UGS8 UBRARY THE HARVEST MOON, AND OTHER POEMS. BY G. NELSON BRIGHAM. CAMBRIDGE at tfjc 0i 1874. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by G. N. BRIGHAM, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Vermont. SECOND EDITION. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. To JULIA LENA BRIGHAM, C&fs little Volume, WHICH IN ITS PRINCIPAL POEM GIVES SOMETHING OF A REFLECTION, AS AN EVENING TWILIGHT, OF A DAY WHICH IS PAST, IS TENDERLY OFFERED. CONTENTS. PAQl HARVEST HILL i THE HARVEST MOON ....... 6 THANKSGIVING DAY 61 SNOW-FLAKES 63 THE SNOW-BIRDS 67 SONG OF THE SMITHY 69 SONG OF THE REDBREAST 71 THE HOE . 73 ECHO LAKE 75 THE BOBOLINK 81 A SUMMER'S DAY 83 CAMEL'S HUMP 90 THE BLUEBIRD'S FAREWELL 94 OVER THE HILLS .....'.... 97 THE SNOW-STORM 99 IDA LEXORE 105 LAURA o' THE HILL . 108 ALICE BY THE BROOK no THE BABY BOY 113 FOR WHAT YOU ARE, ISABEL 115 LlLLIE 117 'Tis SPOKEN 119 THE FRIENDS THAT WE HAVE MET 120 THE MOTHER'S GRIEF 122 ELLULE 124 HETTIE AT THE SPINNING-WHEEL ... 128 VI CONTENTS. PAOH HEIGH, Ho, HUM 131 THE OLD HOME COTTAGE 133 ORCAS YOUTH 137 SONG OF JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER 141 THE SHADOW LAND 144 THE OLD MAN AND THE ANGEL 146 LILLIAN ' 149 ANASTASIA 151 SHERIDAN'S ADDRESS . . . . . .157 FORWARD, VERMONT 160 THE ENSIGN OF WARWICK 163 THE MONITOR 167 COMING FROM THE WARS 172 ARGIVE HELEN 174 LOFNA HALL 181 THE SNOW FAY 195 ANGEL OF BEAUTY 199 THE BROKEN BELL 200 SONG OF THE HYACINTH 205 To THE EVENING WIND 208 THE HARVEST MOON. THE HARVEST MOON HARVEST HILL. A LINE of cliffs, breaking then slopes A down to where a river gropes Lazily among the level farms, Marge-growing elms spreading their broad arms. And then a village, snug within The hollow's cup, which long hath been The market for the farmers round ; A place where honest thrift is found. And from the cliffs a northern course, Afar, some dread convulsion's force A shaft hath flung high up athwart The blue, which like a giant swart Looks from his smoky curtains out, A monarch of the world about l THE HARVEST MOON. Old Camel's Hump, whose shadow-line Reaches .Winooski's wood of pine. Lifted to heaven, in somberest pall Westward long stretches a sky-line wall, The old Green Mountains' storm-smit ridge, A buttress spanned with azure bridge ; Where slowly sinks through hazy blue The red sun down beyond our view. A valley where a noisy brook Frets on by many a turn and crook A league, to mix its waves below, Where the dull river moves more slow. Here, at the outlet, in olden time A merry grist-mill sung its rhyme. A long up-stretch from this old mill, And by the cliffs, lies Harvest Hill ; With acres to its orchards grown, Broader acres in spring-time sown, And great meadows in summer mown ; Autumnal fields, drowsy in haze, Where softly shimmer the sun's slant rays; Hills, veiled as hooded monks austere, Half hidden in smoky atmosphere. HARVEST HILL. Here through the hazy veil strong bow The reapers o'er the gavels now ; Or ply their sickle's bow edged keen Where lapsing fields are whitened seen; Or nearer, where some home-bound swain, Patient wends on by loaded wain, His whistling cheers, while faintly heard The cow-bell on the slope's green sward. There stand the gray-eaved barns remote, With weather-cock in rusty coat, Where yielding udders brim the pails, And often beat autumnal flails ; Here, too, the farmer's evening horn Winds mellow 'mong the fields of corn. How cheerily the cliffs are woke Where curls the cottage chimney's smoke ; How cheerily from crag to crag The failing echoes seem to lag. It is the mellow evening horn, Calling the stookers of the corn ; A wind-born blast of sonorous sound, , Slow lost on distant hills around. THE HARVEST MOON. Homeward the laborer takes his way O'er fields late mown, and raked of hay, While little faces, fair and sweet, Come romping to the farmer meet, Each claiming now the well-earned kiss, Which gained, feels its full store of bliss. The welcome board what grateful eyes For what a father's hand supplies. What peace is in this homely cheer Which wakes a gratitude sincere. What blessings in the wean one's smile The wee bright eyes which speak no guile. How lightly rounds the weary moil, His children brightening from his toil ; His wife grown happy by his hearth, Who gave the little bright ones birth. Who as the grangeman walketh free Nature's old hall of royalty ? Who in the spring-time freshening gay, So cheerful to labor wends his way? HARVEST HILL. Scatters broadcast and waits to see The season's rendered prophecy, Or garners up a richer boon Each annual of the Harvest Moon ? Ne'er feel it shame to till the sod; Where else walks man more near to God ? Where else is life more honest led? Are men to virtue better wed? THE HARVEST MOON. OLOW rose the mellow moon, as sank The sun below that purple bank Of far-off hills ; a round full disk, Up from behind an obelisk Of mountain lift, she came, the gold Of twilight caught in many a fold Of fleecy cloud, and Occident Streaming from every seam and rent. On such a night we annual met, 'Twas held a sort of social debt, Discussed the orchard's first ripe fruit ; Ourself then in a kersey suit From the plain pattern of the loom Which half filled up a great square room. Here as the genial hearth's soft glow Crept cheerful through the andiron's bow, Our chat and hearty mirth went round ; And not unfrequent, too, was found THE HARVEST MOON. The hale cider-mug, whose juiciness, Sparkling, came lately from the press. And of the pleasant evening walks, Many we made 'mong autumn shocks And luscious orchards hanging red, The mellow Harvest Moon o'erhead. Heard from the crag the gray coon's horn, Which called the culprit from the corn; The barking fox replying soon, Which rambled by the shining moon. Not e'en the distant grove was dumb, For there was heard the partridge's drum ; Nor where the hoary harpers sleep, Did all the witch-elms silence keep ; Weird rose from yon moon-lighted hill, The wild refrain from whippoorwill ; While a sweet psalm 'mong autumn leaves, Was wrought by the finger of the breeze. And yet there lives, and never dims, The mem'ry of those evening hymns ; The moony fields so spread with calm; The lighted halls where rose earth's psalm. And in . our walks and Tjy the hearth THE HARVEST MOON. That then was lighted with our mirth, Was one of high fair brow, and sweet Of countenance as you would meet; Twelve youthful spring-times we had seen Her romp when the first knoll was green. Her tripping feet 'mong violets, And where the gray spring ground-bird sets Oft in her blithesome song did mark All the sweet carol of the lark. Saintly had been her walk of life From childhood up ; there seemed less strife Between the holier spiritual sense And what are baser elements, Tlfen falls to most; even the rare, Whose virtues are spring flowers most fair. A mother's consecrated heart Had its sweet blossoms here in part; Wrote out a new Apocalypse, ' Where shone a sun with no eclipse ! For where she moved, the very air Seemed off'ring the benison of prayer. Scarce more was she than the fair child, When heavens sweet light had on her smiled ; THE HARVEST MOON. She walked to the baptismal font, Her head had saintly hands laid on't, There, as she turned her eyes above, All white saw the descending dove. And when she talked of harvest moons, Of pleasant Mays and violet Junes, She always talked of heaven, and hopes In worlds revealed by telescopes ; Of springs which ne'er a winter mars, Somewhere above, among the stars. And one who was our sister dear, Whose mirth sometimes swam in a tear, Who kept for us the happiest face, Did then our little circle grace ; Such lightsome heart was never wed To such bewitching art of head. A ringing voice of song and mirth Chasing her footsteps from her birth, She was the loved, the petted pride, Nor asked her honors to divide Within a little circle, where, Of joys and griefs, each bore his share. So here, to-night, sister and friend 10 THE HARVEST MOON. Made opposite moods to sweetly blend, While light the cheerful evening hours Went, mirth raining her sunny showers At times ; at times, sobriety Checking too noisy gayety. Well pleased, anon our jovial sire Peered in upon the night's small fire, And gave for us his pithy joke, Most sure our laughter to provoke ; Who drank with us, there housed so snug, New cider from the brimming mug, And told us of the country here When grandsire, he at his sixteenth year, Came in from old Winchester town, Miles Standish like, to settle down. He told the hardships of the wood, And how the maples towering stood Upon the orchard land when first They came to old Vermont. Not worst Was this, for not a road was built Within two miles on which to tilt A barley grist to mill. How for A year, as Northmen tent in war, THE HARVEST MOON. II They tented by the fallow field, Logged up and burned for first year's yield. Told how, when afterward the old Log-house was built, upon a cold December night the spotted lynx Showed his red eyes between its chinks: Of visits from the wolves, which oft The sheep-herd scattered on the croft. He told of how the opening grew, And of the pitch of neighbor Drew ; Of the first pike that wended down A zigzag way out of the town ; Of how he found his bashful mate, In kitchen of old farmer Wait; An orphan girl of sprightly limb, Of ruddiest face, plain dressed, and trim, Who oft upon the lawn was seen, Calling the cows from pastures green, Or helping homeward the young lamb Neglected by its bleating dam. He told us of her matron ride To what was called the old North Side; And on a bridle-path that thwart 12 THE HARVEST MOON. The Ridge, ran a league the old pike short; A way so blind she only found Blazed trees for guide to Marble's bound, Whose log-hut told all the dwelling that was Frpm Ridge to ugly Pudy Laws. One child behind, one fore, she rode, A half broken mare bearing the load, To what was then a trading-post, A poor apology at most; She making purchases of things Which only country traffic brings : Some spices grown in Ind ; one half A pound of tea, trade winds in gaff, Brought from the China Sea ; a comb From house of Stilt and Wetterholm ; Some yards of print with duty paid, Coming somehow .through Boston trade. E'en the frugal house to be without These needs, would hold its thrift in doubt ; And further now, it was about The time that Parson Jotham made His quarterly call. He was a staid Genteel old man in gown, who prayed THE HARVEST MOON. 13 God for our souls ; had a fervid grace 'Twas said, if the tea-pot stood in place. But what he told with fondest pride Was what was called the Harvest Ride ; When all about the neighborhood, In checkered gown and barley snood She rode singing the Harvest Hymn, While shone above the moon's broad limb. Forgot no neighbor in distress Nor passed the poor in lowliness; For like received in social rank Such as had credit at the bank, And such as had so little thrift By hard day's works they made a shift. THE HARVEST HYMN. "GiVE thanks, O trustful heart of mine, Thy blessings are from care divine j He who provides the ravens' food Still watches over all for good. "Thrust in and reap, and now rejoice, It is thy labor's rich invoice ; 14 THE HARVEST MOON. Bring in, it is the harvest noon ; Glean on, there shines an Autumn Moon. "Labor, and what thou havest more Than need, bestow upon the poor ; God's mete to you is as you mete ; Forget not thou the stranger's feet. "In prayers, in songs, and tears confess, And give thy heart to thankfulness ; And in this harvest promise see A hopeful immortality. " O, toil thou on in bravest mood, Doubt not but God is only good ; What thou dost to thy Master lend, Fourfold he payeth in the end." A sort of saint she'd almost grown, Whose time was now no more her own; He said, "she is too old to still Go round, the nurse of Harvest Hill ; But yet her helpful hand to-night Works where the taper's dimmest light THE HARVEST MOON. IS Flickers within the noiseless room, Where, beaten in earth's sorrow loom, Lies one to pain and paleness given By which to gain the gate of heaven. Thus it hath ever been that she Keeps to her deeds of charity. The sick child breathes a sweeter nap If she but lulls it on her lap ; The couch seems softer which she spreads TO all the weary, aching heads ; The children dance to see her face, Struggle to meet her in a race ; She is, as they have .understood, Grandmamma to half the neighborhood." He told of wedding -days, and rides Upon the old ox-sled for brides ! How neighborhoods met thrice a week Round foresticks large, the winters bleak, To burn a candle down. " To speak The truth," he said, "his neighbors then Were quite a different sort of men From neighbors now. Were brothers e'en, But kind as neighbors once, between 1 6 THE HARVEST MOON. The two next Sabbath morns we'd see All the attorneys blocked half fee ; Aye, half the quarrels of the town Clad for burial in the sepulchre's gown. In other days none were kept down If down were helped upon their legs ; ' Shame that society hath dregs. Then were no castes, 'twas neighbors all j The needy had the friendly call, The sick man's work neighbors o'ersee ; All hands turned out and made a bee. We used to have our chopping-bees, Our clearing-bees, and raising-bees ; And later had our apple-bees. The harvest moon brought husking-bees ; And here is one well told in rhyme, Which smacks much of that good old time THE HUSKERS. " THE hazy clouds of Indian Summer Now fringe the border of the sky ; And down along the smoky valleys The grouping birds of passage fly; THE HARVEST MOON. 17 Northward the gently sloping woodlands Creep down to make the meadow's hem, There crimson leaves slow drop and rustle, So tender grown the frost-nipt stem. "With ripened apples hang the orchards, And groans the busy cider-mill. On either side the travelled . turnpike, And by the road along the hill, You see the stocks and yellow pumpkins; And there the ruddy harvesters Loading the wain, while in the beech-tree The squirrel works among the burrs. "All through the afternoon, descending i From midday to the golden west, The sun flames red upon the hill-tops, And paints his banners on each crest ; And as he sinks behind the mountains Among the clouds, a fiery ball, With round full orb, in east ascending Rides on the mellow moon of Fall. 2 18 THE HARVEST MOON. "The milkmaids hurry, while the heifers Stand dozing round and chew their cuds ; And noisy younkers shout and whistle, Along the lane below the woods. The fancied sound of rattling dishes, Where smoking from the oven comes The pot of beans and Indian pudding, Brings water from their oozing gums. "With sharpened appetite they gather In haste to greet the ample board ; Confessed, in manner puritanic, With thanks, the husbandman's reward ; Discussed with zest the wholesome supper, A dish which makes a ruddy face, Of old served to our stalwart fathers, The bone and sinew of their race. "And now from wooden-colored farm-house The young, hale farmers, thick and stout, In kersey frocks, in coarse thick homespun, In a hurly-burly bustle out, THE HARVEST MOON. 19 And whistling down the winding turnpike, Approach good farmer Bixby's door, Who half the day has busy carted His corn-stocks to the great barn floor. "And, at more leisure, thither follow The staunch and jovial-hearted men, Who cheerful from their hard day's labor Join to the husking-bee till ten. And sometimes, too, turn in the matrons Who walk with knitting-work in hand; And why those times so good and pleasant, Are now so rare, don't understand. "Into the mow the pitchforks fasten, From whence the lighted lanterns hang; And seated round a clean-swept centre, Commence the joyous husking gang; Now from the rustling sheaves, the harvest Of yellow ears, of husks stript bare, Leaps forth, with beaded rows and golden, And fast the foodful heap gains there. 