712 MIRIAM AND OTHER POEMS BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. BOSTON: FIELDS, OS GO CD, & CO. 187 i. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, BY JOHN CREENLEAF WHITTIER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. UNIVERSITY PRESS : WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co., CAMBRIDGE. TO FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD. HE years are many since, in youth and hope, Under the Charter Oak, our horoscope We drew thick-studded with all favoring stars. Now, with gray beards* and faces seamed with scars From life's -hard battle, meeting once again, We smile, half sadly, over dreams so vain ; Knowing, at last that it is not in man Who walketh to direct his steps, or plan His permanent house of life. Alike we loved The muses' haunts, and all our fancies moved To measures of old song. How since that day Our feet have parted from the path that lay So fair before us ! Rich, from lifelong search Of truth, within thy Academic porch Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact, Thy servitors the sciences exact ; DEDICATION. Still listening with thy hand on Nature's keys, To hear the Samian's spheral harmonies And rhythm of law. I called from dream and song, Thank God ! so early to a strife so long, That, ere it closed, the- black, abundant hair Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare On manhood's temples, now at sunset-chime Tread with fond feet the path of morning time. And if perchance too late I linger where The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees are bare, Thou, wiser in thy choice, wilt scarcely blame The friend who shields his* folly with thy name. AMESBURY, Tenth Month, 1870. CONTENTS PAGE MIRIAM . .11 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. NOREMBEGA 41 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON 50 IN SCHOOL-DAYS 57 GARIBALDI 61 AFTER ELECTION 64 MY TRIUMPH . 67 THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG 73 HOWARD AT ATLANTA 76 To LYDIA MARIA CHILD 80 THE PRAYER-SEEKER 83 POEMS FOR PUBLIC OCCASIONS. A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION . ... 89 "THE LAURELS" 100 HYMN ........ 103 MIRIAM. MIRIAM. Sabbath day my friend and I After the meeting, quietly Passed from the crowded village lanes, White with dry dust for lack of rains, And climbed the neighboring slope, with feet + Slackened and heavy from the heat, Although the day was wellnigh done, And the low angle of the sun 12 MIRIAM. Along the naked hillside cast Our shadows as of giants vast. We reached, at length, the topmost swell, Whence, either way, the green turf fell In terraces of nature down To fruit-hung orchards, and the town With white, pretenceless houses, tall Church-steeples, and, o'ershadowing all, Huge mills whose windows had the look Of eager eyes that ill could brook The Sabbath rest. We traced the track Of the sea-seeking river back Glistening for miles above its mouth, Through the long valley to the south. And, looking eastward, cool to view, Stretched the illimitable blue Of ocean, from its curved coast-line ; MIRIAM. 13 Sombred and still, the warm sunshine Filled with pale gold-dust all the reach Of slumberous woods from hill to beach, Slanted on walls of thronged retreats From city toil and dusty streets, On grassy bluff, and dune of sand, And rocky islands miles from land ; Touched the far-glancing sails, and showed White lines of foam where long waves flowed Dumb in the distance. In the north, Dim through their misty hair, looked forth The space-dwarfed mountains to the sea, From mystery to mystery ! So, sitting on that green hill-slope, We talked of human life, its hope And fear, and unsolved doubts, and what 14 MIRIAM. It might have been, and yet was not. And, when at last the evening air Grew sweeter for the bells of prayer Ringing in steeples far below, We watched the people churchward go, Each to his place, as if thereon The true shekinah only shone; And my friend queried how it came To pass that they who owned the same Great Master still could not agree To worship Him in company. Then, broadening in his thought, he ran Over the whole vast field of man, The varying forms of faith and creed That somehow served the holders' need ; In which, unquestioned, undenied, Uncounted millions lived and died ; MIRIAM. The bibles of the ancient folk, Through which the heart of nations spoke ; The old moralities which lent To home its sweetness and content, And rendered possible to bear The life of peoples everywhere : And asked if we, who boast of light, Claim not a too exclusive right To truths which must for all be meant, Like rain and sunshine freely sent. In bondage to the letter still, We give it power to cramp and kill, To tax God's fulness with a scheme Narrower than Peter's house-top dream, His wisdom and his love with plans Poor and inadequate as man's. It must be that He witnesses 1 6 MIRIAM. Somehow to all men that He is : That something of His saving grace Reaches the lowest of the race, Who, through strange creed and rite, may draw The hints of a diviner law. We walk in clearer light; but then, Is He not God ? are they not men ? Are His responsibilities For us alone and not for these ? And I made answer : " Truth is one ; And, in all lands beneath the sun, Whoso hath eyes to see may see The tokens of its unity. No scroll of creed its fulness wraps, We trace it not by school-boy maps, Free as the sun and air it is MIRIAM. 