THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM, AND OTHER POEMS. BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. BOSTON : JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & Co. 1872. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, BY JOHN G. WHITTIER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co., CAMBRIDGE. CONTENTS. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 21 MISCELLANEOUS. THE PAGEANT . . .65 THE SINGER 74 CHICAGO 81 MY BIRTHDAY 84 THE BREWING OF SOMA 89 A WOMAN 95 DISARMAMENT 97 THE ROBIN 99 THE SISTERS 101 MARGUERITE 107 KING VOLMER AND ELSIE 113 THE THREE BELLS . 126 FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS. THE beginning of German emigration to America may be traced to the personal influence of William Penn, who in 1677 visited the Continent, and made the acquaintance of an intelligent and highly cultivated circle of Pietists, or Mystics, who, reviving in the seventeenth century the spirit- ual faith and worship of Tauler and the " Friends of God " in the fourteenth, gathered about the pastor Spener, and the young and beautiful Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau. In this circle originated the Frankfort Land Company, which bought of William Penn, the Governor of Pennsylvania, a tract of land near the new city of Philadelphia. The company's agent in the New World was a rising young lawyer, Francis Daniel Pastorius, son of Judge Pas- torius, of Windsheim, who, at the age of seventeen, entered the University of Altorf. He studied law at Strasburg, Basle, and Jena, and at Ratisbon, the seat of the Imperial Government, obtained a practical knowledge of interna- tional polity. Successful in all his examinations and dis- putations, he received the degree of Doctor of Laws at Nu- remberg in 1676. In 1679 he was a law-lecturer at Frank- Vlll FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS. fort, where he became deeply interested in the teachings of Dr. Spener. In 1680 -81 he travelled in France, England, Ireland, and Italy with his friend Herr Von Rodeck. " I was," he says, " glad to enjoy again the company of my Christian friends, rather than be with Von Rodeck feasting and dancing." In 1683, in company with a small number of German Friends, he emigrated to America, settling upon the Frankfort Company's tract between the Schuylkill and the Delaware Rivers. The township was divided into four hamlets, namely, Germantown, Krisheim, Crefield, and Sommerhausen. Soon after his arrival he united himself with the Society of Friends, and became one of its most able and devoted members, as well as the recognized head and lawgiver of the settlement. He married, two years after his arrival, Anneke (Anna), daughter of Dr. Kloster- man, of Muhlheim. In the year 1688 he drew up a memorial against slavehold- ing, which Was adopted by the Germantown Friends and sent up to the Monthly Meeting, and thence to the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia. It is noteworthy as the first pro- test made by a religious body against Negro Slavery. The original document was discovered in 1844 by the Philadel- phia antiquarian, Nathan Kite, and published in " The Friend " (Vol. XVIII. No. 16). It is a bold and direct appeal to the best instincts of the heart. " Have not," he asks, " these negroes as much right to fight for their free- dom as you have to keep them slaves ? " FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS. IX Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the Germantown settlement grew and prospered. The inhabitants planted orchards and vineyards, and surrounded themselves with souvenirs of their old home. A large number of them were linen-weavers, as well as small fanners. The Quakers were the principal sect, but men of all religions were tol- erated, and lived together in harmony. In 1692 Richard Frame published, in what he called verse, a " Description of Pennsylvania," in which he alludes to the settlement : " The German town of which I spoke before, Which is at least in length one mile or more, Where lives High German people and Low Dutch, Whose trade in weaving linen cloth is much, There grows the flax, as also you may know That from the same they do divide the tow. Their trade suits well their habitation, We find convenience for their occupation." Pastorius seems to have been on intimate terms with Wil- liam Penn, Thomas Lloyd, Chief Justice Logan, Thomas Story, and other leading men in the Province belonging to his own religious society, as also with Kelpius, the learned Mystic of the Wissahickon, with the pastor of the Swedes' church, and the leaders of the Mennonites. He wrote a de- scription of Pennsylvania, which was published at Frankfort and Leipsicin 1700 and 1701. His " Lives of the Saints," etc., written in German and dedicated to Prof. Schurm- berg, his old teacher, was published in 1690. He left be- X FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS. hind him many unpublished manuscripts covering a very wide range of subjects, most of which are now lost. One huge manuscript folio, entitled " Hive Beestock, Melliotro- pheum Alucar, or Rusca Apium," still remains, contain- ing one thousand pages with about one hundred lines to a page. It is a medley of knowledge and fancy, history, philosophy, and poetry, written in seven languages. A large portion of his poetry is devoted to the pleasures of gardening, the description of flowers, and the care of bees. The following specimen of his punning Latin is addressed to an orchard-pilferer : " Quisquis in haec furtim reptas viridaria nostra Tangere fallaci poma caveto manu, Si non obsequeris faxit Deus omne quod opto, Cum malis nostris ut mala cuncta feras." Professor Oswald Seidensticker, to whose papers in Der Deutsche Pioneer 'and that able periodical the " Penn Month- ly," of Philadelphia, I am indebted for many of the foregoing facts in regard to the German pilgrims of the New World, thus closes his notice of Pastorius : " No tombstone, not even a record of burial, indicates where his remains have found their last resting-place, and the pardonable desire to associate the homage due to this distinguished man with some visible memento cannot be gratified. There is no reason to suppose that he was in- terred in any other place than the Friends' old burying- ground in Germantown, though the fact is not attested by FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS. XI any definite source of information. After all, this oblitera- tion of the last trace of his earthly existence is but typical of what has overtaken the times which he represents ; that Germantown which he founded, which saw him live and move, is at present but a quaint idyl of the past, almost a myth, barely remembered and little cared for by the keener race that has succeeded." The Pilgrims of Plymouth have not lacked historian and poet. Justice has been done to their faith, courage, and self-sacrifice, and to the mighty influence of their endeav- ors to establish righteousness on the earth. The Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same object by dif- ferent means, have not been equally fortunate. The power of their testimony for truth and holiness, peace and free- dom, enforced only by what Milton calls " the unresistible might of meekness," has been felt through two centuries in the