586 isa The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier John Greenleaf Whittier AL 4162.174 A4416 LLOYD HERBERT MARSHALL PRESENTED ΤΟ HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY - en Royal d el. Lord Fine Tevesty Mais theid A.B.L. نے ۔ 95 AL 4162.174 HERB RSHALL PRESENTED TO HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY سر کا تار . THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Cambridge Edition HD .Thetfome.at Amesbury ELS SC BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1895 AL 4162.174 HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Copyright, 1848,1850, 1863, 1856, 1857, 1800, 1863, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1870, 1872, 184, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1881, 1883, 184, 185, 1888, 1890, and 1891, BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTI ER, TICKNOR & FIELDS, JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., AND HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. Copyright, 1892, BY GEORGE F. BAGLEY AND GEORGE W. CATE, EXECUTORS AND TRUSTEES. Copyright, 1894, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. The Pirerside Press, Cambridge, Mas., .. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company, PUBLISHERS NOTE a In 1888, Mr. Whittier supervised the preparation of a collective edition of his writings which was published in seven volumes, under the title of the Riverside Edition, uniform in general plan with the Riverside Edition of Longfellow's writ- ings. For this edition the poet furnished introductions and head- notes, and in many cases revised the text. He decided which of his earlier poems to discard altogether, which to insert in an appendix, and which to include in the body of his poetry. He also determined on a classification of his poems, and divided the four volumes containing them into definite subdivisions, nine in all besides a small group of his sister's poems which he wished preserved with his own. Thus, very near the end of his life, he formed what was a definitive edition of his writings. He con- tinued, however, to send out poems occasionally in the remaining four years, and these were gathered after his death into a small volume entitled “At Sundown.” This little book was indeed the extension of one which he had issued privately in the last year of his life. The present Cambridge Edition is based upon the original Riverside Edition. It contains the same text in the same topical arrangement, together with “ At Sundown” and a few poems which were gleaned after. Mr. Whittier's death and included in the authorized biography. The head-notes and the notes at the end of the volume are for the most part copies or abridgments of those used in the River- side Edition, but a few have been added containing facts brought to light after Mr. Whittier's death. These are distinguished by being inclosed in brackets (). As in the Cambridge Edition of Longfellow's Complete Works, a biographical sketch has been provided. The introduction which follows the sketch is that prepared by Mr. Whittier for the Riverside Edition. Boston, 4 Park STREET, September 1, 1894. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE 66 . . PAGE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . xi INTRODUCTION . xxi PROEM NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS. THE VAUDOIS TEACHER 3 THE FEMALE MARTYR EXTRACT FROM A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND” THE DEMON OF THE STUDY 6 THE FOUNTAIN 7 PEXTUCKET 8 THE NORSEMEN 9 FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOROKIS 11 ST. JOHN 12 THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON 14 THE EXILES. 14 THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN 17 CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK 18 THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD 21 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 23 I. THE MERRIMAC . 25 II. THE BASHABA 26 III. THE DAUGHTER. 27 IV. THE WEDDING 28 V. THE NEW HOME 29 VI. Ar PENNACOOK 31 VII. THE DEPARTURE 32 VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN 33 BARCLAY OF URY 33 THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 35 THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK 36 KATHLEEN 37 THE WELL OF Loch MAREE 39 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 39 TALLER 44 THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID 45 MAUD MELLER. 47 MARY GARVIN 49 THE RANGER 51 The GARRISON OF CAPE ANN 52 THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS 54 SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE 55 THE SYCAMORES 56 THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW 58 TELLING THE BEES. 59 THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY 60 THE DOUBLE - HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY. 61 MABEL MARTIN: A HarvÈST IDYL 62 PROEM 62 I. THE RIVER VALLEY 63 II. THE HUSKING 63 III. THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER. 64 IV. THE CHAMPION 65 V. IN THE SHADOW . 65 VI. THE BETROTHAL 66 THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL 67 THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR 69 THE PREACHER 69 THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA 74 MY PLAYMATE 76 COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION 77 AMY WENTWORTH. 79 THE COUNTESS 81 AMONG THE HILLS 83 PRELUDE 84 AMONG THE Hills . 85 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL 89 THE Two RABBINS 91 NOREMBEGA 92 MIRIAM 93 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON 99 THE SISTERS 100 MARGUERITE 101 THE ROBIN 102 THE PENNSYLVANIA Pilgrim . 103 PRELUDE 103 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 103 KING VOLMER AND ELSIE 112 THE THREE BELLS 114 JOHN UNDERHILL 115 CONDUCTOR BRADLEY 117 THE WITCH OF WENHAM 117 King SOLOMON AND THE ANTS 120 IN THE “Old SOUTH” 121 THE HENCHMAN. 121 THE DEAD FEAST OF FOLK. 122 THE KHAN'S DEVIL 123 THE KING's MISSIVE. 124 VALUATION 126 RABBI ISHMAEL . 126 THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE 127 . . THE KOL- . . vi CONTENTS . 170 171 173 . . . 173 174 175 177 177 178 179 150 . DEATH OF . . . 181 12 193 19 18+ 185 . . LAKESIDE . 187 18 118 . THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS . 127 'THE WISHING BRIDGE . 130 How THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER 130 ST. GREGORY's GUEST 132 BIRCHBROOK MILL 133 The Two ELIZABETHS . 134 REQU'ITAL 135 THE HOMESTEAD 135 Ilow THE ROBIN CAME 136 BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS 137 The Brown DWARF OF RIGEN 138 POEMS OF NATURE. THE FROST SPIRIT 141 'THE MERRIMAC 111 HAMPTON BEACH 142 A DREAM OF SUMMER 143 THE LAKESIDE . 114 AUTUMN THOUGHTS TH Ox RECEIVING AN Eagle's Quill FROM LAKE SUPERIOR 11 APRIL 1 15 PICTURES 116 SUMMER BY THE 1 17 The Frrrr-Gift FLOWERS IN WINTER 148 THE MAYFLOWERS 119 THE LAST WALK IN ARTEAN 130 THE FIRST FLOWERS The OLD BURYING-GROUND THE PALM-TREE 133 The River PATH . 1.35 MOUNTAIN PICTURES. 16 1. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMI- GEWASSET 1.36 II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET 136 THE VANISHERS 1.57 THE PAGEANT 1.58 Tur PRE**ED GENTIAN 1.19 A MYSTERY 159 A SEA DREAM HAZEL BLOSSOMS 161 SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP 101 THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL THE TRAILING ARRITUS . 104 Sr. Martin's SUYER. 164 STORM ON LAKE A-QUAM 105 A SUMMER PILARIMAGE SWEET FERN 11 The Wood GIANT. A DAY. 165 PERSONAL POEMS. A LAMENT. 169 TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS. 170 LINES ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY To—, WITH Å Copy of wooni MAN'S JOURNAL. LEGGETT'S MONUMENT TO A FRIEND, ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE Lucy HOOPER FOLLEN To J. P. CHALKLEY HALL GONE To RoxGE (HANNING TO MY FRIEND ON THE HIS SISTER. DANIEL WHEELER To FREDRIKA BREMER To Avis KEENE. THE HILL-Top ELLIOTT ICHABOD. The Lost OCCASION . WORDSWORTH To—: Links WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION IN PEACE BENEDICITE Kosstth. TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER THE CROSS THE HERO. RANTOIL. WILLIAM FORSTER To (HARLES SUMNER BURNS. To George B. CHFEVER To JAMES T. FIELDS THE MEMORY OF Burns IN REMEMBRANCE JOSEPH STURGE BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE NAP'LEN A MEMORIAL BRYANT ON uus Birthday THOMAS STARR KING LINES ON A FLY-LEAF GEORGE L. STEARNS GARIBALDI To Lydia MARIA CHILD 'THE SINGER How Mary Grew. SIMNER THERS Fuz-Greene KALLECK WILLIAN FRANCIS BARTLETT 1.53 . 18 118 19 19 19) 1.2 1972 1923 1.045 195 1986 199 11 199 . OF . 106) . 1979 2011 . . K3 2013 313 . 210 211 211 CONTENTS vii . . 212 213 213 214 215 215 216 216 217 217 217 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. 245 247 250 251 253 255 256 257 258 259 261 . . . 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. HYMX FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR King's HOUSE OF WOR- SHIP HYMN FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN, MEMORY OF A MOTHER A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION CHICAGO KINSMAN. THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONG- 218 218 219 219 220 220 224 225 226 226 "7 . 272 . 227 ERECTED IN . . 228 228 230 231 A WOOD 231 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS. To WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 262 TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 262 THE SLAVE-SHIPS 265 EXPOSTULATION 267 HYMN: “O THOU, WHOSE PRESENCE WENT BEFORE 268 THE YANKEE GIRL 269 THE HUNTERS OF MEN 270 STANZAS FOR THE TIMES 271 CLERICAL OPPRESSORS A SUMMONS 272 TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIP- LEY 274 THE MORAL WARFARE . 275 RITNER 275 THE PASTORAL LETTER 276 HYMN: "O HOLY FATHER! Jost AND TRUE" 278 THE FAREWELL OF VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER 278 PENNSYLVANIA HALL 279 THE NEW YEAR 281 THE RELIC. 283 THE WORLD'S CONVENTION 284 MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA 286 THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE. 288 THE SENTENCE OF John L. BROWN 289 Texas: VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND 291 To FANEUIL HALL. 292 To MASSACHUSETTS 292 NEW HAMPSHIRE 293 THE PINE-TREE. 293 To A SOUTHERN STATESMAN 294 AT WASHINGTON 295 THE BRANDED HAND 296 THE FREED ISLANDS . 298 A LETTER 298 LINES FROM A LETTER TO A Young CLERICAL FRIEND 300 DANIEL NEALL 300 SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT 301 To DELAWARE 301 YORKTOWN. 302 RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE 303 . . . 232 232 233 . . HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF Ply- MOUTH CHURCH, St. Paul, Min- NESOTA 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 . 233 234 234 235 236 237 237 238 238 239 239 240 240 . . 242 242 . viii CONTENTS . The Lost STATESMAN 304 Laus Deo! THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE 305 HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION THE CURSE OP THE CHARTER- OF EMANCIPATION AT New- BREAKERS 306 BURYPORT. PEAN 308 AFTER THE WAR. THE CRISIS. 308 THE PEACE AUTUMN LINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF A CELE- TO THE THIRTY-NINTH Cox- BRATED PUBLISHER 310 GRESS. DERNE. 311 THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG. 3 A SABBATH SCENE 312 HOWARD AT ATLANTA 3 IN THE Evil Days 313 THE EMANCIPATION GROUP. 3 MOLOCH IN STATE STREET 314 The JUBILEE SINGERS 3 OFFICIAL PIETY . 315 GARRISON. . The RENDITION 315 ARISEN AT LAST 316 SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM. The HASCHISH 316 THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME 3 The Kansas EMIGRANTS . 317 DEMOCRACY FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE . 317 THE GALLOWS LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE SEED-TIME AND HARVEST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTIN- The Human SACRIFICE GUISHED POLITICIAN 318 Songs of LABOR. BURIAL OF BARBER 319 DEDICATION To PENNSYLVANIA 320 THE SHOEMAKERS LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. 320 THE FISHERMEN The Pass OF THE SIERRA 321 THE LUMBERMEN A SONG FOR THE TIME 322 THE SHIP-BUILDERS WHAT OF THE DAY? 322 THE DROVERS A SONG, INSCRIBED TO THE FRÉ- THE HUSKERS. MONT Clubs 323 THE REFORMER . THE PANORAMA . 323 THE PEACE CONVENTION At Bers- ON A PRAYER-BOOK 330 SELS THE SIMMONS 332 The PRISONER FOR DEBT To William H. SEWARD 332 THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS IN WAR TIME. THE MEN OF OLD To SAMUEL E. SEWALL AND To Pius IX. HARRIET W. SEW ALL 332 CALEF IN BOSTON THY WILL BE DONE 333 OUR STATE A WORD FOR THE HOCR. 333 The PRISONERS OF NAPLES * EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER THE PEACE OF EUROPE Gort" 334 ASTRAA To John C. FRÉMONT 334 The DISENTHRALLED The WATCHERS 335 The Poor VOTER ON ELECTION To ENGLISH MEN 336 DAY. MITHRIDATES at Chios . THE DREAM OF PIO Noxo. Ат Рокт RoYAL. 337 THE VOICES ASTRXA AT THE CAPITOL 338 The New Exodus. The BATTLE AUTUMN or 1862. 339 The CONQUEST OF FINLAND Hyun, BING AT CHRISTMAS BY The Eve or ELECTION. THE SCHOLARS or Sr. HE- From PERUGIA . LENA'S ISLAND, S. C. . 340 ITALY. Tuk PROCLAMATION 340 FREEDOM IN BRAZIL. ANNIVERSARY POEM 341 AFTER ELECTION BARBARA FRIET HIE. 342 DISARMAMENT WHAT THE BIRDS SAID . 343 THE PROBLEM The MANTLK or ST. JOHN DE OUR COUNTRY MATHA 314 On the Big HORN . . . . 337 . . . e . . CONTENTS ix . 386 387 388 390 . . 390 391 434 435 435 436 437 438 439 441 442 443 443 445 447 448 . . 448 . . . . 391 392 393 395 395 396 397 398 398 406 407 408 408 409 409 410 411 412 412 413 413 415 . POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMI- NISCENT. MEMORIES RAPHAEL . EGO THE PUMPKIN FORGIVENESS TO MY SISTER. My THANKS REMEMBRANCE MY NAMESAKE A MEMORY MY DREAM. THE BAREFOOT BOY My PSALM THE WAITING. SNOW-BOUND MY TRIUMPH IN SCHOOL-Days MY BIRTHDAY RED RIDING-HOOD RESPONSE Ar EVENTIDE VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE MY TRUST A NAME. GREETING AN AUTOGRAPH ABRAM MORRISON A LEGACY RELIGIOUS POEMS. THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN . THE CRUCIFIXION PALESTINE HYMNS FROM THE FRENCH OF LA: MARTINE. I. ENCORE UN HYMNE II. LE CRI DE L'AME THE FAMILIST'S HYMN. EZEKIEL WHAT THE VOICE SAID. THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND MY SOUL AND I. WORSHIP. THE HOLY LAND THE REWARD. THE WISH OF To-DAY All's WELL INVOCATION QUESTIONS OF LIFE FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS TRUST . TRINITAS THE SISTERS “THE ROCK IN EL GHOR THE OVER-HEART. THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT THE CRY OF A Lost SOUL. ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER. THE ANSWER . THE ETERNAL GOODNESS. THE COMMON QUESTION OUR MASTER THE MEETING THE CLEAR VISION DIVINE COMPASSION THE PRAYER-SEEKER THE BREWING OF SOMA A WOMAN THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ IN QUEST THE FRIEND'S BURIAL . A CHRISTMAS CARMEN VESTA CHILD SONGS THE HEALER. THE TWO ANGELS OVERRULED HYMN OF THE DUNKERS GIVING AND TAKING THE VISION OF ECHARD INSCRIPTIONS. ON A SUN-DIAL ON A FOUNTAIN THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER BY THEIR WORKS THE WORD THE BOOK REQUIREMENT HELP UTTERANCE ORIENTAL MAXIMS. THE INWARD JUDGE . LAYING UP TREASURE CONDUCT AN EASTER FLOWER GIFT THE MYSTIC'S CHRISTMAS AT LAST. WHAT THE TRAVELLER SAID AT SUNSET. "THE STORY OF IDA" THE LIGHT THAT IS FELT THE Two LOVES ADJUSTMENT HYMNS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ REVELATION 449 450 450 451 452 453 454 454 454 455 455 456 456 457 . 416 417 417 418 419 459 459 459 460 460 460 461 461 461 . . . . 420 421 421 423 424 425 461 462 462 462 462 463 . . 425 426 429 430 430 431 431 431 432 433 434 463 464 464 464 464 465 465 . . . . AT SUNDOWN. To E. C.S. 467 X CONTENTS 488 . 491 491 483 494 494 495 600 56 08 508 . 503 609 510 512 THE CHRISTMAS OF 1888. 467 The Vow oF WASHINGTON 467 The Captain's WELL 408 AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION . 470 R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON THE MERRIMAC 471 Burning Drift-Wood 471 0. W. HOLMES ON His EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY 473 James Russell Loweli. 473 HAVERHILL 473 To G. G.: AN AUTOGRAPH 474 INSCRIPTION 475 Lydia H, SIGOURNEY 475 MILTON 475 The BIRTHDAY WREATH 475 The Wind or MARCH 476 BETWEEN THE GATES 476 The Last EVE OF SUMMER 477 To Oliver WENDELL HOLMES 477 POEMS BY ELIZABETH H. WHIT- TIER. THE DREAM OF ARGYLE 479 LINES, WRITTEN ON THE DEPARTURE OF JOSEPH STURGE . 480 John QUINCY ADAMS 481 Dr. KANE IN CUBA 481 LADY FRANKLIN 482 NIGHT AND DEATH 482 THE MEETING WATERS 483 THE WEDDING V'EIL . 483 CHARITY. 483 APPENDIX. I. EARLY AND U'NCOLLECTED Verses. The Exile's Departure 484 The Deity 484 The Vale of the Merrimac Benevolence. 483 Ocean The Sicilian Vespers The Spirit of the North 487 The Earthquake . 457 Judith at the Tent of Holofernes Metacom Mount Agiochook The Drunkard to his Bottle The Fair Quakeress Bolivar. Isabella of Austria The Fratricide Isabel Stanzas . Mogg Megone The Past and Coming Year. The Missionary Evening in Burmah Massachusetts . . II. POEMS PRINTED IN THE “LIFE OF WHITTIER." The Home-Coming of the Bride The Song of the Vermonters, 1779 To a Poetical Trio in the City of Go- tham Album Verses What State Street said to South Carolina, and what South Carolina said to State Street. A Frémont Campaign Song . The Quakers are Out A Legend of the Lake . Letter to Lucy Larcom Lines on leaving Appledore . Mrs. Choate's House-Warming An Autograph To Lucy Larcom A Farewell On a Fly-Leaf of Longfellow's Poems Samuel E. Sewail. Lines written in an Album A Day's Journey A Fragment III. Notes . . IV. A CHRONOLOGICAL List OF MR. WHITTIER'S POEMS INDEX OF FIRST LINES INDEX OF TITLES . . 512 512 513 513 514 515 515 515 515 516 . . 516 516 516 316 516 . 517 . 528 . 3 539 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH > The house is still standing in East Haverhill, Massachusetts, where John Greenleaf Whittier was born, December 17, 1807. It was built near the close of the seventeenth century by an ancestor of the poet, it sheltered several generations of Whittiers, in it John Greenleaf Whittier lived till his thirtieth year, and now it is likely to enjoy a long lease of life in association with his name, for since his death it has come into the posses- sion of the Whittier Club of Haverhill, and its chief room has been restored to the con- dition in which it was when the boy was living in it the recollection of whose experience inspired that idyl of New England life,“ Snow-Bound.” It is to “Snow-Bound” that one resorts for the most natural and delightful narrative of the associations amongst which Whittier passed bis boyhood. His family held to the tenets of the Friends, and the discipline of that society in connection with the somewhat rigorous exactions of country life in New England in the early part of the century deter- mined the character of the formal education which he received. In later life he was wont to refer to the journals of Friends which he found in the scanty library in his father's house as forming a large part of his reading in boyhood. He steeped his mind with their thoughts and learned to love their authors for their unconscious saintliness. There were not more than thirty volumes on the shelves, and, with a passion for reading, be read them over and over. One of these books, however, was the Bible, and he possessed himself of its contents, not only becoming familiar with the text, but penetrated by the spirit. When he began to write, his practice pieces were very largely paraphrases of scriptural themes, and throughout his poetry allusions to Biblical characters and passages fall as naturally from his lips as allusions to Greek or Roman literature and history from the lips of Milton. Of regular schooling he had what the neighborhood could give, a few weeks each win- ter in the district school, and when he was nineteen, a little more than a year in an academy just started in Haverhill. In “Snow-Bound” he has drawn the portrait of one of his teachers at the district school, and his poem “ To My Old Schoolmaster” commem- orates another, Joshua Coffin, with whom he preserved a strong friendship in his manhood, when they were engaged in the same great cause of the abolition of human slavery. These teachers, who, according to the old New England custom, lived in turn with the families of their pupils, brought into the Whittier household other reading than strietly religious books, and Coffin especially rendered the boy a great service in intro- ducing him to a knowledge of Burns, whose poems he read aloud once as the family sat by the fireside in the evening. The boy of fourteen was entranced ; it was the voice of poetry speaking directly to the ear of poetry, and the new-comer recognized in an instant the prophet whose mantle he was to wear. Coffin was struck with the effect on his listener, and left the book with him. In one of his best known poems, written a generation later, when receiving a sprig of heather in bloom, Whittier records his indebtedness to Barns. To use his own expression, “ the older poet woke the younger.” He had been dreaming of Indians, much as a young Scotsman might have pleased his imagination by picturing border chieftains. He said himself, looking back with amusement to his poem of “Mogg Megone,” “ it suggests the idea of a big Indian in his war paint strutting about in Sir Walter Scott's plaid. But except for one or two intentional imitations, Burns' influence over Whittier was summed up in that sudden illumination which showed him, not indeed the beauty of nature and the worth of man, the knowledge of these was a birthright,— but what poetry could do in transfiguring both. The home life which the boy led, aside from the conscious or unconscious schooling xi xii JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER which he found in books, was one of many hardships, but within the sanctuary of a gracious and dignified home. The secluded valley in which he lived was three miles from the nearest village ; from the date of the erection of the homestead till now no neighbor's roof has been in sight. The outdoor life was that of a farmer with cattle, tempered indeed in the short summer by the kindly gifts of nature, so happily shown in the poem of the “Barefoot Boy," but for the most part a life of toil and endurance which left its marks indelibly in the shattered constitution of the poet. Twice a week the family drore to a Friends' meeting at Amesbury, eight miles distant, and in winter without warm wraps or protecting robes. The old barn, built before that celebrated in " Snow-Bound," had no doors, and the winter snows drifted upon its floor, for neither beasts nor men, in the custom of the time, were expected to resist cold except by their native vigor. Whittier's companions of his own age were a brother and two sisters, one of whom, Elizabeth Whittier, was his nearest associate for the better part of his life, and the house- hold held also that figure so beautiful and helpful in many families, an Aunt Merey, as also a lively, adventurous bachelor, L'ncle Moses. The father of the house, as we are told, was a man of few words ; the mother, whose life was spared till that happy time when mother and son change places in care-taking, had a rarely refined pature, in which the Quaker graces of calmness and order were developed into a noble beauty of living. The appendix to Whittier's Poetical Works contains a few out of a large number of poems written by bim when he was a schoolboy. They display, as indeed did most of his writing for a few years to come, little more than a versifying facility and a certain sense of correct form as copied from correct, but rather lifeless models. "They were, for all that, witnesses to the intellectual activity of a rudely trained boy, and showed that his mind was intent on high, oftentimes poetic themes. His mother and his sister Mary encouraged him, but his father, a hard-headed, hard-working farmer, of sound judgment and independent habits of thinking, was too severely aware of the straitened condition of the family to think of anything else for his son than a life of toil like his own. Mary Whittier, with a sister's pride, sent one of her brother's poems, unknown to the author, to the “ Free Press” of Newburyport, a new paper lately started which commended itself by its tone to the Quaker Whittier, so that he had subscribed to it. The poem was printed, and the first that the poet knew of it was when he caught the paper from the postman riding by the field where he and his father were working. It was such a mo- ment as comes to a young poet, believing in himself and having that aspiration for recognition which is one of the holiest as it is one of the subtlest elements in the poetic constitution. The poem was followed by another, which the author himself sent. Its acceptance was followed by an unheralded visit by the editor, who had learned that the writer was scarcely more than a boy, and whose own taste in poetry led him to set a high value on this versification of scripture, for the poem was that preserved under the title “ The Deity.” Whittier was at work in the fields when the editor, himself a young man, called. He held back, but was induced by his sister to make himself presentable and come in to see the visitor. It was one of those first encounters which in the history of notable men are charged with most interesting potentialities. Garrison, for he was the editor, had not yet done more than take the first step on his thorny path to greatness, and Whittier was still working in the fields, though harboring poetic visitants. Garrison was but a few years older, and in later life those few years counted nothing, but now they were enough to lead him to take the tone of an adviser, and both to Greenleaf and his father, who entered the room, he spoke of the promise of the youth and the importance of his acquiring an academic education. It was against the more rigorous interpretation of the Friends' doctrine that literary culture should be made an end, and the notion that the boy should be sent to an academy was not enconraged; but a few months later, Garrison having left Newburyport for Bos- ton, and Whittier making a new connection with the Haverhill - Gazette," the editor of that paper, Mr. A. W. Thayer, gave the same advice and pressed the consideration that a new acadeiny was shortly to be opened in Haverhill. He ottered the boy a home in his own W BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xiii a family, and the father now consented, moved also by the doubt if his son could stand the physical strain of farm work. He had no money, however, to spare, and the student must earn his own living. This he did by making a cheap kind of slipper, and devoted himself so faithfully to the industry in the few months intervening between the decision and the opening of the academy in May, 1827, that he earned enough to pay his expenses there for a term of six months. “ He calculated so closely every item of expense,” says his biographer, “that he knew before the beginning of the term that he would have twenty-five cents to spare at its close, and he actually had this sum of money in his pocket when his half year of study was over. It was the rule of his whole life never to buy anything until he had the money in hand to pay for it, and although his income was small and uncertain until past middle life, he was never in debt." By teaching a district school a few weeks and aiding a merchant with bookkeeping, he was enabled to make out a full year of study, and meantime continued to write both verse and prose for the newspapers. By this means he paved the way for an invitation when he was twenty-one years of age to enter the printing office in Boston of the Colliers, father and son, who published two weekly papers and a magazine. One of the weeklies was a political journal, “ The Manufacturer,” the other a paper of reform and humani- tarianism called “ The Philanthropist.” Whittier had editorial charge of the former, and occupied himself with writing papers on temperance and the tariff of which he was an ardent advocate, and with verses and tales. It was not altogether a congenial relation in which he found himself, though the occupation was one to which he was to turn naturally for some time to come for self-support ; he remained with the Colliers for a year and a half, and then returned to his father's farm, with between four and five hundred dollars, the savings of half his salary. This he devoted to freeing the farm from the incumbrance of a mortgage, and himself took charge of the farm, for his father was rapidly failing in health. The death of his father in June, 1830, while it set him free from his father's occupa- tion, made it still more imperative for him to earn his living, since the care of the family fell upon him. He had been using his pen and studying meanwhile, and his verses were bringing him acquaintances and friends. Through one of these, the brilliant George D. Prentice, he was induced to take up editorial work again in Hartford; but after a deter- mined effort it became clear that his health was too fragile to permit him to devote himself to the exacting work of editing a journal, and in January, 1832, he returned to his home. Just at this time he published his first book, a mere pamphlet of twenty-eight octavo pages containing a poem of New England legendary life, entitled “Moll Pitcher.” He had contributed besides, more than a hundred poems in the three years since leaving the academy, and had written many more. But though thus active with his pen, his strongest ambition, it may be said, was at this time in the direction of politics. For the next four years he remained on the farm at Haverhill, and when in April, 1836, the farm was sold, he removed with his mother and sister to the village of Amesbury, chiefly that they might be nearer the Friends' meeting, but also that Whittier might be more in the centre of things. In his seclusion at East Haverhill he had eagerly watched the course of public events. He was a great admirer of Henry Clay, and a determined opponent of Jackson. With his engaging character, his intellectual readiness, and that political instinct which never deserted him, he was rapidly coming into public notice in his district, and his own desire for serving in office drew him on. To be a member of Congress he must be twenty- five years old, and at the election which was to occur just before his birthday there were many indications that he would be the nominee of his party. This was at the end of 1832, but before the next election occurred there was a grave obstacle created by Whittier himself , and thenceforward through the years when he would naturally engage in public life he was practically disbarred. It was not the precariousness of his health which kept Whittier out of active politics, though this was a strong reason for avoiding the stress and strain of a public life, but the decision which led him to enlist in an unpopular cause. In November, 1831, he had published his poem “To William Lloyd Garrison," which introduces the section Anti-Slavery a xiv JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Poems in this collection. It intimates a personal influence under, which, with a moral nature fortified by great political insight, he began to consider seriously the movement for the abolition of slavery which was making itself evident here and there. As a specific result of this study he wrote in the spring of 1833 the pamphlet" Justice and Expedieney," and published it at his own expense. It was a piece of writing compact with carefully gathered facts and logical deduction, and earnest with the rhetoric of personal conviction. Every sentence was an arraignment of slavery and a blow at his own chances of political office. The performance was in answer to the appeal of his own truthful nature, and it was a deliberate act of renunciation. Now also began, at first with remote suggestions as in “ Toussaint L'Ouverture," then nearer and nearer as he sings his tribute to the men of his day, known or unknown, who had been champions of freedom, Storrs, Shipley, Torrey, those bursts of passionate verse which were the veut of his soul overburdened with a sense of the deep wrong committed against God and man by the persistency of African slavery in the United States. In the years immediately following his decision to cast in his lot with the small band of despised anti-slavery agitators almost all of the poems which he wrote were of two sorts, either breathings of a spirit craving close communion with God as in his hymns, his lines on “The Call of the Christian,” « The Female Martyr,” and other poems, or fiery, scarce-con- trolled outbursts of feeling upon the evils of slavery, and vials of wrath poured out on those who aided and abetted the monstrous wrong. Such poems as “The Slave Ships," " The Hunters of Men," “ Stanzas for the Times,” “Clerical Oppressors,” « Massachusetts," “ The Pastoral Letter," derive their power not from their poetic spirit and form so much as from the righteous indignation, the pity, the overcharged feeling which crowd them. And if, in the years before, Whittier's verses with their conventional smoothness had drawn notice by the gentle spirit which suffused them, now his loud cry, violent and tempestuous, broke upon the ear with a harshness and yet an insistent fervor which com- pelled men to listen. It is indeed a striking phenomenon in poetic growth which one perceives who is familiar with Whittier's compositions and casts his eye down a chronolog- ical list of his poems. Up to the date of his enlistment in the ranks of the anti-slavery army his ambition had been divided between literature and politics, with a taste in verse which was harmonious and an execution which was not wanting in melody yet had no remarkable note. After he stepped into the ranks a great change came over his spirit. He rushed into verse in a tumultuous fashion, careless of the form, eager only to utter the message which half choked him with its violence. There was a tierce note to his poetry, rough, but tremendously earnest. This was the first effect, such a troubling of the waters as gave a somewhat turbid aspect to the stream, and for a while his verse was very largely declamatory, rhymed polemics. But such poems as “ Expostulation,” beginning “Our fellow-countrymen in chains !" were to people then living scarcely so much poems as they were sounds of a great trumpet which were heard, not for their musical sonance, but for their power to stir the blood, and Whittier, though living almost in seclusion, became a name of note to many who would scarcely have known of him had he been a mere legislator or smooth-singing verse maker. He was recognized by the anti-slavery leaders as one of themselves, and this not only because of his powerful speech in song, but because on closer acquaintance he proved to be a most sagacious and wise reader of men and affairs. His own neighbors quickly learned this quality in him. He was sent to the legislature in 1835 and rëelected in 1836, but his frail health made it impossible for hiin to continue in this service. Never. theless, be wielded political power with great skill aside from political office. He was indefatigable in accomplishing political ends through political men. No important nominations were made in his district without a preliminary conference with bim, and more than once he compelled unwilling representatives to work for the great ends he had in view. It may be said here that though a stead inst leader in the anti-slavery cause be differed from some of his associates, both now and throughout his life, in setting a high a BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH XV value upon existing political organizations. “From first to last,” says his biographer, " he refused to come out from his party until he had done all that could be done to induce it to assist in the work of reform," and Whittier himself, in an article written about this time, exclaims, “ What an absurdity is moral action apart from political !” meaning of course when dealing with those subjects which demand political action. Once more, in a letter written to the anti-Texas convention of 1845, he said that though as an abolitionist he was no blind worshiper of the Union, he saw nothing to be gained by an effort, neces- sarily limited and futile, to dissolve it. The moral and political power requisite for dissolving the Union could far more easily abolish every vestige of slavery. We bave anticipated a little in these comments the strict order of Whittier's life. In 1836 was published the first bound volume of his verse. It was confined to his poem " Mogg Megone,” which he had before printed in the “ New England Magazine.” It may be taken as the last expression of Whittier's poetic mind before the great change came over it of which we have spoken, and he was himself later so aware of its lack genuine life that in collecting finally his writings he buried this so far as he could in the fine type of an appendix; but at the end of 1837 Isaac Knapp, publisher of the “ Liberator," Garrison's paper, to which Whittier had been contributing his stirring verses, without consulting the poet, issued a volume of over a hundred pages, entitled “Poems written during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, between the Years 1330 and 1838. By John G. Whittier.” This was the first collection of his miscellaneous poems, and a year later another volume was issued by Joseph Healy, the financial agent of the Anti-Slavery Society of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile Whittier had been staying awhile in Philadelphia, engaged in editing the “ Pennsylvania Freeman.” It was during this time that Pennsylvania Hall was burnt by a mob enraged at the gathering there of an anti-slavery convention. Besides his work on the paper, which was frequently interrupted by ill health, he devoted himself in other ways to the promotion of the cause in which he was so ardently involved, but early in 1840 he found it imperative to give up all this work and retire to his home in Amesbury. From this time forward he made no attempt to engage in any occupation which did not comport with a quiet life in his own home, except that for a few months in 1814 he resided in Lowell, editing the “Middlesex Standard.” He wrote much for the papers, and the poetic stream also flowed with greater freedom and it may be said clearness. He contributed a number of poems to the Democratic Review” and other periodicals, and in 1813 the firm of W. D. Ticknor published “ Lays of my Home, and Other Poems," the first book from which Whittier received any remuneration. The struggle for main- tenance through these years was somewhat severe, but in January, 1847, be formed a connection which was not only to afford him a more liberal support, but was to give him a most favorable outlet for his writings, both prose and verse. It had been decided by the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to establish a weekly paper in Washington, and the editorial charge was committed to Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, an intrepid and able man of experience. The paper was named “ The National Era,” and Whittier was invited to become a regular contributor, editorial and otherwise, bat not required to do his work away from home. The paper, as is well known, was the medium for the publication of “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” and its circulation was so consider- able as to make it a source of profit to its conductors as early as by the end of the first year. From 1847 till 1860 Whittier made this paper the chief vehicle of his writings, contributing not only poems, but reviews of contemporary literature, editorial articles, letters, sketches, and the serial which was published afterward in a book, “ Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal.” In 1849 B. B. Mussey & Co. of Boston brought out a comprehensive collection of Whittier's Poems in a dignified octavo volume illustrated with designs by Hammatt Billings. It was a venture made quite as much on friendly as on commercial grounds. Mr. Mussey was a cordial supporter of the anti-slavery cause and had a great admiration for Whittier's genius. He was determined to publish the poems in a worthy form, and his generous act met with an agreeable reward. Its success was a testimony to the xvi JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER repute in which Whittier was now beld. At the same time his publishers, Messrs. Ticknor & Fields, were in negotiation with him for a new volume, and in 1850 appeared “Songs of Labor, and Other Poems." These two volumes which gathered the fruit of twenty years show unmistakably the further growth of Whittier’s poetic power. With the establishment of his anti-slavery convictions into firm working principles, the maturing of his experience, the enlarge- ment of his political vision, and the increase in his friendship, there had come also a strengthening of his hand in the use of his pen, and a finer use, because more clear and restrained, of his poetic voice. Moreover, the religious feeling which was seen in his earlier life, and put to the test by closer association with men, had deepened into a serene confidence in God which pervaded his life and sustained him against all the shock of a disappointing age. Moreover, his eye and ear were in harmony with nature, and more and more he found not only an escape to nature as a relief from the world but a positive enjoyment in the field of beauty. Poetry, once a literary exercise, then a chan- nel for the relief of a mind overburdened with its sense of an unconquered evil, was now become the full, free expression of a nature broadening under the thought of God, delighting in response to the world of beauty, strong and secure in a great purpose of humanity. It was his natural voice, which formerly broke under the strain of a chang- ing constitution, but now was pure, sweet and far-carrying, obeying a trained impulse and resonant with a full force. The establishment of “ The Atlantic Monthly” in 1857 gave another impetus to Whit- tier's poetic productiveness. Here was a singular illustration of the growth in the commun- ity about him of a spirit quite in agreement with his own personality. Opposition to sla- very lay at the base of the origin of the magazine, and yet in the minds of its projectors, this political bond was to unite men of letters and not simply antagonists of slavery. The “ Atlantic” was to be the organ of the literary class, but it was to be by no means exclu- sively devoted to an anti-slavery crusade. Indeed it would almost seem as if this specific purpose of the magazine was almost lost sight of at first in the richness and abundance of general literature which it immediately stimulated. It is easy now to see how natural and congenial a medium this was for Whittier's verse. In subjecting his political and literary ambition to a great moral purpose, so that he could no longer hope for political official power, and, in his own words * Had left the Muses' haunts to turn The crank of an opinion mill, Making his rustic reed of song A weapon in the war with wrong. Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow," — in doing this, though it cost him a struggle, he had fulfilled the true saving that to save one's life one must lose it. He had given up the name and place of a political magnate, but he had secured the more impregnable position of the power behind the throne in poli- ties, and in place of a smooth versitier, holding the attention of those with whom poetry was a plaything, he had become one of the few imperative voices of song, and had taken his place as one of the necessary men in the group of men of letters who now came to- gether to represent the highest force in American literature. For it is to be observed that Whittier was now no longer regarded as only the singer of spirited songs flying with all their winged power straight at the enemy as they sped from a bow held by an Apollo. The passion which he had shown in his polemic verse bad awakened his whole nature, and his poems on whatever theme came from a nature which had been developed in all its powers by this commanding purpose. Nevertheless, it is noticeable how the new opportunity atforded by the “ Atlantic," and the increased association with the other great writers of the day, was consonant with if not the cause of a broadening of Whittier's mind, a sunny burst of full life, finding expression in such poems as “ Skipper Ireson's Ride," “ The Sycamores," " The Pipes at Lucknow," “ Mabel 1 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xvii "" Martin," " The Garrison of Cape Ann," “ The Swan Song of Parson Avery,” “Telling the Bees," “ The Last Walk in Autumn," as well as “ The Eve of Election” and “ Moloch in State Street." The war for the Union naturally found Whittier strongly stirred, and more than ever watchful of the great issue which throughout his manhood has been constantly before his eyes, and his triumphant" Laus Deo” is as it were the Nunc Dimittis of this modern pro- phet and servant of the Lord. But Whittier was a Quaker not in any conventional sense, but by birthright, conviction, and growing consciousness of communion with God. Though he wrote such a stirring ballad, therefore, as “Barbara Frietchie,” he wrote also the lines addressed to his fellow-believers : “The levelled gun, the battle brand We may not take: But, calmly loyal, we can stand And suffer with our suffering land For conscience' sake." It is interesting also to observe how in this time of stress and pain, he escaped to the calm solace of nature. His poem “ The Battle Autumn of 1862," records this emotion specifically, but more than one poem in the group“ In War Time” bears testimony to this sentiment. Meanwhile other poems written during the years 1861-1865 illustrate the longing of Whittier's nature for relief from the terrible knowledge of human strife, a longing definitely expressed by him in the prelusive address to William Bradford, the Quaker painter, prefacing “ Amy Wentworth,” in which he says :- “We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share With other weapons than the patriot's prayer, Yet owning with full hearts and moistened eyes The awful beauty of self-sacrifice, And wrung by keenest sympathy for all Who give their loved ones for the living wall 'Twixt law and treason, - in this evil day May haply find, through automatic play Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain, And hearten others with the strength we gain." Something of the same note is struck in the introduction to “The Countess." But be- fore the war closed, Whittier met with a personal loss which meant much to him every way. His sister Elizabeth, as we have seen, had been his closest companion, his most in- timate acquaintance. He had shared his life with her in no light sense, and now he was to see the flame of that life flicker and at last expire in the early fall of 1864. The first poem after her death, “The Vanishers," in its theme, its faint note as of a bird calling from the wood, is singularly sweet both as a sign of the return of the poet to the world after his flight from it in sympathy and imagination with the retreating spirit of bis sister, and as a prophecy of the character of so large a part of Whittier's poetry from this time forward. “The Eternal Goodness," written a twelvemonth later, may be said more positively than any other poem to contain Whittier's creed, and the fullness of faith which characterizes it found free and cheerful expression again and again. Yet another poem which immediately followed it is significant not only by its repetition of his note of spiritual trust, but by its strong witness to the sane, human quality of Whittier's genius. “Snow-Bound,” simple and radiant as it is with human life, is also the reflection of a mind equally at home in spiritual realities. It may fairly be said to sum up Whittier's personal experience and faith, and yet so absolutely free is it from egotism that it has taken its place as the representative poem of New England country life, quite as surely as Burns' "The Cotter's Saturday Night” expresses one large phase of Scot- The success which attended “Snow-Bound” was immediate, and the result was such as to put Whittier at once beyond the caprices of fortune, and to give him so firm a place in tish life. xviii JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER : the affections of his countrymen as to complete as it were the years of his struggle and his patient endurance. There is something almost dramatic in the appearance of this poem. The war was over : the end of that long contest in which Whittier, physically weak but spiritually strong, had been a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. What was the force which had been too mighty for a great entrenched wrong? With no conscious purpose, but in the simple delight of poetry, Whittier sang this winter idyl of the North, and one now sees how it imprisons the light which shatters the evil, for it is an epitome of homely work and a family life lived in the eye of God, “duty keeping pace with all,” and the whole issuing in that large hope. ** Life greatens in these later years, The century's aloe towers to-day." The history of Whittier's life after this date is written in his poems. The outward adventure was slight enough. He divided his year between the Amesbury home and that which he established with other kinsfolk at Oak Knoll in Danvers. In the summer time he was wont to seek the mountains of New Hampshire or the nearer beaches that stretch from Newburyport to Portsmouth. The seenes thus familiar to him were trans- lated by him into song. Human life blended with the forms of nature, and he made this whole region as distinctively his poetic field as Wordsworth made the Lake district of Cumberland, or as Irving made the banks of the Hudson. In such a group as “ The Tent on the Beach," in " Among the Hills,” “ The Witch of Wenham," "Sunset on the Bearcamp," " The Seeking of the Waterfall," " How the Women went from Dover," “ The Homestead,” and many others he records the delight which he took in nature and especially in the human associations with nature. ** The Tent on the Beach” again illustrates the personal attachments which he formed and which constituted so large an element in the last thirty years of his life. In actual contact and in the friendships formed through books, one may read the largeness of Whittier's sympathy with his fellows, and the warmth of his generous nature. Such poems as the frequent ones commemorating Garrison, Sumner, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, the Fields's, Mrs. Child, the Spoffords, Stedman, Barnard, Bayard Taylor, Weld and others illustrates the range of his friendship ; but the poems also which bear the names of Tilden, Mulford, Thiers, Halleck, Agassiz, Garibaldi illustrate likewise a strong sense of the lives of men who, perhaps, never came within the scope of personal acquaintance. Nor was it only through human lives that he touched the world about him. His bio grapher bears witness to the assiduity with which he compensated in later years for the restrictions imposed by necessity on his education in earlier years. He became a great and diseursive reader, and his poems, especially after “Snow-Bound,” contain many proofs of this both in the suggestions which gave rise to them and in the allusions which they contain. Northern literature is reflected in “ The Dole of Jarl Thorkell," " King Volmer and Elsie,” “ The Brown Dwarf of Rügen," and others ; Eastern life and religion reappear in " Oriental Maxims," • Hymns of the Brahmo Somaj," “ The Brew- ing of Soma," “ Giving and Taking," and many more, and history, especially that in- volved with his own religious faith, gave opportunity for “The King's Missive," " St. Gregory's Guest," " Banished from Massachusetts," " The Two Elizabeths,” · The Penn- sylvania Pilgrim.” Yet, as we suggested above, the most constant strain, after all, was that which found so full expression in " The Eternal Goodness." So pervasive in Whittier's mind was this thought of God that it did not so much seek occasion for formal utterance, as it used with the naturalness of breathing such opportunities as arose, touching with light one theme after another, and forming, indeed, the last whispered voice beard from his lips, “ Love to all the world." It was a serene life of the spirit which Whittier led in the closing years of his life, and he was secure in friendship and the shelter of home. He read, he saw his neighbors and friends, he wrote letters, he took the liveliest interest in current affairs, and was, 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xix " 66 indeed, an elector on the Republican side in the great Presidential canvass which re- sulted in the first election of Cleveland. He was much sought for occasional poems, and he complied with these requests from time to time, as in his “ Centennial Hymn,” “In the Old South,” “The Bartholdi Statue,” “ One of the Signers,” and “Haverhill ;” but he was quite as likely to take hint from an occasion without the asking. Yet all this time he was assailed by infirmities which would have shaken the serenity of most. He suffered intensely from neuralgic disorders, and was sadly broken in the last years of his life. He sang up to the end, one may say. A few weeks before his death, he wrote the verses to Oliver Wendell Holmes which stand at the completion of this collection in the division “ At Sundown." True to the controlling spirit of his life, he sings, “The hour draws near, howe'er delayed and late, When at the Eternal Gate We leave the words and works we call our own, And lift void hands alone “For love to fill. Our nakedness of soul Brings to that Gate no toll; Giftless we come to Him, who all things gives, And live because He lives." He died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. H. E. S. 1 INTRODUCTION 6 The edition of my poems published in 1857 contained the following note by way of preface: - "In these volumes, for the first time, a complete collection of my poetical writ- ings has been made. While it is satisfactory to know that these scattered children of my brain have found a home, I cannot but regret that I have been unable, by reason of illness, to give that attention to their revision and arrangement which respect for the opinions of others and my own afterthought and experience demand. " That there are pieces in this collection which I would • willingly let die,' I am free to confess. But it is now too late to disown them, and I must submit to the inevitable penalty of poetical as well as other sins. There are others, intimately connected with the author's life and times, which owe their tenacity of vitality to the circumstances under which they were written, and the events by which they were suggested. * The long poem of • Mogg Megone' was in a great measure composed in early life; and it is scarcely necessary to say that its subject is not such as the writer would have chosen at any subsequent period.” After a lapse of thirty years since the above was written, I have been requested by my publishers to make some preparation for a new and revised edition of my poems. I cannot flatter myself that I have added much to the interest of the work beyond the correction of my own errors and those of the press, with the addition of a few heretofore unpublished pieces, and occasional notes of explanation which seemed necessary. I have made an attempt to classify the poems under a few gen- eral heads, and have transferred the long poem of "Mogg Megone” to the Appen- dix, with other specimens of my earlier writings. I have endeavored to affix the dates of composition or publication as far as possible. In looking over these poems I have not been unmindful of occasional prosaic lines and verbal infelicities, but at this late day I have neither strength nor patience to undertake their correction. Perhaps a word of explanation may be needed in regard to a class of poems written between the years 1832 and 1865. Of their defects from an artistic point of view it is not necessary to speak. They were the earnest and often vehement expression of the writer's thought and feeling at critical periods in the great con- flict between Freedom and Slavery. They were written with no expectation that they would survive the occasions which called them forth: they were protests, alarm signals, trumpet-calls to action, words wrung from the writer's heart, forged a Ixi xxii INTRODUCTION at white heat, and of course lacking the finish and careful word-selection which re- flection and patient brooding over them might have given. Such as they are, they belong to the history of the Anti-Slavery movement, and may serve as way-marks of its progress. If their language at times seems severe and harsh, the monstrous wrong of Slavery which provoked it must be its excuse, if any is needed. In at- tacking it, we did not measure our words. “ It is,” said Garrison, “a waste of politeness to be courteous to the devil.” But in truth the contest was, in a great measure, an impersonal one; — hatred of slavery and not of slave-masters. “No common wrong provoked our zeal, The silken gauntlet which is thrown In such a quarrel rings like steel." Even Thomas Jefferson, in his terrible denunciation of Slavery in the “ Notes on Virginia," says: “It is impossible to be temperate and pursue the subject of Slavery." After the great contest was over, no class of the American people were more ready, with kind words and deprecation of harsh retaliation, to welcome back the revolted States than the Abolitionists; and none have since more heartily rejoiced at the fast increasing prosperity of the South. Grateful for the measure of favor which has been accorded to my writings, I leave this edition with the public. It contains all that I care to republish, and some things which, had the matter of choice been left solely to myself, I should have omitted. J. G. W. PROEM [Written to introduce the first general collection of Whittier's Poems. ] I LOVE the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. Yet, vainly in my quiet hours To breathe their marvellous notes I try ; I feel them, as the leaves and flowers In silence feel the dewy showers, And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky. a The rigor of a frozen clime, The harshness of an untaught ear, The jarring words of one whose rhyme Beat often Labor's hurried time, Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, No rounded art the lack supplies ; Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, Or softer shades of Nature's face, I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. Nor mine the seer-like power to show The secrets of the heart and mind; To drop the plummet-line below Our common world of joy and woe, A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. Yet here at least an earnest sense Of human right and weal is shown; A hate of tyranny intense, And hearty in its vehemence, As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. O Freedom! if to me belong Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song, Still with a love as deep and strong As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine ! a AMESBURY, 11th mo., 1847. 1 1 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS THE VAUDOIS TEACHER The lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering curls Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls ; And she placed their price in the old man's hand and lightly turned away, But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call, -"My gentle lady, stay ! “O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings, Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of kings; A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay, Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way!” This poem was suggested by the account given of the manner in which the Waldenses disseminated their principles among the Cath- olie gentry. They gained access to the house through their occupation as peddlers of silks, jewels, and trinkets. Having disposed of some of their goods,” it is said by a writer who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, they cautiously intimated that they had commodities far more valuable than these, inestimable jewels, which they would show if they could be protected from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible or Testament; and thereby many were deluded into heresy." The poem, under the title_ Le Colporteur Vaudois, was translated into French by Pro- fessor G. de Felice, of Montauban, and further naturalized by Professor Alexandre Rodolphe l'inet, who quoted it in his lectures on French literature, afterwards published. It became familiar in this form to the Waldenses, who adopted it as a household poem. An American elergyman, J. C. Fletcher, frequently heard it when he was a student, about the year 1850, in the theological seminary at Geneva, Switzerland, but the authorship of the poem was unknown to those who used it. Twenty-five years later, JL. Fletcher, learning the name of the author, wrote to the moderator of the Waldensian synod at La Tour, giving the information. At the banquet which closed the meeting of the synod, the moderator announced the fact, and Tas instructed in the name of the Waldensian ehurch to write to me a letter of thanks. My letter, written in reply, was translated into Italian and printed throughout Italy. "O) LADY fair, these silks of mine are beau- tiful and rare, The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's queen might wear ; And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant light they vie; I have brought them with me a weary way, — will my gentle lady buy?" The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her form of grace was seen, Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks waved their clasping pearls between ; “ Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and old, And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy gold.” The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a small and meagre book, Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folding robe he took ! “ Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee! Nay, keep thy gold — I ask it not, for the word of God is free !" The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he left behind Hath had its pure and perfect work on that highborn maiden's mind, And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth, 4 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 1 a And given her human heart to God in its Vor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed taper beautiful hour of youth ! gave Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave! And she hath left the gray old halls, where an evil faith had power, Yet, gentle sufferer ! there shall be, The courtly knights of her father's train, In every heart of kindly feeling, and the maidens of her bower ; A rite as holy paid to thee And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by As if beneath the convent-tree lorilly feet untrod, Thy sisterhood were kneeling, Where the poor and needy of earth are At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, rich in the perfect love of God ! keeping Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping: THE FEMALE MARTYR For thou wast one in whom the light Mary GM, aged eighteen, a “Sister of Of Heaven's own love was kindled well ; Charity," died in one of our Atlantic cities, Enduring with a martyr's might, during the prevalence of the Indian cholera, Through weary day and wakeful night, while in voluntary attendance upon the sick. Far more than words may tell : Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown, “ Bring out your dead !” The midnight | Thy mercies measured by thy God alone ! street Heard and gave back the hoarse, low Where manly hearts were failing, where call; The throngful street grew foul with death, Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet, O high-souled martyr! thou wast there, Glanced through the dark the coarse white Inhaling, from the loathsome air, sheet, Poison with every breath. Her coftin and her pall. Yet shrinking not from offices of dread " What — only one !” the brutal hack-man For the wrung dying, and the unconscious said, dead. As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead. And, where the sickly taper shed llow sunk the inmost hearts of all, Its light through vapors, damp, confined, As rolled that dead-art slowly bv, Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread, With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall ! A new Electra by the bed The dying turned him to the wall, Of suffering human-kind ! To hear it and to die ! Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay, Onward it rolled ; while oft its driver To that pure hope which fadeth not away. stayed, And hoarsely clamored, “Ho ! bring out Innocent teacher of the high And holy mysteries of Heaven! How turned to thee each glazing eye, It paused beside the burial-place ; In mute and awful sympathy, “ Toss in your load !” and it was done. As thy low prayers were given; With quick hand and averted face, And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the Ha-tily to the grave's embrace while, They cast them, one by one, An angel's features, a deliverer's smile ! Stranger and friend, the evil and the just, Together trolden in the churchyard dust! A blessed task ! and worthy or one Who, turning from the world, as thou, And thou, young martyr! thou wast there; Before life's pathway had begun No white-robesd sister round thee trod, To leave its spring-time flower and sun, Vor holy hymn, por funeral prayer Haul sealed her early vow ; Rose throngh the damp and noisome air, Giving to God her beauty and her youth, Giving thee to thy God; Her pure affections and her guilelens truth. your dead." “A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND” 5 Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here Could be for thee a meet reward; Thine is a treasure far more dear : Eve hath not seen it, nor the ear Of living mortal heard The joys prepared, the promised bliss above, The holy presence of Eternal Love ! Sleep on in peace. The earth has not A nobler name than thine shall be. The deeds by martial manhood wrought, The lofty energies of thought, The fire of poesy, These have but frail and fading honors ; thine Shall Time unto Eternity consign. Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down, And human pride and grandeur fall, The herald's line of long renown, The mitre and the kingly crown, Perishing glories all ! The pure devotion of thy generous heart Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part. Their sorcery No pale blue flame sends out its flashes Through creviced roof and shattered sashes ! The witch-grass round the hazel spring May sharply to the night-air sing, But there no more shall withered hags Refresh at ease their broomstick nags, Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters As beverage meet for Satan's daughters ; No more their mimic tones be heard, The mew of cat, the chirp of bird, Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter Of the fell demon following after ! The cautious goodman nails no more A horseshoe on his outer door, Lest some unseemly hag should fit To his own mouth her bridle-bit ; The goodwife's churn no more refuses Its wonted culinary uses Until, with heated needle burned, The witch has to her place returned ! Our witches are no longer old And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold, But young and gay and laughing creatures, With the heart's sunshine on their fea- tures ; the light which dances Where the raised lid unveils its glances ; Or that low-breathed and gentle tone, The music of Love's twilight hours, Soft, dream-like, as a fairy's moan Above her nightly closing flowers, Sweeter than that which sighed of yore Along the charmed Ausonian shore ! Even she, our own weird heroine, Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn, Sleeps calmly where the living laid her; And the wide realm of sorcery, Left by its latest mistress free, Hath found no gray and skilled invader. So perished Albion’s “glammarye,” With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping, His charmëd torch beside his knee, That even the dead himself might see The magic scroll within his keeping: And now our modern Yankee sees Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries ; And naught above, below, around, Of life or death, of sight or sound, Whate'er its nature, form, or look, Excites his terror or surprise, All seeming to his knowing eyes Familiar as his " catechise,' Or “ Webster's Spelling-Book." EXTRACT FROM “ A NEW ENG- LAND LEGEND" Originally a part of the author's Moll Pitcher. How has New England's romance fled, Even as a vision of the morning ! Its rites foredone, its guardians dead, Its priestesses, bereft of dread, Waking the veriest urchin's scorning ! Gone like the Indian wizard's yell And fire-dance round the magic rock, Forgotten like the Druid's spell At moonrise by his holy oak ! No more along the shadowy glen Glide the diin ghosts of murdered men ; No more the unquiet churchyard dead Glimpse upward from their turfy bed, Startling the traveller, late and lone ; As, on some night of starless weather, Ther silently commune together, Each sitting on his own head-stone ! The roofless house, decayed, deserted, Its living tenants all departed, No longer rings with midnight revel Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil ; 6 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS corn, seems THE DEMON OF THE STUDY And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat, Tue Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room, And, button by button, unfolds his coat. And eats his meat and drinks his ale, And beats the maid with her unused broom, And then he reads from paper and book, And the lazy lout with his idle flail ; In a low and husky asthmatic tone, But he sweeps the floor and threshes the With the stolid sameness of posture and look And hies him away ere the break of dawn. Of one who reads to himself alone ; And hour after hour on my senses come The shade of Denmark fled from the sun, That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum And the Cocklane ghost from the barn- loft cheer, The price of stocks, the auction sales, The fiend of Faust was a faithful one, The poet's song and the lover's glee, Agrippa's demon wrought in fear, The horrible murders, the seaboard gales, And the devil of Martin Luther sat The marriage list, and the jeu d'esprit, By the stout monk's side in social chat. All reach my ear in the self-same tone, I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on ! The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of hiin Oh, sweet as the lapse of water at noon Who seven times crossed the deep, O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree, Twined closely each lean and withered The sigh of the wind in the woods of June, Timb, Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea, Like the nightmare in one's sleep. Or the low soft music, perchance, which But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast To float through the slumbering singer's The evil weight from his back at last. dreams, But the demon that cometh day by day So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone, To my quiet room and fireside nook, Of her in whose features I sometimes look, Where the casement light falls dim and As I sit at eve by her side alone, gray And we read by turns, from the self-same "On faded painting and ancient book, book, Is a sorrier one than any whose names Some tale perhaps of the olden time, Are chronicled well by good King James. Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme. Xo bearer of burdens like Caliban, Then when the story is one of woe, - So runner of errands like Ariel, Some prisoner's plaint through his dun- He comes in the shape of a fat old man, geon-bar, Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell; ller blue eye glistens with tears, and low And whence he comes, or whither he goes, Her voice sinks down like a moan afar; I know as I do of the wind which blows. And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail, And his face looks on me worn and pale. A stout old man with a greasy hat Slonched heavily down to his dark, red And when she reads some merrier song, nose, Her voice is glad as an April bird's, And two gray eyes enveloped in fat, And when the tale is of war and wrong, Looking through glasses with iron bows. A trumpet's suinmons is in her words, Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can, And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear, Guard well your doors from that old man ! And see the tossing of plume and spear! Ile comes with a careless “How d'ye do ? " Oh, pity me then, when, day by day, And seats himself in my elbow-chair ; The stout tiend darkens my parlor door; And my morning paper and pamphlet new And reads me perchance the self-sume lay Fall forth with under his special care, Which melted in musie, the night before, THE FOUNTAIN 7 From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet, Listen, while all else is still, And moved like twin roses which zephyrs To the brooklet from the hill. meet ! Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing I cross my floor with a nervous tread, By that streamlet's side, I whistle and laugh and sing and shout, And a greener verdure showing I flourish my cane above his head, Where its waters glide, And stir up the fire to roast him out; Down the hill-slope murmuring on, I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane, Over root and mossy stone. And press my hands on my ears, in vain ! Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth I've studied Glanville and James the wise, O'er the sloping hill, And wizard black-letter tomes which treat Beautiful and freshly springeth Of demons of every name and size That soft-flowing rill, Which a Christian man is presumed to Through its dark roots wreathed and bare, meet, Gushing up to sun and air. But never a hint and never a line Can I find of a reading fiend like mine. Brighter waters sparkled never In that magic well, I've crossed the Psalter with Brady and Of whose gift of life forever Tate, Ancient legends tell, And laid the Primer above them all, In the lonely desert wasted, I've nailed a horseshoe over the grate, And by mortal lip untasted. And hung a wig to my parlor wall Once worn by a learned Judge, they say, Waters which the proud Castilian At Salem court in the witchcraft day ! Sought with longing eyes, Underneath the bright pavilion “ Conjuro te, sceleratissime, Of the Indian skies, Abire ad tuum locum !”. still Where his forest pathway lay Like a visible nightmare he sits by me, - Through the blooms of Florida. The exorcism has lost its skill; And I hear again in my haunted room Years ago a lonely stranger, The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum ! With the dusky brow Of the outcast forest-ranger, Ah ! commend me to Mary Magdalen Crossed the swift Powow, With her sevenfold plagues, to the And betook him to the rill wandering Jew, And the oak upon the hill. To the terrors which haunted Orestes when The furies his midnight curtains drew, O'er his face of moody sadness But charm him off, ye who charm him can, For an instant shone That reading demon, that fat old man ! Something like a gleam of gladness, As he stooped him down To the fountain's grassy side, THE FOUNTAIN And his eager thirst supplied. On the declivity of a hill in Salisbury, Essex With the oak its shadow throwing County, is a fountain of clear water, gushing O'er his mossy seat, from the very roots of a venerable oak. It is And the cool, sweet waters flowing about two miles from the junction of the Softly at his feet, Powow River with the Merrimac. Closely by the fountain's rim That lone Indian seated him. TRAVELLER ! on thy journey toiling By the swift Powow, Autumn's earliest frost had given With the summer sunshine falling To the woods below On thy heated brow, Hues of beauty, such as heaven 8 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Lendeth to its bow ; And the soft breeze from the west Scarcely broke their dreamy rest. Far behind was Ocean striving With his chains of sand ; Southward, sunny glimpses giving, "Twixt the swells of land, Of its calm and silvery track, Rolled the tranquil Merrimac. Over village, wood, and meadow Gazed that stranger man, Sadly, till the twilight shadow Over all things ran, Save where spire and westward pane Flashed the sunset back again. While the western half of heaven Blushed with sunset still, From the fountain's mossy seat Turned the Indian's weary feet. Year on year hath flown forever, But he came no more To the hillside on the river Where he came before. But the villager can tell Of that strange man's visit well. And the merry children, laden With their fruits or flowers, - Roving boy and laughing maiden, In their school-day hours, Love the simple tale to tell Of the Indian and his well. Gazing thus upon the dwelling Of his warrior sires, Where no lingering trace was telling Of their wigwam fires, Who the gloomy thoughts might know Of that wandering child of woe ? Naked lay, in sunshine glowing, Hills that once had stood Down their sides the shadows throwing Of a mighty wood, Where the deer his covert kept, And the eagle's pinion swept ! Where the birch canoe had glided Down the swift Powow, Dark and gloomy bridges strided Those clear waters now; And where once the beaver swam, Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam. For the wood-bird's merry singing, And the hunter's cheer, Iron clang and hammer's ringing Smote upon his ear ; And the thick and sullen smoke From the blackened forges bruke. Could it be his fathers ever Loved to linger here? These bare hills, this conquered river, — ('ould they hold them dear, With their native loveliness Tamed and tortured into this ? Sadly, as the shades of even Gathered o'er the hill, PENTUCKET The village of llaverhill, on the Merrimae, called by the Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1705, a combined body of French and Indians, under the com- mand of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Rouville, the infamous and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon the village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger number made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, and among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benja min Rolfe, was killed by a shot throngh his own door. In a paper entitled The Border War of 1708, published in my collection of Recreations and Miscellanits, I have given a prose narrative of the surprise of Haverhill. How sweetly on the wood-girt town The mellow light of sunset shone ! Each small, bright lake, whose waters still Mirror the forest and the hill, Reflected from its waveless breast The beauty of a cloudless west, Glorious as if a glimpse were given Within the western gates of heaven, Left, by the spirit of the star Of sunset's holy hour, ajar! Beside the river's tranquil flood The dark and low-walled dwellings stood, Where many a rood of open land Stretched up and down on either hand, THE NORSEMEN 9 With corn-leaves waving freshly green The thick and blackened stumps between. Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, The wild, untravelled forest spread, Back to those mountains, white and cold, Of which the Indian trapper told, l'pon whose summits never yet Was mortal foot in safety set. Quiet and calm without a fear, Of danger darkly lurking near, The weary laborer left his plough, The milkmaid carolled by her cow; From cottage door and household hearth Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth. At length the murmur died away, And silence on that village lay. - So slept Pompeii, tower and hall, Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all, Undreaming of the fiery fate Which made its dwellings desolate ! And blended fire and moonlight glared On still dead men and scalp-knives bared. The morning sun looked brightly through The river willows, wet with dew. No sound of combat filled the air, No shout was heard, nor gunshot there ; Yet still the thick and sullen smoke From smouldering ruins slowly broke ; And on the greensward many a stain, And, here and there, the mangled slain, Told how that midnight bolt had sped Pentucket, on thy fated head ! Even now the villager can tell Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell, Still show the door of wasting oak, Through which the fatal death-shot broke, And point the curious stranger where De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare ; Whose hideous head, in death still feared, Bore not a trace of hair or beard ; And still, within the churchyard ground, Heaves darkly up the ancient mound, Whose grass-grown surface overlies The victims of that sacrifice. a THE NORSEMEN Hours passed away. By moonlight sped The Merrimac along his bed. Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood, Silent, beneath that tranquil beam, As the hushed grouping of a dream. Yet on the still air crept a sound, No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound, Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing, Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing. Was that the tread of many feet, Which downward from the hillside beat ? What forms were those which darkly stood Just on the margin of the wood ? Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim, Or paling rude, or leafless limb ? No, — through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed, Dark human forms in moonshine showed, Wild from their native wilderness, With painted limbs and battle-dress! A yell the dead might wake to hear Swelled on the night air, far and clear ; Then smote the Indian tomahawk On crashing door and shattering lock ; Then rang the rifle-shot, and then The shrill death-scream of stricken men, Sank the red axe in woman's brain, And childhood's cry arose in vain. Bursting through roof and window came, Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame, In the early part of the present century, a fragment of a statue, rudely chiselled from dark gray stone, was found in the town of Bradford, on the Merrimac. Its origin must be left entirely to conjecture. The fact that the ancient Northmen visited the northeast coast of North America and probably New England, some centuries before the discovery of the western world by Columbus, is now very generally admitted. GIFT from the cold and silent Past! A relic to the present cast, Left on the ever-changing strand Of shifting and unstable sand, Which wastes beneath the steady chime And beating of the waves of Time ! Who from its bed of primal rock First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block ? Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, Thy rude and savage outline wrought ? The waters of my native stream Are glancing in the sun's warm beam ; From sail-urged keel and flashing oar The circles widen to its shore ; IO NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS And cultured field and peopled town Bared to the sun and soft warm air, Slope to its willowed margin down. Streams back the Northmen's yellow hair. Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing I see the gleam of axe and spear, The home-life sound of school-bells ring- A sound of smitten shields I hear, ing, Keeping a harsh and fitting time And rolling wheel, and rapid jar To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme ; Of the fire-winged and steedless car, Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung, And voices from the wayside near His gray and naked isles among ; Come quick and blended on my ear, Or muttered low at midnight hour A spell is in this old gray stone, Round Odin's mossy stone of power. My thoughts are with the Past alone! The wolf beneath the Arctic moon Has answered to that startling rune ; A change !— The steepled town no more The Gael has heard its stormy swell, Stretches along the sail-thronged shore ; The light Frank knows its summons well ; Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud, Iona's sable-stoled Culdee Fade sum-gilt spire and mansion proud : Has heard it sounding o'er the sea, Spectrally rising where they stood, And swept, with hoary beard and hair, I see the old, primeval wood; His altar's foot in trembling prayer ! Dark, shadow-like, on either hand I see its solemn waste expand ; 'T is past, – the 'wildering vision dies It climbs the green and cultured hill, In darkness on my dreaming eyes ! It arches o'er the valley's rill, The forest vanishes in air, And leans from cliff and crag to throw Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare; Its wild arms o'er the stream below. I hear the common tread of men, l'nchanged, alone, the same bright river And hum of work-day life again ; Flows on, as it will flow forever! The mystic relic seems alone I listen, and I hear the low A broken mass of common stone ; Soft ripple where its waters go ; And if it be the chiselled limb I hear behind the panther's cry, Of Berserker or idol grim, The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by, A fragment of Valhalla's Thor, And shyly on the river's brink The stormy Viking's god of War, The deer is stooping down to drink. Or Praga of the Runic lay, Or love-awakening Siona, But hark!—from wood and rock flung back, I know not, – for no graven line, What sound comes up the Merrimac? Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sigu, What sea-worn barks are those which throw Is left me here, by which to trace The light spray from each rushing prow ? Its name, or origin, or place. Hlave they not in the North Sea's blast Yet, for this vision of the Past, Bowed to the waves the straining mast ? This glance upon its darkness cast, Their frozen sails the low, pale sun My spirit bows in gratitude Of Thule 's night has shone upon ; Before the Giver of all good, Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep Who fashioned so the human mind, Round icy drift, and headland steep. That, from the waste of Time behind, Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daugh- A simple stone, or mound of earth, ters Can summon the departed forth; Hlave watched them fading o'er the waters, Quicken the Past to life again, Lessening through driving mist and spray, The Present lose in what hath been, Like white-winged sea-birds on their way! And in their primal freshness show The buried forms of long ago. Onward they glide, – and now I view As if a portion of that Thought Their iron-armed and stalwart crew; Be which the Eternal will is wrought, Joy glistens in each wild blue eye, Whose impulse fills anew with breath Turned to green earth and summer sky. The frozen solitude of Death, Each brond, seamed breast has cast aside To mortal mind were sometimes lent, Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide ; To mortal musings sometimes sent, FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS II To whisper-even when it seems Her tokens of renewing care But Memory's fantasy of dreams Hath Nature scattered everywhere, Through the mind's waste of woe and sin, In bud and flower, and warmer air. Of an immortal origin! But in their hour of bitterness, What reck the broken Sokokis, FUNERAL TREE OF THE Beside their slaughtered chief, of this ? SOKOKIS The turf's red stain is yet undried, Polan, chief of the Sokokis Indians of the Scarce have the death-shot echoes died country between Agamenticus and Casco Bay, Along Sebago's wooded side; was killed at Windham on Sebago Lake in the spring of 1756. After the whites had retired, And silent now the hunters stand, the surviving Indians “swayed” or bent down Grouped darkly, where a swell of land a young tree until its roots were upturned, Slopes upward from the lake's white sand. placed the body of their chief beneath it, and then released the tree, which, in springing back to its old position, covered the grave. Fire and the axe have swept it bare, The Sokokis were early converts to the Catho- Save one lone beech, unclosing there lic faith. Most of them, prior to the year 1756, Its light leaves in the vernal air. had removed to the French settlements on the St. François. With grave, cold looks, all sternly mute, They break the damp turf at its foot, AROUND Sebago's lonely lake And bare its coiled and twisted root. There lingers not a breeze to break The mirror which its waters make. They heave the stubborn trunk aside, The firm roots from the earth divide, The solemn pines along its shore, The rent beneath yawns dark and wide. The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er, Are painted on its glassy floor. And there the fallen chief is laid, In tasselled garb of skins arrayed, The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye, And girded with his wampum-braid. The snowy mountain-tops which lie Piled coldly up against the sky. The silver cross he loved is pressed Beneath the heavy arms, which rest Dazzling and white ! save where the Upon his scarred and naked breast. bleak, Wild winds have bared some splintering 'T is done : the roots are backward sent, peak, The beechen-tree stands up unbent, Or snow-slide left its dusky streak. The Indian's fitting monument ! Yet green are Saco's banks below, When of that sleeper's broken race And belts of spruce and cedar show, Their green and pleasant dwelling-place, Dark fringing round those cones of snow. Which knew them once, retains no trace ; The earth hath felt the breath of spring, Oh, long may sunset's light be shed Though yet on her deliverer's wing As now upon that beech's head, The lingering frosts of winter cling. A green memorial of the dead ! Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks, There shall his fitting requiem be, And mildly from its sunny nooks In northern winds, that, cold and free, The blue eye of the violet looks. Howl nightly in that funeral tree. And odors from the springing grass, To their wild wail the waves which break The sweet birch and the sassafras, Forever round that lonely lake Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass. A solemn undertone shall make ! : I2 XARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 66 And who shall deem the spot unblest, Where Nature's younger children rest, Lulled on their sorrowing mother's breast ? Deem ye that mother loveth less These bronzed forms of the wilderness She foldeth in her long caress ? As sweet o'er them her wild-flowers blow, As if with fairer hair and brow The blue-eyed Saxon slept below. What though the places of their rest No priestly knee hath ever pressed, Vo funeral rite nor prayer hath blessed ? fended by its high-spirited mistress. A second attack however followed in the fourth month, 1617, when D'Aulnay was successful, and the garrison was put to the sword. Lady La Tour languished a few days in the hands of her enr- my, and then died of grief. “ To the winds give our banner! Bear homeward again !” Cried the Lord of Acadia, Cried Charles of Estienne ! From the prow of his shallop He gazed, as the sun, From its bed in the ocean, Streamed the St. John. up O'er the blue western waters That shallop had passed, Where the mists of Penobscot Clung damp on her mast. St. Saviour had looked On the heretic sail, As the songs of the Huguenot Rose on the gale. What thongh the bigot's ban be there, And thoughts of wailing and despair, And cursing in the place of prayer ! Yet Heaven hath angels watching round The Indian's lowliest forest-mound, - And they have made it holy ground. There ceases man's frail judgment ; all His powerless bolts of cursing fall Cnheeded on that grassy pall. () peeled and hunted and reviled, Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild ! Great Nature owns her simple child ! And Nature's God, to whom alone The secret of the heart is known, — The hidden language traced thereon ; Who from its many cumberings Of form and creed, and outward things, To light the naked spirit brings ; Not with our partial eye shall sean, Not with our pride and scorn shall ban, The spirit of our brother man ! The pale, ghostly fathers Remembered her well, And had cursed her while passing, With taper and bell ; But the men of Monhegan, Of Papists abhorred, Hlad welcomed and feasted The heretic Lord. They had loaded his shallop With dun-fish and ball, With stores for his lariler, And steel for his wall. Pemaquid, from her bastions And turrets of stone, Had welcomed his coming With banner and gun. And the prayers of the elders Had followed his way, As homeward he glided, Down Pentecost Bay. Oh, well sped La Tour ! For, in peril and pain, His lady kept watch, For his coming again. O'er the Isle of the Pheasant The morning sun shone, On the plane-trees which shaded The shores of St. John. ST. JOHN The fierce rivalry between Charles de La Tour, a Protest int, and D'Aulnar Charnasy, a Catholio, for the passion of Acadia, forms one of the most romantic pages in the history of the low World. La Tour trerived aid in seve eral instance from the Puritan colony of Mas- sachusetts During one of his voyages for the purpose of obtuning arms and provisions for his establishment at St. John, he castle was attu.ked by Aulasy, and successfully de- ST. JOHN 13 86 “Now, why from yon battlements Speaks not my love! Why waves there no banner My fortress above ? ” But woe to the heretic, Evermore woe ! When the son of the church And the cross is his foe ! Dark and wild, from his deck St. Estienne gazed about, On fire-wasted dwellings, And silent redoubt; From the low, shattered walls Which the flame had o'errun, There floated no banner, There thundered no gun! “In the track of the shell, In the path of the ball, Pentagoet swept over The breach of the wall ! Steel to steel, gun to gun, One moment, and then Alone stood the victor, Alone with his men ! But beneath the low arch Of its doorway there stood A pale priest of Rome, In his cloak and his hood. With the bound of a lion, La Tour sprang to land, On the throat of the Papist He fastened his hand. “Of its sturdy defenders, Thy lady alone Saw the cross-blazoned banner Float over St. John." “ Let the dastard look to it ! Cried fiery Estienne, “Were D'Aulnay King Louis, I'd free her again ! ” “ Alas for thy lady! No service from thee Is needed by her Whom the Lord hath set free ; Nine days, in stern silence, Her thraldom she bore, But the tenth morning came, And Death opened her door !” "Speak, son of the Woman Of scarlet and sin! What wolf has been prowling My castle within? From the grasp of the soldier The Jesuit broke, Half in scorn, half in sorrow, He smiled as he spoke : “No wolf, Lord of Estienne, Has ravaged thy hall, But thy red-handed rival, With fire, steel, and ball ! On an errand of mercy I hitherward came, While the walls of thy castle Yet spouted with flame. “ Pentagoet's dark vessels Were moored in the bay, Grim sea-lions, roaring Aloud for their prey. “But what of my lady?" Cried Charles of Estienne. “On the shot-crumbled turret Thy lady was seen : “ Half-veiled in the smoke-cloud, Her hand grasped thy pennon, While her dark tresses swayed In the hot breath of cannon ! As if suddenly smitten La Tour staggered back; His hand grasped his sword-hilt, His forehead grew black. He sprang on the deck Of his shallop again. “ We cruise now for vengeance ! Give way !” cried Estienne. 66 “ Massachusetts shall hear Of the Huguenot's wrong, And from island and creekside Her fishers shall throng ! Pentagoet shall rue What his Papists have done, When his palisades echo The Puritan’s gun!” Oh, the loveliest of heavens Hung tenderly o'er him, There were waves in the sunshine, And green isles before him ; 14 XARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS But a pale hand was beckoning In answer to the breath of prayer, The Huguenot on; Upon the waiting head And in blackness and ashes Behind was St. John! Not to restore our failing forms, And build the spirit's broken shrine, But on the fainting soul to shed THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON A light and life divine Ibn Batuta, the celebrated Mussulman trav- Shall we grow weary in our watch, eller of the fourteenth century, speaks of a And murniur at the long delay ? cypress-tree in Ceylon, universally held sacred Impatient of our Father's time by the natives, the leaves of which were said And His appointed way? to fall only at certain intervals, and he who had the happiness to find and eat one of them Or shall the stir of outward things was restored, at once, to youth and vigor. The traveller saw several venerable Jogees, or saints, Allure and claim the Christian's eye, sitting silent and motionless under the tree. When on the heathen watcher's ear Their powerless murmurs die ? They sat in silent watchfulness The sacred cypress-tree about, Alas! a deeper test of faith And, from beneath old wrinkled brows, Than prison cell or martyr's stake, Their failing eyes looked out. The self-abasing watchfulness Of silent prayer may make. Gray Age and Sickness waiting there Through weary night and lingering | We gird us bravely to rebuke day, — Our erring brother in the wrong, Grim as the idols at their side, And in the ear of Pride and Power And motionless as they. Our warning voice is strong. C'nheeded in the boughs above Easier to smite with Peter's sword The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet ; Than “watch one hour" in humbling L'nseen of them the island flowers prayer. Bloomed brightly at their feet. Life's "great things,” like the Syrian lord, Our hearts can do and dare. O'er them the tropic night-storm swept, The thunder crashed on rock and hill; But oh! we shrink from Jordan's side, The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed, From waters which alone can save; Yet there they waited still ! And murmur for Abana's banks And Pharpar's brighter wave. What was the world without to them ? The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance O Thon, who in the garden's shade Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam Didst wake Thy weary ones again, of battle-ttag and lance ? Who slumbered at that fearful hour Forgetful of Thy pain; They waited for that falling leaf Of which the wandering Jogees sing : Bend o'er us now, as over them, Which lends once more to wintry age And set our sleep-bound spirits free, The greenness of its spring. Nor leave us slumbering in the watch Our souls should keep with Thee ! Oh, if these poor and blinded ones In trustful patience wait to feel O'er torpid puise and failing limb THE EXILES A youthful freshness steal ; The incidents upon which the following bulo Shall we, who sit beneath that Tree lad has its found ition occurred about the year Whose healing leaves of life are shed, 100). Thomas Macy was one of the tirst, if 1 1 3 THE EXILES 15 66 > pot the first white settler of Nantucket. The Oh, kindly spoke the goodman's wife, career of Macy is briefly but carefully outlined Come in, old man !” quoth she, in James S. Pike's The New Puritan. “We will not leave thee to the storm, Whoever thou mayst be.” Tue goodman sat beside his door, One sultry afternoon, Then came the aged wanderer in, With his young wife singing at his side And silent sat him down ; An old and goodly tune. While all within grew dark as night Beneath the storm-cloud's frown. A glimmer of heat was in the air, The dark green woods were still ; But while the sudden lightning's blaze And the skirts of a heavy thunder-cloud Filled every cottage nook, Hung over the western hill. And with the jarring thunder-roll The loosened casements shook, Black, thick, and vast arose that cloud Above the wilderness, A heavy tramp of horses' feet As some dark world from upper air Came sounding up the lane, Were stooping over this. And half a score of horse, or more, Came plunging through the rain. At times the solemn thunder pealed, And all was still again, “ Now, Goodman Macy, ope thy door, Save a low murmur in the air We would not be house-breakers ; Of coming wind and rain. A rueful deed thou 'st done this day, In harboring banished Quakers." Just as the first big rain-drop fell, A weary stranger came, Out looked the cautious goodman then, And stood before the farmer's door, With much of fear and awe, With travel soiled and lame. For there, with broad wig drenched with rain, Sad seemed he, yet sustaining hope The parish priest he saw. Was in his quiet glance, And peace, like autumn's moonlight, “Open thy door, thou wicked man, clothed And let thy pastor in, His tranquil countenance, – And give God thanks, if forty stripes Repay thy deadly sin." A look, like that his Master wore In Pilate's council-hall: “What seek ye?” quoth the goodman ; It told of wrongs, but of a love “ The stranger is my guest ; Meekly forgiving all. He is worn with toil and grievous wrong, - Pray let the old man rest." "Friend! wilt thou give me shelter here?” “Now, out upon thee, canting knave !" The stranger meekly said ; And strong hands shook the door. And, leaning on his oaken staff, “Believe me, Macy,” quoth the priest, The goodman's features read. “ Thou 'lt rue thy conduct sore.” "My life is hunted, - evil men Then kindled Macy's eye of fire : Are following in my track ; “No priest who walks the earth, The traces of the torturer's whip Shall pluck away the stranger-guest Are on my aged back ; Made welcome to my hearth.” "And much, I fear, 't will peril thee Down from his cottage wall he caught Within thy doors to take The matchlock, hotly tried A bunted seeker of the Truth, At Preston-pans and Marston-moor, Oppressed for conscience' sake.” By fiery Ireton's side ; 16 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Where Puritan, and Cavalier, With shout and psalm contended; And Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's prayer, With battle-thunder blended. A leap — they gain the boat -- and there The goodman wields his oar ; “ III luck betide them all," he cried, “ The laggards on the shore.” l'p rose the ancient stranger then : “My spirit is not free To bring the wrath and violence Of evil men on thee ; n Down through the crashing underwood, The burly sheriff came : - “ Stand, Goodman Maey, yield thyself ; Yield in the King's own name.” “ Now out upon thy hangman's face ! ” Bold Macy answered then, • Whip women, on the village green, But meddle not with men." “ And for thyself, I pray forbear, Bethink thee of thy Lord, Who healed again the smitten ear, And sheathed IIis follower's sword. was " I go, as to the slaughter led. Friends of the poor, farewell !” Beneath his hand the oaken door Back on its hinges fell. “Come forth, old graybeard, yea and nay," The reckless scoffers cried, As to a horseman's saddle-bow The old man's arms were tied. And of his bondage hard and long In Boston's crowded jail, Where suffering woman's prayer heard, With sickening childhood's wail, It suits not with our tale to tell ; Those scenes have passed away ; Let the dim shadows of the past Brood o'er that evil day. “ Ho, sheriff !” quoth the ardent priest, “ Take Goodman Macy too; The sin of this day's heresy Ilis back or purse shall rue." “ Now, goodwife, haste thee !" Macy cried. She caught his manly arm ; Behind, the parson urged pursuit, With outery and alarm. Ho! speed the Macys, neck or naught, - The river-course was near ; The plashing on its pebbled shore Was music to their ear. A gray rock, tasselled o'er with bireh, Above the waters hung, And at its base, with every wave, A small light wherry swung. The priest came panting to the shore, His grave cocked hat was gone ; Behind him, like some owl's nest, hung His wig upon a thorn. “ Come back! come back!” the parson cried, “ The church's curse beware." “Curse, an thou wilt,” said Macy, " but Thy blessing prithee spare." “ Vile scoffer!” cried the baffled priest, “ Thou 'lt yet the gallows see.” “Who's born to be hanged will not be drowned," Quoth Macy, merrily ; “ And so, sir sheriff and priest, good-by!" He bent him to his oar, And the small boat glided quietly From the twain upon the shore. Now in the west, the heavy clouds Scattered and fell asunder, While feebler came the rush of rain, And fainter growled the thunder. And through the broken clouds, the sun Looked out serene and warm, Painting its holy symbol-light l'pon the passing storm. Oh, beautiful! that rainbow span, O'er dim Crane-neck was bended ; One bright foot touched the eastern hills, And one with ocean blended. By green Pentucket's southern slope The small boat glided fast ; The watchers of the Block-house saw The strangers as they passed. THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN 17 How others drew around them, And how their fishing sped, Until to every wind of heaven Nantucket's sails were spread ; 'How pale Want alternated With Plenty's golden smile ; Behold, is it not written In the annals of the isle ? That night a stalwart garrison Sat shaking in their shoes, To hear the dip of Indian oars, The glide of birch canoes. The fisher-wives of Salisbury The men were all away Looked out to see the stranger oar Upon their waters play. Deer Island's rocks and fir-trees threw Their sunset-shadows o'er them, And Newbury's spire and weathercock Peered o'er the pines before them. Around the Black Rocks, on their left, The marsh lay broad and green; And on their right with dwarf shrubs crowned, Plum Island's hills were seen. And yet that isle remaineth A refuge of the free, As when true-hearted Macy Beheld it from the sea. Free as the winds that winnow Her shrubless hills of sand, Free as the waves that batter Along her yielding land. With skilful hand and wary eye The harbor-bar was crossed; A plaything of the restless wave, The boat on ocean tossed. Than bers, at duty's summons, No loftier spirit stirs, Nor falls o'er human suffering A readier tear than hers. 0 God bless the sea-beat island ! And grant forevermore, That charity and freedom dwell As now upon her shore ! THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN The glory of the sunset heaven On land and water lay ; On the steep hills of Agawam, On cape, and bluff, and bay. *They passed the gray rocks of Cape Ann, And Gloucester's harbor-bar; The watch-fire of the garrison Shone like a setting star. How brightly broke the morning On Massachusetts Bay ! Blue wave, and bright green island, Rejoicing in the day. ERE down yon blue Carpathian hills The sun shall sink again, Farewell to life and all its ills, Farewell to cell and chain ! These prison shades are dark and cold, But, darker far than they, The shadow of a sorrow old Is on my heart alway. For since the day when Warkworth wood Closed o'er my steed, and I, An alien from my name and blood, A weed cast out to die, – On passed the bark in safety Round iste and headland steep ; So tempest broke above them, No fog-cloud veiled the deep. Far round the bleak and stormy Cape The venturous Macy passed, And on Nantucket's naked isle Drew up his boat at last. And how, in log-built cabin, They braved the rough sea-weather ; And there, in peace and quietness, Went down life's vale together; When, looking back in sunset light, I saw her turret gleam, And from its casement, far and white, Her sign of farewell stream, Like one who, from some desert shore, Doth home's green isles descry, 18 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste of wave and sky; So from the desert of my fate I gaze across the past; Forever on life's dial-plate The shade is backward cast ! I've wandered wide from shore to shore, I've knelt at many a shrine ; And bowed me to the rocky floor Where Bethlehem's tapers shine ; And by the Holy Sepulchre I've pledged my knightly sword To Christ, His blessed Church, and her, The Mother of our Lord. And falls beneath the self-same blow The lover and the priest ! O pitying Mother! souls of light, And saints and martyrs old! Pray for a weak and sinful knight, A suffering man uphold. Then let the Paynim work his will, And death unbind my chain, Ere down yon blue Carpathian hill The sun shall fall again. CASSANDRA SOL'THWICK Oh, vain the vow, and vain the strife! How vain do all things seem! My soul is in the past, and life To-day is but a dream ! In vain the penance strange and long, And hard for tlesh to bear ; The prayer, the fasting, and the thong, And sackcloth shirt of hair. In 1638 two young persons, son and daughter of Lawrence Southwick of Salem, who had himself been imprisoned and deprived of nearly all his property for having entertained Quaken at his house, were fined for non-attendance at church. They being unable to pay the tine, the General Court issued an order empowering * the Treasurer of the Connty to sell the sud persons to any of the English nation of Virgin.a or Barbadors, to answer said fints." In at- tempt was made to carry this order into execu- tion, but no shipmaster was found willing to convey them to the West Indies. The eyes of memory will not sleep, — Its ears are open still ; And vigils with the past they keep Against my feeble will. And still the loves and joys of old Do evermore uprise ; I see the flow of locks of gold, The shine of loving eyes! Ah me! upon another's breast Those golden locks recline ; I see upon another rest The glance that once was mine. To the God of all sure mercies let my bless- ing rise to-av; From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away ; Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faithful three, And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His handmaid free! Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison bars, Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars ; In the coldness and the darkness all throngh the long night-time, My grated casement whitened with au- tumn's early rime. Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept by ; Star after star looked palely in and sank adown the sky; No sound amid night's stillness, save that which seemed to be The dull and heavy be of the pulses of the sea ; "() faithless priest! ( perjured knight!" I hear the Master cry ; "Shut out the vision from thy sight, Let Earth and Nature die. • The Church of God is now thy spouse, And thou the bridegroom art ; Then let the burden of thy vows Crush down thy buman heart !” In vain! This heart its grief must know, Till life itself hath ceased, CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK 19 4 6 All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that Who rail against the pulpit, and holy on the morrow bread and wine ; The ruler and the cruel priest would mock Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and me in my sorrow, from the pillory lame, Dragged to their place of market, and bar- | Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glory- gained for and sold, ing in their shame. Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold ! “ And what a fate awaits thee ! a sadly toiling slave, Oh, the weakness of the flesh was there, Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of the shrinking and the shame ; bondage to the grave ! And the low voice of the Tempter like Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in whispers to me came : hopeless thrall, “Why sit'st thou thus forlornly,” the The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn wicked murmur said, of all ! " “ Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed ? Oh, ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble Nature's fears “Where be the smiling faces, and voices Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of soft and sweet, unavailing tears, Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and pleasant street ? strove in silent prayer, Where be the youths whose glances, the To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou summer Sabbath through, indeed wert there ! Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew? I thought of Paul and Silas, within Phi- lippi's cell, · Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra ? — Be- And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the think thee with what mirth prison shackles fell, Thy happy schoolmates gather around the Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an warm, bright hearth; angel's robe of white, How the crimson shadows tremble on fore- And to feel a blessed presence invisible to heads white and fair, sight. On eyes of merry girlhood, half bid in golden hair. Bless the Lord for all his mercies ! - for the peace and love I felt, * Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, Like dew of Hermon's holy hill, upon my not for thee kind words are spoken, spirit melt; Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods When “Get behind me, Satan ! ” was the by laughing boys are broken ; language of my heart, So first-fruits of the orchard within thy And I felt the Evil Tempter with all his lap are laid, doubts depart. For thee no flowers of autumn the youth- ful hunters braid. Slow broke the gray cold morning ; again the sunshine fell, 40 weak, deluded maiden !— by crazy Flecked with the shade of bar and grate fancies led, within my lonely cell ; With wild and raving railers an evil path The hoar-frost melted on the wall, and up- to tread ; ward from the street To leave a wholesome worship, and teach- Came careless laughi and idle word, and ing pure and sound, tread of passing feet. And mate with maniac women, loose- haired and sackcloth bound, At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was open cast, "Mad scoffers of the priesthood, who mock And slowly at the sheriff's side, up the at things divine, long street I passed ; 20 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 66 a 66 I heard the murmur round me, and felt, of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou but dared not see, wolf amid the flock !” How, from every door and window, the people gazed on me. Dark lowered the brows of Endicott, and with a deeper red And doubt and fear fell on me, shame O'er Rawson's wine-empurpled cheek the burned upon my cheek, flush of anger spread; Swam earth and sky around me, my trem- * Good people," quoth the white-lipped bling limbs grew weak: priest, “ heed not her words so wild, "0) Lord ! support thy handmaid ; and Her Master speaks within her, — the Devil from her soul cast out owns his child!” The fear of man, which brings a snare, the weakness and the doubt." But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the while the sheriff read Then the dreary shadows scattered, like a That law the wicked rulers against the poor cloud in morning's breeze, have made, And a low deep voice within me seemed Who to their house of Rimmon and idol whispering words like these : priesthood bring “ Though thy earth be as the iron, and thy | No bended knee of worship, nor gainful heaven a brazen wall, offering Trust still His loving- kindness whose power is over all. Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turning, said, We paused at length, where at my feet“ Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take the sunlit waters broke this Quaker maid ? On glaring reach of shining beach, and In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on l'ir- shingly wall of rock ; ginia's shore, The merchant-ships lay idly there, in hard You may hold her at a higher price than clear lines on high, Indian girl or Moor.” Tracing with rope and slender spar their network on the sky. Grim and silent stood the captains ; and when again he cried, And there were ancient citizens, cloak- “Speak out, my worthy seamen !” — no wrapped and grave and cold, voice, no sign replied ; And grim and stout sea-captains with But I felt a hard hand press my own, and faces bronzed and old, kind words met my ear, — And on his horse, with Rawson, his cruel “ God bless thee, and preserve thee, my clerk at hand, gentle girl and dear !” Sat dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the land. A weight seemed lifted from my heart, a pitying friend was nigh, - And poisoning with his evil words the I felt it in his hard, rough hand, and saw it ruler's ready ear, in his eye ; The priest leaned o'er his saddle, with And when again the sheriff spoke, that laugh and scoff and jeer ; voice, so kind to me, It stirred my soul, and from my lips the Growled back its stormy answer like the seal of silence broke, roaring of the sea, As if through woman's weakness a warn- ing spirit spoke. “ Pile my ship with bars of silver, pack with coins of Spanish gold, I cried, “ The Lord rebuke thee, thou From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the smiter of the meek, roomage of her hold, Thou robber of the righteous, thou trampler By the living God who mule me!- I of the weak ! would sooner in your bay Go light the dark, cold hearth-stones, - go Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear turn the prison lock this child away!" THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD 21 66 * Well answered, worthy captain, shame on Uplift the loud thanksgiving, pour forth their cruel laws ! ” the grateful psalm ; Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud Let all dear hearts with me rejoice, as did the people's just applause. the saints of old, * Like the herdsman of Tekoa, in Israel of When of the Lord's good angel the rescued old, Peter told. Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold ?” And weep and howl, ye evil priests and mighty men of wrong, I looked on haughty Endicott; with wea- The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay pon half-way drawn, His hand upon the strong: Swept round the throng his lion glare of Woe to the wicked rulers in His avenging bitter hate and scorn ; hour! Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to in silence back, raven and devour ! And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track. But let the humble ones arise, the poor in heart be glad, Hard after them the sheriff looked, in bit- And let the mourning ones again with terness of soul ; robes of praise be clad. Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, For He who cooled the furnace, and and crushed his parchment roll. smoothed the stormy wave, "Good friends," he said, “ since both have And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty fled, the ruler and the priest, still to save ! Jndge ye, if from their further work I be not well released." THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD Loud was the cheer which, full and clear, swept round the silent bay, The following ballad is founded upon one of As, with kind words and kinder looks, he the marvellous legends connected with the fa- bade me go my way ; mous General M-, of Hampton, New Hamp- For He who turns the courses of the stream- shire, who was regarded by his neighbors as a let of the glen, Yankee Faust, in league with the adversary. And the river of great waters, had turned I give the story, as I heard it when a child, the hearts of men. from a venerable family visitant. Oh, at that hour the very earth seemed Dark the halls, and cold the feast, changed beneath my eye, Gone the bridemaids, gone the priest. A holier wonder round me rose the blue All is over, all is done, walls of the sky, Twain of yesterday are one ! A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream Blooming girl and manhood gray, and woodland lay, Autumn in the arms of May ! And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of the bay. Hushed within and hushed without, Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout ; Thanksgiving to the Lord of life ! to Him Dies the bonfire on the hill ; all praises be, All is dark and all is still, Who from the hands of evil men hath set Save the starlight, save the breeze his handmaid free ; Moaning through the graveyard trees; All praise to Him before whose power the And the great sea-waves below, mighty are afraid, Pulse of the midnight beating slow. Who takes the crafty in the snare which for the poor is laid ! From the brief dream of a bride She hath wakened, at his side. Sing, O my soul, rejoicingly, on evening's With half-uttered shriek and start, twilight calm Feels she not his beating heart ? 22 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 66 Love's fair gifts of gold and gem. • Waken ! save me !" still as death At her side he slumbereth. 66 And the pressure of his arm, And his breathing near and warm ? Lightly from the bridal bed Springs that fair dishevelled head, And a feeling, new, intense, Half of shame, half innocence, Maiden fear and wonder speaks Through her lips and changing cheeks. From the oaken mantel glowing, Faintest light the lamp is throwing On the mirror's antique mould, High-backed chair, and wainscot old, And, through faded curtains stealing, His dark sleeping face revealing. Listless lies the strong man there, Silver-streaked his careless hair ; Lips of love have left no trace On that hard and haughty face; And that forehead's knitted thought Love's soft hand hath not unwrought. “Yet,” she sighs, " he loves me well, More than these calm lips will tell. Stooping to my lowly state, He hath made me rich and great, And I bless him, though he be Hard and stern to all save me !" Ring and bracelet all are gone, And that ice-cold hand withdrawn; But she hears a murmur low, Full of sweetness, full of woe, Half a sigh and half a moan : Fear not ! give the dead her own!” Ah!- the dead wife's voice she knows ! That cold hand whose pressure froze, Once in warmest life had borne Gem and band her own hath worn. · Wake thee! wake thee !” Lo, his eyes Open with a dull surprise. 66 In his arms the strong man folds her, Closer to his breast he holds her ; Trembling limbs his own are meeting, And he feels her heart's quick beating : Nay, my dearest, why this fear?” Hush!" she saith, "ibe dead is here!" 66 66 While she speaketh, falls the light (er her fingers small and white ; Gold and gem, and costly ring Back the timid lustre fling, - Love's selectest gifts, and rare, His proud hand had fastened there. Gratefully she marks the glow From those tapering lines of snow ; Fondly o'er the sleeper bending, His black hair with golden blending, In her soft and light caress, (Cheek and lip together press. Ha! — that start of horror! why That will stare and wilder cry, Full of terror, full of pain ? Is there muness in her brain ? Hark! that gasping, hoarse and low, "Spare me, — spare me, - let me go ! " God have mercy! - icy cold Spectral hand, her own enfold, Drawing silently from them “Nay, a dream, — an idle dream." But before the lamp's pale gleam Tremblingly her hand she raises. There no more the diamond blazes, Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold, " Ah!” she sighis, “ her hand was cold ! " Broken words of cheer he saith, But his dark lip quivereth, And as o’er the past he thinketh, From his young wife's arms he shrinketh; Can those soft arms round him lie, L'nderneath his dead wife's eye ? She her fair young head can rest Soothed and childlike on his breast, And in trustful innocence Draw new strength and courage thence ; lle, the proud man, feels within But the cowardice of sin ! She can murmur in her thought Simple prayers her mother taught, And His blessed angels call, Whose great love is over all ; He, alone, in praverless pride, Meets the dark Past at her side! One, who living shrank with dread From his look, or word, or tread, THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 23 l'nto whom her early grave Was as freedom to the slave, Moves him at this midnight hour, With the dead's unconscious power ! Ah, the dead, the unforgot ! From their solemn homes of thought, Where the cypress shadows blend Darkly over foe and friend, Or in love or sad rebuke, Back upon the living look. And the tenderest ones and weakest, Who their wrongs have borne the meekest, Lifting from those dark, still places, Sweet and sad-remembered faces, O'er the guilty hearts behind An unwitting triumph find. Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds, Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall Is piled to heaven ; and, through the narrow rift Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar, Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind Comes burdened with the everlasting moan Of forests and of far-off waterfalls, We had looked upward where the summer sky, Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun, Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed The high source of the Saco; and bewil- dered In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills, Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud, The horn of Fabyan sounding ; and atop Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and thick As meadow mole-hills, the far sea of Casco, A white gleam on the horizon of the east ; Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK Winne purkit, otherwise called George, Sa- chem of Saugus, married a daughter of Passa- conaway, the great Pennacook chieftain, in 1662. The wedding took place at Pennacook (now Concord, N. H.), and the ceremonies closed with a great feast. According to the usages of the chi-fs. Passaconaway ordered a select num- ber of his men to accompany the newly mar- ried couple to the dwelling of the husband, where in turn there was another great feast. Some time after, the wife of Winnepurkit ex- pressing a desire to visit her father's house was permitted to go, accompanied by a brave Escort of her husband's chief men. But when she wished to return, her father sent a mes- senger to Saugus, informing her husband, and asking him to come and take her away. He returned for answer that he had escorted his wife to her father's house in a style that be- came a chief, and that now if she wished to return, her father must send her back, in the same way. This Passaconaway refused to do, and it is said that here terminated the connec- tim of his daughter with the Saugus chief. Vide MORTON's New Canaan. hills ; Moosehillock’s mountain range, and Kear- sarge Lifting his granite forehead to the sun ! We had been wandering for many days Through the rough northern country. We had seen The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud, Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake Of Winnepiseogee ; and had felt The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips And we had rested underneath the oaks Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are shaken By the perpetual beating of the falls Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked The winding Pemigewasset, overhung By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks, Or lazily gliding through its intervals, From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines, Like a great Indian camp-fire ; and its beams а 24 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS streams green islands, At midnight spanning with a bridge of And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on its silver stem, The Merrimac by l'ncanoonuc's falls. Poisoning our seaside atmosphere. There were five souls of us whom travel's It chance chance That as we turned upon our homeward Had thrown together in these wild north way, hills : A drear northeastern storm came howling A city lawyer, for a month escaping up From his dull office, where the weary eye The valley of the Saco ; and that girl Saw only hot brick walls and close thronged Who had stood with us upon Mount Waste streets ; ington, Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see Her brown locks ruffled by the wind which Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to whirled take In gusts around its sharp, cold pinnacle, Its chances all as godsends ; and his brother, Who had joined our gay trout-tishing in the Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining The warmth and freshness of a genial heart, Which lave that giant's feet; whose laugh Whose mirror of the beautiful and true, was heard In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze By dust of theologic strife, or breath Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's Of seet, or cobwebs of scholastic lore ; Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and The hue and image of o'erleaning towers, visibly drooped Sweet human faces, white clouds of the Like a flower in the frost. So, in that noon, quiet inn Slant starlight glimpses through the dewy Which looks from Conway on the moun- leares, tains piled And tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in truth, Heavily against the horizon of the north, a study, Like summer thunder-clouds, we made our To mark his spirit, alternating between home : A decent and professional gravity And while the mist hung over dripping And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often hills, Langhed in the face of his divinity, And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite un- day long shrined Beat their sad music upon roof and pane, The oracle, and for the pattern priest We strove to cheer our gentle invalid. Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant, The lawyer in the pauses of the storm To whom the soiled sheet found in Craw- Went angling down the Saco, and, returning, ford's inn, Recounted his adventures and mishaps ; Giving the latest news of city stocks Gave us the history of his scaly clients, And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning ! Mingling with ludicrous yet apt citations Than the great presence of the awful Of barbarous law Latin, passages mountains From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and Glorified by the sunset ; and his daughter, fresh A delicate flower on whom had blown tooAs the flower-skirted streams of Stafford- long shire, Those evil winds, which, sweeping from : Where, under aged trees, the southwest the ice wind And winnowing the fogs of Labrador, Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts white hair Bar, Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told, With the same breath which stirs Spring's ! Our youthful candidate furrouk his ser- opening leaves mous, THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 25 I. THE MERRIMAC His commentaries, articles and creeds, That our broad land, - our sea-like lakes For the fair page of human loveliness, and mountains The missal of young hearts, whose sacred Piled to the clouds, our rivers overhung text By forests which have known no other Is music, its illumining, sweet smiles. change He sang the songs she loved ; and in his For ages than the budding and the fall low, Of leaves, our valleys lovelier than those Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page Which the old poets sang of, — should but Of poetry, the holiest, tenderest lines figure Of the sad bard of Olney, the sweet songs, On the apocryphal chart of speculation Simple and beautiful as Truth and Nature, As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal privileges, Mount Rights, and appurtenances, which make up åre lifted yet by morning breezes blowing A Yankee Paradise, unsung, unknown, From the green hills, immortal in his lays. To beautiful tradition ; even their names, And for myself, obedient to her wish, Whose melody yet lingers like the last I searched our landlord's proffered library : Vibration of the red man's requiem, A well-thumbed Bunyan, with its nice Exchanged for syllables significant, wood pictures Of cotton-mill and rail-car, will look kindly Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike them; Upon this effort to call up the ghost Watts unmelodious psalms ; Astrology's Of our dim Past, and listen with pleased ear Last home, a musty pile of almanacs, To the responses of the questioned Shade. And an old chronicle of border wars And Indian history. And, as I read A story of the marriage of the Chief Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo, Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt O child of that white-crested mountain In the old time upon the Merrimac, whose springs Our fair one, in the playful exercise Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's Of her prerogative, — the right divine wings, Of youth and beauty, — bade us versify Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy The legend, and with ready pencil sketched wild waters shine, Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing To each his part, and barring our excuses through the dwarf pine ; With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers Whose voices still are heard in the Romance From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the banks and so lone, Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling From the arms of that wintry-locked mother The ear of languid beauty, plague-exiled of stone, From stately Florence, we rehearsed our By hills hung with forests, through vales rhymes wide and free, To their fair auditor, and shared by turns Thy mountain - born brightness glanced Her kind approval and her playful cen- down to the sea ! No bridge arched thy waters save that It may be that these fragments owe alone where the trees To the fair setting of their circum- Stretched their long arms above thee and stances, kissed in the breeze : The associations of time, scene, and audi- No sound save the lapse of the waves on ence, thy shores, Their place amid the pictures which fill up The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars. The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust That some, who sigh, while wandering in Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag's , thought, fall Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world, Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall, sure. 26 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Thy Nashua meadows lay green and un- shorn, And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with corn. But thy Pennacook valley was fairer than these, And greener its grasses and taller its trees, Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung, Or the mower his scythe in the meadows Sadly and full of reverence let us cast A glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground, Led by the few pale lights which, glimmer- ing round That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast; And that which history gives not to the eye, The faded coloring of Time's tapestry, Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply. Roof of bark and walls of pine, Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine, Tracing many a golden line On the ample Hoor within ; Where, upon that earth-floor stark, Lay the gaudy mats of bark, With the bear's hide, rongh and dark, And the red-deer's skin. had swung: In their sheltered repose looking out from the wood The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood ; There glided the corn-dance, the council- tire shone, And against the red war-post the hatchet was thrown. There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and the young To the pike and the white-pereh their baited lines flung ; There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the shy maid Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid. () Stream of the Mountains ! if answer of thine Could rise from thy waters to question of mine, Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan Of sorrow would swell for the days which Window-tracery, small and slight, Woven of the willow white, Lent a dimly checkered light ; And the night-stars glimmered down, Where the lodge-tire's heavy smoke, Slowly through an opening broke, In the low roof, ribbed with oak, Sheathed with hemlock brown. 3 have gone. Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel, The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel ; But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze, The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees! Gloomed behind the changeless shade By the solemn pine-wood made ; Through the rugged palisade, In the open foreground planted, Glimpses came of rowers rowing, Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing, Steel-like gleanis of water tlowing, In the sunlight slanted. Here the mighty Bashaba Keld his long-unquestioned sway, From the White Hills, far away, To the great sea's sounding shore ; Chief of chiefs, his regal word All the river Sachems heard, At his call the war-lance stirred, Or was still once more. There his spoils of chase and war, Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw, Panther's skin and eagle's claw, Lay beside his are and bow ; And, adown the roof-pole hung, Loosely on a snake-skin strung, II. THE BASHABA Lift we the twilight curtains of the Past, And, turning from familiar sight and sound, THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 27 In the smoke his scalp-locks swung Grimly to and fro. Nightly down the river going, Swifter was the hunter's rowing, When he saw that lodge-fire glowing O'er the waters still and red ; And the squaw's darkeye burned brighter, And she drew her blanket tighter, As, with quicker step and lighter, From that door she fled. As upon a marble floor, Moves the strong man still. Still, to such, life's elements With their sterner laws dispense, And the chain of consequence Broken in their pathway lies ; Time and change their vassals making, Flowers from icy pillows waking, Tresses of the sunrise shaking Over midnight skies. For that chief had magic skill, And a Panisee's dark will, Over powers of good and ill, Powers which bless and powers which ban ; Wizard lord of Pennacook, Chiefs upon their war-path shook, When they met the steady look Of that wise dark man. Still, to th' earnest soul, the sun Rests on towered Gibeon, And the moon of Ajalon Lights the battle-grounds of life ; To his aid the strong reverses Hidden powers and giant forces, And the high stars, in their courses, Mingle in his strife ! III. THE DAUGHTER Tales of him the gray squaw told, When the winter night-wind cold Pierced her blanket's thickest fold, And her fire burned low and small, Till the very child abed, Drew its bear-skin over head, Shrinking from the pale lights shed On the trembling wall. All the subtle spirits hiding Under earth or wave, abiding In the caverned rock, or riding Misty clouds or morning breeze ; Every dark intelligence, Secret soul, and influence Of all things which outward sense Feels, or hears, or sees, The soot-black brows of men, the yell Of women thronging round the bed, The tinkling charm of ring and shell, The Powah whispering o'er the dead ! All these the Sachem's home had known, When, on her journey long and wild To the dim World of Souls, alone, In her young beauty passed the mother of his child. - Three bow-shots from the Sachen's dwelling They laid her in the walnut shade, Where a green hillock gently swelling Her fitting mound of burial made. There trailed the vine in summer hours, The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell, - On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers, Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine fell ! These the wizard's skill confessed, At his bidding banned or blessed, Stormful woke or lulled to rest Wind and cloud, and fire and flood; Burned for him the drifted snow, Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, And the leaves of summer grow Over winter's wood ! Not untrue that tale of old ! Now, as then, the wise and bold All the powers of Nature hold Subject to their kingly will ; From the wondering crowds ashore, Treading life's wild waters o'er, The Indian's heart is hard and cold, It closes darkly o'er its care, And formed in Nature's sternest mould, Is slow to feel, and strong to bear. The war-paint on the Sachem's face, Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red, And still, in battle or in chase, Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his foremost tread. 28 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 0 Yet when her name was heard no inore, The outlines of divinest grace ; And when the robe her mother gave, Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest, And small, light moccasin she wore, Which sees, adınires, yet yearns alway; Had slowly wasted on her grave, Too closely on her mother's breast Unmarked of him the dark maids sped To note her smiles of love the child of Na- Their sunset dance and moonlit play ; ture lay! No other shared bis lonely bed, No other fair young head upon his bosom It is enough for such to be lay. Of common, natural things a part, To feel, with bird and stream and tree, A lone, stern man. Yet, as sometimes The pulses of the same great heart; The tempest-sinitten tree receives But we, from Nature long exiled, From one small root the sap which climbs In our cold homes of Art and Thought Its topmost spray and crowning leaves, Grieve like the stranger-tended child, So from his child the Sachem drew Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees A life of Love and Hope, and felt but feels them not. His cold and rugged nature through The softness and the warmth of her young The garden rose may richly bloom being melt. In cultured soil and genial air, To cloud the light of Fashion's room A laugh which in the woodland rang Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair ; Bemocking April's gladdest bird, — In lonelier grace, to sun and dew A light and graceful form which sprang The sweetbrier on the hillside shows To meet him when his step was Its single leaf and fainter hue, heard, L'ntrained and wildly free, yet still a sister Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark, rose ! Smail fingers stringing beal and shell Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark, – Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo With these the household-god had graced Their mingling shades of joy and ill his wigwam well. The instincts of her nature threw ; The savage was a woman still. Child of the forest! strong and free, Midst outlines dim of maiden schemes, Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair, Heart-colored prophecies of life, She swam the lake or climbed the tree, Rose on the ground of her young dreams Or struck the flying bird in air. The light of a new home, the lover and the O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon wife. Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way ; And dazzling in the summer noon IV. THE WEDDING The blare of her light oar threw off its shower of spray! Cool and dark fell the autumn night, But the Bashaba's wigwam glowed with l'nknown to her the rigid rule, light, The dull restraint, the chiding frown, For down from its roof, by green withes The weary torture of the school, hung, The taming of wild nature down. Flaring and smoking the pine-knots swung. Hler only lore', the legends told Around the hunter's tire at night ; And along the river great wood-fires Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled, Shot into the night their long, red spires, Flowers bloomed and snow-tlakes fell, un- Showing behind the tall, dark wood, questioned in her sight. Flashing before on the sweeping tiood. Unknown to her the subtle skill In the changeful wind, with shimmer and With which the artist-eye can trace shade, In rock and tree and lake and bill Now high, now low, that firelight played, THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 29 On tree-leaves wet with evening dews, And, drawn from that great stone vase On gliding water and still canoes. which stands In the river scooped by a spirit's hands, The trapper that night on Turee's brook, Garnished with spoons of shell and horn, And the weary fisher on Contoocook, Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn. Saw over the marshes, and through the pine, And down on the river, the dance-lights Thus bird of the air and beast of the field, shine. All which the woods and the waters yield, Furnished in that olden day For the Saugus Sachem had come to woo The bridal feast of the Bashaba. The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo, And laid at her father's feet that night And merrily when that feast was done His softest furs and wampum white. On the fire-lit green the dance begun, With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper hum From the Crystal Hills to the far southeast Of old men beating the Indian drum. The river Sagamores came to the feast ; And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds shook Painted and plumed, with scalp-locks flow- Sat down on the mats of Pennacook. ing, And red arms tossing and black eyes glow- They came from Sunapee's shore of rock, ing, From the snowy sources of Snooganock, Now in the light and now in the shade And from rough Coös whose thick woods Around the fires the dancers played. shake Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake. The step was quicker, the song more shrill, And the beat of the small drums louder still From Ammonoosuc's mountain pass, Whenever within the circle drew Wild as bis home, came Chepewass ; The Saugus Sachem and Weetamoo. And the Keenomps of the hills which throw Their shade on the Smile of Manito. The moons of forty winters had shed Their snow upon that chieftain's head, With pipes of peace and bows unstrung, And toil and care and battle's chance Glowing with paint came old and young, Had seamed his hard, dark countenance. In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed, To the dance and feast the Bashaba made. A fawn beside the bison grim,- Why turns the bride's fond eye on him, Bird of the air and beast of the field, In whose cold look is naught beside All which the woods and the waters yield, The triumph of a sullen pride ? On dishes of birch and hemlock piled, Garnished and graced that banquet wild. Ask why the graceful grape entwines The rough oak with her arm of vines ; Steaks of the brown bear fat and large And why the gray rock's rugged cheek From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge ; The soft lips of the mosses seek : Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook, Ind salmon speared in the Contoocook ; Why, with wise instinct, Nature seems To harmonize her wide extremes, Squirrels which fed where nuts fell thick Linking the stronger with the weak, In the gravelly bed of the Otternic ; The haughty with the soft and meek ! And small wild-hens in reed-snares caught From the banks of Sondagardee brought ; V. THE NEW HOME Pike and perch from the Suncook taken, Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills A wild and broken landscape, spiked with shaken, firs, Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog, Roughening the bleak horizon's northern And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog : edge ; 30 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS lock spurs show, Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hem- No warmth of heart, no passionate burst of feeling And sharp, gray splinters of the wind- Repaid her welcoming smile and parting swept ledge kiss, Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose, No fond and playful dalliance half con- Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down cealing, upon the snows. Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness ; But, in their stead, the warrior's settled And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched pride, away, And vanity's pleased smile with homage Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree, satisfied. O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day Enough for Weetamoo, that she alone Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck Sat on his mat and slumbered at his side ; sea ; That he whose fame to her young ear had And faint with distance came the stifled flown roar, Now looked upon her proudly as his The melancholy lapse of waves on that low bride ; shore. That he whose name the Mobawk trembling heard No cheerful village with its mingling Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly look smokes, or word. No laugh of children wrestling in the For she had learned the maxims of her No camp-tire blazing through the hillside race, oaks, Which teach the woman to become a No fishers kneeling on the ice below; slave, Yet midst all desolate things of sound and And feel herself the pardonless disgrace view, Of love's fond weakness in the wise and Through the long winter moons smiled brave, - dark-eyed Weetamoo. The scandal and the shame which they incur, Her heart had found a home ; and freshly Who give to woman all which man re- all quires of her. Its beautiful affections overgrew Their rugged prop. As o'er some granite So passed the winter moons. The sun at wall Soft vine-leaves open to the moistening Broke link by link the frost chain of the dew rills, And warın bright sun, the love of that And the warm breathings of the southwest young wife passed Found on a hard cold breast the dew and Over the hoar rime of the Sangus hills ; warmth of life. The gray and desolate marsh grew green once more, The steep, bleak hills, the melancholy And the bireb-tree's tremulous shade fell shore, round the Sachem's door. The long, dead level of the marsh be- tween, Then from far Pennacook swift runners A coloring of unreal beauty wore came, Through the soft golden mist of young With gift and greeting for the Sangus love seen. chief: For o'er those hills and from that dreary Beseeching him in the great Sachem's plain, Nightly she welcomed home her hunter That, with the coming of the flower and chief again. leaf, last 0 name, THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 31 sees The song of birds, the warm breeze and Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's the rain, hearth-light Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely Shines round the helmsman plunging sire again. through the night ; And still, with inward eye, the traveller And Winnepurkit called his chiefs together, And a grave council in his wigwam met, In close, dark, stranger streets his native Solemn and brief in words, considering trees. whether The rigid rules of forest etiquette The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly Permitted Weetamoo once more to look fanned Upon her father's face and green-banked By breezes whispering of his native land, Pennacook. And on the stranger's dim and dying eye The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood With interludes of pipe-smoke and strong lie. water, The forest sages pondered, and at length Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once more Concluded in a body to escort her A child upon her father's wigwam floor ! Cp to her father's home of pride and Once more with her old fondness to beguile strength, From his cold eye the strange light of a Impressing thus on Pennacook a sense smile. Of Winnepurkit's power and regal conse- quence. The long, bright days of summer swiftly passed, So through old woods which Aukeetamit's The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising hand blast, A soft and many-shaded greenness lent, And evening cloud and whitening sunrise Over high breezy hills, and meadow land rime Yellow with flowers, the wild procession Told of the coming of the winter-time. went, Till, rolling down its wooded banks between, But vainly looked, the while, young Weeta- A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merri- mac was seen. Down the dark river for her chief's canoe ; No dusky messenger from Saugus brought The hunter leaning on his bow undrawn, The grateful tidings which the young wife The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores, sought. Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed- corn, At length a runner from her father sent, Young children peering through the To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went; wigwam doors, • Eagle of Saugus, - in the woods the dove Saw with delight, surrounded by her train Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of Of painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo love." again. But the dark chief of Saugus turned aside In the grim anger of hard-hearted pride ; AT PENNACOOK “I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter, The hills are dearest which our childish Up to her home beside the gliding water. feet Have climbed the earliest ; and the streams “If now no more a mat for her is found most sweet Of all which line her father's wigwam Are ever those at which our young lips round, drank Let Pennacook call out his warrior train, Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy And send her back with wampum gifts bank. again." moo VI. 32 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 66 66 The baftled runner turned upon his track, Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak dis- Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back. tress, Dog of the Marsh,” cried Pennacook, Her home-bound grief and pining loneli- “ no more ness? Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor. VII. THE DEPARTURE Go, let him seek some meaner squaw to spread The wild March rains had fallen fast and The stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed ; long Son of a fish-hawk! let bim dig his clams The snowy mountains of the North among, For some vile daughter of the Agawams, Making each vale a watercourse, each hill Bright with the cascade of some new-maule " Or coward Nipmucks ! may his scalp dry rill. black In Mohawk smoke, before I send her back.” Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the He shook his clenched hand towards the rain, ocean wave, Ileaved underneath by the swollen current's While hoarse assent his listening council strain, gave. The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merrimae Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track. Alas, poor bride ! can thy grim sire impart His iron hardness to thy woman's heart ? On that strong turbid water, a small boat Or cold self-torturing pride like his atone Guided by one weak hand was seen to float: For love denied and life's warın beauty Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore, flown? Too early voyager with too frail an oar! On Autumn's gray and mournful grave the Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide, The thick, huge ice - blocks threatening Hung its white wreaths ; with stifled voice either side, and low The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view, The river crept, by one vast bridge o'er- With arrowy swiftness sped that light crossed, canoe. Built by the hoar-locked artisan of Frost. The trapper, moistening his moose's meat And many a moon in beauty newly born On the wet bank by l'ncanoonue's feet, Pierced the red sunset with her silver horn, Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled Or, from the east, across her azure field stream ; Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed Slept he, or waked he ? was it truth or shield. dream? Yet Winnepurkit came not, — on the mat The straining eye bent fearfully before, Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat ; The small hand elenching on the useless oar. And he, the while, in Western woods afar, The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the L’rged the long chase, or trod the path of water- Ile knew them all – woe for the Sachem's daughter ! Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief! Sick and aweary of her lonely life, Waste not on him the sacredness of grief ; , Needless of peril, the still faithful wife Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own, Had left ber mother's grave, her father's Ilis lips of scorning, and his heart of stone. door, To seek the wigwam of her chief once more. What heels the warrior of a bundred fights, The storm-worn watcher through long bunt Down the white rapids like a sear leaf ing nights, whirled, snow Wur. BARCLAY OF URY 33 On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled, Empty and broken, circled the canoe In the vexed pool below- but where was Weetamoo ? Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell, On the high wind their voices rose and fell. Nature's wild music, sounds of wind- swept trees, The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze, The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong, Mingled and murmured in that farewell song. VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN The Dark eye has left us, The Spring-bird has flown ; On the pathway of spirits She wanders alone. The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore : Mat wonck kunna-monee! We hear it no more! BARCLAY OF URY O dark water Spirit ! We cast on thy wave These furs which may never Hang over her grave ; Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore : Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentlenian and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. “I find more satis- faction,” said Barclay, “as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aber- deen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor." Of the strange land she walks in No Powah has told : It may burn with the sunshine, Or freeze with the cold. Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore : Mat ronck kunna-monee! We see her no more ! The path she is treading Shall soon be our own ; Each gliding in shadow Unseen and alone ! In vain shall we call on the souls gone be- fore : Jlal wonck kunna-monee! They hear us no more ! U'p the streets of Aberdeen, By the kirk and college green, Rode the Laird of Ury ; Close behind him, close beside, Foul of mouth and evil-eyed, Pressed the mob in fury. O mighty Sowanna ! Thy gateways unfold, From thy wigwam of sunset Lift curtains of gold ! Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er : Jat rronck kunna-monee! We see her no more! Flouted him the drunken churl, Jeered at him the serving-girl, Prompt to please her master ; And the begging carlin, late Fed and clothed at Ury's gate, Cursed him as he passed her. Yet, with calm and stately mien, Up the streets of Aberdeen Came he slowly riding ; And, to all he saw and heard, Answering not with bitter word, Turning not for chiding: So sang the Children of the Leaves beside The broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide ; 34 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Came a troop with broadswords swinging, Bits and bridles sharply ringing, Loose and free and froward ; Quoth the foremost, " Ride him down ! Push him ! prick him ! through the town Drive the Quaker coward !”. But from out the thickening crowd Cried a sudden voice and loud : “ Barclay! Ho! a Barclay !” And the old man at his side Saw a comrade, battle tried, Scarred and sunburned darkly ; Who with ready weapon bare, Fronting to the troopers there, Cried aloud : “God save us, Call ve coward him who stood Ankle deep in Lützen's blood, With the brave Gustavus ?” “Give me joy that in His nam I can bear, with patient frame, All these vain ones offer ; While for them He suffereth long, Shall I answer wrong with wrong, Scoffing with the scoffer ? “ Happier I, with loss of all, Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall, With few friends to greet ine, Than when reeve and squire were seen, Riding out from Aberdeen, With bared heads to meet me. “ When each goodwife, o'er and o'er, Blessed me as I passed her door ; And the snooded daughter, Through her casement glancing down, Smiled on him who bore renown Froin red fields of slaughter. “llard to feel the stranger's scoff, Hard the old friend's falling off, Hard to learn forgiving ; But the Lord His own rewards, And His love with theirs accords, Warm and fresh and living. a “ Nay, I do not need thy sword, Comrade mine," said lry's lord ; ** Put it up, I pray thee : Passive to His holy will, Trust I in my Master still, Even though He slay me. " Pledges of thy love and faith, Proved on many a field of death, Not by me are needed." Marvelled much that henchman bold, That his laird, so stout of old, Now so meekly pleaded. “ Woe's the day !” he sadly said, With a slowly shaking head, And a look of pity ; “Ury's honest lord reviled, Mock of knave and sport of child, In his own good city! "Speak the word, and, master mine, As we charged on Tilly's line, And his Walloon lancers, Smiting throngh their midst we 'll teach Civil look and decent speech To these boyish prancers!” “ Marvel not, mine ancient friend, Like beginning, like the end," Quoth the Laird of l'ry ; "Is the sinful servant more Than his gracious Lord who bore Bonds and stripes in Jewry ? “ Through this dark and stormy night Faith beholds a feeble light l'p the blackness streaking; Knowing God's own time is best, In a patient hope I rest For the full day-breaking !" So the Laird of U'ry said, Turning slow his horse's head Towards the Tolbooth prison, Where, through iron gates, he heard Poor disciples of the Word Preach of Christ arisen ! Not in vain, Confessor old, l'nto us the tale is told Of thy day of trial ; Every age on him who strays From its broad and beaten ways Pours its seven-fold vial. Happy he whose inward ear Angel comforting can hear, O'er the rabble's laughter; And while Hatred's fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good hereafter, THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 35 seen Knowing this, that never yet And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down Share of Truth was vainly set the ranks of gray. In the world's wide fallow ; Hark! that sudden blast of bugles ! there After hands shall sow the seed, the troop of Minon wheels ; After hands from hill and mead There the Northern horses thunder, with Reap the harvests yellow. the cannon at their heels. Thus, with somewhat of the Seer, "Jesu, pity ! how it thickens ! now retreat Must the moral pioneer and now advance ! From the Future borrow ; Right against the blazing cannon shivers Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, Peubla's charging lance ! And, on midnight's sky of rain, Down they go, the brave young riders ; Paint the golden morrow! horse and foot together fall; Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA them ploughs the Northern ball." A letter - writer from Mexico during the Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling Mexican war, when detailing some of the inci- fast and frightful on ! dents at the terrible fight of Buena Vista, Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has mentioned that Mexican women were lost, and who has won ? hovering near the field of death, for the pur- “ Alas! alas ! I know not ; friend and foe pose of giving aid and succor to the wounded. together fall, One poor woman was found surrounded by the O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my maimed and suffering of both armies, minister- sisters, for them all ! ing to the wants of Americans as well as Mex- icans with impartial tenderness. “ Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking Blessed Mother, save my brain ! north ward far away, I can see the wounded crawling slowly out O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mex- from heaps of slain. Now they stagger, blind and bleeding ; now Who is losing? who is winning ? are they they fall , and strive to rise ; far or come they near ? Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither they die before our eyes ! rolls the storm we hear. “O my heart's love! ( my dear one ! lay “ Down the hills of Angostura still the storm thy poor head on my knee ; of battle rolls; Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee ? Blood is flowing, men are dying ; God have Canst thou hear me ? canst thou mercy on their souls ! ” Who is losing? who is winning ? « Over O my husband, brave and gentle ! O my hill and over plain, Bernal, look once more I see but smoke of cannon clouding through On the blessed cross before thee ! Mercy ! the mountain rain.” mercy | all is o'er!” Holy Mother! keep our brothers ! Look, Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena ; lay thy Ximena, look once more. dear one down to rest ; " Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross darkly as before, upon his breast; Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his foeman, foot and horse, funeral masses said ; Like some wild and troubled torrent sweep- To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ing down its monntain course. ask thy aid. Look forth once more, Ximena! “Ah ! the Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and smoke has rolled away ; young, a soldier lay, ican array, 64 see ? 36 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 2 Torn with shot and pierced with lances, Over weak and suffering brothers, with a bleeding slow his life away ; tender care they hung, But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena And the dying foeman blessed them in a knelt, strange and Northeru tongue. She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt. Not wholly lost, ( Father! is this evil world of ours ; With a stifled cry of horror straight she Upward, through its blood and asbes, spring turned away her head ; afresh the Eden flowers ; With a sad and bitter feeling looked she From its smoking hell of battle, Love and back upon her dead ; Pity send their prayer, But she heard the youth's low moaning, and And still thy white-winged angels hover his struggling breath of pain, dimly in our air ! And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again. THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and faintly smiled ; " This legend (to which my attention was Was that pitying face his mother's ? did called by my friend Charles Sumner, is the she watch beside her child ? subject of a celebrated picture by Tintoretta All his stranger words with meaning her of which Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch. The slave lies on the ground, ami a woman's heart supplied ; With her kiss upon his forehead, “ Mother!" crowd of spectators, who look on, animated by all the various emotions of sympachy, raut, murmured he, and died ! terror; a woman, in front, with a child in ber arms, has always been admired for the lifelike “ A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who vivacity of her attitude and expression. The led thee forth, executioner holds up the broken implements, From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weep- St. Mark, with a headlong movement, seeius to ing, lonely, in the North !” rush down from heaven in haste to save his Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she worshipper. The dramatic grouping in this laid him with her dead, picture is wonderful; the coloring. in its gor- And turned to soothe the living, and bind Sketch. finer than in the picture." - Mrs. geous depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers the wounds which bled. Jamison's Sacred and Legendary .lrt, i. 1. Look forth once more, Ximena! “ Like a The day is closing dark and cold, cloud before the wind With ronring blast and sleety showers; Rolls the battle down the mountains, leav- And through the dusk the lilacs wear ing blood and death behind ; The bloom of snow, instead of flowers. Ah! they plead in vain for merey ; in the dust the wounded strive ; I turn me from the gloom without, Hide your faces, holy angels! (thou To ponder o'er a tale of old; Christ of God, forgive !” A legend of the age of Faithi, By dreaming monk or abbess told. Sink, 0 Night, among thy mountains ! let the cool, gray shadows fall; On Tintoretto's canvas lives Dying brothers, tighting demons, drop thy That fancy of a loving heart, curtain over all ! In graceful lines and shapes of power, Through the thiekening winter twilight, And hues immortal as his art. wide apart the battle rolled, In its sheath the sabre rested, and the can- In Provence (so the story runs) nou's lips grew cold. There lived a lord, to whom, as slave, A peasant-boy of tender years But the noble Mexic women still their holy The chance of trade or conquest gave. task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, Forth-looking from the castle tower, worn and faint and lacking food. Beyond the hills with almonds dark, KATHLEEN 37 The straining eye could scarce discern The chapel of the good St. Mark. And there, when bitter word or fare The service of the youth repaid, By stealth, before that holy shrine, For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed. The steed stamped at the castle gate, The boar-hunt sounded on the hill ; Why staved the Baron from the chase, With looks so stern, and words so ill ? O weary ones ! ye may not see Your helpers in their downward flight; Nor hear the sound of silver wings Slow beating through the hush of night! But not the less gray Dothan shone, With sunbright watchers bending low, That Fear's dim eye belield alone The spear-heads of the Syrian foe. There are, who, like the Seer of old, Can see the helpers God has sent, And how life's rugged mountain-side Is white with many an angel tent ! They hear the heralds whom our Lord Sends down his pathway to prepare ; And light, from others hidden, shines On their high place of faith and prayer. Let such, for earth's despairing ones, Hopeless, yet longing to be free, Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer : Lord, ope their eyes, that they may "Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn, By scath of fire and strain of cord, How ill they speed who give dead saints The homage due their living lord !” 66 see !" KATHLEEN They bound him on the fearful rack, When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark, He saw the light of shining robes, And knew the face of good St. Mark. Then sank the iron rack apart, The cords released their cruel clasp, The pincers, with their teeth of fire, Fell broken from the torturer's grasp. And lo! before the Youth and Saint, Barred door and wall of stone gave way; And np from bondage and the night They passed to freedom and the day ! O dreaming monk ! thy tale is true ; O painter! true thy pencil's art ; In tones of hope and prophecy, Ye whisper to my listening heart ! Unheard no burdened heart's appeal Moans up to God's inclining ear ; Cnheeded by his tender eye, Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear. For still the Lord alone is God! The pomp and power of tyrant man Are scattered at his lightest breath, Like chaff before the winnower's fan. This ballad was orig bublished in my prose work, Leaves from Margaret Smith's Jour- nal, as the song of a wandering Milesian school- master. In the seventeenth century, slavery in the New World was by no means confined to the natives of Africa. Political offenders and criminals were transported by the British gov- ernment to the plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where they were sold like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of free and innocent white persons was practised to a considerable extent in the seaports of the United Kingdom. O Norah, lay your basket down, And rest your weary hand, And come and hear me sing a song Of our old Ireland. There was a lord of Galaway, A mighty lord was he ; And he did wed a second wife, A maid of low degree. Xot always shall the slave uplift His heavy hands to Heaven in vain. God's angel, like the good St. Mark, Comnes shining down to break his chain ! But he was old, and she was young, And so, in evil spite, She baked the black bread for his kin, And fed her own with white. 38 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS She whipped the maids and starved the They crept before the dead-vault door, kern, And there they all stood still! And drove away the poor ; “Ah, woe is me!” the old lord said, “Get up, old man ! the wake-lights shine!" " I rue my bargain sore !” “ Ye murthering witch," quoth he, “So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care This lord he had a daughter fair, If they shine for you or me." Beloved of old and young, And nightly round the shealing-fires “Oh, whoso brings my daughter back, Of her the gleeman sung. My gold and land shall have !" Oh, then spake up his handsome page, “ As sweet and good is young Kathleen “ No gold nor land I crave ! As Eve before her fail ;" So sang the harper at the fair, “ But give to me your daughter dear, So harped he in the hall. Give sweet Kathleen to ine, Be she on sea or be she on land, “Oh, come to me, my daughter dear! I 'll bring her back to thee." Come sit upon my knee, For looking in your face, Kathleen, “My daughter is a lady born, Your mother's own I see !" And you of low degree, But she shall be your bride the day He smoothed and smoothed her hair You bring her back to me." away, IIe kissed her forehead fair ; He sailed east, he sailed west, * It is my darling Mary's brow, And far and long sailed be, It is my darling's hair!" l'ntil he came to Boston town, Across the great salt sea. Oh, then spake up the angry dame, “Get up, get up," quoth she, “Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen, “I'll sell ye over Ireland, The flower of Ireland ? I 'll sell ye o'er the sea !” Ye 'll know her by her eyes so blue, And by her snow-white hand !" She clipped her glossy hair away, That none her rank might know, Ont spake an ancient man, “ I know She took away her gown of silk, The maiden whom ye mean ; And gave her one of tow, I bought her of a Limerick man, And she is called Kathleen. And sent her down to Limerick town And to a seaman sold “Xo skill bath she in honsehold work, This daughter of an Irish lord ller hands are soft and white, For ten good pounds in gold. Yet well by loving looks and ways She doth her cost requite." The lord he smote upon his breast, And tore his beard so gray; So up they walked through Boston town, But he was old, and she was young, And met a maiden fair, And so she had her way. A little basket on her arın So snowy-white and bare. Sure that same night the Banshee howled To fright the evil dame, “Come hither, child, and sar hast thou And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen, This young man ever seen?” With funeral torches came. They wept within each other's arms, The page and young Kathleen. She watched them glancing through the trees, “Oh give to me this darling child, And glimmering down the hill; And take my purse of gold." THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE 39 26 а “ Nay, not by me,” her master said, “Shall sweet Kathleen be sold. The shadows of a humbled will And contrite heart are o'er it; Go read its legend, “Trust in God,” On Faith's white stones before it. THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS “We loved her in the place of one The Lord hath early ta'en ; But, since her heart's in Ireland, We give her back again !” Oh, for that same the saints in heaven For his poor soul shall pray, And Mary Mother wash with tears His heresies away. Sure now they dwell in Ireland; As you go up Claremore Ye 'll see their castle looking down The pleasant Galway shore. And the old lord's wife is dead and gone, And a happy man is he, For he sits beside his own Kathleen, With her darling on his knee. THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE 6 Pennant, in his Voyage to the Flebrides, de- scribes the holy well of Loch Maree, the waters of which were supposed to effect a miraculous eure of melancholy, trouble, and insanity. his old age. CALM on the breast of Loch Maree A little isle reposes ; A shadow woven of the oak And willow o'er it closes. Within, a Druid's mound is seen, Set round with stony warders ; A fountain, guishing through the turf, Flows o'er its grassy borders. The incident upon which this poem is based is related in a note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes de la Nature. “We arrived at the habitation of the Her- mits a little before they sat down to their table, and while they were still at church. J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer up our devo- tions. The hermits were reciting the Litanies of Providence, which are remarkably beautiful. After we had addressed our prayers to God, and the hermits were proceeding to the refec- tory, Rousseau said to me, with his heart overflowing, “At this moment I experience what is said in the gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. There is here a feeling of peace and happiness which penetrates the soul.' Í said, If Fénelon had lived, you would have been a Catholic.' He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, 'Oh, if Fénelon were alive, I would struggle to get into his service, even as a lackey!” ” In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen that I have somewhat antedated the period of At that time he was not probably more than fifty. In describing him, I have by no means exaggerated his own history of his mental condition at the period of the story. In the fragmentary Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus speaks of himself: “ The in- gratitude of those of whom I had deserved kindness, unexpected family misfortunes, the total loss of my small patrimony through en- terprises solely undertaken for the benefit of my country, the debts under which I lay op- pressed, the blasting of all my hopes, – these combined calamities made dreadful inroads upon my health and reason. .. I found it impossible to continue in a room where there was company, especially if the doors were shut. I could not even cross an alley in a public gar- den, if several persons had got together in it. When alone, my malady subsided. I felt my- self likewise at ease in places where I saw chil- dren only. At the sight of any one walking up to the place where I was, I felt my whole frame agitated, and retired. I often said to myself, “My sole study has been to merit well of mankind; why do I fear them ?'” He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the counsels of his friend, J. J. Rousseau. “I renounced," says he," my books. And whoso bathes therein his brow, With care or madness burning, Feels once again bis healthful thought And sense of peace returning. O restless heart and fevered brain, Unquiet and unstable, That holy well of Loch Maree Is more than idle fable ! Life's changes vex, its discords stun, Its glaring sunshine blindeth, And blest is he who on his way That fount of healing findeth! 40 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS a I threw my eyes upon the works of nature, O light and air of Palestine, whicl spake to all my senses a langnage which Impregnate with His life divine ! neither time nor nations have it in their power to alter. Thenceforth my histories and my “Oh, bear me thither! Let me look journals were the herbage of the fields and On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook ; meadows. My thoughts did not go forth pain- Kneel at Gethsemane, and by fully after them, as in the case of human systems; but their thoughts, under a thousand Gennesaret walk, before I die ! engaging forms, quietly sought me. In these I studid, without effort, the laws of that l'ni. “Methinks this cold and northern night versal Wisdom which had surrounded me from Would melt before that Orient light ; the cradle, but on which heretofore I had be- And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain, stowed little attention." My childhood's faith revive again!” Speaking of Rousseau, he says: “I derived inexpressible satisfaction from his society. So spake my friend, one autumn day, What I prized still more than his genius was Where the still river slid away his probity. He was one of the few literary characters, tried in the furnace of affliction, to Beneath us, and above the brown whom you could, with perfect security, contide Red curtains of the woods shut down. your most secret thoughts. ... Even when he deviated, and became the victim of himself or Then said I, - for I could not brook of others, he could forget his own misery in The mute appealing of his look,- devotion to the welfare of mankind. He was * I too am weak, and faith is small, uniformly the advocate of the niserable. And blindness happeneth unto all. There might be inscribed on his tomb these atfeeting words from that Book of which he “ Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight, carried always about him some select passages, during the last years of his life: Ílis sins, Through present wrong, the eternal right; which are many, are forgiven, for he loved And, step by step, since time began, much." I see the steady gain of man ; “I do believe, and yet, in grief, * That all of good the past hath had I pray for help to unbelief; Remains to make our own time glad, For needful strength aside to lay Our common daily life divine, The daily cumberings of my way. And every land a Palestine. “I'm sick at heart of craft and cant, “ Thou weariest of thy present state ; Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant, What gain to thee time's holiest date? Profession's smooth hypocrisies, The doubter now perchance had been And creeds of iron, and lives of ease. .Is High Priest or as Pilate then! “I ponder o'er the sacred word, “What thought Chorazin's scribes? What I read the record of our Lord ; faith And, weak and troubled, envy them In Him bad Nain and Nazareth ? Who touched llis seamless garment's Of the few followers whom He led hein ; Que sold Ilim, - all forsook and Hed. “Who saw the tears of love lle wept “() friend! we need nor rock nor sand, Above the grave where Lazarus slept ; Vor storied stream of Morning-Land ; And heard, amidst the shadows dim The heavens are glassed in Vierrimac, — Of Olivet, His evening hyran. What more could Jordan rinder back? “ Hlow blessed the swineherd's low estate, “We lack but open eve and ear The beggar crouching at the gate, To find the Orient's marvels here ; The leper loathils and abhorred, The still small voice in autumn's hush, Whose eyes of thesh bebeld the Lord ! Yon maple wood the burning bush. * () sacred soil Ilis sandals pressed ! « For still the new transcends the old, Sweet fountains of this noonday rest! In signs and tokens manifold ; THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 41 Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves ! And, mateless, childless, envied more The peasant's welcome from his door By smiling eyes at eventide, Than kingly gifts or lettered pride. Until, in place of wife and child, All-pitying Nature on him smiled, And gave to him the golden keys To all her inmost sanctities. " Through the harsh noises of our day A low, sweet prelude finds its way ; Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, A light is breaking, calm and clear. “That song of Love, now low and far, Erelong shall swell from star to star ! That light, the breaking day, which tips The golden-spired Apocalypse !” Then, when my good friend shook his head, And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said : · Thou mind'st me of a story told In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold." Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim ! She laid her great heart bare to him, Its loves and sweet accords ; – he saw The beauty of her perfect law. The language of her signs he knew, What notes her cloudy clarion blew ; The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes, The hymn of sunset's painted skies. And while the slanted sunbeams wove The shadows of the frost-stained grove, And, picturing all, the river ran O'er cloud and wood, I thus began :- And thus he seemed to hear the song Which swept, of old, the stars along ; And to his eyes the earth once more Its fresh and primal beauty wore. summer In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood The Chapel of the Hermits stood ; And thither, at the close of day, Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray. One, whose impetuous youth defied The storms of Baikal's wintry side, And milsed and dreamed where tropic day Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay. His simple tale of love and woe All hearts had melted, high or low ;- A blissful pain, a sweet distress, Immortal in its tenderness. Who sought with him, from air, And field and wood, a balm for care, And bathed in light of sunset skies His tortured nerves and weary eyes ? His fame on all the winds had flown ; His words had shaken crypt and throne ; Like fire on camp and court and cell They dropped, and kindled as they fell. Beneath the pomps of state, below The mitred juggler's masque and show, A prophecy, a vague hope, ran His burning thought from man to man. For peace or rest too well he saw The fraud of priests, the wrong of law, And felt how hard, between the two, Their breath of pain the millions drew. A prophet-utterance, strong and wild, The weakness of an unweaned child, A sun-bright hope for human-kind, And self-despair, in him combined. Yet, while above his charmëd page Beat quick the young heart of his age, He walked amidst the crowd unknown, A sorrowing old man, strange and lone. A homeless, troubled age, Pale setting of a weary day; Too dull his ear for voice of praise, Too sadly worn his brow for bays. Pride, lust of power and glory, slept ; Yet still his heart its young dream kept, And, wandering like the deluge-dove, Still sought the resting-place of love. - the gray He loathed the false, yet lived not true To half the glorious truths he knew ; The doubt, the discord, and the sin, He mourned without, he felt within. 42 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS U'ntrod by him the path he showed, To them the green fields and the wood Sweet pictures on his easel glowed Lent something of their quietude, Of simple faith, and loves of home, And golden-tinted sunset seemed And virtue's golden days to come. Prophetical of all they dreamed. But weakness, shame, and folly made The hermits from their simple cares TI foil to all bis pen portrayed ; The bell was calling home to prayers, Still, where his dreamy splendors shone, And, listening to its sound, the twain The shadow of himself was thrown. Seemed lapped in childhood's trust again. Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times, wide open stood the chapel door ; I'p to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs, A sweet old music, swelling o'er While still his grosser instinet clings Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence, – To earth, like other creeping things! The Litanies of Providence ! So rich in words, in acts so mean ; Then Rousseau spake : “Where two or So high, so low; chance-swing between three The foulness of the penal pit In His name meet, He there will be !" And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit ! And then, in silence, on their knees They sank beneath the chestnut-trees. Vain, pride of star-lent genius! — vain, Quick faney and creative brain, As to the blind returning light, Unblest by prayerful sacrifice, As daybreak to the Arctic night, 1 bsurdly great, or weakly wise ! Old faith revived ; the doubts of years Dissolved in reverential tears. Midst yearnings for a truer life, Without were fears, within was strife; That gush of feeling overpast, And still his wayward act denied “ Ah me!” Bernartlin sighed at last, The perfect good for which he sighed. I would thy bitterest foes could see Thy heart as it is seen of me! The love he sent forth void returned ; The fame that crowned him scorched and * No church of God hast thon denied ; burned, Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside Burning, yet cold and drear and lone, - A bare and hollow counterfeit, A fire-mount in a frozen zone! Profaning the pure name of it! Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed, “With dry dead moss and marish weeds Seen southward from his sleety mast, His fire the western herdsman feeds, About whose brows of changeless frost And greener from the ashen plain wreath of tlame the wild winds tossed. The sweet spring grasses rise again. Far round the mournful beauty played “ Vor thunder-peal nor mighty wind Of lambent light and purple shade, Disturb the solid sky behind ; Lost on the fixed and dumb despair And through the cloud the red bolt rends Of frozen earth and sea and air! The calm, still smile of Ileaven descends ! A man apart, unknown, unloved “ Thus through the world, like bolt and By those whose wrongs his soul had moved, blast, He bore the ban of Church and State, And scourging fire, thy words have passed. The good man's fear, the bigot's hate ! Clouds break, -- the steadfast heavens re- main ; Forth from the city's noise and throng, Weeds burn, – the ashes feed the grain ! Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong, The twain that summer day had strayed * But whoso strives with wrong may find To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade. Its touch pollute, its darkness bliad; 66 66 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 43 And learn, as latent fraud is shown In others' faith, to doubt his own. “ He lived the Truth which reconciled The strong man Reason, Faith, the child ; In him belief and act were one, The homilies of duty done ! ” • With dream and falsehood, simple trust And pious hope we tread in dust; Lost the calm faith in goodness, - lost The baptism of the Pentecost ! So speaking, through the twilight gray The two old pilgrims went their way. What seeds of life that day were sown, The heavenly watchers knew alone. 66 Alas!- the blows for error meant Too oft on truth itself are spent, As through the false and vile and base Looks forth her sad, rebuking face. Time passed, and Autumn came to fold Green Summer in her brown and gold ; Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau. * Not ours the Theban's charmëd life ; We come not scathless from the strife! The Python's coil about us clings, The trampled Hydra bites and stings ! « The tree remaineth where it fell, The pained on earth is pained in hell !” So priestcraft from its altars cursed The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed. * Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance, The plastic shapes of circumstance, What might have been we fondly guess, If earlier born, or tempted less. Ah ! well of old the Psalmist prayed, “ Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid !” Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above, And man is hate, but God is love! " And thou, in these wild, troubled days, Misjudged alike in blame and praise, Cnsought and undeserved the same The skeptic's praise, the bigot's blame ; "I cannot doubt, if thou hadst been Among the highly favored men Who walked on earth with Fénelon, He would have owned thee as his son ; No Hermits now the wanderer sees, Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees; A morning dream, a tale that's told, The wave of change o'er all has rolled. Yet lives the lesson of that day ; And from its twilight cool and gray Comes up a low, sad whisper, “Make The truth thive own, for truth's own sake. 5. And, bright with wings of cherubim Visibly waving over him, Seen through his life, the Church had seemned All that its old confessors dreamed.” “Why wait to see in thy brief span Its perfect flower and fruit in man? No saintly touch can save ; no balm Of healing hath the martyr's palm. “I would have been," Jean Jacques re- plied, " The humblest servant at his side, Obscure, unknown, content to see How beautiful man's life may be ! “ Midst soulless forms, and false pretence Of spiritual pride and pampered sense, A voice saith, · What is that to thee ? Be true thyself, and follow Me!' 6 * Oh, more than thrice-blest relic, more Than solemn rite or sacred lore, The holy life of one who trod The foot-inarks of the Christ of God ! “In days when throne and altar heard The wanton's wish, the bigot's word, And pomp of state and ritual show Scarce hid the loathsome death below, ** Amidst a blinded world he saw The oneness of the Dual law ; That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth be- gan, And God was loved through love of man. “ Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul, The losel swarm of crown and cowl, White-robed walked François Fénelon, Stainless as Uriel in the sun ! 44 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 64 66 60 ** Yet in his time the stake blazed red, “ To these bowed hearens let wood and The poor were eaten up like bread : hill Men knew him not ; his garment's hem Lift voiceless praise and anthem still ; No healing virtue had for them. Fall, warın with blessing, over them, Light of the New Jerusalem ! Alas ! no present saint we find ; The white cymır gleams far behind, “ Flow on, sweet river, like the stream Revealed in outline vaglie, sublime, Of John's Apocalyptic dream ! Through telescopic mists of time ! This mapled ridge shall Horeb be, Yon green-banked lake our Galilee ! “ Trust not in man with passing breath, But in the Lord, old Scripture saith ; “ Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more The truth which saves thou mayest not For olden time and holier shore ; blend God's love and blessing, then and there, With false professor, faithless friend. Are now and here and everywhere." “ Search thine own heart. What paineth thee TAULER In others in thyself may be ; All dust is frail, all flesh is weak; Tauler, the preacher, walked, one au- Be thou the true man thou dost seek! tumn day, Without the walls of Strasburg, by the “Where now with pain thou treadest, Rhine, trod Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life ; The whitest of the saints of God ! As one who, wandering in a starless night, To show thee where their feet were set, Feels momently the jar of unseen waves The light which led them shineth yet. And hears the thunder of an unknown sea, Breaking along an unimagined shore. "The footprints of the life divine, Which marked their path, remain in thine ; And as he walked he prayed. Even the And that great Life, transfused in theirs, Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers !” Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, A lesson which I well may heed, Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and A word of fitness to my need ; heart So from that twilight cool and gray Had groaned : " Have pity upon me, Loni! Still saith a voice, or seems to say. Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind. Send me a man who can direct my step !** We rose, and slowly homeward turned, Then, as he mused, he heard along his While down the west the sunset burned ; path And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide, A sound as of an old man's staff among And human forins seemed glorified. The dry, dead linden-leaves ; and, looking up, The village homes transfigured stood, He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, ani And purple bluffs, whose belting wood old. Across the waters leaned to hold The yellow leaves like lamps of gold. ** Peace be unto thee, father!" Tauler said, Then spake my friend : “ Thy words are “God give thee a good day!” The old trne ; man raised Forever old, forever new, Slowly his calm blue eyes, “ I thank thee, The home-ween splendors are the same son ; Which over Eden's sunsets came. But all my days are good, and none are ill.** same THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID 45 man 66 mean. 9 ful step Wondering thereat, the preacher spake Apart the shadow wherein he had walked again, Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old "God give thee happy life.” The old man smiled, Went his slow way, until his silver hair “ I never am unhappy.” Set like the white moon where the hills of vine Tauler laid Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray said : sleeve : "My prayer is answered. God bath sent "Tell me, O father, what thy strange words the man Long sought, to teach me, by his simple Surely man's days are evil, and his life trust, Sad as the grave it leads to.” “Nay, my Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew.” son, Our times are in God's hands, and all our So, entering with a changed and cheer- days Are as our needs ; for shadow as for sun, The city gates, he saw, far down the street, For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike A mighty shadow break the light of noon, Our thanks are due, since that is best which Which tracing backward till its airy lines Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes And that which is not, sharing not His life, O'er broad façade and lofty pediment, Is evil only as devoid of good. O'er architrave and frieze and sainted niche, And for the happiness of which I spake, Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the I find it in submission to His will, wise And calm trust in the holy Trinity Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty In the noon-brightness the great Minster's Power.” tower, Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, Silently wondering, for a little space, Rose like a visible prayer. “Behold !” he Stood the great preacher ; then he spake said, “The stranger's faith made plain before Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought As yonder tower outstretches to the earth Which long has followed, whispering The dark triangle of its shade alone through the dark When the clear day is shining on its top, Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life light: Is but the shadow of God's providence, " What if God's will consign thee hence to By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon ; Hell ?” And what is dark below is light in Heaven.” is ; as one mine eyes. THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID O STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith, From inmost founts of life ye start, The spirit's pulse, the vital breath Of soul and heart ! “ Then,” said the stranger, cheerily, “ be it so. What Hell may be I know not ; this I know, I cannot lose the presence of the Lord. One arm, Humility, takes hold upon His dear humanity; the other, Love, Clasps his Divinity. So where I He goes ; and better fire-walled Hell with Hin Than golden-gated Paradise without.” Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sud- den light, Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove gro From pastoral toil, from traffic's din, Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad, Unheard of man, ye enter in The ear of God. Ye brook no forced and measured tasks, Nor weary rote, nor formal chains ; 46 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS The simple heart, that freely asks In love, obtains. For man the living temple is : The merey-seat and cherubim, And all the holy mysteries, He bears with him. And most avails the prayer of love, Which, wordless, shapes itself in deeds, And wearies Heaven for naught above Our common needs. Which brings to God's all-perfect will That trust of His undoubting child Whereby all seeming good and ill Are reconciled. “My brother tills beside the Nile His little field ; beneath the leaves My sisters sit and spin, the while My mother weaves. “And when the millet's ripe heads fall, And all the bean-field hangs in pod, My mother smiles, and says that all Are gifts from God. * And when to share our evening meal, She calls the stranger at the door, She says God tills the hands that deal Food to the poor.” Adown the hermit's wasted cheeks Glistened the flow of human tears ; * Dear Lord !” he said, " Thy angel speaks, Thy servant hears." Within his arms the child he took, And thought of home and life with men; And all his pilgrim feet forsook Returned again. The palmy shadows cool and long, The eves that smiled through lavish locks, Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-song, And bleat of tlocks. And, seeking not for special signs Of favor, is content to fall Within the providence which shines And rains on all. Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned At noontime o'er the sacred word. Was it an angel or a fiend Whose voice he heard ? 0 It broke the desert's hush of awe, A human utterance, sweet and mild ; And, looking up, the hermit saw A little child. n A child, with wonder-widened eyes, O’erawed and troubled by the sight Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies, And anchorite. “ What dost thou here, poor man? No shade Of cool, green palms, nor grass, nor well, Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit said : “With God I dwell. “() child !” he said, “thou teachest me There is no place where God is not ; That love will make, where'er it be, A holy spot." He rose from off the desert sand, And, leaning on his staff of thorn, Went with the young child band in hani. Like night with morn. They crossed the desert's burning line, And heard the palm-tree's rustling fan, The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine, And voice of man. L'nquestioning, his childish guide lle followed, as the small hand led To where a woman, gentle-eyed, Her distaff fed. She rose, she clasped her truant boy, She thanked the stranger with her eyes ; The hermit gazed in doubt and joy And dumb surprise. ** Alone with Him in this great calm, I live not by the outward sense ; My Nile his love, my sheltering palm His providence." The child gazed round him. “ Does God live Here only ?-where the desert's rim Is green with corn, at morn and eve, We pray to Him. MAUD MULLER 47 And lo! — with sudden warmth and light A tender memory thrilled his frame; New-born, the world-lost anchorite A man became. But when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down, The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast, * O sister of El Zara's race, Behold me !