1 7 Of latitudes and boundaries. In Vedic verse, in dull Koran, * Are messages of good to man ; The angels to our Aryan sires Talked by the earliest household fires ; The prophets of the elder day, The slant-eyed sages of Cathay, Read not the riddle all amiss Of higher life evolved from this. "Nor doth it lessen what He taught, Or make the gospel Jesus brought Less precious, that His lips retold Some portion of that truth of old ; Denying not the proven seers, The tested wisdom of the years ; Confirming with his own impress 1 8 MIRIAM. The common law of righteousness. We search the world for truth ; we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful From graven stone and written scroll, From all old flower-fields of the soul ; And, weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from our quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read, And all our treasure of old thought In His harmonious fulness wrought Who gathers in one sheaf complete The scattered blades of God's sown wheat, The common growth that maketh good His all-embracing Fatherhood. "Wherever through the ages rise MIRIAM. 19 The altars of self-sacrifice, Where love its arms has opened wide, Or man for man has calmly died, I see the same white wings outspread That hovered o'er the Master's head ! Up from undated time they come, The martyr souls of heathendom, And to His cross and passion bring Their fellowship of suffering. I trace His presence in the blind Pathetic gropings of my kind, In prayers from sin and sorrow wrung, In cradle-hymns of life they sung, Each, in its measure, but a part Of the unmeasured Over-Heart ; And with a stronger faith confess The greater that it owns the less. 2O MIRIAM. Good cause it is for thankfulness That the world-blessing of His life With the long past is not at strife ; That the great marvel of His death To the one order witnesseth, No doubt of changeless goodness wakes, No link of cause and sequence breaks, But, one with nature, rooted is In the eternal verities ; Whereby, while differing in degree As finite from infinity, The pain and loss -for others borne, Love's crown of suffering meekly worn, The life man giveth for his friend Become vicarious in the end ; Their healing place in nature take, And make life sweeter for their sake. MIRIAM. 21 " So welcome I from every source The tokens of that primal Force, Older than heaven itself, yet new As the young heart it reaches to, Beneath whose steady impulse rolls The tidal wave of human souls ; Guide, comforter, and inward word, The eternal spirit of the Lord ! Nor fear I aught that science brings From searching through material things ; Content to let its glasses prove, Not by the letter's oldness move, The myriad worlds on worlds that course The spaces of the universe ; Since everywhere the Spirit walks The garden of the heart, and talks $ With man, as under Eden's trees, 22 MIRIAM. In all his varied languages. Why mourn above some hopeless flaw In the stone tables of the law, When scripture every day afresh Is traced on tablets of the flesh ? By inward sense, by outward signs, God's presence still the heart divines ; Through deepest joy of Him we learn, In sorest grief to Him we turn, And reason stoops its pride to share The child-like instinct of a prayer." And then, as is my wont, I told A story of the days of old, Not found in printed books, in sooth, A fancy, with slight hint of truth, Showing how differing faiths agree MIRIAM. 23 In one sweet law of charity. Meanwhile the sky had golden grown, Our faces in its glory shone ; But shadows down the valley swept, And gray below the ocean slept, As time and space I wandered o'er To tread the Mogul's marble floor, And see a fairer sunset fall On Jumna's wave and Agra's wall. r I ^HE good Shah Akbar (peace be his alway !) Came forth from the Divan at close of day Bowed with the burden of his many cares, Worn with the hearing of unnumbered prayers, Wild cries for justice, the importunate Appeals of greed and jealousy and hate, 24 MIRIAM. And all the strife of. sect and creed and rite, Santon and Gouroo waging holy fight : For the wise monarch, claiming not to be Allah's avenger, left his people free, With a faint hope, his Book scarce justified, That all the paths of faith, though severed wide, O'er which the feet of prayerful reverence passed, Met at the gate of Paradise at last. He sought an alcove of his cool hareem, Where, far beneath, he heard the Jumna's stream Lapse soft and low along his palace wall, And all about the cool sound of the fall Of fountains, and of water circling free Through marble ducts along the balcony ; The voice of women in the distance sweet, And, sweeter still, of one who, at his feet, MIRIAM. 