The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Complete (part 5 of 9)

Dedication

Prefixed to the volume of which the group of six poems following this prelude constituted the first portion.

I WOULD the gift I offer here Might graces from thy favor take, And, seen through Friendship's atmosphere, On softened lines and coloring, wear The unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake.

Few leaves of Fancy's spring remain But what I have I give to thee, The o'er-sunned bloom of summer's plain, And paler flowers, the latter rain Calls from the westering slope of life's autumnal lea.

Above the fallen groves of green, Where youth's enchanted forest stood, Dry root and mossed trunk between, A sober after-growth is seen, As springs the pine where falls the gay-leafed maple wood!

Yet birds will sing, and breezes play Their leaf-harps in the sombre tree; And through the bleak and wintry day It keeps its steady green alway,-- So, even my after-thoughts may have a charm for thee.

Art's perfect forms no moral need, And beauty is its own excuse; But for the dull and flowerless weed Some healing virtue still must plead, And the rough ore must find its honors in its use.

So haply these, my simple lays Of homely toil, may serve to show The orchard bloom and tasselled maize That skirt and gladden duty's ways, The unsung beauty hid life's common things below.

Haply from them the toiler, bent Above his forge or plough, may gain, A manlier spirit of content, And feel that life is wisest spent Where the strong working hand makes strong the working brain.

The doom which to the guilty pair Without the walls of Eden came, Transforming sinless ease to care And rugged toil, no more shall bear The burden of old crime, or mark of primal shame.

A blessing now, a curse no more; Since He, whose name we breathe with awe, The coarse mechanic vesture wore, A poor man toiling with the poor, In labor, as in prayer, fulfilling the same law.

1850.

THE SHOEMAKERS.

Ho! workers of the old time styled The Gentle Craft of Leather Young brothers of the ancient guild, Stand forth once more together! Call out again your long array, In the olden merry manner Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day, Fling out your blazoned banner!

Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone How falls the polished hammer Rap, rap I the measured sound has grown A quick and merry clamor. Now shape the sole! now deftly curl The glossy vamp around it, And bless the while the bright-eyed girl Whose gentle fingers bound it!

For you, along the Spanish main A hundred keels are ploughing; For you, the Indian on the plain His lasso-coil is throwing; For you, deep glens with hemlock dark The woodman's fire is lighting; For you, upon the oak's gray bark, The woodman's axe is smiting.

For you, from Carolina's pine The rosin-gum is stealing; For you, the dark-eyed Florentine Her silken skein is reeling; For you, the dizzy goatherd roams His rugged Alpine ledges; For you, round all her shepherd homes, Bloom England's thorny hedges.

The foremost still, by day or night, On moated mound or heather, Where'er the need of trampled right Brought toiling men together; Where the free burghers from the wall Defied the mail-clad master, Than yours, at Freedom's trumpet-call, No craftsmen rallied faster.

Let foplings sneer, let fools deride, Ye heed no idle scorner; Free hands and hearts are still your pride, And duty done, your honor. Ye dare to trust, for honest fame, The jury Time empanels, And leave to truth each noble name Which glorifies your annals.

Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet, In strong and hearty German; And Bloomfield's lay, and Gifford's wit, And patriot fame of Sherman; Still from his book, a mystic seer, The soul of Behmen teaches, And England's priestcraft shakes to hear Of Fox's leathern breeches.

The foot is yours; where'er it falls, It treads your well-wrought leather, On earthen floor, in marble halls, On carpet, or on heather. Still there the sweetest charm is found Of matron grace or vestal's, As Hebe's foot bore nectar round Among the old celestials.

Rap, rap!--your stout and bluff brogan, With footsteps slow and weary, May wander where the sky's blue span Shuts down upon the prairie. On Beauty's foot your slippers glance, By Saratoga's fountains, Or twinkle down the summer dance Beneath the Crystal Mountains!

The red brick to the mason's hand, The brown earth to the tiller's, The shoe in yours shall wealth command, Like fairy Cinderella's! As they who shunned the household maid Beheld the crown upon her, So all shall see your toil repaid With hearth and home and honor.

Then let the toast be freely quaffed, In water cool and brimming,-- "All honor to the good old Craft, Its merry men and women!" Call out again your long array, In the old time's pleasant manner Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day, Fling out his blazoned banner!

1845.

THE FISHERMEN.

HURRAH! the seaward breezes Sweep down the bay amain; Heave up, my lads, the anchor! Run up the sail again Leave to the lubber landsmen The rail-car and the steed; The stars of heaven shall guide us, The breath of heaven shall speed.

From the hill-top looks the steeple, And the lighthouse from the sand; And the scattered pines are waving Their farewell from the land. One glance, my lads, behind us, For the homes we leave one sigh, Ere we take the change and chances Of the ocean and the sky.

Now, brothers, for the icebergs Of frozen Labrador, Floating spectral in the moonshine, Along the low, black shore! Where like snow the gannet's feathers On Brador's rocks are shed, And the noisy murr are flying, Like black scuds, overhead;

Where in mist tie rock is hiding, And the sharp reef lurks below, And the white squall smites in summer, And the autumn tempests blow; Where, through gray and rolling vapor, From evening unto morn, A thousand boats are hailing, Horn answering unto horn.

Hurrah! for the Red Island, With the white cross on its crown Hurrah! for Meccatina, And its mountains bare and brown! Where the Caribou's tall antlers O'er the dwarf-wood freely toss, And the footstep of the Mickmack Has no sound upon the moss.

There we'll drop our lines, and gather Old Ocean's treasures in, Where'er the mottled mackerel Turns up a steel-dark fin. The sea's our field of harvest, Its scaly tribes our grain; We'll reap the teeming waters As at home they reap the plain.

Our wet hands spread the carpet, And light the hearth of home; From our fish, as in the old time, The silver coin shall come. As the demon fled the chamber Where the fish of Tobit lay, So ours from all our dwellings Shall frighten Want away.

Though the mist upon our jackets In the bitter air congeals, And our lines wind stiff and slowly From off the frozen reels; Though the fog be dark around us, And the storm blow high and loud, We will whistle down the wild wind, And laugh beneath the cloud!

In the darkness as in daylight, On the water as on land, God's eye is looking on us, And beneath us is His hand! Death will find us soon or later, On the deck or in the cot; And we cannot meet him better Than in working out our lot.

Hurrah! hurrah! the west-wind Comes freshening down the bay, The rising sails are filling; Give way, my lads, give way! Leave the coward landsman clinging To the dull earth, like a weed; The stars of heaven shall guide us, The breath of heaven shall speed!

1845.

THE LUMBERMEN.

WILDLY round our woodland quarters Sad-voiced Autumn grieves; Thickly down these swelling waters Float his fallen leaves. Through the tall and naked timber, Column-like and old, Gleam the sunsets of November, From their skies of gold.

O'er us, to the southland heading, Screams the gray wild-goose; On the night-frost sounds the treading Of the brindled moose. Noiseless creeping, while we're sleeping, Frost his task-work plies; Soon, his icy bridges heaping, Shall our log-piles rise.

When, with sounds of smothered thunder, On some night of rain, Lake and river break asunder Winter's weakened chain, Down the wild March flood shall bear them To the saw-mill's wheel, Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear them With his teeth of steel.

Be it starlight, be it moonlight, In these vales below, When the earliest beams of sunlight Streak the mountain's snow, Crisps the boar-frost, keen and early, To our hurrying feet, And the forest echoes clearly All our blows repeat.

Where the crystal Ambijejis Stretches broad and clear, And Millnoket's pine-black ridges Hide the browsing deer Where, through lakes and wide morasses, Or through rocky walls, Swift and strong, Penobscot passes White with foamy falls;

Where, through clouds, are glimpses given Of Katahdin's sides,-- Rock and forest piled to heaven, Torn and ploughed by slides! Far below, the Indian trapping, In the sunshine warm; Far above, the snow-cloud wrapping Half the peak in storm!

Where are mossy carpets better Than the Persian weaves, And than Eastern perfumes sweeter Seem the fading leaves; And a music wild and solemn, From the pine-tree's height, Rolls its vast and sea-like volume On the wind of night;

Make we here our camp of winter; And, through sleet and snow, Pitchy knot and beechen splinter On our hearth shall glow. Here, with mirth to lighten duty, We shall lack alone Woman's smile and girlhood's beauty, Childhood's lisping tone.

But their hearth is brighter burning For our toil to-day; And the welcome of returning Shall our loss repay, When, like seamen from the waters, From the woods we come, Greeting sisters, wives, and daughters, Angels of our home!

Not for us the measured ringing From the village spire, Not for us the Sabbath singing Of the sweet-voiced choir, Ours the old, majestic temple, Where God's brightness shines Down the dome so grand and ample, Propped by lofty pines!

Through each branch-enwoven skylight, Speaks He in the breeze, As of old beneath the twilight Of lost Eden's trees! For His ear, the inward feeling Needs no outward tongue; He can see the spirit kneeling While the axe is swung.

Heeding truth alone, and turning From the false and dim, Lamp of toil or altar burning Are alike to Him. Strike, then, comrades! Trade is waiting On our rugged toil; Far ships waiting for the freighting Of our woodland spoil.

Ships, whose traffic links these highlands, Bleak and cold, of ours, With the citron-planted islands Of a clime of flowers; To our frosts the tribute bringing Of eternal heats; In our lap of winter flinging Tropic fruits and sweets.

Cheerly, on the axe of labor, Let the sunbeams dance, Better than the flash of sabre Or the gleam of lance! Strike! With every blow is given Freer sun and sky, And the long-hid earth to heaven Looks, with wondering eye!

Loud behind us grow the murmurs Of the age to come; Clang of smiths, and tread of farmers, Bearing harvest home! Here her virgin lap with treasures Shall the green earth fill; Waving wheat and golden maize-ears Crown each beechen hill.

Keep who will the city's alleys Take the smooth-shorn plain'; Give to us the cedarn valleys, Rocks and hills of Maine! In our North-land, wild and woody, Let us still have part Rugged nurse and mother sturdy, Hold us to thy heart!

Oh, our free hearts beat the warmer For thy breath of snow; And our tread is all the firmer For thy rocks below. Freedom, hand in hand with labor, Walketh strong and brave; On the forehead of his neighbor No man writeth Slave!

Lo, the day breaks! old Katahdin's Pine-trees show its fires, While from these dim forest gardens Rise their blackened spires. Up, my comrades! up and doing! Manhood's rugged play Still renewing, bravely hewing Through the world our way!

1845.

THE SHIP-BUILDERS

THE sky is ruddy in the east, The earth is gray below, And, spectral in the river-mist, The ship's white timbers show. Then let the sounds of measured stroke And grating saw begin; The broad-axe to the gnarled oak, The mallet to the pin!

Hark! roars the bellows, blast on blast, The sooty smithy jars, And fire-sparks, rising far and fast, Are fading with the stars. All day for us the smith shall stand Beside that flashing forge; All day for us his heavy hand The groaning anvil scourge.

From far-off hills, the panting team For us is toiling near; For us the raftsmen down the stream Their island barges steer. Rings out for us the axe-man's stroke In forests old and still; For us the century-circled oak Falls crashing down his hill.

Up! up! in nobler toil than ours No craftsmen bear a part We make of Nature's giant powers The slaves of human Art. Lay rib to rib and beam to beam, And drive the treenails free; Nor faithless joint nor yawning seam Shall tempt the searching sea.

Where'er the keel of our good ship The sea's rough field shall plough; Where'er her tossing spars shall drip With salt-spray caught below; That ship must heed her master's beck, Her helm obey his hand, And seamen tread her reeling deck As if they trod the land.

Her oaken ribs the vulture-beak Of Northern ice may peel; The sunken rock and coral peak May grate along her keel; And know we well the painted shell We give to wind and wave, Must float, the sailor's citadel, Or sink, the sailor's grave.

Ho! strike away the bars and blocks, And set the good ship free! Why lingers on these dusty rocks The young bride of the sea? Look! how she moves adown the grooves, In graceful beauty now! How lowly on the breast she loves Sinks down her virgin prow.

God bless her! wheresoe'er the breeze Her snowy wing shall fan, Aside the frozen Hebrides, Or sultry Hindostan! Where'er, in mart or on the main, With peaceful flag unfurled, She helps to wind the silken chain Of commerce round the world!

Speed on the ship! But let her bear No merchandise of sin, No groaning cargo of despair Her roomy hold within; No Lethean drug for Eastern lands, Nor poison-draught for ours; But honest fruits of toiling hands And Nature's sun and showers.

Be hers the Prairie's golden grain, The Desert's golden sand, The clustered fruits of sunny Spain, The spice of Morning-land! Her pathway on the open main May blessings follow free, And glad hearts welcome back again Her white sails from the sea 1846.

THE DROVERS.

THROUGH heat and cold, and shower and sun, Still onward cheerly driving There's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving. But see! the day is closing cool, The woods are dim before us; The white fog of the wayside pool Is creeping slowly o'er us.

The night is falling, comrades mine, Our footsore beasts are weary, And through yon elms the tavern sign Looks out upon us cheery. The landlord beckons from his door, His beechen fire is glowing; These ample barns, with feed in store, Are filled to overflowing.

From many a valley frowned across By brows of rugged mountains; From hillsides where, through spongy moss, Gush out the river fountains; From quiet farm-fields, green and low, And bright with blooming clover; From vales of corn the wandering crow No richer hovers over;

Day after day our way has been O'er many a hill and hollow; By lake and stream, by wood and glen, Our stately drove we follow. Through dust-clouds rising thick and dun, As smoke of battle o'er us, Their white horns glisten in the sun, Like plumes and crests before us.

We see them slowly climb the hill, As slow behind it sinking; Or, thronging close, from roadside rill, Or sunny lakelet, drinking. Now crowding in the narrow road, In thick and struggling masses, They glare upon the teamster's load, Or rattling coach that passes.

Anon, with toss of horn and tail, And paw of hoof, and bellow, They leap some farmer's broken pale, O'er meadow-close or fallow. Forth comes the startled goodman; forth Wife, children, house-dog, sally, Till once more on their dusty path The baffled truants rally.

We drive no starvelings, scraggy grown, Loose-legged, and ribbed and bony, Like those who grind their noses down On pastures bare and stony,-- Lank oxen, rough as Indian dogs, And cows too lean for shadows, Disputing feebly with the frogs The crop of saw-grass meadows!

In our good drove, so sleek and fair, No bones of leanness rattle; No tottering hide-bound ghosts are there, Or Pharaoh's evil cattle. Each stately beeve bespeaks the hand That fed him unrepining; The fatness of a goodly land In each dun hide is shining.

We've sought them where, in warmest nooks, The freshest feed is growing, By sweetest springs and clearest brooks Through honeysuckle flowing; Wherever hillsides, sloping south, Are bright with early grasses, Or, tracking green the lowland's drouth, The mountain streamlet passes.

But now the day is closing cool, The woods are dim before us, The white fog of the wayside pool Is creeping slowly o'er us. The cricket to the frog's bassoon His shrillest time is keeping; The sickle of yon setting moon The meadow-mist is reaping.

The night is falling, comrades mine, Our footsore beasts are weary, And through yon elms the tavern sign Looks out upon us cheery. To-morrow, eastward with our charge We'll go to meet the dawning, Ere yet the pines of Kearsarge Have seen the sun of morning.

When snow-flakes o'er the frozen earth, Instead of birds, are flitting; When children throng the glowing hearth, And quiet wives are knitting; While in the fire-light strong and clear Young eyes of pleasure glisten, To tales of all we see and hear The ears of home shall listen.

By many a Northern lake and bill, From many a mountain pasture, Shall Fancy play the Drover still, And speed the long night faster. Then let us on, through shower and sun, And heat and cold, be driving; There 's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving.

1847.

THE HUSKERS.

IT was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again; The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow-flowers of May.

Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red, At first a rayless disk of fire, he brightened as he sped; Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued, On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly pictured wood.

And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night, He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light; Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill; And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still.

And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of that sky, Flecked by the many-tinted leaves, and laughed, they knew not why; And school-girls, gay with aster-flowers, beside the meadow brooks, Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine of sweet looks.

From spire and barn looked westerly the patient weathercocks; But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks. No sound was in the woodlands, save the squirrel's dropping shell, And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low rustling as they fell.

The summer grains were harvested; the stubble-fields lay dry, Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale green waves of rye; But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys fringed with wood, Ungathered, bleaching in the sun, the heavy corn crop stood.

Bent low, by autumn's wind and rain, through husks that, dry and sere, Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out the yellow ear; Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a verdant fold, And glistened in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold.

There wrought the busy harvesters; and many a creaking wain Bore slowly to the long barn-floor its load of husk and grain; Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down, at last, And like a merry guest's farewell, the day in brightness passed.

And to! as through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond, Flamed the red radiance of a sky, set all afire beyond, Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone, And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled into one!

As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away, And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil shadows lay; From many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet without name, Their milking and their home-tasks done, the merry huskers came.

Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks in the mow, Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scene below; The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before, And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown cheeks glimmering o'er.

Half hidden, in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart, Talking their old times over, the old men sat apart; While up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade, At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the happy children played.

Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair, Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of soft brown hair, The master of the village school, sleek of hair and smooth of tongue, To the quaint tune of some old psalm, a husking ballad sung.

THE CORN-SONG.

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard Heap high the golden corn No richer gift has Autumn poured From out her lavish horn!

Let other lands, exulting, glean The apple from the pine, The orange from its glossy green, The cluster from the vine;

We better love the hardy gift Our rugged vales bestow, To cheer us when the storm shall drift Our harvest-fields with snow.

Through vales of grass and mends of flowers Our ploughs their furrows made, While on the hills the sun and showers Of changeful April played.

We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain Beneath the sun of May, And frightened from our sprouting grain The robber crows away.

All through the long, bright days of June Its leaves grew green and fair, And waved in hot midsummer's noon Its soft and yellow hair.

And now, with autumn's moonlit eves, Its harvest-time has come, We pluck away the frosted leaves, And bear the treasure home.

There, when the snows about us drift, And winter winds are cold, Fair hands the broken grain shall sift, And knead its meal of gold.

Let vapid idlers loll in silk Around their costly board; Give us the bowl of samp and milk, By homespun beauty poured!

Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth Sends up its smoky curls, Who will not thank the kindly earth, And bless our farmer girls!

Then shame on all the proud and vain, Whose folly laughs to scorn The blessing of our hardy grain, Our wealth of golden corn.

Let earth withhold her goodly root, Let mildew blight the rye, Give to the worm the orchard's fruit, The wheat-field to the fly.

But let the good old crop adorn The hills our fathers trod; Still let us, for his golden corn, Send up our thanks to God!

1847.

THE REFORMER.

ALL grim and soiled and brown with tan, I saw a Strong One, in his wrath, Smiting the godless shrines of man Along his path.

The Church, beneath her trembling dome, Essayed in vain her ghostly charm Wealth shook within his gilded home With strange alarm.

Fraud from his secret chambers fled Before the sunlight bursting in Sloth drew her pillow o'er her head To drown the din.

"Spare," Art implored, "yon holy pile; That grand, old, time-worn turret spare;" Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle, Cried out, "Forbear!"

Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, Groped for his old accustomed stone, Leaned on his staff, and wept to find His seat o'erthrown.

Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, O'erhung with paly locks of gold,-- "Why smite," he asked in sad surprise, "The fair, the old?"

Yet louder rang the Strong One's stroke, Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam; Shuddering and sick of heart I woke, As from a dream.

I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled, The Waster seemed the Builder too; Upspringing from the ruined Old I saw the New.

'T was but the ruin of the bad,-- The wasting of the wrong and ill; Whate'er of good the old time had Was living still.

Calm grew the brows of him I feared; The frown which awed me passed away, And left behind a smile which cheered Like breaking day.

The grain grew green on battle-plains, O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow; The slave stood forging from his chains The spade and plough.

Where frowned the fort, pavilions gay And cottage windows, flower-entwined, Looked out upon the peaceful bay And hills behind.

Through vine-wreathed cups with wine once red, The lights on brimming crystal fell, Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head And mossy well.

Through prison walls, like Heaven-sent hope, Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed, And with the idle gallows-rope The young child played.

Where the doomed victim in his cell Had counted o'er the weary hours, Glad school-girls, answering to the bell, Came crowned with flowers.

Grown wiser for the lesson given, I fear no longer, for I know That, where the share is deepest driven, The best fruits grow.

The outworn rite, the old abuse, The pious fraud transparent grown, The good held captive in the use Of wrong alone,--

These wait their doom, from that great law Which makes the past time serve to-day; And fresher life the world shall draw From their decay.

Oh, backward-looking son of time! The new is old, the old is new, The cycle of a change sublime Still sweeping through.

So wisely taught the Indian seer; Destroying Seva, forming Brahm, Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear, Are one, the same.

Idly as thou, in that old day Thou mournest, did thy sire repine; So, in his time, thy child grown gray Shall sigh for thine.

But life shall on and upward go; Th' eternal step of Progress beats To that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats.

Take heart! the Waster builds again, A charmed life old Goodness bath; The tares may perish, but the grain Is not for death.

God works in all things; all obey His first propulsion from the night Wake thou and watch! the world is gray With morning light!

1848.

THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS.

STILL in thy streets, O Paris! doth the stain Of blood defy the cleansing autumn rain; Still breaks the smoke Messina's ruins through, And Naples mourns that new Bartholomew, When squalid beggary, for a dole of bread, At a crowned murderer's beck of license, fed The yawning trenches with her noble dead; Still, doomed Vienna, through thy stately halls The shell goes crashing and the red shot falls, And, leagued to crush thee, on the Danube's side, The bearded Croat and Bosniak spearman ride; Still in that vale where Himalaya's snow Melts round the cornfields and the vines below, The Sikh's hot cannon, answering ball for ball, Flames in the breach of Moultan's shattered wall; On Chenab's side the vulture seeks the slain, And Sutlej paints with blood its banks again.

"What folly, then," the faithless critic cries, With sneering lip, and wise world-knowing eyes, "While fort to fort, and post to post, repeat The ceaseless challenge of the war-drum's beat, And round the green earth, to the church-bell's chime, The morning drum-roll of the camp keeps time, To dream of peace amidst a world in arms, Of swords to ploughshares changed by Scriptural charms, Of nations, drunken with the wine of blood, Staggering to take the Pledge of Brotherhood, Like tipplers answering Father Matthew's call; The sullen Spaniard, and the mad-cap Gaul, The bull-dog Briton, yielding but with life, The Yankee swaggering with his bowie-knife, The Russ, from banquets with the vulture shared, The blood still dripping from his amber beard, Quitting their mad Berserker dance to hear The dull, meek droning of a drab-coat seer; Leaving the sport of Presidents and Kings, Where men for dice each titled gambler flings, To meet alternate on the Seine and Thames, For tea and gossip, like old country dames No! let the cravens plead the weakling's cant, Let Cobden cipher, and let Vincent rant, Let Sturge preach peace to democratic throngs, And Burritt, stammering through his hundred tongues, Repeat, in all, his ghostly lessons o'er, Timed to the pauses of the battery's roar; Check Ban or Kaiser with the barricade Of "Olive-leaves" and Resolutions made, Spike guns with pointed Scripture-texts, and hope To capsize navies with a windy trope; Still shall the glory and the pomp of War Along their train the shouting millions draw; Still dusty Labor to the passing Brave His cap shall doff, and Beauty's kerchief wave; Still shall the bard to Valor tune his song, Still Hero-worship kneel before the Strong; Rosy and sleek, the sable-gowned divine, O'er his third bottle of suggestive wine, To plumed and sworded auditors, shall prove Their trade accordant with the Law of Love; And Church for State, and State for Church, shall fight, And both agree, that "Might alone is Right!" Despite of sneers like these, O faithful few, Who dare to hold God's word and witness true, Whose clear-eyed faith transcends our evil time, And o'er the present wilderness of crime Sees the calm future, with its robes of green, Its fleece-flecked mountains, and soft streams between,-- Still keep the path which duty bids ye tread, Though worldly wisdom shake the cautious head; No truth from Heaven descends upon our sphere, Without the greeting of the skeptic's sneer; Denied and mocked at, till its blessings fall, Common as dew and sunshine, over all."

Then, o'er Earth's war-field, till the strife shall cease, Like Morven's harpers, sing your song of peace; As in old fable rang the Thracian's lyre, Midst howl of fiends and roar of penal fire, Till the fierce din to pleasing murmurs fell, And love subdued the maddened heart of hell. Lend, once again, that holy song a tongue, Which the glad angels of the Advent sung, Their cradle-anthem for the Saviour's birth, Glory to God, and peace unto the earth Through the mad discord send that calming word Which wind and wave on wild Genesareth heard, Lift in Christ's name his Cross against the Sword! Not vain the vision which the prophets saw, Skirting with green the fiery waste of war, Through the hot sand-gleam, looming soft and calm On the sky's rim, the fountain-shading palm. Still lives for Earth, which fiends so long have trod, The great hope resting on the truth of God,-- Evil shall cease and Violence pass away, And the tired world breathe free through a long Sabbath day.

11th mo., 1848.

THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.

Before the law authorizing imprisonment for debt had been abolished in Massachusetts, a revolutionary pensioner was confined in Charlestown jail for a debt of fourteen dollars, and on the fourth of July was seen waving a handkerchief from the bars of his cell in honor of the day.