— had we not one mother?” She gazed into the stranger's face : "Thou art my brother !” A wish that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known. The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. ** () kin of blood! Thy life of use And patient trust is more than mine ; And wiser than the gray recluse This child of thine. He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, "For, taught of him whom God hath sent, That toil is praise and love is prayer, I come, life's cares and pains content With thee to share." And asked a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road. She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, And filled for him her small tin cup, Even as his foot the threshold crossed The hermit's better life began ; Its boliest saint the Thebaid lost, And found a man ! And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. MAUD MULLER “ Thanks !” said the Judge ; "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed.” He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees ; Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. a The recollection of some descendants of a Hessian deserter in the Revolutionary war bear- ing the name of Muller doubtless suggested the somewhat infelicitous title of a New Eng- land idyl. The poem had no real foundation in fact, though a hint of it may have been found in recalling an incident, trivial in itself, of a journey on the picturesque Maine seaboard sith mr sister some years before it was writ- ten. We had stopped to rest our tired horse under the shade of an apple-tree, and refresh him with water from a little brook which rippled through the stone wall across the road. A very beautiful young girl in scantest sum- mer attire was at work in the bay-field, and as we talked with her we noticed that she strove to hide her bare feet by raking hay over them, blushing as she did so, through the tan of her check and neck. MacD MULLER on a summer's day Paked the meadow sweet with hay. And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; And listened, while a pleased surprise Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. At last, like one who for delay Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. : Maud Muller looked and sighed : “Ah me! That I the Judge's bride might be ! “ He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine. Beneath her torn hat glowed the health Of simple beauty and rustic health. Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee The mock-bird echoed from his tree. “My father should wear a broadcloth coat ; My brother should sail a painted boat. 18 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS " I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the proud man sighed, with a secret And the baby should have a new toy each pain, day. “Ah, that I were free again ! * And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the “ Free as when I rode that day, poor, Where the barefoot maiden raked ber hay.** And all should bless me who left our door." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, The Judge looked back as he climbed the And many children played round her door hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still. But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, Left their traces on heart and brain. “ A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. And oft, when the summer sun shone hot On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, “ And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair. And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall, “ Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay ; In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein; * No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Vor weary lawyers with endless tongues, And, gazing down with timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face. “But low of cattle and song of birds, And healtlı and quiet and loving words.” Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls; But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. The tallow candle an astral burned, So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, And Mand was left in the field alone. Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, A manly form at her side she saw, When he hinnmed in court an old love- And joy was duty and love was law. tune; Then she took up her burden of life again, And the young girl mused beside the well Saying only, “ It might have been.” Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, lle wedded a wife of richest dower, For rich repiner and house holi drudge ! Who lived for fashion, as he for power. God pity them both! and pity us all, Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. He watched a picture come and go; For of all sad words of tongue or pen, And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes The saddest are these : " It might have Looked out in their innocent surprise. been!” Oft, when the wine in his glase was red, Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies He longed for the way ide well instead ; Deeply buried from human eyes; And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms And, in the hereafter, angels may To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. i Roll the stone from its grave away! MARY GARVIN 49 And westward on the sea-wind, that damp MARY GARVIN and gusty grew, Over cedars darkening inland the smokes From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from of Spurwink blew. the lake that never fails, Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's | On the hearth of Farmer Garvin, blazed intervales; the crackling walnut log ; There, in wild and virgin freshness, its Right and left sat dame and goodman, and waters foam and flow, between them lay the dog, As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred years ago. Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside him on her mat, But, vexed in all its seaward course with Sitting drowsy in the firelight, winked and bridges, dams, and mills, purred the mottled cat. How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom of the hills, “Twenty years !” said Goodman Garvin, Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and speaking sadly, under breath, stately Champernoon And his gray head slowly shaking, as one Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, who speaks of death. the trumpet of the loon ! The goodwife dropped her needles : “It is With smoking axle hot with speed, with twenty years to-day, steeds of fire and steam, Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday be- child away.” hind bim like a dream. Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly Then they sank into the silence, for each backward far and fast knew the other's thought, The milestones of the fathers, the land- Of a great and common sorrow, and words marks of the past. were needed not. But human hearts remain unchanged: the “ Who knocks ?” cried Goodman Garvin. sorrow and the sin, The door was open thrown ; The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked our own akin; and furred, the fire-light shone. And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung, One with courteous gesture lifted the bear- Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance skin from his head ; is always young « Lives here Elkanah Garvin ?” “I am he," the goodman said. O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks to-day! “Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for 0 mill-girl watching late and long the the night is chill with rain." shuttle's restless play! And the goodwife drew the settle, and Let, for the once, a listening ear the work- stirred the fire amain. ing hand beguile, And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the a tear or smile ! firelight glistened fair In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of dark brown hair. The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort Mary's walls ; Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and plunged the Saco's falls. Dame Garvin looked upon her : “It is Mary's self I see ! Dear heart !” she cried, tell me, has my child come back to now me ? » 50 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS far away. “My name indeed is Mary,” said the But he started at beholding, as he rose stranger sobbing wild ; from off his knee, " Will you be to me a mother? I am The stranger cross his forehead with the Mary Garvin's child ! sign of Papistrie. “ She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her “ What is this?” cried Farmer Garvin. dying day " Is an English Christian's home She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome ?" “ And when the priest besought her to do Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed me no such wrong, his trembling hand, and cried : She said, . May God forgive me! I have “ Oh, forbear to chide my father ; in that closed my heart too long. faith my mother died ! “* When I hid me from my father, and shut “On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews out my mother's call, and sunshine fall, I sinned against those dear ones, and the As they fall on Spurwink's graverard ; and Father of us all. the dear God watches all !” “ Christ's love rebukes no home - love, The old man stroked the fair head that breaks no tie of kin apart ; rested on his knee ; Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of “Your words, dear child," he answered, heart. “are God's rebuke to me. “ * Tell me not the Church must cen- “ Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet sure : she who wept the Cross be- our faith and hope be one. side Let me be your father's father, let him be Never made her own flesh strangers, nor to me a son.” the claims of blood denied ; When the horn, on Sabbath morning, “* And if she who wronged her parents, through the still and frosty air, with her child atones to them, From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou called to sermon and to prayer, at least wilt not condemn!' To the goodly house of worship, where, in “So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed order due and fit, inother spake ; As by public vote directed, classed and As we come to do her bidding, so receive ranked the people sit ; us for her sake." Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly “ God be praised !" said Goodwife Garvin, squire before the clown, "He taketh, and He gives ; From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to He woundeth, but He healeth ; in her the gray frock, shading down ; child our daughter lives!” From the pulpit read the preacher, “Good- * Amen!" the old man answered, as he man Garvin and his wife brushed a tear away, Fain would thank the Lord, whose kind. And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with ness has followed them through reverence, " Let us pray." life, All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew “ For the great and crowning mercy, that paraphrase, their daughter, from the wild, Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose Where she rests (ther bope in God's peace), his prayer of love and praise. has sent to them her child ; THE RANGER 51 “ And the prayers of all God's people they ask, that they may prove Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such special proof of love." As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple stood, And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maidenhood. Through his painted woodlands stray, Than where hillside oaks and beeches Overlook the long, blue reaches, Silver coves and pebbled beaches, And green isles of Casco Bay ; Nowhere day, for delay, With a tenderer look beseeches, “Let me with my charmed earth stay." Thought the elders, grave and doubting, “She is Papist born and bred ; Thought the young men, “ 'Tis an angel in Mary Garvin's stead ! ” On the grain-lands of the mainlands Stands the serried corn like train-bands, Plume and pennon rustling gay ; Out at sea, the islands wooded, Silver birches, golden-hooded, Set with maples, crimson-blooded, White sea-foam and sand-hills gray, Stretch away, far away, Dim and dreamy, over-brooded By the hazy autumn day. THE RANGER Originally published as Martha Mason; a Song of the old French War. ROBERT RAWLIN !— Frosts were falling When the ranger's born was calling Through the woods to Canada. Gone the winter's sleet and snowing, Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing, Gone the summer's harvest mowing, And again the fields are gray. Yet away, he's away! Faint and fainter hope is growing In the hearts that mourn bis stay. Where the lion, crouching high on Abrabam's rock with teeth of iron, Glares o'er wood and wave away, Faintly thence, as pines far sigbing, Or as thunder spent and dying, Come the challenge and replying, Come the sounds of flight and fray. Well-a-day! Hope and pray ! a Some are living, some are lying In their red graves far away. Straggling rangers, wom with dangers, Homeward faring, weary strangers Pass the farm-gate on their way ; Tidings of the dead and living, Forest march and ambush, giving, Till the maidens leave their weaving, And the lads forget their play. “Still away, still away !” Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving, * Why does Robert still delay !" Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer, Does the golden-locked fruit bearer Gayly chattering to the clattering of the brown nuts downward pattering, Leap the squirrels, red and gray. On the grass-land, on the fallow, Drop the apples, red and yellow ; Drop the russet pears and mellow, Drop the red leaves all the day. And away, swift away, Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow Chasing, weave their web of play. “Martha Mason, Martha Mason, Prithee tell us of the reason Why you mope at home to-day : Surely smiling is not sinning ; Leave your quilling, leave your spinning ; What is all your store of linen, If your heart is never gay? Come away, come away ! Never yet did sad beginning Make the task of life a play." Overbending till she's blending With the flaxen skein she's tending Pale brown tresses smoothed away From her face of patient sorrow, Sits she, seeking but to borrow, From the trembling hope of morrow, Solace for the weary day. “Go your way, laugh and play ; Unto Him who heeds the sparrow And the lily, let me pray.” “With our rally rings the valley, - Join us !” cried the blue-eyed Nelly ; (6 52 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS “ Join us !” cried the laughing May, * To the beach we all are going, And, to save the task of rowing, West by north the wind is blowing, Blowing briskly down the bay ! Come away, come away! Time and tide are swiftly flowing, Let us take them while we may ! " Never tell us that you 'll fail us, Where the purple beach-plum mellows On the bluffs so wild and gray. Hasten, for the oars are falling ; Hark, our merry mates are calling ; Time it is that we were all in, Singing tideward down the bay !” “Nay, nay, let me stay ; Sore and sad for Robert Rawlin Is my heart,” she said, “ to-day.” " Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin! Some red squaw his moose-meat 's broiling, Or some French lass, singing gay ; Just forget as he 's forgetting ; Wbat avails a life of fretting ? If some stars must needs be setting, Others rise as good as they." “ Cease, I pray ; go your way!” Martha cries, her eyelids wetting ; “ Foul and false the words you say !” “ Martha Mason, hear to reason ! Prithee, put a kinder face on!” “Cease to vex me," did she say; * Better at his side be lying, With the mournful pine-trees sighing, And the wild birds o'er us crying, Than to doubt like mine a prey ; While away, far away, Turns my heart, forever trying Some new hope for each new day. " When the shadows veil the meadows, And the sunset's golden ladders Sink from twilight's walls of gray, — From the window of my dreaming, I can see his sickle gleaming, Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming Down the loeust-shaled way; But away, swift away, Fades the fond, delusive seeming, And I kneel again to pray. ** · When the growing dawn is showing, And the barn-yard cock is crowing, And the horned moon pales away : From a dream of him awaking, Every sound my heart is making Seems a footstep of his taking ; Then I hush the thought, and say, Nay, nay, he's away ! Ah ! my heart, my heart is breaking For the dear one far away." Look up, Martha ! worn and swarthy, Glows a face of manhood worthy : “ Robert !” “Martha !” all they say. O’er went wheel and reel together, Little cared the owner whither; Heart of lead is heart of feather, Noon of night is noon of day! Come away, come away! When such lovers meet each other, Why should prying idlers stay ? Quench the timber's fallen embers, Quench the red leaves in December's Hoary rime and chilly spray. But the hearth shall kindle clearer, Household welcomes sound sincerer, Heart to loving heart draw nearer, When the bridal bells shall say: “ Hope and pray, trust alway; Life is sweeter, love is dearer, For the trial and delay!” THE GARRISON OF CAPE AIN From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann. Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide glimmering down, And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient fishing-town. Long has passed the summer morning, and its memory waxes old, When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant friend I strolled. Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean wind blows cool, And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy grave, Rantoul ! With the memory of that morning by the summer sea I blend THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN 53 A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather penned, In that quaint Magnalia Christi, with all strange and marvellous things, Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos Ovid sings. Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by dying brands, Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets in their hands; On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch was shared, And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from beard to beard. coarse Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual life of old, Inward, grand with awe and reverence ; outward, mean and and cold; Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay, Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hodden gray. The great eventful Present hides the Past ; but through the din Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in ; And the lore of home and fireside, and the legendary rhyme, Make the task of duty lighter which the true man owes his time. Long they sat and talked together, talked of wizards Satan-sold; Of all ghostly sights and noises, - signs - and wonders manifold; Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead men in her shrouds, Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morning clouds; Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths of Gloucester woods, Full of plants that love the summer, - blooms of warmer latitudes; Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's flowery vines, And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilight of the pines ! So, with something of the feeling which the Covenanter knew, When with pious chisel wandering Scot- land's moorland graveyards through, From the graves of old traditions I part the blackberry-vines, Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouch the faded lines. But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky tones of fear, As they spake of present tokens of the powers of evil near ;- Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim of gun ; Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of mortals run ! Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, Where the sea-waves back and for- from the midnight wood they ward, hoarse with rolling pebbles, came, ran, Thrice around the block-house march- The garrison-house stood watching on the ing, met, unbarmed, its volleyed gray rocks of Cape Ann; flame; On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, palisade, sunk in earth or lost in air, And rough walls of unhewn timber with All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the the moonlight overlaid. moonlit sands lay bare. On his slow round walked the sentry, south | Midnight came ; from out the forest moved and eastward looking forth a dusky mass that soon O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, with breakers stretching north, grimly marching in the moon. Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, “Ghosts or witches, * said the captain, jagged capes, with bush and tree, “ thus I foil the Evil One !" Leaning inland from the smiting of the And he rammed a silver button, from his wild and gusty sea. doublet, down his gun. а 54 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Once again the spectral horror moved the From the childhood of its people comes the guarded wall about ; solemn legend down. Once again the levelled muskets through Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose the palisades flashed out, moral lives the youth With that deadly aim the squirrel on his And the fitness and the freshness of an un- tree-top might not shun, decaying truth. Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant wing to the sun. Soon or late to all our dwellings come the spectres of the mind, Like the idle rain of summer sped the harm- Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, less shower of lead. in the darkness undefined ; With a laugh of fierce derision, once again Round us throng the grim projections of the the phantoms tled ; heart and of the brain, Once again, without a shadow on the sands And our pride of strength is weakness, and the inoonlight lay, the cunning hand is vain. And the white smoke curling through it drifted slowly down the bay ! In the dark we cry like children ; and no answer from on high “God preserve us !” said the captain ; Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and "never mortal foes were there ; no white wings downward tly ; They have vanished with their leader, But the heavenly help we pray for comes to Prince and Power of the air ! faith, and not to sight, Lay aside your useless weapons ; skill and And our prayers themselves drive backward prowess nanght avail ; all the spirits of the night! They who do the Devil's service wear their master's coat of mail !” THE GIFT OF TRITEMIL'S So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again a warning call Tritemics of Herbipolis, one day, Roused the score of weary soldiers watch- While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray ing round the dusky hall : Alone with Goil, as was his pious choice, And they looked to flint and priming, and Heard from without a miserable voice, they longed for break of day ; A sound which seemed of all sad things to But the captain closed his Bible : "Let us tell, cease from man, and pray !” As of a lost soul crying out of hell. To the men who went before us, all the un- Thereat the Abbot paused ; the chain seen powers seemed near, whereby And their steadfast strength of courage His thoughts went upward broken by that struck its roots in holy fear. cry ; Every hand forsook the musket, every head And, looking from the casement, saw below was bowed and bare, A wretched woman, with gray hair a-tlow, Every stout knee pressed the flag-stones, as And witbered hands held up to him, who the captain led in prayer. cried For alms as one who might not be denied. C'eased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres round the wall, She cried, " For the dear love of Him who But a sound abhorred, mearthly, smote the gave ears and hearts of all, – His life for ours, my child from bondage Ilowls of rage and shrieks of anguish! sare, Never after mortal man My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round slaves the block-house of Cape Inn. In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit So to us who walk in summer through the Lap the white walls of Tunis!" -"What cool and sea-blown town, I can 66 Waves SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE 55 " ( man I give," Tritemius said, “my prayers.”. abled vessel. To screen themselves they charged their captain with the crime. In view Of God !” she cried, for grief had made of this the writer of the ballad addressed the her bold, following letter to the historian : “ Mock me not thus ; I ask not prayers, Oak KNOLL, DANVERS, 5 mo. 18, 1880. but gold. MY DEAR FRIEND; I heartily thank thee Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice ; for a copy of thy History of Marblehead. I Even while I speak perchance my first- have read it with great interest and think good born dies." use has been made of the abundant material. No town in Essex County has a record more "Woman !” Tritemius answered, “from honorable than Marblehead; no one has done our door more to develop the industrial interests of our None go unfed, hence are we always poor ; New England seaboard, and certainly none have given such evidence of self-sacrificing A single soldo is our only store. Thou hast our prayers; patriotism. I am glad the story of it has been what can we at last told, and told so well. I have now no give thee more ? ” doubt that thy version of Skipper Ireson's ride is the correct one. My verse was founded “Give me,” she said, “ the silver candle- solely on a fragment of rhyme which I heard sticks from one of my early schoolmates, a native of On either side of the great crucifix. Marblehead. God well may spare them on His errands I supposed the story to which it referred dated sped, back at least a century. I knew nothing of the participators, and the narrative of the ballad Or He can give you golden ones instead.” was pure fancy. I am glad for the sake of truth and justice that the real facts are given in Then spake Tritemius, “Even as thy thy book. I certainly would not knowingly do word, injustice to any one, dead or living. Woman, so be it ! (Our most gracious I am very truly thy friend, Lord, John G. WHITTIER. Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, Pardon me if a human soul I prize Of all the rides since the birth of time, Abore the gifts upon his altar piled !) Told in story or sung in rhyme, Take what thou askest, and redeem thy On Apuleius's Golden Ass, child." Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, Witch astride of a human back, But his hand trembled as the holy alms Islam's prophet on Al-Borák, He placed within the beggar's eager palms ; | The strangest ride that ever was sped And as she vanished down the linden shade, Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead ! He bowed his head and for forgiveness Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, prayed. Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart So the day passed, and when the twilight By the women of Marblehead ! He woke to find the chapel all aflame, Body of turkey, head of owl, And, dumb with grateful wonder, to be- Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, hold Feathered and ruffled in every part, l'pon the altar candlesticks of gold ! Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. Scores of women, old and young, Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, Shouting and singing the shrill refrain : In the valuable and carefully prepared His- “ Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, tory of Marblehead, published in 1879 by Samuel Roads, Jr., it is stated that the crew Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a of Captain Ireson, rather than himself, were corrt responsible for the abandonment of the dis- By the women o' Morble’ead !” - came a 56 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS a Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, Sweetly along the Salem road Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Little the wicked skipper knew Bacchus round some antique vase, Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Riding there in his sorry trim, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, Like an Indian idol glum and grim, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' Searcely he seemed the sound to bear twang, Of voices shouting, far and near: Over and over the Mænads sang : “ Here's Flud Oirson, fur his bornt “llere 's Flud Oirson, fur bis horrd horrt, horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble’ead !” By the women o' Morble’ead !” “ Hear me, neighbors ! ” at last he cried, - Small pity for him ! - He sailed away “What to me is this noisy ride ? From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay, What is the shame that clothes the skin Sailed away from a sinking wreck, To the nameless horror that lives within: With his own town's-people on her deck ! Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, “ Lay by ! lay by !” they called to him. And hear a cry from a reeling deck ! Back he answered, “ Sink or swim ! Hate me and curse me, - I only dread Brag of your catch of fish again!” The hand of God and the face of the dead ! ** And off he sailed through the fog and Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hani beart, rain ! Tarred and feathered and carried in a Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, cart Tarred and feathered and carried in By the women of Marblehead ! cart By the women of Marblehead ! Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea Said, “ God has touched him! why should Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur That wreck shall lie forevermore. Said an old wife mourning her only son, Mother and sister, wife and maid, “Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!" Looked from the rocks of Marblehead So with soft relentings and rude excuse, Over the moaning and rainy sea, Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, Looked for the coming that might not And gave him a cloak to hide him in, be ! And left him alone with his shame and What did the winds and the sea - birds sin. say Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Of the cruel captain who sailed away ? - Tarred and feathered and carried in a Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, cart Tarred and feathered and carried in a By the women of Marblehead ! cart By the women of Marblehead ! THE SYCAMORES Through the street, on either side, l'p tlew windows, doors swung wide ; Hugh Tallant was the first Irish resident of Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, Haverhill . Mass. He planted the button wood Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. trees on the bank of the river below the village Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, in the early part of the seventeenth centur Hulks of old sailors run aground, I'nfortunately this noble avenue is now nearly Shook head, and fit, and hat, and cane, destroyed. And cracked with curses the hoarse re- frain : In the outskirts of the village, " llere 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, On the river's winding shores, Torr'd an' futherr'd an'corr'd in a corrt Stand the Occidental plane-trees, By the women o' Morble'ead!" Stand the ancient sycamores. we!” THE SYCAMORES 57 How the souls in Purgatory Scrambled up from fate forlorn, On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder, Slyly hitched to Satan's horn. Of the fiddler who at Tara Played all night to ghosts of kings ; Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies Dancing in their moorland rings ! One long century hath been numbered, And another half-way told, Since the rustic Irish gleeman Broke for them the virgin mould. Deftly set to Celtic music, At his violin's sound they grew, Through the moonlit eves of summer, Making Amphion's fable true. Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant ! Pass in jerkin green along, With thy eyes brimful of laughter, And thy mouth as full of song. Pioneer of Erin's outcasts, With his fiddle and his pack ; Little dreamed the village Saxons Of the myriads at his back. How he wrought with spade and fiddle, Delved by day and sang by night, With a hand that never we wearied, And a heart forever light, Jolliest of our birds of singing, Best he loved the Bob-o-link. “ Hush !” he'd say, "the tipsy fairies ! Hear the little folks in drink!” « Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle, Singing through the ancient town, Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant, Hath Tradition handed down. Not a stone his grave discloses ; But if yet his spirit walks, 'Tis beneath the trees he planted, And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks ; a Still the gay tradition mingles With a record grave and drear, Like the rollic air of Cluny With the solemn march of Mear. Green memorials of the gleeman ! Linking still the river-shores, With their shadows cast by sunset, Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores! When the Father of his Country Through the north-land riding came, And the roofs were starred with banners, And the steeples rang acclaim, When the box-tree, white with blossoms, Made the sweet May woodlands glad, And the Aronia by the river Lighted up the swarming sbad, And the bulging nets swept shoreward, With their silver-sided haul, Midst the shouts of dripping fishers, He was merriest of them all. When each war-scarred Continental, Leaving smithy, mill, and farm, Waved his rusted sword in welcome, And shot off his old king's-arm, When, among the jovial huskers, Love stole in at Labor's side, With the lusty airs of England Soft his Celtic measures vied. Slowly passed that august Presence Down the thronged and shouting street ; Village girls as white as angels Scattering flowers around his feet. Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow Deepest fell, his rein he drew : On his stately head, uncovered, Cool and soft the west-wind blew. Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake, And the merry fair's carouse ; Of the wild Red Fox of Erin And the Woman of Three Cows, By the blazing hearths of winter, Pleasant seemed his simple tales, Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends And the mountain myths of Wales. And he stood up in his stirrups, Looking up and looking down On the hills of Gold and Silver Rimming round the little town, – 58 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS On the river, full of sunshine, To the lap of greenest vales Winding down from wooded headlands, Willow-skirted, white with sails. And he said, the landscape sweeping Slowly with his ungloved hand, “I have seen no prospect fairer In this goodly Eastern land.” Then the bugles of his escort Stirred to life the cavalcade : And that head, so bare and stately, Vanished down the depths of shade. Ever since, in town and farm-house, Life has had its ebb and flow ; Thrice hath passed the human harvest To its garner green and low. But the trees the gleeman planted, Through the changes, changeless stand ; As the marble calm of Tadmor Mocks the desert’s shifting sand. Still the level moon at rising Silvers o'er each stately shaft ; Still beneath them, half in shadow, Singing, glides the pleasure craft ; Still beneath them, arm-enfolded, Love and Youth together stray ; While, as heart to heart beats faster, More and more their feet delay. Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, On the open hillside wrought, Singing, as he drew his stitches, Songs his German masters taught, Singing, with his gray hair floating Round his rosy ample face, - Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen Stitch and hammer in his place. All the pastoral lanes so grassy Now are Traffic's dusty streets ; From the village, grown a city, Fast the rural grace retreats. But, still green, and tall, and stately, On the river's winding shores, Stand the Occidental plane-trees, Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores. THE PIPES AT LUCK.XOW An incident of the Sepoy mutiny. Pipes of the misty moorlands, Voice of the glens and hills; The droning of the torrents, The treble of the rills ! Not the braes of bloom and heather, Nor the mountains dark with rain, Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, Have heard your sweetest strain ! Dear to the Lowland reaper, And plaided mountaineer, - To the cottage and the castle The Scottish pipes are dear ;- Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch ()'er mountain, loch, and glade ; But the sweetest of all music The pipes at Lucknow played. Day by day the Indian tiger Louder yelled, and nearer crept ; Round and round the jungle-serpent Near and nearer circles swept. “ Pray for rescue, wives and mothers, Pray to-day!” the soldier said ; “ To-morrow, death 's between us And the wrong and shame we dread." Oh, they listened, looked, and waited, Till their hope became despair ; And the sobs of low be wailing Filled the pauses of their prayer. Then up spake a Scottish maiden, With her ear unto the ground : “ Dinna ye hear it ? — dinna ye hear it? The pipes o' Havelock sound !" Hushed the wounded man his groaning : Ilushed the wife her little ones; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns. But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true ; As her mother's cradle-crooning The mountain pipes she knew. Like the march of soundless music Through the vision of the seer, More of feeling than of hearing, Of the heart than of the ear, She knew the droning pibroch, W TELLING THE BEES 59 3 A year She knew the Campbell's call : You can see the gap in the old wall still, · Hark! hear ye no' MacGregoris, And the stepping-stones in the shallow The grandest o' them all ! " brook. Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless, There is the house, with the gate red- And they caught the sound at last ; barred, Faint and far beyond the Goomtee And the poplars tall ; Rose and fell the piper's blast ! And the barn's brown length, and the cattle- Then a burst of wild thanksgiving yard, Mingled woman's voice and man's And the white horns tossing above the "God be praised ! — the march of Have- wall. lock ! The piping of the clans ! ” There are the beehives ranged in the sun ; Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance, And down by the brink Sharp and shrill as swords at strife, Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed- Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call, o'errun, Stinging all the air to life. Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. But when the far-off dust-cloud To plaided legions grew, has gone, as the tortoise goes, Full tenderly and blithesomely Heavy and slow; The pipes of rescue blew ! And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, Round the silver domes of Lucknow, And the same brook sings of a year Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine, ago. Breathed the air to Britons dearest, The air of Auld Lang Syne. There's the same sweet clover-smell in the O'er the cruel roll of war-drums breeze ; Rose that sweet and homelike strain ; And the June sun warm And the tartan clove the turban, Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, As the Goomtee cleaves the plain Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. Dear to the corn-land reaper I mind me how with a lover's care And plaided mountaineer, From my Sunday coat To the cottage and the castle I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my The piper's song is dear. hair, Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch And cooled at the brookside my brow O'er mountain, glen, and glade ; and throat. But the sweetest of all music The Pipes at Lucknow played ! Since we parted, a month had passed, – To love, a year ; TELLING THE BEES Down through the beeches I looked at last On the little red gate and the well-sweep A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural dis- tricts of New England. On the death of a I can see it all now, the slantwise rain toember of the family, the bees were at once Of light through the leaves, informed of the event, and their hives dressed The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed The bloom of her roses under the eaves. to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home. Just the same as a month before, [The scene is minutely that of the Whittier humestead.] The house and the trees, The barn's brown gable, the vine by the Here is the place ; right over the hill door, Runs the path I took ; Nothing changed but the hives of bees. near. a 60 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Before them, under the garden wall, And hills rolled wave-like inland, with Forward and back, oaks and walnuts green ; Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eyes Draping each hive with a shred of black. had never seen. Trembling, I listened : the summer sun Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where Had the cbill of snow ; duty led, For I knew she was telling the bees of And the voice of God seemed calling, to one break the living bread Gone on the journey we all must go ! To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead. Then I said to myself, “My Mary weeps For the dead to-day : All day they sailed : at nightfall the Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps pleasant land-breeze died, The fret and the pain of his age away." The blackening sky, at midnight, its starr: lights denied, But her dog whined low ; on the doorway And far and low the thunder of tempest sill, prophesied ! With his cane to his chin, The old man sat ; and the chore-girl still Blotted out were all the coast - lipes. Sung to the bees stealing out and in. gone were rock, and wood, ani sand ; And the song she was singing ever since Grimly anxious stood the skipper with tim In my ear sounds on :- rudder in his hand, “Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! And questioned of the darkness what was Mistress Mary is dead and gone!” sea and what was land. And the preacher heard his dear on THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON nestled round him, weeping sore : AVERY “ Never heed, my little children! Chns: is walking on before In Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay To the pleasant land of beaven, where the from 1623 to 1636 may be found Anthony sea shall be no more." Thacher's Varratire of his Shipureck. Thacher was Avery's companion and survived to tell the All at once the great cloud parted, like a tale. Mather's Magnalia, III. 2, gives further curtain drawn aside, Particulars of Parson Ivery's End, and sug- gests the title of the poem. To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide ; When the reaper's task was ended, and the And the thunder and the whirlwind together summer wearing late, smote the tide. Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight, There was wailing in the shallop, woman's Dropping down the river-harbor in the wail and man's despair, shallop - Watch and Wait." A crash of breaking timbers on the role so sharp and bare, Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow And, through it all, the murmur of Father summer-morn, Avery's prayer. With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first-born, From his struggle in the darkness with the And the home-roofs like brown islands wild waves and the blast, amid a sea of corn. On a rock, where every billow broke abore him as it passed, Broad meadows reached out seaward the Alone, of all his household, the man of tided creeks between, God was cast. 0 THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY 61 6 There a comrade heard him praying, in the heads, one at each end ; two months, two stings pause of wave and wind : or tongues." —Rev. CHRISTOPHER TOPPAN to “ All my own have gone before me, and I COTTON MATHER. linger just behind ; Not for life I ask, but only for the rest Thy Far away in the twilight time ransomed find ! Of every people, in every clime, Dragons and griffins and monsters dire, "* In this night of death I challenge the Born of water, and air, and fire, promise of Thy word ! - Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud Let me see the great salvation of which And ooze of the old Deucalion flood, mine ears have heard ! - Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage, Let me pass from hence forgiven, through Throngh dusk tradition and ballad age. the grace of Christ, our Lord ! So from the childhood of Newbury town And its time of fable the tale comes down " In the baptism of these waters wash Of a terror which haunted bush and brake, white my every sin, The Amphisbæna, the Double Snake ! And let me follow up to Thee my house- bold and my kin ! Thou who makest the tale thy mirth, Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let Consider that strip of Christian earth me enter in !” On the desolate shore of a sailless sea, Full of terror and mystery, When the Christian sings his death-song, Half redeemed from the evil hold all the listening heavens draw near, Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and old, And the angels, leaning over the walls of Which drank with its lips of leaves the dew crystal, hear When Time was young, and the world was How the notes so faint and broken swell to new, music in God's ear. And wove its shadows with sun and moon, Ere the stones of Cheops were squared and The ear of God was open to His servant's hewn. last request ; Think of the sea's dread monotone, As the strong wave swept him downward Of the mournful wail from the pine-wood the sweet hymn upward pressed, blown, And the soal of Father Avery went, singing, Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the to its rest. North, Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth, There was wailing on the mainland, from And the dismal tales the Indian told, the rocks of Marblehead; Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew In the stricken church of Newbury the notes cold, of prayer were read ; And he shrank from the tawny wizard And long, by board and hearthstone, the boasts, living mourned the dead. And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts, And still the fishers outbound, or scudding And above, below, and on every side, from the squall, The fear of his creed seemed verified ;- With grave and reverent faces, the ancient And think, if his lot were now thine own, tale recall, To grope with terrors nor named nor known, When they see the white waves breaking How laxer muscle and weaker nerve on the Rock of Avery's Fall ! And a feebler faith thy need might serve ; And own to thyself the wonder more That the snake had two heads, and not a THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE score ! OF NEWBURY "Concerning y Amphisbæna, as soon as I Whether he lurked in the Oldtown fen received your commands, I made diligent in- Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den, quiry: ... he assures me yi it had really two Or swam in the wooded Artichoke, . 62 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS a Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock, Nothing on record is left to show ; Only the fact that he lived, we know, And left the cast of a double head In the scaly mask which he yearly shed. For he carried a head where his tail shonld be, And the two, of course, could never agree, But wriggled about with maim and might, Now to the left and now to the right ; Pulling and twisting this way and that, Neither knew what the other was at. Publish the shame of their daily strife, And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and strain At either end of the marriage-chain, The gossips say with a knowing shake Of their gray heads, “Look at the Double Snake ! One in body and two in will, The Amphisbæna is living still ! " MABEL MARTIN A HARVEST IDYL A snake with two heads, lurking so near ! Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear ! Think what ancient gossips might say, Shaking their heads in their dreary way, Between the meetings on Sabbath-day! How urchins, searching at day's decline The Common Pasture for sheep or kine, The terrible double-ganger heard In leafy rustle or whir of bird ! Think what a zest it gave to the sport, In berry-time, of the younger sort, As over pastures black berry-twined, Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind, And closer and closer, for fear of harm, The maiden clung to her lover's arm ; And how the spark, who was forced to stay, By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day, Thanked the snake for the fond delay ! Far and wide the tale was told, Like a snowball growing while it rolled. The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry: And it served, in the worthy minister's eye, To paint the primitive serpent by. Cotton Mather came galloping down All the way to Newbury town, With his eyes agog and his ears set wide, And his marvellous inkborn at his side ; Stirring the while in the shallow pool Of his brains for the lore he learned at school, To garnish the story, with here a streak Of Latin and there another of Greek : And the tales he heard and the notes he took, Behold! are they not in his Wonder-Book ? Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill. If the snake does not, the tale runs still In Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill. And still, whenever husband and wife Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Ames bury, Mass., was tried and executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was in what is now known as Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a little above the old Ferry way. where, tradition says, an attempt was made to assassinate Sir Edmund Andros on his way to Falmouth (afterward Portland) and Pem. quid, which was frustrated by a warning timely given. Goody Martin was the only woman hanged on the north side of the Merrim.. during the dreadful delusion. The aged wife of Judge Bradbury, who lived on the other soda of the Powow River, was imprisoned and would have been put to death but for the collapse of the hideous persecution. The substance of the poem which folloss was published under the name of The Ward's Daughter, in The National Era in 97. Is 1977 my publishers desired to issue it with illas trations, and I then enlarged it and otherwise altered it to its present form. The principal addition was in the verses which constitute Part I. PROEM I call the old time back : I bring my lay In tender memory of the summer day When, where our native river lapsed away, We dreamed it over, while the thrusbes made Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid On warm noonlights the masses of their shade. And she was with us, living o'er again Her life in ours, despite of years and pain, - The Autunin's brightness after latter rain. MABEL MARTIN 63 Beautiful in her holy peace as one Who stands, at evening, when the work is done, Glorified in the setting of the sun ! Who bear the pleasant name of Friends, And keep their fathers' gentle ways And simple speech of Bible days; Her memory makes our common landscape In whose neat homesteads woman holds With modest ease her equal place, And wears upon her tranquil face seem Fairer than any of which painters dream ; Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream; The look of one who, merging not Her self-hood in another's will, Is love's and duty's handmaid still. For she whose speech was always truth's pure gold Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told, And loved with us the beautiful and old. Pass with me down the path that winds Through birches to the open land, Where, close upon the river strand 1. You mark a cellar, vine o'errun, Above whose wall of loosened stones The sumach lifts its reddening cones, THE RIVER VALLEY Across the level tableland, A grassy, rarely trodden way, With thinnest skirt of birchen spray And the black nightshade's berries shine, And broad, unsightly burdocks fold The household ruin, century-old. And stunted growth of cedar, leads To where you see the dull plain fall Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all Here, in the dim colonial time Of sterner lives and gloomier faith, A woman lived, tradition saith, The seasons' rainfalls. On its brink The over-leaning harebells swing, With roots half bare the pine-trees cling ; And, through the shadow looking west, You see the wavering river flow Along a vale, that far below Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills And glimmering water-line between, Broad fields of corn and meadows green, Who wrought her neighbors foul annoy, And witched and plagued the country- side, Till at the hangman's hand she died. Sit with me while the westering day, Falls slantwise down the quiet vale, And, haply ere yon loitering sail, That rounds the upper headland, falls Below Deer Island's pines, or sees Behind it Hawkswood's belt of trees And fruit-bent orchards grouped around The low brown roofs and painted eaves, And chimney-tops half hid in leaves. No warmer valley hides behind Yon wind-scourged sand-dunes, cold and bleak; No fairer river comes to seek Rise black against the sinking sun, My idyl of its days of old, The valley's legend, shall be told. II. THE HUSKING It was the pleasant harvest-time, When cellar-bins are closely stowed, And garrets bend beneath their load, The wave-sung welcome of the sea, Or mark the northmost border line Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine. Here, ground-fast in their native fields, Untempted by the city's gain, The quiet farmer folk remain And the old swallow-haunted barns, Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams Through which the moted sunlight streams, 64 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS And winds blow freshly in, to shake The red plumes of the roosted cocks, III. THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER And the loose hay - mow's scented locks, But still the sweetest voice was mute That river-valley ever heard Are filled with summer's ripened stores, From lips of maid or throat of bird ; Its odorous grass and barley sheaves, From their low scaffolds to their eaves. For Mabel Martin sat apart, And let the hay-mow's shadow fall On Esek Harden's oaken floor, l'pon the loveliest face of all. With many an antumn threshing worn, Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn. She sat apart, as one forbid, Who knew that none would condescend And thither came young men and maids, To own the Witch-wife's child a friend Beneath a moon that, large and low, Lit that sweet eve of long ago. The seasons scarce had gone their round, Since curious thousands thronged to see They took their places ; some by chance, Her mother at the gallows-tree ; And others by a merry voice Or sweet smile guided to their choice. And mocked the prison-palsied limbs That faltered on the fatal stairs, How pleasantly the rising moon, And wan lip trembling with its prayers! Between the shadow of the mows, Looked on them through the great elm- | Few questioned of the sorrowing child, boughs! Or, when they saw the mother die, Dreamed of the daughter's agony. On sturdy boy hood, sun-embrowned, On girlhood with its solid curves They went up to their homes that day, Of healthful strength and painless nerves! As men and Christians justified : God willed it, and the wretch had died ! And jests went round, and laughs that made Dear God and Father of us all, The house-dog answer with his howl, Forgive our faith in cruel lies, - And kept astir the barn-yard fowl ; Forgive the blindness that denies ! And quaint old songs their fathers sung Forgive thy creature when he takes, In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, For the all-perfect love Thou art, Ere Norman William trod their shores ; Some grim creation of his heart. And tales, whose merry license shook Cast down onr idols, overturn The fat sides of the Saxon thane, Our bloody altars ; let us see Forgetful of the hovering Dane, - Thyself in Thy humanity! Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known, Young Mabel from her mother's grave The charms and riddles that beguiled (rept to her desolate hearth-stone, On Oxus' banks the young world's And wrestled with her fate alone ; child, With love, and anger, and despair, That primal picture-speech wherein The phantoms of disordered sense, Have youth and maid the story told, The awful doubts of Providence! So new in each, so dateless old, Oh, dreary broke the winter days, Recalling pastoral Ruth in her And dreary fell the winter nights Who waited, blushing and demure, When, one by one, the neighboring The red-ear's kiss of forfeiture. lights MABEL MARTIN 65 Went out, and human sounds grew still, And all the phantom-peopled dark Closed round her hearth-fire's dying spark. Had been her warm and steady friend, Ere yet her mother's doom had made Even Esek Harden half afraid. And summer days were sad and long, And sad the uncompanioned eves, And sadder sunset-tinted leaves, He felt that mute appeal of tears, And, starting, with an angry frown, Hushed all the wicked murmurs down. And Indian Summer's airs of balm ; She scarcely felt the soft caress, The beauty died of loneliness! “Good neighbors mine,” he sternly said, “This passes harmless mirth or jest ; I brook no insult to my guest. “ She is indeed her mother's child, But God's sweet pity ministers Unto no whiter soul than hers. “Let Goody Martin rest in peace; I never knew her harm a fly, And witch or not, God knows — not I. “I know who swore her life away ; And as God lives, I'd not condemn An Indian dog on word of them.” The school-boys jeered her as they passed, And, when she sought the house of prayer, Her mother's curse pursued her there. And still o'er many a neighboring door She saw the horseshoe's curvēd charm, To guard against her mother's harm : That mother, poor and sick and lame, Who daily, by the old arm-chair, Folded her withered hands in prayer ;- Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail, Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er, When her dim eyes could read no more ! Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept Her faith, and trusted that her way, So dark, would somewhere meet the day. And still her weary wheel went round Day after day, with no relief : Small leisure have the poor for grief. The broadest lands in all the town, The skill to guide, the power to awe, Were Harden's ; and his word was law. None dared withstand him to his face, But one sly maiden spake aside: “ The little witch is evil-eyed ! “ Her mother only killed a cow, Or witched a churn or dairy-pan ; But she, forsooth, must charm a man ! ” V. IN THE SHADOW IV. THE CHAMPION Poor Mabel, homeward turning, passed The nameless terrors of the wood, And as if a ghost pursued, saw, So in the shadow Mabel sits ; Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, Her smile is sadder than her tears. But cruel eyes have found her out, And cruel lips repeat her name, And taunt her with her mother's shame. Her shadow gliding in the moon ; The soft breath of the west-wind gave A chill as from her mother's grave. How dreary seemed the silent house ! Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare Its windows had a dead man's stare ! She answered pot with railing words, But drew her apron o'er her face, And, sobbing, glided from the place. And only pausing at the door, Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze Of one who, in her better days, And, like a gaunt and spectral hand, The tremulous shadow of a birch Reached out touched the door's low porch, 66 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS “O God! have mercy on Thy child, Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small, And take me ere I lose it all ! " As if to lift its latch ; hard by, A sudden warning call she heard, The night-cry of a boding bird. She leaned against the door ; her face, So fair, so young, so full of pain, White in the moonlight's silver rain. The river, on its pebbled rim, Made music such as childhood knew ; The door-yard tree was whispered through A shadow on the moonlight fell, And murmuring wind and ware became A voice whose burden was her name. VI. THE BETROTHAL By voices such as childhood's ear Had heard in moonlights long ago ; And through the willow-boughs below She saw the rippled waters shine ; Beyond, in waves of shade and light, The hills rolled off into the night. She saw and heard, but over all A sense of some transforming spell, The shadow of her sick beart fell. And still across the wooded space The harvest lights of Harden shone, And song and jest and laugh went Had then God heard her ? Had le sent His angel down? In flesh and blood, Before her Esek Harden stood ! He laid his hand upon her arm : " Dear Mabel, this no more shall be ; Who scoffs at you must scoff at me. “You know rough Esek Handen well ; And if he seems no suitor gay, And if his hair is touched with gray, “ The maiden grown shall never find His heart less warm than when sbe smiled, l'pon his knees a little child !” Her tears of grief were tears of jos, As, folded in his strong embrace, She looked in Esek Harden's face. on. And be, so gentle, true, and strong, Of men the bravest and the best, Had he, too, scorued her with the rest ? She strove to drown her sense of wrong, And, in her old and simple way, To teach ber bitter heart to pray. Poor child! the prayer, begun in faith, Grew to a low, despairing cry Of utter misery : " Let me die ! “Oh! take me from the scornful eyes, And hide me where the cruel speech And mocking finger may not reach! “I dare not breathe my mother's name : A daughter's right I dare not crave To weep above her unblest grave ! “Let me not live until my heart, With few to pity, and with none To love me, hardens into stone. “() truest friend of all !” she said, “God bless you for your kindly thought, And make me worthy of my lot!" He led her forth, and, blent in one, Beside their happy pathway ran The shadows of the maid and man. He led her through his dewy fields, To where the swinging lanterns glowed, And through the doors the huskers showed. “Good friends and neighbors !” Esek sand. “I'm weary of this lonely life ; In Mabel see my chosen wife! "She greets you kindly, one and all ; The past is past, and all offence Falls harmless from her innocence. THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL 67 66 “ Henceforth she stands no more alone ; You know what Esek Harden is ; He brooks no wrong to himn or bis. "Now let the merriest tales be told, And let the sweetest songs be sung That ever made the old heart young ! #4 For now the lost has found a home; And a lone hearth shall brighter burn, As all the household joys return !” Oh, pleasantly the harvest-moon, Between the shadow of the mows, Looked on them through the great elm- boughs ! On Mabel's curls of golden hair, On Esek's shaggy strength it fell ; And the wind whispered, “ It is well !” Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept With a haunting sorrow that never slept, As the circling year brought round the time Of an error that left the sting of crime, When he sat on the bench of the witchcraft courts, With the laws of Moses and Hale's Reports, And spake, in the name of both, the word That gave the witch's neck to the cord, And piled the oaken planks that pressed The feeble life from the warlock's breast ! All the day long, from dawn to dawn, His door was bolted, his curtain drawn ; No foot on his silent threshold trod, No eye looked on him save that of God, As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, And, with precious proofs from the sacred word Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, His faith confirmed and his trust renewed That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, Might be washed away in the mingled flood Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood ! a THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL The prose version of this prophecy is to be found in Sewall's The New Heaven upon the New Earth, 1697, quoted in Joshua Coffin's History of Newbury. Judge Sewall's father, Henry Sewall, was one of the pioneers of New- bury. Up and down the village streets Strange are the forms my fancy meets, For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid, And through the veil of a closed lid The ancient worthies I see again : I hear the tap of the elder's cane, And his awful periwig I see, And the silver buckles of shoe and knee. Stately and slow, with thoughtful air, His black cap hiding his whitened hair, Walks the Judge of the great Assize, Samuel Sewall the good and wise. His face with lines of firmness wrought, He wears the look of a man unbought, Who swears to his hurt and changes not ; Yet, touched and softened nevertheless With the grace of Christian gentleness, The face that a child would climb to kiss ! True and tender and brave and just, That man might honor and woman trust. Green forever the memory be Of the Judge of the old Theocracy, Whom even his errors glorified, Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide ! Honor and praise to the Puritan Who the halting step of his age outran, And, seeing the infinite worth of man In the priceless gift the Father gave, In the infinite love that stooped to save, Dared not brand his brother a slave ! “Who doth such wrong," he was wont to say, In his own quaint, picture-loving way, Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade Which God shall cast down upon his head !” Widely as heaven and hell, contrast That brave old jurist of the past And the cunning trickster and knave of courts Who the holy features of Truth distorts,- Ruling as right the will of the strong, Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong ; Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek ; - Touching and sad, a tale is told, Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old, 68 XARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Scoffing aside at party's nod I see it all like a chart unrolled, Orier of nature and law of God; But my thoughts are full of the past and For whose dabbled ermine respect were old, waste, I hear the tales of my boyhood told ; Reverence folly, and awe misplaced ; And the shadows and shapes of early days Justice of whom 't were vain to seek Flit dimly by in the veiling haze, As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik! With measured movement and rhythmie Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins ; chime Let him rot in the web of lies he spins ! Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyine. To the saintly soul of the early day, I think of the old man wise and good To the Christian judge, let us turn and Who once on yon misty hillsides stood, say : (A poet who never measured rhyme, “ Praise and thanks for an honest man ! À seer unknown to his dull-eared time,) Glory to God for the Puritan!” And, propped on his staff of age, looked down, I see, far southward, this quiet day, With his boyhood's love, on his native town, The hills of Newbury rolling away, Where, written as if on its hills and plains With the many tints of the season gay, His burden of prophecy yet remains, Dreamily blending in autumn mist For the voices of wood, and wave, and wind Crimson, and gold, and amethyst. To read in the ear of the musing mind :- Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, “ As long as Plum Island, to guard the A stone's toss over the narrow sound. coast Inland, as far as the eye can go, As God appointed, shall keep its post ; The hills curve round like a bended bow ; As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep A silver arrow from out them sprung, Of Merrimac River, or sturgeon leap; I see the shine of the Quasycung ; As long as pickerel swift and slim, And, round and round, over valley and Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond swim; hill, As long as the annual sea-fowl know Old roads winding, as old roads will, Their time to come and their time to go; Here to a ferry, and there to a mill ; As long as cattle shall roam at will And glimpses of chimneys and gabled The green grass meadows by Turkey Hill ; eaves, As long as sheep shall look from the side Through green elm arches and maple Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide, leaves, - And Parker River, and salt-sea tide ; Old homesteads sacred to all that can As long as a wandering pigeon shall search Gladden or sadden the heart of man, The fields below from his white-oak perch. Over whose thresholds of oak and stone When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn, Life and Death have come and gone ! And the dry husks fall from the standing Tbere pictured tiles in the fireplace show, corn ; Great beams sag from the ceiling low, As long as Nature shall not grow old, The dresser glitters with polished wares, Nor drop her work from her doting bold, The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs, And her care for the Indian corn forget, And the low, broad chimney shows the And the yellow rows in pairs to set ; crack So long shall Christians here be born, By the earthquake made a century back. Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn! - ['p from their midst springs the village By the beak of bird, by the breath of frust, spire Shall never a holy ear be lost, With the crest of its cock in the sun afire ; But, husked by Death in the Planter's Beyond are orchards and planting lands, sight, And great salt marshes and glimmering Be sown again in the fields of light !" sands, And, where north and south the coast-lines The Island still is purple with plums, I'p the river the salmou comes, The blink of the sea in breeze and sun ! The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feels run, THE PREACHER 69 The voyageur smiles as he listens To the sound that grows apace ; Well he knows the vesper ringing Of the bells of St. Boniface. On hillside berries and marish seeds, All the beautiful signs remain, From spring-time sowing to autumn rain The good man's vision returns again ! And let us hope, as well we can, That the Silent Angel who garners man May find some grain as of old he found In the human cornfield ripe and sound, And the Lord of the Harvest deign to The bells of the Roman Mission, That call from their turrets twain, To the boatman on the river, To the hunter on the plain ! own The precious seed by the fathers sown! Even so in our mortal journey The bitter north-winds blow, And thus upon life's Red River Our hearts, as oarsmen, row. THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR (Suggested by reading the following passage in Minnesota and its Resources, by J. Wesley Bond: “As I pass slowly along the lonely road that leads me from thee, Selkirk, mine eves do turn continually to gaze upon thy smil- ing, golden fields, and thy lofty towers, now burnished with the rays of the departing sun, while the sweet vesper bell reverberates afar and strikes so mournfully pleasant upon mine tär. I feel satisfied that, though absent thou- sands of weary miles, my thoughts will always dwell on thee with rapturous emotions.” At midnight, with the last stroke of the clock ushering in the 17th of December, 1891, the Mth anniversary of Whittier's birth, the bells of St. Boniface rang a joyous peal.] And when the Angel of Shadow Rests his feet on wave and shore, And our eyes grow dim with watching And our hearts faint at the oar, Happy is he who heareth The signal of his release In the bells of the Holy City, The chimes of eternal peace ! THE PREACHER George Whitefield, the celebrated prea died at Newburyport in 1770, and was buried under the church which has since borne his name. a Out and in the river is winding The links of its long, red chain, Through belts of dusky pine-land And gusty leagues of plain. Only, at times, a smoke-wreath With the drifting cloud-rack joins, The smoke of the hunting-lodges Of the wild Assiniboins ! Drearily blows the north-wind From the land of ice and snow ; The eyes that look are weary, And heavy the hands that row. Its windows flashing to the sky, Beneath a thousand roofs of brown, Far down the vale, my friend and I Beheld the old and quiet town; The ghostly sails that out at sea Flapped their white wings of mystery ; The beaches glimmering in the sun, And the low wooded capes that run Into the sea-mist north and south ; The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth ; The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, The foam-line of the harbor-bar. And with one foot on the water, And one upon the shore, The Angel of Shadow gives warning That day shall be no more. Over the woods and meadow-lands A crimson-tinted shadow lay, Of clouds through which the setting day Flung a slant glory far away. It glittered on the wet sea-sands, It flamed upon the city's panes, Smote the white sails of ships that wore Outward or in, and glided o'er The steeples with their veering vanes ! Is it the elang of wild-geese ? Is it the Indian's yell, That lends to the voice of the north-wind The tones of a far-off bell ? 70 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Awhile my friend with rapid search When the night is darkest He gives the O’erran the landscape. "Yonder spire morn; Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire ; When the famine is sorest, the wine and What is it, pray ?” – “The Whitefield corn! Church! Walled about by its basement stones, In the church of the wilderness Edwards There rest the marvellous prophet's bones.” wrought, Then as our homeward way we walked, Shaping his creed at the forge of thought ; Of the great preacher's life we talked ; And with Thor's own hammer welded and And through the mystery of our theme bent The outward glory seemed to stream, The iron links of his argument, And Nature's self interpreted Which strove to grasp in its mighty span The doubtful record of the dead ; The purpose of God and the fate of man! And every level beam that smote Yet faithful still, in his daily round The sails upon the dark atloat To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick A symbol of the light became, found, Which touched the shadows of our blame The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art With tongues of Pentecostal tlame. Drew warmth and life from his fervelt heart. Over the roofs of the pioneers Had he not seen in the solitudes Gathers the moss of a hundred years ; Of his deep and dark Northampton wools On man and his works has passed the A vision of love about him fall? change Not the blinding splendor which fell og Which needs must be in a century's range. Saul, The land lies open and warm in the sun, But the tenderer glory that rests on them Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run, Who walk in the New Jerusalem, Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the plain, Where never the sun nor moon are known, The wilderness gladdened with fruit and But the Lord and His love are the lgti grain ! alone! But the living faith of the settlers old And watching the sweet, still conntenance A dead profession their children hold ; Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance, To the lust of office and greed of trade Had he not treasured each broken word A stepping-stone is the altar made. Of the mystical wonder seen and beant; The Church, to place and power the door, And loved the beautiful dreamer more Rebukes the sin of the world no more, That thus to the desert of earth she bore Nor sees its Lord in the homeless poor. Clusters of Eshcol from Canaan's shure : Everywhere is the grasping hand, And eager adding of land to land; As the barley-winnower, holding with pain And earth, which seemed to the fathers Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain, meant Joyfully welcomes the far-uff breeze But as a pilgrim's wayside tent,- Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys, A nightly shelter to fold away So he who had waited long to hear When the Lord should call at the break of The sound of the Spirit drawing near, day, Like that which the son of Iddo heard Solid and steadfast seems to be, When the feet of angels the myrties And Time has forgotten Eternity ! stirred, Felt the answer of prayer, at last, But fresh and green from the rotting roots As over his church the afflatus passed, Of primal forests the young growth shoots ; Breaking its sleep as breezes break From the death of the old the new proceeds, To sun-bright ripples a stagnant Lake. And the life of truth from the rot of creeds: On the ladder of God, which upward leads, At first a tremor of silent fear, The steps of progress are human needs. The creep of the thewh at danger near, For His judgments still are a mighty deep, A vague foreboding and discontent, And the eyes of His providence never sleep: Over the hearts of the people went. THE PREACHER 71 Wisely and well said the Eastern bard : Fear is easy, but love is hard, Easy to glow with the Santon's rage, And walk on the Meccan pilgrimage ; But he is greatest and best who can Worship Allah by loving man. Thus he, — to whom, in the painful stress Of zeal on fire from its own excess, Heaven seemed so vast and earth so small That man was nothing, since God was all, Forgot, as the best at times have done, That the love of the Lord and of man are one. All nature warned in sounds and signs : The wind in the tops of the forest pines In the name of the Highest called to prayer, As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair. Through ceiled chainbers of secret sin Sudden and strong the light shone in ; A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs Startled the man of title-deeds ; The trembling hand of the worldling shook The dust of years from the Holy Book ; And the psalms of David, forgotten long, Took the place of the scoffer's song. The impulse spread like the outward course Of waters moved by a central force ; The tide of spiritual life rolled down From inland mountains to seaboard town. Prepared and ready the altar stands Waiting the prophet's outstretched hands And prayer availing, to downward call The fiery answer in view of all. Hearts are like wax in the furnace ; who Shall mould, and shape, and cast them anew? Lo! by the Merrimac Whitefield stands In the temple that never was made by hands, Curtains of azure, and crystal wall, And dome of the sunshine over all - A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name Blown about on the winds of fame ; Now as an angel of blessing classed, And now as a mad enthusiast. Called in his youth to sound and gauge The moral lapse of his race and age, And, sharp as truth, the contrast draw Of human frailty and perfect law; Possessed by the one dread thought that lent Its goad to his fiery temperament, Up and down the world he went, A John the Baptist crying, Repent! No perfect whole can our nature make ; Here or there the circle will break; The orb of life as it takes the light On one side leaves the other in night. Nerer was saint so good and great As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate For the plea of the Devil's advocate. So, incomplete by his being's law, The marvellous preacher had his flaw; With step unequal, and lame with faults, His shade on the path of History halts. Little to him whose feet unshod The thorny path of the desert trod, Careless of pain, so it led to God, Seemed the hunger-pang and the poor man's wrong, The weak ones trodden beneath the strong. Should the worm be chooser ? — the clay withstand The shaping will of the potter's hand ? In the Indian fable Arjoon hears The scorn of a god rebuke his fears : “Spare thy pity !” Krishna saith ; “ Not in thy sword is the power of death ! All is illusion, - loss but seems ; Pleasure and pain are only dreams ; Who deems he slayeth doth not kill ; Who counts as slain is living still. Strike, nor fear thy blow is crime ; Nothing dies but the cheats of time ; Slain or slayer, small the odds To each, immortal as Indra's gods !” So by Savannah's banks of shade, The stones of his mission the preacher laid On the heart of the negro crushed and rent, And made of his blood the wall's cement; Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast, Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost; And begged, for the love of Christ, the gold Coined from the hearts in its groaning hold. What could it matter, more or less Of stripes, and hunger, and weariness? Living or dying, bond or free, What was time to eternity ? Alas for the preacher's cherished schemes ! Mission and church are now but dreams; Nor prayer nor fasting availed the plan To honor God through the wrong of man. 72 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Of all his labors no trace remains Of sin and its guilty consequence. Save the bondman lifting his hands in It was as if an angel's voice chains. Called the listeners up for their final choier ; The woof he wove in the righteous warp As if a strong hand rent apart Of freedom-loving Oglethorpe The veils of sense from soul and heart, Clothes with curses the goodly land, Showing in light ineffable Changes its greenness and bloom to sand ; The joys of heaven and woes of hell ! And a century's lapse reveals once more All about in the misty air The slave-ship stealing to Georgia's shore. The hills seemed kneeling in silent prayer. Father of Light ! how blind is he The rustle of leaves, the moaning sedge, Who sprinkles the altar he rears to Thee The water's lap on its gravelled edge, With the blood and tears of humanity! The wailing pines, and, far and faint, The wood-dove's note of sad complaint, He erred : shall we count His gifts as To the solemn voice of the preacher lent naught? An undertone as of low lament ; Was the work of God in him unwrought ? And the rote of the sea from its sandy coast, The servant may through his deafness err, On the easterly wind, now heard, now lure And blind may be God's messenger; Seemed the murmurous sound of the juda But the errand is sure they go upon,- ment host. The word is spoken, the deed is done. Was the llebrew temple less fair and good Yet wise men doubted, and good men w pe. That Solomon bowed to gods of wood ? As that storm of passion above them sw*i For his tempted heart and wandering feet, And, comet-like, adding flame to flame, Were the songs of David less pure and The priests of the new Evangel came, sweet? Davenport, tlashing upon the crowd, So in light and shadow the preacher went, Charged like summer's electric cloud, God's erring and human instrument ; Now holding the listener still as death And the hearts of the people where he With terrible warnings under breath, passed Now shouting for joy, as if he viewed Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast, The vision of Heaven's beatitude ! l'nder the spell of a voice which took And Celtic Tennant, his long coat bound In its compass the flow of Siloa's brook, Like a monk's with leathern girille round, And the mystical chime of the bells of gold Wild with the toss of unshorn hair, On the ephod's hem of the priest of old, - And wringing of hands, and eyes agiare, Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe Groaning under the world's despair! Of the trumpet heard in the Mount of Law. Grave pastors, grieving their thorks to lose. Prophesied to the empty pews A solemn fear on the listening crowd That gourils would wither, and mushrooms Fell like the shadow of a cloud. die, The sailor reeling from out the ships And noisiest fountains run soonest drr, Whose masts stood thick in the river-slips Like the spring that gushed in New buurt Felt the jest and the curse die on his lips. Street, Listened the fisherman rude and hard, l'nder the tramp of the earthquake's furt. The calker rough from the builder's yard ; A silver shaft in the air and lighi, The man of the market left his load, For a single day, then lost in night, The teamster leaned on his bending goad, Leaving only, its place to tell, The maiden, and youth beside her, felt Sandy fissure and sulphurous smell. Their hearts in a closer union melt, With zeal wing-clippevi and white-heat el And saw the towers of their love in bloom Moved by the spirit in grooves of rule, Down the endless vistas of life to come. No longer harried, and cropped, ani Old age sat feebly brushing away fleeced. From his ear the scanty locks of gray; Flogged by sheriff and cursed by priest, And enreless boy hood, living the free But by wiser counsel left at ease l'nconscious life of bird and true, To settle quietly on his lees, Suddenly wakened to a sense And, self-concentred, to count as done THE PREACHER 73 The work which his fathers well begun, In silent protest of letting alone, The Quaker kept the way of his own, A non-conductor among the wires, With coat of asbestos proof to fires. And quite unable to mend his pace To catch the falling manna of grace, He hugged the closer his little store Of faith, and silently prayed for more. And vague of creed and barren of rite, But holding, as in his Master's sight, Act and thought to the inner light, The round of his simple duties walked, And strove to live what the others talked. Who cares for the Hadji's relics sunk? Who thinks of the drowned - out Coptic monk? The tide that loosens the temple's stones, And scatters the sacred ibis-bones, Drives away from the valley-land That Arab robber, the wandering sand, Moistens the fields that know no rain, Fringes the desert with belts of grain, And bread to the sower brings again. So the flood of emotion deep and strong Troubled the land as it swept along, But left a result of holier lives, Tenderer mothers and worthier wives. The husband and father whose children fled And sad wife wept when his drunken tread Frightened peace from his roof-tree's shade, And a rock of offence his hearthstone made, In a strength that was not his own began To rise from the brute's to the plane of Old friends embraced, long held apart By evil counsel and pride of heart ; And penitence saw through misty tears, In the bow of hope on its cloud of fears, The promise of Heaven's eternal years, – The peace of God for the world's an- noy, Beauty for ashes, and oil of joy! man. And who shall marvel if evil went Step by step with the good intent, And with love and meekness, side by side, Lust of the flesh and spiritual pride ? - That passionate longings and fancies vain Set the heart on fire and crazed the brain ? That over the holy oracles Folly sported with cap and bells ? That goodly women and learned men Marvelling told with tongue and pen How unweaned children chirped like birds Texts of Scripture and solemn words, Like the infant seers of the rocky glens In the Puy de Dome of wild Cevennes : Or baby Lamas who pray and preach From Tartar cradles in Buddha's speech ? In the war which Truth or Freedom wages With impious fraud and the wrong of ages, Hate and malice and self-love mar The notes of triumph with painful jar, And the helping angels turn aside Their sorrowing faces the shame to hide. Never on custom's oilëd grooves The world to a higher level moves, But grates and grinds with friction hard On granite boulder and flinty shard. The heart must bleed before it feels, The pool be troubled before it heals ; Ever by losses the right must gain, Every good have its birth of pain ; The active Virtues blush to find The Vices wearing their badge behind, And Graces and Charities feel the fire Wherein the sins of the age expire ; The fiend still rends as of old he rent The tortured body from which he went. But Time tests all. In the over-drift And flow of the Nile, with its annual gift, Under the church of Federal Street, Under the tread of its Sabbath feet, Walled about by its basement stones, Lie the marvellous preacher's bones. No saintly honors to them are shown, No sign nor miracle have they known ; But he who passes the ancient church Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch, And ponders the wonderful life of him Who lies at rest in that charnel dim. Long shall the traveller strain his eye From the railroad car, as it plunges by, And the vanishing town behind him search For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church; And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade, And fashion, and folly, and pleasure laid, By the thought of that life of pure intent, That voice of warning yet eloquent, Of one on the errands of angels sent. And if where he labored the flood of sin Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets And over a life of time and sense The church-spires lift their vain defence, a 74 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS As if to scatter the bolts of God With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod, - Still, as the gem of its civic crown, Precious beyond the world's renown, His memory hallows the ancient town! $6 66 THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA In the winter of 1675–76, the Eastern Indi- ans, who had been making war upon the New Hampshire settlements, were so reduced in numbers by fighting and famine that they agreed to a peace with Major Waldron at Dover; but the peace was broken in the fall of 1070. The famous chief, Squando, was the principal negotiator on the part of the savages. He had taken up the batchet to revenge the brutal treatment of his child by drunken white sailors, which caused its death. It not unfrequently happened during the Border wars that young white children were adopted by their Indian captors, and so kindly treated that they were unwilling to leave the free, wild life of the woods; and in some in- stances they utterly refused to go back with their parents to their old homes and civilization. RAZE these long blocks of brick and stone, These huge mill-monsters overgrown ; Blot out the humbler piles as well, Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell The weaving genii of the bell ; Tear from the wild Cocheco's track The dams that hold its torrents back ; And let the loud-re joicing fall Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall; And let the Indian's paddle play On the unbridged Piscataqua! Wide over hill and valley spread Once more the forest, dusk and dread, With here and there a clearing cut From the walled shadows round it shut; Each with its farm-house builded rude, By English yeoman squared and hewed, And the grim, flankered block-house bound With bristling palisades around. So, haply shall before thine eyes The dusty veil of centuries rise, The old, strange scenery overlay The tamer pictures of to-day, While, like the actors in a play, Pass in their ancient guise along The figures of my borler song : What time beside ('ocheco's tlood The white man and the red man stood, With words of peace and brotherbood; When passed the sacred calumet From lip to lip with fire-draught wet, And, puffed in scorn, the peace - Pipe's smoke Through the gray beard of Waldrud broke, And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea For mercy, struck the haughty key Of one who held, in any fate, His native pride inviolate ! Let your ears be opened wide ! Ile who speaks has never lied. Waldron of Piscataqua, Hear what Squando has to say ! · Squando shuts his eyes and sees, Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees. In his wigwam, still as stone, Sits a woman all alone, Wampum beads and birchen strands Dropping from her careless hands, Listening ever for the fleet Patter of a dead child's feet! “ When the moon a year ago Told the tlowers the time to blow, In that lonely wigwam smiled Menewee, our little child. · Ere that moon grew thin and old, He was lying still and cold ; Sent before us, weak and small, When the Master did not call ! “On his little grave I lay ; Three times went and came the day, Thrice above me blazed the noon, Thrice upon me wept the moon. “In the third night-watch I heard, Far and low, a spirit-bird ; Very mournful, very wild, Sang the totem of my child. “Menewee, poor Menewee, Walks a path he cannot see : Let the white man's wigwam light With its blaze his steps aright. "* All-uncalled, he dares not show Empty bands to Manito : Better gifts he cannot bear Than the scalps his slayers wear.' 66 THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA 75 * All the while the totem sang, Lightning blazed and thunder rang ; And a black cloud, reaching high, Pulled the white moon from the sky. “ Gift or favor ask I none; What I have is all my own : Never yet the birds have sung, * Squando hath a beggar's tongue.' a * I, the medicine-man, whose ear All that spirits hear can hear, – I, whose eyes are wide to see All the things that are to be, - “ Yet for her who waits at home, For the dead who cannot come, Let the little Gold-hair be In the place of Menewee ! “Well I knew the dreadful signs In the whispers of the pines, In the river roaring loud, In the mutter of the cloud. i " At the breaking of the day, From the grave I passed away ; Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad, But my heart was hot and mad. “ There is rust on Squando's knife From the warm, red springs of life ; On the funeral hemlock-trees Many a scalp the totem sees. * Blood for blood ! But evermore Squando's heart is sad and sore ; And bis poor squaw waits at home For the feet that never come ! “ Mishanock, my little star ! Come to Saco's pines afar Where the sad one waits at home, Wequashim, my moonlight, come !” “What !” quoth Waldron, “ leave a child Christian-born to heathens wild ? As God lives, from Satan's hand I will pluck her as a brand !” “ Hear me, white man !” Squando cried ; “ Let the little one decide. Weqnashim, my moonlight, say, Wilt thou go with me, or stay ?” Slowly, sadly, half afraid, Half regretfully, the inaid Owned the ties of blood and race, Turned from Squando's pleading face. Not a word the Indian spoke, But his wampum chain he broke, And the beaded wonder hung On that neck so fair and young. Silence-shod, as phantoms seem In the marches of a dream, Single-filed, the grim array Through the pine-trees wound away. “Waldron of Cocheco, hear ! Squando speaks, who laughs at fear; Take the captives he has ta’en ; Let the land have peace again !” As the words died on his tongue, Wide apart his warriors swung ; Parted, at the sign he gave, Right and left, like Egypt's wave. And, like Israel passing free Through the prophet-charmëd sea, Captive mother, wife, and child Through the dusky terror filed. One alone, a little maid, Middleway her steps delayed, Glancing, with quick, troubled sight, Round about from red to white. Then bis hand the Indian laid On the little maiden's head, Lightly from her forehead fair Sinoothing back her yellow hair. Doubting, trembling, sore amazed, Through her tears the young child gazed. “God preserve her!” Waldron said ; “ Satan hath bewitched the maid !” Years went and came. At close of day Singing came a child from play, Tossing from her loose-locked head Gold in sunshine, brown in shade. Pride was in the mother's look, But her head she gravely shook, And with lips that fondly smiled Feigned to chide her truant child. 76 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Unabashed, the maid began : Blame her not, as to her soul "Up and down the brook I ran, All the desert's glamour stole, Where, beneath the bank so steep, That a tear for childhood's loss Lie the spotted trout asleep. Dropped upon the Indian's cross. “ • Chip !' went squirrel on the wall, When, that night, the Book was read, After me I heard him call, And she bowed her widowed bead. And the cat-bird on the tree And a prayer for each loved name Tried his best to mimic me. Rose like incense from a flame, “Where the hemlocks grew so dark With a hope the creeds forbid That I stopped to look and hark, In her pitying bosom hid, On a log, with feather-bat, To the listening ear of Heaven By the path, an Indian sat. Lo! the Indian's name was given. “ Then I cried, and ran away ; But he called, and bade me stay ; MY PLAYMATE And his voice was good and mild [When written, this poem bore the titl. As my mother's to her child. Eleanor, and when first printed The Piaymune. “ And he took my wampum chain, The pines were dark on Ramoth hill, Looked and looked it o'er again ; Their song was soft and low; Gave me berries, and, beside, The blossoms in the sweet May wind On my neck a plaything tied." Were falling like the snow. Straight the mother stooped to see The blossoms drifted at our feet, What the Indian's gift might be. The orchard birds sang clear ; On the braid of wampum hung, The sweetest and the saildest day Lo! a cross of silver swung. It seemed of all the year. Well she knew its graven sign, For, more to me than birils or flowers, Squando's bird and totem pine ; My playmate left her home, And, a mirage of the brain, And took with her the laughing spring, Flowed her childhood back again. The music and the bloom. Flashed the roof the sunshine through, She kissed the lips of kith and kin, Into space the walls outgrew; She laid her hand in mine : On the Indian's wigwam-mat, What more could ask the bashful boy Blossom-crowned, again she sat. Who fed her father's kine ? Cool she felt the west-wind blow, She left us in the bloom of May : In her ear the pines sang low, The constant years told o'er And, like links from out a chain, Their seasons with as sweet May morns, Dropped the years of care and pain. But she came back no more. From the outward toil and din, I walk, with noiseless feet, the round From the griefs that gnaw within, Of uneventful years ; To the freedom of the woods Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring Called the birds, and winds, and floods. And reap the autumn ears. Well, () painful minister! She lives where all the golden year Watch thy tlock, but blame not her, Her summer roses blow ; If her ear grew sharp to hear The dusky children of the sun All their voices whispering near. Before her come and go. COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION 77 There haply with her jewelled hands She smooths her silken gown, No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down. The minks were fish-wards, and the crows Surveyors of highway, The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymill. When Keezar sat on the hillside Upon his cobbler's form, With a pan of coals on either hand To keep his waxed-ends warm. The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea. And there, in the golden weather, He stitched and hammered and sung ; In the brook he moistened his leather, In the pewter mug his tongue. Well knew the tough old Teuton Who brewed the stoutest ale, And he paid the goodwife's reckoning In the coin of song and tale. I wonder if she thinks of them, And how the old time seems, If ever the pines of Ramoth wood Are sounding in her dreams. The songs they still are singing Who dress the hills of vine, The tales that haunt the Brocken And whisper down the Rhine. I see her face, I hear her voice; Does she remember mine ? And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father's kine ? What cares she that the orioles build For other eyes than ours, That other hands with nuts are filled, And other laps with flowers ? O playmate in the golden time! Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o'er it lean. Woodsy and wild and lonesome, The swift stream wound away, Through birches and scarlet maples Flashing in foam and spray, Down on the sharp-horned ledges Plunging in steep cascade, Tossing its white-maned waters Against the hemlock's shade. Woodsy and wild and lonesome, East and west and north and south ; Only the village of fishers Down at the river's mouth ; a The winds so sweet with birch and fern A sweeter memory blow; And there in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago. And still the pines of Ramoth wood Are moaning like the sea, The moaning of the sea of change Between myself and thee ! Only here and there a clearing, With its farm-house rude and new, And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, Where the scanty harvest grew. No shout of home-bound reapers, No vintage-song he heard, And on the green no dancing feet The merry violin stirred. “Why should folk be glum," said Keezar, “ When Nature herself is glad, And the painted woods are laughing At the faces so sour and sad ?" COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION This ballad was written on the occasion of a Horticultural Festival. Cobbler Keezar was a noted character among the first settlers in the valley of the Merrimac. The beaver cut his timber With patient teeth that day, Small heed had the careless cobbler What sorrow of heart was theirs 78 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Who travailed in pain with the births of God, And planted a state with prayers, – Hunting of witches and warlocks, Smiting the heathen horde,- One hand on the mason's trowel, And one on the soldier's sword ! But give him his ale and cider, Give him his pipe and song, Little he cared for Church or State, Or the balance of right and wrong. “ 'Tis work, work, work,” he muttered, “And for rest a snuttle of psalms !” He smote on his leathern apron With his brown and waxen palms. To a cobbler Minnesinger The marvellous stone gave he, - And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, Who brought it over the sea. He held up that mystic lapstone, He held it up like a lens, And he counted the long years coming By twenties and by tens. “One hundred years," quoth Keezar, “ And fifty have I told : Now open the new before me, And shut me out the old !” Like a cloud of mist, the blackness Rolled from the magic stone, And a marvellous picture mingled The unknown and the known. Still ran the stream to the river, And river and ocean joined ; And there were the bluffs and the blue sea- line, And cold north hills behind. “Oh for the purple harvests Of the days when I was young! For the merry grape-stained maidens, And the pleasant songs they sung! " Oh for the breath of vineyards, Of apples and nuts and wine! For an oar to row and a breeze to blow Down the grand old river Rhine!” A tear in his blue eye glistened, And dropped on his beard so gray. " Old, old am I," said Keezar, “ And the Rhine flows far away !" But the mighty forest was broken By many a steepled town, By many a white-walled farm-house, And many a garner brown. Turning a score of mill-wheels, The stream no more ran free ; White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea. But a cunning man was the cobbler; He could call the birds from the trees, Charm the black snake out of the ledges, And bring back the swarming bees. All the virtues of herbs and metals, All the lore of the woods, he knew, And the arts of the Old World mingled With the marvels of the New. Below in the noisy village The flags were floating gay, And shone on a thousand faces The light of a holiday. Swiftly the rival ploughmen Turned the brown earth from their shares; Here were the farmer's treasures, There were the craftsman's wares. Golden the goodwife's butter, Ruby her currant-wine ; Grand were the strutting turkers, Fat were the beeves and swine. Yellow and red were the apples, And the ripe pears russet-brown, And the peaches had stolen blushes From the girls who shook them down. Well he knew the tricks of magic, And the lapstone on his knee Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles Or the stone of Doctor Dee. For the mighty master Agrippa Wrought it with spell and rhyme From a fragment of mystic moonstone In the tower of Nettesheim. AMY WENTWORTH 79 And with blooms of hill and wildwood, That shame the toil of art, Mingled the gorgeous blossoms Of the garden's tropic heart. But oft the idle fisher Sits on the shadowy bank, And his dreams make marvellous pictures Where the wizard's lapstone sank. "What is it I see?” said Keezar : "Am I here, or am I there? Is it a fête at Bingen ? Do I look on Frankfort fair? And still, in the summer twilights, When the river seems to run Out from the inner glory, Warm with the melted sun, 66 The weary mill-girl lingers Beside the charmëd stream, And the sky and the golden water Shape and color her dream. Fair wave the sunset gardens, The rosy signals fly ; Her homestead beckons from the cloud, And love goes sailing by. AMY WENTWORTH TO WILLIAM BRADFORD But where are the clowns and puppets, And imps with horns and tail ? And where are the Rhenish flagons ? And where is the foaming ale? “ Strange things, I know, will happen, - Strange things the Lord permits ; But that droughty folk should be jolly Puzzles my poor old wits. " Here are smiling manly faces, And the maiden's step is gay ; Vor sad by thinking, nor mad by drink- ing, Nor mopes, nor fools, are they. ** Here's pleasure without regretting, And good without abuse, The holiday and the bridal Of beauty and of use. " Here's a priest and there is a Quaker, Do the cat and dog agree? Hare they burned the stocks for ovenwood ? Have they cut down the gallows-tree ? “Would the old folk know their children ? Would they own the graceless town, With never a ranter to worry And never a witch to drown ?” 46 As they who watch by sick-beds find relief Unwittingly from the great stress of grief And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought From the hearth’s embers flickering low, or caught From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet, Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why They scarcely know or ask, - so, thou and I, Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong In the endurance which outwearies Wrong, With meek persistence baffling brutal force, And trusting God against the universe, We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share With other weapons than the patriot's prayer, Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes, The awful beauty of self-sacrifice, And wrung by keenest sympathy for all Who give their loved ones for the living wall 'Twixt law and treason, - in this evil day May haply find, through automatic play Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain, And hearten others with the strength we gain. a Lond laughed the cobbler Keezar, Laughed like a school-boy gay ; Tossing his arms above him, The lapstone rolled away. It rolled down the rugged hillside, It spun like a wheel bewitched, It plunged through the leaning willows, Ànd into the river pitched. There, in the deep, dark water, The magic stone lies still, [nder the leaning willows In the shadow of the hill. 80 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS cove I know it has been said our times require A song for oars to chime with, such as might No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre, Be sung by tired sea-painters, who at night No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm, But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they The battle's teeth of serried bayonets, love. And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with (So hast thou looked, when level sunset these lay Some softer tints may blend, and milder On the calni bosom of some Eastern bay, keys And all the spray-moist rocks and waves Relieve the storm-stunned ear. Let us that rolled keep sweet, Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat gold.) The bitter harvest of our own device Something it has — a flavor of the sea, And half a century's moral cowardice. And the sea's freedom - which reminds of As Nürnberg sang while Wittenberg defied, thee. And kranach painted by his Luther's side, Its faded picture, dimly smiling down And through the war-march of the Puritan From the blurred fresco of the ancient The silver stream of Marvell's music ran, town, So let the household melodies be sung, I have not touched with warmer tints in The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung, vain, So let us hold against the hosts of night If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one And slavery all our vantage-ground of light. thought from pain. Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake, Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan, And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of Her fingers shame the irory keys man, They dance so light along; And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull The bloom upon her parted lips By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,- Is sweeter than the song. But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease, (God grant it soon !) the graceful arts of O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles ! Peace : Hler thoughts are not of thee ; No foes are conquered who the victors teach She better loves the salted wind, Their vandal manners and barbaric speech. The voices of the sea. And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we Her heart is like an outbound ship bear That at its anchor swings ; Of the great common burden our full share, The murmur of the stranded shell Let none upbraid us that the waves entice Is in the song she sings. Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint de- vice, She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise, Rhythmic and sweet, beguiles my pen away But dreams the while of one From the sharp strifes and sorrows of ton Who watches from his sea-blown deek day. The icebergs in the sun. Thus, while the east-wind keen from Lab- rarlor She questions all the winds that blow, Sings in the leafless elms, and from the shore And every fog-wreath dim, Of the great sea comes the monotonous roar And bids the sea-birds tlying north Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky Bear messages to him. Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try She speeds them with the thanks of men To time a simple legend to the sounds He perilled life to save, Of winds in the woouls, and waves on peb- And grateful pravers like holy oil bled bounds, - To smooth for him the wave. THE COUNTESS 81 Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair, And high and low mate ill ; But love has never known a law Beyond its own sweet will ! Brown Viking of the fishing-smack ! Fair toast of all the town! The skipper's jerkin ill beseems The lady's silken gown ! But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear For him the blush of shame Who dares to set his manly gifts Against her ancient name. The stream is brightest at its spring, And blood is not like wine ; Vor honored less than he who heirs Is he who founds a line. THE COUNTESS TO E. W. Full lightly shall the prize be won, If love be Fortune's spur ; And never maiden stoops to him Who lifts himself to her. Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street, With stately stairways worn By feet of old Colonial knights And ladies gentle-born. Still green about its ample porch The English ivy twines, Trained back to show in English oak The herald's carven signs. I inscribed this poem to Dr. Elias Weld of Haverhill, Massachusetts, to whose kindness I was much indebted in my boyhood. He was the one cultivated man in the neighborhood. His small but well-chosen library was placed at my disposal. He is the “wise old doctor" of Snow-Bound. Count François de Vipart with his cousin Joseph Rochemont de Poyen came to the United States in the early part of the present century. They took up their residence at Rocks Village on the Merrimac, where they both married. The wife of Count Vipart was Mary Ingalls, who, as my father remembered her, was a very lovely young girl. Her wed- ding dress, as described by a lady still living, was “pink satin with an overdress of white lace, and white satin slippers." She died in less than a year after her marriage. Her husband re- turned to his native country. He lies buried in the family tomb of the Viparts at Bordeaux. [See note at end of volume.] . And on her, from the wainscot old, Ancestral faces frown,- And this has worn the soldier's sword, And that the judge's gown. But, strong of will and proud as they, She walks the gallery floor As if she trod her sailor's deck By stormy Labrador ! The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery-side, And green are Elliot's bowers; Her garden is the pebbled beach, The mosses are her flowers. I know not, Time and Space so intervene, Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen ; But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, Like an old friend, all day has been with me. The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder- land Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet Keeps green the memory of his early debt. To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords, Listening with quickened heart and ear in- tent To each sharp clause of that stern argu- ment, I still can hear at times a softer note Of the old pastoral music round me float, While through the hot gleam of our civil strife She looks across the harbor-bar To see the white gulls fly; His greeting from the Northern sea Is in their clanging cry. She hums a song, and dreams that be, As in its romance old, Shall homeward ride with silken sails And masts of beaten gold ! 82 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS The river's steel-blue crescent curves To meet, in ebb and flow, The single broken wharf that serves For sloop and gundelow. Looms the green mirage of a simpler life. As, at his alien post, the sentinel Drops the old bucket in the homestead well, And hears old voices in the winds that toss Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss, So, in our trial-time, and under skies Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise, I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day; And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams Shades the brown woods or tints the sun- set streams, The country doctor in the foreground seems, Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains. I could not paint the scenery of my song, Mindless of one who looked thereon so long ; Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round, Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew the sound Of each small brook, and what the hillside trees Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys ; Who saw so keenly and so well could paint The village-folk, with all their humors quaint, The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan, Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown; The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown ; The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, And the loud straggler levying his black- mail, Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, All that lies buried under fifty years. To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay, And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay. With salt sea-scents along its shores The heavy hay-boats crawl, The long antennæ of their oars In lazy rise and fall. Along the gray abutment's wall The idle shad-net dries; The toll-man in his cobbler's stall Sits smoking with closed eyes. You hear the pier's low undertone Of waves that chafe and gnaw ; You start, – a skipper's horu is blown To raise the creaking draw. At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds With slow and sluggard beat, Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds Wakes up the staring street. A place for idle eyes and ears, À cobwebbed nook of dreams ; Left by the stream whose waves are years The stranded village seems. And there, like other moss and rust, The native dweller clings, And keeps, in uninquiring trust, The old, dull round of things. The fisher drops his patient lines, The farmer sows his grain, Content to hear the murmuring pines Instead of railroad train. Go where, along the tangled steep That slopes against the west, The hamlet's buried idlers sleep In still profounder rest. Throw back the locust's flowery plume, The birch's pale-green scarf, And break the web of brier and bloom From name and epitaph. A simple muster-roll of death, Of pomp and romance shorn, The dry, old names that common breath Has cheapened and out worn. ()ver the wooded northern ridge, Between its houses brown, To the dark tunnel of the bridge The street comes straggling down. You catch a glimpse, through birch and pine, Of gable, roof, and porch, The tavern with its swinging sign, The sharp horn of the church. THE COUNTESS 83 Yet pause by one low mound, and part The wild vines o'er it laced, And read the words by rustic art Upon its headstone traced. Her rest is quiet on the hill, Beneath the locust's bloom ; Far off her lover sleeps as still Within his scutcheoned tomb. Haply yon white-haired villager Of fourscore years can say What means the noble name of her Who sleeps with common clay. The Gascon lord, the village maid, In death still clasp their hands ; The love that levels rank and grade Unites their severed lands. An exile from the Gascon land Found refuge here and rest, And loved, of all the village band, Its fairest and its best. What matter whose the hillside grave, Or whose the blazoned stone ? Forever to her western wave Shall whisper blue Garonne ! O Love ! — so hallowing every soil That gives thy sweet flower room, Wherever, nursed by ease or toil, The human heart takes bloom ! - Plant of lost Eden, from the sod Of sinful earth unriven, White blossom of the trees of God Dropped down to us from heaven ! This tangled waste of mound and stone Is holy for thy sake ; A sweetness which is all thy own Breathes out from fern and brake. He knelt with her on Sabbath morns, He worshipped through her eyes, And on the pride that doubts and scorns Stole in her faith's surprise. Her simple daily life he saw Br homeliest duties tried, In all things by an untaught law Of fitness justified. For her his rank aside he laid ; He took the hue and tone Of lowly life and toil, and made Her simple ways his own. Yet still, in gay and careless ease, To harvest-field or dance He brought the gentle courtesies, The nameless grace of France. And she who taught him love not less From him she loved in turn Caught in her sweet unconsciousness What love is quick to learn. Each grew to each in pleased accord, Vor knew the gazing town, If she looked upward to her lord Or he to her looked down. And while ancestral pride shall twine The Gascon's tomb with flowers, Fall sweetly here, O song of mine, With summer's bloom and showers ! And let the lines that severed seem Unite again in thee, As western wave and Gallic stream Are mingled in one sea ! AMONG THE HILLS How sweet, when summer's day was o'er, His violin's mirth and wail, The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore, The river's moonlit sail ! This poem, when originally published, was dedicated to Annie Fields, wife of the distin- guished publisher, James T. Fields, of Boston, in grateful acknowledgment of the strength and inspiration I have found in her friendship and sympathy. The poem in its first form was entitled The Wife: an Idyl of Bearcamp Water, and ap- peared in The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1868. When I published the volume among the Hills, December of the same year, I ex panded the Prelude and filled out also the out- lines of the story. Ah! life is brief, though love be long ; The altar and the bier, The burial hymn and bridal song, Were both in one short year ! 84 VIRRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS PRELUDE Become when beauty, barmony, and love Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat Along the roadside, like the flowers of At evening in the patriarch's tent, when mun gold Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock That tawny Ineas for their gardens wrought, The symbol of a Christian chivalry Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rud, Tender and just and generous to her And the red pennons of the cardinal-towers Who clothes with grace all duty ; still, I Hang motionless upon their npright staves. know The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, Too well the picture has another side, – Wing-weary with its long flight from the How wearily the grind of toil goes on south, Where love is wanting, how the eye and L'nfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple ear leaf And heart are starved amidst the plenitude With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, Of nature, and how hard and colorless Confesses it. The locust by the wall Is life without an atmosphere. I look Stabs the poon-silence with his sharp alarm. Across the lapse of half a century, A single hay-cart down the dusty road And call to mind old homesteads, where no ('reaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep flower On the load's top. Against the neighbor- Told that the spring had come, but evi ing hill, weeds, Huddled along the stone wall's shady side, Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift the place still Of the sweet doorway greeting of the perse Defied the dog-star. Through the open And honeysuckle, whore the house walls door seemed A drowsy smell of flowers - gray helio- Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine trope, To cast the tremulous shadow of its leares And white sweet clover, and shy mignon- Across the curtainless windows, from whose ette - panes Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness. To the pervading symphony of peace. Within, the cluttered kitchen toor, un- washed No time is this for hands long over-worn (Broom-clean I think they called it); the To task their strength: and (unto Him be best room praise Stifling with cellar-damp, shut from the air Who giveth quietness !) the stress and In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless strain Save the inevitable sampler hung Of years that did the work of centuries Over the fireplace, or a mourning piere, Have ceased, and we can draw our breath A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, be neath Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters Impossible willows; the wide-throated Make glad their nooning underneath the hearth elms Bristling with faded pine-boughs half cus With tale and riddle and old snatch of song, cealing I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn The piled - up rubbish at the chimney's The leaves of memory's sketeb-book, dream- back ; ing o'er And, in sad keeping with all things about Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, them, And human life, as quiet, at their feet. Shrill, querulous women, sour and sulla men, And yet not idly all. A farmer's son, l'ntidy, loveless, old before their time, Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and With scarce a human interest save their own feeling Monotonous round of small economies All their fine possibilities, how rich Or the poor scandal of the peighborhod: And restful even poverty and toil Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed once more AMONG THE HILLS 85 feet; moon Treading the May-flowers with regardless On happy homes, or where the lake in the For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Sang not, nor winds made music in the Ruth, leaves ; In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet For them in vain October's holocaust Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, May seem the burden of a prophecy, The sacramental mystery of the woods. Finding its late fulfilment in a change Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew- Through broader culture, finer manners, rent, love, Saring, as shrewd economists, their souls And reverence, to the level of the hills. And winter pork with the least possible outlay O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn, Of salt and sanctity ; in daily life And not of sunset, forward, not behind, Showing as little actual comprehension Flood the new heavens and earth, and with Of Christian charity and love and duty, thee bring As if the Sermon on the Mount had been All the old virtues, whatsoever things Outdated like a last year's almanac : Are pure and honest and of good repute, Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled But add thereto whatever bard has sung fields, Or seer has told of when in trance and dream And yet so pinched and bare and comfort- They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy ! less, Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, Between the right and wrong; but give the The sun and air his sole inheritance, heart Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes, The freedom of its fair inheritance ; And hugged his rags in self-complacency ! Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long, Not such should be the homesteads of a At Nature's table feast his ear and eye land With joy and wonder ; let all harmonies Where whoso wisely wills and acts may Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon dwell The princely guest, whether in soft attire As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to toil, make And, lending life to the dead form of faith, His hour of leisure richer than a life Give human nature reverence for the sake Of fourscore to the barons of old time, Of One who bore it, making it divine Our veoman should be equal to his home With the ineffable tenderness of God; Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, Let common need, the brotherhood of A man to match his mountains, not to creep prayer, Dwarfed and abased below them. I would The heirship of an unknown destiny, fain The unsolved mystery round about us, make In this light way (of which I needs must A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things With the knife-grinder of whom Canning Should minister, as outward types and signs sings, Of the eternal beauty which fulfils "Story, God bless you! I have none to tell The one great purpose of creation, Love, you !") The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven ! Invite the eye to see and heart to feel The beauty and the joy within their reach, - Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes Of nature free to all. Haply in years For weeks the clouds had raked the hills That wait to take the places of our own, And vexed the vales with raining, Heard where some breezy balcony looks And all the woods were sad with mist, down And all the brooks complaining. own 86 XIRRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS At last, a sudden night-storm tore The mountain veils asunder, And swept the valleys clean before The besom of the thunder. We paused at last where home-bound cows Brought down the pasture's treasure, And in the barn the rhythmic tlails Beat out a harvest measure. Through Sandwich notch the west-wind We heard the night-hawk's sullen plange, slig The crow his tree-mates calling: Good morrow to the cotter ; The shadows lengthening down the slopes And once again Chocorua's horn About our feet were falling. Of shadow pierced the water. And through them smote the level sun Above his broad lake (ssipee, In broken lines of splendor, Once more the sunshine wearing, Touched the gray rocks and made the Stooped, tracing on that silver shield green Ilis grim armorial bearing. Of the shorn grass more tender. Clear drawn against the hard blue sky, The maples bending o'er the gate, The peaks had winter's keenness ; Their arch of leaves just tinted And, close on autumn's frost, the vales With yellow warmth, the golden glow Had more than June's fresh greenness. Of coming autumn hinted. Again the sodden forest floors Keen white between the farm-house showed, With golden lights were checkered, And smiled on porch and trellis, Once more rejoicing leaves in wind The fair democracy of flowers And sunshine danced and flickered. That equals cot and palace. It was as if the summer's late And weaving garlands for her dog, Atoning for its sadness 'Twixt chidings and caresses, Had borrowed every season's charm A human flower of childhood shook To end its days in gladness. The sunshine from her tresses. I call to mind those banded vales On either hand we saw the signs Of shadow and of shining, Of fancy and of shrewdness, Through which, my hostess at my side, Where taste had wound its arms of vides I drove in day's declining. Round thrift's uncomely rudeness. We held our sideling way above The sun-brown fariner in his frock The river's whitening shallows, Shook hands, and called to Mary : By homesteads old, with wide-tlung barns Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came, Swept through and through by swallows ; White-aproned from her dairy. By maple orchards, belts of pine Her air, her smile, her motions, told And larches climbing darkly Of womanly completeness ; The mountain slopes, and, over all, A music as of household songs The great peaks rising starkly. Was in her voice of sweetuess. You should have seen that long hill-range Not fair alone in curve and line, With gaps of brightness riven, But something more and better, How through each pass and hollow streamed The secret charin «luding art, The purpling lights of heaven, - Its spirit, not its letter ;- Rivers of gold-mist flowing down An inborn grace that nothing lacked From far celestial fountains, Of culture or appliance, - The great sun tauming through the rifts The warmth of ginal courtesy, Beyond the wall of mountains ! The calm of self-reliance. AMONG THE HILLS 87 Before her queenly womanhood How dared our hostess utter The paltry errand of her need To buy her fresh-churned butter ? “She looked up, glowing with the health The country air had brought her, And, laughing, said : “You lack a wife, Your mother lacks a daughter. • To mend your frock and bake your bread You do not need a lady: Be sure among these brown old homes Is some one waiting ready,- She led the way with housewife pride, Her goodly store disclosing, Full tenderly the golden balls With practised hands disposing. Then, while along the western hills We watched the changeful glory Of sunset, on our homeward way, I beard her simple story. The early crickets sang; the stream Plashed through my friend's narration : Her rustic patois of the hills Lost in my free translation. * More wise,” she said, “than those who “• Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand And cheerful heart for treasure, Who never played with ivory keys, Or danced the polka's measure.' “ He bent his black brows to a frown, He set his white teeth tightly. "'T is well,' he said, 'for one like you To choose for me so lightly. 6 swarm «« You think because my life is rude I take no note of sweetness : I tell you love has naught to do With meetness or unmeetness. 66 Our hills in middle summer, She came, when June's first roses blow, To greet the early comer. * From school and ball and rout she came, The city's fair, pale daughter, To drink the wine of mountain air Beside the Bearcamp Water. Her step grew firmer on the hills That watch our homesteads over ; On cheek and lip, from summer fields, She caught the bloom of clover. " For health comes sparkling in the streams From cool Chocorua stealing : There's iron in our Northern winds ; Our pines are trees of healing. "She sat beneath the broad-armed elms That skirt the mowing meadow, And watched the gentle west-wind weave The grass with shine and shadow. “Beside her, from the summer heat To share her grateful screening, With forehead bared, the farmer stood, Cpou his pitchfork leaning. “ • Itself its best excuse, it asks No leave of pride or fashion When silken zone or homespun frock It stirs with throbs of passion. *You think me deaf and blind : you bring Your winning graces hither As free as if from cradle-time We two had played together. 6. You tempt me with your laughing eyes, Your cheek of sundown's blushes, A motion as of waving grain, A music as of thrushes. “• The plaything of your summer sport, The spells you weave around me You cannot at your will undo, Nor leave me as you found me. « • You go as lightly as you came, Your life is well without me ; What care you that these hills will close Like prison-walls about me? “No mood is mine to seek a wife, Or daughter for my mother : Who loves you loses in that love All power to love another ! " Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face Had nothing mean or common, Strong, manly, true, the tenderness And pride beloved of woman. 88 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS ** I dare your pity or your scorn, With pride your own exceeding; I fling my heart into your lap Without a word of pleading.' a “She looked up in his face of pain So archly, yet so tender : * And if I lend you mine,' she said, • Will you forgive the lender? «« « Nor frock nor tan can hide the man ; And see you not, my fariner, How weak and fond a woman waits Behind the silken armor ? “In sugar-camps, when south and warm The winds of March are blowing, And sweetly from its thawing veins The maple's blood is tlowing, – “ In summer, where some lilied pond Its virgin zone is baring, Or where the ruddy autumn fire Lights up the apple-paring, - “ The coarseness of a ruder time Her finer mirth displaces, A subtler sense of pleasure fills Each rustic sport she graces. " Her presence lends its warmth and health To all who come before it. If woman lost us Eden, such As she alone restore it. 66 ** I love you : on that love alone, And not my worth, presuming, Will you not trust for summer fruit The tree in May-day blooming ?' “ Alone the hangbird overhead, His hair-swung cradle straining, Looked down to see love's miracle, The giving that is gaining. “ And so the farmer found a wife, His mother found a daughter : There looks no happier home than hers On pleasant Bearcamp Water. “ Flowers spring to blossom where she walks The careful ways of duty ; Our hard, stiff lines of life with her Are flowing curves of beauty. “ Our homes are cheerier for her sake, Our door-yards brighter blooming, And all about the social air Is sweeter for her coming. “ ['nspoken homilies of peace Her daily life is preaching; The still refreshment of the dew Is her unconscious teaching. " And never tenderer hand than hers l'nknits the brow of ailing; Her garments to the sick man's ear Have music in their trailing. “ And when, in pleasant harvest moons, The youthful huskers gather, Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways Defy the winter weather, “ For larger life and wiser aims The farmer is her debtor ; Who holds to his another's heart Must needs be worse or better. • Through her his civic service shows A purer-toned ambition ; No double consciousness divides The man and politician. “In party's doubtful ways he trusts Her instincts to determine ; At the loud polls, the thought of her Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon. “ He owns her logic of the heart, And wisdom of unreason, Supplying, while he doubts and weighs, The needed word in season. “ He sees with pride her richer thought, Her faney's freer ranges ; And love thus deepened to respect Is proof against all changes. * And if she walks at ease in ways His feet are slow to travel, And if she reads with cultured eyes What his may scarce unravel, “Still clearer, for her keener sight Of beauty and of wonder, He learns the meaning of the hills He dwelt from childhood under. THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL 89 “He sees with eyes of manly trust All hearts to her inclining ; Not less for him his household light That others share its shining." " And higher, warmed with summer lights, Or winter-crowned and hoary, The ridged horizon lifts for him Its inner veils of glory. " He has his own free, bookless lore, The lessons nature taught him, The wisdom which the woods and hills And toiling men have brought him : 4 Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew Before me, warmer tinted And outlined with a tenderer grace, The picture that she hinted. ** The steady force of will whereby Her flexile grace seems sweeter ; The sturdy counterpoise which makes Her woman's life completer ; The sunset smouldered as we drove Beneath the deep hill-shadows. Below us wreaths of white fog walked Like ghosts the haunted meadows. Sounding the summer night, the stars Dropped down their golden plummets ; The pale arc of the Northern lights Rose o'er the mountain summits, "A latent fire of soul which lacks No breath of love to fan it ; And wit, that, like his native brooks, Plays over solid granite. “ How dwarfed against his manliness She sees the poor pretension, The wants, the aims, the follies, born Of fashion and convention ! Until, at last, beneath its bridge, We heard the Bearcamp tlowing, And saw across the mapled lawn The welcome home-lights glowing. And, musing on the tale I heard, 'T were well, thought I, if often To rugged farm-life came the gift To harmonize and soften ; If more and more we found the troth Of fact and fancy plighted, And culture's charm and labor's strength In rural homes united, - The simple life, the homely hearth, With beauty's sphere surrounding, And blessing toil where toil abounds With graces more abounding. “ How life behind its accidents Stands strong and self-sustaining, The human fact transcending all The losing and the gaining. “ And so in grateful interchange Of teacher and of hearer, Their lives their true distinctness keep While daily drawing nearer. "And if the husband or the wife In home's strong light discovers Sach slight defaults as failed to meet The blinded eyes of lovers, “Why need we care to ask ? - who dreams Without their thorns of roses, Or wonders that the truest steel The readiest spark discloses ? "For still in mutual sufferance lies The secret of true living ; Love scarce is love that never knows The sweetness of forgiving. We send the Squire to General Court, He takes his young wife thither ; No prouder man election day Rides through the sweet June weather. THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL Tue land was pale with famine And racked with fever-pain ; The frozen fiords were fishless, The earth withheld her grain. Men saw the boding Fylgja Before them come and go, And, through their dreams, the C'rdarmoon From west to east sailed slow ! Jarl Thorkell of Thevera At Yule-time made his vow ; 90 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone He slew to Frey his cow. But the old men bowed their white heads, And answered not a word. To bounteous Frey he slew her; To Skuld, the younger Norn, Who watches over birth and death, He gave her calf unborn. And his little gold-haired daughter Took up the sprinkling-rod, And smeared with blood the temple And the wide lips of the god. Hoarse below, the winter water Ground its ice blocks o’er and o'er ; Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves, Rose and fell along the shore. 66 Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla, A Vala young and fair, Sang softly, stirring with her breath The veil of her loose hair. She sang : “ The winds from Alfheim Bring never sound of strife ; The gifts for Frey the meetest Are not of death, but life. " He loves the grass-green meadows, The grazing kine's sweet breath ; He loathes your bloody Horg-stones, Your gifts that smell of death. "No wrong by wrong is righted, No pain is cured by pain ; The blood that smokes from Doom-rings Falls back in redder rain. The gods are what you make them, As earth shall Asgard prore; And hate will come of hating, And love will come of love. The red torch of the Jokul, Aloft in icy space, Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones And the statue's carven face. And closer round and grimmer Beneath its baleful light The Jotun shapes of mountains Came crowding through the night. 66 The gray-haired Hersir trembled As a flame by wind is blown ; A weird power moved his white lips, And their voice was not his own! “ The Esir thirst !” he muttered ; “ The gods must have more blood Before the tun shall blossom Or fish shall fill the flood. « The Evir thirst and hunger, And hence our blight and ban ; The mouths of the strong gods water For the flesh and blood of man! “ Whom shall we give the strong ones? Not warriors, sword on thigh ; But let the nursling infant And bedrid old man die." " So be it !” cried the young men, ** There needs nor doubt nor parle." But, knitting hard his red brows, In silence stood the Jarl. A sound of woman's weeping At the temple door was heard, “Make dole of skyr and black bread That old and young may live ; And look to Frey for favor When first like Frey you give. “ Even now o'er Njord's sen-meadows The summer dawn begins : The tun shall have its harvest, The fiord its glancing tins." Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell : * By Gimli and by Hel, O Vala of Thingvalla, Thou singest wise and well ! “ Too dear the Esir's favors Bought with our children's lives; Better die than shame in living Our mothers and our wives. ** The full shall give his portion To him who hath most need ; Of curilled skyr and black bread, Be daily dole decreed.” He broke from off his neck-chuin Three links of beaten gold ; THE TWO RABBINS 91 And each man, at his bidding, Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand Brought gifts for young and old. Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned Then inothers nursed their children, By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near And daughters fed their sires, Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but And Health sat down with Plenty hear, Before the next Yule fires. So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low The wail of David's penitential woe, The Horg-stones stand in Rykdal ; Before him still the old temptation came, The Doom-ring still remains ; And mocked him with the motion and the But the snows of a thousand winters shame Have washed away the stains. Of such desires that, shuddering, he ab- horred Christ ruleth now; the Æsir Himself ; and, crying mightily to the Lord Have found their twilight dim ; To free his soul and cast the demon out, And, wiser than she dreamed, of old Smote with his staff the blankness round The Vala sang of Him ! about. At length, in the low light of a spent day, THE TWO RABBINS The towers of Ecbatana far away Rose on the desert's rim ; and Nathan, faint The Rabbi Nathan twoscore years and ten And footsore, pausing where for some dead Walked blameless through the evil world, saint and then, The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb, Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom Met a temptation all too strong to bear, He greeted kindly : “May the Holy One And miserably sinned. So, adding not Answer thy prayers, O stranger !” Where- Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and upon taught The shape stood up with a loud cry, and Yo more among the elders, but went out then, From the great congregation girt about Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head, Making his gray locks grayer. Long he Wept, praising Him whose gracious provi- prayed, dence Siniting his breast; then, as the Book he Made their paths one. But straightway, as laid the sense Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice, Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, Himself away: “O friend beloved, no Behold the royal preacher's words : “A friend Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end ;, Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame. And for the evil day thy brother lives." Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth Marvelling, he said: “It is the Lord who mine, gives May purge my soul, and make it white like Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells thine. Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!” In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert Bow with their weight. I will arise, and wind Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare My sins before him." The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. “I too, O friend, if not in act,” he said, And he went his way In thought have verily sinned. Hast Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers; thou not read, But even as one who, followed unawares, Better the eye should see than that desire men % a more lay 92 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS his own, Should wander ?' Burning with a hidden From where, to count its beaded lakes, fire The forest sped its brook. That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore, For pity and for help, as thou to me. For sun or stars to fall, Pray for me, O my friend !” But Nathan While evermore, behind, before, cried, Closed in the forest wall. Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac !” The dim wood hiding underneath Side by side Wan flowers without a name ; In the low sunshine by the turban stone Life tangled with decay and death, They knelt ; each made his brother's woe League after league the sanie. Forgetting, in the agony and stress Unbroken over swamp and hill Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness ; The rounding shadow lay, Peace, for his friend besought, his own be- Save where the river cut at will came ; A pathway to the day. His prayers were answered in another's name ; Beside that track of air and light, And, when at last they rose up to embrace, Weak as a child unweaned, Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face ! At shut of day a Christian knight C'pon his henchman leaned. Long after, when his headstone gathered moss, The embers of the sunset's fires Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos Along the clouds burned down ; In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were “ I see," he said, “ the domes and spires read : Of Norembega town." " Ilope not the cure of sin till Self is dead ; Forget it in love's service, and the debt “ Alack! the domes, 0 master mine, Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget; Are golden clouds on high ; Heaven's gate is shut to him ucho comes alone; Yon spire is but the branchless pine Sare thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!” That cuts the evening sky." “Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these NOREMBEGA But chants and holy hymns ?” “ Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees Norembege, or Norimbegue, is the name Through all their leafy limbs." given by early French fishermen and explorers “ Is it a chapel bell that fills to a fabulous country south of Cape Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was The air with its low tone ?" supposed to have a magnificent city of the “ Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills, same name on a great river, probably the Per The insect's vesper drone." nobscot. The site of this barbarie city is laid down on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. * The Christ be praised ! - He sets for me In 1604 Champlain siled in search of the A blessed cross in sight!" Vorthern Elorado, twenty-two leagues up the " Now, nay, 't is but you blasted tree Penobscot from the I«le Haute. He supposed With two gaunt arms outright !” the river to be that of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those travellers who told of the great city had never seen it. “Be it wind so sad or tree so stark, He saw no evidence of anything like civiliza- It mattereth not, my knare ; tion, but mentions the finding of a cross, very Methinks to funeral hymns I hark, old and massy, in the woods. The cross is for my grave ! Tur winding way the serpent takes “My life is sped ; I shall not see The mystic water took, My home-set sails again ; MIRIAM 93 The sweetest eyes of Normandie Shall watch for me in vain. A city never made with hands Alone awaiteth me " Yet onward still to ear and eye The battling marvel calls ; I fain would look before I die On Norembega's walls. 66 • Urbs Syon mystica ; ' I see Its mansions passing fair, • Condita cælo;' let me be, Dear Lord, a dweller there !” Above the dying exile hung The vision of the bard, As faltered on his failing tongue The song of good Bernard. " So, haply, it shall be thy part At Christian feet to lay The mystery of the desert's heart My dead hand plucked away. " Leave me an hour of rest ; go thou And look from yonder heights ; Perchance the valley even now Is starred with city lights." m The henchman dug at dawn a grave Beneath the hemlocks brown, And to the desert's keeping gave The lord of fief and town. The henchman climbed the nearest hill, He saw nor tower nor town, But, through the drear woods, lone and still, The river rolling down. Years after, when the Sieur Champlain Sailed up the unknown stream, And Norembega proved again A shadow and a dream, He heard the stealthy feet of things Whose shapes he could not see, A flutter as of evil wings, The fall of a dead tree. He found the Norman's nameless grave Within the hemlock's shade, And, stretching wide its arms to save, The sign that God had made, The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot And made it holy ground : He needs the earthly city not Who hath the heavenly found. are MIRIAM TO FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD The pines stood black against the moon, A sword of fire beyond ; He heard the wolf howl, and the loon Laugh from his reedy pond. He turned him back : “O master dear, We but men misled ; And thou hast sought a city here To find a grave instead.” " As God shall will! what matters where A true man's cross may stand, So Hearen be o'er it here as there In pleasant Norman land ? "These woods, perchance, no secret hide Of lordly tower and hall ; Yon river in its wanderings wide Has washed no city wall ; "Yet mirrored in the sullen stream The holy stars are given : Is Norembega, then, a dream Whose waking is in Heaven ? "No builded wonder of these lands My weary eyes shall see ; [When Whittier was an editor in Hartford, Mr. Barnard, afterward President of Columbia College, was a teacher in the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in that place. Both men were at the time especially interested in Eastern his- tory and romance.] The years are many since, in youth and hope, Under the Charter Oak, our horoscope We drew thick-studded with all favoring stars. Now, with gray beards, and faces seamed with scars From life's hard battle, meeting once again, We smile, half sadly, over dreams so vain ; a 94 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS and song, Knowing, at last, that it is not in man The Sabbath rest. We traced the track Who walketh to direct his steps, or plan Of the sea-seeking river back, His permanent house of life. Alike we Glistening for miles above its month, loved Through the long valley to the south, The muses' haunts, and all our fancies And, looking eastward, cool to view, moved Stretched the illimitable blue To measures of old song. How since that Of ocean, from its curved coast-line ; day Sombred and still the warm sunshine Our feet have parted from the path that Filled with pale gold-dust all the reach lay Of slumberous woods from hill to beach, So fair before us ! Rich, from lifelong Slanted on walls of thronged retreats search From city toil and dusty streets, Of truth, within thy Academic porch On grassy bluff, and dune of sand, Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact, And rocky islands miles from land ; Thy servitors the sciences exact ; Tonched the far-glancing sails, and shown Stiil listening with thy hand on Nature's White lines of foam wbere long waves keys, flowed To hear the Samian's spheral harmonies Dumb in the distance. In the north, And rhythm of law. 1, called from dream Dim through their misty hair, looked forth The space-dwarfed mountains to the sea, Thank God! so early to a strife so long, From mystery to mystery ! That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair So, sitting on that green hill-slope, Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare We talked of human life, its hope On manhood's temples, now at sunset-chime And fear, and unsolved doubts, and what Tread with fond feet the path of morning It might have been, and yet was not. time. And, when at last the evening air And if perchance too late I linger where Grew sweeter for the bells of prayer The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees Ringing in steeples far below, are bare, We watched the people churchward go, Thou, wiser in thy choice, wilt scarcely Each to bis place, as if thereon blame The true shekinah only shone ; The friend who shields his folly with thy And my friend queried how it came name. To pass that they who owned the same Great Master still could not agree To worship Him in company. One Sabbath day my friend and I, Then, broadening in his thought, he ran After the meeting, quietly Over the whole vast field of man, - Passed from the crowded village lanes, The varying forms of faith and creed White with dry dust for lack of rains, That somehow served the holders' need; And climbed the neighboring slope, with In which, unquestioned, undenied, feet l'ncounted millions lived and died ; Slackened and heavy from the heat, The bibles of the ancient folk, Although the day was wellnigh done, Through which the heart of nations spoke ; And the low angle of the sun The old moralities which lent Along the naked hillside cast To home its sweetness and content, Our shadows as of giant, vast. And rendered possible to bear We reached, at length, the topmost swell, The life of peoples everywhere : Whenee, either way, the green turf fell And asked if we, who boast of light, In terraces of nature down Claim not a too exclusive right To fruit-hung orchards, and the town To truths which must for all be meant, With white, pretenceless houses, tall Like rain and sunshine freely sent. Church-steeples, and, o'ershalowing all, In bondage to the letter still, Huge mills whose windows hul the look We give it power to cramp and kill, Of eager eyes that ill could brook To tax God's fulness with a scheme MIRIAM 95 Narrower than Peter's house-top dream, His wisdom and his love with plans Poor and inadequate as man's. It must be that He witnesses Somehow to all men that He is : That something of His saving grace Reaches the lowest of the race, Who, through strange creed and rite, may draw The hints of a diviner law., We walk in clearer light ;- but then, Is He not God ? — are they not men ? Are His responsibilities For us alone and not for these? a “Wherever through the ages rise The altars of self-sacrifice, Where love its arms has opened wide, Or man for man has calmly died, I see the same white wings outspread That hovered o'er the Master's head ! Up from undated time they come, The martyr souls of heathendom, And to His cross and passion bring Their fellowship of suffering. I trace His presence in the blind Pathetic gropings of my kind, — In prayers from sin and sorrow wrung, In cradle-hymns of life they sung, Each, in its measure, but a part Of the unmeasured Over-heart; And with a stronger faith confess The greater that it owns the less. Good cause it is for thankfulness That the world-blessing of His life With the long past is not at strife ; That the great marvel of His death To the one order witnesseth, No doubt of changeless goodness wakes, No link of cause and sequence breaks, But, one with nature, rooted is In the eternal verities ; Whereby, while differing in degree As finite from infinity, The pain and loss for others borne, Love's crown of suffering meekly worn, The life man giveth for his friend Becomes vicarious in the end ; Their healing place in nature take, And make life sweeter for their sake. And I made answer : “ Truth is one ; And, in all lands beneath the sun, Whoso hath eyes to see may see The tokens of its unity. No scroll of creed its fulness wraps, We trace it not by school-boy maps, Free as the sun and air it is Of latitudes and boundaries. In Vedic verse, in dull Korán, Are messages of good to man ; The angels to our Aryan sires Talked by the earliest household fires ; The prophets of the elder day, The slant-eyed sages of Cathay, Read not the riddle all amiss Of higher life evolved from this. "Nor doth it lessen what He taught, Or make the gospel Jesus brought Less precious, that His lips retold Some portion of that truth of old ; Densing not the proven seers, The tested wisdom of the years ; Confirming with His own impress The common law of righteousness. We search the world for truth; cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From graven stone and written scroll, From all old flower-fields of the soul ; And, weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from our quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read, And all our treasure of old thought In His harmonious fulness wrought Who gathers in one sheaf complete The scattered blades of God's sown wheat, The common growth that maketh good His allembracing Fatherhood. we “ So welcome I from every source The tokens of that primal Force, Older than heaven itself, yet new As the young heart it reaches to, Beneath whose steady impulse rolls The tidal wave of human souls ; Guide, comforter, and inward word, The eternal spirit of the Lord ! Nor fear I aught that science brings From searching through material things ; Content to let its glasses prove, Not by the letter's oldness move, The myriad worlds on worlds that course The spaces of the universe ; Since everywhere the Spirit walks The garden of the heart, and talks With man, as under Eden's trees, In all his varied languages. Why mourn above some hopeless flaw 96 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS In the stone tables of the law, The mirror of its cork-grown hills of drouth When scripture every day afresh And vales of vine, at Lisbon's harbora Is traced on tablets of the flesh ? mouth. By inward sense, by outward signs, God's presence still the heart divines ; The date-palms rustled not; the perpul Through deepest joy of Ilim we learn, laid In sorest grief to Him we turn, Its topmost boughs against the balustrade, And reason stoops its pride to share Motionless as the mimic leaves and vines The child-like instinct of a prayer.” That, light and graceful as the shawl- designs And then, as is my wont, I told Of Delhi or C'mritsir, twined in stone ; A story of the days of old, And the tired monarch, who aside har Not found in printed books, - in sooth, thrown A fancy, with slight hint of truth, The day's hard burden, sat from care apart, Showing how ditfering faiths agree And let the quiet steal into his heart In one sweet law of charity. From the still hour. Below him Agra slept Meanwhile the sky had golden grown, By the long light of sunset overwept : Our faces in its glory shone ; The river flowing through a level Land, But shadows down the valley swept, By mango-groves and banks of yellow sand, And gray below the ocean slept, Skirted with lime and orange, gay kiosks As time and space I wandered o'er Fountains at play, tall minarets of mosques, To tread the Mogul's marble tloor, Fair pleasure-gardens, with their tlowering And see a fairer sunset fall trees On Jumna's wave and Agra's wall. Relieved against the mournful cypresses ; And, air-poised lightly as the blown sa- The good Shah Akbar (peace be his alway!) foam, Came forth from the Divan at close of day The marble wonder of some holy dome Bowed with the burden of his many eares, Hung a white moonrise over the still wixi, Worn with the hearing of unnumbered Glassing its beauty in a stiller fol. prayers, Wild cries for justice, the importunate Silent the monarch gazed, until the night Appeals of greed and jealousy and hate, Swift-falling hid the city from his sight; And all the strife of sect and creed and rite, Then to the woman at his feet he said : Santon and Gouroo waging holy fight : “ Tell me, 0 Miriam, something thou hast For the wise monarch, elaiming not to be read Allah's avenger, left his people free, In childhood of the Master of thy faith, With a faint hope, his Book scarce justified, Whom Islam also owns. Our Prophet saith: That all the paths of faith, though severed He was a true apostle, yea, a Won wide, And Spirit sent before me from the Lori." O'er which the feet of prayerful reverence Thus the Book witnesseth ; and well I kiww passed, By what thou art, () dearest, it is so. Met at the gate of Paradise at last. As the lute's tone the maker's hand be trays, He sought an alcove of his cool hareem, The sweet disciple speaks her Master's Where, far beneath, he heard the Jumna's praise.' stream Lapse soft and low along his palace wall, Then Miriam, glad of heart, (for in some And all about the cool sound of the fall sort Of fountains, and of water cireling free She cherished in the Moslem's liberal court Through marble ducts along the balcony ; The sweet traditions of a Christian child ; The voice of women in the distance sweet, And, throngh her life of sense, the up- And, swerter still, of one who, at his feet, defiled Soothed his tired car with songs of a far | And chaste ideal of the sinless One land Gazed on her with an eye she might not Where Tagus shatters on the salt sea-sand shun, - 66 MIRIAM 97 a The sad, reproachful look of pity, born Herself, and veiling in her large, soft eyes Of love that hath no part in wrath or scorn,) The passion and the languor of her skies, Began, with low voice and moist eyes, to tell The Abyssinian knelt low at the feet Of the all-loving Christ, and what befell Of her stern lord : “O king, if it be meet, When the fierce zealots, thirsting for her And for thy honor's sake,” she said, “that I, blood, Who am the humblest of thy slaves, should Dragged to his feet a shame of womanhood. die, How, when his searching answer pierced I will not tax thy mercy to forgive. within Easier it is to die than to outlive Each heart, and touched the secret of its sin, All that life gave me, - him whose wrong And her accusers fled his face before, of thee He bade the poor one go and sin no more. Was but the outcome of his love for me, And Akbar said, after a moment's thought, Cherished from childhood, when, beneath "Wise is the lesson by thy prophet taught; the shade Woe unto him who judges and forgets Of templed Axum, side by side we played. What hidden evil his own heart besets ! Stolen from his arms, my lover followed me Something of this large charity I find Through weary seasons over land and sea ; In all the sects that sever humankind ; And two days since, sitting disconsolate I would to Allah that their lives agreed Within the shadow of the hareem gate, More nearly with the lesson of their creed ! Suddenly, as if dropping from the sky, Those yellow Lamas who at Meerut pray Down from the lattice of the balcony By wind and water power, and love to say : Fell the sweet song by Tigre's cowherds "He who forgiveth not shall, unforgiven, sung Fail of the rest of Buddha,' and who even In the old music of his native tongue. Spare the black gnat that stings them, vex He knew my voice, for love is quick of ear, iny ears Answering in song: With the poor hates and jealousies and fears This night he waited near Nursed in their human hives. That lean, To fly with me. The fault was mine alone : fierce priest He knew thee not, he did but seek his own ; Of thy own people, (be his heart increased Who, in the very shadow of thy throne, By Allah's love!) his black robes smelling Sharing thy bounty, knowing all thou art, ret Greatest and best of men, and in her heart Of Goa's roasted Jews, have I not met Grateful to tears for favor undeserved, Meek-faced, barefooted, crying in the street Turned ever homeward, nor one moment The saying of his prophet true and sweet, * He who is merciful shall mercy meet!” From her young love. He looked into my eyes, But, next day, so it chanced, as night be- He heard my voice, and could not otherwise gan Than he hath done ; yet, save one wild em- To fall, a murmur through the hareem ran brace That one, recalling in her dusky face When first we stood together face to face, The full-lipped, mild-eyed beauty of a race And all that fate had done since last we met known as the blameless Ethiops of Greek Seemed but a dream and left us children song, yet, Plotting to do her royal master wrong, He hath not wronged thee nor thy royal bed : Watching, reproachful of the lingering Spare him, O king! and slay me in his light, stead !” The evening shadows deepen for her flight, Love-guided, to her home in a far land, But over Akbar's brows the frown hung Now waited death at the great Shah's com- black, mand. And, turning to the eunuch at his back, “ Take them,” he said, “and let the Jumna's Shapely as that dark princess for whose smile Hide both my shame and these accursed A world was bartered, daughter of the Nile slaves !” swerved : waves 98 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS shut eyes sees 6 His loathly length the unsexed bondman Knew Menu's laws, and through his close- bowed : “On my head be it ! ” Saw things far off, and as an open look Straightway from a cloud Into the thoughts of other men could look) Of dainty shawls and veils of woven mist Began, half chant, half howling, to rehearse The Christian Miriam rose, and, stooping, The fragment of a holy Vedic vere ; kissed And thus it ran : “He who all things for- The monarch's hand. Loose down her gives shoulders bare Conquers himself and all things else, and Swept all the rippled darkness of her hair, lives Veiling the bosomn that, with high, quick Above the reach of wrong or hate or frar, swell Calm as the gods, to whom he is most dear." Of fear and pity, through it rose and fell. Two leagues from Agra still the traveller “ Alas !” she cried, “hast thou forgotten quite The tomb of Akbar through its cypress The words of Him we spake of yesternight ? trees; Or thy own prophet's, * Whoso doth endure And, near at hand, the marble walls that And pardon, of eternal life is sure'? hide O great and good ! be thy revenge alone The Christian Begum sleeping at his side Felt in thy mercy to the erring shown ; And o'er her vault of burial (who shall ta Let thwarted love and youth their pardon If it be chance alone or miracle?) plead, The Mission press with tireless hand unruile Who sinned but in intent, and not in deed ! ” The words of Jesus on its lettered scrolls - Tells, in all tongues, the tale of mercy o'er, One moment the strong frame of Akbar | And bids the guilty, “Go and sin no more! shook With the great storm of passion. Then his look Softened to her uplifted face, that still It now was dew-fall ; very still Pleaded more strongly than all words, until The night lay on the lonely hill, Its pride and anger seemed like overblown, Down which our homeward steps we be ni, Spent clouds of thunder left to tell alone And, silent, through great silence went, Of strife and overcoming. With bowed Save that the tireless crickets played head, Their long, monotonous serenade. And smiting on his bosom : “God,” he said, A young moon, at its narrowest, “ Alone is great, and let His holy name Curved sharp against the darkening west. Be honored, even to His servant's shame! And, momently, the beacon's star, Well spake thy prophet, Miriam, --he alone Slow wheeling o'er its rock afar, Who hath not sinned is meet to cast a stone From out the level darkness shot At such as these, who here their doom One instant and again was not. await, And then my friend spake quietly Held like myself in the strong grasp of The thought of both : " Yon crescent see fate. Like Islam's symbol-moon it gives They sinned through love, as I through love Hints of the light whereby it lives : forgive ; Somewhat of goodness, something true Take them beyond my realm, but let them From sun and spirit shining through live !" All fniths, all worlds, as through the dark Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark, And, like a chorus to the words of grace, Attests the presence everywhere The ancient Fakir, sitting in his place, Of love and providential care. Motionless as an idol and as grim, The faith the old Norse heart confessed In the pavilion Akbar built for him In one dear name, – the hopefulest L’nder the court-yard trees, (for he was And tenderest heard from mortal lips wise, In pangs of birth or death, from ships NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON 99 Ice-bitten in the winter sea, Or lisped beside a mother's knee, — The wiser world hath not outgrown, And the All-Father is our own!” The loser, doubtless rich, would scarcely miss This dropped crumb from a table always full. Still, while he mused, he seemed to hear the cry a - NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON Of a starved child ; the sick face of his wife Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce NAUHAUGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old revolt Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his nar- Urged the wild license of his savage youth rowing Cape Against his later scruples. Bitter toil, Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds Prayer, fasting, dread of blame, and pitiless And the relentless smiting of the waves, eyes Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream To watch his halting, - had he lost for Of a good angel dropping in his hand these A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God. The freedom of the woods ; – the hunting- grounds He rose and went forth with the early day Of happy spirits for a walled-in heaven Far inland, where the voices of the waves Of everlasting psalms? One healed the sick Mellowed and mingled with the whispering Very far off thousands of moons ago : leaves, Had he not prayed him night and day to As, through the tangle of the low, thick come woods, And cure his bed-bound wife? Was there He searched his traps. Therein nor beast a hell ? nor bird Were all his fathers' people writhing He found ; though meanwhile in the reedy there pools Like the poor shell-fish set to boil alive – The otter plashed, and underneath the pines Forever, dying never ? If he kept The partridge drummed : and as his This gold, so needed, would the dreadful thoughts went back God To the sick wife and little child at home, Torment him like a Mohawk's captive What marvel that the poor man felt his faith stuck Too weak to bear its burden, — like a rope With slow-consuming splinters ? Would That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks the saints above And the white angels dance and laugh to The hand that grasps it. « Even now, O Lord ! Burn like a pitch-pine torch ? His Chris- Send me,” he prayed,“ the angel of my tian garb dream! Seemed falling from him; with the fear Naubaught is very poor ; he cannot wait.” and shame Of Adam naked at the cool of day, Even as he spake he heard at his bare feet He gazed around. A black snake lay in coil A low, metallic clink, and, looking down, On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong eye He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold Watched from a dead bough. All his İn- Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held dian lore The treasure up before his eyes, alone Of evil blending with a convert's faith With his great need, feeling the wondrous In the supernal terrors of the Book, coins He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake Slide through his eager fingers, one by one. And ominous, black-winged bird ; and all So then the dream was true. The angel the while brought The low rebuking of the distant waves One broad piece only; should he take all Stole in upon him like the voice of God these? Among the trees of Eden. Girding up Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he woods ? thrust see him a IOO NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS : 66 66 The base thought from him : "Nauhaught, That the Cape opens in its sandy wall – be a man! He answered, with a wise smile, to birt Starve, if need be ; but, while you live, look self : out “I saw the angel where they see a man." From honest eyes on all men, unashamed. God help me! I am deacon of the church, A baptized, praying Indian! Should I do THE SISTERS This secret meanness, even the barken knots ANNIE and Rhoda, sisters twain, Of the old trees would turn to eyes to see Woke in the night to the sound of rain, it, The birds would tell of it, and all the leaves The rush of wind, the ramp and roar Whisper above me : Nauhaught is a Of great waves climbing a rocky sbore. thief!' The sun would know it, and the stars that Annie rose up in her bed-gown white, hide And looked out into the storm and night. Behind his light would watch me, and at night “ Hush, and hearken!” she cried in fear, Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes. Hearest thou nothing, sister dear ?" Yea, thou, God, seest me!” Then Nau- haught drew “ I hear the sea, and the plash of rain, Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus And roar of the northeast hurricane. The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back “Get thee back to the bed so warm, To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea ; No good comes of watching a storin. And, pausing at the inn - door, cheerily asked: What is it to thee, I fain would know, “Who hath lost aught to-day ?” That waves are roaring and wild winds “ I," said a voice ; blow? Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse, My daughter's handiwork.” He looked, “No lover of thine 's afloat to miss and lo ! The harbor-lights on a night like this." One stood before him in a coat of frieze, And the glazed hat of a seafaring man, “ But I heard a voice cry out my name, Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no L'p from the sea on the wind it came ! trace of wings. Marvelling, he dropped within the stran- “ Twice and thrice have I heard it call, ger's hand And the voice is the voiee of Estwie The silken web, and turned to go his way. Hall!” But the man said : " A tithe at least is yours ; On her pillow the sister tossed her head Take it in God's name as an honest man." Hall of the Heron is safe,” she said. And as the deacon's dusky fingers closed Over the golden gift, “ Yea, in God's name • In the tantest schooner that ever swam I take it, with a poor man's thanks,” he He rides at anchor in Annisquam. said. So down the street that, like a river of " And, if in peril from swamping sex sand, Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee: * Ran, white in sunshine, to the summer sen, He sought his home, singing and praising But the girl heard only the wind and tale, God; And wringing her small white hands And when his neighbors in their careless cried: way Spoke of the owner of the silken purse — " ( sister Rhoda, there's something wrong: A Wellileet skipper, known in every port I hear it again, so loud and long. 66 66 MARGUERITE ΙΟΙ **Annie ! Annie!'I hear it call, And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall !” MARGUERITE Cp sprang the elder, with eyes aflame, "Thou liest! He never would call thy name ! MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1760 Upwards of one thousand of the Acadian peasants forcibly taken from their homes on the Gaspereau and Basin of Minas were as- signed to the several towns of the Massachu- setts colony, the children being bound by the authorities to service or labor. "* If he did, I would pray the wind and sea To keep him forever from thee and me !" Then out of the sea blew a dreadful The robins sang in the orchard, the buds into blossoms grew; Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins knew! blast ; Like the cry of a dying man it passed. Sick, in an alien household, the poor French neutral lay; Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April day, The young girl hushed on her lips a groan, But through her ears a strange light shone, The solemn joy of her heart's release To own and cherish its love in peace. " Dearest !” she whispered, under breath, “Life was a lie, but true is death. * The love I hid from myself away Shall crown me now in the light of day. “My ears shall never to wooer list, Never by lover my lips be kissed. “Sacred to thee am I henceforth, Thou in heaven and I on earth!” Through the dusty window, curtained by the spider's warp and woof, On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs of roof, The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the tea- cups on the stand, The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from her sick hand ! What to her was the song of the robin, or warm morning light, As she lay in the trance of the dying, heed- less of sound or sight? She came and stood by her sister's bed : “ Hall of the Heron is dead !” she said. “ The wind and the waves their work have done, We shall see him no more beneath the Done was the work of her hands, she had eaten her bitter bread; The world of the alien people lay behind her dim and dead. sun. But her soul went back to its child-time; she saw the sun o'erflow With gold the Basin of Minas, and set over Gaspereau ; 5 Little will reck that heart of thine ; It loved him not with a love like mine. “ I, for his sake, were he but here, Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear, The low, bare flats at ebb-tide, the rush of the sea at flood, Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to upland wood ; Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet, And stitch for stitch in my heart be set. * But now my soul with bis soul I wed; Thine the living, and mine the dead !” The gulls in the red of morning, the fish- hawk's rise and fall, The drift of the fog in moonshine, over the dark coast-wall. 102 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 0 64 а She saw the face of her mother, she heard She paused on the threshold of bearen ; the song she sang; love, pity, surprise, And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the vespers rang! cloud of her eyes. By her bed the hard-faced mistress sat, With his heart on his lips he kissed her, smoothing the wrinkled sheet, but never her cheek grew rerd, Peering into the face, so helpless, and feel- And the words the living long for he spuke ing the ice-cold feet. in the ear of the dead. With a vague remorse atoning for her greed And the robins sang in the orchard, wbere and long abuse, buds to blossoms grew; By care no longer heeded and pity too late Of the folded hands and the still face never for use. the robins knew ! L'p the stairs of the garret softly the son of the mistress stepped, THE ROBIN Leaned over the head-board, covering his face with his hands, and wept. My old Welsh neighbor over the way Crept slowly out in the sun of spring, Outspake the mother, who watched him Pushed from her ears the locks of gras, sharply, with brow a-frown : And listened to hear the robins sing. “ What ! love you the Papist, the beggar, the charge of the town ?” Her grandson, playing at marbles, stopped, And, cruel in sport as boys will be, · Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, I | Tossed a stone at the bird, who bopped know and God knows From bough to bough in the apple-tree. I love her, and fain would go with her wherever she goes ! “Nay!” said the grandmother ; "have you not heard, “O mother! that sweet face came pleading, My poor, bad boy ! of the fiery pit, for love so athirst. And how, drop by drop, this merciful bin You saw but the town-charge ; I knew her Carries the water that quenches it ? God's angel at first." “ Ile brings cool dew in his little bill, Shaking her gray head, the mistress hushed And lets it fall on the souls of sin : down a bitter cry ; You can see the mark on his red breast sti:] And awed by the silence and shadow of Of tires that scorch as he drops it in. death drawing nigh, “My poor Bron rhuddyn! my breast- She murmured a psalm of the Bible ; but burned bird, closer the young girl pressed, Singing so sweetly from limb to limb, With the last of her life in her fingers, the Very dear to the heart of Our Lord cross to her breast. Is he who pities the lost like Him!" " My son, come away,” cried the mother, " Amen!" I said to the beautiful myth: her voice cruel grown. "Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well “She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim ; Fach good thought is a drop wherewith let her alone!" To cool and lessen the fires of beil. But he knelt with his hand on her forehead, “ Prayers of love like rain-drops fall, his lips to her ear, Tears of pity are cooling dew, And he called back the soul that was And dear to the heart of Our Lori are all passing: “ Marguerite, do you Who suffer like Him in the good they hear?" do!” 6. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 103 The garland which his meekness never THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM sought I bring him ; over fields of harvest sown With seeds of blessing, now to ripeness (For the preface which introduced this poem when first published, see the notes at the end grown, of this volume. The verses which precede the I bid the sower pass before the reapers' prelude are from the Latin of FRANCIS DANIEL sight. PASTORICs in the Germantown Records, 1688.] Hail to posterity ! Never in tenderer quiet lapsed the day Hail, future men of Germanopolis ! From Pennsylvania's vales of spring away, Let the young generations yet to be Where, forest-walled, the scattered hamlets Look kindly upon this. lay Think how your fathers left their native land, Along the wedded rivers. One long bar Dear German-land ! O sacred hearths Of purple cloud, on which the evening and homes ! star And, where the wild beast roams, Shone like a jewel on a scimitar, In patience planned New forest-homes beyond the mighty sea, Held the sky's golden gateway. Through There undisturbed and free the deep To live as brothers of one family. Hush of the woods a murmur seemed to What pains and cares befell, creep, What trials and what fears, The Schuylkill whispering in a voice of Remember, and wherein we have done well sleep. Follow our footsteps, men of coming years ! All else was still. The oxen from their Where we have failed to do ploughs Aright, or wisely live, Rested at last, and from their long day's Be warned by us, the better way pursue, browse And, knowing we were human, even as you, Came the dun files of Krisheim's home- Pity us and forgive ! bound cows. Farewell, Posterity ! Farewell, dear Germany! And the young city, round whose virgin Forevermore farewell ! The rivers like two mighty arms were PRELUDE thrown, Marked by the smoke of evening fires I sing the Pilgrim of a softer clime alone, And milder speech than those brave men's who brought Lay in the distance, lovely even then To the ice and iron of our winter time With its fair women and its stately men A will as firm, a creed as stern, and Gracing the forest court of Williain Penn, wrought With one mailed hand, and with the other Urban yet sylvan; in its rough - hewn fought. frames Simply, as tits my theme, in homely rhyme Of oak and pine the dryads held their I sing the blue-eyed German Spener claims, taught, And lent its streets their pleasant woodland Through whose veiled, mystic faith the In- ward Light, Steady and still, an easy brightness, Anna Pastorius down the leafy lane shone, Looked city-ward, then stooped to prune Transfiguring all things in its radiance again white. Her vines and simples, with a sigh of pain. zone a names. 104 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS • As For fast the streaks of ruddy sunset paled With cautious phrase, a Voice there seemed In the oak clearing, and, as daylight failed, to be, Slow, overhead, the dusky night - birds ye have done to these ye do to me!' sailed. “So it all passed ; and the old tithe went on Again she looked : between green walls of Of anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun shade, Set, leaving still the weightier work us- With low - bent head as if with sorrow done. weighed, Daniel Pastorius slowly came and said, “ Help, for the good man faileth! Who is strong, “God's peace be with thee, Anna !” Then If these be weak ? Who shall rebuke the he stood wrong, Silent before her, wrestling with the mood If these consent ? How long, O Lord' Of one who sees the evil and not good. how long!” “What is it, my Pastorius ?” As she spoke, He ceased ; and, bound in spirit with the A slow, faint smile across his features broke, bound, Sadder than tears. “Dear heart," he said, With folded arms, and eyes that sough: tie "our folk ground, Walked musingly his little garden roand. “ Are even as others. Yea, our goodliest Friends About him, beaded with the falling dew, Are frail; our elders have their selfish ends, Rare plants of power and herbs of healing And few dare trust the Lord to make grew, amends Such as Van Helmont and Agrippa knew. “For duty's loss. So even our feeble word For, by the lore of Gorlitz' gentle sage, For the dumb slaves the startled meeting With the mild mystics of his dreamy age heard He read the herbal signs of nature's page, As if a stone its quiet waters stirred ; As once he heard in sweet Von Merlau's “ And, as the clerk ceased reading, there bowers began Fair as herself, in boyhood's happy hour A ripple of dissent which downward ran The pious Spener read his creed in tlowers. In widening circles, as from man to man. “ The dear Lord give us patience !" sud “Somewhat was said of running before his wife, sent, Touching with finger-tip an aloe, rife Of tender fear that some their guide out- With leaves sharp-pointed like an Aztec went, knife Troublers of Israel. I was scarce intent Or Carib spear, a gift to William Penn “ On hearing, for behind the reverend row From the rare gardens of John Evelyn, Of gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous Brought from the Spanish Main by mner- show, chantmen. I saw, methought, dark faces full of woe. " See this strange plant its steady purpuse " And, in the spirit, I was taken where hold, They toiled and suffered ; I was made aware And, year by year, its patient leaves unfo L Of shame and wrath and anguish and de- | Till the young eyes that watched it tirst arr spair! old. " And while the meeting smothered our “ But some time, thou hast told me, there poor plea shull come 60 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 105 A sudden beauty, brightness, and perfume ; | Of flaxen webs, and on the table, bare The century-moulded bud shall burst in Of costly cloth or silver cup, but where, bloom. Tasting the fat shads of the Delaware, “So may the seed which hath been sown The courtly Penn had praised the good- to-day wife's cheer, Grow with the years, and, after long delay, And quoted Horace o'er her home-brewed Break into bloom, and God's eternal Yea beer, Till even grave Pastorius smiled to hear. ** Answer at last the patient prayers of them Who now, by faith alone, behold its stem In such a home, beside the Schuylkill's Crowned with the flowers of Freedom's wave, diadem. He dwelt in peace with God and man, and gave “Meanwhile, to feel and suffer, work and Food to the poor and shelter to the slave. wait, Remains for us. The wrong indeed is For all too soon the New World's scandal great, shamed But love and patience conquer soon or late.” The righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed, "Well hast thou said, my Anna !” Ten- And men withheld the human rights they derer claimed. Than youth's caress upon the head of her Pastorius laid his hand. “ Shall we demur And slowly wealth and station sanction lent, And hardened avarice, on its gains intent, " Because the vision tarrieth? In an hour Stifled the inward whisper of dissent. We dream not of, the slow-grown bud may flower, Yet all the while the burden rested sore And what was sown in weakness rise in On tender hearts. At last Pastorius bore Their warning message to the Church's door Then through the vine-draped door whose legend read, In God's name ; and the leaven of the word "Procul este profani !” Anna led Wrought ever after in the souls who beard, To where their child upon his little bed And a dead conscience in its grave-clothes stirred Looked up and smiled. “ Dear heart,” she said, “ if we To troubled life, and urged the vain excuse Most bearers of a heavy burden be, Of Hebrew custom, patriarchal use, Our boy, God willing, yet the day shall see Good in itself if evil in abuse. “When from the gallery to the farthest seat, Gravely Pastorius listened, not the less Slave and slave-owner shall no longer meet, | Discerning through the decent fig-leaf dress But all sit equal at the Master's feet.” Of the poor plea its shame of selfishness. On the stone hearth the blazing walnut block One Scripture rule, at least, was unforgot ; Set the low walls a-glimmer, showed the He hid the outcast, and bewrayed him not ; cock And, when his prey the human hunter Rebuking Peter on the Van Wyck clock, sought, Shone on old tomes of law and physic, side He scrupled not, while Anna's wise delay By side with Fox and Behmen, played at And proffered cheer prolonged the master's hide stay, And seek with Anna, midst her household To speed the black guest safely on his pride way. power!” 106 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS a Yet who shall guess his bitter grief who Or painful Kelpius from his hermit den lends By Wissahickon, maddest of good men, His life to some great cause, and finds his Dreamed o'er the Chiliast dreams of Peter- friends sen. Shame or betray it for their private ends ? Deep in the woods, where the small river How felt the Master when his chosen strove slid In childish folly for their seats above ; Snake-like in shade, the Helmstadt Mystie And that fond inother, blinded by her love, hid, Weird as a wizard, over arts forbid, Besought him that her sons, beside his throne, Reading the books of Daniel and of John, Might sit on either hand ? Amidst his own And Behmen's Morning-Redness, through A stranger oft, companionless and lone, the Stone Of Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone, God's priest and prophet stands. The martyr's pain Whereby he read what man ne'er read be Is not alone from scourge and cell and fore, chain ; And saw the visions man shall see no more, Sharper the pang when, shouting in his Till the great angel, striding sea and sbore, train, Shall bid all flesh await, on land or ships, His weak disciples by their lives deny The warning trump of the Apocalypse, The loud hosannas of their daily cry, Shattering the heavens before the dread And make their echo of his truth a lie. eclipse. His forest home no hermit's cell he found, Or meek-eyed Mennonist his bearded chin Guests, motley-minded, drew his hearth | Leaned o'er the gate ; or Ranter, pure around, within, And held armed truce upon its neutral Aired his perfection in a world of sin. ground. Or, talking of old home scenes, Op der There Indian chiefs with battle-bows un- Graaf strung, Teased the low back-log with his shodden Strong, hero-limbed, like those whom Ho- staff, mer sung, Till the red embers broke into a laugh Pastorius fancied, when the world was young, And dance of flame, as if they fain would cheer Came with their tawny women, lithe and The rugged face, half tender, half austere, tall, Touched with the pathos of a botesak Like bronzes in his friend Von Rodeck's tear! hall, Comely, if black, and not unpleasing all. Or Sluyter, saintly familist, whose wor! As law the Brethren of the Manor heari, There hungry folk in homespun drab and Announced the speedy terrors of the land, gray Drew round his board on Monthly Meeting And turned, like Lot at Sodom, from his race, Genial, half merry in their friendly way. Above a wrecked world with complaceat face Or, haply, pilgrims from the Fatherland, Riding secure npon his plank of grace ! Weak, timid, homesick, slow to understand The New World's promise, sought his help Haply, from Finland's birchen groves ex- ing hand. iled, THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 107 once more Manly in thought, in simple ways a child, One faith alone, so broad that all mankind His white hair floating round his visage Within themselves its secret witness find, mild, The soul's communion with the Eternal Mind, The Swedish pastor sought the Quaker's door, The Spirit's law, the Inward Rule and Pleased from his neighbor's lips to hear Guide, Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied, His long-disused and half-forgotten lore. The polished Penn and Cromwell's Ironside. For both could baffle Babel's lingual curse, As still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting, And speak in Bion's Doric, and rehearse face Cleanthes' hymn or Virgil's sounding verse. By face in Flemish detail, we may trace How loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral And oft Pastorius and the meek old man grace Argued as Quaker and as Lutheran, Ending in Christian love, as they began. Sat in close contrast, the clipt-headed churl, With lettered Lloyd on pleasant morns he Broad market-dame, and simple serving- strayed girl Where Sommerhausen over vales of shade By skirt of silk and periwig in curl ! Looked miles away, by every flower de- layed, For soul touched soul ; the spiritual treas- ure-trove Or song of bird, happy and free with one Made all men equal, none could rise above Who loved, like him, to let his memory run Nor sink below that level of God's love. Over old fields of learning, and to sun So, with his rustic neighbors sitting down, Himself in Plato's wise philosophies, The homespun frock beside the scholar's And dream with Philo over mysteries gown, Whereof the dreamer never finds the keys ; | Pastorius to the manners of the town To touch all themes of thought, nor weakly Added the freedom of the woods, and stop sought For doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop The bookless wisdom by experience taught, Deep down and bring the hidden waters And learned to love his new-found home, while not up. For there was freedom in that wakening Forgetful of the old ; the seasons went time Their rounds, and somewhat to his spirit Of tender souls ; to differ was not crime ; lent The varying bells made up the perfect Of their own calm and measureless content. chime. Glad even to tears, he heard the robin sing On lips unlike was laid the altar's coal, His song of welcome to the Western spring, The white, clear light, tradition-colored, And bluebird borrowing from the sky his stole wing. Through the stained oriel of each human soul. And when the miracle of autumn came, And all the woods with many-colored flame Gathered from many sects, the Quaker Of splendor, making summer's greenness brought tame, His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought That moved his soul the creed his fathers Burned, unconsumed, a voice without a taught. sound 108 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Spake to him from each kindled bush To query with him of climatic change, around, Of bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range, And made the strange, new landscape holy Of flowers and fruits and simples new and ground ! strange. And when the bitter north-wind, keen and And thus the Old and New World reached swift, their hands Swept the white street and piled the door- Across the water, and the friendly lands yard drift, Talked with each other from their severed He exercised, as Friends might say, his gift strands. Of verse, Dutch, English, Latin, like the Pastorius answered all : while seed and now hash Sent from his new home grew to flower and Of corn and beans in Indian succotash ; fruit Dull, doubtless, but with here and there a Along the Rhine and at the Spessart's foot; flash And, in return, the flowers his boyhood knew Of wit and fine conceit, – the good man's Smiled at his door, the same in forin and play hue, Of quiet fancies, meet to while away And on his vines the Rhenish clusters grew The slow hours measuring off an idle day. No idler he ; whoever else might shirk, At evening, while his wife put on her look He set his hand to every honest work, - Of love's endurance, from its niche he Farmer and teacher, court and meeting took clerk. The written pages of his ponderous book. Still on the town seal his device is found. And read, in half the languages of man, Grapes, flax, and thread-spool on a tref] His “Rusca Apium,” which with bees be- ground, gan, With « Vinum, Linum et Textrinur" And through the gamut of creation ran. wound. Or, now and then, the missive of some friend One house sufficed for gospel and for law, In gray Altorf or storied Nürnberg penned Where Paul and Grotius, Scripture text and Dropped in upon him like a guest to spend saw, Assured the good, and held the rest in awe. The night beneath his roof-tree. Mystical The fair Von Merlau spake as waters fall Whatever legal maze he wandered throngte And voices sound in dreams, and yet withal He kept the Sermon on the Mount in vies, And justice always into merey grew. Human and sweet, as if each far, low tone, Over the roses of her gardens blown No whipping-post he needed, stocks, but Brought the warm sense of beauty all her jail, Nor ducking-stool ; the orchard-thief ga pale Wise Spener questioned what his friend At his rebuke, the vixen ceased to rail, could trace Of spiritual intlux or of saving grace The usurer's grasp released the forfeit land; In the wild natures of the Indian race. The slanderer faltered at the witness-stani And all men took his counsel for command. And learned Schurmberg, fain, at times, to look Was it caressing air, the brooding love From Talmud, Koran, Veds, and Penta- Of tenderer skies than German Land kne teuch, of, Sought out his pupil in his far-off nook, Green calın below, blue quietness above, Own. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 109 run. spoke Still flow of water, deep repose of wood Beneath the warm wind waves of green That, with a sense of loving Fatherhood and gold; And childlike trust in the Eternal Good, The planted ear returned its hundred-fold. Softened all hearts, and dulled the edge of Great clusters ripened in a warmer sun hate, Than that which by the Rhine stream shines Hushed strife, and taught impatient zeal to upon wait The purpling hillsides with low vines o'er- The slow assurance of the better state ? Who knows what goadings in their sterner About each rustic porch the humming-bird way Tried with light bill, that scarce a petal O'er jagged ice, relieved by granite gray, stirred, Blew round the men of Massachusetts Bay ? The Old World flowers to virgin soil trans- ferred ; What bate of heresy the east-wind woke ? What hints of pitiless power and terror And the first - fruits of pear and apple, bending In waves that on their iron coast-line broke ? The young boughs down, their gold and russet blending, Be it as it may : within the Land of Penn Made glad his heart, familiar odors lend- The sectary yielded to the citizen, ing And peaceful dwelt the many-creeded men. To the fresh fragrance of the birch and Peace brooded over all. No trumpet stung pine, The air to madness, and no steeple flung Life-everlasting, bay, and eglantine, Alarums down from bells at midnight rung. And all the subtle scents the woods combine. The land slept well. The Indian from his Fair First-Day mornings, steeped in sum- face mer calm, Washed all his war-paint off, and in the Warm, tender, restful, sweet with woodland place balm, Of battle-marches sped the peaceful chase, Came to him, like some mother-hallowed psalm Or wronght for wages at the white man's side, - To the tired grinder at the noisy wheel Giving to kindness what his native pride Of labor, winding off from memory's reel and lazy freedom to all else denied. A golden thread of music. With no peal And well the curious scholar loved the Of bells to call them to the house of old praise, Traditions that his swarthy neighbors The scattered settlers through green forest- told ways By wigwam-fires when nights were growing Walked meeting-ward. In reverent amaze cold, The Indian trapper saw them, from the Discerned the fact round which their fancy dim drew Shade of the alders on the rivulet's rim, Its dreams, and held their childish faith Seek the Great Spirit's house to talk with more true Him. To God and man than half the creeds he knew. There, through the gathered stillness mul- tiplied The desert blossomed round him ; wheat- And made intense by sympathy, outside fields rolled The sparrows sang, and the gold-robin cried, IIO NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS room And solemn meeting, summer sky and wood, Old kindly faces, youth and maidenhood Seemed, like God's new creation, very good' And, greeting all with quiet smile and word, Pastorius went his way. The unscared birl Sang at his side ; scarcely the squirrel stirred scars A-swing upon his elm. A faint perfume Breathed through the open windows of the From locust-trees, heavy with clustered bloom. Thither, perchance, sore-tried confessors came, Whose fervor jail nor pillory could tame, Proud of the cropped ears meant to be their shame, Men who had eaten slavery's bitter bread In Indian isles ; pale women who had bled Under the hangman's lash, and bravely said God's message through their prison’s iron bars ; And gray old soldier-converts, seamed with From every stricken field of England's wars. Lowly before the Unseen Presence knelt Each waiting heart, till haply some one felt On his moved lips the seal of silence melt. Or, without spoken words, low breathings stole Of a diviner life from soul to soul, Baptizing in one tender thought the whole. When shaken hands announced the meeting o'er, The friendly group still lingered at the door, Greeting, inquiring, sharing all the store Of weekly tidings. Meanwhile youth and maid Down the green vistas of the woodland strayed, Whispered and smiled and oft their feet de- layed. Did the boy's whistle answer back the thrushes? Did light girl laughter ripple through the bushes, As brooks make merry over roots and rushes ? At his hushed footstep on the mossy sond; And, wheresoe'er the good man looked or trod, He felt the peace of nature and of God. His social life wore no ascetic form, He loved all beauty, without fear of harm, And in his veins his Teuton blood ran warm. Strict to himself, of other men no spp, He made his own no circuit-judge to try The freer conscience of his neighbors by. With love rebuking, by his life alone, Gracious and sweet, the better way was shown, The joy of one, who, seeking not his own, And faithful to all scruples, finds at last The thorns and shards of duty overpest, And daily life, beyond his hope's forecast, Pleasant and beautiful with sight and sound And flowers upspringing in its narrue round, And all his days with quiet gladne crowned. He sang not; but if sometimes tempted strong, He hummed what seemed like Altorfs Burschen-song, His good wife smiled and did not count it wrong. For well he loved his boyhood's brothr: band; His Memory, while he trod the New World's strand, A double-ganger walked the Fatherland! If, when on frosty Christmas eves the lizh: Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed it sight Of Yule-log, Tree, and Christ-child all on white; L’nvered the sweet air seemed. Without a wound The ear of silence heard, and every sound Its place in nature's fine accordance found. