WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES SPRAGUE, 
 
 ff 
 
 NOW FIRST COLLECTED, 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CHARLES S. FRANCIS 
 252 Broadway. 
 
 1841. 
 
ENTERED 
 
 ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1841, BY C. S. FRANCIS, Ilf THE 
 CLERK S OFFICE OF THE SPUTHEHN DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRINTED BT MUNROE AND FRANCIS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN presenting here together, so far as they could 
 be found, the writings of one of the most estima 
 ble poets and men among us, the Publisher feels 
 that he is meeting a wish, that has been for a 
 long time, and on all sides, loudly expressed. 
 He commenced his undertaking, partly in order 
 that the public might be no longer withheld 
 from their desire, and partly also with the view 
 of anticipating a similar design from another quar 
 ter, which he learned to be already entertained, 
 and which was not likely to be accomplished in a 
 manner to satisfy the friends of so favorite an 
 Author. He has carried it through, only not 
 forbidden by the Author himself; who, he 
 hopes, will look with some complacency on the 
 task, which he would do nothing to promote. 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 In one respect only can he seem censurable to 
 any. It may be thought that he is thus pre 
 cluding the hope of receiving a more copious col 
 lection, some time hence, from the original hand. 
 If such an objection should occur, he would reply 
 to it by saying, that, on the contrary, he thinks 
 he may thus draw his Author out a little from his 
 rather shy retirement, and, by representing thus 
 much of him, provoke him to show more. 
 
 At least, he will give utterance to the hope, in 
 which multitudes join, that the Writer may live long 
 enough to make this volume but a small part of the 
 productions of his graceful and earnest pen. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 Pag*. 
 
 CURIOSITY, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard Uni 
 versity, 1829 9 
 
 Prize Ode, delivered at the Boston Theatre in 1823, at the Exhibition of a 
 
 Pageant in Honor of Shakspeare 36 
 
 Ode, pronounced at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Boston, 
 
 September, 183D 44 
 
 Ode, written for the Fourth Triennial Celebration of the Massachusetts 
 
 Charitable Mechanic Association, 1818 64 
 
 Art, an Ode written for the Sixth Triennial Festival of the Massachusetts 
 
 Charitable Mechanic Association, 1824 66 
 
 Lines on the Death of M. S. C 68 
 
 1 see thee still 71 
 
 The Family Meeting 73 
 
 To my Cigar 75 
 
 "Look on this Picture" 77 
 
 The Winged Worshippers. Addressed to two Swallows that flew into 
 
 Chauncy Place Church during divine Service , 80 
 
 The Funeral 82 
 
 Dedication Hymn 84 
 
 Fifty Years Ago. For the Fourth of July, 1825 86 / 
 
 The Brothers 88 "l 
 
 i* 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Linos to a You:ig Mother . . . 89 
 
 Ordination Hymn 90 
 
 Edwin Buckingham D2 
 
 Mount Auburn 94 
 
 Prize Prologue, recited at the Opening of the P,.rk Theatre, New York, 1821 95 
 
 Prize Prologue, recited at the Opening of the new Philadelphia Theatre, 1822 98 
 
 Prize Address, spoken at the Opening of the Salem Theatre, 1828 K>2 
 
 Prize Address, recited at the Opening of the Philadelphia Theatre, 1828 . 105 
 
 Prize Address, recited at the Opening of the Portsmouth Theatre, 1830.. 108 
 
 Address, intended for the Opening of the Theatre at New Orleans Ill 
 
 Ode, for the Fourth of July, 1827 114 
 
 Song, written for the Purling Dinner given to Lafayette by the Massachu 
 setts Charitable Mechanic Association 115 
 
 Song, for a Festival in Faueuil Hall 117 
 
 Ode, for the Anniversary Festival of the YV.ishingUm Light Infantry 119 
 
 Death of an Infant 121 
 
 To Montague, at thirty-three 122 
 
 ORATIONS. 
 
 American Independence. An Oration pronounced before the Inhabitants of 
 Boston, July 4, 1825 3 
 
 On Intemperance. An Address delivered before the Massachusetts Society 
 for the Suppression of Intemperance, 1827 31 
 
POEMS 
 
POEMS. 
 
 CURIOSITY. 
 
 Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University. 1829. 
 
 IT came from Heaven its power archangels knew 
 When this fair globe first rounded to their view ; 
 When the young sun revealed the glorious scene 
 Where oceans gathered and where lands grew green ; 
 When the dead dust in joyful myriads swarmed, 
 And man, the clod, with God s own breath was warmed. 
 It reigned in Eden when that man first woke, 
 Its kindling influence from his eye-balls spoke ; 
 No roving childhood, no exploring youth 
 Led him along, till wonder chilled to truth ; 
 Full-formed at once, his subject world he trod, 
 And gazed upon the labors of his God ; 
 On all, by turns, his chartered glance was cast, 
 While each pleased best as each appeared the last ; 
 But when She came, in nature s blameless pride, 
 Bone of his bone, his Heaven-anointed bride, 
 All meaner objects faded from his sight, 
 And sense turned giddy with the new delight ; 
 
10 CUKIOSITY. 
 
 Those charmed his eye, but this entranced his soul, 
 Another self, queen- wonder of the whole ! 
 Rapt at the view, in ecstasy he stood, 
 And, like his Maker, saw that all was good. 
 
 It reigned in Eden in that heavy hour 
 When the arch-tempter sought our mother s bower, 
 Its thrilling charm her yielding heart assailed, 
 And even o er dread Jehovah s word prevailed. 
 There the fair tree in fatal beauty grew, 
 And hung its mystic apples to her view : 
 " Eat," breathed the fiend beneath his serpent guise, 
 " Ye shall know all things ; gather, and be wise ! " 
 Sweet on her ear the wily falsehood stole, 
 And roused the Ruling Passion of her soul. 
 "Ye shall become like God," transcendent fate ! 
 That God s command forgot, she plucked and ate ; 
 Ate, and her partner lured to share the crime, 
 Whose woe, the legend saith, must live through time. 
 For this they shrank before the Avenger s face ; 
 For this He drove them from the sacred place ; 
 For this came down the universal lot, 
 To weep, to wander, die, and be forgot. 
 
 It came from Heaven it reigned in Eden s shades- 
 It roves on earth and every walk invades ; 
 Childhood and age alike its influence own ; 
 It haunts the beggar s nook, the monarch s throne ; 
 Hangs o er the cradle, leans above the bier, 
 Gazed on old Babel s tower and lingers here. 
 
CURIOSITY. 11 
 
 To all that s lofty, all that s low it turns, 
 With terror curdles, and with rapture burns ; 
 Now feels a seraph s throb, now less than man s, 
 A reptile tortures and a planet scans ; 
 Now idly joins in life s poor, passing jars, 
 Now shakes creation off, and soars beyond the stars. 
 
 Tis CURIOSITY who hath not felt 
 Its spirit, and before its altar knelt ? 
 In the pleased infant see its power expand, 
 When first the coral fills his little hand ; 
 Throned in his mother s lap, it dries each tear, 
 As her sweet legend falls upon his ear ; 
 Next it assails him in his top s strange hum, 
 Breathes in his whistle, echoes in his drum ; 
 Each gilded toy, that doting love bestows, 
 He longs to break and every spring expose. 
 Placed by your hearth, with what delight he pores 
 O er the bright pages of his pictured stores ! 
 How oft he steals upon your graver task, 
 Of this to tell you, and of that to ask ! 
 And, when the waning hour to-bedward bids, 
 Though gentle sleep sit waiting on his lids, 
 How winningly he pleads to gain you o er, 
 That he may read one little story more ! 
 
 Nor yet alone to toys and tales confined, 
 It sits, dark brooding, o er his embryo mind : 
 Take him between your knees, peruse his face, 
 While all you know, or think you know, you trace ; 
 
12 CURIOSITY. 
 
 Tell him who spoke creation into birth, 
 
 Arched the broad heavens, and spread the rolling earth, 
 
 Who formed a pathway for the obedient sun, 
 
 And bade the seasons in their circles run, 
 
 Who filled the air, the forest, and the flood, 
 
 And gave man all, for comfort, or for food ; 
 
 Tell him they sprang at God s creating nod 
 
 He stops you short with, " Father, who made God ? " 
 
 Thus through life s stages may we mark the powei 
 That masters man in every changing hour. 
 It tempts him from the blandishments of home, 
 Mountains to climb, and frozen seas to roam ; 
 By air-blown bubbles buoyed, it bids him rise, 
 And hang, an atom in the vaulted skies ; 
 Lured by its charm, he sits and learns to trace 
 The midnight wanderings of the orbs of space ; 
 Boldly he knocks at wisdom s inmost gate, 
 With nature counsels, and communes with fate ; 
 Below, above, o er all he dares to rove, 
 In all finds God, and finds that God all love. 
 
 Turn to the world its curious dwellers view, 
 Like Paul s Athenians, seeking Something New. 
 Be it a bonfire s or a city s blaze, 
 The gibbet s victim, or the nation s gaze, 
 A female atheist, or a learned dog, 
 A monstrous pumpkin, or a mammoth hog, 
 A murder, or a muster, tis the same, 
 Life s follies, glories, griefs, all feed the flame. 
 
CURIOSITY. 13 
 
 Hark, where the martial trumpet fills the air, 
 
 How the roused multitude come round to stare ! 
 
 Sport drops his ball, Toil throws his hammer by, 
 
 Thrift breaks a bargain off, to please his eye ; 
 
 Up fly the windows, even fair mistress cook, 
 
 Though dinner burn, must run to take a look. 
 
 In the thronged court the ruling passion read, 
 
 Where Story dooms, where Wirt and Webster plead ; 
 
 Yet kindred minds alone their flights shall trace, 
 
 The herd press on to see a cut- throat s face. 
 
 Around the gallows foot behold them draw, 
 
 When the lost villain answers to the law ; 
 
 Soft souls, how anxious on his pangs to gloat, 
 
 When the vile cord shall tighten round his throat ! 
 
 And ah ! each hard-bought stand to quit how grieved, 
 
 As the sad rumor runs " The man s reprieved ! " 
 
 See to the church the pious myriads pour, 
 
 Squeeze through the aisles, and jostle round the door ; 
 
 Does Langdon preach ? (I veil his quiet name, 
 
 Who serves "his God, and cannot stoop to fame ;) 
 
 No, tis some reverend mime, the latest rage, 
 
 Who thumps the desk, that should have trod the stage ; 
 
 Cant s veriest ranter crams a house, if new, 
 
 When Paul himself, oft heard, would hardly fill a pew. 
 
 Lo, where the Stage, the poor, degraded Stage, 
 Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age ; 
 There, where to raise the drama s moral tone 
 Fool Harlequin usurps Apollo s throne ; 
 There, where grown children gather round to praise 
 The new-vamped legends of their nursery days ; 
 2 
 
14 CURIOSITY. 
 
 Where one loose scene shall turn more souls to shame, 
 Than ten of Channing s lectures can reclaim ; 
 There, where in idiot rapture we adore 
 The herded vagabonds of every shore ; 
 Women unsexed, who, lost to woman s pride, 
 The drunkard s stagger ape, the bully s stride ; 
 Pert, lisping girls, who, still in childhood s fetters, 
 Babble of love, yet barely know their letters ; 
 Neat-jointed mummers, mocking nature s shape, 
 To prove how nearly man can match an ape ; 
 Vaulters, who, rightly served at home, perchance 
 Had dangled from the rope on which they dance ; 
 Dwarfs, mimics, jugglers, all that yield content, 
 Where Sin holds carnival, and Wit keeps lent ; 
 Where, shoals on shoals, the modest million rush, 
 One sex to laugh, and one to try to blush, 
 When mincing Ravenot sports tight pantalettes, 
 And turns fops heads while turning pirouettes ; 
 There, at each ribald sally, where we hear 
 The knowing giggle and the scurrile jeer, 
 While from the intellectual gallery first 
 Rolls the base plaudit, loudest at the worst. 
 
 Gods ! who can grace yon desecrated dome, 
 When he may turn his Shakspeare o er at home ? 
 Who there can group the pure ones of his race, 
 To see and hear what bids him veil his face ? 
 Ask ye who can ? why, I, and you, and you ; 
 No matter what the nonsense, if tis new. 
 To Doctor Logic s wit our sons give ear ; 
 They have no time for Hamlet, or for Lear ; 
 
CURIOSITY. 15 
 
 Our daughters turn from gentle Juliet s woe, 
 To count the twirls of Almaviva s toe. 
 
 Not theirs the blame who furnish forth the treat, 
 But ours, who throng the board and grossly eat. 
 We laud, indeed, the virtue-kindling Stage, 
 And prate of Shakspeare and his deathless page ; 
 But go, announce his best, on Cooper call, 
 Cooper, 4 the noblest Roman of them all ; 
 Where are the crowds so wont to choke the door ? 
 Tis an old thing, they ve seen it all before. 
 
 Pray Heaven, if yet indeed the Stage must stand, 
 With guiltless mirth it may delight the land ; 
 Far better else each scenic temple fall, 
 And one approving silence curtain all. 
 Despots to shame may yield their rising youth, 
 But Freedom dwells with purity and truth ; 
 Then make the effort, ye who rule the Stage 
 With novel decency surprise the age ; 
 Even Wit, so long forgot, may play its part, 
 And Nature yet have power to melt the heart ; 
 Perchance the listeners, to their instinct true, 
 May fancy common sense twere surely Something New. 
 
 Turn to the Press its teeming sheets survey, 
 Big with the wonders of each passing day ; 
 Births, deaths, and weddings, forgeries, fires, and wrecks, 
 Harangues and hail-storms, brawls and broken necks ; 
 Where half-fledged bards on feeble pinions seek 
 An immortality of near a week ; 
 
16 CURIOSITY. 
 
 Where cruel eulogists the dead restore, 
 
 In maudlin praise to martyr them once more ; 
 
 Where ruffian slanderers wreak their coward spite, 
 
 And need no venomed dagger while they write. 
 
 There, (with a quill so noisy and so vain 
 
 We almost hear the goose it clothed complain,) 
 
 Where each hack scribe, as hate or interest burns, 
 
 Toad or toad-eater, stains the page by turns ; 
 
 Enacts virtu, usurps the critic s chair, 
 
 Lauds a mock Guido, or a mouthing player ; 
 
 Viceroys it o er the realms of prose and rhyme, 
 
 Now puffs pert Pelham, now The Course of Time ; 
 
 And, though ere Christmas both may be forgot, 
 
 Vows this beats Milton, and that Walter Scott ; 
 
 With Samson s vigor feels his nerves expand, 
 
 To overthrow the nobles of the land ; 
 
 Soils the green garlands that for Otis bloom, 
 
 And plants a brier even on Cabot s tomb ; 
 
 As turn the party coppers, heads or tails, 
 
 And now this faction and now that prevails, 
 
 Applauds to-day what yesterday he cursed, 
 
 Lampoons the wisest, and extols the worst ; 
 
 While hard to tell, so coarse a daub he lays, 
 
 Which sullies most, the slander or the praise. 
 
 Yet, sweet or bitter, hence what fountains burst, 
 While still the more we drink the more we thirst ! 
 Trade hardly deems the busy day begun, 
 Till his keen eye along the page has run ; 
 The blooming daughter throws her needle by, 
 And reads her schoolmate s marriage with a sigh ; 
 
CURIOSITY. 17 
 
 While the grave mother puts her glasses on, 
 And gives a tear to some old crony gone ; 
 The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down, 
 To know what last new folly fills the town : 
 Lively or sad, life s meanest, mightiest things, 
 The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings ; 
 Nought comes amiss, we take the nauseous stuff, 
 Verjuice or oil, a libel or a puff. 
 
 Tis this sustains that coarse, licentious tribe 
 Of tenth-rate type-men, gaping for a bribe ; 
 That reptile race, with all that s good at strife, 
 Who trail their slime through every walk of life ; 
 Stain the white tablet where a great man s name 
 Stands proudly chiseled by the hand of fame, 
 Nor round the sacred fireside fear to crawl, 
 But drop their venom there, and poison all. 
 
 Tis Curiosity though in its round, 
 Not one poor dupe the calumny has found, 
 Still shall it live, and still new slanders breed ; 
 What though we ne er believe, we buy and read : 
 Like Scotland s war-cross, thrown from hand to hand, 
 To rouse the angry passions of the land, 
 So the black falsehood flies from ear to ear, 
 While goodness grieves, but, grieving, still must hear. 
 
 All are not such ? O no ; there are, thank Heaven, 
 A nobler troop to whom this trust is given ; 
 Who, all unbribed, on Freedom s ramparts stand, 
 Faithful and firm, bright warders of the land. 
 2* 
 
18 CURIOSITY. 
 
 By them still lifts the Press its arm abroad, 
 
 To guide all-curious man along life s road ; 
 
 To cheer young Genius, Pity s tear to start, 
 
 In truth s bold cause to rouse each fearless heart ; 
 
 O er male and female quacks to shake the rod, 
 
 And scourge the unsexed thing that scorns her God ; 
 
 To hunt Corruption from his secret den, 
 
 And show the monster up, the gaze of wondering men. 
 
 How swells my theme ! how vain my power, I find, 
 To track the windings of the curious mind ! 
 Let aught be hid, though useless, nothing boots, 
 Straightway it must be plucked up by the roots. 
 How oft we lay the volume down to ask 
 Of him, the victim in the Iron Mask ! 
 The crusted medal rub with painful care, 
 To spell the legend out that is not there ! 
 With dubious gaze o er mossgrown tombstones bend 
 To find a name the herald never penned ! 
 Dig through the lava-deluged city s breast, 
 Learn all we can, and wisely guess the rest ! 
 Ancient or modern, sacred or profane, 
 All must be known, and all obscure made plain ; 
 If twas a pippin tempted Eve to sin, 
 If glorious Byron drugged his muse with gin ; 
 If Troy e er stood, if Shakspeare stole a deer, 
 If Israel s missing tribes found refuge here ; 
 If like a villain Captain Henry lied, 
 If like a martyr Captain Morgan died. 
 
CURIOSITY. 19 
 
 Its aim oft idle, lovely in its end, 
 We turn to look, then linger to befriend ; 
 The maid of Egypt thus was led to save 
 A nation s future leader from the wave : 
 New things to hear when erst the Gentiles ran, 
 Truth closed what Curiosity began. 
 How many a noble art, now widely known, 
 Owes its young impulse to this power alone ! 
 Even in its slightest working we may trace 
 A deed that changed the fortunes of a race ; 
 Bruce, banned and hunted on his native soil, 
 With curious eye surveyed a spider s toil ; 
 Six times the little climber strove and failed ; 
 Six times the chief before his foes had quailed ; 
 " Once more," he cried, " in thine my doom I read, 
 Once more I dare the fight, if thou succeed ; " 
 Twas done the insect s fate he made his own, 
 Once more the battle waged, and gained a throne. 
 
 Behold the sick man in his easy chair ; 
 Barred from the busy crowd and bracing air, 
 How every passing trifle proves its power 
 To while away the long, dull, lazy hour ! 
 As down the pane the rival rain-drops chase, 
 Curious he ll watch to see which wins the race ; 
 And let two dogs beneath his window fight, 
 He ll shut his Bible to enjoy the sight. 
 So with each new-born nothing rolls the day, 
 Till some kind neighbor, stumbling in his way, 
 Draws up his chair, the sufferer to amuse, 
 And makes him happy while he tells The News. 
 
20 CURIOSITY. 
 
 The News ! our morning, noon, and evening cry ; 
 Day unto day repeats it till we die. 
 For this the cit, the critic, and the fop 
 Dally the hour away in Tonsor s shop ; 
 For this the gossip takes her daily route, 
 And wears your threshold and your patience out ; 
 For this we leave the parson in the lurch, 
 And pause to prattle on the way to church ; 
 Even when some coffined friend we gather round, 
 We ask, " What news ? " then lay him in the ground ; 
 To this the breakfast owes its sweetest zest, 
 For this the dinner cools, the bed remains unpressed. 
 
 What gives each tale of scandal to the street, 
 The kitchen s wonder and the parlor s treat ? 
 See the pert housemaid to the keyhole fly, 
 When husband storms, wife frets, or lovers sigh ; 
 See Tom your pockets ransack for each note, 
 And read your secrets while he cleans your coat ; 
 See, yes, to listen, see even Madam deign, 
 W T hen the smug sempstress pours her ready strain. 
 This wings the lie that malice breeds in fear, 
 No tongue so vile but finds a kindred ear ; 
 Swift flies each tale of laughter, shame, or folly, 
 Caught by Paul Pry and carried home to Polly ; 
 On this each foul calumniator leans, 
 And nods and hints the villany he means ; 
 Full well he knows what latent wildfire lies 
 In the close whisper and the dark surmise ; 
 A muffled word, a wordless wink, has woke 
 A warmer throb than if a Dexter spoke ; 
 
CURIOSITY. 21 
 
 And he, o er Everett s periods who would nod, 
 To track a secret half the town has trod. 
 
 O Thou, from whose rank breath nor sex can save, 
 Nor sacred virtue, nor the powerless grave, 
 Felon unwhipped ! than whom in yonder cells, 
 Full many a groaning wretch less guilty dwells, 
 Blush if of honest blood a drop remains, 
 To steal its lonely way along thy veins ; 
 Blush if the bronze, long hardened on thy cheek, 
 Has left a spot where that poor drop can speak ; 
 Blush to be branded with the Slanderer s name, 
 And though thou dread st not sin, at least dread shame. 
 We hear, indeed, but shudder while we hear 
 The insidious falsehood and the heartless jeer ; 
 For each dark libel that thou lick st to shape, 
 Thou mayst from law, but not from scorn escape ; 
 The pointed finger, cold, averted eye, 
 Insulted virtue s hiss thou canst not fly. 
 
 The churl, who holds it heresy to think, 
 Who loves no music but the dollar s clink, 
 Who laughs to scorn the wisdom of the schools, 
 And deems the first of poets first of fools, 
 Who never found what good from science grew, 
 Save the grand truth, that one and one are two, 
 And marvels Bowditch o er a book should pore, 
 Unless to make those two turn into four ; 
 Who, placed where CatskilPs forehead greets the sky, 
 Grieves that such quarries all unhewn should lie ; 
 
22 CURIOSITY. 
 
 Or, gazing where Niagara s torrents thrill, 
 Exclaims, " A monstrous stream to turn a mill ; " 
 Who loves to feel the blessed winds of heaven 
 But as his freighted barks are portward driven ; 
 Even he, across whose brain scarce dares to creep 
 Aught but thrift s parent pair to get, to keep ; 
 Who never learned life s real bliss to know 
 With Curiosity even he can glow. 
 
 Go, seek him out on yon dear Gotham s walk, 
 Where traffic s venturers meet to trade and talk ; 
 Where Mammon s votaries bend, of each degree, 
 The hard-eyed lender, and the pale lendee ; 
 Where rogues insolvent strut in white-washed pride, 
 And shove the dupes who trusted them aside. 
 How through the buzzing crowd he threads his way, 
 To catch the flying rumors of the day ; 
 To learn of changing stocks, of bargains crossed, 
 Of breaking merchants, and of cargoes lost ; 
 The thousand ills that traffic s walks invade, 
 And give the heartache to the sons of trade ! 
 How cold he hearkens to some bankrupt s woe, 
 Nods his wise head, and cries "I told you so ; 
 " The thriftless fellow lived beyond his means ; 
 " He must buy brants I make my folks eat beans ; " 
 What cares he for the knave, the knave s sad wife, 
 The blighted prospects of an anxious life ? 
 The kindly throbs that other men control, 
 Ne er melt the iron of the miser s soul ; 
 Through life s dark road his sordid way he wends, 
 An incarnation of fat dividends ; 
 
CURIOSITY. 23 
 
 But when to death he sinks, ungrieved, unsung, 
 Buoyed by the blessing of no mortal tongue, 
 No worth rewarded and no want redressed, 
 To scatter fragrance round his place of rest, 
 What shall that hallowed epitaph supply 
 The universal woe when good men die ? 
 Cold Curiosity shall linger there, 
 To guess the wealth he leaves his tearless heir ; 
 Perchance to wonder what must be his doom, 
 In the far land that lies beyond the tomb ; 
 Alas ! for him, if, in its awful plan, 
 Heaven deal with him as he hath dealt with man. 
 