20 THE HARVEST MOON. "With legend bold, and quaintly story, And marvel told in scaldic style; With joke and pun and rustic gossip, They pass the hours while grows the pile Till ten o'clock, when sweet new cider, Apple and pumpkin pies, hale samp Or hominy, bring out a ballad, And of our true New England stamp. SONG. " ' O, TO the dark-eyed maiden thanks ! Who nurtured here, in days of old, Along meandering river banks, The yellow corn, the seed of gold ; "'Who, saint-like watched the tender sprout, While thieving crow and blackbird sat Upon the tall old trees about, And held the bold marauders chat. "'Who charmed at night the planted field, 1 That God's good gift might not be lost ; * l It was the custom of the Indian women to trail their garments THE HARVEST MOON. 21 And trailed her garments as a shield Against the wire-worm and the frost " ' Who spaded here, with sun-tanned face, A very goddess of the wood ; Who nursed with care her swarthy race, And gave them hominy for food. " ' And thanks unto the Yankee girl, The girl of puritanic stamp, Who sprightly makes her ladle whirl, Beating the corn-meal into samp. "'The sweet new corn, ground coarse and fast, Which every miller knows to be The way to make this good repast The true old bowl of hominy. " ' Let Southern lands grow grape and cane, .The juicy vats flow on the Rhine, New England's sun and gentle rain Grow best this Spirit gift divine. around the field of corn, thinking it made a charm over which the worm and the frost would not pass. 2 THE HARVEST MOON. "'Let orange groves nod on the slopes Where warmer Mexic summers reign, The barley sheaves greet Scotland's hopes, But give to us the Spirit grain ; " ' The true mandamin of the wood, The berry which the prophets say The Father gave his child for food, When faint he by his wigwam lay. "'Yes, give us corn, ripe Indian corn, The farmer's joy, the fireside cheer; Good samp at night, brown loaf at morn, Pop-corn while winter rules the year.' " He had something most quaint to say Of manners in that ancient day ; Of courtships made, and gallantry, The apple made the trysting tree. Of bachelors who found no art The keeping castle of the heart, But by some game of Cupid fell, The barb shot by a country belle; Of blind-man's buff and whirligig, THE HARVEST MOON. The dance then called a country jig ; Of harvest moons that often set As honey-moons ; of times when met Bright girls in plainest dimity, Sweet girls of virgin purity, Who knew the scrub and shift of life, And held the honest pledge of wife" Apart an old man sat, the trace Of years deep channeled on his face. Care showed her wrinkles on his brow, And white his beard as winter snow Some cobbling he as yet could do ; Thus busied himself beside the fire And told us tales, as our grandsire. He spoke of hardships most severe To men who new laid townships clear ; Of men who with the triple peck Of corn, borne swung across the neck, On rackets over dale and hill Have plodded twenty miles to mill ; For meat eat flesh of moose and deer. Spoke pointedly of a cold year 24 THE HARVEST MOON. When all the Indian corn was lost In broad New England, by the frost. Of that cold snap called the cold day, When men frost-bit shunned the highway, Pale men round yule-logs bowed to pray. We doubted if he did not joke When he of our first Judges spoke : He said from Mooretown East they came To Kingsland, a myth, except in name, Travelled on snow-shoes all their way, And somewhere on the second day Opened the court by an old mossed tree ; No barrister there made his plea Suppose they charged only term fee ; Present: first judge, John Taplin the eld; The sheriffs post, John Taplin, Jr., held; John Peters of the Quorum known, John Peters, too, a clerk full blown ; All that the records say appeared At Kingsland court old and revered. All heard ; granclsire was never flat ; He once had with the genial sat; Had now sometimes a point in wit, THE HARVEST MOON. ' If but well warmed the brain's broad net. He was most sharp on shams, o'ergrown Conceits, namby-pambys, and all Rouged trifles sins were these not small Of ours. He said, "Virtue is known, Revered, where most revered is toil ; She rarely floats a stream of oil. The dimity of other years Is like hearse-cloth, a cloth for biers. Ladies genteel have honored well The comely check. And e'en the belle In it has cut a dashing swell," But he would say, " A virtue rare Was that their work once clothed the fair. We may not see the day again, Yet time shall say the age was sane. Hardly delaines and calico Now make in dress sufficient show ; Poplins and silks (who'd thought it once?) Trot out unblushingly the dunce. There was a time that men were men, t Of a true womanhood. Time when The lady of the Governor 26 THE HARVEST MOON. Would verily have thought it was a slur To placard round the old genteel, Disdainful of the household reel. Ah ! many changes in the play ; We've walked the stage, and of our day 'Tis like the drama of a dream To us most real, but others deem It but a farce a vision born To night, not tempered to the morn. Some thread must run of warp or woof Which of the parent stock shows proof; Will shifting time weave in pure gold To fill the tougher warp of old ? We rest, they take the labor, where Is left in sod the turning share." He ceased, too long by ardor fired, And to his nightly couch retired. Here my good aunt in muslin cap, Roused from the mitten where the nap And fringe had busied her, withal The kitten playing with her ball, The puritanic plainness seen, THE HARVEST MOON. 2? With woman's intuition keen. She'd won the sobriquet of good ; Her prayers were constant as her food. She spoke of the old-time patient mood Which fasted long and prayed the Lord For what the larder didn't afford. Fasting and prayer the people knew In days when noblest virtues grew. The sacrifice of pious men, The scattered poor of hill and glen, Planted the seed at God's command From which we reap a father-land. And pious men and women too Had struggled here, and poorly to do, In building up a Christian state This be its praise rather than great. She praised to us the wheel and loom, The kitchen which had seen the broom, The fingers which knew how to knit, Or sew to make the garment fit ; Could knead the dough, the butter mould To huge ingots of yellow gold. New England homes were happy homes 28 THE HARVEST MOON. For what of patient labor comes ; In that they're rarely childless homes, Though not in clime where knighthood blooms. Kind daughters and obedient sons Are links in a chain that heavenward runs. Then, placing back a thin gray lock, She gave our childish senses shock By tale of Indians who once made, And before our county lines were laid, On Brookfield town a nomad raid, Stole off a little lad at play As they went North upon their way. Bore him in spite a mother's shrieks To the wild valley of the Leeks : l When last heard from, the tale in brief Made him an Abenaqui chief. Heard of the flight of gray wild-goose, The yards where camped the river moose. She told us how good Deacon Rice Came into Kingston on the ice, The snow-crust on an April day 1 Winooski River was so named from the abundance of the leeks on its banks. THE HARVEST MOON. 29 Making the fields one glazed highway ; Drove in on sled o'er stump and fence; To roads there wasn't the least pretense, And how he came full ten miles through Great Warren woods (the town so new But a hunter's tent was seen) to the mill Now idle and old at the foot of the hill ; Bought corn to eat and seed to plant. Found General Wait on a Wentworth Grant, Whereon he moved and built, not far From seven years date from the Old War. And here her voice ran through a stave, By which we learned of a wayside grave. THE PIONEER'S GRAVE. " 'Tis. near Mad River's winding beach, And where the school-house's shade doth reach, A little mound doth humbly rise With mossy bosom to the skies : The honored spot, as men do tell, Where the tall forest tree first fell; Whose crash echoed the vale adown, When the first settler came to town. 30 THE HARVEST MOON. Sturdy the arm which swung the blow That felled the pine so long ago ; A pine whose shadow's length to-day Would fall over the street's trod way ; But ah ! beneath the selfsame earth Which gave the tree its ancient girth, The pioneer hath made his bed, Willing the grounds unto the dead. A simple stone fast falling down, Defaced, and of the ancient brown, Tells who was namer of the town. The droning mills have ceased to grind, The new have left the old behind ; Along the murmuring river's side, The rhythm of waters multiplied, The coachman drives his foaming steed, And here the grazing cattle feed. Acres that then were solitude Now swarm with all their living brood, But they who blazed the ancient oak Rouse not the idle axe's stroke." Told of the old eventful day, When in the bright new moon of May, THE HARVEST MOON. 31 The first male child in town was born ; What auguries in Capricorn How that a handsome lot of land Was made to him by seal of hand, And Master Farr was then a man As much as was old Kubla Khan. His foster-mother saw in him The marks to make old records dim. And others said, " Such is his star, He'll honor Wait, call him Wait Farr." Meanwhile our uncle had come in, A man much set, could pet a whim ; A man of brusque, not boisterous ways, Some versed in books of earlier days; A man in face now somewhat spare, With head once crowned with thin black hair, Still nursing hard his favorite cue, And with broad buckle on each shoe ; Who with his sharp ahem began To cut his pattern of a man. "The man that is not good to work, A man that always loves to shirk, 32 THE HARVEST MOON. You'll find grumbling at the foot of the hill ; A dog that never gets his fill, A dog that whines and scolds to see His neighbor's bowl of hominy. A man should be an honest man, Or sometime goes under the ban ; There is no truer maxim known, Than that honor knows its own ; That honest be, if honesty With you keeps any company." He loved to meet the solid men : "Hen Fever boys, Jockies in ten Not one of them d'you ever see, Gather full bowls of hominy ; Where one got on in fancy breeds, Ten put a mortgage on their deeds. ' In rain, a bowl of good broad brim ; In water, keep depths you can swim.' " He talked of native breeds for cows, Of well filled bins and clover mows, Of stately oxen for the cart, And boys at ten for farm-work smart ; Of district schools for all free States, THE HARVEST MOON. 33 And less of locks and prison grates. He was a man of politics, And told us of the British tricks ; Of Tories in the Old First War, And Federals in the War of Twelve; Of yeoman bred to brave hussar, And lady, too, whose hands could delve, Or serve the court, if so 'twere need All native to the cliff and glen, When shrilly from the mountain reed, The clansmen's slogan called for men. Warming, his rapid history ran Of Vermont chiefs who led the van : The rarity of Allen's gifts, -Which by some magic coil uplifts A few small burgs despised and poor, Scattered on mountain waste and moor, To all the dignity of state ; Contesting, too, it seemed, 'gainst fate. He entered warm into the feud The Yorkers with the settlers brewed ; And praised the sterling Saxon grit That buffeted New York's bad wit. 3 34 THE HARVEST MOON. "A feud," he said, "where Honesty Outflanked poor old Cupidity ; Checkmated three old governors ; Who, like big dogs pouncing on curs, Determined in their great manors To swallow up our old Vermont j And all the peasantry upon't. The Aliens and the Warners were The men to hold a stout demur ; Worse than the bite of fierce horse-leech Rob Cochran's seasoned twig of beech. Talking of men 'mong demurrers, No prince our Fay, the senior, slurs, Nor either of the Robinsons ; And if you'd spike the Tory guns, Put Yorkites through old mill-stone burrs, Remember Baker was the man. The Chittenden who led the van Of magistrates, wore shoe-buckles But Martin wore only truckles." Praised much the old school gentlemen, The Waits, Bradleys, and Jarvises, Roe, Spooner, and old Jersey Slick, 1 1 Isaac Tichenor. THE HARVEST MOON. 35 Men whose etiquette was not a trick ; And praised the old-time parishes Whose clergymen preached not for gold, But those out of the Lord's true fold. Spoke of taxes and the embargo ; Of England's ancient Boston cargo ; And thought she should have remembered better Jonathan's reply to the old Stamp letter. Gave us hair-breadth escapes men made In Canada's illicit trade ; The conflict of the old Black Snake, A smuggling cruiser on the lake, Whose brigand crew defied the law, And ran the eagle's hooked claw; Shot Ormsby down to show their mood, And all because they thought they would. Our Federals were a white-feathered brood j And the smugglers choosing the devil's side, Would with the devil on dark nights ride. 'Tis said the way the game was won On that highway called " Smuggler's Run," Would make a Christian's blood run cold : Too dark indeed to here be told. 36 THE HARVEST MOON. And the Governor winked at these men of booty ; He thought such things a little sooty In Chittenden and Dan Farrand, And wished the good old state had sent them To Iceland on some foreign errand, Or had had an Ethan to content them. For one, he liked the old cock -hat, And the old fashioned Democrat The men who went for country, right Or wrong, who never ran a fight. He loved the Independence days, June trainings in old-fashioned ways: Talk which gave temperature to blood, Which makes Democracy to bud. But things were quite inclined to show A decadence ; yes, years ago The world went on somewhat less fast, Steadier, and in a way to last. We cannot run all things by steam, Race-horses make a poor draught team. He told us then the song, "What's True;" And how the brook ran ever new. THE HARVEST MOON. 37 t WHAT'S TRUE. "A MAN'S a man in coat or gown; A man's a man when up or down ; A knaves a knave in slippered shoe, In broadcloth fine or kersey blue. "The wrong is wrong in you or me, And right will right forever be ; The false is false, nor is it true Though dressed so well 'tis not seen through. "It's not for you to run or shirk When there is for your hands a work ; But like the busy brook in song Water the thirsty way along." SONG OF THE BROOK. " I FLOW and sing, I sing and flow, The merrier the further I go 'Tis well I sing that you may know There is one merry heart below. 38 THE HARVEST MOOtf. "I make the budding hill-side green, And all the valleys by me seen, And laughs each shrub and flower I ween To see the lily on me lean. " I tarry not in wood or grove, In blooming fields through which I rove, Nor eddies hold me in the cove, But ever on and on I move. " I've wheels to turn, and shops to run, Each day a work that's well begun Goes onward with the moving sun, And yet there's something to be done. " If I am old, I'm always new, For to myself I'm always true ; The idle always I eschew, And waste no moments e'er so few. " Flow on and on my way forever, From rill to brook, from brook to river, Sounds and sights delay me never; My song is on" and on forever." THE HARVEST MOON. 39 And still another sat that night Beside the fireside's waning light^ Where in a low adjoining room He lit his pipe with strand of broom, And puffed a cloud, which slowly rose About a thin and pointed nose ; When he had heard my uncle through, Rapped out the ashes from his pipe, Drank of the cider sweet and new, And took an apple large and ripe ; Then told us much about star lore, The strange conjunctions at our door Of fate of luckless moons, and moons Of luck, and how to know our dooms. Life's problem lies 'mong stars. His book Was Nature's book ; in every brook He found a tongue, in every tree He heard an unheard melody; Found wizard haunts where others see Forces at work quite differently. A bachelor somewhat in years, With something of the negligence That usually in such appears ; 40 THE HARVEST MOON. A man of views and confidence, And ready always with his head Or hand, beside the sick man's bed ; Was sort of doctor and a nurse, Who never asked an open purse, But always settled off his bill By a receipt of your good-will. Who kept a wonderment among The gossiping maidens and the young j A favorite with the little folks, And took and gave their playful jokes: He had been teacher of the school In reign of dunce-block and ferule. Had travelled widely o'er the globe, Dressed in a sort of Quaker's robe ; Gazed in on Fingal's Staffa Cave, Which he believed the sea-kings' grave; Clomb on in search of Morven's heights, So streamy with the Northern Lights ; Bowed at the shrines where Druids held Their worship in the days of eld ; Looked from the 'old-time pyramids, Where Nilus with his weeping lids THE HARVEST MOON. 41 Mourns o'er a glory all behind Historic page or grasp of mind \ Went Mississippi up on old Flat-bottomed boat, as we were told; Had sat upon the Indian mounds, Caught in the wind interpreting sounds; Looked on the prairies' endless sea With great traditions of mystery. Thus versed in old astrologies, He read by them the prophecies Of men and things ; had by the stars Revealed the fortunes of the Farrs ; Told when would run the county cars, Had pried a secret out, of old, A murder done in town for gold. And now a haunted house was found ; Men's bones hid in the cellar ground: Besides, were circumstances which Disclosed a missing man named Rich. Afterward one Masters, very poor, Had left upon a Spanish moor, A Venice merchant soon became ; The stars had written out his name. 42 THE HARVEST MOON. He knew of one who'd seen the ghost ; Blood had been seen to ooze from post, To drop from sleeper and from sill; Cries heard which did with horror chill. By stars once found a missing child, Which wandered three days in the wild. He had the horoscope of all The prodigies from Bixby's Hall To Griggs's dorm, at Step-down Hill. Conjunctions which the corn-bins fill Were in that mighty horoscope Through which the circling planets grope. "There was the fate of Idylrood, And the bachelor of the neighborhood : A vain attempt 'twere to resist Stern nature's subtlest alchemist ! We cannot leap o'er Heaven's bars, . Our fortune still is in our stars." He took his harp in gravest mood, Then gave the song of Idylrood. THE HARVEST MOON. 43 IDYLKOOD. s > "THE sun hangs low 'mong hazy cliffs, The roof is mossed at Idylrood; The autumn leaves drop from the trees About the leaning gates of wood. "Summers ago the farmers hoed Their waving fields of Indian corn, And buxom girls with auburn curls Here wound aloud the dinner horn. "The little country folks were seen Returning from the strawberry-bed, Oft coming by the tall grown rye, With cheeks of brown and fingers red. "And Jenny Poole with sunny hair Oft wandered with me in that day, Sweet Jenny Poole, who went to school The while I spread her father's hay. 44 THE HARVEST MOON. " Sweet Jenny Poole, who coming home Would take her milk-pail on her arm, And thought?it then no harm for men To toil and scrub upon a farm. "Who seemed delighted overmuch, When, at the table gathered round, We asked for cake of Jenny's make, Saying never was better found. " One day, and in the trimmest trim Young Jenny went from us away, And for this lad, it was a sad, Sad time to go a making hay. "Right from her father's well-filled mows I came to see sweet Jenny start ; She was most fair among the fair, And Jenny had the warmest heart "She kissed them all and bade good-by; At last she gave her hand to me, Each drooping lid a tear-drop hid; My own eyes blinding ran most free. THE HARVEST MOON. 45 " She went among her city folk To learn the fashions of the day, And I a sad and ruddy lad Then went to work among the hay. " 'Twas said she loved cotillons well, She dressed and waltzed and was a belle ; That she became O very vain, And didn't bear promotion well. " The summers came, and winters came, And Jenny still did not return; We did not hear her voice so clear, When bright the winter fires did burn. "The spruces stand in darkening cones As when she was at Idylrood ; The north wind blows the winter snows, The hemlocks moan within the wood: " And, while we sit beside the hearth, We think of dearest Jenny Poole, Whose song was heard like winter bird Here sitting with us after school. 