Part Sixth

Part Sixth

CONCLUSION

The tale is done; it little needs To track their after ways, And string again the golden beads Of love's uncounted days.

They leave the fair ancestral isle For bleak New England's shore; How gracious is the courtly smile Of all who frowned before!

Again through Lisbon's orange bowers They watch the river's gleam, And shudder as her shadowy towers Shake in the trembling stream.

Fate parts at length the fondest pair; His cheek, alas! grows pale; The breast that trampling death could spare His noiseless shafts assail.

He longs to change the heaven of blue For England's clouded sky,-- To breathe the air his boyhood knew; He seeks then but to die.

Hard by the terraced hillside town, Where healing streamlets run, Still sparkling with their old renown,-- The "Waters of the Sun,"--

The Lady Agnes raised the stone That marks his honored grave, And there Sir Harry sleeps alone By Wiltshire Avon's wave.

The home of early love was dear; She sought its peaceful shade, And kept her state for many a year, With none to make afraid.

At last the evil days were come That saw the red cross fall; She hears the rebels' rattling drum,-- Farewell to Frankland Hall!

I tell you, as my tale began, The hall is standing still; And you, kind listener, maid or man, May see it if you will.

The box is glistening huge and green, Like trees the lilacs grow, Three elms high-arching still are seen, And one lies stretched below.

The hangings, rough with velvet flowers, Flap on the latticed wall; And o'er the mossy ridge-pole towers The rock-hewn chimney tall.

The doors on mighty hinges clash With massive bolt and bar, The heavy English-moulded sash Scarce can the night-winds jar.

Behold the chosen room he sought Alone, to fast and pray, Each year, as chill November brought The dismal earthquake day.

There hung the rapier blade he wore, Bent in its flattened sheath; The coat the shrieking woman tore Caught in her clenching teeth;--

The coat with tarnished silver lace She snapped at as she slid, And down upon her death-white face Crashed the huge coffin's lid.

A graded terrace yet remains; If on its turf you stand And look along the wooded plains That stretch on either hand,

The broken forest walls define A dim, receding view, Where, on the far horizon's line, He cut his vista through.

If further story you shall crave, Or ask for living proof, Go see old Julia, born a slave Beneath Sir Harry's roof.

She told me half that I have told, And she remembers well The mansion as it looked of old Before its glories fell;--

The box, when round the terraced square Its glossy wall was drawn; The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, The roses on the lawn.

And Julia says, with truthful look Stamped on her wrinkled face, That in her own black hands she took The coat with silver lace.

And you may hold the story light, Or, if you like, believe; But there it was, the woman's bite,-- A mouthful from the sleeve.

Now go your ways;--I need not tell The moral of my rhyme; But, youths and maidens, ponder well This tale of olden time!

THE PLOUGHMAN ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, OCTOBER 4, 1849

CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam! Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow, The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!

First in the field before the reddening sun, Last in the shadows when the day is done, Line after line, along the bursting sod, Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod; Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide, The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide; Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves, Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves; Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train Slants the long track that scores the level plain; Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay, The patient convoy breaks its destined way; At every turn the loosening chains resound, The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round, Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.

These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; This is the page, whose letters shall be seen Changed by the sun to words of living green; This is the scholar, whose immortal pen Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men; These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil Shows on his deed,--the charter of the soil.

O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time We stain thy flowers,--they blossom o'er the dead; We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain, Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms, Let not our virtues in thy love decay, And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away.

No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed; By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests; By these fair plains the mountain circle screens, And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines, True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil To crown with peace their own untainted soil; And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind, If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind, These stately forms, that bending even now Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough, Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, The same stern iron in the same right hand, Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run, The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won!

SPRING

WINTER is past; the heart of Nature warms Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms; Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen, The southern slopes are fringed with tender green; On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves, Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves, Bright with the hues from wider pictures won, White, azure, golden,--drift, or sky, or sun,-- The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest; The violet, gazing on the arch of blue Till her own iris wears its deepened hue; The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves; The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave, Drugged with the opiate that November gave, Beats with faint wing against the sunny pane, Or crawls, tenacious, o'er its lucid plain; From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls, In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls; The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep, Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap; On floating rails that face the softening noons The still shy turtles range their dark platoons, Or, toiling aimless o'er the mellowing fields, Trail through the grass their tessellated shields.

At last young April, ever frail and fair, Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, Chased to the margin of receding floods O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds, In tears and blushes sighs herself away, And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May.

Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays; O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis, Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free; With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose; Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge The rival lily hastens to emerge, Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, Till morn is sultan of her parted lips.

Then bursts the song from every leafy glade, The yielding season's bridal serenade; Then flash the wings returning Summer calls Through the deep arches of her forest halls,-- The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings.

Why dream I here within these caging walls, Deaf to her voice, while blooming Nature calls; Peering and gazing with insatiate looks Through blinding lenses, or in wearying books? Off, gloomy spectres of the shrivelled past! Fly with the leaves that fill the autumn blast Ye imps of Science, whose relentless chains Lock the warm tides within these living veins, Close your dim cavern, while its captive strays Dazzled and giddy in the morning's blaze!

THE STUDY

YET in the darksome crypt I left so late, Whose only altar is its rusted grate,-- Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams,-- While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train, Its paler splendors were not quite in vain. From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard, And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone, Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone.

Not all unblest the mild interior scene When the red curtain spread its falling screen; O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, And the long evening only flew too fast; Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend In genial welcome to some easy friend, Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves, Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves; Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed. Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring To the round table its expected ring, And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,-- Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard,-- Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower.

Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, Not quite deserted when its guests were flown; Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, Ready to answer, never known to ask, Claiming no service, prompt for every task. On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes, O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns; A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime, Each knows his place, and each may claim his part In some quaint corner of his master's heart. This old Decretal, won from Moss's hoards, Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards, Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close; Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, With glistening letters wrought in red and blue. There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, The Aldine anchor on his opening page; There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind, In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confused, "Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?) Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine! In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville; High over all, in close, compact array, Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. In lower regions of the sacred space Range the dense volumes of a humbler race; There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach, In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech; Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, Lully and Geber, and the learned crew That loved to talk of all they could not do.

Why count the rest,--those names of later days That many love, and all agree to praise,-- Or point the titles, where a glance may read The dangerous lines of party or of creed? Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show What few may care and none can claim to know. Each has his features, whose exterior seal A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal; Go to his study,--on the nearest shelf Stands the mosaic portrait of himself.

What though for months the tranquil dust descends, Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends, While the damp offspring of the modern press Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress; Not less I love each dull familiar face, Nor less should miss it from the appointed place; I snatch the book, along whose burning leaves His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share, My old MAGNALIA must be standing there!

THE BELLS

WHEN o'er the street the morning peal is flung From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue, Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale, To each far listener tell a different tale. The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar, Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one, Each dull concussion, till his task is done. Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat, Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street, Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet; The bell, responsive to her secret flame, With every note repeats her lover's name. The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane, Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, Hears the stern accents, as they come and go, Their only burden one despairing No! Ocean's rough child, whom many a shore has known Ere homeward breezes swept him to his own, Starts at the echo as it circles round, A thousand memories kindling with the sound; The early favorite's unforgotten charms, Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms; His first farewell, the flapping canvas spread, The seaward streamers crackling overhead, His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to weep Her first-born's bridal with the haggard deep, While the brave father stood with tearless eye, Smiling and choking with his last good-by.

'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats, With the same impulse, every nerve it meets, Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride On the round surge of that aerial tide!

O child of earth! If floating sounds like these Steal from thyself their power to wound or please, If here or there thy changing will inclines, As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs, Look at thy heart, and when its depths are known, Then try thy brother's, judging by thine own, But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range, While its own standards are the sport of change, Nor count us rebels when we disobey The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway.

NON-RESISTANCE

PERHAPS too far in these considerate days Has patience carried her submissive ways; Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; It is not written what a man shall do, If the rude caitiff smite the other too!

Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need God help thee, guarded by the passive creed! As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl, When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl; As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow When the black corsair slants athwart her bow; As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien, Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green, When the dark plumage with the crimson beak Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,-- So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm, Thy torches ready for the answering peal From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel!

THE MORAL BULLY

YON whey-faced brother, who delights to wear A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair, Seems of the sort that in a crowded place One elbows freely into smallest space; A timid creature, lax of knee and hip, Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip; One of those harmless spectacled machines, The Holy-Week of Protestants convenes; Whom school-boys question if their walk transcends The last advices of maternal friends; Whom John, obedient to his master's sign, Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine, While Peter, glistening with luxurious scorn, Husks his white ivories like an ear of corn; Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek, Whose yellowish linen flowers but once a week, Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare suits, And the laced high-lows which they call their boots, Well mayst thou shun that dingy front severe, But him, O stranger, him thou canst not fear.

Be slow to judge, and slower to despise, Man of broad shoulders and heroic size The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings, Drops at the fountain where the cobra stings. In that lean phantom, whose extended glove Points to the text of universal love, Behold the master that can tame thee down To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown; His velvet throat against thy corded wrist, His loosened tongue against thy doubled fist.

The MORAL BULLY, though he never swears, Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, Feels the same comfort while his acrid words Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds, Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate, That all we love is worthiest of our hate, As the scarred ruffian of the pirate's deck, When his long swivel rakes the staggering wreck!

Heaven keep us all! Is every rascal clown Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down? Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole, Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace Of angel visits on his hungry face, From lack of marrow or the coins to pay, Has dodged some vices in a shabby way, The right to stick us with his cutthroat terms, And bait his homilies with his brother worms?

THE MIND'S DIET

No life worth naming ever comes to good If always nourished on the selfsame food; The creeping mite may live so if he please, And feed on Stilton till he turns to cheese, But cool Magendie proves beyond a doubt, If mammals try it, that their eyes drop out.

No reasoning natures find it safe to feed, For their sole diet, on a single creed; It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their tongues, And starves the heart to feed the noisy lungs.

When the first larvae on the elm are seen, The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are green; Ere chill October shakes the latest down, They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown; On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy, You stretch to pluck it--'tis a butterfly; The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark, They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark; The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood; So by long living on a single lie, Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye; Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,-- Except when squabbling turns them black and blue!

OUR LIMITATIONS

WE trust and fear, we question and believe, From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave, Frail as the web that misty night has spun, Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun. While the calm centuries spell their lessons out, Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt; When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne, The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone; When Pilate's hall that awful question heard, The Heavenly Captive answered not a word.

Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! From age to age, while History carves sublime On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, How the wild swayings of our planet show That worlds unseen surround the world we know.

THE OLD PLAYER

THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed. In flaming line the telltales of the stage Showed on his brow the autograph of age; Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair, And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care; Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,-- He strove to speak,--his voice was but a sigh.

Year after year had seen its short-lived race Flit past the scenes and others take their place; Yet the old prompter watched his accents still, His name still flaunted on the evening's bill. Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor, Had died in earnest and were heard no more; Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread They faced the footlights in unborrowed red, Had faded slowly through successive shades To gray duennas, foils of younger maids; Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart, While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry. Yet there he stood,--the man of other days, In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze, As on the oak a faded leaf that clings While a new April spreads its burnished wings.

How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier, Their central sun the flashing chandelier! How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold! Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told. No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue; Again, again, the crashing galleries rung. As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast Hears in its strain the echoes of the past, So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round, A life of memories startled at the sound. He lived again,--the page of earliest days,-- Days of small fee and parsimonious praise; Then lithe young Romeo--hark that silvered tone, From those smooth lips--alas! they were his own. Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe, Told his strange tale of midnight melting snow; And dark--plumed Hamlet, with his cloak and blade, Looked on the royal ghost, himself a shade. All in one flash, his youthful memories came, Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame, As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong dream, While the last bubble rises through the stream.

Call him not old, whose visionary brain Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul. If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, Spring with her birds, or children at their play, Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art, Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, Turn to the record where his years are told,-- Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old! What magic power has changed the faded mime? One breath of memory on the dust of time. As the last window in the buttressed wall Of some gray minster tottering to its fall, Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread, A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red, Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows, And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane See angels glow in every shapeless stain; So streamed the vision through his sunken eye, Clad in the splendors of his morning sky. All the wild hopes his eager boyhood knew, All the young fancies riper years proved true, The sweet, low-whispered words, the winning glance From queens of song, from Houris of the dance, Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing phrase, And Beauty's silence when her blush was praise, And melting Pride, her lashes wet with tears, Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns and cheers, Pangs of wild joy that perish on the tongue, And all that poets dream, but leave unsung!

In every heart some viewless founts are fed From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed; On the worn features of the weariest face Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace, As in old gardens left by exiled kings The marble basins tell of hidden springs, But, gray with dust, and overgrown with weeds, Their choking jets the passer little heeds, Till time's revenges break their seals away, And, clad in rainbow light, the waters play.

Good night, fond dreamer! let the curtain fall The world's a stage, and we are players all. A strange rehearsal! Kings without their crowns, And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing clowns, Speak the vain words that mock their throbbing hearts, As Want, stern prompter! spells them out their parts. The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay Is twice an actor in a twofold play. We smile at children when a painted screen Seems to their simple eyes a real scene; Ask the poor hireling, who has left his throne To seek the cheerless home he calls his own, Which of his double lives most real seems, The world of solid fact or scenic dreams? Canvas, or clouds,--the footlights, or the spheres,-- The play of two short hours, or seventy years? Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes, Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies; Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this; The cheating future lends the present's bliss; Life is a running shade, with fettered hands, That chases phantoms over shifting sands; Death a still spectre on a marble seat, With ever clutching palms and shackled feet; The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain, The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain, Death only grasps; to live is to pursue,-- Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true!

A POEM

DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, SEPTEMBER 9,1850

ANGEL of Death! extend thy silent reign! Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new domain No sable car along the winding road Has borne to earth its unresisting load; No sudden mound has risen yet to show Where the pale slumberer folds his arms below; No marble gleams to bid his memory live In the brief lines that hurrying Time can give; Yet, O Destroyer! from thy shrouded throne Look on our gift; this realm is all thine own!

Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft beguiled From their dim paths the children of the wild; The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy dells, The feathered warrior claimed its wooded swells, Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges show The pointed flints that left his fatal bow, Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian toil,-- Last of his wrecks that strews the alien soil! Here spread the fields that heaped their ripened store Till the brown arms of Labor held no more; The scythe's broad meadow with its dusky blush; The sickle's harvest with its velvet flush; The green-haired maize, her silken tresses laid, In soft luxuriance, on her harsh brocade; The gourd that swells beneath her tossing plume; The coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of bloom,-- Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive With the wide murmurs of the scattered hive; Here glowed the apple with the pencilled streak Of morning painted on its southern cheek; The pear's long necklace strung with golden drops, Arched, like the banian, o'er its pillared props; Here crept the growths that paid the laborer's care With the cheap luxuries wealth consents to spare; Here sprang the healing herbs which could not save The hand that reared them from the neighboring grave.

Yet all its varied charms, forever free From task and tribute, Labor yields to thee No more, when April sheds her fitful rain, The sower's hand shall cast its flying grain; No more, when Autumn strews the flaming leaves, The reaper's band shall gird its yellow sheaves; For thee alike the circling seasons flow Till the first blossoms heave the latest snow. In the stiff clod below the whirling drifts, In the loose soil the springing herbage lifts, In the hot dust beneath the parching weeds, Life's withering flower shall drop its shrivelled seeds; Its germ entranced in thy unbreathing sleep Till what thou sowest mightier angels reap!

Spirit of Beauty! let thy graces blend With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. Come from the bowers where Summer's life-blood flows Through the red lips of June's half-open rose, Dressed in bright hues, the loving sunshine's dower; For tranquil Nature owns no mourning flower. Come from the forest where the beech's screen Bars the fierce moonbeam with its flakes of green; Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy plains, Stanch the deep wound That dries the maple's veins. Come with the stream whose silver-braided rills Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills, Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings, Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs. Come from the steeps where look majestic forth From their twin thrones the Giants of the North On the huge shapes, that, crouching at their knees, Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees. Through the wide waste of ether, not in vain, Their softened gaze shall reach our distant plain; There, while the mourner turns his aching eyes On the blue mounds that print the bluer skies, Nature shall whisper that the fading view Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly hue. Cherub of Wisdom! let thy marble page Leave its sad lesson, new to every age; Teach us to live, not grudging every breath To the chill winds that waft us on to death, But ruling calmly every pulse it warms, And tempering gently every word it forms. Seraph of Love! in heaven's adoring zone, Nearest of all around the central throne, While with soft hands the pillowed turf we spread That soon shall hold us in its dreamless bed, With the low whisper,--Who shall first be laid In the dark chamber's yet unbroken shade?-- Let thy sweet radiance shine rekindled here, And all we cherish grow more truly dear. Here in the gates of Death's o'erhanging vault, Oh, teach us kindness for our brother's fault Lay all our wrongs beneath this peaceful sod, And lead our hearts to Mercy and its God.

FATHER of all! in Death's relentless claim We read thy mercy by its sterner name; In the bright flower that decks the solemn bier, We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; In the deep lessons that affliction draws, We trace the curves of thy encircling laws; In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, We own the love that calls us back to Thee!

Through the hushed street, along the silent plain, The spectral future leads its mourning train, Dark with the shadows of uncounted bands, Where man's white lips and woman's wringing hands Track the still burden, rolling slow before, That love and kindness can protect no more; The smiling babe that, called to mortal strife, Shuts its meek eyes and drops its little life; The drooping child who prays in vain to live, And pleads for help its parent cannot give; The pride of beauty stricken in its flower; The strength of manhood broken in an hour; Age in its weakness, bowed by toil and care, Traced in sad lines beneath its silvered hair.

The sun shall set, and heaven's resplendent spheres Gild the smooth turf unhallowed yet by tears, But ah! how soon the evening stars will shed Their sleepless light around the slumbering dead!

Take them, O Father, in immortal trust! Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, Till the last angel rolls the stone away, And a new morning brings eternal day!

TO GOVERNOR SWAIN

DEAR GOVERNOR, if my skiff might brave The winds that lift the ocean wave, The mountain stream that loops and swerves Through my broad meadow's channelled curves Should waft me on from bound to bound To where the River weds the Sound, The Sound should give me to the Sea, That to the Bay, the Bay to thee.

It may not be; too long the track To follow down or struggle back. The sun has set on fair Naushon Long ere my western blaze is gone; The ocean disk is rolling dark In shadows round your swinging bark, While yet the yellow sunset fills The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills; The day-star wakes your island deer Long ere my barnyard chanticleer; Your mists are soaring in the blue While mine are sparks of glittering dew.

It may not be; oh, would it might, Could I live o'er that glowing night! What golden hours would come to life, What goodly feats of peaceful strife,-- Such jests, that, drained of every joke, The very bank of language broke,-- Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died With stitches in his belted side; While Time, caught fast in pleasure's chain, His double goblet snapped in twain, And stood with half in either hand,-- Both brimming full,--but not of sand!

It may not be; I strive in vain To break my slender household chain,-- Three pairs of little clasping hands, One voice, that whispers, not commands. Even while my spirit flies away, My gentle jailers murmur nay; All shapes of elemental wrath They raise along my threatened path; The storm grows black, the waters rise, The mountains mingle with the skies, The mad tornado scoops the ground, The midnight robber prowls around,-- Thus, kissing every limb they tie, They draw a knot and heave a sigh, Till, fairly netted in the toil, My feet are rooted to the soil. Only the soaring wish is free!-- And that, dear Governor, flies to thee! PITTSFIELD, 1851.

TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND

THE seed that wasteful autumn cast To waver on its stormy blast, Long o'er the wintry desert tost, Its living germ has never lost. Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, It feels the kindling ray of spring, And, starting from its dream of death, Pours on the air its perfumed breath.

So, parted by the rolling flood, The love that springs from common blood Needs but a single sunlit hour Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, From shore to shore, from zone to zone, Where summer's falling roses stain The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, Or where the lichen creeps below Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow.

Though fiery sun and stiffening cold May change the fair ancestral mould, No winter chills, no summer drains The life-blood drawn from English veins, Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows The love that with its fountain rose, Unchanged by space, unwronged by time, From age to age, from clime to clime! 1852.

AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH

COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, And leave the crowded hall For where the eyes of twilight shine O'er evening's western wall.

These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, Each with its leafy crown; Hark! from their sides a thousand rills Come singing sweetly down.

A thousand rills; they leap and shine, Strained through the shadowy nooks, Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, They swell a hundred brooks.

A hundred brooks, and still they run With ripple, shade, and gleam, Till, clustering all their braids in one, They flow a single stream.

A bracelet spun from mountain mist, A silvery sash unwound, With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist It writhes to reach the Sound.

This is my bark,--a pygmy's ship; Beneath a child it rolls; Fear not,--one body makes it dip, But not a thousand souls.

Float we the grassy banks between; Without an oar we glide; The meadows, drest in living green, Unroll on either side.

Come, take the book we love so well, And let us read and dream We see whate'er its pages tell, And sail an English stream.

Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, Still trilling as he flies; The linnet sings as there he sung; The unseen cuckoo cries,

And daisies strew the banks along, And yellow kingcups shine, With cowslips, and a primrose throng, And humble celandine.

Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed Her daughter in the West, The fount was drained that opened first; She bared her other breast.

On the young planet's orient shore Her morning hand she tried; Then turned the broad medallion o'er And stamped the sunset side.

Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, Her elm with hanging spray; She wears her mountain diadem Still in her own proud way.

Look on the forests' ancient kings, The hemlock's towering pride Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, And fell before it died.

Nor think that Nature saves her bloom And slights our grassy plain; For us she wears her court costume,-- Look on its broidered train;

The lily with the sprinkled dots, Brands of the noontide beam; The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, Its double in the stream,

As if some wounded eagle's breast, Slow throbbing o'er the plain, Had left its airy path impressed In drops of scarlet rain.

And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; There thrilled the thrush's soul; And look! that flash of flamy wings,-- The fire-plumed oriole!

Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, Flung from the bright, blue sky; Below, the robin hops, and whoops His piercing, Indian cry.

Beauty runs virgin in the woods Robed in her rustic green, And oft a longing thought intrudes, As if we might have seen.

Her every finger's every joint Ringed with some golden line, Poet whom Nature did anoint Had our wild home been thine.

Yet think not so; Old England's blood Runs warm in English veins; But wafted o'er the icy flood Its better life remains.

Our children know each wildwood smell, The bayberry and the fern, The man who does not know them well Is all too old to learn.

Be patient! On the breathing page Still pants our hurried past; Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, The poet comes the last!

Though still the lark-voiced matins ring The world has known so long; The wood-thrush of the West shall sing Earth's last sweet even-song!

AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE

SHINE soft, ye trembling tears of light That strew the mourning skies; Hushed in the silent dews of night The harp of Erin lies.

What though her thousand years have past Of poets, saints, and kings,-- Her echoes only hear the last That swept those golden strings.

Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, The balmiest wreaths ye wear, Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers Heaven's own ambrosial air.

Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, By shadowy grove and rill; Thy song will soothe us while we own That his was sweeter still.

Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him Who gave thee swifter wings, Nor let thine envious shadow dim The light his glory flings.

If in his cheek unholy blood Burned for one youthful hour, 'T was but the flushing of the bud That blooms a milk-white flower.

Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, Who loved thy smiles so well, And spread thy mantle o'er his rest Of rose and asphodel.

The bark has sailed the midnight sea, The sea without a shore, That waved its parting sign to thee,-- "A health to thee, Tom Moore!"

And thine, long lingering on the strand, Its bright-hued streamers furled, Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, To seek the silent world.

Not silent! no, the radiant stars Still singing as they shine, Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, Have voices sweet as thine.

Wake, then, in happier realms above, The songs of bygone years, Till angels learn those airs of love That ravished mortal ears!

AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS

"Purpureos spargam flores."

THE wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave Is lying on thy Roman grave, Yet on its turf young April sets Her store of slender violets; Though all the Gods their garlands shower, I too may bring one purple flower. Alas! what blossom shall I bring, That opens in my Northern spring? The garden beds have all run wild, So trim when I was yet a child; Flat plantains and unseemly stalks Have crept across the gravel walks; The vines are dead, long, long ago, The almond buds no longer blow. No more upon its mound I see The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; Where once the tulips used to show, In straggling tufts the pansies grow; The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem, The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," Though its long blade of glossy green And pallid stripe may still be seen. Nature, who treads her nobles down, And gives their birthright to the clown, Has sown her base-born weedy things Above the garden's queens and kings. Yet one sweet flower of ancient race Springs in the old familiar place. When snows were melting down the vale, And Earth unlaced her icy mail, And March his stormy trumpet blew, And tender green came peeping through, I loved the earliest one to seek That broke the soil with emerald beak, And watch the trembling bells so blue Spread on the column as it grew. Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame The sweet, dead poet's holy name; The God of music gave thee birth, Called from the crimson-spotted earth, Where, sobbing his young life away, His own fair Hyacinthus lay. The hyacinth my garden gave Shall lie upon that Roman grave!

AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY

ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there.

Morning: a woman looking on the sea; Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee! Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns.

And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, And torches flaring in the weedy caves, Where'er the waters lay with icy hands The shapes uplifted from their coral graves.

Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks, And lean, wild children gather from the shore To the black hovels bedded in the rocks.

But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, "One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!" Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, Raised the pale burden on his level shield.

Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire; His form a nobler element shall claim; Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame.

Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; All else has risen in yon silvery cloud.

Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art.

Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh, O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim,-- In all the mansions of the house on high, Say not that Mercy has not one for him!

AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES

As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream, As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream, There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me,-- The vision is over,--the rivulet free.

We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March, Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch, And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day, We hear the warm panting of beautiful May.

We will part before Summer has opened her wing, And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring, While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud, And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood.

It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground; No hand shall replace it,--it rests where it fell,--- It is but one word that we all know too well.

Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye, If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky; The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain Will turn for a moment and look at his chain.

Our parting is not as the friendship of years, That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears; We have walked in a garden, and, looking around, Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found.

But now at the gate of the garden we stand, And the moment has come for unclasping the hand; Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat?

Nay! hold it one moment,--the last we may share,-- I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare; You may pass through the doorway in rank or in file, If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile.

For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part, When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell.

THE HUDSON

AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY

'T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn, Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn; The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long, And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song.

"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,"-- She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; "Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played; Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid."

I wandered afar from the land of my birth, I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream.

I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine; I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side.

But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, I care not who sees it,--no blush for it here!

Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West! I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled!

December, 1854.

THE NEW EDEN

MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, AT STOCKBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 13,1854

SCARCE could the parting ocean close, Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow, When o'er the rugged desert rose The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough.

Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field The rippling grass, the nodding grain, Such growths as English meadows yield To scanty sun and frequent rain.

But when the fiery days were done, And Autumn brought his purple haze, Then, kindling in the slanted sun, The hillsides gleamed with golden maize.

The food was scant, the fruits were few A red-streak glistening here and there; Perchance in statelier precincts grew Some stern old Puritanic pear.

Austere in taste, and tough at core, Its unrelenting bulk was shed, To ripen in the Pilgrim's store When all the summer sweets were fled.

Such was his lot, to front the storm With iron heart and marble brow, Nor ripen till his earthly form Was cast from life's autumnal bough.

But ever on the bleakest rock We bid the brightest beacon glow, And still upon the thorniest stock The sweetest roses love to blow.

So on our rude and wintry soil We feed the kindling flame of art, And steal the tropic's blushing spoil To bloom on Nature's ice-clad heart.

See how the softening Mother's breast Warms to her children's patient wiles, Her lips by loving Labor pressed Break in a thousand dimpling smiles,

From when the flushing bud of June Dawns with its first auroral hue, Till shines the rounded harvest-moon, And velvet dahlias drink the dew.

Nor these the only gifts she brings; Look where the laboring orchard groans, And yields its beryl-threaded strings For chestnut burs and hemlock cones.

Dear though the shadowy maple be, And dearer still the whispering pine, Dearest yon russet-laden tree Browned by the heavy rubbing kine!

There childhood flung its rustling stone, There venturous boyhood learned to climb,-- How well the early graft was known Whose fruit was ripe ere harvest-time!

Nor be the Fleming's pride forgot, With swinging drops and drooping bells, Freckled and splashed with streak and spot, On the warm-breasted, sloping swells;

Nor Persia's painted garden-queen,-- Frail Houri of the trellised wall,-- Her deep-cleft bosom scarfed with green,-- Fairest to see, and first to fall.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

When man provoked his mortal doom, And Eden trembled as he fell, When blossoms sighed their last perfume, And branches waved their long farewell,

One sucker crept beneath the gate, One seed was wafted o'er the wall, One bough sustained his trembling weight; These left the garden,--these were all.

And far o'er many a distant zone These wrecks of Eden still are flung The fruits that Paradise hath known Are still in earthly gardens hung.

Yes, by our own unstoried stream The pink-white apple-blossoms burst That saw the young Euphrates gleam,-- That Gihon's circling waters nursed.

For us the ambrosial pear--displays The wealth its arching branches hold, Bathed by a hundred summery days In floods of mingling fire and gold.

And here, where beauty's cheek of flame With morning's earliest beam is fed, The sunset-painted peach may claim To rival its celestial red.

. . . . . . . . . . .

What though in some unmoistened vale The summer leaf grow brown and sere, Say, shall our star of promise fail That circles half the rolling sphere,

From beaches salt with bitter spray, O'er prairies green with softest rain, And ridges bright with evening's ray, To rocks that shade the stormless main?

If by our slender-threaded streams The blade and leaf and blossom die, If, drained by noontide's parching beams, The milky veins of Nature dry,

See, with her swelling bosom bare, Yon wild-eyed Sister in the West,-- The ring of Empire round her hair, The Indian's wampum on her breast!

We saw the August sun descend, Day after day, with blood-red stain, And the blue mountains dimly blend With smoke-wreaths from the burning plain;

Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings We sat and told the withering hours, Till Heaven unsealed its hoarded springs, And bade them leap in flashing showers.

Yet in our Ishmael's thirst we knew The mercy of the Sovereign hand Would pour the fountain's quickening dew To feed some harvest of the land.

No flaming swords of wrath surround Our second Garden of the Blest; It spreads beyond its rocky bound, It climbs Nevada's glittering crest.

God keep the tempter from its gate! God shield the children, lest they fall From their stern fathers' free estate,-- Till Ocean is its only wall!

SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1855

NEW ENGLAND, we love thee; no time can erase From the hearts of thy children the smile on thy face. 'T is the mother's fond look of affection and pride, As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride.

His bride may be fresher in beauty's young flower; She may blaze in the jewels she brings with her dower. But passion must chill in Time's pitiless blast; The one that first loved us will love to the last.

You have left the dear land of the lake and the hill, But its winds and its waters will talk with you still. "Forget not," they whisper, "your love is our debt," And echo breathes softly, "We never forget."

The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming around, But your hearts have flown back o'er the waves of the Sound; They have found the brown home where their pulses were born; They are throbbing their way through the trees and the corn.

There are roofs you remember,--their glory is fled; There are mounds in the churchyard,--one sigh for the dead. There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scattered around; But Earth has no spot like that corner of ground.

Come, let us be cheerful,--remember last night, How they cheered us, and--never mind--meant it all right; To-night, we harm nothing,--we love in the lump; Here's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of the pump!

Here 's to all the good people, wherever they be, Who have grown in the shade of the liberty-tree; We all love its leaves, and its blossoms and fruit, But pray have a care of the fence round its root.

We should like to talk big; it's a kind of a right, When the tongue has got loose and the waistband grown tight; But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau, On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow.

Enough! There are gentlemen waiting to talk, Whose words are to mine as the flower to the stalk. Stand by your old mother whatever befall; God bless all her children! Good night to you all!

FAREWELL

TO J. R. LOWELL

FAREWELL, for the bark has her breast to the tide, And the rough arms of Ocean are stretched for his bride; The winds from the mountain stream over the bay; One clasp of the hand, then away and away!

I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore; The sun is declining, I see it once more; To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field, To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield.

Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath, With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death; Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail Has left her unaided to strive with the gale.

There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast, That will light the dark hour till its danger has past; There are prayers that will plead with the storm when it raves, And whisper "Be still!" to the turbulent waves.

Nay, think not that Friendship has called us in vain To join the fair ring ere we break it again; There is strength in its circle,--you lose the bright star, But its sisters still chain it, though shining afar.

I give you one health in the juice of the vine, The blood of the vineyard shall mingle with mine; Thus, thus let us drain the last dew-drops of gold, As we empty our hearts of the blessings they hold.

April 29, 1855.

FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB

THE mountains glitter in the snow A thousand leagues asunder; Yet here, amid the banquet's glow, I hear their voice of thunder; Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks; A flowing stream is summoned; Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks; Monadnock to Ben Lomond!

Though years have clipped the eagle's plume That crowned the chieftain's bonnet, The sun still sees the heather bloom, The silver mists lie on it;

With tartan kilt and philibeg, What stride was ever bolder Than his who showed the naked leg Beneath the plaided shoulder?

The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills, That heard the bugles blowing When down their sides the crimson rills With mingled blood were flowing; The hunts where gallant hearts were game, The slashing on the border, The raid that swooped with sword and flame, Give place to "law and order."

Not while the rocking steeples reel With midnight tocsins ringing, Not while the crashing war-notes peal, God sets his poets singing; The bird is silent in the night, Or shrieks a cry of warning While fluttering round the beacon-light,-- But hear him greet the morning!

The lark of Scotia's morning sky! Whose voice may sing his praises? With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye, He walked among the daisies, Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong He soared to fields of glory; But left his land her sweetest song And earth her saddest story.

'T is not the forts the builder piles That chain the earth together; The wedded crowns, the sister isles, Would laugh at such a tether; The kindling thought, the throbbing words, That set the pulses beating, Are stronger than the myriad swords Of mighty armies meeting.

Thus while within the banquet glows, Without, the wild winds whistle, We drink a triple health,--the Rose, The Shamrock, and the Thistle Their blended hues shall never fade Till War has hushed his cannon,-- Close-twined as ocean-currents braid The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon!

ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY

CELEBRATION OF THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, FEBRUARY 22, 1856

WELCOME to the day returning, Dearer still as ages flow, While the torch of Faith is burning, Long as Freedom's altars glow! See the hero whom it gave us Slumbering on a mother's breast; For the arm he stretched to save us, Be its morn forever blest!

Hear the tale of youthful glory, While of Britain's rescued band Friend and foe repeat the story, Spread his fame o'er sea and land, Where the red cross, proudly streaming, Flaps above the frigate's deck, Where the golden lilies, gleaming, Star the watch-towers of Quebec.

Look! The shadow on the dial Marks the hour of deadlier strife; Days of terror, years of trial, Scourge a nation into life. Lo, the youth, become her leader All her baffled tyrants yield; Through his arm the Lord hath freed her; Crown him on the tented field!

Vain is Empire's mad temptation Not for him an earthly crown He whose sword hath freed a nation Strikes the offered sceptre down. See the throneless Conqueror seated, Ruler by a people's choice; See the Patriot's task completed; Hear the Father's dying voice!

"By the name that you inherit, By the sufferings you recall, Cherish the fraternal spirit; Love your country first of all! Listen not to idle questions If its bands maybe untied; Doubt the patriot whose suggestions Strive a nation to divide!"

Father! We, whose ears have tingled With the discord-notes of shame,-- We, whose sires their blood have mingled In the battle's thunder-flame,-- Gathering, while this holy morning Lights the land from sea to sea, Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning; Trust us, while we honor thee!

BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER

JANUARY 18, 1856

WHEN life hath run its largest round Of toil and triumph, joy and woe, How brief a storied page is found To compass all its outward show!

The world-tried sailor tires and droops; His flag is rent, his keel forgot; His farthest voyages seem but loops That float from life's entangled knot.

But when within the narrow space Some larger soul hath lived and wrought, Whose sight was open to embrace The boundless realms of deed and thought,--

When, stricken by the freezing blast, A nation's living pillars fall, How rich the storied page, how vast, A word, a whisper, can recall!

No medal lifts its fretted face, Nor speaking marble cheats your eye, Yet, while these pictured lines I trace, A living image passes by:

A roof beneath the mountain pines; The cloisters of a hill-girt plain; The front of life's embattled lines; A mound beside the heaving main.

These are the scenes: a boy appears; Set life's round dial in the sun, Count the swift arc of seventy years, His frame is dust; his task is done.

Yet pause upon the noontide hour, Ere the declining sun has laid His bleaching rays on manhood's power, And look upon the mighty shade.

No gloom that stately shape can hide, No change uncrown its brow; behold I Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, Earth has no double from its mould.

Ere from the fields by valor won The battle-smoke had rolled away, And bared the blood-red setting sun, His eyes were opened on the day.

His land was but a shelving strip Black with the strife that made it free He lived to see its banners dip Their fringes in the Western sea.

The boundless prairies learned his name, His words the mountain echoes knew, The Northern breezes swept his fame From icy lake to warm bayou.

In toil he lived; in peace he died; When life's full cycle was complete, Put off his robes of power and pride, And laid them at his Master's feet.

His rest is by the storm-swept waves Whom life's wild tempests roughly trie Whose heart was like the streaming eaves Of ocean, throbbing at his side.

Death's cold white hand is like the snow Laid softly on the furrowed hill, It hides the broken seams below, And leaves the summit brighter still.

In vain the envious tongue upbraids; His name a nation's heart shall keep Till morning's latest sunlight fades On the blue tablet of the deep.

THE VOICELESS

WE count the broken lyres that rest Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, But o'er their silent sister's breast The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them:-- Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- Weep for the voiceless, who have known The cross without the crown of glory Not where Leucadian breezes sweep O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, But where the glistening night-dews weep On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

O hearts that break and give no sign Save whitening lip and fading tresses, Till Death pours out his longed-for wine Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- If singing breath or echoing chord To every hidden pang were given, What endless melodies were poured, As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

THE TWO STREAMS

BEHOLD the rocky wall That down its sloping sides Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, In rushing river-tides!

Yon stream, whose sources run Turned by a pebble's edge, Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun Through the cleft mountain-ledge.

The slender rill had strayed, But for the slanting stone, To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid Of foam-flecked Oregon.

So from the heights of Will Life's parting stream descends, And, as a moment turns its slender rill, Each widening torrent bends,--

From the same cradle's side, From the same mother's knee,-- One to long darkness and the frozen tide, One to the Peaceful Sea!

