c 
 
 l\SV^ Jl,
 
 POEMS 
 
 WRITTEN" FROM YOUTH TO OLD AGE, 
 
 1824-1884. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HOWARD BRYANT. 
 
 PRINCETON, ILLINOIS: 
 
 t. P. STREETER, LESSEE, REPUBLICAN JOP, DEPARTMENT, 
 
 1885.
 
 / 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 The Author of the following pieces has not come before the 
 public with the thought of acquiring any very extended or per 
 manent reputation as a writer of Poetry. But as most of these 
 verses have appeared onlv in the short-lived pages of the news 
 papers, and as some of them have been pretty widely copied with 
 expressions of approval, he has not thought it presumptuous in 
 him to put them in a more durable form, and present them to the 
 public as they now appear. Edition of 1855. 
 
 These Poems were written at various dates, covering a period 
 of more than half a century, during which time great movements 
 and changes in the world of thought and opinion have been going 
 forward. The writer has not remained unaffected by these influ 
 ences. If, therefore, some incongruity appears between the earlier 
 and the later pieces, it is but natural, and I have thought it best to 
 let them stand together as written. 
 
 The order in which these Poems appear in this volume is with 
 out reference to the time when they were written. 
 
 PRINCETON, ILLINOIS, JULY, 1885.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 My Native Vale 9 
 
 The Traveller's Return 1 1 
 
 The Blind Restored to Sight 13 
 
 The Mountain Graveyard 15 
 
 Sonnet Beautiful Streamlet, &c 19 
 
 The Wanderer's Lament. 20 
 
 A Night Scene 24 
 
 Hymn _. 27 
 
 The Hermit Thrush. 30 
 
 The Emigrant 33 
 
 Indian Summer 36 
 
 The New England Pilgrim's Funeral 38 
 
 Sonnet 'Tis Autumn, &c 41 
 
 Sonnet There is a Magic, &c 42 
 
 Lament of the Corsair's Wife 43 
 
 Sonnet to .. .. 46 
 
 Song of the Chamois Hunters 47 
 
 Winter 51 
 
 The Brook- walk 55 
 
 Sonnet Like Music, c 63 
 
 Sonnet October __ 64 
 
 On Leaving the Place of my Nativity 65 
 
 Roger Crane 69 
 
 The Better Part.. 74
 
 V. 
 
 Senatch wine's Grave 76 
 
 Sonnet 79 
 
 The Ancient Oak 80 
 
 A Day in Autumn 83 
 
 Lines on Finding a Fountain &c 85 
 
 The Emigrant's Song 88 
 
 After Death 90 
 
 The Little Cloud 92 
 
 The Valley Brook- 94 
 
 A Reverie 97 
 
 Invocation .. 99 
 
 The Maples.. 102 
 
 A Recollection 107 
 
 Border Courtship A Reminiscence 109 
 
 John Smith's Epistle to Kate .116 
 
 A Summer Morning Scene 120 
 
 Written at Cummington, 1870 123 
 
 Lines Written on Visiting My Birthplace, May, 1866 125 
 
 A Fragment __ ..127 
 
 Uncertainty ..128 
 
 Sonnet ug 
 
 The Outcast --130 
 
 The Approach of Age 133 
 
 Song of Labor --136 
 
 The Hills of Paradise .138 
 
 Hymn 140 
 
 Death of Lincoln .142 
 
 Drought .14-5 
 
 Days at Nassau 14.5 
 
 Sad News from Home 148 
 
 Autumn 150 
 
 Three Sonnets 12
 
 VI. 
 
 Autumnal Evenings 154. 
 
 Lines Without Name 157 
 
 To H. 1831 161 
 
 Upward, Onward 165 
 
 Welcome to the Returned Veterans, 1863 . ... 166 
 
 Welcome to the Returned Soldiers, 1865 ryo 
 
 For a Golden Wedding, Sep. 21, 1863 173 
 
 Then and Now Read at the Old Settlers' Meeting, 1864 178 
 
 Temperance Read before the Princeton, Bureau County, 
 
 Washingtonian Society, December 1840- 185 
 
 In Memoriam iSS 
 
 On the Death of Mrs. M 190 
 
 On the Death of Ichabod Codding 192 
 
 Farewell Hymn. ..194 
 
 Installation Hymn 195 
 
 Hymn Sung at the Dedication of the Princeton High School 
 
 Building 197 
 
 Dedication Hymn . ...... 199 
 
 Poem for December 22d 200 
 
 At the Tomb of Lincoln - 204 
 
 Hymn Sung at the Congregational Church, at Princeton, at the 
 Last Service Held in their Old House of Worship, 1845. .208 
 
 Hymn 210 
 
 In Meinorium -- ..211 
 
 Sonnet 213 
 
 War 214 
 
 Lines Written for Decoration Day, May 3oth, 1879 216 
 
 Hymn Written for the Cummington Centennial 218 
 
 Century Poem Read at the Cumminglon Centennial Celebra 
 tion, June 26th, 1879 219 
 
 A Monody . .- 234 
 
 Notes. . 238-239
 
 POEMS.
 
 POEMS. 
 
 MY NATIVE VALE. 
 
 There stands a dwelling in a peaceful vale, 
 With sloping hills and waving woods around, 
 
 Fenced from the blast. There never ruder gale 
 Bows the tall grass that covers all the ground; 
 
 And planted shrubs are there, and cherished 
 flowers, 
 
 And brightest verdure born of gentle showers. 
 
 'Twas there my young existence was begun; 
 
 My earliest sports were on its flowery green; 
 And often, when my school- boy task was done, 
 
 I climbed its hills to view the pleasant scene, 
 And stood and gazed till the sun's setting ray 
 Shone on the height the sweetest of the day. 
 
 There, when that hour of mellow light was come, 
 And mountain shadows cooled the ripened 
 grain, 
 
 I watched the weary yeoman plodding home 
 In the lone path that winds across the plain, 
 
 To rest his limbs, and watch his child at play, 
 
 And tell him o'er the labors of the day.
 
 10 
 
 And when the woods put on their autumn glow, 
 And the bright sun came in among the trees, 
 
 And leaves were gathered in -the glen below, 
 Swept softly from the mountain by the breeze, 
 
 I wandered, till the starlight, on the stream, 
 
 At length awoke me from my fairy dream. 
 
 Ah! happy days, too happy to return, 
 
 Fled on the wings of youth's departed years: 
 
 A bitter lesson has been mine to learn, 
 
 The truth of life, its labors, pains, and fears. 
 
 Yet does the memory of my boyhood stay, 
 
 A twilight of the brightness passed away. 
 
 My thoughts steal back to that dear dwelling 
 
 still, 
 
 Its flowers and peaceful shades before me rise: 
 The play-place and the prospect from the hill, 
 
 Its summer verdure and autumnal dyes; 
 The present brings its storms, but. while they 
 
 last, 
 I shelter seek in the delightful past.
 
 11 
 
 THE TRAVELLER'S RETURN. 
 
 I stood upon an airy height, in summer 
 
 verdure drest; 
 Tall trees, the elders of the wood, rose o'er me 
 
 to the west. 
 A lovely vale before me lay, and on the golden 
 
 air 
 Crept the blue smoke, in quiet trains, from roofs 
 
 that clustered there. 
 I saw where, in my early days, I passed the 
 
 pleasant hours 
 
 Beside the winding brook that still went prat 
 tling to its flowers; 
 And still, around my parent's home, the slender 
 
 poplars grew, 
 Whose glossy leaves were swaved and turned 
 
 O v *J 
 
 by every wind that blew. 
 The clover with its heavy bloom was tossing in 
 
 the gale, 
 And the tall crowfoot's yellow stars still 
 
 sprinkled all the vale; 
 The forests stood as freshly green and stretched 
 
 as far away,
 
 12 
 
 And still upon the orchard ground, the same 
 
 round shadows lay. 
 
 Still chattered there the merry wren, the cheer 
 ful robin sung, 
 The brook still purled from woody glen, o'er 
 
 which the w r ild vine swung. 
 I lingered till the crimson clouds, upon the 
 
 evening sky, 
 O'erhung the hills as gloriously as in the days 
 
 gone by. 
 All these are what they were when first these 
 
 pleasant hills I ranged, 
 But faces that I knew before, by time and toil 
 
 are changed; 
 Where youth and , bloom were on the cheek, 
 
 and gladness on the brow, 
 I only meet the marks of care and pain and 
 
 sorrow now,
 
 13 
 
 THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 
 
 " And I went and washed, and I received sight." John /'.v, 2. 
 
 When the Great Master spoke, 
 He touched his withered eyes, 
 
 And at one gleam upon him broke 
 The glad earth and the skies. 
 
 And he saw the city's walls, 
 And king's and prophet's tomb, 
 
 And mighty arches and vaulted halls 
 And the temple's lofty dome. 
 
 He looked on the river's flood 
 And the flash of mountain rills, 
 
 And the graceful wave of palms that stood 
 Upon Judea's hills. 
 
 He saw, on heights and plains. 
 
 Creatures of every race; 
 But a mighty thrill ran through his veins 
 
 When he met the human face.
 
 14 
 
 And his virgin sight beheld 
 
 The ruddy glow of even. 
 And the thousand shining orbs that filled 
 
 The azure depths of heaven. 
 
 Though woman's voice before 
 Had cheered his gloomy night, 
 
 To see the angel form she wore 
 Made deeper the delight. 
 
 And his heart, at daylight's close, 
 For the bright world where he trod. 
 
 And when the yellow morning rose. 
 Gave speechless thanks to God.
 
 15 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN GRAVEYARD. 
 
 I know a hill with a breast of flowers 
 Where the swallows play in the summer hours, 
 Where the grasshopper chirps and the wild bee 
 
 hums, 
 
 And the low of the kine on the cool air comes, 
 And the soft winds breathe with a whispering 
 
 sigh 
 
 From the skirt of the lofty woodland nigh. 
 There the cheerful sound of the streamlet rings 
 As it leaps away from the place of springs; 
 The strawberry blossoms in May dew there, 
 And ripens its fruit in the summer air; 
 And the grey squirrel barks in the beechen wood 
 As he gathers the nuts for his winter food. 
 'Tis a spot where the daylight latest stays 
 And earliest comes with its crimson rays. 
 And life is above where the light winds go, 
 But the dead are asleep in the earth below. 
 There are shrubs and wild briars springing 
 
 round, 
 And I know by the stones and the swell of the 
 
 ground,
 
 Where the friends that have gone before me lie. 
 Each one with his feet to the eastern sky; 
 Yes. the fair young child, with its flaxen hair, 
 And age, with the marks of toil and care, 
 And youth, with its joys and its hopes so bright, 
 With a blooming cheek and an eye of light. 
 And they in the strength and midst of life. 
 Are gathered here from earth's toil and strife ; 
 And the mean of earth and the good and brave 
 Lie side by side in the quiet grave. 
 
 I go to that spot when the early flowers 
 Awake on these bright sunny hills of ours; 
 When the airs of the south breathe over the 
 
 plain. 
 
 And the bluebird sings in the woods again; 
 When, waked by rains from their winter rest, 
 Brook calls to brook on the mountain's breast, 
 And the young leaves dance in each passing 
 
 breath, 
 I often visit these haunts of death. 
 
 When the summer comes, with its sultry heat. 
 And fierce on the earth the sunbeams beat; 
 When the leaf on the poplar's bough is still, 
 And hushed is the voice of the mountain rill:
 
 17 
 
 When the tall grass droops in the torrid glare, 
 And no sound is abroad in the motionless air, 
 I wander there for a breath of the gale 
 That's a stranger then in my native vale. 
 
 When the maize on the autumn hills is white, 
 And the yellow forests are bathed in light; 
 When the sun looks down with a milder ray, 
 And the dry leaves whirl in the gust away; 
 When the evening comes with glorious hues, 
 And the crimson clouds distill their dews; 
 When the winds of the icy north are still, 
 I sometimes visit this lonely hill. 
 
 I have followed through winter's sleety air 
 The lifeless form of a parent there, 
 When the deep snows over the mountains lay, 
 And the voiceless streams flowed slowly away. 
 Seven brothers and sisters stood around 
 The narrow vault in the frozen ground; 
 With their sainted mother, her great heart 
 
 broke, 
 
 Her tall form bowed by the sudden stroke. 
 And we buried him there when the north winds 
 
 blew,
 
 And our tears fell fast like the summer dew, 
 And like ice to our hearts the cold earth slid, 
 With a hollow sound, on his coffin lid. 
 
 And still as the years of my life depart 
 Shall that lonely spot be dear to my heart; 
 For many a friend of my earlier days. 
 Who journeyed with me life's devious ways, 
 There lies in his long, long dreamless rest, 
 With the damp earth clinging around his breast; 
 And a voice comes up from each grassy tomb 
 As I tread those paths in the twilight's gloom, 
 That tells me the hours of my own brief day 
 Are swiftly and silently passing away.
 
 19 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Beautiful streamlet by my dwelling side, 
 I love thy shining sands, thy banks of grass; 
 I love to see thy silver water pass, 
 Hurrying beneath the willow boughs to hide. 
 Thy nursing springs are in the forest shade, 
 Moss-bank and rock, brown trunk and ancient 
 
 tree, 
 
 Woodbirds and wild flowers are thy company, 
 Until thou glitterest in the open glade. 
 Thou wert my playmate in my early 'days; 
 I built cascades and tiny bridges then; 
 Now thoughtfully on thy green banks I gaze, 
 And thy bright current, gushing through its 
 
 glen, 
 
 Pure as the air above it, and as free. 
 And wish my heart were void of stain like thee.
 
 20 
 
 THE WANDERER'S LAMENT. 
 
 0, for the days of youth again. 
 
 The days of peace and plenty. 
 Before I left my father's house, 
 
 When I was one and twenty. 
 
 When, on the grass-plot by the door, 
 
 I sported with the spaniel, 
 And life went merry as a brook 
 
 Along its stony channel. 
 
 But now to me the times are changed, 
 
 And I am sad and weary; 
 I've proved the world, the smiling world, 
 
 And found it cold and dreary. 
 
 I've wandered far upon the land, 
 
 And far upon the ocean, 
 When the dark waves were temptest-tossed 
 
 In fierce and wild commotion. 
 
 I've climbed the Andes' rocky heights 
 And viewed the realms below me, 
 
 And mused upon the loveliest scenes 
 Those lofty heights could show me.
 
 21 
 
 I've passed to earth's remotest isles 
 
 Across the mighty waters; 
 I've greeted Asia's wildest sons, 
 
 And seen her fairest daughters. 
 
 When we had spread our swelling sail, 
 And homeward were returning, 
 
 The light of hope within my breast, 
 Was warm and brightly burning. 
 
 I clomb the mast, I strained my eye, 
 To catch the distant landing, 
 
 The misty mountain and the wood, 
 Upon its summit standing. 
 
 And when they met my sight at dawn, 
 What pleasures thrilled my bosom ; 
 
 Gay-colored woods before me lay, 
 Like one unbounded blossom. 
 
 And I have reached my childhood's home 
 
 And found it all deserted; 
 Have wept beside its roofless walls 
 
 Like "one that's broken hearted. 
 
 'Tis fourteen summers since I left 
 The birth-place of my fathers, 
 
 Where now his wreath of wilding flowers 
 The truant school-boy gathers.
 
 22 
 
 The wild brier and thy cherry tree 
 
 Grow in the ruined cellar, 
 And in its wall the cricket chirps, 
 
 A solitary dweller. 
 
 'Tis noon, calm noon the yellow woods 
 In Autumn light are sleeping; 
 
 As if for playmates passed away, 
 Yon little brook is weeping. 
 
 All, all is changed, save the brown hills,- 
 They hold their wonted station ; 
 
 But in my aching bosom reigns 
 A deeper desolation. 
 
 God! I live without a friend, 
 A dreary world before me; 
 
 My parents' eyes are closed in death. 
 That bent so kindly o'er me. 
 
 My hair is grey 'tis early grey 
 'Tis grey with toil and sorrow; 
 
 My cheek is hollow, and my brow 
 Is ploughed with many a furrow. 
 
 Twilight is deepening, and the hills 
 Look distant, dim, and sober; 
 
 I'm sitting by my ruined home 
 In bleak and brown October.
 
 23 
 
 All sounds of day have left the air, 
 
 The grass with frost is hoary, 
 And I have staid alone to write 
 
 This brief but rueful story; 
 
 Staid, till the winds have chilled my blood. 
 
 On these dim hills benighted; 
 Staid, but no friend my coming waits, 
 
 No hearth for me is lighted.
 
 24 
 
 A NIGHT SCENE. 
 
 It is deep midnight; on the verdant hills 
 In beauty spread, the broad white moonlight 
 
 lies. 
 
 No sound is heard save that the grey owl hoots, 
 At intervals, in the old mossy wood. 
 Or save the rustle of the aspen leaves, 
 That ceaseless turn upon their slender steins, 
 When not a breath is felt in all the heaven. 
 Standing upon an eminence, I see 
 The haunts of men around. The world is still. 
 The busy and the bustling are at rest: 
 Their mingled voices do not fill the air, 
 As when I tread these haunts at noon of day. 
 The birds are silent now, and the tired beasts 
 Are slunk to rest. Almost beneath my feet 
 Stand cottages, the dwellings of the poor, 
 And prouder mansions of the rich and great. 
 The cottager and all his little ones 
 Are slumbering now; theirs is a sweeter sleep 
 Than luxury and wealth can ever give. 
 Not distant far, upon a gentle swell,
 
 With its background of orcharding and wood, 
 And more immediate circle of green trees, 
 My much loved home, my native dwelling 
 
 stands. 
 
 Its roof is glimmering in the white moonshine. 
 And all its inmates, save myself, at rest. 
 I see the little brook meandering there, 
 But do not hear its voice; the trembling light 
 Of the full moon falls on its shifting waves, 
 And is thrown back in flashes on my eye. 
 How sweet the stillness of this midnight hour! 
 It banishes the cares of busy life. 
 The Spirit of the Mightiest is abroad, 
 It fills the boundless air, the spreading wood, 
 The wilds, the lonely deserts of the earth. 
 And all her populous realms. 
 
 In a few hours, 
 
 The rosy morn will break upon the hills, 
 And all these sleepers start to life again; 
 The gay to spend another day of mirth. 
 The housewife to her toil, the laboring man 
 To his accustomed task. The little birds 
 That perch in silence on these lofty trees, 
 Shall then break forth in songs, wild woodland 
 
 songs,
 
 Such as were chanted on the sixth day's morn 
 In Eden's bowers, to hail the birth of man. 
 And Summer's morning wind shall breathe 
 
 again, 
 
 And toss the dew-drops from the forest leaves, 
 And all this solemn stillness be exchanged 
 For murmur and for motion. 
 
 Standing here, 
 
 And looking on this varied scenery, spread 
 So beautiful around, I feel a power, 
 As of the Great Omnipotent upon me. 
 That calls my heart to worship; 1 will kneel 
 Here bj* the side of this o'erhanging wood. 
 And like the patriarchs of ancient time, 
 Who worshipped on the mountains, offer up 
 Beneath heaven's mighty arch, my humble 
 
 hymn 
 To the great Keeper of the sleeping world.
 
 27 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 Almighty! Thou didst stretch abroad the 
 
 heavens ; 
 Thy hand planted their depths with stars, and 
 
 set 
 
 The glorious sun eternal in the midst, 
 And gave them all their courses through the air. 
 Thy breath rolled the deep darkness from the 
 
 face 
 
 Of the beginning; light and life of Thee 
 Were born, and still do emanate from Thee. 
 To all that is, Thou givest life, and shed'st 
 Thy glorious light on all. And thou didst lay 
 Earth's deep and firm foundations: and didst 
 
 spread 
 
 O'er all her breast health, beauty and deep joy. 
 Thou didst uplift the morning; and the night 
 Calm, silent, is an ordinance of Thine. 
 Nothing is so minute, 1 but speaks Thy power; 
 Each opening flower proclaims infinity, 
 And every stirring leaf, a God. This earth, 
 This might}' globe upon its centre turns, 
 And gives a glimpse of Thine eternal works,
 
 A narrow glimpse that shows superior worlds 
 As specks, and distant suns as points. How vast. 
 How beautiful, are all thy works, God ! 
 This silent hour of midnight speaks of Thee, 
 And nature's loveliness proclaims Thee near. 
 Stretched far around, the woody mountains lie, 
 Upheaved and motionless banks of white mist 
 Rest sweetly in the moonlight o'er the vales. 
 And the calm river tells a peaceful tale 
 As it moves oceanward. The winds are not. 
 Heaven's wide blue arch is noiseless as the grave, 
 And peace, deep peace, is written on the scene. 
 
 The dead in yonder bank sleep quietly. 
 For thou, God, dost keep them, and thine eye 
 Is ever on their dark and still abodes. 
 
 The oppressor and the oppressed are gathered 
 
 there, 
 
 The rich and poor on the same level rest, 
 And friends and foes lie nerveless side by side. 
 The same green turf is on the breasts of all, 
 And the same dreamless sleep their common lot. 
 Ah! who can look upon their silent tombs 
 Where rest the generations past away, 
 And read not there the frailty of mankind; 
 Read that his life's a vapor, fading fast, 
 That honor and distinction are a name,
 
 And pomp and riches but a fleeting shade. 
 Lo! man comes forth in glory! walks the earth, 
 Pride kindles in his eye, and joy and hope 
 And love sit mantling on his youthful cheek; 
 An hour glides by, and he is with the dead. 
 Thou in his mid career dost smite him down, 
 And lay his expectations in the dust. 
 Thy works, Father, teach me that thou art! 
 Mute nature has a voice that tells of thee: 
 And may I learn a lesson from these graves, 
 And be this spot to me a Monitor 
 To warn me of my end, to guard my path, 
 And teach me so to keep my wayward heart, 
 That when the hour of my departure comes, 
 I bow my head and go to Thee in peace.
 
 30 
 
 THE HERMIT THRUSH. 
 
 When June's dark foliage clothes the forest 
 
 boughs 
 
 Far in the shady depths the hermit thrush 
 Pipes his sweet lay, that through the woodland 
 
 aisles 
 
 Rings with Seraphic melody. No song 
 In all our range of wild wood charms like his. 
 Shyest of birds, hermit indeed is he; 
 His slender form, glancing from spray to spray 
 Even by sharpest eye is seldom seen. 
 He shuns all common haunts, and seeks afar, 
 The loneliest spot amid the thickest shade; 
 And flies from the intrusive step of man, 
 However stealthy his approach may be. 
 Sweetest, far sweetest, is his voice to me, 
 At the soft hour of twilight, when the world 
 Has hushed her din of voices, and her sons 
 Are gathering to their slumbers from their toil. 
 I sit whole hours upon a moss-grown stone, 
 In some sequestered spot, and hear his lay, 
 Unmindful of the things that near me pass, 
 Till all at once, as the dim shades of night
 
 31 
 
 Fall thicker on the lessening landscape round, 
 He ceases, and my reverie is broke. 
 
 One summer eve, at twlight's quiet hour, 
 After a sultry day spent at my books, 
 I slipped forth from my study, to enjoy 
 The cool of evening. Leaning on my arm 
 Was one I loved, a girl of gentle mould : 
 She had sweet eyes, and lips the haunt of smiles, 
 And long dark locks, that hung in native curls 
 Around her snowy bosom. The light wind 
 Tossed them aside, to kiss her lily neck, 
 Gently, as he were conscious what he touched. 
 Her step was light, light as the breeze that 
 
 fanned 
 
 Her blushing cheek; gay was her heart,for youth 
 And innocence are ever gay; her form 
 Was stately as an angel's, and her brow 
 White as the mountain snow; her voice was 
 
 sweet, 
 
 Sweet as the chiding of the brook that plays 
 Along its pebbly channel. Ruddy clouds 
 Were gathered east and south, high piled and 
 
 seemed 
 Like rubby temples in a sapphire sky. 
 
