many a ghostly tale + Wherewith the ages spanned the gulf between + The seen and the unseen, + + Seeking from omen, trance, and dream to gain + Solace to doubtful pain, + And touch, with groping hands, the garment hem + Of truth sufficing them, + + We talked; and, turning from the sore unrest + Of an all-baffling quest, + We thought of holy lives that from us passed + Hopeful unto the last, + + As if they saw beyond the river of death, + Like Him of Nazareth, + The many mansions of the Eternal days + Lift up their gates of praise. + + And, hushed to silence by a reverent awe, + Methought, O friend, I saw + In thy true life of word, and work, and thought + The proof of all we sought. + + Did we not witness in the life of thee + Immortal prophecy? + And feel, when with thee, that thy footsteps trod + An everlasting road? + + Not for brief days thy generous sympathies, + Thy scorn of selfish ease; + Not for the poor prize of an earthly goal + Thy strong uplift of soul. + + Than thine was never turned a fonder heart + To nature and to art + In fair-formed Hellas in her golden prime, + Thy Philothea's time. + + Yet, loving beauty, thou couldst pass it by, + And for the poor deny + Thyself, and see thy fresh, sweet flower of fame + Wither in blight and blame. + + Sharing His love who holds in His embrace + The lowliest of our race, + Sure the Divine economy must be + Conservative of thee! + + For truth must live with truth, self-sacrifice + Seek out its great allies; + Good must find good by gravitation sure, + And love with love endure. + + And so, since thou hast passed within the gate + Whereby awhile I wait, + I give blind grief and blinder sense the lie + Thou hast not lived to die! + + 1881. + + + + +IN MEMORY. JAMES T. FIELDS. + + As a guest who may not stay + Long and sad farewells to say + Glides with smiling face away, + + Of the sweetness and the zest + Of thy happy life possessed + Thou hast left us at thy best. + + Warm of heart and clear of brain, + Of thy sun-bright spirit's wane + Thou hast spared us all the pain. + + Now that thou hast gone away, + What is left of one to say + Who was open as the day? + + What is there to gloss or shun? + Save with kindly voices none + Speak thy name beneath the sun. + + Safe thou art on every side, + Friendship nothing finds to hide, + Love's demand is satisfied. + + Over manly strength and worth, + At thy desk of toil, or hearth, + Played the lambent light of mirth,-- + + Mirth that lit, but never burned; + All thy blame to pity turned; + Hatred thou hadst never learned. + + Every harsh and vexing thing + At thy home-fire lost its sting; + Where thou wast was always spring. + + And thy perfect trust in good, + Faith in man and womanhood, + Chance and change and time, withstood. + + Small respect for cant and whine, + Bigot's zeal and hate malign, + Had that sunny soul of thine. + + But to thee was duty's claim + Sacred, and thy lips became + Reverent with one holy Name. + + Therefore, on thy unknown way, + Go in God's peace! We who stay + But a little while delay. + + Keep for us, O friend, where'er + Thou art waiting, all that here + Made thy earthly presence dear; + + Something of thy pleasant past + On a ground of wonder cast, + In the stiller waters glassed! + + Keep the human heart of thee; + Let the mortal only be + Clothed in immortality. + + And when fall our feet as fell + Thine upon the asphodel, + Let thy old smile greet us well; + + Proving in a world of bliss + What we fondly dream in this,-- + Love is one with holiness! + + 1881. + + + + +WILSON + +Read at the Massachusetts Club on the seventieth anniversary the +birthday of Vice-President Wilson, February 16, 1882. + + + The lowliest born of all the land, + He wrung from Fate's reluctant hand + The gifts which happier boyhood claims; + And, tasting on a thankless soil + The bitter bread of unpaid toil, + He fed his soul with noble aims. + + And Nature, kindly provident, + To him the future's promise lent; + The powers that shape man's destinies, + Patience and faith and toil, he knew, + The close horizon round him grew, + Broad with great possibilities. + + By the low hearth-fire's fitful blaze + He read of old heroic days, + The sage's thought, the patriot's speech; + Unhelped, alone, himself he taught, + His school the craft at which he wrought, + His lore the book within his, reach. + + He felt his country's need; he knew + The work her children had to do; + And when, at last, he heard the call + In her behalf to serve and dare, + Beside his senatorial chair + He stood the unquestioned peer of all. + + Beyond the accident of birth + He proved his simple manhood's worth; + Ancestral pride and classic grace + Confessed the large-brained artisan, + So clear of sight, so wise in plan + And counsel, equal to his place. + + With glance intuitive he saw + Through all disguise of form and law, + And read men like an open book; + Fearless and firm, he never quailed + Nor turned aside for threats, nor failed + To do the thing he undertook. + + How wise, how brave, he was, how well + He bore himself, let history tell + While waves our flag o'er land and sea, + No black thread in its warp or weft; + He found dissevered States, he left + A grateful Nation, strong and free! + + + + +THE POET AND THE CHILDREN. LONGFELLOW. + + WITH a glory of winter sunshine + Over his locks of gray, + In the old historic mansion + He sat on his last birthday; + + With his books and his pleasant pictures, + And his household and his kin, + While a sound as of myriads singing + From far and near stole in. + + It came from his own fair city, + From the prairie's boundless plain, + From the Golden Gate of sunset, + And the cedarn woods of Maine. + + And his heart grew warm within him, + And his moistening eyes grew dim, + For he knew that his country's children + Were singing the songs of him, + + The lays of his life's glad morning, + The psalms of his evening time, + Whose echoes shall float forever + On the winds of every clime. + + All their beautiful consolations, + Sent forth like birds of cheer, + Came flocking back to his windows, + And sang in the Poet's ear. + + Grateful, but solemn and tender, + The music rose and fell + With a joy akin to sadness + And a greeting like farewell. + + With a sense of awe he listened + To the voices sweet and young; + The last of earth and the first of heaven + Seemed in the songs they sung. + + And waiting a little longer + For the wonderful change to come, + He heard the Summoning Angel, + Who calls God's children home! + + And to him in a holier welcome + Was the mystical meaning given + Of the words of the blessed Master + "Of such is the kingdom of heaven!" + + 1882 + + + + +A WELCOME TO LOWELL + + Take our hands, James Russell Lowell, + Our hearts are all thy own; + To-day we bid thee welcome + Not for ourselves alone. + + In the long years of thy absence + Some of us have grown old, + And some have passed the portals + Of the Mystery untold; + + For the hands that cannot clasp thee, + For the voices that are dumb, + For each and all I bid thee + A grateful welcome home! + + For Cedarcroft's sweet singer + To the nine-fold Muses dear; + For the Seer the winding Concord + Paused by his door to hear; + + For him, our guide and Nestor, + Who the march of song began, + The white locks of his ninety years + Bared to thy winds, Cape Ann! + + For him who, to the music + Her pines and hemlocks played, + Set the old and tender story + Of the lorn Acadian maid; + + For him, whose voice for freedom + Swayed friend and foe at will, + Hushed is the tongue of silver, + The golden lips are still! + + For her whose life of duty + At scoff and menace smiled, + Brave as the wife of Roland, + Yet gentle as a Child. + + And for him the three-hilled city + Shall hold in memory long, + Those name is the hint and token + Of the pleasant Fields of Song! + + For the old friends unforgotten, + For the young thou hast not known, + I speak their heart-warm greeting; + Come back and take thy own! + + From England's royal farewells, + And honors fitly paid, + Come back, dear Russell Lowell, + To Elmwood's waiting shade! + + Come home with all the garlands + That crown of right thy head. + I speak for comrades living, + I speak for comrades dead! + + AMESBURY, 6th mo., 1885. + + + + +AN ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL. GEORGE FULLER + + Haunted of Beauty, like the marvellous youth + Who sang Saint Agnes' Eve! How passing fair + Her shapes took color in thy homestead air! + How on thy canvas even her dreams were truth! + Magician! who from commonest elements + Called up divine ideals, clothed upon + By mystic lights soft blending into one + Womanly grace and child-like innocence. + Teacher I thy lesson was not given in vain. + Beauty is goodness; ugliness is sin; + Art's place is sacred: nothing foul therein + May crawl or tread with bestial feet profane. + If rightly choosing is the painter's test, + Thy choice, O master, ever was the best. + + 1885. + + + + +MULFORD. + +Author of The Nation and The Republic of God. + + + Unnoted as the setting of a star + He passed; and sect and party scarcely knew + When from their midst a sage and seer withdrew + To fitter audience, where the great dead are + In God's republic of the heart and mind, + Leaving no purer, nobler soul behind. + + 1886. + + + + +TO A CAPE ANN SCHOONER + + Luck to the craft that bears this name of mine, + Good fortune follow with her golden spoon + The glazed hat and tarry pantaloon; + And wheresoe'er her keel shall cut the brine, + Cod, hake and haddock quarrel for her line. + Shipped with her crew, whatever wind may blow, + Or tides delay, my wish with her shall go, + Fishing by proxy. Would that it might show + At need her course, in lack of sun and star, + Where icebergs threaten, and the sharp reefs are; + Lift the blind fog on Anticosti's lee + And Avalon's rock; make populous the sea + Round Grand Manan with eager finny swarms, + Break the long calms, and charm away the storms. + + OAK KNOLL, 23 3rd mo., 1886. + + + + +SAMUEL J. TILDEN. + +GREYSTONE, AUG. 4, 1886. + + Once more, O all-adjusting Death! + The nation's Pantheon opens wide; + Once more a common sorrow saith + A strong, wise man has died. + + Faults doubtless had he. Had we not + Our own, to question and asperse + The worth we doubted or forgot + Until beside his hearse? + + Ambitious, cautious, yet the man + To strike down fraud with resolute hand; + A patriot, if a partisan, + He loved his native land. + + So let the mourning bells be rung, + The banner droop its folds half way, + And while the public pen and tongue + Their fitting tribute pay, + + Shall we not vow above his bier + To set our feet on party lies, + And wound no more a living ear + With words that Death denies? + + 1886 + + + + + +OCCASIONAL POEMS + + + + +EVA + +Suggested by Mrs. Stowe's tale of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and written when +the characters in the tale were realities by the fireside of countless +American homes. + + + Dry the tears for holy Eva, + With the blessed angels leave her; + Of the form so soft and fair + Give to earth the tender care. + + For the golden locks of Eva + Let the sunny south-land give her + Flowery pillow of repose, + Orange-bloom and budding rose. + + In the better home of Eva + Let the shining ones receive her, + With the welcome-voiced psalm, + Harp of gold and waving palm, + + All is light and peace with Eva; + There the darkness cometh never; + Tears are wiped, and fetters fall. + And the Lord is all in all. + + Weep no more for happy Eva, + Wrong and sin no more shall grieve her; + Care and pain and weariness + Lost in love so measureless. + + Gentle Eva, loving Eva, + Child confessor, true believer, + Listener at the Master's knee, + "Suffer such to come to me." + + Oh, for faith like thine, sweet Eva, + Lighting all the solemn river, + And the blessings of the poor + Wafting to the heavenly shore! + 1852 + + + + +A LAY OF OLD TIME. + +Written for the Essex County Agricultural Fair, and sung at the banquet +at Newburyport, October 2, 1856. + + + One morning of the first sad Fall, + Poor Adam and his bride + Sat in the shade of Eden's wall-- + But on the outer side. + + She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit + For the chaste garb of old; + He, sighing o'er his bitter fruit + For Eden's drupes of gold. + + Behind them, smiling in the morn, + Their forfeit garden lay, + Before them, wild with rock and thorn, + The desert stretched away. + + They heard the air above them fanned, + A light step on the sward, + And lo! they saw before them stand + The angel of the Lord! + + "Arise," he said, "why look behind, + When hope is all before, + And patient hand and willing mind, + Your loss may yet restore? + + "I leave with you a spell whose power + Can make the desert glad, + And call around you fruit and flower + As fair as Eden had. + + "I clothe your hands with power to lift + The curse from off your soil; + Your very doom shall seem a gift, + Your loss a gain through Toil. + + "Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees, + To labor as to play." + White glimmering over Eden's trees + The angel passed away. + + The pilgrims of the world went forth + Obedient to the word, + And found where'er they tilled the earth + A garden of the Lord! + + The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit + And blushed with plum and pear, + And seeded grass and trodden root + Grew sweet beneath their care. + + We share our primal parents' fate, + And, in our turn and day, + Look back on Eden's sworded gate + As sad and lost as they. + + But still for us his native skies + The pitying Angel leaves, + And leads through Toil to Paradise + New Adams and new Eves! + + + + +A SONG OF HARVEST + +For the Agricultural and Horticultural Exhibition at Amesbury and +Salisbury, September 28, 1858. + + + This day, two hundred years ago, + The wild grape by the river's side, + And tasteless groundnut trailing low, + The table of the woods supplied. + + Unknown the apple's red and gold, + The blushing tint of peach and pear; + The mirror of the Powow told + No tale of orchards ripe and rare. + + Wild as the fruits he scorned to till, + These vales the idle Indian trod; + Nor knew the glad, creative skill, + The joy of him who toils with God. + + O Painter of the fruits and flowers! + We thank Thee for thy wise design + Whereby these human hands of ours + In Nature's garden work with Thine. + + And thanks that from our daily need + The joy of simple faith is born; + That he who smites the summer weed, + May trust Thee for the autumn corn. + + Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; + Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; + Who sows a field, or trains a flower, + Or plants a tree, is more than all. + + For he who blesses most is blest; + And God and man shall own his worth + Who toils to leave as his bequest + An added beauty to the earth. + + And, soon or late, to all that sow, + The time of harvest shall be given; + The flower shall bloom, the fruit shall grow, + If not on earth, at last in heaven. + + + + +KENOZA LAKE. + +This beautiful lake in East Haverhill was the "Great Pond" the writer's +boyhood. In 1859 a movement was made for improving its shores as a +public park. At the opening of the park, August 31, 1859, the poem which +gave it the name of Kenoza (in Indian language signifying Pickerel) was +read. + + + As Adam did in Paradise, + To-day the primal right we claim + Fair mirror of the woods and skies, + We give to thee a name. + + Lake of the pickerel!--let no more + The echoes answer back, "Great Pond," + But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore + And watching hills beyond, + + Let Indian ghosts, if such there be + Who ply unseen their shadowy lines, + Call back the ancient name to thee, + As with the voice of pines. + + The shores we trod as barefoot boys, + The nutted woods we wandered through, + To friendship, love, and social joys + We consecrate anew. + + Here shall the tender song be sung, + And memory's dirges soft and low, + And wit shall sparkle on the tongue, + And mirth shall overflow, + + Harmless as summer lightning plays + From a low, hidden cloud by night, + A light to set the hills ablaze, + But not a bolt to smite. + + In sunny South and prairied West + Are exiled hearts remembering still, + As bees their hive, as birds their nest, + The homes of Haverhill. + + They join us in our rites to-day; + And, listening, we may hear, erelong, + From inland lake and ocean bay, + The echoes of our song. + + Kenoza! o'er no sweeter lake + Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail,-- + No fairer face than thine shall take + The sunset's golden veil. + + Long be it ere the tide of trade + Shall break with harsh-resounding din + The quiet of thy banks of shade, + And hills that fold thee in. + + Still let thy woodlands hide the hare, + The shy loon sound his trumpet-note, + Wing-weary from his fields of air, + The wild-goose on thee float. + + Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir, + Thy beauty our deforming strife; + Thy woods and waters minister + The healing of their life. + + And sinless Mirth, from care released, + Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky, + Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast + The Master's loving eye. + + And when the summer day grows dim, + And light mists walk thy mimic sea, + Revive in us the thought of Him + Who walked on Galilee! + + + + +FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL + + The Persian's flowery gifts, the shrine + Of fruitful Ceres, charm no more; + The woven wreaths of oak and pine + Are dust along the Isthmian shore. + + But beauty hath its homage still, + And nature holds us still in debt; + And woman's grace and household skill, + And manhood's toil, are honored yet. + + And we, to-day, amidst our flowers + And fruits, have come to own again + The blessings of the summer hours, + The early and the latter rain; + + To see our Father's hand once more + Reverse for us the plenteous horn + Of autumn, filled and running o'er + With fruit, and flower, and golden corn! + + Once more the liberal year laughs out + O'er richer stores than gems or gold; + Once more with harvest-song and shout + Is Nature's bloodless triumph told. + + Our common mother rests and sings, + Like Ruth, among her garnered sheaves; + Her lap is full of goodly things, + Her brow is bright with autumn leaves. + + Oh, favors every year made new! + Oh, gifts with rain and sunshine sent + The bounty overruns our due, + The fulness shames our discontent. + + We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on; + We murmur, but the corn-ears fill, + We choose the shadow, but the sun + That casts it shines behind us still. + + God gives us with our rugged soil + The power to make it Eden-fair, + And richer fruits to crown our toil + Than summer-wedded islands bear. + + Who murmurs at his lot to-day? + Who scorns his native fruit and bloom? + Or sighs for dainties far away, + Beside the bounteous board of home? + + Thank Heaven, instead, that Freedom's arm + Can change a rocky soil to gold,-- + That brave and generous lives can warm + A clime with northern ices cold. + + And let these altars, wreathed with flowers + And piled with fruits, awake again + Thanksgivings for the golden hours, + The early and the latter rain! + + 1859 + + + + +THE QUAKER ALUMNI. + +Read at the Friends' School Anniversary, Providence, R. I., 6th mo., +1860. + + + From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine, + Grave men, sober matrons, you gather again; + And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool, + Play over the old game of going to school. + + All your strifes and vexations, your whims and complaints, + (You were not saints yourselves, if the children of saints!) + All your petty self-seekings and rivalries done, + Round the dear Alma Mater your hearts beat as one! + + How widely soe'er you have strayed from the fold, + Though your "thee" has grown "you," and your drab blue and gold, + To the old friendly speech and the garb's sober form, + Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan, you warm. + + But, the first greetings over, you glance round the hall; + Your hearts call the roll, but they answer not all + Through the turf green above them the dead cannot hear; + Name by name, in the silence, falls sad as a tear! + + In love, let us trust, they were summoned so soon + rom the morning of life, while we toil through its noon; + They were frail like ourselves, they had needs like our own, + And they rest as we rest in God's mercy alone. + + Unchanged by our changes of spirit and frame, + Past, now, and henceforward the Lord is the same; + Though we sink in the darkness, His arms break our fall, + And in death as in life, He is Father of all! + + We are older: our footsteps, so light in the play + Of the far-away school-time, move slower to-day;-- + Here a beard touched with frost, there a bald, shining crown, + And beneath the cap's border gray mingles with brown. + + But faith should be cheerful, and trust should be glad, + And our follies and sins, not our years, make us sad. + Should the heart closer shut as the bonnet grows prim, + And the face grow in length as the hat grows in brim? + + Life is brief, duty grave; but, with rain-folded wings, + Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful heart sings; + And we, of all others, have reason to pay + The tribute of thanks, and rejoice on our way; + + For the counsels that turned from the follies of youth; + For the beauty of patience, the whiteness of truth; + For the wounds of rebuke, when love tempered its edge; + For the household's restraint, and the discipline's hedge; + + For the lessons of kindness vouchsafed to the least + Of the creatures of God, whether human or beast, + Bringing hope to the poor, lending strength to the frail, + In the lanes of the city, the slave-hut, and jail; + + For a womanhood higher and holier, by all + Her knowledge of good, than was Eve ere her fall,-- + Whose task-work of duty moves lightly as play, + Serene as the moonlight and warm as the day; + + And, yet more, for the faith which embraces the whole, + Of the creeds of the ages the life and the soul, + Wherein letter and spirit the same channel run, + And man has not severed what God has made one! + + For a sense of the Goodness revealed everywhere, + As sunshine impartial, and free as the air; + For a trust in humanity, Heathen or Jew, + And a hope for all darkness the Light shineth through. + + Who scoffs at our birthright?