 Child of romance, these work-day scenes you spurn, 
 For loftier things your finer pulses burn ; 
 Through nature s walks your curious way you take, 
 Gaze on her glowing bow, her glittering flake, 
 Her spring s first cheerful green, her autumn s last, 
 Born in the breeze, or dying in the blast; 
 You climb the mountain s everlasting wall, 
 You linger where the thunder-waters fall, 
 You love to wander by old ocean s side, 
 And hold communion with its sullen tide ; 
 Washed to your foot some fragment of a wreck, 
 Fancy shall build again the crowded deck 
 That trod the waves, till mid the tempest s frown 
 The sepulchre of living men went down. 
 Yet Fancy, with her milder, tenderer glow, 
 But dreams what Curiosity would know ; 
 Ye would stand listening, as the booming gun 
 Proclaimed the work of agony half done ; 
 
24 CURIOSITY. 
 
 There would you drink each drowning seaman s cry, 
 As wild to Heaven he cast his frantic eye ; 
 Though vain all aid, though pity s blood ran cold, 
 The mortal havoc ye would dare behold ; 
 Still Curiosity would wait and weep, 
 Till all sank down to slumber in the deep. 
 
 Nor yet appeased the spirit s restless glow, 
 Ye would explore the gloomy waste below ; 
 There, where the joyful sunbeams never fell, 
 Where ocean s unrecorded monsters dwell ; 
 Where sleep earth s precious things, her rifled gold, 
 Bones bleached by ages, bodies hardly cold, 
 Of those who bowed to fate in every form, 
 By battle -strife, by pirate, or by storm ; 
 The sailor-chief, who freedom s foes defied, 
 Wrapped in the sacred flag for which he died ; 
 The wretch, thrown over to the midnight foam, 
 Stabbed in his blessed dreams of love and home ; 
 The mother, with her fleshless arms still clasped 
 Round the scared infant that in death she grasped ; 
 On these, and sights like these, ye long to gaze, 
 The mournful trophies of uncounted days ; 
 All that the miser deep has brooded o er, 
 Since its first billow rolled to find a shore. 
 
 Once more the Press not that which daily flings 
 Its fleeting ray across life s fleeting things 
 See tomes on tomes of fancy and of power, 
 To cheer man s heaviest, warm his holiest hour. 
 
CURIOSITY. 25 
 
 Now Fiction s groves we tread, where young Romance 
 
 Laps the glad senses in her sweetest trance ; 
 
 Now through earth s cold, unpeopled realms we range, 
 
 And mark each rolling century s awful change ; 
 
 Turn back the tide of ages to its head, 
 
 And hoard the wisdom of the honored dead. 
 
 Twas heaven to lounge upon a couch, said Gray, 
 And read new novels through a rainy day. 
 Add but the Spanish weed, the bard was right ; 
 Tis heaven, the upper heaven of calm delight, 
 The world forgot, to sit at ease reclined, 
 While round one s head the smoky perfumes wind, 
 Firm in one hand the ivory folder grasped, 
 Scott s uncut latest by the other clasped, 
 Tis heaven, the glowing, graphic page to turn, 
 And feel within the ruling passion burn ; 
 Now through the dingles of his own bleak isle, 
 And now through lands that wear a sunnier smile, 
 To follow him, that all-creative one, 
 Who never found a " brother near his throne." 
 
 Look now, directed by yon candle s blaze, 
 Where the false shutter half its trust betrays 
 Mark that fair girl reclining in her bed, 
 Its curtain round her polished shoulders spread. 
 Dark midnight reigns, the storm is up in power ; 
 What keeps her waking in that dreary hour ? 
 See where the volume on her pillow lies 
 Claims RadclhTe or Chapone those frequent sighs ? 
 3 
 
26 CURIOSITY. 
 
 Tis some wild legend now her kind eye fills, 
 And now cold terror every fibre chills ; 
 Still she reads on in Fiction s labyrinth lost, 
 Of tyrant fathers, and of true love crossed ; 
 Of clanking fetters, low, mysterious groans, 
 Blood-crusted daggers, and uncoffined bones, 
 Pale, gliding ghosts, with fingers dropping gore, 
 And blue flames dancing round a dungeon door ; 
 Still she reads on even though to read she fears, 
 And in each key-hole moan strange voices hears, 
 While every shadow that withdraws her look, 
 Glares in her face, the goblin of her book ; 
 Still o er the leaves her craving eye is cast, 
 On all she feasts, yet hungers for the last ; 
 Counts what remain, now sighs there are no more, 
 And now even those half tempted to skip o er ; 
 At length, the bad all killed, the good all pleased, 
 Her thirsting Curiosity appeased, 
 She shuts the dear, dear book, that made her weep, 
 Puts out her light, and turns away to sleep. 
 
 Her bright, her bloody records to unroll, 
 See History come, and wake the inquiring soul. 
 How bounds the bosom at each wondrous deed 
 Of those who founded, and of those who freed ; 
 The good, the valiant of our own loved clime, 
 Whose names shall brighten through the clouds of time ! 
 How rapt we linger o er the volumed lore 
 That tracks the glories of each distant shore ! 
 
 
 
CURIOSITY. 27 
 
 In all their grandeur and in all their gloom, 
 The throned, the thralled, rise dimly from the tomb ; 
 Chiefs, sages, bards, the giants of their race, 
 Earth s monarch men, her greatness and her grace. 
 Warmed as we read, the penman s page we spurn, 
 And to each near, each far arena turn ; 
 Here, where the Pilgrim s altar first was built, 
 Here, where the patriot s life-blood first was spilt ; 
 There, where new empires spread along each spot 
 Where old ones flourished but to be forgot, 
 Or, direr judgment, spared to fill a page, 
 And with their errors warn an after age. 
 
 And where is he, upon that Rock can stand, 
 Nor with their firmness feel his heart expand, 
 Who a new empire planted where they trod, 
 And gave it to their children and their God ? 
 Who yon immortal mountain-shrine hath pressed, 
 With saintlier relics stored than priest e er blessed, 
 But felt each grateful pulse more warmly glow, 
 In voiceless reverence for the dead below ? 
 Who, too, by Curiosity led on, 
 To tread the shores of kingdoms come and gone, 
 Where Faith her martyrs to the fagot led, 
 Where Freedom s champions on the scaffold bled, 
 Where ancient Power, though stripped of ancient fame, 
 Curbed, but not crushed, still lives for guilt and shame, 
 But prouder, happier, turns on home to gaze, 
 And thanks his God who gave him better days ? 
 
28 CURIOSITY. 
 
 Undraw yon curtain, look within that room, 
 Where all is splendor, yet where all is gloom. 
 Why weeps that mother ? Why, in pensive mood, 
 Group noiseless round, that little, lovely brood ? 
 The battledoor is still, laid by each book, 
 And the harp slumbers in its customed nook. 
 Who hath done this ? What cold, unpitying foe 
 Hath made this house the dwelling-place of woe ? 
 Tis he, the husband, father, lost in care 
 O er that sweet fellow in his cradle there. 
 The gallant bark that rides by yonder strand, 
 Bears him to-morrow from his native land. 
 Why turns he, half unwilling, from his home, 
 To tempt the ocean, and the earth to roam ? 
 Wealth he can boast a miser s sigh would hush, 
 And health is laughing in that ruddy blush ; 
 Friends spring to greet him, and he has no foe 
 So honored and so blessed, what bids him go ? 
 His eye must see, his foot each spot must tread, 
 Where sleeps the dust of earth s recorded dead ; 
 Where rise the monuments of ancient time, 
 Pillar and pyramid in age sublime ; 
 Tlie pagan s temple and the churchman s tower, 
 War s bloodiest plain and wisdom s greenest bower ; 
 All that his wonder woke in school-boy themes, 
 All that his fancy fired in youthful dreams. 
 Where Socrates once taught he thirsts to stray, 
 Where Homer poured his everlasting lay ; 
 From Virgil s tomb he longs to pluck one flower, 
 By Avon s stream to live one moonlight hour ; 
 
CURIOSITY. 29 
 
 To pause "where England " garners up " her great, 
 And drop a patriot s tear to Milton s fate. 
 Fame s living masters, too, he must behold, 
 Whose deeds shall blazon with the best of old ; 
 Nations compare, their laws and customs scan, 
 And read, wherever spread, the book of Man. 
 For these he goes, self-banished from his hearth, 
 And wrings the hearts of all he loves on earth. 
 
 Yet say, shall not new joy those hearts inspire, 
 When grouping round the future winter fire, 
 To hear the wonders of the world they burn, 
 And lose his absence in his glad return ? 
 Return ? alas ! he shall return no more, 
 To bless his own sweet home, his own proud shore. 
 Look once again cold in his cabin now, 
 Death s finger-mark is on his pallid brow ; 
 No wife stood by, her patient watch to keep, 
 To smile on him, then turn away to weep ; 
 Kind woman s place rough mariners supplied, 
 And shared the wanderer s blessing when he died. 
 Wrapped in the raiment that it long must wear, 
 His body to the deck they slowly bear. 
 Even there the spirit that I sing is true ; 
 The crew look on with sad, but curious view ; 
 The setting sun flings round his farewell rays, 
 O er the broad ocean not a ripple plays ; 
 How eloquent, how awful in its power, 
 The silent lecture of death s Sabbath-hour ! 
 3* 
 
30 CURIOSITY. 
 
 One voice that silence breaks the prayer is said, 
 And the last rite man pays to man is paid ; 
 The plashing waters mark his resting-place, 
 And fold him round in one long, cold embrace ; 
 Bright bubbles for a moment sparkle o er, 
 Then break, to be, like him, beheld no more ; 
 Down, countless fathoms down, he sinks to sleep, 
 With all the nameless shapes that haunt the deep. 
 
 " Alps rise on Alps " in vain my muse essays 
 To lay the spirit that she dared to raise. 
 What spreading scenes of rapture and of woe, 
 With rose and cypress, lure me as I go ! 
 In every question and in every glance, 
 In folly s wonder and in wisdom s trance, 
 In all of life, nor yet of life alone, 
 In all beyond, this mighty power we own. 
 We would unclasp the mystic book of fate, 
 And trace the paths of all we love and hate ; 
 The father s heart would learn his children s doom, 
 Even when that heart is crumbling in the tomb ; 
 If they must sink in guilt, or soar to fame, 
 And leave a hated or a hallowed name ; 
 By hope elated, or depressed by doubt, 
 Even in the death-pang he would find it out 
 
 What boots it to your dust, your son were born 
 An empire s idol or a rabble s scorn ? 
 Think ye the franchised spirit shall return, 
 To share his triumph, his disgrace to mourn ? 
 
CURIOSITY. 31 
 
 Ah, Curiosity ! by thee inspired, 
 
 This truth to know how oft has man inquired ! 
 
 And is it fancy all ? can reason say 
 
 Earth s loves must moulder with earth s mouldering clay ? 
 
 That death can chill the father s sacred glow, 
 
 And hush the throb that none but mothers know ? 
 
 Must we believe those tones of dear delight, 
 
 The morning welcome and the sweet good-night, 
 
 The kind monition and the well-earned praise, 
 
 That won and warmed us in our earlier days, 
 
 Turned, as they fell, to cold and common air ? 
 
 Speak, proud Philosophy ! the truth declare ! 
 
 Yet no ; the fond delusion, if no more, 
 We would not yield for wisdom s cheerless lore ; 
 A tender creed they hold, who dare believe 
 The dead return, with them to joy or grieve. 
 How sweet, while lingering slow on shore or hill, 
 When all the pleasant sounds of earth are still, 
 When the round moon rolls through the unpillared skies, 
 And stars look down as they were angels eyes, 
 How sweet to deem our lost, adored ones nigh, 
 And hear their voices in the night wind s sigh ! 
 Full many an idle dream that hope had broke, 
 And the awed heart to holy goodness woke ; 
 Full many a felon s guilt in thought had died, 
 Feared he his father s spirit by his side ; 
 Then let that fear, that hope, control the rnind, 
 Still let us question, still no answer find ; 
 Let Curiosity of Heaven inquire, 
 Nor earth s cold dogmas quench the ethereal fire. 
 
32 . CURIOSITY. 
 
 Nor even to life, nor death, nor time confined 
 The dread Hereafter fills the exploring mind ; 
 We burst the grave, profane the coffin s lid, 
 Unwisely ask of all so wisely hid ; 
 Eternity s dark record we would read, 
 Mysteries, unravelled yet by mortal creed ; 
 Of life to come, unending joy and woe, 
 And all that holy wranglers dream below ; 
 To find their jarring dogmas out we long, 
 Or which is right, or whether all be wrong ; 
 Things of an hour, we would invade His throne, 
 And find out Him, the Everlasting One ! 
 Faith we may boast, undarkcned by a doubt, 
 We thirst to find each awful secret out ; 
 Hope may sustain, and innocence impart 
 Her sweet specific to the fearless heart, 
 The inquiring spirit will not be controlled, 
 We would make certain all, and all behold. 
 
 Unfathomed well-head of the boundless soul ! 
 Whose living waters lure us as they roll, 
 From thy pure wave one cheering hope we draw 
 Man, man, at least, shall spurn proud Nature s law. 
 All that have breath, but he, lie down content, 
 Life s purpose served, indeed, when life is spent ; 
 All as in Paradise the same are found ; 
 The beast, whose footstep shakes the solid ground, 
 The insect, living on a summer spire, 
 The bird, whose pinion courts the sunbeam s fire ; 
 In lair and nest, in way and want, the same 
 As when their sires sought Adam for a name ; 
 
CURIOSITY. 33 
 
 Their be-all and their end-all here below, 
 
 They nothing need beyond, nor need to know ; 
 
 Earth and her hoards their every want supply, 
 
 They revel, rest, then fearless, hopeless, die. 
 
 But Man, his Maker s likeness, lord of earth, 
 
 Who owes to Nature little but his birth. 
 
 Shakes down, her puny chains, her wants, and woes, 
 
 One world subdues, and for another glows. 
 
 See him, the feeblest, in his cradle laid ; 
 
 See him, the mightiest, in his mind arrayed ! 
 
 How wide tfcfe gulf he clears, how bold the flight 
 
 That bears him upward to the realms of light ! 
 
 By restless (Curiosity inspired, 
 
 Through all his subject world he roves untired ; 
 
 Looks back and scans the infant days of yore, 
 
 On to the time when time shall be no more ; 
 
 Even in life s parting throb its spirit burns, 
 
 And, shut from earth, to heaven more warmly turns. 
 
 Shall he alone, of mortal dwellers here, . 
 Thus soar aloft, to sink in mid-career ? 
 Less favored than a worm, shall his stern doom 
 Lock up these seraph longings in the tomb ? 
 O Thou, whose fingers raised us from the dust, 
 Till there we .sleep again, be this our trust: 
 This sacred hunger marks the immortal mind ; 
 By Thee twas given, for Thee, for Heaven designed : 
 There the rapt spirit, from earth s grossness freed, 
 Shall see, and know, and be like Thee indeed. 
 
34 CURIOSITY. 
 
 Here let me pause no further I rehearse 
 What claims a loftier soul, a nobler verse ; 
 The mountain s foot I have but loitered round, 
 Not dared to scale its highest, holiest ground ; 
 But ventured on the pebbly shore to stray, 
 While the broad ocean all before me lay ; 
 How bright the boundless prospect there on high ! 
 How rich the pearls that here all hidden lie ! 
 But not for me to life s coarse service sold, 
 Where thought lies barren, and nought breeds but gold - 
 1 Tis yours, ye favored ones, at whose command, 
 From the cold world I ventured, here to stand : 
 Ye who were lapped in Wisdom s murmuring bowers, 
 Who still to bright improvement yield your hours ; 
 To you the privilege and the power belong 
 To give my theme the grace of living song ; 
 Yours be the flapping of the eagle s wing, 
 To dare the loftiest crag, and heavenward spring ; 
 Mine the light task to hop from spray to spray, 
 Blest if I charm one summer hour away. 
 
 One summer hour its golden sands have run, 
 And the poor labor of the bard is done 
 Yet, ere I fling aside my humble lyre, 
 Let one fond wish its trembling strings inspire ; 
 Fancy the task to Feeling shall resign, 
 And the heart prompt the warm, untutored line. 
 Peace to this ancient spot ! here, as of old, 
 May Learning dwell, and all her stores unfold ; 
 
CURIOSITY. 35 
 
 Still may her priests around these altars stand, 
 
 And train to truth the children of the land ; 
 
 Bright be their paths, within these shades who rest, 
 
 These brother-bands beneath his guidance blessed, 
 
 Who, with their fathers, here turned wisdom s page, 
 
 Who comes to them the Statesman and the Sage. 
 
 Praise be his portion in his labors here, 
 
 The praise that cheered a Kirklarid s mild career ; 
 
 The love that finds in every breast a shrine, 
 
 When zeal and gentleness with wisdom join. 
 
 Here may he sit, while race succeeding race 
 
 Go proudly forth his parent care to grace ; 
 
 In head and heart by him prepared to rise, 
 
 To take their stations with the good and wise : 
 
 This crowning recompense to him be given, 
 
 To see them guard on earth and guide to heaven. 
 
 Thus in their talents, in their virtues blessed, 
 
 O be his ripest years his happiest and his best ! 
 
SHAKSPEARE ODE, 
 
 Delivered at the Boston Theatre in 1823, at the Exhibition of a Pageant in 
 Honor of Shakspeare. 
 
 GOD of the glorious Lyre ! 
 Whose notes of old on lofty Pindus rang, 
 
 While Jove s exulting choir 
 Caught the glad echoes and responsive sang 
 Come ! bless the service and the shrine 
 We consecrate to thee and thine. 
 
 Fierce from the frozen north, 
 When Havoc led his legions forth, 
 
 O er Learning s sunny groves the dark destroyers spread ; 
 In dust the sacred statue slept, 
 Fair Science round her altars wept, 
 
 And Wisdom cowled his head. 
 
 At length, Olympian lord of morn, 
 The raven veil of night was torn, 
 
 When, through golden clouds descending, 
 Thou didst hold thy radiant flight, 
 
 O er Nature s lovely pageant bending, 
 Till Avon rolled, all-sparkling, to thy sight ! 
 
SHAKSPEAREODE. 37 
 
 There, on its bank, beneath the mulberry s shade, 
 Wrapped in young dreams, a wild-eyed minstrel strayed. 
 Lighting there, and lingering long, 
 Thou didst teach the bard his song ; 
 
 Thy fingers strung his sleeping shell, 
 And round his brows a garland curled ; 
 
 On his lips thy spirit fell, 
 And bade him wake and warm the world ! 
 
 Then Shakspeare rose ! 
 Across the trembling strings 
 His daring hand he flings, 
 And lo ! a new creation glows ! 
 There, clustering round, submissive to his will, 
 Fate s vassal train his high commands fulfil. 
 
 Madness, with his frightful scream, 
 Vengeance, leaning on his lance, 
 Avarice, with his blade and beam, 
 
 Hatred, blasting with a glance, 
 Remorse that weeps, and Rage that roars, 
 And Jealousy that dotes, but dooms, and murders, yet adores. 
 
 Mirth, his face with sunbeams lit, 
 Waking laughter s merry swell, 
 Arm in arm with fresh-eyed Wit, 
 That waves his tingling lash, while Folly shakes his bell. 
 
 Despair, that haunts the gurgling stream, 
 Kissed by the virgin moon s cold beam, 
 4 
 
38 SHAKSPEAREODE. 
 
 Where some lost maid wild chaplets wreathes, 
 And, swan-like, there her own dirge breathes, 
 Then, broken-hearted, sinks to rest, 
 Beneath the bubbling wave, that shrouds her maniac breast. 
 
 Young Love, with, eye of tender gloom, 
 Now drooping o er the hallowed tomb 
 Where his plighted victims lie 
 Where they met, but met to die ; 
 And now, when crimson buds are sleeping, 
 Through the dewy arbor peeping, 
 Where Beauty s child, the frowning world forgot, 
 To Youth s devoted tale is listening, 
 Rapture on her dark lash glistening, 
 
 While fairies leave their cowslip cells and guard the 
 happy spot. 
 
 Thus rise the phantom throng, 
 Obedient to their Master s song, 
 And lead in willing chain the wondering soul along. 
 For other worlds war s Great One sighed in vain 
 O er other worlds see Shakspeare rove and reign ! 
 The rapt magician of his own wild lay, 
 Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey. 
 Old Ocean trembles, Thunder cracks the skies, 
 Air teems with shapes, and telltale spectres rise ; 
 Night s paltering hags their fearful orgies keep, 
 And faithless Guilt unseals the lip of Sleep ; 
 Time yields his trophies up, and Death restores 
 The mouldered victims of his voiceless shores. 
 
SHAKSPEAREODE. 39 
 
 The fireside legend and the faded page, 
 The crime that cursed, the deed that blessed an age, 
 All, all come forth the good to charm and cheer, 
 To scourge bold Vice, and start the generous tear ; 
 With pictured Folly gazing fools to shame, 
 And guide young Glory s foot along the path of fame. 
 
 Lo ! hand in hand, 
 Hell s juggling sisters stand 
 To greet their victim from the fight ; 
 
 Grouped on the blasted heath, 
 They tempt him to the work of death, 
 Then melt in air, and mock his wondering sight. 
 In midnight s hallowed hour 
 He seeks the fatal tower, 
 Where the lone raven, perched on high, 
 Pours to the sullen gale 
 Her hoarse, prophetic wail, 
 And croaks the dreadful moment nigh. 
 See, by the phantom dagger led, 
 
 Pale, guilty thing, 
 Slowly he steals with silent tread, 
 And grasps his coward steel to smite his sleeping king. 
 
 Hark ! tis the signal bell, 
 Struck by that bold and unsexed one 
 Whose milk is gall, whose heart is stone ; 
 His ear hath caught the knell 
 
 Tis done ! tis done ! 
 Behold him from, the chamber rushing 
 Where his dead monarch s blood is gushing ; 
 
40 SHAKSPEAREODE. 
 
 Look where he trembling stands, 
 
 Sad gazing there, 
 
 Life s smoking crimson on his hands, 
 And in his felon heart the worm of wild despair. 
 
 Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering ! 
 
 There flit the slaves of conscience round, 
 With boding tongue foul murderers numbering ; 
 
 Sleep s leaden portals catch the sound. 
 In his dream of blood for mercy quaking, 
 At his own dull scream behold him waking ! 
 Soon that dream to fate shall turn, 
 For him the living furies burn ; 
 For him the vulture sits on yonder misty peak, 
 And chides the lagging night, and whets her hungry beak. 
 Hark ! the trumpet s warning breath 
 Echoes round the vale of death. 
 Unhorsed, unhelmed, disdaining shield, 
 The panting tyrant scours the field. 
 Vengeance ! he meets thy dooming blade ! 
 The scourge of earth, the scorn of Heaven, 
 He falls ! unwept and unforgiven, 
 And all his guilty glories fade. 
 Like a crushed reptile in the dust he lies, 
 And Hate s last lightning quivers from his eyes ! 
 
 Behold yon crownless king 
 
 Yon white-locked, weeping sire 
 Where heaven s unpillared chambers ring, 
 And burst their streams of flood and fire ! 
 
SHAKSPEAREODE. 41 
 
 He gave them all the daughters of his love ; 
 That recreant pair ! they drive him forth to rove ; 
 
 In such a night of woe, 
 The cubless regent of the wood 
 Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood, 
 And caverns with her foe ! 
 Yet one was ever kind ; 
 Why lingers she behind ? 
 
 O pity ! view him by her dead form kneeling, 
 Even in wild frenzy holy nature feeling. 
 
 His aching eye -balls strain 
 To see those curtained orbs unfold, 
 That beauteous bosom heave again ; 
 
 But all is dark and cold. 
 In agony the father shakes ; 
 Grief s choking note 
 Swells in his throat, 
 
 Each withered heart-string tugs and breaks ! 
 Round her pale neck his dying arms he wreathes, 
 And on her marble lips his last, his death-kiss breathes. 
 
 Down, trembling wing ! shall insect weakness keep 
 
 The sun-defying eagle s sweep ? 
 
 A mortal strike celestial strings, 
 And feebly echo what a seraph sings ? 
 
 Who now shall grace the glowing throne, 
 
 Where, all unrivaled, all alone, 
 Bold Shakspeare sat, and looked creation through, 
 The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew ? 
 4* 
 
42 SHAKSPEARE ODE. 
 
 That throne is cold that lyre in death unstrung, 
 On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung. 
 Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps, 
 One spot shall spare the grave where Shakspeare sleeps. 
 Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie, 
 But Nature s laureate bards shall never die. 
 Art s chiseled boast and Glory s trophied shore 
 Must live in numbers, or can live no more. 
 While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim, 
 Still rolls the Olympic car in Pindar s fame ; 
 Troy s doubtful walls in ashes passed away, . 
 Yet frown on Greece in Homer s deathless lay ; 
 Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes, 
 Stands all immortal in her Maro s strains ; 
 So, too, yon giant empress of the isles, 
 On whose broad sway the sun forever smiles, 
 To Time s unsparing rage one day must bend, 
 And all her triumphs in her Shakspeare end ! 
 