 The west was bright with daylight still: no 
 moon,
 
 32 
 
 No stars were seen, save the bright star of love, 
 That sailed alone in heaven. 'Twas in this walk 
 We heard the hermit thrush in a lone wood 
 Near to the wayside, and we sat us down 
 Upon a mossy bank, to list awhile 
 To that sweet song. Peaceful before us lay 
 Woodlands, and orchards white with vernal 
 
 bloom, 
 
 And flowering shrubs encircling happy homes, 
 And broad green meads with wild flowers 
 
 sprinkled o'er : 
 
 The scent of these came on the gentle wind, 
 Sweet as the spicy breath of Araby. 
 The smoke above the clustering roofs curled blue 
 On the still air; the shout of running streams 
 Came from a leafy thicket by our side ; 
 And that lone woodbird in the wood above, 
 Singing his evening hymn, perfected all. 
 The hour, the season, sounds, and scenery, 
 Mingling like these, and sweetly pleasing all, 
 Made the full heart o'erflow. That maiden 
 
 wept 
 
 Even at the sweetness of that song she wept. 
 How sweet the tears shed by such eyes for joy!
 
 83 
 
 THE EMIGRANT. 
 
 My native hills! far, far away, 
 Your tops in living green are bright; 
 
 And meadow, glade, and forest gray, 
 Bask in the long, long summer light; 
 
 And blossoms still are gaily set 
 
 By shaded fount and rivulet. 
 
 Oh, that these feet again might tread 
 The slopes around my native home, 
 With grass and mingled blossoms spread, 
 
 Where cool the western breezes come 
 To fan the fainting traveller's brow- 
 Alas! I almost feel them now. 
 
 Would that my eyes again might see 
 Those planted fields and forests deep 
 
 The tall grass waving like a sea 
 The white flocks scattered o'er the steep- 
 
 The dashing brooks and o'er them high 
 
 The clear vault of my native sky.
 
 34 
 
 Fair are the scenes that round me lie: 
 Bright shines the great earth-gladdening sun. 
 
 And sweetly crimsoned is the sky 
 At twilight, when the day is done: 
 
 And the same stars look down at even 
 
 That glittered in my native heaven. 
 
 On wide savannas, round me spread, 
 A thousand blossoms meet mine eye ; 
 
 The wild rose meekly bows its head, 
 As balmy winds go sweeping by; 
 
 And wild deer on the green bluffs play. 
 
 That rise in dimness far away. 
 
 Majestic are these streams, that glide 
 O'ershadowed by continuous wood, 
 
 Save where the long glade opens wide. 
 Where erst the Indian hamlet stood; 
 
 But sweeter streams, with sweeter song. 
 
 In home's green valley dance along. 
 
 And there, when summer's heaven is clear. 
 Sweet voices echo through the air; 
 
 For children's feet press softly near, 
 And joyous hearts are beating there; 
 
 While I, afar from home and rest, 
 
 Thread the vast rivers of the west.
 
 35 
 
 Oft, in my dreams, before me rise 
 Fair visions of those scenes so dear 
 
 The cottage home, the vale, the skies, 
 And rippling murmurs greet mine ear. 
 
 Like sound of unseen brook, that falls 
 
 Through the long mine's unlighted halls. 
 
 As down the deep Ohio's stream 
 
 We glide before the whispering wind. 
 
 Though all is lovely as a dream. 
 
 My wandering thoughts still turn behind- 
 
 Turn to the loved, the blessed shore, 
 
 Where dwell the friends J meet no more. 
 
 But were there here one heart to bless, 
 
 That beat in unison with mine- 
 One voice to cheer my loneliness, 
 
 (And that, my Laura, sure were thine) 
 My thoughts should hardly turn again 
 To home's green hills and shady glen.
 
 36 
 
 INDIAN SUMMER. 
 
 That soft autumnal time 
 
 Is gone, that sheds upon the naked scene 
 Charms only known in this our northern clime, 
 
 Bright seasons far between. 
 
 The woodland foliage now 
 
 Is gathered by the wild November blast; 
 Even the thick leaves upon the oaken bough, 
 
 Are fallen, to the last. 
 
 The mighty vines that round 
 
 The forest trunks their slender branches bind, 
 Their crimson foliage shaken to the ground, 
 
 Swing naked to the wind. 
 
 Some living green remains, 
 
 By the clear brook that shines along the lawn, 
 But the sere grass stands white o'er all the plains, 
 
 And the bright flowers are gone. 
 
 But these, these are thy charms- 
 Mild airs, and tempered light upon the lea. 
 
 And the year holds no time within his arms. 
 That doth resemble thee.
 
 37 
 
 The sunny noon is thine, 
 
 Soft, golden, noiseless as the dead of night, 
 And hues that in the flushed horizon shine. 
 
 At eve and early light. 
 
 The year's last, loveliest smile, 
 
 Thou com'st to fill with hope the human heart, 
 And strengthen it to bear the storms awhile, 
 
 Till winter's frowns depart. 
 
 O'er the wide plains that lie 
 
 A desolate scene, the fires of autumn spread, 
 And on the blue walls of the starry sky, 
 
 A strange wild glimmer shed. 
 
 Far in a sheltered nook, 
 
 I've met, in these calm days, a smiling flower, 
 A lonely aster, trembling by a brook, 
 
 At noon's warm quiet hour. 
 
 And something told my mind 
 
 That should old age to childhood call me back, 
 Some sunny days and flowers I still might find 
 
 Along life's weary track.
 
 THE NEW ENGLAND PILGRIM'S FUNERAL. 
 
 It was a wintry scene; 
 
 The hills were whitened o'er. 
 And the chill north wind was blowing keen i 
 
 Along the rocky shore. 
 
 Gone was the wild bird's lay. 
 
 That the summer forests fills: 
 And the voice of the stream had passed away 
 
 From its course among the hills. 
 
 And the low sun coldly smiled 
 
 Through the boughs of the ancient wood. 
 When a hundred souls, sire, wife and child, 
 
 Around a coffin stood. 
 
 And they raised it gently up, 
 
 And through the untrodden snow 
 
 They bore it away, with a solemn step. 
 To a woody vale below j 
 
 And grief was in each eye, 
 As they moved toward the spot:
 
 And brief k>w speech, and tear, and sigh. 
 Told that a friend was not. 
 
 As they laid his cold form low. 
 
 In the dark and narrow cell; 
 Heavy the mingled earth and snow 
 
 Upon his coffin fell. 
 
 Weeping they passed away 
 
 And left him there alone, 
 With no mark to tell where the dead friend lay. 
 
 But the mossy forest stone. 
 
 When the winter storms were gone, 
 And the strange birds sang around, 
 
 Green grass and violets sprung upon 
 That spot of holy ground. 
 
 And o'er him ancient trees 
 
 Their branches waved on high. 
 And rustled music in the breeze 
 
 That wandered through the sky. 
 
 When these were overspread 
 With the hues that autumn gave, 
 
 They bowed them to the wind, and shed 
 Their leaves upon his grave.
 
 40 
 
 And centuries are flown, 
 
 Since they laid his relics low; [strown 
 
 And his bones were mouldered to dust, and 
 
 To the breezes long ago. 
 
 Those woods are perished now. 
 
 And that humble grave forgot; 
 And the yeoman sings as he drives his plough 
 
 O'er that once sacred spot. 
 
 And they who laid him there 
 
 That sad and suffering train, 
 Now sleep in death to tell us where 
 
 No lettered stones remain. 
 
 Their mighty works shall last. 
 
 Their memory remain 
 While years consume the structures vast 
 
 Of Egypt's storied plain.
 
 41 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 'T is Autumn, and my steps have led me far 
 To a wild hill, that overlooks a land 
 Wide-spread and beautiful. A single star 
 Sparkles new-set in heaven. O'er its bright sand 
 The streamlet slides with mellow tones away; 
 The West is crimson with retiring day, 
 And the North gleams with its own native light. 
 Below, in autumn green, the meadows lie, 
 And through green banks the river wanders by, 
 And the wide woods with autumn hues are 
 
 bright: 
 
 Bright -but of fading brightness! soon is past 
 That dream-like glory of the painted wood; 
 And pitiless decay o'ertakes, as fast, 
 The pride of men, the beauteous, the great, and 
 
 good.
 
 42 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 There is a magic in the moon's mild ray, 
 What time she softly climbs the evening sky. 
 And sitteth with the silent stars on high, 
 That charms the pang of earth-born grief away. 
 I raise my eye to the blue depths above. 
 And worship Him whose power, pervading space, 
 Holds those bright orbs at peace in his embrace. 
 Yet comprehends earth's lowliest things in love. 
 Oft, when that silent moon was sailing high. 
 I've left my youthful sports to gaze; and now. 
 When time with graver lines has mark'd my 
 
 brow, 
 
 Sweetly she shines upon my sober'd eye. 
 0, may the light of truth, my steps to guide. 
 Shine on my eve of life shine soft, and long 
 
 abide.
 
 43 
 
 LAMENT OF THE CORSAIR'S WIFE. 
 
 'Twas morning over Cuba's hills, and from her 
 woods was heard, 
 
 And from the leafy copses nigh, the song of 
 many a bird; 
 
 The mountain tops with crimson light were 
 blushing all around, 
 
 And the early dew was glistening o'er all the 
 blooming ground. 
 
 Wild colts were sporting on the plains in free 
 dom, unconfined. 
 
 And melody from mountain brooks came on the 
 scented wind; 
 
 The winds that kissed the lovely scene and 
 spread its fragrance wide, 
 
 Showed the white lining of the leaves along the 
 forest side. 
 
 There, as I cheered my plodding mule along the 
 rugged way, 
 
 Sung at a shaded cottage door, I heard this ten 
 der lay: 
 
 "Come back, thou partner of my youth; come 
 back again to me, 
 
 Why hast thou left thy cottage side to roam the 
 trackless sea?
 
 44 
 
 The ruddy light that shines at morn, and fills 
 
 my leafy bower, 
 And comes with crimson hues again at twilight's 
 
 quiet hour, 
 Is sweeter to my fading eye than all the shining 
 
 store 
 That thou canst bring from ocean ships to 
 
 glisten on the shore. 
 Thou didst not talk of cruel war when first I 
 
 met thy look, 
 
 Where woven boughs hung darkly o'er my child 
 hood's merry brook; 
 And when our nuptial vow was made, I did not 
 
 dream of this, 
 For thou didst tell of many years of innocence 
 
 and bliss 
 Spent lovingly within our bower of olive and of 
 
 palm, 
 Where the green slope looks down upon the 
 
 ocean's glassy calm. 
 Thy laughing boy, who played and smiled, and 
 
 prattled on thy knee, 
 Leaves the young spaniel by the door, and comes 
 
 and talks of thee. 
 0, come from roaming on the main, thy glad 
 
 return I'll greet,
 
 45 
 
 And our young boy shall bound away thy com 
 ing steps to meet. 
 The smile that lights his clear dark eye and 
 
 dimples in his face, 
 Shall tell thee with how glad a heart he gives 
 
 his still embrace ; 
 And he shall climb thy knee again to listen to 
 
 thy voice, 
 And its remembered tones shall make his little 
 
 heart rejoice. 
 0, didst thou know the grief I feel, and my 
 
 heart's loneliness, 
 
 How soon would thy returning steps my hum 
 ble cottage bless. 
 Hours pass, and days, and weary months, and 
 
 years glide slowly by: 
 I gaze, but still thy coining form meets not my 
 
 longing eye. 
 But still I know that thou wilt come, and joy 
 
 shall bless the hour 
 In which thy well-known footsteps press the 
 
 green turf of my bower; 
 If cheerful smiles have left thy cheek amid the 
 
 the throng of men, 
 To see thy home, and lovely boy, shall call 
 
 them back again."
 
 46 
 
 SONNET TO 
 
 Bold champion of the poor, a thorny road 
 Before thee lies: for thou hast bared thy breast 
 And nerved thine arm to lift the heavy load, 
 And break the chains from limbs too long 
 
 oppressed. 
 
 Tyrants and custom's dupes shall strive in vain; 
 Truth wields a weapon mightier far than they, 
 Huge bolts and gates of brass are rent in twain, 
 Touched by the magic of her gentle sway. 
 Hold then thy course, "nor bate-one jot of hope/' 
 Lo! the day dawns along our eastern shore; 
 Soon shall the night of prejudice be o'er, 
 And a bright morning give thee freer scope 
 To rouse thy countrymen to deeds of good, 
 And just and equal laws shall save the land 
 
 from blood.
 
 47 
 
 SONG OF THE CHAMOIS- HUNTERS. 
 
 i. 
 
 Our home is on the mountain's, 
 
 Where the pure winds ever flow, 
 Where torrents, bursting from the rocks, 
 
 Haste to the vales below. 
 We climb the high and rugged cliff 
 
 Before the blush of dawn, 
 And thread the path along the dells, 
 
 Where hides the chamois fawn. 
 All day we toil, till daylight fades 
 
 Along the ruddy west, 
 And then we light our watchfires, 
 
 Above the eagle's nest. 
 
 n. 
 
 ! 'tis a fearful pleasure 
 
 On dizzy heights to stand; 
 To tread the long and narrow pass, 
 
 Scarce broader than your hand; 
 To hang upon the bare rock's side, 
 
 Wide rolling woods below,
 
 Where in their beds the rushing streams 
 
 Are hardly heard to flow. 
 We climb the glaciers slippery steep, 
 
 And, with a wild delight, 
 We leap the frightful chasm, 
 
 Whose depths are black as night. 
 
 in. 
 
 And terrible the tempest 
 
 That comes at midnight there, 
 When lightnings fire the tossing clouds 
 
 And all the upper air; 
 And awful is the thunders voice, 
 
 When falls the knotted oak, 
 And rocks upon the icy peaks 
 
 Are shivered by the stroke. 
 The blood runs chill as onward sweep 
 
 The tempest and the flood, 
 And the whirlwind strong and mighty, 
 
 Uproots the ancient wood. 
 
 IV. 
 
 How glorious is the morning 
 
 That gilds the mountain's breast, 
 When stillness wraps the crimson sky.
 
 49 
 
 And earth is all at rest: 
 When o'er the peaceful vales below 
 
 The mists in white waves sleep, 
 Far stretching to the gazer's eye 
 
 An ocean wide and deep; 
 And passing lovely is the hour 
 
 That brings the close of day, 
 When hues of living splendor 
 
 Grow soft and fade away. 
 
 v. 
 
 Sweet, sweet is our returning 
 
 When the hunting days are done, 
 When down we haste from cliff to cliff, 
 
 With the spoil our hands have won; 
 We spy our cottage in the vale, 
 
 Where peace and gladness are, 
 Our children cheer us on the rocks, 
 
 And beckon from afar; 
 Their bosoms thrill with wild delight 
 
 As down the steep we come, 
 And joyful is the meeting 
 
 When we are safe at home.
 
 50 
 
 VI. 
 
 0! idle were a being 
 
 Within the city's walls, 
 And cold to us their worship seems 
 
 Who pray in gilded halls; 
 The earth's wild liberty is ours, 
 
 Where'er the winds may blow, 
 These vales so quiet and so green, 
 
 These mountains clad with snow; 
 Our temple is the wide blue sky, 
 
 Our anthems are the deep 
 And solemn voice of night winds 
 
 That through the forest sweep.
 
 ' 51 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 Tt was a calm and sunny winter day, 
 
 And tinged with amber was the sky at even; 
 
 The fleecy clouds at length had rolled away, 
 And lay in furrows on the eastern heavens; 
 
 The moon arose, and shed a glimmering ray, 
 
 And round her orb a misty circle lay. 
 
 The hoar-frost glittered on the naked heath. 
 
 The roar of distant winds was loud and deep, 
 The dry leaves rustled in each passing breath 
 
 And the gay world was lost in quiet sleep. 
 Such was the time when, on the landscape brown. 
 Through a December air the snows came down. 
 
 The morning came, the dreary morn at last, 
 And showed the whitened waste. The shiv 
 ering herd 
 
 Lowed on the hoary meadow-ground, and fast 
 Fell the light flakes upon the earth unstirred; 
 
 The forest firs with glittering snows 'oerlaid, 
 
 Stood like hoar priests in robes of white arrayed.
 
 52 
 
 I look forth from my lattice The wide air 
 Is filled with falling flakes; around, the scene 
 
 Lies in unvaired whitness all, save where 
 The autumn grain peeps out with living green. 
 
 Or save the dry leaves from the. forest cast, 
 
 And withered flower-stalks trembling in the 
 blast. 
 
 0, Winter ! thou art welcome ; thou to me 
 
 Art a bestower of joy and guiltless mirth ; 
 Thou bringest many an eve of social glee 
 When dear friends gather round the blazing 
 
 hearth, 
 And childhood's merry laugh, and youth's glad 
 
 smile, 
 The lingering hours of many a day beguile. 
 
 The blast that sweeps the upland, the deep sigh 
 Sent through the rocking forest, and the 
 
 frown 
 
 Of struggling tempests that o'erveil the sky 
 In gloomy darkness when the snow comes 
 
 down, 
 
 Have all a voice for me, which reaches deep 
 Where the strong passions of my bosom sleep.
 
 53 
 
 Oh, many an eve on wild New England's hills, 
 When the full moon shone on the glittering 
 
 snow, 
 
 When the keen frosts had chained the moun 
 tain rills. 
 And the deep streams no more were heard 
 
 to flow, 
 
 Have I been forth with school-mates at my play. 
 And frolicked many a joyous hour away. 
 
 Ah ! those were glorious seasons. Then the hours 
 On silent, silken pinions sped away: 
 
 My feet trod lightly on life's morning flowers; 
 My voice was with my young heart ever gay. 
 
 No sorrow then had stained my cheek with tears, 
 
 But joy and sunshine filled the gliding years. 
 
 Sweet are those recollections of the past; 
 
 And with deep pleasure back to mind I bring 
 The golden dreams of boyhood's scenes, that cast 
 
 Hues of romance o'er life's resplendent spring; 
 For as I summon up the vanished train, 
 Half do 1 live those seasons o'er again. 
 
 And still the hours of winter evening come 
 With a glad welcoming, though fast they fly;
 
 54 
 
 Not the gay Spring, with all its light and bloom, 
 Nor Summer's fruits, nor Autumn's golden 
 sky, 
 
 Nor woods of many hues, a princely show. 
 Can thrill my bosom with a warmer glow. 
 
 Then come, ye biting frosts, and let the roar 
 Of the wild winds resound through wood and 
 
 glen. 
 
 And mountain waves o'erleap the rocky shore, 
 And storms come down and darkness brood 
 
 again ; 
 
 O'er the wide waste bring all your train along, 
 And thrill my bosom with your mighty song.
 
 55 
 
 THE BROOK WALK. 
 
 My son ! now thou has reached thy thirteenth 
 
 year; 
 
 Thy childhood's yellow hair upon thy brow 
 Is darkening with thy growth, and thy young 
 
 mind 
 
 Has gained maturity for sober thought, 
 Thy foot a firmness for so long a toil; 
 Come walk with me among the winding hills, 
 And trace this mountain river far away. 
 Bright is the day, the crystal heaven looks glad, 
 And autumn rests upon the colored woods 
 In deep and silent glory. As thou goest. 
 Let thy young mind be open to receive 
 Instruction from the fair and ample book 
 Of nature. Let thine eye be quick to scan 
 Her rich and varied beauty, that thy heart 
 May get a goodly lesson of deep truth 
 That shall be with thee till thy life shall end; 
 And that thy hoary hairs, if thou should'st tread 
 The cold, dull ways of age, may be a crown 
 Of glory on thy head. Through this sere mead
 
 56 
 
 The unshaded stream runs glimmering in the 
 
 sun 
 
 Without a flower to grace its winding brink. 
 Save the blue aster. Short the season since 
 These banks were thick with violets, the tall 
 
 grass 
 
 Waved in the summer wind, the robin sung 
 His love-song in the shrubby dells around, 
 And brooding ground-bird from her nest uprose. - 
 Now all is changed! but 'tis a pleasant thing. 
 When nature round is fading into age, 
 That some bright tokens of her youth remain; 
 It seems a strife betwixt the delicate flowers, 
 And frosts and tempests of the wintry year. 
 The stooping forest now invites our steps: 
 We enter where between two jutting rocks 
 The river breaks into the open glade. 
 How changed from summer's deep and massy 
 
 . shade. 
 
 So grateful in its time! Not less so now 
 The tempered light that sleeps on all the ground. 
 The shadows of the trees are motionless: 
 The fallen leaves stir not; and those which fall 
 With a faint rustle, whirling meet the ground. 
 How innocent is Nature! Her wide realms 
 Are passionless and pure. No battle steed
 
 57 
 
 Tramps o'er these wood-paths; here no warrior 
 
 armed 
 
 With glistening steel and glancing plume is seen ; 
 No petty strife 'twixt man and man are heard; 
 But all is peace and innocence and love. 
 The quiet flocks and herds around us graze, 
 And the wild dwellers of the forest keep 
 Each in the sphere that God designed for him; 
 Therefore, when thou art weary of thy toil, 
 Or if the wrongs of men in after years 
 Upon thy head weigh heavily, and bow 
 Thy spirit, come to these pure, quiet shades, 
 And peace shall come to thee. and bless thy heart, 
 And in the bosom of the lonely vale, 
 Where busy life intrudes not, thou mayest learn 
 A deep philosophy, and gather there 
 The spirit of a calm divinity, 
 Purer and holier than e'er was taught 
 In cloistered cell. 
 
 Trace back the thread of time 
 In thine imagination! trace it back 
 Even to tlie far beginning, when the earth 
 Rose out of chaos, and the hills grew green, 
 And forests budded in the blue sky first, 
 And primal man went forth by hill and stream
 
 And peopled the fair bosom of the earth. 
 Up the dim aisles of the departed years, 
 A solemn voice shall come bearing the tales 
 Of the past generations tales of war, 
 And death, and love, and pleasure's giddy dance. 
 Perhaps this sloping mount, with broken rocks 
 All scattered o'er, where, in his mossy robe, 
 Sits old Decay, hoary with lapse of years, 
 Was once the site of a forgotten town, 
 Where, in high halls, the merry dance went 
 
 round, 
 
 And lovers sighed; and gathered there the band 
 Led forth by chiefs to battle. Perished now 
 Is all. The walls are fallen; the busy streets 
 Send forth glad sounds no more; the palaces 
 Are crumbled, and the forms that dwelt among 
 The massy piles are gone; and 'mid the waste 
 Upshoot the mighty giants of the wood, 
 And all rests in the silence and the peace 
 Of sinless nature. Eloquent is all 
 The region round. The voices of the dead 
 Break with a deeper cadence on the ear 
 Amid the desolation of the scene. 
 Tread softly o'er the mould, for kindred dust 
 Here sleeps the sleep of ages. Stir it not; 
 Nor with irreverent footsteps. dare profane
 
 59 
 
 The earth where vanished generations rest. 
 
 Here tread aside where this descending brook 
 Pays a scant tribute to the mightier stream, 
 And all the summer long on silver feet 
 Trips lightly o'er the pebbles, sending out 
 A mellow murmur on the quiet air. 
 Just up the narrow glen in yonder glade, 
 Set like a nest amid embowering trees, 
 Lived, in my early days, an humble pair, 
 A mother and her daughter. She, the dame, 
 Had well nigh seen her threescore years and ten; 
 Her step was tremulous; slight was her frame, 
 And bowed with time and toil; the lines of care 
 Worn deep upon her brow. At shut of day 
 I've met her by the skirt of this old wood 
 Alone, and faintly murmuring to herself 
 Haply the history of her better days. 
 I knew that history once from youth to age; 
 It was a sad one. He w r ho wedded her 
 Had wronged her love, and thick the darts of 
 
 death 
 
 Had fallen among her children and her friends. 
 One solace for her age remained a fair 
 And gentle daughter, with blue, pensive eyes, 
 And cheeks like summer roses. Her sweet songs 
 Rang like the thrush's warble in these woods,
 
 60 
 
 And up the rocky dells. At noon and eve, 
 
 Her walk was o'er the hills, and by the founts 
 
 Of the deep forest. Oft she gathered flowers 
 
 In lone and desolute places, where the foot 
 
 Of other wanderers but seldom trod. 
 