--the words of the seers, + And the songs of the bards in the twilight of years, + All the foregleams of wisdom in santon and sage, + In prophet and priest, are our true heritage. + + The Word which the reason of Plato discerned; + The truth, as whose symbol the Mithra-fire burned; + The soul of the world which the Stoic but guessed, + In the Light Universal the Quaker confessed! + + No honors of war to our worthies belong; + Their plain stem of life never flowered into song; + But the fountains they opened still gush by the way, + And the world for their healing is better to-day. + + He who lies where the minster's groined arches curve down + To the tomb-crowded transept of England's renown, + The glorious essayist, by genius enthroned, + Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all owned,-- + + Who through the world's pantheon walked in his pride, + Setting new statues up, thrusting old ones aside, + And in fiction the pencils of history dipped, + To gild o'er or blacken each saint in his crypt,-- + + How vainly he labored to sully with blame + The white bust of Penn, in the niche of his fame! + Self-will is self-wounding, perversity blind + On himself fell the stain for the Quaker designed! + + For the sake of his true-hearted father before him; + For the sake of the dear Quaker mother that bore him; + For the sake of his gifts, and the works that outlive him, + And his brave words for freedom, we freely forgive him! + + There are those who take note that our numbers are small,-- + New Gibbons who write our decline and our fall; + But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of His own, + And the world shall yet reap what our sowers have sown. + + The last of the sect to his fathers may go, + Leaving only his coat for some Barnum to show; + But the truth will outlive him, and broaden with years, + Till the false dies away, and the wrong disappears. + + Nothing fails of its end. Out of sight sinks the stone, + In the deep sea of time, but the circles sweep on, + Till the low-rippled murmurs along the shores run, + And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun. + + Meanwhile shall we learn, in our ease, to forget + To the martyrs of Truth and of Freedom our debt?-- + Hide their words out of sight, like the garb that they wore, + And for Barclay's Apology offer one more? + + Shall we fawn round the priestcraft that glutted the shears, + And festooned the stocks with our grandfathers' ears? + Talk of Woolman's unsoundness? count Penn heterodox? + And take Cotton Mather in place of George Fox? + + Make our preachers war-chaplains? quote Scripture to take + The hunted slave back, for Onesimus' sake? + Go to burning church-candles, and chanting in choir, + And on the old meeting-house stick up a spire? + + No! the old paths we'll keep until better are shown, + Credit good where we find it, abroad or our own; + And while "Lo here" and "Lo there" the multitude call, + Be true to ourselves, and do justice to all. + + The good round about us we need not refuse, + Nor talk of our Zion as if we were Jews; + But why shirk the badge which our fathers have worn, + Or beg the world's pardon for having been born? + + We need not pray over the Pharisee's prayer, + Nor claim that our wisdom is Benjamin's share; + Truth to us and to others is equal and one + Shall we bottle the free air, or hoard up the sun? + + Well know we our birthright may serve but to show + How the meanest of weeds in the richest soil grow; + But we need not disparage the good which we hold; + Though the vessels be earthen, the treasure is gold! + + Enough and too much of the sect and the name. + What matters our label, so truth be our aim? + The creed may be wrong, but the life may be true, + And hearts beat the same under drab coats or blue. + + So the man be a man, let him worship, at will, + In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's hill. + When she makes up her jewels, what cares yon good town + For the Baptist of Wayland, the Quaker of Brown? + + And this green, favored island, so fresh and seablown, + When she counts up the worthies her annals have known, + Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect + To measure her love, and mete out her respect. + + Three shades at this moment seem walking her strand, + Each with head halo-crowned, and with palms in his hand,-- + Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and, smiling serene + On prelate and puritan, Channing is seen. + + One holy name bearing, no longer they need + Credentials of party, and pass-words of creed + The new song they sing hath a threefold accord, + And they own one baptism, one faith, and one Lord! + + But the golden sands run out: occasions like these + Glide swift into shadow, like sails on the seas + While we sport with the mosses and pebbles ashore, + They lessen and fade, and we see them no more. + + Forgive me, dear friends, if my vagrant thoughts seem + Like a school-boy's who idles and plays with his theme. + Forgive the light measure whose changes display + The sunshine and rain of our brief April day. + + There are moments in life when the lip and the eye + Try the question of whether to smile or to cry; + And scenes and reunions that prompt like our own + The tender in feeling, the playful in tone. + + I, who never sat down with the boys and the girls + At the feet of your Slocums, and Cartlands, and Earles,-- + By courtesy only permitted to lay + On your festival's altar my poor gift, to-day,-- + + I would joy in your joy: let me have a friend's part + In the warmth of your welcome of hand and of heart,-- + On your play-ground of boyhood unbend the brow's care, + And shift the old burdens our shoulders must bear. + + Long live the good School! giving out year by year + Recruits to true manhood and womanhood dear + Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty sent forth, + The living epistles and proof of its worth! + + In and out let the young life as steadily flow + As in broad Narragansett the tides come and go; + And its sons and its daughters in prairie and town + Remember its honor, and guard its renown. + + Not vainly the gift of its founder was made; + Not prayerless the stones of its corner were laid + The blessing of Him whom in secret they sought + Has owned the good work which the fathers have wrought. + + To Him be the glory forever! We bear + To the Lord of the Harvest our wheat with the tare. + What we lack in our work may He find in our will, + And winnow in mercy our good from the ill! + + + + +OUR RIVER. + +FOR A SUMMER FESTIVAL AT "THE LAURELS" ON THE MERRIMAC. + +Jean Pierre Brissot, the famous leader of the Girondist party in the +French Revolution, when a young man travelled extensively in the United +States. He visited the valley of the Merrimac, and speaks in terms of +admiration of the view from Moulton's hill opposite Amesbury. The +"Laurel Party" so called, as composed of ladies and gentlemen in the +lower valley of the Merrimac, and invited friends and guests in other +sections of the country. Its thoroughly enjoyable annual festivals were +held in the early summer on the pine-shaded, laurel-blossomed slopes of +the Newbury side of the river opposite Pleasant Valley in Amesbury. The +several poems called out by these gatherings are here printed in +sequence. + + + Once more on yonder laurelled height + The summer flowers have budded; + Once more with summer's golden light + The vales of home are flooded; + And once more, by the grace of Him + Of every good the Giver, + We sing upon its wooded rim + The praises of our river, + + Its pines above, its waves below, + The west-wind down it blowing, + As fair as when the young Brissot + Beheld it seaward flowing,-- + And bore its memory o'er the deep, + To soothe a martyr's sadness, + And fresco, hi his troubled sleep, + His prison-walls with gladness. + + We know the world is rich with streams + Renowned in song and story, + Whose music murmurs through our dreams + Of human love and glory + We know that Arno's banks are fair, + And Rhine has castled shadows, + And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr + Go singing down their meadows. + + But while, unpictured and unsung + By painter or by poet, + Our river waits the tuneful tongue + And cunning hand to show it,-- + We only know the fond skies lean + Above it, warm with blessing, + And the sweet soul of our Undine + Awakes to our caressing. + + No fickle sun-god holds the flocks + That graze its shores in keeping; + No icy kiss of Dian mocks + The youth beside it sleeping + Our Christian river loveth most + The beautiful and human; + The heathen streams of Naiads boast, + But ours of man and woman. + + The miner in his cabin hears + The ripple we are hearing; + It whispers soft to homesick ears + Around the settler's clearing + In Sacramento's vales of corn, + Or Santee's bloom of cotton, + Our river by its valley-born + Was never yet forgotten. + + The drum rolls loud, the bugle fills + The summer air with clangor; + The war-storm shakes the solid hills + Beneath its tread of anger; + Young eyes that last year smiled in ours + Now point the rifle's barrel, + And hands then stained with fruits and flowers + Bear redder stains of quarrel. + + But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on, + And rivers still keep flowing, + The dear God still his rain and sun + On good and ill bestowing. + His pine-trees whisper, "Trust and wait!" + His flowers are prophesying + That all we dread of change or fate + His live is underlying. + + And thou, O Mountain-born!--no more + We ask the wise Allotter + Than for the firmness of thy shore, + The calmness of thy water, + The cheerful lights that overlay, + Thy rugged slopes with beauty, + To match our spirits to our day + And make a joy of duty. + + 1861. + + + + +REVISITED. + +Read at "The Laurels," on the Merrimac, 6th month, 1865. + + + The roll of drums and the bugle's wailing + Vex the air of our vales-no more; + The spear is beaten to hooks of pruning, + The share is the sword the soldier wore! + + Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river, + Under thy banks of laurel bloom; + Softly and sweet, as the hour beseemeth, + Sing us the songs of peace and home. + + Let all the tenderer voices of nature + Temper the triumph and chasten mirth, + Full of the infinite love and pity + For fallen martyr and darkened hearth. + + But to Him who gives us beauty for ashes, + And the oil of joy for mourning long, + Let thy hills give thanks, and all thy waters + Break into jubilant waves of song! + + Bring us the airs of hills and forests, + The sweet aroma of birch and pine, + Give us a waft of the north-wind laden + With sweethrier odors and breath of kine! + + Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets, + Shadows of clouds that rake the hills, + The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows, + The gleam and ripple of Campton rills. + + Lead us away in shadow and sunshine, + Slaves of fancy, through all thy miles, + The winding ways of Pemigewasset, + And Winnipesaukee's hundred isles. + + Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges, + Laugh in thy plunges from fall to fall; + Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken + Under the shade of the mountain wall. + + The cradle-song of thy hillside fountains + Here in thy glory and strength repeat; + Give us a taste of thy upland music, + Show us the dance of thy silver feet. + + Into thy dutiful life of uses + Pour the music and weave the flowers; + With the song of birds and bloom of meadows + Lighten and gladden thy heart and ours. + + Sing on! bring down, O lowland river, + The joy of the hills to the waiting sea; + The wealth of the vales, the pomp of mountains, + The breath of the woodlands, bear with thee. + + Here, in the calm of thy seaward, valley, + Mirth and labor shall hold their truce; + Dance of water and mill of grinding, + Both are beauty and both are use. + + Type of the Northland's strength and glory, + Pride and hope of our home and race,-- + Freedom lending to rugged labor + Tints of beauty and lines of grace. + + Once again, O beautiful river, + Hear our greetings and take our thanks; + Hither we come, as Eastern pilgrims + Throng to the Jordan's sacred banks. + + For though by the Master's feet untrodden, + Though never His word has stilled thy waves, + Well for us may thy shores be holy, + With Christian altars and saintly graves. + + And well may we own thy hint and token + Of fairer valleys and streams than these, + Where the rivers of God are full of water, + And full of sap are His healing trees! + + + + +"THE LAURELS" + +At the twentieth and last anniversary. + + + FROM these wild rocks I look to-day + O'er leagues of dancing waves, and see + The far, low coast-line stretch away + To where our river meets the sea. + + The light wind blowing off the land + Is burdened with old voices; through + Shut eyes I see how lip and hand + The greeting of old days renew. + + O friends whose hearts still keep their prime, + Whose bright example warms and cheers, + Ye teach us how to smile at Time, + And set to music all his years! + + I thank you for sweet summer days, + For pleasant memories lingering long, + For joyful meetings, fond delays, + And ties of friendship woven strong. + + As for the last time, side by side, + You tread the paths familiar grown, + I reach across the severing tide, + And blend my farewells with your own. + + Make room, O river of our home! + For other feet in place of ours, + And in the summers yet to come, + Make glad another Feast of Flowers! + + Hold in thy mirror, calm and deep, + The pleasant pictures thou hast seen; + Forget thy lovers not, but keep + Our memory like thy laurels green. + + ISLES of SHOALS, 7th mo., 1870. + + + + +JUNE ON THE MERRIMAC. + + O dwellers in the stately towns, + What come ye out to see? + This common earth, this common sky, + This water flowing free? + + As gayly as these kalmia flowers + Your door-yard blossoms spring; + As sweetly as these wild-wood birds + Your caged minstrels sing. + + You find but common bloom and green, + The rippling river's rune, + The beauty which is everywhere + Beneath the skies of June; + + The Hawkswood oaks, the storm-torn plumes + Of old pine-forest kings, + Beneath whose century-woven shade + Deer Island's mistress sings. + + And here are pictured Artichoke, + And Curson's bowery mill; + And Pleasant Valley smiles between + The river and the hill. + + You know full well these banks of bloom, + The upland's wavy line, + And how the sunshine tips with fire + The needles of the pine. + + Yet, like some old remembered psalm, + Or sweet, familiar face, + Not less because of commonness + You love the day and place. + + And not in vain in this soft air + Shall hard-strung nerves relax, + Not all in vain the o'erworn brain + Forego its daily tax. + + The lust of power, the greed of gain + Have all the year their own; + The haunting demons well may let + Our one bright day alone. + + Unheeded let the newsboy call, + Aside the ledger lay + The world will keep its treadmill step + Though we fall out to-day. + + The truants of life's weary school, + Without excuse from thrift + We change for once the gains of toil + For God's unpurchased gift. + + From ceiled rooms, from silent books, + From crowded car and town, + Dear Mother Earth, upon thy lap, + We lay our tired heads down. + + Cool, summer wind, our heated brows; + Blue river, through the green + Of clustering pines, refresh the eyes + Which all too much have seen. + + For us these pleasant woodland ways + Are thronged with memories old, + Have felt the grasp of friendly hands + And heard love's story told. + + A sacred presence overbroods + The earth whereon we meet; + These winding forest-paths are trod + By more than mortal feet. + + Old friends called from us by the voice + Which they alone could hear, + From mystery to mystery, + From life to life, draw near. + + More closely for the sake of them + Each other's hands we press; + Our voices take from them a tone + Of deeper tenderness. + + Our joy is theirs, their trust is ours, + Alike below, above, + Or here or there, about us fold + The arms of one great love! + + We ask to-day no countersign, + No party names we own; + Unlabelled, individual, + We bring ourselves alone. + + What cares the unconventioned wood + For pass-words of the town? + The sound of fashion's shibboleth + The laughing waters drown. + + Here cant forgets his dreary tone, + And care his face forlorn; + The liberal air and sunshine laugh + The bigot's zeal to scorn. + + From manhood's weary shoulder falls + His load of selfish cares; + And woman takes her rights as flowers + And brooks and birds take theirs. + + The license of the happy woods, + The brook's release are ours; + The freedom of the unshamed wind + Among the glad-eyed flowers. + + Yet here no evil thought finds place, + Nor foot profane comes in; + Our grove, like that of Samothrace, + Is set apart from sin. + + We walk on holy ground; above + A sky more holy smiles; + The chant of the beatitudes + Swells down these leafy aisles. + + Thanks to the gracious Providence + That brings us here once more; + For memories of the good behind + And hopes of good before. + + And if, unknown to us, sweet days + Of June like this must come, + Unseen of us these laurels clothe + The river-banks with bloom; + + And these green paths must soon be trod + By other feet than ours, + Full long may annual pilgrims come + To keep the Feast of Flowers; + + The matron be a girl once more, + The bearded man a boy, + And we, in heaven's eternal June, + Be glad for earthly joy! + + 1876. + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR KING'S HOUSE OF WORSHIP, 1864. + +The poetic and patriotic preacher, who had won fame in the East, went to +California in 1860 and became a power on the Pacific coast. It was not +long after the opening of the house of worship built for him that he +died. + + + Amidst these glorious works of Thine, + The solemn minarets of the pine, + And awful Shasta's icy shrine,-- + + Where swell Thy hymns from wave and gale, + And organ-thunders never fail, + Behind the cataract's silver veil, + + Our puny walls to Thee we raise, + Our poor reed-music sounds Thy praise: + Forgive, O Lord, our childish ways! + + For, kneeling on these altar-stairs, + We urge Thee not with selfish prayers, + Nor murmur at our daily cares. + + Before Thee, in an evil day, + Our country's bleeding heart we lay, + And dare not ask Thy hand to stay; + + But, through the war-cloud, pray to Thee + For union, but a union free, + With peace that comes of purity! + + That Thou wilt bare Thy arm to, save + And, smiting through this Red Sea wave, + Make broad a pathway for the slave! + + For us, confessing all our need, + We trust nor rite nor word nor deed, + Nor yet the broken staff of creed. + + Assured alone that Thou art good + To each, as to the multitude, + Eternal Love and Fatherhood,-- + + Weak, sinful, blind, to Thee we kneel, + Stretch dumbly forth our hands, and feel + Our weakness is our strong appeal. + + So, by these Western gates of Even + We wait to see with Thy forgiven + The opening Golden Gate of Heaven! + + Suffice it now. In time to be + Shall holier altars rise to Thee,-- + Thy Church our broad humanity + + White flowers of love its walls shall climb, + Soft bells of peace shall ring its chime, + Its days shall all be holy time. + + A sweeter song shall then be heard,-- + The music of the world's accord + Confessing Christ, the Inward Word! + + That song shall swell from shore to shore, + One hope, one faith, one love, restore + The seamless robe that Jesus wore. + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN, +ERECTED IN MEMORY OF A MOTHER. + +The giver of the house was the late George Peabody, of London. + + + Thou dwellest not, O Lord of all + In temples which thy children raise; + Our work to thine is mean and small, + And brief to thy eternal days. + + Forgive the weakness and the pride, + If marred thereby our gift may be, + For love, at least, has sanctified + The altar that we rear to thee. + + The heart and not the hand has wrought + From sunken base to tower above + The image of a tender thought, + The memory of a deathless love! + + And though should never sound of speech + Or organ echo from its wall, + Its stones would pious lessons teach, + Its shade in benedictions fall. + + Here should the dove of peace be found, + And blessings and not curses given; + Nor strife profane, nor hatred wound, + The mingled loves of earth and heaven. + + Thou, who didst soothe with dying breath + The dear one watching by Thy cross, + Forgetful of the pains of death + In sorrow for her mighty loss, + + In memory of that tender claim, + O Mother-born, the offering take, + And make it worthy of Thy name, + And bless it for a mother's sake! + + 1868. + + + + +A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION. + +Read at the President's Levee, Brown University, 29th 6th month, 1870. + + + To-day the plant by Williams set + Its summer bloom discloses; + The wilding sweethrier of his prayers + Is crowned with cultured roses. + + Once more the Island State repeats + The lesson that he taught her, + And binds his pearl of charity + Upon her brown-locked daughter. + + Is 't fancy that he watches still + His Providence plantations? + That still the careful Founder takes + A part on these occasions. + + Methinks I see that reverend form, + Which all of us so well know + He rises up to speak; he jogs + The presidential elbow. + + "Good friends," he says, "you reap a field + I sowed in self-denial, + For toleration had its griefs + And charity its trial. + + "Great grace, as saith Sir Thomas More, + To him must needs be given + Who heareth heresy and leaves + The heretic to Heaven! + + "I hear again the snuffled tones, + I see in dreary vision + Dyspeptic dreamers, spiritual bores, + And prophets with a mission. + + "Each zealot thrust before my eyes + His Scripture-garbled label; + All creeds were shouted in my ears + As with the tongues of Babel. + + "Scourged at one cart-tail, each denied + The hope of every other; + Each martyr shook his branded fist + At the conscience of his brother! + + "How