amelioration of penal severities, the abolition of slavery, the reform of the erring, the relief of the poor and suffer- ing, felt, in brief, in every step of human progress. But of the men themselves, with the single exception of Wil- liam Penn, scarcely anything is known. Contrasted, from the outset, "with the stern, aggressive Puritans of New Eng- land, they have come to be regarded as " a feeble folk," with a personality as doubtful as their unrecorded graves. They were not soldiers, like Miles Standish ; they had no figure so picturesque as Vane, no leader so rashly brave and haughty as Endicott. No Cotton Mather wrote their Xll FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS. Magnalia ; they had no awful drama of supernaturalism in which Satan and his angels were actors ; and the only witch mentioned in their simple annals was a poor old Swedish woman, who, on complaint of her countrywomen, was tried and acquitted of everything but imbecility and folly. Nothing but commonplace offices of civility came to pass between them and the Indians ; indeed, their enemies taunted them with the fact that the savages did not regard them as Christians, but just such men as themselves. Yet it must be apparent to every careful observer of the pro- gress of American civilization that its two principal currents had their sources in the* entirely opposite directions of the Puritan and Quaker colonies. To use the words of a late writer : * " The historical forces, with which no others may be compared in their influence on the people, have been those of the Puritan and the Quaker. The strength of the one was in the confession of an invisible Presence, a righteous, eternal Will, which would establish righteousness on earth ; and thence arose the conviction of a direct per- sonal responsibility, which could be tempted by no external splendor and could be shaken by no internal agitation, and could not be evaded or transferred. The strength of the other was the witness in the human spirit to an eternal Word, an Inner Voice which spoke to each alone, while yet it spoke to every man ; a Light which each was to fol- low, and which yet was the light of the world ; and all other * Mulford's Nation, pp. 267, 268. FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS. Xlll voices were silent before this, and the solitary path whither it led was more sacred than the worn ways of cathedral- aisles." It will be sufficiently apparent to the reader that, in the poem which follows, I have attempted nothing beyond a study of the life and times of the Pennsylvania colonist, a simple picture of a noteworthy man and his locality. The colors of my sketch are all very sober, toned down to the quiet and dreamy atmosphere through which its subject is visible. Whether, in the glare and tumult of the present time, such a picture will find favor may well be questioned. I only know that it has beguiled for me some hours of weariness, and that, whatever may be its measure of public appreciation, it has been to me its own reward. J. G. W. AMESBURY, Fifth Month, 1872. HAIL to posterity! Hail, future men of Germanopolis ! Let the young generations yet to be Look kindly upon this. Think how your fathers left their native land, Dear German-land ! O sacred hearths and homes ! And, where the wild beast roams, In patience planned New forest-homes beyond the mighty sea, There undisturbed and free To live as brothers of one family. What pains and cares befell, What trials and what fears, XVI HAIL TO POSTERITY. Remember, and wherein we have done well Follow our footsteps, men of coming years Where we have failed to do Aright, or wisely live, Be warned by us, the better way pursue, And, knowing we were human, even as you, Pity us and forgive ! Farewell, Posterity ! Farewell, dear Germany ! Forevermore farewell ! From the Latin of FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS in the German- town Records. 1688. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. PRELUDE. I SING the Pilgrim of a softer clime And milder speech than those brave men's who brought To the ice and iron of our winter time A will as firm, a creed as stern, and wrought With one mailed hand, and with the other fought. Simply, as fits my theme, in homely rhyme I sing the blue-eyed German Spener taught, Through whose veiled, mystic faith the Inward Light, Steady and still, an easy brightness, shone, Transfiguring all things in its radiance white. The garland which his meekness never sought I bring him ; over fields of harvest sown With seeds of blessing, now to ripeness grown, I bid the sower pass before the reapers' sight. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. NEVER in tenderer quiet lapsed the day From Pennsylvania's vales of spring away, Where, forest-walled, the scattered hamlets lay Along the wedded rivers. One long bar Of purple cloud, on which the evening star Shone like a jewel on a scimitar, Held the sky's golden gateway. Through the deep Hush of the woods a murmur seemed to creep, The Schuylkill whispering in a voice of sleep. 22 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. All else was still. The oxen from their ploughs Rested at last, and from their long day's browse Came the dun files of Krisheim's home-bound cows. And the young city, round whose virgin zone The rivers like two mighty arms were thrown, Marked by the smoke of evening fires alone, Lay in the distance, lovely even then With its fair women and its stately men Gracing the forest court of William Penn, Urban yet sylvan ; in its rough-hewn frames Of oak and pine the dryads held their claims, And lent its streets their pleasant woodland names. Anna Pastorius down the leafy lane Looked city-ward, then stooped to prune again Her vines and simples, with a sigh of pain. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 23 For fast the streaks of ruddy sunset paled In the oak clearing, and, as daylight failed, Slow, overhead, the dusky night-birds sailed. Again she looked : between green walls of shade, With low-bent head as if with sorrow weighed, Daniel Pastorius slowly came and said, " God's peace be with thee, Anna ! " Then he stood Silent before her, wrestling with the mood Of one who sees the evil and not good. " What is it, my Pastorius ? " As she spoke, A slow, faint smile across his features broke, Sadder than tears. " Dear heart," he said, " our folk "Are even as others. Yea, our goodliest Friends Are frail ; our elders have their selfish ends, And few dare trust the Lord to make amends 24 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. , "For duty's loss. So even our feeble word For the dumb slaves the startled meeting heard As if a stone its quiet waters stirred ; "And, as the clerk ceased reading, there began A ripple of dissent which downward ran In widening circles, as from man to man. " Somewhat was said of running before sent, Of tender fear that some their guide outwent, Troublers of Israel. I was scarce intent " On hearing, for behind the reverend row Of gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous show, I saw, methought, dark faces full of woe. "And, in the spirit, I was taken where They toiled and suffered ; I was made aware Of shame and wrath and anguish and despair ! THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 2$ " And while the meeting smothered our