THE PROMISE

NOT charity we ask, Nor yet thy gift refuse; Please thy light fancy with the easy task Only to look and choose.

The little-heeded toy That wins thy treasured gold May be the dearest memory, holiest joy, Of coming years untold.

Heaven rains on every heart, But there its showers divide, The drops of mercy choosing, as they part, The dark or glowing side.

One kindly deed may turn The fountain of thy soul To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee burn Long as its currents roll.

The pleasures thou hast planned,-- Where shall their memory be When the white angel with the freezing hand Shall sit and watch by thee?

Living, thou dost not live, If mercy's spring run dry; What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely give, Dying, thou shalt not die.

HE promised even so! To thee his lips repeat,-- Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe Have washed thy Master's feet!

March 20, 1859.

AVIS

I MAY not rightly call thy name,-- Alas! thy forehead never knew The kiss that happier children claim, Nor glistened with baptismal dew.

Daughter of want and wrong and woe, I saw thee with thy sister-band, Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.

"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek, At once a woman and a child, The saint uncrowned I came to seek Drew near to greet us,--spoke, and smiled.

God gave that sweet sad smile she wore All wrong to shame, all souls to win,-- A heavenly sunbeam sent before Her footsteps through a world of sin.

"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,-- The story known through all the vale Where Avis and her sisters dwell.

With the lost children running wild, Strayed from the hand of human care, They find one little refuse child Left helpless in its poisoned lair.

The primal mark is on her face,-- The chattel-stamp,--the pariah-stain That follows still her hunted race,-- The curse without the crime of Cain.

How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate The little suffering outcast's ail? Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale.

Ah, veil the living death from sight That wounds our beauty-loving eye! The children turn in selfish fright, The white-lipped nurses hurry by.

Take her, dread Angel! Break in love This bruised reed and make it thine!-- No voice descended from above, But Avis answered, "She is mine."

The task that dainty menials spurn The fair young girl has made her own; Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn The toils, the duties yet unknown.

So Love and Death in lingering strife Stand face to face from day to day, Still battling for the spoil of Life While the slow seasons creep away.

Love conquers Death; the prize is won; See to her joyous bosom pressed The dusky daughter of the sun,-- The bronze against the marble breast!

Her task is done; no voice divine Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame. No eye can see the aureole shine That rings her brow with heavenly flame.

Yet what has holy page more sweet, Or what had woman's love more fair, When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet With flowing eyes and streaming hair?

Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown, The Angel of that earthly throng, And let thine image live alone To hallow this unstudied song!

THE LIVING TEMPLE

NOT in the world of light alone, Where God has built his blazing throne, Nor yet alone in earth below, With belted seas that come and go, And endless isles of sunlit green, Is all thy Maker's glory seen: Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-- Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, Whose streams of brightening purple rush, Fired with a new and livelier blush, While all their burden of decay The ebbing current steals away, And red with Nature's flame they start From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask, Forever quivering o'er his task, While far and wide a crimson jet Leaps forth to fill the woven net Which in unnumbered crossing tides The flood of burning life divides, Then, kindling each decaying part, Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame Behold the outward moving frame, Its living marbles jointed strong With glistening band and silvery thong, And linked to reason's guiding reins By myriad rings in trembling chains, Each graven with the threaded zone Which claims it as the master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white Is braided out of seven-hued light, Yet in those lucid globes no ray By any chance shall break astray. Hark how the rolling surge of sound, Arches and spirals circling round, Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds All thought in its mysterious folds; That feels sensation's faintest thrill, And flashes forth the sovereign will; Think on the stormy world that dwells Locked in its dim and clustering cells! The lightning gleams of power it sheds Along its hollow glassy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine To make these mystic temples thine! When wasting age and wearying strife Have sapped the leaning walls of life, When darkness gathers over all, And the last tottering pillars fall, Take the poor dust thy mercy warms, And mould it into heavenly forms!

AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL

TO J. R. LOWELL

WE will not speak of years to-night,-- For what have years to bring But larger floods of love and light, And sweeter songs to sing?

We will not drown in wordy praise The kindly thoughts that rise; If Friendship own one tender phrase, He reads it in our eyes.

We need not waste our school-boy art To gild this notch of Time;-- Forgive me if my wayward heart Has throbbed in artless rhyme.

Enough for him the silent grasp That knits us hand in hand, And he the bracelet's radiant clasp That locks our circling band.

Strength to his hours of manly toil! Peace to his starlit dreams! Who loves alike the furrowed soil, The music-haunted streams!

Sweet smiles to keep forever bright The sunshine on his lips, And faith that sees the ring of light Round nature's last eclipse!

February 22, 1859.

A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE

TO J. F. CLARKE

WHO is the shepherd sent to lead, Through pastures green, the Master's sheep? What guileless "Israelite indeed" The folded flock may watch and keep?

He who with manliest spirit joins The heart of gentlest human mould, With burning light and girded loins, To guide the flock, or watch the fold;

True to all Truth the world denies, Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; Not always right in all men's eyes, But faithful to the light within;

Who asks no meed of earthly fame, Who knows no earthly master's call, Who hopes for man, through guilt and shame, Still answering, "God is over all";

Who makes another's grief his own, Whose smile lends joy a double cheer; Where lives the saint, if such be known?-- Speak softly,--such an one is here!

O faithful shepherd! thou hast borne The heat and burden of the clay; Yet, o'er thee, bright with beams unshorn, The sun still shows thine onward way.

To thee our fragrant love we bring, In buds that April half displays, Sweet first-born angels of the spring, Caught in their opening hymn of praise.

What though our faltering accents fail, Our captives know their message well, Our words unbreathed their lips exhale, And sigh more love than ours can tell.

April 4, 1860.

THE GRAY CHIEF

FOR THE MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1859

'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er, And crown with honest praise The gray old chief, who strikes no more The blow of better days.

Before the true and trusted sage With willing hearts we bend, When years have touched with hallowing age Our Master, Guide, and Friend.

For all his manhood's labor past, For love and faith long tried, His age is honored to the last, Though strength and will have died.

But when, untamed by toil and strife, Full in our front he stands, The torch of light, the shield of life, Still lifted in his hands,

No temple, though its walls resound With bursts of ringing cheers, Can hold the honors that surround His manhood's twice-told years!

THE LAST LOOK

W. W. SWAIN

BEHOLD--not him we knew! This was the prison which his soul looked through, Tender, and brave, and true.

His voice no more is heard; And his dead name--that dear familiar word-- Lies on our lips unstirred.

He spake with poet's tongue; Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung: He shall not die unsung.

Grief tried his love, and pain; And the long bondage of his martyr-chain Vexed his sweet soul,--in vain!

It felt life's surges break, As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake, Smiling while tempests wake.

How can we sorrow more? Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before To that untrodden shore!

Lo, through its leafy screen, A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green, Untrodden, half unseen!

Here let his body rest, Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best May slide above his breast.

Smooth his uncurtained bed; And if some natural tears are softly shed, It is not for the dead.

Fold the green turf aright For the long hours before the morning's light, And say the last Good Night!

And plant a clear white stone Close by those mounds which hold his loved, his own,-- Lonely, but not alone.

Here let him sleeping lie, Till Heaven's bright watchers slumber in the sky And Death himself shall die!

Naushon, September 22, 1858.

IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR.

HE was all sunshine; in his face The very soul of sweetness shone; Fairest and gentlest of his race; None like him we can call our own.

Something there was of one that died In her fresh spring-time long ago, Our first dear Mary, angel-eyed, Whose smile it was a bliss to know.

Something of her whose love imparts Such radiance to her day's decline, We feel its twilight in our hearts Bright as the earliest morning-shine.

Yet richer strains our eye could trace That made our plainer mould more fair, That curved the lip with happier grace, That waved the soft and silken hair.

Dust unto dust! the lips are still That only spoke to cheer and bless; The folded hands lie white and chill Unclasped from sorrow's last caress.

Leave him in peace; he will not heed These idle tears we vainly pour, Give back to earth the fading weed Of mortal shape his spirit wore.

"Shall I not weep my heartstrings torn, My flower of love that falls half blown, My youth uncrowned, my life forlorn, A thorny path to walk alone?"

O Mary! one who bore thy name, Whose Friend and Master was divine, Sat waiting silent till He came, Bowed down in speechless grief like thine.

"Where have ye laid him?" "Come," they say, Pointing to where the loved one slept; Weeping, the sister led the way,-- And, seeing Mary, "Jesus wept."

He weeps with thee, with all that mourn, And He shall wipe thy streaming eyes Who knew all sorrows, woman-born,-- Trust in his word; thy dead shall rise!

April 15, 1860.

MARTHA

DIED JANUARY 7, 1861

SEXTON! Martha's dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! Her weary hands their labor cease; Good night, poor Martha,--sleep in peace! Toll the bell!

Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! For many a year has Martha said, "I'm old and poor,--would I were dead!" Toll the bell!

Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! She'll bring no more, by day or night, Her basket full of linen white. Toll the bell!

Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! 'T is fitting she should lie below A pure white sheet of drifted snow. Toll the bell!

Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! Sleep, Martha, sleep, to wake in light, Where all the robes are stainless white. Toll the bell!

MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE

1857

I THANK you, MR. PRESIDENT, you've kindly broke the ice; Virtue should always be the first,--I 'm only SECOND VICE-- (A vice is something with a screw that's made to hold its jaw Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw).

Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the babes of days gone by, All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose milk is never dry, We come again, like half-grown boys, and gather at her beck About her knees, and on her lap, and clinging round her neck.

We find her at her stately door, and in her ancient chair, Dressed in the robes of red and green she always loved to wear. Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek its morning flame; We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish still the same.

We have been playing many an hour, and far away we've strayed, Some laughing in the cheerful sun, some lingering in the shade; And some have tired, and laid them down where darker shadows fall, Dear as her loving voice may be, they cannot hear its call.

What miles we 've travelled since we shook the dew-drops from our shoes We gathered on this classic green, so famed for heavy dues! How many boys have joined the game, how many slipped away, Since we've been running up and down, and having out our play!

One boy at work with book and brief, and one with gown and band, One sailing vessels on the pool, one digging sand, One flying paper kites on change, one planting little pills,-- The seeds of certain annual flowers well known as little bills.

What maidens met us on our way, and clasped us hand in hand! What cherubs,--not the legless kind, that fly, but never stand! How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver crown What sudden changes back again to youth's empurpled brown!

But fairer sights have met our eyes, and broader lights have shone, Since others lit their midnight lamps where once we trimmed our own; A thousand trains that flap the sky with flags of rushing fire, And, throbbing in the Thunderer's hand, Thought's million-chorded lyre.

We've seen the sparks of Empire fly beyond the mountain bars, Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they joined the setting stars; And ocean trodden into paths that trampling giants ford, To find the planet's vertebrae and sink its spinal cord.

We've tried reform,--and chloroform,--and both have turned our brain; When France called up the photograph, we roused the foe to pain; Just so those earlier sages shared the chaplet of renown,-- Hers sent a bladder to the clouds, ours brought their lightning down.

We've seen the little tricks of life, its varnish and veneer, Its stucco-fronts of character flake off and disappear, We 've learned that oft the brownest hands will heap the biggest pile, And met with many a "perfect brick" beneath a rimless "tile."

What dreams we 've had of deathless name, as scholars, statesmen, bards, While Fame, the lady with the trump, held up her picture cards! Till, having nearly played our game, she gayly whispered, "Ah! I said you should be something grand,--you'll soon be grandpapa."

Well, well, the old have had their day, the young must take their turn; There's something always to forget, and something still to learn; But how to tell what's old or young, the tap-root from the sprigs, Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs?

The wisest was a Freshman once, just freed from bar and bolt, As noisy as a kettle-drum, as leggy as a colt; Don't be too savage with the boys,--the Primer does not say The kitten ought to go to church because the cat doth prey.

The law of merit and of age is not the rule of three; Non constat that A. M. must prove as busy as A. B. When Wise the father tracked the son, ballooning through the skies, He taught a lesson to the old,--go thou and do like Wise!

Now then, old boys, and reverend youth, of high or low degree, Remember how we only get one annual out of three, And such as dare to simmer down three dinners into one Must cut their salads mighty short, and pepper well with fun.

I've passed my zenith long ago, it's time for me to set; A dozen planets wait to shine, and I am lingering yet, As sometimes in the blaze of day a milk-and-watery moon Stains with its dim and fading ray the lustrous blue of noon.

Farewell! yet let one echo rise to shake our ancient hall; God save the Queen,--whose throne is here,--the Mother of us all Till dawns the great commencement-day on every shore and sea, And "Expectantur" all mankind, to take their last Degree!

THE PARTING SONG

FESTIVAL OF THE ALUMNI, 1857

THE noon of summer sheds its ray On Harvard's holy ground; The Matron calls, the sons obey, And gather smiling round.

CHORUS. Then old and young together stand, The sunshine and the snow, As heart to heart, and hand in hand, We sing before we go!

Her hundred opening doors have swung Through every storied hall The pealing echoes loud have rung, "Thrice welcome one and all!" Then old and young, etc.

We floated through her peaceful bay, To sail life's stormy seas But left our anchor where it lay Beneath her green old trees. Then old and young, etc.

As now we lift its lengthening chain, That held us fast of old, The rusted rings grow bright again,-- Their iron turns to gold. Then old and young, etc.

Though scattered ere the setting sun, As leaves when wild winds blow, Our home is here, our hearts are one, Till Charles forgets to flow. Then old and young, etc.

FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL SANITARY ASSOCIATION

1860

WHAT makes the Healing Art divine? The bitter drug we buy and sell, The brands that scorch, the blades that shine, The scars we leave, the "cures" we tell?

Are these thy glories, holiest Art,-- The trophies that adorn thee best,-- Or but thy triumph's meanest part,-- Where mortal weakness stands confessed?

We take the arms that Heaven supplies For Life's long battle with Disease, Taught by our various need to prize Our frailest weapons, even these.

But ah! when Science drops her shield-- Its peaceful shelter proved in vain-- And bares her snow-white arm to wield The sad, stern ministry of pain;

When shuddering o'er the fount of life, She folds her heaven-anointed wings, To lift unmoved the glittering knife That searches all its crimson springs;

When, faithful to her ancient lore, She thrusts aside her fragrant balm For blistering juice, or cankering ore, And tames them till they cure or calm;

When in her gracious hand are seen The dregs and scum of earth and seas, Her kindness counting all things clean That lend the sighing sufferer ease;

Though on the field that Death has won, She save some stragglers in retreat;-- These single acts of mercy done Are but confessions of defeat.

What though our tempered poisons save Some wrecks of life from aches and ails; Those grand specifics Nature gave Were never poised by weights or scales!

God lent his creatures light and air, And waters open to the skies; Man locks him in a stifling lair, And wonders why his brother dies!

In vain our pitying tears are shed, In vain we rear the sheltering pile Where Art weeds out from bed to bed The plagues we planted by the mile!

Be that the glory of the past; With these our sacred toils begin So flies in tatters from its mast The yellow flag of sloth and sin,

And lo! the starry folds reveal The blazoned truth we hold so dear To guard is better than to heal,-- The shield is nobler than the spear!

FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

JANUARY 25, 1859

His birthday.--Nay, we need not speak The name each heart is beating,-- Each glistening eye and flushing cheek In light and flame repeating!

We come in one tumultuous tide,-- One surge of wild emotion,-- As crowding through the Frith of Clyde Rolls in the Western Ocean;

As when yon cloudless, quartered moon Hangs o'er each storied river, The swelling breasts of Ayr and Doon With sea green wavelets quiver.

The century shrivels like a scroll,-- The past becomes the present,-- And face to face, and soul to soul, We greet the monarch-peasant.

While Shenstone strained in feeble flights With Corydon and Phillis,-- While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's heights To snatch the Bourbon lilies,--

Who heard the wailing infant's cry, The babe beneath the sheeliug, Whose song to-night in every sky Will shake earth's starry ceiling,--

Whose passion-breathing voice ascends And floats like incense o'er us, Whose ringing lay of friendship blends With labor's anvil chorus?

We love him, not for sweetest song, Though never tone so tender; We love him, even in his wrong,-- His wasteful self-surrender.

We praise him, not for gifts divine,-- His Muse was born of woman,-- His manhood breathes in every line,-- Was ever heart more human?

We love him, praise him, just for this In every form and feature, Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss, He saw his fellow-creature!

No soul could sink beneath his love,-- Not even angel blasted; No mortal power could soar above The pride that all outlasted!

Ay! Heaven had set one living man Beyond the pedant's tether,-- His virtues, frailties, HE may scan, Who weighs them all together!

I fling my pebble on the cairn Of him, though dead, undying; Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn Beneath her daisies lying.

The waning suns, the wasting globe, Shall spare the minstrel's story,-- The centuries weave his purple robe, The mountain-mist of glory!

AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS

AUGUST 29, 1859

I REMEMBER--why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago? I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know; It must have been in 'forty--I would say 'thirty-nine-- We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine.

He said, "Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I, If we act like other people, shall be older by and by; What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be, There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea.

"We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange, For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change; But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill, And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill."

"I know it," I said, "old fellow; you speak the solemn truth; A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth; But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair, You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care.

"At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise; Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys; No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes, But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose."

But one fine August morning I found myself awake My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake! Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold, That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old!

But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their foolish stuff; A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough; At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray; I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say.

At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine; Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine, And when on the western summits the fading light appears, It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years.

There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old"; So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years, Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers.

Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round; Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned, Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told; Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict old.

No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim; Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb, Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends, The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends.

FOR THE FAIR IN AID OF THE FUND TO PROCURE BALL'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON

1630

ALL overgrown with bush and fern, And straggling clumps of tangled trees, With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, Bent eastward by the mastering breeze,-- With spongy bogs that drip and fill A yellow pond with muddy rain, Beneath the shaggy southern hill Lies wet and low the Shawinut plain. And hark! the trodden branches crack; A crow flaps off with startled scream; A straying woodchuck canters back; A bittern rises from the stream; Leaps from his lair a frightened deer; An otter plunges in the pool;-- Here comes old Shawmut's pioneer, The parson on his brindled bull!

1774

The streets are thronged with trampling feet, The northern hill is ridged with graves, But night and morn the drum is beat To frighten down the "rebel knaves." The stones of King Street still are red, And yet the bloody red-coats come I hear their pacing sentry's tread, The click of steel, the tap of drum, And over all the open green, Where grazed of late the harmless kine, The cannon's deepening ruts are seen, The war-horse stamps, the bayonets shine. The clouds are dark with crimson rain Above the murderous hirelings' den, And soon their whistling showers shall stain The pipe-clayed belts of Gage's men.

186-

Around the green, in morning light, The spired and palaced summits blaze, And, sunlike, from her Beacon-height The dome-crowned city spreads her rays; They span the waves, they belt the plains, They skirt the roads with bands of white, Till with a flash of gilded panes Yon farthest hillside bounds the sight. Peace, Freedom, Wealth! no fairer view, Though with the wild-bird's restless wings We sailed beneath the noontide's blue Or chased the moonlight's endless rings! Here, fitly raised by grateful hands His holiest memory to recall, The Hero's, Patriot's image stands; He led our sires who won them all!