cleft the dreary drone of man. + The shriller pipe of woman, + As Gorton led his saints elect, + Who held all things in common! + + "Their gay robes trailed in ditch and swamp, + And torn by thorn and thicket, + The dancing-girls of Merry Mount + Came dragging to my wicket. + + "Shrill Anabaptists, shorn of ears; + Gray witch-wives, hobbling slowly; + And Antinomians, free of law, + Whose very sins were holy. + + "Hoarse ranters, crazed Fifth Monarchists, + Of stripes and bondage braggarts, + Pale Churchmen, with singed rubrics snatched + From Puritanic fagots. + + "And last, not least, the Quakers came, + With tongues still sore from burning, + The Bay State's dust from off their feet + Before my threshold spurning; + + "A motley host, the Lord's debris, + Faith's odds and ends together; + Well might I shrink from guests with lungs + Tough as their breeches leather + + "If, when the hangman at their heels + Came, rope in hand to catch them, + I took the hunted outcasts in, + I never sent to fetch them. + + "I fed, but spared them not a whit; + I gave to all who walked in, + Not clams and succotash alone, + But stronger meat of doctrine. + + "I proved the prophets false, I pricked + The bubble of perfection, + And clapped upon their inner light + The snuffers of election. + + "And looking backward on my times, + This credit I am taking; + I kept each sectary's dish apart, + No spiritual chowder making. + + "Where now the blending signs of sect + Would puzzle their assorter, + The dry-shod Quaker kept the land, + The Baptist held the water. + + "A common coat now serves for both, + The hat's no more a fixture; + And which was wet and which was dry, + Who knows in such a mixture? + + "Well! He who fashioned Peter's dream + To bless them all is able; + And bird and beast and creeping thing + Make clean upon His table! + + "I walked by my own light; but when + The ways of faith divided, + Was I to force unwilling feet + To tread the path that I did? + + "I touched the garment-hem of truth, + Yet saw not all its splendor; + I knew enough of doubt to feel + For every conscience tender. + + "God left men free of choice, as when + His Eden-trees were planted; + Because they chose amiss, should I + Deny the gift He granted? + + "So, with a common sense of need, + Our common weakness feeling, + I left them with myself to God + And His all-gracious dealing! + + "I kept His plan whose rain and sun + To tare and wheat are given; + And if the ways to hell were free, + I left then free to heaven!" + + Take heart with us, O man of old, + Soul-freedom's brave confessor, + So love of God and man wax strong, + Let sect and creed be lesser. + + The jarring discords of thy day + In ours one hymn are swelling; + The wandering feet, the severed paths, + All seek our Father's dwelling. + + And slowly learns the world the truth + That makes us all thy debtor,-- + That holy life is more than rite, + And spirit more than letter; + + That they who differ pole-wide serve + Perchance the common Master, + And other sheep He hath than they + Who graze one narrow pasture! + + For truth's worst foe is he who claims + To act as God's avenger, + And deems, beyond his sentry-beat, + The crystal walls in danger! + + Who sets for heresy his traps + Of verbal quirk and quibble, + And weeds the garden of the Lord + With Satan's borrowed dibble. + + To-day our hearts like organ keys + One Master's touch are feeling; + The branches of a common Vine + Have only leaves of healing. + + Co-workers, yet from varied fields, + We share this restful nooning; + The Quaker with the Baptist here + Believes in close communing. + + Forgive, dear saint, the playful tone, + Too light for thy deserving; + Thanks for thy generous faith in man, + Thy trust in God unswerving. + + Still echo in the hearts of men + The words that thou hast spoken; + No forge of hell can weld again + The fetters thou hast broken. + + The pilgrim needs a pass no more + From Roman or Genevan; + Thought-free, no ghostly tollman keeps + Henceforth the road to Heaven! + + + + +CHICAGO + +The great fire at Chicago was on 8-10 October, 1871. + + + Men said at vespers: "All is well!" + In one wild night the city fell; + Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain + Before the fiery hurricane. + + On threescore spires had sunset shone, + Where ghastly sunrise looked on none. + Men clasped each other's hands, and said + "The City of the West is dead!" + + Brave hearts who fought, in slow retreat, + The fiends of fire from street to street, + Turned, powerless, to the blinding glare, + The dumb defiance of despair. + + A sudden impulse thrilled each wire + That signalled round that sea of fire; + Swift words of cheer, warm heart-throbs came; + In tears of pity died the flame! + + From East, from West, from South and North, + The messages of hope shot forth, + And, underneath the severing wave, + The world, full-handed, reached to save. + + Fair seemed the old; but fairer still + The new, the dreary void shall fill + With dearer homes than those o'erthrown, + For love shall lay each corner-stone. + + Rise, stricken city! from thee throw + The ashen sackcloth of thy woe; + And build, as to Amphion's strain, + To songs of cheer thy walls again! + + How shrivelled in thy hot distress + The primal sin of selfishness! + How instant rose, to take thy part, + The angel in the human heart! + + Ah! not in vain the flames that tossed + Above thy dreadful holocaust; + The Christ again has preached through thee + The Gospel of Humanity! + + Then lift once more thy towers on high, + And fret with spires the western sky, + To tell that God is yet with us, + And love is still miraculous! + + 1871. + + + + +KINSMAN. + +Died at the Island of Panay (Philippine group), aged nineteen years. + + + Where ceaseless Spring her garland twines, + As sweetly shall the loved one rest, + As if beneath the whispering pines + And maple shadows of the West. + + Ye mourn, O hearts of home! for him, + But, haply, mourn ye not alone; + For him shall far-off eyes be dim, + And pity speak in tongues unknown. + + There needs no graven line to give + The story of his blameless youth; + All hearts shall throb intuitive, + And nature guess the simple truth. + + The very meaning of his name + Shall many a tender tribute win; + The stranger own his sacred claim, + And all the world shall be his kin. + + And there, as here, on main and isle, + The dews of holy peace shall fall, + The same sweet heavens above him smile, + And God's dear love be over all + 1874. + + + + +THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD. + +Longwood, not far from Bayard Taylor's birthplace in Kennett Square, +Pennsylvania, was the home of my esteemed friends John and Hannah Cox, +whose golden wedding was celebrated in 1874. + + + With fifty years between you and your well-kept wedding vow, + The Golden Age, old friends of mine, is not a fable now. + + And, sweet as has life's vintage been through all your pleasant past, + Still, as at Cana's marriage-feast, the best wine is the last! + + Again before me, with your names, fair Chester's landscape comes, + Its meadows, woods, and ample barns, and quaint, stone-builded homes. + + The smooth-shorn vales, the wheaten slopes, the boscage green and soft, + Of which their poet sings so well from towered Cedarcroft. + + And lo! from all the country-side come neighbors, kith and kin; + From city, hamlet, farm-house old, the wedding guests come in. + + And they who, without scrip or purse, mob-hunted, travel-worn, + In Freedom's age of martyrs came, as victors now return. + + Older and slower, yet the same, files in the long array, + And hearts are light and eyes are glad, though heads are badger-gray. + + The fire-tried men of Thirty-eight who saw with me the fall, + Midst roaring flames and shouting mob, of Pennsylvania Hall; + + And they of Lancaster who turned the cheeks of tyrants pale, + Singing of freedom through the grates of Moyamensing jail! + + And haply with them, all unseen, old comrades, gone before, + Pass, silently as shadows pass, within your open door,-- + + The eagle face of Lindley Coates, brave Garrett's daring zeal, + Christian grace of Pennock, the steadfast heart of Neal. + + Ah me! beyond all power to name, the worthies tried and true, + Grave men, fair women, youth and maid, pass by in hushed review. + + Of varying faiths, a common cause fused all their hearts in one. + God give them now, whate'er their names, the peace of duty done! + + How gladly would I tread again the old-remembered places, + Sit down beside your hearth once more and look in the dear old faces! + + And thank you for the lessons your fifty years are teaching, + For honest lives that louder speak than half our noisy preaching; + + For your steady faith and courage in that dark and evil time, + When the Golden Rule was treason, and to feed the hungry, crime; + + For the poor slave's house of refuge when the hounds were on his track, + And saint and sinner, church and state, joined hands to send him back. + + Blessings upon you!--What you did for each sad, suffering one, + So homeless, faint, and naked, unto our Lord was done! + + Fair fall on Kennett's pleasant vales and Longwood's bowery ways + The mellow sunset of your lives, friends of my early days. + + May many more of quiet years be added to your sum, + And, late at last, in tenderest love, the beckoning angel come. + + Dear hearts are here, dear hearts are there, alike below, above; + Our friends are now in either world, and love is sure of love. + + 1874. + + + + +HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA. + + All things are Thine: no gift have we, + Lord of all gifts, to offer Thee; + And hence with grateful hearts to-day, + Thy own before Thy feet we lay. + + Thy will was in the builders' thought; + Thy hand unseen amidst us wrought; + Through mortal motive, scheme and plan, + Thy wise eternal purpose ran. + + No lack Thy perfect fulness knew; + For human needs and longings grew + This house of prayer, this home of rest, + In the fair garden of the West. + + In weakness and in want we call + On Thee for whom the heavens are small; + Thy glory is Thy children's good, + Thy joy Thy tender Fatherhood. + + O Father! deign these walls to bless, + Fill with Thy love their emptiness, + And let their door a gateway be + To lead us from ourselves to Thee! + + 1872. + + + + +LEXINGTON 1775. + + No Berserk thirst of blood had they, + No battle-joy was theirs, who set + Against the alien bayonet + Their homespun breasts in that old day. + + Their feet had trodden peaceful, ways; + They loved not strife, they dreaded pain; + They saw not, what to us is plain, + That God would make man's wrath his praise. + + No seers were they, but simple men; + Its vast results the future hid + The meaning of the work they did + Was strange and dark and doubtful then. + + Swift as their summons came they left + The plough mid-furrow standing still, + The half-ground corn grist in the mill, + The spade in earth, the axe in cleft. + + They went where duty seemed to call, + They scarcely asked the reason why; + They only knew they could but die, + And death was not the worst of all! + + Of man for man the sacrifice, + All that was theirs to give, they gave. + The flowers that blossomed from their grave + Have sown themselves beneath all skies. + + Their death-shot shook the feudal tower, + And shattered slavery's chain as well; + On the sky's dome, as on a bell, + Its echo struck the world's great hour. + + That fateful echo is not dumb + The nations listening to its sound + Wait, from a century's vantage-ground, + The holier triumphs yet to come,-- + + The bridal time of Law and Love, + The gladness of the world's release, + When, war-sick, at the feet of Peace + The hawk shall nestle with the dove!-- + + The golden age of brotherhood + Unknown to other rivalries + Than of the mild humanities, + And gracious interchange of good, + + When closer strand shall lean to strand, + Till meet, beneath saluting flags, + The eagle of our mountain-crags, + The lion of our Motherland! + + 1875. + + + + +THE LIBRARY. + +Sung at the opening of the Haverhill Library, November 11, 1875. + + + "Let there be light!" God spake of old, + And over chaos dark and cold, + And through the dead and formless frame + Of nature, life and order came. + + Faint was the light at first that shone + On giant fern and mastodon, + On half-formed plant and beast of prey, + And man as rude and wild as they. + + Age after age, like waves, o'erran + The earth, uplifting brute and man; + And mind, at length, in symbols dark + Its meanings traced on stone and bark. + + On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll, + On plastic clay and leathern scroll, + Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed, + And to! the Press was found at last! + + Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men + Whose bones were dust revived again; + The cloister's silence found a tongue, + Old prophets spake, old poets sung. + + And here, to-day, the dead look down, + The kings of mind again we crown; + We hear the voices lost so long, + The sage's word, the sibyl's song. + + Here Greek and Roman find themselves + Alive along these crowded shelves; + And Shakespeare treads again his stage, + And Chaucer paints anew his age. + + As if some Pantheon's marbles broke + Their stony trance, and lived and spoke, + Life thrills along the alcoved hall, + The lords of thought await our call! + + + + +"I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN." + +An incident in St. Augustine, Florida. + + + 'Neath skies that winter never knew + The air was full of light and balm, + And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew + Through orange bloom and groves of palm. + + A stranger from the frozen North, + Who sought the fount of health in vain, + Sank homeless on the alien earth, + And breathed the languid air with pain. + + God's angel came! The tender shade + Of pity made her blue eye dim; + Against her woman's breast she laid + The drooping, fainting head of him. + + She bore him to a pleasant room, + Flower-sweet and cool with salt sea air, + And watched beside his bed, for whom + His far-off sisters might not care. + + She fanned his feverish brow and smoothed + Its lines of pain with tenderest touch. + With holy hymn and prayer she soothed + The trembling soul that feared so much. + + Through her the peace that passeth sight + Came to him, as he lapsed away + As one whose troubled dreams of night + Slide slowly into tranquil day. + + The sweetness of the Land of Flowers + Upon his lonely grave she laid + The jasmine dropped its golden showers, + The orange lent its bloom and shade. + + And something whispered in her thought, + More sweet than mortal voices be + "The service thou for him hast wrought + O daughter! hath been done for me." + + 1875. + + + + +CENTENNIAL HYMN. + +Written for the opening of the International Exhibition, Philadelphia, +May 10, 1876. The music for the hymn was written by John K. Paine, and +may be found in The Atlantic Monthly for June, 1876. + + + I. + Our fathers' God! from out whose hand + The centuries fall like grains of sand, + We meet to-day, united, free, + And loyal to our land and Thee, + To thank Thee for the era done, + And trust Thee for the opening one. + + II. + Here, where of old, by Thy design, + The fathers spake that word of Thine + Whose echo is the glad refrain + Of rended bolt and falling chain, + To grace our festal time, from all + The zones of earth our guests we call. + + III. + Be with us while the New World greets + The Old World thronging all its streets, + Unveiling all the triumphs won + By art or toil beneath the sun; + And unto common good ordain + This rivalship of hand and brain. + + IV. + Thou, who hast here in concord furled + The war flags of a gathered world, + Beneath our Western skies fulfil + The Orient's mission of good-will, + And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece, + Send back its Argonauts of peace. + + V. + For art and labor met in truce, + For beauty made the bride of use, + We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave + The austere virtues strong to save, + The honor proof to place or gold, + The manhood never bought nor sold. + + VI. + Oh make Thou us, through centuries long, + In peace secure, in justice strong; + Around our gift of freedom draw + The safeguards of Thy righteous law + And, cast in some diviner mould, + Let the new cycle shame the old! + + + + +AT SCHOOL-CLOSE. BOWDOIN STREET, BOSTON, 1877. + + The end has come, as come it must + To all things; in these sweet June days + The teacher and the scholar trust + Their parting feet to separate ways. + + They part: but in the years to be + Shall pleasant memories cling to each, + As shells bear inland from the sea + The murmur of the rhythmic beach. + + One knew the joy the sculptor knows + When, plastic to his lightest touch, + His clay-wrought model slowly grows + To that fine grace desired so much. + + So daily grew before her eyes + The living shapes whereon she wrought, + Strong, tender, innocently wise, + The child's heart with the woman's thought. + + And one shall never quite forget + The voice that called from dream and play, + The firm but kindly hand that set + Her feet in learning's pleasant way,-- + + The joy of Undine soul-possessed, + The wakening sense, the strange delight + That swelled the fabled statue's breast + And filled its clouded eyes with sight. + + O Youth and Beauty, loved of all! + Ye pass from girlhood's gate of dreams; + In broader ways your footsteps fall, + Ye test the truth of all that seams. + + Her little realm the teacher leaves, + She breaks her wand of power apart, + While, for your love and trust, she gives + The warm thanks of a grateful heart. + + Hers is the sober summer noon + Contrasted with your morn of spring, + The waning with the waxing moon, + The folded with the outspread wing. + + Across the distance of the years + She sends her God-speed back to you; + She has no thought of doubts or fears + Be but yourselves, be pure, be true, + + And prompt in duty; heed the deep, + Low voice of conscience; through the ill + And discord round about you, keep + Your faith in human nature still. + + Be gentle: unto griefs and needs, + Be pitiful as woman should, + And, spite of all the lies of creeds, + Hold fast the truth that God is good. + + Give and receive; go forth and bless + The world that needs the hand and heart + Of Martha's helpful carefulness + No less than Mary's better part. + + So shall the stream of time flow by + And leave each year a richer good, + And matron loveliness outvie + The nameless charm of maidenhood. + + And, when the world shall link your names + With gracious lives and manners fine, + The teacher shall assert her claims, + And proudly whisper, "These were mine!" + + + + +HYMN OF THE CHILDREN. + +Sung at the anniversary of the Children's Mission, Boston, 1878. + + + Thine are all the gifts, O God! + Thine the broken bread; + Let the naked feet be shod, + And the starving fed. + + Let Thy children, by Thy grace, + Give as they abound, + Till the poor have breathing-space, + And the lost are found. + + Wiser than the miser's hoards + Is the giver's choice; + Sweeter than the song of birds + Is the thankful voice. + + Welcome smiles on faces sad + As the flowers of spring; + Let the tender hearts be glad + With the joy they bring. + + Happier for their pity's sake + Make their sports and plays, + And from lips of childhood take + Thy perfected praise! + + + + +THE LANDMARKS. + +This poem was read at a meeting of citizens of Boston having for its +object the preservation of the Old South Church famous in Colonial and +Revolutionary history. + + + I. + THROUGH the streets of Marblehead + Fast the red-winged terror sped; + + Blasting, withering, on it came, + With its hundred tongues of flame, + + Where St. Michael's on its way + Stood like chained Andromeda, + + Waiting on the rock, like her, + Swift doom or deliverer! + + Church that, after sea-moss grew + Over walls no longer new, + + Counted generations five, + Four entombed and one alive; + + Heard the martial thousand tread + Battleward from Marblehead; + + Saw within the rock-walled bay + Treville's liked pennons play, + + And the fisher's dory met + By the barge of Lafayette, + + Telling good news in advance + Of the coming fleet of France! + + Church to reverend memories, dear, + Quaint in desk and chandelier; + + Bell, whose century-rusted tongue + Burials tolled and bridals rung; + + Loft, whose tiny organ kept + Keys that Snetzler's hand had swept; + + Altar, o'er whose tablet old + Sinai's law its thunders rolled! + + Suddenly the sharp cry came + "Look! St. Michael's is aflame!" + + Round the low tower wall the fire + Snake-like wound its coil of ire. + + Sacred in its gray respect + From the jealousies of sect, + + "Save it," seemed the thought of all, + "Save it, though our roof-trees fall!" + + Up the tower the young men sprung; + One, the bravest, outward swung + + By the rope, whose kindling strands + Smoked beneath the holder's hands, + + Smiting down with strokes of power + Burning fragments from the tower. + + Then the gazing crowd beneath + Broke the painful pause of breath; + + Brave men cheered from street to street, + With home's ashes at their feet; + + Houseless women kerchiefs waved: + "Thank the Lord! St. Michael's saved!" + + II. + In the heart of Boston town + Stands the church of old renown, + + From whose walls the impulse went + Which set free a continent; + + From whose pulpit's oracle + Prophecies of freedom fell; + + And whose steeple-rocking din + Rang the nation's birth-day in! + + Standing at this very hour + Perilled like St. Michael's tower, + + Held not in the clasp of flame, + But by mammon's grasping claim. + + Shall it be of Boston said + She is shamed by Marblehead? + + City of our pride! as there, + Hast thou none to do and dare? + + Life was risked for Michael's shrine; + Shall not wealth be staked for thine? + + Woe to thee, when men shall search + Vainly for the Old South Church; + + When from Neck to Boston Stone, + All thy pride of place is gone; + + When from Bay and railroad car, + Stretched before them wide and far, + + Men shall only see a great + Wilderness of brick and slate, + + Every holy spot o'erlaid + By the commonplace of trade! + + City of our love': to thee + Duty is