Look on him! through his dungeon grate, Feebly and cold, the morning light Comes stealing round him, dim and late, As if it loathed the sight. Reclining on his strawy bed, His hand upholds his drooping head; His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard, Unshorn his gray, neglected beard; And o'er his bony fingers flow His long, dishevelled locks of snow. No grateful fire before him glows, And yet the winter's breath is chill; And o'er his half-clad person goes The frequent ague thrill! Silent, save ever and anon, A sound, half murmur and half groan, Forces apart the painful grip Of the old sufferer's bearded lip; Oh, sad and crushing is the fate Of old age chained and desolate!

Just God! why lies that old man there? A murderer shares his prison bed, Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair, Gleam on him, fierce and red; And the rude oath and heartless jeer Fall ever on his loathing ear, And, or in wakefulness or sleep, Nerve, flesh, and pulses thrill and creep Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb, Crimson with murder, touches him!

What has the gray-haired prisoner done? Has murder stained his hands with gore? Not so; his crime's a fouler one; God made the old man poor! For this he shares a felon's cell, The fittest earthly type of hell For this, the boon for which he poured His young blood on the invader's sword, And counted light the fearful cost; His blood-gained liberty is lost!

And so, for such a place of rest, Old prisoner, dropped thy blood as rain On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest, And Saratoga's plain? Look forth, thou man of many scars, Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars; It must be joy, in sooth, to see Yon monument upreared to thee; Piled granite and a prison cell, The land repays thy service well!

Go, ring the bells and fire the guns, And fling the starry banner out; Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping ones Give back their cradle-shout; Let boastful eloquence declaim Of honor, liberty, and fame; Still let the poet's strain be heard, With glory for each second word, And everything with breath agree To praise "our glorious liberty!"

But when the patron cannon jars That prison's cold and gloomy wall, And through its grates the stripes and stars Rise on the wind, and fall, Think ye that prisoner's aged ear Rejoices in the general cheer? Think ye his dim and failing eye Is kindled at your pageantry? Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb, What is your carnival to him?

Down with the law that binds him thus! Unworthy freemen, let it find No refuge from the withering curse Of God and human-kind Open the prison's living tomb, And usher from its brooding gloom The victims of your savage code To the free sun and air of God; No longer dare as crime to brand The chastening of the Almighty's hand.

1849.

THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS.

The reader of the biography of William Allen, the philanthropic associate of Clarkson and Romilly, cannot fail to admire his simple and beautiful record of a tour through Europe, in the years 1818 and 1819, in the company of his American friend, Stephen Grellett.

No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest Goaded from shore to shore; No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest, The leaves of empire o'er. Simple of faith, and bearing in their hearts The love of man and God, Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient marts, And Scythia's steppes, they trod.

Where the long shadows of the fir and pine In the night sun are cast, And the deep heart of many a Norland mine Quakes at each riving blast; Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands, A baptized Scythian queen, With Europe's arts and Asia's jewelled hands, The North and East between!

Where still, through vales of Grecian fable, stray The classic forms of yore, And beauty smiles, new risen from the spray, And Dian weeps once more; Where every tongue in Smyrna's mart resounds; And Stamboul from the sea Lifts her tall minarets over burial-grounds Black with the cypress-tree.

From Malta's temples to the gates of Rome, Following the track of Paul, And where the Alps gird round the Switzer's home Their vast, eternal wall; They paused not by the ruins of old time, They scanned no pictures rare, Nor lingered where the snow-locked mountains climb The cold abyss of air!

But unto prisons, where men lay in chains, To haunts where Hunger pined, To kings and courts forgetful of the pains And wants of human-kind, Scattering sweet words, and quiet deeds of good, Along their way, like flowers, Or pleading, as Christ's freemen only could, With princes and with powers;

Their single aim the purpose to fulfil Of Truth, from day to day, Simply obedient to its guiding will, They held their pilgrim way. Yet dream not, hence, the beautiful and old Were wasted on their sight, Who in the school of Christ had learned to hold All outward things aright.

Not less to them the breath of vineyards blown From off the Cyprian shore, Not less for them the Alps in sunset shone, That man they valued more. A life of beauty lends to all it sees The beauty of its thought; And fairest forms and sweetest harmonies Make glad its way, unsought.

In sweet accordancy of praise and love, The singing waters run; And sunset mountains wear in light above The smile of duty done; Sure stands the promise,--ever to the meek A heritage is given; Nor lose they Earth who, single-hearted, seek The righteousness of Heaven!

1849.

THE MEN OF OLD.

"WELL speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast! Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art, If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart, Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past, By the great Future's dazzling hope made blind To all the beauty, power, and truth behind. Not without reverent awe shouldst thou put by The cypress branches and the amaranth blooms, Where, with clasped hands of prayer, upon their tombs The effigies of old confessors lie, God's witnesses; the voices of His will, Heard in the slow march of the centuries still Such were the men at whose rebuking frown, Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's knee went down; Such from the terrors of the guilty drew The vassal's freedom and the poor man's due."

St. Anselm (may he rest forevermore In Heaven's sweet peace!) forbade, of old, the sale Of men as slaves, and from the sacred pale Hurled the Northumbrian buyers of the poor. To ransom souls from bonds and evil fate St. Ambrose melted down the sacred plate,-- Image of saint, the chalice, and the pix, Crosses of gold, and silver candlesticks. "Man is worth more than temples!" he replied To such as came his holy work to chide. And brave Cesarius, stripping altars bare, And coining from the Abbey's golden hoard The captive's freedom, answered to the prayer Or threat of those whose fierce zeal for the Lord Stifled their love of man,--"An earthen dish The last sad supper of the Master bore Most miserable sinners! do ye wish More than your Lord, and grudge His dying poor What your own pride and not His need requires? Souls, than these shining gauds, He values more Mercy, not sacrifice, His heart desires!" O faithful worthies! resting far behind In your dark ages, since ye fell asleep, Much has been done for truth and human-kind; Shadows are scattered wherein ye groped blind; Man claims his birthright, freer pulses leap Through peoples driven in your day like sheep; Yet, like your own, our age's sphere of light, Though widening still, is walled around by night; With slow, reluctant eye, the Church has read, Skeptic at heart, the lessons of its Head; Counting, too oft, its living members less Than the wall's garnish and the pulpit's dress; World-moving zeal, with power to bless and feed Life's fainting pilgrims, to their utter need, Instead of bread, holds out the stone of creed; Sect builds and worships where its wealth and pride And vanity stand shrined and deified, Careless that in the shadow of its walls God's living temple into ruin falls. We need, methinks, the prophet-hero still, Saints true of life, and martyrs strong of will, To tread the land, even now, as Xavier trod The streets of Goa, barefoot, with his bell, Proclaiming freedom in the name of God, And startling tyrants with the fear of hell Soft words, smooth prophecies, are doubtless well; But to rebuke the age's popular crime, We need the souls of fire, the hearts of that old time!

1849.

TO PIUS IX.

The writer of these lines is no enemy of Catholics. He has, on more than one occasion, exposed himself to the censures of his Protestant brethren, by his strenuous endeavors to procure indemnification for the owners of the convent destroyed near Boston. He defended the cause of the Irish patriots long before it had become popular in this country; and he was one of the first to urge the most liberal aid to the suffering and starving population of the Catholic island. The severity of his language finds its ample apology in the reluctant confession of one of the most eminent Romish priests, the eloquent and devoted Father Ventura.

THE cannon's brazen lips are cold; No red shell blazes down the air; And street and tower, and temple old, Are silent as despair.

The Lombard stands no more at bay, Rome's fresh young life has bled in vain; The ravens scattered by the day Come back with night again.

Now, while the fratricides of France Are treading on the neck of Rome, Hider at Gaeta, seize thy chance! Coward and cruel, come!

Creep now from Naples' bloody skirt; Thy mummer's part was acted well, While Rome, with steel and fire begirt, Before thy crusade fell!

Her death-groans answered to thy prayer; Thy chant, the drum and bugle-call; Thy lights, the burning villa's glare; Thy beads, the shell and ball!

Let Austria clear thy way, with hands Foul from Ancona's cruel sack, And Naples, with his dastard bands Of murderers, lead thee back!

Rome's lips are dumb; the orphan's wail, The mother's shriek, thou mayst not hear Above the faithless Frenchman's hail, The unsexed shaveling's cheer!

Go, bind on Rome her cast-off weight, The double curse of crook and crown, Though woman's scorn and manhood's hate From wall and roof flash down!

Nor heed those blood-stains on the wall, Not Tiber's flood can wash away, Where, in thy stately Quirinal, Thy mangled victims lay!

Let the world murmur; let its cry Of horror and disgust be heard; Truth stands alone; thy coward lie Is backed by lance and sword!

The cannon of St. Angelo, And chanting priest and clanging bell, And beat of drum and bugle blow, Shall greet thy coming well!

Let lips of iron and tongues of slaves Fit welcome give thee; for her part, Rome, frowning o'er her new-made graves, Shall curse thee from her heart!

No wreaths of sad Campagna's flowers Shall childhood in thy pathway fling; No garlands from their ravaged bowers Shall Terni's maidens bring;

But, hateful as that tyrant old, The mocking witness of his crime, In thee shall loathing eyes behold The Nero of our time!

Stand where Rome's blood was freest shed, Mock Heaven with impious thanks, and call Its curses on the patriot dead, Its blessings on the Gaul!

Or sit upon thy throne of lies, A poor, mean idol, blood-besmeared, Whom even its worshippers despise, Unhonored, unrevered!

Yet, Scandal of the World! from thee One needful truth mankind shall learn That kings and priests to Liberty And God are false in turn.

Earth wearies of them; and the long Meek sufferance of the Heavens doth fail; Woe for weak tyrants, when the strong Wake, struggle, and prevail!

Not vainly Roman hearts have bled To feed the Crosier and the Crown, If, roused thereby, the world shall tread The twin-born vampires down.

1849.

CALEF IN BOSTON.

1692.

IN the solemn days of old, Two men met in Boston town, One a tradesman frank and bold, One a preacher of renown.

Cried the last, in bitter tone: "Poisoner of the wells of truth Satan's hireling, thou hast sown With his tares the heart of youth!"

Spake the simple tradesman then, "God be judge 'twixt thee and me; All thou knowed of truth hath been Once a lie to men like thee.

"Falsehoods which we spurn to-day Were the truths of long ago; Let the dead boughs fall away, Fresher shall the living grow.

"God is good and God is light, In this faith I rest secure; Evil can but serve the right, Over all shall love endure.

"Of your spectral puppet play I have traced the cunning wires; Come what will, I needs must say, God is true, and ye are liars."

When the thought of man is free, Error fears its lightest tones; So the priest cried, "Sadducee!" And the people took up stones.

In the ancient burying-ground, Side by side the twain now lie; One with humble grassy mound, One with marbles pale and high.

But the Lord hath blest the seed Which that tradesman scattered then, And the preacher's spectral creed Chills no more the blood of men.

Let us trust, to one is known Perfect love which casts out fear, While the other's joys atone For the wrong he suffered here.

1849.

OUR STATE.

THE South-land boasts its teeming cane, The prairied West its heavy grain, And sunset's radiant gates unfold On rising marts and sands of gold.

Rough, bleak, and hard, our little State Is scant of soil, of limits strait; Her yellow sands are sands alone, Her only mines are ice and stone!

From Autumn frost to April rain, Too long her winter woods complain; From budding flower to falling leaf, Her summer time is all too brief.

Yet, on her rocks, and on her sands, And wintry hills, the school-house stands, And what her rugged soil denies, The harvest of the mind supplies.

The riches of the Commonwealth Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health; And more to her than gold or grain, The cunning hand and cultured brain.

For well she keeps her ancient stock, The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock; And still maintains, with milder laws, And clearer light, the Good Old Cause.

Nor heeds the skeptic's puny hands, While near her school the church-spire stands; Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule, While near her church-spire stands the school.

1849.

THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES.

I HAVE been thinking of the victims bound In Naples, dying for the lack of air And sunshine, in their close, damp cells of pain, Where hope is not, and innocence in vain Appeals against the torture and the chain! Unfortunates! whose crime it was to share Our common love of freedom, and to dare, In its behalf, Rome's harlot triple-crowned, And her base pander, the most hateful thing Who upon Christian or on Pagan ground Makes vile the old heroic name of king. O God most merciful! Father just and kind Whom man hath bound let thy right hand unbind. Or, if thy purposes of good behind Their ills lie hidden, let the sufferers find Strong consolations; leave them not to doubt Thy providential care, nor yet without The hope which all thy attributes inspire, That not in vain the martyr's robe of fire Is worn, nor the sad prisoner's fretting chain; Since all who suffer for thy truth send forth, Electrical, with every throb of pain, Unquenchable sparks, thy own baptismal rain Of fire and spirit over all the earth, Making the dead in slavery live again. Let this great hope be with them, as they lie Shut from the light, the greenness, and the sky; From the cool waters and the pleasant breeze, The smell of flowers, and shade of summer trees; Bound with the felon lepers, whom disease And sins abhorred make loathsome; let them share Pellico's faith, Foresti's strength to bear Years of unutterable torment, stern and still, As the chained Titan victor through his will! Comfort them with thy future; let them see The day-dawn of Italian liberty; For that, with all good things, is hid with Thee, And, perfect in thy thought, awaits its time to be.

I, who have spoken for freedom at the cost Of some weak friendships, or some paltry prize Of name or place, and more than I have lost Have gained in wider reach of sympathies, And free communion with the good and wise; May God forbid that I should ever boast Such easy self-denial, or repine That the strong pulse of health no more is mine; That, overworn at noonday, I must yield To other hands the gleaning of the field; A tired on-looker through the day's decline. For blest beyond deserving still, and knowing That kindly Providence its care is showing In the withdrawal as in the bestowing, Scarcely I dare for more or less to pray. Beautiful yet for me this autumn day Melts on its sunset hills; and, far away, For me the Ocean lifts its solemn psalm, To me the pine-woods whisper; and for me Yon river, winding through its vales of calm, By greenest banks, with asters purple-starred, And gentian bloom and golden-rod made gay, Flows down in silent gladness to the sea, Like a pure spirit to its great reward!

Nor lack I friends, long-tried and near and dear, Whose love is round me like this atmosphere, Warm, soft, and golden. For such gifts to me What shall I render, O my God, to thee? Let me not dwell upon my lighter share Of pain and ill that human life must bear; Save me from selfish pining; let my heart, Drawn from itself in sympathy, forget The bitter longings of a vain regret, The anguish of its own peculiar smart. Remembering others, as I have to-day, In their great sorrows, let me live alway Not for myself alone, but have a part, Such as a frail and erring spirit may, In love which is of Thee, and which indeed Thou art!

1851.

THE PEACE OF EUROPE.

"GREAT peace in Europe! Order reigns From Tiber's hills to Danube's plains!" So say her kings and priests; so say The lying prophets of our day.

Go lay to earth a listening ear; The tramp of measured marches hear; The rolling of the cannon's wheel, The shotted musket's murderous peal, The night alarm, the sentry's call, The quick-eared spy in hut and hall! From Polar sea and tropic fen The dying-groans of exiled men! The bolted cell, the galley's chains, The scaffold smoking with its stains! Order, the hush of brooding slaves Peace, in the dungeon-vaults and graves!

O Fisher! of the world-wide net, With meshes in all waters set, Whose fabled keys of heaven and hell Bolt hard the patriot's prison-cell, And open wide the banquet-hall, Where kings and priests hold carnival! Weak vassal tricked in royal guise, Boy Kaiser with thy lip of lies; Base gambler for Napoleon's crown, Barnacle on his dead renown! Thou, Bourbon Neapolitan, Crowned scandal, loathed of God and man And thou, fell Spider of the North! Stretching thy giant feelers forth, Within whose web the freedom dies Of nations eaten up like flies! Speak, Prince and Kaiser, Priest and Czar I If this be Peace, pray what is War?

White Angel of the Lord! unmeet That soil accursed for thy pure feet. Never in Slavery's desert flows The fountain of thy charmed repose; No tyrant's hand thy chaplet weaves Of lilies and of olive-leaves; Not with the wicked shalt thou dwell, Thus saith the Eternal Oracle; Thy home is with the pure and free! Stern herald of thy better day, Before thee, to prepare thy way, The Baptist Shade of Liberty, Gray, scarred and hairy-robed, must press With bleeding feet the wilderness! Oh that its voice might pierces the ear Of princes, trembling while they hear A cry as of the Hebrew seer Repent! God's kingdom draweth near!

1852.

ASTRAEA.

"Jove means to settle Astraea in her seat again, And let down from his golden chain An age of better metal." BEN JONSON, 1615.

O POET rare and old! Thy words are prophecies; Forward the age of gold, The new Saturnian lies.

The universal prayer And hope are not in vain; Rise, brothers! and prepare The way for Saturn's reign.

Perish shall all which takes From labor's board and can; Perish shall all which makes A spaniel of the man!

Free from its bonds the mind, The body from the rod; Broken all chains that bind The image of our God.

Just men no longer pine Behind their prison-bars; Through the rent dungeon shine The free sun and the stars.

Earth own, at last, untrod By sect, or caste, or clan, The fatherhood of God, The brotherhood of man!

Fraud fail, craft perish, forth The money-changers driven, And God's will done on earth, As now in heaven.

1852.

THE DISENTHRALLED.

HE had bowed down to drunkenness, An abject worshipper The pride of manhood's pulse had grown Too faint and cold to stir; And he had given his spirit up To the unblessed thrall, And bowing to the poison cup, He gloried in his fall!

There came a change--the cloud rolled off, And light fell on his brain-- And like the passing of a dream That cometh not again, The shadow of the spirit fled. He saw the gulf before, He shuddered at the waste behind, And was a man once more.

He shook the serpent folds away, That gathered round his heart, As shakes the swaying forest-oak Its poison vine apart; He stood erect; returning pride Grew terrible within, And conscience sat in judgment, on His most familiar sin.

The light of Intellect again Along his pathway shone; And Reason like a monarch sat Upon his olden throne. The honored and the wise once more Within his presence came; And lingered oft on lovely lips His once forbidden name.

There may be glory in the might, That treadeth nations down; Wreaths for the crimson conqueror, Pride for the kingly crown; But nobler is that triumph hour, The disenthralled shall find, When evil passion boweth down, Unto the Godlike mind.

THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY.

THE proudest now is but my peer, The highest not more high; To-day, of all the weary year, A king of men am I. To-day, alike are great and small, The nameless and the known; My palace is the people's hall, The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list Beside the served shall stand; Alike the brown and wrinkled fist, The gloved and dainty hand! The rich is level with the poor, The weak is strong to-day; And sleekest broadcloth counts no more Than homespun frock of gray.

To-day let pomp and vain pretence My stubborn right abide; I set a plain man's common sense Against the pedant's pride. To-day shall simple manhood try The strength of gold and land; The wide world has not wealth to buy The power in my right hand!

While there's a grief to seek redress, Or balance to adjust, Where weighs our living manhood less Than Mammon's vilest dust,-- While there's a right to need my vote, A wrong to sweep away, Up! clouted knee and ragged coat A man's a man to-day.

1848.

THE DREAM OF PIO NONO.

IT chanced that while the pious troops of France Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached, What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands (The Hun and Aaron meet for such a Moses), Stretched forth from Naples towards rebellious Rome To bless the ministry of Oudinot, And sanctify his iron homilies And sharp persuasions of the bayonet, That the great pontiff fell asleep, and dreamed.

He stood by Lake Tiberias, in the sun Of the bight Orient; and beheld the lame, The sick, and blind, kneel at the Master's feet, And rise up whole. And, sweetly over all, Dropping the ladder of their hymn of praise From heaven to earth, in silver rounds of song, He heard the blessed angels sing of peace, Good-will to man, and glory to the Lord.

Then one, with feet unshod, and leathern face Hardened and darkened by fierce summer suns And hot winds of the desert, closer drew His fisher's haick, and girded up his loins, And spake, as one who had authority "Come thou with me."

Lakeside and eastern sky And the sweet song of angels passed away, And, with a dream's alacrity of change, The priest, and the swart fisher by his side, Beheld the Eternal City lift its domes And solemn fanes and monumental pomp Above the waste Campagna. On the hills The blaze of burning villas rose and fell, And momently the mortar's iron throat Roared from the trenches; and, within the walls, Sharp crash of shells, low groans of human pain, Shout, drum beat, and the clanging larum-bell, And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled sound, Half wail and half defiance. As they passed The gate of San Pancrazio, human blood Flowed ankle-high about them, and dead men Choked the long street with gashed and gory piles,-- A ghastly barricade of mangled flesh, From which at times, quivered a living hand, And white lips moved and moaned. A father tore His gray hairs, by the body of his son, In frenzy; and his fair young daughter wept On his old bosom. Suddenly a flash Clove the thick sulphurous air, and man and maid Sank, crushed and mangled by the shattering shell.

Then spake the Galilean: "Thou hast seen The blessed Master and His works of love; Look now on thine! Hear'st thou the angels sing Above this open hell? Thou God's high-priest! Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of Peace! Thou the successor of His chosen ones! I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee, In the dear Master's name, and for the love Of His true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist, Alien and separate from His holy faith, Wide as the difference between death and life, The hate of man and the great love of God! Hence, and repent!"

Thereat the pontiff woke, Trembling, and muttering o'er his fearful dream. "What means he?" cried the Bourbon, "Nothing more Than that your majesty hath all too well Catered for your poor guests, and that, in sooth, The Holy Father's supper troubleth him," Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile.

1853.

THE VOICES.

WHY urge the long, unequal fight, Since Truth has fallen in the street, Or lift anew the trampled light, Quenched by the heedless million's feet?

"Give o'er the thankless task; forsake The fools who know not ill from good Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take Thine ease among the multitude.

"Live out thyself; with others share Thy proper life no more; assume The unconcern of sun and air, For life or death, or blight or bloom.

"The mountain pine looks calmly on The fires that scourge the plains below, Nor heeds the eagle in the sun The small birds piping in the snow!

"The world is God's, not thine; let Him Work out a change, if change must be The hand that planted best can trim And nurse the old unfruitful tree."

So spake the Tempter, when the light Of sun and stars had left the sky; I listened, through the cloud and night, And beard, methought, a voice reply:

"Thy task may well seem over-hard, Who scatterest in a thankless soil Thy life as seed, with no reward Save that which Duty gives to Toil.

"Not wholly is thy heart resigned To Heaven's benign and just decree, Which, linking thee with all thy kind, Transmits their joys and griefs to thee.

"Break off that sacred chain, and turn Back on thyself thy love and care; Be thou thine own mean idol, burn Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there.

"Released from that fraternal law Which shares the common bale and bliss, No sadder lot could Folly draw, Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this.

"The meal unshared is food unblest Thou hoard'st in vain what love should spend; Self-ease is pain; thy only rest Is labor for a worthy end;

"A toil that gains with what it yields, And scatters to its own increase, And hears, while sowing outward fields, The harvest-song of inward peace.

"Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run, Free shines for all the healthful ray; The still pool stagnates in the sun, The lurid earth-fire haunts decay.

"What is it that the crowd requite Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies? And but to faith, and not to sight, The walls of Freedom's temple rise?

"Yet do thy work; it shall succeed In thine or in another's day; And, if denied the victor's meed, Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay.

"Faith shares the future's promise; Love's Self-offering is a triumph won; And each good thought or action moves The dark world nearer to the sun.

"Then faint not, falter not, nor plead Thy weakness; truth itself is strong; The lion's strength, the eagle's speed, Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.

"Thy nature, which, through fire and flood, To place or gain finds out its way, Hath power to seek the highest good, And duty's holiest call obey!

"Strivest thou in darkness?--Foes without In league with traitor thoughts within; Thy night-watch kept with trembling Doubt And pale Remorse the ghost of Sin?

"Hast thou not, on some week of storm, Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking fair, And cloud and shadow, sunlit, form The curtains of its tent of prayer?

"So, haply, when thy task shall end, The wrong shall lose itself in right, And all thy week-day darkness blend With the long Sabbath of the light!"

1854.

THE NEW EXODUS.

Written upon hearing that slavery had been formally abolished in Egypt. Unhappily, the professions and pledges of the vacillating government of Egypt proved unreliable.

BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand, And through the parted waves, From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand, God led the Hebrew slaves!

Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, As Egypt's statues cold, In the adytum of the sacred book Now stands that marvel old.

"Lo, God is great!" the simple Moslem says. We seek the ancient date, Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase A dead one: "God was great!"

And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells, We dream of wonders past, Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells, Each drowsier than the last.

O fools and blind! Above the Pyramids Stretches once more that hand, And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids, Flings back her veil of sand.

And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes; And, listening by his Nile, O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks A sweet and human smile.

Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call Of death for midnight graves, But in the stillness of the noonday, fall The fetters of the slaves.

No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, The bondmen walk dry shod; Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, Runs now that path of God.

1856.

THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND.

"Joseph Sturge, with a companion, Thomas Harvey, has been visiting the shores of Finland, to ascertain the amount of mischief and loss to poor and peaceable sufferers, occasioned by the gun-boats of the allied squadrons in the late war, with a view to obtaining relief for them."-- Friends' Review.

ACROSS the frozen marshes The winds of autumn blow, And the fen-lands of the Wetter Are white with early snow.

But where the low, gray headlands Look o'er the Baltic brine, A bark is sailing in the track Of England's battle-line.

No wares hath she to barter For Bothnia's fish and grain; She saileth not for pleasure, She saileth not for gain.

But still by isle or mainland She drops her anchor down, Where'er the British cannon Rained fire on tower and town.

Outspake the ancient Amtman, At the gate of Helsingfors "Why comes this ship a-spying In the track of England's wars?"