46 THE HARVEST MOON. "I question if she thinks of us Who used to spread her father's hay, And of the times, the many times We chased the lambs up Heather Way. " And of the times the beech-nuts fell, Those loose brown nuts in hollow burrs ; The nuts we sought within the grot, Then gathered cones among the firs. ."If she's forgot the blackberry thorns That used to scar her pretty hands ; If she's forgot the pasture lot, Or hedge that bounds the meadow lands ; "The golden-rod upon the hill Whereon the fiery hang-bird built; The partridge brood within the wood We chased till weary of the tilt. "Who runs to please her petty moods? Is there another Heather Way? Need she be told I'm growing old, Who used to spread her father's hay? THE HARVEST MOOM 47 " She's a cap, they say, for a millionaire : Who'd have thought it of our country Jeane, Who left the cows, and boys at plows, And is in silks on Broadway^ seen ? "I don't suppose she'd know us now, So very altered have we grown ; She's not the girl with sunny curl That we in Idylrood have known: "And I am not the ruddy boy With step so light in olden time: Years sow their care, my coal-black hair A sprinkling shows of hoary rime. "The paths grow weeds at Willow Gate, The trees stand brown in Hopehill wood, The dry grass waves o'er many graves Of those who sleep near Idylrood. "The aged one by one have left, Like hoary oaks when sere and dry; Beside their bier has dropped the tear, While they have passed into the sky. 48 THE HARVEST MOON. " How changed is all at Idylrood ! How strange a change ! for moss is where The pansies grew, the violets blue Which Jenny braided in her hair; " And long ago the dove-cot fell ; For when a driving storm of snow Swept up and down through Waitsfield town, Its fastenings yielded to the blow. "The farm-house looks more dark and gray, The broken well-sweep thick is moused; And year by year are changes here Whereby the ancient marks are lost. "And while she tarries, tarries long, Who was our playmate in the wood, We watch the slow procession go, With bier and hearse from Idylrood. " The cloud hangs dark on Harvest Hill ; At Outlet Mill the gray mists brood ; The autumn snow falls slant and slow, Nor quite distinct a single rood; THE HARVEST MOON. 49 " I'm sitting by the waning fire, Sad, thinking of that other day, When Jenny Poole was child at school, And I a youngster making hay." So while the mellow moon rode on, Sprinkling its rays on wood and lawn, The taper shortened, the brimming mug, Which brought lips' smack and shoulders' shrug, Ran low, and one by one our guests, Who often knew its sparkling zests, Took leave; all but my sister's friend, Who had come in the night to spend. Now from the rude unpolished shelf Our father fitted' up himself, The plain old Bible, sheep-skin bound, The leaves at corners worn nigh round, Was taken down ; and many a page Worn thin by using and by age Was turned, till found the holy psalm Which David sang by Syria's . palm. With tender voice he read, " In Thee O Lord I put my trust. Let me 4 50 THE HARVEST MOON. Never be put to confusion." Strong And clear his voice flowed with the song, And like the tenderest prayer the tone That melted from the depths unknown, As slow he read, " Cut me not off In the time of old age ; " let who will scoff, It seemed he got a mighty trust That God forsook not then the just. " Thou hast taught me from my youth," was cheer To him which brought the joyful tear. And when that hope, of all most worth, Shone out the dark, inurning earth, Such radiance beamed in those dark eyes, As only comes from out the skies. Slow down he kneeled, with fervent prayer, He gave us all to God's good care. Last gave himself to God's good will, Believing, patient, trusting still. He rose ; his heart with God and men At peace ; the hour was nigh to ten. A little plain advice he gave, Some seasoned with experience grave ; Then with a blessing (what worth who knows ?) THE HARVEST MOON. 5 1 Brought his sound sermon to a close. Talk ceased ; the dog stretched on the rug, And set aside was the cider mug ; And backward to the wall the chairs With back to back in single pairs. The moon above gained slow the west, And each besought the hour's behest ; Gave parting kiss, and said good-night Five-and-thirty autumns since have blest, Or borne our sorrows in their flight, And I alone am left of all Who sat that evening round the hearth Alas, how little seems life worth! Though I live on, I wait the call The shadow and the Harvest Moon Whose rising comes at furthest soon. O Reaper, who hath gathered long, Sparing neither the weak nor strong, What hopes to budding youth are blown, Or golden seeds to time are sown, But thou hast said they are my own ! .The past thou hast, and hast supreme. Behind, what vistas lie in time 52 THE HARVEST MOON. Over an ever backward stream, All white and cold in dust and grime ! Ah, who are they in grief who wept, When gathered at ripe years have slept The first-born of that hoary night ! Watchers of eve's first-setting stars, Below where twilight brings to sight The foldings of the sable bars. And who, along that spectral sea, Lost in a past eternity ; Whose bow spans through an arc Which hath the blush of coming morn ? Hath solved what is to reason dark, How that in death the new is born ? Is ever there an angel's hand Stretching over the darkened land ! Or white, as faintest evening star, Folds there a wing, Night's gates ajar? I would have asked, didst thou heed prayer, That yet awhile thy greed should spare One loving life, and young of years. I come and go in the old ways Where we have rambled many Mays. THE HARVEST MOON. 53 Alas ! she nowhere now appears ; , Three years ago that sister smiled On me, and said, " Brother, farewell ! " What hours hath she for me beguiled ! Her soft blue eye still holds its spell, And, while I think, my pulses swell ; I scarcely trust myself to speak. My words but break, and down my cheek Hot tear-drops run. O, say 'tis weak, But closed the gate that opens out On Eden paths ; from hence 'tis doubt ; All now is clothed with mystery about! What though the morning spring-bird sings? She knows not of the news he brings ; Here brood alone the sable wings, Nor fold the curtains, hanging where Midnight weaves through the stagnant air. . She was so lovely ; O, so full Of life and lusciousness of health ! To me her's was a daily school Of sweet affections ; and what wealth ! We gave her to the coffin lay Her breathless form 'mong friends away, 54 THE HARVEST MOON. ^Feeling how truly great our loss, "Tow faithful she had borne her cross. Sweetly she doth sleep All, how can we weep ? She hath passed from pain ; Smiles caressing, Lips of blessing, Will she come again? Lily fair the hand, O'er the crapen band, With the sweet moss-rose; Cheeks yet showing Cheer of going, And life's peaceful close. Softly to the earth Is it not a birth To the angel sphere ? Give her gently And contently, Drying every tear. THE HARVEST MOON. 55 That other; poor, O poor enough My meed: sweet sleeper under the bluff ^A score of years our sad hearts know, Since, on the meads where June pinks grow, Or by the paths on Harvest Hill, Along the wend by the old mill We saw her as an angel pass, Who was the borough's sweetest lass. Was she more fit for paradise? She was not prudish, yet, if nice Hath been a word not meaningless, In her it hath been well expressed. Her eye had heaven's sweet radiance, A world of goodness read at glance. A score of years ago we kissed That forehead fair, closed those soft lids In death ; and ever since have missed Their Ipveliness. Still, Heaven forbids Mine eyes to look on what the skies Have gathered home. Let me arise, I sometimes say, take up my bed And walk ; if so I be but wed Unto a life more than the life 56 THE HARVEST MOON. That's in this clay, the soul's wed wife. They better bargained when exchanged Was earth for their sweet paradise ; Could I look in on their dear eyes (Why to that world be so estranged), Should I not say, better than earth Is the sweet life of that new birth? I am, and I must be ; else why Have I so caught the glimpse of by And by? So threaded the unknown, Whose tongue I seem to half intone? Where half are, if they be forgive, Who can once doubt but that they live ? Where they, as was their wont, do smile And beckon to that song-rapt isle ; Where their dear lips, holy and pure, But speak a love to us the truer; Ay, are they further off than when They walked with us ? Faith lack we then : O, where there shines such holocaust, Alas, they cannot be all lost! Echoes still fall, now here, now there, A voice that saith, they are, they are. 4 THE HARVEST MOON. 57 I should so mourn, as mourns a heart Alone to wretchedness set apart, If I saw not an angel's face Fashioned to fill the lost one's place. In memoriam : the violets peep From 'neath the snow j why doth she sleep ? Her sportive feet, why are they not By the sweet birds and flowers brought? O friend of mine, with Spring's sweet breath, That thou shouldst thus be given to death! So are we robbed ; our nakedness, As withered oaks, left verdureless. In memoriam : O how it makes My poor heart ache, and how it breaks My soul apart to see, dear home, As, from my wanderings, back I come, The ravages that time has made With thee ! Time, thou hast not delayed. In all the neighborhood a change. Not one poor hamlet owned, how strange, By any mortal who turned o'er The furrow, or walked from his door. How shall I join myself to these ? 58 THE HARVEST MOON. I know them not. What litanies Are in my heart what sorrows bear Me down ! old faces where ! O where Are they who moved but yesterday, The life and beauty here? O, say If it be not their footsteps that I seem to hear ? I start thereat To meet, as I should meet it seems, My friend. You cannot say " He dreams ! " I never was more wake in all My life, and then the very hall Hath voices ringing through it clear, Which none but me do seem to hear. O, life in death, and death in life ! Are these to each as man to wife? Immortals ! Are they born of these ? A wedlock with such prophecies ? O, turn us round, and as we will There is a something whispers still, Not all is lost that seems so lost, Not all ; nor is death uppermost ; Nor have they lived or died in vain. The earth hath not a fruitless pain. THE HARVEST MOON. 59 As we have lived, so shall we live ; Not shadows only do we give. I will not say, wrong is the tear ; That nought is falser than the bier; But never can I think the grave Hath taken more than what earth gave. Somewhere more fair, lack faith howe'er We may, their happy forms appear : For, ever is the mightier trust More than the gift of dust to dust. I take the inward sense, the bloom Of Paradise and Heaven's perfume; I walk and talk and move with them; They all have touched the garment's hem ; Good cheer ; are every whit made whole. O, turning to the backward goal, How must they wonder that we rise So poorly to life's mysteries. That we do please ourselves with what Is but the very beggar's lot ; That God's sublimest miracle Should wander as a prodigal ; I do believe they lift us up, 60 THE HARVEST MOON. Have saved our lives the wormwood cup. O, may they not those angels be Who save for us Gethsemane ? Who yet shall greet us by and by, The reaper Death then drawing nigh, And help our feet to heaven climb, Garnered in God's great Harvest Time. THANKSGIVING DAY. r I "'HE bleak winds blew over a wintry coast ; The trees, hooded in snow, Crept back from the sea-strand to the gray cold sky, And the great sea chimed slow. Up from the sea hove a ship buffeting the foam, Coming the great sea o'er ; Rolled, rocked, rocked, rolled, and the sea rolled, as she tugged Her keel to the squall-galled shore. Then the mariners sang a song louder than the sea, Louder than the winds that blew; A thanksgiving song they sung as the anchor made fast To the shore of an England New. The hills caught the refrain, for it was a golden note To the march of empire's car ; 62 THANKSGIVING DA Y. A sound whose wave ebbs back to the Puritan Rock From the gates of the evening star. Thanksgiving for a. way all free to the Pilgrim's foot, Coming with staff in hand ; Thanksgiving for a virgin soil in which to sow The seeds of a mother-land. Thanksgiving that the God-born man hath a freedom as grand As the chime of the shore and sea : That an anthem rolls bearing a paean on Threading the Great to Be. A hymn gray Time in his age hath bowed to hear, Looking from the cross and stake ; Waiting by crucifix and altar long Till the sound from the morning break. The great coast like a summer hive busily hums, And the sea keeps its slow chime ; But off from the sea has blown a wind that thrids The sweet harp-strings of Time. SNOW-FLAKES, i. E the snow-flakes in the air Chilly air ; See them coming, coming, coming, Thicker, thicker, faster, faster, While the trooping winds are drumming Up the legions of their master ; Shouting whew, whew ! Ho ! ho ! o'er the hills, through the dales Whew, whew ! ho, ho ! what a sound, In the raving, railing gales ! What a sobbing and a moaning, What a sighing and a groaning, What a doling, What cajoling, What patrolling, With the clouds a-rolling ; What a muster, what a bluster, 64 SNOW-FLAKES. In the wild confusion of the air ; Snowing, snowing, snowing, Blowing, blowing, blowing Snowing, and then blowing with a whew ! n. How the icy bridges span the streams Glassy streams ; How it glitters all along the vale, In the cold and moon-lit air ! Glitters when the sky grows clear, Glitters, glitters, cold and glare, O'er the streamlet and the mere ; Glitters in the moonbeams pale, Glitters in the sparkling air Still and frosty air ; In the cold and jeweled air ; Bright and jeweled air. Hark! hark! hear the sledders' shout Joyous shout ; How ecstatic their delight, Darting with a bird-like flight, Onward down the hill Smooth and slippery hill ; SNOW-FlAKES. 65 Sleds, a dozen in a row; What a hubbub and ado ! in. Heigh ! heigh ! hear the skaters' shout Wildest shout ; Down the icy stream they skim, Muffled like a Yotlik grim ; Hear the ringing steel, See the curbing and the wheel ! Dodging, tripping, tumbling, Some on knees are mumbling ; Some lie flat a-grumbling; Some are joking, Some are croaking, Some are swinging, Some are singing, , Some are racing, Some gyrating In their sport upon the stream Icy stream ; Shining glare, icy glare, Where the joyous skaters shout in the moony air. 66 SNOW-FLAKES IV. What a chime among the hills Moon-flecked hills ; Look for old Kriss Kringle with his reindeers four, Morgan steeds escorting him a half a score : All along the valley and the shore What a jingle, jingle from the thills ! How the rapid music thrills, While the Pleiades on us stare. What a flowing, mellow air, What a tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, From that circling, golden inkle Buckled through the flowing mane. Tinkle, tarkle, tinkle, Tarkle, tinkle, tarkle, From the hollow chambers o'er and o'er, Like the quaintest music lore Chanted on the moonlit plain. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, While the stars with gentle fleck and twinkle Softest light upon the landscape sprinkle, And the steel-shod runners go Whizzing through the snow. THE SNOW-BIRDS. A LL day the winds have sighed without, * And swayed the beech-tree's naked top ; In fitful gusts have whirled about The scattered leaves; a frozen crop Of hail anon o'ercasts the ground, And in the hollows heaps ; Now through the haze-rift peeps The sun the snow-birds flock around The cottage yard, a crowd Of songsters from the cloud. They twitter in their gayety, Among the snow-flakes, starred and cold ; As if they were in ecstasy To see the icy field and wold, And Winter bearded o'er with age ; As if the New Year's gift Of sparkling, diamond drift, 68 THE SNOW-BIRDS. Of fitful sun and boreal rage, To them had more of love, Than all the summer grove. When hides the, sun and shout the winds, Their white-tipped wings are spread again, And while the sifting snow-sleet blinds, High off is heard their twittering strain Till lost within the blue cold air : As if in sporting glee, They held a revelry, Among the snow-flakes forming there. Soon back they come, as gay In song as if their way Were only one wild scene of mirth ; As if the white and purple clouds Were made the places of their birth, From whence they shower in crowds ; A holiday for you, sweet birds ! Bright minstrels of the snow ! More dear, as others go, For you to sing your warbling words To tell the Old Year's praise, And cheer these winter days. SONG OF THE SMITHY. T BLOW, blow, blow, hammer and blow With strong hard hands for bread ; From morn till night, high winds or low, I blow to earn my bread. I blow to turn the tire and shoe, To steel the axe and scythe ; I set the temper, keen and true, I weld the griping gyve. I knit anew the toughest break, There's magic in my hands As Vulcan's forge made Lemnos shake At Jupiter's demands, So I, one of the smithy craft, Blow strong, blow loud and long, And from my forge leap out the shaft, The spade, the plough, and prong. 70 SONG OF THE SMITHY. They turn the world all upside down And turn the down side up ; The forge starts up, where starts the town, When shapes the golden cup. The smithy is a man to wear, A man of no mean place ; Although some scout his crispy hair, And shun his sooty face. I start my fire, year in and out, As glimmers east the day ; Some stand around me, hale and stout, Some slump and run away ! But honest here I keep my stand, And at my bellows blow; More tough and hardy grows my hand ; My forge keeps up its glow. I save a little every year, Laid by for winter's snow ; And so I keep my heart in cheer, And steady, blow, blow, blow. SONG OF THE REDBREAST. PRING is come ! spring is come ! hear the red-breast, Where she thinks to make her nest; "Deacon Green," she says, "I have come to see If the violets spring 'neath the sheltered lea : I have come, I have come with the sun, Tap your maples they will run." Spring is come ! hear the warble clear and shrill, From the maple on the hill ; " Spring is come ! Spring is come, Deacon Green, For the tender snow-drop I have seen ; Did you think it, did you think it? Think it till you heard me say it? " Spring is come ! spring is come, Deacon Green ! There are violets by the stream ; Neighbor, hear me ! put your fences up : See the tender grasses creeping up ! 