 Once in my boyhood, when my truant steps 
 
 Had led me forth among the pleasant hills, 
 
 I met her in a shaded path that winds 
 
 Far through the spreading groves. The sun was 
 
 low; 
 
 The shadow of the hills stretched o'er the vale, 
 And the still waters of the river lay 
 Black in the shade of twilight. As we met, 
 She stoop'd and pressed her friendly lips to mine; 
 And though I then was but a simple child, 
 Who ne'er had dreamed of love, or known its 
 
 power, 
 
 I wondered at her beauty. Soon a sound 
 Of thunder, muttering low along the west, 
 Foretold a coming storm. My homeward path 
 Lay through the woods tangled with under 
 growth. 
 
 A timid urchin then, I feared to go, 
 Which she observing, kindly led the way, 
 And left me when my dwelling was in sight. 
 I hasted on; but ere I reached the gate,
 
 61 
 
 The rain fell fast, and the drenched fields around 
 Were glittering in the lightning's frequent flash. 
 But were was now Eliza? When the morn 
 Blushed on the summer hills, they found her 
 
 dead 
 
 Beneath an oak rent by the thunderbolt. 
 Thick lay the splinters round, and one sharp 
 
 shaft 
 Had pierced her snow white brow. And here 
 
 she lies, 
 Where the green hill slopes towards the southern 
 
 sky. 
 
 'Tis thirty summers since they laid her here; 
 The cottage where she dwelt is razed and gone; 
 Her kindred are all perished from the earth; 
 And this rude stone, which simply bears her 
 
 name, 
 
 Is mouldering fast; and soon this quiet spot, 
 Held sacred now, will be like the common 
 
 ground. 
 
 Fit place is this for so much loveliness 
 To find its rest. It is a hallowed shrine 
 Where nature pays her tribute. Dewy spring 
 Sets the gay wild flowers thick around her grave; 
 The green -boughs o'er her in the summer time 
 Sigh to the winds; the robin takes his perch
 
 62 
 
 Hard by, and warbles to his sitting mate; 
 The brier-rose blossoms to the skies of June, 
 And hangs above her in the winter time 
 Its scarlet fruit. No rude foot ventures near; 
 The noisy school-boy keeps aloof; and he 
 Who hunts the fox when all the hills are white, 
 Here treads aside. Not seldom have I found 
 Around this headstone carefully entwined, 
 Garlands of flowers, I never knew by whom. 
 For two years past, I've missed them; doubtless 
 
 one ^ 
 
 Who held this dust most precious placed them 
 
 here, 
 
 And sorrowing in secret many a year, 
 At last hath left the earth to be with her.
 
 63 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Like music o'er the wide unruffled sea, 
 Or echo from the forest-covered hill, 
 At midnight, when the wandering winds are still, 
 Thoughts of my happier days return to me, 
 Thoughts of the time when first I met thy smile, 
 The glance of thy dark eye so clear and bright. 
 Ah! it did seem a beam of heaven's pure light, 
 Sent down to banish Earth's dull cares awhile. 
 Those days are past. No more thou meetest me 
 At the calm hour when daylight hues depart, 
 For thou art far away: yet memory 
 Hath stamped thy image deeply on my heart; 
 Hope holds the promise that we meet again; 
 I cannot deem so sweet a promise vain.
 
 64 
 
 SONNET OCTOBER. 
 
 I love the time of Autumn's fading groves; 
 For with the sere and yellow leaf appears 
 A dreamy sadness, that my spirit loves, 
 And loves the more with my departing years. 
 How soft the light that lies on all the scene, 
 How sweet the stillness of the hazy noon, 
 When first succeed to Summer's living green 
 The Autumn splendors. Then the glorious moon 
 Sails in a purer heaven, and bright stars shed 
 A blessed radiance on the paths of men; 
 And they who walked with timid steps in dread 
 Of fell disease, at length breathe free again. 
 Through all the land the hand of death is stayed, 
 And pallid cheeks with healthful bloom are 
 spread.
 
 65 
 
 ON LEAVING THE PLACE OF MY NATIVITY. 
 
 I stand where often I have stood, 
 
 Beside this dark old mossy wood; 
 
 And tread where oft my feet have trod, 
 
 Upon this bright and blooming sod. 
 
 The open fields, that round me lie, 
 
 Slope gently toward the southern sky; 
 
 Upon their bosom, far away, 
 
 The light winds with the harvest play, 
 
 Come up the green acclivity, 
 
 On silken wings, to visit me; 
 
 Sigh to my ear, I know not why, 
 
 And leave my presence with a sigh. 
 
 On yonder mountain's rugged breast 
 
 The pines in sullen silence rest; 
 
 The copses, drest in softer green, 
 
 Adorn the valley stretched between; 
 
 And through the openings of their shade 
 
 The winding river is betrayed; 
 
 The boatman dips his glistening oar 
 
 And pushes from the alder shore; 
 
 The sunbeams on the small waves play, 
 
 And twinkle through the shattered spray; 
 
 The echo of the mountain rill 
 
 Breaks softly from the beechen hill;
 
 And river's flood, and wood and glen, 
 
 The homes and haunts of busy men, 
 
 The meeting line of earth and sky 
 
 Where the long circling forests lie; 
 
 Earth's fruits, in rich profusion given, 
 
 The glorious azure arch of heaven, 
 
 The golden sun's resplendent light, 
 
 All break at once upon my sight. 
 
 And what should cloud my heart with care 
 
 When all around is gay and fair? 
 
 It is that, on its coming wings, 
 
 The morrow my departure brings; 
 
 And that the scenes which round me lie 
 
 No more may meet my living eye; 
 
 The mossy knoll beneath the tree, 
 
 Where first I played in infancy, 
 
 The orchard, and the shady nook 
 
 Beside the rapid of the brook; 
 
 The wider range my boyhood knew, 
 
 The higher hill, the broader view, 
 
 The grassy steep upon whose brow 
 
 I muse in silent sadness now; 
 
 All these dear haunts of peace and rest 
 
 I leave, to wander in the West. 
 
 But there's a deeper sadness still 
 
 Than leaving forest, stream and hill;
 
 For at this parting I forego 
 
 All that is dear to me below, 
 
 And break the sacred ties which bind 
 
 Heart to heart, and mind to mind. 
 
 She who in my early days 
 
 Trained my feet in virtue's ways, 
 
 And gave me, in my riper years, 
 
 Blessings mixed with smiles and tears, 
 
 No more may make this heart rejoice 
 
 With the sweet accents of her voice. 
 
 Yon upland, where the forest waves 
 
 Above the lonely place of graves, 
 
 O'er the dear friends whose ashes lie 
 
 Beneath this bright blue mountain sky; 
 
 My father, in whose voice I heard 
 
 Tones that all my bosom stirred; 
 
 And her, the meek and lovely flower, 
 
 Who faded in life's morning hour: 
 
 That sacred spot no more shall be 
 
 A place of frequent haunt to me. 
 
 The locust-tree I planted there 
 
 May flourish long in summer air; 
 
 The soft gales bend it, and the sound 
 
 Of murmuring bees be heard around. 
 
 There birds shall sing, and white flocks feed, 
 
 The weary stranger stop his steed,
 
 68 
 
 To muse awhile among the stones 
 
 That mark the rest of human bones. 
 
 But I, alas! no more may tread 
 
 The turf where sleep those loved ones dead ! 
 
 And she, who in her father's hall 
 
 Stands graceful, fair, erect, and tall, 
 
 Whose smiles and glances answered mine, 
 
 With look and mien almost divine, 
 
 Will smile upon another now, 
 
 And pledge her love in solemn vow; 
 
 Will leave her childhood's dwelling side; 
 
 And round her, in their strength and pride, 
 
 Shall sons arise, and daughters bloom, 
 
 To light the chambers of her home; 
 
 But years shall waste, and day by day 
 
 That bloom and beauty fade away, 
 
 Till she, so fair, so lovely now, 
 
 Beneath the weight of years shall bow; 
 
 And men shall lay her sleeping head 
 
 At last among the silent dead. 
 
 Though beauty's bloom so soon be past, 
 
 And death shall level all at last, 
 
 And though the cup of life's best years 
 
 O'erflow with bitterness and tears, 
 
 Still I am sad that I shall see 
 
 No more that form so dear to me ; 
 
 It chills the current of my strain 
 
 To think we ne'er shall meet again !
 
 ROGER CRANE. 
 
 I had been wandering in the wood, 
 
 A child of eight years old, or so, 
 With' careless step and dreamy mood, 
 
 Where fancy prompted me to go. 
 'Twas then I met old Roger Crane, 
 
 One whom I ne'er had seen before, 
 But oft had heard aunt Betty tell 
 
 His dark, mysterious story o'er. 
 I found him in an open glade, 
 
 Sitting upon a smooth gray stone ; 
 Beside him rose a blasted tree; 
 His broad hand rested on his knee ; 
 
 Musing he seemed, and all alone. 
 Wild was the scene and lonely round, 
 
 And moss-clad rocks were scattered nigh, 
 Deep shadowy woods enclosed the spot, 
 
 And running waters murmured by. 
 The sun was set, the twilight came; 
 
 One star was twinkling overhead, 
 And from the western sky the fringe 
 
 Of crimson light was almost fled.
 
 His shaggy brow was sternly knit; 
 It seemed to me, as I drew nigh, 
 That wrath was kindling deep within 
 
 The chamber of that awful eye. 
 I met his glance and oh! my heart; 
 
 Its very blood grew thick and chill; 
 I had no power to stir a pace, 
 For I was rooted to the place, 
 
 A statue, motionless and still. 
 I broke the spell with one long bound; 
 
 Methought I heard his footstep follow; 
 But when I reached the opposing hill 
 I looked, and saw old Roger still 
 
 Lone sitting in the dusky hollow. 
 Years passed away, but still my feet 
 
 Dared not approach that spot again; 
 And oft, in dreams, T started at 
 
 The image of old Roger Crane. 
 But bolder lads, who ventured near, 
 
 Told that they saw him sitting there; 
 And that, at distance, you might hear 
 
 His voice upon the midnight air. 
 In winter Roger was not seen; 
 
 But when the light of spring was come, 
 Ere yet the warmest vales wei'e green,
 
 71 
 
 He issued from his secret home, 
 And threw the fallen boughs aside, 
 
 And scraped away the darkened snow 
 That o'er the mossy knoll was spread, 
 
 And cast it in the brook below. 
 So that the earliest warmth might lie 
 Upon the sere declivity. 
 At length a sweeping tempest came; 
 
 The rushing rain in torrents poured, 
 And through the hollows of the wood, 
 
 The fearful whirlwind swept and roared. 
 Dark was the night, and doleful sounds 
 
 Were heard upon the murky sky, 
 And fitful was the lightning's flash. 
 And trees fell down with dreaful crash, 
 
 As that tremendous storm went by. 
 The uproar ceased, and men passed o'er 
 
 The spot where Roger sat so long. 
 The blasted tree uprooted lay; 
 The stream had washed the knoll away; 
 
 And still poured furiously and strong. 
 But nought of Roger Crane was there, 
 
 Save that his tattered hat was found 
 Far down the channel of the brook, 
 
 Half buried in the pebbly ground,
 
 And still he never has been seen, 
 
 Though since that storm twelve years have 
 
 flown; 
 
 But some who wandered near the spot. 
 At evening, when the winds are not, 
 
 Have said they heard a smothered moan. 
 And some aver that they descried 
 
 His dim ghost gliding by the wood, 
 Far in the twilight's doubtful gleam, 
 Or in the mist, above the stream 
 
 Where once the withered tree had stood. 
 They said they knew his long white hair, 
 His scowling eye and savage air; 
 But why he sat upon that stone, 
 
 And what, beneath that blasted tree, 
 He muttered to himself alone, 
 
 Is all a mystery to me. 
 Some said he'd done a wicked deed, 
 
 For which his conscience ever smarted; 
 And some, that he was mad with grief; 
 
 And some, that he was broken-hearted, 
 And that, beneath the stone so gray, 
 On which he sat so many a day, 
 His loved one's dust was laid away; 
 That when the fearful storm was gone,
 
 73 
 
 And men for Roger came to look, 
 Some scattered human bones were found 
 
 Along the channel of the brook. 
 Some guessed that in the winter time, 
 
 When all our hearth-fires brightly burned, 
 He dwelt in some deep mountain cave, 
 
 And came again when spring returned. 
 Yet whether this surmise be true, 
 I know not, and I never knew; 
 But this I know, that for the term 
 
 Of thirty summers, on that stone, 
 Through all the changes of the sky, 
 Through cold and heat, and wet and dry, 
 
 Old Roger sat and mused alone; 
 And when the mighty tempest came, 
 
 And floods poured down the narrow glen, 
 He left his long-frequented haunt, .. 
 
 And vanished from the sight of men.
 
 74 
 
 THE BETTER PART. 
 
 Why should we toil for hoarded gain, 
 Or waste in strife our nobler powers, 
 
 Or follow Pleasure's glittering train? 
 0, let a happier choice be ours. 
 
 Death shall unnerve the arm of power, 
 Unclasp the firmest grasp on gold, 
 
 And scatter wide in one brief hour 
 The treasured heaps of wealth untold. 
 
 The hero's glory, and his fame, 
 
 Built up mid crime, and blood, and tears, 
 Are but a transient flash of flame 
 
 Amid the eternal night of years. 
 
 He whom but yesterday we saw 
 Earth's mightiest prince, is gone to day; 
 
 All systems, creeds, save Truth's great law, 
 Are borne along and swept away.
 
 75 
 
 And Fashion's forms and gilded show, 
 Shall vanish with the fleeting breath ; 
 
 And Pleasure's votaries shall know 
 Their folly at the gates of death. 
 
 But he who delves for buried thought, 
 And seeks with care for hidden truth, 
 
 Shall find in age, unasked, unbought, 
 A rich reward for toil in youth. 
 
 Aye more, away beyond life's goal, 
 Of earnest toil each weary day 
 
 Shall light the pathway of the soul 
 Far on its onward, upward way. 
 
 Then who can tell how wide a sphere 
 Of thought and deed shall be his lot, 
 
 Who treasured truth and knowledge here, 
 And doing good, himself forgot?
 
 SENATCHWINE'S GRAVE. 
 
 He sleeps beneath the spreading shade, 
 Where woods and wide savannas meet, 
 
 Where sloping hills around have made 
 A quiet valley, green and sweet. 
 
 A stream that bears his name and flows 
 In glimmering gushes from the west, 
 
 Makes a light murmur as it goes 
 Beside his lonely place of rest. 
 
 And here the silken blue-grass springs, 
 Low bending with the morning dew; 
 
 The red-bird in the thicket sings, 
 And blossoms nod of various hue. 
 
 Oh, spare his rest! oh, level not 
 The trees whose boughs above it play, 
 
 Nor break the turf that clothes the spot, 
 Nor clog the rivulet's winding way.
 
 77 
 
 For he was of unblenching eye. 
 Honored in youth, revered in age, 
 
 Of princely port and bearing high. 
 And brave, and eloquent, and sage. 
 
 Ah! scorn not that a tawny skin 
 
 Wrapped his strong limbs and ample breast; 
 A noble soul was throned within, 
 
 As the pale Saxon e'er possessed. 
 
 Beyond the broad Atlantic deep, 
 
 In mausoleums rich and vast, 
 Earth's early kings and heroes sleep, 
 
 Waiting the angel's trumpet blast. 
 
 As proud in form and mien was he 
 Who sleeps beneath this verdant sod, 
 
 And shadowed forth as gloriously 
 The image of the eternal God. 
 
 Theirs is the monumental pile, 
 With lofty titles graved on stone, 
 
 The vaulted roof, the fretted aisle 
 He sleeps unhonored and alone.
 
 78 
 
 A scene he loved around him lies, 
 
 These blooming plains outspreading far, 
 
 River, and vale, and boundless skies, 
 With sun, and cloud, and shining star. 
 
 He knew each pathway through the wood. 
 Each dell unwarmed by sunshine's gleam, 
 
 Where the brown pheasant led her brood, 
 Or wild deer came to drink the stream. 
 
 Oft hath he gazed from yonder height, 
 When pausing 'mid the chase alone, 
 
 On the fair realms beneath his sight, 
 And proudly called them all his own. 
 
 Then leave him still this little nook, 
 Ye who have grasped his wide domain, 
 
 The trees, the flowers, the grass, the brook, 
 Nor stir his slumbering dust again.
 
 79 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Backward I look o'er three score years and ten, 
 To the dear home upon the mountain side, 
 Its glorious prospect opening far and wide, 
 With verdant fields, wild woods, and haunts of 
 
 men. 
 Brothers and sisters seven blithe souls were 
 
 we 
 
 Father and mother, then a happy band- 
 Now I alone remain, and waiting stand, 
 Till the dark gate shall open unto me. 
 Could I bring back one day of that far time, 
 With the dear friends that gathered round our 
 
 hearth, 
 Childhood and youth, and manhood's noble 
 
 prime. 
 
 I've dreamed I could resign all else on earth. 
 But all those years of life have once been mine. 
 I've had my time, and why should I repine?
 
 80 
 
 THE ANCIENT OAK. 
 
 'Twas many a year ago, 
 
 When life with me was new, 
 A lordly oak, with spreading arms, 
 
 By my mountain-dwelling grew. 
 
 O'er the roof and chimney-top, 
 
 Uprose that glorious tree; 
 No giant of all the forests round 
 
 Had mightier boughs than he. 
 
 On the silken turf below 
 
 He cast a cool, deep shade, 
 Where oft, till the summer sun went down 
 
 Myself and my sister played. 
 
 We plnsted the violet there, 
 
 And there the pansy leant; 
 And the columbine, with slender stems, 
 
 To the soft June breezes bent. 
 
 The robin warbled above, 
 As he builded his house of clay; 
 
 And he seemed to sing with a livelier note 
 At the sight of our mirthful play.
 
 81 
 
 And there in the sultry noon, 
 
 With brawny limbs and breast, 
 On the silken turf, in that cool shade, 
 
 The reaper came to rest. 
 
 When, through the autumn haze, 
 
 The golden sunshine came, 
 His crimson summit glowed in the light, 
 
 Like a spire of ruddy flame. 
 
 And oft, in the autumn blast, 
 
 The acorns, rattling loud, [hail 
 
 Were showered on our roof, like the big round 
 
 That falls from the summer cloud. 
 
 And higher and broader still, 
 
 With the rolling years he grew; 
 And his roots were deeper and firmer set, 
 
 The more the rough winds blew. 
 
 At length in an evil hour, 
 
 The axe at its root was laid, 
 And he fell, with all his boughs, on the spot 
 
 He had darkened with his shade. 
 
 And into the prostrate boughs 
 
 We climbed, my sister and I, 
 And swung, 'mid the shade of the glossy leaves, 
 
 Till the stars came out in the sky.
 
 All day we swung and played. 
 
 For the west wind gently blew; 
 'Twas the day that the post-boy brought the news 
 
 Of the battle of Waterloo. 
 
 But his leaves were withered soon, 
 
 And they bore his trunk away, 
 And the blazing sun shone in at noon. 
 
 On the place of our early play. 
 
 And the weary reaper missed 
 The shade, when he came to rest; 
 
 And the robin found no more in spring 
 The sprays where he built his nest. 
 
 Now thirty summers are gone. 
 
 And thirty winters of snow; 
 And a stranger I seek the paths and shades 
 
 Where I rambled long ago. 
 
 I pause where the glorious oak 
 His boughs to the blue sky spread, 
 
 And I think of the strong and beautiful 
 Who lie among the dead. 
 
 I think, with a bitter pang, 
 
 Of the days in which I played, 
 Watched by kind eyes that now are closed, 
 
 Beneath his ample shade.
 
 A DAY IN AUTUMN. 
 
 One ramble through the woods with me, 
 Thou dear companion of my days! 
 
 These mighty woods, how quietly 
 They sleep in autumn's golden haze! 
 
 The gay leaves, twinkling in the breeze. 
 Still to the forest branches cling. 
 
 They lie like blossoms on the trees 
 The brightest blossoms of the spring. 
 
 Flowers linger in each sheltered nook. 
 And still the cheerful song of bird, 
 
 And murmur of the bee and brook, 
 
 Through all the quiet groves are heard; 
 
 And bell of kine that sauntering browse, 
 And squirrel, chirping as he hides 
 
 Where gorgeously, with crimson boughs, 
 The creeper clothes the oak's gray sides. 
 
 How mild the light in all the skies! 
 
 How balmily the south wind blows! 
 The smile of God around us lies, 
 
 His rest is in this deep repose.
 
 84 
 
 These whispers of the flowing air. 
 These waters that in music fall, 
 
 These sounds of peaceful life, declare 
 The love that keeps and hushes all. 
 
 Then let us to the forest shade, 
 And roam its paths the livelong day; 
 
 These glorious hours were never made 
 In life's dull cares to waste away. 
 
 \ 
 
 We'll wander by the running stream. 
 
 And pull the wild grape hanging o'er, 
 And list the fisher's startling scream, 
 That perches by the pebbly shore. 
 
 And when the sun, to his repose. 
 
 Sinks in the rosy west at even, 
 And over field and forest throws 
 
 A hue that makes them seem like heaven, - 
 
 We'll overlook the glorious land, 
 
 From the green brink of yonder height. 
 
 And silently adore the hand 
 That made our world so fair and bright.
 
 85 
 
 ON FINDING A FOUNTAIN IN A SECLUDED 
 PART OF A FOREST. 
 
 . Three hundred years are scarcely gone, 
 Since, to the New World's virgin shore, 
 
 Crowds of rude men were pressing on, 
 To range its boundless regions o'er. 
 
 Some bore the sword in bloody hands, 
 And sacked its helpless towns for spoil; 
 
 Some searched foi % gold the river's sands, 
 Or trenched the mountains stubborn soil. 
 
 And some with higher purpose sought, 
 Through forests wild, and wastes uncouth, 
 
 Sought with long toil, yet found it not, 
 The fountain of eternal youth. 
 
 They said in some green valley, where 
 
 The foot of man had never trod, 
 There gushed a fountain bright, and fair. 
 
 Up from the ever verdant sod. 
 
 There they who drank should never know 
 Age, with its weakness, pain and gloom,
 
 Sfi 
 
 And from its brink the old should go 
 With youth's light step and radiant bloom. 
 
 Is not this fount so pure and sweet. 
 
 Whose stainless current ripples o'er 
 The fringe of blossoms at my feet, 
 
 The same those pilgrims sought of yore? 
 
 How brightly leap, 'mid glittering sands, 
 
 The living waters from below: 
 let me dip these lean, brown hands. 
 
 Drink deep, and bathe this wrinkled brow. 
 
 And feel, through every skrunken vein. 
 
 The warm, red stream flow swift and free- 
 Feel waking in my heart again. 
 Youth's brightest hopes, youth's wildest glee. 
 
 Tis vain; for still the life-blood plays 
 
 With sluggish course through all my frame; 
 
 The mirror of the pool betrays 
 My wrinkled visage still the same. 
 
 And the sad spirit questions still 
 Must this warm frame these limbs, that yield 
 
 To each light motion of the will- 
 Lie with the dull clods of the field?
 
 Has nature no renewing power 
 To drive the frost of age away? 
 
 Has earth no fount, or herb, or flower, 
 Which man may taste and live for aye? 
 
 Alas! for that unchanging state 
 
 Of youth and strength, in vain we yearn; 
 And only after death's dark gate 
 
 Is reached and passed, can youth return.
 
 88 
 
 THE EMIGRANT'S SONG. 
 
 Away, away we haste 
 
 Vast plains and mountains o'er. 
 To the glorious land of the distant West, 
 
 By the broad Pacific's shore. 
 
 Onward, with toilsome pace, 
 
 O'er the desert vast and dim, 
 From morn till the sun goes down to his place 
 
 At the far horizon's brim. 
 