"God bless her," said the coast-guard,-- "God bless the ship, I say. The holy angels trim the sails That speed her on her way!

"Where'er she drops her anchor, The peasant's heart is glad; Where'er she spreads her parting sail, The peasant's heart is sad.

"Each wasted town and hamlet She visits to restore; To roof the shattered cabin, And feed the starving poor.

"The sunken boats of fishers, The foraged beeves and grain, The spoil of flake and storehouse, The good ship brings again.

"And so to Finland's sorrow The sweet amend is made, As if the healing hand of Christ Upon her wounds were laid!"

Then said the gray old Amtman, "The will of God be done! The battle lost by England's hate, By England's love is won!

"We braved the iron tempest That thundered on our shore; But when did kindness fail to find The key to Finland's door?

"No more from Aland's ramparts Shall warning signal come, Nor startled Sweaborg hear again The roll of midnight drum.

"Beside our fierce Black Eagle The Dove of Peace shall rest; And in the mouths of cannon The sea-bird make her nest.

"For Finland, looking seaward, No coming foe shall scan; And the holy bells of Abo Shall ring, 'Good-will to man!'

"Then row thy boat, O fisher! In peace on lake and bay; And thou, young maiden, dance again Around the poles of May!

"Sit down, old men, together, Old wives, in quiet spin; Henceforth the Anglo-Saxon Is the brother of the Finn!"

1856.

THE EVE OF ELECTION.

FROM gold to gray Our mild sweet day Of Indian Summer fades too soon; But tenderly Above the sea Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.

In its pale fire, The village spire Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance; The painted walls Whereon it falls Transfigured stand in marble trance!

O'er fallen leaves The west-wind grieves, Yet comes a seed-time round again; And morn shall see The State sown free With baleful tares or healthful grain.

Along the street The shadows meet Of Destiny, whose hands conceal The moulds of fate That shape the State, And make or mar the common weal.

Around I see The powers that be; I stand by Empire's primal springs; And princes meet, In every street, And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!

Hark! through the crowd The laugh runs loud, Beneath the sad, rebuking moon. God save the land A careless hand May shake or swerve ere morrow's noon!

No jest is this; One cast amiss May blast the hope of Freedom's year. Oh, take me where Are hearts of prayer, And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!

Not lightly fall Beyond recall The written scrolls a breath can float; The crowning fact The kingliest act Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!

For pearls that gem A diadem The diver in the deep sea dies; The regal right We boast to-night Is ours through costlier sacrifice;

The blood of Vane, His prison pain Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod, And hers whose faith Drew strength from death, And prayed her Russell up to God!

Our hearts grow cold, We lightly hold A right which brave men died to gain; The stake, the cord, The axe, the sword, Grim nurses at its birth of pain.

The shadow rend, And o'er us bend, O martyrs, with your crowns and palms; Breathe through these throngs Your battle songs, Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms.

Look from the sky, Like God's great eye, Thou solemn moon, with searching beam, Till in the sight Of thy pure light Our mean self-seekings meaner seem.

Shame from our hearts Unworthy arts, The fraud designed, the purpose dark; And smite away The hands we lay Profanely on the sacred ark.

To party claims And private aims, Reveal that august face of Truth, Whereto are given The age of heaven, The beauty of immortal youth.

So shall our voice Of sovereign choice Swell the deep bass of duty done, And strike the key Of time to be, When God and man shall speak as one!

1858.

FROM PERUGIA.

"The thing which has the most dissevered the people from the Pope,--the unforgivable thing,--the breaking point between him and them,--has been the encouragement and promotion he gave to the officer under whom were executed the slaughters of Perugia. That made the breaking point in many honest hearts that had clung to him before."--HARRIET BEECHER STOWE'S Letters from Italy.

The tall, sallow guardsmen their horsetails have spread, Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red; And behind go the lackeys in crimson and buff, And the chamberlains gorgeous in velvet and ruff; Next, in red-legged pomp, come the cardinals forth, Each a lord of the church and a prince of the earth.

What's this squeak of the fife, and this batter of drum Lo! the Swiss of the Church from Perugia come; The militant angels, whose sabres drive home To the hearts of the malcontents, cursed and abhorred, The good Father's missives, and "Thus saith the Lord!" And lend to his logic the point of the sword!

O maids of Etruria, gazing forlorn O'er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled and torn! O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for shame! O mothers, struck dumb by a woe without name! Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling behaves, And his tender compassion of prisons and graves!

There they stand, the hired stabbers, the blood-stains yet fresh, That splashed like red wine from the vintage of flesh; Grim instruments, careless as pincers and rack How the joints tear apart, and the strained sinews crack; But the hate that glares on them is sharp as their swords, And the sneer and the scowl print the air with fierce words!

Off with hats, down with knees, shout your vivas like mad! Here's the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad, From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-worn to the quick, Of sainthood in purple the pattern and pick, Who the role of the priest and the soldier unites, And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua fights!

Is this Pio Nono the gracious, for whom We sang our hosannas and lighted all Rome; With whose advent we dreamed the new era began When the priest should be human, the monk be a man? Ah, the wolf's with the sheep, and the fox with the fowl, When freedom we trust to the crosier and cowl!

Stand aside, men of Rome! Here's a hangman-faced Swiss-- (A blessing for him surely can't go amiss)-- Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to kiss. Short shrift will suffice him,--he's blest beyond doubt; But there 's blood on his hands which would scarcely wash out, Though Peter himself held the baptismal spout!

Make way for the next! Here's another sweet son What's this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets done? He did, whispers rumor, (its truth God forbid!) At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem did. And the mothers? Don't name them! these humors of war They who keep him in service must pardon him for.

Hist! here's the arch-knave in a cardinal's hat, With the heart of a wolf, and the stealth of a cat (As if Judas and Herod together were rolled), Who keeps, all as one, the Pope's conscience and gold, Mounts guard on the altar, and pilfers from thence, And flatters St. Peter while stealing his pence!

Who doubts Antonelli? Have miracles ceased When robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest? When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical board, The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its sword, When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on his head, And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbor instead!

There! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed way That they did when they rang for Bartholomew's day. Hark! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor boys, Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise. Te Deum laudamus! All round without stint The incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in 't!

And now for the blessing! Of little account, You know, is the old one they heard on the Mount. Its giver was landless, His raiment was poor, No jewelled tiara His fishermen wore; No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no home, No Swiss guards! We order things better at Rome.

So bless us the strong hand, and curse us the weak; Let Austria's vulture have food for her beak; Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again, With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and chain; Put reason, and justice, and truth under ban; For the sin unforgiven is freedom for man!

1858.

ITALY.

ACROSS the sea I heard the groans Of nations in the intervals Of wind and wave. Their blood and bones Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones, And sucked by priestly cannibals.

I dreamed of Freedom slowly gained By martyr meekness, patience, faith, And lo! an athlete grimly stained, With corded muscles battle-strained, Shouting it from the fields of death!

I turn me, awe-struck, from the sight, Among the clamoring thousands mute, I only know that God is right, And that the children of the light Shall tread the darkness under foot.

I know the pent fire heaves its crust, That sultry skies the bolt will form To smite them clear; that Nature must The balance of her powers adjust, Though with the earthquake and the storm.

God reigns, and let the earth rejoice! I bow before His sterner plan. Dumb are the organs of my choice; He speaks in battle's stormy voice, His praise is in the wrath of man!

Yet, surely as He lives, the day Of peace He promised shall be ours, To fold the flags of war, and lay Its sword and spear to rust away, And sow its ghastly fields with flowers!

1860.

FREEDOM IN BRAZIL.

WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth In blue Brazilian skies; And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth From sunset to sunrise,

From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves Thy joy's long anthem pour. Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves Shall shame thy pride no more. No fettered feet thy shaded margins press; But all men shall walk free Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness, Hast wedded sea to sea.

And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth The word of God is said, Once more, "Let there be light!"--Son of the South, Lift up thy honored head, Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert More than by birth thy own, Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt By grateful hearts alone. The moated wall and battle-ship may fail, But safe shall justice prove; Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail The panoply of love.

Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace, Thy future is secure; Who frees a people makes his statue's place In Time's Valhalla sure. Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar Stretches to thee his hand, Who, with the pencil of the Northern star, Wrote freedom on his land. And he whose grave is holy by our calm And prairied Sangamon, From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm To greet thee with "Well done!"

And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet, And let thy wail be stilled, To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat Her promise half fulfilled. The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still, No sound thereof hath died; Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will Shall yet be satisfied. The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long, And far the end may be; But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong Go out and leave thee free.

1867.

AFTER ELECTION.

THE day's sharp strife is ended now, Our work is done, God knoweth how! As on the thronged, unrestful town The patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire.

Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first Be strong, my heart, to know the worst! Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke; That sound from lake and prairie broke, That sunset-gun of triumph rent The silence of a continent!

That signal from Nebraska sprung, This, from Nevada's mountain tongue! Is that thy answer, strong and free, O loyal heart of Tennessee? What strange, glad voice is that which calls From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?

From Mississippi's fountain-head A sound as of the bison's tread! There rustled freedom's Charter Oak In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke! Cheer answers cheer from rise to set Of sun. We have a country yet!

The praise, O God, be thine alone! Thou givest not for bread a stone; Thou hast not led us through the night To blind us with returning light; Not through the furnace have we passed, To perish at its mouth at last.

O night of peace, thy flight restrain! November's moon, be slow to wane! Shine on the freedman's cabin floor, On brows of prayer a blessing pour; And give, with full assurance blest, The weary heart of Freedom rest!

1868.

DISARMAMENT.

"PUT up the sword!" The voice of Christ once more Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar, O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped With nameless dead; o'er cities starving slow Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe Down which a groaning diapason runs From tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, sons Of desolate women in their far-off homes, Waiting to hear the step that never comes! O men and brothers! let that voice be heard. War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!

Fear not the end. There is a story told In Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold, And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sit With grave responses listening unto it Once, on the errands of his mercy bent, Buddha, the holy and benevolent, Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look, Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook. "O son of peace!" the giant cried, "thy fate Is sealed at last, and love shall yield to hate." The unarmed Buddha looking, with no trace Of fear or anger, in the monster's face, In pity said: "Poor fiend, even thee I love." Lo! as he spake the sky-tall terror sank To hand-breadth size; the huge abhorrence shrank Into the form and fashion of a dove; And where the thunder of its rage was heard, Circling above him sweetly sang the bird "Hate hath no harm for love," so ran the song; "And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!"

1871.

THE PROBLEM.

I. NOT without envy Wealth at times must look On their brown strength who wield the reaping-hook And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam; All who, by skill and patience, anyhow Make service noble, and the earth redeem From savageness. By kingly accolade Than theirs was never worthier knighthood made. Well for them, if, while demagogues their vain And evil counsels proffer, they maintain Their honest manhood unseduced, and wage No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain, And softer pillow for the head of Age.

II. And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields Labor its just demand; and well for Ease If in the uses of its own, it sees No wrong to him who tills its pleasant fields And spreads the table of its luxuries. The interests of the rich man and the poor Are one and same, inseparable evermore; And, when scant wage or labor fail to give Food, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live, Need has its rights, necessity its claim. Yea, even self-wrought misery and shame Test well the charity suffering long and kind. The home-pressed question of the age can find No answer in the catch-words of the blind Leaders of blind. Solution there is none Save in the Golden Rule of Christ alone.

1877.

OUR COUNTRY.

Read at Woodstock, Conn., July 4,1883.

WE give thy natal day to hope, O Country of our love and prayer I Thy way is down no fatal slope, But up to freer sun and air.

Tried as by furnace-fires, and yet By God's grace only stronger made, In future tasks before thee set Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid.

The fathers sleep, but men remain As wise, as true, and brave as they; Why count the loss and not the gain? The best is that we have to-day.

Whate'er of folly, shame, or crime, Within thy mighty bounds transpires, With speed defying space and time Comes to us on the accusing wires;

While of thy wealth of noble deeds, Thy homes of peace, thy votes unsold, The love that pleads for human needs, The wrong redressed, but half is told!

We read each felon's chronicle, His acts, his words, his gallows-mood; We know the single sinner well And not the nine and ninety good.

Yet if, on daily scandals fed, We seem at times to doubt thy worth, We know thee still, when all is said, The best and dearest spot on earth.

From the warm Mexic Gulf, or where Belted with flowers Los Angeles Basks in the semi-tropic air, To where Katahdin's cedar trees

Are dwarfed and bent by Northern winds, Thy plenty's horn is yearly filled; Alone, the rounding century finds Thy liberal soil by free hands tilled.

A refuge for the wronged and poor, Thy generous heart has borne the blame That, with them, through thy open door, The old world's evil outcasts came.

But, with thy just and equal rule, And labor's need and breadth of lands, Free press and rostrum, church and school, Thy sure, if slow, transforming hands

Shall mould even them to thy design, Making a blessing of the ban; And Freedom's chemistry combine The alien elements of man.

The power that broke their prison bar And set the dusky millions free, And welded in the flame of war The Union fast to Liberty,

Shall it not deal with other ills, Redress the red man's grievance, break The Circean cup which shames and kills, And Labor full requital make?

Alone to such as fitly bear Thy civic honors bid them fall? And call thy daughters forth to share The rights and duties pledged to all?

Give every child his right of school, Merge private greed in public good, And spare a treasury overfull The tax upon a poor man's food?

No lack was in thy primal stock, No weakling founders builded here; Thine were the men of Plymouth Rock, The Huguenot and Cavalier;

And they whose firm endurance gained The freedom of the souls of men, Whose hands, unstained with blood, maintained The swordless commonwealth of Penn.

And thine shall be the power of all To do the work which duty bids, And make the people's council hall As lasting as the Pyramids!

Well have thy later years made good Thy brave-said word a century back, The pledge of human brotherhood, The equal claim of white and black.

That word still echoes round the world, And all who hear it turn to thee, And read upon thy flag unfurled The prophecies of destiny.

Thy great world-lesson all shall learn, The nations in thy school shall sit, Earth's farthest mountain-tops shall burn With watch-fires from thy own uplit.

Great without seeking to be great By fraud or conquest, rich in gold, But richer in the large estate Of virtue which thy children hold,

With peace that comes of purity And strength to simple justice due, So runs our loyal dream of thee; God of our fathers! make it true.

O Land of lands! to thee we give Our prayers, our hopes, our service free; For thee thy sons shall nobly live, And at thy need shall die for thee!

ON THE BIG HORN.

In the disastrous battle on the Big Horn River, in which General Custer and his entire force were slain, the chief Rain-in-the-Face was one of the fiercest leaders of the Indians. In Longfellow's poem on the massacre, these lines will be remembered:--

"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face, "Revenge upon all the race Of the White Chief with yellow hair!" And the mountains dark and high From their crags reechoed the cry Of his anger and despair.

He is now a man of peace; and the agent at Standing Rock, Dakota, writes, September 28, 1886: "Rain-in-the-Face is very anxious to go to Hampton. I fear he is too old, but he desires very much to go." The Southern Workman, the organ of General Armstrong's Industrial School at Hampton, Va., says in a late number:--

"Rain-in-the-Face has applied before to come to Hampton, but his age would exclude him from the school as an ordinary student. He has shown himself very much in earnest about it, and is anxious, all say, to learn the better ways of life. It is as unusual as it is striking to see a man of his age, and one who has had such an experience, willing to give up the old way, and put himself in the position of a boy and a student."

THE years are but half a score, And the war-whoop sounds no more With the blast of bugles, where Straight into a slaughter pen, With his doomed three hundred men, Rode the chief with the yellow hair.

O Hampton, down by the sea! What voice is beseeching thee For the scholar's lowliest place? Can this be the voice of him Who fought on the Big Horn's rim? Can this be Rain-in-the-Face?

His war-paint is washed away, His hands have forgotten to slay; He seeks for himself and his race The arts of peace and the lore That give to the skilled hand more Than the spoils of war and chase.

O chief of the Christ-like school! Can the zeal of thy heart grow cool When the victor scarred with fight Like a child for thy guidance craves, And the faces of hunters and braves Are turning to thee for light?

The hatchet lies overgrown With grass by the Yellowstone, Wind River and Paw of Bear; And, in sign that foes are friends, Each lodge like a peace-pipe sends Its smoke in the quiet air.

The hands that have done the wrong To right the wronged are strong, And the voice of a nation saith "Enough of the war of swords, Enough of the lying words And shame of a broken faith!"

The hills that have watched afar The valleys ablaze with war Shall look on the tasselled corn; And the dust of the grinded grain, Instead of the blood of the slain, Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn!

The Ute and the wandering Crow Shall know as the white men know, And fare as the white men fare; The pale and the red shall be brothers, One's rights shall be as another's, Home, School, and House of Prayer!

O mountains that climb to snow, O river winding below, Through meadows by war once trod, O wild, waste lands that await The harvest exceeding great, Break forth into praise of God!

1887.

NOTES

Note 1, page 18. The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautiful sonnet of William Wordsworth, addressed to Toussaint L'Ouverture, during his confinement in France.

"Toussaint!--thou most unhappy man of men Whether the whistling rustic tends his plough Within thy hearing, or thou liest now Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den; O miserable chieftain!--where and when Wilt thou find patience?--Yet, die not, do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow; Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies,-- There's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies. Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind."

Note 2, page 67. The Northern author of the Congressional rule against receiving petitions of the people on the subject of Slavery.

Note 3, page 88. There was at the time when this poem was written an Association in Liberty County, Georgia, for the religious instruction of negroes. One of their annual reports contains an address by the Rev. Josiah Spry Law, in which the following passage occurs: "There is a growing interest in this community in the religious instruction of negroes. There is a conviction that religious instruction promotes the quiet and order of the people, and the pecuniary interest of the owners."

Note 4, page 117. The book-establishment of the Free-Will Baptists in Dover was refused the act of incorporation by the New Hampshire Legislature, for the reason that the newspaper organ of that sect and its leading preachers favored abolition.

Note 5, page 118. The senatorial editor of the Belknap Gazette all along manifested a peculiar horror of "niggers" and "nigger parties."

Note 6, page 118. The justice before whom Elder Storrs was brought for preaching abolition on a writ drawn by Hon. M. N., Jr., of Pittsfield. The sheriff served the writ while the elder was praying.

Note 7, page 118. The academy at Canaan, N. H., received one or two colored scholars, and was in consequence dragged off into a swamp by Democratic teams.

Note 8, page 119. "Papers and memorials touching the subject of slavery shall be laid on the table without reading, debate, or reference." So read the gag-law, as it was called, introduced in the House by Mr. Atherton.

Note 9, page 120. The Female Anti-Slavery Society, at its first meeting in Concord, was assailed with stones and brickbats.

Note 10, page 168. The election of Charles Sumner to the United States Senate "followed hard upon" the rendition of the fugitive Sims by the United States officials and the armed police of Boston.

Note 11, page 290. For the idea of this line, I am indebted to Emerson, in his inimitable sonnet to the Rhodora,--

"If eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."

VOLUME IV. PERSONAL POEMS

CONTENTS

PERSONAL POEMS A LAMENT TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS LINES ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY TO ----, WITH A COPY OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL LEGGETT'S MONUMENT TO A FRIEND, ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE LUCY HOOPER FOLLEN TO J. P. CHALKLEY HALL GONE TO RONGE CHANNING TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER DANIEL WHEELER TO FREDRIKA BREMER TO AVIS KEENE THE HILL-TOP ELLIOTT ICHABOD THE LOST OCCASION WORDSWORTH TO ---- LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION IN PEACE BENEDICITE KOSSUTH TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER THE CROSS THE HERO RANTOUL WILLIAM FORSTER TO CHARLES SUMNER BURNS TO GEORGE B. CHEEVER TO JAMES T. FIELDS THE MEMORY OF BURNS IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGER BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE NAPLES A MEMORIAL BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY THOMAS STARR KING LINES ON A FLY-LEAF GEORGE L. STEARNS GARIBALDI TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD THE SINGER HOW MARY GREW SUMNER THIERS FITZ-GREENE HALLECK WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT BAYARD TAYLOR OUR AUTOCRAT WITHIN THE GATE IN MEMORY: JAMES T. FIELDS WILSON THE POET AND THE CHILDREN A WELCOME TO LOWELL AN ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL MULFORD TO A CAPE ANN SCHOONER SAMUEL J. TILDEN

OCCASIONAL POEMS. EVA A LAY OF OLD TIME A SONG OF HARVEST KENOZA LAKE FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL THE QUAKER ALUMNI OUR RIVER REVISITED "THE LAURELS" JUNE ON THE MERRIMAC HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR KING'S HOUSE OF WORSHIP HYMN FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN, ERECTED IN MEMORY OF A MOTHER A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION CHICAGO KINSMAN THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA LEXINGTON THE LIBRARY "I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN" CENTENNIAL HYMN AT SCHOOL-CLOSE HYMN OF THE CHILDREN THE LANDMARKS GARDEN A GREETING GODSPEED WINTER ROSES THE REUNION NORUMBEGA HALL THE BARTHOLDI STATUE ONE OF THE SIGNERS

THE TENT ON THE BEACH. PRELUDE THE TENT ON THE BEACH THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE THE BROTHER OF MERCY THE CHANGELING THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH KALLUNDBORG CHURCH THE CABLE HYMN THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL THE PALATINE ABRAHAM DAVENPORT THE WORSHIP OF NATURE

AT SUNDOWN. TO E. C. S. THE CHRISTMAS OF 1888. THE Vow OF WASHINGTON THE CAPTAIN'S WELL AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON THE MERRIMAC BURNING DRIFT-WOOD. O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL HAVERHILL. 1640-1890 To G. G. PRESTON POWERS, INSCRIPTION FOR BASS-RELIEF LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY, INSCRIPTION ON TABLET MILTON, ON MEMORIAL WINDOW THE BIRTHDAY WREATH THE WIND OF MARCH BETWEEN THE GATES THE LAST EVE OF SUMMER TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 8TH Mo. 29TH, 1892

NOTE. The portrait prefacing this volume is from an engraving on steel by J. A. J. WILCOX in 1888, after a photograph taken by Miss ISA E. GRAY in July, 1885.

A LAMENT

"The parted spirit, Knoweth it not our sorrow? Answereth not Its blessing to our tears?"

The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken, One bud from the tree of our friendship is shaken; One heart from among us no longer shall thrill With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill.

Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering now The light of her glances, the pride of her brow; Weep! sadly and long shall we listen in vain To hear the soft tones of her welcome again.

Give our tears to the dead! For humanity's claim From its silence and darkness is ever the same; The hope of that world whose existence is bliss May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.

For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throw On the scene of its troubled probation below, Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the dead, To that glance will be dearer the tears which we shed.

Oh, who can forget the mild light of her smile, Over lips moved with music and feeling the while, The eye's deep enchantment, dark, dream-like, and clear, In the glow of its gladness, the shade of its tear.

And the charm of her features, while over the whole Played the hues of the heart and the sunshine of soul; And the tones of her voice, like the music which seems Murmured low in our ears by the Angel of dreams!

But holier and dearer our memories hold Those treasures of feeling, more precious than gold, The love and the kindness and pity which gave Fresh flowers for the bridal, green wreaths for the grave!

The heart ever open to Charity's claim, Unmoved from its purpose by censure and blame, While vainly alike on her eye and her ear Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting and jeer.

How true to our hearts was that beautiful sleeper With smiles for the joyful, with tears for the weeper, Yet, evermore prompt, whether mournful or gay, With warnings in love to the passing astray.

For, though spotless herself, she could sorrow for them Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem; And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove, And the sting of reproof was still tempered by love.

As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in heaven, As a star that is lost when the daylight is given, As a glad dream of slumber, which wakens in bliss, She hath passed to the world of the holy from this.

1834.

TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS,

Late President of Western Reserve College, who died at his post of duty, overworn by his strenuous labors with tongue and pen in the cause of Human Freedom.

Thou hast fallen in thine armor, Thou martyr of the Lord With thy last breath crying "Onward!" And thy hand upon the sword. The haughty heart derideth, And the sinful lip reviles, But the blessing of the perishing Around thy pillow smiles!

When to our cup of trembling The added drop is given, And the long-suspended thunder Falls terribly from Heaven,-- When a new and fearful freedom Is proffered of the Lord To the slow-consuming Famine, The Pestilence and Sword!

When the refuges of Falsehood Shall be swept away in wrath, And the temple shall be shaken, With its idol, to the earth, Shall not thy words of warning Be all remembered then? And thy now unheeded message Burn in the hearts of men?

Oppression's hand may scatter Its nettles on thy tomb, And even Christian bosoms Deny thy memory room; For lying lips shall torture Thy mercy into crime, And the slanderer shall flourish As the bay-tree for a time.

But where the south-wind lingers On Carolina's pines, Or falls the careless sunbeam Down Georgia's golden mines; Where now beneath his burthen The toiling slave is driven; Where now a tyrant's mockery Is offered unto Heaven;

Where Mammon hath its altars Wet o'er with human blood, And pride and lust debases The workmanship of God,-- There shall thy praise be spoken, Redeemed from Falsehood's ban, When the fetters shall be broken, And the slave shall be a man!

Joy to thy spirit, brother! A thousand hearts are warm, A thousand kindred bosoms Are baring to the storm. What though red-handed Violence With secret Fraud combine? The wall of fire is round us, Our Present Help was thine.

Lo, the waking up of nations, From Slavery's fatal sleep; The murmur of a Universe, Deep calling unto Deep! Joy to thy spirit, brother! On every wind of heaven The onward cheer and summons Of Freedom's voice is given!