72 SONG OF THE REDBREAST. Do it, do it, do it! Mr. Green, Call the boys and yoke the team ! " 'Spring is come ! spring is come, Deacon Green ! No more splutter, no more spleen : Is your garden ready for the seed? Have you turned the furrow on the glebe? Plow it, plow it, plow it, Mr. Green, Don't you see the poplars growing green ? " Spring is come ! spring is come, for the trees Bend and tremble in the breeze ; Deacon, is the sugar-making done ? Guess you'll hardly have another run ; Pack your buckets ! do it, do it ! Pack your buckets, will you do it? " Spring will go, spring will go, Mr. Green ! Don't be idle with the team ; If you have a harvest you must sow Idlers never reap, never reap, you know ! Sow it, sow it, will you do it ? Sow it, deacon, sow, then reap it." THE HOE. A HOEING in the cornfields there is Joe, * A burly fellow who keeps his acres Clear of the weeds, O ho ! And he hills and hills, and his blade with good earth fills, And the long green rows file away where he tills ; And he sings, " Joe, O ho ! A merry fellow was he who made the hoe." And the blackbirds chatter nigh, and the old crows sit and caw, Clearly outlaws the first and thieves are the others By all codes of law ; But the scarecrow there and the long twine line in the air Farmer Joe has made them believe is a snare, And he sings, " Joe, O ho ! A merry fellow was he who made the hoe." And a goodly thing indeed for the corn is the hoe, And a crafty trick is this played by the farmer 74 THE HOE. On the blackbird and crow ; And the tasseling corn waving on a breezy morn Would drive from a man all the blues and the imps forlorn And he sings, "Joe, O ho ! A merry fellow was he who made the hoe." " I know there's many a fellow who dodges the hoe, But I would give him green corn, green corn from the kettle In July, O ho ! I would give him brown bread, or the hominy bowl instead, And he would go in I know, and not a dead-head." And he sings, " Joe, O ho ! A merry fellow was he who made the hoe." O, a goodly thing indeed for the corn is the hoe, And a goodly thing is the corn in the winter When bloweth the snow ; And he stirreth the earth and uprooteth the weeds, And nurseth the blade of the yellow seeds, While he sings, "Joe, O ho ! A merry fellow was he who made the hoe." ECHO LAKE. T T P, up in a mountainous sag, ^^ Where the tarrying daybeams lag, Reflects a small sheet 'mong the firs Which ripples as the wind-gust stirs ; And the sounding wavelets beat On the moss-girted shore, Beat, splash, and retreat, As they lull the hill-tops hoar. There just 'neath the wing of the cloud, Where the huddling summits crowd, She sleeps in her rock-ribbed bed ; And here the winding stream doth head 'Mong the jagged cliffs so bare, And the leaping cascades pour Through the misty air, With the ceaseless thunder's roar. 76 ECHO LAKE. And back from the hoary old forms, Buffeters of winds and storms, The wandering echoes chime a lay, The mimicking horn of mountain fay; Echoes as wild and as gay As a silver-tongued bell, That awake and are lost away In the haze of the dell. Here trills on the moonlit eves, When are reddening the forest leaves, The wild lay of the sad whip-poor-will On the flinty brow of the hill. There alone to the starlight sings The bewitchingest lore, Like the wizard, with witch-elm strings, All bearded and hoar. And the pattering feet of the hare Startled by the white owl's " Tuwhit," there, Rustle the dead leaves in her flight; Then the horn of an answering sprite ECHO LAKE. 77 Brings a halt, and with pricking ears, In the mooniest copse She bends her white foreleg and rears, Lists a moment and drops. Whene'er there's a voice from the wood Of the bleating doe or bird at brood, Answers from cliff the elfin's horn, And from crag to crag the echoes are born ; And a harp in the waving pine Song-touched by the breeze, As old as the mossiest shell of the Nine, Sings out of the leaves. High, high in the bed of the hills Is the lake, and the cloud distills Its drops in the form of mountain dew ; And crimson and violet blue, Like the rainbow, gild the cloud On the mountain hoar, Edge the mantling shroud Where the fog creeps up the shore. 78 ECHO LAKE. Here with the first dawn of the day Starts the buck from the birchen spray, Where reclined on his couch of moss, And with supple limbs laid across, He beholds the sun-reddened crags, Snorts and tosses his horn ; As the sun streams through Chicora's jags, Bounds free to the morn. Sounds the shrill deer's-horn 'mong the hills, And the deep-tongued blood-hound yells ; Through the barren lofts and clefts The clamorous din uplifts, And the glens reecho around, And wild crag answers crag, Where chafed is the worrying hound By the flying stag. On 'the hill the white mist-hoods break Glows below the burnished lake ; Lone isles which the wavelets woo Grow noisy with the hunter's halloo ; ECHO LAKE. 79 The white owl from her brooding nest Stares and winks on the flying rout, Spreads her wing for the loftiest crest, As the glen-crags shout. O'er the rocks the cataract pours, The mist wreaths, and the torrent roars ; Above where the step of the hunter treads Are the moss-fringed glacier beds, And the elfin caves, and the rocks Where the elf-horns blow, And wee fairies tend the wild flocks And harvest the snow. Where alow in dell breaks the lin, And mists lift in a cloudlet thin, The dun hoofs by the fettering brink Delay; in the water a blink, And the crags toss a wreath of smoke 'Gainst the beetling walls ; Again are a hundred echoes woke And the wild roe-buck falls. 8o ECHO LAKE. Lone pool in the fastness set, Bright pearl in a girdle of jet, What Peri's sweet tear from the skies In the shell of an Houri here lies ? What dreamless people here keep The live-long night and day This enchantment on the deep ? Ah, who, who are they? Lake Echo in midst of the hills, Where the sound of the murmuring rills Comes up as a psalm 'mong the firs ; Where are lays in the frost-opening burs, And lyrics more weird than the spell Of the wizard forlorn ; Who's the Master ? pray do us tell, Who soundeth the wild cliff-horn ? THE BOBOLINK. i chee, what bobbing sprite in speckled coat Who seems himself in very song to float ? Chee, chee, linkum, linkum, linkum merrily, Ah, how his throat pours that liquid ecstasy. First in the hawthorn-bush all bridal white, Then 'mong the clover-beds bobs this wild sprite; A flood of gushing joy showered from his wings As up he mounts, swims through the air and sings ; Then drops as some sweet song-sylph from the cloud Among the lilies with heads so modest bowed ; Catches some trill to fire again his heart, Uplifts his plumes, then to the wing doth start. Chee, chee, linkum, linkum, linkum merrily, And so he floats into the trysting-tree. 6 82 THE BOBOLINK. Chee, chee, "Old Mr. Lincoln where's my mate, The little gray bird building a nest nigh your gate? " We were to have a wedding here to-day ; She promised me she would be here in May. And I have come all up from Delaware, The gayest fellow that trills and plumes the air. "Bob White, some call me down the' Rapidan, And Bobolink with eyes in a blink, who a fan Of his coat-tail makes, some say, but I shall wed This lady of russet gown among the flowers bred. " Chee, chee, O here she comes ; I prithee thee, Good-morning Miss, and now my gallantry Stands pledged to you, for Master Bobolink Could not be caught by little goldfinch's wink. " Chee, chee, link us, link us, link us merrily, Old rhymer dwelling by the trysting tree ; Song-sparrows shall groomsman and bridesmaid be, Chee, chee, Bob White now rears his family." A SUMMER'S DAY. r I ^HE fiery sun rides high at noon, And swelters through the scorching June Till late at morn these summer days The white fog clouds the river's maze, While up the lane the milkmaid strays, And calls the heifer from the graze. Each hoof is tracked along the dew On clover's green and violet's blue, While high within the elm-tree's top, The jet-black crow, with wing at lop, At leisure trims herself, and .twists Her curls, half hid in morning mists. Busy the mowers swing their scythes, And ere the white mists upward rise Long swaths upon the meadow lie, And hay-cocks smoking stand near by. A-stream the brown duck leads her troop, 84 A -SUMMER'S DAY. From where the dew-weighed lilies droop ; While from the hermit thrush's doors, A very flood of song outpours. Now from the valley mists uprise, And brightly glow the purple skies Above are patches white and gray, Huge hills and headlands built of spray; Smooth amber lakes, and fretted shores, And open rifts with azure doors ; Calm seas, with chalky isles begemmed And by a silver forest hemmed. High overhead the Day-god rides ; With big drops oozing down our sides, And panting for some cooling breeze, We seat beneath the broad-leafed trees ; Nor longer now the cattle graze Where pastures slope to noon's hot blaze, But 'neath those huge old oaks austere, Reclined, is seen the lolling steer. Now blows a zephyr from the west, The leaves upturn, which lie at rest ; As sweet JSolus tunes his stops, A murmur steals through all the tops; A SUMMER'S DAY. 85 And dancing to the lute-like stave Around the unshorn meadows wave; While, like a rippling silver sea, The green wheat crinkles on the lea. In shade where tinkling brooklets run, Deep hidden from the noonday sun The soft-tuned harps are heard around, As reeds blown from enchanted ground. The wings of myriad insects hum Vibrations on the tympanum, While hammers loud and busily The " Moning Gvvuna " l at his tree. Above, the purple pigeon sits And coos, while tasking all his wits The great white owl with blinded eye Looks from the pine, his face awry. The droning bee and butterfly Steal to the forest's edge, near by; And there the partridge trains her brood From covert shade to hunt their food. Mid afternoon, the slanting rays Are seen betwixt the thickening haze 1 An Iroquois name for the golden-winged woodpecker. 86 A SUMMER'S DAY. The thunder caps roll up the west And settle on the mountain's crest: A long, black base spreads like a sea And darkens half the canopy ! Now mutters off behind the hills Some mighty voice, which all the azure fills Some mighty god whose battle-tone Shakes all the air beneath his* throne. A flash comes, blinding to the eye, From that black sea along the sky ; A minute's pause and loudly booms The bolt ! then flash again the glooms And quicker comes the answering sound Like volleys on a battle-ground ! Slow moves the storm's advancing train, And white beneath, the sheeted rain Pours down, and bridges to the skies From where the purple hills arise. Onward, with rush of wind, now sweep The cohorts of the airy deep ; With flashing manes and nostrils wide, In darkness the flying archers ride : Now hides the landscape from our view, A SUMMER'S DAY. 87 The pattering drops come large and few, Till full the welcome flood pours down And whitens field and sombre town. Full soon the rushing cohorts pass, And level lies the unmown grass ; The gushing rills along the road, Day-born, run foaming deep and broad ; While slow the turbid waters rise Where 'tween the banks the river plies. Distant the peals upon the ear; * The western sky grows thin and clear, And forth once more the red sun glows, The lily smiles, and laughs the rose. The lengthened shadows trail Along the dreamy vale ; The fast descending sun Now sinks behind the line of distant hills ; The wood grows dusky, where the tinkling rills Come down the mountains dun; Where in the beech-tree's leafy shade, With greenest roof high overlaid, Night's silver footfall's heard At closing song of bird. 88 A SUMMER'S DAY. * The pomp and splendors play Around the couch of Day. Fantastic spreads the show Festoons of white, empurpled edging round, And sea-shell tints upon a sky-blue ground ; Fair Dian, with her bow That hangs upon the western sky, Appears in robes of silver dye, And as the mists unfurl, She sails her skiff of pearl. Serene the argosies Glide down through tranquil seas With sun-encrimsoned sail ; Above, an azure dome stands arching o'er, On walls of sapphire, and with amber floor : Calm sleeps the stormy gale ; Along those burnished deeps that lie Within that splendor-streaming sky, Breezes caressing blow, And waft ships to and fro. Now comes the thickening shade t Of Twilight dusky maid A SUMMER'S DAY. 89 Of the advancing Night ; The crimson fades, dissolves the magic spell; The softest tint that warms the rosy shell Now blends with silver white ; The upper clouds grow black again, And fade the ships along the main ; The sails no more unfold, No skiff on sea of gold. So when the day of life Closes on all earth's strife, May the sweet beams of hope Over the coming clouds a halo shed, And beacon lights in twilight gleam ahead. Not left in doubt to grope, Unfriended down into a night Whose curtains have no fringe of light. As day's soft eyelids close, So find we our repose. H CAMEL'S HUMP; OR, THE CROUCHING LION. AIL to thee ! proud monarch of evergreen mountains, Raised aloft and afar in the realm of the clouds ! Thus high embattled, thy bleak forehead, huge and bare, Holds the same stern defiance to seasons and age. The icicles' beard, or the drapery of spring, Scarce changes thee. That hoar temple looms up as of old. The bleak air of thy rugged old throne sighs ever Through thy beetling crags ; ever through thy cav- erns, Thy corridors, and towers aloft in the sky. The storm-cloud here garners his thunder ; and Jove's bolts Rend the heavens and rattle at thy front ! The lightnings CAMEL'S HUMP. 9* Play around thee ! Yet, unawed, the same proud monarch, Thou dost hold thy bearings. Aye, dost rock the cradle Of the tempest and sport with the Thunderer's ar- rows. And bright Phoebus, as the Earth wheels around in her car, First and last beams on thy brow, gilds thy ducal palace With the tints of day, while beneath thee old Night Holds her sable dominion. Favored of mountains ! When, with heat as fervid as burns in the tropics, We are sweltering our noons in-doors or in shade, Thou art regaling with cool breezes and fountains ; And how eager we gasp for the breeze ! at the brook We most lusciously quaff, as it steals from thy sides, Down the winding vale and over the parched mead- ows ; And the spruces and hemlocks ensandal thy feet Where the wild flower creepeth, and the tangled thicket Echoes to the sweet minstrelsy of birds. Aye, up 92 CAMEL'S HUMP. To the verge of thy bold and bare summit climbeth The twin flower; the violet opes her frail petals In thy stern presence, nursed by the sunbeam and cloud ; And the footfall of deer and timid fawn, straying Up the bold steep of thy old dominion, Has been heard. The eagle's wild cry has re- sounded In thy halls so ancient; here hatched the young eaglets. Veteran old ! long hath the forest primeval, That adorned thy temples in the days of thy youth, Been uprooted ; thy forehead left bare in thy years ; Still from erst, ever from the days so ancient and old, Thou hast loomed 'mid the clouds in the Green Mountain State, Emblem of Freedom, the Flag-staff of Liberty ! Beacon of light ! Ti. Allen's own obelisk ! Bearing our blazonry and fame unto Heaven! Lone and solitary there stands thy bold visage, CAMEL'S HUMP. 93 Grim above Champlain ! Pile on pile thy dread palace Soars into the limitless ether! and topmost The catamount crouches, just springing thy summit, Defying invasion and growling " Independence ! " THE BLUEBIRD'S FAREWELL. r I ^HE butternuts swung from their leaves and fell Up climbing hill and down the hazy dell ; The frost-nipped leaves dropped one by one In the slant rays of an October sun ; And through the drowsy stretch of landscape view The gathering birds on wings uneasy flew ; The tinkle of the sheep-bell on the down, The fivulet creeping through the woodlands brown, Gave out unusual sounds upon the ear, And from the rocks the bleating seemed more nean In crimson tints the maples gaudy spread On slopes above the sluggish river's bed ; The russet elms along the stream hung low, And in half-naked tops loud called the crow, Whose note was answered by the piping jay On age-shorn top of limbless tree away. THE BLUEBIRD'S FAREWELL. 95 Not these alone had warbling hymns Among the bare and sober limbs ; Noonwhile the bluebird sang her lay Upon the poplar's topmost spray, Where erst on April's sunny morn The first note of the Spring was born. "Farewell," said she, 'tis time to go, I see the coming of the snow. "I've seen the thistle's flying down, The hazel in her scarlet gown, The yellow asters drooping by The rivulets where dead violets lie. " Since I have come the lily's bloom And garden rose have lost perfume ; The heaven-hued flowers are harvested Why stop where beauty thus hath fled ? " Farewell, I seek another spring, Which shall to me new beauty bring; I would not be a dweller where No flowers exhale to scent the air." 96 THE BLUEBIRD'S FAREWELL. Sweet bird, good morrow; and when I Like thee shall see the lowering sky, May some sweet shore budding with spring Invite me to the joyous wing ; Some haven, 'neath the open rift Parting the clouds that wintry drift, Regale me from my wanderings, While my freed spirit soars and sings. OVER THE HILLS. /'"AVER the hills, over the hills, -^ Gayly away, away we hie; Over the hills, over the hills, How like the wild free bird we fly! O like the wild free bird away To the music of bells moves on the sleigh ; Over the hills, over the hills, Our merry pole-steeds snort and neigh. Merry our ride over the snow, With frosted chin and tingling ear, The north winds blowing as we go To greet us with a good New Year. Over the hills, over the hills, Gayly away, away we hie ; Over the hills, over the hills, How like the wild free bird we fly. 7 OVER THE HILLS. Bobbing goes round the chickadee, As his old tree loud snaps with frost; * His post-horn goes on merrily, While to the Northers his cap is tost O like the wild free bird away To the music of bells moves on the sleigh Over the hills, over the hills, Our merry pole-steeds snort and neigh. With hoofs that dance and fetlocks high We skim the ground so gayly O, With tossing manes we bid good-by O give to us the jolly snow. Over the hills, over the hills, Gayly away, away we hie ; Over the hills, over the hills, How like the wild free bird we fly. THE SNOW-STORM : A SCENE IN THE MOUNTAINS. I. f^V ARK and drear upon the hoary mountain Hangs the winter's heavy laden curtain ; Loud the boisterous winds begin to rally, Moaning, roaring up and down the valley. All the thickening heaps a tempest token Wail the leafless hill-tops rift and broken ! And the elm-trees bend along the river, And the dead leaves on the aspens quiver: Sobs and sighs the pine-tree in its branches, Standing where the icy brooklet dances ; Rocks and creaks the maple, regal spreading His gigantic arms the ridge embedding ; Mark the wall that whitens up the arching Where the shedding clouds are onward marching! Dim the woodlands in the feathery falling, 100 THE SNOW-STORM. Dim the hill-tops in the gloom appalling ! Now through all the sky the snow-fall sifteth, Deepens, deepens