25 Soothed his tired ear with songs of a far land Where Tagus shatters on the salt sea-sand The mirror of its cork-grown hills of drouth And vales of vine, at Lisbon's harbor-mouth. The date-palms rustled not ; the peepul laid Its topmost boughs against the balustrade, Motionless as the mimic leaves and vines That, light and graceful as the shawl-designs Of Delhi or Umritsir, twined in stone ; And the tired monarch, who aside had thrown The day's hard burden, sat from care apart, And let the quiet steal into his heart From the still hour. Below him Agra slept, By the long light of sunset overswept : The river flowing through a level land, By mango-groves and banks of yellow sand, 26 MIRIAM. Skirted with lime and orange, gay kiosks, Fountains at play, tall minarets of mosques, Fair pleasure-gardens, with their flowering trees Relieved against the mournful cypresses ; And, air-poised lightly as the blown sea-foam, The marble wonder of some holy dome Hung a white moonrise over the still wood, Glassing its beauty in a stiller flood. jj, Silent the monarch gazed, until the night Swift-falling hid the city from his sight, Then to the woman at his feet he said : "Tell me, O Miriam, something thou hast read In childhood of the Master of thy faith, Whom Islam also owns. Our Prophet saith : ' He was a true apostle, yea, a Word And Spirit sent before me from the Lord/ MIRIAM. 27 Thus the Book witnesseth ; and well I know By what thou art, O dearest, it is so. As the lute's tone the maker's hand betrays, The sweet disciple speaks her Master's praise." Then Miriam, glad of heart (for in some sort She cherished in the Moslem's liberal court The sweet traditions of a Christian child ; And, through her life of sense, the undefiled And chaste ideal of the sinless One Gazed on her with an eye she might not shun, The sad, reproachful look of pity, born Of love that hath no part in wrath or scorn,) Began, with low voice and moist eyes, to tell Of the all-loving Christ, and what befell When the fierce zealots, thirsting for her blood, Dragged to his feet a shame of womanhood. 28 MIRIAM. How, when his searching answer pierced within Each heart, and touched the secret of its sin, And her accusers fled his face before, He bade the poor one go and sin no more. And Akbar said, after a moment's thought, " Wise is the lesson by' thy prophet taught ; Woe ,unto him who judges and forgets What hidden evil his own heart besets ! Something of this large charity I find In all* the sects that sever human kind ; I would to Allah that their lives agreed More nearly with the lesson of their creed ! Those yellow Lamas who at Meerut pray By wind and water power, and love to say : '-He who forgiveth not shall, unforgiven, Fail of the rest of Buddha/ and who even Spare the black gnat that stings them, vex my ears MIRIAM. 29 With the poor hates and jealousies and fears Nursed in their human hives. That lean, fierce priest Of thy own people, (be his heart increased By Allah's love!) his black robes -smelling yet Of Goa's roasted Jews, have I not met Meek-faced, barefooted, crying in the street The saying of his prophet true and sweet, * He who is merciful shall mercy meet ! ' ' But, next day, so it chanced, as night began To fall, a murmur through the hareem ran That one, recalling in her dusky face The full-lipped, mild-eyed beauty of a race Known as the blameless Ethiops of Greek song, Plotting to do her royal master wrong, Watching, reproachful of the lingering light, 3O MIRIAM. The evening shadows deepen for her flight, Love-guided, to her home in a far land, Now waited death at the great Shah's commando Shapely as that dark princess for whose smile A world was bartered, daughter of the Nile Herself, and veiling in her large, soft eyes The passion and the languor of her skies, The Abyssinian knelt low at the feet Of her stern lord : " O king, if it be meet, And for thy honor's sake," she said, " that I, Who am the humblest of thy slaves, should die, I will not tax thy mercy to forgive. Easier it is to die than to outlive All that life gave me, him whose wrong of thee Was but the outcome of his love for me, Cherished from childhood, when, beneath the shade MIRIAM. 31 Of templed Axum, side by side we played. Stolen from his arms, my lover followed me Through weary seasons over land and sea ; And two days since, sitting disconsolate Within the shadow of the hareem gate, Suddenly, as if dropping from the sky, Down from the lattice of the balcony Fell the sweet song by Tigre's cowherds sung In the old music of his native tongue. He knew my voice, for love is quick of ear, Answering in song. This night he waited near To fly with me. The fault was mine alone : He knew thee not, he did but seek his own ; Who, in the very shadow of thy throne, Sharing thy bounty, knowing all thou art, Greatest and best of men, and in her heart 32 MIRIAM. Grateful to tears for favor undeserved, Turned ever homeward, nor one moment swerved From her young love. He looked into my eyes, He heard my voice, and could not otherwise Than he hath done ; yet, save one wild embrace When first we stood together face to face, And all that fate had done since last we met Seemed but a dream that left us children yet, He hath not wronged thee nor thy royal bed ; Spare him, O king ! and slay me in his stead ! " But over Akbar's brows the frown hung black, And, turning to the eunuch at his back> "Take them," he said, "and let the Jumna's waves Hide both my shame and these accursed slaves ! " His loathly length the unsexed bondman bowed : "On my head be it!" MIRIAM. 