The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Complete This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Complete Author: John Greenleaf Whittier Release date: January 1, 2006 [eBook #9600] Most recently updated: January 14, 2023 Language: English Credits: David Widger *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, COMPLETE *** THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER By John Greenleaf Whittier VOLUME I. NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT The Standard Library Edition of Mr. Whittier's writings comprises his poetical and prose works as re-arranged and thoroughly revised by himself or with his cooperation. Mr. Whittier has supplied such additional information regarding the subject and occasion of certain poems as may be stated in brief head-notes, and this edition has been much enriched by the poet's personal comment. So far as practicable the dates of publication of the various articles have been given, and since these were originally published soon after composition, the dates of their first appearance have been taken as determining the time at which they were written. At the request of the Publishers, Mr. Whittier has allowed his early poems, discarded from previous collections, to be placed, in the general order of their appearance, in an appendix to the final volume of poems. By this means the present edition is made so complete and retrospective that students of the poet's career will always find the most abundant material for their purpose. The Publishers congratulate themselves and the public that the careful attention which Mr. Whittier has been able to give to this revision of his works has resulted in so comprehensive and well-adjusted a collection. The portraits prefixed to the several volumes have been chosen with a view to illustrating successive periods in the poet's life. The original sources and dates are indicated in each case. CONTENTS: THE VAUDOIS TEACHER THE FEMALE MARTYR EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND" THE DEMON OF THE STUDY THE FOUNTAIN PENTUCKET THE NORSEMEN FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS ST JOHN THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON THE EXILES THE KNIGHT OF ST JOHN CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK I. THE MERRIMAC II. THE BASHABA III. THE DAUGHTER IV. THE WEDDING V. THE NEW HOME VI. AT PENNACOOK VII. THE DEPARTURE VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN BARCLAY OF URY THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA THE LEGEND OF ST MARK KATHLEEN THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS TAULER THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE THE SYCAMORES THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW TELLING THE BEES THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY MABEL MARTIN: A HARVEST IDYL PROEM I. THE RIVER VALLEY II. THE HUSKING III. THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER IV. THE CHAMPION V. IN THE SHADOW VI. THE BETROTHAL THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR THE PREACHER THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA MY PLAYMATE COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION AMY WENTWORTH THE COUNTESS AMONG THE HILLS PRELUDE AMONG THE HILLS THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL THE TWO RABBINS NOREMBEGA MIRIAM MAUD MULLER MARY GARVIN THE RANGER NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON THE SISTERS MARGUERITE THE ROBIN THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM INTRODUCTORY NOTE PRELUDE THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM KING VOLMER AND ELSIE THE THREE BELLS JOHN UNDERHILL CONDUCTOR BRADLEY THE WITCH OF WENHAM KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS IN THE "OLD SOUTH" THE HENCHMAN THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK THE KHAN'S DEVIL THE KING'S MISSIVE VALUATION RABBI ISHMAEL THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS To H P S THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS THE WISHING BRIDGE HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER ST GREGORY'S GUEST CONTENTS BIRCHBROOK MILL THE TWO ELIZABETHS REQUITAL THE HOMESTEAD HOW THE ROBIN CAME BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN NOTE.--The portrait prefixed to this volume was etched by S. A. Schoff, in 1888, after a painting by Bass Otis, a pupil of Gilbert Stuart, made in the winter of 1836-1837. PROEM I LOVE the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. Yet, vainly in my quiet hours To breathe their marvellous notes I try; I feel them, as the leaves and flowers In silence feel the dewy showers, And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky. The rigor of a frozen clime, The harshness of an untaught ear, The jarring words of one whose rhyme Beat often Labor's hurried time, Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, No rounded art the lack supplies; Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, Or softer shades of Nature's face, I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. Nor mine the seer-like power to show The secrets of the heart and mind; To drop the plummet-line below Our common world of joy and woe, A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. Yet here at least an earnest sense Of human right and weal is shown; A hate of tyranny intense, And hearty in its vehemence, As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. O Freedom! if to me belong Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song, Still with a love as deep and strong As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine. AMESBURY, 11th mo., 1847. INTRODUCTION The edition of my poems published in 1857 contained the following note by way of preface:-- "In these volumes, for the first time, a complete collection of my poetical writings has been made. While it is satisfactory to know that these scattered children of my brain have found a home, I cannot but regret that I have been unable, by reason of illness, to give that attention to their revision and arrangement, which respect for the opinions of others and my own afterthought and experience demand. "That there are pieces in this collection which I would 'willingly let die,' I am free to confess. But it is now too late to disown them, and I must submit to the inevitable penalty of poetical as well as other sins. There are others, intimately connected with the author's life and times, which owe their tenacity of vitality to the circumstances under which they were written, and the events by which they were suggested. "The long poem of Mogg Megone was in a great measure composed in early life; and it is scarcely necessary to say that its subject is not such as the writer would have chosen at any subsequent period." After a lapse of thirty years since the above was written, I have been requested by my publishers to make some preparation for a new and revised edition of my poems. I cannot flatter myself that I have added much to the interest of the work beyond the correction of my own errors and those of the press, with the addition of a few heretofore unpublished pieces, and occasional notes of explanation which seemed necessary. I have made an attempt to classify the poems under a few general heads, and have transferred the long poem of Mogg Megone to the Appendix, with other specimens of my earlier writings. I have endeavored to affix the dates of composition or publication as far as possible. In looking over these poems I have not been unmindful of occasional prosaic lines and verbal infelicities, but at this late day I have neither strength nor patience to undertake their correction. Perhaps a word of explanation may be needed in regard to a class of poems written between the years 1832 and 1865. Of their defects from an artistic point of view it is not necessary to speak. They were the earnest and often vehement expression of the writer's thought and feeling at critical periods in the great conflict between Freedom and Slavery. They were written with no expectation that they would survive the occasions which called them forth: they were protests, alarm signals, trumpet-calls to action, words wrung from the writer's heart, forged at white heat, and of course lacking the finish and careful word-selection which reflection and patient brooding over them might have given. Such as they are, they belong to the history of the Anti-Slavery movement, and may serve as way-marks of its progress. If their language at times seems severe and harsh, the monstrous wrong of Slavery which provoked it must be its excuse, if any is needed. In attacking it, we did not measure our words. "It is," said Garrison, "a waste of politeness to be courteous to the devil." But in truth the contest was, in a great measure, an impersonal one,--hatred of slavery and not of slave-masters. "No common wrong provoked our zeal, The silken gauntlet which is thrown In such a quarrel rings like steel." Even Thomas Jefferson, in his terrible denunciation of Slavery in the Notes on Virginia, says "It is impossible to be temperate and pursue the subject of Slavery." After the great contest was over, no class of the American people were more ready, with kind words and deprecation of harsh retaliation, to welcome back the revolted States than the Abolitionists; and none have since more heartily rejoiced at the fast increasing prosperity of the South. Grateful for the measure of favor which has been accorded to my writings, I leave this edition with the public. It contains all that I care to re-publish, and some things which, had the matter of choice been left solely to myself, I should have omitted. J. G. W. NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS THE VAUDOIS TEACHER. This poem was suggested by the account given of the manner which the Waldenses disseminated their principles among the Catholic gentry. They gained access to the house through their occupation as peddlers of silks, jewels, and trinkets. "Having disposed of some of their goods," it is said by a writer who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, "they cautiously intimated that they had commodities far more valuable than these, inestimable jewels, which they would show if they could be protected from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible or Testament; and thereby many were deluded into heresy." The poem, under the title Le Colporteur Vaudois, was translated into French by Professor G. de Felice, of Montauban, and further naturalized by Professor Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet, who quoted it in his lectures on French literature, afterwards published. It became familiar in this form to the Waldenses, who adopted it as a household poem. An American clergyman, J. C. Fletcher, frequently heard it when he was a student, about the year 1850, in the theological seminary at Geneva, Switzerland, but the authorship of the poem was unknown to those who used it. Twenty-five years later, Mr. Fletcher, learning the name of the author, wrote to the moderator of the Waldensian synod at La Tour, giving the information. At the banquet which closed the meeting of the synod, the moderator announced the fact, and was instructed in the name of the Waldensian church to write to me a letter of thanks. My letter, written in reply, was translated into Italian and printed throughout Italy. "O LADY fair, these silks of mine are beautiful and rare,-- The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's queen might wear; And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant light they vie; I have brought them with me a weary way,--will my gentle lady buy?" The lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering curls Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls; And she placed their price in the old man's hand and lightly turned away, But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call,-- "My gentle lady, stay! "O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings, Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of kings; A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay, Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way!" The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her form of grace was seen, Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks waved their clasping pearls between; "Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and old, And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy gold." The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a small and meagre book, Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folding robe he took! "Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee Nay, keep thy gold--I ask it not, for the word of God is free!" The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he left behind Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high- born maiden's mind, And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth, And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth And she hath left the gray old halls, where an evil faith had power, The courtly knights of her father's train, and the maidens of her bower; And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly feet untrod, Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the perfect love of God! 1830. THE FEMALE MARTYR. Mary G-----, aged eighteen, a "Sister of Charity," died in one of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian cholera, while in voluntary attendance upon the sick. "BRING out your dead!" The midnight street Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call; Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet, Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet, Her coffin and her pall. "What--only one!" the brutal hack-man said, As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead. How sunk the inmost hearts of all, As rolled that dead-cart slowly by, With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall! The dying turned him to the wall, To hear it and to die! Onward it rolled; while oft its driver stayed, And hoarsely clamored, "Ho! bring out your dead." It paused beside the burial-place; "Toss in your load!" and it was done. With quick hand and averted face, Hastily to the grave's embrace They cast them, one by one, Stranger and friend, the evil and the just, Together trodden in the churchyard dust. And thou, young martyr! thou wast there; No white-robed sisters round thee trod, Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer Rose through the damp and noisome air, Giving thee to thy God; Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed taper gave Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave! Yet, gentle sufferer! there shall be, In every heart of kindly feeling, A rite as holy paid to thee As if beneath the convent-tree Thy sisterhood were kneeling, At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping. For thou wast one in whom the light Of Heaven's own love was kindled well; Enduring with a martyr's might, Through weary day and wakeful night, Far more than words may tell Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown, Thy mercies measured by thy God alone! Where manly hearts were failing, where The throngful street grew foul with death, O high-souled martyr! thou wast there, Inhaling, from the loathsome air, Poison with every breath. Yet shrinking not from offices of dread For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead. And, where the sickly taper shed Its light through vapors, damp, confined, Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread, A new Electra by the bed Of suffering human-kind! Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay, To that pure hope which fadeth not away. Innocent teacher of the high And holy mysteries of Heaven! How turned to thee each glazing eye, In mute and awful sympathy, As thy low prayers were given; And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while, An angel's features, a deliverer's smile! A blessed task! and worthy one Who, turning from the world, as thou, Before life's pathway had begun To leave its spring-time flower and sun, Had sealed her early vow; Giving to God her beauty and her youth, Her pure affections and her guileless truth. Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here Could be for thee a meet reward; Thine is a treasure far more dear Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear Of living mortal heard The joys prepared, the promised bliss above, The holy presence of Eternal Love! Sleep on in peace. The earth has not A nobler name than thine shall be. The deeds by martial manhood wrought, The lofty energies of thought, The fire of poesy, These have but frail and fading honors; thine Shall Time unto Eternity consign. Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down, And human pride and grandeur fall, The herald's line of long renown, The mitre and the kingly crown,-- Perishing glories all! The pure devotion of thy generous heart Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part. 1833. EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND." (Originally a part of the author's Moll Pitcher.) How has New England's romance fled, Even as a vision of the morning! Its rites foredone, its guardians dead, Its priestesses, bereft of dread, Waking the veriest urchin's scorning! Gone like the Indian wizard's yell And fire-dance round the magic rock, Forgotten like the Druid's spell At moonrise by his holy oak! No more along the shadowy glen Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men; No more the unquiet churchyard dead Glimpse upward from their turfy bed, Startling the traveller, late and lone; As, on some night of starless weather, They silently commune together, Each sitting on his own head-stone The roofless house, decayed, deserted, Its living tenants all departed, No longer rings with midnight revel Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil; No pale blue flame sends out its flashes Through creviced roof and shattered sashes! The witch-grass round the hazel spring May sharply to the night-air sing, But there no more shall withered hags Refresh at ease their broomstick nags, Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters As beverage meet for Satan's daughters; No more their mimic tones be heard, The mew of cat, the chirp of bird, Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter Of the fell demon following after! The cautious goodman nails no more A horseshoe on his outer door, Lest some unseemly hag should fit To his own mouth her bridle-bit; The goodwife's churn no more refuses Its wonted culinary uses Until, with heated needle burned, The witch has to her place returned! Our witches are no longer old And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold, But young and gay and laughing creatures, With the heart's sunshine on their features; Their sorcery--the light which dances Where the raised lid unveils its glances; Or that low-breathed and gentle tone, The music of Love's twilight hours, Soft, dream-like, as a fairy's moan Above her nightly closing flowers, Sweeter than that which sighed of yore Along the charmed Ausonian shore! Even she, our own weird heroine, Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,' Sleeps calmly where the living laid her; And the wide realm of sorcery, Left by its latest mistress free, Hath found no gray and skilled invader. So--perished Albion's "glammarye," With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping, His charmed torch beside his knee, That even the dead himself might see The magic scroll within his keeping. And now our modern Yankee sees Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries; And naught above, below, around, Of life or death, of sight or sound, Whate'er its nature, form, or look, Excites his terror or surprise, All seeming to his knowing eyes Familiar as his "catechise," Or "Webster's Spelling-Book." 1833. THE DEMON OF THE STUDY. THE Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room, And eats his meat and drinks his ale, And beats the maid with her unused broom, And the lazy lout with his idle flail; But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn, And hies him away ere the break of dawn. The shade of Denmark fled from the sun, And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft cheer, The fiend of Faust was a faithful one, Agrippa's demon wrought in fear, And the devil of Martin Luther sat By the stout monk's side in social chat. The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him Who seven times crossed the deep, Twined closely each lean and withered limb, Like the nightmare in one's sleep. But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast The evil weight from his back at last. But the demon that cometh day by day To my quiet room and fireside nook, Where the casement light falls dim and gray On faded painting and ancient book, Is a sorrier one than any whose names Are chronicled well by good King James. No bearer of burdens like Caliban, No runner of errands like Ariel, He comes in the shape of a fat old man, Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell; And whence he comes, or whither he goes, I know as I do of the wind which blows. A stout old man with a greasy hat Slouched heavily down to his dark, red nose, And two gray eyes enveloped in fat, Looking through glasses with iron bows. Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can, Guard well your doors from that old man! He comes with a careless "How d' ye do?" And seats himself in my elbow-chair; And my morning paper and pamphlet new Fall forthwith under his special care, And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat, And, button by button, unfolds his coat. And then he reads from paper and book, In a low and husky asthmatic tone, With the stolid sameness of posture and look Of one who reads to himself alone; And hour after hour on my senses come That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum. The price of stocks, the auction sales, The poet's song and the lover's glee, The horrible murders, the seaboard gales, The marriage list, and the jeu d'esprit, All reach my ear in the self-same tone,-- I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on! Oh, sweet as the lapse of water at noon O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree, The sigh of the wind in the woods of June, Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea, Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems To float through the slumbering singer's dreams, So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone, Of her in whose features I sometimes look, As I sit at eve by her side alone, And we read by turns, from the self-same book, Some tale perhaps of the olden time, Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme. Then when the story is one of woe,-- Some prisoner's plaint through his dungeon-bar, Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low Her voice sinks down like a moan afar; And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail, And his face looks on me worn and pale. And when she reads some merrier song, Her voice is glad as an April bird's, And when the tale is of war and wrong, A trumpet's summons is in her words, And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear, And see the tossing of plume and spear! Oh, pity me then, when, day by day, The stout fiend darkens my parlor door; And reads me perchance the self-same lay Which melted in music, the night before, From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet, And moved like twin roses which zephyrs meet! I cross my floor with a nervous tread, I whistle and laugh and sing and shout, I flourish my cane above his head, And stir up the fire to roast him out; I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane, And press my hands on my ears, in vain! I've studied Glanville and James the wise, And wizard black-letter tomes which treat Of demons of every name and size Which a Christian man is presumed to meet, But never a hint and never a line Can I find of a reading fiend like mine. I've crossed the Psalter with Brady and Tate, And laid the Primer above them all, I've nailed a horseshoe over the grate, And hung a wig to my parlor wall Once worn by a learned Judge, they say, At Salem court in the witchcraft day! "Conjuro te, sceleratissime, Abire ad tuum locum!"--still Like a visible nightmare he sits by me,-- The exorcism has lost its skill; And I hear again in my haunted room The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum! Ah! commend me to Mary Magdalen With her sevenfold plagues, to the wandering Jew, To the terrors which haunted Orestes when The furies his midnight curtains drew, But charm him off, ye who charm him can, That reading demon, that fat old man! 1835. THE FOUNTAIN. On the declivity of a hill in Salisbury, Essex County, is a fountain of clear water, gushing from the very roots of a venerable oak. It is about two miles from the junction of the Powow River with the Merrimac. TRAVELLER! on thy journey toiling By the swift Powow, With the summer sunshine falling On thy heated brow, Listen, while all else is still, To the brooklet from the hill. Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing By that streamlet's side, And a greener verdure showing Where its waters glide, Down the hill-slope murmuring on, Over root and mossy stone. Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth O'er the sloping hill, Beautiful and freshly springeth That soft-flowing rill, Through its dark roots wreathed and bare, Gushing up to sun and air. Brighter waters sparkled never In that magic well, Of whose gift of life forever Ancient legends tell, In the lonely desert wasted, And by mortal lip untasted. Waters which the proud Castilian Sought with longing eyes, Underneath the bright pavilion Of the Indian skies, Where his forest pathway lay Through the blooms of Florida. Years ago a lonely stranger, With the dusky brow Of the outcast forest-ranger, Crossed the swift Powow, And betook him to the rill And the oak upon the hill. O'er his face of moody sadness For an instant shone Something like a gleam of gladness, As he stooped him down To the fountain's grassy side, And his eager thirst supplied. With the oak its shadow throwing O'er his mossy seat, And the cool, sweet waters flowing Softly at his feet, Closely by the fountain's rim That lone Indian seated him. Autumn's earliest frost had given To the woods below Hues of beauty, such as heaven Lendeth to its bow; And the soft breeze from the west Scarcely broke their dreamy rest. Far behind was Ocean striving With his chains of sand; Southward, sunny glimpses giving, 'Twixt the swells of land, Of its calm and silvery track, Rolled the tranquil Merrimac. Over village, wood, and meadow Gazed that stranger man, Sadly, till the twilight shadow Over all things ran, Save where spire and westward pane Flashed the sunset back again. Gazing thus upon the dwelling Of his warrior sires, Where no lingering trace was telling Of their wigwam fires, Who the gloomy thoughts might know Of that wandering child of woe? Naked lay, in sunshine glowing, Hills that once had stood Down their sides the shadows throwing Of a mighty wood, Where the deer his covert kept, And the eagle's pinion swept! Where the birch canoe had glided Down the swift Powow, Dark and gloomy bridges strided Those clear waters now; And where once the beaver swam, Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam. For the wood-bird's merry singing, And the hunter's cheer, Iron clang and hammer's ringing Smote upon his ear; And the thick and sullen smoke From the blackened forges broke. Could it be his fathers ever Loved to linger here? These bare hills, this conquered river,-- Could they hold them dear, With their native loveliness Tamed and tortured into this? Sadly, as the shades of even Gathered o'er the hill, While the western half of heaven Blushed with sunset still, From the fountain's mossy seat Turned the Indian's weary feet. Year on year hath flown forever, But he came no more To the hillside on the river Where he came before. But the villager can tell Of that strange man's visit well. And the merry children, laden With their fruits or flowers, Roving boy and laughing maiden, In their school-day hours, Love the simple tale to tell Of the Indian and his well. 1837 PENTUCKET. The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, called by the Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians, under the command of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Rouville, the famous and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon the village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger number made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a shot through his own door. In a paper entitled The Border War of 1708, published in my collection of Recreations and Miscellanies, I have given a prose narrative of the surprise of Haverhill. How sweetly on the wood-girt town The mellow light of sunset shone! Each small, bright lake, whose waters still Mirror the forest and the hill, Reflected from its waveless breast The beauty of a cloudless west, Glorious as if a glimpse were given Within the western gates of heaven, Left, by the spirit of the star Of sunset's holy hour, ajar! Beside the river's tranquil flood The dark and low-walled dwellings stood, Where many a rood of open land Stretched up and down on either hand, With corn-leaves waving freshly green The thick and blackened stumps between. Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, The wild, untravelled forest spread, Back to those mountains, white and cold, Of which the Indian trapper told, Upon whose summits never yet Was mortal foot in safety set. Quiet and calm without a fear, Of danger darkly lurking near, The weary laborer left his plough, The milkmaid carolled by her cow; From cottage door and household hearth Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth. At length the murmur died away, And silence on that village lay. --So slept Pompeii, tower and hall, Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all, Undreaming of the fiery fate Which made its dwellings desolate. Hours passed away. By moonlight sped The Merrimac along his bed. Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood, Silent, beneath that tranquil beam, As the hushed grouping of a dream. Yet on the still air crept a sound, No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound, Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing, Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing. Was that the tread of many feet, Which downward from the hillside beat? What forms were those which darkly stood Just on the margin of the wood?-- Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim, Or paling rude, or leafless limb? No,--through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed, Dark human forms in moonshine showed, Wild from their native wilderness, With painted limbs and battle-dress. A yell the dead might wake to hear Swelled on the night air, far and clear; Then smote the Indian tomahawk On crashing door and shattering lock; Then rang the rifle-shot, and then The shrill death-scream of stricken men,-- Sank the red axe in woman's brain, And childhood's cry arose in vain. Bursting through roof and window came, Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame, And blended fire and moonlight glared On still dead men and scalp-knives bared. The morning sun looked brightly through The river willows, wet with dew. No sound of combat filled the air, No shout was heard, nor gunshot there; Yet still the thick and sullen smoke From smouldering ruins slowly broke; And on the greensward many a stain, And, here and there, the mangled slain, Told how that midnight bolt had sped Pentucket, on thy fated head. Even now the villager can tell Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell, Still show the door of wasting oak, Through which the fatal death-shot broke, And point the curious stranger where De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare; Whose hideous head, in death still feared, Bore not a trace of hair or beard; And still, within the churchyard ground, Heaves darkly up the ancient mound, Whose grass-grown surface overlies The victims of that sacrifice. 1838. THE NORSEMEN. In the early part of the present century, a fragment of a statue, rudely chiselled from dark gray stone, was found in the town of Bradford, on the Merrimac. Its origin must be left entirely to conjecture. The fact that the ancient Northmen visited the north-east coast of North America and probably New England, some centuries before the discovery of the western world by Columbus, is very generally admitted. GIFT from the cold and silent Past! A relic to the present cast, Left on the ever-changing strand Of shifting and unstable sand, Which wastes beneath the steady chime And beating of the waves of Time! Who from its bed of primal rock First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block? Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, Thy rude and savage outline wrought? The waters of my native stream Are glancing in the sun's warm beam; From sail-urged keel and flashing oar The circles widen to its shore; And cultured field and peopled town Slope to its willowed margin down. Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing The home-life sound of school-bells ringing, And rolling wheel, and rapid jar Of the fire-winged and steedless car, And voices from the wayside near Come quick and blended on my ear,-- A spell is in this old gray stone, My thoughts are with the Past alone! A change!--The steepled town no more Stretches along the sail-thronged shore; Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud, Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud Spectrally rising where they stood, I see the old, primeval wood; Dark, shadow-like, on either hand I see its solemn waste expand; It climbs the green and cultured hill, It arches o'er the valley's rill, And leans from cliff and crag to throw Its wild arms o'er the stream below. Unchanged, alone, the same bright river Flows on, as it will flow forever I listen, and I hear the low Soft ripple where its waters go; I hear behind the panther's cry, The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by, And shyly on the river's brink The deer is stooping down to drink. But hark!--from wood and rock flung back, What sound comes up the Merrimac? What sea-worn barks are those which throw The light spray from each rushing prow? Have they not in the North Sea's blast Bowed to the waves the straining mast? Their frozen sails the low, pale sun Of Thule's night has shone upon; Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep Round icy drift, and headland steep. Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters Have watched them fading o'er the waters, Lessening through driving mist and spray, Like white-winged sea-birds on their way! Onward they glide,--and now I view Their iron-armed and stalwart crew; Joy glistens in each wild blue eye, Turned to green earth and summer sky. Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide; Bared to the sun and soft warm air, Streams back the Norsemen's yellow hair. I see the gleam of axe and spear, The sound of smitten shields I hear, Keeping a harsh and fitting time To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme; Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung, His gray and naked isles among; Or muttered low at midnight hour Round Odin's mossy stone of power. The wolf beneath the Arctic moon Has answered to that startling rune; The Gael has heard its stormy swell, The light Frank knows its summons well; Iona's sable-stoled Culdee Has heard it sounding o'er the sea, And swept, with hoary beard and hair, His altar's foot in trembling prayer. 'T is past,--the 'wildering vision dies In darkness on my dreaming eyes The forest vanishes in air, Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare; I hear the common tread of men, And hum of work-day life again; The mystic relic seems alone A broken mass of common stone; And if it be the chiselled limb Of Berserker or idol grim, A fragment of Valhalla's Thor, The stormy Viking's god of War, Or Praga of the Runic lay, Or love-awakening Siona, I know not,--for no graven line, Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign, Is left me here, by which to trace Its name, or origin, or place. Yet, for this vision of the Past, This glance upon its darkness cast, My spirit bows in gratitude Before the Giver of all good, Who fashioned so the human mind, That, from the waste of Time behind, A simple stone, or mound of earth, Can summon the departed forth; Quicken the Past to life again, The Present lose in what hath been, And in their primal freshness show The buried forms of long ago. As if a portion of that Thought By which the Eternal will is wrought, Whose impulse fills anew with breath The frozen solitude of Death, To mortal mind were sometimes lent, To mortal musings sometimes sent, To whisper-even when it seems But Memory's fantasy of dreams-- Through the mind's waste of woe and sin, Of an immortal origin! 1841. FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS. Polan, chief of the Sokokis Indians of the country between Agamenticus and Casco Bay, was killed at Windham on Sebago Lake in the spring of 1756. After the whites had retired, the surviving Indians "swayed" or bent down a young tree until its roots were upturned, placed the body of their chief beneath it, then released the tree, which, in springing back to its old position, covered the grave. The Sokokis were early converts to the Catholic faith. Most of them, prior to the year 1756, had removed to the French settlements on the St. Francois. AROUND Sebago's lonely lake There lingers not a breeze to break The mirror which its waters make. The solemn pines along its shore, The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er, Are painted on its glassy floor. The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye, The snowy mountain-tops which lie Piled coldly up against the sky. Dazzling and white! save where the bleak, Wild winds have bared some splintering peak, Or snow-slide left its dusky streak. Yet green are Saco's banks below, And belts of spruce and cedar show, Dark fringing round those cones of snow. The earth hath felt the breath of spring, Though yet on her deliverer's wing The lingering frosts of winter cling. Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks, And mildly from its sunny nooks The blue eye of the violet looks. And odors from the springing grass, The sweet birch and the sassafras, Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass. Her tokens of renewing care Hath Nature scattered everywhere, In bud and flower, and warmer air. But in their hour of bitterness, What reek the broken Sokokis, Beside their slaughtered chief, of this? The turf's red stain is yet undried, Scarce have the death-shot echoes died Along Sebago's wooded side; And silent now the hunters stand, Grouped darkly, where a swell of land Slopes upward from the lake's white sand. Fire and the axe have swept it bare, Save one lone beech, unclosing there Its light leaves in the vernal air. With grave, cold looks, all sternly mute, They break the damp turf at its foot, And bare its coiled and twisted root. They heave the stubborn trunk aside, The firm roots from the earth divide,-- The rent beneath yawns dark and wide. And there the fallen chief is laid, In tasselled garb of skins arrayed, And girded with his wampum-braid. The silver cross he loved is pressed Beneath the heavy arms, which rest Upon his scarred and naked breast. 'T is done: the roots are backward sent, The beechen-tree stands up unbent, The Indian's fitting monument! When of that sleeper's broken race Their green and pleasant dwelling-place, Which knew them once, retains no trace; Oh, long may sunset's light be shed As now upon that beech's head, A green memorial of the dead! There shall his fitting requiem be, In northern winds, that, cold and free, Howl nightly in that funeral tree. To their wild wail the waves which break Forever round that lonely lake A solemn undertone shall make! And who shall deem the spot unblest, Where Nature's younger children rest, Lulled on their sorrowing mother's breast? Deem ye that mother loveth less These bronzed forms of the wilderness She foldeth in her long caress? As sweet o'er them her wild-flowers blow, As if with fairer hair and brow The blue-eyed Saxon slept below. What though the places of their rest No priestly knee hath ever pressed,-- No funeral rite nor prayer hath blessed? What though the bigot's ban be there, And thoughts of wailing and despair, And cursing in the place of prayer. Yet Heaven hath angels watching round The Indian's lowliest forest-mound,-- And they have made it holy ground. There ceases man's frail judgment; all His powerless bolts of cursing fall Unheeded on that grassy pall. O peeled and hunted and reviled, Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild! Great Nature owns her simple child! And Nature's God, to whom alone The secret of the heart is known,-- The hidden language traced thereon; Who from its many cumberings Of form and creed, and outward things, To light the naked spirit brings; Not with our partial eye shall scan, Not with our pride and scorn shall ban, The spirit of our brother man! 1841. ST. JOHN. The fierce rivalry between Charles de La Tour, a Protestant, and D'Aulnay Charnasy, a Catholic, for the possession of Acadia, forms one of the most romantic passages in the history of the New World. La Tour received aid in several instances from the Puritan colony of Massachusetts. During one of his voyages for the purpose of obtaining arms and provisions for his establishment at St. John, his castle was attacked by D'Aulnay, and successfully defended by its high-spirited mistress. A second attack however followed in the fourth month, 1647, when D'Aulnay was successful, and the garrison was put to the sword. Lady La Tour languished a few days in the hands of her enemy, and then died of grief. "To the winds give our banner! Bear homeward again!" Cried the Lord of Acadia, Cried Charles of Estienne; From the prow of his shallop He gazed, as the sun, From its bed in the ocean, Streamed up the St. John. O'er the blue western waters That shallop had passed, Where the mists of Penobscot Clung damp on her mast. St. Saviour had looked On the heretic sail, As the songs of the Huguenot Rose on the gale. The pale, ghostly fathers Remembered her well, And had cursed her while passing, With taper and bell; But the men of Monhegan, Of Papists abhorred, Had welcomed and feasted The heretic Lord. They had loaded his shallop With dun-fish and ball, With stores for his larder, And steel for his wall. Pemaquid, from her bastions And turrets of stone, Had welcomed his coming With banner and gun. And the prayers of the elders Had followed his way, As homeward he glided, Down Pentecost Bay. Oh, well sped La Tour For, in peril and pain, His lady kept watch, For his coming again. O'er the Isle of the Pheasant The morning sun shone, On the plane-trees which shaded The shores of St. John. "Now, why from yon battlements Speaks not my love! Why waves there no banner My fortress above?" Dark and wild, from his deck St. Estienne gazed about, On fire-wasted dwellings, And silent redoubt; From the low, shattered walls Which the flame had o'errun, There floated no banner, There thundered no gun! But beneath the low arch Of its doorway there stood A pale priest of Rome, In his cloak and his hood. With the bound of a lion, La Tour sprang to land, On the throat of the Papist He fastened his hand. "Speak, son of the Woman Of scarlet and sin! What wolf has been prowling My castle within?" From the grasp of the soldier The Jesuit broke, Half in scorn, half in sorrow, He smiled as he spoke: "No wolf, Lord of Estienne, Has ravaged thy hall, But thy red-handed rival, With fire, steel, and ball! On an errand of mercy I hitherward came, While the walls of thy castle Yet spouted with flame. "Pentagoet's dark vessels Were moored in the bay, Grim sea-lions, roaring Aloud for their prey." "But what of my lady?" Cried Charles of Estienne. "On the shot-crumbled turret Thy lady was seen: "Half-veiled in the smoke-cloud, Her hand grasped thy pennon, While her dark tresses swayed In the hot breath of cannon! But woe to the heretic, Evermore woe! When the son of the church And the cross is his foe! "In the track of the shell, In the path of the ball, Pentagoet swept over The breach of the wall! Steel to steel, gun to gun, One moment,--and then Alone stood the victor, Alone with his men! "Of its sturdy defenders, Thy lady alone Saw the cross-blazoned banner Float over St. John." "Let the dastard look to it!" Cried fiery Estienne, "Were D'Aulnay King Louis, I'd free her again!" "Alas for thy lady! No service from thee Is needed by her Whom the Lord hath set free; Nine days, in stern silence, Her thraldom she bore, But the tenth morning came, And Death opened her door!" As if suddenly smitten La Tour staggered back; His hand grasped his sword-hilt, His forehead grew black. He sprang on the deck Of his shallop again. "We cruise now for vengeance! Give way!" cried Estienne. "Massachusetts shall hear Of the Huguenot's wrong, And from island and creekside Her fishers shall throng! Pentagoet shall rue What his Papists have done, When his palisades echo The Puritan's gun!" Oh, the loveliest of heavens Hung tenderly o'er him, There were waves in the sunshine, And green isles before him: But a pale hand was beckoning The Huguenot on; And in blackness and ashes Behind was St. John! 1841 THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON. Ibn Batuta, the celebrated Mussulman traveller of the fourteenth century, speaks of a cypress-tree in Ceylon, universally held sacred by the natives, the leaves of which were said to fall only at certain intervals, and he who had the happiness to find and eat one of them was restored, at once, to youth and vigor. The traveller saw several venerable Jogees, or saints, sitting silent and motionless under the tree, patiently awaiting the falling of a leaf. THEY sat in silent watchfulness The sacred cypress-tree about, And, from beneath old wrinkled brows, Their failing eyes looked out. Gray Age and Sickness waiting there Through weary night and lingering day,-- Grim as the idols at their side, And motionless as they. Unheeded in the boughs above The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet; Unseen of them the island flowers Bloomed brightly at their feet. O'er them the tropic night-storm swept, The thunder crashed on rock and hill; The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed, Yet there they waited still! What was the world without to them? The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam Of battle-flag and lance? They waited for that falling leaf Of which the wandering Jogees sing: Which lends once more to wintry age The greenness of its spring. Oh, if these poor and blinded ones In trustful patience wait to feel O'er torpid pulse and failing limb A youthful freshness steal; Shall we, who sit beneath that Tree Whose healing leaves of life are shed, In answer to the breath of prayer, Upon the waiting head; Not to restore our failing forms, And build the spirit's broken shrine, But on the fainting soul to shed A light and life divine-- Shall we grow weary in our watch, And murmur at the long delay? Impatient of our Father's time And His appointed way? Or shall the stir of outward things Allure and claim the Christian's eye, When on the heathen watcher's ear Their powerless murmurs die? Alas! a deeper test of faith Than prison cell or martyr's stake, The self-abasing watchfulness Of silent prayer may make. We gird us bravely to rebuke Our erring brother in the wrong,-- And in the ear of Pride and Power Our warning voice is strong. Easier to smite with Peter's sword Than "watch one hour" in humbling prayer. Life's "great things," like the Syrian lord, Our hearts can do and dare. But oh! we shrink from Jordan's side, From waters which alone can save; And murmur for Abana's banks And Pharpar's brighter wave. O Thou, who in the garden's shade Didst wake Thy weary ones again, Who slumbered at that fearful hour Forgetful of Thy pain; Bend o'er us now, as over them, And set our sleep-bound spirits free, Nor leave us slumbering in the watch Our souls should keep with Thee! 1841 THE EXILES. The incidents upon which the following ballad has its foundation about the year 1660. Thomas Macy was one of the first, if not the first white settler of Nantucket. The career of Macy is briefly but carefully outlined in James S. Pike's The New Puritan. THE goodman sat beside his door One sultry afternoon, With his young wife singing at his side An old and goodly tune. A glimmer of heat was in the air,-- The dark green woods were still; And the skirts of a heavy thunder-cloud Hung over the western hill. Black, thick, and vast arose that cloud Above the wilderness, As some dark world from upper air Were stooping over this. At times the solemn thunder pealed, And all was still again, Save a low murmur in the air Of coming wind and rain. Just as the first big rain-drop fell, A weary stranger came, And stood before the farmer's door, With travel soiled and lame. Sad seemed he, yet sustaining hope Was in his quiet glance, And peace, like autumn's moonlight, clothed His tranquil countenance,-- A look, like that his Master wore In Pilate's council-hall: It told of wrongs, but of a love Meekly forgiving all. "Friend! wilt thou give me shelter here?" The stranger meekly said; And, leaning on his oaken staff, The goodman's features read. "My life is hunted,--evil men Are following in my track; The traces of the torturer's whip Are on my aged back; "And much, I fear, 't will peril thee Within thy doors to take A hunted seeker of the Truth, Oppressed for conscience' sake." Oh, kindly spoke the goodman's wife, "Come in, old man!" quoth she, "We will not leave thee to the storm, Whoever thou mayst be." Then came the aged wanderer in, And silent sat him down; While all within grew dark as night Beneath the storm-cloud's frown. But while the sudden lightning's blaze Filled every cottage nook, And with the jarring thunder-roll The loosened casements shook, A heavy tramp of horses' feet Came sounding up the lane, And half a score of horse, or more, Came plunging through the rain. "Now, Goodman Macy, ope thy door,-- We would not be house-breakers; A rueful deed thou'st done this day, In harboring banished Quakers." Out looked the cautious goodman then, With much of fear and awe, For there, with broad wig drenched with rain The parish priest he saw. Open thy door, thou wicked man, And let thy pastor in, And give God thanks, if forty stripes Repay thy deadly sin." "What seek ye?" quoth the goodman; "The stranger is my guest; He is worn with toil and grievous wrong,-- Pray let the old man rest." "Now, out upon thee, canting knave!" And strong hands shook the door. "Believe me, Macy," quoth the priest, "Thou 'lt rue thy conduct sore." Then kindled Macy's eye of fire "No priest who walks the earth, Shall pluck away the stranger-guest Made welcome to my hearth." Down from his cottage wall he caught The matchlock, hotly tried At Preston-pans and Marston-moor, By fiery Ireton's side; Where Puritan, and Cavalier, With shout and psalm contended; And Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's prayer, With battle-thunder blended. Up rose the ancient stranger then "My spirit is not free To bring the wrath and violence Of evil men on thee; "And for thyself, I pray forbear, Bethink thee of thy Lord, Who healed again the smitten ear, And sheathed His follower's sword. "I go, as to the slaughter led. Friends of the poor, farewell!" Beneath his hand the oaken door Back on its hinges fell. "Come forth, old graybeard, yea and nay," The reckless scoffers cried, As to a horseman's saddle-bow The old man's arms were tied. And of his bondage hard and long In Boston's crowded jail, Where suffering woman's prayer was heard, With sickening childhood's wail, It suits not with our tale to tell; Those scenes have passed away; Let the dim shadows of the past Brood o'er that evil day. "Ho, sheriff!" quoth the ardent priest, "Take Goodman Macy too; The sin of this day's heresy His back or purse shall rue." "Now, goodwife, haste thee!" Macy cried. She caught his manly arm; Behind, the parson urged pursuit, With outcry and alarm. Ho! speed the Macys, neck or naught,-- The river-course was near; The plashing on its pebbled shore Was music to their ear. A gray rock, tasselled o'er with birch, Above the waters hung, And at its base, with every wave, A small light wherry swung. A leap--they gain the boat--and there The goodman wields his oar; "Ill luck betide them all," he cried, "The laggards on the shore." Down through the crashing underwood, The burly sheriff came:-- "Stand, Goodman Macy, yield thyself; Yield in the King's own name." "Now out upon thy hangman's face!" Bold Macy answered then,-- "Whip women, on the village green, But meddle not with men." The priest came panting to the shore, His grave cocked hat was gone; Behind him, like some owl's nest, hung His wig upon a thorn. "Come back,--come back!" the parson cried, "The church's curse beware." "Curse, an' thou wilt," said Macy, "but Thy blessing prithee spare." "Vile scoffer!" cried the baffled priest, "Thou 'lt yet the gallows see." "Who's born to be hanged will not be drowned," Quoth Macy, merrily; "And so, sir sheriff and priest, good-by!" He bent him to his oar, And the small boat glided quietly From the twain upon the shore. Now in the west, the heavy clouds Scattered and fell asunder, While feebler came the rush of rain, And fainter growled the thunder. And through the broken clouds, the sun Looked out serene and warm, Painting its holy symbol-light Upon the passing storm. Oh, beautiful! that rainbow span, O'er dim Crane-neck was bended; One bright foot touched the eastern hills, And one with ocean blended. By green Pentucket's southern'slope The small boat glided fast; The watchers of the Block-house saw The strangers as they passed. That night a stalwart garrison Sat shaking in their shoes, To hear the dip of Indian oars, The glide of birch canoes. The fisher-wives of Salisbury-- The men were all away-- Looked out to see the stranger oar Upon their waters play. Deer-Island's rocks and fir-trees threw Their sunset-shadows o'er them, And Newbury's spire and weathercock Peered o'er the pines before them. Around the Black Rocks, on their left, The marsh lay broad and green; And on their right, with dwarf shrubs crowned, Plum Island's hills were seen. With skilful hand and wary eye The harbor-bar was crossed; A plaything of the restless wave, The boat on ocean tossed. The glory of the sunset heaven On land and water lay; On the steep hills of Agawam, On cape, and bluff, and bay. They passed the gray rocks of Cape Ann, And Gloucester's harbor-bar; The watch-fire of the garrison Shone like a setting star. How brightly broke the morning On Massachusetts Bay! Blue wave, and bright green island, Rejoicing in the day. On passed the bark in safety Round isle and headland steep; No tempest broke above them, No fog-cloud veiled the deep. Far round the bleak and stormy Cape The venturous Macy passed, And on Nantucket's naked isle Drew up his boat at last. And how, in log-built cabin, They braved the rough sea-weather; And there, in peace and quietness, Went down life's vale together; How others drew around them, And how their fishing sped, Until to every wind of heaven Nantucket's sails were spread; How pale Want alternated With Plenty's golden smile; Behold, is it not written In the annals of the isle? And yet that isle remaineth A refuge of the free, As when true-hearted Macy Beheld it from the sea. Free as the winds that winnow Her shrubless hills of sand, Free as the waves that batter Along her yielding land. Than hers, at duty's summons, No loftier spirit stirs, Nor falls o'er human suffering A readier tear then hers. God bless the sea-beat island! And grant forevermore, That charity and freedom dwell As now upon her shore! 1841. THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN. ERE down yon blue Carpathian hills The sun shall sink again, Farewell to life and all its ills, Farewell to cell and chain! These prison shades are dark and cold, But, darker far than they, The shadow of a sorrow old Is on my heart alway. For since the day when Warkworth wood Closed o'er my steed, and I, An alien from my name and blood, A weed cast out to die,-- When, looking back in sunset light, I saw her turret gleam, And from its casement, far and white, Her sign of farewell stream, Like one who, from some desert shore, Doth home's green isles descry, And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste of wave and sky; So from the desert of my fate I gaze across the past; Forever on life's dial-plate The shade is backward cast! I've wandered wide from shore to shore, I've knelt at many a shrine; And bowed me to the rocky floor Where Bethlehem's tapers shine; And by the Holy Sepulchre I've pledged my knightly sword To Christ, His blessed Church, and her, The Mother of our Lord. Oh, vain the vow, and vain the strife! How vain do all things seem! My soul is in the past, and life To-day is but a dream. In vain the penance strange and long, And hard for flesh to bear; The prayer, the fasting, and the thong, And sackcloth shirt of hair. The eyes of memory will not sleep, Its ears are open still; And vigils with the past they keep Against my feeble will. And still the loves and joys of old Do evermore uprise; I see the flow of locks of gold, The shine of loving eyes! Ah me! upon another's breast Those golden locks recline; I see upon another rest The glance that once was mine. "O faithless priest! O perjured knight!" I hear the Master cry; "Shut out the vision from thy sight, Let Earth and Nature die. "The Church of God is now thy spouse, And thou the bridegroom art; Then let the burden of thy vows Crush down thy human heart!" In vain! This heart its grief must know, Till life itself hath ceased, And falls beneath the self-same blow The lover and the priest! O pitying Mother! souls of light, And saints and martyrs old! Pray for a weak and sinful knight, A suffering man uphold. Then let the Paynim work his will, And death unbind my chain, Ere down yon blue Carpathian hill The sun shall fall again. 1843 CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK. In 1658 two young persons, son and daughter of Lawrence Smithwick of Salem, who had himself been imprisoned and deprived of nearly all his property for having entertained Quakers at his house, were fined for non-attendance at church. They being unable to pay the fine, the General Court issued an order empowering "the Treasurer of the County to sell the said persons to any of the English nation of Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer said fines." An attempt was made to carry this order into execution, but no shipmaster was found willing to convey them to the West Indies. To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise to-day, From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away; Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faithful three, And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His hand- maid free! Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison bars, Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars; In the coldness and the darkness all through the long night-time, My grated casement whitened with autumn's early rime. Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept by; Star after star looked palely in and sank adown the sky; No sound amid night's stillness, save that which seemed to be The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea; All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the morrow The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow, Dragged to their place of market, and bargained for and sold, Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold! Oh, the weakness of the flesh was there, the shrinking and the shame; And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came: "Why sit'st thou thus forlornly," the wicked murmur said, "Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed? "Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and sweet, Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant street? Where be the youths whose glances, the summer Sabbath through, Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew? "Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra?-Bethink thee with what mirth Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm bright hearth; How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads white and fair, On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair. "Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for thee kind words are spoken, Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laughing boys are broken; No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are laid, For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful hunters braid. "O weak, deluded maiden!--by crazy fancies led, With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread; To leave a wholesome worship, and teaching pure and sound, And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and sackcloth bound,-- "Mad scoffers of the priesthood; who mock at things divine, Who rail against the pulpit, and holy bread and wine; Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the pillory lame, Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glorying in their shame. "And what a fate awaits thee!--a sadly toiling slave, Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave! Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless thrall, The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all!" Oh, ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble Nature's fears Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears, I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer, To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed wert there! I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippi's cell, And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison shackles fell, Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's robe of white, And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight. Bless the Lord for all his mercies!--for the peace and love I felt, Like dew of Hermon's holy hill, upon my spirit melt; When "Get behind me, Satan!" was the language of my heart, And I felt the Evil Tempter with all his doubts depart. Slow broke the gray cold morning; again the sunshine fell, Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within my lonely cell; The hoar-frost melted on the wall, and upward from the street Came careless laugh and idle word, and tread of passing feet. At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was open cast, And slowly at the sheriff's side, up the long street I passed; I heard the murmur round me, and felt, but dared not see, How, from every door and window, the people gazed on me. And doubt and fear fell on me, shame burned upon my cheek, Swam earth and sky around me, my trembling limbs grew weak: "O Lord! support thy handmaid; and from her soul cast out The fear of man, which brings a snare, the weakness and the doubt." Then the dreary shadows scattered, like a cloud in morning's breeze, And a low deep voice within me seemed whispering words like these: "Though thy earth be as the iron, and thy heaven a brazen wall, Trust still His loving-kindness whose power is over all." We paused at length, where at my feet the sunlit waters broke On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly wall of rock; The merchant-ships lay idly there, in hard clear lines on high, Tracing with rope and slender spar their network on the sky. And there were ancient citizens, cloak-wrapped and grave and cold, And grim and stout sea-captains with faces bronzed and old, And on his horse, with Rawson, his cruel clerk at hand, Sat dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the land. And poisoning with his evil words the ruler's ready ear, The priest leaned o'er his saddle, with laugh and scoff and jeer; It stirred my soul, and from my lips the seal of silence broke, As if through woman's weakness a warning spirit spoke. I cried, "The Lord rebuke thee, thou smiter of the meek, Thou robber of the righteous, thou trampler of the weak! Go light the dark, cold hearth-stones,--go turn the prison lock Of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou wolf amid the flock!" Dark lowered the brows of Endicott, and with a deeper red O'er Rawson's wine-empurpled cheek the flush of anger spread; "Good people," quoth the white-lipped priest, "heed not her words so wild, Her Master speaks within her,--the Devil owns his child!" But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the while the sheriff read That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made, Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood bring No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering. Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turning, said,-- "Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take this Quaker maid? In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's shore, You may hold her at a higher price than Indian girl or Moor." Grim and silent stood the captains; and when again he cried, "Speak out, my worthy seamen!"--no voice, no sign replied; But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words met my ear,-- "God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl and dear!" A weight seemed lifted from my heart, a pitying friend was nigh,-- I felt it in his hard, rough hand, and saw it in his eye; And when again the sheriff spoke, that voice, so kind to me, Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring of the sea,-- "Pile my ship with bars of silver, pack with coins of Spanish gold, From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold, By the living God who made me!--I would sooner in your bay Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child away!" "Well answered, worthy captain, shame on their cruel laws!" Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the people's just applause. "Like the herdsman of Tekoa, in Israel of old, Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold?" I looked on haughty Endicott; with weapon half- way drawn, Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and scorn; Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in silence back, And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track. Hard after them the sheriff looked, in bitterness of soul; Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and crushed his parchment roll. "Good friends," he said, "since both have fled, the ruler and the priest, Judge ye, if from their further work I be not well released." Loud was the cheer which, full and clear, swept round the silent bay, As, with kind words and kinder looks, he bade me go my way; For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of the glen, And the river of great waters, had turned the hearts of men. Oh, at that hour the very earth seemed changed beneath my eye, A holier wonder round me rose the blue walls of the sky, A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream and woodland lay, And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of the bay. Thanksgiving to the Lord of life! to Him all praises be, Who from the hands of evil men hath set his hand- maid free; All praise to Him before whose power the mighty are afraid, Who takes the crafty in the snare which for the poor is laid! Sing, O my soul, rejoicingly, on evening's twilight calm Uplift the loud thanksgiving, pour forth the grateful psalm; Let all dear hearts with me rejoice, as did the saints of old, When of the Lord's good angel the rescued Peter told. And weep and howl, ye evil priests and mighty men of wrong, The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay His hand upon the strong. Woe to the wicked rulers in His avenging hour! Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to raven and devour! But let the humble ones arise, the poor in heart be glad, And let the mourning ones again with robes of praise be clad. For He who cooled the furnace, and smoothed the stormy wave, And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty still to save! 1843. THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD. The following ballad is founded upon one of the marvellous legends connected with the famous General ----, of Hampton, New Hampshire, who was regarded by his neighbors as a Yankee Faust, in league with the adversary. I give the story, as I heard it when a child, from a venerable family visitant. DARK the halls, and cold the feast, Gone the bridemaids, gone the priest. All is over, all is done, Twain of yesterday are one! Blooming girl and manhood gray, Autumn in the arms of May! Hushed within and hushed without, Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout; Dies the bonfire on the hill; All is dark and all is still, Save the starlight, save the breeze Moaning through the graveyard trees, And the great sea-waves below, Pulse of the midnight beating slow. From the brief dream of a bride She hath wakened, at his side. With half-uttered shriek and start,-- Feels she not his beating heart? And the pressure of his arm, And his breathing near and warm? Lightly from the bridal bed Springs that fair dishevelled head, And a feeling, new, intense, Half of shame, half innocence, Maiden fear and wonder speaks Through her lips and changing cheeks. From the oaken mantel glowing, Faintest light the lamp is throwing On the mirror's antique mould, High-backed chair, and wainscot old, And, through faded curtains stealing, His dark sleeping face revealing. Listless lies the strong man there, Silver-streaked his careless hair; Lips of love have left no trace On that hard and haughty face; And that forehead's knitted thought Love's soft hand hath not unwrought. "Yet," she sighs, "he loves me well, More than these calm lips will tell. Stooping to my lowly state, He hath made me rich and great, And I bless him, though he be Hard and stern to all save me!" While she speaketh, falls the light O'er her fingers small and white; Gold and gem, and costly ring Back the timid lustre fling,-- Love's selectest gifts, and rare, His proud hand had fastened there. Gratefully she marks the glow From those tapering lines of snow; Fondly o'er the sleeper bending His black hair with golden blending, In her soft and light caress, Cheek and lip together press. Ha!--that start of horror! why That wild stare and wilder cry, Full of terror, full of pain? Is there madness in her brain? Hark! that gasping, hoarse and low, "Spare me,--spare me,--let me go!" God have mercy!--icy cold Spectral hands her own enfold, Drawing silently from them Love's fair gifts of gold and gem. "Waken! save me!" still as death At her side he slumbereth. Ring and bracelet all are gone, And that ice-cold hand withdrawn; But she hears a murmur low, Full of sweetness, full of woe, Half a sigh and half a moan "Fear not! give the dead her own!" Ah!--the dead wife's voice she knows! That cold hand whose pressure froze, Once in warmest life had borne Gem and band her own hath worn. "Wake thee! wake thee!" Lo, his eyes Open with a dull surprise. In his arms the strong man folds her, Closer to his breast he holds her; Trembling limbs his own are meeting, And he feels her heart's quick beating "Nay, my dearest, why this fear?" "Hush!" she saith, "the dead is here!" "Nay, a dream,--an idle dream." But before the lamp's pale gleam Tremblingly her hand she raises. There no more the diamond blazes, Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold,-- "Ah!" she sighs, "her hand was cold!" Broken words of cheer he saith, But his dark lip quivereth, And as o'er the past he thinketh, From his young wife's arms he shrinketh; Can those soft arms round him lie, Underneath his dead wife's eye? She her fair young head can rest Soothed and childlike on his breast, And in trustful innocence Draw new strength and courage thence; He, the proud man, feels within But the cowardice of sin! She can murmur in her thought Simple prayers her mother taught, And His blessed angels call, Whose great love is over all; He, alone, in prayerless pride, Meets the dark Past at her side! One, who living shrank with dread From his look, or word, or tread, Unto whom her early grave Was as freedom to the slave, Moves him at this midnight hour, With the dead's unconscious power! Ah, the dead, the unforgot! From their solemn homes of thought, Where the cypress shadows blend Darkly over foe and friend, Or in love or sad rebuke, Back upon the living look. And the tenderest ones and weakest, Who their wrongs have borne the meekest, Lifting from those dark, still places, Sweet and sad-remembered faces, O'er the guilty hearts behind An unwitting triumph find. 1843 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. Winnepurkit, otherwise called George, Sachem of Saugus, married a daughter of Passaconaway, the great Pennacook chieftain, in 1662. The wedding took place at Pennacook (now Concord, N. H.), and the ceremonies closed with a great feast. According to the usages of the chiefs, Passaconaway ordered a select number of his men to accompany the newly-married couple to the dwelling of the husband, where in turn there was another great feast. Some time after, the wife of Winnepurkit expressing a desire to visit her father's house was permitted to go, accompanied by a brave escort of her husband's chief men. But when she wished to return, her father sent a messenger to Saugus, informing her husband, and asking him to come and take her away. He returned for answer that he had escorted his wife to her father's house in a style that became a chief, and that now if she wished to return, her father must send her back, in the same way. This Passaconaway refused to do, and it is said that here terminated the connection of his daughter with the Saugus chief.--Vide MORTON'S New Canaan. WE had been wandering for many days Through the rough northern country. We had seen The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud, Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds, Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall Is piled to heaven; and, through the narrow rift Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar, Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind Comes burdened with the everlasting moan Of forests and of far-off waterfalls, We had looked upward where the summer sky, Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun, Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed The high source of the Saco; and bewildered In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills, Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud, The horn of Fabyan sounding; and atop Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains' Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and thick As meadow mole-hills,--the far sea of Casco, A white gleam on the horizon of the east; Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills; Moosehillock's mountain range, and Kearsarge Lifting his granite forehead to the sun! And we had rested underneath the oaks Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are shaken By the perpetual beating of the falls Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked The winding Pemigewasset, overhung By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks, Or lazily gliding through its intervals, From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines, Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver The Merrimac by Uncanoonuc's falls. There were five souls of us whom travel's chance Had thrown together in these wild north hills A city lawyer, for a month escaping From his dull office, where the weary eye Saw only hot brick walls and close thronged streets; Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to take Its chances all as godsends; and his brother, Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining The warmth and freshness of a genial heart, Whose mirror of the beautiful and true, In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed By dust of theologic strife, or breath Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore; Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking The hue and image of o'erleaning flowers, Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon, Slant starlight glimpses through the dewy leaves, And tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in truth, a study, To mark his spirit, alternating between A decent and professional gravity And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often Laughed in the face of his divinity, Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined The oracle, and for the pattern priest Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant, To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn, Giving the latest news of city stocks And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning Than the great presence of the awful mountains Glorified by the sunset; and his daughter, A delicate flower on whom had blown too long Those evil winds, which, sweeping from the ice And winnowing the fogs of Labrador, Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts Bay, With the same breath which stirs Spring's opening leaves And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on its stem, Poisoning our seaside atmosphere. It chanced that as we turned upon our homeward way, A drear northeastern storm came howling up The valley of the Saco; and that girl Who had stood with us upon Mount Washington, Her brown locks ruffled by the wind which whirled In gusts around its sharp, cold pinnacle, Who had joined our gay trout-fishing in the streams Which lave that giant's feet; whose laugh was heard Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's green islands, Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and visibly drooped Like a flower in the frost. So, in that quiet inn Which looks from Conway on the mountains piled Heavily against the horizon of the north, Like summer thunder-clouds, we made our home And while the mist hung over dripping hills, And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all day long Beat their sad music upon roof and pane, We strove to cheer our gentle invalid. The lawyer in the pauses of the storm Went angling down the Saco, and, returning, Recounted his adventures and mishaps; Gave us the history of his scaly clients, Mingling with ludicrous yet apt citations Of barbarous law Latin, passages From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and fresh As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire, Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white hair Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told, Our youthful candidate forsook his sermons, His commentaries, articles and creeds, For the fair page of human loveliness, The missal of young hearts, whose sacred text Is music, its illumining, sweet smiles. He sang the songs she loved; and in his low, Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page Of poetry, the holiest, tenderest lines Of the sad bard of Olney, the sweet songs, Simple and beautiful as Truth and Nature, Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal Mount Are lifted yet by morning breezes blowing From the green hills, immortal in his lays. And for myself, obedient to her wish, I searched our landlord's proffered library,-- A well-thumbed Bunyan, with its nice wood pictures Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike them; Watts' unmelodious psalms; Astrology's Last home, a musty pile of almanacs, And an old chronicle of border wars And Indian history. And, as I read A story of the marriage of the Chief Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo, Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt In the old time upon the Merrimac, Our fair one, in the playful exercise Of her prerogative,--the right divine Of youth and beauty,--bade us versify The legend, and with ready pencil sketched Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning To each his part, and barring our excuses With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers Whose voices still are heard in the Romance Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the banks Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling The ear of languid beauty, plague-exiled From stately Florence, we rehearsed our rhymes To their fair auditor, and shared by turns Her kind approval and her playful censure. It may be that these fragments owe alone To the fair setting of their circumstances,-- The associations of time, scene, and audience,-- Their place amid the pictures which fill up The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust That some, who sigh, while wandering in thought, Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world, That our broad land,--our sea-like lakes and mountains Piled to the clouds, our rivers overhung By forests which have known no other change For ages than the budding and the fall Of leaves, our valleys lovelier than those Which the old poets sang of,--should but figure On the apocryphal chart of speculation As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privileges, Rights, and appurtenances, which make up A Yankee Paradise, unsung, unknown, To beautiful tradition; even their names, Whose melody yet lingers like the last Vibration of the red man's requiem, Exchanged for syllables significant, Of cotton-mill and rail-car, will look kindly Upon this effort to call up the ghost Of our dim Past, and listen with pleased ear To the responses of the questioned Shade. I. THE MERRIMAC. O child of that white-crested mountain whose springs Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings, Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine, Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf pine; From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so lone, From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of stone, By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free, Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea. No bridge arched thy waters save that where the trees Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in the breeze: No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy shores, The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars. Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag's fall Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall, Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn, And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with corn. But thy Pennacook valley was fairer than these, And greener its grasses and taller its trees, Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung, Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had swung. In their sheltered repose looking out from the wood The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood; There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone, And against the red war-post the hatchet was thrown. There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and the young To the pike and the white-perch their baited lines flung; There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the shy maid Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid. O Stream of the Mountains! if answer of thine Could rise from thy waters to question of mine, Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan Of sorrow would swell for the days which have gone. Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel, The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel; But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze, The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees. II. THE BASHABA. Lift we the twilight curtains of the Past, And, turning from familiar sight and sound, Sadly and full of reverence let us cast A glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground, Led by the few pale lights which, glimmering round That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast; And that which history gives not to the eye, The faded coloring of Time's tapestry, Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply. Roof of bark and walls of pine, Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine, Tracing many a golden line On the ample floor within; Where, upon that earth-floor stark, Lay the gaudy mats of bark, With the bear's hide, rough and dark, And the red-deer's skin. Window-tracery, small and slight, Woven of the willow white, Lent a dimly checkered light; And the night-stars glimmered down, Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke, Slowly through an opening broke, In the low roof, ribbed with oak, Sheathed with hemlock brown. Gloomed behind the changeless shade By the solemn pine-wood made; Through the rugged palisade, In the open foreground planted, Glimpses came of rowers rowing, Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing, Steel-like gleams of water flowing, In the sunlight slanted. Here the mighty Bashaba Held his long-unquestioned sway, From the White Hills, far away, To the great sea's sounding shore; Chief of chiefs, his regal word All the river Sachems heard, At his call the war-dance stirred, Or was still once more. There his spoils of chase and war, Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw, Panther's skin and eagle's claw, Lay beside his axe and bow; And, adown the roof-pole hung, Loosely on a snake-skin strung, In the smoke his scalp-locks swung Grimly to and fro. Nightly down the river going, Swifter was the hunter's rowing, When he saw that lodge-fire, glowing O'er the waters still and red; And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter, And she drew her blanket tighter, As, with quicker step and lighter, From that door she fled. For that chief had magic skill, And a Panisee's dark will, Over powers of good and ill, Powers which bless and powers which ban; Wizard lord of Pennacook, Chiefs upon their war-path shook, When they met the steady look Of that wise dark man. Tales of him the gray squaw told, When the winter night-wind cold Pierced her blanket's thickest fold, And her fire burned low and small, Till the very child abed, Drew its bear-skin over bead, Shrinking from the pale lights shed On the trembling wall. All the subtle spirits hiding Under earth or wave, abiding In the caverned rock, or riding Misty clouds or morning breeze; Every dark intelligence, Secret soul, and influence Of all things which outward sense Feels, or bears, or sees,-- These the wizard's skill confessed, At his bidding banned or blessed, Stormful woke or lulled to rest Wind and cloud, and fire and flood; Burned for him the drifted snow, Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, And the leaves of summer grow Over winter's wood! Not untrue that tale of old! Now, as then, the wise and bold All the powers of Nature hold Subject to their kingly will; From the wondering crowds ashore, Treading life's wild waters o'er, As upon a marble floor, Moves the strong man still. Still, to such, life's elements With their sterner laws dispense, And the chain of consequence Broken in their pathway lies; Time and change their vassals making, Flowers from icy pillows waking, Tresses of the sunrise shaking Over midnight skies. Still, to th' earnest soul, the sun Rests on towered Gibeon, And the moon of Ajalon Lights the battle-grounds of life; To his aid the strong reverses Hidden powers and giant forces, And the high stars, in their courses, Mingle in his strife! III. THE DAUGHTER. The soot-black brows of men, the yell Of women thronging round the bed, The tinkling charm of ring and shell, The Powah whispering o'er the dead! All these the Sachem's home had known, When, on her journey long and wild To the dim World of Souls, alone, In her young beauty passed the mother of his child. Three bow-shots from the Sachem's dwelling They laid her in the walnut shade, Where a green hillock gently swelling Her fitting mound of burial made. There trailed the vine in summer hours, The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell,-- On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers, Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine fell! The Indian's heart is hard and cold, It closes darkly o'er its care, And formed in Nature's sternest mould, Is slow to feel, and strong to bear. The war-paint on the Sachem's face, Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red, And still, in battle or in chase, Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his foremost tread. Yet when her name was heard no more, And when the robe her mother gave, And small, light moccasin she wore, Had slowly wasted on her grave, Unmarked of him the dark maids sped Their sunset dance and moonlit play; No other shared his lonely bed, No other fair young head upon his bosom lay. A lone, stern man. Yet, as sometimes The tempest-smitten tree receives From one small root the sap which climbs Its topmost spray and crowning leaves, So from his child the Sachem drew A life of Love and Hope, and felt His cold and rugged nature through The softness and the warmth of her young being melt. A laugh which in the woodland rang Bemocking April's gladdest bird,-- A light and graceful form which sprang To meet him when his step was heard,-- Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark, Small fingers stringing bead and shell Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark,-- With these the household-god (3) had graced his wigwam well. Child of the forest! strong and free, Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair, She swam the lake or climbed the tree, Or struck the flying bird in air. O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way; And dazzling in the summer noon The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of spray! Unknown to her the rigid rule, The dull restraint, the chiding frown, The weary torture of the school, The taming of wild nature down. Her only lore, the legends told Around the hunter's fire at night; Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled, Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unquestioned in her sight. Unknown to her the subtle skill With which the artist-eye can trace In rock and tree and lake and hill The outlines of divinest grace; Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest, Which sees, admires, yet yearns alway; Too closely on her mother's breast To note her smiles of love the child of Nature lay! It is enough for such to be Of common, natural things a part, To feel, with bird and stream and tree, The pulses of the same great heart; But we, from Nature long exiled, In our cold homes of Art and Thought Grieve like the stranger-tended child, Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees but feels them not. The garden rose may richly bloom In cultured soil and genial air, To cloud the light of Fashion's room Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair; In lonelier grace, to sun and dew The sweetbrier on the hillside shows Its single leaf and fainter hue, Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose! Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo Their mingling shades of joy and ill The instincts of her nature threw; The savage was a woman still. Midst outlines dim of maiden schemes, Heart-colored prophecies of life, Rose on the ground of her young dreams The light of a new home, the lover and the wife. IV. THE WEDDING. Cool and dark fell the autumn night, But the Bashaba's wigwam glowed with light, For down from its roof, by green withes hung, Flaring and smoking the pine-knots swung. And along the river great wood-fires Shot into the night their long, red spires, Showing behind the tall, dark wood, Flashing before on the sweeping flood. In the changeful wind, with shimmer and shade, Now high, now low, that firelight played, On tree-leaves wet with evening dews, On gliding water and still canoes. The trapper that night on Turee's brook, And the weary fisher on Contoocook, Saw over the marshes, and through the pine, And down on the river, the dance-lights shine. For the Saugus Sachem had come to woo The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo, And laid at her father's feet that night His softest furs and wampum white. From the Crystal Hills to the far southeast The river Sagamores came to the feast; And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds shook Sat down on the mats of Pennacook. They came from Sunapee's shore of rock, From the snowy sources of Snooganock, And from rough Coos whose thick woods shake Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake. From Ammonoosuc's mountain pass, Wild as his home, came Chepewass; And the Keenomps of the bills which throw Their shade on the Smile of Manito. With pipes of peace and bows unstrung, Glowing with paint came old and young, In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed, To the dance and feast the Bashaba made. Bird of the air and beast of the field, All which the woods and the waters yield, On dishes of birch and hemlock piled, Garnished and graced that banquet wild. Steaks of the brown bear fat and large From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge; Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook, And salmon speared in the Contoocook; Squirrels which fed where nuts fell thick in the gravelly bed of the Otternic; And small wild-hens in reed-snares caught from the banks of Sondagardee brought; Pike and perch from the Suncook taken, Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken, Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog, And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog: And, drawn from that great stone vase which stands In the river scooped by a spirit's hands,(4) Garnished with spoons of shell and horn, Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn. Thus bird of the air and beast of the field, All which the woods and the waters yield, Furnished in that olden day The bridal feast of the Bashaba. And merrily when that feast was done On the fire-lit green the dance begun, With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper hum Of old men beating the Indian drum. Painted and plumed, with scalp-locks flowing, And red arms tossing and black eyes glowing, Now in the light and now in the shade Around the fires the dancers played. The step was quicker, the song more shrill, And the beat of the small drums louder still Whenever within the circle drew The Saugus Sachem and Weetamoo. The moons of forty winters had shed Their snow upon that chieftain's head, And toil and care and battle's chance Had seamed his hard, dark countenance. A fawn beside the bison grim,-- Why turns the bride's fond eye on him, In whose cold look is naught beside The triumph of a sullen pride? Ask why the graceful grape entwines The rough oak with her arm of vines; And why the gray rock's rugged cheek The soft lips of the mosses seek. Why, with wise instinct, Nature seems To harmonize her wide extremes, Linking the stronger with the weak, The haughty with the soft and meek! V. THE NEW HOME. A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs, Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge; Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlock spurs And sharp, gray splinters of the wind-swept ledge Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose, Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down upon the snows. And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched away, Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree, O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea; And faint with distance came the stifled roar, The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore. No cheerful village with its mingling smokes, No laugh of children wrestling in the snow, No camp-fire blazing through the hillside oaks, No fishers kneeling on the ice below; Yet midst all desolate things of sound and view, Through the long winter moons smiled dark-eyed Weetamoo. Her heart had found a home; and freshly all Its beautiful affections overgrew Their rugged prop. As o'er some granite wall Soft vine-leaves open to the moistening dew And warm bright sun, the love of that young wife Found on a hard cold breast the dew and warmth of life. The steep, bleak hills, the melancholy shore, The long, dead level of the marsh between, A coloring of unreal beauty wore Through the soft golden mist of young love seen. For o'er those hills and from that dreary plain, Nightly she welcomed home her hunter chief again. No warmth of heart, no passionate burst of feeling, Repaid her welcoming smile and parting kiss, No fond and playful dalliance half concealing, Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness; But, in their stead, the warrior's settled pride, And vanity's pleased smile with homage satisfied. Enough for Weetamoo, that she alone Sat on his mat and slumbered at his side; That he whose fame to her young ear had flown Now looked upon her proudly as his bride; That he whose name the Mohawk trembling heard Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly look or word. For she had learned the maxims of her race, Which teach the woman to become a slave, And feel herself the pardonless disgrace Of love's fond weakness in the wise and brave,-- The scandal and the shame which they incur, Who give to woman all which man requires of her. So passed the winter moons. The sun at last Broke link by link the frost chain of the rills, And the warm breathings of the southwest passed Over the hoar rime of the Saugus hills; The gray and desolate marsh grew green once more, And the birch-tree's tremulous shade fell round the Sachem's door. Then from far Pennacook swift runners came, With gift and greeting for the Saugus chief; Beseeching him in the great Sachem's name, That, with the coming of the flower and leaf, The song of birds, the warm breeze and the rain, Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely sire again. And Winnepurkit called his chiefs together, And a grave council in his wigwam met, Solemn and brief in words, considering whether The rigid rules of forest etiquette Permitted Weetamoo once more to look Upon her father's face and green-banked Pennacook. With interludes of pipe-smoke and strong water, The forest sages pondered, and at length, Concluded in a body to escort her Up to her father's home of pride and strength, Impressing thus on Pennacook a sense Of Winnepurkit's power and regal consequence. So through old woods which Aukeetamit's(5) hand, A soft and many-shaded greenness lent, Over high breezy hills, and meadow land Yellow with flowers, the wild procession went, Till, rolling down its wooded banks between, A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merrimac was seen. The hunter leaning on his bow undrawn, The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores, Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed-corn, Young children peering through the wigwam doors, Saw with delight, surrounded by her train Of painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo again. VI. AT PENNACOOK. The hills are dearest which our childish feet Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet Are ever those at which our young lips drank, Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank. Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's hearth-light Shines round the helmsman plunging through the night; And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees. The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly fanned By breezes whispering of his native land, And on the stranger's dim and dying eye The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie. Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once more A child upon her father's wigwam floor! Once more with her old fondness to beguile From his cold eye the strange light of a smile. The long, bright days of summer swiftly passed, The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising blast, And evening cloud and whitening sunrise rime Told of the coming of the winter-time. But vainly looked, the while, young Weetamoo, Down the dark river for her chief's canoe; No dusky messenger from Saugus brought The grateful tidings which the young wife sought. At length a runner from her father sent, To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went "Eagle of Saugus,--in the woods the dove Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of love." But the dark chief of Saugus turned aside In the grim anger of hard-hearted pride; "I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter, Up to her home beside the gliding water. If now no more a mat for her is found Of all which line her father's wigwam round, Let Pennacook call out his warrior train, And send her back with wampum gifts again." The baffled runner turned upon his track, Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back. "Dog of the Marsh," cried Pennacook, "no more Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor. "Go, let him seek some meaner squaw to spread The stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed; Son of a fish-hawk! let him dig his clams For some vile daughter of the Agawams, "Or coward Nipmucks! may his scalp dry black In Mohawk smoke, before I send her back." He shook his clenched hand towards the ocean wave, While hoarse assent his listening council gave. Alas poor bride! can thy grim sire impart His iron hardness to thy woman's heart? Or cold self-torturing pride like his atone For love denied and life's warm beauty flown? On Autumn's gray and mournful grave the snow Hung its white wreaths; with stifled voice and low The river crept, by one vast bridge o'er-crossed, Built by the boar-locked artisan of Frost. And many a moon in beauty newly born Pierced the red sunset with her silver horn, Or, from the east, across her azure field Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield. Yet Winnepurkit came not,--on the mat Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat; And he, the while, in Western woods afar, Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war. Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief! Waste not on him the sacredness of grief; Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own, His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone. What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights, The storm-worn watcher through long hunting nights, Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress, Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness? VII. THE DEPARTURE. The wild March rains had fallen fast and long The snowy mountains of the North among, Making each vale a watercourse, each hill Bright with the cascade of some new-made rill. Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain, Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain, The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merrimac Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track. On that strong turbid water, a small boat Guided by one weak hand was seen to float; Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore, Too early voyager with too frail an oar! Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide, The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side, The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view, With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe. The trapper, moistening his moose's meat On the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's feet, Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled stream; Slept he, or waked he? was it truth or dream? The straining eye bent fearfully before, The small hand clenching on the useless oar, The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water-- He knew them all--woe for the Sachem's daughter! Sick and aweary of her lonely life, Heedless of peril, the still faithful wife Had left her mother's grave, her father's door, To seek the wigwam of her chief once more. Down the white rapids like a sear leaf whirled, On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled, Empty and broken, circled the canoe In the vexed pool below--but where was Weetamoo. VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN. The Dark eye has left us, The Spring-bird has flown; On the pathway of spirits She wanders alone. The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore Mat wonck kunna-monee!