all the day, then drifteth Into mighty heaps with wildest shrieking Tis the icy-bearded Norther speaking ! How the hollows swell into a level Over all the landscape in his revel ; How he. scatters fences in his frolic, Laughs to see the mischief diabolic ! " Ho ! ho ! " shouts he, as his fingers grapple In the forelocks of his charger dapple Forward leans in stirrup, plumed and hooded As a clouded ridge in mid-sky wooded : From the streamy nostrils puffs the blinding Snow, and rolls a cloud each hoof is grinding. Thick advancing over hill and hollow, All his grizzly bearded cohorts follow; Whew ! whew ! sing the bows they strain for battle, And along the turf the fleet hoofs rattle. Far before the white-winged mists are driven, Marking where their banners stream the heaven ! Early in the day the bullock worries Through the snow, annoyed by gusts and flurries ; Points his horn, and shakes his head, to muster THE SNOW-STORM. IOI Courage as he faces storm and bluster. Slow behind the snorting heifer wallows, And the lowing cow at distance follows, While the fleecy flock doth partly shelter By the hedge, and in the snow-bank swelter; Eyes half-shut, their nodding heads bedrizzen Not for hours a single hoof has risen. ii. Homeward bound, across yon hoary mountain Comes a stranger, on the day miscounting : Youthful, beautiful, his wife \Vinfrada Rode beside him with her blue-eyed baby. All day long it thicker, faster snoweth, And the west wind strong and stronger bloweth ! Deep and deeper piles the drift intrenches By the wall and buries up the fences : Stump and log sink down, and ditch and gutter All are hid, and high above the cutter Stand the white-heaped banks the highway block- ing ! Still the shouting winds keep on their mocking Never stop the feathery snow-flakes downward fall' ing, 102 THE SNOW-STORM. So thick not a rod is seen. Appalling This to one among the hills o'ertaken, Inn nor hamlet there on which to reckon ! Now the air grows sharp and keen, and bluer Grow the skies j the snow-flakes small and fewer. Raw and chill the shifting north wind searches Now his often-trusted Morgan lurches, Rallies, trips and stumbles, fetlock weary, Toiling on that mountain dark and dreary. God have mercy ! What is in the morrow 1 Night is coming is there faith to borrow? Night with peril to these peasant people! Waxes low the gray-veiled sun ; no steeple Distant, o'er the village-street appeareth ; Nor a fireside's gleam the cold night cheereth. On the farmer treads the snow, and urges His tired steed, until a star emerges Through the flying clouds, now thin and faded ; But his mare of chestnut brown is jaded Jaded so that every muscle quivers : Such a night, in such a plight ! how shivers Poor Winfrada too ! She jerks the bridle As the farmer treads. Alas! 'tis idle, THE SNOW-STORM. 103 For no longer heeds the mare the rein. Exhausted, Forward plunges she so trusty, frosted White, and struggling hard she sinks unable Foot to gain the pride of Blakeley's stable. '* Courage wife ! " so spoke the stalwart farmer, With a breast to match a Vi-king's armor ; " Down those 'gorges black, with old trunks gnarly, Is the vale the snowy vale of Arle Not a moment's time have we to parley." And he wrapped them snug in his buffalo, Summoned forth a mighty strength against the snow; Took the road that then was wild and new, After kissing child and mother an adieu.. in. As it chanced a hunter came next morning On his rackets, sounding long his warning Bugle on the hills ; the hound loud baying, Roused the stag in Shamrock wood delaying; Echoes cliff to cliff, the dog pursuing Where the stag leads on, the vale eschewing: When at noon the chase turns down the wjooded 104 THE SNOW-STORM. Steeps, and where in shade the white owl brooded, Here the blood-hound halts, refusing more to follow, Though he wears the game-dog's silver collar. Neither coaxing, scolding, changed his sullen mood, For it seems he would not pass old Shrewsbury road. What did ail the dog, the hunter vexed himself to know, And he walked beside him to the turnpike deep in snow; Buried there they found the stalwart farmer, Clad in coat of blue the ancient manner. IDA LENORE. '"T"*HE lost Lenore the beautiful Lenore The angel-resembling Lenore the child Of high-born birth, but lost out of earth A day unfortunate to me. The mild, The affectionate child of incomparable worth, Who came in, one night, at our door, The lovable Ida Lenore. The sweet-tempered .Lenore gone back unto heaven ; And a darkness left in the house evermore ; Left us, with our hands imploring her stay Fled out of a land where the feet grow sore, To the crimson and golden flower-land away, This lovable child Lenore, Who went one night from our door. The light-hearted Lenore, alas, I still Remember, just as she toddled my floor; ro6 IDA LENORE. With her arms like a cherub's, so white and bare, With a chin and a cheek which the dimples ran o'er, And her wavy tresses of flaxen hair, This lovable child Lenore, Who went one night from our door. O, that it should be so ! that the hand Of an evil distemper fall on her : That the angels should love her more than we: That I should be made Heaven's almoner, While up through the flickering starry sea, The hovering pinions are more Than the flowers the broad earth o'er. But I know it is well with the child Lenore, For none ever looked on her but to lore, And none ever thought of her as of earth, But I comforted myself that my darling, my dove, Who dropped from the spheres with these marks of her birth, Would longer await at my door, The beautiful Ida Lenore. IDA LENORE. 107 The Lost Lenore, the beautiful Lenore! With the angelhood at the rosy gates By cerulean Edens her form I see : And what if her heaven-life antedates On the dial awhile ! in the Great to Be We shall find the Ida Lenore, Our beloved and our darling evermore. LAURA O' THE HILL. T IKE dew on daisy, the fall of her feet ; ' Her voice than the song of the thrush more sweet ; As apple-blossoms her breath in the air, With a shy dimpled chin and nut-brown hair. Her eye hath the touch of the violet in spring, Which blossometh blue while the cuckoos sing; Her teeth are whiter than ocean-washed pearls, And her snowy neck all wavy with curls. The chickens come at the sound of her call, The sparrow that nests low under the wall ; The lambs frisk gayly by hillock and brink, Where she comes to gather the red moss-pink. The joy of a sunbeam plays by her mouth, And a heart she hath and it knows not a drouth ; LAURA 0' THE HILL. 109 While her plaided gown is of fine dimity, Which her fingers spun o' the distaff tree. As the blush of the peach is the rouge on her cheeks, And but honey drops in the words she speaks, And Laura o' the glen in her morning sixteen Is the pride of the hill-side cottage I ween. ALICE BY THE BROOK. T T OW often by the summer brook "-*- Of old I used to ride, When Alice, with her happy look, Was sitting by my side. I never thought of beauty more, Nor thought hers could be less ; I felt the charms she had in store Would cheer a wilderness. A little roguish was her eye, Whene'er she stole my whip ; With witching dimples lying by The smile upon her lip. Her lashes, shaded eyes of blue, Which had a mellow light; Her cheeks were fresh with rose-bud hue, Her neck was snowy white. * ALICE BY THE BROOK. Ill As gay as magpie chatted she Now pouting at a pun, Then laughing at our pleasantry, A little overdone. She laughed right out in jolly glee, As down the parson's lane I turned, and hinted jovially, She'd better change her name. 'Twas many, many years ago, That Alice rode with me Her virgin heart as pure as snow, Her spirits wild and free. I went away, far o'er the sea, And Alice went to school ; I fear she thought too much of me I Alas! I was a fool. A hectic stole upon her cheek I never saw her more ; The words she last was heard to speak : "Tell him I'm gone before." 112 ALICE BY THE BROOK. The birds have many seasons flown As winter stole apace, But have returned with merry tone When nature changed her face. The flowers have blossomed in the spring, By every way-side nook ; But never do we hear a thing Of Alice by the brook. THE BABY BOY. 'X/'OU crowing fellow, well 's the day That brought you here, although you rule The roost ; and have a gawkish way Of kissing, always with a drool. You come to quarters not o'errich, But by your pranks your quip and quirk, Should think you had some way in which To make a live, by shift or shirk. A heap of fat your chubby leg, A plump, full cheek, and both your eyes Are full the rogue they tease and beg, Both thumbs just taken from the pies. The very idol of the house Your sister's birdie, mother's bird; And at your call we all must touse, For little darling must be heard. 8 114 THE BABY BOY. O, well 's the day you came, my boy, The comfort of your mother's heart ; And long the day you give her joy, And long before you cause a smart. FOR WHAT YOU ARE, ISABEL. 1 "'OR what you are, my Isabel, For what you are not for your dress, Or any little show of vanity, I link you with my happiness ; For what you are, nor be above Your kitchen work, nor washing board, My Isabel ; this nicknack love, Don't blush, is cheap upon my word. You would not know me in ycfur suit So soiled ? ah, ha ! I see the why ! For fear I'd think the less of you 'Tis not the suit, but that soft eye, That sunny cheer within your face, My Isabel, that pleases me ; Your winsome voice and winning grace, Your heart clothed in its purity. Il6 FOR WHAT YOU ARE, ISABEL. So do not shun me, Isabel, Because you meet me in attire Toil-soiled and at the washing board: Than maiden born of monarch sire And vain, I'd rather have you thus I'm sure you'd be no cheat or scold, Go waltz, or dance a cotillon's fuss, And serve us to a dinner cold-. LILLIE. \T 7E loved her as we saw her come And go each summer day, Across the meadow to the road, And then in quiet way Trip onward to the village school ; We loved her modest look, Her large bright eye, her charming face, The graceful step she took. She seemed to have a soul ufllike The rest who loitered there Some strange attraction all could feel, Some charm in all the air Wherever her sweet presence was, As if some angel child, Lost out of heaven had dropped to earth, And by life's way-side smiled. Il8 LILLIE. She had at home the gentlest care, All watched her anxiously No Eden blossom e'er was nursed More fond and tenderly ; And not a single child at school, With wild flower from the glen, Who would not pass it round to her, And felt more happy then. One day we missed her clear, bright day As e'er the summer brought ; A slight misgiving then we had, But gave no further thought : But when the evening came, alas ! It brought to us the word That Lillie was no more she fled Away a singing bird. We laid her by her mother's side Within the quiet glen ; And over them doth hang the trees Where sits and sings the wren ; 'TIS SPOKEN, 119 When comes the bluebird in the spring, And blithesome cuckoos woo, There fragrant violets and the heath Steal from the beds of snow. 'TIS SPOKEN. TT 7HEREVER roves my wayward heart, It will come back to thee, to thee. 'Tis spoken and for aye we part, Yet you cannot be less to me. To know how truly, dearly prized, No lip of mine to you shall break Thine angel, I will watch, disguised, But living only for thy sake. THE FRIENDS THAT WE HAVE MET. r I ""HE friends that we have met So oft with greetings kind; The partings of regret We frequent call to mind : Friends of absence, days and hours So free of care, so gay with flowers. For some we look in vain, Who were of our true band ; With tears and heartfelt pain We took their parting hand. Ah ! when will they come back, The friends for whom we yearn ? O, may they never lack A hearth by which to warm Be life's rough road walked o'er With steady pace and cheer, THE FRIENDS THAT WE HAVE MET. 121 And as we near the shore Disperse each doubt and fear. The friends that we have met, So true, so dear and kind; The partings of regret Shall bring each oft to mind: Friends of absence, friends of hours So free of care, so green with flowers. THE MOTHER'S GRIEF. a couch a pale one sleeping, Mutters wildly in her dreams By her side a mother weeping, .Anxious asks me what it means. These are moments we are weak Ah ! to her how could I speak ? " Is she dying ? is she dying ? " Asks the mother in her woe; " She is dying ! she is dying ! O, my Father ! is it so ? " How the bitter tear-drops flow, And she wrings her hands in woe. There her child, a pallid creature, Gasping slowly for her breath ; Coldness coming o'er each feature, And the sunken hues of death. " O, my house is dark with death ! In my house," she saith, " is death." THE MOTHER'S GRIEF. 123 " She is dying ! she is dying ! O, my Saviour, can it be ? " She is lying she is lying There a corpse, her spirit free ! Yes, with lips apart and cold " Now her arms you'll gently fold ? And she kissed her marble forehead, Closed her lips that lay apart ; Dressed herself in crape and sorrowed, But as one with Christian heart. " Lonely now," she said, " 'twill be, But my Father'll call for me." Then she lay her where the blossom Of the daffodil was seen, Where the rose and meadow-saffron Grew upon a plat of green. There she lay her in her white Laid her daughter from her sight. ELLULE. T HEAR the shells of the western sea The plaint of her out under the arch Of the furthermost sky. Ellule With her harp alone on that loneliest shore, Who calls for me as the sun goes down, As the rosy sea grows purple and brown; " Eulalia," the distant sound Like a note half lost in the quavering sea; " Eulalia," saith the sky around A sound I follow, but no one see. Out under that arch alone she walks Demure and sad by the western sea, She culls a wreath from the goldy locks And crops the ice-plant bare of its blooms: There desolate awaits by the shore The sound of the tides and dipping oar, And there on the floating isles around The icy domes on that spectral sea! ELLULE. i? While ever " Eulalia," is a sound I follow, but no one see. As deepens the shade and the shores grow dim, Out under that furthermost sky, As hazes thicker the horizon's rim And flickers here and there a star, All white in her garments to and fro, Spectral and cold as the moony snow, She walketh the shadowy ground And all that shadowy sky around, And all that night- wrapped western sea, Utters a strange articulate sound That seems to say, " O, come to me ! " Come to the land by the western sea, The nethermost sea in the furthermost sky Eulalia to the wandering Ellule I pray once more to meet, with you Who art so far and yet so near to me. To go to you, it never can be ! " For so I hear the palpitant air Which calleth all night so loud to me : 126 ELLULE. I wait and sorrow and still prepare To follow the voice that calls to me. How lost, how lone I wander at times Out under that arch that further dome, Where loud on the sea the gnome-bell chimes, And call, and call in vain, " Ellule." I wander here and wander there, Ellule is my only prayer; I wait and watch and linger around The long, dark night by this uttermost sea, But no one find ; only a sound Calls here and there, " O, come to me ! " And yet a presence is everywhere there, Which seemeth about and near to me A spectral form in the mystical air Which I seem to know, but cannot see. I clasp with my hands about the space As if taking her to my lost embrace ; But thinner than the thinnest air The resistance that meeteth my hand ; Then further seemeth the sound to me, ELLULE. 127 As wanders an echo over the land A sound I follow, but no one see. Mystical, strange, this sound by the sea;! What meaneth the cry addressed so loud, So long, in tender refrains to me ? And out that dark dominion of Night? A veil, a mist lies under that sky, .And none can tell the reason why A spell, a charm is somewhere there, For none come off of the spectral sea Only a voice in the palpitant air, Which ever calleth, "O, come to me!" HETTIE AT THE SPINNING-WHEEL. sits Hettie at the spinning-wheel, Just about so old she's been for years; And, as she trundles with toe and heel, The picture of industry appears ; She sits and trundles at the spinning-wheel, Then whirls away at the old clock-reel. She dips in haste at the hard gourd shell, And at the distaff snatches fast j Of her youthful days you'll hear her tell, And she never thinks her May-day past. She sits and trundles at the spinning-wheel, Then whirls away at the old clock-reel. Through her ringers runs the silken thread, And over the wire to fill her spool ; Thus she works her flax with a skillful tread, And her fingers have a cunning pull. She sits and trundles at the spinning-wheel, Then whirls away at the old clock-reel. HETTIE AT THE SPINNING-WHEEL. 