The surest foot may chance at last to slip, And so at length it proved with Doctor Rip. One full-sized bottle stood upon the shelf, Which held the medicine that he took himself; Whate'er the reason, it must be confessed He filled that bottle oftener than the rest; What drug it held I don't presume to know— The gilded label said "Elixir Pro."

One day the Doctor found the bottle full, And, being thirsty, took a vigorous pull, Put back the "Elixir" where 't was always found, And had old Dobbin saddled and brought round. —You know those old-time rhubarb-colored nags That carried Doctors and their saddle-bags; Sagacious beasts! they stopped at every place Where blinds were shut—knew every patient's case— Looked up and thought—The baby's in a fit— That won't last long—he'll soon be through with it; But shook their heads before the knockered door Where some old lady told the story o'er Whose endless stream of tribulation flows For gastric griefs and peristaltic woes.

What jack-o'-lantern led him from his way, And where it led him, it were hard to say; Enough that wandering many a weary mile Through paths the mountain sheep trod single file, O'ercome by feelings such as patients know Who dose too freely with "Elixir Pro.," He tumbl—dismounted, slightly in a heap, And lay, promiscuous, lapped in balmy sleep.

Night followed night, and day succeeded day, But snoring still the slumbering Doctor lay. Poor Dobbin, starving, thought upon his stall, And straggled homeward, saddle-bags and all. The village people hunted all around, But Rip was missing,—never could be found. "Drownded," they guessed;—for more than half a year The pouts and eels did taste uncommon queer; Some said of apple-brandy—other some Found a strong flavor of New England rum.

Why can't a fellow hear the fine things said About a fellow when a fellow's dead? The best of doctors—so the press declared— A public blessing while his life was spared, True to his country, bounteous to the poor, In all things temperate, sober, just, and pure; The best of husbands! echoed Mrs. Van, And set her cap to catch another man.

So ends this Canto—if it's quantum suff., We'll just stop here and say we've had enough, And leave poor Rip to sleep for thirty years; I grind the organ—if you lend your ears To hear my second Canto, after that We 'll send around the monkey with the hat.

CANTO SECOND

So thirty years had passed—but not a word In all that time of Rip was ever heard; The world wagged on—it never does go back— The widow Van was now the widow Mac—— France was an Empire—Andrew J. was dead, And Abraham L. was reigning in his stead. Four murderous years had passed in savage strife, Yet still the rebel held his bloody knife.

—At last one morning—who forgets the day When the black cloud of war dissolved away The joyous tidings spread o'er land and sea, Rebellion done for! Grant has captured Lee! Up every flagstaff sprang the Stars and Stripes— Out rushed the Extras wild with mammoth types— Down went the laborer's hod, the school-boy's book— "Hooraw!" he cried, "the rebel army's took!" Ah! what a time! the folks all mad with joy Each fond, pale mother thinking of her boy; Old gray-haired fathers meeting—"Have—you—heard?" And then a choke—and not another word; Sisters all smiling—maidens, not less dear, In trembling poise between a smile and tear; Poor Bridget thinking how she 'll stuff the plums In that big cake for Johnny when he comes; Cripples afoot; rheumatics on the jump; Old girls so loving they could hug the pump; Guns going bang! from every fort and ship; They banged so loud at last they wakened Rip.

I spare the picture, how a man appears Who's been asleep a score or two of years; You all have seen it to perfection done By Joe Van Wink—I mean Rip Jefferson. Well, so it was; old Rip at last came back, Claimed his old wife—the present widow Mac—— Had his old sign regilded, and began To practise physic on the same old plan. Some weeks went by—it was not long to wait— And "please to call" grew frequent on the slate. He had, in fact, an ancient, mildewed air, A long gray beard, a plenteous lack of hair,— The musty look that always recommends Your good old Doctor to his ailing friends. —Talk of your science! after all is said There's nothing like a bare and shiny head; Age lends the graces that are sure to please; Folks want their Doctors mouldy, like their cheese.

So Rip began to look at people's tongues And thump their briskets (called it "sound their lungs"), Brushed up his knowledge smartly as he could, Read in old Cullen and in Doctor Good. The town was healthy; for a month or two He gave the sexton little work to do.