33 Straightway from a cloud Of dainty shawls and veils of woven mist The Christian Miriam rose, and, stooping, kissed The monarch's hand. Loose down her shoulders bare Swept all the rippled darkness of her hair, Veiling the bosom that, with high, quick swell Of fear and pity, through it rose and fell. " Alas ! " she cried, " hast thou forgotten quite The words of Him we spake of yesternight ? Or thy own prophet's, ' Whoso doth endure And pardon, of eternal life is sure ' ? O great and good ! be thy revenge alone Felt in thy mercy to the erring shown ; Let thwarted love and youth their pardon plead, Who sinned but in intent, and not in deed ! " 2* C 34 MIRIAM. One moment the strong frame of Akbar shook With the great storm of passion. Then his look Softened to her uplifted face, that still Pleaded more strongly than all words, until Its pride and anger seemed like overblown, Spent clouds of thunder left to tell alone Of strife and overcoming. With bowed head, And smiting on his bosom : " God," he said, " Alone is great, and let His holy name Be honored, even to His servant's shame ! Well spake thy prophet, Miriam, he alone Who hath not sinned is meet to cast a stone At such as these, who here their doom await, Held like myself in the strong grasp of fate. They sinned through love, as I through love for- give ; Take them beyond my realm, but let them live ! " MIRIAM. 35 And, like a chorus to the words of grace, The ancient Fakir, sitting in his place, Motionless as an idol and as grim, In the pavilion Akbar built for him Under the courtyard "trees, (for he was wise, Knew Menu's laws, and through his close-shut eyes Saw things far off, and as an open book Into the thoughts of other men could look,) Began, half chant, half howling, to rehearse The fragment of a holy Vedic verse ; And thus it ran : " He who all things forgives Conquers himself and all things else, and lives Above the reach of wrong or hate or fear, Calm as the gods, to whom he is most dear." Two leagues from Agra still the traveller sees The tomb of Akbar through its cypress-trees ; 36 MIRIAM. And, near at hand, the marble walls that hide The Christian Begum sleeping at his side. And o'er her vault of burial (who shall tell If it be chance alone or miracle ?) The Mission press with tireless hand unrolls The words of Jesus on its lettered scrolls, - Tells, in all tongues, the tale of mercy o'er, And bids the guilty, " Go and sin no more ! " It now was dew-fall ; very still The night lay on the lonely hill, Down which our homeward steps we .bent, And, silent, through* great silence went, Save that the tireless crickets played Their long, monotonous serenade. A young moon, at its narrowest, MIRIAM. 37 Curved sharp against the darkening west ; And, momently, the beacon's star, Slow wheeling o'er its rock afar, From out the level darkness shot One instant and again was not. And then my friend spake quietly The thought of both : " Yon crescent see ! Like Islam's symbol-moon it gives Hints of the light whereby it lives : Somewhat of goodness, something true From sun and spirit shining through All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark, Attests the presence everywhere Of love and providential care. The faith the old Norse heart confessed In one dear name, the hopefulest 38 MIRIAM. And tenderest heard from mortal lips In pangs of -birth or death, from ships Ice-bitten in the winter sea, Or lisped beside a mother's knee, The wiser world hath not outgrown, And the All-Father is our own ! MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. NOREMBEGA. [Norembega, or Norimbegue, is the name given by early French fishermen and explorers to a fabulous country south of Cape Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was supposed to have a magnificent city of the same name on a great river, probably the Penobscot. The site of this bar- baric city is laid down on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. In 1604 Champlain sailed in search of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up the Penobscot from the Isle Haute. He supposed the river to be that of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those travellers who told of the great city had never seen it. He saw no evidences of anything like civilization, but mentions the finding of a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods.] r I ""'HE winding way the serpent takes The mystic water took, From where, to count its beaded lakes, The forest sped its brook. 42 NOREMBEGA. A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore, For sun or stars to fall, While evermore, behind, before, Closed in the forest wall. The dim wood hiding underneath Wan flowers without a name ; Life tangled with decay and death, League after league the same. Unbroken over swamp and hill The rounding shadow lay, Save where the river cut at will A pathway to the day. Beside that track of air and light, Weak as a child unweaned, NOREMBEGA. 43 At shut of day a Christian knight Upon his henchman leaned. The embers of the sunset's fires Along the clouds burned down ; "I see," he said, "the domes and spires Of Norembega town." "Alack! the domes, O master mine, Are golden clouds on high ; Yon spire is but the branchless pine That cuts the evening sky." "O hush and hark! What sounds are these But chants and holy hymns ? " " Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees Through all t-heir leafy limbs." ,44 NOREMBEGA. "Is it a chapel bell that fills The air with its low tone ? " "Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills, The insect's vesper drone." " The Christ be praised ! He sets for me A blessed cross in sight ! " " Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree With two gaunt arms outright ! " " Be it wind so sad or tree so stark, It mattereth not, my knave ; Methinks to funeral hymns I hark, The cross is for my grave ! " My life is sped ; I shall not see My home-set sails again ; NOREMBEGA. 