129 The old clock-reel tolls off her knots, Which she ties thinking a knot makes a wife. And this is one of her whispered thoughts, " I would 'twere a knot which is tied for life." She sits and trundles the spinning-wheel, Then whirls away at the old clock-reel. In a half-playful tone she sometimes speaks, And hints of a thing that belongs to the past j A home runs on in her fancy's freaks, And a different lot with another cast She sits and trundles at the spinning-wheel, Then whirls away at the old clock-reel. She says things have a strange way now, And few of the girls know how to work; The boys despise th.e good old plow But puff at the pipe much like a Turk. She sits and trundles at the spinning-wheel, Then whirls away at the old clock-reel. She's poorly pleased with modern things, Such shifts got up for laziness ; 9 130 HETTIE AT THE SPINNING-WHEEL. Expects we'll travel yet by wings, But lie a-bed to eat and dress. She sits and trundles at the spinning-wheel, Then whirls away at the old clock- reel. A maiden of three-score years she sits ; The old muslin cap with its frill on her head ; By sunlight spins and by candle-light knits, Till the old and the young are all in bed. She sits and trundles at the spinning-wheel, Then whirls away at the old clock-reel. HEIGH, HO, HUM. T T EIGH, ho, hum ! " said a bowed old man, Plodding with his cane and little dog One day over the dusky pike From town : " Ho, hum, -a weary jog ! " We knew the gait and the yellow cur, For grandfather Colt often came that way; He had a rheumatic hip which gave A hitch, and a frequent alack a da da ! Just off the road under a tree In my father's lot, he sat him down (His little dog stretching by his side), In old cock-hat and surtout of brown. His locks were white, and on his brow Now wrinkled with care, some straggling lay ; He wiped the sweat trickling down his cheek With his hand, saying, " Alack a da da ! " 132 HEIGH, HO, HUM. Each time the dog looks wistfully up In the old man's face, till the black flies' buzz He hears, when he turns, snaps and lays him down, And the old man groans "Lack a day me suz!" " Ho, hum ! well, curly," he says to his dog, "We'll plod again." He pulls on his staff, And with " Alack a .da da me suz This road is Iqnger than once by half." Ho, hum ! the old man and his little dog Come up the road no longer, nor down; Alack! his faltering step fell out, And they buried him in Duxbury town. THE OLD HOME COTTAGE: A MONO New England's northern hills, * The old home cottage stands : The moss is seen upon its sills, The dust is on its jambs; A quaint old house of square-hewn blocks With woodbine on its eaves ; An oak beside the gate, where rocks The hang-bird 'mong its leaves. O, to it cling old mem'ries dear, Dear bonds but death can free ; We left it with a blinding tear And in deep agony ; From ruin, Time, this threshold spare ; Buffet with tender blow; I would not see the grass grow where Our walk wound long ago. 134 THE OLD HOME COTTAGE. Bright glowed the yule-log's winter flame, And cheerful rose our songs ; Old house to me you are the same In all neglects and wrongs. O, keep for me my vacant chair, My friend in days of cheer ; Alack, what if I were but there, How would old things appear ? I Should I yet meet a sister's smile, Her arms flung out to me ? Plods on old Roan his weary mile At tug and whiffletree? My dog, sleeps he upon the rug? Keeps kitty up her purr ? I see you all ensconced so snug, Myself a wanderer. Ah, much I fear to look on what Old Time has done for you ! I dread to see that lowly spot Beside the weeping yew: THE OLD HOME COTTAGE. 135 I've wished to come for mother's sake Her loss how can I bear ! O, oft she's watched till morning's break At duty and in prayer. Mementos are among the trees Which hide the garden walks; A tender sound is in the breeze That waves the mullein stalks ; I And underneath the apple-tree, Beside the sedgy brook, Were faces which once met with me, On which I shall not look. The garlands gathered in the grove, By angel fingers twined, Alas ! they wither as I rove My father grows more blind. The spider weaves her cunning web About my old bedroom ; And on and on the life tides ebb Which bear us to our doom. 136 THE OLD HOME COTTAGE. And when again, O! when shall I Sit round that welcome hearth? And who remains that said " Good-by,' And who are not of earth ? Among New England's northern hills, The old home cottage stands ; The moss is seen upon its sills, The dust is on its jambs ; I The low-roofed cot, with barns apart ; Wood-shed and big wood-pile ; O, ever clings my yearning heart To every beam and tile. ORCAS YOUTH. O PRING lapped the opening flowers, the gay young blossoms Nursed on the banks of rippling brooks and rivers, When Orcas, but a youthful boy, idly rambled I To hear the wood-birds 'mong the chestnut branches. Idly he wandered, gazing o'er great acres, Shadowed, where through the leaves gleamed dew- eyed morning. A wreath entwined the youthful brow of Orcas ; In all his veins was rosiness and beauty, And bright his eye. Upon his snow-white forehead The play of joy the very joy of transport A plump round cheek, a chin with dimples Chasing in laughter as on stream the ripples: Bosom upswelling and jocund with gladness, A gladness ringing after all his footsteps. And so his lightsome feet led to the river Flower-fringed, blossoming with clover and the dai- sies. 138 ORCAS YOUTH. The violets, purple and white and blue and golden, Fragrantly touched his springy balls and hollows, Which nimbly left their press and sported onward. " Spring-time and mirth," he sings, " with cuckoo sing cuckoo ; Snow- drops, cowslips, and humming-birds, by cool Meander ; Give wings to joy, dilate the heart with laughter The stags 'mong pimpernels before me scamper, I love the voice of winds and warbling bluebirds." And so his guileless feet leapt on, to wanton Along the marge, the while caressing breezes Did whisper in his curls ; " The brooks are purling," Saith the breeze, " and songs in trees now budding ; From old dead leaves come up star-eyed claytonias, And here jonquils and robins have their vespers. Wander with me the while the sun climbs noonward, And dew-dripping honeysuckles sparkle in the sun- beams." And so they frolicked, and his yellow tresses Streamed backward, flowing o'er his dimpled shoul- ders, As reveled the warm sunlight on his bosom. ORCAS YOUTH. 139 A thousand insects hummed, murmured Meander, And all the air beat palpitant with music. Reddened his cheeks, and fair as crimsom roses The tint upon his beardless face of boyhood. The grasses crinkled, where the breeze ran laughing, And in the sunbeam, clad in coat of velvet, Floated the yellow butterfly, the restless Frolicker 'mong the beds of mint and crocus. The cuckoos sung within the leafing maples, "We cuckoos sing," say they, "while harebells blos- som ; We hunt the furzy hillocks, grown to mosses, And by the bickering brook, for withered lichens To build in greenest place our wind-rocked dwellings : Come Youth and pluck the scented amaryllis, The pale wood-sorrel growing by the hazels, And braid them into wreaths with ragged robins : Make heart for mirth ! let's revel in our laughter ! The woods are rid of ugly sprite and goblin, And left alone to rosy-ankled Naiads." The gray- winged warbler trilled the merry carol, " The rime is off the tree, and in the garden The pea grows green: the daffodils are budding, 140 ORCAS YOUTH. Thick in the meadows blossom dandelions. In wanton curls the romping maids play truant, And white-wooled lambs the grass-green knolls are nibbling : It is a rosy time, this freak of boyhood, For only morn comes shining through the eyelids ; Come revel now, for youth is but a frolic, And laughter but an echo out of heaven ! " And to him sang the lily by the runlet, " Gome see, fair Youth, the scented wreaths that crown me ; Purple and white and yellow are my garlands ; I drink the sparkling dew in morning sunshine, And paint my petals from the dipping rainbow. Sky-born, they say, the sons of fair-eyed Hebe, Who fills with rosy wine the silver goblet, Of which they drink who drink the laughing nectar : We may be gay, for only mirth drowns sorrow, And only out of heaven the sunshine cometh." Thus did he go with breeze and bird and blossom, Sporting upon the lawn, the noon of spring-time; Nor saw the thorny briers by the road side Life's toil and grief and journey to repentance. SONG OF JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER. /^\ MOUNTAINS, sigh and pity me! Cedars of Lebanon and ye poplars, be sad : Two months I bewail my virginity ; I go up and down the hills in my weeds clad : I and my fellows with the aloe bough, For on my head is my father's vow. "O clouds, bearing the tears of the skies, Pity me ! coronal stars and thou fair moon Two months, and a burnt sacrifice Jephthah offers his child in her virgin bloom But my father's tears are sadder than mine, He cannot go back, 'tis a seal divine. " Come night, with the requiem of winds, With the hoary harps that sing the hours to rest, With the oaten pipe which calls the hinds, Brings the bulbul and wood-dove to their nest : 142 SONG OF JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER. I and my fellows with aloe bough, Walk up and down the mountain now. * Favored of Judah, pity me ! Sitting in peace by your doors through years of jy> Remember her who brought victory, When Ammon's hosts by Jabbok did destroy: In fear our enemies stood they fled Before the Lord when Jephthah led. "He vowed a vow unto our God, Who heard : He came down in wroth : they were as chaff In his presence they fled from his rod. Be merry now clap your hands and let your children laugh : Go up, possess their lands with cheer : 'Tis meet that I go to my bier. "This aloe is my bridal wreath, In pride do I wear it upon my brow, And though my bridegroom be but Death, 'Twere better than that my father break his vow. SONG OF JEPHTHAITS DAUGHTER. 143 So take your harps and sing for me, And how your country was made free." They sing their songs for the Jewish maid, By Jordan pluck the blooming daffodils ; A wreath of violets and jonquils braid, And weave her a crown of choicest asphodels; Two moons in JebePs breezing air They braid white lilies in her hair. The third, she returns to Mizpah's gate More just than Dido, mounts the funeral pyre, And dies a martyr to the state. For her do Judah's singers wake the lyre, Her virgins come four times a year, And strew with flowers her sepulchre. THE SHADOW LAND. A T 7 E sleep, aye sleep the passing years The moss upon our urn appears, Lichens of sorrow ; The birds return, the seasons go, But ah, to sleep, to sleep and know Not of the morrow ! The hither land is full of woe The thither land, O who doth know? That long forever. The foot that dips that water cold, Ah ! feels but once that icy hold Comes back no, never ! We pass into the shadow land, With severed ties of heart and hand 'Mong tombs engraven : Mists and shadows! O shadows dark THE SHADOW LAND: 145 O valley cold O, wandering bark And distant haven The golden haven o'er the sea Sweet haven in the Great to Be Across the river. O silent, silent, silent land; O river dark ! where is the hand That leads us ever? O shadow land ! O morning land, Forever there the angels stand, And Jesus, Jesus ! Across that river, on that strand, Waits forever a gentle hand, And to receive us. THE OLD MAN AND THE ANGEL. 'TT^HE clock has plodded along till five In an autumn day of the year, The strolling bee returns to his hive From the pastures brown and sere, The frost has nipt the vines on the wall, And the dead leaves begin to fall. In-doors the grandma sits in her chair With the wrinkled lines on her face, And bleached into white her dark brown hair While walks, with a faltering pace, The floor of the hall, her other half, Low bent and leaning upon his staff. Clearing the table, in middle life, Is a woman genteel and fair, And a hale looking man who calls her wife Sits near. A happy pair, THE OLD MAN AND THE ANGEL. 147 Discoursing together of the sermon read, And then of their cousins this Sunday wed. A chap not two, with eyes of blue, And abundance of golden curls, There creeps and plays with his grandma's shoe ; While two little pink-dressed girls A psalm-book unto the old man bring, And clamor aloud to hear him sing. With trembling voice, he pitches and sings The olden tune of Mear The grandma joins, like a harp with strings Half broken, and drops a tear : They both do seem, in their whitened locks, Like sheaves of grain in the autumn shocks. The children gaze in the old man's eye, As he brushes a tear away, And ask, " What makes grandpapa cry ? " And he says, "I remember the day It was said to me, ' Be of good cheer ' And the time draws near, the end of the year. " 148 THE OLD MAN AND THE ANGEL. For devotion soon they gather round, And from its place on the shelf Is brought the Bible, in sheepskin bound, Nigh as old as the sire himself. His spectacles placed, he reads from Isaiah, Then kneels at the altar and offers prayer. The shadows of evening round them fall, And the moonbeams steal on the floor ; 'Tis hushed within and asleep are all, The child and the man of four-score. An angel comes in the shape of Death, With golden harp and an amaranth wreath, And whispers a word in the sleeper's ear O'er his face comes a beaming ray, And his lips say softly, " The end of the year : " And he breathed his last as he lay. They woke within at the break of dawn, But the good old man and the angel were gone. LILLIAN. T AM pining for the April flowers, Sweet anemones in glenwood growing ; Cuckoo flowers and the yellow cowslips Where the murmuring brooklet on is flowing : Waiting for the hawthorn's milk-white petal For the modest violets, white and purple For the coming of the gay spring beauty, And the blossoming of the trailing myrtle: For I know that when the low arbutus From among the dead leaves upward creepeth, Lillian goeth : gently as a whisper Would she pass and lie where May-rose weep- eth. Favored, if it were a cloudless morning, So to look on buds of infinite number, Freshening from the dreary lap of Winter Into blossom : then to softly slumber. ISO LILLIAN. Lay me by the drooping wild azalia And forget-me-not: that earthly losses, Shadows, yield to thoughts of hope and heaven ; Where the sunlight falls on dewy mosses. Ah! my heart is almost weary waiting, Longing like the wood-doe for the summer; When she croppeth by the little runlet, Looking for the snow-drop, spring's first comer. Make of these my garlands ; lay the hawthorn Blossom, when my head is pillowed, by it : Bear me then away at fall of evening, Leaving me to sleep in quiet. XT TITHIN our holier musings, how the Earth Grows fruitful with her teachings and her . texts That God is only good. When flushes morn Upon the dewy lap of spring, go forth And walk the mead, fast putting on its robes Of velvet green, and see the footsteps that Unheard imprint the mould. List to the wings That brood invisible above, where goeth on The mighty change that brings the bud and leaf, And out of mouldering cerements doth cause To quicken beauty in her thousand forms. The varied tints that crop from out the clefts Of rocks, that steal up through the old dead leaves, As spread the fragrant flowers forth to the sun, Tell us how silent nature buildeth up her works, And yet how beautiful; how from the dearth Of the encrystalled granite, seed takes root 152 ANASTASIA. And germinates, and giveth bloom and fruit; How to the blight is wed the living green. Where spreads the verdant canopy of woods, With their innumerable swelling buds called forth As morning rays quiver along the hills, O Father! these attest thy goodness; these But teach the lessons of Divinity. This is thy temple ! and the singing birds, The choristers, whose warbling* voices swell T, o heaven thy praise. Thy prophets here, the oaks, That yearly cast aside their garments worn, To be reclothed; who coronate themselves In each returning spring with wreaths of hope. To worship here is to acknowledge faith In the great plan that orders from the dead The living forms. Where on the stone's cold cheek Is nursed the flower, how beautiful awakes The living symbol, and progressing up ! Where falls the acorn, springs not up the tree, When in full time the swollen casement bursts? O, if a sparrow falls not to the ground Unseen by Him who careth for us all, Why doubt, but that some hand will roll away ANASTASIA. 1 53 The sfone, and light dawn on thy sepulchre Behold how through creation's varied works 'Tis ever change a transit to new life An ever-opening gate through which the dead Pass on into the startling infinite! Who keeps the worm that sleeps in chrysalis? On all the multitudinous pages traced With nature's record, is there found so much As one small atom lost ? To change hath been To live ! death, richest gain ! who dares Believe that man, the crowning work, God's own Similitude, ascends the summit but To fall? and fall, if fall we do, more low Than all that hold the downward scale ? for if, Alas, to die is " not to be," O, then how mock The trees that stand through the long centuries The day-dream of our life ! The thick-ribbed rocks Cradled in the first dawn, when moored the world From chaos, laugh at our frail destiny, And sweep, with little change, the innumerable years. \Vhere all thy works but teach from living texts The lessons of our resurrection, O, 154 ANASTASIA. Our Father, grant to us the faith that lights With shining countenance the vault where lies The veil, and folds the shroud of the dead Christ The inurned dead, with the arisen life. What night is that on all that flood of time That river of blackness o'erswollen with the tears Which water all the ages past if day Dawn not within the sleeper's narrow house ? Scarce grows a sod, but underneath it lies The dust of one who once did walk the earth Was loved and wept : ah, who can count them up 1 What cities have been filled emptied and filled A thousand times ; and now are empty as The hollow sound of the great charnel house, Where perished long ago their very dust. Nay, empires themselves no doubt have flourished for Their day ; so swallowed in oblivion's wave, No record or memorial speaks that they Have been ! O, how the centuries crowd up The dark long vistas, back in shadow and pall ! The woods, the sea, are sepulchres, no less Than the green cemeteries by the great Highways along the avenues of mart. ANASTASIA. 155 If with the morn we take our flight, the dead Are there, and, where night folds the western sea, They wrap them for their couch alike to sleep. And so through ages hath this round of toil And sleep gone on, successive wave on wave, Lapsing into a night which lies beyond. If they be garnered to forgetfulness Who sleep, how foolish is this day-dream man Calls life ! Gifted to know, to feel the woe Which death, and death alone reserves ; to stand Upon a brink dark with amazing fears, And realizing all, yet, helpless as the drift log In current, go ( we down oblivion's tide To dust and ashes, and abodes as mute As the dull clod of which we make our bed ! To be more blank than that on which our foot Hath plodded in our daily round of care ! The stars to shine, the moon, but not unto That cheerless atmosphere. The universe a blank! No more aspires that soul ! that mind erased Of memories, affections, all sweet loves And hopes ! No better thou than is the worm 156^ ANASTASIA. That sates his maw upon thy vitals, crawl? Unheeded to prey in daintiness upon Thy cheek! aye, such art thou, if death shall blot But once thy thinking soul : the grave but bar Thy thoughts : if they do sleep, who from the earth's First dawn went down into the shadows and Unto those hidden gates. Comfort thyself, that, when The mortal part is as a garment laid Aside, thou shalt but pass, with all thy thoughts, Ethereal robed, unto more fruitful deeds. Companion not of worms, as is thy flesh, But of the pure to whom thy better* gifts Aspire : removed one circle nearer to Thy God, and nearer to the light that shines Renewing on, through the perpetual years. SHERIDAN'S ADDRESS. XT ORTHMEN, roll the battle-drum ! ^ * The clarion bugle blow! The old Flag unfurl to the breeze, And on to the banquet of blood ! Be princes, and feast with great deeds: Your foeman has chosen the steeds And the charger you ride is Death! They br^and us " Cowards ! " aha ! When we ride they shall see whose cheek Turns first all bloodless and pale! Rue, rue to them was the day They lifted the sword to strike At Liberty and the mother-land. A rouser to the old Flag! The flag of their own brave sires ! A bumper to the "Mudsills" now For the towering shield of the Stars 158 SHERIDAN'S ADDRESS. Rolls onward ! on, the bayonets Onward forever ! " the shout Of the phalanx in the storm of death Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! Halberds for their haughty crests ! With us it is blow for blow : Our blades are ready to drink, And we like the liquor of heroes : Give us the flagons blood red, And see who pluckiest shall drink ! Louder yet your slogan hurrah! For the warriors who watch by the fanes Sacred with the fame of great men Advance, the Yankee Land Guards, With the eagle on wing with her stars! The battle ! we like it : the road Memorable with great foot-prints, Constellated with Glory ! With our brawny sinews we come Fired hot by the embers of wrath Leaving the axe and the anvil. SHERIDAN'S ADDRESS. 