 O thou ! to whose creative power 
 
 We dedicate the festal hour, 
 While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand, 
 Learning s anointed train, and Beauty s rose-lipped band 
 Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown, 
 Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own. 
 Deep in the West, as Independence roves, 
 His banners planting round the land he loves, 
 Where Nature sleeps in Eden s infant grace, 
 In time s full hour shall spring a glorious race. 
 
SHAKSPEARE ODE. 43 
 
 Thy name, thy verse, thy language shall they bear, 
 And deck for thee the vaulted temple there. 
 Our Roman-hearted fathers broke 
 Thy parent empire s galling yoke ; 
 But thou, harmonious master of the mind, 
 Around their sons a gentler chain shalt bind ; 
 Once more in thee shall Albion s sceptre wave, 
 And what her Monarch lost, her Monarch-Bard shall save. 
 
ODE, 
 
 Pronounced at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Boston, 
 September, 1830. 
 
 I. 
 
 NOT to the Pagan s mount I turn 
 
 For inspiration now ; 
 Olympus and its gods I spurn 
 
 Pure One, be with me, Thou ! 
 
 Thou, in whose awful name, 
 
 From suffering and from shame, 
 Our Fathers fled, and braved a pathless sea ; 
 
 Thou, in whose holy fear, 
 
 They fixed an empire here, 
 And gave it to their Children and to Thee. 
 
 II. 
 
 And You ! ye bright ascended Dead, 
 
 Who scorned the bigot s yoke, 
 Come, round this place your influence shed ; 
 
 Your spirits I invoke. 
 
 Come, as ye came of yore, 
 
 When on an unknown shore 
 
CENTENNIAL ODE. 45 
 
 Your daring hands the flag of faith unfurled, 
 
 To float sublime, 
 
 Through future time 
 The beacon-banner of another world. 
 
 III. 
 
 Behold ! they come those sainted forms, 
 Unshaken through the strife of storms ; 
 Heaven s winter cloud hangs coldly down, 
 And earth puts on its rudest frown ; 
 But colder, ruder was the hand 
 That drove them from their own fair land ; 
 
 Their own fair land refinement s chosen seat, 
 
 Art s trophied dwelling, learning s green retreat ; 
 
 By valor guarded, and by victory crowned, 
 
 For all, but gentle charity, renowned. 
 
 With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart, 
 Even from that land they dared to part, 
 
 And burst each tender tie ; 
 Haunts, where their sunny youth was passed, 
 Homes, where they fondly hoped at last 
 
 In peaceful age to die. 
 Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurned ; 
 
 Their fathers hallowed graves ; 
 And to a world of darkness turned, 
 Beyond a world of waves. 
 
 IV. 
 
 When Israel s race from bondage fled, 
 Signs from on high the wanderers led ; 
 
46 CENTENNIAL ODE. 
 
 But here Heaven hung no symbol here, 
 Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer ; 
 They saw, through sorrow s lengthening night, 
 Nought but the fagot s guilty light ; 
 The cloud they gazed at was the smoke 
 That round their murdered brethren broke. 
 Nor power above, nor power below, 
 Sustained them in their hour of woe ; 
 A fearful path they trod, 
 
 And dared a fearful doom ; 
 To build an altar to their God, 
 
 And find a quiet tomb. 
 
 V. 
 
 But not alone, not all unblessed, 
 The exile sought a place of rest ; 
 ONE dared with him to burst the knot 
 That bound her to her native spot ; 
 Her low, sweet voice in comfort spoke, 
 As round their bark the billows broke ; 
 She through the midnight watch was there, 
 With him to bend her knees in prayer ; 
 She trod the shore with girded heart, 
 Through good and ill to claim her part ; 
 In life, in death, with him to seal 
 Her kindred love, her kindred zeal. 
 
 VI. 
 
 They come ; that coming who shall tell ? 
 The eye may weep, the heart may swell, 
 
CENTENNIALODE. 47 
 
 But the poor tongue in vain essays 
 
 A fitting note for them to raise. 
 
 We hear the after-shout that rings 
 
 For them who smote the power of kings ; 
 
 The swelling triumph all would share, 
 
 But who the dark defeat would dare, 
 
 And boldly meet the wrath and woe, 
 
 That wait the unsuccessful blow ? 
 
 It were an envied fate, we deem, 
 
 To live a land s recorded theme, 
 When we are in the tomb ; 
 
 We, too, might yield the joys of home, 
 
 And waves of winter darkness roam, 
 And tread a shore of gloom 
 
 Knew we those waves, through coming time, 
 
 Should roll our names to every clime ; 
 
 Felt we that millions on that shore 
 
 Should stand, our memory to adore. 
 
 But no glad vision burst in light 
 
 Upon the Pilgrims aching sight ; 
 
 Their hearts no proud hereafter swelled ; 
 
 Deep shadows veiled the way they held ; 
 The yell of vengeance was their trump of fame, 
 Their monument, a grave without a name. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand, 
 
 On yonder ice-bound rock, 
 Stern and resolved, that faithful band, 
 
 To meet fate s rudest shock. 
 
48 CENTENNIAL ODE. 
 
 Though anguish rends the father s breast, 
 For them, his dearest and his best, 
 
 With him the waste who trod 
 Though tears that freeze, the mother sheds 
 Upon her children s houseless heads 
 
 The Christian turns to God ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 In grateful adoration now, 
 
 Upon the barren sands they bow. 
 
 What tongue of joy e er woke such prayer 
 
 As bursts in desolation there ? 
 
 What arm of strength e er wrought such power, 
 
 As waits to crown that feeble hour ? 
 There into life an infant empire springs ! 
 
 There falls the iron from the soul ; 
 
 There liberty s young accents roll 
 Up to the King of kings ! 
 
 To fair creation s farthest bound 
 
 That thrilling summons yet shall sound ; 
 
 The dreaming nations shall awake, 
 And to their centre earth s old kingdoms shake. 
 Pontiff and prince, your sway 
 Must crumble from that day ; 
 
 Before the loftier throne of Heaven 
 
 The hand is raised, the pledge is given 
 One monarch to obey, one creed to own, 
 That monarch, God ; that creed, His word alone. 
 
CENTENNIALODE. 49 
 
 IX. 
 
 Spread out earth s holiest records here, 
 Of days and deeds to reverence dear ; 
 A zeal like this what pious legends tell ? 
 On kingdoms built 
 In blood and guilt, 
 
 The worshippers of vulgar triumph dwell 
 But what exploit with theirs shall page, 
 
 Who rose to bless their kind 
 Who left their nation and their age, 
 Man s spirit to unbind ? 
 
 Who boundless seas passed o er, 
 And boldly met, in every path, 
 Famiue, and frost, and heathen wrath, 
 
 To dedicate a shore, 
 
 Where piety s meek train might breathe their vow, 
 And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow ; 
 Where liberty s glad race might proudly come, 
 And set up there an everlasting home ? 
 
 X. 
 
 O, many a time it hath been told, 
 The story of those men of old. 
 
 For this fair Poetry hath wreathed 
 
 Her sweetest, purest flower ; 
 For this proud Eloquence hath breathed 
 
 His strain of loftiest power ; 
 Devotion, too, hath lingered round 
 Each spot of consecrated ground, 
 5 
 
50 CENTENNIAL ODE. 
 
 And hill and valley blessed ; 
 There, where our banished Fathers strayed, 
 There, where they loved, and wept, and prayed, 
 
 There, where their ashes rest. 
 
 XI. 
 
 And never may they rest unsung, 
 While liberty can find a tongue. 
 Twine, Gratitude, a wreath for them 
 More deathless than the diadem, 
 Who, to life s noblest end, 
 Gave up life s noblest powers, 
 
 And bade the legacy descend 
 Down, down to us and ours. 
 
 XII. 
 
 By centuries now the glorious hour we mark, 
 
 When to these shores they steered their shattered bark ; 
 
 And still, as other centuries melt away, 
 
 Shall other ages come to keep the day. 
 
 When we are dust, who gather round this spot, 
 
 Our joys, our griefs, our very names forgot, 
 
 Here shall the dwellers of the land be seen, 
 
 To keep the memory of the Pilgrims green. 
 
 Nor here alone their praises shall go round, 
 
 Nor here alone their virtues shall abound 
 
 Broad as the empire of the free shall spread, 
 
 Far as the foot of man shall dare to tread, 
 
 Where oar hath never dipped, where human tongue 
 
 Hath never through the woods of ages rung, 
 
CENTENNIALODE. 51 
 
 There, where the eagle s scream and wild wolfs cry 
 Keep ceaseless day and night through earth and sky, 
 Even there, in after time, as toil and taste 
 Go forth in gladness to redeem the waste, 
 Even there shall rise, as grateful myriads throng, 
 Faith s holy prayer and freedom s joyful song ; 
 There shall the flame that flashed from yonder ROCK, 
 Light up the land, till nature s final shock. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Yet while, by life s endearments crowned, 
 To mark this day we gather round, 
 And to our nation s founders raise 
 The voice of gratitude and praise, 
 Shall not one line lament that lion race, 
 For us struck out from sweet creation s face ? 
 Alas ! alas ! for them those fated bands, 
 Whose monarch tread was on these broad, green lands ; 
 Our Fathers called them savage them, whose bread, 
 In the dark hour, those famished Fathers fed ; 
 We call them savage, we, 
 Who hail the struggling free, 
 Of every clime and hue ; 
 We, who would save 
 The branded slave, 
 And give him liberty he never knew ; 
 We, who but now have caught the tale 
 That turns each listening tyrant pale, 
 And blessed the winds and waves that bore 
 The tidings to our kindred shore ; 
 
52 CENTENNIAL^ODE. 
 
 The triumph-tidings pealing from that land 
 Where up in arms insulted legions stand ; 
 
 There, gathering round his bold compeers, 
 Where He, our own, our welcomed One, 
 Riper in glory than in years, 
 Down from his forfeit throne 
 A craven monarch hurled, 
 And spurned him forth, a proverb to the world ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 We call them savage O, be just ! 
 
 Their outraged feelings scan ; 
 A voice comes forth, tis from the dust 
 
 The savage was a man ! 
 Think ye he loved not ? Who stood by, 
 
 And in his toils took part ? 
 Woman was there to bless his eye 
 
 The savage had a heart ! 
 Think ye he prayed not ? When on high 
 
 He heard the thunders roll, 
 What bade him look beyond the sky ? 
 
 The savage had a soul ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 I venerate the Pilgrim s cause, 
 Yet for the red man dare to plead 
 We bow to Heaven s recorded laws, 
 He turned to nature for a creed ; 
 Beneath the pillared dome, 
 We seek our God in prayer ; 
 
CENTENNIAL OI>E. 53 
 
 Through boundless woods he loved to roam. 
 
 And the Great Spirit worshipped there. 
 But one, one fellow-throb with us he felt ; 
 To one divinity with us he knelt ; 
 Freedom, the self-same freedom we adore, 
 Bade him defend his violated shore. 
 
 He saw the cloud, ordained to grow, 
 
 And burst upon his hills in woe ; 
 
 He saw his people withering by, 
 
 Beneath the invader s evil eye ; 
 Strange feet were trampling on his fathers bones ; 
 
 At midnight hour he woke to gaze 
 
 Upon his happy cabin s blaze, 
 And listen to his children s dying groans. 
 
 He saw and maddening at the sight, 
 
 Gave his bold bosom to the fight ; 
 
 To tiger rage his soul was driven ; 
 
 Mercy was not nor sought nor given ; 
 
 The pale man from his lands must fly ; 
 
 He would be free or he would die. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 And was this savage ? say, 
 Ye ancient few, 
 Who struggled through 
 Young freedom s trial-day 
 What first your sleeping wrath awoke ? 
 On your own shores war s larum broke ; 
 What turned to gall even kindred blood ? 
 Round your own homes the oppressor stood ; 
 5* 
 
54 CENTENNIALODE. 
 
 This every warm affection chilled, 
 This every heart with vengeance thrilled, 
 And strengthened eveiy hand ; 
 
 From mound to mound 
 
 The word went round 
 " Death for our native land ! " 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Ye mothers, too, breathe ye no sigh 
 For them who thus could dare to die ? 
 Are all your own dark hours forgot, 
 
 Of soul-sick suffering here ? 
 Your pangs, as from yon mountain spot, 
 Death spoke in every booming shot, 
 
 That knelled upon your ear ? 
 How oft that gloomy, glorious tale ye tell, 
 As round your knees your children s children hang, 
 Of them, the gallant Ones, ye loved so well, 
 Who to the conflict for their country sprang ! 
 In pride, in all the pride of woe, 
 Ye tell of them, the brave laid low, 
 
 Who for their birthplace bled ; 
 
 In pride, the pride of triumph then, 
 
 Ye tell of them, the matchless men, 
 
 From whom the invaders fled. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 And ye, this holy place who throng, 
 
 The annual theme to hear, 
 
 And bid the exulting song 
 Sound their great names from year to yea, 
 
CENTENNIAL ODE. 55 
 
 Ye, who invoke the chisel s breathing grace, 
 In marble majesty their forms to trace ; 
 
 Ye, who the sleeping rocks would raise, 
 
 To guard their dust and speak their praise ; 
 
 Ye, who, should some other band 
 
 With hostile foot defile the land, 
 
 Feel that ye like them would wake, 
 
 Like them the yoke of bondage break, 
 
 Nor leave a battle-blade undrawn, 
 Though every hill a sepulchre should yawn 
 
 Say, have not ye one line for those, 
 One brother-line to spare, 
 
 Who rose but as your Fathers rose, 
 And dared as ye would dare ? 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Alas ! for them their day is o er, 
 Their fires are out from hill and shore ; 
 No more for them the wild deer bounds ; 
 The plough is on their hunting-grounds ; 
 The pale man s axe rings through their woods, 
 The pale man s sail skims o er their floods, 
 
 Their pleasant springs are dry ; 
 Their children look, by power oppressed, 
 Beyond the mountains of the west, 
 
 Their children go to die. 
 
 XX. 
 
 doubly lost ! oblivion s shadows close 
 Around their triumphs and their woes. 
 
56 CENTENNIAL ODE. 
 
 On other realms, whose suns have set, 
 
 Reflected radiance lingers yet ; 
 
 There sage and bard have shed a light 
 
 That never shall go down in night ; 
 
 There time-crowned columns stand on high, 
 
 To tell of them who cannot die ; 
 
 Even we, who then were nothing, kneel 
 In homage there, and join earth s general peal. 
 But the doomed Indian leaves behind no trace, 
 To save his own, or serve another race ; 
 With his frail breath his power has passed away, 
 His deeds, his thoughts are buried with his clay ; 
 
 Nor lofty pile, nor glowing page 
 
 Shall link him to a future age, 
 
 Or give him with the past a rank ; 
 His heraldry is but a broken bow, 
 His history but a tale of wrong and woe, 
 
 His very name must be a blank. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Cold, with the beast he slew, he sleeps ; 
 
 O er him no filial spirit weeps ; 
 No crowds throng round, no anthem-notes ascend, 
 To bless his coming and embalm his end ; 
 Even that he lived, is for his conqueror s tongue ; 
 By foes alone his death-song must be sung ; 
 
 No chronicles but theirs shall tell 
 His mournful doom to future times ; 
 
 May these upon his virtues dwell, 
 And in his fate forget his crimes. 
 
CENTENNIALODE. 57 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Peace to the mingling dead ! 
 Beneath the turf we tread, 
 
 Chief, Pilgrim, Patriot sleep 
 All gone ! .How changed ! and yet the same 
 As when faith s herald-bark first came 
 
 In sorrow o er the deep. 
 Still from his noonday height 
 The sun looks down in light ; 
 Along the trackless realms of space 
 The stars still run their midnight race ; 
 The same green valleys smile, the same rough shore 
 Still echoes to the same wild ocean s roar ; 
 But where the bristling night- wolf sprang 
 
 Upon his startled prey, 
 Where the fierce Indian s war-cry, rang 
 
 Through many a bloody fray, 
 And where the stern old Pilgrim prayed 
 
 In solitude and gloom, 
 Where the bold Patriot drew his blade 
 
 And dared a patriot s doom 
 Behold ! in liberty s unclouded blaze 
 We lift our heads, a race of other days. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 All gone ! The wild beast s lair is trodden out ; 
 Proud temples stand in beauty there ; 
 Our children raise their merry shout 
 Where once the death- whoop vexed the air ; 
 
58 CENTENNIALODE. 
 
 The Pilgrim seek yon ancient place of graves 
 Beneath that chapel s holy shade ; 
 Ask, where the breeze the long grass waves, 
 Who, who within that spot are laid ; 
 
 The Patriot go, to fame s proud mount repair ; 
 The tardy pile, slow rising there,. 
 With tongueless eloquence shall tell 
 Of them who for their country fell. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 All gone ! Tis ours the goodly land 
 Look round the heritage behold ; 
 Go forth upon the mountains stand, 
 
 Then, if ye can, be cold. 
 See living vales by living waters blessed, 
 
 Their wealth see earth s dark caverns yield, 
 See ocean roll, in glory dressed, 
 For all a treasure, and round all a shield. 
 
 Hark to the shouts of praise 
 
 Rejoicing millions raise ; 
 
 Gaze on the spires that rise 
 
 To point them to the skies, 
 
 Unfearing and unfeared ; 
 Then, if ye can, O then forget 
 To whom ye owe the sacred debt 
 
 The Pilgrim race revered ! 
 The men who set faith s burning lights 
 Upon these everlasting heights, 
 To guide their children through the years of time ; 
 
CENTENNIALODE. 59 
 
 The men that glorious law who taught, 
 Unshrinking liberty of thought, 
 And roused the nations with the truth sublime. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Forget ? No, never ne er shall die 
 Those names to memory dear ; 
 
 I read the promise in each eye 
 
 That beams upon me here. 
 Descendants of a twice-recorded race, 
 Long may ye hene your lofty lineage grace ; 
 
 Tis not for you home s tender tie 
 
 To rend, and brave the waste of waves ; 
 
 Tis not for you to rouse and die, 
 
 Or yield and live a line of slaves ; 
 The deeds of danger and of death are done ; 
 
 Upheld by inward power alone, 
 
 Unhonored by the world s loud tongue, 
 Tis yours to do unknown, 
 And then to die unsung. 
 To other days, to other men, belong 
 The penman s plaudit and the poet s song ; 
 
 Enough for glory has been wrought ; 
 
 By you be humbler praises sought ; 
 
 In peace and truth life s journey run, 
 And keep unsullied what your Fathers won. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Take then my prayer, Ye dwellers of this spot 
 Be yours a noiseless and a guiltless lot. 
 
60 CENTENNIALODE. 
 
 I plead not that ye bask 
 In the rank beams of vulgar fame ; 
 
 To light your steps I ask 
 A purer and a holier flame. 
 No bloated growth I supplicate for you, 
 No pining multitude, no pampered few ; 
 Tis not alone to coffer gold, 
 Nor spreading borders to behold ; 
 Tis not fast swelling crowds to win, 
 The refuse-ranks of want and sin 
 
 This be the kind decree ; 
 
 Be ye by goodness crowned, 
 
 Revered, though not renowned ; 
 
 Poor, if Heaven will, but Free ! 
 Free from the tyrants of the hour, 
 The clans of wealth, the clans of power, 
 The coarse, cold scorners of their God ; 
 
 Free from the taint of sin, 
 The leprosy that feeds within, 
 
 And free, in mercy, from the bigot s rod. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The sceptre s might, the crosier s pride, 
 
 Ye do not fear ; 
 No conquest blade, in life-blood dyed, 
 
 Drops terror here 
 Let there not lurk a subtler snare, 
 For wisdom s footsteps to beware. 
 The shackle and the stake, 
 
 Our Fathers fled ; 
 
CENTENNIAL ODE. 61 
 
 Ne er may their children wake 
 A fouler wrath, a deeper dread ; 
 Ne er may the craft that fears the flesh to bind, 
 Lock its hard fetters on the mind ; 
 
 Quenched be the fiercer flame 
 
 That kindles with a name ; 
 The pilgrim s faith, the pilgrim s zeal, 
 Let more than pilgrim kindness seal ; 
 Be purity of life the test, 
 Leave to the heart, to Heaven, the rest. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 So, when our children turn the page, 
 To ask what triumphs marked our age, 
 What we achieved to challenge praise, 
 Through the long line of future days, 
 This let them read, and hence instruction draw ; 
 " Here were the Many blessed, 
 
 Here found the virtues rest, 
 Faith linked with love, and liberty with law ; 
 Here industry to comfort led, 
 Her book of light here learning spread ; 
 
 Here the warm heart of youth 
 Was wooed to temperance and to truth ; 
 
 Here hoary age was found, 
 By wisdom and by reverence crowned. 
 
 No great, but guilty fame 
 
 Here kindled pride, that should have kindled shame ; 
 THESE chose the better, happier part, 
 That poured its sunlight o er the heart ; 
 6 
 
62 CENTENNIAL ODE. 
 
 That crowned their homes with peace and health, 
 And weighed Heaven s smile beyond earth s wealth ; 
 
 Far from the thorny paths of strife 
 They stood, a living lesson to their race, 
 
 Rich in the charities of life, 
 Man in his strength, and Woman in her grace ; 
 In purity and love THEIR pilgrim road they trod, 
 And when they served their neighbor, felt they served 
 their God." 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 This may not wake the poet s verse, 
 This souls of fire may ne er rehearse 
 
 In crowd-delighting voice ; 
 Yet o er the record shall the patriot bend, 
 His quiet praise the moralist shall lend, 
 And all the good rejoice. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 This be our story then, in that far day, 
 When others come their kindred debt to pay. 
 
 In that far day ? O, what shall be, 
 
 In this dominion of the free, 
 When we and ours have rendered up our trust, 
 And men unborn shall tread above our dust ? 
 
 O, what shall be ? He, He alone, 
 The dread response can make, 
 
 Who sitteth on the only throne 
 That time shall never shake ; 
 
CENTENNIAL ODE. 63 
 
 Before whose all-beholding eyes 
 Ages sweep on, and empires sink and rise. 
 Then let the song, to Him begun, 
 
 To Him in reverence end ; 
 Look down in love, Eternal One, 
 
 And Thy good cause defend ; 
 Here, late and long, put forth Thy hand, 
 To guard and guide the Pilgrim s land. 
 
ODE, 
 
 Written for the Fourth Triennial Celebration of the Massachusetts Charitable 
 Mechanic Association, 1818. 
 
 WHEN, from the mitred churchman s power, 
 
 Pilgrims sought a land of rest, 
 Here proudly rose, in blissful hour, 
 
 Freedom s empire in the west. 
 To Him who saved, the God most high, 
 
 Sweet Piety her altar raised ; 
 Invention came, with eagle eye, 
 
 And Science smiled where savage war-fires blazed. 
 
 o 
 
 Here, where the tawny Indian roved, 
 
 Tenant of a flowerless waste, 
 A magic power bright Genius proved, 
 
 Forests bowed to Art and Taste. 
 Toil swung the sledge with sturdy hand, 
 
 In chiseled grace fair domes arose, 
 Improvement moved upon the land, 
 
 And Freedom s Press saved all from freedom s foes. 
 
 Mechanic skill ! the tar by thee 
 
 Stems the wave, and mocks the gale ; 
 
TRIENNIALODE. 65 
 
 By thee the yeoman, blithe and free, 
 
 Plenty reaps from every vale. 
 Earth vainly hides her caverned ores ; 
 
 To thee the treasured hoard is given ; 
 And elements obey thy powers, 
 
 And Science grasps the quivering flash of heaven. 
 
 Nor yet alone in peaceful toil 
 
 Genius here shall be renowned ; 
 Should bold invasion tread the soil, 
 
 Art s firm sons shall rally round. 
 Great Archimedes on the foe 
 
 Drew burning vengeance from the sun ; 
 And they, at Franklin s name who glow, 
 
 Shall rouse at thine, immortal Washington ! 
 
 O, favored land ! the exile s rest, 
 
 Charity s long-hallowed seat ; 
 By science, worth, and valor blest, 
 
 All that s good in thee shall meet. 
 " BE JUST, AND FEAR NOT " * earth combined ; 
 
 The seale and blade, the test and doom, 
 Thy sons shall bear to all mankind, 
 
 And clustering glories round their names shall bloom. 
 
 * Motto of the Society. 
 
ART. 
 
 An Ode written for the Sixth Triennial Festival of the Massachusetts Charitable 
 Mechanic Association, 1824. 
 
 WHEN, from the sacred garden driven, 
 
 Man fled before his Maker s wrath, 
 An Angel left her place in heaven, 
 
 And crossed the wanderer s sunless path. 
 Twas Art ! sweet Art ! new radiance broke 
 
 Where her light foot flew o er the ground, 
 And thus with seraph voice she spoke 
 
 " The Curse a Blessing shall be found." 
 