 By the wild Missouri's side- 
 By the lonely Platte we go, 
 
 That brings its cold and turbid tide 
 From far-off cliffs of snow. 
 
 The red deer in the shade 
 
 Shall fall before our aim, 
 And at eventide shall our feast be made 
 
 From the flesh of the bison's frame. 
 
 And when our feast is done, 
 
 And the twilight sinks away, [gone, 
 
 We will talk of the deeds of the days that are 
 
 And the friends that are far away.
 
 89 
 
 We heed not the burning sun, 
 
 Nor the plain winds wild and bleak, 
 
 And the driving rain will beat in vain 
 On the emigrant's hardened cheek. 
 
 Still onward, day by day, 
 O'er the vast and desolate plain, 
 
 With resolute hearts we plod our way, 
 Till our distant home we gain. 
 
 And when at last we stand 
 
 On the wild Nevada's side, 
 We'll look afar o'er the lovely land 
 
 And the heaving ocean's tide. 
 
 Of the past we'll think no more, 
 When our journey's end is won, 
 
 And we'll build our house by the rocky shore 
 Of the mighty Oregon.
 
 90 
 
 AFTER DEATH. 
 
 Why should we cling to those that die? 
 
 Why fondly mark and haunt the place 
 Where a dear brothers ashes lie, 
 
 Amid the relics of his race? 
 
 Why weep above the inclosing sod 
 Where the loved form was laid away, 
 
 As if the spirit sent from God 
 
 Still dwelt within the mouldering clay? 
 
 Years, as they pass, shall scatter wdde 
 That dust by narrow walls confined, 
 
 Wherever ocean sends his tide, 
 Or earth is swept by winnowing wind. 
 
 These trees, the harvests on these plains, 
 The air we breathe, the dust we tread, 
 
 The tide of life that fills these veins. 
 Are portions of the buried dead. 
 
 Hath God, then, doomed, when life is o'er, 
 The soul to slumber in the tomb. 
 
 While yet the form, the limbs it wore, 
 Are on the earth in life and bloom?
 
 91 
 
 The mind, far reaching into space. 
 
 Gauges the bulk of distant spheres- 
 Finds out each planet's course and place. 
 And measures all their days and years. 
 
 ' But who beyond that bourne hath gazed, 
 
 At which our mortal senses fail, 
 Into the spirit world, or raised 
 Twixt life and death the parting veil tf 
 
 The deepest search of human thought, 
 The furthest stretch of human eye, 
 
 No tidings from the soul have brought, 
 Beyond the moment when we die. 
 
 With trembling hope I wait the change, 
 When thought and sight, unclogged by sin, 
 
 Through God's vast universe shall range, 
 And take the world of spirits in. 
 
 Ours be meanwhile the cheerful creed, 
 That leaves the spirit free to roam, 
 
 By mount and river, wood and mead, 
 'Till Heaven's kind voice shall call it home.
 
 92 
 
 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 
 
 As when, on Carmel's sterile steep, 
 The ancient prophet bowed the knee, 
 
 And seven times sent his servant forth 
 To look toward the distant sea; 
 
 There came at last a little cloud, 
 
 Scarce broader than the human hand, 
 
 Spreading and swelling till it broke 
 In showers on all the herbless land. 
 
 And hearts were glad, and shouts went up. 
 And praise to Israel's mighty God, 
 
 As the sere hills grew bright with flowers, 
 And verdure clothed the naked sod. 
 
 Even so our eyes have waited long; 
 
 But now a little cloud appears, 
 Spreading and swelling as it glides 
 
 Onward into the coming years.
 
 93 
 
 Bright cloud of Liberty! full soon, 
 Far stretching from the ocean strand, 
 
 Thy glorious folds shall spread abroad, 
 Encircling our beloved land. 
 
 Like the sweet rain on Judah's hills, 
 The glorious boon of love shall fall. 
 
 And our bond millions, startled, rise 
 As at an angel's trumpet call. 
 
 Then shall a shout of joy go up, 
 The wild, glad cry of freedom come 
 
 From hearts long crushed by cruel hands, 
 And songs from lips long sealed and dumb; 
 
 And every bondman's chain be broke, 
 And every soul that moves abroad 
 
 In this wide realm shall know and feel 
 The blessed Liberty of God.
 
 94 
 
 THE VALLEY BROOK. 
 
 From the cool fountains of the wood, 
 
 A rivulet of the valley came. 
 And glided on for many a rood, 
 
 Flushed with the morning's ruddy name. 
 
 The air was calm and soft and sweet, 
 The slopes in Spring's new verdure lay, 
 
 And wet with dew-drops, at my feet, 
 Bloomed the young violets of May. 
 
 No sound of busy life was heard, 
 Amid those pastures lone and still. 
 
 Save the faint chrip of early bird. 
 Or bleat of flocks along the hill. 
 
 I traced that rivulet's winding way; 
 
 New scenes of beauty opened round. 
 Where meads of brighter verdure lay 
 
 And lovelier blossoms tinged the ground.
 
 "Ah! happy valley stream," I said, 
 "Calm glides thy wave amid the flowers, 
 
 Whose fragrance round thy path is shed 
 Through all the joyous summer hours. 
 
 "Oh! could my years, like thine be passed 
 In some remote and silent glen, 
 
 Where I could dwell and sleep at last, 
 Far from the bustling haunts of men." 
 
 But what new echoes greet my ear! 
 
 The village schoolboys' merry call; 
 And mid the village hum I hear 
 
 The murmur of the waterfall. 
 
 I looked; the widening vale betrayed 
 A pool that shone like burnished steel, 
 
 Where that bright valley stream was stayed, 
 To turn the miller's ponderous wheel. 
 
 Ah! why should I, I thought with shame, 
 
 Sigh for a life of solitude, 
 When even this stream, without a name. 
 
 Is laboring for the common good ?
 
 96 
 
 No! never let me shun my part, 
 Amid the busy scenes of life, 
 
 But, with a warm and generous heart, 
 Press onward in the glorious strife. 
 
 Wherever human wrong is felt. 
 
 Where'er oppression, want or woe, 
 There should the heart with pity melt, 
 
 And willing hands find work to do.
 
 97 
 
 A REVERIE. 
 
 With the life the Creator has deemed wise to 
 
 give, 
 He has woven with each a deep yearning to 
 
 live; 
 
 And existence is bliss if we follow the light, 
 Nor blot out in folly our sense of the right. 
 If I cannot live alway I would love to stay 
 Many years with the friends who are near me 
 
 to-day. 
 For the earth and the sky, and the dark rolling 
 
 sea 
 Have each day a new charm and fresh beauty 
 
 for me. 
 
 I tire not to look on this beautiful world 
 Each morn as the curtains of night are un 
 furled; 
 
 I gaze on the vast dome of heaven at night, 
 And am thrilled with deep awe at the glorious 
 
 sight. 
 
 Then the march of the seasons that pass swift 
 ly on 
 
 'Till spring, summer, autumn, and winter are 
 gone;
 
 98 
 
 And spring comes again with its light and its 
 
 bloom 
 To mock at the waste and the blight of the 
 
 tomb. 
 
 These all have their charms and their pleas 
 ures to give. 
 And are all meant to gladden the life that we 
 
 live. 
 
 'Tis not manly to grieve at the troubles of life, 
 'Tis not brave w r hen we shrink from its cares 
 
 and its strife. 
 The clouds and the shadows that hang o'er our 
 
 way, 
 
 Let us buffet them bravely or smile them away. 
 To decry this fair world by His hand spread 
 
 abroad 
 
 Is to sneer at the wisdom and goodness of God. 
 But "would I live alway? v Most surely I-would, 
 If this body and mind would still serve me for 
 
 good, 
 If the joys of my youth and my manhood could 
 
 stay, 
 And the friends that I love could be with me 
 
 alway. 
 But since all living creatures are doomed to 
 
 decay, 
 It is idle to talk of not passing away.
 
 99 
 
 INVOCATION. 
 
 0, south wind! from thy chambers, 
 Where sleep the tropic isles, 
 
 Where bloom the lime and orange, 
 And endless summer smiles. 
 
 Breathe on this desolation 
 This boundless waste of snow; 
 
 Unseal the silent fountains, 
 And bid the streamlets flow. 
 
 Too long thy frost winds, Winter, 
 Have howled around the door 
 
 Of many a humble dwelling, 
 
 Where shrink the friendless poor. 
 
 Too long, the worn and weary. 
 
 The lonely and the sad, 
 Have pined for warmth and sunshine, 
 
 To cheer and make them glad.
 
 100 
 
 All yearn for that sweet season 
 
 When children haunt the grove, 
 List to the wood birds singing 
 Their matin songs of love. 
 
 And seek, in sunny places, 
 Along the winding glen, 
 
 The first dear forest blossoms, 
 Far from the homes of men. 
 
 Our spirits, 0, ye waters! 
 
 Shall be like you, unbound, 
 When ye break forth in music, 
 
 And verdure clothes the ground. 
 
 Though many years have vanished 
 Since first I saw the light, 
 
 Although my brow is wrinkled 
 And all my locks are white. 
 
 Yet still I fain would linger 
 In life's mild evening ray, 
 
 Though few and pale the blossoms 
 That spring along my way.
 
 For nature kindly spares me. 
 
 Spite of the waste of time, 
 A firm elastic footstep, 
 
 The rugged steeps to climb. 
 
 And still, I love full often 
 
 Through woods and glades to stray, 
 And feel, and breathe the zephyrs, 
 
 That greet me on my way. 
 
 And still, I love to wander, 
 Childlike, by gurgling brook, 
 
 To seek for spring's first blossoms, 
 In warm and sheltered nook. 
 
 Then haste! 0, balmy south wind, 
 Breathe o'er this waste of snow; 
 
 Bring back the merry wood birds, 
 And bid the violet blow.
 
 102 
 
 THE MAPLES. 
 
 In the shadow of the maples, 
 That cluster round my home, 
 
 I watch the silent changes. 
 That with the seasons come. 
 
 Tis six and forty summers. 
 Since the naked prairie land. 
 
 With the slender forest saplings. 
 Was planted by my hand. 
 
 Then so slender, now so sturdy. 
 
 Their round tops towering high. 
 While beneath them on the greensward. 
 
 The broad, dark shadows lie. 
 
 And still in youthful vigor. 
 
 The struggling branches climb; 
 While my life's powers are ebbing. 
 
 With the passing years of time. 
 
 Beneath these spreading branches. 
 
 Cool as the sky o'ercast, 
 I dream of the boundless future, 
 
 And innse on the mighty past.
 
 103 
 
 Here sometimes quiet voices, 
 Speak to my inner ear. 
 
 In soft and tender accents, 
 What none but I can hear. 
 
 And I think, but not with sadness. 
 When I in earth am laid, 
 
 How after generations 
 Will bless this grateful shade. 
 
 Here then, shall children gather, 
 For sport at summer noon, 
 
 When clover blooms are drooping, 
 In the burning heat of June. 
 
 Here each returning season. 
 
 Build the robin and the jay, 
 And the oriole and throstle 
 
 Sing the summer months away. 
 
 I love those merry wood-birds, 
 
 And sitting here I bless 
 The gentle winds that pass me. 
 
 With whisper and caress.
 
 104 
 
 0, birds and summer zephyrs! 
 
 In a better home than this, 
 Shall I hear your joyous singing, 
 
 And feel the soft wind's kiss? 
 
 And the once familiar faces 
 
 That I yearn to see again. 
 Will they meet me at the threshold. 
 
 And smile upon me then? 
 
 Those six and forty summers, 
 Like a dream have passed away, 
 
 And the day these trees were planted, 
 Now seems but yesterday. 
 
 Since then how many dear ones, 
 
 From earth's bright scenes have gone, 
 
 While I a little longer, 
 Am left to journey on. 
 
 'Tis a trite and hackneyed subject, 
 
 This rapid flight of time; 
 It is one that men have grieved about, 
 
 In every age and clime
 
 105 
 
 And I' doubt not old Methuselah 
 Felt that nature did him wrong, 
 
 As he marked how fast the centuries 
 Were hurrying him along. 
 
 And there is a tradition 
 
 That at last he died of grief, 
 
 O'er his lack of opportunity 
 In a life so very brief. 
 
 As it is with money-getting, 
 So with life, 'till life is o'er; 
 
 Man seldom has so much of it, 
 But he wants a little more. 
 
 And those with locks all hoary, 
 Spite of life's pains and tears, 
 
 Would cling to earthly being, 
 1 wis a thousand years. 
 
 And who would leave earth's gladness, 
 Its breath and light and bloom, 
 
 For the coldness and the darkness, 
 And the silence of the tomb ?
 
 106 
 
 For this world is full of beauty. 
 
 The radiant sky o'erhead. 
 The awe inspiring mountains, 
 
 The vales with verdure spread: 
 
 These homes of sweet affections, 
 
 Of gentle deeds of love; 
 The men of firm uprightness 
 
 That human virtue prove; 
 
 These things and countless others, 
 That charm life's onward way. 
 
 Make glad its opening morning. 
 And cheer its evening ray. 
 
 Tis true its paths are toilsome, 
 At times exceeding rough; 
 
 But save its crimes and sorrows, 
 This world is good enough. 
 
 And He whose hand hath formed it, 
 Plain, mountain, sky and flood, 
 
 When the great work was finished 
 Pronounced his labor good.
 
 107 
 
 A RECOLLECTION. 
 
 The night was so calm, so silent, 
 
 I could hear the beat of my heart. 
 Like the faint throb of an engine 
 
 Nearing some distant mart, 
 Or laboring up the mountain, 
 
 Whence the river fountains start 
 To exchange the bread of the country 
 
 For the city's wealth in art. 
 
 No voice in the starry heaven; 
 
 Tn the trees no whispering sound; 
 No hum of droning insect 
 
 Came up from the brooding ground; 
 And a sense of fear stole o'er me 
 
 In that silence so profound, 
 For it seemed as if life had perished 
 
 From everything around. 
 
 And I mused on those distant cycles 
 When the great Earth swung in night; 
 
 Ere an ear had been created, 
 Or an eye received the light,
 
 108 
 
 And I stood in awe at the wisdom. 
 
 The matchless skill and might 
 Of the great and good All Father, 
 
 Who rules by love and right. 
 
 Who sheds, over all His glory 
 
 The beauty that round us glows: 
 Who fills the world with His bounty, 
 
 Tints every flower that blows, 
 And opens the gates of the morning: 
 
 And gives the night's repose. 
 And quickens the tide of being 
 
 That over His universe flows. 
 
 And I dreamed of the life immortal. 
 
 Where the gardens of Paradise lie. 
 Clothed in a living splendor. 
 
 Never seen by mortal eye; 
 The mansions the homes eternal. 
 
 Airy and vast and high, 
 And Life's river, pure as crystal. 
 
 Whose fountains never drv.
 
 109 
 
 BORDER COURTSHIP A REMINISCENCE. 
 
 Where the highway winds down a hill. 
 
 Beside a sparkling woodland rill, 
 
 In the mild winter thirty-three, 
 
 A wigwam stood beneath a tree; 
 
 A lordly oak. whose branches gray, 
 
 Hung o'er the passing traveler's way, 
 
 Until the woodman's echoing stroke 
 
 The silence of the forest broke, 
 
 And felled to earth the giant oak. 
 
 Within that wigwam snug and warm, 
 
 Close sheltered from the winter storm. 
 
 Dwelt a proud chieftain of the band 
 
 That erst possessed this lovely land. 
 
 Maumese his name, and, by his side 
 
 A forest girl his stay and pride. 
 
 A gentle princes of the wood 
 
 AVhose form and air betrayed her blood. 
 
 Twas there a settler's roving son, 
 
 A blooming youth scarce twenty-one, 
 
 Sought for and found the Chieftain's daughter. 
 
 In her lone home by Bureau's water. 
 
 Bashful at first the lovers sat
 
 110 
 
 Within a wigwam on a mat, 
 But soon. found out with little pother, 
 A way to understand each other; 
 For love's soft language in rehearsal. 
 The poet's say is universal. 
 Maumese had gone with day's first beam. 
 To hunt the deer along the stream. 
 Nor yet returned, though to his rest 
 The sun was sinking in the west, 
 Which left the damsel quite at ea>se 
 To study arts her beau to please. 
 Her } r outhful suitor to beguile 
 She wore her sweetest, gentlest smile; 
 Plaited with nice, assiduous care. 
 Each flowing tress of jetty hair; 
 Bound with a ribbon gay her waist. 
 To make it more in English taste; 
 Arranged her beads and silver rings. 
 Bracelets, and various trivial things. 
 Which add such charms to beauty's face. 
 And heighten every female grace; 
 Around her dusky shoulders drew, 
 A cotton scarf of azure hue: 
 And thus in all her pride arrayed, 
 The white man wooed the Indian maid.
 
 Ill 
 
 Stately was she in form and mien, 
 
 Fit pattern for a forest queen; 
 
 Her step was lighter than the fawn's 
 
 That bounded o'er those blooming lawns. 
 
 Her dark eye shed a pensive ray, 
 
 Soft as the violets of May 
 
 That smiled amid the solitudes 
 
 Of these her native plains and woods. 
 
 On passed the days, 'till wore away 
 
 The winter months, and bright and gay 
 
 In the soft airs of April sprung 
 
 The wood-flowers, and the wild birds sung 
 
 Amid the boughs that waved above 
 
 That home of happiness and love. 
 
 For, while the wintry season flew. 
 
 Acquaintance into friendship grew; 
 
 Friendship to love, until, at last. 
 
 The golden links seemed strong and fast; 
 
 When without notice to the lovers, 
 
 Maumese the wigwam roof uncovers. 
 
 Unloosed his ponies from their stakes, 
 
 And started for the northern lakes. 
 
 To meet his brother chiefs and sires 
 
 Around the Nation's council fires. 
 
 Ah! who can tell what pangs of grief
 
 112 
 
 Pierced the young daughter of the chief? 
 
 How streamed with tears those beaming eyes. 
 
 How her dark bosom heaved with sighs, 
 
 When thus at one relentless stroke. 
 
 The golden chain of love was broke. 
 
 And as her pony climbed the hill. 
 
 She gazed behind, and listened still, 
 
 If haply she again might see 
 
 Her lover's form beneath a tree, 
 
 Or hear him sing, so sweet to her. 
 
 The Indian Philosopher. 
 
 But e'er the nightfall closed the day. 
 
 Long miles of rugged distance lay 
 
 Between the lovers parted, never 
 
 To meet again on earth forever! 
 
 When the sun rose to noon's full height, 
 
 And filled the wood with warmth and light, 
 
 Our lover sauntering through the grove, 
 
 Sought the lone dwelling of his love. 
 
 As midst her marble piles o'erthrown 
 
 Old exiled Marius sat alone. 
 
 And wept the sad and mournful fate 
 
 Of Carthage, fallen and desolate; 
 
 Even so our hero, when he stood 
 
 By that lone wigwam of the wood,
 
 No sound of human footstep there. 
 
 Its bare poles quivering to the air. 
 
 Its hearth's cold ashes slaked and strown, 
 
 The maid he loved far distant gone, 
 
 O'er blasted hopes with bleeding heart, 
 
 Wept with a keener, bitterer smart. 
 
 Deride him not ye scornful girls. 
 
 With blooming cheeks and flaxen curls, 
 
 Those tears were honorably shed 
 
 As Anthony's o'er Caesar dead. 
 
 And know like anguish and despair 
 
 Your hearts may yet be doomed to bear. 
 
 As bends the sapling to the blast, 
 
 Yet stands erect when storms are past; 
 
 Sometimes the human soul, bowed low 
 
 By disappointment's cruel blow. 
 
 By firm resolve casts off the pain, 
 
 And stands erect and healed again. 
 
 Not so our pale-faced youth. Love's dart 
 
 Had pierced too deep his wounded heart: 
 
 And in his struggle for relief, 
 
 To dissipate the inward grief. 
 
 That plagued him more than gout or phthisic 
 
 Resolved to learn the art of physic. 
 
 And delve within that mine of thought,
 
 'Till his keen anguish was forgot. 
 
 What trifles change the course of life 
 
 From scenes of love to toil and strife! 
 
 And eke from scenes of toil and pain. 
 
 To scenes of love and peace again. 
 
 So the frail leaves of Autumn, shed 
 
 Upon the streamlets sandy bed. 
 
 Resist the struggling currents force, 
 
 Obstruct its way, and change its course. 
 
 Had not the fates thus stepped between 
 
 Our hero and the forest queen, 
 
 Until the work by love begun, 
 
 Had melted both hearts into one. 
 
 What different course their lives had run. 
 
 Perhaps our lover might have stood 
 
 Among the chieftains of the wood. 
 
 And ruled as the superior mind 
 
 Rules in the councils of its kind: 
 
 Or else had led the dusky maid. 
 
 Timid, and shrinking and afraid. 
 
 Where fashions votaries held the sway, 
 
 In towns and cities far away. 
 
 Or, haply, they had built their home 
 
 By some lone stream where violets bloom. 
 
 And reared beside the quiet waters,
 
 115 
 
 A stately groupe of sons and daughters; 
 Sons, in whose form and martial mien; 
 The chieftain grandsire might be seen. 
 Some Randolph, with eccentric mind, 
 Keen, shrewd, sarcastic and refined; 
 And buxom girls, with flaxen hair. 
 And cheeks of dusky shadow, where 
 The Saxon blood came mantling through, 
 And eyes of heaven's serenest blue. 
 But fane t y wearies in the chase 
 Of things that might have taken place. 
 Had not the fates thus snapped the chain, 
 By Cupid forged to bind the twain.
 
 116 
 
 JOHN SMITH'S EPISTLE TO KATE. 
 
 Dear Kate, as you and [ were sitting 
 Last evening by your parlor door: 
 
 While you with busy hands were knitting. 
 And I was turning Wordsworth o'er 
 
 Once as we hap'd to change a glance. 
 Deep in the chamber of your eye 
 
 I saw reclined, with bow and lance, 
 A winged Cupid then a sigh 
 Rose from my breast; I gave a start- 
 But ah he shot me through the heart. 
 
 At first I knew not what it meant: 
 I felt a strange and nameless feoling. 
 
 Up from my inmost bosom sent: 
 And then it seemed my wound was healing. 
 How queer the thought. (1 can't hut smile) 
 'Twas growing deeper all the while. 
 Time now has chased twelve hours away. 
 And brought the blushing dawn of day 
 Since Cupid sent that winged dart. 
 That rankles in my aching heart. 
 And I am sitting all alone. 
 Beneath a shade tree on a stone,
 
 17 
 
 I scarcely slept an hour all night; 
 
 I had a thousand feelings right 
 
 Or wrong -such as I can't describe, 
 
 They were a long and nameless tribe. 
 I fancied that thy lovely form. 
 
 Bent o'er me half a dozen times. 
 And then there came a thunder storm, 
 
 And then I fell to making ryhmes. 
 
 I ryhmed not of the thunder shower. 
 
 That shook the heavens in that dark hour; 
 
 Though it was wild and fierce and strong, 
 
 And might inspire a poet's song. 
 My theme was not of battles won, 
 
 Or heroes slain on fields of glory- 
 It was a tenderer, sweeter one, 
 
 Twas love's bewitching story. 
 I never felt the poet's fire 
 
 Burn in my frosty soul before, 
 1 never tried to string a lyre. 
 
 Or pluck the flowers Parnassus bore. 
 
 And this is strange, 'tis passing strange. 
 
 That 1 should meet with such a change. 
 
 1 said that I was all alone. 
 
 Beneath a shade tree on a stone 
 
 The heaven is clear, of azure hue,
 
 118 
 
 And winds, as soft as ever blew. 
 
 Breathe through the groves with lulling sound. 
 
 And bend the harvests all around. 
 