but destiny. + + True to all thy record saith, + Keep with thy traditions faith; + + Ere occasion's overpast, + Hold its flowing forelock fast; + + Honor still the precedents + Of a grand munificence; + + In thy old historic way + Give, as thou didst yesterday + + At the South-land's call, or on + Need's demand from fired St. John. + + Set thy Church's muffled bell + Free the generous deed to tell. + + Let thy loyal hearts rejoice + In the glad, sonorous voice, + + Ringing from the brazen mouth + Of the bell of the Old South,-- + + Ringing clearly, with a will, + "What she was is Boston still!" + + 1879 + + + + +GARDEN + +The American Horticultural Society, 1882. + + + O painter of the fruits and flowers, + We own wise design, + Where these human hands of ours + May share work of Thine! + + Apart from Thee we plant in vain + The root and sow the seed; + Thy early and Thy later rain, + Thy sun and dew we need. + + Our toil is sweet with thankfulness, + Our burden is our boon; + The curse of Earth's gray morning is + The blessing of its noon. + + Why search the wide world everywhere + For Eden's unknown ground? + That garden of the primal pair + May nevermore be found. + + But, blest by Thee, our patient toil + May right the ancient wrong, + And give to every clime and soil + The beauty lost so long. + + Our homestead flowers and fruited trees + May Eden's orchard shame; + We taste the tempting sweets of these + Like Eve, without her blame. + + And, North and South and East and West, + The pride of every zone, + The fairest, rarest, and the best + May all be made our own. + + Its earliest shrines the young world sought + In hill-groves and in bowers, + The fittest offerings thither brought + Were Thy own fruits and flowers. + + And still with reverent hands we cull + Thy gifts each year renewed; + The good is always beautiful, + The beautiful is good. + + + + +A GREETING + +Read at Harriet Beecher Stowe's seventieth anniversary, June 14, 1882, +at a garden party at ex-Governor Claflin's in Newtonville, Mass. + + + Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers + And golden-fruited orange bowers + To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours! + To her who, in our evil time, + Dragged into light the nation's crime + With strength beyond the strength of men, + And, mightier than their swords, her pen! + To her who world-wide entrance gave + To the log-cabin of the slave; + Made all his wrongs and sorrows known, + And all earth's languages his own,-- + North, South, and East and West, made all + The common air electrical, + Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven + Blazed down, and every chain was riven! + + Welcome from each and all to her + Whose Wooing of the Minister + Revealed the warm heart of the man + Beneath the creed-bound Puritan, + And taught the kinship of the love + Of man below and God above; + To her whose vigorous pencil-strokes + Sketched into life her Oldtown Folks; + Whose fireside stories, grave or gay, + In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way, + With old New England's flavor rife, + Waifs from her rude idyllic life, + Are racy as the legends old + By Chaucer or Boccaccio told; + To her who keeps, through change of place + And time, her native strength and grace, + Alike where warm Sorrento smiles, + Or where, by birchen-shaded isles, + Whose summer winds have shivered o'er + The icy drift of Labrador, + She lifts to light the priceless Pearl + Of Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl! + To her at threescore years and ten + Be tributes of the tongue and pen; + Be honor, praise, and heart-thanks given, + The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven! + + Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs + The air to-day, our love is hers! + She needs no guaranty of fame + Whose own is linked with Freedom's name. + Long ages after ours shall keep + Her memory living while we sleep; + The waves that wash our gray coast lines, + The winds that rock the Southern pines, + Shall sing of her; the unending years + Shall tell her tale in unborn ears. + And when, with sins and follies past, + Are numbered color-hate and caste, + White, black, and red shall own as one + The noblest work by woman done. + + + + +GODSPEED + +Written on the occasion of a voyage made by my friends Annie Fields and +Sarah Orne Jewett. + + + Outbound, your bark awaits you. Were I one + Whose prayer availeth much, my wish should be + Your favoring trade-wind and consenting sea. + By sail or steed was never love outrun, + And, here or there, love follows her in whom + All graces and sweet charities unite, + The old Greek beauty set in holier light; + And her for whom New England's byways bloom, + Who walks among us welcome as the Spring, + Calling up blossoms where her light feet stray. + God keep you both, make beautiful your way, + Comfort, console, and bless; and safely bring, + Ere yet I make upon a vaster sea + The unreturning voyage, my friends to me. + + 1882. + + + + +WINTER ROSES. + +In reply to a flower gift from Mrs. Putnam's school at Jamaica Plain. + + + My garden roses long ago + Have perished from the leaf-strewn walks; + Their pale, fair sisters smile no more + Upon the sweet-brier stalks. + + Gone with the flower-time of my life, + Spring's violets, summer's blooming pride, + And Nature's winter and my own + Stand, flowerless, side by side. + + So might I yesterday have sung; + To-day, in bleak December's noon, + Come sweetest fragrance, shapes, and hues, + The rosy wealth of June! + + Bless the young bands that culled the gift, + And bless the hearts that prompted it; + If undeserved it comes, at least + It seems not all unfit. + + Of old my Quaker ancestors + Had gifts of forty stripes save one; + To-day as many roses crown + The gray head of their son. + + And with them, to my fancy's eye, + The fresh-faced givers smiling come, + And nine and thirty happy girls + Make glad a lonely room. + + They bring the atmosphere of youth; + The light and warmth of long ago + Are in my heart, and on my cheek + The airs of morning blow. + + O buds of girlhood, yet unblown, + And fairer than the gift ye chose, + For you may years like leaves unfold + The heart of Sharon's rose. + + 1883. + + + + +THE REUNION + +Read September 10, 1885, to the surviving students of Haverhill Academy +in 1827-1830. + + + The gulf of seven and fifty years + We stretch our welcoming hands across; + The distance but a pebble's toss + Between us and our youth appears. + + For in life's school we linger on + The remnant of a once full list; + Conning our lessons, undismissed, + With faces to the setting sun. + + And some have gone the unknown way, + And some await the call to rest; + Who knoweth whether it is best + For those who went or those who stay? + + And yet despite of loss and ill, + If faith and love and hope remain, + Our length of days is not in vain, + And life is well worth living still. + + Still to a gracious Providence + The thanks of grateful hearts are due, + For blessings when our lives were new, + For all the good vouchsafed us since. + + The pain that spared us sorer hurt, + The wish denied, the purpose crossed, + And pleasure's fond occasions lost, + Were mercies to our small desert. + + 'T is something that we wander back, + Gray pilgrims, to our ancient ways, + And tender memories of old days + Walk with us by the Merrimac; + + That even in life's afternoon + A sense of youth comes back again, + As through this cool September rain + The still green woodlands dream of June. + + The eyes grown dim to present things + Have keener sight for bygone years, + And sweet and clear, in deafening ears, + The bird that sang at morning sings. + + Dear comrades, scattered wide and far, + Send from their homes their kindly word, + And dearer ones, unseen, unheard, + Smile on us from some heavenly star. + + For life and death with God are one, + Unchanged by seeming change His care + And love are round us here and there; + He breaks no thread His hand has spun. + + Soul touches soul, the muster roll + Of life eternal has no gaps; + And after half a century's lapse + Our school-day ranks are closed and whole. + + Hail and farewell! We go our way; + Where shadows end, we trust in light; + The star that ushers in the night + Is herald also of the day! + + + + +NORUMBEGA HALL. + +Norumbega Hall at Wellesley College, named in honor of Eben Norton +Horsford, who has been one of the most munificent patrons of that noble +institution, and who had just published an essay claiming the discovery +of the site of the somewhat mythical city of Norumbega, was opened with +appropriate ceremonies, in April, 1886. The following sonnet was written +for the occasion, and was read by President Alice E. Freeman, to whom it +was addressed. + + + Not on Penobscot's wooded bank the spires + Of the sought City rose, nor yet beside + The winding Charles, nor where the daily tide + Of Naumkeag's haven rises and retires, + The vision tarried; but somewhere we knew + The beautiful gates must open to our quest, + Somewhere that marvellous City of the West + Would lift its towers and palace domes in view, + And, to! at last its mystery is made known-- + Its only dwellers maidens fair and young, + Its Princess such as England's Laureate sung; + And safe from capture, save by love alone, + It lends its beauty to the lake's green shore, + And Norumbega is a myth no more. + + + + +THE BARTHOLDI STATUE 1886 + + The land, that, from the rule of kings, + In freeing us, itself made free, + Our Old World Sister, to us brings + Her sculptured Dream of Liberty, + + Unlike the shapes on Egypt's sands + Uplifted by the toil-worn slave, + On Freedom's soil with freemen's hands + We rear the symbol free hands gave. + + O France, the beautiful! to thee + Once more a debt of love we owe + In peace beneath thy Colors Three, + We hail a later Rochambeau! + + Rise, stately Symbol! holding forth + Thy light and hope to all who sit + In chains and darkness! Belt the earth + With watch-fires from thy torch uplit! + + Reveal the primal mandate still + Which Chaos heard and ceased to be, + Trace on mid-air th' Eternal Will + In signs of fire: "Let man be free!" + + Shine far, shine free, a guiding light + To Reason's ways and Virtue's aim, + A lightning-flash the wretch to smite + Who shields his license with thy name! + + + + +ONE OF THE SIGNERS. + +Written for the unveiling of the statue of Josiah Bartlett at Amesbury, +Mass., July 4, 1888. Governor Bartlett, who was a native of the town, +was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Amesbury or Ambresbury, +so called from the "anointed stones" of the great Druidical temple near +it, was the seat of one of the earliest religious houses in Britain. The +tradition that the guilty wife of King Arthur fled thither for +protection forms one of the finest passages in Tennyson's Idyls of the +King. + + + O storied vale of Merrimac + Rejoice through all thy shade and shine, + And from his century's sleep call back + A brave and honored son of thine. + + Unveil his effigy between + The living and the dead to-day; + The fathers of the Old Thirteen + Shall witness bear as spirits may. + + Unseen, unheard, his gray compeers + The shades of Lee and Jefferson, + Wise Franklin reverend with his years + And Carroll, lord of Carrollton! + + Be thine henceforth a pride of place + Beyond thy namesake's over-sea, + Where scarce a stone is left to trace + The Holy House of Amesbury. + + A prouder memory lingers round + The birthplace of thy true man here + Than that which haunts the refuge found + By Arthur's mythic Guinevere. + + The plain deal table where he sat + And signed a nation's title-deed + Is dearer now to fame than that + Which bore the scroll of Runnymede. + + Long as, on Freedom's natal morn, + Shall ring the Independence bells, + Give to thy dwellers yet unborn + The lesson which his image tells. + + For in that hour of Destiny, + Which tried the men of bravest stock, + He knew the end alone must be + A free land or a traitor's block. + + Among those picked and chosen men + Than his, who here first drew his breath, + No firmer fingers held the pen + Which wrote for liberty or death. + + Not for their hearths and homes alone, + But for the world their work was done; + On all the winds their thought has flown + Through all the circuit of the sun. + + We trace its flight by broken chains, + By songs of grateful Labor still; + To-day, in all her holy fanes, + It rings the bells of freed Brazil. + + O hills that watched his boyhood's home, + O earth and air that nursed him, give, + In this memorial semblance, room + To him who shall its bronze outlive! + + And thou, O Land he loved, rejoice + That in the countless years to come, + Whenever Freedom needs a voice, + These sculptured lips shall not be dumb! + + + + +THE TENT ON THE BEACH + +It can scarcely be necessary to name as the two companions whom I +reckoned with myself in this poetical picnic, Fields the lettered +magnate, and Taylor the free cosmopolite. The long line of sandy beach +which defines almost the whole of the New Hampshire sea-coast is +especially marked near its southern extremity, by the salt-meadows of +Hampton. The Hampton River winds through these meadows, and the reader +may, if he choose, imagine my tent pitched near its mouth, where also +was the scene of the _Wreck of Rivermouth_. The green bluff to the +northward is Great Boar's Head; southward is the Merrimac, with +Newburyport lifting its steeples above brown roofs and green trees on +banks. + + + I would not sin, in this half-playful strain,-- + Too light perhaps for serious years, though born + Of the enforced leisure of slow pain,-- + Against the pure ideal which has drawn + My feet to follow its far-shining gleam. + A simple plot is mine: legends and runes + Of credulous days, old fancies that have lain + Silent, from boyhood taking voice again, + Warmed into life once more, even as the tunes + That, frozen in the fabled hunting-horn, + Thawed into sound:--a winter fireside dream + Of dawns and-sunsets by the summer sea, + Whose sands are traversed by a silent throng + Of voyagers from that vaster mystery + Of which it is an emblem;--and the dear + Memory of one who might have tuned my song + To sweeter music by her delicate ear. + + + When heats as of a tropic clime + Burned all our inland valleys through, + Three friends, the guests of summer time, + Pitched their white tent where sea-winds blew. + Behind them, marshes, seamed and crossed + With narrow creeks, and flower-embossed, + Stretched to the dark oak wood, whose leafy arms + Screened from the stormy East the pleasant inland farms. + + At full of tide their bolder shore + Of sun-bleached sand the waters beat; + At ebb, a smooth and glistening floor + They touched with light, receding feet. + Northward a 'green bluff broke the chain + Of sand-hills; southward stretched a plain + Of salt grass, with a river winding down, + Sail-whitened, and beyond the steeples of the town, + + Whence sometimes, when the wind was light + And dull the thunder of the beach, + They heard the bells of morn and night + Swing, miles away, their silver speech. + Above low scarp and turf-grown wall + They saw the fort-flag rise and fall; + And, the first star to signal twilight's hour, + The lamp-fire glimmer down from the tall light-house tower. + + They rested there, escaped awhile + From cares that wear the life away, + To eat the lotus of the Nile + And drink the poppies of Cathay,-- + To fling their loads of custom down, + Like drift-weed, on the sand-slopes brown, + And in the sea waves drown the restless pack + Of duties, claims, and needs that barked upon their track. + + One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore + A ready credence in his looks, + A lettered magnate, lording o'er + An ever-widening realm of books. + In him brain-currents, near and far, + Converged as in a Leyden jar; + The old, dead authors thronged him round about, + And Elzevir's gray ghosts from leathern graves looked out. + + He knew each living pundit well, + Could weigh the gifts of him or her, + And well the market value tell + Of poet and philosopher. + But if he lost, the scenes behind, + Somewhat of reverence vague and blind, + Finding the actors human at the best, + No readier lips than his the good he saw confessed. + + His boyhood fancies not outgrown, + He loved himself the singer's art; + Tenderly, gently, by his own + He knew and judged an author's heart. + No Rhadamanthine brow of doom + Bowed the dazed pedant from his room; + And bards, whose name is legion, if denied, + Bore off alike intact their verses and their pride. + + Pleasant it was to roam about + The lettered world as he had, done, + And see the lords of song without + Their singing robes and garlands on. + With Wordsworth paddle Rydal mere, + Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer, + And with the ears of Rogers, at fourscore, + Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's wit once more. + + And one there was, a dreamer born, + Who, with a mission to fulfil, + Had left the Muses' haunts to turn + The crank of an opinion-mill, + Making his rustic reed of song + A weapon in the war with wrong, + Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough + That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow. + + Too quiet seemed the man to ride + The winged Hippogriff Reform; + Was his a voice from side to side + To pierce the tumult of the storm? + A silent, shy, peace-loving man, + He seemed no fiery partisan + To hold his way against the public frown, + The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's hounding down. + + For while he wrought with strenuous will + The work his hands had found to do, + He heard the fitful music still + Of winds that out of dream-land blew. + The din about him could not drown + What the strange voices whispered down; + Along his task-field weird processions swept, + The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped: + + The common air was thick with dreams,-- + He told them to the toiling crowd; + Such music as the woods and streams + Sang in his ear he sang aloud; + In still, shut bays, on windy capes, + He heard the call of beckoning shapes, + And, as the gray old shadows prompted him, + To homely moulds of rhyme he shaped their legends grim. + + He rested now his weary hands, + And lightly moralized and laughed, + As, tracing on the shifting sands + A burlesque of his paper-craft, + He saw the careless waves o'errun + His words, as time before had done, + Each day's tide-water washing clean away, + Like letters from the sand, the work of yesterday. + + And one, whose Arab face was tanned + By tropic sun and boreal frost, + So travelled there was scarce a land + Or people left him to exhaust, + In idling mood had from him hurled + The poor squeezed orange of the world, + And in the tent-shade, as beneath a palm, + Smoked, cross-legged like a Turk, in Oriental calm. + + The very waves that washed the sand + Below him, he had seen before + Whitening the Scandinavian strand + And sultry Mauritanian shore. + From ice-rimmed isles, from summer seas + Palm-fringed, they bore him messages; + He heard the plaintive Nubian songs again, + And mule-bells tinkling down the mountain-paths of Spain. + + His memory round the ransacked earth + On Puck's long girdle slid at ease; + And, instant, to the valley's girth + Of mountains, spice isles of the seas, + Faith flowered in minster stones, Art's guess + At truth and beauty, found access; + Yet loved the while, that free cosmopolite, + Old friends, old ways, and kept his boyhood's dreams in sight. + + Untouched as yet by wealth and pride, + That virgin innocence of beach + No shingly monster, hundred-eyed, + Stared its gray sand-birds out of reach; + Unhoused, save where, at intervals, + The white tents showed their canvas walls, + Where brief sojourners, in the cool, soft air, + Forgot their inland heats, hard toil, and year-long care. + + Sometimes along the wheel-deep sand + A one-horse wagon slowly crawled, + Deep laden with a youthful band, + Whose look some homestead old recalled; + Brother perchance, and sisters twain, + And one whose blue eyes told, more plain + Than the free language of her rosy lip, + Of the still dearer claim of love's relationship. + + With cheeks of russet-orchard tint, + The light laugh of their native rills, + The perfume of their garden's mint, + The breezy freedom of the hills, + They bore, in unrestrained delight, + The motto of the Garter's knight, + Careless as if from every gazing thing + Hid by their innocence, as Gyges by his ring. + + The clanging sea-fowl came and went, + The hunter's gun in the marshes rang; + At nightfall from a neighboring tent + A flute-voiced woman sweetly sang. + Loose-haired, barefooted, hand-in-hand, + Young girls went tripping down the sand; + And youths and maidens, sitting in the moon, + Dreamed o'er the old fond dream from which we wake too soon. + + At times their fishing-lines they plied, + With an old Triton at the oar, + Salt as the sea-wind, tough and dried + As a lean cusk from Labrador. + Strange tales he told of wreck and storm,-- + Had seen the sea-snake's awful form, + And heard the ghosts on Haley's Isle complain, + Speak him off shore, and beg a passage to old Spain! + + And there, on breezy morns, they saw + The fishing-schooners outward run, + Their low-bent sails in tack and flaw + Turned white or dark to shade and sun. + Sometimes, in calms of closing day, + They watched the spectral mirage play, + Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh, + And ships, with upturned keels, sail like a sea the sky. + + Sometimes a cloud, with thunder black, + Stooped low upon the darkening main, + Piercing the waves along its track + With the slant javelins of rain. + And when west-wind and sunshine warm + Chased out to sea its wrecks of storm, + They saw the prismy hues in thin spray showers + Where the green buds of waves burst into white froth flowers. + + And when along the line of shore + The mists crept upward chill and damp, + Stretched, careless, on their sandy floor + Beneath the flaring lantern lamp, + They talked of all things old and new, + Read, slept, and dreamed as idlers do; + And in the unquestioned freedom of the tent, + Body and o'er-taxed mind to healthful ease unbent. + + Once, when the sunset splendors died, + And, trampling