poor plea With cautious phrase, a Voice there seemed to be, 'As ye have done to these ye do to me !' " So it all passed ; and the old tithe went on Of anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun Set, leaving still the weightier work undone. (" Help, for the good man faileth ! Who is strong, If these be weak ? Who shall rebuke the wrong, If these consent? How long, O Lord! how long!" He ceased ; and, bound in spirit with the bound, With folded arms, and eyes that sought the ground, Walked musingly his little garden round. About him, beaded with the falling dew, Rare plants of power and herbs of healing grew, Such as Van Helmont and Agrippa knew. 26 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. For, by the lore of Gorlitz' gentle sage, With the mild mystics of his dreamy age He read the herbal signs of nature's page, As once he heard in sweet Von Merlau's l bowers Fair as herself, in boyhood's happy hours, The pious Spener read his creed in flowers. " The dear Lord give us patience ! " said his wife, Touching with finger-tip an aloe, rife With leaves sharp-pointed like an Aztec knife Or Carib spear, a gift to William Penn From the rare gardens of John Evelyn, Brought from the Spanish Main by merchantmen. "See this strange plant its steady purpose hold, And, year by year, its patient leaves unfold, Till the young eyes that watched it first are old. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 2/ " But some time, thou hast told me, there shall come A sudden beauty, brightness, and perfume, The century-moulded bud shall burst in bloom. " So may the seed which hath been sown to-day Grow with the years, and, after long delay, Break into bloom, and God's eternal Yea " Answer at last the patient prayers of them Who now, by faith alone, behold its stem Crowned with the flowers of Freedom's diadem. " Meanwhile, to feel and suffer, work and wait, Remains for us. The wrong indeed is great, But love and patience conquer soon or late." "Well hast thou said, my Anna!" Tenderer Than youth's caress upon the head of her Pastorius laid his hand. " Shall we demur 28 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. " Because the vision tarrieth ? In an hour We dream not of the slow-grown bud may flower, And what was sown in weakness rise in power ! " Then through the vine-draped door whose legend read, " PROCUL ESTE PROPHANI ! " Anna led To where their child upon his little bed Looked up and smiled. "Dear heart," she said, "if we Must bearers of a heavy burden be, Our boy, God willing, yet the day shall see " When, from the gallery to the farthest seat, Slave and slave-owner shall no longer meet, But all sit equal at the Master's feet." On the stone hearth the blazing walnut block Set the low walls a-glimmer, showed the cock Rebuking Peter on the Van Wyck clock, THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 29 Shone on old tomes of law and physic, side By side with Fox and Behmen, played at hide And seek with Anna, midst her household pride Of flaxen webs, and on the table, bare Of costly cloth or silver cup, but where, Tasting the fat shads of the Delaware, The courtly Penn had praised the goodwife's cheer, And quoted Horace o'er her home-brewed beer, Till even grave Pastorius smiled to hear. In such a home, beside the Schuylkill's wave, He dwelt in peace with God and man, and gave Food to the poor and shelter to the slave. For all too soon the New World's scandal shamed The righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed, And men withheld the human rights they claimed. 3O THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. And slowly wealth and station sanction lent, And hardened avarice, on its gains intent, Stifled the inward whisper of dissent. Yet all the while the burden rested sore On tender hearts. At last Pastorius bore Their warning message to the Church's door In God's name ; and the leaven of the word Wrought ever after in the souls who heard, And a dead conscience in its grave-clothes stirred To troubled life, and urged the vain excuse Of Hebrew custom, patriarchal use, Good in itself if evil in abuse. Gravely Pastorius listened, not the less Discerning through the decent fig-leaf dress Of the poor plea its shame of selfishness. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 31 One Scripture rule, at least, was un forgot ; He hid the outcast, and bewrayed him not ; And, when his prey the human hunter sought, He scrupled not, while Anna's wise delay And proffered cheer prolonged the master's stay, To speed the black guest safely on his way. Yet, who shall guess his bitter grief who lends His life to some great cause, and finds his friends Shame or betray it for their private ends ? How felt the Master when his chosen strove In childish folly for their seats above ; And that fond mother, blinded by her love, Besought him that her sons, beside his throne, Might sit on either hand ? Amidst his own A stranger oft, companionless and lone, 32 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. God's priest and prophet stands. The martyr's pain Is not alone from scourge and cell and chain ; Sharper the pang when, shouting in his train, His weak disciples by their lives deny The loud hosannas of their daily cry, And make their echo of his truth a lie. His forest home no hermit's cell he found, Guests, motley-minded, drew his hearth around, And held armed truce upon its neutral ground. There Indian chiefs with battle-bows unstrung, Strong, hero-limbed, like those whom Homer sung, Pastorius fancied, when the world was young, Came with their tawny women, lithe and tall, Like bronzes in his friend Von Rodeck's hall, Comely, if black, and not unpleasing all. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 33 There hungry folk in homespun drab and gray Drew round his board on Monthly Meeting day, Genial, half merry in their friendly way. Or, haply, pilgrims from the Fatherland, Weak, timid, homesick, slow to understand The New World's promise, sought his helping hand. Or painful Kelpius 2 from his hermit den By Wissahickon, maddest of good men, Dreamed o'er the Chiliast dreams of Petersen. Deep in the woods, where the small river slid Snake-like in shade, the Helmstadt Mystic hid, Weird as a wizard over arts forbid, Reading the books of Daniel and of John, And Behmen's Morning-Redness, through the Stone Of Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone, 3 34 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. Whereby he read what man ne'er read before, And saw the visions man shall see no more, Till the great angel, striding sea and shore, Shall bid all flesh await, on land cr ships, The warning trump of the Apocalypse, Shattering the heavens before the dread eclipse. Or meek-eyed Mennonist his bearded chin Leaned o'er the gate ; or Ranter, pure within, Aired his perfection in a world of sin. V* Or, talking of old home scenes, Op den Graaf Teased the low back-log with his shodden staff, Till the red embers broke into a laugh And dance of flame, as if they fain would cheer The rugged face, half tender, half austere, Touched with the pathos of a homesick tear ! THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 35 Or Sluyter, 3 saintly familist, whose word As law the Brethren of the Manor heard, Announced the speedy terrors of the Lord, And turned, like Lot at Sodom, from his race, Above a wrecked world with complacent face Riding secure upon his plank of grace ! Haply, from Finland's birchen groves exiled, Manly in thought, in simple ways a child, His white hair floating round his visage mild, The Swedish pastor sought the Quaker's door, Pleased from his neighbor's lips to hear once more His long-disused and half-forgotten lore. , For both could baffle Babel's lingual curse, And speak in Bion's Doric, and rehearse Cleanthes' hymn or Virgil's sounding verse. 