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM III And closed his eyes, and listened to the sweet Old wait-songs sounding down his native street, And watched again the dancers' mingling Within himself he found the law of right, He walked by faith and not the letter's sight, And read his Bible by the Inward Light. feet; Yet not the less, when once the vision passed, He held the plain and sober maxims fast Of the dear Friends with whom his lot was cast. And if sometimes the slaves of form and rule, Frozen in their creeds like fish in winter's pool, Tried the large tolerance of his liberal school, Still all attuned to nature's melodies He loved the bird's song in his door-yard trees, And the low hum of home-returning bees ; His door was free to men of every name, He welcomed all the seeking souls who came, And no man's faith he made a cause of blame. The blossomed flax, the tulip-trees in bloom Down the long street, the beauty and per- fume Of apple-boughs, the mingling light and gloom But best he loved in leisure hours to see His own dear Friends sit by him knee to knee, In social converse, genial, frank, and free. ear, Of Sommerhausen's woodlands, woven There sometimes silence (it were hard to through tell With sun-threads; and the music the wind Who owned it first) upon the circle fell, drew, Hushed Anna's busy wheel, and laid its spell Mournful and sweet, from leaves it over- blew. On the black boy who grimaced by the hearth, And evermore, beneath this outward sense, To solemnize his shining face of mirth ; And through the common sequence of Only the old clock ticked amidst the dearth events, He felt the guiding hand of Providence Of sound ; nor eye was raised nor hand was stirred Reach out of space. A Voice spake in his In that soul-sabbath, till at last some word Of tender counsel or low prayer was heard. And lo! all other voices far and near Died at that whisper, full of meanings clear. Then guests, who lingered but farewell to say The Light of Life shone round him ; one by And take love's message, went their home- one The wandering lights, that all-misleading so passed in peace the guileless Quaker's run, day. Went out like candles paling in the sun. His was the Christian's unsung Age of That Light he followed, step by step, Gold, wbere'er A truer idyl than the bards have told It led, as in the vision of the seer Of Arno's banks or Arcady of old. The wheels moved as the spirit in the clear Where still the Friends their place of And terrible crystal moved, with all their burial keep, eyes And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep, Watching the living splendor sink or rise, The Nürnberg scholar and his helpmeet Its will their will, knowing no otherwise. sleep. ward way ; II2 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS of his power, And Anna's aloe? If it flowered at last In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful In Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded A glance upon it as he meekly passed ? on his tower. And did a secret sympathy possess Out spake the King to Henrik, his young That tender soul, and for the slave's redress and faithful squire : Lend hope, strength, patience? It were “ Dar'st trust thy litile Elsie, the maid of vain to guess. thy desire ?” “Of all the men in Denmark she loveth Nay, were the plant itself but mythical, only me : Set in the fresco of tradition's wall As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to Like Jotham's bramble, mattereth not at thee." all. Loud laughed the king : “To-morrow shall Enough to know that, through the winter's bring another day, frost When I myself will test her; she will not And summer's heat, no seed of truth is lost, say me nay." And every duty pays at last its cost. Thereat the lords and gallants, that rouni about him stood, For, ere Pastorius left the sun and air, Wagged all their heads in concert and God sent the answer to his life-long prayer ; smiled as courtiers should. The child was born beside the Delaware, The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and Who, in the power a holy purpose lends, on the ancient town Guided his people unto nobler ends, From the tall tower of Valdemar the t And left them worthier of the name of Golden Goose looks down ; Friends. The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of morn, And lo! the fulness of the time has come, The wood resounds with cry of hounds are And over all the exile's Western home, blare of hunter's horn. From sea to sea the flowers of freedom bloom ! In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and spins, And jor-bells ring, and silver trumpets And, singing with the early birds, her daily task begins. But not for thee, Pastorius! Even so Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint earl The world forgets, but the wise angels around her garden-bower, know. But she is sweeter than the mint and fair r than the flower. KING VOLMER AND ELSIE About her form her kirtle blue cling lot. ingly, and, white AFTER THE DANISH OF CHRISTIAN As snow, her loose sleeves only leave beer WINTER small, round wrists in sight; Below, the modest petticoat can only hai [ A Danish gentleman, Mr. P. Taft, sent the conceal port an unrhymed outline in English of Win The motion of the lightest foot that ever ter's ballad.] turned a wheel. Wherk, over heathen doom-rings and gray The cat sits purring at her side, ber's hun stones of the Horg, in sunshine warm ; In its little Christian city stands the church | But, look! she starts, she lifts her face of Vordingborg, she shades it with her arm. blow; KING VOLMER AND ELSIE 113 At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall shine, While at our ease we play at draughts, and drink the blood-red wine." And, hark ! a train of horsemen, with sound of dog and horn, Come leaping o'er the ditches, come tramp- ling down the corn! Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume streamed gay, As fast beside her father's gate the riders held their way; And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden spur on heel, And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden checked her wheel. “ All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me! For weary months in secret my heart has longed for thee!” What noble knight was this? What words for modest maiden's ear ? She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashful- ness and fear. Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face to face ; A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip found place. Back from her low white forehead the curls of gold she threw, And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and blue. “ I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight; I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn to slight. If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not a lord; I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty sword.” She lifted up her spinning-wheel ; she fain “To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dy- would seek the door, nadel away, Trembling in every limb, her cheek with And in its place will swing the scythe and blushes crimsoned o'er. mow your father's hay.” " Nay, fear me not,” the rider said, “I “Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my offer heart and hand, eyes can never bear ; Bear witness these good Danish knights A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all who round about me stand. that you must wear.' " I grant you time to think of this, to an- “Well, Vadmal will I wear for you,” the swer as you may, rider gayly spoke, For to - morrow, little Elsie, shall bring “ And on the Lord's high altar I 'll lay my another day." scarlet cloak.” He spake the old phrase slyly, as glancing “But mark,” she said, “no stately horse round his train, my peasant love must ride, He saw his merry followers seek to hide A yoke of steers before the plough is all their smiles in vain. that he must guide." 66 “ The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of golden hair, I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you wear ; All precious gems shall twine your neck ; and in a chariot gay You shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four The knight looked down upon his steed : Well, let him wander free : No other man must ride the horse that has been backed by me. Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen talk, If only little Elsie beside my plough will walk.” steeds of gray. * And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and brazen lamps shall glow ; On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances to and fro. “You must take from out your cellar cask of wine and flask and can ; The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant-man." 114 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS “ Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that None saw the fond embracing, save, ship- mead of thine, ing from afar, And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to The Golden Goose that watched them from drain my generous wine." the tower of Valdemar. "Now break your shield asunder, and ( darling girls of Denmark! of all the shatter sign and boss, flowers that throng C'nmeet for peasant - wedded arms, your Her vales of spring the fairest, I sing for knightly knee across. you my song And pull me down your castle from top to No praise as yours so bravely rewards the basement wall, singer's skill; And let your plough trace furrows in the Thank God! of maids like Elsie the last ruins of your hall!” has plenty still ! Then smiled he with a lofty pride ; right well at last he knew THE THREE BELLS The maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth-plight true. Beneath the low-hung night cloud “Ah, roguish little Elsie ! you act your part That raked her splintering mast full well : The good ship settled slowly, You know that I must bear my shield and The cruel leak gained fast. in my castle dwell ! Over the awful ocean “ The lions ramping on that shield between Her signal guns pealed out. the hearts atlame Dear God! was that Thy answer Keep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and From the horror round about ? guard her ancient name. For know that I am Volmer; I dwell in A voice came down the wild wind, yonder towers, “ Ho! ship ahos!” its cry : Who ploughs them ploughs up Denmark, “Our stont Three Bells of Glasgow this goodly home of ours ! Shall lay till daylight by!” “I tempt no more, fair Elsie ! your heart Hour after hour crept slowly, I know is true ; Yet on the heaving swells Would God that all our maidens were good Tossed up and down the ship-lights, and pure as you ! The lights of the Three Bells ! Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall well repay ; And ship to ship made signals, God's peace ! Farewell ! To-morrow will Man answered back to man, bring another day !" While oft, to cheer and hearten, The Three Bells nearer ran; He lifted up his bridle hand, be spurred his good steed then, And the captain from her taffrail And like a whirl-blast swept away with all Sent down his hopeful cry : his gallant men. “ Take heart ! Hold on!” he shouted' The steel hoofs beat the rocky path ; again “ The Three Bells shall lay by !" on winds of morn The wood resounds with cry of hounds and All night across the waters blare of hunter's horn. The tossing lights shone clear ; All night from reeling taffrail “ Thou true and ever faithful !" the listen- The Three Bells sent her cheer. ing Henrik cried ; And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood And when the dreary watches by Elsie's side. Of storm and darkness passed, JOHN UNDERHILL 115 Just as the wreck lurched under, And he rose in his stirrups and looked All souls were saved at last. abroad Over land and water, and praised the Lord. Sail on, Three Bells, forever, In grateful memory sail ! Goodly and stately and grave to see, Ring on, Three Bells of rescue, Into the clearing's space rode he, Above the wave and gale ! With the sun on the hilt of his sword in sheath, Type of the Love eternal, And his silver buckles and spurs beneath, Repeat the Master's cry, And the settlers welcomed him, one and all, As tossing through our darkness From swift Quampeagan to Gonic Fall. The lights of God draw nigh! And he said to the elders : “Lo, I come As the way seemed open to seek a home. JOHN UNDERHILL Somewhat the Lord hath wrought by my hands A SCORE of years had come and gone In the Narragansett and Netherlands, Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth And if here ye have work for a Christian stone, man, When Captain Cnderhill, bearing scars I will tarry, and serve ye as best I can. From Indian ambush and Flemish wars, Left three - hilled Boston and wandered “I boast not of gifts, but fain would own down, The wonderful favor God hath shown, East by north, to Cocheco town. The special mercy vouchsafed one day On the shore of Narragansett Bay, With Vane the younger, in council sweet, As I sat, with my pipe, from the camp aside, He had sat at Anna Hutchinson's feet, And mused like Isaac at eventide. And, when the bolt of banishment fell On the head of his saintly oracle, “ A sudden sweetness of peace I found, He had shared her ill as her good report, A garment of gladness wrapped me round ; And braved the wrath of the General I felt from the law of works released, Court. The strife of the flesh and spirit ceased, My faith to a full assurance grew, He shook from his feet as he rode away And all I had hoped for myself I knew. The dust of the Massachusetts Bay. The world might bless and the world might “Now, as God appointeth, I keep my ban, way, What did it matter the perfect man, I shall not stumble, I shall not stray ; To whom the freedom of earth was given, He bath taken away my fig-leaf dress, Proof against sin, and sure of heaven ? I wear the robe of His righteousness ; And the shafts of Satan no more avail He cheered his heart as he rode along Than Pequot arrows on Christian mail." With screed of Scripture and holy song, Or thought how he rode with his lances Tarry with us,” the settlers cried, free “Thou man of God, as our ruler and guide.” By the Lower Rhine and the Zuyder-Zee, And Captain Underhill bowed his head. Till his wood - path grew to a trodden “ The will of the Lord be done !” he said. road, And the morrow beheld him sitting down And Hilton Point in the distance showed. In the ruler's seat in Cocheco town. He saw the church with the block-house And he judged therein as a just man should ; nigh, His words were wise and his rule was good ; The two fair rivers, the flakes thereby, He coveted not his neighbor's land, Ard, tacking to windward, low and crank, From the holding of bribes he shook his The little shallop from Strawberry Bank ; hand ; 116 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS ran in ; And through the camps of the heathen Hate me or pity me, as you will, The Lord will have mercy on sinners still ; A wholesome fear of the valiant man. And I, who am chiefest, say to all, Watch and pray, lest ye also fall." But the heart is deceitful, the good Book saith, No voice made answer : a sob so low And life hath ever a savor of death. That only his quickened ear could know Through hymns of triumph the tempter Smote his heart with a bitter pain, calls, As into the forest he rode again, And whoso thinketh he standeth falls. And the veil of its oaken leares shut Alas ! ere their round the seasons ran, down There was grief in the soul of the saintly On his latest glimpse of Cocheco town. man. Crystal-clear on the man of sin The tempter's arrows that rarely fail The streams tlashed up, and the sky shone Had found the joints of his spiritual mail; And men took note of his gloomy air, On his cheek of fever the cool wind bles, The shame in his eye, the halt in his prayer, The leaves dropped on him their tears of The signs of a battle lost within, dew, The pain of a soul in the coils of sin. And angels of God, in the pure, swert guise Then a whisper of scandal linked his name Of flowers, looked on him with sad surprise. With broken vows and a life of blame; And the people looked askance on him Was his ear at fault that brook and breer As he walked among them sullen and grim, Sang in their saddest of minor keys? Ill at ease, and bitter of word, What was it the mournful wood-thrush And prompt of quarrel with hand or sword. said ? What whispered the pine-trees overhead! None knew how, with prayer and fasting Did he hear the Voice on his lonely way still, That Adam beard in the cool of day? lle strove in the bonds of his evil will ; But he shook himself like Samson at length, Into the desert alone rode be, And girded anew his loins of strength, Alone with the Intinite Purity ; And bade the crier go up and down And, bowing his soul to its tender rebuke, And call together the wondering town. As Peter did to the Master's look, He measured his path with prayers of Jeer and murmur and shaking of head pain Ceased as he rose in his place and said : For peace with God and nature again. * Men, brethren, and fathers, well ye know How I came among you a year ago, And in after years to Cocheco came Strong in the faith that my soul was freed The bruit of a once familiar name : From sin of feeling, or thought, or deed. How among the Dutch of New Setber lands, “I have sinned, I own it with grief and From wild Danskamer to Haarlem sapus, shame, A penitent soldier preached the Word, But not with a lie on my lips I came. And smote the heathen with Gideon's In my blindness I verily thought my heart sword! Swept and garnished in every part. Ile chargeth His angels with folly ; le And the heart of Boston was glad to hear sees How he harried the foe on the long ina- The heavens unclean. Was I more than tier, these? And beaped on the land against him barred The coals of his generous watch and want. " I urge no plea. At your feet I lay Frailest and bravest ! the Bay State still The trust you gave me, and go my way. Counts with her worthies John Caderkuil. THE WITCH OF WENHAM 117 name We bow as in the dust, with all our pride CONDUCTOR BRADLEY Of virtue dwarfed the noble deed be- side. A railway condnctor who lost his life in an accident on a Connecticut railway, May 9, 1873. God give us grace to live as Bradley died ! CONDUCTOR BRADLEY, (always may his THE WITCH OF WENHAM Be said with reverence !) as the swift doom came, The house is still standing in Danvers, Mass., Smitten to death, a crushed and mangled where, it is said, a suspected witch was con- frame, fined overnight in the attic, which was bolted fast. In the morning, when the constable came Sank, with the brake he grasped just where to take her to Salem for trial, she was missing, he stood although the door was still bolted. Her escape To do the utmost that a brave man could, was doubtless aided by her friends, but at the time it was attributed to Satanic interference. And die, if needful, as a true man should. I Along Crane River's sunny slopes Blew warm the winds of May, And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks The green outgrew the gray. Men stooped above him ; women dropped their tears On that poor wreck beyond all hopes or fears, Lost in the strength and glory of his years. What heard they ? Lo! the ghastly lips of pain, Dead to all thought save duty's, moved again : " Put out the signals for the other train !” No nobler utterance since the world began From lips of saint or martyr ever ran, Electric, through the sympathies of man. The grass was green on Rial-side, The early birds at will Waked up the violet in its dell, The wind-flower on its hill. “Where go you, in your Sunday coat, Son Andrew, tell me, pray.” " For stripëd perch in Wenham Lake I go to fish to-day.” Ah me! how poor and noteless seem to this The sick-bed dramas of self-consciousness, Our sensual fears of pain and hopes of bliss ! “Unharmed of thee in Wenham Lake The mottled perch shall be : A blue-eyed witch sits on the bank And weaves her net for thee. “She weaves her golden hair ; she sings Her spell-song low and faint ; The wickedest witch in Salem jail Is to that girl a saint.” Oh, grand, supreme endeavor ! Not in vain That last brave act of failing tongue and brain ! Freighted with life the downward rushing train, Following the wrecked one, as wave follows wave, Obeyed the warning which the dead lips gave. Others he saved, himself he could not save. Nay, the lost life was saved. He is not dead Who in his record still the earth shall tread With God's clear aureole shining round his head. “ Nay, mother, hold thy cruel tongue ; God knows,” the young man cried, “ He never made a whiter soul Than hers by Wenham side. a “She tends her mother sick and blind, And every want supplies ; To her above the blessed Book She lends her soft blue eyes. “ Her voice is glad with holy songs, Her lips are sweet with prayer ; 118 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Go where you will, in ten miles round Is none more good and fair.” “Son Andrew, for the love of God And of thy mother, stay!” She clasped her hands, she wept aloud, But Andrew rode away. The Black Man's godless sacrament And signed his dreadful book. “ Last night my sore-afflicted child Against the young witch cried. To take her Marshal Herrick rides Even now to Wenham side.” “ () reverend sir, my Andrew's soul The Wenham witch has caught ; She holds him with the curled gold Whereof her snare is wrought. The marshal in his saddle sat, His daughter at his knee ; “I go to fetch that arrant witch, Thy fair playmate," quoth he. “ller spectre walks the parsonage, And haunts both ball and stair; They know her by the great blue eyes And floating gold of hair." * They lie, they lie, my father dear! No foul old witch is she, But sweet and good and crystal-pure As Wenham waters be.' “She charms him with her great blue eyes, She binds him with her hair ; Oh, break the spell with holy words, Unbind him with a prayer !” “ Take heart,” the painful preacher said, This mischief shall not be ; The witch shall perish in her sins And Andrew shall go free. * Our poor Ann Putnam testifies She saw her weave a spell, Bare-armed, loose-haired, at full of moon, Around a dried-up well. “«Spring up, () well!' she softly sang The Hebrew's old refrain (For Satan uses Bible words), Till water towed amain. “ And many a goodwife beard her speak By Wenham water words That made the buttercups take wings And turn to yellow birds. “They say that swarming wild bees seek The hive at her command ; And fishes swim to take their food From out her dainty hand. “ Meek as she sits in meeting-time, The godly minister Notes well the spell that doth compel The young men's eyes to her. “ The mole upon her dimpled chin Is Satan's seal and sign ; Her lips are red with evil bread And stain of unblest wine. “I tell thee, child, the Lord hath set Before us good and ill, And woe to all whose carnal loves Oppose His righteous will. “ Between Him and the powers of hell Choose thou, my child, to-day : No sparing hand, no pitying eye, When God commands to slay!” He went his way; the old wives shouk With fear as he drew nigh; The children in the dooryanis held Their breath as he passed by. Too well they knew the gaunt 6721 horse The grim witch-hunter rode, The pale Apocalyptie beast By grisly Death bestrode. 11 Oh, fair the face of Wenham Lake l'pon the young girl's sbone, Her tender mouth, her dreaming eyes, Her yellow hair outblown. By happy youth and love attuned *To natural harinonies, The singing birds, the whispering wind, She sat beneath the trets. * For Tituba, my Indian, kaith At Quasycung she took THE WITCH OF WENHAM 119 Sat shaping for her bridal dress Her mother's wedding gown, When lo! the marshal, writ in hand, From Alford hill rode down. But up and down the chimney stack The swallows moaned and stirred. His face was hard with cruel fear, He grasped the maiden's hands : **Come with me unto Salem town, For so the law commands !" $$ And o'er her, with a dread surmise Of evil sight and sound, The blind bats on their leathern wings Went wheeling round and round. Low hanging in the midnight sky Looked in a half-faced moon. Was it a dream, or did she hear Her lover's whistled tune ? a “Oh, let me to my mother say Farewell before I go !” He closer tied her little hands Unto his saddle bow. She forced the oaken scuttle back; A whisper reached her ear : “Slide down the roof to me,” it said, “So softly none may hear." “ ['nhand me,” cried she piteously, “For thy sweet daughter's sake.” "I'll keep my daughter safe,” he said, * From the witch of Wenham Lake." 64 " She slid along the sloping roof Till from its eaves she hung, And felt the loosened shingles yield To which her fingers clung. 64 Below, her lover stretched his hands And touched her feet so small; Drop down to me, dear heart,” he said, “My arms shall break the fall.” 66 " "Oh, leave me for my mother's sake, She needs my eyes to see." “ Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck From off the gallows-tree.” He bore her to a farm-bouse old And up its stairway long, And closed on her the garret-door With iron bolted strong. The day died out, the night came down : Her evening prayer she said, While, through the dark, strange faces seemed To mock her as she prayed. He set her on his pillion soft, Her arms about him twined ; And, noiseless as if velvet-shod, They left the house behind. But when they reached the open way, Full free the rein he cast; Oh, never through the mirk midnight Rode man and maid more fast. The present horror deepened all The fears her childhood knew ; The awe wherewith the air was filled With every breath she drew. And could it be, she trembling asked, Some secret thought or sin Had shut good angels from her heart And let the bad ones in ? Along the wild wood-paths they sped, The bridgeless streams they swam ; At set of moon they passed the Bass, At sunrise Agawam. At high noon on the Merrimac The ancient ferryman Forgot, at times, his idle oars, So fair a freight to scan. Had she in some forgotten dream Let go ber bold on Heaven, And sold herself unwittingly To spirits unforgiven ? Oh, weird and still the dark hours passed ; No human sound she heard, And when from off his grounded boat He saw them mount and ride, “God keep her from the evil eye, And harm of witch !” he cried. The maiden laughed, as youth will laugh At all its fears gone by ; 120 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS “ He does not know," she whispered low, “ A little witch am I.” That wondrous Song of songs, Sensuous and mystical, Whereto devout souls turn In fond, ecstatic dream, And through its earth-born theme The Love of loves discern. All day he urged his weary horse, And, in the red sundown, Drew rein before a friendly door In distant Berwick town. A fellow-feeling for the wronged The Quaker people felt; And safe beside their kindly hearths The hunted maiden dwelt, Until from off its breast the land The haunting horror threw, And hatred, born of ghastly dreams, To shame and pity grew. Sad were the year's spring morns, and sad Its golden summer day, But blithe and glad its withered fields, And skies of ashen gray ; For spell and charm bad power no more, The spectres ceased to roam, And scattered households knelt again Around the hearths of home. Proud in the Syrian sun, In gold and purple sheen, The dusky Ethiop queen Smiled on King Solonion. Wisest of men, he knew The languages of all The creatures great or small That trod the earth or flew. Across an ant-bill led The king's path, and he heard Its small folk, and their word He thus interpreted : “Here comes the king men greet As wise and good and just, To crush us in the dust L’nder his heedless feet." The great king bowed his head, And saw the wide surprise Of the Queen of Sheba's eres As he told her what they said. And when once more by Beaver Dam The meadow-lark outsang, And once again on all the hills The early violets spraug, And all the windy pasture slopes Lay green within the arms Of creeks that bore the salted sea To pleasant inland farms, The smith filed off the chains he forged, The jail-bolts backward fell; And youth and hoary age cane forth Like souls escaped from hell. “O king !” she whispered sweet, “ Too happy fate have they Who perish in thy way Beneath thy gracious feet ! “ Thou of the Goul-lent crown, Shall these vile crentures dare Murmur against thee where The knees of kings kneel down? “ Nay," Solomon replied, « The wise and strong should seek The welfare of the weak," And turned his horse aside. His train, with quick alarm, Curved with their leader round The ant-hill's peopled mound, And left it free from harm. KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS Ort from Jerusalem The king rode with his great War chiets and lords of state, And Sheba's queen with them; Comely, but black withal, To whom, perehance, belongs The jewelled head bent low; "O king !" she said, “ henceforth IN THE “OLD SOUTH” I21 The secret of thy worth And wisdom well I know. Let all souls worship Him in the way His light within reveals.” " Happy must be the State Whose ruler heedeth more The murmurs of the poor Than flatteries of the great." She shook the dust from her naked feet, And her sackcloth closer drew, And into the porch of the awe - hushed church She passed like a ghost from view. They whipped her away at the tail o' the cart Through half the streets of the town, But the words she uttered that day nor fire Could burn nor water drown. IN THE “OLD SOUTH" On the 8th of July, 1677, Margaret Brew- ster with four other Friends went into the South Church in time of meeting, “in sackcloth, with ashes upon her head, barefoot, and her face blackened," and delivered "a warning from the great God of Heaven and Earth to the Rulers and Magistrates of Boston." For the offence she was sentenced to be “ whipped at a cart's tail up and down the Town, with twenty lashes." And now the aisles of the ancient church By equal feet are trod, And the bell that swings in its belfry rings Freedom to worship God ! She came and stood in the Old South Church, A wonder and a sign, With a look the old-time sibyls wore, Half-crazed and half-divine. And now whenever a wrong is done It thrills the conscious walls ; The stone from the basement cries aloud And the beam from the timber calls. Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound, l'nclothed as the primal mother, With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed With a fire she dare not smother. There are steeple-houses on every hand, And pulpits that bless and ban, And the Lord will not grudge the single church That is set apart for man. For in two commandments are all the law And the prophets under the sun, And the first is last and the last is first, And the twain are verily one. Loose on her shoulders fell her hair, With sprinkled ashes gray; She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird As a soul at the judgment day. So long as Boston shall Boston be, And her bay-tides rise and fall, Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church And plead for the rights of all ! THE HENCHMAN And the minister paused in his sermon's midst, And the people held their breath, For these were the words the maiden spoke Through lips as the lips of death : “Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet All men my courts shall tread, And priest and ruler no more shall eat My people up like bread ! " Repent! repent ! ere the Lord shall speak In thunder and breaking seals ! (Written at the request of a young lady, who said to the poet: * Mr. Whittier, you never wrote a love song. I do not believe you can write one. I wish you would try to write one for me to sing." In sending the poem afterward to the editor of The Independent, Whittier wrote: “I send, in compliance with the wish of Mr. Bowen and thyself, a ballad upon which, though not long, I have bestowed a good deal of labor. It is not exactly a I 22 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS Quakerly piece, nor is it didactic, and it has no moral that I know of. But it is, I think, natural, simple, and not unpoetical."] No lanee have I, in joust or fight, To splinter in my lady's sight; But, at her feet, how blest were I For any need of hers to die ! My lady walks her morning round, My lady's page her fleet greyhound, My lady's hair the fond winds stir, And all the birds make songs for her. THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK Her thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers, And Rathburn side is gay with flowers ; But ne'er like hers, in flower or bird, Was beauty seen or music heard. The distance of the stars is hers; The least of all her worshippers, The dust beneath her dainty heel, She kuows not that I see or feel. 1 Oh, proud and calm ! - she cannot know Where'er she goes with her I go ; Oh, cold and fair ! she canuot guess I kneel to share her hound's caress! E. B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture, chapter xii., gives an account of the reverence paid the dead by the Koltribes of Chota Nagpur, Asim. * When a Ho or Munda," he says, “has been burned on the funeral pile, collected morses of his bones are carried in procession with a solemn, ghostly, sliding step, keping time to the deep-sounding drum, and when the old woman who carries the bones on her bamboo tray lowers it from time to time, then giris who carry pitchers and brass vesse is mournfuliv reverse them to show that they are empty: thus the remains are taken to visit every house in the village, and every dwelling of a friend or rila tive for miles, and the inmates come out to mourn and praise the goodness of the departed, the bones are carried to all the dead ma's favorite haunts, to the fields he cultivated, to the grove he planted, to the threshing-tider where he worked, to the village dance-room where he made merry. At last they are tak-a to the grave, and buried in an earthen ik upon a store of food, covered with one of the huge stone slabs which European visitors - der at in the districts of the abongin of India." In the Journal of the Isiatic Searty, Bengal, vol. ix. p. 70.), is a Ho dirge. Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk, I rob their ears of her sweet talk ; Her suitors come from east and west, I steal her smiles from every guest. Unheard of her, in loving words, I greet her with the song of birds ; I reach her with her green - armed bow- ers, I kiss her with the lips of flowers. The hound and I are on her trail, The wind and I uplift her veil ; As if the calm, cold moon she were, And I the tide, I follow her. As unrebuked as they, I share The license of the sun and air, And in a common homage hide My worship from her scorn and pride. World-wide apart, and yet so near, I breathe her charmed atmosphere, Wherein to her my service brings The reverence due to holy things. Her maiden pride, her hanghty name, My dumb devotion shall not shame; The love that no return doth crave To knightly levels lifts the slave. We have opened the door, Once, twice, thrice! We have swept the floor, We bave boiled the rice. Come hither, come hither! Come froin the far lands, Come from the star lands, Come as before ! We lived long together, We loved one another; Come back to our life. Come father, come mother, Come sister and brother, Child, husband, and wife, For you we are sighing. Come take your old places, (ome look in our faces, The dead on the dying, Come home! THE KHAN'S DEVIL 123 Nor seeing nor hearing, We wait without fearing To feel you draw near. O dead, to the dying Come home! THE KHAN'S DEVIL We have opened the door, Once, twice, thrice ! We have kindled the coals, And we boil the rice For the feast of souls. Come hither, come hither! Think not we fear you, Whose hearts are so near you. Come tenderly thought on, Come all unforgotten, Come from the shadow-lands, From the dim meadow-lands Where the pale grasses bend Low to our sighing. Come father, come mother, Come sister and brother, Come husband and friend, The dead to the dying, Come home! The Khan came from Bokhara town To Hamza, santon of renown. “ My head is sick, my hands are weak; Thy help, O holy man, I seek.” In silence marking for a space The Khau's red eyes and purple face, Thick voice, and loose, uncertain tread, “ Thou hast a devil !” Hamza said. a “ Allah forbid !” exclaimed the Khan. Rid me of him at once, O man !” 66 “Nay,” Hamza said, “no spell of mine Can slay that cursed thing of thine. “ Leave feast and wine, go forth and drink Water of healing on the brink We have opened the door You entered so oft ; For the feast of souls We have kindled the coals, And we boil the rice soft. Come you who are dearest To us who are nearest, Come hither, come hither, From out the wild weather ; The storm clouds are flying, The peepul is sighing ; Come in from the rain. Come father, come mother, Come sister and brother, Come husband and lover, Beneath our roof-cover. Look on us again, The dead on the dying, Come home! “Where clear and cold from mountain snows, The Nahr el Zeben downward flows. “ Six moons remain, then come to me ; May Allah's pity go with thee!” Awestruck, from feast and wine the Khan Went forth where Nahr el Zeben ran. Roots were his food, the desert dust His bed, the water quenched his thirst ; And when the sixth moon's scimitar Curved sharp above the evening star, We have opened the door! For the feast of souls We have kindled the coals We may kindle no more! Suake, fever, and fainine, The curse of the Brahmin, The sun and the dew, They burn us, they bite us, They waste us and smite us; Our days are but few ! In strange lands far youder To wonder and wander We hasten to you. List then to our sighing, While yet we are here : He sought again the santon's door, Not weak and trembling as before, But strong of limb and clear of brain ; “Behold,” he said, “ the fiend is slain." 66 “ Nay," Hamza answered, “starved and drowned, The curst one lies in death-like swound. 124 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS * But evil breaks the strongest gyves, And jins like him have charmed lives. “One beaker of the juice of grape May call him up in living shape. “ When the red wine of Badakshan Sparkles for thee, beware, O Khan! * With water quench the fire within, And drown each day thy devilkin !” Thenceforth the great Khan shunned the cup As Shitan's own, though offered up, With laughing eyes and jewelled hands, By Yarkand's maids and Samarcand’s. And, in the lofty vestibule Of the medress of Kaush Kodul, The students of the holy law A golden-lettered tablet saw, With these words, by a cunning hand, Graved on it at the Khan's command : “In Allah's name, to him who hath A devil, Khan el llamed saith, "Wisely our Prophet cursed the vine : The fiend that loves the breath of wine U'NDER the great hill sloping bare To cove and meadow and Common lot, In his council chamber and oaken chair, Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott. A grave, strong man, who knew no peer In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in frar Of God, not man, and for good or ill Held his trust with an iron will. He had shorn with his sword the cross from out The flag, and cloven the May-pole down, Harried the heathen round about, And whipped the Quakers from town to town. Earnest and honest, a man at need To burn like a torch for his own barsh erece!, He kept with the tiaming brand of his zeal The gate of the holy common weal. His brow was clouded, his eye was stern, With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath ; “Woe's me!” he murmured : “at every turn The pestilent Quakers are in my path! Some we have scourged, and banished some, Some banged, more doomed, and still they come, Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in, Sowing their heresy's seed of sin. “ Did we count on this ? Did we leave to hind The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease Of our English hearths and homes, to final Troublers of Israel such as these? Shall I spare ? Shall I pity them? (wi forbid ! I will do as the prophet to Agong did: They come to poison the wells of the World I will hew them in pieces before the Luni!" The door swung open, and Rawson the clerk Entered, and whispered under breath, “ There waits below for the hangman's work A fellow banished on pain of leath- Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the who Brought over in Master Goldsmith's skap At anchor here in a Christian port, With freight of the devil and all his sort Twice and thrice on the chamber too Striding fiercely from wall to wall, “ No prayer can slay, no marabout Nor Neccan dervis can drive out. “ 1, Khan el Hamed, know the charm That robs him of his power to harm. " Drowu him, ( Islam's child! the spell To save thee lies in tank and well !” THE KING'S MISSIVE 1061 This ballad, originally written for The Memo- rial History of Boston, describes, with pardon- able poetic license, a memorable incident in the annals of the city. The interview between Shattuck and the Governor took place. I have since learned, in the residence of the latter, and not in the Council Chamber. The publication of the ballud led to some discussion as to the historical truthfulness of the picture, but I have sen no r.son to rub out any of the figures or alter the lines and colors. THE KING'S MISSIVE 125 : The Lord do so to me and more,” The Governor cried, “ if I hang not all ! Bring hither the Quaker.” Calm, sedate, With the look of a man at ease with fate, Into that presence grim and dread Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head. And much scourged Wharton of Salem took Ilis burden of prophecy up and cried : “ Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain Have ye borne the Master's cross of pain ; Ye have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned, With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound !” The autumn haze lay soft and still On wood and meadow and upland farms ; On the brow of Snow Hill the great wind- mill Slowly and lazily swung its arms ; Broad in the sunshine stretched away, With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay ; And over water and dusk of pines Blue hills lifted their faint outlines. - Off with the knave's bat !” An angry hand Smote down the offence ; but the wearer said, With a quiet smile, “By the king's com- mand I bear his message and stand in his stead.” In the Governor's hand a missive he laid With the royal arms on its seal displayed, And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat, Uncovering, "Give Mr. Shattuck bis hat.” He turned to the Quaker, bowing low, ** The king commandeth your friends' release ; Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although To his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase. What he here enjoineth, John Endicott, His loyal servant, questioneth not. You are free! God grant the spirit yon May take you from us to parts unknown.” So the door of the jail was open cast, And, like Daniel, out of the lion's den Tender youth and girlhood passed, With age-bowed women and gray-locked men. And the voice of one appointed to die Was lifted in praise and thanks on high, And the little maid from New Netherlands kissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands. The topaz leaves of the walnut glowed, The sumach added its crimson fleck, And double in air and water showed The tinted maples along the Neck ; Through frost flower clusters of pale star- mist, And gentian fringes of amethyst, And royal plumes of golden-rod, The grazing cattle on Centry trod. own But as they who see not, the Quakers saw The world about them; they only thought With deep thanksgiving and pious awe On the great deliverance God had wrought. Through lane and alley the gazing town Noisily followed them up and down ; Some with scoffing and brutal jeer, Some with pity and words of cheer. And one, whose call was to minister To the souls in prison, beside him went, An ancient woman, bearing with her The linen sbroud for his burial meant. For she, not counting her own life dear, In the strength of a love that cast out fear, Had watched and served where her brethren died, Like those who waited the cross beside. One brave voice rose above the din. Upsall, gray with his length of days, Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn : “Men of Boston, give God the praise ! No more shall innocent blood call down The bolts of wrath on your guilty town. The freedom of worship, dear to you, Is dear to all, and to all is due. One moment they paused on their way to look On the martyr graves by the Common side, “ I see the vision of days to come, When your beautiful City of the Bay Shall be Christian liberty's chosen home, And none shall his neighbor's rights gainsay. The varying notes of worship shall blend 126 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS . And as one great prayer to God ascend, And hands of mutual charity raise RABBI ISHMAEL Walls of salvation and gates of praise.” “Rabbi Ishmael Ben Elisha said. Once I So passed the Quakers through Boston entered into the Holy of Holies' as High Press town, to burn incense, when I saw Aktriel tbe in Whose painful ministers sighed to see vine Crown Jah, Lord of Hosts, sitting ayam a throne, high and lifted up, who said unto The walls of their sheep-fold falling down, me, · Ishmael, my son, bless me.' I answend, And wolves of heresy prowling free. May it please Thee to make Thy compassion pou But the years went on, and brought no rail over Thine anger; may it be rereutda wrong ; Thy other attributes; mayest Thou drai ris With milder counsels the State grew strong, Thy children according to it, and not accurd y As outward Letter and inward Light to the strict measure of judgment.' It seemed to Kept the balance of truth aright. me that Ile bowed Ilis head, as though to b- swer Amen to my blessing." — Talmud (Bera The Puritan spirit perishing not, chóth, i. f. 6 b.). To Concord's yeomen the signal sent, And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot The Rabbi Ishmael, with the woe and sin That severed the chains of a continent. Of the world heavy upon him, entering in With its gentler mission of peace and good- The Holy of Holies, saw an awful Face will With terrible splendor filling all the place The thought of the Quaker is living still, “() Ishmael Ben Elisha!” said a voice, And the freedom of soul he prophesied “What seekest thou? What blessing is Is gospel and law where the martyrs died. thy choice? And, knowing that he stood before the Lord, Within the shadow of the cherubim, VALUATION Wide-winged between the blinding light and him, The old Squire said, as he stood by his He bowed himself, and uttered not a worl, gate, But in the silence of his soul was prayer And his neighbor, the Deacon, went by, “() Thou Eternal! I am one of all, “In spite of my bank stock and real estate, And nothing ask that others may pot sur You are better off, Deacon, than I. Thou art almighty; we are weak ant small, “We 're both growing old, and the end's And yet Thy children : let Thy mer! drawing near, You have less of this world to resign, Trembling, he raised his eyes, and in the But in Heaven's appraisal your assets, I place fear, Of the insufferable glory, lo! a face Will reckon up greater than mine. Of more than mortal tenderness, that let Graciously down in token of assent, “ They say I am rich, but I'm feeling so And, smiling, vanished ! With strange jos poor, elate, I wish I could swap with you even : The wondering Rabbi sought the temples The pounds I have lived for and laid up in gate. store Radiant as Moses from the Mount, be For the shillings and pence yon have stood given." And cried aloud unto the multitude : “() Israel, hear! The Lori our God is “Well, Squire," said the Deacon, with good! shrewd common sense, Mine eyes have seen His glory and lis While his eye had a twinkle of fun, grace ; "Let your pounds take the way of my shil. Beyond His judgments shall His love ep- lings and pence, dure; And the thing can be easily done !" The mercy of the All Merciful is sure !” spare 1 " THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS 127 THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE H. Y. Hind, in Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula (ii. 166), mentions the finding of a rock tomb near the little fishing port of Bradore, with the inscription upon it shich is given in the poem. The stranger paused and read. “ () winter land !” he said, Thy right to be I own ; God leaves thee not alone. And if thy fierce winds blow Over drear wastes of rock and snow, And at thy iron gates The ghostly iceberg waits, Thy homes and hearts are dear. Thy sorrow o'er thy sacred dust Is sanctified by hope and trust; God's love and man's are here. And love where'er it goes Makes its own atmosphere ; Its flowers of Paradise Take root in the eternal ice, And bloom through Polar snows ! ” A DREAR and desolate shore ! Where no tree unfolds its leaves, And never the spring wind weaves Green grass for the hunter's tread; A land forsaken and dead, Where the ghostly icebergs go And come with the ebb and flow Of the waters of Bradore ! a THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS A wanderer, from a land By summer breezes fanned, Looked round him, awed, subdued, By the dreadful solitude, Hearing alone the cry Of sea-birds clanging by, The crash and grind of the floe, Wail of wind and wash of tide. “ () wretched land !” he cried, Land of all lands the worst, God forsaken and curst ! Thy gates of rock should show The words the Tuscan seer Read in the Realm of Woe : Hope entereth not here!” 63 The volume in which The Bay of Seven Is- lands was published was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any other person I was indebted for public re- cognition as one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a proscribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had gained the reputation of a bril- liant essayist, and was regarded as the highest American authority in criticism. His wit and wisdom enlivened a small literary circle of young men, including Thomas Starr King, the eloquent preacher, and Daniel N. Haskell, of the Daily Transcript, who gathered about our common friend James T. Fields at the Old Corner Bookstore. The poem which gave title to the volume I inscribed to my friend and neighbor, Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose poems have lent a new interest to our beauti- ful river-valley. Lo! at his feet there stood A block of smooth larch wood, Waif of some wandering wave, Beside a rock-closed cave By Nature fashioned for a grave; Safe from the ravening bear And fierce fowl of the air, Wherein to rest was laid A twenty summers' maid, Whose blood bad equal share Of the lands of vine and snow, Half French, half Eskimo. In letters uneffaced, l'pon the block were traced The grief and hope of man, And thus the legend ran : “ We loved her! Words cannot tell how well ! We loved her! God loved her ! And called her home to peace and rest. We love her!" From the green Amesbury hill which bears the name Of that half mythic ancestor of mine Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago, Down the long valley of the Merrimac, Midway between me and the river's mouth, I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest Among Deer Island's immemorial pines, Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song, Which thou hast told or sung, I call to mind, Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills, 128 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS The out-thrust headlands and inreaching The little hamlet, nestling below bays Great hills white with lingering snow, Of our northeastern coast-line, trending With its tin-roofed chapel stood where Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood; The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill block- ade Green-turfed, flower-sown, the last outpost Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate. Of summer upon the dreary coast, With its gardens small and spare, To thee the echoes of the Island Sound Sad in the frosty air. Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan Of the South Breaker prophesying storm. Hard by where the skipper's schooner lay, And thou hast listened, like myself, to men A fisherman's cottage looked away Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies Over isle and bay, and behind Like a fell spider in its web of fog, On mountains dim-defined. Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks And there twin sisters, fair and young, Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange Laughed with their stranger guest, and isles sung And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations In their native tongue the lays seem Of the old Provençal days. Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove, Nubble and Boon, the common names of Alike were they, save the faint ontline home. Of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine ; So let me offer thee this lay of mine, And both, it so befell, Simple and homely, lacking much thy play Loved the heretic stranger well. Of color and of fancy. If its theme And treatment seem to thee befitting youth Both were pleasant to look upon, Rather than age, let this be my excuse : But the heart of the skipper clave to one ; It has beguiled some heavy hours and called Though less by his eye than beart Some pleasant memories up ; and, better He knew the twain apart. still, Occasion lent me for a kindly word Despite of alien race and creed, To one who is my neighbor and my friend. Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed : And the mother's wrath was vain As the sister's jealous pain. The skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth, Leaving the apple-bloom of the South The shrill-tongued mistress ber house for For the ice of the Eastern seas, bade, In his fishing schooner Breeze. And solemn warning was sternly said By the black-robed priest, whose word Handsome and brave and young was he, As law the hamlet heard. And the maids of Newbury sighed to see His lessening white sail fall But half by voice and half by signs Under the sea's blue wall. The skipper said, “ A warm sun shines On the green-banked Merrimae ; Through the Northern Gulf and the misty Wait, watch, till I come back. screen Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine, “ And when you see, from my mast head, St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon, The signal fly of a kerchief red, The little Breeze sailed on, My boat on the shore shall wait; Come, when the night is late." Backward and forward, along the shore Of lorn and desolate Labrador, Ah! weighed with childhood's haunts and And found at last her way friends, To the Seven Islands Bay. And all that the home sky orerbends, THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS 129 Did ever young love fail To turn the trembling scale ? C'nder the night, on the wet sea sands, Slowly unclasped their plighted hands : One to the cottage hearth, And one to his sailor's berth. On the morrow's morn in the thick, gray weather They sat on the reeling deck together, Lover and counterfeit Of hapless Marguerite. With a lover's hand, from her forehead fair He smoothed away her jet-black hair, What was it his fond eyes met ? The scar of the false Suzette ! What was it the parting lovers heard ? Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird, But a listener's stealthy tread On the rock-moss, crisp and dead. He weighed his anchor, and fished once more By the black coast-line of Labrador; And by love and the north wind driven, Sailed back to the Islands Seven. Fiercely he shouted : “ Bear away East by north for the Seven Isles Bay!” The maiden wept and prayed, But the ship her helm obeyed. Once more the Bay of the Isles they found : They heard the bell of the chapel sound, And the chant of the dying sung In the barsh, wild Indian tongue. In the sunset's glow the sisters twain Saw the Breeze come sailing in again ; Said Suzette, “Mother dear, The beretic's sail is here." A feeling of mystery, change, and awe Was in all they heard and all they saw : Spell-bound the hamlet lay In the hush of its lonely bay. “Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide ; Your door shall be bolted !” the mother cried : While Suzette, ill at ease, Watched the red sign of the Breeze. At midnight, down to the waiting skiff She stole in the shadow of the cliff ; And ont of the Bay's mouth ran The schooner with maid and man. And when they came to the cottage door, The mother rose up from her weeping sore, And with angry gestures met The scared look of Suzette. ; “ Here is your daughter,” the skipper said “Give me the one I love instead." But the woman sternly spake ; “Go, see if the dead will wake!” And all night long, on a restless bed, Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said: And thought of her lover's pain Waiting for her in vain. He looked. Her sweet face still and white And strange in the noonday taper light, She lay on her little bed, With the cross at her feet and head. Did he pace the sands? Did he pause to hear The sonnd of her light step drawing near ? And, as the slow hours passed, Would be doubt her faith at last ? In a passion of grief the strong man bent Down to her face, and, kissing it, went Back to the waiting Breeze, Back to the mournful seas. Bat when she saw through the misty pane, The morning break on a sea of rain, Could even her love avail To follow his vanished sail ? Never again to the Merrimac And Newbury's homes that bark came back. Whether her fate she met On the shores of Carraquette, Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind, Left the rugged Moisic hills behind, And heard from an unseen shore The falls of Manitou roar. Miscou, or Tracadie, who can say ? But even yet at Seven Isles Bay Is told the ghostly tale Of a weird, unspoken sail, a 130 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS In the pale, sad light of the Northern The other said : " The great world lies day Beyond me as it lay ; Seen by the blanketed Montagnais, O'er love's and duty's boundaries Or squaw, in her small kyack, My feet may never stray. Crossing the spectre's track. “I see but common sights of home, On the deck a maiden wrings her hands ; Its common sounds I hear, Her likeness kneels on the gray coast | My widowed mother's sick-bed room sands ; Sufficeth for my sphere. One in her wild despair, And one in the trance of prayer. “I read to her some pleasant page Of travel far and wide, She flits before no earthly blast, And in a dreainy pilgrimage The red sign fluttering from her mast, We wander side by side. Over the solemn seas, The ghost of the schooner Breeze ! “And when at last she falls asleep, My book becomes to me A magic glass : my watch I keep, THE WISHING BRIDGE But all the world I see. Among the legends sung or said “A farm-wife queen your place you fill, Along our rocky shore, While fancy's privilege The Wishing Bridge of Marblehead Is mine to walk the earth at will, May well be sung once more. Thanks to the Wishing Bridge." An hundred years ago (so ran “ Nay, leave the legend for the truth,“ The old-time story) all The other cried, " and say Good wishes said above its span God gives the wishes of our youth, Would, soon or late, befali. But in His own best way!” If pure and earnest, never failed Î'he prayers of man or maid HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM For him who on the deep sea sailed, DOVER For her at home who stayed. The following is a copy of the warrant is sued by Major Waldron, of Dover, in land Once thither came two girls from school, The Quakers, as was their wont, propheed And wished in childish glee : against him, and saw, as they suppoud, tb And one would be a queen and rule, fulfilment of their prophecy when, many years And one the world would see. after, he was killed by the Indians. To the constables of Lorvt, Harper, Salsa. Time passed ; with change of hopes and Verbury, Rowlew, Ipswich, Weniam. Le fears, Boston, Rorbury. Dedham,and until these roya And in the self-same place, bond Quakers are carried out of this jurisditie Two women, gray with middle years, Yon, and every one of you, are required in Stood, wondering, face to face. the King's Majesty's name, to take these vx abond Quakers, Anne Colman, Mary Tomkin. With wakened memories, as they met, and Alice Ambrose, and make them fut to the They queried what had been : cart's tail, and driving the cart through your “A poor man's wife am I, and yet," several towns, to whip them upon their tako Said one, “ I am a queen. backs not exceeding ten stripes apiace on eh of them, in each town; and so to convey them “My realm a little homestead is, from constable to constable till they are out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer it at yover Where, lacking crown and throne, peril; and this shall be your warrant. I rule by loving services RICHARD WALDROS And patient toil alone." Dated at Dorer, December 2, 102. HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER 131 66 - This warrant was executed only in Dover and The Indian hunter, searching his traps, Hampton. At Salisbury the constable refused Peered stealthily through the forest gaps ; to obey it. He was sustained by the town's And the outlying settler shook his head, prople, who were under the influence of Major * They ’re witches going to jail,” he said. Robert Pike, the leading man in the lower val- ley of the Merrimac, who stood far in advance of his time, as an advocate of religious freedom At last a meeting-house came in view ; and an opponent of ecclesiastical authority. A blast on his horn the constable blew ; He had the moral courage to address an able And the boys of Hampton cried up and down and manly letter to the court at Salem, remon- “ The Quakers have come !” to the won- strating against the witchcraft trials. dering town. The tossing spray of Cocheco's fall From barn and woodpile the goodman came; Hardened to ice on its rocky wall, The goodwife quitted her quilting frame, As through Dover town in the chill, gray With her child at her breast; and, hobbling dawn, slow, Three women passed, at the cart - tail The grandam followed to see the show. drawn ! Once more the torturing whip was swung, Bared to the waist, for the north wind's grip Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung. And keener sting of the constable's whip, “Oh, spare ! they are bleeding !” a little The blood that followed each hissing blow maid cried, Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow. And covered her face the sight to hide. Priest and ruler, boy and maid A murmur ran round the crowd : “Good Followed the dismal cavalcade ; folks," And from door and window, open thrown, Quoth the constable, busy counting the Looked and wondered gaffer and crone. strokes, “No pity to wretches like these is due, "God is our witness,” the victims cried, They have beaten the gospel black and * We suffer for Him who for all men died ; blue !” The wrong ye do has been done before, We bear the stripes that the Master bore ! Then a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear, With her wooden noggin of milk drew near. " And thou, O Richard Waldron, for whom Drink, poor hearts !” a rude hand smote We hear the feet of a coming doom, Her draught away from a parching throat. On thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong Vengeance is sure, though it tarry long. “ Take heed,” one whispered, “they 'll take your cow " In the light of the Lord, a flame we see For fines, as they took your horse and Climb and kindle a proud roof-tree ; plough, And beneath it an old man lying dead, And the bed from under you." “ Even so," With stains of blood on his hoary head.” She said ;“they are cruel as death, I know.” ** Smite, Goodman Hate - Evil ! — harder Then on they passed, in the waning day, still !” Through Seabrook woods, a weariful way ; The magistrate cried, “lay on with a will ! By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare, Drive ont of their bodies the Father of And glimpses of blue sea here and there. Lies, Who through them preaches and prophe- By the meeting-house in Salisbury town, sies!” The sufferers stood, in the red sundown, Bare for the lash! O pitying Night, So into the forest they held their way, Drop swift thy curtain and hide the sight ! By winding river and frost-rimmed bay, Orer wind-swept hills that felt the beat With shame in his eye and wrath on his lip Of the winter sea at their icy feet. The Salisbury constable dropped his whip. 4 132 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS &6 66 * This warrant means murder foul and red ; O woman, at ease in these happier days, Cursed is he who serves it,” he said. Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways! “Show me the order, and meanwhile strike How much thy beautiful life may owe A blow at your peril !” said Justice Pike. To her faith and courage thou canst not Of all the rulers the land possessed, know, Wisest and boldest was he and best. Nor how from the paths of thy calm re- treat He scoffed at witchcraft ; the priest he met She smoothed the thorns with ber bleedin: As man meets man ; his feet he set feet. Beyond his dark age, standing upright, Soul-free, with his face to the morning light. SAINT GREGORY'S GL'EST He read the warrant : “ These convey From our precincts ; at every town on the way A TALE for Roman guides to tell Give each ten lashes.” “God judge the To careless, sight-worn travellers still, brute ! Who pause beside the narrow cell I tread his order under my foot ! Of Gregory on the Cælian Hill. “Cut loose these poor ones and let them One day before the monk's door came go; A beggar, stretching empty palms, Come what will of it, all men shall know Fainting and fast-siek, in the name No warrant is good, though backed by the Of the Most Holy asking alms. Crown, For whipping women in Salisbury town !” And the monk answered, “All I have In this poor cell of mine I give, The hearts of the villagers, half released The silver cup my mother gave ; From creed of terror and rule of priest, In Christ's name take thou it, and By a primal instinct owned the right live." Of human pity in law's despite. Years passed ; and, called at last to bear For ruth and chivalry only slept, The pastoral crook and keys of Rote, His Saxon manhood the yeomau kept ; The poor monk, in Saint Peter's chair, Quicker or slower, the same blood ran Sat the crowned lord of Christendom. In the Cavalier and the Puritan. Prepare a feast,” Saint Gregory cried, The Quakers sank on their knees in praise “ And let twelve beggars sat thereat." And thanks. A last, low sunset blaze The beggars came, and one beside, Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed An unknown stranger, with themn sat. A golden glory on each bowed head. “I asked thee not," the Pontiff spake, The tale is one of an evil time, “() stranger ; but if need be thine, When souls were fettered and thought was I bid thee welcome, for the sake crime, Of Him who is thy Lord and mine." And beresy's whisper above its breath Meant shameful scourging and bonds and A grave, calm face the stranger raised, death! Like His who on Gennesaret trol, Or His on whom the Chaldeans gazed, What marvel, that hunted and sorely tried, Whose form was as the Son of God. Even woman rebuked and prophesied, And soft words rarely answered back “ Know'st thou,” he said, “thy gift of The grim persuasion of whip and rack ! old ?" And in the band he lifted up If her cry from the whipping-post and jail The Pontiff marvelled to behold Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail, Once more his mother's silver cup. 66 BIRCHBROOK MILL 133 64 “ Thy prayers and alms have risen, and bloom Sweetly among the flowers of heaven. I am The Wonderful, through whom Whate'er thou askest shall be given.” By day the sunlight through the leaves Falls on its moist, green sod, And wakes the violet bloom of spring And autumn's golden-rod. He spake and vanished. Gregory fell With his twelve guests in mute accord Prone on their faces, knowing well Their eyes of flesh had seen the Lord. Its birches whisper to the wind, The swallow dips her wings In the cool spray, and on its banks The gray song-sparrow sings. But from it, when the dark night falls, The school-girl shrinks with dread; The farmer, home-bound from his fields, Goes by with quickened tread. The old-time legend is not vain ; Nor vain thy art, Verona's Paul, Telling it o'er and o'er again Vicenza's frescoed wall. On gray Still wheresoever pity shares Its bread with sorrow, want, and sin, And love the beggar's feast prepares, The uninvited Guest comes in. They dare not pause to hear the grind Of shadowy stone on stone ; The plashing of a water-wheel Where wheel there now is none. C'nheard, because our ears are dull, Unseen, because our eyes are dim, He walks our earth, The Wonderful, And all good deeds are done to Him. Has not a cry of pain been heard Above the clattering mill ? The pawing of an unseen horse, Who waits his mistress still ? BIRCHBROOK MILL Yet never to the listener's eye Has sight confirmed the sound ; A wavering birch line marks alone The vacant pasture ground. No ghostly arms fling up to heaven The agony of prayer ; No spectral steed impatient shakes His white mane on the air. A NOTELESS stream, the Birchbrook runs Beneath its leaning trees ; That low, soft ripple is its own, That dull roar is the sea's. The meaning of that common dread No tongue bas fitly told ; The secret of the dark surmise The brook and birches hold. Of human signs it sees alone The distant church spire's tip, And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray, The white sail of a ship. No more a toiler at the wheel, It wanders at its will ; Nor dam nor pond is left to tell Where once was Birchbrook mill. The timbers of that mill have fed Long since a farmer's fires ; His doorsteps are the stones that ground The harvest of his sires. Man trespassed here ; but Nature lost No right of her domain ; She waited, and she brought the old Wild beauty back again. What nameless horror of the past Broods here forevermore ? What ghost his unforgiven sin Is grinding o'er and o'er ? Does, then, immortal memory play The actor's tragic part, Rehearsals of a mortal life And unveiled human heart? God's pity spare a guilty soul That drama of its ill, And let the scenic curtain fall On Birchbrook's haunted mill! 134 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS She kept life fragrant with good deeds and THE TWO ELIZABETHS prayer, And fresh and pure the white flower of Read at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth her soul. Fry at the Friends' School, Providence, R. I. Death found her busy at her task: olie A. D. 1209 word Amidst Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt, Alone sbe uttered as she paused to die, A high-born princess, servant of the poor, "Silence !” — then listened even as one Sweetening with gracious words the food who heard she dealt With soug and wing the angels drawing To starving throngs at Wartburg's bla- nigh! zoned door. Now Fra Angelico's roses fill ber hands, A blinded zealot held her soul in chains, And, on Murillo's canvas, Want and Cramped the sweet nature that he could Pain not kill, Kneel at her feet. Her marble image Scarred her fair body with his penance- stands pains, Worshipped and crowned in Marburg's And gauged her conscience by his narrow holy fane. will. Yea, wheresoe'er her Church its cross up God gave her gifts of beauty and of grace, rears, With fast and vigil she denied them all; Wide as the world her story still is told; Unquestioning, with sad, pathetic face, In manhood's reverence, woman's prayers She followed meekly at her stern guide's and tears, call. She lives again whose grave is centuries So drooped and died her home-blown rose of bliss And still, despite the weakness or the blame In the chill rigor of a discipline Of blind submission to the blind, slae That turned her fond lips from her chil- hath dren's kiss, A tender place in hearts of every name, And made her joy of motherhood a sin. And more than Rome owns Salut Eliza beth! To their sad level by compassion led, One with the low and vile herself she A. D. 1780 made, While thankless misery mocked the hand Slow ages passed : and lo! another came, that fed, An English matron, in whose simple faith And laughed to scorn her piteous mas- Nor priestly rule nor ritual had claim, querade. A plain, uncanonized Elizabeth. But still, with patience that outwearied No sackcloth robe, nor ashen - sprinkle hate, hair, She gave her all while yet she had to Nor wasting fast, nor scourge, nor vig.] give ; long, And then her empty bands, importunate, Marred her calm presence. God had made In prayer she lifted that the poor might her fair, live. And she could do His goodly work no wrong Sore pressed by grief, and wrongs more hard to bear, Their yoke is easy and their burden light And dwarfed and stified by a harsh con- Whose sole confessor is the Christ of trol, God; old. THE HOMESTEAD 135 should pay “ Even yet Her quiet trust and faith transcending United now, the Briton and the Hun, sight Each, in her own time, faithful unto Smoothed to her feet the difficult paths death, she trod. Live sister souls ! in name and spirit one, Thuringia's saint and our Elizabeth ! And there sbe walked, as duty bade her go, Safe and unsullied as a cloistered nun, REQUITAL Shamed with her plainness Fashion's gaudy show, As Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew And overcame the world she did not Nigh to its close, besought all men to shun. say Whom he had wronged, to whom he then In Earlham's bowers, in Plashet's liberal hall, A debt forgotten, or for pardon sue, In the great city's restless crowd and And, through the silence of his weeping din, friends, Her ear was open to the Master's call, A strange voice cried : “Thou owest me And knew the summons of His voice a debt,” within. “ Allah be praised !” he answered. Tender as mother, beautiful as wife, He gives me power to make to thee amends. Amidst the throngs of prisoned crime O friend! I thank thee for thy timely she stood word.” In modest raiment faultless as her life, So runs the tale. Its lesson all may The type of England's worthiest woman- heed, hood! For all have sinned in thought, or word, or deed, To melt the hearts that harshness turned to Or, like the Prophet, through neglect have stone erred. The sweet persuasion of her lips sufficed, All need forgiveness, all have debts to pay And guilt, which only hate and fear had Ere the night cometh, while it still is day. known, Saw in her own the pitying love of Christ. THE HOMESTEAD So wheresoe'er the guiding Spirit went She followed, finding every prison cell AGAINST the wooded hills it stands, It opened for her sacred as a tent Ghost of a dead home, staring through Pitched by Gennesaret or by Jacob's well. Its broken lights on wasted lands Where old-time harvests grew. And Pride and Fashion felt her strong ap- peal, Unploughed, unsown, by scythe unshorn, And priest and ruler marvelled as they The poor, forsaken farm-fields lie, Once rich and rife with golden corn How hand in hand went wisdom with her And pale green breadths of rye. zeal, And woman's pity kept the bounds of Of healthful herb and flower bereft, law. The garden plot no housewife keeps ; Through weeds and tangle only left, She rests in God's peace ; but her memory The snake, its tenant, creeps. stirs The air of earth as with an angel's wings, A lilac spray, still blossom-clad, And warms and moves the hearts of men Sways slow before the empty rooms ; like hers, Beside the roofless porch a sad The sainted daughter of Hungarian king3. Pathetic red rose blooms. saw 136 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS His track, in mould and dust of drouth, On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves, And in the fireless chimney's mouth His web the spider weaves. The leaning barn, about to fall, Resounds no more on husking eves ; No cattle low in yard or stall, No thresher beats his sheaves. What matter if the gains are small That life's essential wants supply? Your bomestead's title gives you all That idle wealth can buy. All that the many-dollared crave, The brick-walled slaves of Change and mart, Lawns, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have, More dear for lack of art. So sad, so drear! It seems almost Some haunting Presence makes its sign ; That down yon shadowy lane some ghost Might drive bis spectral kine ! O home so desolate and lorn! Did all thy memories die with thee? Were any wed, were any born, Beneath this low roof-tree ? Your own sole masters, freedom-willed, With none to bid you go or stay, Till the old fields your fathers tilled, As manly men as they ! With skill that spares your toiling hands, And chemic aid that science brings, Reclaim the waste and outworn lands, And reign thereon as kings ! HOW THE ROBIN CAME Whose axe the wall of forest broke, And let the waiting sunshine through ? What goodwife sent the earliest smoke Up the great chimney flue ? Did rustic lovers hither come ? Did maidens, swaying back and forth In rhythmic grace, at wheel and loom, Make light their toil with mirth? Did child feet patter on the stair ? Did boyhood frolic in the snow ? Did gray age, in her elbow chair, Knit, rocking to and fro ? The murmuring brook, the sighing breeze, The pine's slow wbisper, cannot tell ; Low mounds beneath the heinlock-trees Keep the home secrets well. Cease, mother-land, to fondly boast Of sons far off who strive and thrive, Forgetful that each swarming host Must leave an emptier hive! O wanderers from ancestral soil, Leave noisome mill and chaffering store : Gird up your loins for sturdier toil, And build the home once more ! AN ALGONQUIN LEGEND HAPPY young friends, sit by me, Under May’s blown apple-tree, While these home-birds in and out Through the blossoms flit about. Hear a story, strange and old, By the wild red Indians told, How the robin came to be : Once a great chief left his son, — Well-beloved, his only one, When the boy was well-nigh growi, In the trial-lodge alone. Left for tortures long and slow Youths like himn must undergo, Who their pride of manhood test, Lacking water, food, and rest. Seven days the fast be kept, Seven nights he never slept. Then the young boy, wrung with pain, Weak from nature's overstrain, Faltering, moaned a low complaint : " Spare me, father, for I faini !" But the chieftain, haughty-eyed, Hid his pity in his pride. " You shall be a hunter good, Knowing never lack of fool : Come back to bayberry-scented slopes, And fragrant fern, and ground-nut vine ; Breathe airs blown over holt and copse Sweet with black birch and pine. BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS 137 a BANISHED FROM MASSACHU- SETTS You shall be a warrior great, Wise as fox and strong as bear; Many scalps your belt shall wear, If with patient heart you wait Bravely till your task is done. Better you should starving die Than that boy and squaw should cry Shame upon your father's son !” 1660 samp and moose When next morn the sun's first rays Glistened on the hemlock sprays, Straight that lodge the old chief sought, And boiled meat brought. “ Rise and eat, my son !” he said. Lo, he found the poor boy dead ! As with grief his grave they made, And his bow beside him laid, Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid, On the lodge-top overhead, Preening smooth its breast of red And the brown coat that it wore, Sat a bird, unknown before. And as if with human tongue, “ Mourn me not," it said, or sung ; " I, a bird, am still your son, Happier than if hunter fleet, Or a brave, before your feet Laying scalps in battle won. Friend of man, my song shall cheer Lodge and corn-land ; hovering near, To each wigwam I shall bring Tidings of the coming spring; Every child my voice shall know In the moon of melting snow, When the maple's red bud swells, And the wind-flower lifts its bells. As their fond companion Men shall henceforth own your son, And my song shall testify That of human kin am I.” On a painting by E. A. Abbey. The Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts enacted Oct. 19, 1658, that “any person or persons of the tursed sect of Quakers" should, on conviction of the same, be banished, on pain of death, from the jurisdiction of the commonwealth. Over the threshold of his pleasant home Set in green clearings passed the exiled Friend, In simple trust, misdoubting not the end. “Dear heart of mine!” he said, “the time has come To trust the Lord for shelter." One long gaze The goodwife turned on each familiar thing, The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming, The open door that showed the hearth-fire's blaze, And calmly answered, “Yes, He will pro- vide." Silent and slow they crossed the home- stead's bound, Lingering the longest by their child's grave-mound. “ Move on, or stay and hang !” the sheriff cried. They left behind them more than home or land, And set sad faces to an alien strand. a а Thus the Indian legend saith How, at first, the robin came With a sweeter life than death, Bird for boy, and still the same. If my young friends doubt that this Is the robin's genesis, Not in vain is still the myth If a truth be found therewith : t'nto gentleness belong Gifts unknown to pride and wrong ; Happier far than hate is praise, He who sings than he who slays. Safer with winds and waves than human wrath, With ravening wolves than those whose zeal for God Was cruelty to man, the exiles trod Drear leagues of forest without guide or path, Or launching frail boats on the uncharted sea, Round storm-vexed capes, whose teeth of granite ground The waves to foam, their perilous way they wound, Enduring all things so their souls were free. Oh, true confessors, shaming them who did Anew the wrong their Pilgrim Fathers bore ! 138 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS the gray, For you the Mayflower spread her sail once more, THE BROWN DWARF OF RÜGEN Freighted with souls, to all that duty bid Faithful as they who sought an unknown The hint of this ballad is found in Arndt's land, Märchen, Berlin, 1810. The ballad appeand O'er wintry seas, from Holland's Hook of first in St. Nicholas, whose young readers were Sand ! advised, while smiling at the absurd supersti- tion, to remember that bad companionship and evil habits, desires, and passions are more to So from his lost home to the darkening main, be dreaded now than the Elves and Trolis who Boueful of storm, stout Macy held his frightened the children of past ages. way, And, when the green shore blended with The pleasant isle of Rügen looks the Baltic water o'er, His poor wife moaned : " Let us turn back To the silver-sanded beaches of the Pom- again.” eranian shore ; “Nay, woman, weak of faith, kneel down," said he, And in the town of Rambin a little boy and “ And say thy prayers : the Lord himself maid will steer; Plucked the meadow-flowers together and And led by Him, nor man nor devils I in the sea-surf played. fear ! So the gray Southwicks, from a rainy sea, Alike were they in beauty if not in theu Saw, far and faint, the loom of land, and degree : gave He was the Aiptman's first-born, the mil- With feeble voices thanks for friendly ler's child was sbe. ground Whereon to rest their weary feet, and Now of old the isle of Rugen was full of found Dwarfs and Trolls, A peaceful death-bed and a quiet grave The brown-faced little Earth-men, the Where, ocean-walled, and wiser than his people without souls ; age, The lord of Shelter scorned the bigot's And for every man and woman in Rugza's rage. island found Walking in air and sunshine, a Troll was 第 ​Aquidneck’s isle, Nantucket's lonely shores, underground. And Indian-haunted Narragansett saw The way-worn travellers round their It chanced the little maiden, one morning, camp-fire draw, strolled away Or heard the plashing of their weary oars. Among the haunted Vine Hills, where the And every place whereon they rested grew elves and goblins play. Happier for pure and gracious woman- hood, That day, in barley fields below, the bar And men whose names for stainless honor vesters had known stood, Of evil voices in the air, and heard the Founders of States and rulers wise and true. small horns blowu. The Muse of history yet shall make amends To those who freedom, peace, and justice She came not back ; the search for her is taught, field and wood was vain : Beyond their dark age led the van of They cried her east, they cried her west, thought, but she came not again. And left unforfeited the name of Friends. () mother State, how foiled was thy de "She 's down among the Brown Dwar! sign! said the dream-wives wise and oli, The gain was theirs, the loss alone was And pravers were made, and masses sari, thine. and Rambin's church bell tolled. THE BROWN DWARF OF RÜGEN 139 Five years her father mourned her; and then John Deitrich said : “I will find my little playmate, be she alive or dead.” How fair she seemed among the Trolls so ugly and so wild ! Yet pale and very sorrowful, like one who never smiled! He watched among the Nine Hills, he heard the Brown Dwarfs sing, And saw them dance by moonlight merrily in a riug. Her low, sweet voice, her gold-brown hair, her tender blue eyes seemed Like something he had seen elsewhere or something he had dreamed. And when their gay-robed leader tossed up his cap of red, Young Deitrich caught it as it fell, and thrust it on his head. He looked ; he clasped her in his arms; he ; knew the long-lost one ; “O Lisbeth ! See thy playmate - I am the Amptman's son!” The Troll came crouching at his feet and She leaned her fair head on his breast, and wept for lack of it. through her sobs she spoke : “Oh, give me back my magic cap, for your “Oh, take me from this evil place, and great head unfit !” from the elfin folk ! “Nay,” Deitrich said ; “the Dwarf who “ And let me tread the grass-green fields throws his charmëd cap away, and smell the flowers again, Must serve its finder at his will, and for And feel the soft wind on my cheek and his folly pay. hear the dropping rain ! " You stole my pretty Lisbeth, and hid her “And oh, to hear the singing bird, the in the earth ; rustling of the tree, And you shall ope the door of glass and let The lowing cows, the bleat of sheep, the me lead her forth." voices of the sea ; "She will not come ; she's one of us ; she's “ And oh, upon my father's knee to sit be- mine!” the Brown Dwarf said ; side the door, " The day is set, the cake is baked, to-mor- And hear the bell of vespers ring in Ram- row we shall wed.” bin church once more !” “The fell fiend fetch thee !” Deitrich cried, He kissed her cheek, he kissed her lips ; "and keep thy foul tongue still. the Brown Dwarf groaned to see, Quick! open, to thy evil world, the glass And tore his tangled hair and ground his door of the hill !” long teeth angrily. The Dwarf obeyed ; and youth and Troll But Deitrich said : “For five long years down the long stairway passed, this tender Christian maid And saw in dim and sunless light a country Has served you in your evil world, and well strange and vast. must she be paid ! Weird, rich, and wonderful, he saw the “ Haste !- hither bring me precious gems, elfin under-land, the richest in your store ; Its palaces of precious stones, its streets of Then when we pass the gate of glass, you 'll golden sand. take your cap once more.' He came unto a banquet-hall with tables No choice was left the baffled Troll, and, richly spread, murmuring, he obeyed, Where a young maiden served to him the And filled the pockets of the youth and red wine and the bread. apron of the maid. 140 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS They left the dreadful under-land and And soon from Rambin's hols church the passed the gate of glass ; twain came forth as one, They felt the sunshine's warm caress, they The Amptman kissed a daughter, the mil- trod the soft, green grass. ler blest a son. And when, beneath, they saw the Dwarf John Deitrich's fame went far and wide, stretch up to them his brown and nurse and maid crooned o'er And crooked claw-like fingers, they tossed Their cradle song : “ Sleep on, sleep wrlin his red cap down. the Trolls shall come no more!" Oh, never shone so bright a sun, was never For in the haunted Nine Hills he set a sky so blue, cross of stone ; As hand in hand they homeward walked And Elf and Brown Dwarf sought in Fale the pleasant meadows through ! a door where door was none. And never sang the birds so sweet in Ram- The tower be built in Rambin, fair Rugeo's bin's woods before, pride and boast, And never washed the waves so soft along Looked o'er the Baltic water to the Pome the Baltic shore ; ranian coast; And when beneath his door-yard trees the And, for his worth ennobled, and rich be father met his child, yond compare, The bells rung out their merriest peal, the Count Deitrich and his lovely bride dwe's folks with joy ran wild. long and happy tbere. POEMS OF NATURE THE FROST SPIRIT And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power away ; And gather closer the circle round, when that firelight dances high, And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding wing goes by! comes ! He comes, - he comes, the Frost Spirit You may trace his foot- steps now On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow. He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth, And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, bave shaken them down to earth. THE MERRIMAC a “ The Indians speak of a beautiful river, far to the south, which they call Merrimac.". SIEUR DE MONTS, 1604. He comes, – be comes, the Frost Spirit STREAM of my fathers ! sweetly still comes ! from the frozen Labrador, The sunset rays thy valley fill ; From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, Poured slantwise down the long defile, which the white bear wanders o'er, Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile. Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, I see the winding Powow fold and the luckless forms below The green hill in its belt of gold, In the sunless cold of the lingering night And following down its wavy line, into marble statues grow ! Its sparkling waters blend with thine. There's not a tree upon thy side, He comes, — he comes, – the Frost Spirit Nor rock, which thy returning tide comes ! on the rushing Northern As yet hath left abrupt and stark blast, Above thy evening water-mark ; And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed No calm cove with its rocky hem, as his fearful breath went past. No isle whose emerald swells begem With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, Thy broad, smooth current ; not a sail where the fires of Hecla glow Bowed to the freshening ocean gale ; On the darkly beautiful sky above and the No small boat with its busy oars, ancient ice below. Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores ; Nor farm-house with its maple shade, He comes, – he comes, – the Frost Spirit Or rigid poplar colonnade, comes ! and the quiet lake shall feel But lies distinct and full in sight, The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and Beneath this gush of sunset light. ring to the skater's heel ; Centuries ago, that harbor-bar, And the streams which danced on the Stretching its length of foam afar, broken rocks, or sang to the leaning And Salisbury's beach of shining sand, grass, And yonder island's wave-smoothed strand, Shall bow again to their winter chain, and Saw the adventurer's tiny sail, in mournful silence pass. Flit, stooping from the eastern gale ; And o'er these woods and waters broke He comes, - he comes, - the Frost Spirit | The cheer from Britain's hearts of oak, comes! Let us meet him as we may, As brightly on the voyager's eye, 141 142 POEMS OF NATURE Weary of forest, sea, and sky, The Mohawk's softly winding stream; Breaking the dull continuous wood, The level light of sunset shine The Merrimac rolled down his Hood ; Through broad Potomac's hem of pipe ; Mingling that clear pellucid brook, And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner Which channels vast Agioochook Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna ; When spring-time's sun and shower unlock Yet wheresoe'er his step might be, The frozen fountains of the rock, Thy wandering child looked back to the And more abundant waters given Heard in bis dreams thy river's sound From that pure lake, "The Smile of Of murmuring on its pebbly bound, Heaven," The unforgotten swell and roar Tributes from vale and mountain-side, - Of waves on thy familiar shore ; With ocean's dark, eternal tide ! And saw, amidst the curtained gloom And quiet of his lonely room, On yonder rocky cape, which braves Thy sunset scenes before him pass; The stormy challenge of the waves, As, in Agrippa's magie glass, Midst tangled vine and dwarfish wood, The loved and lost arose to view, The hardy Anglo-Saxon stood, Remembered groves in greenness grow, Planting upon the topmost crag Bathed still in childhood's morning dew, The staff of England's battle-tlag ; Along whose bowers of beauty swept And, while from out its heavy fold Whatever Memory's mourners weph, Saint George's crimson cross unrolled, Sweet faces, which the charnel kept, Midst roll of drum and trumpet blare, Young, gentle eyes, which long had slept ; And weapons brandishing in air, And while the gazer leaned to trace, He gave to that lone promontory More near, some dear familiar face, The sweetest name in all his story ; He wept to find the vision flown, - Of her, the flower of Islam's daughters, A phantom and a dream alone ! Wbose harems look on Stamboul's wa- ters, - Who, when the chance of war had bound HAMPTON BEACH The Moslem chain his limbs around, Wreathed o'er with silk that iron chain, The sunlight glitters keen and bright, Soothed with her smiles his hours of pain, Where, miles away, And fondly to her youthful slave Lies stretching to my dazzled sight A dearer gift than freedom gave. A luminous belt, a misty light, Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of But look! the yellow light no more sandy gray. Streams down on wave and verdant shore ; And clearly on the calm air swells The tremulous shadow of the Sea ! The twilight voice of distant bells. Against its ground From Ocean's bosom, white and thin, Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree, The mists come slowly rolling in ; Still as a picture, clear and free, Hills, woods, the river's rocky rim, With varying outline mark the coast five Amidst the sea-like vapor swim, miles around. While yonder lonely coast-light, set Within its wave-washed minaret, On --- on — we tread with loose-flung trin Half quenched, a beamless star and pale, Our seaward way, Shines dimly through its cloudy veil! Throngh dark-green fields and blossuth- ing grain, Home of my fathers !- I have stood Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane, Where Hudson rolled his lordly flood : And bends above our heads the tiowering Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade locust spray Along his frowning Palisade; Looked down the Appalachian peak Ha! like a kind hand on my brow On Juniata's silver streak; Comes this fresh breeze, Have seen along his valley gleam Cooling its dull and feverish glow, A DREAM OF SUMMER 143 While through my being seems to flow The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas ! What heed I of the dusty land And noisy town? I see the mighty deep expand From its white line of glimmering sand To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down ! In listless quietude of mind, I yield to all The change of cloud and wave and wind; And passive on the flood reclined, I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall. Now rest we, where this grassy mound His feet hath set In the great waters, which have bound His granite ankles greenly round With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet. Good-by to Pain and Care! I take Mine ease to-day : Here where these sunny waters break, And ripples this keen breeze, I shake All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away. I draw a freer breath, I seem Like all I see Waves in the sun, the white-winged gleam Of sea-birds in the slanting beam, And far-off sails which flit before the south- wind free. But look, thou dreamer! wave and shore In shadow lie; The night-wind warns me back once more To where, my native hill-tops o'er, Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sun- set sky. So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell ! I bear with me No token stone nor glittering shell, But long and oft shall Memory tell Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea. So when Time's veil shall fall asunder, The soul may know No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, Nor sink the weight of mystery under, But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow. A DREAM OF SUMMER And all we shrink from now may seem a No new revealing ; Familiar as our childhood's stream, Or pleasant memory of a dream The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing. Serene and mild the untried light May have its dawning ; And, as in summer's northern night The evening and the dawn unite, The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning. I sit alone ; in foam and spray Wave after wave Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray, Shoulder the broken tide away, Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave. BLAND as the morning breath of June The southwest breezes play ; And, through its haze, the winter noon Seems warm as summer's day. The snow-plumed Angel of the North Has dropped his icy spear; Again the mossy earth looks forth, Again the streams gush clear. The fox his hillside cell forsakes, The muskrat leaves his nook, The bluebird in the meadow brakes Is singing with the brook. “Bear up, O Mother Nature !” cry Bird, breeze, and streamlet free; “Our winter voices prophesy Of summer days to thee !” So, in those winters of the soul, By bitter blasts and drear O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole, Will sunny days appear. Reviving Hope and Faith, they show The soul its living powers, 144 POEMS OF NATURE And tinted sunset sea. For not in mockery dost Thon fill Our earth with light and grace ; Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will Behind Thy smiling face ! And how beneath the winter's snow Lie germs of summer flowers ! The Night is mother of the Day, The Winter of the Spring, And ever upon old Decay The greenest mosses cling. Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall ; For God, who loveth all His works, Has left llis hope with all ! AUTUMN THOLGHTS THE LAKESIDE Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers, And gone the Summer's pomp and show, And Autumn, in his leafless bowers, Is waiting for the Winter's snow. I said to Earth, so cold and gray, “ An emblem of myself thou art." “ Not so," the Earth did seem to say, " For Spring shall warm my frozen heart." The shadows round the inland sea Are deepening into night ; Slow up the slopes of Ossipee They chase the lessening light. Tired of the long day's blinding heat, I rest my languid eye, Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet, Thy sunset waters lie! Along the sky, in wavy lines, O'er isle and reach and bay, Green-belted with eternal pines, The mountains stretch away. Below, the maple masses sleep Where shore with water blends, While midway on the tranquil deep The evening light descends. So seemed it when yon hill's red crown, Of old, the Indian trod, And, through the sunset air, looked down l'pon the Smile of God. To him of light and shade the laws No forest skeptic taught ; Their living and eternal Cause His truer instinct sought. He saw these mountains in the light Which now across them shines; Thin lake, in summer sunset bright, Walled round with sombering pines. God near him seemed ; from earth and skies His loving voice he heard, As, face to face, in Paradise, Man stood before the Lord. I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams Of warmer sun and softer rain, And wait to hear the sound of streams And songs of merry birds again. But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone, For whom the flowers no longer blow, Who standest blighted and forlorn, Like Autumn waiting for the snow; No hope is thine of sunnier bours, Thy Winter shall no more depart ; No Spring revive thy wasted tlowers, Nor Summer warın thy frozen heart. ON RECEIVING AN FIGIES QU'ILL FROM LAKE SI'P'LRIER All day the darkness and the cold l'pon my heart have lain, Like shadows on the winter sky, Like frost upon the pane ; But now my torpid fancy wakes, And, on thv Eagle's plume, Rides forth, like Sindbad on his bird, Or witch upon her broom ! Below me roar the rocking pines, Before me spreads the lahe Whose long and solemn-sounding wares Against the sunset break. Thanks, () our Father ! that, like him, Thy tender love I see, In radiant hill and woodland dim, APRIL 145 I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh The grain he has not sown ; I see, with flashing scythe of fire, The prairie harvest mown ! I hear the far-off voyager's horn; I see the Yankee's trail, His foot on every mountain-pass, On every stream his sail. The snowy cones of Oregon Are kindling on its way ; And California's golden sands Gleam brighter in its ray ! Then blessings on thy eagle quill, As, wandering far and wide, I thank thee for this twilight dream And Fancy's airy ride! Yet, welcomer than regal plumes, Which Western trappers find, Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown, Like feathers on the wind. By forest, lake, and waterfall, "I see his pedler show ; The mighty mingling with the mean, The lofty with the low. He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls, C'pon his loaded wain ; He's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks, With eager eyes of gain. Thy symbol be the mountain-bird, Whose glistening quill I hold ; Thy home the ample air of hope, And memory's sunset gold ! I hear the mattock in the mine, The axe-stroke in the dell, The clamor from the Indian lodge, The Jesuit chapel bell ! In thee, let joy with duty join, And strength unite with love, The eagle's pinions folding round The warm heart of the dove ! I see the swarthy trappers come From Mississippi's springs; And war-chiefs with their painted brows, And crests of eagle wings. Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe, The steamer smokes and raves ; And city lots are staked for sale Above old Indian graves. So, when in darkness sleeps the vale Where still the blind bird clings, The sunshine of the upper sky Shall glitter on thy wings ! APRIL “The spring comes slowly up this way.” Christabel. I hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be ; The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall roll a human sea. 'T is the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird heard ; The radiments of empire here Are plastic yet and warm ; The chaos of a mighty world Is rounding into form ! Each rude and jostling fragment soon Its fitting place shall find, The raw material of a State, Its muscle and its mind ! And, westering still, the star which leads The New World in its train Has tipped with fire the icy, spears Of many a mountain chain. In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow, And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow; Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white, On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light, O'er the cold winter-beds of their late- waking roots The frosty Hake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots ; And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps, 146 POEMS OF NATURE and show, Round the boles of the pine-wood the Voice of the west-wind from the lo ground-laurel creeps, of pine, Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of And the brimmed river from its distart fall. showers, Low hum of bees, and jorous inu rlude With buds scarcely swelled, which should Of bird-songs in the streamlet-shirts burst into flowers ! wood, — We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the Heralds and prophecies of sound and south! sight, For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss Blessed forerunners of the warmth and of thy mouth; light, For the yearly evangel thou bearest from Attendant angels to the house of prayer, God, With reverent footsteps keeping prace Resurrection and life to the graves of the with mine, - sod! Once more, through God's great lore, with L'p our long river-valley, for days, have not you I share ceased A morn of resurrection sweet and fair The wail and the shriek of the bitter north- As that which saw, of old, in Palestine, east, Immortal Love uprising in fresh blown Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices From the dark night and winter of the tomb! All the way from the land of the wild Es- II quimau, Until all our dreams of the land of the blest, White with its sun-bleached dust, the path Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny way winds southwest. Before me ; dust is on the shrunken gran ( soul of the spring-time, its light and its And on the trees beneath whose bours breath, I pass ; Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to Frail screen against the Hunter of the this death ; sky, Renew the great miracle ; let us behold Who, glaring on me with his liddless ere, The stone from the mouth of the sepulcbre While mounting with his dog-suar k. rolled, and higher And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of old ! Ambushed in light intolerable, unlinis Let our faith, which in darkness and cold- The burnished quiver of his slaafts & ness has lain, fire. Revive with the warmth and the brightness Between me and the hot fields of again, South And in blooming of flower and budding of A tremulous glow, as from a fars tree mouth, The symbols and types of our destiny see ; Glimmers and swims before my dark The life of the spring-time, the life of the sight, whole, As if the burning arrows of his ire And, as sun to the sleeping earth, love to Broke as they fell, and shattered the soul ! light ; Yet on my cheek I feel the western wiede PICTURES And hear it telling to the orchani tres And to the faint and flower-foruakrel 1 Tales of fair meadows, green with ce- Light, warmth, and sprouting greenness, stant streams, and o'er all And mountains rising blue and cool br. Blue, stainless steel-bright ether, raining Where in moist dells the purple it be down gleams, Tranquillity upon the deep-hushed town, And starred with white the virgin's bower The freshening meadows, and the hill. is twined. sides brown; So the o'erwearied pilgrim, as he fares SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE 147 Along life's summer waste, at times is This western wind hath Lethean powers, fanned, Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers, Eren at noontide, by the cool, sweet airs The lake is white with lotus-flowers ! Of a serener and a holier land, Fresh as the morn, and as the dewfall Even Duty's voice is faint and low, bland. And slumberous Conscience, waking slow, Breath of the blessed Heaven for which | Forgets her blotted scroll to show. we pray, Blow from the eternal hills ! make glad The Shadow which pursues us all, our earthly way! Whose ever-nearing steps appall, Whose voice we hear behind us call, - SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE That Shadow blends with mountain gray, . It speaks but what the light waves say, Death walks apart from Fear to-day ! LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE I. NOON Rocked on her breast, these pines and I Alike on Nature's love rely ; And equal seems to live or die. Assured that He whose presence fills With light the spaces of these hills No evil to His creatures wills, The simple faith remains, that He Will do, whatever that may be, The best alike for man and tree. WHITE clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, Light mists, whose soft embraces keep The sunshine on the hills asleep ! O isles of calm ! O dark, still wood ! And stiller skies that overbrood Your rest with deeper quietude ! O shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through Yon mountain gaps, my longing view Beyond the purple and the blue, To stiller sea and greener land, And softer lights and airs more bland, And skies, – the hollow of God's hand ! Transfused through you, O mountain friends! With mine your solemn spirit blends, And life no more hath separate ends. What mosses over one shall grow, What light and life the other know, Unanxious, leaving Him to show. II. EVENING Yon mountain's side is black with night, While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crown The moon, slow-rounding into sight, On the hushed inland sea looks down. I read each misty mountain sign, I know the voice of wave and pine, And I am yours, and ye are mine. Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, I lapse into the glad release Of Nature's own exceeding peace. O welcome calm of heart and mind ! As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind To leave a tenderer growth behind, How start to light the clustering isles, Each silver - hemmed! How sharply show The shadows of their rocky piles, And tree-tops in the wave below! How far and strange the mountains seem, Dim-looming through the pale, still light! The vague, vast grouping of a dream, They stretch into the solemn night. Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale, Hushed by that presence grand and grave, Are silent, save the cricket's wail, And low response of leaf and wave. So fall the weary years away ; A child again, my head I lay l'pon the lap of this sweet day. 148 POEMS OF NATURE Fair scenes ! whereto the Day and Night Make rival love, I leave ye soon, What time before the eastern light The pale ghost of the setting moon Shall hide behind yon rocky spines, And the young archer, Morn, shall break His arrows on the mountain pines, And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake ! Farewell ! around this smiling bay Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom, With lighter steps than mine, may stray In radiant summers yet to come. But none shall more regretful leave These waters and these hills than I : Or, distant, fonder dream how eve Or dawn is painting wave and sky; How rising moons shine sad and mild On wooded isle and silvering bay; Or setting suns beyond the piled And purple mountains lead the day ; Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy, Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here, Shall add, to life's abounding joy, The charmed repose to suffering dear. Still waits kind Nature to impart Her choicest gifts to such as gain An entrance to her loving heart Through the sharp discipline of pain. Forever from the land that takes One blessing from us others fall; And, soon or late, our Father makes His perfect recompense to all ! Oh, watched by Silence and the Night, And folded in the strong embrace Of the great mountains, with the light Of the sweet heavens upon thy face, Lake of the Northland ! keep thy dower Of beauty still, and while above Thy solemn mountains speak of power, Be thou the mirror of God's love. I sat, vague listening, lapped in twiligts dreams, To the leaf's rustle, and the cricket's ery. Then, like that basket, flush with sun. RCT fruit, Dropped by the angels at the Prophet's foot, Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered sweetness, Full-orbed, and glowing with the prisoned beams Of summery suns, and rounded to em pleteness By kisses of the south-wind and the des Thrilled with a glad surprise, methought I kuew The pleasure of the homeward-turn.sg Jew, When Eshcol's clusters on his shoulder lay, Dropping their sweetness on his desert way I said, “ This fruit beseems no world of sin. Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise, O'ercrept the wall, and never paid the price Of the great mischief, - an ambrogi tree, Eden's exotic, somehow smnggled in, To keep the thorns and thistles company Perchance our frail, sad mother plucard a haste A single vine-slip as she passed the gate, Where the dread sword alternate paded and burned, And the stern angel, pitying her fate, Forgave the lovely trespasser, and turard Aside his face of fire ; and thus the wase And fallen world hath yet its annual taste Of primal good, to prove of sin the caret. And show by one gleaned ear the higher harvest lost. FLOWERS IN WINTER THE FRUIT-GIFT Last night, just as the tints of autumn's sky Of unstt faed from our hills and streams, PAINTED L'PON A PORTE LIVRE How strange to greet, this fromty min, In graceful counterfeit of flowers These children of the meadows, bora Of sunshine and of showers ! How well the conscious wood retains The pictures of its tower-sown bosve, THE MAYFLOWERS 149 Yet, summer-like, we sit between The autumn and the spring. The lights and shades, the purple stains, And golden hues of bloom ! It was a happy thought to bring To the dark season's frost and rime This painted memory of spring, This dream of summer-time. The one, with bridal blush of rose, And sweetest breath of woodland balm, And one whose matron lips unclose In smiles of saintly calm. Our hearts are lighter for its sake, Our fancy's age renews its youth, And dim-remembered fictions take The guise of present truth. Fill soft and deep, () winter snow ! The sweet azalea's oaken dells, And hide the bank where roses blow, And swing the azure bells ! A wizard of the Merrimac, So old ancestral legends say, Could call green leaf and blossom back To frosted stem and spray. O'erlay the amber violet's leaves, The purple aster's brookside home, Guard all the flowers her pencil gives A life beyond their bloom. The dry logs of the cottage wall, Beneath his touch, put out their leaves ; The clay-bound swallow, at his call, Played round the icy eaves. And she, when spring comes round again, By greening slope and singing flood Shall wander, seeking, not in vain, Her darlings of the wood. The settler saw his oaken flail Take bud, and bloom before his eyes ; From frozen pools he saw the pale, Sweet summer lilies rise. THE MAYFLOWERS To their old bomes, by man profaned, Came the sad dryads, exiled long, And through their leafy tongues complained Of household use and wrong. The beechen platter sprouted wild, The pipkin wore its old-time green, The cradle o'er the sleeping child Became a leafy screen. Haply our gentle friend hath met, While wandering in her sylvan quest, Haunting his native woodlands yet, That Druid of the West ; The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter. The name mayflower was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic vessel shows, but it was applied by the English, and still is, to the hawthorne. Its use in New England in connection with Epigæa repens dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrinis so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association. a Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars, And nursed by winter gales, With petals of the sleeted spars, And leaves of frozen sails ! What had she in those dreary hours, Within her ice-rimmed bay, In common with the wild-wood flowers, The first sweet smiles of May ? And, while the dew on leaf and flower Glistened in moonlight clear and still, Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power, And caught his trick of skill. But welcome, be it new or old, The gift which makes the day more bright, And paints, upon the ground of cold And darkness, warmth and light ! Yet, “God be praised !” the Pilgrim said, Who saw the blossoms peer Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, “ Behold our Mayflower here !” Without is neither gold nor green ; Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing ; “ God wills it : here our rest shall be, Our years of wandering o'er ; 150 POEMS OF NATURE IN With mingled sound of borns and bulls, A far-heard clang, the wild geese tv, Storm-sent, from Aretic moors and leave Like a great arrow through the sky, Two dusky lines converged in one, Chasing the southward-flying sun ; While the brave snow-bird and the hard, jay Call to them from the pines, as if to loud them stay. IV For us the Mayflower of the sea Shall spread her sails no more." () sacred flowers of faith and hope, As sweetly now as then Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, In many a pine-dark glen. Behind the sea-wall's rugged length, l'nchanged, your leaves unfold, Like love behind the manly strength Of the brave hearts of old. So live the fathers in their sons, Their sturdy faith be ours, And ours the love that overruns Its rocky strength with tlowers. The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day Its shadow round us draws ; The Mavtlower of his stormy bay, Our Freedom's struggling cause. But warmer suns erelong shall bring To life the frozen sod; And through dead leaves of hope shall spring Afresh the flowers of God! I passed this way a year ago : The wind blew south ; the noon of day Was warm as June's ; and save that snow Flecked the low mountains far away, And that the vernal-seeming breese Mocked faded grass and leatiess thos I might have dreamed of summer as lia. Watching the fallen leaves with the su1 wind at play. V THE LAST WALK IN ALTUMN 1 O'er the bare woods, whose outstretched hands Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, I see, beyond the valley lands, The sea's long level dim with rain. Around me all things, stark and dumb, Seem praying for the shows to come, And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone, With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone. Since then, the winter blasts have piled The white pagulas of the snow On these rough slopes, and, strung aal wild, Yon river, in its overflow Of spring-time rain and sun, set free, Crashed with its ices to the sea ; And over these gray fields, then green an: gold, The suminer corn has waved, the thunder's organ rolled. VI Rich gift of God! A year of time! What pomp of rise and shut of dai. What hues where with our Northern vi Makes autumn's dropping wonline gay, What airs outblown from ferny delis, And clover-bloom and sweetbrer siu«» « What songs of brooks and birds, what in: and flowers, Green woods and moonlit snows, Lave 12 its roand been ours ! VII I know not how, in other lands, The changing seasons come aurl gon; What speudors fall on Syrian saini What purple lights ou Alpine sa** 11 Along the river's summer walk, The withered tufts of asters nod ; And trembles on its arid stalk The boar plume of the golden-rud. And on a ground of sombre fir, And azur-studded juniper, The silver birch its buds of purple shows, And barlet brues tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rine ! THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 151 Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits On Venice at her watery gates ; A dream alone to me is Arno's vale, And the Alhambra's halls are but a travel- ler's tale. VIII Yet, on life's current, he who drifts Is one with him who rows or sails ; And he who wanders widest lifts No more of beauty's jealous veils Than he who from his doorway sees The miracle of flowers and trees, Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air, And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to prayer! Obey my call, and trace for me Their words of mingled tears and fire ! I talk with Bacon, grave and wise, I read the world with Pascal's eyes ; And priest and sage, with solemn brows austere, And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of Thought, draw near. XIII IX The eye may well be glad that looks Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall; But he who sees his native brooks Laugh in the sun, has seen them all. The marble palaces of Ind Rise round him in the snow and wind; From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz smiles, And Rome's cathedral awe is in his wood- land aisles. х And thus it is my fancy blends The near at hand and far and rare ; And while the same horizon bends Above the silver-sprinkled hair Which flashed the light of morning skies On childhood's wonder-lifted eyes, Within its round of sea and sky and field, Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kosmos stands revealed. XI And thus the sick man on his bed, The toiler to his task-work bound, Behold their prison-walls outspread, Their clipped horizon widen round ! While freedom-giving fancy waits, Like Peter's angel at the gates, The power is theirs to baffle care and pain, To bring the lost world back, and make it theirs again! XII What lack of goodly company, When masters of the ancient lyre Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say, “In vain the human heart we mock ; Bring living guests who love the day, Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock ! The herbs we share with flesh and blood Are better than ambrosial food With laurelled shades.” I grant it, nothing loath, But doubly blest is he who can partake of both. XIV He who might Plato's banquet grace, Have I not seen before me sit, And watched his puritanic face, With more than Eastern wisdom lit ? Shrewd mystic! who, upon the back Of his Poor Richard's Almanac Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream, Links Manu's age of thought to Fulton's age of steam ! XV Here too, of answering love secure, Have I not welcomed to my hearth The gentle pilgrim troubadour, Whose songs have girdled half the earth; Whose pages, like the magic mat Whereon the Eastern lover sat, Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple vines, And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygia's mountain pines ! XVI And he, who to the lettered wealth Of ages adds the lore unpriced, The wisdom and the moral health, The ethics of the school of Christ; The statesman to his holy trust, As the Athenian archon, just, Struck down, exiled like him for truth alone, Has he not graced my home with beauty all his own ? 152 POEMS OF NATURE XVII my feet! The simple roof where prayer is made, Than Gothic groin and colonnade ; What greetings smile, what farewells The living temple of the heart of man, wave, Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or mans. What loved ones enter and depart ! spired Milan! The good, the beautiful, the brave, The Heaven-lent treasures of the XXII heart ! Hlow conscious seems the frozen sod More dear thy equal village scbools, And beechen slope whereon they trod ! Where rich and poor the Bible teade The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass Than classic halls where Priesteraft rules, bends And Learning wears the chains of Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or absent Creed ; friends. Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering in XVIII The scattered sheaves of home and kin. Than the mad license ushering Leltea Then ask not why to these bleak hills pains, I cling, as clings the tufted moss, Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance To bear the winter's lingering chills, in chains. The mocking spring's perpetual loss. I dream of lands where summer smiles, XXIII And soft winds blow from spicy isles, But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flow- And sweet homes nestle in these dals, ers be sweet, And perch along these wooded swetha ; Could I not feel thy soil, New England, at And, blest beyond Arcadian vales, They hear the sound of Sabluth kis! XIX Here dwells no perfect man sublime, Nor woman winged before ber time, At times I long for gentler skies, But with the faults and follies of the race, And bathe in dreams of softer air, Old home-bred virtues hold their pot as But homesick tears would fill the eyes honored place. That saw the Cross without the Bear. The pine must whisper to the palm, XXIV The north-wind break the tropic calm ; And with the dreamy languor of the Line, Here manhood struggles for the sake The North's keen virtue blend, and strength Of mother, sister, daughter, wife, to beauty join. The graces and the loves which make The music of the march of life; xx And woman, in her daily round Of duty, walks on holy ground. Better to stem with heart and hand No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor bere The roaring tide of life, than lie, Is the bad lesson learned at buman l'nmindful, on its towery strand, to sneer. Of God's occasions drifting by! XXV Better with naked nerve to bear The needles of this goading air, Then let the icy north-wind blow Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego The trumpets of the coming stort, The godlike power to do, the godlike aim To arrowy sleet and blinding snow to know Yon slanting lines of rain transform. XXI Young hearts shall hail the drifted con As gayly as I did of old ; Home of my heart ! to me more frir And I, who watch them through the frisis Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, pane, The painted, shingly town-house where L'nenvious, live in them my boy hoved ver The freeman's vote for Freedom falls ! again. THE OLD BURYING-GROUND 153 XXVI They break the spell of cold and darkness, The weary watch of sleepless pain ; And I will trust that He who heeds And from my heart, as from the river, The life that hides in mead and wold, The ice of winter melts again. Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads, And stains these mosses green and gold, Thanks, Mary ! for this wild-wood token Will still, as He bath done, incline Of Freya's footsteps drawing near ; His gracious care to me and mine ; Almost, as in the rune of Asgard, Grant what we ask aright, from wrong debar, The growing of the grass I hear. And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter every star! It is as if the pine-trees called me From ceiled room and silent books, To see the dance of woodland shadows, I have not seen, I may not see, Ι And hear the song of April brooks ! My hopes for man take form in fact, But God will give the victory, As in the old Teutonic ballad In due time ; in that faith I act. Of Odenwald live bird and tree, And he who sees the future sure, Together live in bloom and music, The baffling present may endure, I blend in song thy flowers and thee. And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand that leads Earth's rocky tablets bear forever The heart's desires beyond the halting step The dint of rain and small bird's track : of deeds. Who knows but that my idle verses May leave some trace by Merrimac ! XXVII XXVIII not, And thou, my song, I send thee forth, The bird that trod the mellow layers Where harsher songs of mine have Of the young earth is sought in vain ; flown ; The cloud is gone that wove the sandstone, Go, find a place at home and hearth From God's design, with threads of rain ! Where'er thy singer's name is known ; Revive for him the kindly thought So, when this fluid age we live in Of friends ; and they who love him Shall stiffen round my careless rhyme, Who made the vagrant tracks may puzzle Touched by some strain of thine, perchance The savants of the coming time; may take The hand he proffers all, and thank him for And, following out their dim suggestions, thy sake. Some idly-curious hand may draw My doubtful portraiture, as Cuvier Drew fish and bird from fin and claw. THE FIRST FLOWERS And maidens in the far-off twilights, ages, on our river borders, Singing my words to breeze and stream, These tassels in their tawny bloom, Shall wonder if the old-time Mary And willowy studs of downy silver, Were real, or the rhymer's dream ! Have prophesied of Spring to come. For ages have the unbound waters THE OLD BURYING-GROUND Smiled on them from their pebbly hem, And the clear carol of the robin OUR vales are sweet with fern and rose, And song of bluebird welcomed them. Our hills are maple-crowned ; But not from them our fathers chose But never get from smiling river, The village burying-ground. Or song of early bird, have they Been greeted with a gladder welcome The dreariest spot in all the land Than whispers from my heart to-day. To Death they set apart ; FOR 154 POEMS OF NATURE With scanty grace from Nature's hand, And harebells swung as if they rung And none from that of art. The chimes of peace beneath. A winding wall of mossy stone, The beauty Nature loves to share, Frost-tlung and broken, lines The gifts she hath for all, A lonesome acre thinly grown The common light, the common air, With grass and wandering vines. O'ercrept the graveyard's wall. Without the wall a bireh-tree shows It knew the glow of eventide, Its drooped and tasselled head ; The sunrise and the noon, Within, a stag-horn sumach grows, And glorified and sanctified Fern-leafed, with spikes of red. It slept beneath the moon. There, sheep that graze the neighboring With flowers or snow-flakes for its sod, plain Around the seasons ran, Like white ghosts come and go, And evermore the love of God The farm-horse drags his fetlock chain, Rebuked the fear of man. The cow-bell tinkles slow. We dwell with fears on either hand Low moans the river from its bed, Within a daily strife, The distant pines reply ; And spectral problems waiting stand Like mourners shrinking from the dead, Before the gates of life. They stand apart and sigh. The doubts we vainly seek to solve, Unshaded sinites the summer sun, The truths we know, are one ; l'uchecked the winter blast; The known and nameless stars revolve The school-girl learns the place to shun, Around the Central Sun. With glances backward cast. And if we reap as we have sown, For thus our fathers testified, And take the dole we deal, That he might read who ran, The law of pain is love alone, The emptiness of human pride, The wounding is to heal. The nothingness of man. C'nharmed from change to change we glade, They dared not plant the grave with flow- We fall as in our dreams ; ers, The far-off terror at our side Nor dress the funeral sod, A smiling angel seems. Where, with a love as deep as ours, They left their dead with God. Secure on God's all-tender heart Alike rest great and small; The hard and thorny path they kept Why fear to lose our little part, From beauty turned aside ; When He is pledged for all ? Nor missed they over those who slept The grace to life denied. () fearful heart and troubled brain ! Take hope and strength from this, - Yet still the wilding flowers would blow, That Nature never hints in vain, The golden leaves would fall, Nor prophesies amiss. The seasons come, the seasons go, And God be good to all. Her wild birds sing the same sweet stave, Her lights and airs are given Above the graves the blackberry hung Alike to playground and the grave; In bloom and green its wreath, And over buth is Heaven. THE RIVER PATH 155 THE PALM-TREE Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm, On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm ? Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm ? And, in the hour of his great release, His need of the palm shall only cease With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace. “ Allah il Allah !” he sings his psalm, On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm ; “ Thanks to Allah who gives the palm ! THE RIVER PATH A ship whose keel is of palm beneath, Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath, And a rudder of palm it steereth with. No bird-song floated down the hill, The tangled bank below was still ; No rustle from the birchen stem, No ripple from the water's hem. The dusk of twilight round us grew, We felt the falling of the dew; Branches of palm are its spars and rails, Fibres of palm are its woven sails, And the rope is of palm that idly trails ! What does the good ship bear so well ? The cocoa-nut with its stony shell, And the milky sap of its inner cell. What are its jars, so smooth and fine, But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine, And the cabbage that ripens under the Line ? For, from us, ere the day was done, The wooded hills shut out the sun. But on the river's farther side We saw the hill-tops glorified, - Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm ? The master, whose cunning and skill could charm Cargo and ship from the bounteous palm. A tender glow, exceeding fair, A dream of day without its glare. With us the damp, the chill, the gloom : With them the sunset's rosy bloom ; In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft, While dark, through willowy vistas seen, From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed, | The river rolled in shade between. And a palm-thatch shields from the sun aloft ! From out the darkness where we trod, We gazed upon those hills of God, His dress is woven of palmy strands, And he holds a palm - leaf scroll in his Whose light seemed not of moon or sun. hands, We spake not, but our thought was one. Traced with the Prophet's wise commands ! We paused, as if from that bright shore The turban folded about his head Beckoned our dear ones gone before ; Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid, And stilled our beating hearts to hear And the fan that cools him of palm was The voices lost to mortal ear! made. Sudden our pathway turned from night; Of threads of palm was the carpet spun The hills swung open to the light; Whereon he kneels when the day is done, And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as Through their green gates the sunshine one ! showed, A long, slant splendor downward flowed. To him the palm is a gift divine, Wherein all uses of man combine, Down glade and glen and bank it rolled ; House, and raiment, and food, and wine ! It bridged the shaded stream with gold ; 156 POEMS OF NATURE near And, borne on piers of mist, allied Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and The shadowy with the sunlit side! clear, I almost pause the wind in the pines to be ar, “So," prayed we, “when our feet draw The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer. The river dark, with mortal fear, The clouds that shattered on yon slide-wurts walls " And the night cometh chill with dew, And splintered on the rocks their spears O Father ! let Thy light break through! of rain Have set in play a thousand waterfalls, “So let the hills of doubt divide, Making the dusk and silence of the winds So bridge with faith the sunless tide ! Glad with the laughter of the chasing theme And luminous with blown spray and miser “ So let the eyes that fail on earth gleams, On Thy eternal hills look forth ; While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streains " And in Thy beckoning angels know Sing to the freshened meadow-lanis The dear ones whom we loved below!”. again. So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beats The land with hail and tire may passaws MOUNTAIN PICTURES With its spent thunders at the break of day, I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats, Once more, O Mountains of the North, un- A greener earth and fairer sky blind, veil Blown crystal clear by Freedom's North- Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles ern wind ! by! And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHI'YFT fail, l'plift against the blue walls of the sky I would I were a painter, for the sake Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine Of a sweet picture, and of her who lol. weave A fitting guide, with reverential trade Its golden net-work in your belting woods, Into that mountain mystery. Fint a la Smile down in rainbows from your fall- Tinted with sunset; next the wav: 112* ing toods, Of far receding hils; and yet but And on your kingly brows at morn and eve far, Set crowns of fire ! So shall my soul Monadnock lifting from his night of pines receive His rosy forehead to the evening at Haply the secret of your calm and strength, Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset Lund Your unforgotten beauty interfuse His head against the West, whose warm My common life, your glorious shapes and light made hues Ilis aureole ; and o'er him, sharp and And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding clear, come, Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launch. Loom vast through dreams, and stretch staved, in billowy length A single level cloud-line, shone upwa From the sea-level of my lowland home! By the tierce glances of the sunken sun, Menaced the darkness with its guiden They rise before me! Last night's thun- spar! der-gust Roared not in vain : for where its light. So twilight deepened round us. St.ll an! ning thrust black Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem The great woods climbed the mountain at so near, our back; THE VANISHERS 157 THE VANISHERS And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay, The brown old farm-house like a bird's- nest hung: With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred : The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard, The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well, The pasture - bars that clattered as they Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed ; SWEETEST of all childlike dreams In the simple Indian lore Still to me the legend seems Of the shapes who flit before. Flitting, passing, seen and gone, Never reached nor found at rest, Baffling search, but beckoning on To the Sunset of the Blest. fell; the gate From the clefts of mountain rocks, Through the dark of lowland firs, Flash the eyes and flow the locks Of the mystic Vanishers ! And the fisher in his skiff, And the hunter on the moss, Hear their call from cape and cliff, See their hands the birch-leaves toss. Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the mer- ry weight Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung, The welcome sound of supper-call to hear; And down the shadowy lane, in tink- lings clear, The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung: Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we took, Praising the farmer's home. He only spake, Looking into the sunset o'er the lake, Like one to whom the far-off is most Wistful, longing, through the green Twilight of the clustered pines, In their faces rarely seen Beauty more than mortal shines. Fringed with gold their mantles flow On the slopes of westering knolls ; In the wind they whisper low Of the Sunset Land of Souls. near : Doubt who may, O friend of mine! Thou and I have seen them too ; On before with beck and sign Still they glide, and we pursue. More than clouds of purple trail In the gold of setting day ; More than gleams of wing or sail Beckon from the sea-mist gray. “Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look; I love it for my good old mother's sake, Who lived and died here in the peace of God!” The lesson of his words we pondered o'er, As silently we turned the eastern flank Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank, Doubling the night along our rugged road : We felt that man was more than his abode, The inward life than Nature's raiment more ; And the warm sky, the sundown-tinted hill, The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and dim Before the saintly soul, whose human will Meekly in the Eternal footsteps trod, Making her homely toil and household ways An earthly echo of the song of praise Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim. Glimpses of immortal youth, Gleams and glories seen and flown, Far-heard voices sweet with truth, Airs from viewless Eden blown ; Beauty that eludes our grasp, Sweetness that transcends our taste, Loving hands we may not clasp, Shining feet that mock our haste ; Gentle eyes we closed below, Tender voices heard once more, 158 POEMS OF NATURE Smile and call us, as they go How flash the ranked and mail-clad alder, On and onward, still before. Through what sharp-glancing span of reeds Guided thus, () friend of mine! The brook its muffled water leals! Let us walk our little way, Knowing by each beckoning sign Yon maple, like the bush of Horeb, That we are not quite astray. Burns unconsumed : a white, cold fire Rays out from every grassy spire. Chase we still, with baffled feet, Smiling eye and waving hand, Each slender rush and spike of mullein, Sought and seeker soon shall meet, Low laurel shrub and drooping fern. Lost and found, in Sunset Land ! Transtigured, blaze where'er I turn How yonder Ethiopian hemlock THE PAGEANT Crowned with his glistening cinit stands ! A SOUND as if from bells of silver, What jewels light his swarthy hands! Or eltin cymbals smitten clear, Through the frost-pictured panes I Here, where the forest opens southwari, hear. Between its hospitable pines, As through a door, the warın sun shines A brightness which outshines the morning, A splendor brooking no delay, The jewels loosen on the branches, Beckons and tempts my feet away. And lightly, as the soft winds blow, Fall, tinkling, on the ice below. I leave the trodden village highway For virgin snow-paths glimmering And through the clashing of their eyalado through I hear the old familiar fall A jewelled elm-tree avenue ; Of water down the rocky wall, Where, keen against the walls of sap- Where, from its wintry prison breaking, phire, In dark and silence hidden long. The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed, The brook repeats its summer *** Hold up their chandeliers of frost. One instant flashing in the sunshine, I treaul in Orient halls enchanted, Keen as a sabre from its sheath, I dream the Saga's dream of caves Then lost again the ice beneath. Gew-lit beneath the North Sea waves ! I hear the rabbit lightly leaping, I walk the land of Eldorado, The foolish screaming of the jas, I touch its mimie garden bowers, The chopper's axe-struke far awar; Its silver leaves and diamond flowers ! The clamor of some neighboring hur The flora of the mystic mine-world yard, Around me lifts on crystal stems The lazy cock's belated crow, The petals of its clustered gems! Or cattle-tramp in crispy snow. What miracle of weird transforming And, as in some enchanted forest In this wild work of frost and light, The lost knight hears his commes This glimpse of glory infinite ! sing, And, near at hand, their bridles ries- This foregleam of the Holy City Like that to hiin of Patmos given, So welcome I these sounds and roies The white bride coming down from These airs from far-off summer ME heaven! This life that leaves me aut alue. A MYSTERY 159 For the white glory overawes me ; The crystal terror of the seer Of Chebar's vision blinds me here. They blossom best where hearth-fires burn, To loving eyes alone they turn The flowers of inward grace, that hide Their beauty from the world outside. Rebuke me not, O sapphire heaven ! Thou stainless earth, lay not on me Thy keen reproach of purity, If, in this august presence-chamber, I sigh for summer's leaf-green gloom And warm airs thick with odorous bloom ! But deeper meanings come to me, My half-immortal flower, from thee! Man judges from a partial view, None ever yet his brother knew ; The Eternal Eye that sees the whole May better read the darkened soul, And find, to outward sense denied, The flower upon its inmost side ! Let the strange frost-work sink and crumble, And let the loosened tree-boughs swing, Till all their bells of silver ring. Shine warmly down, thou sun of noontime, On this chill pageant, melt and move The winter's frozen heart with love. A MYSTERY The river hemmed with leaning trees Wound through its meadows green; A low, blue line of mountains showed The open pines between. One sharp, tall peak above them all Clear into sunlight sprang : I saw the river of my dreams, The mountains that I sang ! And, soft and low, thou wind south-blowing, Breathe through a veil of tenderest haze Thy prophecy of summer days. Come with thy green relief of promise, And to this dead, cold splendor bring The living jewels of the spring! No clue of memory led me on, But well the ways I knew; A feeling of familiar things With every footstep grew. Not otherwise above its crag Could lean the blasted pine ; Not otherwise the maple hold Aloft its red ensign. THE PRESSED GENTIAN So up the long and shorn foot-hills The mountain road should creep ; So, green and low, the meadow fold Its red-haired kine asleep. The time of gifts has come again, And, on my northern window-pane, Outlined against the day's brief light, A Christmas token hangs in sight. The wayside travellers, as they pass, Mark the gray disk of clouded glass ; And the dull blankness seems, perchance, Folly to their wise ignorance. They cannot from their outlook see The perfect grace it hath for me ; For there the flower, whose fringes through The frosty breath of autumn blew, Turns from without its face of bloom To the warm tropic of my room, As fair as when beside its brook The hue of bending skies it took. So from the trodden ways of earth, Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth, And offer to the careless glance The clouding gray of circumstance. The river wound as it should wind; Their place the mountains took ; The white torn fringes of their clouds Wore no unwonted look. Yet ne'er before that river's rim Was pressed by feet of mine, Never before mine eyes had crossed That broken mountain line. A presence, strange at once and known, Walked with me as my guide ; The skirts of some forgotten life Trailed noiseless at my side. 160 POEMS OF NATURE Was it a dim-remembered dream ? Or glimpse through aons old ? The secret which the mountains kept The river never told. While, timing to its minor strain, The waves in lapsing cadence beat But from the vision ere it passed A tender hope I drew, And, pleasant as a dawn of spring, The thought within me grew, That love would temper every change, And soften all surprise, And, misty with the dreams of earth, The hills of Heaven arise. A SEA DREAM We saw the slow tides go and come, The curving surf-lines lightly drawn, The gray rocks touched with tender bloom Beneath the fresh-blown rose of dawn. We saw in richer sunsets lost The sombre pomp of showery noons ; And signalled spectral sails that crossed The weird, low light of rising moons. On stormy eves from cliff and head We saw the white spray tossed and spurned ; While over all, in gold and red, Its face of fire the lighthouse turned. The rail-ear brought its daily crowds, Half curious, half indifferent, Like passing sails or floating clouds, We saw them as they came and went. But, one calm morning, as we lay And watched the mirage-lifted wall Of coast, across the dreamy bay, And heard atar the curlew call, And nearer voices, wild or tame, Of airy flock and childish throng, l'p from the water's edge there came Faint snatches of familiar song. Careless we heard the singer's choice Of old and common airs; at last The tender pathos of his voice In one low chanson beld us fast. A song that mingled jos and pain, And memories old and sadly sweet; The waves are glad in breeze and sun; The rocks are fringed with foam ; I walk once more a haunted shore, A stranger, yet at bome, A land of dreams I roam. Is this the wind, the soft sea-wind That stirred thy locks of brown? Are these the rocks whose mosses kes The trail of thy light gown, Where boy and girl sat down ? I see the gray fort's broken wall, The boats that rock below; And, out at sea, the passing sails We saw so long ago Rose-red in morning's glow. The freshness of the early time On every breeze is blown ; As glad the sea, as blue the sky, - The change is ours alone ; The saddest is my own. A stranger now, a world-worn man. Is he who bears my name ; But thou, methinks, whose mortal lie Immortal youth became, Art evermore the same. Thou art not here, thou art not there, Thy place I cannot see ; I only know that where thou art The blessed angels be, And heaven is glad for thee. Forgive me if the evil years Have left on me their sign; Wash out, () soul so beautiful, The many stains of mine In tears of love dirine ! I could not look on thee and live, If thou wert by my side ; The vision of a shining one, The white and heavenly bride, Is well to me denied. But turn to me thy dear girl-face Without the angel's crown, SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP 161 The grass is browning on the hills ; No pale, belated flowers recall The astral fringes of the rills, And drearily the dead vines fall, Frost-blackened, from the roadside wall. The wedded roses of thy lips, Thy loose hair rippling down In waves of golden brown. Look forth once more through space and time, And let thy sweet shade fall In tenderest grace of soul and form On memory's frescoed wall, A shadow, and yet all ! Draw near, more near, forever dear! Where'er I rest or roam, Or in the city's crowded streets, Or by the blown sea foam, The thought of thee is home ! At breakfast hour the singer read The city news, with comment wise, Like one who felt the pulse of trade Beneath his finger fall and rise. His look, his air, his curt speech, told The man of action, not of books, To whom the corners made in gold And stocks were more than seaside nooks. Yet through the gray and sombre wood, Against the dusk of fir and pine, Last of their floral sisterhood, The hazel's yellow blossoms shine, The tawny gold of Afric's mine ! Small beauty hath my unsung flower, For spring to own or summer bail ; But, in the season's saddest hour, To skies that weep and winds that wail Its glad surprisals never fail. O days grown cold ! O life grown old ! No rose of June may bloom again ; But, like the hazel's twisted gold, Through early frost and latter rain Shall hints of summer-time remain. Of life beneath the life confessed His song had hinted unawares ; Of flowers in traffic's ledgers pressed, Of human hearts in bulls and bears. And as within the hazel's bough A gift of mystic virtue dwells, That points to golden ores below, And in dry desert places tells Where flow unseen the cool, sweet wells, – - But eves in vain were turned to watch That face so hard and shrewd and strong ; And ears in vain grew sharp to catch The meaning of that morning song. In rain some sweet-voiced querist sought To sonnd him, leaving as she came ; Her baited album only caught A common, unromantic name. No word betrayed the mystery fine, That trembled on the singer's tongue ; He came and went, and left no sign Behind him save the song he sung. So, in the wise Diviner's hand, Be mine the bazel’s grateful part To feel, beneath a thirsty land, The living waters thrill and start, The beating of the rivulet's heart ! Sufficeth me the gift to light With latest bloom the dark, cold days ; To call some hidden spring to sight That, in these dry and dusty ways, Shall sing its pleasant song of praise. O Love ! the hazel-wand may fail, But thou canst lend the surer spell, That, passing over Baca's vale, Repeats the old-time miracle, And makes the desert-land a well. HAZEL BLOSSOMS SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP The summer warmth has left the sky, The summer songs have died away ; And, withered, in the footpaths lie The fallen leaves, but yesterday With ruby and with topaz gay. A Gold fringe on the purpling hem Of hills the river runs, As down its long, green valley falls 162 POEMS OF NATURE The last of summer's suns. The sunset fires will burn, Along its tawny gravel-bed The flowers will blow, the river flow, Broad-towing, swift, and still, When I no more return. As if its meadow levels felt No whisper from the mountain pine The hurry of the hill, Nor lapsing stream shall tell Noiseless between its banks of green The stranger, treading where I tread, From curve to curve it slips ; Of him who loved them well. The drowsy maple-shadows rest Like fingers on its lips. But beauty seen is never lost, God's colors all are fast ; A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, The glory of this sunset heaven L'nstoried and unknown ; Into my soul has passed, The ursine legend of its name A sense of gladness uncontined Prowls on its banks alone. To mortal date or clime ; Yet flowers as fnir its slopes adorn As the soul liveth, it shall live As ever Yarrow knew, Beyond the years of time. Or, under rainy Irish skies, Beside the mystic asphodels By Spenser's Mulla grew; Shall bloom the home-born flowers, And through the gaps of leaning trees And new horizons tlush and glow Its mountain cradle shows : With sunset hues of ours. The gold against the amethyst, The green against the rose, Farewell! these smiling hills must wear Too soon their wintry frown, Touched by a light that hath no name, And snow-cold winds from off them shake A glory never sung, The maple's red leaves down. Aloft on sky and mountain wall But I shall see a summer sun Are God's great pictures hung. Still setting broad and low; How changed the summits vast and old ! The mountain slopes shall blush and blowers No longer granite-browed, The golden water flow. They melt in rosy mist; the rock A lover's claim is mine on all Is softer than the cloud ; I see to have and hold, - The valley holds its breath ; no leaf The rose-light of perpetual hills, Of all its elms is twirled : And sunsets never cold ! The silence of eternity Seems falling on the world. THE SEEKING OF THE WATFK- FALL The pause before the breaking seals Of mystery is this ; They left their home of summer case You miracle-play of night and day Beneath the lowland's sheltering trees, Makes dumb its witnesses. To seek, by ways unknown to all, What unseen altar crowns the hills The promise of the waterfall. That reach up stair on stair? What eyes look through, what white wings Some vague, faint rumor to the vale fan Had crept – perchance a hunter's tale - These purple veils of air ? Of its wild mirth of waters lost What Presence from the heavenly heights On the dark woods through which it to To those of earth stoops down? Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods Somewhere it laughed and sang; On Ida's snowy crown! where Whirled in mad dance its misty hair ; Slow fades the vision of the sky, But who had raised its veil, or sera The golden water pales, The rainbow skirts of that l'odine! And over all the valley-land Agray-winged vapor sails. They sought it where the mountain buruk I go the common way of all ; Its swift way to the valley took ; THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL 163 : Along the rugged slope they clomb, Their guide a thread of sound and foam. Height after height they slowly won ; The tiery javelins of the sun Smote the bare ledge ; the tangled shade With rock and vine their steps delayed. But one, with years grown wiser, said : “So, always baffled, not misled, We follow where before us runs The vision of the shining ones. “Not where they seem their signals fly, Their voices while we listen die; We cannot keep, however fleet, The quick time of their wingëd feet. “From youth to age unresting stray These kindly mockers in our way; Yet lead they not, the baffling elves, To something better than themselves ? But, through leaf-openings, now and then They saw the cheerful homes of men, And the great mountains with their wall Of misty purple girdling all. 66 Here, though unreached the goal we sought, Its own reward our toil has brought : The winding water's sounding rush, The long note of the hermit thrush, The leaves through which the glad winds blew Shared the wild dance the waters knew ; And where the shadows deepest fell The wood-thrush rang his silver bell. Fringing the stream, at every turn Swung low the waving fronds of fern From stony cleft and mossy sod Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod. And still the water sang the sweet, Glad song that stirred its gliding feet, And found in rock and root the keys Of its beguiling melodies. Berond, above, its signals flew Of tossing foam the birch-trees through ; Now seen, now lost, but baffling still The weary seekers' slackening will. Each called to each : “Lo here! Lo there! Its white scarf flutters in the air !” They climbed anew; the vision fled, To beckon higher overhead. So toiled they up the mountain-slope With faint and ever fainter hope ; With faint and fainter voice the brook Still bade them listen, pause, and look. “ The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond And river track, and, vast, beyond Broad meadows belted round with pines, The grand uplift of mountain lines ! “What matter though we seek with pain The garden of the gods in vain, If lured thereby we climb to greet Some wayside blossom Eden-sweet ? “ To seek is better than to gain, The fond hope dies as we attain ; Life's fairest things are those which seem, The best is that of which we dream. “ Then let us trust our waterfall Still flashes down its rocky wall, With rainbow crescent curved across Its sunlit spray from moss to moss. “And we, forgetful of our pain, In thought shall seek it oft again ; Shall see this aster-blossomed sod, This sunshine of the golden-rod, Meanwhile below the day was done ; Above the tall peaks saw the sun Sink, beam-shorn, to its misty set Behind the hills of violet. " And haply gain, through parting boughs, Grand glimpses of great mountain brows Cloud-turbaned, and the sharp steel sheen Of lakes deep set in valleys green. " Here ends our quest!” the seekers cried, **The brook and rumor both bave lied ! The phantom of a waterfall Has led us at its beck and call.” “ So failure wins ; the consequence Of loss becomes its recompense ; And evermore the end shall tell The unreached ideal guided well. 164 POEMS OF NATURE * Our sweet illusions only die Fulfilling love's sure prophecy ; ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER And every wish for better things An undreamed beauty nearer brings. This name in some parts of Europe is given to the season we call Indian Summer, in base “ For fate is servitor of love; of the good St. Martin. The title of the sweet Desire and hope and longing prove was suggested by the fact that the day it in The secret of immortal youth, to was the exact date of that set apart to the And Nature cheats us into truth. Saint, the 11th of November. “O kind allurers, wisely sent, Trocoa flowers have perished at the toard Beguiling with benign intent, Of Frost, the early comer, Still move us, through divine unrest, I hail the season loved so much, To seek the loveliest and the best! The good St. Martin's summer. “Go with us when our souls go free, O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn, And, in the clear, white light to be, And thin moon curving o'er it! Add unto Heaven's beatitude The old year's darling, latest born, The old delight of seeking good !” More loved than all before it ! How flamed the sunrise through the pines ! How stretched the birchen shadows, THE TRAILING ARBUTUS Braiding in long, wind-wavered lines The westward sloping meadows ! I WANDERED lonely where the pine-trees made The sweet day, opening as a flower Against the bitter East their barricade, Unfolds its petals tender, And, guided by its sweet Renews for us at noontide's hour Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell, The summer's tempered splendor. The trailing spring tlower tinted like a shell The birds are hushed ; alone the wind, Amid dry leaves and mosses at my That through the woodland searches feet. The red-oak's lingering leaves can tiad, And yellow plumes of larebes. From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pines But still the balsam-breathing pine Moaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming Invites no thought of sorrow, vines No hint of loss from air like wize Lifted their glad surprise, The earth's content can borrow. While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees The summer and the winter bere His feathers ruffled by the chill sen-breeze, Midway a truce are holding, And snow-drifts lingered under April | A soft, consenting atmosphere skies. Their tents of peace enfolding. As, pausing, o'er the lonely flower I bent, The silent woods, the lonely hills, I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and Rise solemn in their gladness; pent, The quiet that the valley tills Which yet find room, Is scarcely joy or sadness. Through care and cumber, coldness and decay, How strange! The autumn yesterlar To lend a sweetness to the ungenial dar, In winter's grasp seemed dying: And make the sad earth happier for their On whirling winds from skies of gray bloon. The early snow was tiying. A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE 165 And now, while over Nature's mood There steals a soft relenting, I will not mar the present good, Forecasting or lamenting. To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan, Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw My autumn time and Nature's hold A dreamy tryst together, And, both grown old, about us fold The golden-tissued weather. I lean my heart against the day To feel its bland caressing ; I will not let it pass away Before it leaves its blessing. Of chill wind menaced ; then a strong blast beat Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet. Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range ; A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange, From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped. God's angels come not as of old The Syrian shepherds knew them; In reddening dawns, in sunset gold, And warm noon lights I view them. Nor need there is, in times like this When heaven to earth draws nearer, Of wing or song as witnesses To make their presence clearer. One moment, as if challenging the storm, Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel Looked from his watch-tower ; then the shadow fell, And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form. O stream of life, whose swifter flow Is of the end forewarning, Methinks thy sundown afterglow Seems less of night than morning! Old cares grow light ; aside I lay The doubts and fears that troubled ; The quiet of the happy day Within my soul is doubled. That clouds must veil this fair sunshine Not less a joy I find it ; Nor lese von warm horizon line That winter lurks behind it. And over all the still unhidden sun, Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain, Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain; And, when the tumult and the strife were done, With one foot on the lake, and one on land, Framing within his crescent's tinted streak A far-off picture of the Melvin peak, Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned. A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE The mystery of the untried days I close my eyes from reading ; His will be done whose darkest ways To light and life are leading ! Less drear the winter night shall be, If memory cheer and hearten Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee, Sweet summer of St. Martin ! To kneel before some saintly shrine, To breathe the health of airs divine, Or bathe where sacred rivers flow, The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go. I too, a palmer, take, as they With staff and scallop-shell, my way, To feel, from burdening cares and ills, The strong uplifting of the hills. The years are many since, at first, For dreamed-of wonders all athirst, I saw on Winnipesaukee fall STORJI ON LAKE ASQUAM A CLOUD, like that the old-time Hebrew saw On Carmel prophesying rain, began 166 POEMS OF NATURE The shadow of the mountain wall. Ah! where are they who sailed with me The beautiful island-studded sea ? And am I he whose keen surprise Flashed out from such unclouded eyes ? That Nature's forms of loveliness Their heavenly archetypes confess, Fashioned like Israel's ark alone From patterns in the Mount made know ! A holier beauty overbroods These fair and faint similitudes; Yet not unblest is he who sees Shadows of God's realities, And knows beyond this masquerade Of shape and color, light and shade. And dawn and set, and wax and wane, Eternal verities remain. Still, when the sun of summer burns, My longing for the hills returns ; And northward, leaving at my back The warın vale of the Merrimac, I go to meet the winds of morn, Blown down the hill-grups, mountain-born, Breathe scent of pines, and satisfy The hunger of a lowland eye. Again I see the day decline Along a ridged horizon line ; Touching the hill-tops, as a nun Her beaded rosary, sinks the sun. One lake lies golden, which shall soon Be silver in the rising moon; And one, the crimson of the skies And mountain purple multiplies. With the untroubled quiet blends The distance-softened voice of friends ; The girl's light laugh no discord brings To the low song the pine-tree sings ; And, not unwelcome, comes the hail Of boyhood from his nearing sail. The human presence breaks no spell, And sunset still is miracle ! () gems of sapphire, granite set ! ( hills that charmed horizons fret! I know how fair your morns can break, In rosy ligbt on isle and lake ; How over wooded slopes can run The noonday play of cloud and sun, And evening droop her orittamme Of gold and red in still Asquam. The summer moons may ronnd again, And careless feet these hills protate ; These sunsets waste on vacant eyes The lavish splendor of the skies ; Fashion and folly, misplaced here, Sigh for their natural atmosphere, And travelled pride the outlook kur Of lesser heights than Matterhorn : But let me dream that hill and sky Of unseen beauty prophesy ; And in these tinted lakes behold The trailing of the raiment fold Of that which, still eluding gaze, Allures to upward-tending wave Whose footprints make, wherever fuardi, Our common earth a holy ground. Calm as the hour, methinks I feel A sense of worship o'er me steal ; Not that of satyr-charming Pan, No cult of Nature shaming man, Not Beauty's self, but that which lives And shines through all the veils it weaves, - Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood, Their witness to the Eternal Good ! And if, by fond illusion, bere The earth to heaven seems drawing near, And yon outlying range invites To other and serener beights, Searce hid behind it- topmost swell, The shining Mounts Delectable ! A dream may hint of truth no less Than the sharp light of wakefulness. As through her veil of incense smoke Of old the spell-rapt prie teen spoke, More than her hentbep oru les, Jay not this trance of sunset tell SWEET FERS The subtle power in perfume found Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learneel; On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound No censer idly burned. That power the old-time worhip knew, The Corybantes' frenzied danie, The Pythian priente*s swooning through The wonderland of trance. And Nature holds, in wood and field, Her thousand sunlit censers still ; THE WOOD GIANT 167 To spells of flower and shrub we yield Against or with our will. “ Look where we will o'er vale and hill, How idle are our searches For broad - girthed maples, wide - limbed oaks, Centennial pines and birches ! I elimbed a hill path strange and new With slow feet, pausing at each turn ; A sudden waft of west wind blew The breath of the sweet fern. « Their tortured limbs the axe and saw Have changed to beams and trestles ; They rest in walls, they float on seas, They rot in sunken vessels. “ This shorn and wasted mountain land Of underbrush and boulder,- Who thinks to see its full-grown tree Must live a century older.” That fragrance from my vision swept The alien landscape ; in its stead, Cp fairer hills of youth I stepped, As light of heart as tread. I saw my boyhood's lakelet shine Once more through rifts of woodland shade; I knew my river's winding line By morning mist betrayed. With me June's freshness, lapsing brook, Murmurs of leaf and bee, the call Of birds, and one in voice and look In keeping with them all. At last to us a woodland path, To open sunset leading, Revealed the Anakim of pines Our wildest wish exceeding. Alone, the level sun before ; Below, the lake's green islands ; Beyond, in misty distance dim, The rugged Northern Highlands. Dark Titan on his Sunset Hill Of time and change defiant ! How dwarfed the seemed, Before the old-time giant ! common woodland A fern beside the way we went She plucked, and, smiling, held it up, While from her hand the wild, sweet scent I drank as from a cap. O potent witchery of smell ! The dust-dry leaves to life return, And she who plucked them owns the spell And lifts her ghostly fern. Or sense or spirit? Who shall say What touch the chord of memory thrills ? It passed, and left the August day Ablaze on lonely hills. What marvel that, in simpler days Of the world's early childhood, Men crowned with garlands, gifts, and praise Such monarchs of the wild-wood ? That Tyrian maids with flower and song Danced through the bill grove's spaces, And hoary-bearded Druids found In woods their holy places ? THE WOOD GIANT Written at Sturtevant's Farm, about a mile from Centre Harbor, N. H.] Frou Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome, From Mad to Saco river, For patriarchs of the primal wood We sought with vain endeavor. And then we said : “ The giants old Are lost beyond retrieval ; This prgmy growth the axe has spared Is not the wood primeval. With somewhat of that Pagan awe With Christian reverence blending, We saw our pine-tree's mighty arms Above our heads extending We heard his needles' mystic rune, Now rising, and now dying, As erst Dodona's priestess heard The oak leaves prophesying. Was it the half-unconscious moan Of one apart and mateless, 168 POEMS OF NATURE The weariness of unshared power, Singing a pleasant song of summer still, The loneliness of greatness ? A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines () dawns and sunsets, lend to him Hushed the bird - voices and the hum uf Your beauty and your wonder! bees, Blithe sparrow, sing thy summer song In the thin grass the crickets propue su His solemn shadow under! more ; But still the squirrel hoards his winter Play lightly on his slender keys, store, O wind of summer, waking And drops his nut-shells froin the shap- For hills like these the sound of seas bark trees. On far-off beaches breaking! Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper And let the eagle and the crow high Find shelter in his branches, Above, the spires of yellowing larrbes When winds shake down his winter snow show, In silver avalanches. Where the woodpecker and hom--loving crow The brave are braver for their cheer, And jay and nut - hatch winter's threat The strongest need assurance, defy. The sigh of longing makes not less The lesson of endurance. O gracious beauty, ever new and old ! O sights and sounds of nature, dual dear A DAY When the low sunshine warns the clomine year TALK not of sad November, when a day Of snow-blown fields and waves of Arctae Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of cold ! noon, And a wind, borrowed from some morn Close to my heart I fold each lovely of June, thing Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless The sweet day yields; and, not disents spray. late, With the calm patience of the winnis I On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines wait Lay their long shafts of shadow: the For leaf and blossom when God gives - small rill, Spring! PERSONAL POEMS now brow; A LAMENT And the charm of her features, while over the whole “ The parted spirit, Played the hues of the heart and the sun- Knoweth it not our sorrow? Answereth not shine of soul; Its blessing to our tears ?” And the tones of her voice, like the music The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken, which seems One bud from the tree of our friendship is Murmured low in our ears by the Angel of shaken ; dreams! One heart from among us no longer shall thrill But holier and dearer our memories hold With joy in our gladness, or grief in our Those treasures of feeling, more precious ill. than gold, The love and the kindness and pity which Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering gave Fresh flowers for the bridal, green wreaths The light of her glances, the pride of her for the grave ! Weep! sadly, and long shall we listen in The heart ever open to Charity's claim, vain Unmoved from its purpose by censure and To hear the soft tones of her welcome again. blame, While vainly alike on her eye and her ear Give our tears to the dead! For human- Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting ity's claim and jeer. From its silence and darkness is ever the same ; How true to our hearts was that beautiful The hope of that world whose existence is sleeper! bliss With smiles for the joyful, with tears for May not stifle the tears of the mourners of the weeper ! this. Yet, evermore prompt, whether mournful or gay, For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can With warnings in love to the passing astray. throw On the scene of its troubled probation be- For, though spotless herself, she could sor- low, row for them Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem; the dead, And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove, To that glance will be dearer the tears which And the sting of reproof was still tempered we sbed. by love. Oh, who can forget the mild light of her As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in smile, heaven, Over lips moved with music and feeling the As a star that is lost when the daylight is while, given, The eye's deep enchantment, dark, dream- As a glad dream of slumber, which wakens like, and clear, in bliss, In the glow of its gladness, the shade of its She hath passed to the world of the holy tear. from this. 169 170 PERSONAL POEMS 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. Thor 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 ! 1 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 l'niverse, Deep calling unto Deep! Joy to thy spirit, brother! On every wind of heaven The onward cheer and summons Of Freedom's voice is giveu ! 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 scattend 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, ( brother! And thy sainted name shall be In the blessing of the captive, And the anthem of the free. 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 Burui 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 merey into crime, And the slanderer shall flourish As the bay-tree for a time. LINES i ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TURKFT. SECRETARY OF THE BOSTON TV MEN'S ANTI-SLAVERY SOKIN TY But where the south-wind lingers Ou Carolina's pines, Or falls the careless sunbeam Down Georgia's golden mines ; Where now beneath his barthen The toiling slave is driven ; Where now a tyrant's mockery Is offered uuto Heaven ; Where Mammon hath its altars Wet o'er with human bloou, Gone before us, () our brother, To the spirit-land ! Vainly look we for another In the place to stand. Who shall otfer youth and beauty 1 ΤΟ. 171 On the wasting shrine Of a stern and lofty duty, With a faith like thine ? Be thy virtues with the living, And thy spirit ours ! a TO WITH A COPY OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL 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 ? “Get the writings of John Woolman by heart." Essays of Elia. a MAIDEN ! with the fair brown tresses Shading o'er thy dreamy eye, Floating on thy thoughtful forehead Cloud wreaths of its sky. 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 ! Youthful years and maiden beauty, Joy with them should still abide, Instinct take the place of Duty, Love, not Reason, guide. 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? 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 sumy 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 hidden springs. 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, 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. 172 PERSONAL POEMS saw. All the mystery of Being Even as the great Augustine Hath upon thy spirit pressed, — Questioned earth and sea and sky, Thoughts which, like the Deluge wanderer, And the dusty tomes of learning Find no place of rest : And old poesy. That which mystic Plato pondered, But his earnest spirit needed That which Zeno heard with awe, More than outward Nature taught; And the star-rapt Zorvaster More than blest the poet's vision In his night watch sa Or the sage's thought. From the doubt and darkness springing Only in the gathered silence Of the dim, uncertain Past, Of a calm and waiting frame, Moving to the dark still shadows Light and wisdom as from Heaven ('er the Future cast, To the seeker camne. Early hath Life's mighty question Not to ease and aimless quiet Thrilled within thy heart of youth, Doth that inward answer tend, With a deep and strong beseeching : But to works of love and duty What and where is Truth? As our being's end ; Hollow creed and ceremonial, Not to idle dreams and trances, Whence the ancient life hath fled, Length of face, and solemn tone, Idle faith unknown to action, But to Faith, in daily striving Dull and cold and dead. And performance shown. Oracles, whose wire-worked meanings Earnest toil and strong endearor Only wake a quiet scorn, Of a spirit which within Xot from these thy seeking spirit Wrestles with familiar evil Hath its answer drawn. And besetting sin; But, like some tired child at even, And without, with tireless vigor, On thy mother Nature's breast, Steady heart, and weapon strong, Thou, methinks, art vainly seeking In the power of truth assailing Truth, and peace, and rest. Every form of wrong. O'er that mother's rugged features Guided thus, how passing lovely Thou art throwing Fancy’s veil, Is the track of Woolmau's feet ! Light and soft as woven moonbeams, And his brief and simple record Beautiful and frail ! How serenely sweet ! O'er the rough chart of Existence, ('er life's humblest duties throwing Rocks of sin and wastes of woe, Light the earthling never knew, Soft airs breathe, and green leaves tremble, Freshening all its dark waste places And cool fountains tlow. As with Hermon's dew. And to thee an answer cometh All which glows in Pascal's pages, From the earth and from the sky, All which sainted Guion sought, And to thee the hills and waters Or the blue-eyed German Rahel And the stars reply. Half-unconscious taught : But a soul-sufficing answer Beauty, such as Goethe pictured, llath no outward origin; Such as Shelley dreanied of, shurd More than Nature's many voices Living warmth and starry brightness May be heard within. Round that poor man's head. a TO A FRIEND 173 “Ye build the tombs of the prophets." — Holy Writ. " 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. 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! If it only serves to strengthen Yearnings for a higher good, For the fount of living waters And diviner food; TO A FRIEND ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE If the pride of human reason Feels its meek and still rebuke, Quailing like the eye of Peter From the Just One's look ! 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. If with readier ear thou heedest What the Inward Teacher saith, Listening with a willing spirit And a childlike faith, — a Thou mayst live to bless the giver, Who, himself but frail and weak, Would at least the highest welfare Of another seek ; 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. And his gift, though poor and lowly It may seem to other eyes, Yet may prove an angel holy In a pilgrim's guise. a LEGGETT'S MONUMENT 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, William Leggett, who died in 1839 at the age of thirty-seven, was the intrepid editor of the New York Evening Post and afterwards of The Plain Dealer. His vigorous assault upon the system of slavery brought down upon him the enmity of political defenders of the system. 174 PERSONAL POEMS Waiting their hour to glide Downward, storm-driven ! Him who, as staff and stay, Watched o'er thy wandering way, Freshly remember. Rhine-stream, by castle old, Baron's and robber's hold, Peacefully tlowing ; 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! 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! Oh, as from each and all Will there not voices call Everinore back again ? In the mind's gallery Wilt thou not always see Diin 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 sigii , Rising to meet thee. And when such visions come L’nto thy ollen 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? LUCY HOOPER Lucy Hooper died at Brooklyn, LL, on the Ist of sth mo., 1811, aged twenty-four Frans. They tell me, Lucy, thou art deal, That all of thee we loved au chensbe! Has with thy summer roses perished; And left, as its young beauty tied, An ashen memory in its stead, The twilight of a parted day Whose fading light is cold and rain, The heart's faint echo of a struin 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 gow : And sympathies which found du troi Save with the loveliest and best. Of them — of thee – remains there nargit But sorrow in the mourner's breasi : A shadow in the land of thought ? No! Even my weak and trembling fath can lift for thee the veil which dubt And human fear have drawn about The all-awaiting scene of death. Eren'as thou wast I see thee s ill; And, save the absence of all ill And pain and weariness, which larse Summoned the sigh or wrung the trar, The same as when, two summers bek, Beside our childhood's Merrimac, I saw thy dark eye wander o'er Stream, sunny upland, rocky shore, And heard thy low, soft voice alor Midst lapse of waters, and the tone Of pine-leaves by the west-wind blown, There's not a charın of soul or brun, Of all we knew and loved in ther, 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, ley and gleaming : Prompter of silent prayer, Be the wild picture there In the mind's chamber, And, through each coming day LUCY HOOPER 175 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. 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, Cnbodied, like a pale moonbeam, As pure, as passionless, and cold; Xor 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. Xo! I have friends in Spirit Land, Sot 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 break- ing ['pon 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. Eren 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. a FOLLEN ON READING HIS ESSAY ON THE "FUTURE STATE" Charles Follen, one of the noblest contribu- tions 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 Univer- sity of Basle. The governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia united in demanding his delivery as a political offender; and, in conse- quence, 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 ex- press 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 ad- dressed 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 let- ter, he was ready to join it, and abide the probable consequences of such an unpopular act. He lost by so doing his professorship. 66 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, 176 PERSONAL POEMS He was an able member of the Executive The burthen of Life's cross of pain, Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Soci. And the thorned crown of suffering wuth. ety. He perished in the ill-fated steamer Lex- ington, which was burned on its passage from Oh, while Life's solemn mystery glooms New York, January 13, 1810. The few writings Around us like a dungeon's wall. left behind him show him to have been a Silent earth's pale and crowded tombs, profound thinker of rare spiritual insight. Silent the heaven which bends o'er FRIEND of my soul ! as with moist eye all ! I look up from this page of thine, Is it a dream that thou art nigh, While day by day our loved ones glide Thy mild face gazing into mine ? In spectral silence, hushed and lone, To the cold shadows which divide That presence seems before me now, The living from the dread Unknown ; A placid heaven of sweet moonrise, When, dew-like, on the earth below While even on the closing eye, Descends the quiet of the skies. And on the lip which moves in rain, The seals of that stern mystery The calm brow through the parted hair, Their undiscovered trust retain ; The gentle lips which knew no guile, Softening the blue eye's thoughtful care And only midst the gloom of death, With the bland beauty of their smile. Its mournful doubts and haunting fears Two pale, sweet angels, Hope and Fath, Ab me! at times that last dread scene Smile dimly on us through their teuins; Of Frost and Fire and moaning Sea Will cast its shade of doubt between 'Tis something to a heart like mine The failing eyes of Faith and thee. To think of thee as living yet ; To feel that such a light as thine Yet, lingering o'er thy charmëd page, Could not in utter darkness set. Where through the twilight air of earth, Alike enthusiast and sage, Less dreary seems the untried way Prophet and bard, thou gazest forth, Since thou hast left thy footprints there, And beams of mournful beauty play Lifting the Future's solemn veil ; Round the sad Angel's sable hair. The reaching of a mortal hand To put aside the cold and pale Oh ! at this hour when half the sky Cloud-curtains of the L'nseen Land ; Is glorious with its evening light, And fair broad fields of summer lie In thoughts which answer to my own, Hung o'er with greenness in my sght: In words which reach my inward ear, Like whispers from the void L'nknown, While through these elm-boughs wet wise I feel thy living presence here. rain The sunset's golden walls are seen, The waves which lull thy body's rest, With clover-bloom and yellow grain The dust thy pilgrim footsteps trod, And wood-draped hill and stream be L'nwasted, through each change, attest tween ; The fixed economy of God. I long to know if scenes like this Shall these poor elements outlive Are hidden from an angel's eyes ; The mind whose kingly will they If earth's familiar loveliness wrought ? Haunts not thy heaven's serener skies. Their gross unconsciousness survive Thy godlike energy of thought ? For sweetly here upon thee grew The lesson which that beauty gave, Thon liveat, Follen ! not in vain The ideal of the pure and true Hath thy fine spirit mechly borne In earth and sky and gliding ware. CHALKLEY HALL 177 And it may be that all which lends The soul an upward impulse here, With a diviner beauty blends, а And greets us in a holier sphere. a 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 ! 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 ? CHALKLEY HALL 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, Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Pa., was the residence of Thomas Chalkley, an eminent min- ister of the Friends' denomination. He was one of the early settlers of the Colony, and his Jour- nal, which was published in 1749, presents a quaint but beautiful picture of a life of unosten- tatious and simple goodness. He was the mas- ter 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. We leave thee, with a trust serene, Which Time, nor Change, nor Death can more, While with thy childlike faith we lean On Him whose dearest name is Love ! 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 a The close dark city lies ! 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, Sot 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 hast deemed with 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, me Life all too earnest, and its time too short 178 PERSONAL POEMS Oh, let me feel that my good angel still Oh, far away beneath New England's sky, Hath not his trust forsaken. Even when a boy, Following my ploughi by Merrimac's greta And well do time and place befit my mood : shore, Beneath the arms His simple record I have pondered o'er Of this embracing wood, a good man made With deep and quiet joy. His home, like Abraham resting in the shade Of Mamre's lonely palms. And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm, Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless Its woods around, years, Its still stream winding on in light and The virgin soil shade, Turned from the share he guided, and in its soft, green meadows and its uplam" rain glade, - And summer sunshine throve the fruits and To me is holy ground. grain Which blessed his honest toil. And dearer far than haunts where Geb'n keeps Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas, His vigils still ; Weary and worn, Than that where Avon's son of song is in He came to meet his children and to bless Or Vaucluse hallowed by its Petrini. The Giver of all good in thankfulness shade, And praise for his return. Or Virgil's laurelled hill. And here his neighbors gathered in to greet To the gray walls of fallen Panclete, Their friend again, To Juliet's urn, Safe from the wave and the destroying gales, Fair Arno and Sorrento's orange-grove, Which reap untimely green Bernuda's Where Tasso sang, let young Romance to vales, Love And vex the Carib main. Like brother pilgrims turn. To hear the good man tell of simple truth, But here a deeper and serener charm Sown in an hour To all is given ; Of weakness in some far-off Indian isle, And blessed memories of the faithful des! From the parched bosom of a barren soil, ('er wood and vale and meadow-ora. Raised up in life and power: have shed The holy hues of Heaven! How at those gatherings in Barbadian vales, A tendering love Came o'er him, like the gentle rain from GONE heaven, And words of fitness to his lips were given, | ANOTHER hand is beckoning us, And strength as from above : Another call is given ; And glows once more with Angel-stepa How the sad captive listened to the Word, The path which reaches Ileaven. l'ntil his chain Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit felt Our young and gentle friend, whese sim: The healing balm of consolation melt Made brighter summer hours, l'pon its life-long pain : Amid the frosts of autumn time Has left us with the towers. How the armed warrior sat him down to hear Of Peace and Truth, No paling of the cheek of bloom And the proud ruler and his ('reole dame, Forewarned us of decay : Jewelled and gorgeons in her beanty came No shadow from the Silent Land And fair and bright-eyed youth. Fell round our sister's way. TO RONGE 179 The light of her young life went down, As sinks behind the hill The glory of a setting star, Clear, suddenly, and still. And grant that she who, trembling, here Distrusted all her powers, May welcome to her holier home The well-beloved of ours. As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed Etemal as the sky ; And like the brook's low song, her voice, - A sound which could not die. TO RONGE And half we deemed she needed not The changing of her sphere, To give to Heaven a Shining One, Who walked an Angel here. 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 lib- erty 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. Ronge was born in Silesia in 1813 and died in October, 1887. His autobiog- raphy was translated into English and published in London in 1846. 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 bearth-fire's light; We pause beside her door to hear Once more her sweet “Good-night !” 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 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. us hear The snap of chain-links. Let our gladdened ear Fold her, O Father! in Tbine 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. 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 180 PERSONAL POEMS Was to the wronged, the sorrowing, and the The slopes lay green with summer rains, lowly, The western wind blew fresh and free, Thrust not his Eden promise from our And glimmered down the orchard lanes sphere, The white surf of the sea. Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's span; With us was one, who, calm and true, Like him of Patmos, see it, now and here, Life's highest purpose understood, The New Jerusalem comes down to man ! And, like his blessed Master, knew Be warned by Luther's error. Nor like The joy of doing good. him, When the roused Tenton dashes from his Unlearned, unknown to lettered fame, limb Yet on the lips of England's por The rusted chain of ages, help to bind And toiling millions dwelt his name, His hands for whom thou claim’st the free- With blessings evermore. dom of the mind ! Unknown to power or place, yet wbere The sun looks o'er the Carib sea, CHANNING It blended with the freeman's prayer And song of jubilee. The last time I saw Dr. Channing was in the summer of 181, when, in company with my He told of England's sin and wrong, English friend, Joseph Sturge, so well known The ills her suffering children kaww, for his philanthropie labors and liberal political The squalor of the city's thrung, opinions, I visited him in his summer residence in Rhode Island. In recalling the impressions The green field's want and woe. of that visit, it can scarcely be necessary to say: O'er Channing's face the tenderness that I have no reference to the peculiar reli- gious opinions of a man whose life, beautifully Of sympathetic sorrow stole, and truly manifested above the atmosphere of Like a still shadow, passionless, sect, is now the world's common legacy. The sorrow of the soul. Not vainly did old poets tell, But when the generous Briton told Nor vainly did old genius paint How hearts were answering to his nex God's great and crowning miracle, And Freedom's rising murmur rolled The hero and the saint ! l'p to the dull-eared throne, For even in a faithless day I saw, methought, a glad surprise Can we our sainted ones discern; Thrill through that frail and pain-sut2 And feel, while with them on the way, frame, Our hearts within us burn. And, kindling in those deep, calm eyes, A still and earnest tlame. And thus the common tongue and pen Which, world - wide, echo Channing's His few, brief words were such as move fame, The human heart, -- the Faith-sown ser As one of Heaven's anointed men, Which ripen in the soil of love Have sanctified his name. To high heroic deeds. In vain shall Rome her portals bar, No bars of sect or clime were felt, And shut from him ber saintly prize, The Babel strife of tongues had ceasei Whom, in the world's great calendar, And at one common altar knelt All men shall canonize. The Quaker and the priest. By Narragansett's sunny bay, And not in vain : with strength reneve Beneath his green embowering wood, And zeal refreshed, and hope less elus To me it seems but yesterday For that brief meeting, each pursued Since at his side I stood. The path allotted him. TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER 181 THINE is a grief, the depth of which an- other May never know ; Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken brother ! To thee I go. flow echoes yet each Western hill And vale with Channing's dying word ! How are the hearts of freemen stili 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. I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding Thy hand in mine ; With even the weakness of my soul uphold- ing 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 condol- ing Must vainly fall : The funeral bell which in thy heart is toll- ing, Sounds over all ! And thus the influence of that hour Of converse on Rhode Island's strand Lives in the calm, resistless power Which moves our fatherland. 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. 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 ! 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 ap- proveth : Our Father's will, Calling to Him the dear one whom He lor- eth, Is mercy still. TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of the British Com- plete Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 15. She was the colleague, counsel- lor, and ever-ready helpmate of her brother in all his vast designs of beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot says of her: “Never, per- haps, were the active and passive virtues of the human character more harmoniously and beantifully blended than this excellent wo- 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. 182 PERSONAL POEMS And she is with thee; in thy path of trial Fallen, while thy loins were girded still, She walketh yet ; Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet, Still with the baptism of thy self-denial And in thy hand retaining yet Her locks are wet. The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell! Unharmed and safe, where, wild and free, lp, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of Across the Neva's cold morass harvest The breezes from the Frozen Sea Lie white in view ! With winter's arrowy keenness pass; She lives and loves thee, and the God thou Or where the unwarning tropie gale servest Sinote to the waves thy tattered sail, To both is true. Or where the noon-hour's fervid brat Against Tahiti's mountains beat ; Thrust in thy siekle ! Engla.d's toilworn The same mysterious land which gave peasants Deliverance upon land and wave, Thy call abide ; Tempered for thee the blasts which blew And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy Ladaga's frozen surface o'er, presence, And blessed for thee the baleful dew Shall glean beside ! Of evening upon Eimeo's shore, Beneath this sunny heaven of our Midst our soft airs and opening towers DANIEL WHEELER Hath given thee a grave! Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of His will be done, Friends, who had labored in the cause of his Who seeth not as man, whose way Divine Master in Great Britain, Russia, and Is not as ours ! 'T is well with thee! the islands of the Pacific, died in New York in Nor anxious doubt nor dark dismay the spring of 1810, while on a religious visit to Disquieted thy closing day, this country. But, evermore, thy soul could say, O DEARLY loved ! “ My Father careth still for me!" And worthy of our love! No more Called from thy hearth and home, -- fruc Thy aged form shall rise before her, The hushed and waiting worshipper, The last bud on thy household tree, In meek obedience utterance giving The last dear one to minister To words of truth, so fresh and living, In duty and in love to thee, That, even to the inward sense, From all which nature holdeth dear. They bore unquestioned evidence Feeble with years and worn with pus, Of an anointed Messenger! To seek our distant land again, Or, bowing down thy silver hair Bound in the spirit, yet unknowing In reverent awfulness of prayer, The things which should befall thee her. The world, its time and sense, shut out, Whether for labor or for death, The brightness of Faith's holy trance In childlike trust serenely going Gathered upon thy countenance, To that last trial of thy faith! As if ench lingering cloud of doubt, The cold, dark shadows resting here Oh, far away, In Time's unluminous atmosphere, Where never shines our Northern star Were lifted by an angel's hand, On that dark waste which Ballway w And through them on thy spiritual eye From Darieu's mountains stretching iur. Shone down the blessedness on high, So strange, beaven-broad, and love, the The glory of the Better Land ! there, With forehead to its damp wind lurr, The oak has fallen! He bent his mailed knee in anr : While, meet for no good work, the vine In many an inle whose coral feet May yet its worthless branches twine, The surges of that ocean beat, Who knoweth not that with thee fell In the palm shadows, Oahu, А great man in our Grael? dud Ilonolulu's silver bay, TO FREDRIKA BREMER 183 Amidst Owyhee's hills of blue, To gather to the fold once more And taro-plains of Tooboonai, The desolate and gone astray, Are gentle hearts, which long shall be The scattered of a cloudy day, Sad as our own at thought of thee, And Zion's broken walls restore ; Worn sowers of Truth's holy seed, And, through the travail and the toil Whose souls in weariness and need Of true obedience, minister Were strengthened and refreshed by Beauty for ashes, and the oil thine. Of joy for mourning, unto her! For blessëd by our Father's hand So shall her holy bounds increase Was thy deep love and tender care, With walls of praise and gates of peace : Thy ministry and fervent prayer, So shall the Vine, which martyr tears Grateful as Eshcol's clustered vine And blood sustained in other years, To Israel in a weary land ! With fresher life be clothed upon ; And to the world in beauty show And they who drew Like the rose-plant of Jericho, By thousands round thee, in the hour And glorious as Lebanon ! Of prayerful waiting, hushed and deep, That He who bade the islands keep Silence before Him, might renew TO FREDRIKA BREMER Their strength with His unslumbering power, It is proper to say that these lines are the They too shall mourn that thou art gone, joint impromptus of my sister and myself. They That nevermore thy aged lip are inserted here as an expression of our admira- Shall soothe the weak, the erring warn, tion of the gifted stranger whom we have since Of those who first, rejoicing, heard learned to love as a friend. Through thee the Gospel's glorious word, — Seals of thy true apostleship. SEERESS of the misty Norland, And, if the brightest diadem, Daughter of the Vikings bold, Whose gems of glory purely burn Welcome to the sunny Vineland, Around the ransomed ones in bliss, Which thy fathers sought of old ! Be evermore reserved for them Who here, through toil and sorrow, Soft as flow of Silja's waters, When the moon of summer shines, Many to righteousness, Strong as Winter from his mountains May we not think of thee as wearing Roaring through the sleeted pines. That star-like crown of light, and bear- ing, Heart and ear, we long have listened Amidst Heaven's white and blissful band, To thy saga, rune, and song ; Th' unfading palm-branch in thy hand ; As a household joy and presence And joining with a seraph's tongue We have known and loved thee long. In that new song the elders sung, dscribing to its blessed Giver By the mansion's marble mantel, Thanksgiving, love, and praise forever ! Round the log-walled cabin's hearth, Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies Farewell ! Meet and mingle with our mirth. And though the ways of Zion mourn When her strong ones are called away, And o'er weary spirits keeping Who like thyself have calmly borne Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill, The heat and burden of the day, Shine they like thy sun of summer Yet He who slumbereth not nor sleepeth Over midnight vale and hill. His ancient watch around us keepeth ; Still , sent from His creating hand, We alone to thee are strangers, New witnesses for Truth shall stand, Thou our friend and teacher art; New instruments to sound abroad Come, and know us as we know thee ; The Gospel of a risen Lord ; Let us meet thee heart to heart ! turn 184 PERSONAL POEMS 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. 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 butter. flies, The deer's branched antlers, the gay bird that things 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 band 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, triching 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 224 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 man; The cloudy horror of the thunder-bewer His rainbows span; And where the caravan Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in air The crane-flock leaves, no trace of pares there, He gives the weary eye The palm-leaf shadow for the hot b = hours, And on its branches dry Calls out the acacia's tlowers; And where the dark shaft pierces dro Beneath the mountain roots, Seen by the miner's lainp alone, The star-like crystal shoots ; So, where, the winds and waves bois The coral-branched gardens grup, His climbing weeds and mones sb Like foliage, on each stony bough Of varied hnes more strangely pa! Than forest leaves in autumn's cza Thus evermore, On sky, and wave, and shore, An all-pervading beauty seems to God's love and power are one , thev, Who, like the thunder of a sultry dis- Smite to restore, And they, who, like the gentle wind, a- The petals of the dew-wet flowers, alu *** Their perfume on the air, Alike may serve Him, each, with their us? gift, Making their lives a prayer ! THE HILL-TOP The burly driver at my side, We slowly climbed the luil, Whose summit, in the hot nuvabe. Seemed rising, rising still. At last, our short noon-shadows had The top-stone, bare and brown ELLIOTT 185 From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid, The rough mass slanted down. Upraised and glorified, - I never saw a prettier sight In all my mountain ride. 