 She led him through the trackless wild, 
 
 Where noontide sunbeam never blazed ; 
 The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled,. 
 
 And Nature gladdened as she gazed. 
 Earth s thousand tribes of living things, 
 
 At Art s command, to him are given ; 
 The village grows, the city springs, 
 
 And point their spires of faith to heaven. 
 
 He rends the oak and bids it ride, 
 To guard the shores its beauty graced ; 
 
ART. 
 
 He smites the rock upheaved in pride, 
 See towers of strength and domes of taste. 
 
 Earth s teeming caves their wealth reveal, 
 Fire bears his banner on the wave, 
 
 He bids the mortal poison heal, 
 
 And leaps triumphant o er the grave. 
 
 He plucks the pearls that stud the deep, 
 
 Admiring Beauty s lap to fill ; 
 He breaks the stubborn marble s sleep, 
 
 And mocks his own Creator s skill. 
 With thoughts that swell his glowing soul, 
 
 He bids the ore illume the page, 
 And proudly scorning Time s control, 
 
 Commerces with an unborn age. 
 
 In fields of air he writes his name, 
 
 And treads the chambers of the sky ; 
 He reads the stars, and grasps the flame 
 
 That quivers round the Throne on high. 
 In war renowned, in peace sublime, 
 
 He moves in greatness and in grace ; 
 His power, subduing space and time, 
 
 Links realm to realm, and race to race. 
 
 67 
 
LINES ON THE DEATH OF M.S.C. 
 
 I KNEW that we must part day after day, 
 I saw the dread Destroyer win his way ; 
 That hollow cough first rang the fatal knell, 
 As on my ear its prophet-warning fell ; 
 Feeble and slow thy once light footstep grew, 
 Thy wasting cheek put on death s pallid hue, 
 Thy thin, hot hand to mine more weakly clung, 
 Each sweet " Good night " fell fainter from thy tongue ; 
 I knew that we must part no power could save 
 Thy quiet goodness from an early grave ; 
 Those eyes so dull, though kind each glance they casl, 
 Looking a sister s fondness to the last ; 
 Thy lips so pale, that gently pressed my cheek, 
 Thy voice alas ! thou couldst but try to speak ; 
 All told thy doom ; I felt it at my heart, 
 The shaft had struck I knew that we must part. 
 
 And we have parted, MARY thou art gone ! 
 Gone in thine innocence, meek, suffering one. 
 Thy weary spirit breathed itself to sleep 
 So peacefully, it seemed a sin to weep, 
 In those fond watchers who around thee stood, 
 And felt, even then, that God, even then, was good. 
 
ON THE DEATH OF M. S. C. 
 
 Like stars that struggle through the clouds of night, 
 Thine eyes one moment caught a glorious light, 
 As if to thee, in that dread hour, twere given 
 To know on earth what faith believes of heaven ; 
 Then like tired breezes didst thou sink to rest, 
 Nor one, one pang the awful change confessed. 
 Death stole in softness o er that lovely face, 
 And touched each feature with a new-born grace ; 
 On cheek and brow unearthly beauty lay, 
 And told that life s poor cares had passed away. 
 In my last hour be Heaven so kind to me ! 
 I ask no more than this to die like thee. 
 
 But we have parted, MARY thou art dead ! 
 On its last resting-place I laid thy head, 
 Then by thy coffin-side knelt down, and took 
 A brother s farewell kiss and farewell look ; 
 Those marble lips no kindred kiss returned ; 
 From those veiled orbs no glance responsive burned ; 
 Ah ! then I felt that thou hadst passed away, 
 That the sweet face I gazed on was but clay ; 
 And then came Memory with her busy throng 
 Of tender images, forgotten long ; 
 Years hurried back, and as they swiftly rolled, 
 I saw thee, heard thee, as in days of old ; 
 Sad and more sad each sacred feeling grew, 
 Manhood was moved, and sorrow claimed her due ; 
 Thick, thick and fast the burning tear-drops started ; 
 I turned away and felt that we had parted. 
 
TO ON THE DEATH OF M. S. C. 
 
 But not forever in the silent tomb, 
 Where thou art laid, thy kindred shall find room ; 
 A little while, a few short years of pain, 
 And, one by one, we ll come to thee again ; 
 The kind old Father shall seek out the place, 
 And rest with thee, the youngest of his race ; 
 The dear, dear Mother, bent with age and grief, 
 Shall lay her head by thine, in sweet relief; 
 Sister and Brother, and that faithful Friend, 
 True from the first and tender to the end, 
 All, all, in His good time, who placed us here, 
 To live, to love, to die and disappear, 
 Shall come and make their quiet bed with thee, 
 Beneath the shadow of that spreading tree ; 
 With thee to sleep through death s long, dreamless night, 
 With thee rise up and bless the morning light. 
 
I SEE THEE STILL. 
 
 " 1 rocked her in the cradle, 
 
 And laid her in the tomb. She was the youngest, 
 What fireside circle hath not felt the charm 
 Of that sweet tie ? The youngest ne er grow old. 
 The fond endearments of our earlier days 
 We keep alive in them, and when they die 
 Our youthful joys we bury with them." 
 
 I SEE thee still ; 
 
 Remembrance, faithful to her trust, 
 Calls thee in beauty from the dust ; 
 Thou comest in the morning light, 
 Thou rt with me through the gloomy night- 
 In dreams I meet thee as of old ; 
 Then thy soft arms my neck enfold, 
 And thy sweet voice is in my ear ; 
 In every scene to memory dear, 
 
 I see thee still. 
 
 I see thee still, 
 
 In every hallowed token round ; 
 This little ring thy finger bound, 
 This lock of hair thy forehead shaded, 
 This silken chain by thee was braided, 
 
72 ISEETHEESTILL. 
 
 These flowers, all withered now, like thee, 
 Sweet SISTER, thou didst cull for me ; 
 This book was thine ; here didst thou read ; 
 This picture, ah ! yes, here, indeed, 
 I see thee still. 
 
 I see thee still ; 
 
 Here was thy summer noon s retreat, 
 Here was thy favorite fireside seat ; 
 This was thy chamber here, each day, 
 I sat and watched thy sad decay ; 
 Here, on this bed, thou last didst lie, 
 Here, on this pillow thou didst die. 
 Dark hour ! once more its woes unfold ; 
 As then I saw thee, pale and cold, 
 
 I see thee still. 
 
 I see thee still ; 
 
 Thou art not in the grave confined 
 Death cannot claim the immortal Mind ; 
 Let Earth close o er its sacred trust, 
 But goodness dies not in the dust ; 
 Thee, O my SISTER, tis not thee 
 Beneath the coffin s lid I see ; 
 Thou to a fairer land art gone ; 
 There, let me hope, my journey done, 
 
 To see thee still ! 
 
THE FAMILY MEETING. 
 
 [These lines were written on occasion of the accidental meeting of all the survi 
 ving members of a family, the father and mother of which, one eighty-two, the other 
 eighty years olJ, have lived in the same house fifty-three years.] 
 
 WE are all here ! 
 
 Father, Mother, 
 
 Sister, Brother, 
 All who hold each other dear. 
 Each chair is filled we re all at home ; 
 To-night let no cold stranger come ; 
 It is not often thus around 
 Our old familiar hearth we re found. 
 Bless, then, the meeting and the spot ; 
 For once be every care forgot ; 
 Let gentle Peace assert her power, 
 And kind Affection rule the hour ; 
 
 We re all all here. 
 
 We re not all here ! 
 Some are away the dead ones dear, 
 Who thronged with us this ancient hearth, 
 And gave the hour to guiltless mirth. 
 Fate, with a stern, relentless hand, 
 Looked in and thinned our little band ; 
 7 
 
74 THE FAMILY MEETING. 
 
 Some like a night-flash passed away, 
 And some sank, lingering, day by day ; 
 The quiet graveyard some lie there 
 And cruel Ocean has his share 
 We re not all here. 
 
 We are all here ! 
 
 Even they the dead though dead, so dear. 
 Fond Memory, to her duty true, 
 Brings back their faded forms to view. 
 How life-like, through the mist of years, 
 Each well-remembered face appears ! 
 We see them as in times long past ; 
 From each to each kind looks are cast ; 
 We hear their words, their smiles behold, 
 They re round us as they were of old 
 
 We are all here. 
 
 We are all here ! 
 
 Father, Mother, 
 
 Sister, Brother, 
 
 You that I love with love so dear. 
 This may not long of us be said ; 
 Soon must we join the gathered dead ; 
 And by the hearth we now sit round, 
 Some other circle will be found. 
 0, then, that wisdom may we know, 
 Which yields a life of peace below ! 
 So, in the world to follow this, 
 May each repeat, in words of bliss, 
 
 We re all all here! 
 
TO MY CIGAR. 
 
 YES, social friend, I love thee well, 
 
 In learned doctors spite ; 
 Thy clouds all other clouds dispel, 
 
 And lap me in delight. 
 
 What though they tell, with phizzes long, 
 My years are sooner passed ? 
 
 I would reply, with reason strong, 
 They re sweeter while they last. 
 
 And oft, mild friend, to me thou art 
 
 A monitor, though still ; 
 Thou speak st a lesson to my heart 
 
 Beyond the preacher s skill. 
 
 Thou rt like the man of worth, who gives 
 
 To goodness every day, 
 The odor of whose virtues lives 
 
 When he has passed away. 
 
 When in the lonely evening hour, 
 
 Attended but by thee, 
 O er history s varied page I pore, 
 
 Man s fate in thine I see. 
 
"76 TO MY CIGAR. 
 
 Oft as thy snowy column grows, 
 Then breaks and falls away, 
 
 I trace how mighty realms thus rose, 
 Thus tumbled to decay. 
 
 Awhile like thee earth s masters burn, 
 And smoke and fume around, 
 
 And then like thee to ashes turn, 
 And mingle with the ground. 
 
 Life s but a leaf adroitly rolled, 
 And time s the wasting breath, 
 
 That late or early, we behold, 
 Gives all to dusty death. 
 
 From beggar s frieze to monarch s robe, 
 One common doom is passed ; 
 
 Sweet nature s works, the swelling globe, 
 Must all burn out at last. 
 
 And what is he who smokes thee now ? 
 
 A little moving heap, 
 That soon like thee to fate must bow, 
 
 With thee in dust must sleep. 
 
 But though thy ashes downward go, 
 Thy essence rolls on high ; 
 
 Thus, when my body must lie low, 
 My soul shall cleave the sky. 
 
"LOOK ON THIS PICTURE. 1 
 
 O, IT is life ! departed days 
 Fling back their brightness while I gaze 
 Tis Emma s self this brow so fair, 
 Half curtained in this glossy hair, 
 These eyes, the very home of love, 
 The dark twin arches traced above, 
 These red-ripe lips that almost speak, 
 The fainter blush of this pure cheek, 
 The rose and lily s beauteous strife 
 It is ah no ! tis all but life. 
 
 Tis all but life art could not save 
 
 Thy graces, Emma, from the grave ; 
 
 Thy cheek is pale, thy smile is past, 
 
 Thy love-lit eyes have looked their last ; 
 
 Mouldering beneath the coffin s lid, 
 
 All we adored of thee is hid ; 
 
 Thy heart, where goodness loved to dwell, 
 
 Is throbless in the narrow cell ; 
 
 Thy gentle voice shall charm no more ; 
 
 Its last, last, joyful note is o er. 
 
 Oft, oft, indeed, it hath been sung, 
 The requiem of the fair and young ; 
 
 7* 
 
78 LOOK ON THIS PICTURE. 
 
 The theme is old, alas ! how old, 
 Of grief that will not be controlled, 
 Of sighs that speak a father s woe, 
 Of pangs that none but mothers know, 
 Of friendship with its bursting heart, 
 Doomed from the idol-one to part 
 Still its sad debt must feeling pay, 
 Till feeling, too, shall pass away. 
 
 O say, why age, and grief, and pain, 
 Shall long to go, but long in vain ; 
 Why vice is left to mock at time, 
 And gray in years, grow gray in crime ; 
 While youth, that every eye makes glad, 
 And beauty, all in radiance clad, 
 And goodness, cheering every heart, 
 Come, but come only to depart ; 
 Sunbeams, to cheer life s wintry day, 
 Sunbeams, to flash, then fade away. 
 
 Tis darkness all ! black banners wave 
 
 Round the cold borders of the grave ; 
 
 There when in agony we bend 
 
 O er the fresh sod that hides a friend, 
 
 One only comfort then we know 
 
 We, too, shall quit this world of woe ; 
 
 We, too, shall find a quiet place 
 
 With the dear lost ones of our race ; 
 
 Our crumbling bones with theirs shall blend, 
 
 And life s sad story find an end. 
 
LOOK ON THIS PICTURE. 79 
 
 And is this all this mournful doom ? 
 Beams no glad light beyond the tomb ? 
 Mark how yon clouds in darkness ride ; 
 They do not quench the orb they hide ; 
 Still there it wheels the tempest o er, 
 In a bright sky to burn once more ; 
 So, far above the clouds of time, 
 Faith can behold a world sublime 
 There, when the storms of life are past, 
 The light beyond shall break at last. 
 
THE WINGED WORSHIPPERS. 
 
 Addressed to two Swallows that flew into Chauncy Place churcli during divine 
 service. 
 
 GAY, guiltless pair, 
 What seek ye from the fields of heaven ? 
 
 Ye have no need of prayer, 
 Ye have no sins to be forgiven. 
 
 Why perch ye here, 
 Where mortals to their Maker bend ? 
 
 Can your pure spirits fear 
 The God ye never could offend ? 
 
 Ye never knew 
 The crimes for which we come to weep. 
 
 Penance is not for you, 
 Blessed wanderers of the upper deep. 
 
 To you tis given 
 To wake sweet nature s untaught lays ; 
 
 Beneath the arch of heaven 
 To chirp away a life of praise. 
 
THE WINGED WORSHIPPERS. 81 
 
 Then spread each wing, 
 Far, far above, o er lakes and lands, 
 
 And join the choirs that sing 
 In yon blue dome not reared with hands. 
 
 Or, if ye stay, 
 
 To note the consecrated hour, 
 Teach me the airy way, 
 And let me try your envied power. 
 
 Above the crowd, 
 On upward wings could I but fly, 
 I d bathe in yon bright cloud, 
 And seek the stars that gem the sky. 
 
 Twere Heaven indeed 
 Through fields of trackless light to soar, 
 
 On Nature s charms to feed, 
 And Nature s own great God adore. 
 
THE FUNERAL. 
 
 AGAINST the wall a lovely picture hung, 
 
 So true to life, it wanted but a tongue ; 
 
 Twas a young girl s the face, though passing fair, 
 
 Spoke more of goodness than of beauty there. 
 
 Years, years had vanished since the limner s power, 
 
 Stealing the sweetness of a passing hour, 
 
 Had stamped it there, a little circle s gaze, 
 
 The fond memorial of departed days. 
 
 Years, years had vanished where was she whose face 
 Still from that canvass smiled in girlhood s grace ? 
 A coffin stood beside I raised the lid 
 Alas ! another picture there was hid ; 
 What hard, stern hand those pallid features drew ? 
 That cheek, that brow so false, and yet so true ? 
 Twas she the same there in her maiden bloom, 
 Here cold in death, and waiting for the tomb. 
 
 A gray-haired man leaned o er her where she slept, 
 Then to the living likeness turned and wept ; 
 Children, fond, grieving children, looked within, 
 As if their love one answering look might win ; 
 
THE FUNERAL. 83 
 
 Vain hope ! the eye was dark, and dull the ear 
 That never, till that hour, refused to hear ; 
 Hushed, even to them, forever hushed the tongue, 
 On whose sweet lessons they so long had hung. 
 
 Turn, mourners, from that face ; it tells of gloom ; 
 Around it draw the curtain of the tomb ; 
 Look on this breathing picture of her youth, 
 See where it smiles, in beauty and in truth ; 
 Like this she lives in her eternal home, 
 That bright abode where sorrow ne er can come ; 
 There, in the likeness that her Maker drew, 
 Ye weeping ones, she waits to welcome you. 
 
DEDICATION HYMN. 
 
 GOD of wisdom, God of might, 
 
 Father ! dearest name of all, 
 Bow thy throne and bless our rite ; 
 
 Tis thy children on Thee call. 
 Glorious ONE ! look down from heaven, 
 
 Warm each heart and wake each vow ; 
 Unto Thee this House is given ; 
 
 With thy presence fill it now. 
 
 Fill it now ! on every soul 
 
 Shed the incense of thy grace, 
 While our anthem-echoes roll 
 
 Round the consecrated place ; 
 While thy holy page we read, 
 
 While the prayers Thou lov st ascend, 
 While thy cause thy servants plead, 
 
 Fill this House, our God, our Friend. 
 
 Fill it now O, fill it long ! 
 
 So when death shall call us home, 
 Still to Thee, in many a throng, 
 
 May our children s children come. 
 
DEDICATION HYMN. 85 
 
 Bless them, Father, long and late, 
 Blot their sins, their sorrows dry ; 
 
 Make this place to them the gate, 
 Leading to thy courts on high. 
 
 There, when time shall be no more, 
 
 When the feuds of earth are past, 
 May the tribes of every shore 
 
 Congregate in peace at last ! 
 Then to Thee, thou ONE all-wise, 
 
 Shall the gathered millions sing, 
 Till the arches of the skies 
 
 With their hallelujahs ring. 
 
FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 For the Fourth of July, 1826. 
 
 FIFTY years have rolled away, 
 Since that high, heroic day, 
 When our Fathers, in the fray, 
 
 Struck the conquering blow ! 
 Praise to them the Bold who spoke ; 
 Praise to them the Brave who broke 
 Stern Oppression s galling yoke, 
 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO ! 
 
 Pour the wine of sacrifice, 
 
 Let the grateful anthem rise , 
 
 Shall we e er resign the prize ? 
 
 Never never no ! 
 Hearts and hands shall guard those rights, 
 Bought on Freedom s battle heights, 
 Where he fixed his signal lights, 
 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO ! 
 
 Swear it! by the Mighty Dead, 
 Those who counselled, those who led ; 
 By the blood your Fathers shed, 
 By your Mothers woe ; 
 
FIFTY YEARS AGO. 87 
 
 Swear it ! by the living Few, 
 Those whose breasts were scarred for you, 
 When to Freedom s ranks they flew, 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO ! 
 
 By the joys that cluster round, 
 By our vales with plenty crowned, 
 By our hill-tops holy ground, 
 
 Rescued from the foe, 
 Where of old the Indian strayed, 
 Where of old the Pilgrim prayed, 
 Where the Patriot drew his blade, 
 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO ! 
 
 Should again the war-trump peal, 
 There shall Indian firmness seal 
 Pilgrim faith and Patriot zeal, 
 
 Prompt to strike the blow ; 
 There shall valor s work be done ; 
 Like the Sire shall be the Son, 
 Where the fight was waged and won, 
 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO ! 
 
THE BROTHERS. 
 
 WE ARE BUT TWO the others sleep 
 Through death s untroubled night ; 
 
 We are but two O, let us keep 
 The link that binds us bright. 
 
 Heart leaps to heart the sacred flood 
 
 That warms us is the same ; 
 That good old man his honest blood 
 
 Alike we fondly claim. 
 
 We in one mother s arms were locked 
 
 Long be her love repaid ; 
 In the same cradle we were rocked, 
 
 Round the same hearth we played. 
 
 Our boyish sports were all the same, 
 
 Each little joy and woe ; 
 Let manhood keep alive the flame, 
 
 Lit up so long ago. 
 
 WE ARE BUT TWO be that the band 
 
 To hold us till we die ; 
 Shoulder to shoulder let us stand, 
 
 Till side by side we lie. 
 
LINES TO A YOUNG MOTHER. 
 
 YOUNG mother ! what can feeble friendship say, 
 To soothe the anguish of this mournful day ? 
 They, they alone whose hearts like thine have bled, 
 Know how the living sorrow for the dead ; 
 Each tutored voice, that seeks such grief to cheer, 
 Strikes cold upon the weeping parent s ear ; 
 I ve felt it all alas ! too well I know 
 How vain all earthly power to hush thy woe ! 
 God cheer thee, childless mother ! tis not given 
 For man to ward the blow that falls from Heaven. 
 
 I ve felt it all as thou art feeling now ; 
 Like thee, with stricken heart and aching brow, 
 I ve sat and watched by dying beauty s bed, 
 And burning tears of hopeless anguish shed ; 
 I ve gazed upon the sweet, but pallid face, 
 And vainly tried some comfort there to trace ; 
 I ve listened to the short and struggling breath ; 
 I ve seen the cherub eye grow dim in death ; 
 Like thee I ve veiled my head in speechless gloom, 
 And laid my first-born in the silent tomb. 
 
 8 
 
ORDINATION HYMN. 
 
 OUR fathers, Lord, to seek a spot, 
 Where they might kneel to thee, 
 
 Their own fair heritage forgot, 
 And braved an unknown sea. 
 
 Here found their pilgrim souls repose, 
 Where long the heathen roved, 
 
 And here their humble anthems rose, 
 To bless the Power they loved. 
 
 They sleep in dust but where they trod, 
 
 A feeble, fainting band, 
 Glad millions catch the strain, O God, 
 
 And sound it through the land. 
 
 Come, Lord, to this new temple now, 
 
 Thy servant here behold ; 
 In thy dread name he breathes his vow, 
 
 To guard this little fold. 
 
 Long may he stand thy herald here, 
 
 Thy lessons to impart ; 
 From every eye to wipe the tear, 
 
 The stain from every heart ; 
 
ORDINATION HYMN. 91 
 
 In paths of peace to bid them tread, 
 
 Where no vain feuds arise, 
 And from his life a lustre shed, 
 
 To light them to the skies. 
 
 So, when the last, long night shall go, 
 
 The last, glad morning break, 
 When all that walked in truth below, 
 
 In joy above shall wake, 
 
 There may thy servant, Lord, be found 
 
 The chosen of thy Son, 
 And hear from him the glorious sound, 
 
 " Well done, beloved one ! " 
 
EDWIN BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 SPARE him one little week, Almighty Power! 
 Yield to his Father s house his dying hour ; 
 Once more, once more let them, who held him dear, 
 But see his face, his faltering voice but hear ; 
 We know, alas ! that he is marked for death, 
 But let his Mother watch his parting breath ; 
 O, let him die at home ! 
 
 It could not oe ; 
 
 At midnight, on a dark and stormy sea, 
 Far from his kindred and his native land, 
 His pangs unsoothed by tender Woman s hand, 
 The patient victim in his cabin lay, 
 And meekly breathed his blameless life away. 
 
 " Wrapped in the raiment that it long must wear, 
 His body to the deck they slowly bear ; 
 How eloquent, how awful in its power, 
 The silent lecture of death s Sabbath-hour ! 
 One voice that silence breaks the prayer is said, 
 And the last rite man pays to man is paid ; 
 
EDWIN BUCKINGHAM. 93 
 
 The plashing waters mark his resting-place, 
 And fold him round in one long, cold embrace ; 
 Bright bubbles for a momeut sparkle o er, 
 Then break, to be, like him, beheld no more ; 
 Down, countless fathoms down, he sinks to sleep, 
 With all the nameless shapes that haunt the deep." * 
 
 Rest, Loved One, rest beneath the billow s swell, 
 Where tongue ne er spoke, where sunlight never fell ; 
 Rest till the God who gave thee to the deep, 
 Rouse thee, triumphant, from the long, long sleep. 
 And You, whose hearts are bleeding, who deplore 
 That ye must see the Wanderer s face no more, 
 Weep he was worthy of the purest grief; 
 Weep in such sorrow ye shall find relief; 
 While o er his doom the bitter tear ye shed, 
 Memory shall trace the virtues of the dead ; 
 These cannot die for you, for him, they bloom, 
 And scatter fragrance round his ocean-tomb. 
 
 * Curiosity. 
 
MOUNT AUBURN. 
 
 " There was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre." 
 
 WHAT myriads throng, in proud array, 
 With songs of joy, and flags unfurled, 
 
 To consecrate the glorious day, 
 That gave a nation to the world ! 
 
 We raise no shout, no trumpet sound, 
 No banner to the breeze we spread ; 
 
 Children of clay ! bend humbly round ; 
 We plant a City to the Dead. 
 
 For man a garden rose in bloom, 
 When yon glad sun began to burn ; 
 
 He fell and heard the awful doom 
 " Of dust thou art to dust return ! " 
 
 But HE, in whose pure faith we come, 
 Who in a gloomier garden lay, 
 
 Assured us of a brighter home, 
 
 And rose, and led the glorious way. 
 