 O'er mountain top, o'er rock and tree 
 
 O'er many a vale and many a blossom: 
 Laden with sweets and melody: 
 
 They come to fan my cheek and bosom. 
 They seem celestial spirits sent, 
 To bless me from the firmament. 
 A thousand insect wings are ringing 
 In the wide sky: and birds are singing 
 Amid the leafy woods of June. 
 A long, uncha-nging. quiet tune 
 Comes from a bed of fragrant roses. 
 Where midst the flowers the bee reposes. 
 The vales in deep contentment lie. 
 The streams are shouting merrily, 
 All nature round is joy and gladness, 
 While T, alas, am pained with sadness. 
 A want T never felt before. 
 Now presses on me more and more. 
 
 1 feel the truth of what some quizzers 
 Have said of man in single life, 
 
 That he's but half a pair of scissors- - 
 A useless tool without a wife.
 
 119 
 
 My heart is lone and desolate, 
 To tell the truth I want a mate. 
 I say again 'tis passing strange, 
 Twelve hours should bring me such a change. 
 Now gentle Kate, if you and I, 
 Could journey on life's road together, 
 Methinks that many a stormy sky, 
 Might be exchanged for pleasant weather; 
 For surely one so good as you, 
 So kind, so gentle, and so true. 
 With those two bright cerulean eyes, 
 Thy faultiest form, thy cheeks of rose, 
 Thy forehead white as mountain snows, 
 Would make my home a paradise. 
 
 Then say. dear Kate, wilt thou be mine? 
 
 ' 
 
 Shall 1 be thine till life is ended; 
 
 And shall our several lives entwine, 
 And be forever blended? 
 I close my message with a sigh, 
 And wait in hope for your reply. 
 
 JACKSONVILLE, ILL., June, 1831.
 
 120 
 
 A SUMMEB MORNING SCENE. 
 
 Twas a bright morn in June, when the leaf and 
 
 the flower 
 
 Were freshest and fairest, I spent a brief horn- 
 On the hill side, and gazed on the valleys around. 
 When all nature was hushed in a slumber pro 
 found. 
 
 So still and so calm was the air where I stood, 
 That no murmur was heard through the pines 
 
 in the wood. 
 
 The red fox had slunk to his covert afar, 
 Beneath the faint light of the last waning star; 
 The birds were all mute, and the cricket's shrill 
 
 cry, 
 
 And the grasshopper's chirp were unheard in 
 the sky; 
 
 And the humble-bee hung with the dew on its 
 wing, 
 
 To the bloom of the thistle that bent o'er the 
 spring; 
 
 And no sound could I hear, as I gazed far away, 
 But the fountains amid the young blossoms at 
 play.
 
 121 
 
 'twas .sweet in that hour of unbroken repose, 
 When the air was all fresh with the scent of the 
 
 rose, 
 To gaze on the vales that around me were 
 
 spread, 
 So still that they seemed but the home of the 
 
 dead ; 
 
 And to mark as the curtains of night were with 
 drawn, 
 And glory and beauty broke forth with the 
 
 dawn, 
 
 Earth's numberless beings from slumber arise, 
 And to hear their glad voices ascend to the skies. 
 Then the winds woke apace, and the song of 
 
 the bird 
 And the grey squirrel's chirp in the thicket 
 
 were heard; 
 And the low of the kine, and the bleat of the 
 
 flock, 
 As they spread from the fold over hillock and 
 
 rock. 
 
 The yeoman went singing afield to his plow, 
 The waterfowl swam on the river below, 
 The swallows came darting athwart the blue 
 
 sky,
 
 122 
 
 And a thousand gay insects glanced merrily by; 
 And all things seemed joyous and lovely and 
 
 new, 
 As they broke from their slumbers and rose to 
 
 my view; 
 
 As if the Creator's all life-giving breath, 
 Had passed through the vale of the shadow of 
 
 death ; 
 
 And awakened anew to an innocent birth. 
 These beings of beauty to people the earth.
 
 123 
 
 WRITTEN AT CUMMINGTON, 1870. 
 
 How many hearts are cold, 
 
 That throbbed with wild delight; 
 How many eyes are dim, 
 
 That beamed with living light; 
 How many voices sweet, 
 
 Are stilled forevermore; 
 How many restless feet, 
 
 That trod from door to door; 
 How many homes are gone, 
 
 That love and beauty filled ; 
 How many radiant hopes, 
 
 Hath sin and sorrow chilled; 
 How many hands that toiled, 
 
 Are folded soft away; 
 How many glorious forms, 
 
 Have mouldered back to clay, 
 Since first I left these hills, 
 
 And made my home afar. 
 Where green savannas lie, 
 
 Beneath the evening star.
 
 124 
 
 Since then the flight of time 
 
 Has borne me swiftly on. 
 At most a few brief years, 
 
 Shall pass ere I am gone. 
 Thus ever goes the old. 
 
 And ever conies the new, 
 The slender sapling springs, 
 
 Where once the old oak grew; 
 And nature striving still, 
 
 To heal the waste of time, 
 Clothes with new life the earth 
 
 As in her early prime.
 
 125 
 
 ON VISITING MY BIRTHPLACE, MAY, 1866. 
 
 When death shall come, let me die, 
 Where these Avild steeps around me rise; 
 
 Where the green slopes and valleys lie 
 Beneath these bright, blue mountain skies. 
 
 For this is my dear native home; 
 
 This low-roofed dwelling once was ours, 
 This orchard bright with scented bloom, 
 
 These pastures gay with vernal flowers. 
 
 Here when the land was rent with strife, 
 And on the coast the war cloud hung, 
 
 These veins first felt the pulse of life, 
 These lips first lisped the English tongue. 
 
 Brothers and sisters nestled here 
 
 Beneath the kind parental sway; 
 And here through many a passing year 
 
 Love, peace and joy were round my way. 
 
 Now three score years of life are past, 
 The hair is silvered on my brow; 
 
 And shadows o'er my way are cast- 
 Life's evening shadows even now.
 
 12f> 
 
 What though beneath a milder sky, 
 Broad fields of waving wheat were mine 
 
 And tasseled maize and bearded rye, 
 And steeds and flocks and herds of kine. 
 
 Or what if mine were princely state, 
 And lofty towers and airy halls; 
 
 Or marble pile with moated gate, 
 And gilded dome and pictured walls. 
 
 These could not compensate the heart, 
 For childhood's haunts and home of rest; 
 
 No solace to the soul impart, 
 
 To fill the void within my breast. 
 
 For still my spirit fondly clings 
 
 To these loved hills, though wild and stern 
 And every passing season brings 
 
 A deeper yearning to return. 
 
 And when life's few brief years are gone, 
 I would my dim and fading eye. 
 
 Might cast a loving look upon 
 My native home, my native sky.
 
 127 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Light of my home, light of my heart, 
 Dear maid so gentle and so fair, 
 
 So free from every stain or art, 
 So lovely and so debonair. 
 
 How shall I treat thee as I ought, 
 How render the affection due; 
 
 How clothe with fitting words my thought 
 Of one so beautiful and true, 
 
 And not affect the flatterer's role, 
 
 And not awaken deep within 
 The inner chambers of thy soul, 
 
 A vanity allied to sin?
 
 128 
 
 UNCERTAINTY. 
 
 Life's mystery I cannot solve. 
 
 Nor can I from my mind root out 
 
 The painful vestiges of doubt 
 That human destiny involve. 
 
 Said one of wisest thought possessed; 
 "Man yields his life, and where is he?" 
 Ah! where? I cry, but unto me 
 
 There comes no answer to the quest. 
 
 I would not tread forbidden ground, 
 Nor seek for that I may not know, 
 Nor strive beyond the line to go 
 
 Where wisdom's self has fixed the bound. 
 
 The shadows that obscure my way, 
 I fondly hope may one day lift. 
 When calmly through the opening rift 
 
 These eyes shall see the perfect day. 
 
 God cares for all; without His will 
 There falls no sparrow to the ground. 
 All souls in His great love are bound, 
 
 That love will all its aims fulfill.
 
 129 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 I saw a preacher in the house of God, 
 
 With frantic gestures and in accents loud, 
 
 And words profane he spread his hands abroad 
 
 And poured anathemas upon the crowd ! 
 
 His speech was set with many a phrase uncouth, 
 
 And frivolous remark and common jest; 
 
 A mixture strange of folly and of truth, 
 
 With fierce denunciation for the rest. 
 
 Is this, I thought while listening to his strains, 
 
 A follower of the meek and lowly One ? 
 
 Are these the accents heard on Bethlehem's 
 
 plains, 
 
 When angels hailed the birth of Mary's Son ? 
 Is this the Gospel sent us from above 
 Whose words are peace and charity and love ?
 
 THE OUTCAST. 
 
 Matron with the faded form, 
 
 Wasted, bowed, but not with years, 
 
 Thine hath been a path of storm 
 Thine has been a vale of tears. 
 
 Where New England's hills arise, 
 Glorious from the ocean brine, 
 
 Thou did'st ope" thine infant eyes, 
 Peace and competence were thine. 
 
 There the broad green pastures lay, 
 There the orchard spread its bloom, 
 
 Woodland, stream, and meadow gay, 
 Circled round thy mountain home. 
 
 Late I saw thee but a child, 
 Playful, prattling, full of glee; 
 
 On thy steps a mother smiled, 
 Danced upon a father's knee.
 
 Then a stately maiden grown, 
 Raven tresses round thy brow, 
 
 Cheeks like summer roses blown, 
 None more beautiful than thou. 
 
 Heart all innocent and gay, 
 Full of feeling, full of truth, 
 
 Oh, how soon hath passed away 
 All the glory of thy youth. 
 
 Edward sought thy hand and won thee, 
 Generous, beautiful, and brave, 
 
 Noble Edward hath undone thee. 
 Who shall heal the wounds he gave. 
 
 Tempted from thy guardian side. 
 Pleasure's boisterous sons among. 
 
 Poisoned by the cup he died. 
 With a curse upon his tongue. 
 
 Then the babe upon thy bosom, 
 Wasting, sinking day by day. 
 
 Like a trembling April blossom. 
 Passed its little life away.
 
 132 
 
 One by one thy friends departed, 
 Father, mother, all are gone, 
 
 Thou a widow, broken hearted, 
 Wanderest through the world alone. 
 
 Born to wealth, to honor born. 
 
 These like morning dews are fled, 
 Child of poverty and scorn. 
 
 Who shall stay thy sinking head? 
 
 Bitter tears have blanched thy cheek. 
 Keenest anguish wrung thy breast, 
 
 Sad and sorrowful, and weak. 
 Soon the grave shall give thee rest.
 
 133 
 
 THE APPROACH OF AGE. 
 
 Gone are the friends my boyhood knew, 
 Gone three score years since childhood's morn; 
 
 A lonely stalk I stand, where grew 
 And proudly waved the summer corn. 
 
 Scanning the record of my years, 
 How blank, how meagre seems the page; 
 
 How small the sum of good appears 
 
 Wrought by these hands from youth to age. 
 
 Yet, 'midst the toils and cares of life, 
 I've tried to keep a cheerful heart; 
 
 To curb my fiercer passions' strife, 
 And as a man to act my part. 
 
 And I repine not at my lot. 
 
 Glad to have lived in times like these, 
 When mystic cords of human thought 
 
 Bind realm to realm across the seas.
 
 184 
 
 When this dear land. Time's latest birth, 
 Strikes every chain from human hands, 
 
 And 'midst the nations of the earth, 
 The greatest, freest, noblest stands. 
 
 When progress in material things 
 Leads upward immaterial mind. 
 
 And into nearer prospect brings 
 The perfect life of all mankind. 
 
 Kindly, as yet, life's autumn sun 
 
 Gilds the green precincts of my home ; 
 
 Softly, though fast, the moments run, 
 And fleeting seasons go and come. 
 
 Yet nearer moans the wintry blast. 
 
 The chilling wind of Age that blows, 
 Through darkening skies with cloud o'ercast, 
 
 With blinding sleet and drifting snows. 
 
 Ho! gleaner on life's wintry lea. 
 
 T hear the steps 'mid rustling leaves. 
 And soon this withered stalk will be 
 
 Close garnered with the autumn sheaves.
 
 135 
 
 And then will He, beneath whose eye 
 Each act of right and wrong appears. 
 
 Aught of untarnished grain descry 
 Among these husks of wasted years? 
 
 Haply these mustering clouds that lower 
 On the low sky in seeming wrath 
 
 May vanish, and life's sunset hour, 
 Shed a calm radiance o'er my path. 
 
 Then may the clear horizon bring 
 Those glorious summits to the eye, 
 
 Where, flanked by fields of endless Spring, 
 The Cities of the Bleesed lie.
 
 136 
 
 SONG OF LABOR. 
 
 We sing the song of the farmer. 
 
 Who tills the stubborn soil, 
 And feeds earth's countless millions 
 
 With the fruits of his patient toil. 
 
 He rises at early dawning, 
 Nor stays with the setting sun, 
 
 But toils 'till the twilight deepens, 
 Ere the work of the day is done. 
 
 He reaps the golden wheatfield, 
 And tends the tasseled maize. 
 
 And plucks the ripened fruitage, 
 In the frosty autumn days. 
 
 To him all look for succor, 
 
 On him the nations lean, 
 And yet no slave or pauper 
 
 By the proud, is thought more mean.
 
 137 
 
 In his country's hour of peril, 
 He is first in the deadly fray, 
 
 Filling the ranks with heroes, 
 And sweeping her foes away. 
 
 Would the toiler be a freeman, 
 
 He must rise in strength and might, 
 
 Stand with a front undaunted 
 And vindicate his right. 
 
 He must leave old party leaders; 
 
 They care not for him a straw, 
 Only to wrong and rob him, 
 
 Under the color of law. 
 
 He must vote for honest rulers, 
 Who will give him honest laws, 
 
 For men whose hearts are with him, 
 And love a righteous cause. 
 
 Then awake, ye sons of labor, 
 The day and the hour have come 
 
 To break old party shackles, 
 And stand for hearth and home.
 
 138 
 
 THE HILLS OF PARADISE. 
 
 Each moment, Lord of might, 
 
 Before thy mighty breath, 
 What myriads spring to life and light, 
 
 What myriads fall in death. 
 
 The broad full stream flows on, 
 
 Forevermore the same; 
 
 All coming from the dim unknown, 
 All going whence they came. 
 
 Does then the grave hold all 
 
 In its insatiate deep ? 
 Is the last summons but a call 
 
 To an eternal sleep ? 
 
 Nay, put thy trust in God, 
 And faith shall ope thine eyes, 
 
 To see before thee fair and broad, 
 The hills of Paradise.
 
 J39 
 
 Beyond the dark abyss, 
 Shall loom the radiant shore 
 
 Heaven's boundless realm of love and bliss. 
 Where grief is known no more. 
 
 Where the Good Shepherd brings, 
 
 His fair unnumbered flock, 
 To pastures ever fresh, and springs 
 
 Fed from the Eternal Rock. 
 
 Tents where the patriarchs rest, 
 Temples, vast, high and broad, 
 
 On whose grand structure is impressed, 
 The handiwork of Grod. 
 
 And homes, where loved ones gone, 
 
 On the resplendent height, 
 Clothed in the brightness of the dawn, 
 
 Dwell in supreme delight.
 
 HYMN. 
 
 Upon the nation's heart, 
 
 A mighty burden lies ; 
 Two hundred years of crime and tears, 
 
 Of anguish, groans and sighs. 
 
 How long, Lord ! how long ! 
 
 Crushed, trampled, peeled and dumb ; 
 Shall thy bound children suffer wrong, 
 
 And no deliverer come ? 
 
 The eternal years sweep on 
 
 Age after age, goes by- 
 Still waits the slave the breaking dawn. 
 
 The day-spring from on high. 
 
 "How long, Lord ! how long !" 
 When shall that cry to Thee, 
 
 Be lost in freedom's glorious song ; 
 And shouts of jubilee ?
 
 A swift, awakening thrill, 
 
 Send through the nation's heart ; 
 
 Make quick the conscience, pure the will, 
 And love of right impart. 
 
 Hasten, Lord, the hour, 
 
 For which we wait and pray ; 
 When Thy resistless breath of power, 
 
 Shall sweep the curse away. 
 
 If men refuse, God, 
 
 To set the captives free ; 
 Break as of old the oppressors' rod, 
 
 And give them liberty. 
 
 As Jesus from the tomb, 
 
 The buried Lazarus led ; 
 Rend Thou the slaves' deep night of gloom, 
 
 Oh, raise him from the dead. 
 
 Written 1858.
 
 142 
 
 DEATH OF LINCOLN. 
 
 "Make way for liberty/' cried Winkelried, 
 And gathered to his breast the Austrian 
 
 spears. 
 
 Fired with fresh valor at the glorious deed. 
 O'er the dead hero rushed those mountain 
 eers 
 
 To victory and freedom. Even so 
 Our dear, good Lincoln fell in freedom's 
 
 cause. 
 And while our hearts are pierced with keenest 
 
 woe, 
 
 Lo, the black night of slavery withdraws, 
 And liberty's bright dawn breaks o'er the land. 
 Four million bondmen, held in helpless 
 
 thrall, 
 
 Loosed by his word, in nature's manhood stand, 
 
 And the sweet sun of peace shines over all. 
 
 The blood that stained the martyr's simple 
 
 robe 
 Woke the deep sympathies of half the globe.
 
 143 
 
 DROUGHT. 
 
 Not a cloud in the sky, but a brassy haze, 
 Through which the sun glares hot and red, 
 
 Day after day, these long June days, 
 'Till the grass is withered and the flowers 
 are dead. 
 
 I sit by my home and gaze away, 
 
 For some sign of rain in the burning sky- 
 Some mist, or cloud, or vapor gray, 
 
 Till the daylight fades on my weary eye. 
 
 The birds that sang by my door have flown, 
 The bluebird, the oriole and wren, 
 
 Even the robin that steals my cherries has gone, 
 To the cooler shade o'er the brook in the glen. 
 
 The maize plant droops in the mid day sun, 
 
 But rallies at eventide again; 
 Looking up to heaven when day is done, 
 
 And sighs in the wind as if sighing for rain.
 
 144 
 
 From the bosom of earth goes up a sigh, 
 From every living thing a plaint; 
 
 The leaves on the shrubs are crisp and dry, 
 And the mighty woods look sick and faint. 
 
 0! for the faith and prayer of Him, 
 Who bowed upon Carmel's mount of yore; 
 
 When rose on the far horizon's rim, 
 The little cloud with its priceless store. 
 
 "But those times of undoubting faith are past," 
 Men say, "And the age of law has come, 
 
 Trust in the Lord is waning fast, 
 And His prophets of power are dead or dumb." 
 
 Written June, 1871.
 
 145 
 
 DAYS AT NASSAU. 
 
 From forests brown with winter, from valleys 
 
 clad in snow. 
 We sailed for the Bahamas, where the lime and 
 
 orange grow; 
 Four days the ocean tempests, around our good 
 
 ship rave, 
 The fifth we saw the palm trees in summer 
 
 breezes wave. 
 With fainting hearts, yet thankful, we leave 
 
 the stormy main, 
 Glad on the fair earth's bosom to plant our 
 
 feet again. 
 fair and lovely Island, with skies of tenderest 
 
 hue, 
 Girt round with sparkling waters of amethyst 
 
 and blue; 
 No frost winds blight your blossoms, no winter 
 
 snows come here, 
 
 But one eternal summer encircles all the year 
 Amid this bloom and verdure airs like our 
 
 August wind.
 
 146 
 
 I cannot feel 'tis winter, at the home T left 
 
 behind: 
 That there through leafless woodlands o'er 
 
 meadows Meak and l>n>\vn. 
 The cold north winds are sweeping, and snows 
 
 are sifting down. 
 Would then I leave forever my Northern home 
 
 for this? 
 To seek on this green Island a home of purer 
 
 bliss? 
 Oh no! ah no! far better that sterner clime of 
 
 ours, 
 Which stirs the soul to action and quickens all 
 
 its powers. 
 The stronger life for labor and swifter flow of 
 
 blood. 
 Which bear this great world onward, toward 
 
 the perfect good. 
 These bright and peaceful waters, in ruder, 
 
 darker times. 
 Have witnessed deeds of danim. and -ceiies of 
 
 bloody crimes. 
 never be this beauty by bloodshed marred 
 
 again, 
 But peace with all earth's nations forevermore 
 
 remain.
 
 147 
 
 And as the generations of men shall rise and 
 fall 
 
 Through all the passing ages, may love rule 
 over all. 
 
 Here may the weak and sinking, with hopeful 
 courage come, 
 
 And here the faint and weary still find a wel 
 come home. 
 
 I know the lime and orange, blossom and ripen 
 here ; 
 
 I know that endless summer attends the smil 
 ing year ; 
 
 But scenes of brighter splendor have met my 
 
 raptured eye, 
 Where round my own loved dwelling, the green 
 
 savannas lie ; 
 There are my dear, my loved ones, far o'er the 
 
 dark blue sea, 
 And thou my glorious country, my heart is still 
 
 with thee.
 
 148 
 
 SAD NEWS FROM HOME. 
 
 Written at Havana, while on my return from Mexico, March 
 24,1872, on receiving news of the death of my grandson, John 
 Howard Bryant: 
 
 A sudden wail of sorrow across the deep has 
 
 come, 
 The brightest gem has faded that lit my distant 
 
 home. 
 One beautiful and lovely, to whom my name 
 
 was given, 
 With cheeks like summer roses, and eyes as 
 
 blue as heaven; 
 And I am grieved to weeping, that one I thought 
 
 to press, 
 Soon to this throbbing bosom, with many a 
 
 sweet caress, 
 Is laid away in darkness beneath the wasting 
 
 snow, 
 No more my smile to answer, no more my love 
 
 to know.
 
 149 
 
 No more his gentle footfall shall patter on the 
 
 floor, 
 No more his call at morning, be heard beside 
 
 my door. 
 His vacant chair at table, the bed wherein he 
 
 lay 
 And breathed in helpless anguish his little life 
 
 away, 
 His garments and the baubles with which he 
 
 used to play; 
 All these are sad reminders of one that's gone 
 
 for aye. 
 How large the place made vacant, and how 
 
 severe the blow. 
 That smote our hearts with anguish, none but 
 
 ourselves can know.
 
 150 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 Loveliest season of the year, 
 Meek and modest, brown and sere, 
 With a mild and quiet eye, 
 With a soft and sunny sky, 
 Treading gently o'er the glade, 
 On departed summer's shade, 
 Painting all the forest leaves 
 With the hues the rainbow weaves; 
 How I love thee in thy prime, 
 Golden, blessed Autumn time. 
 
 Village school-boy searching o'er 
 All the rustling forest's floor, 
 (lathers wild grapes from the tree, 
 Whitest nuts of hickory, 
 Hazel nut and walnut rare, 
 Yellow as the summer pear, 
 Making glad with shout and song. 
 All the woodland all day long; 
 And the squirrel glad and gay, 
 In the warm sun's setting ray, 
 Frisking round the old oak tree, 
 Gathers nuts as well as he. 
 Sauntering down the deep ravine,
 
 151 
 
 Oft the dreaming youth is seen, 
 Watching shadows as they pass 
 O'er the falling leaves and grass, 
 Sitting by the streamlet's side, 
 Gazing on its restless tide, 
 Listening to the mellow note 
 Swelling from the wild swan's throat, 
 Sounding as she soars on high 
 Like a trumpet in the sky. 
 Gentle dreamer, wander on, 
 Till thy dream of life is done; 
 Let no darker shade be cast 
 On thy path, or ruder blast 
 Greet thee than the Autumn day 
 Throws around thy woodland way. 
 
 Now the farmer gathers in 
 Summer's fruits with merry din, 
 Plucking through the sunny days 
 Glistening ears of ripened maize; 
 Gathering from the orchard bough, 
 With its burden bending low, 
 Fruits as ruddy and as sleek 
 As the blooming maiden's cheek; 
 Fruits to cheer the taste and sight, 
 In the long, long winter night, 
 When around the blazing hearth, 
 Neighbors meet with cheerful mirth.
 
 152 
 
 THREE SONNETS. 
 