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 L'pon 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. “ 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. 66 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 ! There towered Chocorua's peak ; and west, Moosehillock's woods were seen, 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 ! ELLIOTT “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 Ebenezer Elliott was to the artisans of Eng- land what Burns was to the peasantry of Scot- land. His Corn-law Rhymes contributed not a little to that overwhelming tidle 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 priesteraft 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. 186 PERSONAL POEMS Senator was never stronger than when I ad 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 sur results, – the Slave Power arrogant and det. ant, strengthened and encouraged to carry out its scheme for the extension of its baleiad sya tem, or the dissolution of the Union, the guar anties of personal liberty in the free State's broken down, and the whole country with hunting-ground of slave-catchers. In the bus ror of such a vision, so soon fearfnlly fulied, if one spoke at all, he could only speak in the of stern and sorrowful rebuke. But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a common inheritance of trade ty and weakness modifies the severity and judgment. Years after, in The Last (kita gave utterance to an almost universal remot 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 deseration, made his last days glorious in defence of “Litway and Union, one and inseparable." 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 tlung; 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 wbirls 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 ! 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 waik, Betit 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! 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 partis in or personal enmity dictated it On the contrary my admiration of the splendid parwalty and intellectual power of the great Let not the land once proud of him Insult him now, Nor brand with deeper shame his dım, 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 remailis; THE LOST OCCASION 187 A fallen angel's pride of thought, The late-sprung mine that underlaid Still strong in chains. Thy sad concessions vainly made. Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's All else is gone ; from those great eyes wall The soul has fled : The star-flag of the Union fall, When faith is lost, when honor dies, And armed rebellion pressing on The man is dead ! The broken lines of Washington ! No stronger voice than thine had then Then, pay the reverence of old days Called out the utmost might of men, To his dead fame ; To make the Union's charter free Walk backward, with averted gaze, And strengthen law by liberty. And hide the shame! How had that stern arbitrament To thy gray age youth's vigor lent, Shaming ambition's paltry prize Before thy disillusioned eyes ; THE LOST OCCASION Breaking the spell about thee wound Like the green withes that Samson SOME die too late and some too soon, bound; At early morning, heat of noon, Redeeming in one effort grand, Or the chill evening twilight. Thou, Thyself and thy imperilled land ! Whom the rich heavens did so endow Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, With eyes of power and Jove's own O sleeper by the Northern sea, brow, The gates of opportunity! With all the massive strength that fills God fills the gaps of human need, Thy home-horizon's granite hills, Each crisis brings its word and deed. With rarest gifts of heart and head Wise men and strong we did not lack; From manliest stock inherited, But still, with memory turning back, New England's stateliest type of man, In the dark hours we thought of thee, In port and speech Olympian ; And thy lone grave beside the sea. Whom no one met, at first, but took A second awed and wondering look Above that grave the east winds blow, (As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece And from the marsh-lands drifting slow On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece); The sea-fog comes, with evermore Whose words in simplest homespun clad, The wave-wash of a lonely shore, The Saxon strength of Cædmon's had, And sea-bird's melancholy cry, With power reserved at need to reach As Nature fain would typify The Roman forum's loftiest speech, The sadness of a closing scene, Sweet with persuasion, eloquent The loss of that which should have been. In passion, cool in argument, But, where thy native mountains bare Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes Their foreheads to diviner air, As fell the Norse god's hammer blows, Fit emblem of enduring fame, Crushing as if with Talus' flail One lofty summit keeps thy name. Through Error's logic-woven mail, For thee the cosmic forces did And failing only when they tried The rearing of that pyramid, The adamant of the righteous side, – The prescient ages shaping with Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved Fire, flood, and frost thy monolith. Of old friends, by the new deceived, Sunrise and sunset lay thereon Too soon for us, too soon for thee, With hands of light their benison, Beside thy lonely Northern sea, The stars of midnight pause to set Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, Their jewels in its coronet. Laid wearily down thy august head. And evermore that mountain mass Seems climbing from the shadowy pass Thou shouldst have lived to feel below To light, as if to manifest Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow ; Thy nobler self, thy life at best ! 188 PERSONAL POEMS 1 a 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. 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 ſays, Or mountain nymphs, ye seem; Free-limbed Dianas on the green, Loch Katrine's Ellen, or C'ndine, 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-Howered azaleas, intertwined With roses, over banks inclined With trembling harebells hung! A charmed life unknown to death, Immortal freshness Sature hath ; Her fabled fount and glen Are now and here : Dodona's shrine Still murmurs in the wind-swept pike', — All is that e'er bath been. The Beauty which old Greece or Romne Sung: painted, wrought, lies close at bowe; We need but eye and ear In all our daily walks to trace The outlines of incarnate grace, The hymns of gods to hear ! TO) IN PEACE LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S A TRACK of moonlight on a quiet lake. EX( l'RSION Whose small waves on a silver-sand shore Fair Nature's priestesses ! to whom, Whisper of peace, and with the low winds In hieroglyph of bud and bloom, make Her mysteries are told ; Such harmonies as keep the woods awake. Who, wise in lore of wood and mead, And listening all night long for their sweet The seasons' pictured scrolls can read, sake; In lessons manifold ! A green-waved slope of meadow, horend o'er Thanks for the courtesy, and gay By angel-troops of lilies, swaving light Good-humor, which on Washing Day On viewless stems, with folded wings of Our ill-timed visit bore ; 1 white; KOSSUTH 189 seen and green, nor A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far Fair Nature's book together read, The old wood-paths that knew our tread, Where the low westering day, with gold The maple shadows overhead, - Purple and amber, softly blended, fills The hills we climbed, the river seen The wooded vales, and melts among the By gleams along its deep ravine,- hills: All keep thy memory fresh and green. A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest On the calm bosom of a stormless sea, Where'er I look, where'er I stray, Bearing alike upon its placid breast, Thy thought goes with me on my way, With earthly flowers and heavenly stars im- And hence the prayer I breathe to-day ; pressed, The hues of time and of eternity : O’er lapse of time and change of scene, Such are the pictures which the thought of The weary waste which lies between thee, Thyself and me, my heart I lean. O friend, awakeneth, charming the keen pain Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, Of thy departure, and our sense of loss Requiting with the fullness of thy gain. The half-unconscious power to draw Lo! on the quiet grave thy life-borne All hearts to thine by Love's sweet law. cross, Dropped only at its side, methinks doth With these good gifts of God is cast shine, Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast Of thy beatitude the radiant sign! To hold the blessed angels fast. No sob of grief, no wild lament be there, To break the Sabbath of the holy air ; If, then, a fervent wish for thee But, in their stead, the silent-breathing The gracious heavens will heed from me, prayer What should, dear heart, its burden be? Of hearts still waiting for a rest like thine. O spirit redeemed! Forgive us, if hence- The sighing of a shaken reed, — forth, What I more than meekly plead With sweet and pure similitudes of earth, The greatness of our common need ? We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green, God's love, – unchanging, pure, and true, – Of love's inheritance a priceless part, The Paraclete white-shining through Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is His peace, the fall of Hermon's dew! To paint, forgetful of the tricks of art, With such a prayer, on this sweet day, With pencil dipped alone in colors of the As thou mayst hear and I may say, heart. I greet thee, dearest, far away ! can seen BENEDICITE KOSSUTH 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 ! 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 ad. miration of those, even, who believe that no political revolution was ever worth the price of human blood. TYPE of two mighty continents !- com- bining The strength of Europe with the warmth and glow 190 PERSONAL POEMS Of Asian song and prophecy, - the shining Of Orient splendors over Northern snow ! Who shall receive him ? Who, unblush- ing, 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 leaven 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 betray- ing, Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain The swarthy Kossuths of our land again ! Vot he whose utterance now from lips de- signed 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 sympa- thies, And hail the coming of the noblest guest The Old World's wrong has given the New World of the West ! 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 reat, 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 comie 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 Phedrus' twofold gift, Had the little rebels known it, Risum et prudentiam monel! 1,- the man of middle years, In whose sable locks appears Many a warning tleck 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 searh, 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. a 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 an. tiquariin. He was one of the twelve persons who with William Lloyd Garrison formed the first anti-slavery society in New England. Oud friend, kind friend ! lightly down Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown ! Sever be thy shadow less, TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER 191 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 ! 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. 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 ! 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 ? 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, a 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, 192 PERSONAL POEMS 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. 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 ! THE HERO The hero of the incident related in this pwm was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the well-knuwa philanthropist, who when a young man vin teered his aid in the Greek struggle fut indo pendence. “On 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. THE CROSS Richard Dillingham, a young member of the Society of Friends, died in the Nashville peni- tentiary, where he was contined 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, “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 throbtvang To the time her proud pulse beat, “Life hath its regal natures yet, True, tender, brave, and swert ! “Smile not, fair unbeliever! One man, at least, I know, Who might wear the crest of Bayan Or Sidney's plume of snow. RANTOUL 193 "Once, when over purple mountains Died away the Grecian sun, And the far Cyllenian ranges Paled and darkened, one by one, - “But dream not helm and harness The sign of valor true ; Peace hath higher tests of manhood Than battle ever knew. " 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 ! “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. "Last to fly, and first to rally, Rode he of whom I speak, When, groaning in his bridle-path, Sank down a wounded Greek. “ True as the knights of story, Sir Lancelot and his peers, Brave in his calm endurance As they in tilt of spears. "With the rich Albanian costume “ As waves in stillest waters, Wet with many a ghastly stain, As stars in noonday skies, Gazing on earth and sky as one All that wakes to noble action Who might not gaze again ! In his noon of calmness lies. “He looked forward to the mountains, “Wherever outraged Nature Back on foes that never spare, Asks word or action brave, Then flung him from his saddle, Wherever struggles labor, And placed the stranger there. Wherever groans a slave, – " Allah! hu!' Through flashing sabres, “ Wherever rise the peoples, Through a stormy hail of lead, Wherever sinks a throne, The good Thessalian charger The throbbing heart of Freedom finds Up the slopes of olives sped. An answer in his own. " Hot spurred the turbaned riders ; “Knight of a better era, He almost felt their breath, Without reproach or fear ! Where a mountain stream rolled darkly Said I not well that Bayards down And Sidneys still are here?” Between the hills and death. “One brave and manful struggle, - RANTOUL He gained the solid land, And the cover of the mountains, No more fitting inscription could be placed And the carbines of his band !' on the tombstone of Robert Rantoul than this: “He died at his post in Congress, and his last " It was very great and noble,” words were a protest in the name of Democracy Said the moist-eyed listener then, against the Fugitive-Slave Law.” " But one brave deed makes no hero; One day, along the electric wire Tell me what he since hath been!" His manly word for Freedom sped ; We came next morn : that tongue of fire Still a brave and generous manhood, Said only, “He who spake is dead !” Still an honor without stain, In the prison of the Kaiser, Dead! while his voice was living yet, By the barricades of Seine. In echoes round the pillared dome ! 194 PERSONAL POEMS 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! 1 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. 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, reperice, 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 fre 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 bills of home Look out upon his sail-white seas, The sounds of winds and waters come, And shape themselves to wonis lie these: For he had sat at Sidney's feet, And walked with Pymn and Vane apart ; And, through the centuries, felt the beat Of Freedom's march in Cromwell's heart. 66 Ile 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 autumu's day. His steps were slow, yet forward still He pressed where others paused or failed ; The calın star clomb with constant will, The restless meteor flasbed and paled! Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew And owned the higher ends of Law; Why, murmuring, mourn that he, wb power Was lent to Party over-long, Heard the still whisper at the bour 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 fe 11 No ineaner thought can now profane. · Mightier than living voice his grace That lofty protest utters o'er ; Through roaring wind and smiting we It speaks his hate of wrong once Enese. “ Men of the North! your weak regret Is wasted here ; arise and pas To freedom and to him your debt, By following where he led the ray WILLIAM FORSTER 195 From what great perils, on his way, WILLIAM FORSTER He found, in prayer, release ; Through what abysmal shadows lay His pathway unto peace, William Forster, of Norwich, England, died in East Tennessee, in the 1st month, 1854, while engaged in presenting to the governors of the God knoweth : we could only see States of this Union the address of his religious The tranquil strength he gained ; society on the evils of slavery. He was the The bondage lost in liberty, relative and coadjutor of the Buxtons, Gurneys, The fear in love unfeigned. and Frys; and his whole life, extending almost to threescore and ten years, was a pure and And I, — my youthful fancies grown beautiful example of Christian benevolence. The habit of the man, He had travelled over Europe, and visited most Whose field of life by angels sown of its sovereigns, to plead against the slave- trade and slavery; and had twice before made The wilding vines o’erran, visits to this country, under impressions of re- ligious duty. He was the father of the Right Low bowed in silent gratitude, Hon. William Edward Forster. He visited my My manhood's heart enjoys father's house in Haverhill during his first tour That reverence for the pure and good in the United States. Which blessed the dreaming boy's. THE years are many since his hand Was laid upon my head, Too weak and young to understand The serious words he said. 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! not in vain Thy life so calm and true, The silver dropping of the rain, The fall of summer dew ! 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. Το plead the captive's right; remove The sting of hate from Law ; And soften in the fire of love The hardened steel of War. 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 last Thy latest care for man, Of earthly thought a prayer, Oh, who thy mantle, backward cast, Is worthy now to wear ? He walked the dark world, in the mild, Still guidance of the Light ; In tearful tendern a child, A strong man in the right. Methinks the mound which marks thy bed Might bless our land and save, ol to life the dead Who touched the prophet's grave ! As rose, 196 PERSONAL POEMS ear one (For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs, TO CHARLES SUMNER And through her pictures human fate divines), IF I have seemed more prompt to censure That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows wrong sink Than praise the right; if seldom to thine In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall My voice hath mingled with the exultant In the white light of heaven, the type of cheer Borne upon all our Northern winds along ; Who, momently by Error's host assailed, If I have failed to join the fickle throng Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest granite mailed ; strong And, tranquil-fronted, listening over vil In victory, surprised in thee to find The tumult, bears the angels say, Will Brougham's scathing power with Canning's done ! grace combined ; That he, for whom the ninefold Muses BURNS sang, From their twined arms a giant athlete ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN sprang, BLOSSOM Barbing the arrows of his native tongue With the spent shafts Latona's archer No more these simple flowers belong flung, To Scottish maid and lover; To smite the Python of our land and Sown in the common soil of song, time, They bloom the wide world over. Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime, Like the blind bard who in Castalian In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, springs The minstrel and the heather, Tempered the steel that clove the crest of The deathless singer and the flowers kings, He sang of live together. And on the shrine of England's freedom laid Wild heather-bells and Robert Bures! The gifts of Cume and of Delphi's shade, - The moorland flower and peasant ! Small need hast thou of words of praise How, at their mention, memory turns from me. Her pages old and pleasant i Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess The gray sky wears again its gold That, even though silent, I have not the Aud purple of adorning, less And manhood's noonday shadows hold Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree The dews of boyhood's morning. With the large future which I shaped for thee, The dews that washed the dust and SULI When, years ago, beside the summer sea, From off the wings of pleasure, White in the moon, we saw the long waves The sky, that flecked the ground of til fall With golden threads of leisure. Baffled and broken from the rocky wall, That, to the menace of the brawling tlood, I call to mind the summer day, Opposed alone its massive quietude, The early harvest mowing, Calm as a fate ; with not a leaf vor vine The sky with sun and clouds at p!»v, Nor birch-spray trembling in the still And flowers with breezes blowilig moonshine, Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes I hear the blackbird in the corn, think The locust in the having ; That night - scene by the sea prophet. | And, like the fabled hunter's born, ical Old tunes my heart is playing BURNS 197 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 ! 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. 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 bis 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! 198 PERSONAL POEMS 1 TO GEORGE B. CHEEVER 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 share, And quench the eyes of common sens, To share the noisy recompense That mocked the shorn and blinded slave' So spake Esaias : so, in words of fame, Tekoa's prophet - herdsnuan 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! 1 The heart has needs beyond the head, And, starving in the plenitude Of strange gifts, craves its comma 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 ! 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! Better his lot whose axe is swung In Wartburg's woods, or that poor girl's Who by the Ilm her spindle whirls And sings the songs that Luther sung, Than his who, old, and cold, and vain, At Weimar sat, a deinigod, And bowed with Jore's imperial nod His votaries in and out again! 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! 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? 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 luar I see ye sitting, -- stone on stune, - 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 grap And fox) 'I would not if I could. Keep to your lofty pedestals ! The safer plain below I chose : Who never wins can rarely linie, Who never climbs as rarely falls. Let such as lore the eagle's scream Divide with him his home of ice : For me shall gentler notes sufher, The valley-song of bird and stream; 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 wame? Who in a house of ginss would dwell, With curious eyes at every pane? To ring himn in and out again, Who wants the public crier's bell? IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE 199 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 ! 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 ! 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. IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE In the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's mountains, Across the charmëd bay Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver fountains Perpetual holiday, THE MEMORY OF BURNS Read at the Boston celebration of the hun- dredth 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 bloon below ; The brook sings on, though loud and high The cloudy organs blow ! 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 feign- ing ; By lone Edgbaston's side Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining, Bareheaded and wet-eyed ! 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 İlis perfect plan Who gave them both a tongue ; For he who sings the love of man The love of God hath sung! 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. Today 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. For him no ininster's chant of the immor- tals Rose from the lips of sin ; No mitred priest swung back the heavenly portals To let the white soul in. Sweet airs of love and home, the hum Of household melodies, Come singing, as the robins come 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. 200 PERSONAL POEMS Praying for pity, like the mournful cit. ing Of Jonah out of hell. Not his the golden pen's or lip's persas- sion, But a fine sense of right, And Truth's directness, meeting each coca- sion Straight as a line of light. His faith and works, like streams that is termingle, In the saine channel ran : The crystal clearness of an eye kept ss- gle Shamed all the frauds of man. 1 ! 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 splen- dor, 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 tropie calms Of Indian islands in the sun-smit shadows Of Occidental palms ; From the locked roadsteads of the Bothnian 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 ex- ample, 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, The very gentlest of all human naturs He joined to courage strong, And love outreaching unto all God's crea- tures With sturdy hate of wrong. Tender as woman, manliness and mexs. ness 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 za: seemed nourished By failure and by fall; Still a large faith in human-kind be cher- ished, And in God's love for all. And now he rests: his greatness and has sweetness No more shall seem at strife, And death has moulded into calm complete ness The statue of his life. Where the dews glisten and the song and warble, His dust to dust is Inid, In Nature's keeping, with no pop ce marble To shame his modest shade. The forges glow, the hammers all are ring ing : Beneath its smoky veil, NAPLES 201 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 ! 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 ! BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE NAPLES INSCRIBED TO ROBERT C. WATERSTOX, OF BOSTON 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 Helen Waterston died at Naples in her eighteenth year, and lies buried in the Prot- estant 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 ; 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 And they who blamed the bloody hand for- gave the loving heart. That kiss from all its guilty means re- deemed the good intent, And round the grisly fighter's hair the mar- tyr's aureole bent ! fell apart ; 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 Baiæ'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. 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 North- ern 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 ! 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. 202 PERSONAL POEMS ness That pledge is answered. To thy ear The unchained city sends its cheer, And, tuned to joy, the muftled 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 Blowu downward from the breezy Apen- uines. Lean, () 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 tlowers : “ Arisen agaiu ! ” 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 weide 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 san Thy greeting smile was pledge and preinde Of generous deeds and kindly wunis : In thy large heart were fair guest-chamin Open to sunrise and the birds ! The task was thine to mould and fast en Life's plastic newness into grace : To make the boyish heart heroic, And light with thought the mar-tea's face. O'er all the land, in town and prairie. With bended heads of mourning, la The living forms that owe their beauty And fitness to thy shaping hand. Thy call has come in ripened manhed. The noonday calm of heart and mini While I, who dreamed of thy renamug 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 the kindred To join the silent funeral prayers, But all that long snd dar of summer My tears of mouruing dropped with theirs. A MEMORIAL Moses Austin Cartland, a dear friend and re- lation, who led a faithful life as a teacher, and died in the summer of 1503. 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, () 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, All day the sea-waves robbed with stru The birds forgot their merry trills : All day I heard the pines lamenting With thine upon thy homestead tulis. LINES ON A FLY-LEAF 203 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 ! 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 ! Still let them greet thy life companions Who thither turn their pilgrim feet, In every mossy line recalling A tender memory sadly sweet. THOMAS STARR KING 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. Published originally as a prelude to the post- humous volume of selections edited by Richard Frothingham. 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. BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY 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. ( 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 ? Mr. Bryant's seventieth birthday, November 3, 184, 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 Just do his nobler nature wrong. LINES ON A FLY-LEAF 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 ! [Suggested by the book A New Atmosphere, by Gail Hamilton. The other friends referred to in the lines are Lydia Maria Child, Grace Greenwood, Anna E. Dickinson and Mrs. Stowe.] 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, a Thank God! his hand on Nature's keys Its cunning keeps at life's full span ; 204 PERSONAL POEMS 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 ferl, 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 me. And, answering, struck from Sapple's by: Of love the Tyrtæan carmen's tire : Or that young girl, - Domrémy's read] 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 knowa, And all earth’s languages his own. 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 ribbed 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, chiling 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 peek 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 bead 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 harınless 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 dreain. Tjk not to me of woman's sphere. Nor point with Scripture texts a sneer, GEORGE L. STEARYS No man rendered grater servire to be cause of Freedom than Major Strame in great struggle between invading slieho and the free settlers of Kansis. 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 lum! L'p in the mountains, and down both waters, Lift up your voices and weep for los! For the warmest of hearts is frozen, The freest of hands is still ; And the gap in our picked and cbosen The long years may not till. No duty could orertask him, No need his will outrun ; Or ever our lips could ask him, His hands the work had done. Ile forgot his own soul for others Himself to his neighbor lending ; TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD 205 seas 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 fung. 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 ; And from the Seine's thronged banks, a murmur strange And glad floats to thee o'er thy summer 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 crownëd 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 ! Placked 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. Vever rode to the wrong's redressing A worthier paladin. Shall he not hear the blessing, "Good and faithful, enter in !” GARIBALDI Ix trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD ON READING HER POEM IN “THE STAN- DARD zone 66 The casting down of thrones. Thou, watching lone The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy-hilled, Where, fringing round Caprera's rocky 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, un- bound, The nations lift their right hands up and 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, 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. swear 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 ! a 206 PERSONAL POEMS mance. What cheer hath he ? Ilow is it with him ? Her gravest mood could scarce displace Where lingers he this weary while ? The dimples of her nut-brown face. Over what pleasant fields of Ileaven Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile ? Wit sparkled on her lips not less For quick and tremulous tenderness ; Does he not know our feet are treading And, following close her merriest glance, The earth hard down on Slavery's grave ? Dreamed through her eyes the beart's ro That, in our crowning exultations, We miss the charm his presence gave ? Timid and still, the elder bad Why on this spring air comes no whisper Even then a smile too sweetly sad ; From him to tell us all is well ? The crown of pain that all must wear Why to our flower-time comes no token Too early pressed her midnight bur. of lily and of asphodel ? Yet ere the summer eve grew long, I feel the unutterable longing, Her modest lips were sweet with svag : Thy hunger of the heart is mine ; A menory baunted all her worls I reach and grope for hands in darkness, Of clover-tields and singing birds. My ear grows sharp for voice or sign. Her dark, dilating eyes expressed Still on the lips of all we question The broad horizons of the west ; The finger of God's silence lies ; Her speech dropped prairie flowers ; tər Will the lost hands in ours be folded ? gold Will the shut eyelids ever rise ? Of harvest wheat about her rolled. () friend ! no proof beyond this yearning, Fore-doomed to song she seemed to me This outreach of our hearts, we need ; I queried not with destiny : God will not mock the hope He giveth, I knew the trial and the need, No love He prompts shall vainly plead. Yet, all the more, I said, God speed ! Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, What could I other than I did? And call our loved ones o'er and o'er ; Could I a singing-bird forbid ? Some day their arms shall close about us, Deny the wind-stirred leaf? Rebuke And the old voices speak once more. The music of the forest brook : No dreary splendors wait our coming She went with morning from my door, Where rapt ghost sits from ghost apart ; | But left me richer than before ; Homeward we go to Heaven's thanksgiving, | Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer, The harvest-gathering of the heart. The welcome of her partial ear. Years passed : through all the land ! THE SINGER name A pleasant household word became : This poem was written on the death of Alice All felt behind the singer stood Cary. Her sister Phorbe, heart-broken by her A sweet and gracious womanhood. les, followed soon after. Noble and richly gifted, lovely in person and character, they Her life was earnest work, not play : left behind them only friends and admirers. Her tired feet climbed a weary way; Years since (but names to me before), And even through her lightest strain Two sisters sought at eve my door ; We heard an undertone of pain. Two song-birds wandering from their nest, A gray old farin-house in the West. Unseen of her her fair fame grew, The good she did she rarely knew, How fresh of life the younger one, l'nguessed of her in life the love Half smiles, half tears, like rain in sun ! That rained its tears ber grave abure. HOW MARY GREW 207 When last I saw her, full of peace, She waited for her great release ; And that old friend so sage and bland, Oar later Franklin, held her hand. 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! For all that patriot bosoms stirs Had moved that woman's heart of hers, Ånd men who toiled in storm and sin Found her their meet companion. HOW MARY GREW . 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. 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. 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. 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 ! Again the blackbirds sing ; the streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, And tremble in the April showers The tassels of the maple flowers. 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! But not for her bas 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 bas God revealed ? What hear the ears that death has sealed ? What undreamed beauty passing show Requites the loss of all we know? 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! O silent land, to which we move, Enough if there alone be love, 208 PERSONAL POEMS He set his face against the blast, SUMNER His feet against the flinty shard, Till the hard service grew, at last, "I am not one who has disgraced beauty of Its own exceeding great reward. sentiment by deformity of conduct, or the max- ims of a freeman by the actions of a slave; but, Lifted like Saul's above the crowd, by the grace of God, I have kept my life unsul- Upon his kingly forehead fell lied." - Milton's Defence of the People of The first sharp bolt of Slavery's cloud, England. Launched at the truth he urged so well. O MOTHER STATE! the winds of March Ah ! never yet, at rack or stake, Blew chill o'er Auburn's Field of God, Was sorer loss made Freedom's gain, Where, slow, beneath a leaden arch Than his, who suffered for her sake Of sky, thy mourning children trod. The beak-torn Titan's lingering pain! And now, with all thy woods in leaf, The fixed star of his faith, through all Thy fields in flower, beside thy dead Loss, doubt, and peril, shone the same; Thou sittest, in thy robes of grief, As through a night of storm, some tall, A Rachel yet uncomforted ! Strong lighthouse lifts its steady thaine. And once again the organ swells, Beyond the dust and smoke he saw Once more the flag is half-way hung, The sheaves of Freedom's large increase, And yet again the mournful bells The holy fanes of equal law, In all thy steeple-towers are rung. The New Jerusalem of peace. And I, obedient to thy will, The weak might fear, the worllling mock Have come a simple wreath to lay, The faint and blind of heart ngri; Supertluous, on a grave that still All knew at last th' eternal rock is sweet with all the flowers of May. On which his forward feet were set. I take, with awe, the task assigned ; The subtlest scheme of compromise It may be that my friend might miss, Was folly to his purpose bold; In his new sphere of heart and mind, The strongest mesh of party lies Some token from my hand in this. Weak to the simplest truth be told By many a tender memory moved, One language held his heart and lip, Along the past my thought I send ; Straight onward to his goal he tried, The record of the canse he loved And proved the highest statesmanshup Is the best record of its friend. Obedience to the voice of God. No wail was in his voice, - none hrani, When treason's storm-cloud biscarsi grew, The weakness of a doubtful word ; His duty, and the end, he knew. 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 heary 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 !" The first to smite, the first to spare ; When once the hostile ensigns f.!!. He stretched out hands of geners are To lift the foe be fought so well. For there was nothing base or small Or craven in his soul's bruad plan; Forgiving all things personal, He hated only wrong to man. SUMNER 209 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. 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 ? How felt the greed of gold and place, The vepal 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. 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. 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, Sor 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. 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 ! What if he felt the natural pride Of power in noble use, too true With thin humilities to bide The work he did, the lore he knew ? Was be not just ? Was any wronged By that assured self-estimate ? He took but what to him belonged, Unenvious of another's state. With calm and beauty symbolize The peace which follows long annoy, And lend our earth-bent, mourning eyes, Some hint of his diviner joy. 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. 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 ! 210 PERSONAL POEMS THIERS 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. 1 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. 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 alluar fell With long death-groan which stall is aude- ble. He, when around the walls of Parus rung The Prussian bugle like the blast of document And every ill which follows unbles war Maddened all France from Finistere tu Var, The weight of fourscore from s shoulders flung, And guided Freedom in the path be sav Lead out of chaos into light and law, Peace, not imperial, but republican, And order pledged to all the Rights of Man. II 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 İlis 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, ller 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 Ilis 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 ! Death called him from a need as imm- nent As that from which the Silent Wam went When powers of evil, like the SIL::: seas On Holland's dikes, assailed her libertine Sadly, while yet in doubtful balanee burg The weal and woe of France, the bells were rung For her lost leader. Paralyzed of will. Above his bier the hearts of men stxx still. Then, as if set to his dead lips, the buwan Of Roland wound once more to ruuse s warn, The old voice filled the air! His last beau word Not vainly France to all her boundar stirred. Strong as in life, he still for Free wrought, As the dead Cid at red Toloso fought WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT 2II FITZ-GREENE HALLECK Alive, he loved, like all who sing, The echoes of his song ; Too late the tardy meed we bring, The praise delayed so long. AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE Too late, alas ! Of all who knew The living man, to-day Before his unveiled face, how few Make bare their locks of gray ! 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. 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. WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT 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. Oh, well may Essex sit forlorn Beside her sea-blown shore; Her well beloved, her noblest born, Is hers in life no more ! The Greek's wild onset Wall Street No lapse of years can render less Her memory's sacred claim ; No fountain of forgetfulness Can wet the lips of Fame. knew ; The Red King walked Broadway ; And Alnwick Castle's roses blew From Palisades to Bay. 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. 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. 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 ? 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. 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 212 PERSONAL POEMS II old; sure. Let age The generous victor's graceful part To sheathe the sword he drew. He brought us wonders of the new and When Earth, as if on evil dreams, Looks back upon her wars, We shared all climes with him. The And the white light of Christ outstreams Arab's tent From the red disk of Mars, To him its story-telling secret lent. And, pleased, we listened to the tales be His fame who led the stormy van told. Of battle well may cease, His task, beguiled with songs that shall es- But never that which crowns the man dure, Whose victory was Peace. In manly, honest thoroughness be wrought ; Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore From humble home-lays to the brights Thy beautiful and brave, of thought Whose failing hand the olive bore, Slowly he climbed, but every step was Whose dying lips forgave! How, with the generous pride that friend lament the youthful chief, ship hath, And tender eyes be dim ; We, who so loved him, saw at last the The tears are more of joy than grief crown That fall for one like him ! Of civic honor on his brows pressed down, Rejoiced, and kuew not that the gift was death. BAYARD TAYLOR And now for him, whose praise in de af- ened ears Two nations speak, we answer but with tears! “And where now, Bayard, will thy foot- steps tend ?" III My sister asked our guest one winter's day. O Vale of Chester! trod by him so eft. Smiling he answered in the Friends'sweet Green as thy June turf keep his memory Let Common to both : “Wherever thou shalt Nor wood, nor dell, nor storied stream send ! forget, What wouldst thou have me see for thee ? " Nor wins that blow round lonely Cedar She laughed, croft ; Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's Let the home voices greet him in the far, glow : Strange land that holds him ; kot tube “Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low, messages Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft." Of love pursue him o'er the chartins * All these and more I soon shall see for thee !" And unmapped vastness of his unknoot He answered cheerily : and he kept his star! pledge Love's language, heard beyond the lama. On Lapland snows, the North Cape's discoure windy wedge, Of perishable fame, in every sphere And Tromsö freezing in its winter sea. Itself interprets; and its utteranee bere He went and came. But no man knows Somewhere in God's unfolding universe the track Shall reach our traveller, softening the Of his last journey, and he comes not surprise back ! Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies ! 1 way Seas WITHIN THE GATE 213 WITHIN THE GATE L. M. C. 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, dud young of heart, how dare we say We keep his seventieth festival ? No sense is here of loss or lack ; Before bis sweetness and his light The dial holds its shadow back, The charmëd hours delay their flight. I have more fully expressed my admiration and regard for Lydia Maria Child in the bio- graphical 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 for- lorn, And heard her battle-horn Sound through the valleys of the sleeping North, Calling her children forth, 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. 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. His sparkling surface scarce betrays The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled, The wisdom of the latter days, And tender memories of the old. Sadly, as 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. 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. 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 Where with the ages spanned the gulf be- tween The seen and the unseen, 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 ! Seeking from omen, trance, and dream to gain Solace to doubtful pain, And touch, with groping hands, the gar- ment hem Of truth sufficing them, 214 PERSONAL POEMS 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? 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, () 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 In everlasting road ? Not for brief days thy generous sympathies, Thy scorn of seltish 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! 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 tinds 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 vering thing At thy bome-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 withstwah Small respect for cant and whine, Bigot's zeal and hate maliga, Had that sunny soul of the But to thee was dnty's claim Sured, and thy lips became Reverent with one boly Same. For truth must live with truth, self-sacri- tice 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 ! Therefore, on thy unknown war, Go in God's peace! We who star But a little wlule delay. THE POET AND THE CHILDREN 215 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. 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! 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 ! WILSON THE POET AND THE CHILDREN Read at the Massachusetts Club on the seven- tieth anniversary of the birthday of Vice-Pres- LONGFELLOW ident Wilson, February 16, 1882. With a glory of winter sunshine The lowliest born of all the land, Over his locks of gray, He wrung from Fate's reluctant hand In the old historic mansion The gifts which happier boyhood claims ; He sat on his last birthday ; And, tasting on a thankless soil The bitter bread of unpaid toil, With his books and his pleasant pictures, He fed his soul with noble aims. And his household and his kin, While a sound as of myriads singing And Nature, kindly provident, From far and near stole in. To him the future's promise lent; The powers that shape man's destinies, It came from his own fair city, Patience and faith and toil, he knew, From the prairie's boundless plain, The close horizon round him grew From the Golden Gate of sunset, Broad with great possibilities. And the cedarn woods of Maine, By the low hearth-fire's fitful blaze And his heart grew warm within him, He read of old heroic days, And his moistening eyes grew dim, The sage's thought, the patriot's speech ; For he knew that his country's children Unhelped, alone, himself he taught, Were singing the songs of him : His school the craft at which he wrought, His lore the book within his reach. The lays of his life's glad morning, The psalms of his evening time, He felt his country's need; he knew Whose echoes shall float forever The work her children had to do ; On the winds of every clime. And when, at last, he heard the call In her behalf to serve and dare, All their beautiful consolations, Beside his senatorial chair Sent forth like birds of cheer, He stood the unquestioned peer of Came flocking back to his windows, all. And sang in the Poet's ear. 216 PERSONAL POEMS 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 bome! 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-billed city Shall bold in memory long, Whose 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 titly paid, Come back, dear Ritssell 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 ! 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!” A WELCOME TO LOWELL AS ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL GEORGE FI'LLER 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 Cedareroft'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, Wbo 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 olal and tender story Of the loru Acadian maid ; HAUNTED of Beauty, like the marrellus youth Who sang Saint Agnes' Eve! How passes fair Her shapes took color in thy homestead ari llow on thy canvas even her dreams site truth! Magiciau ! who from commonest elemen Called up divine ideals, clothed upon By mystic lights soft blending into one Womanly grace and child-like innocens Teacher! the lesson was not givra in va Beauty is goodness ; ugliness is san : Art's place is sacred: nothing foul then. May crawl or tread with bestial feet produse If rightly choosing is the painter's test, Thy chuice, 0 master, ever was the best SAMUEL J. TILDEN 217 MULFORD Round Grand Manan with eager finny swarms, Break the long calms, and charm away the storms. Author of The Nation and The Republic of God. SAMUEL J. TILDEN L'NNOTED 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. GREYSTONE, AUGUST 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. TO A CAPE ANN SCHOONER 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. 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 Lift the blind fog on Anticosti's lee And Avalon's rock ; make populous the sea 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, reefs are ; Shall we not yow above his bier To set our feet on party lies, And wound no more a living ear With words that Death denies ? OCCASIONAL POEMS EVA 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. 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. 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. Weep no more for happy Eva, Wrong and siu no more shall grieve her; Care and pain aud weariness Lost in love so measureless. 2 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 beavenly shore ! “ 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 Toul. “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 Obedieut 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 prar, A LAY OF OLD TIME Written for the Fasex County Agricultnral Fair, and sung at the banquet at Newbury port, October 2, . 218 KENOZA LAKE 219 And seeded grass and trodden root Grew sweet beneath their care. 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. 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. KENOZA LAKE But still for us his native skies The pitying Angel leaves, And leads through Toil to Paradise New Adams and new Eves ! This beautiful lake in East Haverhill was the “ Great Pond” of 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 the Indian language signifying Pickerel) was read. A SONG OF HARVEST For the Agricultural and Horticultural Exhi- bition at Amesbury and Salisbury, September 28, 1858. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 220 OCCASIONAL POEMS 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, Wind-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 ! Once more with barvest-song and shout Is Nature's bloodless triumph toll. Our common mother rests and sings, Like Ruth, among her garnered sin ares; Her lap is full of goodly things, Her brow is bright with autuinn 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 bloot ou ; We murmur, but the corn-ear till, We choose the shadow, but the sun That casts it shines behind us stiil. God gives us with our rugged soil The power to make it Eden-fair, And richer fruits to crown our toil Than summer-wedded islantis bear. Who murmurs at his lot today? Who scorns his native fruit and bliwum 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 generons lives can warm A clime with northern ices cold. FOR AN ALTUMN FESTIVAL And let these altars, wreathed with fkurn And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden bours, The early and the latter rain! 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 is the plenteons horn Of autumn, filled and running o'er With fruit, and Hower, and golden corn! Once more the liberal year langhs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold ; THE QU'AKER ALL'UNI Read at the Friends' School Annuvenir Providence, R. I., tith mo., I. From the well-springs of Hudson, the beso cliffs of Maine, Grave men, suber matrons, you gaiber again ; And, with bearts warmer grown as heads grow more cool, Play over the old game of going to sched All your strifes and vexations, your w . and complaints, (Yon were not saints yourselves, if the children of saints!) THE QUAKER ALUMNI 221 All your petty self-seekings and rivalries done, Round the dear Alma Mater your hearts beat as one ! Should the heart closer shut as the bonnet grows prim, And the face grow in length as the hat grows in brim ? . warm. SO soon How widely soe'er you have strayed from Life is brief, duty grave ; but, with rain- the fold, folded wings, Though your "thee” has grown “you," and Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful heart your drab blue and gold, sings ; To the old friendly speech and the garb's And we, of all others, have reason to pay sober form, The tribute of thanks, and rejoice on our Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan, you way ; For the counsels that turned from the follies But, the first greetings over, you glance of youth ; round the ball; For the beauty of patience, the whiteness of Your bearts call the roll, but they answer truth ; not all: For the wounds of rebuke, when love tem- Through the turf green above them the dead pered its edge ; cannot hear ; For the household's restraint, and the disci- Name by name, in the silence, falls sad as pline's hedge ; a tear! For the lessons of kindness vouchsafed to In love, let us trust, they were summoned the least Of the creatures of God, whether human From the morning of life, while we toil or beast, through its noon; Bringing hope to the poor, lending strength They were frail like ourselves, they had to the frail, needs like our own, In the lanes of the city, the slave-hut, and And they rest as we rest in God's mercy jail ; alone. For a womanhood higher and holier, by all Cnchanged by our changes of spirit and Her knowledge of good, than was Eve ere frame, her fall, Past, now, and henceforward the Lord is Whose task-work of duty moves lightly as play, Though we sink in the darkness, His arms Serene as the moonlight and warm as the break our fall, day ; And in death as in life, He is Father of all ! And, yet more, for the faith which embraces the whole, We are older: our footsteps, so light in Of the creeds of the ages the life and the the play soul, Of the far-away school-time, move slower Wherein letter and spirit the same channel to-day ; run, Here a beard touched with frost, there a And man has not severed what God has bald, shining crown, made one! And beneath the cap's border gray mingles with brown. For a sense of the Goodness revealed every- where, But faith should be cheerful, and trust As sunshine impartial, and free as the air ; should be glad, For a trust in humanity, Heathen or Jew, And our follies and sins, not our years, make And a hope for all darkness the Light us sad. shineth through. the same ; а 222 OCCASIONAL POEMS Who scoffs at our birthright? the words For the sake of his gifts, and the works that of the seers, outlive hiin, And the songs of the bards in the twilight And his brave words for freedom, we freely of years, forgive him! All the foregleams of wisdom in santon and sage, There are those who take note that war In prophet and priest, are our true heritage. numbers are small, - New Gibbons who write our decline and per The Word which the reason of Plato dis- fall ; cerned ; But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of The truth, as whose symbol the Mithra-fire His own, burned ; And the world shall yet reap what our gue- The soul of the world which the Stoic but ers have sown. guessed, In the Light Universal the Quaker con- The last of the sect to his fathers may ga. fessed ! Leaving only his coat for some Barnam 1: show ; No honors of war to our worthies be- But the truth will outlive him, and broadro long ; with years, Their plain stem of life never flowered into Till the false dies away, and the wrong des song ; appears. But the fountains they opened still gush by the way, Nothing fails of its end. Out of sites And the world for their healing is better to- sinks the stone, day. In the deep sea of time, but the circies sweep on, He who lies where the minster’s groined Till the low-rippled murmurs along the arches curve down shores run, To the tomb-crowded transept of England's And the dark and dead waters leap glad in renown, the sun. The glorious essayist, by gepius enthroned, Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all Meanwhile shall we learn, in our ease, to owned, forget To the martyrs of Truth and of Freels Who through the world's pantheon walked our debt? in his pride, Hide their words out of sight, like the car Setting new statues up, thrusting old ones that they wore, aside, And for Barclay's Apology offer our tikute And in tiction the pencils of history dipped, To gild o'er or blacken each saint in his Shall we fawn round the priesteraft tis: crypt, - glutted the shears, And festooped the stocks with our go- How vainly he labored to sully with fnthers' ears? blame Talk of Woolman's unsoundness com The white bust of Penn, in the niche of his Penn heterodox ? fame! And take ('otton Mather in place of Grote Self - will is self - wounding, perversity Fox? blind : On himself fell the stain for the Quaker Make our preachers war-chaplains ? 4-6 designed! Scripture to take The hunted slave back, for Opesinas'sekr For the sake of his true-hearted father be- Go to burning church-candles, anii chart fore him ; in choir, For the sake of the dear Quaker mother And on the old meeting-house sto s ap that bore him ; spire ? THE QUAKER ALUMNI 223 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. Three shades at this moment seem walking her strand, Each with head halo-crowned, and with palms in his hand, Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and, smiling serene On prelate and puritan, Channing is seen. 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 Or beg the world's pardon for having been born ? have worn, One holy name bearing, no longer they need Credentials of party, and pass-words of creed: The new song they sing hath a threefold accord, And they own one baptism, one faith, and one Lord ! 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 But the golden sands run out: occasions like these Glide swift into shadow, like sails on the sun ? seas: more. soil grow; Dame. be true, the eye While we sport with the mosses and pebbles Well know we our birthright may serve ashore, but to show They lessen and fade, and we see them no How the meanest of weeds in the richest But we need not disparage the good which Forgive me, dear friends, if my vagrant we hold; thoughts seem Though the vessels be earthen, the treasure Like a school-boy's who idles and plays with is gold ! his theme. Forgive the light measure whose changes Enough and too much of the sect and the display The sunshine and rain of our brief April What matters our label, so truth be our day. aim ? The creed may be wrong, but the life may There are moments in life when the lip and And hearts beat the same under drab coats Try the question of whether to smile or to or blue. cry ; And scenes and reunions that prompt like So the man be a man, let him worship, at will, The tender in feeling, the playful in tone. In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's hill. When she makes up her jewels, what cares I, who never sat down with the boys and the yon good town girls For the Baptist of Wayland, the Quaker of At the feet of your Slocums, and Cartlands, Brown? and Earles, By courtesy only permitted to lay And this green, favored island, so fresh and On your festival's altar my poor gift, to- sea-blown, day, — When she counts up the worthies her annals have known, I would joy in your joy : let me have a Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect friend's part To measure her love, and mete out her re- In the warmth of your welcome of hand spect. and of heart, our own 224 OCCASIONAL POEMS and go ; On your play-ground of boyhood unbend slopes of the Newbury side of the river oppo the brow's care, Pleasant Valley in Amesbury. The mal And shift the old burdens our shoulders poems called out by these gatherings are here must bear. printed in sequence. Long live the good School ! giving out year Once more on yonder lagrelled heizbt by year The summer towers have buddded; Recruits to true manhood and womanhood Once more with summer's golden litt dear: The vales of home are flooded ; Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty sent And once more, by the grace of Him forth, Of every good the Giver, The living epistles and proof of its worth ! We sing upon its wooded rim The praises of our river: In and out let the young life as steadily flow Its pines above, its waves below, As in broad Narragansett the tides come The west-wind down it blowing, As fair as when the young Brisst And its sons and its daughters in prairie Beheld it seaward flowing, and town And bore its memory o'er the deep, Remember its honor, and guard its renown. To soothe the martyr's sadness, And fresco, in his troubled sleep, Not vainly the gift of its founder was His prison-walls with gladness. made ; Not prayerless the stones of its corner were We know the world is rich with streams laid : Renowned in song and story, The blessing of Him whom in secret they Whose music murmurs through our dreams songht Of human love and glory : Has owned the good work which the fathers We know that Arno's banks are fair, have wronght. And Rhine has castled shadows, And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Irr To Him be the glory forever! We bear Go singing down their meadows. To the Lord of the Harvest our wheat with the tare. But while, unpictured and unsung What we lack in our work may He find in By painter or by poet, our will, Our river waits the tuneful tongue And winnow in mercy our good from the And cunning hand to show it, – ill! We only know the fond skies lean Above it, warm with blessing, And the sweet soul of our lindine OUR RIVER Awakes to our caressing. FOR A SUMMER FESTIVAL AT “THE No fickle sun.god holds the forks LAU'RELS" ON THE MERRIMAC That graze its shores in keeping: No icy kiss of Dian mocks Jean Pierre Brissot, the famous leader of the The youth beside it sleeping: Girondist party in the French Revolution, when Our Christian river loveth most a young man travelled extensively in the United The beautiful and human; States. Ple visited the valley of the Merrimae, The heathen streams of Nauads boast, and speaks in terms of animiration of the view But ours of man and woman. from Moulton's hill opposite Amesbury. The * Laurel Party," so called, was composed of The miner in his cabin hears ladies and gentlemen in the lower valley of the Merrimac, and invited friends and guests in The ripple we are hearing : other sections of the country. Its thoroughly It whispers soft to homesick ears enjovable annual festivals were held in the early Around the settler's clearing : summer on the pine-shaded, laurel-blossomed In Sacramento's vales of corn, REVISITED 225 Or Santee's bloom of cotton, Our river by its valley-born Was never yet forgotten. Let thy hills give thanks, and all thy waters Break into jubilant waves of song! Bring us the airs of hills and forests, The sweet aroma of birch and pine, Give us a waft of the north-wind laden With sweetbrier odors and breath of kine! The drum rolls loud, the bugle fills The summer air with clangor ; The war-storni shakes the solid hills Beneath its tread of anger ; Young eyes that last year smiled in ours Now point the rifle's barrel, And hands then stained with fruits and flowers Bear redder stains of quarrel. But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on, And rivers still keep flowing, The dear God still his rain and sun On good and ill bestowing. His pine-trees whisper, “Trust and wait !” His flowers are prophesying That all we dread of change or fate His love is underlying. Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets, Shadows of clouds that rake the hills, The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows, The gleam and ripple of Campton rills. Lead us away in shadow and sunshine, Slaves of fancy, through all thy miles, The winding ways of Pemigewasset, And Winnipesaukee's hundred isles. Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges, Laugh in thy plunges from fall to fall; Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken Under the shade of the mountain wall. - no more And thou, O Mountain-born ! - We ask the wise Allotter Than for the firmness of thy shore, The calmness of thy water, The cheerful lights that overlay Thy rigged slopes with beauty, To match our spirits to our day And make a joy of duty. The cradle-song of thy hillside fountains Here in thy glory and strength repeat ; Give us a taste of tby upland music, Show us the dance of thy silver feet. : OWS REVISITED Into thy dutiful life of uses Pour the music and weave the flowers : With the song of birds and bloom of mead- Lighten and gladden thy heart and ours. Sing on ! bring down, O lowland river, The joy of the hills to the waiting sea ; The wealth of the vales, the pomp of moun- tains, The breath of the woodlands, bear with thee. Read at “The Laurels," on the Merrimac, 6th month, 1865. The roll of drums and the bugle's wailing Ver the air of our vales no more ; The spear is beaten to hooks of pruning, The share is the sword the soldier wore ! Here, in the calın of thy seaward valley, Mirth and labor shall hold their truce ; Dance of water and mill of grinding, Both are beauty and both are use. Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river, Under thy banks of laurel bloom ; Softly and sweet, as the hour beseemeth, Sing us the songs of peace and home. Let all the tenderer voices of nature Temper the triumph and chasten mirth, Full of the infinite love and pity For fallen martyr and darkened hearth. But to Him who gives us beauty for ashes, And the oil of joy for mourning long, Type of the Northland's strength and glory, Pride and hope of our home and race, Freedom lending to rugged labor Tints of beauty and lines of grace. Once again, O beautiful river, Hear our greetings and take our thanks; Hither we come, as Eastern pilgrims Throng to the Jordan's sacred banks. 226 OCCASIONAL POEMS For though by the Master's feet untrod- den, Though never His word has stilled thy waves, Well for us may thy shores be holy, With Christian altars and saintly graves. And well may we own thy hint and token Of fairer valleys and streams than these, Where the rivers of God are full of water, And full of sap are lis healing trees ! JUNE ON THE MERRIMAC O DWELLERs in the stately towns, What come ye out to see? This common earth, this common sky, This water flowing free? As gayly as these kalmia flowers Your door-yard blossoms spring; As sweetly as these wild-wooci vinis Your caged minstrels sing. “THE LAURELS” You find but common bloom and grees The rippling river's rune, The beauty which is everywhere Beneath the skies of June ; The Hawkswood oaks, the storm - trts. plumes Of old pine-forest kings, Beneath whose century-woven shade Deer Island's mistress sings. And here are pictured Artichoke, And Curson's bowery mill; And Pleasant Valley smiles between The river and the hill. At the twentieth and last anniversary. From these wild rocks I look to-day O'er leagues of dancing waves, and see The far, low coast-line stretch away To where our river meets the sea. The light wind blowing off the land Is burdened with old voices ; through Shut eyes I see how lip and hand The greeting of old days renew. () friends whose hearts still keep their prime, Whose bright example warms and cheers, Ye teach us how to smile at Time, And set to music all his years ! I thank you for sweet summer days, For pleasant memories lingering long, For joyful meetings, fond delays, And ties of friendship woven strong. As for the last time, side by side, You tread the paths familiar grown, I reach across the severing tide, And blend my farewells with your own. Make room, () river of our home! For other feet in place of ours, And in the summers yet to come, Make glad another Feast of Flowers ! Hold in thy mirror, calm and deep, The pleasant pictures thou hast seen; Forget thy lovers not, but keep Our memory like thy laurels green. You know full well these banks of blox , The uplaud's wavy line, And how the sunshine tips with fire The needles of the pine. Yet, like some old remembered psalm, Or sweet, familiar face, Not less because of commonness You love the day and place. And not in vain in this soft air Shall hard-strung nerves relax, Not all in vain the o'erworn brain Forego its daily tax. The lust of power, the greed of gain Have all the year their own ; The haunting demons well may let Our one bright day alone. Unheeded let the newsboy call, Aside the ledger lay : The world will keep its treadmill step Though we fall out today. די HYMN 227 From manhood's weary shoulder falls His load of selfish cares ; And woman takes her rights as flowers And brooks and birds take theirs. The truants of life's weary school, Without excuse from thrift We change for once the gains of toil For God's unpurchased gift. From ceiled rooms, from silent books, From crowded car and town, Dear Mother Earth, upon thy lap We lay our tired heads down. The license of the happy woods, The brook's release are ours; The freedom of the unshamed wind Among the glad-eyed flowers. Cool, summer wind, our heated brows; Blue river, through the green Of clustering pines, refresh the eyes Which all too much have seen. Yet here no evil thought finds place, Nor foot profane comes in ; Our grove, like that of Samothrace, Is set apart from sin. We walk on holy ground ; above A sky more holy smiles ; The chant of the beatitudes Swells down these leafy aisles. For us these pleasant woodland ways Are thronged with memories old, Have felt the grasp of friendly hands And heard love's story told. A sacred presence overbroods The earth whereon we meet ; These winding forest-paths are trod By more than mortal feet. Thanks to the gracious Providence That brings us here once more ; For memories of the good behind And hopes of good before ! Old friends called from us by the voice Which they alone could hear, From mystery to mystery, From life to life, draw near. And if, unknown to us, sweet days Of June like this must come, Unseen of us these laurels clothe The river-banks with bloom ; More closely for the sake of them Each other's hands we press ; Our voices take from them a tone Of deeper tenderness. And these green paths must soon be trod By other feet than ours, Full long may annual pilgrims come To keep the Feast of Flowers ; The matron be a girl once more, The bearded man a boy, And we, in heaven's eternal June, Be glad for earthly joy ! HYMN Our joy is theirs, their trust is ours, Alike below, above, Or here or there, about us fold The arms of one great love ! We ask to-day no countersign, No party names we own ; C'nlabelled, individual, We bring ourselves alone. What cares the unconventioned wood For pass-words of the town ? The sound of fashion's sbibboleth The laughing waters drown. Here cant forgets his dreary tone, And care his face forlorn ; The liberal air and sunshine laugh The bigot's zeal to scorn. FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR KING'S HOUSE OF WORSHIP, 1864 The poetic and patriotic preacher, who had won fame in the East, went to California in 1860 and became a power on the Pacific coast. It was not long after the opening of the house of worship built for him that he died. AMIDST these glorious works of Thine, The solemn minarets of the pine, And awful Shasta's icy shrine, 228 OCCASIONAL POEMS A Where swell Thy hymns from wave and That song shall swell from sbore to sbore, gale, One hope, oue faith, one love, restore And organ-thunders never fail, The seamless robe that Jesus wore. Behind the cataract's silver veil, - Our puny walls to Thee we raise, HYMN Our poor reed-music sounds Thy praise : Forgive, O Lord, our childish ways ! FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGF. TOWN, ERECTED IN MEMORY OF For, kneeling on these altar-stairs, MOTHER We urge Thee not with selfish prayers, Nor murmur at our daily cares. The giver of the house was the late Geurs Peabody, of London. Before Thee, in an evil day, Our country's bleeding heart we lay, Thou dwellest not, O Lord of all! And dare not ask Thy hand to stay ; In temples which thy children raise ; Our work to Thine is mean and small, But, through the war-cloud, pray to Thee And brief to Thy eterual days. For union, but a union free, With peace that comes of purity ! Forgive the weakness and the pride, If marred thereby onr gift may be, That Thou wilt bare Thy arm to save For love, at least, has sanctified And, siniting through this Red Sea wave, The altar that we rear to thee. Make broad a pathway for the slave ! The heart and not the hand has wrongt: For us, confessing all our need, From sunken base to tower above We trust nor rite nor word nor deed, The image of a tender thonght, Nor yet the broken staff of creed. The memory of a deathless love! Assured alone that Thou art good And though should never sound of sports To each, as to the multitude, Or organ echo from its wall, Eternal Love and Fatherhood, – Its stones would pious lessons teach, Its shade in benedictions fall. Weak, sinful, blind, to Thee we kneel, Stretch dumbly forth our hands, and Here should the dove of peace be found. feel And blessings and not curses given : Our weakness is our strong appeal. Nor strife profane, nor hatred wount The mingled loves of earth and beatre So, by these Western gates of Even We wait to see with Thy forgiven Thou, who didst soothe with dsing berstà The opening Golden Gate of Heaven! The dear one watching by Thy cross Forgetful of the pains of death Suffice it now. In time to be In sorrow for her mighty luss, Shall holier altars rise to Thee, — Thy Church our broad humanity! In memory of that tender claim, O Mother-born, the offering take, White flowers of love its walls shall And make it worthy of Thy name, climb, And bless it for a mother's sake! Soft bells of peace shall ring its chime, Its days shall all be holy time. A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTAT!:) A sweeter song sball then be heard, - The music of the world's accord Read at the President's Levee, Brown I'> ('onfessing Christ, the Inward Word ! versity, Arth oth month, Isid. A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION 229 TO-DAY the plant by Williams set Its summer bloom discloses ; The wilding sweetbrier of his prayers Is crowned with cultured roses. “Shrill Anabaptists, shorn of ears ; Gray witch-wives, hobbling slowly ; And Antinomians, free of law, Whose very sins were holy. “ Hoarse ranters, crazed Fifth Monarch- ists Of stripes and bondage braggarts, Pale Churchmen, with singed rubrics snatched From Puritanic fagots. “ And last, not least, the Quakers came, With tongues still sore from burning, The Bay State's dust from off their feet Before my threshold spurning; Once more the Island State repeats The lesson that he taught her, And binds his pearl of charity Cpon her brown-locked daughter. Is't fancy that he watches still His Providence plantations ? That still the careful Founder takes A part on these occasions ? Methinks I see that reverend form, Which all of us so well know : He rises up to speak ; he jogs The presidential elbow. “Good friends," he says, “you reap a field I sowed in self-denial, For toleration had its griefs And charity its trial. "Great grace, as saith Sir Thomas More, To him must needs be given Who heareth heresy and leaves The heretic to Heaven ! “A motley host, the Lord's débris, Faith's odds and ends together; Well might I shrink from guests with lungs Tough as their breeches leather : “If, when the hangman at their heels Came, rope in hand to catch them, I took the hunted outcasts in, I never sent to fetch them. " I hear again the snuffled tones, I see in dreary vision Dyspeptic dreamers, spiritual bores, And prophets with a mission. " Each zealot thrust before my eyes His Scripture-garbled label ; All creeds were shouted in my ears As with the tongues of Babel. "Scourged at one cart-tail, each denied The hope of every other ; Each martyr shook his branded fist At the conscience of his brother ! “I fed, but spared them not a whit ; I gave to all who walked in, Not clams and succotash alone, But stronger meat of doctrine. "I proved the prophets false, I pricked The bubble of perfection, And clapped upon their inner light The snuffers of election, “ And looking backward on my times, This credit I am taking; I kept each sectary's dish apart, No spiritual chowder making. “ Where now the blending signs of sect Would puzzle their assorter, The dry-shod Quaker kept the land, The Baptist held the water. a " How cleft the dreary drone of man The shriller pipe of woman, As Gorton led his saints elect, Who held all things in common ! * Their gay robes trailed in ditch and swamp, And torn by thorn and thicket, The dancing-girls of Merry Mount Came dragging to my wicket. “ A common coat now serves for both, The hat's no more a fixture ; And which was wet and which was dry, Who knows in such a mixture ? « Well ! He who fashioned Peter's dream To bless them all is able ; 230 OCCASIONAL POEMS And weeds the garden of the Lord With Satan's borrowed dibble. And bird and beast and creeping thing Make clean upon His table ! “ I walked by my own light; but when The ways of faith divided, Was I to force unwilling feet To tread the path that I did ? “ I touched the garment-hem of truth, Yet saw not all its splendor ; I knew enough of doubt to feel For every conscience tender. . * God left men free of choice, as when Ilis Eden-trees were planted ; Because they chose amiss, should I Deny the gift He granted ? “So, with a common sense of need, Our common weakness feeling, I left them with myself to God And His all-gracious dealing ! " I kept His plan whose rain and sun To tare and wheat are given; And if the ways to hell were free, I left them free to heaven!” To-day our hearts like organ keys One Master's touch are feeling ; The branches of a common Vine Have only leaves of healing. Co-workers, yet from varied fields, We share this restful nooning; The Quaker with the Baptist here Believes in close communing Forgive, dear saint, the playful tone, Too light for thy deseasing; Thanks for thy generous faith in man, Thy trust in God unswerving. Still echo in the hearts of men The words that thou hast spoken No forge of hell can weld again The fetters thou hast broken. The pilgrim needs a pass no more From Roman or Genevan; Thought-free, no ghostly tollman keep Henceforth the road to Heaven ! Take heart with us, O man of old, Soul-freedom's brave confessor, So love of God and man wax strong, Let sect and creed be lesser. CHICAGO The jarring discords of thy day In ours one hymn are swelling ; The wandering feet, the severed paths, All seek our Father's dwelling. And slowly learns the world the truth That makes us all thy debtor, — That holy life is more than rite', And spirit more than letter ; That they who differ pole-wide serve Perchance the common Master, And other sheep lle bath than they Who graze one narrow pasture ! For truth's wort foe is he who claims To act as Goul's avenger, And deems, beyond his sentry-beat, The crystal walls in danger! The great fire at Chicago was on 10 (bet ber, 1871. Mex said at vespers : “ All is well!" In one wild night the city fell ; Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gaia Before the fiery hurricane. On threescore spires had sunset sbae, Where ghastly sunrise looked on Dee Men clasped each other's hands, and saa! " The City of the West is dead!" Brave hearts who fought, in slow mpeten The fiends of fire from street to stnt. Turned, powerless, to the blinding far, The dumb definance of despair. A sudden impulse thrilled each wire That signalled round that sea of tim: Swift words of cheer, warm heart-thr's came ; In tears of pity died the flame ! Who sets for heresy his traps Of verbal quirk and quibble, THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD 231 From East, from West, from South and North, The messages of hope shot forth, And, underneath the severing wave, The world, full-handed, reached to save. And there, as here, on main and isle, The dews of holy peace shall fall, The same sweet heavens above him smile And God's dear love be over all ! THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD Fair seemed the old ; but fairer still The new, the dreary void shall fill With dearer homes than those o'erthrown, For love shall lay each corner-stone. Rise, stricken city! from thee throw The ashen sackcloth of thy woe ; And build, as to Amphion's strain, To songs of cheer thy walls again! Longwood, not far from Bayard Taylor's birthplace in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, was the home of my esteemed friends John and Hannah Cox, whose golden wedding was cele- brated in 1874. How shrivelled in thy hot distress The primal sin of selfishness ! How instant rose, to take thy part, The angel in the human heart ! With fifty years between you and your well-kept wedding vow, The Golden Age, old friends of mine, is not a fable now. And, sweet as has life's vintage been through all your pleasant past, Still, as at Cana's marriage-feast, the best wine is the last ! Ah! not in vain the flames that tossed Above thy dreadful holocaust; The Christ again has preached through thee The Gospel of Humanity ! Then lift once more thy towers on high, And fret with spires the western sky, To tell that God is yet with us, And love is still miraculous ! Again before me, with your names, fair Chester's landscape comes, Its meadows, woods, and ample barns, and quaint, stone-builded homes. The smooth-shorn vales, the wheaten slopes, the boscage green and soft, Of which their poet sings so well from towered Cedarcroft. And lo! from all the country - side come neighbors, kith and kin; From city, hamlet, farm - house old, the wedding guests come in. KINSMAN Died at the Island of Panay (Philippine group), aged nineteen years. WHERE ceaseless Spring her garland twines, As sweetly shall the loved one rest, As if beneath the whispering pines And maple shadows of the West. Ye mourn, O hearts of home ! for him, But, haply, mourn ye not alone ; For him shall far-off eyes be dim, And pity speak in tongues unknown. There needs no graven line to give The story of his blameless youth ; All hearts shall throb intuitive, And nature guess the simple truth. The very meaning of his name Shall many a tender tribute win ; The stranger own his sacred claim, And all the world shall be his kin. And they who, without scrip or purse, mob- hunted, travel-worn, In Freedom's age of martyrs came, as victors now return. Older and slower, yet the same, files in the long array, And hearts are light and eyes are glad, though heads are badger-gray. The fire-tried men of Thirty-eight who saw with me the fall, Midst roaring flames and shouting mob, of Pennsylvania Hall; 232 OCCASIONAL POEMS And they of Lancaster who turned the May many more of quiet years be added to checks of tyrants pale, your sum, Singing of freedom through the grates of And, late at last, in tenderest love, the Moyamensing jail ! beckoning angel come. And haply with them, all unseen, old com- Dear hearts are here, dear hearts are there. rades, gone before, alike below, above ; Pass, silently as shadows pass, within your Our friends are now in either world, and open door, love is sure of love. The eagle face of Lindley Coates, brave Garrett's daring zeal, HYMN Tbe Christian grace of Pennock, the stead- fast heart of Neal. FOR THE OPENING OF PLYMOUTH CHIRON, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA Ab me! beyond all power to name, the worthies tried and true, All things are Thine : no gift have se, Grave men, fair women, youth and maid, Lord of all gifts, to offer Thee ; pass by in hushed review. And hence with grateful hearts today, Thy own before Thy feet we lay. Of varying faiths, a common cause fused all their hearts in one. Thy will was in the builders' thought ; God give them now, whate'er their names, Thy hand unseen amidst us wrought; the peace of duty done ! Through mortal motive, sebe me and plan. Thy wise eternal purpose ra ran. How gladly would I tread again the old- remembered places, No lack Thy perfect fulness knew; Sit down beside your hearth once more and For human needs and longings grew look in the dear old faces ! This house of prayer, this home of rest, In the fair garden of the West. And thank you for the lessons your fifty years are teaching, In weakness and in want we call For honest lives that louder speak than On Thee for whom the heavens are sata, half our voisy preaching ; Thy glory is Thy children's good, Thy joy Thy tender Fatherhood. For your steady faith and courage in that dark and evil time, O Father! deign these walls to bless, When the Golden Rule was treason, and to Fill with Thy love their emptiness, feed the hungry crime ; And let their door a gateway be To lead us from ourselves to Thee! For the poor slave's house of refuge when the hounds were on his track, And saint and sinner, church and state, LEXINGTON joined hands to send him back. 1775 Blessings upon yon ! - What you did for each sad, suffering one, Yo Berserk thirst of blood hnd ther, So homeless, faint, and naked, unto our No battle-jor was theirs, who set Lord was done! Against the alien bayonet Their homespun breasts in that old day Fair fall on Kennett's pleasant vales and langwool', bowery ways Their feet had trodden peaceful ways: The mellow sunset of your lives, friends of They loved not strife, they dreaded my early days. 1 pain; “I WAS A STRANGER AND YE TOOK ME IN” 233 They saw not, what to us is plain, That God would make man's wrath His praise. THE LIBRARY Sung at the opening of the Haverhill Library, November 11, 1875. No seers were they, but simple men ; Its vast results the future hid : The meaning of the work they did Was strange and dark and doubtful then. “Let there be light !” God spake of old, And over chaos dark and cold, And through the dead and formless frame Of nature, life and order came. - Swift as their summons came they left The plough mid - furrow standing still, The half - ground corn grist in the mill The spade in earth, the axe in cleft. Faint was the light at first that shone On giant fern and mastodon, On half-formed plant and beast of prey, And man as rude and wild as they. They went where duty seemed to call, They scarcely asked the reason why ; They only knew they could but die, And death was not the worst of all ! Age after age, like waves, o'erran The earth, uplifting brute and man; And mind, at length, in symbols dark Its meanings traced on stone and bark. Of man for man the sacrifice, All that was theirs to give, they gave. The flowers that blossomed from their grave Have sown themselves beneath all skies. On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll; On plastic clay and leathern scroll, Man wrote his thoughts ; the ages passed, And lo ! the Press was found at last ! as Their death-shot shook the feudal tower, And sbattered slavery's chain well ; On the sky's dome, as on a bell, Its echo struck the world's great hour. Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men Whose bones were dust revived again ; The cloister's silence found a tongue, Old prophets spake, old poets sung. And here, to-day, the dead look down, The kings of mind again we crown ; We hear the voices lost so long, The sage's word, the sibyl's song. Here Greek and Roman find themselves Alive along these crowded shelves ; And Shakespeare treads again his stage, And Chaucer paints anew his age. That fateful echo is not dumb : The nations listening to its sound Wait, from a century's vantage-ground, The holier triumphs yet to come, The bridal time of Law and Love, The gladness of the world's release, When, war-sick, at the feet of Peace The hawk shall nestle with the dove ! - As if some Pantheon's marbles broke Their stony trance, and lived and spoke, Life thrills along the alcoved hall, The lords of thought await our call ! The golden age of brotherhood Unknown to other rivalries Than of the mild humanities, And gracious interchange of good, When closer strand shall lean to strand, Till meet, beneath saluting flags, The eagle of our mountain-crags, The lion of our Motherland! "I WAS A STRANGER AND YE TOOK ME IN" An incident in St. Augustine, Florida. 'NEATH skies that winter never knew The air was full of light and balm, 234 OCCASIONAL POEMS II Here, where of old, by Thy design, The fathers spake that word of Thine Whose echo is the glad refrain Of rended bolt and falling chain, To grace our festal time, from all The zones of earth our guests we call. In And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew Through orange bloom and groves of palm. A stranger from the frozen North, Who sought the fount of health in vain, Sank homeless on the alien earth, And breathed the languid air with pain. God's angel came! The tender shade Of pity made her blue eye dim; Against her woman's breast she laid The drooping, fainting head of him. She bore him to a pleasant room, Flower-sweet and cool with salt sea air, And watched beside his bed, for whom His far-off sisters might not care. She fanned his feverish brow and smoothed Its lines of pain with tenderest touch. With holy hymn and prayer she soothed The trembling soul that feared so much. Through her the peace that passeth sight Came to him, as he lapsed away As one whose troubled dreams of night Slide slowly into tranquil day. The sweetness of the Land of Flowers l'pon his lonely grave she laid : The jasmine dropped its golden showers, The orange lent its bloom and shade. Be with us while the New World greets The Old World thronging all its sirrets, t'nveiling all the triumphis won By art or toil beneath the sun ; And unto common good ordain This rivalship of hand and brain. IV Thou, who bast bere in concord furled The war flags of a gathered world, Beneath our Western skies full The Orient's mission of good-will, And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece, Send back its Argonauts of peace. For art and labor met in truce, For beauty made the bride of use, We thank Thee ; but, withal, we crare The austere virtues strong to save, The honor proof to place or gold, The manhood never bought nor sold ! And something whispered in her thought, More sweet than mortal voices be : “ The service thou for him hast wrought O daughter! hath beep doue for me." CENTENNIAL HYMN VI Oh make Thou us, through centuries loos, In peace secure, in justice strong; Around our gift of freedom draw The safeguards of thy righteous law : And, cast in some diviner mould, Let the new cycle shame the old ! Written for the opening of the International Exhibition, Philadelphia, May 10, 1971. The music for the hymn was written by John K. Paine and may be found in the Atlantic Winthiy for June, 1976. 1 Our fathers' God! from out whose hand The centuries fall like grains of sand, We meet to-day, united, free, And loval to our land and Thee, To thank Thee for the era done, And trust Thee for the opening one. AT SCHOOL-CLOSE BOWDOIN STREET, BOSTON, 1977 The end has come, as come it must To all things in these sweet Jade days The teacher and the scholar trust Their parting feet to separate wars HYMN OF THE CHILDREN 235 Be gentle : unto griefs and needs, Be pitiful as woman should, And, spite of all the lies of creeds, Hold fast the truth that God is good. They part : but in the years to be Shall pleasant memories cling to each, As shells bear inland from the sea The murmur of the rhythmic beach. One knew the joy the sculptor knows When, plastic to his lightest touch, His clay-wrought model slowly grows To that fine grace desired so much. So daily grew before her eyes The living shapes whereon she wrought, Strong, tender, innocently wise, The child's heart with the woman's thought. Give and receive ; go forth and bless The world that needs the hand and heart Of Martha's helpful carefulness No less than Mary's better part. So shall the stream of time flow by And leave each year a richer good, And matron loveliness outvie The nameless charm of maidenhood. And, when the world shall link your names And one shall never quite forget The voice that called from dream and play, The firm but kindly hand that set Her feet in learning's pleasant way, The joy of Undine soul-possessed, The wakening sense, the strange de- light That swelled the fabled statue's breast And filled its clouded eyes with sight! With gracious lives and manners fine, The teacher shall assert her claims, And proudly whisper, " These were mine!” - HYMN OF THE CHILDREN Sung at the anniversary of the Children's Mission, Boston, 1878. O Youth and Beauty, loved of all ! Ye pass from girlhood's gate of dreams ; In broader ways your footsteps fall, Ye test the truth of all that seems. THINE are all the gifts, O God ! Thine the broken bread; Let the naked feet be shod, And the starving fed. Let Thy children, by Thy grace, Give as they abound, Till the poor have breathing-space, And the lost are found. Her little realm the teacher leaves, She breaks ber wand of power apart, While, for your love and trust, she gives The warm thanks of a grateful heart. Hers is the sober summer noon Contrasted with your morn of spring, The waning with the waxing moon, The folded with the outspread wing. Across the distance of the years She sends her God-speed back to you ; She has no thought of doubts or fears : Be but yourselves, be pure, be true, And prompt in duty ; heed the deep, Low voice of conscience ; through the ill And discord round about you, keep Your faith in human nature still. Wiser than the miser's hoards Is the giver's choice ; Sweeter than the song of birds Is the thankful voice. Welcome smiles on faces sad As the flowers of spring ; Let the tender hearts be glad With the joy they bring. Happier for their pity's sake Make their sports and plays, And from lips of childhood take Thy perfected praise ! 236 OCCASIONAL POEMS THE LANDMARKS This poem was read at a meeting of citizens of Boston having for its object the preservation of the Old South Church, famous in Colonial and Revolutionary history. 1 Through the streets of Marblehead Fast the red-winged terror sped ; Blasting, withering, on it came, With its hundred tongues of flame, Where St. Michael's on its way Stood like chained Andromeda, Waiting on the rock, like her, Swift doom or deliverer! Church that, after sea-moss grew Over walls no longer new, Counted generations five, Four entombed and one alive ; Round the low tower wall the fire Snake-like wound its coil of ire. Sacred in its gray respect From the jealousies of sect, “Save it," seemed the thought of all, “ Save it, though our roof-trees fall!" L'p the tower the young men sprung; One, the bravest, outward swung By the rope, whose kindling strands Smoked beneath the holder's hands Smiting dowu with strokes of power Burning fragments from the tower. Then the gazing crowd beneath Broke the painful pause of breath ; Brave men cheered from street to street With home's ashes at their feet; Houseless women kerchiefs waved : “ Thank the Lord ! St. Michael's nared** 11 In the heart of Boston town Stands the church of old renown, From whose walls the impulse went Which set free a continent ; From whose pulpit's oracle Prophecies of freedom fell; And whose steeple-rocking din Rang the nation's birth-day in! Standing at this very hour Perilled like St. Michael's tower, Held not in the clasp of flame, But by mammon's grasping claim. Shall it be of Boston said She is shamed by Marblehead ? City of our pride! as there, Hast thou none to do and dare ? Heard the martial thousand tread Battleward from Marblehead ; Saw within the rock-walled bay Treville's lilied pennous play, And the fisher's dory met By the barge of Lafayette, Telling good news in advance Of the coming tleet of France ! Church to reverend memories dear, Quaint in desk and chandelier ; Bell, whose century-rusted tongue Burials tolled and bridals rung; Loft, whose tiny organ kept keys that Snetzler's hand had swept ; Altar, o'er whose tablet old Sinai's law its thunders rolled ! Suddenly the sharp cry came : "Look! St. Michael's is atiame !" Life was risked for Michael's shrine Shall not wealth be staked for thine A GREETING 237 Woe to thee, when men shall search Vainly for the Old South Church ; O PAINTER of the fruits and flowers, We own Thy wise design, Whereby these human hands of ours May share the work of Thine ! When from Neck to Boston Stone, All thy pride of place is gone ; When from Bay and railroad car, Stretched before them wide and far, Apart from Thee we plant in vain The root and sow the seed; Thy early and Thy later rain, Thy sun and dew we need. Men shall only see a great Wilderness of brick and slate, Every holy spot o'erlaid By the commonplace of trade ! Our toil is sweet with thankfulness, Our burden is our boon ; The curse of Earth's gray morning is The blessing of its noon. City of our love ! to thee Duty is but destiny. Why search the wide world everywhere For Eden's unknown ground ? That garden of the primal pair May nevermore be found. True to all thy record saith, Keep with thy traditions faith ; But, blest by Thee, our patient toil May rigbt the ancient wrong, And give to every clime and soil The beauty lost so long. Ere occasion's overpast, Hold its flowing forelock fast ; Honor still the precedents Of a grand munificence ; In thy old historic way Give, as thou didst yesterday Our homestead flowers and fruited trees May Eden's orchard shame ; We taste the tempting sweets of these Like Eve, without her blame. At the South-land's call, or on Need's demand from fired St. John. Set thy Church's muffled bell Free the generous deed to tell. And, North and South and East and West, The pride of every zone, The fairest, rarest, and the best May all be made our own. Its earliest shrines the young world sought In hill-groves and in bowers, The fittest offerings thither brought Were Thy own fruits and flowers. Let thr loval hearts rejoice In the glad, sonorous voice, Ringing from the brazen mouth Of the bell of the Old South, Ringing clearly, with a will, "What she was is Boston still !” And still with reverent hands we cull Thy gifts each year renewed ; The good is always beautiful, The beautiful is good. GARDEN A GREETING Read at Harriet Beecher Stowe's seventieth anniversary, June 14, 1882, at a garden party at ex-Governor Claflin's in Newtonville, Mass. A hymn for the American Horticultural So- ciety, 1882. (Originally written to be sung at an agricultural and horticultural fair in Ames- bary in 1853. It was translated into Portu- guese by Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, and read at a harvest festival. It has been trans- lated into Italian also and sung by peasants at the gathering of the vintage.] THRICE welcome from the Land of Flowers And golden-fruited orange bowers To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours ! 238 OCCASIONAL POEMS GODSPEED Written on the occasion of a vorige made by my friends Annie Fields and Sarah Chips Jewett. To her who, in our evil time, Dragged into light the nation's crime With strength beyond the strength of men, And, mightier than their swords, her pen! To her who world-wide entrance gave To the log-cabin of the slave ; Made all his wrongs and sorrows knowu, And all earth's languages his own, — North, South, and East and West, made all The common air electrical, Until the vercharged bolts of heaven Blazed down, and every chain was riven ! OUTBOUND, your bark awaits you. Were I one Whose prayer availeth much, my w should be Your favoring trade-wind and conse'" sea. By sail or steed was never lore oʻtrun, And, here or there, love follows her un whom All graces and sweet charities un te, The old Greek beanty set in bolerki, And her for whom New England's beware bloom, Who walks among us welcome as the Spring, Calling up blossoms where her hight fort stray. God keep you both, make beautiful yout way, Comfort, console, and bless; and safein bring, Ere yet I make upon a vaster sea The unreturning voyage, my friends :- me. WINTER ROSES Welcome from each and all to her Whose Wooing of the Minister Revealed the warm heart of the man Beneath the creed-bound Puritan, And taught the kinship of the love Of man below and God above ; To her whose vigorous pencil-strokes Sketched into life her Oldtown Folks ; Whose fireside stories, grave or gay, In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way, With old New England's flavor rife, Waifs from her rude idyllic life, Are racy as the legends old By Chaucer or Boccaccio told ; To her who keeps, through change of place And time, her native strength and grace, Alike where warı Sorrento smiles, Or where, by birchen-shaded isles, Whose summer winds have shivered o'er The icy drift of Labrador, She lifts to light the priceless Pearl Of Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl! To her at threescore years and ten Be tributes of the tongue and pen ; Be honor, praise, and heart-thanks given, The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven! Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs The air to-day, our love is hers! She needs no guaranty of fame Whose own is linked with Freedom's name. Long ages after ours shall keep Her memory living while we sleep ; The waves that wash our gray coast lines, The winds that rock the Southern pines, Shall sing of her; the unending years Shall tell her tale in unborn ears. And when, with wins and follies past, Are numbered color-hate and caste, White, black, and red shall own as one The noblest work by woman done. In reply to a flower gift from Mr. Patsan. school at Jamaica Plain. My garden roses long ago Have perished from the leaf-stress walks ; Their pale, fair sisters smile no more l'pon the sweet-brier stalks. Gone with the flower-time of my life, Spring's violets, summer's boas pride, And Nature's winter and my own Stand, tlowerless, side by side. So might I yesterday hare sung ; Today, in bleak December's bon, Come sweetest fragrance, shapes, 10 hues, The rosy wealth of June ! NORUMBEGA HALL 239 Bless the young hands that culled the gift, Aud bless the hearts that prompted it; If undeserved it comes, at least It seems not all unfit. The pain that spared us sorer hurt, The wish denied, the purpose crossed, And pleasure's fond occasions lost, Were mercies to our small desert. Of old my Quaker ancestors Had gifts of forty stripes save one ; To-day as many roses crown The gray head of their son. 'T is something that we wander back, Gray pilgrims, to our ancient ways, And tender memories of old days Walk with us by the Merrimac ; That even in life's afternoon A sense of youth comes back again, As through this cool September rain The still green woodlands dream of June. And with them, to my fancy's eye, The fresh-faced givers smiling come, And nine and thirty happy girls Make glad a lonely room. They bring the atmosphere of youth ; The light and warmth of long ago Are in my heart, and on my cheek The airs of morning blow. O buds of girlhood, yet unblown, And fairer than the gift ye chose, For you may years like leaves unfold The heart of Sharon's rose ! The eyes grown dim to present things Have keener sight for bygone years, And sweet and clear, in deafening ears, The bird that sang at morning sings. Dear comrades, scattered wide and far, Send from their homes their kindly word, And dearer ones, unseen, unheard, Smile on us from some heavenly star. THE REUNION For life and death with God are one, Unchanged by seeming change Ilis care And love are round us here and there ; He breaks no thread His hand has spun. Read September 10, 1885, to the surviving students of Haverhill Academy in 1827-1830. Soul touches soul, the muster roll Of life eternal has no gaps ; And after half a century's lapse Our school-day ranks are closed and whole. The gulf of seven and fifty years We stretch our welcoming hands across ; The distance but a pebble's toss Between us and our youth appears. For in life's school we linger on The remnant of a once full list; Conning our lessons, undismissed, With faces to the setting sun. Hail and farewell! We go our way; Where shadows end, we trust in light ; The star that ushers in the night Is herald also of the day ! NORUMBEGA HALL And some have gone the unknown way, And some await the call to rest ; Who knoweth whether it is best For those who went or those who stay ? And yet despite of loss and ill, If faith and love and hope remain, Our length of days is not in vain, And life is well worth living still. Still to a gracious Providence The thanks of grateful hearts are due, For blessings when our lives were new, For all the good vouchsafed us since. Norumbega Hall at Wellesley College, named in honor of Eben Norton Horsford, who was one of the most munificent patrons of that noble institution, and who had just pub- lished an essay claiming the discovery of the site of the somewhat mythical city of Norum- bega, was opened with appropriate ceremonies, in April, 1886. The following sonnet was writ- ten for the occasion, and was read by President Alice E. Freeman, to whom it was addressed. Not on Penobscot's wooded bank the spires Of the sought City rose, nor yet beside 240 OCCASIONAL POEMS ONE OF THE SIGXERS our The winding Charles, nor where the daily tide Of Naumkeag's haven rises and retires, The vision tarried ; but somewhere we knew The beautiful gates must open to quest, Somewhere that marvellous City of the West Would lift its towers and palace domes in view, And, lo! at last its mystery is made known - Its only dwellers maidens fair and young, Its Princess such as England's Laureate sung ; And safe from capture, save by love alone, It lends its beauty to the lake's green shore, And Vorumbega is a myth no more. Written for the unveiling of the statue of Josiah Bartlett at Amesbury, Mass, Jule te 1848. Governor Bartlett, who was a native of the town, was a signer of the Declaraun of Independence. Amesbury or Amirester, so called from the "anointed stones of the great Druidical temple near it, was the seat care one of the earliest religious houses in Bnia The tradition that the guilty wife of King Ar thur fled thither for protection forms of the finest passages in Tennyson's layu's og the king. THE BARTHOLDI STATUE 1886 The land, that, from the rule of kings, In freeing us, itself made free, Our Old World Sister, to us brings Her sculptured Dream of Liberty : l'nlike the shapes on Egypt's sands l'plifted by the toil-worn slave, On Freedom's soil with freemen's hands We rear the symbol free hands gave. O France, the beautiful! to thee Once more a debt of love we owe : In peace beneath thy Colors Three, We hail a later Rochambeau ! O STORIED vale of Merrimac, Rejoice through all thy shade and shine, And from his century's sleep call back A brave and honored son of thine. C'nveil his effigy between The living and the dead to-day ; The fathers of the Old Thirteen Shall witness bear as spirits may. Unseen, unheard, his gray compeers, The shades of Lee and Jefferson, Wise Franklin reverend with his years, And Carroll, lord of Carrollton ! Be thine henceforth a pride of place Beyond thy namesake's over.sra, Where scarce a stone is left to trace The Holy House of Amesbury. A prouder memory lingers round The birthplace of thy true man bare Than that which haunts the refuge found By Arthur's mythic Guinevere. The plain deal table where he sat And signed a nation's title-deed Is dearer now to fame than that Which bore the scroll of Runnymede Long as, on Freedom's natal mort, Shall ring the Independence bells, Give to thy dweller vet unborn The lesson which his image tells. For in that hour of Destiny. Which tried the men of bravest stack He knew the end alone must be A free land or a truitor's blok. Rise, stately Symbol! holding forth Thy light and hope to all who sit In chains and darkness! Belt the earth With watch-fires from thy torch up- lit! Reveal the primal mandate still Which Chlos heard and ceased to be, Trace on mid-air th' Eternal Will In signs of tire : " Let man be free!” Shine far, shine free, a guiding light To Reason's ways and Virtue's aim, A lightning-flash the wretch to smite Who shields his license with thy name ! ONE OF THE SIGNERS 241 Among those picked and chosen men Than his, who here first drew his breath, No firmer fingers held the pen Which wrote for liberty or death. To-day, in all her holy fanes, It rings the bells of freed Brazil. O hills that watched his boyhood's home, O earth and air that nursed him, give, In this memorial semblance, room To him who shall its bronze outlive! Not for their hearths and homes alone, But for the world their work was done ; On all the winds their thought has flown Through all the circuit of the sun. We trace its flight by broken chains, By songs of grateful Labor still ; And thou, O Land he loved, rejoice That in the countless years to come, Whenever Freedom needs a voice, These sculptured lips shall not be dumb ! THE TENT ON THE BEACH THE TENT ON THE BEACH Three friends, the guests of summer time, It can'scarcely be necessary to name as the Pitched their white tent where you two companions whom I reckoned with myself winds blew. in this poetical picnic, Fields the lettered mag- Behind them, marshes, seamed anè nate, and Taylor the free cosmopolite. The crossed long line of sandy beach which defines almost With narrow creeks, and toweren the whole of the New Hampshire sea-coast is bossed, especially marked near its southern extremity, by the salt-meadows of Hampton. The llamp; Stretched to the dark oak wood, wbuse leafy ton River winds through these meadows, and arms the reader may, if he choose, imagine my tent Screened from the storiny East the pleasant pitched near its mouth, where also was the inland farms. scene of the Wreck of River mouth. The green bluff to the northward is Great Boar's Head; At full of tide their bolder shore southward is the Merrimac, with Newburyport Of sun-bleached sand the water trai, lifting its steeples above brown roofs and green At ebb, a smooth and glistening the mot trees on its banks. (Mr. Whittier originally They touched with light, receiling feet designed following the Decameron method and feigning that each person read his own poem, Northward a green bluff broke the etes but abandoned it as too hackneyed.] Of sand - hills ; southward stretched a plain I would not sin, in this half-playful Of salt grass, with a river winding dorth strain, - Sail-whitened, and beyond the sicepirs of Too light perhaps for serious years, the town, - though born Of the enforced leisure of slow pain, — Whence sometimes, when the wimi »» Against the pure ideal which has drawn light My feet to follow its far-shining gleam. And dull the thunder of the beach A simple plot is mine : legends and runes They heard the bells of morn and in Of credulons days, old fancies that have lain Swing, miles away, their silver spæve Silent from boyhood taking voice again, Above low scarp and turf-grown wall Warmed into life once more, even as the They saw the fort-Hlag rise and fall ; tunes And, the first star to sigual twingo That, frozen in the fabled hunting-horn, hour, Thawed into sound :—a winter fireside The lamp-fire glimmer down from the time dream light-house tower. Of dawns and sunsets by the summer sea, Whose sands are traversed by a silent They rested there, escaped awhile throug From cares that wear the life away, Of voyagers from that vaster mystery To eat the lotus of the Nile Of which it is an emblem ; – and the dear And drink the poppies of Cathay, - Memory of one who might have tuned my To tling their loads of custom down. song Like drift - weed, on the sand - sl pre To sweeter music by her delicate ear. brown, And in the sea-waves drown the restre pack When heats as of a tropie clime Of duties, claims, and needs that tark * Burped all our inland valleys through, upon their track. THE TENT ON THE BEACH 243 A silent, shy, peace-loving man, He seemed no fiery partisan To hold his way against the public frown, The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's hounding down. a One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore A ready credence in his looks, A lettered magnate, lording o'er An ever-widening realm of books. In him brain-currents, near and far, Converged as in a Leyden jar; The old, dead authors thronged him round about, And Elzevir's gray ghosts from leathern graves looked out. He knew each living pundit well, Could weigh the gifts of him or her, And well the market value tell Of poet and philosopher. But if he lost, the scenes behind, Somewhat of reverence vague and blind, Finding the actors human at the best, So readier lips than his the good he saw confessed. For while he wrought with strenuous will The work his hands had found to do, He heard the fitful music still Of winds that out of dream-land blew. The din about him could not drown What the strange voices whispered down ; Along his task-field weird processions swept, The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped. His boyhood fancies not outgrown, He loved himself the singer's art ; Tenderly, gently, by his own He knew and judged an author's heart. No Rhadamanthine brow of doom Bowed the dazed pedant from his room ; dud bards, whose name is legion, if denied, Bure off alike intact their verses and their pride. The common air was thick with dreams,- He told them to the toiling crowd ; Such music as the woods and streams Sang in his ear he sang aloud ; In still, shut bays, on windy capes, He heard the call of beckoning shapes, And, as the gray old shadows prompted him, To homely moulds of rhyme he shaped their legends grim. He rested now his weary hands, And lightly moralized and laughed, As, tracing on the shifting sands A burlesque of his paper-craft, He saw the careless waves o'errun His words, as time before had done, Each day's tide-water washing clean away, Like letters from the sand, the work of yesterday. Pleasant it was to roam about The lettered world as he had done, And see the lords of song without Their singing robes and garlands on. With Wordsworth paddle Rydal mere, Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer, And with the ears of Rogers, at fourscore, Hear Garrick’s buskiped tread and Wal- pole's wit once more. And one there was, a dreamer born, Who, with a mission to fulfil, Had left the Muses' haunts to turn The crank of an opinion-mill, Making his rustic reed of song A weapon in the war with wrong, Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow. Too quiet seemed the man to ride The winged Hippogriff Reform ; Was his a voice from side to side To pierce the tumult of the storm ? And one, whose Arab face was tanned By tropic sun and boreal frost, So travelled there was scarce a land Or people left him to exhaust, In idling mood had from him hurled The poor squeezed orange of the world, And in the tent - shade, sat beneath a palm, Smoked, cross-legged like a Turk, in Ori- ental calm. - The very waves that washed the sand Below him, he had seen before Whitening the Scandinavian strand And sultry Mauritanian shore. From ice-rimmed isles, from summer seas Palm-fringed, they bore him messages ; 244 THE TENT ON THE BEACH He heard the plaintive Nubian songs again, And mule-bells tinkling down the mountain- paths of Spain. His memory round the ransacked earth On Puck's long girdle slid at ease ; And, instant, to the valley's girth Of mountains, spice isles of the seas, Faith flowered in minster stones, Art's guess At truth and beauty, found access ; Yet loved the while, that free cosmopolite, Old friends, old ways, and kept his boy- hood's dreams in sight. And youths and maidens, sitting in s moon, Dreamed o'er the old fond dream frus which we wake tou soon. At times their fishing-lines they pled, With an old Triton at the car, Salt as the sea-wind, tough and dned As a lean cusk from Labrutor. Strange tales he told of work and storm, Had seen the sea-snake's awful forn, And heard the ghosts on Haley's late com- plain, Speak him off shore, and beg a passage to old Spain ! And there, on breezy morns, they saw The fishing-schooners out wari run, Their low-bent sails in tark an. taw Turned white or dark to slie ! Sometimes, in calms of closing dar, They watched the spectral uurs php Saw low, far islands looming tallarla And ships, with upturued keels, slide sea the sky. Sometimes a cloud, with thunder kak, Stooped low upon the darken. at Piercing the waves along its truck With the slaut jaselins of rain. And when west-wind and suustine are Chased out to sea its wrecks of stora, They saw the prismy hues in that showers Where the green buds of waves bun ini white froth flowers. L'ntouched as yet by wealth and pride, That virgin innocence of beach : No shingly monster, hundred-eyed, Stared its gray sand-birds out of reach ; Unhoused, save where, at intervals, The white tents showed their canvas walls, Where brief sojourners, in the cool, soft air, Forgot their inland heats, hard tvil, and year-long care. Sometimes along the wheel-deep sand A one-horse wagon slowly crawled, Deep laden with a youthful band, Whose look some homestead old re- called ; Brother perchance, and sisters twain, And one whose blue eyes told, more plain Than the free language of her rosy lip, Of the still dearer claim of love's relation- ship. With cheeks of russet-orchard tint, The light laugh of their native rills, The pertume of their garden's mint, The breezy freedom of the hills, They bore, in unrestrained delight, The motto of the Garter's knight, Careless as if from every gazing thing Hid by their innocence, as Gyges by his ring: The clanging sea-fowl came and went, The hunter's gun in the marshes rang; At nightfall from a neighboring tent A tute-voiced woman swertly sang. Loose-haired, barefooted, hand-in-hand, Young girls went tripping down the sand; sun. And when along the line of share The mists erept upward (..!! damp, Stretched, careless, on their care. .. Beneath the faring lanteru lar They talked of all things old aruit. , Read, slept, and dreamed as win! And in the unquestioned frreeboka - L tent, Body and o'er-taxed mind to be alibrum unbent. Oner, when the sunset splendors de And, trampling up the slopes: 2 In lines outreaching far and we The wbite-mancd billows user & tu la THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH 245 pause between. a Dim seen across the gathering shade, Once, in the old Colonial days, A vast and ghostly cavalcade, Two hundred years ago and more, They sat around their lighted kerosene, A boat sailed down through the winding Hearing the deep bass roar their every ways Of Hampton River to that low shore, Full of a goodly company Then, urged thereto, the Editor Sailing out on the summer sea, Within his full portfolio dipped, Veering to catch the land-breeze light, Feigning excuse while searching for With the Boar to left and the Rocks to (With secret pride) his manuscript. right. His pale face flushed from eye to beard, With nervous cough his throat he cleared, In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid And, in a voice so tremulous it betrayed Their scythes to the swaths of salted The anxious fondness of an author's heart, grass, he read : “Ah, well-a-day ! our hay must be made !” A young man sighed, who saw them pass. THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH Lond laughed his fellows to see him stand Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, The Goody Cole who figures in this poem and The Changeling was Eunice Cole, who for a Hearing a voice in a far-off song, quarter of a century or more was feared, per- Watching a white hand beckoning long. secuted, and hated as the witch of Hampton. She lived alone in a hovel a little distant from “ Fie on the witch !” cried a merry girl, the spot where the Hampton Academy now As they rounded the point where Goody stands, and there she died, unattended. When Cole her death was discovered, she was hastily cov- Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, ered up in the earth near by, and a stake A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. driven through her body, to exorcise the evil “ Oho!” she muttered, “ ye're brave to spirit. Rev. Stephen Bachiler or Batchelder day! was one of the ablest of the early New Eng- But I hear the little waves laugh and say, land preachers. His marriage late in life to a • The broth will be cold that waits at home ; Foman regarded by his church as disreputable induced him to return to England, where he For it's one to go, but another to come !"" enjoyed the esteem and favor of Oliver Crom- well during the Protectorate. “ She's cursed," said the skipper ; "speak her fair : RIVERMOUTH Rocks are fair to see, I'm scary always to see her shake By dawn or sunset shone across, Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, When the ebb of the sea has left them And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake.” To dry their fringes of gold-green moss : But merrily still, with laugh and shout, For there the river comes winding down, From Hampton River the boat sailed out, From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown, Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed And waves on the outer rocks afoam nigh, Shout to its waters, “ Welcome home ! ” And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye. And fair are the sunny isles in view They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, East of the grisly Head of the Boar, Drawing up haddock and mottled cod; And Agamenticus lifts its blue They saw not the Shadow that walked be- Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er ; side, And southerly, when the tide is down, They heard not the feet with silence shod. *Twixt white sea - waves and sand - hills But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, brown, Shot by the lightnings through and through; The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls And muffled growls, like the growl of a wheel beast, Over a floor of burnished steel. Ran along the sky from west to east. free a 246 THE TENT ON THE BEACH run." Then the skipper looked from the darken- From sand and seaweed where they lar ing sea The mad old witch-wife wailed and wipe l'p to the dimmed and wading sun ; And cursed the tide as it backward crop But he spake like a brave man cheerily, “ ('rawl back, crawl back, blue water-base! * Yet there is time for our homeward Leave your dead for the hearts that breaki" Veering and tacking, they backward wore ; Solemn it was in that old day And just as a breath from the woods ashore In Hampton town and its log-l-ul Blew out to'whisper of danger past, church, The wrath of the storm came down at Where side by side the coffins lay last ! And the mourners stood in aisle abil porch. The skipper hauled at the heavy sail : In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, “God be our help!” he only cried, The voices faltered that raised the hymu, As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a And Father Dalton, grave and stern, flail, Sobbed through his prayer and wept in ter Smote the boat on its starboard side. The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone But his ancient colleague did not pray: Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, Cnder the weight of his fourcore years Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare, He stood apart with the iron-gray The strife and torment of sea and air. Of his strong brows knitted to hide ! . tears ; Goody Cole looked out from her door : And a fair-faced woman of doulful fap. The Isles of Shoals were drowned and | Linking her own with his bogorrd nabe. gone, Subtle as sin, at his side with toodi Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar The felt reproach of her neighborhood Toss the foain from tusks of stone. She clasped her hands with a grip of pain, Apart with them, like them forbid, The tear on her cheek was not of rain : Old Goody Cole looked drearils round, " They are lost," she muttered, “boat and As, two by two, with their faces had, crew ! The mourners walked to the burying Lord, forgive me! my words were true !” ground. She let the staff from her clasped kan Suddenly seaward swept the squall ; fall : The low sun smote through cloudy rack ; “ Lord, forgive us ! we're sinners all ! ** The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all And the voice of the old man answered bet The trend of the coast lay hard and " Amen!" said Father Bachiler. black. But far and wide as eye could reach, So, as I sat upon Appledore No life was seen upon wave or beach ; In the calm of a closing summer day, The boat that went out at morning never And the broken lines of llampton sbaze Sailed back again into Hampton River. In purple mist of cloudland lar, The Rivermouth Rocks their story twind, () mower, lean on thy bended snath, And waves aglow with sunset gold, Look from the meadows green and low : | Rising and breaking in steady chime, The wind of the sea is a waft of death, Beat the rhythm and kept the time. The waves are singing a song of woe ! By silent river, by moaning sra, And the sunset paled, and warmed den Long and vain shall thy watching be : more Never again shall the sweet voice call, With a softer, tenderer after-glow : Never the white hand rive and fall! In the east was moon-rise, with boats shore () Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight And sails in the distance drifting de Ye saw in the light of breaking day! The beacon glimmered from Portske Dead faces looking up cold and white bar, THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE 247 The White Isle kindled its great red star ; And life and death in my old-time lay Mingled in peace like the night and day ! Rugged type of primal man, Grim utilitarian, Loving woods for hunt and prowl, Lake and hill for fish and fowl, As the brown bear blind and dull To the grand and beautiful : "Well !” said the Man of Books, " your story Is really not ill told in verse. As the Celt said of purgatory, One might go farther and fare worse." The Reader smiled ; and once again With steadier voice took up his strain, While the fair singer from the neighboring tent Drew near, and at his side a graceful lis- tener bent. Not for him the lesson drawn From the mountains smit with dawn. Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May, Sunset's purple bloom of day, Took his life no hue from thence, Poor amid such affluence ? Haply unto hill and tree All too near akin was he : Unto him who stands afar Nature's marvels greatest are ; Who the mountain purple seeks Must not climb the higher peaks. THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE At the mouth of the Melvin River, which empties into Moultonboro Bay in Lake Winni- pesaukee, is a great mound. The Ossipee In- dians had their home in the neighborhood of the bay, which is plentifully stocked with fish, and many relics of their occupation have been found. Yet who knows, in winter tramp, Or the midnight of the camp, What revealings faint and far, Stealing down from moon and star, Kindled in that human clod Thought of destiny and God ? Stateliest forest patriarch, Grand in robes of skin and bark, What sepulchral mysteries, What weird funeral-rites, were his ? What sharp wail, what drear lament, Back scared wolf and eagle sent ? WHERE the Great Lake's sunny smiles Dimple round its hundred isles, And the mountain's granite ledge Cleaves the water like a wedge, Ringed about with smooth, gray stones, Rest the giant's mighty bones. Close beside, in shade and gleam, Laughs and ripples Melvin stream; Melvin water, mountain-born, All fair flowers its banks adorn ; All the woodland voices meet, Mingling with its murmurs sweet. Over lowlands forest-grown, Over waters island-strown, Over silver-sanded beach, Leaf-locked bay and misty reach, Melvin stream and burial-heap, Watch and ward the mountains keep. Now, whate'er he may have been, Low he lies as other men ; On his mound the partridge drums, There the noisy blue-jay comes ; Rank nor name nor pomp has he In the grave's democracy. Part thy blue lips, Northern lake! Moss-grown rocks, your silence break! Tell the tale, thou ancient tree! Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee ! Speak, and tell us how and when Lived and died this king of men ! Who that Titan cromlech fills ? Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills ? Knight who on the birchen tree Carved his savage heraldry ? Priest o' the pine-wood temples dim, Prophet, sage, or wizard grim ? Wordless moans the ancient pine ; Lake and mountain give no sign; Vain to trace this ring of stones ; Vain the search of crumbling bones : Deepest of all mysteries, And the saddest, silence is. 248 THE TENT ON THE BEACH Nameless, noteless, clay with clay Mingles slowly day by day ; But somewhere, for good or ill, That dark soul is living still ; Somewhere yet that atom's force Moves the light-poised universe. Strange that on his burial-sod Harebells bloom, and golden-rod, While the soul's dark horoscope Holds no starry sign of hope ! Is the Unseen with sight at odds ? Nature's pity more than God's ? Hear'st thou, () of little faith, What to thee the mountain saith, What is whispered by the trees? - “ Cast on God thy care for these ; Trust Him, if thy sight be dim: Doubt for them is doubt of Him. “ Blind must be their close-shut eyes Where like night the sunshine lies, Fiery-linked the self-forged chain Binding ever sin to pain, Strong their prison-house of will, But without İle waiteth still. Thus I mused by Melvin's side, While the summer eventide Made the woods and inland sea And the mountains mystery ; And the hush of earth and air Seemed the pause before a prayer, - Prayer for him, for all who rest, Mother Earth, upon thy breast, – Lapped on Christian turf, or hid In rock-cave or pyramid : All who sleep, as all who live, Well inay need the prayer, “ Forgive !” Desert-smothered caravan, Knee-deep dust that once was man, Battle-trenches ghastly piled, Ocean-floors with white bones tiled, Crowded tomb and mounded sod, Dumbly crave that prayer to God. Oh, the generations old Over whom no church-bells tolled, Christless, lifting up blind eyes To the silence of the skies! For the innumerable dead Is my soul disquieted. Where be now these silent hosts ? Where the cainping-ground of ghosts ? Where the spectral conscripts led To the white tents of the dead ? What strange shore or chartless sea Holds the awful mystery ? Then the warm sky stooped to make Double sunset in the lake ; While above I saw with it, Range on range, the mountains lit ; And the calm and splendor stole Like an answer to my soul. “Not with hatred's undertow Doth the Love Eternal tlow ; Every chain that spirits wear Crumbles in the breath of prayer ; And the penitent's desire Opens every gate of fire. “Still Thy love, O Christ arisen, Yearns to reach these souls in priser.' Through all depths of sin and loss Drops the plummet of Thy cross ! Never yet abyss was found Deeper than that cross could sound !" Therefore well may Nature keep Equal faith with all who sleep, Set her watch of hills around Christian grave and heathen mound, And to cairn and kirkvari send Summer's flowery dividend. Keep, ( pleasant Melvin stream, Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam ! On the Indian's grassy tomb Swing, () towers, your bells of bloom! Deep below, as high above, Sweeps the circle of God's love. He paused and questioned with his eye The hearers' verdict on his sig A low voice asked : “Is 't well to pry Into the secrets which belong Only to God ? - The life to be Is still the unguessed mystery : Unsealed, unpierced the cloudy walls main, We beat with dream and wish the soundir doors in vain. THE TENT ON THE BEACH 249 Better to use the bit, than throw The reins all loose on fancy's neck. The liberal range of Art should be The breadth of Christian liberty, Restrained alone by challenge and alarm Where its charmed footsteps tread the bor- der land of harm. “ But faith beyond our sight may go.”. He said : “ The gracious Fatherhood Can only know above, below, Eternal purposes of good. From our free heritage of will, The bitter springs of pain and ill Flow only in all worlds. The perfect day Of God is shadowless, and love is love alway.” “I know,” she said, “ the letter kills ; That on our arid fields of strife And beat of clashing texts distils The dew of spirit and of life. But, searching still the written Word, I fain would find, Thus saith the Lord, A voucher for the hope I also feel That sin can give no wound beyond love's power to heal.” "Pray,” said the Man of Books,“give o'er A theme too vast for time and place. Go on, Sir Poet, ride once more Your hobby at his old free pace. But let him keep, with step discreet, The solid earth beneath his feet. In the great mystery which around us lies, The wisest is a fool, the fool Heaven-helped is wise." Beyond the poet's sweet dream lives The eternal epic of the man. He wisest is who only gives, True to himself, the best he can ; Who, drifting in the winds of praise, The inward monitor obeys ; And, with the boldness that confesses fear, Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his con- science steer. “Thanks for the fitting word he speaks, Nor less for doubtful word unspoken, For the false model that he breaks, As for the moulded grace unbroken; For what is missed and what remains, For losses which are truest gains, For reverence conscious of the Eternal eye, And truth too fair to need the garnish of a lie." The Traveller said : “If songs have creeds, Their choice of them let singers make ; But Art no other sanction needs Than beauty for its own fair sake. It grinds not in the mill of use, Nor asks for leave, nor begs excuse ; It makes the flexile laws it deigns to own, And gives its atmosphere its color and its tone. Laughing, the Critic bowed. “I yield The point without another word ; Who ever yet a case appealed Where beauty's judgment had been heard ? And you, my good friend, owe to me Your warmest thanks for such a plea, As true withal as sweet. For my offence Of cavil, let her words be ample recom- pense.” “Confess, old friend, your austere school Has left your fancy little chance ; You square to reason's rigid rule The flowing outlines of romance. With conscience keen from exercise, And chronic fear of compromise, You check the free play of your rhymes, to clap A moral underneath, and spring it like a trap." Across the sea one lighthouse star, With crimson ray that came and went, Revolving on its tower afar, Looked through the doorway of the tent. While outward, over sand-slopes wet, The lamp flashed down its yellow jet On the long wash of waves, with red and green Tangles of weltering weed through the white foam-wreaths seen. : The sweet vo answered : “ Better so Than bolder flights that know no check; “Sing while we may, - another day May bring enough of sorrow ;' – thus Our Traveller in his own sweet lay, His Crimean camp-song, hints to us,” 250 THE TENT ON THE BEACH The lady said. “So let it be ; It might have been the sound of seas Sing us a song," exclaimed all three. That rose and fell; She smiled : “I can but marvel at your But, with her heart, if not her ear, choice The old loved voice she seemed to bear : To hear our poet's words through my poor “ I wait to meet thee : be of cheer, borrowed voice." For all is well !" : The sweet voice into silence went, A silence which was almost pain As through it rolled the long lament, The cadence of the mournful man Glancing his written pages o'er, The Reader tried his part once more : Leaving the land of hackmatack and pz For Tuscan valleys glad with olive and with vine. THE BROTHER OF MERCY [Suggested by reading C. E. Norton's account PIERO Luca, known of all the town As the gray porter by the Pitti wall Where the noon shadows of the gandeas fall, Sick and in dolor, waited to lay down His last sad burden, and beside his must The barefoot monk of La Certosa sat. Her window opens to the bay, On glistening light or misty gray, And there at dawn and set of day In prayer she kneels. “ Dear Lord !" she saith,“ to many a home From wind and wave the wanderers come ; I only see the tossing foam Of stranger keels. “ Blown out and in by summer gales, The stately ships, with crowded sails, And sailors leaning o'er their rails, Before me glide ; They come, they go, but nevermore, Spice-laden from the Indian shore, I see his swift-winged Isidore The waves divide. “() Thou! with whom the night is day And one the near and far away, Look out on yon gray waste, and say Where lingers he. Alive, perchance, on some lone beach Or thirty isle beyond the reach Of man, he hears the mocking speech Of wind and sea. “() dread and cruel deep, reveal The secret which thy waves conceal, And, ye wild sea-birds, hither wheel And tell your tale. Let winds that tossed his raven hair A message from my lost one bear, Some thought of me, a last fond prayer Or dying wail ! " ('ome, with your dreariest truth shut out The fears that haunt me round about ; O God! I cannot bear this doubt That stitles breath. The worst is better than the dread ; Give me but leave to mourn my dead Asleep in trust and hope, instead Of life in death! It might have been the evening breeze That whispered in the garden trees, L'nseen, in square and blossoming ganisa drifted, Soft sunset lights through greca Val d Arno sifted ; Unheard, below the living shuttles shifted Backward and forth, and wore, in love at strife, In mirth or pain, the mottled web of life. But when at last came upwand from the street Tinkle of bell and tread of measured festa The sick man started, strore to ns = vain, Sinking back heavily with a moan of pain And the monk said, " "Tis but the Broken hood Of Merey going on some errand gwa: Their black masks by the palace-wall I see Piero answered faintly, "Woe is me! This day for the first time in forty years In vain the bell hath sounded in my car Calling me with my brethren of be ask Beggur and prince alike, to some new task THE CHANGELING 251 sin !) - - done ; 66 Of love or pity, — haply from the street Than dog or ass, in holy selfisbness ? To bear a wretch plague-stricken, or, with Methinks (Lord, pardon, if the thought be feet Hushed to the quickened ear and 'feverish The world of pain were better, if therein brain, One's heart might still be human, and de- To tread the crowded lazaretto's floors, sires Down the long twilight of the corridors, Of natural pity drop upon its fires Midst tossing arms and faces full of pain. Some cooling tears.' I loved the work : it was its own reward. Thereat the pale monk crossed I never counted on it to offset His brow, and muttering, “ Madman ! thou My sins, which are many, or make less my art lost!” debt Took up his pyx and fed ; and, left alone, To the free grace and mercy of our Lord ; The sick man closed his eyes with a great But somehow, father, it has come to be groan In these long years so much a part of me, That sank into a prayer, “ Thy will be I should not know myself, if lacking it, done!” But with the work the worker too would die, And in my place some other self would sit Then was he made aware, by soul or ear, Joyful or sad, what matters, if not I ? Of somewhat pure and boly bending o'er And now all 's over. Woe is me!” –“My him, son, And of a voice like that of her who bore The monk said soothingly, “thy work is him, Tender and most compassionate : “Never And no more as a servant, but the guest fear! Of God thou enterest thy eternal rest. For heaven is love, as God himself is love ; No toil, no tears, no sorrow for the lost, Thy work below shall be thy work above.” Shall mar thy perfect bliss. Thou shalt sit And when he looked, lo! in the stern down monk's place Clad in white robes, and wear a golden He saw the shining of an angel's face ! Forever and forever.” — Piero tossed On his sick-pillow : “Miserable me ! I am too poor for such grand company ; The Traveller broke the pause. “I've seen The crown would be too heavy for this gray The Brothers down the long street steal, Old head ; and God forgive me if I say Black, silent, masked, the crowd between, It would be hard to sit there night and day, And felt to doff my hat and kneel Like an image in the Tribune, doing naught With heart, if not with knee, in prayer, With these hard hands, that all my life have For blessings on their pious care. wrought, The Reader wiped his glasses : “Friends Not for bread only, but for pity's sake. of mine, I'm dull at prayers : I could not keep We'll try our home-brewed next, instead awake, of foreign wine.” Counting my beads. Mine 's but a crazy head, Searce worth the saving, if all else be dead. THE CHANGELING And if one goes to heaven without a heart, God knows he leaves behind his better part. For the fairest maid in Hampton I love my fellow-men : the worst I know They needed not to search, I would do good to. Will death change Who saw young Anna Favor Come walking into church, - That I shall sit among the lazy saints, Tuming a deaf ear to the sore complaints Or bringing from the meadows, Of souls that suffer? Why, I never yet At set of harvest-day, Left a poor dog in the strada hard beset, The frolic of the blackbirds, Or ass o'erladen ! Must I rate man less The sweetness of the hay. crown me so 252 THE TENT ON THE BEACH “Make her lips like the lips of Mary Kissing her blessed Son; Let her hands, like the hands of Jesus, Rest on her little one. Now the weariest of all mothers, The saddest two years' bride, She scowls in the face of her husband, Aud spurns her child aside. “ Rake out the red coals, goodman,- For there the child shall lie, Till the black witch comes to fetch her And both up chimney tly. " It's never my own little daughter, It's never my own," she said ; “ The witches have stolen my Anna, And left me an imp instead. “Oh, fair and sweet was my baby, Blue eyes, and hair of gold ; But this is ugly and wrinkled, Cross, and cunning, and old. “I hate the touch of her fingers, I hate the feel of her skin; It's not the milk from my bosom, But my blood, that she sucks in. “My face grows sharp with the torment; Look! my arms are skin and bone ! Rake open the red coals, goodman, And the witch shall have her own. “Comfort the soul of thy handmaid, Open her prison-door, And thine shall be all the glory And praise forevermore.' Then into the face of its mother The baby looked up and smiled ; And the cloud of her soul was lifted, And she knew her little child. A beam of the slant west sunshine Made the wan face almost fair, Lit the blue eyes' patient wonder And the rings of pale gold hair. She kissed it on lip and forehead, She kissed it on cheek and chin, And she bared her snow-white busum To the lips so pale and thin. Oh, fair on her bridal morning Was the maid who blushed and smiled, But fairer to Ezra Dalton Looked the mother of his child. With more than a lover's fondness He stooped to her worn young face, And the nursing child and the mother He folded in one embrace. “ Blessed be God!” he murmurd. * Blessed be Godl!" she said ; * For I see, who once was blinded, - I live, who once was dead. “Now mount and ride, my goodman, As thou lovest thr own soni! Woe's me, if my wicked fancies Be the death of Goody Cole !" His horse he saddled and bridled, And into the night rode he, Vow through the great black woowlland, Now by the white-beached sea. He rode through the silent clearings He came to the ferry wide, And thrice he called to the boatinan Asleep on the other side. "She 'll come when she hears it crying, In the shape of an owl or bat, And she 'll bring us our darling Anna In place of her screeching brat." Then the good man, Ezra Dalton, Laid his hand upon her head : “ Thy sorrow is great, () woman! I sorrow with thee," he said. · The paths to trouble are many, And never but one sure way Leads out to the light beyond it : My poor wife, let us pray." Then be anid to the great All-Father, * Thy daughter is weak and blind ; Læt her right come back, and clothe her Once more in her right mind. " Lead her out of this evil shadow, Out of these fancies wild ; Let the holy love of the mother Turn again to her child. THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH 253 He set his horse to the river, He swam to Newbury town, And he called up Justice Sewall In his nightcap and his gown. Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying, In sweetness, not in music, dying ; Hardhack, and virgin’s-bower, And white-spiked clethra-flower. And the grave and worshipful justice (Upon whose soul be peace !) Set his name to the jailer's warrant For Goodwife Cole's release. With careless ears they heard the plash And breezy wash of Attitash, The wood-bird's plaintive cry, The locust's sharp reply. And teased the while, with playful hand, The shaggy dog of Newfoundland, Whose uncouth frolic spilled Their baskets berry-filled. a Then through the night the hoof-beats Went sounding like a flail ; And Goody Cole at cockcrow Came forth from Ipswich jail. “Here is a rhyme : I hardly dare To venture on its theme worn out ; What seems so sweet by Doon and Ayr Sounds simply silly hereabout; And pipes by lips Arcadian blown Are only tin horns at our own. Yet still the muse of pastoral walks with us, While Hosea Biglow sings, our new Theoc- ritus." Then one, the beauty of whose eyes Was evermore a great surprise, Tossed back her queenly head, And lightly laughing, said : “No bridegroom's hand be mine to hold That is not lined with yellow gold ; I tread no cottage-floor ; I own no lover poor. · My love must come on silken wings, With bridal lights of diamond rings, Not foul with kitchen smirch, With tallow-dip for torch.” The other, on whose modest head Was lesser dower of beauty shed, With look for home-hearths meet, And voice exceeding sweet, 66 THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH Answered, “ We will not rivals be ; Take thou the gold, leave love to me ; Mine be the cottage small, And thine the rich man's hall. Attitash, an Indian word signifying “huckle- berry," is the name of a large and beautiful lake in the northern part of Amesbury. [In a letter to Mr. Fields, Whittier wrote: "I should like to show thee Attitash, as it is as pretty as St. Mary's Lake which Wordsworth sings, in fact a great deal prettier. The glimpse of the Pawtuckaway range of mountains in Not- tingham seen across it is very fine, and it has noble groves of pines and maples and ash trees.") In sky and wave the white clouds swam, And the blue hills of Nottingham Through gaps of leafy green Across the lake were seen, When, in the shadow of the ash That dreams its dream in Attitash, In the warm summer weather, Two maidens sat together. They sat and watched in idle mood The gleam and shade of lake and wood ; The beach the keen light smote, The white sail of a boat; " I know, indeed, that wealth is good ; But lowly roof and simple food, With love that hath no doubt, Are more than gold without.” Hard by a farmer hale and young His cradle in the rye-field swung, Tracking the yellow plain With windrows of ripe grain. And still, whene'er he paused to whet His scythe, the sidelong glance he met Of large dark eyes, where strove False pride and secret love. a 254 THE TENT ON THE BEACH Be strong, young mower of the grain ; Her haughty vow is still unsaid, That love shall overmatch disdain, But all she dreamed and coveted Its instincts soon or late Wears, half to her surprise, The heart shall vindicate. The youthful farıner's guise ! In blouse of gray, with fishing-rod, With more than all her old-time pride Half screened by leaves, a stranger trod She walks the rye-field at his side, The margin of the pond, Careless of cot or hall, Watching the group beyond. Since love transfigures all The supreme hours unnoted come ; Rich beyond dreams, the vantage-ground Unfelt the turning tides of doom ; Of life is gained ; her hands have found And so the maids laughed on, The talisman of old Nor dreamed what Fate had done,- That changes all to gold. Vor knew the step was Destiny's While she who could for love dispense That rustled in the birchen trees, With all its glittering accidents, As, with their lives forecast, And trust her heart aloue, Fisher and mower passed. Finds love and gold her own. Erelong by lake and rivulet side What wealth can buy or art can build The summer roses paled and died, Awaits her ; but her erp is filled And Autumn's fingers shed Even now unto the brim ; The maple's leaves of red. Her world is love and him! Throngh the long gold-hazed afternoon, Alone, but for the diving loon, The partridge in the brake, The while he heard, the Book-man dr The black duck on the lake, A length of make-believing face, With smothered mischief langt ó Beneath the shadow of the ash througb : Sat man and maid by Attitash; “Why, you shall sit in Ramsay's place. And earth and air made room And, with his Gentle Shepherd keep For human hearts to bloom. On Yankee hills immortal sheep. While love-lorn swains and maids thr: 24 Soft spread the carpets of the sod, beyond And scarlet-onk and golden-rod Hold dreamy trust around your huek With blushes and with smiles berry-poud." Lit up the forest aisles. The Traveller laughed : “Sir Galled The mellow light the lake aslant, Singing of love the 'Trouvere's The pebbled margin's ripple-chant How should he know the Windfesta! Attempered and low-toned, From one of Vulcan's forge-barys The tender mystery owned. “ Nay, He better sees who stands outside And throngh the dream the lovers dreamed Than they who in procession ride," Sweet sounds stole in and soft lights The Reader answered: “selectmeu ami streamed ; squire The sunshine seemed to bless, Miss, while they make, the show that way. The air was a caress. side folks adınire. Not she who lightly laughed is there, "Here is a wild tale of the North, With scornful tons of midnight hair, Our travelled friend will own as one Her dark, di dainful eyes, Fit for a Norland Christmas bearth And proud lip worldly-wise. And lips of Christian Anderen. KALLUNDBORG CHURCH 255 a They tell it in the valleys green And Helva of Nesvek, young and fair, Of the fair island he has seen, Prayed for the soul of Esberu Snare. Low lying off the pleasant Swedish shore, Washed by the Baltic Sea, and watched by And now the church was wellnigh done ; Elsinore.” One pillar it lacked, and one alone ; And the grim Troll muttered, “Fool thou art! KALLUNDBORG CHURCH To-morrow gives me thy eyes and heart ! ” "Tie stille, barn min! Imorgen kommer Fin, By Kallundborg in black despair, Fa'er din, Through wood and meadow, walked Esbern Og gi'er dig Esbern Snares öine og hjerte at lege med!" Zealand Rhyme. Snare, Till, worn and weary, the strong man “ BUILD at Kallundborg by the sea sank A church as stately as church may be, Under the birches on Ulshoi bank. And there shalt thou wed my daughter fair," At his last day's work be heard the Troll Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare. Hammer and delve in the quarry's hole ; Before him the church stood large and And the Baron laughed. But Esbern said, fair : " Though I lose my soul, I will Helva wed !” “I have builded my tomb,” said Esbern And off he strode, in his pride of will, Snare. To the Troll who dwelt in Ulshoi hill. And he closed his eyes the sight to hide, " Build, O Troll, a church for me When he heard a light step at his side : At Kallundborg by the mighty sea ; “ O Esbern Snare ! a sweet voice said, Build it stately, and build it fair, “ Would I might die now in thy stead ! ” Build it quickly," said Esbern Snare. With a grasp by love and by fear made But the sly Dwarf said, “No work is strong, wrought He held her fast, and he held her long ; By Trolls of the Hills, O man, for naught. With the beating heart of a bird afеard, What wilt thou give for thy church so fair?” She hid her face in his flame-red beard. “ Set thy own price," quoth Esbern Snare. “O love !” he cried, “let me look to-day "When Kallundborg church is builded well, In thine eyes ere mine are plucked away ; Thou must the name of its builder tell, Let me hold thee close, let me feel thy Or thy heart and thy eyes must be my heart boon." Ere mine by the Troll is torn apart ! " Build,” said Esbern, “and build it soon.” “I sinned, O Helva, for love of thee! By night and by day the Troll wrought | Pray that the Lord Christ pardon me !" on ; But fast as she prayed, and faster still, He bewed the timbers, he piled the stone ; Hammered the Troll in Ulshoi hill. But day by day, as the walls rose fair, Darker and sadder grew Esbern Snare. He knew, as he wrought, that a loving heart He listened by night, he watched by day, Was somehow baffling his evil art ; He sought and thought, but he dared not For more than spell of Elf or Troll pray ; Is a maiden's prayer for her lover's soul. In vain he called on the Elle-maids shy, And the Neck and the Nis gave no reply. And Esbern listened, and caught the sound Of a Troll-wife singing underground : Of his evil bargain far and wide “ To-morrow comes Fine, father thine : A rumor ran through the country-side ; Lie still and hush thee, baby mine! a 66 256 THE TENT ON THE BEACH "Lie still, my darling! next sunrise Thou 'lt play with Esbern Snare's heart and THE CABLE HYMN eyes !” “ Ho! ho!” quoth Esbern, “is that your O LONELY bay of Trinity, game ? O dreary shores, give ear! Thanks to the Troll-wife, I know his Lean down unto the white-lipped sea name !" The voice of God to hear! The Troll he heard him, and hurried on From world to world His couriers tly, To Kallundborg church with the lacking Thought-winged and shod with tire ; stone. The angel of His stormy sky "Too late, Gaffer Fine !" cried Esbern Rides down the sunken wire. Snare; And Troll and pillar vanished in air ! What saith the herald of the Lon!? “ The world's long strife is doue ; That night the harvesters heard the sound Close wedded by that mystic cord, Of a woman sobbing underground, Its continents are one. And the voice of the Hill-Troll loud with blame “ And one in heart, as one in blood, Of the careless singer who told his name. Shall all her peoples be ; The hands of human brotherhood Of the Troll of the Church they sing the Are clasped beneath the sea. rune By the Northern Sea in the harvest moon ; “ Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plam And the fishers of Zealand hear him still And Asian mountains borne, Scolding his wife in Clsboi hill. The vigor of the Northern brain Shall nerve the world out worn. And seaward over its groves of birch Still looks the tower of Kallundborg church, “From clime to clime, from sbore to sbore, Where, first at its altar, a wedded pair, Shall thrill the magic thread; Stood Helva of Nesvek and Esbern Snare! The new Prometheus steals once more The fire that wakes the dead." Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat “What," asked the Traveller, “ would From answering beach to lach; our sires, Fuse nations in the kindly heat, The old Norse story-tellers, say And melt the chains of each! Of sun-graved pietures, ocean wires, And smoking steamboats of to-day ? Wild terror of the sky above, And this, () lady, by your leave, Glide tamed and dumb below! Recalls your song of yester eve : Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, Pray, let us have that Cable-hymn once Thy errands to and fro. more." “ Hear, bear!" the Book-man cried, “the Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, lady has the floor. Beneath the deep so far, The bridal robe of earth's accord, " These noisy waves below perhaps The funeral shroud of war! To such a strain will lend their ear, With softer voice and lighter lapse For lo ! the fall of (cean's wall Come stealing up the sands to hear, Space mocked and time outrun; And what they once refused to do And round the world the thought of all For old king Knut accord to you. Is as the thought of one! Nay, even the ti shes shall your listeners be, As once, the legend runs, they beard St. The po unite, the zones agree, Anthony." The tongues of striving cele ; THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL 257 come. As on the Sea of Galilee What weary doom of baffled quest, The Christ is whispering, Peace ! Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine ? What makes thee in the haunts of home A wonder and a sign? No foot is on thy silent deck, "Glad prophecy! to this at last,” Upon thy helm no hand; The Reader said, “shall all things No ripple hath the soundless wind That smites thee from the land ! Forgotten be the bugle's blast, And battle-music of the drum. For never comes the ship to port, A little while the world may run Howe'er the breeze may be ; Its old mad way, with needle-gun Just when she nears the waiting shore And ironclad, but truth, at last, shall reign : She drifts again to sea. The cradle-song of Christ was never sung No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, in vain ! Nor sheer of veering side ; Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, Shifting his scattered papers, “ Here,” Against the wind and tide. He said, as died the faint applause, " Is something that I found last year In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star Down on the island known as Orr's. Of evening guides ber in ; I had it from a fair-haired girl In vain for her the lamps are lit Who, oddly, bore the name of Pearl, Within thy tower, Seguin ! (As if by some droll freak of circumstance,) Iu vain the harbor-boat shall hail, Classic, or wellnigh so, in Harriet Stowe's In vain the pilot call ; romance. No hand shall reef her spectral sail, Or let her anchor fall. THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy, Your gray-head hints of ill ; And, over sick-beds whispering low, Your prophecies fulfil. Some home amid yon birchen trees Shall drape its door with woe ; And slowly where the Dead Ship sails, The burial boat shall row ! From What flecks the outer gray beyond The sundown's golden trail ? The white flash of a sea-bird's wing, Or gleam of slanting sail ? Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point, And sea-worn elders pray, - The ghost of what was once a ship Is sailing up the bay ! gray sea-fog, from icy drift, From peril and from pain, The home-bound fisher greets thy lights, O hundred-harbored Maine ! But many a keel shall seaward turn, And many a sail outstand, When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms Against the dusk of land. She rounds the headland's bristling pines ; She threads the isle-set bay ; No spur of breeze can speed her on, Nor ebb of tide delay, Old men still walk the Isle of Orr Who tell her date and name, Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards Who hewed her oaken frame. From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point, From island and from main, From sheltered cove and tided creek, Shall glide the funeral train. The dead-boat with the bearers four, The mourners at her stern, And one shall go the silent way Who shall no more return ! And men shall sigh, and women weep, Whose dear ones pale and pine, And sadly over sunset seas Await the ghostly sign. They know not that its sails are filled By pity's tender breath, Nor see the Angel at the helm Who steers the Ship of Death ! 258 THE TENT ON THE BEACH “Chill as a down-east breeze should be," When the hills are sweet with the besep The Book-man said. “A ghostly touch rose, The legend has. I'm glad to see And, hid in the warm, soft dells, upelose Your flying Yankee beat the Dutch." Flowers the mainland rarely knows; “Well, here is something of the sort Which one midsummer day I caught I When boats to their morning fishing go, In Narrayansett Bay, for lack of fish." And, held to the wind and slanting low, “We wait,” the Traveller said ; serve Whitening and darkening the suall sails hot or cold your dish.” show, Then is that lonely island fair ; THE PALATINE And the pale health-seeker findeth there The wine of life in its pleasant aur. Block Island in Long Island Sound, called by the Indians Manisees, the isle of the little No greener valleys the sun invite, god, was the scene of a tragic incident a hun- On smoother beaches no sea-biris light. dred years or more ago, when The Palatine, an No blue waves shatter to foam rote emigrant ship bound for Philadelphia, driven white ! off its course', came upon the coast at this point. A mutiny on board, followed by an inhuman There, cireling ever their narrow range, desertion on the part of the crew, had brought Quaint tradition and legend stringe the unhappy passengers to the verge of starva- tion and madness. Tradition says that wreck- Live on unchallenged, and know no change ers on shore, after rescuing all but one of the survivors, set fire to the vessel, which was driven Old wives spinning their webs of tow, out to sea before a gale which had sprung up. Or rocking weirdly to and fro Every twelve month, according to the same tradi- In and out of the peat's dull glow, tion, the spectacle of a ship on fire is visible to the inhabitants of the island. And old men mending their pets of tw.be, Talk together of dream and sign, LEAGUES north, as fly the gull and auk, Talk of the lost ship Palatine, Point Judith watches with eve of hawk ; Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Mon- The ship that, a hundred years before, tauk! Freighted deep with its goodly store, In the gales of the equinox went asku se Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken, With never a tree for Spring to waken, The eager islanders one by one For tryst of lovers or farewells taken, Counted the shots of her signal gun, And heard the crash when she drore di Circled by waters that never freeze, on ! Beaten by billow and swept by breeze, Lieth the island of Manisees, Into the teeth of death she sped: (May God forgive the hands that fed Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold The false lights over the rocky Head !! The coast lights up on its turret old, Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould. Omen and brothers ! what sights there ! Dreary the land when gust and sleet White upturned faces, hands stretebed At its doors and windows howl and beat, prayer ! And Winter laughs at its fires of peat ! Where waves bad pity, could ye pot spare But in summet time, when pool and Down swooped the wreckers, like burds and pond, prey Held in the laps of valleys fond, Tearing the heart of the ship awar, Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond ; And the dead had never a word to say, ABRAHAM DAVENPORT 259 And then, with ghastly shimmer and shine Over the rocks and the seething brine, They burned the wreck of the Palatine. Reef their sails when they see the sign Of the blazing wreck of the Palatine ! In their cruel hearts, as they homeward sped, * The sea and the rocks are dumb,” they said: “ There 'll be no reckoning with the dead.” But the year went round, and when once “A fitter tale to scream than sing," The Book-man said. Well, fancy, then," The Reader answered, “ on the wing The sea-birds shriek it, not for men, But in the ear of wave and breeze !” The Traveller mused : “ Your Manisees Is fairy-land : off Narragansett shore Who ever saw the isle or heard its name before ? more Along their foam-white curves of shore They heard the line-storm rave and roar, Behold! again, with shimmer and shine, Over the rocks and the seething brine, The flaming wreck of the Palatine ! So, haply in fitter words than these, Mending their nets on their patient knees, They tell the legend of Manisees. “ 'T is some strange land of Flyaway, Whose dreamy shore the ship beguiles, St. Brandan's in its sea-mist gray, Or sunset loom of Fortunate Isles !” “No ghost, but solid turf and rock Is the good island known as Block," The Reader said. “For beauty and for I chose its Indian name, soft-flowing Mani- sees! ease Nor looks nor tones a doubt betray ; " It is known to us all,” they quietly say ; “ We too have seen it in our day.” Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken? Was never a deed but left its token Written on tables never broken? “But let it pass ; here is a bit Of unrhymed story, with a hint Of the old preaching mood in it, The sort of sidelong moral squint Our friend objects to, which has grown, I fear, a habit of my own. 'T was written when the Asian plague drew near, And the land held its breath and paled with sudden fear.” ABRAHAM DAVENPORT Do the elements subtle reflections give ? Do pictures of all the ages live On Nature's infinite negative, Which, half in sport, in malice half, She shows at times, with shudder or laugh, Phantom and shadow in photograph ? For still, on many a moonless night, From Kingston Head and from Montauk light The spectre kindles and burns in sight. The famous Dark Day of New England, May 19, 1780, was a physical puzzle for many years to our ancestors, but its occurrence brought something more than philosophical speculation into the minds of those who passed through it. The incident of Colonel Abraham Davenport's sturdy protest is a matter of history. In the old days (a custom laid aside With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent Their wisest men to make the public laws. And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound Now low and dim, now clear and higher, Leaps up the terrible Ghost of Fire, Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire. And the wise Sound skippers, though skies be fine, 260 THE TENT ON THE BEACH I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, No faithless servant frightened from my task, But ready when the Lord of the barrest calls ; And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, Let God do His work, we will see to Ours. Bring in the candles.” And they broagtas them in. Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, Stamford sent up to the councils of the State Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport. 'T was on a May-day of the far old year Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring, Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, A horror of great darkness, like the night In day of which the Worland sagas tell, The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs The crater's sides from the red hell below. Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls Roosted ; the cattle at the pasture bars Lowed, and looked homeward ; bats on leathern wings Flitted abroad ; the sounds of labor died ; Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew sharp To hear the doom - blast of the trumpet shatter The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked A loving guest at Bethany, but stern As Justice and inexorable Law. Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts, Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, Trembling beneath their legislative robes. " It is the Lord's Great Day! Let us ad- journ," Some said ; and then, as if with one accord, All eyes were turned to Abraham Daven- port. He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice The intolerable hush. “ This well may be The Day of Judgment which the world awaits ; But be it so or not, I only know My present duty, and my Lori's command To occupy till He come. So at the post Where lle hath set me in His providence, Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read, Albeit with husky voice and shaking bures. An act to amend an act to regulate The shad and alewive fisheries. Where upon Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport Straight to the question, with no figures of speech Save the ten Arab signs, yet not withuat The shrewd dry humor natural to the man His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while, Between the pauses of his argument, To hear the thunder of the wrath of God Break from the bollow trumpet of the ciund And there he stands in memory to t dav, Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, haliwe Against the background of unnatural Jark A witness to the ages as they pass, That simple duty hath no place for fear. He ceased : just then the ocean seered To lift a half-faced moon in suglas: And, shore - ward, o'er the gleamed, From crest to crest, a line of light, Such as of old, with solemn ane, The fishers by Gennesarrt saw, When dry-shod o'er it walked the Sued God, Tracking the waves with light wbere'er bus sandals trod. Silently for a space each eye l'pon that sudden glory turned : Cool from the land the breeze blev by, THE WORSHỊP OF NATURE 261 The tent-ropes flapped, the long beach churned Its waves to foam ; on either hand Stretched, far as sight, the hills of sand ; With bays of marsh, and capes of bush and tree, The wood's black shore-line loomed beyond the meadowy sea. The mists above the morning rills Rise white as wings of prayer ; The altar-curtains of the hills Are sunset's purple air. 66 One song, “ before we The winds with hymns of praise are loud, Or low with sobs of pain, The thunder-organ of the cloud, The dropping tears of rain. With drooping head and branches crossed The twilight forest grieves, Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost From all its sunlit leaves. The lady rose to leave. Or hymn,” they urged, part.” And she, with lips to which belong Sweet intuitions of all art, Gave to the winds of night a strain Which they who heard would hear again ; And to her voice the solemn ocean lent, Touching its harp of sand, a deep accom- paniment. The blue sky is the temple's arch, Its transept earth and air, The music of its starry march The chorus of a prayer. So Nature keeps the reverent frame With which her years began, And all her signs and voices shame The prayerless heart of man. THE WORSHIP OF NATURE The harp at Nature's advent strung Has never ceased to play ; The song the stars of morning sung Has never died away. And prayer is made, and praise is given, By all things near and far ; The ocean looketh up to heaven, And mirrors every star. Its waves are kneeling on the strand, As kneels the human knee, Their white locks bowing to the sand, The priesthood of the sea ! They ponr their glittering treasures forth, Their gifts of pearl they bring, And all the listening hills of earth Take up the song they sing. The green earth sends her incense up From many a mountain shrine ; From folded leaf and dewy cup She pours her sacred wine. The singer ceased. The moon's white rays Fell on the rapt, still face of her. “Allah il Allah! He hath praise From all things,” said the Traveller. “ Oft from the desert's silent nights, And mountain hymns of sunset lights, My heart has felt rebuke, as in his tent The Moslem's prayer has shamed my Christian knee unbent." He paused, and lo ! far, faint, and slow The bells in Newbury's steeples tolled The twelve dead hours ; the lamp burned low; • The singer sought her canvas fold. One sadly said, “At break of day We strike our tent and go our way.” But one made answer cheerily, “ Never fear, We'll pitch this tent of ours in type an- other year.” ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON [Read at the Convention which formed the American Anti-Slavery Society, in Philadel- plia, December, 1833.] And shall the slanderer's demon breath Avail with one like me, To dim the sunshine of my faith And earnest trust in thee ? Go on, the dagger's point may glare Amid thy pathway's gloom ; The fate which sternly threatens there Is glorious martyrdom! Then onward witli a martyr's zeal ; And wait thy sure reward When man to man no more shall kneel, And God alone be Lord ! CHAMPION of those who groan beneath Oppression's iron hand : In view of penury, hate, and death, I see thee fearless stand. Still bearing up thy lofty brow, In the steadfast strength of truth, In manhood sealing well the vow And promise of thy youth. Go on, for thou hast chosen well; On in the strength of God! Long as one human heart shall swell Beneath the tyrant's rod. Speak in a slumbering nation's ear, As thou hast ever spoken, Until the dead in sin shall bear, The fetter's link be broken ! ness. TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE Toussaint L'Ouverture, the blank ch-fa of Hayti, was a slave on the planta'da ' se Libertas," belonging to M Bayou. Web rising of the ni groes louk place, in : Toussaint refused to join them until I bat aided M. Bayou and his famils to w Baltimore. The white man had disitorofa Toussaint many noble qualities, and be s structed him in some of the tint brand education; and the priservation of his sto su owing to the negro's gratitude tor thuis kind In 1797. Toussaint L'Ouverture was 25 pointed, by the French governirent, ( in-chief of the armies of St. Dhunina 21 such, signed the consention wit for Maitland for the evacuation of the Nazi the British. From this period until the island, under the government of " Inst, was happy, tranquil. and prompt miserable attempt of Napolion tons. slavery in St. Domingo, although 1:1:1 its intended object, prored fa'al to the chieftain. Tracherously *I. he was hurried on board a Vt sel bra. conteved to France, where he was cara a cold subterran an dungeon, at where, in April, I thi, he died. Tiem tr tºmbe of Toussunt tinds a parallel onls in the pas der of the Duke D'Enghien It was mark of Godwin, in his Laetuss, tal of. | Weat India Islands, since their tirsi dusurer I love thee with a brother's love, I feel my pulses thrill, To mark the spirit soar above The clond of human ill. My heart bath leaped to answer thine, And echo back thy words, As leaps the warrior's at the shine And flash of kindred swords ! They tell me thou art rash and vain, I searcher after fame ; That thou art striving but to gain A long-enduring naine ; That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand Aud steeled the Afric's heart, To sbake aloft his vengeful braud, And rend his chain apart. Have I not known thee well, and read Thy mighty purpose long? And watched the trials which have made Thy buman spirit strong ? 基 ​ TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 263 - by Columbus, could not boast of a single name Hark to that cry! long, loud, and shrill, which deserves comparison with that of Tous- From field and forest, rock and hill, saint L'Ouverture. Thrilling and horrible it rang, Around, beneath, above ; 'T was night. The tranquil moonlight The wild beast from his cavern sprang, smile The wild bird from her grove ! With which Heaven dreams of Earth, Nor fear, nor joy, nor agony shed down Were mingled in that midnight cry ; Its beauty on the Indian isle, But like the lion's growl of wrath, On broad green field and white-walled When falls that hunter in his path town; Whose barbëd arrow, deeply set, And inland waste of rock and wood, Is rankling in his bosom yet, In searching sunshine, wild and rude, It told of hate, full, deep, and strong, Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam, Of vengeance kindling out of wrong; Soft as the landscape of a dream. It was as if the crimes of years All motionless and dewy wet, The unrequited toil, the tears, Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met : The shame and hate, which liken well The myrtle with its snowy bloom, Earth's garden to the nether hell — Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom, - Had found in nature's self a tongue, The white cecropia's silver rind On which the gathered horror hung; Relieved by deeper green behind, As if from cliff, and stream, and glen The orange with its fruit of gold, Burst on the startled ears of men The lithe paullinia's verdant fold, That voice which rises unto God, The passion-flower with symbol holy, Solemn and stern, the cry of blood ! Twining its tendrils long and lowly, It ceased, and all was still once more, The rhexias dark, and cassia tall, Save ocean chafing on his shore, And proudly rising over all, The sighing of the wind between The kingly palm's imperial stem, The broad banana's leaves of green, Crowned with its leafy diadem, Or bough by restless plumage shook, Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade, Or murmuring voice of mountain brook. The fiery-winged cucullo played ! Brief was the silence. Once again How lovely was thine aspect, then, Pealed to the skies that frantic yell, Fair island of the Western Sea ! Glowed on the heavens a fiery stain, Lavish of beauty, even when And flashes rose and fell; Thy brutes were happier than thy men, And painted on the blood-red sky, For they, at least, were free ! Dark, naked arms were tossed on high ; Regardless of thy glorious clime, And, round the white man's lordly hall, Ünmindful of thy soil of flowers, Trod, fierce and free, the brute he made ; The toiling negro sighed, that Time And those who crept along the wall, No faster sped his hours. And answered to his lightest call For, by the dewy moonlight still, With more han spaniel dread, He fed the weary-turning mill, The creatures of his lawless beck, Or bent him in the chill morass, Were trampling on his very neck! To pluck the long and tangled grass, And on the night-air, wild and clear, And hear above his scar-worn back Rose woman's shriek of more than fear ; The heavy slave-whip’s frequent crack : For bloodied arms were round her thrown, While in his heart one evil thought And dark cheeks pressed against her own! In solitary madness wrought, One baleful fire surviving still Then, injured Afric! for the shame The quenching of the immortal mind, Of thy own daughters, vengeance came One sterner passion of his kind, Full on the scornful hearts of those, Which even fetters could not kill, Who mocked thee in thy nameless woes, The savage hope, to deal, erelong, And to thy hapless children gave A vengeance bitterer than his wrong! One choice, — pollution or the grave ! 264 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Though offered up by Christian hands, Than the foul rites of Pagan land: ! Where then was he whose fiery zeal Had taught the trampled heart to feel, Until despair itself grew strong, And vengeance fed its torch from wrong? Now, when the thunderbolt is speeding ; Now, when oppression's heart is bleed- ing ; Now, when the latent curse of Time Is raining down in fire and blood, That curse which, through long years of crime, Has gathered, drop by drop, its flood, Why strikes he not, the foremost one, Where murder's sternest deeds are done? He stood the aged palms beneath, That shadowed o'er his humble door, Listening, with half-suspended breath, To the wild sounds of fear and death, Toussaint L'Ouverture ! What marvel that his heart beat high ! The blow for freedom had been given, And blood had answered to the cry Which Earth sent tip to Heaven! What marvel that a fierce delight Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night, As groan and shout and bursting flame Told where the midnight tempest came, With blood and fire along its van, And death behind ! he was a Man! Sternly, amidst his household band, His carbine grasped within his hand, The white man stood, prepared and st.ll. Waiting the shock of maddened mra, Cnchained, and fierce as tigers, wbın The horn winds through their caserned hill. And one was weeping in his sight, The sweetest flower of all the isle. The bride who seemed but yesternight Love's fair embodied smile. And, clinging to her trembling knee, Looked up the form of infanes, With tearful glance in either face The secret of its fear to trace. “Ha! stand or die!” The white man'sere His steady musket gleamed along, As a tall Negro hastened nigh, With fearless step and strong. “ What ho, Toussaint !" A moment mure. His shadow crossed the lighted Hoor. “ Away !” he shouted ; “tly with me, The white man's bark is on tbe sea : Her sails must catch the seaward wind, For sudden vengeance sweeps behu. Our brethren from their grares have spurt The yoke is spurned, the chain is turaden : On all the hills our fires are glowing, Through all the vales red blood is tuwing No more the mocking White shall rest His foot upon the Negro's breast ; No more, at morn or eve, shall dnp The warm blood from the driver's whip Yet, though Toussaint has vengraner se TS For all the wrongs his race have done, Though for each drop of Negro blowned The white man's veins shall pour a tondi Not all alope the sense of ill A round his heart is lingering still, Vor deeper can the white man feel The generous warmth of grateful real Friends of the Negro! fly with me, The path is open to the sea : Away, for life!" He spoke, and pressed The young child to his manly breast. As, headlong, through the cracking came, Down swept the dark insurgent train, Drunken and grim, with shout and sell Howled through the dark, like sounds free hell. Yes, dark-souled chieftain ! if the light Of mild Religion's heavenly ray Unveiled not to thy mental sight The lowlier and the purer way, In which the Holy Sufferer trod, Meekly amidst the sons of crime ; That calm reliance upon God For justice in His own good time ; That gentleness to which belongs Forgiveness for its many wrongs, Even as the primal martyr, kneeling For merey on the evil-dealing ; Let not the favored white man name Thy stern appeal, with wonis of blame. Has he not, with the light of heaven Broadly around him, made the same ? Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven, And gloried in his ghastly shame? Kneeling amidst his brother's blood, To offer mockery unto God, As if the High and Holy One Could smile on deeds of murder done! As if a human sacrifice Were purer in His holy eyes, THE SLAVE-SHIPS 265 Far out, in peace, the white man's sail Swayed free before the sunrise gale. Cloud-like that island hung afar, Along the bright horizon's verge, O'er which the curse of servile war Rolled its red torrent, surge on surge ; And he, the Negro champion, where In the fierce tumult struggled he ? Go trace him by the fiery glare Of dwellings in the midnight air, The yells of triumph and despair, The streams that crimson to the sea ! Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb, Beneath Besançon's alien sky, Dark Haytien ! for the time shall come, Yea, even now is nigh, When, everywhere, thy name shall be Redeemed from color's infamy ; And men shall learn to speak of thee As one of earth's great spirits, born In servitude, and nursed in scorn, Casting aside the weary weight And fetters of its low estate, In that strong majesty of soul Which knows no color, tongue, or clime, Which still hath spurned the base control Of tyrants through all time ! Far other hands than mine may wreathe The laurel round thy brow of death, And speak thy praise, as one whose word A thousand fiery spirits stirred, Who crushed his foeman as a worm, Whose step on human hearts fell firm : Be mine the better task to find A tribute for thy lofty mind, Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone Some milder virtues all thine own, Some gleams of feeling pure and warm, Like sunshine on a sky of storm, Proofs that the Negro's heart retains Some nobleness amid its chains, - That kindness to the wronged is never Without its excellent reward, Holy to human-kind and ever Acceptable to God. sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny, in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out, - an obstinate disease of the eyes, contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves (only half a wine-glass per day being allowed to an individual), and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck occasionally; but some of the poor wretches, locking themselves in each other's arms, leaped overboard, in the hope, which so universally prevails among them, of being swiftly trans- ported to their own homes in Africa. To check this, the captain ordered several, who were stopped in the attempt, to be shot, or hanged, before their companions. The disease extended to the crew ; and one after another were smitten with it, until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condition did not preclude calculation : to save the ex- pense of supporting slaves rendered unsalable, and to obtain grounds for a claim against the underwriters, thirty-sir of the negroes, having become blind, were thrown into the sea and drowned !” – Speech of M. Benjamin Constunt, in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820. In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual whose sight remained un- affected should also be seized with the malady, a sail was discovered. It was the Spanish sla- ver, Leon. The same disease had been there ; and, horrible to tell, all the crew had become blind! Unable to assist each other, the ves- sels parted. The Spanish ship has never since been heard of. The Rodeur reached Guada- loupe on the 21st of June; the only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus been enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it in three days after its arrival. — Bibliothèque Ophthalmologique for November, 1819. 66 “All ready?” cried the captain ; Ay, ay !” the seamen said ; “Heave up the worthless lubbers, – The dying and the dead." Up from the slave-ship's prison Fierce, bearded heads were thrust : “ Now let the sharks look to it, Toss up the dead ones first !” THE SLAVE-SHIPS " That fatal, that perfidious bark, Built i' the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark.” Milton's Lycidas. Corpse after corpse came up, Death had been busy there ; Where every blow is mercy, Why should the spoiler spare ? Corpse after corpse they cast Sullenly from the ship, "The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men, and with one hundred and 266 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Yet bloody with the traces Of fetter-link and whip. Gloomily stood the captain, With his arms upon his breast, With his cold brow sternly knotted And his iron lip compressed. “ Are all the dead dogs over ? Growled through that matted lip; “The blind ones are no better, Let's lighten the good ship." Hark! from the ship's dark bosom, The very sounds of bell ! The ringing clank of iron, The maniac's short, sharp yell ! The hoarse, low curse, throat-stitled ; The starving infant's moan, The horror of a breaking heart Poured through a mother's groan. L'p from that loathsome prison The stricken blind ones came ; Below, had all been darkness, Above, was still the same. Yet the holy breath of heaven Was sweetly breathing there, And the heated brow of fever Cooled in the soft sea air. Gazed, from the burdened slaver's deck, Into that burning sky. “A storm,” spoke out the gater, " Is gathering and at hand ; Curse on it, I'd give my other eye For one firm rood of land." And then he laughed, but only His echoed laugh replied, For the blinded and the suffering Aloue were at his side. Night settled on the waters, And on a stormy heaven, While fiercely on that lone ship's track The thunder-grist was drive the * A sail ! — thank God, a sail !" And as the helmsman spoke, C'p through the stormy murmur A shout of gladness broke. Down came the stranger vessel, L'nheeding on her way, So near that on the slaver's deck Fell off her driven spray. “Ho ! for the love of merei, We're perishing and blind ! " A wail of utter agony Came back upon the wind : “ Help us ! for we are stricken With blindness every one ; Ten days we've floated fearfully, Innoting star or sun. Our ship's the slaver Leon, - We've but a score on bard; Our slaves are all gove oset, - Help, for the love of God!" “Overboard with them, shipmates !" (utlass and dirk were plied ; Fettered and blind, one after one, Plunged down the vessel's side. The sabre smote above, Beneath, the lean shark lay, Waiting with wide and bloody jaw His quick and human prey. God of the earth! what cries Rang "pward unto thee? Voices of agony and blood, From ship-deck and from sea. The last dull plunge was heari, The last wave caught its stain, And the unsated shark looked up For human hearts in vain. On livid brows of agony The broad red lightning stone; But the roar of wind and thunder Suitled the answering green : Wailed from the broken waters A lant despairing cry, As, kindling in the stormy lizht, The stranger ship weut bis. Red glowed the western waters, The setting sun was there, Scattering alike on wave and cloud His tiery mesh of hair. Amidst a group in blindness, A solitary eye In the sunny Guadaloupe A dark-lulled vesseilar, With a crew who noti never The nightfall or the dar. The blossom of the oring Was white by every stras, EXPOSTULATION 267 And tropic leaf, aud flower, and bird Were in the warm sunbeam. Slaves, crouching on the very plains Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war! And the sky was bright as ever, And the moonlight slept as well, On the palm-trees by the hillside, And the streamlet of the dell: And the glances of the Creole Were still as archly deep, And her smiles as full as ever Of passion and of sleep. A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood, A wail where Camden's martyrs fell, By every shrine of patriot blood, From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well ! But vain were bird and blossom, The green earth and the sky, And the smile of human faces, To the slaver's darkened eye ; At the breaking of the morning, At the star-lit evening time, O'er a world of light and beauty Fell the blackness of his crime. By storied hill and hallowed grot, By mossy wood and marshy glen, Whence rang of old the rifle-shot, And hurrying shout of Marion's men ! The groan of breaking hearts is there, The falling lash, the fetter's clank ! Slaves, slaves are breathing in that air Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank ! EXPOSTULATION What ho ! our countrymen in chains ! The whip on woman's shrinking flesh ! Our soil yet reddening with the stains Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh! What ! mothers from their children riven ! What! God's own image bought and sold ! Americans to market driven, And bartered as the brute for gold ! (Originally termed Stanzas, then Follen.] Dr. Charles Follen, a German patriot, who had come to America for the freedom which was denied him in his native land, allied himself with the abolitionists, and at a convention of delegates from all the anti-slavery organiza- tious in New England, held at Boston in May, 1931, was chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the people of New England. Toward the close of the address occurred the passage which suggested these lines. * The despotism which our fathers could not bear in their native country is expiring, and the sword of justice in her reformed hands has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall the United States — the free United States, which could not bear the bonds of a king - cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing ? Shall a Republic be less free than a Monarchy ? Shall we, in the vigor and buoy- ancy of our manhood, be less energetic in right- pousness than a kingdom in its age ?” – Dr. Folen's Address. “Genius of America! – Spirit of our free institution! where art thou? How art thou fallen, O Lncifer! son of the morning, how art thou fallen from Heaven! Hell from be- neath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming! The kings of the earth cry out to thee, Aha! Aha! Art thou become like unto Speech of Samuel J. May. Our fellow-countrymen in chains ! Slaves, in a land of light and law ! Speak! shall their agony of prayer Come thrilling to our hearts in vain ? To us whose fathers scorned to bear The paltry menace of a chain ; To us, whose boast is loud and long Of holy Liberty and Light; Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong Plead vainly for their plundered Right ? What! shall we send, with lavish breath, Our sympathies across the wave, Where Manhood, on the field of death, Strikes for his freedom or a grave ? Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning, And millions hail with pen and tongue Our light on all her altars burning ? Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France, By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall, And Poland, gasping on her lance, The impulse of our cheering call ? And shall the slave, beneath our eye, Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain ? And toss bis fettered arms on high, And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain ? 3 ? " 268 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be Rise now for Freedom ! not in strife A refuge for the stricken slave ? Like that your sterner fathers saw, And shall the Russian serf go free The awful waste of human life, By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave ? The glory and the guilt of war : And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane But break the chain, the yoke remove, Relax the iron hand of pride, And smite to earth Oppression's roxl. And bid his bondmen cast the chain With those mild arms of Truth and Love, From fettered soul and limb aside ? Made mighty through the living God! Shall every flap of England's flag Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, Proclaim that all around are free, And leave no traces where it stood; From farthest Ind to each blue crag Nor longer let its idol drink That beetles o'er the Western Sea ? His daily cup of human blood; And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, But rear another altar there, When Freedom's fire is dim with us, To Truth and Love and Merry given, And round our country's altar clings And Freedom's gift, and Freedou prayer, The damning shade of Slavery's curse ? Shall call an answer down from Heates' Go, let us ask of Constantine To loose his grasp on Poland's throat ; HYMN And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line To spare the struggling Suliote ; Written for the meeting of the Anti-Sharin Will not the scorching answer come Society, at Chatham Street Chapel, Neu liek From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ: held on the Ith of the seventh month, in “Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, (Originally entitled Lines.) Then turn and ask the like of us!” O Thou, whose presence went before Just God! and shall we calmly rest, Our fathers in their weary way, The Christian's scorn, the heathen's Is with Thy chosen noved of yore mirth, The fire by night, the cloud by day! ('ontent to live the lingering jest And by-word of a mocking Earth ? When from each temple of the free, Shall our own glorious land retain A nation's song ascends to Heaven, That curse which Europe scorns to Most Holy Father! unto Thee hear ? May not our humble prayer be given" Shall our own brethren drag the chain Which not even Russia's menials wear ? Thy children all, though hue and form Are varied in Thine own good wil. L'p, then, in Freedom's manly part, With Thy own holy breathing warm, From graybeard eld to fiery youth, And fashioned in Thine image si.il And on the nation's naked heart Seatter the living coals of Truth ! We thank Thee, Father! hill and plain l'p! while ye slumber, deeper yet Around us wave their fruits once inre, The shadow of our fame is growing ! And clustered vine and blossomed grain t'p! while ve pause, our sun may set Are bending round each cottage dome. In blood around our altars flowing ! And pence is here ; and hope and love Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth, Are round us as a mantle thruwa, The gathered wrath of God and man, And unto Thee, supreme above, Like that which wasted Egypt's earth, The knee of prayer is bowed alone. When hnil and fire above it ran. Hear ye no warnings in the air ? But oh, for those this day can bring, Feel ye no earthquake underneath ? Is unto us, no jorful thrill; l'p, up! why will ve slumber where For those who, under Freedom's wing, The sleeper only wakes in death? Are bound in Slavery's fetters stid: THE YANKEE GIRL 269 Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel, Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel ! For those to whom Thy written word Of light and love is never given ; For those whose ears have never heard The promise and the hope of heaven ! For broken heart, and clouded mind, Whereon no human mercies fall ; Oh, be Thy gracious love inclined, Who, as a Father, pitiest all ! And grant, O Father! that the time Of Earth's deliverance may be near, When every land and tongue and clime The message of Thy love shall hear ; “But thou art too lovely and precious a gem To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them ; For shame, Ellen, shame, cast thy bondage aside, And away to the South, as my blessivg and pride. 66 When, smitten as with fire from heaven, The captive's chain shall sink in dust, And to his fettered soul be given The glorious freedom of the just ! Oh, come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong, But where flowers are blossoming all the Where the shade of the palm-tree is over year long, my home, And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom ! THE YANKEE GIRL She sings by her wheel at that low cot- tage-door, Which the long evening shadow is stretch- ing before, With a music as sweet as the music which “Oh, come to my home, where my servants shall all Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call ; They shall `heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe, And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law.". а seems Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our dreams ! the sky! Oh, could ye have seen her - that pride of our girls Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls, With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could feel, And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel ! How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, Like a star glancing out from the blue of And lightly and freely her dark tresses play O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they ! Who comes in his pride to that low cot- tage-door, The haughty and rich to the humble and 'T is the great Southern planter, the mas- ter who waves His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves. “Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yan- kee fools spin, Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin ; poor? “Go back, haughty Southron ! thy treas- ures of gold Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou bast sold ; Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear ! “And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours, And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy flowers ; 270 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS But dearer the blast round our mountains The drunk and the sober, ride mernly there which raves, And woman, kind woman, wife, widow, and Than the sweet summer zephyr which maid, breathes over slaves ! For the good of the hunted, is lending bra aid : “ Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may Her foot 's in the stirrup, her hand on the kneel, rein, With the iron of bondage on spirit and How blithely she rides to the hunting of heel ; men ! Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be Oh, goodly and grand is our hunting to her In fetters with them, than in freedom with In this “ land of the brave and this bome it thee !" the free." Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Gece gia to Maine, THE HUNTERS OF MEN All mounting the saddle, all grasping the rein ; These lines were written when the orators of Right merrily hunting the black man, wbre the American Colonization Society were de- sin manding that the free blacks should be sent to Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his Africa, and opposing Emancipation unless ex- skin ! patriation followed. See the report of the pro- Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him as ceedings of the society at its annual meeting bay ! in 1834. Will our hunters be turned from their pe pose and prey ? HAVE ye heard of our hunting, o'er moun. Will their hearts fail within them? tbr: tain and glen, nerves tremble, when Through cane-brake and forest, -- the hunt- | All roughly they ride to the hunting of met irig of men ? The lords of our land to this hunting have Ho! alms for our hunters ! all weary and gone, faint, As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer ! horn ; the saint. Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack | The horn is wound faintly, the echoes are of the whip, still, And the yell of the hound as he fastens his Over cane-brake and river, and forest and grip! bill. All blithe are onr hunters, and noble their Haste, alms for our hunters ! the braised match, once more Though hundreds are caught, there are mil. Have turned from their flight with the lions to catch. backs to the shore : So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain What right have they here in the base and glen, the white, Through cane-brake and forest, – the hunt- Shadowed v'er by our banner of Freresa ing of men ! and Right? Ho! alms for the hunters ! or bever 1929 Gay luck to our hunters ! how nobly they Will they ride in their pomp to the bus ride of men ! In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride! Alms, alms for our hunters ! why will repetun The priest with his cassock flung back on lav, the wind, When their pride and their glory are more Just screening the politie statesman behind ; ing away? The saint and the sinner, with cursing and The parson has turned ; for, on charged prayer, his own, STANZAS FOR THE TIMES 271 Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone ? The politic statesman looks back with a sigh, There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in Shall freemen lock the indignant thought ? Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell ? Shall Honor bleed ? shall Truth suc- cumb ? Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb ? his eye. No; by each spot of haunted ground, Where Freedom weeps her children's fall; Oh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail, And the head of his steed take the place of the tail. Oh, haste, ere he leave us ! for who will ride then, For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men ? By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound; By Griswold's stained and shattered By Warren's ghost, by Langdon's shade ; By all the memories of our dead ! wall; STANZAS FOR THE TIMES The " Times" referred to were those evil times of the pro-slavery meeting in Faneuil Hall, August 21, 183.), in which a demand was made for the suppression of free speech, lest it should endanger the foundation of commercial society. By their enlarging souls, which burst The bands and fetters round them set; By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed Within our inmost bosoms, yet, By all above, around, below, Be ours the indignant answer, No! Is this the land our fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win ? Is this the soil whereon they moved ? Are these the graves they slumber in ? Are we the sons by whom are borne The mantles which the dead have worn ? No; guided by our country's laws, For truth, and right, and suffering man, Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause, As Christians may, as freemen can ! Still pouring on unwilling ears That truth oppression only fears. What ! shall we guard our neighbor still, While woman shrieks beneath his rod, And while he tramples down at will The image of a common God ? Shall watch and ward be round him set, Of Northern nerve and bayonet ? And shall we crouch above these graves, With craven soul and fettered lip? Yoke in with marked and branded slaves, And tremble at the driver's whip ? Bend to the earth our pliant knees, And speak but as our masters please ? Shall outraged Nature cease to feel ? Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow? Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel, The dungeon's gloom, the assassin's blow, Turn back the spirit roused to save The Truth, our Country, and the slave ? Of human skulls that shrine was made, Round which the priests of Mexico Before their loathsome idol prayed ; Is Freedom's altar fashioned so ? And must we yield to Freedom's God, As offering meet, the negro's blood ? Shall tongue be mute, when deeds are wrought Which well might shame extremest hell ? And shall we know and share with him The danger and the growing shame ? And see our Freedom's light grow dim, Which should have filled the world with flame ? And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn, A world's reproach around us burn ? Is 't not enough that this is borne ? And asks our haughty neighbor more ? Must fetters which his slaves have worn Clank round the Yankee farmer's door ? Must he be told, beside his plongh, What he must speak, and when, and how ? Must he be told his freedom stands On Slavery's dark foundations strong ; On breaking hearts and fettered hands, On robbery, and crime, and wrong? 272 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS That all his fathers taught is vain, - That Freedom's emblem is the chain ? Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn ! False, foul, profane! Go, teach as well Of holy Truth from Falsehood born! Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell ! Of Virtue in the arms of Vice! Of Demons planting Paradise ! Rail on, then, brethren of the South, Ye shall not hear the truth the less ; No seal is on the Yankee's mouth, No fetter on the Yankee's press ! From our Green Mountains to the sea, One voice shall thunder, We are free ! Of those high words of truth which seareb and burn In warning and rebuke ; Feed fat, ye locusts, feed ! And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord That, from the toiling bondman's utter deed, Ye pile your own full board. How long, O Lord ! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, And in Thy name, for robbery and wpusg At Thy own altars pray ? Is not Thy hand stretched forth Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite Shall not the living God of all the earik, And heaven above, do right? CLERICAL OPPRESSORS 7 In the report of the celebrated pro-slavery Woe, then, to all who grind meeting in Charleston, S. (., on the 4th of the Their brethren of a common Father don: ninth month, 18:3), published in the Courier of To all who plunder from the immurta that city, it is stated : “ The clergy of all de- mind nominations attended in a body, lending their sanction to the proceedings, and adding by Its bright and glorious crown! their presence to the impressive character of the scene!" Woe to the priesthood I woe To those whose hire is with the price od Just God! and these are they blood ; Who minister at thine altar, God of Right ! Perverting, darkening, changing, as they Men who their hands with prayer and bless- go, ing lay The searching truths of God! On Israel's Ark of light ! Their glory and their might What! preach, and kidnap men ? Shall perish ; and their very names Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted be poor? Vile before all the people, in the light Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then Of a world's liberty. Bolt hard the captive's door ? Oh, speed the moment on What! servants of thy own When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty as Merciful Son, who came to seek and save Lov The homeless and the outcast, fettering And Truth and Right throughout the earl down be known The tasked and plundered slave ! As in their home above. Pilate and Herod, friends ! Chief priests and rulers, as of old, com- A SUMMONS bine! Just God and holy ! is that church, which Written on the adoption of Pinekwerk lends lutions in the House of Representatives, una Strength to the spoiler, thine ? the passage of Calhoun's " Bill fog eir.is Papers written or printed, touching the se Paid hvpocriter, who turn ject of Slavery, from the l'. S Postad Judgment aside, and rub the Holy Book the Senate of the l'nited States. A SUMMONS 273 And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel Both man and God ? Mr. Pinckney's resolutions were in brief that Congress had no authority to interfere in any way with slavery in the States; that it ought not to interfere with it in the District of Co- lambia, and that all resolutions to that end should be laid on the table without printing. Mr. Calhoun's bill made it a penal offence for postmasters in any State, District, or Territory “knowingly to deliver, to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touch- ing the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, District, or Territory, their eirculation was prohibited.” (Originally en- titled Lines. ] Shall our New England stand erect no longer, But stoop in chains upon her downward way, Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger Day after day? Oh no; methinks from all her wild, green mountains ; From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie; From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, And clear, cold sky; Men of the North-land ! where's the manly spirit Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone ? Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit Their names alone ? From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean Gnaws with his surges; from the fish- With white sail swaying to the billow's mo- tion Round rock and cliff ; er's skiff, Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us, Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low, That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us To silence now? Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging, In God's name, let us speak while there is time! Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, Silence is crime ! From the free fireside of her unbought farmer ; From her free laborer at his loom and wheel ; From the brown smith-shop, where, be- neath the hammer, Rings the red steel ; From each and all, if God hath not forsaken Our land, and left us to an evil choice, Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken A People's voice. What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors Rights all our own ? In madness shall we barter, For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us, God and our charter ? Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters, Here the false jurist human rights deny, And in the church, their proud and skilled abettors Make truth a lie ? Startling and stern! the Northern winds shall bear it Over Potomac's to St. Mary's wave; And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it Within her grave. Oh, let that voice go forth! The bond- man sighing By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane, Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying, Revive again. Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible, To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood ? Let it go forth! The millions who are gazing Sadly upon us from afar shall smile, 274 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS And unto God devout thanksgiving raising, When autunn's sun is downward ging, Bless us the while. The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowug! Oh for your ancient freedom, pure and holy, But woe for us! who linger still For the deliverance of a groaning earth, With feebler strength and beart, less For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, lowly, and lowly, And minils less steadfast to the will Let it go forth! Of Him whose every work is holy. For not like thine, is crucified Sons of the best of fathers ! will ye fal- The spirit of our human pride : ter And at the bondinan's tale of woe, With all they left ye perilled and at And for the outcast and forsaken, stake? Not warm like thine, but cold and skw, Ho! once again on Freedom's holy altar Our weaker sympathies awaken. The fire awake! Darkly upon our struggling way Prayer-strengthened for the trial, come to- The storm of human hate is sweeps. gether, Hunted and branded, and a prey, Put on the harness for the moral fight, Our watch amidst the darkness kereg And, with the blessing of your Heavenly Oh, for that hidden strength which can Father, Nerve unto death the inner man ! Maintain the right! Oh, for thy spirit, tried and true, And constant in the hour of trial, Prepared to suffer, or to do, TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS In meekness and in self-denial. SHIPLEY Oh, for that spirit, meek and mild, Derided, spurned, yet incomplaining. Thomas Shipley of Philadelphia was a life- By man deserted and reviled, long Christian philanthropist, and advocate Yet faithful to its trust remaining of emancipation. At his funeral thousands of colored people came to take their last look at Still prompt and resolute to save their friend and protector. He died Septem- From scourge and chain the hurted .. ber 17, 1836. Unwavering in the Truth's defence, Even where the fires of Hate were bus Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest! ing, The flowers of Eden round thee blow- | The unquailing eye of innocence ing, Alone upon the oppressor turning! And on thine ear the murmurs blest Of Siloa's waters softly flowing ! O loved of thousands ! to thy grare, Beneath that Tree of Life which gives Sorrowing of heart, thy brethro be To all the earth its healing leaves thee. In the white robe of angels clad, The poor man and the rescued slave And wandering by that sacred river, Wept as the broken earth clused upon Whose streams of holiness make glad thee ; The city of our God forever! And grateful tears, like snmmer run, Quickened its dying grass again! Gentlest of spirits! not for thee And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine. Our tears are shed, our sighs are given ; Shall come the outcast and the louls, Why mourn to know thou art a free Of gentle deeds and words of thine Partaker of the joys of heaven? Recalling memories sweet and bandy! Finished thy work, and kept thy faith In Christian firmness unto death; Oh, for the death the righteous die! And beautiful as sky and earth, An end, like autumn's day declining, RITNER 275 On human hearts, as on the sky, With holier, tenderer beauty shining; As to the parting soul were given The radiance of an opening heaven ! As if that pure and blessed light, From off the Eternal altar flowing, Were bathing, in its upward flight, The spirit to its worship going ! THANK God for the token ! one lip is still free, One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee ! Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm ; When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and God, Are bowed at an Idol polluted with blood ; When the recreant North has forgotten her trust, And the lip of her honor is low in the dust, - Thank God, that one arm from the shackle has broken! Thank God, that one man as a freeman has spoken ! THE MORAL WARFARE Whex Freedom, on her natal day, Within her war-rocked cradle lay, An iron race around her stood, Baptized her infant brow in blood; And, through the storm which round her swept, Their constant ward and watching kept. Then, where our quiet herds repose, The roar of baleful battle rose, And bretbren of a common tongue To mortal strife as tigers sprung, And every gift on Freedom's shrine Was man for beast, and blood for wine ! O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown ! Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone ! To the land of the South, of the charter and chain, Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's pain ; Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips ! Where “ chivalric” honor means really no Than scourging of women, and robbing the Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high, And the words which he utters, are — Wor- ship, or die ! more Our fathers to their graves have gone ; Their strife is past, their triumph won ; But sterner trials wait the race Which rises in their honored place ; A moral warfare with the crime And folly of an evil time. So let it be. In God's own might We gird us for the coming fight, And, strong in Him whose cause is ours In conflict with unholy powers, We grasp the weapons He has given,- The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven. poor! - RITNER Written on reading the Message of Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, 1836. The fact re- dounds to the credit and serves to perpetuate the memory of the independent farmer and high-souled statesman, that he alone of all the Governors of the Union in 1836 met the insulting demands and menaces of the South in a manner becoming a freeman and hater of Slavery, in his message to the Legislature of Pennsylvania. Originally entitled Lines.] Right onward, oh, speed it! Wherever the blood Of the wronged and the guiltless is crying to God; Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining ; Wherever the lash of the driver is twining ; Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart, Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart; Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind, In silence and darkness, the God - given mind ; There, God speed it onward ! its truth will be felt, The bonds shall be loosened, the iron shall melt ! 276 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS and grow And oh, will the land where the free soul One brow for the brand, for the padini of Penn one mouth? Still lingers and breathes over mountain and They cater to tyrants? They rives the glen; chain, Will the land where a Benezet's spirit Which their fathers smote off, on the begi went forth again ? To the peeled and the meted, and outcast of Earth; No, never! one voice, like the sound in t! Where the words of the Charter of Liberty cloud, first When the roar of the storm waxes io. From the soul of the sage and the patriot and more loud, burst; Wherever the foot of the freeman Eati Where first for the wronged and the weak pressed of their kind, From the Delaware's marge to the Like The Christian and 'statesman their efforts of the West, combined ; On the South-going breezes shall depan Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain ? Till the land it sweeps over shall trembo Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be below ! vain ? The voice of a people, nprisen, awake. Pennsylvania's watchword, with Free No, Ritner! her “Friends” at thy warn- at stake, ing shall stand Thrilling up from each valley, tung down Erect for the truth, like their ancestral from each height, band ; “Our Country and Liberty! God for the Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past Right” time, Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime ; THE PASTORAL LETTER Turuing back from the cavil of creeds, to unite The General Association of Contº Once again for the poor in defence of the ministers in Massachusetts met at tink* & June 27, 1537. and issued a Pastural Ley Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide the churches under its care. The industr of Wrong, occasion of it was the profound 141 *** Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges duced by the recent public lecture in Yunus along ; chusetts by Angelina and Sarah Grieks ir L'nappalled by the danger, the shame, and noble women from South Carolina. we los bancome the pain, their testimony against slavery. I be LT And counting each trial for Truth as their demanded that “ibe perplexed and 4***** gain! subjects which are now commwa am. ... should not be forced upon any ch.14 as matters for debate, at the harada And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest tion and division," and called attention > and true, dangers now seeming " to thrraten the fol Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due ; character with widespread and peril at: - Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert jury." with thine, On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the So, this is all, – the ntmost reach Rhine, – Of priestly power the mind to fettre The German-born pilgrims, who first dared When laymen think, when women per to brave A war of words, a “ Pastoral latter The scorn of the proud in the cause of the Now, shame upon ye, panish Pupus slave ; Was it thus with thone, your pruebe *** Will the sons of such men yield the lords Who sealed with rachs, and fire, at : *** of the South Their loving-kindness to transgress Right; THE PASTORAL LETTER 277 A“ Pastoral Letter,” grave and dull ; Alas! in hoof and horns and features, How different is your Brookfield bull From him who bellows from St. Peter's ! Your pastoral rights and powers from harm, Think ye, can words alone preserve them? Your wiser fathers taught the arm And sword of temporal power to serve them. Oh, glorious days, when Church and State Were wedded by your spiritual fathers ! And on subinissive shoulders sat Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers. No vile “itinerant” then could mar The beauty of your tranquil Zion, But at his peril of the scar Of hangman's whip and branding-iron. If when an earthquake voice of power And signs in earth and heaven are show- ing That forth, in its appointed hour, The Spirit of the Lord is going ! And, with that Spirit, Freedom's light On kindred, tongue, and people break- ing, Whose slumbering millions, at the sight, In glory and in strength are waking ! When for the sighing of the poor, And for the needy, God hath risen, And chains are breaking, and a door Is opening for the souls in prison ! If then ye would, with puny hands, Arrest the very work of Heaven, And bind anew the evil bands Which God's right arm of power bath riven ; Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church Of heretic and mischief-maker, And priest and bailiff joined in search, By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker! The stocks were at each church's door, The gallows stood on Boston Common, A Papist's ears the pillory bore, The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman ! Yonr fathers dealt not as ye deal With non-professing ”frantic teachers ; They bored the tongue with red-hot steel, And flayed the backs of “ female preach- What marvel that, in many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet “less in anger than in sadness"? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion ? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ancient yoke of your dominion ? ers." Old Hampton, had her fields a tongue, And Salem's streets could tell their story, Of fainting woman dragged along, Gashed by the whip accursed and gory ! And will ye ask me, why this taunt Of memories sacred from the scorner ? And why with reckless hand I plant A nettle on the graves ye honor ? Not to reproach New England's dead This record from the past I summon, Of manhood to the scaffold led, And suffering and heroic woman. No, for yourselves alone, I turn The pages of intolerance over, That, in their spirit, dark and stern, Ye haply may your own discover! For, if ve claim the “pastoral right” To silence Freedom's voice of warning, And from your precincts shut the light Of Freedom's day around ye dawning ; A glorious remnant linger yet, Whose lips are wet at Freedom's foun- tains, The coming of whose welcome feet Is beautiful upon our mountains ! Men, who the gospel tidings bring Of Liberty and Love forever, Whose joy is an abiding spring, Whose peace is as a gentle river ! But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale of Carolina's high-souled daughters, Which echoes here the mournful wail Of sorrow from Edisto's waters, Close while ye may the public ear, With malice vex, with slander wound them, The pure and good shall throng to hear, And tried and manly hearts surround them. Oh, ever may the power which led Their way to such a fiery trial, And strengthened womanhood to tread The wine-press of such self-denial, 278 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Be round them in an evil land, Praise ! for the pride of man is low, With wisdom and with strength from The counsels of the wise are naught, Heaven, The fountains of repentance flow; With Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand, What hath our God in inerey wtuaget? And Deborah’s song, for triumph given ! Speed on Thy work, Lord God of Hosts! And what are ye who strive with God And when the bondman's chain is gives Against the ark of His salvation, And swells from all our guilty coasts Moved by the breath of prayer abroad, The anthem of the free to Heavan, With blessings for a dying nation ? Oh, not to those whom Thou hast led. What, but the stubble and the hay As with Thy cloud and fire before, To perish, even as fax consuming, But unto Thee, in fear and dread, With all that bars His glorious way, Be praise and glory evermore. Before the brightness of His coming ? And thou, sad Angel, who so long THE FAREWELL Hast waited for the glorious token, That Earth from all her bonds of wrong OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO !!!. To liberty and light has broken, DAUGHTERS SOLD INIO SOLIHIAS Angel of Freedom ! soon to thee BONDAGE The sounding trumpet shall be given, And over Earth's full jubilee Gone, gone, - sold and gone, Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven ! To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Where the slave-whip ceaseless swing Where the noisome insect stings, HYMN Where the fever demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Written for the celebration of the third an- Where the sickly sunbeams glare niversary of British emancipation, at the Broad-Through the hot and unisty air ; way Tabernacle, New York, first of August, Gone, gone', — sold and gone, 1837. [Originally entitled Lines.] To the rice-swamp dank and free, From Virginia's hills and water; O Holy Father ! just and true Woe is me, my stolen daugliters! Are all Thy works and words and ways, And unto Thee alone are due Gone, gone, — sold and gone, Thanksgiving and eternal praise ! To the rice-swamp dank and I be. As children of Thy gracious care, There no mother's eye is near them, We veil the eye, we bend the knee, There no mother's ear can hear them; With broken words of praise and prayer, Never, when the torturing lash Father and God, we come to Thee. Seams their back with many a ganh, Shall a mother's kindness bless them, For Thou hast heard, O God of Right, Or a mother's aris caress them. The sighing of the island slave ; Gone, gone, - sold and gone, And stretched for him the arm of might, To the rice-swamp dank ad lore. Not shortened that it could not save. From Virginia's hills and water: The laborer sits beneath his vine, Woe is me, my stolen daughters! The shackled soul and hand are free ; Thanksgiving ! for the work is Thine ! Gone, gone, – sold and gone. Praise ! for the blessing is of Thee ! To the rice-swamp danh and luar. Oh, when weary, sad, and slow, And oh, we feel Thy presence here, From the fields at night they go Thy awful arm in judgment bare ! Faint with toil, and racked with pain, Thine eye hath seen the boudman's tear; To their cheerless homes aguin, Thine ear hath heard the bondman's There no brother's voice shall greet theon ; prayer. · There no father's welcome meet them. PENNSYLVANIA HALL 279 Gone, gone, - sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters ; Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! stroying the office of the Pennsylvania Free- man, of which I was editor, and with it my books and papers. - Not with the splendors of the days of old, The spoil of nations, and barbaric gold ; No weapons wrested from the fields of blood, Where dark and stern the unyielding Ro- man stood, And the proud eagles of his cohorts saw A world, war-wasted, crouching to his law; Nor blazoned car, nor banners floating gay, Like those which swept along the Appian Way, Gone, gone, Gone, gone, - sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. From the tree whose shadow lay On their childhood's place of play ; From the cool spring where they drank ; Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank ; From the solemn house of prayer, And the holy counsels there ; Gone, gone, - sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters ; Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone ; Toiling through the weary day, And at night the spoiler's prey. Oh, that they had earlier died, Sleeping calmly, side by side, Where the tyrant's power is o'er, And the fetter galls no more ! sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters ; Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. By the holy love He beareth ; By the bruised reed He spareth ; Oh, may He, to whom alone All their cruel wrongs are known, Still their hope and refugę prove, With a more than mother's love. Gone, gone, — sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters ; Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! Gone, gone, When, to the welcome of imperial Rome, The victor warrior came in triumph home, And trumpet peal, and shoutings wild and high, Stirred the blue quiet of the Italian sky ; But calm and grateful, prayerful and sin- cere, As Christian freemen only, gathering here, We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall, Pillar and arch, entablature and wall, As Virtue's shrine, as Liberty's abode, Sacred to Freedom, and to Freedom's God ! Far statelier Halls, 'neath brighter skies than these, Stood darkly mirrored in the Ægean seas, Pillar and shrine, and life-like statues seen, Graceful and pure, the marble shafts be- tween ; Where glorious Athens from her rocky hill Saw Art and Beauty subject to her will ; And the chaste temple, and the classic grove, The hall of sages, and the bowers of love, Arch, fane, and column, graced the shores, Gone, gone, and gave PENNSYLVANIA HALL Read at the dedication of Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, May 15, 18:38. The building was erected by an association of gentlemen, irre- spretive of sect or party. “ that the citizens of Philadelphia should possess a room wherein the principles of Liberty, and Equality of Civil Rights, could be freely discussed, and the evils of slavery fearlessly portrayed.” On the even- ing of the 17th it was burned by a mob, de- Their shadows to the blue Saronic wave ; And statelier rose on Tiber's winding side, The Pantheon's dome, the Coliseum's pride, The Capitol, whose arches backward flung The deep, clear cadence of the Roman tongue, Whence stern decrees, like words of fate, went forth To the awed nations of a conquered earth, Where the proud Cæsars in their glory came, And Brutus lightened from his lips of flame ! Yet in the porches of Athena's halls, And in the shadow of her stately walls, 280 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS woe saw men Lurked the sad bondman, and his tears of The virgin verdure of the wilderness. Here, where all Europe with amaze mest Wet the cold marble with unheeded flow; And fetters clanked beneath the silver The soul's high freedom trammelled by au dome law; Of the proud Pantheon of imperious Rome. Here, where the fierce and warlike furret Oh, not for him, the chained and stricken slave, Gathered, in peace, around the home By Tiber's shore, or blue Ægina's wave, Penn, In the thronged forum, or the sages' seat, Awed by the weapons Love alone hal ve The bold lip pleaded, and the warm heart Drawn from the holy armory of Heaves beat ; Where Nature's voice against the bottom aa's No soul of sorrow melted at his pain, wrong No tear of pity rusted on his chain ! First found an earnest and indignat tongue ; But this fair Hall to Truth and Freedom Where Lay's bold message to the prized given, was borne ; Pledged to the Right before all Earth and And Keith's rebuke, and Franklin's the Heaven, scorn! A free arena for the strife of mind, Fitting it is that bere, where Freedom to To caste, or sect, or color unconfined, From her fair feet shook off the Oli Wuris Shall thrill with echoes such as ne'er of dust, old Spread her white pinions to our Wesun From Roman hall or Grecian temple rolled; blast, Thoughts shall find utterance such as never And her free tresses to our sunshine yet One Hall should rise redeemed front The Propylea or the Forum met. very's ban, Beneath its roof no gladiator's strife One Temple sacred to the Rights of Na' Shall win applauses with the waste of life ; No lordly lictor urge the barba rous game, Oh! if the spirits of the parted come, No wanton Lais glory in her shame. Visiting angels, to their olden houe ; But here the tear of sympathy shall flow, If the dead fathers of the land luk in? As the ear listens to the tale of woe ; From their fair dwellings, to the things Here in stern judgment of the oppressor's earth, wrong Is it a dream, that with their eyes of !.** Shall strong rebukings thrill on Freedon's They gaze now on us from the bowalu te" tongue, Lay's ardent soul, and Benezet the abil No partial justice hold th' unequal scale, Steadfast in faith, yet gentle as a ch... No pride of caste a brother's rights assail, Meek-hearted Woolman, and that larutlet Xo tyrant's mandates echo from this wall, band, Holy to Freedom and the Rights of All! The sorrowing exiles from their Father But a fair field, where mind may close with land," mind, Leaving their homes in Krieshiem's been Free as the sunshine and the chainless wind; of vine, Where the high trust is fixed on Truth And the blue beauty of their glorum E alone, To seek amidst our solemn depths of 2 And bonds and fetters from the soul are Freedom from man, and holy pesce *** thrown; God; Where wealth, and rank, and worldly pomp, Who first of all their testimonial pare and miglit, Against the oppressor, for the oute asian Yield to the presence of the True and Right. Is it a dream that such as these domok : And with their blessing our rj 10 And fitting is it that this Hall should stand crown? Where Pennsylvania's Founder led his band, 'Let us rejoice, that while the pulpit's done Fruiu thy blue waters, Delaware ! - to press · Is barred against the pleaders for the few THE NEW YEAR 281 While the Church, wrangling upon points of faith, THE NEW YEAR Forgets her bondmen suffering unto death ; While crafty Traffic and the lust of Gain Addressed to the Patrons of the Pennsylvania C'nite to forge Oppression's triple chain, Freeman. One door is open, and one Temple free, The wave is breaking on the shore, As a resting-place for hunted Liberty ! The echo fading from the chime ; Where men may speak, unshackled and Again the shadow moveth o'er unawed, The dial-plate of time ! High words of Truth, for Freedom and for God. O seer-seen Angel ! waiting now And when that truth its perfect work hath With weary feet on sea and shore, done, Impatient for the last dread vow And rich with blessings o'er our land hath That time shall be no more ! gone ; When not a slave beneath his yoke shall Once more across thy sleepless eye pine, The semblance of a smile has passed : From broad Potomac to the far Sabine : The year departing leaves more nigh When unto angel lips at last is given Time's fearfullest and last. The silver trump of Jubilee in Heaven ; And from Virginia's plains, Kentucky's | Oh, in that dying year hath been shades, The sum of all since time began ; And through the dim Floridian everglades, The birth and death, the joy and pain, Rises, to meet that angel-trumpet's sound, Of Nature and of Man. The voice of millions from their chains un- bound ; Spring, with her change of sun and shower, Then, though this Hall be crumbling in de- And streams released froin Winter's cay, chain, Its strong walls blending with the common And bursting bud, and opening flower, clay, And greenly growing grain ; Yet round the ruins of its strength shall stand And Summer's shade, and sunshine warm, The best and noblest of a ransomed land - And rainbows o'er her hill-tops bowed, Pilgrims, like these who throng around the And voices in her rising storm ; shrine God speaking from His cloud ! Of Mecca, or of holy Palestine ! A pronder glory shall that ruin own And Autumn's fruits and clustering sheaves, Than that which lingers round the Parthe- And soft, warm days of golden light, The glory of her forest leaves, Here shall the child of after years be taught And harvest-moon at night; The works of Freedom which his fathers wrought ; And Winter with her leafless grove, Told of the trials of the present hour, And prisoned stream, and drifting snow, Our weary strife with prejudice and power; The brilliance of her heaven above How the high errand quickened woman's And of her earth below : soul, And touched her lip as with a living coal ; And man, in whom an angel's mind How Freedom's martyrs kept their lofty With earth's low instincts finds abode, faith The highest of the links which bind True and unwavering, unto bonds and death; Brute nature to her God; The pencil's art shall sketch the ruined Hall, His infant eye hath seen the light, The Muses' garland crown its aged wall, His childhood's merriest laughter rung, And History's pen for after times record And active sports to manlier might Its consecration unto Freedom's God ! The nerves of boyhood strung! non 232 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Sold, bargained off for Southern Futes, A passive herd of Northern mules, Just braying through their purchased throats Whate'er their owner rules. And quiet love, and passion's fires, Have soothed or burned in manhood's breast, And lofty aims and low desires By turns disturbed his rest. The wailing of the newly-born Has mingled with the funeral knell ; And o'er the dying's ear has gone The merry marriage-bell. And he, the basest of the base, The vilest of the vile, whose name, Embalmed in infinite disgrace, Is deathless in its shame! And Wealth has filled his halls with mirth, While Want, in many a humble shed, Toiled, shivering by her cheerless hearth, The live-long night for bread. And worse than all, the human slave, The sport of lust, and pride, and scorn! Plucked off the crown his Maker gave, His regal manhood gone ! Oh, still, my country! o'er thy plains, Blackened with slavery's blight and ban, That human chattel drags his chains, An uncreated man ! A tool, to bolt the people's door Against the people clamoring there, Au ass, to trample on their floor A people's right of prayer ! Nailed to his self-made gibbet fast, Self-pilloried to the publie view, A mark for every passing blast Of seorn to whistle through ; There let him hang, and hear the breas Of Southrons o'er their pliant toul, - A new Stylites on his post, “Sacred to ridicule ! " And still, where'er to sun and breeze, My country, is thy tag unrolled, With scorn, the gazing stranger sees A stain on every fold. Oh, tear the gorgeous emblem down ! It gathers scorn from every eye, And despots smile and good men frown Whene'er it passes by. Shame! shame ! its starry splendors glow Above the slaver's loathsome jail ; Its folds are ruftling even now His erimson tlag of sale. Still round our country's proudest hall The trade in human flesh is driven, And at each careless hammer-fall A human heart is riven. Look we at home! our noble hall, To Freedom's holy purpose given, Now.rears its black and ruined wall, Beneath the wintry heaven, Telling the story of its doom, The fiendish mob, the provetrate law, The fiery jet through miduight's gion Our gazing thousands saw. Look to our State ! the poor man's riabi Torn from him : and the sons of the Whose blood in Freedom's steresitat Sprinhled the Jersey snows, Outlawed within the land of Penn, That Slavery's guilts fan nikt cess, And those whom God created me Toil on as brutes in peace. Yet o'er the blackness of the storm A bow of promise bends on ligh. And gleams of sunshine, soft and warsz, Break through our clouded sky. East, West, and North, the shont in beer. Of freemen rising for the right : Each valles hath its rallsing word, Each hill its signal lignt. And this, too, sanctioned hy the men Veated with power to shield the right, And throw each vile and robber den Wide open to the light. Yet, shame upon them ! there they sit, Men of the North, subdued and still ; Merk, pliant poltroons, only fit To work a master's will. 1 THE RELIC 283 Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold, And precious memories round it cling, Even as the Prophet's rod of old In beauty blossoming : And buds of feeling, pure and good, Spring from its cold unconscious wood. O'er Massachusetts' rocks of gray The strengthening light of freedom shines, Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, And Vermont's snow-hung pines ! From Hudson's frowning palisades To Alleghany's laurelled crest, O'er lakes and prairies, streams and glades, It shines upon the West. Speed on the light to those who dwell In Slavery's land of woe and sin, And through the blackness of that Hell Let Heaven's own light break in. Relic of Freedom's shrine ! a brand Plucked from its burning ! let it be Dear as a jewel from the hand Of a lost friend to me! Flower of a perished garland left, Of life and beauty unbereft ! So shall the Southern conscience quake Before that light poured full and strong, So shall the Southern heart awake To all the bondman's wrong. And from that rich and sunny land The song of grateful millions rise, Like that of Israel's ransomed band Beneath Arabia's skies : Oh, if the young enthusiast bears, ()'er weary waste and sea, the stone Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs, Or round the Parthenon ; Or olive-bough from some wild tree Hung over old Thermopylæ : If leaflets from some hero's tomb, Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary ; Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom On fields renowned in story ; Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest, Or the gray rock by Druids blessed ; And all who now are bound beneath Our banner's shade, our eagle's wing, From Slavery's night of moral death To light and life shall spring. Broken the bondman's chain, and gone The master's guilt, and hate, and fear, And unto both alike shall dawn A New and Happy Year. Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing Where Freedom led her stalwart kern, Or Scotia's “rough bur thistle” blowing On Bruce's Bannockburn ; Or Runnymede's wild English rose, Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows ! If it be true that things like these To heart and eye bright visions bring, Shall not far holier memories To this memorial cling ? Which needs no mellowing mist of time To hide the crimson stains of crime ! a THE RELIC Written on receiving a cane wrought from a fragment of the wood-work of Pennsylvania Hall which the fire had spared. Tower of friendship true and tried, From one whose fiery heart of youth With mine has beaten, side by side, For Liberty and Truth ; With honest pride the gift I take, And prize it for the giver's sake. But not alone because it tells Of generous hand and heart sincere ; Around that gift of friendship dwells A memory donbly dear ; Earth's noblest aim, man's holiest thought, With that memorial frail inwrought ! Wreck of a temple, unprofaned ; Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod Lifting on high, with hands unstained, Thanksgiving unto God ; Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading For human hearts in bondage bleeding ! Where, midst the sound of rushing feet And curses on the night-air flung, That pleading voice rose calm and sweet From woman's earnest tongue ; And Riot turned his scowling glance, Awed, from her tranquil countenance ! 234 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Thence let them come, and greet each other, And know in each a friend and brutber! а That temple now in ruin lies ! The fire-stain on its shattered wall, And open to the changing skies Its black and rootless hall, It stands before a nation's sight, A gravestone over buried Right ! But from that ruin, as of old, The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying, And from their ashes white and cold Its timbers are replying ! A voice which slavery cannot kill Speaks from the crumbling arches still ! And even this relic from thy shrine, O holy Freedom ! hath to me A potent power, a voice and sign To testify of thee ; And, grasping it, methinks I feel A deeper faith, a stronger zeal. 1 And not unlike that mystic rod, Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave, Which opened, in the strength of God, A pathway for the slave, It yet may point the bondman's way, And turn the spoiler from his prey. Yes, let them come! from each green na Where England's old baronial balis Still bear upon their storied walls The grim crusader's rusted mail, Battered by Paynim spear and brand On Malta's rock or Syria's sand ! And mouldering pennon-staves obice set Within the soil of Palestine, By Jordan and Gennesaret ; Or, borne with England's battle line, O'er Acre's shattered turrets stoopix.g. Or, midst the camp their banner du With dews from hallowed Hernu wote A holier summons now is given Than that gray bermit's voice of ohl, Which unto all the winds of beaven The banners of the Cross unnilel! Not for the long-deserted shrine ; Not for the dull unconscious sol, Which tells not by one lingering siga That there the hope of Israel trui; But for that truth, for which alone In pilgrim eyes are sanctified The garden moss, the mountain stone, Whereon His holy sandals pressed. , The fountain which Ilis lip hath Wirewt. - Whate'er hath touched His garine nt's bes. At Bethany or Bethlehem, Or Jordan's river-side. For Freedom in the name of Him Who came to raise Earth's drumas, To break the chain from every line, The bolt from every prison door! For these, o'er all the earth hath me An ever-deepening trumpet blast, As if an angel's breath lad lett Its vigor to the instrument. THE WORLD'S CONVENTION OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION, HELD IN LONDON IN 1810 Joseph Sturge, the founder of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, proposed the calling of a world's anti-slavery convention, and the proposal was promptly seconded by the American Anti-Slavery Society. The call was adressed to " friends of the slave of every nation and of every clime.” Yes, let them gather! Summon forth The pledged philanthropy of Earth. From every land, whose hills have heard The bugle blast of Freedom waking; Or whrieking of her symbol-bird From out his cloudy eyrie breaking : Where Justice hath one worshipper, Or truth one altar built to her ; Where'er a human eye is werping Oor wrongs which Earth's sad children know ; Where'er a single heart is keeping Its prayerful watch with buinan woe: And Wales, from Snowden's mountain Shall start le at that thrilling eall. As if she heard her bars aguin; And Erin's “harp on Tara's wall" Give out its ancient strain, Mirthful and sweet, yet saud withal, The melody which Erin lores, When o'er that harp, 'mid bursis of gli nes And slogan cries and like-make sonra The hand of her O'Connell mores ! Scotland, from lake and tarn and rill, And mountain hold, and heather b. THE WORLD'S CONVENTION 28; And Hayti, from her mountain land, Shall send the sons of those who hurled Defiance from her blazing strand, The war-gage from her Petion's hand, Alone against a hostile world. Shall catch and echo back the note, As if she heard upon the air Once more her Cameronian's prayer And song of Freedom float. And cheering echoes shall reply From each remote dependency, Where Britain's mighty sway is known, In tropic sea or frozen zone ; Where'er her sunset flag is furling, Or morning gun-fire's smoke is curling; From Indian Bengal's groves of palm And rosy fields and gales of balm, Where Eastern pomp and power are rolled Throngh regal Ava's gates of gold ; And from the lakes and ancient woods And dim Canadian solitudes, Whenee, sternly from her rocky throne, Queen of the North, Quebec looks down ; And from those bright and ransomed Isles Where all unwonted Freedom smiles, And the dark laborer still retains The scar of slavery's broken chains ! Nor all unmindful, thou, the while, Land of the dark and mystic Nile ! Thy Moslem mercy yet may shame All tyrants of a Christian name, When in the shade of Gizeh’s pile, Or, where, from Abyssinian hills El Gerek's upper fountain fills, Or where from Mountains of the Moon El Abiad bears bis watery boon, Where'er thy lotus blossoms swim Within their ancient hallowed waters ; Where'er is heard the Coptic hymn, Or song of Nubia’s sable daughters ; The curse of slavery and the crime, Thy bequest from remotest time, At thy dark Mehemet's decree Forevermore sball pass from thee; And chains forsake each captive's limb Of all those tribes, whose hills around Have echoed back the cymbal sound And victor horn of Ibrahim. From the hoar Alps, which sentinel The gateways of the land of Tell, Where morning's keen and earliest glance On Jura's rocky wall is thrown, And from the olive bowers of France And vine groves garlanding the Rhone, "Friends of the Blacks," as true and tried As those who stood by Oge's side, And heard the Haytien's tale of wrong, Shall gather at that summons strong ; Broglie, Passy, and he whose song Breathed over Syria's holy sod, And in the paths which Jesus trod, And murmured midst the hills which hem Crownless and sad Jerusalem, Hath echoes wheresoe'er the tone Of Israel's prophet-lyre is known. And thon whose glory and whose crime To earth's remotest bound and clime, In mingled tones of awe and scorn, The echoes of a world have borne, My country! glorious at thy birth, A day-star flashing brightly forth, The herald-sign of Freedom's dawn ! Oh, who could dream that saw thee then, And watched thy rising from afar, That vapors from oppression's fen Would cloud the upward tending star ? Or, that earth's tyrant powers, which heard, Awe-struck, the shout which hailed thy dawning, Would rise so soon, prince, peer, and king, To mock thee with their welcoming, Like Hades when her thrones were stirred To greet the down-cast Star of Morning ! « Aha! and art thon fallen thus ? Art thou become as one of us?” Still let them come ; from Quito's valls, And from the Orinoco's tide, From Lima's Inca-haunted halls, From Santa Fé and Yucatan, Men who by swart Guerrero's side Proclaimed the deathless rights of man, Broke every bond and fetter off, And hailed in every sable serf A free and brother Mexican ! Chiefs who across the Andes' chain Have followed Freedom's flowing pennon, And seen on Junin's fearful plain, Glare o'er the broken ranks of Spain The fire-burst of Bolivar's cannon ! Land of my fathers ! there will stand, Amidst that world-assembled band, Those owning thy maternal claim Unweakened by thy crime and shame; The sad reprovers of thy wrong ; The children thou hast spurned so long. 286 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Still with affection's fondest yearning To their unnatural mother turning. No traitors they! but tried and leal, Whose own is but thy general weal, Still blending with the patriot's zeal The Christian's love for human kind, To caste and climate uncontined. As to the pomp of Babylon The fire-sign on the palace wall! And, from her dark iniquities, Methinks I see my country rise : Not challenging the nations rourd To note her tardy justice dobe : Her captives from their chains urboard. Her prisons opening to the sun : But tearfully her arms extending Over the poor and upoffending ; Her regal emblem now no longer A bird of prey, with talons reeking, Above the dying captive shrieking, But, spreading out her ample wing, A broad, impartial covering, The weaker sheltered by the strong:?! Oh, then to Faith's anointed eyes The promised token shall be giren; And on a nation's sacrifice, Atoning for the sin of years, And wet with penitential tears, The fire shall fall from Hearen! MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA A holy gathering ! peaceful all : No threat of war, no savage call For vengeance on an erring brother! But in their stead the godlike plan To teach the brotherhood of man To love and reverence one another, As sharers of a common blood, The children of a common God ! Yet, even at its lightest word, Shall Slavery's darkest depths be stirred : Spain, watching from her Moro's keep Her slave-ships traversing the deep, And Rio, in her strength and pride, Lifting, along her mountain-side, Her snowy battlements and towers, Her lemon-groves and tropie bowers, With bitter hate and sullen fear Its freedom-giving voice shall hear; And where my country's flag is flowing, On breezes from Mount Vernon blowing, Above the Nation's council halls, Where Freedom's praise is loud and long, While close beneath the outward walls The driver plies his reeking thong : The hammer of the man-thief falls, O’er hypocritic cheek and brow The crimson flush of shame shall glow : And all who for their native land Are pledging life and heart and hand, Worn watchers o'er her changing weal, Who for her tarnished honor feel, Through cottage door and council-hall Shall thunder an awakening call. The pen along its page shall burn With all intolerable scorn ; An eloquent rebuke shall go On all the winds that Southward blow ; From priestly lips, now sealed and dumb, Warning and drvad appeal shall come, Like those which Isrnel heard from him, The Prophet of the Cherubim ; Or those which sad Esaias hurled Against a sin-accured world ! Its wizard leaves the Press shall ling l'nceasing from its iron wing, With characters inscribed thereon, As fearful in the despot's hall Written on reading an account of the pro ceedings of the citizens of North. la, reference to George Latin.er, the alleged tzo tive slave, who was seized in Boston Der Warrant at the request of Jam B Grey Norfolk, claiming to be his ir aster "The caused great excitement Surth and Smeh sad led to the presentation of a putiti u to lo gress, signed by more than titty the seal izens of Massachusetts, calling for sub 18 and proposed amendments to the coa) as should relieve the Commonwealth from a further participation in the crime of operas George Latimer himself was finally ver true papers for the sum of four hundnd duties Tue blast from Freedom's Northern Li upon its Southern way, Bears greeting to Virginia fran Massa- chusetts Bay: No word of haughty challenging, but baizie bugle's peal, Nor steady tread of marching files : clang of horse men's steel. No trains of deep- mouthed cannon along our highways go ; Around our silent arsenals untrodden Les the snow ; MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA 287 And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far, A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war. If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter spurn, Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn ? We hear thy threats, Virginia ! thy stormy We hunt your bondmen, flying from Sla- words and high very's hateful hell ; Swell harshly on the Southern winds which Our voices, at your bidding, take up the melt along our sky ; bloodhound's yell; Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its We gather, at your summons, above our honest labor here, No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends From Freedom's holy altar-horns to teai his axe in fear. your wretched slaves ! fathers' graves, a Wild are the waves which lash the reefs Thank God ! not yet so vilely can Massa- along St. George's bank ; chusetts bow; Cold on the shores of Labrador the fog The spirit of her early time is with her even lies white and dank; now ; Through storm, and wave, and blinding Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves mist, stout are the hearts which man slow and calm and cool, The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea- She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sis- boats of Cape Ann. ter's slave and tool ! The cold north light and wintry sun glare All that a sister State should do, all that a on their icy forms, free State may, Bent grimly o’er their straining lines or Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our wrestling with the storms ; early day; Free as the winds they drive before, rough But that one dark loathsome burden ye must as the waves they roam, stagger with alone, They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat And reap the bitter harvest which ye your- against their rocky home. selves have sown ! What means the Old Dominion ? Hath Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, she forgot the day and burden God's free air When o'er her conquered valleys swept With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and the Briton's steel array ? manhood's wild despair ; How side by side, with sons of hers, the Cling closer to the “cleaving curse Massachusetts men writes upon your plains Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and The blasting of Almighty wrath against a stout Cornwallis, then ? land of chains. " that Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall ? When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breath Of Northern winds the thrilling sounds of “Liberty or Death !” What asks the Old Dominion ? If now her sons have proved False to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved ; Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cava- liers of old, By watching round the shambles where hu- man flesh is sold ; Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count his market value, when The maddened mother's cry of woe shall pierce the slaver's den! Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginia name ; Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest weeds of shame ; 288 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair uni- Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden verse ; felt the thrill, We wash our hands forever of your sin and And the cheer of Hampshire's waximes shame and curse. swept down from Holyoke Hui. A voice from lips whereon the coal from The voice of Massachusetts ! Of her free Freedom's shrine hath been, sons and daughters, Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Deep calling unto deep aloud, the sound of Berkshire's mountain men : many waters! The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly Against the burden of that voice what tr- lingering still rant power shall stand ? In all our sunny valleys, on every wind- No fetters in the Bay State! No share swept hill. upon her landi And when the prowling man-thief came Look to it well, Virginians! In calmnes hunting for his prey we have borne, Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft In answer to our faith and trust, your ins. : of gray, and your scorn ; How, through the free lips of the son, the You've spurned our kindest counse is father's warning spoke ; you've hunted for our lives; How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the And shaken round our hearths and be Pilgrim city broke ! your manacles and gyves ! A hundred thousand right arms were lifted We wage no war, we lift no arm, we the up on high, no torch within A hundred thousand voices sent back their The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath loud reply ; your soil of sin ; Through the thronged towns of Essex the We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrester, startling summons rang, while ye can, And up from beneh and loom and wheel her with the strong upward tendenses and young mechanics sprang ! godlike soul of man ! The voice of free, broad Middlesex, of thou- | But for us and for our children, the one sands as of one, which we have given The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lex- For freedom and humanity is registra un ington : heaven ; From Norfolk's ancient villages, from Ply- | No slave-hunt in our borders, - ne purata mouth's rocky bound on our strand ! To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean No fetters in the Bay State, - no vare close her round; upon our land! From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calın repose Of cultured vales and fringing woods the THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE gentle Nashua flows, To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the mountain larches stir, In a publication of L. F. Taxistru - Rs. Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of Shots and Southern Brerars - is a dan a slare auction at New Orleans, at whand the “God save Latimer!" auctioneer recommended the woman stand as A GOOD (HRI-T14x!" 1.**** And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the uncommon to see adsertisements of slave for salt sea spray ; sale, in which they were desenud. And Bristol sent her answering shout down as members of the church. In e atvart Narragansett Bay! ment a slave was noted as “a Baput preaber THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN 289 While turning to the sacred Kebla feels His fetters break and fall. A CHRISTIAN ! going, gone ! Who bids for God's own image ? for his grace, Which that poor victim of the market-place, Hath in her suffering won ? My God! can such things be? Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one Is even done to Thee ? Cheers for the turbaned Bey Of robber-peopled Tunis ! he hath torn The dark slave - dungeons open, and hath borne Their inmates into day : In that sad victim, then, Child of Thy pitying love, I see Thee stand ; Once more the jest-word of a mocking band, Bound, sold, and scourged again! But our poor slave in vain Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes ; Its rites will only swell his market price, And rivet on his chain. A Christian up for sale ! Wet with her blood your whips, o'ertask her frame, Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame, Her patience shall not fail ! cell ; A heathen hand might deal Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years : But her low, broken prayer and nightly tears, Ye neither heed nor feel. God of all right ! how long Shall priestly robbers at Thine altar stand, Lifting in prayer to Thee the bloody hand And haughty brow of wrong ? Oh, from the fields of cane, From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's From the black slave-ship's foul and loath- some hell, And coffle's weary chain ; Hoarse, horrible, and strong, Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry, Filling the arches of the hollow sky, How long, O God, how long ? Con well thy lesson o'er, Thou prudent teacher, tell the toiling slave No dangerous tale of Him who came to save The outcast and the poor. THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN But wisely shut the ray Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart, And to ber darkened mind alone impart One stern command, Obey ! John L. Brown, a young white man of South Carolina, was in 1844 sentenced to death for aiding a young slave woman, whom he loved and had married, to escape from slavery. In pronouncing the sentence Judge O'Neale ad- dressed to the prisoner words of appalling blas- phemy (of which the following passages give some notion] : So shalt thou deftly raise The market price of human flesh ; and while On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile, Thy church shall praise. Grave, reverend men shall tell From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest, While in that vile South Sodom first and best, Thy poor disciples sell. Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall, Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels, You are to die!... 0f your past life I know no- thing, except what your trial furnished. That told me that the crime for which you are to suffer was the con- sequence of a want of attention on your part to the duties of life. The strange woman snared you. She flattered you with her words, and you became her vic- tim. The consequence was, that, led on by a desire to serve her, you committed the offence of aiding a slave to run away and depart from her master's service ; and now, for it you are to die! .... You are young; quite too young to be where you are. If you had remembered your Creator in your past days, you would not now be in a felon's place, to re- ceive a felon's judgment. Still, it is not too late to remember your Creator. He calls early, and He calls 290 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS . late. He stretches ont the arms of a Father's love to But vain is irony – unmeet you - to the vilest sioner - and says: “ Come unto me and be saved." Its cold rebuke for deeds which start In tiery and indign:int beat No event in the history of the anti-slavery The pulses of the heart. struggle so stirred the two hemisphere's as did Leave studied wit and guarded phrase this dreadful sentence. A cry of horror was For those who think but do not feel : heard from Europe. In the British House of Let men speak out in words whib raise Lords Brougham and Denman spoke of it with Where'er they fall, an answering blare mingled pathos and indignation. Thirteen Like tlints which strike the fire from ster hundred clergymen and church officers in Great Britain addressed a memorial to the churches of South Carolina against the atrocity. Still let a mousing priesthood ply Indeed, so strong was the pressure of the sen- Their garbled text and gloss of sin, timent of abhorrence and disgust that South And make the lettered scroll deny Carolina yielded to it, and the sentence was Its living soul within : commuted to scourging and banishment. Still let the place-fed, titled knare Plead robbery's right with purchased in Ho! thou who seekest late and long And tell us that our fathers gare A License from the Holy Book For Freedom's pedestal, a slave, For brutal lust and fiendish wrong, The frieze and moulding, chains Man of the Pulpit, look! whips ! Lift up those cold and atheist eyes, This ripe fruit of thy teaching see ; But ye who own that Higher Law And tell us how to heaven will rise Whose tablets in the heart are set, The incense of this sacritice - Speak out in words of power and awe This blossom of the gallows tree ! That God is living yet! Breathe forth once more those tones sul! Search out for slavery's hour of need Which thrilled the burdened propers. Some fitting text of sacred writ; lyre, Give heaven the credit of a deed And in a dark and evil time Which shames the nether pit. Smote down on Israel's fa-t of crime Kneel, smooth blasphemer, unto Him And gift of blood, a rain of fire ! Whose truth is on thy lips a lie ; Ask that His bright winged cherubim Oh, not for us the graceful lay May bend around that scaffold grim To whose soft measures liglitly more To guard and bless and sanctify. The footsteps of the fans and far, O'er-locked by mirth and love! ( champion of the people's cause ! But such a stern and startling stra:a Suspend thy loud and vain rebuke As Britain's hunted bands Hang de Of foreign wrong and Old World's laws, From Snowden to the conquered pics Man of the Senate, look ! Where harshly clanked the Saron Was this the promise of the free, On trampled tield and smoking to The great hope of our early time, That slavery's poison vine should be By Liberty's dishonored name. l'plwrne by Freedom's praver-nursed tree By man's lost hope and failing tret. O'erclustered with such fruits of crime? | By words and deeds which bos with Our foreheads to the dust, Send out the summons East and West, By the exulting strangers' snees, And South and North, let all be there Borne to us from the Old Wis.' Where he who pitied the oppressed thrones, Swings out in sun and air. And by their victims' grief who bear, Let not a Democratic hand In sunless mines and dungeous direct, The grisly hangman's task refuse ; How Freedom's land her faith disse There let each loyal patriot stand, Awaiting slavery's command, Speak out in acts. The time for words To twist the rope and draw the noose ! Has passed, and deeds sufřce alvor i a TEXAS 291 Whoso shrinks or falters now, Whoso to the yoke would bow, Brand the craven on his brow ! In vain against the clang of swords The wailing pipe is blown ! Act, act in God's name, while ye may ! Smite from the church her leprous limb! Throw open to the light of day The bondman's cell, and break away The chains the state has bound on him ! Freedom's soil hath only place For a free and fearless race, None for traitors false and base. a Perish party, perish clan ; Strike together while ye can, Like the arm of one strong man. Ho ! every true and living soul, To Freedom's perilled altar bear The Freeman's and the Christian's whole Tongue, pen, and vote, and prayer ! One last, great battle for the right One short, sharp struggle to be free ! To do is to succeed our fight Is waged in Heaven's approving sight; The smile of God is Victory. Like that angel's voice sublime, Heard above a world of crime, Crying of the end of time; With one heart and with one mouth, Let the North unto the South Speak the word befitting both : TEXAS VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND “What though Issachar be strong! Ye may load his back with wrong Overmuch and over long : The five poems immediately following indi- cate the intense feeling of the friends of free- dom in view of the annexation of Texas, with its vast territory sufficient, as was boasted, for six new slave States. The first poem seems to have been written at the earnest entreaty of Lowell, who called on Whittier aloud and spare not against the accursed Texas plot."] “ Patience with her cup o'errun, With her weary thread outspun, Murmurs that her work is done. to cry “Make our Union-bond a chain, Weak as tow in Freedom's strain Link by link shall snap in twain. Up the hillside, down the glen, Rouse the sleeping citizen; Summon out the might of men ! “ Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope Bind the starry cluster up, Shattered over heaven's blue cope ! Like a lion growling low, а Like a night-storm rising slow, Like the tread of unseen foe; “Give us bright though broken rays, Rather than eternal haze, Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze. It is coming, it is nigh ! Stand your homes and altars by; On your own free thresholds die. “Take your land of sun and bloom ; Only leave to Freedom room For ber plough, and forge, and loom ; Clang the bells in all your spires ; On the gray hills of your sires Fling to heaven your signal-fires. From Wachuset, lone and bleak, Unto Berkshire's tallest peak, Let the flame-tongued heralds speak. “Take your slavery-blackened vales ; Leave us but our own free gales, Blowing on our thousand sails. “Boldly, or with treacherous art, Strike the blood-wrought chain apart ; Break the Union's mighty heart ; “Work the ruin, if ye Pluck upon your heads an ill Which shall grow and deepen still. will ; Oh, for God and duty stand, Heart to heart and hand to hand, Round the old graves of the land. 292 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Wrongs which freemen never brook de Dangers grim and fierce as they, Which, like couching lions, looked On your fathers' way ; These your instant zeal demand, Shaking with their earthquake-cail Every rood of Pilgrim land, Ho, to Faneuil Ilall! “ With your bondman's right arm bare, With his heart of black despair, Stand alone, if stand ye dare ! “ Onward with your fell design ; Dig the gulf and draw the line : Fire beneath your feet the mine : “ Deeply, when the wide abyss Yawns between your land and this, Shall ye feel your helplessness. “ By the hearth, and in the bed, Shaken by a look or tread, Ye shall own a guilty dread. “ And the curse of unpaid toil, Downward through your generous soil Like a fire shall burn and spoil. “ Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, Vines our rocks shall overgrow, Plenty in our valleys How ;- " And when vengeance clouds your skies, Ilither shall ye turn your eyes, As the lost on Paradise ! “We but ask our rocky strand, Freedom's true and brother band, Freedom's strong and honest hand; Valleys by the slave antrod, And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, Blessed of our fathers' God !” From your capes and sandy bars, From your mountain-ridges cold, Through whose pines the westering star Stoop their crowns of gold ; Come, and with your footsteps wake Echoes from that holy wall ; Once again, for Freedom's sake, Rock your fathers' hall ! l'p, and tread beneath your feet Every cord by party spun : Let your hearts together beat As the heart of one. Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade, Let them rise or let them fall : Freedom asks your common aid, - l'p, to Faneuil Hall! L'p, and let each voice that speaks Ring from thence to Southern plaink Sharply as the blow which breaks Prison-bolts and chains ! Speak as well becomes the free: Dreaded more than steel or ball, Shall your calmest utterance be, Ileard from Faneuil Hall ! TO FANEUIL HALL Have they wronged us? Let us then Render back nor threats nor pravert: Have they chained our free-born tea: Let us unchain theirs ! ['p, your banner leads the van, Blazoned, “ Liberty for all!" Finish what your sires began ! l'p, to Faneuil Hall ! Written in 1844, on reading a call by "a Massachusetts Freeman” for a meeting in Faneuil Hall of the citizens of Massachusetts, without distinction of party, opposed to the an- Dexation of Texas and the aggressions of South ('arolina, and in favor of decisive action against slavery. Men! if manhood still ye claim, If the Northern pulse can thrill, Roused by wrong or stung by shame, Freely, strongly still; Let the sound of traffic die : Shut the mill-gate, leave the stall, Fling the use and hammer by; Throng to Faneuil llall! TO MASSACHUSETTS Wrist though around thee blares No fiery rallying sign? From all thy own high places, Give heaven the light of thine ! What though anthrilled, unmoving, The statesman stand apart, THE PINE-TREE 293 And comes no warm approving From Mammon's crowded mart ? Still let the land be shaken By a summons of thine own! By all save truth forsaken, Stand fast with that alone ! Shrink not from strife unequal ! With the best is always hope ; And ever in the sequel God holds the right side up ! But when, with thine uniting, Come voices long and loud, And far-off hills are writing Thy fire-words on the cloud ; When from Penobscot's fountains A deep response is heard, And across the Western mountains Rolls back thy rallying word ; The long-bound vassal of the exulting South For very shame her self-forged chain has broken ; Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, And in the clear tones of her old time spoken! Oh, all undreamed - of, all unhoped - for changes ! The tyrant's ally proves his sternest foe ; To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges, New Hampshire thunders an indignant No! Who is it now despairs ? Oh, faint of heart, Look upward to those Northern moun- tains cold, Flouted by Freedom's victor - flag un- rolled, And gather strength to bear a manlier All is not lost. The angel of God's bless- ing Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight; Still to her banner, day by day, are press- ing Unlooked - for allies, striking for the right! Courage, then, Northern hearts! Be firm, be true : What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do? part ! Shall thy line of battle falter, With its allies just in view ? Oh, by hearth and holy altar, My fatherland, be true! Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom ! Speed them onward far and fast ! Over hill and valley speed them, Like the sibyl's on the blast! Lo! the Empire State is shaking The shackles from her hand ; With the rugged North is waking The level sunset land ! On they come, the free battalions ! East and West and North they come, And the heart-beat of the millions Is the beat of Freedom's drum. THE PINE-TREE “ To the tyrant's plot no favor! No heed to place-fed knaves ! Bar and bolt the door forever Against the land of slaves !” Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it, The heavens above us spread ! The land is roused, - its spirit Was sleeping, but not dead ! Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Re- solves of Stephen C. Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846. Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield, Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's tattered field. Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, Answering England's royal missive with a firm, “ Thus saith the Lord !" Rise again for home and freedom ! set the battle in array ! What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day. NEW HAMPSHIRE God bless New Hampshire ! from her granite peaks Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks. 294 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your Actæon-like, the bay of thine own boun-ks paltry pedler cries ; Spurning the leas., and leaping o'er lirt: Shall the good State sink her honor that bounds ? your gambling stocks may rise ? Sore - baftled statesman! when thy can't Would ye barter man for cotton ? That hand, your gains may sum up higher, With game afoot, unslipped the hun, Ti Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our pack, children through the fire ? To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land. Is the dollar only real ? God and truth Hladst thou no fear, that, erelong, duabile and right a dream ? back, Weighed against your lying ledgers must These dogs of thine might snuff on St our manhood kick the beam ? very's track ? Where's now the boast, which even thy O my God! for that free spirit, which of guarded tongue, old in Boston town Cold, calm, and proud, in the tertb o'tir Smote the Province House with terror, Senate flung, struck the crest of Andros dowu ! O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, For another strong-voiced Adams in the Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man city's streets to cry, How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Free “ l'p for God and Massachusetts ! Set dom planting, your feet on Mammon's lie ! And pointing to the lurid heaven alır, Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your Whence all could see, through the wata cotton's latest pound, windows slanting, But in Heaven's name keep your honor, Crimson as blood, the beans of that Large keep the heart o' the Bay State Star! sound !” The Fates are just ; they give us but a own ; Where's the man for Massachusetts ? Nemesis ripens what our hands have sows Where's the voice to speak her free? There is an Eastern story, not unkon Where's the hand to light up bonfires from Doubtless, to thee, of one when I ber mountains to the skill Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer ? Sits Called demons up his water-jars to hall; she dumb in her despair ? Deftly and silently, they did his wil. Hlas she none to break the silence ? Hlas But, when the task was done, kept * she none to do and dare ? still. () my God! for one right worthy to lift up In vain with spell and charm the no.:/ her rusted shield, wrought, And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her Faster and faster were the buckets bred banner's tattered field ! Higher and bigber tuse the Hool arvien Till the tiends clapped their habis die their master drowned ! TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, For God still overrules man's sabemes and John C. Calhoun, who had strongly urged takes the extension of slave territory by the annexa- Craftiness in its self-set snare, and kne tion of Texas, even if it should insolve a war The wrath of man to praise Hiin. It ne! with England, was unwilling to promote the be, acquisition of Oregon, which would onların That the roused spirits of Democray the Northern domain of frredom, and pleaded May leave to freer States the viewed as an excuse the peril of forrign complications which he had defied when the interests of la- door Very were involved. Through which thy slave-cursed T. wes- tered in, Is this thy voice whose treble notes of fear From out the blood and tire, the wregard Waal in the wind? And dost thou shake sin. to bear, Of the stormed city and the ghastiy piece sea ? AT WASHINGTON 295 Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain, The myriad-handed pioneer may pour, And the wild West with the roused North combine And heave the engineer of evil with his mine. From this glittering lie my vision Takes a broader, sadder range, Full before me have arisen Other pictures dark and strange ; From the parlor to the prison must the scene and witness change. AT WASHINGTON Hark! the heavy gate is swinging On its hinges, harsh and slow ; One pale prison lamp is flinging On a fearful group below Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it does not show. Suggested by a visit to the city of Washing- ton, in the 12th month of 1845. (Originally en- titled Lines.] With a cold and wintry noon-light On its roofs and steeples shed, Shadows weaving with the sunlight From the gray sky overhead, Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built town outspread. Pitying God! Is that a woman On whose wrist the shackles clash ? Is that shriek she utters human, Underneath the stinging lash ? Are they men whose eyes of madness from that sad procession flash ? Still the dance goes gayly onward ! What is it to Wealth and Pride That without the stars are looking On a scene which earth should hide ? That the slave-ship lies in waiting, rocking on Potomac's tide ! Through this broad street, restless ever, Ebbs and flows a human tide, Wave on wave a living river ; Wealth and fashion side by side ; Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide. Underneath yon dome, whose coping Springs above them, vast and tall, Grave men in the dust are groping For the largess, base and small, Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall. Vainly to that mean Ambition Which, upon a rival's fall, Winds above its old condition, With a reptile's slimy crawl, Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave in anguish call. Base of heart! They vilely barter Honor's wealth for party's place ; Step by step on Freedom's charter Leaving footprints of disgrace ; For to-day's poor pittance turning from the great hope of their race. Vainly to the child of Fashion, Giving to ideal woe Graceful luxury of compassion, Shall the stricken mourner go ; Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the hollow show ! Yet, where festal lamps are throwing Glory round the dancer's hair, Gold-tressed, like an angel's, flowing Backward on the sunset air ; And the low quick pulse of music beats its measure sweet and rare : Nay, my words are all too sweeping : In this crowded human mart, Feeling is not dead, but sleeping; Man's strong will and woman's heart, In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear their generous part. And from yonder sunny valleys, Southward in the distance lost, Freedom yet shall summon allies Worthier than the North can boast, With the Evil by their hearth-stones grap- pling at severer cost. There to-night shall woman's glances, Star-like, welcome give to them ; Fawning fools with shy advances Seek to touch their garments' hem, With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which God and Truth condemn. 296 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Now, the soul alone is willing : Faint the heart and weak the knee ; And as yet no lip is thrilling With the mighty words, " Be Free ! ” Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his advent is to be! | Be it so. It should not swerve us From a purpose true and brave; Dearer Freedom's rugged serine Than the pastime of the slave ; Better is the storm above it than the ques of the grave. a Meanwhile, turning from the revel Let us then, uniting, bury To the prison-cell my sight, All our idle feuds in dust, For intenser hate of evil, And to future contlicts carry For a keener sense of right, Mutual faith and common trust; Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of Always he who most forgiveth in his last the Slaves, to-night! is most just. “To thy duty now and ever! From the eternal shadow rour.dug Dream no more of rest or stay : All our sun and starlight here, Give to Freedom's great endeavor Voices of our lost ones sounding All thou art and hast to-day :" Bid us be of heart and cherr, Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Through the silence, down the spaces, famt Voice, or seems to say. ing on the inward ear. Ye with heart and vision gifted Know we not our dead are looking To discern and love the right, Downward with a sad surpr., Whose worn faces have been lifted All our strife of words rebuking To the slowly-growing light, With their mild and loving into Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted Shall we grieve the holy any los slowly back the murk of night! cloud their blessed skies? Ye who through long years of trial Let us draw their mantles o'er us Still have held your purpose fast, Which have fallen in our way; While a lengthening shade the dial Let us do the work before us, From the westering sunshine cast, Cheerly, bravely, while we may, And of hope each hour's denial seemed an Ere the long night-silence cum ih, echo of the last ! with us it is not day ! O my brothers ! O my sisters ! Would to God that ye were near, THE BRANDED HAND Gazing with me down the vistas Of a sorrow strange and drear ; ('aptain Jonathan Walker. of Hary Would to God that ye were listeners to the Mass., was solicited by everal fugitive u. - Voice I seem to hear ! at Pensacola, Florida, to carry them to sp vessel to the British West Indies 11. * With the storm above ne driving, well aware of the great hazant of the : With the false earth mined below, prise he attempted to comply with the po Who shall marvel if thus striving but was seinad at sea by an Ann We have counted friend as foe ; consigned to the authontus at thepce sent back to Pole, L'nto one another giving in the darkness a long and rigorous contin fuur tot in fas: blow for blow. was tried and sunt need to tre burde 1.6 right hand with the letters "S Well it may be that onr natures stealer) and amerced in a heavy tum Have grown sterner and more bard, And the freshness of their features WELCOME home again, brair & Somewhat harb and battle-scarred, with the thoughtful brow and the And their harmonies of feeling overtasked And the old heroic spirit of uur ear and rudely jarred. better day; THE BRANDED HAND 297 And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God-deserted shrine, Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the bondman's blood for wine ; With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve in vain Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery shafts of pain ! Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutal cravens aim To make God's truth thy falsehood, His boliest work thy shame? When, all blood-quenched, from the tor- ture the iron was withdrawn, How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools to scorn! While the multitude in blindness to a far- off Saviour knelt, And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt ; Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prison shadows dim, And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him ! They change to wrong the duty which God In thy lone and long night-watches, sky hath written out above and wave below, On the great heart of humanity, too legible Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the for doubt! babbling schoolmen know ; They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched God's stars and silence taught thee, as His from footsole up to crown, angels only can, Give to shame what God hath given unto That the one sole sacred thing beneath the honor and renown! cope of heaven is Man! a Why, that brand is highest honor! than its traces never yet l'pon old armorial hatchments was prouder blazon set ; And thy unborn generations, as they tread our rocky strand, Shall tell with pride the story of their father's branded band ! Tha he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed, In the depth of God's great goodness may find mercy in bis need; But woe to him who crushes the soul with chain and rod, And herds with lower natures the awful form of God ! As the Templar home was welcome, bear- Then lift that manly right - hand, bold ing back from Syrian wars ploughman of the wave ! * The scars of Arab lances and of Payniin Its branded palm shall prophesy, “ Salvation scimitars, to the Slave !" The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's Hold up its fire - wrought language, that whoso reads may feel So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest His heart swell strong within him, his friend of God and man. sinews change to steel. crimson span, He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave, Thou for His living presence in the bound and bleeding slave ; He for a soil no longer by the feet of an- gels trod, Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God ! Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air ; Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, look there! Take it henceforth for your standard, like the Bruce's heart of yore, In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before ! For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung, From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of slavery wrung, And the masters of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign, When it points its finger Southward along the Puritan line : 298 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS ('an the craft of State avail then! Cau a Christless church withstand, lu the van of Freedom's ouset, the coming of that hand ? THE FREED ISLANDS Written for the anniversary celebration of the tirst of August, at Milton, 1840. (Origi- nally entitled Lines.] Not always shall your outraged poor, Appailed by democratic crime, Grind as their fathers ground before ; The bour which sees our prison door Swing wide shall be their triun. ph time. On then, my brothers ! every blow Ye deal is felt the wide earth through; Whatever here uplifts the low Or humbles Freedom's hateful for, Blesses the Old World through the New Take heart ! The promised hour draws near ; I hear the downward beat of wings And Freedom's trumpet sounding ckus: “Joy to the people! woe and fear To uew-world tyrants, old-world kings!" A Few brief years have passed away Since Britain drove her inillion slaves Beneath the tropic's fiery ray : God willed their freedom; and to-day Life blooms above those island graves ! He spoke ! across the Carib Sea, We heard the clash of breaking chains, And felt the heart-throb of the free, The first strong pulse of liberty Which thrilled along the boudman's veins. Though long delayed, and far, and slow, The Briton's triumph shall be ours : Wears slavery here a prouder brow Than that which twelve short years ago Scowled darkly from ber island bow- ers? Mighty alike for good or ill With Mother-land, we fully share The Saxon strength, the perve of steel, The tireless energy of will, The power to do, the pride to dare. A LETTER Supposed to be written by the claims of the "Central Clique" at Concuni. N 41. to the flon. M. N., Jr., at Washington, giving the result of the election. The following verses were published in the Boston Chronotype in 1816. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire, which resultado em the defeat of the proslavery Demoral in the election of John P. lile to the l** States Senate. Although their authent. ** not acknowledged, it was strongly suomi They furnish a specimen of the war, abe whole rather good-natured, in wlarb the i erts-lovers of half a century ago answer 1 social and political outlawry and mob un to which they were subjected. "T is over, Moses ! All is lost! I hear the bells a-ringing; Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea host I hear the Free-Wills singing We're routed, Moses, home and further If there be truth in figures, With Federal Whig in hot pursuit And Hale, and all the “mone" Aluck! alas ! this month or more We've felt a sad foreboding: Our very dreams the burden bure Of central cliques exploling; Before our eyes a furnace sbour, Where heads of dough were met. And one we tak to be your own The traitor Hale was toasting! What she has done can we not do ? Our hour and men are both at hand; The blast which Freedom's angel blew ()'er her green islands, echoes through Each valley of our forest land. Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn The death of slavery. When it falls, Look to your vassals in their turn, Your poor dumb millions, crushed and worn, Your prisons and your palace walls ! () kingly mockers ! scoffing show What deeds in Freedom's name we do ; Yet know that every taunt ye throw Aeross the waters, goals our slow Progression towards the right and true. A LETTER 299 The hills have bonfires ; in our streets Flags flout us in our faces ; The newsboys, peddling off their sheets, Are hoarse with our disgraces. In vain we turn, for gibing wit And shoutings follow after, As if old Kearsarge had split His granite sides with laughter ! What boots it that we pelted out The anti-slavery women, And bravely strewed their hall about With tattered lace and trimming ? Was it for such a sad reverse Our mobs became peacemakers, And kept their tar and wooden horse For Englishmen and Quakers ? a Our Belknap brother heard with awe The Congo minstrels playing ; At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt saw The ghost of Storrs a-praying ; And Carroll's woods were sad to see, With black-winged crows a-darting ; And Black Snout looked on Ossipee, New-glossed with Day and Martin. We thought the “Old Man of the Notch” His face seemed changing wholly Ilis lips seemed thick ; his nose seemed flat ; His misty hair looked woolly ; And Coös teamsters, shrieking, fled From the metamorphosed figure. “ Look there !” they said, “ the Old Stone Head Himself is turning nigger!” The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hauled, Seemed turning on its track again, And like a great swamp-turtle crawled To Canaan village back again, Shook off the mud and settled flat Cpon its underpinning ; A nigger on its ridge-pole sat, From ear to ear a-grinning. Gray H—d heard o' nights the sound Of rail-cars onward faring ; Right over Democratic ground The iron horse came tearing: A flag waved o'er that spectral train, As high as Pittsfield steeple ; Its emblem was a broken chain, Its motto: “To the people ! ” For this did shifty Atherton Make gag rules for the Great House ? Wiped we for this our feet upon Petitions in our State House ? Plied we for this our axe of doom, Vo stubborn traitor sparing, Who scoffed at our opinion loom, And took to homespun wearing ? Ab, Moses ! hard it is to scan These crooked providences, Deducing from the wisest plan The saddest consequences ! Strange that, in trampling as was meet The nigger-men's petition, We sprung a mine beneath our feet Which opened up perdition. How goodly, Moses, was the game In which we've long been actors, Supplying freedom with the name And slavery with the practice ! Our smooth words fed the people's mouth, Their ears our party rattle ; We kept them headed to the South, As drovers do their cattle. I dreamed that Charley took his bed, With Hale for his physician; His daily dose an old "unread And unreferred ” petition. There Hayes and Tuck as nurses sat, As near as near could be, man ; They leeched him with the “ Democrat ;”. They blistered with the “ Freeman.” Ah! grisly portents! What avail Your terrors of forewarning ? We wake to find the nightmare Hale Astride our breasts at morning ! From Portsmouth lights to Indian stream Our foes their throats are trying ; The very factory-spindles seem To mock us while they're flying. But now our game of politics The world at large is learning ; And men grown gray in all our tricks State's evidence are turning. Votes and preambles subtly spun They cram with meanings louder, And load the Democratic gun With abolition powder. 300 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS The ides of June! Woe worth the day When, turning all things over, The traitor Hale shall make his hay From Democratic clover! Who then shall take him in the law, Who punish crime so flagrant ? Whose hand shall serve, whose pen shall draw, A writ against that “vagrant" ? Alas ! no hope is left us here, And one can only pine for The envied place of overseer Of slaves in Carolina ! Pray, Moses, give Calhoun the wink, And see what pay he's giving ! We've practised long enough, we think, To know the art of driving. And for the faithful rank and file, Who know their proper stations, Perhaps it may be worth their while To try the rice plantations. Let Hale exult, let Wilson scoff, To see us southward scamper ; The slaves, we know, are better off Than laborers in New Hampshire !” From hollow rite and narrow span Of law and sect by Thee released, Oh, teach him that the Christian man Is holier than the Jewish priest. Chase back the shadows, gray and old, Of the dead ages from his way, And let his hopeful eyes beboli The dawn of Thy millennial day; That day when fettered limb and mind Shall know the truth which makrth ir, And he alone who loves his kind Shall, childlike, claim the love of Tber' DANIEL WEALL Dr. Neall, a worthy disciple of that 5: ated philanthropist, Warner Mimin, wel . >* Girondist statesman, Jean Pierre Brosse nounced "an angel of mercy, the best mar >> ever knew," was one of the noble bavi -# Pennsylvania abolitionists, whose bravers un equalled only by their gentleness and teaser ness LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire, A faith which doubt can never dim, A heart of love, a lip of tire, () Freedom's God! be Thou to him ! I Friend of the Slave, and yet the friend and all ; Lover of peace, yet ever foremost win The need of battling Freedom cai.eu le men To plant the banner on the onter wall ; Gentle and kindly, ever at distress Melted to more than woman's tenders Yet tiri and steadfast, at his durys games Fronting the violence of a maddened up Like some gray rock from which the warra are tossed ! Knowing his deeds of love, men questa The faith of one whose walk and we were right; Who tranquilly in Life's great task- to wrought, And, side by side with evil, scareris a: A stain upon his pilgrim garb of .ie Prompt to redress another's wronx. Is Leaving to Time and Truth and Penisky alone. II Such was our friend. Formed on the rus old plan, A true and brave and downright b. nuan! not Speak through him words of power and fear, As through Thy prophet bards of old, And let a scornful people hear Once more Thy Sinai-thunders rolled. For lying lips Thy blessing seek, And hands of blood are raised to Thee, And on Thy children, crushed and weak, The oppressor plants his kneeling knee. Let then, () God! Thy servant dare Thy truth in all its power to tell, l'nmash the priestly thieves, and tear The Bible from the grasp of bell! TO DELAWARE 301 He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace ; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful Moons of marches from our eyes Bornou land behind us lies ; Stranger round us day by day Bends the desert circle gray ; Wild the waves of sand are flowing, Hot the winds above them blowing, Lord of all things ! where are we going ? Where are we going, Rubee ? will What others talked of while their hands were still ; And, while “ Lord, Lord !” the pions tyrants cried, Who, in the poor, their Master crucified, His daily prayer, far better understood In acts than words, was simply doing good. So calm, so constant was his rectitude, That by his loss alone we know its worth, And feel how true a man has walked with us on earth. We are weak, but Thou art strong ; Short our lives, but Thine is long ; We are blind, but Thou hast eyes ; We are fools, but Thou art wise ! Thou, our morrow's pathway knowing Through the strange world round us grow- ing, Hear us, tell us where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee ? SONG OF SLAVES IN THE TO DELAWARE DESERT Written during the discussion in the Legis- [Suggested by a passage in Richardson's lature of that State, in the winter of 1816-17, Journal in Africa.) of a bill for the abolition of slavery. WHERE are we going ? where are we going, THRICE welcome to thy sisters of the East, Where are we going, Rubee? To the strong tillers of a rugged home, Lord of peoples, lord of lands, With spray-wet locks to Northern winds Look across these shining sands, released, Through the furnace of the noon, And hardy feet o’erswept by ocean's Through the white light of the moon. foam ; Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing, And to the young nymphs of the golden Strange and large the world is growing ! West, Speak and tell us where we are going, Whose harvest mantles, fringed with Where are we going, Rubee ? prairie bloom, Trail in the sunset, O redeemed and Bornou land was rich and good, blest, Wells of water, fields of food, To the warm welcome of thy sisters Dourra fields, and bloom of bean, come ! And the palm-tree cool and green : Broad Pennsylvania, down her sail-white Bornou land we see no longer, bay Here we thirst and here we hunger, Shall give thee joy, and Jersey from her Here the Moor-man smites in anger : plains, Where are we going, Rubee ? And the great lakes, where echo, free alway, Moaned never shoreward with the clank When we went from Bornou land, of chains, We were like the leaves and sand, Shall weave new sun-bows in their tossing We were many, we are few ; spray, Life has one, and death has two : And all their waves keep grateful holiday. Whitened bones our path are showing, And, smiling on thee through her mountain Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowing ! rains, Hear us, tell us, where are we going, Vermont shall bless thee ; and the gran- Where are we going, Rubee ? ite peaks, 302 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS wear And vast Katahdin o'er his woods, shall While through them, sullen, grin, ara! slow, Their snow-crowns brighter in the cold, The conquered hosts of England go : keen air ; O'Hara's brow belies his dress, And Massa husetts, with her rugged Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerles : cheeks Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes, O'errun with grateful tears, shall turn to Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes ! thee, When, at thy bidding, the electric wire Nor thou alone : with one glad voice Shall tremble northward with its words Let all thy sister States rejoice ; of fire ; Let Freedom, in whatever clime Glory and praise to God ! another State is She waits with sleepless eve her time, free! Shouting from cave and mountain road Make glad her desert solitude, YORKTOWN While they who hunt ber quail with fear The New World's chain lies brokin bert' Dr. Thacher, surgeon in Scammel's regi- mint, in his description of the siege of York- But who are they, who, cowering, wait town, says: “The labor on the Virginia plan- Within the shattered fortress gate ? tations is performed altogether by a species Dark tillers of Virginia's soil, of the human race cruelly wrested from their Classed with the battle's common spel. native country, and doomed to perpetual bond- With household stuffs, and fowl, asi : age, while their masters are manfully contend- ing for freedom and the natural rights of man. With Indian weed and planters' wire, Such is the inconsistency of human nature." With stolen beeves, and foraged cost, Eighteen hundred slaves were found at York- Are they not men, Virginian born: town, after its surrender, and restored to their Well was it said by Dr. Barnes, in Oh, veil your faces, young and brare! bis late work on Slavery : "No slave was any Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave! nearer bis freedom after the surrender of York. Sons of the Northland, ye who st town than when Patrick Henry first taught the Stout hearts against the baronet, notes of liberty to echo among the hills and vales of Virginia." And pressed with steady futfall near The moated battery's blazing tier. From Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, Turn your scarred faces from the single ting Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill : Let shame do homage to the right! Who curbs his steed at head of one ? Hark! the low murmur : Washington ! Lo! fourscore years have passed; as Who bends his keen, approving glance, where Where down the gorgeous line of France The Gallic bugles stirred the air, Shine knightly star and plume of snow ? And, through breached batteries, site de Thou too art victor, Rochambeau ! side, To victory stormed the hosts allied. The earth which bears this calm array And brave foes grounded, pale with pas Shook with the war-charge yesterday, The arms they might not liſt again, Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and As abjeet as in that old dar wheel, The slave still toils his life away. Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel; October's clear and noonday sun Oh, fields still green and fru in stany, Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun, Old days of pride, old names of glom, And down night's double blackness fell, Old marvels of the tongue and peth, Like a dropped star, the blazing shell. Old thoughts which stirred the brarte ! men, Now all is hushed : the gleaming lines Ye spared the wrong ; and orer all Stand moveless as the neigleboring pines ; Behold the avenging shadow fall! masters. RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE 303 Your world-wide honor stained with shame, Your freedomi's self a hollow name! There, where with living ear and eye He heard Potomac's flowing, And, through his tall ancestral trees, Saw autumu's sunset glowing, He sleeps, still looking to the west, Beneath the dark wood shadow, As if he still would see the sun Sink down on wave and meadow. Where's now the flag of that old war ? Where flows its stripe? Where burns its star? Bear witness, Palo Alto's day, Dark Vale of Palıns, red Monterey, Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, Flesbes the Northern eagle's beak; Symbol of terror and despair, Of chains and slaves, go seek it there ! Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks ! Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks! Brave sport to see the fledgling born Of Freedom by its parent torn! Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell, Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell : With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled, What of the New World fears the Old ? Bard, Sage, and Tribune ! in himself All moods of mind contrasting, The tenderest wail of human woe, The scorn like lightning blasting ; The pathos which from rival eyes Unwilling tears could summon, The stinging taunt, the fiery burst Of hatred scarcely human ! Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower, From lips of life-long sadness; Clear picturings of majestic thought Upon a ground of madness ; And over all Romance and Song A classic beauty throwing, And laurelled Clio at his side Her storied pages showing. a RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE Though not published until 1847, several lines indicate that the poem was written not long after Randolph's death in 1833. In a letter published in July, 1833, Whittier says: “In the last hour of his (Randolph's] existence, when his soul was struggling from its broken tene- ment, his latest effort was the confirmation of this generous act of a former period [the manu- mission of his slaves). Light rest the turf upon him, beneath his patrimonial oaks! The prayers of many hearts made happy by his benevolence shall linger over his grave and bless it.”] O Mother Earth! upon thy lap Thy weary ones receiving, And o'er them, silent as a dream, Thy grassy mantle weaving, Fold softly in thy long embrace That heart so worn and broken, And cool its pulse of fire beneath Thy shadows old and oaken. All parties feared him : each in turn Bebeld its schemes disjointed, As right or left his fatal glance And spectral finger pointed. Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down With trenchant wit unsparing, And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand The robe Pretence was wearing. Too honest or too proud to feign A love he never cherished, Beyond Virginia's border line His patriotism perished. While others hailed in distant skies Our eagle's dusky pinion, He only saw the mountain bird Stoop o'er his Old Dominion ! Still through each change of fortune strange, Racked nerve, and brain all burning, His loving faith in Mother-land Knew never shade of turning ; By Britain's lakes, by Neva's tide, Whatever sky was o'er him, He heard her rivers' rushing sonnd, Her blue peaks rose before himn. Shut out from him the bitter word And serpent biss of scorning ; Nor let the storms of yesterday Disturb his quiet morning. Breathe over him forgetfulness Of all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids in blindness. 304 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS He held his slaves, yet made withal No false and vain pretences, Vor paid a lying priest to seek For Seriptural defences. His harshest words of proud rebuke, His bitterest taunt and scorning, Fell fire-like on the Northern brow That bent to him in fawning. He held his slaves ; yet kept the while His reverence for the Human ; In the dark vassals of his will He saw but Man and Woman! No hunter of God's outraged poor His Roanoke valley entered ; No trader in the souls of men Across his threshold ventured. And hark ! from thy deserted fields Are sadder waruings spoken, From quenched hearths, where thy erik sons Their household gods have broken. The curse is on thee, — wolves for men, And briers for corn-sheares giving ! Oh, more than all thy dead renown Were now one hero living! THE LOST STATESMAN Written on hearing of the death of S. Wright of New York. Originails ea: Lines.) And when the old and wearied man Lay down for his last sleeping, And at his side, a slave no more, His brother-man stood weeping, His latest thought, his latest breath, To Freedom's duty giving, With failing tongue and trembling hand The dying blest the living. of noon, As they who, tossing midst the storm si night, While turning shoreward, where a bez con shone, Meet the walled blackness of the bearen alone, So, on the turbulent waves of party torsd In gloom and tempest, men have seen in light Quenched in the darkness. At thy bxet While life was pleasant to thy undira sight, And, day by day, within thy spirit gris A holier hope than young Ambition knet. As through thy rural quiet, not in vain, Pierced the sharp thrill of Freedom's cry Man of the millions, thou art lost famo soon! Portents at which the bravest seal aghast, The birth-throes of a Future, strange az- vast, Alarm the land ; yet thou, so wise and strong, Suddenly summoned to the burial but, Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long, Hearst not the tumult surging overhemi Who now shall rally Freedom's killers host? Who wear the mantle of the leader ret* Who stay the march of slavery • be whose voice Oh, never bore his ancient State A truer son or braver ! None trampling with a calmer scorn On foreign hate or favor. He knew her faults, yet never stooped His proud and manly feeling To poor excuses of the wrong Or meanness of concealing. But none beheld with clearer eve The plague-spot o'er her spreading, None heard more sure the steps of Doem Along her future treading. For her as for himself he spake, When, his gaunt frame upbracing, lle traced with dying hand ** Remorse !" And perished in the tracing. As from the grave where Henry sleeps, From Vernon's weeping willow, And from the grassy pall which hides The Sacre of Monticello, So from the leaf-strewn burial-stone Of Randolph's lowly dwelling, Virginia ! o'er thy land of slaves A warning voice is swelling! of pain, THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE 305 Hath called thee from thy task-field And, at evening, when his comrades dance shall not lack before their master's door, Yet bolder champions, to beat bravely Folding arms and knitting forehead, stands back he silent evermore. The wrong which, through his poor ones, reaches Him : God be praised for every instinct which Yet firmer hands shall Freedom's torch- rebels against a lot lights trim, Where the brute survives the human, and And wave them high across the abysmal man's upright form is not ! black, Till bound, dumb millions there shall see As the serpent-like bejuco winds his spiral them and rejoice. fold on fold Round the tall and stately ceiba, till it withers in his hold ; THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE Slow decays the forest monarch, closer Suggested by a daguerreotype taken from girds the fell embrace, å stall French engraving of two negro figures, Till the tree is seen no longer, and the vine sent to the writer by Oliver Johnson. is in its place ; Beams of noon, like burning lances, through So a base and bestial nature round the vas- the tree-tops flash and glisten, sal's manhood twines, As she stands before her lover, with raised And the spirit wastes beneath it, like the face to look and listen. ceiba choked with vines. God is Love, saith the Evangel; and our world of woe and sin Is made light and happy only when a Love is shining in. a Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient Jewish song : Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her graceful beauty wrong. He, the strong one and the manly, with the vassal's garb and hue, Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his higher nature true; Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a freeman in his heart, As the gregree holds his Fetich from the white man's gaze apart. Ever foremost of his comrades, when the driver's morning horn Calls away to stifling mill-house, to the fields of cane and corn : Ye whose lives are free as sunshine, finding, wheresoe'er ye roam, Smiles of welcome, looks of kindness, mak- ing all the world like home ; In the veins of whose affections kindred blood is but a part, Of one kindly current throbbing from the universal heart ; Can ye know the deeper meaning of a love in Slavery nursed, Last flower of a lost Eden, blooming in that Soil accursed ? a Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his back or limb; Searce with look or word of censure, turns the driver unto him. Love of Home, and Love of Woman ! dear to all, but doubly dear To the heart whose pulses elsewhere meas- ure only hate and fear. Yet, his brow is always thoughtful, and his eye is hard and stern; Slavery's last and humblest lesson he has never deigned to learn. All around the desert circles, underneath a brazen sky, Only one green spot remaining where the dew is never dry ! 306 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS 1 1 From the horror of that desert, from its “ But for me, my mother, lying on ber made atmosphere of hell, bed all the day, Turns the fainting spirit thither, as the Lifts ber weary head to watch me, cutiik diver seeks his bell. through the twilight gray. 'T is the fervid tropic noontime ; faint and “Should I leave her sick and helpless, erea low the sea-waves beat ; freedom, shared with thre, Hazy rise the inland mountains through the Would be sadder far than bondage, lonely glimmer of the heat, — toil, and stripes to me. Where, through mingled leaves and blos. “ For my heart would die within me, and soms, arrowy sunbeams flash and my brain would soon be wild ; glisten, I should bear my mother calling three Speaks her lover to the slave-girl, and she the twilight for her child!" lifts her head to listen :- Blazing upward from the ocean, shines the “ We shall live as slaves no longer! Free- sun of morning-time, dom's hour is close at hand ! Through the coffee-trees in blossomn, und Rocks her bark upon the waters, rests the green hedges of the lime. boat upon the strand ! Side by side, amidst the slave-gang, toute “ I have seen the Haytien Captain ; I have I lover and the maid ; seen his swarthy crew, Wherefore looks he o'er the waters, lears Haters of the pallid faces, to their race and forward on his spade ? color true. Sadly looks he, deeply sighs he : 't is the “ They have sworn to wait our coming till Haytien's sail be sees, the night has passed its noon, Like a white cloud of the mountains, drien And the gray and darkening waters roll seaward by the breeze ! above the sunken moon!”. But his arm a light hand presses, and bor Oh, the blessed hope of freedom ! how with hears a low voice call : joy and glad snrprise, Hate of Slavery, hope of Freedom, Lovro For an instant throbs her bosom, for an in- mightier than all. stant beam her eyes ! But she looks across the valley, where her THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER mother's hut is seen, BREAKERS Through the snowy bloom of coffee, and the lemon-leaves so green. The rights and liberties affirmed by Vis Charta were deemed of such importance un ta thirteenth century, that the Bishop, **. And she answers, sad and earnest : “ It year, with tapers burning and in their pa were wrong for thee to stay ; cal robes, pronounced, in the produce the God hath heard thy prayer for freedom, king and the representatives of the esta** and His finger points the way. England, the greater excommunicat). 2 the infringer of that instrument. "Ihr - “ Well I know with what endurance, for the ing ceremony took place in the great lie. " sake of me and mine, Westminster. Thou hast borne too long a burden never In Westminster's roval halls, meant for souls like thine. Robed in their pontiticals, England's ancient prelates stod “ Go; and at the hour of midnight, when For the people's right and good. our last farewell is o'er, Kneeling on our place of parting, I will Closed around the waiting crowd. bless thee froin the shore. Dark and still, like winter's cloud 1 THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERS 307 King and council, lord and knight, Squire and yeoman, stood in sight; Slavery laughs, while ghostly lips Bless his manacles and whips. Stood to hear the priest rehearse, In God's name, the Church's curse, By the tapers round them lit, Slowly, sternly uttering it. Not on then the poor rely, Not to them looks liberty, Who with fawning falsehood cower To the wrong, when clothed with power. " Right of voice in framing laws, Right of peers to try each cause ; Peasant homestead, mean and small, Sacred as the monarch's hall, Oh, to see them meanly cling, Round the master, round the king, Sported with, and sold and bought, Pitifuller sight is not ! * Whoso lays his hand on these, England's ancient liberties ; Whoso breaks, by word or deed, England's vow at Runnymede; Tell me not that this must be : God's true priest is always free ; Free the needed truth to speak, Right the wronged, and raise the weak. * Be he Prince or belted knight, Whatsoe'er his rank or might, If the highest, then the worst, Let him live and die accursed. Not to fawn on wealth and state, Leaving Lazarus at the gate ; Not to peddle creeds like wares; Not to mutter hireling prayers ; Nor to paint the new life's bliss On the sable ground of this ; Golden streets for idle krave, Sabbath rest for weary slave ! Thou, who to Thy Church hast given Keys alike of hell and heaven, Make our word and witness sure, Let the curse we speak endure !” Silent, while that curse was said, Every bare and listening head Bowed in reverent awe, and then All the people said, Amen! Seven times the bells have tolled, For the centuries gray and old, Since that stoled and mitred band Cursed the tyrants of their land. Not for words and works like these, Priest of God, thy mission is ; But to make earth's desert glad, In its Eden greenness clad ; And to level manhood bring Lord and peasant, serf and king ; And the Christ of God to find In the humblest of thy kind ! Since the priesthood, like a tower, Stood between the poor and power ; And the wronged and trodden down Blessed the abbot's shaven crown. Gone, thank God, their wizard spell, Lost their keys of heaven and hell ; Yet I sigh for men as bold As those bearded priests of old. Now too oft the priesthood wait At the threshold of the state ; Waiting for the beck and nod Of its power as law and God. Fraud exults, while solemn words Sanctify his stolen hoards ; Thine to work as well as pray, Clearing thorny wrongs away ; Plucking up the weeds of sin, Letting heaven's warm sunshine in ; Watching on the hills of Faith ; Listening what the spirit saith, Of the dim-seen light afar, Growing like a nearing star. God's interpreter art thon To the waiting ones below ; 'Twixt them and its light midway Heralding the better day ; Catching gleams of temple spires, Hearing notes of angel choirs, 308 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Where, as yet unseen of them, As into these repentant ones Comes the New Jerusalem ! We open wide our toil-worn ranks, Along our line a murmur runs Like the seer of Patmos gazing, Of song, and praise, and grateful thanks On the glory downward blazing ; Till upon Earth's grateful sod Sound for the onset! Blast on blast! Rests the City of our God ! Till Slavery's minions cower and qua? One charge of fire shall drive them fast Like chaff before our Northern gale! PÆAN O prisoners in your house of pain, This poem indicates the exultation of the Dumb, toiling millions, bound anul mil anti-slavery party, in view of the revolt of the Look! stretched o'er Southern vale an: friends of Martin Van Buren in New York from plain, the Democratic Presidential nomination in The Lord's delivering hand behold! 1848. Now, joy and thanks forevermore ! Above the tyrant's pride of power, The dreary night has wellnigh passed, His iron gates and guarded wall, The slumbers of the North are o'er, The bolts which shattered Shar's tower The Giant stands erect at last ! Hang, smoking, for a fiercer fall. More than we hoped in that dark time Awake! awake ! my Fatherland! When, faint with watching, few and worn, It is thy Northern light that shines ; We saw no welcome day-star climb This stirring march of Freedom's brand The cold gray pathway of the morn! The storm-song of thy mountain pizes O weary hours! O night of years ! Wake, dwellers where the day expires! What storms our darkling pathway swept, And hear, in winds that swrep you Where, beating back our thronging fears, lakes By Faith alone our march we kept. And fan your prairies' roaring fires, The signal-call that Freedom males! How jeered the scoffing crowd behind, How mocked before the tyrant train, As, one by one, the true and kind THE CRISIS Fell fainting in our path of pain ! They died, their brave hearts breaking slow, Written on learning the terms of the team with Mexico. But, self-forgetful to the last, In words of cheer and bugle blow Across the Stony Mountains, o'er tbe des Their breath upon the darkness passed. ert's drouth and sand, The circles of our empire touch the westers A mighty host, on either hand, ocean's strand ; Stood waiting for the dawn of day From slumberous Timpanogos, to G12, .* To crush like reeds our feeble band; and free, The morn has come, and where are they? ; Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to (a!! : nia's sea ; Troop after troop their line forsakes ; And from the mountains of the east, to . With peace-white banners waving free, ta Rosa's shores, And froin our own the glaul shout breaks, The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the ut > Of Freedom and Fraternity ! more. Like mist before the growing light, O Vale of Rio Bravo! Let thy simple clan The hostile cohorts melt away ; dren weep; Our frowning foemen of the night Close watch about their boly fire les mes Are brothers at the dawn of day! of Pecos keep; THE CRISIS 309 Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre's pines, Ind Santa Barbara toll her bells amidst her corn and vines ; For lo! the pale land-seekers come, with eager eyes of gain, Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broad Salada'; plain. Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong prevail ? Shall the broad land o'er which our flag in starry splendor waves, Forego through us its freedom, and bear the tread of slaves ? Let Sacramento's herdsmen heed what sound the winds bring down Of footsteps on the crisping snow, from cold Nevada's crown ! Full hot and fast the Saxon rides, with rein of travel slack, And, bending o'er his saddle, leaves the sunrise at his back ; By many a lonely river, and gorge of fir The day is breaking in the East of which the prophets told, And brightens up the sky of Time the Christian Age of Gold ; Old Might to Right is yielding, battle blade to clerkly pen, Earth's monarchs are ber peoples, and her serfs stand up as men; The isles rejoice together, in a day are nations born, And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by Stamboul's Golden Horn ! and pine, On many a wintry hill-top, bis nightly camp-fires shine. Is this, 0 countrymen of mine ! a day for us to sow The soil of new-gained empire with sla- very's seeds of woe ? To feed with our fresh life-blood the Old World's cast-off crime, Dropped, like some monstrous early birth, from the tired lap of Time ? To run anew the evil race the old lost na- tions rall, And die like them of unbelief of God, and wrong of man ? O countrymen and brothers ! that land of lake and plain, Of salt wastes alternating with valleys fat with grain ; Of mountains white with winter, looking downward, cold, serene, On their feet with spring-vines tangled and lapped in softest green ; Swift through whose black volcanic gates, o'er many a sunny vale, Wind-like the Arapahoe sweeps the bison's dusty trail ! Great spaces yet antravelled, great lakes whose mystic shores The Saxon rifle never heard, nor dip of Saxon oars ; Great herds that wander all unwatched, wild steeds that none have tained, Strange fish in unknown streams, and birds the Saxon never named ; Deep mines, dark mountain crucibles, where Nature's chemic powers Work out the Great Designer's will ; all these ye say are ours ! Forever ours ! for good or ill, on us the burden lies : God's balance, watched by angels, is hung across the skies. Shall Justice, Truth, and Freedom turn the poised and trembling scale ? Great Heaven! Is this our mission ? End in this the prayers and tears, The toil, the strife, the watchings of our younger, better years ? Still as the Old World rolls in light, shall ours in shadow turn, A beamless Chaos, cursed of God, through outer darkness borne ? Where the far nations looked for light, a blackness in the air ? Where for words of hope they listened, the long wail of despair ? The Crisis presses on us ; face to face with us it stands, With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in Egypt's sands! This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin ; This day for all hereafter choose we holi- ness or sin ; 310 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS his way ; Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal's A pleasant print to peddle out cloudy crown, In lands of rice and cotton ; We call the dews of blessing or the bolts The model of that face in dough of cursing down ! Would make the artist's fortune. For Fame to thee has come unsought, By all for which the martyrs bore their While others vainly woo her, agony and shame ; In proof how mean a thing can make By all the warning words of truth with A great man of its doer. which the prophets came ; By the Future which awaits us ; by all the To whom shall men thyself compare, hopes which cast Since common models fail 'em, Their faint and trembling beams across Save classic goose of ancient Rome, the blackness of the Past ; Or sacred ass of Balanın ? And by the blessed thought of Him who The gabble of that wakeful goose for Earth's freedom died, Saved Rome from sack of Breunus ; 0 my people! () my brothers ! let us The braying of the prophet's ass choose the righteous side. Betrayed the angel's menace ! So shall the Northern pioneer go joyful on So when Guy Fawkes, in petticoats And azure-tinted hose on, To wed Penobscot's waters to San Fran- Was twisting from thy love-loro sbexts cisco's bay, The slow-match of explosion – To make the rugged places smooth, and An earthquake blast that would have turns sow the vales with grain ; The l'aion as a feather, And bear, with Liberty and Law, the Bible Thy instinct saved a perilled land in his train : And perilled purse together. The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall answer sea, Just think of Carolina's sage And mountain unto mountain call, Praise Sent whirling like a Dervis, God, for we are free! Of Quattlebum in middle air Performing strange drill-service! Doomed like Assyria's lord of old, LINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF Who fell before the Jewesy, A CELEBRATED PUBLISHER Or sad Abimelech, to sigh, * Alas! a woman slew us!" The lines following were addressed to a Thou saw'st beneath a fair disguise magazine publisher, who, alarmed for his The danger darkly lurking, Southern circulation, not only dropped the name of Grace Greenwood from his list of con. , And maiden bodice dreaded more tributors, but made an offensive paraule of his Than warrior's steel-wrought yetka. action, with the view of strengthening his posi- How keen to scent the hidden plus ! tion among slaveholders and conservatives, How prompt wert thou to balk it, By some coincidence his portrait was issued With patriot zeal and pedler thritt, about the same time. For country and for pocket! A MOONY breadth of virgin face, Thy likeness here is doultless well, By thought inviolated ; But higher honor 's due it; A patient mouth, to take from scorn On auction-block and negro-jail The hook with bank-notes baited ! Admiring eyes should view it. Its self-complacent sleekness shows Or, hung aloft, it well night grace How thrift goes with the fawner ; The nntion's senate-clubes - An ictuons unconcern of all A greely Northern bottle-tly Which nice folks call dishonor ! Preserved in Slavery's aniber! DERNE 311 *DERNE O’erwrit alike, without, within, With all the woes which follow sin; But, bitterest of the ills beneath Whose load man totters down to death, Is that which plucks the regal crown Of Freedom from his forehead down, And snatches from his powerless hand The sceptred sign of self-command, Effacing with the chain and rod The image and the seal of God; Till from his nature, day by day, The manly virtues fall away, And leave him naked, blind and mute, The godlike merging in the brute ! Why mourn the quiet ones who die Beneath affection's tender eye, Unto their household and their kin Like ripened corn-sheaves gathered in ? O weeper, from that tranquil sod, That holy harvest-home of God, Turn to the quick and suffering, shed Thy tears upon the living dead ! Thank God above thy dear ones' graves, They sleep with Him, they are not slaves. The storming of the city of Derne, in 1805, by General Eaton, at the head of nine Ameri- cans, forty Greeks, and a motley array of Turks and Arabs, was one of those feats of hardihood and daring which have in all ages attracted the admiration of the multitude. The higher and holier heroism of Christian self-denial and sac- ritice, in the humble walks of private duty, is seldom so well appreciated. Sight on the city of the Moor ! On mosque and tomb, and white-walled shore, On sea-waves, to whose ceaseless knock The narrow harbor-gates unlock, On corsair's galley, carack tall, And plundered Christian caraval ! The sounds of Moslem life are still ; So mule-bell tinkles down the hill ; Stretched in the broad court of the khan, The dusty Bornou caravan Lies heaped in slumber, beast and man ; The Sheik is dreaming in his tent, His noisy Arab tongue o'erspent ; The kiosk’s glimmering lights are gone, The merchant with his wares withdrawn ; Rough pillowed on some pirate breast, The dancing-girl has sunk to rest ; And, save where measured footsteps fall Along the Bashaw's guarded wall, Or where, like some bad dream, the Jew Creeps stealthily his quarter through, Or counts with fear his golden heaps, The City of the Corsair sleeps ! But where yon prison long and low Stands black against the pale star-glow, Chafed by the ceaseless wash of waves, There watch and pine the Christian slaves ; Rough-bearded men, whose far-off wives Wear out with grief their lonely lives ; And youth, still flashing from his eyes The clear blue of New England skies, A treasured lock of whose soft hair Now wakes some sorrowing mother's prayer ; Or, worn upon some maiden breast, Stirs with the loving heart's unrest ! A bitter cup each life must drain, The groaning earth is cursed with pain, And, like the scroll the angel bore The shuddering Hebrew seer before, What dark mass, down the mountain-sides Swift-pouring, like a stream divides ? A long, loose, straggling caravan, Camel and horse and armëd man. The moon's low crescent, glimmering o'er Its grave of waters to the shore, Lights up that mountain cavalcade, And gleams from gun and spear and blade Near and more near! now o'er them falls The shadow of the city walls. Hark to the sentry's challenge, drowned In the fierce trumpet's charging sound ! The rush of men, the musket's peal, The short, sharp clang of meeting steel ! Vain, Moslem, vain thy lifeblood poured So freely on thy foeman's sword ! Not to the swift nor to the strong The battles of the right belong ; For he who strikes for Freedom wears The armor of the captive's prayers, And Nature proffers to his cause The strength of her eternal laws; While he whose arm essays to bind And herd with common brutes his kind Strives evermore at fearful odds With Nature and the jealous gods, And dares the dread recoil which late Or soon their right shall vindicate. 312 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS "Tis done, the hornëd crescent falls ! The star-flag flouts the broken walls ! Joy to the captive husband ! joy To thy sick heart, () brown-locked boy ! In sullen wrath the conquered Moor Wide open flings your dungeon-cloor, And leaves ye free from cell and chain, The owners of yourselves again. Dark as his allies desert-born, Soiled with the battle's stain, and worn With the long marches of his band Through hottest wastes of rock and sand, Scorched by the sun and furnace-breath Of the red desert's wind of death, With welcome words and grasping hands, The victor and deliverer stands! She saw the white spire through the troen, She heard the sweet hytun sbling: O pitying Christ ! a refuge give That poor one in Thy dwelling! Like a scared fawn before the bounds, Right up the aisle she glided, While close behind her, whip in hand, A lank-haired hunter strided. She raised a keen and bitter cry, To Heaven and Earth appealing: Were manhood's generous pulses dendº Had woman's heart no feeling? A score of stout bands rose between The hunter and the flying : Age clenched his staff, and maiden eyes Flashed tearful, yet defying. “ Who dares profane this house and day Cried out the angry pastor. “Why, bless your soul, the webeb's : slave, And I'm her lord and master! The tale is one of distant skies ; The dust of half a century lies ['pon it ; yet its hero's name Still lingers on the lips of Fame. Men speak the praise of him who gave Deliverance to the Moorman's slave, Yet dare to brand with shame and crime The heroes of our land and time, The self-forgetful ones, who stake Home, name, and life for Freedom's sake. God mend his heart who cannot feel The impulse of a holy zeal, And sees not, with his sordid eyes, The beauty of self-sacrifice ! Though in the sacred place he stands, l'plifting consecrated hands, l'n worthy are his lips to tell Of Jesus' martyr-miracle, Or name aright that dread embrace Of suffering for a fallen race ! “I've law and gospel on my side, And who shall dare refuse me! Down came the parson, bowing low, * My good sir, pray excuse me! “Of course I know your right divine To own and work and whip hr? ; Quick, deacon, throw that Polskist Before the wench, and trip her!" Plump dropped the holy tome, and w'er Its sacred pages stumbling, Bound hand and foot, a slave once th The hapless wretch lay trembling A SABBATH SCENE This poem finds its justification in the readi- ness with which, even in the North, clergymen urged the prompt execution of the Fugitive Slave Law as a Christian dutv, and defended the system of slavery as a Bible institution. SCARCE had the solemn Sabbath-bell Ceased quivering in the steeple, Scarce had the parson to his desk Walked stately through his people, When down the summer-shnded street A wasted female figure, With dusky brow and naked feet, Came rushing wild and eager, I saw the parson tie the knots, The while his flock addressing, The Scriptural claims of slavery With text on text impressing “ Although," said be, "on Sabbath dar All secular occupations Are deadly sins, we must fultil Our moral obligations : " And this commends itself as one To every conscience tender; As Paul sent back Onesimus, My Christian friends, we send lat!" IN THE EVIL DAYS 313 Shriek rose on shriek, the Sabbath air Her wild cries tore asunder ; I listened, with hushed breath, to hear God answering with his thunder! As bird and flower made plain of old The lesson of the Teacher, So now I heard the written Word Interpreted by Nature ! All still ! the very altar's cloth Had smothered down her shrieking, And, dumb, she turned from face to face, For human pity seeking! For to my ear methought the breeze Bore Freedom's blessed word on ; Thus saith the Lord : Break every yoke, Undo the heavy burden ! IN THE EVIL DAYS I saw her dragged along the aisle, Her shackles harshly clanking ; I heard the parson, over all, The Lord devoutly thanking! My brain took fire : “Is this," I cried, " The end of prayer and preaching ? Then down with pulpit, down with priest, And give us Nature's teaching ! “ Foul shame and scorn be on ye all Who turn the good to evil, And steal the Bible from the Lord, To give it to the Devil ! This and the four following poems have special reference to that darkest hour in the aggression of slavery which preceded the dawn of a better day, when the conscience of the people was roused to action. [Originally en- titled Stanzas for the Times, 1850.] The evil days have come, the poor Are made a prey ;. Bar up the hospitable door, Put out the fire-lights, point no more The wanderer's way. "Than garbled text or parchment law I own a statute higher ; And God is true, though every book And every man 's a liar !” For Pity now is crime ; the chain ; Which binds our States Is melted at her hearth in twain, Is rusted by her tears' soft rain : Close up her gates. a Just then I felt the deacon's hand In wrath my coat-tail seize on; I heard the priest cry, “ Infidel! The lawyer inutter, « Treason!” I started up, – where now were church, Slave, master, priest, and people ? I only heard the supper-bell, Instead of clanging steeple. But, on the open window's sill, O'er which the white blooms drifted, The pages of a good old Book The wind of summer lifted, Our Union, like a glacier stirred By voice below, Or beli of kine, or wing of bird, A beggar's crust, a kindly word May overthrow ! Poor, whispering tremblers ! yet we boast Our blood and name ; Bursting its century-bolted frost, Each gray cairn on the Northman's coast Cries out for shame! Oh for the open firmament, The prairie free, The desert hillside, cavern-rent, The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent, The Bushman's tree ! And flower and vine, like angel wings Around the Holy Mother, Waved softly there, as if God's truth And Mercy kissed each other. And freely from the cherry-bough Above the casement swinging, With golden bosom to the sun, The oriole was singing. Than web of Persian loom most rare, Or soft divan, Better the rough rock, bleak and bare, Or hollow tree, which man may share With suffering man. 314 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS I hear a voice : “ Thus saith the Law, Let Love be dumb; Clasping her liberal hands in awe, Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw Froin hearth and home.” I hear another voice : * " The poor Are thine to feed ; Turn not the outcast from thy door, Nor give to bonds and wrong once more Whom God hath freed. 1 Dear Lord ! between that law and Thee No choice remains ; Yet not untrue to man's decree, Though spurning its rewards, is he Who bears its pains. Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast And threatening word ; I read the lesson of the Past, That firin endurance wins at last More than the sword. O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou So calm and strong! Lend strength to weakness, teach us how The sleepless eyes of God look through This night of wrong! On, swift and still ! the conscious stree! Is panged and stirred ; Tread light! that fall of serried feet The dead have heard ! The first drawn blood of Freedom's reine Gushed where ye tread ; Lo! through the dusk the martyr-stales Blush darkly red ! Beneath the slowly-waning stars And whitening day, What stern and awful presence bars That sacred way? What faces frown upon ve, dark With shame and pain ? Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim buri Is that young Vane ? Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on With mocking cheer? Lo! spectral Andros, Hutchinson, And Gage are here ! For ready mart or favoring blast Through Moloch's tir', Flesh of his tleski, unsparing, passed The Tyrian sire. Ye make that ancient sacrifice Of Man to Gain, Your traffic thrives, where Freedom din Beneath the chain. Ye sow to-day; your harvest, seora And hate, is near ; How think ve freemen, mountain-barn, The tale will hear ? Thank God! our mother State can get Her fame retrieve; To you and to your children let The scandal clease. (Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press Make gouls of gold; Let honor, truth, and manliness Like wares be sold. MOLOCH IN STATE STREET In a foot-note of the Report of the Senate of Massachusetts on the case of the arrest and return to bondage of the fugitive slave Thomas Sims it is stated that " It would have been impossible for the U.S. marshal thus successfully to have resisted the law of the State, without the assistance of the municipal authorities of Boston, and the countenance and support of a numerous, wealthy, and powerful body of citizens. It was in evidence that 1000 of the most wealthy and spectable citizens — merchants, bankers, and other - volunteered thrir services to aid the manhal on this occasion. ... Xo watch was kept upon the doings of the marshal, and while the State officers slept, after the moon had gone down, in the darkrst hour before day. break, the accused was taken out of our juris. diction by the armed police of the city of Boston." The moon has set : while yet the dawn Breaks cold and gray, Between the midnight and the morn Bear off your prey! Your boards are great, your wals are strong, But God is just ; The gilded chambers built by wrong Invite the rust. THE RENDITION 315 tory !” a see What ! know ye not the gains of Crime On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss Are dust and dross ; From his own carbine, glancing still abroad Its ventures on the waves of time For some new victim, offering thanks to Foredoomed to loss ! God! Rome, listening at her altars to the cry And still the Pilgrim State remains Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of What she hath been ; hell Her inland hills, her seaward plains, Scour France, from baptized cannon and Still nurture men ! holy bell And thousand-throated priesthood, loud Vor wholly lost the fallen mart ; and high, Her olden blood Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky, Throngh many a free and generous heart “ Thanks to the Lord, who giveth vic- Still pours its flood. What prove these, but that crime was ne'er That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet, so black Shall know no check, As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack ? Till a free people's foot is set Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he On Slavery's neck. lays His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase Even now, the peal of bell and gun, And saintly posture, gives to God the praise And hills aflame, And honor of the monstrous progeny. Tell of the first great triumph won What marvel, then, in our own time to In Freedom's name. His old devices, smoothly acted o'er, - The long night dies : the welcome gray Official piety, locking fast the door Of dawn we see; Of Hope against three million souls of Speed up the heavens thy perfect day, men, God of the free! Brothers, God's children, Christ's deemed, — and then, With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee, OFFICIAL PIETY Whining a prayer for help to hide the key ! Suggested by reading a state paper, wherein the higher law is invoked to sustain the lower THE RENDITION one. (Originally entitled Lines.] A pots magistrate! sound his praise On the 2d of June, 1854, Anthony Burns, a throughout fugitive slave from Virginia, after being under The wondering churches. Who shall hence- arrest for ten days in the Boston Court House, forth doubt was remanded to slavery under the Fugitive That the long-wished millennium draw- Slave Act, and taken down State Street to a eth nigh? steamer chartered by the United States Gov- Sin in high places has become devout, ernment, under guard of United States troops Tithes mint, goes painful - faced, and and artillery, Massachusetts militia and Boston police. Public excitement ran high, a futile Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety ! during his confinement, and the streets were attempt to rescue Burns having been made crowded with tens of thousands of people, of The pirate, watching from his bloody deck whom many came from other towns and cities The weltering galleon, heavy with the of the State to witness the humiliating spec- gold tacle. Of Acapulco, holding death in check While prayers are said, brows crossed, I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call, and beads are told ; I saw an earnest look beseech, The robber, kneeling where the wayside And rather by that look than speech My neighbor told me all. re- prays its lie cross 316 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS And, as I thought of Liberty Marched bandcuffed down that sworded street, The solid earth beneath my feet Reeled Huid as the sea. I felt a sense of bitter loss, – Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, And loathing fear, as if my path A serpent stretched across. All love of home, all pride of place, All generous confidence and trust, Sank smothering in that deep disgust And anguish of disgrace. Once more thy strong maternal artis Are round about thy children flung, - A lioness that guards her young! No threat is on thy closed lips, But in thine eye a power to smite The mad wolf backward from its like? Southward the baffled robber's track Henceforth runs only ; hereaway, The fell lycanthrope finds no prey. Henceforth, within thy sacred gates, His first low bowl shall downward dros The thunder of thy righteous law. Not mindless of thy trade and grin, But, acting on the wiser plat, Thou 'rt grown conservative of man. So shalt thou clothe with life the bope, Dream-painted on the sightless eyes Of him who sang of Paradise, - The vision of a Christian man, In virtue, as in stature great Embodied in a Christian State. Down on my native hills of June, And home's green quiet, hiding all, Fell sudden darkness like the fall Of midnight upon noon! And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, Blood - drunken, through the blackness trod, Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God The blasphemy of wrong. “() Mother, from thy memories proud, Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, Lend this dead air a breeze of health, And smite with stars this cloud. “ Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, Rise awful in thy strength,” I said ; Ab me! I spake but to the dead ; 1 stood upon her grave ! And thou, amidst thy sisterhood Forbearing long, yet standing fast, Shalt win their grateful thanks at las. When North and South shall strive '. more, And all their feuds and fear be lost In Freedom's holy Pentecost. THE HASCHISH Of all that Orient lauds can raunt Of marvels with our own compt16. The strangest is the Haschish plant, And what will follow on its eating ARISEN AT LAST On the passage of the bill to protect the rights and liberties of the people of the State against the Fugitive Slave Act. (Originally entitled simply Lines.] I said I stood upon thy grave, My Mother State, when last the moon Of blossoms clomb the skies of June. And, scattering ashes on my head, I wore, in dreaming of relief, The sackcloth of thy shame and grief. Aguin that moon of blossoms shines On leaf and flower and folded wing, And thou hast risen with the spring! What pictures to the taster rise, Of Dervish or of Almeh dances ! Of Eblis, or of Paradise, Set all aglow with Houri glances! The poppy visions of Cathar, The heavy beer-trance of the Sual-ar; The wizard lights and demon play Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE 317 The Mollah and the Christian dog Change place in mad metempsychosis ; The Muezzin climbs the synagogue, The Rabbi shakes his beard at Moses ! The Arab by his desert well Sits choosing from some Caliph's daugh- ters, And hears his single camel's bell Sound welcome to his regal quarters. The Koran's reader makes complaint Of Shitan dancing on and off it ; The robber offers alms, the saint Drinks Tokay and blasphemes the Pro- phet. Such scenes that Eastern plant awakes ; But we have one ordained to beat it, The Haschish of the West, which makes Or fools or knaves of all who eat it. conflict on that ground between Freedom and Slavery. The opponents of the movement used another kind of weapon. [This song was sent to the first company of emigrants by the poet. “It is one of those prophecies," says E. E. Hale, " for which poets are born, uttered before the event and not after. In absolute hard fact, the song was sung by parties of em- igrants, sung when they started, sung as they rode, and sung in the new home."] We cross the prairie as of old The pilgrims crossed the sea, To make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free ! We go to rear a wall of men On Freedom's southern line, And plant beside the cotton-tree The rugged Northern pine ! We 're flowing from our native hills As our free rivers flow : The blessing of our Mother-land Is on us as we go. The preacher eats, and straight appears His Bible in a new translation ; Its angels negro overseers, And Heaven itself a snug plantation ! The man of peace, about whose dreams The sweet millennial angels cluster, Tastes the mad weed, and plots and schemes, A raving Cuban filibuster ! We go to plant her common schools On distant prairie swells, And give the Sabbaths of the wild The music of her bells. The noisiest Democrat, with ease, It turns to Slavery's parish beadle ; The shrewdest statesman eats and sees Due southward point the polar needle. The Judge partakes, and sits erelong Upon his bench a railing blackguard ; Decides off-hand that right is wrong, And reads the ten commandments back- ward. Upbearing, like the Ark of old, The Bible in our van, We go to test the truth of God Against the fraud of man. No pause, nor rest, save where the streams That feed the Kansas run, Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon Shall flout the setting sun ! We 'll tread the prairie as of old Our fathers sailed the sea, And make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free ! 0 potent plant ! so rare a taste Has never Turk or Gentoo gotten ; The hempen Haschish of the East Is powerless to our Western Cotton ! FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS Inscribed to friends under arrest for treason against the slave power. [Originally entitled Lines.] THE age is dull and mean. Not walk ; with blood too pale and tame To pay the debt they owe to shame ; Buy cheap, sell dear ; eat, drink, and sleep This poem and the three following were called ont by the popular movement of Free state men to occupy the territory of Kansas, and by the use of the great democratic weapon - an overpowering majority — to settle the Men creep, 318 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS on Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want ; Pay tithes for soul-insurance ; keep Six days to Mammon, one to Cant. In such a time, give thanks to God, That somewhat of the holy rage With which the prophets in their age On all its decent seemings trod, Has set your feet upon the lie, That man and ox and soul and clod Are market stock to sell and buy ! The hot words from your lips, my own, To caution trained, might not repeat ; But if some tares among the wheat Of generous thought and deed were sown, No common wrong provoked your zeal ; The silken gauntlet that is thrown In such a quarrel rings like steel. The brave old strife the fathers saw For Freedom calls for men again Like those who battled not in vain For England's Charter, Alfred's law ; And right of speech and trial just Wage in your naine their ancient war With venal courts and perjured trust. God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, They touch the shining hills of day; The evil cannot brook delay, The good can well afford to wait. Give ermined knaves their hour of crime ; Ye have the future grand and great, The safe appeal of Truth to Time ! L'ncircumcised and Gentile, aliens fruta The Commonwealth of Israel, wbo de.. The prize of the high calling of the sa:2x, Who plant amidst this heathen wilderness Pure gospel institutions, sanctitied By patriarchal use. The meeting opened With prayer, as was most fitting Huf an hour, Or thereaway, I groaned, and strove, and wrestled, As Jacob did at Penuel, till the power Fell the people, and they cred “ Amen!" Glory to God !” and stamped and clapped their hands ; And the rough river boatmen wiped there eyes ; “Go it, old hoss!” they cried, and cured the niggers – Fulfilling thus the word of prophecy, “ Cursed be (anaan." After prayer, the meeting Chose a committee good and pres men A Presbyterian Elder, Baptist dearon, A local preacher, three or four classesden Anxious inquirers, and renewed twasa- sliders, A score in all to watch the river ferty, (As they of old did watch tbe fors of Jordan,) And cut off all whose Yankee tonguere fuse The Shibboleth of the Nebraska bil And then, in answer to repeated calls I gave a brief account of what I say In Washington ; and truly many bearts Rejoiced to know the President, and you And all the Cabinet regularly bear The gospel message of a Sunday morn 5 Drinking with thirty souls of the siberre Milk of the Word. Glory! Awen, ar! Selah! LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHO- DIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLI- TICIAN Docolas Mission, August, 1954. Last week - the Lord be praised for all His mercies To His unworthy servant ! - I arrived Safe at the Mission, via Westport where I tarried over night, to aid in forming A Vigilance Committee, to send back, In shirts of tar, and feather-doublets quilted With forty stripes save one, all Yankee comers, Here, at the Mission, all things krie gone well : The brother who, throughout my al me acted As overseer, assures me that the crocan Never were better. I have lost one the A first-rate hand, but obstinate and su.. lie ran away some time last spring am: hid In the river timber. There my ini. converts BURIAL OF BARBER 319 And the persuasive lips of Colt's revolvers. There may'st thou, underneath thy vine and fig-tree, Watch thy increase of sugar cane and ne- groes, Calm as a patriarch in his eastern tent !” Amen : So mote it be. So prays your friend. Found him, and treed and shot him. For the rest, The heathens round about begin to feel The influence of our pious ministrations And works of love ; and some of them al- ready Have purchased negroes, and are settling down As sober Christians! Bless the Lord for this ! I know it will rejoice you. You, I hear, Are on the eve of visiting Chicago, To fight with the wild beasts of Ephesus, Long John, and Dutch Free-Soilers. May your arm Be clothed with strength, and on your tongue be found The sweet oil of persuasion. So desires Your brother and co-laborer. Amen! BURIAL OF BARBER Thomas Barber was shot December 6, 1855, near Lawrence, Kansas. Bear him, comrades, to his grave ; Never over one more brave Shall the prairie grasses weep, In the ages yet to come, When the millions in our room, What we sow in tears, shall reap. a Bear him up the icy hill, With the Kansas, frozen still As his noble heart, below, And the land he came to till With a freeman's thews and will, And his poor hut roofed with snow ! One more look of that dead face, Of his murder's ghastly trace ! One more kiss, 0 widowed one ! Lay your left hands on his brow, Lift your right hands up, and vow That his work shall yet be done. P. S. All 's lost. Even while I write these lines, The Yankee abolitionists are coming Upon us like a flood – grim, stalwart men, Each face set like a flint of Plymouth Rock Against our institutions — staking out Their farm lots on the wooded Wakarusa, Op squatting by the mellow - bottomed Kansas ; The pioneers of mightier multitudes, The small rain - patter, ere the thunder shower Drowns the dry prairies. Hope from man is not. Oh, for a quiet berth at Washington, Snug naval chaplaincy, or clerkship, where These rumors of free labor and free soil Might never meet me more. Better to be Door-keeper in the White House, than to dwell Amidst these Yankee tents, that, whiten- ing, show On the green prairie like a fleet becalmed. Methinks I hear a voice come up the river From those far bayous where the alligators Mount guard around the camping filibus- ters: “ Shake off the dust of Kansas. Turn to Cuba - (That golden orange just about to fall, O'er-ripe, into the Democratic lap ;) Keep pace with Providence, or, as we say, Manifest destiny. Go forth and follow The message of our gospel, thither borne Upon the point of Quitman's bowie knife, Patience, friends! The eye of God Every path by Murder trod Watches, lidless, day and night; And the dead man in his shroud, And his widow weeping lond, And our hearts, are in His sight. Every deadly threat that swells With the roar of gambling hells, Every brutal jest and jeer, Every wicked thought and plan Of the cruel heart of man, Though but whispered, He can hear ! - We in suffering, they in crime, Wait the just award of time, Wait the vengeance that is due ; Not in vain a heart shall break, Not a tear for Freedom's sake Fall unheeded : God is true. 320 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS While the flag with stars bedecked Threatens where it should protect, And the Law shakes hands with Crime, What is left us but to wait, Match our patience to our fate, And abide the better time? Patience, friends! The human heart Everywhere shall take our part, Everywhere for us shall pray ; On our side are nature's laws, And God's life is in the cause That we suffer for to-day. Well to suffer is divine ; Pass the watchword down the line, Pass the countersign : “ Endure." Not to him who rashly dares, But to him who nobly bears, Is the victor's garland sure. Frozen earth to frozen breast, Lay our slain one down to rest ; Lay him down in hope and faith, And above the broken sod, Once again, to Freedom's God, Pledge ourselves for life or death, That the State whose walls we lay, In our blood and tears, to-day, Shall be free from bonds of shame, And our goodly land untrod By the feet of Slavery, shod With cursing as with flame ! Plant the Buckeye on his grave, For the hunter of the slave In its shadow cannot rest ; And let martyr mound and tree Be our pledge and guaranty Of the freedom of the West ! Wild-wailing from Missouri's flood The crying of thy children's blood Is in thy ears to-day ! And unto thee in Freedom's bour Of sorest need God gives the power To ruin or to save ; To wound or heal, to blight or bless With fertile field or wilderness, A free home or a grave ! Then let thy virtue match the crime, Rise to a level with the time ; And, if a son of thine Betray or tempt thee, Brutus-like For Fatherland and Freedom strike As Justice gives the sign. Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of case, The great occasion's forelock se ize; And let the north-wind strong, And golden leaves of autumn, be Thy coronal of Victory Ånd thy triumphal song. LE MARAIS DU CYGNE The massacre of unarmed and upoffende men, in Southern Kansas, in May, Isto place near the Marais du Cygne of the Fress a voyageurs. TO PENNSYLVANIA O STATE prayer-founded ! never hung Such choice upon a people's tongue, Such power to bless or ban, As that which makes thy whisper Fate, For which on thee the centuries wait, And destinies of man ! Across thy Alleghanian chain, With groanings from a land in pain, The west-wind finds its way : A Blush as of roses Where rose never grew! Great drops on the bunch-grass, But not of the dew ! A taint in the sweet air For wild bees to shun ! A stain that shall never Bleach out in the sun ! Back, steed of the prairies ! Sweet song-bird, fly back! Wheel hither, bald vulture ! Gray wolf, call thy pack! The foul human vultures Have feasted and fled ; The wolves of the Border Have crept from the dead. From the hearths of their cabins, The fields of their corn, L'nwarned and unweaponed, The victims were torn, - THE PASS OF THE SIERRA 321 By the whirlwind of murder Swooped up and swept on To the low, reedy fen-lands, The Marsh of the Swan. Henceforth to the sunset, Unchecked on her way, Shall Liberty follow The march of the day. THE PASS OF THE SIERRA With a vain plea for mercy No stout knee was crooked ; In the mouths of the rifles Right manly they looked. How paled the May sunshine, O Ñarais du Cygne ! On death for the strong life, On red grass for All night above their rocky bed They saw the stars march slow ; The wild Sierra overhead, The desert's death below. green ! The Indian from his lodge of bark, The gray bear from his den, Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark, Glared on the mountain men. Still upward turned, with anxious strain, Their leader's sleepless eye, Where splinters of the mountain chain Stood black against the sky. In the homes of their rearing, Yet warm with their lives, Ye wait the dead only, Poor children and wives ! Put out the red forge-fire, The smith shall not come ; Unyoke the brown oxen, The ploughman lies dumb. Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh, O dreary death-train, With pressed lips as bloodless As lips of the slain ! Kiss down the young eyelids, Smooth down the gray hairs ; Let tears quench the curses That burn through your prayers. Strong man of the prairies, Mourn bitter and wild ! Wail, desolate woman ! W fatherless child ! But the grain of God springs up From ashes beneath, And the crown of his harvest Is life out of death. The night waned slow : at last, a glow, A gleam of sudden fire, Shot up behind the walls of snow, And tipped each icy spire. “Up, men !” he cried, “yon rocky cone, To-day, please God, we'll pass, And look from Winter's frozen throne On Summer's flowers and grass ! ” Weep, They set their faces to the blast, They trod the eternal snow, And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last The promised land below. Behind, they saw the snow-cloud tossed By many an icy horn ; Before, warm valleys, wood-embossed, And green with vines and corn. Not in vain on the dial The shade moves along, To point the great contrasts Of right and of wrong : Free homes and free altars, Free prairie and flood, The reeds of the Swan's Marsh, Whose bloom is of blood ! They left the Winter at their backs To flap his baffled wing, And downward, with the cataracts, Leaped to the lap of Spring. Strong leader of that mountain band, Another task remains, To break from Slavery's desert land A path to Freedom's plains. The winds are wild, the way is drear, Yet, flashing through the night, On the lintels of Kansas That blood shall not dry ; Henceforth the Bad Angel Shall harmless go by ; 322 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Lo! icy ridge and rocky spear Blaze out in morning light! Rise up, Frémont, and before ; The Hour must have its Man; Put on the hunting-shirt once more, And lead in Freedom's van! Oh, the cruel to Man, and the hatefal to God, Smite him down to the earth, that is card where he trod ! go A SONG FOR THE TIME Written in the summer of 1856, during the political campaign of the Free Soil party under the candidacy of John C. Frémont. U'p, laggards of Freedom ! - our free flag is cast To the blaze of the sun and the wings of the blast ; Will ye turn from a struggle so bravely From a foe that is breaking, a field that's half won ? For deeper than thunder of summer's local shower, On the dome of the sky God is striking the hour! Shall we falter before what we've prayad for so long, When the Wrong is so weak, and the Right is so strong ? Come forth all together! come old and cures young, Freedom's vote in each band, and her sc: on each tongue ; Truth naked is stronger than Falsebou.. mail ; The Wrong cannot prosper, the Right car- not fail ! Like leaves of the summer once number the foe, But the hoar-frost is falling, the portiera winds blow; Like leaves of November ereloog shulther fall, For earth wearies of them, and God's over all! begun, Whoso loves not his kind, and who fears not the Lord, Let him join that foe's service, accursed and abhorred! Let him do his base will, as the slave only can, Let him put on the bloodhound, and put off the Man! Let bim go where the cold blood that creeps WHAT OF THE DAY? in his veins Shall stiffen the slave-whip, and rust on his chains ; Written during the stirring weeks when the Where the black slave shall laugh in his great political battle for Freedom under 1 mont's leadership was permitting strite bonds, to behold of success, – a hope overshadowed ani - 3 The White Slave beside him, self-fettered nized by a sense of the magnitude of the fact and sold ! baric riil, and a forecast of the unserupa and desperate use of all its powers in the But ye, who still boast of hearts beating and decisive struggle. and warm, Rise, from lake shore and ocean's, like A sound of tumult troubles all the air, waves in a storm, Like the low thunders of a sultry ako Come, throng round our banner in Liberty's Far-rolling ere the downright like name, glare ; Like winds from your mountains, like prai- The hills blaze red with warnings ; fue ries atlame ! dmw nigh, Treading the dark with challenge and Our foe, hidden long in his ambush of night, reply. Now, forced from his covert, stands black Behold the burden of the prophet's mere in the light. The gathering hosts, – the Valley of itpun sion, THE PANORAMA 323 Dusk with the wings of eagles wheeling For God be praised ! New England o'er. Takes once more her ancient place ; Day of the Lord, of darkness and not Again the Pilgrim's banner light! Leads the vanguard of the race. It breaks in thunder and the whirlwind's Then sound again the bugles, etc. roar! Even so, Father! Let Thy will be done ; Along the lordly Hudson, Turn and o’erturn, end what Thou hast be- A shout of triumph breaks ; gun The Empire State is speaking, In judgment or in mercy : as for me, From the ocean to the lakes. If but the least and frailest, let me be Then sound again the bugles, etc. Evermore numbered with the truly free Who find Thy service perfect liberty ! The Northern hills are blazing, I fain would thank Thee that my mortal The Northern skies are bright; life And the fair young West is turning Has reached the hour (albeit through care Her forehead to the light ! and pain) Then sound again the bugles, etc. When Good and Evil, as for final strife, Close dim and vast on Armageddon's | Push every outpost nearer, plain ; Press hard the hostile towers ! And Michael and his angels once again Another Balaklava, Drive howling back the Spirits of the And the Malakoff is ours ! Night. Then sound again the bugles, Oh for the faith to read the signs aright Call the muster-roll anew ; And, from the angle of Thy perfect sight, If months have well-nigh won the field, See Truth's white banner floating on be- What may not four years do ? fore ; THE PANORAMA And the Good Cause, despite of venal friends, And base expedients, move to noble ends ; See Peace with Freedom make to Time amends, And, through its cloud of dust, the thresh- ing-floor, Flailed by the thunder, heaped with chaffless grain ! [Written with a view to political effect in the Presidential campaign of 1856. It was read by T. Starr King at the opening of a course of lectures on slavery delivered in Bos- ton at that time.] A SONG "A! fredome is a nobill thing! Fredome mayse man to haif liking. Fredome all solace to man giffis ; He levys at ese that frely levys! A nobil hart may haif nane ese Na ellys nocht that may him plese Gyff Fredome failythe." ARCHDEACON BARBOUR. INSCRIBED TO THE FRÉMONT CLUBS Written after the election in 1856, which showed the immense gains of the Free Soil party, and insured its success in 1860. BENEATH thy skies, November ! Thy skies of cloud and rain, Around our blazing camp-fires We close our ranks again. Then sound again the bugles, Call the muster-roll anew ; If months have well-nigh won the field, What may not four years do ? THROUGH the long hall the shuttered windows shed A dubious light on every upturned head ; On locks like those of Absalom the fair, On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair, On blank indifference and on curious stare ; On the pale Showman reading from his stage The hieroglyphics of that facial page ; Half sad, half scornful, listening to the bruit Of restless cane-tap and impatient foot, 324 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS gin!” And the shrill call, across the general din, “Such," said the showman, as the cur- “ Roll up your curtain ! Let the show be- tain fell, “ Is the new Canaan of our Israel ; The land of promise to the swarming North At length a murmur like the winds that Which, hive-like, sends its annual surplus break forth, Into green waves the prairie's grassy lake, To the poor Sonthron on bis wordt syi. Deepened and swelled to music clear and Scathed by the curses of uunatural tol; loud, To Europe's exiles seeking bome and rese And, as the west-wind lifts a summer cloud, And the lank nomads of the wandet The curtain rose, disclosing wide and far West, A green land stretching to the evening star, Who, asking neither, in their love of change Fair rivers, skirted by primeval trees And the free bison's amplitude of range, And flowers hummed over by the desert Rear the log-hut, for present shelter mast, bees, Not future comfort, like an Arab's tent." Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of green- ness show Then spake a shrewd on-looker, *$4," Fantastic outcrops of the rock below ; said he, The slow result of patient Nature's pains, “I like your picture, but I fain wvald sa And plastic tingering of her sun and rains ; A sketch of what your promised land wi? Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely win- be dowed ball, When, with electric nerve and fiery-bora cand And long escarpment of half - crumbled With Nature's forces to its chariot et. ...i wall, The future grasping, by the past obred, Iluger than those which, from steep hills The twentieth century rounds a br* de of vine, cade." Stare through their loopholes on the trav- elled Rhine ; Then said the Showman, sadly : - le Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind who grieves A fancy, idle as the prairie wind, Over the seattering of the sibyl's leaves Of the land's dwellers in an age unguessed; Unwisely mourns. Suftice it, that were The unsung Jotuns of the mystic West. What needs must ripen from the senses we sow; Beyond, the prairie's sea-like swells sur- | That present time is but the mould sbr. pass We cast the shapes of holiness and sin. The Tartar's marvels of his Land of Grass, A painful watcher of the passing bout, Vast as the sky against whose sunset shores Its lust of gold, its strife for place and Wave after wave the billowy greenness power ; pours ; Its lack of inanhood, honor, reverence, And, onward still, like islands in that truth, main Wise-thoughted age, and generoas-brarte Loom the rough peaks of many a mountain youth; chain, Nor yet unmindful of each better se Whence east and west a thousand waters The low, far lights, which on th' brie run shine, From winter lingering under summer's sun. Like those which sometimes tremble other And, still beyond, long lines of foam and rim sand Of clouded skies when day is closir Tell where Pacific rolls his waves a-land, Flashing athwart the purple spears fra From many a wide-lapped port and land- The hope of sunshine on the hills agas locked bay, I need no prophet's word, nor slapes :- Opening with thunderous pomp the world's pass highway Like clouding shadows o'er a magic glas; To Indian isles of spice, and marts of far For now, as ever, passionless and evi Cathay. | Doth the dread angel of the future band THE PANORAMA 325 all 66 Evil and good before us, with no voice Like sudden nightfall over bloom and Or warning look to guide us in our choice ; green With spectral hands outreaching through The curtain dropped : and, momently, be- the gloom tween The shadowy contrasts of the coming doom. The clank of fetter and the crack of thong, Transferred from these, it now remains to Half sob, half laughter, music swept along ; give A strange refrain, whose idle words and low, The sun and shade of Fate's alternative." Like drunken mourners, kept the time of woe ; Then, with a burst of music, touching As if the revellers at a masquerade Heard in the distance funeral marches The keys of thrifty life, the mill-stream's played. fall, Such music, dashing all his smiles with tears, The engine's pant along its quivering rails, The thoughtful voyager on Pontchartrain The anvil's ring, the measured beat of flails, hears, The sweep of scythes, the reaper's whistled Where, through the noonday dusk of tune, wooded shores Answering the summons of the bells of noon, The negro boatman, singing to his oars, The woodman's hail along the river shores, With a wild pathos borrowed of his wrong The steamboat's signal, and the dip of oars : Redeems the jargon of his senseless song: Slowly the curtain rose from off a land “Look," said the Showman, sternly, as he Fair as God's garden. Broad on either hand rolled The golden wheat-fields glimmered in the His curtain upward. Fate's reverse be- sun, hold !” And the tall maize its yellow tassels spun. Smooth highways set with hedge-rows liv- A village straggling in loose disarray ing green, Of vulgar newness, premature decay ; With steepled towns through shaded vistas A tavern, crazy with its whiskey brawls, seen, With “ Slaves at Auction ! ” garnishing its The school-house murmuring with its hive- walls ; like swarm, Without, surrounded by a motley crowd, The brook-bank whitening in the grist-mill's The shrewd-eyed salesman, garrulous and storm, loud, The painted farm-house shining through the A squire or colonel in his pride of place, leaves Known at free fights, the caucus, and the Of fruited orchards bending at its eaves, race, Where live again, around the Western Prompt to proclaim his honor without blot, hearth, And silence doubters with a ten-pace shot, The homely old-time virtues of the North ; | Mingling the negro-driving bully's rant Where the blithe housewife rises with the With pious phrase and democratic cant, day, Yet never scrupling, with a filthy jest, And well-paid labor counts his task a play. To sell the infant from its mother's breast, And, grateful tokens of a Bible free, Break through all ties of wedlock, home, And the free Gospel of Humanity, and kin, Of diverse sects and differing names the Yield shrinking girlhood up to graybeard shrines, sin ; One in their faith, whate'er their outward Sell all the virtues with his human stock, signs, The Christian graces on his anction-block, Like varying strophes of the same sweet And coolly count on shrewdest bargains hymn driven From many a prairie's swell and river's In hearts regenerate, and in souls forgiven ! brim, A thousand church-spires sanctify the air Look once again ! The moving canvas Of the calm Sabbath, with their sign of shows prayer. A slave plantation's slovenly repose, a 326 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Where, in rude cabins rotting midst their From sea to sea the Mauraises Terres have weeds, grown, The human chattel eats, and sleeps, and A belt of curses on the New World's zut! breeds ; And, held a brute, in practice, as in law, The curtain fell. All drew a freer brand.com Becomes in fact the thing he 's taken for. As men are wont to do when mouratul death There, early summoned to the hemp and Is covered from their sight. The show corn, stood The nursing mother leaves her child new- With drooping brow in sorrow's attitude boru ; One moment, then with sudden gedie!" There haggard sickness, weak and deathly shook faint, Ilis loose hair back, and with the air and Crawls to his task, and fears to make com- look plaint; Of one who felt, beyond the narrow start And sad-eyed Rachels, childless in decay, And listening group, the presence of Weep for their lost ones sold and torn age, away! And heard the footsteps of the things to be Of ampler size the master's dwelling stands, Poured out his soul in earnest worus u. In shabby keeping with his half-tilled lands ; free. The gates unhinged, the yard with weeds unclean, “O friends !” he said, “in this puur trik The cracked veranda with a tipsy lean. of paint Without, loose-scattered like a wreck adrift, You see the semblance, incompl te sa: Signs of misrule and tokens of unthrift; faint, Within, profusion to discomfort joined, Of the two-fronted Future, which, toxlas, The listless body and the vacant mind ; Stands dim and silent, waiting in your ! The fear, the hate, the theft and falsehood, To-day your servant, subject to your born To-morrow, master, or for good or Il In menial bearts of toil, and stripes, and If the dark face of Slavery on you turns, scorn! If the mad curse its paper barrier sirom There, all the vices, which, like birds ob- If the world granary of the West I* ILMS scene, The last foul market of the slaver's trade, Batten on slavery loathsome and unclean, Why rail at fate? The mischafu From the foul kitchen to the parlor rise, own. Pollute the nursery where the child-heir Why bate your neighbor! Blame your lies, selves alone! Taint infant lips beyond all after cure, With the fell poison of a breast impure ; “Men of the North! The Suath you Touch boyhood's passions with the breath of charge with wrong flaine, Is weak and poor, while you are rib and From girlhood's instincts steal the blush of strong. shame, If questions, – idle and alsurd as the So swells, from low to high, from weak to The old-time monks and Padua d.**** strong, chose, The tragic chorus of the baleful wrong ; Mere ghosts of questions, tarifls, and dem Guilty or guiltless, all within its range bank, Feel the blind justice of its sure revenge. And scarecrow pontiffs, never brve ruet ranks, Still scenes like these the moving chart Your thews united could, at once, rell reveals. The joutled pation to its primal trus L'p the long western steppes the blighting Nay, were you simply steadfast, mans.co. steals; True to the faith your fathers left i Down the Pacific slope the evil Fate If stainless honor outweighed in our Glides like a shadow to the Golden Gate : A codtish quintal or a factory bale, From sea to sea the drear eclipse is thrown, Full many a noble heart, (and sub THE PANORAMA 327 own. wave In all the South, like Lot in Siddim's plain, “Grant that the North 's insulted, Who watch and wait, and from the wrong's scorned, betrayed, control O'erreached in bargains with her neighbor Keep white and pure their chastity of soul,) made, Now sick to loathing of your weak com- When selfish thrift and party held the scales plaints, For peddling dicker, not for honest sales, Your tricks as sinners, and your prayers as Whom shall we strike ? Who most de- saints, serves our blame ? Would half-way meet the frankness of your The braggart Southron, open in his aim, tone, And bold as wicked, crashing straight And feel their pulses beating with your through all That bars his purpose, like a cannon-ball ? Or the mean traitor, breathing northern "The North ! the South ! no geographic air, line With nasal speech and puritanic hair, Can fix the boundary or the point define, Whose cant the loss of principle survives, Since each with each so closely interblends, As the mud-turtle e'en its head outlives ; Where Slavery rises, and where Freedom Who, caught, chin - buried in some foul ends. offence, Beneath your rocks the roots, far-reaching, Puts on a look of injured innocence, hide And consecrates his baseness to the cause Of the fell Upas on the Southern side ; Of constitution, union, and the laws ? The tree whose branches in your north winds “Praise to the place-man who can hold Dropped its young blossoms on Mount aloof Vernon's grave; His still unpurchased manhood, office- The nursing growth of Monticello's crest, proof Is now the glory of the free Northwest ; Who on his round of duty walks erect, To the wise maxims of her olden school And leaves it only rich in self-respect ; Virginia listened from thy lips, Rantoul ; As More maintained his virtue's lofty port Seward's words of power, and Sumner's In the Eighth Henry's base and bloody fresh renown, Flow from the pen that Jefferson laid down ! But, if exceptions here and there are found, And when, at length, her years of madness Who tread thus safely on enchanted ground, o'er, The normal type, the fitting symbol still Like the crowned grazer on Euphrates' Of those who fatten at the public mill, shore, Is the chained dog beside his master's door, From her long lapse to savagery, her mouth Or Circe's victim, feeding on all four ! Bitter with baneful herbage, turns the South, “Give me the heroes who, at tuck of Resumes her old attire, and seeks to smooth drum, Her unkempt tresses at the glass of truth, Salute thy staff, immortal Quattlebum ! Her early faith shall find a tongue again, Or they who, doubly armed with vote and New Wythes and Pinckneys swell that old gun, refrain, Following thy lead, illustrious Atchison, Her sons with yours renew the ancient Their drunken franchise shift from scene pact, to scene, The myth of Union prove at last a fact ! As tile-beard Jourdan did his guillotine ! Then, if one murmur mars the wide con- Rather than him who, born beneath our tent, skies, Some Northern lip will drawl the last dis- To Slavery's hand its supplest tool sup- sent, plies ; Some Union-saving patriot of your own The party felon whose unblushing face Lament to find his occupation gone. Looks from the pillory of his bribe of place, court. a 328 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS rave saves And coolly makes a merit of disgrace, “Such are the men who in your (kurios Points to the foot marks of indignant scorn, Shows the deep scars of satire's tossing To swearing-point, at mention of the slave' horn ; When some poor parson, haply unawar's And passes to his credit side the sum Stammers of freedom in his timid prayer Of all that makes a scoundrel's martyr- Who, if some foot-sore begro thringt i dom! town Steals northward, volunteer to hunt ki “ Bane of the North, its canker and its down. moth ! Or, if some neighbor, flying from disse These modern Esaus, bartering rights for Courts the mild balsam of the Souther broth! breeze, Taxing our justice, with their double claim, With hue and cry pursue him on his tra i As fools for pity, and as knaves for blame ; And write Free-soiler on the poor mai Who, urged by party, sect, or trade, within back. The fell embrace of Slavery's sphere of Such are the men who leave the pp. sin, cart, Part at the outset with their moral sense, While faring South, to learn the drive's The watchful angel set for Truth's defence ; art, Confound all contrasts, good and ill; re- Or, in white neckcloth, soothe with you verse aim The poles of life, its blessing and its curse ; The graceful sorrows of some lassins And lose thenceforth from their perverted dame, sight Who, from the wreck of her bereare m-**, The eternal difference 'twixt the wrong and right; The double charm of widow hond 4: ! To them the Law is but the iron span slaves ! That girds the ankles of imbruted man ; Pliant and apt, they lose no chance to sl.. To them the Gospel has no higher aim To what base depths aposta«s can ; Than simple sanction of the master's claim, Outdo the natives in their readiness Dragged in the slime of Slavery's loath- To roast a negro, or to mob a pres; some trail, Poise a tarred schoolmate on the lyukle:) Like Chalier's Bible at his ass's tail ! rail, Or make a bonfire of their birthplace usi “Such are the men who, with instinctive dread, “So some poor wretch, whose lips Whenever Freedom lifts her drooping head, longer bear Make prophet-tripods of their office-stools, The sacred burden of his mother's pharet And scare the nurseries and the village By fear impelled, or lust of gold rit. vi. schools Turns to the Crescent from the (tas With dire presage of ruin grim and great, Christ, A broken Union and a foundered State ! And, overacting in superfluous zeal, Such are the patriots, self-bound to the Crawls prostrate where the faithiul. stake kneel, Of office, martyrs for their country's sake: Out-how's the Dervish, hngs his rig: Who fill themselves the hungry jaws of court Fate, The squalid Santon's sanctity of dirt ; And by their loss of manhood save the And, when beneath the city gateways State. Files slow and long the Meccan cararea In the wide gulf themselves like Curtius And through its midst, punued by Isa. throw, prayers, And test the virtues of cohesive dough ; The prophet's Word some farored eze As tropic monkeys, linking heads and tails, bears, Bridge o'er some torrent of Ecuador's The marked apostate has his place ale asཝ་ལམ་ vales ! The Koran-bearer's sacred rump box2.n. THE PANORAMA 329 The north-wind's anger, and the south- wind's sigh, The midnight sword-dance of the northern sky, And, to the ear that bends above the sod Of the green grave-mounds in the Fields of God, In low, deep murmurs of rebuke or cheer, The land's dead fathers speak their hope or fear, Yet let not Passion wrest from Reason's hand The guiding rein and symbol of command. Blame not the caution proffering to your zeal A well-meant drag upon its hurrying wheel ; Nor chide the man whose honest doubt ex- tends To the means only, not the righteous ends ; Nor fail to weigh the scruples and the fears Of milder natures and serener years. In the long strife with evil which began With the first lapse of new-created man, Wisely and well has Providence assigned To each his part, — some forward, some be- hind; With brush and pitcher following, grave and mute, In meek attendance on the holy brute ! “Men of the North ! beneath your very eyes, By hearth and home, your real danger lies. Still day by day some hold of freedom falls Through home-bred traitors fed within its walls. Men whom yourselves with vote and purse sustain, At posts of honor, influence, and gain ; The right of Slavery to your sons to teach, And • South-side' Gospels in your pulpits preach, Transfix the Law to ancient freedom dear On the sharp point of her subverted spear, And imitate upon her cushion plump The mad Missourian lynching from his stump ; Or, in your name, upon the Senate's floor Yield up to Slavery all it asks, and more ; And, ere your dull eyes open to the cheat, Sell your old homestead underneath your feet! While such as these your loftiest outlooks bold, While truth and conscience with your wares are sold, While grave-browed merchants band them- selves to aid An annual man-hunt for their Southern trade, What moral power within your grasp re- mains To stay the mischief on Nebraska's plains ? High as the tides of generous impulse flow, As far rolls back the selfish undertow ; And all your brave resolves, though aimed as true As the horse-pistol Balmawhapple drew, To Slavery's bastions lend as slight a shock As the poor trooper's shot to Stirling rock! * Yet, while the need of Freedom's cause demands The earnest efforts of your hearts and hands, Urged by all motives that can prompt the heart Το prayer and toil and manhood's manliest part ; Though to the soul's deep tocsin Nature joins The warning whisper of her Orphic pines, And they, too, serve who temper and re- strain The o'erwarm heart that sets on fire the brain. True to yourselves, feed Freedom's altar- flame With what you have ; let others do the same. Spare timid doubters ; set like flint your face Against the self-sold knaves of gain and place : Pity the weak ; but with usparing hand Cast out the traitors who infest the land ; From bar, press, pulpit, cast them every- where, By dint of fasting, if you fail by prayer. And in their place bring men of antique mould, Like the grave fathers of your Age of Gold ; Statesmen like those who sought the primal fount Of righteous law, the Sermon on the Mount ; Lawyers who prize, like Quincy, (to our day Still spared, Heaven bless him!) honor more than pay, And Christian jurists, starry-pure, like Jay ; Preachers like Woolman, or like them who bore 330 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS The faith of Wesley to our Western shore, And one long rolling fire of triumph run And beld no convert genuine till he broke Between the sunrise and the sunset gun!" Alike his servants' and the Devil's yoke ; And priests like him who Newport's mar- ket trod, My task is done. The Showman and Le And o'er its slave-ships shook the bolts of show, God ! Themselves but shadows, into shadows go, So shall your power, with a wise prudence And, if no song of idlesse I have sung, used, Nor tints of beauty on the canvas tung: Strong but forbearing, firm but not abused, If the harsh numbers grate on tender res In kindly keeping with the good of all, And the rough picture overwrought aſupan The nobler maxims of the past recall, With deeper coloring, with a sterne. Her natural home-born right to Freedom Before my soul a voice and vision perde give, Such as might Milton's jarring trump to And leave her foe his robber-right, – to live. quire, Live, as the snake does in his noisome fen! Or glooms of Dante fringed with lard Live, as the wolf does in bis bone-strewn Oh, not of choice, for themes of pathe win: den ! I leave the green and pleasant paths of Live, clothed with cursing like a robe of The mild, sweet words which soften flame, adorn, The focal point of million-fingered shame ! For sharp rebuke and bitter langh of sny Live, till the Southron, who, with all his More dear to me some song of private web faults, Some homely idyl of my native Sortie Has manly instincts, in his pride revolts, Some summer pastoral of ber iniand van Dashes from off him, midst the glad world's Or, grim and weird, her winter tirre cheers, tales The hideous nightmare of his dream of Haunted by ghosts of nnretuming sale years, Lost barks at parting hung from ten And lifts, self-prompted, with his own right helm hand, With prayers of love like dreams on 1.16 The vile encumbrance from his glorious elm. land ! Nor private grief nor malice holds av pea I owe but kindness to my fellow-ren: “So, wheresoe'er our destiny sends forth And, South or North, wherever daearts i Its widening circles to the South or North, prayer Where'er our banner flaunts beneath the Their woes and weakness to our Fat berben stars Wherever fruits of Christian love arr fue Its mimic splendors and its clondlike bars, In holy lives, to me is holy ground. There shall Free Labor's hardy children But the time passes. It wer vain to cart stand A late indulgence. What I had I gave The equal sovereigns of a slaveless land. Forget the poet, but his warning beetha And when at last the hunted bison tires, And shame his poor word with your nadir And dies o'ertaken by the squatter's fires ; deed. And westward, wave on wave, the living flood Breaks on the snow-line of majestic Hood ; ON A PRAYER-BOOK And lonely Shasta listening hears the tread Of Europe's fair-baired children, Hesper- WITH ITS FRONTISPIT( E. ARY SHEFY1). led ; *CHRISTI'S CONSOLATOR," ANERKAN And, gazing downward through his boar- IZED BY THE OMISSION OF THE BLI locks, sees MAS The tawny Asian climb his giant knees, It is hardly to be creditrd. vet is trot The Eastern sea shall hush his waves to in the an viety of the Northern metra hear conciliate his Southern customer, a pesa" - Pacific's surf-beat answer Freedom's cheer, was found ready thus to mutilate Sebatte: ON A PRAYER-BOOK 331 Are moved by flattery's oil of tongue alone ; That in the scale Eternal Justice bears The generous deed weighs less than selfish prayers, And words intoned with graceful unction move The Eternal Goodness more than lives of truth and love. Alas, the Church! The reverend head of Jay, Enhaloed with its saintly silvered hair, Adorns no more the places of her prayer ; And brave young Tyng, too early called away, Troubles the Haman of her courts no more picture. He intended his edition for use in the Southern States undoubtedly, but copies fell into the hands of those who believed literally in a gospel which was to preach liberty to the captive. 0 ARY SCHEFFER ! when beneath thine eye, Touched with the light that cometh from above, Grew the sweet picture of the dear Lord's love, No dream hadst thou that Christian hands would tear Therefrom the token of His equal care, And make thy symbol of His truth a lie ! The poor, dumb slave whose shackles fall away In His compassionate gaze, grubbed smoothly out, To mar no more the exercise devout Of sleek oppression kneeling down to pray Where the great oriel stains the Sabbath day ! Let whoso can before such praying-books Kneel on his velvet cushion; I, for one, Would sooner bow, a Parsee, to the sun, Or tend a prayer-wheel in Thibetar brooks, Or beat a drum on Yedo's temple-floor. No falser idol man has bowed before, In Indian groves or islands of the sea, Than that which through the quaint- carved Gothic door Looks forth, -a Church without human- ity! Patron of pride, and prejudice, and wrong, The rich man's charm and fetich of the strong, The Eternal Fulness meted, clipped, and shorn, The seamless robe of equal mercy torn, The dear Christ hidden from His kindred flesh, And, in His poor ones, crucified afresh! Better the simple Lama scattering wide, Where sweeps the storm Alechan's steppes along, His paper horses for the lost to ride, And wearying Buddha with his prayers to make The figures living for the traveller's sake, Than he who hopes with cheap praise to begnile The ear of God, dishonoring man the while ; Who dreams the pearl gate's hinges, rusty grown, Like the just Hebrew at the Assyr- ian's door ; And her sweet ritual, beautiful but dead As the dry husk from which the grain is shed," And holy hymns from which the life de- vout Of saints and martyrs has wellnigh gone out, Like candles dying in exhausted air, For Sabbath use in measured grists are ground; And, ever while the spiritual mill goes round, Between the upper and the nether stones, Unseen, unheard, the wretched bondman groans, And urges his vain plea, prayer-smothered, anthem-drowned ! O heart of mine, keep patience! Looking forth, As from the Mount of Vision, I behold, Pure, just, and free, the Church of Christ on earth; The martyr's dream, the golden age fore- told ! And found, at last, the mystic Graal I see, Brimmed with His blessing, pass from lip to lip In sacred pledge of human fellowship ; And over all the songs of angels hear ; Songs of the love that casteth out all fear; Songs of the Gospel of Humanity! Lo! in the midst, with the same look He wore, Healing and blessing on Gennesaret's shore, 332 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Folding together, with the all - tender might Of His great love, the dark hands and the white, Stands the Consoler, soothing every pain, Making all burdens light, and breaking every chain. THE SUMMONS (After publishing this poem Whittier wrote to Lucy Larcom: "I do not quite like the tone of The Summons now that it is published. It was, however, an expression of a state of mind which thee would regard as pardonable if thee knew all the circumstances. It is too complain- ing, and I hope I shall not be left to do such a thing again.") My ear is full of summer sounds, Of summer sights my languid eye ; Beyond the dusty village bounds I loiter in my daily rounds, And in the noon-time shadows lie. TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD On the 12th of January, INI, Mrvard delivered in the Senate chamber a speech on The State of the Union, in which be tarpeiden paramount duty of peserving the l'nü, sai went as far as it was possible to go, siehe : surrender of principles, in concessd seas to : Southern party. STATESMAN, I thank thee ! and, if needs sent Mingles, reluctant, with my large content, I cannot censure what was nobly meant. But, while constrained to hold even l'eda less Than Liberty and Truth and Rightrouver I thank tbee in the sweet and body mase Of peace, for wise calm words that pul to shame Passion and party. Courage teay be buna Not in detiance of the wrong albe; He may be bravest who, unweapmied, lean The olive branch, and, strong in je spares The rash wrong-doer, giving widest super To Christian charity and genera lo que If, without damage to the sacred (52 Of Freedom and the safeguard u laws- If, without yielding that for which we We prize the l'nion, thou canst Autº From a baptism of blood, upon the bir A wreath whose tlowers no earth! have known, Woven of the beatitudes, shall ret And the peacemaker be forever bles! now I hear the wild bee wind his horn, The bird swings on the ripened wheat, The long green lances of the corn Are tilting in the winds of morn, The locust shrills his song of heat. Another sound my spirit hears, A deeper sound that drowns them all ; A voice of pleading choked with tears, The call of human hopes and fears, The Macedonian cry to Paul ! The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows; I know the word and countersign ; Wherever Freedom's vanguard goes, Where stand or fall her friends or foes, I know the place that should be mine. Shamed be the hands that idly fold, And lips that woo the reed's accord, When lagunrd Time the hour has tolled For true with false and new with old To fight the battles of the Lord ! () brothers ! blest by partial Fate With power to match the will and deed, To him your summons comes too late Who sinks beneath his armor's weight, And has no answer but God-speed ! IX WIR TIME TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL AV! HARRIET W. SEWALL OF MELROSE These lines to my old friends s** cation in the volume which canta.-d... tion of pieces under the gun tal til Iar Time. The group bloning 4.1".' under that title I have record bo other pieces in the volume are distr:. among the appropriate divisions. A WORD FOR THE HOUR 333 Our feet are seamed with crimson scars, Thy will be done ! Olor ISCANUS queries : “Why should we l'ex at the land's ridiculous miserie ?" So on his Usk banks, in the blood-red dawn Of England's civil strife, did careless Vaughan Bemock his times. O friends of many If, for the age to come, this hour Of trial hath vicarious power, And, blest by Thee, our present pain Be Liberty's eternal gain, Thy will be done ! years! Strike, Thou the Master, we Thy keys, The anthem of the destinies ! The minor of Thy loftier strain, Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain, Thy will be done ! Though faith and trust are stronger than our fears, And the signs promise peace with liberty, Not thus we trifle with our country's tears And sweat of agony. The future's gain Is certain as God's truth ; but, meanwhile, pain Is bitter and tears are salt : our voices take A sober tone ; our very bousehold songs Are heavy with a nation's griefs and wrongs ; And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat, The eyes that smile no more, the unreturn- ing feet! A WORD FOR THE HOUR THY WILL BE DONE We see not, know not ; all our way Is night, with Thee alone is day : From out the torrent's troubled drift, Above the storm our prayers we lift, Thy will be done ! *The flesh may fail, the heart may faint, But who are we to make complaint, Or dare to plead, in times like these, The weakness of our love of ease ? Thy will be done ! The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse Light after light goes out. One evil star, Luridly glaring through the smoke of war, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep Our faith and patience ; wherefore should we leap On one hand into fratricidal fight, Or, on the other, yield eternal right, Frame lies of law, and good and ill con- found ? What fear we ? Safe on freedom's vantage- ground Our feet are planted : let us there remain In unrevengeful calm, no means untried Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied, The sad spectators of a suicide ! They break the links of Union : shall we light The fires of hell to weld anew the chain On that red anvil where each blow is pain ? Draw we not even now a freer breath, As from our shoulders falls a load of death Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore When keen with life to a dead horror bound? Why take we up the accursed thing again? Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion's rag With its vile reptile-blazon. Let us press The golden cluster on our brave old flag In closer union, and, if numbering less, Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain. a We take with solemn thankfulness Our burden up, nor ask it less, And count it joy that even we May suffer, serve, or wait for Thee, Whose will be done ! Though dim as yet in tint and line, We trace Thy picture's wise design, And thank Thee that our age supplies Its dark relief of sacrifice. Thy will be done ! And if, in our unworthiness, Thy sacrificial wine we press; If from Thy ordeal's heated bars 334 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS 1 “EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT" LUTHER'S HYMN We wait beneath the furnace-blast The pangs of transformation ; Not painlessly doth God recast And mould anew the nation. Hot burns the fire Where wrongs expire ; Nor spares the hand That from the land Uproots the ancient evil. The hand-breadth clond the sages feared Its bloody rain is dropping ; The poison plant the fathers spared All else is overtopping: East, West, South, North, It curses the earth; All justice dies, And fraud and lies Live only in its shadow. What gives the wheat-field blades of steel ? What points the rebel cannon ? What sets the roaring rabble's heel On the old star-spangled pennon ? What breaks the oath Of the men o' the South ? What whets the knife For the Union's life ? - Hark to the answer : Slavery ! Then waste no blows on lesser foes In strife unworthy freemen. God lifts to-lay the veil, and shows The features of the demon ! ( North and South, Its victims both, Can ye not cry, * Let slavery die !" And union find in freedom ? What though the cast-out spirit tear The nation in his going? We who have shared the guilt must share The pang of his o'erthrowing ! Whate'er the loss, Whate'er the cross, Shall they complain Of present pain Who trust in God's hereafter ? For who that leans on His right arm Was ever yet forsaken? What righteous cause can suffer harm If He its part has taken ? Though wild and loud, And dark the cloud, Behind its folds His hand upholds The calm sky of to-morrow! Above the maddening cry for blood, Above the wild war-drumming, Let Freedom's voice be heard, with gowe The evil overcoming. Give prayer and purse To stay the Curse Whose wrong we share, Whose shame we bear, Whose end shall gladden Heaven! In vain the bells of war shall ring Of triumphs and revenges, While still is spared the evil thing That severs and estranges. But blest the ear That yet shall hear The jubilant bell That rings the knell Of Slavery forever! Then let the selfish lip be dumh, And hushed the breath of sighing: Before the joy of peace must come The pains of purifying. God give us grace Each in his place To bear his lot, And, murmuring not, Endure and wait and labor ! TO JOHN C. FREMONT On the 31st of August, 1-11. General F mont, then in charge of the Western I. ment, issued a proclamation which entaba clause, famous as the first annunc et er emancipation : "The property," it deia "real and personal, of all persons in the 20* of Missouri, who shall take up arms arias LE l'nited States, or who shall be directly pro v to have taken active part with their ebe- the field, is declard to be contiecated to them public use; and their slaves, if any the bar are hereby declared free wen." Mr. Liberalerna THE WATCHERS 333 regarded the proclamation as premature and countermanded it, after vainly endeavoring to persuade Frémont of his own motion to re- voke it. Two angels, each with drooping head And folded wings and noiseless tread, Watched by that valley of the dead. The one, with forehead saintly bland And lips of blessing, not command, Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand. The other's brows were scarred and knit, His restless eyes were watch-fires lit, His hands for battle-gauntlets fit. Thy error, Frémont, simply was to act A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact, And, taking counsel but of common sense, To strike at cause as well as consequence. Oh, never yet since Roland wound his horn At Roncesvalles, has a blast been blown Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own, Heard from the van of freedom's hope for- lorn! It had been safer, doubtless, for the time, To flatter treason, and avoid offence To that Dark Power whose underlying crime Heaves upward its perpetual turbulence. But if thine be the fate of all who break The ground for truth's seed, or forerun “ How long !” I knew the voice of Peace, “Is there no respite ? no release ? When shall the hopeless quarrel cease ? “O Lord, how long! One human soul Is more than any parchment scroll, Or any flag thy winds unroll. “What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave? How weigh the gift that Lyon gave, Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave ? . their years “O brother ! if thine eye can see, Tell how and when the end shall be, What hope remains for thee and me." Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make A lane for freedom through the level spears, Still take thou courage ! God has spoken through thee, Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free ! The land shakes with them, and the slave's dull ear Turns from the rice-swamp stealthily to hear. Who would recall them now must first ar- rest The winds that blow down from the free Northwest, Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back The Mississippi to its upper springs. Sach words fulfil their prophecy, and lack But the full time to harden into things. Then Freedom sternly said : "I shun No strife nor pang beneath the sun, When buman rights are staked and won. “I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock, I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock, I walked with Sidney to the block. a “The moor of Marston felt my tread, Through Jersey snows the march I led, My voice Magenta's charges sped. THE WATCHERS BESIDE a stricken field I stood ; On the torn turf, on grass and wood, Hung heavily the dew of blood. Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain, Bat all the air was quick with pain And gusty sighs and tearful rain. “ But now, through weary day and night, I watch a vague and aimless fight For leave to strike one blow aright. “ On either side my foe they own : One guards through love his ghastly throne, And one through fear to reverence grown. “Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed, By open foes, or those afraid To speed thy coming through my aid ? 66 336 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Why watch to see who win or fall ? I shake the dust against them all, I leave them to their senseless brawl.” 66 "Nay,” Peace implored : " yet longer wait ; The doom is near, the stake is great : God knoweth if it be too late. - Still wait and watch ; the way prepare Where I with folded wings of prayer May follow, weaponless and bare." “ Too late !" the stern, sad voice replied, - Too late!” its mournful echo sighed. In low lament the answer died. A rustling as of wings in flight, An upward gleam of lessening white, So passed the vision, sound and sight. But round me, like a silver bell Rung down the listening sky to tell Of holy help, a sweet voice fell. “Still hope and trust," it sang ; "the rod Must fall, the wine-press must be trod, But all is possible with God ! ” Lo ! – presto, change! its claims toe urge, Send greetings to it o'er the surge, And comfort and protect it. But yesterday you scarce could shake, In slave-abborring rigor, Our Northern palms for conscience' sake To-lay you clasp the hands that ache With“ walloping the nigger!" () Englishmen!-- in hope and creed, In blood and tongrie our brothers! We too are heirs of Runnymede ; And Shakespeare's fame and Cromweis deed Are not alune our mother's. “ Thicker than water," in one rill Through centuries of story Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still We share with you its good and ill, The shadow and the glory. Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of vare Nor length of years can part us: Your right is ours to shrine and grave, The common freehold of the brave, The gift of saints and martyrs. Our very sins and follies teach Our kindred frail and human : We carp at faults with bitter speerb, The while, for one unshared by each, We have a score in common. We bowed the heart, if not the knee, To England's Queen, God bless ber' We praised you when your slaves were free: We seek to nncbain ours. Will re Join hands with the oppressor : And is it Christian England cheers The bruiser, not the bruined ? And must she run, despite the tears And prayers of eighteen hundred years Amuck in Slavery's crusade? Oh, black disgrace! Oh, shame aral kums Too deep for tongue to phrase on! Tear from your tiag its holy cros, And in your van of battle foss The pirate's skull-bobe blazon ! TO ENGLISHMEN Written when, in the stress of our terrible war, the English ruling class, with few excep- tions, were either coldly indifferent or hostile to the party of freedom. Their attitude was illus- trated by caricatures of America, among which was one of a slaveholder and cowhide, with the motto, Haven't I a right to wallop my nigger?" You flung your taunt across the wave ; We bore it as became us, Well knowing that the fettered slave Left friendly lips no option save To pity or to blame us. You scoffed our plea. “ Mere lack of will. Not lack of power," you told us : We showed our free-state records ; still You mocked, confounding good and ill, Slave-haters and slaveholders. We struck at Slavery ; to the verge Of power and means we checked it; AT PORT ROYAL 337 MITHRIDATES AT CHIOS Of slaves uprising, freedom-crowned, To break, not wield, the scourge wet with their blood and tears. AT PORT ROYAL It is recorded that the Chians, when subju- gated by Mithridates of Cappadocia, were de- livered up to their own slaves, to be carried away captive to Colchis. Athenæus considers this a just punishment for their wickedness in first introducing the slave-trade into Greece. From this ancient villainy of the Chians the proverb arose, The Chian hath bought him- self a master. Kxow'st thou, O slave-cursed land ! How, when the Chian's cup of guilt Was full to overflow, there came God's justice in the sword of flame That, red with slaughter to its hilt, Blazed in the Cappadocian victor's hand ? In November, 1861, a Union force under Commodore Dupont and General Sherman cap- tured Port Royal, and from this point as a basis of operations the neighboring islands be- tween Charleston and Savannah were taken possession of. The early occupation of this district, where the negro population was greatly in excess of the white, gave an opportunity which was at once seized upon, of practically emancipating the slaves and of beginning that work of civilization which was accepted as the grave responsibility of those who had labored for freedom. The heavens are still and far ; But, not unheard of awful Jove, The sighing of the island slave Was answered, when the Ægean wave The keels of Mithridates clove, And the vines shrivelled in the breath of war. The tent-lights glimmer on the land, The ship-lights on the sea ; The night-wind smooths with drifting sand Our track on lone Tybee. At last our grating keels outslide, Our good boats forward swing ; And while we ride the land-locked tide, Our negroes row and sing. “Robbers of Chios ! hark," The victor cried, “to Heaven's decree ! Pluck your last cluster fro the vine, Drain your last cup of Chian wine ; Slaves of your slaves, your doom shall be, In Colchian mines by Phasis rolling dark.” Then rose the long lament From the hoar sea-god's dusky caves : The priestess rent her hair and cried, “ Woe! woe! The gods are sleepless- eyed!" And, chained and scourged, the slaves of slaves, The lords of Chios into exile went. For dear the bondman holds his gifts Of music and of song : The gold that kindly Nature sifts Among his sands of wrong ; The power to make his toiling days And poor home-comforts please ; The quaint relief of mirth that plays With sorrow's minor keys. Another glow than sunset's fire Has filled the west with light, Where field and garner, barn and byre, Are blazing through the night. “ The gods at last pay well,” So Hellas sang her taunting song, “ The fisher in his net is caught, The Chian hath his master bought ;" And isle from isle, with laughter long, Took up and sped the mocking parable. Once more the slow, dumb years Bring their avenging cycle round, And, more than Hellas taught of old, Our wiser lesson shall be told, The land is wild with fear and hate, The rout runs mad and fast ; From hand to hand, from gate to gate The flaming brand is passed. The lurid glow falls strong across Dark faces broad with smiles : Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss That fire yon blazing piles. 338 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS With oar-strokes timing to their song, They weave in simple lays The pathos of remembered wrong, The hope of better days, - The triumph-note that Miriam sung, The joy of uncaged birds : Softening with Afric's mellow tongue Their broken Saxon words. So, like de 'postles in de jail, We waited for de Lord : An' now he open ebery door, An' trow away de key; He tink we lub him so before, We lub him better free. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, lle 'll gib de rice an' corn ; Ob nebber you fear, if nebber you bees De driver blow his horn! SONG OF THE NEGRO BOATMEN Oh, praise an' tanks ! De Lord he come To set de people free ; An' massa tink it day ob doom, An' we ob jubilee. De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves He jusº as trong as den ; He say de word : we las' night slaves ; To-day, de Lord's free men. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn ; Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn ! So sing our dusky gondoliers; And with a secret pain, And smiles that seem akin to tear, We hear the wild refrain. We dare not share the negro's trust, Nor yet his hope deny ; We only know that God is just, And every wrong shall die. Rude seems the song ; each swarthy far Flame-lighted, ruder still : We start to think that hapless nice Must shape our good or ill ; That laws of changeless justice lind Oppressor with oppressed; And, close as sin and suffering juined, We march to Fate abreast. Sing on, poor hearts ! your chant sha! Our sign of blight or bloom, The Vala-song of Liberty, Or death-rune of our doom ! Ole massa on he trabbels gone ; He leaf de land behind : De Lord's breff blow him furder on, Like corn-shuck in de wind. We own de hoe, we own de plough, We own de hands dat hold; We sell de pig, we sell de cow, But nebber chile be sold. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn ; Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn! ASTRÆA AT THE CAPITO: TH ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IX TRICT OF COLL MIA, IN: We pray de Lord : he gib us signs Dat some day we be free ; De norf-wind tell it to de pines, De wild-duck to de sea ; We tink it when de church-bell ring, We dream it in de dream; De rice-bire mean it when he sing, De eagle when he scream. De vam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn ; Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you bear De driver blow his horn! We know de promise nebber fail, An' nebber lie de word ; [The reference in the fourth stane sť Reuben Crandall of Washington Dunn was arrested and contined in the entry pro until his health was destrutud. His in lending to a brother physician WA **** pamphlet Justice and Erdenaje Wrex first I saw our banner ware Above the nation's councilla!1. I heard beneath its marble mail The clanking fetters of the slasr' THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862 339 God lays, with wiser hand than man's, The corner-stones of liberty. I cavil not with Him : the voice That freedom's blessed gospel tells Is sweet to me as silver bells, Rejoicing ! yea, I will rejoice! Dear friends still toiling in the sun; Ye dearer ones who, gone before, Are watching from the eternal shore The slow work by your hands begun, In the foul market-place I stood, And saw the Christian mother sold, And childhood with its locks of gold, Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood. I shut my eyes, I held my breath, And, smothering down the wrath and shame That set my Northern blood aflame, Stood silent, where to speak was death. Beside me gloomed the prison-cell Where wasted one in slow decline For uttering simple words of inine, And loving freedom all too well. The flag that floated from the dome Flapped menace in the morning air ; I stood a perilled stranger where The human broker made his home. For crime was virtue : Gowu and Sword And Law their threefold sanction gave, And to the quarry of the slave Went hawking with our symbol-bird. Rejoice with me! The chastening rod Blossoms with love ; the furnace heat Grows cool beneath His blessed feet Whose form is as the Son of God ! Rejoice! Our Marah’s bitter springs Are sweetened ; on our ground of grief Rise day by day in strong relief The prophecies of better things. Rejoice in hope ! The day and night Åre one with God, and one with them Who see by faith the cloudy hem Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light ! On the oppressor's side was power ; And yet I knew that every wrong, However old, however strong, But waited God's avenging hour. THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862 I knew that truth would crush the lie, Somehow, some time, the end would be ; Yet scarcely dared I hope to see The triumph with my mortal eye. But now I see it! In the sun A free flag floats from yonder dome, And at the nation's hearth and home The justice long delayed is done. Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer, The message of deliverance comes, But heralded by roll of drums On waves of battle-troubled air! The flags of war like storm-birds fly, The charging trumpets blow; Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below. And, calm and patient, Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell. Midst sounds that madden and appall, The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew ! The harp of David melting through The demon-agonies of Saul ! Not as we hoped ; but what are we? Above our broken dreams and plans And still she walks in golden hours Through harvest-happy farms, And still she wears her fruits and flowers Like jewels on her arms. What mean the gladness of the plain, This joy of eve and morn, The mirth that shakes the beard of grain And yellow locks of corn ? Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, And hearts with hate are hot ; 340 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS We hear no more the driver's born, No more the whip we fear, This holy day that saw Thee born Was never half so dear. But even-paced come round the years, And Nature changes not. She meets with smiles our bitter grief, With songs our groans of pain ; She mocks with tint of flower and leaf The war-field's crimson stain. Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear Her sweet thanksgiving-psalm ; Too near to God for doubt or fear, She shares the eternal calm. She knows the seed lies safe below The tires that blast and burn; For all the tears of blood we sow She waits the rich return. The very oaks are greener clad, The waters brighter smile ; Oh, never shone a day so glad On sweet St. Helen's Isle. We praise Thee in our songs to-day, To Thee in praver we call, Make swift the feet and straight the way Of freedom unto all. Come once again, O blessed Lord ! Come walking on the sea ! And let the mainlands hear the word That sets the island free! She sees with clearer eye than ours The good of suffering born, - The hearts that blossom like her flowers, And ripen like her corn. Oh, give to us, in times like these, The vision of her eyes ; And make her tields and fruited trees Our golden prophecies ! Oh, give to us her finer ear! Above this stormy din, We too would hear the bells of cheer Ring peace and freedom in. HYMN THE PROCLAMATION President Lincoln's proclanation of emas pation was issued January 1, lami Saint PATRICK, slave to Milcho of the herds Of Ballymena, wakened with these wuris " Arise, and flee Out from the land of bondage, and be free !" Glad as a soul in pain, who beans fra heaven The angels singing of his sins forgiven, And, wondering, sees His prison opening to their golles kers He rose a man who laid him down a las Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave. And outward trud Into the glorious liberty of Gud. lle cast the symbols of his shame awar. And, passing where the sleepung di lay, Though back and limb Smarted with wrong, he prayed, " Gal per don him!” SUNG AT CHRISTMAS BY THE SCHOLARS OF ST. HELENA'S ISLAND, S. C. [Written at the request of the teacher, Miss Charlotte Forten, now Mrs. Grinké.] Oh, none in all the world before Were ever glad as we ! We're free on Carolina's shore, We're all at home and free. Thou Friend and Helper of the poor, Who suffered for our sake, To open every prison door, And every yoke to break! Bend low Thy pitying free and mild, And help us sing and pray ; The hand that blessed the little child, l'pon our foreheads lay. So went he forth ; but in Gol's se ca me To light on l'illine's hills a holy tlstar; And, dying, gave The land a saint that lost him as a slav ANNIVERSARY POEM 341 O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumb But now the cross our worthies bore Waiting for God, your hour at last has On us is laid ; come, Profession's quiet sleep is o'er, And freedom's song And in the scale of truth once more Breaks the long silence of your night of Our faith is weighed. wrong ! The cry of innocent blood at last Arise and flee! shake off the vile restraint Is calling down Of ages ; but, like Ballymena’s saint, An answer in the whirlwind-blast, The oppressor spare, The thunder and the shadow cast Heap only on his head the coals of prayer. From Heaven's dark frown. Go forth, like him ! like him return again, The land is red with judgments. Who To bless the land whereon in bitter pain Stands guiltless forth ? Ye toiled at first, Have we been faithful as we knew, And heal with freedom what your slavery To God and to our brother true, cursed. To Heaven and Earth ? How faint, through din of merchandise ANNIVERSARY POEM And count of gain, Read before the Alumni of the Friends' Have seemed to us the captive's cries ! Yearly Meeting School, at the Annual Meeting How far away the tears and sighs at Newport, R. I., 15th Cth 1863. Of souls in pain ! ONCE more, dear friends, you meet beneath This day the fearful reckoning comes A clouded sky : To each and all ; Not yet the sword has found its sheath, We hear amidst our peaceful homes And on the sweet spring airs the breath The summons of the conscript drums, Of war floats by. The bugle's call. Yet trouble springs not from the ground, Our path is plain ; the war-net draws Nor pain from chance ; Round us in vain, The Eternal order circles round, While, faithful to the Higher Cause, And wave and storm find mete and bound We keep our fealty to the laws In Providence. Through patient pain. mo., The levelled gun, the battle-brand, We may not take : But, calmly loyal, we can stand And suffer with our suffering land For conscience' sake. Full long our feet the flowery ways Of peace have trod, Content with creed and garb and phrase : A harder path in earlier days Led up to God. Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear, Are made our own ; Too long the world has smiled to hear Our boast of full corn in the ear By others sown; To see us stir the martyr fires Of long ago, And wrap our satisfied desires In the singed mantles that our sires Have dropped below. Why ask for ease where all is pain ? Shall we alone Be left to add our gain to gain, When over Armageddon's plain The trump is blown ? To suffer well is well to serve ; Safe in our Lord The rigid lines of law shall curve To spare us ; from our heads shall swerve Its smiting sword. 342 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS BARBARA FRIETCHIE And light is mingled with the gloom, And joy with grief ; Divinest compensations come, Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom In sweet relief. . Thanks for our privilege to bless, By word and deed, The widow in her keen distress, The childless and the fatherless, The hearts that bleed ! For fields of duty, opening wide, Where all our powers Are tasked the eager steps to guide Of millions on a path untried : The slave is ours ! Ours by traditions dear and old, Which make the race Our wards to cherish and uphold, And cast their freedom in the mould Of Christian grace. And we may tread the sick-bed floors Where strong men pine, And, down the groaning corridors, Pour freely from our liberal stores The oil and vine. This poem was written in strict confirmat to the account of the incident as I had it fra respectable and trustworthy sources It km since been the subject of a good deal of een flicting testimony, and the story was prutales incorrect in some of its details. It is admin?" by all that Barbara Frietehie was no myth," a worthy and highly esteemed grote en intensely loyal and a hater of the Slavery le bellion, holding her l'nion flag saited sa keeping it with her Bible; that when the most federates halted before her house, and air her doorvard, she denonnced them in tiga language, shook her cane in their imma drove them out; and when General Bure troops followed close upon Jackson's she want her flag and cheered them. It is stated that May Quantrell, a brave and loval iady in a other part of the city, did wave her txa sight of the Confederates. It is possible that there has been a blending of the two index ['p from the meadows rich with coria, Clear in the cool September morn, The clustered spires of Frederick stand Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. Round about them orchards sweep, Apple and peach tree fruited deep Fair as the garden of the Lord To the eyes of the famished rebel burde, On that pleasant morn of the early fan When Lee marched over the mantas wall ; Over the mountains winding down, Horse and foot, into Frederick tout. Forty flags with their silver stars, Forty flags with their crimson bars, Flapped in the morning wind: the sun Of noon looked down, and saw but use. l'p rose old Barbara Frietehie thea, Bowed with her fourscore years and tea. Bravest of all in Frederick town, She took up the flag the men hauled dors, Who murmurs that in these dark days His lot is cast ? God's hand within the shadow lays The stones whereon His gates of praise Shall rise at last. Turn and o'erturn, ( outstretched Hand ! Nor stint, nor stay ; The years have never dropped their sand On mortal issue vast and grand As ours to-day. Already, on the sable ground Of man's despair Is Freedom's glorious picture found, With all its dusky hands unbound U praised in prayer. Oh, small shall seem all sacrifice And pain and loss, When God shall wipe the weeping eyes, For suffering give the victor's prize, The crown for cross ! WHAT THE BIRDS SAID 343 In her attic window the staff she set, To show that one heart was loyal yet. Peace and order and beauty draw Round thy symbol of light and law; And ever the stars above look down On thy stars below in Frederick town! C'p the street came the rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. Cnder his slouched hat left and right He glanced ; the old flag met his sight. WHAT THE BIRDS SAID 66 Halt!" the dust-brown ranks stood fast. "Fire !" out blazed the rifle-blast. The birds against the April wind Flew northward, singing as they flew; They sang, “ The land we leave behind Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew." It shivered the window, pane and sash ; It rent the banner with seam and gash. Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf. “O wild-birds, flying from the South, What saw and heard ye, gazing down ? ” “ We saw the mortar's upturned mouth, The sickened camp, the blazing town! She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will. "Shoot, if you must, this old But spare your country's flag,” she said. A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, Over the face of the leader came ; gray head, “Beneath the bivouac's starry lamps, We saw your march-worn children die ; In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps, We saw your dead uncoffined lie. “We heard the starving prisoner's sighs And saw, from line and trench, your sons The nobler nature within him stirred To life at that woman's deed and word ; “ Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on ?” he said. All day long through Frederick street Sounded the tread of marching feet: All day long that free flag tost Over the heads of the rebel host. Follow our flight with home-sick eyes Beyond the battery's smoking guns.” “ And heard and saw ye only wrong And pain," I cried, “O wing - worn flocks ?” “We heard,” they sang, “the freedman's song, The crash of Slavery's broken locks ! Ever its torn folds rose and fell On the loyal winds that loved it well ; And through the hill-gaps sunset light Shone over it with a warm good-night. Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, And the Rebel rides on his raids no more, “We saw from new, uprising States The treason-nursing mischief spurned, As, crowding Freedom's ample gates, The long-estranged and lost returned. “O'er dusky faces, seamed and old, And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil, With hope in every rustling fold, We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil. “ And struggling up through sounds ac- cursed, A grateful murmur clomb the air ; A whisper scarcely heard at first, It filled the listening heavens with prayer. Honor to her ! and let a tear Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. Over Barbara Frietchie's grave, Flag of Freedom and Union, wave ! 344 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS a “ And sweet and far, as from a star, Replied a voice which shall not cease, Till, drowning all the noise of war, It sings the blessed song of peace !" So to me, in a doubtful day Of chill and slowly greening spring, Low stooping from the cloudy gray, The wild-birds sang or seemed to sing. They vanished in the misty air, The song went with them in their flight ; But lo! they left the sunset fair, And in the evening there was light. THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATHA A LEGEND OF "THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE," A. D. 1154-1804 A strong and mighty Angel, Calm, terrible, and bright, The cross in blended red and blue l'pon his mantle white ! Two captives by him kneeling, Each on his broken chain, Sang praise to God who raiseth The dead to life again! Dropping his cross-wronght mantle, "Wear this," the Angel said ; “ Take thou, O Freedom's priest, its sign, – The white, the blue, and red." 66 But, torn by Paynim hatred, Her sails in tatters hung; And on the wild waves, rudderless, A shattered bulk she swung. “God save us !” cried the captain, “For naught can man avail ; Oh, woe betide the ship that lacks Her rudder and her sail ! “ Behind us are the Moormen ; At sea we sink or strand : There's death upon the water, There's death upon the land ! " Then up spake John de Matha : “God's errands never fail! Take thou the mantle which I wear, And make of it a sail." They raised the cross-wrought mantle The blue, the white, the red ; And straight before the wind off-bore The ship of Freedom sped. “God help us !” cried the seamen, For vain is mortal skill : The good ship on a stormy sea Is drifting at its will." Then up spake John de Matha: My mariners, never fear! The Lord whose breath has filled kes sail May well our vessel steer!" So on through storm and darkness They drove for weary hours ; And lö! the third gray morning shooe On Ostia's friendly towers. And on the walls the watchers The ship of mercy knew,- They knew far off its holy cross, The red, the white, and blue. And the bells in all the steeples Rang out in glad accord, To welcome home to Christian soi The ransomed of the Lord. So runs the ancient legend By bard and painter told ; And lo! the cycle rounds again, The new is as the old ! 66 Then rose up John de Matha In the strength the Lord Christ gave, And begged through all the land of France The ransom of the slave. The gates of tower and castle Before him open tlew, The drawbridge at his coming fell, The door-Wolt backward drew. For all men owned his errand, And paid his righteous tax; And the hearts of lord and peasant Were in his hands as wax. At last, ontbound from Tunis, His bark her anchor weighed, Freighted with seven-score Christian souls Whose ransom he had paid. LAUS DEO 345 With rudder foully broken, And sails by traitors torn, Our country on a midnight sea Is waiting for the morn. LAUS DEO! Before her, nameless terror ; Behind, the pirate foe ; The clouds are black above her, The sea is white below. On hearing the bells ring on the passage of the constitutional amendment abolishing slav- ery. The resolution was adopted by Congress, January 31, 1863. The ratification by the re- quisite number of States was announced Decem- ber 18, 1865. [The suggestion came to the poet as he sat in the Friends' Meeting-house in Ames- bury, where he was present at the regular Fifth- day meeting All sat in silence, but on his return to his home, he recited a portion of the poem, not yet committed to paper, to his house- mates in the garden room. * It wrote itself, or rather sang itself, while the bells rang,' he wrote to Lucy Larcom.] The hope of all who suffer, The dread of all who wrong, She drifts in darkness and in storm, How long, O Lord ! how long ? But courage, O my mariners ! Ye shall not suffer wreck, While up to God the freedman's prayers Are rising from your deck. Is not your sail the banner Which God hath blest anew, The mantle that De Matha wore, The red, the white, the blue ? It is done ! Clang of bell and roar of gun Send the tidings up and down. How the belfries rock and reel ! How the great guns, peal on peal, Fling the joy from town to town! Ring, O bells ! Every stroke exulting tells Of the burial hour of crime. Loud and long, that all may bear, Ring for every listening ear Of Eternity and Time ! Its hues are all of heaven, The red of sunset's dye, The whiteness of the moon-lit cloud, The blue of morning's sky. Wait cheerily, then, O mariners, For daylight and for land ; The breath of God is in your sail, Your rudder is His hand. Let us kneel : God's own voice is in that peal, And this spot is holy ground. Lord, forgive us! What are we, That our eyes this glory see, That our ears have heard the sound ! Sail on, sail on, deep-freighted With blessings and with hopes ; The saints of old with shadowy hands Are pulling at your ropes. Behind ye holy martyrs Uplift the palm and crown; Before ye unborn ages send Their benedictions down. For the Lord On the whirlwind is abroad ; In the earthquake He has spoken ; He has smitten with His thunder The iron walls asunder, And the gates of brass are broken ! Take heart from John de Matha! God's errands never fail ! Sweep on through storm and darkness, The thunder and the hail ! Loud and long Lift the old exulting song ; Sing with Miriam by the sea, He has cast the mighty down ; Horse and rider sink and drown ; “ He hath triumphed gloriously!” Sail on! The morning cometh, The port ye yet shall win ; And all the bells of God shall ring The good ship bravely in! Did we dare, In our agony of prayer, Ask for more than He has done ? 346 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS When was ever His right hand Over any time or land Stretched as now beneath the sun ? Yet held through all the paths we trod Our faith in man and trust in God. How they pale, Ancient myth and song and tale, In this wonder of our days, When the cruel rod of war Blossoms white with righteous law, And the wrath of man is praise ! We prayed and hoped ; but still, with ate, The coming of the sword we saw; We heard the nearing steps of dorm, We saw the shade of things to come. In grief which they alone can feel Who from a mother's wrong appeal, With blended lines of fear and bope We cast our country's horoscope. Blotted out! All within and all about Shall a fresher life begin ; Freer breathe the universe As it rolls its heavy curse On the dead and buried sin ! For still within her house of life We marked the lurid sign of strife, And, poisoning and imbittering all, We saw the star of Wormwood fall. Deep as our love for her became Our hate of all that wrought her shame, And if, thereby, with tongue and ped We erred, - we were but mortal men. It is done! In the circuit of the sun Shall the sound thereof go forth. It shall bid the sad rejoice, It shall give the dumb a voice, It shall belt with joy the earth ! a Ring and swing, Bells of joy! On morning's wing Send the song of praise abroad ! With a sound of broken chains Tell the nations that lle reigns, Who alone is Lord and God ! We hoped for peace ; our eyes survey The blood-red dawn of Freedom's dar: We prayed for love to loose the chain; "T is shorn by battle's axe in twain ! Nor skill nor strength nor zeal of ours Hlas mined and heaved the hostile towers, Not by our hands is turned the key That sets the sighing captives free. A redder sen than Egypt's ware Is piled and parted for the slave ; A darker cloud moves on in light; A fiercer fire is guide by night! The praise, O Lord ! is Thine aloue, In Thy own way Thy work is done! Our poor gifts at Thy feet we cast, To whom be glory, first and last ! HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPA- TION AT NEWBURYPORT AFTER THE WAR Not unto us who did but seek The word that burned within to speak, Not unto us this day belong The triumph and exultant song. l'pon us fell in early youth The burden of unwelcome truth, And left us, weak and frail and few, The censor's painful work to do. Thenceforth our life a fight became, The air we breathed was hot with blame ; For not with gauged and softened tone We made the bondman's cause our own. We bore, as Freedom's hope forlorn, The private hate, the public scorn ; THE PEACE AL'TUMN Written for the Essex County Agricultura Festival, 1805. THANK God for rest, where none makes And none can make aímid; For Peace that sits as Plenty's guest Beneath the homestead shade! TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS 347 Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge, The negro's broken chains, And beat them at the blacksmith's forge To ploughshares for our plains. TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CON- GRESS Alike henceforth our hills of snow, And vales where cotton flowers ; All streams that flow, all winds that blow, Are Freedom's motive-powers. The thirty-ninth congress was that which met in 1865, after the close of the war, when it was charged with the great question of recon- struction; the uppermost subject in men's minds was the standing of those who had ie- cently been in arms against the Union and their relations to the freedmen. Henceforth to Labor's chivalry Be knightly honors paid ; For nobler than the sword's shall be The sickle's accolade. O PEOPLE-CHOSEN ! are ye not Likewise the chosen of the Lord, To do His will and speak His word ? Build up an altar to the Lord, O grateful hearts of ours ! And shape it of the greenest sward That ever drank the showers. From the loud thunder-storm of war Not man alone hath called ye forth, But He, the God of all the earth! Lay all the bloom of gardens there, And there the orchard fruits ; Bring golden grain from sun and air, From earth her goodly roots. The torch of vengeance in your hands He quenches ; unto Him belongs The solemn recompense of wrongs. There let our banners droop and flow, The stars uprise and fall ; Our roll of inartyrs, sad and slow, Let sighing breezes call. Their names let bands of horn and tan And rough-shod feet applaud, Who died to make the slave a man, And link with toil reward. Enough of blood the land has seen, And not by cell or gallows-stair Shall ye the way of God prepare. Say to the pardon-seekers : Keep Your manhood, bend no suppliant knees, Nor palter with unworthy pleas. Above your voices sounds the wail Of starving men; we shut in vain Our eyes to Pillow's ghastly stain. There let the common heart keep time To such an anthem sung As never swelled on poet's rhyme, Or thrilled on singer's tongue. What words can drown that bitter cry? What tears wash out the stain of death ? What oaths confirm your broken faith? Song of our burden and relief, Of peace and long annoy ; The passion of our mighty grief And our exceeding joy ! A song of praise to Him who filled The harvests sown in tears, Aud gave each field a double yield To feed our battle-years ! A song of faith that trusts the end To match the good begun, Nor doubts the power of Love to blend The hearts of men as one! From you alone the guaranty Of union, freedom, peace, we claim ; We urge no conqueror's terms of shame. Alas ! no victor's pride is ours ; We bend above our triumphs won Like David o'er his rebel son. Be men, not beggars. Cancel all By one brave, generous action ; trust Your better instincts, and be just ! Make all men peers before the law, Take hands from off the negro's throat, Give black and white an equal vote. 348 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS Keep all your forfeit lives and lands, But give the common law's redress To laboris utter nakedness. Revive the old heroic will ; Be in the right as brave and strong As ye have proved yourselves in wrong. Defeat shall then be victory, Your loss the wealth of full amends, And hate be love, and foes be friends. The low reveille of their battle-trum Disturbs no morning prayer : With deeper peace in summer noons their hum Fills all the drowsy air. And Samson's riddle is our own today, Of sweetness from the strong, Of union, peace, and freedom plucked away From the rent jaws of wrong. From Treason's death we draw a pure: life, As, from the beast he slew, A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strife The old-time athlete drew ! Then buried be the dreadful past, Its common slain be mourned, and let All memories soften to regret. Then shall the Union's mother-heart Her lost and wandering ones recall, Forgiving and restoring all, – And Freedom break her marble trance Above the Capitolian dome, Stretch hands, and bid ye welcome home! HOWARD AT ATLANTA THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG In the old IIebrew myth the lion's frame, So terrible alive, Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, be- came The wandering wild bees' hive ; And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore Those jaws of death apart, In after time drew forth their honeyed store To strengthen his strong heart. Dead seemed the legend : but it only slept To wake beneath our sky; Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept Back to its lair to die, Bleeding and torn from Freedom's moun. tain bounds, A stained and shattered drum Is now the hive where, on their flowery ronnds, The wild bees go and come. Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel, They wander wide and far, Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell, Through vales once choked with war. Right in the track where Sherman Ploughed his red furrow, Out of the narrow cabin, Up from the cellar's burrow, Gathered the little black people, With freedom newly dowered, Where, beside their Northern teacher, Stood the soldier, Howard. He listened and heard the children Of the poor and longenslaved Reading the words of Jesus, Singing the songs of Darid. Behold ! the dumb lips speaking, The blind eyes seeing ! Bones of the Prophet's vision Warmed into being ! Transformed he saw them passing Their new life's portal! Almost it seemed the mortal Put on the immortal. No more with the beasts of burden, No more with stone and clod, But crowned with glory and honor In the image of God! There was the human chattel Its manhood taking ; There, in each dark, bronze statue, A soul was waking! The man of many battles, With tears his erelids pressing, Stretched over those dusky forebeads His one-armed blessing. THE JUBILEE SINGERS 349 And he said : “Who hears can never Fear for or doubt you ; What shall I tell the children Up North about you ? " Then ran round a whisper, a murmur, Some answer devising ; And a little boy stood up.: “ General, Tell 'em we're rising !” The cloudy sign, the fiery guide, Along his pathway ran, And Nature, through his voice, denied The ownership of man. a We rest in peace where these sad eyes Saw peril, strife, and pain ; His was the nation's sacrifice, And ours the priceless gain. O black boy of Atlanta ! But half was spoken : The slave's chain and the master's Alike are broken. The one curse of the races Held both in tether : They are rising, — all are rising, The black and white together! O symbol of God's will on earth As it is done above! Bear witness to the cost and worth Of justice and of love. Stand in thy place and testify To coming ages long, That truth is stronger than a lie, And righteousness than wrong. THE JUBILEE SINGERS O brave men and fair women ! Ill comes of hate and scorning : Shall the dark faces only Be turned to morning ? Make Time your sole avenger, All-healing, all-redressing; Meet Fate half-way, and make it A joy and blessing ! THE EMANCIPATION GROUP A number of students of Fisk University, under the direction of one of the officers, gave a series of concerts in the Northern States, for the purpose of establishing the college on a firmer financial foundation. Their hymns and songs, mostly in a minor key, touched the hearts of the people, and were received as pe- culiarly expressive of a race delivered from bondage. Voice of a people suffering long, The pathos of their mournful song, The sorrow of their night of wrong! Moses Kimball, a citizen of Boston, pre- sented to the city a duplicate of the Freedman's Memorial statue erected in Lincoln Square, Washington. The group, which stands in Park Square, represents the figure of a slave, from whose limbs the broken fetters have fallen, kneeling in gratitude at the feet of Lincoln. The group was designed by Thomas Ball, and was unveiled December 9, 1879. These verses were written for the occasion. Their cry like that which Israel gave, A prayer for one to guide and save, Like Moses by the Red Sea's wave! AMIDST thy sacred effigies Of old renown give place, O city, Freedom-loved! to his Whose band unchained a race. The stern accord her timbrel lent To Miriam's note of triumph sent O’er Egypt's sunken armament ! Take the worn frame, that rested not Save in a martyr's grave ; The care-lined face, that none forgot, Bent to the kneeling slave. The tramp that startled camp and town, And shook the walls of slavery down, The spectral march of old John Brown ! The storm that swept throngh battle-days, The triumph after long delays, The bondmen giving God the praise ! Let man be free! The mighty word He spake was not his own ; An impulse from the Highest stirred These chiselled lips alone. Voice of a ransomed race, sing on Till Freedom's every right is won, And slavery's every wrong undone ! 350 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS W GARRISON The earliest poem in this division was my youthful tribute to the great reformer when himself a young man he was first sounding his trumpet in Essex County. I close with the verses inscribed to him at the end of his earthly career, May 21, 1879. My poetical service in the cause of freedom is thus almost synchro- nous with his life of devotion to the same cause. The storm and peril overpast, The hounding hatred shamed and still, Go, soul of freedom ! take at last The place which thou alone canst fill. Now past and present are as one ; The life below is life above ; Thy mortal years have but begum T'hy inmortality of love. With somewhat of thy lofty faith We lay thy outworn garment br, Give death but what belongs to death, And life the life that cannot die ! ('onfirm the lesson tanght of old — Life saved for self is lost, while they Who lose it in His service hold The lease of God's eternal day. Not for thyself, but for the slave Thy words of thunder shook the world ; No selfish griefs or hatred gave The strength wbere with thy bolts were hurled. Not for a soul like thine the calm Of selfish ease and joys of sense ; But duty, more than erown or pulm, Its own exceeding recompense. Go up and on! thy day well done, Its morning promise well fulfilled, Arise to triumphs yet unwon, To holier tasks that God has willed Go, leave behind thee all that mars The work below of man for man; With the white legions of the stars Do service such as angels can. Wherever wrong shall right deay Or suffering spirits urge their ples, Be thine a voice to smite the lie, A hand to set the captive free! From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew We heard a tender under song ; Thy very wrath from pity grew, From love of man thy hate of wrong. SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME The Quaker of the olden time! How calm and firm and true, Unspotted by its wrong and crime, He walked the dark earth through. The lust of power, the love of gain, The thousand lures of sin Around him, had no power to stain The purity within. With that deep insight which detects All great things in the small, And knows how each man's life affects The spiritual life of all, He walked by faith and not by sight, By love and not by law; The presence of the wrong or right He rather felt than saw. The foe of all which pains the sight, Or wounds the generous ear of God ! Beautiful yet thy temples rise, Though there profaning gifts are thrown ; And fires unkindled of the skies Are glaring round thy altar-stone. Still sacred, though thy name be breathed By those whose hearts thy truth de- ride ; And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed Around the haughty brows of Pride. Oh, ideal of my boyhood's time ! The faith in which my father stood, Even when the sons of Lust and Crime Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood ! He felt that wrong with wrong partakes, Still to those courts my footsteps turn, That nothing stands alone, For through the mists which darken there, That whoso gives the motive, makes I see the flame of Freedom burn, His brother's sin his own. The Kebla of the patriot's prayer ! And, pausing not for doubtful choice Of evils great or small, The generous feeling, pure and warın, He listened to that inward voice Which owns the right of all divine ; Which called away from all. The pitying heart, the helping arm, The prompt self-sacrifice, are thine. O Spirit of that early day, So pure and strong and true, Beneath thy broad, impartial eye, Be with us in the narrow way How fade the lines of caste and birth ! Our faithful fathers knew. How equal in their suffering lie Give strength the evil to forsake, The groaning multitudes of earth! The cross of Truth to bear, And love and reverent fear to make Still to a stricken brother true, Our daily lives a prayer ! Whatever clime hath nurtured him ; As stooped to heal the wounded Jew DEMOCRACY The worshipper of Gerizim. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do By misery unrepelled, unawed to you, do ye even so to them. - Matthew vii. 12. By pomp or power, thou seest a Man BEARER of Freedom's holy light, In prince or peasant, slave or lord, Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod, Pale priest, or swarthy artisan. a 351 352 SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM I Through all disguise, form, place, or name, Beneath the flaunting robes of sin, Through poverty and squalid shame, Thou lookest on the man within. On man, as man, retaining yet, Flowe'er debased, and soiled, and dim, The crown upon his forehead set, The immortal gift of God to him. And there is reverence in thy look ; For that frail form which mortals wear The Spirit of the Holiest took, And veiled His perfect brightness there. Not from the shallow babbling fount Of vain philosophy thou art ; He who of old on Syria's Mount Thrilled, warmed, by turns, the listen- er's heart, In holy words which cannot die, In thoughts whicb angels leaned to know, Proclaimed thy message from on high, Thy mission to a world of woe. That voice's echo hath not died ! From the blue lake of Galilee, And Tabor's lonely mountain-side, It calls a struggling world to thee. Thy name and watchword o'er this land I hear in every breeze that stirs, And round a thousand altars stand Thy banded party worshippers. Not to these altars of a day, At party's call, my gift I bring ; But on thv olden shrine I lay A freemau's dearest offering : The voiceless utterance of his will, - His pledge to Freedom and to Truth, That manhood's heart remembers still The homage of bis generous youth. The suns of eighteen centuries have shume Since the Redeemer walked with man, and made The fisher's boat, the cavern's floor of suns. And mountain moss, a pillow for the head ; And He, who wandered with the pease! Jew, And broke with publicans the bread al shame, And drank with blessings, in His Father's name, The water which Samaria's outcast drew, Hath now His temples upon every skure. Altar and shrine and priest ; and incens linux Evermore rising, with low prayer an! hymn, From lips which press the temple's marile floor, Or kiss the gilded sign of the dread crum He bore. II Yet as of old, when, meekly - doing good." He fed a blind and selfish multitude, And even the poor companions of His lost With their dim earthly vision köw Hon not, How ill are His high teachings unies stood ! Where He hath spoken Liberty, the proces At His own altar binds the chain abw: Where He hath bidden to Life's equal toast The starving many wait upon the few; Where He hath spoken Peace, His mane hath been The loudest war-cry of contending mes; Priests, pale with vigils, en llis name kaip blessed The unsheathed sword, and laid the *** in rest, Wet the war-banner with their sured , And crossed its blazon with the bolt Yea, in Ilis name who bude the errita** And daily taught His lesson, to forgive' Twisted the cord and edged the murder ous strel; And, with His words of mery or thruz lips, Hung gloating o'er the pinoers' busting grips, THE GALLOWS Written on reading pamphlets published by clergvmen against the abolition of the gallows. Originally entitled Lines.] THE GALLOWS 353 And the grim horror of the straining wheel; Fed the slow flame which gnawed the vic- tim's limb, Who saw before his searing eyeballs swim The image of their Christ in cruel zeal, Through the black torment-smoke, held mockingly to him! The beautiful lesson which our Saviour taught Through long, dark centuries its way hath wrought Into the common mind and popular thought ; And words, to which by Galilee's lake shore The humble fishers listened with hushed oar, Have found an echo in the general heart, And of the public faith become a living part. III V ye brood, thers sung sneer The blood which mingled with the desert Who shall arrest this tendency ? Bring sand, back And beaded with its red and ghastly The cells of Venice and the bigot's rack ? dew Harden the softening human heart again The vines and olives of the Holy Land ; To cold indifference to a brother's pain ? The shrieking curses of the hunted Jew; Ye most unhappy men ! who, turned away The wbite-sown bones of heretics, where'er From the mild sunshine of the Gospel day, They sank beneath the Crusade's holy spear, Grope in the shadows of Man's twilight Goa's dark dungeons, Malta's sea-washed time, cell, What mean ye, that with ghoul-like zest Where with the hymns the ghostly fa- O'er those foul altars streaming with warm Mingled the groans by subtle torture blood, wrung, Permitted in another age and clime ? Heaven's anthem blending with the shriek Why cite that law with which the bigot Jew of hell ! Rebuked the Pagan's mercy, when he knew The midnight of Bartholomew, the stake No evil in the Just One ? Wherefore turn Of Smithfield, and that thrice-accursed To the dark, cruel past? Can ye not learn Aame From the pure Teacher's life how mildly Which Calvin kindled by Geneva's lake ; free New England's scaffold, and the priestly Is the great Gospel of Humanity ? The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and no Which mocked its victims in that hour of fear, Mexitli's altars soak with human gore, When guilt itself a human tear might No more the ghastly sacrifices smoke claim, Through the green arches of the Druid's Bear witness, 0 Thou wronged and merci- oak; ful One ! And ye of milder faith, with your high claim That Earth's most hateful crimes have in Of prophet-utterance in the Holiest name, Thy name been done ! Will ye become the Druids of our time ! Set up your scaffold-altars in our land, And, consecrators of Law's darkest crime, Urge to its loathsome work the hang- Thank God ! that I have lived to see the man's hand ? time Beware, lest human nature, roused at last, When the great truth begins at last to From its peeled shoulder encumbrance find cast, An utterance from the deep heart of And, sick to loathing of your cry for mankind, blood, Earnest and clear, that all Revenge is Crime, Rank ye with those who led their victims That man is holier than a creed, that all round Restraint upon him must consult his good, The Celt's red altar and the Indian's mound, Hope's sunshine linger on his prison wall, Abhorred of Earth and Heaven, a pagan And Love look in upon his solitude. brotherhood ! more IV your 354 SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM SEED-TIME AND HARVEST As o'er his furrowed fields which lie Beneath a coldly dropping sky, Yet chill with winter's melted snow, The husbandman goes forth to sow, For better is your sense of right Than king-craft's triple mail Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban, More mighty is your simplest word; The free heart of an honest man Than crosier or the sword. Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast The ventures of thy seed we cast, And trust to warmer sun and rain To swell the germs and fill the grain. Who calls thy glorious service hard ? Who deems it not its own reward ? Who, for its trials, counts it less A cause of praise and thankfulness ? It may not be our lot to wield The sickle in the ripened field ; Nor ours to hear, on summer eves, The reaper's song among the sheaves. Yet where our duty's task is wrought In unison with God's great thought, The near and future blend in one, And whatsoe'er is willed, is done ! And ours the grateful service whence Comes day by day the recompense ; The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed, The fountain and the noonday shade. Go, let your blinded Church rebeare The lesson it has learned so well ; It moves not with its praver or curse The gates of heaven or bell. Let the State scaffold rise again ; Did Freedom die when Russell died Forget ye how the blood of lane From earth's green bosom cried ? The great hearts of your olden time Are beating with con, full and strong All holy memories and sublime And glorious round ye thrung. The bluff, bold men of Runnymede Are with ye still in times like these ; The shades of England's mighty dead, Your cloud of witnesses ! The truths ye urge are borne abroad By every wind and every tide ; The voice of Nature and of God Speaks out upon your side. The weapons which your hands hare fun! Are those which learen itself to wrought, Light, Truth, and Love; your batin ground The free, broad field of Thought No partial, selfish purpose breaks The simple beauty of your plan, Vor lie from throne or altar stakes Your steady faith in man. The languid pulse of England starts And bounds beneath your words power, The beating of her million hearts Is with you at this hour ! () ve who, with undoubting eres, Throngh present cloud and fatbere storm, And were this life the utmost span, The only end and aim of man, Better the toil of fields like these Than waking dream and slothful ease. Bnt life, though falling like our grain, Like that revives and springs again ; And, early called, how blest are they Who wait in heaven their harvest-day ! TO THE REFORMERS OF ENG- LAND This poem was addressed to those who like Richard ('obelin and John Bright were seeking the reform of political evils in Great Britain by peaceful and Christian means. It will be re- membered that the Anti-korn-Law League was in the midst of its labors at this time. God bless ye, brothers ! in the fight Ye 're waging now, ye cannot fail, THE HUMAN SACRIFICE 355 II Behold the span of Freedom's skies, Again he felt the western breeze, And sunshine soft and warm ; With scent of flowers and crisping hay ; And down again through wind-stirred trees Press bravely onward ! not in vain He saw the quivering sunlight play. Your generous trust in human-kind; An angel in home's vine-hung door, The good which bloodshed could not gain He saw his sister smile once more ; Your peaceful zeal shall find. Once more the truant's brown-locked head Upon his mother's knees was laid, Press on ! the triumph shall be won And sweetly lulled to slumber there, Of common rights and equal laws, With evening's holy hymn and prayer! The glorious dream of Harrington, And Sidney's good old cause. He woke. At once on heart and brain Blessing the cotter and the crown, The present Terror rushed again ; Sweetening worn Labor's bitter cup ; Clanked on his limbs the felon's chain ! And, plucking not the highest down, He woke, to hear the church-tower tell Lifting the lowest up. Time's footfall on the conscious bell, And, shuddering, feel that clanging din Press on ! and we who may not share His life's last hour had ushered in ; The toil or glory of your fight To see within his prison-yard, May ask, at least, in earnest prayer, Through the small window, iron barred, God's blessing on the right! The gallows shadow rising dim Between the sunrise heaven and him ; A horror in God's blessed air ; A blackness in his morning light ; THE HUMAN SACRIFICE Like some foul devil-altar there Built up by demon hands at night. Some leading sectarian papers had lately And, maddened by that evil sight, published the letter of a clergyman, giving Dark, horrible, confused, and strange, an account of his attendance upon a criminal A chaos of wild, weltering change, (who had committed murder during a fit of All power of check and guidance gone, intoxication), at the time of his execution, in western New York. The writer describes the Dizzy and blind, his mind swept on. agony of the wretched being, his abortive at- In vain he strove to breathe a prayer, tempts at praver, his appeal for life, his fear In vain he turned the Holy Book, of a violent death; and, after declaring his He only heard the gallows-stair belief that the poor victim died without hope Creak as the wind its timbers shook. of salvation, concludes with a warm eulogy No dream for him of sin forgiven, upon the gallows, being more than ever con- While still that baleful spectre stood, vinced of its utility by the awful dread and With its hoarse murmur, - Blood for horror which it inspired. Blood !" Between him and the pitying Heaven ! Far from his close and noisome cell, By grassy lane and sunny stream, Low on his dungeon floor he knelt, Blown clover field and strawberry dell, And smote his breast, and on his chain, And green and meadow freshness, fell Whose iron clasp he always felt, The footsteps of his dream. His hot tears fell like rain ; Again from careless feet the dew And near him, with the cold, calm look Of summer's misty morn he shook ; And tone of one whose formal part, Again with merry heart he threw Unwarmed, unsoftened of the heart, His light line in the rippling brook. Is measured out by rule and book, Back crowded all his school-day joys; With placid lip and tranquil blood, He urged the ball and quoit again, The hangman's ghostly ally stood, And heard the shout of laughing boys Blessing with solemn text and word Come ringing down the walnut glen. The gallows-drop and strangling cord; 1 III 356 SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM IV Lending the sacred Gospel's awe Into the silent, unknown dark? And sanction to the crime of Law. No, from the wild and shrinking dread, With which he saw the victim led Beneath the dark veil which dirides He saw the victim's tortured brow, Ever the living from the dead, The sweat of anguish starting there, And Nature's solemn secret hides, The record of a nameless woe The man of prayer can only draw In the dim eye's imploring stare, New reasons for his blowly law ; Seen hideous through the long, damp New faith in staying Murder's hand hair, By murder at that Law's command; Fingers of ghastly skin and bone New reverence for the gallow-rupe, Working and writhing on the stone ! As human nature's latest hope ; And heard, by mortal terror wrung Last relic of the good old time, From heaving breast and stiffened tongue, When Power found license for its crior. The choking sob and low hoarse prayer; And held a writhing world in And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua fights ! priest ? When the Church eats and drinks, at : Is this Pio Xono the gracious, for whom mystical board, We sang our hosaunas and lighted all The true flesh and blood carved and shed Roine ; by its sword, With whose advent we dreamed the new When its martyr, unsinged, claps the cruel era began on his head, When the priest should be human, the monk And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbours- be a man? stead! Ah, the wolf 's with the sheep, and the fox with the fowl, There ! the bells jow and jangle the cam When freedom we trust to the crosier and blessed way cowl ! That they did when they rang for Bartino- omew's day. Stand aside, men of Rome! Here's a hang- Hark! the tallow - faced monsters, bet man-faced Swiss — women nor boss, (A blessing for him surely can't go amiss) — | Vex the air with a shrill, sexless borrit of Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to noise. kiss. Te Deum laudamus ! All round wit :: Short shrift will suffice him, - he's blest stint beyond doubt ; The incense-pot swings with a taint of bleed But there's blood on his bands which would in 't ! scarcely wash out, Though Peter himself held the baptismal And now for the blessing! Of litte ar- spout ! count, You know, is the old one they heard on the Make way for the next! Here's another Mount. sweet son ! Its giver was landless, His raiment ** What is this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets poor, done ? No jewelled tiara His fishermen wirst; He did, whispers rumor, (its truth God for- No incense, no lackeys, no ribes, then be to, bid !) No Swiss guards! We order thazina beste At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem at Rome. did. And the mothers ? Don't name them! So bless us the strong hand, and curse es these humors of war the weak; They who keep him in service must pardon Let Austria's vulture have food for bet him for. beak ; Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Boss Hist! here's the arch-knave in a cardinal's again, hat, With his death-cap of silence, ani Lalter. With the heart of a wolf, and the stealth and chain ; of a cat Put reason, and justice, and truth anje (As if Judas and Herod together were ban; rolled), For the sin unforgiven is freedom for mas' FREEDOM IN BRAZIL 381 ITALY No fettered feet thy shaded margins press ; But all men shall walk free Where thou, the high-priest of the wilder- ness, Hast wedded sea to sea. - 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. 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, 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 ! 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 mar- tyr's palm To greet thee with “ Well done ! ” And thon, 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. 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. 382 SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM Woe sons Under a rain of fire ; through warls of AFTER ELECTION Down which a groaning diapason runs The day's sharp strife is ended now, From tortured brothers, husbands, lover Our work is done, God knoweth how ! As on the thronged, unrestful town Of desolate women in their far-off homes, The patience of the moon looks down, Waiting to hear the step that arvet I wait to hear, beside the wire, comes ! The voices of its tongues of fire. O men and brothers ! let that voire le heard. Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first : War fails, try peace ; put up the te Be strong, my heart, to know the worst ! sword! Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke ; That sound from lake and prairie broke, Fear not the end. There is a story told That sunset-gun of triumph rent In Eastern tents, when autumn til The silence of a continent ! grow cold, And round the fire the Mongol she pherds That signal from Nebraska sprung, sit This from Nevada's mountain tongue ! With grave responses listening unto it. Is that thy answer, strong and free, | Once, on the errands of his mercy bent, O loyal heart of Tennessee ? | Buddha, the holy and benevolent, What strange, glad voice is that which calls Met a fell monster, huge and fierce and From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls ? look, Whose awful voice the hills and fupra From Mississippi's fountain-head shook. A sound as of the bison's tread ! “O son of peace !” the giant cried. "the There rustled freedom's Charter Oak! fate In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke ! Is sealed at last, and love shall field to Cheer answers cheer from rise to set hate." Of sun. We have a country yet! The anarmed Buddha looking, with m trace The praise, O God, be thine alone ! Of fear or anger, in the monster's farve, Thou givest not for bread a stone ; In pity said : Pour fiend, even thee I Thou hast not led us through the night love." To blind us with returning light ; Lo! as he spake the sky-tall terror esrik Vot through the furnace have we passed, To hand-breadth size ; tbe huge abborrente To perish at its mouth at last. shrank Into the form and fashion of a dore; O night of peace, thy flight restrain ! And where the thunder of its ruge ** November's moon, be slow to wane ! heard, Shine on the freedman's cabin floor, Circling above him sweetly sang the bird On brows of prayer a blessing pour ; “ Hate hath no harm for lore," so ran : And give, with full assurance blest, song ; The weary heart of Freedom rest ! “And peace unweaponed conquers erer! wrong!" DISARMAMENT “ Put up the sword!" The voice of Christ THE PROBLEM once more 1 Speaks, in the panses of the cannon's roar, O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped Not without envy Wealth at times fast And left dry ashes ; over trenches heaped look With nameless dead; o'er cities starving On their brown strength who wid dibe slow reaping-hook 64 OUR COUNTRY 383 II And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape The fathers sleep, but men remain the plough As wise, as true, and brave as they; Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam; Why count the loss and not the gain ? All who, by skill and patience, anyhow The best is that we have to-day. Make service noble, and the earth redeem From savageness. By kingly accolade Whate'er of folly, shame, or crime, Than theirs was never worthier knighthood Within thy mighty bounds transpires, made. With speed defying space and time, Well for them, if, while demagogues their Comes to us on the accusing wires ; vain And evil counsels proffer, they maintain While of thy wealth of noble deeds, Their honest manhood unseduced, and Thy homes of peace, thy votes unsold, wage The love that pleads for human needs, No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain The wrong redressed, but half is told ! Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain, We read each felon's chronicle, And softer pillow for the head of Age. His acts, his words, his gallows-mood; We know the single sinner well And not the nine and ninety good. And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields Labor its just demand ; and well for Yet if, on daily scandals fed, Ease We seem at times to doubt thy worth, If in the uses of its own, it sees We know thee still, when all is said, No wrong to him who tills its pleasant The best and dearest spot on earth. fields And spreads the table of its luxuries. From the warm Mexic Gulf, or where The interests of the rich man and the poor Belted with flowers Los Angeles Are one and same, inseparable evermore ; Basks in the semi-tropic air, And, when scant wage or labor fail to give To where Katahdin's cedar trees, Food, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live, Are dwarfed and bent by Northern winds, Need has its rights, necessity its claim. Thy plenty's horn is yearly filled ; Yea, even self-wrought misery and shame Alone, the rounding century finds Test well the charity suffering long and Thy liberal soil by free hands tilled. kind. The home-pressed question of the age can A refuge for the wronged and poor, find Thy generous heart has borne the blame No answer in the catch-words of the blind That, with them, through thy open door, Leaders of blind. Solution there is none The old world's evil outcasts canie. Save in the Golden Rule of Christ alone. But, with thy just and equal rule, And labor's need and breadth of lands, OUR COUNTRY Free press and rostrum, church and school, Read at Woodstock, Conn., July 4, 1883. Thy sure, if slow, transforming hands, We give thy natal day to hope, Shall mould even them to thy design, O Country of our love and prayer ! Making a blessing of the ban ; Thy way is down no fatal slope, And Freedom's chemistry combine But up to freer sun and air. The alien elements of man. Tried as by furnace-fires, and yet The power that broke their prison bar By God's grace only stronger made, And set the dusky millions free, In future tasks before thee set And welded in the flame of war Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid. The Union fast to Liberty, 384 SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM 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 ? 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 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, main- tained 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 loval dream of thee ; God of our fathers ! make it true. In the disastrous battle on the Bis Hirm River, in which General ('uster and her. force were slain, the chief Rain-in-the twee was one of the tiercest leaders of the Latinas In Longfellow's poem on the massere, the lines will be remembered : - " Revenge!” cried Rain-in-the-Face, ** Revenge upon all the race Of the White Chief with yellow har*** And the mountains dark and Paintbe From their crags reechoed the cry Of his anger and despair. He is now a man of peace; and the acuzi si Standing Rock, Dakota, writes, Septeutuut 1 St: Rain-in-the-Face is very anywas to to Hampton. I fear he is too old, but he de very much to go." The Southern Work ads the organ of General Armstrong's Industriale at Hampton, l'a., says in a late number * Rain-in-the-Face has applied before the come to Hampton, but his age would -Ir's him from the school as an ordinary stwist Ile has shown himself very much in earts about it, and is anxious, all sav. to learn t". better ways of life. It is as unasual as r > striking to see a man of his age, and has had such an experience, willing to gre T the old way, and put himself in the poine a boy and a student." The years are but half a score, And the war-whoop sounds po more With the blast of bugles, where Straight into a slaughter peni, With his doomed three hunind men, Rode the chief with the yellow bear. O Hampton, down by the sea ! What voice is beseeching thee For the scholar's lowliest place : Can this be the voice of bim Who fought on the Big Horn's non Can this be Rain-in-the-Face ? His war-paint is washed away, His hands have forgotten to slar : He seeks for himself and his the The arts of peace and the lore That give to the skilled hand more Than the spoils of war and chase. ON THE BIG HORN 385 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! POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT MEMORIES I feel its glow upon my cheek, Its fulness of the heart is mine, (“It was not without thought and delibera- As when I leaned to hear thee speak, tion," Whittier's biographer writes, “that in Or raised my doubtful eye to thine. 1868 he directed this poem to be placed at the head of his Poems Subjective and Reminiscent. He had never before publicly acknowledged I hear again thy low replies, how much of his heart was wrapped up in this I feel thy arm within my own, delightful play of poetic fancy. The poem was And timidly again uprise written in 1811, and although the romance it The fringed lids of hazel eyes, embalms lies far back of this date, possibly With soft brown tresses overblown. there is a heart still beating which fully under- Ah ! memories of sweet summer eres, stands its meaning. The biographer can do no Of moonlit wave and willowy way, more than make this suggestion, which has the Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves, sanction of the poet's explicit word. To a friend And smiles and tones more dear that who told him that Memories was her favorite they ! poem, he said, I love it too; but I hardly knew whether to publish it, it was so personal and near my heart.'”] Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled My picture of thy youth to see, A BEAUTIFUL and happy girl, When, half a woman, half a child, With step as light as summer air, Thy very artlessness iwguiled, Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl, And folly's self seemed wise in thee; Shadowed by many a careless curl I too can smile, when o'er that bour Of uncontined and flowing hair ; The lights of memory backward struas. A seeming child in everything, Yet feel the while that manhood's power Save thoughtful brow and ripening Is vainer than my boyhood's dream. charms, As Nature wears the smile of Spring Years have passed on, and left their trare. When sinking into Summer's arms. Of graver care and deeper thought, And unto me the calm, cold face A mind rejoicing in the light Of manhood, and to thee the grace Which melted through its graceful Of woman's pensive beauty brought. bower, More wide, perehance, for blame tik Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright, praise, And stainless in its holy white, The school-boy's humble name has the Unfolding like a morning tower : Thine, in the green and quiet ways A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute, Of unobtrusive goodness known. With every breath of feeling woke, And, even when the tongue was mute, And wider yet in thought and deed From eye and lip in music spoke. Diverge our pathways, one in path; Thine the Genevan's sternest eredi, How thrills once more the lengthening While answers to my spirit's perd chain The Derby dalesman's simple truth. Of memory, at the thought of thee! For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, Old hopes which long in dust have lain, And holy day, and solemn psalm; Old dreams, come thronging back again, For me, the silent reverence where And boyhood lives again in me; My brethren gather, slow and calm. 386 RAPHAEL 387 - The narrow room had vanished, space, Broad, luminous, remained alone, Through which all hues and shapes of grace And beauty looked or shone. Around the mighty master came The marvels which his pencil wrought, Those miracles of power whose fame Is wide as human thought. Yet hath thy spirit left on me An impress Time has woru not out, And something of myself in thee, A shadow from the past, I see, Lingering, even yet, thy way about ; Not wholly can the heart unlearn That lesson of its better hours, Not yet has Time’s dull footstep worn To common dust that path of flowers. Thus, while at times before our eyes The shadows melt, and fall apart, And, smiling through them, round us lies The warm light of our morning skies, - The Indian Summer of the heart ! In secret sympathies of mind, In founts of feeling which retain Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find Our early dreams not wholly vain ! There drooped thy more than mortal face, O Mother, beautiful and mild ! Enfolding in one dear embrace Thy Saviour and thy Child ! The rapt brow of the Desert John ; The awful glory of that day When all the Father's brightness shone Through manhood's veil of clay. And, midst gray prophet forms, and wild Dark visions of the days of old, How sweetly woman's beauty smiled Through locks of brown and gold ! RAPHAEL Suggested by the portrait of Raphael, at the age of fifteen. I shall not soon forget that sight : The glow of Autumn's westering day, A hazy warmth, a dreamy light, On Raphael's picture lay. There Fornarina's fair young face Once more upon her lover shone, Whose model of an angel's grace He borrowed from her own. Slow passed that vision from my view, But not the lesson which it taught ; The soft, calm shadows which it threw Still rested on my thought : It was a simple print I saw, The fair face of a musing boy ; Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe Seemed bending with my joy. A single print, – the graceful flow Of boyhood's soft and wavy hair, And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow Unmarked and clear, were there. The truth, that painter, bard, and sage, Even in Earth's cold and changeful clime, Plant for their deathless heritage The fruits and flowers of time. Yet through its sweet and calm repose I saw the inward spirit shine ; It was as if before me rose The white veil of a shrine. We shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our Future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade. The tissue of the Life to be We weave with colors all our own, And in the field of Destiny We reap as we have sown. As if, as Gothland's sage has told, The hidden life, the man within, Dissevered from its frame and mould, By mortal eye were seen. Was it the lifting of that eye, The waving of that pictured hand ? Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky, I saw the walls expand. Still shall the soul around it call The shadows which it gathered here, And, painted on the eternal wall, The Past shall reappear. 388 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT Think ye the notes of holy song On Milton's tuneful ear have died ? Think ye that Raphael's angel throng Has vanished from his side ? And sadder still, I saw the woe Which only wounded spirits know When Pride's strong footsteps o'er thea go. Oh no! - We live our life again ; Or warmly touched, or oldly dim, The pictures of the Past remain, - Man's works shall follow him ! EGO WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF A FRIEND [Originally entitled Lines Written in the Book of a Friend. On page of thine I cannot trace The cold and heartless commonplace, A statue's fixed and marble grace. For ever as these lines I penned, Still with the thought of thee will blend That of some loved and common friend, Who in life's desert track has made His pilgrim tent with mine, or strayed Beneath the same remembered shade. And hence my pen unfettered moves In freedom which the heart approves, The negligence which friendship loves. And wilt thou prize my poor gift less For simple air and rustic dress, And sign of haste and carelessness ? Oh, more than specious counterfeit Of sentiment or studied wit, A heart like thine should value it. Yet half I frar my gift will be Unto thy book, if not to thee, Of more than doubtful courtesy. A banished name from Fashion's sphere, A lay unheard of Beauty's ear, Forbid, disowned, — what do they here? 'pon my ear not all in vain Came the sad captive's clanking chain, The groaning from his bed of pain. Spurned not alone in walks abroad, But from the temples of the Lon Thrust out apart, like things abhorred. Deep as I felt, and stern and strong. In words which Prudence sinot hered long, My soul spoke out against the wrung; Not mine alone the task to speak Of comfort to the poor and weak, And dry the tear on Sorrow's cheek; But, mingled in the conflict warin, To pour the fiery breath of storm Through the harsh trumpet of Refur ; To brave Opinion's settled frown, From ermined robe and saintly gown, While wrestling reverenced Error du? Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way, Cool shadows on the greeniswari lar. Flowers swung upon the bending spray And, broad and bright, on either hand, Stretched the green slopes of Fursund With Hope's eternal sunbow spalities; Whence voices called me like the flow, Which on the listener's ear will groa, Of forest streamlets soft and low. And gentle eyes, which still retain Their picture on the heart and brain Smiled, beckoning from that path of pas. In vain ! nor dream, nor rest. nor pua, 125 Remain for him who round bim draws The battered mail of Freedom's cause. From youthful hopes, from eab gros spot Of young Romance, and gentle Thures Where storm and tumult enter Dat; From each fair altar, where lelong The offerings Lore rramures of Song Io homage to her brightened througe i EGO 389 With soul and strength, with heart and hand, I turned to Freedom's struggling band, To the sad Helots of our land. And when the summer winds shall sweep With their light wings my place of sleep, And mosses round my headstone creep ; If still, as Freedom's rallying sign, Upon the young heart's altars shine The very fires they caught from mine; What marvel then that Fame should turn Her notes of praise to those of scorn ; Her gifts reclaimed, her smiles with- drawn? If words my lips once uttered still, In the calm faith and steadfast will Of other hearts, their work fulfil ; What matters it ? a few years more, Life's surge so restless heretofore Shall break upon the unknown shore ! Perchance with joy the soul may learn These tokens, and its eye discern The fires which on those altars burn; In that far land shall disappear The shadows which we follow here, The mist-wreaths of our atmosphere ! Before no work of mortal hand, Of human will or strength expand The pearl gates of the Better Land ; Alone in that great love which gave Life to the sleeper of the grave, Resteth the power to seek and save. Yet, if the spirit gazing through The vista of the past can view One deed to Heaven and virtue true ; A marvellous joy that even then, The spirit hath its life again, In the strong hearts of mortal men. Take, lady, then, the gift I bring, No gay and graceful offering, No flower-smile of the laughing spring. Midst the green buds of Youth's fresh May, With Fancy's leaf-enwoven bay, My sad and sombre gift I lay. If through the wreck of wasted powers, Of garlands wreathed from Folly's bowers, Of idle aims and misspent hours, And if it deepens in thy mind A sense of suffering human-kind, The outcast and the spirit-blind ; The eye can note one sacred spot By Pride and Self profanëd not, A green place in the waste of thought, Oppressed and spoiled on every side, By Prejudice, and Scorn, and Pride, Life's common courtesies denied ; Where deed or word hath rendered less The sum of human wretchedness, Aud Gratitude looks forth to bless ; The simple burst of tenderest feeling From sad hearts worn by evil-dealing, For blessing on the hand of healing; Better than Glory's pomp will be That green and blessed spot to me, A palm-shade in Eternity! Something of Time which may invite The purified and spiritual sight To rest on with a calm delight. Sad mothers mourning o'er their trust, Children by want and misery nursed, Tasting life's bitter cup at first ; If to their strong appeals which come From fireless hearth, and crowded room, And the close alley's noisome gloom,- Though dark the hands upraised to thee In mute beseeching agony, Thou lend’st thy woman's sympathy ; Not vainly on thy gentle shrine, Where Love, and Mirth, and Friendship twine Their varied gifts, I offer mine. 390 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT siin, run, When wood-grapes were purpling aa! THE PUMPKIN brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its On, greenly and fair in the lands of the skin, Glaring out through the dark with a cando The vines of the gourd and the rich melon within ! When we laughed round the corn-bras. And the rock and the tree and the cottage with hearts all in tune, enfold, Our chair a broad pumpkin, – our lanter: With broad leaves all greenness and blos- the moon, soms all gold, Telling tales of the fairy who travelled ike Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once steam, grew, In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats is While lie waited to know that his warning her team! was true, And longed for the storm-cloud, and lis- Then thanks for thy present ! none swerter tened in vain or better For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire- E’er smoked from an oven or circled . rain. platter ! Fairer hands never wronght at a pastry On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish more fine, maiden Brighter eyes never watched o'er its bad- Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine ing, than thine ! laden ; And the prayer, which my mouth is to And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to be- full to express, hold Swells my heart that thy shadow mua! Through orange-leaves shining the broad never be less, spheres of gold ; That the days of thy lot may be lengte Yet with dearer delight from his home in ened below, the North, And the fame of thy worth like a purupl.: On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth, And thy life be as sweet, and its last en Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow set sky fruit shines, Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpk: And the sun of September melts down on pie ! his vines. Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East FORGIVENESS and from West, From North and from South come the pil. My heart was heavy, for its trust bu grim and guest, been When the grav-haired New Englander sees Abused, its kindness answered with fia round his board wrong ; The old broken links of affection restored, So, turning gloomily from my fell When the care-wearied man seeks his mo- men, ther once more, One summer Sabbath day I sta And the worn matron smiles where the girl among smiled before, The green mounds of the village bare- What moistens the lip and what brightens place ; the eye ? Where, pondering how all humas per What calls back the past, like the rich and hate Pumpkin pie ? Find one sad level; and bow, sode late, Oh, fruit loved of boy bood ! the old days Wronged and wrong loer, each with met- recalling, ened face, vine grow, MY THANKS 391 And cold hands folded over a still heart, Pass the green threshold of our common grave, Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart, Awed for myself, and pitying my race, Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave, Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave! Dear heart ! the legend is not vain Which lights that holy hearth again, And calling back from care and pain, And death's funereal sadness, Draws round its old familiar blaze The clustering groups of happier days, And lends to sober manhood's gaze A glimpse of childish gladness. And, knowing how my life hath been A weary work of tongue and pen, A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men, Thou wilt not chide my turning To con, at times, an idle rhyme, To pluck a flower from childhood's clime, Or listen, at Life's noonday chime, For the sweet bells of Morning ! TO MY SISTER WITH A COPY OF "THE SUPERNATU- RALISM OF NEW ENGLAND” MY THANKS The work referred to was a series of papers under this title, contributed to the Democratic Review and afterward collected into a volume, in which I noted some of the superstitions and folklore prevalent in New England. The vol- ume has not been kept in print, but most of its contents are distributed in my Literary Recreations and Miscellanies (now scattered in volumes v. and vi. of the Riverside edition). ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRE- SENTED TO A FRIEND [Formerly entitled Lines.] 'T is said that in the Holy Land The angels of the place have blessed The pilgrim's bed of desert sand, Like Jacob's stone of rest. That down the hush of Syrian skies Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings The song whose holy symphonies Are beat by unseen wings ; DEAR Sister! while the wise and sage Turn coldly from my playful page, And count it strange that ripened age Should stoop to boyhood's folly ; I know that thou wilt judge aright Of all which makes the heart more light, Or lends one star-gleam to the night Of clouded Melancholy. Away with weary cares and themes ! Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams ! Leave free once more the land which teems With wonders and romances ! Where thou, with clear discerning eyes, Shalt rightly read the truth which lies Beneath the quaintly masking guise Of wild and wizard fancies. Till starting from his sandy bed, The wayworn wanderer looks to see The halo of an angel's head Shine through the tamarisk-tree. So through the shadows of my way Thy smile hath fallen soft and clear, So at the weary close of day Hath seemed thy voice of cheer. That pilgrim pressing to his goal May pause not for the vision's sake, Yet all fair things within his soul The thought of it shall wake : 0 Lo ! once again our feet we get On still green wood-paths, twilight wet, By lonely brooks, whose waters fret The roots of spectral beeches ; Again the hearth-fire glimmers o'er Home's whitewashed wall and painted floor, And young eyes widening to the lore Of faery-folks and witches. The graceful palm-tree by the well, Seen on the far horizon's rim ; The dark eyes of the fleet gazelle, Bent timidly on him ; 392 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT Each pictured saint, whose golden hair Streams sunlike through the convent's gloom ; Pale shrines of martyrs young and fair, And loving Mary's tomb; Pressed on thy heart, the leares I bring May well defy the wintry cold, Until, in Heaven's eternal spring, Life's fairer ones unfold REMEMBRANCE WITH COPIES OF THE AUTHOR'S WRITINGS common And thus each tint or shade which falls, From sunset cloud or waving tree, Along my pilgrim path, recalls The pleasant thought of thee. Of one in sun and shade the same, In weal and woe my steady friend, Whatever by that holy name The angels comprehend. Not blind to faults and follies, thou Hast never failed the good to see, Nor judged by one unseemly bough The upward-struggling tree. These light leaves at thy feet I lay, - Poor common thoughts on things, Which Time is shaking, day by day, Like feathers from his wings ; Chance shootings from a frail life-tree, To nurturing care but little known, Their good was partly learned of thee, Their folly is my own. That tree still clasps the kindly mould, Its leaves still drink the twilight dew, And weaving its pale green with gold, Still shines the sunlight through. There still the morning zephyrs play, And there at times the spring bird sings, And mossy trunk and fading spray Are flowered with glossy wings. Yet, even in genial sun and rain, Root, branch, and leaflet fail and fade ; The wanderer on its lonely plain Erelong shall miss its shade. O friend beloved, whose curious skill Keeps bright the last year's leaves and flowers, With warm, glad, summer thoughts to fill The cold, dark, winter hours ! FRIEND of mine! whose lot was cast With me in the distant past; Where, like shadows flitting fast, Fact and fancy, thought and theme, Word and work, begin to seem Like a half-remembered dream! Touched by change have all things bees, Yet I think of thee as when We had speech of lip and pen. For the calm thy kindness lent To a path of discontent, Rough with trial and dissent; Gentle words where such were few, Softening blame where blame was true, Praising where small praise was due ; For a waking dream made good, For an ideal understood, For thy Christian womanhood ; For thy marvellous gift to eull From our common life and dull Whatsoe'er is beautiful ; Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees Dropping sweetness ; true heart's ease Of congenial sympathies ;- Still for these I own my debt; Memory, with her erelids wet. Fain would thank thee even yet I And as one who scatters flowers Where the Queen of May's sweet bour Sits, o'ertwined with blossomed buwers In superfluous zeal bestowing Gifts where gifts are overtlowing, So I pay the debt I'm owing. MY NAMESAKE 393 To thy full thoughts, gay or sad, Sunny-hued or sober clad, Something of my own I add ; Well assured that thou wilt take Even the offering which I make Kindly for the giver's sake. Yet not the less I own your claim To grateful thanks, dear friends of mine. Hang, if it please you so, my name Upon your household line. Let Fame from brazen lips blow wide Her chosen names, I envy none : A mother's love, a father's pride, Shall keep alive my own! MY NAMESAKE Addressed to Francis Greenleaf Allison of Burlington, N. J. Still shall that name as now recall The young leaf wet with morning dew, The glory where the sunbeams fall The breezy woodlands throngh. That name shall be a household word, A spell to waken smile or sigh ; In many an evening prayer be heard And cradle lullaby. a You scarcely need my tardy thanks, Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend - A green leaf on your own Green Banks The memory of your friend. For me, no wreath, bloom-woven, hides The sobered brow and lessening hair : For aught I know, the myrtled sides Of Helicon are bare. And thou, dear child, in riper days When asked the reason of thy name, Shalt answer : “One 't were vain to praise Or censure bore the same. Their scallop-shells so many bring The fabled founts of song to try, They've drained, for aught I know, the spring Of Aganippe dry. “Some blamed him, some believed him good, The truth lay doubtless 'twixt the two; He reconciled as best he could Old faith and fancies new. Ah well ! - The wreath the Muses braid Proves often Folly's cap and bell ; Methinks, my ample beaver's shade May serve my turn as well. “In him the grave and playful mixed, And wisdom held with folly truce, And Nature compromised betwixt Good fellow and recluse. Let Love's and Friendship’s tender debt Be paid by those I love in life. · Why should the unborn critic whet For me his scalping-knife ? “ He loved his friends, forgave his foes ; And, if his words were harsh at times, He spared his fellow-men, — his blows Fell only on their crimes. Why should the stranger peer and pry One's vacant house of life about, And drag for curious ear and eye His faults and follies out ? - “He loved the good and wise, but found His human heart to all akin Who met him on the common ground Of suffering and of sin. Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon, With chaff of words, the garb he wore, As corn-husks when the ear is gone Are rustled all the more ? “Whate'er his neighbors might endure Of pain or grief his own became ; For all the ills he could not cure He held himself to blame. Let kindly Silence close again, The picture vanish from the eye, And on the dim and misty main Let the small ripple die. “ His good was mainly an intent, His evil not of forethought done ; The work he wrought was rarely meant Or finished as begun. 394 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT “ Ill served his tides of feeling strong To turn the common mills of use ; And, over restless wings of song, His birthright garb hung loose! “ His eye was beauty's powerless slave, And his the ear which discord pains ; Few guessed beneath his aspect grave What passions strove in chains. “ He had his share of care and pain, No holiday was life to him ; Still in the heirloom cup we drain The bitter drop will swim. “Yet Heaven was kind, and here a bird And there a flower beguiled his way ; And cool, in summer noons, he heard The fountains plash and play. “ On all his sad or restless moods The patient peace of Nature stole ; The quiet of the fields and woods Sank deep into his soul. “Ile worshipped as his fathers did, And kept the faith of childish days, And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid, Ile loved the good old ways. “The simple tastes, the kindly traits, The tranquil air, and gentle speech, The silence of the soul that waits For more than man to teach. “Like childhood, listening for the sound Of its dropped pebbles in the well, All wainly down the dark profound His brief-lined plummet fell. “So, scattering flowers with pioas pains On old beliefs, of later creeds, Which claimed a place in Truth's dom mains, He asked the title-deeds. “ He saw the old-time's groves and shrines In the long distance fair and din; And heard, like sound of far-off pines, The century-mellowed hymn ! “ He dared not mock the Dervish whirl, The Brahmin's rite, the Lama's speil; God knew the heart ; Devotion's pearl Might sanctify the shell. “While others trod the altar stairs He faltered like the publican ; And, while they praised as saints, ka prayers Were those of sinful man. saw “The cant of party, school, and sect, Provoked at times his honest scorn, And Folly, in its gray respect, He tossed on satire's horn. “For, awed by Sinai's Mount of Law, The trembling faith alone suttede That, through its cloud and tiame, The sweet, sad face of Christ! “ And listening, with his forehead boved. Heard the Divine compassion til The pauses of the trump and cloud With whispers small and still. “ The words he spake, the thoughts penned, Are inortal as his hand and brain. But, if they served the Master's end, He has not lived in vain!" " But still his heart was full of awe And reverence for all sacred things ; And, brooding over form and law, He saw the Spirit's wings ! “ Life's mystery wrapt him like a cloud; He heard far voices mock his own, The sweep of wings unseen, the loud, Long roll of waves unknown. “ The arrows of his straining sight Fell quenched in darkness ; priest and sage, Like lost guides calling left and right, Perplexed his doubtful age. Heaven make thee better than thy Dame Child of my friends ! – Fof thre I crave What riches never bought, nor fame To mortal longing gave. I pray the prayer of Plato old : God make thee beautiful within, And let thine eyes the good bebold In everything save sin ! MY DREAM 395 MY DREAM Imagination held in check To serve, not rule, thy poisëd mind ; Thy Reason, at the frown or beck Of Conscience, loose or bind. No dreamer thou, but real all, Strong manhood crowning vigorous youth Life made by duty epical And rhythmic with the truth. So shall that life the fruitage yield Which trees of healing only give, And green-leafed in the Eternal field Of God, forever live! In my dream, methought I trod, I Yesternight, a mountain road ; Narrow as Al Sirat's span, High as eagle's flight, it ran. Overhead, a roof of cloud With its weight of thunder bowed ; Underneath, to left and right, Blankness and abysmal night. Here and there a wild-flower blushed; Now and then a bird-song gushed ; Now and then, through rifts of shade, Stars shone out, and sunbeams played. A MEMORY [The singer in this poem was a daughter of Whittier's early friend, N. P. Rogers.] But the goodly company, Walking in that path with me, One by one the brink o'erslid, One by one the darkness bid. Some with wailing and lament, Some with cheerful courage went ; But, of all who smiled or mourned, Never one to us returned. HERE, while the loom of Winter weaves The shroud of flowers and fountains, I think of thee and summer eves Among the Northern mountains. When thunder tolled the twilight's close, And winds the lake were rude on, And thou wert singing, Ca' the Yowes, The bonny yowes of Cluden ! When, close and closer, hushing breath, Our circle narrowed round thee, And smiles and tears made up the wreath Wherewith our silence crowned thee; And, strangers all, we felt the ties Of sisters and of brothers ; Ah! whose of all those kindly eyes Now smile upon another's ? Anxiously, with eye and ear, Questioning that shadow drear, Never hand in token stirred, Never answering voice I heard ! Steeper, darker !- lo! I felt From my feet the pathway melt, Swallowed by the black despair, And the hungry jaws of air, Past the stony-throated caves, Strangled by the wash of waves, Past the splintered crags, I sank On a green and flowery bank, – Soft as fall of thistle-down, Lightly as a cloud is blown, Soothingly as childhood pressed To the bosom of its rest. The sport of Time, who still apart The waifs of life is flinging ; Oh, nevermore shall heart to heart Draw nearer for that singing ! Yet when the panes are frosty-starred, And twilight's fire is gleaming, I hear the songs of Scotland's bard Sound softly through my dreaming ! Of the sharp-horned rocks instead, Green the grassy meadows spread, Bright with waters singing by Trees that propped a golden sky. Painless, trustful, sorrow-free, Old lost faces welcomed me, A song that lends to winter snows The glow of summer weather, Again I hear thee ca' the yowes To Cluden's hills of heather ! -- 396 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT With whose sweetness of content Still expectant hope was blent. Waking while the dawning gray Slowly brightened into day, Pondering that vision fled, Thus unto myself I said:- “ Steep and hung with clouds of strife Is our narrow path of life; And our death the dreaded fall Through the dark, awaiting all. “So, with painful steps we climb Up the dizzy ways of time, Ever in the shadow shed By the forecast of our dread. “ Dread of mystery solved alone, Of the untried and unknown; Yet the end thereof may seem Like the falling of my dream. " And this heart-consuming care, All our fears of here or there, Change and absence, loss and death, Prove but simple lack of faith.” Thou, O Most Compassionate! Who didst stoop to our estate, Drinking of the cup we drain, Treading in our path of pain, - Through the doubt and mystery, Grant to us thy steps to see, And the grace to draw from thence Larger hope and confidence. Show thy vacant tomb, and let, As of old, the angels sit, Whispering, by its open door : · Fear not! He hath gone before !" I was once a barefoot boy ! Prince thou art, — the grown-up man Only is republican. Let the million-dollared ride! Barefoot, trudging at his side, Thou hast more than he can buy In the reach of ear and eye,- Outward sunshine, inward jor: Blessings on thee, barefoot boy! Oh for boyhood's painless play, Sleep that wakes in laughing day, Health that mocks the doctor's rules, Knowledge never learned of schools, Of the wild bee's morning chave, Of the wild flower's time and place, Flight of fowl and habitude Of the tenants of the wood; How the tortoise bears his shell, How the woodchuck digs his cell, And the ground-mole sinks his well; How the robin feeds her young, How the oriole's nest is hung; Where the whitest lilies blow, Where the freshest berries grow, Where the ground-nut trails its vide, Where the wood-grape's cluster shine; Of the black wasp's cunning way, Mason of his walls of clay, And the architectural plans Of gray hornet artisans ! For, eschewing books and tasks, Nature answers all he asks ; Hand in hand with her he walks, Face to face with her be talks, Part and parcel of her jos, Blessings on the barefoot bor! Oh for boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon, When all things I heard or saw, Me, their master, waited for. I was rich in tlowers and trees, Humming-birds and honey-hees; For my sport the squirrel plaved, Plied the snouted mole his spade ; For my taste the blackberry code Purpled over hedge and stone ; Laughed the brook for my delight Through the day and through the night, Whispering at the garden wall, Talked with me from fall to fall; Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pood Mine the walnut slopes berond. Mine, on bending orchard trees, THE BAREFOOT BOY BLESSINGS on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! With thy turned-rp pantaloons, And thy merry whistled tunes ; With thy red lip, redder still Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; With the sunshine on ths face, Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace; From my heart I give thee joy, — MY PSALM 397 No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear ; But, grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here. I plough no more a desert land, To harvest weed and tare ; The manna dropping from God's hand Rebukes my painful care. Apples of Hesperides ! Still as my horizon grew, Larger grew my riches too; All the world I saw or knew Seemed a complex Chinese toy, Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! Oh for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread; Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude ! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra ; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch : pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy ! I break my pilgrim staff, I lay Aside the toiling oar ; The angel sought so far away I welcome at my door. The airs of spring may never play Among the ripening corn, Nor freshness of the flowers of May Blow through the autumn morn ; Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look Through fringed lids to heaven, And the pale aster in the brook Shall see its image given ; The woods shall wear their robes of praise, The south-wind softly sigh, And sweet, calm days in golden haze Melt down the amber sky. Cheerily, then, my little man, Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! Though the flinty slopes be hard, Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, Every morn shall lead thee through Fresh baptisms of the dew ; Every evening from thy feet Shall the cool wind kiss the heat : All too soon these feet must hide In the prison cells of pride, Lose the freedom of the sod, Like a colt's for work be shod, Made to tread the mills of toil, Up and down in ceaseless moil : Happy if their track be found Never on forbidden ground ; Happy if they sink not in Quick and treacherous sands of sin. Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy, Ere it passes, barefoot boy! Not less shall manly deed and word Rebuke an age of wrong ; The graven flowers that wreathe the sword Make not the blade less strong. But smiting hands shall learn to heal,- To build as to destroy ; Nor less my heart for others feel That I the more enjoy. MY PSALM I MOURN no more my vanished years: Beneath a tender rain, An April rain of smiles and tears, My heart is young again. All as God wills, who wisely heeds To give or to withhold, And knoweth more of all my needs Than all my prayers have told ! Enough that blessings undeserved Have marked my erring track ; That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved, His chastening turned me back ; That more and more a Providence Of love is understood, Making the springs of time and sense Sweet with eternal good ; - The west-winds blow, and, singing low, I hear the glad streams run ; The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun. 398 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT That death seems but a covered way Which opens into light, Wherein no blinded child can stray Beyond the Father's sight; That care and trial seem at last, Through Memory's sunset air, Like mountain-ranges overpast, In purple distance fair; That all the jarring notes of life Seem blending in a psalm, And all the angles of its strife Slow rounding into calm. And so the shadows fall apart, And so the west-winds play ; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day. Like one whose limbs are bound in trance I hear the day-sounds swell and grue, And see across the twilight glane, Troop after troop, in swift advaner, The shining ones with plunes of snow! I know the errand of their feet, I know what mighty work is theirs ; I can but lift up hands unmeet The threshing-floors of God to beat, And speed them with unworthy prayers I will not dream in vain despair The steps of progress wait for me : The pony leverage of a hair The planet's impulse well may spare, A drop of dew the tided sea. The loss, if loss there be, is mine, And yet not mine if understood ; For one shall grasp and one resign, One drink life's rue, and one its wine, And God shall make the balance goed Oh power to do! Oh baffled will! Oh prayer and action ! ye are one. Who may not strive, may yet fulfil The harder task of standing still, Aud good but wished with God is dee! THE WAITING I wait and watch : before my eyes Methinks the night grows thin and gray ; I wait and watch the eastern skies To see the golden spears uprise Beneath the oriflamme of day! SNOW-BOUND A WINTER IDYL TO THE MEMORY OF THE HOL'SEHOLD IT DESCRIBES THIS POEM IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR The inmates of the family at the Whittier vent, and felt it her duty to prowlaim the 1.-2. homestead who are referred to in the poem speedy coming. With this nusiske were my father, mother, my brother and two the Atlantic and spent the greater part ! sisters, and my uncle and aunt, both unmarried. long life in travelling over Earp and 1... In addition, there was the district school mas. She lived some time with Luy liestr ter, who boarded with us. The "not unfeared, hope, a woman as fantastic i half-welcome guest" was Harriet Livermore, strained as herself. on the slope of Mi L danghter of Judge Livermore, of New Hamp. but finally quarrelled with her in mani to te shire, a young woman of fine natural ability, white horses with nd marks on the ball enthusiastic, eccentric, with slight control over which suggested the idea of ea! [.. her violent tempur, which sometimes made her her titled hostres expected to malo into ou religions profession doubtful. She was equally len with the Lord. A friend of 1.5 reads to exhort in school-house praver-meetings her, when quite an old woman, w***** and dance in a Washington ball-room, while Syria with a tribe of Arabe, w bo with thrin her father was a member of congress. She ental notion that madines is inspirata * early embraced the doctrine of the Second Ad. I cepted her as their prophetess and is SNOW-BOUND 399 Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told. The wind blew east; we heard the roar Of Ocean on his wintry shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythin our inland air. the time referred to in Snow-Bound she was boarding at the Rocks Village, about two miles from us. In my boyhood, in our lonely farm-house, we had scanty sources of information ; few books and only a small weekly newspaper. Our only annual was the Almanac. Under such circumstances story-telling was a neces- sary resource in the long winter evenings. My father when a young man had traversed the wilderness to Canada, and could tell us of his adventures with Indians and wild beasts, and of his sojourn in the French villages. My uncle was ready with his record of hunting and fishing and, it must be confessed, with stories which he at least half believed, of witch- craft and apparitions. My mother, who was born in the Indian-haunted region of Somers- worth, New Hampshire, between Dover and Portsmouth, told us of the inroads of the sav- ages, and the narrow escape of her ancestors. She described strange people who lived on the Piscataqua and Cocheco, among whom was Bantam the sorcerer. I have in my possession the wizard's “conjuring book," which he sol- emnly opened when consulted. It is a copy of Cornelius Agrippa's Magic, printed in 1651, dedicated to Dr. Robert Child, who, like Mi- chael Scott, had learned “the art of glammorie In Padua beyond the sea," and who is famous in the annals of Massachu- setts, where he was at one time a resident, as the first man who dared petition the General Court for liberty of conscience. The full title of the book is Three Books of Occult Philoso- phy, by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Knight, Doc- tor of both Laws, Counsellor to Cæsar's Sacred Majesty and Judge of the Prerogative Court. Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows : Heard the horse whinnying for his corn ; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows ; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The cock his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent. Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag, wavering to and fro, Crossed and recrossed the wingëd snow : And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame, And through the glass the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. ** As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are ang- mented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common V Vood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of VVood doth the same." -- COR. AGRIPPA, Occult Phi- losophy, Book I. ch. v. * Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seema powhere to alight : the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.” EMERSON. The Snow Storm. So all night long the storm roared on : The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell ; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below, - A universe of sky and snow ! The old familiar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes ; strange domes and towers The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. 400 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside. We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not bear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship, And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone. Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, Or garden-wall, or belt of wood ; A smooth white mound the brush - pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road ; The bridle-post an old man sat With loose-tlung coat and high cocked hat ; The well-curb had a Chinese roof ; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle. A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted : “ Boys, a path!” Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy ?) Our buskins on our feet we drew; With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, To guard our necks and ears from snow, We cut the solid whiteness through. And, where the drift was deepest, made A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal : we had read Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, And to our own his name we gave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp's supernal powers. We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within. The old horse thrust his long head out, And grave with wonder gazed about ; The cock his lusty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led ; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And mild reproach of hunger looked ; The horned patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp of foot. All day the gusty north-wind bore The loosening drift its breath before ; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or inirth As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the mes, The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank From sight beneath the smothering hunk, We piled, with care, our nightly sitede Of wood against the chimney-bank, The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-tak; The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the giess On whitewashed wall and sagving beatz Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy blom ; While radiant with a mimic tiame Outside the sparkling drift becamne, And through the bare-boughed Llac-tree Our own warm hearth seemed bluang ine The crane and pendent trammel skre, The Turks' heads on the andina gluwa, While childish fancy, prompt to tell The meaning of the miracle, Whispered the old rhyme : "/ider. When fire outdoors burns merriw, There the witches are making tec" The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full ; the hill-range stood Transfigured in the silver too, Its blown snows tlashing cold and here Dead white, save where some sharp rasm Took shadow, or the sombre grreu Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness at their back For such a world and such a zat Most fitting that unwarming light Which only seemned whesperit feil To make the coldness visible. Shut in from all the world witboat, We sat the clean-wingrul bearth about, Content to let the north-wind nuar In baffled rage at pane and dour, While the red logs before us buat SNOW-BOUND 401 a : The frost-line back with tropic heat ; We sped the time with stories old, And ever, when a louder blast Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told, Shook beam and rafter as it passed, Or stammered from our school-book lore The merrier up its roaring draught “The Chief of Gambia's golden shore.” The great throat of the chimney laughed; How often since, when all the land The house-dog on his paws outspread Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand, Laid to the fire his drowsy head, As if a far-blown trumpet stirred The cat's dark silhouette on the wall The languorous sin-sick air, I heard : A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; “ Does not the voice of reason cry, And, for the winter fireside meet, Claim the first right which Nature gave, Between the andirons' straddling feet, From the red scourge of bondage fly, The mug of cider simmered slow, Nor deign to live a burdened slave !” The apples sputtered in a row, Our father rode again his ride And, close at hand, the basket stood On Memphremagog's wooded side ; With nuts from brown October's wood. Sat down again to moose and samp In trapper's hut and Indian camp; What matter how the night behaved ? Lived o'er the old idyllic ease What matter how the north-wind raved ? Beneath St. François' hemlock-trees; Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Again for him the moonlight shone Could quench our hearth - fire's ruddy On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; glow. Again he heard the violin play O Time and Change! — with hair as gray Which led the village dance away. As was my sire's that winter day, And mingled in its merry whirl How strange it seems, with so much gone The grandam and the laughing girl. Of life and love, to still live on! Or, nearer bome, our steps he led Ah, brother ! only I and thou Where Salisbury's level marshes spread Are left of all that circle now, Mile-wide as fies the laden bee; The dear home faces whereupon Where merry mowers, hale and strong, That fitful firelight paled and shone. Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along Henceforward, listen as we will, The low green prairies of the sea. The voices of that hearth are still ; We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head, Look where we may, the wide earth o'er And round the rocky Isles of Shoals Those lighted faces smile no more. The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals ; We tread the paths their feet have worn, The chowder on the sand-beach made, We sit beneath their orchard trees, Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot, We hear, like them, the hum of bees With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. And rustle of the bladed corn ; We heard the tales of witchcraft old, We turn the pages that they read, And dream and sign and marvel told Their written words we linger o'er, To sleepy listeners as they lay But in the sun they cast no shade, Stretched idly on the salted hay, No voice is heard, no sign is made, Adrift along the winding shores, No step is on the conscious floor ! When favoring breezes deigned to blow Yet Love will dream, and Faith will The square sail of the gundelow trust, And idle lay the useless oars. (Since He who knows our need is just,) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Our mother, while she turned her wheel Alas for him who never sees Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! Told how the Indian hordes came down Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, At midnight on Cocheco town, Nor looks to see the breaking day And how her own great-uncle bore Across the mournful marbles play! His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, Recalling, in her fitting phrase, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, So rich and picturesque and free, That Life is ever lord of Death, (The common unrhymed poetry And Love can never lose its own! Of simple life and country ways,) 402 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT The story of her early days, – She made us welcome to her home ; Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; We stole with her a frightened look At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, The fame whereof went far and wide Through all the simple country side ; We heard the hawks at twilight play, The boat-horn on Piscataqua, The loon's weird laughter far away ; We fished her little trout-brook, knew What flowers in wood and meadow grew, What sunny hillsides autumn-brown She climbed to shake the ripe nnts down, Saw where in sheltered cove and bay The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, And heard the wild-yeese calling loud Beneath the gray November cloud. Then, haply, with a look more grave, a And soberer tone, some tale she gave From painful Sewel's ancient tome, Beloved in every Quaker home, Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! - Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, And water-butt and bread-cask failed, And cruel, hungry eyes pursued His portly presence mad for food, With dark hints muttered under breath Of casting lots for life or death, Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, To be himself the sacrifice. Then, suddenly, as if to save The good man from his living grave, A ripple on the water grew, A school of porpoise flashed in view. “ Take, eat,” he said, “and be content ; These fishes in my stead are sent By Him who gave the tangled ram To spare the child of Abraham.” Our uncle, innocent of books, Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, The ancient teachers never dumb Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. In moons and tides and weather wise, He read the clouds as prophecies, And foul or fair could weil divine, By many an occult hint and sign, Holding the cunning-warded keys To all the woodcraft mysteries ; Himself to Nature's beart so near That all her voices in his ear Of beast or bird had meanings clear, Like Apollonius of old, Who knew the tales the sparrows told, Or Hermes who interpreted What the sage cranes of Nilus said; Content to live where life began ; A simple, guileless, childlike man, Strong only on his native grounds, The little world of sights and sounds Whose girdle was the parish bounds, Whereof his fondly partial pride The common features magnified, As Surrey hills to mountains grew In White of Selborne's loving view,- He told how teal and loon be shot, And how the eagle's eggs he gut, The feats on pond and river done, The prodigies of rod and gun ; Till, warming with the tales he told, Forgotten was the outside cold, The bitter wind unheeded blew, From ripening corn the pigeons flew, The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink Went fishing down the river-brink In fields with bean or clover gay, The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, Peered from the doorway of his cell; The muskrat plied the mason's trade, And tier by tier his mud-walls land; And from the shagbark overhead The grizzled squirrel dropped his st: Next, the dear annt, whose smile of ebeer And voice in dreams I see and hear, - The sweetest woman ever Fate Perverse denied a household mate, Who, lonely, homeless, not the less Found peace in love's unselfishness, And welcome wheresoe'er she went, A calm and gracious element, Whose presence seemed the sweetness And womanly atmosphere of home, - Called up her girlhood memories, The huskings and the apple-bees, The sleigh-rides and the summer sails Weaving through all the poor detais And homespun warp of circumstance A golden woof-thread of romance. For well she kept her genial mood And simple faith of maidenhood; Before her still a cloud-land lay, The mirage loomed across ber war; The morning dew, that dries so we With others, glistened at her port, SNOW-BOUND 403 Through years of toil and soil and care, From glossy tress to thin gray hair, All unprofaned she held apart The virgin fancies of the heart. Be shame to him of woman born Who hath for such but thought of scorn. There, too, our elder sister plied Her evening task the stand beside ; A full, rich nature, free to trust, Truthful and almost sternly just, Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, And make her generous thought a fact, Keeping with many a light disguise The secret of self-sacrifice. O heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best That Heaven itself could give thee, – rest, Rest from all bitter thoughts and things ! How many a poor one's blessing went With thee beneath the low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings ! What change can reach the wealth I hold ? What chance can mar the pearl and gold Thy love hath left in trust with me ? And while in life's late afternoon, Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are ; And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? As one who held herself a part Of all she saw, and let her heart Against the household bosom lean, C'pon the motley-braided mat Our youngest and our dearest sat, Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, Now bathed in the unfading green And holy peace of Paradise. Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, Or from the shade of saintly palms, Or silver reach of river calms, Do those large eyes behold me still? With me one little year ago :- The chill weight of the winter snow For months upon her grave has lain ; And now, when summer south-winds blow And brier and harebell bloom again, I tread the pleasant paths we trod, I see the violet-sprinkled sod Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak The hillside flowers she loved to seek, Yet following me where'er I went With dark eyes full of love's content. The birds are glad ; the brier-rose fills The air with sweetness ; all the hills Stretch green to June's unclouded sky; But still I wait with ear and eye For something gone which should be nigh, A loss in all familiar things, In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, Am I not richer than of old ? Safe in thy immortality, Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, The master of the district school Held at the fire his favored place, Its warm glow lit a laughing face Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared The uncertain prophecy of beard. He teased the mitten-blinded cat, Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, Sang songs, and told us what befalls In classic Dartmouth's college halls. Born the wild Northern hills among, From whence his yeoman father wrung By patient toil subsistence scant, Not competence and yet not want, He early gained the power to pay His cheerful, self-reliant way; Could doff at ease his scholar's gown To peddle wares from town to town; Or through the long vacation's reach In lonely lowland districts teach, Where all the droll experience found At stranger hearths in boarding round, The moonlit skater's keen delight, The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, The rustic-party, with its rough Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid, His winter task a pastime made. Happy the snow-locked homes wherein He tuned his merry violin, Or played the athlete in the barn, Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, Or mirth-provoking versions told Of classic legends rare and old, Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome Had all the commonplace of home, And little seemed at best the odds 'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; Where Pindus-born Arachthus took The guise of any grist-mill brook, 404 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT And dread Olympus at his will Became a huckleberry hill. A careless boy that night he seemed ; But at his desk he had the look And air of one who wisely schemed, And hostage from the future took In trained thought and lore of book. Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he Shall Freedom's young apostles be, Who, following in War's bloody trail, Shall every lingering wrong assail ; All chains from limb and spirit strike, Uplift the black and white alike ; Scatter before their swift advance The darkness and the ignorance, The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, Made murder pastime, and the hell Of prison-torture possible ; The cruel lie of caste refute, Old forms remould, and substitute For Slavery's lash the freeman's will, For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; A school-house plant on every hill, Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence The quick wires of intelligence ; Till North and South together brought Shall own the same electric thought, In peace a common flag salute, And, side by side in labor's free And unresentful rivalry, Harvest the fields wherein they fought. Another guest that winter night Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. Cnmarked by time, and yet not young, The honeyed music of her tongue And words of meekness scarcely told A nature passionate and bold, Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, Its milder features dwarfed beside Her unbent will's majestic pride. She sat among us, at the best, A not unfeared, half-welcome guest, Rebuking with her cultured phrase Our homeliness of words and ways. A certain pard-like, treacherous grace Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash, Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash; And under low brows, black with night, Rayed out at times a dangerous light; The sharp beat-lightnings of her face Presaging ill to him whom Fate Condemned to share her love or hate. A woman tropical, intense In thought and act, in soul and sense, She blended in a like degree The vixen and the devotee, Revealing with each freak or feint The temper of Petruchio's Kate, The raptures of Siena's saint. Her tapering hand and rounded wrist Had facile power to form a fist; The warm, dark languish of her eyes Was never safe from wrath's surprise. Brows saintly calm and lips devout Knew every change of scowl and poat: And the sweet voice had notes more bita And shrill for social battle-cry. Since then what old cathedral town Has missed her pilgrim staff and gowth What convent-gate has beld its lock Against the challenge of her knock! Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thutus fares, L'p sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, Gray olive slopes of bills that bem Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, Or startling on her desert throne The crazy Queen of Lebanon With claims fantastic as her own. Her tireless feet have held their way; And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, She watches under Eastern skies, With hope each day renewed and The Lord's quick coming in the these Whereof she dreams and prophesies! Where'er her troubled path may live, The Lord's sweet pity with here! The outward wayward life we see, The hidden springs we may not knue Nor is it given us to discern What threads the fatal sistes spas. Through what ancestral years las rum The sorrow with the woman born, What forged her cruel chain of unis What set her feet in solitudes, And held the love within her rner, What mingled madness in the bed, A life-long discord and annos, Water of tears with oil of joy, And hid within the folded bud Perversities of flower and fruit It is not ours to separate The tangled skein of will and fu'r. SNOW-BOUND 405 To show what metes and bounds should stand Upon the soul's debatable land, And between choice and Providence Divide the circle of events ; But He who knows our frame is just, Merciful and compassionate, And full of sweet assurances And hope for all the language is, That He remembereth we are dust! And saw the teamsters drawing near To break the drifted highways out. Down the long hillside treading slow We saw the half-buried oxen go, Shaking the snow from heads uptost, Their straining nostrils white with frost. Before our door the straggling train Drew up, an added team to gain. The elders threshed their hands a-cold, Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes From lip to lip ; the younger folks Down the loose snow - banks, wrestling, rolled, Then toiled again the cavalcade O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine, And woodland paths that wound between Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. From every barn a team afoot, At every house a new recruit, Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, Haply the watchful young men saw Sweet doorway pictures of the curls And curious eyes of merry girls, Lifting their hands in mock defence Against the snow-ball's compliments, And reading in each missive tost The charm with Eden never lost. At last the great logs, crumbling low, Sent out a dull and duller glow, The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, Ticking its weary circuit through, Pointed with mutely warning sign Its black hand to the hour of nine. That sign the pleasant circle broke : My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, And laid it tenderly away; Then roused himself to safely cover The dull red brands with ashes over. And while, with care, our mother laid The work aside, her steps she stayed One moment, seeking to express Her grateful sense of happiness For food and shelter, warmth and health, And love's contentment more than wealth, With simple wishes (not the weak, Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, But such as warm the generous heart, O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) That none might lack, that bitter night, For bread and clothing, warmth and light. Within our beds awhile we heard The wind that round the gables roared, With now and then a ruder shock, Which made our very bedsteads rock. We heard the loosened clapboards tost, The board-nails snapping in the frost; And on us, through the unplastered wall, Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. But sleep stole on, as sleep will do When hearts are light and life is new; Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, Till in the summer-land of dreams They softened to the sound of streams, Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, And lapsing waves on quiet shores. Next morn we wakened with the shout Of merry voices high and clear; We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound ; And, following where the teamsters led, The wise old Doctor went his round, Just pausing at our door to say, In the brief autocratic way Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, Was free to urge her claim on all, That some poor neighbor sick abed At night our mother's aid would need, For, one in generous thought and deed, What mattered in the sufferer's sight The Quaker matron's inward light, The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? All hearts confess the saints elect Who, twain in faith, in love agree, And melt not in an acid sect The Christian pearl of charity ! So days went on : a week had passed Since the great world was heard from last. The Almanac we studied o'er, Read and reread our little store Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; One harmless novel, mostly hid From younger eyes, a book forbid, 406 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT I hear again the voice that bids The dreamer leave his dream midway For larger hopes and graver fear : Life greatens in these later years, The century's aloe tlowers to-day! Yet, haply, in some lull of life, Some Truce of God which breaks its stri The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, Dreaming in throngful city wars Of winter joys his boyhood knew; And dear and early friends - the frø Who yet remain — shall pause to view These Flemish pictures of old dars; Sit with me by the homestead hearih, And stretch the hands of memory firth To warın them at the wood-fire's blaze And thanks untraced to lips unknown Shall greet me like the olors blown From unseen meadows newly mowi, Or lilies floating in some pond, Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze berood, The traveller owns the grateful sense Of sweetness near, he knows not w bener. And, pausing, takes with forehead bare The benediction of the air. And poetry, (or good or bad, A single book was all we had,) Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, A stranger to the heathen Nine, Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, The wars of David and the Jews. At last the floundering carrier bore The village paper to our door. Lo! broadening outward as we read, To warmer zones the horizon spread In panoramic length unrolled We saw the marvels that it told. Before us passed the painted Creeks, And daft McGregor on his raids In Costa Rica's everglades. And up Taygetos winding slow Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, A Turk's head at each saddle-bow ! Welcome to us its week-old news, Its corner for the rustic Muse, Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, Its record, mingling in a breath The wedding bell and dirge of death : Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, The latest culprit sent to jail ; Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, Its vendue sales and goods at cost, And traffic calling loud for gain. We felt the stir of hall and street, The pulse of life that round us beat ; The chill embargo of the snow Was melted in the genial glow; W’ide swung again our ice-locked door, And all the world was ours once more ! Clasp, Angel of the backward look And folded wings of ashen gray And voice of echoes far away, The brazen covers of thy book ; The weird palimpsest old and vast, Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past ; Where, closely mingling, pa and glow The characters of joy and woe ; The monographs of outlived years, Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, Green hills of life that slope to death, And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees Shade off to mournful eypresses With the white amaranths underneath. Even while I look, I can but heed The restless sands' incessant fall, Importunate hours that hours succeed, Each clamorous with its own sharp need, And duty keeping pace with all. Shut down and clasp the heavy lids; MY TRIUMPH The autumn-time has come ; On woods that dream of bleu, And over purpling vines, The low sun fainter shines. The aster-flower is failing, The hazel's gold is paling : Yet overhead more near The eternal stars appear! And present gratitude Insures the future's good, And for the things I see I trust the things to be ; That in the paths antrod, And the long days of God, My feet shall still be led, My heart be comforted. O living friends who love me! () dear ones gone ahore me ! Careless of other fame, I leave to you my name. IN SCHOOL-DAYS 407 Hide it from idle praises, Save it from evil phrases : 6 Why, when dear lips that spake it Are dumb, should strangers wake it ? Parcel and part of all, I keep the festival, Fore-reach the good to be, And share the victory. Let the thick curtain fall; I better know than all ? How little I have gained, How vast the unattained. I feel the earth move sunward, I join the great march onward, And take, by faith, while living, My freehold of thanksgiving. Not by the page word-painted Let life be banned or sainted : Ć Deeper than written scroll The colors of the soul. IN SCHOOL-DAYS STILL sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sleeping; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry-vines are creeping. Sweeter than any sung My songs that found no tongue ; 9 Nobler than any fact My wish that failed of act. Others shall sing the song, Others shall right the wrong, Finish what I begin, And all I fail of win. What matter, I or they? Mine or another's day, So the right word be said And life the sweeter made ? Within, the master's desk is seen, Deep scarred by raps official ; The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife's carved initial; The charcoal frescos on its wall ; Its door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school, Went storming out to playing ! Long years ago a winter sun Shone over it at setting ; Lit up its western window-panes, And low eaves' icy fretting. It touched the tangled golden curls, And brown eyes full of grieving, Of one who still her steps delayed When all the school were leaving. Hail to the coming singers ! Hail to the brave light-bringers ! Forward I reach and share All that they sing and dare. The airs of heaven blow o'er me ; A glory shines before me Of what mankind shall be, Pure, generous, brave, and free. A dream of man and woman Diviner but still human, Solving the riddle old, Shaping the Age of Gold ! The love of God and neighbor ; An equal-banded labor ; The richer life, where beauty Walks hand in hand with duty. Ring, bells in unreared steeples, The joy of unborn peoples ! Sound, trumpets far off blown, Your triumph is my own! For near her stood the little boy Her childish favor singled : His cap pulled low npon a face Where pride and shame were mingled. Pushing with restless feet the snow To right and left, he lingered ; As restlessly her tiny bands The blue-checked apron fingered. He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt The soft hand's light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing. “I'm sorry that I spelt the word : I hate to go above you, a 408 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT Becanse,” the brown eyes lower fell, – " Because, you see, I love you ! ” Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl! the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing ! He lives to learn, in life's hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and bis loss, Like her, — because they love him. How hushed the hiss of party hate, The clamor of the throng ! How old, harsh voices of debate Flow into rhythmic song ! Methinks the spirit's temper grows Too soft in this still air ; Somewhat the restful heart foregoes Of needed watch and prayer. The bark by tempest vainly tossed May fowder in the calın, And he who braved the polar frost Faint by the isles of balm. Better than self-indulgent years The outflung heart of youth, Than pleasant songs in idle ears The tumult of the truth. MY BIRTHDAY BENEATH the moonlight and the snow Lies dead my latest year ; The winter winds are wailing low Its dirges in my ear. I grieve not with the moaning wind As if a loss befell ; Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well ! His light shines on me from above, His low voice speaks within, The patience of immortal love Outwearying mortal sin. Not mindless of the growing years Of care and loss and pain, My eyes are wet with thankful tears For blessings which remain. If dim the gold of life has grown, I will not count it dross, Xor turn from treasures still my own To sigh for lack and loss. The years no charm from Nature take ; As sweet her voices call, As beautiful her mornings break, As fair her evenings fall. Love watches o'er my quiet ways, Kind voices speak my name, And lips that find it hard to praise Are slow, at least, to blame. Rest for the weary hands is good, And love for hearts that pine, But let the manly habitude Of upright souls be mine. Let winds that blow from heaven refresh, Dear Lord, the languid air ; And let the weakness of the flesh Thy strength of spirit share. And, if the eye must fail of light, The ear forget to hear, Make clearer still the spirit's sight, More fine the inward ear! Be near me in mine hours of need To soothe, or cheer, or warn, And down these slopes of sunset lead As up the hills of morn! RED RIDING-HOOD On the wide lawn the snow lar deen, Ridged o'er with many a drifted brap: The wind that through the pine-trees sang The naked elm-boughs tosses and swu: While, through the window, froy-starrival Against the sunset purple barrel, We saw the sombre crow flap by. The hawk's gray tleck along tbe sky, The crested blue-jay flitting wift, The squirrel poising on the drift, Erect, alert, bis broad gray tail Set to the north wind like a sail. How softly ebb the tides of will ! How tields, once lost or won, Now lie behind me green and still Beneath a level sun ! AT EVENTIDE 409 The Literary World gathered in his paper many affectionate messages from my associates in literature and the cause of human progress. The lines which follow were written in acknow- ledgment. It came to pass, our little lass, With flattened face against the glass, And eyes in which the tender dew Of pity shone, stood gazing through The narrow space her rosy lips Had melted from the frost's eclipse : “Oh, see,” she cried, “the poor blue-jays ! What is it that the black crow says ? The squirrel lifts his little legs Because he has no hands, and begs; He's asking for my nuts, I know : May I not feed them on the snow ?” BESIDE that milestone where the level sun, Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays On word and work irrevocably done, Life's blending threads of good and ill out- spun, I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise, Half doubtful if myself or otherwise. Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, A beggar slept and crownëd Caliph woke. Thanks not the less. With not unglad surprise I see my life-work through your partial eyes ; Assured, in giving to my home - taught songs A higher value than of right belongs, You do but read between the written lines The finer grace of unfulfilled designs. a Half lost within her boots, her bead Warm-sheltered in her hood of red, Her plaid skirt close about her drawn, She foundered down the wintry lawn; Now struggling through the misty veil Blown round her by the sbrieking gale ; Now sinking in a drift so low Her scarlet hood could scarcely show Its dash of color on the snow. She dropped for bird and beast forlorn Her little store of nuts and corn, And thus her timid guests bespoke : "Come, squirrel, from your hollow oak, - Come, black old crow, come, poor blue- jay, Before your supper 's blown away ! Don't be afraid, we all are good ; And I'm mamma's Red Riding-Hood !” O Thou whose care is over all, Who heedest even the sparrow's fall, Keep in the little maiden's breast The pity which is now its guest ! Let not her cultured years make less The childhood charm of tenderness, But let her feel as well as know, Nor harder with her polish grow! L'nmoved by sentimental grief That wails along some printed leaf, But prompt with kindly word and deed To own the claims of all who need, Let the grown woman's self make good The promise of Red Riding-Hood | AT EVENTIDE Poor and inadequate the shadow-play Of gain and loss, of waking and of dream, Against life's solemn background needs must seem At this late hour. Yet, not unthankfully, I call to mind the fountains by the way, The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray, Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of giving And of receiving, the great boon of liv- In grand historic years when Liberty Had need of word and work, quick sympa- thies For all who fail and suffer, song's relief, Nature's uncloying loveliness ; and chief, The kind restraining hand of Providence, The inward witness, the assuring sense Of an Eternal Good which overlies The sorrow of the world, Love which out- lives ing RESPONSE On the occasion of my seventieth birthday, in 1877, I was the recipient of many tokens of esteem. The publishers of the Atlantic Monthly gave a dinner in my name, and the editor of 410 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT All sin and wrong, Compassion which for- gives To the uttermost, and Justice whose clear eyes Through lapse and failure look to the in- tent, And judge our frailty by the life we meant. VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE The picturesquely situated Wayside Inn at West Ossipee, N. H., is now in ashes; and to its former guests these somewhat careless rhymes may be a not unwelcome reminder of pleasant summers and autumns on the banks of the Bearcamp and Chocorua. To the author himself they have a special interest from the fact that they were written, or improvised, under the eye and for the amusement of a be. loved invalid friend, whose last earthly sunsets faded from the mountain ranges of Ossipee and Sandwich. A SHALLOW stream, from fountains Deep in the Sandwich mountains, Ran lakeward Bearcamp River; And between its flood-torn shores, Sped by sail or urged by oars, No keel had vexed it ever. And the answer to the favor From the Bay State's graceful daughter Then a singer, richly gifted, Her charmed voice uplifted ; And the wood-thrush and song-sparrow Listened, dumb with envious pain, To the clear and sweet refrain Whose notes they could not bortow. Then the skipper plied his oar, And from off the shelving shore, Glided out the strange explorer; Floating on, she knew not whither, — The tawny sands beneath her, The great hills watching o'er ber. On, where the stream flows quiet As the meadows' margins by it, Or widens out to borrow a New life from that wild water, The mountain giant's daughter, The pine-besung Chocorua. Or, mid the tangling cumber And pack of mountain lumber That spring floods downward force, Over sunken snag, and bar Where the grating shallows are, The good boat held her course. Under the pine-dark highlands, Around the vine-hung islands, She ploughed her crooked furrow; And her rippling and her lurches Scared the river eels and perches, And the musk-rat in his burrow. Every sober clam below her, Every sage and grave pearl-grower, Shut his rusty valves the tighter; Crow called to crow complaining, And old tortoises sat craning Their leathern necks to sight her. So, to where the still lake glasses The misty mountain masses Rising din and distant northward, And, with faint-drawn shadow pictures, Low shores, and dead pine spectres Blends the skyward and the eartbward. On she glided, overladen, With merry man and maiden Sending back their song and laagttet, – Alone the dead trees yielding To the dull axe Time is wielding, The shy mink and the otter, And golden leaves and red, By countless autumns shed, Had floated down its water. From the gray rocks of Cape Ann, Came a skilled seafaring man, With his dory, to the right place ; Over hill and plain he brought her, Where the boatless Bearcamp water Comes winding down from White-Face. Quoth the skipper : “ Ere she floats forth, I'm sure my pretty boat 's worth, At least, a name as pretty.". On her painted side he wrote it, And the flag that o'er her floated Bore aloft the name of Jettie. On a radiant morn of summer, Elder guest and latest comer Saw her wed the Beareamp water; Heard the name the skipper gave her, MY TRUST 411 That, safe from snag and fall And siren-haunted islet, And rock, the Unseen Pilot May guide us one and all. While, perchance, a phantom crew, In a ghostly birch canoe, Paddled dumb and swiftly after ! And the bear on Ossipee Climbed the topmost crag to see The strange thing drifting under ; And, through the haze of August, Passaconaway and Paugus Looked down in sleepy wonder. MY TRUST A PICTURE memory brings to me : I look across the years and see Myself beside my mother's knee. All the pines that o'er her hung In mimic sea-tones sung The song familiar to her ; And the maples leaned to screen her, And the meadow-grass seemed greener, And the breeze more soft to woo her. I feel her gentle hand restrain My selfish moods, and know again A child's blind sense of wrong and pain. But wiser now, a man gray grown, My childhood's needs are better known, My mother's chastening love I own. The lone stream mystery-haunted To her the freedom granted To scan its every feature, Till new and old were blended, And round them both extended The loving arms of Nature. Gray grown, but in our Father's sight A child still groping for the light To read His works and ways aright. I wait, in His good time to see That as my mother dealt with me So with His children dealeth He. Of these hills the little vessel Henceforth is part and parcel ; And on Bearcamp shall her log Be kept, as if by Georges Or Graud Menan the surges Tossed her skipper through the fog. I bow myself beneath His hand : That pain itself was wisely planned I feel, and partly understand. The joy that comes in sorrow's guise, The sweet pains of self-sacrifice, I would not have them otherwise. And I, who, half in sadness, Recall the morning gladness Of life, at evening time, By chance, onlooking idly, Apart from all so widely, Have set her voyage to rhyme. And what were life and death if sin Knew not the dread rebuke within, The pang of merciful discipline ? Dies now the gay persistence Of song and laugh, in distance ; Alone with me remaining The stream, the quiet meadow, The hills in shine and shadow, The sombre pines complaining. Not with thy proud despair of old, Crowned stoic of Rome's noblest mould ! Pleasure and pain alike I hold. I suffer with no vain pretence Of triumph over flesh and sense, Yet trust the grievous providence, How dark soe'er it seems, may tend, By ways I cannot comprehend, To some unguessed benignant end ; And, musing here, I dream Of voyagers on a stream From whence is no returning, Under sealėd orders going, Looking forward little knowing, Looking back with idle yearning. And I pray that every venture The port of peace may enter, That every loss and lapse may gain The clear-aired heights by steps of pain, And never cross is borne in vain. 412 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT A NAME Each lip must learn the taste of truth, Each foot must feel its way. We cannot hold the hands of choice That touch or shun life's fateful keys; The whisper of the inward voice Is more than homilies. Addressed to my grand-nephew, Greenleaf Whittier Pickard. Jonathan Greenleaf, in A Genealogy of the Greenleaf Family, says briefly : " From all that can be gathered, it is believed that the ancestors of the Greenleaf family were Huguenots, who left France on account of their religious principles some time in the course of the sixteenth century, and settled in England. The name was probably translated from the French Feuillevert." The name the Gallic exile bore, St. Malo! from thy ancient mart, Became upon our Western shore Greenleaf for Feuillevert. Dear boy ! for whom the fiowers are born, Stars shine, and happy song-binis sing, What can my evening give to morn, My winter to thy spring! A life not void of pure intent, With small desert of praise or blame, The love I felt, the good I meant, I leave thee with my name. A name to hear in soft accord Of leaves by light winds overrun, Or read, upon the greening sward Of May, in shade and sun. The name my infant ear first heard Breathed softly with a mother's kiss ; His mother's own, no tenderer word My father spake than this. GREETING Originally prefixed to the volume. Th., Missire and other Poems. (Entitled ther, Prelude.] I SPREAD a scanty board too late ; The old-time guests for whom I wait Come few and slow, methinks, to-dar. Ah! who could hear my messages Across the dim unsounded seas On which so many have sailed away! Come, then, old friends, who linger yet, And let us meet, as we have met, Once more beneath this low sunshi; And grateful for the good we've kno's the The riddles solved, the ills outer, Shake hands upon the border line. No child have I to bear it on ; Be thou its keeper ; let it take From gifts well used and duty done New beauty for thy sake. The fair ideals that outran My halting footsteps seek and find - The flawless symmetry of man, The poise of heart and mind. Stand firmly where I felt the sway Of every wing that fancy flew, See clearly where I groped my way, Nor real from seeming knew. And wisely choose, and bravely hold Thy faith unswerved by cross or crown, Like the stout Huguenot of old Whose name to thee comes down. The favor, asked too oft hefore, From your indulgent ears, once more I crave, and, if belated lars To slower, feebler measures more, The silent sympathy of love To me is dearer now than praise. As Marot's songs made glad the heart Of that lone exile, haply mine May in life's heavy hours impart Some strength and hope to thine. Yet when did Age transfer to Youth The hard-gained lessons of its day? And ye, () younger friends, for wbum My hearth and heart keep open mom. Come smiling through the sh woms ko. Be with me while the sun goes down, And with your cheerful voices drown The minor of my eren-song. For, eqnal through the day and night, The wise Eternal overight And love and power and righteous :) ABRAM MORRISON 413 66 Remain : the law of destiny, The best for each and all must be, And life its promise shall fulfil. AN AUTOGRAPH • If, of the Law's stone table, To hold he scarce was able The first great precept fast, He kept for man the last. • Through mortal lapse and dulness What lacks the Eternal Fulness, If still our weakness can Love Him in loving man? I WRITE my name as one, On sands by waves o’errun Or winter's frosted pane, Traces a record vain. Oblivion's blankness claims Wiser and better names, And well my own may pass As from the strand or glass. “ Age brought him no despairing of the world's future faring ; In human nature still He found more good than ill. Wash on, ( waves of time ! Melt, noons, the frosty rime! Welcome the shadow vast, The silence that shall last ! “ To all who dumbly suffered, His tongue and pen he offered ; His life was not his own, Nor lived for self alone. When I and all who know And love me vanish so, What harm to them or me Will the lost memory be? “ Hater of din and riot He lived in days unquiet ; And, lover of all beauty, Trod the hard ways of duty. “ He meant no wrong to any He sought the good of many, Yet knew both sin and folly,- May God forgive him wholly! If any words of mine, Through right of life divine, Remain, what matters it Whose hand the message writ ? Why should the “crowner's quest Sit on my worst or best? Why should the showman claim The poor ghost of my name? ABRAM MORRISON Yet, as when dies a sound Its spectre lingers round, Haply my spent life will Leave some faint echo still. 'Minst the men and things which will Haunt an old man's memory still, Drollest, quaintest of them all, With a boy's laugh I recall Good old Abram Morrison. A whisper giving breath Of praise or blame to death, Soothing or saddening such As loved the living much. When the Grist and Rolling Mill Ground and rumbled by Po Hill, And the old red school-house stood Midway in the Powow's flood, Here dwelt Abram Morrison. Therefore with yearnings vain And fond I still would fain A kindly judgment seek, A tender thought bespeak. From the Beach to far beyond Bear-Hill, Lion's Mouth and Pond, Marvellous to our tough old stock, Chips o' the Anglo-Saxon block, Seemed the Celtic Morrison. And, while my words are read, Let this at least be said : * Whate'er his life's defeatures, He loved his fellow-creatures. Mudknock, Balmawhistle, all Only knew the Yankee drawl, Never brogue was heard till when, 414 POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT Foremost of his countrymen, Hither came Friend Morrison ; Yankee born, of alien blood, Kin of his had well withstood Pope and King with pike and ball Under Derry's leaguered wall, As became the Morrisons. Wandering down from Mutfield woods With his household and his goods, Never was it clearly told How within our quiet fold Came to be a Morrison. Looks across its stormy bay, Once the home of Morrisons First was he to sing the praise Of the Powow's winding ways; And our straggling village took City grandeur to the louk Of its poet Morrison. All his words have perished. Shame On the saddle-bags of Fame, That they bring not to our time One poor couplet of the rhyme Made by Abram Morrison ! When, on calm and fair First Days, Rattled down our one-horse chaise, Through the blossoined apple-lughs To the old brown meeting-house, There was Abram Morrison. a Once a soldier, blame him not That the Quaker he forgot, When, to think of battles won, And the red-coats on the run, Laughed aloud Friend Morrison. From gray Lewis over sea Bore his sires their family tree, On the rugged boughs of it Grafting Irish mirth and wit, And the brogue of Morrison. Half a genius, quick to plan, Blundering like an Irishman, But with canny shrewdness lent By his far-off Scotch descent, Such was Abram Morrison. Back and forth to daily meals, Rode his cherished pig on wheels, And to all who came to see, “ Aisier for the pig an' me, Sure it is," said Morrison. C'nderneath his hat's broad brim Peered the queer old face of him ; And with Irish jauntiness Swung the coat-tails of the dress Worn by Abram Morrison. Still, in memory, on his feet, Leaning o'er the elders' seat, Mingling with a solemn drone, Celtic accents all his own, Rises Abram Morrison. “ Don't," he's pleading, “don't ve ger Dear young friends, to sight and stws : Don't run after elephants, Learned pigs and presidents And the likes !” said Morrison On his well-worn theme intent, Simple, child-like, innocent, Heaven forgive the half-checked son Of our careless boyhood, wlule Listening to Friend Morrison ! We have learned in latter dars Truth may speak in simplest phrase: That the man is not the less For quaint ways and bome-spun dress Thanks to Abram Morrison ! Simple-hearted, boy o'ergrown, With a humor quite his own, Of our sober-stepping ways, Speech and look and cautious phrase, Slow to learn was Morrison. Much we loved his stories told Of a country strange and old, Where the fairies danced till dawn, And the goblin Leprecaun Looked, we thought, like Morrison. Or wild tales of feud and fight, Witch and troll and second sight Whispered still where Stornoway Not to pander nor to please ('ome the needed homilies, With no lofty argument A LEGACY 415 Let me not leave, to pain and sadden thee, A memory of tears, Is the fitting message sent, Through such lips as Morrison's. Dead and gone! But while its track Powow keeps to Merrimac, While Po Hill is still on guard, Looking land and ocean ward, They shall tell of Morrison ! After half a century's lapse, We are wiser now, perhaps, But we miss our streets amid Something which the past has hid, Lost with Abram Morrison. But pleasant thoughts alone Of one who was thy friendship's honored guest And drank the wine of consolation pressed From sorrows of thy own. I leave with thee a sense Of hands upheld and trials rendered less The unselfish joy which is to helpfulness Its own great recompense ; Gone forever with the queer Characters of that old year! Now the many are as one ; Broken is the mould that run Men like Abram Morrison. The knowledge that from thine, As from the garments of the Master, stole Calmness and strength, the virtue which makes whole And heals without a sign; A LEGACY Yea more, the assurance strong That love, which fails of perfect utterance here, Lives on to fill the heavenly atmosphere With its immortal song. FRIEND of my many years ! When the great silence falls, at last, on me, RELIGIOUS POEMS 66 THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM As if the burning eye of Baal The servant of his Conqueror knew. WHERE Time the measure of his hours From skies which knew no cloudy veil, By changeful bud and blossom keeps, The Sun's hot glances smote him tl.ruun And, like a young bride crowned with flowers, “Ah me! ” the lonely stranger said, Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps ; The hope which led my footsteps on, And light from heaven around them sked Where, to her poet's turban stone, O'er weary wave and waste, is gobe ! The Spring her gift of flowers imparts, Less sweet than those his thoughts have “Where are the harvest fields all white, sown For Truth to thrust her sickle in: In the warm soil of Persian hearts : Where tlock the souls, like dove in the From the dark hiding place of sin : There sat the stranger, where the shade Of scattered date-trees thinly lay, “A silent horror broods o'er all. - While in the hot clear heaven delayed The burden of a hateful spill, The long and still and weary day. The very flowers around recall The hoary magi's rites of bell ! Strange trees and fruits above him bung, Strange odors filled the sultry air, “ And what am I, o'er such a land Strange birds upon the branches swung, The banner of the Cross to bear : Strange insect voices murmured there. Dear Lord, uphold me with Thy hand, Thy strength with human weakers And strange bright blossoms shone around, share !" Turned sunward from the shadowy bow- ers, He ceased ; for at his very feet As if the Gheber's soul had found In mild rebuke a tloweret smiled; A titting home in Iran's flowers. How thrilled his sinking heart to the The Star-flower of the Virgin's chic! Whate'er he saw, whate'er he heard, Awakened feelings new and sad, Sown by some wandering Frank, it dres No Christian garb, nor Christian word, Its life from alien air and earth, Nor church with Sabbath - bell chimes And told to Paynim sun and dew glad, The story of the Saviour's birth. But Moslem graves, with turban stones, From scorching beams, in kindly moved And mosque-spires gleaming white, in The Persian plants its beauty streIR view, And on its pagan sisterhool, And graybeard Mollahs in low tones In love, the Christian tloweret lease Chanting their Koran service through. With tears of joy the wanderer felt The flowers which smiled on either hand, The darkness of his long despair Like tempting fiends, were such as they Before that hallowed symbol melt, Which once, o'er all that Eastern land, Which God's dear love bu nurturn As gifts on demon altars lay. there. 416 THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN 417 From Nature's face, that simple flower The lines of sin and sadness swept ; And Magian pile and Paynim bower In peace like that of Eden slept. Each Moslem tomb, and cypress old, Looked holy through the sunset air ; And, angel-like, the Muezzin told From tower and mosque the hour of prayer, Where the shrines of foul idols were lighted on high, And wantonness tempted the lust of the eye ; Midst rites of obsceneness, strange, loath- some, abhorred, The blasphemer scoffed at the name of the Lord. With cheerful steps, the morrow's dawn From Shiraz saw the stranger part ; The Star-flower of the Virgin-Born Still blooming in his hopeful heart ! Hark! the growl of the thunder, – the quaking of earth! Woe, woe to the worship, and woe to the mirth! The black sky has opened ; there's flame in the air ; The red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare ! THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN "Get ye up from the wrath of God's ter- rible day! Ungirded, unsandalled, arise and away ! 'T is the vintage of blood, 't is the fulness of time, And vengeance shall gather the harvest of crime!” Then the shriek of the dying rose wild where the song And the low tone of love had been whis- pered along ; For the fierce flames went lightly o'er pal- ace and bower, Like the red tongues of demons, to blast and devour ! The warning was spoken - the righteous had gone, Down, down on the fallen the red ruin rained, And the reveller sank with his wine-cup undrained ; The foot of the dancer, the music's loved thrill, And the shout and the laughter grew sud- denly still. And the proud ones of Sodom were feast- ing alone; All gay was the banquet — the revel was long, With the pouring of wine and the breath- ing of song. ’T was an evening of beauty ; the air was perfume, The earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom; And softly the delicate viol was heard, Like the murmur of love or the notes of a bird. The last throb of anguish was fearfully given; The last eye glared forth in its madness on Heaven ! The last groan of horror rose wildly and vain, And death brooded over the pride of the Plain ! THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN And beautiful maidens moved down in the dance, With the magic of motion and sunshine of glance ; And white arms wreathed lightly, and tresses fell free As the plumage of birds in some tropical tree. Not always as the whirlwind's rush On Horeb's mount of fear, Not always as the burning bush To Midian's shepherd seer, 418 RELIGIOUS POEMS + -a Nor as the awful voice which came Though dropping, as the manna fell, To Israel's prophet bards, Unseen, yet from above, Nor as the tongues of cloven flame, Noiseless as dew-fall, heed it well, - Nor gift of fearful words, – Thy Father's call of love! Not always thus, with outward sign THE CRUCIFIXION Of tire or voice from Heaven, The message of a truth divine, SUNLight upon Judæa's hills ! The call of God is given ! And on the waves of Galilee ; Awaking in the human heart On Jordan's stream, and on the rills Love for the true and right, – That feed the dead and sleeping sea' Zeal for the Christian's better part, Most freshly from the green wood spring Strength for the Christian's tight. The light breeze on its scented wings: And gayly quiver in the sun Nor unto manhood's heart alone The cedar tops of Lebanon ! The holy influence steals : Warm with a rapture not its own, A few more hours, - a change hath cutie The heart of woman feels! The sky is dark without a cloud ! As she who by Samaria's wall The shouts of wrath and joy are dunk, The Saviour's errand sought, - And proud knees unto earth are lowed As those who with the fervent Paul A change is on the hill of Death, Aud meek Aquila wrought : The helmëd watchers pant for breath, And turn with wild and maniac eyes Or those meek ones whose martyrdom From the dark scene of sacrifice ! Rome's gathered grandeur saw : Or those who in their Alpine home That Sacrifice !- the death of llin, - Braved the Crusader's war, The Christ of God, the holy One! When the green Vaudois, trembling, heard, Well may the conscious Heaven grow dim, Through all its vales of death, And blacken the beholding Sun. The martyr's song of triumph poured The wonted light hath tied away, From woman's failing breath. Night settles on the middle day, And earthquake from his caverned bed And gently, by a thousand things Is waking with a thrill of dread! Which o'er our spirits pass, Like breezes o'er the harp's fine strings, The dead are waking underneath! Or vapors o'er a glass, Their prison door is rent away! Leaving their token strange and new And, ghastly with the seal of death Of music or of shade, They wander in the eve of day! The summons to the right and true The temple of the Cherubim, And merciful is made. The House of God is cold and dim; A curse is on its trembling walls, Oh, then, if gleams of truth and light Its mighty veil asunder falls ! Flash o'er thy waiting mind, l'nfolding to thy mental sight Well may the cavern-depths of Earth The wants of human-kind ; Be shaken, and her mountains pod: If, brooding over human grief, Well may the sheeted dead come forth The earnest wish is known To see the suffering son of God! To soothe and gladden with relief Well may the temple-shrine grow dim. An anguish not thine own; And shadows veil the (herubim, When He, the chosen one of Heaven, Though heralded with naught of fear, A sacrifice for guilt is given ! Or outward sign or show ; Though only to the inward ear And shall the sinful heart, alone, It whispers soft and low; Behold unmoved the fearful hour, n PALESTINE 419 which rang air. When Nature trembled on her throne, And the chariots of Jabin rolled harmlessly And Death resigned his iron power ? on, Oh, shall the heart whose sinfulness For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's Gave keenness to His sore distress, son ! And added to His tears of blood Refuse its trembling gratitude ? There sleep the still rocks and the caverns To the song which the beautiful prophetess PALESTINE Sang, When the princes of Issachar stood by her Blest land of Judæa! thrice hallowed of side, song, And the shout of a host in its triumph re- Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like plied. throng ; In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen, thy sea, With the mountains around, and the valleys On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with between ; thee. There rested the shepherds of Judah, and there With the eye of a spirit I look on that The song of the angels rose sweet on the shore Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered before ; And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still With the glide of a spirit I traverse the throw sod Their shadows at noon on the ruins below; Made bright by the steps of the angels of But where are the sisters who hastened to God. greet The lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet ? Blue sea of the hills ! in my spirit I hear Thy waters, Gennesaret, chime on my I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring ear; trod; Where the Lowly and Just with the people I stand where they stood with the chosen of sat down, God- And thy spray on the dust of His sandals Where His blessing was heard and His les- was thrown. sons were taught, Where the blind were restored and the Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green, healing was wrought. And the desolate hills of the wild Gada- rene ; Oh, here with His flock the sad Wanderer And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to These hills He toiled over in grief are the The gleam of thy waters, O) dark Galilee ! same ; The founts where le drank by the wayside Hark, a sound in the valley ! where, swollen still flow, and strong, And the same airs are blowing which Thy river, 0 Kishon, is sweeping along ; breathed on His brow ! Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain, And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem And thy torrent grew dark with the blood yet, of the slain. But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet ; There down from his mountains stern Zeb- For the crown of her pride to the mocker And Naphthali's stag, with his eyeballs of And the holy Shechinah is dark where it flame, came; see a sbone. ulon came, hath gone, 420 RELIGIOUS POEMS But wherefore this dream of the earthly Oh, who the speed of bird and wind abode And sunbeam's glance will lend to me, Of Humanity clothed in the brightness of That, soaring upward, I may find God? My resting place and home in Thee ? Were my spirit but turned from the out- Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt and ward and dim, gloom, It could gaze, even now, on the presence of Adoreth with a fervent flame, - Him! Mysterious spirit ! unto whom Pertain nor sign nor name ! Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when, Swiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go Iu love and in meekness, He moved among Up from the cold and joyless earth, men ; Back to the God who bade them tiow, And the voice which breathed peace to the Whose moving spirit sent them forth. waves of the sea But as for me, O God ! for me, In the hush of my spirit would whisper to The lowly creature of Thy will, me ! Lingering and sad, I sigh to Thee, An earth-bound pilgrim still! And what if my feet may not tread where He stood, Was not my spirit born to shine Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's Where yonder stars and suns are glos. flood, ing? Nor my eyes see the cross which He bowed To breathe with them the light divine Him to bear, From God's own holy altar flowing ! Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden | To be, indeed, whate'er the soul of prayer. In dreams hath thirsted for so long - A portion of heaven's glorious wboje Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near Of loveliness and song? To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here; Oh, watchers of the stars at night, And the voice of Thy love is the same even Who breathe their fire, as we the air, - Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of ligte, As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow. Oh, say, is He, the Eternal, there? Bend there around His awful throne Oh, the outward hath gone ! but in glory The seraplu's glance, the angel's knee: and power, Or are thy inmost depths His own, The spirit surviveth the things of an hour; O wild and mighty sea ? L'nchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame On the heart's secret altar is burning the Thoughts of my soul, how swift re gu! same! Swift as the eagle's glance of tire, Or arrows from the archer's bow, To the far aim of your desire ! HYMNS Thought after thought, ye thron zing ne, Like spring-doves from the startied ud, FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE Bearing like them your sacrifice Of music unto God! ** Encore un hymne, O ma lyre! And shall these thoughts of joy and love I'n hympe pour le Seigneur, ('ome back again no more to me l'n hymne dans mon delire, Returning like the patriarch's dore l'n hymne dans mon bonheur." Wing-weary from the eternal sea, One hymn more, () my lyre ! To bear within my longing arms Praise to the God above, The promise-bough of kindlier skies Of joy and life and love, Plucked from the green, immortal palmas Sweeping its strings of fire ! Which shadow Paradise ? now 1 HYMNS 421 All-moving spirit ! freely forth At Thy command the strong wind goes : Its errand to the passive earth, Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose, Until it folds its weary wing, Once more within the hand divine ; So, weary from its wandering, My spirit turns to Thine! Child of the sea, the mountain stream, From its dark caverns, hurries on, Ceaseless, by night and morning's beam, By evening's star and noontide's sun, Until at last it sinks to rest, O'erwearied, in the waiting sea, And moans upon its mother's breast, So turns my soul to Thee ! Through the deep and dark abyss, Flowers of midnight's wilderness, Blowing with the evening's breath Sweetly in their Maker's path : When the breaking day is flushing All the east, and light is gushing Upward through the horizon's haze, Sheaf-like, with its thousand rays, Spreading, until all above Overflows with joy and love, And below, on earth's green bosom, All is changed to light and blossom : When my waking fancies over Forms of brightness flit and hover Holy as the seraphs are, Who by Zion's fountains wear On their foreheads, white and broad, “ Holiness unto the Lord ! ” When, inspired with rapture high, It would seem a single sigh Could a world of love create ; That my life could know no date, And my eager thoughts could fill Heaven and Earth, o'erflowing still ! 0 Thou who bidst the torrent flow, Who lendest wings unto the wind, Mover of all things ! where art Thou ? Oh, wbither shall I go to find The secret of Thy resting-place ? Is there no holy wing for me, That, soaring, I may search the space Of highest heaven for Thee ? Oh, would I were as free to rise As leaves on autumn's whirlwind borne, The arrowy light of sunset skies, Or sound, or ray, or star of morn, Which melts in heaven at twilight's close, Or aught which soars unchecked and free Through earth and heaven ; that I might lose Myself in finding Thee ! Then, O Father! Thou alone, From the shadow of Thy throne, To the sighing of my breast And its rapture answerest. All my thoughts, which, upward winging, Bathe where Thy own light is springing, – All my yearnings to be free Are as echoes answering Thee ! Seldom upon lips of mine, Father ! rests that name of Thine ; Deep within my inmost breast, In the secret place of mind, Like an awful presence shrined, Doth the dread idea rest ! Hushed and holy dwells it there, Prompter of the silent prayer, Lifting up my spirit's eye And its faint, but earnest cry, From its dark and cold abode, Unto Thee, my Guide and God ! II LE CRI DE L'AME “Quand le souffle divin qui flotte sur le monde." When the breath divine is flowing, Zephyr-like o'er all things going, And, as the touch of viewless fingers, Softly on my soul it lingers, Open to a breath the lightest, Conscious of a touch the slightest, As some calm, still lake, whereon Sinks the snowy-bosomed swan, And the glistening water-rings Circle round her moving wings : When my upward gaze is turning Where the stars of heaven are burning THE FAMILIST'S HYMN The Puritans of New England, even in their wilderness home, were not exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the mo- ther country after the downfall of Charles the 422 RELIGIOUS POEMS Sweet the songs we loved to sing Underneath Thy holy sky; Words and tones that used to bring Tears of joy in every eye ; Dear the wrestling hours of prayer, When we gathered knee to hnee, Blameless youth and hoary hair, Bowed, O God, alone to Thee. First, and of the established Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were banished, on pain of death, from the Massachusetts Col- ony. One Samuel Gorton, a bold and eloquent declaimer, after preaching for a time in Bos- ton against the doctrines of the Puritans, and declaring that their churches were mere hu- man devices, and their sacrament and baptism an abomination, was driven out of the juris- diction of the colony, and compelled to seek a residence among the savages. He gathered round him a considerable number of converts, who, like the primitive Christians, shared all things in common. His opinions, however, were so troublesome to the leading clergy of the colony, that they instigated an attack upon his “ Family" by an armed force, which seized upon the principal men in it, and brought them into Massachusetts, where they were sentenced to be kept at hard labor in several towns (one only in each town), during the pleasure of the General Court, they being forbidden, under severe penalties, to utter any of their religious sentiments, except to such ministers as might labor for their conversion. They were unquestionably sincere in their opinions, and, whatever may have been their errors, deserve to be ranked among those who have in all ages suffered for the freedom of conscience. FATHER ! to Thy suffering poor Strength and grace and faith impart, And with Thy owu love restore Comfort to the broken heart ! Oh, the failing ones confirm. With a holier strength of zeal ! Give Thou not the feeble worm Helpless to the spoiler's heel ! As Thine early children, Lord, Shared their wealth and daily bread, Even so, with one accord, We, in love, each other fed. Not with us the miser's hoard, Not with us his grasping hand; Equal round a common board, Drew our meek and brother band ! Safe our quiet Eden lay When the war-whoop stirred the land And the Indian turned away From our home his bloody hand. Well that forest-ranger saw, That the burthen and the earse Of the white man's cruel law Rested also upon us. Torn apart, and driven forth To our toiling hard and long, Father! from the dust of earth Lift we still our grateful seng! Grateful, that in bonds we share In Thy love which maketh free; Joyful, that the wrongs we lear, Draw us nearer, Lord, to Tbte! Father! for Thy holy sake We are spoiled and hunted thus ; Jorful, for Thy truth we take Bonds and burthens unto us : Poor, and weak, and robbed of all, Weary with our daily task, That Thy truth may never fall Through our weakness, Lord, we ask. Round our fired and wasted homes Flits the forest-bird unscared, And at noon the wild beast comes Where our frugal meal was shared ; For the song of praises there Shrieks the crow the livelong day ; For the sound of evening praver Howls the evil beast of prey. Grateful! that where'er we toil, By Wachuset's wooded side, On Nantucket's sea-worn izle, Or by wild lepouset's tide, - Still, in spirit, we are near, And our evening hymns, which rue Separate and discordant bere, Meet and mingle in the skies! Let the scoffer scorn and mock, Let the proud and evil priest Rob the needy of his tlock, For his wine-cup and his fast, – Redden not The bolts in store Through the Wackness of Thy skies! For the sigling of the poor Wilt Thou not, at length, arise! EZEKIEL 423 Worn and wasted, oh ! how long Sball thy trodden poor complain ? In Thy name they bear the wrong, In Thy cause the bonds of pain! Melt oppression's heart of steel, Let the haughty priesthood see, And their blinded followers feel, That in us they mock at Thee ! In Thy time, O Lord of hosts, Stretch abroad that hand to save Which of old, on Egypt's coasts, Smote apart the Red Sea's wave! Lead us from this evil land, From the spoiler set us free, And once more our gathered band, Heart to heart, shall worship Thee ! In sudden whirlwind, cloud and flame, The Spirit of the Highest came ! Before mine eyes a vision passed, A glory terrible and vast ; With dreadful eyes of living things, And sounding sweep of angel wings, With circling light and sapphire throne, And flame-like form of One thereon, And voice of that dread Likeness sent Down from the crystal firmament ! The burden of a prophet's power Fell on me in that fearful hour ; From off unutterable woes The curtain of the future rose ; I saw far down the coming time The fiery chastisement of crime ; With noise of mingling bosts, and jar Of falling towers and shouts of war, I saw the nations rise and fall, Like fire-gleams on my tent's white wall. EZEKIEL Ezekiel xxxiii. 30-33. They hear Thee not, O God! nor see ; Beneath Thy rod they mock at Thee ; The princes of our ancient line Lie drunken with Assyrian wine ; The priests around Thy altar speak The false words which their hearers seek ; And hymns which Chaldea's wanton maids Have sung in Dura's idol-shades Are with the Levites' chant ascending, With Zion's holiest anthems blending ! In dream and trance, I saw the slain Of Egypt heaped like harvest grain. I saw the walls of sea-born Tyre Swept over by the spoiler's fire ; And heard the low, expiring moan Of Edom on his rocky throne ; And, woe is me! the wild lament From Zion's desolation sent ; And felt within my heart each blow Which laid her holy places low. - On Israel's bleeding bosom set, The heathen heel is crushing yet ; The towers upon our holy hill Echo Chaldean footsteps still. Our wasted shrines, — who weeps for them ? Who mourneth for Jerusalem ? Who turneth from his gains away ? Whose knee with mine is bowed to pray ? Who, leaving feast and purpling cup, Takes Zion's lamentation up ? In bonds and sorrow, day by day, Before the pictured tile I lay ; And there, as in a mirror, saw The coming of Assyria's war; Her swarthy lines of spearmen pass Like locusts through Bethhoron's grass ; I saw them draw their stormy hem Of battle round Jerusalem ; And, listening, heard the Hebrew wail Blend with the victor-trump of Baal ! A sad and thoughtful youth, I went With Israel's early banishment ; And where the sullen Chebar crept, The ritual of my fathers kept. The water for the trench I drew, The firstling of the flock I slew, And, standing at the altar's side, I shared the Levites' lingering pride, That still, amidst her mocking foes, The smoke of Zion's offering rose. Who trembled at my warning word ? Who owned the prophet of the Lord ? How mocked the rude, how scoffed the vile, How stung the Levites' scornful smile, As o'er my spirit, dark and slow, The shadow crept of Israel's woe As if the angel's mournful roll Had left its record on my soul, And traced in lines of darkness there The picture of its great despair ! 424 RELIGIOUS POEMS Yet ever at the hour I feel My lips in prophecy unseal. Prince, priest, and Levite gather near, And Salem's daughters haste to hear, On Chebar's waste and alien shore, The harp of Judah swept once more. They listen, as in Babel's throng The Chaldeans to the dancer's song, Or wild sabbeka's nightly play, As careless and as vain as they. And thus, o Prophet-bard of old, Hast thou thy tale of sorrow told ! The same which earth's unwelcome seers Have felt in all succeeding years. Sport of the changeful multitude, Nor calmly heard nor understood, Their song has seemed a trick of art, Their warnings but the actor's part. With bonds, and scorn, and evil will, The world requites its prophets still. So was it when the Holy One The garments of the flesh put on ! Men followed where the Highest led For common gifts of daily bread, And gross of ear, of vision dim, Owned not the Godlike power of Him. Vain as a dreamer's words to them His wail above Jerusalem, And meaningless the watch He kept Through which His weak disciples slept. “Love is lost, and Faith is dying; With the brute the man is sold ; And the dropping blood of labur Hardens into gold. Here the dying wail of Famine, There the battle's groan of pain; And, in silence, smooth-faced Manut Reaping men like grain. ** Where is God, that we should fear Him?' Thus the earth-born Titans say ; . God ! if Thou art living, hear us !! Thus the weak ones pray." “ Thou, the patient Heaven upbraz-ling," Spake a solemn Voice within ; Weary of our Lord's forbearaine, Art thou free from sin ? “ Fearless brow to Him uplifting, Canst thou for His thunders call, Knowing that to guilt's attraction Evermore they fall ? “Know'st thou not all germs of evil In thy heart await their time? Not thyself, but God's restraining, Stays their growth of crime. “Couldst thou boast, O) child of weakers O'er the sons of wrong and strife, Were their strong temptations planted In thy path of life ? “ Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing From one fountain, clear and free, But by widely varying channels Searching for the sea. “Glideth one through greenest vallera kissing them with lips still sweet. One, mad roaring down the moulin Stagnates at their feet. "Is it choice whereby the Parser Kneels before his mother's tire! In his black tent did the Tartar Choose his wandering sire ! “ He alone, whose hand is bounding Human power and human will, Looking through each soul's surround. Knows its good or ill. a Yet shrink not thou, whoe'er thou art, For God's great purpose set apart, Before whose far-discerning eyes, The Future as the Present lies ! Beyond a narrow-bounded age Stretches thy prophet-heritage, Through Heaven's vast spaces angel-trod, And through the eternal years of God! Thy audience, worlds ! -all things to be The wituess of the Truth in thee! WHAT THE VOICE SAID MADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil, “ Lord !" I cried in sudden ire, " From Thy right hand, clothed with thun- der, Shake the bolted fire ! THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND 425 “ For thyself, while wrong and sorrow O thou who mournest on thy way, Make to thee their strong appeal, With longings for the close of day; Coward wert thou not to utter He walks with thee, that Angel kind, What the heart must feel. And gently whispers, “ Be resigned : Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell “ Earnest words must needs be spoken The dear Lord ordereth all things well !” When the warm heart bleeds or burns With its scorn of wrong, or pity For the wronged, by turns. THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND “But, by all thy nature's weakness, Hidden faults and follies known, Be thou, in rebuking evil, AGAINST the sunset's glowing wall Conscious of thine own. The city towers rise black and tall, Where Zorah, on its rocky height, “Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty Stands like an armed man in the light. To thy lips her trumpet set, But with harsher blasts shall mingle Down Eshtaol's vales of ripened grain Wailings of regret.” Falls like a cloud the night amain, And up the hillsides climbing slow Cease not, Voice of holy speaking, The barley reapers homeward go. Teacher sent of God, be near, Whispering through the day's cool silence, Look, dearest ! how our fair child's head Let my spirit hear ! The sunset light hath hallowed, Where at this olive's foot he lies, So, when thoughts of evil-doers Uplooking to the tranquil skies. Waken scorn, or hatred move, Shall a mournful fellow-feeling Oh, while beneath the fervent heat Temper all with love. Thy sickle swept the bearded wheat, I've watched, with mingled joy and dread, Our child upon his THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE Joy, which the mother feels alone A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN Whose morning hope like mine had flown, When to her bosom, over-blessed, To weary hearts, to mourning homes, A dearer life than hers is pressed. God's meekest Angel gently comes : No power has he to banish pain, Dread, for the future dark and still, Or give us back our lost again ; Which shapes our dear one to its will ; And yet in tenderest love, our dear Forever in his large calm eyes, And Heavenly Father sends him here. I read a tale of sacrifice. There's quiet in that Angel's glance, The same foreboding awe I felt There's rest in his still countenance ! When at the altar's side we knelt, He mocks no grief with idle cheer, And he, who as a pilgrim came, Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear; Rose, winged and glorious, through the But ills and woes he may not cure flame. He kindly trains us to endure. I slept not, though the wild bees made Angel of Patience ! sent to calm A dreamlike murmuring in the shade, Our feverish brows with cooling palm ; And on me the warm-fingered hours To lay the storms of hope and fear, Pressed with the drowsy smell of flowers. And reconcile life's smile and tear ; The throbs of wounded pride to still, Before me, in a vision, rose And make our own our Father's will ! The hosts of Israel's scornful foes, - grassy bed. 426 RELIGIOUS POEMS 6. Rank over rank, helm, shield, and spear, “ To him shall Zorah's daughters raise Glittered in noon's hot atmosphere. Through coming years their hymes d praise, I heard their boast, and bitter word, And gray old men at evening tell Their mockery of the Hebrew's Lord, Of all he wrought for Israel I saw their hands llis ark assail, Their feet profane His holy veil. “ And they who sing and they who bear Alike shall hold thy memory dear, No angel down the blue space spoke, And pour their blessings on thy bend, No thunder from the still sky broke ; () mother of the mighty dead !” But in their midst, in power and awe, Like God's waked wrath, our child I saw ! It ceased ; and though a sound I beard As if great wings the still air stirred, A child no more! - harsh - browed and I only saw the barley sheaves strong, And hills half hid by olive leaves. He towered a giant in the throng, And down his shoulders, broad and bare, I bowed my face, in awe and fear, Swept the black terror of his hair. On the dear child who slumbered near ; With me, as with my only son, He raised his arm — he smote amain ; O God," I said, “ Thy will be done !" As round the reaper falls the grain, So the dark host around him fell, So sank the foes of Israel ! MY SOUL AND I Again I looked. In sunlight shone STAND still, my soul, in the silent dark The towers and domes of Askelon ; I would question thee, Priest, warrior, slave, a mighty crowd Alone in the shadow drear and stark Within her idol temple bowed. With God and me! Yet one knelt not ; stark, gaunt, and blind, What, my soul, was thr errand bere? His arms the massive pillars twined, - Was it mirth or ease, An eyeless captive, strong with hate, Or heaping up dust from year to year? He stood there like an evil Fate. “ Nay, none of these!" The red shrines smoked, – the trumpets Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight pealed : Whose eye looks still He stooped, — the giant columns reeled ; And steadily on thee through the night Reeled tower and fane, sank arch and wall, “ To do His will ! " Aud the thick dust-cloud closed o'er all ! What hast thou done, ( sonl of mine, Above the shriek, the crash, the groan That thou trenublest so? Of the fallen pride of Askelon, Hast thou wrought His task, and kept the I heard, sheer down the echoing sky, line A voice as of an angel cry, — He bade thee go ? The voice of him, who at our side What, silent all! art sad of cheer? Sat through the golden eventide ; Art fearful now? Of him who, on thy altar's blaze, When God seemned far and men were bre? Rose fire-winged, with his song of praise. How brave wert thou ! “Rejoice o'er Israel's broken chain, Aha! thou tremblest ! — well I see Gray mother of the mighty slain ! Thou 'rt craven grown. Rejoice !” it cried, " be vanquisheth! Is it so hard with God and me The strong in life is strong in death! To stand alone ? MY SOUL AND I 427 Summon thy sunshine bravery back, O wretched sprite ! Let me hear thy voice through this deep and black Abysmal night. “ Whither I go I cannot tell : That cloud hangs black, High as the heaven and deep as hell Across my track. 66 “I see its shadow coldly enwrap The souls before. Sadly they enter it, step by step, To return no more. 66 What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth, For God and Man, From the golden hours of bright - eyed youth To life's mid span ? Ah, soul of mine, thy tones I hear, But weak and low, Like far sad murmurs on my ear They come and go. “I have wrestled stoutly with the Wrong, And borne the Right From beneath the footfall of the throng To life and light. They shrink, they shudder, dear God ! they kneel To Thee in prayer. They shut their eyes on the cloud, but feel That it still is there. “In vain they turn from the dread Be- fore To the Known and Gone ; For while gazing behind them evermore Their feet glide on. “Yet, at times, I see upon sweet pale faces A light begin To tremble, as if from holy places And shrines within. “Wherever Freedom shivered a chain, God speed, quoth I; To Error amidst her shouting train I gave the lie." “And at times methinks their cold lips move With hymn and prayer, As if somewhat of awe, but more of love And hope were there. 66 Ah, soul of mine ! ah, soul of mine! Thy deeds are well : Were they wrought for Truth's sake or for thine ? My soul, pray tell. “Of all the work my hand hath wrought Beneath the sky, Save a place in kindly human thought, No gain have I." Go to, go to ! for thy very self Thy deeds were done : Thoa for fame, the miser for pelf, Your end is one ! “I call on the souls who have left the light To reveal their lot ; I bend mine ear to that wall of night, And they answer not. “ But I hear around me sighs of pain And the cry of fear, And a sound like the slow sad dropping of rain, Each drop a tear! And where art thou going, soul of mine ? Canst see the end ? And whither this troubled life of thine Evermore doth tend ? “Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day I am moving thither : I must pass beneath it on my way God pity me! — whither ? ' What daunts thee now ? what shakes thee So ? My sad soul, say. " I see a cloud like a curtain low Hang o'er my way. Ah, soul of mine ! so brave and wise In the life-storm lond, Fronting so calmly all human eyes In the sunlit crowd ! 428 RELIGIOUS POEMS Now standing apart with God and me Thou art weakness all, Gazing vainly after the things to be Through Death's dread wall. But never for this, never for this Was thy being lent ; For the craven's fear is but selfishness, Like his merriment. Folly and Fear are sisters twain : One closing her eyes, The other peopling the dark inane With spectral lies. Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Whate'er thou fearest ; Round Him in calmest music rolls Whate'er thou hearest. What to thee is shadow, to Him is day, And the end He knoweth, And not on a blind and aimless way The spirit goeth. Man sees no future, - a phantom show Is alone before him ; Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow, And tlowers bloom o'er him. Linked in sympathy like the keys Of an organ vast. Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; Break but one Of a thousand keys, and the paining jas Through all will run. O restless spirit! wherefore strain Beyond thy sphere? Heaven and hell, with their joy and pais, Are now and here. Back to thyself is measured well All thou hast given ; Thy neighbor's wrong is thy present being His bliss, thy heaven. And in life, in death, in dark and light, All are in God's care : Sound the black abyss, pierce the deep of night, And He is there! All which is real now remaineth, And fadeth never : The hand which upholds it now sustaine in The soul forever. Nothing before, nothing behind ; The steps of Faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The rock beneath. The Present, the Present is all thou hast For thy sure possessing ; Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast Till it gives its blessing. Why fear the night ? why shrink from Death, That phantom wan? There is nothing in heaven or earth be- neath Save God and man. Peopling the shadows we turn from Him And from one another ; All is spectral and vague and dim Save God and our brother! Like warp and woof all destinies Are woven fast, Leaning on Him, make with reverent bek- ness His own thy will, And with strength from Him shall thy - ter weakness Life's task fulfil ; And that cloud itself, which now di... thee Lies dark in view, Shall with beams of light from the lear glory Be stricken through. And like meadow mist through anter. dawn l'prolling thin, Its thickest folds when about thee draws Let sunlight in Then of what is to be, and of his done, Why queriest thou ? The past and the time to be are one, And both are now ! WORSHIP 429 WORSHIP Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Fa- ther is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. -James i. 27. Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, With trembling reverence : and the op- pressor there, Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer. The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan Round fane and altar overthrown and broken, O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone. Not such the service the benignant Father Requireth at His earthly children's hands : Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather The simple duty man from man demands. cruel eye nave. Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high For Earth He asks it: the full joy of places, heaven The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's Knoweth no change of waning or in- wood, crease ; With mothers offering, to the Fiend's The great heart of the Infinite beats even, embraces, Untroubled flows the river of His peace. Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood. He asks no taper lights, on high surround- ing Red altars, kindling through that night of The priestly altar and the saintly grave, error, No dolorous chant nor organ music sound- Smoked with warm blood beneath the ing, Nor incense clouding up the twilight Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky; For he whom Jesus loved hath truly Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting spoken : All heaven above, and blighting earth The holier worship which he deigns to below, bless The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale Restores the lost, and binds the spirit with fasting, broken, And man's oblation was his fear and And feeds the widow and the fatherless! woe! Types of our human weakness and our sor- Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones Of dirge - like music and sepulchral dead ? prayer ; Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols borrow droning, From stranger eyes the home lights Swung their white censers in the bur- which have fled ? dened air : O brother man ! fold to thy heart thy As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor brother ; Of gums and spices could the Unseen Where pity dwells, the peace of God is One please ; As if His ear could bend, with childish To worship rightly is to love each other, favor, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a To the poor flattery of the organ keys ! prayer. row ! - there; 430 RELIGIOUS POEMS Follow with reverent steps the great exam- Felt hands of fire direct his own, ple And sweep for God the conscions straps. Of Him whose holy work was doing good ;' I have not climbed to Olivet, So shall the wide earth seem our Father's Nor laid me where my Saviour lay, temple, And left His trace of tears as yet Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. By angel eyes unwept awar; Nor watched, at midnight's solemn tine. Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy The garden where lis prayer and pro: clangor Wrung by His sorrow and our crime, Of wild war music o'er the earth shall Rose to One listening (ar alone. cease ; Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, I have not kissed the rock-hewn grot And in its ashes plant the tree of peace ! Where in His mother's arms Ile lar. Nor knelt upon the sacred spot Where last His footsteps pressed is THE HOLY LAND clay ; Nor looked on that sad mountain beach Paraphrased from the lines in Lamartine's Nor smote my sinful breast, where e Adieu io Marseilles, beginning His arms to fold the world lle spread, "Je n'ai pas navigué sur l'océan de sable.” And bowed His head to bless -- anti che I HAVE not felt, o'er seas of sand, The rocking of the desert bark ; THE REWARD Nor laved at Hebron's fount my hand, By Hebron's palm-trees cool and dark; Who, looking backward from his 2 Nor pite bed my tent at even-fall, hood's prime, On dust where Job of old has lain, Sees not the spectre of his misspent time Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wall And, through the shade The dream of Jacob o'er again. Of funeral cypress planted thick lekin! Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind One vast world-page remains unread ; From his loved dead ? How shine the stars in Chaldea's sky, How sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread, Who bears no trace of passion's evil firme How beats the heart with God so nigh! Who shuns thy sting, ( terrible Remune How round gray arch and column lone Who does not cast The spirit of the old time broods, On the thronged pages of his metres And sighs in all the winds that moan book, Along the sandy solitudes ! At times, a sad and half-reluctant look, Regretful of the past ? In thy tall cedars, Lebanon, I have not heard the nations' cries, Alas! the evil which we fain would she Nor seen thy eagles stooping down We do, and leave the wished-for goed Where buried Tyre in ruin lies. done : The Christian's prayer I have not said Our strength to-day In Tadmor's temples of decay, Is but tomorrow's weakness, prone te fem, Nor startled, with my dreary tread, Poor, blind, unprofitable servants al The waste where Memnon's empire lay. Are we alway. Nor have I, from thy hallowed tide, Yet who, thus looking backwan o'q! () Jordan ! heard the low lament, years, Like that sad wail along thy side Feels not his eyelids wet with gra. Which Israel's mournful prophet sent ! tears, Vor thrilled within that grotto lone If he hath been Where, deep in night, the Bard of Kings | Permitted, wenk and sinful as be ris INVOCATION 431 To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause, His fellow-men ? And, like a weary child, would come, O Father, unto Thee i If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin ; If he hath lent Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, Over the suffering, mindless of his creed Or home, hath bent; Though oft, like letters traced on sand, My weak resolves have passed away, In mercy lend Thy helping hand Unto my prayer to-day ! ALL'S WELL a He has not lived in vain, and while he gives The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake The praise to Him, in whom he moves and Our thirsty souls with rain ; lives, The blow most dreaded falls to break With thankful heart ; From off our limbs a chain ; He gazes backward, and with hope before, And wrongs of man to man but make Knowing that from his works he never- The love of God more plain. As through the shadowy lens of even Can henceforth part. The eye looks farthest into heaven On gleams of star and depths of blue The glaring sunshine never knew! THE WISH OF TO-DAY more INVOCATION I Ask not now for gold to gild With mocking shine a weary frame ; The yearning of the mind is stilled, I ask not now for Fame. Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old, Formless and void the dead earth rolled ; Deaf to Thy heaven's sweet music, blind To the great lights which o'er it shined ; No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,- A dumb despair, a wandering death. A rose-cloud, dimly seen above, Melting in heaven's blue depths away ; Oh, sweet, fond dream of human Love! For thee I may not pray. But, bowed in lowliness of mind, I make my humble wishes known ; I only ask a will resigned, O Father, to Thine own! a To that dark, weltering horror came Thy spirit, like a subtle flame, – A breath of life electrical, Awakening and transforming all, Till beat and thrilled in every part The pulses of a living heart. To-day, beneath Thy chastening eye I crave alone for peace and rest, Submissive in Thy hand to lie, And feel that it is best. Then knew their bounds the land and sea ; Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree; From flower to moth, from beast to man, The quick creative impulse ran ; And earth, with life from thee renewed, Was in thy holy eyesight good. A marvel seems the Universe, A miracle our Life and Death ; A mystery which I cannot pierce, Around, above, beneath. In vain I task my aching brain, In vain the sage's thought I scan, I only feel how weak and vain, How poor and blind, is man. And now my spirit sighs for home, And longs for light whereby to see, As lost and void, as dark and cold And formless as that earth of old ; A wandering waste of storm and night, Midst spheres of song and realms of light; A blot upon thy holy sky, Untouched, unwarned of thee, am I. O Thou who movest on the deep Of spirits, wake my own from sleep! 432 RELIGIOUS POEMS Its darkness melt, its coldness warm, Of all I see, in earth and sky, - The lost restore, the ill transform, Star, flower, beast, bird, — what part hare lº That flower and fruit henceforth may be This conscious life, - is it the same Its grateful offering, worthy Thee. Which thrills the universal frame, Whereby the caverned crystal shoots, And mounts the sap from forest roots, QUESTIONS OF LIFE Whereby the exiled wood-bird tells When Spring makes green her native de": How feels the stone the pang of birth, And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer, Which brings its sparkling pri-forth And said, Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, The forest-tree the throb which gives and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the Most High? The life-blood to its new-born leaves ? Then said I, Yea, my Lord. Do bird and blossom feel, like me, Then said he unto me, Go thy way, weigh me the Life's many-folded mystery, — weight of the fire or measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the hour that is past. — 2 Esdras ch. iv. The wonder which it is to be ? Or stand I severed and distinct, A BENDING staff I would not break, From Nature's chain of life anlinked ? A feeble faith I would not shake, Allied to all, yet not the less Nor even rashly pluck away Prisoned in separate consciousness, The error which some truth may stay, Alone o'erburdened with a sense Whose loss might leave the soul without Of life, and cause, and consequence ? A shield against the shafts of doubt. In vain to me the Sphinx propounds And yet, at times, when over all The riddle of her sights and sounds; A darker mystery seems to fall, Back still the vaulted mystery gives (May God forgive the child of dust, The echoed question it receives. Who seeks to know, where Faith should What sings the brook? What oracle trust !) Is in the pine-tree's organ swell? I raise the questions, old and dark, What may the wind's low burden be ? Of L'zdom's tempted patriarch, The meaning of the moaning sea ? And, speech-confounded, build again The hieroglyphics of the stan? The battled tower of Shinar's plain. Or clouded sunset's crimson ban? I vainly ask, for mocks my skill I am : how little more I know! The trick of Nature's cipher still. Whence came I? Whither do I go ? A centred self, which feels and is ; I turn from Nature unto men, A cry between the silences ; I ask the stylus and the pen ; A shadow-birth of clouds at strife What sang the bards of old ? What is With sunshine on the hills of life ; The prophets of the Orient ? A shaft from Nature's quiver cast The rolls of buried Egypt, hid Into the Future from the Past ; In painted tomb and pyramid ? Between the cradle and the shroud, What mean Idúmea's arrowy lines, A meteor's flight from cloud to cloud. Or dusk Elora's moustrous signs? How speaks the primal thought of man Thorough the vastness, arching all, From the grim carvings of (opan ? I see the great stars rise and fall, Where rests the secret ? Where the key The rounding seasons come and go, Of the old death-bolted mrstenes The tided oceans ebb and flow; Alas ! the dead retain their trust; The tokens of a central force, Dust hath no answer from the dust. Whose circles, in their widening course, O'erlap and more the universe ; The great enigma still unguessed, The workings of the law whence springs Unanswered the eternal quest; The rhythmic harmony of things, I gather up the scattered rays Which shapes in earth the darkling spar, Of wisdom in the early dars, And orbs in heaven the morning star. Faint gleams and broken, like the light FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS 433 a a Of meteors in a northern night, Betraying to the darkling earth The unseen sun which gave them birth ; I listen to the sibyl's chant, The voice of priest and hierophant ; I know what Indian Kreeshna saith, And what of life and what of death The demon taught to Socrates ; And what, beneath his garden-trees Slow pacing, with a dream-like tread, The solemn-thoughted Plato said ; Nor lack I tokens, great or small, Of God's clear light in each and all, While holding with more dear regard The scroll of Hebrew seer and bard, The starry pages promise-lit With Christ's Evangel over-writ, Thy miracle of life and death, o Holy One of Nazareth ! On Aztec ruins, gray and lone, The circling serpent coils in stone, Type of the endless and unknown ; Whereof we seek the clue to find, With groping fingers of the blind! Forever sought, and never found, We trace that serpent-symbol round Our resting-place, our starting bound ! Oh, thriftlessness of dream and guess ! Oh, wisdom which is foolishness ! Why idly seek from outward things The answer inward silence brings ? Why stretch beyond our proper sphere And age, for that which lies so near ? Why climb the far-off hills with pain, A nearer view of heaven to gain ? In lowliest depths of bosky dells The hermit Contemplation dwells. A fountain's pine-hung slope his seat, And lotus-twined his silent feet, Whence, piercing heaven, with screened sight, He sees at noon the stars, whose light Shall glorify the coming night. Here let me pause, my quest forego ; Enough for me to feel and know That He in whom the cause and end, The past and future, meet and blend, Who, girt with his Immensities, Our vast and star-hung system sees, Small as the clustered Pleiades, Moves not alone the heavenly quires, But waves the spring-time's grassy spires, Guards not archangel feet alone, But deigns to guide and keep my own; Speaks not alone the words of fate Which worlds destroy, and worlds create, But whispers in my spirit's ear, In tones of love, or warning fear, A language none beside may hear. To Him, from wanderings long and wild, I come, an over-wearied child, In cool and shade His peace to find, Like dew-fall settling on my mind. Assured that all I know is best, And humbly trusting for the rest, I turn from Fancy's cloud-built scheme, Dark creed, and mournful eastern dream Of power, impersonal and cold, Controlling all, itself controlled, Maker and slave of iron laws, Alike the subject and the cause ; From vain philosophies, that try The sevenfold gates of mystery, And, baffled ever, babble still, Word-prodigal of fate and will ; From Nature, and her mockery, Art, And book and speech of men apart, To the still witness in my heart; With reverence waiting to behold His Avatar of love untold, The Eternal Beauty new and old ! FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS In calm and cool and silence, once again I find my old accustomed place among My brethren, where, perchance, no hu- man tongue Shall utter words ; where never hymn is sung, Nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung, Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane ! a There, syllabled by silence, let me hear The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear; Read in my heart a still diviner law Than Israel's leader on his tables saw ! There let me strive with each besetting sin, Recall my wandering fancies, and re- strain The sore disquiet of a restless brain ; And, as the path of duty is made plain, 434 RELIGIOUS TOEMS a May grace be given that I may walk No partial favor dropped the rain ; therein, Alike the righteous and profane Not like the bireling, for his selfish gain, Rejoiced above their beading grain. With backward glances and reluctant tread, Making a merit of his coward dread, And my heart murmured, " Is it meet But, cheerful, in the light around ine That blindfold Nature thus should treat thrown, With equal hand the tares and wheat?"" Walking as one to pleasant service led ; Doing God's will as if it were my own, A presence melted through my mood. – Yet trusting not in mine, but in His A warmth, a light, a sense of good, strength alone! Like sunshine through a winter wood. I saw that presence, mailed complete TRUST In her white innocence, pause to grees A fallen sister of the street. The same old baffling questions! O my friend, l'pon her bosom snowy pure I cannot answer them. In vain I send The lost one clung, as if secure My soul into the dark, where never burn From inward guilt or outward lure. The lamps of science, nor the natural light “ Beware!” I said ; “ in this I spe Of Reason's sun and stars! I cannot learn No gain to her, but loss to thee : Their great and solemn meanings, nor dis- Who touches pitch defiled must be.** cern The awful secrets of the eyes which turn I passed the haunts of shame and sin, Evermore on us through the day and And a voice whispered, " Who there in night Shall these lost souls to Heaven's preces With silent challenge and a dumb de- win ? mand, Proffering the riddles of the dread un. “Who there shall hope and health dis known, pense, Like the calın Sphinxes, with their eyes of And lift the ladder up from thenee stone, Whose rounds are prayers of penitence :* Questioning the centuries from their veils of sand ! I said, “ No higher life they know; I have no answer for myself or thee, These earth-worms love to have it o. Save that I learned beside my mother's Who stoops to raise them sinks as low." kuee ; “ All is of God that is, and is to be ; That night with painful care I read And God is good.” Let this suffice us What Hippo's saint and Calvin said ; still, The living seeking to the dead ! Resting in childlike trust upon His will Who moves to His great ends unthwarted In vain I turned, in weary quest. by the ill. Old pages, where (God give them rest!! The poor creed - mongers drared and guessed. TRINITAS And still I prayed, “ Lord, let me se At morn I prayed, " I fain would see How Three are One, and One is lire; How Three are One, and One is Three ; Read the dark riddle unto me!" Read the dark riddle unto me." Then something whispered, - Dost the I wandered forth, the sun and air pray I saw bestowed with equal care For what thou hast ? This very day On good and evil, foul and fair. The Holy Three have crossed thy war. " THE ROCK" IN EL GHOR 435 6 “ Did not the gifts of sun and air To good and ill alike declare The all-compassionate Father's care ? Nor need we fear her human love Is less for love divine. “In the white soul that stooped to raise The lost one from her evil ways, Thou saw'st the Christ, whom angels praise ! The songs are sweet they sing beneath The trees of life so fair, But sweetest of the songs of heaven Shall be her children's prayer. “A bodiless Divinity, The still small Voice that spake to thee Was the Holy Spirit's mystery ! Then, darling, rest upon my breast, And teach my heart to lean With thy sweet trust upon the arm Which folds us both unseen ! “() blind of sight, of faith how small ! Father, and Son, and Holy Call; This day thou hast denied them all ! “THE ROCK” IN EL GHOR “ Revealed in love and sacrifice, The Holiest passed before thine eyes, One and the same, in threefold guise. “The eqnal Father in rain and sun, His Christ in the good to evil done, His Voice in thy soul ;- and the Three are One!” DEAD Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps, Her stones of emptiness remain ; Around her sculptured mystery sweeps The lonely waste of Edom's plain. From the doomed dwellers in the cleft The bow of vengeance turns not back ; Of all her myriads none are left Along the Wady Mousa's track. I shut my grave Aquinas fast ; The monkish gloss of ages past, The schoolman's creed aside I cast. Clear in the hot Arabian day Her arches spring, her statues climb; Unchanged, the graven wonders pay No tribute to the spoiler, Time! And my heart answered, “ Lord, I see How Three are One, and One is Three ; Thy riddle hath been read to me!” Unchanged the awful lithograph Of power and glory undertrod ; Of nations scattered like the chaff Blown from the threshing-floor of God. THE SISTERS A PICTURE BY BARRY Yet shall the thoughtful stranger turn From Petra's gates with deeper awe, To mark afar the burial urn Of Aaron on the cliffs of Hor; The shade for me, but over thee The lingering sunshine still ; As, smiling, to the silent stream Comes down the singing rill. So come to me, my little one, My years with thee I share, And mingle with a sister's love A mother's tender care. And where upon its ancient guard Thy Rock, El Ghor, is standing yet, Looks from its turrets desertward, And keeps the watch that God has set. The same as when in thunders loud It heard the voice of God to man, As when it saw in fire and cloud The angels walk in Israel's van! But keep the smile upon thy lip, The trust upon thy brow; Since for the dear one God hath called We have an angel now. Our mother from the fields of heaven Shall still her ear incline ; Or when from Ezion-Geber's way It saw the long procession file, And heard the Hebrew timbrels play The music of the lordly Nile ; 436 RELIGIOUS POEMS Or saw the tabernacle pause, Cloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea's wells, While Moses graved the sacred laws, And Aaron swung his golden bells. Rock of the desert, prophet-sung! How grew its shadowing pile at length, A symbol, in the Hebrew tongue, Of God's eternal love and strength. On lip of bard and scroll of seer, From age to age went down the name, l'ntil the Shiloh's promised year, And Christ, the Rock of Ages, came ! The path of life we walk to-day Is strange as that the Hebrews trod ; We need the shadowing rock, as they, We need, like them, the guides of God. God send His angels, Cloud and Fire, To lead us o'er the desert sand ! God give our hearts their long desire, His shadow in a weary land ! THE OVER-HEART And what is He? The ripe grain boda The sweet dews fall, the sweet tower blow; But darker signs His presence show: The earthqnake and the storm are God's, And good and evil intertlow. O hearts of love! O souls that turn Like sunflowers to the pure and best! To you the truth is manifest : For they the mind of Christ discern Who lean like John upon His breast! In him of whom the sibyl told, For whom the prophet's harp was thord, Whose need the sage and magian oward, The loving heart of God behold, The hope for which the ages gruaned! Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery Wherewith mankind have deitied Their hate, and selfishness, and pride! Let the scared dreamer wake to see The Christ of Nazareth at his side! What doth that holy Guide require ? No rite of pain, nor gift of blood, But man a kindly brotherhood, Looking, where duty is desire, To Him, the beautiful and good. Gone be the faithlessness of fear, And let the pitying heaven's sweet rain Wash out the altar's bloods stain ; The law of Hatred disappear, The law of Love alone remain. How fall the idols false and grim! And lo! their hideous wreck abore The emblems of the Lamb and Dore! Man turns from God, not God from him; And guilt, in suffering, whi-pers Lane! The world sits at the feet of Christ, Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled; It yet shall touch Ilis garunent's fulde And feel the heaveuly Al hemist Transform its very dust to gold. The theme befitting angel tongues Beyond a mortal's scope has gror. O heart of mine ! with rererence on The fulness which to it belongs Aud trust the unknown for the known. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things : to whom be glory forever! -- Romans xi. 36. ABOVE, below, in sky and sod, In leaf and spar, in star and man, Well might the wise Athenian scan The geometric signs of God, The measured order of His plan. And India's mystics sang aright, Of the One Life pervading all, One Being's tidal rise and fall In soul and form, in sound and sight, - Eternal outflow and recall. God is : and man in guilt and fear The central fact of Nature owns ; Kneels, trembling, by his altar stones, And darkly dreams the ghastly smear Of blood appeases and atones. Guilt shapes the Terror : deep within The human heart the secret lies Of all the hideous deities ; And, painted on a ground of sin, The fabled gods of torment rise ! THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT 437 THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT As Moses looked of old on Him, And saw His glory into goodness turn ! For He is merciful as just ; And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before His will, and trust Howe'er they seem He doeth all things right. "And I sought, whence is Evil : I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein, - sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures, -yea, whatsoever there is we do not see, - angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my iniserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." * And, admonished to return to my- self, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me! - how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us, and we scarcely return to Thee." - AUGUSTINE's Soliloquies, Book VII. And dare to hope that He will make The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain ; His merey never quite forsake ; His healing visit every realm of pain ; That suffering is not His revenge Upon His creatures weak and frail, Sent on a pathway new and strange With feet that wander and with eyes that fail ; The fourteen centuries fall away Between us and the Afric saint, And at his side we urge, to-day, The immemorial quest and old complaint. That, o'er the crucible of pain, Watches the tender eye of Love The slow transmuting of the chain Whose links are iron below to gold above ! No outward sign to us is given, From sea or earth comes no reply ; Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky. Ah me! we doubt the shining skies, Seen through our shadows of offence, And drown with our poor childish cries The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence. And still we love the evil cause, And of the just effect complain : We tread upon life's broken laws, And murmur at our self-inflicted pain ; No victory comes of all our strife, – From all we grasp the meaning slips ; The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips. In paths unknown we hear the feet Of fear before, and guilt behind ; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind. From age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect; Through every web of life the dark threads We turn us from the light, and find Our spectral shapes before us thrown, As they who leave the sun bebind Walk in the shadows of themselves alone. And scarce by will or strength of ours We set our faces to the day ; Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers Alone can turn us from ourselves away. run. Oh, why and whither ? God knows all; I only know that He is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could. Our weakness is the strength of sin, But love must needs be stronger far, Outreaching all and gathering in The erring spirit and the wandering star. A Voice grows with the growing years ; Earth, hushing down her bitter cry, Looks upward from her graves, and hears, “ The Resurrection and the Life am I." Between the dreadful cherubim A Father's face I still discern, 438 RELIGIOUS POEMS O Love Divine !-- whose constant beam Shines on the eyes that will not see, And waits to bless us, while we dream Thou leavest us because we turn from thee! A cry, as of the pained heart of the wood, The long, despairing moan of solitude And darkness and the absence of all good, Startles the traveller, with a sonnd so dress, So full of hopeless agony and fear, His heart stands still and listens like his ear. The guide, as if he heard a dead-bell toll, Starts, drops his oar against the gunwaie's thole, Crosses himself, and whispers, “A lust soul !" All souls that struggle and aspire, All hearts of prayer by thee are lit ; And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit. Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st, Wide as our need thy favors fall; The white wings of the Holy Ghost Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all. O Beauty, old yet ever new! Eternal Voice, and Inward Word, The Logos of the Greek and Jew, The old sphere-music which the Samian heard ! “ No, Señor, not a bird. I know it well, - It is the pained soul of some infidel Or cursed heretic that cries from beil. “ Poor fool! with hope still mocking Lus despair, He wanders, shrieking on the arms air For human pity and for Christian prayer Saints strike him dumb! Our Holy Von ther bath No prayer for him who, sinning onto death, Burns always in the furnae of Guis wrath!” Truth which the sage and prophet saw, Long sought without, but found within, The Law of Love beyond all law, The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin ! Shine on us with the light which glowed l'pon the trance-bound shepherd's way, Who saw the Darkness overtlowed Aud drowned by tides of everlasting Day. Shine, light of God ! — make broad thy scope To all who sin and suffer; more And better than we dare to hope With Heaven's compassion make our long- ings poor ! Thus to the baptized pagan's cruelle, Lending new horror to that mourut di crp, The voyager listens, making no reply. Dim burns the boat-lamp; shadows deepen round, From giant trees with snake-like creepers wound, And the black water glides without a sand. But in the traveller's heart a secret sase Of nature plastie to benign intents And an eternal good in Providetur, Lifts to the starry calm of heavea bus eyes ; And lo! rebuking all earth's omsch The Cross of pardon lights the truth shies! THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL Lieutenant Herndon's Report of the Er; lo- ration of the Imazon has a striking description of the peculiar and melancholy notes of a bird heard by night on the shores of the river. The Indian guides called it " The Cry of a Lost Soul"! Among the numerous translations of this poem is one by the Emperor of Brazil. In that black forest, where, when day is done, With a snake's stillness glides the Amazon Darkly from sunset to the rising sun, “Father of all !” he urges his string ples “ Thou lovest all: Thy erring chi Ed! be Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee! ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER 439 “ All souls are Thine ; the wings of morn- ing bear None from that Presence which is every- where, Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there. “ Through sins of sense, perversities of will, Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame and ill, Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still. * Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal ! In Thy long years, life's broken circle whole, And change to praise the cry of a lost soul? ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER ANDREW RYKMAN's dead and gone ; You can see his leaning slate In the graveyard, and thereon Read his name and date. “ Trust is truer than our fears," Runs the legend through the moss, “Gain is not in added years, Nor in death is loss." Melt into the vague immense, Father ! I may come to Thee Even with the beggar's plea, As the poorest of Thy poor, With my needs, and nothing more. Not as one who seeks his home With a step assured I come ; Still behind the tread I hear Of my life-companion, Fear; Still a shadow deep and vast From my westering feet is cast, Wavering, doubtful, undefined, Never shapen nor outlined : From myself the fear has grown, And the shadow is my own. Yet, O Lord, through all a sense Of Thy tender providence Stays my failing heart on Thee, And confirms the feeble knee ; And, at times, my worn feet press Spaces of cool quietness, Lilied whiteness shone upon Not by light of moon or sun. Hours there be of inmost calm, Broken but by grateful psalm, When I love Thee more than fear Thee, And Thy blessed Christ seems near me, With forgiving look, as when He beheld the Magdalen. Well I know that all things move To the spheral rhythm of love, That to Thee, O Lord of all ! Nothing can of chance befall : Child and seraph, mote and star, Well Thou knowest what we are ! Through Thy vast creative plan Looking, from the worm to man, There is pity in Thine eyes, But no hatred nor surprise. Not in blind caprice of will, Not in cunning sleight of skill, Not for show of power, was wrought Nature's marvel in Thy thought. Never careless hand and vain Smites these chords of joy and pain ; No immortal selfishness Plays the game of curse and bless : Heaven and earth are witnesses That Thy glory goodness is. Not for sport of mind and force Hast Thou made Thy universe, But as atmosphere and zone Of Thy loving heart alone. Man, who walketh in a show, Still the feet that thither trod, All the friendly eyes are dim ; Only Nature, now, and God Have a care for him. . There the dews of quiet fall, Singing birds and soft winds stray Shall the tender Heart of all Be less kind than they ? What he was and what he is They who ask may haply find, If they read this prayer of his Which he left behind. Pardon, Lord, the lips that dare Shape in words a mortal's prayer ! Prayer, that, when my day is done, And I see its setting sun, Shorn and beamless, cold and dim, Sink beneath the horizon's rim, When this ball of rock and clay Crumbles from my feet away, And the solid shores of sense 440 RELIGIOUS POEMS Sees before him, to and fro, Shadow and illusion go; All things flow and fluctuate, Now contract and now dilate. In the welter of this sea, Nothing stable is but Thee ; In this whirl of swooning trance, Thou alone art permanence ; All without Thee only seems, All beside is choice of dreams. Never yet in darkest mood Doubted I that Thou wast good, Nor mistook my will for fate, Pain of sin for heavenly hate, - Never dreamed the gates of pearl Rise from out the burning marl, Or that good can only live Of the bad conservative, And through counterpoise of hell Heaven alone be possible. For myself alone I doubt ; All is well, I know, without ; I alone the beauty mar, I alone the music jar. Yet, with hands by evil stained, And an ear by discord pained, I am groping for the keys Of the heavenly harmonies ; Still within my heart I bear Love for all things good and fair. Hands of want or souls in pain Have not sought my door in vain ; I have kept my fealty good To the human brotherhood ; Scarcely have I asked in prayer That which others might not share. I, who hear with secret shame Praise that paineth more than blame, Rich alone in favors lent, Virtuous by accident, Doubtful where I fain would rest, Frailest where I seem the best, Only strong for lack of test, What ain I, that I should press Special pleas of selfishness, Coolly mounting into heaven On my neighbor unforgiven ? Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised, Comes a saint unrecognized ; Never fails my heart to greet Noble deed with warmer beat ; Halt and maimed, I own not less All the grace of holiness ; Nor, through shame or self-distrust, Less I love the pure and just. Lord, forgive these words of mine. What have I that is not Thine ! Whatsoe'er I fain would boast Needs Thy pitying pardon most Thou, O Elder Brother ! who In Thy flesh our trial knew, Thou, who hast been touched by these Our most sad infirmities, Thou alone the gulf canst span In the dual heart of man, And between the soul and sense Reconcile all difference, Change the dream of me and mine For the truth of Thee and Thine, And, through chaos, doubt, and strife, Interfuse Thy calm of life. Haply, thus by Thee renewed, In 'Thy borrowed goodness good, Some sweet morning yet in God's Dim, æonian periods, Joyful I shall wake to see Those I love who rest in Thee And to them in Thee allied, Shall my soul be satisfied. Scarcely Hope bath shaped for me What the future life may be. Other lips may well be bold; Like the publican of old, I can only urge the plea, “Lord, be merciful to me!” Nothing of desert I claim, C'nto me belongeth shame. Not for me the crowns of gold, Palms, and harpings manifold; Not for erring eye and feet Jasper wall and golden street. What thou wilt, Ö Father, gire! All is gain that I receive. If my voice I may not raise In the elders' song of praise, If I may not, sin-defiled, Claim my birthright as a child, Suffer it that I to Thee As an hired servant be ; Let the lowliest task be mine, Grateful, so the work be Thibe ; Let me find the humblest place In the shadow of Thy grace : Blest to me were any spot Where temptation whispers not. If there be some weaker one, Give me strength to help him on ; If a blinder soul there be, THE ANSWER 441 “ To-morrow is with God alone, And man hath but to-day. Let me guide him nearer Thee. Make my mortal dreams come true With the work I fain would do ; Clothe with life the weak intent, Let me be the thing I meant ; Let me find in Thy employ Peace that dearer is than joy ; Out of self to love be led And to heaven acclimated, Until all things sweet and good Seem my natural habitude. “Say not, thy fond, vain heart within, The Father's arm shall still be wide, When from these pleasant ways of sin Thou turn'st at eventide. “Cast thyself down,' the tempter saith, • And angels shall thy feet upbear.' He bids thee make a lie of faith, And blasphemy of prayer. “ Though God be good and free be heaven, No force divine can love compel ; And, though the song of sins forgiven May sound through lowest hell, So we read the prayer of him Who, 'with John of Labadie, Trod, of old, the oozy rim Of the Zuyder Zee. Thus did Andrew Rykman pray. Are we wiser, better grown, That we may not, in our day, Make his prayer our own ? “The sweet persuasion of His voice Respects thy sanctity of will. He giveth day : thou hast thy choice To walk in darkness still ; THE ANSWER “ As one who, turning from the light, Watches his own gray shadow fall, Doubting, upon his path of night, If there be day at all ! “No word of doom may shut thee out, No wind of wrath may downward whirl, No swords of fire keep watch about The open gates of pearl ; SPARE me, dread angel of reproof, And let the sunshine weave to-day Its gold-threads in the warp and woof Of life so poor and gray. Spare me awhile ; the flesh is weak. These lingering feet, that fain would stray Among the flowers, shall some day seek The strait and narrow way. Take off thy ever-watchful eye, The awe of thy rebuking frown ; The dullest slave at times must sigh To fling his burdens down ; To drop his galley's straining oar, And press, in summer warmth and calm, The lap of some enchanted shore Of blossom and of balm. “ A tenderer light than moon or sun, Than song of earth a sweeter hymn, May shine and sound forever on, And thou be deaf and dim. “ Forever round the Mercy-seat The guiding lights of Love shall burn ; But what if, habit-bound, thy feet Shall lack the will to turn ? Grudge not my life its hour of bloom, My heart its taste of long desire ; This day be mine : be those to come As duty shall require. “What if thine eye refuse to see, Thine ear of Heaven's free welcome fail, And thou a willing captive be, Thyself thy own dark jail ? “Oh, doom beyond the saddest guess, As the long years of God unroll, To make thy dreary selfishness The prison of a soul ! The deep voice answered to my own, Smiting my selfish prayers away ; 442 RELIGIOUS POEMS “ To doubt the love that fain would break The fetters from thy self-bound limb; And dream that God can thee forsake As thou forsakest Him !” I hear, with groan and travailaries, The world confess its sin. THE ETERNAL GOODNESS O FRIENDS ! with whom my feet have trod The quiet aisles of prayer, Glad witness to your zeal for God And love of man I bear. I trace your lines of argument ; Your logic linked and strong I weigh as one who dreads dissent, And fears a doubt as wrong. But still my human hands are weak To hold your iron creeds : Against the words ye bid me speak My heart within me pleads. Who fathoms the Eternal Thought ? Who talks of scheme and plan ? The Lord is God! He needeth not The poor device of man. I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread with boldness shod ; I dare not fix with mete and bound The love and power of God. Ye praise His justice ; even such His pitying love I deem : Ye seek a king ; I fain would touch The robe that hath no seam. Yet, in the maddening maze of things And tossed by storm and to To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good ! Not mine to look where cherubim And seraphs may not see, But nothing can be good in Him Which evil is in me. The wrong that pains my soul balos I dare not throne above, I know not of His hate, - I know His goodness and His love. I dimly guess from blessings known Of greater out of sight, And, with the chastened Psalmist, own His judgments too are right. I long for household voices gute', For vanished smiles I long, But God hath led my dear ones on, And He can do no wrong. I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death liis mercy underlies. And if my heart and flesh are weak To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed He will not break, But strengthen and siistain. No offering of my own I have, Xor works my faith tv prute ; I can but give the gifts lle gave, And plead His love for love. And so beside the Silent Sea I wait the muftled var; No harm from Himn can come to me On ocean or on shore. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. O brothers ! if my faith is vain, If hopes like these letray, Ye see the curse which overbroods A world of pain and loss ; I hear our Lord's beatitudes And prayer upon the cross. More than your schoolmen teach, within Myself, alas! I know : Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, Too small the merit show. 1 I bow my forehead to the dust, I veil mine eyes for shame, And urge, in trembling self-listrust, A prayer without a claim. I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within ; OUR MASTER 443 Pray for me that my feet may gain The sure and safer way. OUR MASTER And Thou, O Lord ! by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee ! IMMORTAL Love, forever full, Forever flowing free, Forever shared, forever whole, A never-ebbing sea ! THE COMMON QUESTION BEHIND us at our evening meal The gray bird ate his fill, Swung downward by a single claw, And wiped his hookëd bill. Our outward lips confess the name All other names above ; Love only knoweth whence it came And comprehendeth love. Blow, winds of God, awake and blow The mists of earth away ! Shine out, O Light Divine, and show How wide and far we stray ! He shook his wings and crimson tail, And set his head aslant, And, in his sharp, impatient way, Asked, “What does Charlie want ?” Hush every lip, close every book, The strife of tongues forbear ; Why forward reach, or backward look, For love that clasps like air ? " Fie, silly bird !” I answered, “tuck Your head beneath your wing, And go to sleep ;” – but o'er and o'er He asked the self-same thing. We may not climb the heavenly steeps To bring the Lord Christ down : In vain we search the lowest deeps, For Him no depths can drown. Then, smiling, to myself I said : How like are men and birds ! We all are saying what he says, In action or in words. Nor holy bread, nor blood of grape, The lineaments restore Of Him we know in outward shape And in the flesh no more. The boy with whip and top and drum, The girl with hoop and doll, And men with lands and houses, ask The question of Poor Poll. He cometh not a king to reign ; The world's long hope is dim; The weary centuries watch in vain The clouds of heaven for Him. However full, with something more We fain the bag would cram; We sigh above our crowded nets For fish that never swam. Death comes, life goes ; the asking eye And ear are answerless ; The grave is dumb, the hollow sky Is sad with silentness. No bounty of indulgent Heaven The vague desire can stay ; Self-love is still a Tartar mill For grinding prayers alway. The dear God hears and pities all ; He knoweth all our wants ; And what we blindly ask of Him His love with holds or grants. The letter fails, and systems fall, And every symbol wanes ; The Spirit over-brooding all Eternal Love remains. And not for signs in heaven above Or earth below they look, Who know with John His smile of love, With Peter His rebuke. And so I sometimes think our prayers Might well be merged in one ; And nest and per and hearth and church Repeat, “ Thy will be done.” In of inward peace, or sense Of sorrow over sin, 444 RELIGIOUS POEMS He is His own best evidence, All sweet accords of hearts and homes His witness is within. In Thee are multiplied. No fable old, nor mythic lore, Deep strike Thy roots, O heavenly line, Vor dream of bards and seers, Within our earthly sod, No dead fact stranded on the shore Most human and yet most divine, Of the oblivious years ;- The flower of man and God! But warm, sweet, tender, even yet O Love! O Life! Our faith and salt A present help is He ; Thy presence maketh one, And faith has still its Olivet, As through transfigured clouds of wir And love its Galilee. We trace the noon-day sun. The healing of His seamless dress So, to our mortal eyes sublued, Is by our beds of pain ; Flesh-veiled, but not concealed, We touch Him in life's throng and press, We know in Thee the fatherhood And we are whole again. And heart of God revealed. Through Him the first fond prayers are said We faintly hear, we dimly see, Our lips of childhood frame, In differing phrase we pray; The last low whispers of our dead But, dim or clear, we own in Thee Are burdened with His name. The Light, the Truth, the Way! Our Lord and Master of us all ! The homage that we render Thee Whate'er our name or sign, Is still our Father's own; We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, No jealous claim or rivalry We test our lives by Thine. Divides the Cross and Throne. Thou judgest us ; Thy purity To do Thy will is more than praise, Doth all our lusts condemn ; As words are less than deris, The love that draws us nearer Thee And simple trust can find Thx ways Is hot with wrath to them. We miss with chart of creeds. Our thoughts lie open to Thy sight; No pride of self Thy service hath, And, naked to Thy glance, No place for me and mine ; Our secret sins are in the light Our human strength is weakness, death Of Thy pure countenance. Our life, apart from Thine. Thy healing pains, a keen distress Apart from Thee all gain is loss, Thy tender light shines in ; All labor vainly done ; Thy sweetness is the bitterness, The solemn shadow of Thy Cross the pang of sin. Is better than the sun. Yet, weak and blinded though we be, Alone, () Love ineffable ! Thou dost our service own; Thy saving name is given ; We bring our varying gifts to Thee, To turn aside from Thee is bell, And Thou rejectest none. To walk with Thee is heaven ! To Thee our full humanity, How vain, secure in all Thou art, Its joys and pains, belong ; Our noisy championship! The wrong of man to man on Thee The sighing of the contrite beart Intricts a deeper wrong. Is inore than flattering lip. Vho hates, hates Thee, who loves becomes Not Thine the bigot's partial plea, Therein to Thee allied ; Nor Thine the zealot's lan; Thy grace THE MEETING 445 Thou well canst spare a love of Thee Which ends in hate of man. Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord, What may Thy service be ? Vor name, nor form, nor ritual word, But simply following Thee. We bring no ghastly holocaust, We pile no graven stone ; He serves thee best who loveth most His brothers and Thy own. Thy litanies, sweet offices Of love and gratitude ; Thy sacramental liturgies The joy of doing good. In vain shall waves of incense drift The vaulted nave around, In vain the minster turret lift Its brazen weights of sound. The heart must ring Thy Christmas bells, Thy inward altars raise ; Its faith and hope Thy canticles, And its obedience praise ! Is silence worship ? Seek it where It soothes with dreams the summer air, Not in this close and rude-benched hall, But where soft lights and shadows fall, And all the slow, sleep-walking hours Glide soundless over grass and flowers ! From time and place and form apart, Its holy ground the human heart, Nor ritual-bound nor templeward Walks the free spirit of the Lord ! Our common Master did not pen His followers up from other men ; His service liberty indeed, He built no church, He framed no creed ; But while the saintly Pharisee Made broader his phylactery, As from the synagogue was seen The dusty-sandalled Nazarene Through ripening cornfields lead the way Upon the awful Sabbath day, His sermons were the healthful talk That shorter made the mountain-walk, His wayside texts were flowers and birds, Where mingled with His gracious words The rustle of the tamarisk-tree And ripple-wash of Galilee.” “ Thy words are well, O friend,” I said ; “ Unmeasured and unlimited, With noiseless slide of stone to stone, The mystic Church of God has grown. Invisible and silent stands The temple never made with hands, Unheard the voices still and small Of its unseen confessional. He needs no special place of prayer Whose hearing ear is everywhere ; He brings not back the childish days That ringed the earth with stones of praise, Roofed Karnak's hall of gods, and laid The plinths of Philæ's colonnade. Still less He owns the selfish good And sickly growth of solitude, The worthless grace that, ont of sight, Flowers in the desert anchorite ; Dissevered from the suffering whole, Love hath no power to save a soul. Not ont of Self, the origin And native air and soil of sin, The living waters spring and flow, The trees with leaves of healing grow. THE MEETING The two speakers in the meeting referred to in this poem were Avis Keene, whose very presence was a benediction, a woman lovely in spirit and person, whose words seemed a mes- sage of love and tender concern to her hearers; and Sibyl Jones, whose inspired eloquence and rare spirituality impressed all who knew her. In obedience to her apprehended duty she made visits of Christian love to various parts of Europe, and to the West Coast of Africa and Palestine. The elder folks shook hands at last, Down seat by seat the signal passed. To simple ways like ours unused, Half solemnized and half amused, With long - drawn breath and shrug, my guest His sense of glad relief expressed. Outside, the hills lay warm in sun; The cattle in the meadow-run Stood half-leg deep; a single bird The green repose above us stirred. " What part or lot have you,” he said, “ In these dull rites of drowsy-head ? “Dream not, O friend, because I seek This quiet shelter twice a week, I better deem its pine-laid floor а 446 RELIGIOUS POEMS Than breezy hill or sea-sung shore ; But nature is not solitude : She crowds us with her thronging wood ; Her many hands reach out to us, Her many tongues are garrulous ; Perpetual riddles of surprise She offers to our ears and eyes ; She will not leave our senses still, But drags them captive at her will : And, making earth too great for heaven, She hides the Giver in the given. “ And so I find it well to come For deeper rest to this still room, For here the habit of the soul Feels less the outer world's control ; The strength of mutual purpose pleads More earnestly our common needs ; And from the silence multiplied By these still forms on either side, The world that time and sense have known Falls off and leaves us God alone. “ Yet rarely through the charmed repose Unmixed the stream of motive flows, A flavor of its many springs, The tints of earth and sky it brings ; In the still waters needs must be Some shade of human sympathy ; And here, in its accustomed place, I look on memory's dearest face ; The blind by-sitter guesseth pot What shadow haunts that vacant spot ; No eyes save mine alone can see The love wherewith it welcomes me! And still, with those alone my kin, In doubt and weakness, want and sin, I bow my head, my heart I bare, As when that face was living there, And strive (too oft, alas ! in vain) The peace of simple trust to gain, Fold fancy's restless wings, and lay The idols of my heart away. « Welcome the silence all unbroken, Nor less the words of fitness spoken, - Such golden words as here for whom Our autumn flowers have just made room ; Whose hopeful utterance through and through The freshness of the morning blew ; Who loved not less the earth that light Fell on it from the heavens in sight, But saw in all fair forms more fair The Eternal beauty mirrored there. Whose eighty years but added grace And saintlier meaning to her face, – The look of one who bore away Glad tidings from the hills of day, While all our hearts went forth to meet The coming of her beautiful feet! Or haply hers, whose pilgrim trad Is in the paths where Jesu led ; Who dreams her childhood's sallad dream By Jordan's willow-shaded stream, And, of the hymns of hope and faith, Sung by the monks of Nazareth, Hears pious echoes, in the call To prayer, from Moslem minar ts full. Repeating where His works were wront The lesson that her Master taught, Of whom an elder Sibyl gave, The prophecies of Cumæ's cave ! “I ask no organ's soulless breath To drone the themes of life and death, day, No ornate wordsman's Thietorie-play, No cool philosophy to teach Its bland audacities of speech To double-tasked idolaters Themselves their gods and wonkippers No pulpit hammered by the tist Of loud-asserting dogmatist, Who borrows for the land of love The smoking thunderbolts of Jore. I know how well the fathers tau, What work the later schoolmen wrought, I reverence old-time faith andi mnt, But God is near us now as then ; His force of love is still unspent, His hate of sin as imminent; And still the measure of our needs Outgrows the cramping bounds of eness. The manna gathered yesterday Already savors of decay ; Doubts to the world's child-beart unkn. - Question us now from star and true ; Too little or too much we know, And sight is swift and faith is slow; The power is lost to self-deceive With shallow forms of make-leliere. We walk at high noon, and the bells Call to a thousand oracles, But the sound deafens, and the light Is stronger than our dazzled sigut; The letters of the sacred Book Glimmer and swim beneath our lix; Still struggles in the Age's breast THE CLEAR VISION 447 With deepening agony of quest The old entreaty : Art thou He, Or look we for the Christ to be ?' - “God should be most where man is least : So, where is neither church nor priest, And never rag of form or creed To clothe the nakedness of need, Where farmer-folk in silence meet, I turn my bell-unsummoned feet ; I lay the critic's glass aside, I tread upon my lettered pride, And, lowest-seated, testify To the oneness of humanity ; Confess the universal want, And share whatever Heaven may grant. He findeth not who seeks his own, The soul is lost that's saved alone. Not on one favored forehead fell Of old the fire-tongued miracle, But flamed o'er all the thronging host The baptism of the Holy Ghost; Heart answers heart : in one desire The blending lines of prayer aspire ; • Where, in my name, meet two or three,' Our Lord hath said, I there will be !! That to be saved is only this, — Salvation from our selfishness, From more than elemental fire, The soul's unsanctified desire, From sin itself, and not the pain That warns us of its chafing chain ; That worship's deeper meaning lies In mercy, and not sacrifice, Not proud humilities of sense And posturing of penitence, But love's unforced obedience ; That Book and Church and Day are given For man, not God, — for earth, not heaven, - The blessed means to holiest ends, Not masters, but benignant friends; That the dear Christ dwells not afar, The king of some remoter star, Listening, at times, with flattered ear To homage wrung from selfish fear, But here, amidst the poor and blind, The bound and suffering of our kind, In works we do, in prayers we pray, Life of our life, He lives to-day.” THE CLEAR VISION “So sometimes comes to soul and sense The feeling which is evidence That very near about us lies The realm of spiritual mysteries. The sphere of the supernal powers Impinges on this world of ours. The low and dark horizon lifts, To light the scenic terror shifts ; The breath of a diviner air Blows down the answer of a prayer : That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt A great compassion clasps about, And law and goodness, love and force, Are wedded fast beyond divorce. Then duty leaves to love its task, The beggar Self forgets to ask ; With smile of trust and folded hands, The passive soul in waiting stands To feel, as flowers the sun and dew, The One true Life its own renew. I DID but dream. I never knew What charms our sternest season wore. Was never yet the sky so blue, Was never earth so white before. Till now I never saw the glow Of sunset on yon hills of snow, And never learned the bough’s designs Of beauty in its leafless lines. Did ever such a morning break As that my eastern windows see? Did ever such a moonlight take Weird photographs of shrub and tree? Rang ever bells so wild and fleet The music of the winter street ? Was ever yet a sound by half So merry as yon school-boy's laugh ? O Earth! with gladness overfraught, No added charm thy face hath found ; Within my heart the change is wrought, My footsteps make enchanted ground. From couch of pain and curtained room Forth to thy light and air I come, To find in all that meets my eyes The freshness of a glad surprise. “So to the calmly gathered thought The innermost of truth is taught, The mystery dimly understood, That love of God is love of good, And, chiefly, its divinest trace In Him of Nazareth's holy face ; 448 RELIGIOUS POEMS Fair seem these winter days, and soon Shall blow the warm west-winds of spring, To set the unbound rills in tune And hither urge the bluebird's wing. The vales shall laugh in flowers, the woods Grow misty green with leating buds, And violets and wind-tlowers sway Against the throbbing heart of May. Has saintly ease no pitying care ? Has faith no work, and love po prarer While sin remains, and souls in darkness dwell, Can heaven itself be heaven, and look us- moved on hell ?" Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own The wiser love severely kind ; Since, richer for its chastening grown, I see, whereas I once was blind. The world, O Father ! hath not wronged With loss the life by Thee prolonged ; But still, with every added year, More beautiful Thy works appear ! Then through the Gates of Pain, I dream, A wind of heaven blows coolly in ; Fainter the awful discords seem, The smoke of torment grows more this, Tears quench the burning soil, and the ce Spring sweet, pale flowers of penitency : And through the dreary realm of man's de spair, Star-crowned an angel walks, and lo! God's hope is there! Is it a dream? Is heaven so high That pity cannot breathe its air? Its happy eyes forever dry, Its holy lips without a prayer! My God! my God! if thither led By Thy free grace unmerited, No crown nor palm be mine, but let me keep A heart that still can feel, and eyes that stara can weep. a As Thou hast made thy world without, Make Thou more fair my world within ; Shine through its lingering clouds of doubt; Rebuke its haunting shapes of sin; Fill, brief or long, my granted span Of life with love to thee and inan ; Strike when thou wilt the hour of rest, But let my last days be my best ! DIVINE COMPASSION THE PRAYER-SEEKER Long since, a dream of heaven I had, And still the vision haunts me oft ; I see the saints in white robes clad, The martyrs with their palms aloft ; But hearing still, in middle song, The ceaseless dissonance of wrong ; And shrinking, with hid faces, from the strain Of sad, beseeching eyes, full of remorse and pain. The glad song falters to a wail, The harping sinks to low lament; Before the still unlifted veil I see the crowned foreheads bent, Making more sweet the heavenly air With breathings of unselfish prayer; And a Voice saith : “() Pity which is pain, O Love that weeps, fill up my sufferings which remain ! “ Shall souls redeemed by me refuse To share my sorrow in their turn ? Or, sin-forgiven, mv gift abuse Of peace with selfish unconcern ? Along the aisle where prayer was made, A woman, all in black arraved, Close-veiled, between the kneeling host, With gliding motion of a ghost, Passed to the desk, and laid thereon A scroll which bore these words alune, Pray for me! Back from the place of worshipping She glided like a guilty thing : The rustle of her draperies, stirred By hurrying feet, alone was heard ; While, full of awe, the preacher read, As out into the dark she sped : Pray for me! Back to the night from whence she case, To unimagined grief or shame! Across the threshold of that door Vone knew the burden that she hair; Alone she left the written scroll, The legend of a troubled soul, - Pray for me! THE BREWING OF SOMA 449 And shouted, with one voice and will, “Behold the drink of gods !” Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin ! Thou leav'st a common need within ; Each bears, like thee, some nameless weight, Some misery inarticulate, Some secret sin, some shrouded dread, Some household sorrow all unsaid. Pray for us! They drank, and lo! in heart and brain A new, glad life began; The gray of hair grew young again, The sick man laughed away his pain, The cripple leaped and ran. Pass on! The type of all thou art, Sad witness to the common heart ! With face in veil and seal on lip, In mute and strange companionship, Like thee we wander to and fro, Dumbly imploring as we go : Pray for us! “ Drink, mortals, what the gods have sent, Forget your long annoy.' So sang the priests. From tent to tent The Soma's sacred madness went, A storm of drunken joy. Then knew each rapt inebriate A winged and glorious birth, Soared upward, with strange joy elate, Beat, with dazed head, Varuna's gate, And, sobered, sank to earth. Ah, who shall pray, since he who pleads Our want perchance hath greater needs ? Yet they who make their loss the gain Of others shall not ask in vain, And Heaven bends low to hear the prayer Of love from lips of self-despair : Pray for us ! The land with Soma's praises rang ; On Gihon's banks of shade Its hymns the dusky maidens sang ; In joy of life or mortal pang All men to Soma prayed. In vain remorse and fear and hate Beat with bruised hands against a fate Whose walls of iron only move And open to the touch of love. He only feels his burdens fall Who, taught by suffering, pities all. Pray for us! He prayeth best who leaves unguessed The mystery of another's breast. Why cheeks grow pale, why eyes o'erflow, Or heads are white, thou need'st not know. Enough to note by many a sign That every heart hath needs like thine. Pray for us ! The morning twilight of the race Sends down these matin psalms ; And still with wondering eyes we trace The simple prayers to Soma's grace, That Vedic verse embalms. As in that child-world's early year, Each after age has striven By music, incense, vigils drear, And trance, to bring the skies more near, Or lift men up to heaven ! Some fever of the blood and brain, Some self-exalting spell, The scourger's keen delight of pain, The Dervish dance, the Orphic strain, The wild-haired Bacchant's yell, – THE BREWING OF SOMA * These libations mixed with milk have been prepared for Indra : offer Soma to the drinker of Soma." -- Va. shista, translated by Max MÖLLER. The fagots blazed, the caldron's smoke C'p through the green wood curled ; “ Bring honey from the hollow oak, Bring milky sap," the brewers spoke, In the childhood of the world. The desert's hair-grown hermit sunk The saner brute below; The naked Santon, hashish-drunk, The cloister madness of the monk, The fakir's torture-show ! And brewed they well or brewed they ill, The priests thrust in their rods, First tasted, and then drank their fill, And yet the past comes round again, And new doth old fulfil ; In sensual transports wild as vain 450 RELIGIOUS POEMS Rise from the dust thou liest in, As Mary rose at Jesns' word, Redeemed and white before the Lord! Reclaim thy lost soul! In His name, Rise up, and break thy bonds of starte Art weak? He's strong. Art fearla Hear The world's O'ercomer : “Be of ebeer '* What lip shall judge when He approves? Who dare to scorn the child He loves : We brew in many a Christian fane The heathen Soma still ! Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways ! Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives Thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise. In simple trust like theirs who heard Beside the Syrian sea The gracious calling of the Lord, Let us, like them, without a word, Rise up and follow Thee. O Sabbath rest by Galilee ! () calm of hills above, Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee The silence of eternity Interpreted by love ! With that deep hush subduing all Our words and works that drown The tender whisper of Thy call, As noiseless let Thy blessing fall As fell Thy manna down. Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease ; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace. Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm ; Let sense be dumb, let Hesh retire ; Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still, small voice of calm ! THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ The island of Penikese in Bunard's Bar ve given by Mr. John Anderson to Aguu f- the uses of a summer school of natural lustat A large barn was cleared and improvised - . lecture-room. Here, on the first murunk a the school, all the company was gathered ** Agassiz had arranged no programme of en ercises," says Mrs. Agassiz, in Lexis . qu: his Life and Correspondence, “trusting to the interest of the occasion to suggest what this best be said or done. But, as he looked up his pupils gathered there to study nature him, by an impulse as natural as it was premeditated, he called upon them to jest na silently asking God's blessing on their var together. The pause was broken by the ting words of an address no less fervent than it a spoken prelude." This was in the same 1873, and Agassiz died the December fuils On the isle of Penikese, Ringed about by sapphire seas, Fanned by breezes silt and could, Stood the Master with tus sebool Over sails that not in vain Wooed the west-wind's steady strain Line of coast that low and far Stretched its undulating bar, Wings aslant across the rim Of the waves they stooped to skia, Rock and isle and glistening bay, Fell the beautiful white day. Said the Master to the youth: “We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery ; We are reaching, through His Laos, To the garment-bem of (ause, Him, the endless, unbegun, The Unnamable, the One Light of all our light the Source Life of life, and force of force A WOMAN Oh, dwarfed and wronged, and stained with ill, Behold! thou art a woman still ! And, by that sacred name and dear, I bid thy better self appear. Still, through thy fool disguise, I see The rudimental purity, That, spite of change and loss, makes good Thy birthright-claim of womanhood ; An inward loathing, deep, intense ; A shame that is half innocence. Cast off the grave-clothes of thy sin ! IN QUEST 451 As with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen, What the Thought which underlies Nature's masking and disguise, What it is that hides beneath Blight and bloom and birth and death. By past efforts unavailing, Doubt and error, loss and failing, Of our weakness made aware, On the threshold of our task Let us light and guidance ask, Let us pause in silent prayer !” But the lord of the domain Comes not to his own again : Where the eyes that follow fail, On a vaster sea his sail Drifts beyond our beck and hail. Other lips within its bound Shall the laws of life expound; Other eyes from rock and shell Read the world's old riddles well : But when breezes light and bland Blow from Summer's blossomed land, When the air is glad with wings, And the blithe song-sparrow sings, Many an eye with his still face Shall the living ones displace, Many an ear the word shall seek He alone could fitly speak. And one name forevermore Shall be uttered o'er and o'er By the waves that kiss the shore, By the curlew's whistle sent Down the cool, sea-scented air ; In all voices known to her, Nature owns her worshipper, Half in triumph, half lament. Thither Love shall tearful turn, Friendship pause uncovered there, And the wisest reverence learn From the Master's silent prayer. Then the Master in his place Bowed his head a little space, And the leaves by soft airs stirred, Lapse wave and cry of bird, Left the solemn hush unbroken Of that wordless prayer unspoken, While its wish, on earth unsaid, Rose to heaven interpreted. As, in life's best hours, we hear By the spirit's finer ear His low voice within us, thus The All-Father heareth us ; And His holy ear we pain With our noisy words and vain. Not for Him our violence Storming at the gates of sense, His the primal language, His The eternal silences ! IN QUEST Even the careless heart was moved, And the doubting gave assent, With a gesture reverent, To the Master well-beloved. As thin mists are glorified By the light they cannot hide, All who gazed upon him saw, Through its veil of tender awe, How his face was still uplit By the old sweet look of it, Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer, And the love that casts out fear. Who the secret may declare Of that brief, unuttered prayer ? Did the shade before him come Of th' inevitable doom, Of the end of earth so near, And Eternity's new year ? In the lap of sheltering seas Rests the isle of Penikese ; HAVE I not voyaged, friend beloved, with thee On the great waters of the unsounded sea, Momently listening with suspended oar For the low rote of waves upon a shore Changeless as heaven, where never fog- cloud drifts Over its windless wood, nor mirage lifts The steadfast hills ; where never birds of doubt Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out, And the dark riddles which perplexus here In the sharp solvent of its light are clear ? Thou knowest how vain our quest ; how, soon or late, The baffling tides and circles of debate Swept back our bark unto its starting- place, Where, looking forth upon the blank, gray space, And round about us seeing, with sad eyes, 452 RELIGIOUS POEMS Wishes and prayers ; but Thoa, 0 Land, wilt do, In Thy own time, by wars I cannot see, All that I feel when I am nearest Ther!" The same old difficult hills and cloud-cold skies, We said : “ This outward search availeth not To find Him. He is farther than we thought, Or, haply, nearer. To this very spot Whereon we wait, this commonplace of home, As to the well of Jacob, He may come And tell us all things.” As I listened there, Through the expectant silences of prayer, Somewhat I seemed to hear, which hath to me Been hope, strength, comfort, and I give it thee. “ The riddle of the world is understood Only by him who feels that God is good, As only he can feel who makes his love The ladder of his faith, and climbs above On th' rounds of his best instincts ; draws no line Between mere human goodness and divine, But, judging God by what in him is best, With a child's trust leans on a Father's breast, And hears unmoved the old creeds babble still Of kingly power and dread caprice of will, Chary of blessing, prodigal of curse, The pitiless doomsman of the universe. Can Hatred ask for love? Can Selfishness Invite to self-denial? Is He less Than man in kindly dealing ? Can He break His own great law of fatherhood, forsake And curse His children? Not for earth and heaven Can separate tables of the law be given. No rule can bind which He himself denies ; The truths of time are not eternal lies." So heard I ; and the chaos round me spread To light and order grew; and, “Lord,” I said, * Our sins are our tormentors, worst of all Felt in distrustful shame that dares not call l'pon Thee as our Father. We have set A strange god up, but Thou remainest yet. All that I feel of pity Thou hast known Before I was ; my best is all Thy own. From Thy great heart of goodness mine but drew THE FRIEND'S BURIAL My thoughts are all in yonder town, Where, wept by many tears, To-day my mother's friend lays down The burden of her years. True as in life, no poor disguise Of death with her is seen, And on her simple casket lies No wreath of bloom and green. Oh, not for her the florist's art, The mocking weeds of wue ; Dear memories in each mourner's beart Like heaven's white lilies blow. And all about the softening air Of new-born sweetness tells, And the ungathered May-tlowers wear The tints of ocean shells. The old, assuring miracle Is fresh as heretofore ; And earth takes up its parable Of life from death once more. Here organ-swell and churcb-bell to Methinks but discord were ; The prayerful silence of the soul Is best befitting her. No sound should break the quietnde Alike of earth and sky; () wandering wind in Seabrook wood, Breathe but a half-beard sigh! Sing softly, spring-bird, for her sake ; And thon not distant sea, Lapse lightly as if Jesus spake, And thou wert Galilee ! For all her quiet life flowed on As meadow streamlets tiow, Where fresher green reveals alone The noiseless ways they go. From her loved place of prayer I see The plain-robed mouruers pass, A CHRISTMAS CARMEN 453 The blessed Master none can doubt Revealed in holy lives. With slow feet treading reverently The graveyard's springing grass. Make room, O mourning ones, for me, Where, like the friends of Paul, That you no more her face shall see You sorrow most of all. A CHRISTMAS CARMEN I SOUND over all waters, reach out from all lands, The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands; Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn, Her path shall brighten more and more Unto the perfect day ; She cannot fail of peace who bore Such peace with her away. O sweet, calm face that seemed to wear The look of sins forgiven ! O voice of prayer that seemed to bear Our own needs up to heaven ! How reverent in our midst she stood, Or knelt in grateful praise ! What grace of Christian womanhood Was in her household ways ! Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born ! With glad jubilations Bring hope to the nations ! The dark night is ending and dawn has be- gun : Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one ! II For still her holy living meant No duty left undone ; The heavenly and the human blent Their kindred loves in one. And if her life small leisure found For feasting ear and eye, And Pleasure, on her daily round, She passed unpausing by, Sing the bridal of nations ! with chorals of love Sing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove, Till the hearts of the peoples keep time in accord, And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord ! Clasp hands of the nations In strong gratulations : The dark night is ending and dawn has be- giin ; Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one! III Yet with her went a secret sense Of all things sweet and fair, And Beauty's gracious providence Refreshed her unaware. She kept her line of rectitude With love's unconscious ease ; Her kindly instincts understood All gentle courtesies. An inborn charm of graciousness Made sweet her smile and tone, And glorified her farm-wife dress With beauty not its own. The dear Lord's best interpreters Are humble human souls ; The Gospel of a life like hers Is more than books or scrolls. From scheme and creed the light goes out, The saintly fact survives ; Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace ; East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease : Sing the song of great joy that the angels began, Sing of glory to God and of good-will to man ! Hark! joining in chorus The heavens bend o'er us ! The dark night is ending and dawn has be- gun; Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one! 454 RELIGIOUS POEMS VESTA O Christ of God! whose life and death Our own have reconciled, Most quietly, most tenderly Take home Thy star-named child ! Thy grace is in her patient eyes, Thy words are on ber tongue ; The very silence round her seems As if the angels sung. Her smile is as a listening child's Who hears its mother call; The lilies of Thy perfect peace About her pillow fall. She leans from out our clinging arms To rest herself in Thine ; Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can we Our well-beloved resign ! Oh, less for her than for ourselves We bow our heads and pray ; Her setting star, like Bethlehem's, To Thee shall point the way ! The voices loved of him who saig, Where Tweed and Teviot glide, That sound to-day on all the winds That blow from Rydal-side, – Heard in the Teuton's household songs And folk-lore of the Finn, Where'er to holy Christmas hearths The Christ-child enters in ! Before life's sweetest mystery still The heart in reverence kneels; The wonder of the primal birth The latest mother feels. We need love's tender lessons taught As only weakness can ; God hath His small interpreters ; The child must teach the man. We wander wide through evil years, Our eyes of faith grow dim; But he is freshest from His hands And nearest unto Him ! And haply, pleading long with Him For sin-sick hearts and cold, The angels of our child bood still The Father's face behold. CHILD-SONGS Still linger in our noon of time And on our Saxon tongue The echoes of the home-born hymns The Aryan mothers sung. And childhood had its litanies In every age and clime ; The earliest cradles of the race Were rocked to poet's rhyme. Nor sky, nor wave, nor tree, nor flower, Nor green earth's virgin sod, So moved the singer's heart of old As these small ones of God. Of such the kingdom! - Teach Tours O Master most divine, To feel the deep signincance Of these wise words of Thine! The hanghty eye shall seek in rain What innocence beholds ; No cunning finds the key of bearen, No strength its gate unfolds. Alone to guilelessness and lore That gate shall open fall; The mind of pride is nothingness The childlike heart is ali ! THE HEALER TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN. W*TT*!. PICTURE OF (HRIST HEALING INLY The mystery of unfolding life Was more than dawning morn, Than opening flower or crescent moon The human soul new-born ! And still to childhood's sweet appeal The heart of genius turns, And more than all the sages teach From lisping voices learns, – So stood of old the holy Christ Amidst the suffering throng: With whom His lightest touch suffed To make the weakest strong. OVERRULED 455 That healing gift He lends to them Who use it in His name ; that filled His garment's hem Is evermore the same. Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears like rain!” The power For lo ! in human hearts unseen The Healer dwelleth still, And they who make His temples clean The best subserve His will. Two faces bowed before the Throne, veiled in their golden hair ; Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark abyss of air. The way was strange, the flight was long ; at last the angels came Where swung the lost and nether world, red-wrapped in rayless flame. There Pity, shuddering, wept ; but Love, with faith too strong for fear, Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a smile of cheer. And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame whereon it fell, And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered into hell ! The holiest task by Heaven decreed, An errand all divine, The burden of our common need To render less is thine. The paths of pain are thine. Go forth With patience, trust, and hope ; The sufferings of a sin-sick earth Shall give thee ample scope. Beside the unveiled mysteries Of life and death go stand, With guarded lips and reverent eyes And pure of heart and hand. So shalt thou be with power endued From Him who went about The Syrian hillsides doing good, And casting demons out. That Good Physician liveth yet Thy friend and guide to be ; The Healer by Gennesaret Shall walk the rounds with thee. Two unveiled faces full of joy looked up- ward to the Throne, Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who sat thereon ! And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than falling flake, Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice Eternal spake : “Welcome, my angels ! ye have brought a holier joy to heaven ; Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin forgiven ! THE TWO ANGELS God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above : The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love. OVERRULED The threads our hands in blindness spin No self-determined plan weaves in ; The shuttle of the unseen powers Works out a pattern not as ours. “ Arise,” He said, “my angels ! a wail of woe and sin Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all within. ‘My harps take up the mournful strain that from a lost world swells, The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights the asphodels. Ah ! small the choice of him who sings What sound shall leave the smitten strings ; Fate holds and guides the hand of art ; The singer's is the servant's part. The wind-harp chooses not the tone That through its trembling threads is blown ; The patient organ cannot guess What hand its passive keys shall press. Fly downward to that under world, and on its souls of pain 456 RELIGIOUS POEMS Through wish, resolve, and act, our will No discord mar below, above, Is moved by undreamed forces still ; The music of eternal love! And no man measures in advance His strength with untried circumstance. Sound, welcome trump, the last alarm! Lord God of hosts, make bare thine arte As streams take hue from shade and sun, Fulfil this day our long desire, As runs the life the song must run ; Make sweet and clean the world with Ere' But, glad or sad, to His good end God grant the varying notes may tend ! Sweep, flaming besom, sweep from siglat The lies of time ; be swift to smite, Sharp sword of God, all idols down, HYMN OF THE DUNKERS Genevan creed and Roman crown. KLOSTER KEDAR, EPHRATA, PENNSYL- Quake, earth, through all thy zobes, tai. VANIA (1738) all The fanes of pride and priesterft fall SISTER MARIA CHRISTINA sings. And lift thou up in place of them Wake, sisters, wake ! the day-star shines ; | Thy gates of pearl, Jerusalem! Above Ephrata's eastern pines The dawn is breaking, cool and calm. Lo! rising from baptismal flame, Wake, sisters, wake to prayer and psalm ! Transfigured, glorious, yet the same, Within the heavenly city's bound Praised be the Lord for shade and light, Our Kloster Kedar shall be found. For toil by day, for rest by night! Praised bé His name who deigns to bless He cometh soon ! at dawn or noon Our kedar of the wilderness ! Or set of sun, He cometh soon. Our prayers shall meet Him on His way, Our refuge when the spoiler's hand Wake, sisters, wake! arise and pray! Was heavy on our native land ; And freedom, to her children due, The wolf and vulture only knew. GIVING AND TAKING We praised Him when to prison led, I have attempted to put in English per We owned Him when the stake blazed red; prose translation of a pam by 'Tinaria a We knew, whatever might befall, Hindoo poet of the third century of our era His love and power were over all. Who gives and hides the giving hani, He heard our prayers ; with outstretched Nor counts on favor, fame, or pra.s. Shall find his smallest gift out weigte He led us forth from cruel harm ; The burden of the sea and land. Still, wheresoe'er our steps were bent, His cloud and fire before us went ! Who gives to whom hath nanght been girl His gift in need, though small indred The watch of faith and prayer He set, As is the grass-blade's wind-blown We kept it then, we keep it yet. Is large as earth and rich as heaven. At midnight, crow of cock, or noon, He cometh sure, le cometh soon. Forget it not, () man, to whom A gift shall fall, while yet on earth; He comes to chasten, not destroy, Yea, even to thy seven-fold birth To purge the earth from sin's alloy. Recall it in the lives to come. At last, at last shall all confess His merey as His righteousness. Who broods above a wrong in thevught Sins much ; but greater sin is his The dead shall live, the sick be whole, Who, fed and clothed with kindner The scarlet sin be white as wool; Shall count the holy alms as naazht. arm THE VISION OF ECHARD 457 Have I not dawns and sunsets ? Have I not winds that blow ? Who dares to curse the hands that bless Shall know of sin the deadliest cost ; The patience of the heavens is lost Beholding man's unthankfulness. For he who breaks all laws may still In Sivam's mercy be forgiven ; But none can save, in earth or heaven, The wretch who answers good with ill. “Do I smell your gums of incense ? Is my ear with chantings fed ? Taste I your wine of worship, Or eat your holy bread ? “Of rank and name and honors Am I vain as ye are vain ? What can Eternal Fulness From your lip-service gain ? THE VISION OF ECHARD The Benedictine Echard Sat by the wayside well, Where Marsberg sees the bridal Of the Sarre and the Moselle. “Ye make me not your debtor Who serve yourselves alone ; Ye boast to me of homage Whose gain is all your own. Fair with its sloping vineyards And tawny chestnut bloom, The happy vale Ausonius sung For holy Treves made room. “For you I gave the prophets, For you the Psalmist's lay : For you the law's stone tables, And holy book and day. On the shrine Helena builded To keep the Christ coat' well, On minster tower and kloster cross, The westering sunshine fell. “Ye change to weary burdens The helps that should uplift; Ye lose in form the spirit, The Giver in the gift. There, where the rock-hewn circles O'erlooked the Roman's game, The veil of sleep fell on him, And his thought a dream became. He felt the heart of silence Throb with a soundless word, And by the inward ear alone A spirit's voice he heard. And the spoken word seemed written On air and wave and sod, And the bending walls of sapphire Blazed with the thought of God : “ Who called ye to self-torment, To fast and penance vain ? Dream ye Eternal Goodness Has joy in mortal pain ? “For the death in life of Nitria, For your Chartreuse ever dumb, What better is the neighbor, Or happier the home ? “Who counts his brother's welfare As sacred as his own, And loves, forgives and pities, He serveth me alone. “What lack I, O my children ? All things are in The vast earth and the awful stars I hold as grains of sand. my hand ; “I note each gracious purpose, Each kindly word and deed; Are ye not all my children ? Shall not the Father heed ? “Need I your alms? The silver And gold are mine alone ; The gifts ye bring before me Were evermore my own. “ Heed I the noise of viols, Your pomp of masque and show ? "No prayer for light and guidance Is lost upon mine ear : The child's cry in the darkness Shall not the Father hear ? “I loathe your wrangling councils, I tread upon your creeds ; 458 RELIGIOUS POEMS The far is even as the near, The low is as the high. Who made ye mine avengers, Or told ye of my needs ; “ I bless men and ye curse them, I love them and ye hate ; Ye bite and tear each other, I suffer long and wait. “ Ye bow to ghastly symbols, To cross and scourge and thorn ; Ye seek his Syrian manger Who in the heart is born. “ For the dead Christ, not the living, Ye watch His empty grave, Whose life alone within you Has power to bless and save. “() blind ones, outward groping, The idle quest forego ; Who listens to His inward voice Alone of Him shall know. “ His love all love exceeding The heart must needs recall, Its self-surrendering freedom, Its loss that gaineth all. “Climb not the holy mountains, Their eagles know not me ; Seek not the Blessed Islands, I dwell not in the sea. “What if the earth is hiding Her old faiths, long outworu ? What is it to the changeless truth That yours shall fail in tur ? “ What if the o'erturned altar Lays bare the ancient lie ? What if the dreams and legends Of the world's childhood die ? “ Have ye not still my witness Within yourselves alway, My hand that on the keys of life For bliss or bale I lay? "Still, in perpetual judgment, I hold assize within, With sure reward of boliness, And dread rebuke of sin. “A light, a guide, a warning, A presence ever near, Through the deep silence of the Besà I reach the inward ear. “My Gerizim and Ebal Are in each human soul, The still, small voice of blessing. And Sinai's thunder-roll. “ The stern behest of duty, The doom-book open thrown, The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear, Are with yourselves alone." A gold and purple sunset Flowed down the bruad Merile; On hills of vine and meadow lanis The peace of twilight tell. A slow, cool wind of evening Blew over leaf and bloom: And, faint and far, the Angel Rang from Saint Matthew i tuneb Then up rose Master Ecbani, And marvelled : “Can it be That here, in dream and vidos, The Lord hath talked with me." He went his way ; behind him The shrines of saintly dead, “Gone is the mount of Meru, The triple gods are gone, And, deaf to all the lama's prayers, The Buddha slumbers on. 44 “ No more from rocky Horeb The smitten waters gush ; Fallen is Bethel's ladder, Quenched is the burning bush. “ The jewels of the U'rim And Thumınim all are dim ; The fire has left the altar, The sigu the teraphim. “ No more in ark or hill grove The Holiest abides ; Not in the scroll's dead letter The eternal secret hides. " The ere shall fail that searches For me the hollow sky; THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER 459 The holy coat and nail of cross, He left unvisited. He sought the vale of Eltzbach His burdened soul to free, Where the foot-hills of the Eifel Are glassed in Laachersee. A kindly thought on her Who bade this fountain flow, Yet hath no other claim Than as the minister Of blessing in God's name. Drink, and in His peace go ! THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER And, in his Order's kloster, He sat, in night-long parle, With Tauler of the Friends of God, And Nicolas of Basle. In the minister's morning sermon He had told of the primal fall, And how thenceforth the wrath of God Rested on each and all. And lo! the twain made answer : “ Yea, brother, even thus The Voice above all voices Hath spoken unto us. And how of His will and pleasure, All souls, save a chosen few, Were doomed to the quenchless burning, And held in the way thereto. “ The world will have its idols, And flesh and sense their sign : But the blinded eyes shall open, And the gross ear be fine. Yet never by faith's unreason A saintlier soul was tried, And never the harsh old lesson A tenderer heart belied. “What if the vision tarry ? God's time is always best ; The true Light shall be witnessed, The Christ within confessed. And, after the painful service On that pleasant Sabbath day, He walked with his little daughter Through the apple-bloom of May. “ In mercy or in judgment He shall turn and overturn, Till the heart shall be His temple Where all of Him shall learn." Sweet in the fresh green meadows Sparrow and blackbird sung ; Above him their tinted petals The blossoming orchards hung. INSCRIPTIONS ON A SUN-DIAL Around on the wonderful glory The minister looked and smiled ; “How good is the Lord who gives us These gifts from His hand, my child ! FOR DR. HENRY I. BOWDITCH WITH warning hand I mark Time's rapid flight From life's glad morning to its solemn night ; Yet, through the dear God's love, I also show There's Light above me by the Shade be- low. “ Behold in the bloom of apples And the violets in the sward A hint of the old, lost beauty Of the Garden of the Lord !" Then up spake the little maiden, Treading on snow and pink : “ O father ! these pretty blossoms Are very wicked, I think. ON A FOUNTAIN FOR DOROTHEA L. DIX STRANGER and traveller, Drink freely and bestow “ Had there been no Garden of Eden There never had been a fall; And if never a tree had blossomed God would have loved us all." 460 RELIGIOUS POEMS BY THEIR WORKS “ Hush, child ! " the father answered, “By His decree man fell; His ways are in clouds and darkness, But He doeth all things well. “And whether by His ordaining To us cometh good or ill, Joy or pain, or light or shadow, We must fear and love Him still.” Call him not heretic whose works attest His faith in goodness by no creed couiend Whatever in love's name is truly done To free the bound and lift the fallen one Is done to Christ. Whoso in deed and word Is not against Him labors for our Lord. When He, who, sad and weary, long For love's sweet service, sought the sisters door, One saw the heavenly, one the human get But who shall say which loved the Maste: best? sore “Oh, I fear Him !” said the daughter, “ And I try to love Him, too ; But I wish He was good and gentle, Kind and loving as you." The minister groaned in spirit As the tremulous lips of pain And wide, wet eyes uplifted Questioned his own in vain. Bowing his head he pondered The words of the little one ; Had he erred in his life-long teaching ? Had he wrong to his Master done ? To what grim and dreadful idol Had he lent the holiest name? Did his own heart, loving and human, The God of his worship shame ? THE WORD seers, And lo! from the bloom and greenness, From the tender skies above, And the face of his little daughter, He read a lesson of love. Voice of the Holy Spirit, making knows Man to himself, a witness swift and sure, Warning, approving, true and wise ani pure, Counsel and guidance that misleadeth or By thee the mystery of life is read ; *The picture-writing of the world's my The myths and parables of the pribadi years, Whose letter kills, by thee interpreted Take healthful meaning, fitted to our rada And in the soul's vernacular espress The common law of simple righteous- Hatred of cant and doubt of human credo May well be felt : the unpardonable sin Is to deny the Word of God within! Dess. No more as the cloudy terror Of Sinai's mount of law, But as Christ in the Syrian lilies The vision of God he saw. And, as when, in the clefts of Horeb, Of old was llis presence known, The dread Ineffable Glory Was Infinite Goodness alone. Thereafter his hearers noted In his prayers a tenderer strain, And never the gospel of hatred Burned on his lips again. And the scoffing tongne was prayerful, And the blinded eves found sight, And hearts, as flint aforetime, Grew soft in his warmth and light. THE BOOK. GALLERY of sacred pictures manifold, A minster rich in bolj eftigies, And bearing on entablature and for The hieroglyphic oracles of old. Along its transept aureoled martyrs sit : And the low chancel side-lights hali se quaint The eye with shrines of propbet, bare and saint, Their age-dimmed tablets traced in do'a. ful writ! ORIENTAL MAXIMS 461 UTTERANCE But only when on form and word obscure Falls from above the white supernal light We read the mystic characters aright, And life informs the silent portraiture, Until we pause at last, awe-held, before The One ineffable Face, love, wonder, and adore. REQUIREMENT We live by Faith ; but Faith is not the slave Of text and legend. Reason's voice and God's, Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds. What asks our Father of His children, save Justice and mercy and humility, A reasonable service of good deeds, Pure living, tenderness to human needs, Reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see The Master's footprints in our daily ways ? No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife, But the calm beauty of an ordered life Whose very breathing is unworded praise ! - A life that stands as all true lives have stood, Firm-rooted in the faith that God is Good. But what avail inadequate words to reach The innermost of Truth? Who shall essay, Blinded and weak, to point and lead the way, Or solve the mystery in familiar speech ? Yet, if it be that something not thy own, Some shadow of the Thought to which our schemes, Creeds, cult, and ritual are at best but dreams, Is even to thy unworthiness made known, Thou mayst not hide what yet thou shouldst not dare To utter lightly, lest on lips of thine The real seem false, the beauty undi- vine. So, weighing duty in the scale of prayer, Give what seems given thee. It may prove Of goodness dropped in fallow-grounds of need. a seed ORIENTAL MAXIMS PARAPHRASE TRANSLA- OF SANSCRIT TIONS THE INWARD JUDGE HELP From Institutes of Manu. The soul itself its awful witness is. Say not in evil doing, “ No one sees, And so offend the conscious One within, Whose ear can hear the silences of sin Ere they find voice, whose eyes unsleeping see The secret motions of iniquity. snares DREAM not, O Soul, that easy is the task Thus set before thee. If it proves at length, As well it may, beyond thy natural strength, Faint not, despair not. As a child may ask A father, pray the Everlasting Good For light and guidance midst the subtle Of sin thick planted in life's thorough- fares, For spiritual strength and moral hardihood ; Still listening, through the noise of time To the still whisper of the Inward Word ; Bitter in blame, sweet in approval heard, Itself its own confirming evidence : To health of soul a voice to cheer and please, To guilt the wrath of the Eumenides. and sense, Nor in thy folly say, “I am alone.” For, seated in thy heart, as ona throne, The ancient Judge and Witness liveth still, To note thy act and thought ; and as thy ill Or good goes from thee, far beyond thy reach, The solemn Doomsman's seal is set on each. 462 RELIGIOUS POEMS 66 66 : Silent, in his accustomed place, LAYING UP TREASURE With God's sweet peace upon his face. From the Mahabáhrata. Why sitt'st thou thus ?” his brethren cried. BEFORE the Ender comes, whose charioteer “ It is the blessed Christmas-tide ; Is swift or slow Disease, lay up each year The Christmas lights are all aglow, Thy harvests of well-doing, wealth that The sacred lilies bud and blow. kings Nor thieves can take away. When all the “Above our heads the joy-bells ring, things Without the happy children sing, Thou callest thine, goods, pleasures, honors And all God's creatures hail the more fall, On which the holy Christ was born ! Thou in thy virtue shalt survive them all. Rejoice with us ; no more rebuke CONDUCT Our gladness with thy quiet look." The gray monk answered : " Keep, I pray, From the Mahabharata. Even as ye list, the Lord's birthulay. Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day “Let heathen Yule fires flicker red Which from the night shall drive thy peace Where thronged refectory feasts ATY away. spread ; In months of sun so live that months of rain With mystery-play and masque and Lite Shall still be happy. Evermore restrain And wait-songs speed the holy time! Evil and cherish good, so shall there be Another and a happier life for thee. “ The blindest faith may haply sare ; The Lord accepts the things we have ; And reverence, howsoe'er it strats, AN EASTER FLOWER GIFT May find at last the shining wars. O DEAREST bloom the seasons know, “They needs must grope who cannot see, Flowers of the Resurrection, blow, The blade before the ear must be; Our hope and faith restore ; As ye are feeling I have felt, And through the bitterness of death And where ye dwell I too have dwelt. And loss and sorrow, breathe a breath Of life forevermore ! “ But now, beyond the things of sense, Beyond occasions and events, The thought of Love Immortal blends I know, through God's exceeding grace, With fond remembrances of friends ; Release from form and time and piace In you, O sacred flowers, By human love made doubly sweet, “ I listen, from no mortal tongue, The heavenly and the earthly meet, To hear the song the angels sung; The heart of Christ and ours ! And wait within myself to know The Christmas lilies bud and blow. THE MYSTIC'S CHRISTMAS “ The outward symbols disappear From him whose inward sight is clear, “ All hnil ! " the bells of Christmas rang, And small must be the choice of dass * All bail ! " the monks at Christmas sang, To him who fills them all with praise The merry monks who kept with cheer The gladdest day of all their year. "Keep while you need it, brothers With honest zeal your Christmas 20% But still apart, unmoved thereat, But judge not him who every morn A pious elder brother sat Feels in his heart the Lord Christ bora WHAT THE TRAVELLER SAID AT SUNSET 463 AT LAST WHAT THE TRAVELLER SAID AT SUNSET [Recited by one of the little group of rela- tions, who stood by the poet's bedside, as the last moment of his life approached.] Whex on my day of life the night is fall- ing, And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, I hear far voices out of darkness calling My feet to paths unknown, The shadows grow and deepen round me, I feel the dew-fall in the air ; The muezzin of the darkening thicket, I hear the night-thrush call to prayer. The evening wind is sad with farewells, And loving hands unclasp from mine ; Alone I go to meet the darkness Across an awful boundary-line. As from the lighted hearths behind me I pass with slow, reluctant feet, What waits me in the land of strangeness ? What face shall smile, what voice shall greet ? Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, Leave not its tenant when its walls decay; O Love Divine, O Helper ever present, Be Thou my strength and stay ! Be near me when all else is from me drift- ing; Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine, And kindly faces to my own uplifting The love which answers mine. What space shall awe, what brightness blind me ? What thunder-roll of music stun ? What vast processions sweep before me Of shapes unknown beneath the sun ? I have but Thee, my Father ! let Thy spirit Be with me then to comfort and uphold ; No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, Nor street of shining gold. Suffice it if my good and ill unreckoned, And both forgiven through Thy abound- ing grace I find myself by hands familiar beckoned Unto my fitting place. Some humble door among Thy many man- sions, Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease, And flows forever through heaven's green expansions The river of Thy peace. There, from the music round about me stealing, I fain would learn the new and holy song, And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, The life for which I long. I shrink from unaccustomed glory, I dread the myriad-voiced strain ; Give me the unforgotten faces, And let my lost ones speak again. He will not chide my mortal yearning Who is our Brother and our Friend ; In whose full life, divine and human, The heavenly and the earthly blend. Mine be the joy of soul-communion, The sense of spiritual strength renewed, The reverence for the pure and holy, The dear delight of doing good. No fitting ear is mine to listen An endless anthem's rise and fall ; No curious eye is mine to measure The pearl gate and the jasper wall. For love must needs be more than know- ledge : What matter if I never know Why Aldebaran's star is ruddy, Or warmer Sirius white as snow ! Forgive my human words, O Father ! I go Thy larger truth to prove ; 464 RELIGIOUS POEMS Thy mercy shall transcend my longing : I seek but love, and Thou art Love! Take Thou the hands of prayer we ruise, And let us feel the light of Thee ! I go to find my lost and mourned for Safe in Thy sheltering goodness still, And all that hope and faith foreshadow Made perfect in Thy holy will ! “ THE STORY OF IDA" Francesca Alexander, whose pen and pencil have so reverently transcribed the simple faith and life of the Italian peasantry, wrote the narrative published with John Ruskin's intro- duction under the title, The Story of Ida. WEary of jangling noises never stilled, The skeptic's sneer, the bigot's hate, the din Of clashing texts, the webs of creed men spin Round simple truth, the children grown who build With gilded cards their new Jerusalem, Busy, with sacerdotal tailorings And tinsel gauds, bedizening holy things, I turn, with glad and grateful heart, from them To the sweet story of the Florentine Immortal in her blameless maidenhood, Beautiful as God's angels and as good ; Feeling that life, even now, may be divine With love no wrong can ever change to hate, No sin make less than all-compassionate ! THE TWO LOVES SMOOTHING soft the nestling hend Of a maiden fancy-led, Thus a grave-eyed woman said : “ Richest gifts are those we make, Dearer than the love we take That we give for love's own sake. “ Well I know the heart's unrest; Mine has been the common quest, To be loved and therefore blest. “ Farors undeserved were mine ; At my feet as on a shrine Love has laid its gifts divine. “Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet With their sweetuess came regret, And a sense of unpaid debt. “ Heart of mine unsatisfied, Was it vanity or pride That a deeper joy denied ? “ Hands that ope but to receive Empty close ; they only live Richly who can richly give. “Still,” she sighed, with moistening eyes, “ Love is sweet in any guise ; But its best is sacritice ! “ He who, giving, does not crave Likest is to Him who gave Life itself the loved to save. THE LIGHT THAT IS FELT "Love, that self-forgetful gives, Sows surprise of ripened sheares, Late or soon its own receives." A TENDER child of summers three, Seeking her little bed at night, Paused on the dark stair timidly. “Oh, mother! Take my hand," said she, * And then the dark will all be light." We older children grope our way From dark behind to dark before ; And only when our hands we lay, Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day, And there is darkness nevermore. Reach downward to the sunless days Wherein our guides are blind as we, And faith is small and hope delays ; ADJUSTMENT The tree of Faith its bare, dry boughs 11 shed That nearer heaven the living ones ar climb; The false 'must fail, though from our shores of time HYMNS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ 465 I vanes: II III The old lament be heard, “Great Pan is dead !” That wail is Error's, from his high place The mercy, O Eternal One ! hurled ; By man unmeasured yet, This sharp recoil is Evil undertrod; In joy or grief, in shade or sun, Our time's unrest, an angel sent of God I never will forget. Troubling with life the waters of the world. I give the whole, and not a part, Even as they list the winds of the Spirit Of all Thou gavest me ; blow My goods, my life, my soul and heart, To turn or break our century - rusted I yield them all to Thee ! Sands shift and waste; the rock alone remains We fast and plead, we weep and pray, Where, led of Heaven, the strong tides From morning until even ; come and go, We feel to find the holy way, And storm-clouds, rent by thunderbolt and We knock at the gate of heaven ! wind, And when in silent awe we wait, Leave, free of mist, the permanent stars And word and sign forbear, behind. The hinges of the golden gate Move, soundless, to our prayer ! Therefore I trust, although to outward sense Who hears the eternal harmonies Both true and false seem shaken ; I will Can heed no outward word ; hold Blind to all else is he who sees With newer light my reverence for the The vision of the Lord ! old And calmly wait the births of Providence. No gain is lost ; the clear-eyed saints look O soul, be patient, restrain thy tears, down Have hope, and not despair ; Untroubled on the wreck of schemes and As a tender mother heareth her child creeds; God hears the penitent prayer. Love yet remains, its rosary of good And not forever shall grief be thine ; deeds On the Heavenly Mother's breast, Counting in task-field and o'erpeopled town. Washed clean and white in waters of joy Truth has charmed life ; the Inward Word Shall His seeking child find rest. survives, Console thyself with His word of grace, And, day by day, its revelation brings ; And cease thy wail of woe, Faith, hope, and charity, whatsoever For His mercy never an equal hath, And His love no bounds can know. Which cannot be shaken, stand. Still holy Lean close unto Him in faith and hope ; lives How many like thee have found Reveal the Christ of whom the letter told, In Him a shelter and home of peace, And the new gospel verifies the old. By His mercy compassed round ! There, safe from sin and the sorrow it brings, HYMNS OF THE BRAHMO They sing their grateful psalms, SOMAJ And rest, at noon, by the wells of God, In the shade of His holy palms ! I have attempted this paraphrase of the Hymns of the Brahmo Somaj of India, as I find them in Mozoomdar's account of the devo- REVELATION tional exercises of that remarkable religious development which has attracted far less atten- “ And I went into the Vale of Beavor, and as I went I tion and sympathy from the Christian world preached repentance to the people. And one morning than it deserves, as a fresh revelation of the sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me. All things direct action of the Divine Spirit upon the hu- come by Nature, and the Elements and the Stars came man heart. And as I sat still and let it alone, a living things a And it was said : over me. 466 RELIGIOUS POEMS Than theirs the powers of Nature own, And, to its goal as at its source, His Spirit moves the Universe. hope arose in me, and a true Voice which said: There is a living God who made all things. And immediately the cloud and the temptation vanished, and Lite rose over all, and my heart was glad and I praised the living God." - Journal of George For, 1690. STILL, as of old, in Beavor's Vale, O man of God! our hope and faith The Elements and Stars assail, And the awed spirit holds its breath, Blown over by a wind of death. Takes Nature thought for such as we, What place her human atom fills, The weed-drift of her careless sea, The mist on her unheeding hills ? What recks she of our helpless wills ? Strange god of Force, with fear, not love, Its trembling worshipper! Can prayer Reach the shut ear of Fate, or move Unpitying Energy to spare ? What doth the cosmic Vastness care ? “ Believe and trust. Through stars : suns, Through life and death, through soul as sense, His wise, paternal purpose runs ; The darkness of His providence Is star-lit with benign intents." O joy supreme! I know the Voice, Like none beside on earth or sea; Yea, more, O soul of mine, rejoice, By all that He requires of me, I know what God himself must be. In vain to this dread Cnconcern For the All-Father's love we look; In vain, in quest of it, we turn The storied leaves of Nature's book, The prints her rocky tablets took. I pray for faith, I long to trust; I listen with my heart, and hear A Voice without a sound : “ Be just, Be true, be merciful, revere The Word witbin thee : God is near! No picture to my aid I call, I shape no image in my prayer; I only know in Him is all Of life, light, beauty, everywhere, Eternal Goodness here and there! I know He is, and what He is, Whose one great purpose is the good Of all. I rest my soul on His Immortal Love and Fatherhood ; And trust Him, as His children sboek I fear no more. The clouded face Of Nature smiles ; through all her t. Of time and space and sense I truce The moving of the Spint's wings And hear the song of hope she sings “ A light to sky and earth unknown Pales all their lights : a mightier force AT SUNDOWN TO E. C. S. The morning's promise noon and eve ful- filled Poet and friend of poets, if thy glass In warm, soft sky and landscape hazy-billed Detects no flower in winter's tuft of grass, And sunset fair as they ; Let this slight token of the debt I owe Outlive for thee December's frozen day, A sweet reminder of His holiest time, And, like the arbutus budding under snow, A summer-miracle in our winter clime, Take bloom and fragrance from some morn God gave a perfect day. of May When he who gives it shall have gone the way, Where faith shall see and reverent trust shåll The near was blended with the old and far, know. And Bethlehem's hillside and the Magi's star Seemed here, as there and then,- THE CHRISTMAS OF 1888 Our homestead pine-tree was the Syrian palm, Low in the east, against a white, cold Our heart's desire the angels' midnight dawn, psalm, The black-lined silhouette of the woods was Peace, and good-will to men ! drawn, And on a wintry waste THE VOW OF WASHINGTON Of frosted streams and hillsides bare and brown, Read in New York, April 30, 1889, at the Through thin cloud-films a pallid ghost Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of looked down, George Washington as the first President of the The waning moon half-faced ! United States. The sword was sheathed : in April's sun In that pale sky and sere, snow-waiting Lay green the fields by Freedom won ; earth, And severed sections, weary of debates, What sign was there of the immortal birth? Joined hands at last and were United What herald of the One ? States. Lo! swift as thought the heavenly radiance came, O City sitting by the Sea ! A rose-red splendor swept the sky like How proud the day that dawned on thee, flame, When the new era, long desired, began, Up rolled the round, bright sun ! And, in its need, the hour had found the man ! And all was changed. From a transfigured world One thought the cannon salvos spoke, The moon's ghost filed, the smoke of home- The resonant bell-tower's vibrant stroke, hearths curled The voiceful streets, the plaudit-echoing Up tbe still air unblown. halls, In Orient warmth and brightness, did that And prayer and hymn borne heavenward from St. Paul's ! O'er Nain and Nazareth, when the Christ was born, How felt the land in every part Break fairer than our own ? The strong throb of a nation's heart, morn 467 468 AT SUNDOWN ful past, As its great leader gave, with reverent awe, Our first and best ! - his ashes lie His pledge to Union, Liberty, and Law ! Beneath his own Virginian sky. Forgive, forget, ( true and just and brave. That pledge the heavens above him The storm that swept above thy sund heard, grave ! That vow the sleep of centuries stirred ; In world-wide wonder listening peoples For, ever in the awful strife bent And dark hours of the nation's Life, Their gaze on Freedom's great experiment. Through the fierce tumult pierced L warning word, Could it succeed? Of honor sold Their father's voice his erring ek.idees And hopes deceived all history told. heard ! Above the wrecks that strewed the mourn- The change for which he prayed an Was the long dream of ages true at last ? sought In that sharp agony was wrought; Thank God! the people's choice was just, No partial interest draws its alien line The one man equal to his trust, 'Twixt North and South, the cypress and Wise beyond lore, and without weakness the pine ! good, Calm in the strength of flawless rectitude ! One people now, all doubt be vond, His name shall be our l'nion-bond; His rule of justice, order, peace, We lift our hands to Heaven, and here at: Made possible the world's release ; now Taught prince and serf that power is but a Take on our lips the old Centennial ruw. trust, And rule alone, which serves the ruled, is For rule and trust must needs be ours; just; Chooser and chosen both are powers Equal in service as in rights; the elam That Freedom generous is, but strong Of Duty rests on each and all the sause. In bate of fraud and selfish wrong, Pretence that turns her holy truth to lies, Then let the sovereign millions, where And lawless license masking in her guise. Our banner floats in sun and air, From the warm palm-lands to Alaska's Land of his love ! with one glad voice cold, Let thy great sisterhood rejoice ; Repeat with us the pledge a century vid' A century's suns o'er thee have risen and set, And, God be praised, we are one nation yet. And still we trust the years to be THE CAPTAIN'S WELL Shall prove his hope was destiny, Leaving our flag, with all its added stars, The story of the shipwreck of Captain T. Unrent by faction and unstained by wars. entine Bagley, on the coast of Arali ! sufferings in the desert, has been tanda *m3 Lo! where with patient toil he nursed my childhood. It has been partialir tais", And trained the new-set plant at first, singularly beautiful lines of tuv trvat lie The widening branches of a stately tree riet Prescott Spotfond, on the oras a ;) lic celebration at the Newbury Lin Stretch from the sunrise to the sunset sea. To the charm and felicity of bep or as it goes, nothing can be added hutan And in its broad and sheltering shade, following ballad I have endeavor to . Sitting with none to make afraid, fuller detail of the touching inne pm Were we now silent, through each mighty which it is founded. limb, The winds of heaven would sing the praise From pain and peril, by land and main. of him. The shipwrecked sailor came back ag... THE CAPTAIN'S WELL 469 And like one from the dead, the threshold crossed Of his wondering home, that had mourned him lost, “ Tortured alike by the heavens and earth, I cursed, like Job, the day of my birth. “ Then something tender, and sad, and mild As a mother's voice to her wandering child, “ Rebuked my frenzy; and bowing my head, I prayed as I never before had prayed : Where he sat once more with his kith and kin, And welcomed his neighbors thronging in. But when morning came he called for his spade. “I must pay my debt to the Lord,” he said. “ Pity me, God! for I die of thirst; Take me out of this land accurst ; “Why dig you here ? ” asked the passer- by; “ Is there gold or silver the road “ And if ever I reach my home again, Where earth has springs, and the sky has rain, SO nigh ?” “ I will dig a well for the passers-by, And none shall suffer from thirst as I. 66 No, friend,” he answered : “but under this sod Is the blessed water, the wine of God.” “I saw, as I prayed, my home once more, The house, the barn, the elms by the door, “ Water ! the Powow is at your back, And right before you the Merrimac, “ And look you up, or look you down, There's a well-sweep at every door in town." “The grass - lined road, that riverward wound, The tall slate stones of the burying-ground, “The belfry and steeple on meeting-house hill, The brook with its dam, and gray grist mill, “And I knew in that vision beyond the sea, The very place where my well must be. “True," he said, "we have wells of our own ; But this I dig for the Lord alone.” Said the other : “ This soil is dry, you know, I doubt if a spring can be found below; “ You had better consult, before you dig, Some water-witch, with a hazel twig.” No, wet or dry, I will dig it here, Shallow or deep, if it takes a year. “God heard my prayer in that evil day; He led my feet in their homeward way, “From false mirage and dried-up well, And the hot sand storms of a land of hell, а 66 “ In the Arab desert, where shade is none, The waterless land of sand and sun, “Under the pitiless, brazen sky My burning throat as the sand was dry ; My crazed brain listened in fever dreams For plash of buckets and ripple of streams; “ And opening my eyes to the blinding glare, And my lips to the breath of the blistering air, “Till I saw at last through the coast-hill's gap, A city held in its stony lap, “The mosques and the domes of scorched Muscat, And my heart leaped up with joy thereat ; “For there was a ship at anchor lying, A Christian flag at its mast-head flying, “And sweetest of sounds to my homesick ear Was my native tongue in the sailor's cheer. 470 AT SUNDOWN Soon “ Now the Lord be thanked, I am back “ He would drink and rest, and go bueze te again, tell Where earth has springs, and the skies have That God's best gift is the wayside wel:** rain, “And the well I promised by Oman's Sea, AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION I am digging for him in Amesbury." The substance of these lines, hastily porn His kindred wept, and his neighbors said : cilled several years ago, I find among sa my unprinted scraps as have escaped the se “ The poor old captain is out of his head.” basket and the fire. In transcribing it I v* made some changes, additions, and oturistaa But from morn to noon, and from noon to night, Ox these green banks, where falls tox He toiled at his task with main and might ; The shade of Autumn's afternoon, And when at last, from the loosened earth, The south wind blowing soft and sweet, Under his spade the stream gushed forth, The water gliding at my feet, The distant northern range uplit And fast as he climbed to his deep well's By the slant sunshine over it, brim, With changes of the mountain mist The water he dug for followed him, From tender blush to amethyst, The valley's stretch of shade and gleam He shouted for joy : “I have kept my Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream, word, With glad young faces smiling near And here is the well I promised the Lord !” And merry voices in my ear, I sit, methinks, as llafiz might The long years came and the long years In Iran's Garden of Delight. went, For Persian roses blushing red, And he sat by his roadside well content ; Aster and gentian bloom instead ; For Shiraz wine, this mountain air ; He watched the travellers, heat-oppressed, For feast, the blueberries which I skarp Pause by the way to drink and rest, With one who proffers with stained bass Her gleanings from yon pasture lands, And the sweltering horses dip, as they Wild fruit that art and culture spuil, drank, The harvest of an untilled soul; Their nostrils deep in the cool, sweet tank, And with her one whose tender eyes Reflect the change of April skies, And grateful at heart, his memory went Midway 'twixt child and maiden yet, Back to that waterless Orient, Fresh as Spring's earliest violet ; And one whose look and voice and ways And the blessed answer of prayer, which Make where she goes idyllie dars ; And one whose sweet, still countenance To the earth of iron and sky of flame. Seems dreamful of a child's romane; And others, welcome as are these, And when a wayfarer weary and hot, Like and unlike, varieties Kept to the mid road, pausing not Of pearls on nature's chaplet struly, And all are fair, for all are young For the well's refreshing, he shook his Gathered from seaside cities old, head; From midland prairie, lake, and wil. " He don't know the value of water," he From the great wheat-tields, which 5* feed The hunger of a world at Deed, "Had he prayed for a drop, as I have done, In healthful change of rest and plas In the desert circle of sand and sun, Their school-vacations glide away. came said ; BURNING DRIFT-WOOD 471 The curtain falls, I only pray That hope may lose itself in truth, And age in Heaven's immortal youth, And all our loves and longing prove The foretaste of diviner love! The day is done. Its afterglow Along the west is burning low. My visitors, like birds, have flown ; I hear their voices, fainter grown, And dimly through the dusk I see Their kerchiefs wave good-night to me, Light hearts of girlhood, knowing naught Of all the cheer their coming brought ; And, in their going, unaware Of silent-following feet of prayer : Heaven make their budding promise good With flowers of gracious womanhood ! R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON THE MERRIMAC No critics these : they only see An old and kindly friend in me, In whose amused, indulgent look Their innocent mirth has no rebuke. They scarce can know my rugged rhymes, The harsher songs of evil times, Nor graver themes in minor keys Of life's and death's solemnities; But haply, as they bear in mind Some verse of lighter, happier kind, - Hints of the boyhood of the man, Youth viewed from life's meridian, Half seriously and half in play My pleasant interviewers pay Their visit, with no fell intent Of taking notes and punishment. As yonder solitary pine Is ringed below with flower and vine, More favored than that lonely tree, The bloom of girlhood circles me. In such an atmosphere of youth I half forget my age's truth ; The shadow of my life's long date Runs backward on the dial-plate, Until it seems a step might span The gulf between the boy and man. My young friends smile, as if some jay On bleak December's leafless spray Essayed to sing the songs of May. Well, let them smile, and live to know, When their brown locks are flecked with snow, 'Tis tedious to be always sage And pose the dignity of age, While so much of our early lives On memory's playground still survives, And owns, as at the present hour, The spell of youth's magnetic power. But though I feel, with Solomon, 'T is pleasant to behold the sun, I would not if I could repeat A life which still is good and sweet ; I keep in age, as in my prime, A not uncheerful step with time, And, grateful for all blessings sent, I go the common way, content To make no new experiment. On easy terms with law and fate, For what must be I calmly wait, And trust the path I cannot see, That God is good sufficeth me. And when at last on life's strange play MAKE, for he loved thee well, our Merri- mac, From wave and shore a low and long lament For him whose last look sought thee, as he went The unknown way from which no step comes back. And ye, O ancient pine-trees, at whose feet He watched in life the sunset's redden- ing glow, Let the soft south wind through your needles blow A fitting requiem tenderly and sweet ! No fonder lover of all lovely things Shall walk where once he walked, no smile more glad Greet friends than his who friends in all men had, Whose pleasant memory to that Island clings, Where a dear mourner in the home he left Of love's sweet solace cannot be bereft. BURNING DRIFT-WOOD BEFORE my drift-wood fire I sit, And see, with every waif I burn, Old dreams and fancies coloring it, And folly's unlaid ghosts return. 472 AT SUNDOWN O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft The enchanted sea on which they sailed, Are these poor fragments only left Of vain desires and hopes that failed ? Did I not watch from them the light Of sunset on my towers in Spain, And see, far off, uploom in sight The Fortunate Isles I might not gain ? Did sudden lift of fog reveal Arcadia's vales of song and spring, And did I pass, with grazing keel, The rocks whereon the sirens sing ? Have I not drifted hard upon The unmapped regions lost to man, The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John, The palace domes of Kubla Khan ? Did land winds blow from jasmine flowers, Where Youth the ageless Fountain fills ? Did Love make sign from rose blown bow- ers, And gold from Eldorado's hills ? Alas ! the gallant ships, that sailed On blind Adventure's errand sent, Howe'er they laid their courses, failed To reach the haven of Content. May fitly feed my drift-wood fire, And warm the hands that age las chied Whatever perished with my ships, I only know the best remains ; A song of praise is on my lips For losses which are now iny gains. Heap high my hearth! No worth is lows; No wisdom with the folly dies. Burn on, poor shreds, your holocaust Shall be my evening sacrifice ! Far more than all I dared to dream, Unsought before my door I see ; On wings of fire and steeds of steam The world's great wonders come to me, And holier signs, unmarked before. Of Love to seek and Power to save, The righting of the wronged and poor, The man evolving from the slave ; And life, no longer chance or fate, Safe in the gracious Fatherhood. I fold o'er-wearied hands and wait, In full assurance of the good. And well the waiting time must be, Though brief or long its granted dars If Faith and Hope and Charity Sit by my evening heartb-fire's blase. And with them, friends whom Hearen las spared, Whose love my heart has comforted, And, sharing all my joys, has shared My tender memories of the dead, - Dear souls who left us lonely here, Bound on their last, long rorage, whom We, day by day, are drawing near, Where every bark has sailing room. I know the solemn monotone Of waters calling unto me ; I know from whence the airs hare blows That whisper of the Eternal Sea. As low my fires of drift-wood burn, I hear that sea's deep sounds increase, And, fair in sunset light, discern Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace. And of my ventures, those alone Which Love had freighted, safely sped, Seeking a good beyond my own, By clear-eyed Duty piloted. O mariners, hoping still to meet The luck Arabian voyagers met, And find in Bagdad's moonlit street, Haroun al Raschid walking yet, Take with you, on your Sea of Dreams, The fair, fond fancies dear to youth. I turn from all that only seems, And seek the sober grounds of truth. What matter that it is not May, That birds bave flown, and trees are bare, That darker grows the shortening day, And colder blows the wintry air ! The wrecks of passion and desire, The castles I no more rebuild, HAVERHILL 473 O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTI- ETH BIRTHDAY The voices of to-day are dumb, Unheard its sounds that go and come ; We listen, through long-lapsing years, To footsteps of the pioneers. CLIMBING a path which leads back never more We heard behind his footsteps and his cheer ; Now, face to face, we greet him standing here Upon the lonely summit of Fourscore ! Welcome to us, o'er whom the lengthened day Is closing and the shadows colder grow, His genial presence, like an afterglow, Following the one just vanishing away. Long be it ere the table shall be set For the last breakfast of the Autocrat, And love repeat with smiles and tears thereat His own sweet songs that time shall not forget. Waiting with us the call to come up higher, Life is not less, the heavens are only nigher ! Gone steepled town and cultured plain, The wilderness returns again, The drear, untrodden solitude, The gloom and mystery of the wood ! Once more the bear and panther prowl, The wolf repeats his hungry howl, And, peering through his leafy screen, The Indian's copper face is seen. We see, their rude-built huts beside, Grave men and women anxions-eyed, And wistful youth remembering still Dear homes in England's Haverhill. We summon forth to mortal view Dark Passaquo and Saggahew, Wild chiefs, who owned the mighty sway Of wizard Passaconaway. Weird memories of the border town, By old tradition handed down, In chance and change before us pass Like pictures in a magic glass, The terror of the midnight raid, The death-concealing ambuscade, The winter march, through deserts wild, Of captive mother, wife, and child. Ah! bleeding hands alone subdued And tamed the savage habitude Of forests hiding beasts of prey, And human shapes as fierce as they. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's child, Who in the language of their farm-fields spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk, Shaming a monstrous wrong. The world- wide laugh Provoked thereby might well have shaken half The walls of Slavery down, ere yet the ball And mine of battle overthrew them all. Slow from the plough the woods withdrew, Slowly each year the corn-lands grew; Nor fire, nor frost, nor foe could kill The Saxon energy of will. HAVERHILL 1640-1890 Read at the Celebration of the Two Hun- dred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the City, July 2, 1890. And never in the hamlet's bound Was lack of sturdy manhood found, And never failed the kindred good Of brave and helpful womanhood. O RIVER winding to the sea ! We call the old time back to thee ; From forest paths and water-ways The century-woven veil we raise. That hamlet now a city is, Its log-built huts are palaces ; The wood-path of the settler's cow Is Traffic's crowded highway now. 474 AT SUNDOWN No task is ill where hand and brain And skill and strength have equal gain, And each shall each in honor bold, And simple manhood outweigh gold. Earth shall be near to Heaven when all That severs man from man shall fall, For, here or there, salvation's plan Alone is love of God and man. And far and wide it stretches still, Along its southward sloping hill, And overlooks on either hand A rich and many-watered land. And, gladdening all the landscape, fair As Pison was to Eden's pair, Our river to its valley brings The blessing of its mountain springs. And Nature holds with narrowing space, From mart and crowd, her old - time grace, And guards with fondly jealous arms The wild growths of outlying farms. Her sunsets on Kenoza fall, Her autumn leaves by Saltonstall ; No lavished gold can richer make Her opulence of hill and lake. Wise was the choice which led our sires To kindle here their household fires, And share the large content of all Whose lines in pleasant places fall. More dear, as years on years advance, We prize the old inheritance, And feel, as far and wide we roam, That all we seek we leave at home. Our palms are pines, our oranges Are apples on our orchard trees; Our thrushes are our nightingales, Our larks the blackbirds of our vales. O dwellers by the Merrimac, The heirs of centuries at your back, Still reaping where you have not sowi, A broader field is now your own. Hold fast your Puritan heritage, But let the free thought of the age Its light and hope and sweetness add To the stern faith the fathers had. Adrift on Time's returnless tide, As waves that follow waves, we glide. God grant we leave upon the shore Some waif of good it lacked before ; Some seed, or flower, or plant of worth, Some added beauty to the earth ; Some larger bope, some thought to make The sad world happier for its sake. As tenants of uncertain stay, So may we live our little day That only grateful hearts shall fill The homes we leave in Haverhill. The singer of a farewell rhyme, l'pon whose outmost verge of time The shades of night are falling down, I pray, God bless the good old town! TO G. G. No incense which the Orient burns Is sweeter than our hillside ferns ; What tropic splendor can outvie Our autumn woods, our sunset sky? If, where the slow years came and went, And left not affluence, but content, Now flashes in our dazzled eyes The electric light of enterprise ; And if the old idyllic ease Seems lost in keen activities, And crowded workshops now replace The bearth's and farm-field's rustic grace ; No dull, mechanic round of toil Life's morning charm can quite despoil ; And youth and beauty, hand in hand, Will always tind enchanted land. AX AL'TOGRAPH The daughter of Daniel Gurteen, Esq. dele gate from llaverhill, England, to the chus dred and fiftieth anniversary celebratio of tim verhill, Massachusetts. The Rev. Jahn West of the former place and many of his old paste ishioners were the pioneer settlers of the s* town on the Merrimac. GRACEFUL in name and in thyself, our river Xone fairer saw in John Ward's pilgtin flock, THE BIRTHDAY WREATH 475 Proof that upon their century-rooted stock MILTON The English roses bloom as fresh as ever. Inscription on the Memorial Window in St. Take the warm welcome of new friends Margaret's Church, Westminster, the gift of with thee, George W. Childs, of America. And listening to thy home's familiar chime The new world honors him whose lofty Dream that thou hearest, with it keep- plea ing time, For England's freedom made ber own The bells on Merrimac sound across the more sure, sea. Whose song, immortal as its theme, shall be Think of our thrushes, when the lark sings Their common freehold while both worlds clear, endure. Of our sweet Mayflowers when the dai- sies bloom ; And bear to our and thy ancestral home THE BIRTHDAY WREATH The kindly greeting of its children here. December 17, 1891. Say that our love survives the severing Blossom and greenness, making all strain ; The winter birthday tropical That the New England, with the Old, And the plain Quaker parlors gav, holds fast Have gone from bracket, stand, and wall; The proud, fond memories of a common We saw them fade, and droop, and fall, past; And laid them tenderly away. l'nbroken still the ties of blood remain ! White virgin lilies, mignonette, Blown rose, and pink, and violet, INSCRIPTION A breath of fragrance passing by ; Visions of beauty and decay. For the bass-relief by Preston Powers, carved Colors and shapes that could not stay, upon the huge boulder in Denver Park, Col., The fairest, sweetest, first to die. and representing the Last Indian and the Last Bison. But still this rustic wreath of mine, Of acorned oak and needled pine, The eagle, stooping from yon snow-blown And lighter growths of forest lands, peaks, Woven and wound with careful pains, For the wild hunter and the bison seeks, And tender thoughts and prayers, remains, In the changed world below; and finds As when it dropped from love's dear alone hands. Their graven semblance in the eternal stone. And not unfitly garlanded, Is he, who, country-born and bred, Welcomes the silvan ring which gives LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY A feeling of old summer dars, The wild delight of woodland ways, Inscription on her Memorial Tablet in Christ The glory of the autumn leaves. Church at Hartford, Conn. And, if the flowery meed of song Sar sang alone, ere womanhood had known To other bards may well belong, The gift of song which fills the air to- Be his, who from the farm-field spoke day : A word for Freedom when her need Tender and sweet, a music all her own Was not of dulcimer and reed, May fitly linger where she knelt to pray. This Isthmian wreath of pine and oak. 476 AT SUNDOWN Blow, then, wild wind ! thy roar shall end THE WIND OF MARCH in singing, Thy chill in blossoming ; Up from the sea the wild north wind is Come, like Bethesda's troubling angel blowing bringing Under the sky's gray arch ; The healing of the Spring. Smiling, I watch the shaken elm-boughs, knowing It is the wind of March. BETWEEN THE GATES Between the passing and the coming season, BETWEEN the gates of birth and death This stormy interlude An old and saintly pilgrim passed, Gives to our winter-wearied hearts a reason With look of one who witnesseth For trustful gratitude. The long-sought goal at last. Welcome to waiting ears its harsh fore- “O thou whose reverent feet have found warning The Master's footprints in thy way Of light and warmth to come, And walked thereon as holy ground, The longed - for joy of Nature's Easter A boon of thee I pray. morning, The earth arisen in bloom ! “My lack would borrow thy excess, My feeble faith the strength of thine ; In the loud tumult winter's strength is I need thy soul's white saintliness breaking ; To hide the stains of mine. I listen to the sound, As to a voice of resurrection, waking “The grace and favor else denied To life the dead, cold ground. May well be granted for thy sake." So, tempted, doubting, sorely tried, Between these gusts, to the soft lapse I A younger pilgrim spake. hearken Of rivulets on their way ; Thy prayer, my son, transcends toy gift; I see these tossed and naked tree-tops No power is mine," the sage replied, darken “ The burden of a soul to lift With the fresh leaves of May. Or stain of sin to hide. This roar of storm, this sky so gray and “Howe'er the outward life may seem, lowering For pardoning grace we all must prar: Invite the airs of Spring, No man his brother can redeem A warmer sunshine over fields of flowering, Or a soul's ransom pay. The bluebird's song and wing. “Not always age is growth of good; Closely behind, the Gulf's warm breezes Its years have losses with their gain; follow Against some evil youth withstond This northern hurricane, Weak hands may strive in vain. And, borne thereon, the bobolink and swal. low “With deeper voice than any speech Shall visit us again. Of mortal lips from man to man, What earth's unwisdom may not teach And, in green wood-paths, in the kine-fed The Spirit only can. pasture And by the whispering rills, “ Make thou that holy guide thine on, Shall flowers repeat the lesson of the Mas- And following where it leads the way, ter, The known shall lapse in the unknown Taught on his Syrian hills. As twilight into day. TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 477 “ The best of earth shall still remain, And heaven's eternal years shall prove That life and death, and joy and pain, Are ministers of Love." Come then, in thought, if that alone may be, O friend ! and bring with thee Thy calm assurance of transcendent Spheres And the Eternal Years ! THE LAST EVE OF SUMMER TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 8th Mo. 29TH, 1892 SUMMER's last sun nigh unto setting shines Through yon columnar pines, [This, the last of Mr. Whittier's poems, was And on the deepening shadows of the written but a few weeks before his death.] lawn Its golden lines are drawn. AMONG the thousands who with hail and cheer Dreaming of long gone summer days like Will welcome thy new year, this, How few of all have passed, as thou and I, Feeling the wind's soft kiss, So many milestones by! Grateful and glad that failing ear and sight Have still their old delight, We have grown old together ; we have seen, I sit alone, and watch the warm, sweet Our youth and age between, day Two generations leave us, and to-day Lapse tenderly away ; We with the third hold way, And, wistful, with a feeling of forecast, I ask, “ Is this the last ? Loving and loved. If thought must back- ward run Will nevermore for me the seasons run To those who, one by one, Their round, and will the sun In the great silence and the dark beyond Of ardent summers yet to come forget Vanished with farewells fond, For me to rise and set ?” Unseen, not lost ; our grateful memories Thou shouldst be here, or I should be with still thee Their vacant places fill, Wherever thou mayst be, And with the full-voiced greeting of new Lips mute, hands clasped, in silences of friends speech A tenderer whisper blends. Each answering unto each. Linked close in a pathetic brotherhood For this still hour, this sense of mystery Of mingled ill and good, far Of joy and grief, of grandeur and of shame, Beyond the evening star, For pity more than blame, No words outworn suffice on lip or scroll : The soul would fain with soul The gift is thine the weary world to make More cheerful for thy sake, Wait, while these few swift-passing days Soothing the ears its Miserere pains, fulfil With the old Hellenic strains, The wise-disposing Will, And, in the evening as at morning, trust Lighting the sullen face of discontent The All-Merciful and Just. With smiles for blessing sent. Enough of selfish wailing has been bad, The solemn joy that soul-communion feels Thank God ! for notes more glad. Immortal life reveals ; And human love, its prophecy and sign, Life is indeed no holiday ; therein Interprets love divine. Are want, and woe, and sin, 478 AT SUNDOWN Death and its nameless fears, and over all Our pitying tears must fall. Sorrow is real ; but the counterfeit Which folly brings to it, We need thy wit and wisdom to resist, O rarest Optimist! Thy hand, old friend ! the service of our days, In differing moods and ways May prove to those who follow in our train Not valueless nor vain. Yet on our autumn boughs, untlown with spring, The evening thrushes sing. The hour draws near, howe'er delayed and late, When at the Eternal Gate We leave the words and works we call var own, And lift void hands alone For love to fill. Our nakedness of soal Brings to that Gate no toll ; Giftless we come to Him, who all the gives, And live because He lives. Far off, and faint as echoes of a dream, The songs of boyhood seem, POEMS BY ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER Originally published in the volume entitled Hazel Blossoms, and accompanied by the fol- lowing prefatory note : I have ventured, in compliance with the desire of dear friends of my beloved sister, ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER, to add to this little volume the few poetical pieces which she left bebind her. ... These poems, with perhaps two or three exceptions, afford but slight indi- cations of the inward life of the writer, who had an almost morbid dread of spiritual and intellectual egotism, or of her tenderness of sympathy, chastened mirthfulness, and pleas- ant play of thought and fancy, when her shy, beautiful soul opened like a flower in the warmth of social communion. In the lines on Dr. Kane her friends will see something of her fine individuality, — the rare mingling of deli- cacy and intensity of feeling which made her dear to them. This little poem reached Cuba while the great explorer lay on his death-bed, and we are told that he listened with grateful tears while it was read to him by his mother. I am tempted to say more, but I write as under the eye of her who, while with us, shrank with painful deprecation from the praise or mention of performances which seemed so far below her ideal of excellence. To those who best knew her, the beloved circle of her inti- mate friends, I dedicate this slight memorial. J. G. W. AMESBURY, 9th mo., 1874. THE DREAM OF ARGYLE Bends to him her snooded tresses, Treads with him the grassy floor. EARTHLY arms no more uphold him On his prison's stony floor ; Waiting death in his last slumber, Lies the doomed MacCallum More. Now he hears the pipes lamenting, Harpers for his mother mourn, Slow, with sable plume and pennon, To her cairn of burial borne. Then anon his dreams are darker, Sounds of battle fill his ears, And the pibroch's mournful wailing For his father's fall he hears. And he dreams a dream of boyhood ; Rise again his heathery hills, Sound again the hound's long baying, Cry of moor-fowl, laugh of rills. Now he stands amidst his clansmen In the low, long banquet-hall, Over grim ancestral armor Sees the ruddy firelight fall. Wild Lochaber's mountain echoes Wail in concert for the dead, And Loch Awe's deep waters murmur For the Campbell's glory fled ! Once again, with pulses beating, Hears the wandering minstrel tell How Montrose on Inverary Thief-like from his mountains fell, Fierce and strong the godless tyrants Trample the apostate land, While her poor and faithful remnant Wait for the Avenger's hand. Down the glen, beyond the castle, Where the linn's swift waters shine, Round the youthful heir of Argyle Shy feet glide and white arms twine. Once again at Inverary, Years of weary exile o'er, Armed to lead his scattered clansmen, Stands the bold MacCallum More. Fairest of the rustic dancers, Blue-eyed Effie smiles once more, Once again to battle calling Sound the war-pipes through the glen; 479 480 POEMS BY ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER And the court-yard of Dunstaffnage Uplifted, as by miracle, the solemn churches Rings with tread of armëd men. stand ! The grass is trodden from the paths wbere All is lost! The godless triumph, waiting freemen throng, And the faithful ones and true Athirst and fainting for the cup of life de- From the scaffold and the prison nied so long. Covenant with God anew. Oh, blessed were the feet of him wbuse On the darkness of his dreaming generous errand here Great and sudden glory shone ; Was to unloose the captive's chain and dry Over bonds and death victorious the mourner's tear ; Stands he by the Father's throne ! To lift again the fallen ones a brocher's robber hand From the radiant ranks of martyrs Had left in pain and wretchedness by the Notes of joy and praise he hears, waysides of the land. Songs of his poor land's deliverance Sounding from the future years. The islands of the sea rejoice; the harvest anthems rise ; Lo, he wakes ! but airs celestial The sower of the seed must own 't is man Bathe him in immortal rest, vellous in his eyes ; And he sees with unsealed vision The old waste places are rebuilt, - the Scotland's cause with victory blest. broken walls restored, - And the wilderness is blooming like the Shining hosts attend and guard him garden of the Lord ! As he leaves his prison door ; And to death as to a triumph Thanksgiving for the holy fruit! should Walks the great MacCallum More ! not the laborer rest, His earnest faith and works of lore hare been so richly blest ? LINES The pride of all fair England shall bet ocean islands be, Written on the departure of Joseph SturgeAnd their peasantry with joyful bearts after his visit to the abolitionists of the United keep ceaseless jubilee. States. Fair islands of the sunny sea! midst all | Rest, never! while his country men bare rejoicing things, trampled hearts to bleed, No more the wailing of the slave a wild The stifled murmur of their wrags discordance brings ; listening ear shall beed, On the lifted brows of freemen the tropic | Where England's far dependencies bez breezes blow, might, not mercy, know, The mildew of the bondman's toil the land To all the crushed and suffering there is no more shall know. pitying love shall flow. How swells from those green islands, The friend of freedom everywhere, bor where bird and leaf and flower mourns he for our land, Are praising in their own sweet way the The brand of whose hypocrisy burns dawn of freedom's hour, ber guilty hand! The glorious resurrection song from hearts Her thrift a theft, the robber's greed and cunning in her eye, Thanksgiving for the priceless gift, – man's Her glory shaine, her haunting ting ce es regal crown restored ! the winds a lie ! How beautiful through all the green and For us with steady strength of beart as! tranquil summer land, zeal forever true, DR. KANE IN CUBA 481 The champion of the island slave the con- flict doth renew, His labor here bath been to point the Pharisaic eye Away from empty creed and form to where the wounded lie. Gliding foremost in the misty band a gentle form is there, In the white robes of the angels and their glory round her hair. She hovers near and bends above her world- wide honored child, And the joy that heaven alone can know beams on her features mild. How beautiful to us should seem the com- ing feet of such ! Their garments of self-sacrifice have heal- ing in their touch ; Their gospel mission none may doubt, for they heed the Master's call, Who here walked with the multitude, and sat at meat with all ! And so they bear him to his grave in the fulness of his years, True sage and prophet, leaving us in a time of many fears. Nevermore amid the darkness of our wild and evil day Shall his voice be heard to cheer us, shall his finger point the way. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS DR. KANE IN CUBA He rests with the immortals ; his journey has been long : For him no wail of sorrow, but a pæan full and strong! So well and bravely has he done the work he found to do, To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever true. A NOBLE life is in thy care, A sacred trust to thee is given ; Bright Island ! let thy healing air Be to him as the breath of Heaven. - The marvel of his daring life - The self-forgetting leader bold Stirs, like the trumpet's call to strife, A million hearts of meaner mould. Strong to the end, a man of men, from out the strife he passed ; The grandest hour of all his life was that of earth the last. Now midst his snowy hills of home to the grave they bear him down, The glory of his fourscore years resting on him like a crown. Eyes that shall never meet his own Look dim with tears across the sea, Where from the dark and icy zone, Sweet Isle of Flowers ! he comes to thee. Fold him in rest, О pitying clime ! Give back his wasted strength again ; Soothe, with thy endless summer time, His winter-wearied heart and brain. The mourning of the many bells, the drooping flags, all seem Like some dim, unreal pageant passing on- ward in a dream ; And following with the living to his last and narrow bed, Methinks I see a shadowy band, a train of noble dead. Sing soft and low, thou tropic bird, From out the fragrant, flowery tree, – The ear that hears thee now has heard The ice-break of the winter sea. 'T is a strange and weird procession that is slowly moving on, The phantom patriots gathered to the fu- neral of their son ! In shadowy guise they move along, brave Otis with husbed tread, And Warren walking reverently by the father of the dead. Through his long watch of awful night, He saw the Bear in Northern skies ; Now, to the Southern Cross of light He lifts in hope his weary eyes. Pravers from the hearts that watched in fear When the dark North no answer gave, Rise, trembling, to the Father's ear, That still His love may help and save. 482 POEMS BY ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER LADY FRANKLIN Fold thy hands, thy work is over ; Cool thy watching eyes with tears ; Let thy poor heart, over-wearied, Rest alike from hopes and fears, Hopes, that saw with sleepless vision One sad picture fading slow; Fears, that followed, vague and nameless, Lifting back the veils of snow. For thy brave one, for thy lost one, Truest heart of woman, weep! Owning still the love that granted Unto thy beloved sleep. Not for him that hour of terror When, the long ice-battle o'er, In the sunless day his comrades Deathward' trod the Polar shore. Spared the cruel cold and famine, Spared the fainting heart's despair, What but that could mercy grant him ? What but that has been thy prayer ? The roused sea is lashing The bold shore behind, And the moan of its ebbing Keeps time with the wind. On, on through the darkness, A spectre, I pass Where, like moaning of broken bearis, Surges the grass ! I see her lone head-stone, - 'T is white as a shroud ; Like a pall hangs above it The low drooping cloud. Who speaks through the dark night And lull of the wind ? 'T is the sound of the pine-leaves And sea-waves behind. The dead girl is silent, — I stand by her now ; And her pulse beats no quicker, Nor crimsons her brow. The small band that trembled, When last in my own, Lies patient and folded, And colder than stone. Like the white blossoms falling To-night in the gale, So she in her beauty Sank mournful and pale. Yet I loved her! I utter Such words by her grare, As I would not have spoken Her last breath to save. Of her love the angels In heaven might tell, While mine would be whispered With shudders in bell I 'T was well that the white ones Who bore her to bliss Shut out from her new life The vision of this; Else, sure as I stand here, And speak of my love, She would leave for my darkness Her glory above. Dear to thee that last memorial From the cairn beside the sea ; Evermore the month of roses Shall be sacred time to thee. Sad it is the mournful yew-tree O'er his slumbers may not wave ; Sad it is the English daisy May not blossom on his grave. But his tomb shall storm and winter Shape and fashion year by year, Pile his mighty mausoleum, Block by block, and tier on tier. Guardian of its gleaming portal Shall his stainless honor be, While thy love, a sweet immortal, Hovers o'er the winter sea. NIGHT AND DEATH The storm-wind is howling Through old pines afar ; The drear night is falling Without moon or star. CHARITY 483 THE MEETING WATERS We passed from out the searching light; The summer night was calm and fair : I did not see her pitying eyes, I felt her soft hand smooth my hair. CLOSE beside the meeting waters, Long I stood as in a dream, Watching how the little river Fell into the broader stream. Her tender love unlocked my heart ; Mid falling tears, at last I said, “ Forsworn indeed to me that veil Because I only love the dead !” Calm and still the mingled current Glided to the waiting sea ; On its breast serenely pictured Floating cloud and skirting tree. And I thought, “O human spirit ! Strong and deep and pure and blest, Let the stream of my existence Blend with thine, and find its rest!” She stood one moment statue-still, And, musing, spake, in undertone, “ The living love may colder grow ; The dead is safe with God alone !” CHARITY I could die as dies the river, In that current deep and wide ; I would live as live its waters, Flashing from a stronger tide ! a THE WEDDING VEIL DEAR Anna, when I brought her veil, Her white veil, on her wedding night, Threw o'er my thin brown hair its folds, And, laughing, turned me to the light. The pilgrim and stranger who through the day Holds over the desert his trackless way, Where the terrible sands no shade have known, No sound of life save his camel's moan, Hears, at last, through the mercy of Allah to all, From his tent-door at evening the Bedouin's call : “ Whoever thou art whose need is great, In the name of God, the Compassionate And Merciful One, for thee I wait ! ” For gifts in His name of food and rest The tents of Islam of God are blest ; Thou who hast faith in the Christ above, Shall the Koran teach thee the Law of Love ? - O Christian ! open thy heart and door, Cry east and west to the wandering poor : “ Whoever thou art whose need is great, In the name of Christ, the Compassionate And Merciful One, for thee I wait ! ” “ See, Bessie, see ! you wear at last The bridal veil, forsworn for years !” She saw my face, her laugh was hushed, . Her happy eyes were filled with tears. With kindly haste and trembling hand She drew away the gauzy mist ; “ Forgive, dear heart !” her sweet voice said : Her loving lips my forehead kissed. APPENDIX I. EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES ever, sever, I AM yielding to what seems, under the cir- cumstances, almost a necessity, in adding to the pieces assigned for one reason or another to the limbo of an appendix, some of my very earliest attempts at verse, which have been kept alive in the newspapers for the last half century. A few of them have even been printed in book form without my consent, and greatly to my annoyance, with all their accumulated errors of the press added to their original defects and crudity. I suppose they should have died a natural death long ago, but their feline te- nacity of life seems to contradict the theory of the “survival of the fittest." I have con- sented, at my publishers' request, to take the poor vagrants home and give them a more presentable appearance, in the hope that they may at least be of some interest to those who are curious enough to note the weak begin- nings of the graduate of a small country dis- trict school, sixty years ago. That they met with some degree of favor at that time may be accounted for by the fact that the makers of verse were then few in number, with little competition in their unprofitable vocation, and that the standard of criticism was not discour- agingly high. The earliest of the author's verses that found their way into print were published in the Newburyport Free Press, edited by Wil- liam Lloyd Garrison, in 120. The poems here collected, with the exception of the last, were written during the years 1825-1833.] I've fought for my country - I've brar'd si the dangers That throng round the path of the warrat a strife; I now must depart to a nation of stranger And pass in seclusion the remnant of info: Far, far from the friends to my busu ms dear, With none to support me in peril and pa. And none but the stranger to drop the suit- On the grave where the heart-bruken ke» lain. Friends of my youth! I must leave yua la And hasten to dwell in a region unkow Yet time cannot change, nor the brud *** Hearts firmly united and tried as on Ah, no! though I wander, all sad and form In a far distant land, yet shall memory : When far o'er the ocean's white surges in borne, The scene of past pleasures, - my own matira place. Farewell, shores of Erin, green land of way to thers :- Once more, and forever, a momful in For round thy dim headlands the on gathers, And shrouds the fair isle I no longer can rys I go - but wherever my footsteps i bent, For freedom and peace to my own native de And contentment and joy to each warm-briel friend Shall be the heart's prayer of the Lord Exile! THE EXILE'S DEPARTCRE Fond scenes, which delighted my youthful ex- istence, With feelings of sorrow I bid ye adien - A lasting adieu! for now, dim in the distance, The shores of Hibernia recede from my view. Farwell to the cliffs, tempest-beaten and gray, Which guard the lov'd shores of my own na- tive land ; Farewell to the village and sail-shadow'd hay, The forest-crown'd hill and the water-washid strand. THE DEITY The Propbre stawi On the high mount, and saw the temps en Pour the fierce whirlwind from its res Of congregated gloom. The man'a nak. Torn from the earth, heaved hugto its roots when once Its branches waved. The fir trer's shaped formu, Smote by the tempest, lashed the mana side. Yet, calm in conscions purity, the Seer B. held the awful desolation, for The Eternal Spirit moved not in the storm. EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 485 The tempest ceased. The caverned earthquake burst Forth from its prison, and the mountain rocked Even to its base. The topmost crags were thrown, With fearful crashing, down its shuddering sides. Unawed, the Prophet saw and heard; he felt Not in the earthquake moved the God of Heaven. The murmur died away; and from the height, Torn by the storm and shattered by the shock, Rose far and clear a pyramid of flame Mighty and vast; the startled mountain deer Shrank from its glare, and cowered within the shade; The wild fowl shrieked – but even then the Seer Untrembling stood and marked the fearful glow, For Israel's God came not within the flame ! The fiery beacon sank. A still, small voice, Unlike to human sound, at once conveyed Deep awe and reverence to his pious heart. Then bowed the holy man; his face he veiled Within his mantle and in meekness owned The presence of his God, discerned not in The storm, the earthquake, or the mighty flame. Where the snows of long years are the hoary Alps crowning, And the tempest-charg'd vapor their tall tops embraces : - There sure might be fix'd, amid scenery so frightful, The region of romance and wild fairy-tale, But such scenes could not be to my heart so de- lightful As the home of my fathers, fair Merrimac's vale ! There are streams where the bounty of Provi- dence musters The fairest of fruits by their warm sunny sides, The vine bending low with the grape's heavy clusters, And the orange-tree waving its fruit o'er their tides : But I envy not him whose lot has been cast there, For oppression is there - and the hand of the spoiler, Regardless of justice or mercy, has past there, And made him a wretched and indigent toiler. No-dearer to me are the scenes of my child- hood, The moss-cover'd bank and the breeze-wafted sail, The age-stinted oak and the green groves of wild-wood That wave round the borders of Merrimac's vale! THE VALE OF THE MERRIMAC THERE are streams which are famous in his- tory's story, Whose names are familiar to pen and to tongue, Renowned in the records of love and of glory, Where knighthood has ridden and minstrels have sung : - Fair streams thro’ more populous regions are gliding, Tower, temple, and palace their borders adorning, With tall-masted ships on their broad bosoms riding, Their banners stretch'd out in the breezes of morning; And their vales may be lovely and pleasant but never Was skiff ever wafted, or wav'd a white sail O'er a lovelier wave than my dear native river, Or brighter tides roll'd than in Merrimac's vale ! Oh, lovely the scene, when the gray misty vapor Of morning is lifted from Merrimac's shore ; When the fire-fly, lighting his wild gleaming taper, Thy dimly seen lowlands comes glimmering o'er; When on thy calm surface the moonbeam falls brightly, And the dull bird of night is his covert for- saking, When the whippoorwill's notes from thy mar- gin sound lightly, And break on the sound which thy small waves are making, O brightest of visions ! my heart shall forever, Till memory shall perish and reason shall fail, Still preference give to my own native river, The name of my fathers, and Merrimac's vale ! BENEVOLENCE And fair streams may glide where the climate is milder, Where winter ne'er gathers and spring ever blooms, And others may roll where the region is wilder, Their dark waters hid in some forest's deep gloom, Where the thunder-scath'd peaks of Helvetia are frowning, And the Rhine's rapid waters encircle their bases, Hail, heavenly gift! within the human breast, Germ of unnumber'd virtues – by thy aid The fainting heart, with riving grief opprest, Survives the ruin adverse scenes have made : Woes that have wrung the bosom, cares that preyed Long on the spirit, are dissolv'd by thee - Misfortune's frown, despair's disastrous shade, 486 APPENDIX Then in that hour of joy will be fulfilled The prophet's heart-consoling prophecy : Then war's commotion shall on earth be sºld And men their swords to other use app). Then Afric's injured sons no more shall try The bitterness of slavery's toil and pain, Nor pride nor love of gain direct the eye Of stern oppression to their homes again, But peace, a lasting peace, throughout tb world shall reign. Ghastly disease, and pining poverty, Thy influence dread, and at thy approach they flee. Thy spirit led th' immortal Howard on; Nurtur'd by thee, on many a foreign shore Imperishable fame, by virtue won, Adorns his memory, tho' his course is o'er; Thy animating smile his aspect wore, To cheer the sorrow-desolated soul, Compassion's balm in grief-worn hearts to pour, And snatch the prisoner from despair's con- trol, Steal half his woes away, and lighter make the whole. Green be the sod on Cherson's honor'd field, Where wraps the turf around his mouldering clay; There let the earth her choicest beauties yield, And there the breeze in gentlest murmurs play; There let the widow and the orphan stray, To wet with tears their benefactor's tomb; There let the rescued prisoner bend his way, And mourn o'er him, who in the dungeon's gloom Had sought him and averted misery's fearful doom. His grave perfum'd with heartfelt sighs of grief, And moistened by the tear of gratitude, - Oh, how unlike the spot where war's grim chief Sinks on the field, in sanguine waves im- brued! Who mourns for him, whose footsteps can be viewed With reverential awe imprinted near The monument reard o'er the man of blood ? Or who waste on it sorrow's balmy tear? None ! shame and misery rest alone upon his bier. Offspring of heaven! Benevolence, thy pow'r Bade Wilberforce its mighty champion be, And taught a Clarkson's ardent mind to soar O'er every obstacle, when serving thee : Theirs was the task to set the sufferer free, To break the bonds which bound th' unwill- ing slave, To shed abroad the light of liberty, And leave to all the rights their Maker gave, To bid the world rejoice o'er hated slavery's grave. Diffuse thy charms, Benevolence ! let thy light Pierce the dark clouds which age's past have thrown Before the beams of truth - and nature's right, Inborn, let every hardened tyrant own; On our fair shore be thy mild presence known; And every portion of Columbia's land Be as God's garden with thy blessings sown; Yea, o'er Earth's regions let thy love expand Till all united arv in friendship’s sacred band! OCEAN UNFATHOMED deep, unfetter'd waste Of never-silent waves, Each by its rushing follower chas'd, Through unillumind caves, And o'er the rocks whose turrets rade, E'en since the birth of time, Have heard amid thy solitude The billow's ceaseless chime. O'er what recesses, depths unknown, Dost thou thy waves impel, Where never yet a sunbeam shone, Or gleam of moonlight fell? For never yet did mortal eyes Thy gloom-wrapt deeps behold, And naught of thy dread mysteries The tongue of man hath told. What, though proud man presume to bold His course upon thy tide. O'er thy dark billows uncontrollid His fragile bark to guide -- Yet who, upon thy mountain waves. ('an feel himself secure While sweeping o'er thy yawning eaves Deep, awful, and obscure ? But thou art mild and tranquil now Thy wrathful spirits sleep And gentle billows, calm and slow, Across thy bosom sweep. Yet where the dim horizon's bound Rests on thy sparkling bed. The tempest-cloud, in gloom profound Prepares its wrath to shed. Thus, mild and calm in youth's bright Lue The tide of life appears, When fancy paints, with magie spil The bliss of cuming year; But clouds will rise, and darkness bras ()'er life's deceitful wav, And cruel disappointment Aling Its shade on hope's dum ray. THE SICILIAN VESPERS SILENCE o'er sea and earth With the veil of evening fell. Till the convent-tower sent deepły forth The chime of its vesper bell. EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 487 a Down from thy eternal throne, From thy land of cloud and storm, Where the meeting icebergs groan, Sweepeth on thy wrathful form. Spirit of the frozen wing! Dweller of a voiceless clime, Where no coming on of spring Gilds the weary course of time ! Monarch of a realm untrod By the restless feet of men, Where alone the hand of God Mid his mighty works hath been! Throned amid the ancient hills, Piled with undecaying snow, Flashing with the path of rills, Frozen in their first glad flow; Thou hast seen the gloomy north, Gleaming with unearthly light, Spreading its pale banners forth, Checkered with the stars of night. One moment and that solemn sound Fell heavy on the ear; But a sterner echo passed around, And the boldest shook to hear. The startled monks thronged up, In the torchlight cold and dim; And the priest let fall his incense-cup, And the virgin hushed her hymn, For a boding clash, and a clanging tramp, And a summoning voice were heard, And fretted wall, and dungeon damp, To the fearful echo stirred. The peasant heard the sound, As he sat beside his hearth; And the song and the dance were hushed around, With the fire-side tale of mirth. The chieftain shook in his banner'd hall, As the sound of fear drew nigh, And the warder shrank from the castle wall, As the gleam of spears went by. Woe! woe! to the stranger, then, At the feast and flow of wine, In the red array of mailed men, Or bowed at the holy shrine ; For the wakened pride of an injured land Had burst its iron thrall, From the plumed chief to the pilgrim band; Woe! woe! to the sons of Gaul ! Proud beings fell that hour, With the young and passing fair, And the flame went up from dome and tower, The avenger's arm was there! The stranger priest at the altar stood, And clasped his beads in prayer; But the holy shrine grew dim with blood, The avenger found him there! Woe! woe! to the sons of Gaul, To the serf and mailed lord ; They were gathered darkly, one and all, To the harvest of the sword : And the morning sun, with a quiet smile, Shone out o'er hill and glen, On ruined temple and smouldering pile, And the ghastly forms of men. Ay, the sunshine sweetly smiled, As its early glance came forth, It had no sympathy with the wild And terrible things of earth. And the man of blood that day might read, In a language freely given, How ill his dark and midnight deed Became the calm of Heaven. Thou hast gazed untrembling, where Giant forms of flame were driven, Like the spirits of the air, Striding up the vault of heaven! Thou hast seen that midnight glow, Hiding moon and star and sky, And the icy hills below Reddening to the fearful dye. Dark and desolate and lone, Curtained with the tempest-cloud, Drawn around thy ancient throne Like oblivion's moveless shroud, Dim and distantly the sun Glances on thy palace walls, But a shadow cold and dun Broods along its pillared halls. Lord of sunless depths and cold ! Chainer of the northern sea! At whose feet the storm is rolled, Who hath power to humble thee? Spirit of the stormy north ! Bow thee to thy Maker's nod; Bend to him who sent thee forth, Servant of the living God. THE EARTHQUAKE THE SPIRIT OF THE NORTH CALMLY the night came down O'er Scylla's shatter'd walls; How desolate that silent town! How tenantless the halls, Where yesterday her thousands trod, And princes graced their proud abode ! Low, on the wet sea sand, Humbled in anguish now, The despot, midst his menial band, Bent down his kingly brow; And prince and peasant knelt in prayer, For grief had made them equal there. SPIRIT of the frozen North, Where the wave is chained and still, And the savage bear looks forth Nightly from his caverned hill ! 488 APPENDIX 1 Again as at the morn, The earthquake roll'd its car : Lowly the castle-towers were borne, That mock'd the storms of war; The mountain reeled, its shiver'd brow Went down among the waves below. Up rose the kneelers then, As the wave's rush was heard : The horror of those fated men Was uttered by no word. But closer still the mother prest The infant to her faithful breast. One long, wild shriek went up, Full mighty in despair; As bow'd to drink death's bitter cup, The thousands gathered there ; And man's strong wail and woman's cry Blent as the waters hurried by. On swept the whelming sea ; 'The mountains felt its shock, As the long cry of agony Thrills thro' their towers of rock ; An echo found that fatal shore The death wail of the sufferers bore. The morning sun shed forth Its light upon the scene. Where tower and palace strew'd the earth With wrecks of what had been. But of the thousands who were gone, No trace was left, no vestige shown. God be with thee in thv danger, Israel's lone and perrlees daughter! She hath bared her queenly beauty To the dark Assyrian's glance ; Now a high and sterner duty Bids her to his couch advance. Beautiful and pale she bendeth In her earnest prayer to Hiraren: Look again, that maiden sanneth In the strength her Gulliks given! Strangely is her dark eye hinil.d. Hot blood through her che-k is pard Lo, her every fear hath duindled, And her hand is on the sword: l'pward to the flashing curtain. See, that mighty blad is driven. And its fall! -. 't is swift and certain As the clond-fire's track in braven: Down, as with a power supural, Twice the lifted weapon fell; Twice, his slumber is eternal Who shall wake the infidel? Sunlight on the mountains streamth Like an air-borne wave of gud; And Bethulia's armor gleameth Round Judea's bannerfeld. Down they go, the mailed warriors As the upper torrents sally Headlong from their mountain-barrier Down upon the sleeping valles. Ronse thee from the couch. Aextrin! Dream no more of woman is smule. Fiercer than the leagnend Turian Or the dark-browed suits of dem Foes are on thy slumber breaking. Chieftain, to thy battle rise! Vain the call he will not waken - Headless on his couch be bes. Who hath dimmed your boasted glin What hath woman's weakness aduer Whose dark brow is tp bmfree re, Blackening in the theneurd san Lo! an eye that never slums Leukech in its vengeane down: And the throned and maied number Wither at Jehovah's fruun! JUDITH AT THE TENT OF HOLO- FERNES Night was down among the mountains, In her dim and quiet manner, Where Bethulia's silver fountains Gushed beneath the Assyrian banner. Moonlight, o'er her meek dominion, As a mighty flag unfurled, Like an angel's snowy pinion Resting on a darkened world! Faintly rose the city's murmur, But the crowded camp was calm; Gird, d in their battle armor, Each a falchion at his arm. Lordly chief and weary vasal In the arms of slumber fell; It had been a day of wawil, And the wine had circled well. C'nderneath his proud pavilion Lay Assyria's champion. Where the ruby's rich vermilion Shone beside the beryl stone. With imprtial purpl· laden, Breathing in the perfumed air, Dreams he of the Jewish I don. With her dark and jewelled hair. Who is she, the palm-browed stranger, Bending o'er that son of slaughter? METACOM Metacom, or Philip, the chief of the .. panoags, was the most powerful and 12 -> Sachem who ever made war upa the la Red as the banner which etzlır ads The warriordead, when stnir os dire, A broken maxs of crinisun clubs Hung over the departed sain The shadow of the ***t ! Crept swiftly down, and varkly still. As if a sullen wave of maht Were rushing on the pule twilight; EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 489 Told that another red man fell, - And blazed a sudden light again Across that kingly brow and eye, Like lightning on a clouded sky, And a low growl, like that which thrills The hunter of the Eastern hills, Burst through clenched teeth and rigid lip- And, when the great chief spoke again His deep voice shook beneath its rein, As wrath and grief held fellowship. The forest-openings grew more dim, As glimpses of the arching blue And waking stars came softly through The rifts of many a giant limb. Above the wet and tangled swamp White vapors gathered thick and damp, And through their cloudy curtaining Flapped many a brown and dusky wing - Pinions that fap the moonless dun, But fold them at the rising sun! Beneath the closing veil of night, And leafy bough and curling fog, With his few warriors ranged in sight - Scarred relics of his latest fight Rested the fiery Wampanoag. He leaned upon his loaded gun, Warm with its recent work of death, And, save the struggling of his breath, That, slow and hard and long-repressed, Shook the damp folds around his breast, An eye that was unused to scan The sterner moods of that dark man Had deemed his tall and silent form With hidden passion fierce and warm, With that fixed eye, as still and dark As clouds which veil their lightning spark, That of some forest-champion, Whom sudden death had passed upon A giant frozen into stone! Son of the thronëd Sachem ! - Thou, The sternest of the forest kings, Shall the scorned pale-one trample now, Unambushed on thy mountain's brow, Yea, drive his vile and hated plough Among thy nation's holy things, Crushing the warrior-skeleton In scorn beneath his armëd heel, And not a hand be left to deal A kindred vengeance fiercely back, And cross in blood the Spoiler's track ? He turned him to his trustiest one, The old and war-tried Annawon * Brother!" - The favored warrior stood In hushed and listening attitude * This night the Vision-Spirit hath Unrolled the scroll of fate before me ; And ere the sunrise cometh, Death Will wave his dusky pinion o’er me! Nay, start not — well I know thy faith Thy weapon now may keep its sheath ; But, when the bodeful morning breaks, And the green forest widely wakes Unto the roar of English thunder, Then trusted brother, be it thine To burst upon the foeman's line, And rend his serried strength asunder. Perchance thyself and yet a few Of faithful ones may struggle through, And, rallying on the wooded plain, Strike deep for vengeance once again, And offer up in pale-face blood An offering to the Indian's God.” A musket shot -- a sharp, quick yell And then the stifled groan of pain, “ Brother! methought when as but now I pondered on my nation's wrong, With sadness on his shadowy brow My father's spirit passed along ! He pointed to the far south-west, Where sunset's gold was growing dim, And seemed to beckon me to him, And to the forests of the blest! My father loved the white men, when They were but children, shelterless, For his great spirit at distress Melted to woman's tenderness - Nor was it given him to know That children whom he cherished then Would rise at length, like armëd men, To work his people's overthrow. Yet thus it is ;--- the God before Whose awful shrine the pale ones bow Hath frowned upon, and given o'er The red man to the stranger now ! A few more moons, and there will be No gathering to the council tree; The scorched earth – the blackened log - The naked bones of warriors slain, Be the sole relics which remain Of the once mighty Wampanoag ! The forests of our hunting-land, With all their old and solemn green, Will bow before the Spoiler's axe – The plough displace the hunter's tracks, And the tall prayer-house steeple stand Where the Great Spirit's shrine hath been! “Yet, brother, from this awful hour The dying curse of Metacom Shall linger with abiding power Upon the spoilers of my home. The fearful veil of things to come, By Kitehtan's hand is lifted from The shadows of the embryo years; And I can see more clearly through Than ever visioned Powwah did, For all the future comes unbid Yet welcome to my tranced view, As battle-yell to warriorcars! From stream and lake and hunting-hill Our tribes may vanish like a dream, And even my dark curse may seem Like idle winds when Heaven is still, No bodeful harbinger of ill ; But, fiercer than the downright thunder, When yawns the mountain-rock asunder, And riven pine and knotted oak Are reeling to the fearful stroke, That curse shall work its master's will! The bed of you blue mountain stream 490 APPENDIX Shall pour a darker tide than rain The sea shall catch its blood-red stain, And broadly on its banks shall gleam The steel of those who should be brothers; Yea, those whom one fond parent nursed Shall meet in strife, like tiends accursed, And trample down the once loved form, While yet with breathing passion warm, As fiercely as they would another's !" The morning star sat dimly on The lighted eastern horizon - The deadly glare of levelled gun Came streaking through the twilight haze And naked to its reddest blaze, A hundred warriors sprang in view ; One dark red arm was tossed on high, One giant shout came hoarsely through The clangor and the charging cry, Just as across the scattering gloom, Red as the naked hand of Doom, The English volley hurtled by The arm - - the voice of Metacom ! One piercing shriek - - one vengeful yell, Sent like an arrow to the sky, Told when the hunter-monarch fell! Some dreadful spirit found his thrope, And hid within the thick cloud ived, Heard only in the thunder's crash, Seen only in the lightning's tiash, When crumbled rock and riven branch Went down before the avalanche! No more that spirit moveth there : The dwellers of the vale are dead; No hunter's arrow cleaves the air; No dry leaf rustles to his tread. The pale-face climbs thy tallest rock, His hands thy crystal gates unluk; From steep to steep his maidens call. Light laughing, like the streans that fall In music down thy rocky wall, And only when their careless trud Lays bare an Indian arrow-brad, Spent and forgetful of the deer, Think of the race that perished here. Oh, sacred to the Indian seer. Gray altar of the men of old ! Not vainly to the listening ear The legends of thy past are told. - Tales of the downward sweeping tod, When bowed like reeds thy ancient word. Of armed hands, and spectral forms; Of giants in their leafy shroud. And voices calling long and loud In the dread pauses of the storms, For still within their caverned bome Dwell the strange gods of heatheodum! MOUNT AGIOCHOOK The Indians supposed the White Mountains were the residence of powerful spirits, and in consequence rarely ascended them. GRAY searcher of the upper air, There 's sunshine on thy ancient walls, A crown upon thy forehead bare, A tash upon thy waterfalls. A rainbow glory in the cloud Upon thine awful summit bowed, The radiant ghost of a dead storm! And music from the leafy shroud Which swathes in green thy giant form, Mellowed and softened from above Steals downward to the lowland ear, Sweet as the first, fond dream of love That melis upon the maiden's ear. The time has been, white giant, when Thy shadows veiled the red man's home, And over crag and serpent den, And wild gorke where the steps of men In chase or battle might not come, The mountain eagle bore on high 'The emblem of the free of soul, And, midway in the fearful sky, Sent back the Indian battle cry, And answered to the thunder's roll. The wigwam fires have all burned out, The moccasin has left no track ; Nor wolf nor panther roan about The Saco and the Merrimac. And thou, that liftest up on high Thy mighty barriers to the sky, Art not the haunted mount of old, Where on each cray of blasted stono THE DRUNKARD TO HIS BOTTLE I was thinking of the temperance ivries et great poet of Scotland might have written byd he put his name to a pledge of abstrare a thing unhappily unknown in his dar. The result of my cogitation was this poor install of his dialect. Hoot! - daur ye shaw ye're fare again, Ye auld black thief o'pur an brain For foul disgrace, for dool in pala An' shame I ban ve: Wae's me. that e'er my!ps have ta** Your kiss uncanny! Nae mair, auld knave, without a shillin' To keep a starvin' wighe frue stealin' Ye 'll sen' me hameward, blin' and rew Frae nightly swagger, By wall an' past my pathway frelin', Wi' mony a stanker. Nae mair o' fights that bruise anº mang Nae mair o' nets my fret to tangle, Nae mair o' sensebes hrani in' wrazgle, Wi' frien' an' wife to, Nae mair o' deavin' din an' janie My feckless life through Yr thievin', cheatin' anld (har xk Puddlin' your poison bruse, I chak EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 491 Your banes against my ingle-back Wi' meikle pleasure. Deil mend ye i' his workshop black, E'en at his leisure ! I'll brak ye're neck, ye foul auld sinner, I'll spill ye're bluid, ye vile beginner O a' the ills an' aches that winna Quat saul an' body! Gie me hale breeks an’ weel-spread dinner - Deil tak' ye're toddy! Nae mair wi' witches' broo gane gyte, Gie me ance mair the auld delight O sittin' wi' my bairns in sight, The gude wife near, The weel-spent day, the peacefu' night, The mornin' cheer! For the regardful glances of a child. a Yea, the high ones and powerful of Earth, The helmëd sons of victory, the grave And schooled philosophers, the giant men Of overmastering intellect, have turned Each from the separate idol of his high And vehement ambition for the low Idolatry of human loveliness ; And bartered the sublimity of mind, The godlike and commanding intellect Which nations knelt to, for a woman's tear, A soft-toned answer, or a wanton's smile. And in the chastened beauty of that eye, And in the beautiful play of that red lip, And in the quiet smile, and in the voice Sweet as the tuneful greeting of a bird To the first flowers of springtime, there is more Than the perfection of the painter's skill Or statuary's monlding. Mind is there, The pure and holy attributes of soul, The seal of virtue, the exceeding grace Of meekness blended with a maiden pride; Nor deem ye that beneath the gentle smile, And the calm temper of a chastened mind No warmth of passion kindles, and no tide Of quick and earnest feeling courses on From the warm heart's pulsations. There are springs Of deep and pure affection, hidden now, Within that quiet bosom, which but wait The thrilling of some kindly touch, to flow Like waters from the Desert-rock of old, Cock a' ye're heids, my bairns fu' gleg, My winsome Robin, Jean, an' Meg, For food and claes ye shall na beg A doited daddie. Dance, auld wife, on your girl-day leg, Ye've foun' your laddie! THE FAIR QUAKERESS BOLIVAR She was a fair young girl, yet on her brow No pale pearl shone, a blemish on the pure Aud snowy lustre of its living light, No radiant gem shone beautifully through The shadowing of her tresses, as a star Through the dark sky of midnight; and no wreath Of coral circled on her queenly neck, In mockery of the glowing cheek and lip, Whose hue the fairy guardian of the flowers Might never rival when her delicate touch Tinges the rose of springtime. Unadorned, Save by her youthful charms, and with a garb Simple as Nature's self, why turn to her The proud and gifted, and the versed in all The pageantry of fashion ? She hath not Moved down the dance to music, when the hall Is lighted up like sunshine, and the thrill Of the light viol and the mellow flute, And the deep tones of manhood, softened down To very music melt upon the ear. – She has not mingled with the hollow world Nor tampered with its mockeries, until all The delicate perceptions of the heart, The innate modesty, the watchful sense Of maiden dignity, are lost within The maze of fashion and the din of crowds. A DIRGE is wailing from the Gulf of storm- vexed Mexico, To where through Pampas' solitudes the mighty rivers flow; The dark Sierras hear the sound, and from each mountain rift, Where Andes and Cordilleras their awful sum- mits lift, Where Cotopaxi's fiery eye glares redly upon heaven, And Chimborazo's shattered peak the upper sky has riven ; From mount to mount, from wave to wave, a wild and long lament, A sob that shakes like her earthquakes the startled continent ! A light dies out, a life is sped – the hero's at whose word The nations started as from sleep, and girded on the sword ; The victor of a hundred fields where blood was poured like rain, And Freedom's loosened avalanche hurled down the hosts of Spain, The eagle soul on Junin's slope who showed his shouting men A grander sight than Balboa saw from wave- washed Darien, Yet Beauty hath its homage. Kings have bowed From the tall majesty of ancient thrones With a prostrated knee, yea, cast aside The awfulness of time-created power +92 APPENDIX As from the snows with battle red died out the The willow crossing with its green some stator's sinking sun, marble hair, And broad and vast beneath him lay a world All that might charm the fresh young , for freedom won. light the soul, was there! How died that victor? In the field with ban- But she, a monarch's treasured one, loaned ners o'er him thrown, gloomily apart, With trumpets in his failing ear, by charging With her dark eyes tearfully cast dost, ani squadrons blown, a shadow on her heart. With scattered foemen flying fast and fearfully Young, beautiful, and dearly loved, what simo before him, hath she known: With shouts of triumph swelling round and Are not the hearts and swords of all bra brave men bending o'er him? sacred as her own? Not on his fields of victory, nor in his council Is not her lord the kingliest in battle-bed un hall, tower The worn and sorrowing leader heard the inev- The wisest in the council-hall, the guests itable call. the bower? Alone he perished in the land he saved from Is not his love as full and deep as he was slavery's ban, Danube's tide ? Maligned and doubted and denied, a broken- And wherefore in her princely home rep hearted man! Isabel, his bride ? Now let the New World's banners droop above She raised her jewelled hand, and flung bei the fallen chief, veiling tresses back, And let the mountaineer's dark eyes be wet Bathing its snowy tapering within their game with tears of grief ! black. For slander's sting, for envy's hiss, for friend- A tear fell on the orange leaves, rich gem ship hatred grown, mimie blossom, Can funeral pomp, and tolling bell, and priestly And fringed robe shook fearfully apa ber mass atone ? sighing bosom. Better to leave unmourned the dead than wrong “Smile on, smile on," she murmured here, men while they live; ** for all is joy around What if the strong man failed or erred, could Shadow and sunshine, stainless sky, suit un not his own forgive ? and blossomed ground. O people freed by him, repent above your hero's 'Tis meet the light of heart should suuk. bier : when nature's smile is fair, The sole resource of late remorse is now his And melody and fragrance meet, twin six tomb to rear! of the air. “ But ask me not to share with you the beasty ISABELLA OF AUSTRIA of the scene, The fountain-fall, mosaic walk, and bread Isabella, Infanta of Parma, and consort of of tender green; Joseph of Austria, predicted her own death, And point not to the mild blue sky, orgina iminediately after her marriage with the Em- peror. Amidst the gayety and splendor of I know how very fair is all the hand mad Vienna and Presburg, she was reserved and i has done. melancholy; she believed that Heaven had The hills, the sky, the sunlit cloud, the war leaping forth, given her a view of the future, and that her The swaying trees. the scented town child, the namesake of the great Maria The- ! dark green robes of earth. resa, would perish with her. Her prediction I love them well, but I have learned to turn was fulfilled. aside from all. And nevermore my hrart must own the Minst the palace bowers of Hungary, imperial sweet but fatal thrall. Presbury's pride, With the noble born and beautiful assembled * And I conld love the noble one who mister at her side. name I bear. She stood beneath the summer heavens, the soft And closer to my breaking brart har Nav wind sighing on. image wear, Stirring the green and arching boughs like And I could love our sweet young teef, or dancers in the sun. folding day by day. The beautiful pomegranate flower, the snowy And taste of that unearthly joy while bit orange bloom, only may; The lotus and the trailing vine, the rose's But what am I to cling to these? - Av> meek perfume, in my ear, summer sun. 1 1 EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 493 his cave, A shadow lingers at my side, the death-wail The dwellers in Colorno's halls, the Slowak at and the bier! The cold and starless night of Death where The bowed at the Escurial, the Magyar stoutly day may never beam, brave, The silence and forgetfulness, the sleep that All wept the early stricken flower; and still hath no dream! the anthem rung: “Mourn for the pride of Austria! Mourn for "O God, to leave this fair bright rld, and the loved and young!” more than all to know The moment when the Spectral One shall strike his fearful blow; THE FRATRICIDE To know the day, the very hour, to feel the tide roll on, He stood on the brow of the well-known hill, To shudder at the gloom before and weep the Its few gray oaks moan'd over him still ; sunshine gone; The last of that forest which cast the gloom To count the days, the few short days, of light Of its shadow at eve o'er his childhood's home; and love and breath And the beautiful valley beneath him lay Between me and the noisome grave, the voice- With its quivering leaves, and its streams at less home of death! play, Alas! - if feeling, knowing this, I murmur at And the sunshine over it all the while my doom, Like the golden shower of the Eastern isle. Let not thy frowning, O my God! lend dark- ness to the tomb. He knew the rock with its fingering vine, And its gray top touch'd by the slant sunshine, “Oh, I have borne my spirit up, and smiled And the delicate stream which crept beneath amidst the chill Soft as the flow of an infant's breath; Remembrance of my certain doom which lin- And the flowers which lean'd to the West gers with me still; wind's sigh, I would not cloud my fair child's brow, nor let Kissing each ripple which glided by; a tear-drop dim And he knew every valley and wooded swell, The eye that met my wedded lord's, lest it For the visions of childhood are treasured well. should sadden him ; But there are moments when the strength of Why shook the old man as his eye glanced down feeling must have way; That narrow ravine where the rude cliffs frown, That hidden tide of unnamed woe nor fear nor With their shaggy brows and their teeth of love can stay. stone, Smile on, smile on, light-hearted ones! Your And their grim shade back from the sunlight sun of joy is high: thrown? Smile on, and leave the doomed of Heaven What saw he there save the dreary glen, alone to weep and die!” Where the shy fox crept from the eye of men, And the great owl sat on the leafy limb A funeral chant was wailing through Vienna's That the hateful sun might not look on him ? holy pile, A coffin with its gorgeous pall was borne along Fix'd, glassy, and strange was that old man's the aisle ; eye, The drooping Hags of many lands waved slow As if a spectre were stealing by, above the dead, And glared it still on that narrow dell A mighty band of mourners came, a king was Where thicker and browner the twilight fell; at its head, Yet at every sigh of the fitful wind, A youthful king, with mournful tread, and Or stirring of leaves in the wood behind, dim and tearful eye; His wild glance wander'd the landscape o'er, He scarce had dreamed that one so pure as his Then fix'd on that desolate dell once more. fair bride could die. And sad and long above the throng the funeral Oh, who shall tell of the thoughts which ran anthem rung : Through the dizzied brain of that gray old “Mourn for the hope of Austria! Mourn for man? the loved and young!” His childhood's home, and his father's toil, And his sister's kiss, and his mother's smile, The wail went up from other lands, the valleys And his brother's laughter and gamesome mirth, of the Hun, At the village school and the winter hearth; Fair Parma with its orange bowers, and hills of The beautiful thoughts of his early time, vine and sun : Ere his heart grew dark with its later crime. The lilies of imperial France drooped as the sound went by, And darker and wilder his visions came The long lament of cloistered Spain was min- Of the deadly feud and the midnight flame, gled with the cry. Of the Indian's knife with its slaughter red, Of the ghastly forms of the scalpless dead, 494 APPENDIX Of his own fierce deeds in that fearful hour When the terrible Brandt was forth in power, And he clasp'd his hands o'er his burning eye To shadow the vision which glided by. It came with the rush of the battle-storm With a brother's shaken and kneeling form, And his prayer for life when a brother's arm Was lifted above him for mortal harm, And the fiendish curse, and the groan of death, And the welling of blood, and the gurgling breath, And the scalp torn off while each nerve could feel The wrenching hand and the jagged steel! And the old man groan`d -- for he saw, again, The mangled corse of his kinsman slain, As it lay where his hand had hurl'd it then, At the shadow'd foot of that fearful glen! And it rose erect, with the death-pang grim, And pointed its bloodied finger at him! And his heart grew cold — and the curse of Cain Burn'd like a fire in the old man's brain. But words are idle, Isabel, and if I praise or blame, Or cheer or warn, it matters not ; thy life wall be the same; Still free to use, and still abuse, unmindful the harm, The fatal gift of beauty, the power to charm and charm. Then go thy way, fair Isabel, nor berd the from thy train A doubtful follower falls away, enough will sta remain. But what the long-rebuking years may bring tone them or thee No prophet and no prophet's son am I to gar Or see. on I do not love thee, Isabel; I would as soon A crown of slender frost - work beneath the heated sun, Or chase the winds of summer, or trust the sleeping sea, Or lean upon a shadow as think of loving the Oh, had he not seen that spectre rise On the blue of the cold Canadian skies? From the lakes which sleep in the ancient wood, It had risen to whisper its tale of blood, And follow'd his bark to the sombre shore, And glared by night through the wigwam door; And here, on his own familiar hill, It rose on his haunted vision still ! Whose corse was that which the morrow's sun, Through the opening boughs, look'd calmly There were those who bent o'er that rigid face Who well in its darken'd lines might trace The features of him who, a traitor, Hled From a brother whose blood himself had shed, And there, on the spot where he strangely died, They made the grave of the Fratricide! on ? STANZAS Bind up thy tresses, thou beautiful one, Of brown in the shadow and gold in the sun Free should their delicate lustre be thrwa O'er a forehead more pure than the Paris stone; Shaming the light of those Orient pearl Which bind o'er its whiteness thy soft wrak ing curls. Smile, for thy glance on the mirror is throat, And the face of an angel is meeting own! Beautiful creature, I marvel not That thy cheek a lovelier tint hath caught And the kindling light of thine eye hath budd Of a dearer wealth than the miser's gull. Away, away, there is danger her! A terrible phantom is bending nar: Ghastly and sunken, his ravless eve Scowls on thy loveliness scorufully. With no human look, with no human breath He stands beside thee, the haunter Ikuth Fly! but, alas! he will follow still. Like a moonlight shadow, buyoni the vil: In thy noonday walk, in thy min hesen Close at thy hand will that phant. m keep Still in thine ear shall his whispiele: Woe, that such phantom should follow ther! In the lighted hall where the danerna Like beautiful spirits, to and fro; When thy fair arms glance in their sau white, Like ivory bathed in still moonlight; And not one star in the holy sky Hath a clearer light than thine uwa bla ege! ISABEL I do not lore thee, Isabel, and yet thou art most fair! I know the tempting of thy lips, the witchcraft of thy hair, The winsome smile that might beguile the shy bird from his tree; But from their spell I know so well, I shake my manhood free. I might have loved thee, Isabel; I know I should if aught Of all thy words and ways had told of one un- seltish thought; If throngh the cloud' of fashion, the pictured vril of art, One casual tash had broken warm, earnest from the heart. EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 495 Oh, then, even then, he will follow thee, He listens ; each sound from afar is caught, As the ripple follows the bark at sea; The faintest shiver of leaf and limb: In the soften'd light, in the turning dance, But he sees not the waters, which foam and He will fix on thine his dead, cold glance ; fret, The chill of his breath on thy cheek shall linger, Whose moonlit spray has his moccasin wet, And thy warm blood shrink from his icy fingeri And the roar of their rushing, he hears it not. And yet there is hope. Embrace it now, The moonlight, through the open bough While thy soul is open as thy brow; Of the gnarl'd beech, whose naked root While thy heart is fresh, while its feelings still Coils like a serpent at his foot, Gush clear as the unsoil'd mountain-rill; Falls, checkered, on the Indian's brow. And thy smiles are free as the airs of spring, His head is bare, save only where Greeting and blessing each breathing thing. Waves in the wind one lock of hair, Reserved for him, whoe'er he be, When the after cares of thy life shall come, More mighty than Megone in strife, When the bud shall wither before its bloom ; When breast to breast and knee to knee, When thy soul is sick of the emptiness Above the fallen warrior's life And changeful fashion of human bliss ; Gleams, quick and keen, the scalping-knife. When the weary torpor of blighted feeling Over thy heart as ice is stealing ; Megone hath his knife and hatchet and gun, And his gaudy and tasselled blanket on: Then, when thy spirit is turn'd above, His knife hath a handle with gold inlaid, By the mild rebuke of the Chastener's love; And magic words on its polished blade, When the hope of that joy in thy heart is stirr’d, 'T was the gift of Castine to Mogg Megone, Which eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard, For a scalp or twain from the Yengees torn: Then will that phantom of darkness be His gun was the gift of the Tarrantine, Gladness, and promise, and bliss to thee. And Modocawando's wives had strung The brass and the beads, which tinkle and shine On the polished breach, and broad bright line MOGG MEGONE Of beaded wampum around it hung. This poem was commenced in 1830, but What seeks Megone? His foes are near, did not assume its present shape until four Grey Jocelyn's eye is never sleeping, years after. It deals with the border strife of And the garrison lights are burning clear, the early settlers of eastern New England and Where Philip's men their watch are keeping. Let him hie him away through the dank river their savage neighbors; but its personages fog, and incidents are mainly fictitious. Looking Never rustling the boughs nor displacing the at it, at the present time, it suggests the idea rocks, of a big Indian in his war-paint strutting For the eyes and the ears which are watching about in Sir Walter Scott's plaid. for Mogg Are keener than those of the wolf or the fox. PART I He starts, - there's a rustle among the leaves : Who stands on that cliff, like a figure of stone, Another, the click of his gun is heard ! Unmoving and tall in the light of the sky, A footstep. - is it the step of Cleaves, Where the spray of the cataract sparkles on With Indian blood on his English sword ? high, Steals Harmon down from the sands of York, Lonely and sternly, save Mogg Megone? With hand of iron and foot of cork ? Close to the verge of the rock is he, Has Soamman, versed in Indian wile, While beneath him the Saco its work is do For vengeance left his vine-hung isle ? ing, Hark! at that whistle, soft and low, Hurrying down to its grave, the sea, How lights the eye of Mogy Megone! And slow through the rock its pathway hew- A smile gleams o'er his dusky brow, ing! · Boon welcome, Johnny Boniton!" Far down, through the mist of the falling river, Which rises up like an incense ever, Out steps, with cautions foot and slow, The splintered points of the crags are seen, And quick, keen glances to and fro, With water howling and vexed between, The hunted outlaw, Boniton! While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath A low, lean, swarthy man is he, Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth! With blanket-garb and buskined knee, And naught of English fashion on ; But Mogg Megone never trembled yet For he hates the race from whence he sprung, Wherever his eye or his foot was set. And he couches his words in the Indian tongue. He is watchful: each form in the moonlight dim, "Hush, - let the Sachem's voice be weak; Of rock or of tree, is seen of him : The water-rat shall hear him speak, - a - 495 APPENDIX The owl shall whoop in the white man's ear, That Mogy Megone, with his scalps, is here!' He pauses, - dark, over cheek and brow, A flush, as of shame, is stealing now: “ Sachem!” he says, “let me have the land, Which stretches away upon either hand, As far about as my feet can stray In the half of a gentle summer's day, From the leaping brook to the Saco river, - And the fair -haired girl thou hast sought of me Shall sit in the Sachem's wigwam, and be The wife of Mogy Megone forever." There's a sudden light in the Indian's glance, A moment's trace of powerful feeling, Of love or triumph, or both perchance, Over his proud, calm features stealing. ** The words of my father are very good; He shall have the land, and water, and wood; And he who harms the Sagrumore John, Shall feel the knife of Mogg Megone; But the fawn of the Yengees shall sleep on my breast, And the bird of the clearing shall sing in my nest. a "But, father!" – and the Indian's hand Falls gently on the white man's arın, And with a smile as shrewdly bland As the deep voice is slow and calm, ** Where is my father's singing-bird, The sunny eye, and sunset hur? I know I have my father's word And that his word is good and fair ; But will my father tell me where Megone shall go and look for his bride? For he sees her not by her father's side." The dark, stern eve of Boniton Flashes over the features of Mong Megone, In one of those glances which search within ; But the stolid calm of the Indian alone Remains where the trace of emotion has been. ** Does the Sachem doubt? Let him go with me, And the eyes of the Sachem his bride shall see." Cautious and slow, with pauses oft, And watchful eyes and whispers soft, The twain are stealing through the wood, Laving the downward-rushing tlood, Whose deep and solemn roar behind Grows fainter on the evening wind. Hark! -- is that the angry howl Of the wolf, the hills among? - Or the hooting of the owl, On his leafy cradle swung? Quickly glancing, to and fro, Listening to each sound they go Round the columns of the pine, Indistinct, in shadow, seeming Likes me old and pillared shrine ; With the soft and white moonshine. Round the foliago--tracery shed Of each columin's branching head, For its lamps of worship gleaming! And the sounds awakened there. In the pine-leaves fine and sull. Soft and sweetly musical, By the fingers of the air, For the anthem's dying fall Lingering round some ternple's wall! Niche and cornice round and round Wailing like the ghost of sound! Is not Nature's worship thus, Ceaseless ever, going on? Hath it not a voice for as In the thunder, or the time Of the leaf-harp faint and ul. Speaking to the uneal dear Words of blended love anif ar, Of the mighty Soul of all ? Nanght had the twain of thonghts like these As they wound along through the crowded Where never had rung the axeman's smoke On the gnarled trunk of the magh-barked oak ; Climbing the dead tree's mossy loc, Breaking the mesh of the bramble fine, Turning aside the wild grapevine, And lightly crossing the quaking burg Whose surface shakes at the leap the frg. And out of whose pools the ghostly fing Creeps into the chill moonshine! Yet, even that Indian's ear had heard The preaching of the Holy Word: Sanchekantacket's isle of sandt Was once his father's hunting land, Where zealous Hiacoumes stood, The wild apostle of the word, Shook from his soul the fear of hurm, And trampled on the Powwau's cları : Until the wizard's curses hung Suspended on his palsying tougnie, And the fierce warrior, krim and tall. Trembled before the forest Paul! A cottage hidden in the wool. - Red through its seams a light is gkswing. On rock and bough and tree-trunk rude, A narrow lustre throwing. ** Who's there?" a clear, firm voice demands, * Hold, Ruth, - 't is I, the Sapunur: * Quick, at the summons, hasty hands Unclose the bolted door; And on the outlaw's daughter shine The flashes of the kindled pine. Tall and erect the maiden stande, Like some young priestess of the woodle The freeborn child of Solitude, And bearing still the wild and rude, Yet noble trace of Nature's hands. Her dark brown cheek has caught its stais More from the sunshine than the rain: Yrt, wherr her lung tair hur is pertins. A pure white brow into lich! is ***11: And, where the folds of her blanket writ. Ar neck and a bosom as white an*** The foam-wreaths rise on the leaping Tret. EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 497 29 a 3 : But in the convulsive quiver and grip Of the muscles around her bloodless lip, There is something painful and sad to see ; And her eye has a glance more sternly wild Than even that of a forest child In its fearless and untamed freedom should be. Yet, seldom in hall or court are seen So queenly a form and so noble a mien, As freely and smiling she welcomes them there, Her outlawed sire and Mogg Megone: ** Pray, father, how does thy hunting fare? And, Sachem, say, — does Scamman wear, In spite of thy promise, a scalp of his own? Hurried and light is the maiden's tone; But a fearful meaning lurks within Her glance, as it questions the eye of Me- gone, - An awful meaning of guilt and sin! The Indian hath opened his blanket, and there Hangs a human scalp by its long damp hair! With hand upraised, with quick-drawn breath, She meets that ghastly sign of death. In one long, glassy, spectral stare The enlarging eye is fastened there, As if that mesh of pale brown hair Had power to change at sight alone, Even as the fearful locks which wound Medusa's fatal forehead round, The gazer into stone. With such a look Herodias read The features of the bleeding head, So looked the mad Moor on his dead, Or the young Cenci as she stood, O'er-dabbled with a father's blood ! - Crying over a paltry lock of hair, Like a love-sick girl at school ? Curse on it!