Glory to God forever! Beyond the despot's will The soul of Freedom liveth Imperishable still. The words which thou hast uttered Are of that soul a part, And the good seed thou hast scattered Is springing from the heart.

In the evil days before us, And the trials yet to come, In the shadow of the prison, Or the cruel martyrdom,-- We will think of thee, O brother! And thy sainted name shall be In the blessing of the captive, And the anthem of the free.

1834

LINES ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY,

SECRETARY OF THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN'S ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

Gone before us, O our brother, To the spirit-land! Vainly look we for another In thy place to stand. Who shall offer youth and beauty On the wasting shrine Of a stern and lofty duty, With a faith like thine?

Oh, thy gentle smile of greeting Who again shall see? Who amidst the solemn meeting Gaze again on thee? Who when peril gathers o'er us, Wear so calm a brow? Who, with evil men before us, So serene as thou?

Early hath the spoiler found thee, Brother of our love! Autumn's faded earth around thee, And its storms above! Evermore that turf lie lightly, And, with future showers, O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly Blow the summer flowers

In the locks thy forehead gracing, Not a silvery streak; Nor a line of sorrow's tracing On thy fair young cheek; Eyes of light and lips of roses, Such as Hylas wore,-- Over all that curtain closes, Which shall rise no more!

Will the vigil Love is keeping Round that grave of thine, Mournfully, like Jazer weeping Over Sibmah's vine; Will the pleasant memories, swelling Gentle hearts, of thee, In the spirit's distant dwelling All unheeded be?

If the spirit ever gazes, From its journeyings, back; If the immortal ever traces O'er its mortal track; Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us Sometimes on our way, And, in hours of sadness, greet us As a spirit may?

Peace be with thee, O our brother, In the spirit-land Vainly look we for another In thy place to stand. Unto Truth and Freedom giving All thy early powers, Be thy virtues with the living, And thy spirit ours!

1837.

TO ------,

WITH A COPY OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL.

"Get the writings of John Woolman by heart."--Essays of Elia.

Maiden! with the fair brown tresses Shading o'er thy dreamy eye, Floating on thy thoughtful forehead Cloud wreaths of its sky.

Youthful years and maiden beauty, Joy with them should still abide,-- Instinct take the place of Duty, Love, not Reason, guide.

Ever in the New rejoicing, Kindly beckoning back the Old, Turning, with the gift of Midas, All things into gold.

And the passing shades of sadness Wearing even a welcome guise, As, when some bright lake lies open To the sunny skies,

Every wing of bird above it, Every light cloud floating on, Glitters like that flashing mirror In the self-same sun.

But upon thy youthful forehead Something like a shadow lies; And a serious soul is looking From thy earnest eyes.

With an early introversion, Through the forms of outward things, Seeking for the subtle essence, And the bidden springs.

Deeper than the gilded surface Hath thy wakeful vision seen, Farther than the narrow present Have thy journeyings been.

Thou hast midst Life's empty noises Heard the solemn steps of Time, And the low mysterious voices Of another clime.

All the mystery of Being Hath upon thy spirit pressed,-- Thoughts which, like the Deluge wanderer, Find no place of rest:

That which mystic Plato pondered, That which Zeno heard with awe, And the star-rapt Zoroaster In his night-watch saw.

From the doubt and darkness springing Of the dim, uncertain Past, Moving to the dark still shadows O'er the Future cast,

Early hath Life's mighty question Thrilled within thy heart of youth, With a deep and strong beseeching What and where is Truth?

Hollow creed and ceremonial, Whence the ancient life hath fled, Idle faith unknown to action, Dull and cold and dead.

Oracles, whose wire-worked meanings Only wake a quiet scorn,-- Not from these thy seeking spirit Hath its answer drawn.

But, like some tired child at even, On thy mother Nature's breast, Thou, methinks, art vainly seeking Truth, and peace, and rest.

O'er that mother's rugged features Thou art throwing Fancy's veil, Light and soft as woven moonbeams, Beautiful and frail

O'er the rough chart of Existence, Rocks of sin and wastes of woe, Soft airs breathe, and green leaves tremble, And cool fountains flow.

And to thee an answer cometh From the earth and from the sky, And to thee the hills and waters And the stars reply.

But a soul-sufficing answer Hath no outward origin; More than Nature's many voices May be heard within.

Even as the great Augustine Questioned earth and sea and sky, And the dusty tomes of learning And old poesy.

But his earnest spirit needed More than outward Nature taught; More than blest the poet's vision Or the sage's thought.

Only in the gathered silence Of a calm and waiting frame, Light and wisdom as from Heaven To the seeker came.

Not to ease and aimless quiet Doth that inward answer tend, But to works of love and duty As our being's end;

Not to idle dreams and trances, Length of face, and solemn tone, But to Faith, in daily striving And performance shown.

Earnest toil and strong endeavor Of a spirit which within Wrestles with familiar evil And besetting sin;

And without, with tireless vigor, Steady heart, and weapon strong, In the power of truth assailing Every form of wrong.

Guided thus, how passing lovely Is the track of Woolman's feet! And his brief and simple record How serenely sweet!

O'er life's humblest duties throwing Light the earthling never knew, Freshening all its dark waste places As with Hermon's dew.

All which glows in Pascal's pages, All which sainted Guion sought, Or the blue-eyed German Rahel Half-unconscious taught

Beauty, such as Goethe pictured, Such as Shelley dreamed of, shed Living warmth and starry brightness Round that poor man's head.

Not a vain and cold ideal, Not a poet's dream alone, But a presence warm and real, Seen and felt and known.

When the red right-hand of slaughter Moulders with the steel it swung, When the name of seer and poet Dies on Memory's tongue,

All bright thoughts and pure shall gather Round that meek and suffering one,-- Glorious, like the seer-seen angel Standing in the sun!

Take the good man's book and ponder What its pages say to thee; Blessed as the hand of healing May its lesson be.

If it only serves to strengthen Yearnings for a higher good, For the fount of living waters And diviner food;

If the pride of human reason Feels its meek and still rebuke, Quailing like the eye of Peter From the Just One's look!

If with readier ear thou heedest What the Inward Teacher saith, Listening with a willing spirit And a childlike faith,--

Thou mayst live to bless the giver, Who, himself but frail and weak, Would at least the highest welfare Of another seek;

And his gift, though poor and lowly It may seem to other eyes, Yet may prove an angel holy In a pilgrim's guise.

1840.

LEGGETT'S MONUMENT.

William Leggett, who died in 1839 at the age of thirty-seven, was the intrepid editor of the New York Evening Post and afterward of The Plain Dealer. His vigorous assault upon the system of slavery brought down upon him the enmity of political defenders of the system.

"Ye build the tombs of the prophets."--Holy Writ.

Yes, pile the marble o'er him! It is well That ye who mocked him in his long stern strife, And planted in the pathway of his life The ploughshares of your hatred hot from hell, Who clamored down the bold reformer when He pleaded for his captive fellow-men, Who spurned him in the market-place, and sought Within thy walls, St. Tammany, to bind In party chains the free and honest thought, The angel utterance of an upright mind, Well is it now that o'er his grave ye raise The stony tribute of your tardy praise, For not alone that pile shall tell to Fame Of the brave heart beneath, but of the builders' shame!

1841.

TO A FRIEND, ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE.

How smiled the land of France Under thy blue eye's glance, Light-hearted rover Old walls of chateaux gray, Towers of an early day, Which the Three Colors play Flauntingly over.

Now midst the brilliant train Thronging the banks of Seine Now midst the splendor Of the wild Alpine range, Waking with change on change Thoughts in thy young heart strange, Lovely, and tender.

Vales, soft Elysian, Like those in the vision Of Mirza, when, dreaming, He saw the long hollow dell, Touched by the prophet's spell, Into an ocean swell With its isles teeming.

Cliffs wrapped in snows of years, Splintering with icy spears Autumn's blue heaven Loose rock and frozen slide, Hung on the mountain-side, Waiting their hour to glide Downward, storm-driven!

Rhine-stream, by castle old, Baron's and robber's hold, Peacefully flowing; Sweeping through vineyards green, Or where the cliffs are seen O'er the broad wave between Grim shadows throwing.

Or, where St. Peter's dome Swells o'er eternal Rome, Vast, dim, and solemn; Hymns ever chanting low, Censers swung to and fro, Sable stoles sweeping slow Cornice and column!

Oh, as from each and all Will there not voices call Evermore back again? In the mind's gallery Wilt thou not always see Dim phantoms beckon thee O'er that old track again?

New forms thy presence haunt, New voices softly chant, New faces greet thee! Pilgrims from many a shrine Hallowed by poet's line, At memory's magic sign, Rising to meet thee.

And when such visions come Unto thy olden home, Will they not waken Deep thoughts of Him whose hand Led thee o'er sea and land Back to the household band Whence thou wast taken?

While, at the sunset time, Swells the cathedral's chime, Yet, in thy dreaming, While to thy spirit's eye Yet the vast mountains lie Piled in the Switzer's sky, Icy and gleaming:

Prompter of silent prayer, Be the wild picture there In the mind's chamber, And, through each coming day Him who, as staff and stay, Watched o'er thy wandering way, Freshly remember.

So, when the call shall be Soon or late unto thee, As to all given, Still may that picture live, All its fair forms survive, And to thy spirit give Gladness in Heaven!

1841

LUCY HOOPER.

Lucy Hooper died at Brooklyn, L. I., on the 1st of 8th mo., 1841, aged twenty-four years.

They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, That all of thee we loved and cherished Has with thy summer roses perished; And left, as its young beauty fled, An ashen memory in its stead, The twilight of a parted day Whose fading light is cold and vain, The heart's faint echo of a strain Of low, sweet music passed away. That true and loving heart, that gift Of a mind, earnest, clear, profound, Bestowing, with a glad unthrift, Its sunny light on all around, Affinities which only could Cleave to the pure, the true, and good; And sympathies which found no rest, Save with the loveliest and best. Of them--of thee--remains there naught But sorrow in the mourner's breast? A shadow in the land of thought? No! Even my weak and trembling faith Can lift for thee the veil which doubt And human fear have drawn about The all-awaiting scene of death.

Even as thou wast I see thee still; And, save the absence of all ill And pain and weariness, which here Summoned the sigh or wrung the tear, The same as when, two summers back, Beside our childhood's Merrimac, I saw thy dark eye wander o'er Stream, sunny upland, rocky shore, And heard thy low, soft voice alone Midst lapse of waters, and the tone Of pine-leaves by the west-wind blown, There's not a charm of soul or brow, Of all we knew and loved in thee, But lives in holier beauty now, Baptized in immortality! Not mine the sad and freezing dream Of souls that, with their earthly mould, Cast off the loves and joys of old, Unbodied, like a pale moonbeam, As pure, as passionless, and cold; Nor mine the hope of Indra's son, Of slumbering in oblivion's rest, Life's myriads blending into one, In blank annihilation blest; Dust-atoms of the infinite, Sparks scattered from the central light, And winning back through mortal pain Their old unconsciousness again. No! I have friends in Spirit Land, Not shadows in a shadowy band, Not others, but themselves are they. And still I think of them the same As when the Master's summons came; Their change,--the holy morn-light breaking Upon the dream-worn sleeper, waking,-- A change from twilight into day.

They 've laid thee midst the household graves, Where father, brother, sister lie; Below thee sweep the dark blue waves, Above thee bends the summer sky. Thy own loved church in sadness read Her solemn ritual o'er thy head, And blessed and hallowed with her prayer The turf laid lightly o'er thee there. That church, whose rites and liturgy, Sublime and old, were truth to thee, Undoubted to thy bosom taken, As symbols of a faith unshaken. Even I, of simpler views, could feel The beauty of thy trust and zeal; And, owning not thy creed, could see How deep a truth it seemed to thee, And how thy fervent heart had thrown O'er all, a coloring of its own, And kindled up, intense and warm, A life in every rite and form, As. when on Chebar's banks of old, The Hebrew's gorgeous vision rolled, A spirit filled the vast machine, A life, "within the wheels" was seen.

Farewell! A little time, and we Who knew thee well, and loved thee here, One after one shall follow thee As pilgrims through the gate of fear, Which opens on eternity. Yet shall we cherish not the less All that is left our hearts meanwhile; The memory of thy loveliness Shall round our weary pathway smile, Like moonlight when the sun has set, A sweet and tender radiance yet. Thoughts of thy clear-eyed sense of duty, Thy generous scorn of all things wrong, The truth, the strength, the graceful beauty Which blended in thy song. All lovely things, by thee beloved, Shall whisper to our hearts of thee; These green hills, where thy childhood roved, Yon river winding to the sea, The sunset light of autumn eves Reflecting on the deep, still floods, Cloud, crimson sky, and trembling leaves Of rainbow-tinted woods, These, in our view, shall henceforth take A tenderer meaning for thy sake; And all thou lovedst of earth and sky, Seem sacred to thy memory.

1841.

FOLLEN. ON READING HIS ESSAY ON THE "FUTURE STATE."

Charles Follen, one of the noblest contributions of Germany to American citizenship, was at an early age driven from his professorship in the University of Jena, and compelled to seek shelter from official prosecution in Switzerland, on account of his liberal political opinions. He became Professor of Civil Law in the University of Basle. The governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia united in demanding his delivery as a political offender; and, in consequence, he left Switzerland, and came to the United States. At the time of the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society he was a Professor in Harvard University, honored for his genius, learning, and estimable character. His love of liberty and hatred of oppression led him to seek an interview with Garrison and express his sympathy with him. Soon after, he attended a meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. An able speech was made by Rev. A. A. Phelps, and a letter of mine addressed to the Secretary of the Society was read. Whereupon he rose and stated that his views were in unison with those of the Society, and that after hearing the speech and the letter, he was ready to join it, and abide the probable consequences of such an unpopular act. He lost by so doing his professorship. He was an able member of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He perished in the ill-fated steamer Lexington, which was burned on its passage from New York, January 13, 1840. The few writings left behind him show him to have been a profound thinker of rare spiritual insight.

Friend of my soul! as with moist eye I look up from this page of thine, Is it a dream that thou art nigh, Thy mild face gazing into mine?

That presence seems before me now, A placid heaven of sweet moonrise, When, dew-like, on the earth below Descends the quiet of the skies.

The calm brow through the parted hair, The gentle lips which knew no guile, Softening the blue eye's thoughtful care With the bland beauty of their smile.

Ah me! at times that last dread scene Of Frost and Fire and moaning Sea Will cast its shade of doubt between The failing eyes of Faith and thee.

Yet, lingering o'er thy charmed page, Where through the twilight air of earth, Alike enthusiast and sage, Prophet and bard, thou gazest forth,

Lifting the Future's solemn veil; The reaching of a mortal hand To put aside the cold and pale Cloud-curtains of the Unseen Land;

Shall these poor elements outlive The mind whose kingly will, they wrought? Their gross unconsciousness survive Thy godlike energy of thought?

In thoughts which answer to my own, In words which reach my inward ear, Like whispers from the void Unknown, I feel thy living presence here.

The waves which lull thy body's rest, The dust thy pilgrim footsteps trod, Unwasted, through each change, attest The fixed economy of God.

Thou livest, Follen! not in vain Hath thy fine spirit meekly borne The burthen of Life's cross of pain, And the thorned crown of suffering worn.

Oh, while Life's solemn mystery glooms Around us like a dungeon's wall, Silent earth's pale and crowded tombs, Silent the heaven which bends o'er all!

While day by day our loved ones glide In spectral silence, hushed and lone, To the cold shadows which divide The living from the dread Unknown;

While even on the closing eye, And on the lip which moves in vain, The seals of that stern mystery Their undiscovered trust retain;

And only midst the gloom of death, Its mournful doubts and haunting fears, Two pale, sweet angels, Hope and Faith, Smile dimly on us through their tears;

'T is something to a heart like mine To think of thee as living yet; To feel that such a light as thine Could not in utter darkness set.

Less dreary seems the untried way Since thou hast left thy footprints there, And beams of mournful beauty play Round the sad Angel's sable hair.

Oh! at this hour when half the sky Is glorious with its evening light, And fair broad fields of summer lie Hung o'er with greenness in my sight;

While through these elm-boughs wet with rain The sunset's golden walls are seen, With clover-bloom and yellow grain And wood-draped hill and stream between;

I long to know if scenes like this Are hidden from an angel's eyes; If earth's familiar loveliness Haunts not thy heaven's serener skies.

For sweetly here upon thee grew The lesson which that beauty gave, The ideal of the pure and true In earth and sky and gliding wave.

And it may be that all which lends The soul an upward impulse here, With a diviner beauty blends, And greets us in a holier sphere.

Through groves where blighting never fell The humbler flowers of earth may twine; And simple draughts-from childhood's well Blend with the angel-tasted wine.

But be the prying vision veiled, And let the seeking lips be dumb, Where even seraph eyes have failed Shall mortal blindness seek to come?

We only know that thou hast gone, And that the same returnless tide Which bore thee from us still glides on, And we who mourn thee with it glide.

On all thou lookest we shall look, And to our gaze erelong shall turn That page of God's mysterious book We so much wish yet dread to learn.

With Him, before whose awful power Thy spirit bent its trembling knee; Who, in the silent greeting flower, And forest leaf, looked out on thee,

We leave thee, with a trust serene, Which Time, nor Change, nor Death can move, While with thy childlike faith we lean On Him whose dearest name is Love!

1842.

TO J. P.

John Pierpont, the eloquent preacher and poet of Boston.

Not as a poor requital of the joy With which my childhood heard that lay of thine, Which, like an echo of the song divine At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy, Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine,-- Not to the poet, but the man I bring In friendship's fearless trust my offering How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt see, Yet well I know that thou Last deemed with me Life all too earnest, and its time too short For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport; And girded for thy constant strife with wrong, Like Nehemiah fighting while he wrought The broken walls of Zion, even thy song Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought!

1843.

CHALKLEY HALL.

Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Pa., was the residence of Thomas Chalkley, an eminent minister of the Friends' denomination. He was one of the early settlers of the Colony, and his Journal, which was published in 1749, presents a quaint but beautiful picture of a life of unostentatious and simple goodness. He was the master of a merchant vessel, and, in his visits to the west Indies and Great Britain, omitted no opportunity to labor for the highest interests of his fellow-men. During a temporary residence in Philadelphia, in the summer of 1838, the quiet and beautiful scenery around the ancient village of Frankford frequently attracted me from the heat and bustle of the city. I have referred to my youthful acquaintance with his writings in Snow-Bound.

How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze To him who flies From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam, Till far behind him like a hideous dream The close dark city lies Here, while the market murmurs, while men throng The marble floor Of Mammon's altar, from the crush and din Of the world's madness let me gather in My better thoughts once more.

Oh, once again revive, while on my ear The cry of Gain And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away, Ye blessed memories of my early day Like sere grass wet with rain!

Once more let God's green earth and sunset air Old feelings waken; Through weary years of toil and strife and ill, Oh, let me feel that my good angel still Hath not his trust forsaken.

And well do time and place befit my mood Beneath the arms Of this embracing wood, a good man made His home, like Abraham resting in the shade Of Mamre's lonely palms.

Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years, The virgin soil Turned from the share he guided, and in rain And summer sunshine throve the fruits and grain Which blessed his honest toil.

Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas, Weary and worn, He came to meet his children and to bless The Giver of all good in thankfulness And praise for his return.

And here his neighbors gathered in to greet Their friend again, Safe from the wave and the destroying gales, Which reap untimely green Bermuda's vales, And vex the Carib main.

To hear the good man tell of simple truth, Sown in an hour Of weakness in some far-off Indian isle, From the parched bosom of a barren soil, Raised up in life and power.

How at those gatherings in Barbadian vales, A tendering love Came o'er him, like the gentle rain from heaven, And words of fitness to his lips were given, And strength as from above.

How the sad captive listened to the Word, Until his chain Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit felt The healing balm of consolation melt Upon its life-long pain

How the armed warrior sat him down to hear Of Peace and Truth, And the proud ruler and his Creole dame, Jewelled and gorgeous in her beauty came, And fair and bright-eyed youth.

Oh, far away beneath New England's sky, Even when a boy, Following my plough by Merrimac's green shore, His simple record I have pondered o'er With deep and quiet joy.

And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm,-- Its woods around, Its still stream winding on in light and shade, Its soft, green meadows and its upland glade,-- To me is holy ground.

And dearer far than haunts where Genius keeps His vigils still; Than that where Avon's son of song is laid, Or Vaucluse hallowed by its Petrarch's shade, Or Virgil's laurelled hill.

To the gray walls of fallen Paraclete, To Juliet's urn, Fair Arno and Sorrento's orange-grove, Where Tasso sang, let young Romance and Love Like brother pilgrims turn.

But here a deeper and serener charm To all is given; And blessed memories of the faithful dead O'er wood and vale and meadow-stream have shed The holy hues of Heaven!

1843.

GONE

Another hand is beckoning us, Another call is given; And glows once more with Angel-steps The path which reaches Heaven.

Our young and gentle friend, whose smile Made brighter summer hours, Amid the frosts of autumn time Has left us with the flowers.

No paling of the cheek of bloom Forewarned us of decay; No shadow from the Silent Land Fell round our sister's way.

The light of her young life went down, As sinks behind the hill The glory of a setting star, Clear, suddenly, and still.

As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed Eternal as the sky; And like the brook's low song, her voice,-- A sound which could not die.

And half we deemed she needed not The changing of her sphere, To give to Heaven a Shining One, Who walked an Angel here.

The blessing of her quiet life Fell on us like the dew; And good thoughts where her footsteps pressed Like fairy blossoms grew.

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds Were in her very look; We read her face, as one who reads A true and holy book,

The measure of a blessed hymn, To which our hearts could move; The breathing of an inward psalm, A canticle of love.

We miss her in the place of prayer, And by the hearth-fire's light; We pause beside her door to hear Once more her sweet "Good-night!"

There seems a shadow on the day, Her smile no longer cheers; A dimness on the stars of night, Like eyes that look through tears.

Alone unto our Father's will One thought hath reconciled; That He whose love exceedeth ours Hath taken home His child.

Fold her, O Father! in Thine arms, And let her henceforth be A messenger of love between Our human hearts and Thee.

Still let her mild rebuking stand Between us and the wrong, And her dear memory serve to make Our faith in Goodness strong.

And grant that she who, trembling, here Distrusted all her powers, May welcome to her holier home The well-beloved of ours.

1845.

TO RONGE.

This was written after reading the powerful and manly protest of Johannes Ronge against the "pious fraud" of the Bishop of Treves. The bold movement of the young Catholic priest of Prussian Silesia seemed to me full of promise to the cause of political as well as religious liberty in Europe. That it failed was due partly to the faults of the reformer, but mainly to the disagreement of the Liberals of Germany upon a matter of dogma, which prevented them from unity of action. Rouge was born in Silesia in 1813 and died in October, 1887. His autobiography was translated into English and published in London in 1846.

Strike home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel. Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then Put nerve into thy task. Let other men Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal. Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy blows Fall heavy as the Suabian's iron hand, On crown or crosier, which shall interpose Between thee and the weal of Fatherland. Leave creeds to closet idlers. First of all, Shake thou all German dream-land with the fall Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk Was spared of old by Erfurt's stalwart monk. Fight not with ghosts and shadows. Let us hear The snap of chain-links. Let our gladdened ear Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as the light Follows thy axe-stroke, through his cell of night. Be faithful to both worlds; nor think to feed Earth's starving millions with the husks of creed. Servant of Him whose mission high and holy Was to the wronged, the sorrowing, and the lowly, Thrust not his Eden promise from our sphere, Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's span; Like him of Patmos, see it, now and here, The New Jerusalem comes down to man Be warned by Luther's error. Nor like him, When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb The rusted chain of ages, help to bind His hands for whom thou claim'st the freedom of the mind.

1846.

CHANNING.

The last time I saw Dr. Channing was in the summer of 1841, when, in company with my English friend, Joseph Sturge, so well known for his philanthropic labors and liberal political opinions, I visited him in his summer residence in Rhode Island. In recalling the impressions of that visit, it can scarcely be necessary to say, that I have no reference to the peculiar religious opinions of a man whose life, beautifully and truly manifested above the atmosphere of sect, is now the world's common legacy.

Not vainly did old poets tell, Nor vainly did old genius paint God's great and crowning miracle, The hero and the saint!

For even in a faithless day Can we our sainted ones discern; And feel, while with them on the way, Our hearts within us burn.

And thus the common tongue and pen Which, world-wide, echo Channing's fame, As one of Heaven's anointed men, Have sanctified his name.

In vain shall Rome her portals bar, And shut from him her saintly prize, Whom, in the world's great calendar, All men shall canonize.

By Narragansett's sunny bay, Beneath his green embowering wood, To me it seems but yesterday Since at his side I stood.

The slopes lay green with summer rains, The western wind blew fresh and free, And glimmered down the orchard lanes The white surf of the sea.

With us was one, who, calm and true, Life's highest purpose understood, And, like his blessed Master, knew The joy of doing good.

Unlearned, unknown to lettered fame, Yet on the lips of England's poor And toiling millions dwelt his name, With blessings evermore.

Unknown to power or place, yet where The sun looks o'er the Carib sea, It blended with the freeman's prayer And song of jubilee.

He told of England's sin and wrong, The ills her suffering children know, The squalor of the city's throng, The green field's want and woe.

O'er Channing's face the tenderness Of sympathetic sorrow stole, Like a still shadow, passionless, The sorrow of the soul.