About the time when dog-day heats begin, The summer's usual maladies set in; With autumn evenings dysentery came, And dusky typhoid lit his smouldering flame; The blacksmith ailed, the carpenter was down, And half the children sickened in the town. The sexton's face grew shorter than before— The sexton's wife a brand-new bonnet wore— Things looked quite serious—Death had got a grip On old and young, in spite of Doctor Rip.

And now the Squire was taken with a chill— Wife gave "hot-drops"—at night an Indian pill; Next morning, feverish—bedtime, getting worse— Out of his head—began to rave and curse; The Doctor sent for—double quick he came Ant. Tart. gran. duo, and repeat the same If no et cetera. Third day—nothing new; Percussed his thorax till 't was black and blue— Lung-fever threatening—something of the sort— Out with the lancet—let him bleed—a quart— Ten leeches next—then blisters to his side; Ten grains of calomel; just then he died.

The Deacon next required the Doctor's care— Took cold by sitting in a draught of air— Pains in the back, but what the matter is Not quite so clear,—wife calls it "rheumatiz." Rubs back with flannel—gives him something hot— "Ah!" says the Deacon, "that goes nigh the spot." Next day a rigor—"Run, my little man, And say the Deacon sends for Doctor Van." The Doctor came—percussion as before, Thumping and banging till his ribs were sore— "Right side the flattest"—then more vigorous raps— "Fever—that's certain—pleurisy, perhaps. A quart of blood will ease the pain, no doubt, Ten leeches next will help to suck it out, Then clap a blister on the painful part— But first two grains of Antimonium Tart. Last with a dose of cleansing calomel Unload the portal system—(that sounds well!)"

But when the selfsame remedies were tried, As all the village knew, the Squire had died;

The neighbors hinted. "This will never do; He's killed the Squire—he'll kill the Deacon too."

Now when a doctor's patients are perplexed, A consultation comes in order next— You know what that is? In a certain place Meet certain doctors to discuss a case And other matters, such as weather, crops, Potatoes, pumpkins, lager-beer, and hops. For what's the use?—there 's little to be said, Nine times in ten your man's as good as dead; At best a talk (the secret to disclose) Where three men guess and sometimes one man knows.

The counsel summoned came without delay— Young Doctor Green and shrewd old Doctor Gray— They heard the story—"Bleed!" says Doctor Green, "That's downright murder! cut his throat, you mean Leeches! the reptiles! Why, for pity's sake, Not try an adder or a rattlesnake? Blisters! Why bless you, they 're against the law— It's rank assault and battery if they draw Tartrate of Antimony! shade of Luke, Stomachs turn pale at thought of such rebuke! The portal system! What's the man about? Unload your nonsense! Calomel's played out! You've been asleep—you'd better sleep away Till some one calls you."

"Stop!" says Doctor Gray— "The story is you slept for thirty years; With brother Green, I own that it appears You must have slumbered most amazing sound; But sleep once more till thirty years come round, You'll find the lancet in its honored place, Leeches and blisters rescued from disgrace, Your drugs redeemed from fashion's passing scorn, And counted safe to give to babes unborn."

Poor sleepy Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D., A puzzled, serious, saddened man was he; Home from the Deacon's house he plodded slow And filled one bumper of "Elixir Pro." "Good-by," he faltered, "Mrs. Van, my dear! I'm going to sleep, but wake me once a year; I don't like bleaching in the frost and dew, I'll take the barn, if all the same to you. Just once a year—remember! no mistake! Cry, 'Rip Van Winkle! time for you to wake!' Watch for the week in May when laylocks blow, For then the Doctors meet, and I must go."

Just once a year the Doctor's worthy dame Goes to the barn and shouts her husband's name; "Come, Rip Van Winkle!" (giving him a shake) "Rip! Rip Van Winkle! time for you to wake! Laylocks in blossom! 't is the month of May— The Doctors' meeting is this blessed day, And come what will, you know I heard you swear You'd never miss it, but be always there!"

And so it is, as every year comes round Old Rip Van Winkle here is always found. You'll quickly know him by his mildewed air, The hayseed sprinkled through his scanty hair, The lichens growing on his rusty suit— I've seen a toadstool sprouting on his boot— Who says I lie? Does any man presume?— Toadstool? No matter—call it a mushroom. Where is his seat? He moves it every year; But look, you'll find him,—he is always here,— Perhaps you'll track him by a whiff you know— A certain flavor of "Elixir Pro."