159 We come to the strife of swords : To a feast of flashing steel : To the mighty battle of shields : And we win Victory or Death ! To battle! hurrah, hurrah! The fast-flashing lightning, the roll Of the thunder, thick smoke, iron hail, And the infantry rattle, The music and play of our pastimes : Terrible, terrible, terrible, The feast and the music! Bloody, bloody, the road Waving with the Banners of Glory! But onward hurrah for the charge! On into the breach of death ! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! i6o FORWARD, VERMONT. T 7ERMONTERS ho! the drummers call ; From glen and highland come, come all ' Dixie's land shows a haughty foe To arms ! bold men, the bugles blow. Rally, the Highland Plumes, Rally, Green Mountain Boys, In your coats of blue To your country true, By the side of the brave Illinois. Arm you in steel And put spurs to the heel : Forward, Vermont ! Forward To the smoke of the battle's brunt, To the hottest fight of the front, Forward, Vermont the boys of Vermont. See, see ! the banner from afar The flashing steel and Northern Star ! Hail to the chiefs! hail to the pine FORWARD, VERMONT. l6l The wheaten sheaf and uddered kine. Ha ! 'tis the shield of Vermont, And the Green Mountain Boys, In their coats of blue To the country true, On the march for old Jeffs corduroys : The Union boys ! O, up our banner, boys: With old Bay State, forward To the place of the battle's brunt, To the hottest fight of the front, Forward, Vermont the boys of Vermont! Buckeyes and Coons, Rhoda and York, Dutchmen, Mainemen, the Macs from Cork, Are hoisting, ho! the Stripes and Stars, Are forming with their loud huzzas. O rally ! stalwart men For the Green Mountain Boys, In their coats of blue To the country true, Are the men for the drill and deploys: Up with the Flag, Our shout from mountain crag! ii 162 FORWARD, VERMONT. And with Vermont, forward To the place of the battle's brunt, To the hottest fight of the front, With old Vermont the boys of Vermont. From crest and cliff, from rock and tree, Unfolds the standard of the free : We swear that treason shall go down We rally from each mountain town, For Freedom is our own. We are the sturdy boys, In our coats of blue To the country true, In whose hand the keen steel is in poise : The Stripes and Stars! The Union aye, and all its bars Hurra, hurra ! forward To the place of the battle's brunt, To the hottest fight of the front, With old Vermont the boys of Vermont ! THE ENSIGN OF WARWICK. 'T r ^HE smoke of battle settled from the field, Where Warwick checked our firm advancing line; And with Vermont's proud boys there lay a shield, The Stars and Stripes, the Stag's Head* and the Pine. And where was seen the reek and wreck of all That strife, the bearer of his country's sign Lay bleeding ; stoutly had he led the call, And stalwart stood, waving his Mountain Pine. But in that fire-hurled hail, when thundered loud The rifle-pits that fronted all our line, His stalwart form went down, as when a cloud, With sudden flash, by lightning scathes the pine. " Comrade," said he, " I have a wound : to you I trust a message: put your hand in mine. 1 64 THE ENSIGN OF WARWICK. I have a mother : tell her \ was true To our Old Flag, Vermont, her Star and Pine; * "That where at night we beat the tattoo drum, From her prayer-book I've treasured every line ; But that on me the brunt of war has come, Yet all is well a country's gift is mine. "A sister, 'too, I have at home a sweet, Good child ; she plants for me the myrtle vine : But tell her, soldier, that we shall not meet I led at Warwick, with the Star and Pine! "A brother his a heart with kindness stored Follows the plough and yards the milking kine; He hardly ever took my father's sword And belt, or plumed his cap with sprig of Pine. "Unlike myself, no quickstep stirred his feet, Nor burned his soul for martial deeds, like mine ; He wished for quiet: I, from boyhood, beat The drum, and plumed my cap with sprig of Pine. THE ENSIGN OF WARWICK. 165 "Tell him our flag gleams through the smoke of war The flag with which Vermont did meet Bur- goyne; That I have borne aloft the single Star That Treason's rag was shadowed by the Pine. "That when the roll beats through the Northern glen Again, to spurn the plough, nor heed the kine The fame of old Vermont exacts her men ; Still Allen's banner rears the green old Pine! " And, comrade, to another say, ' Farewell ! ' (A wife's fond love, perhaps, is luck of thine.) For- her I fear I fear to have you tell How that I fell bearing the Star and Pine; "But break it to her tenderly, and say, 'The foe was dealt with sore our charge was fine!' And tell her I was proud to bear, that day, The Union Flag, the Stag's Head and the Pinel 1 66 THE ENSIGN OF WARWICK. "Comrade, to me the sun shall bring no morn; The bugle's call disturb no ear of mine ; But on, ay, on the foe shall never scorn The Lincoln Flag of Stars, Vermont's Green Pine." THE MONITOR. r I "HE mists lay off Potomac's channel, And from the Rip Raps frowned the can- non: At Newport News the beat of drum Called to the drill ; and all was dumb Within the bay, where dipped the stannel Above the war-ships' rippling pennon. A puff of smoke slow rose to landward, Behind where Sewall's ramparts echo; A tall, black stack rose up to view, The vapors crowding from each flue; And from the low, black deck a standard Of death the Serpent and Palmetto. A glance cast to that ocean wonder Brought up the sailors, idly dozing; A shout, " To post, boys, every one ! " 168 THE MONITOR. And then was heard the signal gun! Columbiads rolled their awful thunder But on she came full bent on closing. The shot hailed down in storm terrific, From belching throats of eighty-pounders ; The smoke rolled black above the ships Where growled those dogs with feverish lips; But with a monster shape, horrific, Still on she comes, nor reels, nor flounders. Broadsides of bomb, of globe, and grapnel, Upon her steel-clad beak she tosses ; And salt-sea foam she plunges through, The very devil's work to do : So well conceived of Lee and Tatnall, Old Nick should take them in for bosses. With port-holes closed, silent and sullen, She nears, and nears with boding meaning; When with a crash the oaken strand Is reft, and stove the Cumberland. Far o'er the sea is heard a knelling, As down she goes, her flag still streaming. THE MONITOR. 169 And hearts shall beat and beat on ever, Remembering those beneath that water Those brave and bold and noble tars, Who stood and perished by the Stars. Fighting, dying, and yielding never Their death-cold eyes strained on the mortar! The work is short which rolls the Congress In drifting smoke o'er land and ocean; And dark the night with doubts and fears, As the red sun now disappears ; And Union hearts that beat with fondness, Now watch the Minnesota's motion. All eyes are turned and hearts are aching To see what stalwart ship can aid her ; For beached is she, and morning light Will tell the dreaded foe her plight: The morning mists at sea are breaking, And there she stands, but who her neighbor? Hath night born to the deep a Proteus, Wisdom-endowed, to guard the channel? 17 THE MONITOR. Or paddles there the Sea-King's hulk, Which looks scarce more than human bulk? Proteus or the black craft from Erebus, It seems as lively as a spaniel. Slow puff the stacks of that black dragon, With steel-clad prow up channel headed: At easy range she opens port, When belches forth that floating fort : Proteus now tosses up his flagon, And saith, "Is this the monster dreaded?" Thanks to the brows of great Ericsson, Who sends Neptune a greater wonder, The Monitor. Well christened, he, The dreaded Mentor of the sea : 'Tis gained, 'tis gained, and glory's niche is won ! For nations at this keel shall ponder ! Thunders the night-black hulk of Norfolk And thunders back the dreadful Mentor ! No fight like this hath witnessed sea The roar, the roll and revelry ! THE MONITOR. 171 Five hours, long hours, is heard the war-shock, The voice of Proteus growing stentor. Slowly withdraws the ship defiant, When proved that she had caught a Tartar ; To mend her leaks and broken joint, Is tugged beyond old Sewall's Point, While Mentor stands, an ocean giant, To still defend the Union Charter. Slowly the smoke clears off the channel, The cloud that wraps the Sea-King frowning ; Slowly the wits of men come back From gazing on those frigates black; Looking on ships of oaken panel, They say, "But palaces these for drowning! ' COMING FROM THE WARS. T 'M coming home, Laura, Coming from the Southern wars; Sun-bronzed and worn, Laura, But one hand and with six scars: I'm coming home, Laura, Coming home to you And my two bright boys Coming in my coat of blue. I've waited long, Laura, Thinking oft of you, so true \ And thought sometimes, Laura, I ne'er should come back to you. I'm coming, etc. We've kept the flag, Laura, Floating through the storm and strife But our best men, Laura, Ne'er come back to see a wife. I'm coming, etc. COMING FROM THE WARS. 173 They dropped out ranks, Laura, On the march and in the drill; And they dropped out, Laura, In that rain of lead and shell. Not coming home, Laura, As I come to you ; Not to their bright boys, To .no wife, in coat of blue. One hand is left, Laura, And the war is over now: They could not stand, Laura, When they met the men in blue. I'm coming home, Laura, Coming home to you And my two bright boys Coming in my coat of blue. A country dear, Laura, And a country now all free, My boys will have, Laura, When I lay me down to die. I'm coming, etc. ARGIVE HELEN. AT T HERE are the heroes Helen nursed for fame? In old Argolis Agamemnon sleeps ; Achilles' direful wrath no longer burns, For he himself hath sought Patroclus' shade, And Ajax's soul hath tried the Stygian floods. Ulysses' tedious toils at length are o'er, And Circe's arts and fair Calypso's charms Have ceased to rouse his old and withered heart. The stones have crumbled ages hence, engraved With Menelaus' grief, the Spartan tomb, A sepulchre, most mute, and tenantless. At Pelion's rocky bluff Argo rides not ; Brine-eaten, her old hulk sank in decay, While Chronos chronicled the hoary deep. The shadows fall obscure the Argive hills, Enshroud the sounding shores in cold gray mists; And, in the twilight, Echo answers back From dark Olympus and from Tempe's vale, ARG1VE HELEN. 175 When Helen to her scattered children calls ! Her virgin form beside the Spartan sea, Shadowed her brow and with disheveled hair, In evening gloom she calls: "Argives, awake! Helen is lost! is lost! Lacona weeps! I saw your ships when morn-encrimsoned Troy, High-walled before Mount Ida, scorned your spears ! I saw the flashing fire, and knew your deeds: But where that fire? The idle ships unmanned; The thought-engraven brows inveiled in mists; The charge of shouting lines long passed away ; The god-inspired no more provoked to fields Of fame ; no more led on to win their bays. Alas ! that all thy heroes, Pylas, sleep ! That Nestor's mantle lies moth-eaten now: No helmet where his white plumes nod on high. None heed, none help ! O, what avails the voice The cry that echoes from the mournful sea! Dismantled ships at sea-girt Lemnos lie, Nor longer glows the fire at Vulcan's- forge Immortal Vulcan of Olympian birth ! The wine-press moulds in Scio's ancient field, The vats are empty and- the casks unfilled. 1 76 ARGIVE . HELEN. In Attica the fig-trees blossom not; Honeyed Hymettus, shorn of all her hives, Stands dark with clouds against a sunless sky ; Parnassus, muse-beloved, her lyres unstrung, Looks down upon the mossed and leaning shafts, The lonesome shores, and bays with rotting hulks; Sceptre-bearing los, on the mottled sea, Mist-swathed and rocking with an empty urn; Ivied and scarred the old Castalian flutes, And dried the nectar from the golden vase. As regal pride desert, and castles gray And ivy-hung the walks to heather grown, Twin-peaked Parnassus in the gathering haze ; Thither the Thespian winds song-breathing sigh. And further floats the cloud Apollo rides Immortal watcher with the silver bow ; Further, the murmur of Cephyssus flows, The lotus-bearing ripples where did plunge The snow-necked virgins of the Phocian town ; Further, the sound of Helicon's sweet harps. The purple linen and the tunic loose, Descending from the rosy shoulders down, No longer rustles by the sacred pools, ARGIVE HELEN. 177 Nor laughing Naiads swirl the creamy spray. The rosy-limbed, and finger-tipped the hue Of apple-blossoms kissed with May-day suns, Sun-haired, pink-lipped and cheeked, full beauty wrought To womanhood, O, cool Cephyssus thou Hast nursed : and could some Grecian maid But wrap the mantle of the Graces o'er Her heaven-dewed limbs, with full dilate of youth ! Who spring from Grecian mothers now, are but Half men. Ill-omened that the part divine Should perish out, our record half unsung. Spirit of Youth and Light ! which radiant crowned The gifted brows of such as trod the walks Of Helicon whose thought-revolving heads Divined the Argive fame : why flames not now The Grecian boy? Is that plump robustness Of childhoood's cheek, inhumed within the walls Of flesh beyond the resurrection's reach ? Descends no further down the fires which move The gods? Offspring are we of Heaven, and blaclc In our decay? Give not the Argive breasts Such food as feeds the flame of polared fires, 178 ARGIVE HELEN. Flashing on doubts, the true Olympian light? O, needs the Argive child the cradle which Storm-breeding (Eta rocked, to lull the boy Alcmena gave to clear the Nemean groves? The boy great Jupiter himself confessed Was rightful heir of heaven, though Grecian bred. Battle-wearied, the ghosts of heroes stand, And to their offspring show their many scars Their dozing heads yet idle, nod above The nerveless arms, still sinewless to grasp The handles of the plough, or draw the sword. Ah ! let them sleep : more dead than they who shook The mortal garments from their aged fires, Foot-sore upon the road of time, and halt With old infirmities, took to their couch, Sightless, but with a page of fruitful deeds. Argives, sleep on ! storm-weary rest the ships The tattered shrouds are corded to the masts, Nor Jason's voice is heard upon the deck, While threatening gales hang black on Pelion' heights. The thunder-caps which top the Thracian crags Now flash, but, to his palsied ear, no sound ARGIVE HELEN. 179 Of danger mars his deep forgetfulness. The lions walk at noon the Argive groves : Great Heracles hath laid his war-club down, Where (Eta's awful lift upbore the pile Which burned the mortal net-work from his ghost The mighty ghost tormented with the robe Poor Dejanira steeped in Nessus' blood. Juno relents at last her jealous hate, And Jove high Jove takes to his azure realms His earth-born boy, ascending in a cloud. The morning sun on cool Salembria shines The Turk sits smoking by the Hellespont But not a Thespian flute is heard from all The rocks where sat the youths Admetus paid To tend his flocks. The meadows blossom by Morea's streams ; but no Penelope Comes now to press the marge with snowy feet. Declines the day; the shadow-creeping bays Are fading 'mong the distant Argive hills; Othrys but listens as the moaning sea, Wind-tossed, surges along the rocky coast, Where Cronas sits and holds his garnered sheaves. The Grecian hulks lie rotting on the waves; l8o ARGIVE HELEN. Column and shaft of temples once renowned Are leaning, broken, in the sacred groves ; And solitary all the great highways : Untenanted cities once thronged, and mute The places fired of old with eloquence. Twilight and shadow ! only when the moon Breaks through the cloud, Latona's shores are seen Time-crumbling ruins cemeteries of art Monuments, gray in grandeur dust and urns : The stillness and the shadow unrevoked ! And Helen with uplifted hands, eyes avert, There weeps alone beside the ivied crags, And asks an answer to her piteous prayers : Only an echo cometh from the sea. LOFNA . HALL. T T 7AKEN, comrades, give the bugles wind, and let us haste away, For a coming sunbeam crimsons through the eastern veil of gray ; We are on the borders of a moorland where have sunken deer and hound, Where the gloomy forests are in beards that sweep unto the ground. To the seaward, over sandy reaches, tracts of prairie, groves quite oaken, We may change the desert and once more hear human language spoken. Once from fallen palfrey, like the knight of North in Scotland's fame, Over ridges climbing, losing hound and horse, and balked my game, 1 82 LOFNA HALL. On a maiden veiled in white, who walked demurely on alone, Came I. " Maiden, please your courtesy," I said, " a waste I tread unknown, " Faint I seek a harbor ; can you tell me whither lies the town ? Left my dogs still baying west behind the long back of the down." " Eastward," said she, " where the gold and crimson fringes mark the fall, In the shadow of yon steeple, by an oak-tree, Lofna's Hall. "There a harborage of Christian plainness ; mark the half-hid tower, As the angelus is sounding out the holy angel's hour." Through the dreamy groves of Wexford, yellowing in the mellow fall, In a daze of strange enchantment on I passed to Lofna Hall. LOFJVA HALL. 183 In my frenzy if you will, although I never was more sane, Eastward flashed a sudden light, followed by a starry rain. And I grew electric, passed beyond myself, forgot my sports, While I held a banquet with the magnates of the vestal courts. Say a fool in glamour, here I sat with Agnes hand in mine, And the dimples rippled in my eyes as if I'd drank of wine. And I looked upon her face, where rose-like stole the tints of light, And I dwindled in that presence to the merest ne- ophyte. Was I smaller for her greatness ? I was carnal, she was pure ; I was passion-flaming, she in placid stateliness de- mure. 184 LOFNA HALL, O, we show ourselves too much in brutal natures, and too much of dust, For the noble father-passion takes the level of our lust. And we lose the very hour that hinges all the world's life greatness, Hate our nobleness, and make a manhood level with our baseness. 