 I. 
 " I walk bewildered in the shadows here ; 
 
 Few are the friendly lights along the way ; 
 'Mid doubt, uncertainty and chilling fear, 
 
 I strain my eye to catch the dawning day. 
 There are, upon whose path a broadening ray 
 
 Falls from the land to which their loved 
 
 are gone, 
 A glorious stair to regions far away, 
 
 And angel spirits come and go thereon. 
 God, my Father ! rend the misty shroud 
 
 That overhangs me like the midnight air, 
 Or let some message from beyond the cloud 
 
 Reveal the fate, the life, that waits me there ; 
 let my faith be knowledge, blindness sight, 
 This dark uncertainty unclouded light." 
 
 II. 
 'Twas thus my friend, in earnest accents said, 
 
 Her gentle bosom heaving with a sigh. 
 A sudden glow her palid cheeks o'erspread, 
 
 A heavenly light came beaming from her eye, 
 She stretched her feeble hands, and looked on 
 high,
 
 153 
 
 The glow, the light, were brighter than before; 
 " The morning dawns," I heard her faintly cry, 
 
 And then her bosom rose and fell no more. 
 The halo and the brightness passed away ; 
 
 Her hands were still, her lips had ceased to 
 
 move ; 
 Yet on her wan, unconscious features lay 
 
 The sweet,calm smile of perfect peace and love; 
 God for her spirit rent the misty shroud ; 
 Her faith is changed to sight beyond the cloud. 
 
 III. 
 Friends weep around, believing she is dead. 
 
 'Tis but a trance a syncope no more. 
 The soul, the vital part, awhile has fled, 
 
 And treads enraptured the celestial floor. 
 For now a rustling sound is in the room ; 
 
 Dim shadows pass the threshold and depart ; 
 The light of hope dispels the funeral gloom, 
 
 And joy returns to many a sorrowing heart. 
 For look ! her eyelids tremble, and a tear 
 
 Glides o'er the enamel of that stainless cheek; 
 Faint hues of crimson on the lips appear, 
 
 That, quivering, part as if about to speak. 
 Her soft eyes open with a cry of pain, 
 And Dorcas sits among her friends again.
 
 154 
 
 AUTUMNAL EVENINGS. 
 
 There is a lovely autumn eve, when all the 
 
 winds are still, 
 Save a low murmur through the vale and on 
 
 the woody hill, 
 When groves are yellow, and the leaves are 
 
 falling carelessly 
 Along the road side from the boughs of ash and 
 
 linden tree; 
 
 When stars are few T and fleecy clouds are float 
 ing through the sky, 
 On gales unfelt, unheard below, where night's 
 
 dim shadows lie; 
 When from the distant lonely wood, the gray 
 
 owl's whoop is heard, 
 Where perches o'er the mountain stream that 
 
 solitary bird; 
 And in the orchard by the way, with hollow 
 
 unchanged sound, 
 The mellow apples, one by one, are dropping to 
 
 the ground.
 
 155 
 
 sweetly then the mountain wind skims o'er 
 
 the rustling corn, 
 And on the high blue heaven the moon hangs 
 
 out her yellow horn; 
 Then pass life's pains and cares away, and pride 
 
 and flattery's art, 
 And calm, pure feelings, in that hour slide 
 
 gently on the heart. 
 And there's a wilder autumn eve that has a 
 
 thrilling power. 
 The blood runs cold and the full heart beats 
 
 wildly in that hour; 
 Tis when the loud winds of the north are 
 
 shrieking in the sky, 
 And the dry leaves upon his wings are whirling 
 
 swiftly by, 
 When o'er the wide plain, bleak and sere, comes 
 
 the heath fox's bay. 
 
 And 'tis answered by the startled cur that slum 
 bered far away; 
 When the tall forest on the hill that overlooks 
 
 the vale 
 
 Is bowing to the mighty gust, like reeds in sum 
 mer's gale. 
 And the wide heavens are dark with clouds, 
 
 and twinkling oft between
 
 156 
 
 As they sweep rapidly along, the diamond stars 
 
 are seen. 
 0, there's a power that overrules the rushing 
 
 tempest's might, 
 And with His kindly presence fills the stillest, 
 
 calmest night; 
 Who lifts the curtains of the dawn and gives 
 
 the noontide birth, 
 And drops the gentle wing of sleep, upon the 
 
 weary earth.
 
 157 
 
 LINES WITHOUT NAME. 
 
 "Long have I loved what I behold, 
 The night that calms, the day that cheers; 
 The common growth of mother earth 
 
 Suffices me her tears, her mirth 
 
 Her humblest mirth and tears. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Old age is stealing o'er me fast, for wrinkled is 
 
 my brow, 
 And here and there upon my head are gray 
 
 hairs even now, 
 And soon will life be o'er with me, and I shall 
 
 slumber then, 
 And other feet will follow on the track where 
 
 mine have been. 
 
 Though manhood's years of cares and fears, 
 have not the glorious hue, 
 
 The thrill of joy and wild romance, my early 
 childhood knew 
 
 Yet 'twill be hard to leave thy scenes, 0, beau 
 tiful green earth, 
 
 Still drest in all the loveliness that dawned 
 upon thy birth.
 
 15S 
 
 How can I bid farewell to things that I have 
 
 known so long, 
 To which my inmost heart is bound with fetters 
 
 fast and strong! 
 The play-place of my early days, the streamlet 
 
 by my door, 
 And all the pleasant haunts of youth I knew 
 
 and loved before. 
 
 The wide range o'er the mountain top, the 
 
 homes of men around, 
 The deep untrodden woodland shades, the 
 
 blooming orchard ground; 
 The ripple of the running brook, the music of 
 
 the breeze, 
 That sighs along the grassy glade and whispers 
 
 in the trees; 
 
 The spring that comes with song and bloom, to 
 
 gladden all the plain, 
 The ruddy fruits that crown the hills in 
 
 autumn's golden reign; 
 All these my yearning heart must leave, and 
 
 pass from earth away, 
 Though dear the links that bind me here they 
 
 cannot last for aye.
 
 159 
 
 I've danced my children on my knee, and 
 
 kissed their sleeping eyes, 
 Aud when they smiled, their smiles to me were 
 
 bright as summer skies. 
 As time passed on, my love waxed strong, I 
 
 felt a father's pride, 
 As they grew up in manly strength and beauty 
 
 by my side. 
 
 And gladness sometimes lights my eye, to see 
 
 them round my hearth, 
 The pillars of my fading age, fair forms and 
 
 hearts of mirth; 
 But icy chills run o'er my frame, even now in 
 
 life's calm noon, 
 To know my glass is wasting fast, and I must, 
 
 leave them soon. 
 
 0, I have lov'd from boyhood up, on this fair 
 
 earth to look, 
 And manjr a lesson deep have learn'd from 
 
 nature's open book, 
 Amidst her calm and lonely scenes, where all 
 
 was silentness, 
 Strong thoughts have struggled in my breast, 
 
 I cannot half express;
 
 160 
 
 And childhood's mirth, and woman's smiles, 
 
 and manhood's noble frame, 
 Are images from which arise, feelings of holier 
 
 name. 
 Strong is my love for earth's glad scenes, and 
 
 strong the ties that bind 
 My sinking spirit to the friends that I shall 
 
 leave behind, 
 And when at last the hour is come, to bow my 
 
 head and die, 
 A 'tear for nature and for man, will tremble 
 
 in my eye.
 
 161 
 
 TO H. 1831. 
 
 0, thou who dwell'st at Springfield city, 
 And charm'st us with thy weekly ditty, 
 Who o'er the wide, wide sea hast flown, 
 To make our lovely land thine own, 
 Thou askest of a brother Bard 
 That which he deems severe and hard; 
 A task to which he will demur, 
 A song in praise of Mauvaiseterre ; 
 For he's been thinking all along, 
 That neither stream is worth a song. 
 Though its smooth winding banks are rich, 
 Our Mauvaiseterre's a muddy ditch, 
 Save a slight ripple where the hills 
 Hem in its bed at Egypt's mills. 
 And then, methinks your Sangamo 
 Has not a rock to break its flow, 
 But glides along with sluggish pace, 
 With scarce a dimple on its face. 
 No glade of blossoms ope beside it, 
 But forest shadows ever hide it. 
 Such streams as these, I'm bold to say, 
 Can never warm my simple lay. 
 Your silver Thames I ne'er have seen,
 
 162 
 
 Its populous town, its banks of green; 
 Nor Clrongar's summit " clothed with wood," 
 Whose feet are deep in Towy's flood, 
 Where the eye moves o'er vale and hill, 
 " Till contemplation has her fill." 
 Nor rocky Ouse, by Cowper sung, 
 That winds the pleasant hills among; 
 Nor Avon, where at night's calm noon, 
 The fairies danced beneath the moon, 
 Nor banks nor braes of Bonny Doon; 
 Nor Ayr's, nor Thevi's crystal tide, 
 That Scotia's rugged steeps divide. 
 But then I know that many a stream 
 As worthy of poetic theme, 
 As bright as beautiful and bland 
 Adorns my own beloved land. 
 0, who can stand by Hudson's shore, 
 And scan her bright blue bosom o'er, 
 And see not there a glorious view, 
 And fair as pencil ever drew, 
 Majestic mingled with the mild, 
 The rocky steep abrupt and wild; 
 Outstretched the smooth and level lawn, 
 The glades among the hills withdrawn; 
 The towns that by its waters spring, 
 And vessels borne on snowy wing.
 
 163 
 
 What though no mossy, mouldering tower, 
 The ivied seat of ancient power, 
 With iron gates whose hinges clank, 
 Frowns o'er the beauty of its bank; 
 For in the pure, cool upper air 
 Hath nature built her temples there; 
 And there in hoary grandeur stand 
 Huge pillars* fashioned by her hand. 
 But still a lovelier streamf is found 
 Within New England's rocky bound, 
 With softer beauty spread around. 
 I've stood upon the mountain's brow 
 That overlooks the vale below; 
 Outspread a lovely region lay, 
 The river winding far away; 
 The village spires that brightly gleam 
 In the great sun's reflected beam; 
 The long dark rows of planted maize, 
 The herds that on the pastures graze; 
 And on the slopes the scattered flocks, 
 And torrents dashing down the rocks; 
 And gladness seemed the reigning queen, 
 Of that broad vale so bright and green; 
 And lesser streams, without a name, 
 Unknown to poetry or fame, 
 
 *Palisades, fConnecticut.
 
 That spring among the mountains high. 
 And dash in tameless freedom by; 
 And rivulets and gushing rills. 
 That gladden my dear native hills; 
 And sweeter than all named before, 
 The fountain by my mother's door. 
 I look upon the Mauvaiseterre, 
 And think of these bright streams afar; 
 I look, and turn away my eye, 
 And pass its wave unheeded by. 
 Haply in after years may rise, 
 A bard its loveliness to prize ; 
 Whose bosom at its hard French name, 
 Will kindle with seraphic flame; 
 And who shall pour his rapturous lay 
 Along its devious, slimy way. 
 And shed a classic beauty o'er 
 The scenery of its weedy shore. 
 And here may dwell in coming ages, 
 Romantic youth and hoary sages; 
 And College sophs here try their art, 
 To gain with song the fair one's heart. 
 But I have naught of sympathy, 
 0, Mauvaiseterre, for such as thee; 
 Thou canst not waken wild and strong, 
 The spirit of unstudied song.
 
 165 
 
 UPWARD, ONWARD. 
 
 Upward, Onward are our watchwords, 
 Let the winds blow good or ill; 
 
 Though the skies be calm or stormy. 
 These shall be our watchwords still. 
 
 Upward, Onward in the battle, 
 Wa,ged for freedom and the right; 
 
 Never resting, never weary, 
 Till a victory crowns the fight. 
 
 Waking every morn to duty, 
 Ere the daylight fades away; 
 
 Let some deed for human progress, 
 Crown the labors of the day. 
 
 Upward, Onward, pressing forward, 
 
 'Till monoplies shall fall: 
 'Till the flag that floats above us 
 
 Equal rights proclaims to all. 
 
 Lo! a better day is dawning, 
 Brighter prospects ope before; 
 
 Spread your banner to the breezes, 
 Upward, Onward, evermore.
 
 166 
 
 WELCOME TO THE RETURNED VETERANS, 
 
 1S63. 
 
 Welcome home our gallant brothers, 
 Welcome home ye brave and true; 
 
 Rebel hordes had trod these prairies, 
 But for you and such as you. 
 
 But for you our peaceful dwellings 
 
 Had been cold and desolate; 
 But for you the scourge and gibbet, 
 
 Fire and sword had been our fate. 
 
 Through the long and weary marches; 
 
 Through the watches of the night; 
 Oft times pressed with cold and hunger, 
 
 You have kept your honor bright, 
 
 We are proud this day to meet you. 
 Proud the banquet board to spread; 
 
 Proud with heart and hand to greet you. 
 Pouring blessings on your head.
 
 167 
 
 Fearless in the hour of conflict, 
 Bureau's sons a dauntless band, 
 
 Ever met the rebel cohorts,. 
 Breast to breast and hand to hand. 
 
 Bureau boys at bloody Shiloh, 
 Pea Ridge, Gibson, Donelson, 
 
 Corinth, Vicksburg, Raymond, Jackson, 
 Fought the rebel foe and won. 
 
 Champion Hill and Chattanooga, 
 Saw them foremost in the fight, 
 
 Pouring out their blood like water 
 For their country, truth and right. 
 
 Let us call up for a moment, 
 The brave spirits gone before ; 
 
 Call to mind with deepest reverence, 
 Those our eyes shall see no more. 
 
 Noble, brave, heoric Ferris, 
 Frank in nature as in name ; 
 
 Page, large hearted, Seaman, Gordon ; 
 Stalwart Swain of iron frame.
 
 168 
 
 Gray haired Lloyd and earnest Russell, 
 These and hundreds true as they, 
 
 Such as Mason, Holmes and Weaver, 
 Bureau honors mourns to-day. 
 
 Think ye these will be forgotten ? 
 
 Never, while the human heart 
 Throbs and thrills with great emotions, 
 
 Can their memory depart. 
 
 What ! their deeds be nnremembered, 
 Who have died that we might live ? 
 
 If so, let our memories perish : 
 If so, mighty God forgive. 
 
 For the distant coming ages 
 
 History's pen shall fill her roll. 
 Write their names in light and glory 
 On the nation's deathless scroll. 
 
 Who will fill these vacant places ? 
 
 Standing for the noble dead, 
 Who will take the posts of honor ? 
 
 Who avenge the blood they shed ?
 
 169 
 
 i 
 
 See! the traitor legions waver, 
 
 "Now's the day and now's the hour," 
 
 One more charge, resistless Northmen, 
 Breaks the rebel tyrant's power. 
 
 When the last slave's gyves are broken, 
 When this bloody strife is o'er, 
 
 When with shouts and songs of triumph, 
 Victory rings from shore to shore, 
 
 When our glorious flag unchallenged, 
 O'er the land and o'er the sea, 
 
 Floats undimmed in starry splendor, 
 Flag of Union and the free, 
 
 Then again we'll bid you welcome, 
 Welcome home to peace and rest, 
 
 Then the victors' fadeless chaplet, 
 Shall around your brows be pressed.
 
 170 
 
 WELCOME TO THE RETURNED SOLDIERS, 
 
 1865. 
 
 Hail, day of Liberty and joy! 
 
 We bring no vain oblation; 
 This people stands erect to-day 
 
 Earth's mightest, freest nation. 
 
 From many a stormy battle field, 
 
 Renowned in coming story, 
 Our soldiers bring their harvest sheaves, 
 
 Of freedom, peace and glory. 
 
 Ho! brothers from the field of strife, 
 Bronzed by the southern summers; 
 
 We welcome you with heart and hand, 
 From shoulder straps to Bummers. 
 
 No truer, braver souls than yours, 
 
 Ere heard the musket's rattle, 
 Or met unblanched the rebel foe 
 
 Upon the field of battle. 
 
 To you we owe these quiet homes, 
 So peaceful and so pleasant;
 
 171 
 
 Protection in the years of war, 
 The grand victorious present. 
 
 You broke the bondman's tripple chain 
 That stained our country's honor, 
 
 And swept away that cause for taunts 
 Which despots heaped upon her. 
 
 You bore aloft our starry flag 
 
 In marches long and weary, 
 Through wild morass, and swollen stream, 
 
 And forests vast and dreary. 
 
 You undermined the corner stone 
 
 Of treason's dark dominion, 
 And laid on truth's eternal rock, 
 
 Free speech and free opinion. 
 
 The southern bloods that talked so large 
 And scorned the coward Yankee, 
 
 Have turned their backs in great disgust, 
 Saying, " Got enough, I thank ye." 
 
 Free speech and free opinion reign 
 
 From Maine to Rio Grande ; 
 Even negroes now may sing John Brown 
 
 And Yankee doodle dandy.
 
 172 
 
 0, many hearts as brave as yours, 
 
 Upon the field of danger, 
 Have ceased to beat their manly forms, 
 
 Lie buried with the stranger. 
 
 And thus our cup of joy to-day 
 Is mixed with tears of sorrow. 
 
 For those whose rest no drum-beat breaks, 
 Whose slumber knows no morrow. 
 
 Their memory shall be kept with yours, 
 
 And down with circling ages 
 Shall pass on history's golden page, 
 
 With heroes, bards and sages. 
 
 Thrice welcome, then, ye heroes all, 
 
 Honor to dead and living ; 
 We serve our grateful feast to-day 
 
 With hearts of deep thanksgiving. 
 
 Union and Liberty are ours, 
 
 The fruit of your endeavor, 
 God help us keep the heritage 
 
 Forever and forever.
 
 173 
 
 FOR A GOLDEN WEDDING, SEPTEMBER 
 
 21, 1863. 
 
 Just fifty summers are past, 
 
 And fifty winters of snow, 
 Since you, our friends, first joined your bands 
 
 In wedlock, for weal or woe. 
 
 * ^ 
 
 Twas a quiet New England town, 
 
 On a quiet Autumn day, 
 The sunshine came like a blessing down, 
 
 And the winds were soft as May. 
 
 From the meadows shorn and brown, 
 
 No more came the mower's din, 
 For the summer fruits and the golden sheaves, 
 
 From the hillside were gathered in. 
 
 The maples were tinged with crimson hues, 
 
 The linden and ash with gold, 
 As silver tinges the human hair, 
 
 When we are growing old.
 
 174 
 
 Then a merry company 
 
 Were gathered of old and young, 
 And the parson gave his blessing in prayer, 
 
 And the marriage psalm was sung. 
 
 And that wedding company 
 
 Went out to meet no more; 
 Some wandered far, and all, save one, 
 
 Have passed to the shadowy shore. 
 
 And now when fifty years 
 
 Have rolled their suns away, 
 A merry company are met 
 
 On the golden wedding day. 
 
 Tis far away from the scene 
 
 In that quiet New England town. 
 
 But the sunlight falls like a blessing here, 
 And the same heaven looks down. 
 
 In those fifty years what blessings 
 Have crowned each passing day; 
 
 The unseen hand of the Merciful One 
 Has led you all the way.
 
 And sons and daughters were born, 
 To gladden and cheer your home; 
 
 Your sons with manly vigor and strength; 
 Your daughters, with beauty and bloom. 
 
 \ 
 
 And then as the' years rolled on, 
 
 The prattling grand-children appear. 
 
 Ah, methinks that a golden wedding day 
 Without them, were cold and drear. 
 
 If yours is not wealth or power, 
 
 These fall to the lot of few 
 The better rewards of dutiful toil 
 
 And goodness belong to you. 
 
 Such lovely examples as yours, 
 At the plow, the shop and the wheel, 
 
 And the rearing of children to dutiful lives, 
 Are the stay of the common weal. 
 
 'Tis not the wealthy and proud; 
 
 'Tis not whom the world calls great, 
 But an earnest people who will to be free; 
 
 That build and support the State.
 
 176 
 
 Thus our nation in fifty years 
 
 Has passed o'er the mountains's hoar, 
 
 And reared her swarming cities and towns 
 By the broad Pacific shore. 
 
 Till she grasps the mighty oceans, 
 That wash the shores of the globe; 
 
 And people of every clime and land, 
 Find shelter beneath her robe. 
 
 What a wonderful march, of thought 
 Those fifty years have known, 
 
 How the comforts of life have multiplied,. 
 And science and knowledge grown. 
 
 What engines of mighty power, 
 What nice invention and skill, 
 
 Dull lifeless matter have seemingly forced 
 To work with a human will. 
 
 And how many plans and hopes, 
 
 How many devices of men. 
 Have vanished like morning dreams away, 
 
 In the years, 'twixt now and then.
 
 What myriads have sprung to life 
 And what myriads have passed away, 
 
 A vast procession hast'ning along, 
 Like a river on its way. 
 
 Ten lustrums ago the cloud 
 
 Of war hung over our shore; 
 But a darker cloud hangs over us now, 
 
 Than the land ever saw before. 
 
 But light is breaking through, 
 
 And the dawn of peace is at hand, [free 
 Which shall make this truly the home of the 
 
 A great and happy land. 
 
 For the onward sweep of war. 
 
 That bears us along like a wave, 
 Is breaking the bands of the master's power 
 
 And the fetters of the slave. 
 
 May you live to see that day; 
 
 May your aged eyes behold, 
 Over all this fair and goodly realm, 
 
 The flag of the free unrolled.
 
 178 
 
 THEN ANT) NOW. 
 
 LINES READ AT THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETING, 
 
 1864. 
 
 It is six and forty summers- 
 How swift the years go by? 
 
 Since the pleasant lands of Bureau 
 First lay beneath mine eye. 
 
 It was in the early autumn, 
 
 And these broad plains of ours 
 Were clad in the prairie grasses, 
 
 And glowed with the autumn flowers. 
 
 The Golden Rod and the Aster, 
 
 And a countless crowd beside. 
 Were clothed in a brighter glory 
 
 Than kings in all their pride. 
 
 A sea of gold and purple, 
 
 The star-like blossoms stood 
 And danced in the morning zephyr, 
 
 That rustled the lonely wood.
 
 179 
 
 Still memory holds that picture 
 Undimmed by Time's rude breath, 
 
 And I fancy I'll bear it with me 
 Beyond the river of death. 
 
 Oh! what are royal trappings, 
 
 Brocade and satin and lace, 
 To the all-surpassing beauty 
 
 Of nature's blooming face? 
 
 It is six and forty summers 
 My thoughts go back o'er the years, 
 
 And a crowd of recollections 
 Before my mind appears. 
 
 And I think, with a pang of sorrow, 
 Of the loved and the good, since then, 
 
 Who have come and passed like shadows 
 From the homes and haunts of men. 
 
 There are graves in the edge of the forest, 
 There are graves in the prairie mound, 
 
 Where our dead have been tenderly buried 
 And sleep in the virgin ground.
 
 ISO 
 
 There lie the fathers and mothers- 
 Bold pioneers who came, 
 
 Like Caesar, and saw and conquered, 
 But not with battle and flame. 
 
 And many who sat by our hearth-stones, 
 Have builded their homes afar, 
 
 Beneath the broad sun's setting, 
 And the gleam of the evening star, 
 
 And far away by the mountains 
 
 And streams of a distant sky, 
 Our brave, who have died for their country, 
 
 In the land of the stranger lie. 
 
 And still there is weary watching 
 
 In many a lonely home. 
 Waiting and watching for loved ones, 
 
 Who never more will come. 
 
 It seems but a transient season 
 Since all was new and strange, 
 
 And I gaze on the scene around me 
 And wonder at the change.
 