45 The sweetest eyes of Normandie Shall watch for me in vain. " Yet onward still to ear and eye The baffling marvel calls ; I fain would look before I die On Norembega's walls. " So, haply, it shall be thy part At Christian feet to lay The mystery of the desert's heart My dead nand plucked away. " Leave me an hour of rest ; go thou And look from yonder heights ; Perchance the valley even now Is starred with city lights." 46 NOREMBEGA. The henchman climbed the nearest hill, He saw nor tower nor town, But, through the drear woods, lone and still The river rolling down. He heard the stealthy feet of things Whose shapes he could not see, A flutter as of evil wings, The fall of a dead tree. The pines stood black against the moon, A sword of fire beyond ; He heard the wolf howl, and the loon Laugh from his reedy pond. % He turned him back : " O master dear, We are but men misled ; NOREMBEGA. And thou hast sought a city here To find a grave instead." "As God shall will ! what matters where A true man's cross may stand, So Heaven be o'er it here as there In pleasant Norman land ? " These woods, perchance, no secret hide Of lordly tower and hall ; Yon river in its wanderings wide Has washed no city wall ; " Yet mirrored in the sullen stream The holy stars are given : Is Norembega, then, a dream Whose waking is in Heaven ? NOREMBEGA. "No builded wonder of these lands My weary eyes shall see ; A city never made with hands Alone awaiteth me " ' Urbs Syon mystica '/ I see Its mansions passing fair, ' Condita cczlo '; let me be, Dear Lord, a dweller there ! " -j Above the dying exile hung The vision of the bard, As faltered on his failing tongue The song of good Bernard. The henchman dug at dawn a grave Beneath the hemlocks brown, NOREMBEGA. 49 And to the desert's keeping gave The lord of fief and town. Years after, when the Sieur Champlain Sailed up the unknown stream, And Norernbega proved again A shadow and a dream, ; He found the Norman's nameless grave Within the hemlock's shade, And, stretching wide its arms to save, The sign that God had made, The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot And made it holy ground : He needs the earthly city not Who hath the heavenly found. 4 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. XT AUH AUGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his nar- rowing Q a P e Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds And the relentless smiting of the waves, Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream Of a good angel dropping in his hand A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God. He rose and went forth with the early day Far inland, where the voices of the waves Mellowed and mingled with the whispering leaves, As, through the tangle of the low, thick woods, NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. 51 He searched his traps. Therein nor beast nor bird He found ; though meanwhile in the reedy pools The otter plashed, and underneath the pines The partridge drummed : and as his thoughts went back To the sick wife and little child at home, What marvel that the poor man felt his faith Too weak to bear its burden, like a rope That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks above The hand that grasps it. " Even now, O Lord ! Send me," he prayed, "the angel of my dream! Nauhaught is very poor ; he cannot wait." Even as he spake he heard at his bare feet A low, metallic clink, and, looking down, He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held * 52 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. The treasure up before his eyes, alone With his great need, feeling the wondrous coins Slide through his eager fingers, one by one. So then the dream was true. The angel brought One broad piece only ; should he take all these ? Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb woods ? The loser, doubtless rich, would scarcely miss This dropped crumb from a table always full. Still, while he mused, he seemed to hear the cry Of a starved child ; the sick face of his wife Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce revolt Urged the wild license of his savage youth Against his later scruples. Bitter toil, Prayer, fasting, dread of blame, and pitiless eyes To watch his halting, had he lost for these The freedom of the woods ; the hunting-grounds Of happy spirits for a walled-in heaven NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. 