'Twas a wondrous atmosphere of peace that fell as holy rain, Never dropt from witch-elm boughs so sweet a dew to Allanbane. Deep I plunged in song, and deeper in the subtle- ties of things Which stand symbols for the future, which a large- ness brings ; Saw the starry head of Hope that waits a victor crowned in bays, And foretells the greener spring that buddeth for the future days ; LOFNA HALL. 185 Saw as Paul, who knew not whether in the body or without, What was far. too high for this poor lapsing age of human doubt. There I rested, and forgot the long black ridges of the downs, Left the chase along the heath and moorland to the hounds. Swallows in the evening leave the wing, the roebucks cease to roam, Willingly the knight lets his charger's bit dry of the foam. Did I feast with Christian patience of the wine in lees, and corn? Nay, another craving more demanding in me there was born. All my thoughts did smite me, shake me as a tem- pest shakes a tree, As I passed to Lofna Hall. I was bondman and no longer free. !86 LOFNA HALL. And I said, " O, speak me, Agnes ; I am tortured of a pain, There is drought upon my soul that needeth much the fall of rain. " All my being lifteth, all my being drifteth up to thee.'' And she looked on me as angels look, with face of purity. And her liquid eyelids raining down a tender passion rain, Trembling in her speech, and choked with sighs which were more bliss than pain, Said she, " If you love me, Malcom, somewhere in the universe We will find an Eden never to be blighted with the curse. " Wait a little for my vows ; there seems a hand upon my little bark, And I drift in doubt and often in the peril of the dark j LOFNA HALL* 187 " We must trust the doubtful, unrevealed in Provi- dence ; Here my vows .hold to my conscience, if they war against my sense." Was there more to say? What purpose more en- nobling, high of mind, Than to keep a conscience ? False and fickle, fickle as the wind. Men do speak of woman, that she never can be trusted, knows Not to-day to-morrow's wish, to-morrow's whim ; the wind that blows Takes her sail and drifts her as the chaff is drifted by the gale, Ay, and this so often that it is now growing some- what stale. Never more a scandal, never more a falsehood, speak it he who will ! You will find false women, but the truest true is woman still. !88 LOFNA HALL. First at daybreak she to find the stone rolled from * the sepulchre, Last to leave the cross that ever waiteth, as it seems, for her. Faithful in her self-denying, faithful in her daily tears ; And the man shames noble manhood, who about his mother sneers. " As the husband so the wife is." Apropos, how would it sound, "As the woman so her husband"? Is the quid pro quo aground? Patient goodness saveth, virtue falling drags in its descent ; " As the woman so the house is," props the subtle argument. Hark you, find in woman inspirations born from springs of lofty source, Something better than the slave of passion, cursing nature in her course. LOFNA HALL. 189 False the world's old teaching to the newer fires that sunlike blaze ; Give us nobler language, nobly fitting to the record of these modern days, Symbols pregnant of the living, glowing like the full- orbed morn, From the shadows of the midnight and auroral fleck- ings born. Give us symbols of the upward leading, symbols of the heart, Where the vulgar dwindles, where the godlike kindles every part. Then I said, " I'll to my purpose, for the world is full of needs ; Tis the time of battle, and to-morrow hints of bravest deeds." Faint I hear the human footstep urging on its fevered tramp, All the desert whitens where the noble-souled knights templars camp. I9 LOFNA HALL. Ships in purple twilight drift, upborne by magic keel and oar, Riding out the remnant of a storm, while thunders distant roar. 'Tis an age to break the bubbles of conceit, haul down the foist of shams, To discard the doctrine that our Romuluses nurse but wolfish dams. Some say love degrades, and drags the man immortal down j I grew upward, ever from the vulgar, ever from the clown. It hath bred the manners, dignity in Parliaments of heaven ; For our manhood 'tis the chemistry where ever works the leaven. O we stickle for the blood so stagnant and in senile veins, Conscience, reason, passion scorn it, even lust the law disdains. LOFNA HALL. ! 9 ! If our fashions make our women kiss their poodles, talk with polls, Out with fashion, fie on ribbons, give us something more than dolls. Give to woman larger room, and call her not the lesser man; Man is unit, unit through the subtleties of nature's plan In the grander parliaments, the federations of the world, There shall woman speak, another banner shall be then unfurled, Bearing conscience as its motto ; weakest factors are our slaves, Be they male or female, all too much the tools are they of knaves. We have lost our conscience, if indeed it was not ever dumb; It will nobly speak in Christ and woman in the time to come ; 192 LOFNA HALL. And the things which shall be are but shadowed; wait a little, pray, Till you see the newer age that ushers in the grander day. You shall see the party trampled, triumph of the higher law, Villains held to answer who are slipping through the verbal flaw ; Science, letters, morals in the state, the role of par- liament, All the age an age of virtue with the tranquil of , content. Beauty builds her temple, graces crown with purity divme j Let no lecherous dog perform the priestly offerings at her shrine. None may to that altar go in rags, clothed in less whiteness, less Noble-thoughtedness than angels ; go, but as to sac- raments to bless, LOFNA HALL. 193 And as royally for to be blessed. Here earth and . you a crown may gain, Heaven a star. Accept the joy, the sorrow of the birthright pain. But of love, the sweet embrace of love's most pure delight, find all Lust forgotten. Pray the angels here to guard you lest you fall. There be some who seem to near the star-encircled height of fame, While flies an ever-fleeting promise budding on a fruitless aim : I shall patient wait the love-lorn 'plaining of the night guitars, Search the distance trembling in the spheral wilder- ness of stars, But I'll find the Agnes I adore ; somewhere in the universe Greens our Eden, and for all the waiting will it be the worse? 13 I 9 4 LOFNA HALL. Eastward at the harbor stands a brig, now putting out a sail ; Morning crimsons and my marches call me ; blow the bugle's hail. THE SNOW FAY. r I ^HE trees were sere, and sere was the month of the year, And the sunbeams flared in the west ; The singing birds had flown from the meadows mown, And the jay wore a speckled vest From her crystal seat in a cloud a snow fay's eyes Caught the scene so dreary and bare ; "For the earth I will weave a mantle," she said, "the prize Of my fingers' most delicate care." And she wove a white frost-web in her fairy loom, Of the dew of the cold void sphere ; She took the chambers of the sky for a room, And spun in the starlight clear. I9 6 THE SNOW FAY. She spun, she reeled, and she beat by the astral lamps That flicker so far above, And the oafs pearl-clad she called from the elfin camps To the patient work of love. And a tricksy sprite on a moonbeam rode unto Dian, Who sat in a light canoe, Rowing away from the purple halls of the Lion, And she swung her lamp in the blue. Then fast beat the silent looms, and the crystal thread In the rapid shuttle flew, And the tiny oafland flakes did gather and wed, And sift from the hazy blue. At length, the mists below in the lowest air, Uplifted as fog on a stream ; And no longer sere and bare was the earth, but fair Was her gown as a fairy's dream. THE SNOW FAY. 197 On steeds of frost, then the ouphies fled to their camps, And Valhallas' horns did blow ; And Odin searched all night by the astral lamps For the delicate men of snow. For the weirdest thing, said Odin, the world has seen, Is the web so crystal and sheen, Nor at Niffleheim or Jotunheim was found How the silver bobbin was wound. A virgin priestess there whom the sky-men call a Norn, Whose page was an oafland sprite j The Skaldas sing us, in songs of the earliest morn, Taught the elfins to spin that night. And Dian, mid-west looking out of her great hall- door, Smiled down soft smiles on the mere ; All the woods were in silvery leaf; from roof and floor Through the halls shone the oafland spear. 198 THE SNOW FAY. Gnarled oaks, as knights in beard by rude castles and grim, Stood accoutered, the pine-trees tall, Old guards of the white bannered camps, haughty and slim, Frost-hooded arose over all. The hazels as queens sat beaded and jeweled; with pearls The willows bent down in their grace \ Old elms by the abbeys, as monks in their powder and curls, Stood dumbly with gloom on their face. Weird weavers the oafs who toil in the starlit camps, Of the phantom dews build their show ; Who of ghostly rivers above and the midnight damps, Fill the frost-looms with webs of snow. ANGEL OF BEAUTY. A NGEL of beauty, sprite of my dreams, Why never await the light of the morn ? Softly the sunlight breaks on the streams, And dew-drooping lilies bend on the lawn. Fly not, thou fair of my dreams, O, tarry an hour, Where the sweet-scented flower Is kissed by the morning's bright beams. Angel of beauty, O tarry, I pray ; Why only in dreams this face from the sky? Though you blush with the blushes that steal on the day, Press lip unto lip, let eye look on eye, Fly not, thou fair of my dreams, O, tarry an hour, Where the sweet-scented flower Is kissed by the morning's bright beams. THE BROKEN BELL. broken bell, the broken bell, Within the belfry hangs ; The old Academy bell, the bell Of the days of Auld Lang Syne, That pealed its clamor and pealed its clangs, Its dongs, its dingle, dongle, dangs, Whose liquid monotones did leap and swell, And roll and rage through molten cell, Through curve, ellipse, and parallel, In beating out its time, In calling off the school-boys' time, Time, time, time, With its dingle, dongle, dangs, With its clamor and its bangs, Prompting all the school-boys to the time. THE BROKEN BELL. 2OI II. 'Tis sad to hear the jarring bell, In other days so clear ; Some accident must have befell This monitor of time ; For only now a flat-toned note Comes out its hollow, molten throat, Comes out the chamber where his iron tongue dwells, That breaks and falters as it knells, Jars and strangles in its cells, All the liquid cadence of its rhyme, All the flowing sweetness of the Nine, Nine, Nine, Nine, All the melody and music of the Nine. in. Some twenty years pr more ago, I used to hear it toll ; We hastened to its call, I know, To answer to the roll. The tardy-mark was sure to come If, when the school had once begun, 202 THE BROKEN BELL. Our lagging self, nor quick nor slow, Came pacing up the winding stairs below ; Came wheezing, puffing, all aglow, Behind the clamor of the toll, The tap meant for the call of roll, The clang and clamor from patrol, The warning to us all To quit at once the quoit and ball, All, all, all, To quit at once the play at quoit and ball. IV. Ah, sad, most sad ! poor cheer Now flows within our wine ; It is the friend of many a year, The friend of Auld Lang Syne. The old Brick House has been the jest Of many a wag, and many a priest Has cursed its broken walls, I fear; But there be some who have a tender teai To shed, as mem'ry lingers here : Ay, there be some whose hearts can tell The struggling hope, the light that fell, THE BROKEN BELL. 203 The joy that lingers in the bell, That beat the hours of one and nine, In the days of Auld Lang Syne. Beat, beat, beat, For us the time in the days of Auld Lang Syne. v. Unbare and drink, for now we'll miss This friend and pet of old. There are some days that deepen bliss, And days forever cold. A school-boy knows the up, the down, Where nests the smile, where lurks the frown ; He knows the aching of his brain, Of little thoughts slow born in human pain, The struggle which is never vain ; Of days brightly blinking with many a cheer, Of days sadly linking with many a tear, Cheer, cheer, cheer, With many a cheer and many a tear. So brave, so noble, the days were here, Days of Lang Syne, Lang Syne, and the bell so dear. 204 THE BROKEN BELL. VI. 'Tis done, 'tis done ! its brazen throat Will never, never ring That mellow and familiar note, Dear Auld Lang Syne we'll sing. I mind a change is on us all Who used to meet in that old hall ; It matters not how much we doat On loved remembrances that backward float And cluster round the old bell's note ; We ne'er shall see that bright, gay time, When rung the bell its merry chime In the days of Auld Lang Syne ; When it rang the hour of nine, The hours of one and nine, Nine, nine, nine, One, one, one, one, the hours of one and nine. SONG OF THE HYACINTH. NE lay with bright eyes looking for the Christ, And so near to heaven it seemed that she could hear The song of flowers. A purple hyacinth, Which from a vase drank dew and shed it round In fragrance, played an interlude that called Her half-flown spirit back. For when her eye Was fixed on it, till all her face did smile, She handed forth her pale white hand and asked That it be given her. We never shall forget That smile, the dainty way her fingers toyed Among the petals ; lastly, unto her nose The flower pressing, music cadences Began, " How sweet ! " 'twas even as a child Sweet toys and grows aflame with joy. And as We gazed and saw the dappled halo glow 2 o6 SONG OF THE HYACINTH. And ripple over all her face, we said It is the breaking light of heaven. That night She died, the fragrance of the hyacinth Upon her fingers, sweetest smile that e'er Warmed human face yet lingering ; and her Low lullaby a song of that sweet flower. SONG. There is no death, no death, my dearest, No death but death of pain ; The sleeping ones, my child, are nearest To Aiden's rapturing strain. The sleeping ones with flowers are singing, " Holy, holy, heaven is fair ; " The weary ones of earth are bringing Their sweet sopranos there. O, fold thy lids and drop thy sorrow, And sleep thee free of pain ; And when thou wakest on the morrow Thou wilt be born again. SONG OF THE HYACINTH. 207 O sleep the sleep past earth's sad waking, This death is nature's rest; And in the new morn that is breaking Drift thee unto the blest. TO THE EVENING WIND. "\T 7HENCE comest thou, O evening wind, From clouds within the soft southwest ? With spicy breath from shores of Ind ? Or hast kissed the cheek of Araby the blest ? O, tell me, tell me, wandering breeze, Lone sighing in the swaying trees ; There is a fragrance on the hills Of the golden orient daffodils. I hear, I hear thy music swell Amid the grand old elms ; the pines With lofty cones, from crag and dell Where all the dreamy day declines, Break forth with wild harmonic chords ; Invisible are they whose words Are whispered from the haunted wood Where seems an airy multitude. TO THE EVENING WIND. 209 O restless child of earth and air, Whose formless steeds stride on amain, Whose presence seemeth everywhere, Thy snorting leaders snap the rein, And wing their flight from zone to zone ; The wilderness to man unknown, Doth hail thee with a myriad harps, Sad minors' plain, loud scream the sharps. Where drifts the lotus-flower, adown The yellow Ganges' sacred flood, Thy zephyrs fan the fevered town, Thou bear'st them tidings of the Budd. There loll'st thy way through saffron skies As drip the rain-drops from thine eyes; While Naiads bathe in Bengal Jair, Thy fingers part their streaming hair. Sing on, O wind, sweet evening wind ; The sick man casts his longing eye, As through the latticed window-blind Thy wafted whispers come a-nigh ; 2io TO THE EVENING WIND. Thy wooing voice doth lull his ear, For very joy there starts a tear ; Pain yields her subtle sting, as thou Dost pass thy finger o'er his brow. And the pale maiden at the door Hath rosy tints upon her cheeks The while thou paintest health, and o'er Her lily neck dost play thy freaks. And she on whom consumption's flush Is seen, doth hear thy silver hush ; Like sainted mother's voice it seems, And while she sleeps, more sweetly dreams. O wanderer of the spirit land, Voiceful in cities, solitudes ; Rough when thou roar'st along the strand ; Or lulls the shore at interludes, If thy low voice bewail the woe When fury lets her chargers go ; Nor softer lute than thine is blown When touched the silver chords thine own. TO THE EVENING WIND. 2 \\ O wind, O wind, sweet evening wind, Sing on ; not Herme's magic shell, Where the Nine Muses the tortoise bind, Hath woven a more bewitching spell. Beside the murmur of some stream With half-shut eyes I seem to dream, And dream, the murmurs floating by, And floating never come more nigh. O wanderer of the past ! O wind Who'lt wander in the future years As lonely as the desert hind ; Thy rest forever disappears. The dim long wastes thy song shall woo, New ages hear thy breezes blow ; But all thy years so manifold, O wind, shall never see thee old. Sweet evening wind, when laid at rest, A silent sleeper among the dead, And when the violets o'er my breast Are blown, wilt thou come to my bed? 212 TO THE EVENING WIND. Methinks my sleep would sweeter be, If thy sweet strains were in the tree, If but within the willowed glen Were heard thy low, soft requiem. 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