But when the generous Briton told How hearts were answering to his own, And Freedom's rising murmur rolled Up to the dull-eared throne,

I saw, methought, a glad surprise Thrill through that frail and pain-worn frame, And, kindling in those deep, calm eyes, A still and earnest flame.

His few, brief words were such as move The human heart,--the Faith-sown seeds Which ripen in the soil of love To high heroic deeds.

No bars of sect or clime were felt, The Babel strife of tongues had ceased, And at one common altar knelt The Quaker and the priest.

And not in vain: with strength renewed, And zeal refreshed, and hope less dim, For that brief meeting, each pursued The path allotted him.

How echoes yet each Western hill And vale with Channing's dying word! How are the hearts of freemen still By that great warning stirred.

The stranger treads his native soil, And pleads, with zeal unfelt before, The honest right of British toil, The claim of England's poor.

Before him time-wrought barriers fall, Old fears subside, old hatreds melt, And, stretching o'er the sea's blue wall, The Saxon greets the Celt.

The yeoman on the Scottish lines, The Sheffield grinder, worn and grim, The delver in the Cornwall mines, Look up with hope to him.

Swart smiters of the glowing steel, Dark feeders of the forge's flame, Pale watchers at the loom and wheel, Repeat his honored name.

And thus the influence of that hour Of converse on Rhode Island's strand Lives in the calm, resistless power Which moves our fatherland.

God blesses still the generous thought, And still the fitting word He speeds And Truth, at His requiring taught, He quickens into deeds.

Where is the victory of the grave? What dust upon the spirit lies? God keeps the sacred life he gave,-- The prophet never dies!

1844.

TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER.

Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of the British Complete Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 1845. She was the colleague, counsellor, and ever-ready helpmate of her brother in all his vast designs of beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot says of her: "Never, perhaps, were the active and passive virtues of the human character more harmoniously and beautifully blended than in this excellent woman."

Thine is a grief, the depth of which another May never know; Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken brother! To thee I go.

I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding Thy hand in mine; With even the weakness of my soul upholding The strength of thine.

I never knew, like thee, the dear departed; I stood not by When, in calm trust, the pure and tranquil-hearted Lay down to die.

And on thy ears my words of weak condoling Must vainly fall The funeral bell which in thy heart is tolling, Sounds over all!

I will not mock thee with the poor world's common And heartless phrase, Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman With idle praise.

With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb!

Yet, would I say what thy own heart approveth Our Father's will, Calling to Him the dear one whom He loveth, Is mercy still.

Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel Hath evil wrought Her funeral anthem is a glad evangel,-- The good die not!

God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly What He hath given; They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly As in His heaven.

And she is with thee; in thy path of trial She walketh yet; Still with the baptism of thy self-denial Her locks are wet.

Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest Lie white in view She lives and loves thee, and the God thou servest To both is true.

Thrust in thy sickle! England's toilworn peasants Thy call abide; And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy presence, Shall glean beside! 1845.

DANIEL WHEELER

Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of Friends, who had labored in the cause of his Divine Master in Great Britain, Russia, and the islands of the Pacific, died in New York in the spring of 1840, while on a religious visit to this country.

O Dearly loved! And worthy of our love! No more Thy aged form shall rise before The bushed and waiting worshiper, In meek obedience utterance giving To words of truth, so fresh and living, That, even to the inward sense, They bore unquestioned evidence Of an anointed Messenger! Or, bowing down thy silver hair In reverent awfulness of prayer, The world, its time and sense, shut out The brightness of Faith's holy trance Gathered upon thy countenance, As if each lingering cloud of doubt, The cold, dark shadows resting here In Time's unluminous atmosphere, Were lifted by an angel's hand, And through them on thy spiritual eye Shone down the blessedness on high, The glory of the Better Land!

The oak has fallen! While, meet for no good work, the vine May yet its worthless branches twine, Who knoweth not that with thee fell A great man in our Israel? Fallen, while thy loins were girded still, Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet, And in thy hand retaining yet The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell Unharmed and safe, where, wild and free, Across the Neva's cold morass The breezes from the Frozen Sea With winter's arrowy keenness pass; Or where the unwarning tropic gale Smote to the waves thy tattered sail, Or where the noon-hour's fervid heat Against Tahiti's mountains beat; The same mysterious Hand which gave Deliverance upon land and wave, Tempered for thee the blasts which blew Ladaga's frozen surface o'er, And blessed for thee the baleful dew Of evening upon Eimeo's shore, Beneath this sunny heaven of ours, Midst our soft airs and opening flowers Hath given thee a grave!

His will be done, Who seeth not as man, whose way Is not as ours! 'T is well with thee! Nor anxious doubt nor dark dismay Disquieted thy closing day, But, evermore, thy soul could say, "My Father careth still for me!" Called from thy hearth and home,--from her, The last bud on thy household tree, The last dear one to minister In duty and in love to thee, From all which nature holdeth dear, Feeble with years and worn with pain, To seek our distant land again, Bound in the spirit, yet unknowing The things which should befall thee here, Whether for labor or for death, In childlike trust serenely going To that last trial of thy faith! Oh, far away, Where never shines our Northern star On that dark waste which Balboa saw From Darien's mountains stretching far, So strange, heaven-broad, and lone, that there, With forehead to its damp wind bare, He bent his mailed knee in awe; In many an isle whose coral feet The surges of that ocean beat, In thy palm shadows, Oahu, And Honolulu's silver bay, Amidst Owyhee's hills of blue, And taro-plains of Tooboonai, Are gentle hearts, which long shall be Sad as our own at thought of thee, Worn sowers of Truth's holy seed, Whose souls in weariness and need Were strengthened and refreshed by thine. For blessed by our Father's hand Was thy deep love and tender care, Thy ministry and fervent prayer,-- Grateful as Eshcol's clustered vine To Israel in a weary land.

And they who drew By thousands round thee, in the hour Of prayerful waiting, hushed and deep, That He who bade the islands keep Silence before Him, might renew Their strength with His unslumbering power, They too shall mourn that thou art gone, That nevermore thy aged lip Shall soothe the weak, the erring warn, Of those who first, rejoicing, heard Through thee the Gospel's glorious word,-- Seals of thy true apostleship. And, if the brightest diadem, Whose gems of glory purely burn Around the ransomed ones in bliss, Be evermore reserved for them Who here, through toil and sorrow, turn Many to righteousness, May we not think of thee as wearing That star-like crown of light, and bearing, Amidst Heaven's white and blissful band, Th' unfading palm-branch in thy hand; And joining with a seraph's tongue In that new song the elders sung, Ascribing to its blessed Giver Thanksgiving, love, and praise forever!

Farewell! And though the ways of Zion mourn When her strong ones are called away, Who like thyself have calmly borne The heat and burden of the day, Yet He who slumbereth not nor sleepeth His ancient watch around us keepeth; Still, sent from His creating hand, New witnesses for Truth shall stand, New instruments to sound abroad The Gospel of a risen Lord; To gather to the fold once more The desolate and gone astray, The scattered of a cloudy day, And Zion's broken walls restore; And, through the travail and the toil Of true obedience, minister Beauty for ashes, and the oil Of joy for mourning, unto her! So shall her holy bounds increase With walls of praise and gates of peace So shall the Vine, which martyr tears And blood sustained in other years, With fresher life be clothed upon; And to the world in beauty show Like the rose-plant of Jericho, And glorious as Lebanon!

1847

TO FREDRIKA BREMER.

It is proper to say that these lines are the joint impromptus of my sister and myself. They are inserted here as an expression of our admiration of the gifted stranger whom we have since learned to love as a friend.

Seeress of the misty Norland, Daughter of the Vikings bold, Welcome to the sunny Vineland, Which thy fathers sought of old!

Soft as flow of Siija's waters, When the moon of summer shines, Strong as Winter from his mountains Roaring through the sleeted pines.

Heart and ear, we long have listened To thy saga, rune, and song; As a household joy and presence We have known and loved thee long.

By the mansion's marble mantel, Round the log-walled cabin's hearth, Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies Meet and mingle with our mirth.

And o'er weary spirits keeping Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill, Shine they like thy sun of summer Over midnight vale and hill.

We alone to thee are strangers, Thou our friend and teacher art; Come, and know us as we know thee; Let us meet thee heart to heart!

To our homes and household altars We, in turn, thy steps would lead, As thy loving hand has led us O'er the threshold of the Swede.

1849.

TO AVIS KEENE ON RECEIVING A BASKET OF SEA-MOSSES.

Thanks for thy gift Of ocean flowers, Born where the golden drift Of the slant sunshine falls Down the green, tremulous walls Of water, to the cool, still coral bowers, Where, under rainbows of perpetual showers, God's gardens of the deep His patient angels keep; Gladdening the dim, strange solitude With fairest forms and hues, and thus Forever teaching us The lesson which the many-colored skies, The flowers, and leaves, and painted butterflies, The deer's branched antlers, the gay bird that flings The tropic sunshine from its golden wings, The brightness of the human countenance, Its play of smiles, the magic of a glance, Forevermore repeat, In varied tones and sweet, That beauty, in and of itself, is good.

O kind and generous friend, o'er whom The sunset hues of Time are cast, Painting, upon the overpast And scattered clouds of noonday sorrow The promise of a fairer morrow, An earnest of the better life to come; The binding of the spirit broken, The warning to the erring spoken, The comfort of the sad, The eye to see, the hand to cull Of common things the beautiful, The absent heart made glad By simple gift or graceful token Of love it needs as daily food, All own one Source, and all are good Hence, tracking sunny cove and reach, Where spent waves glimmer up the beach, And toss their gifts of weed and shell From foamy curve and combing swell, No unbefitting task was thine To weave these flowers so soft and fair In unison with His design Who loveth beauty everywhere; And makes in every zone and clime, In ocean and in upper air, All things beautiful in their time.

For not alone in tones of awe and power He speaks to Inan; The cloudy horror of the thunder-shower His rainbows span; And where the caravan Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in air The crane-flock leaves, no trace of passage there, He gives the weary eye The palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon hours, And on its branches dry Calls out the acacia's flowers; And where the dark shaft pierces down Beneath the mountain roots, Seen by the miner's lamp alone, The star-like crystal shoots; So, where, the winds and waves below, The coral-branched gardens grow, His climbing weeds and mosses show, Like foliage, on each stony bough, Of varied hues more strangely gay Than forest leaves in autumn's day;-- Thus evermore, On sky, and wave, and shore, An all-pervading beauty seems to say God's love and power are one; and they, Who, like the thunder of a sultry day, Smite to restore, And they, who, like the gentle wind, uplift The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and drift Their perfume on the air, Alike may serve Him, each, with their own gift, Making their lives a prayer!

1850

THE HILL-TOP

The burly driver at my side, We slowly climbed the hill, Whose summit, in the hot noontide, Seemed rising, rising still. At last, our short noon-shadows bid The top-stone, bare and brown, From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid, The rough mass slanted down.

I felt the cool breath of the North; Between me and the sun, O'er deep, still lake, and ridgy earth, I saw the cloud-shades run. Before me, stretched for glistening miles, Lay mountain-girdled Squam; Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles Upon its bosom swam.

And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm, Far as the eye could roam, Dark billows of an earthquake storm Beflecked with clouds like foam, Their vales in misty shadow deep, Their rugged peaks in shine, I saw the mountain ranges sweep The horizon's northern line.

There towered Chocorua's peak; and west, Moosehillock's woods were seem, With many a nameless slide-scarred crest And pine-dark gorge between. Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud, The great Notch mountains shone, Watched over by the solemn-browed And awful face of stone!

"A good look-off!" the driver spake; "About this time, last year, I drove a party to the Lake, And stopped, at evening, here. 'T was duskish down below; but all These hills stood in the sun, Till, dipped behind yon purple wall, He left them, one by one.

"A lady, who, from Thornton hill, Had held her place outside, And, as a pleasant woman will, Had cheered the long, dull ride, Besought me, with so sweet a smile, That--though I hate delays-- I could not choose but rest awhile,-- (These women have such ways!)

"On yonder mossy ledge she sat, Her sketch upon her knees, A stray brown lock beneath her hat Unrolling in the breeze; Her sweet face, in the sunset light Upraised and glorified,-- I never saw a prettier sight In all my mountain ride.

"As good as fair; it seemed her joy To comfort and to give; My poor, sick wife, and cripple boy, Will bless her while they live!" The tremor in the driver's tone His manhood did not shame "I dare say, sir, you may have known"-- He named a well-known name.

Then sank the pyramidal mounds, The blue lake fled away; For mountain-scope a parlor's bounds, A lighted hearth for day! From lonely years and weary miles The shadows fell apart; Kind voices cheered, sweet human smiles Shone warm into my heart.

We journeyed on; but earth and sky Had power to charm no more; Still dreamed my inward-turning eye The dream of memory o'er. Ah! human kindness, human love,-- To few who seek denied; Too late we learn to prize above The whole round world beside!

1850

ELLIOTT.

Ebenezer Elliott was to the artisans of England what Burns was to the peasantry of Scotland. His Corn-law Rhymes contributed not a little to that overwhelming tide of popular opinion and feeling which resulted in the repeal of the tax on bread. Well has the eloquent author of The Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain said of him, "Not corn-law repealers alone, but all Britons who moisten their scanty bread with the sweat of the brow, are largely indebted to his inspiring lay, for the mighty bound which the laboring mind of England has taken in our day."

Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play No trick of priestcraft here! Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay A hand on Elliott's bier? Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust, Beneath his feet he trod.

He knew the locust swarm that cursed The harvest-fields of God. On these pale lips, the smothered thought Which England's millions feel, A fierce and fearful splendor caught, As from his forge the steel. Strong-armed as Thor, a shower of fire His smitten anvil flung; God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire, He gave them all a tongue!

Then let the poor man's horny hands Bear up the mighty dead, And labor's swart and stalwart bands Behind as mourners tread. Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds, Leave rank its minster floor; Give England's green and daisied grounds The poet of the poor!

Lay down upon his Sheaf's green verge That brave old heart of oak, With fitting dirge from sounding forge, And pall of furnace smoke! Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds, And axe and sledge are swung, And, timing to their stormy sounds, His stormy lays are sung.

There let the peasant's step be heard, The grinder chant his rhyme, Nor patron's praise nor dainty word Befits the man or time. No soft lament nor dreamer's sigh For him whose words were bread; The Runic rhyme and spell whereby The foodless poor were fed!

Pile up the tombs of rank and pride, O England, as thou wilt! With pomp to nameless worth denied, Emblazon titled guilt! No part or lot in these we claim; But, o'er the sounding wave, A common right to Elliott's name, A freehold in his grave!

1850

ICHABOD

This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and forecast of evil consequences which I felt on reading the seventh of March speech of Daniel Webster in support of the "compromise," and the Fugitive Slave Law. No partisan or personal enmity dictated it. On the contrary my admiration of the splendid personality and intellectual power of the great Senator was never stronger than when I laid down his speech, and, in one of the saddest moments of my life, penned my protest. I saw, as I wrote, with painful clearness its sure results,--the Slave Power arrogant and defiant, strengthened and encouraged to carry out its scheme for the extension of its baleful system, or the dissolution of the Union, the guaranties of personal liberty in the free States broken down, and the whole country made the hunting-ground of slave-catchers. In the horror of such a vision, so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of stern and sorrowful rebuke. But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity of judgment. Years after, in The Lost Occasion I gave utterance to an almost universal regret that the great statesman did not live to see the flag which he loved trampled under the feet of Slavery, and, in view of this desecration, make his last days glorious in defence of "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable."

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath A snare for all; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark A bright soul driven, Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, From hope and heaven!

Let not the land once proud of him Insult him now, Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, Dishonored brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead, From sea to lake, A long lament, as for the dead, In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honored, naught Save power remains; A fallen angel's pride of thought, Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes The soul has fled When faith is lost, when honor dies, The man is dead!

Then, pay the reverence of old days To his dead fame; Walk backward, with averted gaze, And hide the shame!

1850

THE LOST OCCASION.

Some die too late and some too soon, At early morning, heat of noon, Or the chill evening twilight. Thou, Whom the rich heavens did so endow With eyes of power and Jove's own brow, With all the massive strength that fills Thy home-horizon's granite hills, With rarest gifts of heart and head From manliest stock inherited, New England's stateliest type of man, In port and speech Olympian;

Whom no one met, at first, but took A second awed and wondering look (As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece); Whose words in simplest homespun clad, The Saxon strength of Caedmon's had, With power reserved at need to reach The Roman forum's loftiest speech, Sweet with persuasion, eloquent In passion, cool in argument, Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes As fell the Norse god's hammer blows, Crushing as if with Talus' flail Through Error's logic-woven mail, And failing only when they tried The adamant of the righteous side,-- Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved Of old friends, by the new deceived, Too soon for us, too soon for thee, Beside thy lonely Northern sea, Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, Laid wearily down thy August head.

Thou shouldst have lived to feel below Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow; The late-sprung mine that underlaid Thy sad concessions vainly made. Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall The star-flag of the Union fall, And armed rebellion pressing on The broken lines of Washington! No stronger voice than thine had then Called out the utmost might of men, To make the Union's charter free And strengthen law by liberty. How had that stern arbitrament To thy gray age youth's vigor lent, Shaming ambition's paltry prize Before thy disillusioned eyes; Breaking the spell about thee wound Like the green withes that Samson bound; Redeeming in one effort grand, Thyself and thy imperilled land! Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, O sleeper by the Northern sea, The gates of opportunity! God fills the gaps of human need, Each crisis brings its word and deed. Wise men and strong we did not lack; But still, with memory turning back, In the dark hours we thought of thee, And thy lone grave beside the sea.

Above that grave the east winds blow, And from the marsh-lands drifting slow The sea-fog comes, with evermore The wave-wash of a lonely shore, And sea-bird's melancholy cry, As Nature fain would typify The sadness of a closing scene, The loss of that which should have been. But, where thy native mountains bare Their foreheads to diviner air, Fit emblem of enduring fame, One lofty summit keeps thy name. For thee the cosmic forces did The rearing of that pyramid, The prescient ages shaping with Fire, flood, and frost thy monolith. Sunrise and sunset lay thereon With hands of light their benison, The stars of midnight pause to set Their jewels in its coronet. And evermore that mountain mass Seems climbing from the shadowy pass To light, as if to manifest Thy nobler self, thy life at best!

1880

WORDSWORTH, WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF HIS MEMOIRS.

Dear friends, who read the world aright, And in its common forms discern A beauty and a harmony The many never learn!

Kindred in soul of him who found In simple flower and leaf and stone The impulse of the sweetest lays Our Saxon tongue has known,--

Accept this record of a life As sweet and pure, as calm and good, As a long day of blandest June In green field and in wood.

How welcome to our ears, long pained By strife of sect and party noise, The brook-like murmur of his song Of nature's simple joys!

The violet' by its mossy stone, The primrose by the river's brim, And chance-sown daffodil, have found Immortal life through him.

The sunrise on his breezy lake, The rosy tints his sunset brought, World-seen, are gladdening all the vales And mountain-peaks of thought.

Art builds on sand; the works of pride And human passion change and fall; But that which shares the life of God With Him surviveth all.

1851.

TO ------, LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION.

Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom, In hieroglyph of bud and bloom, Her mysteries are told; Who, wise in lore of wood and mead, The seasons' pictured scrolls can read, In lessons manifold!

Thanks for the courtesy, and gay Good-humor, which on Washing Day Our ill-timed visit bore; Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke The morning dreams of Artichoke, Along his wooded shore!

Varied as varying Nature's ways, Sprites of the river, woodland fays, Or mountain nymphs, ye seem; Free-limbed Dianas on the green, Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine, Upon your favorite stream.

The forms of which the poets told, The fair benignities of old, Were doubtless such as you; What more than Artichoke the rill Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill Arcadia's mountain-view?

No sweeter bowers the bee delayed, In wild Hymettus' scented shade, Than those you dwell among; Snow-flowered azaleas, intertwined With roses, over banks inclined With trembling harebells hung!

A charmed life unknown to death, Immortal freshness Nature hath; Her fabled fount and glen Are now and here: Dodona's shrine Still murmurs in the wind-swept pine,-- All is that e'er hath been.

The Beauty which old Greece or Rome Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home; We need but eye and ear In all our daily walks to trace The outlines of incarnate grace, The hymns of gods to hear!

1851

IN PEACE.

A track of moonlight on a quiet lake, Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make Such harmonies as keep the woods awake, And listening all night long for their sweet sake A green-waved slope of meadow, hovered o'er By angel-troops of lilies, swaying light On viewless stems, with folded wings of white; A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far seen Where the low westering day, with gold and green, Purple and amber, softly blended, fills The wooded vales, and melts among the hills; A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest On the calm bosom of a stormless sea, Bearing alike upon its placid breast, With earthly flowers and heavenly' stars impressed, The hues of time and of eternity Such are the pictures which the thought of thee, O friend, awakeneth,--charming the keen pain Of thy departure, and our sense of loss Requiting with the fullness of thy gain. Lo! on the quiet grave thy life-borne cross, Dropped only at its side, methinks doth shine, Of thy beatitude the radiant sign! No sob of grief, no wild lament be there, To break the Sabbath of the holy air; But, in their stead, the silent-breathing prayer Of hearts still waiting for a rest like thine. O spirit redeemed! Forgive us, if henceforth, With sweet and pure similitudes of earth, We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green, Of love's inheritance a priceless part, Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is seen To paint, forgetful of the tricks of art, With pencil dipped alone in colors of the heart.

1851.

BENEDICITE.

God's love and peace be with thee, where Soe'er this soft autumnal air Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair.

Whether through city casements comes Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms, Or, out among the woodland blooms,

It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face, Imparting, in its glad embrace, Beauty to beauty, grace to grace!

Fair Nature's book together read, The old wood-paths that knew our tread, The maple shadows overhead,--

The hills we climbed, the river seen By gleams along its deep ravine,-- All keep thy memory fresh and green.

Where'er I look, where'er I stray, Thy thought goes with me on my way, And hence the prayer I breathe to-day;

O'er lapse of time and change of scene, The weary waste which lies between Thyself and me, my heart I lean.

Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, nor The half-unconscious power to draw All hearts to thine by Love's sweet law.

With these good gifts of God is cast Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast To hold the blessed angels fast.

If, then, a fervent wish for thee The gracious heavens will heed from me, What should, dear heart, its burden be?

The sighing of a shaken reed,-- What can I more than meekly plead The greatness of our common need?

God's love,--unchanging, pure, and true,-- The Paraclete white-shining through His peace,--the fall of Hermon's dew!

With such a prayer, on this sweet day, As thou mayst hear and I may say, I greet thee, dearest, far away!

1851.

KOSSUTH

It can scarcely be necessary to say that there are elements in the character and passages in the history of the great Hungarian statesman and orator, which necessarily command the admiration of those, even, who believe that no political revolution was ever worth the price of human blood.

Type of two mighty continents!--combining The strength of Europe with the warmth and glow Of Asian song and prophecy,--the shining Of Orient splendors over Northern snow! Who shall receive him? Who, unblushing, speak Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off At the same blow the fetters of the serf, Rearing the altar of his Fatherland On the firm base of freedom, and thereby Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand, Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie! Who shall be Freedom's mouthpiece? Who shall give Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive? Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying, Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain The swarthy Kossuths of our land again! Not he whose utterance now from lips designed The bugle-march of Liberty to wind, And call her hosts beneath the breaking light, The keen reveille of her morn of fight, Is but the hoarse note of the blood-hound's baying, The wolf's long howl behind the bondman's flight! Oh for the tongue of him who lies at rest In Quincy's shade of patrimonial trees, Last of the Puritan tribunes and the best, To lend a voice to Freedom's sympathies, And hail the coming of the noblest guest The Old World's wrong has given the New World of the West!

1851.

TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER.

AN EPISTLE NOT AFTER THE MANNER OF HORACE

These lines were addressed to my worthy friend Joshua Coffin, teacher, historian, and antiquarian. He was one of the twelve persons who with William Lloyd Garrison formed the first anti-slavery society in New England.

Old friend, kind friend! lightly down Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown! Never be thy shadow less, Never fail thy cheerfulness; Care, that kills the cat, may, plough Wrinkles in the miser's brow, Deepen envy's spiteful frown, Draw the mouths of bigots down, Plague ambition's dream, and sit Heavy on the hypocrite, Haunt the rich man's door, and ride In the gilded coach of pride;-- Let the fiend pass!--what can he Find to do with such as thee? Seldom comes that evil guest Where the conscience lies at rest, And brown health and quiet wit Smiling on the threshold sit.

I, the urchin unto whom, In that smoked and dingy room, Where the district gave thee rule O'er its ragged winter school, Thou didst teach the mysteries Of those weary A B C's,-- Where, to fill the every pause Of thy wise and learned saws, Through the cracked and crazy wall Came the cradle-rock and squall, And the goodman's voice, at strife With his shrill and tipsy wife, Luring us by stories old, With a comic unction told, More than by the eloquence Of terse birchen arguments (Doubtful gain, I fear), to look With complacence on a book!-- Where the genial pedagogue Half forgot his rogues to flog, Citing tale or apologue, Wise and merry in its drift As was Phaedrus' twofold gift, Had the little rebels known it, Risum et prudentiam monet! I,--the man of middle years, In whose sable locks appears Many a warning fleck of gray,-- Looking back to that far day, And thy primal lessons, feel Grateful smiles my lips unseal, As, remembering thee, I blend Olden teacher, present friend, Wise with antiquarian search, In the scrolls of State and Church Named on history's title-page, Parish-clerk and justice sage; For the ferule's wholesome awe Wielding now the sword of law.