Now, then, I give you—as you seem to think We can give toasts without a drop to drink— Health to the mighty sleeper,—long live he! Our brother Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D.!



SONGS IN MANY KEYS

1849-1861

THE piping of our slender, peaceful reeds Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray; Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds, Following the mighty van that Freedom leads, Her glorious standard flaming to the day! The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleeds Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay. Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are better worth Than strains that sing the ravished echoes dumb. Hark! 't is the loud reverberating drum Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock-bound North The myriad-handed Future stretches forth Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come,—we come!

Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as these Were not unsought for, as, in languid dreams, We lay beside our lotus-feeding streams, And nursed our fancies in forgetful ease. It matters little if they pall or please, Dropping untimely, while the sudden gleams Glare from the mustering clouds whose blackness seems Too swollen to hold its lightning from the trees. Yet, in some lull of passion, when at last These calm revolving moons that come and go— Turning our months to years, they creep so slow— Have brought us rest, the not unwelcome past May flutter to thee through these leaflets, cast On the wild winds that all around us blow. May 1, 1861.

AGNES

The story of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage is told in the ballad with a very strict adhesion to the facts. These were obtained from information afforded me by the Rev. Mr. Webster, of Hopkinton, in company with whom I visited the Frankland Mansion in that town, then standing; from a very interesting Memoir, by the Rev. Elias Nason, of Medford; and from the manuscript diary of Sir Harry, or more properly Sir Charles Henry Frankland, now in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

At the time of the visit referred to, old Julia was living, and on our return we called at the house where she resided.—[She was living June 10, 1861, when this ballad was published]—Her account is little more than paraphrased in the poem. If the incidents are treated with a certain liberality at the close of the fifth part, the essential fact that Agnes rescued Sir Harry from the ruins after the earthquake, and their subsequent marriage as related, may be accepted as literal truth. So with regard to most of the trifling details which are given; they are taken from the record. It is greatly to be regretted that the Frankland Mansion no longer exists. It was accidentally burned on the 23d of January, 1858, a year or two after the first sketch of this ballad was written. A visit to it was like stepping out of the century into the years before the Revolution. A new house, similar in plan and arrangements to the old one, has been built upon its site, and the terraces, the clump of box, and the lilacs doubtless remain to bear witness to the truth of this story.

The story, which I have told literally in rhyme, has been made the subject of a carefully studied and interesting romance by Mr. E. L. Bynner.



PART FIRST

THE KNIGHT

THE tale I tell is gospel true, As all the bookmen know, And pilgrims who have strayed to view The wrecks still left to show.

The old, old story,—fair, and young, And fond,—and not too wise,— That matrons tell, with sharpened tongue, To maids with downcast eyes.

Ah! maidens err and matrons warn Beneath the coldest sky; Love lurks amid the tasselled corn As in the bearded rye!

But who would dream our sober sires Had learned the old world's ways, And warmed their hearths with lawless fires In Shirley's homespun days?

'T is like some poet's pictured trance His idle rhymes recite,— This old New England-born romance Of Agnes and the Knight;

Yet, known to all the country round, Their home is standing still, Between Wachusett's lonely mound And Shawmut's threefold hill.

One hour we rumble on the rail, One half-hour guide the rein, We reach at last, o'er hill and dale, The village on the plain.

With blackening wall and mossy roof, With stained and warping floor, A stately mansion stands aloof And bars its haughty door.

This lowlier portal may be tried, That breaks the gable wall; And lo! with arches opening wide, Sir Harry Frankland's hall!

'T was in the second George's day They sought the forest shade, The knotted trunks they cleared away, The massive beams they laid,

They piled the rock-hewn chimney tall, They smoothed the terraced ground, They reared the marble-pillared wall That fenced the mansion round.

Far stretched beyond the village bound The Master's broad domain; With page and valet, horse and hound, He kept a goodly train.

And, all the midland county through, The ploughman stopped to gaze Whene'er his chariot swept in view Behind the shining bays,

With mute obeisance, grave and slow, Repaid by nod polite,— For such the way with high and low Till after Concord fight.

Nor less to courtly circles known That graced the three-hilled town With far-off splendors of the Throne, And glimmerings from the Crown;

Wise Phipps, who held the seals of state For Shirley over sea; Brave Knowles, whose press-gang moved of late The King Street mob's decree;

And judges grave, and colonels grand, Fair dames and stately men, The mighty people of the land, The "World" of there and then.