(6) We hear it no more! O dark water Spirit We cast on thy wave These furs which may never Hang over her grave; Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! Of the strange land she walks in No Powah has told: It may burn with the sunshine, Or freeze with the cold. Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore: Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! The path she is treading Shall soon be our own; Each gliding in shadow Unseen and alone! In vain shall we call on the souls gone before: Mat wonck kunna-monee! They hear us no more! O mighty Sowanna!(7) Thy gateways unfold, From thy wigwam of sunset Lift curtains of gold! Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! So sang the Children of the Leaves beside The broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide; Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell, On the high wind their voices rose and fell. Nature's wild music,--sounds of wind-swept trees, The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze, The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong,-- Mingled and murmured in that farewell song. 1844. BARCLAY OF URY. Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. "I find more satisfaction," said Barclay, "as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor." Up the streets of Aberdeen, By the kirk and college green, Rode the Laird of Ury; Close behind him, close beside, Foul of mouth and evil-eyed, Pressed the mob in fury. Flouted him the drunken churl, Jeered at him the serving-girl, Prompt to please her master; And the begging carlin, late Fed and clothed at Ury's gate, Cursed him as he passed her. Yet, with calm and stately mien, Up the streets of Aberdeen Came he slowly riding; And, to all he saw and heard, Answering not with bitter word, Turning not for chiding. Came a troop with broadswords swinging, Bits and bridles sharply ringing, Loose and free and froward; Quoth the foremost, "Ride him down! Push him! prick him! through the town Drive the Quaker coward!" But from out the thickening crowd Cried a sudden voice and loud "Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!" And the old man at his side Saw a comrade, battle tried, Scarred and sunburned darkly; Who with ready weapon bare, Fronting to the troopers there, Cried aloud: "God save us, Call ye coward him who stood Ankle deep in Lutzen's blood, With the brave Gustavus?" "Nay, I do not need thy sword, Comrade mine," said Ury's lord; "Put it up, I pray thee Passive to His holy will, Trust I in my Master still, Even though He slay me. "Pledges of thy love and faith, Proved on many a field of death, Not by me are needed." Marvelled much that henchman bold, That his laird, so stout of old, Now so meekly pleaded. "Woe's the day!" he sadly said, With a slowly shaking head, And a look of pity; "Ury's honest lord reviled, Mock of knave and sport of child, In his own good city. "Speak the word, and, master mine, As we charged on Tilly's(8) line, And his Walloon lancers, Smiting through their midst we'll teach Civil look and decent speech To these boyish prancers!" "Marvel not, mine ancient friend, Like beginning, like the end:" Quoth the Laird of Ury; "Is the sinful servant more Than his gracious Lord who bore Bonds and stripes in Jewry? "Give me joy that in His name I can bear, with patient frame, All these vain ones offer; While for them He suffereth long, Shall I answer wrong with wrong, Scoffing with the scoffer? "Happier I, with loss of all, Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall, With few friends to greet me, Than when reeve and squire were seen, Riding out from Aberdeen, With bared heads to meet me. "When each goodwife, o'er and o'er, Blessed me as I passed her door; And the snooded daughter, Through her casement glancing down, Smiled on him who bore renown From red fields of slaughter. "Hard to feel the stranger's scoff, Hard the old friend's falling off, Hard to learn forgiving; But the Lord His own rewards, And His love with theirs accords, Warm and fresh and living. "Through this dark and stormy night Faith beholds a feeble light Up the blackness streaking; Knowing God's own time is best, In a patient hope I rest For the full day-breaking!" So the Laird of Ury said, Turning slow his horse's head Towards the Tolbooth prison, Where, through iron gates, he heard Poor disciples of the Word Preach of Christ arisen! Not in vain, Confessor old, Unto us the tale is told Of thy day of trial; Every age on him who strays From its broad and beaten ways Pours its seven-fold vial. Happy he whose inward ear Angel comfortings can hear, O'er the rabble's laughter; And while Hatred's fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good hereafter. Knowing this, that never yet Share of Truth was vainly set In the world's wide fallow; After hands shall sow the seed, After hands from hill and mead Reap the harvests yellow. Thus, with somewhat of the Seer, Must the moral pioneer From the Future borrow; Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, And, on midnight's sky of rain, Paint the golden morrow! THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. A letter-writer from Mexico during the Mexican war, when detailing some of the incidents at the terrible fight of Buena Vista, mentioned that Mexican women were seen hovering near the field of death, for the purpose of giving aid and succor to the wounded. One poor woman was found surrounded by the maimed and suffering of both armies, ministering to the wants of Americans as well as Mexicans, with impartial tenderness. SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away, O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array, Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near? Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear. Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls; Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls! "Who is losing? who is winning?" Over hill and over plain, I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain. Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena, look once more. "Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse, Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course." Look forth once more, Ximena! "Ah! the smoke has rolled away; And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray. Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon wheels; There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels. "Jesu, pity I how it thickens I now retreat and now advance! Bight against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance! Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall; Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball." Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on! Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, and who has won? Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together fall, O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters, for them all! "Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed Mother, save my brain! I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain. Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they fall, and strive to rise; Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes! "O my hearts love! O my dear one! lay thy poor head on my knee; Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst thou hear me? canst thou see? O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal, look once more On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy! all is o'er!" Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest; Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast; Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said; To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid. Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away; But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt, She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol- belt. With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head; With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead; But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain, And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again. Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and faintly smiled; Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child? All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied; With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!" murmured he, and died! "A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth, From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely, in the North!" Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead, And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled. "Look forth once more, Ximena!" Like a cloud before the wind Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind; Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive; "Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of God, forgive!" Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool, gray shadows fall; Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all! Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled, In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold. But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food. Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air! 1847. THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK. "This legend (to which my attention was called by my friend Charles Sumner), is the subject of a celebrated picture by Tintoretto, of which Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch. The slave lies on the ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look on, animated by all the various emotions of sympathy, rage, terror; a woman, in front, with a child in her arms, has always been admired for the lifelike vivacity of her attitude and expression. The executioner holds up the broken implements; St. Mark, with a headlong movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in this picture is wonderful; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's sketch, finer than in the picture."--MRS. JAMESON'S Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 154. THE day is closing dark and cold, With roaring blast and sleety showers; And through the dusk the lilacs wear The bloom of snow, instead of flowers. I turn me from the gloom without, To ponder o'er a tale of old; A legend of the age of Faith, By dreaming monk or abbess told. On Tintoretto's canvas lives That fancy of a loving heart, In graceful lines and shapes of power, And hues immortal as his art. In Provence (so the story runs) There lived a lord, to whom, as slave, A peasant-boy of tender years The chance of trade or conquest gave. Forth-looking from the castle tower, Beyond the hills with almonds dark, The straining eye could scarce discern The chapel of the good St. Mark. And there, when bitter word or fare The service of the youth repaid, By stealth, before that holy shrine, For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed. The steed stamped at the castle gate, The boar-hunt sounded on the hill; Why stayed the Baron from the chase, With looks so stern, and words so ill? "Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn, By scath of fire and strain of cord, How ill they speed who give dead saints The homage due their living lord!" They bound him on the fearful rack, When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark, He saw the light of shining robes, And knew the face of good St. Mark. Then sank the iron rack apart, The cords released their cruel clasp, The pincers, with their teeth of fire, Fell broken from the torturer's grasp. And lo! before the Youth and Saint, Barred door and wall of stone gave way; And up from bondage and the night They passed to freedom and the day! O dreaming monk! thy tale is true; O painter! true thy pencil's art; in tones of hope and prophecy, Ye whisper to my listening heart! Unheard no burdened heart's appeal Moans up to God's inclining ear; Unheeded by his tender eye, Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear. For still the Lord alone is God The pomp and power of tyrant man Are scattered at his lightest breath, Like chaff before the winnower's fan. Not always shall the slave uplift His heavy hands to Heaven in vain. God's angel, like the good St. Mark, Comes shining down to break his chain! O weary ones! ye may not see Your helpers in their downward flight; Nor hear the sound of silver wings Slow beating through the hush of night! But not the less gray Dothan shone, With sunbright watchers bending low, That Fear's dim eye beheld alone The spear-heads of the Syrian foe. There are, who, like the Seer of old, Can see the helpers God has sent, And how life's rugged mountain-side Is white with many an angel tent! They hear the heralds whom our Lord Sends down his pathway to prepare; And light, from others hidden, shines On their high place of faith and prayer. Let such, for earth's despairing ones, Hopeless, yet longing to be free, Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer "Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see!" 1849. KATHLEEN. This ballad was originally published in my prose work, Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, as the song of a wandering Milesian schoolmaster. In the seventeenth century, slavery in the New World was by no means confined to the natives of Africa. Political offenders and criminals were transported by the British government to the plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where they were sold like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of free and innocent white persons was practised to a considerable extent in the seaports of the United Kingdom. O NORAH, lay your basket down, And rest your weary hand, And come and hear me sing a song Of our old Ireland. There was a lord of Galaway, A mighty lord was he; And he did wed a second wife, A maid of low degree. But he was old, and she was young, And so, in evil spite, She baked the black bread for his kin, And fed her own with white. She whipped the maids and starved the kern, And drove away the poor; "Ah, woe is me!" the old lord said, "I rue my bargain sore!" This lord he had a daughter fair, Beloved of old and young, And nightly round the shealing-fires Of her the gleeman sung. "As sweet and good is young Kathleen As Eve before her fall;" So sang the harper at the fair, So harped he in the hall. "Oh, come to me, my daughter dear! Come sit upon my knee, For looking in your face, Kathleen, Your mother's own I see!" He smoothed and smoothed her hair away, He kissed her forehead fair; "It is my darling Mary's brow, It is my darling's hair!" Oh, then spake up the angry dame, "Get up, get up," quoth she, "I'll sell ye over Ireland, I'll sell ye o'er the sea!" She clipped her glossy hair away, That none her rank might know; She took away her gown of silk, And gave her one of tow, And sent her down to Limerick town And to a seaman sold This daughter of an Irish lord For ten good pounds in gold. The lord he smote upon his breast, And tore his beard so gray; But he was old, and she was young, And so she had her way. Sure that same night the Banshee howled To fright the evil dame, And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen, With funeral torches came. She watched them glancing through the trees, And glimmering down the hill; They crept before the dead-vault door, And there they all stood still! "Get up, old man! the wake-lights shine!" "Ye murthering witch," quoth he, "So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care If they shine for you or me." "Oh, whoso brings my daughter back, My gold and land shall have!" Oh, then spake up his handsome page, "No gold nor land I crave! "But give to me your daughter dear, Give sweet Kathleen to me, Be she on sea or be she on land, I'll bring her back to thee." "My daughter is a lady born, And you of low degree, But she shall be your bride the day You bring her back to me." He sailed east, he sailed west, And far and long sailed he, Until he came to Boston town, Across the great salt sea. "Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen, The flower of Ireland? Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue, And by her snow-white hand!" Out spake an ancient man, "I know The maiden whom ye mean; I bought her of a Limerick man, And she is called Kathleen. "No skill hath she in household work, Her hands are soft and white, Yet well by loving looks and ways She doth her cost requite." So up they walked through Boston town, And met a maiden fair, A little basket on her arm So snowy-white and bare. "Come hither, child, and say hast thou This young man ever seen?" They wept within each other's arms, The page and young Kathleen. "Oh give to me this darling child, And take my purse of gold." "Nay, not by me," her master said, "Shall sweet Kathleen be sold. "We loved her in the place of one The Lord hath early ta'en; But, since her heart's in Ireland, We give her back again!" Oh, for that same the saints in heaven For his poor soul shall pray, And Mary Mother wash with tears His heresies away. Sure now they dwell in Ireland; As you go up Claremore Ye'll see their castle looking down The pleasant Galway shore. And the old lord's wife is dead and gone, And a happy man is he, For he sits beside his own Kathleen, With her darling on his knee. 1849. THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE Pennant, in his Voyage to the Hebrides, describes the holy well of Loch Maree, the waters of which were supposed to effect a miraculous cure of melancholy, trouble, and insanity. CALM on the breast of Loch Maree A little isle reposes; A shadow woven of the oak And willow o'er it closes. Within, a Druid's mound is seen, Set round with stony warders; A fountain, gushing through the turf, Flows o'er its grassy borders. And whoso bathes therein his brow, With care or madness burning, Feels once again his healthful thought And sense of peace returning. O restless heart and fevered brain, Unquiet and unstable, That holy well of Loch Maree Is more than idle fable! Life's changes vex, its discords stun, Its glaring sunshine blindeth, And blest is he who on his way That fount of healing findeth! The shadows of a humbled will And contrite heart are o'er it; Go read its legend, "TRUST IN GOD," On Faith's white stones before it. 1850. THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS. The incident upon which this poem is based is related in a note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes de la Nature. "We arrived at the habitation of the Hermits a little before they sat down to their table, and while they were still at church. J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer up our devotions. The hermits were reciting the Litanies of Providence, which are remarkably beautiful. After we had addressed our prayers to God, and the hermits were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said to me, with his heart overflowing, 'At this moment I experience what is said in the gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. There is here a feeling of peace and happiness which penetrates the soul.' I said, 'If Finelon had lived, you would have been a Catholic.' He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, 'Oh, if Finelon were alive, I would struggle to get into his service, even as a lackey!'" In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen that I have somewhat antedated the period of his old age. At that time he was not probably more than fifty. In describing him, I have by no means exaggerated his own history of his mental condition at the period of the story. In the fragmentary Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus speaks of himself: "The ingratitude of those of whom I had deserved kindness, unexpected family misfortunes, the total loss of my small patrimony through enterprises solely undertaken for the benefit of my country, the debts under which I lay oppressed, the blasting of all my hopes,--these combined calamities made dreadful inroads upon my health and reason. . . . I found it impossible to continue in a room where there was company, especially if the doors were shut. I could not even cross an alley in a public garden, if several persons had got together in it. When alone, my malady subsided. I felt myself likewise at ease in places where I saw children only. At the sight of any one walking up to the place where I was, I felt my whole frame agitated, and retired. I often said to myself, 'My sole study has been to merit well of mankind; why do I fear them?'" He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the counsels of his friend, J. J. Rousseau. "I renounced," says he, "my books. I threw my eyes upon the works of nature, which spake to all my senses a language which neither time nor nations have it in their power to alter. Thenceforth my histories and my journals were the herbage of the fields and meadows. My thoughts did not go forth painfully after them, as in the case of human systems; but their thoughts, under a thousand engaging forms, quietly sought me. In these I studied, without effort, the laws of that Universal Wisdom which had surrounded me from the cradle, but on which heretofore I had bestowed little attention." Speaking of Rousseau, he says: "I derived inexpressible satisfaction from his society. What I prized still more than his genius was his probity. He was one of the few literary characters, tried in the furnace of affliction, to whom you could, with perfect security, confide your most secret thoughts. . . . Even when he deviated, and became the victim of himself or of others, he could forget his own misery in devotion to the welfare of mankind. He was uniformly the advocate of the miserable. There might be inscribed on his tomb these affecting words from that Book of which he carried always about him some select passages, during the last years of his life: 'His sins, which are many, are forgiven, for he loved much.'" "I DO believe, and yet, in grief, I pray for help to unbelief; For needful strength aside to lay The daily cumberings of my way. "I 'm sick at heart of craft and cant, Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant, Profession's smooth hypocrisies, And creeds of iron, and lives of ease. "I ponder o'er the sacred word, I read the record of our Lord; And, weak and troubled, envy them Who touched His seamless garment's hem; "Who saw the tears of love He wept Above the grave where Lazarus slept; And heard, amidst the shadows dim Of Olivet, His evening hymn. "How blessed the swineherd's low estate, The beggar crouching at the gate, The leper loathly and abhorred, Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord! "O sacred soil His sandals pressed! Sweet fountains of His noonday rest! O light and air of Palestine, Impregnate with His life divine! "Oh, bear me thither! Let me look On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook; Kneel at Gethsemane, and by Gennesaret walk, before I die! "Methinks this cold and northern night Would melt before that Orient light; And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain, My childhood's faith revive again!" So spake my friend, one autumn day, Where the still river slid away Beneath us, and above the brown Red curtains of the woods shut down. Then said I,--for I could not brook The mute appealing of his look,-- "I, too, am weak, and faith is small, And blindness happeneth unto all. "Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight, Through present wrong, the eternal right; And, step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man; "That all of good the past hath had Remains to make our own time glad, Our common daily life divine, And every land a Palestine. "Thou weariest of thy present state; What gain to thee time's holiest date? The doubter now perchance had been As High Priest or as Pilate then! "What thought Chorazin's scribes? What faith In Him had Nain and Nazareth? Of the few followers whom He led One sold Him,--all forsook and fled. "O friend! we need nor rock nor sand, Nor storied stream of Morning-Land; The heavens are glassed in Merrimac,-- What more could Jordan render back? "We lack but open eye and ear To find the Orient's marvels here; The still small voice in autumn's hush, Yon maple wood the burning bush. "For still the new transcends the old, In signs and tokens manifold; Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves! "Through the harsh noises of our day A low, sweet prelude finds its way; Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, A light is breaking, calm and clear. "That song of Love, now low and far, Erelong shall swell from star to star! That light, the breaking day, which tips The golden-spired Apocalypse!" Then, when my good friend shook his head, And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said: "Thou mind'st me of a story told In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold." And while the slanted sunbeams wove The shadows of the frost-stained grove, And, picturing all, the river ran O'er cloud and wood, I thus began:-- . . . . . . . . . . . . . In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood The Chapel of the Hermits stood; And thither, at the close of day, Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray. One, whose impetuous youth defied The storms of Baikal's wintry side, And mused and dreamed where tropic day Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay. His simple tale of love and woe All hearts had melted, high or low;-- A blissful pain, a sweet distress, Immortal in its tenderness. Yet, while above his charmed page Beat quick the young heart of his age, He walked amidst the crowd unknown, A sorrowing old man, strange and lone. A homeless, troubled age,--the gray Pale setting of a weary day; Too dull his ear for voice of praise, Too sadly worn his brow for bays. Pride, lust of power and glory, slept; Yet still his heart its young dream kept, And, wandering like the deluge-dove, Still sought the resting-place of love. And, mateless, childless, envied more The peasant's welcome from his door By smiling eyes at eventide, Than kingly gifts or lettered pride. Until, in place of wife and child, All-pitying Nature on him smiled, And gave to him the golden keys To all her inmost sanctities. Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim! She laid her great heart bare to him, Its loves and sweet accords;--he saw The beauty of her perfect law. The language of her signs lie knew, What notes her cloudy clarion blew; The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes, The hymn of sunset's painted skies. And thus he seemed to hear the song Which swept, of old, the stars along; And to his eyes the earth once more Its fresh and primal beauty wore. Who sought with him, from summer air, And field and wood, a balm for care; And bathed in light of sunset skies His tortured nerves and weary eyes? His fame on all the winds had flown; His words had shaken crypt and throne; Like fire, on camp and court and cell They dropped, and kindled as they fell. Beneath the pomps of state, below The mitred juggler's masque and show, A prophecy, a vague hope, ran His burning thought from man to man. For peace or rest too well he saw The fraud of priests, the wrong of law, And felt how hard, between the two, Their breath of pain the millions drew. A prophet-utterance, strong and wild, The weakness of an unweaned child, A sun-bright hope for human-kind, And self-despair, in him combined. He loathed the false, yet lived not true To half the glorious truths he knew; The doubt, the discord, and the sin, He mourned without, he felt within. Untrod by him the path he showed, Sweet pictures on his easel glowed Of simple faith, and loves of home, And virtue's golden days to come. But weakness, shame, and folly made The foil to all his pen portrayed; Still, where his dreamy splendors shone, The shadow of himself was thrown. Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times, Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs, While still his grosser instinct clings To earth, like other creeping things! So rich in words, in acts so mean; So high, so low; chance-swung between The foulness of the penal pit And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit! Vain, pride of star-lent genius!--vain, Quick fancy and creative brain, Unblest by prayerful sacrifice, Absurdly great, or weakly wise! Midst yearnings for a truer life, Without were fears, within was strife; And still his wayward act denied The perfect good for which he sighed. The love he sent forth void returned; The fame that crowned him scorched and burned, Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,-- A fire-mount in a frozen zone! Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed,(9) Seen southward from his sleety mast, About whose brows of changeless frost A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed. Far round the mournful beauty played Of lambent light and purple shade, Lost on the fixed and dumb despair Of frozen earth and sea and air! A man apart, unknown, unloved By those whose wrongs his soul had moved, He bore the ban of Church and State, The good man's fear, the bigot's hate! Forth from the city's noise and throng, Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong, The twain that summer day had strayed To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade. To them the green fields and the wood Lent something of their quietude, And golden-tinted sunset seemed Prophetical of all they dreamed. The hermits from their simple cares The bell was calling home to prayers, And, listening to its sound, the twain Seemed lapped in childhood's trust again. Wide open stood the chapel door; A sweet old music, swelling o'er Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence,-- The Litanies of Providence! Then Rousseau spake: "Where two or three In His name meet, He there will be!" And then, in silence, on their knees They sank beneath the chestnut-trees. As to the blind returning light, As daybreak to the Arctic night, Old faith revived; the doubts of years Dissolved in reverential tears. That gush of feeling overpast, "Ah me!" Bernardin sighed at last, I would thy bitterest foes could see Thy heart as it is seen of me! "No church of God hast thou denied; Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside A bare and hollow counterfeit, Profaning the pure name of it! "With dry dead moss and marish weeds His fire the western herdsman feeds, And greener from the ashen plain The sweet spring grasses rise again. "Nor thunder-peal nor mighty wind Disturb the solid sky behind; And through the cloud the red bolt rends The calm, still smile of Heaven descends. "Thus through the world, like bolt and blast, And scourging fire, thy words have passed. Clouds break,--the steadfast heavens remain; Weeds burn,--the ashes feed the grain! "But whoso strives with wrong may find Its touch pollute, its darkness blind; And learn, as latent fraud is shown In others' faith, to doubt his own. "With dream and falsehood, simple trust And pious hope we tread in dust; Lost the calm faith in goodness,--lost The baptism of the Pentecost! "Alas!--the blows for error meant Too oft on truth itself are spent, As through the false and vile and base Looks forth her sad, rebuking face. "Not ours the Theban's charmed life; We come not scathless from the strife! The Python's coil about us clings, The trampled Hydra bites and stings! "Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance, The plastic shapes of circumstance, What might have been we fondly guess, If earlier born, or tempted less. "And thou, in these wild, troubled days, Misjudged alike in blame and praise, Unsought and undeserved the same The skeptic's praise, the bigot's blame;-- "I cannot doubt, if thou hadst been Among the highly favored men Who walked on earth with Fenelon, He would have owned thee as his son; "And, bright with wings of cherubim Visibly waving over him, Seen through his life, the Church had seemed All that its old confessors dreamed." "I would have been," Jean Jaques replied, "The humblest servant at his side, Obscure, unknown, content to see How beautiful man's life may be! "Oh, more than thrice-blest relic, more Than solemn rite or sacred lore, The holy life of one who trod The foot-marks of the Christ of God! "Amidst a blinded world he saw The oneness of the Dual law; That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth began, And God was loved through love of man. "He lived the Truth which reconciled The strong man Reason, Faith the child; In him belief and act were one, The homilies of duty done!" So speaking, through the twilight gray The two old pilgrims went their way. What seeds of life that day were sown, The heavenly watchers knew alone. Time passed, and Autumn came to fold Green Summer in her brown and gold; Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau. "The tree remaineth where it fell, The pained on earth is pained in hell!" So priestcraft from its altars cursed The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed. Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed, "Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid!" Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above, And man is hate, but God is love! No Hermits now the wanderer sees, Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees; A morning dream, a tale that's told, The wave of change o'er all has rolled. Yet lives the lesson of that day; And from its twilight cool and gray Comes up a low, sad whisper, "Make The truth thine own, for truth's own sake. "Why wait to see in thy brief span Its perfect flower and fruit in man? No saintly touch can save; no balm Of healing hath the martyr's palm. "Midst soulless forms, and false pretence Of spiritual pride and pampered sense, A voice saith, 'What is that to thee? Be true thyself, and follow Me! "In days when throne and altar heard The wanton's wish, the bigot's word, And pomp of state and ritual show Scarce hid the loathsome death below,-- "Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul, The losel swarm of crown and cowl, White-robed walked Francois Fenelon, Stainless as Uriel in the sun! "Yet in his time the stake blazed red, The poor were eaten up like bread Men knew him not; his garment's hem No healing virtue had for them. "Alas! no present saint we find; The white cymar gleams far behind, Revealed in outline vague, sublime, Through telescopic mists of time! "Trust not in man with passing breath, But in the Lord, old Scripture saith; The truth which saves thou mayst not blend With false professor, faithless friend. "Search thine own heart. What paineth thee In others in thyself may be; All dust is frail, all flesh is weak; Be thou the true man thou dost seek! "Where now with pain thou treadest, trod The whitest of the saints of God! To show thee where their feet were set, the light which led them shineth yet. "The footprints of the life divine, Which marked their path, remain in thine; And that great Life, transfused in theirs, Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!" A lesson which I well may heed, A word of fitness to my need; So from that twilight cool and gray Still saith a voice, or seems to say. We rose, and slowly homeward turned, While down the west the sunset burned; And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide, And human forms seemed glorified. The village homes transfigured stood, And purple bluffs, whose belting wood Across the waters leaned to hold The yellow leaves like lamps of hold. Then spake my friend: "Thy words are true; Forever old, forever new, These home-seen splendors are the same Which over Eden's sunsets came. "To these bowed heavens let wood and hill Lift voiceless praise and anthem still; Fall, warm with blessing, over them, Light of the New Jerusalem! "Flow on, sweet river, like the stream Of John's Apocalyptic dream This mapled ridge shall Horeb be, Yon green-banked lake our Galilee! "Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more For olden time and holier shore; God's love and blessing, then and there, Are now and here and everywhere." 1851. TAULER. TAULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day, Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine, Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life; As one who, wandering in a starless night, Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, And hears the thunder of an unknown sea, Breaking along an unimagined shore. And as he walked he prayed. Even the same Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart Had groaned: "Have pity upon me, Lord! Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind. Send me a man who can direct my steps!" Then, as he mused, he heard along his path A sound as of an old man's staff among The dry, dead linden-leaves; and, looking up, He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old. "Peace be unto thee, father!" Tauler said, "God give thee a good day!" The old man raised Slowly his calm blue eyes. "I thank thee, son; But all my days are good, and none are ill." Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again, "God give thee happy life." The old man smiled, "I never am unhappy." Tauler laid His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve "Tell me, O father, what thy strange words mean. Surely man's days are evil, and his life Sad as the grave it leads to." "Nay, my son, Our times are in God's hands, and all our days Are as our needs; for shadow as for sun, For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike Our thanks are due, since that is best which is; And that which is not, sharing not His life, Is evil only as devoid of good. And for the happiness of which I spake, I find it in submission to his will, And calm trust in the holy Trinity Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power." Silently wondering, for a little space, Stood the great preacher; then he spake as one Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought Which long has followed, whispering through the dark Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light "What if God's will consign thee hence to Hell?" "Then," said the stranger, cheerily, "be it so. What Hell may be I know not; this I know,-- I cannot lose the presence of the Lord. One arm, Humility, takes hold upon His dear Humanity; the other, Love, Clasps his Divinity. So where I go He goes; and better fire-walled Hell with Him Than golden-gated Paradise without." Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sudden light, Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove Apart the shadow wherein he had walked Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man Went his slow way, until his silver hair Set like the white moon where the hills of vine Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said "My prayer is answered. God hath sent the man Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust, Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew." So, entering with a changed and cheerful step The city gates, he saw, far down the street, A mighty shadow break the light of noon, Which tracing backward till its airy lines Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes O'er broad facade and lofty pediment, O'er architrave and frieze and sainted niche, Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where In the noon-brightness the great Minster's tower, Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, Rose like a visible prayer. "Behold!" he said, "The stranger's faith made plain before mine eyes. As yonder tower outstretches to the earth The dark triangle of its shade alone When the clear day is shining on its top, So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life Is but the shadow of God's providence, By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon; And what is dark below is light in Heaven." 1853. THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID. O STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith, From inmost founts of life ye start,-- The spirit's pulse, the vital breath Of soul and heart! From pastoral toil, from traffic's din, Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad, Unheard of man, ye enter in The ear of God. Ye brook no forced and measured tasks, Nor weary rote, nor formal chains; The simple heart, that freely asks In love, obtains. For man the living temple is The mercy-seat and cherubim, And all the holy mysteries, He bears with him. And most avails the prayer of love, Which, wordless, shapes itself in needs, And wearies Heaven for naught above Our common needs. Which brings to God's all-perfect will That trust of His undoubting child Whereby all seeming good and ill Are reconciled. And, seeking not for special signs Of favor, is content to fall Within the providence which shines And rains on all. Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned At noontime o'er the sacred word. Was it an angel or a fiend Whose voice be heard? It broke the desert's hush of awe, A human utterance, sweet and mild; And, looking up, the hermit saw A little child. A child, with wonder-widened eyes, O'erawed and troubled by the sight Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies, And anchorite. "'What dost thou here, poor man? No shade Of cool, green palms, nor grass, nor well, Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit said "With God I dwell. "Alone with Him in this great calm, I live not by the outward sense; My Nile his love, my sheltering palm His providence." The child gazed round him. "Does God live Here only?--where the desert's rim Is green with corn, at morn and eve, We pray to Him. "My brother tills beside the Nile His little field; beneath the leaves My sisters sit and spin, the while My mother weaves. "And when the millet's ripe heads fall, And all the bean-field hangs in pod, My mother smiles, and, says that all Are gifts from God." Adown the hermit's wasted cheeks Glistened the flow of human tears; "Dear Lord!" he said, "Thy angel speaks, Thy servant hears." Within his arms the child he took, And thought of home and life with men; And all his pilgrim feet forsook Returned again. The palmy shadows cool and long, The eyes that smiled through lavish locks, Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-song, And bleat of flocks. "O child!" he said, "thou teachest me There is no place where God is not; That love will make, where'er it be, A holy spot." He rose from off the desert sand, And, leaning on his staff of thorn, Went with the young child hand in hand, Like night with morn. They crossed the desert's burning line, And heard the palm-tree's rustling fan, The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine, And voice of man. Unquestioning, his childish guide He followed, as the small hand led To where a woman, gentle-eyed, Her distaff fed. She rose, she clasped her truant boy, She thanked the stranger with her eyes; The hermit gazed in doubt and joy And dumb surprise. And to!--with sudden warmth and light A tender memory thrilled his frame; New-born, the world-lost anchorite A man became. "O sister of El Zara's race, Behold me!--had we not one mother?" She gazed into the stranger's face "Thou art my brother!" "And when to share our evening meal, She calls the stranger at the door, She says God fills the hands that deal Food to the poor." "O kin of blood! Thy life of use And patient trust is more than mine; And wiser than the gray recluse This child of thine. "For, taught of him whom God hath sent, That toil is praise, and love is prayer, I come, life's cares and pains content With thee to share." Even as his foot the threshold crossed, The hermit's better life began; Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost, And found a man! 1854. MAUD MULLER. The recollection of some descendants of a Hessian deserter in the Revolutionary war bearing the name of Muller doubtless suggested the somewhat infelicitous title of a New England idyl. The poem had no real foundation in fact, though a hint of it may have been found in recalling an incident, trivial in itself, of a journey on the picturesque Maine seaboard with my sister some years before it was written. We had stopped to rest our tired horse under the shade of an apple-tree, and refresh him with water from a little brook which rippled through the stone wall across the road. A very beautiful young girl in scantest summer attire was at work in the hay-field, and as we talked with her we noticed that she strove to hide her bare feet by raking hay over them, blushing as she did so, through the tan of her cheek and neck. MAUD MULLER on a summer's day, Raked the meadow sweet with hay. Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic-health. Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee The mock-bird echoed from his tree. But when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down, The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast,-- A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known. The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, And asked a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road. She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, And filled for him her small tin cup, And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. "Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed." He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees; Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, And her graceful ankles bare and brown; And listened, while a pleased surprise Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. At last, like one who for delay Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me! That I the Judge's bride might be! "He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine. "My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat. "I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day. "And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door." The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still. A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. "And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair. "Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay; "No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, "But low of cattle and song of birds, And health and quiet and loving words." But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And Maud was left in the field alone. But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love-tune; And the young girl mused beside the well Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power. Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, He watched a picture come and go; And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes Looked out in their innocent surprise. Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, He longed for the wayside well instead; And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again! "Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And many children played round her door. But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, Left their traces on heart and brain. And oft, when the summer sun shone hot On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall, In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein. And, gazing down with timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face. Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls; The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, The tallow candle an astral burned, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law. Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, "It might have been." Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, For rich repiner and household drudge! God pity them both! and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!" Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes; And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away! 1854. MARY GARVIN. FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never fails, Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's intervales; There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters foam and flow, As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred years ago. But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, dams, and mills, How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom of the hills, Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately Champernoon Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trumpet of the loon! With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of fire and steam, Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him like a dream. Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward far and fast The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the past. But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin; And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung, Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always young. O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks today! O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's restless play! Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand beguile, And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear or smile! . . . . . . . . . . . . . The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort Mary's walls; Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and plunged the Saco's' falls. And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and gusty grew, Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of Spurwink blew. On the hearth of Farmer Garvin, blazed the crackling walnut log; Right and left sat dame and goodman, and between them lay the dog, Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside him on her mat, Sitting drowsy in the firelight, winked and purred the mottled cat. "Twenty years!" said Goodman Garvin, speaking sadly, under breath, And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who speaks of death. The goodwife dropped her needles: "It is twenty years to-day, Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our child away." Then they sank into the silence, for each knew the other's thought, Of a great and common sorrow, and words were, needed not. "Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The door was open thrown; On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and furred, the fire-light shone. One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin from his head; "Lives here Elkanah Garvin?" "I am he," the goodman said. "Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night is chill with rain." And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the fire amain. The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the firelight glistened fair In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of dark brown hair. Dame Garvin looked upon her: "It is Mary's self I see!" "Dear heart!" she cried, "now tell me, has my child come back to me?" "My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger sobbing wild; "Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child!" "She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying day She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far away. "And when the priest besought her to do me no such wrong, She said, 'May God forgive me! I have closed my heart too long.' "'When I hid me from my father, and shut out my mother's call, I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father of us all. "'Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie of kin apart; Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart. "'Tell me not the Church must censure: she who wept the Cross beside Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied; "'And if she who wronged her parents, with her child atones to them, Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least wilt not condemn!' "So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother spake; As we come to do her bidding, So receive us for her sake." "God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh, and He gives; He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our daughter lives!" "Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a tear away, And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence, "Let us pray." All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew pararphrase, Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer of love and praise. But he started at beholding, as he rose from off his knee, The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of Papistrie. "What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. "Is an English Christian's home A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome?" Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his trembling hand, and cried: Oh, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my mother died! "On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and sunshine fall, As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard; and the dear God watches all!" The old man stroked the fair head that rested on his knee; "Your words, dear child," he answered, "are God's rebuke to me. "Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith and hope be one. Let me be your father's father, let him be to me a son." When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the still and frosty air, From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to sermon and to prayer, To the goodly house of worship, where, in order due and fit, As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the people sit; Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown, "From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the gray frock, shading down;" From the pulpit read the preacher, "Goodman Garvin and his wife Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has followed them through life, "For the great and crowning mercy, that their daughter, from the wild, Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has sent to them her child; "And the prayers of all God's people they ask, that they may prove Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such special proof of love." As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple stood, And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maiden- hood. Thought the elders, grave and doubting, "She is Papist born and bred;" Thought the young men, "'T is an angel in Mary Garvin's stead!" THE RANGER. Originally published as Martha Mason; a Song of the Old French War. ROBERT RAWLIN!--Frosts were falling When the ranger's horn was calling Through the woods to Canada. Gone the winter's sleet and snowing, Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing, Gone the summer's harvest mowing, And again the fields are gray. Yet away, he's away! Faint and fainter hope is growing In the hearts that mourn his stay. Where the lion, crouching high on Abraham's rock with teeth of iron, Glares o'er wood and wave away, Faintly thence, as pines far sighing, Or as thunder spent and dying, Come the challenge and replying, Come the sounds of flight and fray. Well-a-day! Hope and pray! Some are living, some are lying In their red graves far away. Straggling rangers, worn with dangers, Homeward faring, weary strangers Pass the farm-gate on their way; Tidings of the dead and living, Forest march and ambush, giving, Till the maidens leave their weaving, And the lads forget their play. "Still away, still away!" Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving, "Why does Robert still delay!" Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer, Does the golden-locked fruit bearer Through his painted woodlands stray, Than where hillside oaks and beeches Overlook the long, blue reaches, Silver coves and pebbled beaches, And green isles of Casco Bay; Nowhere day, for delay, With a tenderer look beseeches, "Let me with my charmed earth stay." On the grain-lands of the mainlands Stands the serried corn like train-bands, Plume and pennon rustling gay; Out at sea, the islands wooded, Silver birches, golden-hooded, Set with maples, crimson-blooded, White sea-foam and sand-hills gray, Stretch away, far away. Dim and dreamy, over-brooded By the hazy autumn day. Gayly chattering to the clattering Of the brown nuts downward pattering, Leap the squirrels, red and gray. On the grass-land, on the fallow, Drop the apples, red and yellow; Drop the russet pears and mellow, Drop the red leaves all the day. And away, swift away, Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow Chasing, weave their web of play. "Martha Mason, Martha Mason, Prithee tell us of the reason Why you mope at home to-day Surely smiling is not sinning; Leave, your quilling, leave your spinning; What is all your store of linen, If your heart is never gay? Come away, come away! Never yet did sad beginning Make the task of life a play." Overbending, till she's blending With the flaxen skein she's tending Pale brown tresses smoothed away From her face of patient sorrow, Sits she, seeking but to borrow, From the trembling hope of morrow, Solace for the weary day. "Go your way, laugh and play; Unto Him who heeds the sparrow And the lily, let me pray." "With our rally, rings the valley,-- Join us!" cried the blue-eyed Nelly; "Join us!" cried the laughing May, "To the beach we all are going, And, to save the task of rowing, West by north the wind is blowing, Blowing briskly down the bay Come away, come away! Time and tide are swiftly flowing, Let us take them while we may! "Never tell us that you'll fail us, Where the purple beach-plum mellows On the bluffs so wild and gray. Hasten, for the oars are falling; Hark, our merry mates are calling; Time it is that we were all in, Singing tideward down the bay!" "Nay, nay, let me stay; Sore and sad for Robert Rawlin Is my heart," she said, "to-day." "Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin Some red squaw his moose-meat's broiling, Or some French lass, singing gay; Just forget as he's forgetting; What avails a life of fretting? If some stars must needs be setting, Others rise as good as they." "Cease, I pray; go your way!" Martha cries, her eyelids wetting; "Foul and false the words you say!" "Martha Mason, hear to reason!-- Prithee, put a kinder face on!" "Cease to vex me," did she say; "Better at his side be lying, With the mournful pine-trees sighing, And the wild birds o'er us crying, Than to doubt like mine a prey; While away, far away, Turns my heart, forever trying Some new hope for each new day. "When the shadows veil the meadows, And the sunset's golden ladders Sink from twilight's walls of gray,-- From the window of my dreaming, I can see his sickle gleaming, Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming Down the locust-shaded way; But away, swift away, Fades the fond, delusive seeming, And I kneel again to pray. "When the growing dawn is showing, And the barn-yard cock is crowing, And the horned moon pales away From a dream of him awaking, Every sound my heart is making Seems a footstep of his taking; Then I hush the thought, and say, 'Nay, nay, he's away!' Ah! my heart, my heart is breaking For the dear one far away." Look up, Martha! worn and swarthy, Glows a face of manhood worthy "Robert!" "Martha!" all they say. O'er went wheel and reel together, Little cared the owner whither; Heart of lead is heart of feather, Noon of night is noon of day! Come away, come away! When such lovers meet each other, Why should prying idlers stay? Quench the timber's fallen embers, Quench the recd leaves in December's Hoary rime and chilly spray. But the hearth shall kindle clearer, Household welcomes sound sincerer, Heart to loving heart draw nearer, When the bridal bells shall say: "Hope and pray, trust alway; Life is sweeter, love is dearer, For the trial and delay!" 1856. THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN. FROM the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann. Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide glimmering down, And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient fishing town. Long has passed the summer morning, and its memory waxes old, When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant friend I strolled. Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean wind blows cool, And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy grave, Rantoul! With the memory of that morning by the summer sea I blend A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather penned, In that quaint Magnalia Christi, with all strange and marvellous things, Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos Ovid sings. Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual life of old, Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward, mean and coarse and cold; Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay, Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hodden gray. The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in; And the lore of homeland fireside, and the legendary rhyme, Make the task of duty lighter which the true man owes his time. So, with something of the feeling which the Covenanter knew, When with pious chisel wandering Scotland's moorland graveyards through, From the graves of old traditions I part the black- berry-vines, Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouch the faded lines. Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse with rolling pebbles, ran, The garrison-house stood watching on the gray rocks of Cape Ann; On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade, And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moonlight overlaid. On his slow round walked the sentry, south and eastward looking forth O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with breakers stretching north,-- Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged capes, with bush and tree, Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and gusty sea. Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by dying brands, Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets in their hands; On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch was shared, And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from beard to beard. Long they sat and talked together,--talked of wizards Satan-sold; Of all ghostly sights and noises,--signs and wonders manifold; Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead men in her shrouds, Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morning clouds; Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths of Gloucester woods, Full of plants that love the summer,--blooms of warmer latitudes; Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's flowery vines, And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilight of the pines! But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky tones of fear, As they spake of present tokens of the powers of evil near; Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim of gun; Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of mortals run. Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, from the midnight wood they came,-- Thrice around the block-house marching, met, unharmed, its volleyed flame; Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in earth or lost in air, All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit sands lay bare. Midnight came; from out the forest moved a dusky mass that soon Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly marching in the moon. "Ghosts or witches," said the captain, "thus I foil the Evil One!" And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, down his gun. Once again the spectral horror moved the guarded wall about; Once again the levelled muskets through the palisades flashed out, With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top might not shun, Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant wing to the sun. Like the idle rain of summer sped the harmless shower of lead. With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the phantoms fled; Once again, without a shadow on the sands the moonlight lay, And the white smoke curling through it drifted slowly down the bay! "God preserve us!" said the captain; "never mortal foes were there; They have vanished with their leader, Prince and Power of the air! Lay aside your useless weapons; skill and prowess naught avail; They who do the Devil's service wear their master's coat of mail!" So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again a warning call Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round the dusky hall And they looked to flint and priming, and they longed for break of day; But the captain closed his Bible: "Let us cease from man, and pray!" To the men who went before us, all the unseen powers seemed near, And their steadfast strength of courage struck its roots in holy fear. Every hand forsook the musket, every head was bowed and bare, Every stout knee pressed the flag-stones, as the captain led in prayer. Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres round the wall, But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears and hearts of all,-- Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish! Never after mortal man Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the block-house of Cape Ann. So to us who walk in summer through the cool and sea-blown town, From the childhood of its people comes the solemn legend down. Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose moral lives the youth And the fitness and the freshness of an undecaying truth. Soon or late to all our dwellings come the spectres of the mind, Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the darkness undefined; Round us throng the grim projections of the heart and of the brain, And our pride of strength is weakness, and the cunning hand is vain. In the dark we cry like children; and no answer from on high Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and no white wings downward fly; But the heavenly help we pray for comes to faith, and not to sight, And our prayers themselves drive backward all the spirits of the night! 1857. THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS. TRITEMIUS of Herbipolis, one day, While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray, Alone with God, as was his pious choice, Heard from without a miserable voice, A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell, As of a lost soul crying out of hell. Thereat the Abbot paused; the chain whereby His thoughts went upward broken by that cry; And, looking from the casement, saw below A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow, And withered hands held up to him, who cried For alms as one who might not be denied. She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave His life for ours, my child from bondage save,-- My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves Lap the white walls of Tunis!"--"What I can I give," Tritemius said, "my prayers."--"O man Of God!" she cried, for grief had made her bold, "Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold. Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice; Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies." "Woman!" Tritemius answered, "from our door None go unfed, hence are we always poor; A single soldo is our only store. Thou hast our prayers;--what can we give thee more?" "Give me," she said, "the silver candlesticks On either side of the great crucifix. God well may spare them on His errands sped, Or He can give you golden ones instead." Then spake Tritemius, "Even as thy word, Woman, so be it! Our most gracious Lord, Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, Pardon me if a human soul I prize Above the gifts upon his altar piled! Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child." But his hand trembled as the holy alms He placed within the beggar's eager palms; And as she vanished down the linden shade, He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed. So the day passed, and when the twilight came He woke to find the chapel all aflame, And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold Upon the altar candlesticks of gold! 1857. SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. In the valuable and carefully prepared History of Marblehead, published in 1879 by Samuel Roads, Jr., it is stated that the crew of Captain Ireson, rather than himself, were responsible for the abandonment of the disabled vessel. To screen themselves they charged their captain with the crime. In view of this the writer of the ballad addressed the following letter to the historian:-- OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, 5 mo. 18, 1880. MY DEAR FRIEND: I heartily thank thee for a copy of thy History of Marblehead. I have read it with great interest and think good use has been made of the abundant material. No town in Essex County has a record more honorable than Marblehead; no one has done more to develop the industrial interests of our New England seaboard, and certainly none have given such evidence of self-sacrificing patriotism. I am glad the story of it has been at last told, and told so well. I have now no doubt that thy version of Skipper Ireson's ride is the correct one. My verse was founded solely on a fragment of rhyme which I heard from one of my early schoolmates, a native of Marblehead. I supposed the story to which it referred dated back at least a century. I knew nothing of the participators, and the narrative of the ballad was pure fancy. I am glad for the sake of truth and justice that the real facts are given in thy book. I certainly would not knowingly do injustice to any one, dead or living. I am very truly thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER. OF all the rides since, the birth of time, Told in story or sung in rhyme,-- On Apuleius's Golden Ass, Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass; Witch astride of a human back, Islam's prophet on Al-Borak,-- The strangest ride that ever was sped Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Body of turkey, head of owl, Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, Feathered and ruffled in every part, Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. Scores of women, old and young, Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, Shouting and singing the shrill refrain "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead!" Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Manads sang "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an dorr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead!" Small pity for him!--He sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,-- Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck! "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. Back he answered, "Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!" And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur That wreck shall lie forevermore. Mother and sister, wife and maid, Looked from the rocks of Marblehead Over the moaning and rainy sea,-- Looked for the coming that might not be! What did the winds and the sea-birds say Of the cruel captain who sailed away?-- Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Through the street, on either side, Up flew windows, doors swung wide; Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, Hulks of old sailors run aground, Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane, And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o''Morble'ead!" Sweetly along the Salem road Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. Little the wicked skipper knew Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. Riding there in his sorry trim, Like to Indian idol glum and grim, Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear Of voices shouting, far and near "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead!" "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,-- "What to me is this noisy ride? What is the shame that clothes the skin To the nameless horror that lives within? Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, And hear a cry from a reeling deck! Hate me and curse me,--I only dread The hand of God and the face of the dead!" Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea Said, "God has touched him! why should we?" Said an old wife mourning her only son, "Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!" So with soft relentings and rude excuse, Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, And gave him a cloak to hide him in, And left him alone with his shame and sin. Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! 1857. THE SYCAMORES. Hugh Tallant was the first Irish resident of Haverhill, Mass. He planted the button-wood trees on the bank of the river below the village in the early part of the seventeenth century. Unfortunately this noble avenue is now nearly destroyed. IN the outskirts of the village, On the river's winding shores, Stand the Occidental plane-trees, Stand the ancient sycamores. One long century hath been numbered, And another half-way told, Since the rustic Irish gleeman Broke for them the virgin mould. Deftly set to Celtic music, At his violin's sound they grew, Through the moonlit eves of summer, Making Amphion's fable true. Rise again, then poor Hugh Tallant Pass in jerkin green along, With thy eyes brimful of laughter, And thy mouth as full of song. Pioneer of Erin's outcasts, With his fiddle and his pack; Little dreamed the village Saxons Of the myriads at his back. How he wrought with spade and fiddle, Delved by day and sang by night, With a hand that never wearied, And a heart forever light,-- Still the gay tradition mingles With a record grave and drear, Like the rollic air of Cluny, With the solemn march of Mear. When the box-tree, white with blossoms, Made the sweet May woodlands glad, And the Aronia by the river Lighted up the swarming shad, And the bulging nets swept shoreward, With their silver-sided haul, Midst the shouts of dripping fishers, He was merriest of them all. When, among the jovial huskers, Love stole in at Labor's side, With the lusty airs of England, Soft his Celtic measures vied. Songs of love and wailing lyke--wake, And the merry fair's carouse; Of the wild Red Fox of Erin And the Woman of Three Cows, By the blazing hearths of winter, Pleasant seemed his simple tales, Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends And the mountain myths of Wales. How the souls in Purgatory Scrambled up from fate forlorn, On St. Eleven's sackcloth ladder, Slyly hitched to Satan's horn. Of the fiddler who at Tara Played all night to ghosts of kings; Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies Dancing in their moorland rings. Jolliest of our birds of singing, Best he loved the Bob-o-link. "Hush!" he 'd say, "the tipsy fairies Hear the little folks in drink!" Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle, Singing through the ancient town, Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant, Hath Tradition handed down. Not a stone his grave discloses; But if yet his spirit walks, 'T is beneath the trees he planted, And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks; Green memorials of the gleeman I Linking still the river-shores, With their shadows cast by sunset, Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores! When the Father of his Country Through the north-land riding came, And the roofs were starred with banners, And the steeples rang acclaim,-- When each war-scarred Continental, Leaving smithy, mill, and farm, Waved his rusted sword in welcome, And shot off his old king's arm,-- Slowly passed that August Presence Down the thronged and shouting street; Village girls as white as angels, Scattering flowers around his feet. Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow Deepest fell, his rein he drew On his stately head, uncovered, Cool and soft the west-wind blew. And he stood up in his stirrups, Looking up and looking down On the hills of Gold and Silver Rimming round the little town,-- On the river, full of sunshine, To the lap of greenest vales Winding down from wooded headlands, Willow-skirted, white with sails. And he said, the landscape sweeping Slowly with his ungloved hand, "I have seen no prospect fairer In this goodly Eastern land." Then the bugles of his escort Stirred to life the cavalcade And that head, so bare and stately, Vanished down the depths of shade. Ever since, in town and farm-house, Life has had its ebb and flow; Thrice hath passed the human harvest To its garner green and low. But the trees the gleeman planted, Through the changes, changeless stand; As the marble calm of Tadmor Mocks the desert's shifting sand. Still the level moon at rising Silvers o'er each stately shaft; Still beneath them, half in shadow, Singing, glides the pleasure craft; Still beneath them, arm-enfolded, Love and Youth together stray; While, as heart to heart beats faster, More and more their feet delay. Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, On the open hillside wrought, Singing, as he drew his stitches, Songs his German masters taught, Singing, with his gray hair floating Round his rosy ample face,-- Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen Stitch and hammer in his place. All the pastoral lanes so grassy Now are Traffic's dusty streets; From the village, grown a city, Fast the rural grace retreats. But, still green, and tall, and stately, On the river's winding shores, Stand the Occidental plane-trees, Stand, Hugh Taliant's sycamores. 1857. THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW. An incident of the Sepoy mutiny. PIPES of the misty moorlands, Voice of the glens and hills; The droning of the torrents, The treble of the rills! Not the braes of broom and heather, Nor the mountains dark with rain, Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, Have heard your sweetest strain! Dear to the Lowland reaper, And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The Scottish pipes are dear;-- Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch O'er mountain, loch, and glade; But the sweetest of all music The pipes at Lucknow played. Day by day the Indian tiger Louder yelled, and nearer crept; Round and round the jungle-serpent Near and nearer circles swept. "Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,-- Pray to-day!" the soldier said; "To-morrow, death's between us And the wrong and shame we dread." Oh, they listened, looked, and waited, Till their hope became despair; And the sobs of low bewailing Filled the pauses of their prayer. Then up spake a Scottish maiden, With her ear unto the ground "Dinna ye hear it?--dinna ye hear it? The pipes o' Havelock sound!" Hushed the wounded man his groaning; Hushed the wife her little ones; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns. But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true;-- As her mother's cradle-crooning The mountain pipes she knew. Like the march of soundless music Through the vision of the seer, More of feeling than of hearing, Of the heart than of the ear, She knew the droning pibroch, She knew the Campbell's call "Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's, The grandest o' them all!" Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless, And they caught the sound at last; Faint and far beyond the Goomtee Rose and fell the piper's blast Then a burst of wild thanksgiving Mingled woman's voice and man's; "God be praised!--the march of Havelock! The piping of the clans!" Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance, Sharp and shrill as swords at strife, Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call, Stinging all the air to life. But when the far-off dust-cloud To plaided legions grew, Full tenderly and blithesomely The pipes of rescue blew! Round the silver domes of Lucknow, Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine, Breathed the air to Britons dearest, The air of Auld Lang Syne. O'er the cruel roll of war-drums Rose that sweet and homelike strain; And the tartan clove the turban, As the Goomtee cleaves the plain. Dear to the corn-land reaper And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The piper's song is dear. Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch O'er mountain, glen, and glade; But the sweetest of all music The Pipes at Lucknow played! 1858. TELLING THE BEES. A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home. HERE is the place; right over the hill Runs the path I took; You can see the gap in the old wall still, And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. There is the house, with the gate red-barred, And the poplars tall; And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, And the white horns tossing above the wall. There are the beehives ranged in the sun; And down by the brink Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, Heavy and slow; And the same rose blooms, and the same sun glows, And the same brook sings of a year ago. There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze; And the June sun warm Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. I mind me how with a lover's care From my Sunday coat I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat. Since we parted, a month had passed,-- To love, a year; Down through the beeches I looked at last On the little red gate and the well-sweep near. I can see it all now,--the slantwise rain Of light through the leaves, The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, The bloom of her roses under the eaves. Just the same as a month before,-- The house and the trees, The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,-- Nothing changed but the hives of bees. Before them, under the garden wall, Forward and back, Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, Draping each hive with a shred of black. Trembling, I listened: the summer sun Had the chill of snow; For I knew she was telling the bees of one Gone on the journey we all must go. Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps For the dead to-day; Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps The fret and the pain of his age away." But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill, With his cane to his chin, The old man sat; and the chore-girl still Sung to the bees stealing out and in. And the song she was singing ever since In my ear sounds on:-- "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence! Mistress Mary is dead and gone!" 1858. THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY. In Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay front 1623 to 1636 may be found Anthony Thacher's Narrative of his Shipwreck. Thacher was Avery's companion and survived to tell the tale. Mather's Magnalia, III. 2, gives further Particulars of Parson Avery's End, and suggests the title of the poem. WHEN the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late, Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight, Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop "Watch and Wait." Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer- morn, With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first-born, And the home-roofs like brown islands amid a sea of corn. Broad meadows reached out 'seaward the tided creeks between, And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and walnuts green;-- A fairer home, a--goodlier land, his eyes had never seen. Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led, And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the living bread To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead. All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land- breeze died, The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights denied, And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied. Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock, and wood, and sand; Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder in his hand, And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land. And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore, "Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on before; To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more." All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside, To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide; And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide. There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair, A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare, And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery's prayer. From his struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast, On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed, Alone, of all his household, the man of God was cast. There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause of wave and wind "All my own have gone before me, and I linger just behind; Not for life I ask, but only for the rest Thy ransomed find! "In this night of death I challenge the promise of Thy word!-- Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard!-- Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord! "In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin, And let me follow up to Thee my household and my kin! Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let me enter in!" When the Christian sings his death-song, all the listening heavens draw near, And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, hear How the notes so faint and broken swell to music in God's ear. The ear of God was open to His servant's last request; As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet hymn upward pressed, And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its rest. There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocks of Marblehead; In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of prayer were read; And long, by board and hearthstone, the living mourned the dead. And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from the squall, With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall, When they see the white waves breaking on the Rock of Avery's Fall! 1808. THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY. "Concerning ye Amphisbaena, as soon as I received your commands, I made diligent inquiry: . . . he assures me yt it had really two heads, one at each end; two mouths, two stings or tongues."--REV. CHRISTOPHER TOPPAN to COTTON MATHER. FAR away in the twilight time Of every people, in every clime, Dragons and griffins and monsters dire, Born of water, and air, and fire, Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud And ooze of the old Deucalion flood, Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage, Through dusk tradition and ballad age. So from the childhood of Newbury town And its time of fable the tale comes down Of a terror which haunted bush and brake, The Amphisbaena, the Double Snake! Thou who makest the tale thy mirth, Consider that strip of Christian earth On the desolate shore of a sailless sea, Full of terror and mystery, Half redeemed from the evil hold Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and old, Which drank with its lips of leaves the dew When Time was young, and the world was new, And wove its shadows with sun and moon, Ere the stones of Cheops were squared and hewn. Think of the sea's dread monotone, Of the mournful wail from the pine-wood blown, Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the North, Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth, And the dismal tales the Indian told, Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew cold, And he shrank from the tawny wizard boasts, And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts, And above, below, and on every side, The fear of his creed seemed verified;-- And think, if his lot were now thine own, To grope with terrors nor named nor known, How laxer muscle and weaker nerve And a feebler faith thy need might serve; And own to thyself the wonder more That the snake had two heads, and not a score! Whether he lurked in the Oldtown fen Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den, Or swam in the wooded Artichoke, Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock, Nothing on record is left to show; Only the fact that he lived, we know, And left the cast of a double head In the scaly mask which he yearly shed. For he carried a head where his tail should be, And the two, of course, could never agree, But wriggled about with main and might, Now to the left and now to the right; Pulling and twisting this way and that, Neither knew what the other was at. A snake with two beads, lurking so near! Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear! Think what ancient gossips might say, Shaking their heads in their dreary way, Between the meetings on Sabbath-day! How urchins, searching at day's decline The Common Pasture for sheep or kine, The terrible double-ganger heard In leafy rustle or whir of bird! Think what a zest it gave to the sport, In berry-time, of the younger sort, As over pastures blackberry-twined, Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind, And closer and closer, for fear of harm, The maiden clung to her lover's arm; And how the spark, who was forced to stay, By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day, Thanked the snake for the fond delay. Far and wide the tale was told, Like a snowball growing while it rolled. The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry; And it served, in the worthy minister's eye, To paint the primitive serpent by. Cotton Mather came galloping down All the way to Newbury town, With his eyes agog and his ears set wide, And his marvellous inkhorn at his side; Stirring the while in the shallow pool Of his brains for the lore he learned at school, To garnish the story, with here a streak Of Latin, and there another of Greek And the tales he heard and the notes he took, Behold! are they not in his Wonder-Book? Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill. If the snake does not, the tale runs still In Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill. And still, whenever husband and wife Publish the shame of their daily strife, And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and strain At either end of the marriage-chain, The gossips say, with a knowing shake Of their gray heads, "Look at the Double Snake One in body and two in will, The Amphisbaena is living still!" 1859. MABEL MARTIN. A HARVEST IDYL. Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Amesbury, Mass., was tried and executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was in what is now known as Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a little above the old Ferry way, where, tradition says, an attempt was made to assassinate Sir Edmund Andros on his way to Falmouth (afterward Portland) and Pemaquid, which was frustrated by a warning timely given. Goody Martin was the only woman hanged on the north side of the Merrimac during the dreadful delusion. The aged wife of Judge Bradbury who lived on the other side of the Powow River was imprisoned and would have been put to death but for the collapse of the hideous persecution. The substance of the poem which follows was published under the name of The Witch's Daughter, in The National Era in 1857. In 1875 my publishers desired to issue it with illustrations, and I then enlarged it and otherwise altered it to its present form. The principal addition was in the verses which constitute Part I. PROEM. I CALL the old time back: I bring my lay in tender memory of the summer day When, where our native river lapsed away, We dreamed it over, while the thrushes made Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid On warm noonlights the masses of their shade. And she was with us, living o'er again Her life in ours, despite of years and pain,-- The Autumn's brightness after latter rain. Beautiful in her holy peace as one Who stands, at evening, when the work is done, Glorified in the setting of the sun! Her memory makes our common landscape seem Fairer than any of which painters dream; Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream; For she whose speech was always truth's pure gold Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told, And loved with us the beautiful and old. I. THE RIVER VALLEY. Across the level tableland, A grassy, rarely trodden way, With thinnest skirt of birchen spray And stunted growth of cedar, leads To where you see the dull plain fall Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all The seasons' rainfalls. On its brink The over-leaning harebells swing, With roots half bare the pine-trees cling; And, through the shadow looking west, You see the wavering river flow Along a vale, that far below Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills And glimmering water-line between, Broad fields of corn and meadows green, And fruit-bent orchards grouped around The low brown roofs and painted eaves, And chimney-tops half hid in leaves. No warmer valley hides behind Yon wind-scourged sand-dunes, cold and bleak; No fairer river comes to seek The wave-sung welcome of the sea, Or mark the northmost border line Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine. Here, ground-fast in their native fields, Untempted by the city's gain, The quiet farmer folk remain Who bear the pleasant name of Friends, And keep their fathers' gentle ways And simple speech of Bible days; In whose neat homesteads woman holds With modest ease her equal place, And wears upon her tranquil face The look of one who, merging not Her self-hood in another's will, Is love's and duty's handmaid still. Pass with me down the path that winds Through birches to the open land, Where, close upon the river strand You mark a cellar, vine o'errun, Above whose wall of loosened stones The sumach lifts its reddening cones, And the black nightshade's berries shine, And broad, unsightly burdocks fold The household ruin, century-old. Here, in the dim colonial time Of sterner lives and gloomier faith, A woman lived, tradition saith, Who wrought her neighbors foul annoy, And witched and plagued the country-side, Till at the hangman's hand she died. Sit with me while the westering day Falls slantwise down the quiet vale, And, haply ere yon loitering sail, That rounds the upper headland, falls Below Deer Island's pines, or sees Behind it Hawkswood's belt of trees Rise black against the sinking sun, My idyl of its days of old, The valley's legend, shall be told. II. THE HUSKING. It was the pleasant harvest-time, When cellar-bins are closely stowed, And garrets bend beneath their load, And the old swallow-haunted barns,-- Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams Through which the rooted sunlight streams, And winds blow freshly in, to shake The red plumes of the roosted cocks, And the loose hay-mow's scented locks, Are filled with summer's ripened stores, Its odorous grass and barley sheaves, From their low scaffolds to their eaves. On Esek Harden's oaken floor, With many an autumn threshing worn, Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn. And thither came young men and maids, Beneath a moon that, large and low, Lit that sweet eve of long ago. They took their places; some by chance, And others by a merry voice Or sweet smile guided to their choice. How pleasantly the rising moon, Between the shadow of the mows, Looked on them through the great elm-boughs! On sturdy boyhood, sun-embrowned, On girlhood with its solid curves Of healthful strength and painless nerves! And jests went round, and laughs that made The house-dog answer with his howl, And kept astir the barn-yard fowl; And quaint old songs their fathers sung In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, Ere Norman William trod their shores; And tales, whose merry license shook The fat sides of the Saxon thane, Forgetful of the hovering Dane,-- Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known, The charms and riddles that beguiled On Oxus' banks the young world's child,-- That primal picture-speech wherein Have youth and maid the story told, So new in each, so dateless old, Recalling pastoral Ruth in her Who waited, blushing and demure, The red-ear's kiss of forfeiture. But still the sweetest voice was mute That river-valley ever heard From lips of maid or throat of bird; For Mabel Martin sat apart, And let the hay-mow's shadow fall Upon the loveliest face of all. She sat apart, as one forbid, Who knew that none would condescend To own the Witch-wife's child a friend. The seasons scarce had gone their round, Since curious thousands thronged to see Her mother at the gallows-tree; And mocked the prison-palsied limbs That faltered on the fatal stairs, And wan lip trembling with its prayers! Few questioned of the sorrowing child, Or, when they saw the mother die; Dreamed of the daughter's agony. They went up to their homes that day, As men and Christians justified God willed it, and the wretch had died! Dear God and Father of us all, Forgive our faith in cruel lies,-- Forgive the blindness that denies! Forgive thy creature when he takes, For the all-perfect love Thou art, Some grim creation of his heart. Cast down our idols, overturn Our bloody altars; let us see Thyself in Thy humanity! Young Mabel from her mother's grave Crept to her desolate hearth-stone, And wrestled with her fate alone; With love, and anger, and despair, The phantoms of disordered sense, The awful doubts of Providence! Oh, dreary broke the winter days, And dreary fell the winter nights When, one by one, the neighboring lights Went out, and human sounds grew still, And all the phantom-peopled dark Closed round her hearth-fire's dying spark. And summer days were sad and long, And sad the uncompanioned eyes, And sadder sunset-tinted leaves, And Indian Summer's airs of balm; She scarcely felt the soft caress, The beauty died of loneliness! The school-boys jeered her as they passed, And, when she sought the house of prayer, Her mother's curse pursued her there. And still o'er many a neighboring door She saw the horseshoe's curved charm, To guard against her mother's harm! That mother, poor and sick and lame, Who daily, by the old arm-chair, Folded her withered hands in prayer;-- Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail, Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er, When her dim eyes could read no more! Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept Her faith, and trusted that her way, So dark, would somewhere meet the day. And still her weary wheel went round Day after day, with no relief Small leisure have the poor for grief. III. THE CHAMPION. So in the shadow Mabel sits; Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, Her smile is sadder than her tears. But cruel eyes have found her out, And cruel lips repeat her name, And taunt her with her mother's shame. She answered not with railing words, But drew her apron o'er her face, And, sobbing, glided from the place. And only pausing at the door, Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze Of one who, in her better days, Had been her warm and steady friend, Ere yet her mother's doom had made Even Esek Harden half afraid. He felt that mute appeal of tears, And, starting, with an angry frown, Hushed all the wicked murmurs down. "Good neighbors mine," he sternly said, "This passes harmless mirth or jest; I brook no insult to my guest. "She is indeed her mother's child; But God's sweet pity ministers Unto no whiter soul than hers. "Let Goody Martin rest in peace; I never knew her harm a fly, And witch or not, God knows--not I. "I know who swore her life away; And as God lives, I'd not condemn An Indian dog on word of them." The broadest lands in all the town, The skill to guide, the power to awe, Were Harden's; and his word was law. None dared withstand him to his face, But one sly maiden spake aside "The little witch is evil-eyed! "Her mother only killed a cow, Or witched a churn or dairy-pan; But she, forsooth, must charm a man!" IV. IN THE SHADOW. Poor Mabel, homeward turning, passed The nameless terrors of the wood, And saw, as if a ghost pursued, Her shadow gliding in the moon; The soft breath of the west-wind gave A chill as from her mother's grave. How dreary seemed the silent house! Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare Its windows had a dead man's stare! And, like a gaunt and spectral hand, The tremulous shadow of a birch Reached out and touched the door's low porch, As if to lift its latch; hard by, A sudden warning call she beard, The night-cry of a boding bird. She leaned against the door; her face, So fair, so young, so full of pain, White in the moonlight's silver rain. The river, on its pebbled rim, Made music such as childhood knew; The door-yard tree was whispered through By voices such as childhood's ear Had heard in moonlights long ago; And through the willow-boughs below. She saw the rippled waters shine; Beyond, in waves of shade and light, The hills rolled off into the night. She saw and heard, but over all A sense of some transforming spell, The shadow of her sick heart fell. And still across the wooded space The harvest lights of Harden shone, And song and jest and laugh went on. And he, so gentle, true, and strong, Of men the bravest and the best, Had he, too, scorned her with the rest? She strove to drown her sense of wrong, And, in her old and simple way, To teach her bitter heart to pray. Poor child! the prayer, begun in faith, Grew to a low, despairing cry Of utter misery: "Let me die! "Oh! take me from the scornful eyes, And hide me where the cruel speech And mocking finger may not reach! "I dare not breathe my mother's name A daughter's right I dare not crave To weep above her unblest grave! "Let me not live until my heart, With few to pity, and with none To love me, hardens into stone. "O God! have mercy on Thy child, Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small, And take me ere I lose it all!" A shadow on the moonlight fell, And murmuring wind and wave became A voice whose burden was her name. V. THE BETROTHAL. Had then God heard her? Had He sent His angel down? In flesh and blood, Before her Esek Harden stood! He laid his hand upon her arm "Dear Mabel, this no more shall be; Who scoffs at you must scoff at me. "You know rough Esek Harden well; And if he seems no suitor gay, And if his hair is touched with gray, "The maiden grown shall never find His heart less warm than when she smiled, Upon his knees, a little child!" Her tears of grief were tears of joy, As, folded in his strong embrace, She looked in Esek Harden's face. "O truest friend of all'" she said, "God bless you for your kindly thought, And make me worthy of my lot!" He led her forth, and, blent in one, Beside their happy pathway ran The shadows of the maid and man. He led her through his dewy fields, To where the swinging lanterns glowed, And through the doors the huskers showed. "Good friends and neighbors!" Esek said, "I'm weary of this lonely life; In Mabel see my chosen wife! "She greets you kindly, one and all; The past is past, and all offence Falls harmless from her innocence. "Henceforth she stands no more alone; You know what Esek Harden is;-- He brooks no wrong to him or his. "Now let the merriest tales be told, And let the sweetest songs be sung That ever made the old heart young! "For now the lost has found a home; And a lone hearth shall brighter burn, As all the household joys return!" Oh, pleasantly the harvest-moon, Between the shadow of the mows, Looked on them through the great elm--boughs! On Mabel's curls of golden hair, On Esek's shaggy strength it fell; And the wind whispered, "It is well!" THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL. The prose version of this prophecy is to be found in Sewall's The New Heaven upon the New Earth, 1697, quoted in Joshua Coffin's History of Newbury. Judge Sewall's father, Henry Sewall, was one of the pioneers of Newbury. UP and down the village streets Strange are the forms my fancy meets, For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid, And through the veil of a closed lid The ancient worthies I see again I hear the tap of the elder's cane, And his awful periwig I see, And the silver buckles of shoe and knee. Stately and slow, with thoughtful air, His black cap hiding his whitened hair, Walks the Judge of the great Assize, Samuel Sewall the good and wise. His face with lines of firmness wrought, He wears the look of a man unbought, Who swears to his hurt and changes not; Yet, touched and softened nevertheless With the grace of Christian gentleness, The face that a child would climb to kiss! True and tender and brave and just, That man might honor and woman trust. Touching and sad, a tale is told, Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old, Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept to With a haunting sorrow that never slept, As the circling year brought round the time Of an error that left the sting of crime, When he sat on the bench of the witchcraft courts, With the laws of Moses and Hale's Reports, And spake, in the name of both, the word That gave the witch's neck to the cord, And piled the oaken planks that pressed The feeble life from the warlock's breast! All the day long, from dawn to dawn, His door was bolted, his curtain drawn; No foot on his silent threshold trod, No eye looked on him save that of God, As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, And, with precious proofs from the sacred word Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, His faith confirmed and his trust renewed That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, Might be washed away in the mingled flood Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood! Green forever the memory be Of the Judge of the old Theocracy, Whom even his errors glorified, Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide I Honor and praise to the Puritan Who the halting step of his age outran, And, seeing the infinite worth of man In the priceless gift the Father gave, In the infinite love that stooped to save, Dared not brand his brother a slave "Who doth such wrong," he was wont to say, In his own quaint, picture-loving way, "Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade Which God shall cast down upon his head!" Widely as heaven and hell, contrast That brave old jurist of the past And the cunning trickster and knave of courts Who the holy features of Truth distorts, Ruling as right the will of the strong, Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong; Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek; Scoffing aside at party's nod Order of nature and law of God; For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste, Reverence folly, and awe misplaced; Justice of whom 't were vain to seek As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik! Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins; Let him rot in the web of lies he spins! To the saintly soul of the early day, To the Christian judge, let us turn and say "Praise and thanks for an honest man!-- Glory to God for the Puritan!" I see, far southward, this quiet day, The hills of Newbury rolling away, With the many tints of the season gay, Dreamily blending in autumn mist Crimson, and gold, and amethyst. Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, A stone's toss over the narrow sound. Inland, as far as the eye can go, The hills curve round like a bended bow; A silver arrow from out them sprung, I see the shine of the Quasycung; And, round and round, over valley and hill, Old roads winding, as old roads will, Here to a ferry, and there to a mill; And glimpses of chimneys and gabled eaves, Through green elm arches and maple leaves,-- Old homesteads sacred to all that can Gladden or sadden the heart of man, Over whose thresholds of oak and stone Life and Death have come and gone There pictured tiles in the fireplace show, Great beams sag from the ceiling low, The dresser glitters with polished wares, The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs, And the low, broad chimney shows the crack By the earthquake made a century back. Up from their midst springs the village spire With the crest of its cock in the sun afire; Beyond are orchards and planting lands, And great salt marshes and glimmering sands, And, where north and south the coast-lines run, The blink of the sea in breeze and sun! I see it all like a chart unrolled, But my thoughts are full of the past and old, I hear the tales of my boyhood told; And the shadows and shapes of early days Flit dimly by in the veiling haze, With measured movement and rhythmic chime Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyme. I think of the old man wise and good Who once on yon misty hillsides stood, (A poet who never measured rhyme, A seer unknown to his dull-eared time,) And, propped on his staff of age, looked down, With his boyhood's love, on his native town, Where, written, as if on its hills and plains, His burden of prophecy yet remains, For the voices of wood, and wave, and wind To read in the ear of the musing mind:-- "As long as Plum Island, to guard the coast As God appointed, shall keep its post; As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep Of Merrimac River, or sturgeon leap; As long as pickerel swift and slim, Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond swim; As long as the annual sea-fowl know Their time to come and their time to go; As long as cattle shall roam at will The green, grass meadows by Turkey Hill; As long as sheep shall look from the side Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide, And Parker River, and salt-sea tide; As long as a wandering pigeon shall search The fields below from his white-oak perch, When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn, And the dry husks fall from the standing corn; As long as Nature shall not grow old, Nor drop her work from her doting hold, And her care for the Indian corn forget, And the yellow rows in pairs to set;-- So long shall Christians here be born, Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn!-- By the beak of bird, by the breath of frost, Shall never a holy ear be lost, But, husked by Death in the Planter's sight, Be sown again in the fields of light!" The Island still is purple with plums, Up the river the salmon comes, The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feeds On hillside berries and marish seeds,-- All the beautiful signs remain, From spring-time sowing to autumn rain The good man's vision returns again! And let us hope, as well we can, That the Silent Angel who garners man May find some grain as of old lie found In the human cornfield ripe and sound, And the Lord of the Harvest deign to own The precious seed by the fathers sown! 1859. THE RED RIPER VOYAGEUR. OUT and in the river is winding The links of its long, red chain, Through belts of dusky pine-land And gusty leagues of plain. Only, at times, a smoke-wreath With the drifting cloud-rack joins,-- The smoke of the hunting-lodges Of the wild Assiniboins. Drearily blows the north-wind From the land of ice and snow; The eyes that look are weary, And heavy the hands that row. And with one foot on the water, And one upon the shore, The Angel of Shadow gives warning That day shall be no more. Is it the clang of wild-geese? Is it the Indian's yell, That lends to the voice of the north-wind The tones of a far-off bell? The voyageur smiles as he listens To the sound that grows apace; Well he knows the vesper ringing Of the bells of St. Boniface. The bells of the Roman Mission, That call from their turrets twain, To the boatman on the river, To the hunter on the plain! Even so in our mortal journey The bitter north-winds blow, And thus upon life's Red River Our hearts, as oarsmen, row. And when the Angel of Shadow Rests his feet on wave and shore, And our eyes grow dim with watching And our hearts faint at the oar, Happy is he who heareth The signal of his release In the bells of the Holy City, The chimes of eternal peace! 1859 THE PREACHER. George Whitefield, the celebrated preacher, died at Newburyport in 1770, and was buried under the church which has since borne his name. ITS windows flashing to the sky, Beneath a thousand roofs of brown, Far down the vale, my friend and I Beheld the old and quiet town; The ghostly sails that out at sea Flapped their white wings of mystery; The beaches glimmering in the sun, And the low wooded capes that run Into the sea-mist north and south; The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth; The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, The foam-line of the harbor-bar. Over the woods and meadow-lands A crimson-tinted shadow lay, Of clouds through which the setting day Flung a slant glory far away. It glittered on the wet sea-sands, It flamed upon the city's panes, Smote the white sails of ships that wore Outward or in, and glided o'er The steeples with their veering vanes! Awhile my friend with rapid search O'erran the landscape. "Yonder spire Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire; What is it, pray?"--"The Whitefield Church! Walled about by its basement stones, There rest the marvellous prophet's bones." Then as our homeward way we walked, Of the great preacher's life we talked; And through the mystery of our theme The outward glory seemed to stream, And Nature's self interpreted The doubtful record of the dead; And every level beam that smote The sails upon the dark afloat A symbol of the light became, Which touched the shadows of our blame, With tongues of Pentecostal flame. Over the roofs of the pioneers Gathers the moss of a hundred years; On man and his works has passed the change Which needs must be in a century's range. The land lies open and warm in the sun, Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run,-- Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the plain, The wilderness gladdened with fruit and grain! But the living faith of the settlers old A dead profession their children hold; To the lust of office and greed of trade A stepping-stone is the altar made. The church, to place and power the door, Rebukes the sin of the world no more, Nor sees its Lord in the homeless poor. Everywhere is the grasping hand, And eager adding of land to land; And earth, which seemed to the fathers meant But as a pilgrim's wayside tent,-- A nightly shelter to fold away When the Lord should call at the break of day,-- Solid and steadfast seems to be, And Time has forgotten Eternity! But fresh and green from the rotting roots Of primal forests the young growth shoots; From the death of the old the new proceeds, And the life of truth from the rot of creeds On the ladder of God, which upward leads, The steps of progress are human needs. For His judgments still are a mighty deep, And the eyes of His providence never sleep When the night is darkest He gives the morn; When the famine is sorest, the wine and corn! In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought, Shaping his creed at the forge of thought; And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent The iron links of his argument, Which strove to grasp in its mighty span The purpose of God and the fate of man Yet faithful still, in his daily round To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found, The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art Drew warmth and life from his fervent heart. Had he not seen in the solitudes Of his deep and dark Northampton woods A vision of love about him fall? Not the blinding splendor which fell on Saul, But the tenderer glory that rests on them Who walk in the New Jerusalem, Where never the sun nor moon are known, But the Lord and His love are the light alone And watching the sweet, still countenance Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance, Had he not treasured each broken word Of the mystical wonder seen and heard; And loved the beautiful dreamer more That thus to the desert of earth she bore Clusters of Eshcol from Canaan's shore? As the barley-winnower, holding with pain Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain, Joyfully welcomes the far-off breeze Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys, So he who had waited long to hear The sound of the Spirit drawing near, Like that which the son of Iddo heard When the feet of angels the myrtles stirred, Felt the answer of prayer, at last, As over his church the afflatus passed, Breaking its sleep as breezes break To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake. At first a tremor of silent fear, The creep of the flesh at danger near, A vague foreboding and discontent, Over the hearts of the people went. All nature warned in sounds and signs The wind in the tops of the forest pines In the name of the Highest called to prayer, As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair. Through ceiled chambers of secret sin Sudden and strong the light shone in; A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs Startled the man of title-deeds; The trembling hand of the worldling shook The dust of years from the Holy Book; And the psalms of David, forgotten long, Took the place of the scoffer's song. The impulse spread like the outward course Of waters moved by a central force; The tide of spiritual life rolled down From inland mountains to seaboard town. Prepared and ready the altar stands Waiting the prophet's outstretched hands And prayer availing, to downward call The fiery answer in view of all. Hearts are like wax in the furnace; who Shall mould, and shape, and cast them anew? Lo! by the Merrimac Whitefield stands In the temple that never was made by hands,-- Curtains of azure, and crystal wall, And dome of the sunshine over all-- A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name Blown about on the winds of fame; Now as an angel of blessing classed, And now as a mad enthusiast. Called in his youth to sound and gauge The moral lapse of his race and age, And, sharp as truth, the contrast draw Of human frailty and perfect law; Possessed by the one dread thought that lent Its goad to his fiery temperament, Up and down the world he went, A John the Baptist crying, Repent! No perfect whole can our nature make; Here or there the circle will break; The orb of life as it takes the light On one side leaves the other in night. Never was saint so good and great As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate For the plea of the Devil's advocate. So, incomplete by his being's law, The marvellous preacher had his flaw; With step unequal, and lame with faults, His shade on the path of History halts. Wisely and well said the Eastern bard Fear is easy, but love is hard,-- Easy to glow with the Santon's rage, And walk on the Meccan pilgrimage; But he is greatest and best who can Worship Allah by loving man. Thus he,--to whom, in the painful stress Of zeal on fire from its own excess, Heaven seemed so vast and earth so small That man was nothing, since God was all,-- Forgot, as the best at times have done, That the love of the Lord and of man are one. Little to him whose feet unshod The thorny path of the desert trod, Careless of pain, so it led to God, Seemed the hunger-pang and the poor man's wrong, The weak ones trodden beneath the strong. Should the worm be chooser?--the clay withstand The shaping will of the potter's hand? In the Indian fable Arjoon hears The scorn of a god rebuke his fears "Spare thy pity!" Krishna saith; "Not in thy sword is the power of death! All is illusion,--loss but seems; Pleasure and pain are only dreams; Who deems he slayeth doth not kill; Who counts as slain is living still. Strike, nor fear thy blow is crime; Nothing dies but the cheats of time; Slain or slayer, small the odds To each, immortal as Indra's gods!" So by Savannah's banks of shade, The stones of his mission the preacher laid On the heart of the negro crushed and rent, And made of his blood the wall's cement; Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast, Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost; And begged, for the love of Christ, the gold Coined from the hearts in its groaning hold. What could it matter, more or less Of stripes, and hunger, and weariness? Living or dying, bond or free, What was time to eternity? Alas for the preacher's cherished schemes! Mission and church are now but dreams; Nor prayer nor fasting availed the plan To honor God through the wrong of man. Of all his labors no trace remains Save the bondman lifting his hands in chains. The woof he wove in the righteous warp Of freedom-loving Oglethorpe, Clothes with curses the goodly land, Changes its greenness and bloom to sand; And a century's lapse reveals once more The slave-ship stealing to Georgia's shore. Father of Light! how blind is he Who sprinkles the altar he rears to Thee With the blood and tears of humanity! He erred: shall we count His gifts as naught? Was the work of God in him unwrought? The servant may through his deafness err, And blind may be God's messenger; But the Errand is sure they go upon,-- The word is spoken, the deed is done. Was the Hebrew temple less fair and good That Solomon bowed to gods of wood? For his tempted heart and wandering feet, Were the songs of David less pure and sweet? So in light and shadow the preacher went, God's erring and human instrument; And the hearts of the people where he passed Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast, Under the spell of a voice which took In its compass the flow of Siloa's brook, And the mystical chime of the bells of gold On the ephod's hem of the priest of old,-- Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe Of the trumpet heard in the Mount of Law. A solemn fear on the listening crowd Fell like the shadow of a cloud. The sailor reeling from out the ships Whose masts stood thick in the river-slips Felt the jest and the curse die on his lips. Listened the fisherman rude and hard, The calker rough from the builder's yard; The man of the market left his load, The teamster leaned on his bending goad, The maiden, and youth beside her, felt Their hearts in a closer union melt, And saw the flowers of their love in bloom Down the endless vistas of life to come. Old age sat feebly brushing away From his ears the scanty locks of gray; And careless boyhood, living the free Unconscious life of bird and tree, Suddenly wakened to a sense Of sin and its guilty consequence. It was as if an angel's voice Called the listeners up for their final choice; As if a strong hand rent apart The veils of sense from soul and heart, Showing in light ineffable The joys of heaven and woes of hell All about in the misty air The hills seemed kneeling in silent prayer; The rustle of leaves, the moaning sedge, The water's lap on its gravelled edge, The wailing pines, and, far and faint, The wood-dove's note of sad complaint,-- To the solemn voice of the preacher lent An undertone as of low lament; And the note of the sea from its sand coast, On the easterly wind, now heard, now lost, Seemed the murmurous sound of the judgment host. Yet wise men doubted, and good men wept, As that storm of passion above them swept, And, comet-like, adding flame to flame, The priests of the new Evangel came,-- Davenport, flashing upon the crowd, Charged like summer's electric cloud, Now holding the listener still as death With terrible warnings under breath, Now shouting for joy, as if he viewed The vision of Heaven's beatitude! And Celtic Tennant, his long coat bound Like a monk's with leathern girdle round, Wild with the toss of unshorn hair, And wringing of hands, and, eyes aglare, Groaning under the world's despair! Grave pastors, grieving their flocks to lose, Prophesied to the empty pews That gourds would wither, and mushrooms die, And noisiest fountains run soonest dry, Like the spring that gushed in Newbury Street, Under the tramp of the earthquake's feet, A silver shaft in the air and light, For a single day, then lost in night, Leaving only, its place to tell, Sandy fissure and sulphurous smell. With zeal wing-clipped and white-heat cool, Moved by the spirit in grooves of rule, No longer harried, and cropped, and fleeced, Flogged by sheriff and cursed by priest, But by wiser counsels left at ease To settle quietly on his lees, And, self-concentred, to count as done The work which his fathers well begun, In silent protest of letting alone, The Quaker kept the way of his own,-- A non-conductor among the wires, With coat of asbestos proof to fires. And quite unable to mend his pace To catch the falling manna of grace, He hugged the closer his little store Of faith, and silently prayed for more. And vague of creed and barren of rite, But holding, as in his Master's sight, Act and thought to the inner light, The round of his simple duties walked, And strove to live what the others talked. And who shall marvel if evil went Step by step with the good intent, And with love and meekness, side by side, Lust of the flesh and spiritual pride?-- That passionate longings and fancies vain Set the heart on fire and crazed the brain? That over the holy oracles Folly sported with cap and bells? That goodly women and learned men Marvelling told with tongue and pen How unweaned children chirped like birds Texts of Scripture and solemn words, Like the infant seers of the rocky glens In the Puy de Dome of wild Cevennes Or baby Lamas who pray and preach From Tartir cradles in Buddha's speech? In the war which Truth or Freedom wages With impious fraud and the wrong of ages, Hate and malice and self-love mar The notes of triumph with painful jar, And the helping angels turn aside Their sorrowing faces the shame to bide. Never on custom's oiled grooves The world to a higher level moves, But grates and grinds with friction hard On granite boulder and flinty shard. The heart must bleed before it feels, The pool be troubled before it heals; Ever by losses the right must gain, Every good have its birth of pain; The active Virtues blush to find The Vices wearing their badge behind, And Graces and Charities feel the fire Wherein the sins of the age expire; The fiend still rends as of old he rent The tortured body from which he went. But Time tests all. In the over-drift And flow of the Nile, with its annual gift, Who cares for the Hadji's relics sunk? Who thinks of the drowned-out Coptic monk? The tide that loosens the temple's stones, And scatters the sacred ibis-bones, Drives away from the valley-land That Arab robber, the wandering sand, Moistens the fields that know no rain, Fringes the desert with belts of grain, And bread to the sower brings again. So the flood of emotion deep and strong Troubled the land as it swept along, But left a result of holier lives, Tenderer-mothers and worthier wives. The husband and father whose children fled And sad wife wept when his drunken tread Frightened peace from his roof-tree's shade, And a rock of offence his hearthstone made, In a strength that was not his own began To rise from the brute's to the plane of man. Old friends embraced, long held apart By evil counsel and pride of heart; And penitence saw through misty tears, In the bow of hope on its cloud of fears, The promise of Heaven's eternal years,-- The peace of God for the world's annoy,-- Beauty for ashes, and oil of joy Under the church of Federal Street, Under the tread of its Sabbath feet, Walled about by its basement stones, Lie the marvellous preacher's bones. No saintly honors to them are shown, No sign nor miracle have they known; But he who passes the ancient church Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch, And ponders the wonderful life of him Who lies at rest in that charnel dim. Long shall the traveller strain his eye From the railroad car, as it plunges by, And the vanishing town behind him search For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church; And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade, And fashion, and folly, and pleasure laid, By the thought of that life of pure intent, That voice of warning yet eloquent, Of one on the errands of angels sent. And if where he labored the flood of sin Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets in, And over a life of tune and sense The church-spires lift their vain defence, As if to scatter the bolts of God With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod,-- Still, as the gem of its civic crown, Precious beyond the world's renown, His memory hallows the ancient town! 1859. THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA. In the winter of 1675-76, the Eastern Indians, who had been making war upon the New Hampshire settlements, were so reduced in numbers by fighting and famine that they agreed to a peace with Major Waldron at Dover, but the peace was broken in the fall of 1676. The famous chief, Squando, was the principal negotiator on the part of the savages. He had taken up the hatchet to revenge the brutal treatment of his child by drunken white sailors, which caused its death. It not unfrequently happened during the Border wars that young white children were adopted by their Indian captors, and so kindly treated that they were unwilling to leave the free, wild life of the woods; and in some instances they utterly refused to go back with their parents to their old homes and civilization. RAZE these long blocks of brick and stone, These huge mill-monsters overgrown; Blot out the humbler piles as well, Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell The weaving genii of the bell; Tear from the wild Cocheco's track The dams that hold its torrents back; And let the loud-rejoicing fall Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall; And let the Indian's paddle play On the unbridged Piscataqua! Wide over hill and valley spread Once more the forest, dusk and dread, With here and there a clearing cut From the walled shadows round it shut; Each with its farm-house builded rude, By English yeoman squared and hewed, And the grim, flankered block-house bound With bristling palisades around. So, haply shall before thine eyes The dusty veil of centuries rise, The old, strange scenery overlay The tamer pictures of to-day, While, like the actors in a play, Pass in their ancient guise along The figures of my border song What time beside Cocheco's flood The white man and the red man stood, With words of peace and brotherhood; When passed the sacred calumet From lip to lip with fire-draught wet, And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke Through the gray beard of Waldron broke, And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea For mercy, struck the haughty key Of one who held, in any fate, His native pride inviolate! "Let your ears be opened wide! He who speaks has never lied. Waldron of Piscataqua, Hear what Squando has to say! "Squando shuts his eyes and sees, Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees. In his wigwam, still as stone, Sits a woman all alone, "Wampum beads and birchen strands Dropping from her careless hands, Listening ever for the fleet Patter of a dead child's feet! "When the moon a year ago Told the flowers the time to blow, In that lonely wigwam smiled Menewee, our little child. "Ere that moon grew thin and old, He was lying still and cold; Sent before us, weak and small, When the Master did not call! "On his little grave I lay; Three times went and came the day, Thrice above me blazed the noon, Thrice upon me wept the moon. "In the third night-watch I heard, Far and low, a spirit-bird; Very mournful, very wild, Sang the totem of my child. "'Menewee, poor Menewee, Walks a path he cannot see Let the white man's wigwam light With its blaze his steps aright. "'All-uncalled, he dares not show Empty hands to Manito Better gifts he cannot bear Than the scalps his slayers wear.' "All the while the totem sang, Lightning blazed and thunder rang; And a black cloud, reaching high, Pulled the white moon from the sky. "I, the medicine-man, whose ear All that spirits bear can hear,-- I, whose eyes are wide to see All the things that are to be,-- "Well I knew the dreadful signs In the whispers of the pines, In the river roaring loud, In the mutter of the cloud. "At the breaking of the day, From the grave I passed away; Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad, But my heart was hot and mad. "There is rust on Squando's knife, From the warm, red springs of life; On the funeral hemlock-trees Many a scalp the totem sees. "Blood for blood! But evermore Squando's heart is sad and sore; And his poor squaw waits at home For the feet that never come! "Waldron of Cocheco, hear! Squando speaks, who laughs at fear; Take the captives he has ta'en; Let the land have peace again!" As the words died on his tongue, Wide apart his warriors swung; Parted, at the sign he gave, Right and left, like Egypt's wave. And, like Israel passing free Through the prophet-charmed sea, Captive mother, wife, and child Through the dusky terror filed. One alone, a little maid, Middleway her steps delayed, Glancing, with quick, troubled sight, Round about from red to white. Then his hand the Indian laid On the little maiden's head, Lightly from her forehead fair Smoothing back her yellow hair. "Gift or favor ask I none; What I have is all my own Never yet the birds have sung, Squando hath a beggar's tongue.' "Yet for her who waits at home, For the dead who cannot come, Let the little Gold-hair be In the place of Menewee! "Mishanock, my little star! Come to Saco's pines afar; Where the sad one waits at home, Wequashim, my moonlight, come!" "What!" quoth Waldron, "leave a child Christian-born to heathens wild? As God lives, from Satan's hand I will pluck her as a brand!" "Hear me, white man!" Squando cried; "Let the little one decide. Wequashim, my moonlight, say, Wilt thou go with me, or stay?" Slowly, sadly, half afraid, Half regretfully, the maid Owned the ties of blood and race,-- Turned from Squando's pleading face. Not a word the Indian spoke, But his wampum chain he broke, And the beaded wonder hung On that neck so fair and young. Silence-shod, as phantoms seem In the marches of a dream, Single-filed, the grim array Through the pine-trees wound away. Doubting, trembling, sore amazed, Through her tears the young child gazed. "God preserve her!" Waldron said; "Satan hath bewitched the maid!" Years went and came. At close of day Singing came a child from play, Tossing from her loose-locked head Gold in sunshine, brown in shade. Pride was in the mother's look, But her head she gravely shook, And with lips that fondly smiled Feigned to chide her truant child. Unabashed, the maid began "Up and down the brook I ran, Where, beneath the bank so steep, Lie the spotted trout asleep. "'Chip!' went squirrel on the wall, After me I heard him call, And the cat-bird on the tree Tried his best to mimic me. "Where the hemlocks grew so dark That I stopped to look and hark, On a log, with feather-hat, By the path, an Indian sat. "Then I cried, and ran away; But he called, and bade me stay; And his voice was good and mild As my mother's to her child. "And he took my wampum chain, Looked and looked it o'er again; Gave me berries, and, beside, On my neck a plaything tied." Straight the mother stooped to see What the Indian's gift might be. On the braid of wampum hung, Lo! a cross of silver swung. Well she knew its graven sign, Squando's bird and totem pine; And, a mirage of the brain, Flowed her childhood back again. Flashed the roof the sunshine through, Into space the walls outgrew; On the Indian's wigwam-mat, Blossom-crowned, again she sat. Cool she felt the west-wind blow, In her ear the pines sang low, And, like links from out a chain, Dropped the years of care and pain. From the outward toil and din, From the griefs that gnaw within, To the freedom of the woods Called the birds, and winds, and floods. Well, O painful minister! Watch thy flock, but blame not her, If her ear grew sharp to hear All their voices whispering near. Blame her not, as to her soul All the desert's glamour stole, That a tear for childhood's loss Dropped upon the Indian's cross. When, that night, the Book was read, And she bowed her widowed head, And a prayer for each loved name Rose like incense from a flame, With a hope the creeds forbid In her pitying bosom hid, To the listening ear of Heaven Lo! the Indian's name was given. 1860. MY PLAYMATE. THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill, Their song was soft and low; The blossoms in the sweet May wind Were falling like the snow. The blossoms drifted at our feet, The orchard birds sang clear; The sweetest and the saddest day It seemed of all the year. For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home, And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom. She kissed the lips of kith and kin, She laid her hand in mine What more could ask the bashful boy Who fed her father's kine? She left us in the bloom of May The constant years told o'er Their seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more. I walk, with noiseless feet, the round Of uneventful years; Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring And reap the autumn ears. She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go. There haply with her jewelled hands She smooths her silken gown,-- No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down. The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymill. The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea. I wonder if she thinks of them, And how the old time seems,-- If ever the pines of Ramoth wood Are sounding in her dreams. I see her face, I hear her voice; Does she remember mine? And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father's kine? What cares she that the orioles build For other eyes than ours,-- That other hands with nuts are filled, And other laps with flowers? O playmate in the golden time! Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o'er it lean. The winds so sweet with birch and fern A sweeter memory blow; And there in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago. And still the pines of Ramoth wood Are moaning like the sea,-- The moaning of the sea of change Between myself and thee! 1860. COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION. This ballad was written on the occasion of a Horticultural Festival. Cobbler Keezar was a noted character among the first settlers in the valley of the Merrimac. THE beaver cut his timber With patient teeth that day, The minks were fish-wards, and the crows Surveyors of highway,-- When Keezar sat on the hillside Upon his cobbler's form, With a pan of coals on either hand To keep his waxed-ends warm. And there, in the golden weather, He stitched and hammered and sung; In the brook he moistened his leather, In the pewter mug his tongue. Well knew the tough old Teuton Who brewed the stoutest ale, And he paid the goodwife's reckoning In the coin of song and tale. The songs they still are singing Who dress the hills of vine, The tales that haunt the Brocken And whisper down the Rhine. Woodsy and wild and lonesome, The swift stream wound away, Through birches and scarlet maples Flashing in foam and spray,-- Down on the sharp-horned ledges Plunging in steep cascade, Tossing its white-maned waters Against the hemlock's shade. Woodsy and wild and lonesome, East and west and north and south; Only the village of fishers Down at the river's mouth; Only here and there a clearing, With its farm-house rude and new, And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, Where the scanty harvest grew. No shout of home-bound reapers, No vintage-song he heard, And on the green no dancing feet The merry violin stirred. "Why should folk be glum," said Keezar, "When Nature herself is glad, And the painted woods are laughing At the faces so sour and sad?" Small heed had the careless cobbler What sorrow of heart was theirs Who travailed in pain with the births of God, And planted a state with prayers,-- Hunting of witches and warlocks, Smiting the heathen horde,-- One hand on the mason's trowel, And one on the soldier's sword. But give him his ale and cider, Give him his pipe and song, Little he cared for Church or State, Or the balance of right and wrong. "T is work, work, work," he muttered,-- "And for rest a snuffle of psalms!" He smote on his leathern apron With his brown and waxen palms. "Oh for the purple harvests Of the days when I was young For the merry grape-stained maidens, And the pleasant songs they sung! "Oh for the breath of vineyards, Of apples and nuts and wine For an oar to row and a breeze to blow Down the grand old river Rhine!" A tear in his blue eye glistened, And dropped on his beard so gray. "Old, old am I," said Keezar, "And the Rhine flows far away!" But a cunning man was the cobbler; He could call the birds from the trees, Charm the black snake out of the ledges, And bring back the swarming bees. All the virtues of herbs and metals, All the lore of the woods, he knew, And the arts of the Old World mingle With the marvels of the New. Well he knew the tricks of magic, And the lapstone on his knee Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles Or the stone of Doctor Dee.(11) For the mighty master Agrippa Wrought it with spell and rhyme From a fragment of mystic moonstone In the tower of Nettesheim. To a cobbler Minnesinger The marvellous stone gave he,-- And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, Who brought it over the sea. He held up that mystic lapstone, He held it up like a lens, And he counted the long years coming Ey twenties and by tens. "One hundred years," quoth Keezar, "And fifty have I told Now open the new before me, And shut me out the old!" Like a cloud of mist, the blackness Rolled from the magic stone, And a marvellous picture mingled The unknown and the known. Still ran the stream to the river, And river and ocean joined; And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line, And cold north hills behind. But--the mighty forest was broken By many a steepled town, By many a white-walled farm-house, And many a garner brown. Turning a score of mill-wheels, The stream no more ran free; White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea. Below in the noisy village The flags were floating gay, And shone on a thousand faces The light of a holiday. Swiftly the rival ploughmen Turned the brown earth from their shares; Here were the farmer's treasures, There were the craftsman's wares. Golden the goodwife's butter, Ruby her currant-wine; Grand were the strutting turkeys, Fat were the beeves and swine. Yellow and red were the apples, And the ripe pears russet-brown, And the peaches had stolen blushes From the girls who shook them down. And with blooms of hill and wildwood, That shame the toil of art, Mingled the gorgeous blossoms Of the garden's tropic heart. "What is it I see?" said Keezar "Am I here, or ant I there? Is it a fete at Bingen? Do I look on Frankfort fair? "But where are the clowns and puppets, And imps with horns and tail? And where are the Rhenish flagons? And where is the foaming ale? "Strange things, I know, will happen,-- Strange things the Lord permits; But that droughty folk should be jolly Puzzles my poor old wits. "Here are smiling manly faces, And the maiden's step is gay; Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking, Nor mopes, nor fools, are they. "Here's pleasure without regretting, And good without abuse, The holiday and the bridal Of beauty and of use. "Here's a priest and there is a Quaker, Do the cat and dog agree? Have they burned the stocks for ovenwood? Have they cut down the gallows-tree? "Would the old folk know their children? Would they own the graceless town, With never a ranter to worry And never a witch to drown?" Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, Laughed like a school-boy gay; Tossing his arms above him, The lapstone rolled away. It rolled down the rugged hillside, It spun like a wheel bewitched, It plunged through the leaning willows, And into the river pitched. There, in the deep, dark water, The magic stone lies still, Under the leaning willows In the shadow of the hill. But oft the idle fisher Sits on the shadowy bank, And his dreams make marvellous pictures Where the wizard's lapstone sank. And still, in the summer twilights, When the river seems to run Out from the inner glory, Warm with the melted sun, The weary mill-girl lingers Beside the charmed stream, And the sky and the golden water Shape and color her dream. Air wave the sunset gardens, The rosy signals fly; Her homestead beckons from the cloud, And love goes sailing by. 1861. AMY WENTWORTH TO WILLIAM BRADFORD. As they who watch by sick-beds find relief Unwittingly from the great stress of grief And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet, Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why They scarcely know or ask,--so, thou and I, Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong In the endurance which outwearies Wrong, With meek persistence baffling brutal force, And trusting God against the universe,-- We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share With other weapons than the patriot's prayer, Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes, The awful beauty of self-sacrifice, And wrung by keenest sympathy for all Who give their loved ones for the living wall 'Twixt law and treason,--in this evil day May haply find, through automatic play Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain, And hearten others with the strength we gain. I know it has been said our times require No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre, No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm, But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets The battle's teeth of serried bayonets, And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys Relieve the storm-stunned ear. Let us keep sweet, If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat The bitter harvest of our own device And half a century's moral cowardice. As Nurnberg sang while Wittenberg defied, And Kranach painted by his Luther's side, And through the war-march of the Puritan The silver stream of Marvell's music ran, So let the household melodies be sung, The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung-- So let us hold against the hosts of night And slavery all our vantage-ground of light. Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake, Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan, And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man, And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,-- But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease, (God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of peace No foes are conquered who the victors teach Their vandal manners and barbaric speech. And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bear Of the great common burden our full share, Let none upbraid us that the waves entice Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device, Rhythmic, and sweet, beguiles my pen away From the sharp strifes and sorrows of to-day. Thus, while the east-wind keen from Labrador Sings it the leafless elms, and from the shore Of the great sea comes the monotonous roar Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try To time a simple legend to the sounds Of winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled bounds,-- A song for oars to chime with, such as might Be sung by tired sea-painters, who at night Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet cove Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love. (So hast thou looked, when level sunset lay On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay, And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.) Something it has--a flavor of the sea, And the sea's freedom--which reminds of thee. Its faded picture, dimly smiling down From the blurred fresco of the ancient town, I have not touched with warmer tints in vain, If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought from pain. . . . . . . . . . . . . Her fingers shame the ivory keys They dance so light along; The bloom upon her parted lips Is sweeter than the song. O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles! Her thoughts are not of thee; She better loves the salted wind, The voices of the sea. Her heart is like an outbound ship That at its anchor swings; The murmur of the stranded shell Is in the song she sings. She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise, But dreams the while of one Who watches from his sea-blown deck The icebergs in the sun. She questions all the winds that blow, And every fog-wreath dim, And bids the sea-birds flying north Bear messages to him. She speeds them with the thanks of men He perilled life to save, And grateful prayers like holy oil To smooth for him the wave. Brown Viking of the fishing-smack! Fair toast of all the town!-- The skipper's jerkin ill beseems The lady's silken gown! But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear For him the blush of shame Who dares to set his manly gifts Against her ancient name. The stream is brightest at its spring, And blood is not like wine; Nor honored less than he who heirs Is he who founds a line. Full lightly shall the prize be won, If love be Fortune's spur; And never maiden stoops to him Who lifts himself to her. Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street, With stately stairways worn By feet of old Colonial knights And ladies gentle-born. Still green about its ample porch The English ivy twines, Trained back to show in English oak The herald's carven signs. And on her, from the wainscot old, Ancestral faces frown,-- And this has worn the soldier's sword, And that the judge's gown. But, strong of will and proud as they, She walks the gallery floor As if she trod her sailor's deck By stormy Labrador. The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery-side, And green are Elliot's bowers; Her garden is the pebbled beach, The mosses are her flowers. She looks across the harbor-bar To see the white gulls fly; His greeting from the Northern sea Is in their clanging cry. She hums a song, and dreams that he, As in its romance old, Shall homeward ride with silken sails And masts of beaten gold! Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair, And high and low mate ill; But love has never known a law Beyond its own sweet will! 1862. THE COUNTESS. TO E. W. I inscribed this poem to Dr. Elias Weld of Haverhill, Massachusetts, to whose kindness I was much indebted in my boyhood. He was the one cultivated man in the neighborhood. His small but well-chosen library was placed at my disposal. He is the "wise old doctor" of Snow-Bound. Count Francois de Vipart with his cousin Joseph Rochemont de Poyen came to the United States in the early part of the present century. They took up their residence at Rocks Village on the Merrimac, where they both married. The wife of Count Vipart was Mary Ingalls, who as my father remembered her was a very lovely young girl. Her wedding dress, as described by a lady still living, was "pink satin with an overdress of white lace, and white satin slippers." She died in less than a year after her marriage. Her husband returned to his native country. He lies buried in the family tomb of the Viparts at Bordeaux. I KNOW not, Time and Space so intervene, Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen; But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, Like an old friend, all day has been with me. The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet Keeps green the memory of his early debt. To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords, Listening with quickened heart and ear intent To each sharp clause of that stern argument, I still can hear at times a softer note Of the old pastoral music round me float, While through the hot gleam of our civil strife Looms the green mirage of a simpler life. As, at his alien post, the sentinel Drops the old bucket in the homestead well, And hears old voices in the winds that toss Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss, So, in our trial-time, and under skies Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise, I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day; And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams, The country doctor in the foreground seems, Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains. I could not paint the scenery of my song, Mindless of one who looked thereon so long; Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round, Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew the sound Of each small brook, and what the hillside trees Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys; Who saw so keenly and so well could paint The village-folk, with all their humors quaint, The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan. Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown; The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown; The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, And the loud straggler levying his blackmail,-- Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, All that lies buried under fifty years. To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay, And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay. . . . . . . . . . . Over the wooded northern ridge, Between its houses brown, To the dark tunnel of the bridge The street comes straggling down. You catch a glimpse, through birch and pine, Of gable, roof, and porch, The tavern with its swinging sign, The sharp horn of the church. The river's steel-blue crescent curves To meet, in ebb and flow, The single broken wharf that serves For sloop and gundelow. With salt sea-scents along its shores The heavy hay-boats crawl, The long antennae of their oars In lazy rise and fall. Along the gray abutment's wall The idle shad-net dries; The toll-man in his cobbler's stall Sits smoking with closed eyes. You hear the pier's low undertone Of waves that chafe and gnaw; You start,--a skipper's horn is blown To raise the creaking draw. At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds With slow and sluggard beat, Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds Fakes up the staring street. A place for idle eyes and ears, A cobwebbed nook of dreams; Left by the stream whose waves are years The stranded village seems. And there, like other moss and rust, The native dweller clings, And keeps, in uninquiring trust, The old, dull round of things. The fisher drops his patient lines, The farmer sows his grain, Content to hear the murmuring pines Instead of railroad-train. Go where, along the tangled steep That slopes against the west, The hamlet's buried idlers sleep In still profounder rest. Throw back the locust's flowery plume, The birch's pale-green scarf, And break the web of brier and bloom From name and epitaph. A simple muster-roll of death, Of pomp and romance shorn, The dry, old names that common breath Has cheapened and outworn. Yet pause by one low mound, and part The wild vines o'er it laced, And read the words by rustic art Upon its headstone traced. Haply yon white-haired villager Of fourscore years can say What means the noble name of her Who sleeps with common clay. An exile from the Gascon land Found refuge here and rest, And loved, of all the village band, Its fairest and its best. He knelt with her on Sabbath morns, He worshipped through her eyes, And on the pride that doubts and scorns Stole in her faith's surprise. Her simple daily life he saw By homeliest duties tried, In all things by an untaught law Of fitness justified. For her his rank aside he laid; He took the hue and tone Of lowly life and toil, and made Her simple ways his own. Yet still, in gay and careless ease, To harvest-field or dance He brought the gentle courtesies, The nameless grace of France. And she who taught him love not less From him she loved in turn Caught in her sweet unconsciousness What love is quick to learn. Each grew to each in pleased accord, Nor knew the gazing town If she looked upward to her lord Or he to her looked down. How sweet, when summer's day was o'er, His violin's mirth and wail, The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore, The river's moonlit sail! Ah! life is brief, though love be long; The altar and the bier, The burial hymn and bridal song, Were both in one short year! Her rest is quiet on the hill, Beneath the locust's bloom Far off her lover sleeps as still Within his scutcheoned tomb. The Gascon lord, the village maid, In death still clasp their hands; The love that levels rank and grade Unites their severed lands. What matter whose the hillside grave, Or whose the blazoned stone? Forever to her western wave Shall whisper blue Garonne! O Love!--so hallowing every soil That gives thy sweet flower room, Wherever, nursed by ease or toil, The human heart takes bloom!-- Plant of lost Eden, from the sod Of sinful earth unriven, White blossom of the trees of God Dropped down to us from heaven! This tangled waste of mound and stone Is holy for thy sale; A sweetness which is all thy own Breathes out from fern and brake. And while ancestral pride shall twine The Gascon's tomb with flowers, Fall sweetly here, O song of mine, With summer's bloom and showers! And let the lines that severed seem Unite again in thee, As western wave and Gallic stream Are mingled in one sea! 1863. AMONG THE HILLS This poem, when originally published, was dedicated to Annie Fields, wife of the distinguished publisher, James T. Fields, of Boston, in grateful acknowledgment of the strength and inspiration I have found in her friendship and sympathy. The poem in its first form was entitled The Wife: an Idyl of Bearcamp Water, and appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1868. When I published the volume Among the Hills, in December of the same year, I expanded the Prelude and filled out also the outlines of the story. PRELUDE. ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of gold That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod, And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers Hang motionless upon their upright staves. The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, Vying-weary with its long flight from the south, Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, Confesses it. The locust by the wall Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm. A single hay-cart down the dusty road Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill, Huddled along the stone wall's shady side, The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still Defied the dog-star. Through the open door A drowsy smell of flowers-gray heliotrope, And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette-- Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends To the pervading symphony of peace. No time is this for hands long over-worn To task their strength; and (unto Him be praise Who giveth quietness!) the stress and strain Of years that did the work of centuries Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters Make glad their nooning underneath the elms With tale and riddle and old snatch of song, I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, And human life, as quiet, at their feet. And yet not idly all. A farmer's son, Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling All their fine possibilities, how rich And restful even poverty and toil Become when beauty, harmony, and love Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock The symbol of a Christian chivalry Tender and just and generous to her Who clothes with grace all duty; still, I know Too well the picture has another side,-- How wearily the grind of toil goes on Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear And heart are starved amidst the plenitude Of nature, and how hard and colorless Is life without an atmosphere. I look Across the lapse of half a century, And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds, Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves Across the curtainless windows, from whose panes Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness. Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed (Broom-clean I think they called it); the best room Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless, Save the inevitable sampler hung Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece, A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath Impossible willows; the wide-throated hearth Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back; And, in sad keeping with all things about them, Shrill, querulous-women, sour and sullen men, Untidy, loveless, old before their time, With scarce a human interest save their own Monotonous round of small economies, Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood; Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed, Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet; For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves; For them in vain October's holocaust Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, The sacramental mystery of the woods. Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent, Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls And winter pork with the least possible outlay Of salt and sanctity; in daily life Showing as little actual comprehension Of Christian charity and love and duty, As if the Sermon on the Mount had been Outdated like a last year's almanac Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields, And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless, The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, The sun and air his sole inheritance, Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes, And hugged his rags in self-complacency! Not such should be the homesteads of a land Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make His hour of leisure richer than a life Of fourscore to the barons of old time, Our yeoman should be equal to his home Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, A man to match his mountains, not to creep Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain In this light way (of which I needs must own With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings, "Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!") Invite the eye to see and heart to feel The beauty and the joy within their reach,-- Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes Of nature free to all. Haply in years That wait to take the places of our own, Heard where some breezy balcony looks down On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine May seem the burden of a prophecy, Finding its late fulfilment in a change Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up Through broader culture, finer manners, love, And reverence, to the level of the hills. O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn, And not of sunset, forward, not behind, Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring All the old virtues, whatsoever things Are pure and honest and of good repute, But add thereto whatever bard has sung Or seer has told of when in trance and dream They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide Between the right and wrong; but give the heart The freedom of its fair inheritance; Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long, At Nature's table feast his ear and eye With joy and wonder; let all harmonies Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon The princely guest, whether in soft attire Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil, And, lending life to the dead form of faith, Give human nature reverence for the sake Of One who bore it, making it divine With the ineffable tenderness of God; Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, The heirship of an unknown destiny, The unsolved mystery round about us, make A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things Should minister, as outward types and signs Of the eternal beauty which fulfils The one great purpose of creation, Love, The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven! . . . . . . . . . . . For weeks the clouds had raked the hills And vexed the vales with raining, And all the woods were sad with mist, And all the brooks complaining. At last, a sudden night-storm tore The mountain veils asunder, And swept the valleys clean before The besom of the thunder. Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang Good morrow to the cotter; And once again Chocorua's horn Of shadow pierced the water. Above his broad lake Ossipee, Once more the sunshine wearing, Stooped, tracing on that silver shield His grim armorial bearing. Clear drawn against the hard blue sky, The peaks had winter's keenness; And, close on autumn's frost, the vales Had more than June's fresh greenness. Again the sodden forest floors With golden lights were checkered, Once more rejoicing leaves in wind And sunshine danced and flickered. It was as if the summer's late Atoning for it's sadness Had borrowed every season's charm To end its days in gladness. Rivers of gold-mist flowing down From far celestial fountains,-- The great sun flaming through the rifts Beyond the wall of mountains. We paused at last where home-bound cows Brought down the pasture's treasure, And in the barn the rhythmic flails Beat out a harvest measure. We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge, The crow his tree-mates calling The shadows lengthening down the slopes About our feet were falling. And through them smote the level sun In broken lines of splendor, Touched the gray rocks and made the green Of the shorn grass more tender. The maples bending o'er the gate, Their arch of leaves just tinted With yellow warmth, the golden glow Of coming autumn hinted. Keen white between the farm-house showed, And smiled on porch and trellis, The fair democracy of flowers That equals cot and palace. And weaving garlands for her dog, 'Twixt chidings and caresses, A human flower of childhood shook The sunshine from her tresses. Clear drawn against the hard blue sky, The peaks had winter's keenness; And, close on autumn's frost, the vales Had more than June's fresh greenness. Again the sodden forest floors With golden lights were checkered, Once more rejoicing leaves in wind And sunshine danced and flickered. It was as if the summer's late Atoning for it's sadness Had borrowed every season's charm To end its days in gladness. I call to mind those banded vales Of shadow and of shining, Through which, my hostess at my side, I drove in day's declining. We held our sideling way above The river's whitening shallows, By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns Swept through and through by swallows; By maple orchards, belts of pine And larches climbing darkly The mountain slopes, and, over all, The great peaks rising starkly. You should have seen that long hill-range With gaps of brightness riven,-- How through each pass and hollow streamed The purpling lights of heaven,-- On either hand we saw the signs Of fancy and of shrewdness, Where taste had wound its arms of vines Round thrift's uncomely rudeness. The sun-brown farmer in his frock Shook hands, and called to Mary Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came, White-aproned from her dairy. Her air, her smile, her motions, told Of womanly completeness; A music as of household songs Was in her voice of sweetness. Not fair alone in curve and line, But something more and better, The secret charm eluding art, Its spirit, not its letter;-- An inborn grace that nothing lacked Of culture or appliance, The warmth of genial courtesy, The calm of self-reliance. Before her queenly womanhood How dared our hostess utter The paltry errand of her need To buy her fresh-churned butter? She led the way with housewife pride, Her goodly store disclosing, Full tenderly the golden balls With practised hands disposing. Then, while along the western hills We watched the changeful glory Of sunset, on our homeward way, I heard her simple story. The early crickets sang; the stream Plashed through my friend's narration Her rustic patois of the hills Lost in my free-translation. "More wise," she said, "than those who swarm Our hills in middle summer, She came, when June's first roses blow, To greet the early comer. "From school and ball and rout she came, The city's fair, pale daughter, To drink the wine of mountain air Beside the Bearcamp Water. "Her step grew firmer on the hills That watch our homesteads over; On cheek and lip, from summer fields, She caught the bloom of clover. "For health comes sparkling in the streams From cool Chocorua stealing There's iron in our Northern winds; Our pines are trees of healing. "She sat beneath the broad-armed elms That skirt the mowing-meadow, And watched the gentle west-wind weave The grass with shine and shadow. "Beside her, from the summer heat To share her grateful screening, With forehead bared, the farmer stood, Upon his pitchfork leaning. "Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face Had nothing mean or common,-- Strong, manly, true, the tenderness And pride beloved of woman. "She looked up, glowing with the health The country air had brought her, And, laughing, said: 'You lack a wife, Your mother lacks a daughter. "'To mend your frock and bake your bread You do not need a lady Be sure among these brown old homes Is some one waiting ready,-- "'Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand And cheerful heart for treasure, Who never played with ivory keys, Or danced the polka's measure.' "He bent his black brows to a frown, He set his white teeth tightly. ''T is well,' he said, 'for one like you To choose for me so lightly. "You think, because my life is rude I take no note of sweetness I tell you love has naught to do With meetness or unmeetness. "'Itself its best excuse, it asks No leave of pride or fashion When silken zone or homespun frock It stirs with throbs of passion. "'You think me deaf and blind: you bring Your winning graces hither As free as if from cradle-time We two had played together. "'You tempt me with your laughing eyes, Your cheek of sundown's blushes, A motion as of waving grain, A music as of thrushes. "'The plaything of your summer sport, The spells you weave around me You cannot at your will undo, Nor leave me as you found me. "'You go as lightly as you came, Your life is well without me; What care you that these hills will close Like prison-walls about me? "'No mood is mine to seek a wife, Or daughter for my mother Who loves you loses in that love All power to love another! "'I dare your pity or your scorn, With pride your own exceeding; I fling my heart into your lap Without a word of pleading.' "She looked up in his face of pain So archly, yet so tender 'And if I lend you mine,' she said, 'Will you forgive the lender? "'Nor frock nor tan can hide the man; And see you not, my farmer, How weak and fond a woman waits Behind this silken armor? "'I love you: on that love alone, And not my worth, presuming, Will you not trust for summer fruit The tree in May-day blooming?' "Alone the hangbird overhead, His hair-swung cradle straining, Looked down to see love's miracle,-- The giving that is gaining. "And so the farmer found a wife, His mother found a daughter There looks no happier home than hers On pleasant Bearcamp Water. "Flowers spring to blossom where she walks The careful ways of duty; Our hard, stiff lines of life with her Are flowing curves of beauty. "Our homes are cheerier for her sake, Our door-yards brighter blooming, And all about the social air Is sweeter for her coming. "Unspoken homilies of peace Her daily life is preaching; The still refreshment of the dew Is her unconscious teaching. "And never tenderer hand than hers Unknits the brow of ailing; Her garments to the sick man's ear Have music in their trailing. "And when, in pleasant harvest moons, The youthful huskers gather, Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways Defy the winter weather,-- "In sugar-camps, when south and warm The winds of March are blowing, And sweetly from its thawing veins The maple's blood is flowing,-- "In summer, where some lilied pond Its virgin zone is baring, Or where the ruddy autumn fire Lights up the apple-paring,-- "The coarseness of a ruder time Her finer mirth displaces, A subtler sense of pleasure fills Each rustic sport she graces. "Her presence lends its warmth and health To all who come before it. If woman lost us Eden, such As she alone restore it. "For larger life and wiser aims The farmer is her debtor; Who holds to his another's heart Must needs be worse or better. "Through her his civic service shows A purer-toned ambition; No double consciousness divides The man and politician. "In party's doubtful ways he trusts Her instincts to determine; At the loud polls, the thought of her Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon. "He owns her logic of the heart, And wisdom of unreason, Supplying, while he doubts and weighs, The needed word in season. "He sees with pride her richer thought, Her fancy's freer ranges; And love thus deepened to respect Is proof against all changes. "And if she walks at ease in ways His feet are slow to travel, And if she reads with cultured eyes What his may scarce unravel, "Still clearer, for her keener sight Of beauty and of wonder, He learns the meaning of the hills He dwelt from childhood under. "And higher, warmed with summer lights, Or winter-crowned and hoary, The ridged horizon lifts for him Its inner veils of glory. "He has his own free, bookless lore, The lessons nature taught him, The wisdom which the woods and hills And toiling men have brought him: "The steady force of will whereby Her flexile grace seems sweeter; The sturdy counterpoise which makes Her woman's life completer. "A latent fire of soul which lacks No breath of love to fan it; And wit, that, like his native brooks, Plays over solid granite. "How dwarfed against his manliness She sees the poor pretension, The wants, the aims, the follies, born Of fashion and convention. "How life behind its accidents Stands strong and self-sustaining, The human fact transcending all The losing and the gaining. "And so in grateful interchange Of teacher and of hearer, Their lives their true distinctness keep While daily drawing nearer. "And if the husband or the wife In home's strong light discovers Such slight defaults as failed to meet The blinded eyes of lovers, "Why need we care to ask?--who dreams Without their thorns of roses, Or wonders that the truest steel The readiest spark discloses? "For still in mutual sufferance lies The secret of true living; Love scarce is love that never knows The sweetness of forgiving. "We send the Squire to General Court, He takes his young wife thither; No prouder man election day Rides through the sweet June weather. "He sees with eyes of manly trust All hearts to her inclining; Not less for him his household light That others share its shining." Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew Before me, warmer tinted And outlined with a tenderer grace, The picture that she hinted. The sunset smouldered as we drove Beneath the deep hill-shadows. Below us wreaths of white fog walked Like ghosts the haunted meadows. Sounding the summer night, the stars Dropped down their golden plummets; The pale arc of the Northern lights Rose o'er the mountain summits, Until, at last, beneath its bridge, We heard the Bearcamp flowing, And saw across the mapled lawn The welcome home lights glowing. And, musing on the tale I heard, 'T were well, thought I, if often To rugged farm-life came the gift To harmonize and soften; If more and more we found the troth Of fact and fancy plighted, And culture's charm and labor's strength In rural homes united,-- The simple life, the homely hearth, With beauty's sphere surrounding, And blessing toil where toil abounds With graces more abounding. 1868. THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. THE land was pale with famine And racked with fever-pain; The frozen fiords were fishless, The earth withheld her grain. Men saw the boding Fylgja Before them come and go, And, through their dreams, the Urdarmoon From west to east sailed slow. Jarl Thorkell of Thevera At Yule-time made his vow; On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone He slew to Frey his cow. To bounteous Frey he slew her; To Skuld, the younger Norn, Who watches over birth and death, He gave her calf unborn. And his little gold-haired daughter Took up the sprinkling-rod, And smeared with blood the temple And the wide lips of the god. Hoarse below, the winter water Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er; Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves, Rose and fell along the shore. The red torch of the Jokul, Aloft in icy space, Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones And the statue's carven face. And closer round and grimmer Beneath its baleful light The Jotun shapes of mountains Came crowding through the night. The gray-haired Hersir trembled As a flame by wind is blown; A weird power moved his white lips, And their voice was not his own. "The AEsir thirst!" he muttered; "The gods must have more blood Before the tun shall blossom Or fish shall fill the flood. "The AEsir thirst and hunger, And hence our blight and ban; The mouths of the strong gods water For the flesh and blood of man! "Whom shall we give the strong ones? Not warriors, sword on thigh; But let the nursling infant And bedrid old man die." "So be it!" cried the young men, "There needs nor doubt nor parle." But, knitting hard his red brows, In silence stood the Jarl. A sound of woman's weeping At the temple door was heard, But the old men bowed their white heads, And answered not a word. Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla, A Vala young and fair, Sang softly, stirring with her breath The veil of her loose hair. She sang: "The winds from Alfheim Bring never sound of strife; The gifts for Frey the meetest Are not of death, but life. "He loves the grass-green meadows, The grazing kine's sweet breath; He loathes your bloody Horg-stones, Your gifts that smell of death. "No wrong by wrong is righted, No pain is cured by pain; The blood that smokes from Doom-rings Falls back in redder rain. "The gods are what you make them, As earth shall Asgard prove; And hate will come of hating, And love will come of love. "Make dole of skyr and black bread That old and young may live; And look to Frey for favor When first like Frey you give. "Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadows The summer dawn begins The tun shall have its harvest, The fiord its glancing fins." Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell "By Gimli and by Hel, O Vala of Thingvalla, Thou singest wise and well! "Too dear the AEsir's favors Bought with our children's lives; Better die than shame in living Our mothers and our wives. "The full shall give his portion To him who hath most need; Of curdled skyr and black bread, Be daily dole decreed." He broke from off his neck-chain Three links of beaten gold; And each man, at his bidding, Brought gifts for young and old. Then mothers nursed their children, And daughters fed their sires, And Health sat down with Plenty Before the next Yule fires. The Horg-stones stand in Rykdal; The Doom-ring still remains; But the snows of a thousand winters Have washed away the stains. Christ ruleth now; the Asir Have found their twilight dim; And, wiser than she dreamed, of old The Vala sang of Him 1868. THE TWO RABBINS. THE Rabbi Nathan two-score years and ten Walked blameless through the evil world, and then, Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, Met a temptation all too strong to bear, And miserably sinned. So, adding not Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught No more among the elders, but went out From the great congregation girt about With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head, Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed, Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laid Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice, Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, Behold the royal preacher's words: "A friend Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end; And for the evil day thy brother lives." Marvelling, he said: "It is the Lord who gives Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay My sins before him." And he went his way Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers; But even as one who, followed unawares, Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low The wail of David's penitential woe, Before him still the old temptation came, And mocked him with the motion and the shame Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord To free his soul and cast the demon out, Smote with his staff the blankness round about. At length, in the low light of a spent day, The towers of Ecbatana far away Rose on the desert's rim; and Nathan, faint And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb, Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom He greeted kindly: "May the Holy One Answer thy prayers, O stranger!" Whereupon The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then, Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore Himself away: "O friend beloved, no more Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame. Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine, May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!" Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. "I too, O friend, if not in act," he said, "In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read, 'Better the eye should see than that desire Should wander?' Burning with a hidden fire That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee For pity and for help, as thou to me. Pray for me, O my friend!" But Nathan cried, "Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!" Side by side In the low sunshine by the turban stone They knelt; each made his brother's woe his own, Forgetting, in the agony and stress Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness; Peace, for his friend besought, his own became; His prayers were answered in another's name; And, when at last they rose up to embrace, Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face! Long after, when his headstone gathered moss, Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read: "_Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead; Forget it in love's service, and the debt Thou, canst not pay the angels shall forget; Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone; Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!_" 1868. 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 barbaric 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. THE winding way the serpent takes The mystic water took, From where, to count its beaded lakes, The forest sped its brook. 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, 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." "Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these But chants and holy hymns?" "Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees Though all their leafy limbs." "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; 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 hand 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." 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; 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? "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 caelo_;' let me be, Dear Lord, a dweller there!" 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, 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 Norembega 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. 1869. MIRIAM. TO FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD. THE 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; 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, 10th mo., 1870. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One 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 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; 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 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; 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 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 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 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 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. 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. "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, 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 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. The 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, 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, 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, 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. 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.' 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. 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 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, The evening shadows deepen for her flight, Love-guided, to her home in a far land, Now waited death at the great Shah's command. 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 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 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!" 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!" 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 forgive; Take them beyond my realm, but let them live!" 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 court-yard 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; 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, 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 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!" NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. NAUHAUGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing Cape 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, 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 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 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 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 Whisper above me: 'Nauhaught 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 Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea; And, 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 to 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. 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 sand, 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." 1870. THE SISTERS. ANNIE and Rhoda, sisters twain, Woke in the night to the sound of rain, The rush of wind, the ramp and roar Of great waves climbing a rocky shore. Annie rose up in her bed-gown white, And looked out into the storm and night. "Hush, and hearken!" she cried in fear, "Hearest thou nothing, sister dear?" "I hear the sea, and the plash of rain, And roar of the northeast hurricane. "Get thee back to the bed so warm, No good comes of watching a storm. "What is it to thee, I fain would know, That waves are roaring and wild winds blow? "No lover of thine's afloat to miss The harbor-lights on a night like this." "But I heard a voice cry out my name, Up from the sea on the wind it came. "Twice and thrice have I heard it call, And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!" On her pillow the sister tossed her head. "Hall of the Heron is safe," she said. "In the tautest schooner that ever swam He rides at anchor in Anisquam. "And, if in peril from swamping sea Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee?" But the girl heard only the wind and tide, And wringing her small white hands she cried, "O sister Rhoda, there's something wrong; I hear it again, so loud and long. "'Annie! Annie!' I hear it call, And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!" Up sprang the elder, with eyes aflame, "Thou liest! He never would call thy name! "If he did, I would pray the wind and sea To keep him forever from thee and me!" Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast; Like the cry of a dying man it passed. The young girl hushed on her lips a groan, But through her tears a strange light shone,-- The solemn joy of her heart's release To own and cherish its love in peace. "Dearest!" she whispered, under breath, "Life was a lie, but true is death. "The love I hid from myself away Shall crown me now in the light of day. "My ears shall never to wooer list, Never by lover my lips be kissed. "Sacred to thee am I henceforth, Thou in heaven and I on earth!" She came and stood by her sister's bed "Hall of the Heron is dead!" she said. "The wind and the waves their work have done, We shall see him no more beneath the sun. "Little will reek that heart of thine, It loved him not with a love like mine. "I, for his sake, were he but here, Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear, "Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet, And stitch for stitch in my heart be set. "But now my soul with his soul I wed; Thine the living, and mine the dead!" 1871. MARGUERITE. MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1760. Upwards of one thousand of the Acadian peasants forcibly taken from their homes on the Gaspereau and Basin of Minas were assigned to the several towns of the Massachusetts colony, the children being bound by the authorities to service or labor. THE robins sang in the orchard, the buds into blossoms grew; Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins knew! Sick, in an alien household, the poor French neutral lay; Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April day, Through the dusty window, curtained by the spider's warp and woof, On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs of roof, The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the teacups on the stand, The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from her sick hand. What to her was the song of the robin, or warm morning light, As she lay in the trance of the dying, heedless of sound or sight? Done was the work of her bands, she had eaten her bitter bread; The world of the alien people lay behind her dim and dead. But her soul went back to its child-time; she saw the sun o'erflow With gold the Basin of Minas, and set over Gaspereau; The low, bare flats at ebb-tide, the rush of the sea at flood, Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to upland wood; The gulls in the red of morning, the fish-hawk's rise and fall, The drift of the fog in moonshine, over the dark coast-wall. She saw the face of her mother, she heard the song she sang; And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers rang. By her bed the hard-faced mistress sat, smoothing the wrinkled sheet, Peering into the face, so helpless, and feeling the ice-cold feet. With a vague remorse atoning for her greed and long abuse, By care no longer heeded and pity too late for use. Up the stairs of the garret softly the son of the mistress stepped, Leaned over the head-board, covering his face with his hands, and wept. Outspake the mother, who watched him sharply, with brow a-frown "What! love you the Papist, the beggar, the charge of the town?" Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, I know and God knows I love her, and fain would go with her wherever she goes! "O mother! that sweet face came pleading, for love so athirst. You saw but the town-charge; I knew her God's angel at first." Shaking her gray head, the mistress hushed down a bitter cry; And awed by the silence and shadow of death drawing nigh, She murmured a psalm of the Bible; but closer the young girl pressed, With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross to her breast. "My son, come away," cried the mother, her voice cruel grown. "She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim; let her alone!" But he knelt with his hand on her forehead, his lips to her ear, And he called back the soul that was passing "Marguerite, do you hear?" She paused on the threshold of Heaven; love, pity, surprise, Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of her eyes. With his heart on his lips he kissed her, but never her cheek grew red, And the words the living long for he spake in the ear of the dead. And the robins sang in the orchard, where buds to blossoms grew; Of the folded hands and the still face never the robins knew! 1871. THE ROBIN. MY old Welsh neighbor over the way Crept slowly out in the sun of spring, Pushed from her ears the locks of gray, And listened to hear the robin sing. Her grandson, playing at marbles, stopped, And, cruel in sport as boys will be, Tossed a stone at the bird, who hopped From bough to bough in the apple-tree. "Nay!" said the grandmother; "have you not heard, My poor, bad boy! of the fiery pit, And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird Carries the water that quenches it? "He brings cool dew in his little bill, And lets it fall on the souls of sin You can see the mark on his red breast still Of fires that scorch as he drops it in. "My poor Bron rhuddyn! my breast-burned bird, Singing so sweetly from limb to limb, Very dear to the heart of Our Lord Is he who pities the lost like Him!" "Amen!" I said to the beautiful myth; "Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well: Each good thought is a drop wherewith To cool and lessen the fires of hell. "Prayers of love like rain-drops fall, Tears of pity are cooling dew, And dear to the heart of Our Lord are all Who suffer like Him in the good they do!" 1871. THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 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 spiritual 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 Pastorius, 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 international polity. Successful in all his examinations and disputations, he received the degree of Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676. In 1679 he was a law-lecturer at Frankfort, 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. Klosterman, of Muhlheim. In the year 1688 he drew up a memorial against slaveholding, 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 protest made by a religious body against Negro Slavery. The original document was discovered in 1844 by the Philadelphia 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 freedom as you have to keep them slaves?" Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the German-town 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 farmers. The Quakers were the principal sect, but men of all religions were tolerated, 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 William 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 description of Pennsylvania, which was published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1700 and 1701. His Lives of the Saints, etc., written in German and dedicated to Professor Schurmberg, his old teacher, was published in 1690. He left behind him many unpublished manuscripts covering a very wide range of subjects, most of which are now lost. One huge manuscript folio, entitled Hive Beestock, Melliotropheum Alucar, or Rusca Apium, still remains, containing 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 mane, 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 Monthly, 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 can not be gratified. There is no reason to suppose that he was interred in any other place than the Friends' old burying-ground in Germantown, though the fact is not attested by any definite source of information. After all, this obliteration 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 endeavors to establish righteousness on the earth. The Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same object by different means, have not been equally fortunate. The power of their testimony for truth and holiness, peace and freedom, 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 suffering,--felt, in brief, in every step of human progress. But of the men themselves, with the single exception of William Penn, scarcely anything is known. Contrasted, from the outset, with the stern, aggressive Puritans of New England, 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 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 common-place 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 progress 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: (1) "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 personal 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 follow, and which yet was the light of the world; and all other 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, 5th mo., 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, 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 Germantown Records. 1688.) 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. . . . . . . . . . . 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. 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. 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 "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! "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. 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' 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. "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 "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 profani!" 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, Shone on old tomes of law and physic, side By side with Fox and Belimen, 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. 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. One Scripture rule, at least, was unforgot; He hid the outcast, and betrayed 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, 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. 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 (13) 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, 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 or 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. Or, talking of old home scenes, Op der 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! Or Sluyter, (14) 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. 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 (15) 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. As still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting, (16) 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 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 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 Nurnberg penned Dropped in upon him like a guest to spend 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. 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. 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, 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. 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. 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. 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, 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. 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. 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. 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 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 Of Sommerhausen's woodlands, woven through With sun--threads; and the music the wind drew, Mournful and sweet, from leaves it overblew. 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 to 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 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. 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. Where still the Friends their place of burial keep, And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep, The Nurnberg 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. For, ere Pastorius left the sun and air, God sent the answer to his life-long 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 to! 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. KING VOLMER AND ELSIE. AFTER THE DANISH OF CHRISTIAN WINTER. WHERE, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones of the Horg, In its little Christian city stands the church of Vordingborg, In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his power, As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his tower. Out spake the King to Henrik, his young and faithful squire "Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy desire?" "Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee." Loud laughed the king: "To-morrow shall bring another day, (18) When I myself will test her; she will not say me nay." Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about him stood, Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as courtiers should. The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the ancient town From the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose looks down; The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of morn, The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn. In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and spins, And, singing with the early birds, her daily task, begins. Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her garden-bower, But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than the flower. About her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and, white As snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, round wrists in sight; Below, the modest petticoat can only half conceal The motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a wheel. The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in sunshine warm; But, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades it with her arm. And, hark! a train of horsemen, with sound of dog and horn, Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling down the corn! Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume streamed gay, As fast beside her father's gate the riders held their way; And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden spur on heel, And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden checked her wheel. "All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me! For weary months in secret my heart has longed for thee!" What noble knight was this? What words for modest maiden's ear? She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and fear. She lifted up her spinning-wheel; she fain would seek the door, Trembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes crimsoned o'er. "Nay, fear me not," the rider said, "I offer heart and hand, Bear witness these good Danish knights who round about me stand. "I grant you time to think of this, to answer as you may, For to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day." He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round his train, He saw his merry followers seek to hide their smiles in vain. "The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of golden hair, I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you wear; All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in a chariot gay You shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds of gray. "And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and brazen lamps shall glow; On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances to and fro. At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall shine, While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink the blood-red wine." Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face to face; A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip found place. Back from her low white forehead the curls of gold she threw, And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and blue. "I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight; I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn to slight. If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not a lord; I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty sword." "To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadel away, And in its place will swing the scythe and mow your father's hay." "Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can never bear; A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you must wear." "Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider gayly spoke, "And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet cloak." "But mark," she said, "no stately horse my peasant love must ride, A yoke of steers before the plough is all that he must guide." The knight looked down upon his steed: "Well, let him wander free No other man must ride the horse that has been backed by me. Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen talk, If only little Elsie beside my plough will walk." "You must take from out your cellar cask of wine and flask and can; The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant. man." "Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead of thine, And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain my generous wine." "Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign and boss, Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly knee across. And pull me down your castle from top to basement wall, And let your plough trace furrows in the ruins of your hall!" Then smiled he with a lofty pride; right well at last he knew The maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth. plight true. "Ah, roguish little Elsie! you act your part full well You know that I must bear my shield and in my castle dwell! "The lions ramping on that shield between the hearts aflame Keep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her ancient name. "For know that I am Volmer; I dwell in yonder towers, Who ploughs them ploughs up Denmark, this goodly home of ours'. "I tempt no more, fair Elsie! your heart I know is true; Would God that all our maidens were good and pure as you! Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall well repay; God's peace! Farewell! To-morrow will bring another day!" He lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good steed then, And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his gallant men. The steel hoofs beat the rocky path; again on winds of morn The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn. "Thou true and ever faithful!" the listening Henrik cried; And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by Elsie's side. None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from afar, The Golden Goose that watched them from the tower of Valdemar. O darling girls of Denmark! of all the flowers that throng Her vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my song. No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's skill; Thank God! of maids like Elsie the land has plenty still! 