53 Of everlasting psalms ? One healed the sick Very far off thousands of moons ago : Had he not prayed him night and day to come And cure his bed-bound wife ? Was .there a hell ? Were all his fathers' people writhing there Like the poor shell-fish set to boil alive Forever, dying never ? If he kept This gold, so needed, would the dreadful God Torment him like a Mohawk's captive stuck With slow-consuming splinters ? Would the saints And the white angels dance and laugh to see him Burn like a pitch-pine torch ? His Christian garb Seemed falling from him ; with the fear and shame Of Adam naked at the cool of day, He gazed around. A black snake lay in coil On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong eye Watched from a dead bough. All his Indian lore 54 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. Of evil blending with a convert's faith In the supernal terrors of the Book, He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake * And ominous, black-winged bird ; and all the while The low rebuking of the distant waves Stole in upon him like the voice of God Among the trees of Eden. Girding up His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he thrust The base thought from him : " Nauhaught, be a man ! Starve, if need be ; but, while you live, look out From honest eyes on all men, unashamed. God help me ! I am deacon of the church, A baptized, praying Indian ! Should I do This secret meanness, even the barken knots Of the old trees would turn to eyes to see it, The birds would tell of it, and all the leaves NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. 55 Whisper above me : ' Nauh aught is a thief ! ' The sun would know it, and the stars that hide Behind his light would watch me, and at night Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes. Yea, thou, God, seest me ! " Then Nauhaught drew i Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea ; And r * pausing at the inn-door, cheerily asked : " Who hath lost aught to-day ? " " I," said a voice ; ' Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse, My daughter's handiwork." He looked, and lo ! One stood before him in a coat of frieze, And the glazed hat of a seafaring man, Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no trace of wings. 56 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. Marvelling, he dropped within the stranger's hand The silken web, and turned to go his way. But the man said : " A tithe at least is yours ; Take it in God's name as an honest man." And as the deacon's dusky fingers closed -; Over the golden gift, " Yea, in God's name I take it, with a poor man's thanks," he said. So down the street that, like a river of sandL Ran, white in sunshine, to the summer sea, He sought his home, singing and praising God ; And when his neighbors in their careless way Spoke of the owner of the silken purse A Wellfleet skipper, known in every port That the Cape opens in its sandy wall He answered, with a wise smile, to himself: " I saw the angel where they see a man." IN SCHOOL-DAYS. OTILL sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sunning ; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry vines are running. Within, the master's desk is seen, Deep scarred by raps official ; The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife's carved initial ; The charcoal frescos on its wall ; Its door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school, Went storming out to playing ! 58 IN SCHOOL-DAYS. Long years ago a winter sun Shone over it at setting ; Lit up its western window-panes, And low eaves' icy fretting. It touched the tangled golden curls, And brown eyes full of grieving, Of one who still her steps delayed When all the school were leaving. For near her stood the little boy Her childish favor singled ; His cap pulled low upon a face Where pride and shame were mingled. Pushing with restless feet the snow To right and left, he lingered ; IN SCHOOL-DAYS. As restlessly her tiny hands The blue-checked apron fingered. He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt The soft hand's light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing. " I 'm sorry that I spelt the word : I hate to go above you, Because," the brown eyes lower fell, " Because, you see, I love you ! " Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing ! 6O IN SCHOOL-DAYS. / He lives to learn, in life's hard school, How few who pass above him ) Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her, because they love him. GARIBALDI. TN trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw The casting down of thrones. Thou, watching lone The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy-hilled, Where, fringing round Caprera's rocky zone With foam, the slow waves gather and withdraw, Behold'st the vision of the seer fulfilled, And hear'st the sea-winds burdened with a sound Of falling chains, as, one by .one, unbound, The nations lift their right hands up and swear Their oath of freedom. From the chalk-white wall Of England, from the black Carpathian range, 62 GARIBALDI. Along the Danube and the Theiss, through all The passes of the Spanish Pyrenees, And from the Seine's thronged banks, a murmur strange And glad floats to thee o'er thy summer seas On the salt wind that stirs thy whitening hair, The song of freedom's bloodless victories ! Rejoice, O Garibaldi ! Though thy sword Failed at Rome's gates, and blood seemed vainly poured Where, in Christ's name, the crowned infidel Of France wrought murder with the arms of hell On that sad mountain slope whose ghostly dead, Unmindful of the gray exorcist's ban, Walk, unappeased, the chambered Vatican, And draw the curtains of Napoleon's bed ! GARIBALDI. 63 God's providence is not blind, but, full of eyes, It searches all the refuges of lies ; And in His time and way, the accursed things Before whose evil feet thy battle-gage Has clashed defiance from hot youth to age Shall perish. All men shall be priests and kings, One royal brotherhood, one church made free By love, which is the law of liberty ! 