November 14, 1859.

THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA A NIGHTMARE DREAM BY DAYLIGHT

Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea? Have you met with that dreadful old man? If you have n't been caught, you will be, you will be; For catch you he must and he can.

He does n't hold on by your throat, by your throat, As of old in the terrible tale; But he grapples you tight by the coat, by the coat, Till its buttons and button-holes fail.

There's the charm of a snake in his eye, in his eye, And a polypus-grip in his hands; You cannot go back, nor get by, nor get by, If you look at the spot where he stands.

Oh, you're grabbed! See his claw on your sleeve, on your sleeve! It is Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea! You're a Christian, no doubt you believe, you believe You're a martyr, whatever you be!

Is the breakfast-hour past? They must wait, they must wait, While the coffee boils sullenly down, While the Johnny-cake burns on the grate, on the grate, And the toast is done frightfully brown.

Yes, your dinner will keep; let it cool, let it cool, And Madam may worry and fret, And children half-starved go to school, go to school; He can't think of sparing you yet.

Hark! the bell for the train! "Come along! Come along! For there is n't a second to lose." "ALL ABOARD!" (He holds on.) "Fsht I ding-dong! Fsht! ding-dong!"-- You can follow on foot, if you choose.

There's a maid with a cheek like a peach, like a peach, That is waiting for you in the church;-- But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, And you leave your lost bride in the lurch.

There's a babe in a fit,--hurry quick! hurry quick! To the doctor's as fast as you can! The baby is off, while you stick, while you stick, In the grip of the dreadful Old Man!

I have looked on the face of the Bore, of the Bore; The voice of the Simple I know; I have welcomed the Flat at my door, at my door; I have sat by the side of the Slow;

I have walked like a lamb by the friend, by the friend, That stuck to my skirts like a bur; I have borne the stale talk without end, without end, Of the sitter whom nothing could stir.

But my hamstrings grow loose, and I shake, and I shake, At the sight of the dreadful Old Man; Yea, I quiver and quake, and I take, and I take, To my legs with what vigor I can!

Oh the dreadful Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea He's come back like the Wandering Jew! He has had his cold claw upon me, upon me,-- And be sure that he 'll have it on you!

INTERNATIONAL ODE

OUR FATHERS' LAND

GOD bless our Fathers' Land! Keep her in heart and hand One with our own! From all her foes defend, Be her brave People's Friend, On all her realms descend, Protect her Throne!

Father, with loving care Guard Thou her kingdom's Heir, Guide all his ways Thine arm his shelter be, From him by land and sea Bid storm and danger flee, Prolong his days!

Lord, let War's tempest cease, Fold the whole Earth in peace Under thy wings Make all thy nations one, All hearts beneath the sun, Till Thou shalt reign alone, Great King of kings!

A SENTIMENT OFFERED AT THE DINNER TO H. I. H. THE PRINCE NAPOLEON, AT THE REVERE HOUSE, SEPTEMBER 25,1861

THE land of sunshine and of song! Her name your hearts divine; To her the banquet's vows belong Whose breasts have poured its wine; Our trusty friend, our true ally Through varied change and chance So, fill your flashing goblets high,-- I give you, VIVE LA FRANCE!

Above our hosts in triple folds The selfsame colors spread, Where Valor's faithful arm upholds The blue, the white, the red; Alike each nation's glittering crest Reflects the morning's glance,-- Twin eagles, soaring east and west Once more, then, VIVE LA FRANCE!

Sister in trial! who shall count Thy generous friendship's claim, Whose blood ran mingling in the fount That gave our land its name, Till Yorktown saw in blended line Our conquering arms advance, And victory's double garlands twine Our banners? VIVE LA FRANCE!

O land of heroes! in our need One gift from Heaven we crave To stanch these wounds that vainly bleed,-- The wise to lead the brave! Call back one Captain of thy past From glory's marble trance, Whose name shall be a bugle-blast To rouse us! VIVE LA FRANCE!

Pluck Conde's baton from the trench, Wake up stout Charles Martel, Or find some woman's hand to clench The sword of La Pucelle! Give us one hour of old Turenne,-- One lift of Bayard's lance,-- Nay, call Marengo's Chief again To lead us! VIVE LA FRANCE!

Ah, hush! our welcome Guest shall hear But sounds of peace and joy; No angry echo vex thine ear, Fair Daughter of Savoy Once more! the land of arms and arts, Of glory, grace, romance; Her love lies warm in all our hearts God bless her! VIVE LA FRANCE!

BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE

SHE has gone,--she has left us in passion and pride,-- Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side! She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, We can never forget that our hearts have been one,-- Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name, From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame!

You were always too ready to fire at a touch; But we said, "She is hasty,--she does not mean much." We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent threat; But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!"

Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold? Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain That her petulant children would sever in vain.

They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil, Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil, Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their eaves, And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves:

In vain is the strife! When its fury is past, Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last, As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below.

Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts the die! Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with steel, The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal!

Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, There are battles with Fate that can never be won! The star-flowering banner must never be furled, For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world!

Go, then, our rash sister! afar and aloof, Run wild in the sunshine away from our roof; But when your heart aches and your feet have grown sore, Remember the pathway that leads to our door!

March 25, 1861.

NOTES: (For original print volume one)

[There stand the Goblet and the Sun.] The Goblet and the Sun (Vas-Sol), sculptured on a free-stone slab supported by five pillars, are the only designation of the family tomb of the Vassalls.

[Thus mocked the spoilers with his school-boy scorn.] See "Old Ironsides," of this volume.

[On other shores, above their mouldering towns.] Daniel Webster quoted several of the verses which follow, in his address at the laying of the corner-stone of the addition to the Capitol at Washington, July 4, 1851.

[Thou calm, chaste scholar.] Charles Chauncy Emerson; died May 9, 1836.

[And thou, dear friend, whom Science still deplores.] James Jackson, Jr., M. D.; died March 28, 1834.

[THE STEAMBOAT.] Mr. Emerson has quoted some lines from this poem, but somewhat disguised as he recalled them. It is never safe to quote poetry without referring to the original.

[Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound.] The churches referred to in the lines which follow are,-- 1. King's Chapel, the foundation of which was laid by Governor Shirley in 1749. 2. Brattle Street Church, consecrated in 1773. The completion of this edifice, the design of which included a spire, was prevented by the troubles of the Revolution, and its plain, square tower presented nothing more attractive than a massive simplicity. In the front of this tower, till the church was demolished in 1872, there was to be seen, half imbedded in the brick-work, a cannon-ball, which was thrown from the American fortifications at Cambridge, during the bombard-ment of the city, then occupied by the British troops. 3. The Old South, first occupied for public worship in 1730. 4. Park Street Church, built in 1809, the tall white steeple of which is the most conspicuous of all the Boston spires. 5. Christ Church, opened for public worship in 1723, and containing a set of eight bells, long the only chime in Boston.

[INTERNATIONAL ODE.] This ode was sung in unison by twelve hundred children of the public schools, to the air of "God save the Queen," at the visit of the Prince of Wales to Boston, October 18, 1860.

THE POETICAL WORKS

OF

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

[Volume 2 or the 1893 three volume set]

CONTENTS:

POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 (1851-1889) BILL AND JOE A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE" QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS AN IMPROMPTU THE OLD MAN DREAMS REMEMBER--FORGET OUR INDIAN SUMMER MARE RUBRUM THE Boys LINES A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH J. D. R. VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION "CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE" F. W. C. THE LAST CHARGE OUR OLDEST FRIEND SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH MY ANNUAL ALL HERE ONCE MORE THE OLD CRUISER HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING EVEN-SONG THE SMILING LISTENER OUR SWEET SINGER: J. A. H. C. M., H. S., J. K. W. WHAT I HAVE COME FOR OUR BANKER FOR CLASS-MEETING "AD AMICOS" HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT THE LAST SURVIVOR THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS THE SHADOWS BENJAMIN PEIRCE IN THE TWILIGHT A LOVING-CUP SONG THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP THE LYRE OF ANACREON THE OLD TUNE THE BROKEN CIRCLE THE ANGEL-THIEF AFTER THE CURFEW

POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1857-1858) THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS SUN AND SHADOW MUSA A PARTING HEALTH: To J. L. MOTLEY WHAT WE ALL THINK SPRING HAS COME PROLOGUE LATTER-DAY WARNINGS ALBUM VERSES A GOOD TIME GOING! THE LAST BLOSSOM CONTENTMENT AESTIVATION THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSE SHAY" PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY; OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER

POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1858-1859) UNDER THE VIOLETS HYMN OF TRUST A SUN-DAY HYMN THE CROOKED FOOTPATH IRIS, HER BOOK ROBINSON OF LEYDEN ST ANTHONY THE REFORMER THE OPENING OF THE PIANO MIDSUMMER DE SAUTY

POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1871-1872) HOMESICK IN HEAVEN FANTASIA AUNT TABITHA WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES

SONGS OF MANY SEASONS (1862-1874) OPENING THE WINDOW PROGRAMME

IN THE QUIET DAYS AN OLD-YEAR SONG DOROTHY Q: A FAMILY PORTRAIT THE ORGAN-BLOWER AT THE PANTOMIME AFTER THE FIRE A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY NEARING THE SNOW-LINE

IN WAR TIME TO CANAAN: A PURITAN WAR-SONG "THUS SAITH THE LORD, I OFFER THEE THREE THINGS" NEVER OR NOW ONE COUNTRY GOD SAVE THE FLAG! HYMN AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION HYMN FOR THE FAIR AT CHICAGO UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN ARMY HYMN PARTING HYMN THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY THE SWEET LITTLE MAN UNION AND LIBERTY

SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL AMERICA TO RUSSIA WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT To H W LONGFELLOW To CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS

MEMORIAL VERSES FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BOSTON, 1865 FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES, CAMBRIDGE JULY 21, 1865 EDWARD EVERETT: JANUARY 30, 1865 SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, APRIL 23, 1864 IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE, MAY 25, 1864 HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY: CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869 POEM AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1869 HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF HARVARD MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER 6, 1870 HYMN FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL AT CAMBRIDGE, 1874 HYMN AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES SUMNER, APRIL 29, 1874

RHYMES OF AN HOUR ADDRESS FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, N. Y. 1873 A SEA DIALOGUE CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC FOR THE CENTENNIAL DINNER, PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER, 1873 A POEM SERVED TO ORDER THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH No TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME A HYMN OF PEACE, TO THE MUSIC OF KELLER'S "AMERICAN HYMN"

NOTES

POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29

1851-1889

BILL AND JOE

COME, dear old comrade, you and I Will steal an hour from days gone by, The shining days when life was new, And all was bright with morning dew, The lusty days of long ago, When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail, And mine as brief appendix wear As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare; To-day, old friend, remember still That I am Joe and you are Bill.

You've won the great world's envied prize, And grand you look in people's eyes, With H O N. and L L. D. In big brave letters, fair to see,-- Your fist, old fellow! off they go!-- How are you, Bill? How are you, Joe?

You've worn the judge's ermined robe; You 've taught your name to half the globe; You've sung mankind a deathless strain; You've made the dead past live again The world may call you what it will, But you and I are Joe and Bill.

The chaffing young folks stare and say "See those old buffers, bent and gray,-- They talk like fellows in their teens! Mad, poor old boys! That's what it means,"-- And shake their heads; they little know The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe!--

How Bill forgets his hour of pride, While Joe sits smiling at his side; How Joe, in spite of time's disguise, Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes,-- Those calm, stern eyes that melt and fill As Joe looks fondly up at Bill.

Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame? A fitful tongue of leaping flame; A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust, That lifts a pinch of mortal dust; A few swift years, and who can show Which dust was Bill and which was Joe?

The weary idol takes his stand, Holds out his bruised and aching hand, While gaping thousands come and go,-- How vain it seems, this empty show! Till all at once his pulses thrill;-- 'T is poor old Joe's "God bless you, Bill!"

And shall we breathe in happier spheres The names that pleased our mortal ears; In some sweet lull of harp and song For earth-born spirits none too long, Just whispering of the world below Where this was Bill and that was Joe?

No matter; while our home is here No sounding name is half so dear; When fades at length our lingering day, Who cares what pompous tombstones say? Read on the hearts that love us still, Hic jacet Joe. Hic jacet Bill.

A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE"

1851

THE summer dawn is breaking On Auburn's tangled bowers, The golden light is waking On Harvard's ancient towers; The sun is in the sky That must see us do or die, Ere it shine on the line Of the CLASS OF '29.

At last the day is ended, The tutor screws no more, By doubt and fear attended Each hovers round the door, Till the good old Praeses cries, While the tears stand in his eyes, "You have passed, and are classed With the Boys of '29."

Not long are they in making The college halls their own, Instead of standing shaking, Too bashful to be known; But they kick the Seniors' shins Ere the second week begins, When they stray in the way Of the BOYS OF '29.

If a jolly set is trolling The last Der Freischutz airs, Or a "cannon bullet" rolling Comes bouncing down the stairs, The tutors, looking out, Sigh, "Alas! there is no doubt, 'T is the noise of the Boys Of the CLASS OF '29."

Four happy years together, By storm and sunshine tried, In changing wind and weather, They rough it side by side, Till they hear their Mother cry, "You are fledged, and you must fly," And the bell tolls the knell Of the days of '29.

Since then, in peace or trouble, Full many a year has rolled, And life has counted double The days that then we told; Yet we'll end as we've begun, For though scattered, we are one, While each year sees us here, Round the board of '29.

Though fate may throw between us The mountains or the sea, No time shall ever wean us, No distance set us free; But around the yearly board, When the flaming pledge is poured, It shall claim every name On the roll of '29.

To yonder peaceful ocean That glows with sunset fires, Shall reach the warm emotion This welcome day inspires, Beyond the ridges cold Where a brother toils for gold, Till it shine through the mine Round the Boy of '29.

If one whom fate has broken Shall lift a moistened eye, We'll say, before he 's spoken-- "Old Classmate, don't you cry! Here, take the purse I hold, There 's a tear upon the gold-- It was mine-it is thine-- A'n't we BOYS OF '29?"

As nearer still and nearer The fatal stars appear, The living shall be dearer With each encircling year, Till a few old men shall say, "We remember 't is the day-- Let it pass with a glass For the CLASS OF '29."

As one by one is falling Beneath the leaves or snows, Each memory still recalling, The broken ring shall close, Till the nightwinds softly pass O'er the green and growing grass, Where it waves on the graves Of the BOYS OF '29!

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1852

WHERE, oh where are the visions of morning, Fresh as the dews of our prime? Gone, like tenants that quit without warning, Down the back entry of time.

Where, oh where are life's lilies and roses, Nursed in the golden dawn's smile? Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses, On the old banks of the Nile.

Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas, Loving and lovely of yore? Look in the columns of old Advertisers,-- Married and dead by the score.

Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies, Saturday's triumph and joy? Gone, like our friend (--Greek--) Achilles, Homer's ferocious old boy.

Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion, Hopes like young eagles at play, Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion, How ye have faded away!

Yet, through the ebbing of Time's mighty river Leave our young blossoms to die, Let him roll smooth in his current forever, Till the last pebble is dry.

AN IMPROMPTU

Not premeditated

1853

THE clock has struck noon; ere it thrice tell the hours We shall meet round the table that blushes with flowers, And I shall blush deeper with shame-driven blood That I came to the banquet and brought not a bud.

Who cares that his verse is a beggar in art If you see through its rags the full throb of his heart? Who asks if his comrade is battered and tanned When he feels his warm soul in the clasp of his hand?

No! be it an epic, or be it a line, The Boys will all love it because it is mine; I sung their last song on the morn of the day That tore from their lives the last blossom of May.

It is not the sunset that glows in the wine, But the smile that beams over it, makes it divine; I scatter these drops, and behold, as they fall, The day-star of memory shines through them all!

And these are the last; they are drops that I stole From a wine-press that crushes the life from the soul, But they ran through my heart and they sprang to my brain Till our twentieth sweet summer was smiling again!

THE OLD MAN DREAMS

1854

OH for one hour of youthful joy! Give back my twentieth spring! I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy, Than reign, a gray-beard king.

Off with the spoils of wrinkled age! Away with Learning's crown! Tear out life's Wisdom-written page, And dash its trophies down!

One moment let my life-blood stream From boyhood's fount of flame! Give me one giddy, reeling dream Of life all love and fame.

My listening angel heard the prayer, And, calmly smiling, said, "If I but touch thy silvered hair Thy hasty wish hath sped.

"But is there nothing in thy track, To bid thee fondly stay, While the swift seasons hurry back To find the wished-for day?"

"Ah, truest soul of womankind! Without thee what were life? One bliss I cannot leave behind: I'll take--my--precious--wife!"

The angel took a sapphire pen And wrote in rainbow dew, _The man would be a boy again, And be a husband too!_

"And is there nothing yet unsaid, Before the change appears? Remember, all their gifts have fled With those dissolving years."

"Why, yes;" for memory would recall My fond paternal joys; "I could not bear to leave them all I'll take--my--girl--and--boys."

The smiling angel dropped his pen,-- "Why, this will never do; The man would be a boy again, And be a father too!"

And so I laughed,--my laughter woke The household with its noise,-- And wrote my dream, when morning broke, To please the gray-haired boys.

REMEMBER--FORGET

1855

AND what shall be the song to-night, If song there needs must be? If every year that brings us here Must steal an hour from me? Say, shall it ring a merry peal, Or heave a mourning sigh O'er shadows cast, by years long past, On moments flitting by?

Nay, take the first unbidden line The idle hour may send, No studied grace can mend the face That smiles as friend on friend; The balsam oozes from the pine, The sweetness from the rose, And so, unsought, a kindly thought Finds language as it flows.

The years rush by in sounding flight, I hear their ceaseless wings; Their songs I hear, some far, some near, And thus the burden rings "The morn has fled, the noon has past, The sun will soon be set, The twilight fade to midnight shade; Remember-and Forget!"

Remember all that time has brought-- The starry hope on high, The strength attained, the courage gained, The love that cannot die. Forget the bitter, brooding thought,-- The word too harshly said, The living blame love hates to name, The frailties of the dead!

We have been younger, so they say, But let the seasons roll, He doth not lack an almanac Whose youth is in his soul. The snows may clog life's iron track, But does the axle tire, While bearing swift through bank and drift The engine's heart of fire?

I lift a goblet in my hand; If good old wine it hold, An ancient skin to keep it in Is just the thing, we 're told. We 're grayer than the dusty flask,-- We 're older than our wine; Our corks reveal the "white top" seal, The stamp of '29.

Ah, Boys! we clustered in the dawn, To sever in the dark; A merry crew, with loud halloo, We climbed our painted bark; We sailed her through the four years' cruise, We 'll sail her to the last, Our dear old flag, though but a rag, Still flying on her mast.

So gliding on, each winter's gale Shall pipe us all on deck, Till, faint and few, the gathering crew Creep o'er the parting wreck, Her sails and streamers spread aloft To fortune's rain or shine, Till storm or sun shall all be one, And down goes TWENTY-NINE!

OUR INDIAN SUMMER

1856

You 'll believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to rise, With a welcome like this in your darling old eyes; To meet the same smiles and to hear the same tone Which have greeted me oft in the years that have flown.

Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the wall, My locks would turn brown at the sight of you all; If my heart were as dry as the shell on the sand, It would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand.

There are noontides of autumn when summer returns. Though the leaves are all garnered and sealed in their urns, And the bird on his perch, that was silent so long, Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into song.

We have caged the young birds of our beautiful June; Their plumes are still bright and their voices in tune; One moment of sunshine from faces like these And they sing as they sung in the green-growing trees.

The voices of morning! how sweet is their thrill When the shadows have turned, and the evening grows still! The text of our lives may get wiser with age, But the print was so fair on its twentieth page!

Look off from your goblet and up from your plate, Come, take the last journal, and glance at its date: Then think what we fellows should say and should do, If the 6 were a 9 and the 5 were a 2.

Ah, no! for the shapes that would meet with as here, From the far land of shadows, are ever too dear! Though youth flung around us its pride and its charms, We should see but the comrades we clasped in our arms.

A health to our future--a sigh for our past, We love, we remember, we hope to the last; And for all the base lies that the almanacs hold, While we've youth in our hearts we can never grow old!

MARE RUBRUM

1858

FLASH out a stream of blood-red wine, For I would drink to other days, And brighter shall their memory shine, Seen flaming through its crimson blaze! The roses die, the summers fade, But every ghost of boyhood's dream By nature's magic power is laid To sleep beneath this blood-red stream!

It filled the purple grapes that lay, And drank the splendors of the sun, Where the long summer's cloudless day Is mirrored in the broad Garonne; It pictures still the bacchant shapes That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,-- The maidens dancing on the grapes,-- Their milk-white ankles splashed with red.

Beneath these waves of crimson lie, In rosy fetters prisoned fast, Those flitting shapes that never die,-- The swift-winged visions of the past. Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim, Each shadow rends its flowery chain, Springs in a bubble from its brim, And walks the chambers of the brain.

Poor beauty! Time and fortune's wrong No shape nor feature may withstand; Thy wrecks are scattered all along, Like emptied sea-shells on the sand; Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain, The dust restores each blooming girl, As if the sea-shells moved again Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.

Here lies the home of school-boy life, With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, And, scarred by many a truant knife, Our old initials on the wall; Here rest, their keen vibrations mute, The shout of voices known so well, The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell.

Here, clad in burning robes, are laid Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed, And here those cherished forms have strayed We miss awhile, and call them dead. What wizard fills the wondrous glass? What soil the enchanted clusters grew? That buried passions wake and pass In beaded drops of fiery dew?

Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,-- Our hearts can boast a warmer glow, Filled from a vintage more divine, Calmed, but not chilled, by winter's snow! To-night the palest wave we sip Rich as the priceless draught shall be That wet the bride of Cana's lip,-- The wedding wine of Galilee!

THE BOYS

1859

HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? If there has, take him out, without making a noise. Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? He's tipsy,--young jackanapes!--show him the door! "Gray temples at twenty?"--Yes! white if we please; Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! Look close,--you will see not a sign of a flake! We want some new garlands for those we have shed,-- And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, Of talking (in public) as if we were old:-- That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;" It 's a neat little fiction,--of course it 's all fudge.

That fellow's the "Speaker,"--the one on the right; "Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; There's the "Reverend" What's his name?--don't make me laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look Made believe he had written a wonderful book, And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too!

There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, That could harness a team with a logical chain; When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squire."

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,-- Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,-- Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee!"

You hear that boy laughing?--You think he's all fun; But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!

Yes, we 're boys,--always playing with tongue or with pen,-- And I sometimes have asked,--Shall we ever be men? Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS!

LINES

1860

I 'm ashamed,--that 's the fact,--it 's a pitiful case,-- Won't any kind classmate get up in my place? Just remember how often I've risen before,-- I blush as I straighten my legs on the floor!

There are stories, once pleasing, too many times told,-- There are beauties once charming, too fearfully old,-- There are voices we've heard till we know them so well, Though they talked for an hour they'd have nothing to tell.

Yet, Classmates! Friends! Brothers! Dear blessed old boys! Made one by a lifetime of sorrows and joys, What lips have such sounds as the poorest of these, Though honeyed, like Plato's, by musical bees?

What voice is so sweet and what greeting so dear As the simple, warm welcome that waits for us here? The love of our boyhood still breathes in its tone, And our hearts throb the answer, "He's one of our own!"

Nay! count not our numbers; some sixty we know, But these are above, and those under the snow; And thoughts are still mingled wherever we meet For those we remember with those that we greet.

We have rolled on life's journey,--how fast and how far! One round of humanity's many-wheeled car, But up-hill and down-hill, through rattle and rub, Old, true Twenty-niners! we've stuck to our hub!

While a brain lives to think, or a bosom to feel, We will cling to it still like the spokes of a wheel! And age, as it chills us, shall fasten the tire That youth fitted round in his circle of fire!

A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH

1861

JANUARY THIRD

WE sing "Our Country's" song to-night With saddened voice and eye; Her banner droops in clouded light Beneath the wintry sky. We'll pledge her once in golden wine Before her stars have set Though dim one reddening orb may shine, We have a Country yet.

'T were vain to sigh o'er errors past, The fault of sires or sons; Our soldier heard the threatening blast, And spiked his useless guns; He saw the star-wreathed ensign fall, By mad invaders torn; But saw it from the bastioned wall That laughed their rage to scorn!

What though their angry cry is flung Across the howling wave,-- They smite the air with idle tongue The gathering storm who brave; Enough of speech! the trumpet rings; Be silent, patient, calm,-- God help them if the tempest swings The pine against the palm!

Our toilsome years have made us tame; Our strength has slept unfelt; The furnace-fire is slow to flame That bids our ploughshares melt; 'T is hard to lose the bread they win In spite of Nature's frowns,-- To drop the iron threads we spin That weave our web of towns,

To see the rusting turbines stand Before the emptied flumes, To fold the arms that flood the land With rivers from their looms,-- But harder still for those who learn The truth forgot so long; When once their slumbering passions burn, The peaceful are the strong!

The Lord have mercy on the weak, And calm their frenzied ire, And save our brothers ere they shriek, "We played with Northern fire!" The eagle hold his mountain height,-- The tiger pace his den Give all their country, each his right! God keep us all! Amen!

J. D. R.

1862

THE friends that are, and friends that were, What shallow waves divide! I miss the form for many a year Still seated at my side.

I miss him, yet I feel him still Amidst our faithful band, As if not death itself could chill The warmth of friendship's hand.

His story other lips may tell,-- For me the veil is drawn; I only knew he loved me well, He loved me--and is gone!

VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION

1862

'T is midnight: through my troubled dream Loud wails the tempest's cry; Before the gale, with tattered sail, A ship goes plunging by. What name? Where bound?--The rocks around Repeat the loud halloo. --The good ship Union, Southward bound: God help her and her crew!

And is the old flag flying still That o'er your fathers flew, With bands of white and rosy light, And field of starry blue? --Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft Have braved the roaring blast, And still shall fly when from the sky This black typhoon has past!

Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark! May I thy peril share? --O landsman, there are fearful seas The brave alone may dare! --Nay, ruler of the rebel deep, What matters wind or wave? The rocks that wreck your reeling deck Will leave me naught to save!

O landsman, art thou false or true? What sign hast thou to show? --The crimson stains from loyal veins That hold my heart-blood's flow --Enough! what more shall honor claim? I know the sacred sign; Above thy head our flag shall spread, Our ocean path be thine!

The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape Lies low along her lee, Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes To lock the shore and sea. No treason here! it cost too dear To win this barren realm And true and free the hands must be That hold the whaler's helm!

Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay No rebel cruiser scars; Her waters feel no pirate's keel That flaunts the fallen stars! --But watch the light on yonder height,-- Ay, pilot, have a care! Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud The capes of Delaware!

Say, pilot, what this fort may be, Whose sentinels look down From moated walls that show the sea Their deep embrasures' frown? The Rebel host claims all the coast, But these are friends, we know, Whose footprints spoil the "sacred soil," And this is?--Fort Monroe!

The breakers roar,--how bears the shore? --The traitorous wreckers' hands Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays Along the Hatteras sands. --Ha! say not so! I see its glow! Again the shoals display The beacon light that shines by night, The Union Stars by day!

The good ship flies to milder skies, The wave more gently flows, The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas The breath of Beaufort's rose. What fold is this the sweet winds kiss, Fair-striped and many-starred, Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls, The twins of Beauregard?

What! heard you not Port Royal's doom? How the black war-ships came And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom To redder wreaths of flame? How from Rebellion's broken reed We saw his emblem fall, As soon his cursed poison-weed Shall drop from Sumter's wall?

On! on! Pulaski's iron hail Falls harmless on Tybee! The good ship feels the freshening gales, She strikes the open sea; She rounds the point, she threads the keys That guard the Land of Flowers, And rides at last where firm and fast Her own Gibraltar towers!

The good ship Union's voyage is o'er, At anchor safe she swings, And loud and clear with cheer on cheer Her joyous welcome rings: Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave, It thunders on the shore,-- One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation, evermore!

"CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE"

1863

YES, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while you hate The self-ruling, chain-breaking, throne-shaking State! The night-birds dread morning,--your instinct is true,-- The day-star of Freedom brings midnight for you!

Why plead with the deaf for the cause of mankind? The owl hoots at noon that the eagle is blind! We ask not your reasons,--'t were wasting our time,-- Our life is a menace, our welfare a crime!

We have battles to fight, we have foes to subdue,-- Time waits not for us, and we wait not for you! The mower mows on, though the adder may writhe And the copper-head coil round the blade of his scythe!

"No sides in this quarrel," your statesmen may urge, Of school-house and wages with slave-pen scourge!-- No sides in the quarrel! proclaim it as well To the angels that fight with the legions of hell!

They kneel in God's temple, the North and the South, With blood on each weapon and prayers in each mouth. Whose cry shall be answered? Ye Heavens, attend The lords of the lash as their voices ascend!

"O Lord, we are shaped in the image of Thee,-- Smite down the base millions that claim to be free, And lend thy strong arm to the soft-handed race Who eat not their bread in the sweat of their face!"

So pleads the proud planter. What echoes are these? The bay of his bloodhound is borne on the breeze, And, lost in the shriek of his victim's despair, His voice dies unheard.--Hear the Puritan's prayer!

"O Lord, that didst smother mankind in thy flood, The sun is as sackcloth, the moon is as blood, The stars fall to earth as untimely are cast The figs from the fig-tree that shakes in the blast!

"All nations, all tribes in whose nostrils is breath Stand gazing at Sin as she travails with Death! Lord, strangle the monster that struggles to birth, Or mock us no more with thy 'Kingdom on Earth!'

"If Ammon and Moab must reign in the land Thou gavest thine Israel, fresh from thy hand, Call Baal and Ashtaroth out of their graves To be the new gods for the empire of slaves!"

Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of men? Will ye build you new shrines in the slave-breeder's den? Or bow with the children of light, as they call On the Judge of the Earth and the Father of All?

Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time moves apace,-- Each day is an age in the life of our race! Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in fear From the fast-rising flood that shall girdle the sphere!

F. W. C.

1864

FAST as the rolling seasons bring The hour of fate to those we love, Each pearl that leaves the broken string Is set in Friendship's crown above. As narrower grows the earthly chain, The circle widens in the sky; These are our treasures that remain, But those are stars that beam on high.

We miss--oh, how we miss!--his face,-- With trembling accents speak his name. Earth cannot fill his shadowed place From all her rolls of pride and fame; Our song has lost the silvery thread That carolled through his jocund lips; Our laugh is mute, our smile is fled, And all our sunshine in eclipse.

And what and whence the wondrous charm That kept his manhood boylike still,-- That life's hard censors could disarm And lead them captive at his will? His heart was shaped of rosier clay,-- His veins were filled with ruddier fire,-- Time could not chill him, fortune sway, Nor toil with all its burdens tire.

His speech burst throbbing from its fount And set our colder thoughts aglow, As the hot leaping geysers mount And falling melt the Iceland snow. Some word, perchance, we counted rash,-- Some phrase our calmness might disclaim, Yet 't was the sunset's lightning's flash, No angry bolt, but harmless flame.

Man judges all, God knoweth each; We read the rule, He sees the law; How oft his laughing children teach The truths his prophets never saw O friend, whose wisdom flowered in mirth, Our hearts are sad, our eyes are dim; He gave thy smiles to brighten earth,-- We trust thy joyous soul to Him!

Alas!--our weakness Heaven forgive! We murmur, even while we trust, "How long earth's breathing burdens live, Whose hearts, before they die, are dust!" But thou!--through grief's untimely tears We ask with half-reproachful sigh-- "Couldst thou not watch a few brief years Till Friendship faltered, 'Thou mayst die'?"

Who loved our boyish years so well? Who knew so well their pleasant tales, And all those livelier freaks could tell Whose oft-told story never fails? In vain we turn our aching eyes,-- In vain we stretch our eager hands,-- Cold in his wintry shroud he lies Beneath the dreary drifting sands!

Ah, speak not thus! He lies not there! We see him, hear him as of old! He comes! He claims his wonted chair; His beaming face we still behold! His voice rings clear in all our songs, And loud his mirthful accents rise; To us our brother's life belongs,-- Dear friends, a classmate never dies!

THE LAST CHARGE

1864

Now, men of the North! will you join in the strife For country, for freedom, for honor, for life? The giant grows blind in his fury and spite,-- One blow on his forehead will settle the fight!

Flash full in his eyes the blue lightning of steel, And stun him with cannon-bolts, peal upon peal! Mount, troopers, and follow your game to its lair, As the hound tracks the wolf and the beagle the hare!

Blow, trumpets, your summons, till sluggards awake! Beat, drums, till the roofs of the faint-hearted shake! Yet, yet, ere the signet is stamped on the scroll, Their names may be traced on the blood-sprinkled roll!

Trust not the false herald that painted your shield True honor to-day must be sought on the field! Her scutcheon shows white with a blazon of red,-- The life-drops of crimson for liberty shed.

The hour is at hand, and the moment draws nigh; The dog-star of treason grows dim in the sky; Shine forth from the battle-cloud, light of the morn, Call back the bright hour when the Nation was born!

The rivers of peace through our valleys shall run, As the glaciers of tyranny melt in the sun; Smite, smite the proud parricide down from his throne,-- His sceptre once broken, the world is our own!

OUR OLDEST FRIEND

1865

I GIVE you the health of the oldest friend That, short of eternity, earth can lend,-- A friend so faithful and tried and true That nothing can wean him from me and you.

When first we screeched in the sudden blaze Of the daylight's blinding and blasting rays, And gulped at the gaseous, groggy air, This old, old friend stood waiting there.

And when, with a kind of mortal strife, We had gasped and choked into breathing life, He watched by the cradle, day and night, And held our hands till we stood upright.

From gristle and pulp our frames have grown To stringy muscle and solid bone; While we were changing, he altered not; We might forget, but he never forgot.

He came with us to the college class,-- Little cared he for the steward's pass! All the rest must pay their fee, Put the grim old dead-head entered free.

He stayed with us while we counted o'er Four times each of the seasons four; And with every season, from year to year, The dear name Classmate he made more dear.

He never leaves us,--he never will, Till our hands are cold and our hearts are still; On birthdays, and Christmas, and New-Year's too, He always remembers both me and you.

Every year this faithful friend His little present is sure to send; Every year, wheresoe'er we be, He wants a keepsake from you and me.

How he loves us! he pats our heads, And, lo! they are gleaming with silver threads; And he 's always begging one lock of hair, Till our shining crowns have nothing to wear.

At length he will tell us, one by one, "My child, your labor on earth is done; And now you must journey afar to see My elder brother,--Eternity!"

And so, when long, long years have passed, Some dear old fellow will be the last,-- Never a boy alive but he Of all our goodly company!

When he lies down, but not till then, Our kind Class-Angel will drop the pen That writes in the day-book kept above Our lifelong record of faith and love.

So here's a health in homely rhyme To our oldest classmate, Father Time! May our last survivor live to be As bald and as wise and as tough as he!

SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH

A HALF-RHYMED IMPROMPTU

1865

LIKE the tribes of Israel, Fed on quails and manna, Sherman and his glorious band Journeyed through the rebel land, Fed from Heaven's all-bounteous hand, Marching on Savannah!

As the moving pillar shone, Streamed the starry banner All day long in rosy light, Flaming splendor all the night, Till it swooped in eagle flight Down on doomed Savannah!

Glory be to God on high! Shout the loud Hosanna! Treason's wilderness is past, Canaan's shore is won at last, Peal a nation's trumpet-blast,-- Sherman 's in Savannah!

Soon shall Richmond's tough old hide Find a tough old tanner! Soon from every rebel wall Shall the rag of treason fall, Till our banner flaps o'er all As it crowns Savannah!

MY ANNUAL

1866

How long will this harp which you once loved to hear Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear? How long stir the echoes it wakened of old, While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold?

Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong; The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song; It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,-- "We will bid our old harper play on till he dies."

Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings, Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings, Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone It is still the old harp that was always your own.

I claim not its music,--each note it affords I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords; I know you will listen and love to the last, For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past.

Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold No craftsman could string and no artisan mould; He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs.

Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings, Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings; Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled, Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed.

Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this, Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss; The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will, Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still.

The bird wanders careless while summer is green, The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen; When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed, The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest.

Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling Is the light of our year, is the gem of its ring, So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget The rays it has lost, and its border of jet.

While round us the many-hued halo is shed, How dear are the living, how near are the dead! One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below, Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow!

Not life shall enlarge it nor death shall divide,-- No brother new-born finds his place at my side; No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest, His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest.

Some won the world's homage, their names we hold dear,-- But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here; Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife For the comrade that limps from the battle of life!

What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word; It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave, It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave.

Peace, Peace comes at last, with her garland of white; Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night; The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun; We echo its words,--We are one! We are one!

ALL HERE

1867

IT is not what we say or sing, That keeps our charm so long unbroken, Though every lightest leaf we bring May touch the heart as friendship's token; Not what we sing or what we say Can make us dearer to each other; We love the singer and his lay, But love as well the silent brother.

Yet bring whate'er your garden grows, Thrice welcome to our smiles and praises; Thanks for the myrtle and the rose, Thanks for the marigolds and daisies; One flower erelong we all shall claim, Alas! unloved of Amaryllis-- Nature's last blossom-need I name The wreath of threescore's silver lilies?

How many, brothers, meet to-night Around our boyhood's covered embers? Go read the treasured names aright The old triennial list remembers; Though twenty wear the starry sign That tells a life has broke its tether, The fifty-eight of 'twenty-nine-- God bless THE Boys!--are all together!

These come with joyous look and word, With friendly grasp and cheerful greeting,-- Those smile unseen, and move unheard, The angel guests of every meeting; They cast no shadow in the flame That flushes from the gilded lustre, But count us--we are still the same; One earthly band, one heavenly cluster!

Love dies not when he bows his head To pass beyond the narrow portals,-- The light these glowing moments shed Wakes from their sleep our lost immortals; They come as in their joyous prime, Before their morning days were numbered,-- Death stays the envious hand of Time,-- The eyes have not grown dim that slumbered!