 181 
 
 Though scant at first our homely fare/ N 
 A little industry and^care 
 Soon brought abundance, and to spare; 
 And the whole land was filled amain, 
 With herds and steeds and golden grain. 
 Our cabins, though uncouth and rude, 
 Built of the forest trees unhewed, 
 Were homes of comfort, snug -and warm, 
 That fenced away the driving storm; 
 Where, huddled in the winter time, 
 Our children, now in manhood's prime; 
 And many a joyous, winter night 
 Was passed around the blazing light 
 Of the big fire. And tales were told 
 Of Indians, bears and panthers bold, 
 Till on each urchin's frowsy head 
 The bristling hair stood up with dread. 
 Those days will come no more again, 
 Their simple tastes and manners plain, 
 Give place to those, if more refined, 
 Less social, hospitable, kind. 
 Oh! deem ye not the rich and great, 
 Who dwell in fashion's pomp and state, 
 Have more of happiness on earth 
 Than the great mass of humbler birth;
 
 182 
 
 To each are compensations given, 
 
 That make conditions nearly even. 
 
 Cast back your thoughts, each sire and dame. 
 
 Who with our early settlers came, 
 
 And say, if more of joy ye know. 
 
 Than six and forty years ago, 
 
 When this fair region, unsubdued, 
 
 Before us lay a solitude 
 
 And we were struggling, nature's powers 
 
 To bend to purposes of ours? , 
 
 Not to obey a stern command, 
 
 Does man put forth a toiling hand; 
 
 He seeks the pleasure of the mind 
 
 In striving nature's force to bind, 
 
 And stores of happiness obtains, 
 
 While conquering her wild domains. 
 
 When first I saw with wondering eyes. 
 
 This broad and blooming paradise, 
 
 The murmur of domestic life, 
 
 Its busy hum and noisy strife, 
 
 Its trading marts, its fashions gay, 
 
 Were twice two hundred miles away. 
 
 Then were these fields by plow unbroke ; 
 
 No spire of church, no village smoke 
 
 Climbed the blue chambers of the air,
 
 183 
 
 And told the white man's home was there. 
 
 No busy tick of household clock, 
 
 No morning call of crowing cock, 
 
 Nor low of kine, nor bleat of flock; 
 
 No neigh of steeds, where green and gay 
 
 The unfenced plains stretched far away. 
 
 Then, here and there beside the wood, 
 
 The squatter's rude, rough cabin stood; 
 
 While all around, fair nature smiled, 
 
 Untamed and beautiful and wild. 
 
 No chariot whirled along the way, 
 
 No schoolboys shouting at their play, 
 
 Nor anvil's ring, or hammer's stroke 
 
 The silence and the quiet broke. 
 
 Then, by the streams and forests here 
 
 The Red man chased the timid deer; 
 
 And where our village gardens bloom 
 
 The wolf and badger made their home. 
 
 Where, upon Princeton's main street stand 
 
 The busy shops on solid land, 
 
 These eyes have seen the wild swan float, 
 
 These ears have heard his trumpet note, 
 
 As in the autumn morning gray, 
 
 He grandly rose and sailed away. 
 
 The birds that haunt our woodland sprays
 
 184 
 
 Have changed since those remoter days, 
 
 And softer, sweeter, are their lays; 
 
 The thrush, that each returning spring, 
 
 Now comes to build his nest and sing, 
 
 But twenty years, if yet so long, 
 
 Has filled our orchards with his song: 
 
 And the pugnacious chattering wren, 
 
 First made his home with us since then. 
 
 Look now abroad! how changed the scene, 
 
 From those wild prairies, broad and green. 
 
 Where the red flames each passing year, 
 
 Swept the thick herbage, brown and sere, 
 
 Bread for the nations, from the land 
 
 Is yielded to the tiller's hand. 
 
 Broad wheat fields wave, and stately maize 
 
 Rustles in autumn's golden days, 
 
 And herds in richest pastures fed, 
 
 Walk the soft earth with heavy tread; 
 
 And Norris' beef is sent afar, 
 
 By steamer, ship and railroad car, 
 
 And smokes on London's bounteous boards, 
 
 To fatten English dukes and lords: 
 
 And Bureau flour by Scotland's braes, 
 
 Makes cakes for Christmas holidays!
 
 185 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 EEAD BEFORE THE PRINCETON, (ILL.,) WASHING- 
 TONIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 When first on Eden's verdant sod 
 The parents of our lineage trod; 
 When all around was strange and new, 
 That met the pleased and wondering view, 
 Say, what should crown their simple board 
 But garden fruits, a smiling hoard? 
 What beverage could the patriarch bring, 
 But water bubbling from the spring? 
 Their wants so simple and so few, 
 Were all to nature's dictates true; 
 And years sped joyously along, 
 Made glad with labor, health and song. 
 No alchymist, as yet, had found, 
 In his dark cave beneath the ground, 
 The liquid fire, that friend of strife 
 Which eats the silken threads of life. 
 Man felt no rheums nor chronic pain, 
 No burning fever scorched his brain; 
 But centuries of years rolled on
 
 186 
 
 Before the sands of life were gone. 
 
 But when upon the mountain side 
 
 The waters of the flood were dried. 
 
 When from the ark our sires went forth, 
 
 And spread abroad upon the earth 
 
 And planted there the clinging vine 
 
 And pressed its purple fruit for wine, 
 
 How soon the years of man had run 
 
 From nine long centuries down to one; 
 
 How thick were sown along his path, 
 
 Sorrow and crime, disease and death. 
 
 Ye who look forward to the hour 
 
 When death shall smite with certain power; 
 
 When your free spirit shall arise 
 
 To the bright chambers of the skies, 
 
 What will the waiting angels bring 
 
 That hasten to your welcoming? 
 
 Think ye that wine or. rum are there? 
 
 No! water, limpid as the air. 
 
 Water of life, and that alone, 
 
 Which gushes from the eternal throne. 
 
 The same by him of Patmos seen, 
 
 Sparkling in heaven's all glorious sheen; 
 
 That radiant, bright and blessed river, 
 
 Whose crystal wave flows on forever.
 
 1ST 
 
 Then let us all our steps retrace, 
 Regenerate our wasted race; 
 Temperance shall lengthen out the span 
 Allotted here on earth to man, 
 Bring in the coming years to view, 
 The reverent age the patriarchs knew; 
 (live to the glad Millenium birth, 
 And make a paradise on earth. 
 
 December, 1S40.
 
 188 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 lay him in his place of rest, 
 
 His earnest, stormy life is o'er; 
 Let the green sods of spring be prest 
 
 'Round the loved form we see no more. 
 
 How throbbed his warm and generous heart? 
 
 What mighty passions thrill'd his frame! 
 How beamed his eye with sudden start 
 
 At sound of Freedom's holy name ! 
 
 To her he gave his earnest life, 
 
 And toiled through seeming hopeless years, 
 Long years of scorn and hate and strife, 
 
 'Till now her glorious day appears. 
 
 Strong words of truth that cannot die, 
 He spoke in stern and high debat'e; 
 
 With manly front and dauntless eye 
 Met the wild charge of rebel hate. 
 
 With mightier power than Aaron's rod 
 
 He tore the sophist's nets apart, 
 And poured the living truth of God 
 
 Fresh on the Nation's quivering heart.
 
 189 
 
 What countless crowds throughout the land, 
 Hung on each glowing, burning word ! 
 
 He swayed them with a prophet's wand, 
 As woods in morning winds are stirred. 
 
 As Moses from the mountain steep, 
 He saw the enfranchised land before ; 
 
 He leaves the boon for us to keep, 
 His work is done his toil i,s o'er. 
 
 On fields he sowed with toil and pain, 
 
 Uncounted labors entering in, 
 Reap the full sheaves of ripened grain, 
 
 With harvest songs and joyous din. 
 
 In these free prairies of the West 
 
 We lay his manly form away; 
 Tis meet that here Earth's loving breast 
 
 Receive again the conqueror's clay.
 
 190 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF MRS. M. 
 
 When one so sweet, so fair, is called to go, 
 So full of goodness, truth and joy and love, 
 
 How hard the parting, even if we know 
 The soul has found a better home above. 
 
 broken hearted husband, sister, sire, 
 A rich inheritance is yours to claim, 
 
 Amid your yearning and intense desire 
 The memory of her unspotted name. 
 
 The memory of her love, that clung so fast, 
 And deeper grew 'till life's last nickering ray, 
 
 Unswerving and unfaltering to the last, 
 And looking heavenward as she passed away. 
 
 Amid her village school, love took the helm, 
 No churl so rude but willing homage paid; 
 
 She ruled unquestioned in her little realm, 
 For love was law and all that law obeyed.
 
 191 
 
 Brave for the truth, unflinching for the right, 
 Yet timid, gentle, modest, meek, she stood, 
 
 Her glowing bosom filled with peace and light. 
 And aspirations, ever pure and good. 
 
 deem not she has gone forever gone; 
 
 But ever feel her gentle presence nigh, 
 In the soft light of every breaking dawn, 
 
 In noon's sweet sunshine and the night 
 wind's sigh.
 
 ON THE DEATH OF ICHABOD CODDING. 
 
 When death, with a rentless hand, 
 Smites the strong pillars of the land, 
 To what safe refuge can we flee, 
 Lord of Nations, but to Thee ? 
 
 As falls the stately forest oak, 
 So fall earth's heroes by the stroke; 
 The wise, the good in sad array 
 And silent grandeur, pass away. 
 
 This day we mourn with many tears- 
 Cut down amid his prime of years, 
 A life long toiler in Thy cause, 
 For freedom, truth and righteous laws. 
 
 Kind, gentle, child-like in thy sight. 
 Strong, brave, unflinching for the right; 
 'Mid scorn and cowardice, he stood 
 And gave his life to deeds of good.
 
 193 
 
 With faltering faith, God! we ask, 
 Who shall resume the unfinished task; 
 Who stand Thy Champion, in the stead 
 Of the heroic, mighty dead? 
 
 Yet know we, far beyond our ken, 
 Live the great deeds of noble men, 
 And glowing truths from prophet seers, 
 Light the long pathway of the years.
 
 194 
 
 FAREWELL HYMN, 
 
 Sung by the Graduating Class of Princeton High School, June 
 2d, 1871. 
 
 Since first we met four years have passed. 
 
 Four years! what words their worth can tell ? 
 And all too soon has conie at last 
 
 The hour to speak the word. ' Farewell." 
 
 Farewell to this delightful spot, 
 Where order, peace and friendship meet, 
 
 To those who smoothed our path of thought, 
 And tireless, w r atched our wayward feet. 
 
 Farewell, dear schoolmates left behind, 
 Climbing the steep, yet pleasant height; 
 
 To fill, with useful lore, the mind, 
 And lift the soul to larger light. 
 
 May God's good angels shield each head, 
 Long, joyous years, be ours and theirs, 
 
 Truth over all her radiance shed, 
 And honor wait on hoary hairs.
 
 195 
 
 INSTALLATION HYMN. 
 
 Father of light and love, 
 
 To Thee our hymn we raise; 
 Send down thy Spirit now and move 
 
 Our hearts to grateful praise. 
 
 All souls are in Thy hand. 
 All creatures great and small, 
 
 In Thy upholding power they stand, 
 Thou mak'st and lovest all. 
 
 Him whom we crown to-night. 
 
 As teacher, helper, friend, 
 Fill Thou his soul with strength and light, 
 
 On him Thy blessing send. 
 
 Give him deep faith in Thee, 
 
 A spirit brave and meek, 
 A prophet's ken Thy truth to see. 
 
 Courage that truth to speak.
 
 196 
 
 As seasons come and go, 
 May peace attend his flock. 
 
 Led where the living waters flow 
 From Thee, the eternal rock. 
 
 Here each in his own way, 
 Shall seek the truth he needs, 
 
 Free to depart, or free to stay, 
 Unchained by sect or creeds.
 
 197 
 
 HYMN, 
 
 SUNG AT THE DEDICATION OF THE PRINCETON HIGH 
 SCHOOL BUILDING. 
 
 O'er these broad plains so rich and fair, 
 But late the untutored savage trod; 
 
 No trace of cultured life was seen 
 
 To crown the smooth unfurrowed sod. 
 
 Then came the restless Saxon tide, 
 Resistless, broad and deep and strong; 
 
 That on its bright, free, crested wave, 
 New life and learning bore along. 
 
 Then rose the village, Church and School, 
 And rural homes came thick and fast; 
 
 And stately hall and lofty dome, 
 Are reared for learning's use at last. 
 
 The light divine of Palestine, 
 
 The lore of Egypt, Greece and Rome, 
 
 The mighty thoughts of modern minds, 
 Shall cluster here and find a home.-
 
 IDS 
 
 And here shall rich and poor alike. 
 
 Be nurtured for the world's great strife. 
 And hence go forth, with earnest hearts, 
 
 To lead the Nation's upward life. 
 
 No more shall minds of native power 
 Be lost amid a herd of slaves, 
 
 No future Milton's lips bo mute. 
 
 No Cro in wells till unhonored graves.
 
 199 
 
 DEDICATION HYMN. 
 
 This hour, with joy and hope so bright, 
 A fane where human thought is free, 
 
 Lord of liberty and light, 
 We come to consecrate to Thee. 
 
 Accept the labor of our hands, 
 
 Thou loving Father of our race, 
 And long as this fair temple stands, 
 
 make it still Thy dwelling place. 
 
 Here may all doubting souls find rest, 
 The erring learn to love thy ways. 
 
 And children such as Jesus blest, 
 Crowd these wide courts with grateful praise. 
 
 And as the years of time pass on. 
 
 And generations rise and fall. 
 The pure sweet life of Mary's Son, 
 
 Find answer in the lives of all.
 
 POEM FOR DECEMBER 
 
 Years bright and dark have sped away, 
 Since by New England's rocky shore 
 
 The Mayflower moored in Plymouth Bay 
 Amid the wintry tempest's roar. 
 
 Few, worn and weak, that Pilgrim band; 
 
 An unknown coast before them rose 
 A vast, unmeasured forest land. 
 
 Begirt with ice and clad with snows. 
 
 Yet, firm and dauntless, forth they trod . 
 
 From that lone ship beside the sea, 
 Firm in the faith and truth of God, 
 
 To plant an Empire for the free. 
 
 Ah, who can tell what toil and strife, 
 What griefs beset the Pilgrim's path; 
 
 How brave he bore the ills of life 
 
 And triumphed in the hour of death ? 
 
 Strange, weird and wild the scenes around, 
 With trackless forests dark and deep, 
 
 Where silence, solemn and profound 
 An endless Sabbath seemed to keep.
 
 201 
 
 There in the evening's holy calm 
 And eke in morning's frosty air, 
 
 The Pilgrim trilled his sacred psalm, 
 Arid bowed his head in earnest prayer. 
 
 He looked to God for every good 
 For sun and rain and fruitful field: 
 
 And deemed that angels round him stood, 
 His sword and his protecting shield. 
 
 Each passing year at autumn's close, 
 For temporal mercies largely given, 
 
 His voice in deep thanksgiving rose 
 And praises to the Lord of heaven. 
 
 His were the errors of the time- 
 Intolerance and a mien severe; 
 
 His, too, a heroism sublime, 
 That cast out all unmanly fear. 
 
 / 
 The blood poured out on Bunker's height, 
 
 At Brooklyn, Eufcaw, Yorktown plains, 
 In deadly charge and stubborn fight, 
 Came from the stern old pilgrims veins.
 
 202 
 
 He laid foundations; see, a State 
 In power and freedom rise to view. 
 
 He little thought how strong and great; 
 "He builded better than he knew." 
 
 The vine then planted by the sea 
 
 Has spread o'er mountain, wood- and glade, 
 Sheltering a Nation, strong and free, 
 
 Whose children rest beneath its shade. 
 
 O'er a vast waste but late untrod, 
 Save by wild beasts and savage men, 
 
 Her swarming sons have spread abroad 
 On flowery plain and woody glen. 
 
 Homes nestle on the mountain side, 
 Proud cities rise by mighty streams, 
 
 And wheat and maize fields spreading wide 
 Bask in the sun's effulgent beams. 
 
 There in fresh pastures roams the steed ; 
 
 Unnumbered flocks by mountain rills ; 
 And sleek herds crop the grassy mead, 
 
 Or range upon a thousand hills.
 
 From one rude hamlet by the wood 
 How wide, how far have spread our lines, 
 
 Till o'er the vast Pacific's flood 
 Our glorious star of empire shines. 
 
 Yet brighter, higher still tha,t star, 
 With every passing year ascends. 
 
 Full soon its light shall shine afar 
 To gladden earth's remotest ends. 
 
 Aye, soon the realms where darkness lies 
 And fell oppression reigns supreme, 
 
 Shall mark its dawn upon their skies, 
 And hail with joy its quickening beam. 
 
 Here on life's ever-swelling tide 
 
 A restless stream, deep, broad and strong, 
 Learning and freedom, side by side. 
 
 With faith in God are borne along. 
 
 Bless then the hand whose gentle might 
 Smoothed for our sires old ocean's breast, 
 
 Bless we this day whose morning light 
 Revealed the promised land of rest.
 
 204 
 
 AT THE TOMB OF LINCOLN. 
 
 READ AT THE FINAL DEDICATION OF THE LINCOLN 
 
 MONUMENT AT SPRINGFIELD^ ILL., 
 
 APRIL 15, 1884. 
 
 FELLOW CITIZENS : It is now nearly hah" a century since I 
 first met Mr. Lincoln and became somewhat acquainted with him. 
 Even then I felt drawn towards him, on account of his genial, so 
 cial nature. From that first acquaintance I saw him occasionally, 
 but did not know him intimately until about the year 1854. Aittr 
 that I met him frequently, until the time of his assassination. It 
 was not until he was called to lead us through the fearful agonies of 
 the civil war that I became fully impressed with the sterling quali 
 ties of the man. Then my respect grew into an affectionate regard 
 and reverence, such as I never felt for any other public officer- 
 And since his violent taking off, the tender veneration I cherish 
 for his memory, has, if anything, become deeper as the years have 
 passed away. Entertaining these feelings, I trust I may be par 
 doned any seeming egotism when I say that I esteem it a great 
 favor that I have been invited by those who have charge of these 
 exercises, to read on this spot a few lines of verse, expressing the 
 sincere sentiments of my heart for the character and memory of 
 him whose mortal remains are here entombed. 
 
 Not one of all earth's wise and good 
 
 Hath earned a purer gratitude, 
 Than the great soul whose hallowed dust 
 
 This structure holds in sacred trust. 
 
 How fierce the strife that rent the land 
 When he was summoned to command! 
 
 With what wise care he led us through 
 The fearful storms that round him blew!
 
 205 
 
 Calm, patient, hopeful, undismayed, 
 He met the angry hosts arrayed 
 
 For bloody war, and overcame 
 
 Their haughty power in freedom's name. 
 
 Mid taunts and doubts the bondman's chain 
 With gentle force he cleft in twain, 
 
 And raised four million slaves to be 
 The chartered sons of liberty. 
 
 No debt he owed to wealth or birth; 
 
 By simple force of solid worth 
 He climbed the topmost height of fame, 
 
 And wrote thereon a spotless name. 
 
 Oh, when the felon hand laid low 
 That sacred head, a sudden woe 
 
 Shot to the nation's farthest bound, 
 And every bosom felt the wound. 
 
 Well might that nation bow in grief, 
 And weep above her fallen chief, 
 
 Who ever strove by word and pen 
 For '' peace on earth, good will to men."
 
 206 
 
 The people loved him, for they knew 
 Each pulse of his large heart was true 
 
 To them, to country and the right, 
 Unswayed by gain, unawed by might. 
 
 This tomb by loving hands uppiled, 
 To him, the merciful and mild, 
 
 From age to age shall carry down 
 The glory of his great renown. 
 
 As the long centuries onward flow, 
 
 As generations come and go, 
 Wide and more wide his fame shall spread, 
 
 And greener laurels crown his head. 
 
 And when this pile shall fall to dust, 
 
 It's bronzes crumble into rust, 
 Thy name, oh Lincoln, still shall be 
 
 Revered and loved from sea to sea! 
 
 India's swart millions 'neath their palms 
 Shall sing thy praise in grateful psalms, 
 
 And crowds by Congo's turbid wave 
 Bless the good hand that freed the slave.
 
 207 
 
 Shine on, oh star of freedom, shine! 
 
 'Till all the realms of earth are thine, 
 And all her tribes through countless days 
 
 Shall bask in thy benignant rays. 
 
 Lord of the nations, grant us still 
 
 Another patriot sage, to fill 
 The seat of power, and save the state 
 
 From selfish greed. For this we wait.
 
 208 
 
 HYMN, 
 
 SUNG AT THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, AT PRIN 
 CETON, AT THE LAST SERVICE HELD IN THEIR 
 OLD HOUSE OF WORSHIP, 1845. 
 
 Almighty God ! for many a year 
 Have we, Thy children, gathered here; 
 And now, within this humble house, 
 Have come to pay our parting vows. 
 
 Ah! Wondrous years! within the range 
 Of human sight, what mighty change ! 
 And backward as we turn our eyes, 
 What sacred memories arise ! 
 
 E'er yet these fields by plow were broke. 
 Or rose in air the village smoke, 
 Thy servants trenched the virgin sod 
 And reared this house to Thee, our God. 
 
 Here each succeeding Sabbath morn, 
 'Mid jeers of hate and taunts of scorn, 
 Few, weak, yet strong in truth, we came 
 To nurse and spread its kindling flame.
 
 209 
 
 Here has the thoughtless soul been roused, 
 The sorrowing heart to peace composed ; 
 Here has the cup of joy overflowed, 
 With blessings by Thy hand bestowed. 
 
 Here hath the fleeing bondman found 
 A shield from Hell's pursuing hound; 
 And hence have Freedom's truths gone forth 
 To shake and light and bless the Earth. 
 
 With saddened hearts, as duty calls, 
 We leave these venerated walls, 
 Nor deem, whate'er may be our lot, 
 This hallowed place can be forgot.
 
 210 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 There is a life of endless bliss, 
 Far in the spirit sphere, 
 A better home by far than this, 
 Of purer love than here. 
 
 Peace, like a river broad and deep, 
 O'erflows that happy land. 
 And gales of heavenly rapture sweep 
 Along its blooming strand. 
 
 Celestial mansions, bright and fair, 
 In glorious grandeur rise. 
 The gardens of the Lord are there, 
 The vales of paradise. 
 
 let us tread the blessed road 
 Of goodness, truth and love, 
 Led by the spirit of our God, 
 To that pure home above.
 
 21 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 With reverence, gently bear away, 
 This brave old man of many years; 
 And in the graveyard's bosom, lay, 
 His manly form, with sorrowing tears. 
 
 For he, beyond life's common span, 
 With us has lived and walked abroad ; , 
 Has filled the measure of a man, 
 Love to his neighbor, faith in God. 
 
 His cheerful voice we hear no more, 
 No more, his sturdy form we meet, 
 Passing along from door to door, 
 Upon our busy village street. 
 
 With courage true, that never quailed, 
 He marched, his country to defend. 
 And who can point, wherein he failed, 
 As husband, father, brother, friend ?
 
 919 
 uiu 
 
 In public life, no venal stain, 
 Dimmed the fair scutcheon of his name ; 
 Nor sought he wealth, or power to gain, 
 At cost of honor, truth, or fame. 
 
 With generous, noble, cheerful heart, 
 In conscious rectitude, he stood, 
 Nor ever shunned to bear his part, 
 Against the wrong, and for the good. 
 
 Thus lived he, four score years and more ; 
 And died, with an unfaltering trust. 
 With him, the toils of life are o'er ; 
 He rests among the good and just.
 
 213 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 " And Pilate said unto him, What is Truth?" JOHN'S GOSPEL. 
 " Canst thou bv searching find out God?" JOB. 
 
 When Pilate asked the question, "What is 
 
 Truth?" 
 Earth's mightiest Seer and Teacher answered 
 
 not. 
 
 Could not He answer, whose ethereal thought 
 Confounded doctors in his callow youth? 
 Upon this question, still mankind divide, 
 And have divided, through each passing age. 
 Philosopher and prophet, saint and sage, 
 Have failed alike the problem to decide. 
 Great men have toiled and dreamed through 
 
 many a year, 
 
 And writ huge tomes, the mystery to explain; 
 Thick on the track of history they appear, 
 And show how vain the toil, the thought how 
 
 vain. 
 