Threshing Time's neglected sheaves, Gathering up the scattered leaves Which the wrinkled sibyl cast Careless from her as she passed,-- Twofold citizen art thou, Freeman of the past and now. He who bore thy name of old Midway in the heavens did hold Over Gibeon moon and sun; Thou hast bidden them backward run; Of to-day the present ray Flinging over yesterday!

Let the busy ones deride What I deem of right thy pride Let the fools their treadmills grind, Look not forward nor behind, Shuffle in and wriggle out, Veer with every breeze about, Turning like a windmill sail, Or a dog that seeks his tail; Let them laugh to see thee fast Tabernacled in the Past, Working out with eye and lip, Riddles of old penmanship, Patient as Belzoni there Sorting out, with loving care, Mummies of dead questions stripped From their sevenfold manuscript.

Dabbling, in their noisy way, In the puddles of to-day, Little know they of that vast Solemn ocean of the past, On whose margin, wreck-bespread, Thou art walking with the dead, Questioning the stranded years, Waking smiles, by turns, and tears, As thou callest up again Shapes the dust has long o'erlain,-- Fair-haired woman, bearded man, Cavalier and Puritan; In an age whose eager view Seeks but present things, and new, Mad for party, sect and gold, Teaching reverence for the old.

On that shore, with fowler's tact, Coolly bagging fact on fact, Naught amiss to thee can float, Tale, or song, or anecdote; Village gossip, centuries old, Scandals by our grandams told, What the pilgrim's table spread, Where he lived, and whom he wed, Long-drawn bill of wine and beer For his ordination cheer, Or the flip that wellnigh made Glad his funeral cavalcade; Weary prose, and poet's lines, Flavored by their age, like wines, Eulogistic of some quaint, Doubtful, puritanic saint; Lays that quickened husking jigs, Jests that shook grave periwigs, When the parson had his jokes And his glass, like other folks; Sermons that, for mortal hours, Taxed our fathers' vital powers, As the long nineteenthlies poured Downward from the sounding-board, And, for fire of Pentecost, Touched their beards December's frost.

Time is hastening on, and we What our fathers are shall be,-- Shadow-shapes of memory! Joined to that vast multitude Where the great are but the good, And the mind of strength shall prove Weaker than the heart of love; Pride of graybeard wisdom less Than the infant's guilelessness, And his song of sorrow more Than the crown the Psalmist wore Who shall then, with pious zeal, At our moss-grown thresholds kneel, From a stained and stony page Reading to a careless age, With a patient eye like thine, Prosing tale and limping line, Names and words the hoary rime Of the Past has made sublime? Who shall work for us as well The antiquarian's miracle? Who to seeming life recall Teacher grave and pupil small? Who shall give to thee and me Freeholds in futurity?

Well, whatever lot be mine, Long and happy days be thine, Ere thy full and honored age Dates of time its latest page! Squire for master, State for school, Wisely lenient, live and rule; Over grown-up knave and rogue Play the watchful pedagogue; Or, while pleasure smiles on duty, At the call of youth and beauty, Speak for them the spell of law Which shall bar and bolt withdraw, And the flaming sword remove From the Paradise of Love. Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore Ancient tome and record o'er; Still thy week-day lyrics croon, Pitch in church the Sunday tune, Showing something, in thy part, Of the old Puritanic art, Singer after Sternhold's heart In thy pew, for many a year, Homilies from Oldbug hear, Who to wit like that of South, And the Syrian's golden mouth, Doth the homely pathos add Which the pilgrim preachers had; Breaking, like a child at play, Gilded idols of the day, Cant of knave and pomp of fool Tossing with his ridicule, Yet, in earnest or in jest, Ever keeping truth abreast. And, when thou art called, at last, To thy townsmen of the past, Not as stranger shalt thou come; Thou shalt find thyself at home With the little and the big, Woollen cap and periwig, Madam in her high-laced ruff, Goody in her home-made stuff,-- Wise and simple, rich and poor, Thou hast known them all before!

1851

THE CROSS.

Richard Dillingham, a young member of the Society of Friends, died in the Nashville penitentiary, where he was confined for the act of aiding the escape of fugitive slaves.

"The cross, if rightly borne, shall be No burden, but support to thee;" So, moved of old time for our sake, The holy monk of Kempen spake.

Thou brave and true one! upon whom Was laid the cross of martyrdom, How didst thou, in thy generous youth, Bear witness to this blessed truth!

Thy cross of suffering and of shame A staff within thy hands became, In paths where faith alone could see The Master's steps supporting thee.

Thine was the seed-time; God alone Beholds the end of what is sown; Beyond our vision, weak and dim, The harvest-time is hid with Him.

Yet, unforgotten where it lies, That seed of generous sacrifice, Though seeming on the desert cast, Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last.

1852.

THE HERO.

The hero of the incident related in this poem was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the well-known philanthropist, who when a young man volunteered his aid in the Greek struggle for independence.

"Oh for a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear; My light glove on his casque of steel, My love-knot on his spear!

"Oh for the white plume floating Sad Zutphen's field above,-- The lion heart in battle, The woman's heart in love!

"Oh that man once more were manly, Woman's pride, and not her scorn: That once more the pale young mother Dared to boast 'a man is born'!

"But, now life's slumberous current No sun-bowed cascade wakes; No tall, heroic manhood The level dulness breaks.

"Oh for a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear! My light glove on his casque of steel, My love-knot on his spear!"

Then I said, my own heart throbbing To the time her proud pulse beat, "Life hath its regal natures yet, True, tender, brave, and sweet!

"Smile not, fair unbeliever! One man, at least, I know, Who might wear the crest of Bayard Or Sidney's plume of snow.

"Once, when over purple mountains Died away the Grecian sun, And the far Cyllenian ranges Paled and darkened, one by one,--

"Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder, Cleaving all the quiet sky, And against his sharp steel lightnings Stood the Suliote but to die.

"Woe for the weak and halting! The crescent blazed behind A curving line of sabres, Like fire before the wind!

"Last to fly, and first to rally, Rode he of whom I speak, When, groaning in his bridle-path, Sank down a wounded Greek.

"With the rich Albanian costume Wet with many a ghastly stain, Gazing on earth and sky as one Who might not gaze again.

"He looked forward to the mountains, Back on foes that never spare, Then flung him from his saddle, And placed the stranger there.

"'Allah! hu!' Through flashing sabres, Through a stormy hail of lead, The good Thessalian charger Up the slopes of olives sped.

"Hot spurred the turbaned riders; He almost felt their breath, Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down Between the hills and death.

"One brave and manful struggle,-- He gained the solid land, And the cover of the mountains, And the carbines of his band!"

"It was very great and noble," Said the moist-eyed listener then, "But one brave deed makes no hero; Tell me what he since hath been!"

"Still a brave and generous manhood, Still an honor without stain, In the prison of the Kaiser, By the barricades of Seine.

"But dream not helm and harness The sign of valor true; Peace hath higher tests of manhood Than battle ever knew.

"Wouldst know him now? Behold him, The Cadmus of the blind, Giving the dumb lip language, The idiot-clay a mind.

"Walking his round of duty Serenely day by day, With the strong man's hand of labor And childhood's heart of play.

"True as the knights of story, Sir Lancelot and his peers, Brave in his calm endurance As they in tilt of spears.

"As waves in stillest waters, As stars in noonday skies, All that wakes to noble action In his noon of calmness lies.

"Wherever outraged Nature Asks word or action brave, Wherever struggles labor, Wherever groans a slave,--

"Wherever rise the peoples, Wherever sinks a throne, The throbbing heart of Freedom finds An answer in his own.

"Knight of a better era, Without reproach or fear! Said I not well that Bayards And Sidneys still are here?"

1853.

RANTOUL.

No more fitting inscription could be placed on the tombstone of Robert Rantoul than this: "He died at his post in Congress, and his last words were a protest in the name of Democracy against the Fugitive-Slave Law."

One day, along the electric wire His manly word for Freedom sped; We came next morn: that tongue of fire Said only, "He who spake is dead!"

Dead! while his voice was living yet, In echoes round the pillared dome! Dead! while his blotted page lay wet With themes of state and loves of home!

Dead! in that crowning grace of time, That triumph of life's zenith hour! Dead! while we watched his manhood's prime Break from the slow bud into flower!

Dead! he so great, and strong, and wise, While the mean thousands yet drew breath; How deepened, through that dread surprise, The mystery and the awe of death!

From the high place whereon our votes Had borne him, clear, calm, earnest, fell His first words, like the prelude notes Of some great anthem yet to swell.

We seemed to see our flag unfurled, Our champion waiting in his place For the last battle of the world, The Armageddon of the race.

Through him we hoped to speak the word Which wins the freedom of a land; And lift, for human right, the sword Which dropped from Hampden's dying hand.

For he had sat at Sidney's feet, And walked with Pym and Vane apart; And, through the centuries, felt the beat Of Freedom's march in Cromwell's heart.

He knew the paths the worthies held, Where England's best and wisest trod; And, lingering, drank the springs that welled Beneath the touch of Milton's rod.

No wild enthusiast of the right, Self-poised and clear, he showed alway The coolness of his northern night, The ripe repose of autumn's day.

His steps were slow, yet forward still He pressed where others paused or failed; The calm star clomb with constant will, The restless meteor flashed and paled.

Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew And owned the higher ends of Law; Still rose majestic on his view The awful Shape the schoolman saw.

Her home the heart of God; her voice The choral harmonies whereby The stars, through all their spheres, rejoice, The rhythmic rule of earth and sky.

We saw his great powers misapplied To poor ambitions; yet, through all, We saw him take the weaker side, And right the wronged, and free the thrall.

Now, looking o'er the frozen North, For one like him in word and act, To call her old, free spirit forth, And give her faith the life of fact,--

To break her party bonds of shame, And labor with the zeal of him To make the Democratic name Of Liberty the synonyme,--

We sweep the land from hill to strand, We seek the strong, the wise, the brave, And, sad of heart, return to stand In silence by a new-made grave!

There, where his breezy hills of home Look out upon his sail-white seas, The sounds of winds and waters come, And shape themselves to words like these.

"Why, murmuring, mourn that he, whose power Was lent to Party over-long, Heard the still whisper at the hour He set his foot on Party wrong?

"The human life that closed so well No lapse of folly now can stain The lips whence Freedom's protest fell No meaner thought can now profane.

"Mightier than living voice his grave That lofty protest utters o'er; Through roaring wind and smiting wave It speaks his hate of wrong once more.

"Men of the North! your weak regret Is wasted here; arise and pay To freedom and to him your debt, By following where he led the way!"

1853.

WILLIAM FORSTER.

William Forster, of Norwich, England, died in East Tennessee, in the 1st month, 1854, while engaged in presenting to the governors of the States of this Union the address of his religious society on the evils of slavery. He was the relative and coadjutor of the Buxtons, Gurneys, and Frys; and his whole life, extending al-most to threescore and ten years, was a pore and beautiful example of Christian benevolence. He had travelled over Europe, and visited most of its sovereigns, to plead against the slave-trade and slavery; and had twice before made visits to this country, under impressions of religious duty. He was the father of the Right Hon. William Edward Forster. He visited my father's house in Haverhill during his first tour in the United States.

The years are many since his hand Was laid upon my head, Too weak and young to understand The serious words he said.

Yet often now the good man's look Before me seems to swim, As if some inward feeling took The outward guise of him.

As if, in passion's heated war, Or near temptation's charm, Through him the low-voiced monitor Forewarned me of the harm.

Stranger and pilgrim! from that day Of meeting, first and last, Wherever Duty's pathway lay, His reverent steps have passed.

The poor to feed, the lost to seek, To proffer life to death, Hope to the erring,--to the weak The strength of his own faith.

To plead the captive's right; remove The sting of hate from Law; And soften in the fire of love The hardened steel of War.

He walked the dark world, in the mild, Still guidance of the Light; In tearful tenderness a child, A strong man in the right.

From what great perils, on his way, He found, in prayer, release; Through what abysmal shadows lay His pathway unto peace,

God knoweth: we could only see The tranquil strength he gained; The bondage lost in liberty, The fear in love unfeigned.

And I,--my youthful fancies grown The habit of the man, Whose field of life by angels sown The wilding vines o'erran,--

Low bowed in silent gratitude, My manhood's heart enjoys That reverence for the pure and good Which blessed the dreaming boy's.

Still shines the light of holy lives Like star-beams over doubt; Each sainted memory, Christlike, drives Some dark possession out.

O friend! O brother I not in vain Thy life so calm and true, The silver dropping of the rain, The fall of summer dew!

How many burdened hearts have prayed Their lives like thine might be But more shall pray henceforth for aid To lay them down like thee.

With weary hand, yet steadfast will, In old age as in youth, Thy Master found thee sowing still The good seed of His truth.

As on thy task-field closed the day In golden-skied decline, His angel met thee on the way, And lent his arm to thine.

Thy latest care for man,--thy last Of earthly thought a prayer,-- Oh, who thy mantle, backward cast, Is worthy now to wear?

Methinks the mound which marks thy bed Might bless our land and save, As rose, of old, to life the dead Who touched the prophet's grave

1854.

TO CHARLES SUMNER.

If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong Than praise the right; if seldom to thine ear My voice hath mingled with the exultant cheer Borne upon all our Northern winds along; If I have failed to join the fickle throng In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest strong In victory, surprised in thee to find Brougham's scathing power with Canning's grace combined; That he, for whom the ninefold Muses sang, From their twined arms a giant athlete sprang, Barbing the arrows of his native tongue With the spent shafts Latona's archer flung, To smite the Python of our land and time, Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime, Like the blind bard who in Castalian springs Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings, And on the shrine of England's freedom laid The gifts of Cumve and of Delphi's' shade,-- Small need hast thou of words of praise from me. Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess That, even though silent, I have not the less Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree With the large future which I shaped for thee, When, years ago, beside the summer sea, White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall Baffled and broken from the rocky wall, That, to the menace of the brawling flood, Opposed alone its massive quietude, Calm as a fate; with not a leaf nor vine Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine, Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think That night-scene by the sea prophetical, (For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs, And through her pictures human fate divines), That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall In the white light of heaven, the type of one Who, momently by Error's host assailed, Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed; And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done!

1854.

BURNS, ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM.

No more these simple flowers belong To Scottish maid and lover; Sown in the common soil of song, They bloom the wide world over.

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, The minstrel and the heather, The deathless singer and the flowers He sang of live together.

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns The moorland flower and peasant! How, at their mention, memory turns Her pages old and pleasant!

The gray sky wears again its gold And purple of adorning, And manhood's noonday shadows hold The dews of boyhood's morning.

The dews that washed the dust and soil From off the wings of pleasure, The sky, that flecked the ground of toil With golden threads of leisure.

I call to mind the summer day, The early harvest mowing, The sky with sun and clouds at play, And flowers with breezes blowing.

I hear the blackbird in the corn, The locust in the haying; And, like the fabled hunter's horn, Old tunes my heart is playing.

How oft that day, with fond delay, I sought the maple's shadow, And sang with Burns the hours away, Forgetful of the meadow.

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I heard the squirrels leaping, The good dog listened while I read, And wagged his tail in keeping.

I watched him while in sportive mood I read "The Twa Dogs" story, And half believed he understood The poet's allegory.

Sweet day, sweet songs! The golden hours Grew brighter for that singing, From brook and bird and meadow flowers A dearer welcome bringing.

New light on home-seen Nature beamed, New glory over Woman; And daily life and duty seemed No longer poor and common.

I woke to find the simple truth Of fact and feeling better Than all the dreams that held my youth A still repining debtor,

That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, The themes of sweet discoursing; The tender idyls of the heart In every tongue rehearsing.

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, Of loving knight and lady, When farmer boy and barefoot girl Were wandering there already?

I saw through all familiar things The romance underlying; The joys and griefs that plume the wings Of Fancy skyward flying.

I saw the same blithe day return, The same sweet fall of even, That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, And sank on crystal Devon.

I matched with Scotland's heathery hills The sweetbrier and the clover; With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, Their wood-hymns chanting over.

O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, I saw the Man uprising; No longer common or unclean, The child of God's baptizing!

With clearer eyes I saw the worth Of life among the lowly; The Bible at his Cotter's hearth Had made my own more holy.

And if at times an evil strain, To lawless love appealing, Broke in upon the sweet refrain Of pure and healthful feeling,

It died upon the eye and ear, No inward answer gaining; No heart had I to see or hear The discord and the staining.

Let those who never erred forget His worth, in vain bewailings; Sweet Soul of Song! I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings!

Lament who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty, How kissed the maddening lips of wine Or wanton ones of beauty;

But think, while falls that shade between The erring one and Heaven, That he who loved like Magdalen, Like her may be forgiven.

Not his the song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render; The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor!

But who his human heart has laid To Nature's bosom nearer? Who sweetened toil like him, or paid To love a tribute dearer?

Through all his tuneful art, how strong The human feeling gushes The very moonlight of his song Is warm with smiles and blushes!

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry; Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, But spare his Highland Mary!

1854.

TO GEORGE B. CHEEVER

So spake Esaias: so, in words of flame, Tekoa's prophet-herdsman smote with blame The traffickers in men, and put to shame, All earth and heaven before, The sacerdotal robbers of the poor.

All the dread Scripture lives for thee again, To smite like lightning on the hands profane Lifted to bless the slave-whip and the chain. Once more the old Hebrew tongue Bends with the shafts of God a bow new-strung!

Take up the mantle which the prophets wore; Warn with their warnings, show the Christ once more Bound, scourged, and crucified in His blameless poor; And shake above our land The unquenched bolts that blazed in Hosea's hand!

Not vainly shalt thou cast upon our years The solemn burdens of the Orient seers, And smite with truth a guilty nation's ears. Mightier was Luther's word Than Seckingen's mailed arm or Hutton's sword!

1858.

TO JAMES T. FIELDS

ON A BLANK LEAF OF "POEMS PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED."

Well thought! who would not rather hear The songs to Love and Friendship sung Than those which move the stranger's tongue, And feed his unselected ear?

Our social joys are more than fame; Life withers in the public look. Why mount the pillory of a book, Or barter comfort for a name?

Who in a house of glass would dwell, With curious eyes at every pane? To ring him in and out again, Who wants the public crier's bell?

To see the angel in one's way, Who wants to play the ass's part,-- Bear on his back the wizard Art, And in his service speak or bray?

And who his manly locks would shave, And quench the eyes of common sense, To share the noisy recompense That mocked the shorn and blinded slave?

The heart has needs beyond the head, And, starving in the plenitude Of strange gifts, craves its common food,-- Our human nature's daily bread.

We are but men: no gods are we, To sit in mid-heaven, cold and bleak, Each separate, on his painful peak, Thin-cloaked in self-complacency.

Better his lot whose axe is swung In Wartburg woods, or that poor girl's Who by the him her spindle whirls And sings the songs that Luther sung,

Than his who, old, and cold, and vain, At Weimar sat, a demigod, And bowed with Jove's imperial nod His votaries in and out again!

Ply, Vanity, thy winged feet! Ambition, hew thy rocky stair! Who envies him who feeds on air The icy splendor of his seat?

I see your Alps, above me, cut The dark, cold sky; and dim and lone I see ye sitting,--stone on stone,-- With human senses dulled and shut.

I could not reach you, if I would, Nor sit among your cloudy shapes; And (spare the fable of the grapes And fox) I would not if I could.

Keep to your lofty pedestals! The safer plain below I choose Who never wins can rarely lose, Who never climbs as rarely falls.

Let such as love the eagle's scream Divide with him his home of ice For me shall gentler notes suffice,-- The valley-song of bird and stream;

The pastoral bleat, the drone of bees, The flail-beat chiming far away, The cattle-low, at shut of day, The voice of God in leaf and breeze;

Then lend thy hand, my wiser friend, And help me to the vales below, (In truth, I have not far to go,) Where sweet with flowers the fields extend.

1858.

THE MEMORY OF BURNS.

Read at the Boston celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, 25th 1st mo., 1859. In my absence these lines were read by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How sweetly come the holy psalms From saints and martyrs down, The waving of triumphal palms Above the thorny crown The choral praise, the chanted prayers From harps by angels strung, The hunted Cameron's mountain airs, The hymns that Luther sung!

Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes, The sounds of earth are heard, As through the open minster floats The song of breeze and bird Not less the wonder of the sky That daisies bloom below; The brook sings on, though loud and high The cloudy organs blow!

And, if the tender ear be jarred That, haply, hears by turns The saintly harp of Olney's bard, The pastoral pipe of Burns, No discord mars His perfect plan Who gave them both a tongue; For he who sings the love of man The love of God hath sung!

To-day be every fault forgiven Of him in whom we joy We take, with thanks, the gold of Heaven And leave the earth's alloy. Be ours his music as of spring, His sweetness as of flowers, The songs the bard himself might sing In holier ears than ours.

Sweet airs of love and home, the hum Of household melodies, Come singing, as the robins come To sing in door-yard trees. And, heart to heart, two nations lean, No rival wreaths to twine, But blending in eternal green The holly and the pine!

IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE.

In the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's mountains, Across the charmed bay Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver fountains Perpetual holiday,

A king lies dead, his wafer duly eaten, His gold-bought masses given; And Rome's great altar smokes with gums to sweeten Her foulest gift to Heaven.

And while all Naples thrills with mute thanksgiving, The court of England's queen For the dead monster so abhorred while living In mourning garb is seen.

With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning; By lone Edgbaston's side Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining, Bareheaded and wet-eyed!

Silent for once the restless hive of labor, Save the low funeral tread, Or voice of craftsman whispering to his neighbor The good deeds of the dead.

For him no minster's chant of the immortals Rose from the lips of sin; No mitred priest swung back the heavenly portals To let the white soul in.

But Age and Sickness framed their tearful faces In the low hovel's door, And prayers went up from all the dark by-places And Ghettos of the poor.

The pallid toiler and the negro chattel, The vagrant of the street, The human dice wherewith in games of battle The lords of earth compete,

Touched with a grief that needs no outward draping, All swelled the long lament, Of grateful hearts, instead of marble, shaping His viewless monument!

For never yet, with ritual pomp and splendor, In the long heretofore, A heart more loyal, warm, and true, and tender, Has England's turf closed o'er.

And if there fell from out her grand old steeples No crash of brazen wail, The murmurous woe of kindreds, tongues, and peoples Swept in on every gale.

It came from Holstein's birchen-belted meadows, And from the tropic calms Of Indian islands in the sunlit shadows Of Occidental palms;

From the locked roadsteads of the Bothniaii peasants, And harbors of the Finn, Where war's worn victims saw his gentle presence Come sailing, Christ-like, in,

To seek the lost, to build the old waste places, To link the hostile shores Of severing seas, and sow with England's daisies The moss of Finland's moors.

Thanks for the good man's beautiful example, Who in the vilest saw Some sacred crypt or altar of a temple Still vocal with God's law;

And heard with tender ear the spirit sighing As from its prison cell, Praying for pity, like the mournful crying Of Jonah out of hell.

Not his the golden pen's or lip's persuasion, But a fine sense of right, And Truth's directness, meeting each occasion Straight as a line of light.

His faith and works, like streams that intermingle, In the same channel ran The crystal clearness of an eye kept single Shamed all the frauds of man.

The very gentlest of all human natures He joined to courage strong, And love outreaching unto all God's creatures With sturdy hate of wrong.

Tender as woman, manliness and meekness In him were so allied That they who judged him by his strength or weakness Saw but a single side.

Men failed, betrayed him, but his zeal seemed nourished By failure and by fall; Still a large faith in human-kind he cherished, And in God's love for all.

And now he rests: his greatness and his sweetness No more shall seem at strife, And death has moulded into calm completeness The statue of his life.

Where the dews glisten and the songbirds warble, His dust to dust is laid, In Nature's keeping, with no pomp of marble To shame his modest shade.

The forges glow, the hammers all are ringing; Beneath its smoky vale, Hard by, the city of his love is swinging Its clamorous iron flail.

But round his grave are quietude and beauty, And the sweet heaven above,-- The fitting symbols of a life of duty Transfigured into love!

1859.

BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE

John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day: "I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay. But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free, With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!"

John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die; And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh. Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew mild, As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child.

The shadows of his stormy life that moment fell apart; And they who blamed the bloody hand forgave the loving heart. That kiss from all its guilty means redeemed the good intent, And round the grisly fighter's hair the martyr's aureole bent!

Perish with him the folly that seeks through evil good Long live the generous purpose unstained with human blood! Not the raid of midnight terror, but the thought which underlies; Not the borderer's pride of daring, but the Christian's sacrifice.

Nevermore may yon Blue Ridges the Northern rifle hear, Nor see the light of blazing homes flash on the negro's spear. But let the free-winged angel Truth their guarded passes scale, To teach that right is more than might, and justice more than mail!

So vainly shall Virginia set her battle in array; In vain her trampling squadrons knead the winter snow with clay. She may strike the pouncing eagle, but she dares not harm the dove; And every gate she bars to Hate shall open wide to Love!

1859.

NAPLES

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT C. WATERSTON, OF BOSTON.

Helen Waterston died at Naples in her eighteenth year, and lies buried in the Protestant cemetery there. The stone over her grave bears the lines,

Fold her, O Father, in Thine arms, And let her henceforth be A messenger of love between Our human hearts and Thee.

I give thee joy!--I know to thee The dearest spot on earth must be Where sleeps thy loved one by the summer sea;

Where, near her sweetest poet's tomb, The land of Virgil gave thee room To lay thy flower with her perpetual bloom.