The paths that loving souls have trod Arch o'er the dust where worldlings grovel High as the zenith o'er the sod,-- The cross above the sexton's shovel! We rise beyond the realms of day; They seem to stoop from spheres of glory With us one happy hour to stray, While youth comes back in song and story.

Ah! ours is friendship true as steel That war has tried in edge and temper; It writes upon its sacred seal The priest's ubique--omnes--semper! It lends the sky a fairer sun That cheers our lives with rays as steady As if our footsteps had begun To print the golden streets already!

The tangling years have clinched its knot Too fast for mortal strength to sunder; The lightning bolts of noon are shot; No fear of evening's idle thunder! Too late! too late!--no graceless hand Shall stretch its cords in vain endeavor To rive the close encircling band That made and keeps us one forever!

So when upon the fated scroll The falling stars have all descended, And, blotted from the breathing roll, Our little page of life is ended, We ask but one memorial line Traced on thy tablet, Gracious Mother "My children. Boys of '29. In pace. How they loved each other!" ONCE MORE

ONCE MORE

1868

"Will I come?" That is pleasant! I beg to inquire If the gun that I carry has ever missed fire? And which was the muster-roll-mention but one-- That missed your old comrade who carries the gun?

You see me as always, my hand on the lock, The cap on the nipple, the hammer full cock; It is rusty, some tell me; I heed not the scoff; It is battered and bruised, but it always goes off!

"Is it loaded?" I'll bet you! What doesn't it hold? Rammed full to the muzzle with memories untold; Why, it scares me to fire, lest the pieces should fly Like the cannons that burst on the Fourth of July.

One charge is a remnant of College-day dreams (Its wadding is made of forensics and themes); Ah, visions of fame! what a flash in the pan As the trigger was pulled by each clever young man!

And love! Bless my stars, what a cartridge is there! With a wadding of rose-leaves and ribbons and hair,-- All crammed in one verse to go off at a shot! "Were there ever such sweethearts?" Of course there were not!

And next,--what a load! it wall split the old gun,-- Three fingers,--four fingers,--five fingers of fun! Come tell me, gray sages, for mischief and noise Was there ever a lot like us fellows, "The Boys"?

Bump I bump! down the staircase the cannon-ball goes,-- Aha, old Professor! Look out for your toes! Don't think, my poor Tutor, to sleep in your bed,-- Two "Boys"--'twenty-niners-room over your head!

Remember the nights when the tar-barrel blazed! From red "Massachusetts" the war-cry was raised; And "Hollis" and "Stoughton" reechoed the call; Till P----- poked his head out of Holworthy Hall!

Old P----, as we called him,--at fifty or so,-- Not exactly a bud, but not quite in full blow; In ripening manhood, suppose we should say, Just nearing his prime, as we boys are to-day!

Oh say, can you look through the vista of age To the time when old Morse drove the regular stage? When Lyon told tales of the long-vanished years, And Lenox crept round with the rings in his ears?

And dost thou, my brother, remember indeed The days of our dealings with Willard and Read? When "Dolly" was kicking and running away, And punch came up smoking on Fillebrown's tray?

But where are the Tutors, my brother, oh tell!-- And where the Professors, remembered so well? The sturdy old Grecian of Holworthy Hall, And Latin, and Logic, and Hebrew, and all?

"They are dead, the old fellows" (we called them so then, Though we since have found out they were lusty young men). They are dead, do you tell me?--but how do you know? You've filled once too often. I doubt if it's so.

I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Is this 'sixty-eight? It's not quite so clear. It admits of debate. I may have been dreaming. I rather incline To think--yes, I'm certain--it is 'twenty-nine!

"By Zhorzhe!"--as friend Sales is accustomed to cry,-- You tell me they're dead, but I know it's a lie! Is Jackson not President?--What was 't you said? It can't be; you're joking; what,--all of 'em dead?

Jim,--Harry,--Fred,--Isaac,--all gone from our side? They could n't have left us,--no, not if they tried. Look,--there 's our old Prises,--he can't find his text; See,--P----- rubs his leg, as he growls out "The next!"

I told you 't was nonsense. Joe, give us a song! Go harness up "Dolly," and fetch her along!-- Dead! Dead! You false graybeard, I swear they are not! Hurrah for Old Hickory!--Oh, I forgot!

Well, one we have with us (how could he contrive To deal with us youngsters and still to survive?) Who wore for our guidance authority's robe,-- No wonder he took to the study of Job!

And now, as my load was uncommonly large, Let me taper it off with a classical charge; When that has gone off, I shall drop my old gun-- And then stand at ease, for my service is done.

Bibamus ad Classem vocatam "The Boys" Et eorum Tutorem cui nomen est "Noyes"; Et floreant, valeant, vigeant tam, Non Peircius ipse enumeret quam!

THE OLD CRUISER

1869

HERE 's the old cruiser, 'Twenty-nine, Forty times she 's crossed the line; Same old masts and sails and crew, Tight and tough and as good as new.

Into the harbor she bravely steers Just as she 's done for these forty years, Over her anchor goes, splash and clang! Down her sails drop, rattle and bang!

Comes a vessel out of the dock Fresh and spry as a fighting-cock, Feathered with sails and spurred with steam, Heading out of the classic stream.

Crew of a hundred all aboard, Every man as fine as a lord. Gay they look and proud they feel, Bowling along on even keel.

On they float with wind and tide,-- Gain at last the old ship's side; Every man looks down in turn,-- Reads the name that's on her stern.

"Twenty-nine!--Diable you say! That was in Skipper Kirkland's day! What was the Flying Dutchman's name? This old rover must be the same.

"Ho! you Boatswain that walks the deck, How does it happen you're not a wreck? One and another have come to grief, How have you dodged by rock and reef?"

Boatswain, lifting one knowing lid, Hitches his breeches and shifts his quid "Hey? What is it? Who 's come to grief Louder, young swab, I 'm a little deaf."

"I say, old fellow, what keeps your boat With all you jolly old boys afloat, When scores of vessels as good as she Have swallowed the salt of the bitter sea?

"Many a crew from many a craft Goes drifting by on a broken raft Pieced from a vessel that clove the brine Taller and prouder than 'Twenty-nine.

"Some capsized in an angry breeze, Some were lost in the narrow seas, Some on snags and some on sands Struck and perished and lost their hands.

"Tell us young ones, you gray old man, What is your secret, if you can. We have a ship as good as you, Show us how to keep our crew."

So in his ear the youngster cries; Then the gray Boatswain straight replies:-- "All your crew be sure you know,-- Never let one of your shipmates go.

"If he leaves you, change your tack, Follow him close and fetch him back; When you've hauled him in at last, Grapple his flipper and hold him fast.

"If you've wronged him, speak him fair, Say you're sorry and make it square; If he's wronged you, wink so tight None of you see what 's plain in sight.

"When the world goes hard and wrong, Lend a hand to help him along; When his stockings have holes to darn, Don't you grudge him your ball of yarn.

"Once in a twelvemonth, come what may, Anchor your ship in a quiet bay, Call all hands and read the log, And give 'em a taste of grub and grog.

"Stick to each other through thick and thin; All the closer as age leaks in; Squalls will blow and clouds will frown, But stay by your ship till you all go down!"

ADDED FOR THE ALUMNI MEETING, JUNE 29,

1869.

So the gray Boatswain of 'Twenty-nine Piped to "The Boys" as they crossed the line; Round the cabin sat thirty guests, Babes of the nurse with a thousand breasts.

There were the judges, grave and grand, Flanked by the priests on either hand; There was the lord of wealth untold, And the dear good fellow in broadcloth old.

Thirty men, from twenty towns, Sires and grandsires with silvered crowns,-- Thirty school-boys all in a row,-- Bens and Georges and Bill and Joe.

In thirty goblets the wine was poured, But threescore gathered around the board,-- For lo! at the side of every chair A shadow hovered--we all were there!

HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING

1869

THOU Gracious Power, whose mercy lends The light of home, the smile of friends, Our gathered flock thine arms infold As in the peaceful days of old.

Wilt thou not hear us while we raise, In sweet accord of solemn praise, The voices that have mingled long In joyous flow of mirth and song?

For all the blessings life has brought, For all its sorrowing hours have taught, For all we mourn, for all we keep, The hands we clasp, the loved that sleep;

The noontide sunshine of the past, These brief, bright moments fading fast, The stars that gild our darkening years, The twilight ray from holier spheres;

We thank thee, Father! let thy grace Our narrowing circle still embrace, Thy mercy shed its heavenly store, Thy peace be with us evermore!

EVEN-SONG.

1870

IT may be, yes, it must be, Time that brings An end to mortal things, That sends the beggar Winter in the train Of Autumn's burdened wain,-- Time, that is heir of all our earthly state, And knoweth well to wait Till sea hath turned to shore and shore to sea, If so it need must be, Ere he make good his claim and call his own Old empires overthrown,-- Time, who can find no heavenly orb too large To hold its fee in charge, Nor any motes that fill its beam so small, But he shall care for all,-- It may be, must be,--yes, he soon shall tire This hand that holds the lyre.

Then ye who listened in that earlier day When to my careless lay I matched its chords and stole their first-born thrill, With untaught rudest skill Vexing a treble from the slender strings Thin as the locust sings When the shrill-crying child of summer's heat Pipes from its leafy seat, The dim pavilion of embowering green Beneath whose shadowy screen The small sopranist tries his single note Against the song-bird's throat, And all the echoes listen, but in vain; They hear no answering strain,-- Then ye who listened in that earlier day Shall sadly turn away,

Saying, "The fire burns low, the hearth is cold That warmed our blood of old; Cover its embers and its half-burnt brands, And let us stretch our hands Over a brighter and fresh-kindled flame; Lo, this is not the same, The joyous singer of our morning time, Flushed high with lusty rhyme! Speak kindly, for he bears a human heart, But whisper him apart,-- Tell him the woods their autumn robes have shed And all their birds have fled, And shouting winds unbuild the naked nests They warmed with patient breasts; Tell him the sky is dark, the summer o'er, And bid him sing no more!"

Ah, welladay! if words so cruel-kind A listening ear might find! But who that hears the music in his soul Of rhythmic waves that roll Crested with gleams of fire, and as they flow Stir all the deeps below Till the great pearls no calm might ever reach Leap glistening on the beach,-- Who that has known the passion and the pain, The rush through heart and brain, The joy so like a pang his hand is pressed Hard on his throbbing breast, When thou, whose smile is life and bliss and fame Hast set his pulse aflame, Muse of the lyre! can say farewell to thee? Alas! and must it be?

In many a clime, in many a stately tongue, The mighty bards have sung; To these the immemorial thrones belong And purple robes of song; Yet the slight minstrel loves the slender tone His lips may call his own, And finds the measure of the verse more sweet, Timed by his pulse's beat, Than all the hymnings of the laurelled throng. Say not I do him wrong, For Nature spoils her warblers,--them she feeds In lotus-growing meads And pours them subtle draughts from haunted streams That fill their souls with dreams.

Full well I know the gracious mother's wiles And dear delusive smiles! No callow fledgling of her singing brood But tastes that witching food, And hearing overhead the eagle's wing, And how the thrushes sing, Vents his exiguous chirp, and from his nest Flaps forth--we know the rest. I own the weakness of the tuneful kind,-- Are not all harpers blind? I sang too early, must I sing too late? The lengthening shadows wait The first pale stars of twilight,--yet how sweet The flattering whisper's cheat,-- "Thou hast the fire no evening chill can tame, Whose coals outlast its flame!"

Farewell, ye carols of the laughing morn, Of earliest sunshine born! The sower flings the seed and looks not back Along his furrowed track; The reaper leaves the stalks for other hands To gird with circling bands; The wind, earth's careless servant, truant-born, Blows clean the beaten corn And quits the thresher's floor, and goes his way To sport with ocean's spray; The headlong-stumbling rivulet scrambling down To wash the sea-girt town, Still babbling of the green and billowy waste Whose salt he longs to taste, Ere his warm wave its chilling clasp may feel Has twirled the miller's wheel.

The song has done its task that makes us bold With secrets else untold,-- And mine has run its errand; through the dews I tracked the flying Muse; The daughter of the morning touched my lips With roseate finger-tips; Whether I would or would not, I must sing With the new choirs of spring; Now, as I watch the fading autumn day And trill my softened lay, I think of all that listened, and of one For whom a brighter sun Dawned at high summer's noon. Ah, comrades dear, Are not all gathered here? Our hearts have answered.--Yes! they hear our call: All gathered here! all! all!

THE SMILING LISTENER

1871 PRECISELY. I see it. You all want to say That a tear is too sad and a laugh is too gay; You could stand a faint smile, you could manage a sigh, But you value your ribs, and you don't want to cry.

And why at our feast of the clasping of hands Need we turn on the stream of our lachrymal glands? Though we see the white breakers of age on our bow, Let us take a good pull in the jolly-boat now!

It's hard if a fellow cannot feel content When a banquet like this does n't cost him a cent, When his goblet and plate he may empty at will, And our kind Class Committee will settle the bill.

And here's your old friend, the identical bard Who has rhymed and recited you verse by the yard Since the days of the empire of Andrew the First Till you 're full to the brim and feel ready to burst.

It's awful to think of,--how year after year With his piece in his pocket he waits for you here; No matter who's missing, there always is one To lug out his manuscript, sure as a gun.

"Why won't he stop writing?" Humanity cries The answer is briefly, "He can't if he tries; He has played with his foolish old feather so long, That the goose-quill in spite of him cackles in song."

You have watched him with patience from morning to dusk Since the tassel was bright o'er the green of the husk, And now--it 's too bad--it 's a pitiful job-- He has shelled the ripe ear till he's come to the cob.

I see one face beaming--it listens so well There must be some music yet left in my shell-- The wine of my soul is not thick on the lees; One string is unbroken, one friend I can please!

Dear comrade, the sunshine of seasons gone by Looks out from your tender and tear-moistened eye, A pharos of love on an ice-girdled coast,-- Kind soul!--Don't you hear me?--He's deaf as a post!

Can it be one of Nature's benevolent tricks That you grow hard of hearing as I grow prolix? And that look of delight which would angels beguile Is the deaf man's prolonged unintelligent smile?

Ah! the ear may grow dull, and the eye may wax dim, But they still know a classmate--they can't mistake him; There is something to tell us, "That's one of our band," Though we groped in the dark for a touch of his hand.

Well, Time with his snuffers is prowling about And his shaky old fingers will soon snuff us out; There's a hint for us all in each pendulum tick, For we're low in the tallow and long in the wick.

You remember Rossini--you 've been at the play? How his overture-endings keep crashing away Till you think, "It 's all over--it can't but stop now-- That 's the screech and the bang of the final bow-wow."

And you find you 're mistaken; there 's lots more to come, More banging, more screeching of fiddle and drum, Till when the last ending is finished and done, You feel like a horse when the winning-post 's won.

So I, who have sung to you, merry or sad, Since the days when they called me a promising lad, Though I 've made you more rhymes than a tutor could scan, Have a few more still left, like the razor-strop man.

Now pray don't be frightened--I 'm ready to stop My galloping anapests' clatter and pop-- In fact, if you say so, retire from to-day To the garret I left, on a poet's half-pay.

And yet--I can't help it--perhaps--who can tell? You might miss the poor singer you treated so well, And confess you could stand him five minutes or so, "It was so like old times we remember, you know."

'T is not that the music can signify much, But then there are chords that awake with a touch,-- And our hearts can find echoes of sorrow and joy To the winch of the minstrel who hails from Savoy.

So this hand-organ tune that I cheerfully grind May bring the old places and faces to mind, And seen in the light of the past we recall The flowers that have faded bloom fairest of all!

OUR SWEET SINGER

J. A.

1872

ONE memory trembles on our lips; It throbs in every breast; In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse, The shadow stands confessed.

O silent voice, that cheered so long Our manhood's marching day, Without thy breath of heavenly song, How weary seems the way!

Vain every pictured phrase to tell Our sorrowing heart's desire,-- The shattered harp, the broken shell, The silent unstrung lyre;

For youth was round us while he sang; It glowed in every tone; With bridal chimes the echoes rang, And made the past our own.

Oh blissful dream! Our nursery joys We know must have an end, But love and friendship's broken toys May God's good angels mend!

The cheering smile, the voice of mirth And laughter's gay surprise That please the children born of earth. Why deem that Heaven denies?

Methinks in that refulgent sphere That knows not sun or moon, An earth-born saint might long to hear One verse of "Bonny Doon";

Or walking through the streets of gold In heaven's unclouded light, His lips recall the song of old And hum "The sky is bright."

And can we smile when thou art dead? Ah, brothers, even so! The rose of summer will be red, In spite of winter's snow.

Thou wouldst not leave us all in gloom Because thy song is still, Nor blight the banquet-garland's bloom With grief's untimely chill.

The sighing wintry winds complain,-- The singing bird has flown,-- Hark! heard I not that ringing strain, That clear celestial tone?

How poor these pallid phrases seem, How weak this tinkling line, As warbles through my waking dream That angel voice of thine!

Thy requiem asks a sweeter lay; It falters on my tongue; For all we vainly strive to say, Thou shouldst thyself have sung!

H. C. M. H. S. J. K. W.

1873

THE dirge is played, the throbbing death-peal rung, The sad-voiced requiem sung; On each white urn where memory dwells The wreath of rustling immortelles Our loving hands have hung, And balmiest leaves have strown and tenderest blossoms flung.

The birds that filled the air with songs have flown, The wintry blasts have blown, And these for whom the voice of spring Bade the sweet choirs their carols sing Sleep in those chambers lone Where snows untrodden lie, unheard the night-winds moan.

We clasp them all in memory, as the vine Whose running stems intwine The marble shaft, and steal around The lowly stone, the nameless mound; With sorrowing hearts resign Our brothers true and tried, and close our broken line.

How fast the lamps of life grow dim and die Beneath our sunset sky! Still fading, as along our track We cast our saddened glances back, And while we vainly sigh The shadowy day recedes, the starry night draws nigh.

As when from pier to pier across the tide With even keel we glide, The lights we left along the shore Grow less and less, while more, yet more New vistas open wide Of fair illumined streets and casements golden-eyed.

Each closing circle of our sunlit sphere Seems to bring heaven more near Can we not dream that those we love Are listening in the world above And smiling as they hear The voices known so well of friends that still are dear?

Does all that made us human fade away With this dissolving clay? Nay, rather deem the blessed isles Are bright and gay with joyous smiles, That angels have their play, And saints that tire of song may claim their holiday.

All else of earth may perish; love alone Not heaven shall find outgrown! Are they not here, our spirit guests, With love still throbbing in their breasts? Once more let flowers be strown. Welcome, ye shadowy forms, we count you still our own!

WHAT I HAVE COME FOR

1873

I HAVE come with my verses--I think I may claim It is not the first time I have tried on the same. They were puckered in rhyme, they were wrinkled in wit; But your hearts were so large that they made them a fit.

I have come--not to tease you with more of my rhyme, But to feel as I did in the blessed old time; I want to hear him with the Brobdingnag laugh-- We count him at least as three men and a half.

I have come to meet judges so wise and so grand That I shake in my shoes while they're shaking my hand; And the prince among merchants who put back the crown When they tried to enthrone him the King of the Town.