up the sloping sand, + In lines outreaching far and wide, + The white-waned billows swept to land, + Dim seen across the gathering shade, + A vast and ghostly cavalcade, + They sat around their lighted kerosene, + Hearing the deep bass roar their every pause between. + + Then, urged thereto, the Editor + Within his full portfolio dipped, + Feigning excuse while seaching for + (With secret pride) his manuscript. + His pale face flushed from eye to beard, + With nervous cough his throat he cleared, + And, in a voice so tremulous it betrayed + The anxious fondness of an author's heart, he read: + + . . . . . + + + + +THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH + +The Goody Cole who figures in this poem and The Changeling as Eunice +Cole, who for a quarter of a century or more was feared, persecuted, and +hated as the witch of Hampton. She lived alone in a hovel a little +distant from the spot where the Hampton Academy now stands, and there +she died, unattended. When her death was discovered, she was hastily +covered up in the earth near by, and a stake driven through her body, to +exorcise the evil spirit. Rev. Stephen Bachiler or Batchelder was one of +the ablest of the early New England preachers. His marriage late in life +to a woman regarded by his church as disreputable induced him to return +to England, where he enjoyed the esteem and favor of Oliver Cromwell +during the Protectorate. + + + Rivermouth Rocks are fair to see, + By dawn or sunset shone across, + When the ebb of the sea has left them free, + To dry their fringes of gold-green moss + For there the river comes winding down, + From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown, + And waves on the outer rocks afoam + Shout to its waters, "Welcome home!" + + And fair are the sunny isles in view + East of the grisly Head of the Boar, + And Agamenticus lifts its blue + Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er; + And southerly, when the tide is down, + 'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown, + The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel + Over a floor of burnished steel. + + Once, in the old Colonial days, + Two hundred years ago and more, + A boat sailed down through the winding ways + Of Hampton River to that low shore, + Full of a goodly company + Sailing out on the summer sea, + Veering to catch the land-breeze light, + With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right. + + In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid + Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass, + "Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!" + A young man sighed, who saw them pass. + Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand + Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, + Hearing a voice in a far-off song, + Watching a white hand beckoning long. + + "Fie on the witch!" cried a merry girl, + As they rounded the point where Goody Cole + Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, + A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. + "Oho!" she muttered, "ye 're brave to-day! + But I hear the little waves laugh and say, + 'The broth will be cold that waits at home; + For it 's one to go, but another to come!'" + + "She's cursed," said the skipper; "speak her fair: + I'm scary always to see her shake + Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, + And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake." + But merrily still, with laugh and shout, + From Hampton River the boat sailed out, + Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh, + And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye. + + They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, + Drawing up haddock and mottled cod; + They saw not the Shadow that walked beside, + They heard not the feet with silence shod. + But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, + Shot by the lightnings through and through; + And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast, + Ran along the sky from west to east. + + Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea + Up to the dimmed and wading sun; + But he spake like a brave man cheerily, + "Yet there is time for our homeward run." + Veering and tacking, they backward wore; + And just as a breath-from the woods ashore + Blew out to whisper of danger past, + The wrath of the storm came down at last! + + The skipper hauled at the heavy sail + "God be our help!" he only cried, + As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail, + Smote the boat on its starboard side. + The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone + Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, + Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare, + The strife and torment of sea and air. + + Goody Cole looked out from her door + The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone, + Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar + Toss the foam from tusks of stone. + She clasped her hands with a grip of pain, + The tear on her cheek was not of rain + "They are lost," she muttered, "boat and crew! + Lord, forgive me! my words were true!" + + Suddenly seaward swept the squall; + The low sun smote through cloudy rack; + The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all + The trend of the coast lay hard and black. + But far and wide as eye could reach, + No life was seen upon wave or beach; + The boat that went out at morning never + Sailed back again into Hampton River. + + O mower, lean on thy bended snath, + Look from the meadows green and low + The wind of the sea is a waft of death, + The waves are singing a song of woe! + By silent river, by moaning sea, + Long and vain shall thy watching be + Never again shall the sweet voice call, + Never the white hand rise and fall! + + O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight + Ye saw in the light of breaking day + Dead faces looking up cold and white + From sand and seaweed where they lay. + The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept, + And cursed the tide as it backward crept + "Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake + Leave your dead for the hearts that break!" + + Solemn it was in that old day + In Hampton town and its log-built church, + Where side by side the coffins lay + And the mourners stood in aisle and porch. + In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, + The voices faltered that raised the hymn, + And Father Dalton, grave and stern, + Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn. + + But his ancient colleague did not pray; + Under the weight of his fourscore years + He stood apart with the iron-gray + Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears; + And a fair-faced woman of doubtful fame, + Linking her own with his honored name, + Subtle as sin, at his side withstood + The felt reproach of her neighborhood. + + Apart with them, like them forbid, + Old Goody Cole looked drearily round, + As, two by two, with their faces hid, + The mourners walked to the burying-ground. + She let the staff from her clasped hands fall + "Lord, forgive us! we're sinners all!" + And the voice of the old man answered her + "Amen!" said Father Bachiler. + + So, as I sat upon Appledore + In the calm of a closing summer day, + And the broken lines of Hampton shore + In purple mist of cloudland lay, + The Rivermouth Rocks their story told; + And waves aglow with sunset gold, + Rising and breaking in steady chime, + Beat the rhythm and kept the time. + + And the sunset paled, and warmed once more + With a softer, tenderer after-glow; + In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore + And sails in the distance drifting slow. + The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar, + The White Isle kindled its great red star; + And life and death in my old-time lay + Mingled in peace like the night and day! + + . . . . . + + "Well!" said the Man of Books, "your story + Is really not ill told in verse. + As the Celt said of purgatory, + One might go farther and fare worse." + The Reader smiled; and once again + With steadier voice took up his strain, + While the fair singer from the neighboring tent + Drew near, and at his side a graceful listener bent. + + 1864. + + + + +THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE + + At the mouth of the Melvin River, which empties into Moulton-Bay in + Lake Winnipesaukee, is a great mound. The Ossipee Indians had their + home in the neighborhood of the bay, which is plentifully stocked + with fish, and many relics of their occupation have been found. + + + Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles + Dimple round its hundred isles, + And the mountain's granite ledge + Cleaves the water like a wedge, + Ringed about with smooth, gray stones, + Rest the giant's mighty bones. + + Close beside, in shade and gleam, + Laughs and ripples Melvin stream; + Melvin water, mountain-born, + All fair flowers its banks adorn; + All the woodland's voices meet, + Mingling with its murmurs sweet. + + Over lowlands forest-grown, + Over waters island-strown, + Over silver-sanded beach, + Leaf-locked bay and misty reach, + Melvin stream and burial-heap, + Watch and ward the mountains keep. + + Who that Titan cromlech fills? + Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills? + Knight who on the birchen tree + Carved his savage heraldry? + Priest o' the pine-wood temples dim, + Prophet, sage, or wizard grim? + + Rugged type of primal man, + Grim utilitarian, + Loving woods for hunt and prowl, + Lake and hill for fish and fowl, + As the brown bear blind and dull + To the grand and beautiful: + + Not for him the lesson drawn + From the mountains smit with dawn, + Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May, + Sunset's purple bloom of day,-- + Took his life no hue from thence, + Poor amid such affluence? + + Haply unto hill and tree + All too near akin was he + Unto him who stands afar + Nature's marvels greatest are; + Who the mountain purple seeks + Must not climb the higher peaks. + + Yet who knows in winter tramp, + Or the midnight of the camp, + What revealings faint and far, + Stealing down from moon and star, + Kindled in that human clod + Thought of destiny and God? + + Stateliest forest patriarch, + Grand in robes of skin and bark, + What sepulchral mysteries, + What weird funeral-rites, were his? + What sharp wail, what drear lament, + Back scared wolf and eagle sent? + + Now, whate'er he may have been, + Low he lies as other men; + On his mound the partridge drums, + There the noisy blue-jay comes; + Rank nor name nor pomp has he + In the grave's democracy. + + Part thy blue lips, Northern lake! + Moss-grown rocks, your silence break! + Tell the tale, thou ancient tree! + Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee! + Speak, and tell us how and when + Lived and died this king of men! + + Wordless moans the ancient pine; + Lake and mountain give no sign; + Vain to trace this ring of stones; + Vain the search of crumbling bones + Deepest of all mysteries, + And the saddest, silence is. + + Nameless, noteless, clay with clay + Mingles slowly day by day; + But somewhere, for good or ill, + That dark soul is living still; + Somewhere yet that atom's force + Moves the light-poised universe. + + Strange that on his burial-sod + Harebells bloom, and golden-rod, + While the soul's dark horoscope + Holds no starry sign of hope! + Is the Unseen with sight at odds? + Nature's pity more than God's? + + Thus I mused by Melvin's side, + While the summer eventide + Made the woods and inland sea + And the mountains mystery; + And the hush of earth and air + Seemed the pause before a prayer,-- + + Prayer for him, for all who rest, + Mother Earth, upon thy breast,-- + Lapped on Christian turf, or hid + In rock-cave or pyramid + All who sleep, as all who live, + Well may need the prayer, "Forgive!" + + Desert-smothered caravan, + Knee-deep dust that once was man, + Battle-trenches ghastly piled, + Ocean-floors with white bones tiled, + Crowded tomb and mounded sod, + Dumbly crave that prayer to God. + + Oh, the generations old + Over whom no church-bells tolled, + Christless, lifting up blind eyes + To the silence of the skies! + For the innumerable dead + Is my soul disquieted. + + Where be now these silent hosts? + Where the camping-ground of ghosts? + Where the spectral conscripts led + To the white tents of the dead? + What strange shore or chartless sea + Holds the awful mystery? + + Then the warm sky stooped to make + Double sunset in the lake; + While above I saw with it, + Range on range, the mountains lit; + And the calm and splendor stole + Like an answer to my soul. + + Hear'st thou, O of little faith, + What to thee the mountain saith, + What is whispered by the trees? + Cast on God thy care for these; + Trust Him, if thy sight be dim + Doubt for them is doubt of Him. + + "Blind must be their close-shut eyes + Where like night the sunshine lies, + Fiery-linked the self-forged chain + Binding ever sin to pain, + Strong their prison-house of will, + But without He waiteth still. + + "Not with hatred's undertow + Doth the Love Eternal flow; + Every chain that spirits wear + Crumbles in the breath of prayer; + And the penitent's desire + Opens every gate of fire. + + "Still Thy love, O Christ arisen, + Yearns to reach these souls in prison! + Through all depths of sin and loss + Drops the plummet of Thy cross! + Never yet abyss was found + Deeper than that cross could sound!" + + Therefore well may Nature keep + Equal faith with all who sleep, + Set her watch of hills around + Christian grave and heathen mound, + And to cairn and kirkyard send + Summer's flowery dividend. + + Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream, + Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam + On the Indian's grassy tomb + Swing, O flowers, your bells of bloom! + Deep below, as high above, + Sweeps the circle of God's love. + 1865 + + . . . . . + + He paused and questioned with his eye + The hearers' verdict on his song. + A low voice asked: Is 't well to pry + Into the secrets which belong + Only to God?--The life to be + Is still the unguessed mystery + Unsealed, unpierced the cloudy walls remain, + We beat with dream and wish the soundless doors in vain. + + "But faith beyond our sight may go." + He said: "The gracious Fatherhood + Can only know above, below, + Eternal purposes of good. + From our free heritage of will, + The bitter springs of pain and ill + Flow only in all worlds. The perfect day + Of God is shadowless, and love is love alway." + + "I know," she said, "the letter kills; + That on our arid fields of strife + And heat of clashing texts distils + The clew of spirit and of life. + But, searching still the written Word, + I fain would find, Thus saith the Lord, + A voucher for the hope I also feel + That sin can give no wound beyond love's power to heal." + + "Pray," said the Man of Books, "give o'er + A theme too vast for time and place. + Go on, Sir Poet, ride once more + Your hobby at his old free pace. + But let him keep, with step discreet, + The solid earth beneath his feet. + In the great mystery which around us lies, + The wisest is a fool, the fool Heaven-helped is wise." + + The Traveller said: "If songs have creeds, + Their choice of them let singers make; + But Art no other sanction needs + Than beauty for its own fair sake. + It grinds not in the mill of use, + Nor asks for leave, nor begs excuse; + It makes the flexile laws it deigns to own, + And gives its atmosphere its color and its tone. + + "Confess, old friend, your austere school + Has left your fancy little chance; + You square to reason's rigid rule + The flowing outlines of romance. + With conscience keen from exercise, + And chronic fear of compromise, + You check the free play of your rhymes, to clap + A moral underneath, and spring it like a trap." + + The sweet voice answered: "Better so + Than bolder flights that know no check; + Better to use the bit, than throw + The reins all loose on fancy's neck. + The liberal range of Art should be + The breadth of Christian liberty, + Restrained alone by challenge and alarm + Where its charmed footsteps tread the border land of harm. + + "Beyond the poet's sweet dream lives + The eternal epic of the man. + He wisest is who only gives, + True to himself, the best he can; + Who, drifting in the winds of praise, + The inward monitor obeys; + And, with the boldness that confesses fear, + Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience steer. + + "Thanks for the fitting word he speaks, + Nor less for doubtful word unspoken; + For the false model that he breaks, + As for the moulded grace unbroken; + For what is missed and what remains, + For losses which are truest gains, + For reverence conscious of the Eternal eye, + And truth too fair to need the garnish of a lie." + + Laughing, the Critic bowed. "I yield + The point without another word; + Who ever yet a case appealed + Where beauty's judgment had been heard? + And you, my good friend, owe to me + Your warmest thanks for such a plea, + As true withal as sweet. For my offence + Of cavil, let her words be ample recompense." + + Across the sea one lighthouse star, + With crimson ray that came and went, + Revolving on its tower afar, + Looked through the doorway of the tent. + While outward, over sand-slopes wet, + The lamp flashed down its yellow jet + On the long wash of waves, with red and green + Tangles of weltering weed through the white foam-wreaths seen. + + "Sing while we may,--another day + May bring enough of sorrow;'--thus + Our Traveller in his own sweet lay, + His Crimean camp-song, hints to us," + The lady said. "So let it be; + Sing us a song," exclaimed all three. + She smiled: "I can but marvel at your choice + To hear our poet's words through my poor borrowed voice." + + . . . . . + + Her window opens to the bay, + On glistening light or misty gray, + And there at dawn and set of day + In prayer she kneels. + + "Dear Lord!" she saith, "to many a borne + From wind and wave the wanderers come; + I only see the tossing foam + Of stranger keels. + + "Blown out and in by summer gales, + The stately ships, with crowded sails, + And sailors leaning o'er their rails, + Before me glide; + They come, they go, but nevermore, + Spice-laden from the Indian shore, + I see his swift-winged Isidore + The waves divide. + + "O Thou! with whom the night is day + And one the near and far away, + Look out on yon gray waste, and say + Where lingers he. + Alive, perchance, on some lone beach + Or thirsty isle beyond the reach + Of man, he hears the mocking speech + Of wind and sea. + + "O dread and cruel deep, reveal + The secret which thy waves conceal, + And, ye wild sea-birds, hither wheel + And tell your tale. + Let winds that tossed his raven hair + A message from my lost one bear,-- + Some thought of me, a last fond prayer + Or dying wail! + + "Come, with your dreariest truth shut out + The fears that haunt me round about; + O God! I cannot bear this doubt + That stifles breath. + The worst is better than the dread; + Give me but leave to mourn my dead + Asleep in trust and hope, instead + Of life in death!" + + It might have been the evening breeze + That whispered in the garden trees, + It might have been the sound of seas + That rose and fell; + But, with her heart, if not her ear, + The old loved voice she seemed to hear + "I wait to meet thee: be of cheer, + For all is well!" + 1865 + + . . . . . + + The sweet voice into silence went, + A silence which was almost pain + As through it rolled the long lament, + The cadence of the mournful main. + Glancing his written pages o'er, + The Reader tried his part once more; + Leaving the land of hackmatack and pine + For Tuscan valleys glad with olive and with vine. + + + + +THE BROTHER OF MERCY. + + Piero Luca, known of all the town + As the gray porter by the Pitti wall + Where the noon shadows of the gardens fall, + Sick and in dolor, waited to lay down + His last sad burden, and beside his mat + The barefoot monk of La Certosa sat. + + Unseen, in square and blossoming garden drifted, + Soft sunset lights through green Val d'Arno sifted; + Unheard, below the living shuttles shifted + Backward and forth, and wove, in love or strife, + In mirth or pain, the mottled web of life + But when at last came upward from the street + Tinkle of bell and tread of measured feet, + The sick man started, strove to rise in vain, + Sinking back heavily with a moan of pain. + And the monk said, "'T is but the Brotherhood + Of Mercy going on some errand good + Their black masks by the palace-wall I see." + Piero answered faintly, "Woe is me! + This day for the first time in forty years + In vain the bell hath sounded in my ears, + Calling me with my brethren of the mask, + Beggar and prince alike, to some new task + Of love or pity,--haply from the street + To bear a wretch plague-stricken, or, with feet + Hushed to the quickened ear and feverish brain, + To tread the crowded lazaretto's floors, + Down the long twilight of the corridors, + Midst tossing arms and faces full of pain. + I loved the work: it was its own reward. + I never counted on it to offset + My sins, which are many, or make less my debt + To the free grace and mercy of our Lord; + But somehow, father, it has come to be + In these long years so much a part of me, + I should not know myself, if lacking it, + But with the work the worker too would die, + And in my place some other self would sit + Joyful or sad,--what matters, if not I? + And now all's over. Woe is me!"--"My son," + The monk said soothingly, "thy work is done; + And no more as a servant, but the guest + Of God thou enterest thy eternal rest. + No toil, no tears, no sorrow for the lost, + Shall mar thy perfect bliss. Thou shalt sit down + Clad in white robes, and wear a golden crown + Forever and forever."