1872. THE THREE BELLS. BENEATH the low-hung night cloud That raked her splintering mast The good ship settled slowly, The cruel leak gained fast. Over the awful ocean Her signal guns pealed out. Dear God! was that Thy answer From the horror round about? A voice came down the wild wind, "Ho! ship ahoy!" its cry "Our stout Three Bells of Glasgow Shall lay till daylight by!" Hour after hour crept slowly, Yet on the heaving swells Tossed up and down the ship-lights, The lights of the Three Bells! And ship to ship made signals, Man answered back to man, While oft, to cheer and hearten, The Three Bells nearer ran; And the captain from her taffrail Sent down his hopeful cry "Take heart! Hold on!" he shouted; "The Three Bells shall lay by!" All night across the waters The tossing lights shone clear; All night from reeling taffrail The Three Bells sent her cheer. And when the dreary watches Of storm and darkness passed, Just as the wreck lurched under, All souls were saved at last. Sail on, Three Bells, forever, In grateful memory sail! Ring on, Three Bells of rescue, Above the wave and gale! Type of the Love eternal, Repeat the Master's cry, As tossing through our darkness The lights of God draw nigh! 1872. JOHN UNDERHILL. A SCORE of years had come and gone Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth stone, When Captain Underhill, bearing scars From Indian ambush and Flemish wars, Left three-hilled Boston and wandered down, East by north, to Cocheco town. With Vane the younger, in counsel sweet, He had sat at Anna Hutchinson's feet, And, when the bolt of banishment fell On the head of his saintly oracle, He had shared her ill as her good report, And braved the wrath of the General Court. He shook from his feet as he rode away The dust of the Massachusetts Bay. The world might bless and the world might ban, What did it matter the perfect man, To whom the freedom of earth was given, Proof against sin, and sure of heaven? He cheered his heart as he rode along With screed of Scripture and holy song, Or thought how he rode with his lances free By the Lower Rhine and the Zuyder-Zee, Till his wood-path grew to a trodden road, And Hilton Point in the distance showed. He saw the church with the block-house nigh, The two fair rivers, the flakes thereby, And, tacking to windward, low and crank, The little shallop from Strawberry Bank; And he rose in his stirrups and looked abroad Over land and water, and praised the Lord. Goodly and stately and grave to see, Into the clearing's space rode he, With the sun on the hilt of his sword in sheath, And his silver buckles and spurs beneath, And the settlers welcomed him, one and all, From swift Quampeagan to Gonic Fall. And he said to the elders: "Lo, I come As the way seemed open to seek a home. Somewhat the Lord hath wrought by my hands In the Narragansett and Netherlands, And if here ye have work for a Christian man, I will tarry, and serve ye as best I can. "I boast not of gifts, but fain would own The wonderful favor God hath shown, The special mercy vouchsafed one day On the shore of Narragansett Bay, As I sat, with my pipe, from the camp aside, And mused like Isaac at eventide. "A sudden sweetness of peace I found, A garment of gladness wrapped me round; I felt from the law of works released, The strife of the flesh and spirit ceased, My faith to a full assurance grew, And all I had hoped for myself I knew. "Now, as God appointeth, I keep my way, I shall not stumble, I shall not stray; He hath taken away my fig-leaf dress, I wear the robe of His righteousness; And the shafts of Satan no more avail Than Pequot arrows on Christian mail." "Tarry with us," the settlers cried, "Thou man of God, as our ruler and guide." And Captain Underhill bowed his head. "The will of the Lord be done!" he said. And the morrow beheld him sitting down In the ruler's seat in Cocheco town. And he judged therein as a just man should; His words were wise and his rule was good; He coveted not his neighbor's land, From the holding of bribes he shook his hand; And through the camps of the heathen ran A wholesome fear of the valiant man. But the heart is deceitful, the good Book saith, And life hath ever a savor of death. Through hymns of triumph the tempter calls, And whoso thinketh he standeth falls. Alas! ere their round the seasons ran, There was grief in the soul of the saintly man. The tempter's arrows that rarely fail Had found the joints of his spiritual mail; And men took note of his gloomy air, The shame in his eye, the halt in his prayer, The signs of a battle lost within, The pain of a soul in the coils of sin. Then a whisper of scandal linked his name With broken vows and a life of blame; And the people looked askance on him As he walked among them sullen and grim, Ill at ease, and bitter of word, And prompt of quarrel with hand or sword. None knew how, with prayer and fasting still, He strove in the bonds of his evil will; But he shook himself like Samson at length, And girded anew his loins of strength, And bade the crier go up and down And call together the wondering town. Jeer and murmur and shaking of head Ceased as he rose in his place and said "Men, brethren, and fathers, well ye know How I came among you a year ago, Strong in the faith that my soul was freed From sin of feeling, or thought, or deed. "I have sinned, I own it with grief and shame, But not with a lie on my lips I came. In my blindness I verily thought my heart Swept and garnished in every part. He chargeth His angels with folly; He sees The heavens unclean. Was I more than these? "I urge no plea. At your feet I lay The trust you gave me, and go my way. Hate me or pity me, as you will, The Lord will have mercy on sinners still; And I, who am chiefest, say to all, Watch and pray, lest ye also fall." No voice made answer: a sob so low That only his quickened ear could know Smote his heart with a bitter pain, As into the forest he rode again, And the veil of its oaken leaves shut down On his latest glimpse of Cocheco town. Crystal-clear on the man of sin The streams flashed up, and the sky shone in; On his cheek of fever the cool wind blew, The leaves dropped on him their tears of dew, And angels of God, in the pure, sweet guise Of flowers, looked on him with sad surprise. Was his ear at fault that brook and breeze Sang in their saddest of minor keys? What was it the mournful wood-thrush said? What whispered the pine-trees overhead? Did he hear the Voice on his lonely way That Adam heard in the cool of day? Into the desert alone rode he, Alone with the Infinite Purity; And, bowing his soul to its tender rebuke, As Peter did to the Master's look, He measured his path with prayers of pain For peace with God and nature again. And in after years to Cocheco came The bruit of a once familiar name; How among the Dutch of New Netherlands, From wild Danskamer to Haarlem sands, A penitent soldier preached the Word, And smote the heathen with Gideon's sword! And the heart of Boston was glad to hear How he harried the foe on the long frontier, And heaped on the land against him barred The coals of his generous watch and ward. Frailest and bravest! the Bay State still Counts with her worthies John Underhill. 1873. CONDUCTOR BRADLEY. A railway conductor who lost his life in an accident on a Connecticut railway, May 9, 1873. CONDUCTOR BRADLEY, (always may his name Be said with reverence!) as the swift doom came, Smitten to death, a crushed and mangled frame, Sank, with the brake he grasped just where he stood To do the utmost that a brave man could, And die, if needful, as a true man should. Men stooped above him; women dropped their tears On that poor wreck beyond all hopes or fears, Lost in the strength and glory of his years. What heard they? Lo! the ghastly lips of pain, Dead to all thought save duty's, moved again "Put out the signals for the other train!" No nobler utterance since the world began From lips of saint or martyr ever ran, Electric, through the sympathies of man. Ah me! how poor and noteless seem to this The sick-bed dramas of self-consciousness, Our sensual fears of pain and hopes of bliss! Oh, grand, supreme endeavor! Not in vain That last brave act of failing tongue and brain Freighted with life the downward rushing train, Following the wrecked one, as wave follows wave, Obeyed the warning which the dead lips gave. Others he saved, himself he could not save. Nay, the lost life was saved. He is not dead Who in his record still the earth shall tread With God's clear aureole shining round his head. We bow as in the dust, with all our pride Of virtue dwarfed the noble deed beside. God give us grace to live as Bradley died! 1873. THE WITCH OF WENHAM. The house is still standing in Danvers, Mass., where, it is said, a suspected witch was confined overnight in the attic, which was bolted fast. In the morning when the constable came to take her to Salem for trial she was missing, although the door was still bolted. Her escape was doubtless aided by her friends, but at the time it was attributed to Satanic interference. I. ALONG Crane River's sunny slopes Blew warm the winds of May, And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks The green outgrew the gray. The grass was green on Rial-side, The early birds at will Waked up the violet in its dell, The wind-flower on its hill. "Where go you, in your Sunday coat, Son Andrew, tell me, pray." For striped perch in Wenham Lake I go to fish to-day." "Unharmed of thee in Wenham Lake The mottled perch shall be A blue-eyed witch sits on the bank And weaves her net for thee. "She weaves her golden hair; she sings Her spell-song low and faint; The wickedest witch in Salem jail Is to that girl a saint." "Nay, mother, hold thy cruel tongue; God knows," the young man cried, "He never made a whiter soul Than hers by Wenham side. "She tends her mother sick and blind, And every want supplies; To her above the blessed Book She lends her soft blue eyes. "Her voice is glad with holy songs, Her lips are sweet with prayer; Go where you will, in ten miles round Is none more good and fair." "Son Andrew, for the love of God And of thy mother, stay!" She clasped her hands, she wept aloud, But Andrew rode away. "O reverend sir, my Andrew's soul The Wenham witch has caught; She holds him with the curled gold Whereof her snare is wrought. "She charms him with her great blue eyes, She binds him with her hair; Oh, break the spell with holy words, Unbind him with a prayer!" "Take heart," the painful preacher said, "This mischief shall not be; The witch shall perish in her sins And Andrew shall go free. "Our poor Ann Putnam testifies She saw her weave a spell, Bare-armed, loose-haired, at full of moon, Around a dried-up well. "'Spring up, O well!' she softly sang The Hebrew's old refrain (For Satan uses Bible words), Till water flowed a-main. "And many a goodwife heard her speak By Wenham water words That made the buttercups take wings And turn to yellow birds. "They say that swarming wild bees seek The hive at her command; And fishes swim to take their food From out her dainty hand. "Meek as she sits in meeting-time, The godly minister Notes well the spell that doth compel The young men's eyes to her. "The mole upon her dimpled chin Is Satan's seal and sign; Her lips are red with evil bread And stain of unblest wine. "For Tituba, my Indian, saith At Quasycung she took The Black Man's godless sacrament And signed his dreadful book. "Last night my sore-afflicted child Against the young witch cried. To take her Marshal Herrick rides Even now to Wenham side." The marshal in his saddle sat, His daughter at his knee; "I go to fetch that arrant witch, Thy fair playmate," quoth he. "Her spectre walks the parsonage, And haunts both hall and stair; They know her by the great blue eyes And floating gold of hair." "They lie, they lie, my father dear! No foul old witch is she, But sweet and good and crystal-pure As Wenham waters be." "I tell thee, child, the Lord hath set Before us good and ill, And woe to all whose carnal loves Oppose His righteous will. "Between Him and the powers of hell Choose thou, my child, to-day No sparing hand, no pitying eye, When God commands to slay!" He went his way; the old wives shook With fear as he drew nigh; The children in the dooryards held Their breath as he passed by. Too well they knew the gaunt gray horse The grim witch-hunter rode The pale Apocalyptic beast By grisly Death bestrode. II. Oh, fair the face of Wenham Lake Upon the young girl's shone, Her tender mouth, her dreaming eyes, Her yellow hair outblown. By happy youth and love attuned To natural harmonies, The singing birds, the whispering wind, She sat beneath the trees. Sat shaping for her bridal dress Her mother's wedding gown, When lo! the marshal, writ in hand, From Alford hill rode down. His face was hard with cruel fear, He grasped the maiden's hands "Come with me unto Salem town, For so the law commands!" "Oh, let me to my mother say Farewell before I go!" He closer tied her little hands Unto his saddle bow. "Unhand me," cried she piteously, "For thy sweet daughter's sake." "I'll keep my daughter safe," he said, "From the witch of Wenham Lake." "Oh, leave me for my mother's sake, She needs my eyes to see." "Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck From off the gallows-tree." He bore her to a farm-house old, And up its stairway long, And closed on her the garret-door With iron bolted strong. The day died out, the night came down Her evening prayer she said, While, through the dark, strange faces seemed To mock her as she prayed. The present horror deepened all The fears her childhood knew; The awe wherewith the air was filled With every breath she drew. And could it be, she trembling asked, Some secret thought or sin Had shut good angels from her heart And let the bad ones in? Had she in some forgotten dream Let go her hold on Heaven, And sold herself unwittingly To spirits unforgiven? Oh, weird and still the dark hours passed; No human sound she heard, But up and down the chimney stack The swallows moaned and stirred. And o'er her, with a dread surmise Of evil sight and sound, The blind bats on their leathern wings Went wheeling round and round. Low hanging in the midnight sky Looked in a half-faced moon. Was it a dream, or did she hear Her lover's whistled tune? She forced the oaken scuttle back; A whisper reached her ear "Slide down the roof to me," it said, "So softly none may hear." She slid along the sloping roof Till from its eaves she hung, And felt the loosened shingles yield To which her fingers clung. Below, her lover stretched his hands And touched her feet so small; "Drop down to me, dear heart," he said, "My arms shall break the fall." He set her on his pillion soft, Her arms about him twined; And, noiseless as if velvet-shod, They left the house behind. But when they reached the open way, Full free the rein he cast; Oh, never through the mirk midnight Rode man and maid more fast. Along the wild wood-paths they sped, The bridgeless streams they swam; At set of moon they passed the Bass, At sunrise Agawam. At high noon on the Merrimac The ancient ferryman Forgot, at times, his idle oars, So fair a freight to scan. And when from off his grounded boat He saw them mount and ride, "God keep her from the evil eye, And harm of witch!" he cried. The maiden laughed, as youth will laugh At all its fears gone by; "He does not know," she whispered low, "A little witch am I." All day he urged his weary horse, And, in the red sundown, Drew rein before a friendly door In distant Berwick town. A fellow-feeling for the wronged The Quaker people felt; And safe beside their kindly hearths The hunted maiden dwelt, Until from off its breast the land The haunting horror threw, And hatred, born of ghastly dreams, To shame and pity grew. Sad were the year's spring morns, and sad Its golden summer day, But blithe and glad its withered fields, And skies of ashen gray; For spell and charm had power no more, The spectres ceased to roam, And scattered households knelt again Around the hearths of home. And when once more by Beaver Dam The meadow-lark outsang, And once again on all the hills The early violets sprang, And all the windy pasture slopes Lay green within the arms Of creeks that bore the salted sea To pleasant inland farms, The smith filed off the chains he forged, The jail-bolts backward fell; And youth and hoary age came forth Like souls escaped from hell. 1877 KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS OUT from Jerusalem The king rode with his great War chiefs and lords of state, And Sheba's queen with them; Comely, but black withal, To whom, perchance, belongs That wondrous Song of songs, Sensuous and mystical, Whereto devout souls turn In fond, ecstatic dream, And through its earth-born theme The Love of loves discern. Proud in the Syrian sun, In gold and purple sheen, The dusky Ethiop queen Smiled on King Solomon. Wisest of men, he knew The languages of all The creatures great or small That trod the earth or flew. Across an ant-hill led The king's path, and he heard Its small folk, and their word He thus interpreted: "Here comes the king men greet As wise and good and just, To crush us in the dust Under his heedless feet." The great king bowed his head, And saw the wide surprise Of the Queen of Sheba's eyes As he told her what they said. "O king!" she whispered sweet, "Too happy fate have they Who perish in thy way Beneath thy gracious feet! "Thou of the God-lent crown, Shall these vile creatures dare Murmur against thee where The knees of kings kneel down?" "Nay," Solomon replied, "The wise and strong should seek The welfare of the weak," And turned his horse aside. His train, with quick alarm, Curved with their leader round The ant-hill's peopled mound, And left it free from harm. The jewelled head bent low; "O king!" she said, "henceforth The secret of thy worth And wisdom well I know. "Happy must be the State Whose ruler heedeth more The murmurs of the poor Than flatteries of the great." 1877. IN THE "OLD SOUTH." On the 8th of July, 1677, Margaret Brewster with four other Friends went into the South Church in time of meeting, "in sack-cloth, with ashes upon her head, barefoot, and her face blackened," and delivered "a warning from the great God of Heaven and Earth to the Rulers and Magistrates of Boston." For the offence she was sentenced to be "whipped at a cart's tail up and down the Town, with twenty lashes." SHE came and stood in the Old South Church, A wonder and a sign, With a look the old-time sibyls wore, Half-crazed and half-divine. Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound, Unclothed as the primal mother, With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed With a fire she dare not smother. Loose on her shoulders fell her hair, With sprinkled ashes gray; She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird As a soul at the judgment day. And the minister paused in his sermon's midst, And the people held their breath, For these were the words the maiden spoke Through lips as the lips of death: "Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet All men my courts shall tread, And priest and ruler no more shall eat My people up like bread! "Repent! repent! ere the Lord shall speak In thunder and breaking seals Let all souls worship Him in the way His light within reveals." She shook the dust from her naked feet, And her sackcloth closer drew, And into the porch of the awe-hushed church She passed like a ghost from view. They whipped her away at the tail o' the cart Through half the streets of the town, But the words she uttered that day nor fire Could burn nor water drown. And now the aisles of the ancient church By equal feet are trod, And the bell that swings in its belfry rings Freedom to worship God! And now whenever a wrong is done It thrills the conscious walls; The stone from the basement cries aloud And the beam from the timber calls. There are steeple-houses on every hand, And pulpits that bless and ban, And the Lord will not grudge the single church That is set apart for man. For in two commandments are all the law And the prophets under the sun, And the first is last and the last is first, And the twain are verily one. So, long as Boston shall Boston be, And her bay-tides rise and fall, Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church And plead for the rights of all! 1877. THE HENCHMAN. MY lady walks her morning round, My lady's page her fleet greyhound, My lady's hair the fond winds stir, And all the birds make songs for her. Her thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers, And Rathburn side is gay with flowers; But ne'er like hers, in flower or bird, Was beauty seen or music heard. The distance of the stars is hers; The least of all her worshippers, The dust beneath her dainty heel, She knows not that I see or feel. Oh, proud and calm!--she cannot know Where'er she goes with her I go; Oh, cold and fair!--she cannot guess I kneel to share her hound's caress! Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk, I rob their ears of her sweet talk; Her suitors come from east and west, I steal her smiles from every guest. Unheard of her, in loving words, I greet her with the song of birds; I reach her with her green-armed bowers, I kiss her with the lips of flowers. The hound and I are on her trail, The wind and I uplift her veil; As if the calm, cold moon she were, And I the tide, I follow her. As unrebuked as they, I share The license of the sun and air, And in a common homage hide My worship from her scorn and pride. World-wide apart, and yet so near, I breathe her charmed atmosphere, Wherein to her my service brings The reverence due to holy things. Her maiden pride, her haughty name, My dumb devotion shall not shame; The love that no return doth crave To knightly levels lifts the slave, No lance have I, in joust or fight, To splinter in my lady's sight But, at her feet, how blest were I For any need of hers to die! 1877. THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK. E. B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture, chapter xii., gives an account of the reverence paid the dead by the Kol tribes of Chota Nagpur, Assam. "When a Ho or Munda," he says, "has been burned on the funeral pile, collected morsels of his bones are carried in procession with a solemn, ghostly, sliding step, keeping time to the deep-sounding drum, and when the old woman who carries the bones on her bamboo tray lowers it from time to time, then girls who carry pitchers and brass vessels mournfully reverse them to show that they are empty; thus the remains are taken to visit every house in the village, and every dwelling of a friend or relative for miles, and the inmates come out to mourn and praise the goodness of the departed; the bones are carried to all the dead man's favorite haunts, to the fields he cultivated, to the grove he planted, to the threshing-floor where he worked, to the village dance-room where he made merry. At last they are taken to the grave, and buried in an earthen vase upon a store of food, covered with one of those huge stone slabs which European visitors wonder at in the districts of the aborigines of India." In the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. ix., p. 795, is a Ho dirge. WE have opened the door, Once, twice, thrice! We have swept the floor, We have boiled the rice. Come hither, come hither! Come from the far lands, Come from the star lands, Come as before! We lived long together, We loved one another; Come back to our life. Come father, come mother, Come sister and brother, Child, husband, and wife, For you we are sighing. Come take your old places, Come look in our faces, The dead on the dying, Come home! We have opened the door, Once, twice, thrice! We have kindled the coals, And we boil the rice For the feast of souls. Come hither, come hither! Think not we fear you, Whose hearts are so near you. Come tenderly thought on, Come all unforgotten, Come from the shadow-lands, From the dim meadow-lands Where the pale grasses bend Low to our sighing. Come father, come mother, Come sister and brother, Come husband and friend, The dead to the dying, Come home! We have opened the door You entered so oft; For the feast of souls We have kindled the coals, And we boil the rice soft. Come you who are dearest To us who are nearest, Come hither, come hither, From out the wild weather; The storm clouds are flying, The peepul is sighing; Come in from the rain. Come father, come mother, Come sister and brother, Come husband and lover, Beneath our roof-cover. Look on us again, The dead on the dying, Come home! We have opened the door! For the feast of souls We have kindled the coals We may kindle no more! Snake, fever, and famine, The curse of the Brahmin, The sun and the dew, They burn us, they bite us, They waste us and smite us; Our days are but few In strange lands far yonder To wonder and wander We hasten to you. List then to our sighing, While yet we are here Nor seeing nor hearing, We wait without fearing, To feel you draw near. O dead, to the dying Come home! 1879. THE KHAN'S DEVIL. THE Khan came from Bokhara town To Hamza, santon of renown. "My head is sick, my hands are weak; Thy help, O holy man, I seek." In silence marking for a space The Khan's red eyes and purple face, Thick voice, and loose, uncertain tread, "Thou hast a devil!" Hamza said. "Allah forbid!" exclaimed the Khan. Rid me of him at once, O man!" "Nay," Hamza said, "no spell of mine Can slay that cursed thing of thine. "Leave feast and wine, go forth and drink Water of healing on the brink "Where clear and cold from mountain snows, The Nahr el Zeben downward flows. "Six moons remain, then come to me; May Allah's pity go with thee!" Awestruck, from feast and wine the Khan Went forth where Nahr el Zeben ran. Roots were his food, the desert dust His bed, the water quenched his thirst; And when the sixth moon's scimetar Curved sharp above the evening star, He sought again the santon's door, Not weak and trembling as before, But strong of limb and clear of brain; "Behold," he said, "the fiend is slain." "Nay," Hamza answered, "starved and drowned, The curst one lies in death-like swound. "But evil breaks the strongest gyves, And jins like him have charmed lives. "One beaker of the juice of grape May call him up in living shape. "When the red wine of Badakshan Sparkles for thee, beware, O Khan, "With water quench the fire within, And drown each day thy devilkin!" Thenceforth the great Khan shunned the cup As Shitan's own, though offered up, With laughing eyes and jewelled hands, By Yarkand's maids and Samarcand's. And, in the lofty vestibule Of the medress of Kaush Kodul, The students of the holy law A golden-lettered tablet saw, With these words, by a cunning hand, Graved on it at the Khan's command: "In Allah's name, to him who hath A devil, Khan el Hamed saith, "Wisely our Prophet cursed the vine The fiend that loves the breath of wine, "No prayer can slay, no marabout Nor Meccan dervis can drive out. "I, Khan el Hamed, know the charm That robs him of his power to harm. "Drown him, O Islam's child! the spell To save thee lies in tank and well!" 1879. THE KING'S MISSIVE. 1661. This ballad, originally written for The Memorial History of Boston, describes, with pardonable poetic license, a memorable incident in the annals of the city. The interview between Shattuck and the Governor took place, I have since learned, in the residence of the latter, and not in the Council Chamber. The publication of the ballad led to some discussion as to the historical truthfulness of the picture, but I have seen no reason to rub out any of the figures or alter the lines and colors. UNDER the great hill sloping bare To cove and meadow and Common lot, In his council chamber and oaken chair, Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott. A grave, strong man, who knew no peer In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear Of God, not man, and for good or ill Held his trust with an iron will. He had shorn with his sword the cross from out The flag, and cloven the May-pole down, Harried the heathen round about, And whipped the Quakers from town to town. Earnest and honest, a man at need To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed, He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal The gate of the holy common weal. His brow was clouded, his eye was stern, With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath; "Woe's me!" he murmured: "at every turn The pestilent Quakers are in my path! Some we have scourged, and banished some, Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come, Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in, Sowing their heresy's seed of sin. "Did we count on this? Did we leave behind The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease Of our English hearths and homes, to find Troublers of Israel such as these? Shall I spare? Shall I pity them? God forbid! I will do as the prophet to Agag did They come to poison the wells of the Word, I will hew them in pieces before the Lord!" The door swung open, and Rawson the clerk Entered, and whispered under breath, "There waits below for the hangman's work A fellow banished on pain of death-- Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip, Brought over in Master Goldsmith's ship At anchor here in a Christian port, With freight of the devil and all his sort!" Twice and thrice on the chamber floor Striding fiercely from wall to wall, "The Lord do so to me and more," The Governor cried, "if I hang not all! Bring hither the Quaker." Calm, sedate, With the look of a man at ease with fate, Into that presence grim and dread Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head. "Off with the knave's hat!" An angry hand Smote down the offence; but the wearer said, With a quiet smile, "By the king's command I bear his message and stand in his stead." In the Governor's hand a missive he laid With the royal arms on its seal displayed, And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat, Uncovering, "Give Mr. Shattuck his hat." He turned to the Quaker, bowing low,-- "The king commandeth your friends' release; Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although To his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase. What he here enjoineth, John Endicott, His loyal servant, questioneth not. You are free! God grant the spirit you own May take you from us to parts unknown." So the door of the jail was open cast, And, like Daniel, out of the lion's den Tender youth and girlhood passed, With age-bowed women and gray-locked men. And the voice of one appointed to die Was lifted in praise and thanks on high, And the little maid from New Netherlands Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands. And one, whose call was to minister To the souls in prison, beside him went, An ancient woman, bearing with her The linen shroud for his burial meant. For she, not counting her own life dear, In the strength of a love that cast out fear, Had watched and served where her brethren died, Like those who waited the cross beside. One moment they paused on their way to look On the martyr graves by the Common side, And much scourged Wharton of Salem took His burden of prophecy up and cried "Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain Have ye borne the Master's cross of pain; Ye have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned, With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound!" The autumn haze lay soft and still On wood and meadow and upland farms; On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill Slowly and lazily swung its arms; Broad in the sunshine stretched away, With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay; And over water and dusk of pines Blue hills lifted their faint outlines. The topaz leaves of the walnut glowed, The sumach added its crimson fleck, And double in air and water showed The tinted maples along the Neck; Through frost flower clusters of pale star-mist, And gentian fringes of amethyst, And royal plumes of golden-rod, The grazing cattle on Centry trod. But as they who see not, the Quakers saw The world about them; they only thought With deep thanksgiving and pious awe On the great deliverance God had wrought. Through lane and alley the gazing town Noisily followed them up and down; Some with scoffing and brutal jeer, Some with pity and words of cheer. One brave voice rose above the din. Upsall, gray with his length of days, Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn "Men of Boston, give God the praise No more shall innocent blood call down The bolts of wrath on your guilty town. The freedom of worship, dear to you, Is dear to all, and to all is due. "I see the vision of days to come, When your beautiful City of the Bay Shall be Christian liberty's chosen home, And none shall his neighbor's rights gainsay. The varying notes of worship shall blend And as one great prayer to God ascend, And hands of mutual charity raise Walls of salvation and gates of praise." So passed the Quakers through Boston town, Whose painful ministers sighed to see The walls of their sheep-fold falling down, And wolves of heresy prowling free. But the years went on, and brought no wrong; With milder counsels the State grew strong, As outward Letter and inward Light Kept the balance of truth aright. The Puritan spirit perishing not, To Concord's yeomen the signal sent, And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot That severed the chains of a continent. With its gentler mission of peace and good-will The thought of the Quaker is living still, And the freedom of soul he prophesied Is gospel and law where the martyrs died. 1880. VALUATION. THE old Squire said, as he stood by his gate, And his neighbor, the Deacon, went by, "In spite of my bank stock and real estate, You are better off, Deacon, than I. "We're both growing old, and the end's drawing near, You have less of this world to resign, But in Heaven's appraisal your assets, I fear, Will reckon up greater than mine. "They say I am rich, but I'm feeling so poor, I wish I could swap with you even The pounds I have lived for and laid up in store For the shillings and pence you have given." "Well, Squire," said the Deacon, with shrewd common sense, While his eye had a twinkle of fun, "Let your pounds take the way of my shillings and pence, And the thing can be easily done!" 1880. RABBI ISHMAEL. "Rabbi Ishmael Ben Elisha said, Once, I entered into the Holy of Holies (as High Priest) to burn incense, when I saw Aktriel (the Divine Crown) Jah, Lord of Hosts, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, who said unto me, 'Ishmael, my son, bless me.' I answered, 'May it please Thee to make Thy compassion prevail over Thine anger; may it be revealed above Thy other attributes; mayest Thou deal with Thy children according to it, and not according to the strict measure of judgment.' It seemed to me that He bowed His head, as though to answer Amen to my blessing."-- Talmud (Beraehoth, I. f. 6. b.) THE Rabbi Ishmael, with the woe and sin Of the world heavy upon him, entering in The Holy of Holies, saw an awful Face With terrible splendor filling all the place. "O Ishmael Ben Elisha!" said a voice, "What seekest thou? What blessing is thy choice?" And, knowing that he stood before the Lord, Within the shadow of the cherubim, Wide-winged between the blinding light and him, He bowed himself, and uttered not a word, But in the silence of his soul was prayer "O Thou Eternal! I am one of all, And nothing ask that others may not share. Thou art almighty; we are weak and small, And yet Thy children: let Thy mercy spare!" Trembling, he raised his eyes, and in the place Of the insufferable glory, lo! a face Of more than mortal tenderness, that bent Graciously down in token of assent, And, smiling, vanished! With strange joy elate, The wondering Rabbi sought the temple's gate. Radiant as Moses from the Mount, he stood And cried aloud unto the multitude "O Israel, hear! The Lord our God is good! Mine eyes have seen his glory and his grace; Beyond his judgments shall his love endure; The mercy of the All Merciful is sure!" 1881. THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE. H. Y. Hind, in Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula (ii. 166) mentions the finding of a rock tomb near the little fishing port of Bradore, with the inscription upon it which is given in the poem. A DREAR and desolate shore! Where no tree unfolds its leaves, And never the spring wind weaves Green grass for the hunter's tread; A land forsaken and dead, Where the ghostly icebergs go And come with the ebb and flow Of the waters of Bradore! A wanderer, from a land By summer breezes fanned, Looked round him, awed, subdued, By the dreadful solitude, Hearing alone the cry Of sea-birds clanging by, The crash and grind of the floe, Wail of wind and wash of tide. "O wretched land!" he cried, "Land of all lands the worst, God forsaken and curst! Thy gates of rock should show The words the Tuscan seer Read in the Realm of Woe Hope entereth not here!" Lo! at his feet there stood A block of smooth larch wood, Waif of some wandering wave, Beside a rock-closed cave By Nature fashioned for a grave; Safe from the ravening bear And fierce fowl of the air, Wherein to rest was laid A twenty summers' maid, Whose blood had equal share Of the lands of vine and snow, Half French, half Eskimo. In letters uneffaced, Upon the block were traced The grief and hope of man, And thus the legend ran "We loved her! Words cannot tell how well! We loved her! God loved her! And called her home to peace and rest. We love her." The stranger paused and read. "O winter land!" he said, "Thy right to be I own; God leaves thee not alone. And if thy fierce winds blow Over drear wastes of rock and snow, And at thy iron gates The ghostly iceberg waits, Thy homes and hearts are dear. Thy sorrow o'er thy sacred dust Is sanctified by hope and trust; God's love and man's are here. And love where'er it goes Makes its own atmosphere; Its flowers of Paradise Take root in the eternal ice, And bloom through Polar snows!" 1881. THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS. The volume in which "The Bay of Seven Islands" was published was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any other person I was indebted for public recognition as one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a pro-scribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had gained the reputation of a brilliant essayist, and was regarded as the highest American authority in criticism. His wit and wisdom enlivened a small literary circle of young men including Thomas Starr King, the eloquent preacher, and Daniel N. Haskell of the Daily Transcript, who gathered about our common friend dames T. Fields at the Old Corner Bookstore. The poem which gave title to the volume I inscribed to my friend and neighbor Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose poems have lent a new interest to our beautiful river-valley. FROM the green Amesbury hill which bears the name Of that half mythic ancestor of mine Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago, Down the long valley of the Merrimac, Midway between me and the river's mouth, I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest Among Deer Island's immemorial pines, Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song, Which thou bast told or sung, I call to mind, Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills, The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate. To thee the echoes of the Island Sound Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan Of the South Breaker prophesying storm. And thou hast listened, like myself, to men Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies Like a fell spider in its web of fog, Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove, Nubble and Boon, the common names of home. So let me offer thee this lay of mine, Simple and homely, lacking much thy play Of color and of fancy. If its theme And treatment seem to thee befitting youth Rather than age, let this be my excuse It has beguiled some heavy hours and called Some pleasant memories up; and, better still, Occasion lent me for a kindly word To one who is my neighbor and my friend. 1883. . . . . . . . . . . The skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth, Leaving the apple-bloom of the South For the ice of the Eastern seas, In his fishing schooner Breeze. Handsome and brave and young was he, And the maids of Newbury sighed to see His lessening white sail fall Under the sea's blue wall. Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine, St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon, The little Breeze sailed on, Backward and forward, along the shore Of lorn and desolate Labrador, And found at last her way To the Seven Islands Bay. The little hamlet, nestling below Great hills white with lingering snow, With its tin-roofed chapel stood Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood; Green-turfed, flower-sown, the last outpost Of summer upon the dreary coast, With its gardens small and spare, Sad in the frosty air. Hard by where the skipper's schooner lay, A fisherman's cottage looked away Over isle and bay, and behind On mountains dim-defined. And there twin sisters, fair and young, Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung In their native tongue the lays Of the old Provencal days. Alike were they, save the faint outline Of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine; And both, it so befell, Loved the heretic stranger well. Both were pleasant to look upon, But the heart of the skipper clave to one; Though less by his eye than heart He knew the twain apart. Despite of alien race and creed, Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed; And the mother's wrath was vain As the sister's jealous pain. The shrill-tongued mistress her house forbade, And solemn warning was sternly said By the black-robed priest, whose word As law the hamlet heard. But half by voice and half by signs The skipper said, "A warm sun shines On the green-banked Merrimac; Wait, watch, till I come back. "And when you see, from my mast head, The signal fly of a kerchief red, My boat on the shore shall wait; Come, when the night is late." Ah! weighed with childhood's haunts and friends, And all that the home sky overbends, Did ever young love fail To turn the trembling scale? Under the night, on the wet sea sands, Slowly unclasped their plighted hands One to the cottage hearth, And one to his sailor's berth. What was it the parting lovers heard? Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird, But a listener's stealthy tread On the rock-moss, crisp and dead. He weighed his anchor, and fished once more By the black coast-line of Labrador; And by love and the north wind driven, Sailed back to the Islands Seven. In the sunset's glow the sisters twain Saw the Breeze come sailing in again; Said Suzette, "Mother dear, The heretic's sail is here." "Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide; Your door shall be bolted!" the mother cried: While Suzette, ill at ease, Watched the red sign of the Breeze. At midnight, down to the waiting skiff She stole in the shadow of the cliff; And out of the Bay's mouth ran The schooner with maid and man. And all night long, on a restless bed, Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said And thought of her lover's pain Waiting for her in vain. Did he pace the sands? Did he pause to hear The sound of her light step drawing near? And, as the slow hours passed, Would he doubt her faith at last? But when she saw through the misty pane, The morning break on a sea of rain, Could even her love avail To follow his vanished sail? Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind, Left the rugged Moisic hills behind, And heard from an unseen shore The falls of Manitou roar. On the morrow's morn, in the thick, gray weather They sat on the reeling deck together, Lover and counterfeit, Of hapless Marguerite. With a lover's hand, from her forehead fair He smoothed away her jet-black hair. What was it his fond eyes met? The scar of the false Suzette! Fiercely he shouted: "Bear away East by north for Seven Isles Bay!" The maiden wept and prayed, But the ship her helm obeyed. Once more the Bay of the Isles they found They heard the bell of the chapel sound, And the chant of the dying sung In the harsh, wild Indian tongue. A feeling of mystery, change, and awe Was in all they heard and all they saw Spell-bound the hamlet lay In the hush of its lonely bay. And when they came to the cottage door, The mother rose up from her weeping sore, And with angry gestures met The scared look of Suzette. "Here is your daughter," the skipper said; "Give me the one I love instead." But the woman sternly spake; "Go, see if the dead will wake!" He looked. Her sweet face still and white And strange in the noonday taper light, She lay on her little bed, With the cross at her feet and head. In a passion of grief the strong man bent Down to her face, and, kissing it, went Back to the waiting Breeze, Back to the mournful seas. Never again to the Merrimac And Newbury's homes that bark came back. Whether her fate she met On the shores of Carraquette, Miscou, or Tracadie, who can say? But even yet at Seven Isles Bay Is told the ghostly tale Of a weird, unspoken sail, In the pale, sad light of the Northern day Seen by the blanketed Montagnais, Or squaw, in her small kyack, Crossing the spectre's track. On the deck a maiden wrings her hands; Her likeness kneels on the gray coast sands; One in her wild despair, And one in the trance of prayer. She flits before no earthly blast, The red sign fluttering from her mast, Over the solemn seas, The ghost of the schooner Breeze! 1882. THE WISHING BRIDGE. AMONG the legends sung or said Along our rocky shore, The Wishing Bridge of Marblehead May well be sung once more. An hundred years ago (so ran The old-time story) all Good wishes said above its span Would, soon or late, befall. If pure and earnest, never failed The prayers of man or maid For him who on the deep sea sailed, For her at home who stayed. Once thither came two girls from school, And wished in childish glee And one would be a queen and rule, And one the world would see. Time passed; with change of hopes and fears, And in the self-same place, Two women, gray with middle years, Stood, wondering, face to face. With wakened memories, as they met, They queried what had been "A poor man's wife am I, and yet," Said one, "I am a queen. "My realm a little homestead is, Where, lacking crown and throne, I rule by loving services And patient toil alone." The other said: "The great world lies Beyond me as it lay; O'er love's and duty's boundaries My feet may never stray. "I see but common sights of home, Its common sounds I hear, My widowed mother's sick-bed room Sufficeth for my sphere. "I read to her some pleasant page Of travel far and wide, And in a dreamy pilgrimage We wander side by side. "And when, at last, she falls asleep, My book becomes to me A magic glass: my watch I keep, But all the world I see. "A farm-wife queen your place you fill, While fancy's privilege Is mine to walk the earth at will, Thanks to the Wishing Bridge." "Nay, leave the legend for the truth," The other cried, "and say God gives the wishes of our youth, But in His own best way!" 1882. HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER. The following is a copy of the warrant issued by Major Waldron, of Dover, in 1662. The Quakers, as was their wont, prophesied against him, and saw, as they supposed, the fulfilment of their prophecy when, many years after, he was killed by the Indians. To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, and until these vagabond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction. You, and every one of you, are required, in the King's Majesty's name, to take these vagabond Quakers, Anne Colman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart's tail, and driving the cart through your several towns, to whip them upon their naked backs not exceeding ten stripes apiece on each of them, in each town; and so to convey them from constable to constable till they are out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer it at your peril; and this shall be your warrant. RICHARD WALDRON. Dated at Dover, December 22, 1662. This warrant was executed only in Dover and Hampton. At Salisbury the constable refused to obey it. He was sustained by the town's people, who were under the influence of Major Robert Pike, the leading man in the lower valley of the Merrimac, who stood far in advance of his time, as an advocate of religious freedom, and an opponent of ecclesiastical authority. He had the moral courage to address an able and manly letter to the court at Salem, remonstrating against the witchcraft trials. THE tossing spray of Cocheco's fall Hardened to ice on its rocky wall, As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn, Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn! Bared to the waist, for the north wind's grip And keener sting of the constable's whip, The blood that followed each hissing blow Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow. Priest and ruler, boy and maid Followed the dismal cavalcade; And from door and window, open thrown, Looked and wondered gaffer and crone. "God is our witness," the victims cried, We suffer for Him who for all men died; The wrong ye do has been done before, We bear the stripes that the Master bore! And thou, O Richard Waldron, for whom We hear the feet of a coming doom, On thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong Vengeance is sure, though it tarry long. "In the light of the Lord, a flame we see Climb and kindle a proud roof-tree; And beneath it an old man lying dead, With stains of blood on his hoary head." "Smite, Goodman Hate-Evil!--harder still!" The magistrate cried, "lay on with a will! Drive out of their bodies the Father of Lies, Who through them preaches and prophesies!" So into the forest they held their way, By winding river and frost-rimmed bay, Over wind-swept hills that felt the beat Of the winter sea at their icy feet. The Indian hunter, searching his traps, Peered stealthily through the forest gaps; And the outlying settler shook his head,-- "They're witches going to jail," he said. At last a meeting-house came in view; A blast on his horn the constable blew; And the boys of Hampton cried up and down, "The Quakers have come!" to the wondering town. From barn and woodpile the goodman came; The goodwife quitted her quilting frame, With her child at her breast; and, hobbling slow, The grandam followed to see the show. Once more the torturing whip was swung, Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung. "Oh, spare! they are bleeding!"' a little maid cried, And covered her face the sight to hide. A murmur ran round the crowd: "Good folks," Quoth the constable, busy counting the strokes, "No pity to wretches like these is due, They have beaten the gospel black and blue!" Then a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear, With her wooden noggin of milk drew near. "Drink, poor hearts!" a rude hand smote Her draught away from a parching throat. "Take heed," one whispered, "they'll take your cow For fines, as they took your horse and plough, And the bed from under you." "Even so," She said; "they are cruel as death, I know." Then on they passed, in the waning day, Through Seabrook woods, a weariful way; By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare, And glimpses of blue sea here and there. By the meeting-house in Salisbury town, The sufferers stood, in the red sundown, Bare for the lash! O pitying Night, Drop swift thy curtain and hide the sight. With shame in his eye and wrath on his lip The Salisbury constable dropped his whip. "This warrant means murder foul and red; Cursed is he who serves it," he said. "Show me the order, and meanwhile strike A blow at your peril!" said Justice Pike. Of all the rulers the land possessed, Wisest and boldest was he and best. He scoffed at witchcraft; the priest he met As man meets man; his feet he set Beyond his dark age, standing upright, Soul-free, with his face to the morning light. He read the warrant: "These convey From our precincts; at every town on the way Give each ten lashes." "God judge the brute! I tread his order under my foot! "Cut loose these poor ones and let them go; Come what will of it, all men shall know No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown, For whipping women in Salisbury town!" The hearts of the villagers, half released From creed of terror and rule of priest, By a primal instinct owned the right Of human pity in law's despite. For ruth and chivalry only slept, His Saxon manhood the yeoman kept; Quicker or slower, the same blood ran In the Cavalier and the Puritan. The Quakers sank on their knees in praise And thanks. A last, low sunset blaze Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed A golden glory on each bowed head. The tale is one of an evil time, When souls were fettered and thought was crime, And heresy's whisper above its breath Meant shameful scourging and bonds and death! What marvel, that hunted and sorely tried, Even woman rebuked and prophesied, And soft words rarely answered back The grim persuasion of whip and rack. If her cry from the whipping-post and jail Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail, O woman, at ease in these happier days, Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways! How much thy beautiful life may owe To her faith and courage thou canst not know, Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat She smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet. 1883. SAINT GREGORY'S GUEST. A TALE for Roman guides to tell To careless, sight-worn travellers still, Who pause beside the narrow cell Of Gregory on the Caelian Hill. One day before the monk's door came A beggar, stretching empty palms, Fainting and fast-sick, in the name Of the Most Holy asking alms. And the monk answered, "All I have In this poor cell of mine I give, The silver cup my mother gave; In Christ's name take thou it, and live." Years passed; and, called at last to bear The pastoral crook and keys of Rome, The poor monk, in Saint Peter's chair, Sat the crowned lord of Christendom. "Prepare a feast," Saint Gregory cried, "And let twelve beggars sit thereat." The beggars came, and one beside, An unknown stranger, with them sat. "I asked thee not," the Pontiff spake, "O stranger; but if need be thine, I bid thee welcome, for the sake Of Him who is thy Lord and mine." A grave, calm face the stranger raised, Like His who on Gennesaret trod, Or His on whom the Chaldeans gazed, Whose form was as the Son of God. "Know'st thou," he said, "thy gift of old?" And in the hand he lifted up The Pontiff marvelled to behold Once more his mother's silver cup. "Thy prayers and alms have risen, and bloom Sweetly among the flowers of heaven. I am The Wonderful, through whom Whate'er thou askest shall be given." He spake and vanished. Gregory fell With his twelve guests in mute accord Prone on their faces, knowing well Their eyes of flesh had seen the Lord. The old-time legend is not vain; Nor vain thy art, Verona's Paul, Telling it o'er and o'er again On gray Vicenza's frescoed wall. Still wheresoever pity shares Its bread with sorrow, want, and sin, And love the beggar's feast prepares, The uninvited Guest comes in. Unheard, because our ears are dull, Unseen, because our eyes are dim, He walks our earth, The Wonderful, And all good deeds are done to Him. 1883. BIRCHBROOK MILL. A NOTELESS stream, the Birchbrook runs Beneath its leaning trees; That low, soft ripple is its own, That dull roar is the sea's. Of human signs it sees alone The distant church spire's tip, And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray, The white sail of a ship. No more a toiler at the wheel, It wanders at its will; Nor dam nor pond is left to tell Where once was Birchbrook mill. The timbers of that mill have fed Long since a farmer's fires; His doorsteps are the stones that ground The harvest of his sires. Man trespassed here; but Nature lost No right of her domain; She waited, and she brought the old Wild beauty back again. By day the sunlight through the leaves Falls on its moist, green sod, And wakes the violet bloom of spring And autumn's golden-rod. Its birches whisper to the wind, The swallow dips her wings In the cool spray, and on its banks The gray song-sparrow sings. But from it, when the dark night falls, The school-girl shrinks with dread; The farmer, home-bound from his fields, Goes by with quickened tread. They dare not pause to hear the grind Of shadowy stone on stone; The plashing of a water-wheel Where wheel there now is none. Has not a cry of pain been heard Above the clattering mill? The pawing of an unseen horse, Who waits his mistress still? Yet never to the listener's eye Has sight confirmed the sound; A wavering birch line marks alone The vacant pasture ground. No ghostly arms fling up to heaven The agony of prayer; No spectral steed impatient shakes His white mane on the air. The meaning of that common dread No tongue has fitly told; The secret of the dark surmise The brook and birches hold. What nameless horror of the past Broods here forevermore? What ghost his unforgiven sin Is grinding o'er and o'er? Does, then, immortal memory play The actor's tragic part, Rehearsals of a mortal life And unveiled human heart? God's pity spare a guilty soul That drama of its ill, And let the scenic curtain fall On Birchbrook's haunted mill 1884. THE TWO ELIZABETHS. Read at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry at the Friends' School, Providence, R. I. A. D. 1209. AMIDST Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt, A high-born princess, servant of the poor, Sweetening with gracious words the food she dealt To starving throngs at Wartburg's blazoned door. A blinded zealot held her soul in chains, Cramped the sweet nature that he could not kill, Scarred her fair body with his penance-pains, And gauged her conscience by his narrow will. God gave her gifts of beauty and of grace, With fast and vigil she denied them all; Unquestioning, with sad, pathetic face, She followed meekly at her stern guide's call. So drooped and died her home-blown rose of bliss In the chill rigor of a discipline That turned her fond lips from her children's kiss, And made her joy of motherhood a sin. To their sad level by compassion led, One with the low and vile herself she made, While thankless misery mocked the hand that fed, And laughed to scorn her piteous masquerade. But still, with patience that outwearied hate, She gave her all while yet she had to give; And then her empty hands, importunate, In prayer she lifted that the poor might live. Sore pressed by grief, and wrongs more hard to bear, And dwarfed and stifled by a harsh control, She kept life fragrant with good deeds and prayer, And fresh and pure the white flower of her soul. Death found her busy at her task: one word Alone she uttered as she paused to die, "Silence!"--then listened even as one who heard With song and wing the angels drawing nigh! Now Fra Angelico's roses fill her hands, And, on Murillo's canvas, Want and Pain Kneel at her feet. Her marble image stands Worshipped and crowned in Marburg's holy fane. Yea, wheresoe'er her Church its cross uprears, Wide as the world her story still is told; In manhood's reverence, woman's prayers and tears, She lives again whose grave is centuries old. And still, despite the weakness or the blame Of blind submission to the blind, she hath A tender place in hearts of every name, And more than Rome owns Saint Elizabeth! A. D. 1780. Slow ages passed: and lo! another came, An English matron, in whose simple faith Nor priestly rule nor ritual had claim, A plain, uncanonized Elizabeth. No sackcloth robe, nor ashen-sprinkled hair, Nor wasting fast, nor scourge, nor vigil long, Marred her calm presence. God had made her fair, And she could do His goodly work no wrong. Their yoke is easy and their burden light Whose sole confessor is the Christ of God; Her quiet trust and faith transcending sight Smoothed to her feet the difficult paths she trod. And there she walked, as duty bade her go, Safe and unsullied as a cloistered nun, Shamed with her plainness Fashion's gaudy show, And overcame the world she did not shun. In Earlham's bowers, in Plashet's liberal hall, In the great city's restless crowd and din, Her ear was open to the Master's call, And knew the summons of His voice within. Tender as mother, beautiful as wife, Amidst the throngs of prisoned crime she stood In modest raiment faultless as her life, The type of England's worthiest womanhood. To melt the hearts that harshness turned to stone The sweet persuasion of her lips sufficed, And guilt, which only hate and fear had known, Saw in her own the pitying love of Christ. So wheresoe'er the guiding Spirit went She followed, finding every prison cell It opened for her sacred as a tent Pitched by Gennesaret or by Jacob's well. And Pride and Fashion felt her strong appeal, And priest and ruler marvelled as they saw How hand in hand went wisdom with her zeal, And woman's pity kept the bounds of law. She rests in God's peace; but her memory stirs The air of earth as with an angel's wings, And warms and moves the hearts of men like hers, The sainted daughter of Hungarian kings. United now, the Briton and the Hun, Each, in her own time, faithful unto death, Live sister souls! in name and spirit one, Thuringia's saint and our Elizabeth! 1885. REQUITAL. As Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew Nigh to its close, besought all men to say Whom he had wronged, to whom he then should pay A debt forgotten, or for pardon sue, And, through the silence of his weeping friends, A strange voice cried: "Thou owest me a debt," "Allah be praised!" he answered. "Even yet He gives me power to make to thee amends. O friend! I thank thee for thy timely word." So runs the tale. Its lesson all may heed, For all have sinned in thought, or word, or deed, Or, like the Prophet, through neglect have erred. All need forgiveness, all have debts to pay Ere the night cometh, while it still is day. 1885. THE HOMESTEAD. AGAINST the wooded hills it stands, Ghost of a dead home, staring through Its broken lights on wasted lands Where old-time harvests grew. Unploughed, unsown, by scythe unshorn, The poor, forsaken farm-fields lie, Once rich and rife with golden corn And pale green breadths of rye. Of healthful herb and flower bereft, The garden plot no housewife keeps; Through weeds and tangle only left, The snake, its tenant, creeps. A lilac spray, still blossom-clad, Sways slow before the empty rooms; Beside the roofless porch a sad Pathetic red rose blooms. His track, in mould and dust of drouth, On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves, And in the fireless chimney's mouth His web the spider weaves. The leaning barn, about to fall, Resounds no more on husking eves; No cattle low in yard or stall, No thresher beats his sheaves. So sad, so drear! It seems almost Some haunting Presence makes its sign; That down yon shadowy lane some ghost Might drive his spectral kine! O home so desolate and lorn! Did all thy memories die with thee? Were any wed, were any born, Beneath this low roof-tree? Whose axe the wall of forest broke, And let the waiting sunshine through? What goodwife sent the earliest smoke Up the great chimney flue? Did rustic lovers hither come? Did maidens, swaying back and forth In rhythmic grace, at wheel and loom, Make light their toil with mirth? Did child feet patter on the stair? Did boyhood frolic in the snow? Did gray age, in her elbow chair, Knit, rocking to and fro? The murmuring brook, the sighing breeze, The pine's slow whisper, cannot tell; Low mounds beneath the hemlock-trees Keep the home secrets well. Cease, mother-land, to fondly boast Of sons far off who strive and thrive, Forgetful that each swarming host Must leave an emptier hive. O wanderers from ancestral soil, Leave noisome mill and chaffering store: Gird up your loins for sturdier toil, And build the home once more! Come back to bayberry-scented slopes, And fragrant fern, and ground-nut vine; Breathe airs blown over holt and copse Sweet with black birch and pine. What matter if the gains are small That life's essential wants supply? Your homestead's title gives you all That idle wealth can buy. All that the many-dollared crave, The brick-walled slaves of 'Change and mart, Lawns, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have, More dear for lack of art. Your own sole masters, freedom-willed, With none to bid you go or stay, Till the old fields your fathers tilled, As manly men as they! With skill that spares your toiling hands, And chemic aid that science brings, Reclaim the waste and outworn lands, And reign thereon as kings 1886. HOW THE ROBIN CAME. AN ALGONQUIN LEGEND. HAPPY young friends, sit by me, Under May's blown apple-tree, While these home-birds in and out Through the blossoms flit about. Hear a story, strange and old, By the wild red Indians told, How the robin came to be: Once a great chief left his son,-- Well-beloved, his only one,-- When the boy was well-nigh grown, In the trial-lodge alone. Left for tortures long and slow Youths like him must undergo, Who their pride of manhood test, Lacking water, food, and rest. Seven days the fast he kept, Seven nights he never slept. Then the young boy, wrung with pain, Weak from nature's overstrain, Faltering, moaned a low complaint "Spare me, father, for I faint!" But the chieftain, haughty-eyed, Hid his pity in his pride. "You shall be a hunter good, Knowing never lack of food; You shall be a warrior great, Wise as fox and strong as bear; Many scalps your belt shall wear, If with patient heart you wait Bravely till your task is done. Better you should starving die Than that boy and squaw should cry Shame upon your father's son!" When next morn the sun's first rays Glistened on the hemlock sprays, Straight that lodge the old chief sought, And boiled sainp and moose meat brought. "Rise and eat, my son!" he said. Lo, he found the poor boy dead! As with grief his grave they made, And his bow beside him laid, Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid, On the lodge-top overhead, Preening smooth its breast of red And the brown coat that it wore, Sat a bird, unknown before. And as if with human tongue, "Mourn me not," it said, or sung; "I, a bird, am still your son, Happier than if hunter fleet, Or a brave, before your feet Laying scalps in battle won. Friend of man, my song shall cheer Lodge and corn-land; hovering near, To each wigwam I shall bring Tidings of the corning spring; Every child my voice shall know In the moon of melting snow, When the maple's red bud swells, And the wind-flower lifts its bells. As their fond companion Men shall henceforth own your son, And my song shall testify That of human kin am I." Thus the Indian legend saith How, at first, the robin came With a sweeter life from death, Bird for boy, and still the same. If my young friends doubt that this Is the robin's genesis, Not in vain is still the myth If a truth be found therewith Unto gentleness belong Gifts unknown to pride and wrong; Happier far than hate is praise,-- He who sings than he who slays. BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 1660. On a painting by E. A. Abbey. The General Court of Massachusetts enacted Oct. 19, 1658, that "any person or persons of the cursed sect of Quakers" should, on conviction of the same, be banished, on pain of death, from the jurisdiction of the common-wealth. OVER the threshold of his pleasant home Set in green clearings passed the exiled Friend, In simple trust, misdoubting not the end. "Dear heart of mine!" he said, "the time has come To trust the Lord for shelter." One long gaze The goodwife turned on each familiar thing,-- The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming, The open door that showed the hearth-fire's blaze,-- And calmly answered, "Yes, He will provide." Silent and slow they crossed the homestead's bound, Lingering the longest by their child's grave-mound. "Move on, or stay and hang!" the sheriff cried. They left behind them more than home or land, And set sad faces to an alien strand. Safer with winds and waves than human wrath, With ravening wolves than those whose zeal for God Was cruelty to man, the exiles trod Drear leagues of forest without guide or path, Or launching frail boats on the uncharted sea, Round storm-vexed capes, whose teeth of granite ground The waves to foam, their perilous way they wound, Enduring all things so their souls were free. Oh, true confessors, shaming them who did Anew the wrong their Pilgrim Fathers bore For you the Mayflower spread her sail once more, Freighted with souls, to all that duty bid Faithful as they who sought an unknown land, O'er wintry seas, from Holland's Hook of Sand! So from his lost home to the darkening main, Bodeful of storm, stout Macy held his way, And, when the green shore blended with the gray, His poor wife moaned: "Let us turn back again." "Nay, woman, weak of faith, kneel down," said he, And say thy prayers: the Lord himself will steer; And led by Him, nor man nor devils I fear! So the gray Southwicks, from a rainy sea, Saw, far and faint, the loom of land, and gave With feeble voices thanks for friendly ground Whereon to rest their weary feet, and found A peaceful death-bed and a quiet grave Where, ocean-walled, and wiser than his age, The lord of Shelter scorned the bigot's rage. Aquidneck's isle, Nantucket's lonely shores, And Indian-haunted Narragansett saw The way-worn travellers round their camp-fire draw, Or heard the plashing of their weary oars. And every place whereon they rested grew Happier for pure and gracious womanhood, And men whose names for stainless honor stood, Founders of States and rulers wise and true. The Muse of history yet shall make amends To those who freedom, peace, and justice taught, Beyond their dark age led the van of thought, And left unforfeited the name of Friends. O mother State, how foiled was thy design The gain was theirs, the loss alone was thine. THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN. The hint of this ballad is found in Arndt's Murchen, Berlin, 1816. The ballad appeared first in St. Nicholas, whose young readers were advised, while smiling at the absurd superstition, to remember that bad companionship and evil habits, desires, and passions are more to be dreaded now than the Elves and Trolls who frightened the children of past ages. THE pleasant isle of Rugen looks the Baltic water o'er, To the silver-sanded beaches of the Pomeranian shore; And in the town of Rambin a little boy and maid Plucked the meadow-flowers together and in the sea-surf played. Alike were they in beauty if not in their degree He was the Amptman's first-born, the miller's child was she. Now of old the isle of Rugen was full of Dwarfs and Trolls, The brown-faced little Earth-men, the people without souls; And for every man and woman in Rugen's island found Walking in air and sunshine, a Troll was underground. It chanced the little maiden, one morning, strolled away Among the haunted Nine Hills, where the elves and goblins play. That day, in barley-fields below, the harvesters had known Of evil voices in the air, and heard the small horns blown. She came not back; the search for her in field and wood was vain They cried her east, they cried her west, but she came not again. "She's down among the Brown Dwarfs," said the dream-wives wise and old, And prayers were made, and masses said, and Rambin's church bell tolled. Five years her father mourned her; and then John Deitrich said "I will find my little playmate, be she alive or dead." He watched among the Nine Hills, he heard the Brown Dwarfs sing, And saw them dance by moonlight merrily in a ring. And when their gay-robed leader tossed up his cap of red, Young Deitrich caught it as it fell, and thrust it on his head. The Troll came crouching at his feet and wept for lack of it. "Oh, give me back my magic cap, for your great head unfit!" "Nay," Deitrich said; "the Dwarf who throws his charmed cap away, Must serve its finder at his will, and for his folly pay. "You stole my pretty Lisbeth, and hid her in the earth; And you shall ope the door of glass and let me lead her forth." "She will not come; she's one of us; she's mine!" the Brown Dwarf said; The day is set, the cake is baked, to-morrow we shall wed." "The fell fiend fetch thee!" Deitrich cried, "and keep thy foul tongue still. Quick! open, to thy evil world, the glass door of the hill!" The Dwarf obeyed; and youth and Troll down, the long stair-way passed, And saw in dim and sunless light a country strange and vast. Weird, rich, and wonderful, he saw the elfin under-land,-- Its palaces of precious stones, its streets of golden sand. He came unto a banquet-hall with tables richly spread, Where a young maiden served to him the red wine and the bread. How fair she seemed among the Trolls so ugly and so wild! Yet pale and very sorrowful, like one who never smiled! Her low, sweet voice, her gold-brown hair, her tender blue eyes seemed Like something he had seen elsewhere or some. thing he had dreamed. He looked; he clasped her in his arms; he knew the long-lost one; "O Lisbeth! See thy playmate--I am the Amptman's son!" She leaned her fair head on his breast, and through her sobs she spoke "Oh, take me from this evil place, and from the elfin folk, "And let me tread the grass-green fields and smell the flowers again, And feel the soft wind on my cheek and hear the dropping rain! "And oh, to hear the singing bird, the rustling of the tree, The lowing cows, the bleat of sheep, the voices of the sea; "And oh, upon my father's knee to sit beside the door, And hear the bell of vespers ring in Rambin church once more!" He kissed her cheek, he kissed her lips; the Brown Dwarf groaned to see, And tore his tangled hair and ground his long teeth angrily. But Deitrich said: "For five long years this tender Christian maid Has served you in your evil world and well must she be paid! "Haste!--hither bring me precious gems, the richest in your store; Then when we pass the gate of glass, you'll take your cap once more." No choice was left the baffled Troll, and, murmuring, he obeyed, And filled the pockets of the youth and apron of the maid. They left the dreadful under-land and passed the gate of glass; They felt the sunshine's warm caress, they trod the soft, green grass. And when, beneath, they saw the Dwarf stretch up to them his brown And crooked claw-like fingers, they tossed his red cap down. Oh, never shone so bright a sun, was never sky so blue, As hand in hand they homeward walked the pleasant meadows through! And never sang the birds so sweet in Rambin's woods before, And never washed the waves so soft along the Baltic shore; And when beneath his door-yard trees the father met his child, The bells rung out their merriest peal, the folks with joy ran wild. VOLUME II. POEMS OF NATURE plus POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT and RELIGIOUS POEMS CONTENTS POEMS OF NATURE: THE FROST SPIRIT THE MERRIMAC HAMPTON BEACH A DREAM OF SUMMER THE LAKESIDE AUTUMN THOUGHTS ON RECEIVING AN EAGLE'S QUILL FROM LAKE SUPERIOR APRIL PICTURES SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE THE FRUIT-GIFT FLOWERS IN WINTER THE MAYFLOWERS THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN THE FIRST FLOWERS THE OLD BURYING-GROUND THE PALM-TREE THE RIVER PATH MOUNTAIN PICTURES I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET THE VANISHERS THE PAGEANT THE PRESSED GENTIAN A MYSTERY A SEA DREAM HAZEL BLOSSOMS SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL THE TRAILING ARBUTUS ST. MARTINS SUMMER STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE SWEET FERN THE WOOD GIANT A DAY POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT: MEMORIES RAPHAEL EGO THE PUMPKIN FORGIVENESS TO MY SISTER MY THANKS REMEMBRANCE MY NAMESAKE A MEMORY MY DREAM THE BAREFOOT BOY MY PSALM THE WAITING SNOW-BOUND MY TRIUMPH IN SCHOOL-DAYS MY BIRTHDAY RED RIDING-HOOD RESPONSE AT EVENTIDE VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE MY TRUST A NAME GREETING CONTENTS AN AUTOGRAPH ABRAM MORRISON A LEGACY RELIGIOUS POEMS: THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN THE CRUCIFIXION PALESTINE HYMNS FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE I. ENCORE UN HYMNE II. LE CRI DE L'AME THE FAMILIST'S HYMN EZEKIEL WHAT THE VOICE SAID THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND MY SOUL AND I WORSHIP THE HOLY LAND THE REWARD THE WISH OF TO-DAY ALL'S WELL INVOCATION QUESTIONS OF LIFE FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS TRUST TRINITAS THE SISTERS "THE ROCK" IN EL GHOR THE OVER-HEART THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER THE ANSWER THE ETERNAL GOODNESS THE COMMON QUESTION OUR MASTER THE MEETING THE CLEAR VISION DIVINE COMPASSION THE PRAYER-SEEKER THE BREWING OF SOMA A WOMAN THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ IN QUEST THE FRIEND'S BURIAL A CHRISTMAS CARMEN VESTA CHILD-SONGS THE HEALER THE TWO ANGELS OVERRULED HYMN OF THE DUNKERS GIVING AND TAKING THE VISION OF ECHARD INSCRIPTIONS ON A SUN-DIAL ON A FOUNTAIN THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER BY THEIR WORKS THE WORD THE BOOK REQUIREMENT HELP UTTERANCE ORIENTAL MAXIMS THE INWARD JUDGE LAYING UP TREASURE CONDUCT AN EASTER FLOWER GIFT THE MYSTIC'S CHRISTMAS AT LAST WHAT THE TRAVELLER SAID AT SUNSET THE "STORY OF IDA" THE LIGHT THAT IS FELT THE TWO LOVES ADJUSTMENT HYMNS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ REVELATION POEMS OF NATURE THE FROST SPIRIT He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes You may trace his footsteps now On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow. He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth, And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth. He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes! from the frozen Labrador, From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er, Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes on the rushing Northern blast, And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past. With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires of Hecla glow On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below. He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes and the quiet lake shall feel The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater's heel; And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang to the leaning grass, Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful silence pass. He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes! Let us meet him as we may, And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power away; And gather closer the circle round, when that fire-light dances high, And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding wing goes by! 1830. THE MERRIMAC. "The Indians speak of a beautiful river, far to the south, which they call Merrimac."--SIEUR. DE MONTS, 1604. Stream of my fathers! sweetly still The sunset rays thy valley fill; Poured slantwise down the long defile, Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile. I see the winding Powow fold The green hill in its belt of gold, And following down its wavy line, Its sparkling waters blend with thine. There 's not a tree upon thy side, Nor rock, which thy returning tide As yet hath left abrupt and stark Above thy evening water-mark; No calm cove with its rocky hem, No isle whose emerald swells begin Thy broad, smooth current; not a sail Bowed to the freshening ocean gale; No small boat with its busy oars, Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores; Nor farm-house with its maple shade, Or rigid poplar colonnade, But lies distinct and full in sight, Beneath this gush of sunset light. Centuries ago, that harbor-bar, Stretching its length of foam afar, And Salisbury's beach of shining sand, And yonder island's wave-smoothed strand, Saw the adventurer's tiny sail, Flit, stooping from the eastern gale; And o'er these woods and waters broke The cheer from Britain's hearts of oak, As brightly on the voyager's eye, Weary of forest, sea, and sky, Breaking the dull continuous wood, The Merrimac rolled down his flood; Mingling that clear pellucid brook, Which channels vast Agioochook When spring-time's sun and shower unlock The frozen fountains of the rock, And more abundant waters given From that pure lake, "The Smile of Heaven," Tributes from vale and mountain-side,-- With ocean's dark, eternal tide! On yonder rocky cape, which braves The stormy challenge of the waves, Midst tangled vine and dwarfish wood, The hardy Anglo-Saxon stood, Planting upon the topmost crag The staff of England's battle-flag; And, while from out its heavy fold Saint George's crimson cross unrolled, Midst roll of drum and trumpet blare, And weapons brandishing in air, He gave to that lone promontory The sweetest name in all his story; Of her, the flower of Islam's daughters, Whose harems look on Stamboul's waters,-- Who, when the chance of war had bound The Moslem chain his limbs around, Wreathed o'er with silk that iron chain, Soothed with her smiles his hours of pain, And fondly to her youthful slave A dearer gift than freedom gave. But look! the yellow light no more Streams down on wave and verdant shore; And clearly on the calm air swells The twilight voice of distant bells. From Ocean's bosom, white and thin, The mists come slowly rolling in; Hills, woods, the river's rocky rim, Amidst the sea--like vapor swim, While yonder lonely coast-light, set Within its wave-washed minaret, Half quenched, a beamless star and pale, Shines dimly through its cloudy veil! Home of my fathers!--I have stood Where Hudson rolled his lordly flood Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade Along his frowning Palisade; Looked down the Appalachian peak On Juniata's silver streak; Have seen along his valley gleam The Mohawk's softly winding stream; The level light of sunset shine Through broad Potomac's hem of pine; And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna; Yet wheresoe'er his step might be, Thy wandering child looked back to thee! Heard in his dreams thy river's sound Of murmuring on its pebbly bound, The unforgotten swell and roar Of waves on thy familiar shore; And saw, amidst the curtained gloom And quiet of his lonely room, Thy sunset scenes before him pass; As, in Agrippa's magic glass, The loved and lost arose to view, Remembered groves in greenness grew, Bathed still in childhood's morning dew, Along whose bowers of beauty swept Whatever Memory's mourners wept, Sweet faces, which the charnel kept, Young, gentle eyes, which long had slept; And while the gazer leaned to trace, More near, some dear familiar face, He wept to find the vision flown,-- A phantom and a dream alone! 1841. HAMPTON BEACH The sunlight glitters keen and bright, Where, miles away, Lies stretching to my dazzled sight A luminous belt, a misty light, Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray. The tremulous shadow of the Sea! Against its ground Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree, Still as a picture, clear and free, With varying outline mark the coast for miles around. On--on--we tread with loose-flung rein Our seaward way, Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain, Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane, And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray. Ha! like a kind hand on my brow Comes this fresh breeze, Cooling its dull and feverish glow, While through my being seems to flow The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas! Now rest we, where this grassy mound His feet hath set In the great waters, which have bound His granite ankles greenly round With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet. Good-by to Pain and Care! I take Mine ease to-day Here where these sunny waters break, And ripples this keen breeze, I shake All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away. I draw a freer breath, I seem Like all I see-- Waves in the sun, the white-winged gleam Of sea-birds in the slanting beam, And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free. So when Time's veil shall fall asunder, The soul may know No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, Nor sink the weight of mystery under, But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow. And all we shrink from now may seem No new revealing; Familiar as our childhood's stream, Or pleasant memory of a dream The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing. Serene and mild the untried light May have its dawning; And, as in summer's northern night The evening and the dawn unite, The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning. I sit alone; in foam and spray Wave after wave Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray, Shoulder the broken tide away, Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave. What heed I of the dusty land And noisy town? I see the mighty deep expand From its white line of glimmering sand To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down! In listless quietude of mind, I yield to all The change of cloud and wave and wind And passive on the flood reclined, I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall. But look, thou dreamer! wave and shore In shadow lie; The night-wind warns me back once more To where, my native hill-tops o'er, Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky. So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell! I bear with me No token stone nor glittering shell, But long and oft shall Memory tell Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea. 1843. A DREAM OF SUMMER. Bland as the morning breath of June The southwest breezes play; And, through its haze, the winter noon Seems warm as summer's day. The snow-plumed Angel of the North Has dropped his icy spear; Again the mossy earth looks forth, Again the streams gush clear. The fox his hillside cell forsakes, The muskrat leaves his nook, The bluebird in the meadow brakes Is singing with the brook. "Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry Bird, breeze, and streamlet free; "Our winter voices prophesy Of summer days to thee!" So, in those winters of the soul, By bitter blasts and drear O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole, Will sunny days appear. Reviving Hope and Faith, they show The soul its living powers, And how beneath the winter's snow Lie germs of summer flowers! The Night is mother of the Day, The Winter of the Spring, And ever upon old Decay The greenest mosses cling. Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, who loveth all His works, Has left His hope with all! 4th 1st month, 1847. THE LAKESIDE The shadows round the inland sea Are deepening into night; Slow up the slopes of Ossipee They chase the lessening light. Tired of the long day's blinding heat, I rest my languid eye, Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet, Thy sunset waters lie! Along the sky, in wavy lines, O'er isle and reach and bay, Green-belted with eternal pines, The mountains stretch away. Below, the maple masses sleep Where shore with water blends, While midway on the tranquil deep The evening light descends. So seemed it when yon hill's red crown, Of old, the Indian trod, And, through the sunset air, looked down Upon the Smile of God. To him of light and shade the laws No forest skeptic taught; Their living and eternal Cause His truer instinct sought. He saw these mountains in the light Which now across them shines; This lake, in summer sunset bright, Walled round with sombering pines. God near him seemed; from earth and skies His loving voice he beard, As, face to face, in Paradise, Man stood before the Lord. Thanks, O our Father! that, like him, Thy tender love I see, In radiant hill and woodland dim, And tinted sunset sea. For not in mockery dost Thou fill Our earth with light and grace; Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will Behind Thy smiling face! 1849. AUTUMN THOUGHTS Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers, And gone the Summer's pomp and show, And Autumn, in his leafless bowers, Is waiting for the Winter's snow. I said to Earth, so cold and gray, "An emblem of myself thou art." "Not so," the Earth did seem to say, "For Spring shall warm my frozen heart." I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams Of warmer sun and softer rain, And wait to hear the sound of streams And songs of merry birds again. But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone, For whom the flowers no longer blow, Who standest blighted and forlorn, Like Autumn waiting for the snow; No hope is thine of sunnier hours, Thy Winter shall no more depart; No Spring revive thy wasted flowers, Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart. 1849. ON RECEIVING AN EAGLE'S QUILL FROM LAKE SUPERIOR. All day the darkness and the cold Upon my heart have lain, Like shadows on the winter sky, Like frost upon the pane; But now my torpid fancy wakes, And, on thy Eagle's plume, Rides forth, like Sindbad on his bird, Or witch upon her broom! Below me roar the rocking pines, Before me spreads the lake Whose long and solemn-sounding waves Against the sunset break. I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh The grain he has not sown; I see, with flashing scythe of fire, The prairie harvest mown! I hear the far-off voyager's horn; I see the Yankee's trail,-- His foot on every mountain-pass, On every stream his sail. By forest, lake, and waterfall, I see his pedler show; The mighty mingling with the mean, The lofty with the low. He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls, Upon his loaded wain; He's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks, With eager eyes of gain. I hear the mattock in the mine, The axe-stroke in the dell, The clamor from the Indian lodge, The Jesuit chapel bell! I see the swarthy trappers come From Mississippi's springs; And war-chiefs with their painted brows, And crests of eagle wings. Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe, The steamer smokes and raves; And city lots are staked for sale Above old Indian graves. I hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be; The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall roll a human sea. The rudiments of empire here Are plastic yet and warm; The chaos of a mighty world Is rounding into form! Each rude and jostling fragment soon Its fitting place shall find,-- The raw material of a State, Its muscle and its mind! And, westering still, the star which leads The New World in its train Has tipped with fire the icy spears Of many a mountain chain. The snowy cones of Oregon Are kindling on its way; And California's golden sands Gleam brighter in its ray! Then blessings on thy eagle quill, As, wandering far and wide, I thank thee for this twilight dream And Fancy's airy ride! Yet, welcomer than regal plumes, Which Western trappers find, Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown, Like feathers on the wind. Thy symbol be the mountain-bird, Whose glistening quill I hold; Thy home the ample air of hope, And memory's sunset gold! In thee, let joy with duty join, And strength unite with love, The eagle's pinions folding round The warm heart of the dove! So, when in darkness sleeps the vale Where still the blind bird clings The sunshine of the upper sky Shall glitter on thy wings! 1849. APRIL. "The spring comes slowly up this way." Christabel. 'T is the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard; For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow, And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow; Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white, On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light, O'er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots; And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps, Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps, Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers, With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south! For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss of thy mouth; For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God, Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod! Up our long river-valley, for days, have not ceased The wail and the shriek of the bitter northeast, Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices and snow, All the way from the land of the wild Esquimau, Until all our dreams of the land of the blest, Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny southwest. O soul of the spring-time, its light and its breath, Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to this death; Renew the great miracle; let us behold The stone from the mouth of the sepulchre rolled, And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of old! Let our faith, which in darkness and coldness has lain, Revive with the warmth and the brightness again, And in blooming of flower and budding of tree The symbols and types of our destiny see; The life of the spring-time, the life of the whole, And, as sun to the sleeping earth, love to the soul! 1852. PICTURES I. Light, warmth, and sprouting greenness, and o'er all Blue, stainless, steel-bright ether, raining down Tranquillity upon the deep-hushed town, The freshening meadows, and the hillsides brown; Voice of the west-wind from the hills of pine, And the brimmed river from its distant fall, Low hum of bees, and joyous interlude Of bird-songs in the streamlet-skirting wood,-- Heralds and prophecies of sound and sight, Blessed forerunners of the warmth and light, Attendant angels to the house of prayer, With reverent footsteps keeping pace with mine,-- Once more, through God's great love, with you I share A morn of resurrection sweet and fair As that which saw, of old, in Palestine, Immortal Love uprising in fresh bloom From the dark night and winter of the tomb! 2d, 5th mo., 1852. II. White with its sun-bleached dust, the pathway winds Before me; dust is on the shrunken grass, And on the trees beneath whose boughs I pass; Frail screen against the Hunter of the sky, Who, glaring on me with his lidless eye, While mounting with his dog-star high and higher Ambushed in light intolerable, unbinds The burnished quiver of his shafts of fire. Between me and the hot fields of his South A tremulous glow, as from a furnace-mouth, Glimmers and swims before my dazzled sight, As if the burning arrows of his ire Broke as they fell, and shattered into light; Yet on my cheek I feel the western wind, And hear it telling to the orchard trees, And to the faint and flower-forsaken bees, Tales of fair meadows, green with constant streams, And mountains rising blue and cool behind, Where in moist dells the purple orchis gleams, And starred with white the virgin's bower is twined. So the o'erwearied pilgrim, as he fares Along life's summer waste, at times is fanned, Even at noontide, by the cool, sweet airs Of a serener and a holier land, Fresh as the morn, and as the dewfall bland. Breath of the blessed Heaven for which we pray, Blow from the eternal hills! make glad our earthly way! 8th mo., 1852. SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE. I. NOON. White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, Light mists, whose soft embraces keep The sunshine on the hills asleep! O isles of calm! O dark, still wood! And stiller skies that overbrood Your rest with deeper quietude! O shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through Yon mountain gaps, my longing view Beyond the purple and the blue, To stiller sea and greener land, And softer lights and airs more bland, And skies,--the hollow of God's hand! Transfused through you, O mountain friends! With mine your solemn spirit blends, And life no more hath separate ends. I read each misty mountain sign, I know the voice of wave and pine, And I am yours, and ye are mine. Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, I lapse into the glad release Of Nature's own exceeding peace. O welcome calm of heart and mind! As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind To leave a tenderer growth behind, So fall the weary years away; A child again, my head I lay Upon the lap of this sweet day. This western wind hath Lethean powers, Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers, The lake is white with lotus-flowers! Even Duty's voice is faint and low, And slumberous Conscience, waking slow, Forgets her blotted scroll to show. The Shadow which pursues us all, Whose ever-nearing steps appall, Whose voice we hear behind us call,-- That Shadow blends with mountain gray, It speaks but what the light waves say,-- Death walks apart from Fear to-day! Rocked on her breast, these pines and I Alike on Nature's love rely; And equal seems to live or die. Assured that He whose presence fills With light the spaces of these hills No evil to His creatures wills, The simple faith remains, that He Will do, whatever that may be, The best alike for man and tree. What mosses over one shall grow, What light and life the other know, Unanxious, leaving Him to show. II. EVENING. Yon mountain's side is black with night, While, broad-orhed, o'er its gleaming crown The moon, slow-rounding into sight, On the hushed inland sea looks down. How start to light the clustering isles, Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show The shadows of their rocky piles, And tree-tops in the wave below! How far and strange the mountains seem, Dim-looming through the pale, still light The vague, vast grouping of a dream, They stretch into the solemn night. Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale, Hushed by that presence grand and grave, Are silent, save the cricket's wail, And low response of leaf and wave. Fair scenes! whereto the Day and Night Make rival love, I leave ye soon, What time before the eastern light The pale ghost of the setting moon Shall hide behind yon rocky spines, And the young archer, Morn, shall break His arrows on the mountain pines, And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake! Farewell! around this smiling bay Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom, With lighter steps than mine, may stray In radiant summers yet to come. But none shall more regretful leave These waters and these hills than I Or, distant, fonder dream how eve Or dawn is painting wave and sky; How rising moons shine sad and mild On wooded isle and silvering bay; Or setting suns beyond the piled And purple mountains lead the day; Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy, Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here, Shall add, to life's abounding joy, The charmed repose to suffering dear. Still waits kind Nature to impart Her choicest gifts to such as gain An entrance to her loving heart Through the sharp discipline of pain. Forever from the Hand that takes One blessing from us others fall; And, soon or late, our Father makes His perfect recompense to all! Oh, watched by Silence and the Night, And folded in the strong embrace Of the great mountains, with the light Of the sweet heavens upon thy face, Lake of the Northland! keep thy dower Of beauty still, and while above Thy solemn mountains speak of power, Be thou the mirror of God's love. 1853. THE FRUIT-GIFT. Last night, just as the tints of autumn's sky Of sunset faded from our hills and streams, I sat, vague listening, lapped in twilight dreams, To the leaf's rustle, and the cricket's cry. Then, like that basket, flush with summer fruit, Dropped by the angels at the Prophet's foot, Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered sweetness, Full-orbed, and glowing with the prisoned beams Of summery suns, and rounded to completeness By kisses of the south-wind and the dew. Thrilled with a glad surprise, methought I knew The pleasure of the homeward-turning Jew, When Eshcol's clusters on his shoulders lay, Dropping their sweetness on his desert way. I said, "This fruit beseems no world of sin. Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise, O'ercrept the wall, and never paid the price Of the great mischief,--an ambrosial tree, Eden's exotic, somehow smuggled in, To keep the thorns and thistles company." Perchance our frail, sad mother plucked in haste A single vine-slip as she passed the gate, Where the dread sword alternate paled and burned, And the stern angel, pitying her fate, Forgave the lovely trespasser, and turned Aside his face of fire; and thus the waste And fallen world hath yet its annual taste Of primal good, to prove of sin the cost, And show by one gleaned ear the mighty harvest lost. 1854. FLOWERS IN WINTER PAINTED UPON A PORTE LIVRE. How strange to greet, this frosty morn, In graceful counterfeit of flowers, These children of the meadows, born Of sunshine and of showers! How well the conscious wood retains The pictures of its flower-sown home, The lights and shades, the purple stains, And golden hues of bloom! It was a happy thought to bring To the dark season's frost and rime This painted memory of spring, This dream of summer-time. Our hearts are lighter for its sake, Our fancy's age renews its youth, And dim-remembered fictions take The guise of--present truth. A wizard of the Merrimac,-- So old ancestral legends say, Could call green leaf and blossom back To frosted stem and spray. The dry logs of the cottage wall, Beneath his touch, put out their leaves The clay-bound swallow, at his call, Played round the icy eaves. The settler saw his oaken flail Take bud, and bloom before his eyes; From frozen pools he saw the pale, Sweet summer lilies rise. To their old homes, by man profaned, Came the sad dryads, exiled long, And through their leafy tongues complained Of household use and wrong. The beechen platter sprouted wild, The pipkin wore its old-time green The cradle o'er the sleeping child Became a leafy screen. Haply our gentle friend hath met, While wandering in her sylvan quest, Haunting his native woodlands yet, That Druid of the West; And, while the dew on leaf and flower Glistened in moonlight clear and still, Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power, And caught his trick of skill. But welcome, be it new or old, The gift which makes the day more bright, And paints, upon the ground of cold And darkness, warmth and light. Without is neither gold nor green; Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing; Yet, summer-like, we sit between The autumn and the spring. The one, with bridal blush of rose, And sweetest breath of woodland balm, And one whose matron lips unclose In smiles of saintly calm. Fill soft and deep, O winter snow! The sweet azalea's oaken dells, And hide the bank where roses blow, And swing the azure bells! O'erlay the amber violet's leaves, The purple aster's brookside home, Guard all the flowers her pencil gives A life beyond their bloom. And she, when spring comes round again, By greening slope and singing flood Shall wander, seeking, not in vain, Her darlings of the wood. 1855. THE MAYFLOWERS The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter. The name mayflower was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic vessel shows, but it was applied by the English, and still is, to the hawthorn. Its use in New England in connection with _Epigma repens _dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association. Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars, And nursed by winter gales, With petals of the sleeted spars, And leaves of frozen sails! What had she in those dreary hours, Within her ice-rimmed bay, In common with the wild-wood flowers, The first sweet smiles of May? Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said, Who saw the blossoms peer Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, "Behold our Mayflower here!" "God wills it: here our rest shall be, Our years of wandering o'er; For us the Mayflower of the sea Shall spread her sails no more." O sacred flowers of faith and hope, As sweetly now as then Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, In many a pine-dark glen. Behind the sea-wall's rugged length, Unchanged, your leaves unfold, Like love behind the manly strength Of the brave hearts of old. So live the fathers in their sons, Their sturdy faith be ours, And ours the love that overruns Its rocky strength with flowers! The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day Its shadow round us draws; The Mayflower of his stormy bay, Our Freedom's struggling cause. But warmer suns erelong shall bring To life the frozen sod; And through dead leaves of hope shall spring Afresh the flowers of God! 1856. THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN. I. O'er the bare woods, whose outstretched hands Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, I see, beyond the valley lands, The sea's long level dim with rain. Around me all things, stark and dumb, Seem praying for the snows to come, And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone, With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone. II. Along the river's summer walk, The withered tufts of asters nod; And trembles on its arid stalk The boar plume of the golden-rod. And on a ground of sombre fir, And azure-studded juniper, The silver birch its buds of purple shows, And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rose! III. With mingled sound of horns and bells, A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells, Like a great arrow through the sky, Two dusky lines converged in one, Chasing the southward-flying sun; While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jay Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay. IV. I passed this way a year ago The wind blew south; the noon of day Was warm as June's; and save that snow Flecked the low mountains far away, And that the vernal-seeming breeze Mocked faded grass and leafless trees, I might have dreamed of summer as I lay, Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at play. V. Since then, the winter blasts have piled The white pagodas of the snow On these rough slopes, and, strong and wild, Yon river, in its overflow Of spring-time rain and sun, set free, Crashed with its ices to the sea; And over these gray fields, then green and gold, The summer corn has waved, the thunder's organ rolled. VI. Rich gift of God! A year of time What pomp of rise and shut of day, What hues wherewith our Northern clime Makes autumn's dropping woodlands gay, What airs outblown from ferny dells, And clover-bloom and sweetbrier smells, What songs of brooks and birds, what fruits and flowers, Green woods and moonlit snows, have in its round been ours! VII. I know not how, in other lands, The changing seasons come and go; What splendors fall on Syrian sands, What purple lights on Alpine snow! Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits On Venice at her watery gates; A dream alone to me is Arno's vale, And the Alhambra's halls are but a traveller's tale. VIII. Yet, on life's current, he who drifts Is one with him who rows or sails And he who wanders widest lifts No more of beauty's jealous veils Than he who from his doorway sees The miracle of flowers and trees, Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air, And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to prayer! IX. The eye may well be glad that looks Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall; But he who sees his native brooks Laugh in the sun, has seen them all. The marble palaces of Ind Rise round him in the snow and wind; From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz smiles, And Rome's cathedral awe is in his woodland aisles. X. And thus it is my fancy blends The near at hand and far and rare; And while the same horizon bends Above the silver-sprinkled hair Which flashed the light of morning skies On childhood's wonder-lifted eyes, Within its round of sea and sky and field, Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kosmos stands revealed. XI. And thus the sick man on his bed, The toiler to his task-work bound, Behold their prison-walls outspread, Their clipped horizon widen round! While freedom-giving fancy waits, Like Peter's angel at the gates, The power is theirs to baffle care and pain, To bring the lost world back, and make it theirs again! XII. What lack of goodly company, When masters of the ancient lyre Obey my call, and trace for me Their words of mingled tears and fire! I talk with Bacon, grave and wise, I read the world with Pascal's eyes; And priest and sage, with solemn brows austere, And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of Thought, draw near. XIII. Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say, "In vain the human heart we mock; Bring living guests who love the day, Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock! The herbs we share with flesh and blood Are better than ambrosial food With laurelled shades." I grant it, nothing loath, But doubly blest is he who can partake of both. XIV. He who might Plato's banquet grace, Have I not seen before me sit, And watched his puritanic face, With more than Eastern wisdom lit? Shrewd mystic! who, upon the back Of his Poor Richard's Almanac, Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream, Links Manu's age of thought to Fulton's age of steam! XV. Here too, of answering love secure, Have I not welcomed to my hearth The gentle pilgrim troubadour, Whose songs have girdled half the earth; Whose pages, like the magic mat Whereon the Eastern lover sat, Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple vines, And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygia's mountain pines! XVI. And he, who to the lettered wealth Of ages adds the lore unpriced, The wisdom and the moral health, The ethics of the school of Christ; The statesman to his holy trust, As the Athenian archon, just, Struck down, exiled like him for truth alone, Has he not graced my home with beauty all his own? XVII. What greetings smile, what farewells wave, What loved ones enter and depart! The good, the beautiful, the brave, The Heaven-lent treasures of the heart! How conscious seems the frozen sod And beechen slope whereon they trod The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass bends Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or absent friends. XVIII. Then ask not why to these bleak hills I cling, as clings the tufted moss, To bear the winter's lingering chills, The mocking spring's perpetual loss. I dream of lands where summer smiles, And soft winds blow from spicy isles, But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flowers be sweet, Could I not feel thy soil, New England, at my feet! XIX. At times I long for gentler skies, And bathe in dreams of softer air, But homesick tears would fill the eyes That saw the Cross without the Bear. The pine must whisper to the palm, The north-wind break the tropic calm; And with the dreamy languor of the Line, The North's keen virtue blend, and strength to beauty join. XX. Better to stem with heart and hand The roaring tide of life, than lie, Unmindful, on its flowery strand, Of God's occasions drifting by Better with naked nerve to bear The needles of this goading air, Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know. XXI. Home of my heart! to me more fair Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, The painted, shingly town-house where The freeman's vote for Freedom falls! The simple roof where prayer is made, Than Gothic groin and colonnade; The living temple of the heart of man, Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or many-spired Milan! XXII. More dear thy equal village schools, Where rich and poor the Bible read, Than classic halls where Priestcraft rules, And Learning wears the chains of Creed; Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering in The scattered sheaves of home and kin, Than the mad license ushering Lenten pains, Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance in chains. XXIII. And sweet homes nestle in these dales, And perch along these wooded swells; And, blest beyond Arcadian vales, They hear the sound of Sabbath bells! Here dwells no perfect man sublime, Nor woman winged before her time, But with the faults and follies of the race, Old home-bred virtues hold their not unhonored place. XXIV. Here manhood struggles for the sake Of mother, sister, daughter, wife, The graces and the loves which make The music of the march of life; And woman, in her daily round Of duty, walks on holy ground. No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor here Is the bad lesson learned at human rights to sneer. XXV. Then let the icy north-wind blow The trumpets of the coming storm, To arrowy sleet and blinding snow Yon slanting lines of rain transform. Young hearts shall hail the drifted cold, As gayly as I did of old; And I, who watch them through the frosty pane, Unenvious, live in them my boyhood o'er again. XXVI. And I will trust that He who heeds The life that hides in mead and wold, Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads, And stains these mosses green and gold, Will still, as He hath done, incline His gracious care to me and mine; Grant what we ask aright, from wrong debar, And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter every star! XXVII. I have not seen, I may not see, My hopes for man take form in fact, But God will give the victory In due time; in that faith I act. And lie who sees the future sure, The baffling present may endure, And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand that leads The heart's desires beyond the halting step of deeds. XXVIII. And thou, my song, I send thee forth, Where harsher songs of mine have flown; Go, find a place at home and hearth Where'er thy singer's name is known; Revive for him the kindly thought Of friends; and they who love him not, Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may take The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy sake. 1857. THE FIRST FLOWERS For ages on our river borders, These tassels in their tawny bloom, And willowy studs of downy silver, Have prophesied of Spring to come. For ages have the unbound waters Smiled on them from their pebbly hem, And the clear carol of the robin And song of bluebird welcomed them. But never yet from smiling river, Or song of early bird, have they Been greeted with a gladder welcome Than whispers from my heart to-day. They break the spell of cold and darkness, The weary watch of sleepless pain; And from my heart, as from the river, The ice of winter melts again. Thanks, Mary! for this wild-wood token Of Freya's footsteps drawing near; Almost, as in the rune of Asgard, The growing of the grass I hear. It is as if the pine-trees called me From ceiled room and silent books, To see the dance of woodland shadows, And hear the song of April brooks! As in the old Teutonic ballad Of Odenwald live bird and tree, Together live in bloom and music, I blend in song thy flowers and thee. Earth's rocky tablets bear forever The dint of rain and small bird's track Who knows but that my idle verses May leave some trace by Merrimac! The bird that trod the mellow layers Of the young earth is sought in vain; The cloud is gone that wove the sandstone, From God's design, with threads of rain! So, when this fluid age we live in Shall stiffen round my careless rhyme, Who made the vagrant tracks may puzzle The savants of the coming time; And, following out their dim suggestions, Some idly-curious hand may draw My doubtful portraiture, as Cuvier Drew fish and bird from fin and claw. And maidens in the far-off twilights, Singing my words to breeze and stream, Shall wonder if the old-time Mary Were real, or the rhymer's dream! 1st 3d mo., 1857. THE OLD BURYING-GROUND. Our vales are sweet with fern and rose, Our hills are maple-crowned; But not from them our fathers chose The village burying-ground. The dreariest spot in all the land To Death they set apart; With scanty grace from Nature's hand, And none from that of Art. A winding wall of mossy stone, Frost-flung and broken, lines A lonesome acre thinly grown With grass and wandering vines. Without the wall a birch-tree shows Its drooped and tasselled head; Within, a stag-horned sumach grows, Fern-leafed, with spikes of red. There, sheep that graze the neighboring plain Like white ghosts come and go, The farm-horse drags his fetlock chain, The cow-bell tinkles slow. Low moans the river from its bed, The distant pines reply; Like mourners shrinking from the dead, They stand apart and sigh. Unshaded smites the summer sun, Unchecked the winter blast; The school-girl learns the place to shun, With glances backward cast. For thus our fathers testified, That he might read who ran, The emptiness of human pride, The nothingness of man. They dared not plant the grave with flowers, Nor dress the funeral sod, Where, with a love as deep as ours, They left their dead with God. The hard and thorny path they kept From beauty turned aside; Nor missed they over those who slept The grace to life denied. Yet still the wilding flowers would blow, The golden leaves would fall, The seasons come, the seasons go, And God be good to all. Above the graves the' blackberry hung In bloom and green its wreath, And harebells swung as if they rung The chimes of peace beneath. The beauty Nature loves to share, The gifts she hath for all, The common light, the common air, O'ercrept the graveyard's wall. It knew the glow of eventide, The sunrise and the noon, And glorified and sanctified It slept beneath the moon. With flowers or snow-flakes for its sod, Around the seasons ran, And evermore the love of God Rebuked the fear of man. We dwell with fears on either hand, Within a daily strife, And spectral problems waiting stand Before the gates of life. The doubts we vainly seek to solve, The truths we know, are one; The known and nameless stars revolve Around the Central Sun. And if we reap as we have sown, And take the dole we deal, The law of pain is love alone, The wounding is to heal. Unharmed from change to change we glide, We fall as in our dreams; The far-off terror at our side A smiling angel seems. Secure on God's all-tender heart Alike rest great and small; Why fear to lose our little part, When He is pledged for all? O fearful heart and troubled brain Take hope and strength from this,-- That Nature never hints in vain, Nor prophesies amiss. Her wild birds sing the same sweet stave, Her lights and airs are given Alike to playground and the grave; And over both is Heaven. 1858 THE PALM-TREE. Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm, On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm? Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm? A ship whose keel is of palm beneath, Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath, And a rudder of palm it steereth with. Branches of palm are its spars and rails, Fibres of palm are its woven sails, And the rope is of palm that idly trails! What does the good ship bear so well? The cocoa-nut with its stony shell, And the milky sap of its inner cell. What are its jars, so smooth and fine, But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine, And the cabbage that ripens under the Line? Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm? The master, whose cunning and skill could charm Cargo and ship from the bounteous palm. In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft, From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed, And a palm-thatch shields from the sun aloft! His dress is woven of palmy strands, And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands, Traced with the Prophet's wise commands! The turban folded about his head Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid, And the fan that cools him of palm was made. Of threads of palm was the carpet spun Whereon he kneels when the day is done, And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one! To him the palm is a gift divine, Wherein all uses of man combine,-- House, and raiment, and food, and wine! And, in the hour of his great release, His need of the palm shall only cease With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace. "Allah il Allah!" he sings his psalm, On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm; "Thanks to Allah who gives the palm!" 1858. THE RIVER PATH. No bird-song floated down the hill, The tangled bank below was still; No rustle from the birchen stem, No ripple from the water's hem. The dusk of twilight round us grew, We felt the falling of the dew; For, from us, ere the day was done, The wooded hills shut out the sun. But on the river's farther side We saw the hill-tops glorified,-- A tender glow, exceeding fair, A dream of day without its glare. With us the damp, the chill, the gloom With them the sunset's rosy bloom; While dark, through willowy vistas seen, The river rolled in shade between. From out the darkness where we trod, We gazed upon those bills of God, Whose light seemed not of moon or sun. We spake not, but our thought was one. We paused, as if from that bright shore Beckoned our dear ones gone before; And stilled our beating hearts to hear The voices lost to mortal ear! Sudden our pathway turned from night; The hills swung open to the light; Through their green gates the sunshine showed, A long, slant splendor downward flowed. Down glade and glen and bank it rolled; It bridged the shaded stream with gold; And, borne on piers of mist, allied The shadowy with the sunlit side! "So," prayed we, "when our feet draw near The river dark, with mortal fear, "And the night cometh chill with dew, O Father! let Thy light break through! "So let the hills of doubt divide, So bridge with faith the sunless tide! "So let the eyes that fail on earth On Thy eternal hills look forth; "And in Thy beckoning angels know The dear ones whom we loved below!" 1880. MOUNTAIN PICTURES. I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail, Uplift against the blue walls of the sky Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave Its golden net-work in your belting woods, Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods, And on your kingly brows at morn and eve Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive Haply the secret of your calm and strength, Your unforgotten beauty interfuse My common life, your glorious shapes and hues And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come, Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy length From the sea-level of my lowland home! They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gust Roared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrust Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near, Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear, I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear, The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer. The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain Have set in play a thousand waterfalls, Making the dusk and silence of the woods Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods, And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams, While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again. So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beats The land with hail and fire may pass away With its spent thunders at the break of day, Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats, A greener earth and fairer sky behind, Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern wind! II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET. I would I were a painter, for the sake Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, A fitting guide, with reverential tread, Into that mountain mystery. First a lake Tinted with sunset; next the wavy lines Of far receding hills; and yet more far, Monadnock lifting from his night of pines His rosy forehead to the evening star. Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laid His head against the West, whose warm light made His aureole; and o'er him, sharp and clear, Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed, A single level cloud-line, shone upon By the fierce glances of the sunken sun, Menaced the darkness with its golden spear! So twilight deepened round us. Still and black The great woods climbed the mountain at our back; And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay, The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest hung. With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard, The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well, The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell; Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the gate Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weight Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung, The welcome sound of supper-call to hear; And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear, The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung. Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we took, Praising the farmer's home. He only spake, Looking into the sunset o'er the lake, Like one to whom the far-off is most near: "Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look; I love it for my good old mother's sake, Who lived and died here in the peace of God!" The lesson of his words we pondered o'er, As silently we turned the eastern flank Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank, Doubling the night along our rugged road: We felt that man was more than his abode,-- The inward life than Nature's raiment more; And the warm sky, the sundown-tinted hill, The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and dim Before the saintly soul, whose human will Meekly in the Eternal footsteps trod, Making her homely toil and household ways An earthly echo of the song of praise Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim. 1862. THE VANISHERS. Sweetest of all childlike dreams In the simple Indian lore Still to me the legend seems Of the shapes who flit before. Flitting, passing, seen and gone, Never reached nor found at rest, Baffling search, but beckoning on To the Sunset of the Blest. From the clefts of mountain rocks, Through the dark of lowland firs, Flash the eyes and flow the locks Of the mystic Vanishers! And the fisher in his skiff, And the hunter on the moss, Hear their call from cape and cliff, See their hands the birch-leaves toss. Wistful, longing, through the green Twilight of the clustered pines, In their faces rarely seen Beauty more than mortal shines. Fringed with gold their mantles flow On the slopes of westering knolls; In the wind they whisper low Of the Sunset Land of Souls. Doubt who may, O friend of mine! Thou and I have seen them too; On before with beck and sign Still they glide, and we pursue. More than clouds of purple trail In the gold of setting day; More than gleams of wing or sail Beckon from the sea-mist gray. Glimpses of immortal youth, Gleams and glories seen and flown, Far-heard voices sweet with truth, Airs from viewless Eden blown; Beauty that eludes our grasp, Sweetness that transcends our taste, Loving hands we may not clasp, Shining feet that mock our haste; Gentle eyes we closed below, Tender voices heard once more, Smile and call us, as they go On and onward, still before. Guided thus, O friend of mine Let us walk our little way, Knowing by each beckoning sign That we are not quite astray. Chase we still, with baffled feet, Smiling eye and waving hand, Sought and seeker soon shall meet, Lost and found, in Sunset Land. 1864. 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. 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! What miracle of weird transforming In 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. 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. 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. 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. 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! 1869. THE PRESSED GENTIAN. The time of gifts has come again, And, on my northern window-pane, Outlined against the day's brief light, A Christmas token hangs in sight. The wayside travellers, as they pass, Mark the gray disk of clouded glass; And the dull blankness seems, perchance, Folly to their wise ignorance. They cannot from their outlook see The perfect grace it hath for me; For there the flower, whose fringes through The frosty breath of autumn blew, Turns from without its face of bloom To the warm tropic of my room, As fair as when beside its brook The hue of bending skies it took. So from the trodden ways of earth, Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth, And offer to the careless glance The clouding gray of circumstance. They blossom best where hearth-fires burn, To loving eyes alone they turn The flowers of inward grace, that hide Their beauty from the world outside. But deeper meanings come to me, My half-immortal flower, from thee! Man judges from a partial view, None ever yet his brother knew; The Eternal Eye that sees the whole May better read the darkened soul, And find, to outward sense denied, The flower upon its inmost side 1872. A MYSTERY. The river hemmed with leaning trees Wound through its meadows green; A low, blue line of mountains showed The open pines between. One sharp, tall peak above them all Clear into sunlight sprang I saw the river of my dreams, The mountains that I sang! No clue of memory led me on, But well the ways I knew; A feeling of familiar things With every footstep grew. Not otherwise above its crag Could lean the blasted pine; Not otherwise the maple hold Aloft its red ensign. So up the long and shorn foot-hills The mountain road should creep; So, green and low, the meadow fold Its red-haired kine asleep. The river wound as it should wind; Their place the mountains took; The white torn fringes of their clouds Wore no unwonted look. Yet ne'er before that river's rim Was pressed by feet of mine, Never before mine eyes had crossed That broken mountain line. A presence, strange at once and known, Walked with me as my guide; The skirts of some forgotten life Trailed noiseless at my side. Was it a dim-remembered dream? Or glimpse through aeons old? The secret which the mountains kept The river never told. But from the vision ere it passed A tender hope I drew, And, pleasant as a dawn of spring, The thought within me grew, That love would temper every change, And soften all surprise, And, misty with the dreams of earth, The hills of Heaven arise. 1873. A SEA DREAM. We saw the slow tides go and come, The curving surf-lines lightly drawn, The gray rocks touched with tender bloom Beneath the fresh-blown rose of dawn. We saw in richer sunsets lost The sombre pomp of showery noons; And signalled spectral sails that crossed The weird, low light of rising moons. On stormy eves from cliff and head We saw the white spray tossed and spurned; While over all, in gold and red, Its face of fire the lighthouse turned. The rail-car brought its daily crowds, Half curious, half indifferent, Like passing sails or floating clouds, We saw them as they came and went. But, one calm morning, as we lay And watched the mirage-lifted wall Of coast, across the dreamy bay, And heard afar the curlew call, And nearer voices, wild or tame, Of airy flock and childish throng, Up from the water's edge there came Faint snatches of familiar song. Careless we heard the singer's choice Of old and common airs; at last The tender pathos of his voice In one low chanson held us fast. A song that mingled joy and pain, And memories old and sadly sweet; While, timing to its minor strain, The waves in lapsing cadence beat. . . . . . The waves are glad in breeze and sun; The rocks are fringed with foam; I walk once more a haunted shore, A stranger, yet at home, A land of dreams I roam. Is this the wind, the soft sea wind That stirred thy locks of brown? Are these the rocks whose mosses knew The trail of thy light gown, Where boy and girl sat down? I see the gray fort's broken wall, The boats that rock below; And, out at sea, the passing sails We saw so long ago Rose-red in morning's glow. The freshness of the early time On every breeze is blown; As glad the sea, as blue the sky,-- The change is ours alone; The saddest is my own. A stranger now, a world-worn man, Is he who bears my name; But thou, methinks, whose mortal life Immortal youth became, Art evermore the same. Thou art not here, thou art not there, Thy place I cannot see; I only know that where thou art The blessed angels be, And heaven is glad for thee. Forgive me if the evil years Have left on me their sign; Wash out, O soul so beautiful, The many stains of mine In tears of love divine! I could not look on thee and live, If thou wert by my side; The vision of a shining one, The white and heavenly bride, Is well to me denied. But turn to me thy dear girl-face Without the angel's crown, The wedded roses of thy lips, Thy loose hair rippling down In waves of golden brown. Look forth once more through space and time, And let thy sweet shade fall In tenderest grace of soul and form On memory's frescoed wall, A shadow, and yet all! Draw near, more near, forever dear! Where'er I rest or roam, Or in the city's crowded streets, Or by the blown sea foam, The thought of thee is home! . . . . . At breakfast hour the singer read The city news, with comment wise, Like one who felt the pulse of trade Beneath his finger fall and rise. His look, his air, his curt speech, told The man of action, not of books, To whom the corners made in gold And stocks were more than seaside nooks. Of life beneath the life confessed His song had hinted unawares; Of flowers in traffic's ledgers pressed, Of human hearts in bulls and bears. But eyes in vain were turned to watch That face so hard and shrewd and strong; And ears in vain grew sharp to catch The meaning of that morning song. In vain some sweet-voiced querist sought To sound him, leaving as she came; Her baited album only caught A common, unromantic name. No word betrayed the mystery fine, That trembled on the singer's tongue; He came and went, and left no sign Behind him save the song he sung. 1874. HAZEL BLOSSOMS. The summer warmth has left the sky, The summer songs have died away; And, withered, in the footpaths lie The fallen leaves, but yesterday With ruby and with topaz gay. The grass is browning on the hills; No pale, belated flowers recall The astral fringes of the rills, And drearily the dead vines fall, Frost-blackened, from the roadside wall. Yet through the gray and sombre wood, Against the dusk of fir and pine, Last of their floral sisterhood, The hazel's yellow blossoms shine, The tawny gold of Afric's mine! Small beauty hath my unsung flower, For spring to own or summer hail; But, in the season's saddest hour, To skies that weep and winds that wail Its glad surprisals never fail. O days grown cold! O life grown old No rose of June may bloom again; But, like the hazel's twisted gold, Through early frost and latter rain Shall hints of summer-time remain. And as within the hazel's bough A gift of mystic virtue dwells, That points to golden ores below, And in dry desert places tells Where flow unseen the cool, sweet wells, So, in the wise Diviner's hand, Be mine the hazel's grateful part To feel, beneath a thirsty land, The living waters thrill and start, The beating of the rivulet's heart! Sufficeth me the gift to light With latest bloom the dark, cold days; To call some hidden spring to sight That, in these dry and dusty ways, Shall sing its pleasant song of praise. O Love! the hazel-wand may fail, But thou canst lend the surer spell, That, passing over Baca's vale, Repeats the old-time miracle, And makes the desert-land a well. 1874. SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP. A gold fringe on the purpling hem Of hills the river runs, As down its long, green valley falls The last of summer's suns. Along its tawny gravel-bed Broad-flowing, swift, and still, As if its meadow levels felt The hurry of the hill, Noiseless between its banks of green From curve to curve it slips; The drowsy maple-shadows rest Like fingers on its lips. A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, Unstoried and unknown; The ursine legend of its name Prowls on its banks alone. Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn As ever Yarrow knew, Or, under rainy Irish skies, By Spenser's Mulla grew; And through the gaps of leaning trees Its mountain cradle shows The gold against the amethyst, The green against the rose. Touched by a light that hath no name, A glory never sung, Aloft on sky and mountain wall Are God's great pictures hung. How changed the summits vast and old! No longer granite-browed, They melt in rosy mist; the rock Is softer than the cloud; The valley holds its breath; no leaf Of all its elms is twirled The silence of eternity Seems falling on the world. The pause before the breaking seals Of mystery is this; Yon miracle-play of night and day Makes dumb its witnesses. What unseen altar crowns the hills That reach up stair on stair? What eyes look through, what white wings fan These purple veils of air? What Presence from the heavenly heights To those of earth stoops down? Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods On Ida's snowy crown! Slow fades the vision of the sky, The golden water pales, And over all the valley-land A gray-winged vapor sails. I go the common way of all; The sunset fires will burn, The flowers will blow, the river flow, When I no more return. No whisper from the mountain pine Nor lapsing stream shall tell The stranger, treading where I tread, Of him who loved them well. But beauty seen is never lost, God's colors all are fast; The glory of this sunset heaven Into my soul has passed, A sense of gladness unconfined To mortal date or clime; As the soul liveth, it shall live Beyond the years of time. Beside the mystic asphodels Shall bloom the home-born flowers, And new horizons flush and glow With sunset hues of ours. Farewell! these smiling hills must wear Too soon their wintry frown, And snow-cold winds from off them shake The maple's red leaves down. But I shall see a summer sun Still setting broad and low; The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom, The golden water flow. A lover's claim is mine on all I see to have and hold,-- The rose-light of perpetual hills, And sunsets never cold! 1876 THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL. They left their home of summer ease Beneath the lowland's sheltering trees, To seek, by ways unknown to all, The promise of the waterfall. Some vague, faint rumor to the vale Had crept--perchance a hunter's tale-- Of its wild mirth of waters lost On the dark woods through which it tossed. Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere Whirled in mad dance its misty hair; But who had raised its veil, or seen The rainbow skirts of that Undine? They sought it where the mountain brook Its swift way to the valley took; Along the rugged slope they clomb, Their guide a thread of sound and foam. Height after height they slowly won; The fiery javelins of the sun Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade With rock and vine their steps delayed. But, through leaf-openings, now and then They saw the cheerful homes of men, And the great mountains with their wall Of misty purple girdling all. The leaves through which the glad winds blew Shared the wild dance the waters knew; And where the shadows deepest fell The wood-thrush rang his silver bell. Fringing the stream, at every turn Swung low the waving fronds of fern; From stony cleft and mossy sod Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod. And still the water sang the sweet, Glad song that stirred its gliding feet, And found in rock and root the keys Of its beguiling melodies. Beyond, above, its signals flew Of tossing foam the birch-trees through; Now seen, now lost, but baffling still The weary seekers' slackening will. Each called to each: "Lo here! Lo there! Its white scarf flutters in the air!" They climbed anew; the vision fled, To beckon higher overhead. So toiled they up the mountain-slope With faint and ever fainter hope; With faint and fainter voice the brook Still bade them listen, pause, and look. Meanwhile below the day was done; Above the tall peaks saw the sun Sink, beam-shorn, to its misty set Behind the hills of violet. "Here ends our quest!" the seekers cried, "The brook and rumor both have lied! The phantom of a waterfall Has led us at its beck and call." But one, with years grown wiser, said "So, always baffled, not misled, We follow where before us runs The vision of the shining ones. "Not where they seem their signals fly, Their voices while we listen die; We cannot keep, however fleet, The quick time of their winged feet. "From youth to age unresting stray These kindly mockers in our way; Yet lead they not, the baffling elves, To something better than themselves? "Here, though unreached the goal we sought, Its own reward our toil has brought: The winding water's sounding rush, The long note of the hermit thrush, "The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond And river track, and, vast, beyond Broad meadows belted round with pines, The grand uplift of mountain lines! "What matter though we seek with pain The garden of the gods in vain, If lured thereby we climb to greet Some wayside blossom Eden-sweet? "To seek is better than to gain, The fond hope dies as we attain; Life's fairest things are those which seem, The best is that of which we dream. "Then let us trust our waterfall Still flashes down its rocky wall, With rainbow crescent curved across Its sunlit spray from moss to moss. "And we, forgetful of our pain, In thought shall seek it oft again; Shall see this aster-blossomed sod, This sunshine of the golden-rod, "And haply gain, through parting boughs, Grand glimpses of great mountain brows Cloud-turbaned, and the sharp steel sheen Of lakes deep set in valleys green. "So failure wins; the consequence Of loss becomes its recompense; And evermore the end shall tell The unreached ideal guided well. "Our sweet illusions only die Fulfilling love's sure prophecy; And every wish for better things An undreamed beauty nearer brings. "For fate is servitor of love; Desire and hope and longing prove The secret of immortal youth, And Nature cheats us into truth. "O kind allurers, wisely sent, Beguiling with benign intent, Still move us, through divine unrest, To seek the loveliest and the best! "Go with us when our souls go free, And, in the clear, white light to be, Add unto Heaven's beatitude The old delight of seeking good!" 1878. THE TRAILING ARBUTUS I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made Against the bitter East their barricade, And, guided by its sweet Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell, The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet. From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pines Moaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming vines Lifted their glad surprise, While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees His feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze, And snow-drifts lingered under April skies. As, pausing, o'er the lonely flower I bent, I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent, Which yet find room, Through care and cumber, coldness and decay, To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day And make the sad earth happier for their bloom. 1879. ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. This name in some parts of Europe is given to the season we call Indian Summer, in honor of the good St. Martin. The title of the poem was suggested by the fact that the day it refers to was the exact date of that set apart to the Saint, the 11th of November. Though flowers have perished at the touch Of Frost, the early comer, I hail the season loved so much, The good St. Martin's summer. O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn, And thin moon curving o'er it! The old year's darling, latest born, More loved than all before it! How flamed the sunrise through the pines! How stretched the birchen shadows, Braiding in long, wind-wavered lines The westward sloping meadows! The sweet day, opening as a flower Unfolds its petals tender, Renews for us at noontide's hour The summer's tempered splendor. The birds are hushed; alone the wind, That through the woodland searches, The red-oak's lingering leaves can find, And yellow plumes of larches. But still the balsam-breathing pine Invites no thought of sorrow, No hint of loss from air like wine The earth's content can borrow. The summer and the winter here Midway a truce are holding, A soft, consenting atmosphere Their tents of peace enfolding. The silent woods, the lonely hills, Rise solemn in their gladness; The quiet that the valley fills Is scarcely joy or sadness. How strange! The autumn yesterday In winter's grasp seemed dying; On whirling winds from skies of gray The early snow was flying. And now, while over Nature's mood There steals a soft relenting, I will not mar the present good, Forecasting or lamenting. My autumn time and Nature's hold A dreamy tryst together, And, both grown old, about us fold The golden-tissued weather. I lean my heart against the day To feel its bland caressing; I will not let it pass away Before it leaves its blessing. God's angels come not as of old The Syrian shepherds knew them; In reddening dawns, in sunset gold, And warm noon lights I view them. Nor need there is, in times like this When heaven to earth draws nearer, Of wing or song as witnesses To make their presence clearer. O stream of life, whose swifter flow Is of the end forewarning, Methinks thy sundown afterglow Seems less of night than morning! Old cares grow light; aside I lay The doubts and fears that troubled; The quiet of the happy day Within my soul is doubled. That clouds must veil this fair sunshine Not less a joy I find it; Nor less yon warm horizon line That winter lurks behind it. The mystery of the untried days I close my eyes from reading; His will be done whose darkest ways To light and life are leading! Less drear the winter night shall be, If memory cheer and hearten Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee, Sweet summer of St. Martin! 1880. STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM. A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw On Carmel prophesying rain, began To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan, Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet. Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range; A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange, From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped. One moment, as if challenging the storm, Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell, And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form. And over all the still unhidden sun, Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain, Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain; And, when the tumult and the strife were done, With one foot on the lake and one on land, Framing within his crescent's tinted streak A far-off picture of the Melvin peak, Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned. 1882. A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE. To kneel before some saintly shrine, To breathe the health of airs divine, Or bathe where sacred rivers flow, The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go. I too, a palmer, take, as they With staff and scallop-shell, my way To feel, from burdening cares and ills, The strong uplifting of the hills. The years are many since, at first, For dreamed-of wonders all athirst, I saw on Winnipesaukee fall The shadow of the mountain wall. Ah! where are they who sailed with me The beautiful island-studded sea? And am I he whose keen surprise Flashed out from such unclouded eyes? Still, when the sun of summer burns, My longing for the hills returns; And northward, leaving at my back The warm vale of the Merrimac, I go to meet the winds of morn, Blown down the hill-gaps, mountain-born, Breathe scent of pines, and satisfy The hunger of a lowland eye. Again I see the day decline Along a ridged horizon line; Touching the hill-tops, as a nun Her beaded rosary, sinks the sun. One lake lies golden, which shall soon Be silver in the rising moon; And one, the crimson of the skies And mountain purple multiplies. With the untroubled quiet blends The distance-softened voice of friends; The girl's light laugh no discord brings To the low song the pine-tree sings; And, not unwelcome, comes the hail Of boyhood from his nearing sail. The human presence breaks no spell, And sunset still is miracle! Calm as the hour, methinks I feel A sense of worship o'er me steal; Not that of satyr-charming Pan, No cult of Nature shaming man, Not Beauty's self, but that which lives And shines through all the veils it weaves,-- Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood, Their witness to the Eternal Good! And if, by fond illusion, here The earth to heaven seems drawing near, And yon outlying range invites To other and serener heights, Scarce hid behind its topmost swell, The shining Mounts Delectable A dream may hint of truth no less Than the sharp light of wakefulness. As through her vale of incense smoke. Of old the spell-rapt priestess spoke, More than her heathen oracle, May not this trance of sunset tell That Nature's forms of loveliness Their heavenly archetypes confess, Fashioned like Israel's ark alone From patterns in the Mount made known? A holier beauty overbroods These fair and faint similitudes; Yet not unblest is he who sees Shadows of God's realities, And knows beyond this masquerade Of shape and color, light and shade, And dawn and set, and wax and wane, Eternal verities remain. O gems of sapphire, granite set! O hills that charmed horizons fret I know how fair your morns can break, In rosy light on isle and lake; How over wooded slopes can run The noonday play of cloud and sun, And evening droop her oriflamme Of gold and red in still Asquam. The summer moons may round again, And careless feet these hills profane; These sunsets waste on vacant eyes The lavish splendor of the skies; Fashion and folly, misplaced here, Sigh for their natural atmosphere, And travelled pride the outlook scorn Of lesser heights than Matterhorn. But let me dream that hill and sky Of unseen beauty prophesy; And in these tinted lakes behold The trailing of the raiment fold Of that which, still eluding gaze, Allures to upward-tending ways, Whose footprints make, wherever found, Our common earth a holy ground. 1883. SWEET FERN. The subtle power in perfume found Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learned; On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound No censer idly burned. That power the old-time worships knew, The Corybantes' frenzied dance, The Pythian priestess swooning through The wonderland of trance. And Nature holds, in wood and field, Her thousand sunlit censers still; To spells of flower and shrub we yield Against or with our will. I climbed a hill path strange and new With slow feet, pausing at each turn; A sudden waft of west wind blew The breath of the sweet fern. That fragrance from my vision swept The alien landscape; in its stead, Up fairer hills of youth I stepped, As light of heart as tread. I saw my boyhood's lakelet shine Once more through rifts of woodland shade; I knew my river's winding line By morning mist betrayed. With me June's freshness, lapsing brook, Murmurs of leaf and bee, the call Of birds, and one in voice and look In keeping with them all. A fern beside the way we went She plucked, and, smiling, held it up, While from her hand the wild, sweet scent I drank as from a cup. O potent witchery of smell! The dust-dry leaves to life return, And she who plucked them owns the spell And lifts her ghostly fern. Or sense or spirit? Who shall say What touch the chord of memory thrills? It passed, and left the August day Ablaze on lonely hills. THE WOOD GIANT From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome, From Mad to Saco river, For patriarchs of the primal wood We sought with vain endeavor. And then we said: "The giants old Are lost beyond retrieval; This pygmy growth the axe has spared Is not the wood primeval. "Look where we will o'er vale and hill, How idle are our searches For broad-girthed maples, wide-limbed oaks, Centennial pines and birches. "Their tortured limbs the axe and saw Have changed to beams and trestles; They rest in walls, they float on seas, They rot in sunken vessels. "This shorn and wasted mountain land Of underbrush and boulder,-- Who thinks to see its full-grown tree Must live a century older." At last to us a woodland path, To open sunset leading, Revealed the Anakim of pines Our wildest wish exceeding. Alone, the level sun before; Below, the lake's green islands; Beyond, in misty distance dim, The rugged Northern Highlands. Dark Titan on his Sunset Hill Of time and change defiant How dwarfed the common woodland seemed, Before the old-time giant! What marvel that, in simpler days Of the world's early childhood, Men crowned with garlands, gifts, and praise Such monarchs of the wild-wood? That Tyrian maids with flower and song Danced through the hill grove's spaces, And hoary-bearded Druids found In woods their holy places? With somewhat of that Pagan awe With Christian reverence blending, We saw our pine-tree's mighty arms Above our heads extending. We heard his needles' mystic rune, Now rising, and now dying, As erst Dodona's priestess heard The oak leaves prophesying. Was it the half-unconscious moan Of one apart and mateless, The weariness of unshared power, The loneliness of greatness? O dawns and sunsets, lend to him Your beauty and your wonder! Blithe sparrow, sing thy summer song His solemn shadow under! Play lightly on his slender keys, O wind of summer, waking For hills like these the sound of seas On far-off beaches breaking, And let the eagle and the crow Find shelter in his branches, When winds shake down his winter snow In silver avalanches. The brave are braver for their cheer, The strongest need assurance, The sigh of longing makes not less The lesson of endurance. 1885. A DAY. Talk not of sad November, when a day Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon, And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June, Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray. On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill, Singing a pleasant song of summer still, A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines. Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees, In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more; But still the squirrel hoards his winter store, And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees. Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: high Above, the spires of yellowing larches show, Where the woodpecker and home-loving crow And jay and nut-hatch winter's threat defy. O gracious beauty, ever new and old! O sights and sounds of nature, doubly dear When the low sunshine warns the closing year Of snow-blown fields and waves of Arctic cold! Close to my heart I fold each lovely thing The sweet day yields; and, not disconsolate, With the calm patience of the woods I wait For leaf and blossom when God gives us Spring! 29th, Eleventh Month, 1886. POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT MEMORIES A beautiful and happy girl, With step as light as summer air, Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl, Shadowed by many a careless curl Of unconfined and flowing hair; A seeming child in everything, Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms, As Nature wears the smile of Spring When sinking into Summer's arms. A mind rejoicing in the light Which melted through its graceful bower, Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright, And stainless in its holy white, Unfolding like a morning flower A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute, With every breath of feeling woke, And, even when the tongue was mute, From eye and lip in music spoke. How thrills once more the lengthening chain Of memory, at the thought of thee! Old hopes which long in dust have lain Old dreams, come thronging back again, And boyhood lives again in me; I feel its glow upon my cheek, Its fulness of the heart is mine, As when I leaned to hear thee speak, Or raised my doubtful eye to thine. I hear again thy low replies, I feel thy arm within my own, And timidly again uprise The fringed lids of hazel eyes, With soft brown tresses overblown. Ah! memories of sweet summer eves, Of moonlit wave and willowy way, Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves, And smiles and tones more dear than they! Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled My picture of thy youth to see, When, half a woman, half a child, Thy very artlessness beguiled, And folly's self seemed wise in thee; I too can smile, when o'er that hour The lights of memory backward stream, Yet feel the while that manhood's power Is vainer than my boyhood's dream. Years have passed on, and left their trace, Of graver care and deeper thought; And unto me the calm, cold face Of manhood, and to thee the grace Of woman's pensive beauty brought. More wide, perchance, for blame than praise, The school-boy's humble name has flown; Thine, in the green and quiet ways Of unobtrusive goodness known. And wider yet in thought and deed Diverge our pathways, one in youth; Thine the Genevan's sternest creed, While answers to my spirit's need The Derby dalesman's simple truth. For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, And holy day, and solemn psalm; For me, the silent reverence where My brethren gather, slow and calm. Yet hath thy spirit left on me An impress Time has worn not out, And something of myself in thee, A shadow from the past, I see, Lingering, even yet, thy way about; Not wholly can the heart unlearn That lesson of its better hours, Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn To common dust that path of flowers. Thus, while at times before our eyes The shadows melt, and fall apart, And, smiling through them, round us lies The warm light of our morning skies,-- The Indian Summer of the heart! In secret sympathies of mind, In founts of feeling which retain Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find Our early dreams not wholly vain 1841. RAPHAEL. Suggested by the portrait of Raphael, at the age of fifteen. I shall not soon forget that sight The glow of Autumn's westering day, A hazy warmth, a dreamy light, On Raphael's picture lay. It was a simple print I saw, The fair face of a musing boy; Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe Seemed blending with my joy. A simple print,--the graceful flow Of boyhood's soft and wavy hair, And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow Unmarked and clear, were there. Yet through its sweet and calm repose I saw the inward spirit shine; It was as if before me rose The white veil of a shrine. As if, as Gothland's sage has told, The hidden life, the man within, Dissevered from its frame and mould, By mortal eye were seen. Was it the lifting of that eye, The waving of that pictured hand? Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky, I saw the walls expand. The narrow room had vanished,--space, Broad, luminous, remained alone, Through which all hues and shapes of grace And beauty looked or shone. Around the mighty master came The marvels which his pencil wrought, Those miracles of power whose fame Is wide as human thought. There drooped thy more than mortal face, O Mother, beautiful and mild Enfolding in one dear embrace Thy Saviour and thy Child! The rapt brow of the Desert John; The awful glory of that day When all the Father's brightness shone Through manhood's veil of clay. And, midst gray prophet forms, and wild Dark visions of the days of old, How sweetly woman's beauty smiled Through locks of brown and gold! There Fornarina's fair young face Once more upon her lover shone, Whose model of an angel's grace He borrowed from her own. Slow passed that vision from my view, But not the lesson which it taught; The soft, calm shadows which it threw Still rested on my thought: The truth, that painter, bard, and sage, Even in Earth's cold and changeful clime, Plant for their deathless heritage The fruits and flowers of time. We shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our Future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade. The tissue of the Life to be We weave with colors all our own, And in the field of Destiny We reap as we have sown. Still shall the soul around it call The shadows which it gathered here, And, painted on the eternal wall, The Past shall reappear. Think ye the notes of holy song On Milton's tuneful ear have died? Think ye that Raphael's angel throng Has vanished from his side? Oh no!--We live our life again; Or warmly touched, or coldly dim, The pictures of the Past remain,--- Man's works shall follow him! 1842. EGO. WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF A FRIEND. On page of thine I cannot trace The cold and heartless commonplace, A statue's fixed and marble grace. For ever as these lines I penned, Still with the thought of thee will blend That of some loved and common friend, Who in life's desert track has made His pilgrim tent with mine, or strayed Beneath the same remembered shade. And hence my pen unfettered moves In freedom which the heart approves, The negligence which friendship loves. And wilt thou prize my poor gift less For simple air and rustic dress, And sign of haste and carelessness? Oh, more than specious counterfeit Of sentiment or studied wit, A heart like thine should value it. Yet half I fear my gift will be Unto thy book, if not to thee, Of more than doubtful courtesy. A banished name from Fashion's sphere, A lay unheard of Beauty's ear, Forbid, disowned,--what do they here? Upon my ear not all in vain Came the sad captive's clanking chain, The groaning from his bed of pain. And sadder still, I saw the woe Which only wounded spirits know When Pride's strong footsteps o'er them go. Spurned not alone in walks abroad, But from the temples of the Lord Thrust out apart, like things abhorred. Deep as I felt, and stern and strong, In words which Prudence smothered long, My soul spoke out against the wrong; Not mine alone the task to speak Of comfort to the poor and weak, And dry the tear on Sorrow's cheek; But, mingled in the conflict warm, To pour the fiery breath of storm Through the harsh trumpet of Reform; To brave Opinion's settled frown, From ermined robe and saintly gown, While wrestling reverenced Error down. Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way, Cool shadows on the greensward lay, Flowers swung upon the bending spray. And, broad and bright, on either hand, Stretched the green slopes of Fairy-land, With Hope's eternal sunbow spanned; Whence voices called me like the flow, Which on the listener's ear will grow, Of forest streamlets soft and low. And gentle eyes, which still retain Their picture on the heart and brain, Smiled, beckoning from that path of pain. In vain! nor dream, nor rest, nor pause Remain for him who round him draws The battered mail of Freedom's cause. From youthful hopes, from each green spot Of young Romance, and gentle Thought, Where storm and tumult enter not; From each fair altar, where belong The offerings Love requires of Song In homage to her bright-eyed throng; With soul and strength, with heart and hand, I turned to Freedom's struggling band, To the sad Helots of our land. What marvel then that Fame should turn Her notes of praise to those of scorn; Her gifts reclaimed, her smiles withdrawn? What matters it? a few years more, Life's surge so restless heretofore Shall break upon the unknown shore! In that far land shall disappear The shadows which we follow here, The mist-wreaths of our atmosphere! Before no work of mortal hand, Of human will or strength expand The pearl gates of the Better Land; Alone in that great love which gave Life to the sleeper of the grave, Resteth the power to seek and save. Yet, if the spirit gazing through The vista of the past can view One deed to Heaven and virtue true; If through the wreck of wasted powers, Of garlands wreathed from Folly's bowers, Of idle aims and misspent hours, The eye can note one sacred spot By Pride and Self profaned not, A green place in the waste of thought, Where deed or word hath rendered less The sum of human wretchedness, And Gratitude looks forth to bless; The simple burst of tenderest feeling From sad hearts worn by evil-dealing, For blessing on the hand of healing; Better than Glory's pomp will be That green and blessed spot to me, A palm-shade in Eternity! Something of Time which may invite The purified and spiritual sight To rest on with a calm delight. And when the summer winds shall sweep With their light wings my place of sleep, And mosses round my headstone creep; If still, as Freedom's rallying sign, Upon the young heart's altars shine The very fires they caught from mine; If words my lips once uttered still, In the calm faith and steadfast will Of other hearts, their work fulfil; Perchance with joy the soul may learn These tokens, and its eye discern The fires which on those altars burn; A marvellous joy that even then, The spirit hath its life again, In the strong hearts of mortal men. Take, lady, then, the gift I bring, No gay and graceful offering, No flower-smile of the laughing spring. Midst the green buds of Youth's fresh May, With Fancy's leaf-enwoven bay, My sad and sombre gift I lay. And if it deepens in thy mind A sense of suffering human-kind,-- The outcast and the spirit-blind; Oppressed and spoiled on every side, By Prejudice, and Scorn, and Pride, Life's common courtesies denied; Sad mothers mourning o'er their trust, Children by want and misery nursed, Tasting life's bitter cup at first; If to their strong appeals which come From fireless hearth, and crowded room, And the close alley's noisome gloom,-- Though dark the hands upraised to thee In mute beseeching agony, Thou lend'st thy woman's sympathy; Not vainly on thy gentle shrine, Where Love, and Mirth, and Friendship twine Their varied gifts, I offer mine. 1843. THE PUMPKIN. Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold, With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold, Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew, While he waited to know that his warning was true, And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain. On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden; And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold; Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North, On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth, Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines, And the sun of September melts down on his vines. Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West, From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest, When the gray-haired New-Englander sees round his board The old broken links of affection restored, When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more, And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before, What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye? What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie? Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling, When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, Glaring out through the dark with a candle within! When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune, Our chair a broad pumpkin,--our lantern the moon, Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam, In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter! Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine, Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine! And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express, Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less, That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow, And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie! 1844. FORGIVENESS. My heart was heavy, for its trust had been Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong; So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men, One summer Sabbath day I strolled among The green mounds of the village burial-place; Where, pondering how all human love and hate Find one sad level; and how, soon or late, Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face, And cold hands folded over a still heart, Pass the green threshold of our common grave, Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart, Awed for myself, and pitying my race, Our common sorrow, like a nighty wave, Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave! 1846. TO MY SISTER, WITH A COPY OF "THE SUPERNATURALISM OF NEW ENGLAND." The work referred to was a series of papers under this title, contributed to the Democratic Review and afterward collected into a volume, in which I noted some of the superstitions and folklore prevalent in New England. The volume has not been kept in print, but most of its contents are distributed in my Literary Recreations and Miscellanies. Dear Sister! while the wise and sage Turn coldly from my playful page, And count it strange that ripened age Should stoop to boyhood's folly; I know that thou wilt judge aright Of all which makes the heart more light, Or lends one star-gleam to the night Of clouded Melancholy. Away with weary cares and themes! Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams! Leave free once more the land which teems With wonders and romances Where thou, with clear discerning eyes, Shalt rightly read the truth which lies Beneath the quaintly masking guise Of wild and wizard fancies. Lo! once again our feet we set On still green wood-paths, twilight wet, By lonely brooks, whose waters fret The roots of spectral beeches; Again the hearth-fire glimmers o'er Home's whitewashed wall and painted floor, And young eyes widening to the lore Of faery-folks and witches. Dear heart! the legend is not vain Which lights that holy hearth again, And calling back from care and pain, And death's funereal sadness, Draws round its old familiar blaze The clustering groups of happier days, And lends to sober manhood's gaze A glimpse of childish gladness. And, knowing how my life hath been A weary work of tongue and pen, A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men, Thou wilt not chide my turning To con, at times, an idle rhyme, To pluck a flower from childhood's clime, Or listen, at Life's noonday chime, For the sweet bells of Morning! 1847. MY THANKS, ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRESENTED TO A FRIEND. 'T is said that in the Holy Land The angels of the place have blessed The pilgrim's bed of desert sand, Like Jacob's stone of rest. That down the hush of Syrian skies Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings The song whose holy symphonies Are beat by unseen wings; Till starting from his sandy bed, The wayworn wanderer looks to see The halo of an angel's head Shine through the tamarisk-tree. So through the shadows of my way Thy smile hath fallen soft and clear, So at the weary close of day Hath seemed thy voice of cheer. That pilgrim pressing to his goal May pause not for the vision's sake, Yet all fair things within his soul The thought of it shall wake: The graceful palm-tree by the well, Seen on the far horizon's rim; The dark eyes of the fleet gazelle, Bent timidly on him; Each pictured saint, whose golden hair Streams sunlike through the convent's gloom; Pale shrines of martyrs young and fair, And loving Mary's tomb; And thus each tint or shade which falls, From sunset cloud or waving tree, Along my pilgrim path, recalls The pleasant thought of thee. Of one in sun and shade the same, In weal and woe my steady friend, Whatever by that holy name The angels comprehend. Not blind to faults and follies, thou Hast never failed the good to see, Nor judged by one unseemly bough The upward-struggling tree. These light leaves at thy feet I lay,-- Poor common thoughts on common things, Which time is shaking, day by day, Like feathers from his wings; Chance shootings from a frail life-tree, To nurturing care but little known, Their good was partly learned of thee, Their folly is my own. That tree still clasps the kindly mould, Its leaves still drink the twilight dew, And weaving its pale green with gold, Still shines the sunlight through. There still the morning zephyrs play, And there at times the spring bird sings, And mossy trunk and fading spray Are flowered with glossy wings. Yet, even in genial sun and rain, Root, branch, and leaflet fail and fade; The wanderer on its lonely plain Erelong shall miss its shade. O friend beloved, whose curious skill Keeps bright the last year's leaves and flowers, With warm, glad, summer thoughts to fill The cold, dark, winter hours Pressed on thy heart, the leaves I bring May well defy the wintry cold, Until, in Heaven's eternal spring, Life's fairer ones unfold. 1847. REMEMBRANCE WITH COPIES OF THE AUTHOR'S WRITINGS. Friend of mine! whose lot was cast With me in the distant past; Where, like shadows flitting fast, Fact and fancy, thought and theme, Word and work, begin to seem Like a half-remembered dream! Touched by change have all things been, Yet I think of thee as when We had speech of lip and pen. For the calm thy kindness lent To a path of discontent, Rough with trial and dissent; Gentle words where such were few, Softening blame where blame was true, Praising where small praise was due; For a waking dream made good, For an ideal understood, For thy Christian womanhood; For thy marvellous gift to cull From our common life and dull Whatsoe'er is beautiful; Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees Dropping sweetness; true heart's-ease Of congenial sympathies;-- Still for these I own my debt; Memory, with her eyelids wet, Fain would thank thee even yet! And as one who scatters flowers Where the Queen of May's sweet hours Sits, o'ertwined with blossomed bowers, In superfluous zeal bestowing Gifts where gifts are overflowing, So I pay the debt I'm owing. To thy full thoughts, gay or sad, Sunny-hued or sober clad, Something of my own I add; Well assured that thou wilt take Even the offering which I make Kindly for the giver's sake. 1851. MY NAMESAKE. Addressed to Francis Greenleaf Allison of Burlington, New Jersey. You scarcely need my tardy thanks, Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend-- A green leaf on your own Green Banks-- The memory of your friend. For me, no wreath, bloom-woven, hides The sobered brow and lessening hair For aught I know, the myrtled sides Of Helicon are bare. Their scallop-shells so many bring The fabled founts of song to try, They've drained, for aught I know, the spring Of Aganippe dry. Ah well!--The wreath the Muses braid Proves often Folly's cap and bell; Methinks, my ample beaver's shade May serve my turn as well. Let Love's and Friendship's tender debt Be paid by those I love in life. Why should the unborn critic whet For me his scalping-knife? Why should the stranger peer and pry One's vacant house of life about, And drag for curious ear and eye His faults and follies out?-- Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon, With chaff of words, the garb he wore, As corn-husks when the ear is gone Are rustled all the more? Let kindly Silence close again, The picture vanish from the eye, And on the dim and misty main Let the small ripple die. Yet not the less I own your claim To grateful thanks, dear friends of mine. Hang, if it please you so, my name Upon your household line. Let Fame from brazen lips blow wide Her chosen names, I envy none A mother's love, a father's pride, Shall keep alive my own! Still shall that name as now recall The young leaf wet with morning dew, The glory where the sunbeams fall The breezy woodlands through. That name shall be a household word, A spell to waken smile or sigh; In many an evening prayer be heard And cradle lullaby. And thou, dear child, in riper days When asked the reason of thy name, Shalt answer: One 't were vain to praise Or censure bore the same. "Some blamed him, some believed him good, The truth lay doubtless 'twixt the two; He reconciled as best he could Old faith and fancies new. "In him the grave and playful mixed, And wisdom held with folly truce, And Nature compromised betwixt Good fellow and recluse. "He loved his friends, forgave his foes; And, if his words were harsh at times, He spared his fellow-men,--his blows Fell only on their crimes. "He loved the good and wise, but found His human heart to all akin Who met him on the common ground Of suffering and of sin. "Whate'er his neighbors might endure Of pain or grief his own became; For all the ills he could not cure He held himself to blame. "His good was mainly an intent, His evil not of forethought done; The work he wrought was rarely meant Or finished as begun. "Ill served his tides of feeling strong To turn the common mills of use; And, over restless wings of song, His birthright garb hung loose! "His eye was beauty's powerless slave, And his the ear which discord pains; Few guessed beneath his aspect grave What passions strove in chains. "He had his share of care and pain, No holiday was life to him; Still in the heirloom cup we drain The bitter drop will swim. "Yet Heaven was kind, and here a bird And there a flower beguiled his way; And, cool, in summer noons, he heard The fountains plash and play. "On all his sad or restless moods The patient peace of Nature stole; The quiet of the fields and woods Sank deep into his soul. "He worshipped as his fathers did, And kept the faith of childish days, And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid, He loved the good old ways. "The simple tastes, the kindly traits, The tranquil air, and gentle speech, The silence of the soul that waits For more than man to teach. "The cant of party, school, and sect, Provoked at times his honest scorn, And Folly, in its gray respect, He tossed on satire's horn. "But still his heart was full of awe And reverence for all sacred things; And, brooding over form and law,' He saw the Spirit's wings! "Life's mystery wrapt him like a cloud; He heard far voices mock his own, The sweep of wings unseen, the loud, Long roll of waves unknown. "The arrows of his straining sight Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage, Like lost guides calling left and right, Perplexed his doubtful age. "Like childhood, listening for the sound Of its dropped pebbles in the well, All vainly down the dark profound His brief-lined plummet fell. "So, scattering flowers with pious pains On old beliefs, of later creeds, Which claimed a place in Truth's domains, He asked the title-deeds. "He saw the old-time's groves and shrines In the long distance fair and dim; And heard, like sound of far-off pines, The century-mellowed hymn! "He dared not mock the Dervish whirl, The Brahmin's rite, the Lama's spell; God knew the heart; Devotion's pearl Might sanctify the shell. "While others trod the altar stairs He faltered like the publican; And, while they praised as saints, his prayers Were those of sinful man. "For, awed by Sinai's Mount of Law, The trembling faith alone sufficed, That, through its cloud and flame, he saw The sweet, sad face of Christ! "And listening, with his forehead bowed, Heard the Divine compassion fill The pauses of the trump and cloud With whispers small and still. "The words he spake, the thoughts he penned, Are mortal as his hand and brain, But, if they served the Master's end, He has not lived in vain!" Heaven make thee better than thy name, Child of my friends!--For thee I crave What riches never bought, nor fame To mortal longing gave. I pray the prayer of Plato old: God make thee beautiful within, And let thine eyes the good behold In everything save sin! Imagination held in check To serve, not rule, thy poised mind; Thy Reason, at the frown or beck Of Conscience, loose or bind. No dreamer thou, but real all,-- Strong manhood crowning vigorous youth; Life made by duty epical And rhythmic with the truth. So shall that life the fruitage yield Which trees of healing only give, And green-leafed in the Eternal field Of God, forever live! 1853. A MEMORY Here, while the loom of Winter weaves The shroud of flowers and fountains, I think of thee and summer eves Among the Northern mountains. When thunder tolled the twilight's close, And winds the lake were rude on, And thou wert singing, _Ca' the Yowes_, The bonny yowes of Cluden! When, close and closer, hushing breath, Our circle narrowed round thee, And smiles and tears made up the wreath Wherewith our silence crowned thee; And, strangers all, we felt the ties Of sisters and of brothers; Ah! whose of all those kindly eyes Now smile upon another's? The sport of Time, who still apart The waifs of life is flinging; Oh, nevermore shall heart to heart Draw nearer for that singing! Yet when the panes are frosty-starred, And twilight's fire is gleaming, I hear the songs of Scotland's bard Sound softly through my dreaming! A song that lends to winter snows The glow of summer weather,-- Again I hear thee ca' the yowes To Cluden's hills of heather 1854. MY DREAM. In my dream, methought I trod, Yesternight, a mountain road; Narrow as Al Sirat's span, High as eagle's flight, it ran. Overhead, a roof of cloud With its weight of thunder bowed; Underneath, to left and right, Blankness and abysmal night. Here and there a wild-flower blushed, Now and then a bird-song gushed; Now and then, through rifts of shade, Stars shone out, and sunbeams played. But the goodly company, Walking in that path with me, One by one the brink o'erslid, One by one the darkness hid. Some with wailing and lament, Some with cheerful courage went; But, of all who smiled or mourned, Never one to us returned. Anxiously, with eye and ear, Questioning that shadow drear, Never hand in token stirred, Never answering voice I heard! Steeper, darker!--lo! I felt From my feet the pathway melt. Swallowed by the black despair, And the hungry jaws of air, Past the stony-throated caves, Strangled by the wash of waves, Past the splintered crags, I sank On a green and flowery bank,-- Soft as fall of thistle-down, Lightly as a cloud is blown, Soothingly as childhood pressed To the bosom of its rest. Of the sharp-horned rocks instead, Green the grassy meadows spread, Bright with waters singing by Trees that propped a golden sky. Painless, trustful, sorrow-free, Old lost faces welcomed me, With whose sweetness of content Still expectant hope was blent. Waking while the dawning gray Slowly brightened into day, Pondering that vision fled, Thus unto myself I said:-- "Steep and hung with clouds of strife Is our narrow path of life; And our death the dreaded fall Through the dark, awaiting all. "So, with painful steps we climb Up the dizzy ways of time, Ever in the shadow shed By the forecast of our dread. "Dread of mystery solved alone, Of the untried and unknown; Yet the end thereof may seem Like the falling of my dream. "And this heart-consuming care, All our fears of here or there, Change and absence, loss and death, Prove but simple lack of faith." Thou, O Most Compassionate! Who didst stoop to our estate, Drinking of the cup we drain, Treading in our path of pain,-- Through the doubt and mystery, Grant to us thy steps to see, And the grace to draw from thence Larger hope and confidence. Show thy vacant tomb, and let, As of old, the angels sit, Whispering, by its open door "Fear not! He hath gone before!" 1855. THE BAREFOOT BOY. Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan With thy turned-up pantaloons, And thy merry whistled tunes; With thy red lip, redder still Kissed by strawberries on the hill; With the sunshine on thy face, Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace; From my heart I give thee joy,-- I was once a barefoot boy! Prince thou art,--the grown-up man Only is republican. Let the million-dollared ride! Barefoot, trudging at his side, Thou hast more than he can buy In the reach of ear and eye,-- Outward sunshine, inward joy Blessings on thee, barefoot boy! Oh for boyhood's painless play, Sleep that wakes in laughing day, Health that mocks the doctor's rules, Knowledge never learned of schools, Of the wild bee's morning chase, Of the wild-flower's time and place, Flight of fowl and habitude Of the tenants of the wood; How the tortoise bears his shell, How the woodchuck digs his cell, And the ground-mole sinks his well; How the robin feeds her young, How the oriole's nest is hung; Where the whitest lilies blow, Where the freshest berries grow, Where the ground-nut trails its vine, Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; Of the black wasp's cunning way, Mason of his walls of clay, And the architectural plans Of gray hornet artisans! For, eschewing books and tasks, Nature answers all he asks, Hand in hand with her he walks, Face to face with her he talks, Part and parcel of her joy,-- Blessings on the barefoot boy! Oh for boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon, When all things I heard or saw, Me, their master, waited for. I was rich in flowers and trees, Humming-birds and honey-bees; For my sport the squirrel played, Plied the snouted mole his spade; For my taste the blackberry cone Purpled over hedge and stone; Laughed the brook for my delight Through the day and through the night, Whispering at the garden wall, Talked with me from fall to fall; Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, Mine the walnut slopes beyond, Mine, on bending orchard trees, Apples of Hesperides! Still as my horizon grew, Larger grew my riches too; All the world I saw or knew Seemed a complex Chinese toy, Fashioned for a barefoot boy! Oh for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread; Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch: pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy! Cheerily, then, my little man, Live and laugh, as boyhood can Though the flinty slopes be hard, Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, Every morn shall lead thee through Fresh baptisms of the dew; Every evening from thy feet Shall the cool wind kiss the heat All too soon these feet must hide In the prison cells of pride, Lose the freedom of the sod, Like a colt's for work be shod, Made to tread the mills of toil, Up and down in ceaseless moil Happy if their track be found Never on forbidden ground; Happy if they sink not in Quick and treacherous sands of sin. Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy, Ere it passes, barefoot boy! 1855. MY PSALM. I mourn no more my vanished years Beneath a tender rain, An April rain of smiles and tears, My heart is young again. The west-winds blow, and, singing low, I hear the glad streams run; The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun. No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But, grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here. I plough no more a desert land, To harvest weed and tare; The manna dropping from God's hand Rebukes my painful care. I break my pilgrim staff, I lay Aside the toiling oar; The angel sought so far away I welcome at my door. The airs of spring may never play Among the ripening corn, Nor freshness of the flowers of May Blow through the autumn morn. Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look Through fringed lids to heaven, And the pale aster in the brook Shall see its image given;-- The woods shall wear their robes of praise, The south-wind softly sigh, And sweet, calm days in golden haze Melt down the amber sky. Not less shall manly deed and word Rebuke an age of wrong; The graven flowers that wreathe the sword Make not the blade less strong. But smiting hands shall learn to heal,-- To build as to destroy; Nor less my heart for others feel That I the more enjoy. All as God wills, who wisely heeds To give or to withhold, And knoweth more of all my needs Than all my prayers have told. Enough that blessings undeserved Have marked my erring track; That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved, His chastening turned me back; That more and more a Providence Of love is understood, Making the springs of time and sense Sweet with eternal good;-- That death seems but a covered way Which opens into light, Wherein no blinded child can stray Beyond the Father's sight; That care and trial seem at last, Through Memory's sunset air, Like mountain-ranges overpast, In purple distance fair; That all the jarring notes of life Seem blending in a psalm, And all the angles of its strife Slow rounding into calm. And so the shadows fall apart, And so the west-winds play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day. 1859. THE WAITING. I wait and watch: before my eyes Methinks the night grows thin and gray; I wait and watch the eastern skies To see the golden spears uprise Beneath the oriflamme of day! Like one whose limbs are bound in trance I hear the day-sounds swell and grow, And see across the twilight glance, Troop after troop, in swift advance, The shining ones with plumes of snow! I know the errand of their feet, I know what mighty work is theirs; I can but lift up hands unmeet, The threshing-floors of God to beat, And speed them with unworthy prayers. I will not dream in vain despair The steps of progress wait for me The puny leverage of a hair The planet's impulse well may spare, A drop of dew the tided sea. The loss, if loss there be, is mine, And yet not mine if understood; For one shall grasp and one resign, One drink life's rue, and one its wine, And God shall make the balance good. Oh power to do! Oh baffled will! Oh prayer and action! ye are one. Who may not strive, may yet fulfil The harder task of standing still, And good but wished with God is done! 1862. SNOW-BOUND. A WINTER IDYL. TO THE MEMORY OF THE HOUSEHOLD IT DESCRIBES, THIS POEM IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. The inmates of the family at the Whittier homestead who are referred to in the poem were my father, mother, my brother and two sisters, and my uncle and aunt both unmarried. In addition, there was the district school-master who boarded with us. The "not unfeared, half-welcome guest" was Harriet Livermore, daughter of Judge Livermore, of New Hampshire, a young woman of fine natural ability, enthusiastic, eccentric, with slight control over her violent temper, which sometimes made her religious profession doubtful. She was equally ready to exhort in school-house prayer-meetings and dance in a Washington ball-room, while her father was a member of Congress. She early embraced the doctrine of the Second Advent, and felt it her duty to proclaim the Lord's speedy coming. With this message she crossed the Atlantic and spent the greater part of a long life in travelling over Europe and Asia. She lived some time with Lady Hester Stanhope, a woman as fantastic and mentally strained as herself, on the slope of Mt. Lebanon, but finally quarrelled with her in regard to two white horses with red marks on their backs which suggested the idea of saddles, on which her titled hostess expected to ride into Jerusalem with the Lord. A friend of mine found her, when quite an old woman, wandering in Syria with a tribe of Arabs, who with the Oriental notion that madness is inspiration, accepted her as their prophetess and leader. At the time referred to in Snow-Bound she was boarding at the Rocks Village about two miles from us. In my boyhood, in our lonely farm-house, we had scanty sources of information; few books and only a small weekly newspaper. Our only annual was the Almanac. Under such circumstances story-telling was a necessary resource in the long winter evenings. My father when a young man had traversed the wilderness to Canada, and could tell us of his adventures with Indians and wild beasts, and of his sojourn in the French villages. My uncle was ready with his record of hunting and fishing and, it must be confessed, with stories which he at least half believed, of witchcraft and apparitions. My mother, who was born in the Indian-haunted region of Somersworth, New Hampshire, between Dover and Portsmouth, told us of the inroads of the savages, and the narrow escape of her ancestors. She described strange people who lived on the Piscataqua and Cocheco, among whom was Bantam the sorcerer. I have in my possession the wizard's "conjuring book," which he solemnly opened when consulted. It is a copy of Cornelius Agrippa's Magic printed in 1651, dedicated to Dr. Robert Child, who, like Michael Scott, had learned "the art of glammorie In Padua beyond the sea," and who is famous in the annals of Massachusetts, where he was at one time a resident, as the first man who dared petition the General Court for liberty of conscience. The full title of the book is Three Books of Occult Philosophy, by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Knight, Doctor of both Laws, Counsellor to Caesar's Sacred Majesty and Judge of the Prerogative Court. "As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same." --Cor. AGRIPPA, Occult Philosophy, Book I. ch. v. "Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the rivet and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm." Emerson. The Snow Storm. The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite, shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told. The wind blew east; we heard the roar Of Ocean on his wintry shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air. Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,-- Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The cock his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent. Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm, And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag, wavering to and fro, Crossed and recrossed the winged snow And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame, And through the glass the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. So all night long the storm roared on The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,-- A universe of sky and snow The old familiar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, Or garden-wall, or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle-post an old man sat With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat; The well-curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle. A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!" Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy?) Our buskins on our feet we drew; With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, To guard our necks and ears from snow, We cut the solid whiteness through. And, where the drift was deepest, made A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, And to our own his name we gave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp's supernal powers. We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within. The old horse thrust his long head out, And grave with wonder gazed about; The cock his lusty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And mild reproach of hunger looked; The horned patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp of foot. All day the gusty north-wind bore The loosening drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside. We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship, And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone. As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank From sight beneath the smothering bank, We piled, with care, our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-back,-- The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; While radiant with a mimic flame Outside the sparkling drift became, And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. The crane and pendent trammels showed, The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed; While childish fancy, prompt to tell The meaning of the miracle, Whispered the old rhyme: "_Under the tree, When fire outdoors burns merrily, There the witches are making tea_." The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full; the hill-range stood Transfigured in the silver flood, Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, Dead white, save where some sharp ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness at their back. For such a world and such a night Most fitting that unwarming light, Which only seemed where'er it fell To make the coldness visible. Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north-wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed; The house-dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet, The mug of cider simmered slow, The apples sputtered in a row, And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood. What matter how the night behaved? What matter how the north-wind raved? Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. O Time and Change!--with hair as gray As was my sire's that winter day, How strange it seems, with so much gone Of life and love, to still live on! Ah, brother! only I and thou Are left of all that circle now,-- The dear home faces whereupon That fitful firelight paled and shone. Henceforward, listen as we will, The voices of that hearth are still; Look where we may, the wide earth o'er Those lighted faces smile no more. We tread the paths their feet have worn, We sit beneath their orchard trees, We hear, like them, the hum of bees And rustle of the bladed corn; We turn the pages that they read, Their written words we linger o'er, But in the sun they cast no shade, No voice is heard, no sign is made, No step is on the conscious floor! Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, (Since He who knows our need is just,) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own! We sped the time with stories old, Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told, Or stammered from our school-book lore The Chief of Gambia's "golden shore." How often since, when all the land Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand, As if a far-blown trumpet stirred The languorous sin-sick air, I heard "_Does not the voice of reason cry, Claim the first right which Nature gave, From the red scourge of bondage fly, Nor deign to live a burdened slave_!" Our father rode again his ride On Memphremagog's wooded side; Sat down again to moose and samp In trapper's hut and Indian camp; Lived o'er the old idyllic ease Beneath St. Francois' hemlock-trees; Again for him the moonlight shone On Norman cap and bodiced zone; Again he heard the violin play Which led the village dance away, And mingled in its merry whirl The grandam and the laughing girl. Or, nearer home, our steps he led Where Salisbury's level marshes spread Mile-wide as flies the laden bee; Where merry mowers, hale and strong, Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along The low green prairies of the sea. We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, And round the rocky Isles of Shoals The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals; The chowder on the sand-beach made, Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot, With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. We heard the tales of witchcraft old, And dream and sign and marvel told To sleepy listeners as they lay Stretched idly on the salted hay, Adrift along the winding shores, When favoring breezes deigned to blow The square sail of the gundelow And idle lay the useless oars. Our mother, while she turned her wheel Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, Told how the Indian hordes came down At midnight on Cocheco town, And how her own great-uncle bore His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. Recalling, in her fitting phrase, So rich and picturesque and free, (The common unrhymed poetry Of simple life and country ways,) The story of her early days,-- She made us welcome to her home; Old hearths grew wide to give us room; We stole with her a frightened look At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, The fame whereof went far and wide Through all the simple country side; We heard the hawks at twilight play, The boat-horn on Piscataqua, The loon's weird laughter far away; We fished her little trout-brook, knew What flowers in wood and meadow grew, What sunny hillsides autumn-brown She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, Saw where in sheltered cove and bay The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, And heard the wild-geese calling loud Beneath the gray November cloud. Then, haply, with a look more grave, And soberer tone, some tale she gave From painful Sewell's ancient tome, Beloved in every Quaker home, Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint,-- Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint!-- Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, And water-butt and bread-cask failed, And cruel, hungry eyes pursued His portly presence mad for food, With dark hints muttered under breath Of casting lots for life or death, Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, To be himself the sacrifice. Then, suddenly, as if to save The good man from his living grave, A ripple on the water grew, A school of porpoise flashed in view. "Take, eat," he said, "and be content; These fishes in my stead are sent By Him who gave the tangled ram To spare the child of Abraham." Our uncle, innocent of books, Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, The ancient teachers never dumb Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. In moons and tides and weather wise, He read the clouds as prophecies, And foul or fair could well divine, By many an occult hint and sign, Holding the cunning-warded keys To all the woodcraft mysteries; Himself to Nature's heart so near That all her voices in his ear Of beast or bird had meanings clear, Like Apollonius of old, Who knew the tales the sparrows told, Or Hermes who interpreted What the sage cranes of Nilus said; Content to live where life began; A simple, guileless, childlike man, Strong only on his native grounds, The little world of sights and sounds Whose girdle was the parish bounds, Whereof his fondly partial pride The common features magnified, As Surrey hills to mountains grew In White of Selborne's loving view,-- He told how teal and loon he shot, And how the eagle's eggs he got, The feats on pond and river done, The prodigies of rod and gun; Till, warming with the tales he told, Forgotten was the outside cold, The bitter wind unheeded blew, From ripening corn the pigeons flew, The partridge drummed I' the wood, the mink Went fishing down the river-brink. In fields with bean or clover gay, The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, Peered from the doorway of his cell; The muskrat plied the mason's trade, And tier by tier his mud-walls laid; And from the shagbark overhead The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer And voice in dreams I see and hear,-- The sweetest woman ever Fate Perverse denied a household mate, Who, lonely, homeless, not the less Found peace in love's unselfishness, And welcome wheresoe'er she went, A calm and gracious element,-- Whose presence seemed the sweet income And womanly atmosphere of home,-- Called up her girlhood memories, The huskings and the apple-bees, The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, Weaving through all the poor details And homespun warp of circumstance A golden woof-thread of romance. For well she kept her genial mood And simple faith of maidenhood; Before her still a cloud-land lay, The mirage loomed across her way; The morning dew, that dries so soon With others, glistened at her noon; Through years of toil and soil and care, From glossy tress to thin gray hair, All unprofaned she held apart The virgin fancies of the heart. Be shame to him of woman born Who hath for such but thought of scorn. There, too, our elder sister plied Her evening task the stand beside; A full, rich nature, free to trust, Truthful and almost sternly just, Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, And make her generous thought a fact, Keeping with many a light disguise The secret of self-sacrifice. O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best That Heaven itself could give thee,--rest, Rest from all bitter thoughts and things! How many a poor one's blessing went With thee beneath the low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings! As one who held herself a part Of all she saw, and let her heart Against the household bosom lean, Upon the motley-braided mat Our youngest and our dearest sat, Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, Now bathed in the unfading green And holy peace of Paradise. Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, Or from the shade of saintly palms, Or silver reach of river calms, Do those large eyes behold me still? With me one little year ago:-- The chill weight of the winter snow For months upon her grave has lain; And now, when summer south-winds blow And brier and harebell bloom again, I tread the pleasant paths we trod, I see the violet-sprinkled sod Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak The hillside flowers she loved to seek, Yet following me where'er I went With dark eyes full of love's content. The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills The air with sweetness; all the hills Stretch green to June's unclouded sky; But still I wait with ear and eye For something gone which should be nigh, A loss in all familiar things, In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. And yet, dear heart' remembering thee, Am I not richer than of old? Safe in thy immortality, What change can reach the wealth I hold? What chance can mar the pearl and gold Thy love hath left in trust with me? And while in life's late afternoon, Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are; And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand? Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, The master of the district school Held at the fire his favored place, Its warm glow lit a laughing face Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared The uncertain prophecy of beard. He teased the mitten-blinded cat, Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, Sang songs, and told us what befalls In classic Dartmouth's college halls. Born the wild Northern hills among, From whence his yeoman father wrung By patient toil subsistence scant, Not competence and yet not want, He early gained the power to pay His cheerful, self-reliant way; Could doff at ease his scholar's gown To peddle wares from town to town; Or through the long vacation's reach In lonely lowland districts teach, Where all the droll experience found At stranger hearths in boarding round, The moonlit skater's keen delight, The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, The rustic party, with its rough Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, And whirling plate, and forfeits paid, His winter task a pastime made. Happy the snow-locked homes wherein He tuned his merry violin, Or played the athlete in the barn, Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, Or mirth-provoking versions told Of classic legends rare and old, Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome Had all the commonplace of home, And little seemed at best the odds 'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods; Where Pindus-born Arachthus took The guise of any grist-mill brook, And dread Olympus at his will Became a huckleberry hill. A careless boy that night he seemed; But at his desk he had the look And air of one who wisely schemed, And hostage from the future took In trained thought and lore of book. Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he Shall Freedom's young apostles be, Who, following in War's bloody trail, Shall every lingering wrong assail; All chains from limb and spirit strike, Uplift the black and white alike; Scatter before their swift advance The darkness and the ignorance, The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, Made murder pastime, and the hell Of prison-torture possible; The cruel lie of caste refute, Old forms remould, and substitute For Slavery's lash the freeman's will, For blind routine, wise-handed skill; A school-house plant on every hill, Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence The quick wires of intelligence; Till North and South together brought Shall own the same electric thought, In peace a common flag salute, And, side by side in labor's free And unresentful rivalry, Harvest the fields wherein they fought. Another guest that winter night Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. Unmarked by time, and yet not young, The honeyed music of her tongue And words of meekness scarcely told A nature passionate and bold, Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, Its milder features dwarfed beside Her unbent will's majestic pride. She sat among us, at the best, A not unfeared, half-welcome guest, Rebuking with her cultured phrase Our homeliness of words and ways. A certain pard-like, treacherous grace Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash, Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash; And under low brows, black with night, Rayed out at times a dangerous light; The sharp heat-lightnings of her face Presaging ill to him whom Fate Condemned to share her love or hate. A woman tropical, intense In thought and act, in soul and sense, She blended in a like degree The vixen and the devotee, Revealing with each freak or feint The temper of Petruchio's Kate, The raptures of Siena's saint. Her tapering hand and rounded wrist Had facile power to form a fist; The warm, dark languish of her eyes Was never safe from wrath's surprise. Brows saintly calm and lips devout Knew every change of scowl and pout; And the sweet voice had notes more high And shrill for social battle-cry. Since then what old cathedral town Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, What convent-gate has held its lock Against the challenge of her knock! Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares, Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, Gray olive slopes of hills that hem Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, Or startling on her desert throne The crazy Queen of Lebanon s With claims fantastic as her own, Her tireless feet have held their way; And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, She watches under Eastern skies, With hope each day renewed and fresh, The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, Whereof she dreams and prophesies! Where'er her troubled path may be, The Lord's sweet pity with her go! The outward wayward life we see, The hidden springs we may not know. Nor is it given us to discern What threads the fatal sisters spun, Through what ancestral years has run The sorrow with the woman born, What forged her cruel chain of moods, What set her feet in solitudes, And held the love within her mute, What mingled madness in the blood, A life-long discord and annoy, Water of tears with oil of joy, And hid within the folded bud Perversities of flower and fruit. It is not ours to separate The tangled skein of will and fate, To show what metes and bounds should stand Upon the soul's debatable land, And between choice and Providence Divide the circle of events; But lie who knows our frame is just, Merciful and compassionate, And full of sweet assurances And hope for all the language is, That He remembereth we are dust! At last the great logs, crumbling low, Sent out a dull and duller glow, The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, Ticking its weary circuit through, Pointed with mutely warning sign Its black hand to the hour of nine. That sign the pleasant circle broke My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, And laid it tenderly away, Then roused himself to safely cover The dull red brands with ashes over. And while, with care, our mother laid The work aside, her steps she stayed One moment, seeking to express Her grateful sense of happiness For food and shelter, warmth and health, And love's contentment more than wealth, With simple wishes (not the weak, Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, But such as warm the generous heart, O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) That none might lack, that bitter night, For bread and clothing, warmth and light. Within our beds awhile we heard The wind that round the gables roared, With now and then a ruder shock, Which made our very bedsteads rock. We heard the loosened clapboards tost, The board-nails snapping in the frost; And on us, through the unplastered wall, Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. But sleep stole on, as sleep will do When hearts are light and life is new; Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, Till in the summer-land of dreams They softened to the sound of streams, Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, And lapsing waves on quiet shores. Next morn we wakened with the shout Of merry voices high and clear; And saw the teamsters drawing near To break the drifted highways out. Down the long hillside treading slow We saw the half-buried oxen' go, Shaking the snow from heads uptost, Their straining nostrils white with frost. Before our door the straggling train Drew up, an added team to gain. The elders threshed their hands a-cold, Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes From lip to lip; the younger folks Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, Then toiled again the cavalcade O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, And woodland paths that wound between Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. From every barn a team afoot, At every house a new recruit, Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law Haply the watchful young men saw Sweet doorway pictures of the curls And curious eyes of merry girls, Lifting their hands in mock defence Against the snow-ball's compliments, And reading in each missive tost The charm with Eden never lost. We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound; And, following where the teamsters led, The wise old Doctor went his round, Just pausing at our door to say, In the brief autocratic way Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, Was free to urge her claim on all, That some poor neighbor sick abed At night our mother's aid would need. For, one in generous thought and deed, What mattered in the sufferer's sight The Quaker matron's inward light, The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed? All hearts confess the saints elect Who, twain in faith, in love agree, And melt not in an acid sect The Christian pearl of charity! So days went on: a week had passed Since the great world was heard from last. The Almanac we studied o'er, Read and reread our little store, Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score; One harmless novel, mostly hid From younger eyes, a book forbid, And poetry, (or good or bad, A single book was all we had,) Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, A stranger to the heathen Nine, Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, The wars of David and the Jews. At last the floundering carrier bore The village paper to our door. Lo! broadening outward as we read, To warmer zones the horizon spread; In panoramic length unrolled We saw the marvels that it told. Before us passed the painted Creeks, And daft McGregor on his raids In Costa Rica's everglades. And up Taygetos winding slow Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, A Turk's head at each saddle-bow Welcome to us its week-old news, Its corner for the rustic Muse, Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, Its record, mingling in a breath The wedding bell and dirge of death; Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, The latest culprit sent to jail; Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, Its vendue sales and goods at cost, And traffic calling loud for gain. We felt the stir of hall and street, The pulse of life that round us beat; The chill embargo of the snow Was melted in the genial glow; Wide swung again our ice-locked door, And all the world was ours once more! Clasp, Angel of the backward look And folded wings of ashen gray And voice of echoes far away, The brazen covers of thy book; The weird palimpsest old and vast, Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past; Where, closely mingling, pale and glow The characters of joy and woe; The monographs of outlived years, Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, Green hills of life that slope to death, And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees Shade off to mournful cypresses With the white amaranths underneath. Even while I look, I can but heed The restless sands' incessant fall, Importunate hours that hours succeed, Each clamorous with its own sharp need, And duty keeping pace with all. Shut down and clasp the heavy lids; I hear again the voice that bids The dreamer leave his dream midway For larger hopes and graver fears Life greatens in these later years, The century's aloe flowers to-day! Yet, haply, in some lull of life, Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, Dreaming in throngful city ways Of winter joys his boyhood knew; And dear and early friends--the few Who yet remain--shall pause to view These Flemish pictures of old days; Sit with me by the homestead hearth, And stretch the hands of memory forth To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze! And thanks untraced to lips unknown Shall greet me like the odors blown From unseen meadows newly mown, Or lilies floating in some pond, Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond; The traveller owns the grateful sense Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, And, pausing, takes with forehead bare The benediction of the air. 1866. MY TRIUMPH. The 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; 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! O dear ones gone above me! Careless of other fame, I 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 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; 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. 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, 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. I feel the earth move sunward, I join the great march onward, And take, by faith, while living, My freehold of thanksgiving. 1870. IN SCHOOL-DAYS. Still sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sleeping; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry-vines are creeping. 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! 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;-- 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! 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. 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. 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. 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. Better than self-indulgent years The outflung heart of youth, Than pleasant songs in idle ears 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! 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! 1871. RED RIDING-HOOD. On the wide lawn the snow lay deep, Ridged o'er with many a drifted heap; The wind that through the pine-trees sung The naked elm-boughs tossed and swung; While, through the window, frosty-starred, Against the sunset purple barred, We saw the sombre crow flap by, The hawk's gray fleck along the sky, The crested blue-jay flitting swift, The squirrel poising on the drift, Erect, alert, his broad gray tail Set to the north wind like a sail. It came to pass, our little lass, With flattened face against the glass, And eyes in which the tender dew Of pity shone, stood gazing through The narrow space her rosy lips Had melted from the frost's eclipse "Oh, see," she cried, "the poor blue-jays! What is it that the black crow says? The squirrel lifts his little legs Because he has no hands, and begs; He's asking for my nuts, I know May I not feed them on the snow?" Half lost within her boots, her head Warm-sheltered in her hood of red, Her plaid skirt close about her drawn, She floundered down the wintry lawn; Now struggling through the misty veil Blown round her by the shrieking gale; Now sinking in a drift so low Her scarlet hood could scarcely show Its dash of color on the snow. She dropped for bird and beast forlorn Her little store of nuts and corn, And thus her timid guests bespoke "Come, squirrel, from your hollow oak,-- Come, black old crow,--come, poor blue-jay, Before your supper's blown away Don't be afraid, we all are good; And I'm mamma's Red Riding-Hood!" O Thou whose care is over all, Who heedest even the sparrow's fall, Keep in the little maiden's breast The pity which is now its guest! Let not her cultured years make less The childhood charm of tenderness, But let her feel as well as know, Nor harder with her polish grow! Unmoved by sentimental grief That wails along some printed leaf, But, prompt with kindly word and deed To own the claims of all who need, Let the grown woman's self make good The promise of Red Riding-Hood. 1877. RESPONSE. On the occasion of my seventieth birthday in 1877, I was the recipient of many tokens of esteem. The publishers of the _Atlantic Monthly_ gave a dinner in my name, and the editor of _The Literary World_ gathered in his paper many affectionate messages from my associates in literature and the cause of human progress. The lines which follow were written in acknowledgment. Beside that milestone where the level sun, Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays On word and work irrevocably done, Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun, I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise, Half doubtful if myself or otherwise. Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke. Thanks not the less. With not unglad surprise I see my life-work through your partial eyes; Assured, in giving to my home-taught songs A higher value than of right belongs, You do but read between the written lines The finer grace of unfulfilled designs. AT EVENTIDE. Poor and inadequate the shadow-play Of gain and loss, of waking and of dream, Against life's solemn background needs must seem At this late hour. Yet, not unthankfully, I call to mind the fountains by the way, The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray, Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of giving And of receiving, the great boon of living In grand historic years when Liberty Had need of word and work, quick sympathies For all who fail and suffer, song's relief, Nature's uncloying loveliness; and chief, The kind restraining hand of Providence, The inward witness, the assuring sense Of an Eternal Good which overlies The sorrow of the world, Love which outlives All sin and wrong, Compassion which forgives To the uttermost, and Justice whose clear eyes Through lapse and failure look to the intent, And judge our frailty by the life we meant. 1878. VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE. The picturesquely situated Wayside Inn at West Ossipee, N. H., is now in ashes; and to its former guests these somewhat careless rhymes may be a not unwelcome reminder of pleasant summers and autumns on the banks of the Bearcamp and Chocorua. To the author himself they have a special interest from the fact that they were written, or improvised, under the eye and for the amusement of a beloved invalid friend whose last earthly sunsets faded from the mountain ranges of Ossipee and Sandwich. A shallow stream, from fountains Deep in the Sandwich mountains, Ran lake ward Bearcamp River; And, between its flood-torn shores, Sped by sail or urged by oars No keel had vexed it ever. Alone the dead trees yielding To the dull axe Time is wielding, The shy mink and the otter, And golden leaves and red, By countless autumns shed, Had floated down its water. From the gray rocks of Cape Ann, Came a skilled seafaring man, With his dory, to the right place; Over hill and plain he brought her, Where the boatless Beareamp water Comes winding down from White-Face. Quoth the skipper: "Ere she floats forth; I'm sure my pretty boat's worth, At least, a name as pretty." On her painted side he wrote it, And the flag that o'er her floated Bore aloft the name of Jettie. On a radiant morn of summer, Elder guest and latest comer Saw her wed the Bearcamp water; Heard the name the skipper gave her, And the answer to the favor From the Bay State's graceful daughter. Then, a singer, richly gifted, Her charmed voice uplifted; And the wood-thrush and song-sparrow Listened, dumb with envious pain, To the clear and sweet refrain Whose notes they could not borrow. Then the skipper plied his oar, And from off the shelving shore, Glided out the strange explorer; Floating on, she knew not whither,-- The tawny sands beneath her, The great hills watching o'er her. On, where the stream flows quiet As the meadows' margins by it, Or widens out to borrow a New life from that wild water, The mountain giant's daughter, The pine-besung Chocorua. Or, mid the tangling cumber And pack of mountain lumber That spring floods downward force, Over sunken snag, and bar Where the grating shallows are, The good boat held her course. Under the pine-dark highlands, Around the vine-hung islands, She ploughed her crooked furrow And her rippling and her lurches Scared the river eels and perches, And the musk-rat in his burrow. Every sober clam below her, Every sage and grave pearl-grower, Shut his rusty valves the tighter; Crow called to crow complaining, And old tortoises sat craning Their leathern necks to sight her. So, to where the still lake glasses The misty mountain masses Rising dim and distant northward, And, with faint-drawn shadow pictures, Low shores, and dead pine spectres, Blends the skyward and the earthward, On she glided, overladen, With merry man and maiden Sending back their song and laughter,-- While, perchance, a phantom crew, In a ghostly birch canoe, Paddled dumb and swiftly after! And the bear on Ossipee Climbed the topmost crag to see The strange thing drifting under; And, through the haze of August, Passaconaway and Paugus Looked down in sleepy wonder. All the pines that o'er her hung In mimic sea-tones sung The song familiar to her; And the maples leaned to screen her, And the meadow-grass seemed greener, And the breeze more soft to woo her. The lone stream mystery-haunted, To her the freedom granted To scan its every feature, Till new and old were blended, And round them both extended The loving arms of Nature. Of these hills the little vessel Henceforth is part and parcel; And on Bearcamp shall her log Be kept, as if by George's Or Grand Menan, the surges Tossed her skipper through the fog. And I, who, half in sadness, Recall the morning gladness Of life, at evening time, By chance, onlooking idly, Apart from all so widely, Have set her voyage to rhyme. Dies now the gay persistence Of song and laugh, in distance; Alone with me remaining The stream, the quiet meadow, The hills in shine and shadow, The sombre pines complaining. And, musing here, I dream Of voyagers on a stream From whence is no returning, Under sealed orders going, Looking forward little knowing, Looking back with idle yearning. And I pray that every venture The port of peace may enter, That, safe from snag and fall And siren-haunted islet, And rock, the Unseen Pilot May guide us one and all. 1880. MY TRUST. A picture memory brings to me I look across the years and see Myself beside my mother's knee. I feel her gentle hand restrain My selfish moods, and know again A child's blind sense of wrong and pain. But wiser now, a man gray grown, My childhood's needs are better known, My mother's chastening love I own. Gray grown, but in our Father's sight A child still groping for the light To read His works and ways aright. I wait, in His good time to see That as my mother dealt with me So with His children dealeth He. I bow myself beneath His hand That pain itself was wisely planned I feel, and partly understand. The joy that comes in sorrow's guise, The sweet pains of self-sacrifice, I would not have them otherwise. And what were life and death if sin Knew not the dread rebuke within, The pang of merciful discipline? Not with thy proud despair of old, Crowned stoic of Rome's noblest mould! Pleasure and pain alike I hold. I suffer with no vain pretence Of triumph over flesh and sense, Yet trust the grievous providence, How dark soe'er it seems, may tend, By ways I cannot comprehend, To some unguessed benignant end; That every loss and lapse may gain The clear-aired heights by steps of pain, And never cross is borne in vain. 1880. A NAME Addressed to my grand-nephew, Greenleaf Whittier Pickard. Jonathan Greenleaf, in A Genealogy of the Greenleaf Family, says briefly: "From all that can be gathered, it is believed that the ancestors of the Greenleaf family were Huguenots, who left France on account of their religious principles some time in the course of the sixteenth century, and settled in England. The name was probably translated from the French Feuillevert." The name the Gallic exile bore, St. Malo! from thy ancient mart, Became upon our Western shore Greenleaf for Feuillevert. A name to hear in soft accord Of leaves by light winds overrun, Or read, upon the greening sward Of May, in shade and sun. The name my infant ear first heard Breathed softly with a mother's kiss; His mother's own, no tenderer word My father spake than this. No child have I to bear it on; Be thou its keeper; let it take From gifts well used and duty done New beauty for thy sake. The fair ideals that outran My halting footsteps seek and find-- The flawless symmetry of man, The poise of heart and mind. Stand firmly where I felt the sway Of every wing that fancy flew, See clearly where I groped my way, Nor real from seeming knew. And wisely choose, and bravely hold Thy faith unswerved by cross or crown, Like the stout Huguenot of old Whose name to thee comes down. As Marot's songs made glad the heart Of that lone exile, haply mine May in life's heavy hours impart Some strength and hope to thine. Yet when did Age transfer to Youth The hard-gained lessons of its day? Each lip must learn the taste of truth, Each foot must feel its way. We cannot hold the hands of choice That touch or shun life's fateful keys; The whisper of the inward voice Is more than homilies. Dear boy! for whom the flowers are born, Stars shine, and happy song-birds sing, What can my evening give to morn, My winter to thy spring! A life not void of pure intent, With small desert of praise or blame, The love I felt, the good I meant, I leave thee with my name. 1880. GREETING. Originally prefixed to the volume, The King's Missive and other Poems. I spread a scanty board too late; The old-time guests for whom I wait Come few and slow, methinks, to-day. Ah! who could hear my messages Across the dim unsounded seas On which so many have sailed away! Come, then, old friends, who linger yet, And let us meet, as we have met, Once more beneath this low sunshine; And grateful for the good we 've known, The riddles solved, the ills outgrown, Shake bands upon the border line. The favor, asked too oft before, From your indulgent ears, once more I crave, and, if belated lays To slower, feebler measures move, The silent, sympathy of love To me is dearer now than praise. And ye, O younger friends, for whom My hearth and heart keep open room, Come smiling through the shadows long, Be with me while the sun goes down, And with your cheerful voices drown The minor of my even-song. For, equal through the day and night, The wise Eternal oversight And love and power and righteous will Remain: the law of destiny The best for each and all must be, And life its promise shall fulfil. 1881. AN AUTOGRAPH. I write my name as one, On sands by waves o'errun Or winter's frosted pane, Traces a record vain. Oblivion's blankness claims Wiser and better names, And well my own may pass As from the strand or glass. Wash on, O waves of time! Melt, noons, the frosty rime! Welcome the shadow vast, The silence that shall last. When I and all who know And love me vanish so, What harm to them or me Will the lost memory be? If any words of mine, Through right of life divine, Remain, what matters it Whose hand the message writ? Why should the "crowner's quest" Sit on my worst or best? Why should the showman claim The poor ghost of my name? Yet, as when dies a sound Its spectre lingers round, Haply my spent life will Leave some faint echo still. A whisper giving breath Of praise or blame to death, Soothing or saddening such As loved the living much. Therefore with yearnings vain And fond I still would fain A kindly judgment seek, A tender thought bespeak. And, while my words are read, Let this at least be said "Whate'er his life's defeatures, He loved his fellow-creatures. "If, of the Law's stone table, To hold he scarce was able The first great precept fast, He kept for man the last. "Through mortal lapse and dulness What lacks the Eternal Fulness, If still our weakness can Love Him in loving man? "Age brought him no despairing Of the world's future faring; In human nature still He found more good than ill. "To all who dumbly suffered, His tongue and pen he offered; His life was not his own, Nor lived for self alone. "Hater of din and riot He lived in days unquiet; And, lover of all beauty, Trod the hard ways of duty. "He meant no wrong to any He sought the good of many, Yet knew both sin and folly,-- May God forgive him wholly!" 1882. ABRAM MORRISON. 'Midst the men and things which will Haunt an old man's memory still, Drollest, quaintest of them all, With a boy's laugh I recall Good old Abram Morrison. When the Grist and Rolling Mill Ground and rumbled by Po Hill, And the old red school-house stood Midway in the Powow's flood, Here dwelt Abram Morrison. From the Beach to far beyond Bear-Hill, Lion's Mouth and Pond, Marvellous to our tough old stock, Chips o' the Anglo-Saxon block, Seemed the Celtic Morrison. Mudknock, Balmawhistle, all Only knew the Yankee drawl, Never brogue was heard till when, Foremost of his countrymen, Hither came Friend Morrison; Yankee born, of alien blood, Kin of his had well withstood Pope and King with pike and ball Under Derry's leaguered wall, As became the Morrisons. Wandering down from Nutfield woods With his household and his goods, Never was it clearly told How within our quiet fold Came to be a Morrison. Once a soldier, blame him not That the Quaker he forgot, When, to think of battles won, And the red-coats on the run, Laughed aloud Friend Morrison. From gray Lewis over sea Bore his sires their family tree, On the rugged boughs of it Grafting Irish mirth and wit, And the brogue of Morrison. Half a genius, quick to plan, Blundering like an Irishman, But with canny shrewdness lent By his far-off Scotch descent, Such was Abram Morrison. Back and forth to daily meals, Rode his cherished pig on wheels, And to all who came to see "Aisier for the pig an' me, Sure it is," said Morrison. Simple-hearted, boy o'er-grown, With a humor quite his own, Of our sober-stepping ways, Speech and look and cautious phrase, Slow to learn was Morrison. Much we loved his stories told Of a country strange and old, Where the fairies danced till dawn, And the goblin Leprecaun Looked, we thought, like Morrison. Or wild tales of feud and fight, Witch and troll and second sight Whispered still where Stornoway Looks across its stormy bay, Once the home of Morrisons. First was he to sing the praise Of the Powow's winding ways; And our straggling village took City grandeur to the look Of its poet Morrison. All his words have perished. Shame On the saddle-bags of Fame, That they bring not to our time One poor couplet of the rhyme Made by Abram Morrison! When, on calm and fair First Days, Rattled down our one-horse chaise, Through the blossomed apple-boughs To the old, brown meeting-house, There was Abram Morrison. Underneath his hat's broad brim Peered the queer old face of him; And with Irish jauntiness Swung the coat-tails of the dress Worn by Abram Morrison. Still, in memory, on his feet, Leaning o'er the elders' seat, Mingling with a solemn drone, Celtic accents all his own, Rises Abram Morrison. "Don't," he's pleading, "don't ye go, Dear young friends, to sight and show, Don't run after elephants, Learned pigs and presidents And the likes!" said Morrison. On his well-worn theme intent, Simple, child-like, innocent, Heaven forgive the half-checked smile Of our careless boyhood, while Listening to Friend Morrison! We have learned in later days Truth may speak in simplest phrase; That the man is not the less For quaint ways and home-spun dress, Thanks to Abram Morrison! Not to pander nor to please Come the needed homilies, With no lofty argument Is the fitting message sent, Through such lips as Morrison's. Dead and gone! But while its track Powow keeps to Merrimac, While Po Hill is still on guard, Looking land and ocean ward, They shall tell of Morrison! After half a century's lapse, We are wiser now, perhaps, But we miss our streets amid Something which the past has hid, Lost with Abram Morrison. Gone forever with the queer Characters of that old year Now the many are as one; Broken is the mould that run Men like Abram Morrison. 1884. A LEGACY Friend of my many years When the great silence falls, at last, on me, Let me not leave, to pain and sadden thee, A memory of tears, But pleasant thoughts alone Of one who was thy friendship's honored guest And drank the wine of consolation pressed From sorrows of thy own. I leave with thee a sense Of hands upheld and trials rendered less-- The unselfish joy which is to helpfulness Its own great recompense; The knowledge that from thine, As from the garments of the Master, stole Calmness and strength, the virtue which makes whole And heals without a sign; Yea more, the assurance strong That love, which fails of perfect utterance here, Lives on to fill the heavenly atmosphere With its immortal song. 1887. RELIGIOUS POEMS THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM Where Time the measure of his hours By changeful bud and blossom keeps, And, like a young bride crowned with flowers, Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps; Where, to her poet's turban stone, The Spring her gift of flowers imparts, Less sweet than those his thoughts have sown In the warm soil of Persian hearts: There sat the stranger, where the shade Of scattered date-trees thinly lay, While in the hot clear heaven delayed The long and still and weary day. Strange trees and fruits above him hung, Strange odors filled the sultry air, Strange birds upon the branches swung, Strange insect voices murmured there. And strange bright blossoms shone around, Turned sunward from the shadowy bowers, As if the Gheber's soul had found A fitting home in Iran's flowers. Whate'er he saw, whate'er he heard, Awakened feelings new and sad,-- No Christian garb, nor Christian word, Nor church with Sabbath-bell chimes glad, But Moslem graves, with turban stones, And mosque-spires gleaming white, in view, And graybeard Mollahs in low tones Chanting their Koran service through. The flowers which smiled on either hand, Like tempting fiends, were such as they Which once, o'er all that Eastern land, As gifts on demon altars lay. As if the burning eye of Baal The servant of his Conqueror knew, From skies which knew no cloudy veil, The Sun's hot glances smote him through. "Ah me!" the lonely stranger said, "The hope which led my footsteps on, And light from heaven around them shed, O'er weary wave and waste, is gone! "Where are the harvest fields all white, For Truth to thrust her sickle in? Where flock the souls, like doves in flight, From the dark hiding-place of sin? "A silent-horror broods o'er all,-- The burden of a hateful spell,-- The very flowers around recall The hoary magi's rites of hell! "And what am I, o'er such a land The banner of the Cross to bear? Dear Lord, uphold me with Thy hand, Thy strength with human weakness share!" He ceased; for at his very feet In mild rebuke a floweret smiled; How thrilled his sinking heart to greet The Star-flower of the Virgin's child! Sown by some wandering Frank, it drew Its life from alien air and earth, And told to Paynim sun and dew The story of the Saviour's birth. From scorching beams, in kindly mood, The Persian plants its beauty screened, And on its pagan sisterhood, In love, the Christian floweret leaned. With tears of joy the wanderer felt The darkness of his long despair Before that hallowed symbol melt, Which God's dear love had nurtured there. From Nature's face, that simple flower The lines of sin and sadness swept; And Magian pile and Paynim bower In peace like that of Eden slept. Each Moslem tomb, and cypress old, Looked holy through the sunset air; And, angel-like, the Muezzin told From tower and mosque the hour of prayer. With cheerful steps, the morrow's dawn From Shiraz saw the stranger part; The Star-flower of the Virgin-Born Still blooming in his hopeful heart! 1830. THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN "Get ye up from the wrath of God's terrible day! Ungirded, unsandalled, arise and away! 'T is the vintage of blood, 't is the fulness of time, And vengeance shall gather the harvest of crime!" The warning was spoken--the righteous had gone, And the proud ones of Sodom were feasting alone; All gay was the banquet--the revel was long, With the pouring of wine and the breathing of song. 'T was an evening of beauty; the air was perfume, The earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom; And softly the delicate viol was heard, Like the murmur of love or the notes of a bird. And beautiful maidens moved down in the dance, With the magic of motion and sunshine of glance And white arms wreathed lightly, and tresses fell free As the plumage of birds in some tropical tree. Where the shrines of foul idols were lighted on high, And wantonness tempted the lust of the eye; Midst rites of obsceneness, strange, loathsome, abhorred, The blasphemer scoffed at the name of the Lord. Hark! the growl of the thunder,--the quaking of earth! Woe, woe to the worship, and woe to the mirth! The black sky has opened; there's flame in the air; The red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare! Then the shriek of the dying rose wild where the song And the low tone of love had been whispered along; For the fierce flames went lightly o'er palace and bower, Like the red tongues of demons, to blast and devour! Down, down on the fallen the red ruin rained, And the reveller sank with his wine-cup undrained; The foot of the dancer, the music's loved thrill, And the shout and the laughter grew suddenly still. The last throb of anguish was fearfully given; The last eye glared forth in its madness on Heaven! The last groan of horror rose wildly and vain, And death brooded over the pride of the Plain! 1831. THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN Not always as the whirlwind's rush On Horeb's mount of fear, Not always as the burning bush To Midian's shepherd seer, Nor as the awful voice which came To Israel's prophet bards, Nor as the tongues of cloven flame, Nor gift of fearful words,-- Not always thus, with outward sign Of fire or voice from Heaven, The message of a truth divine, The call of God is given! Awaking in the human heart Love for the true and right,-- Zeal for the Christian's better part, Strength for the Christian's fight. Nor unto manhood's heart alone The holy influence steals Warm with a rapture not its own, The heart of woman feels! As she who by Samaria's wall The Saviour's errand sought,-- As those who with the fervent Paul And meek Aquila wrought: Or those meek ones whose martyrdom Rome's gathered grandeur saw Or those who in their Alpine home Braved the Crusader's war, When the green Vaudois, trembling, heard, Through all its vales of death, The martyr's song of triumph poured From woman's failing breath. And gently, by a thousand things Which o'er our spirits pass, Like breezes o'er the harp's fine strings, Or vapors o'er a glass, Leaving their token strange and new Of music or of shade, The summons to the right and true And merciful is made. Oh, then, if gleams of truth and light Flash o'er thy waiting mind, Unfolding to thy mental sight The wants of human-kind; If, brooding over human grief, The earnest wish is known To soothe and gladden with relief An anguish not thine own; Though heralded with naught of fear, Or outward sign or show; Though only to the inward ear It whispers soft and low; Though dropping, as the manna fell, Unseen, yet from above, Noiseless as dew-fall, heed it well,--- Thy Father's call of love! THE CRUCIFIXION. Sunlight upon Judha's hills! And on the waves of Galilee; On Jordan's stream, and on the rills That feed the dead and sleeping sea! Most freshly from the green wood springs The light breeze on its scented wings; And gayly quiver in the sun The cedar tops of Lebanon! A few more hours,--a change hath come! The sky is dark without a cloud! The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb, And proud knees unto earth are bowed. A change is on the hill of Death, The helmed watchers pant for breath, And turn with wild and maniac eyes From the dark scene of sacrifice! That Sacrifice!--the death of Him,-- The Christ of God, the holy One! Well may the conscious Heaven grow dim, And blacken the beholding, Sun. The wonted light hath fled away, Night settles on the middle day, And earthquake from his caverned bed Is waking with a thrill of dread! The dead are waking underneath! Their prison door is rent away! And, ghastly with the seal of death, They wander in the eye of day! The temple of the Cherubim, The House of God is cold and dim; A curse is on its trembling walls, Its mighty veil asunder falls! Well may the cavern-depths of Earth Be shaken, and her mountains nod; Well may the sheeted dead come forth To see the suffering son of God! Well may the temple-shrine grow dim, And shadows veil the Cherubim, When He, the chosen one of Heaven, A sacrifice for guilt is given! And shall the sinful heart, alone, Behold unmoved the fearful hour, When Nature trembled on her throne, And Death resigned his iron power? Oh, shall the heart--whose sinfulness Gave keenness to His sore distress, And added to His tears of blood-- Refuse its trembling gratitude! 1834. PALESTINE Blest land of Judaea! thrice hallowed of song, Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng; In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea, On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee. With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered before; With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod Made bright by the steps of the angels of God. Blue sea of the hills! in my spirit I hear Thy waters, Gennesaret, chime on my ear; Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down, And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was thrown. Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green, And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene; And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee! Hark, a sound in the valley! where, swollen and strong, Thy river, O Kishon, is sweeping along; Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain, And thy torrent grew dark with the blood of the slain. There down from his mountains stern Zebulon came, And Naphthali's stag, with his eyeballs of flame, And the chariots of Jabin rolled harmlessly on, For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son! There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rang To the song which the beautiful prophetess sang, When the princes of Issachar stood by her side, And the shout of a host in its triumph replied. Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen, With the mountains around, and the valleys between; There rested the shepherds of Judah, and there The song of the angels rose sweet on the air. And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw Their shadows at noon on the ruins below; But where are the sisters who hastened to greet The lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet? I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod; I stand where they stood with the chosen of God-- Where His blessing was heard and His lessons were taught, Where the blind were restored and the healing was wrought. Oh, here with His flock the sad Wanderer came; These hills He toiled over in grief are the same; The founts where He drank by the wayside still flow, And the same airs are blowing which breathed on His brow! And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet, But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet; For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone, And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone. But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode Of Humanity clothed in the brightness of God? Were my spirit but turned from the outward and dim, It could gaze, even now, on the presence of Him! Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when, In love and in meekness, He moved among men; And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the sea In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me! And what if my feet may not tread where He stood, Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood, Nor my eyes see the cross which he bowed Him to bear, Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer. Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here; And the voice of Thy love is the same even now As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow. Oh, the outward hath gone! but in glory and power. The spirit surviveth the things of an hour; Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame On the heart's secret altar is burning the same 1837. HYMNS. FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE I. "Encore un hymne, O ma lyre Un hymn pour le Seigneur, Un hymne dans mon delire, Un hymne dans mon bonheur." One hymn more, O my lyre! Praise to the God above, Of joy and life and love, Sweeping its strings of fire! Oh, who the speed of bird and wind And sunbeam's glance will lend to me, That, soaring upward, I may find My resting-place and home in Thee? Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt and gloom, Adoreth with a fervent flame,-- Mysterious spirit! unto whom Pertain nor sign nor name! Swiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go, Up from the cold and joyless earth, Back to the God who bade them flow, Whose moving spirit sent them forth. But as for me, O God! for me, The lowly creature of Thy will, Lingering and sad, I sigh to Thee, An earth-bound pilgrim still! Was not my spirit born to shine Where yonder stars and suns are glowing? To breathe with them the light divine From God's own holy altar flowing? To be, indeed, whate'er the soul In dreams hath thirsted for so long,-- A portion of heaven's glorious whole Of loveliness and song? Oh, watchers of the stars at night, Who breathe their fire, as we the air,-- Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of light, Oh, say, is He, the Eternal, there? Bend there around His awful throne The seraph's glance, the angel's knee? Or are thy inmost depths His own, O wild and mighty sea? Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye go! Swift as the eagle's glance of fire, Or arrows from the archer's bow, To the far aim of your desire! Thought after thought, ye thronging rise, Like spring-doves from the startled wood, Bearing like them your sacrifice Of music unto God! And shall these thoughts of joy and love Come back again no more to me? Returning like the patriarch's dove Wing-weary from the eternal sea, To bear within my longing arms The promise-bough of kindlier skies, Plucked from the green, immortal palms Which shadow Paradise? All-moving spirit! freely forth At Thy command the strong wind goes Its errand to the passive earth, Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose, Until it folds its weary wing Once more within the hand divine; So, weary from its wandering, My spirit turns to Thine! Child of the sea, the mountain stream, From its dark caverns, hurries on, Ceaseless, by night and morning's beam, By evening's star and noontide's sun, Until at last it sinks to rest, O'erwearied, in the waiting sea, And moans upon its mother's breast,-- So turns my soul to Thee! O Thou who bidst the torrent flow, Who lendest wings unto the wind,-- Mover of all things! where art Thou? Oh, whither shall I go to find The secret of Thy resting-place? Is there no holy wing for me, That, soaring, I may search the space Of highest heaven for Thee? Oh, would I were as free to rise As leaves on autumn's whirlwind borne,-- The arrowy light of sunset skies, Or sound, or ray, or star of morn, Which melts in heaven at twilight's close, Or aught which soars unchecked and free Through earth and heaven; that I might lose Myself in finding Thee! II. LE CRI DE L'AME. "Quand le souffle divin qui flotte sur le monde." When the breath divine is flowing, Zephyr-like o'er all things going, And, as the touch of viewless fingers, Softly on my soul it lingers, Open to a breath the lightest, Conscious of a touch the slightest,-- As some calm, still lake, whereon Sinks the snowy-bosomed swan, And the glistening water-rings Circle round her moving wings When my upward gaze is turning Where the stars of heaven are burning Through the deep and dark abyss, Flowers of midnight's wilderness, Blowing with the evening's breath Sweetly in their Maker's path When the breaking day is flushing All the east, and light is gushing Upward through the horizon's haze, Sheaf-like, with its thousand rays, Spreading, until all above Overflows with joy and love, And below, on earth's green bosom, All is changed to light and blossom: When my waking fancies over Forms of brightness flit and hover Holy as the seraphs are, Who by Zion's fountains wear On their foreheads, white and broad, "Holiness unto the Lord!" When, inspired with rapture high, It would seem a single sigh Could a world of love create; That my life could know no date, And my eager thoughts could fill Heaven and Earth, o'erflowing still! Then, O Father! Thou alone, From the shadow of Thy throne, To the sighing of my breast And its rapture answerest. All my thoughts, which, upward winging, Bathe where Thy own light is springing,-- All my yearnings to be free Are at echoes answering Thee! Seldom upon lips of mine, Father! rests that name of Thine; Deep within my inmost breast, In the secret place of mind, Like an awful presence shrined, Doth the dread idea rest Hushed and holy dwells it there, Prompter of the silent prayer, Lifting up my spirit's eye And its faint, but earnest cry, From its dark and cold abode, Unto Thee, my Guide and God! 1837 THE FAMILIST'S HYMN. The Puritans of New England, even in their wilderness home, were not exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the mother country after the downfall of Charles the First, and of the established Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were banished, on pain of death, from the Massachusetts Colony. One Samuel Gorton, a bold and eloquent declaimer, after preaching for a time in Boston against the doctrines of the Puritans, and declaring that their churches were mere human devices, and their sacrament and baptism an abomination, was driven out of the jurisdiction of the colony, and compelled to seek a residence among the savages. He gathered round him a considerable number of converts, who, like the primitive Christians, shared all things in common. His opinions, however, were so troublesome to the leading clergy of the colony, that they instigated an attack upon his "Family" by an armed force, which seized upon the principal men in it, and brought them into Massachusetts, where they were sentenced to be kept at hard labor in several towns (one only in each town), during the pleasure of the General Court, they being forbidden, under severe penalties, to utter any of their religious sentiments, except to such ministers as might labor for their conversion. They were unquestionably sincere in their opinions, and, whatever may have been their errors, deserve to be ranked among those who have in all ages suffered for the freedom of conscience. Father! to Thy suffering poor Strength and grace and faith impart, And with Thy own love restore Comfort to the broken heart! Oh, the failing ones confirm With a holier strength of zeal! Give Thou not the feeble worm Helpless to the spoiler's heel! Father! for Thy holy sake We are spoiled and hunted thus; Joyful, for Thy truth we take Bonds and burthens unto us Poor, and weak, and robbed of all, Weary with our daily task, That Thy truth may never fall Through our weakness, Lord, we ask. Round our fired and wasted homes Flits the forest-bird unscared, And at noon the wild beast comes Where our frugal meal was shared; For the song of praises there Shrieks the crow the livelong day; For the sound of evening prayer Howls the evil beast of prey! Sweet the songs we loved to sing Underneath Thy holy sky; Words and tones that used to bring Tears of joy in every eye; Dear the wrestling hours of prayer, When we gathered knee to knee, Blameless youth and hoary hair, Bowed, O God, alone to Thee. As Thine early children, Lord, Shared their wealth and daily bread, Even so, with one accord, We, in love, each other fed. Not with us the miser's hoard, Not with us his grasping hand; Equal round a common board, Drew our meek and brother band! Safe our quiet Eden lay When the war-whoop stirred the land And the Indian turned away From our home his bloody hand. Well that forest-ranger saw, That the burthen and the curse Of the white man's cruel law Rested also upon us. Torn apart, and driven forth To our toiling hard and long, Father! from the dust of earth Lift we still our grateful song! Grateful, that in bonds we share In Thy love which maketh free; Joyful, that the wrongs we bear, Draw us nearer, Lord, to Thee! Grateful! that where'er we toil,-- By Wachuset's wooded side, On Nantucket's sea-worn isle, Or by wild Neponset's tide,-- Still, in spirit, we are near, And our evening hymns, which rise Separate and discordant here, Meet and mingle in the skies! Let the scoffer scorn and mock, Let the proud and evil priest Rob the needy of his flock, For his wine-cup and his feast,-- Redden not Thy bolts in store Through the blackness of Thy skies? For the sighing of the poor Wilt Thou not, at length, arise? Worn and wasted, oh! how long Shall thy trodden poor complain? In Thy name they bear the wrong, In Thy cause the bonds of pain! Melt oppression's heart of steel, Let the haughty priesthood see, And their blinded followers feel, That in us they mock at Thee! In Thy time, O Lord of hosts, Stretch abroad that hand to save Which of old, on Egypt's coasts, Smote apart the Red Sea's wave Lead us from this evil land, From the spoiler set us free, And once more our gathered band, Heart to heart, shall worship Thee! 1838. EZEKIEL Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they skew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.-- EZEKIEL, xxxiii. 30-33. They hear Thee not, O God! nor see; Beneath Thy rod they mock at Thee; The princes of our ancient line Lie drunken with Assyrian wine; The priests around Thy altar speak The false words which their hearers seek; And hymns which Chaldea's wanton maids Have sung in Dura's idol-shades Are with the Levites' chant ascending, With Zion's holiest anthems blending! On Israel's bleeding bosom set, The heathen heel is crushing yet; The towers upon our holy hill Echo Chaldean footsteps still. Our wasted shrines,--who weeps for them? Who mourneth for Jerusalem? Who turneth from his gains away? Whose knee with mine is bowed to pray? Who, leaving feast and purpling cup, Takes Zion's lamentation up? A sad and thoughtful youth, I went With Israel's early banishment; And where the sullen Chebar crept, The ritual of my fathers kept. The water for the trench I drew, The firstling of the flock I slew, And, standing at the altar's side, I shared the Levites' lingering pride, That still, amidst her mocking foes, The smoke of Zion's offering rose. In sudden whirlwind, cloud and flame, The Spirit of the Highest came! Before mine eyes a vision passed, A glory terrible and vast; With dreadful eyes of living things, And sounding sweep of angel wings, With circling light and sapphire throne, And flame-like form of One thereon, And voice of that dread Likeness sent Down from the crystal firmament! The burden of a prophet's power Fell on me in that fearful hour; From off unutterable woes The curtain of the future rose; I saw far down the coming time The fiery chastisement of crime; With noise of mingling hosts, and jar Of falling towers and shouts of war, I saw the nations rise and fall, Like fire-gleams on my tent's white wall. In dream and trance, I--saw the slain Of Egypt heaped like harvest grain. I saw the walls of sea-born Tyre Swept over by the spoiler's fire; And heard the low, expiring moan Of Edom on his rocky throne; And, woe is me! the wild lament From Zion's desolation sent; And felt within my heart each blow Which laid her holy places low. In bonds and sorrow, day by day, Before the pictured tile I lay; And there, as in a mirror, saw The coming of Assyria's war; Her swarthy lines of spearmen pass Like locusts through Bethhoron's grass; I saw them draw their stormy hem Of battle round Jerusalem; And, listening, heard the Hebrew wail! Blend with the victor-trump of Baal! Who trembled at my warning word? Who owned the prophet of the Lord? How mocked the rude, how scoffed the vile, How stung the Levites' scornful smile, As o'er my spirit, dark and slow, The shadow crept of Israel's woe As if the angel's mournful roll Had left its record on my soul, And traced in lines of darkness there The picture of its great despair! Yet ever at the hour I feel My lips in prophecy unseal. Prince, priest, and Levite gather near, And Salem's daughters haste to hear, On Chebar's waste and alien shore, The harp of Judah swept once more. They listen, as in Babel's throng The Chaldeans to the dancer's song, Or wild sabbeka's nightly play,-- As careless and as vain as they. . . . . . And thus, O Prophet-bard of old, Hast thou thy tale of sorrow told The same which earth's unwelcome seers Have felt in all succeeding years. Sport of the changeful multitude, Nor calmly heard nor understood, Their song has seemed a trick of art, Their warnings but, the actor's part. With bonds, and scorn, and evil will, The world requites its prophets still. So was it when the Holy One The garments of the flesh put on Men followed where the Highest led For common gifts of daily bread, And gross of ear, of vision dim, Owned not the Godlike power of Him. Vain as a dreamer's words to them His wail above Jerusalem, And meaningless the watch He kept Through which His weak disciples slept. Yet shrink not thou, whoe'er thou art, For God's great purpose set apart, Before whose far-discerning eyes, The Future as the Present lies! Beyond a narrow-bounded age Stretches thy prophet-heritage, Through Heaven's vast spaces angel-trod, And through the eternal years of God Thy audience, worlds!--all things to be The witness of the Truth in thee! 1844. WHAT THE VOICE SAID MADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil, "Lord!" I cried in sudden ire, "From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder, Shake the bolted fire! "Love is lost, and Faith is dying; With the brute the man is sold; And the dropping blood of labor Hardens into gold. "Here the dying wail of Famine, There the battle's groan of pain; And, in silence, smooth-faced Mammon Reaping men like grain. "'Where is God, that we should fear Him?' Thus the earth-born Titans say 'God! if Thou art living, hear us!' Thus the weak ones pray." "Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding," Spake a solemn Voice within; "Weary of our Lord's forbearance, Art thou free from sin? "Fearless brow to Him uplifting, Canst thou for His thunders call, Knowing that to guilt's attraction Evermore they fall? "Know'st thou not all germs of evil In thy heart await their time? Not thyself, but God's restraining, Stays their growth of crime. "Couldst thou boast, O child of weakness! O'er the sons of wrong and strife, Were their strong temptations planted In thy path of life? "Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing From one fountain, clear and free, But by widely varying channels Searching for the sea. "Glideth one through greenest valleys, Kissing them with lips still sweet; One, mad roaring down the mountains, Stagnates at their feet. "Is it choice whereby the Parsee Kneels before his mother's fire? In his black tent did the Tartar Choose his wandering sire? "He alone, whose hand is bounding Human power and human will, Looking through each soul's surrounding, Knows its good or ill. "For thyself, while wrong and sorrow Make to thee their strong appeal, Coward wert thou not to utter What the heart must feel. "Earnest words must needs be spoken When the warm heart bleeds or burns With its scorn of wrong, or pity For the wronged, by turns. "But, by all thy nature's weakness, Hidden faults and follies known, Be thou, in rebuking evil, Conscious of thine own. "Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty To thy lips her trumpet set, But with harsher blasts shall mingle Wailings of regret." Cease not, Voice of holy speaking, Teacher sent of God, be near, Whispering through the day's cool silence, Let my spirit hear! So, when thoughts of evil-doers Waken scorn, or hatred move, Shall a mournful fellow-feeling Temper all with love. 1847. THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE. A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN. To weary hearts, to mourning homes, God's meekest Angel gently comes No power has he to banish pain, Or give us back our lost again; And yet in tenderest love, our dear And Heavenly Father sends him here. There's quiet in that Angel's glance, There 's rest in his still countenance! He mocks no grief with idle cheer, Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear; But ills and woes he may not cure He kindly trains us to endure. Angel of Patience! sent to calm Our feverish brows with cooling palm; To lay the storms of hope and fear, And reconcile life's smile and tear; The throbs of wounded pride to still, And make our own our Father's will. O thou who mournest on thy way, With longings for the close of day; He walks with thee, that Angel kind, And gently whispers, "Be resigned Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell The dear Lord ordereth all things well!" 1847. THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND. Against the sunset's glowing wall The city towers rise black and tall, Where Zorah, on its rocky height, Stands like an armed man in the light. Down Eshtaol's vales of ripened grain Falls like a cloud the night amain, And up the hillsides climbing slow The barley reapers homeward go. Look, dearest! how our fair child's head The sunset light hath hallowed, Where at this olive's foot he lies, Uplooking to the tranquil skies. Oh, while beneath the fervent heat Thy sickle swept the bearded wheat, I've watched, with mingled joy and dread, Our child upon his grassy bed. Joy, which the mother feels alone Whose morning hope like mine had flown, When to her bosom, over-blessed, A dearer life than hers is pressed. Dread, for the future dark and still, Which shapes our dear one to its will; Forever in his large calm eyes, I read a tale of sacrifice. The same foreboding awe I felt When at the altar's side we knelt, And he, who as a pilgrim came, Rose, winged and glorious, through the flame. I slept not, though the wild bees made A dreamlike murmuring in the shade, And on me the warm-fingered hours Pressed with the drowsy smell of flowers. Before me, in a vision, rose The hosts of Israel's scornful foes,-- Rank over rank, helm, shield, and spear, Glittered in noon's hot atmosphere. I heard their boast, and bitter word, Their mockery of the Hebrew's Lord, I saw their hands His ark assail, Their feet profane His holy veil. No angel down the blue space spoke, No thunder from the still sky broke; But in their midst, in power and awe, Like God's waked wrath, our child I saw! A child no more!--harsh-browed and strong, He towered a giant in the throng, And down his shoulders, broad and bare, Swept the black terror of his hair. He raised his arm--he smote amain; As round the reaper falls the grain, So the dark host around him fell, So sank the foes of Israel! Again I looked. In sunlight shone The towers and domes of Askelon; Priest, warrior, slave, a mighty crowd Within her idol temple bowed. Yet one knelt not; stark, gaunt, and blind, His arms the massive pillars twined,-- An eyeless captive, strong with hate, He stood there like an evil Fate. The red shrines smoked,--the trumpets pealed He stooped,--the giant columns reeled; Reeled tower and fane, sank arch and wall, And the thick dust-cloud closed o'er all! Above the shriek, the crash, the groan Of the fallen pride of Askelon, I heard, sheer down the echoing sky, A voice as of an angel cry,-- The voice of him, who at our side Sat through the golden eventide; Of him who, on thy altar's blaze, Rose fire-winged, with his song of praise. "Rejoice o'er Israel's broken chain, Gray mother of the mighty slain! Rejoice!" it cried, "he vanquisheth! The strong in life is strong in death! "To him shall Zorah's daughters raise Through coming years their hymns of praise, And gray old men at evening tell Of all he wrought for Israel. "And they who sing and they who hear Alike shall hold thy memory dear, And pour their blessings on thy head, O mother of the mighty dead!" It ceased; and though a sound I heard As if great wings the still air stirred, I only saw the barley sheaves And hills half hid by olive leaves. I bowed my face, in awe and fear, On the dear child who slumbered near; "With me, as with my only son, O God," I said, "Thy will be done!" 1847. MY SOUL AND I Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark I would question thee, Alone in the shadow drear and stark With God and me! What, my soul, was thy errand here? Was it mirth or ease, Or heaping up dust from year to year? "Nay, none of these!" Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight Whose eye looks still And steadily on thee through the night "To do His will!" What hast thou done, O soul of mine, That thou tremblest so? Hast thou wrought His task, and kept the line He bade thee go? Aha! thou tremblest!--well I see Thou 'rt craven grown. Is it so hard with God and me To stand alone? Summon thy sunshine bravery back, O wretched sprite! Let me hear thy voice through this deep and black Abysmal night. What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth, For God and Man, From the golden hours of bright-eyed youth To life's mid span? What, silent all! art sad of cheer? Art fearful now? When God seemed far and men were near, How brave wert thou! Ah, soul of mine, thy tones I hear, But weak and low, Like far sad murmurs on my ear They come and go. I have wrestled stoutly with the Wrong, And borne the Right From beneath the footfall of the throng To life and light. "Wherever Freedom shivered a chain, God speed, quoth I; To Error amidst her shouting train I gave the lie." Ah, soul of mine! ah, soul of mine! Thy deeds are well: Were they wrought for Truth's sake or for thine? My soul, pray tell. "Of all the work my hand hath wrought Beneath the sky, Save a place in kindly human thought, No gain have I." Go to, go to! for thy very self Thy deeds were done Thou for fame, the miser for pelf, Your end is one! And where art thou going, soul of mine? Canst see the end? And whither this troubled life of thine Evermore doth tend? What daunts thee now? what shakes thee so? My sad soul say. "I see a cloud like a curtain low Hang o'er my way. "Whither I go I cannot tell That cloud hangs black, High as the heaven and deep as hell Across my track. "I see its shadow coldly enwrap The souls before. Sadly they enter it, step by step, To return no more. "They shrink, they shudder, dear God! they kneel To Thee in prayer. They shut their eyes on the cloud, but feel That it still is there. "In vain they turn from the dread Before To the Known and Gone; For while gazing behind them evermore Their feet glide on. "Yet, at times, I see upon sweet pale faces A light begin To tremble, as if from holy places And shrines within. "And at times methinks their cold lips move With hymn and prayer, As if somewhat of awe, but more of love And hope were there. "I call on the souls who have left the light To reveal their lot; I bend mine ear to that wall of night, And they answer not. "But I hear around me sighs of pain And the cry of fear, And a sound like the slow sad dropping of rain, Each drop a tear! "Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day I am moving thither I must pass beneath it on my way-- God pity me!--whither?" Ah, soul of mine! so brave and wise In the life-storm loud, Fronting so calmly all human eyes In the sunlit crowd! Now standing apart with God and me Thou art weakness all, Gazing vainly after the things to be Through Death's dread wall. But never for this, never for this Was thy being lent; For the craven's fear is but selfishness, Like his merriment. Folly and Fear are sisters twain One closing her eyes. The other peopling the dark inane With spectral lies. Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Whate'er thou fearest; Round Him in calmest music rolls Whate'er thou Nearest. What to thee is shadow, to Him is day, And the end He knoweth, And not on a blind and aimless way The spirit goeth. Man sees no future,--a phantom show Is alone before him; Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow, And flowers bloom o'er him. Nothing before, nothing behind; The steps of Faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The rock beneath. The Present, the Present is all thou hast For thy sure possessing; Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast Till it gives its blessing. Why fear the night? why shrink from Death; That phantom wan? There is nothing in heaven or earth beneath Save God and man. Peopling the shadows we turn from Him And from one another; All is spectral and vague and dim Save God and our brother! Like warp and woof all destinies Are woven fast, Linked in sympathy like the keys Of an organ vast. Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; Break but one Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar Through all will run. O restless spirit! wherefore strain Beyond thy sphere? Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain, Are now and here. Back to thyself is measured well All thou hast given; Thy neighbor's wrong is thy present hell, His bliss, thy heaven. And in life, in death, in dark and light, All are in God's care Sound the black abyss, pierce the deep of night, And He is there! All which is real now remaineth, And fadeth never The hand which upholds it now sustaineth The soul forever. Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will, And with strength from Him shall thy utter weakness Life's task fulfil; And that cloud itself, which now before thee Lies dark in view, Shall with beams of light from the inner glory Be stricken through. And like meadow mist through autumn's dawn Uprolling thin, Its thickest folds when about thee drawn Let sunlight in. Then of what is to be, and of what is done, Why queriest thou? The past and the time to be are one, And both are now! 1847. WORSHIP. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in, their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."--JAMES I. 27. The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan Round fane and altar overthrown and broken, O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone. Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places, The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood, With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces, Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood. Red altars, kindling through that night of error, Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky; Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting All heaven above, and blighting earth below, The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting, And man's oblation was his fear and woe! Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer; Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, Swung their white censers in the burdened air As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please; As if His ear could bend, with childish favor, To the poor flattery of the organ keys! Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, With trembling reverence: and the oppressor there, Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer. Not such the service the benignant Father Requireth at His earthly children's hands Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather The simple duty man from man demands. For Earth He asks it: the full joy of heaven Knoweth no change of waning or increase; The great heart of the Infinite beats even, Untroubled flows the river of His peace. He asks no taper lights, on high surrounding The priestly altar and the saintly grave, No dolorous chant nor organ music sounding, Nor incense clouding tip the twilight nave. For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken The holier worship which he deigns to bless Restores the lost, and binds the spirit broken, And feeds the widow and the fatherless! Types of our human weakness and our sorrow! Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead? Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow From stranger eyes the home lights which have fled? O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother; Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer. Follow with reverent steps the great example Of Him whose holy work was "doing good;" So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple, Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease; Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, And in its ashes plant the tree of peace! 1848. THE HOLY LAND Paraphrased from the lines in Lamartine's _Adieu to Marseilles_, beginning "Je n'ai pas navigue sur l'ocean de sable." I have not felt, o'er seas of sand, The rocking of the desert bark; Nor laved at Hebron's fount my hand, By Hebron's palm-trees cool and dark; Nor pitched my tent at even-fall, On dust where Job of old has lain, Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wall, The dream of Jacob o'er again. One vast world-page remains unread; How shine the stars in Chaldea's sky, How sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread, How beats the heart with God so nigh How round gray arch and column lone The spirit of the old time broods, And sighs in all the winds that moan Along the sandy solitudes! In thy tall cedars, Lebanon, I have not heard the nations' cries, Nor seen thy eagles stooping down Where buried Tyre in ruin lies. The Christian's prayer I have not said In Tadmor's temples of decay, Nor startled, with my dreary tread, The waste where Memnon's empire lay. Nor have I, from thy hallowed tide, O Jordan! heard the low lament, Like that sad wail along thy side Which Israel's mournful prophet sent! Nor thrilled within that grotto lone Where, deep in night, the Bard of Kings Felt hands of fire direct his own, And sweep for God the conscious strings. I have not climbed to Olivet, Nor laid me where my Saviour lay, And left His trace of tears as yet By angel eyes unwept away; Nor watched, at midnight's solemn time, The garden where His prayer and groan, Wrung by His sorrow and our crime, Rose to One listening ear alone. I have not kissed the rock-hewn grot Where in His mother's arms He lay, Nor knelt upon the sacred spot Where last His footsteps pressed the clay; Nor looked on that sad mountain head, Nor smote my sinful breast, where wide His arms to fold the world He spread, And bowed His head to bless--and died! 1848. THE REWARD Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime, Sees not the spectre of his misspent time? And, through the shade Of funeral cypress planted thick behind, Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind From his loved dead? Who bears no trace of passion's evil force? Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse? Who does not cast On the thronged pages of his memory's book, At times, a sad and half-reluctant look, Regretful of the past? Alas! the evil which we fain would shun We do, and leave the wished-for good undone Our strength to-day Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall; Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all Are we alway. Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years, Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears, If he hath been Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause, His fellow-men? If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin; If he hath lent Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, Over the suffering, mindless of his creed Or home, hath bent; He has not lived in vain, and while he gives The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives, With thankful heart; He gazes backward, and with hope before, Knowing that from his works he nevermore Can henceforth part. 1848. THE WISH OF TO-DAY. I ask not now for gold to gild With mocking shine a weary frame; The yearning of the mind is stilled, I ask not now for Fame. A rose-cloud, dimly seen above, Melting in heaven's blue depths away; Oh, sweet, fond dream of human Love For thee I may not pray. But, bowed in lowliness of mind, I make my humble wishes known; I only ask a will resigned, O Father, to Thine own! To-day, beneath Thy chastening eye I crave alone for peace and rest, Submissive in Thy hand to lie, And feel that it is best. A marvel seems the Universe, A miracle our Life and Death; A mystery which I cannot pierce, Around, above, beneath. In vain I task my aching brain, In vain the sage's thought I scan, I only feel how weak and vain, How poor and blind, is man. And now my spirit sighs for home, And longs for light whereby to see, And, like a weary child, would come, O Father, unto Thee! Though oft, like letters traced on sand, My weak resolves have passed away, In mercy lend Thy helping hand Unto my prayer to-day! 1848. ALL'S WELL The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake Our thirsty souls with rain; The blow most dreaded falls to break From off our limbs a chain; And wrongs of man to man but make The love of God more plain. As through the shadowy lens of even The eye looks farthest into heaven On gleams of star and depths of blue The glaring sunshine never knew! 1850. INVOCATION Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old, Formless and void the dead earth rolled; Deaf to Thy heaven's sweet music, blind To the great lights which o'er it shined; No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,-- A dumb despair, a wandering death. To that dark, weltering horror came Thy spirit, like a subtle flame,-- A breath of life electrical, Awakening and transforming all, Till beat and thrilled in every part The pulses of a living heart. Then knew their bounds the land and sea; Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree; From flower to moth, from beast to man, The quick creative impulse ran; And earth, with life from thee renewed, Was in thy holy eyesight good. As lost and void, as dark and cold And formless as that earth of old; A wandering waste of storm and night, Midst spheres of song and realms of light; A blot upon thy holy sky, Untouched, unwarned of thee, am I. O Thou who movest on the deep Of spirits, wake my own from sleep Its darkness melt, its coldness warm, The lost restore, the ill transform, That flower and fruit henceforth may be Its grateful offering, worthy Thee. 1851. QUESTIONS OF LIFE And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer and said, "Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the Most High?" Then said I, "Yea, my Lord." Then said he unto me, "Go thy way, weigh me the weight of the fire or measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past."--2 ESDRAS, chap. iv. A bending staff I would not break, A feeble faith I would not shake, Nor even rashly pluck away The error which some truth may stay, Whose loss might leave the soul without A shield against the shafts of doubt. And yet, at times, when over all A darker mystery seems to fall, (May God forgive the child of dust, Who seeks to know, where Faith should trust!) I raise the questions, old and dark, Of Uzdom's tempted patriarch, And, speech-confounded, build again The baffled tower of Shinar's plain. I am: how little more I know! Whence came I? Whither do I go? A centred self, which feels and is; A cry between the silences; A shadow-birth of clouds at strife With sunshine on the hills of life; A shaft from Nature's quiver cast Into the Future from the Past; Between the cradle and the shroud, A meteor's flight from cloud to cloud. Thorough the vastness, arching all, I see the great stars rise and fall, The rounding seasons come and go, The tided oceans ebb and flow; The tokens of a central force, Whose circles, in their widening course, O'erlap and move the universe; The workings of the law whence springs The rhythmic harmony of things, Which shapes in earth the darkling spar, And orbs in heaven the morning star. Of all I see, in earth and sky,-- Star, flower, beast, bird,--what part have I? This conscious life,--is it the same Which thrills the universal frame, Whereby the caverned crystal shoots, And mounts the sap from forest roots, Whereby the exiled wood-bird tells When Spring makes green her native dells? How feels the stone the pang of birth, Which brings its sparkling prism forth? The forest-tree the throb which gives The life-blood to its new-born leaves? Do bird and blossom feel, like me, Life's many-folded mystery,-- The wonder which it is to be? Or stand I severed and distinct, From Nature's "chain of life" unlinked? Allied to all, yet not the less Prisoned in separate consciousness, Alone o'erburdened with a sense Of life, and cause, and consequence? In vain to me the Sphinx propounds The riddle of her sights and sounds; Back still the vaulted mystery gives The echoed question it receives. What sings the brook? What oracle Is in the pine-tree's organ swell? What may the wind's low burden be? The meaning of the moaning sea? The hieroglyphics of the stars? Or clouded sunset's crimson bars? I vainly ask, for mocks my skill The trick of Nature's cipher still. I turn from Nature unto men, I ask the stylus and the pen; What sang the bards of old? What meant The prophets of the Orient? The rolls of buried Egypt, hid In painted tomb and pyramid? What mean Idumea's arrowy lines, Or dusk Elora's monstrous signs? How speaks the primal thought of man From the grim carvings of Copan? Where rests the secret? Where the keys Of the old death-bolted mysteries? Alas! the dead retain their trust; Dust hath no answer from the dust. The great enigma still unguessed, Unanswered the eternal quest; I gather up the scattered rays Of wisdom in the early days, Faint gleams and broken, like the light Of meteors in a northern night, Betraying to the darkling earth The unseen sun which gave them birth; I listen to the sibyl's chant, The voice of priest and hierophant; I know what Indian Kreeshna saith, And what of life and what of death The demon taught to Socrates; And what, beneath his garden-trees Slow pacing, with a dream-like tread,-- The solemn-thoughted Plato said; Nor lack I tokens, great or small, Of God's clear light in each and all, While holding with more dear regard The scroll of Hebrew seer and bard, The starry pages promise-lit With Christ's Evangel over-writ, Thy miracle of life and death, O Holy One of Nazareth! On Aztec ruins, gray and lone, The circling serpent coils in stone,-- Type of the endless and unknown; Whereof we seek the clue to find, With groping fingers of the blind! Forever sought, and never found, We trace that serpent-symbol round Our resting-place, our starting bound Oh, thriftlessness of dream and guess! Oh, wisdom which is foolishness! Why idly seek from outward things The answer inward silence brings? Why stretch beyond our proper sphere And age, for that which lies so near? Why climb the far-off hills with pain, A nearer view of heaven to gain? In lowliest depths of bosky dells The hermit Contemplation dwells. A fountain's pine-hung slope his seat, And lotus-twined his silent feet, Whence, piercing heaven, with screened sight, He sees at noon the stars, whose light Shall glorify the coining night. Here let me pause, my quest forego; Enough for me to feel and know That He in whom the cause and end, The past and future, meet and blend,-- Who, girt with his Immensities, Our vast and star-hung system sees, Small as the clustered Pleiades,-- Moves not alone the heavenly quires, But waves the spring-time's grassy spires, Guards not archangel feet alone, But deigns to guide and keep my own; Speaks not alone the words of fate Which worlds destroy, and worlds create, But whispers in my spirit's ear, In tones of love, or warning fear, A language none beside may hear. To Him, from wanderings long and wild, I come, an over-wearied child, In cool and shade His peace to find, Lice dew-fall settling on my mind. Assured that all I know is best, And humbly trusting for the rest, I turn from Fancy's cloud-built scheme, Dark creed, and mournful eastern dream Of power, impersonal and cold, Controlling all, itself controlled, Maker and slave of iron laws, Alike the subject and the cause; From vain philosophies, that try The sevenfold gates of mystery, And, baffled ever, babble still, Word-prodigal of fate and will; From Nature, and her mockery, Art; And book and speech of men apart, To the still witness in my heart; With reverence waiting to behold His Avatar of love untold, The Eternal Beauty new and old! 1862. FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS. In calm and cool and silence, once again I find my old accustomed place among My brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue Shall utter words; where never hymn is sung, Nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung, Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane! There, syllabled by silence, let me hear The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear; Read in my heart a still diviner law Than Israel's leader on his tables saw! There let me strive with each besetting sin, Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain The sore disquiet of a restless brain; And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, With backward glances and reluctant tread, Making a merit of his coward dread, But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown, Walking as one to pleasant service led; Doing God's will as if it were my own, Yet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone! 1852. TRUST. The same old baffling questions! O my friend, I cannot answer them. In vain I send My soul into the dark, where never burn The lamps of science, nor the natural light Of Reason's sun and stars! I cannot learn Their great and solemn meanings, nor discern The awful secrets of the eyes which turn Evermore on us through the day and night With silent challenge and a dumb demand, Proffering the riddles of the dread unknown, Like the calm Sphinxes, with their eyes of stone, Questioning the centuries from their veils of sand! I have no answer for myself or thee, Save that I learned beside my mother's knee; "All is of God that is, and is to be; And God is good." Let this suffice us still, Resting in childlike trust upon His will Who moves to His great ends unthwarted by the ill. 1853. TRINITAS. At morn I prayed, "I fain would see How Three are One, and One is Three; Read the dark riddle unto me." I wandered forth, the sun and air I saw bestowed with equal care On good and evil, foul and fair. No partial favor dropped the rain; Alike the righteous and profane Rejoiced above their heading grain. And my heart murmured, "Is it meet That blindfold Nature thus should treat With equal hand the tares and wheat?" A presence melted through my mood,-- A warmth, a light, a sense of good, Like sunshine through a winter wood. I saw that presence, mailed complete In her white innocence, pause to greet A fallen sister of the street. Upon her bosom snowy pure The lost one clung, as if secure From inward guilt or outward lure. "Beware!" I said; "in this I see No gain to her, but loss to thee Who touches pitch defiled must be." I passed the haunts of shame and sin, And a voice whispered, "Who therein Shall these lost souls to Heaven's peace win? "Who there shall hope and health dispense, And lift the ladder up from thence Whose rounds are prayers of penitence?" I said, "No higher life they know; These earth-worms love to have it so. Who stoops to raise them sinks as low." That night with painful care I read What Hippo's saint and Calvin said; The living seeking to the dead! In vain I turned, in weary quest, Old pages, where (God give them rest!) The poor creed-mongers dreamed and guessed. And still I prayed, "Lord, let me see How Three are One, and One is Three; Read the dark riddle unto me!" Then something whispered, "Dost thou pray For what thou hast? This very day The Holy Three have crossed thy way. "Did not the gifts of sun and air To good and ill alike declare The all-compassionate Father's care? "In the white soul that stooped to raise The lost one from her evil ways, Thou saw'st the Christ, whom angels praise! "A bodiless Divinity, The still small Voice that spake to thee Was the Holy Spirit's mystery! "O blind of sight, of faith how small! Father, and Son, and Holy Call This day thou hast denied them all! "Revealed in love and sacrifice, The Holiest passed before thine eyes, One and the same, in threefold guise. "The equal Father in rain and sun, His Christ in the good to evil done, His Voice in thy soul;--and the Three are One!" I shut my grave Aquinas fast; The monkish gloss of ages past, The schoolman's creed aside I cast. And my heart answered, "Lord, I see How Three are One, and One is Three; Thy riddle hath been read to me!" 1858. THE SISTERS A PICTURE BY BARRY The shade for me, but over thee The lingering sunshine still; As, smiling, to the silent stream Comes down the singing rill. So come to me, my little one,-- My years with thee I share, And mingle with a sister's love A mother's tender care. But keep the smile upon thy lip, The trust upon thy brow; Since for the dear one God hath called We have an angel now. Our mother from the fields of heaven Shall still her ear incline; Nor need we fear her human love Is less for love divine. The songs are sweet they sing beneath The trees of life so fair, But sweetest of the songs of heaven Shall be her children's prayer. Then, darling, rest upon my breast, And teach my heart to lean With thy sweet trust upon the arm Which folds us both unseen! 1858 "THE ROCK" IN EL GHOR. Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps, Her stones of emptiness remain; Around her sculptured mystery sweeps The lonely waste of Edom's plain. From the doomed dwellers in the cleft The bow of vengeance turns not back; Of all her myriads none are left Along the Wady Mousa's track. Clear in the hot Arabian day Her arches spring, her statues climb; Unchanged, the graven wonders pay No tribute to the spoiler, Time! Unchanged the awful lithograph Of power and glory undertrod; Of nations scattered like the chaff Blown from the threshing-floor of God. Yet shall the thoughtful stranger turn From Petra's gates with deeper awe, To mark afar the burial urn Of Aaron on the cliffs of Hor; And where upon its ancient guard Thy Rock, El Ghor, is standing yet,-- Looks from its turrets desertward, And keeps the watch that God has set. The same as when in thunders loud It heard the voice of God to man, As when it saw in fire and cloud The angels walk in Israel's van, Or when from Ezion-Geber's way It saw the long procession file, And heard the Hebrew timbrels play The music of the lordly Nile; Or saw the tabernacle pause, Cloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea's wells, While Moses graved the sacred laws, And Aaron swung his golden bells. Rock of the desert, prophet-sung! How grew its shadowing pile at length, A symbol, in the Hebrew tongue, Of God's eternal love and strength. On lip of bard and scroll of seer, From age to age went down the name, Until the Shiloh's promised year, And Christ, the Rock of Ages, came! The path of life we walk to-day Is strange as that the Hebrews trod; We need the shadowing rock, as they,-- We need, like them, the guides of God. God send His angels, Cloud and Fire, To lead us o'er the desert sand! God give our hearts their long desire, His shadow in a weary land! 1859. THE OVER-HEART. "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever! "--PAUL. Above, below, in sky and sod, In leaf and spar, in star and man, Well might the wise Athenian scan The geometric signs of God, The measured order of His plan. And India's mystics sang aright Of the One Life pervading all,-- One Being's tidal rise and fall In soul and form, in sound and sight,-- Eternal outflow and recall. God is: and man in guilt and fear The central fact of Nature owns; Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones, And darkly dreams the ghastly smear Of blood appeases and atones. Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within The human heart the secret lies Of all the hideous deities; And, painted on a ground of sin, The fabled gods of torment rise! And what is He? The ripe grain nods, The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow; But darker signs His presence show The earthquake and the storm are God's, And good and evil interflow. O hearts of love! O souls that turn Like sunflowers to the pure and best! To you the truth is manifest: For they the mind of Christ discern Who lean like John upon His breast! In him of whom the sibyl told, For whom the prophet's harp was toned, Whose need the sage and magian owned, The loving heart of God behold, The hope for which the ages groaned! Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery Wherewith mankind have deified Their hate, and selfishness, and pride! Let the scared dreamer wake to see The Christ of Nazareth at his side! What doth that holy Guide require? No rite of pain, nor gift of blood, But man a kindly brotherhood, Looking, where duty is desire, To Him, the beautiful and good. Gone be the faithlessness of fear, And let the pitying heaven's sweet rain Wash out the altar's bloody stain; The law of Hatred disappear, The law of Love alone remain. How fall the idols false and grim! And to! their hideous wreck above The emblems of the Lamb and Dove! Man turns from God, not God from him; And guilt, in suffering, whispers Love! The world sits at the feet of Christ, Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled; It yet shall touch His garment's fold, And feel the heavenly Alchemist Transform its very dust to gold. The theme befitting angel tongues Beyond a mortal's scope has grown. O heart of mine! with reverence own The fulness which to it belongs, And trust the unknown for the known. 1859. THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT. "And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein,--sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures,--yea, whatsoever there is we do not see,--angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O--Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!--how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee." --AUGUSTINE'S Soliloquies, Book VII. The fourteen centuries fall away Between us and the Afric saint, And at his side we urge, to-day, The immemorial quest and old complaint. No outward sign to us is given,-- From sea or earth comes no reply; Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky. No victory comes of all our strife,-- From all we grasp the meaning slips; The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips. In paths unknown we hear the feet Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind. From age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect; Through every web of life the dark threads run. Oh, why and whither? God knows all; I only know that He is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could. Between the dreadful cherubim A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on Him, And saw His glory into goodness turn! For He is merciful as just; And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before His will, and trust Howe'er they seem He doeth all things right. And dare to hope that Tie will make The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain; His mercy never quite forsake; His healing visit every realm of pain; That suffering is not His revenge Upon His creatures weak and frail, Sent on a pathway new and strange With feet that wander and with eyes that fail; That, o'er the crucible of pain, Watches the tender eye of Love The slow transmuting of the chain Whose links are iron below to gold above! Ah me! we doubt the shining skies, Seen through our shadows of offence, And drown with our poor childish cries The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence. And still we love the evil cause, And of the just effect complain We tread upon life's broken laws, And murmur at our self-inflicted pain; We turn us from the light, and find Our spectral shapes before us thrown, As they who leave the sun behind Walk in the shadows of themselves alone. And scarce by will or strength of ours We set our faces to the day; Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers Alone can turn us from ourselves away. Our weakness is the strength of sin, But love must needs be stronger far, Outreaching all and gathering in The erring spirit and the wandering star. A Voice grows with the growing years; Earth, hushing down her bitter cry, Looks upward from her graves, and hears, "The Resurrection and the Life am I." O Love Divine!--whose constant beam Shines on the eyes that will not see, And waits to bless us, while we dream Thou leavest us because we turn from thee! All souls that struggle and aspire, All hearts of prayer by thee are lit; And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit. Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st, Wide as our need thy favors fall; The white wings of the Holy Ghost Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all. O Beauty, old yet ever new! Eternal Voice, and Inward Word, The Logos of the Greek and Jew, The old sphere-music which the Samian heard! Truth, which the sage and prophet saw, Long sought without, but found within, The Law of Love beyond all law, The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin! Shine on us with the light which glowed Upon the trance-bound shepherd's way. Who saw the Darkness overflowed And drowned by tides of everlasting Day. Shine, light of God!--make broad thy scope To all who sin and suffer; more And better than we dare to hope With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor! 1860. THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL. Lieutenant Herndon's Report of the Exploration of the Amazon has a striking description of the peculiar and melancholy notes of a bird heard by night on the shores of the river. The Indian guides called it "The Cry of a Lost Soul"! Among the numerous translations of this poem is one by the Emperor of Brazil. In that black forest, where, when day is done, With a snake's stillness glides the Amazon Darkly from sunset to the rising sun, A cry, as of the pained heart of the wood, The long, despairing moan of solitude And darkness and the absence of all good, Startles the traveller, with a sound so drear, So full of hopeless agony and fear, His heart stands still and listens like his ear. The guide, as if he heard a dead-bell toll, Starts, drops his oar against the gunwale's thole, Crosses himself, and whispers, "A lost soul!" "No, Senor, not a bird. I know it well,-- It is the pained soul of some infidel Or cursed heretic that cries from hell. "Poor fool! with hope still mocking his despair, He wanders, shrieking on the midnight air For human pity and for Christian prayer. "Saints strike him dumb! Our Holy Mother hath No prayer for him who, sinning unto death, Burns always in the furnace of God's wrath!" Thus to the baptized pagan's cruel lie, Lending new horror to that mournful cry, The voyager listens, making no reply. Dim burns the boat-lamp: shadows deepen round, From giant trees with snake-like creepers wound, And the black water glides without a sound. But in the traveller's heart a secret sense Of nature plastic to benign intents, And an eternal good in Providence, Lifts to the starry calm of heaven his eyes; And to! rebuking all earth's ominous cries, The Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies! "Father of all!" he urges his strong plea, "Thou lovest all: Thy erring child may be Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee! "All souls are Thine; the wings of morning bear None from that Presence which is everywhere, Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there. "Through sins of sense, perversities of will, Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame and ill, Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still. "Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal! In Thy long years, life's broken circle whole, And change to praise the cry of a lost soul?" 1862. ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER Andrew Rykman's dead and gone; You can see his leaning slate In the graveyard, and thereon Read his name and date. "_Trust is truer than our fears_," Runs the legend through the moss, "_Gain is not in added years, Nor in death is loss_." Still the feet that thither trod, All the friendly eyes are dim; Only Nature, now, and God Have a care for him. There the dews of quiet fall, Singing birds and soft winds stray: Shall the tender Heart of all Be less kind than they? What he was and what he is They who ask may haply find, If they read this prayer of his Which he left behind. . . . . Pardon, Lord, the lips that dare Shape in words a mortal's prayer! Prayer, that, when my day is done, And I see its setting sun, Shorn and beamless, cold and dim, Sink beneath the horizon's rim,-- When this ball of rock and clay Crumbles from my feet away, And the solid shores of sense Melt into the vague immense, Father! I may come to Thee Even with the beggar's plea, As the poorest of Thy poor, With my needs, and nothing more. Not as one who seeks his home With a step assured I come; Still behind the tread I hear Of my life-companion, Fear; Still a shadow deep and vast From my westering feet is cast, Wavering, doubtful, undefined, Never shapen nor outlined From myself the fear has grown, And the shadow is my own. Yet, O Lord, through all a sense Of Thy tender providence Stays my failing heart on Thee, And confirms the feeble knee; And, at times, my worn feet press Spaces of cool quietness, Lilied whiteness shone upon Not by light of moon or sun. Hours there be of inmost calm, Broken but by grateful psalm, When I love Thee more than fear Thee, And Thy blessed Christ seems near me, With forgiving look, as when He beheld the Magdalen. Well I know that all things move To the spheral rhythm of love,-- That to Thee, O Lord of all! Nothing can of chance befall Child and seraph, mote and star, Well Thou knowest what we are Through Thy vast creative plan Looking, from the worm to man, There is pity in Thine eyes, But no hatred nor surprise. Not in blind caprice of will, Not in cunning sleight of skill, Not for show of power, was wrought Nature's marvel in Thy thought. Never careless hand and vain Smites these chords of joy and pain; No immortal selfishness Plays the game of curse and bless Heaven and earth are witnesses That Thy glory goodness is. Not for sport of mind and force Hast Thou made Thy universe, But as atmosphere and zone Of Thy loving heart alone. Man, who walketh in a show, Sees before him, to and fro, Shadow and illusion go; All things flow and fluctuate, Now contract and now dilate. In the welter of this sea, Nothing stable is but Thee; In this whirl of swooning trance, Thou alone art permanence; All without Thee only seems, All beside is choice of dreams. Never yet in darkest mood Doubted I that Thou wast good, Nor mistook my will for fate, Pain of sin for heavenly hate,-- Never dreamed the gates of pearl Rise from out the burning marl, Or that good can only live Of the bad conservative, And through counterpoise of hell Heaven alone be possible. For myself alone I doubt; All is well, I know, without; I alone the beauty mar, I alone the music jar. Yet, with hands by evil stained, And an ear by discord pained, I am groping for the keys Of the heavenly harmonies; Still within my heart I bear Love for all things good and fair. Hands of want or souls in pain Have not sought my door in vain; I have kept my fealty good To the human brotherhood; Scarcely have I asked in prayer That which others might not share. I, who hear with secret shame Praise that paineth more than blame, Rich alone in favors lent, Virtuous by accident, Doubtful where I fain would rest, Frailest where I seem the best, Only strong for lack of test,-- What am I, that I should press Special pleas of selfishness, Coolly mounting into heaven On my neighbor unforgiven? Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised, Comes a saint unrecognized; Never fails my heart to greet Noble deed with warmer beat; Halt and maimed, I own not less All the grace of holiness; Nor, through shame or self-distrust, Less I love the pure and just. Lord, forgive these words of mine What have I that is not Thine? Whatsoe'er I fain would boast Needs Thy pitying pardon most. Thou, O Elder Brother! who In Thy flesh our trial knew, Thou, who hast been touched by these Our most sad infirmities, Thou alone the gulf canst span In the dual heart of man, And between the soul and sense Reconcile all difference, Change the dream of me and mine For the truth of Thee and Thine, And, through chaos, doubt, and strife, Interfuse Thy calm of life. Haply, thus by Thee renewed, In Thy borrowed goodness good, Some sweet morning yet in God's Dim, veonian periods, Joyful I shall wake to see Those I love who rest in Thee, And to them in Thee allied Shall my soul be satisfied. Scarcely Hope hath shaped for me What the future life may be. Other lips may well be bold; Like the publican of old, I can only urge the plea, "Lord, be merciful to me!" Nothing of desert I claim, Unto me belongeth shame. Not for me the crowns of gold, Palms, and harpings manifold; Not for erring eye and feet Jasper wall and golden street. What thou wilt, O Father, give I All is gain that I receive. If my voice I may not raise In the elders' song of praise, If I may not, sin-defiled, Claim my birthright as a child, Suffer it that I to Thee As an hired servant be; Let the lowliest task be mine, Grateful, so the work be Thine; Let me find the humblest place In the shadow of Thy grace Blest to me were any spot Where temptation whispers not. If there be some weaker one, Give me strength to help him on If a blinder soul there be, Let me guide him nearer Thee. Make my mortal dreams come true With the work I fain would do; Clothe with life the weak intent, Let me be the thing I meant; Let me find in Thy employ Peace that dearer is than joy; Out of self to love be led And to heaven acclimated, Until all things sweet and good Seem my natural habitude. . . . . So we read the prayer of him Who, with John of Labadie, Trod, of old, the oozy rim Of the Zuyder Zee. Thus did Andrew Rykman pray. Are we wiser, better grown, That we may not, in our day, Make his prayer our own? THE ANSWER. Spare me, dread angel of reproof, And let the sunshine weave to-day Its gold-threads in the warp and woof Of life so poor and gray. Spare me awhile; the flesh is weak. These lingering feet, that fain would stray Among the flowers, shall some day seek The strait and narrow way. Take off thy ever-watchful eye, The awe of thy rebuking frown; The dullest slave at times must sigh To fling his burdens down; To drop his galley's straining oar, And press, in summer warmth and calm, The lap of some enchanted shore Of blossom and of balm. Grudge not my life its hour of bloom, My heart its taste of long desire; This day be mine: be those to come As duty shall require. The deep voice answered to my own, Smiting my selfish prayers away; "To-morrow is with God alone, And man hath but to-day. "Say not, thy fond, vain heart within, The Father's arm shall still be wide, When from these pleasant ways of sin Thou turn'st at eventide. "'Cast thyself down,' the tempter saith, 'And angels shall thy feet upbear.' He bids thee make a lie of faith, And blasphemy of prayer. "Though God be good and free be heaven, No force divine can love compel; And, though the song of sins forgiven May sound through lowest hell, "The sweet persuasion of His voice Respects thy sanctity of will. He giveth day: thou hast thy choice To walk in darkness still; "As one who, turning from the light, Watches his own gray shadow fall, Doubting, upon his path of night, If there be day at all! "No word of doom may shut thee out, No wind of wrath may downward whirl, No swords of fire keep watch about The open gates of pearl; "A tenderer light than moon or sun, Than song of earth a sweeter hymn, May shine and sound forever on, And thou be deaf and dim. "Forever round the Mercy-seat The guiding lights of Love shall burn; But what if, habit-bound, thy feet Shall lack the will to turn? "What if thine eye refuse to see, Thine ear of Heaven's free welcome fail, And thou a willing captive be, Thyself thy own dark jail? "Oh, doom beyond the saddest guess, As the long years of God unroll, To make thy dreary selfishness The prison of a soul! "To doubt the love that fain would break The fetters from thy self-bound limb; And dream that God can thee forsake As thou forsakest Him!" 1863. THE ETERNAL GOODNESS. O friends! with whom my feet have trod The quiet aisles of prayer, Glad witness to your zeal for God And love of man I bear. I trace your lines of argument; Your logic linked and strong I weigh as one who dreads dissent, And fears a doubt as wrong. But still my human hands are weak To hold your iron creeds Against the words ye bid me speak My heart within me pleads. Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? Who talks of scheme and plan? The Lord is God! He needeth not The poor device of man. I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread with boldness shod; I dare not fix with mete and bound The love and power of God. Ye praise His justice; even such His pitying love I deem Ye seek a king; I fain would touch The robe that hath no seam. Ye see the curse which overbroods A world of pain and loss; I hear our Lord's beatitudes And prayer upon the cross. More than your schoolmen teach, within Myself, alas! I know Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, Too small the merit show. I bow my forehead to the dust, I veil mine eyes for shame, And urge, in trembling self-distrust, A prayer without a claim. I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within; I hear, with groan and travail-cries, The world confess its sin. Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good! Not mine to look where cherubim And seraphs may not see, But nothing can be good in Him Which evil is in me. The wrong that pains my soul below I dare not throne above, I know not of His hate,--I know His goodness and His love. I dimly guess from blessings known Of greater out of sight, And, with the chastened Psalmist, own His judgments too are right. I long for household voices gone, For vanished smiles I long, But God hath led my dear ones on, And He can do no wrong. I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death His mercy underlies. And if my heart and flesh are weak To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed He will not break, But strengthen and sustain. No offering of my own I have, Nor works my faith to prove; I can but give the gifts He gave, And plead His love for love. And so beside the Silent Sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. O brothers! if my faith is vain, If hopes like these betray, Pray for me that my feet may gain The sure and safer way. And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee! 1865. THE COMMON QUESTION. Behind us at our evening meal The gray bird ate his fill, Swung downward by a single claw, And wiped his hooked bill. He shook his wings and crimson tail, And set his head aslant, And, in his sharp, impatient way, Asked, "What does Charlie want?" "Fie, silly bird!" I answered, "tuck Your head beneath your wing, And go to sleep;"--but o'er and o'er He asked the self-same thing. Then, smiling, to myself I said How like are men and birds! We all are saying what he says, In action or in words. The boy with whip and top and drum, The girl with hoop and doll, And men with lands and houses, ask The question of Poor Poll. However full, with something more We fain the bag would cram; We sigh above our crowded nets For fish that never swam. No bounty of indulgent Heaven The vague desire can stay; Self-love is still a Tartar mill For grinding prayers alway. The dear God hears and pities all; He knoweth all our wants; And what we blindly ask of Him His love withholds or grants. And so I sometimes think our prayers Might well be merged in one; And nest and perch and hearth and church Repeat, "Thy will be done." OUR MASTER. Immortal Love, forever full, Forever flowing free, Forever shared, forever whole, A never-ebbing sea! Our outward lips confess the name All other names above; Love only knoweth whence it came And comprehendeth love. Blow, winds of God, awake and blow The mists of earth away! Shine out, O Light Divine, and show How wide and far we stray! Hush every lip, close every book, The strife of tongues forbear; Why forward reach, or backward look, For love that clasps like air? We may not climb the heavenly steeps To bring the Lord Christ down In vain we search the lowest deeps, For Him no depths can drown. Nor holy bread, nor blood of grape, The lineaments restore Of Him we know in outward shape And in the flesh no more. He cometh not a king to reign; The world's long hope is dim; The weary centuries watch in vain The clouds of heaven for Him. Death comes, life goes; the asking eye And ear are answerless; The grave is dumb, the hollow sky Is sad with silentness. The letter fails, and systems fall, And every symbol wanes; The Spirit over-brooding all Eternal Love remains. And not for signs in heaven above Or earth below they look, Who know with John His smile of love, With Peter His rebuke. In joy of inward peace, or sense Of sorrow over sin, He is His own best evidence, His witness is within. No fable old, nor mythic lore, Nor dream of bards and seers, No dead fact stranded on the shore Of the oblivious years;-- But warm, sweet, tender, even yet A present help is He; And faith has still its Olivet, And love its Galilee. The healing of His seamless dress Is by our beds of pain; We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again. Through Him the first fond prayers are said Our lips of childhood frame, The last low whispers of our dead Are burdened with His name. Our Lord and Master of us all! Whate'er our name or sign, We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, We test our lives by Thine. Thou judgest us; Thy purity Doth all our lusts condemn; The love that draws us nearer Thee Is hot with wrath to them. Our thoughts lie open to Thy sight; And, naked to Thy glance, Our secret sins are in the light Of Thy pure countenance. Thy healing pains, a keen distress Thy tender light shines in; Thy sweetness is the bitterness, Thy grace the pang of sin. Yet, weak and blinded though we be, Thou dost our service own; We bring our varying gifts to Thee, And Thou rejectest none. To Thee our full humanity, Its joys and pains, belong; The wrong of man to man on Thee Inflicts a deeper wrong. Who hates, hates Thee, who loves becomes Therein to Thee allied; All sweet accords of hearts and homes In Thee are multiplied. Deep strike Thy roots, O heavenly Vine, Within our earthly sod, Most human and yet most divine, The flower of man and God! O Love! O Life! Our faith and sight Thy presence maketh one As through transfigured clouds of white We trace the noon-day sun. So, to our mortal eyes subdued, Flesh-veiled, but not concealed, We know in Thee the fatherhood And heart of God revealed. We faintly hear, we dimly see, In differing phrase we pray; But, dim or clear, we own in Thee The Light, the Truth, the Way! The homage that we render Thee Is still our Father's own; No jealous claim or rivalry Divides the Cross and Throne. To do Thy will is more than praise, As words are less than deeds, And simple trust can find Thy ways We miss with chart of creeds. No pride of self Thy service hath, No place for me and mine; Our human strength is weakness, death Our life, apart from Thine. Apart from Thee all gain is loss, All labor vainly done; The solemn shadow of Thy Cross Is better than the sun. Alone, O Love ineffable! Thy saving name is given; To turn aside from Thee is hell, To walk with Thee is heaven! How vain, secure in all Thou art, Our noisy championship The sighing of the contrite heart Is more than flattering lip. Not Thine the bigot's partial plea, Nor Thine the zealot's ban; Thou well canst spare a love of Thee Which ends in hate of man. Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord, What may Thy service be?-- Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, But simply following Thee. We bring no ghastly holocaust, We pile no graven stone; He serves thee best who loveth most His brothers and Thy own. Thy litanies, sweet offices Of love and gratitude; Thy sacramental liturgies, The joy of doing good. In vain shall waves of incense drift The vaulted nave around, In vain the minster turret lift Its brazen weights of sound. The heart must ring Thy Christmas bells, Thy inward altars raise; Its faith and hope Thy canticles, And its obedience praise! 1866. THE MEETING. The two speakers in the meeting referred to in this poem were Avis Keene, whose very presence was a benediction, a woman lovely in spirit and person, whose words seemed a message of love and tender concern to her hearers; and Sibyl Jones, whose inspired eloquence and rare spirituality impressed all who knew her. In obedience to her apprehended duty she made visits of Christian love to various parts of Europe, and to the West Coast of Africa and Palestine. The elder folks shook hands at last, Down seat by seat the signal passed. To simple ways like ours unused, Half solemnized and half amused, With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest His sense of glad relief expressed. Outside, the hills lay warm in sun; The cattle in the meadow-run Stood half-leg deep; a single bird The green repose above us stirred. "What part or lot have you," he said, "In these dull rites of drowsy-head? Is silence worship? Seek it where It soothes with dreams the summer air, Not in this close and rude-benched hall, But where soft lights and shadows fall, And all the slow, sleep-walking hours Glide soundless over grass and flowers! From time and place and form apart, Its holy ground the human heart, Nor ritual-bound nor templeward Walks the free spirit of the Lord! Our common Master did not pen His followers up from other men; His service liberty indeed, He built no church, He framed no creed; But while the saintly Pharisee Made broader his phylactery, As from the synagogue was seen The dusty-sandalled Nazarene Through ripening cornfields lead the way Upon the awful Sabbath day, His sermons were the healthful talk That shorter made the mountain-walk, His wayside texts were flowers and birds, Where mingled with His gracious words The rustle of the tamarisk-tree And ripple-wash of Galilee." "Thy words are well, O friend," I said; "Unmeasured and unlimited, With noiseless slide of stone to stone, The mystic Church of God has grown. Invisible and silent stands The temple never made with hands, Unheard the voices still and small Of its unseen confessional. He needs no special place of prayer Whose hearing ear is everywhere; He brings not back the childish days That ringed the earth with stones of praise, Roofed Karnak's hall of gods, and laid The plinths of Phil e's colonnade. Still less He owns the selfish good And sickly growth of solitude,-- The worthless grace that, out of sight, Flowers in the desert anchorite; Dissevered from the suffering whole, Love hath no power to save a soul. Not out of Self, the origin And native air and soil of sin, The living waters spring and flow, The trees with leaves of healing grow. "Dream not, O friend, because I seek This quiet shelter twice a week, I better deem its pine-laid floor Than breezy hill or sea-sung shore; But nature is not solitude She crowds us with her thronging wood; Her many hands reach out to us, Her many tongues are garrulous; Perpetual riddles of surprise She offers to our ears and eyes; She will not leave our senses still, But drags them captive at her will And, making earth too great for heaven, She hides the Giver in the given. "And so, I find it well to come For deeper rest to this still room, For here the habit of the soul Feels less the outer world's control; The strength of mutual purpose pleads More earnestly our common needs; And from the silence multiplied By these still forms on either side, The world that time and sense have known Falls off and leaves us God alone. "Yet rarely through the charmed repose Unmixed the stream of motive flows, A flavor of its many springs, The tints of earth and sky it brings; In the still waters needs must be Some shade of human sympathy; And here, in its accustomed place, I look on memory's dearest face; The blind by-sitter guesseth not What shadow haunts that vacant spot; No eyes save mine alone can see The love wherewith it welcomes me! And still, with those alone my kin, In doubt and weakness, want and sin, I bow my head, my heart I bare As when that face was living there, And strive (too oft, alas! in vain) The peace of simple trust to gain, Fold fancy's restless wings, and lay The idols of my heart away. "Welcome the silence all unbroken, Nor less the words of fitness spoken,-- Such golden words as hers for whom Our autumn flowers have just made room; Whose hopeful utterance through and through The freshness of the morning blew; Who loved not less the earth that light Fell on it from the heavens in sight, But saw in all fair forms more fair The Eternal beauty mirrored there. Whose eighty years but added grace And saintlier meaning to her face,-- The look of one who bore away Glad tidings from the hills of day, While all our hearts went forth to meet The coming of her beautiful feet! Or haply hers, whose pilgrim tread Is in the paths where Jesus led; Who dreams her childhood's Sabbath dream By Jordan's willow-shaded stream, And, of the hymns of hope and faith, Sung by the monks of Nazareth, Hears pious echoes, in the call To prayer, from Moslem minarets fall, Repeating where His works were wrought The lesson that her Master taught, Of whom an elder Sibyl gave, The prophecies of Cuma 's cave. "I ask no organ's soulless breath To drone the themes of life and death, No altar candle-lit by day, No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play, No cool philosophy to teach Its bland audacities of speech To double-tasked idolaters Themselves their gods and worshippers, No pulpit hammered by the fist Of loud-asserting dogmatist, Who borrows for the Hand of love The smoking thunderbolts of Jove. I know how well the fathers taught, What work the later schoolmen wrought; I reverence old-time faith and men, But God is near us now as then; His force of love is still unspent, His hate of sin as imminent; And still the measure of our needs Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds; The manna gathered yesterday Already savors of decay; Doubts to the world's child-heart unknown Question us now from star and stone; Too little or too much we know, And sight is swift and faith is slow; The power is lost to self-deceive With shallow forms of make-believe. W e walk at high noon, and the bells Call to a thousand oracles, But the sound deafens, and the light Is stronger than our dazzled sight; The letters of the sacred Book Glimmer and swim beneath our look; Still struggles in the Age's breast With deepening agony of quest The old entreaty: 'Art thou He, Or look we for the Christ to be?' "God should be most where man is least So, where is neither church nor priest, And never rag of form or creed To clothe the nakedness of need,-- Where farmer-folk in silence meet,-- I turn my bell-unsummoned feet;' I lay the critic's glass aside, I tread upon my lettered pride, And, lowest-seated, testify To the oneness of humanity; Confess the universal want, And share whatever Heaven may grant. He findeth not who seeks his own, The soul is lost that's saved alone. Not on one favored forehead fell Of old the fire-tongued miracle, But flamed o'er all the thronging host The baptism of the Holy Ghost; Heart answers heart: in one desire The blending lines of prayer aspire; 'Where, in my name, meet two or three,' Our Lord hath said, 'I there will be!' "So sometimes comes to soul and sense The feeling which is evidence That very near about us lies The realm of spiritual mysteries. The sphere of the supernal powers Impinges on this world of ours. The low and dark horizon lifts, To light the scenic terror shifts; The breath of a diviner air Blows down the answer of a prayer That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt A great compassion clasps about, And law and goodness, love and force, Are wedded fast beyond divorce. Then duty leaves to love its task, The beggar Self forgets to ask; With smile of trust and folded hands, The passive soul in waiting stands To feel, as flowers the sun and dew, The One true Life its own renew. "So, to the calmly gathered thought The innermost of truth is taught, The mystery dimly understood, That love of God is love of good, And, chiefly, its divinest trace In Him of Nazareth's holy face; That to be saved is only this,-- Salvation from our selfishness, From more than elemental fire, The soul's unsanetified desire, From sin itself, and not the pain That warns us of its chafing chain; That worship's deeper meaning lies In mercy, and not sacrifice, Not proud humilities of sense And posturing of penitence, But love's unforced obedience; That Book and Church and Day are given For man, not God,--for earth, not heaven,-- The blessed means to holiest ends, Not masters, but benignant friends; That the dear Christ dwells not afar, The king of some remoter star, Listening, at times, with flattered ear To homage wrung from selfish fear, But here, amidst the poor and blind, The bound and suffering of our kind, In works we do, in prayers we pray, Life of our life, He lives to-day." 1868. THE CLEAR VISION. I did but dream. I never knew What charms our sternest season wore. Was never yet the sky so blue, Was never earth so white before. Till now I never saw the glow Of sunset on yon hills of snow, And never learned the bough's designs Of beauty in its leafless lines. Did ever such a morning break As that my eastern windows see? Did ever such a moonlight take Weird photographs of shrub and tree? Rang ever bells so wild and fleet The music of the winter street? Was ever yet a sound by half So merry as you school-boy's laugh? O Earth! with gladness overfraught, No added charm thy face hath found; Within my heart the change is wrought, My footsteps make enchanted ground. From couch of pain and curtained room Forth to thy light and air I come, To find in all that meets my eyes The freshness of a glad surprise. Fair seem these winter days, and soon Shall blow the warm west-winds of spring, To set the unbound rills in tune And hither urge the bluebird's wing. The vales shall laugh in flowers, the woods Grow misty green with leafing buds, And violets and wind-flowers sway Against the throbbing heart of May. Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own The wiser love severely kind; Since, richer for its chastening grown, I see, whereas I once was blind. The world, O Father! hath not wronged With loss the life by Thee prolonged; But still, with every added year, More beautiful Thy works appear! As Thou hast made thy world without, Make Thou more fair my world within; Shine through its lingering clouds of doubt; Rebuke its haunting shapes of sin; Fill, brief or long, my granted span Of life with love to thee and man; Strike when thou wilt the hour of rest, But let my last days be my best! 2d mo., 1868. DIVINE COMPASSION. Long since, a dream of heaven I had, And still the vision haunts me oft; I see the saints in white robes clad, The martyrs with their palms aloft; But hearing still, in middle song, The ceaseless dissonance of wrong; And shrinking, with hid faces, from the strain Of sad, beseeching eyes, full of remorse and pain. The glad song falters to a wail, The harping sinks to low lament; Before the still unlifted veil I see the crowned foreheads bent, Making more sweet the heavenly air, With breathings of unselfish prayer; And a Voice saith: "O Pity which is pain, O Love that weeps, fill up my sufferings which remain! "Shall souls redeemed by me refuse To share my sorrow in their turn? Or, sin-forgiven, my gift abuse Of peace with selfish unconcern? Has saintly ease no pitying care? Has faith no work, and love no prayer? While sin remains, and souls in darkness dwell, Can heaven itself be heaven, and look unmoved on hell?" Then through the Gates of Pain, I dream, A wind of heaven blows coolly in; Fainter the awful discords seem, The smoke of torment grows more thin, Tears quench the burning soil, and thence Spring sweet, pale flowers of penitence And through the dreary realm of man's despair, Star-crowned an angel walks, and to! God's hope is there! Is it a dream? Is heaven so high That pity cannot breathe its air? Its happy eyes forever dry, Its holy lips without a prayer! My God! my God! if thither led By Thy free grace unmerited, No crown nor palm be mine, but let me keep A heart that still can feel, and eyes that still can weep. 1868. THE PRAYER-SEEKER. Along 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_!" 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 us_! Pass on! The type of all thou art, Sad witness to the common heart! 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 bands against a fate Whose walls of iron only move And open to the touch of love. 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_! 1870 THE BREWING OF SOMA. "These libations mixed with milk have been prepared for Indra: offer Soma to the drinker of Soma." --Vashista, translated by MAX MULLER. 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!" They drank, and to! in heart and brain A new, glad life began; The gray of hair grew young again, The sick man laughed away his pain, The cripple leaped and ran. "Drink, mortals, what the gods have sent, Forget your long annoy." So sang the priests. From tent to tent The Soma's sacred madness went, A storm of drunken joy. Then knew each rapt inebriate A winged and glorious birth, Soared upward, with strange joy elate, Beat, with dazed head, Varuna's gate, And, sobered, sank to earth. The land with Soma's praises rang; On Gihon's banks of shade Its hymns the dusky maidens sang; In joy of life or mortal pang All men to Soma prayed. The morning twilight of the race Sends down these matin psalms; And still with wondering eyes we trace The simple prayers to Soma's grace, That Vedic verse embalms. As in that child-world's early year, Each after age has striven By music, incense, vigils drear, And trance, to bring the skies more near, Or lift men up to heaven! Some fever of the blood and brain, Some self-exalting spell, The scourger's keen delight of pain, The Dervish dance, the Orphic strain, The wild-haired Bacchant's yell,-- The desert's hair-grown hermit sunk The saner brute below; The naked Santon, hashish-drunk, The cloister madness of the monk, The fakir's torture-show! And yet the past comes round again, And new doth old fulfil; In sensual transports wild as vain We brew in many a Christian fane The heathen Soma still! Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives Thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise. In simple trust like theirs who heard Beside the Syrian sea The gracious calling of the Lord, Let us, like them, without a word, Rise up and follow Thee. O Sabbath rest by Galilee! O calm of hills above, Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee The silence of eternity Interpreted by love! With that deep hush subduing all Our words and works that drown The tender whisper of Thy call, As noiseless let Thy blessing fall As fell Thy manna down. Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace. Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm; Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still, small voice of calm! 1872. A WOMAN. Oh, dwarfed and wronged, and stained with ill, Behold! thou art a woman still! And, by that sacred name and dear, I bid thy better self appear. Still, through thy foul disguise, I see The rudimental purity, That, spite of change and loss, makes good Thy birthright-claim of womanhood; An inward loathing, deep, intense; A shame that is half innocence. Cast off the grave-clothes of thy sin! Rise from the dust thou liest in, As Mary rose at Jesus' word, Redeemed and white before the Lord! Reclairn thy lost soul! In His name, Rise up, and break thy bonds of shame. Art weak? He 's strong. Art fearful? Hear The world's O'ercomer: "Be of cheer!" What lip shall judge when He approves? Who dare to scorn the child He loves? THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ. The island of Penikese in Buzzard's Bay was given by Mr. John Anderson to Agassiz for the uses of a summer school of natural history. A large barn was cleared and improvised as a lecture-room. Here, on the first morning of the school, all the company was gathered. "Agassiz had arranged no programme of exercises," says Mrs. Agassiz, in Louis Agassiz; his Life and Correspondence, "trusting to the interest of the occasion to suggest what might best be said or done. But, as he looked upon his pupils gathered there to study nature with him, by an impulse as natural as it was unpremeditated, he called upon then to join in silently asking God's blessing on their work together. The pause was broken by the first words of an address no less fervent than its unspoken prelude." This was in the summer of 1873, and Agassiz died the December following. On the isle of Penikese, Ringed about by sapphire seas, Fanned by breezes salt and cool, Stood the Master with his school. Over sails that not in vain Wooed the west-wind's steady strain, Line of coast that low and far Stretched its undulating bar, Wings aslant along the rim Of the waves they stooped to skim, Rock and isle and glistening bay, Fell the beautiful white day. Said the Master to the youth "We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery; We are reaching, through His laws, To the garment-hem of Cause, Him, the endless, unbegun, The Unnamable, the One Light of all our light the Source, Life of life, and Force of force. As with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen, What the Thought which underlies Nature's masking and disguise, What it is that hides beneath Blight and bloom and birth and death. By past efforts unavailing, Doubt and error, loss and failing, Of our weakness made aware, On the threshold of our task Let us light and guidance ask, Let us pause in silent prayer!" Then the Master in his place Bowed his head a little space, And the leaves by soft airs stirred, Lapse of wave and cry of bird, Left the solemn hush unbroken Of that wordless prayer unspoken, While its wish, on earth unsaid, Rose to heaven interpreted. As, in life's best hours, we hear By the spirit's finer ear His low voice within us, thus The All-Father heareth us; And His holy ear we pain With our noisy words and vain. Not for Him our violence Storming at the gates of sense, His the primal language, His The eternal silences! Even the careless heart was moved, And the doubting gave assent, With a gesture reverent, To the Master well-beloved. As thin mists are glorified By the light they cannot hide, All who gazed upon him saw, Through its veil of tender awe, How his face was still uplit By the old sweet look of it. Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer, And the love that casts out fear. Who the secret may declare Of that brief, unuttered prayer? Did the shade before him come Of th' inevitable doom, Of the end of earth so near, And Eternity's new year? In the lap of sheltering seas Rests the isle of Penikese; But the lord of the domain Comes not to his own again Where the eyes that follow fail, On a vaster sea his sail Drifts beyond our beck and hail. Other lips within its bound Shall the laws of life expound; Other eyes from rock and shell Read the world's old riddles well But when breezes light and bland Blow from Summer's blossomed land, When the air is glad with wings, And the blithe song-sparrow sings, Many an eye with his still face Shall the living ones displace, Many an ear the word shall seek He alone could fitly speak. And one name forevermore Shall be uttered o'er and o'er By the waves that kiss the shore, By the curlew's whistle sent Down the cool, sea-scented air; In all voices known to her, Nature owns her worshipper, Half in triumph, half lament. Thither Love shall tearful turn, Friendship pause uncovered there, And the wisest reverence learn From the Master's silent prayer. 1873. IN QUEST Have I not voyaged, friend beloved, with thee On the great waters of the unsounded sea, Momently listening with suspended oar For the low rote of waves upon a shore Changeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud drifts Over its windless wood, nor mirage lifts The steadfast hills; where never birds of doubt Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out, And the dark riddles which perplex us here In the sharp solvent of its light are clear? Thou knowest how vain our quest; how, soon or late, The baffling tides and circles of debate Swept back our bark unto its starting-place, Where, looking forth upon the blank, gray space, And round about us seeing, with sad eyes, The same old difficult hills and cloud-cold skies, We said: "This outward search availeth not To find Him. He is farther than we thought, Or, haply, nearer. To this very spot Whereon we wait, this commonplace of home, As to the well of Jacob, He may come And tell us all things." As I listened there, Through the expectant silences of prayer, Somewhat I seemed to hear, which hath to me Been hope, strength, comfort, and I give it thee. "The riddle of the world is understood Only by him who feels that God is good, As only he can feel who makes his love The ladder of his faith, and climbs above On th' rounds of his best instincts; draws no line Between mere human goodness and divine, But, judging God by what in him is best, With a child's trust leans on a Father's breast, And hears unmoved the old creeds babble still Of kingly power and dread caprice of will, Chary of blessing, prodigal of curse, The pitiless doomsman of the universe. Can Hatred ask for love? Can Selfishness Invite to self-denial? Is He less Than man in kindly dealing? Can He break His own great law of fatherhood, forsake And curse His children? Not for earth and heaven Can separate tables of the law be given. No rule can bind which He himself denies; The truths of time are not eternal lies." So heard I; and the chaos round me spread To light and order grew; and, "Lord," I said, "Our sins are our tormentors, worst of all Felt in distrustful shame that dares not call Upon Thee as our Father. We have set A strange god up, but Thou remainest yet. All that I feel of pity Thou hast known Before I was; my best is all Thy own. From Thy great heart of goodness mine but drew Wishes and prayers; but Thou, O Lord, wilt do, In Thy own time, by ways I cannot see, All that I feel when I am nearest Thee!" 1873. THE FRIEND'S BURIAL. My thoughts are all in yonder town, Where, wept by many tears, To-day my mother's friend lays down The burden of her years. True as in life, no poor disguise Of death with her is seen, And on her simple casket lies No wreath of bloom and green. Oh, not for her the florist's art, The mocking weeds of woe; Dear memories in each mourner's heart Like heaven's white lilies blow. And all about the softening air Of new-born sweetness tells, And the ungathered May-flowers wear The tints of ocean shells. The old, assuring miracle Is fresh as heretofore; And earth takes up its parable Of life from death once more. Here organ-swell and church-bell toll Methinks but discord were; The prayerful silence of the soul Is best befitting her. No sound should break the quietude Alike of earth and sky O wandering wind in Seabrook wood, Breathe but a half-heard sigh! Sing softly, spring-bird, for her sake; And thou not distant sea, Lapse lightly as if Jesus spake, And thou wert Galilee! For all her quiet life flowed on As meadow streamlets flow, Where fresher green reveals alone The noiseless ways they go. From her loved place of prayer I see The plain-robed mourners pass, With slow feet treading reverently The graveyard's springing grass. Make room, O mourning ones, for me, Where, like the friends of Paul, That you no more her face shall see You sorrow most of all. Her path shall brighten more and more Unto the perfect day; She cannot fail of peace who bore Such peace with her away. O sweet, calm face that seemed to wear The look of sins forgiven! O voice of prayer that seemed to bear Our own needs up to heaven! How reverent in our midst she stood, Or knelt in grateful praise! What grace of Christian womanhood Was in her household ways! For still her holy living meant No duty left undone; The heavenly and the human blent Their kindred loves in one. And if her life small leisure found For feasting ear and eye, And Pleasure, on her daily round, She passed unpausing by, Yet with her went a secret sense Of all things sweet and fair, And Beauty's gracious providence Refreshed her unaware. She kept her line of rectitude With love's unconscious ease; Her kindly instincts understood All gentle courtesies. An inborn charm of graciousness Made sweet her smile and tone, And glorified her farm-wife dress With beauty not its own. The dear Lord's best interpreters Are humble human souls; The Gospel of a life like hers Is more than books or scrolls. From scheme and creed the light goes out, The saintly fact survives; The blessed Master none can doubt Revealed in holy lives. 1873. A CHRISTMAS CARMEN. I. Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands, The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands; Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn, Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born! With glad jubilations Bring hope to the nations The dark night is ending and dawn has begun Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one! II. Sing the bridal of nations! with chorals of love Sing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove, Till the hearts of the peoples keep time in accord, And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord! Clasp hands of the nations In strong gratulations: The dark night is ending and dawn has begun; Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one! III. Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace; East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease Sing the song of great joy that the angels began, Sing of glory to God and of good-will to man! Hark! joining in chorus The heavens bend o'er us' The dark night is ending and dawn has begun; Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one! 1873. VESTA. O Christ of God! whose life and death Our own have reconciled, Most quietly, most tenderly Take home Thy star-named child! Thy grace is in her patient eyes, Thy words are on her tongue; The very silence round her seems As if the angels sung. Her smile is as a listening child's Who hears its mother call; The lilies of Thy perfect peace About her pillow fall. She leans from out our clinging arms To rest herself in Thine; Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can we Our well-beloved resign! Oh, less for her than for ourselves We bow our heads and pray; Her setting star, like Bethlehem's, To Thee shall point the way! 1874. CHILD-SONGS. Still linger in our noon of time And on our Saxon tongue The echoes of the home-born hymns The Aryan mothers sung. And childhood had its litanies In every age and clime; The earliest cradles of the race Were rocked to poet's rhyme. Nor sky, nor wave, nor tree, nor flower, Nor green earth's virgin sod, So moved the singer's heart of old As these small ones of God. The mystery of unfolding life Was more than dawning morn, Than opening flower or crescent moon The human soul new-born. And still to childhood's sweet appeal The heart of genius turns, And more than all the sages teach From lisping voices learns,-- The voices loved of him who sang, Where Tweed and Teviot glide, That sound to-day on all the winds That blow from Rydal-side,-- Heard in the Teuton's household songs, And folk-lore of the Finn, Where'er to holy Christmas hearths The Christ-child enters in! Before life's sweetest mystery still The heart in reverence kneels; The wonder of the primal birth The latest mother feels. We need love's tender lessons taught As only weakness can; God hath His small interpreters; The child must teach the man. We wander wide through evil years, Our eyes of faith grow dim; But he is freshest from His hands And nearest unto Him! And haply, pleading long with Him For sin-sick hearts and cold, The angels of our childhood still The Father's face behold. Of such the kingdom!--Teach Thou us, O-Master most divine, To feel the deep significance Of these wise words of Thine! The haughty eye shall seek in vain What innocence beholds; No cunning finds the key of heaven, No strength its gate unfolds. Alone to guilelessness and love That gate shall open fall; The mind of pride is nothingness, The childlike heart is all! 1875. THE HEALER. TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN, WITH DORE'S PICTURE OF CHRIST HEALING THE SICK. So stood of old the holy Christ Amidst the suffering throng; With whom His lightest touch sufficed To make the weakest strong. That healing gift He lends to them Who use it in His name; The power that filled His garment's hem Is evermore the same. For lo! in human hearts unseen The Healer dwelleth still, And they who make His temples clean The best subserve His will. The holiest task by Heaven decreed, An errand all divine, The burden of our common need To render less is thine. The paths of pain are thine. Go forth With patience, trust, and hope; The sufferings of a sin-sick earth Shall give thee ample scope. Beside the unveiled mysteries Of life and death go stand, With guarded lips and reverent eyes And pure of heart and hand. So shalt thou be with power endued From Him who went about The Syrian hillsides doing good, And casting demons out. That Good Physician liveth yet Thy friend and guide to be; The Healer by Gennesaret Shall walk the rounds with thee. THE TWO ANGELS. God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above: The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love. "Arise," He said, "my angels! a wail of woe and sin Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all within. "My harps take up the mournful strain that from a lost world swells, The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights the asphodels. "Fly downward to that under world, and on its souls of pain Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears like rain!" Two faces bowed before the Throne, veiled in their golden hair; Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark abyss of air. The way was strange, the flight was long; at last the angels came Where swung the lost and nether world, red-wrapped in rayless flame. There Pity, shuddering, wept; but Love, with faith too strong for fear, Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a smile of cheer. And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame whereon it fell, And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered into hell! Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to the Throne, Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who sat thereon! And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than falling flake, Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice Eternal spake: "Welcome, my angels! ye have brought a holier joy to heaven; Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin forgiven!" 1875. OVERRULED. The threads our hands in blindness spin No self-determined plan weaves in; The shuttle of the unseen powers Works out a pattern not as ours. Ah! small the choice of him who sings What sound shall leave the smitten strings; Fate holds and guides the hand of art; The singer's is the servant's part. The wind-harp chooses not the tone That through its trembling threads is blown; The patient organ cannot guess What hand its passive keys shall press. Through wish, resolve, and act, our will Is moved by undreamed forces still; And no man measures in advance His strength with untried circumstance. As streams take hue from shade and sun, As runs the life the song must run; But, glad or sad, to His good end God grant the varying notes may tend! 1877. HYMN OF THE DUNKERS KLOSTER KEDAR, EPHRATA, PENNSYLVANIA (1738) SISTER MARIA CHRISTINA sings Wake, sisters, wake! the day-star shines; Above Ephrata's eastern pines The dawn is breaking, cool and calm. Wake, sisters, wake to prayer and psalm! Praised be the Lord for shade and light, For toil by day, for rest by night! Praised be His name who deigns to bless Our Kedar of the wilderness! Our refuge when the spoiler's hand Was heavy on our native land; And freedom, to her children due, The wolf and vulture only knew. We praised Him when to prison led, We owned Him when the stake blazed red; We knew, whatever might befall, His love and power were over all. He heard our prayers; with outstretched arm He led us forth from cruel harm; Still, wheresoe'er our steps were bent, His cloud and fire before us went! The watch of faith and prayer He set, We kept it then, we keep it yet. At midnight, crow of cock, or noon, He cometh sure, He cometh soon. He comes to chasten, not destroy, To purge the earth from sin's alloy. At last, at last shall all confess His mercy as His righteousness. The dead shall live, the sick be whole, The scarlet sin be white as wool; No discord mar below, above, The music of eternal love! Sound, welcome trump, the last alarm! Lord God of hosts, make bare thine arm, Fulfil this day our long desire, Make sweet and clean the world with fire! Sweep, flaming besom, sweep from sight The lies of time; be swift to smite, Sharp sword of God, all idols down, Genevan creed and Roman crown. Quake, earth, through all thy zones, till all The fanes of pride and priesteraft fall; And lift thou up in place of them Thy gates of pearl, Jerusalem! Lo! rising from baptismal flame, Transfigured, glorious, yet the same, Within the heavenly city's bound Our Kloster Kedar shall be found. He cometh soon! at dawn or noon Or set of sun, He cometh soon. Our prayers shall meet Him on His way; Wake, sisters, wake! arise and pray! 1877. GIVING AND TAKING. I have attempted to put in English verse a prose translation of a poem by Tinnevaluva, a Hindoo poet of the third century of our era. Who gives and hides the giving hand, Nor counts on favor, fame, or praise, Shall find his smallest gift outweighs The burden of the sea and land. Who gives to whom hath naught been given, His gift in need, though small indeed As is the grass-blade's wind-blown seed, Is large as earth and rich as heaven. Forget it not, O man, to whom A gift shall fall, while yet on earth; Yea, even to thy seven-fold birth Recall it in the lives to come. Who broods above a wrong in thought Sins much; but greater sin is his Who, fed and clothed with kindnesses, Shall count the holy alms as nought. Who dares to curse the hands that bless Shall know of sin the deadliest cost; The patience of the heavens is lost Beholding man's unthankfulness. For he who breaks all laws may still In Sivam's mercy be forgiven; But none can save, in earth or heaven, The wretch who answers good with ill. 1877. THE VISION OF ECHARD. The Benedictine Echard Sat by the wayside well, Where Marsberg sees the bridal Of the Sarre and the Moselle. Fair with its sloping vineyards And tawny chestnut bloom, The happy vale Ausonius sunk For holy Treves made room. On the shrine Helena builded To keep the Christ coat well, On minster tower and kloster cross, The westering sunshine fell. There, where the rock-hewn circles O'erlooked the Roman's game, The veil of sleep fell on him, And his thought a dream became. He felt the heart of silence Throb with a soundless word, And by the inward ear alone A spirit's voice he heard. And the spoken word seemed written On air and wave and sod, And the bending walls of sapphire Blazed with the thought of God. "What lack I, O my children? All things are in my band; The vast earth and the awful stars I hold as grains of sand. "Need I your alms? The silver And gold are mine alone; The gifts ye bring before me Were evermore my own. "Heed I the noise of viols, Your pomp of masque and show? Have I not dawns and sunsets Have I not winds that blow? "Do I smell your gums of incense? Is my ear with chantings fed? Taste I your wine of worship, Or eat your holy bread? "Of rank and name and honors Am I vain as ye are vain? What can Eternal Fulness From your lip-service gain? "Ye make me not your debtor Who serve yourselves alone; Ye boast to me of homage Whose gain is all your own. "For you I gave the prophets, For you the Psalmist's lay For you the law's stone tables, And holy book and day. "Ye change to weary burdens The helps that should uplift; Ye lose in form the spirit, The Giver in the gift. "Who called ye to self-torment, To fast and penance vain? Dream ye Eternal Goodness Has joy in mortal pain? "For the death in life of Nitria, For your Chartreuse ever dumb, What better is the neighbor, Or happier the home? "Who counts his brother's welfare As sacred as his own, And loves, forgives, and pities, He serveth me alone. "I note each gracious purpose, Each kindly word and deed; Are ye not all my children? Shall not the Father heed? "No prayer for light and guidance Is lost upon mine ear The child's cry in the darkness Shall not the Father hear? "I loathe your wrangling councils, I tread upon your creeds; Who made ye mine avengers, Or told ye of my needs; "I bless men and ye curse them, I love them and ye hate; Ye bite and tear each other, I suffer long and wait. "Ye bow to ghastly symbols, To cross and scourge and thorn; Ye seek his Syrian manger Who in the heart is born. "For the dead Christ, not the living, Ye watch His empty grave, Whose life alone within you Has power to bless and save. "O blind ones, outward groping, The idle quest forego; Who listens to His inward voice Alone of Him shall know. "His love all love exceeding The heart must needs recall, Its self-surrendering freedom, Its loss that gaineth all. "Climb not the holy mountains, Their eagles know not me; Seek not the Blessed Islands, I dwell not in the sea. "Gone is the mount of Meru, The triple gods are gone, And, deaf to all the lama's prayers, The Buddha slumbers on. "No more from rocky Horeb The smitten waters gush; Fallen is Bethel's ladder, Quenched is the burning bush. "The jewels of the Urim And Thurnmim all are dim; The fire has left the altar, The sign the teraphim. "No more in ark or hill grove The Holiest abides; Not in the scroll's dead letter The eternal secret hides. "The eye shall fail that searches For me the hollow sky; The far is even as the near, The low is as the high. "What if the earth is hiding Her old faiths, long outworn? What is it to the changeless truth That yours shall fail in turn? "What if the o'erturned altar Lays bare the ancient lie? What if the dreams and legends Of the world's childhood die? "Have ye not still my witness Within yourselves alway, My hand that on the keys of life For bliss or bale I lay? "Still, in perpetual judgment, I hold assize within, With sure reward of holiness, And dread rebuke of sin. "A light, a guide, a warning, A presence ever near, Through the deep silence of the flesh I reach the inward ear. "My Gerizim and Ebal Are in each human soul, The still, small voice of blessing, And Sinai's thunder-roll. "The stern behest of duty, The doom-book open thrown, The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear, Are with yourselves alone." . . . . . A gold and purple sunset Flowed down the broad Moselle; On hills of vine and meadow lands The peace of twilight fell. A slow, cool wind of evening Blew over leaf and bloom; And, faint and far, the Angelus Rang from Saint Matthew's tomb. Then up rose Master Echard, And marvelled: "Can it be That here, in dream and vision, The Lord hath talked with me?" He went his way; behind him The shrines of saintly dead, The holy coat and nail of cross, He left unvisited. He sought the vale of Eltzbach His burdened soul to free, Where the foot-hills of the Eifel Are glassed in Laachersee. And, in his Order's kloster, He sat, in night-long parle, With Tauler of the Friends of God, And Nicolas of Basle. And lo! the twain made answer "Yea, brother, even thus The Voice above all voices Hath spoken unto us. "The world will have its idols, And flesh and sense their sign But the blinded eyes shall open, And the gross ear be fine. "What if the vision tarry? God's time is always best; The true Light shall be witnessed, The Christ within confessed. "In mercy or in judgment He shall turn and overturn, Till the heart shall be His temple Where all of Him shall learn." INSCRIPTIONS. ON A SUN-DIAL. FOR DR. HENRY I. BOWDITCH. With warning hand I mark Time's rapid flight From life's glad morning to its solemn night; Yet, through the dear God's love, I also show There's Light above me by the Shade below. 1879. ON A FOUNTAIN. FOR DOROTHEA L. DIX. Stranger and traveller, Drink freely and bestow A kindly thought on her Who bade this fountain flow, Yet hath no other claim Than as the minister Of blessing in God's name. Drink, and in His peace go 1879 THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER. In the minister's morning sermon He had told of the primal fall, And how thenceforth the wrath of God Rested on each and all. And how of His will and pleasure, All souls, save a chosen few, Were doomed to the quenchless burning, And held in the way thereto. Yet never by faith's unreason A saintlier soul was tried, And never the harsh old lesson A tenderer heart belied. And, after the painful service On that pleasant Sabbath day, He walked with his little daughter Through the apple-bloom of May. Sweet in the fresh green meadows Sparrow and blackbird sung; Above him their tinted petals The blossoming orchards hung. Around on the wonderful glory The minister looked and smiled; "How good is the Lord who gives us These gifts from His hand, my child. "Behold in the bloom of apples And the violets in the sward A hint of the old, lost beauty Of the Garden of the Lord!" Then up spake the little maiden, Treading on snow and pink "O father! these pretty blossoms Are very wicked, I think. "Had there been no Garden of Eden There never had been a fall; And if never a tree had blossomed God would have loved us all." "Hush, child!" the father answered, "By His decree man fell; His ways are in clouds and darkness, But He doeth all things well. "And whether by His ordaining To us cometh good or ill, Joy or pain, or light or shadow, We must fear and love Him still." "Oh, I fear Him!" said the daughter, "And I try to love Him, too; But I wish He was good and gentle, Kind and loving as you." The minister groaned in spirit As the tremulous lips of pain And wide, wet eyes uplifted Questioned his own in vain. Bowing his head he pondered The words of the little one; Had he erred in his life-long teaching? Had he wrong to his Master done? To what grim and dreadful idol Had he lent the holiest name? Did his own heart, loving and human, The God of his worship shame? And lo! from the bloom and greenness, From the tender skies above, And the face of his little daughter, He read a lesson of love. No more as the cloudy terror Of Sinai's mount of law, But as Christ in the Syrian lilies The vision of God he saw. And, as when, in the clefts of Horeb, Of old was His presence known, The dread Ineffable Glory Was Infinite Goodness alone. Thereafter his hearers noted In his prayers a tenderer strain, And never the gospel of hatred Burned on his lips again. And the scoffing tongue was prayerful, And the blinded eyes found sight, And hearts, as flint aforetime, Grew soft in his warmth and light. 1880. BY THEIR WORKS. Call him not heretic whose works attest His faith in goodness by no creed confessed. Whatever in love's name is truly done To free the bound and lift the fallen one Is done to Christ. Whoso in deed and word Is not against Him labors for our Lord. When He, who, sad and weary, longing sore For love's sweet service, sought the sisters' door, One saw the heavenly, one the human guest, But who shall say which loved the Master best? 1881. THE WORD. Voice of the Holy Spirit, making known Man to himself, a witness swift and sure, Warning, approving, true and wise and pure, Counsel and guidance that misleadeth none! By thee the mystery of life is read; The picture-writing of the world's gray seers, The myths and parables of the primal years, Whose letter kills, by thee interpreted Take healthful meanings fitted to our needs, And in the soul's vernacular express The common law of simple righteousness. Hatred of cant and doubt of human creeds May well be felt: the unpardonable sin Is to deny the Word of God within! 1881. THE BOOK. Gallery of sacred pictures manifold, A minster rich in holy effigies, And bearing on entablature and frieze The hieroglyphic oracles of old. Along its transept aureoled martyrs sit; And the low chancel side-lights half acquaint The eye with shrines of prophet, bard, and saint, Their age-dimmed tablets traced in doubtful writ! But only when on form and word obscure Falls from above the white supernal light We read the mystic characters aright, And life informs the silent portraiture, Until we pause at last, awe-held, before The One ineffable Face, love, wonder, and adore. 1881 REQUIREMENT. We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave Of text and legend. Reason's voice and God's, Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds. What asks our Father of His children, save Justice and mercy and humility, A reasonable service of good deeds, Pure living, tenderness to human needs, Reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see The Master's footprints in our daily ways? No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife, But the calm beauty of an ordered life Whose very breathing is unworded praise!-- A life that stands as all true lives have stood, Firm-rooted in the faith that God is Good. 1881. HELP. Dream not, O Soul, that easy is the task Thus set before thee. If it proves at length, As well it may, beyond thy natural strength, Faint not, despair not. As a child may ask A father, pray the Everlasting Good For light and guidance midst the subtle snares Of sin thick planted in life's thoroughfares, For spiritual strength and moral hardihood; Still listening, through the noise of time and sense, To the still whisper of the Inward Word; Bitter in blame, sweet in approval heard, Itself its own confirming evidence To health of soul a voice to cheer and please, To guilt the wrath of the Eumenides. 1881. UTTERANCE. But what avail inadequate words to reach The innermost of Truth? Who shall essay, Blinded and weak, to point and lead the way, Or solve the mystery in familiar speech? Yet, if it be that something not thy own, Some shadow of the Thought to which our schemes, Creeds, cult, and ritual are at best but dreams, Is even to thy unworthiness made known, Thou mayst not hide what yet thou shouldst not dare To utter lightly, lest on lips of thine The real seem false, the beauty undivine. So, weighing duty in the scale of prayer, Give what seems given thee. It may prove a seed Of goodness dropped in fallow-grounds of need. 1881. ORIENTAL MAXIMS. PARAPHRASE OF SANSCRIT TRANSLATIONS. THE INWARD JUDGE. From Institutes of Manu. The soul itself its awful witness is. Say not in evil doing, "No one sees," And so offend the conscious One within, Whose ear can hear the silences of sin. Ere they find voice, whose eyes unsleeping see The secret motions of iniquity. Nor in thy folly say, "I am alone." For, seated in thy heart, as on a throne, The ancient Judge and Witness liveth still, To note thy act and thought; and as thy ill Or good goes from thee, far beyond thy reach, The solemn Doomsman's seal is set on each. 1878. LAYING UP TREASURE From the Mahabharata. Before the Ender comes, whose charioteer Is swift or slow Disease, lay up each year Thy harvests of well-doing, wealth that kings Nor thieves can take away. When all the things Thou tallest thine, goods, pleasures, honors fall, Thou in thy virtue shalt survive them all. 1881. CONDUCT From the Mahabharata. Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day Which from the night shall drive thy peace away. In months of sun so live that months of rain Shall still be happy. Evermore restrain Evil and cherish good, so shall there be Another and a happier life for thee. 1881. AN EASTER FLOWER GIFT. O dearest bloom the seasons know, Flowers of the Resurrection blow, Our hope and faith restore; And through the bitterness of death And loss and sorrow, breathe a breath Of life forevermore! The thought of Love Immortal blends With fond remembrances of friends; In you, O sacred flowers, By human love made doubly sweet, The heavenly and the earthly meet, The heart of Christ and ours! 1882. THE MYSTIC'S CHRISTMAS. "All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang, "All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang, The merry monks who kept with cheer The gladdest day of all their year. But still apart, unmoved thereat, A pious elder brother sat Silent, in his accustomed place, With God's sweet peace upon his face. "Why sitt'st thou thus?" his brethren cried. "It is the blessed Christmas-tide; The Christmas lights are all aglow, The sacred lilies bud and blow. "Above our heads the joy-bells ring, Without the happy children sing, And all God's creatures hail the morn On which the holy Christ was born! "Rejoice with us; no more rebuke Our gladness with thy quiet look." The gray monk answered: "Keep, I pray, Even as ye list, the Lord's birthday. "Let heathen Yule fires flicker red Where thronged refectory feasts are spread; With mystery-play and masque and mime And wait-songs speed the holy time! "The blindest faith may haply save; The Lord accepts the things we have; And reverence, howsoe'er it strays, May find at last the shining ways. "They needs must grope who cannot see, The blade before the ear must be; As ye are feeling I have felt, And where ye dwell I too have dwelt. "But now, beyond the things of sense, Beyond occasions and events, I know, through God's exceeding grace, Release from form and time and place. "I listen, from no mortal tongue, To hear the song the angels sung; And wait within myself to know The Christmas lilies bud and blow. "The outward symbols disappear From him whose inward sight is clear; And small must be the choice of clays To him who fills them all with praise! "Keep while you need it, brothers mine, With honest zeal your Christmas sign, But judge not him who every morn Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!" 1882. AT LAST. When on my day of life the night is falling, And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, I hear far voices out of darkness calling My feet to paths unknown, Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, Leave not its tenant when its walls decay; O Love Divine, O Helper ever present, Be Thou my strength and stay! Be near me when all else is from me drifting Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine, And kindly faces to my own uplifting The love which answers mine. I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy spirit Be with me then to comfort and uphold; No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, Nor street of shining gold. Suffice it if--my good and ill unreckoned, And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace-- I find myself by hands familiar beckoned Unto my fitting place. Some humble door among Thy many mansions, Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease, And flows forever through heaven's green expansions The river of Thy peace. There, from the music round about me stealing, I fain would learn the new and holy song, And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, The life for which I long. 1882 WHAT THE TRAVELLER SAID AT SUNSET. The shadows grow and deepen round me, I feel the deffall in the air; The muezzin of the darkening thicket, I hear the night-thrush call to prayer. The evening wind is sad with farewells, And loving hands unclasp from mine; Alone I go to meet the darkness Across an awful boundary-line. As from the lighted hearths behind me I pass with slow, reluctant feet, What waits me in the land of strangeness? What face shall smile, what voice shall greet? What space shall awe, what brightness blind me? What thunder-roll of music stun? What vast processions sweep before me Of shapes unknown beneath the sun? I shrink from unaccustomed glory, I dread the myriad-voiced strain; Give me the unforgotten faces, And let my lost ones speak again. He will not chide my mortal yearning Who is our Brother and our Friend; In whose full life, divine and human, The heavenly and the earthly blend. Mine be the joy of soul-communion, The sense of spiritual strength renewed, The reverence for the pure and holy, The dear delight of doing good. No fitting ear is mine to listen An endless anthem's rise and fall; No curious eye is mine to measure The pearl gate and the jasper wall. For love must needs be more than knowledge: What matter if I never know Why Aldebaran's star is ruddy, Or warmer Sirius white as snow! Forgive my human words, O Father! I go Thy larger truth to prove; Thy mercy shall transcend my longing I seek but love, and Thou art Love! I go to find my lost and mourned for Safe in Thy sheltering goodness still, And all that hope and faith foreshadow Made perfect in Thy holy will! 1883. THE "STORY OF IDA." Francesca Alexander, whose pen and pencil have so reverently transcribed the simple faith and life of the Italian peasantry, wrote the narrative published with John Ruskin's introduction under the title, _The Story of Ida_. Weary of jangling noises never stilled, The skeptic's sneer, the bigot's hate, the din Of clashing texts, the webs of creed men spin Round simple truth, the children grown who build With gilded cards their new Jerusalem, Busy, with sacerdotal tailorings And tinsel gauds, bedizening holy things, I turn, with glad and grateful heart, from them To the sweet story of the Florentine Immortal in her blameless maidenhood, Beautiful as God's angels and as good; Feeling that life, even now, may be divine With love no wrong can ever change to hate, No sin make less than all-compassionate! 1884. THE LIGHT THAT IS FELT. A tender child of summers three, Seeking her little bed at night, Paused on the dark stair timidly. "Oh, mother! Take my hand," said she, "And then the dark will all be light." We older children grope our way From dark behind to dark before; And only when our hands we lay, Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day, And there is darkness nevermore. Reach downward to the sunless days Wherein our guides are blind as we, And faith is small and hope delays; Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise, And let us feel the light of Thee! 1884. THE TWO LOVES Smoothing soft the nestling head Of a maiden fancy-led, Thus a grave-eyed woman said: "Richest gifts are those we make, Dearer than the love we take That we give for love's own sake. "Well I know the heart's unrest; Mine has been the common quest, To be loved and therefore blest. "Favors undeserved were mine; At my feet as on a shrine Love has laid its gifts divine. "Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet With their sweetness came regret, And a sense of unpaid debt. "Heart of mine unsatisfied, Was it vanity or pride That a deeper joy denied? "Hands that ope but to receive Empty close; they only live Richly who can richly give. "Still," she sighed, with moistening eyes, "Love is sweet in any guise; But its best is sacrifice! "He who, giving, does not crave Likest is to Him who gave Life itself the loved to save. "Love, that self-forgetful gives, Sows surprise of ripened sheaves, Late or soon its own receives." 1884. ADJUSTMENT. The tree of Faith its bare, dry boughs must shed That nearer heaven the living ones may climb; The false must fail, though from our shores of time The old lament be heard, "Great Pan is dead!" That wail is Error's, from his high place hurled; This sharp recoil is Evil undertrod; Our time's unrest, an angel sent of God Troubling with life the waters of the world. Even as they list the winds of the Spirit blow To turn or break our century-rusted vanes; Sands shift and waste; the rock alone remains Where, led of Heaven, the strong tides come and go, And storm-clouds, rent by thunderbolt and wind, Leave, free of mist, the permanent stars behind. Therefore I trust, although to outward sense Both true and false seem shaken; I will hold With newer light my reverence for the old, And calmly wait the births of Providence. No gain is lost; the clear-eyed saints look down Untroubled on the wreck of schemes and creeds; Love yet remains, its rosary of good deeds Counting in task-field and o'erpeopled town; Truth has charmed life; the Inward Word survives, And, day by day, its revelation brings; Faith, hope, and charity, whatsoever things Which cannot be shaken, stand. Still holy lives Reveal the Christ of whom the letter told, And the new gospel verifies the old. 1885. HYMNS OF THE BRAHMO SOMAJ. I have attempted this paraphrase of the Hymns of the Brahmo Somaj of India, as I find them in Mozoomdar's account of the devotional exercises of that remarkable religious development which has attracted far less attention and sympathy from the Christian world than it deserves, as a fresh revelation of the direct action of the Divine Spirit upon the human heart. I. The mercy, O Eternal One! By man unmeasured yet, In joy or grief, in shade or sun, I never will forget. I give the whole, and not a part, Of all Thou gayest me; My goods, my life, my soul and heart, I yield them all to Thee! II. We fast and plead, we weep and pray, From morning until even; We feel to find the holy way, We knock at the gate of heaven And when in silent awe we wait, And word and sign forbear, The hinges of the golden gate Move, soundless, to our prayer! Who hears the eternal harmonies Can heed no outward word; Blind to all else is he who sees The vision of the Lord! III. O soul, be patient, restrain thy tears, Have hope, and not despair; As a tender mother heareth her child God hears the penitent prayer. And not forever shall grief be thine; On the Heavenly Mother's breast, Washed clean and white in the waters of joy Shall His seeking child find rest. Console thyself with His word of grace, And cease thy wail of woe, For His mercy never an equal hath, And His love no bounds can know. Lean close unto Him in faith and hope; How many like thee have found In Him a shelter and home of peace, By His mercy compassed round! There, safe from sin and the sorrow it brings, They sing their grateful psalms, And rest, at noon, by the wells of God, In the shade of His holy palms! 1885. REVELATION. "And I went into the Vale of Beavor, and as I went I preached repentance to the people. And one morning, sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me. And it was said: All things come by Nature; and the Elements and the Stars came over me. And as I sat still and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true Voice which said: There is a living God who made all things. And immediately the cloud and the temptation vanished, and Life rose over all, and my heart was glad and I praised the Living God."--Journal of George Fox, 1690. Still, as of old, in Beavor's Vale, O man of God! our hope and faith The Elements and Stars assail, And the awed spirit holds its breath, Blown over by a wind of death. Takes Nature thought for such as we, What place her human atom fills, The weed-drift of her careless sea, The mist on her unheeding hills? What reeks she of our helpless wills? Strange god of Force, with fear, not love, Its trembling worshipper! Can prayer Reach the shut ear of Fate, or move Unpitying Energy to spare? What doth the cosmic Vastness care? In vain to this dread Unconcern For the All-Father's love we look; In vain, in quest of it, we turn The storied leaves of Nature's book, The prints her rocky tablets took. I pray for faith, I long to trust; I listen with my heart, and hear A Voice without a sound: "Be just, Be true, be merciful, revere The Word within thee: God is near! "A light to sky and earth unknown Pales all their lights: a mightier force Than theirs the powers of Nature own, And, to its goal as at its source, His Spirit moves the Universe. "Believe and trust. Through stars and suns, Through life and death, through soul and sense, His wise, paternal purpose runs; The darkness of His providence Is star-lit with benign intents." O joy supreme! I know the Voice, Like none beside on earth or sea; Yea, more, O soul of mine, rejoice, By all that He requires of me, I know what God himself must be. No picture to my aid I call, I shape no image in my prayer; I only know in Him is all Of life, light, beauty, everywhere, Eternal Goodness here and there! I know He is, and what He is, Whose one great purpose is the good Of all. I rest my soul on His Immortal Love and Fatherhood; And trust Him, as His children should. I fear no more. The clouded face Of Nature smiles; through all her things Of time and space and sense I trace The moving of the Spirit's wings, And hear the song of hope she sings. 1886 VOLUME III. ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS and SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM CONTENTS: ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS: TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE THE SLAVE-SHIPS EXPOSTULATION HYMN: "THOU, WHOSE PRESENCE WENT BEFORE" THE YANKEE GIRL THE HUNTERS OF MEN STANZAS FOR THE TIMES CLERICAL OPPRESSORS A SUMMONS TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS THE MORAL WARFARE RITNER THE PASTORAL LETTER HYMN: "O HOLY FATHER! JUST AND TRUE" THE FAREWELL OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER PENNSYLVANIA HALL THE NEW YEAR THE RELIC THE WORLD'S CONVENTION MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN TEXAS VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND TO FANEUIL HALL TO MASSACHUSETTS NEW HAMPSHIRE THE PINE-TREE TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN AT WASHINGTON THE BRANDED HAND THE FREED ISLANDS A LETTER LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND DANIEL NEALL SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT To DELAWARE YORKTOWN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE THE LOST STATESMAN THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE THE CURSE OF THE CHARTER-BREAKERS PAEAN THE CRISIS LINES ON THE PORTRAIT OF A CELEBRATED PUBLISHER DERNE A SABBATH SCENE IN THE EVIL DAY MOLOCH IN STATE STREET OFFICIAL PIETY THE RENDITION ARISEN AT LAST THE HASCHISH FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS LETTER FROM A MISSIONARY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, IN KANSAS, TO A DISTINGUISHED POLITICIAN BURIAL OF BARBER TO PENNSYLVANIA LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. THE PASS OF THE SIERRA A SONG FOR THE TIME WHAT OF THE DAY? A SONG, INSCRIBED TO THE FREMONT CLUBS THE PANORAMA ON A PRAYER-BOOK THE SUMMONS TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD IN WAR TIME. TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL AND HARRIET W. SEWALL THY WILL BE DONE A WORD FOR THE HOUR "EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT" TO JOHN C. FREMONT THE WATCHERS TO ENGLISHMEN MITHRIDATES AT CHIOS AT PORT ROYAL ASTRAEA AT THE CAPITOL THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862 OF ST. HELENA'S ISLAND, S. C. THE PROCLAMATION ANNIVERSARY POEM BARBARA FRIETCHIE HAT THE BIRDS SAID THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATRA LADS DEO! HYMN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF EMANCIPATION AT NEWBURYPORT AFTER THE WAR. THE PEACE AUTUMN TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG HOWARD AT ATLANTA THE EMANCIPATION GROUP THE JUBILEE SINGERS GARRISON SONGS OF LABOR AND REFORM: THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME DEMOCRACY THE GALLOWS SEED-TIME AND HARVEST TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND THE HUMAN SACRIFICE SONGS OF LABOR DEDICATION THE SHOEMAKERS THE FISHERMEN THE LUMBERMEN THE SHIP-BUILDERS THE DROVERS THE HUSKERS THE REFORMER THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS THE PRISONER FOR DEBT THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS THE MEN OF OLD TO PIUS IX. CALEF IN BOSTON OUR STATE THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES THE PEACE OF EUROPE ASTRAEA THE DISENTHRALLED THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY THE DREAM OF PIO NONO THE VOICES THE NEW EXODUS THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND THE EVE OF ELECTION FROM PERUGIA ITALY FREEDOM IN BRAZIL AFTER ELECTION DISARMAMENT THE PROBLEM OUR COUNTRY ON THE BIG HORN NOTES ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON CHAMPION of those who groan beneath Oppression's iron hand In view of penury, hate, and death, I see thee fearless stand. Still bearing up thy lofty brow, In the steadfast strength of truth, In manhood sealing well the vow And promise of thy youth. Go on, for thou hast chosen well; On in the strength of God! Long as one human heart shall swell Beneath the tyrant's rod. Speak in a slumbering nation's ear, As thou hast ever spoken, Until the dead in sin shall hear, The fetter's link be broken! I love thee with a brother's love, I feel my pulses thrill, To mark thy spirit soar above The cloud of human ill. My heart hath leaped to answer thine, And echo back thy words, As leaps the warrior's at the shine And flash of kindred swords! They tell me thou art rash and vain, A searcher after fame; That thou art striving but to gain A long-enduring name; That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand And steeled the Afric's heart, To shake aloft his vengeful brand, And rend his chain apart. Have I not known thee well, and read Thy mighty purpose long? And watched the trials which have made Thy human spirit strong? And shall the slanderer's demon breath Avail with one like me, To dim the sunshine of my faith And earnest trust in thee? Go on, the dagger's point may glare Amid thy pathway's gloom; The fate which sternly threatens there Is glorious martyrdom Then onward with a martyr's zeal; And wait thy sure reward When man to man no more shall kneel, And God alone be Lord! 1832. TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black chieftain of Hayti, was a slave on the plantation "de Libertas," belonging to M. Bayou. When the rising of the negroes took place, in 1791, Toussaint refused to join them until he had aided M. Bayou and his family to escape to Baltimore. The white man had discovered in Toussaint many noble qualities, and had instructed him in some of the first branches of education; and the preservation of his life was owing to the negro's gratitude for this kindness. In 1797, Toussaint L'Ouverture was appointed, by the French government, General-in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo, and, as such, signed the Convention with General Maitland for the evacuation of the island by the British. From this period, until 1801, the island, under the government of Toussaint, was happy, tranquil, and prosperous. The miserable attempt of Napoleon to re-establish slavery in St. Domingo, although it failed of its intended object, proved fatal to the negro chieftain. Treacherously seized by Leclerc, he was hurried on board a vessel by night, and conveyed to France, where he was confined in a cold subterranean dungeon, at Besancon, where, in April, 1803, he died. The treatment of Toussaint finds a parallel only in the murder of the Duke D'Enghien. It was the remark of Godwin, in his Lectures, that the West India Islands, since their first discovery by Columbus, could not boast of a single name which deserves comparison with that of Toussaint L'Ouverture. 'T WAS night. The tranquil moonlight smile With which Heaven dreams of Earth, shed down Its beauty on the Indian isle,-- On broad green field and white-walled town; And inland waste of rock and wood, In searching sunshine, wild and rude, Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam, Soft as the landscape of a dream. All motionless and dewy wet, Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met The myrtle with its snowy bloom, Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom,-- The white cecropia's silver rind Relieved by deeper green behind, The orange with its fruit of gold, The lithe paullinia's verdant fold, The passion-flower, with symbol holy, Twining its tendrils long and lowly, The rhexias dark, and cassia tall, And proudly rising over all, The kingly palm's imperial stem, Crowned with its leafy diadem, Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade, The fiery-winged cucullo played! How lovely was thine aspect, then, Fair island of the Western Sea Lavish of beauty, even when Thy brutes were happier than thy men, For they, at least, were free! Regardless of thy glorious clime, Unmindful of thy soil of flowers, The toiling negro sighed, that Time No faster sped his hours. For, by the dewy moonlight still, He fed the weary-turning mill, Or bent him in the chill morass, To pluck the long and tangled grass, And hear above his scar-worn back The heavy slave-whip's frequent crack While in his heart one evil thought In solitary madness wrought, One baleful fire surviving still The quenching of the immortal mind, One sterner passion of his kind, Which even fetters could not kill, The savage hope, to deal, erelong, A vengeance bitterer than his wrong! Hark to that cry! long, loud, and shrill, From field and forest, rock and hill, Thrilling and horrible it rang, Around, beneath, above; The wild beast from his cavern sprang, The wild bird from her grove! Nor fear, nor joy, nor agony Were mingled in that midnight cry; But like the lion's growl of wrath, When falls that hunter in his path Whose barbed arrow, deeply set, Is rankling in his bosom yet, It told of hate, full, deep, and strong, Of vengeance kindling out of wrong; It was as if the crimes of years-- The unrequited toil, the tears, The shame and hate, which liken well Earth's garden to the nether hell-- Had found in nature's self a tongue, On which the gathered horror hung; As if from cliff, and stream, and glen Burst on the' startled ears of men That voice which rises unto God, Solemn and stern,--the cry of blood! It ceased, and all was still once more, Save ocean chafing on his shore, The sighing of the wind between The broad banana's leaves of green, Or bough by restless plumage shook, Or murmuring voice of mountain brook. Brief was the silence. Once again Pealed to the skies that frantic yell, Glowed on the heavens a fiery stain, And flashes rose and fell; And painted on the blood-red sky, Dark, naked arms were tossed on high; And, round the white man's lordly hall, Trod, fierce and free, the brute he made; And those who crept along the wall, And answered to his lightest call With more than spaniel dread, The creatures of his lawless beck, Were trampling on his very neck And on the night-air, wild and clear, Rose woman's shriek of more than fear; For bloodied arms were round her thrown, And dark cheeks pressed against her own! Where then was he whose fiery zeal Had taught the trampled heart to feel, Until despair itself grew strong, And vengeance fed its torch from wrong? Now, when the thunderbolt is speeding; Now, when oppression's heart is bleeding; Now, when the latent curse of Time Is raining down in fire and blood, That curse which, through long years of crime, Has gathered, drop by drop, its flood,-- Why strikes he not, the foremost one, Where murder's sternest deeds are done? He stood the aged palms beneath, That shadowed o'er his humble door, Listening, with half-suspended breath, To the wild sounds of fear and death, Toussaint L'Ouverture! What marvel that his heart beat high! The blow for freedom had been given, And blood had answered to the cry Which Earth sent up to Heaven! What marvel that a fierce delight Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night, As groan and shout and bursting flame Told where the midnight tempest came, With blood and fire along its van, And death behind! he was a Man! Yes, dark-souled chieftain! if the light Of mild Religion's heavenly ray Unveiled not to thy mental sight The lowlier and the purer way, In which the Holy Sufferer trod, Meekly amidst the sons of crime; That calm reliance upon God For justice in His own good time; That gentleness to which belongs Forgiveness for its many wrongs, Even as the primal martyr, kneeling For mercy on the evil-dealing; Let not the favored white man name Thy stern appeal, with words of blame. Then, injured Afric! for the shame Of thy own daughters, vengeance came Full on the scornful hearts of those, Who mocked thee in thy nameless woes, And to thy hapless children gave One choice,--pollution or the grave! Has he not, with the light of heaven Broadly around him, made the same? Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven, And gloried in his ghastly shame? Kneeling amidst his brother's blood, To offer mockery unto God, As if the High and Holy One Could smile on deeds of murder done! As if a human sacrifice Were purer in His holy eyes, Though offered up by Christian hands, Than the foul rites of Pagan lands! . . . . . . . . . . . Sternly, amidst his household band, His carbine grasped within his hand, The white man stood, prepared and still, Waiting the shock of maddened men, Unchained, and fierce as tigers, when The horn winds through their caverned hill. And one was weeping in his sight, The sweetest flower of all the isle, The bride who seemed but yesternight Love's fair embodied smile. And, clinging to her trembling knee, Looked up the form of infancy, With tearful glance in either face The secret of its fear to trace. "Ha! stand or die!" The white man's eye His steady musket gleamed along, As a tall Negro hastened nigh, With fearless step and strong. "What, ho, Toussaint!" A moment more, His shadow crossed the lighted floor. "Away!" he shouted; "fly with me, The white man's bark is on the sea; Her sails must catch the seaward wind, For sudden vengeance sweeps behind. Our brethren from their graves have spoken, The yoke is spurned, the chain is broken; On all the bills our fires are glowing, Through all the vales red blood is flowing No more the mocking White shall rest His foot upon the Negro's breast; No more, at morn or eve, shall drip The warm blood from the driver's whip Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance sworn For all the wrongs his race have borne, Though for each drop of Negro blood The white man's veins shall pour a flood; Not all alone the sense of ill Around his heart is lingering still, Nor deeper can the white man feel The generous warmth of grateful zeal. Friends of the Negro! fly with me, The path is open to the sea: Away, for life!" He spoke, and pressed The young child to his manly breast, As, headlong, through the cracking cane, Down swept the dark insurgent train, Drunken and grim, with shout and yell Howled through the dark, like sounds from hell. Far out, in peace, the white man's sail Swayed free before the sunrise gale. Cloud-like that island hung afar, Along the bright horizon's verge, O'er which the curse of servile war Rolled its red torrent, surge on surge; And he, the Negro champion, where In the fierce tumult struggled he? Go trace him by the fiery glare Of dwellings in the midnight air, The yells of triumph and despair, The streams that crimson to the sea! Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb, Beneath Besancon's alien sky, Dark Haytien! for the time shall come, Yea, even now is nigh, When, everywhere, thy name shall be Redeemed from color's infamy; And men shall learn to speak of thee As one of earth's great spirits, born In servitude, and nursed in scorn, Casting aside the weary weight And fetters of its low estate, In that strong majesty of soul Which knows no color, tongue, or clime, Which still hath spurned the base control Of tyrants through all time! Far other hands than mine may wreathe The laurel round thy brow of death, And speak thy praise, as one whose word A thousand fiery spirits stirred, Who crushed his foeman as a worm, Whose step on human hearts fell firm: Be mine the better task to find A tribute for thy lofty mind, Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone Some milder virtues all thine own, Some gleams of feeling pure and warm, Like sunshine on a sky of storm, Proofs that the Negro's heart retains Some nobleness amid its chains,-- That kindness to the wronged is never Without its excellent reward, Holy to human-kind and ever Acceptable to God. 1833. THE SLAVE-SHIPS. "That fatal, that perfidious bark, Built I' the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark." MILTON'S Lycidas. "The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men, and with one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny, in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out,--an obstinate disease of the eyes,--contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves (only half a wine-glass per day being allowed to an individual), and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck occasionally; but some of the poor wretches, locking themselves in each other's arms, leaped overboard, in the hope, which so universally prevails among them, of being swiftly transported to their own homes in Africa. To check this, the captain ordered several who were stopped in the attempt to be shot, or hanged, before their companions. The disease extended to the crew; and one after another were smitten with it, until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condition did not preclude calculation: to save the expense of supporting slaves rendered unsalable, and to obtain grounds for a claim against the underwriters, thirty-six of the negroes, having become blind, were thrown into the sea and drowned!" Speech of M. Benjamin Constant, in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820. In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual, whose sight remained unaffected, should also be seized with the malady, a sail was discovered. It was the Spanish slaver, Leon. The same disease had been there; and, horrible to tell, all the crew had become blind! Unable to assist each other, the vessels parted. The Spanish ship has never since been heard of. The Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June; the only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus been enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it in three days after its arrival.-- Bibliotheque Ophthalmologique for November, 1819. "ALL ready?" cried the captain; "Ay, ay!" the seamen said; "Heave up the worthless lubbers,-- The dying and the dead." Up from the slave-ship's prison Fierce, bearded heads were thrust: "Now let the sharks look to it,-- Toss up the dead ones first!" Corpse after corpse came up, Death had been busy there; Where every blow is mercy, Why should the spoiler spare? Corpse after corpse they cast Sullenly from the ship, Yet bloody with the traces Of fetter-link and whip. Gloomily stood the captain, With his arms upon his breast, With his cold brow sternly knotted, And his iron lip compressed. "Are all the dead dogs over?" Growled through that matted lip; "The blind ones are no better, Let's lighten the good ship." Hark! from the ship's dark bosom, The very sounds of hell! The ringing clank of iron, The maniac's short, sharp yell! The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled; The starving infant's moan, The horror of a breaking heart Poured through a mother's groan. Up from that loathsome prison The stricken blind ones cane Below, had all been darkness, Above, was still the same. Yet the holy breath of heaven Was sweetly breathing there, And the heated brow of fever Cooled in the soft sea air. "Overboard with them, shipmates!" Cutlass and dirk were plied; Fettered and blind, one after one, Plunged down the vessel's side. The sabre smote above, Beneath, the lean shark lay, Waiting with wide and bloody jaw His quick and human prey. God of the earth! what cries Rang upward unto thee? Voices of agony and blood, From ship-deck and from sea. The last dull plunge was heard, The last wave caught its stain, And the unsated shark looked up For human hearts in vain. . . . . . . . . . . . . Red glowed the western waters, The setting sun was there, Scattering alike on wave and cloud His fiery mesh of hair. Amidst a group in blindness, A solitary eye Gazed, from the burdened slaver's deck, Into that burning sky. "A storm," spoke out the gazer, "Is gathering and at hand; Curse on 't, I'd give my other eye For one firm rood of land." And then he laughed, but only His echoed laugh replied, For the blinded and the suffering Alone were at his side. Night settled on the waters, And on a stormy heaven, While fiercely on that lone ship's track The thunder-gust was driven. "A sail!--thank God, a sail!" And as the helmsman spoke, Up through the stormy murmur A shout of gladness broke. Down came the stranger vessel, Unheeding on her way, So near that on the slaver's deck Fell off her driven spray. "Ho! for the love of mercy, We're perishing and blind!" A wail of utter agony Came back upon the wind. "Help us! for we are stricken With blindness every one; Ten days we've floated fearfully, Unnoting star or sun. Our ship 's the slaver Leon,-- We've but a score on board; Our slaves are all gone over,-- Help, for the love of God!" On livid brows of agony The broad red lightning shone; But the roar of wind and thunder Stifled the answering groan; Wailed from the broken waters A last despairing cry, As, kindling in the stormy' light, The stranger ship went by. . . . . . . . . . In the sunny Guadaloupe A dark-hulled vessel lay, With a crew who noted never The nightfall or the day. The blossom of the orange Was white by every stream, And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird Were in the warns sunbeam. And the sky was bright as ever, And the moonlight slept as well, On the palm-trees by the hillside, And the streamlet of the dell: And the glances of the Creole Were still as archly deep, And her smiles as full as ever Of passion and of sleep. But vain were bird and blossom, The green earth and the sky, And the smile of human faces, To the slaver's darkened eye; At the breaking of the morning, At the star-lit evening time, O'er a world of light and beauty Fell the blackness of his crime. 1834. EXPOSTULATION. Dr. Charles Follen, a German patriot, who had come to America for the freedom which was denied him in his native land, allied himself with the abolitionists, and at a convention of delegates from all the anti- slavery organizations in New England, held at Boston in May, 1834, was chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the people of New England. Toward the close of the address occurred the passage which suggested these lines. "The despotism which our fathers could not bear in their native country is expiring, and the sword of justice in her reformed hands has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall the United States--the free United States, which could not bear the bonds of a king--cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall a Republic be less free than a Monarchy? Shall we, in the vigor and buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age?" --Dr. Follen's Address. "Genius of America!--Spirit of our free institutions!--where art thou? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! son of the morning,--how art thou fallen from Heaven! Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming! The kings of the earth cry out to thee, Aha! Aha! Art thou become like unto us?"--Speech of Samuel J. May. OUR fellow-countrymen in chains! Slaves, in a land of light and law! Slaves, crouching on the very plains Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war! A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood, A. wail where Camden's martyrs fell, By every shrine of patriot blood, From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well! By storied hill and hallowed grot, By mossy wood and marshy glen, Whence rang of old the rifle-shot, And hurrying shout of Marion's men! The groan of breaking hearts is there, The falling lash, the fetter's clank! Slaves, slaves are breathing in that air Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank! What, ho! our countrymen in chains! The whip on woman's shrinking flesh! Our soil yet reddening with the stains Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh! What! mothers from their children riven! What! God's own image bought and sold! Americans to market driven, And bartered as the brute for gold! Speak! shall their agony of prayer Come thrilling to our hearts in vain? To us whose fathers scorned to bear The paltry menace of a chain; To us, whose boast is loud and long Of holy Liberty and Light; Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong Plead vainly for their plundered Right? What! shall we send, with lavish breath, Our sympathies across the wave, Where Manhood, on the field of death, Strikes for his freedom or a grave? Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning, And millions hail with pen and tongue Our light on all her altars burning? Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France, By Vendome's pile and Schoenbrun's wall, And Poland, gasping on her lance, The impulse of our cheering call? And shall the slave, beneath our eye, Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain? And toss his fettered arms on high, And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain? Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be A refuge for the stricken slave? And shall the Russian serf go free By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave? And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane Relax the iron hand of pride, And bid his bondmen cast the chain From fettered soul and limb aside? Shall every flap of England's flag Proclaim that all around are free, From farthest Ind to each blue crag That beetles o'er the Western Sea? And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, When Freedom's fire is dim with us, And round our country's altar clings The damning shade of Slavery's curse? Go, let us ask of Constantine To loose his grasp on Poland's throat; And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line To spare the struggling Suliote; Will not the scorching answer come From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ "Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, Then turn, and ask the like of us!" Just God! and shall we calmly rest, The Christian's scorn, the heathen's mirth, Content to live the lingering jest And by-word of a mocking Earth? Shall our own glorious land retain That curse which Europe scorns to bear? Shall our own brethren drag the chain Which not even Russia's menials wear? Up, then, in Freedom's manly part, From graybeard eld to fiery youth, And on the nation's naked heart Scatter the living coals of Truth! Up! while ye slumber, deeper yet The shadow of our fame is growing! Up! while ye pause, our sun may set In blood, around our altars flowing! Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth, The gathered wrath of God and man, Like that which wasted Egypt's earth, When hail and fire above it ran. Hear ye no warnings in the air? Feel ye no earthquake underneath? Up, up! why will ye slumber where The sleeper only wakes in death? Rise now for Freedom! not in strife Like that your sterner fathers saw, The awful waste of human life, The glory and the guilt of war:' But break the chain, the yoke remove, And smite to earth Oppression's rod, With those mild arms of Truth and Love, Made mighty through the living God! Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, And leave no traces where it stood; Nor longer let its idol drink His daily cup of human blood; But rear another altar there, To Truth and Love and Mercy given, And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer, Shall call an answer down from Heaven! 1834 HYMN. Written for the meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, at Chatham Street Chapel, New York, held on the 4th of the seventh month, 1834. O THOU, whose presence went before Our fathers in their weary way, As with Thy chosen moved of yore The fire by night, the cloud by day! When from each temple of the free, A nation's song ascends to Heaven, Most Holy Father! unto Thee May not our humble prayer be given? Thy children all, though hue and form Are varied in Thine own good will, With Thy own holy breathings warm, And fashioned in Thine image still. We thank Thee, Father! hill and plain Around us wave their fruits once more, And clustered vine, and blossomed grain, Are bending round each cottage door. And peace is here; and hope and love Are round us as a mantle thrown, And unto Thee, supreme above, The knee of prayer is bowed alone. But oh, for those this day can bring, As unto us, no joyful thrill; For those who, under Freedom's wing, Are bound in Slavery's fetters still: For those to whom Thy written word Of light and love is never given; For those whose ears have never heard The promise and the hope of heaven! For broken heart, and clouded mind, Whereon no human mercies fall; Oh, be Thy gracious love inclined, Who, as a Father, pitiest all! And grant, O Father! that the time Of Earth's deliverance may be near, When every land and tongue and clime The message of Thy love shall hear; When, smitten as with fire from heaven, The captive's chain shall sink in dust, And to his fettered soul be given The glorious freedom of the just, THE YANKEE GIRL. SHE sings by her wheel at that low cottage-door, Which the long evening shadow is stretching before, With a music as sweet as the music which seems Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our dreams! How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky! And lightly and freely her dark tresses play O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they! Who comes in his pride to that low cottage-door, The haughty and rich to the humble and poor? 'T is the great Southern planter, the master who waves His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves. "Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin, Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin; Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel, Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel! "But thou art too lovely and precious a gem To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them; For shame, Ellen, shame, cast thy bondage aside, And away to the South, as my blessing and pride. "Oh, come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong, But where flowers are blossoming all the year long, Where the shade of the palm-tree is over my home, And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom! "Oh, come to my home, where my servants shall all Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call; They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe, And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law." "Oh, could ye have seen her--that pride of our girls-- Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls, With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could feel, And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel! "Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of gold Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou halt sold; Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear! "And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours, And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy' flowers; But dearer the blast round our mountains which raves, Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes over slaves! "Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel, With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel; Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be In fetters with them, than in freedom with thee!" 1835. THE HUNTERS OF MEN. These lines were written when the orators of the American Colonization Society were demanding that the free blacks should be sent to Africa, and opposing Emancipation unless expatriation followed. See the report of the proceedings of the society at its annual meeting in 1834. HAVE ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest,--the hunting of men? The lords of our land to this hunting have gone, As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn; Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip, And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip! All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match, Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch. So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest,--the hunting of men! Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride! The priest with his cassock flung back on the wind, Just screening the politic statesman behind; The saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer, The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there. And woman, kind woman, wife, widow, and maid, For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid Her foot's in the stirrup, her hand on the rein, How blithely she rides to the hunting of men! Oh, goodly and grand is our hunting to see, In this "land of the brave and this home of the free." Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia to Maine, All mounting the saddle, all grasping the rein; Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin! Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him at bay Will our hunters be turned from their purpose and prey? Will their hearts fail within them? their nerves tremble, when All roughly they ride to the hunting of men? Ho! alms for our hunters! all weary and faint, Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the saint. The horn is wound faintly, the echoes are still, Over cane-brake and river, and forest and hill. Haste, alms for our hunters! the hunted once more Have turned from their flight with their backs to the shore What right have they here in the home of the white, Shadowed o'er by our banner of Freedom and Right? Ho! alms for the hunters! or never again Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of men! Alms, alms for our hunters! why will ye delay, When their pride and their glory are melting away? The parson has turned; for, on charge of his own, Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone? The politic statesman looks back with a sigh, There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye. Oh, haste, lest that doubting and fear shall prevail, And the head of his steed take the place of the tail. Oh, haste, ere he leave us! for who will ride then, For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men? 1835. STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. The "Times" referred to were those evil times of the pro-slavery meeting in Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, in which a demand was made for the suppression of free speech, lest it should endanger the foundation of commercial society. Is this the land our fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the soil whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in? Are we the sons by whom are borne The mantles which the dead have worn? And shall we crouch above these graves, With craven soul and fettered lip? Yoke in with marked and branded slaves, And tremble at the driver's whip? Bend to the earth our pliant knees, And speak but as our masters please. Shall outraged Nature cease to feel? Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow? Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel, The dungeon's gloom, the assassin's blow, Turn back the spirit roused to save The Truth, our Country, and the Slave? Of human skulls that shrine was made, Round which the priests of Mexico Before their loathsome idol prayed; Is Freedom's altar fashioned so? And must we yield to Freedom's God, As offering meet, the negro's blood? Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought Which well might shame extremest hell? Shall freemen lock the indignant thought? Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell? Shall Honor bleed?--shall Truth succumb? Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb? No; by each spot of haunted ground, Where Freedom weeps her children's fall; By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound; By Griswold's stained and shattered wall; By Warren's ghost, by Langdon's shade; By all the memories of our dead. By their enlarging souls, which burst The bands and fetters round them set; By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed Within our inmost bosoms, yet, By all above, around, below, Be ours the indignant answer,--No! No; guided by our country's laws, For truth, and right, and suffering man, Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause, As Christians may, as freemen can! Still pouring on unwilling ears That truth oppression only fears. What! shall we guard our neighbor still, While woman shrieks beneath his rod, And while he tramples down at will The image of a common God? Shall watch and ward be round him set, Of Northern nerve and bayonet? And shall we know and share with him The danger and the growing shame? And see our Freedom's light grow dim, Which should have filled the world with flame? And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn, A world's reproach around us burn? Is 't not enough that this is borne? And asks our haughty neighbor more? Must fetters which his slaves have worn Clank round the Yankee farmer's door? Must he be told, beside his plough, What he must speak, and when, and how? Must he be told his freedom stands On Slavery's dark foundations strong; On breaking hearts and fettered hands, On robbery, and crime, and wrong? That all his fathers taught is vain,-- That Freedom's emblem is the chain? Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn! False, foul, profane! Go, teach as well Of holy Truth from Falsehood born! Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell! Of Virtue in the arms of Vice! Of Demons planting Paradise! Rail on, then, brethren of the South, Ye shall not hear the truth the less; No seal is on the Yankee's mouth, No fetter on the Yankee's press! From our Green Mountains to the sea, One voice shall thunder, We are free! CLERICAL OPPRESSORS. In the report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in Charleston, S.C., on the 4th of the ninth month, 1835, published in the Courier of that city, it is stated: "The clergy of all denominations attended in a body, lending their sanction to the proceedings, and adding by their presence to the impressive character of the scene!" JUST God! and these are they Who minister at thine altar, God of Right! Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay On Israel's Ark of light! What! preach, and kidnap men? Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor? Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then Bolt hard the captive's door? What! servants of thy own Merciful Son, who came to seek and save The homeless and the outcast, fettering down The tasked and plundered slave! Pilate and Herod, friends! Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine! Just God and holy! is that church, which lends Strength to the spoiler, thine? Paid hypocrites, who turn Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book Of those high words of truth which search and burn In warning and rebuke; Feed fat, ye locusts, feed! And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord That, from the toiling bondman's utter need, Ye pile your own full board. How long, O Lord! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, And in Thy name, for robbery and wrong At Thy own altars pray? Is not Thy hand stretched forth Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite? Shall not the living God of all the earth, And heaven above, do right? Woe, then, to all who grind Their brethren of a common Father down! To all who plunder from the immortal mind Its bright and glorious crown! Woe to the priesthood! woe To those whose hire is with the price of blood; Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go, The searching truths of God! Their glory and their might Shall perish; and their very names shall be Vile before all the people, in the light Of a world's liberty. Oh, speed the moment on When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known As in their home above. 1836. A SUMMONS Written on the adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions in the House of Representatives, and the passage of Calhoun's "Bill for excluding Papers written or printed, touching the subject of Slavery, from the U. S. Post-office," in the Senate of the United States. Mr. Pinckney's resolutions were in brief that Congress had no authority to interfere in any way with slavery in the States; that it ought not to interfere with it in the District of Columbia, and that all resolutions to that end should be laid on the table without printing. Mr. Calhoun's bill made it a penal offence for post-masters in any State, District, or Territory "knowingly to deliver, to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, District, or Territory, their circulation was prohibited." MEN of the North-land! where's the manly spirit Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone? Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit Their names alone? Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us, Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low, That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us To silence now? Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging, In God's name, let us speak while there is time! Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, Silence is crime! What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter, For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us, God and our charter? Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters, Here the false jurist human rights deny, And in the church, their proud and skilled abettors Make truth a lie? Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible, To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood? And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel Both man and God? Shall our New England stand erect no longer, But stoop in chains upon her downward way, Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger Day after day? Oh no; methinks from all her wild, green mountains; From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie; From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, And clear, cold sky; From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean Gnaws with his surges; from the fisher's skiff, With white sail swaying to the billows' motion Round rock and cliff; From the free fireside of her untought farmer; From her free laborer at his loom and wheel; From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath the hammer, Rings the red steel; From each and all, if God hath not forsaken Our land, and left us to an evil choice, Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken A People's voice. Startling and stern! the Northern winds shall bear it Over Potomac's to St. Mary's wave; And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it Within her grave. Oh, let that voice go forth! The bondman sighing By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane, Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying, Revive again. Let it go forth! The millions who are gazing Sadly upon us from afar shall smile, And unto God devout thanksgiving raising Bless us the while. Oh for your ancient freedom, pure and holy, For the deliverance of a groaning earth, For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly, Let it go forth! Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter With all they left ye perilled and at stake? Ho! once again on Freedom's holy altar The fire awake. Prayer-strenthened for the trial, come together, Put on the harness for the moral fight, And, with the blessing of your Heavenly Father, Maintain the right 1836. TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY. Thomas Shipley of Philadelphia was a lifelong Christian philanthropist, and advocate of emancipation. At his funeral thousands of colored people came to take their last look at their friend and protector. He died September 17, 1836. GONE to thy Heavenly Father's rest! The flowers of Eden round thee blowing, And on thine ear the murmurs blest Of Siloa's waters softly flowing! Beneath that Tree of Life which gives To all the earth its healing leaves In the white robe of angels clad, And wandering by that sacred river, Whose streams of holiness make glad The city of our God forever! Gentlest of spirits! not for thee Our tears are shed, our sighs are given; Why mourn to know thou art a free Partaker of the joys of heaven? Finished thy work, and kept thy faith In Christian firmness unto death; And beautiful as sky and earth, When autumn's sun is downward going, The blessed memory of thy worth Around thy place of slumber glowing! But woe for us! who linger still With feebler strength and hearts less lowly, And minds less steadfast to the will Of Him whose every work is holy. For not like thine, is crucified The spirit of our human pride And at the bondman's tale of woe, And for the outcast and forsaken, Not warm like thine, but cold and slow, Our weaker sympathies awaken. Darkly upon our struggling way The storm of human hate is sweeping; Hunted and branded, and a prey, Our watch amidst the darkness keeping, Oh, for that hidden strength which can Nerve unto death the inner man Oh, for thy spirit, tried and true, And constant in the hour of trial, Prepared to suffer, or to do, In meekness and in self-denial. Oh, for that spirit, meek and mild, Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining; By man deserted and reviled, Yet faithful to its trust remaining. Still prompt and resolute to save From scourge and chain the hunted slave; Unwavering in the Truth's defence, Even where the fires of Hate were burning, The unquailing eye of innocence Alone upon the oppressor turning! O loved of thousands! to thy grave, Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee. The poor man and the rescued slave Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee; And grateful tears, like summer rain, Quickened its dying grass again! And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine, Shall cone the outcast and the lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine Recalling memories sweet and holy! Oh, for the death the righteous die! An end, like autumn's day declining, On human hearts, as on the sky, With holier, tenderer beauty shining; As to the parting soul were given The radiance of an opening heaven! As if that pure and blessed light, From off the Eternal altar flowing, Were bathing, in its upward flight, The spirit to its worship going! 1836. THE MORAL WARFARE. WHEN Freedom, on her natal day, Within her war-rocked cradle lay, An iron race around her stood, Baptized her infant brow in blood; And, through the storm which round her swept, Their constant ward and watching kept. Then, where our quiet herds repose, The roar of baleful battle rose, And brethren of a common tongue To mortal strife as tigers sprung, And every gift on Freedom's shrine Was man for beast, and blood for wine! Our fathers to their graves have gone; Their strife is past, their triumph won; But sterner trials wait the race Which rises in their honored place; A moral warfare with the crime And folly of an evil time. So let it be. In God's own might We gird us for the coming fight, And, strong in Him whose cause is ours In conflict with unholy powers, We grasp the weapons He has given,-- The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven. 1836. RITNER. Written on reading the Message of Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, 1836. The fact redounds to the credit and serves to perpetuate the memory of the independent farmer and high-souled statesman, that he alone of all the Governors of the Union in 1836 met the insulting demands and menaces of the South in a manner becoming a freeman and hater of Slavery, in his message to the Legislature of Pennsylvania. THANK God for the token! one lip is still free, One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee! Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm; When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and God, Are bowed at an Idol polluted with blood; When the recreant North has forgotten her trust, And the lip of her honor is low in the dust,-- Thank God, that one arm from the shackle has broken! Thank God, that one man as a freeman has spoken! O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown! Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone! To the land of the South, of the charter and chain, Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's pain; Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips! Where "chivalric" honor means really no more Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor! Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high, And the words which he utters, are--Worship, or die! Right onward, oh, speed it! Wherever the blood Of the wronged and the guiltless is crying to God; Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining; Wherever the lash of the driver is twining; Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart, Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart; Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind, In silence and darkness, the God-given mind; There, God speed it onward! its truth will be felt, The bonds shall be loosened, the iron shall melt. And oh, will the land where the free soul of Penn Still lingers and breathes over mountain and glen; Will the land where a Benezet's spirit went forth To the peeled and the meted, and outcast of Earth; Where the words of the Charter of Liberty first From the soul of the sage and the patriot burst; Where first for the wronged and the weak of their kind, The Christian and statesman their efforts combined; Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain? Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain? No, Ritner! her "Friends" at thy warning shall stand Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band; Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past time, Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime; Turning back front the cavil of creeds, to unite Once again for the poor in defence of the Right; Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of Wrong, Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges along; Unappalled by the danger, the shame, and the pain, And counting each trial for Truth as their gain! And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true, Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due; Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with thine, On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the Rhine,-- The German-born pilgrims, who first dared to brave The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave; Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South One brow for the brand, for the padlock one mouth? They cater to tyrants? They rivet the chain, Which their fathers smote off, on the negro again? No, never! one voice, like the sound in the cloud, When the roar of the storm waxes loud and more loud, Wherever the foot of the freeman hath pressed From the Delaware's marge to the Lake of the West, On the South-going breezes shall deepen and grow Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble below! The voice of a people, uprisen, awake, Pennsylvania's watchword, with Freedom at stake, Thrilling up from each valley, flung down from each height, "Our Country and Liberty! God for the Right!" THE PASTORAL LETTER The General Association of Congregational ministers in Massachusetts met at Brookfield, June 27, 1837, and issued a Pastoral Letter to the churches under its care. The immediate occasion of it was the profound sensation produced by the recent public lecture in Massachusetts by Angelina and Sarah Grimke, two noble women from South Carolina, who bore their testimony against slavery. The Letter demanded that "the perplexed and agitating subjects which are now common amongst us... should not be forced upon any church as matters for debate, at the hazard of alienation and division," and called attention to the dangers now seeming "to threaten the female character with widespread and permanent injury." So, this is all,--the utmost reach Of priestly power the mind to fetter! When laymen think, when women preach, A war of words, a "Pastoral Letter!" Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes! Was it thus with those, your predecessors, Who sealed with racks, and fire, and ropes Their loving-kindness to transgressors? A "Pastoral Letter," grave and dull; Alas! in hoof and horns and features, How different is your Brookfield bull From him who bellows from St. Peter's Your pastoral rights and powers from harm, Think ye, can words alone preserve them? Your wiser fathers taught the arm And sword of temporal power to serve them. Oh, glorious days, when Church and State Were wedded by your spiritual fathers! And on submissive shoulders sat Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers. No vile "itinerant" then could mar The beauty of your tranquil Zion, But at his peril of the scar Of hangman's whip and branding-iron. Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church Of heretic and mischief-maker, And priest and bailiff joined in search, By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker The stocks were at each church's door, The gallows stood on Boston Common, A Papist's ears the pillory bore,-- The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman! Your fathers dealt not as ye deal With "non-professing" frantic teachers; They bored the tongue with red-hot steel, And flayed the backs of "female preachers." Old Hampton, had her fields a tongue, And Salem's streets could tell their story, Of fainting woman dragged along, Gashed by the whip accursed and gory! And will ye ask me, why this taunt Of memories sacred from the scorner? And why with reckless hand I plant A nettle on the graves ye honor? Not to reproach New England's dead This record from the past I summon, Of manhood to the scaffold led, And suffering and heroic woman. No, for yourselves alone, I turn The pages of intolerance over, That, in their spirit, dark and stern, Ye haply may your own discover! For, if ye claim the "pastoral right" To silence Freedom's voice of warning, And from your precincts shut the light Of Freedom's day around ye dawning; If when an earthquake voice of power And signs in earth and heaven are showing That forth, in its appointed hour, The Spirit of the Lord is going And, with that Spirit, Freedom's light On kindred, tongue, and people breaking, Whose slumbering millions, at the sight, In glory and in strength are waking! When for the sighing of the poor, And for the needy, God bath risen, And chains are breaking, and a door Is opening for the souls in prison! If then ye would, with puny hands, Arrest the very work of Heaven, And bind anew the evil bands Which God's right arm of power hath riven; What marvel that, in many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet "less in anger than in sadness"? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ancient yoke of your dominion? A glorious remnant linger yet, Whose lips are wet at Freedom's fountains, The coming of whose welcome feet Is beautiful upon our mountains! Men, who the gospel tidings bring Of Liberty and Love forever, Whose joy is an abiding spring, Whose peace is as a gentle river! But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale Of Carolina's high-souled daughters, Which echoes here the mournful wail Of sorrow from Edisto's waters, Close while ye may the public ear, With malice vex, with slander wound them, The pure and good shall throng to hear, And tried and manly hearts surround them. Oh, ever may the power which led Their way to such a fiery trial, And strengthened womanhood to tread The wine-press of such self-denial, Be round them in an evil land, With wisdom and with strength from Heaven, With Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand, And Deborah's song, for triumph given! And what are ye who strive with God Against the ark of His salvation, Moved by the breath of prayer abroad, With blessings for a dying nation? What, but the stubble and the hay To perish, even as flax consuming, With all that bars His glorious way, Before the brightness of His coming? And thou, sad Angel, who so long Hast waited for the glorious token, That Earth from all her bonds of wrong To liberty and light has broken,-- Angel of Freedom! soon to thee The sounding trumpet shall be given, And over Earth's full jubilee Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven! 1837. HYMN As children of Thy gracious care, We veil the eye, we bend the knee, With broken words of praise and prayer, Father and God, we come to Thee. For Thou hast heard, O God of Right, The sighing of the island slave; And stretched for him the arm of might, Not shortened that it could not save. The laborer sits beneath his vine, The shackled soul and hand are free; Thanksgiving! for the work is Thine! Praise! for the blessing is of Thee! And oh, we feel Thy presence here, Thy awful arm in judgment bare! Thine eye bath seen the bondman's tear; Thine ear hath heard the bondman's prayer. Praise! for the pride of man is low, The counsels of the wise are naught, The fountains of repentance flow; What hath our God in mercy wrought? HYMN Written for the celebration of the third anniversary of British emancipation at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, first of August, 1837. O HOLY FATHER! just and true Are all Thy works and words and ways, And unto Thee alone are due Thanksgiving and eternal praise! As children of Thy gracious care, We veil the eye, we bend the knee, With broken words of praise and prayer, Father and God, we come to Thee. For Thou hast heard, O God of Right, The sighing of the island slave; And stretched for him the arm of might, Not shortened that it could not save. The laborer sits beneath his vine, The shackled soul and hand are free; Thanksgiving! for the work is Thine! Praise! for the blessing is of Thee! And oh, we feel Thy presence here, Thy awful arm in judgment bare! Thine eye hath seen the bondman's tear; Thine ear hath heard the bondman's prayer. Praise! for the pride of man is low, The counsels of the wise are naught, The fountains of repentance flow; What hath our God in mercy wrought? Speed on Thy work, Lord God of Hosts And when the bondman's chain is riven, And swells from all our guilty coasts The anthem of the free to Heaven, Oh, not to those whom Thou hast led, As with Thy cloud and fire before, But unto Thee, in fear and dread, Be praise and glory evermore. THE FAREWELL OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE. GONE, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air; Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters! Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. There no mother's eye is near them, There no mother's ear can hear them; Never, when the torturing lash Seams their back with many a gash, Shall a mother's kindness bless them, Or a mother's arms caress them. Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters! Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Oh, when weary, sad, and slow, From the fields at night they go, Faint with toil, and racked with pain, To their cheerless homes again, There no brother's voice shall greet them; There no father's welcome meet them. Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters! Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. From the tree whose shadow lay On their childhood's place of play; From the cool spring where they drank; Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank; From the solemn house of prayer, And the holy counsels there; Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters! Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone; Toiling through the weary day, And at night the spoiler's prey. Oh, that they had earlier died, Sleeping calmly, side by side, Where the tyrant's power is o'er, And the fetter galls no more Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters! Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. By the holy love He beareth; By the bruised reed He spareth; Oh, may He, to whom alone All their cruel wrongs are known, Still their hope and refuge prove, With a more than mother's love. Gone, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters; Woe is me, my stolen daughters! 1838. PENNSYLVANIA HALL. Read at the dedication of Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, May 15, 1838. The building was erected by an association of gentlemen, irrespective of sect or party, "that the citizens of Philadelphia should possess a room wherein the principles of Liberty, and Equality of Civil Rights, could be freely discussed, and the evils of slavery fearlessly portrayed." On the evening of the 17th it was burned by a mob, destroying the office of the Pennsylvania Freeman, of which I was editor, and with it my books and papers. NOT with the splendors of the days of old, The spoil of nations, and barbaric gold; No weapons wrested from the fields of blood, Where dark and stern the unyielding Roman stood, And the proud eagles of his cohorts saw A world, war-wasted, crouching to his law; Nor blazoned car, nor banners floating gay, Like those which swept along the Appian Way, When, to the welcome of imperial Rome, The victor warrior came in triumph home, And trumpet peal, and shoutings wild and high, Stirred the blue quiet of the Italian sky; But calm and grateful, prayerful and sincere, As Christian freemen only, gathering here, We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall, Pillar and arch, entablature and wall, As Virtue's shrine, as Liberty's abode, Sacred to Freedom, and to Freedom's God Far statelier Halls, 'neath brighter skies than these, Stood darkly mirrored in the AEgean seas, Pillar and shrine, and life-like statues seen, Graceful and pure, the marble shafts between; Where glorious Athens from her rocky hill Saw Art and Beauty subject to her will; And the chaste temple, and the classic grove, The hall of sages, and the bowers of love, Arch, fane, and column, graced the shores, and gave Their shadows to the blue Saronic wave; And statelier rose, on Tiber's winding side, The Pantheon's dome, the Coliseum's pride, The Capitol, whose arches backward flung The deep, clear cadence of the Roman tongue, Whence stern decrees, like words of fate, went forth To the awed nations of a conquered earth, Where the proud Caesars in their glory came, And Brutus lightened from his lips of flame! Yet in the porches of Athena's halls, And in the shadow of her stately walls, Lurked the sad bondman, and his tears of woe Wet the cold marble with unheeded flow; And fetters clanked beneath the silver dome Of the proud Pantheon of imperious Rome. Oh, not for hint, the chained and stricken slave, By Tiber's shore, or blue AEgina's wave, In the thronged forum, or the sages' seat, The bold lip pleaded, and the warm heart beat; No soul of sorrow melted at his pain, No tear of pity rusted on his chain! But this fair Hall to Truth and Freedom given, Pledged to the Right before all Earth and Heaven, A free arena for the strife of mind, To caste, or sect, or color unconfined, Shall thrill with echoes such as ne'er of old From Roman hall or Grecian temple rolled; Thoughts shall find utterance such as never yet The Propylea or the Forum met. Beneath its roof no gladiator's strife Shall win applauses with the waste of life; No lordly lictor urge the barbarous game, No wanton Lais glory in her shame. But here the tear of sympathy shall flow, As the ear listens to the tale of woe; Here in stern judgment of the oppressor's wrong Shall strong rebukings thrill on Freedom's tongue, No partial justice hold th' unequal scale, No pride of caste a brother's rights assail, No tyrant's mandates echo from this wall, Holy to Freedom and the Rights of All! But a fair field, where mind may close with mind, Free as the sunshine and the chainless wind; Where the high trust is fixed on Truth alone, And bonds and fetters from the soul are thrown; Where wealth, and rank, and worldly pomp, and might, Yield to the presence of the True and Right. And fitting is it that this Hall should stand Where Pennsylvania's Founder led his band, From thy blue waters, Delaware!--to press The virgin verdure of the wilderness. Here, where all Europe with amazement saw The soul's high freedom trammelled by no law; Here, where the fierce and warlike forest-men Gathered, in peace, around the home of Penn, Awed by the weapons Love alone had given Drawn from the holy armory of Heaven; Where Nature's voice against the bondman's wrong First found an earnest and indignant tongue; Where Lay's bold message to the proud was borne; And Keith's rebuke, and Franklin's manly scorn! Fitting it is that here, where Freedom first From her fair feet shook off the Old World's dust, Spread her white pinions to our Western blast, And her free tresses to our sunshine cast, One Hall should rise redeemed from Slavery's ban, One Temple sacred to the Rights of Man! Oh! if the spirits of the parted come, Visiting angels, to their olden home If the dead fathers of the land look forth From their fair dwellings, to the things of earth, Is it a dream, that with their eyes of love, They gaze now on us from the bowers above? Lay's ardent soul, and Benezet the mild, Steadfast in faith, yet gentle as a child, Meek-hearted Woolman, and that brother-band, The sorrowing exiles from their "Father land," Leaving their homes in Krieshiem's bowers of vine, And the blue beauty of their glorious Rhine, To seek amidst our solemn depths of wood Freedom from man, and holy peace with God; Who first of all their testimonial gave Against the oppressor, for the outcast slave, Is it a dream that such as these look down, And with their blessing our rejoicings crown? Let us rejoice, that while the pulpit's door Is barred against the pleaders for the poor; While the Church, wrangling upon points of faith, Forgets her bondmen suffering unto death; While crafty Traffic and the lust of Gain Unite to forge Oppression's triple chain, One door is open, and one Temple free, As a resting-place for hunted Liberty! Where men may speak, unshackled and unawed, High words of Truth, for Freedom and for God. And when that truth its perfect work hath done, And rich with blessings o'er our land hath gone; When not a slave beneath his yoke shall pine, From broad Potomac to the far Sabine When unto angel lips at last is given The silver trump of Jubilee in Heaven; And from Virginia's plains, Kentucky's shades, And through the dim Floridian everglades, Rises, to meet that angel-trumpet's sound, The voice of millions from their chains unbound; Then, though this Hall be crumbling in decay, Its strong walls blending with the common clay, Yet, round the ruins of its strength shall stand The best and noblest of a ransomed land-- Pilgrims, like these who throng around the shrine Of Mecca, or of holy Palestine! A prouder glory shall that ruin own Than that which lingers round the Parthenon. Here shall the child of after years be taught The works of Freedom which his fathers wrought; Told of the trials of the present hour, Our weary strife with prejudice and power; How the high errand quickened woman's soul, And touched her lip as with a living coal; How Freedom's martyrs kept their lofty faith True and unwavering, unto bonds and death; The pencil's art shall sketch the ruined Hall, The Muses' garland crown its aged wall, And History's pen for after times record Its consecration unto Freedom's God! THE NEW YEAR. Addressed to the Patrons of the Pennsylvania Freeman. THE wave is breaking on the shore, The echo fading from the chime Again the shadow moveth o'er The dial-plate of time! O seer-seen Angel! waiting now With weary feet on sea and shore, Impatient for the last dread vow That time shall be no more! Once more across thy sleepless eye The semblance of a smile has passed: The year departing leaves more nigh Time's fearfullest and last. Oh, in that dying year hath been The sum of all since time began; The birth and death, the joy and pain, Of Nature and of Man. Spring, with her change of sun and shower, And streams released from Winter's chain, And bursting bud, and opening flower, And greenly growing grain; And Summer's shade, and sunshine warm, And rainbows o'er her hill-tops bowed, And voices in her rising storm; God speaking from His cloud! And Autumn's fruits and clustering sheaves, And soft, warm days of golden light, The glory of her forest leaves, And harvest-moon at night; And Winter with her leafless grove, And prisoned stream, and drifting snow, The brilliance of her heaven above And of her earth below; And man, in whom an angel's mind With earth's low instincts finds abode, The highest of the links which bind Brute nature to her God; His infant eye bath seen the light, His childhood's merriest laughter rung, And active sports to manlier might The nerves of boyhood strung! And quiet love, and passion's fires, Have soothed or burned in manhood's breast, And lofty aims and low desires By turns disturbed his rest. The wailing of the newly-born Has mingled with the funeral knell; And o'er the dying's ear has gone The merry marriage-bell. And Wealth has filled his halls with mirth, While Want, in many a humble shed, Toiled, shivering by her cheerless hearth, The live-long night for bread. And worse than all, the human slave, The sport of lust, and pride, and scorn! Plucked off the crown his Maker gave, His regal manhood gone! Oh, still, my country! o'er thy plains, Blackened with slavery's blight and ban, That human chattel drags his chains, An uncreated man! And still, where'er to sun and breeze, My country, is thy flag unrolled, With scorn, the gazing stranger sees A stain on every fold. Oh, tear the gorgeous emblem down! It gathers scorn from every eye, And despots smile and good men frown Whene'er it passes by. Shame! shame! its starry splendors glow Above the slaver's loathsome jail; Its folds are ruffling even now His crimson flag of sale. Still round our country's proudest hall The trade in human flesh is driven, And at each careless hammer-fall A human heart is riven. And this, too, sanctioned by the men Vested with power to shield the right, And throw each vile and robber den Wide open to the light. Yet, shame upon them! there they sit, Men of the North, subdued and still; Meek, pliant poltroons, only fit To work a master's will. Sold, bargained off for Southern votes, A passive herd of Northern mules, Just braying through their purchased throats Whate'er their owner rules. And he, (2) the basest of the base, The vilest of the vile, whose name, Embalmed in infinite disgrace, Is deathless in its shame! A tool, to bolt the people's door Against the people clamoring there, An ass, to trample on their floor A people's right of prayer! Nailed to his self-made gibbet fast, Self-pilloried to the public view, A mark for every passing blast Of scorn to whistle through; There let him hang, and hear the boast Of Southrons o'er their pliant tool,-- A new Stylites on his post, "Sacred to ridicule!" Look we at home! our noble hall, To Freedom's holy purpose given, Now rears its black and ruined wall, Beneath the wintry heaven, Telling the story of its doom, The fiendish mob, the prostrate law, The fiery jet through midnight's gloom, Our gazing thousands saw. Look to our State! the poor man's right Torn from him: and the sons of those Whose blood in Freedom's sternest fight Sprinkled the Jersey snows, Outlawed within the land of Penn, That Slavery's guilty fears might cease, And those whom God created men Toil on as brutes in peace. Yet o'er the blackness of the storm A bow of promise bends on high, And gleams of sunshine, soft and warm, Break through our clouded sky. East, West, and North, the shout is heard, Of freemen rising for the right Each valley hath its rallying word, Each hill its signal light. O'er Massachusetts' rocks of gray, The strengthening light of freedom shines, Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, And Vermont's snow-hung pines! From Hudson's frowning palisades To Alleghany's laurelled crest, O'er lakes and prairies, streams and glades, It shines upon the West. Speed on the light to those who dwell In Slavery's land of woe and sin, And through the blackness of that bell, Let Heaven's own light break in. So shall the Southern conscience quake Before that light poured full and strong, So shall the Southern heart awake To all the bondman's wrong. And from that rich and sunny land The song of grateful millions rise, Like that of Israel's ransomed band Beneath Arabia's skies: And all who now are bound beneath Our banner's shade, our eagle's wing, From Slavery's night of moral death To light and life shall spring. Broken the bondman's chain, and gone The master's guilt, and hate, and fear, And unto both alike shall dawn A New and Happy Year. 1839. THE RELIC. Written on receiving a cane wrought from a fragment of the wood-work of Pennsylvania Hall which the fire had spared. TOKEN of friendship true and tried, From one whose fiery heart of youth With mine has beaten, side by side, For Liberty and Truth; With honest pride the gift I take, And prize it for the giver's sake. But not alone because it tells Of generous hand and heart sincere; Around that gift of friendship dwells A memory doubly dear; Earth's noblest aim, man's holiest thought, With that memorial frail in wrought! Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold, And precious memories round it cling, Even as the Prophet's rod of old In beauty blossoming: And buds of feeling, pure and good, Spring from its cold unconscious wood. Relic of Freedom's shrine! a brand Plucked from its burning! let it be Dear as a jewel from the hand Of a lost friend to me! Flower of a perished garland left, Of life and beauty unbereft! Oh, if the young enthusiast bears, O'er weary waste and sea, the stone Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs, Or round the Parthenon; Or olive-bough from some wild tree Hung over old Thermopylae: If leaflets from some hero's tomb, Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary; Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom On fields renowned in story; Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest, Or the gray rock by Druids blessed; Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing Where Freedom led her stalwart kern, Or Scotia's "rough bur thistle" blowing On Bruce's Bannockburn; Or Runnymede's wild English rose, Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows! If it be true that things like these To heart and eye bright visions bring, Shall not far holier memories To this memorial cling Which needs no mellowing mist of time To hide the crimson stains of crime! Wreck of a temple, unprofaned; Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod, Lifting on high, with hands unstained, Thanksgiving unto God; Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading For human hearts in bondage bleeding; Where, midst the sound of rushing feet And curses on the night-air flung, That pleading voice rose calm and sweet From woman's earnest tongue; And Riot turned his scowling glance, Awed, from her tranquil countenance! That temple now in ruin lies! The fire-stain on its shattered wall, And open to the changing skies Its black and roofless hall, It stands before a nation's sight, A gravestone over buried Right! But from that ruin, as of old, The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying, And from their ashes white and cold Its timbers are replying! A voice which slavery cannot kill Speaks from the crumbling arches still! And even this relic from thy shrine, O holy Freedom! Hath to me A potent power, a voice and sign To testify of thee; And, grasping it, methinks I feel A deeper faith, a stronger zeal. And not unlike that mystic rod, Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave, Which opened, in the strength of God, A pathway for the slave, It yet may point the bondman's way, And turn the spoiler from his prey. 1839. THE WORLD'S CONVENTION OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION, HELD IN LONDON IN 1840. Joseph Sturge, the founder of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, proposed the calling of a world's anti-slavery convention, and the proposal was promptly seconded by the American Anti-Slavery Society. The call was addressed to "friends of the slave of every nation and of every clime." YES, let them gather! Summon forth The pledged philanthropy of Earth. From every land, whose hills have heard The bugle blast of Freedom waking; Or shrieking of her symbol-bird From out his cloudy eyrie breaking Where Justice hath one worshipper, Or truth one altar built to her; Where'er a human eye is weeping O'er wrongs which Earth's sad children know; Where'er a single heart is keeping Its prayerful watch with human woe Thence let them come, and greet each other, And know in each a friend and brother! Yes, let them come! from each green vale Where England's old baronial halls Still bear upon their storied walls The grim crusader's rusted mail, Battered by Paynim spear and brand On Malta's rock or Syria's sand! And mouldering pennon-staves once set Within the soil of Palestine, By Jordan and Gennesaret; Or, borne with England's battle line, O'er Acre's shattered turrets stooping, Or, midst the camp their banners drooping, With dews from hallowed Hermon wet, A holier summons now is given Than that gray hermit's voice of old, Which unto all the winds of heaven The banners of the Cross unrolled! Not for the long-deserted shrine; Not for the dull unconscious sod, Which tells not by one lingering sign That there the hope of Israel trod; But for that truth, for which alone In pilgrim eyes are sanctified The garden moss, the mountain stone, Whereon His holy sandals pressed,-- The fountain which His lip hath blessed,-- Whate'er hath touched His garment's hem At Bethany or Bethlehem, Or Jordan's river-side. For Freedom in the name of Him Who came to raise Earth's drooping poor, To break the chain from every limb, The bolt from every prison door! For these, o'er all the earth hath passed An ever-deepening trumpet blast, As if an angel's breath had lent Its vigor to the instrument. And Wales, from Snowden's mountain wall, Shall startle at that thrilling call, As if she heard her bards again; And Erin's "harp on Tara's wall" Give out its ancient strain, Mirthful and sweet, yet sad withal,-- The melody which Erin loves, When o'er that harp, 'mid bursts of gladness And slogan cries and lyke-wake sadness, The hand of her O'Connell moves! Scotland, from lake and tarn and rill, And mountain hold, and heathery bill, Shall catch and echo back the note, As if she heard upon the air Once more her Cameronian's prayer And song of Freedom float. And cheering echoes shall reply From each remote dependency, Where Britain's mighty sway is known, In tropic sea or frozen zone; Where'er her sunset flag is furling, Or morning gun-fire's smoke is curling; From Indian Bengal's groves of palm And rosy fields and gales of balm, Where Eastern pomp and power are rolled Through regal Ava's gates of gold; And from the lakes and ancient woods And dim Canadian solitudes, Whence, sternly from her rocky throne, Queen of the North, Quebec looks down; And from those bright and ransomed Isles Where all unwonted Freedom smiles, And the dark laborer still retains The scar of slavery's broken chains! From the hoar Alps, which sentinel The gateways of the land of Tell, Where morning's keen and earliest glance On Jura's rocky wall is thrown, And from the olive bowers of France And vine groves garlanding the Rhone,-- "Friends of the Blacks," as true and tried As those who stood by Oge's side, And heard the Haytien's tale of wrong, Shall gather at that summons strong; Broglie, Passy, and he whose song Breathed over Syria's holy sod, And, in the paths which Jesus trod, And murmured midst the hills which hem Crownless and sad Jerusalem, Hath echoes whereso'er the tone Of Israel's prophet-lyre is known. Still let them come; from Quito's walls, And from the Orinoco's tide, From Lima's Inca-haunted halls, From Santa Fe and Yucatan,-- Men who by swart Guerrero's side Proclaimed the deathless rights of man, Broke every bond and fetter off, And hailed in every sable serf A free and brother Mexican! Chiefs who across the Andes' chain Have followed Freedom's flowing pennon, And seen on Junin's fearful plain, Glare o'er the broken ranks of Spain The fire-burst of Bolivar's cannon! And Hayti, from her mountain land, Shall send the sons of those who hurled Defiance from her blazing strand, The war-gage from her Petion's hand, Alone against a hostile world. Nor all unmindful, thou, the while, Land of the dark and mystic Nile! Thy Moslem mercy yet may shame All tyrants of a Christian name, When in the shade of Gizeh's pile, Or, where, from Abyssinian hills El Gerek's upper fountain fills, Or where from Mountains of the Moon El Abiad bears his watery boon, Where'er thy lotus blossoms swim Within their ancient hallowed waters; Where'er is beard the Coptic hymn, Or song of Nubia's sable daughters; The curse of slavery and the crime, Thy bequest from remotest time, At thy dark Mehemet's decree Forevermore shall pass from thee; And chains forsake each captive's limb Of all those tribes, whose hills around Have echoed back the cymbal sound And victor horn of Ibrahim. And thou whose glory and whose crime To earth's remotest bound and clime, In mingled tones of awe and scorn, The echoes of a world have borne, My country! glorious at thy birth, A day-star flashing brightly forth, The herald-sign of Freedom's dawn! Oh, who could dream that saw thee then, And watched thy rising from afar, That vapors from oppression's fen Would cloud the upward tending star? Or, that earth's tyrant powers, which heard, Awe-struck, the shout which hailed thy dawning, Would rise so soon, prince, peer, and king, To mock thee with their welcoming, Like Hades when her thrones were stirred To greet the down-cast Star of Morning! "Aha! and art thou fallen thus? Art thou become as one of us?" Land of my fathers! there will stand, Amidst that world-assembled band, Those owning thy maternal claim Unweakened by thy, crime and shame; The sad reprovers of thy wrong; The children thou hast spurned so long. Still with affection's fondest yearning To their unnatural mother turning. No traitors they! but tried and leal, Whose own is but thy general weal, Still blending with the patriot's zeal The Christian's love for human kind, To caste and climate unconfined. A holy gathering! peaceful all No threat of war, no savage call For vengeance on an erring brother! But in their stead the godlike plan To teach the brotherhood of man To love and reverence one another, As sharers of a common blood, The children of a common God Yet, even at its lightest word, Shall Slavery's darkest depths be stirred: Spain, watching from her Moro's keep Her slave-ships traversing the deep, And Rio, in her strength and pride, Lifting, along her mountain-side, Her snowy battlements and towers, Her lemon-groves and tropic bowers, With bitter hate and sullen fear Its freedom-giving voice shall hear; And where my country's flag is flowing, On breezes from Mount Vernon blowing, Above the Nation's council halls, Where Freedom's praise is loud and long, While close beneath the outward walls The driver plies his reeking thong; The hammer of the man-thief falls, O'er hypocritic cheek and brow The crimson flush of shame shall glow And all who for their native land Are pledging life and heart and hand, Worn watchers o'er her changing weal, Who fog her tarnished honor feel, Through cottage door and council-hall Shall thunder an awakening call. The pen along its page shall burn With all intolerable scorn; An eloquent rebuke shall go On all the winds that Southward blow; From priestly lips, now sealed and dumb, Warning and dread appeal shall come, Like those which Israel heard from him, The Prophet of the Cherubim; Or those which sad Esaias hurled Against a sin-accursed world! Its wizard leaves the Press shall fling Unceasing from its iron wing, With characters inscribed thereon, As fearful in the despot's ball As to the pomp of Babylon The fire-sign on the palace wall! And, from her dark iniquities, Methinks I see my country rise Not challenging the nations round To note her tardy justice done; Her captives from their chains unbound; Her prisons opening to the sun But tearfully her arms extending Over the poor and unoffending; Her regal emblem now no longer A bird of prey, with talons reeking, Above the dying captive shrieking, But, spreading out her ample wing, A broad, impartial covering, The weaker sheltered by the stronger Oh, then to Faith's anointed eyes The promised token shall be given; And on a nation's sacrifice, Atoning for the sin of years, And wet with penitential tears, The fire shall fall from Heaven! 1839. MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA. Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk, Va., in reference to George Latimer, the alleged fugitive slave, who was seized in Boston without warrant at the request of James B. Grey, of Norfolk, claiming to be his master. The case caused great excitement North and South, and led to the presentation of a petition to Congress, signed by more than fifty thousand citizens of Massachusetts, calling for such laws and proposed amendments to the Constitution as should relieve the Commonwealth from all further participation in the crime of oppression. George Latimer himself was finally given free papers for the sum of four hundred dollars. THE blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way, Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay. No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal, Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel. No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go; Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow; And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far, A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war. We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high, Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky; Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest labor here, No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear. Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George's bank; Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank; Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, stout are the hearts which man The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann. The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms, Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrestling with the storms; Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam, They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home. What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array? How side by side, with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis, then? Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall? When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breath Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of "Liberty or Death!" What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved False to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved; If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter spurn, Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn? We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell; Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell; We gather, at your summons, above our fathers' graves, From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves! Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow; The spirit of her early time is with her even now; Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow and calm and cool, She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool! All that a sister State should do, all that a free State may, Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day; But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone, And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown! Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild despair; Cling closer to the "cleaving curse" that writes upon your plains The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains. Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old, By watching round the shambles where human flesh is sold; Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count his market value, when The maddened mother's cry of woe shall pierce the slaver's den! Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginia name; Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest weeds of shame; Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair universe; We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame and curse. A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hath been, Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's mountain men: The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill. And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft of gray, How, through the free lips of the son, the father's warning spoke; How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke! A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high, A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply; Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang, And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang! The voice of free, broad Middlesex, of thousands as of one, The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lexington; From Norfolk's ancient villages, from Plymouth's rocky bound To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close her round; From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle Nashua flows, To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the mountain larches stir, Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of "God save Latimer!" And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray; And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill, And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill. The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters, Deep calling unto deep aloud, the sound of many waters! Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand? No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land! Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne, In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn; You've spurned our kindest counsels; you've hunted for our lives; And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves! We wage no war, we lift no arm, we fling no torch within The fire-clamps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin; We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can, With the strong upward tendencies and godlike soul of man! But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given For freedom and humanity is registered in heaven; No slave-hunt in our borders,--no pirate on our strand! No fetters in the Bay State,--no slave upon our land! 1843. THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE. In a publication of L. F. Tasistro--Random Shots and Southern Breezes-- is a description of a slave auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recommended the woman on the stand as "A GOOD CHRISTIAN!" It was not uncommon to see advertisements of slaves for sale, in which they were described as pious or as members of the church. In one advertisement a slave was noted as "a Baptist preacher." A CHRISTIAN! going, gone! Who bids for God's own image? for his grace, Which that poor victim of the market-place Hath in her suffering won? My God! can such things be? Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one Is even done to Thee? In that sad victim, then, Child of Thy pitying love, I see Thee stand; Once more the jest-word of a mocking band, Bound, sold, and scourged again! A Christian up for sale! Wet with her blood your whips, o'ertask her frame, Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame, Her patience shall not fail! A heathen hand might deal Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years: But her low, broken prayer and nightly tears, Ye neither heed nor feel. Con well thy lesson o'er, Thou prudent teacher, tell the toiling slave No dangerous tale of Him who came to save The outcast and the poor. But wisely shut the ray Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart, And to her darkened mind alone impart One stern command, Obey! (3) So shalt thou deftly raise The market price of human flesh; and while On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile, Thy church shall praise. Grave, reverend men shall tell From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest, While in that vile South Sodom first and best, Thy poor disciples sell. Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall, Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels, While turning to the sacred Kebla feels His fetters break and fall. Cheers for the turbaned Bey Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne Their inmates into day: But our poor slave in vain Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes; Its rites will only swell his market price, And rivet on his chain. God of all right! how long Shall priestly robbers at Thine altar stand, Lifting in prayer to Thee, the bloody hand And haughty brow of wrong? 1843 THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN Oh, from the fields of cane, From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cell; From the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell, And coffle's weary chain; Hoarse, horrible, and strong, Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry, Filling the arches of the hollow sky, How long, O God, how long? THE SENTENCE OF JOHN L. BROWN. John L. Brown, a young white man of South Carolina, was in 1844 sentenced to death for aiding a young slave woman, whom he loved and had married, to escape from slavery. In pronouncing the sentence Judge O'Neale addressed to the prisoner these words of appalling blasphemy: You are to die! To die an ignominious death--the death on the gallows! This announcement is, to you, I know, most appalling. Little did you dream of it when you stepped into the bar with an air as if you thought it was a fine frolic. But the consequences of crime are just such as you are realizing. Punishment often comes when it is least expected. Let me entreat you to take the present opportunity to commence the work of reformation. Time will be furnished you to prepare for the great change just before you. Of your past life I know nothing, except what your trial furnished. That told me that the crime for which you are to suffer was the consequence of a want of attention on your part to the duties of life. The strange woman snared you. She flattered you with her word; and you became her victim. The consequence was, that, led on by a desire to serve her, you committed the offence of aid in a slave to run away and depart from her master's service; and now, for it you are to die! You are a young man, and I fear you have been dissolute; and if so, these kindred vices have contributed a full measure to your ruin. Reflect on your past life, and make the only useful devotion of the remnant of your days in preparing for death. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth is the language of inspired wisdom. This comes home appropriately to you in this trying moment. You are young; quite too young to be where you are. If you had remembered your Creator in your past days, you would not now be in a felon's place, to receive a felon's judgment. Still, it is not too late to remember your Creator. He calls early, and He calls late. He stretches out the arms of a Father's love to you--to the vilest sinner--and says: "Come unto me and be saved." You can perhaps read. If so, read the Scriptures; read them without note, and without comment; and pray to God for His assistance; and you will be able to say when you pass from prison to execution, as a poor slave said under similar circumstances: "I am glad my Friday has come." If you cannot read the Scriptures, the ministers of our holy religion will be ready to aid you. They will read and explain to you until you will be able to understand; and understanding, to call upon the only One who can help you and save you--Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. To Him I commend you. And through Him may you have that opening of the Day-Spring of mercy from on high, which shall bless you here, and crown you as a saint in an everlasting world, forever and ever. The sentence of the law is that you be taken hence to the place from whence you came last; thence to the jail of Fairfield District; and that there you be closely and securely confined until Friday, the 26th day of April next; on which day, between the hours of ten in the forenoon and two in the afternoon, you will be taken to the place of public execution, and there be hanged by the neck till your body be dead. And may God have mercy on your soul! No event in the history of the anti-slavery struggle so stirred the two hemispheres as did this dreadful sentence. A cry of horror was heard from Europe. In the British House of Lords, Brougham and Denman spoke of it with mingled pathos and indignation. Thirteen hundred clergymen and church officers in Great Britain addressed a memorial to the churches of South Carolina against the atrocity. Indeed, so strong was the pressure of the sentiment of abhorrence and disgust that South Carolina yielded to it, and the sentence was commuted to scourging and banishment. Ho! thou who seekest late and long A License from the Holy Book For brutal lust and fiendish wrong, Man of the Pulpit, look! Lift up those cold and atheist eyes, This ripe fruit of thy teaching see; And tell us how to heaven will rise The incense of this sacrifice-- This blossom of the gallows tree! Search out for slavery's hour of need Some fitting text of sacred writ; Give heaven the credit of a deed Which shames the nether pit. Kneel, smooth blasphemer, unto Him Whose truth is on thy lips a lie; Ask that His bright winged cherubim May bend around that scaffold grim To guard and bless and sanctify. O champion of the people's cause Suspend thy loud and vain rebuke Of foreign wrong and Old World's laws, Man of the Senate, look! Was this the promise of the free, The great hope of our early time, That slavery's poison vine should be Upborne by Freedom's prayer-nursed tree O'erclustered with such fruits of crime? Send out the summons East and West, And South and North, let all be there Where he who pitied the oppressed Swings out in sun and air. Let not a Democratic hand The grisly hangman's task refuse; There let each loyal patriot stand, Awaiting slavery's command, To twist the rope and draw the noose! But vain is irony--unmeet Its cold rebuke for deeds which start In fiery and indignant beat The pulses of the heart. Leave studied wit and guarded phrase For those who think but do not feel; Let men speak out in words which raise Where'er they fall, an answering blaze Like flints which strike the fire from steel. Still let a mousing priesthood ply Their garbled text and gloss of sin, And make the lettered scroll deny Its living soul within: Still let the place-fed, titled knave Plead robbery's right with purchased lips, And tell us that our fathers gave For Freedom's pedestal, a slave, The frieze and moulding, chains and whips! But ye who own that Higher Law Whose tablets in the heart are set, Speak out in words of power and awe That God is living yet! Breathe forth once more those tones sublime Which thrilled the burdened prophet's lyre, And in a dark and evil time Smote down on Israel's fast of crime And gift of blood, a rain of fire! Oh, not for us the graceful lay To whose soft measures lightly move The footsteps of the faun and fay, O'er-locked by mirth and love! But such a stern and startling strain As Britain's hunted bards flung down From Snowden to the conquered plain, Where harshly clanked the Saxon chain, On trampled field and smoking town. By Liberty's dishonored name, By man's lost hope and failing trust, By words and deeds which bow with shame Our foreheads to the dust, By the exulting strangers' sneer, Borne to us from the Old World's thrones, And by their victims' grief who hear, In sunless mines and dungeons drear, How Freedom's land her faith disowns! Speak out in acts. The time for words Has passed, and deeds suffice alone; In vain against the clang of swords The wailing pipe is blown! Act, act in God's name, while ye may! Smite from the church her leprous limb! Throw open to the light of day The bondman's cell, and break away The chains the state has bound on him! Ho! every true and living soul, To Freedom's perilled altar bear The Freeman's and the Christian's whole Tongue, pen, and vote, and prayer! One last, great battle for the right-- One short, sharp struggle to be free! To do is to succeed--our fight Is waged in Heaven's approving sight; The smile of God is Victory. 1844. TEXAS VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND. The five poems immediately following indicate the intense feeling of the friends of freedom in view of the annexation of Texas, with its vast territory sufficient, as was boasted, for six new slave States. Up the hillside, down the glen, Rouse the sleeping citizen; Summon out the might of men! Like a lion growling low, Like a night-storm rising slow, Like the tread of unseen foe; It is coming, it is nigh! Stand your homes and altars by; On your own free thresholds die. Clang the bells in all your spires; On the gray hills of your sires Fling to heaven your signal-fires. From Wachuset, lone and bleak, Unto Berkshire's tallest peak, Let the flame-tongued heralds speak. Oh, for God and duty stand, Heart to heart and hand to hand, Round the old graves of the land. Whoso shrinks or falters now, Whoso to the yoke would bow, Brand the craven on his brow! Freedom's soil hath only place For a free and fearless race, None for traitors false and base. Perish party, perish clan; Strike together while ye can, Like the arm of one strong man. Like that angel's voice sublime, Heard above a world of crime, Crying of the end of time; With one heart and with one mouth, Let the North unto the South Speak the word befitting both. "What though Issachar be strong Ye may load his back with wrong Overmuch and over long: "Patience with her cup o'errun, With her weary thread outspun, Murmurs that her work is done. "Make our Union-bond a chain, Weak as tow in Freedom's strain Link by link shall snap in twain. "Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope Bind the starry cluster up, Shattered over heaven's blue cope! "Give us bright though broken rays, Rather than eternal haze, Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze. "Take your land of sun and bloom; Only leave to Freedom room For her plough, and forge, and loom; "Take your slavery-blackened vales; Leave us but our own free gales, Blowing on our thousand sails. "Boldly, or with treacherous art, Strike the blood-wrought chain apart; Break the Union's mighty heart; "Work the ruin, if ye will; Pluck upon your heads an ill Which shall grow and deepen still. "With your bondman's right arm bare, With his heart of black despair, Stand alone, if stand ye dare! "Onward with your fell design; Dig the gulf and draw the line Fire beneath your feet the mine! "Deeply, when the wide abyss Yawns between your land and this, Shall ye feel your helplessness. "By the hearth, and in the bed, Shaken by a look or tread, Ye shall own a guilty dread. "And the curse of unpaid toil, Downward through your generous soil Like a fire shall burn and spoil. "Our bleak hills shall bud and blow, Vines our rocks shall overgrow, Plenty in our valleys flow;-- "And when vengeance clouds your skies, Hither shall ye turn your eyes, As the lost on Paradise! "We but ask our rocky strand, Freedom's true and brother band, Freedom's strong and honest hand; "Valleys by the slave untrod, And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, Blessed of our fathers' God!" 1844. TO FANEUIL HALL. Written in 1844, on reading a call by "a Massachusetts Freeman" for a meeting in Faneuil Hall of the citizens of Massachusetts, without distinction of party, opposed to the annexation of Texas, and the aggressions of South Carolina, and in favor of decisive action against slavery. MEN! if manhood still ye claim, If the Northern pulse can thrill, Roused by wrong or stung by shame, Freely, strongly still; Let the sounds of traffic die Shut the mill-gate, leave the stall, Fling the axe and hammer by; Throng to Faneuil Hall! Wrongs which freemen never brooked, Dangers grim and fierce as they, Which, like couching lions, looked On your fathers' way; These your instant zeal demand, Shaking with their earthquake-call Every rood of Pilgrim land, Ho, to Faneuil Hall! From your capes and sandy bars, From your mountain-ridges cold, Through whose pines the westering stars Stoop their crowns of gold; Come, and with your footsteps wake Echoes from that holy wall; Once again, for Freedom's sake, Rock your fathers' hall! Up, and tread beneath your feet Every cord by party spun: Let your hearts together beat As the heart of one. Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade, Let them rise or let them fall: Freedom asks your common aid,-- Up, to Faneuil Hall! Up, and let each voice that speaks Ring from thence to Southern plains, Sharply as the blow which breaks Prison-bolts and chains! Speak as well becomes the free Dreaded more than steel or ball, Shall your calmest utterance be, Heard from Faneuil Hall! Have they wronged us? Let us then Render back nor threats nor prayers; Have they chained our free-born men? Let us unchain theirs! Up, your banner leads the van, Blazoned, "Liberty for all!" Finish what your sires began! Up, to Faneuil Hall! TO MASSACHUSETTS. WHAT though around thee blazes No fiery rallying sign? From all thy own high places, Give heaven the light of thine! What though unthrilled, unmoving, The statesman stand apart, And comes no warm approving From Mammon's crowded mart? Still, let the land be shaken By a summons of thine own! By all save truth forsaken, Stand fast with that alone! Shrink not from strife unequal! With the best is always hope; And ever in the sequel God holds the right side up! But when, with thine uniting, Come voices long and loud, And far-off hills are writing Thy fire-words on the cloud; When from Penobscot's fountains A deep response is heard, And across the Western mountains Rolls back thy rallying word; Shall thy line of battle falter, With its allies just in view? Oh, by hearth and holy altar, My fatherland, be true! Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom Speed them onward far and fast Over hill and valley speed them, Like the sibyl's on the blast! Lo! the Empire State is shaking The shackles from her hand; With the rugged North is waking The level sunset land! On they come, the free battalions East and West and North they come, And the heart-beat of the millions Is the beat of Freedom's drum. "To the tyrant's plot no favor No heed to place-fed knaves! Bar and bolt the door forever Against the land of slaves!" Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it, The heavens above us spread! The land is roused,--its spirit Was sleeping, but not dead! 1844. NEW HAMPSHIRE. GOD bless New Hampshire! from her granite peaks Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks. The long-bound vassal of the exulting South For very shame her self-forged chain has broken; Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, And in the clear tones of her old time spoken! Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for changes The tyrant's ally proves his sternest foe; To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges, New Hampshire thunders an indignant No! Who is it now despairs? Oh, faint of heart, Look upward to those Northern mountains cold, Flouted by Freedom's victor-flag unrolled, And gather strength to bear a manlier part All is not lost. The angel of God's blessing Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight; Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing, Unlooked-for allies, striking for the right Courage, then, Northern hearts! Be firm, be true: What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do? 1845. THE PINE-TREE. Written on hearing that the Anti-Slavery Resolves of Stephen C. Phillips had been rejected by the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, in 1846. LIFT again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield, Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's tattered field. Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!" Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array! What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day. Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry pedler cries; Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise? Would ye barter man for cotton? That your gains may sum up higher, Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire? Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right a dream? Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam? O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in Boston town Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of Andros down! For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's streets to cry, "Up for God and Massachusetts! Set your feet on Mammon's lie! Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton's latest pound, But in Heaven's name keep your honor, keep the heart o' the Bay State sound!" Where's the man for Massachusetts! Where's the voice to speak her free? Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea? Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? Has she none to break the silence? Has she none to do and dare? O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted shield, And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's tattered field 1840. TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN. John C. Calhoun, who had strongly urged the extension of slave territory by the annexation of Texas, even if it should involve a war with England, was unwilling to promote the acquisition of Oregon, which would enlarge the Northern domain of freedom, and pleaded as an excuse the peril of foreign complications which he had defied when the interests of slavery were involved. Is this thy voice whose treble notes of fear Wail in the wind? And dost thou shake to hear, Actieon-like, the bay of thine own hounds, Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er their bounds? Sore-baffled statesman! when thy eager hand, With game afoot, unslipped the hungry pack, To hunt down Freedom in her chosen land, Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong, doubling back, These dogs of thine might snuff on Slavery's track? Where's now the boast, which even thy guarded tongue, Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o' the Senate flung, O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan, Like Satan's triumph at the fall of man? How stood'st thou then, thy feet on Freedom planting, And pointing to the lurid heaven afar, Whence all could see, through the south windows slanting, Crimson as blood, the beams of that Lone Star! The Fates are just; they give us but our own; Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown. There is an Eastern story, not unknown, Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skill Called demons up his water-jars to fill; Deftly and silently, they did his will, But, when the task was done, kept pouring still. In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought, Faster and faster were the buckets brought, Higher and higher rose the flood around, Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drowned So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, For God still overrules man's schemes, and takes Craftiness in its self-set snare, and makes The wrath of man to praise Him. It may be, That the roused spirits of Democracy May leave to freer States the same wide door Through which thy slave-cursed Texas entered in, From out the blood and fire, the wrong and sin, Of the stormed-city and the ghastly plain, Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody rain, The myriad-handed pioneer may pour, And the wild West with the roused North combine And heave the engineer of evil with his mine. 1846. AT WASHINGTON. Suggested by a visit to the city of Washington, in the 12th month of 1845. WITH a cold and wintry noon-light On its roofs and steeples shed, Shadows weaving with the sunlight From the gray sky overhead, Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built town outspread. Through this broad street, restless ever, Ebbs and flows a human tide, Wave on wave a living river; Wealth and fashion side by side; Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide. Underneath yon dome, whose coping Springs above them, vast and tall, Grave men in the dust are groping For the largess, base and small, Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall. Base of heart! They vilely barter Honor's wealth for party's place; Step by step on Freedom's charter Leaving footprints of disgrace; For to-day's poor pittance turning from the great hope of their race. Yet, where festal lamps are throwing Glory round the dancer's hair, Gold-tressed, like an angel's, flowing Backward on the sunset air; And the low quick pulse of music beats its measure sweet and rare. There to-night shall woman's glances, Star-like, welcome give to them; Fawning fools with shy advances Seek to touch their garments' hem, With the tongue of flattery glozing deeds which God and Truth condemn. From this glittering lie my vision Takes a broader, sadder range, Full before me have arisen Other pictures dark and strange; From the parlor to the prison must the scene and witness change. Hark! the heavy gate is swinging On its hinges, harsh and slow; One pale prison lamp is flinging On a fearful group below Such a light as leaves to terror whatsoe'er it does not show. Pitying God! Is that a woman On whose wrist the shackles clash? Is that shriek she utters human, Underneath the stinging lash? Are they men whose eyes of madness from that sad procession flash? Still the dance goes gayly onward What is it to Wealth and Pride That without the stars are looking On a scene which earth should hide? That the slave-ship lies in waiting, rocking on Potomac's tide! Vainly to that mean Ambition Which, upon a rival's fall, Winds above its old condition, With a reptile's slimy crawl, Shall the pleading voice of sorrow, shall the slave in anguish call. Vainly to the child of Fashion, Giving to ideal woe Graceful luxury of compassion, Shall the stricken mourner go; Hateful seems the earnest sorrow, beautiful the hollow show! Nay, my words are all too sweeping: In this crowded human mart, Feeling is not dead, but sleeping; Man's strong will and woman's heart, In the coming strife for Freedom, yet shall bear their generous part. And from yonder sunny valleys, Southward in the distance lost, Freedom yet shall summon allies Worthier than the North can boast, With the Evil by their hearth-stones grappling at severer cost. Now, the soul alone is willing Faint the heart and weak the knee; And as yet no lip is thrilling With the mighty words, "Be Free!" Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel, but his advent is to be! Meanwhile, turning from the revel To the prison-cell my sight, For intenser hate of evil, For a keener sense of right, Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the Slaves, to-night! "To thy duty now and ever! Dream no more of rest or stay Give to Freedom's great endeavor All thou art and hast to-day:" Thus, above the city's murmur, saith a Voice, or seems to say. Ye with heart and vision gifted To discern and love the right, Whose worn faces have been lifted To the slowly-growing light, Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted slowly back the murk of night Ye who through long years of trial Still have held your purpose fast, While a lengthening shade the dial from the westering sunshine cast, And of hope each hour's denial seemed an echo of the last! O my brothers! O my sisters Would to God that ye were near, Gazing with me down the vistas Of a sorrow strange and drear; Would to God that ye were listeners to the Voice I seem to hear! With the storm above us driving, With the false earth mined below, Who shall marvel if thus striving We have counted friend as foe; Unto one another giving in the darkness blow for blow. Well it may be that our natures Have grown sterner and more hard, And the freshness of their features Somewhat harsh and battle-scarred, And their harmonies of feeling overtasked and rudely jarred. Be it so. It should not swerve us From a purpose true and brave; Dearer Freedom's rugged service Than the pastime of the slave; Better is the storm above it than the quiet of the grave. Let us then, uniting, bury All our idle feuds in dust, And to future conflicts carry Mutual faith and common trust; Always he who most forgiveth in his brother is most just. From the eternal shadow rounding All our sun and starlight here, Voices of our lost ones sounding Bid us be of heart and cheer, Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward ear. Know we not our dead are looking Downward with a sad surprise, All our strife of words rebuking With their mild and loving eyes? Shall we grieve the holy angels? Shall we cloud their blessed skies? Let us draw their mantles o'er us Which have fallen in our way; Let us do the work before us, Cheerly, bravely, while we may, Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is not day! THE BRANDED HAND. Captain Jonathan Walker, of Harwich, Mass., was solicited by several fugitive slaves at Pensacola, Florida, to carry them in his vessel to the British West Indies. Although well aware of the great hazard of the enterprise he attempted to comply with the request, but was seized at sea by an American vessel, consigned to the authorities at Key West, and thence sent back to Pensacola, where, after a long and rigorous confinement in prison, he was tried and sentenced to be branded on his right hand with the letters "S.S." (slave-stealer) and amerced in a heavy fine. WELCOME home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day; With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve in vain Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery shafts of pain. Is the tyrant's brand upon thee? Did the brutal cravens aim To make God's truth thy falsehood, His holiest work thy shame? When, all blood-quenched, from the torture the iron was withdrawn, How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools to scorn! They change to wrong the duty which God hath written out On the great heart of humanity, too legible for doubt! They, the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from footsole up to crown, Give to shame what God hath given unto honor and renown! Why, that brand is highest honor! than its traces never yet Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon set; And thy unborn generations, as they tread our rocky strand, Shall tell with pride the story of their father's branded hand! As the Templar home was welcome, bearing back- from Syrian wars The scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scimitars, The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crimson span, So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend of God and man. He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave, Thou for His living presence in the bound and bleeding slave; He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod, Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God. For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung, From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of slavery wrung, And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God- deserted shrine, Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the bondman's blood for wine; While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviour knelt, And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt; Thou beheld'st Him in the task-field, in the prison shadows dim, And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto Him! In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above and wave below, Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the babbling schoolmen know; God's stars and silence taught thee, as His angels only can, That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven is Man! That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed, In the depth of God's great goodness may find mercy in his need; But woe to him who crushes the soul with chain and rod, And herds with lower natures the awful form of God! Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman of the wave! Its branded palm shall prophesy, "Salvation to the Slave!" Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel. Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air; Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, look there! Take it henceforth for your standard, like the Bruce's heart of yore, In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before! And the masters of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign, When it points its finger Southward along the Puritan line Can the craft of State avail them? Can a Christless church withstand, In the van of Freedom's onset, the coming of that band? 1846. THE FREED ISLANDS. Written for the anniversary celebration of the first of August, at Milton, 7846. A FEW brief years have passed away Since Britain drove her million slaves Beneath the tropic's fiery ray God willed their freedom; and to-day Life blooms above those island graves! He spoke! across the Carib Sea, We heard the clash of breaking chains, And felt the heart-throb of the free, The first, strong pulse of liberty Which thrilled along the bondman's veins. Though long delayed, and far, and slow, The Briton's triumph shall be ours Wears slavery here a prouder brow Than that which twelve short years ago Scowled darkly from her island bowers? Mighty alike for good or ill With mother-land, we fully share The Saxon strength, the nerve of steel, The tireless energy of will, The power to do, the pride to dare. What she has done can we not do? Our hour and men are both at hand; The blast which Freedom's angel blew O'er her green islands, echoes through Each valley of our forest land. Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn The death of slavery. When it falls, Look to your vassals in their turn, Your poor dumb millions, crushed and worn, Your prisons and your palace walls! O kingly mockers! scoffing show What deeds in Freedom's name we do; Yet know that every taunt ye throw Across the waters, goads our slow Progression towards the right and true. Not always shall your outraged poor, Appalled by democratic crime, Grind as their fathers ground before; The hour which sees our prison door Swing wide shall be their triumph time. On then, my brothers! every blow Ye deal is felt the wide earth through; Whatever here uplifts the low Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe, Blesses the Old World through the New. Take heart! The promised hour draws near; I hear the downward beat of wings, And Freedom's trumpet sounding clear "Joy to the people! woe and fear To new-world tyrants, old-world kings!" A LETTER. Supposed to be written by the chairman of the "Central Clique" at Concord, N. H., to the Hon. M. N., Jr., at Washington, giving the result of the election. The following verses were published in the Boston Chronotype in 1846. They refer to the contest in New Hampshire, which resulted in the defeat of the pro-slavery Democracy, and in the election of John P. Hale to the United States Senate. Although their authorship was not acknowledged, it was strongly suspected. They furnish a specimen of the way, on the whole rather good-natured, in which the liberty-lovers of half a century ago answered the social and political outlawry and mob violence to which they were subjected. 'T is over, Moses! All is lost I hear the bells a-ringing; Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea host I hear the Free-Wills singing (4) We're routed, Moses, horse and foot, If there be truth in figures, With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit, And Hale, and all the "niggers." Alack! alas! this month or more We've felt a sad foreboding; Our very dreams the burden bore Of central cliques exploding; Before our eyes a furnace shone, Where heads of dough were roasting, And one we took to be your own The traitor Hale was toasting! Our Belknap brother (5) heard with awe The Congo minstrels playing; At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt (6) saw The ghost of Storrs a-praying; And Calroll's woods were sad to see, With black-winged crows a-darting; And Black Snout looked on Ossipee, New-glossed with Day and Martin. We thought the "Old Man of the Notch" His face seemed changing wholly-- His lips seemed thick; his nose seemed flat; His misty hair looked woolly; And Coos teamsters, shrieking, fled From the metamorphosed figure. "Look there!" they said, "the Old Stone Head Himself is turning nigger!" The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hauled Seemed turning on its track again, And like a great swamp-turtle crawled To Canaan village back again, Shook off the mud and settled flat Upon its underpinning; A nigger on its ridge-pole sat, From ear to ear a-grinning. Gray H----d heard o' nights the sound Of rail-cars onward faring; Right over Democratic ground The iron horse came tearing. A flag waved o'er that spectral train, As high as Pittsfield steeple; Its emblem was a broken chain; Its motto: "To the people!" I dreamed that Charley took his bed, With Hale for his physician; His daily dose an old "unread And unreferred" petition. (8) There Hayes and Tuck as nurses sat, As near as near could be, man; They leeched him with the "Democrat;" They blistered with the "Freeman." Ah! grisly portents! What avail Your terrors of forewarning? We wake to find the nightmare Hale Astride our breasts at morning! From Portsmouth lights to Indian stream Our foes their throats are trying; The very factory-spindles seem To mock us while they're flying. The hills have bonfires; in our streets Flags flout us in our faces; The newsboys, peddling off their sheets, Are hoarse with our disgraces. In vain we turn, for gibing wit And shoutings follow after, As if old Kearsarge had split His granite sides with laughter. What boots it that we pelted out The anti-slavery women, (9) And bravely strewed their hall about With tattered lace and trimming? Was it for such a sad reverse Our mobs became peacemakers, And kept their tar and wooden horse For Englishmen and Quakers? For this did shifty Atherton Make gag rules for the Great House? Wiped we for this our feet upon Petitions in our State House? Plied we for this our axe of doom, No stubborn traitor sparing, Who scoffed at our opinion loom, And took to homespun wearing? Ah, Moses! hard it is to scan These crooked providences, Deducing from the wisest plan The saddest consequences! Strange that, in trampling as was meet The nigger-men's petition, We sprang a mine beneath our feet Which opened up perdition. How goodly, Moses, was the game In which we've long been actors, Supplying freedom with the name And slavery with the practice Our smooth words fed the people's mouth, Their ears our party rattle; We kept them headed to the South, As drovers do their cattle. But now our game of politics The world at large is learning; And men grown gray in all our tricks State's evidence are turning. Votes and preambles subtly spun They cram with meanings louder, And load the Democratic gun With abolition powder. The ides of June! Woe worth the day When, turning all things over, The traitor Hale shall make his hay From Democratic clover! Who then shall take him in the law, Who punish crime so flagrant? Whose hand shall serve, whose pen shall draw, A writ against that "vagrant"? Alas! no hope is left us here, And one can only pine for The envied place of overseer Of slaves in Carolina! Pray, Moses, give Calhoun the wink, And see what pay he's giving! We've practised long enough, we think, To know the art of driving. And for the faithful rank and file, Who know their proper stations, Perhaps it may be worth their while To try the rice plantations. Let Hale exult, let Wilson scoff, To see us southward scamper; The slaves, we know, are "better off Than laborers in New Hampshire!" LINES FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERICAL FRIEND. A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire, A faith which doubt can never dim, A heart of love, a lip of fire, O Freedom's God! be Thou to him! Speak through him words of power and fear, As through Thy prophet bards of old, And let a scornful people hear Once more Thy Sinai-thunders rolled. For lying lips Thy blessing seek, And hands of blood are raised to Thee, And On Thy children, crushed and weak, The oppressor plants his kneeling knee. Let then, O God! Thy servant dare Thy truth in all its power to tell, Unmask the priestly thieves, and tear The Bible from the grasp of hell! From hollow rite and narrow span Of law and sect by Thee released, Oh, teach him that the Christian man Is holier than the Jewish priest. Chase back the shadows, gray and old, Of the dead ages, from his way, And let his hopeful eyes behold The dawn of Thy millennial day; That day when fettered limb and mind Shall know the truth which maketh free, And he alone who loves his kind Shall, childlike, claim the love of Thee! DANIEL NEALL. Dr. Neall, a worthy disciple of that venerated philanthropist, Warner Mifflin, whom the Girondist statesman, Jean Pierre Brissot, pronounced "an angel of mercy, the best man he ever knew," was one of the noble band of Pennsylvania abolitionists, whose bravery was equalled only by their gentleness and tenderness. He presided at the great anti-slavery meeting in Pennsylvania Hall, May 17, 1838, when the Hall was surrounded by a furious mob. I was standing near him while the glass of the windows broken by missiles showered over him, and a deputation from the rioters forced its way to the platform, and demanded that the meeting should be closed at once. Dr. Neall drew up his tall form to its utmost height. "I am here," he said, "the president of this meeting, and I will be torn in pieces before I leave my place at your dictation. Go back to those who sent you. I shall do my duty." Some years after, while visiting his relatives in his native State of Delaware, he was dragged from the house of his friends by a mob of slave-holders and brutally maltreated. He bore it like a martyr of the old times; and when released, told his persecutors that he forgave them, for it was not they but Slavery which had done the wrong. If they should ever be in Philadelphia and needed hospitality or aid, let them call on him. I. FRIEND of the Slave, and yet the friend of all; Lover of peace, yet ever foremost when The need of battling Freedom called for men To plant the banner on the outer wall; Gentle and kindly, ever at distress Melted to more than woman's tenderness, Yet firm and steadfast, at his duty's post Fronting the violence of a maddened host, Like some gray rock from which the waves are tossed! Knowing his deeds of love, men questioned not The faith of one whose walk and word were right; Who tranquilly in Life's great task-field wrought, And, side by side with evil, scarcely caught A stain upon his pilgrim garb of white Prompt to redress another's wrong, his own Leaving to Time and Truth and Penitence alone. II. Such was our friend. Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will What others talked of while their hands were still; And, while "Lord, Lord!" the pious tyrants cried, Who, in the poor, their Master crucified, His daily prayer, far better understood In acts than words, was simply doing good. So calm, so constant was his rectitude, That by his loss alone we know its worth, And feel how true a man has walked with us on earth. 6th, 6th month, 1846. SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT. "Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, 10th March, 1846.--This evening the female slaves were unusually excited in singing, and I had the curiosity to ask my negro servant, Said, what they were singing about. As many of them were natives of his own country, he had no difficulty in translating the Mandara or Bornou language. I had often asked the Moors to translate their songs for me, but got no satisfactory account from them. Said at first said, 'Oh, they sing of Rubee' (God). 'What do you mean?' I replied, impatiently. 'Oh, don't you know?' he continued, 'they asked God to give them their Atka?' (certificate of freedom). I inquired, 'Is that all?' Said: 'No; they say, "Where are we going? The world is large. O God! Where are we going? O God!"' I inquired, 'What else?' Said: 'They remember their country, Bornou, and say, "Bornou was a pleasant country, full of all good things; but this is a bad country, and we are miserable!"' 'Do they say anything else?' Said: 'No; they repeat these words over and over again, and add, "O God! give us our Atka, and let us return again to our dear home."' "I am not surprised I got little satisfaction when I asked the Moors about the songs of their slaves. Who will say that the above words are not a very appropriate song? What could have been more congenially adapted to their then woful condition? It is not to be wondered at that these poor bondwomen cheer up their hearts, in their long, lonely, and painful wanderings over the desert, with words and sentiments like these; but I have often observed that their fatigue and sufferings were too great for them to strike up this melancholy dirge, and many days their plaintive strains never broke over the silence of the desert."-- Richardson's Journal in Africa. WHERE are we going? where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee? Lord of peoples, lord of lands, Look across these shining sands, Through the furnace of the noon, Through the white light of the moon. Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing, Strange and large the world is growing! Speak and tell us where we are going, Where are we going, Rubee? Bornou land was rich and good, Wells of water, fields of food, Dourra fields, and bloom of bean, And the palm-tree cool and green Bornou land we see no longer, Here we thirst and here we hunger, Here the Moor-man smites in anger Where are we going, Rubee? When we went from Bornou land, We were like the leaves and sand, We were many, we are few; Life has one, and death has two Whitened bones our path are showing, Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowing Hear us, tell us, where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee? Moons of marches from our eyes Bornou land behind us lies; Stranger round us day by day Bends the desert circle gray; Wild the waves of sand are flowing, Hot the winds above them blowing,-- Lord of all things! where are we going? Where are we going, Rubee? We are weak, but Thou art strong; Short our lives, but Thine is long; We are blind, but Thou hast eyes; We are fools, but Thou art wise! Thou, our morrow's pathway knowing Through the strange world round us growing, Hear us, tell us where are we going, Where are we going, Rubee? 1847. TO DELAWARE. Written during the discussion in the Legislature of that State, in the winter of 1846-47, of a bill for the abolition of slavery. THRICE welcome to thy sisters of the East, To the strong tillers of a rugged home, With spray-wet locks to Northern winds released, And hardy feet o'erswept by ocean's foam; And to the young nymphs of the golden West, Whose harvest mantles, fringed with prairie bloom, Trail in the sunset,--O redeemed and blest, To the warm welcome of thy sisters come! Broad Pennsylvania, down her sail-white bay Shall give thee joy, and Jersey from her plains, And the great lakes, where echo, free alway, Moaned never shoreward with the clank of chains, Shall weave new sun-bows in their tossing spray, And all their waves keep grateful holiday. And, smiling on thee through her mountain rains, Vermont shall bless thee; and the granite peaks, And vast Katahdin o'er his woods, shall wear Their snow-crowns brighter in the cold, keen air; And Massachusetts, with her rugged cheeks O'errun with grateful tears, shall turn to thee, When, at thy bidding, the electric wire Shall tremble northward with its words of fire; Glory and praise to God! another State is free! 1847. YORKTOWN. Dr. Thacher, surgeon in Scammel's regiment, in his description of the siege of Yorktown, says: "The labor on the Virginia plantations is performed altogether by a species of the human race cruelly wrested from their native country, and doomed to perpetual bondage, while their masters are manfully contending for freedom and the natural rights of man. Such is the inconsistency of human nature." Eighteen hundred slaves were found at Yorktown, after its surrender, and restored to their masters. Well was it said by Dr. Barnes, in his late work on Slavery: "No slave was any nearer his freedom after the surrender of Yorktown than when Patrick Henry first taught the notes of liberty to echo among the hills and vales of Virginia." FROM Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill Who curbs his steed at head of one? Hark! the low murmur: Washington! Who bends his keen, approving glance, Where down the gorgeous line of France Shine knightly star and plume of snow? Thou too art victor, Rochambeau! The earth which bears this calm array Shook with the war-charge yesterday, Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel, Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel; October's clear and noonday sun Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun, And down night's double blackness fell, Like a dropped star, the blazing shell. Now all is hushed: the gleaming lines Stand moveless as the neighboring pines; While through them, sullen, grim, and slow, The conquered hosts of England go O'Hara's brow belies his dress, Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerless: Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes, Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes! Nor thou alone; with one glad voice Let all thy sister States rejoice; Let Freedom, in whatever clime She waits with sleepless eye her time, Shouting from cave and mountain wood Make glad her desert solitude, While they who hunt her quail with fear; The New World's chain lies broken here! But who are they, who, cowering, wait Within the shattered fortress gate? Dark tillers of Virginia's soil, Classed with the battle's common spoil, With household stuffs, and fowl, and swine, With Indian weed and planters' wine, With stolen beeves, and foraged corn,-- Are they not men, Virginian born? Oh, veil your faces, young and brave! Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave Sons of the Northland, ye who set Stout hearts against the bayonet, And pressed with steady footfall near The moated battery's blazing tier, Turn your scarred faces from the sight, Let shame do homage to the right! Lo! fourscore years have passed; and where The Gallic bugles stirred the air, And, through breached batteries, side by side, To victory stormed the hosts allied, And brave foes grounded, pale with pain, The arms they might not lift again, As abject as in that old day The slave still toils his life away. Oh, fields still green and fresh in story, Old days of pride, old names of glory, Old marvels of the tongue and pen, Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men, Ye spared the wrong; and over all Behold the avenging shadow fall! Your world-wide honor stained with shame,-- Your freedom's self a hollow name! Where's now the flag of that old war? Where flows its stripe? Where burns its star? Bear witness, Palo Alto's day, Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey, Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak; Symbol of terror and despair, Of chains and slaves, go seek it there! Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks! Brave sport to see the fledgling born Of Freedom by its parent torn! Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell, Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled, What of the New World fears the Old? 1847. RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. O MOTHER EARTH! upon thy lap Thy weary ones receiving, And o'er them, silent as a dream, Thy grassy mantle weaving, Fold softly in thy long embrace That heart so worn and broken, And cool its pulse of fire beneath Thy shadows old and oaken. Shut out from him the bitter word And serpent hiss of scorning; Nor let the storms of yesterday Disturb his quiet morning. Breathe over him forgetfulness Of all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids in blindness. There, where with living ear and eye He heard Potomac's flowing, And, through his tall ancestral trees, Saw autumn's sunset glowing, He sleeps, still looking to the west, Beneath the dark wood shadow, As if he still would see the sun Sink down on wave and meadow. Bard, Sage, and Tribune! in himself All moods of mind contrasting,-- The tenderest wail of human woe, The scorn like lightning blasting; The pathos which from rival eyes Unwilling tears could summon, The stinging taunt, the fiery burst Of hatred scarcely human! Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower, From lips of life-long sadness; Clear picturings of majestic thought Upon a ground of madness; And over all Romance and Song A classic beauty throwing, And laurelled Clio at his side Her storied pages showing. All parties feared him: each in turn Beheld its schemes disjointed, As right or left his fatal glance And spectral finger pointed. Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down With trenchant wit