I have come to see George--Yes, I think there are four, If they all were like these I could wish there were more. I have come to see one whom we used to call "Jim," I want to see--oh, don't I want to see him?

I have come to grow young--on my word I declare I have thought I detected a change in my hair! One hour with "The Boys" will restore it to brown-- And a wrinkle or two I expect to rub down.

Yes, that's what I've come for, as all of us come; When I meet the dear Boys I could wish I were dumb. You asked me, you know, but it's spoiling the fun; I have told what I came for; my ditty is done.

OUR BANKER

1874

OLD TIME, in whose bank we deposit our notes, Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats; He keeps all his customers still in arrears By lending them minutes and charging them years.

The twelvemonth rolls round and we never forget On the counter before us to pay him our debt. We reckon the marks he has chalked on the door, Pay up and shake hands and begin a new score.

How long he will lend us, how much we may owe, No angel will tell us, no mortal may know. At fivescore, at fourscore, at threescore and ten, He may close the account with a stroke of his pen.

This only we know,--amid sorrows and joys Old Time has been easy and kind with "The Boys." Though he must have and will have and does have his pay, We have found him good-natured enough in his way.

He never forgets us, as others will do,-- I am sure he knows me, and I think he knows you, For I see on your foreheads a mark that he lends As a sign he remembers to visit his friends.

In the shape of a classmate (a wig on his crown,-- His day-book and ledger laid carefully down) He has welcomed us yearly, a glass in his hand, And pledged the good health of our brotherly band.

He 's a thief, we must own, but how many there be That rob us less gently and fairly than he He has stripped the green leaves that were over us all, But they let in the sunshine as fast as they fall.

Young beauties may ravish the world with a glance As they languish in song, as they float in the dance,-- They are grandmothers now we remember as girls, And the comely white cap takes the place of the curls.

But the sighing and moaning and groaning are o'er, We are pining and moping and sleepless no more, And the hearts that were thumping like ships on the rocks Beat as quiet and steady as meeting-house clocks.

The trump of ambition, loud sounding and shrill, May blow its long blast, but the echoes are still, The spring-tides are past, but no billow may reach The spoils they have landed far up on the beach.

We see that Time robs us, we know that he cheats, But we still find a charm in his pleasant deceits, While he leaves the remembrance of all that was best, Love, friendship, and hope, and the promise of rest.

Sweet shadows of twilight! how calm their repose, While the dewdrops fall soft in the breast of the rose! How blest to the toiler his hour of release When the vesper is heard with its whisper of peace!

Then here's to the wrinkled old miser, our friend; May he send us his bills to the century's end, And lend us the moments no sorrow alloys, Till he squares his account with the last of "The Boys."

FOR CLASS MEETING

1875

IT is a pity and a shame--alas! alas! I know it is, To tread the trodden grapes again, but so it has been, so it is; The purple vintage long is past, with ripened clusters bursting so They filled the wine-vats to the brim,-'t is strange you will be thirsting so!

Too well our faithful memory tells what might be rhymed or sung about, For all have sighed and some have wept since last year's snows were flung about; The beacon flame that fired the sky, the modest ray that gladdened us, A little breath has quenched their light, and deepening shades have saddened us.

No more our brother's life is ours for cheering or for grieving us, One only sadness they bequeathed, the sorrow of their leaving us; Farewell! Farewell!--I turn the leaf I read my chiming measure in; Who knows but something still is there a friend may find a pleasure in? For who can tell by what he likes what other people's fancies are? How all men think the best of wives their own particular Nancies are? If what I sing you brings a smile, you will not stop to catechise, Nor read Bceotia's lumbering line with nicely scanning Attic eyes.

Perhaps the alabaster box that Mary broke so lovingly, While Judas looked so sternly on, the Master so approvingly, Was not so fairly wrought as those that Pilate's wife and daughters had, Or many a dame of Judah's line that drank of Jordan's waters had.

Perhaps the balm that cost so dear, as some remarked officiously, The precious nard that filled the room with fragrance so deliciously, So oft recalled in storied page and sung in verse melodious, The dancing girl had thought too cheap,--that daughter of Herodias.

Where now are all the mighty deeds that Herod boasted loudest of? Where now the flashing jewelry the tetrarch's wife was proudest of? Yet still to hear how Mary loved, all tribes of men are listening, And still the sinful woman's tears like stars heaven are glistening.

'T is not the gift our hands have brought, the love it is we bring with it,-- The minstrel's lips may shape the song, his heart in tune must sing with it; And so we love the simple lays, and wish we might have more of them, Our poet brothers sing for us,--there must be half a score of them.

It may be that of fame and name our voices once were emulous,-- With deeper thoughts, with tenderer throbs their softening tones are tremulous; The dead seem listening as of old, ere friendship was bereft of them; The living wear a kinder smile, the remnant that is left of them.

Though on the once unfurrowed brows the harrow- teeth of Time may show, Though all the strain of crippling years the halting feet of rhyme may show, We look and hear with melting hearts, for what we all remember is The morn of Spring, nor heed how chill the sky of gray November is.

Thanks to the gracious powers above from all mankind that singled us, And dropped the pearl of friendship in the cup they kindly mingled us, And bound us in a wreath of flowers with hoops of steel knit under it;-- Nor time, nor space, nor chance, nor change, nor death himself shall sunder it!

"AD AMICOS"

1876

"Dumque virent genua Et decet, obducta solvatur fonte senectus."

THE muse of boyhood's fervid hour Grows tame as skies get chill and hazy; Where once she sought a passion-flower, She only hopes to find a daisy. Well, who the changing world bewails? Who asks to have it stay unaltered? Shall grown-up kittens chase their tails? Shall colts be never shod or haltered?

Are we "The Boys" that used to make The tables ring with noisy follies? Whose deep-lunged laughter oft would shake The ceiling with its thunder-volleys? Are we the youths with lips unshorn, At beauty's feet unwrinkled suitors, Whose memories reach tradition's morn,-- The days of prehistoric tutors?

"The Boys" we knew,--but who are these Whose heads might serve for Plutarch's sages, Or Fox's martyrs, if you please, Or hermits of the dismal ages? "The Boys" we knew--can these be those? Their cheeks with morning's blush were painted;-- Where are the Harrys, Jims, and Joes With whom we once were well acquainted?

If we are they, we're not the same; If they are we, why then they're masking; Do tell us, neighbor What 's--your--name, Who are you?--What's the use of asking? You once were George, or Bill, or Ben; There's you, yourself--there 's you, that other-- I know you now--I knew you then-- You used to be your younger brother!

You both are all our own to-day,-- But ah! I hear a warning whisper; Yon roseate hour that flits away Repeats the Roman's sad paulisper. Come back! come back! we've need of you To pay you for your word of warning; We'll bathe your wings in brighter dew Than ever wet the lids of morning!

Behold this cup; its mystic wine No alien's lip has ever tasted; The blood of friendship's clinging vine, Still flowing, flowing, yet unwasted Old Time forgot his running sand And laid his hour-glass down to fill it, And Death himself with gentle hand Has touched the chalice, not to spill it.

Each bubble rounding at the brim Is rainbowed with its magic story; The shining days with age grown dim Are dressed again in robes of glory; In all its freshness spring returns With song of birds and blossoms tender; Once more the torch of passion burns, And youth is here in all its splendor!

Hope swings her anchor like a toy, Love laughs and shows the silver arrow We knew so well as man and boy,-- The shaft that stings through bone and marrow; Again our kindling pulses beat, With tangled curls our fingers dally, And bygone beauties smile as sweet As fresh-blown lilies of the valley.

O blessed hour! we may forget Its wreaths, its rhymes, its songs, its laughter, But not the loving eyes we met, Whose light shall gild the dim hereafter. How every heart to each grows warm! Is one in sunshine's ray? We share it. Is one in sorrow's blinding storm? A look, a word, shall help him bear it.

"The Boys" we were, "The Boys" we 'll be As long as three, as two, are creeping; Then here 's to him--ah! which is he?-- Who lives till all the rest are sleeping; A life with tranquil comfort blest, The young man's health, the rich man's plenty, All earth can give that earth has best, And heaven at fourscore years and twenty.

HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT

1877

I LIKE, at times, to hear the steeples' chimes With sober thoughts impressively that mingle; But sometimes, too, I rather like--don't you?-- To hear the music of the sleigh bells' jingle.

I like full well the deep resounding swell Of mighty symphonies with chords inwoven; But sometimes, too, a song of Burns--don't you? After a solemn storm-blast of Beethoven.

Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin.

Some works I find,--say Watts upon the Mind,-- No matter though at first they seemed amusing, Not quite the same, but just a little tame After some five or six times' reperusing.

So, too, at times when melancholy rhymes Or solemn speeches sober down a dinner, I've seen it 's true, quite often,--have n't you?-- The best-fed guests perceptibly grow thinner.

Better some jest (in proper terms expressed) Or story (strictly moral) even if musty, Or song we sung when these old throats were young,-- Something to keep our souls from getting rusty.

The poorest scrap from memory's ragged lap Comes like an heirloom from a dear dead mother-- Hush! there's a tear that has no business here, A half-formed sigh that ere its birth we smother.

We cry, we laugh; ah, life is half and half, Now bright and joyous as a song of Herrick's, Then chill and bare as funeral-minded Blair; As fickle as a female in hysterics.

If I could make you cry I would n't try; If you have hidden smiles I'd like to find them, And that although, as well I ought to know, The lips of laughter have a skull behind them.

Yet when I think we may be on the brink Of having Freedom's banner to dispose of, All crimson-hued, because the Nation would Insist on cutting its own precious nose off,

I feel indeed as if we rather need A sermon such as preachers tie a text on. If Freedom dies because a ballot lies, She earns her grave; 't is time to call the sexton!

But if a fight can make the matter right, Here are we, classmates, thirty men of mettle; We're strong and tough, we've lived nigh long enough,-- What if the Nation gave it us to settle?

The tale would read like that illustrious deed When Curtius took the leap the gap that filled in, Thus: "Fivescore years, good friends, as it appears, At last this people split on Hayes and Tilden.

"One half cried, 'See! the choice is S. J. T.!' And one half swore as stoutly it was t' other; Both drew the knife to save the Nation's life By wholesale vivisection of each other.

"Then rose in mass that monumental Class,-- 'Hold! hold!' they cried, 'give us, give us the daggers!' 'Content! content!' exclaimed with one consent The gaunt ex-rebels and the carpet-baggers.

"Fifteen each side, the combatants divide, So nicely balanced are their predilections; And first of all a tear-drop each lets fall, A tribute to their obsolete affections.

"Man facing man, the sanguine strife began, Jack, Jim and Joe against Tom, Dick and Harry, Each several pair its own account to square, Till both were down or one stood solitary.

"And the great fight raged furious all the night Till every integer was made a fraction; Reader, wouldst know what history has to show As net result of the above transaction?

"Whole coat-tails, four; stray fragments, several score; A heap of spectacles; a deaf man's trumpet; Six lawyers' briefs; seven pocket-handkerchiefs; Twelve canes wherewith the owners used to stump it;

"Odd rubber-shoes; old gloves of different hues; Tax--bills,--unpaid,--and several empty purses; And, saved from harm by some protecting charm, A printed page with Smith's immortal verses;

"Trifles that claim no very special name,-- Some useful, others chiefly ornamental; Pins, buttons, rings, and other trivial things, With various wrecks, capillary and dental.

"Also, one flag,--'t was nothing but a rag, And what device it bore it little matters; Red, white, and blue, but rent all through and through, 'Union forever' torn to shreds and tatters.

"They fought so well not one was left to tell Which got the largest share of cuts and slashes; When heroes meet, both sides are bound to beat; They telescoped like cars in railroad smashes.

"So the great split that baffled human wit And might have cost the lives of twenty millions, As all may see that know the rule of three, Was settled just as well by these civilians.

"As well. Just so. Not worse, not better. No, Next morning found the Nation still divided; Since all were slain, the inference is plain They left the point they fought for undecided."

If not quite true, as I have told it you, This tale of mutual extermination, To minds perplexed with threats of what comes next, Perhaps may furnish food for contemplation.

To cut men's throats to help them count their votes Is asinine--nay, worse--ascidian folly; Blindness like that would scare the mole and bat, And make the liveliest monkey melancholy.

I say once more, as I have said before, If voting for our Tildens and our Hayeses Means only fight, then, Liberty, good night! Pack up your ballot-box and go to blazes.

Unfurl your blood-red flags, you murderous hags, You petroleuses of Paris, fierce and foamy; We'll sell our stock in Plymouth's blasted rock, Pull up our stakes and migrate to Dahomey!

THE LAST SURVIVOR

1878

YES! the vacant chairs tell sadly we are going, going fast, And the thought comes strangely o'er me, who will live to be the last? When the twentieth century's sunbeams climb the far-off eastern hill, With his ninety winters burdened, will he greet the morning still?

Will he stand with Harvard's nurslings when they hear their mother's call And the old and young are gathered in the many alcoved hall? Will he answer to the summons when they range themselves in line And the young mustachioed marshal calls out "Class of '29 "?

Methinks I see the column as its lengthened ranks appear In the sunshine of the morrow of the nineteen hundredth year; Through the yard 't is creeping, winding, by the walls of dusky red,-- What shape is that which totters at the long procession's head?

Who knows this ancient graduate of fourscore years and ten,-- What place he held, what name he bore among the sons of men? So speeds the curious question; its answer travels slow; "'T is the last of sixty classmates of seventy years ago."

His figure shows but dimly, his face I scarce can see,-- There's something that reminds me,--it looks like--is it he? He? Who? No voice may whisper what wrinkled brow shall claim The wreath of stars that circles our last survivor's name.

Will he be some veteran minstrel, left to pipe in feeble rhyme All the stories and the glories of our gay and golden time? Or some quiet, voiceless brother in whose lonely,loving breast Fond memory broods in silence, like a dove upon her nest?

Will it be some old Emeritus, who taught so long ago The boys that heard him lecture have heads as white as snow? Or a pious, painful preacher, holding forth from year to year Till his colleague got a colleague whom the young folks flocked to hear?

Will it be a rich old merchant in a square-tied white cravat, Or select-man of a village in a pre-historic hat? Will his dwelling be a mansion in a marble-fronted row, Or a homestead by a hillside where the huckleberries grow?

I can see our one survivor, sitting lonely by himself,-- All his college text-books round him, ranged in order on their shelf; There are classic "interliners" filled with learning's choicest pith, Each cum notis variorum, quas recensuit doctus Smith;

Physics, metaphysics, logic, mathematics--all the lot Every wisdom--crammed octavo he has mastered and forgot, With the ghosts of dead professors standing guard beside them all; And the room is fall of shadows which their lettered backs recall.

How the past spreads out in vision with its far receding train, Like a long embroidered arras in the chambers of the brain, From opening manhood's morning when first we learned to grieve To the fond regretful moments of our sorrow-saddened eve!

What early shadows darkened our idle summer's joy When death snatched roughly from us that lovely bright-eyed boy! The years move swiftly onwards; the deadly shafts fall fast,-- Till all have dropped around him--lo, there he stands,--the last!

Their faces flit before him, some rosy-hued and fair, Some strong in iron manhood, some worn with toil and care; Their smiles no more shall greet him on cheeks with pleasure flushed! The friendly hands are folded, the pleasant voices hushed!

My picture sets me dreaming; alas! and can it be Those two familiar faces we never more may see? In every entering footfall I think them drawing near, With every door that opens I say, "At last they 're here!"

The willow bends unbroken when angry tempests blow, The stately oak is levelled and all its strength laid low; So fell that tower of manhood, undaunted, patient, strong, White with the gathering snowflakes, who faced the storm so long.

And he,--what subtle phrases their varying light must blend To paint as each remembers our many-featured friend! His wit a flash auroral that laughed in every look, His talk a sunbeam broken on the ripples of a brook,

Or, fed from thousand sources, a fountain's glittering jet, Or careless handfuls scattered of diamond sparks unset; Ah, sketch him, paint him, mould him in every shape you will, He was himself--the only--the one unpictured still!

Farewell! our skies are darkened and--yet the stars will shine, We 'll close our ranks together and still fall into line Till one is left, one only, to mourn for all the rest; And Heaven bequeath their memories to him who loves us best!

THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS

A MODERNIZED VERSION

1879

I DON'T think I feel much older; I'm aware I'm rather gray, But so are many young folks; I meet 'em every day. I confess I 'm more particular in what I eat and drink, But one's taste improves with culture; that is all it means, I think.

Can you read as once you used to? Well, the printing is so bad, No young folks' eyes can read it like the books that once we had. Are you quite as quick of hearing? Please to say that once again. Don't I use plain words, your Reverence? Yes, I often use a cane,

But it's not because I need it,--no, I always liked a stick; And as one might lean upon it, 't is as well it should be thick. Oh, I'm smart, I'm spry, I'm lively,--I can walk, yes, that I can, On the days I feel like walking, just as well as you, young man!

Don't you get a little sleepy after dinner every day? Well, I doze a little, sometimes, but that always was my way. Don't you cry a little easier than some twenty years ago? Well, my heart is very tender, but I think 't was always so.

Don't you find it sometimes happens that you can't recall a name? Yes, I know such lots of people,--but my memory 's not to blame. What! You think my memory's failing! Why, it's just as bright and clear, I remember my great-grandma! She's been dead these sixty year!

Is your voice a little trembly? Well, it may be, now and then, But I write as well as ever with a good old-fashioned pen; It 's the Gillotts make the trouble,--not at all my finger-ends,-- That is why my hand looks shaky when I sign for dividends.

Don't you stoop a little, walking? It 's a way I 've always had, I have always been round-shouldered, ever since I was a lad. Don't you hate to tie your shoe-strings? Yes, I own it--that is true. Don't you tell old stories over? I am not aware I do.

Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat In a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet? Don't you wear warm fleecy flannels? Don't you muffle up your throat Don't you like to have one help you when you're putting on your coat?

Don't you like old books you've dogs-eared, you can't remember when? Don't you call it late at nine o'clock and go to bed at ten? How many cronies can you count of all you used to know Who called you by your Christian name some fifty years ago?

How look the prizes to you that used to fire your brain? You've reared your mound-how high is it above the level plain? You 've drained the brimming golden cup that made your fancy reel, You've slept the giddy potion off,--now tell us how you feel!

You've watched the harvest ripening till every stem was cropped, You 've seen the rose of beauty fade till every petal dropped, You've told your thought, you 've done your task, you've tracked your dial round, --I backing down! Thank Heaven, not yet! I'm hale and brisk and sound,

And good for many a tussle, as you shall live to see; My shoes are not quite ready yet,--don't think you're rid of me! Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he was older far, And where will you be if I live to beat old Thomas Parr?

Ah well,--I know,--at every age life has a certain charm,-- You're going? Come, permit me, please, I beg you'll take my arm. I take your arm! Why take your arm? I 'd thank you to be told I 'm old enough to walk alone, but not so very old!

THE SHADOWS

1880

"How many have gone?" was the question of old Ere Time our bright ring of its jewels bereft; Alas! for too often the death-bell has tolled, And the question we ask is, "How many are left?"

Bright sparkled the wine; there were fifty that quaffed; For a decade had slipped and had taken but three. How they frolicked and sung, how they shouted and laughed, Like a school full of boys from their benches set free!