36 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. And oft Pastorius and the meek old man Argued as Quaker and as Lutheran, Ending in Christian love, as they began. With lettered Lloyd on pleasant morns he strayed Where Sommerhausen over vales of shade Looked miles away, by every flower delayed, Or song of bird, happy and free with one Who loved, like him, to let his memory run Over old fields of learning, and to sun Himself in Plato's wise philosophies, And dream with Philo over mysteries Whereof the dreamer never finds the keys ; To touch all themes of thought, nor weakly stop For doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop Deep down and bring the hidden waters up. 4 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 37 For there was freedom in that wakening time Of tender souls ; to differ was not crime ; The varying bells made up the perfect chime. On lips unlike was laid the altar's coal, The white, clear light, tradition-colored, stole Through the stained oriel of each human soul. Gathered from many sects, the Quaker brought His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought That moved his soul the creed his fathers taught. One faith alone, so broad that all mankind Within themselves its secret witness find, The soul's communion with the Eternal Mind, The Spirit's law, the Inward Rule and Guide, Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied, The polished Penn and Cromwell's Ironside. 38 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. As still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting^ face By face in Flemish detail, we may trace How loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral grace Sat in close contrast, the clipt-headed churl, Broad market-dame, and simple serving-girl By skirt of silk and periwig in curl ! For soul touched soul ; the spiritual treasure-trove Made all men equal, none could rise above Nor sink below that level of God's love. So, with his rustic neighbors sitting down, The homespun frock beside the scholar's gown, Pastorius to the manners of the town Added the freedom of the woods, and sought The bookless wisdom by experience taught, And learned to love his new-found home, while not THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 39 Forgetful of the old ; the seasons went Their rounds, and somewhat to his spirit lent Of their own calm and measureless content. Glad even to .tears, he heard the robin sing His song of welcome to the Western spring, And bluebird borrowing from the sky his wing. And when the miracle of autumn came, And all the woods with many-colored flame Of splendor, making summer's greenness tame, Burned, unconsumed, a voice without a sound Spake to him from each kindled bush around, And made the strange, new landscape holy ground ! And when the bitter north-wind, keen and swift, Swept the white street and piled the dooryard drift, He exercised, as Friends might say, his gift 4O THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. Of verse, Dutch, English, Latin, like the hash Of corn and beans in Indian succotash ; Dull, doubtless, but with here and there a flash, Of wit and fine conceit, the good man's play Of quiet fancies, meet to while away The slow hours measuring off an idle day. At evening, while his wife put on her look Of love's endurance, from its niche he took The written pages of his ponderous book, And read, in half the languages of man, His ' Rusca Apium,' which with bees began, And through the gamut of creation ran. Or, now and then, the missive of some friend In gray Altorf or storied Niirnberg penned Dropped in upon him like a guest to spend THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 4! The night beneath his roof-tree. Mystical The fair Von Merlau spake as waters fall And voices sound in dreams, and yet withal Human, and sweet, as if each far, low tone, Over the roses of her gardens blown, Brought the warm sense of beauty all her own. Wise Spener questioned what his friend could trace Of spiritual influx or of saving grace In the wild natures of the Indian race. And learned Schurmberg, fain, at times, to look From Talmud, Koran, Veds, and Pentateuch, Sought out his pupil in his far-off nook, To query with him of climatic change, Of bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range, Of flowers and fruits and simples new and strange. 42 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. And thus the Old and New World reached their hands Across the water, and the friendly lands Talked with each other from their severed strands. Pastorius answered all : while seed and root Sent from his new home grew to flower and fruit Along the Rhine and at the Spessart's foot ; And, in return, the flowers his boyhood knew Smiled at his door, the same in form and hue, And on his vines the Rhenish clusters grew. No idler he ; whoever else might shirk, He set his hand to every honest work, Farmer and teacher, court and meeting clerk. Still on the town seal his device is found, Grapes, flax, and thread-spool on a trefoil ground, With " VINUM, LINUM ET TEXTRiNUM " wound. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 43 One house sufficed for gospel and for law, Where Paul and Grotius, Scripture text and saw, Assured the good, and held the rest in awe. Whatever legal maze he wandered through, He kept the Sermon on the Mount in view, And justice always into mercy grew. No whipping-post he needed, stocks, nor jail, Nor ducking-stool ; the orchard-thief grew pale At his rebuke, the vixen ceased to rail, The usurer's grasp released the forfeit land ; The slanderer faltered at the witness-stand, And all men took his counsel for command. Was it caressing air, the brooding love Of tenderer skies than German land knew of, Green calm below, blue quietness above, 44 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. Still flow of water, deep repose of wood That, with a sense of loving Fatherhood And childlike trust in the Eternal Good, Softened all hearts, and dulled the edge of hate, Hushed strife, and taught impatient zeal to wait The slow assurance of the better state ? Who knows what goadings in their sterner way O'er jagged ice, relieved by granite gray, Blew round the men of Massachusetts Bay ? What hate of heresy the east-wind woke ? What hints of pitiless power and terror spoke In waves that on their iron coast-line broke ? Be it as it may : within the Land of Penn The sectary yielded to the citizen, And peaceful dwelt the many-creeded men. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 45 Peace brooded over all. No trumpet stung The air to madness, and no steeple flung Alarums down from bells at midnight rung. The land slept well. The Indian from his face Washed all his war-paint off, and in the place Of battle-marches sped the peaceful chase, Or wrought for wages at the white man's side, Giving to kindness what his native pride And lazy freedom to all else denied. And well the curious scholar loved the old Traditions that his swarthy neighbors told By wigwam-fires when nights were growing cold, Discerned the fact round which their fancy drew Its dreams, and held their childish faith more true To God and man than half the creeds he knew. 6 46 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. The desert blossomed round him ; wheat-fields rolled Beneath the warm wind waves of green and gold ; The planted ear returned its hundred-fold. Great clusters ripened in a warmer sun Than that which by the Rhine stream shines upon The purpling hillsides with low vines o'errun. About each rustic porch the humming-bird * Tried with light bill, that scarce a petal stirred, The Old World flowers to virgin soil transferred ; And the first-fruits of pear and apple, bending The young boughs down, their gold and russet blending, Made glad his heart, familiar odors lending To the fresh fragrance of the birch and pine, Life-everlasting, bay, and eglantine, And all the subtle scents the woods combine. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 47 Fair First-Day mornings, steeped in summer calm Warm, tender, restful, sweet with woodland balm, Came to him, like some mother-hallowed psalm To the tired grinder at the noisy wheel Of labor, winding off from memory's reel A golden thread of music. With no peal Of bells to call them to the house of praise, The scattered settlers through green forest-ways Walked meeting-ward. In reverent amaze The Indian trapper saw them, from the dim Shade of the alders on the rivulet's rim, Seek the Great Spirit's house to talk with Him. There, through the gathered stillness multiplied And made intense by sympathy, outside The sparrows sang, and the gold-robin cried, 48 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. A-swing upon his elm. A faint perfume Breathed through the open windows of the room From locust-trees, heavy with clustered bloom. Thither, perchance, sore-tried confessors came, Whose fervor jail nor pillory could tame, Proud of the cropped ears meant to be their shame, Men who had eaten slavery's bitter bread In Indian isles ; pale women who had bled Under the hangman's lash, and bravely said God's message through their prison's iron bars ; And gray old soldier-converts, seamed with scars From every stricken field of England's wars. Lowly before the Unseen Presence knelt Each waiting heart, till haply some one felt On his moved lips the seal of silence melt. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 49 Or, without spoken words, low breathings stole Of a diviner life from soul to soul, Baptizing in one tender thought the whole. When shaken hands announced the meeting o'er, The friendly group still lingered at the door, Greeting, inquiring, sharing all the store Of weekly tidings. Meanwhile youth and maid Down the green vistas of the woodland strayed, Whispered and smiled and oft their feet delayed. Did the boy's whistle answer back the thrushes ? Did light girl laughter ripple through the bushes, As brooks make merry over roots and rushes ? Unvexed the sweet air seemed. Without a wound The ear of silence heard, and every sound Its place in nature's fine accordance found. 5O THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. And solemn meeting, summer sky and wood, Old kindly faces, youth and maidenhood Seemed, like God's new creation, very good ! And, greeting all with quiet smile and word, Pastorius went his way. The unscared bird Sang at his side; scarcely the squirrel stirred At his hushed footstep on the mossy sod ; And, wheresoe'er the good man looked or trod, He felt the peace of nature and of God. His social life wore no ascetic form, He loved all beauty, without fear of harm, And in his veins his Teuton blood ran warm. Strict to himself, of other men no spy, He made his own no circuit-judge to try The freer conscience of his neighbors by. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 51 With love rebuking, by his life alone, Gracious and sweet, the better way was shown, The joy of one, who, seeking not his own, And faithful to all scruples, finds at last The thorns and shards of duty overpast, And daily life, beyond his hope's forecast, Pleasant and beautiful with sight and sound, And flowers upspringing in its narrow round, And all his days with quiet gladness crowned. He sang not ; but, if sometimes tempted strong, He hummed what seemed like Altorf s Burschen-song, His good wife smiled, and did not count it wrong. For well he loved his boyhood's brother band ; His Memory, while he trod the New World's strand, A double-ganger walked the Fatherland! 52 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. If, when on frosty Christmas eves the light Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight Of Yule-log, Tree, and Christ-child all in white ; And closed his eyes, and listened to the sweet Old wait-songs sounding down his native street, And watched again the dancers' mingling feet; Yet not the less, when once the vision passed, He held the plain and sober maxims fast Of the dear Friends with whom his lot was cast. Still all attuned to nature's melodies, He loved the bird's song in his dooryard trees, And the low hum of home-returning bees ; The blossomed flax, the tulip-trees in bloom Down the long street, the beauty and perfume Of apple-boughs, the mingling light and gloom THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 53 Of Sommerhausen's woodlands, woven through With sun-threads ; and the music the wind drew, Mournful and sweet, from leaves it over-blew. And evermore, beneath this outward sense, And through the common sequence of events, He felt the guiding hand of Providence Reach out of space. A Voice spake in his ear, And lo ! all other voices far and near Died at that whisper, full of meanings clear. The Light of Life shone round him ; one by one The wandering lights, that all-misleading run, Went out like candles paling in the sun. That Light he followed, step by step, where'er It led, as in the vision of the seer The wheels moved as the spirit in the clear 54 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. And terrible crystal moved, with all their eyes Watching the living splendor sink or rise, Its will their will, knowing no otherwise. Within himself he found the law of right, He walked by faith and not the letter's sight, And read his Bible by the Inward Light. And if sometimes the slaves of form and rule, Frozen in their creeds like fish in winter's pool, Tried the large tolerance of his liberal school, His door was free to men of every name, He welcomed all the seeking souls who came, And no man's faith he made a cause of blame. But best he loved in leisure hours to see His own dear Friends sit by him knee to knee, In social converse, genial, frank, and free. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 55 There sometimes silence (it were hard to tell Who owned it first) upon the circle fell, Hushed Anna's busy wheel, and laid its spell On the black boy who grimaced by the hearth, To solemnize his shining face of mirth ; Only the old clock ticked amidst the dearth Of sound ; nor eye was raised nor hand was stirred In that soul-sabbath, till at last some word Of tender counsel or low prayer was heard. Then guests, who lingered but farewell to say And take love's message, went their homeward way ; So passed in peace the guileless Quaker's day. His was the Christian's unsung Age of Gold, A truer idyl than the bards have told Of Arno's banks or Arcady of old. 56 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. Where still the Friends their place of burial keep, And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep, The Niirnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep. And Anna's aloe ? If it flowered at last In Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast A glance upon it as he meekly passed ? And did a secret sympathy possess That tender soul, and for the slave's redress Lend hope, strength, patience ? It were vain to guess. Nay, were the plant itself but mythical, Set in the fresco of tradition's wall Like Jotham's bramble, mattereth not at all. Enough to know that, through the winter's frost And summer's heat, no seed of truth is lost, And every duty pays at last its cost. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 57 For, ere Pastorius left the sun and air, God sent the answer to his lifelong prayer ; The child was born beside the Delaware, Who, in the power a holy purpose lends, Guided his people unto nobler ends, And left them worthier of the name of Friends. And lo ! the fulness of the time has come, And over all the exile's Western home, From sea to sea the flowers of freedom bloom ! And joy-bells ring, and silver trumpets blow; But not for thee, Pastorius ! Even so The world forgets, but the wise angels know. NOTES, 1 Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau, or, as Sewall the Quaker Histo- rian gives it, Von Merlane, a noble young lady of Frankfort, seems to have held among the Mystics of that city very much such a position as Annia Maria Schurmaus did among the Labadists of Holland. Wil- liam Penn appears to have shared the admiration of her own immedi- ate circle for this accomplished and gifted lady. 2 Magister Johann Kelpius, a graduate of the University of Helm- stadt, came to Pennsylvania in 1694, with a company of German Mystics. They made their home in the woods on the Wissahickon, a little west of the Quaker settlement of Germantown. Kelpius was a believer in the near approach of the Millennium, and was a devout student of the Book of Revelation, and the Morgen-Rothe of Jacob Behmen. He called his settlement " The Woman in the Wilderness " (Das Weib In der Wueste], He was only twenty-four years of age when he came to America, but his gravity, learning, and devotion placed him at the head of the settlement. He disliked the Quakers, because he thought they were too exclusive in the matter of ministers. He was, like most of the Mystics, opposed to the severe doctrinal views of Calvin and even Luther, declaring " that he could as little agree with the Damna- mus of the Augsburg Confession as with the Anathema of the Council of Trent." He died in 1704, sitting in his little garden surrounded by his griev- ing disciples. Previous to his death it is said that he cast his famous " Stone of Wisdom " into the river, where that mystic souvenir of the times of Van Helmont, Paracelsus, and Agrippa has lain ever since, undisturbed. 3 Peter Sluyter, or Schluter, a native of Wesel, united himself with the sect of Labadists, who believed in the Divine commission of John De Labadie, a Roman Catholic priest converted to Protestantism enthusiastic, eloquent, and evidently sincere in his special calling and 6O NOTES. election to separate the .true and living members of the Church of Christ from the formalism and hypocrisy of the ruling sects. George Keith and Robert Barclay visited him at Amsterdam and afterward at the communities of Herford and Wieward ; and, according to Gerard Croes, found him so near to them on some points, that they offered to take him into the Society of Friends. This offer, if it was really made, which is certainly doubtful, was, happily for the Friends at least, declined. Invited to Herford in Westphalia by Elizabeth, daughter of the Elector Palatine, De Labadie and his followers preached incessantly, and succeeded in arousing a wild enthusiasm among the people, who neglected their business and gave way to excitements and strange practices. Men and women, it was said, at the Com- munion drank and danced together, and private marriages, or spiritual unions, were formed. Labadie died in 1674 at Altona, in Denmark, maintaining his testimonies to the last. " Nothing remains for me," he said, " except to go to my God. Death is merely ascending from a lower and narrower chamber to one higher and holier." In 1679 Peter Sluyter and Jasper Dankers were sent to America by the community at the Castle of Wieward. Their journal, translated from the Dutch and edited by Henry C. Murphy, has been recently published by the Long Island Historical Society. They made some converts, and among them was the eldest son of Hermanns, the pro- prietor of a rich tract of land at the head of Chesapeake Bay, known as Bohemia Manor. Sluyter obtained a grant of this tract, and established upon it a community numbering at one time a hundred souls. Very contradictory statements are on record regarding his headship of this spiritual family, the discipline of which seems to have been of more than monastic severity. Certain it is that he bought and sold slaves, and manifested more interest in the world's goods than became a believer in the near Millennium. He evinces in his journal an over- weening spiritual pride, and speaks contemptuously of other professors, especially the Quakers whom he met in his travels. The latter, on the contrary, seem to have looked favorably upon the Labadists, and uniformly speak of them courteously and kindly. His journal shows him to have been destitute of common gratitude and Christian charity. He threw himself upon the generous hospitality of the Friends wher- ever he went, and repaid their kindness by the coarsest abuse and misrepresentation. NOTES. 6 1 4 Among the pioneer Friends were many men of learning and broad and liberal views. Penn was conversant with every department of literature and philosophy. Thomas Lloyd was a ripe and rare scholar. The great Loganian Library of Philadelphia bears witness to the varied learning and classical taste of its donor, James Logan. Thomas Story, member of the Council of State, Master of the Rolls, and Commissioner of Claims under William Penn, and an able minis- ter of his Society, took a deep interest in scientific questions, and in a letter to his friend Logan, written while on a religious visit to Great Britain, seems to have anticipated the conclusion of modern geologists. " I spent," he says, " some months, especially at Scarborough, during the season attending meetings, at whose high cliffs and the variety of strata therein and their several positions I further learned and was confirmed in some things, that the earth is of much older date as to the beginning of it than the time assigned in the Holy Scriptures as commonly understood, which is suited to the common capacities of mankind, as to six days of progressive work, by which I understand certain long and competent periods of time, and not natural days." It was sometimes made a matter of reproach by the Anabaptists and other sects, that the Quakers