 His word we trust ! When life shall end, 
 Here be our long, long slumber passed ; 
 
 To ihe first garden s doom we bend, 
 And bless tlie promise of the last. 
 
PRIZE PROLOGUE. 
 
 Recited at the Opening of the Park Theatre, New York, 1821. 
 
 WHEN mitred Zeal, in wild, unholy days, 
 Bared his red arm, and bade the fagot blaze, 
 Our patriot sires the pilgrim sail unfurled, 
 And Freedom pointed to a rival world. 
 
 Where prowled the wolf, and where the hunter roved, 
 Faith raised her altars to the God she loved ; 
 Toil, linked with Art, explored each savage wild, 
 The lofty forest bowed, the desert smiled ; 
 The startled Indian o er the mountains flew, 
 The wigwam vanished, and the village grew ; 
 Taste reared her domes, fair Science spread her page, 
 And Wit and Genius gathered round the Stage ! 
 
 The Stage ! where Fancy sits, creative queen, 
 And waves her sceptre o er life s mimic scene ; 
 Where young-eyed Wonder comes to feast his sight, 
 And quaff instruction while he drinks delight. 
 The Stage ! that threads each labyrinth of the soul, 
 Wakes laughter s peal, and bids the tear-drop roll ; 
 That hoots at folly, mocks proud fashion s slave, 
 Uncloaks the hypocrite, and brands the knave. 
 
96 PRIZE PROLOGUE. 
 
 The child of Genius, catering for the Stage, 
 Rifles the wealth of every clime and age. 
 He speaks ! the sepulchre resigns its prey, 
 And crimson life runs through the sleeping clay. 
 The wave, the gibbet, and the battle-field, 
 At his command, their festering tenants yield. 
 Pale, bleeding Love comes weeping from the tomb, 
 That kindred softness may bewail her doom ; 
 Murder s dry bones, reclothed, desert the dust, 
 That after times may own his sentence just ; 
 Forgotten Wisdom, freed from death s embrace, 
 Reads awful lessons to another race ; 
 And the mad tyrant of some ancient shore 
 Here warns a world that he can curse no more. 
 
 May this fair Dome, in classic beauty reared, 
 By Worth be honored, and by Vice be feared ; 
 May chastened Wit here bend to Virtue s cause, 
 Reflect her image, and repeat her laws ; 
 And Guilt, that slumbers o er the sacred page, 
 Hate his own likeness, shadowed from the Stage. 
 
 Here let the Guardian of the Drama sit, 
 In righteous judgment o er the realms of wit. 
 Not his the shame, with servile pen to wait 
 On private friendship, or on private hate ; 
 To flatter fools, or Satire s javelin dart, 
 Tipped with a lie, at proud Ambition s heart ; 
 His be the nobler task to herald forth 
 Young, blushing Merit, and neglected Worth ; 
 To brand the page where goodness finds a sneer, 
 And lash the wretch that breathes the treason here. 
 
PRIZEPROLOGUE. 97 
 
 Here shall bright Genius wing his eagle flight, 
 Rich dew-drops shaking from his plumes of light, 
 Till high in mental worlds, from vulgar ken 
 He soars, the wonder and the pride of men. 
 Cold Censure here to decent Mirth shall bow, 
 And Bigotry unbend his monkish brow. 
 Here Toil shall pause, his ponderous sledge thrown by, 
 And Beauty bless each strain with melting eye ; 
 Grief, too, in fiction lost, shall cease to weep, 
 And all the world s rude cares be laid to sleep. 
 Each polished scene shall Taste and Truth approve, 
 And the Stage triumph in the people s love. 
 
PRIZE PROLOGUE, 
 
 Recited at the Opening of the new Philadelphia Theatre, 1822. 
 
 WHEN learning slumbered in the convent s shade, 
 And holy craft the groping nations swayed, 
 By dulness banned, the Muses wandered long, 
 Each lyre neglected, and forgot each song ; 
 Till Heaven s bright halo wreathed the Drama s dome, 
 And great Apollo called the pilgrims home. 
 Then their glad harps, that charmed old Greece, they swept, 
 Their altars thronged, and joy s high Sabbath kept. 
 Young Genius there his glorious banners reared, 
 To float forever loved, forever feared. 
 The cowl s device, the cloister s legend known, 
 Old Superstition tumbled from his throne ; 
 Back to his cell the king of gloom retired, 
 The buskin triumphed, and the world admired ! 
 
 Since that proud hour, through each unfettered age, 
 The sons of light have clustered round the Stage. 
 From Fiction s realms her richest spoils they bring, 
 And Pleasure s walls with Rapture s echoes ring. 
 Here hermit Wisdom lays his mantle down, 
 To win with smiles the heart that fears his frown ; 
 
PRIZE PROLOGUE. 99 
 
 In mirth s gay robe he talks to wondering youth, 
 
 And Grandeur listens to the stranger, Truth. 
 
 Beauty, with bounding heart and tingling ear, 
 
 Melts at the tale to love and feeling dear. 
 
 Their sacred bowers the sons of learning quit, 
 
 To rove with fancy, and to feast with wit. 
 
 All come to gaze, the valiant and the vain, 
 
 Virtue s bright troop, and Fashion s glittering train ; 
 
 Here Labor rests, pale Grief forgets her woe, 
 
 And Vice, that prints his slime on all below, 
 
 Even Vice looks on! For this the Stage was reared; 
 
 To scourge the fiend, so scorned and yet so feared. 
 
 The halls of judgment, as the moral school, 
 
 His foot defiles, the bronzed and reckless fool ; 
 
 God s lovely temple shall behold him there, 
 
 With eye upturned, and aspect false as fair ; 
 
 Even at the altar s very horns he stands, 
 
 And breaks and blesses with polluted hands. 
 
 Then hither let the unblushing villain roam, 
 
 Satire shall knot its whip and strike it home. 
 
 The Stage one groan from his dark soul shall draw, 
 
 That mocks religion, and that laughs at law ! 
 
 To grace the Stage, the Bard s careering mind 
 Seeks other worlds, and leaves his own behind ; 
 He lures from air its bright, imprisoned forms, 
 Breaks through the tomb, and Death s dull region storms. 
 O er ruined realms he pours creative day, 
 And slumbering kings his mighty voice obey. 
 From its damp shroud the long-laid spirit walks, 
 And round the murderer s bed in vengeance stalks. 
 
100 PRIZE PROLOGUE. 
 
 Poor maniac Beauty brings her cypress wreath, 
 
 Her smile a moonbeam o er a blasted heath ; 
 
 Round some cold grave she comes, sweet flowers to strew, 
 
 And lost to Reason, still to Love is true. 
 
 Hate shuts his soul when dove-eyed Mercy pleads ; 
 
 Power lifts the axe, and Truth s bold servant bleeds ; 
 
 Remorse drops anguish from his burning eyes, 
 
 Feels hell s eternal worm, and, shuddering, dies ; 
 
 War s trophied minion, too, forsakes the dust, 
 
 Grasps his worn shield, and waves his sword of rust, 
 
 Springs to the slaughter at the trumpet s call, 
 
 Again to conquer, or again to fall. 
 
 With heads to censure, yet with souls to feel, 
 Friends of the Stage ! receive our frank appeal. 
 No suppliant lay we frame ; acquit your trust ; 
 The Drama guard ; be gentle, but be just ! 
 Within her courts, unbribed, unslumbering stand ; 
 Scourge lawless Wit, and leaden Dulness brand ; 
 Lash pert Pretence, but bashful Merit spare ; 
 His firstlings hail, and speak the trembler fair ; 
 Yet shall he cast his cloud, and proudly claim 
 The loftiest station and the brightest fame. 
 So from his perch, through seas of golden light, 
 Our mountain eagle takes his glorious flight. 
 To heaven the monarch-bird exulting springs, 
 And shakes the night-fog from his mighty wings. 
 Bards all our own shall yet enchant their age, 
 And pour redeeming splendor o er the Stage. 
 For them, for you, Truth hoards a nobler theme, 
 Than ever blessed young Fancy s sweetest dream. 
 
PRIZE PROLOGUE. 101 
 
 Bold hearts shall kindle, and bright eyes shall gaze, 
 When Genius wakes the tale of other days, 
 Sheds life s own lustre o er each holy deed 
 Of Him who planted, and of Him who freed. 
 
 And now, Fair Pile, thou chaste and glorious shrine, 
 Our fondest wish, our warmest smile be thine ; 
 The home of Genius and the court of Taste, 
 In beauty raised, be thou by beauty graced. 
 Within thy walls may Wit s adorers throng, 
 To drink the magic of the poet s song ; 
 Within thy walls may youth and goodness draw 
 From every scene a lecture or a law. 
 So bright the fane, be priest and offering pure, 
 And friends shall bless, and bigot foes endure ; 
 Long, long be spared to echo truths sublime, 
 And lift thy pillars through the storms of Time. 
 
PRIZE ADDRESS, 
 
 Spoken at the Opening of the Salem Theatre, 1828. 
 
 To call past ages from the sleep of time, 
 To rouse the dwellers of each voiceless clime, 
 And bid them stand as once on Earth they stood, 
 To shake the guilty, and to charm the good ; 
 
 To catch the wonders of the present hour, 
 New grace to fiction give^ to truth new power, 
 With mirth to cheer, with grief to melt the soul, 
 And hold each passion in sublime control ; 
 
 For these the Drama rose in ancient days, 
 And taught her Bards undying strains to raise ; 
 Bade them unlock the treasures of the mind, 
 And spread a new creation to mankind. 
 
 Twas glorious all ! the Muses blessed the hour, 
 A.nd poured their sweetest songs in dome and bower; 
 But night at length " came down " the night of doom, 
 That wrapped Earth s brightest realm in starless gloom. 
 Round Wisdom s haunts the raven shadows swept, 
 Art s lovely daughters veiled their heads, and wept ; 
 From their cold groves the Drama s minstrels fled, 
 And Dulness brooded o er the living dead. 
 
PRIZE ADDRESS. 103 
 
 So tuneless ages rolled when, lo ! once more 
 Redeeming Genius sought a happier shore. 
 Like Mercy s dove for one green spot he flew, 
 Nor paused till Ocean s empress caught his view ; 
 There his bold eye beheld the promised rest, 
 And Shakspeare s Albion wooed him to her breast. 
 
 Then sang The Bard ! in greatness and in grace, 
 The matchless One th anointed of his race. 
 At his command once more the Drama rose, 
 To shield fair Virtue, and to shame her foes. 
 Time bowed before him, Death resigned his trust, 
 Kingdoms came back, and Monarchs left the dust; 
 All, at his bidding, burst Oblivion s grave, 
 To warn, to win, to chasten, and to save. 
 
 Proud was the lyre beneath its master s hand, 
 And rapt the listeners of our Father-land. 
 Soon from the Old the New World caught the strain, 
 And hailed on Freedom s shores the Drama s reign ; 
 From spot to spot the inspiration flew, 
 And reared at last This vaulted Dome for You ! 
 
 For you, ye glad-eyed throngs, who cluster round 
 Where a new home the Drama s sons have found, 
 For you, for you and yours, our fane is dressed 
 By you and yours, O may our rites be blessed ! 
 Pure be the verse that lingers on each tongue, 
 Meet for the wise, the beauteous, and the young ; 
 
104 PRIZE ADDRESS. 
 
 So parent love shall srnile upon the place, 
 And gather here the fond ones of his race ; 
 So all, in pleasure lapped, or lost in woe, 
 Shall gaze unfearing, and untainted go. 
 
 Come, then, to us and to yourselves be just, 
 And bid the Stage fulfil its glorious trust. 
 To this fair Temple as your feet ye turn, 
 Let no strange fire to shame its altar burn ; 
 On you the cherub voice of goodness calls ; 
 Rise up her champions, and protect these walls ! 
 So shall their echoes wake and warm each heart, 
 All ill subdue, and all that s good impart ; 
 So shall they stand, to holy Virtue dear, 
 Above all hatred, and above all fear. 
 
PRIZE ADDRESS, 
 
 Recited at the Opening of the Philadelphia Theatre, 1828. 
 
 IT came from Heaven ! the realms of time to tread, 
 Arid summon forth the long-forgotten dead ; 
 Their deeds of guilt and goodness to unfold, 
 The garnered glories of the days of old. 
 
 It came from Heaven ! to soar where fancy reigns, 
 And rouse the phantoms of her bright domains ; 
 Their wildest haunts, their loftiest heights explore, 
 And lead man on, to wonder and adore. 
 
 Genius ! these gifts are thine ; tis thine, sweet Power, 
 With these to soothe and sway life s shifting hour; 
 To nerve the soul, to wake young Virtue s glow, 
 And bid the tears of Grief and Rapture flow ; 
 Tis thine, with these, to rule each clime and age, 
 Mankind thy subjects, and thy throne the Stage ! 
 
 The Pencil s boast, the Chisel s skill, decay, 
 And Wisdom s noblest record fades away ; 
 But here, untouched by Time s devouring tooth, 
 The pictured group puts on immortal youth ; 
 
108 PHILADELPHIA ADDRESS. 
 
 Here the bold deed that in the marble spoke, 
 Again revives, new plaudits to provoke ; 
 And the proud truth that graced the mouldering page, 
 Still pleads triumphant, echoed from the Stage. 
 
 Here gathering round in long-departed days, 
 Earth s master minstrels poured their deathless lays ; 
 Descending down, through each descending race, 
 Still came the gifted to adorn the place ; 
 With Love to soften, and with Wit to charm, 
 To mock with Folly, and with Guilt alarm ; 
 While o er each scene, to sacred feeling dear, 
 Taste smiled applause, and Beauty dropped a tear. 
 
 Long, long for these may this fair temple stand, 
 The pride and promise of our happier land. 
 Our happier land ! forever live that claim 
 On Virtue s rolls, as in the blast of Fame ; 
 So rival shores, while, saddening, they behold 
 Our young orb rising to eclipse the old, 
 May with our greatness find our goodness page, 
 To mark indeed a new, a better age. 
 
 Within these walls, in some inspiring day, 
 May native bards our native deeds portray. 
 Shall foreign legends still go brightening down, 
 And cold Oblivion s night-cloud veil our own ? 
 Look round the spot, to faith and firmness dear ; 
 Finds no rapt spirit fit incitement here ? 
 Here, where the Indian roved in nature s pride, 
 And built his fires, and loved, and warred, and died ? 
 
PHILADELPHIA ADDRESS. 107 
 
 Here, where his holy fane the pilgrim reared, 
 And gave an empire to the God he feared ? 
 Here, for that empire where the patriot bled ? 
 Here, where the foul invader turned and fled ? 
 These are the themes to stir your rising youth, 
 Their fathers valor, and their fathers truth ; 
 These be the themes to grace this swelling dome ; 
 In Pleasure s courts let Freedom find a home ; 
 While Virtue sits all radiant in her light, 
 The guiding priestess of each glorious rite. 
 
 And O, when ye who now enraptured gaze, 
 Shall yield to other throngs and other days, 
 Still may this altar beam its purest fires, 
 To charm the children as they charmed the sires ! 
 
PRIZE ADDRESS, 
 
 Recited at the Opening of the Portsmouth Theatre, 1830. 
 
 TwAs Fancy s hour uplifted on the blast, 
 O er lands and seas my chartered spirit passed, 
 Till all in Eden s ancient beauty dressed, 
 A fair, strange clime my wondering vision blessed. 
 
 There, as I gazed, in nature s strength and grace 
 Roamed the red warriors of a nameless race ; 
 Swift flew their barks along the rocky shore, 
 Bright blazed their fires, loud rose their battle roar ; 
 Rude love and ruder hate controlled the spot, 
 Tribes conquered tribes, and were in turn forgot. 
 
 Years seemed to roll then all went fading by, 
 And where they stood, beneath the same blue sky, 
 Lo ! a new race an iron-hearted band, 
 The banished wanderers from a distant land ; 
 These sweet Religion s sacred flag unfurled, 
 And bade it float to bless another world. 
 
 Soon from each startled vale the axe rang loud, 
 And the old monarchs of the forest bowed ; 
 
PORTSMOUTH ADDRESS. , 109 
 
 Art built her domes in Nature s silent bowers, 
 
 And peace and gladness crowned the pilgrim s hours. 
 
 So ages passed till, at oppression s call, 
 Bold legions thronged, their brethren to irithrall ; 
 Then from each cliff the cry to battle rang, 
 Then from each hill to arms the patriot sprang ; 
 Then shouts and shrieks rolled mingling to the sky, 
 As wronged and wrorigers met, and met to die. 
 
 I looked again the avenging deed was done ; 
 Freedom s undaunted host the fight had won ; 
 War s withering demon stayed his bloody hand, 
 And one glad anthem shook the ransomed land. 
 
 Behold the vision s bright fulfilment here ! 
 This is the clime to faith and valor dear ; 
 Among these hills the red man s arrow flew, 
 Along these shores he steered his light canoe ; 
 These are the vales the exiled Christian trod, 
 Here rose his altar to the living God ; 
 Twas here, for you, his blood the patriot gave ; 
 Here Freedom found a home, and Freedom s foes a grave. 
 
 Here, too, as bland Refinement marked the age, 
 Immortal Genius spoke, and reared the Stage. 
 See, where, to work their master s high behest, 
 His vassals throng, and thrill the human breast ; 
 Love, cherub watcher of the murmuring shade ; 
 Dark, scowling Hate ; Ambition with his blade ; 
 10 
 
110 PORTSMOUTH ADDRESS. 
 
 Envy, coarse churl ; Joy, chanting to the gale ; 
 Pale Horror, quaking at his own wild tale ; 
 Hope, that in every cloud a rainbow sees, 
 And coward Fear, that starts at every breeze ; 
 Ruthless Revenge ; Remorse with smothered sigh ; 
 Anger uncurbed, and Grief with streaming eye ; 
 All, all bring offerings at their lord s command, 
 To cheer, and charm, and humanize the land. 
 
 O, ne er this place while youth and beauty tread, 
 May shame demand one sacred tear they shed ; 
 Scorn track the footpath of each traitor here, 
 Who dares defile what Genius dared to rear. 
 Their kindred powers let Wit and Mirth unite, 
 To wake and warm the hearts they would delight. 
 Thus shall the good and wise approve the strain, 
 And all the graces bless the Drama * " 
 
ADDRESS, 
 
 Intended for the Opening of the Theatre at New-Orleans. 
 
 WHEN Gothic fury spoiled the realms of taste, 
 And Ruin sat, cold raven of the waste ; 
 The Drama s minstrels bade their shrines farewell, 
 The canvass mouldered, and the marble fell ; 
 Believing man confessed the crosier s sway, 
 And holy darkness round creation lay. 
 
 At length, bright Genius, starting from his sleep, 
 Morn s herald angel, swept the mantling deep. 
 Then shrank the flood! again the Stage was reared, 
 And Dulness fled, to curse the foe he feared. 
 From shore to shore the scenic dayspring played, 
 Illumed the court, and flashed along the shade ; 
 Sweetly it glanced o er Arno s tuneful stream, 
 And Gallia s laughing vine-hills caught the beam ; 
 Round Albion s cliffs it poured undying fire, 
 And Nature s Bard bade Nature s sons admire ! 
 
 Time shook his plumes yet sighed the Muse to grace 
 A prouder empire, and a purer race. 
 Lo ! from a fettered world she comes in light, 
 And earth s young realm puts off its heathen night. 
 
112 NEW -ORLEANS ADDRESS. 
 
 For Freedom s ear the maiden strikes her notes, 
 And steps in beauty where his banner floats. 
 Still to the glowing West she moves to sing, 
 Where Rome s exploring bird ne er bathed his wing, 
 Till, snow-crowned hills and sun-kissed valleys past, 
 Here, Gallia s offspring hails her sight at last ! 
 
 Child of Renown ! before whose infant hand 
 The wreathed invader withered from the land, 
 Thy Deed shall freshen on the penman s page, 
 The shame and glory of a wondering age, 
 And still reviving in the poet s lay, 
 Thrill the young warrior of some distant day. 
 In arms supreme, come forth to greatness dear, 
 Protect the Pilgrim and the Patriot cheer; 
 Thy slumbering shield with olive garlands dressed, 
 Rise ! crowned by Science, Monarch of the West ! 
 And thou, inspiring Dome ! to greet thy reign, 
 The Muse, exulting, pours her prophet strain. 
 For thee the bard shall draw, from every clime, 
 The swelling triumph, and the curtained crime ; 
 Death s moss-grown gates unbar, the sleepers wake, 
 To charm the good, and bid the guilty quake ; 
 Love s moonlight scene, War s crimson deed unfold, 
 And all the legends of the days of old. 
 
 Wisdom and Wit thy guardian priests shall stand, 
 And Taste refine, as Truth reforms the land ; 
 Rapture and Grief their rose and cypress twine, 
 And every heart go mended from thy shrine. 
 
NEW-ORLEANS ADDRESS. 113 
 
 Here pranking youth shall learn, in Pleasure s school, 
 To hate the folly, and to shun the fool ; 
 Vice, saddening here, shall live for purer days, 
 And Goodness sanction, while her children gaze ; 
 Learning shall close his page for thy white hour, 
 And love-lipped Beauty leave her evening bower, 
 With soul all gladness, and with eye all light, 
 To hail thy altar, and to bless thy rite. 
 
 Here, too, O kindling thought ! when Time shall shed 
 His holy incense o er the mighty dead, 
 For thee the Sage shall burst his sacred grave, 
 To guide in death the realm he lived to save ; 
 For thee the Chief revive the battle s roar, 
 And wake the sons, whose sires he led before. 
 
 Thus shalt thou triumph, decked with every grace, 
 To charm another and another race ; 
 And, one long day of quenchless splendor past, 
 Blessed by the beamy god, in glory go at last ! 
 
 10 
 
ODE, 
 
 For the Fourth of July, 1827. 
 
 To the Sages who spoke to the Heroes who bled 
 To the Day, and the Deed strike the harp-strings of 
 
 glory ! 
 
 Let the song of the Ransomed remember the Dead, 
 And the tongue of the Eloquent hallow the story. 
 O er the bones of the Bold 
 Be that story long told, 
 
 And on Fame s golden tablets their triumphs enrolled, 
 Who on Freedom s green hills Freedom s banner unfurled, 
 And the beacon-fire raised that gave light to the world. 
 
 They are gone Mighty Men ! and they sleep in their 
 
 fame ; 
 
 Shall we ever forget them ? O never ! no, never ! 
 
 Let our Sons learn from us to embalm each great name, 
 
 And the anthem send down " Independence forever." * 
 
 Wake, wake, heart and tongue ! 
 
 Keep the theme ever young 
 
 Let their deeds through the long line of ages be sung, 
 Who on Freedom s green hills Freedom s banner unfurled, 
 And the beacon-fire raised that gave light to the world. 
 
 * The dying words of the venerable John Adams, whose decease was on 
 July 4. 
 
SONG, 
 
 Written for the Parting Dinner given to Lafayette by the Massachusetts 
 Charitable Mechanic Association. Scots who, hue. 
 
 WAKE a deed of other days ; 
 Swell the song of lofty praise ; 
 Gratitude s bright goblet raise, 
 
 Pledge to LAFAYETTE ! 
 Him, who left his own fair land, 
 By your fathers sides to stand, 
 When Oppression s guilty brand 
 
 In their blood was wet : 
 
 Him, who shared their hour of woe; 
 Him, who dealt with them each blow, 
 Till young freedom s beaten foe 
 
 Turned his back and fled. 
 Lo ! again behold him here ! 
 He, who came the sires to cheer, 
 Joins their sons the Pile to rear 
 
 O er the mighty dead. 
 
 That gray Pile shall melt away, 
 Tomb and tablet shall decay, 
 Yet shall glory s deed and day 
 Never set in night. 
 
SONG. 
 
 Where your martyred heroes sleep, 
 Children s children long shall weep ; 
 There shall pilgrim warriors keep 
 Vigils, ever bright. 
 
 Sons of Art ! the table throng ; 
 Swell your glad and grateful song ; 
 Let its echoes, loud and long, 
 
 Up to Heaven ascend ! 
 Never may your hearts forget 
 Freeman s duty Freeman s debt : 
 Fill the cup to LAFAYETTE ; 
 
 Pledge your Fathers Friend ! 
 
SONG, 
 
 For a Festival in Faneuil HM. AvU Lang Syne. 
 
 FILL, brothers, fill ! the brightest pour 
 To them, the Great and Good, 
 
 Who thronged this Hall, in days of yore, 
 And firm for Freedom stood 
 And firm, &c. 
 
 Not then the festive board was spread, 
 Those gallant men to cheer ; 
 
 Not then its charm the wine-cup shed 
 Like that which sparkles here 
 Like that, &c. 
 