- an Indian can see and hear : Away, - and prepare our evening cheer!' How keenly the Indian is watching now Her tearful eye and her varying brow, With a serpent eye, which kindles and burns, Like a fiery star in the upper air : On sire and daughter his fierce glance turns : “ Has my old white father a scalp to spare ? For his young one loves the pale brown hair Of the scalp of an English dog far more Than Mogg Megone, or his wigwam floor; Go, — Mogg is wise : he will keep his land, And Sagamore John, when he feels with his hand, Shall miss his scalp where it grew before." The moment's gust of grief is gone, The lip is clenched, the tears are still, God pity thee, Ruth Boniton! With what a strength of will Are nature's feelings in thy breast, As with an iron hand, repressed ! And how, upon that nameless woe, Quick as the pulse can come and go, While shakes the unsteadfast knee, and yet The bosom heaves, – the eye is wet, Has thy dark spirit power to stay The heart's wild current on its way? And whence that baleful strength of guile, Which over that still working brow And tearful eye and cheek can throw The mockery of a smile ? Warned by her father's blackening frown, With one strong effort crushing down Grief, hate, remorse, she meets again The savage murderer's sullen gaze, And scarcely look or tone betrays How the heart strives beneath its chain. “ Is the Sachem angry, — angry with Ruth, Because she cries with an ache in her tooth, Which would make a Sagamore jump and cry, And look about with a woman's eye? No, Ruth will sit in the Sachem's door And braid the mats for his wigwam floor, And broil his fish and tender fawn, And weave his wampum, and grind his corn, For she loves the brave and the wise, and none Are braver and wiser than Mogg Megone!” The Indian's brow is clear once more : With grave, calm face, and half-shut eye, He sits upon the wigwam floor, And watches Ruth go by, Intent upon her household care; And ever and anon, the while, Or on the maiden, or her fare, Which smokes in grateful promise there, Bestows his quiet smile. a Look! — feeling melts that frozen glance, It moves that marble countenance, As if at once within her strove Pity with shame, and hate with love. The Past recalls its joy and pain, Old memories rise before her brain, The lips which love's embraces met, The hand her tears of parting wet, The voice whose pleading tones beguiled The pleased ear of the forest-child, And tears she may no more repress Reveal her lingering tenderness. Oh, woman wronged can cherish hate More deep and dark than manhood may ; But when the mockery of Fate Hath left Revenge its chosen way, And the fell curse, which years have nursed, Full on the spoiler's head hath burst, When all her wrong, and shame, and pain, Burns fiercely on his heart and brain, Still lingers something of the spell Which bound her to the traitor's bosom, Still, midst the vengeful fires of hell, Some flowers of old affection blossom. John Boniton's eyebrows together are drawn With a fierce expression of wrath and scorn, He hoarsely whispers, “ Ruth, beware! Is this the time to be playing the fool, - Ah, Mogg Megone! - what dreams are thine, But those which love's own fancies dress, - The sum of Indian happiness! 498 APPENDIX A wigwam, where the warm sunshine Looks in among the groves of pine, A stream, where, round thy light canoe, The trout and salmon dart in view, And the fair girl, before thee now, Spreading thy mat with hand of snow, Or plying, in the dews of morn, Her hoe amidst thy patch of corn, Or offering up, at eve, to thee, Thy birchen dish of hominy! From the rude board of Boniton, Venison and succotash have gone, For long these dwellers of the wood Have felt the gnawing want of food. But untasted of Ruth is the frugal cheer, - With head averted, yet ready ear, She stands by the side of her austere sire, Feeding, at times, the unequal tire With the yellow knots of the pitch-pine tree, Whose Haring light, as they kindle, falls On the cottage-roof, and its black log walls, And over its inmates three. From Sagamore Boniton's hunting flask The fire-water burns at the lip of Megone : * Will the Sachem hear what his father shall ask? Will he make his mark, that it may be known, On the speaking-leaf, that he gives the land, From the Sachem's own, to his father's hand ? " The fire-water shines in the Indian's eyes, As he rises, the white man's bidding to do: * Wuttanuttata - weekan! Mogg is wise, For the water he drinks is strong and new, Mogg's heart is great! -- will he shut his hand, When his father asks for a little land?" - With unsteady fingers, the Indian hias drawn On the parchment the shape of a hunter's bow, “ Boon water, - boon water. - Sagamore John! Wuttamuttata, — weekan! our hearts will grow!" He drinks yet deeper, - he mutters low, - He reels on his bearskin to and fro, His head falls down on his naked breast, He struggles, and sinks to a drunken rest. ** Humph - drunk as a beast!" -- and Boni- ton's brow I. darker than ever with evil thought * The fool has signed his warrant; but how And when shall the deed be wronght? Speak, Ruth! why, what the devil is there, To tix thv gar in that empty air ? - Spuak, Ruth! by my soul, if I thought that tear Which shames thyself and our purpose here, Were shed for that cursed and pale-faced dog. Whose green scalp hangs from the belt of Morg. Ani wlus beastly soul is in Satan's keeping; This this!" - he dashes his band upon The rattling stock of his loa led gun, - "Should send thee with him to do thy weep ing!" " Father!" – the eye of Beniton Sinks at that low, sepulchral tone, Hollow and deep, as it were spoken By the unmovinz tongue of death, - Or from some statue's lipw had broken, - A sound without a breath! * Father! - my life I value less Than yonder fool his gaudy dress; And how it ends it matters not, By heart-break or by ritte-hot ; But spare awhile the scoff and threat, Our business is not tinished yet." True, true, my girl, - I only meant To draw up again the bow unbent. Harm thee, my Ruth! I only sucht To frighten off thy gloomy thought: Come, – let's be friends!" He seks to cap His daughter's cold, damp hand in his Ruth startles from her father's grasp. As if each nerve and muscle felt, Instinctively, the touch of guilt Through all their subtle sympathies. He points her to the sleeping Morg: " What shall be done with yomder deg? Scamman is dead, and revenge is thin. The deed is signed and the land is mim ; And this drunken fool is of nsr bo "se. Save as thy hopeful bridegroom, and wh. 'T were Christian merey to finish him, Ruth Now, while he lies like a beast on our tione, If not for thine, at least for his sake, Rather than let the poor dog awake To drain my flask, and claim as his bride Such a forest devil to run by his szik, -- Such a Wetuomanit as thou wou dst make** He laughs at his jest. Hush what is there - The sleeping Indian is striving to use, With his knife in his hand, an iclarines “Wagh! - Mogy will have the palo-f. For his knife is sharp, and his fins che! The hair to pull and the skin to pred Let him cry like a woman and twist like an el The great (aptain Scanman must loss scalp ! And Ruth, when she sees it, shall dance va Mogg." His eyes are fixed, -- but his lips draw in. - With a low, hoane chuckle, and then shram - And he sinks again, like a suele in Ruth does not speak, - she dew not stur ; But she gazes down on the murderer Whose broken and dreamful slumstol Too much for her ear of that deed of bei She sees the knife, with its slaughter ret. And the dark tingers clenching the bark bed! What thoughts of horror and mana shirt Through the burning brain of that ta' John Boniton lifts his gain to his ere, Its muzzle is close to the Inli un's rar, But he drops it again. " Sans rema nigh, And I would not that even the walios abil hear." EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 499 . He draws his knife from his deer-skin belt, - Its edge with his fingers is slowly felt; Kneeling down on one knee, by the Indian's side, From his throat he opens the blanket wide ; And twice or thrice he feebly essays A trembling hand with the knife to raise. “I cannot,” — he mutters, did he not save My life from a cold and wintry grave, When the storm came down from Agiochook, And the north-wind howled, and the tree-tops shook, - And I strove, in the drifts of the rushing snow, Till my knees grew weak and I could not go, And I felt the cold to my vitals creep, And my heart's blood stiffen, and pulses sleep! I cannot strike him - Ruth Boniton! In the Devil's name, tell me - what's to be done ?" Oh, when the soul, once pure and high, Is stricken down from Virtue's sky, As, with the downcast star of morn, Some gems of light are with it drawn, And, through its night of darkness, play Some tokens of its primal day, Some lofty feelings linger still, The strength to dare, the nerve to meet Whatever threatens with defeat Its all-indomitable will ! - But lacks the mean of mind and heart, Though eager for the gains of crime, Or, at his chosen place and time, The strength to bear his evil part; And, shielded by his very Vice, Escapes from Crime by Cowardice. Ruth starts erect, with bloodshot eye, And lips drawn tight across her teeth Showing their locked embrace beneath, In the red firelight: “Mogg must die ! Give me the knife!” The outlaw turns, Shuddering in heart and limb away, But, fitfully there, the hearth-fire burns, And he sees on the wall strange shadows play. A lifted arm, a tremulons blade, Are dimly pictured in light and shade, Plunging down in the darkness. Hark, that cry Again - and again – he sees it fall, That shadowy arm down the lighted wall ! He hears quick footsteps - - a shape flits by The door on its rusted hinges creaks :- * Ruth – daughter Ruth!” the outlaw shrieks. But no sound comes back, – he is standing alone By the mangled corse of Mogg Megone ! And wearing all the hues which glow In heaven's own pure and perfect bow, That glorious picture of the air, Which summer's light-robed angel forms On the dark ground of fading storms, With pencil dipped in sunbeams there, - And, stretching out, on either hand, O'er all that wide and unshorn land, Till, weary of its gorgeousness, The aching and the dazzled eye Rests, gladdened, on the calm blue sky, Slumbers the mighty wilderness! The oak, upon the windy hill, Its dark green burthen upward heaves The hemlock broods above its rill, Its cone-like foliage darker still, Against the birch's graceful stem, And the rough walnut-bough receives The sun upon its crowded leaves, Each colored like a topaz gem ;, And the tall maple wears with them The coronal, which autumn gives, The brief, bright sign of ruin near, The hectic of a dying year! The hermit priest, who lingers now On the Bald Mountain's shrubless brow, The gray and thunder-smitten pile Which marks afar the Desert Isle, While gazing on the scene below, May half forget the dreams of home, That nightly with his slumbers come, The tranquil skies of sunny France, The peasant's harvest song and dance, The vines around the hillsides wreathing, The soft airs midst their clusters breathing, The wings which dipped, the stars which shone Within thy bosom, blue Garonne ! And round the Abbey's shadowed wall, At morning spring and even-fall, Sweet voices in the still air singing, The chant of many a holy hymn, The solemn bell of vespers ringing, - And hallowed torchlight falling dim On pictured saint and seraphim! For here beneath him lies unrolled, Bathed deep in morning's flood of gold, A vision gorgeous as the dream Of the beatified may seem, When, as his Church's legends say, Born upward in ecstatic bliss, The rapt enthusiast soars away Unto a brighter world than this: A mortal's glimpse beyond the pale, A moment's lifting of the veil ! Far eastward o'er the lovely bay, Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay; And gently from that Indian town The verdant hillside slopes adown, To where the sparkling waters play Upon the yellow sands below; And shooting round the winding shores Of narrow capes, and isles which lie Slumbering to ocean's lullaby, – With birchen boat and glancing oars, The red men to their fishing go; PART II 'T is morning over Norridgewock, - On tree and wigwam, wave and rock, Bathed in the autumnal sunshine, stirred At intervals by breeze and bird, 500 APPENDIX Wbile from their planting ground is borne 'The treasure of the golden corn, By laughing girls, whose dark eyes glow Wild through the locks which o'er them flow. The wrinkled squaw, whose toil is done, Sits on her bear-skin in the sun, Watching the huskers, with a smile For each full ear which swells the pile ; And the old chief, who nevermore May bend the bow or pull the oar, Smokes gravely in his wigwam door, Or slowly shapes, with axe of stone, The arrow-head from flint and bone. Beneath the westward turning eye A thousand wooded islands lie, Gems of the waters! with each hue Of brightness set in ocean's blue. Each bears aloft its tuft of trees Touched by the pencil of the frost, And, with the motion of each breeze, moment seen, a moment lost, Changing and blent, confused and tossed, The brighter with the darker crossed, Their thousand tints of beauty glow Down in the restless waves below, And tremble in the sunny skies, As if, from waving bough to bough, Flitted the birds of paradise. There sleep Placentia's group, and there Pere Breteaux marks the hour of prayer; And there, beneath the sea-worn cliff, On which the Father's hut is sten, The Indian stays his rocking skiff, And peers the hemlock-boughs between, Half trenibling, as he seeks to look Upon the Jesuit's Cross and Book. There, gloomily against the sky The Dark Isles rear their summits high ; And Desert Rock, abrupt and bare, Lifts its grav turrets in the air, Seen from afar, like some stronghold Built by the ocean kings of old; And, faint as smoke-wreath white and thin, Swells in the north vast Katahdin: And, wandering from its marshy feet, The broad Penobscot comes to meet And mingle with his own bright bay. Slow sweep his dark and gathering tloods, Arched over by the ancient woods, Which Time, in those dim solitudes, Wirlding the dull are of Decay, Alone hath ever shorn away. Not thus, within the woods which hide The beauty of thy azure tide, And with their falling timbers block Thy broken currents, Kennebec! Gazes the white man on the wreck Of the down-trodden Sorriderwock ; In one lone villaga hemmed at length, In battle shorn of half their strength, Turned, like the panther in his lair, With his fast-flowing life-blood wet, For one last struggle of despair, Wounded and faint, but tamelos yet! Unreapod, upon the planting lunds, The scant, neglected harvest stands : No shout is there, no dance, no song: The aspect of the very child Scowls with a meaning sad and wild Of bitterness and wrong. The alınost infant Norridgewock Essays to lift the tomahawk; And plucks his father's knif away, To mimic, in his frightful play, The scalping of an English toe: Wreathes on his lip a horrid smile, Burns, like a snake's, his small up, while Some bough or sapling meets his blow. The fisher, as he drops his line, Starts, when he sees the hazels quiver Along the margin of the river, Looks up and down the rippling tide, And grasps the firelook at his side. For Bomazeen from Tacconoek Hlas sent his runners to Norridgewock. With tidings that Moulton and Hard York Far up the river have come: They have left their boats, they have entered the wood, And filled the depths of the solitude With the sound of the ranger's drum. On the brow of a hill, which slopes to meet The flowing river, and bathe ite; The bare-washed rock, and the droping And the creeping vine, as the water pus A rude and unshapely chapel stands. Built up in that wild by unskilled hands Yet the traveller knows it a place of prayer. For the holy sign of the cross is there : And should he chance at that place to be. Of a Sabbath morn, or some hallowed day. When prayers are made and mastan si Some for the living and some for the dead Well might that traveller start to see The tall dark forms, that take thvir way From the birch canoe, on the river shit, And the forest paths, to that chapel dor; And marvel to mark the naked knees And the dusky foreheads bending there. While, in coarse white vesture, over three In blessing or in prayer, Stretching abrosul his thin pale hands Like a shrouded ghust, the Jesuit slanuls. Two forms are now in that charl dim, The Jesuit, silent and sad and pale Anxiously heeding some fearful tale, Which a stranger is telling him. That stranger's garb is soiled and torn, And wet with dew and lovely wom; Her fair neglected hair falls down O'er cheeks with wind and sunshine brus; Yet still, in that disordered face, The Jeruit's cautious eye can trace These clements of former grave Which, half effveed, se'm scarely less Even now, than perfect loveliness With droping head, and voice on That scarce it meets the Jesut's ean EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 501 While through her claspëd fingers flow, From the heart's fountain, hot and slow, Her penitential tears, She tells the story of the woe And evil of her years. “O father, bear with me; my heart Is sick and death-like, and my brain Seems girdled with a fiery chain, Whose scorching links will never part, And never cool again. Bear with me while I speak, but turn Away that gentle eye, the while ; The fires of guilt more fiercely burn Beneath its holy smile; For half I fancy I can see My mother's sainted look in thee. “My dear lost mother! sad and pale, Mournfully sinking day by day, And with a hold on life as frail As frosted leaves, that, thin and gray, Hang feebly on their parent spray, And tremble in the gale; Yet watching o'er my childishness With patient fondness, not the less For all the agony which kept Her blue eye wakeful, while I slept; And checking every tear and groan That haply might have waked my own, And bearing still, without offence, My idle words, and petulance; Reproving with a tear, and, while The tooth of pain was keenly preying Upon her very heart, repaying My brief repentance with a smile. • Oh, in her meek, forgiving eye There was a brightness not of mirth, A light whose clear intensity Was borrowed not of earth. Along her cheek a deepening red Told where the feverish hectic fed; And yet, each fatal token gave To the mild beauty of her face A newer and a dearer grace, Unwarning of the grave. 'Twas like the hue which Autumn gives To yonder changed and dying leaves, Breathed over by his frosty breath; Scarce can the gazer feel that thi Is but the spoiler's treacherous kiss, The mocking-smile of Death ! * Sweet were the tales she used to tell When summer's eve was dear to us, And, fading from the darkening dell, The glory of the sunset fell On wooded Agamenticus, When, sitting by our cottage wall, The murmur of the Saco's fall, And the south-wind's expiring sighs, Came, softly blending, on my ear With the low tones I loved to hear: Tales of the pure, the good, the wise, The holy men and maids of old, In the all-sacred pages told ; Of Rachel, stooped at IIaran's fountains, Amid her father's thirsty flock, Beautiful to her kinsman seeming As the bright angels of his dreaming, On Padan-aran's holy rock; Of gentle Ruth, and her who kept Her awful vigil on the mountains, By Israel's virgin daughters wept ;. Of Miriam, with her maidens, singing The song for grateful Israel meet, While every crimson wave was bringing The spoils of Egypt at her feet; Of her, Samaria's humble daughter, Who paused to hear, beside her well, Lessons of love and truth, which fell Softly as Shiloh's flowing water; And saw, beneath his pilgrim guise, The Promised One, so long foretold By holy seer and bard of old, Revealed before her wondering eyes ! “ Slowly she faded. Day by day Her step grew weaker in our hall, And fainter, at each even-fall, Her sad voice died away. Yet on her thin, pale lip, the while, Sat Resignation's holy smile : And even my father checked his tread, And hushed his voice, beside her bed : Beneath the calm and sad rebuke Of her meek eye's imploring look, The scowl of hate his brow forsook, And in his stern and gloomy eye, At times, a few unwonted tears Wet the dark lashes, which for years Hatred and pride had kept so dry. “Calm as a child to slumber soothed, As if an angel's hand had smoothed The still, white features into rest, Silent and cold, without a breath To stir the drapery on her breast, Pain, with its keen and poisoned fang, The horror of the mortal pang, The suffering look her brow had vorn, The fear, the strife, the anguish gone, She slept at last in death! “Oh, tell me, father, can the dead Walk on the earth, and look on us, And lay upon the living's head Their blessing or their curse ? For, oh, last night she stood by me, As I lay beneath the woodland tree !" The Jesuit crosses himself in awe, - "Jesu ! what was it my daughter saw ? " " She came to me last night. The dried leaves did not feel her tread; She stood by me in the wan moonlight, In the white robes of the dead ! Pale, and very mournfully She bent her light form over me. I heard no sound, I felt no breath Breathe o'er me from that face of death : Its blue eyes rested on my own, a 502 APPENDIX Rayless and cold as eyes of stone ; Yet, in their fixed, unchanging gaze, Something, which spoke of early days, A sadness in their quiet glare, As if love's smile were frozen there, - Came o'er me with an icy thrill; O God! I feel its presence still!” The Jesuit makes the holy sign, - How passed the vision, daughter mine?" "All dimly in the wan moonshine, As a wreath of mist will twist and twine, And scatter, and melt into the light; So scattering, melting on my sight, The pale, cold vision passed ; But those sad eyes were fixed on mine Mournfully to the last." "God help thee, daughter, tell me why That spirit passed before thine eye!" * Father, I know not, save it be That deeds of mine have summoned her From the unbreathing sepulchre, To leave her last rebuke with me. Ah, woe for me! my mother died Just at the moment when I stood Close on the verge of womanhood, A child in everything beside; And when my wild heart needed most ller gentle counsels, they were lost. "My father lived a stormy life, Of frequent change and daily strife; And - God forgive him ! left his child To feel, like him, a freedom wild ; To love the red man's dwelling-place, The birch boat on his shaded tloods, The wild excitement of the chase Sweeping the ancient woods, The camp-fire, blazing on the shore Of the still lakes, the clear stream where The idle tisher sets his wrir, Or angles in the shade, far more Than that restraining awe I felt Beneath my gentle mother's care, When nightly at her knee I knelt, With childhood's simple prayer. “There came a change. The wild, glad mood Of unchecked freedom passed. Amid the ancient solitude Of unnhorn gris und waving wood And water klancing bright and fast, A softened voice wiis in my car, Sweet as those lulling sounds and fine The hunter lift his head to hear, Xow far and faint, now full and near - The murmur of the wind-swept pine. A manly forin was ever nigh, A babad, free hunter, with an eve Whose dark. keen glance bad power to wake Both fear and love, to awe and charm; 'T wils as the wizard rattlesnake, Whome evil xhames lure to harm Whose cold and small and glittering eye, And brilliant coil, and changing dye, Draw, step by step, the gazer nrar, With drooping wing and cry of fear, Yet powerless all w turn away, A conscious, but a willing prey! “Fear, doubt, thought, life itself, errlag Merved in one feeling deep and strung. Faded the world which I had kibwn. A poor vain shadow, cold and waste : In the warm present bliss alone Seemed I of actual life to taste, Fond longings diinly understood, The glow of passion's quickening blod, Aud cherished fantasies which pre The young lip with a dram's caress; The heart's forecast and prophexy Tok form and life before my eye, Seen in the glance which met my own, Heard in the soft and pleading tone, Felt in the arms arvund me cast, And warm heart-palses beating fast. Ah! scarcely yet to God above With deeper trust, with stronger love Has prayerful saint his me k heart lent, Or cloistered nun at twilight kent, Than I, before a human shrine, As mortal and as frail as mine, With heart, and soul, and mind, and fun knelt madly to a fellow-wormu. * Full soon, upon that dream of sin. An awful light came bursting in. The shrine was cold at which I knelt, The idol of that shrine was one ; A humbled thing of shame and guilt. Outcast, and spurned and lone, Wrapt in the shadows of my crime, With withering heart and burning brain And tears that fell like tiery rain, I passed a fearful time. "There came a voice -- it checked thr teur, In heart and soul it wrou, he a delange My father's voice was in my ears, It whispered of revenge! A new and fiercer ferling swept All lingering tenderness away; And tiger passions, which had slept In childhood's better day, Unknowil, untelt, annar length In all their own demoniac strength. A youthful warrior of the wild, By word deceived, bs smile is guiled, Of crime the cheated instrument, U pon our fatal errands went. Through camp and town and wildern He tracked his victim ; and at les Just when the tide at hate had some And milder thoughts came warm and fast, Eunting, at my feet he cast The blooiy token of succ****. ** () God! with what an awful power Iw the buried past uprise, And gather, in ia mule hour, ( EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 503 Fall hoarsely on the maiden's ear, - * The soul that sinneth shall surely die !" Its ghost-like memories ! And then I felt, alas! too late, That underneath the mask of hate, That shame and guilt and wrong had thrown O'er feelings which they might not own, The heart's wild love had known no change ; And still that deep and hidden love, With its first fondness, wept above The victim of its own revenge! There lay the fearful scalp, and there The blood was on its pale brown hair ! I thought not of the victim's scorn, I thought not of his baleful guile, My deadly wrong, my outcast name, The characters of sin and shame On heart and forehead drawn; I only saw that victim's smile, The still green places where we met, The moonlit branches, dewy wet; I only felt, I only heard, The greeting and the parting word, The smile, the embrace, the tone, which made An Eden of the forest shade. She stands, as stands the stricken deer, Cheeked midway in the fearful chase, When bursts, upon his eye and ear, The gaunt, gray robber, baying near, Between him and his hiding-place; While still behind, with yell and blow, Sweeps, like a storm, the coming foe. Save me, O holy man!” her cry Fills all the void, as if a tongue Unseen, from rib and rafter hung, Thrilling with mortal agony; Her hands are clasping the Jesuit's knee, And her eye looks fearfully into his own; - "Off, woman of sin ! nay, touch not me With the fingers of blood ; begone!” With a gesture of horror, he spurns the form That writhes at his feet like a trodden worm. Ever thus the spirit must, Guilty in the sight of Heaven, With a keener woe be riven, For its weak and sinful trust In the strength of human dust; And its anguish thrill afresh, For each vain reliance given To the failing arm of flesh. PART III And oh, with what a loathing eye, With what a deadly hate, and deep, I saw that Indian murderer lie Before me, in his drunken sleep! What though for me the deed was done, And words of mine had sped him on! Yet when he murmured, as he slept, The horrors of that deed of blood, The tide of utter madness swept O'er brain and bosom, like a flood, And, father, with this hand of mine" Ha! what didst thou ?” the Jesuit cries, Shuddering, as smitten with sudden pain, And shading, with one thin hand, his eyes, With the other he makes the holy sign. “- I smote him as I would a worm ; With heart as steeled, with nerves as firm: He never woke again !! ** Woman of sin and blood and shame, Speak, I would know that victim's name." " Father,” she gasped, a chieftain, known As Saco's Sachem, - Mogg Megone!” Pale priest! What proud and lofty dreams, What keen desires, what cherished schemes, What hopes, that time may not recall, Are darkened by that chieftain's fall! Was he not pledged, by cross and vow, To lift the hatchet of his sire, And, round his own, the Church's foe, To light the avenging fire ? Who now the Tarrantine shall wake, For thine and for the Church's sake ? Who summon to the scene Of conquest and unsparing strife, And vengeance dearer than his life, The fiery-souled Castine? Three backward steps the Jesuit takes, His long, thin frame as ague shakes; And loathing hate is in his eye, As from his lips these words of fear AH, weary Priest! with pale hands pressed On thy throbbing brow of pain, Battled in thy life-long quest, Overworn with toiling vain, How ill thy troubled musings fit The holy quiet of a breast With the Dove of Peace at rest, Sweetly brooding over it. Thoughts are thine which have no part With the meek and pure of heart, Undisturbed by outward things, Resting in the heavenly shade, By the overspreading wings Of the Blessed Spirit made. Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong Sweep thy heated brain along, Fading hopes for whose success It were sin to breathe a prayer ; Schemes which Heaven may never bless, – Fears which darken to despair. Hoary priest ! thy dream is done Of a hundred red tribes won To the pale of Holy Church ; And the heretic o'erthrown, And his name no longer known, And thy weary brethren turning, Joyful from their years of mourning 'Twixt the altar and the porch. Hark! what sudden sound is heard In the wood and in the sky, Shriller than the scream of bird, Than the trumpet's clang more high! Every wolf-cave of the hills, Forest arch and mountain gorge, 504 APPENDIX Rock and dell, and river verge, With an answering echo thrills. Well does the Jesuit know that cry, Which summons the Norridgewock to die, And tells that the foe of his flock is nigh. He listens, and hears the rangers come, With loud hurrah, and jar of drum, And hurrying feet (for the chase is hot), And the short, sharp sound of rifle shot, And taunt and menace, – answered well By the Indians' mocking cry and yell, – The bark of dogs, – the squaw's mad scream, The dash of paddles along the stream, The whistle of shot as it cuts the leaves Of the maples around the church's eaves, And the gride of hatchets fiercely thrown On wigwam-log and tree and stone. Black with the grime of paint and dust, Spotted and streaked with human gore, A grim and naked head is thrust Within the chapel-door. “Ha - Bomazeen! In God's name say, What mean these sounds of bloody fray ?” Silent, the Indian points his hand To where across the echoing glen Sweep Harmon's dreaded ranger-band, And Moulton with his men. “Where are thy warriors, Bomazeen? Where are De Rouville and ('astine, And where the braves of Sawga's queen ? " "Let my father find the winter snow Which the sun drank up long moons ago! l'nder the falls of Tacconock, The wolves are eating the Norridgewock; Castine with his wives lies closely hid Like a fox in the woods of Pemaquid ! On Sawga's banks the man of war Sits in his wigwam like a squaw ; Squando has fled, and Mogg Megone, Struck by the knite of Sagamore John, Lies stiff and stark and cold as a stone.' Fearfully over the Jesuit's face. Of a thousand thoughts, trace after trace, Like swift cloud-shadows, each other chase. One instant, his fingers grasp his knife, For a last vain struggle for cherished life, – The next, he hurls the blade away, And kneels at his altar's foot to pray ; Over his beads his fingers stray, And he kisses the cross, and calls aloud On the Virgin and her son ; For terrible thoughts his memory crowd Of evil seen and done, Of scalps brought home by his savage flock From ('asco and Sawga and Sagadahock In the Church's service won. No shrift the gloomy savage brooks, As scowling on the priest he lo ks: "Cowes tawhich wessa seen? Let my father look upon Bomazeen, My father's heart is the heart of a squaw, But mine is so hard that it does not thaw; Let my father ask his God to make dince and a feast for a great wagamore, When he paidles across the western lake, With his dogs and his squaws to the sperit shore. Cowesass -- Cowesass – tawhich wessa seen! Let my father die like Bomazeen!" Through the chapel's narrow doors, And through each window in the walls, Round the priest and warrior pours The deadly shower of English balls. Low on his cross the Jesuit falls; While at his side the Norridge wock, With failing breath, essays to mock And menace yet the hated foe, Shakes his scalp-trophies to and fro Exultingly before their eyes, Till, cleft and torn by shot and blow, Defiant still, he dies. " So fare all eaters of the frog! Death to the Babylonish dog! Down with the beast of Rome !" With shouts like these, around the dead. L'nconscious on his bloody bed, The rangers crowding come. Brave men! the dead priest cannot hear The unfeeling taunt, — the brutal jeer; Spurn – for he sees ye not -- in wrath, The symbol of your Saviour's death; Tear from his death-grasp, in your real, And trample, as a thing accursed, The cross he cherished in the dust : The dead man cannot feel! Brutal alike in deed and word, With callous heart and hand of strife, How like a fiend may man be made, Plving the foul and monstrous traile Whose harvest-field is human life, Whose sickle is the reeking sword: Quenching, with reckless hand in blood, Sparks kindled by the breath of (rod ; L'rging the deathless soul, unshriven, Of open guilt or secret sin, Before the bar of that pure Heaven The holy only enter in! Oh, by the widow's sore distress, The orphan's wailing wretebedness, By Virtue struggling in the accursed Embraces of polluting Lust, By the fell discord of the Pit, And the pained souls that people it, And by the blessed peace which tills The Paradise of God forever, Resting on all its holy hills. And flowing with its crystal river, - Let Christian hands no longer bear In triumph on his crimson car The foul and idol god of war; No more the purple wreaths prepare To bind amid his snaky hair; Vor Christian bands his glories tell, Nor Christian tongues his praises swell. Throngh the gun-smoke wreathing white, Glimpses on the soldier's sight A thing of human shape I ween, For a moment only seen, COW 18 EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 505 With its loose hair backward streaming, And its eyeballs madly gleaming, Shrieking, like a soul in pain, From the world of light and breath, Hurrying to its place again, Spectre-like it vanisheth! a Wretched girl! one eye alone Notes the way which thou hast gone. That great Eye, which slumbers never, Watching o'er a lost world ever, Tracks thee over vale and mountain, By the gushing forest-fountain, Plucking from the vine its fruit, Searching for the ground-nut's root, Peering in the she-wolf's den, Wading through the marshy fen, Where the sluggish water-snake Basks beside the sunny brake, Coiling in his slimy bed, Smooth and cold against thy tread; Purposeless, thy mazy way Threading through the lingering day, And at night securely sleeping Where the dogwood's dews are weeping! Still, though earth and man discard thee, Doth thy Heavenly Father guard thee : He who spared the guilty Cain, Even when a brother's blood, Crying in the ear of God, Gave the earth its primal stain ; He whose mercy ever liveth, Who repenting guilt forgiveth, And the broken heart receiveth; Wanderer of the wilderness, Haunted, guilty, crazed and wild, He regardeth thy distress, And careth for His sinful chiid ! In the harsh outlines of his face Passion and sin have left their trace ; Yet, save worn brow and thin gray hair, No signs of weary age are there. His step is firm, his eye is keen, Nor years in broil and battle spent, Nor toil, nor wounds, nor pain have bent The lordly frame of old Castine. No purpose now of strife and blood Urges the hoary veteran on: The tire of conquest and the mood Of chivalry have gone. A mournful task is his, - to lay Within the earth the bones of those Who perished in that fearful day, When Norridgewock became the prey Of all unsparing foes. Sadly and still, dark thoughts between, Of coming vengeance mused Castine, Of the fallen chieftain Bomazeen, Who bade for him the Norridgewocks Dig up their buried tomahawks For furm defence or swift attack; And him whose friendship formed the tie Which held the stern self-exile back From lapsing into savagery ; Whose garb and tone and kindly glance Recalled a younger, happier day, And prompted memory's fond essay, To bridge the mighty waste which lay Between his wild home and that gray, Tall chateau of his native France : Whose chapel bell, with far-heard din, Ushered his birth-hour gayly in, And counted with its solemn toll The masses for his father's soul, 'Tis springtime on the eastern hills ! Like torrents gush the summer rills; Through winter's moss and dry dead leaves The bladed grass revives and lives, Pushes the mouldering waste away, For glimpses to the April day. In kindly shower and sunshine bud The branches of the dull gray wood ; Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks The blue eye of the violet looks ; The southwest wind is warmly blowing, And odors from the springing grass, The pine-tree and the sassafras, Are with it on its errands going, A band is marching throngh the wood Where rolls the Kennebec his flood; The warriors of the wilderness, Painted, and in their battle dress ; And with them one whose bearded cheek, And white and wrinkled brow, bespeak A wanderer from the shores of France. A few long locks of scattering snow Beneath a battered morion flow, And from the rivets of the vest Which girds in steel his ample breast, The slanted sunbeams glance. Hark! from the foremost of the band Suddenly bursts the Indian yell ; For now on the very spot they stand Where the Norridgewocks fighting fell. No wigwam smoke is curling there; The very earth is scorched and bare : And they pause and listen to catch a sound Of breathing life, but there comes not one, Save the fox's bark and the rabbit's boud ; But here and there, on the blackened ground, White bones are glistening in the sun. And where the house of prayer arose, And the holy hymn, at daylight's close, And the aged priest stood up to bless The children of the wilderness, There is naught save ashes sodden and dank ; And the birchen boats of the Norridgewock, Tethered to tree and stump and rock Rotting along the river bank! Blessed Mary! who is she Leaning against that maple-tree? The sun upon her face burns hot, But the fixed eyelid moveth not ; The squirrel's chirp is shrill and clear From the dry bough above her ear; Dashing from rock and root its spray, Close at her feet the river rushes; The black bird's wing against her brushes, 506 APPENDIX And sweetly throngh the hazel-bushes The robin's mellow music gushes; God save her! will she sleep alway? Castine hath bent him over the sleeper: “Wake, daughter, — wake!” but she stirs no limb: The eye that looks on him is fixed and dim; And the sleep she is sleeping shall be no deeper, Until the angel's oath is said, And the final blast of the trump goes forth To the graves of the sea and the graves of earth. Ruth Boniton is dead ! THE PAST AND COMING YEAR WAVE of an awful torrent, thronging down, With all the wealth of centuries, and the cold Embraces of eternity, o'erstrown With the great wrecks of empire, and the old Magnihcence of nations, who are gone; Thy last, faint murmur—. thy departing sigh, Along the shore of being, like a tone Thrilling on broken harp-strings, or the swell Of the chained winds' last whisper, hath gone by, And thou hast floated from the world of breath To the still guidance of o'ermastering Death, Thy pilot to eternity. Farewell! Go, swell the throngful past. Go, blend with all The garnered things of Death ; and bear with thee The treasures of thy pilgrimage, the tall And beautiful dreams of Hope, the ministry Of Love and high Ambition. Man remains To dream again as idly; and the stains Of passion will be visible once more. The winged spirit will not be contined By the experience of thy journey. Mind Will struggle in its prison-house, and still, With Earth's strong fetters binding it to ill, Unfurl the pinions titted but to soar In that pure atmosphere, where spirits range - The home of high existences where change And blighting may not enter. Love again Will bloom, a fickle flower, upon the grave Of old affections; and Ambition wave His eagle-plume most proudly, for the rein Of Conscience will be loosiped from the soul To give his purpose freedom. The control Of reason will be changeful, and the tins Which gather hearts together, and make up The romance of existence, will be rent: Yea, poison will be poured in Friendship's cup; And for Earth's low familiar eleinent, Even Love itself forsake its kindred skies. Bnt not alone dark visions ! happier things Will tloat above existence, like the wings Of the starred bird of paradise ; and Love Will not be all a dream, or rather prove A dream - a sweet forgetfulness - that hath No wakeful changes, ending but in Death Yea, pure hearts shall be pledged beneath the eyes Of the beholding heaven, and in the lgbt Of the love-hallowed moon. 'The quir! Shall hear that language underneath the Which whispereth above them, as the por And the deep vow are spoken. Pisin fur And gifted creatures, with the light of tranh And undebarred affection, as a crua, Resting upon the beautiful bruw of youth, Shall smile on stately manhood, kiin: 1 Before them, as to Idols. Friend-kipsband Shall clasp its brothers ; and Affetton's te Be sanctified with sympathy. The bar Of stricken love shall luse the fuars vlub Death Giveth his awful work, and earnest Faith Shall look beyond the shadow of the clay. The pulseless sepulchre, the cold drcayi And to the quiet of the spirit-land Follow the mourned and lovely. Gifted Lighting the Heaven of Intellect, hke sunx, Shall wrestle well with circumstance, anu b The agony of scorn, the preying carr, Wedded to burning bosoms; and go down In sorrow to the noteless sepulchre, With one lone hope embracing like a *** The cold and death-like forrhead of That after times shall treasure up their lalu Even as a proud inheritance and link; And beautiful beings love to breathe their mus With the recorded things that never die. And thou, gray voyager to the breedela sa Of infinite Oblivion - speed thou on; Another gift of time suced th thre Fresh from the hand of God; for two hast da The errand of thy destiny; and the May dream of thy returning. Go and bear Mortality's frail records to the eld. Eternal prison-house; the midnikt prout Of suttering busoms, and the friends are Of worldly hearts; the mist's drama Ambition's grasp at greatness; thir que tad light Of broken spirits; the forgiven wrong And the abiding curse - ay, bear ak ng These wrecks of thy own making. Lathy Gathers upon the windy brrath of natt, Its last and faintest echo. Fare the word THE MISSIONARY " It is an awful, an arduous thing to move on every affection for earthly things suas L** only for another world. I aru sfat, ver* far, from you all; and as often as I low anamt and see the Indian scenen, I woh to think of the distance which separates us* - Lim Henry Martyn, from India. "SAY, whose is this fnir picture, which helt From the unshutter'd wimi pune lana Even as a lingering halo? Beant.ikea! a EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED VERSES 507 ave no The keen, fine eye of manhood, and a lip Lovely as that of Hylas, and impressed With the bright signet of some brilliant thought; That broad expanse of forehead, clear and high, Marked visibly with the characters of mind, And the free locks around it, raven black, Luxuriant and unsilver'd! — who was he ? " A friend, a more than brother. In the spring And glory of his being he went forth From the embraces of devoted friends, From ease and quiet happiness, from more From the warm heart that loved him with a love Holier than earthly passion, and to whom The beauty of his spirit shone above The charms of perishing nature. He went forth Strengthened to suffer, gifted to subdue The might of human passion, to pass on Quietly to the sacrifice of all The lofty hopes of boyhood, and to turn The high ambition written on that brow, From its first dream of power and human fame, Unto a task of seeming lowliness, Yet God-like in its purpose. He went forth To bind the broken spirit, to pluck back The heathen from the wheel of Juggernaut; To place the spiritual image of a God Holy and just and true, before the eye Of the dark-minded Brahmin, and inseal The holy pages of the Book of Life, Fraught with sublimer mysteries than all The sacred tomes of Vedas, to unbind The widow from her sacrifice, and save The perishing infant from the worshipped river! ** And, lady, where is he?" He slumbers well Beneath the shadow of an Indian palm. There is no stone above his grave. The wind, Hot from the desert, as it stirs the leaves Heavy and long above him, sighs alone Over his place of slumber. Unfaltering ever, steadfast and secure, Gone up the paths of greatness, bearing still A sister spirit with him, as some star, Preëminent in Heaven, leads steadily up A kindred watcher, with its fainter beams Baptized in its great glory. Was it well That all this promise of the heart and mind Should perish from the earth, and trace, Unfolding like the Cereus of the clime Which hath its sepulchre, but in the night Of pagan desolation – was it well?" Thy will be done, O Father! - it was well. What are the honors of a perishing world Grasp'd by a palsied finger ? the applause Of the unthoughtful multitude which greets The dull ear of decay ? the wealth that loads The bier with costly drapery, and shines In tinsel on the coffin, and builds up The cold substantial monument ? Can these Bear up the sinking spirit in that hour When heart and flesh are failing, and the grave Is opening under us? Oh, dearer then The memory of a kind deed done to him Who was our enemy, one grateful tear In the meek eye of virtuous suffering, One smile call d up by unseen charity On the wan lips of hunger, or one prayer Breathed from the bosom of the penitent The stain'd with crime and outcast, unto whom Our mild rebuke and tenderness of love A merciful God hath bless'd. “But, lady, say, Did he not sometimes almost sink beneath The burden of his toil, and turn aside To weep above his sacrifice, and cast A sorrowing glance upon his childhood's home, Still green in memory ? Clung not to his heart Something of earthly hope uncrucified, Of earthly thonght unchastened? Did he bring Life's warm affections to the sacrifice -- Its loves, hopes, sorrows — and become as one Knowing no kindred but a perishing world, No love but of the sin-endangered soul, No hope but of the winning back to life Of the dead nations, and no passing thought Save of the errand wherewith he was sent As to a martyrdom?" Nay, though the heart Be consecrated to the holiest work Vouchsafed to mortal effort, there will be Ties of the earth around it, and, through all Its perilous devotion, it must keep Its own humanity. And it is well. Else why wept He, who with our nature veiled The spirit of a God, o'er lost Jerusalem, And the cold grave of Lazarus ? And why In the dim garden rose his earnest prayer, That from his lips the cup of suffering Might pass, if it were possible ? My friend Was of a gentle nature, and his heart Gushed like a river-fountain of the hills, “God forbid That he should die alone!” Nay, not alone. His God was with him in that last dread hour; His great arm underneath him, and His smile Melting into a spirit full of peace. And one kind friend, a human friend, was One whom his teachings and his earnest prayers Had snatch'd as from the burning. He alone Felt the last pressure of his failing hand, Caught the last glimpse of his closing eye, And laid the green turf over him with tears, And left him with his God. near “And was it well, Dear lady, that this noble mind should cast Its rich gifts on the waters? That a heart Full of all gentleness and truth and love Should wither on the suicidal shrine Of a mistaken duty? If I read Aright the fine intelligence which fills That amplitude of brow, and gazes out Like an indwelling spirit from that eye, He might have borne him loftily among The proudest of his land, and with a step a 508 APPENDIX Ceaseless and lavish, at a kindly smile, A word of welcome, or a tone of love. Freely his letters to his friends disclosed Flis yearnings for the quiet haunts of home, For love and its companionship, and all The blessings left behind him; yet above Its sorrows and its clouds his spirit rose, Tearful and yet triumphant, taking hold Of the eternal promises of God, And steadfast in its faith. Here are some lines Penned in his lonely mission-house and sent To a dear friend at home who even now Lingers above them with a mournful joy, Holding them well-nigh sacred as a leaf Plucked from the record of a breaking heart. EVENING IN BURMAH A night of wonder! piled afar With ebon feet and crests of snow, Like Himalaya's peaks, which bar The sunset and the sunset's star From half the shadowed vale below, Volumed and vast the dense clouds lie, And over them, and down the sky, Paled in the moon, the lightnings go. And what a strength of light and shade Is chequering all the earth below! And, through the jungle's verdant braid, Of tangled vine and wild reed made, What blossoms in the moonlight glow! The Indian rose's loveliness, The ceiba with its crimson dress, The twining myrtle dropped with snow. And fitting in the fragrant air, Or nestling in the shadowy trees, A thousand bright-hued birds are there - Strange plumage, quivering wild and rare, With every faintly breathing breeze; And, wet with dew from roses shed, The bulbul droops her weary head, Forgetful of her melodies. l'prising from the orange-leaves, The tall pagoda's turrets glow; O'er graceful shaft and frettei eaves, Its verdant web the myrtle weaves, And hangs in flowering wreaths below; And where the clustered palms eclipse The mounbeams, from its marble lips The fountain's silver waters flow. Strange beauty fills the earth and air, The fragrant grove and Howering tree, And vet my thoughts are wandering where My native rocks lie bleak and bare, A wenry way beyond the sea. The yearning spirit is not here; It linzon a spot more dear Than India's brightest bowers to me. M thinks I tread the well-known street The tree my childhood loved is there, Its bare-worn roots are at my fet, And through its open boughs I meet White glimpses of the place of prayer ; And unforgotten eyes again Are glancing through the cottage pane, Than Asia's lustrous eyes more fair. Oh, holy hannts! oh, childhood's home! Where, now, my wandering heart, stline Here, where the dusky heathen come To bow before the deaf and dumb, Dead idols of their own design; Where in their worshipped river's tide The infant sinks, and on its side The widow's funeral altars shine! Here, where, mid light and song and flower The priceless soul in ruin lies; Lost, dead to all those better power Which link this fallen world of ours To God's clear shining Paradise ; And wrong and shame and hideous crime Are like the foliage of their clime, The unshorn growth of centuries! Turn, then, my heart; thy home is here ; No other now remains for the: The smile of love, and friendship's tear, The tones that melted on thine rar, The mutual thrill of sympathr, The welcome of the household band, The pressure of the lip and hand, Thou mayst not hear, nor feel, nor see. God of my spirit! Thou, alone, Who watchest o'er my pillowed head, Whose ear is open to the monn And sorrowing of thy child, hast know The grief which at my heart has led ; The struggle of my soul to rise Above its earth-born sympathies; The tears of many a sleepless bed! Oh! be Thine arm, as it bath been, In every test of heart and faith, - The tempter's doubt, the wiles of men. The heathen's scoff, the bosuim sin, A helper and a stay beneath: A strength in weakness, through the strife And anguish of my wasting lite My solace and my hope, in death! MASSACHUSETTS Written on hearing that the Resolutid the Legislature of Massachusetts on tbe et of Slavery, presented by Hon. C.Cushing be House of Representatives of the l'uted.ar (in 1837] had been laid on the table unres and unreferred, under the infamous rule of " Pa ton's Resolution." And have they spurned thy word, Thou of the old Thirteen! POEMS PRINTED IN THE “LIFE OF WHITTIER” 509 II. POEMS PRINTED IN THE “LIFE OF WHITTIER" a Whose soil, where Freedom's blood first poured, Hath yet a darker green ? To outworn patience suffering long Is insult added to the wrong? And have they closed thy mouth, And fixed the padlock fast ? Dumb as the black slave of the South ! Is this thy fate at last ? Oh shame! thy honored seal and sign Trod under hoofs so asinine ! Call from the Capitol Thy chosen ones again, Unmeet for them the base control Of Slavery's curbing rein! Unmeet for men like them to feel The spurring of a rider's heel. When votes are things of trade And force is argument, Call back to Quincy's shade Thy old man eloquent. Why leave him longer striving thus With the wild beasts of Ephesus ! Back from the Capitol — It is no place for thee! Beneath the arch of Heaven's blue wall, Thy voice may still be free! What power shall chain thy utterance there, In God's free sun and freer air? A voice is calling thee, From all the martyr graves Of those stern men, in death made free, Who could not live as slaves. The slumberings of thy honored dead Are for thy sake disquieted. So let thy Fanenil Hall By freemen's feet be trod, And give the echoes of its wall Once more to Freedom's God ! And in the midst unseen shall stand The mighty fathers of thy land. Thy gathered sons shall feel The soul of Adams near, And Otis with his fiery zeal, And Warren's onward cheer ; And heart to heart shall thrill as when They moved and spake as living men. Not on Potomac's side, With treason in thy rear, Can Freedom's holy cause be tried : Not there, my State, but here. Here must thy needed work be done, The battle at thy hearth-stone wou. Proclaim a new crusade Against the foes within ; From bar and pulpit, press and trade, Cast out the shame and sin. Then speak thy now-unheeded word, Its lightest whisper shall be heard. THE HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE [The home of Sarah Greenleaf was upon the Newbury shore of the Merrimac, nearly oppo- site the home of the Whittiers. The house was standing until a recent date. Among Mr. Whittier's papers was found the following frag- ment of a ballad about the home-coning, as a bride, of his grandmother, Sarah Greenleaf, now first published.] SARAH GREENLEAF, of eighteen years, Stepped lightly her bridegroom's boat within, Waving mid-river, through smiles and tears, A farewell back to her kith and kin. With her sweet blue eyes and her new gold gown, She sat by her stalwart lover's side Oh, never was brought to Haverhill town By land or water so fair a bride. Glad as the glad autumnal weather, The Indian summer so soft and warm, They walked through the golden woods to- gether, His arm the girdle about her form. They passed the dam and the gray gristmill, Whose walls with the jar of grinding shook, And crossed, for the moment awed and still, The haunted bridge of the Country Brook. The great oaks seemed on Job's Hill crown To wave in welcome their branches strong, And an upland streamlet came rippling down Over root and rock, like a bridal song. And lo! in the midst of a clearing stood The rough-built farmhonse, low and lone, While all about it the unhewn wood Seemed drawing closer to claim its own. But the red apples dropped from orchard trees, The red cock crowed on the low fence rail, From the garden hives came the sound of bees, On the barn floor pealed the smiting flail. THE SONG OF THE VERMONTERS, 1779 (Written during school-days, and published anonymously in 1833. The secret of author- ship was not discovered for sixty years.] Ho-all to the borders! Vermonters, come down, With your breeches of deerskin and jackets of brown; With your red woollen caps, and your moccasins, To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum. come, а Come down with your rifles! Let gray wolf and fox Howl on in the shade of their primitive rocks; 510 APPENDIX Through rock-arched Winooskithe salmon bare free, And the portly shad follows all fresh frm the sea. outs, ruves, Let the bear feed secur. ecurely from pig-pen and stall; Here's two-legged game for your powder and ball. On our south came the Dutchmen, enveloped in grease ; And arming for battle while canting of peace ; On our east, crafty Meshech has gathered his band To hang up our leaders and eat up our land. Hlo- all to the rescue! For Satan shall work No gain for his legions of Hampshire and York! They claim our possessions – the pititul knaves - The tribute we pay shall be prisons and graves ! Let Clinton and Ten Broek, with bribes in their hands, Still seek to divide and parcel our lands; We've coats for our traitors, whoever they are ; The warp is of feathers - the filling of tar: Does the “old Bay State" threaten? Does Congress complain? Swarms llampshire in arms on our borders again? Bark the wardogs of Britain aloud on the lake - Let 'em come; what they can they are welcome to take. What seek they among us? The pride of our wealth Is comfort, contentment, and labor, and health, And lands which, as Freemen, we only have trod, Independent of all, save the mercies of God. Yet we owe no allegiance, we bow to no throne, Our ruler is law, and the law is our own; Our leaders themselves are our own fellow-men, Who can handle the sword, or the scythe, or the pen. Our wives are all true, and our daughters are fair, With their blue eyes of smiles and their light tlowing hair, All brisk at their wheels till the dark even-fall, Then blithe at the sleigh-ride, the husking, and ball! We've sheep on the hillsides, we've cows on the plain. And gay-tasselled corn-fields and rank-growing grain : There are dear on the mountains, and wood- pigeons fly From the crack of our muskets, like clouds on the sky, And there's fish in our streamlets and rivers which take Their cours from the hills to our broad-bosomed Lake; Like a sunbeam the pickerel glides thrash the pool, And the spotted trout sleeps where the warm is cool, Or darts from his shelter of rock an l of **** At the beaver's quick plunge, or the ama bers pursuit. And ours are the mountains, which awful.mp Till they rest their green heads on the band the skies; And ours are the forests unwasted, tinah, Save where the wild path of the terms with And though savage and wild be this cliersten And brief be our season of fruits and of them Far dearer the blast round our mountains : Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathe over slaves! Hurrah for Vermont! For the land binh ** till Must have sons to defend her from valley and hill; Leave the harvest to rot on the fields where grows, And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes. From far Michiscom's wild valley, to where Poosoonsuck steals down from his wuotoined lair, From Shocticook River to Lutterbeek town Ho - all to the rescue: Vermuten, es down! Come York or come Hampshire, come tra! or knaves, If ye rule o'er our land, ye shall rule o'rta graves; Our vow is recorded -- our banner unfuria! In the name of Vermont we dety all the w.pl 2 TO A POETICAL TRIO IN THE CITI GOTHAM [This jeu d'esprit was written by Whittar a 1832. The notes ar his own. The anthin was not discovered till after his death There wire men of (rtham Weat to see in a bl BARDs of the island citr! - what of d The Dutchman smoked beneath bus farvet true, And the wild eyes of Indian hunter med On Hon plunging in the roparica Scene of Stay Fesant's might and chivaly POEMS PRINTED IN THE “LIFE OF WHITTIER" 511 ܕܙ And Knickerbocker's fame, - I have made bold To come before ye, at the present time, And reason with ye in the way of rhyme. Time was when poets kept the quiet tenor Of their green pathway through th’ Arcadian vale, Chiming their music in the low sweet manner Of song-birds warbling to the "Soft South gale; Wooing the Muse where gentle zephyrs fan her, Where all is peace and earth may not assail ; Telling of lutes and flowers, of love and fear, Of shepherds, sheep and lambs, and " such small deer." Of coming foes in starry splendor sweeping, Thy graphic tales of battle or of wreck, Or lone night-watch in middle ocean keeping, Have made thy “Leisure Hours more prized by far Than those now spent in Party's wordy war.4 And last, not least, thou! - now nurtured in the land Where thy bold-hearted fathers long ago Rocked Freedom's cradle, till its infant hand Strangled the serpent fierceness of its foe, Thou, whose clear brow in early time was fanned By the soft airs which from Castalia flow ! 5 -- Where art thou now? feeding with hickory ladle The curs of Faction with thy daily twaddle! Men have looked up to thee, as one to be A portion of our glory; and the light And fairy hands of woman beckoned thee On to thy laurel guerdon; and those bright And gifted spirits, whom the broad blue sea Hath shut from thy communion, bid thee, Write," Like John of Patmos. Is all this forgotten, For Yankee brawls and Carolina cotton ? are But ye! lost recreants - straying from the green And pleasant vista of your early time, With broken lutes and crownless skulls seen Spattering your neighbors with abhorrent slime Of the low world's pollution !1 Ye have been So long apostates from the Heaven of rhyme, That of the Muses, every mother's daughter Blushes to own such graceless bards e'er sought her, ter, 2 mean " Hurrah for Jackson !" is the music now Which your cracked lutes have learned alone to utter, As, crouching in Corruption's shadow low, Ye daily sweep them for your bread and but- Cheered by the applauses of the friends who show Their heads above the offal of the gutter, And, like the trees which Orpheus moved at will, Reel, as in token of your matchless skill! Thou son of Scotia ! 3 — nursed beside the grave Of the proud peasant-minstrel, and to whom The wild muse of thy mountain-dwelling gave A portion of its spirit, – if the tomb Could burst its silence, o'er the Atlantic's wave, To thee his voice of stern rebuke would come, Who dared to waken with a master's hand The lyre of freedom in a fettered land. And thou ! once treading firmly the proud deck O'er which thy country's honored flag was sleeping, Calmly in peace, or to the hostile beck 1 Editors of the Mercantile Adrertiser and the Eren. ing Post in New York, - the present organs of Jack- soniam. 2 Perhaps, after all, they get something better ; inas- much as the Heroites have for some time had exclusive possession of the Hall of St. Tammany, and we have the authority of Halleck that " There's a barrel of porter in Tammany hall And the Bucktails are swigging it all the night long." à James Lawson, Esq., of the Mercantile. A fine, Are autumn's rainbow hues no longer seen? Flows the Green River" through its vale no more? Steals not thy “Rivulet" by its banks of green? Wheels upward from its dark and sedgy shore Thy “ Water Fowl” no longer ? — that the And vulgar strife, the ranting and the roar Extempore, like Bottom's should be thine, Thou feeblest truck-horse in the Hero's line! Lost trio! -turn ye to the minstrel pride Of classic Britain. Even effeminate Moore Has cast the wine-cup and the lute aside For Erin and O'Connell; and before His country's altar, Bulwer breasts the tide Of old oppression. Sadly brooding o'er The fate of heroes struggling to be free, Even Campbell speaks for Poland. Where are ye? Hirelings of traitors ! — know ye not that men Are rousing up around ye to retrieve Our country's honor, which too long has been Debased by those for whom ye daily weave warm-hearted Scotchman, who, having unfortunately blundered into Jacksonisin, is wondering “ how i' the Deil's name" he got there. He is the author of a vol. ume entitled Tales and Sketches, and of the tragedy of Giordano. + William Leggett, Esq., of the Post, a gentleman of good talents, favorably known as the editor of the New York Critic, etc. 6 William C. Bryant, Esq., well known to the public at large as a poet of acknowledged excellence; and as a very dull editor to the people of New York. 512 APPENDIX primar Your web of fustian; that from tongue and pen Of those who o'er our tarnished honor grieve, Of the pure-hearted and the gifted, come Hourly the tokens of your master's doom? Turn from their ruin! Dash your chains aside! Stand up like men for Liberty and Law, And free opinion. Check Corruption's pride, Soothe the loud storm of fratricidal war, And the bright honors of your eventide Shall share the glory which your morning saw; The patriot's heart shall gladden at your name, Ye shall be blessed with, and not · damned to fame"! ALBUM VERSES WHAT STATE STREET SAID TO SI TI CAROLINA, AND WHAT SOCIAL LAKO LINA SAID TO STATE STREET (Published in The National Era, May 22, 1-1) MUTTERING "fine upland staple," Island finer,” With cotton bales pictured on either retin “ Your pardon!" said State Street to ** Carolina ; "We feel and acknowledge your laws are d viner Than any, promulgated by the thunder et Sinai! Sorely pricked in the sensitive conscience de business We own and repent of ons sins of remien Our honor we've yielded, our words we bare swallowed ; And quenching the lights which our forefarben followed. And turning from graves by their membuat hallowed, With teeth on ball-cartridge, and finger on trs ger, Reversed Boston Notions, and sent back a ne ger! "Get away!” cried the Chivalry, busy a dram ming, And fifing and drilling, and such Quarule-bume ming; "With your April-fool slave hunt! Just ut till December Shall see your new Senator stalk through the Chamber, And Puritan heresy prove neither dumb me Blind in that pestilent Anakim, Sumber : [Written in the album of May Pillsbury of West Newbury, in the fall of 1835, when Whittier was at home on a visit from Phila- delphia, where he was engaged in editorial work) PARDON a stranger hand that gives Its impress to these gildled leaves. As one who graves in idle mood An idler's name on rock or wood, So in a careless hour I claim A page to leave my humble name. Accept it; and when o'er my head A Pennsylvanian sky is erread, And but in dreams my eye looks back On broad and lovely Merrimac, And on my ear no longer breaks The murmuring music which it makes, When but in dreams I look again On Salisbury beach -- Grasshopper plain – Or Powow stream - or Amesbury mills, Or old (rane neck, or Pipestave hills, Think of me then as one who keeps, Where Delaware's broad current sweeps, And down its rugged limestone-bed The Schuylkill's arrowy flight is sped, Deep in his heart the scenes which grace And glorify his " native place;" Loves every spot to childhood dear, And leaves his heart "untraveled " here; Longs, midst the Dutchman's kraut and greens, For pumpkin-pie and pork and beans, And sigly to think when, sweetly near, The soft piano grerte hin ear, That the fair hands which, small and white, Glance on its ivory polished light, llave ne'er an Indian pudding made, Nor fashioned rye and Indian bread. And oh! whene'er his footsteps turn, Whatever stans above him burn, Though dwelling where a Yankee's name Is coupled with reproach or shame, Still true to his New England birth, Suill faithful to his home and hearth, Even 'n the scorind stranger ind His boast shall be of YANKŁE LAND. A FRÉMONT CAMPAIGN SONG Sornd now the trumpet warningly! The storm is rolling nearer, The hour is striking clearr. In the dusty dome of sky. If dark and wild the morning bre, A darker morn before us Shall fling its shadows ofertas If we let the hour goby. Sound we then the trump e chora! Sound the onset wild and high! Country and Liberty! Freedom and Victory! Those words shall be our cry. Frémont and l'ictory! Sonnd, sound the trumput fearlsly! Each arın its vigor lendins. Bravely with wrong contendim. And shouting Freedom.cn! The Kansas homes stanı ihrerinly. The sky with tlame is ruddy, The prairie turf is blowly. Where the brave and geatle die. POEMS PRINTED IN THE “LIFE OF WHITTIER " 513 Sound the trumpet stern and steady! Sound the trumpet strong and high! Country and Liberty ! Freedom and Victory! These words shall be our cry, — Frémont and Victory! Sound now the trumpet cheerily ! Nor dream of Heaven's forsaking The issue of its making, That Right with Wrong must try. The cloud that hung so drearily The Northern winds are breaking ; The Northern Lights are shaking Their fire-flags in the sky. Sound the signal of awaking; Sound the onset wild and high ! Country and Liberty! Freedom and Victory! These words shall be our cry, — Frémont and Victory! THE QUAKERS ARE OUT [A campaign song written to be sung at a Republican Mass Meeting held in Newbury- port, Mass., October 11, 1860.] Not vainly we waited and counted the hours, The buds of our hope have all burst into flowers. No room for misgiving no loop - hole of doubt, We've heard from the Keystone! The Qua- kers are out. SHOULD you go to Centre Harbor, As haply you some time may, Sailing up the Winnepesaukee From the hills of Alton Bay, Into the heart of the highlands, Into the north wind free, Through the rising and vanishing islands, Over the mountain sea, To the little hamlet lying White in its mountain fold, Asleep by the lake and dreaming A dream that is never told, - And in the Red Hill's shadow Your pilgrim home you make, Where the chambers open to sunrise, The mountains, and the lake, - If the pleasant picture wearies, As the fairest sometimes will, And the weight of the hills lies on you And the water is all too still, If in vain the peaks of Gunstock Redden with sunrise fire, And the sky and the purple mountains And the sunset islands tire, - If you turn from in-door thrumming And the clatter of bowls without, And the folly that goes on its travels, Bearing the city about, And the cares you left behind you Come hunting along your track, As Blue-Cap in German fable Rode on the traveller's pack, - Let me tell you a tender story Of one who is now no more, A tale to haunt like a spirit The Winnepesaukee shore, – Of one who was brave and gentle, And strong for manly strife, Riding with cheering and music Into the tourney of life. Faltering and failing midway In the Tempter's subtle snare, The chains of an evil habit He bowed himself to bear. Over his fresh young manhood The bestial veil was flung, The curse of the wine of Circe, The spell her weavers sung. Yearly did hill and lakeside Their summer idyls frame; Alone in his darkened dwelling He hid his face for shame. The music of life's great marches Sounded for him in vain ; The plot has exploded we've found out the trick; The bribe goes a-begging; the poison won't stick. When the Wide-awake lanterns are shining about, The rogues stay at home, and the true men are out! The good State has broken the cords for her spun; Her oil-springs and water won't fuse into one ; The Dutchman has seasoned with Freedom his krout, And slow, late, but certain, the Quakers are out! Give the flags to the winds ! set the hills all aflame! Make way for the man with the Patriarch's name! Away with misgiving away with all doubt, For Lincoln goes in, when the Quakers are out! A LEGEND OF THE LAKE [This poem, originally printed in the “ At- lantic Monthly,” was withheld from publica- tion in his volumes by Mr. Whittier, in defer- ence to living relatives of the hero of the poem. Death finally removed the restriction.] 514 APPENDIX O Christ! by whom the loring, Though erring, are tonisea, Hast thou for him no refur, No quiet place in heaven? Give palms to thy strong martire And crown thy saints with gold But let the mother welcome Her lost one to thy fold! sorrow The voices of human duty Smote on his ear like pain. In vain over island and water The curtains of sunset swung ; In vain on the beautiful mountains The pictures of God were hung. The wretched years crept onward, Each sadder than the last ; All the bloom of life fell from him, All the freshness and greenness past. But deep in his heart forever And unprofaned he kept The love of his saintly mother, Who in the graveyard slept. His house had no pleasant pictures ; Its comfortless walls were bare : But the riches of earth and ocean Could not purchase his mother's chair. The old chair, quaintly carven, With oaken arms outspread, Whereby, in the long gone twilights, His childish prayers were said. For thence in his long night watches, By moon or starlight dim, A face full of love and pity And tenderness looked on him. And oft, as the grieving presence Sat in his mother's chair, The groan of his self-upbraiding Grew into wordless prayer. At last, in the moonless midnight, The summoning angel came, Severe in his pity, touching The house with fingers of flame. The red light flashed from its windows And Hared from its sinking roof; And battled and awed before it The villagers stood aloof. They shrank from the falling rafters, They turned from the furnace glare ; But its tenant cried, " God help me! I must save my mother's chair." I'nder the blazing portal, Over the floor of fire, He seemed, in the terrible splendor, A martyr on his pyre. Irr his face the mad flames smote him, And stung him on either side; But he clung to the sacred relic - By bis mother's chair be died ! O mother, with human yearnings ! O saint, by the altar stairs ! Shall not the dear God give thee The child of thy many prayers? LETTER TO LUCY LARCOM 5th 31mno. 14 BELIEVE me, Lucy Larcom, it gives me pa That I cannot take my carpet-bag and . town to-morrow: But I'm snow-bound," and cold wal like layers of an anion, Have piled my back and wrighed me dess." with the pack of Bunyan. The north-east wind is daiper and the *** west wind is colder, Or else the matter simply is that I am Tv older. And then I dare not trust a moon seen otet left shoulder, As I saw this with slender horns eaucht . west hill-pine, As on a Stamboul minaret curtes the arek 2. postor's sign, So I must stay in Amesbury, and bre per your way, And guess what colors greet your eyes, shapıs your steps delay; What pictured forms of heathen lure of and goddess please yon, What idol graven images you bep your knees to. But why should I of evil dream, web kn'." at your head goes That flower of Christian womanhood, er good Anna Meadows. She 'll be discreet, I'm sure, although me a freak romantic, She fiung the Doge's bridal ring, ani muut * The Atlantic"! And spite of all appearances, like the EU a shoe, She's got so many Young Folks * pr. don't know what to do. But I must say I think it strange that she wound Mrs. Spaulding, Whose lives with Calvin's fire-railed copy been so tightly walled in, Should quit your Puritan bumes, and take the pains to go So far, with malice aforethought, to aks a vain show"! Did Emmons hunt for pictures. Was J Edwaris peeping Into the chambers of imagery, with muda ir 'Tammuz weeping: Ah well! the times are sadly channel myself am feeling POEMS PRINTED IN THE “LIFE OF WHITTIER" 515 The wicked world my Quaker coat from off my shoulders peeling. God grant that in the strange new sea of change wherein we swim, We still may keep the good old plank, of simple faith in Him! LINES ON LEAVING APPLEDORE [Sent in a letter to Celia Thaxter.] UNDER the shadow of a cloud, the light Died out upon the waters, like a smile Chased from a face by grief. Following the flight Of a lone bird that, scudding with the breeze, Dipped its crank wing in leaden-colored seas, I saw in sunshine lifted, clear and bright, On the horizon's rim the Fortunate Isle That claims thee as its fair inhabitant, And glad of heart I whispered, “Be to her, Bird of the summer sea, my messenger; Tell her, if Heaven a fervent prayer will grant, This light that falls her island home above Making its slopes of rock and greenness gay, A partial glory midst surrounding gray, Shall prove an earnest of our Father's love, More and more shining to the perfect day.” The question of labor Is solved by our neighbor, The old riddle guessed out: The wisdom sore needed, The truth long unheeded, Her flat-iron 's pressed out! Thanks, then, to Kate Choate! Let the idle take note What their fingers were made for ; She, cheerful and jolly, Worked on late and early, And bought — what she paid for! Never vainly repining, Nor begging, nor whining ; The morning-star twinkles On no heart that 's lighter As she makes the world whiter And smooths out its wrinkles. So, long life to Kate! May her heirs have to wait Till they ’re gray in attendance ; And her flat-iron press on, Still teaching its lesson Of brave independence ! a MRS. CHOATE'S HOUSE-WARMING ["His washerwoman, Mrs. Choate, by indus- try and thrift had been enabled to build for her family a comfortable house. When it was ready for occupancy, there was a house-warm- ing, attended by all the neighbors, who brought substantial tokens of their good-will, including all the furniture needed in her new parlor. Mr. Whittier's hand was to be seen in the whole movement; he was present at the festiv- ity, and made a little speech, congratulating Mrs. Choate upon her well-deserved success in life, and said he would read a piece of machine poetry which had been intrusted to him for the occasion. These are the lines, which were, of course, of his own composition.” -S. T. Pick- ARD, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whit- tier.) AN AUTOGRAPH [Written for an old friend, Rev. S. H. Em- ery, of Quincy, Ill., who revisited Whittier in 1868.] The years that since we met have flown Leave as they found me, still alone : No wife, nor child, nor grandchild dear, Are mine the heart of age to cheer. More favored thou, with hair less gray Than mine, canst let thy fancy stray To where thy little Constance sees The prairie ripple in the breeze ; For one like her to lisp thy name Is better than the voice of fame. TO LUCY LARCOM 3d mo., 1870. OF rights and of wrongs Let the feminine tongues Talk on — none forbid it. Our hostess best knew What her hands found to do, Asked no questions, but DID IT. Here the lesson of work, Which so many folks shirk, Is so plain all may learn it; Each brick in this dwelling, Each timber is telling, If you want a home, EARN IT. PRAY give the · Atlantic ; A brief unpedantie Review of Miss Phelps' book, Which teaches and helps folk To deal with the offenders In love which surrenders All pride unforgiving, The lost one receiving With truthful believing That she like all others, Our sisters and brothers, Is only a sinner Whom God's love within her Can change to the whiteness Of heaven's own brightness. For who shall see tarnish If He sweep and garnish ? 516 APPENDIX When He is the cleanser Shall we dare to censure ? Say to Fields, if he ask of it, I can't take the task of it. P.S. For myself, if I'm able, And half comfortable, I shall run for the seashore To some place as before, Where blunt we at least find The teeth of the East wind, And spring does not tarry As it does at Amesbury ; But where it will be to I cannot yet see to. LIKE that ancestral judge who bore his ima. Faithful to Freedom and to Truth, be a When all the air was hot with wrath anu le His youth and manhood to the triteret har And never Woman in her suffering aw A helper tender, wise, and brave as be; Lifting her burden of unrighteous law, He shamed the breast of ancient chivalry. Noiseless as light that melts the darkness He wrought as duty led and honor bred. No trumpet heralds victories like his, -- The unselfish worker in his work is hid. A FAREWELL [Written for Mr. and Mrs. Claflin as they were about to sail to Europe.] What shall I say, dear friends, to whom I owe The choicest blessings, dropping from the hands Of trustful love and friendship, as you go Forth on your journey to those older lands, By saint and sage and bard and hero trod ? Scarcely the simple farewell of the Friends Sutliceth ; after you my full heart sends Such benediction as the pilgrin hears Where the Greek faith its golden dome uprears, From Crimea's roses to Archangel snows, The fittest prayer of parting : "Go with God!” LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBIN (The album belonged to the gran af Whittier's life-long friend, Theodore DL and the lines were written in April, 1.4 What shall I wish him? Strength and brands May be abused, and so may wealth. Even fame itself may come to be But wearying notoriety. What better can I ask than this? A life of brave unselfishness. Wisdom for council, eloquence For Freedom's need, for Truth's defence, The championship of all that 's gond, The manliest faith in womanhood. The steadfast friendship changing not With change of time or place or lot, Hatred of sin, but not the less A heart of pitying tenderness And charity, that, suffering long, Shames the wrong-doer from his wrong: One wish expresses all – that he May even as his grandsire be! ON A FLY - LEAF OF LONGFELLOWS POEMS [Written at the Asquam House in the sum- mer of 1882.) HUSHED now the sweet consoling tongue Of him whose lyre the Muses strung ; His last low swan-song has been sung! His last! And ours, dear friend, is near; As clouds that rake the mountains here, We too shall pass and disappear. Yet howsoever changed or tost, Not even a wreath of mist is lost, No atom can itself exhaust. So shall the soul's superior force Live on and run its endless course In God's unlimited universe. And we, whose brief reflections serm To fade like clouds from lake and stream, Shall brighten in a holier beam. A DAY'S JOURNEY (Written in 1888, for the tenth anniversaire of the wedding of bis niece.) AFTER your pleasant morning travel You pause as at a wayside inn. And take with grateful hearts your breakfast Though served in dishes all of tis. Then go, while years as hours are counted. l'ntil the dial's hand at noon Invites you to a dinner table Garnished with silver fork and spoon And when the vesper bell to supper Is calling, and the day is old, May love transmute the tin of merning And noonday's silver into GOLD. SAMU'EL E. SEWALL (An inscription for a marble bust, modelled by Anne Whitney, and placed in the Cary Li- brary, Lexington, Mass, May, 18.] A FRAGMENT [Found among Mr. Whittier's papers in La handwriting, but undated.] NOTES 517 THE dreadful burden of our sins we feel, The pain of wounds which Thou alone canst heal, To whom our weakness is our strong appeal. From the black depths, the ashes, and the dross Of our waste lives, we reach out to Thy cross, And by its fullness nieasure all our loss ! That holy sign reveals Thee : throned above No Moloch sits, no false, vindictive Jove- Thou art our Father, and Thy name is Love! 1 III. NOTES Page 5. Sole Pythoness of Ancient Lynn. The Pythoness of ancient Lynn was the re- doubtable Moll Pitcher, who lived under the shadow of High Rock in that town, and was sought far and wide for her supposed powers of divination. She died about 1810. Mr. Upham, in his Salem Witchcraft, has given an account of her. Page 12. St. John. [Dr. Francis Parkman has given a detailed account of this episode in New England history in The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia, published in The Atlantic Monthly, January, February, 1893. The same series of incidents forms the basis of the romance by Mrs. Mary Hartwell Cather- wood, entitled The Lady of Fort St. John.] Page 21. The New Wife and the Old. (General Moulton's mansion may still be seen (1894) from the train, a hip-roofed house, stand- ing on the right-hand side of the track, just be- fore reaching the Hampton station as one comes from Boston. Twenty-five years after writing the poem, Mr. Whittier received a letter from a lady who had been spending a summer in the Moulton house, in which she said : “I remem- ber my mother's repeating to me her recollec- tions of the exorcising of the ghosts of General Moulton and his wife by a parson Milton or Bodily (the Rev. John Boddily, who died in 1802, and is buried in a Newburyport burying- ground). My grandfather Whipple being ab- sent, the servants (several of them had been slaves in Newport) insisted that General Moul- ton and his wife disturbed the house so much at night, he thumping with his cane, and her dress *a-rustling up and down the stairs,' that nothing could allay their terror; and one Mrs. Williams, the housekeeper, persisted so strongly that she frequently saw them both, he in a snuff-colored suit and enormous wiy, holding a gold-headed cane, that nothing could induce them to remain in the house. Many persons in the vicinity came to the exorcising, or laying the ghosts' as they termed it. My mother said the scene was very impressive to her as a child, and she could never forget the white and black servants and neigh- bors, standing in solemn awe, and the abjuring of the minister. The servants, I believe, never afterwards complained of being disturbed or of seeing the ghosts, after this ceremony.", In his work on The Supernaturalism of New England, published in 1847, Mr. Whittier relates the legend of the ancient house. "Gen- eral Moulton's house was once burned in re- venge, it is said, by the fiend, whom the former had outwitted. He had agreed, it seems, to furnish the general with a boot full of gold and silver, poured annually down the chimney. The shrewd Yankee cut off on one occasion the foot of the boot, and the Devil kept pouring down the coin from the chimney top, in a vain at- tempt to fill it, until the room was literally packed with the precious metal. When the general died, he was laid out, and put in a coffin as usual; but on the day of the funeral it was whispered about that his body was missing, and the neighbors came to the charitable con- clusion that the enemy had got his own at last."'] Page 26. Here the mighty Bashaba. Bashaba was the name which the Indians of New England gave to two or three of their prin- cipal chiefs, to whom all their inferior sagamores acknowledged allegiance. Passaconaway seems to have been one of these chiefs. His residence was at Pennacook. (Mass, Hist. Coll., vol. ij. pp. 21, 22.) “He was regarded," says Hub- bard, as a great sorcerer, and his fame was widely spread. It was said of him that he could cause a green leaf to grow in winter, trees to dance, water to burn, etc. He was, undoubt- edly, one of those shrewd and powerful men whose achievements are always regarded by a barbarous people as the result of supernatural aid. The Indians gave to such the names of Powahs or Panisees." “ The Panisees are men of great courage and wisdom, and to these the Devill appeareth more familiarly than to others.”. Winslow's Rela- tion. Page 28. Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo. “ The Indians," says Roger Williams, “ have a god whom they call Wetuomanit, who pre- sides over the household." Page 29. Druwn from that great stone vase. There are rocks in the river at the Falls of Amoskeag, in the cavities of which, tradition says, the Indians formerly stored and concealed their corn. Page 31. Aukeetamit. The Spring God. - See Roger Williams's Key to the Indian Language. Page :333. Mat vonck kunna-monee. We shall see thee or her no more. See Roger Williams's key. Page 33. Souanna. “ The Great South West God." - See Roger Williams's Observations, etc. Page 31. Is we charged on Tilly's line. The barbarities of Count De Tilly after the siege of Magdeburg made such an impression upon our forefathers that the phrase "like old 1 This is an alternative reading which has been can- celled :- " No lawless Terror dwells in light above, Cruel as Moloch, deaf and false as Jove - Thou art our Father, and Thy name is Love!" 518 APPENDIX Tilly " is still heard sometimes in New England of any piece of special ferocity. Page 12. 1 fire-mount in a frozen zone. Dr. Hooker, who accompanied Sir James Ross in his expedition of 1841, thus describes the appearance of that unknown land of frost and fire which was seen in latitude 77° south, -- a stupendous chain of mountains, the whole mass of which, froin its highest point to the ocean, was covered with everlasting snow and ice : - “The water and the sky were both as blue, or rather more intensely blue, than I have ever seen them in the tropics, and all the coast was one mass of dazzlingly beautiful peaks of snow, which, when the sun approached the horizon, re- flected the most brilliant tints of golden yellow and scarlet ; and then, to see the dark cloud of smoke, tinged with flame, rising from the vol- cano in a perfect unbroken column, one side jet-black, the other giving back the colors of the sun, sometimes turning off at a right angle by some current of wind, and stretching many miles to leeward! This was a sight so surpass- ing everything that can be imagined, and so heightened by the consciousness that we had penetrated, under the guidance of our com- mander, into regions far beyond what was ever deemed practicable, that it caused a feeling of awe to steal over us at the consideration of our own comparative insigniticance and helpless- ness, and at the same time an indescribable feeling of the greatness of the Creator in the works of his hand." Page 39. Here is the place. (* The place Whittier had in mind was his birthplace. There were bee-hives on the gar- den terrace near the well-sweep, occupied per- haps by the descendants of Thomas Whittier's bees. The approach to the house from over the northern shoulder of Jub's Hull by a path that was in constant use in his boyhood and still in existence, is accurately described in the poem. The gap in the old wall' is still to be seen, and the stepping stones in the shallow brook' are still in itse. His sister's garden was down by the brook-side in front of the house, and her datfodils are perpetuated and may now be found in their season each year in that place. The red-barred gate, the poplars, the cattle yard with the white horns tossing above the wall,' were all part of Whittier's boy life on the old farmu. Even the touch of the sundown's blaze on her window pane' is realistic. The only place from which the blaze of the setting sun could be seen riflected in the windous of the old mansion is from the path so perfectly described. ... All the story about Mary and her lover is wholly imaginative. S. T. PICK- Ard in his Life and Letters of John Greenie af Whittier. Page 67. Of the fast which the good man life- lony kept. It was the enstom in Sewall's time for churches and individuals to hold fasts whenever any public or private need suggested the fitness ; and as state and church were very closely con- nected, the General ('ourt sometim unte! a fast. Out of this custom sprang the aiku fast in spring, now observed (ints, but it is comparatively recent date. Such a fast was verything dered on the 14th of January, 106, when made his special confession of guilt in de voor ing innocent persons under the suppaat they were witches, He is said to have als the day privately on each annual return the after. Page 68. IIis burilen of prophecy yet rem- (In point of fact the old man w16 good," propped on his staff of a. forty-five years old wheu he uttered bras phrey.) Page 69. The Red Rire l'oraxur. (The church of St. Boniface was born in 1860, the year after The Red Rirve pas was printed. The bells were broken in ) 1 fall, and the fragments were sent to Loved. recast by their original founder, and most v to their place in the new cathedral of St. Burada face.) Page 77. Cobbler Kezar's l'iston. [For a fuller account of (obbler har Whittier's paper on The Border War - 1 A 23 his Prose l'orks, volume II. pp. 3. incl. (ed bler Keezar was wont to pitch his trutenir Hill and mend the foot-gear of the Imry people. The old towns of Amesbury and see bury, within a few years consolidated wits divided by the Powow River. The falls scribed in the poem are concraled fruitu si. now by the factories and the arches which sa the river.) Page 78. Or the stone of Dr. Dre, Dr. John Dee was a man of eruditive had an extensive museum, library, and a fare tus; he claimed to be an astrologet. an ka 4 acquired the reputation of having : ! *** evil spirits, and a mob was raised while dhe stroyed the greater part of his pas professed to raise the dead and had a crystal. He died a pauper in 10K. Page 1. The Countr«$. (There is a slight inaccuracy in hi-*- head note to The Countess. Accordin: '* WE Rebecca I. Davis, Gleanings from the 13 the Merrimac, where she gives her i bone the marriage took place March 21. 1* Countess died January , ini. Count 1 * returned to Guadaloupe whence he had to this country at the time of the instaly there he married again, and there he ti 2.8 way buried, but his remains were afr* removed to the family tamb in Briei. France. Mr. Matthew Whittir. best ! only brother, married Abby, dauzhter seph Rothemont de Poyen. Page 1015. The Penrisurunia P. A. ('The following long bote onna's as an introduction to the poinThe four ning of Gherman emigration to menterian traced to the pernal influenee of shannon Penn, who in 1077 visited the Continent made the acquaintance of an intali highly cultivated circle of Betists, or lys- NOTES 519 57 who, reviving in the seventeenth century the spiritual faith and worship of Tauler and the * Friends of God” in the fourteenth, gathered about the pastor Spener, and the young and beautiful Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau. In this circle originated the Frankfort Land Con- pany, which bought of William Penn, the Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania, a tract of land near the new city of Philadelphia. The company's agent in the New World was a rising young lawyer, Francis Daniel Pastorius, son of Judge Pastorius, of Windsheim, who, at the age of seventeen, entered the University of Altort. He studied law at Strasburg, Basle, and Jena, and at Ratisbon, the seat of the Im- perial Government, obtained a practical know- ledge of international polity. Successful in all his examinations and disputations, he received the degree of Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676. In 1679 he was a law-lecturer at Frank- fort, where he became deeply interested in the teachings of Dr. Spener. In 1680–81 he trav- elled in France, England, Ireland, and Italy with his friend Herr Von Rodeck. “I was, of my Christian friends, rather than be with Von Rodeck, feasting and dancing.' In 1683, in company with a small number of German Friends, he emigrated to America, settling upon the Frankfort Company's tract between the Schuylkill and the Delaware rivers. The township was divided into four hamlets, namely, Germantown, Krisheim, Crefield, and Sommer- hausen. Soon after his arrival he united him- self with the Society of Friends, and became one of its most able and devoted members, as well as the recognized head and lawgiver of the settlement. He married, two years after his arrival, Anneke (Anna), daughter of Dr. Klos- terman, of Muhlheim. In the year 16-8 he drew up a memorial against slaveholding, which was adopted by the Germantown Friends and sent up to the Monthly Meeting, and thence to the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia. It is noteworthy as the first protest made by a religious body against Negro Slavery. The original document was discovered in 1914 by the Philadelphia an- tiquarian, Nathan Kite, and published in The Friend (Vol. XVIII. No. 16). It is a bold and direct appeal to the best instincts of the heart. * Have not, he asks, *these negroes as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them slaves ? " Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the Germantown settlement grew and prospered. The inhabitants planted orchards and vine- yards, and surrounded themselves with souve- nirs of their old bome. A large number of them were linen-weavers, as well as small farmers. The Quakers were the principal sect, but men of all religions were tolerated, and lived to- gether in harmony. In 1692 Richard Frame published, in what he called verse, a Descrip- tion of Pennsylvania, in which he alludes to the settlement:- “ The German town of which I spoke before, Which is at least in length one mile or more, Where lives High German people and Low Dutch, Whose trade in weaving linen cloth is much, There grows the flax, as also you may know That from the same they do divide the tow. Their trade suits well their habitation, We find convenience for their occupation." Pastorius seems to have been on intimate terms with William Penn, Thomas Lloyd, Chief Justice Logan, Thomas Story, and other leading men in the Province belonging to his own religious society, as also with Kelpius, the learned Mystic of the Wissahickon, with the pastor of the Swedes' church, and the leaders of the Mennonites. He wrote a description of Pennsylvania, which was published at Frank- fort and Leipsic in 1700 and 1701. His Lives of the Saints, etc., written in German and dedi- cated to Professor Schurmberg, his old teacher, was published in 1690. He left behind him many unpublished manuscripts covering a very wide range of subjects, most of which are now lost. One huge manuscript folio, entitled Hive Beestock, Melliotropheum Alucar, or Rusca Apium, still remains, containing one thousand pages with about one hundred lines to a page. It is a medley of knowledge and fancy, history, philosophy, and poetry, written in seven lan- guages. A large portion of his poetry is de- voted to the pleasures of gardening, the descrip- tion of flowers, and the care of bees. The following specimen of his punning Latin is ad- dressed to an orchard-pilferer: “Quisquis in hæc furtim reptas viridaria nostra Tangere fallaci poma caveto manu, Si non obsequeris faxit Deus omne quod opto, Cum malis nostris ut mala cuucta feras." Professor Oswald Seidensticker, to whose pa- pers in Der Deutsche Pioneer and that able periodical The Penn Monthly, of Philadelphia, I am indebted for many of the foregoing facts in regard to the German pilgrims of the New World, thus closes his notice of Pastorius : “No tombstone, not even a record of burial, indicates where his remains have found their last resting-place, and the pardonable desire to associate the homage due to this distinguished man with some visible memento cannot be grati- fied. There is no reason to suppose that he was interred in any other place than the Friends' old burying-ground in Germantown, though the fact is not attested by any definite source of in- formation. After all, this obliteration of the last trace of his earthly existence is but typical of what has overtaken the times which he rep- resents; that Germantown which he founded, which saw him live and move, is at present but a quaint idyl of the past, almost a myth, barely remembered and little cared for by the keener race that has succeeded." The Pilgrims of Plymonth have not lacked historian and poet. Justice has been done to their faith, courage, and self-sacrifice and to the mighty influence of their endeavors to es- tablish righteousness on the earth. The Quaker 520 APPENDIX pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same ob- ent time, such a picture will find farur ...» ject by different means, have not been equally well be questioned. I only know that it is an fortunate. The power of their testimony for beguiled for me some hours of wrann - truth and holiness, peace and freedom, enforced that, whatever may be its measure of your only by what Milton calls “the unresistible appreciation, it has been to me its owurwar: might of meekness," has been felt through two Page 104. ils once he heard in sem centuries in the amelioration of penal severi- Merlau's bouers. ties, the abolition of slavery, the reform of the Eleonora Johanna Von Merlan, of, 24 erring, the relief of the poor and suffering, the Quaker Historian gives it, Von Merlan felt, in brief, in every step of human progress. noble young lady of Frankfurt, sers to But of the men themselves, with the single ex- held among the Mystics of that city ser en ception of William Penn, scarcely anything is such a position as Anna Maria shuru: 4,4 known. Contrasted, from the outset, with the among the Labadists of Holland. W stern, aggressive Puritans of New England, Penn appears to have shared the admira 116 they have come to be regarded as ' a feeble her own immediate circle for this accumplikad folk," with a personality as doubtful as their and gifted lady. unrecorded graves. They were not soldiers, Page 106. Or painful Kelpius from ha hop like Miles Standish ; they had no figure so pic- mit den. turesque as Vane, nó leader so rashly brave and Magister Johann Kilpius, a graduate of haughty as Endicott. No Cotton Mather wrote University of Helmstadt, came to Pransylv" their Magnalia ; they had no awful drama of in 1694, with a company of German My supernaturalism in which Satan and his angels They made their home in the sole is were actors; and the only witch mentioned in Wissahickon, a little went of the Q .shrs -*". their simple annals was a poor old Swedish ment of Germantown. Kolping wis a km?.** woman, who, on complaint of her country- in the near approach of the Millennium, ar women, was tried and acquitted of everything a devout student of the Book of Re. but imbecility and folly. Nothing but common- and the Morgen-Rothe of Jacob Bahmre. He place ottices of civility came to pass between called his settlement " The Wiman in them and the Indians; indeed, their enemies Wilderness" (Dus Weib in der Wurstor. taunted them with the fact that the savages was only twenty-four year of Reyes bem did not regard them as Christians, but just came to America, but his gravity, lears," such men as themselves. Yet it must be appar- and devotion placed him at the bead esi ent to every careful observer of the progress settlement. Ile disliked the Quaken op. of American civilization that its two principal he thought they were too exclusive in the amo" currents had their sources in the entirely op- ter of ministers. He was like met ve posite directions of the Puritan and Quaker Mystics, oppersed to the severe destinul 7. colonies. To use the words of a late writer: 1 of Calvin and even Luther, de larin: "Lire ** The historical forces, with which no others could as little agree with the Du numurs may be compared in their intinence on the peo- Augsburg Confession as with the ainutke su u ple. have been those of the Puritan and the the Council of Trent." Quaker. The strength of the one was in the He died in 1714, sitting in his little part, confession of an invisible Presence, a righteous, surrounded by his grieving disciples. Prs: 4 eternal Will, which would establish righteous- to his death it is said that he cast his far ness on earth; and thence arose the conviction * Stone of Wisdom" into the nves. of a direct personal responsibility, which could that mystic souvenir of the time of puli be tempted by no eternal splendor and could be mont, Paracelsus, and Agrippa has had ever shaken by no internal agitation, and could not since, undisturbed. be evaded or transferred. The strength of the Page 106. Or Sluyter, saintly familie, other was the witness in the human spirit to an word. eternal Word, an Inner Voice which spoke to Peter Sluyter, or Schluter, a natisnif W. each alone, while yet it spoke to every man; a united himself with the sect of late 1 Light which each was to follow, and which vet believed in the Divine commission of an was the light of the world; and all other voices Labadie, a Roman Catholic prest eater were silent before this, and the solitary path to Protestantismu, enthusiastse, kuvut whither it led was more sucred than the worn | evidently sincere in his special calling and ways of cathedral-aisles." tion to separate the true and living in un It will be sufficiently apparent to the reader the Church of Christ from the forman that, in the porn which follows, I have at- hypocrisy of the ruling serts. Gronkiti tempted nothing beyond a study of the life and Robert Barclay visited him at nummet af ..' times of the Pennsylvania colonist, a simple afterward at the communitive of 11.7 picture of a note worthy man and his locality. Winward; and, according to Grind post The colors of my skrich are all very sober, him so near to them on some points 1 • toned down to the quiet and dreamy atmos- offered to take him into the Smrton - phere through which its subject is visible. This offer, if it was really made, whh so Whether, in the glare and tumult of the pres- tainly doubtful, wax, happily for the trente least, declined. Tuvited to Hartado -- Mulford's The Nation, pp. 267, 268. i phalia by Elizabeth, daughter the better 1 & NOTES 521 Palatine, De Labadie and his followers preached incessantly, and succeeded in arousing a wild enthusiasm among the people, who neg- lected their business and gave way to excite- ments and strange practices. Men and women, it was said, at the Communion drank and danced together, and private marriages, or spiritual unions, were formed. Labadie died in 1674 at Altona, in Denmark, maintaining his testimo- nies to the last. “Nothing remains for me," he said, “except to go to my God. Death is merely ascending from a lower and narrower chamber to one higher and holier." In 1679, Peter Sluyter and Jasper Dankers were sent to America by the community at the Castle of Wieward. Their journal, translated from the Dutch and edited by Henry C. Murphy, has been recently (1872) published by the Long Island Historical Society. They made some con- verts, and among them was the eldest son of Her- manns, the proprietor of a rich tract of land at the head of Chesapeake Bay, known as Bohemia Manor. Sluyter obtained a grant of this tract, and established upon it a community numbering at one time a hundred souls. Very contradic- tory statements are on record regarding his headship of this spiritual family, the discipline of which seems to have been of more than mo- nastic severity. Certain it is that he bought and sold slaves, and manifested more interest in the world's goods than became a believer in the near Millennium. He evinces in his jour- nal an overweening spiritual pride, and speaks contemptuously of other professors, especially the Quakers whom he met in his travels. The latter, on the contrary, seem to have looked favorably upon the Labadists, and uniformly speak of them courteously and kindly. His journal shows him to have been destitute of common gratitude and Christian charity. He threw himself upon the generous hospitality of the Friends wherever he went, and repaid their kindness by the coarsest abuse and misrepre- sentation. Page 107. His long-disused and half-forgotten lore. Among the pioneer Friends were many men of learning and broad and liberal views. Penn was conversant with every department of liter- ature and philosophy. Thomas Lloyd was a ripe and rare scholar. The great Loganian Library of Philadelphia bears witness to the varied learning and classical taste of its donor, James Logan. Thomas Story, member of the Council of State, Master of the Rolls and Com- missioner of Claims under William Penn, and an able minister of his Society, took a deep interest in scientific questions, and in a letter to his friend Logan, written while on a religious visit to Great Britain, seems to have anticipated the conclusion of modern geologists. “I spent,” he says, “ some months, especially at Scarbor- ough, during the season attending meetings, at whose high cliffs and the variety of strata therein and their several positions I further learned and was confirmed in some things, – that the earth is of much older date as to the beginning of it than the time assigned in the Holy Scriptures as commonly understood, which is suited to the common capacities of mankind, as to six days of progressive work, by which I understand certain long and competent periods of time, and not natural days.". It was some- times made a matter of reproach by the Ana- baptists and other sects, that the Quakers read profane writings and philosophies, nd that they quoted heathen moralists in support of their views. Sluyter and Dankers, in their journal of American travels, visiting a Quaker preacher's house at Burlington, on the Dela- ware, found "a volume of Virgil lying on the window, as if it were a common hand-book ; also Helmont's book on Medicine (Ortus Media cine, id est Initia Physica inaudita progressus medicine novus in morborum ultionam ad vitam longam), whom, in an introduction they have made to it, they make to pass for one of their own sect, although in his lifetime he did not know anything about Quakers.” It would appear from this that the half-mystical, half- scientific writings of the alchemist and philos- opher of Vilverde had not escaped the notice of Friends, and that they had included him in their broad eclecticism. Page 107. As still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting. ** The Quaker's Meeting," a painting by E. Hemskerck (supposed to be Egbert Hemskerck the younger, son of Egbert Hemskerck the old), in which William Penn and others among them Charles II., or the Duke of York are represented along with the rudest and most stolid class of the British rural population at that period. Hemskerek to London from Holland with King William in 1689. He delighted in wild, grotesque subjects, such as the nocturnal intercourse of witches and the temptation of St. Anthony. Whatever was strange and uncommon attracted his free pencil. Judging from the portrait of Penn, he must have drawn his faces, figures, and costumes from life, although there may be something of carica- ture in the convulsed attitudes of two or three of the figures. Page 10.). The Indian from his face washed all his war-paint off. In one of his letters addressed to German Friends, Pastorius says: “ These wild men, who never in their life heard Christ's teachings about temperance and contentment, herein far surpass the Christians. They live far more con- tented and unconcerned for the morrow. They do not overreach in trade. They know no- thing of our everlasting pomp and stylishness. They neither curse nor swear, are temperate in food and drink, and if any of them get drunk, the month - Christians are at fault, who, for the sake of accursed lucre, sell them strong drink.' Again he wrote in 1698 to his father that he finds the Indians reasonable people, willing to accept good teaching and manners, evincing an inward piety toward God, and more eager, in fact, to understand things divine than many came 522 APPENDIX . among those who in the pulpit teach Christ in earth, or the devils in hell!'" - Life of R.br word, but by mngodly life deny him. Pike, page 55. It is evident," says Professor Seidensticker, Page 142. The hardy Anglo-Saron std. “ Pastorius holds up the Indian as Nature's The celebrated Captain Smith, after tre unspoiled child to the eyes of the European ing the government of the Colony in Virtua. Babel, somewhat after the same manner in in his capacity of “ Admiral of Sex I which Tacitus used the barbarian Germani to made a careful survey of the cost fru Irun shame his degenerate countrymen.". scot to Cape Cod, in the summer of 1614. As believers in the universality of the Saving Page 14). The surelest nume in aikaisen Light, the outlook of early Friends upon the Captain Smith gave to the promon'ur. O. heathen was a very cheerful and hopeful one. called Cape Ann, the name of Trazalean, God was as near to them as to Jew or Anglo- memory of his young and beautiful mistni Saxon; as accessible at Timbuctoo as at Rome or that name, who, while he was a captive at Geneva. Not the letter of Scripture, but the stantinople, like Desdemona, ** loved hun 1.0 spirit which dictated it, was of saving efficacy. the dangers he had passed.". Robert Barclay is nowhere more powerful than Page 133. The Old Burying-Ground. in his argument for the salvation of the hea- (This poem was written with a thought of then, who live according to their light, with- the ancient cemetery at East llavest, var out knowing even the name of Christ. Wile Rocks Village. "The entire pirer," Whitties liam Penn thought Socrates as good a Chris. wrote to Lowell, “ has now to me a de-para! tian as Richard Baxter. Early Fathers of the solemn significance. It was written Church, as Origen and Justin Martyr, held while watching at the sick-bud of my deur broader views on this point than modern Evan- ther – now no longer with us. She prava gelicals. Even Augustine, from whom Calvin a few days ago, in the beautiful spretty ent borrowed his theology, admits that he has no Christian faith, a quiet and peaceful disease controversy with the admirable philosophers ! sal."'] Plato and Plotinus. Nor do I think," he says Page 155. The River Path, in De Civ. Dei, lib. xviii., cap. 47, " that the [To a friend who inquired as to the origin of Jews dare affirm that none belonged unto God this poem, Whittier wrote: "The pa mu but the Israelites.'' suggested by an evening on the Merminar Rires Page 112. Tomorrow shall bring another in company with my dear sister, who is su day. longer with me, having crosses the rief I A common saving of Valdemar; hence his fervently hopel, to the gloritied hul of (d.] sobriquet Iltering. Page 157. The l'anisturs. Page 117. The Witch of Wenham. [This was the first poem written by Wh! [The house referred to in the head-note after the death of his sister Elisabeth is that known as the old Prince house, near letter to Mr. Fields he vis: * If the he Oak Knoll, on the estate now owned by the read Schoolcraft thee will remember what to Xaverian Brothers, In sending the porm to says of the lackwud-jinnies or little and The Atlantic, where it was first published, ers.'" The reference is tu llist ww. ( * * Whittier wrote to the editor: "I do not know and Prospects of the American I na Aukrus, PP : how it may strike thee; to me (who am no 123.) good judge, it seems one of my best.''] Pare 100. I see the gray fort's bruik van Page 1:57. The llomestead. (The place that was in the move the post [In a letter written after the appearance of when he wrote this stanza ws on the pika The Homestead, Whittier wrote: "I saw in Marblehead, where he had spant an early bir the country several of these melancholy spec- ing more than forty years latered] tacles of abandoned homes. I think the farm- Page 171. Orr Silmah's rine. ers of New England are better off as a class, on ** (vine of Sibmah! I will werp for the their hard soil, than those who are on the rich with the weeping of Jazer:" Jerem. L. lands of the Wst. They are not rich, but they are not por; they live comfortably, and as a Page 172, rule own their farms clear of mortgage. If they Ern as the great i musline were content to live and toil as the poorer farm- Questioned earth and will tandsdy. ers in the West do, they would double their * Interrogavi Terram,"ete. dagust. & deposits in the savings bank.") (ap. xxxi. Page 1.5. And led by Iliin, nor man nor Pago 17'5. To a Friend. deriis Ifrar. (The friend was Elizabeth Seall, afterward * II. (Macy) shook the dust from off his feet, Mrs. Sydney Howard Gay.) and departed with all his worldly goods and Page 174. Lucu Ilemper. his family. He encountered a severe storm, [It was in the summer of 17, while and his wife, intluenced by some omens of disa in New York, that Whitties marle the BE aster, besought him to put back. He told her tance of Lucy Hooper. She was a nati: id not to fear. for his faith was perfect. But she Fxxrx County, and was at that tir, for entreated him again. Then the spirit that with her parents in Brooklyn. Whistore impelled him broke forth : Woman, go below couraged her literary ambition, for she has and seek thy God. I fear not the witches on giveti promise of poetic excellence, and we . 1 NOTES 523 a mer sea. sidering the advisability of publishing a volume. When Whittier shortly afterward was editing The Pennsylvania Freeman, he printed several of her poems. Later in 1839 he was with her by the Merrimac one August afternoon.) Page 190. And the good man's voice, at strife With his shrill and tipsy wife. (When Whittier first went to school with his sister Mary, the school-house was undergo- ing repairs, and the school was held in a dwell- ing house, the other part of which was occupied by a tipsy and quarrelsome couple.) Page 1992. Homilies from Oldbug hear. Dr. Withington, author of The Puritan, under the name of Jonathan Oldbug. Page 192. The holy monk of Kempen spake. Thomas à Kempis in De Imitatione Christi. Page 196. When, years ago, beside the sum- (In the great political contest of 1850, in Mas- sachusetts, when the United States senatorship was in question, Whittier took an active part in forming the coalition between the Free Soil- ers and the Democrats. He went to Phillips Beach, Swampscott, to see Sumner and induce him to accept the nomination.] Page 2:20. I thank you for sweet summer days. (At one of the Laurel festivals the guests who had so often enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Ashby presented them with an album con- taining photographs and other tokens of their appreciation. Upon the first page were written these lines by Whittier :- DEAR FRIENDS :- Accept this book whose pages hold The sun-traced shadows manifold Of friends, who've known you long and well At city hearth, in sylvan dell, Enjoying under roof and tree Your liberal hospitality ; Who grateful own that while you gave Your life-long labor to the slave, (A labor crowned with more success Than hope could dream, or wisdom guess) You kept warın hearts, and opened wide Your windows on life's sunny side. Take, then, the volume with our thanks, And long upon your river banks When in azalia-gladdened woods The June sum swells the laurel buds, May we still meet as we have met, And larger make to you our debt.] Page 228. Hymn for the House of Worship at Georgetown. [Whittier published the following card in the Boston Transcript, January 30, 1868: “ In writ- ing the Hymn for the Memorial Church at Georgetown, the author, as his verses indicate, has sole reference to the tribute of a brother and sister to the memory of a departed mother, - a tribute which seemed, and still seems to him in itself considered, very beautiful and ap- propriate ; but he has since seen with surprise and sorrow a letter read at the dedication, im- posing certain extraordinary restrictions upon the society which is to occupy the house. It is due to himself, as a simple act of justice, to say that had he known of the existence of that let- ter previously, the Hymn would never have been written, nor his name in any way connected with the proceedings.” The restrictions imposed were designed to prevent the use of the build- ing for any lecture or discussion on political subjects or other matters inconsistent with the reaching of the gospel.) Page 215. Fie on the witch ! Goody Cole was brought before the Quarter Sessions in 1650 to answer to the charge of be- ing a witch. The court could not find satisfac- tory evidence of witchcraft, but so strong was the feeling against her that Major Waldron, the presiding magistrate, ordered her to be im- prisoned, with a * lock kept on her leg," at the pleasure of the Court. In such judicial action one can read the fear and vindictive spirit of the community at large., Page 246. Amen! said Father Bachiler. [Recent evidence found in favor of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, an ancestor of the poet, makes it possible that Whittier would have revised this poem if he had learned the true facts.) Page 249. His Crimean camp-song hints to us. The reference is to Bayard Taylor's poem, The Song of the Camp. Page 238. The Palatine. [The legend on which this ballad is founded was told to Mr. Whittier by his friend, Joseph P. Hazard, of Newport, R. I., two years before the poem was written. About two years after it was published, he received a curious letter from Mr. Benjamin Corydon, of Napoli, N. Y., then in the ninety-second year of his age, who wrote: * The Palatine was a ship that was driven upon Block Island, in a storm, more than a hundred years ago. Her people had just got ashore, and were on their knees thanking God for saving them from drowning, when the Island- ers rushed upon them and murdered them all. That was a little more than the Almighty could stand, so he sent the Fire or Phantom Ship, to let them know He had not forgotten their wick- edness. She was seen once a year on the same night of the year on which the murders occurred, as long as any of the wreckers were living ; but never after all were dead. I must have seen her eight or ten times — perhaps more -- early days. It is seventy years or more since she was last seen. My father lived right oppo- site Block Island, on the mainland, so we had a fair view of her as she passed down by the island, then she would disappear. She resembled a full-rigged ship, with her sails all set and all ablaze. It was the grandest sight I ever saw in all my life. I know of only two living who saw her, Benjamin L. Knowles, of Rhode Island, now ninety-four years old, and myself, now in my ninety-second year."'] Page 262. Toussaint L'Ouverture. The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautiful sonnet of William Wordsworth, ad- dressed to Toussaint L'Ouverture, during his oonfinement in France: in my ever 524 APPENDIX 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 mot, do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow; Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast leit 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. a Page 282. And he, the basest of the base. The Northern author of the Congressional rule against receiving petitions of the people on the subject of Slavery. Page 289. So shalt thou diftly raise The market price of human flesh. There was at the time when this poem was written an Association in Liberty County, Geor- gia, for the religious instruction of negroes. One of their annual reports contains an address by the Rev. Josiah Spry Law, in which the follow- ing passage oceurs : • There is a growing inter- est in this community in the religions instruc- tion of Vegroes. There is a conviction that re- ligious instruction promotes the quiet and order of the people, and the pecuniary interest of the owners. Page:13. The Pine-Tree. (Whittier wrote this poem immediately upon rading the proceedings of the convention. He enclosed it in the following note to Charles Sumber: "I have just read the proceedings of your Whig convention and the lines enclosed are a feeble expression of my feelings. I look upon the rejection of Stephen ('. Phillips's reso- lutions as an evidence that the end and aim of the managers of the convention was to go just far enough to scare the party and no further. All thanks for the free voices of thyself. Phillips, Allen, and Adams. Notwithstanding the result you have not spoken in vain. If thee thinks well enough of these verses, hand them to the Whig or Chronotype."] Page. I hear the Frer-Wills singing. The book-stablishment of the Frer-Will Baptists in Dover was refused the act of incor poration by the New Hampshire Lagislature, for the reason that the newspaper organ of that sect and its leading preswhen favored abolition. Page. Our Belknap brother huard with au The senatorial editor of the Belknap Gazette all along manifested a peculiar horror of “nig- gers" and " nigyes parties." Puget. Pittsfield, Reuben Larilt sar. The justice before whom Elder Storrs was brought for preaching abolition on a writ drawn by Hon. M. V., Jr., of Pittsfield. The sheriff served the writ while the elder was praying. Page The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hantil. The academy at Canaan, X. II., received one or two colored scholars, and was in eene q**** dragged off into a swamp by Dennom rald Page 24M. What boots it that ur polted out The anti-slarry women, The Female Anti-Slavery Society, at its fir meeting in Concord, was assailed with stron and brick bats. Page 29. For this did shifty Atherton Make yay rules for the great II" * Papers and memorials touching the su'ya of slavery shall be laid on the wall wit reading, debate, or reference." Soru *** gag-law, as it was called, introduced into the Tlouse by Mr. Atherton. Page 315. The first great triumph rron In Freedom's name. The election of Charles. Sumner to the United States Senate " followed hard upon the ro- tion of the fugitive Sims by the l'oited Stat othicials and the armed police of Batan. Page :332. To Il'illiam II. Sewarid. Tell Mr. Seward," Whittier wrote to. W. Thayer, February 1, vl." I have to 1 him to good behavior in my verse, and thu. ! he yields the ground upon which the plane was carried and consents to the further i*.1 sion of slavery he will compromise me, * W- as the country and himself."') Page 70. Garrison. (Whittier's tribute to "Garrison" es va in lished in the Independent, June 17, was accompanied by the following letter twee editor : - ** At the solemn and impressive funeralft! beloved and early friend, William Luration rison, one of the spaker frad a part of t:. following poem, which I now send, b place for it in the paper, al:honch at, surpassingly beautiful tribute of Well : " lips, and the perhaps still more touch 19.. quent words of Theodore D. Wald, it la seem almost supertluous. Something part seems due to the intimate frenimi more than fifty years, unbroken nie turbed by any differences of opimion and during the long anti-slavery strunk.. Page 357. Ind brenndu is its own /**. For the idea of this line, I am intele Emerson, in his inimitable sonnet tu thar la dora, If eves were made for sing. Then Beauty is its own exime for being Page 400. Vo sutal smoke Curled orer wuis of sweden mi. So isolated was the Whittier hattefr .: from the date of its erection to tkir ini time no neighbor's of has been in si. Page 101. th. hrvather!I am. I Matthew Franklin Whitres, ten ! 1512, died January 7, ima In media 11. ing his residence in Portland, he torkade, terest in the anti-slavery movement, and or NOTES 525 a series of caustic letters under the signature Ethan Spike of Hornby.] Page 101. The African Chief was the title of a poem by Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Morton, wife of the Hon. Perez Morton, a former attorney-general of Massachusetts. Mrs. Morton's nom de plume was Philenia. The school book in which The African Chief was printed was Caleb Bingham's The American Preceptor, and the poem con- tained fifteen stanzas, of which the first four were as follows: See how the black ship cleaves the main High-bounding o'er the violet wave, Remurmuring with the groans of pain, Deep freighted with the princely slave. Did all the gods of Afric sleep, Forgetful of their guardian love, When the white traitors of the deep Betrayed him in the palmy grove ? A chief of Gambia's golden shore, Whose arm the band of warriors led, Perhaps the lord of boundless power, By whom the foodless poor were fed. Does not the voice of reason cry, * Claim the first right which nature gave; From the red scourge of bondage fly, Nor deign to live a burdened slave"? Page 403. There, too, our elder sister plied. (Mary Whittier, born September 3, 1806, married Jacob Caldwell of Haverhill, had two children, Lewis Henry and Mary Elizabeth, and died January 7, 1860.] Page 403. Our youngest and our dearest sat. [Elizabeth Hussey Whittier, born December 7, 1815, was to her brother John what Doro- thy Wordsworth was to William. It was her brother's opinion that “had her health, sense of duty, and almost morbid dread of spiritual and intellectual egotism permitted, she might have taken a high place among lyrical singers." Some of her poems are given in this volume. She died September 3, 1861.] Page 403. The master of the district school. (Until near the end of his life, Whittier was unable to recall the name of the schoolmaster who stood for this figure in Snow-Bound. At last he remembered his name as Haskell, and from this clue the person was traced. He was George Haskell from Waterford, Maine, a Dartmouth student, who studied medicine, and died in Vineland, New Jersey, in 1876.) Page 404. Another guest that winter night. [In his introductory note, Whittier adds somewhat to his characterization of Harriet Livermore. At the time when Snow-Bound was written he did not know that she was liv- ing, or he might not have introduced her. She died in 1867.) Page 404. The crazy Queen of Lebanon. An interesting account of Lady Hester Stan- hope may be found in Kinglake's Eothen, chap. viii. Page 406. These Flemish pictures of old days. (In 1888 Whittier wrote the following lines on the fly-leaf of a copy of the first edition of Snow-Bound : Twenty years have taken flight Since these pages saw the light. All home loves are gone, But not all with sadness, still, Do the eyes of memory fill As I gaze thereon. Page 402. Or Chalkley's Journal old and quaint. Chalkley's own narrative of this incident, as given in his Journal, is as follows: "To stop their murmuring, I told them they should not need to cast lots, which was usual in such cases, which of us should die first, for I would freely offer up my life to do them good. One said, • God bless you! I will not eat any of you.' Another said, “He would die before he would eat any of me,' and so said several. I can truly say, on that occasion, at that time, my life was not dear to me, and that I was serious and ingenuous in my proposition: and as I was lean- ing over the side of the vessel, thoughtfully con- sidering my proposal to the company, and look- ing in my mind' to Him that made me, a very large dolphin came up towards the top or sur- face of the water, and looked me in the face ; and I called the people to put a hook into the sea, and take him, for here is one come to re- deem me (I said to them). And they put a hook into the sea, and the fish readily took it and they caught him. He was longer than myself. I think he was about six feet long, and the largest that ever I saw. This plainly showed us that we ought not to distrust the providence of the Almighty. The people were quieted by this act of Providence, and mur- mured no more. We caught enough to eat plentifully of, till we got into the capes of Dela- ware. Page 402. Our uncle, innocent of books. (For further account of Whittier's uncle Moses, the reader is referred to Whittier's Prose Works, volume I. p. 323.) Lone and weary life seemed when First these pictures of the pen Grew upon my page; But I still have loving friends And the peace our Father sends Cheers the heart of age. Page 410. From the Bay State's graceful daughter. [The late Mrs. Jettie Morrill Wason, daugh- ter of the late Hon. George Morrill of Ames- bury. Page 438. O Beauty, old yet ever new. Too late I loved Thee, O Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! And lo! Thou wert with- in, and I abroad searching for thee. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee." — August. Soliloq., Book X. Page 438. Who saw the Darkness over flowed. “And I saw that there was an Ocean of Dark- 99 526 APPENDIX keeping ness and Death: but an infinite Ocean of Light their agent in the treaty signed in Noretzter and Love flowed over the Ocean of Darkness : 1676. And in that I saw the intinite Love of God." Page 495. 'T was the gift of Castine tu M.. - George Fox's Journal. Megone. Page 1:38. The Cry of a Lost Soul. Baron de St. Castine came to (anala in The story of the origin of this name, El alma Leaving his civilized conipanions, he plan:- perdida, is thus related by Lieut. Herndon. into the great wilderness, and settled at An Indian and his wife went out from the vil- | Penobscot Indians, near the mouth of their s lage to work their chacra, carrying their in- ble river. He here took for his wives the da 2 fant with them. The woman went to the spring 'ters of the great Moducawando, - the nega to get water, leaving the man in charge of the erful sachem of the East. His castle ** child, with many cautions to take good care of dered by Governor Andre, during his m*** it. When she arrived at the spring, she found administration; and the enraged Baron 13 - it dried up, and went further to look for an- posed to have excited the Indiana ini «** other. The husband, alarmed at her long ab- hostility to the English. sence, left the child and went in search. When Page 495. Gray Jocelyn's eye in mersion on they returned the child was gone ; and to their The owner and commander of the part repeated cries, as they wandered through the Black Point, which Mogy attacked and in woods in search, they could get no response sare dered. He was an old man at the primi - the wailing cry of this little bird heard for the which the tale relates. first time, whose notes their anxious and excited Page 4:35. Where Philip's men their anas imagination syllabled into pa-pa, ma-ma (the present Quichua name of the bird. I suppose Major Phillips, one of the principalmente the Spaniards heard this story, and with that Colony. His garrison sustained a long ud ter religious poetic turn of thought which seems rible siege by the savages, sambistar. peculiar to this people, called the bird The a gentleman, he exacted of his platina Lost Soul.' Erploration of the Valley of the bors a remarkable degree of defertur. Amazon made undit direction of the Vary De- Court Records of the sttlemenintoriu qe **" partment. By William Lewis Herndon and an individual was fined for the heinous off Lardner Gibbon, Part I. p. 154). of saying that “Major Phillips's mare * Page toit. The Light that is felt. lean as an Indian dog." [The origin of this poem is explained in the Page 447. Steals Harmon down from the ***** following letter from Mrs. George A. Palmer, of York. of Elmira, XI. Captain Harmon, of Georgeans, now York * When my oldest daughter was two and a was for many years the tertus vf the Fame half years old she knew Whittier's Burefoot Indians. In one of his expeditions up the h. Boy hy heart, thus: when I would repeat it to nebec River, at the head of a parte a tak her the omission of a line would be instantly cor- he discovered twenty of the sivas as', rected, as one day she said to me, Mamma, a large fire. Cautiously creeping towns.“ you skipted out" apples of ('usperides."'' Once, until he was certain of his aim, hr orde wat in going ahead of me in a dark hall, she turned men to single out their objects. The two with sudden fear, and said, “Mamma, take charge killed or mortally wounded the hold of my hand, so it will not be so dark.' number of the unconscious sleepmrs. This incident and the fact of her affection for Page 495. For rengeance loft his riaren Mr. Whittier's poetry was reported to him by isle. a friend of the family. My surprise and delight Wood Island, near the mouth of the Car It were great when, in April, 1851, I received a was visited by the Sieur de Monts anti- kind letter from the poet and a manuscript plain, in 1913. The following extrait inn copy of the purem, which was afterward pub- journal of the latter, relates to it: “llarsikate lished in the Christmas number of St. Nicho the Kennebec, we ran along the cast & las. In his letter Mr. Whittier said. “I am westward, and cast anchor underma!! ni glad to have such a friend in thy little girl. near the mainland, where we saw tmir.** Her good opinion of my verses is worth more more natives. I here visited an inland ** to me than that of a learned reviewer. I send fully clothed with a fine gruwth of fint & rhymed paruphrase of her own beautiful particularly of the oak and walnut: and thought.") spread with vines, that, in their arx-n, pre Page 495. Moog Me gone. excellent grapes. We named it the unit Mogy Megone, or Hegone, was a leader among Bacchus." - Les l'oyages de Sueur (1): the Saco Indians, in the bloody war of 1677. liv. 2. C. N. He attacked and captured the garrison at Black Page 493. The hunted outlar, Best Point, October 12th of that year; and cut off, John Bonython was the son of Ricdani bir at the same time, a party of Englishmen near thon, Gent., one of the most efficient in Saco River. From a deed signed by this Indian magistrates of the Colont. John porod in 1054, and from other circumstances. it seems * a degenerate plant." In loni wa timu boce that, previous to the war, he had mingled much Court Records that, for some of nor, he with the colonists. On this account, he was fined 108. In 1610, he was fined for the probally selected by the principal sachems as ward R. Gibson, the minister, and M. NOTES 527 p. 35. use - a wife. Soon after he was fined for disorderly conduct in the house of his father. In 1615, the * Great and General Court adjudged John Bony- thon outlawed, and incapable of any of his Maj- esty's laws, and proclaimed him a rebel.”. (Court Records of the Province, 1615.) In 1651, he bade defiance to the laws of Massachusetts, and was again outlawed. He acted independently of all law and authority; and hence, doubtless, his burlesque title of "the Sagamore of Saco, which has come down to the present generation in the following epitaph: Here lies Bonython, the Sagamore of Saco; He lived a rogue, and died a knave, and went to Hobo- moko. By some means or other, he obtained a large estate. In this poem, I have taken some liber- ties with him, not strictly warranted by histor- ical facts, although the conduct imputed to him is in keeping with his general character. Over the last years of his life lingers a deep obscurity. Even the manner of his death is uncertain. He was supposed to have been killed by the Indians ; but this is doubted by the able and indefatigable author of the History of Saco and Biddeford. – Part I. p. 115. Page 496. From the leaping brook to the Saco River. Foxwell's Brook flows from a marsh or bog, called the “ Heath,” in Saco, containing thirteen hundred acres. In this brook, and surrounded by wild and romantic scenery, is a beautiful waterfall, of more than sixty feet. Page 4:36. Where zealous Hiacoomes stood. Hiacoomes, the first Christian preacher on Martha's Vineyard ; for a biography of whom the reader is referred to Increase Mayhew's ac- count of the Praying Indians, 1726. The fol- lowing is related of him: “One Lord's day, after meeting, where Hiacoomes had been preaching, there came in a Powwaw very angry, and said, I know all the meeting Indians are liars. You say you don't care for the Pow- waws; then calling two or three of them by naine, he railed at them, and told them they were deceived, for the Powwaws could kill ail the meeting Indians, if they set about it. But Hiacoomes told him that he would be in the midst of all the Powwaws in the island, and they should do the utmost they could against him; and when they should do their worst by their witchcraft to kill him, he would without fear set himself against them, by remembering Jehovah. He told them also he did put all the Powwaws under his heel. Such was the faith of this good man. Nor were these Powwaws ever able to do these Christian Indians any hurt, though others were frequently hurt and killed by them." Mayhew, pp. 6, 7, c. 1. Page 497. Because she cries with an ache in her tooth, " The tooth-ache," says Roger Williams in his observations upon the language and customs of the New England tribes, “is the only paine which will force their stoute hearts to cry." He afterwards remarks that even the Indian women never cry as he has heard * some of their men in this paine.' Page 498. Wuttamuttata, “Let us drink.” Weekan, " It is sweet."' l'ide Roger Williams's key to the Indian Language, in that parte of America called New England." -- London, 1643, Page 498. Wetuomanit, a house god, or demon. “They — the Indians have given me the names of thirty-seven gods which I have, all which in their solemne Worships they invo- cate!” – R. Williams's Briefe Observations of the Customs, Manners, Worships, etc., of the Na- tives, in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death: on all which is added Spiritual Observations, General and Particular, of Chiefe and Special upon all occasions — to all the English in- habiting these parts; yet Pleasant and Profit- able to the view of all Mene: p. 110, c. 21. Page 499. Which marks afar the desert isle. Mt. Desert Island, the Bald Mountain upon which overlooks Frenchman's and Penobscot Bay. It was upon this island that the Jesuits made their earliest settlement. Page 300. Half trembling, as he seeks to look. Father Hennepin, a missionary among the Iroquois, mentions that the Indians believed him to be a conjurer, and that they were partic- ularly afraid of a bright silver chalice which he had in his possession. “ The Indians," says Père Jerome Lallamant, “fear us as the great- est sorcerers on earth." Page 500. For Bomazeen from Tacconock. Bomazeen is spoken of by Penhallow as "the famous warrior and chieftain of Norridgewock." He was killed in the attack of the English upon Norridgewock, in 1724. Page 500. Like a shrouded ghost the Jesuit stands. Père Ralle, or Rasles, was one of the most zealous and indefatigable of that band of Jesuit missionaries who at the beginning of the seven- teenth century penetrated the forests of Amer- ica, with the avowed object of converting the heathen. The first religious mission of the Jes- uits to the savages in North America was in 1611. The zeal of the fathers for the conver- sion of the Indians to the Catholic faith knew no bounds. For this they plunged into the depths of the wilderness; habituated them- selves to all the hardships and privations of the natives; suffered cold, hunger, and some of them death itself, by the extremest tortures. Père Brebeuf, after laboring in the cause of his mission for twenty years, together with his companion, Père Lallamant, was burned alive. To these nuight be added the names of those Jesuits who were put to death by the Iroquois, Daniel, Garnier, Buteaux, La Riborerie, Goupil, Constantin, and Liegeouis. * For bed," says Father Lallamant, in his Relation de ce qui s'est dans le pays des Hurons, 1670, c. 3, we have nothing but a miserable piece of bark of a tree; for nourishment, a handful or two of corn, either roasted or soaked in water, which seldom satisfies our hunger ; and after all, not venturing to perform even the ceremonies of > - 66 528 APPENDIX without the slightest appearance of hair or beard. Page 504. Couesass ! - tawhich ***8233 Are you afraid ? -- why fear you ? IV. A LIST OF MR. WHITTIEKS POEMS our religion without being considered as sorcer- ers." Their success among the natives, how- ever, by no means equalled their exertions. Père Lallamant says: With respect to adult persons, in good health, there is little apparent success; on the contrary, there have been no- thing but storms aud whirlwinds from that quarter." Sebastian Ralle established himself, some time about the year 1670, at Norridgewock, where he continued more than forty years. He was accused, and perhaps not without justice, of exciting his Praying Indians against the Eng- lish, whom he looked upon as the enemies not only of his king, but also of the Catholic reli- gion. He was killed by the English in 1794, at the foot of the cross which his own hands had planted. This Indian church was broken up, and its members either killed outright or dis- persed. In a letter written by Ralle to his nephew he gives the following account of his church and his own labors : “All my converts repair to the church regularly twice every day: first, very early in the morning, to attend mass, and again in the evening, to assist in the prayers at sunset. As it is necessary to fix the imagina- tion of savages, whose attention is easily dis- tracted, I have composed prayers, calculated to inspire them with just sentiments of the august sacritice of our altars: they chant, or at least recite them aloud, during mass. Besides preaching to them on Sundays and saints' days, I seldom let a working day pass without mak- ing a concise exhortation, for the purpose of inspiring them with horror at those vices to which they are most addicted, or to confirm them in the practice of some particular virtue." - Vide Lettres Edifiantes et Cur., vol. vi. p. 127. Page 503. Pale priest! what proud and lofty dreams. The character of Ralle has probably never been correctly delineated. By his brethren of the Romish Church, he has been nearly apo theosized. On the other hand, our Puritan his- torians have represented him as a demon in human form. He was undoubtedly sincere in his devotion to the interests of his church, and not over-scrupulons as to the means of advan- cing those interests. * The French," says the author of the History of Saco and Biddeford, “after the peace of 1713, secretly promised to supply the Indians with arms and amunition, if they would renew hostilities. Their principal agent was the celebrated Ralle, the French Jesuit." - p. 215. Page 504. Where are De Rouville and Cas- tine. Hertel de Rouville was an active and unspar- ing enemy of the English. He was the leader of the combined French and Indian forces which destroyed Deerfield and massacred its inhabitanta, in 1703. He was afterwards killed in the attack npon Haverhill. Tradition says that, on examining his dead body, his head and face were found to be perfectly smooth, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY This list follows the dates given with th. poems. In the few cases where the data have not been determined exactly the job ems are placed in the group with which they were published, when collected in volun The order is by years, and no atirtiput has here been made to preserve the exact ords of composition under the year. 1825. The Exile's Departure. The Drity. The Vale of the Merrimac. Benevolence. 1827. Ocean. 1828. The Sicilian Vespers. The Earthquake. The Song of the Vermonter. 1829. The Spirit of the North. Judith at the Tent of Holofernes. Metacom. The Drunkard to his Bottle. The Past and Coming Year. 1830. The Fair Quakerss. Bolivar. The l'audois Teacher, The Star of Bethlehem. The Frost Spirit. 1831. Isabella of Austria. The Fratricide. The Cities of the Plain. 1832. Isabel. Stanzas: "Bind up thr tresses" To William Lloyd Garrisa. To a Poetical Trio in the City of Gotham. 1833. The Female Martyr. The Missionary. The Call of the Christian. Extract from "A New England gend." Toussaint L'Ouverture. 1834. Mogg Jegone. The ('rucitixion. Hymn: “0 Thou whose presence rot before." The Slave-Ships. To the Memory of Charles B. Sama Follen. A Lament. 1835. The Demon of the Study. The Yankee Girl. The Hunters of Men. Stanzas for the Times The Prisoner for I hebt. 1836. A Day. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MR. WHITTIER'S POEMS 529 Clerical Oppressors. A Summons. To the Memory of Thomas Shipley. The Moral Warfare. 1837. Massachusetts. The Fountain. Palestine. Hymns from the French of Lamartine. Hymn: “O Holy Father, just and true. Ritner. The Pastoral Letter. Lines on the Death of S. Oliver Torrey. 1838. Pentucket. The Familist's Hymn. Pennsylvania Hail. Album Verses. The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mo- ther. The Quaker of the Olden Time. 1839. The New Year. The Relic. The World's Convention. 1840. To with a copy of Woolman's Journal. 1841. The Cypress-Tree of Ceylon. St. John. The Exiles. Funeral Tree of the Sokokis. The Norsemen. Memories. The Merrimac. Lucy Hooper. To a Friend. Leggett's Monument. Democracy. 1842. Follen. The Gallows. Raphael. 1843. The Knight of St. John. Cassandra Southwick. The New Wife and the Old. Hampton Beach. Ego. To J. P. Chalkley Hall. Massachusetts to Virginia. The Christian Slave. Seed-Time and Harvest. To the Reformers of England. The Human Sacrifice, 1844. The Pumpkin. The Bridal of Pennacook. Ezekiel. Channing. To Massachusetts. The Sentence of John L. Brown. To Faneuil Hall. Texas. 1845. New Hampshire. At Washington. To my Friend on the Death of his Sister. Gone. The Shoemakers. The Fishermen. The Lumbermen, (1846. The Ship-Builders. The Pine-Tree. Lines from a Letter to a Young Clerical Friend. To Ronge. Forgiveness. The Branded Hand. The Reformer. To a Southern Statesman. Daniel Neall. A Letter supposed to be written by the Chairman of the Central Clique at Concord, N. H. The Freed Islands. 1847. The Lost Statesman. The Angels of Buena Vista. Barclay of Ury. Yorktown. To Delaware. Song of Slaves in the Desert. The Huskers, The Drovers. Daniel Wheeler. My Soul and I. To my Sister. The Wife of Manoah to her Husband. The Angel of Patience. What the Voice said. A Dream of Summer. My Thanks. Randolph of Roanoke. Proem. 1848. The Slaves of Martinique. The Curse of the Charter-Breakers. The Wish of To-Day. Pæan. The Poor Voter on Election Day. The Crisis. The Reward. The Holy Land. Worship The Peace Convention at Brussels. 1849. Calef in Boston. To Pius IX. On Receiving an Eagle's Quill from Lake Superior. Kathleen. Our State. To Fredrika Bremer. The Men of Old. The Christian Tourists. The Lakeside. Autumn Thoughts. The Legend of St. Mark. 1850. The Well of Loch Maree. Ichabod. In the Evil Day. Elliott. The Hill-Top. To Avis Keene. A Sabbath Scene. Derne. Lines on the Portrait of a Celebrated Publisher. All's Well. 1851. Remembrance. The Chapel of the Hermits. The Prisoners of Naples. 530 APPENDIX To my Old Schoolmaster. Invocation. Wordsworth, In Peace, Kossuth. To : Lines written after a Summer Day's Excursion. What State Street said. 1852. Pictures. The Cross. First Day Thoughts. Questions of Life. April. The Disenthralled. The Peace of Europe. Eva. Astræa. 1833. Tauler. Summer by the Lakeside. Trust. My Namesake. The Dream of Pio Nono. The Hero. Rantoul. Othcial Piety. 1854. The Voices. Burns. William Forster. Charles Sumner. The Rendition. The Haschish. The Fruit Gift. Maud Muller. The Hermit of the Thebaid. Letter from a Missionary of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, South. The Kansas Emigrants. A Memory. 1855. The Barefoot Boy. My Dream. Flowers in Winter. Arisen at Last. For Righteousness' Sake. Inscription on a Sun-Dial. 1856. The Ranger. The Mayflower. The Conquest of Finland. The New Exodus. A Lay of Old Time. A Song, inscribed to the Frémont Clubs. A Frémont Campaign Song. What of the Day. A Song for the Time. The Press of the Sierra. The Panorama. Burial of Barber. To Pennsylvania, Mary Garvin. 1857. Moloch in State Street. The First Flowers. The Sycamores. Mabel Martin, Skipper Treson's Ride. The Garrison of Cape Ann. 'The Last Walk in Autumn. The Gift of Tritemius. 18%. To James T. Fields. The Palm-Tree. From Perugia. Le Marais du Cygne. The Eve of Election. The Old Burying-Ground. Trinitas. The Sisters, The Pipes at Lucknow. The Swan Song of Parson Avery, Telling the Bees. A Song of Harvest. George B. Cheever. The Cable Hymn. 1859. Kenoza Lake. The Preacher. The Red River Voyageur. The Double-Headed Suke of Newbury ** The Rock" in El Ghor. In Remembrance of Joseph Sturge. The Over-Heart. My Psalm. The Memory of Burns. Brown of Ossawatomie. On a Prayer-Book. The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall. For an Autumn Festival. 1860. The Truce of Piscataqua, The Shadow and the Light. My Playmate. The River Path. Italy. Naples. The Summons. The Quaker Alumni. The Quakers are out. 1861. To William H. Sewand. Thy Will be done. To John C. Fremont, A Word for the Hour. " Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott." Cobbler Keezar's Vision. Our River. A Legend of the Lake. 1862. Amy Wentworth. At Port Royal. The Cry of a Lost Soul. Mountain Pictures, To Englishmen. The Watchers. The Waiting. The Battle Autumn of 12. Astrea at the Capitol. 1863. The Proclamation. The Answer. To Samuel E. Sewall and larriet Sewall. A Memorial Andrew Rykman's Prayer. The ('ountees. Barbara Frietchie. Anniversary Poem. Hymn sung at Christmas by the Seben of St. Helena Island, SC. Mithridates at Chios. 1864. The l'anisher, What the Birds snid. The Brother of Mercy. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MR. WHITTIER'S POEMS 531 The Wreck of Rivermouth. Bryant on his Birthday. Thomas Starr King. Hymn for the Opening of Thomas Starr King's House of Worship. Lines on Leaving Appledore. 1865, Revisited. To the Thirty-ninth Congress. The Changeling. The Grave by the Lake. Kallundborg Church. Hymn for the Celebration of Emancipa- tion at Newburyport. Laus Deo. The Mantle of St. John de Matha. The Peace Autumn. The Eternal Goodness. 1866, Snow-Bound. The Common Question. Our Master. Abraham Davenport. Lines on a Fly-Leaf. The Maids of Attitash, The Dead Ship of Harpswell. Letter to Lucy Larcom. 1867. George L. Stearns. The Worship of Nature. Freedom in Brazil. The Palatine. The Tent on the Beach. 1868. The Hive at Gettysburg. Divine Compassion. The Clear Vision. The Meeting: The Two Rabbins. Among the Hills. The Dole of Jarl Thorkell. Hymn for the House of Worship at Georgetown. An Autograph. 1869. Howard at Atlanta Garibaldi. Norumbega. The Pageant. 1870. Miriam, In School-Days. To Lydia Maria Child. My Triumph. Nauhaught, the Deacon. The Prayer-Seeker. The Laurels. A Spiritual Manifestation. To Lucy Larcom. 1871. The Sisters. Marguerite. The Robin. The Singer. Disarmament. How Mary Grew. Chicago. My Birthday. 1872. The Pressed Gentian. A Woman. The Pennsylvania Pilgrim. The Three Bells. King Volmer and Elsie. The Brewing of Soma. Hymn for the Opening of Plymouth Church. 1873. Conductor Bradley. John Underhill. A Mystery. In Quest. The Friend's Burial. The Prayer of Agassiz. A Christmas Carmen. 1874. Kinsman. The Golden Wedding of Longwood. Vesta. A Sea Dream. Hazel Blossoms. Summer. 1875. "I was a Stranger and ye took me in," The Two Angels. The Healer. Child Songs. Lexington. The Library. A Farewell. 1876. June on the Merrimac. Sunset on the Bearcamp. Centennial Hymn. 1877. Giving and Taking. Hymn of the Dunkers. The Henchman. In the "Old South." Red Riding-Hood. The Witch of Wenham. The Problem. Thiers. Fitz-Greene Halleck. King Solomon and the Ants. In Response. At School-Close. 1878. The Seeking ofthe Waterfall, At Eventide. Oriental Maxims. The Vision of Echard. William Francis Bartlett. Hymn of the Children. 1879. The Khan's Devil. The Trailing Arbutus. The Dead Feast of the Kol-Folk. Inscription on a Fountain. Our Autocrat. Bayard Taylor. The Emancipation Group. Garrison. The Landmarks. 1880. My Trust. The Lost Occasion. Voyage of the Jettie. A Name. The King's Missive. St. Martin's Summer. Valuation. The Minister's Danghter. The Jubilee Singers. 1881. Within the Gate. The Book. Rabbi Ishmael. Greeting. The Rock Tomb of Bradore. Help. 532 APPENDIX Requirement. Utterance. By their Works, The Word. The Memory: 1882. The Bay of Seven Islands. Garden. An Autograph. An Easter Flower Gift. Godspeed. The Wishing Bridge Storm on Lake Asuam. On a Fly-Leaf of Longfellow's Poems. At Last. A Greeting. The Poet and the Children. Wilson. The Mystic's Christmas. 1883. Our Country. St. Gregory's Guest. How the Women went from Dover. What the Traveller said at Sunset. A Summer Pilgrimage. Winter Roses. 1884. The Light that is Felt. The Two Loves. The “Story of Ida." Samuel E. Sewall. Sweet Fern. Abram Morrison. Birchbrook Mill. Lines written in an Album. 1885. Hymns of the Brahmo Somaj. The Two Elizabeths. Requital. The Wood Giant. The Reunion. Adjustment. An Artist of the Beautiful. A Welcome to Lowell. 1886. How the Robin cane. Banished from Massachusetts. The Homestead. Revelation. The Bartholdi Statue. Norumbega llall. Mulford. To a Cape Ann Schooner. Samuel J. Tilden. A Day's Journey. 1887. On the Big Horn. A Legacy. 1888. The Brown Dwarf of Rügen. Lydia H. Sigourney, Inscription on Tab let. One of the Signers. The Christmas of 1888, 1889. The Vow of Washington. 0. W. Holmes on his Eightieth Bub day. 1890. R. S. S., At Deer Island on the Vert Burning Drift-Wood. The Captain's Well. Haverhill. To G. G. Milton, on Memorial Window. The Last Eve of Summer. To E. C. S. 1891. James Russell Lowell. Preston Puwers, Inscription for Best Relief. The Birthday Wreath. Between the Gates. 1892. An Outdoor Rec*ption. The Wind of March. To Oliver Wendell Holmes. (Date unknown.] The Home Coming of the Bride. Mrs. Choate's House-Warming. A Fragruent. mac. INDEX OF FIRST LINES row, A BEAUTIFUL and happy girl, 386. A bending staff I would not break, 432. A blush as of roses, 320. Above, below, in sky and sod, 436. Accept this book, whose pages hold, 523. A Christian! going, gone, 289. A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw, 165. Across the frozen marshes, 377. Across the sea I heard the groans, 381. Across the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's drouth and sand, 308. A dirge is wailing from the Gulf of storm- vexed Mexico, 491. A drear and desolate shore, 127. A few brief years have passed away, 298. After your pleasant morning travel, 516. against the sunset's glowing wall, 423. Against the wooded hills it stands, 135. A gold fringe on the purpling hem, 161. All day the darkness and the cold, 114. All grim and soiled and brown with tan, 364. * All hail!” the bells of Christmas rang, 462. All night above their rocky bed, 321. "All ready ? " cried the captain, 263. All things are Thine: no gift have we, 232. Along Crane River's sunny slopes, 117. Along the aisle where prayer was made, 148. Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold, 84. Amidst these glorious works of Thine, 227. Amidst Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt, 134. Amidst thy sacred effigies, 349. Among their graven shapes to whom, 211. Among the legends sung or said, 130. Among the thousands who with hail and cheer, 477. A moony breadth of virgin face, 310. And have they spurned thy word, 508. Andrew Rykman 's dead and gone, 439. “And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend, 212. A night of wonder! piled afar, 508. Annie and Rhoda, sisters twain, 100. A noble life is in thy care, 481. A noteless stream, the Birchbrook runs, 133, Another hand is beckoning us, 178. A picture memory brings to me, 411. A pious magistrate! sound his praise through- out, 315. Around Sebago's lonely lake, 11. As Adam did in Paradise, 219. As a guest who may not stay, 214. A score of years had come and gone, 115. A shallow stream, from fountains, 410, As Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew, 135. As o'er his furrowed fields which lie, 354. A sound as if from bells of silver, 158. A sound of tumult troubles all the air, 322. As they who, tossing midst the storm at night, 301. As they who watch by sick-beds find relief, 79. A strength Thy service cannot tire, 300. A strong and mighty Angel, 344. A tale for Roman guides to tell, 132. A tender child of summers three, 464. At morn I prayed, " I fain would see, 434. A track of moonlight on a quiet lake, 188. Bards of the island city! - where of old, 510. Beams of noon, like burning lances, through the tree-tops flash and glisten, 305. Bearer of Freedom's holy light, 351. Bear him, comrades, to his grave, 319. Before my drift-wood fire I sit, 471. Before the Ender comes, whose charioteer, 462. Behind us at our evening meal, 413. Believe me, Lucy Larcom, it gives me real sor- 514. Beneath the low-hung night cloud, 114. Beneath the moonlight and the snow, 408. Beneath thy skies, November, 323. Beside a stricken field I stood, 335, Beside that milestone, where the level sun, 109. Between the gates of birth and death, 476. Bind up thy tresses, thou beautiful one, 494. Bland as the morning breath of June, 143. Blessings on thee, little man, 396. Blest land of Judæa! thrice hallowed of song, 419. Blossom and greenness, making all, 475. * Bring out your dead !” The midnight street, 1. “ Build at Kallundborg by the sea, 255. But what avail inadequate words to reach, 461. By fire and cloud, across the desert sand, 377. Call him not heretic whose works attest, 460. Calm on the breast of Loch Maree, 39. Calmly the night came down, 487. Champion of those who groan beneath, 262. Climbing a path which leads back never more, 473. Close beside the meeting waters, 483. Conductor Bradley, (always may his name, 117. Dark the halls, and cold the feast, 21. Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps, 435. Dear Anna, when I brought her veil, 483. Dear friends, who read the world aright, 188. Dear Sister! while the wise and sage, 391. 533 534 INDEX OF FIRST LINES Ho Dream not, O Soul, that easy is the task, 461. Dry the tears for holy Eva, 218. Earthly arms no more uphold him, 479. Ere down yon blue Carpathian hills, 17. Fair islands of the sunny sea! midst all rejoi- cing things, 480. Fair Nature's priestesses ! to whom, 188. Far away in the twilight time, 61. Far from his close and noisome cell, 355. Fate summoned, in gray-bearded age, to act, 210. Father! to thy suffering poor, 422. Fold thy hands, thy work is over, 482. Fond scenes, which delighted my youthful ex- istence, 481, For ages on our river borders, 153. For the fairest maid in Hampton, 251. For weeks the clouds had raked the hills, 85. Friend of mine! whose lot was cast, 392. Friend of my many years, 115. Friend of my soul as with moist eye, 176. Friend of the Slave, and yet the friend of all, 300. From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome, 167. From gold to gray, 378. From pain and peril, by land and main, 468. From purest wells of English undefiled, 473. From the green Amesbury hill which bears the name, 127. From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never fails, 19. From the hills of home forth looking, far be- neath the tent-like span, 52. From these wild rocks I look to-day, 226. From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine, 2:20). From Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, 302. Gallery of sacred pictures manifold, 160. "Get ye up from the wrath of God's terrible day, 417. Gift from the cold and silent past, 9. God bless New Hampshire! from her granite peaks, 293. God bless ye, brothers! in the fight, 354. God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above, 4.55, God's love and peace be with thee, where, 109. Gone before us, ( our brother, 170, Gone, gone. -- gold and gone, 278. Gone hath the spring, with all its flowers, 114. Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest, 274. Graceful in name and in thyself, our river, 174. Gray searcher of the upper air, 19). Great peace in Europe! Order reigns, 373. Hail, heavenly gift! within the human breast, Hail to Posterity, 103, Hands off ! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play, 183. Happy young friends, sit by me, 134. Haunted of Beauty, like the marvellous youth, 216. Have I not voyaged, friend beloved, with thee, 431. Have ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain and glen, 270. Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard. 364. He comes, - he comes, - the Frostgurt comes, 141. Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day. 4° He had bowed down to drunkennees 57*. He has done the work of a true man, en Here is the place; right over the hill, 2%. He rests with the immortals; his journey be been long, 481. Here, while the loom of Wintep weaves, 26. Her fingers shame the ivory keye, N. Her window opens to the bay, 2 ... He stood on the brow of the well-known hil 493, His laurels fresh from song and lay, 21.3. all to the borders! Vermunten, AND down, 509. Ho! thou who seekest late and long, **), Ho! workers of the old time styled, wi. Hoot ! - daur ye shaw ye're face pain, *** How bland and sweet the greeting of the breeze, 177. How has New England's romance fled, 5. How smiled the land of France, 173, How strange to greet, this frusty morn, 148 How sweetly come the holy psalms, 15**. How sweetly on the wood-girt town, Hurrah ! the seaward breezes, 3i. Ilushed now the sweet consoling tongue, 516.. I ask not now for gold to gild, 431. I call the old time back: I bring my lay, I did but dream. I never knew, Hi. I do believe, and yet, in grief, 40. I do not love thee, Label, and yet them art most fair, 4914, If I have seemed more prompt to ceresz wrong. 195. I give thee joy! - I know to thee. 31. I have been thinking of the victims bound 372. I have not felt, o'er seas of sand, 41. I heard the train's shrill whistle call, $15. I know not, Time and Space so intervene, 1. I love the old melodious lays, 1. Immortal Love, forever full, H3 I mourn no more my vanished year, . In calm and cool and silence, once again, 4K I need not ask thee, for my make, In my dream, methought I trud, i. In sky and wave the white clouds swam, In that black forest, where, when day is due 135. In the fair land o'erwatched by Luchia's mine tains, 199. In the minister's morning sermon, 4 In the old davy (a custom laid aside. In the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame, In the outskirts of the village, 5. In the solemn days of old, 371. In trance and dream of old, God's prophet a 2015. In Westminster's royal halls, 36. I said I stood upon thy stare, ilti . I shall not soon forget that sight, 7. INDEX OF FIRST LINES 535 I sing the Pilgrim of a softer clime, 103. Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm, 155. I spread a scanty board too late, 412. Is this the land our fathers loved, 271. Is this thy voice whose treble notes of fear, 294. It chanced that while the pious troops of France, 375. It is done, 345. Its windows flashing to the sky, 69. It was late in mild October, and the long autum- nal rain, 363. I wait and watch ; before my eyes, 398, I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made, 164. I would I were a painter, for the sake, 156. I would not sin, in this half-playful strain, 242. I would the gift I offer here, 357. I write my name as one, 413. John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day, 201. Just God! and these are they, 272. Know'st thou, Oslave-cursed land, 337. Last night, just as the tints of autumn's sky, 148, Last week the Lord be praised for all His mercies, 318. Leagues north, as fly the gull and ank, 258. Let there be light!” God spake of old, 233. Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield, 293, Light, warmth, and sprouting greenness, and o'er all, 146. Like that ancestral judge who bore his name, 516. Long since, a dream of heaven I had, 448. Look on him! through his dungeon grate, 367. Low in the east, against a white, cold dawn, 467. Luck to the craft that bears this name of mine, 217. Night on the city of the Moor, 311. Night was down among the mountains, 488. No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest, 368. No Berserk thirst of blood had they, 232. No bird-song floated down the hill, 155. No more these simple flowers belong, 196. Not always as the whirlwind's rush, 417. Not as a poor requital of the joy, 177. Not on Penobscot's wooded bank the spires, 239. Not unto us who did but seek, 346. Not vainly did old poets tell, 180. Not vainly we waited and counted the hours, 513. Not without envy Wealth at times must look, 382. Not with the splendors of the days of old, 279. Now, joy and thanks forevermore, 308. O Ary Scheffer! when beneath thine eye, 331. O Christ of God! whose life and death, 454. O dearest bloom the seasons know, 462. O dearly loved, 182. O dwellers in the stately towns, 226. O'er the bare woods, whose outstretched hands, 150. Of all that Orient lands can vaunt, 316. Of all the rides since the birth of time, 55. O friends ! with whom my feet have trod, 442. Of rights and of wrongs, 515. Oh, dwarfed and wronged, and stained with ill, 450. “Oh, for a knight like Bayard, 192. Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, 390. Oh, none in all the world before, 340. O Holy Father ! just and true, 278. Oh, praise an' tanks ! De Lord he come, 338. Oh, thicker, deeper, darker growing, 202. Oh, well may Essex sit forlorn, 211. O Lady fair, these silks of mine are beauti- ful and rare, 3. Old friend, kind' friend! lightly down, 190. Olor Iscanus queries: “Why should we, 333. O lonely bay of Trinity, 256. O Mother Earth! upon thy lap, 303. O Mother State! the winds of March, 208. Once more, dear friends, you meet beneath, 341. Once more, O all-adjusting Death, 217. Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil, 156. Once more on yonder laurelled height, 224. One day, along the electric wire, 193. One hymn more, O my lyre, 420. One morning of the first sad Fall, 218. One Sabbath day my friend and I, 94. O Norah, lay your basket down, 37. On page of thine I cannot trace, 388. On the isle of Penikese, 450. On these green banks, where falls too soon, 470. On the wide lawn the snow lay deep, 108. O Painter of the fruits and flowers, 237. O people-chosen! are ye not, 317. o Poet rare and old, 373, O river winding to the sea, 473. O State prayer-founded I never hung, 320. O storied vale of Merrimac, 240. O strong, upwelling prayers of faith, 45. O Thou, whose presence went before, 268. 66 6. 66 Maddened by Earth's wrong and evil, 424. Maiden! with the fair brown tresses, 171. Make, for he loved thee well, our Merrimac, 471. Maud Muller on a summer's day, 47. Men ! if manhood still ye claim, 292. Men of the North-Land! where's the manly spirit, 273. Men said at vespers : All is well," 230. Midst the men and things which will, 413, Midst the Paris bowers of Hungary, imperial Presburg's pride, 492, Muttering fine upland staple," prime Sea- Island finer,” 512. My ear is full of summer sounds, 332. My garden roses long ago, 238. My heart was heavy, for its trust had been, 390. My lady walks her morning round, 122. My old Welsh neighbor over the way, 102, My thoughts are all in yonder town, 452. Nauhaught, the Indian deacon, who of old, 99. 'Neath skies that winter never knew, 23:3. Never in tenderer quiet lapsed the day, 103. 536 INDEX OF FIRST LINES Our fathers' God! from out whose hand, 231. Our fellow-countrymen in chains, 267. Our vales are sweet with fern and rose, 153, Out and in the river is winding, 69. Outbound, your bark awaits you. Were I one, 2:38. Out from Jernsalem, 120. Over the threshold of his pleasant home, 137. Over the wooded northern ridge, 82. Pardon a stranger hand that gives, 312. Pardon, Lord, the lips that dare, 439. Piero Luca, known of all the town, 250. Pipes of the misty moorlands, 38. Poet and friend of poets, if thy glass, 467. Poor and inadequate the shadow-play, 409. Pray give the "Atlantic,'' 515. " Put up the sword!” The voice of Christ once more, 382. Raze these long blocks of brick and stone, 74. Red as the banner which enshrouds, 488. Right in the track where Sherman, 348. Rivermouth Rocks are fair to see, 245. Robert Rawlin! - Frosts were falling, 51. Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars, 149. Saint Patrick, slave to Milcho of the herds, 310. Sarah Greenleaf, of eighteen years, 509. Say, whose is this fair picture, which the light, 5486. Scarce had the solemn Sabbath-bell, 312. Seeress of the misty Norland, 183, She came and stood in the Old South Church, 121. She sang alone, ere womanhood had known, 473. She sings by her wheel at that low cottage- door, 379. She was a fair young girl, yet on her brow, 491. Should you go to Centre Harbor, 513. Silence o'er sea and earth, isti. Smoothing soft the nestling head, 464. So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn, 186. Some die too late and some too soon, 187. So spake Farias : so, in words of tiame, 198. So stood of old the holy Christ, 154. So this is all, -- the utmost reach, 276. Sound now the trumpet warningly, 512. Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands, 43. Spare me, dread angel of reproof, 441. Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking north- ward far away, 13. Spirit of the frozen North, 487. Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark, 428, Statesman, I thank thee! and, if yet dissent, Still, as of old, in Beavor's Vale, 160. Still in thy streets, O Paris! doth the stain, 366, Still linger in our noon of time, 154. Still sits the school-bouse by the road, 407. Stranger and traveller, 179. Stream of my father! sweetly still, 141. Serike home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root, 179. Summer's last sun nigh unto setting shims 4 Sunlight upon Judua's hills, #1. Sweetest of all childlike dreams, 157. Take our hands, James Russell Lowell, 1*. Talk not of sad November, when a day, itin Tauler, the preacher, walked, one autunun das, 41. Thank God for rest, where none molest, 14 Thank God for the token! one lip is still tren 275. Thanks for thy gift, 14. The age is dull and mean. Men creep, 317. The autumin-time has come, tij. The beaver cut his timber, 17. The Benedictine Echard, 157. The birds against the April wind, 343 The blast from Freedom's Northern Hills, upan its Southern way, Vi. The Brownie sits in the Scotchman's rowen, á The burly driver at my side, I . The cannon's brazen lips are cold, 370. The circle is broken, one seat is furkan 1.** The clouds, which rise with thunder, slik 1.1. The cross, if rightly borne, shall be, 1:7:. The day is closing dark and cold, die The day's sharp strife is ended ww. ? The dreadful burden of our sins we feel 3:6 The eagle, stooping from yon show-boken peaks, 175, The elder folks shook hands at last, 445. The end has come, as come it must, H. The evil days have come, the pwr. 13 The fagots blazed, the caldron s smoke, 4** The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse. 3:33. The flags of war like storm-binds flv, 1929 The fourteen centuries fall away. twi. The goodman sat beside his door, 13, The great work laid upon his two score yan 203. The gulf of seven and fifty yean, 20. The harp at Nature's advent strunz, X1. The Khan came from Bokhara tuwa. 122 The land, that, from the rule of kings, 24 The land was pale with famine, . The lowliest born of all the land, 213. The mercy. O Eternal One, 463. The moon has set: while yet the dawn, 314. The name the Gallic exile bure, t12. The new world bonors him whom Lufty pies 473) The old Squire said, as he stood by his fat 120. The Pagan's myths through marble lips ar spoken, 12 The Persian's flowery gifte, the shrine i The pilgrim and stranger who through the day, 453, The pines were dark on Ramoth hill, i The pleasant isle of Rugen looks the Balta water o'er, 1. The prophet stood, 4x4. The proudest now is but my peer, 374. The Quaker of the olden time, wl. The Rabbi Ishmael, with the woe and dia, : The Rabbi Kathan twoscure years and ten. . INDEX OF FIRST LINES 537 To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise to-day, 18. “To the winds give our banner ! 12. To weary hearts, to mourning homes, 425. Traveller! on thy journey toiling, 7. Tritemius of Herbipolis, one day, 54. 'Twas night. The tranquil moonlight smile, 263. Twenty years have taken flight, 525. Type of two mighty continents ! – combining, 189. Under the great hill sloping bare, 124. Under the shadow of a cloud, the light, 515. Unfathomed deep, unfetter'd waste, 486. Unnoted as the setting of a star, 217. Up and down the village streets, 67. Up from the meadows rich with corn, 342. Up from the sea the wild north wind is blow- ing, 476. Up, laggards of Freedom ! - our free flag is cast, 322. Up the hillside, down the glen, 291. Up the streets of Aberdeen, 33. There are streams which are famous in his- tory's story, 485. The river hemmed with leaning trees, 159. The robins sang in the orchard, the buds into blossoms grew, 101. The roll of drums and the bugle's wailing, 225. The same old baffling questions ! O my friend, 434. The shade for me, but over thee, 435. The shadows grow and deepen round me, 463. The shadows round the inland sea, 14. The skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth, 128. The sky is ruddy in the east, 361. The sonl itself its awful witness is, 461. The South-land boasts its teeming cane, 371. The storm and peril overpast, 350. The storm-wind is howling, 482. The subtle power in perfume found, 166. The summer warmth has left the sky, 161. The sunlight glitters keen and bright, 142. The suns of eighteen centuries have shone, 352. The sun that brief December day, 399. The sweet spring day is glad with music, 205. The sword was sheathed: in April's sun, 467. The tall, sallow guardsmen their horsetails have spread, 379. The tent-lights glimmer on the land, 337. The threads our hands in blindness spin, 455. The time of gifts has come again, 159. The tossing spray of Cocheco's fall, 131. The tree of Faith its bare, dry boughs must shed, 464, The wave is breaking on the shore, 281. The winding way the serpent takes, 92. The years are but half a score, 384. The years are many since his hand, 195. The years are many since, in youth and hope, 93. The years that since we met have flown, 515. They hear Thee not, O God! nor see, 423. They left their home of summer ease, 162. They sat in silent watchfulness, 14. They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, 174. Thine are all the gifts, O God, 235. Thine is a grief, the depth of which another, 181. This day, two hundred years ago, 219. Thou dwellest not, () Lord of all, 228. Though flowers have perished at the touch, 164. Thou hast fallen in thine armor, 170. Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers, 237. Thrice welcome to thy sisters of the East, 301. Through heat and cold, and shower and sun, 362. Through the long hall the shuttered windows shed, 323. Through the streets of Marblehead, 236. Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old, 431. Thy error, Frémont, simply was to act, 333. 'Tis over, Moses! All is lost, 298. 'Tis said that in the Holy Land, 391. 'Tis the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird, 145. Today the plant by Williams set, 229. Token of friendship, true and tried, 283, To kneel before some saintly shrine, 165. Voice of a people suffering long, 349. Voice of the Holy Spirit, making known, 460. Wake, sisters, wake! the day-star shines, 4.36. Wave of an awful torrent, thronging down, 506. Weary of jangling noises never stilled, 464. We cross the prairie as of old, 317. We give thy natal day to hope, 383. We had been wandering for many days, 23. We have opened the door, 122. Welcome home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, 296. We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave, 461. Well speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast, 369. Well thought! who would not rather hear, 198. We praise not now the poet's art, 203. We sat together, last May - day, and talked, 213. We saw the slow tides go and come, 160. We see not, know not; all our way, 333. We wait beneath the furnace-blast, 334. What flecks the outer gray beyond, 257. What shall I say, dear friends, to whom I owe, 516. What shall I wish him? Strength and health, 516. What though around thee blazes, 292. When first I saw our banner wave, 338. When Freedom, on her natal day, 275. When on my day of life the night is falling, 163. When the breath divine is flowing, 421. When the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late, 60. Where are we going? where are we going, 301. Where ceaseless Spring her garland twines, 231. Where, over heathen doom - rings and gray stones of the Horg, 112. 538 INDEX OF FIRST LINES Where the great Lake's sunny smiles, 247. Where Time the measure of his hours, 416. White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, 117. Who gives and hides the giving hand, 156. Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime, 4:30. Who stands on that cliff, like a figure of stone, 495. “Why urge the long, unequal fight, 376. Wildly round our woodland quarters, 359. With a cold and wintry noon-light, 295. With a glory of winter sunshine, 213. With clearer light, Cross of the South, shise forth, 381. With fifty years between you and your well kept wedding vow, 231. With warning hand I mark Time's rapid tingkat 439. With wisdom far beyond her years, 207. Years since (but names to me beforel, . Yes, let them gather! Summon forth, 'N Yes, pile the marble o'er him! It is well, 171 You flung your taunt across the wave, . You scarcely need my tardy thanks, X INDEX OF TITLES ABRAHAM DAVENPORT, 259. Abram Morrison, 413. Adams, John Quincy, 481. Adjustment, 464. After Election, 382. Album Verses, 512. All's Well, 131. Among the Hills, 83. Amy Wentworth, 79. Andrew Rykman's Prayer, 439. Angel of Patience, The, 425. Angels of Buena Vista, The, 35. Anniversary Poem, 341. Answer, The, 441. April, 145. Arisen at Last, 316. Artist of the Beautiful, An, 216. Astræa, 373. Astrea at the Capitol, 338. At Eventide, 409. At Last, 463 At Port Royal, 337. At School-Close, 231. At Washington, 295. Autograph, An, 413. Autograph, An, 515. Autumn Thoughts, 144. Banished from Massachusetts, 137. Barbara Frietchie, 312. Barclay of Ury, 33. Barefoot Boy, The, 396. Bartholdi Statue, The, 240. Bartlett, William Francis, 211. Battle Autumn of 1862, The, 339. Bay of Seven Islands, The, 127. Benedicite, 189. Benevolence, 485. Between the Gates, 476. Birchbrook Mill, 133. Birthday Wreath, The, 475. Bolivar, 491. Book, The, 460. Branded Hand, The, 296. Brewing of Soma, The, 449. Bridal of Pennacook, The, 23. Brother of Mercy, The, 250. Brown Dwarf of Rügen, The, 138. Brown of Ossawatomie, 201. Bryant on his Birthday, 203. Burial of Barber, 319. Burning Drift-Wood, 471. Burns, 196. By their Works, 460. Chicago, 230. Child-Songs, 454. Christian Slave, The, 288. Christian Tourists, The, 308. Christmas Carmen, A, 453. Christmas of 1888, The, 467. Cities of the Plain, The, 417. Clear Vision, The, 447. Clerical Oppressors, 272. Cobbler Keezar's Vision, 77. Common Question, The, 443. Conductor Bradley, 117. Conquest of Finland, The, 377. Countess, The, 81. Crisis, The, 308. Cross, The, 192 Crucifixion, The, 418. Cry of a Lost Soul, The, 438. Curse of the Charter-Breakers, The, 306. Cypress-Tree of Ceylon, The, 14. Day, A, 168. Day's Journey, A, 516. Dead Feast of the Kol-Folk, The, 122. Dead Ship of Harpswell, The, 257. Dedication of a School-house. See Our State. Deity, The, 484. Democracy, 351. Demon of the Study, The, 6. Derne, 311. Disarmament, 382. Disenthralled, The, 374. Divine Compassion, 448. Dr. Kane in Cuba, 481. Dole of Jarl Thorkell, The, 89. Double-Headed Snake of Newbury, The, 61. Dream of Argyle, The, 479. Dream of Pio Nono, The, 375. Dream of Summer, A, 143. Drovers, The, 362. Drunkard to his Bottle, The, 490. Earthquake, The, 487. Easter Flower Gift, An, 462. Ego, 388. “ Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," 334. Eleanor. See My Playmate. Elliott, 185. Emancipation Group, The, 349. Eternal Goodness, The, 442. Eva, 218. Evening in Burmah, 508. Eve of Election, The, 378. Exile's Departure, The, 484. Exiles, The, 14. Expostulation, 267. Extract from “ A New England Legend," 5. Ezekiel, 423. Cable Hymn, The, 256. Calef in Boston, 371. Call of the Christian, The, 417. Captain's Well, The, 468. Cassandra Southwick, 18. Centennial Hymn, 234. Chalkley Hall, 177. Changeling, The, 251. Channing, 180. Chapel of the Hermits, The, 39. Charity, 483. Fair Quakeress, The, 491. Familist's Hymn, The, 421. Farewell, A, 516. Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother, The, 278. Female artyr, The, 4. First-Day Thoughts, 433. First Flowers, The, 153. 539 510 INDEX OF TITLES Fisherinen, The, 358. Flowers in Winter, 118. Fllen. See Expostulation. Follen: on Reading his Essay on “ The Future State," 175. For an Autumn Festival, 220. Forgiveness, 39. For Righteousness' Sake, 317. Forster, William, 195 Fountain, The, 7. Fragment, A, 616. Fratricide, The, 433. Freed Islands, The, 298. Freedoin in Brazil, 341. Fremont Campaign Song, A, 512. Friend's Burial, The, 432. From Perugia, 379. Frost Spirit, The, 141. Fruit-Gift, The, 118. Funeral Tree of the Sokokis, 11. Gallows, The, 352. Garden, 237. Garibaldi, 205. Garrison, 350. Garrison of Cape Ann, The, 52. Gift of Tritemius, The, 5i. Giving and Taking, 450. Gospeed, 236. Golden Wedding of Longwood, The, 231. Goue, 178. Grave by the Lake, The, 247. Greeting, 412. Greeting, A, 237. Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 211. Hampton Beach, 142. Haschish, The, 316. Haverhill, 473. Hazel Blossoms, 161. Healer, The, tot Help, 461. Henchman, The, 121. Hermit of the Thebaid, The, 45. Hero, The, 192. Hill-Top, The, 181. Hive at Gettysburg, The, 348 Holmes, 0. W., en his Eightieth Birthday, 473. Holy Land, The, 13). Home-Coming of the Bride, The, 509. Homestead, The, 135. Hooper, Lucy, 174. Howard at Atlanta, 348. How Mary Grew, 27 How the Robin Came, 136 How the women went from Dorer, 130. Human Saritre, The, 32). Hunters of Men, The, 270, Huskers, Thr, 303, Hymn for the Celebration of Emancipation at Newbury- port, 31. Hinin for the House of Worship at Georgetown, 228. Hymn for the opening of Plymouth Chur h. 132 Hymn for the (purning of Thomas Starr King's House of Worship, 7. Hymn of the Children, 235. Hymn of the Dunker, 154.. Himan: "O Holy Father ! just and true,"78. Hymn : " ( Thou whose promene went before," 2018, Hymns of the Brahmo potaj. #3. Hymns from the French of Lamartine, 120. Hymn mmg at Christmas by the Scholars of St. Hel- ena's Island, 8. C., 340. Ich In Memory. 214. lu Peace, 180. In Quest, 451. In Remembrance of Joseph Sturge, 150. In School-Days, 107. Inscriptions, 459. In the Evil Dayr, 313. In the ** Old South," 121. Invocation, 431. Isabel, 434. Isabella of Austria, 492. Italy, 301. "I was a Stranger, and ye took me in," 3. John Underhill, 115 Jubilee Singers, The, 319 Judith at the Tent of Holofernes, 18% June on the Merrimac, 220. Kallundborg Church, 255. Kansas Emigrants, The, 317. Kathleen, 37. Kenoza Lake, 219. Khan's Devil, The, 123. King, Thomas Stirr, 13. King's Missive, The, 124. King Solomon and the Arts, 120. King Volmer and Elsie, 112. Kinsman, 231. Knight of St. John, The, 17. Kossuth, 189. Lady Franklin, 482. Lakeside, The, 1H. Lament, A, 149. Landmarks, The, 236. Last Eve of Summer, The, 477. Last Walk in Autumn, The, 130. ** Laurels, The,"ti. Laus Deo, 345. Lay of Old Time, A, 218. Legacy, A, 115. Legend of St. Mark, The, 36. Legend of the Lake, A, 513. Leggett's Monument, 173. Letter from a Misionary of the Methodist Erare Church South, in Kansas, to a Dist. We T- tician, 318. Letter, A, supposed to be written by the Chairs the Central Clique, at (emcord, x. H., Letter to Luy Larcom, 314 Lexington, 232 Library, The, 233. Light that is felt, The, 464. Lines. Sre Arixon at Laut. Lines, See At Washington. Lines. See For Rigl. teplanes' Sake Lines. Ser Freed liian is, Tue Lines, Ser Gallows. The. Lines. Ser Lost Statesman, The Lines See My Thunik Lines. See Offcial Piety. Lines. Ser Ritner. Lines. Ser Sunumons, A. Lines from a letter to a Young Clerical Friend, se Lines on a Fly-Leaf, 2013. Lines on leasing Apple dore, 515. Lines on the Death of s. Oliver Torte, im Lines on the l'ortrait of a Celebrated Putrabot, PI Lines written in an Album, 516 Lines written in the Beuk of a Priena! Lines, written on the Departure of Jorper Lt (pasion, The, 1*. Last Statesman, The, 304. Larwell, James RimeII, 4731 Lumbermen, The, 39. Mabel Martin : A Harvest Idyl, 2. Maids of Alutash, The, 3. INDEX OF TITLES 541 Mantle of St. John de Matha, The, 344. Marais du Cygne, Le, 320. Marguerite, 101. Martha Mason. See Ranger, The. Mary Garvin, 49. Massachusetts, 508. Massachusetts to Virginia, 286. Maud Muller, 47. Mayflowers, The, 149. Meeting, The, 445. Meeting Waters, The, 483. Memorial, A, 202. Memories, 386. Memory, A, 395. Memory of Burns, The, 199. Men of Old, The, 369. Merrimac, The, 141, Metacom, 488. Milton, on Memorial Window, 475. Minister's Daughter, The, 459. Miriam, 93. Missionary, The, 506. Mithridates at Chios, 337. Mogg Megone, 495. Moloch in State Street, 314. Moral, Warfare, The, 275. Mount Agiochook, 490. Mountain Pictures, 156. Mrs. Choate's House-Warming, 515. Mulford, 217. My Birthday, 408. My Dream, 395. My Namesake, 393. My Playmate, 76. My Psalm, 397. My Soul and I, 426. Mystery, A, 159. Mystic's Christmas, The, 462 My Thanks, 391. My Triumph, 406. My Trust, 411. Name, A, 412. Naples, 201. Nauhaught, the Deacon, 99. Neall, Daniel, 300. New Exodus, The, 377. New Hampshire, 293. New Wife and the Old, The, 21. New Year, The, 281. Night and Death, 482. Norseinen, The, 9. Norembega, 92. Norumbega Hall, 239. Ocean, 486. Official Piety, 315. Old Burying-Ground, The, 153. On a Fly-Leaf of Longfellow's Poems, 516. On a Prayer-Book, 330. One of the Signers, 210. On Receiving an Eagle's Quill from Lake Superior, 144. On the Big Horn, 381. Oriental Maxims, 461. Our Autocrat, 213. Our Country, 383. Our Master, 443. Our River, 224. Our State, 371. Outdoor Reception, An, 470. Over-Heart, The, 436. Overruled, 455. Ouverture, Toussaint L', 262. Pæan, 308. Pageant, The, 158. Palatine, The, 258. Palestine, 419. Palm-Tree, The, 155. Panorama, The, 323. Pass of the Sierra, The, 321. Past and Coming Year, The, 506. Pastoral Letter, The, 276. Peace Autumn, The, 316. Peace Convention at Brussels, The, 366. Peace of Europe, The, 373. Pennsylvania Hall, 279. Pennsylvania Pilgrim, The, 103. Pentucket, 8. Pictures, 146. Pine-Tree, The, 293. Pipes at Lucknow, The, 58. Playmate, The. See My Playmate. Poet and the Children, The, 215. Poetical Trio in the City of Gotham, To a, 510. Poor Voter on Election Day, The, 374. Powers, Preston, Inscription for Bass-Relief, 475. Prayer of Agassiz, The, 450. Prayer-Seeker, The, 448. Preacher, The, 69. Prelude, The. See Greeting. Pressed Gentian, The, 159. Prisoner for Debt, The, 367. Prisoners of Naples, The, 372. Problem, The, 382. Proclamation, The, 340. Proem, 1. Prophecy of Samuel Sewall, The, 69. Pumpkin, The, 390. Quaker Alumni, The, 220. Quaker of the Olden Tiine, The, 351. Quakers are out, The, 513. Questions of Life, 432. Rabbi Ishmael, 126. Randolph of Roanoke, 303. Ranger, The, 51. Rantoul, 193. Raphael, 387. Red Riding-Hood, 408. Red River Voyageur, The, 69. Reformer, The, 364. Relic, The, 283. Remembrance, 392. Rendition, The, 315. Requirement, 461. Requital, 135. Response, 409. Reunion, The, 239. Revelation, 465. Revisited, 225. Reward, The, 430. Ritner, 275. River Path, The, 155. Robin, The, 102. “ Rock, The," in El Ghor, 435. Rock-Tomb of Bradore, The, 127. R. S. S., at Deer Island on the Merrimac, 471. Sabbath Scene, A, 312. St. Gregory's Guest, 132. St. John, 12. St. Martin's Summer, 164. Sea Dream, A, 160. Seed-Time and Harvest, 354. Seeking of the Waterfall, The, 162. Sentence of John L. Brown, The, 289. Sewall, Samuel E., 516. Shadow and the Light, The, 437. Ship-Builders, The, 361. Shoemakers, The, 357. Sicilian Vespers, The, 486. Bigourney, Lydia H., Inscription on Tablet, 475. 542 INDEX OF TITLES Singer, The, 206. Sisters, The, 100. Sisters, The: a Picture by Barry, 135. Skipper Ireson's Ride, 55. Slave-Ships, The, 265. Slaves of Martinique, The, 305. Snow-Bound, 398. Song for the Time, A, 322. Song, A, inscribed to the Frémont Clubs, 323. Song of Harvest, A, 219. Song of Slaves in the Desert, 301. Soug of the Vermonters, The, 509. Spirit of the North, The, 487. Spiritual Manifestation, A, 228. Stanzas. See Expostulation. Stanzas : “ Bind up thy tresses, thou beautiful one," Stanzas for the Times, 271. Stanzas for the Times. See In the Evil Days. Star of Bethlehem, The, 416. Stearns, George L., 204. Storm on Lake Asquam, 165. ** Story of Ida,” The, 164. Summer by the Lakeside, 147. Summer Pilgrimage, A, 165. Summons, A, 272. Summons, The, 332. Sumner, 208 Sunset on the Bearcamp, 161. Swan Song of Parson Avery, The, 60. Sweet Fern, 166. Sycamores, The, 56. Tauler, 44. Taylor, Bayard, 212. Telling the Bees, 59. Tent on the Beach, The, 242. Texas, 291. Thiers, 210. Three Bells, The, 114. Thy Will be Done, 333. Tilden, Samuel J., 217. To - Lines written after a Summer Day's Excur- sion, 188. To—, with a Copy of John Woolman's Journal, 171. To a Cape Ann Schooner, 217. To a Friend, 173. To a Poetical Trio in the City of Gotham, 510. To a Southern Statesman, 294. To Avis Keene, 184. To Charles Sumner, 196 To Delaware, 301. TO E C. 8., 467. To Englishinen, 336. To Faneuil Hall, 22. To Fredrika Bremer, 183. To G. G., 471. To George B. Cherver, 198 To James T. Fields, 198. To John C. Fremont, 334. To J. P. 177. To Lucy Larrom, 514. T. Lydia Maria Chill, 206. To Massachusetts, 22. To my Friend on the Death of his Sister, 181. To my old schoolmaster, 190. To iny bister, 391. To Oliver Wendell Holmea, 477. To Pennsylvania, 320. To Pius IX., 370. To Ronge, 179. To Samuel E. Sewall and Harriet W. Sewan, 332. To the Memory of Charles B. Surra, 170. To the Memory of Thomas Shipley, 274. To the Reformers of England, 3:54. To the Thirty-Ninth Congress, 347. To William H. Seward, 332. To William Lloyd Garrison, 262 Trailing Arbutus, The, 164. Trinitas, 431. Truce of Piscataqua, The, 74. Trust, 434. Two Angels, The, 455. Two Elizabeths, The, 134. Two Loves, The, 464. Two Rabbins, The, 91. Utterance, 461. Vale of the Merrimac, The, 485. Valuation, 126. Vanishers, The, 157. Vaudois Teacher, The, 3. Vermonters, Song of the, 503. Vesta, 451. Vision of Echard, The, 457. Voices, The, 376. Vow of Washington, The, 467. Voyage of the Jettie, 110. Waiting, The, 398 Watchers, The, 335. Wedding Veil, The, 483, Welcome to Lowell, A, 216. Well of Loch Maree, The, 39. What of the Day, 3-2. What State Street said, 512 What the Birds raid, 313. What the Traveller said at Sunset, 163, What the Voice said, 4. Wheeler, Daniel, 182. Wife of Manoah to her Husband, The, 4* Wife, The. See Among the Hilla. Wilson, 215. Wind of March, The, 476. Winter Roses, 238. Wishing Bridge, The, 130. Wish of To-Day, The, 131. Witch of Wenham, The, 117. Witch's Daughter, The See Mabel Martin. Within the Gate, 213. Woman, A, 40). Wood Giant, The, 167. Word, The, 407 Word for the Hour, A, 333 Wordsworth, 188 World's Convention, the, 284. Worship, 4:29. Worship of Nature, The, 261. Wreck of Rivermouth, The, 15 Yankee Girl, The, 269. Yorktown, 302. 1 3 2044 019 084 623 THE BORROWER WILL BE CHARGED AN OVERDUE FEE IF THIS BOOK IS NOT RETURNED TO THE LIBRARY ON OR BEFORE THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. NON-RECEIPT OF OVERDUE NOTICES DOES NOT EXEMPT THE BORROWER FROM OVERDUE FEES. Harvard College Widener Library Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 495-2413 WIDENER v. JAN 2 2 1999 DEC 3 1 1998 BOOK DUE WIDENER $Eb ? 8, 2008 CANCELLED WIDENER MAY 3 0 2002 A BOOK DUEL