There were speeches and toasts, there were stories and rhymes, The hall shook its sides with their merriment's noise; As they talked and lived over the college-day times,-- No wonder they kept their old name of "The Boys"!

The seasons moved on in their rhythmical flow With mornings like maidens that pouted or smiled, With the bud and the leaf and the fruit and the snow, And the year-books of Time in his alcoves were piled.

There were forty that gathered where fifty had met; Some locks had got silvered, some lives had grown sere, But the laugh of the laughers was lusty as yet, And the song of the singers rose ringing and clear.

Still flitted the years; there were thirty that came; "The Boys" they were still, and they answered their call; There were foreheads of care, but the smiles were the same, And the chorus rang loud through the garlanded hall.

The hour-hand moved on, and they gathered again; There were twenty that joined in the hymn that was sung; But ah! for our song-bird we listened in vain,-- The crystalline tones like a seraph's that rung!

How narrow the circle that holds us to-night! How many the loved ones that greet us no more, As we meet like the stragglers that come from the fight, Like the mariners flung from a wreck on the shore!

We look through the twilight for those we have lost; The stream rolls between us, and yet they seem near; Already outnumbered by those who have crossed, Our band is transplanted, its home is not here!

They smile on us still--is it only a dream?-- While fondly or proudly their names we recall; They beckon--they come--they are crossing the stream-- Lo! the Shadows! the Shadows! room--room for them all!

BENJAMIN PEIRCE

ASTRONOMER, MATHEMATICIAN. 1809-1890

1881

FOR him the Architect of all Unroofed our planet's starlit hall; Through voids unknown to worlds unseen His clearer vision rose serene.

With us on earth he walked by day, His midnight path how far away! We knew him not so well who knew The patient eyes his soul looked through;

For who his untrod realm could share Of us that breathe this mortal air, Or camp in that celestial tent Whose fringes gild our firmament?

How vast the workroom where he brought The viewless implements of thought! The wit how subtle, how profound, That Nature's tangled webs unwound;

That through the clouded matrix saw The crystal planes of shaping law, Through these the sovereign skill that planned,-- The Father's care, the Master's hand!

To him the wandering stars revealed The secrets in their cradle sealed The far-off, frozen sphere that swings Through ether, zoned with lucid rings;

The orb that rolls in dim eclipse Wide wheeling round its long ellipse,-- His name Urania writes with these And stamps it on her Pleiades.

We knew him not? Ah, well we knew The manly soul, so brave, so true, The cheerful heart that conquered age, The childlike silver-bearded sage.

No more his tireless thought explores The azure sea with golden shores; Rest, wearied frame I the stars shall keep A loving watch where thou shalt sleep.

Farewell! the spirit needs must rise, So long a tenant of the skies,-- Rise to that home all worlds above Whose sun is God, whose light is love.

IN THE TWILIGHT

1882

NOT bed-time yet! The night-winds blow, The stars are out,--full well we know The nurse is on the stair, With hand of ice and cheek of snow, And frozen lips that whisper low, "Come, children, it is time to go My peaceful couch to share."

No years a wakeful heart can tire; Not bed-time yet! Come, stir the fire And warm your dear old hands; Kind Mother Earth we love so well Has pleasant stories yet to tell Before we hear the curfew bell; Still glow the burning brands.

Not bed-time yet! We long to know What wonders time has yet to show, What unborn years shall bring; What ship the Arctic pole shall reach, What lessons Science waits to teach, What sermons there are left to preach. What poems yet to sing.

What next? we ask; and is it true The sunshine falls on nothing new, As Israel's king declared? Was ocean ploughed with harnessed fire? Were nations coupled with a wire? Did Tarshish telegraph to Tyre? How Hiram would have stared!

And what if Sheba's curious queen, Who came to see,--and to be seen,-- Or something new to seek, And swooned, as ladies sometimes do, At sights that thrilled her through and through, Had heard, as she was "coming to," A locomotive's shriek,

And seen a rushing railway train As she looked out along the plain From David's lofty tower,-- A mile of smoke that blots the sky And blinds the eagles as they fly Behind the cars that thunder by A score of leagues an hour!

See to my fiat lux respond This little slumbering fire-tipped wand,-- One touch,--it bursts in flame! Steal me a portrait from the sun,-- One look,--and to! the picture done! Are these old tricks, King Solomon, We lying moderns claim?

Could you have spectroscoped a star? If both those mothers at your bar, The cruel and the mild, The young and tender, old and tough, Had said, "Divide,--you're right, though rough,"-- Did old Judea know enough To etherize the child?

These births of time our eyes have seen, With but a few brief years between; What wonder if the text, For other ages doubtless true, For coming years will never do,-- Whereof we all should like a few, If but to see what next.

If such things have been, such may be; Who would not like to live and see-- If Heaven may so ordain-- What waifs undreamed of, yet in store, The waves that roll forevermore On life's long beach may east ashore From out the mist-clad main?

Will Earth to pagan dreams return To find from misery's painted urn That all save hope has flown,-- Of Book and Church and Priest bereft, The Rock of Ages vainly cleft, Life's compass gone, its anchor left, Left,--lost,--in depths unknown?

Shall Faith the trodden path pursue The crux ansata wearers knew Who sleep with folded hands, Where, like a naked, lidless eye, The staring Nile rolls wandering by Those mountain slopes that climb the sky Above the drifting sands?

Or shall a nobler Faith return, Its fanes a purer gospel learn, With holier anthems ring, And teach us that our transient creeds Were but the perishable seeds Of harvests sown for larger needs, That ripening years shall bring?

Well, let the present do its best, We trust our Maker for the rest, As on our way we plod; Our souls, full dressed in fleshly suits, Love air and sunshine, flowers and fruits, The daisies better than their roots Beneath the grassy sod.

Not bed-time yet! The full-blown flower Of all the year--this evening hour-- With friendship's flame is bright; Life still is sweet, the heavens are fair, Though fields are brown and woods are bare, And many a joy is left to share Before we say Good-night!

And when, our cheerful evening past, The nurse, long waiting, comes at last, Ere on her lap we lie In wearied nature's sweet repose, At peace with all her waking foes, Our lips shall murmur, ere they close, Good-night! and not Good-by!

A LOVING-CUP SONG

1883

COME, heap the fagots! Ere we go Again the cheerful hearth shall glow; We 'll have another blaze, my boys! When clouds are black and snows are white, Then Christmas logs lend ruddy light They stole from summer days, my boys, They stole from summer days.

And let the Loving-Cup go round, The Cup with blessed memories crowned, That flows whene'er we meet, my boys; No draught will hold a drop of sin If love is only well stirred in To keep it sound and sweet, my boys, To keep it sound and sweet.

Give me, to pin upon my breast, The blossoms twain I love the best, A rosebud and a pink, my boys; Their leaves shall nestle next my heart, Their perfumed breath shall own its part In every health we drink, my boys, In every health we drink.

The breathing blossoms stir my blood, Methinks I see the lilacs bud And hear the bluebirds sing, my boys; Why not? Yon lusty oak has seen Full tenscore years, yet leaflets green Peep out with every spring, my boys, Peep out with every spring.

Old Time his rusty scythe may whet, The unmowed grass is glowing yet Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys; And if the crazy dotard ask, Is love worn out? Is life a task? We'll bravely answer No! my boys, We 'll bravely answer No!

For life's bright taper is the same Love tipped of old with rosy flame That heaven's own altar lent, my boys, To glow in every cup we fill Till lips are mute and hearts are still, Till life and love are spent, my boys, Till life and love are spent.

THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP

1884

SHE gathered at her slender waist The beauteous robe she wore; Its folds a golden belt embraced, One rose-hued gem it bore.

The girdle shrank; its lessening round Still kept the shining gem, But now her flowing locks it bound, A lustrous diadem.

And narrower still the circlet grew; Behold! a glittering band, Its roseate diamond set anew, Her neck's white column spanned.

Suns rise and set; the straining clasp The shortened links resist, Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp The diamond, on her wrist.

At length, the round of changes past The thieving years could bring, The jewel, glittering to the last, Still sparkles in a ring.

So, link by link, our friendships part, So loosen, break, and fall, A narrowing zone; the loving heart Lives changeless through them all.

THE LYRE OF ANACREON

1885

THE minstrel of the classic lay Of love and wine who sings Still found the fingers run astray That touched the rebel strings.

Of Cadmus he would fain have sung, Of Atreus and his line; But all the jocund echoes rung With songs of love and wine.

Ah, brothers! I would fain have caught Some fresher fancy's gleam; My truant accents find, unsought, The old familiar theme.

Love, Love! but not the sportive child With shaft and twanging bow, Whose random arrows drove us wild Some threescore years ago;

Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, The urchin blind and bare, But Love, with spectacles and staff, And scanty, silvered hair.

Our heads with frosted locks are white, Our roofs are thatched with snow, But red, in chilling winter's spite, Our hearts and hearthstones glow.

Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, And while the running sands Their golden thread unheeded spin, He warms his frozen hands.

Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, And waft this message o'er To all we miss, from all we meet On life's fast-crumbling shore:

Say that, to old affection true, We hug the narrowing chain That binds our hearts,--alas, how few The links that yet remain!

The fatal touch awaits them all That turns the rocks to dust; From year to year they break and fall,-- They break, but never rust.

Say if one note of happier strain This worn-out harp afford,-- One throb that trembles, not in vain,-- Their memory lent its chord.

Say that when Fancy closed her wings And Passion quenched his fire, Love, Love, still echoed from the strings As from Anacreon's lyre!

THE OLD TUNE

THIRTY-SIXTH VARIATION

1886

THIS shred of song you bid me bring Is snatched from fancy's embers; Ah, when the lips forget to sing, The faithful heart remembers!

Too swift the wings of envious Time To wait for dallying phrases, Or woven strands of labored rhyme To thread their cunning mazes.

A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain Its magic breath discloses Our life's long vista through a lane Of threescore summers' roses!

One language years alone can teach Its roots are young affections That feel their way to simplest speech Through silent recollections.

That tongue is ours. How few the words We need to know a brother! As simple are the notes of birds, Yet well they know each other.

This freezing month of ice and snow That brings our lives together Lends to our year a living glow That warms its wintry weather.

So let us meet as eve draws nigh, And life matures and mellows, Till Nature whispers with a sigh, "Good-night, my dear old fellows!"

THE BROKEN CIRCLE

1887

I STOOD On Sarum's treeless plain, The waste that careless Nature owns; Lone tenants of her bleak domain, Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.

Upheaved in many a billowy mound The sea-like, naked turf arose, Where wandering flocks went nibbling round The mingled graves of friends and foes.

The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, This windy desert roamed in turn; Unmoved these mighty blocks remain Whose story none that lives may learn.

Erect, half buried, slant or prone, These awful listeners, blind and dumb, Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown, As wave on wave they go and come.

"Who are you, giants, whence and why?" I stand and ask in blank amaze; My soul accepts their mute reply "A mystery, as are you that gaze.

"A silent Orpheus wrought the charm From riven rocks their spoils to bring; A nameless Titan lent his arm To range us in our magic ring.

"But Time with still and stealthy stride, That climbs and treads and levels all, That bids the loosening keystone slide, And topples down the crumbling wall,--

"Time, that unbuilds the quarried past, Leans on these wrecks that press the sod; They slant, they stoop, they fall at last, And strew the turf their priests have trod.

"No more our altar's wreath of smoke Floats up with morning's fragrant dew; The fires are dead, the ring is broke, Where stood the many stand the few."

My thoughts had wandered far away, Borne off on Memory's outspread wing, To where in deepening twilight lay The wrecks of friendship's broken ring.

Ah me! of all our goodly train How few will find our banquet hall! Yet why with coward lips complain That this must lean, and that must fall?

Cold is the Druid's altar-stone, Its vanished flame no more returns; But ours no chilling damp has known,-- Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns.

So let our broken circle stand A wreck, a remnant, yet the same, While one last, loving, faithful hand Still lives to feed its altar-flame!

THE ANGEL-THIEF

1888

TIME is a thief who leaves his tools behind him; He comes by night, he vanishes at dawn; We track his footsteps, but we never find him Strong locks are broken, massive bolts are drawn,

And all around are left the bars and borers, The splitting wedges and the prying keys, Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-explorers To crack, wrench open, rifle as they please.

Ah, these are tools which Heaven in mercy lends us When gathering rust has clenched our shackles fast, Time is the angel-thief that Nature sends us To break the cramping fetters of our past.

Mourn as we may for treasures he has taken, Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft, More precious are those implements forsaken, Found in the wreck his ruthless hands have left.

Some lever that a casket's hinge has broken Pries off a bolt, and lo! our souls are free; Each year some Open Sesame is spoken, And every decade drops its master-key.

So as from year to year we count our treasure, Our loss seems less, and larger look our gains; Time's wrongs repaid in more than even measure,-- We lose our jewels, but we break our chains.

AFTER THE CURFEW

1889

THE Play is over. While the light Yet lingers in the darkening hall, I come to say a last Good-night Before the final Exeunt all.

We gathered once, a joyous throng: The jovial toasts went gayly round; With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song, We made the floors and walls resound.

We come with feeble steps and slow, A little band of four or five, Left from the wrecks of long ago, Still pleased to find ourselves alive.

Alive! How living, too, are they Whose memories it is ours to share! Spread the long table's full array,-- There sits a ghost in every chair!

One breathing form no more, alas! Amid our slender group we see; With him we still remained "The Class,"-- Without his presence what are we?

The hand we ever loved to clasp,-- That tireless hand which knew no rest,-- Loosed from affection's clinging grasp, Lies nerveless on the peaceful breast.

The beaming eye, the cheering voice, That lent to life a generous glow, Whose every meaning said "Rejoice," We see, we hear, no more below.

The air seems darkened by his loss, Earth's shadowed features look less fair, And heavier weighs the daily cross His willing shoulders helped us bear.

Why mourn that we, the favored few Whom grasping Time so long has spared Life's sweet illusions to pursue, The common lot of age have shared?

In every pulse of Friendship's heart There breeds unfelt a throb of pain,-- One hour must rend its links apart, Though years on years have forged the chain.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

So ends "The Boys,"--a lifelong play. We too must hear the Prompter's call To fairer scenes and brighter day Farewell! I let the curtain fall.

POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE

1857-1858

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,-- The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed,-- Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

SUN AND SHADOW

As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, To the billows of foam-crested blue, Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, The sun gleaming bright on her sail.

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,-- Of breakers that whiten and roar; How little he cares, if in shadow or sun They see him who gaze from the shore! He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, To the rock that is under his lee, As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves Where life and its ventures are laid, The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves May see us in sunshine or shade; Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark, We'll trim our broad sail as before, And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, Nor ask how we look from the shore!

MUSA

O MY lost beauty!--hast thou folded quite Thy wings of morning light Beyond those iron gates Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates, And Age upon his mound of ashes waits To chill our fiery dreams, Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care, Whose flowers are silvered hair! Have I not loved thee long, Though my young lips have often done thee wrong, And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song? Ah, wilt thou yet return, Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?

Come to me!--I will flood thy silent shrine With my soul's sacred wine, And heap thy marble floors As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores, In leafy islands walled with madrepores And lapped in Orient seas, When all their feathery palms toss, plume-like, in the breeze.

Come to me!--thou shalt feed on honeyed words, Sweeter than song of birds;-- No wailing bulbul's throat, No melting dulcimer's melodious note When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float, Thy ravished sense might soothe With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth.

Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen, Sought in those bowers of green Where loop the clustered vines And the close-clinging dulcamara twines,-- Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, And Summer's fruited gems, And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.

Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves,-- Or stretched by grass-grown graves, Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones Still slumbering where they lay While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away.

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing! Still let me dream and sing,-- Dream of that winding shore Where scarlet cardinals bloom-for me no more,-- The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, And clustering nenuphars Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!

Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!-- Come while the rose is red,-- While blue-eyed Summer smiles On the green ripples round yon sunken piles Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, And on the sultry air The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!

Oh for thy burning lips to fire my brain With thrills of wild, sweet pain!-- On life's autumnal blast, Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast,-- Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!-- Behold thy new-decked shrine, And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"

A PARTING HEALTH

TO J. L. MOTLEY

YES, we knew we must lose him,--though friendship may claim To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame; Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, 'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.

As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom, Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of timid, Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue!

Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed! From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.

So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed: THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,--the world holds him dear,-- Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career!

1857.

WHAT WE ALL THINK

THAT age was older once than now, In spite of locks untimely shed, Or silvered on the youthful brow; That babes make love and children wed.

That sunshine had a heavenly glow, Which faded with those "good old days" When winters came with deeper snow, And autumns with a softer haze.

That--mother, sister, wife, or child-- The "best of women" each has known. Were school-boys ever half so wild? How young the grandpapas have grown!

That but for this our souls were free, And but for that our lives were blest; That in some season yet to be Our cares will leave us time to rest.

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,-- Some common ailment of the race,-- Though doctors think the matter plain,-- That ours is "a peculiar case."

That when like babes with fingers burned We count one bitter maxim more, Our lesson all the world has learned, And men are wiser than before.

That when we sob o'er fancied woes, The angels hovering overhead Count every pitying drop that flows, And love us for the tears we shed.

That when we stand with tearless eye And turn the beggar from our door, They still approve us when we sigh, "Ah, had I but one thousand more!"

Though temples crowd the crumbled brink O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, Their tablets bold with what we think, Their echoes dumb to what we know;

That one unquestioned text we read, All doubt beyond, all fear above, Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE!

SPRING HAS COME

INTRA MUROS

THE sunbeams, lost for half a year, Slant through my pane their morning rays; For dry northwesters cold and clear, The east blows in its thin blue haze.

And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, Then close against the sheltering wall The tulip's horn of dusky green, The peony's dark unfolding ball.

The golden-chaliced crocus burns; The long narcissus-blades appear; The cone-beaked hyacinth returns To light her blue-flamed chandelier.

The willow's whistling lashes, wrung By the wild winds of gusty March, With sallow leaflets lightly strung, Are swaying by the tufted larch.

The elms have robed their slender spray With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; Wide o'er the clasping arch of day Soars like a cloud their hoary chief.

See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, That flames in glory for an hour,-- Behold it withering,--then look up,-- How meek the forest monarch's flower!

When wake the violets, Winter dies; When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near: When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, "Bud, little roses! Spring is here!"

The windows blush with fresh bouquets, Cut with the May-dew on their lips; The radish all its bloom displays, Pink as Aurora's finger-tips.

Nor less the flood of light that showers On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- The walks are gay as bridal bowers With rows of many-petalled maids.

The scarlet shell-fish click and clash In the blue barrow where they slide; The horseman, proud of streak and splash, Creeps homeward from his morning ride.

Here comes the dealer's awkward string, With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- Rough colts, with careless country-swing, In lazy walk or slouching trot.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wild filly from the mountain-side, Doomed to the close and chafing thills, Lend me thy long, untiring stride To seek with thee thy western hills!

I hear the whispering voice of Spring, The thrush's trill, the robin's cry, Like some poor bird with prisoned wing That sits and sings, but longs to fly.

Oh for one spot of living greed,-- One little spot where leaves can grow,-- To love unblamed, to walk unseen, To dream above, to sleep below!

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