 From them went up no merry song, 
 When they this temple filled ; 
 
 But bold c rebellion fired each tongue, 
 
 And war each bosom thrilled 
 
 And war, &c. 
 
 Twas for a prouder deed they met, 
 That should their names adorn ; 
 
 They came a glorious feast to set 
 For ages yet unborn 
 For ages, &c. 
 
118 SONG. 
 
 And nobly through their work they went, 
 
 In wisdom and in power, 
 And down to us the blessing sent 
 
 That crowns this happy hour 
 That crowns, &c. 
 
 Then, brothers, fill ! the brightest pour 
 To them, the Great and Good, 
 
 Who round this Hall, in days of yore, 
 For us and Freedom stood 
 For us, &c. 
 
ODE, 
 
 For the Anniversary Festival of the Washington Light Infantry. 
 Mains and Liberty 
 
 THE bugle is hushed, and the war-blade is sheathed 
 Whose flash in the sunbeam to triumph directed ; 
 The olive s green branch with the laurel is wreathed, 
 And Content tills the valley that Courage protected. 
 Go on, lovely Peace, 
 Bid the war-tempest cease, 
 Till the isles of the ocean thy kingdom increase, 
 And the ends of the earth swell thy chorus sublime 
 4 Sleep, red-armed Destroyer, the slumber of Time ! 
 
 Round the festival board with full hearts we unite, 
 
 And pour to our fathers fame s purest libation ; 
 The brave ones who grappled the foe in the fight, 
 The bold ones who spoke, and gave name to a nation ! 
 To the great and the good, 
 Who for Liberty stood, 
 
 And traced her proud charter in letters of blood ; 
 Then raised their glad notes in the chorus sublime 
 1 Sleep, red-armed Destroyer, the slumber of Time ! 
 
120 ODE. 
 
 O Washington ! dearest and best of our race ! 
 
 Thy deeds through the night-cloud of ages shall lighten ! 
 Thy name on his banner the soldier shall trace, 
 
 To hallow his death, or his triumph to brighten ! 
 Nor thee, Lafayette ! 
 Shall our anthem forget, 
 
 Whose arm hurled the bolt where the battle-clouds met ; 
 Then who joined with our sires in the chorus sublime 
 4 Sleep, red-armed Destroyer, the slumber of Time ! 
 
 Now the bumper-pledge drain for ourselves let it flow! 
 May no arm the bright links of our brotherhood sever , 
 With a heart for each friend, and a blade for each foe, 
 Front face ! to the board and the battle forever ! 
 In mirth and in might, 
 Fellow-soldiers, unite 
 
 Hand to hand at the feast, hand to hand in the fight ! 
 In freedom and peace swell the chorus sublime 
 Sleep, Spoiler of nations, the slumber of Time ! 
 
DEATH OF AN INFANT 
 
 ONE little bud adorned my bower, 
 
 And shed sweet fragrance round ; 
 It grew in beauty, hour by hour, 
 Till, ah ! the Spoiler came in power, 
 And crushed it to the ground. 
 
 Yet not forever in the dust 
 
 That beauteous bud shall lie ; 
 No ! in the garden of the just, 
 Beneath God s glorious eye, I trust, 
 Twill bloom again on high. 
 
 11 
 
TO MONTAGUE, 
 
 At Thirry-three. 
 
 O, NO, I ll not forget the day, 
 It claims, at least, a hallowed hour, 
 
 A sparkling cup, an honest lay, 
 
 Sacred to friendship s soothing power. 
 
 Tis not all ice, this heart of mine, 
 One throb is warm and youthful still ; 
 
 That throb, dear MONTAGUE, is thine, 
 Nor age nor grief that throb can chill. 
 
 How often sung, and yet how sweet 
 
 To dwell upon the days of old ! 
 Our guiltless pleasures to repeat, 
 
 Ere in the world our hearts grew cold ! 
 
 Fond memory wakes ! each pulse beats high ; 
 
 Like some sweet tale past joys come o er 
 The years of ruin backward fly, 
 
 And I am young and gay once more. 
 
TO MONTAGUE. 123 
 
 Friend of my soul, in this poor verse 
 
 Let one untutored tribute live ; 
 Here let my tongue my love rehearse ; 
 
 Tis all, alas ! I have to give. 
 
 O, if, from time s wide-yawning grave, 
 There s aught of mine that I could free, 
 
 One line from dull oblivion save, 
 
 Twould be the line that tells of thee. 
 
 Though to the busy world unknown 
 Each noble act that shrinks from fame, 
 
 Goodness its favorite son shall own, 
 And orphan lips shall bless his name. 
 
 Thou rt the small stream that silent goes, 
 By earth s cold, plodding crowd unseen, 
 
 Yet, all unnoticed though it flows, 
 Its banks are clothed in living green. 
 
 We met in that bright, sunny time, 
 When every scene was fresh around, 
 
 And youth s warm hour and manhood s prime 
 Have blessed the tie that boyhood bound. 
 
 Though oft of valued friends bereft, 
 
 I bend, submissive, to the doom ; 
 For thou, the best, the best, art left, 
 
 To cheer my journey to the tomb. 
 
124 TO MONTAGUE. 
 
 And now, the dear ones of our race 
 Have come to live our pleasures o er ; 
 
 A lovely troop, to fill our place, 
 
 And weep for us when we re no more. 
 
 Ever, O ever may they keep 
 
 The holy chain of friendship bright, 
 
 Till, rich in all that s good, they sleep 
 
 With us through death s long, dreamless night. 
 
ORATIONS. 
 
 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 An Oration pronounced before the Inhabitants of Boston, July 4, 1825. 
 
 WHY, on THIS day, lingers along these sacred walls the 
 spirit-kindling anthem ? Why, on THIS day, waits the 
 herald of God at the altar, to utter forth his holy prayer ? 
 Why, on THIS day, congregate here the Wise, and the 
 Good, and the Beautiful of the land ? Fathers ! Friends ! 
 it is the SABBATH DAY OF FREEDOM ! The race of the 
 ransomed, with grateful hearts and exulting voices, have 
 again come up, in the sunlight of peace, to the Jubilee of 
 their Independence ! 
 
 The story of our country s sufferings, our country s 
 triumphs, though often and eloquently told, is still a story 
 that cannot tire, and must not be forgotten. You will 
 listen to its recital, however unadorned ; and I shall not 
 fear, therefore, even from the place where your chosen 
 ones have so long stood to delight and enlighten, I shall 
 not fear to address you. Though I tell you no new thing, 
 
4 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 I speak of that which can never fall coldly on your ears. 
 You will listen, for you are the sons and daughters of the 
 heroic men who lighted the beacon of ; rebellion, and 
 unfurled, by its blaze, the triumphant banner of liberty; 
 your own blood will speak for me. A feeble few of that 
 intrepid band are now among you, yet spared by the grave 
 for your veneration ; they will speak for me. Their sink 
 ing forms, their bleached locks, their honorable scars ; 
 these will, indeed, speak for me. Undaunted men ! how 
 must their dim eyes brighten and their old hearts grow 
 young with rapture, as they look round on the happiness of 
 their own creation ! Long may they remain, our glad and 
 grateful gaze, to teach us all, that we may treasure all, of 
 the hour of doubt and danger ; and when their God shall 
 summon them to a glorious rest, may they bear to their de 
 parted comrades the confirmation of their country s renown 
 and their children s felicity ! 
 
 We meet to indulge in pleasing reminiscences. One 
 happy household, we have come round the table of 
 memory to banquet on the good deeds of others, and to 
 grow good ourselves, by that on which we feed. Our 
 hope for remembrance, our desire to remember friends 
 and benefactors, are among the warmest and purest 
 sentiments of our nature. To the former we cling 
 stronger, as life itself grows weaker. We know that 
 we shall forget, but the thought of being forgotten, is the 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 5 
 
 death-knell to the spirit. Though our bodies moulder, 
 we would have our memories live. When we are gone, 
 we shall not hear the murmuring voice of affection, the 
 grateful tribute of praise ; still, we love to believe that 
 that voice will be raised, and that tribute paid. Few so 
 humble, that they sink below, none so exalted, that they 
 rise above, this common feeling of humanity. The 
 shipwrecked sailor, thrown on a shore where human eye 
 never lightened, before he scoops in the burning sand 
 his last, sad resting-place, scratches on a fragment of his 
 shattered bark the record of his fate, in the melancholy 
 hope that it may some day be repeated to the dear ones, 
 who had long looked out in vain for his coming. The 
 laureled warrior, whose foot has trodden on crowns, 
 whose hand has divided empires, when he sinks on 
 victory s red field, and life flies hunted from each quiver 
 ing vein, turns his last mortal thought on that life to 
 come, his country s brightest page. 
 
 The remembrance we so ardently desire, we render 
 unto others. To those who are dear, we pay our dearest 
 tribute. It is exhibited in the most simple, in the most 
 sublime forms. We behold it in the child, digging a 
 little grave for its dead favorite, and marking the spot 
 with a willow twig and a tear. We behold it in the con 
 gregated nation, setting up on high its monumental pile 
 to the mighty. We beheld it, lately, on that green plain, 
 1* 
 
6 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 dyed with freedom s first blood ; * on that proud hill, 
 ennobled as freedom s first fortress ; t when the tongues 
 of the eloquent, touched with creative fire, seemed to 
 bid the dust beneath them live, and the long-buried come 
 forth. We behold it now, here, in this consecrated 
 temple, where we have assembled to pay our annual 
 debt of gratitude, to talk of the bold deeds of our ances 
 tors, from the day of peril, when they wrestled with the 
 savage for his birthright, to the day of glory, when they 
 proclaimed a new charter to man, and gave a new nation 
 to the world. 
 
 ROLL back the tide of time : how powerfully to us 
 applies the promise "I will give thee the heathen for 
 an inheritance " ! Not many generations ago, where you 
 now sit, circled with all that exalts and embellishes civ 
 ilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the 
 wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved 
 another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls 
 over your heads, the Indian hunter pursued the panting 
 deer ; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the 
 Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam 
 blaze beamed on the tender and the helpless, the council- 
 fire glared on the wise and the daring. Now they dipped 
 
 * Concord Celebration, April 19. f Bunker Hill Celebration, June 17. 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 7 
 
 their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they 
 paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here 
 they warred ; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the 
 defying death-song, all were here; and, when the tiger 
 strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, 
 too, they worshipped; and from many a dark bosom 
 went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not 
 written His laws for them on tables of stone, but He 
 had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The 
 poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation, but 
 the God of the universe he acknowledged in every thing 
 around. He beheld him in the star that sank in beauty 
 behind his lowly dwelling, in the sacred orb that flamed 
 on him from his mid-day throne ; in the flower that 
 snapped in the morning breeze, in the lofty pine that 
 had defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid war 
 bler that never left its native grove, in the fearless 
 eagle whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the 
 worm that crawled at his foot, and in his own matchless 
 form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose myste 
 rious Source he bent, in humble, though blind adoration. 
 And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came 
 a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The 
 former were sown for you, the latter sprang up in the 
 path of the simple native. Two hundred years have 
 changed the character of a great continent, and blotted 
 
8 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 forever from its face a whole, peculiar people. Art has 
 usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children 
 of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the 
 ignorant. Here and there, a stricken few remain ; but how 
 unlike their bold, untamed, untameable progenitors ! The 
 Indian ! of falcon glance, and lion bearing, the theme of 
 the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone ! 
 and his degraded offspring crawl upon the soil where he 
 walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man, 
 when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck. 
 
 As a race, they have withered from the land. Their 
 arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins 
 are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone 
 out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast dying away to 
 the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the 
 distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. 
 They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is press 
 ing them away ; they must soon hear the roar of the last 
 wave, which will settle over them forever. Ages hence, 
 the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing 
 city, will ponder on the structure of their disturbed 
 remains, and wonder to what manner of person they 
 belonged. They will live only in the songs and chroni 
 cles of their exterminators. Let these be faithful to 
 their rude virtues as men, and pay due tribute to their 
 unhappy fate as a people. 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 9 
 
 To the Pious, who, in this desert region, built a city of 
 refuge, little less than to the Brave, who round that city 
 reared an impregnable wall of safety, we owe the blessings 
 of this day. To enjoy and to perpetuate religious free 
 dom, the sacred herald of civil liberty, they deserted their 
 native land, where the foul spirit of persecution was up 
 in its fury, and where mercy had long wept at the enor 
 mities perpetrated in the abused names of Jehovah and 
 Jesus. " Resist unto blood ! " blind zealots had found 
 in the Bible ; and lamentably, indeed, did they fulfil the 
 command. With "Thus saith the Lord," the engines of 
 cruelty were set in motion ; and many a martyr spirit, like 
 the ascending prophet from Jordan s bank, escaped in fire 
 to heaven. 
 
 It was in this night of time, when the incubus of bigotry 
 sat heavy on the human soul ; 
 
 When crown and crosier ruled a coward world, 
 
 And mental darkness o er the nations curled, 
 
 When, wrapped in sleep, earth s torpid children lay, 
 
 Hugged their vile chains, and dreamed their ago away, 
 
 Twas then, by faith impelled, by freedom fired, 
 
 By hope supported, and by God inspired, 
 
 Twas then the Pilgrims left their fathers graves, 
 
 To seek a Home beyond the waste of waves ; 
 
 And where it rose, all rough and wintry, Here, 
 
 They swelled devotion s song, and dropped devotion s tear. 
 
 Can we sufficiently admire the firmness of this little 
 brotherhood, thus self-banished from their country ? un- 
 
10 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 kind and cruel, it was true, but still their country ! There 
 they were born, and there, where the lamp of life was 
 lighted, they had hoped it would go out. There a father s 
 hand had led them, a mother s smile had warmed them. 
 There were the sunny haunts of their boyish days, their 
 kinsfolk, their friends, their recollections, their all. Yet 
 all was left ; even while their heartstrings bled at the part 
 ing, all was left ; and a stormy sea, a savage waste, and 
 a fearful destiny were encountered for Heaven, and for 
 You. 
 
 It is easy enough to praise when success has sanctified 
 the act ; and to fancy that we, too, could endure a heavy 
 trial, which is to be followed by a rich reward. But before 
 the deed is crowned, while the doers are yet about us, 
 bearing like ourselves the common infirmities of the flesh, 
 we stand aloof, and are not always ready to discern the 
 spirit that sustains and exalts them. When centuries of 
 experience have rolled away, we laud the exploit on which 
 we might have frowned, if we had lived with those who 
 left their age behind to achieve it. We read of empires 
 founded, and people redeemed, of actions embalmed 
 by time and hallowed by romance ; and our hearts leap 
 at the lofty recital ; we feel it would be a glorious thing to 
 snatch the laurels of immortal fame. But it is in the day 
 of doubt, when the result is hidden in clouds, when danger 
 stands in every path, and death is lurking in every corner ; 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 11 
 
 it is then, that the men who are born for great occa 
 sions start boldly from the world s trembling multitude, 
 and swear to do, or die ! 
 
 SUCH men were they who peopled these shores. Such 
 men, too, were they who preserved them. Of these latter 
 giant spirits, who battled for independence, and to the re 
 membrance of whose deeds this day is peculiarly devoted, 
 we are to recollect that destruction awaited defeat. They 
 were rebels, obnoxious to the fate of rebels. They 
 were tearing asunder the ties of loyalty, and hazarding all 
 the sweet endearments of social and domestic life. They 
 were unfriended, weak, and wanting. Going thus forth 
 against a powerful and vindictive foe, what could they dare 
 to hope ? What had they not to dread ? They could not 
 tell, but that vengeance would hunt them down, and infamy 
 hang its black scutcheon over their graves. They did not 
 know that the angel of the Lord would go forth with them, 
 and smite the invaders of their sanctuary. They did not 
 know that generation after generation would, on this day, 
 rise up and call them blessed ; that the sleeping quarry 
 would leap forth to pay them voiceless homage ; that their 
 names would be handed down, from father to son, the 
 penman s theme, and the poet s inspiration; challenging, 
 through countless years, the gratitude of an emancipated 
 people, and the plaudits of an admiring world! No!. 
 
t 
 12 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 They knew, only, that the arm which should protect was 
 oppressing them, arid they shook it off; that the chalice 
 presented to their lips was a poisoned one, and they dashed 
 it away. They knew, only, that a rod was stretched over 
 them for their audacity ; and beneath this they vowed 
 never to bend, while a single pulse could beat the larum 
 to rebellion. That rod must be broken, or they must 
 bleed ! And it was broken ! Led on by their Washing 
 ton, the heroes went forth. Clothed in the panoply of a 
 righteous cause, they went forth boldly. Guided and 
 guarded by a good Providence, they went forth triumph 
 antly. They labored, that we might find rest; they 
 fought, that we might enjoy peace ; they conquered, that 
 we might inherit freedom ! 
 
 You will not now expect a detail of the actions of 
 that eventful struggle. To the annalists of your country 
 belongs the pleasing task of tracing the progress of a revo 
 lution, the purest in its origin, and the most stupendous in 
 its consequences, that ever gladdened the world. To their 
 fidelity we commit the wisdom which planned, and the 
 valor which accomplished it. The dust of every contested 
 mound, of every rescued plain, will whisper to them their 
 duty, for it is dust that breathed and bled ; the hallowed 
 dust of men who would be free, or nothing. 
 
 There, in the sweet hour of eventide, the child of senti- 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 13 
 
 ment will linger, and conjure up their martyr forms. Heroes, 
 with their garments rolled in blood, will marshal round 
 him. The thrilling fife-note, the drum s heart-kindling 
 beat, will again run down the shadowy ranks; the short, 
 commanding word, the fatal volley, the dull death-groan, 
 the glad hurrah ! again will break on his cheated ear. 
 The battle that sealed his country s fate, his country s 
 freedom, will rage before him in all its dreadful splendor. 
 And when the airy pageant of his fancy fades in the 
 gathering mists, he will turn his footsteps from the sacred 
 field, with a warmer gratitude, and a deeper reverence for 
 the gallant spirits who resigned dear life in defence of 
 life s dearest blessing. 
 
 THE l feelings, manners, and principles, which led to 
 the Declaration of the Fourth of July 76, shine forth in 
 the memorable language of its great author. He and his 
 bold brethren proclaimed that all men were created equal, 
 and endowed by -their Creator with the right of liberty ; 
 that, for the security of this right, government was instituted, 
 and that, when it violated its trust, the governed might 
 abolish it. That crisis, they declared, had arrived; and 
 the injuries and usurpations of the parent country were no 
 longer to be endured. Recounting the dark catalogue of 
 abuses which they had suffered, and appealing to the 
 Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their in- 
 2 
 
14 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 tentions ; in the name and by the authority of the People, 
 the only fountain of legitimate power, they shook off for 
 ever their allegiance to the British crown, and pronounced 
 the united colonies an Independent Nation ! 
 
 What their feelings, manners, and principles, led 
 them to publish, their wisdom, valor, and perseverance, 
 enabled them to establish. The blessings secured by the 
 Pilgrims and the Patriots have descended to us. In the 
 virtue and intelligence of the inheritors we confide for their 
 duration. They who attained them have left us their ex 
 ample, and bequeathed us their blood. We shall never 
 forget the one, unless we prove recreant to the other. On 
 the Doric columns of religious and civil liberty a ma 
 jestic temple has been reared, and they who dwell within 
 its walls will never bow in bondage to man, till they forget 
 to bend in reverence to God. 
 
 THE achievement of American Independence was not 
 merely the separation of a few obscure Colonies from their 
 parent realm ; it was the practical annunciation to created 
 man, that he was created free ! and it will stand in history 
 the epoch, from which to compute the real duration of polit 
 ical liberty. Intolerance and tyranny had for ages leagued 
 to keep their victim down. While the former could re 
 main the pious guardian of his conscience, the latter knew 
 it had nothing to fear from his courage. He was theirs, 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 15 
 
 soul and body. His intellectual energies were paralyzed^ 
 that he might not behold the corruptions of the church ; 
 and his physical powers were fettered, that he should not 
 rise up against the abuses of the state. Thus centuries of 
 darkness rolled away. Light, indeed, broke from time to 
 time ; but it only served to show the surrounding clouds ; 
 bright stars, here and there, looked out ; but they were the 
 stars of a gloomy night. At length, the morning dawned, 
 when one generation of your ancestors willed that none but 
 their Maker should guide them in their duty as Christians ; 
 and the perfect day shone forth, when another declared 
 that from none but their Maker would they derive their 
 immunities as Men. 
 
 IF, in remembering the oppressed, you think the op 
 pressors ought not to be forgotten, I might urge that the 
 splendid result of the great struggle should fully reconcile 
 us to the madness of those who rendered that struggle 
 necessary. We may forgive the presumption which de 
 clared its right to bind the American Colonies, for it 
 was wofully expiated by the humiliation which acknowl 
 edged those same American Colonies to be Sover 
 eign and Independent States. The immediate workers, 
 too, of that political iniquity have passed away. The mildew 
 of shame will forever feed upon their memories ; a 
 brand has been set upon their deeds, that even Time s all- 
 
16 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 gnawing tooth can never destroy. But they have passed 
 away ; and of all the millions they misruled, the millions 
 they would have misruled, how few remain ! Another 
 race is there M lament the folly, another here to magnify 
 the wisdom, that cut the knot of empire. Shall these 
 inherit and entail everlasting enmity? Like the Cartha 
 ginian Hamilcar, shall we come up hither with our chil 
 dren, and on this holy altar swear the pagan oath of 
 undying hate ? Even our goaded fathers disdained this. 
 Let us fulfil their words, and prove to the people of Eng 
 land, that, 4 in peace, we know how to treat them as 
 friends. 1 They have been twice told that, in war, we 
 know how to meet them as enemies ; and they will 
 hardly ask another lesson, for it may be, that, when the 
 third trumpet shall sound, a voice will echo along their 
 sea-girt cliffs 4 The Glory has departed ! 
 
 Some few of their degenerate ones, tainting the bowers 
 where they sit, decry the growing greatness of a land they 
 will not love ; and others, after eating from our basket, 
 and drinking from our cup, go home to pour forth the 
 senseless libel against a people at whose firesides they 
 were warmed. But a few pens dipped in gall will not 
 retard our progress ; let not a few tongues, festering in 
 falsehood, disturb our repose. We have those among us, 
 who are able both to pare the talons of the kite and pull 
 out the fangs of the viper ; who can lay bare, for the dis- 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 17 
 
 gust of all good men, the gangrene of the insolent reviewer, 
 and inflict such a cruel mark on the back of the mortified 
 runaway, as will long take from him the blessed privilege 
 of being forgotten. 
 
 These rude detractors speak not, we trust, the feelings 
 of their nation. Time, the great corrector, is there fast en 
 lightening both ruler and ruled. They are treading in our 
 steps, even ours, and are gradually, though slowly, pulling 
 up their ancient religious and political landmarks. Yielding 
 to the liberal spirit of the age, a spirit born and fostered 
 here, they are not only loosening their own long-riveted 
 shackles, but are raising the voice of encouragement, and 
 extending the hand of assistance, to the rebels of other 
 climes. 
 
 In spite of all that has passed, we owe England much ; 
 and even on this occasion, standing in the midst of my 
 generous-minded countrymen, I may fearlessly, willingly, 
 acknowledge the debt. We owe England much ; noth 
 ing for her martyrdoms ; nothing for her proscriptions ; 
 nothing for the innocent blood with which she has stained 
 the white robes of religion and liberty ; these claims our 
 fathers cancelled, and her monarch rendered them and 
 theirs a full acquittance forever. But for the living treas 
 ures of her mind, garnered up and spread abroad for cen 
 turies by her great and gifted, who that has drank at the 
 sparkling streams of her poetry, who that has drawn from 
 2* 
 
18 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 the deep fountains of her wisdom, who that speaks, and 
 reads, and thinks her language, will be slow to own his ob 
 ligation ? One of your purest ascended patriots, he who 
 compassed sea and land for Liberty ; whose early voice 
 for her echoed round yonder consecrated hall ; whose dying 
 accents for her went up in solitude and suffering from the 
 ocean ; when he sat down to bless, with the last token of 
 a father s remembrance, the son, who wears his mantle 
 with his name, bequeathed him the recorded lessons of 
 England s best and wisest, and sealed the legacy of love 
 with a prayer, whose full accomplishment we live to wit 
 ness t that the spirit of Liberty might rest upon him. * 
 
 WHILE we bring our offerings for the mighty of our own 
 land, shall we not remember the chivalrous spirits of other 
 shores, who shared with them the hour of weakness and 
 woe ? Pile to the clouds the majestic columns of glory ; 
 let the lips of those who can speak well, hallow each spot 
 where the bones of your Bold repose ; but forget not those 
 who with your Bold went out to battle. 
 