1869. AFTER ELECTION. / T~^HE day's sharp .strife is ended now, Our work is done, God knoweth how ! As on the thronged, unrestful town The patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire. Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first : Be strong, my heart, to know the worst ! Hark ! there the Alleghanies spoke ; That sound from lake and prairie broke That sunset-gun of triumph rent The silence of a continent ! AFTER ELECTION. 65 That signal from Nebraska sprung, This, from Nevada's mountain tongue ! Is that thy answer, strong and free, O loyal heart of Tennessee ? What strange, glad voice is that which calls From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls? From Mississippi's fountain-head A sound as of the bison's tread ! There rustled freedom's Charter Oak! In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke ! Cheer answers cheer from rise to set Of sun. We have a country yet ! The praise, O God, be thine alone! Thou givest not for bread a stone ; Thou hast not led us through the night 5 66 AFTER ELECTION. To blind us with returning light; Not through the furnace have we passed, To perish at its mouth at last. O night of peace, thy flight restrain ! November's moon, be slow to wane ! Shine on the freedman's cabin floor, On brows of prayer a bkssing pour ; And give, with full assurance blest, The weary heart of Freedom rest ! 1868. 'MY TRIUMPH. autumn-time has come ; On woods that dream of bloom, And over purpling vines, The low sun fainter shines. The aster-flower is failing, The hazel's gold is paling ; Yet overhead more near The eternal stars appear ! And present gratitude Insures the future's good, And for the things I see I trust the things to be ; 68 MY TRIUMPH. That in the paths untrod. And the long days of God, My feet shall still be led, My heart be comforted. O living friends who love me ! dear ones gone above me ! Careless of other fame, 1 leave to you my name. Hide it from idle praises, Save it from evil phrases : Why, when dear lips that spake it Are dumb, should strangers wake it ? Let the thick curtain fall ; I better know than all MY TRIUMPH. 69 How little I have gained, How vast the unattained. Not by the page word-painted Let life be banned or sainted : Deeper than written scroll The colors of the soul. ( Sweeter than any sung My songs that found no tongue ; i j Nobler than any fact My wish that failed of act. Others shall sing the song, Others shall right the wrong, Finish what I begin, And all I fail of win. 7O MY TRIUMPH. What matter, I or they ? Mine or another's day, So the right word be said And life the sweeter made ? Hail to the coming singers ! Hail to the brave light-bringers ! Forward I reach and share All that they sing and dare. The airs of heaven blow o'er me ; A glory shines before me Of what mankind shall be, Pure, generous, brave, and free. A dream of man and woman Diviner but still human, MY TRIUMPH. Solving the riddle old, Shaping the Age of Gold! The love of God and neighbor ; An equal-handed labor ; The richer life, where beauty Walks hand in hand with duty. Ring, bells in unreared steeples, The joy of unborn peoples ! Sound, trumpets far off blown, Your triumph is my own ! Parcel and part of all, I keep the festival, Fore -reach the good to be, And share the victory. 72 MY TRIUMPH. I feel the earth move sunward, I join the great march onward, And take, by faith, while living, My freehold of thanksgiving. THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG. T N the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame, So terrible alive v Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became The wandering wild bees' hive ; And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore Those jaws of death apart, In after time drew forth their honeyed store To strengthen his strong heart. Dead seemed the legend : but it only slept To wake beneath our sky ; Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept Back to its lair to die, 74 THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG. Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain bounds, A stained and shattered drum Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds, The wild bees go and come. Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel, They wander wide and far, Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell, Through vales once choked with war. The low reveille of their battle-drum Disturbs no morning prayer ; With deeper peace in summer noons their hum Fills all the drowsy air. And Samson's riddle is our own to-day, Of sweetness from the strong, Of union, peace, and freedom plucked away From the rent jaws of wrong. THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG. 75 From Treason's death we draw a purer life, As, from the beast he slew, A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strife The old-time athlete drew ! HOWARD AT ATLANTA. "O IGHT in the track where Sherman Ploughed his red furrow, Out of the narrow cabin, Up from the cellar's burrow, Gathered the little black people, With freedom newly dowered, Where, beside their Northern teacher, Stood the soldier, Howard. He listened and heard the children Of the poor and long-enslaved Reading the words of Jesus, Singing the songs of David. HOWARD AT ATLANTA. Behold! the dumb, lips speaking, The blind eyes seeing ! Bones of the Prophet's vision Warmed into bein ! Transformed he saw them passing Their new life's portal ; Almost it seemed the mortal Put on the immortal. No more with the beasts of burden, No more with stone and clod, But crowned with glory and honor In the image of God ! There was the human chattel Its manhood taking ; There, in each dark, bronze statue, A soul was waking ! 