I know that when the sky shut down Behind thee on the gleaming town, On Baiae's baths and Posilippo's crown;

And, through thy tears, the mocking day Burned Ischia's mountain lines away, And Capri melted in its sunny bay;

Through thy great farewell sorrow shot The sharp pang of a bitter thought That slaves must tread around that holy spot.

Thou knewest not the land was blest In giving thy beloved rest, Holding the fond hope closer to her breast,

That every sweet and saintly grave Was freedom's prophecy, and gave The pledge of Heaven to sanctify and save.

That pledge is answered. To thy ear The unchained city sends its cheer, And, tuned to joy, the muffled bells of fear

Ring Victor in. The land sits free And happy by the summer sea, And Bourbon Naples now is Italy!

She smiles above her broken chain The languid smile that follows pain, Stretching her cramped limbs to the sun again.

Oh, joy for all, who hear her call From gray Camaldoli's convent-wall And Elmo's towers to freedom's carnival!

A new life breathes among her vines And olives, like the breath of pines Blown downward from the breezy Apennines.

Lean, O my friend, to meet that breath, Rejoice as one who witnesseth Beauty from ashes rise, and life from death!

Thy sorrow shall no more be pain, Its tears shall fall in sunlit rain, Writing the grave with flowers: "Arisen again!"

1860.

A MEMORIAL

Moses Austin Cartland, a dear friend and relation, who led a faithful life as a teacher and died in the summer of 1863.

Oh, thicker, deeper, darker growing, The solemn vista to the tomb Must know henceforth another shadow, And give another cypress room.

In love surpassing that of brothers, We walked, O friend, from childhood's day; And, looking back o'er fifty summers, Our footprints track a common way.

One in our faith, and one our longing To make the world within our reach Somewhat the better for our living, And gladder for our human speech.

Thou heard'st with me the far-off voices, The old beguiling song of fame, But life to thee was warm and present, And love was better than a name.

To homely joys and loves and friendships Thy genial nature fondly clung; And so the shadow on the dial Ran back and left thee always young.

And who could blame the generous weakness Which, only to thyself unjust, So overprized the worth of others, And dwarfed thy own with self-distrust?

All hearts grew warmer in the presence Of one who, seeking not his own, Gave freely for the love of giving, Nor reaped for self the harvest sown.

Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude Of generous deeds and kindly words; In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers, Open to sunrise and the birds;

The task was thine to mould and fashion Life's plastic newness into grace To make the boyish heart heroic, And light with thought the maiden's face.

O'er all the land, in town and prairie, With bended heads of mourning, stand The living forms that owe their beauty And fitness to thy shaping hand.

Thy call has come in ripened manhood, The noonday calm of heart and mind, While I, who dreamed of thy remaining To mourn me, linger still behind,

Live on, to own, with self-upbraiding, A debt of love still due from me,-- The vain remembrance of occasions, Forever lost, of serving thee.

It was not mine among thy kindred To join the silent funeral prayers, But all that long sad day of summer My tears of mourning dropped with theirs.

All day the sea-waves sobbed with sorrow, The birds forgot their merry trills All day I heard the pines lamenting With thine upon thy homestead hills.

Green be those hillside pines forever, And green the meadowy lowlands be, And green the old memorial beeches, Name-carven in the woods of Lee.

Still let them greet thy life companions Who thither turn their pilgrim feet, In every mossy line recalling A tender memory sadly sweet.

O friend! if thought and sense avail not To know thee henceforth as thou art, That all is well with thee forever I trust the instincts of my heart.

Thine be the quiet habitations, Thine the green pastures, blossom-sown, And smiles of saintly recognition, As sweet and tender as thy own.

Thou com'st not from the hush and shadow To meet us, but to thee we come, With thee we never can be strangers, And where thou art must still be home.

1863.

BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY

Mr. Bryant's seventieth birthday, November 3, 1864, was celebrated by a festival to which these verses were sent.

We praise not now the poet's art, The rounded beauty of his song; Who weighs him from his life apart Must do his nobler nature wrong.

Not for the eye, familiar grown With charms to common sight denied, The marvellous gift he shares alone With him who walked on Rydal-side;

Not for rapt hymn nor woodland lay, Too grave for smiles, too sweet for tears; We speak his praise who wears to-day The glory of his seventy years.

When Peace brings Freedom in her train, Let happy lips his songs rehearse; His life is now his noblest strain, His manhood better than his verse!

Thank God! his hand on Nature's keys Its cunning keeps at life's full span; But, dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these, The poet seems beside the man!

So be it! let the garlands die, The singer's wreath, the painter's meed, Let our names perish, if thereby Our country may be saved and freed!

1864.

THOMAS STARR KING

Published originally as a prelude to the posthumous volume of selections edited by Richard Frothingham.

The great work laid upon his twoscore years Is done, and well done. If we drop our tears, Who loved him as few men were ever loved, We mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan With him whose life stands rounded and approved In the full growth and stature of a man. Mingle, O bells, along the Western slope, With your deep toll a sound of faith and hope! Wave cheerily still, O banner, half-way down, From thousand-masted bay and steepled town! Let the strong organ with its loftiest swell Lift the proud sorrow of the land, and tell That the brave sower saw his ripened grain. O East and West! O morn and sunset twain No more forever!--has he lived in vain Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told Your bridal service from his lips of gold?

1864.

LINES ON A FLY-LEAF.

I need not ask thee, for my sake, To read a book which well may make Its way by native force of wit Without my manual sign to it. Its piquant writer needs from me No gravely masculine guaranty, And well might laugh her merriest laugh At broken spears in her behalf; Yet, spite of all the critics tell, I frankly own I like her well. It may be that she wields a pen Too sharply nibbed for thin-skinned men, That her keen arrows search and try The armor joints of dignity, And, though alone for error meant, Sing through the air irreverent. I blame her not, the young athlete Who plants her woman's tiny feet, And dares the chances of debate Where bearded men might hesitate, Who, deeply earnest, seeing well The ludicrous and laughable, Mingling in eloquent excess Her anger and her tenderness, And, chiding with a half-caress, Strives, less for her own sex than ours, With principalities and powers, And points us upward to the clear Sunned heights of her new atmosphere.

Heaven mend her faults!--I will not pause To weigh and doubt and peck at flaws, Or waste my pity when some fool Provokes her measureless ridicule. Strong-minded is she? Better so Than dulness set for sale or show, A household folly, capped and belled In fashion's dance of puppets held, Or poor pretence of womanhood, Whose formal, flavorless platitude Is warranted from all offence Of robust meaning's violence. Give me the wine of thought whose head Sparkles along the page I read,-- Electric words in which I find The tonic of the northwest wind; The wisdom which itself allies To sweet and pure humanities, Where scorn of meanness, hate of wrong, Are underlaid by love as strong; The genial play of mirth that lights Grave themes of thought, as when, on nights Of summer-time, the harmless blaze Of thunderless heat-lightning plays, And tree and hill-top resting dim And doubtful on the sky's vague rim, Touched by that soft and lambent gleam, Start sharply outlined from their dream.

Talk not to me of woman's sphere, Nor point with Scripture texts a sneer, Nor wrong the manliest saint of all By doubt, if he were here, that Paul Would own the heroines who have lent Grace to truth's stern arbitrament, Foregone the praise to woman sweet, And cast their crowns at Duty's feet; Like her, who by her strong Appeal Made Fashion weep and Mammon feel, Who, earliest summoned to withstand The color-madness of the land, Counted her life-long losses gain, And made her own her sisters' pain; Or her who, in her greenwood shade, Heard the sharp call that Freedom made, And, answering, struck from Sappho's lyre Of love the Tyrtman carmen's fire Or that young girl,--Domremy's maid Revived a nobler cause to aid,-- Shaking from warning finger-tips The doom of her apocalypse; Or her, who world-wide entrance gave To the log-cabin of the slave, Made all his want and sorrow known, And all earth's languages his own.

1866.

GEORGE L. STEARNS

No man rendered greater service to the cause of freedom than Major Stearns in the great struggle between invading slave-holders and the free settlers of Kansas.

He has done the work of a true man,-- Crown him, honor him, love him. Weep, over him, tears of woman, Stoop manliest brows above him!

O dusky mothers and daughters, Vigils of mourning keep for him! Up in the mountains, and down by the waters, Lift up your voices and weep for him,

For the warmest of hearts is frozen, The freest of hands is still; And the gap in our picked and chosen The long years may not fill.

No duty could overtask him, No need his will outrun; Or ever our lips could ask him, His hands the work had done.

He forgot his own soul for others, Himself to his neighbor lending; He found the Lord in his suffering brothers, And not in the clouds descending.

So the bed was sweet to die on, Whence he saw the doors wide swung Against whose bolted iron The strength of his life was flung.

And he saw ere his eye was darkened The sheaves of the harvest-bringing, And knew while his ear yet hearkened The voice of the reapers singing.

Ah, well! The world is discreet; There are plenty to pause and wait; But here was a man who set his feet Sometimes in advance of fate;

Plucked off the old bark when the inner Was slow to renew it, And put to the Lord's work the sinner When saints failed to do it.

Never rode to the wrong's redressing A worthier paladin. Shall he not hear the blessing, "Good and faithful, enter in!"

1867

GARIBALDI

In trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw The casting down of thrones. Thou, watching lone The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy-hilled, Where, fringing round Caprera's rocky zone With foam, the slow waves gather and withdraw, Behold'st the vision of the seer fulfilled, And hear'st the sea-winds burdened with a sound Of falling chains, as, one by one, unbound, The nations lift their right hands up and swear Their oath of freedom. From the chalk-white wall Of England, from the black Carpathian range, Along the Danube and the Theiss, through all The passes of the Spanish Pyrenees, And from the Seine's thronged banks, a murmur strange And glad floats to thee o'er thy summer seas On the salt wind that stirs thy whitening hair,-- The song of freedom's bloodless victories! Rejoice, O Garibaldi! Though thy sword Failed at Rome's gates, and blood seemed vainly poured Where, in Christ's name, the crowned infidel Of France wrought murder with the arms of hell On that sad mountain slope whose ghostly dead, Unmindful of the gray exorcist's ban, Walk, unappeased, the chambered Vatican, And draw the curtains of Napoleon's bed! God's providence is not blind, but, full of eyes, It searches all the refuges of lies; And in His time and way, the accursed things Before whose evil feet thy battle-gage Has clashed defiance from hot youth to age Shall perish. All men shall be priests and kings, One royal brotherhood, one church made free By love, which is the law of liberty.

1869.

TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD,

ON READING HER POEM IN "THE STANDARD."

Mrs. Child wrote her lines, beginning, "Again the trees are clothed in vernal green," May 24, 1859, on the first anniversary of Ellis Gray Loring's death, but did not publish them for some years afterward, when I first read them, or I could not have made the reference which I did to the extinction of slavery.

The sweet spring day is glad with music, But through it sounds a sadder strain; The worthiest of our narrowing circle Sings Loring's dirges o'er again.

O woman greatly loved! I join thee In tender memories of our friend; With thee across the awful spaces The greeting of a soul I send!

What cheer hath he? How is it with him? Where lingers he this weary while? Over what pleasant fields of Heaven Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile?

Does he not know our feet are treading The earth hard down on Slavery's grave? That, in our crowning exultations, We miss the charm his presence gave?

Why on this spring air comes no whisper From him to tell us all is well? Why to our flower-time comes no token Of lily and of asphodel?

I feel the unutterable longing, Thy hunger of the heart is mine; I reach and grope for hands in darkness, My ear grows sharp for voice or sign.

Still on the lips of all we question The finger of God's silence lies; Will the lost hands in ours be folded? Will the shut eyelids ever rise?

O friend! no proof beyond this yearning, This outreach of our hearts, we need; God will not mock the hope He giveth, No love He prompts shall vainly plead.

Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, And call our loved ones o'er and o'er; Some day their arms shall close about us, And the old voices speak once more.

No dreary splendors wait our coming Where rapt ghost sits from ghost apart; Homeward we go to Heaven's thanksgiving, The harvest-gathering of the heart.

1870.

THE SINGER.

This poem was written on the death of Alice Cary. Her sister Phoebe, heart-broken by her loss, followed soon after. Noble and richly gifted, lovely in person and character, they left behind them only friends and admirers.

Years since (but names to me before), Two sisters sought at eve my door; Two song-birds wandering from their nest, A gray old farm-house in the West.

How fresh of life the younger one, Half smiles, half tears, like rain in sun! Her gravest mood could scarce displace The dimples of her nut-brown face.

Wit sparkled on her lips not less For quick and tremulous tenderness; And, following close her merriest glance, Dreamed through her eyes the heart's romance.

Timid and still, the elder had Even then a smile too sweetly sad; The crown of pain that all must wear Too early pressed her midnight hair.

Yet ere the summer eve grew long, Her modest lips were sweet with song; A memory haunted all her words Of clover-fields and singing birds.

Her dark, dilating eyes expressed The broad horizons of the west; Her speech dropped prairie flowers; the gold Of harvest wheat about her rolled.

Fore-doomed to song she seemed to me I queried not with destiny I knew the trial and the need, Yet, all the more, I said, God speed?

What could I other than I did? Could I a singing-bird forbid? Deny the wind-stirred leaf? Rebuke The music of the forest brook?

She went with morning from my door, But left me richer than before; Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer, The welcome of her partial ear.

Years passed: through all the land her name A pleasant household word became All felt behind the singer stood A sweet and gracious womanhood.

Her life was earnest work, not play; Her tired feet climbed a weary way; And even through her lightest strain We heard an undertone of pain.

Unseen of her her fair fame grew, The good she did she rarely knew, Unguessed of her in life the love That rained its tears her grave above.

When last I saw her, full of peace, She waited for her great release; And that old friend so sage and bland, Our later Franklin, held her hand.

For all that patriot bosoms stirs Had moved that woman's heart of hers, And men who toiled in storm and sun Found her their meet companion.

Our converse, from her suffering bed To healthful themes of life she led The out-door world of bud and bloom And light and sweetness filled her room.

Yet evermore an underthought Of loss to come within us wrought, And all the while we felt the strain Of the strong will that conquered pain.

God giveth quietness at last! The common way that all have passed She went, with mortal yearnings fond, To fuller life and love beyond.

Fold the rapt soul in your embrace, My dear ones! Give the singer place To you, to her,--I know not where,-- I lift the silence of a prayer.

For only thus our own we find; The gone before, the left behind, All mortal voices die between; The unheard reaches the unseen.

Again the blackbirds sing; the streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, And tremble in the April showers The tassels of the maple flowers.

But not for her has spring renewed The sweet surprises of the wood; And bird and flower are lost to her Who was their best interpreter.

What to shut eyes has God revealed? What hear the ears that death has sealed? What undreamed beauty passing show Requites the loss of all we know?

O silent land, to which we move, Enough if there alone be love, And mortal need can ne'er outgrow What it is waiting to bestow!

O white soul! from that far-off shore Float some sweet song the waters o'er. Our faith confirm, our fears dispel, With the old voice we loved so well!

1871.

HOW MARY GREW.

These lines were in answer to an invitation to hear a lecture of Mary Grew, of Philadelphia, before the Boston Radical Club. The reference in the last stanza is to an essay on Sappho by T. W. Higginson, read at the club the preceding month.

With wisdom far beyond her years, And graver than her wondering peers, So strong, so mild, combining still The tender heart and queenly will, To conscience and to duty true, So, up from childhood, Mary Grew!

Then in her gracious womanhood She gave her days to doing good. She dared the scornful laugh of men, The hounding mob, the slanderer's pen. She did the work she found to do,-- A Christian heroine, Mary Grew!

The freed slave thanks her; blessing comes To her from women's weary homes; The wronged and erring find in her Their censor mild and comforter. The world were safe if but a few Could grow in grace as Mary Grew!

So, New Year's Eve, I sit and say, By this low wood-fire, ashen gray; Just wishing, as the night shuts down, That I could hear in Boston town, In pleasant Chestnut Avenue, From her own lips, how Mary Grew!

And hear her graceful hostess tell The silver-voiced oracle Who lately through her parlors spoke As through Dodona's sacred oak, A wiser truth than any told By Sappho's lips of ruddy gold,-- The way to make the world anew, Is just to grow--as Mary Grew. 1871.

SUMNER

"I am not one who has disgraced beauty of sentiment by deformity of conduct, or the maxims of a freeman by the actions of a slave; but, by the grace of God, I have kept my life unsullied." --MILTON'S Defence of the People of England.

O Mother State! the winds of March Blew chill o'er Auburn's Field of God, Where, slow, beneath a leaden arch Of sky, thy mourning children trod.

And now, with all thy woods in leaf, Thy fields in flower, beside thy dead Thou sittest, in thy robes of grief, A Rachel yet uncomforted!

And once again the organ swells, Once more the flag is half-way hung, And yet again the mournful bells In all thy steeple-towers are rung.

And I, obedient to thy will, Have come a simple wreath to lay, Superfluous, on a grave that still Is sweet with all the flowers of May.

I take, with awe, the task assigned; It may be that my friend might miss, In his new sphere of heart and mind, Some token from my band in this.

By many a tender memory moved, Along the past my thought I send; The record of the cause he loved Is the best record of its friend.

No trumpet sounded in his ear, He saw not Sinai's cloud and flame, But never yet to Hebrew seer A clearer voice of duty came.

God said: "Break thou these yokes; undo These heavy burdens. I ordain A work to last thy whole life through, A ministry of strife and pain.

"Forego thy dreams of lettered ease, Put thou the scholar's promise by, The rights of man are more than these." He heard, and answered: "Here am I!"

He set his face against the blast, His feet against the flinty shard, Till the hard service grew, at last, Its own exceeding great reward.

Lifted like Saul's above the crowd, Upon his kingly forehead fell The first sharp bolt of Slavery's cloud, Launched at the truth he urged so well.

Ah! never yet, at rack or stake, Was sorer loss made Freedom's gain, Than his, who suffered for her sake The beak-torn Titan's lingering pain!

The fixed star of his faith, through all Loss, doubt, and peril, shone the same; As through a night of storm, some tall, Strong lighthouse lifts its steady flame.

Beyond the dust and smoke he saw The sheaves of Freedom's large increase, The holy fanes of equal law, The New Jerusalem of peace.

The weak might fear, the worldling mock, The faint and blind of heart regret; All knew at last th' eternal rock On which his forward feet were set.

The subtlest scheme of compromise Was folly to his purpose bold; The strongest mesh of party lies Weak to the simplest truth he told.

One language held his heart and lip, Straight onward to his goal he trod, And proved the highest statesmanship Obedience to the voice of God.

No wail was in his voice,--none heard, When treason's storm-cloud blackest grew, The weakness of a doubtful word; His duty, and the end, he knew.

The first to smite, the first to spare; When once the hostile ensigns fell, He stretched out hands of generous care To lift the foe he fought so well.

For there was nothing base or small Or craven in his soul's broad plan; Forgiving all things personal, He hated only wrong to man.

The old traditions of his State, The memories of her great and good, Took from his life a fresher date, And in himself embodied stood.

How felt the greed of gold and place, The venal crew that schemed and planned, The fine scorn of that haughty face, The spurning of that bribeless hand!

If than Rome's tribunes statelier He wore his senatorial robe, His lofty port was all for her, The one dear spot on all the globe.

If to the master's plea he gave The vast contempt his manhood felt, He saw a brother in the slave,-- With man as equal man he dealt.

Proud was he? If his presence kept Its grandeur wheresoe'er he trod, As if from Plutarch's gallery stepped The hero and the demigod,

None failed, at least, to reach his ear, Nor want nor woe appealed in vain; The homesick soldier knew his cheer, And blessed him from his ward of pain.

Safely his dearest friends may own The slight defects he never hid, The surface-blemish in the stone Of the tall, stately pyramid.

Suffice it that he never brought His conscience to the public mart; But lived himself the truth he taught, White-souled, clean-handed, pure of heart.

What if he felt the natural pride Of power in noble use, too true With thin humilities to hide The work he did, the lore he knew?

Was he not just? Was any wronged By that assured self-estimate? He took but what to him belonged, Unenvious of another's state.

Well might he heed the words he spake, And scan with care the written page Through which he still shall warm and wake The hearts of men from age to age.

Ah! who shall blame him now because He solaced thus his hours of pain! Should not the o'erworn thresher pause, And hold to light his golden grain?

No sense of humor dropped its oil On the hard ways his purpose went; Small play of fancy lightened toil; He spake alone the thing he meant.

He loved his books, the Art that hints A beauty veiled behind its own, The graver's line, the pencil's tints, The chisel's shape evoked from stone.

He cherished, void of selfish ends, The social courtesies that bless And sweeten life, and loved his friends With most unworldly tenderness.

But still his tired eyes rarely learned The glad relief by Nature brought; Her mountain ranges never turned His current of persistent thought.

The sea rolled chorus to his speech Three-banked like Latium's' tall trireme, With laboring oars; the grove and beach Were Forum and the Academe.

The sensuous joy from all things fair His strenuous bent of soul repressed, And left from youth to silvered hair Few hours for pleasure, none for rest.

For all his life was poor without, O Nature, make the last amends Train all thy flowers his grave about, And make thy singing-birds his friends!

Revive again, thou summer rain, The broken turf upon his bed Breathe, summer wind, thy tenderest strain Of low, sweet music overhead!

With calm and beauty symbolize The peace which follows long annoy, And lend our earth-bent, mourning eyes, Some hint of his diviner joy.

For safe with right and truth he is, As God lives he must live alway; There is no end for souls like his, No night for children of the day!

Nor cant nor poor solicitudes Made weak his life's great argument; Small leisure his for frames and moods Who followed Duty where she went.

The broad, fair fields of God he saw Beyond the bigot's narrow bound; The truths he moulded into law In Christ's beatitudes he found.

His state-craft was the Golden Rule, His right of vote a sacred trust; Clear, over threat and ridicule, All heard his challenge: "Is it just?"

And when the hour supreme had come, Not for himself a thought he gave; In that last pang of martyrdom, His care was for the half-freed slave.

Not vainly dusky hands upbore, In prayer, the passing soul to heaven Whose mercy to His suffering poor Was service to the Master given.

Long shall the good State's annals tell, Her children's children long be taught, How, praised or blamed, he guarded well The trust he neither shunned nor sought.

If for one moment turned thy face, O Mother, from thy son, not long He waited calmly in his place The sure remorse which follows wrong.

Forgiven be the State he loved The one brief lapse, the single blot; Forgotten be the stain removed, Her righted record shows it not!

The lifted sword above her shield With jealous care shall guard his fame; The pine-tree on her ancient field To all the winds shall speak his name.

The marble image of her son Her loving hands shall yearly crown, And from her pictured Pantheon His grand, majestic face look down.

O State so passing rich before, Who now shall doubt thy highest claim? The world that counts thy jewels o'er Shall longest pause at Sumner's name!

1874.

THEIRS

I. Fate summoned, in gray-bearded age, to act A history stranger than his written fact, Him who portrayed the splendor and the gloom Of that great hour when throne and altar fell With long death-groan which still is audible. He, when around the walls of Paris rung The Prussian bugle like the blast of doom, And every ill which follows unblest war Maddened all France from Finistere to Var, The weight of fourscore from his shoulders flung, And guided Freedom in the path he saw Lead out of chaos into light and law, Peace, not imperial, but republican, And order pledged to all the Rights of Man.

II. Death called him from a need as imminent As that from which the Silent William went When powers of evil, like the smiting seas On Holland's dikes, assailed her liberties. Sadly, while yet in doubtful balance hung The weal and woe of France, the bells were rung For her lost leader. Paralyzed of will, Above his bier the hearts of men stood still. Then, as if set to his dead lips, the horn Of Roland wound once more to rouse and warn, The old voice filled the air! His last brave word Not vainly France to all her boundaries stirred. Strong as in life, he still for Freedom wrought, As the dead Cid at red Toloso fought.

1877.

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE.

Among their graven shapes to whom Thy civic wreaths belong, O city of his love, make room For one whose gift was song.

Not his the soldier's sword to wield, Nor his the helm of state, Nor glory of the stricken field, Nor triumph of debate.

In common ways, with common men, He served his race and time As well as if his clerkly pen Had never danced to rhyme.

If, in the thronged and noisy mart, The Muses found their son, Could any say his tuneful art A duty left undone?

He toiled and sang; and year by year Men found their homes more sweet, And through a tenderer atmosphere Looked down the brick-walled street.

The Greek's wild onset gall Street knew; The Red King walked Broadway; And Alnwick Castle's roses blew From Palisades to Bay.

Fair City by the Sea! upraise His veil with reverent hands; And mingle with thy own the praise And pride of other lands.

Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe Above her hero-urns; And Scotland, with her holly, wreathe The flower he culled for Burns.

Oh, stately stand thy palace walls, Thy tall ships ride the seas; To-day thy poet's name recalls A prouder thought than these.

Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat, Nor less thy tall fleets swim, That shaded square and dusty street Are classic ground through him.

Alive, he loved, like all who sing, The echoes of his song; Too late the tardy meed we bring, The praise delayed so long.

Too late, alas! Of all who knew The living man, to-day Before his unveiled face, how few Make bare their locks of gray!

Our lips of praise must soon be dumb, Our grateful eyes be dim; O brothers of the days to come, Take tender charge of him!

New hands the wires of song may sweep, New voices challenge fame; But let no moss of years o'ercreep The lines of Halleck's name.

1877.

WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT.