 Among these men of noble daring, there was One, a 
 young and gallant stranger, who left the blushing vine-hills 
 of his delightful France. The people whom he came to 
 succor were not his people ; he knew them only in the 
 
 * See Life of Josiah Quincy, jr., by his son, Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston. 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 19 
 
 wicked story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary ad 
 venturer, striving for the spoil of the vanquished ; the 
 palace acknowledged him for its lord, and the valley yield 
 ed him its increase. He was no nameless man, staking 
 life for reputation ; he ranked among nobles, and looked 
 unawed upon kings. He was no friendless outcast, seeking 
 for a grave to hide a broken heart ; he was girdled by 
 the companions of his childhood ; his kinsmen were about 
 him ; his wife was before him ! 
 
 Yet from all these he turned away. Like a lofty tree, 
 that shakes down its green glories, to battle with the winter 
 storm, he flung aside the trappings of place and pride, to 
 crusade for freedom, in freedom s holy land. He came 
 but not in the day of successful l rebellion ; not when 
 the new-risen sun of independence had burst the cloud of 
 time, and careered to its place in the heavens. He came 
 when darkness curtained the hills, and the tempest was 
 abroad in its anger; when the plough stood still in the 
 field of promise, and briers cumbered the garden of beauty. 
 He came when fathers were dying, and mothers were 
 weeping over them ; when the wife was binding up the 
 gashed bosom of her husband, and the maiden was wiping 
 the death damp from the brow of her lover. He came 
 when the brave began to fear the power of man, and the 
 pious to doubt the favor of God. 
 
 It was then that this One joined the ranks of a revolted 
 
20 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 people. Freedom s little phalanx bade him a grateful wel 
 come. With them he courted the battle s rage ; with theirs 
 his arm was lifted, with theirs his blood was shed. Long 
 and doubtful was the conflict. At length, kind Heaven 
 smiled on the good cause, and the beaten invaders fled. 
 The profane were driven from the temple of Liberty ; and 
 at her pure shrine the pilgrim warrior, with his adored 
 Commander, knelt and worshipped. Leaving there his 
 offering, the incense of an uncorrupted spirit, he at length 
 rose up, and, crowned with benedictions, turned his happy 
 feet towards his long-deserted home. 
 
 After nearly fifty years, that One has come again. Can 
 mortal tongue tell, can mortal heart feel, the sublimity of 
 that coming ? Exulting millions rejoice in it, and their loud, 
 long, transporting shout, like the mingling of many winds, 
 rolls on, undying, to freedom s farthest mountains. A con 
 gregated nation comes round him. Old men bless him, and 
 children reverence him. The lovely come out to look upon 
 him, the learned deck their halls to greet him, the rulers of 
 the land rise up to do him homage. How his full heart 
 labors ! He views the rusting trophies of departed days, he 
 treads the high places where his brethren moulder, he bends 
 before the tomb of his Father ; his words are tears 
 the speech of sad remembrance. But he looks round 
 upon a ransomed land and a joyous race ; he beholds the 
 blessings those trophies secured, for which those brethren 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 21 
 
 died, for which that Father lived ; and again his 
 words are tears the eloquence of gratitude and joy. 
 
 Spread forth creation like a map ; bid earth s dead mul 
 titudes revive ; and of all the pageant splendors that 
 ever glittered to the sun, when looked his burning eye on a 
 sight like this ? Of all the myriads that have come and 
 gone, what cherished minion ever ruled an hour like this ? 
 Many have struck the redeeming blow for their own free 
 dom ; but who, like this man, has bared his bosom in the 
 cause of strangers ? Others have lived in the love of their 
 own people ; but who, like this man, has drank his sweetest 
 cup of welcome with another ? Matchless chief! of glory s 
 immortal tablets, there is one for him, for him alone ! Ob 
 livion shall never shroud its splendor ; the everlasting flame 
 of libert) shall guard it, that the generations of men may 
 repeat the name recorded there, the beloved name of 
 Lafayette ! 
 
 THEY who endured the burden of the conflict are fast 
 going to their rest. Every passing gale sighs over another 
 veteran s grave ; and, ere long, the last sage, and the last 
 old soldier of the revolution, will be seen no more. Soon, 
 too soon, will you seek in vain for even one, who can tell 
 you of that day of stout hearts and strong hands. You 
 lately beheld, on yonder glorious hill, a group of ancient 
 men, baring their gray heads beneath the blaze of heaven ; 
 
22 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 but never more at such a sight will your grateful hearts 
 grow soft. These will never again assemble on earth. 
 They have stood together in war, they have congregated 
 in peace ; their next meeting will be in the fields of 
 eternity. They must shortly sleep in the bosom of the 
 land they redeemed, and in that land s renown will alone 
 be their remembrance. 
 
 Let us cherish those who remain to link the living with 
 the dead. Of these, let one thought, to-day, rest on Him, 
 whose pen and fame this day has rendered immortal. 
 With him, too, now that the bitter feuds of a bitter hour 
 are forgotten, we may associate Another, the venerable 
 successor of our Washington. Here broke his morning 
 radiance, and here yet linger his evening beams. 
 
 " Sure the last end of the good man is peace ! 
 Night dews fall not more gently to the ground, 
 Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft. 
 Behold him, in the even-tide of life, 
 A life well spent ! 
 
 By unperceived degrees he wears away, 
 Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting ! " 
 
 I look round in vain for two of your exalted patriots, 
 who, on your last festival-day, sat here in the midst of 
 you ; for him, who then worthily wore the highest honors 
 you could bestow, who in your name greeted your Nation s 
 Guest, and took him by the hand and wept; for him, too, 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 23 
 
 who devoted to your service a youth of courage, and an 
 age of counsel ; who long ruled over you in purity and 
 wisdom, and then, gently shaking off his dignities, retired 
 to his native shades, laden with your love. They have 
 both passed away, and the tongues th^t bade the Apostle 
 of liberty welcome, will never bid him farewell. 
 
 In the place of the Fathers shall be the children. To 
 the seat which Eustis and Brooks adorned, the people of 
 this state have united to elevate one, whom they have 
 often delighted to honor. He sits where they sat, who 
 were laboring in the vineyard even before he was born. 
 His name adds another bright stud to the golden scutcheon 
 of the Commonwealth. While his heart warms with honest 
 pride at the confidence so flatteringly reposed in him, he 
 will wisely remember what that confidence expects from 
 him, in the discharge of his high trust. Chosen by all, he 
 will govern for all ; and, thus sustaining his well-earned 
 reputation, may he live long in the affection of a generous 
 people ! 
 
 I shall not omit, on this occasion, to congratulate you 
 on the result of an election, which has recently raised to 
 the highest station in your republic one of your most 
 distinguished citizens. While, however, the ardent wishes 
 of so many have been crowned by this gratifying event, 
 it is not to be forgotten, that there are those among 
 us, men of pure and patriotic minds, who responded not 
 
24 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 Amen to the general voice. I should be ashamed of the 
 feelings which would insult theirs by an unworthy exulta 
 tion. The illustrious individual, whom the representa 
 tives of the nation have pronounced most worthy, would 
 be the first to frown upon it, as he has ever been among 
 the first to acknowledge the merits of his exalted competi 
 tors. To the high-minded friends of these, in common 
 with us all, this day and its rites belong; and I cannot 
 violate the trust confided to me, I will not subject myself 
 to a pang of regret, by the indulgence of language, which 
 should send a single being from this place, with a less joy 
 ous spirit than he entered it. It is safer to be dull than 
 bitter ; and I would rather you should all be willing to forget 
 the labor of this hour in charity, than that one among you 
 should feel compelled to remember it in unkindness. 
 
 I have alluded to this event, not merely for the purpose 
 of obtruding upon you the expression of personal gratifica 
 tion, but because it offers another striking proof of the sta 
 bility of our free institutions. Since the strife of 1800, we 
 have not witnessed so violent a contest as this, through 
 which we have lately passed ; yet now, how quiet are be 
 come the elements of discord ! With a praiseworthy for 
 bearance, all, or nearly all, have bowed to the expression 
 of the public will, and seem determined, in the words of 
 one of his accomplished rivals, to judge the ruler of the 
 nation l by his measures. 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 25 
 
 While this spirit triumphs, we have nothing to dread 
 from the animosities of party. However turbulent, they 
 will be harmless. Like the commotions of the physical 
 world, they will be necessary. Far distant be the day, 
 when it must be said of this country, that it has no parties ; 
 for it must be also said, if any one be bold enough to say 
 it, that it has no liberties. Let hawk-eyed jealousy be for 
 ever on the alert, to watch the footsteps of power. Let it 
 be courteous in language, but stern and unbending in prin 
 ciple. Whoever he may be, wherever he may be, that 
 would strike at the people s rights, let him hear the people s 
 voice, proclaiming that l whom it will, it can set up, and 
 whom it will, it can set down. 
 
 Fear not party zeal it is the salt of your existence. 
 There are no parties under a despotism. There, no man 
 lingers round a ballot-box ; no man drinks the poison of a 
 licentious press; no man plots treason at a debating 
 society; no man distracts his head about the science of 
 government. All there is a calm, unruffled sea ; even a 
 dead sea of black and bitter waters. But we move upon a 
 living stream, forever pure, forever rolling. Its mighty tide 
 sometimes flows higher, and rushes faster, than its wont, and 
 as it bounds, and foams, and dashes along in sparkling vio 
 lence, it now and then throws up its fleecy cloud ; but this 
 rises only to disappear, and, as it fades away before the out 
 breaking sunbeams of patriotism, you behold upon its bosom 
 3 
 
26 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 the rainbow signal of returning peace, arching up to declare 
 that the danger is over. 
 
 AND now, it is no vain speech to say, the eyes of the 
 world have been long upon us. For nearly fifty years we 
 have run the glorious race of empire. Friends have gazed 
 in fear, and foes in scorn ; but fear is lost in joy, and scorn 
 is turning to wonder. The great experiment has succeeded. 
 Mankind behold the spectacle of a land, whose crown is 
 wisdom, whose mitre is purity, whose heraldry is talent ; a 
 land, where public sentiment is supreme, and where every 
 man may erect the pyramid of his own fair fame. They 
 behold, they believe, and they will imitate. The day is 
 coming, when thrones can no longer be supported by 
 parchment rolls. It is not a leaf of writing, signed and 
 sealed by three frail, mortal men, that can forever keep 
 down suffering millions : these will rise ; they will point to 
 another scroll ; to that, of whose bold signers our Three * 
 remain; our Three, whose alliance was, indeed, a 
 holy one, for it met the approving smile of a Holy 
 God! 
 
 Many must suffer defeat, and many must taste of death , 
 but freedom s battle will yet be fought and won. As Heaven 
 unbinds the intellect of man, his own right arm will rescue 
 
 * John Adams, Charles Carroll, Thomas Jefferson the surviving signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
AIM ERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 27 
 
 his body. Liberty will yet walk abroad in the gardens of 
 Europe. Her hand will pluck the grapes of the south, her 
 eye will warm the snow-drifts of the north. The crescent 
 will go down in blood, from that bright clime of battle and 
 of song, for which He died, that noble Briton, that warrior 
 bard, who, like the youthful Lafayette, uplifted his gener 
 ous arm in defence of a people not his own. 
 
 And to this young land will belong the praise. The 
 struggling nations point to our example, and in their own 
 tongues repeat the cheering language of our sympathy. 
 Already, when a master-spirit towers among them, they call 
 him their Washington. Along the foot of the Andes, 
 they breathe in gratitude the name of Clay ; by the ivy- 
 buried ruins of the Parthenon, they bless the eloquence of 
 Webster ! 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, my imperfect task is ended. I have 
 told you an old tale ; but you will forgive that, for it is one 
 of your country s glory. You will forgive me that I have 
 spoken of the simple creatures who were here from the 
 beginning, for it was to tell you how much had been 
 wrought for you by Piety ; you will forgive me that I have 
 lingered round the green graves of the dead, for it was to 
 remind you how much had been achieved for you by Pa 
 triotism. Forgive me, did I say ? Would you have for- 
 
28 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 given me, if I had not done this? Could I, ought I, to 
 have wasted this happy hour in cold and doubtful specula 
 tion, while your bosoms were bounding with the holy throb 
 of gratitude ? O no it was not for that you came up 
 hither. The groves of learning, the halls of wisdom, you 
 have deserted ; the crowded mart, the chambers of beauty, 
 you have made solitary that here, with free, exulting 
 voices, before the only throne at which the free can bend, 
 your hearts might pour forth their full, gushing tribute to 
 the benefactors of your country. 
 
 On that country Heaven s highest blessings are descend 
 ing. I would not, for I need not, use the language of 
 inflation ; but the decree has gone forth, and as sure as the 
 blue arch of creation is in beauty above us, so sure will 
 it span the mightiest dominion that ever shook the earth. 
 Imagination cannot outstrip reality, when it contemplates 
 our destinies as a people. Where Nature slept in her soli 
 tary loveliness, villages, and cities, and states, have smiled 
 into being. A gigantic nation has been born. Labor and 
 art are adorning, and science is exalting, the land that re 
 ligion sanctified, and liberty redeemed. From the shores 
 to the mountains, from the regions of frost to the valleys of 
 eternal spring, myriads of bold and understanding men are 
 uniting to strengthen a government of their own choice, 
 and perpetuate the institutions of their own creation. 
 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 29 
 
 The germe wafted over the ocean has struck its deep 
 root in the earth, and raised its high head to the clouds. 
 
 Man looked in scorn, but Heaven beheld, and blessed 
 
 Its branchy glories, spreading o er the West. 
 
 No summer gaude, the wonder of a day, 
 
 Born but to bloom, and then to fade away, 
 
 A giant Oak, it lifts its lofty form, 
 
 Greens in the sun, and strengthens in the storm. 
 
 Long in its shade shall children s children come, 
 
 And welcome earth s poor wanderers to a home. 
 
 Long shall it live, and every blast defy, 
 
 Till time s last whirlwind sweep the vaulted sky. 
 
 3* 
 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 An Address delivered before the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of 
 Intemperance. 1827. 
 
 IN discharging the duty which has been confided to me, 
 I shall use great plainness of speech. The themes that 
 lead to the pleasant fields of poetry, and tempt the wan 
 derer to linger among the beautiful creations of fancy, are 
 for other and happier seasons. The purpose for which we 
 have assembled, awakening, as it does, so many painful 
 associations, holds no communion with the bright regions 
 of romance we tread the cold, gray waste of reality. 
 The hour before us is one of severe and fearful reflection ; 
 and it becomes him who has been selected to occupy it, to 
 speak the words of truth and soberness. 
 
 We have met to mourn over a calamity which, like one 
 of the plagues sent to curse ancient Egypt, has come upon 
 us, and upon our people, and into our houses, and into our 
 bed-chambers, and is desolating the land. We have met 
 to bear our testimony against Drunkenness and we call 
 upon all good men to stand forth, and cheer us with their 
 influence and example. We implore them as Christians, 
 as Patriots, as Philanthropists, to join in the labor and 
 
32 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 the praise of extirpating a vice that has taken deep root in 
 our nation, spreading to its remotest borders, and dropping 
 in its loveliest paths the seeds of misery, disease, and death. 
 
 The spectacle before us is indeed appalling. The vic 
 tims of intemperance are wasting around us in frightful 
 numbers. Neither sex, nor age, nor rank, nor talent, is 
 unsubdued by the subtle destroyer. Man falls away from 
 his glorious destiny, and woman is degraded from her 
 angel station ; the young bow their faces in the beauty of 
 their promise, the mature are arrested in the pride of their 
 usefulness, and the white locks of the old seek the tomb in 
 disgrace ; the rich are overcome in their splendid mansions, 
 the poor in their dreary hovels ; the arm of labor is para 
 lyzed, the light of learning is extinguished ; genius is 
 struck down in his eagle career, and the holy functions of 
 piety are defiled in the dust. 
 
 Friends we may not sit in silence, while this devasta 
 tion is going on. We have a duty to perform ; and what 
 we would do effectually, we must do unitedly. It is time 
 for us to speak ; the ear that would be deaf to the kind 
 whisper of individual remonstrance, must hear the congre 
 gated voices of an alarmed community. Above all, it is 
 time for us to act ; the sin that shrouds itself in the broad 
 mantle of custom, custom must expose and destroy. A 
 vast proportion of the cases of confirmed intemperance may 
 be traced, not so much to any innate depravedness, as to 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. dd 
 
 the crafty workings of the unreproved usages of society ; 
 and we, who continue to follow these usages, even while 
 we laugh at them, are ourselves more or less chargeable 
 with the evils we lament over, and are bound to exert our 
 efforts for the alleviation of them. I say, our efforts not 
 merely those which are exhausted in assembling to hear 
 admonitory addresses, too often only criticised and forgotten 
 in showering abroad tracts, that seem to pass off like 
 a thick flight of snow, leaving no trace of their passage, 
 and disappearing where they fall ; these things, cer 
 tainly, are not to be left undone ; but if we would have 
 them of any avail, something more must be done also. 
 Least of all can we rely on the unassisted arm of au 
 thority. We may invoke the laws, but we may as well in 
 voke the dead. Laws can only operate when the mischief 
 is done. Prevention is what we want remedy utterly 
 loses its character. Indeed, though we very properly 
 punish the thief and the murderer, for crimes against which 
 we all set our faces, with what consistency can we punish 
 the drunkard, for an offence to which our own daily prac 
 tices naturally lead him? We do all but the deed our 
 selves we tread on the borders of the forbidden ground, 
 and then angrily cry out for justice on him who goes one 
 step farther. Enforce the laws ! exclaims some virtu 
 ously-indignant citizen, as he beholds the low-born drunk 
 ard shaming the fair face of day enforce the laws! 
 
34 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 and with these words on his lips, he coolly arranges the 
 evening club, from the carousings of which if he retires 
 unexposed, it is because the shades of night do more for 
 him than his own prudence. Suppress drinking-houses 
 and soda establishments ! cries the anxious father, who 
 shudders lest his son may drink there of the waters of 
 death, which, however, he is not at all afraid to press upon 
 his friends at home. Why does not government impose a 
 tax on domestic spirits ? is the inquiry of one, who sits at 
 his loaded table, boasting of the age of his foreign liquors, 
 and recounting the various voyages that have rendered 
 them so exquisite. Truly, there is a little absurdity in 
 these things. Besides, we may fine and imprison a poor 
 wretch, now and then, for intoxication ; but it will go only a 
 little way to reduce the evil it will not teach him tem 
 perance. We may lessen the number of dram-shops that 
 pour forth their steams of abomination from every hole and 
 corner ; bat we all know that many a man becomes a 
 drunkard before he sets his foot within one it will not 
 teach him temperance. We may call upon our rulers to 
 lay heavy duties on imported and domestic liquors ; but, 
 should they even be courageous enough to do so, it would 
 only tempt the importer to become a smuggler, and instruct 
 the distiller to outwit the exciseman perhaps it might put 
 money into the public treasury but it would not teach 
 men temperance. No ! we must go beyond all this we 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 35 
 
 must first minister to ourselves. Before we revive old 
 laws, we must abolish old customs. Before we appeal to 
 the government, we must prove our sincerity by becoming 
 our own legislators. The law we need is that which must 
 speak in the unwritten majesty of Public Opinion. The 
 people s virtue must enact it, and the people s practice 
 must be its enforcement. 
 
 But it may be said that much which the friends of Tem 
 perance would abolish, is harmless ; and that we need not 
 debar ourselves from the innocent recreations of social and 
 convivial life, simply because some are weak enough to 
 pervert them. It is undoubtedly true, that we are not re 
 quired to copy the macerating austerities of the monk s 
 cell, for fear men should become gluttons, nor to dip our 
 cup only in the hermit s spring, lest they should turn 
 drunkards. Our Creator has not spread before us a boun 
 teous table, merely to forbid our approach to it. Still, if 
 we behold that there are many, weak enough to abuse 
 these innocent recreations, and to whom an indulgence in 
 them is not, harmless if our example serves to encourage 
 in others practices which, we cannot deny, inevitably tend 
 to their destruction we have not the right, the moral 
 right, to make them constant stumbling-blocks in the path 
 of those who have more feeling and less philosophy than 
 ourselves. It becomes us, if not, in common charity, to set 
 them entirely aside, at least, as well-wishers to society, to 
 
36 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 inquire how far we are justified in making thern, as too 
 many of us do, the daily test of hospitality, the unerring 
 touchstone of friendship, the universal accompaniment of 
 all social intercourse. 
 
 It is truly astonishing to behold how completely the habit 
 of unnecessary drinking pervades the various classes of our 
 community. In one way or another, it is their morning 
 and evening devotion, their noonday and midnight sacrifice. 
 From the highest grade to the lowest, from the drawing- 
 room to the kitchen, from the gentleman to the laborer, 
 down descends the universal custom ; from those who sit 
 long at the wine that has been rocked upon the ocean, and 
 ripened beneath an Indian sky, down to those who solace 
 themselves with the fiery liquor that has cursed no other 
 shores than our own down, till it reaches the miserable 
 abode, where the father and mother will have rum, though 
 the children cry for bread down to the bottom, even to 
 the prison-house, the forlorn inmate of which hails him his 
 best friend, who is cunning enough to convey to him, undis 
 covered, the alt-consoling, the all-corroding poison. 
 
 Young men must express the warmth of their mutual 
 regard, by daily and nightly libations at some fashionable 
 hotel it is the custom. The more advanced take turns 
 in flinging open their own doors to each other, and the 
 purity of their esteem is testified by the number of bottles 
 they can empty together it is the custom. The husband 
 
ON INTEMPE-RANCE. 37 
 
 deems it but civil to commemorate the accidental visit of his 
 acquaintance .by a glass of ancient spirit, and the wife holds 
 it a duty to celebrate the flying call of her companion with 
 a taste of the .latest liqueur for this, also, is the custom. 
 The interesting gossipry of every little evening coterie 
 must be enlivened with the customary cordial. Custom 
 demands that idle quarrels, perhaps generated over a 
 friendly -cup, another friendly cup must drown. Foolish 
 wagers are laid, to be adjusted in foolish drinking the 
 rich citizen stakes a dozen, the poor one a dram. The 
 brisk minor panting for twenty-one, baptizes his new-born 
 manhood in the strong drink to which he intends training it 
 up. Births, marriages, and burials, are all hallowed by 
 strong drink. Anniversaries, civic festivities, military dis 
 plays, municipal elections, and even religious ceremonials, 
 are nothing without strong drink. The political ephemera 
 of a little noisy day, and the colossus whose footsteps mil 
 lions wait upon, must alike be apotheosised in liquor. A 
 rough-hewn statesman is toasted at, and drank at, to his 
 face in one place, while his boisterous adversary sits 
 through the same mummery in another. Here, in their 
 brimming glasses, the adherents of some successful candi 
 date mingle their congratulations ; and there, in like man 
 ner, the partisans of his defeated rival forget their chagrin. 
 Even the great day of national emancipation is, with too 
 many, only a great day of drinking; and the proud song of 
 4 
 

 38 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 deliverance is trolled from the lips of those, who are bend 
 ing body and soul to a viler thraldom than that from which 
 their fathers rescued them. 
 
 I need not swell the catalogue it were a shorter task 
 to tell where liquors do not abound, than where they do. 
 And all these things would only wake a smile, but that 
 their consequences make us sad, and ought to make us 
 wise. Is it not here that the mischief we mourn over 
 begins ? and if so, ought not the reformation to begin 
 here also ? Look back to the days of childhood. Call up 
 round you the little groups that made your young hours 
 happy. Follow them along, from year to year, as you and 
 they grew older. Remember how this one and that one, 
 the generous and the gifted, dropped off from your sides 
 into the grave. Did not intemperance drag them down ? 
 and was it not amid the innocent recreations of society 
 that they were first ensnared ? Cannot many a parent, 
 many a wife, many a husband, here find the source of days 
 and nights of anguish ? May we not select some youthful 
 victim of excess, and trace him back, step by step, to these 
 harmless indulgences these innocent recreations ? Have 
 we not seen 
 
 The young disease, that must subdue at length, 
 Grow with their growth, and strengthen with their strength ? 
 