read profane writings and philosophies, and that they quoted heathen moralists in support of their views. Sluy- ter and Bankers, in their journal of American travels, visiting a Quaker preacher's house at Burlington, on the Delaware, found " a volume of Virgil lying on the window, as if it were a common hand-book ; also Helmont's book on Medicine ( Orttis Medicine, id est Initia Physica in- audita progressus medecince novus in morborum ultionam ad vitam longani}, whom, in an introduction they have made to it, they make to pass for one of their own sect, although in his lifetime he did not know anything about Quakers." It would appear from this that the half- mystical, half-scientific writings of the alchemist and philosopher of Vilverde had not escaped the notice of Friends, and that they had included him in their broad eclecticism. s "The Quaker's Meeting," a painting by E. Hemskerck (sup- posed to be Egbert Hemskerck the younger, son of Egbert Hemskerck the old), in which William Penn and others among them Charles II., or the Duke of York are represented along with the rudest and most stolid class of the British rural population at that period. Hemskerck came to London from Holland with King William in 1689. He 62 NOTES. delighted in wild, grotesque subjects, such as the nocturnal intercourse of witches and the temptation of St. Anthony. Whatever was strange and uncommon attracted his free pencil. Judging from the portrait of Penn, he must have drawn his faces, figures, and costumes from life, although there may be something of caricature in the convulsed attitudes of two or three of the figures. 6 In one of his letters addressed to his friends in Germany he says : "These wild men, who never in their life heard Christ's teach- ings about temperance and contentment, herein far surpass the Chris- tians. They live far more contented and unconcerned for the morrow. They do not overreach in trade. They know nothing of our everlast- ing pomp and stylishness. They neither curse nor swear, are temperate in food and drink, and if any of them get drunk, the mouth-Christians are at fault, who, for the sake of accursed lucre, sell them strong drink." Again he wrote in 1698 to his father that he finds the Indians reasonable people, willing to accept good teaching and manners, evincing an inward piety toward God, and more eager, in fact, to un- derstand things divine than many among you who in the pulpit teach Christ in word, but by ungodly life deny him. " It is evident," says Professor Seideustecker, " Pastorius holds up the Indian as Nature's unspoiled child to the eyes of the ' European Babel,' somewhat after the same manner in which Tacitus used the barbarian Germani to shame his degenerate countrymen." As believers in the universality of the Saving Light, the outlook of early Friends upon the heathen was a very cheerful and hopeful one. God was as near to them as to Jew or Anglo-Saxon ; as accessible at Timbuctoo as at Rome or Geneva. Not the letter of Scripture, but the spirit which dictated it, was of saving efficacy. Robert Barclay is nowhere more powerful than in his argument for the salvation of the heathen, who live according to their light, without knowing even the name of Christ. William Penn thought Socrates as good a Christian as Richard Baxter. Early Fathers of the Church, as Origen and Justin Martyr, held broader views on this point than modern Evangelicals. Even Augustine, from whom Calvin borrowed his theology, admits that he has no controversy with the admirable philosophers, Plato and Plotinus. " Nor do I think," he says in De Civ. Det. t lib. xviii., cap. 47, " that the Jews dare affirm that none belonged unto God but the Israelites." MISCELLANEOUS. THE PAGEANT. A SOUND as if from bells of silver, Or elfin cymbals smitten clear, Through the frost-pictured panes I hear. A brightness which outshines the morning, A splendor brooking no delay, Beckons and tempts my feet away. 5 66 THE PAGEANT. I leave the .trodden village highway For virgin snow-paths glimmering through A jewelled elm-tree avenue ; Where, keen against the walls of sapphire, The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed, Hold up their chandeliers of frost. I tread in Orient halls enchanted, I dream the Saga's dream of caves Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves ! I walk the land of Eldorado, I touch its mimic garden bowers, Its silver leaves and diamond flowers ! The flora of the mystic mine-world Around me lifts on crystal stems The petals of its clustered gems ! THE PAGEANT. 69 What miracle of weird transforming Is this wild work of frost and light, This glimpse of glory infinite ! This foregleam of the Holy City Like that to him of Patmos given, The white bride coming down from heaven ! How flash the ranked and mail-clad alders, Through what sharp-glancing spears of reeds The brook its muffled water leads ! Yon maple, like the bush of Horeb, Burns unconsumed : a white, cold fire Rays out from every grassy spire. Each slender rush and spike of mullein, Low laurel shrub and drooping fern, Transfigured, blaze where'er I turn. 7O THE PAGEANT. How yonder/Ethiopian hemlock Crowned with his glistening circlet stands ! What jewels light his swarthy hands ! Here, where the forest opens southward, Between its hospitable pines, As through a door, the warm sun shines. The jewels loosen on the branches, And lightly, as the soft winds blow, Fall, tinkling, on the ice below. And through the clashing of their cymbals I hear the old familiar fall Of water down the rocky wall, Where, from its wintry prison breaking, In dark and silence hidden long, The brook repeats its summer song. THE PAGEANT. 71 One instant flashing in the sunshine, Keen as a sabre from its sheath, Then lost again the ice beneath. I hear the rabbit lightly leaping, The foolish screaming of the jay, The chopper's axe-stroke far away ; The clamor of some neighboring barn-yard, The lazy cock's belated crow, Or cattle-tramp in crispy snow. And, as in some enchanted forest The lost knight hears his comrades sing, And, near at hand, their bridles ring, So welcome I these sounds and voices, These airs from far-off summer blown; This life that leaves me not alone. 72 THE PAGEANT. For the white glory overawes me ; The -crystal terror of the seer Of Chebar's vision blinds me here. Rebuke me not, O sapphire heaven ! Thou stainless earth, lay not on me Thy keen reproach of purity, If, in this august presence-chamber, I sigh for summer's leaf-green gloom And warm airs thick with odorous bloom ! Let the strange frost-work sink and crumble, And let the loosened tree-boughs swing, Till all their bells of silver ring. Shine warmly down, thou sun of noontime, On this chill pageant, melt and move The winter's frozen heart with love. THE PAGEANT. And, soft and low, thou wind south-blowing, Breathe through a veil of tenderest haze Thy prophecy of summer days. Come with thy green relief of promise, And to this dead, cold splendor bring The living jewels of the spring ! 73 74 THE SINGER. THE SINGER. YEARS since (but names to me before), Two sisters sought at eve my door ; Two song-birds wandering, from their nest, A gray old farm-house in the West. How fresh of life the younger one, Half smiles, half tears, like rain in sun ! Her gravest mood could scarce displace The dimples of her nut-brown face. Wit sparkled on her lips not less For quick and tremulous tenderness ; And, following close her merriest glance, Dreamed through her eyes the heart's romance. THE SINGER. 