 For, still unsealed, ascends the Imperial throne. 
 Where perfect truth abides with Clod alone.
 
 214 
 
 WAR, 
 
 This mighty stream of life that glides 
 Through earth's unumbered human forms. 
 Like the great ocean's heaving tides. 
 Is restless, dark and wild, with storms. 
 
 Look backward o'er its dreary track, 
 Till lost in distance, dim and gray. 
 And mark the ruin and the wrack. 
 That cumber all the endless way. 
 
 How many empires, wide and vast, 
 That once in power and glory stood, 
 Have human passions downward cast, 
 And whelmed beneath a sea of blood? 
 
 What hosts has persecution's rage 
 Doomed to a bitter death of shame: 
 In every land and every age, 
 Dear Lord, what myriads in thy name? 
 
 And still the nations, near and far, 
 Shape at the forge, with ceaseless toil,
 
 215 
 
 The horrid implements of war, 
 
 And drench with human blood the .soil. 
 
 If more artistic than of yore, 
 More dread is war's wild rush than then. 
 And deeper still the flood of gore, 
 That oft' overflows the paths of men. 
 
 0, when shall that calm, happy time, 
 By ancient seers long since foretold, 
 In every land and every clime, 
 Its white and holy wings unfold? 
 
 When nations shall learn war no more; 
 No more its enginery design; 
 But sit in peace the wide world o ? er, 
 Beneath the fig tree and the vine. 
 
 Or, is it but an idle dream, 
 
 In which our thoughts some solace find; 
 
 A passing meteor's fitful gleam, 
 
 To cheer the hope, but cheat the mind. 
 
 0, no, there yet shall rise a day, 
 Borne on the fleeting wings of time, 
 When over all, with gentle sway, 
 The Prince of Peace shall rule sublime.
 
 216 
 
 FOR DECORATION DAY, MAY 30-TH, 1S79. 
 
 Calm sleep our brave through all the land, 
 The brave, who for their country died, 
 By mountain-steep and river strand, 
 And by the restless ocean's side. 
 
 Calm sleep our brave. To-day we come, 
 Not with the cannon's fearful roar, 
 Not with the martial roll of drum, 
 To call to battle fields once more; 
 
 But 'neath this soft, blue sky of May, 
 In these serene and peaceful hours, 
 We come upon these graves to lay 
 Fresh garlands twined with vernal flowers. 
 
 Not that the form that sleeps in death, 
 Heeds the light footstep pressing near, 
 But that this tide of living breath, 
 May thrill with holier impulse here. 
 
 0, ye dead heroes! let us not 
 Neglect at each returning spring. 
 To meet upon this sacred spot 
 And here our grateful offerings bring.
 
 217 
 
 Nor here alone, but far and near, 
 Where'er our soldiers sleep in clay, 
 May pilgrims come each passing year, 
 And there the meed of honor pay. 
 
 0, never let their memory die 
 Who saved to freedom, power and fame, 
 This land, when darkness veiled our sky 
 And o'er us rolled war's wasting flame! 
 
 Nor let these tender rites be lost; 
 By them shall corning times be taught, 
 Through what deep pain, what countless cost, 
 The Nation's power to live was bought. 
 
 Warned by the awful bloody past, 
 Eschewing bitterness and strife, 
 May our dear country stand at last, 
 Renewed in all its inner life. 
 
 Then through a long and prosperous reign, 
 Shall God's good angels round us stand, 
 And peace and friendship with their train, 
 Bless a united, happy land.
 
 218 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE CUMMINGTON CENTENNIAL. 
 
 Father of all, whose boundless sway 
 Rules Earth and all the rolling spheres; 
 
 Grant us Thy gentlest smile to-day, 
 This day that crowns a hundred years. 
 
 From many dwellings, near and far, 
 From where the Atlantic billows foam. 
 
 And plains beneath the evening star, 
 We come, to greet our native home. 
 
 Fit place is this, Lord most high! 
 
 Where these eternal hills ascend. 
 Fit hour, beneath this mountain sky, 
 
 Around Thy mercy seat to bend. 
 
 Let love and concord rule the day, 
 And reverence for those brave old sires 
 
 Who hewed the mighty woods away, 
 And kindled here their altar fires. 
 
 Here may their virtues still abide, 
 
 With kindlier, gentler mien than then, 
 
 And as the passing ages glide, 
 Make glad the hearts and homes of men.
 
 CENTURY POEM. 
 
 READ AT THE CUMMINGTON CENTENNIAL CELEBRA 
 TION, JUNE 2(>, 1879. 
 
 Dear native town! from far and near, 
 
 To-day thy children gather here 
 
 Once more, beneath thy glorious skies, 
 
 To look into each others eyes, 
 
 With thoughts and memories backward cast, 
 
 To hear the story of the past 
 
 Those times when first our fathers trod 
 
 With fearless steps, this mountain sod 
 
 The tribute of our love to pay, 
 
 And celebrate thy natal day. 
 
 This hour let joy be unconfined, 
 
 All hands in generous friendship joined, 
 
 And the sweet memories of the day 
 
 Be cherished as time glides away. 
 
 A century since, unbroken wood 
 O'er all these hills and valleys stood, 
 
 Save here and there a sunny spot. 
 Where the first settler's hands had made 
 An opening in the boundless shade, 
 
 And reared his solitary cot.
 
 220 
 
 Soon changed the scene; soon opened wide 
 Green pastures on the mountain side. 
 Where the fierce panther, wolf and bear, 
 Through countless years had kept their lair. 
 Sleek herds of kine and flocks of sheep 
 Cropped the fresh herbage of the steep. 
 And tasseled maize and wheat and rye 
 Grew rank beneath the kindly sky. 
 Where once slow-creeping glaciers passed 
 Resistless o'er a frozen waste. 
 Deep-rooted in the virgin mould, 
 The dower of centuries untold, 
 Broad orchards clothed in radiant bloom, 
 Filled the wide air with rich perfume. 
 And when the genial autumn came. 
 And maple boughs were red like flame, 
 And all the giants of the wood, 
 In robes of princely beauty stood, 
 Earth's plenteous fruits were gathered in, 
 With grateful hearts and joyous din. 
 Ah, what intrepid souls were they 
 Who cleared those trackless woods away! 
 What tireless sinews, bone and brawn, 
 That smote the trees from early dawn 
 'Till daylight's latest rays were gone!
 
 221 
 
 No whining, eight-hour men were they, 
 
 Who feared the chill of early day; 
 
 They kept the pinch of want away 
 
 With industry and watchful care, 
 
 'Till these had brought them generous fare; 
 
 Else had those mighty forest trees 
 
 Still stood to buffet storm and breeze. 
 
 Ah, those were jolly roystering days. 
 When strong men piled the logs on high. 
 
 And billowy smoke and towering blaze 
 Shone grandly on the evening sky. 
 And jibes went round, and merry jest, 
 As the swart laborers took their rest 
 At lunch hour, in some shady nook 
 Hard by a fountain or a brook; 
 And where within an eddying pool, 
 Brown Bet* was laid to keep her cool. 
 And when, around the cabin door, 
 They gathered at the twilight hour, 
 What wondrous tales those woodmen told, 
 Of fights with bears and panthers bold, 
 All in a strain of reckless glee, 
 
 *A brown jug containing spirits.
 
 222 
 
 Well garnished with hyperbole: 
 Each one the hero of his story. 
 Self-crowned with daring deeds and glory. 
 On holidays the boys and men 
 Had games and sports athletic then; 
 Our wrestlers did not fear to meet 
 Of neighboring towns their picked athlete, 
 And, by superior strength and knack. 
 Oft laid the champion on his back. 
 Our youth were agile, lithe and tall. 
 Could catch with skill the flying ball, 
 And clear the circle round, as fleet 
 Almost, as wild deer's nimble feet. 
 Then, when the seventh day's setting sun 
 Told that the long week's toil was done, 
 Hushed in deep stillness was the hour, 
 As if some overruling power 
 Had sent through all the waiting land. 
 A stern and absolute command, 
 That worldly toil and noise should cease. 
 And man and beast find rest and peace. 
 And when the first day's morning rose 
 The solemn silence and repose 
 Still brooded on till daylight's close. 
 The law of stern opinion then
 
 Held in firm grasp the ways of men; 
 It kept in check the restless boys 
 Who Sumhws longed for play and noise, 
 And keenly felt the close restraint, 
 But dared not oft to make complaint. 
 A lad once, bolder than the rest, 
 Thus to his mate his thought confessed; 
 "You know Fast day; well that is one day 
 That is almost as bad as Sunday.'' 
 For Sundays then to children here 
 Were days of weariness and fear. 
 Yet those old sires were of the stock 
 That landed upon Plymouth Rock; 
 Who deep and broad foundations laid, 
 And planted here the tree, whose shade 
 Shelters a people great and free- 
 That glorious tree of liberty, 
 Whose branches stretch from sea to sea. 
 
 Those were not days of lace and silk, 
 Of silver spoons and dainties rare, 
 
 But homespun clothes, brown bread and milk 
 In pewter dish and wooden ware, 
 And pork and beans for Sunday fare; 
 "Bean porridge hot, bean porridge cold," 
 E'en sometimes more than "nine days old/'
 
 224 
 
 Waited the tiller of the soil 
 
 Returning from his daily toil. 
 
 Eude were the dwellings of that day, 
 
 Log cabins daubed with moistened clay. 
 
 The scanty roof with many a chink. 
 
 Through which the stars were seen to blink, 
 
 And whence, in winter storms, the snow 
 
 Was sifted on the floor below. 
 
 The broad, deep fire-place, rough and rude, 
 
 Was piled with logs of maple wood, 
 
 When the keen frosts of winter came; 
 Slow climbed at first the smoke wreaths blue, 
 
 Then, bursting into tongues of flame 
 Went roaring up the chimney flue, 
 And, through the long drear, winter night. 
 Cheered the dull hours with warmth and light. 
 Round their proud mothers fair to see, 
 Like saplings 'neath a sheltering tree, 
 Stood ruddy children, nine or ten, 
 Soon to be maidens, dames and men; 
 Examples worthy of all praise, 
 But rarely followed in these days. 
 And shall this race of Saxon blood, 
 That hardship, cold and storm withstood. 
 And tamed the wilderness, now melt
 
 Away before the advancing Celt? 
 These fields, subdued by hands so free, 
 Pay tribute to the Roman See? 
 Kind heaven forbid that this should be. 
 
 No post, a hundred years ago, 
 Over these roadless mountains went; 
 
 Only as men passed to and fro, 
 The messages and news were sent. 
 How limited and meagre then, 
 All knowledge of the world of men! 
 Few books were read in those old days; 
 The Bible, Watt's sacred lays, 
 Baxter's "Saint's Rest," and "Earnest Call," 
 And Bunyan's works were nearly all; 
 Save when young maidens found by chance 
 And read by stealth some old romance. 
 
 Shakspeare has said, men without books 
 Find them in trees and stones and brooks; 
 Thus in the solemn solitude 
 Of the o'ershadowing, ancient wood, 
 Our fathers drew from nature round 
 Lessons of virtue, truths profound. 
 Reasoned on theologic themes,
 
 226 
 
 Of God's eternal plans and schemes. 
 Dared Heaven's deep purposes to scan. 
 And fix the destiny of man. 
 Fndoubting faith in Holy Writ, 
 Strong common sense and mother wit, 
 Wild tales beside the winter hearth. 
 Keen repartee and genial mirth. 
 And rough, broad humor, stood in stead 
 Of floods of books that now are read. 
 
 The parties of that early day 
 
 The tide of years has swept away; 
 
 Their sharp, shrewd leaders here no more 
 
 Muster their followers as of yore; 
 
 And "Tunker' now, and "Whickaneer*" 
 
 To modern ears sound strange and queer; 
 
 And ''squat 1 ' and " Jam f "no more are known, 
 
 As party watchwords in the town; 
 
 These were from Plymouth's barren strand, 
 
 And those from Worcester's stony land; 
 
 The native place from which he came 
 
 Gave to each man his party name. 
 
 The Snells and Packards for town honors, 
 
 Strove with Wards, Bradishes and Warners. 
 
 *See Note. fSee Note.
 
 227 
 
 The Tunker said, if Whickaneer 
 
 Shall get control another year. 
 
 Calamities not soon forgot. 
 
 Will be our melancholy lot. 
 
 And the fierce Whickaneer was sure, 
 
 That there could be no other cure 
 
 For the sore ills that plagued the hour, 
 
 But to turn Tunkers out of power. 
 
 Those valiant parties that with might, 
 
 Each strove for what it claimed was right, 
 
 Have passed away, and none can tell 
 
 What various fortunes them befell. 
 
 History, now gleaning o'er the field, 
 
 Can gather but a scanty yield 
 
 Of facts, and even tradition here 
 
 Finds less to tell each passing year. 
 
 Then, as in parties of to-day. 
 
 Passion and prejudice held sway; 
 
 A bitter struggle then for power, 
 
 Just as it is the present hour. 
 
 Thus parties rise, and fade and fall, 
 
 A tea-pot tempest, howe'er small, 
 
 Is an epitome of all. 
 
 Amid these scenes of senseless strife, 
 
 Our sires did not forget that life
 
 228 
 
 Has higher duties far than those 
 A townsman to his party owes. 
 
 They planted here the public school 
 For true it is that where'er flows 
 The Yankee blood the school house goes. 
 
 They reared their sons by strictest rule 
 To reverence age, to fear the Lord, 
 And keep the precepts of His Word. 
 To saintly lives their daughter bred ; 
 To sew, to cook and spin the thread, 
 And taught all duties that pertain 
 To household thrift and honest gain. 
 At length, when prosperous times had come, 
 Came the sad years, when gin and rum, 
 And brandy crowned the festal board, 
 And cellars were with cider stored. 
 On public days was heard the clink 
 Of glasses where men mixed the drink; 
 Mugs and half mugs were quickly swallowed, 
 And other mugs and half mugs followed, 
 And soon the jostling, glib-tongued crowd 
 Grew garrulous, profane and loud. 
 For sober eyes how sad a sight! 
 Ere daylight faded into night, 
 When kind good men. except for rum.
 
 229 
 
 At day's decline went reeling home. 
 
 Then Deacons took their morning nip, 
 
 The justice thought no harm to tip, 
 
 And preachers, at associations, 
 
 Besmirched "the cloth" with deep potations. 
 
 Even children sipped the enticing cup, 
 
 Youth drank the sweetened poison up, 
 
 And lives, begun with rum and gin, 
 
 Oft closed in misery and sin. 
 
 The dreadful evil grew apace, 
 
 And threatened ruin to the race; 
 
 At last there came upon the stage 
 
 Men to reform the tainted age; 
 
 -Brave and true men, who gave the alarm, 
 
 And broke the tempter's fatal charm; 
 
 Stayed with strong hand rum's withering flame, 
 
 And drove the Fiend to dens of shame; 
 
 Till now the light of brighter skies 
 
 On purer, happier dwellings lies. 
 
 On yonder bare and rocky steep, 
 
 Where the wild winds of Winter sweep, 
 
 Unchecked by sheltering wood or hill, 
 
 The church was built, and gathered there 
 All people of the town for prayer, 
 
 With reverent hearts and cheerful will.
 
 There from its old wind-shakes tower. 
 "The bell rang loud with gladsome power;" 
 Its echoes, on the morning gale, 
 Floated far over hill and dale, 
 And told to every rural home, 
 The day and hour of prayer had come. 
 There Parson Briggs, the kind and good. 
 Long fed his flock with spiritual food. 
 Stern was his creed and orthordox, 
 As that of Calvin or John Knox; 
 Yet he. in thought and word and deed. 
 Was vastly better than his creed. 
 He kept all heresies at bay 
 'Till fifty years had passed away; 
 When ripe in age, his hoary head 
 Was gently laid among the dead. 
 He lived a pure and peaceful life, 
 Plain, frugal, hating wrong and strife: 
 A man of meek- and reverent air, 
 Beloved and honored everywhere. 
 Those who stood round him in that day, 
 Fathers and mothers, where are they? 
 Gone with time's refluent waves, that sweep 
 Earth's children to a common sleep. 
 Their graves are wjth you: if forgot
 
 231 
 
 By men, by nature they are not. 
 
 To them each passing year shall bring 
 
 The verdure and the bloom of spring; 
 
 And o'er them shall the wild birds sing, 
 
 The wintry winds with solemn roar. 
 
 O'er their low beds a requiem pour: 
 
 And Heaven's kind eye shall guard them still 
 
 Where'er they sleep on plain or hill. 
 
 may we all with careful heed, 
 
 Copy in life each noble deed 
 
 Of those brave men and virtuous dames 
 
 Who lived and died with honored names, 
 
 And left a heritage so fair 
 
 For those who follow them to share. 
 
 Cast back your thoughts a hundred years; 
 
 How vast, how wide the change appears; 
 
 How much has knowledge gained since then, 
 
 To cheer and charm the homes of men; 
 
 What mighty strides has science made, 
 
 How wide has commerce winged our trade, 
 
 Compelled remotest seas and lands 
 
 To yield their tribute to our hands, 
 
 And laid their treasures at our feet. 
 
 In costly wares and danties sweet. 
 
 If all the comforts of to-day
 
 At one fell blow were swept away, 
 Save those our early settlers knew, 
 How blank this w y orld would seem to you! 
 Should we not feel that human life 
 Was hardly worth the toil and strife? 
 
 Dear native town! ah, how can we 
 
 Forget to love and cherish thee ! 
 
 The rural home, where first we met 
 
 A mother's smile, can we forget? 
 
 Where we first toddled o'er the floor, 
 
 Where first we played beside the door; 
 
 Where first, with rapturous steps, we trod 
 
 In springtime o'er the flowery sod; 
 
 Where first we wandered through the wood, 
 
 Beneath the vast dim arches stood, 
 
 And felt the inspiring solitude; 
 
 And whence went forth our youthful feet 
 
 The rougher scenes of life to meet. 
 
 These slopes where earliest comes the dawn, 
 
 These vales among the hills withdrawn, 
 
 Those grand old summits where the eye 
 
 Takes in the embracing earth and sky, 
 
 These rural dwellings, virtue's seat, 
 
 Where love and peace and friendship meet;
 
 238 
 
 By these, by every stream and hill, 
 Our fondest mem'ries linger still. 
 Long may the scenes we now behold 
 Be cherished here by young and old; 
 And noble sons and daughters fair, 
 The waste of every age repair; 
 That when another century's dawn 
 Shall break upon Old Cummington, 
 Due honors may be paid to those 
 Who celebrate the last one's close.
 
 234 
 
 A MONODY. 
 
 My heart, to-day, is far away, 
 I seem to tread my native hills; 
 
 I see the flocks and mossy rocks, 
 I hear the gush of mountain rills. 
 
 There with me walks and kindly talks, 
 The dear, dear friend of all my years; 
 
 We laid him low not long ago, 
 
 At Roslyn-side. with sobs and tears. 
 
 But though I know that this is so, 
 
 I will not have it so to-day; 
 The illusion still, by force of will. 
 
 Shall give my wayward fancy play. 
 
 With joy we roam around the home, 
 Where in our childhood days we played; 
 
 We tread the mead with verdure spread, 
 And seek the wood path's grateful shade.
 
 235 
 
 We climb the steep where fresh winds sweep. 
 Where oft before our feet have trod. 
 And look far forth, east, south and north, 
 "TTpon the glorious works of God." 
 
 We tread again the rocky glen. 
 Where foaming waters dash along; 
 
 And sit alone on mossy stone, 
 Charmed by the thrasher's joyous song. 
 
 Anon we stray, far, far away, 
 
 The club-moss crumpling 'neath our tread, 
 Seeking the spot by most forgot 
 
 Where sleep the generations dead. 
 
 And now we come into the home 
 
 The dear old home our childhood knew; 
 
 And round the board with plenty stored, 
 We gather as we used to .do. 
 
 With reverence now, I see him bow 
 That head with many honors crowned, 
 
 All white his locks as Judah's flocks, 
 That fed on Carrael's holy ground.
 
 236 
 
 Again we meet in converse sweet, 
 
 Around the blazing cottage hearth; 
 And while away the closing day 
 With quiet talk and tales of mirth. 
 
 The spell is broke! 0, cruel stroke! 
 
 The illusive vision will not stay; 
 My fond, sweet dream was fancy's gleam, 
 Which stubborn fact has chased away. 
 
 I am alone, my friend is gone, 
 He'll seek no more that lovely scene; 
 
 His eye no more shall wander o'er 
 Those wooded hills and pastures green. 
 
 No more te'll look upon the brook. 
 
 Whose banks his infant feet had prest; 
 The little rill, whose waters still, 
 
 Come dancing from the rosy west. 
 
 Nor will he climb, at autumn time 
 Those hills, the glorious sight to view; 
 
 When in their best the woods are drest. 
 The same his raptured boyhood knew.
 
 237 
 
 The hermit thrush, at twilight hush,' 
 He'll hear no more with deep delight; 
 
 No blossoms gay beside the way, 
 Attract his quick and eager sight. 
 
 The lulling sound, from pines around, 
 No more shall soothe his noonday rest, 
 
 Nor trailing cloud with misty shroud 
 For him the morning hills invest. 
 
 That voice so sweet, that late did greet 
 My ear, each passing summer tide, 
 
 Is silent now that reverent brow 
 Rests in the grave at Roslyn-side. 
 
 PRINCETON, ILL., August, 1878.
 
 238 
 
 NOTE. PAGE 161, To H. 1831. 
 
 The person to whom these lines were addressed was, at the 
 time they were written, living at the then village of Springfield, 
 Illinois, and the writer then resided at Jacksonville, and occasion 
 ally wrote verses for the Jacksonville paper, under the name of 
 Prairie Bard, while H., whose re.il name I have forgotten, wrote 
 poems in the Scotch dialect for the Sangamo Journal. He was an 
 emigrant from the north of England, and I think lived at Spring 
 field only a few months. In one of his poems he bantered me to 
 write some verses in praise of the Mauvaiseterre, the principal 
 stream in the neighborhood of Jacksonville, while he would do the 
 same thing for the Sangamo river; and hence this poem to II. At 
 that time what is now Scingamon was written Sangamo, as San 
 gamo County, the Sangamo Journal, Sangamo River, leaving off 
 the terminal letter. 
 
 XOTE. PAGE 76 SENATCHWIXE'S GRAVE. 
 
 Twelve or fifteen years since, Senatchwine was an eminent chief 
 of the tribe of Pottawatomies, in Illinois, enjoving more influence 
 and a greater reputation for talents than any other. The Indian 
 traders, who knew him well, say he was a truly great man, an 
 orator and a warrior. He died at an advanced age, in the year 1830, 
 and was buried by a small stream which bears his name, and which 
 runs through the south-eastern part of Bureau County. His hunt 
 ing grounds are in that vicinity. The circumstance alluded to in 
 the line, 
 
 And here the silken blue-grass springs, 
 
 is familiar to the western people, who have a proverbial saving 
 that the blue-grass springs up wherever an Indian foot has stopped.
 
 Though this may not be literally true, yet it is certain that the 
 blue-grass is always found growing where the Indians have en 
 camped, though it might have been only for a few days. This kind 
 of grass makes a soft rich turf, thick with blades, in which respect 
 it is very different from the common coarse grass of the prairies. 
 [This note was written in 
 
 NOTES TO PAGE 226. 
 
 *'i"he Tunkers as they were called by the early settlers, were 
 from Plymouth countv. The Whickaneers came from the county 
 of Worcester. 
 
 flf a Tunker bruised his ringer he said he had "squat" it. The 
 Whickaneer describing a similar accident used the word "jam." 
 "Squat" and "jam" were for a time party watchwords, and those 
 on both sides used to rally each other on the use of those words. 
 In the course of a few years the families inter-married to such an 
 extent that it became difficult to keep up party lines, and tradition 
 says it was finally agreed to drop both words and compromise on 
 "bruise." Thus was brought about an "era of good feeling."
 
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