--Piero tossed + On his sick-pillow: "Miserable me! + I am too poor for such grand company; + The crown would be too heavy for this gray + Old head; and God forgive me if I say + It would be hard to sit there night and day, + Like an image in the Tribune, doing naught + With these hard hands, that all my life have wrought, + Not for bread only, but for pity's sake. + I'm dull at prayers: I could not keep awake, + Counting my beads. Mine's but a crazy head, + Scarce worth the saving, if all else be dead. + And if one goes to heaven without a heart, + God knows he leaves behind his better part. + I love my fellow-men: the worst I know + I would do good to. Will death change me so + That I shall sit among the lazy saints, + Turning a deaf ear to the sore complaints + Of souls that suffer? Why, I never yet + Left a poor dog in the strada hard beset, + Or ass o'erladen! Must I rate man less + Than dog or ass, in holy selfishness? + Methinks (Lord, pardon, if the thought be sin!) + The world of pain were better, if therein + One's heart might still be human, and desires + Of natural pity drop upon its fires + Some cooling tears." + + Thereat the pale monk crossed + His brow, and, muttering, "Madman! thou art lost!" + Took up his pyx and fled; and, left alone, + The sick man closed his eyes with a great groan + That sank into a prayer, "Thy will be done!" + Then was he made aware, by soul or ear, + Of somewhat pure and holy bending o'er him, + And of a voice like that of her who bore him, + Tender and most compassionate: "Never fear! + For heaven is love, as God himself is love; + Thy work below shall be thy work above." + And when he looked, lo! in the stern monk's place + He saw the shining of an angel's face! + + 1864. + + . . . . . + + The Traveller broke the pause. "I've seen + The Brothers down the long street steal, + Black, silent, masked, the crowd between, + And felt to doff my hat and kneel + With heart, if not with knee, in prayer, + For blessings on their pious care." + + Reader wiped his glasses: "Friends of mine, + I'll try our home-brewed next, instead of foreign wine." + + + + +THE CHANGELING. + + For the fairest maid in Hampton + They needed not to search, + Who saw young Anna Favor + Come walking into church, + + Or bringing from the meadows, + At set of harvest-day, + The frolic of the blackbirds, + The sweetness of the hay. + + Now the weariest of all mothers, + The saddest two-years bride, + She scowls in the face of her husband, + And spurns her child aside. + + "Rake out the red coals, goodman,-- + For there the child shall lie, + Till the black witch comes to fetch her + And both up chimney fly. + + "It's never my own little daughter, + It's never my own," she said; + "The witches have stolen my Anna, + And left me an imp instead. + + "Oh, fair and sweet was my baby, + Blue eyes, and hair of gold; + But this is ugly and wrinkled, + Cross, and cunning, and old. + + "I hate the touch of her fingers, + I hate the feel of her skin; + It's not the milk from my bosom, + But my blood, that she sucks in. + + "My face grows sharp with the torment; + Look! my arms are skin and bone! + Rake open the red coals, goodman, + And the witch shall have her own. + + "She 'll come when she hears it crying, + In the shape of an owl or bat, + And she'll bring us our darling Anna + In place of her screeching brat." + + Then the goodman, Ezra Dalton, + Laid his hand upon her head + "Thy sorrow is great, O woman! + I sorrow with thee," he said. + + "The paths to trouble are many, + And never but one sure way + Leads out to the light beyond it + My poor wife, let us pray." + + Then he said to the great All-Father, + "Thy daughter is weak and blind; + Let her sight come back, and clothe her + Once more in her right mind. + + "Lead her out of this evil shadow, + Out of these fancies wild; + Let the holy love of the mother + Turn again to her child. + + "Make her lips like the lips of Mary + Kissing her blessed Son; + Let her hands, like the hands of Jesus, + Rest on her little one. + + "Comfort the soul of thy handmaid, + Open her prison-door, + And thine shall be all the glory + And praise forevermore." + + Then into the face of its mother + The baby looked up and smiled; + And the cloud of her soul was lifted, + And she knew her little child. + + A beam of the slant west sunshine + Made the wan face almost fair, + Lit the blue eyes' patient wonder, + And the rings of pale gold hair. + + She kissed it on lip and forehead, + She kissed it on cheek and chin, + And she bared her snow-white bosom + To the lips so pale and thin. + + Oh, fair on her bridal morning + Was the maid who blushed and smiled, + But fairer to Ezra Dalton + Looked the mother of his child. + + With more than a lover's fondness + He stooped to her worn young face, + And the nursing child and the mother + He folded in one embrace. + + "Blessed be God!" he murmured. + "Blessed be God!" she said; + "For I see, who once was blinded,-- + I live, who once was dead. + + "Now mount and ride, my goodman, + As thou lovest thy own soul + Woe's me, if my wicked fancies + Be the death of Goody Cole!" + + His horse he saddled and bridled, + And into the night rode he, + Now through the great black woodland, + Now by the white-beached sea. + + He rode through the silent clearings, + He came to the ferry wide, + And thrice he called to the boatman + Asleep on the other side. + + He set his horse to the river, + He swam to Newbury town, + And he called up Justice Sewall + In his nightcap and his gown. + + And the grave and worshipful justice + (Upon whose soul be peace!) + Set his name to the jailer's warrant + For Goodwife Cole's release. + + Then through the night the hoof-beats + Went sounding like a flail; + And Goody Cole at cockcrow + Came forth from Ipswich jail. + 1865 + + . . . . . + + "Here is a rhyme: I hardly dare + To venture on its theme worn out; + What seems so sweet by Doon and Ayr + Sounds simply silly hereabout; + And pipes by lips Arcadian blown + Are only tin horns at our own. + Yet still the muse of pastoral walks with us, + While Hosea Biglow sings, our new Theocritus." + + + + +THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH. + +Attitash, an Indian word signifying "huckleberry," is the name of a +large and beautiful lake in the northern part of Amesbury. + + + In sky and wave the white clouds swam, + And the blue hills of Nottingham + Through gaps of leafy green + Across the lake were seen, + + When, in the shadow of the ash + That dreams its dream in Attitash, + In the warm summer weather, + Two maidens sat together. + + They sat and watched in idle mood + The gleam and shade of lake and wood; + The beach the keen light smote, + The white sail of a boat; + + Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying, + In sweetness, not in music, dying; + Hardback, and virgin's-bower, + And white-spiked clethra-flower. + + With careless ears they heard the plash + And breezy wash of Attitash, + The wood-bird's plaintive cry, + The locust's sharp reply. + + And teased the while, with playful band, + The shaggy dog of Newfoundland, + Whose uncouth frolic spilled + Their baskets berry-filled. + + Then one, the beauty of whose eyes + Was evermore a great surprise, + Tossed back her queenly head, + And, lightly laughing, said: + + "No bridegroom's hand be mine to hold + That is not lined with yellow gold; + I tread no cottage-floor; + I own no lover poor. + + "My love must come on silken wings, + With bridal lights of diamond rings, + Not foul with kitchen smirch, + With tallow-dip for torch." + + The other, on whose modest head + Was lesser dower of beauty shed, + With look for home-hearths meet, + And voice exceeding sweet, + + Answered, "We will not rivals be; + Take thou the gold, leave love to me; + Mine be the cottage small, + And thine the rich man's hall. + + "I know, indeed, that wealth is good; + But lowly roof and simple food, + With love that hath no doubt, + Are more than gold without." + + Hard by a farmer hale and young + His cradle in the rye-field swung, + Tracking the yellow plain + With windrows of ripe grain. + + And still, whene'er he paused to whet + His scythe, the sidelong glance he met + Of large dark eyes, where strove + False pride and secret love. + + Be strong, young mower of the-grain; + That love shall overmatch disdain, + Its instincts soon or late + The heart shall vindicate. + + In blouse of gray, with fishing-rod, + Half screened by leaves, a stranger trod + The margin of the pond, + Watching the group beyond. + + The supreme hours unnoted come; + Unfelt the turning tides of doom; + And so the maids laughed on, + Nor dreamed what Fate had done,-- + + Nor knew the step was Destiny's + That rustled in the birchen trees, + As, with their lives forecast, + Fisher and mower passed. + + Erelong by lake and rivulet side + The summer roses paled and died, + And Autumn's fingers shed + The maple's leaves of red. + + Through the long gold-hazed afternoon, + Alone, but for the diving loon, + The partridge in the brake, + The black duck on the lake, + + Beneath the shadow of the ash + Sat man and maid by Attitash; + And earth and air made room + For human hearts to bloom. + + Soft spread the carpets of the sod, + And scarlet-oak and golden-rod + With blushes and with smiles + Lit up the forest aisles. + + The mellow light the lake aslant, + The pebbled margin's ripple-chant + Attempered and low-toned, + The tender mystery owned. + + And through the dream the lovers dreamed + Sweet sounds stole in and soft lights streamed; + The sunshine seemed to bless, + The air was a caress. + + Not she who lightly laughed is there, + With scornful toss of midnight hair, + Her dark, disdainful eyes, + And proud lip worldly-wise. + + Her haughty vow is still unsaid, + But all she dreamed and coveted + Wears, half to her surprise, + The youthful farmer's guise! + + With more than all her old-time pride + She walks the rye-field at his side, + Careless of cot or hall, + Since love transfigures all. + + Rich beyond dreams, the vantage-ground + Of life is gained; her hands have found + The talisman of old + That changes all to gold. + + While she who could for love dispense + With all its glittering accidents, + And trust her heart alone, + Finds love and gold her own. + + What wealth can buy or art can build + Awaits her; but her cup is filled + Even now unto the brim; + Her world is love and him! + 1866. + + . . . . . + + The while he heard, the Book-man drew + A length of make-believing face, + With smothered mischief laughing through + "Why, you shall sit in Ramsay's place, + And, with his Gentle Shepherd, keep + On Yankee hills immortal sheep, + While love-lorn swains and maids the seas beyond + Hold dreamy tryst around your huckleberry-pond." + + The Traveller laughed: "Sir Galahad + Singing of love the Trouvere's lay! + How should he know the blindfold lad + From one of Vulcan's forge-boys?"--"Nay, + He better sees who stands outside + Than they who in procession ride," + The Reader answered: "selectmen and squire + Miss, while they make, the show that wayside folks admire. + + "Here is a wild tale of the North, + Our travelled friend will own as one + Fit for a Norland Christmas hearth + And lips of Christian Andersen. + They tell it in the valleys green + Of the fair island he has seen, + Low lying off the pleasant Swedish shore, + Washed by the Baltic Sea, and watched by Elsinore." + + + + +KALLUNDBORG CHURCH + + "Tie stille, barn min + Imorgen kommer Fin, + Fa'er din, + Og gi'er dig Esbern Snares nine og hjerte at lege med!" + Zealand Rhyme. + + + "Build at Kallundborg by the sea + A church as stately as church may be, + And there shalt thou wed my daughter fair," + Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare. + + And the Baron laughed. But Esbern said, + "Though I lose my soul, I will Helva wed!" + And off he strode, in his pride of will, + To the Troll who dwelt in Ulshoi hill. + + "Build, O Troll, a church for me + At Kallundborg by the mighty sea; + Build it stately, and build it fair, + Build it quickly," said Esbern Snare. + + But the sly Dwarf said, "No work is wrought + By Trolls of the Hills, O man, for naught. + What wilt thou give for thy church so fair?" + "Set thy own price," quoth Esbern Snare. + + "When Kallundborg church is builded well, + Than must the name of its builder tell, + Or thy heart and thy eyes must be my boon." + "Build," said Esbern, "and build it soon." + + By night and by day the Troll wrought on; + He hewed the timbers, he piled the stone; + But day by day, as the walls rose fair, + Darker and sadder grew Esbern Snare. + + He listened by night, he watched by day, + He sought and thought, but he dared not pray; + In vain he called on the Elle-maids shy, + And the Neck and the Nis gave no reply. + + Of his evil bargain far and wide + A rumor ran through the country-side; + And Helva of Nesvek, young and fair, + Prayed for the soul of Esbern Snare. + + And now the church was wellnigh done; + One pillar it lacked, and one alone; + And the grim Troll muttered, "Fool thou art + To-morrow gives me thy eyes and heart!" + + By Kallundborg in black despair, + Through wood and meadow, walked Esbern Snare, + Till, worn and weary, the strong man sank + Under the birches on Ulshoi bank. + + At, his last day's work he heard the Troll + Hammer and delve in the quarry's hole; + Before him the church stood large and fair + "I have builded my tomb," said Esbern Snare. + + And he closed his eyes the sight to hide, + When he heard a light step at his side + "O Esbern Snare!" a sweet voice said, + "Would I might die now in thy stead!" + + With a grasp by love and by fear made strong, + He held her fast, and he held her long; + With the beating heart of a bird afeard, + She hid her face in his flame-red beard. + + "O love!" he cried, "let me look to-day + In thine eyes ere mine are plucked away; + Let me hold thee close, let me feel thy heart + Ere mine by the Troll is torn apart! + + "I sinned, O Helva, for love of thee! + Pray that the Lord Christ pardon me!" + But fast as she prayed, and faster still, + Hammered the Troll in Ulshoi hill. + + He knew, as he wrought, that a loving heart + Was somehow baffling his evil art; + For more than spell of Elf or Troll + Is a maiden's prayer for her lover's soul. + + And Esbern listened, and caught the sound + Of a Troll-wife singing underground + "To-morrow comes Fine, father thine + Lie still and hush thee, baby mine! + + "Lie still, my darling! next sunrise + Thou'lt play with Esbern Snare's heart and eyes!" + "Ho! ho!" quoth Esbern, "is that your game? + Thanks to the Troll-wife, I know his name!" + + The Troll he heard him, and hurried on + To Kallundborg church with the lacking stone. + "Too late, Gaffer Fine!" cried Esbern Snare; + And Troll and pillar vanished in air! + + That night the harvesters heard the sound + Of a woman sobbing underground, + And the voice of the Hill-Troll loud with blame + Of the careless singer who told his name. + + Of the Troll of the Church they sing the rune + By the Northern Sea in the harvest moon; + And the fishers of Zealand hear him still + Scolding his wife in Ulshoi hill. + + And seaward over its groves of birch + Still looks the tower of Kallundborg church, + Where, first at its altar, a wedded pair, + Stood Helva of Nesvek and Esbern Snare! + 1865. + + . . . . . + + "What," asked the Traveller, "would our sires, + The old Norse story-tellers, say + Of sun-graved pictures, ocean wires, + And smoking steamboats of to-day? + And this, O lady, by your leave, + Recalls your song of yester eve: + Pray, let us have that Cable-hymn once more." + "Hear, hear!" the Book-man cried, "the lady has the floor. + + "These noisy waves below perhaps + To such a strain will lend their ear, + With softer voice and lighter lapse + Come stealing up the sands to hear, + And what they once refused to do + For old King Knut accord to you. + Nay, even the fishes shall your listeners be, + As once, the legend runs, they heard St. Anthony." + + + + +THE CABLE HYMN. + + O lonely bay of Trinity, + O dreary shores, give ear! + Lean down unto the white-lipped sea + The voice of God to hear! + + From world to world His couriers fly, + Thought-winged and shod with fire; + The angel of His stormy sky + Rides down the sunken wire. + + What saith the herald of the Lord? + "The world's long strife is done; + Close wedded by that mystic cord, + Its continents are one. + + "And one in heart, as one in blood, + Shall all her peoples be; + The hands of human brotherhood + Are clasped beneath the sea. + + "Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain + And Asian mountains borne, + The vigor of the Northern brain + Shall nerve the world outworn. + + "From clime to clime, from shore to shore, + Shall thrill the magic thread; + The new Prometheus steals once more + The fire that wakes the dead." + + Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat + From answering beach to beach; + Fuse nations in thy kindly heat, + And melt the chains of each! + + Wild terror of the sky above, + Glide tamed and dumb below! + Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, + Thy errands to and fro. + + Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, + Beneath the deep so far, + The bridal robe of earth's accord, + The funeral shroud of war! + + For lo! the fall of Ocean's wall + Space mocked and time outrun; + And round the world the thought of all + Is as the thought of one! + + The poles unite, the zones agree, + The tongues of striving cease; + As on the Sea of Galilee + The Christ is whispering, Peace! + 1858. + + . . . . . + + "Glad prophecy! to this at last," + The Reader said, "shall all things come. + Forgotten be the bugle's blast, + And battle-music of the drum. + + "A little while the world may run + Its old mad way, with needle-gun + And iron-clad, but truth, at last, shall reign + The cradle-song of Christ was never sung in vain!" + + Shifting his scattered papers, "Here," + He said, as died the faint applause, + "Is something that I found last year + Down on the island known as Orr's. + I had it from a fair-haired girl + Who, oddly, bore the name of Pearl, + (As if by some droll freak of circumstance,) + Classic, or wellnigh so, in Harriet Stowe's romance." + + + + +THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL. + + What flecks the outer gray beyond + The sundown's golden trail? + The white flash of a sea-bird's wing, + Or gleam of slanting sail? + Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point, + And sea-worn elders pray,-- + The ghost of what was once a ship + Is sailing up the bay. + + From gray sea-fog, from icy drift, + From peril and from pain, + The home-bound fisher greets thy lights, + O hundred-harbored Maine! + But many a keel shall seaward turn, + And many a sail outstand, + When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms + Against the dusk of land. + + She rounds the headland's bristling pines; + She threads the isle-set bay; + No spur of breeze can speed her on, + Nor ebb of tide delay. + Old men still walk the Isle of Orr + Who tell her date and name, + Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards + Who hewed her oaken frame. + + What weary doom of baffled quest, + Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine? + What makes thee in the haunts of home + A wonder and a sign? + No foot is on thy silent deck, + Upon thy helm no hand; + No ripple hath the soundless wind + That smites thee from the land! + + For never comes the ship to port, + Howe'er the breeze may be; + Just when she nears the waiting shore + She drifts again to sea. + No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, + Nor sheer of veering side; + Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, + Against the wind and tide. + + In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star + Of evening guides her in; + In vain for her the lamps are lit + Within thy tower, Seguin! + In vain the harbor-boat shall hail, + In vain the pilot call; + No hand shall reef her spectral sail, + Or let her anchor fall. + + Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy, + Your gray-head hints of ill; + And, over sick-beds whispering low, + Your prophecies fulfil. + Some home amid yon birchen trees + Shall drape its door with woe; + And slowly where the Dead Ship sails, + The burial boat shall row! + + From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point, + From island and from main, + From sheltered cove and tided creek, + Shall glide the funeral train. + The dead-boat with the bearers four, + The mourners at her stern,-- + And one shall go the silent way + Who shall no more return! + + And men shall sigh, and women weep, + Whose dear ones pale and pine, + And sadly over sunset seas + Await the ghostly sign. + They know not that its sails are filled + By pity's tender breath, + Nor see the Angel at the helm + Who steers the Ship of Death! + 1866. + + . . . . . + + "Chill as a down-east breeze should be," + The Book-man said. "A ghostly touch + The legend has. I'm glad to see + Your flying Yankee beat the Dutch." + "Well, here is something of the sort + Which one midsummer day I caught + In Narragansett Bay, for lack of fish." + "We wait," the Traveller said; + "serve hot or cold your dish." + + + + +THE PALATINE. + +Block Island in Long Island Sound, called by the Indians Manisees, the +isle of the little god, was the scene of a tragic incident a hundred +years or more ago, when _The Palatine_, an emigrant ship bound for +Philadelphia, driven off its course, came upon the coast at this point. +A mutiny on board, followed by an inhuman desertion on the part of the +crew, had brought the unhappy passengers to the verge of starvation and +madness. Tradition says that wreckers on shore, after rescuing all but +one of the survivors, set fire to the vessel, which was driven out to +sea before a gale which had sprung up. Every twelvemonth, according to +the same tradition, the spectacle of a ship on fire is visible to the +inhabitants of the island. + + + Leagues north, as fly the gull and auk, + Point Judith watches with eye of hawk; + Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk! + + Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken, + With never a tree for Spring to waken, + For tryst of lovers or farewells taken, + + Circled by waters that never freeze, + Beaten by billow and swept by breeze, + Lieth the island of Manisees, + + Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold + The coast lights up on its turret old, + Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould. + + Dreary the land when gust and sleet + At its doors and windows howl and beat, + And Winter laughs at its fires of peat! + + But in summer time, when pool and pond, + Held in the laps of valleys fond, + Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond; + + When the hills are sweet with the brier-rose, + And, hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose + Flowers the mainland rarely knows; + + When boats to their morning fishing go, + And, held to the wind and slanting low, + Whitening and darkening the small sails show,-- + + Then is that lonely island fair; + And the pale health-seeker findeth there + The wine of life in its pleasant air. + + No greener valleys the sun invite, + On smoother beaches no sea-birds light, + No blue waves shatter to foam more white! + + There, circling ever their narrow range, + Quaint tradition and legend strange + Live on unchallenged, and know no change. + + Old wives spinning their webs of tow, + Or rocking weirdly to and fro + In and out of the peat's dull glow, + + And old men mending their nets of twine, + Talk together of dream and sign, + Talk of the lost ship Palatine,-- + + The ship that, a hundred years before, + Freighted deep with its goodly store, + In the gales of the equinox went ashore. + + The eager islanders one by one + Counted the shots of her signal gun, + And heard the crash when she drove right on! + + Into the teeth of death she sped + (May God forgive the hands that fed + The false lights over the rocky Head!) + + O men and brothers! what sights were there! + White upturned faces, hands stretched in prayer! + Where waves had pity, could ye not spare? + + Down swooped the wreckers, like birds of prey + Tearing the heart of the ship away, + And the dead had never a word to say. + + And then, with ghastly shimmer and shine + Over the rocks and the seething brine, + They burned the wreck of the Palatine. + + In their cruel hearts, as they homeward sped, + "The sea and the rocks are dumb," they said + "There 'll be no reckoning with the dead." + + But the year went round, and when once more + Along their foam-white curves of shore + They heard the line-storm rave and roar, + + Behold! again, with shimmer and shine, + Over the rocks and the seething brine, + The flaming wreck of the Palatine! + + So, haply in fitter words than these, + Mending their nets on their patient knees + They tell the legend of Manisees. + + Nor looks nor tones a doubt betray; + "It is known to us all," they quietly say; + "We too have seen it in our day." + + Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken? + Was never a deed but left its token + Written on tables never broken? + + Do the elements subtle reflections give? + Do pictures of all the ages live + On Nature's infinite negative, + + Which, half in sport, in malice half, + She shows at times, with shudder or laugh, + Phantom and shadow in photograph? + + For still, on many a moonless night, + From Kingston Head and from Montauk light + The spectre kindles and burns in sight. + + Now low and dim, now clear and higher, + Leaps up the terrible Ghost of Fire, + Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire. + + And the wise Sound skippers, though skies be fine, + Reef their sails when they see the sign + Of the blazing wreck of the Palatine! + 1867. + + . . . . . + + "A fitter tale to scream than sing," + The Book-man said. "Well, fancy, then," + The Reader answered, "on the wing + The sea-birds shriek it, not for men, + But in the ear of wave and breeze!" + The Traveller mused: "Your Manisees + Is fairy-land: off Narragansett shore + Who ever saw the isle or heard its name before? + + "'T is some strange land of Flyaway, + Whose dreamy shore the ship beguiles, + St. Brandan's in its sea-mist gray, + Or sunset loom of Fortunate Isles!" + "No ghost, but solid turf and rock + Is the good island known as Block," + The Reader said. "For beauty and for ease + I chose its Indian name, soft-flowing Manisees! + + "But let it pass; here is a bit + Of unrhymed story, with a hint + Of the old preaching mood in it, + The sort of sidelong moral squint + Our friend objects to, which has grown, + I fear, a habit of my own. + 'Twas written when the Asian plague drew near, + And the land held its breath and paled with sudden fear." + + + + +ABRAHAM DAVENPORT + +The famous Dark Day of New England, May 19, 1780, was a physical puzzle +for many years to our ancestors, but its occurrence brought something +more than philosophical speculation into the winds of those who passed +through it. The incident of Colonel Abraham Davenport's sturdy protest +is a matter of history. + + + In the old days (a custom laid aside + With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent + Their wisest men to make the public laws. + And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound + Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, + Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, + And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, + Stamford sent up to the councils of the State + Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport. + + 'T was on a May-day of the far old year + Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell + Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring, + Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, + A horror of great darkness, like the night + In day of which the Norland sagas tell,-- + + The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky + Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim + Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs + The crater's sides from the red hell below. + Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls + Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars + Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings + Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died; + Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp + To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter + The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ + Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked + A loving guest at Bethany, but stern + As Justice and inexorable Law. + + Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts, + Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, + Trembling beneath their legislative robes. + "It is the Lord's Great Day! Let us adjourn," + Some said; and then, as if with one accord, + All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. + He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice + The intolerable hush. "This well may be + The Day of Judgment which the world awaits; + But be it so or not, I only know + My present duty, and my Lord's command + To occupy till He come. So at the post + Where He hath set me in His providence, + I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face,-- + No faithless servant frightened from my task, + But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; + And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, + Let God do His work, we will see to ours. + Bring in the candles." And they brought them in. + + Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read, + Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, + An act to amend an act to regulate + The shad and alewive fisheries. Whereupon + Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport, + Straight to the question, with no figures of speech + Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without + The shrewd dry humor natural to the man + His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while, + Between the pauses of his argument, + To hear the thunder of the wrath of God + Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. + + And there he stands in memory to this day, + Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen + Against the background of unnatural dark, + A witness to the ages as they pass, + That simple duty hath no place for fear. + 1866. + + . . . . . + + He ceased: just then the ocean seemed + To lift a half-faced moon in sight; + And, shore-ward, o'er the waters gleamed, + From crest to crest, a line of light, + Such as of old, with solemn awe, + The fishers by Gennesaret saw, + When dry-shod o'er it walked the Son of God, + Tracking the waves with light where'er his sandals trod. + + Silently for a space each eye + Upon that sudden glory turned + Cool from the land the breeze blew by, + The tent-ropes flapped, the long beach churned + Its waves to foam; on either hand + Stretched, far as sight, the hills of sand; + With bays of marsh, and capes of bush and tree, + The wood's black shore-line loomed beyond the meadowy sea. + + The lady rose to leave. "One song, + Or hymn," they urged, "before we part." + And she, with lips to which belong + Sweet intuitions of all art, + Gave to the winds of night a strain + Which they who heard would hear again; + And to her voice the solemn ocean lent, + Touching its harp of sand, a deep accompaniment. + + + + +THE WORSHIP OF NATURE. + + The harp at Nature's advent strung + Has never ceased to play; + The song the stars of morning sung + Has never died away. + + And prayer is made, and praise is given, + By all things near and far; + The ocean looketh up to heaven, + And mirrors every star. + + Its waves are kneeling on the strand, + As kneels the human knee, + Their white locks bowing to the sand, + The priesthood of the sea' + + They pour their glittering treasures forth, + Their gifts of pearl they bring, + And all the listening hills of earth + Take up the song they sing. + + The green earth sends her incense up + From many a mountain shrine; + From folded leaf and dewy cup + She pours her sacred wine. + + The mists above the morning rills + Rise white as wings of prayer; + The altar-curtains of the hills + Are sunset's purple air. + + The winds with hymns of praise are loud, + Or low with sobs of pain,-- + The thunder-organ of the cloud, + The dropping tears of rain. + + With drooping head and branches crossed + The twilight forest grieves, + Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost + From all its sunlit leaves. + + The blue sky is the temple's arch, + Its transept earth and air, + The music of its starry march + The chorus of a prayer. + + So Nature keeps the reverent frame + With which her years began, + And all her signs and voices shame + The prayerless heart of man. + + . . . . . + + The singer ceased. The moon's white rays + Fell on the rapt, still face of her. + "_Allah il Allah_! He hath praise + From all things," said the Traveller. + "Oft from the desert's silent nights, + And mountain hymns of sunset lights, + My heart has felt rebuke, as in his tent + The Moslem's prayer has shamed my Christian knee unbent." + + He paused, and lo! far, faint, and slow + The bells in Newbury's steeples tolled + The twelve dead hours; the lamp burned low; + The singer sought her canvas fold. + One sadly said, "At break of day + We strike our tent and go our way." + But one made answer cheerily, "Never fear, + We'll pitch this tent of ours in type another year." + + + + +AT SUNDOWN, TO E. C. S. + + Poet and friend of poets, if thy glass + Detects no flower in winter's tuft of grass, + Let this slight token of the debt I owe + Outlive for thee December's frozen day, + And, like the arbutus budding under snow, + Take bloom and fragrance from some morn of May + When he who gives it shall have gone the way + Where faith shall see and reverent trust shall know. + + + + +THE CHRISTMAS OF 1888. + + Low in the east, against a white, cold dawn, + The black-lined silhouette of the woods was drawn, + And on a wintry waste + Of frosted streams and hillsides bare and brown, + Through thin cloud-films, a pallid ghost looked down, + The waning moon half-faced! + + In that pale sky and sere, snow-waiting earth, + What sign was there of the immortal birth? + What herald of the One? + Lo! swift as thought the heavenly radiance came, + A rose-red splendor swept the sky like flame, + Up rolled the round, bright sun! + + And all was changed. From a transfigured world + The moon's ghost fled, the smoke of home-hearths curled + Up the still air unblown. + In Orient warmth and brightness, did that morn + O'er Nain and Nazareth, when the Christ was born, + Break fairer than our own? + + The morning's promise noon and eve fulfilled + In warm, soft sky and landscape hazy-hilled + And sunset fair as they; + A sweet reminder of His holiest time, + A summer-miracle in our winter clime, + God gave a perfect day. + + The near was blended with the old and far, + And Bethlehem's hillside and the Magi's star + Seemed here, as there and then,-- + Our homestead pine-tree was the Syrian palm, + Our heart's desire the angels' midnight psalm, + Peace, and good-will to men! + + + + +THE VOW OF WASHINGTON. + +Read in New York, April 30, 1889, at the Centennial Celebration of the +Inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United +States. + + + The sword was sheathed: in April's sun + Lay green the fields by Freedom won; + And severed sections, weary of debates, + Joined hands at last and were United States. + + O City sitting by the Sea + How proud the day that dawned on thee, + When the new era, long desired, began, + And, in its need, the hour had found the man! + + One thought the cannon salvos spoke, + The resonant bell-tower's vibrant stroke, + The voiceful streets, the plaudit-echoing halls, + And prayer and hymn borne heavenward from St. Paul's! + + How felt the land in every part + The strong throb of a nation's heart, + As its great leader gave, with reverent awe, + His pledge to Union, Liberty, and Law. + + That pledge the heavens above him heard, + That vow the sleep of centuries stirred; + In world-wide wonder listening peoples bent + Their gaze on Freedom's great experiment. + + Could it succeed? Of honor sold + And hopes deceived all history told. + Above the wrecks that strewed the mournful past, + Was the long dream of ages true at last? + + Thank God! the people's choice was just, + The one man equal to his trust, + Wise beyond lore, and without weakness good, + Calm in the strength of flawless rectitude. + + His rule of justice, order, peace, + Made possible the world's release; + Taught prince and serf that power is but a trust, + And rule, alone, which serves the ruled, is just; + + That Freedom generous is, but strong + In hate of fraud and selfish wrong, + Pretence that turns her holy truths to lies, + And lawless license masking in her guise. + + Land of his love! with one glad voice + Let thy great sisterhood rejoice; + A century's suns o'er thee have risen and set, + And, God be praised, we are one nation yet. + + And still we trust the years to be + Shall prove his hope was destiny, + Leaving our flag, with all its added stars, + Unrent by faction and unstained by wars. + + Lo! where with patient toil he nursed + And trained the new-set plant at first, + The widening branches of a stately tree + Stretch from the sunrise to the sunset sea. + + And in its broad and sheltering shade, + Sitting with none to make afraid, + Were we now silent, through each mighty limb, + The winds of heaven would sing the praise of him. + + Our first and best!--his ashes lie + Beneath his own Virginian sky. + Forgive, forget, O true and just and brave, + The storm that swept above thy sacred grave. + + For, ever in the awful strife + And dark hours of the nation's life, + Through the fierce tumult pierced his warning word, + Their father's voice his erring children heard. + + The change for which he prayed and sought + In that sharp agony was wrought; + No partial interest draws its alien line + 'Twixt North and South, the cypress and the pine! + + One people now, all doubt beyond, + His name shall be our Union-bond; + We lift our hands to Heaven, and here and now. + Take on our lips the old Centennial vow. + + For rule and trust must needs be ours; + Chooser and chosen both are powers + Equal in service as in rights; the claim + Of Duty rests on each and all the same. + + Then let the sovereign millions, where + Our banner floats in sun and air, + From the warm palm-lands to Alaska's cold, + Repeat with us the pledge a century old? + + + + +THE CAPTAIN'S WELL. + +The story of the shipwreck of Captain Valentine Bagley, on the coast of +Arabia, and his sufferings in the desert, has been familiar from my +childhood. It has been partially told in the singularly beautiful lines +of my friend, Harriet Prescott Spofford, an the occasion of a public +celebration at the Newburyport Library. To the charm and felicity of her +verse, as far as it goes, nothing can be added; but in the following +ballad I have endeavored to give a fuller detail of the touching +incident upon which it is founded. + + + From pain and peril, by land and main, + The shipwrecked sailor came back again; + + And like one from the dead, the threshold cross'd + Of his wondering home, that had mourned him lost. + + Where he sat once more with his kith and kin, + And welcomed his neighbors thronging in. + + But when morning came he called for his spade. + "I must pay my debt to the Lord," he said. + + "Why dig you here?" asked the passer-by; + "Is there gold or silver the road so nigh?" + + "No, friend," he answered: "but under this sod + Is the blessed water, the wine of God." + + "Water! the Powow is at your back, + And right before you the Merrimac, + + "And look you up, or look you down, + There 's a well-sweep at every door in town." + + "True," he said, "we have wells of our own; + But this I dig for the Lord alone." + + Said the other: "This soil is dry, you know. + I doubt if a spring can be found below; + + "You had better consult, before you dig, + Some water-witch, with a hazel twig." + + "No, wet or dry, I will dig it here, + Shallow or deep, if it takes a year. + + "In the Arab desert, where shade is none, + The waterless land of sand and sun, + + "Under the pitiless, brazen sky + My burning throat as the sand was dry; + + "My crazed brain listened in fever dreams + For plash of buckets and ripple of streams; + + "And opening my eyes to the blinding glare, + And my lips to the breath of the blistering air, + + "Tortured alike by the heavens and earth, + I cursed, like Job, the day of my birth. + + "Then something tender, and sad, and mild + As a mother's voice to her wandering child, + + "Rebuked my frenzy; and bowing my head, + I prayed as I never before had prayed: + + "Pity me, God! for I die of thirst; + Take me out of this land accurst; + + "And if ever I reach my home again, + Where earth has springs, and the sky has rain, + + "I will dig a well for the passers-by, + And none shall suffer from thirst as I. + + "I saw, as I prayed, my home once more, + The house, the barn, the elms by the door, + + "The grass-lined road, that riverward wound, + The tall slate stones of the burying-ground, + + "The belfry and steeple on meeting-house hill, + The brook with its dam, and gray grist mill, + + "And I knew in that vision beyond the sea, + The very place where my well must be. + + "God heard my prayer in that evil day; + He led my feet in their homeward way, + + "From false mirage and dried-up well, + And the hot sand storms of a land of hell, + + "Till I saw at last through the coast-hill's gap, + A city held in its stony lap, + + "The mosques and the domes of scorched Muscat, + And my heart leaped up with joy thereat; + + "For there was a ship at anchor lying, + A Christian flag at its mast-head flying, + + "And sweetest of sounds to my homesick ear + Was my native tongue in the sailor's cheer. + + "Now the Lord be thanked, I am back again, + Where earth has springs, and the skies have rain, + + "And the well I promised by Oman's Sea, + I am digging for him in Amesbury." + + His kindred wept, and his neighbors said + "The poor old captain is out of his head." + + But from morn to noon, and from noon to night, + He toiled at his task with main and might; + + And when at last, from the loosened earth, + Under his spade the stream gushed forth, + + And fast as he climbed to his deep well's brim, + The water he dug for followed him, + + He shouted for joy: "I have kept my word, + And here is the well I promised the Lord!" + + The long years came and the long years went, + And he sat by his roadside well content; + + He watched the travellers, heat-oppressed, + Pause by the way to drink and rest, + + And the sweltering horses dip, as they drank, + Their nostrils deep in the cool, sweet tank, + + And grateful at heart, his memory went + Back to that waterless Orient, + + And the blessed answer of prayer, which came + To the earth of iron and sky of flame. + + And when a wayfarer weary and hot, + Kept to the mid road, pausing not + + For the well's refreshing, he shook his head; + "He don't know the value of water," he said; + + "Had he prayed for a drop, as I have done, + In the desert circle of sand and sun, + + "He would drink and rest, and go home to tell + That God's best gift is the wayside well!" + + + + +AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION. + +The substance of these lines, hastily pencilled several years ago, I +find among such of my unprinted scraps as have escaped the waste-basket +and the fire. In transcribing it I have made some changes, additions, +and omissions. + + + On these green banks, where falls too soon + The shade of Autumn's afternoon, + The south wind blowing soft and sweet, + The water gliding at nay feet, + The distant northern range uplit + By the slant sunshine over it, + With changes of the mountain mist + From tender blush to amethyst, + The valley's stretch of shade and gleam + Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream, + With glad young faces smiling near + And merry voices in my ear, + I sit, methinks, as Hafiz might + In Iran's Garden of Delight. + For Persian roses blushing red, + Aster and gentian bloom instead; + For Shiraz wine, this mountain air; + For feast, the blueberries which I share + With one who proffers with stained hands + Her gleanings from yon pasture lands, + Wild fruit that art and culture spoil, + The harvest of an untilled soil; + And with her one whose tender eyes + Reflect the change of April skies, + Midway 'twixt child and maiden yet, + Fresh as Spring's earliest violet; + And one whose look and voice and ways + Make where she goes idyllic days; + And one whose sweet, still countenance + Seems dreamful of a child's romance; + And others, welcome as are these, + Like and unlike, varieties + Of pearls on nature's chaplet strung, + And all are fair, for all are young. + Gathered from seaside cities old, + From midland prairie, lake, and wold, + From the great wheat-fields, which might feed + The hunger of a world at need, + In healthful change of rest and play + Their school-vacations glide away. + + No critics these: they only see + An old and kindly friend in me, + In whose amused, indulgent look + Their innocent mirth has no rebuke. + They scarce can know my rugged rhymes, + The harsher songs of evil times, + Nor graver themes in minor keys + Of life's and death's solemnities; + But haply, as they bear in mind + Some verse of lighter, happier kind,-- + Hints of the boyhood of the man, + Youth viewed from life's meridian, + Half seriously and half in play + My pleasant interviewers pay + Their visit, with no fell intent + Of taking notes and punishment. + + As yonder solitary pine + Is ringed below with flower and vine, + More favored than that lonely tree, + The bloom of girlhood circles me. + In such an atmosphere of youth + I half forget my age's truth; + The shadow of my life's long date + Runs backward on the dial-plate, + Until it seems a step might span + The gulf between the boy and man. + + My young friends smile, as if some jay + On bleak December's leafless spray + Essayed to sing the songs of May. + Well, let them smile, and live to know, + When their brown locks are flecked with snow, + 'T is tedious to be always sage + And pose the dignity of age, + While so much of our early lives + On memory's playground still survives, + And owns, as at the present hour, + The spell of youth's magnetic power. + + But though I feel, with Solomon, + 'T is pleasant to behold the sun, + I would not if I could repeat + A life which still is good and sweet; + I keep in age, as in my prime, + A not uncheerful step with time, + And, grateful for all blessings sent, + I go the common way, content + To make no new experiment. + On easy terms with law and fate, + For what must be I calmly wait, + And trust the path I cannot see,-- + That God is good sufficeth me. + And when at last on life's strange play + The curtain falls, I only pray + That hope may lose itself in truth, + And age in Heaven's immortal youth, + And all our loves and longing prove + The foretaste of diviner love. + + The day is done. Its afterglow + Along the west is burning low. + My visitors, like birds, have flown; + I hear their voices, fainter grown, + And dimly through the dusk I see + Their 'kerchiefs wave good-night to me,-- + Light hearts of girlhood, knowing nought + Of all the cheer their coming brought; + And, in their going, unaware + Of silent-following feet of prayer + Heaven make their budding promise good + With flowers of gracious womanhood! + + + + +R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON THE MERRIMAC. + + Make, for he loved thee well, our Merrimac, + From wave and shore a low and long lament + For him, whose last look sought thee, as he went + The unknown way from which no step comes back. + And ye, O ancient pine-trees, at whose feet + He watched in life the sunset's reddening glow, + Let the soft south wind through your needles blow + A fitting requiem tenderly and sweet! + No fonder lover of all lovely things + Shall walk where once he walked, no smile more glad + Greet friends than his who friends in all men had, + Whose pleasant memory, to that Island clings, + Where a dear mourner in the home he left + Of love's sweet solace cannot be bereft. + + + + +BURNING DRIFT-WOOD + + Before my drift-wood fire I sit, + And see, with every waif I burn, + Old dreams and fancies coloring it, + And folly's unlaid ghosts return. + + O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft + The enchanted sea on which they sailed, + Are these poor fragments only left + Of vain desires and hopes that failed? + + Did I not watch from them the light + Of sunset on my towers in Spain, + And see, far off, uploom in sight + The Fortunate Isles I might not gain? + + Did sudden lift of fog reveal + Arcadia's vales of song and spring, + And did I pass, with grazing keel, + The rocks whereon the sirens sing? + + Have I not drifted hard upon + The unmapped regions lost to man, + The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John, + The palace domes of Kubla Khan? + + Did land winds blow from jasmine flowers, + Where Youth the ageless Fountain fills? + Did Love make sign from rose blown bowers, + And gold from Eldorado's hills? + + Alas! the gallant ships, that sailed + On blind Adventure's errand sent, + Howe'er they laid their courses, failed + To reach the haven of Content. + + And of my ventures, those alone + Which Love had freighted, safely sped, + Seeking a good beyond my own, + By clear-eyed Duty piloted. + + O mariners, hoping still to meet + The luck Arabian voyagers met, + And find in Bagdad's moonlit street, + Haroun al Raschid walking yet, + + Take with you, on your Sea of Dreams, + The fair, fond fancies dear to youth. + I turn from all that only seems, + And seek the sober grounds of truth. + + What matter that it is not May, + That birds have flown, and trees are bare, + That darker grows the shortening day, + And colder blows the wintry air! + + The wrecks of passion and desire, + The castles I no more rebuild, + May fitly feed my drift-wood fire, + And warm the hands that age has chilled. + + Whatever perished with my ships, + I only know the best remains; + A song of praise is on my lips + For losses which are now my gains. + + Heap high my hearth! No worth is lost; + No wisdom with the folly dies. + Burn on, poor shreds, your holocaust + Shall be my evening sacrifice. + + Far more than all I dared to dream, + Unsought before my door I see; + On wings of fire and steeds of steam + The world's great wonders come to me, + + And holier signs, unmarked before, + Of Love to seek and Power to save,-- + The righting of the wronged and poor, + The man evolving from the slave; + + And life, no longer chance or fate, + Safe in the gracious Fatherhood. + I fold o'er-wearied hands and wait, + In full assurance of the good. + + And well the waiting time must be, + Though brief or long its granted days, + If Faith and Hope and Charity + Sit by my evening hearth-fire's blaze. + + And with them, friends whom Heaven has spared, + Whose love my heart has comforted, + And, sharing all my joys, has shared + My tender memories of the dead,-- + + Dear souls who left us lonely here, + Bound on their last, long voyage, to whom + We, day by day, are drawing near, + Where every bark has sailing room! + + I know the solemn monotone + Of waters calling unto me + I know from whence the airs have blown + That whisper of the Eternal Sea. + + As low my fires of drift-wood burn, + I hear that sea's deep sounds increase, + And, fair in sunset light, discern + Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace. + + + + +O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTH-DAY. + + Climbing a path which leads back never more + We heard behind his footsteps and his cheer; + Now, face to face, we greet him standing here + Upon the lonely summit of Fourscore + Welcome to us, o'er whom the lengthened day + Is closing and the shadows colder grow, + His genial presence, like an afterglow, + Following the one just vanishing away. + Long be it ere the table shall be set + For the last breakfast of the Autocrat, + And love repeat with smiles and tears thereat + His own sweet songs that time shall not forget. + Waiting with us the call to come up higher, + Life is not less, the heavens are only higher! + + + + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + +From purest wells of English undefiled +None deeper drank than he, the New World's child, +Who in the language of their farm-fields spoke +The wit and wisdom of New England folk, +Shaming a monstrous wrong. The world-wide laugh +Provoked thereby might well have shaken half +The walls of Slavery down, ere yet the ball +And mine of battle overthrew them all. + + + + +HAVERHILL. 1640-1890. + +Read at the Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of +the City, July 2, 1890. + + + O river winding to the sea! + We call the old time back to thee; + From forest paths and water-ways + The century-woven veil we raise. + + The voices of to-day are dumb, + Unheard its sounds that go and come; + We listen, through long-lapsing years, + To footsteps of the pioneers. + + Gone steepled town and cultured plain, + The wilderness returns again, + The drear, untrodden solitude, + The gloom and mystery of the wood! + + Once more the bear and panther prowl, + The wolf repeats his hungry howl, + And, peering through his leafy screen, + The Indian's copper face is seen. + + We see, their rude-built huts beside, + Grave men and women anxious-eyed, + And wistful youth remembering still + Dear homes in England's Haverhill. + + We summon forth to mortal view + Dark Passaquo and Saggahew,-- + Wild chiefs, who owned the mighty sway + Of wizard Passaconaway. + + Weird memories of the border town, + By old tradition handed down, + In chance and change before us pass + Like pictures in a magic glass,-- + + The terrors of the midnight raid, + The-death-concealing ambuscade, + The winter march, through deserts wild, + Of captive mother, wife, and child. + + Ah! bleeding hands alone subdued + And tamed the savage habitude + Of forests hiding beasts of prey, + And human shapes as fierce as they. + + Slow from the plough the woods withdrew, + Slowly each year the corn-lands grew; + Nor fire, nor frost, nor foe could kill + The Saxon energy of will. + + And never in the hamlet's bound + Was lack of sturdy manhood found, + And never failed the kindred good + Of brave and helpful womanhood. + + That hamlet now a city is, + Its log-built huts are palaces; + The wood-path of the settler's cow + Is Traffic's crowded highway now. + + And far and wide it stretches still, + Along its southward sloping hill, + And overlooks on either hand + A rich and many-watered land. + + And, gladdening all the landscape, fair + As Pison was to Eden's pair, + Our river to its valley brings + The blessing of its mountain springs. + + And Nature holds with narrowing space, + From mart and crowd, her old-time grace, + And guards with fondly jealous arms + The wild growths of outlying farms. + + Her sunsets on Kenoza fall, + Her autumn leaves by Saltonstall; + No lavished gold can richer make + Her opulence of hill and lake. + + Wise was the choice which led out sires + To kindle here their household fires, + And share the large content of all + Whose lines in pleasant places fall. + + More dear, as years on years advance, + We prize the old inheritance, + And feel, as far and wide we roam, + That all we seek we leave at home. + + Our palms are pines, our oranges + Are apples on our orchard trees; + Our thrushes are our nightingales, + Our larks the blackbirds of our vales. + + No incense which the Orient burns + Is sweeter than our hillside ferns; + What tropic splendor can outvie + Our autumn woods, our sunset sky? + + If, where the slow years came and went, + And left not affluence, but content, + Now flashes in our dazzled eyes + The electric light of enterprise; + + And if the old idyllic ease + Seems lost in keen activities, + And crowded workshops now replace + The hearth's and farm-field's rustic grace; + + + No dull, mechanic round of toil + Life's morning charm can quite despoil; + And youth and beauty, hand in hand, + Will always find enchanted land. + + No task is ill where hand and brain + And skill and strength have equal gain, + And each shall each in honor hold, + And simple manhood outweigh gold. + + Earth shall be near to Heaven when all + That severs man from man shall fall, + For, here or there, salvation's plan + Alone is love of God and man. + + O dwellers by the Merrimac, + The heirs of centuries at your back, + Still reaping where you have not sown, + A broader field is now your own. + + Hold fast your Puritan heritage, + But let the free thought of the age + Its light and hope and sweetness add + To the stern faith the fathers had. + + Adrift on Time's returnless tide, + As waves that follow waves, we glide. + God grant we leave upon the shore + Some waif of good it lacked before; + + Some seed, or flower, or plant of worth, + Some added beauty to the earth; + Some larger hope, some thought to make + The sad world happier for its sake. + + As tenants of uncertain stay, + So may we live our little day + That only grateful hearts shall fill + The homes we leave in Haverhill. + + The singer of a farewell rhyme, + Upon whose outmost verge of time + The shades of night are falling down, + I pray, God bless the good old town! + + + + +TO G. G. AN AUTOGRAPH. + +The daughter of Daniel Gurteen, Esq., delegate from Haverhill, England, +to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration of Haverhill, +Massachusetts. The Rev. John Ward of the former place and many of his +old parishioners were the pioneer settlers of the new town on the +Merrimac. + + + Graceful in name and in thyself, our river + None fairer saw in John Ward's pilgrim flock, + Proof that upon their century-rooted stock + The English roses bloom as fresh as ever. + + Take the warm welcome of new friends with thee, + And listening to thy home's familiar chime + Dream that thou hearest, with it keeping time, + The bells on Merrimac sound across the sea. + + Think of our thrushes, when the lark sings clear, + Of our sweet Mayflowers when the daisies bloom; + And bear to our and thy ancestral home + The kindly greeting of its children here. + + Say that our love survives the severing strain; + That the New England, with the Old, holds fast + The proud, fond memories of a common past; + Unbroken still the ties of blood remain! + + + + +INSCRIPTION + +For the bass-relief by Preston Powers, carved upon the huge boulder in +Denver Park, Col., and representing the Last Indian and the Last Bison. + + The eagle, stooping from yon snow-blown peaks, + For the wild hunter and the bison seeks, + In the changed world below; and finds alone + Their graven semblance in the eternal stone. + + + + +LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. + +Inscription on her Memorial Tablet in Christ Church at Hartford, Conn. + + She sang alone, ere womanhood had known + The gift of song which fills the air to-day + Tender and sweet, a music all her own + May fitly linger where she knelt to pray. + + + + +MILTON + +Inscription on the Memorial Window in St. Margaret's Church, +Westminster, the gift of George W. Childs, of America. + + The new world honors him whose lofty plea + For England's freedom made her own more sure, + Whose song, immortal as its theme, shall be + Their common freehold while both worlds endure. + + + + +THE BIRTHDAY WREATH + +December 17, 1891. + + + Blossom and greenness, making all + The winter birthday tropical, + And the plain Quaker parlors gay, + Have gone from bracket, stand, and wall; + We saw them fade, and droop, and fall, + And laid them tenderly away. + + White virgin lilies, mignonette, + Blown rose, and pink, and violet, + A breath of fragrance passing by; + Visions of beauty and decay, + Colors and shapes that could not stay, + The fairest, sweetest, first to die. + + But still this rustic wreath of mine, + Of acorned oak and needled pine, + And lighter growths of forest lands, + Woven and wound with careful pains, + And tender thoughts, and prayers, remains, + As when it dropped from love's dear hands. + + And not unfitly garlanded, + Is he, who, country-born and bred, + Welcomes the sylvan ring which gives + A feeling of old summer days, + The wild delight of woodland ways, + The glory of the autumn leaves. + + And, if the flowery meed of song + To other bards may well belong, + Be his, who from the farm-field spoke + A word for Freedom when her need + Was not of dulcimer and reed. + This Isthmian wreath of pine and oak. + + + + +THE WIND OF MARCH. + + Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing + Under the sky's gray arch; + Smiling, I watch the shaken elm-boughs, knowing + It is the wind of March. + + Between the passing and the coming season, + This stormy interlude + Gives to our winter-wearied hearts a reason + For trustful gratitude. + + Welcome to waiting ears its harsh forewarning + Of light and warmth to come, + The longed-for joy of Nature's Easter morning, + The earth arisen in bloom. + + In the loud tumult winter's strength is breaking; + I listen to the sound, + As to a voice of resurrection, waking + To life the dead, cold ground. + + Between these gusts, to the soft lapse I hearken + Of rivulets on their way; + I see these tossed and naked tree-tops darken + With the fresh leaves of May. + + This roar of storm, this sky so gray and lowering + Invite the airs of Spring, + A warmer sunshine over fields of flowering, + The bluebird's song and wing. + + Closely behind, the Gulf's warm breezes follow + This northern hurricane, + And, borne thereon, the bobolink and swallow + Shall visit us again. + + And, in green wood-paths, in the kine-fed pasture + And by the whispering rills, + Shall flowers repeat the lesson of the Master, + Taught on his Syrian hills. + + Blow, then, wild wind! thy roar shall end in singing, + Thy chill in blossoming; + Come, like Bethesda's troubling angel, bringing + The healing of the Spring. + + + + +BETWEEN THE GATES. + + Between the gates of birth and death + An old and saintly pilgrim passed, + With look of one who witnesseth + The long-sought goal at last. + + O thou whose reverent feet have found + The Master's footprints in thy way, + And walked thereon as holy ground, + A boon of thee I pray. + + "My lack would borrow thy excess, + My feeble faith the strength of thine; + I need thy soul's white saintliness + To hide the stains of mine. + + "The grace and favor else denied + May well be granted for thy sake." + So, tempted, doubting, sorely tried, + A younger pilgrim spake. + + "Thy prayer, my son, transcends my gift; + No power is mine," the sage replied, + "The burden of a soul to lift + Or stain of sin to hide. + + "Howe'er the outward life may seem, + For pardoning grace we all must pray; + No man his brother can redeem + Or a soul's ransom pay. + + "Not always age is growth of good; + Its years have losses with their gain; + Against some evil youth withstood + Weak hands may strive in vain. + + "With deeper voice than any speech + Of mortal lips from man to man, + What earth's unwisdom may not teach + The Spirit only can. + + "Make thou that holy guide thine own, + And following where it leads the way, + The known shall lapse in the unknown + As twilight into day. + + "The best of earth shall still remain, + And heaven's eternal years shall prove + That life and death, and joy and pain, + Are ministers of Love." + + + + +THE LAST EVE OF SUMMER. + + Summer's last sun nigh unto setting shines + Through yon columnar pines, + And on the deepening shadows of the lawn + Its golden lines are drawn. + + Dreaming of long gone summer days like this, + Feeling the wind's soft kiss, + Grateful and glad that failing ear and sight + Have still their old delight, + + I sit alone, and watch the warm, sweet day + Lapse tenderly away; + And, wistful, with a feeling of forecast, + I ask, "Is this the last? + + "Will nevermore for me the seasons run + Their round, and will the sun + Of ardent summers yet to come forget + For me to rise and set?" + + Thou shouldst be here, or I should be with thee + Wherever thou mayst be, + Lips mute, hands clasped, in silences of speech + Each answering unto each. + + For this still hour, this sense of mystery far + Beyond the evening star, + No words outworn suffice on lip or scroll: + The soul would fain with soul + + Wait, while these few swift-passing days fulfil + The wise-disposing Will, + And, in the evening as at morning, trust + The All-Merciful and Just. + + The solemn joy that soul-communion feels + Immortal life reveals; + And human love, its prophecy and sign, + Interprets love divine. + + Come then, in thought, if that alone may be, + O friend! and bring with thee + Thy calm assurance of transcendent Spheres + And the Eternal Years! + + August 31, 1890. + + + + +TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. + +8TH Mo. 29TH, 1892. + +This, the last of Mr. Whittier's poems, was written but a few weeks +before his death. + + Among the thousands who with hail and cheer + Will welcome thy new year, + How few of all have passed, as thou and I, + So many milestones by! + + We have grown old together; we have seen, + Our youth and age between, + Two generations leave us, and to-day + We with the third hold way, + + Loving and loved. If thought must backward run + To those who, one by one, + In the great silence and the dark beyond + Vanished with farewells fond, + + Unseen, not lost; our grateful memories still + Their vacant places fill, + And with the full-voiced greeting of new friends + A tenderer whisper blends. + + Linked close in a pathetic brotherhood + Of mingled ill and good, + Of joy and grief, of grandeur and of shame, + For pity more than blame,-- + + The gift is thine the weary world to make + More cheerful for thy sake, + Soothing the ears its Miserere pains, + With the old Hellenic strains, + + Lighting the sullen face of discontent + With smiles for blessings sent. + Enough of selfish wailing has been had, + Thank God! for notes more glad. + + Life is indeed no holiday; therein + Are want, and woe, and sin, + Death and its nameless fears, and over all + Our pitying tears must fall. + + Sorrow is real; but the counterfeit + Which folly brings to it, + We need thy wit and wisdom to resist, + O rarest Optimist! + + Thy hand, old friend! the service of our days, + In differing moods and ways, + May prove to those who follow in our train + Not valueless nor vain. + + Far off, and faint as echoes of a dream, + The songs of boyhood seem, + Yet on our autumn boughs, unflown with spring, + The evening thrushes sing. + + The hour draws near, howe'er delayed and late, + When at the Eternal Gate + We leave the words and works we call our own, + And lift void hands alone + + For love to fill. Our nakedness of soul + Brings to that Gate no toll; + Giftless we come to Him, who all things gives, + And live because He lives. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Whittier, Volume IV (of +VII), by John Greenleaf Whittier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF WHITTIER *** + +***** This file should be named 9586.txt or 9586.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/5/8/9586/ + +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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