75 Timid and still, the elder had Even then a smile too sweetly sad ; The crown of pain that all must wear Too early pressed her midnight hair. Yet ere the summer eve grew long, Her modest lips were sweet with song ; A memory haunted all her words Of clover-fields and singing birds. Her dark, dilating eyes expressed The broad horizons of the west ; Her speech dropped prairie flowers ; the gold Of harvest wheat about her rolled. Fore-doomed to song she seemed to me : I queried not with destiny : I knew the trial and the need, Yet, all the more, I said, God speed ! 76 THE SINGER. What could I other than I did ? Could I a singing-bird forbid ? Deny the wind-stirred leaf? Rebuke The music of the forest brook ? She went with morning from my door, But left me richer than before : Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer, The welcome of her partial ear. Years passed : through all the land her name A pleasant household word became: All felt behind the singer stood A sweet and gracious womanhood. Her life was earnest work, not play ; Her tired feet climbed a weary way ; And even through her lightest strain We heard an undertone of pain. THE SINGER. 77 Unseen of her her fair fame grew, The good she did she rarely knew, Unguessed of her in life the love That rained its tears her grave above. When last I saw her, full of peace, She waited for her great release ; And that old friend so sage and bland, Our later Franklin, held her hand. For all that patriot bosoms stirs Had moved that woman's heart of hers, And men who toiled in storm and sun Found her their meet companion. Our converse, from her suffering bed To healthful themes of life she led ; The out-door world of bud and bloom And light and sweetness filled her room. 78 THE SINGER* Yet evermore an underthought Of loss to come within us wrought, And all the while we felt the strain Of the strong will that conquered pain. God giveth quietness at last! The common way that all have passed She went, with mortal yearnings fond, To fuller life and love beyond. Fold the rapt soul in your embrace, My dear ones ! Give the singer place ! To you, to her, I know not where, I lift the silence of a prayer. For only thus our own we find ; The gone before, the left behind, All mortal voices die between ; The unheard reaches the unseen. THE SINGER. 79 Again the blackbirds sing; the streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, And tremble in the April showers The tassels of the maple flowers. But not for her has spring renewed The sweet surprises of the wood ; And bird and flower are lost to her Who was their best interpreter ! 8O THE SINGER. What to shut eyes has God revealed ? What hear the ears that death has sealed? What undreamed beauty passing show Requites the loss of all we know ? O silent land, to which we move, Enough if there alone be love, And mortal need can ne'er outgrow What it is waiting to bestow ! O white soul ! from that far-off shore Float some sweet song the waters o'er, Our faith confirm, our fears dispel, With the old voice we loved so well ! CHICAGO. 8 1 CHICAGO. MEN said at vespers : " All is well ! " In one wild night the city fell ; Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain Before the fiery hurricane. t On threescore spires had sunset shone, Where ghastly sunrise looked on none. Men clasped each other's hands, and said " The City of the West is dead ! " Brave hearts who fought, in slow retreat, The fiends of fire from street to street, Turned, powerless, to the blinding glare, The dumb defiance of despair. 6 82 CHICAGO. A sudden impulse thrilled each wire That signalled round that sea of fire ; Swift words of cheer, warm heart-throbs came ; In tears of pity died the flame ! From East, from West, from South and North, The messages of hope shot forth, And, underneath the severing wave, The world, full-handed, reached to save. Fair seemed the old ; but fairer still The new, the dreary void shall fill With dearer homes than those overthrown, For love shall lay each corner-stone. Rise, stricken city ! from thee throw The ashen sackcloth of thy woe ; And build, as to Amphion's strain, To songs of cheer thy walls again ! CHICAGO. 83 How shrivelled in thy hot distress The primal sin of selfishness ! How instant rose, to take thy part, The angel in the human heart ! Ah ! not in vain the flames that tossed Above thy dreadful holocaust ; The Christ again has preached through thee The Gospel of Humanity ! Then lift once more thy towers on high, And fret with spires the western sky, To tell that God is yet with us, And love is still miraculous! 84 MY BIRTHDAY. MY BIRTHDAY. BENEATH the moonlight and the snow Lies dead my latest year ; The winter winds are wailing low Its dirges in my ear. I grieve not with the moaning wind As if a loss befell ; Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well! His light shines on me from above, His low voice speaks within, The patience of immortal love Outwearying mortal sin. MY BIRTHDAY. 85 Not mindless of the growing years Of care and loss and pain, My eyes are wet with thankful tears For blessings which remain. If dim the gold of life has grown, I will not count it dross, Nor turn from treasures still my own To sigh for lack and loss. The years no charm from Nature take ; As sweet her voices call, As beautiful her mornings break, As fair her evenings fall. Love watches o'er my quiet ways, Kind voices speak my name, And lips that find it hard to praise Are slow, at least, to blame. 86 MY BIRTHDAY. How softly ebb the tides of will ! How fields, once lost or won, Now lie behind me green and still Beneath a level sun ! How hushed the hiss of party hate, The clamor of the throng ! How old, harsh voices of debate Flow into rhythmic song ! Methinks the spirit's temper grows Too soft in this still air; Somewhat the restful heart foregoes Of needed watch and prayer. The bark by tempest vainly tossed May founder in the calm, And he who braved the polar frost Faint by the isles of balm. MY BIRTHDAY. 8/ Better than self-indulgent years The outflung heart of youth, Than pleasant songs in idle years The tumult of the truth. Rest for the weary hands is good, And love for hearts that pine, But let the manly habitude Of upright souls be mine. Let winds that blow from heaven refresh, Dear Lord, the languid air; And let the weakness of the flesh Thy strength of spirit share. And, if the eye must fail of light, The ear forget to hear, Make clearer still the spirit's sight, More fine the inward ear ! MY BIRTHDAY. Be near me in mine hours of need To soothe, or cheer, or warn, And down these slopes of sunset lead As up the hills of morn ! THE BREWING OF SOMA. 89 THE BREWING OF SOMA. " These libations mixed with milk have been prepared for Indra : offer Soma to the drinker of Soma." VASHISTA, Trans, by MAX MtiLLER. THE fagots blazed, the caldron's smoke Up through the green wood curled; " Bring honey from the hollow oak, Bring milky sap," the brewers spoke, In the childhood of the world. And brewed they well or brewed they ill, The priests thrust in their rods, First tasted, and then drank their fill, And shouted, with one voice and will, " Behold the drink of gods ! " 9