'T was strange no Chloe's "beauteous Form," And "Eyes' celestial Blew," This Strephon of the West could warm, No Nymph his Heart subdue.

Perchance he wooed as gallants use, Whom fleeting loves enchain, But still unfettered, free to choose, Would brook no bridle-rein.

He saw the fairest of the fair, But smiled alike on all; No band his roving foot might snare, No ring his hand enthrall.



PART SECOND

THE MAIDEN

Why seeks the knight that rocky cape Beyond the Bay of Lynn? What chance his wayward course may shape To reach its village inn?

No story tells; whate'er we guess, The past lies deaf and still, But Fate, who rules to blight or bless, Can lead us where she will.

Make way! Sir Harry's coach and four, And liveried grooms that ride! They cross the ferry, touch the shore On Winnisimmet's side.

They hear the wash on Chelsea Beach,— The level marsh they pass, Where miles on miles the desert reach Is rough with bitter grass.

The shining horses foam and pant, And now the smells begin Of fishy Swampscott, salt Nahant, And leather-scented Lynn.

Next, on their left, the slender spires And glittering vanes that crown The home of Salem's frugal sires, The old, witch-haunted town.

So onward, o'er the rugged way That runs through rocks and sand, Showered by the tempest-driven spray, From bays on either hand,

That shut between their outstretched arms The crews of Marblehead, The lords of ocean's watery farms, Who plough the waves for bread.

At last the ancient inn appears, The spreading elm below, Whose flapping sign these fifty years Has seesawed to and fro.

How fair the azure fields in sight Before the low-browed inn The tumbling billows fringe with light The crescent shore of Lynn;

Nahant thrusts outward through the waves Her arm of yellow sand, And breaks the roaring surge that braves The gauntlet on her hand;

With eddying whirl the waters lock Yon treeless mound forlorn, The sharp-winged sea-fowl's breeding-rock, That fronts the Spouting Horn;

Then free the white-sailed shallops glide, And wide the ocean smiles, Till, shoreward bent, his streams divide The two bare Misery Isles.

The master's silent signal stays The wearied cavalcade; The coachman reins his smoking bays Beneath the elm-tree's shade.

A gathering on the village green! The cocked-hats crowd to see, On legs in ancient velveteen, With buckles at the knee.

A clustering round the tavern-door Of square-toed village boys, Still wearing, as their grandsires wore, The old-world corduroys!

A scampering at the "Fountain" inn,—- A rush of great and small,— With hurrying servants' mingled din And screaming matron's call.

Poor Agnes! with her work half done They caught her unaware; As, humbly, like a praying nun, She knelt upon the stair;

Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien She knelt, but not to pray,— Her little hands must keep them clean, And wash their stains away.

A foot, an ankle, bare and white, Her girlish shapes betrayed,— "Ha! Nymphs and Graces!" spoke the Knight; "Look up, my beauteous Maid!"

She turned,—a reddening rose in bud, Its calyx half withdrawn,— Her cheek on fire with damasked blood Of girlhood's glowing dawn!

He searched her features through and through, As royal lovers look On lowly maidens, when they woo Without the ring and book.

"Come hither, Fair one! Here, my Sweet! Nay, prithee, look not down! Take this to shoe those little feet,"— He tossed a silver crown.

A sudden paleness struck her brow,— A swifter blush succeeds; It burns her cheek; it kindles now Beneath her golden beads.

She flitted, but the glittering eye Still sought the lovely face. Who was she? What, and whence? and why Doomed to such menial place?

A skipper's daughter,—so they said,— Left orphan by the gale That cost the fleet of Marblehead And Gloucester thirty sail.

Ah! many a lonely home is found Along the Essex shore, That cheered its goodman outward bound, And sees his face no more!

"Not so," the matron whispered,—"sure No orphan girl is she,— The Surriage folk are deadly poor Since Edward left the sea,

"And Mary, with her growing brood, Has work enough to do To find the children clothes and food With Thomas, John, and Hugh.

"This girl of Mary's, growing tall,— (Just turned her sixteenth year,)— To earn her bread and help them all, Would work as housemaid here."

So Agnes, with her golden beads, And naught beside as dower, Grew at the wayside with the weeds, Herself a garden-flower.