 Could he repeat alas ! he cannot his mind is sunk in 
 his body s defilement but could he for a moment shake 
 

 ONINTEMPERANCE. 39 
 
 off his lethargy, and repeat to us the story of his errors, as 
 faithfully as he looks their odious consequences, he would 
 tell us that to the innocent enjoyments of hospitality and 
 festivity he owes his ruin that the warranted indulgences 
 of convivial life led the way to the habitual debauch, which 
 has finally set upon him the seal whereby all men may 
 know the drunkard. He would tell us that he was once 
 worthy of a happier destiny that he stepped on life s 
 pathway, rejoicing in purity and hope that he was 
 blessed with a frame for vigorous action, and a heart for 
 the world s endearing charities that his eye loved the 
 beauties of nature, and his spirit adored the goodness of 
 nature s God. But he would tell us, that, in an evil hour, 
 he found he had fallen, even before he knew he was in 
 danger that the customs of society had first enticed him, 
 and then unfitted him for its duties that the wreaths they 
 had insidiously flung round him hardened to fetters, and he 
 could not shake them off. He would tell us that over the 
 first discovery of his fatal lapse his alarmed parents wept, 
 and he mingled his tears with theirs that as he grew 
 more unguarded in his offence, they raised the angry voice 
 of reproof, and he braved it in sullen silence that as he 
 became still more vile and brutish, kindred and friend 
 turned their cold eyes away from him, and his expiring 
 shame felt a guilty relief. He would tell us, that, at length, 
 just not hated, he has reached the lowest point of living 
 
40 O N I N T E M P E R A N C E . 
 
 degradation that in his hours of frenzy he is locked up 
 in the receptacle for the infamous, and in his lucid intervals 
 let out, a moving beacon to warn the virtuous. Could he 
 anticipate the end of his unhappy story, he might tell us 
 that yet a little while, and his short and wretched career 
 will be ended that the father who hung over his cradle, 
 weaving bright visions of his son s future greatness, will feel 
 a dreadful satisfaction as he gazes upon him in his coffin 
 that the mother who lulled him to sleep on her bosom, and 
 joyed to watch his waking, will not dare to murmur that the 
 sleep has come upon him, out of which on earth he will 
 never awake that the grave will be gladly made ready to 
 receive him that as, while living, he forfeited c fair re 
 nown, so, doubly dying, he must 
 
 Go down 
 
 To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
 Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. 
 
 But, deplorably as the frivolous usages of society show, in 
 their effects upon the young, the prospect is doubly terrific, 
 when we behold their ravages among the more mature. 
 The common calamities of life may be endured. Poverty, 
 sickness, and even death, may be met but there is that 
 which, while it brings all these with it, is worse than all 
 these together. When the husband and father forgets the 
 duties he once delighted to fulfil, and bv slow degrees be 
 comes the creature of intemperance, there enters into his 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 41 
 
 house the sorrow that rends the spirit that cannot be 
 alleviated, that will not be comforted. 
 
 It is here, above all, where she, who has ventured every 
 thing, feels that every thing is lost. Woman, silent-suffer 
 ing, devoted woman, here bends to her direst affliction. 
 The measure of her woe is, in truth, full, whose husband 
 is a drunkard. Who shall protect her, when he is her in- 
 sulter, her oppressor ? What shall delight her, when she 
 shrinks from the sight of his face, and trembles at the 
 sound of his voice ? The hearth is indeed dark, that he 
 has made desolate. There, through the dull midnight 
 hour, her griefs are whispered to herself, her bruised heart 
 bleeds in secret. There, while the cruel author of her 
 distress is drowned in distant revelry, she holds her solitary 
 vigil, waiting, yet dreading his return, that will only wring 
 from her, by his unkindness, tears even more scalding than 
 those she sheds over his transgression. To fling a deeper 
 gloom across the present, memory turns back, and broods 
 upon the past. Like the recollection to the sun-stricken 
 pilgrim, of the cool spring that he drank at in the morning, 
 the joys of other days come over her, as if only to mock 
 her parched and weary spirit. She recalls the ardent 
 lover, whose graces won her from the home of her infancy 
 the enraptured father, who bent with such delight over 
 his new-born children ; and she asks if this can really be 
 he this sunken being, who has now nothing for her but 
 4* 
 
42 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 the sot s disgusting brutality nothing for those abashed 
 and trembling children, but the sot s disgusting example ! 
 Can we wonder, that, amid these agonizing moments, the 
 tender cords of violated affection should snap asunder ? 
 that the scorned and deserted wife should confess, there is 
 no killing like that which kills the heart ? that though it 
 would have been hard for her to kiss for the last time the 
 cold lips of her dead husband, and lay his body forever in 
 the dust, it is harder to behold him so debasing life, that even 
 his death would be greeted in mercy ? Had he died in the 
 light of his goodness, bequeathing to his family the inherit 
 ance of an untarnished name, the example of virtues that 
 should blossom for his sons and daughters from the tomb 
 though she would have wept bitterly indeed, the tears of 
 grief would not have been also the tears of shame. But to 
 behold him, fallen away from the station he once adorned, 
 degraded from eminence to ignominy at home, turning 
 his dwelling to darkness, and its holy endearments to 
 mockery abroad, thrust from the companionship of the 
 worthy, a self-branded outlaw this is the woe that the 
 wife feels is more dreadful than death, that she mourns 
 over as worse than widowhood. 
 
 There is yet another picture behind, from the exhibition 
 of which I would willingly be spared. I have ventured 
 to point to those who daily force themselves before the 
 world ; but there is one whom the world does not know 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 43 
 
 of w ho hides herself from prying eyes, even in the in 
 nermost sanctuary of the domestic temple. Shall I dare 
 to rend the veil that hangs between, and draw her forth ? 
 the priestess dying amid her unholy rites the sacrificer 
 and the sacrifice ? O, we compass sea and land, we brave 
 danger and death, to snatch the poor victim of heathen 
 superstition from the burning pile and it is well but 
 shall we not also save the lovely ones of our own house 
 hold, from immolating on this foul altar, not alone the 
 perishing body, but all the worshipped graces of her sex 
 the glorious attributes of hallowed womanhood ? 
 
 Imagination s gloomiest reverie never conceived of a 
 more revolting object, than that of a wife and mother, de 
 filing in her own person the fairest work of her God, and 
 setting at nought the holy engagements for which he 
 created her. Her husband who shall heighten his joys, 
 and dissipate his cares, and alleviate his sorrows ? She, 
 who has robbed him of all joy, who is the source of his 
 deepest care, who lives his sharpest sorrow ? These are 
 indeed the wife s delights but they are not hers. Her 
 children who shall watch over their budding virtues, and 
 pluck up the young weeds of passion and vice ? She, in 
 whose own bosom every thing beautiful has withered, every 
 thing vile grows rank ? Who shall teach them to bend 
 their little knees in devotion, and repeat their Saviour s 
 prayer against temptation ? She, who is herself temp- 
 
44 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 tation s fettered slave ? These are truly the mother s 
 labors but they are not hers. Connubial love and 
 maternal tenderness bloom no longer for her. A worm 
 has gnawed into her heart, that dies only with its prey 
 the worm Intemperance. 
 
 These are riot the imaginings of a heated fancy you 
 who hear me know that they are not. Nor are they dis 
 torted illustrations of rare and solitary cases, which cross 
 us so seldom that they are wondered at, even more than 
 they are deplored. Your own observation will bear me 
 witness, that they are drawn at random, from the too 
 numerous classes, whose talents and virtues are annually 
 lost to their friends by the basilisk charm of the social cup. 
 You behold them at every turn happy are you, if you do 
 not discover in them once valued companions thrice 
 happy, if you have never been called to lament over them 
 by your own firesides. 
 
 But why are these odious portraits hung up to the sick 
 ening gaze ? Have the originals come hither to look upon 
 them, and grow ashamed of their own deformity ? Can 
 all the homilies of the pulpit startle him who has been 
 blind to the tears of affection, arid deaf to the prayer of 
 friendship, and shrunk not from the burning touch of 
 shame ? No we dare not hope to reclaim the drunk 
 ard his reformation comes unlocked for, if it comes 
 at all. The mortal taint is upon him, in his blood, on 
 
ONINTEMPERANCE. 45 
 
 his brain and if he will, he must die, even in his drunk 
 enness. But though many an ill-fated vessel goes to the 
 bottom, men do not forbear to light up the beacon of safety 
 there are yet gallant barks in the offing, arid for them 
 the signal-fire must be set on high. There are those 
 about us, now vibrating between right and wrong they 
 may be snatched from the woe that threatens them ; there 
 are those now happy in the sunshine of temperance they 
 may live to crown our exertions ; there are the multitudes, 
 not yet fallen, because not assailed ; the strong toilers by 
 the wayside, the busy craftsmen of life s middle walks, 
 the loftier aspirants for wealth and distinction ; parents, 
 yet the centre of domestic bliss ; children, still the pride of 
 the paternal board ; there are the generations springing 
 up around us, with passions uncurbed, and principles un- 
 established those who are to come after us, and fill our 
 places, and hand down to their posterity the virtues and 
 vices they learn of us these call aloud for our untiring 
 labors, and, by the blessing of Heaven, for some of these 
 our labors shall not be in vain. 
 
 ALTHOUGH I have not particularly alluded to the effects 
 of intemperance on the lower orders of society, it is by no 
 means because the intemperate with them are less numer 
 ous than may be found among the higher classes we 
 know that the reverse is the case. Personal observation 
 
46 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 and well -authenticated documents too plainly prove, that, 
 to the poor, drunkenness is verily the pestilence walking 
 in darkness, and the destruction wasting at noon-day. If 
 they can find money for nothing else, they can find it for 
 the liquid fire that destroys them. He who is so destitute 
 that he can neither clothe nor feed his ragged and famish 
 ing children, is rarely so reduced that he cannot pay for 
 the guilty indulgences of the dram-shop. 4 I have seen, 1 
 says one of my predecessors in this duty I have seen 
 ardent spirits, more than once, form, with a scanty allow 
 ance of bread and meat, the only meal of an almost per 
 ishing family. I have seen a mother and her children, 
 hovering in the depth of winter over a few dying embers, 
 half naked and half starved, bread and water the only 
 nourishment of the children, bread and rum of the parents. 
 I have seen a little child, squalid and filthy, pinched with 
 cold and want, covered, but not protected from the inclem 
 ency of winter, by a few tattered garments, her bare feet 
 on the frozen earth, stealing along with a broken pitcher, 
 to bring to her parents the liquor which was to serve for 
 the morning s repast whilst within their comfortless 
 dwelling, gladdened by no blazing hearth, they were 
 waiting in bed, with a drunkard s longing, for that which 
 was to them better than food, clothing, or fire. 
 
 I might warn the poor man of the inevitable conse 
 quences of these besotting habits. I might tell him that 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 47 
 
 they will steal away all his homely comforts, load him 
 with debts, lead him to the jail, stretch him on the bed 
 of sickness, and finally press him down to an untimely 
 grave, while his wife and children must be left behind, 
 the shivering pensioners of a grudging world s cold bounty. 
 But I am not now addressing the poor. I speak to you, 
 whom the poor are proud to copy. By portraying some 
 of the evils that are thinning your own ranks, by tracing 
 them to what I believe is their origin, and pointing to what 
 I think is the only certain relief for them, I would incite 
 you to a reformation, that shall not only reach those around 
 you, but descend to those below. If the present race is too 
 far gone, you may at least save some of that which is to 
 come. Man has been truly termed the creature of imita 
 tion, and it is equally true, that his disposition to imitate is 
 somewhat aspiring. He will ape a lofty vice, rather than 
 emulate a lowly virtue. This inclination, strong enough 
 every where, is peculiarly powerful in a country the very 
 institutions of which serve to feed it. The pleasant doc 
 trine that all men are free and equal, is thoroughly under 
 stood, at least in one sense, by those whom its exciting 
 spirit never roused to great and noble action. 
 
 In this view our subject assumes a fearful political im 
 portance. The ruinous consequences of wide-spread in 
 temperance to a people governing themselves, can hardly 
 be overrated. If there be on earth one nation more than 
 
48 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 another, whose institutions must draw their life-blood from 
 the individual purity of its citizens, that nation is our own. 
 Rulers by divine right, and nobles by hereditary succession, 
 may, perhaps, tolerate with impunity those depraving in 
 dulgences which keep the great mass abject. Where the 
 many enjoy little or no power, it were a trick of policy to 
 wink at those enervating vices, which would rob them of 
 both the ability and the inclination to enjoy it. But in our 
 country, where almost every man, however humble, bears 
 to the omnipotent ballot-box his full portion of the sover 
 eignty where, at regular periods, the ministers of author 
 ity, who went forth to rule, return to be ruled, and lay 
 down their dignities at the feet of the monarch multitude 
 where, in short, public sentiment is the absolute lever that 
 moves the political world the purity of the people is the 
 rock of political safety. We may boast, if we please, of 
 our exalted privileges, and fondly imagine that they will 
 be eternal but whenever those vices shall abound, which 
 undeniably tend to debasement, steeping the poor and the 
 ignorant still lower in poverty and ignorance, and thereby 
 destroying that wholesome mental equality, which can 
 alone sustain a self-ruled people it will be found, by 
 woful experience, that our happy system of government, 
 the best ever devised for the intelligent and good, is the 
 very worst to be intrusted to the degraded and vicious. 
 The great majority will then truly become a many-headed 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 49 
 
 monster, to be tamed and led at will. The tremendous 
 power of suffrage, like the strength of the eyeless Nazarite, 
 so far from being their protection, will but serve to pull 
 down upon their heads the temple their ancestors reared 
 for them. Caballers and demagogues will find it an easy 
 task to delude those who have deluded themselves ; and the 
 freedom of the people will finally be buried in the grave of 
 their virtues. National greatness may survive splendid 
 talents and brilliant victories may fling their delusive lustre 
 abroad ; these can illumine the darkness that hangs round 
 the throne of a despot but their light will be like the 
 baleful flame that hovers over decaying mortality, and tells 
 of the corruption that festers beneath. The immortal spirit 
 will have gone and along our shores, and among our 
 hills those shores made sacred by the sepulchre of the 
 Pilgrim, those hills hallowed by the uncoffined bones of 
 the Patriot even there, in the ears of their degenerate 
 descendants, shall ring the last knell of departed Liberty. 
 I would not, even in anticipation, do my country injus 
 tice. I glory in my citizenship. With the exception of 
 the one hateful vice, which is spreading its ravages far 
 and wide, we may proudly challenge a comparison with the 
 dominions of the earth. The present, however, is not a 
 time for the silken phrases of self-commendation. This 
 gross and besetting sin, the parent of so many others, is a 
 national blot ; and if it shows the darker on our scutcheon, 
 5 
 
50 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 that it pollutes so fair a surface, it becomes more imperi 
 ously the duty of every patriotic citizen to assist in remov 
 ing it. Let not our glory and disgrace go hand in hand. 
 When we exultingly proclaim to the decrepit communities 
 of the old world, how far we have outstripped them in 
 liberty, let them not be able to tell us that we have also 
 outstripped them in a vice which is liberty s most deadly 
 foe. If that be true, which we have been told, let it teach 
 .us humility, and excite us to amendment that though but 
 two hundred years a people, but fifty years a nation, we 
 have already, in this particular, attained a wicked preemi 
 nence over kingdoms that had seen centuries come and de 
 part, long before the white sail of Columbus caught the 
 inspiring winds of our western sky. 
 
 I have thus imperfectly touched upon some of the evils 
 of intemperance, as they affect man in the life that is but 
 how much more unspeakable do they become, when we con 
 sider him as a being born to live forever ! It has been re 
 marked of other sins, that, as we grow old, if we do not 
 leave them, at least they leave us. Time cools the hot blood 
 of youth, and philosophy assumes the reins that passion has 
 resigned. But this vampyre vice clings the closer as it 
 draws its captive nearer to the grave ; and, when it has 
 destroyed the body, sends the stupefied soul to its dread 
 account, all reeking in its unrepented-of enormity. 
 
 Is it not wonderful, that a creature, glowing with the 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 51 
 
 divinity of his Creator endowed with energies to control 
 the things of one world, and with attributes that capacitate 
 him for the joys of another able to bind to his will the 
 elements that surround him t making the winds and the 
 waters the ministers of his pleasure rifling the caverns 
 of the earth of their unsunned wealth tracing the stars as 
 they circle away to their hiding-places exploring the un 
 bounded realms of creation, till he stands in speechless 
 homage at the footstool of creation s Awful Founder is it 
 not indeed wonderful, that such a being, so rarely endowed, 
 should dare to quench the sacred fire that has descended 
 upon him cumbering the earth he was born to subdue, 
 and forfeiting the heaven he was ordained to enjoy? 
 
 But I am here invading the holy province of others. 
 This is your field, ye anointed ministers of Him who went 
 about doing good. Ye have the privilege, ye have the com 
 mand, to speak to man of his immortal destiny. Is it glori 
 ous to sway the human mind, and is it not more glorious to 
 render it worth being swayed ? Is it important to make 
 men believe right, and is it not still more important to make 
 them act well? Is it your duty to point them to heaven, 
 and is it not doubly your duty to fit them for heaven s en 
 joyments ? Ye would throw light on the page that Infinite 
 Wisdom has shrouded in darkness enforce that, also, 
 which he who runs can comprehend. Ye can sharpen and 
 burnish your weapons, and set yourselves in battle-array 
 
52 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 against each other, in defence of your various creeds 
 unite your conflicting powers, and overthrow the giant sin 
 that wars with every creed. Ye would open the eyes of 
 the blind heathen, and snatch,him from the blood-dripping 
 car of his idol strive also to convert the Christian idolater, 
 and save him from the wrath of a demon whose touch is 
 worse than death. Warn him of the vice that eats into the 
 soul. Declare unto him the doom pronounced upon the 
 drunkard. With you are the hearts of the old and the 
 young. On you men look with love, for you are associated 
 with their joys and their sorrows to you they listen with 
 reverence, for you bear the delegated majesty of the Most 
 High. Be ye, then, faithful and fearless in this thing in 
 what ye say in what ye do. ; Take the censer of fire in 
 your hands, and go forth into the camp, and stand between 
 the living and the dead, and stay this plague which rages 
 among the people. 
 
 AND, now, is it a hard thing that we ask each other to 
 perform? There are those who never fear to do that 
 which they are conscious is wrong shall we be afraid to 
 do that which we know to be right ? Martyrs have calmly 
 laid their heads on the block, for opinions the truth of 
 which many will always deny shall we hesitate to protest 
 against habits, the baneful consequences of which all ac 
 knowledge ? Men waste time, and talent, and money, in 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 53 
 
 schemes which, though successful, end in vexation and 
 vanity are we unwilling to make an effort for the happi 
 ness of those about us, which, even if unsuccessful, will 
 bring us the reward of self-approbation ? We love to re 
 member what our Fathers did and suffered, in the ages 
 gone by, and we extol the holy and the bold achievements 
 which secured to us a lovely heritage shall our children 
 look back to our day, and find nothing to reverence in us ? 
 Shall we not at least bequeath them lessons of purity, ex 
 amples of temperance ? These may not win for us the 
 page of history the orator may not sound our praise in 
 high places nor the poet remember us in his glowing an 
 them ; but the small, sweet voice of the moralist will 
 testify of us the blessings of them that were ready to 
 perish may rest upon us we shall have that within 
 which passeth show. 
 
 Let me then again press you to the enforcement of the 
 only remedy for this destroying sin. If we would really 
 banish intemperance, we must close the hundred secret 
 avenues through which it winds its way. We must turn our 
 eyes from the pleasant shapes it assumes in its infancy, if 
 we would not look upon it in all its full-grown bloatedness. 
 We must, in a word, give up drinking as a necessary 
 fashion, if we would get rid of drunkenness as a necessary 
 vice. This, too, unlike some good deeds, must be done 
 5* 
 
54 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 before men in the sight of our families, our friends, and 
 the world. Our children, who seldom think that can be 
 wrong which their parents indulge in, must no longer 
 behold the strange fire an every-day household sacrifice. 
 Our neighbors, who are anxious to interchange with us the 
 courtesies of hospitality, must from us learn moral boldness 
 enough to thrust the insinuating foe from their tables and 
 firesides. Wherever our influence can be felt, it must be 
 judiciously exerted. It must reach the young who en 
 ter upon life with a blind deference for their seniors, 
 and imbibe their habits long before they are able to weigh 
 the tendency of them. It must descend to the poor -who 
 are ever ready to copy the manners and practices of those 
 above them. It must spread round to the crowds of imita 
 tors, whose most anxious care is, to live like other people 
 and who deem it a very important study to find out what 
 is customary, without ever troubling themselves to ask 
 whether it be right. In this way, in this way alone, can the 
 good work commence and if then there be any thing left 
 for the law, let those who sit in the seats of authority look to 
 it. They will not fear to fpllow where we dare to lead. 
 
 Every man is a member of some little brotherhood, in 
 which his influence will be felt, his actions imitated. It is 
 here that even the humblest may do much ; not by ill- 
 timed and boisterous denunciations against all who may 
 
ON INTEMPERANCE. 55 
 
 feel the importance of the subject less deeply than himself 
 
 but by a meek and unostentatious, yet firm and con 
 sistent rejection of those daily and nightly indulgences, 
 which lead to the misery we deplore. He must remember 
 that they, whom he would gain over, are not so wicked as 
 they are weak ; and that it is not in the severe capacity 
 of a judge that his labors are required, but in the more 
 endearing character of a friend. His strongest persuasions 
 must be those of practice. There is no lecture so elo 
 quent as the silent lesson of a spotless example. He may 
 not witness sudden and miraculous conversions to his faith 
 
 he may even sometimes hear the coarse taunt of the 
 scorner, against both his faith and his works. They who 
 are unwilling to do any thing, will tell him that nothing can 
 be done. They who fold up their arms in contented 
 apathy, because the viper has not crawled into their 
 bowers, will assure him that nothing need be done. They 
 who deem that the sum of human duty is merely to pro 
 vide for one s own household, and respect the laws of the 
 land, will try to convince him that nothing ought to be 
 done. But let not all this shake the lover of temperance 
 from his purpose there is much that should be done, 
 and if he will persevere, at length much may be done. 
 By time and patience, it has been beautifully observed, 
 the leaf of the mulberry-tree becomes satin. In good 
 season he will behold the harvest of his labors ripening 
 
56 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 around him. His gentle entreaties, his mild and judi 
 cious zeal 
 
 Each virtuous mind will wake, 
 Ai the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake. 
 The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, 
 Another still, and still another spreads ; 
 Friend, kindred, neighbor, first it will embrace, 
 His country next, and next all human race. 
 
 My friends, be this laudable enterprise ours. Against 
 the common destroyer let us stand boldly forth, in word 
 and in work. It is these, that, like the prophet s prayer and 
 the warrior s valor, must achieve the victory together. If 
 there be any here, who are disposed to look coldly upon 
 our object, as unattainable, let them ask themselves if all 
 the various exhortations of the pulpit are not obnoxious to 
 the same objection. We admit that there will ever be 
 drunkards ; but if, because we may not hope to keep all 
 men temperate, we must not therefore strive to preserve 
 any, then no longer let the temples of the Most High echo 
 to the voices of his servants close up the doors of the 
 sacred desk, for there are those who would slumber in their 
 sins beneath, though an archangel should denounce them. 
 All human efforts, however praiseworthy, must be marked 
 by imperfection. It is the badge of earth, and of every 
 thing earthly. It is hung round the neck of man before his 
 first repose on his mother s lap, and it must remain there 
 

 
 ON INTEMPERANCE. 57 
 
 till his last sleep on the lap of the common mother of all. 
 We cannot entirely, get rid of drunkenness but we can 
 make it so rare a crime, that the guilty ones shall stand out, 
 like dark pillars on the road of life, to remind the innocent 
 how far, how very far, they have left them behind. 
 
 To you, whose call I have obeyed in coming hither, I 
 say Go on, as you have begun. The health and happi 
 ness of individuals, the comfort of families, and the welfare 
 of society, call upon you. The fiery serpents of intemper 
 ance are abroad in the land let your example be the 
 symbol of healing, to which the afflicted may look up and 
 live. What ye say and do, others will imitate. They are 
 now imitating you. Already there is a rustling among the 
 leaves of the forest, and it foretells the rising wind, that 
 shall come in its purity, to cleanse the suffocating atmos 
 phere. Reformation is beginning in the right place even 
 in Public Opinion. Win but that to your side, and it will 
 do more for you than all the laws that slumber in the dust 
 of your public archives. 
 
 Go on and may the prayers of good men accompany 
 you, and the blessing of Heaven seal your honorable labors. 
 And when that hour, which must come to us all, shall come 
 to each of you when, lingering on the confines of life 
 and death, the awed and subdued spirit looks back to the 
 scenes that have long faded in the distance when the 
 hollow applause of the world dies away from the ear, and 
 
58 ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 nothing rises up but the recollection of good and evil deeds 
 when the weedy garlands of ambition have no freshness 
 for the burning brow, no perfume for the fainting soul in 
 that hour, if you can remember one fellow-traveller turned 
 from destruction by your influence the image of that one 
 shall hover round your pillow of suffering, and be to you a 
 ministering seraph. 
 
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