78 HOWARD AT ATLANTA. The man of many. battles, With tears his eyelids pressing, Stretched over those dusky foreheads His one-armed blessing. And he said : " Who hears can never Fear for or doubt you ; What shall I tell the children Up North about you ? " Then ran round a whisper, a murmur, Some answer devising ; And a little boy stood up : " Massa, Tell 'em we 're rising ! " O black boy of Atlanta! But half was spoken : The slave's chain and the master's Alike are broken. HOWARD AT ATLANTA. 79 The one curse of the races Held both in tether: They are rising, all are rising, The black and white together! O brave men and fair women ! Ill comes of hate and scorning: Shall the dark faces only Be turned to morning ? Make Time your sole avenger, All-healing, all-redressing ; Meet Fate half-way, and make it A joy and blessing ! TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD, ON READING HER POEM IN "THE STANDARD." r I ^HE sweet spring day is glad with music, But through it sounds a sadder strain ; The worthiest of our narrowing circle Sings Loring's dirges o'er again. O woman greatly loved ! I join thee In tender memories of our friend ; With thee across the awful spaces The greeting of a soul I send ! What cheer hath he? How is it with him? Where lingers he this weary while ? Over what pleasant fields of Heaven Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile ? TO LYDIA MARIA C'HILD. 8 1 Does he not know our feet are treading The earth hard down on Slavery's grave ? That, in our crowning exultations, We miss the charm his presence gave ? Why on this spring air comes no whisper From him to tell us all is well ? Why to our flower-time comes no token Of lily and of asphodel ? I feel the unutterable longing, Thy hunger of the heart is mine ; I reach and grope for hands in darkness, My ear grows sharp for voice or sign. Still on the lips of all we question The finger of God's silence lies ; Will -the lost hands in ours be folded? Will the shut eyelids ever rise ? 4* F 82 TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD. O friend! no proof beyond this yearning, This outreach of our hearts, we need ; God will not mock the hope He giveth, No love He prompts shall vainly plead. Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, And call our loved ones o'er and o'er ; Some day their arms shall close about us, And the old voices speak once more. No dreary splendors wait our coming Where rapt ghost sits from ghost apart ; Homeward we go to Heaven's thanksgiving, The harvest-gathering of the heart. THE PRAYER-SEEKER. A LONG the aisle where prayer was made A woman, all in black arrayed, Close-veiled, between the kneeling host, With gliding motion of a ghost, Passed to the desk, and laid thereon A scroll which bore these words alone, Pray for me ! Back from the place of worshipping She glided like a guilty thing : The rustle of her draperies, stirred By hurrying feet, alone was heard ; While, full of awe, the preacher read, As out into the dark she sped : " Pray for me ! " 84 THE PRAYER-SEEKER. Back to the night from whence she came, To unimagined grief or shame ! Across the threshold of that door None knew the burden that she bore ; Alone she left the written scroll, The legend of a troubled soul, Pray for me ! Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin ! Thou leav'st a common need within ; Each bears, like thee, some nameless weight, Some misery inarticulate, Some secret sin, some shrouded dread, Some household sorrow all unsaid. Pray for its ! Pass on ! The type of all thou art, Sad witness to the common heart ! THE PRAYER-SEEKER. 85 With face in veil and seal on lip, In mute and strange companionship, Like thee we wander to and fro, Dumbly imploring as we go : Pray for us ! Ah, who shall pray, since he who pleads Our want perchance hath greater needs ? Yet they who make their loss the gain Of others shall not ask in vain, And Heaven bends low to hear the prayer Of love from lips of self-despair : Pray for us ! In vain remorse and fear and hate Beat with bruised hands against a fate, Whose walls of iron only move, And open to the touch of love. 86 THE PRAYER-SEEKER. He only feels his burdens fall Who, taught by suffering, pities all. Pray for us ! He prayeth best who leaves unguessed The mystery of another's breast. Why cheeks grow pale, why eyes o'erflow, Or heads are white, thou need'st not know. Enough to note by many a sign That every heart hath needs like thine. Pray for us! POEMS FOR PUBLIC OCCASIONS. A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION AT THE PRESIDENT'S LEVEE, BROWN UNIVERSITY, 29TH 6TH MONTH, 1870. HPO-DAY the plant by Williams set Its summer bloom discloses; The wilding sweet-brier of his prayers Is crowned with cultured roses. Once more the Island State repeats The lesson that he taught her, And binds his pearl of charity Upon her brown-locked daughter. Is 't fancy that he watches still His Providence plantations ? 9