Oh, well may Essex sit forlorn Beside her sea-blown shore; Her well beloved, her noblest born, Is hers in life no more!

No lapse of years can render less Her memory's sacred claim; No fountain of forgetfulness Can wet the lips of Fame.

A grief alike to wound and heal, A thought to soothe and pain, The sad, sweet pride that mothers feel To her must still remain.

Good men and true she has not lacked, And brave men yet shall be; The perfect flower, the crowning fact, Of all her years was he!

As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage, What worthier knight was found To grace in Arthur's golden age The fabled Table Round?

A voice, the battle's trumpet-note, To welcome and restore; A hand, that all unwilling smote, To heal and build once more;

A soul of fire, a tender heart Too warm for hate, he knew The generous victor's graceful part To sheathe the sword he drew.

When Earth, as if on evil dreams, Looks back upon her wars, And the white light of Christ outstreams From the red disk of Mars,

His fame who led the stormy van Of battle well may cease, But never that which crowns the man Whose victory was Peace.

Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore Thy beautiful and brave, Whose failing hand the olive bore, Whose dying lips forgave!

Let age lament the youthful chief, And tender eyes be dim; The tears are more of joy than grief That fall for one like him!

1878.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

I. "And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?" My sister asked our guest one winter's day. Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send! What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She laughed, Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low, Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft." "All these and more I soon shall see for thee!" He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge, And Tromso freezing in its winter sea. He went and came. But no man knows the track Of his last journey, and he comes not back!

II. He brought us wonders of the new and old; We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent To him its story-telling secret lent. And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told. His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure, In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought; From humble home-lays to the heights of thought Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure. How, with the generous pride that friendship hath, We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown Of civic honor on his brows pressed down, Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death. And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears Two nations speak, we answer but with tears!

III. O Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft, Green as thy June turf keep his memory. Let Nor wood, nor dell, nor storied stream forget, Nor winds that blow round lonely Cedarcroft; Let the home voices greet him in the far, Strange land that holds him; let the messages Of love pursue him o'er the chartless seas And unmapped vastness of his unknown star Love's language, heard beyond the loud discourse Of perishable fame, in every sphere Itself interprets; and its utterance here Somewhere in God's unfolding universe Shall reach our traveller, softening the surprise Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies!

1879.

OUR AUTOCRAT.

Read at the breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, December 3, 1879.

His laurels fresh from song and lay, Romance, art, science, rich in all, And young of heart, how dare we say We keep his seventieth festival?

No sense is here of loss or lack; Before his sweetness and his light The dial holds its shadow back, The charmed hours delay their flight.

His still the keen analysis Of men and moods, electric wit, Free play of mirth, and tenderness To heal the slightest wound from it.

And his the pathos touching all Life's sins and sorrows and regrets, Its hopes and fears, its final call And rest beneath the violets.

His sparkling surface scarce betrays The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled, The wisdom of the latter days, And tender memories of the old.

What shapes and fancies, grave or gay, Before us at his bidding come The Treadmill tramp, the One-Horse Shay, The dumb despair of Elsie's doom!

The tale of Avis and the Maid, The plea for lips that cannot speak, The holy kiss that Iris laid On Little Boston's pallid cheek!

Long may he live to sing for us His sweetest songs at evening time, And, like his Chambered Nautilus, To holier heights of beauty climb,

Though now unnumbered guests surround The table that he rules at will, Its Autocrat, however crowned, Is but our friend and comrade still.

The world may keep his honored name, The wealth of all his varied powers; A stronger claim has love than fame, And he himself is only ours!

WITHIN THE GATE. L. M. C.

I have more fully expressed my admiration and regard for Lydia Maria Child in the biographical introduction which I wrote for the volume of Letters, published after her death.

We sat together, last May-day, and talked Of the dear friends who walked Beside us, sharers of the hopes and fears Of five and forty years,

Since first we met in Freedom's hope forlorn, And heard her battle-horn Sound through the valleys of the sleeping North, Calling her children forth,

And youth pressed forward with hope-lighted eyes, And age, with forecast wise Of the long strife before the triumph won, Girded his armor on.

Sadly, ass name by name we called the roll, We heard the dead-bells toll For the unanswering many, and we knew The living were the few.

And we, who waited our own call before The inevitable door, Listened and looked, as all have done, to win Some token from within.

No sign we saw, we heard no voices call; The impenetrable wall Cast down its shadow, like an awful doubt, On all who sat without.

Of many a hint of life beyond the veil, And many a ghostly tale Wherewith the ages spanned the gulf between The seen and the unseen,

Seeking from omen, trance, and dream to gain Solace to doubtful pain, And touch, with groping hands, the garment hem Of truth sufficing them,

We talked; and, turning from the sore unrest Of an all-baffling quest, We thought of holy lives that from us passed Hopeful unto the last,

As if they saw beyond the river of death, Like Him of Nazareth, The many mansions of the Eternal days Lift up their gates of praise.

And, hushed to silence by a reverent awe, Methought, O friend, I saw In thy true life of word, and work, and thought The proof of all we sought.

Did we not witness in the life of thee Immortal prophecy? And feel, when with thee, that thy footsteps trod An everlasting road?

Not for brief days thy generous sympathies, Thy scorn of selfish ease; Not for the poor prize of an earthly goal Thy strong uplift of soul.

Than thine was never turned a fonder heart To nature and to art In fair-formed Hellas in her golden prime, Thy Philothea's time.

Yet, loving beauty, thou couldst pass it by, And for the poor deny Thyself, and see thy fresh, sweet flower of fame Wither in blight and blame.

Sharing His love who holds in His embrace The lowliest of our race, Sure the Divine economy must be Conservative of thee!

For truth must live with truth, self-sacrifice Seek out its great allies; Good must find good by gravitation sure, And love with love endure.

And so, since thou hast passed within the gate Whereby awhile I wait, I give blind grief and blinder sense the lie Thou hast not lived to die!

1881.

IN MEMORY. JAMES T. FIELDS.

As a guest who may not stay Long and sad farewells to say Glides with smiling face away,

Of the sweetness and the zest Of thy happy life possessed Thou hast left us at thy best.

Warm of heart and clear of brain, Of thy sun-bright spirit's wane Thou hast spared us all the pain.

Now that thou hast gone away, What is left of one to say Who was open as the day?

What is there to gloss or shun? Save with kindly voices none Speak thy name beneath the sun.

Safe thou art on every side, Friendship nothing finds to hide, Love's demand is satisfied.

Over manly strength and worth, At thy desk of toil, or hearth, Played the lambent light of mirth,--

Mirth that lit, but never burned; All thy blame to pity turned; Hatred thou hadst never learned.

Every harsh and vexing thing At thy home-fire lost its sting; Where thou wast was always spring.

And thy perfect trust in good, Faith in man and womanhood, Chance and change and time, withstood.

Small respect for cant and whine, Bigot's zeal and hate malign, Had that sunny soul of thine.

But to thee was duty's claim Sacred, and thy lips became Reverent with one holy Name.

Therefore, on thy unknown way, Go in God's peace! We who stay But a little while delay.

Keep for us, O friend, where'er Thou art waiting, all that here Made thy earthly presence dear;

Something of thy pleasant past On a ground of wonder cast, In the stiller waters glassed!

Keep the human heart of thee; Let the mortal only be Clothed in immortality.

And when fall our feet as fell Thine upon the asphodel, Let thy old smile greet us well;

Proving in a world of bliss What we fondly dream in this,-- Love is one with holiness!

1881.

WILSON

Read at the Massachusetts Club on the seventieth anniversary the birthday of Vice-President Wilson, February 16, 1882.

The lowliest born of all the land, He wrung from Fate's reluctant hand The gifts which happier boyhood claims; And, tasting on a thankless soil The bitter bread of unpaid toil, He fed his soul with noble aims.

And Nature, kindly provident, To him the future's promise lent; The powers that shape man's destinies, Patience and faith and toil, he knew, The close horizon round him grew, Broad with great possibilities.

By the low hearth-fire's fitful blaze He read of old heroic days, The sage's thought, the patriot's speech; Unhelped, alone, himself he taught, His school the craft at which he wrought, His lore the book within his, reach.

He felt his country's need; he knew The work her children had to do; And when, at last, he heard the call In her behalf to serve and dare, Beside his senatorial chair He stood the unquestioned peer of all.

Beyond the accident of birth He proved his simple manhood's worth; Ancestral pride and classic grace Confessed the large-brained artisan, So clear of sight, so wise in plan And counsel, equal to his place.

With glance intuitive he saw Through all disguise of form and law, And read men like an open book; Fearless and firm, he never quailed Nor turned aside for threats, nor failed To do the thing he undertook.

How wise, how brave, he was, how well He bore himself, let history tell While waves our flag o'er land and sea, No black thread in its warp or weft; He found dissevered States, he left A grateful Nation, strong and free!

THE POET AND THE CHILDREN. LONGFELLOW.

WITH a glory of winter sunshine Over his locks of gray, In the old historic mansion He sat on his last birthday;

With his books and his pleasant pictures, And his household and his kin, While a sound as of myriads singing From far and near stole in.

It came from his own fair city, From the prairie's boundless plain, From the Golden Gate of sunset, And the cedarn woods of Maine.

And his heart grew warm within him, And his moistening eyes grew dim, For he knew that his country's children Were singing the songs of him,

The lays of his life's glad morning, The psalms of his evening time, Whose echoes shall float forever On the winds of every clime.

All their beautiful consolations, Sent forth like birds of cheer, Came flocking back to his windows, And sang in the Poet's ear.

Grateful, but solemn and tender, The music rose and fell With a joy akin to sadness And a greeting like farewell.

With a sense of awe he listened To the voices sweet and young; The last of earth and the first of heaven Seemed in the songs they sung.

And waiting a little longer For the wonderful change to come, He heard the Summoning Angel, Who calls God's children home!

And to him in a holier welcome Was the mystical meaning given Of the words of the blessed Master "Of such is the kingdom of heaven!"

1882

A WELCOME TO LOWELL

Take our hands, James Russell Lowell, Our hearts are all thy own; To-day we bid thee welcome Not for ourselves alone.

In the long years of thy absence Some of us have grown old, And some have passed the portals Of the Mystery untold;

For the hands that cannot clasp thee, For the voices that are dumb, For each and all I bid thee A grateful welcome home!

For Cedarcroft's sweet singer To the nine-fold Muses dear; For the Seer the winding Concord Paused by his door to hear;

For him, our guide and Nestor, Who the march of song began, The white locks of his ninety years Bared to thy winds, Cape Ann!

For him who, to the music Her pines and hemlocks played, Set the old and tender story Of the lorn Acadian maid;

For him, whose voice for freedom Swayed friend and foe at will, Hushed is the tongue of silver, The golden lips are still!

For her whose life of duty At scoff and menace smiled, Brave as the wife of Roland, Yet gentle as a Child.

And for him the three-hilled city Shall hold in memory long, Those name is the hint and token Of the pleasant Fields of Song!

For the old friends unforgotten, For the young thou hast not known, I speak their heart-warm greeting; Come back and take thy own!

From England's royal farewells, And honors fitly paid, Come back, dear Russell Lowell, To Elmwood's waiting shade!

Come home with all the garlands That crown of right thy head. I speak for comrades living, I speak for comrades dead!

AMESBURY, 6th mo., 1885.

AN ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL. GEORGE FULLER

Haunted of Beauty, like the marvellous youth Who sang Saint Agnes' Eve! How passing fair Her shapes took color in thy homestead air! How on thy canvas even her dreams were truth! Magician! who from commonest elements Called up divine ideals, clothed upon By mystic lights soft blending into one Womanly grace and child-like innocence. Teacher I thy lesson was not given in vain. Beauty is goodness; ugliness is sin; Art's place is sacred: nothing foul therein May crawl or tread with bestial feet profane. If rightly choosing is the painter's test, Thy choice, O master, ever was the best.

1885.

MULFORD.

Author of The Nation and The Republic of God.

Unnoted as the setting of a star He passed; and sect and party scarcely knew When from their midst a sage and seer withdrew To fitter audience, where the great dead are In God's republic of the heart and mind, Leaving no purer, nobler soul behind.

1886.

TO A CAPE ANN SCHOONER

Luck to the craft that bears this name of mine, Good fortune follow with her golden spoon The glazed hat and tarry pantaloon; And wheresoe'er her keel shall cut the brine, Cod, hake and haddock quarrel for her line. Shipped with her crew, whatever wind may blow, Or tides delay, my wish with her shall go, Fishing by proxy. Would that it might show At need her course, in lack of sun and star, Where icebergs threaten, and the sharp reefs are; Lift the blind fog on Anticosti's lee And Avalon's rock; make populous the sea Round Grand Manan with eager finny swarms, Break the long calms, and charm away the storms.

OAK KNOLL, 23 3rd mo., 1886.

SAMUEL J. TILDEN.

GREYSTONE, AUG. 4, 1886.

Once more, O all-adjusting Death! The nation's Pantheon opens wide; Once more a common sorrow saith A strong, wise man has died.

Faults doubtless had he. Had we not Our own, to question and asperse The worth we doubted or forgot Until beside his hearse?

Ambitious, cautious, yet the man To strike down fraud with resolute hand; A patriot, if a partisan, He loved his native land.

So let the mourning bells be rung, The banner droop its folds half way, And while the public pen and tongue Their fitting tribute pay,

Shall we not vow above his bier To set our feet on party lies, And wound no more a living ear With words that Death denies?

1886

OCCASIONAL POEMS

EVA

Suggested by Mrs. Stowe's tale of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and written when the characters in the tale were realities by the fireside of countless American homes.

Dry the tears for holy Eva, With the blessed angels leave her; Of the form so soft and fair Give to earth the tender care.

For the golden locks of Eva Let the sunny south-land give her Flowery pillow of repose, Orange-bloom and budding rose.

In the better home of Eva Let the shining ones receive her, With the welcome-voiced psalm, Harp of gold and waving palm,

All is light and peace with Eva; There the darkness cometh never; Tears are wiped, and fetters fall. And the Lord is all in all.

Weep no more for happy Eva, Wrong and sin no more shall grieve her; Care and pain and weariness Lost in love so measureless.

Gentle Eva, loving Eva, Child confessor, true believer, Listener at the Master's knee, "Suffer such to come to me."

Oh, for faith like thine, sweet Eva, Lighting all the solemn river, And the blessings of the poor Wafting to the heavenly shore! 1852

A LAY OF OLD TIME.

Written for the Essex County Agricultural Fair, and sung at the banquet at Newburyport, October 2, 1856.

One morning of the first sad Fall, Poor Adam and his bride Sat in the shade of Eden's wall-- But on the outer side.

She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit For the chaste garb of old; He, sighing o'er his bitter fruit For Eden's drupes of gold.

Behind them, smiling in the morn, Their forfeit garden lay, Before them, wild with rock and thorn, The desert stretched away.

They heard the air above them fanned, A light step on the sward, And lo! they saw before them stand The angel of the Lord!

"Arise," he said, "why look behind, When hope is all before, And patient hand and willing mind, Your loss may yet restore?

"I leave with you a spell whose power Can make the desert glad, And call around you fruit and flower As fair as Eden had.

"I clothe your hands with power to lift The curse from off your soil; Your very doom shall seem a gift, Your loss a gain through Toil.

"Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees, To labor as to play." White glimmering over Eden's trees The angel passed away.

The pilgrims of the world went forth Obedient to the word, And found where'er they tilled the earth A garden of the Lord!

The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit And blushed with plum and pear, And seeded grass and trodden root Grew sweet beneath their care.

We share our primal parents' fate, And, in our turn and day, Look back on Eden's sworded gate As sad and lost as they.

But still for us his native skies The pitying Angel leaves, And leads through Toil to Paradise New Adams and new Eves!

A SONG OF HARVEST

For the Agricultural and Horticultural Exhibition at Amesbury and Salisbury, September 28, 1858.

This day, two hundred years ago, The wild grape by the river's side, And tasteless groundnut trailing low, The table of the woods supplied.

Unknown the apple's red and gold, The blushing tint of peach and pear; The mirror of the Powow told No tale of orchards ripe and rare.

Wild as the fruits he scorned to till, These vales the idle Indian trod; Nor knew the glad, creative skill, The joy of him who toils with God.

O Painter of the fruits and flowers! We thank Thee for thy wise design Whereby these human hands of ours In Nature's garden work with Thine.

And thanks that from our daily need The joy of simple faith is born; That he who smites the summer weed, May trust Thee for the autumn corn.

Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants a tree, is more than all.

For he who blesses most is blest; And God and man shall own his worth Who toils to leave as his bequest An added beauty to the earth.

And, soon or late, to all that sow, The time of harvest shall be given; The flower shall bloom, the fruit shall grow, If not on earth, at last in heaven.

KENOZA LAKE.

This beautiful lake in East Haverhill was the "Great Pond" the writer's boyhood. In 1859 a movement was made for improving its shores as a public park. At the opening of the park, August 31, 1859, the poem which gave it the name of Kenoza (in Indian language signifying Pickerel) was read.

As Adam did in Paradise, To-day the primal right we claim Fair mirror of the woods and skies, We give to thee a name.

Lake of the pickerel!--let no more The echoes answer back, "Great Pond," But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore And watching hills beyond,

Let Indian ghosts, if such there be Who ply unseen their shadowy lines, Call back the ancient name to thee, As with the voice of pines.

The shores we trod as barefoot boys, The nutted woods we wandered through, To friendship, love, and social joys We consecrate anew.

Here shall the tender song be sung, And memory's dirges soft and low, And wit shall sparkle on the tongue, And mirth shall overflow,

Harmless as summer lightning plays From a low, hidden cloud by night, A light to set the hills ablaze, But not a bolt to smite.

In sunny South and prairied West Are exiled hearts remembering still, As bees their hive, as birds their nest, The homes of Haverhill.

They join us in our rites to-day; And, listening, we may hear, erelong, From inland lake and ocean bay, The echoes of our song.

Kenoza! o'er no sweeter lake Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail,-- No fairer face than thine shall take The sunset's golden veil.

Long be it ere the tide of trade Shall break with harsh-resounding din The quiet of thy banks of shade, And hills that fold thee in.

Still let thy woodlands hide the hare, The shy loon sound his trumpet-note, Wing-weary from his fields of air, The wild-goose on thee float.

Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir, Thy beauty our deforming strife; Thy woods and waters minister The healing of their life.

And sinless Mirth, from care released, Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky, Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast The Master's loving eye.

And when the summer day grows dim, And light mists walk thy mimic sea, Revive in us the thought of Him Who walked on Galilee!

FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL

The Persian's flowery gifts, the shrine Of fruitful Ceres, charm no more; The woven wreaths of oak and pine Are dust along the Isthmian shore.

But beauty hath its homage still, And nature holds us still in debt; And woman's grace and household skill, And manhood's toil, are honored yet.

And we, to-day, amidst our flowers And fruits, have come to own again The blessings of the summer hours, The early and the latter rain;

To see our Father's hand once more Reverse for us the plenteous horn Of autumn, filled and running o'er With fruit, and flower, and golden corn!

Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold; Once more with harvest-song and shout Is Nature's bloodless triumph told.

Our common mother rests and sings, Like Ruth, among her garnered sheaves; Her lap is full of goodly things, Her brow is bright with autumn leaves.

Oh, favors every year made new! Oh, gifts with rain and sunshine sent The bounty overruns our due, The fulness shames our discontent.

We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on; We murmur, but the corn-ears fill, We choose the shadow, but the sun That casts it shines behind us still.

God gives us with our rugged soil The power to make it Eden-fair, And richer fruits to crown our toil Than summer-wedded islands bear.

Who murmurs at his lot to-day? Who scorns his native fruit and bloom? Or sighs for dainties far away, Beside the bounteous board of home?

Thank Heaven, instead, that Freedom's arm Can change a rocky soil to gold,-- That brave and generous lives can warm A clime with northern ices cold.

And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain!

1859

THE QUAKER ALUMNI.

Read at the Friends' School Anniversary, Providence, R. I., 6th mo., 1860.

From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine, Grave men, sober matrons, you gather again; And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool, Play over the old game of going to school.

All your strifes and vexations, your whims and complaints, (You were not saints yourselves, if the children of saints!) All your petty self-seekings and rivalries done, Round the dear Alma Mater your hearts beat as one!

How widely soe'er you have strayed from the fold, Though your "thee" has grown "you," and your drab blue and gold, To the old friendly speech and the garb's sober form, Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan, you warm.

But, the first greetings over, you glance round the hall; Your hearts call the roll, but they answer not all Through the turf green above them the dead cannot hear; Name by name, in the silence, falls sad as a tear!

In love, let us trust, they were summoned so soon rom the morning of life, while we toil through its noon; They were frail like ourselves, they had needs like our own, And they rest as we rest in God's mercy alone.

Unchanged by our changes of spirit and frame, Past, now, and henceforward the Lord is the same; Though we sink in the darkness, His arms break our fall, And in death as in life, He is Father of all!

We are older: our footsteps, so light in the play Of the far-away school-time, move slower to-day;-- Here a beard touched with frost, there a bald, shining crown, And beneath the cap's border gray mingles with brown.

But faith should be cheerful, and trust should be glad, And our follies and sins, not our years, make us sad. Should the heart closer shut as the bonnet grows prim, And the face grow in length as the hat grows in brim?

Life is brief, duty grave; but, with rain-folded wings, Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful heart sings; And we, of all others, have reason to pay The tribute of thanks, and rejoice on our way;

For the counsels that turned from the follies of youth; For the beauty of patience, the whiteness of truth; For the wounds of rebuke, when love tempered its edge; For the household's restraint, and the discipline's hedge;

For the lessons of kindness vouchsafed to the least Of the creatures of God, whether human or beast, Bringing hope to the poor, lending strength to the frail, In the lanes of the city, the slave-hut, and jail;

For a womanhood higher and holier, by all Her knowledge of good, than was Eve ere her fall,-- Whose task-work of duty moves lightly as play, Serene as the moonlight and warm as the day;

And, yet more, for the faith which embraces the whole, Of the creeds of the ages the life and the soul, Wherein letter and spirit the same channel run, And man has not severed what God has made one!

For a sense of the Goodness revealed everywhere, As sunshine impartial, and free as the air; For a trust in humanity, Heathen or Jew, And a hope for all darkness the Light shineth through.

Who scoffs at our birthright?--the words of the seers, And the songs of the bards in the twilight of years, All the foregleams of wisdom in santon and sage, In prophet and priest, are our true heritage.

The Word which the reason of Plato discerned; The truth, as whose symbol the Mithra-fire burned; The soul of the world which the Stoic but guessed, In the Light Universal the Quaker confessed!

No honors of war to our worthies belong; Their plain stem of life never flowered into song; But the fountains they opened still gush by the way, And the world for their healing is better to-day.

He who lies where the minster's groined arches curve down To the tomb-crowded transept of England's renown, The glorious essayist, by genius enthroned, Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all owned,--

Who through the world's pantheon walked in his pride, Setting new statues up, thrusting old ones aside, And in fiction the pencils of history dipped, To gild o'er or blacken each saint in his crypt,--

How vainly he labored to sully with blame The white bust of Penn, in the niche of his fame! Self-will is self-wounding, perversity blind On himself fell the stain for the Quaker designed!

For the sake of his true-hearted father before him; For the sake of the dear Quaker mother that bore him; For the sake of his gifts, and the works that outlive him, And his brave words for freedom, we freely forgive him!

There are those who take note that our numbers are small,-- New Gibbons who write our decline and our fall; But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of His own, And the world shall yet reap what our sowers have sown.

The last of the sect to his fathers may go, Leaving only his coat for some Barnum to show; But the truth will outlive him, and broaden with years, Till the false dies away, and the wrong disappears.

Nothing fails of its end. Out of sight sinks the stone, In the deep sea of time, but the circles sweep on, Till the low-rippled murmurs along the shores run, And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun.

Meanwhile shall we learn, in our ease, to forget To the martyrs of Truth and of Freedom our debt?-- Hide their words out of sight, like the garb that they wore, And for Barclay's Apology offer one more?

Shall we fawn round the priestcraft that glutted the shears, And festooned the stocks with our grandfathers' ears? Talk of Woolman's unsoundness? count Penn heterodox? And take Cotton Mather in place of George Fox?

Make our preachers war-chaplains? quote Scripture to take The hunted slave back, for Onesimus' sake? Go to burning church-candles, and chanting in choir, And on the old meeting-house stick up a spire?

No! the old paths we'll keep until better are shown, Credit good where we find it, abroad or our own; And while "Lo here" and "Lo there" the multitude call, Be true to ourselves, and do justice to all.

The good round about us we need not refuse, Nor talk of our Zion as if we were Jews; But why shirk the badge which our fathers have worn, Or beg the world's pardon for having been born?

We need not pray over the Pharisee's prayer, Nor claim that our wisdom is Benjamin's share; Truth to us and to others is equal and one Shall we bottle the free air, or hoard up the sun?

Well know we our birthright may serve but to show How the meanest of weeds in the richest soil grow; But we need not disparage the good which we hold; Though the vessels be earthen, the treasure is gold!

Enough and too much of the sect and the name. What matters our label, so truth be our aim? The creed may be wrong, but the life may be true, And hearts beat the same under drab coats or blue.

So the man be a man, let him worship, at will, In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's hill. When she makes up her jewels, what cares yon good town For the Baptist of Wayland, the Quaker of Brown?

And this green, favored island, so fresh and seablown, When she counts up the worthies her annals have known, Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect To measure her love, and mete out her respect.