'T was strange, 't was sad,—so fresh, so fair! Thus Pity's voice began. Such grace! an angel's shape and air! The half-heard whisper ran.

For eyes could see in George's time, As now in later days, And lips could shape, in prose and rhyme, The honeyed breath of praise.

No time to woo! The train must go Long ere the sun is down, To reach, before the night-winds blow, The many-steepled town.

'T is midnight,—street and square are still; Dark roll the whispering waves That lap the piers beneath the hill Ridged thick with ancient graves.

Ah, gentle sleep! thy hand will smooth The weary couch of pain, When all thy poppies fail to soothe The lover's throbbing brain!

'T is morn,—the orange-mantled sun Breaks through the fading gray, And long and loud the Castle gun Peals o'er the glistening bay.

"Thank God 't is day!" With eager eye He hails the morning shine:— "If art can win, or gold can buy, The maiden shall be mine!"



PART THIRD

THE CONQUEST

"Who saw this hussy when she came? What is the wench, and who?" They whisper. "Agnes—is her name? Pray what has she to do?"

The housemaids parley at the gate, The scullions on the stair, And in the footmen's grave debate The butler deigns to share.

Black Dinah, stolen when a child, And sold on Boston pier, Grown up in service, petted, spoiled, Speaks in the coachman's ear:

"What, all this household at his will? And all are yet too few? More servants, and more servants still,— This pert young madam too!"

"Servant! fine servant!" laughed aloud The man of coach and steeds; "She looks too fair, she steps too proud, This girl with golden beads!

"I tell you, you may fret and frown, And call her what you choose, You 'll find my Lady in her gown, Your Mistress in her shoes!"

Ah, gentle maidens, free from blame, God grant you never know The little whisper, loud with shame, That makes the world your foe!

Why tell the lordly flatterer's art, That won the maiden's ear,— The fluttering of the frightened heart, The blush, the smile, the tear?

Alas! it were the saddening tale That every language knows,— The wooing wind, the yielding sail, The sunbeam and the rose.

And now the gown of sober stuff Has changed to fair brocade, With broidered hem, and hanging cuff, And flower of silken braid;

And clasped around her blanching wrist A jewelled bracelet shines, Her flowing tresses' massive twist A glittering net confines;

And mingling with their truant wave A fretted chain is hung; But ah! the gift her mother gave,— Its beads are all unstrung!

Her place is at the master's board, Where none disputes her claim; She walks beside the mansion's lord, His bride in all but name.

The busy tongues have ceased to talk, Or speak in softened tone, So gracious in her daily walk The angel light has shown.

No want that kindness may relieve Assails her heart in vain, The lifting of a ragged sleeve Will check her palfrey's rein.

A thoughtful calm, a quiet grace In every movement shown, Reveal her moulded for the place She may not call her own.

And, save that on her youthful brow There broods a shadowy care, No matron sealed with holy vow In all the land so fair.



PART FOURTH

THE RESCUE

A ship comes foaming up the bay, Along the pier she glides; Before her furrow melts away, A courier mounts and rides.

"Haste, Haste, post Haste!" the letters bear; "Sir Harry Frankland, These." Sad news to tell the loving pair! The knight must cross the seas.

"Alas! we part!"—the lips that spoke Lost all their rosy red, As when a crystal cup is broke, And all its wine is shed.

"Nay, droop not thus,—where'er," he cried, "I go by land or sea, My love, my life, my joy, my pride, Thy place is still by me!"

Through town and city, far and wide, Their wandering feet have strayed, From Alpine lake to ocean tide, And cold Sierra's shade.

At length they see the waters gleam Amid the fragrant bowers Where Lisbon mirrors in the stream Her belt of ancient towers.

Red is the orange on its bough, To-morrow's sun shall fling O'er Cintra's hazel-shaded brow The flush of April's wing.

The streets are loud with noisy mirth, They dance on every green; The morning's dial marks the birth Of proud Braganza's queen.

At eve beneath their pictured dome The gilded courtiers throng; The broad moidores have cheated Rome Of all her lords of song.

AH! Lisbon dreams not of the day— Pleased with her painted scenes— When all her towers shall slide away As now these canvas screens!

The spring has passed, the summer fled, And yet they linger still, Though autumn's rustling leaves have spread The flank of Cintra's hill.

The town has learned their Saxon name, And touched their English gold, Nor tale of doubt nor hint of blame From over sea is told.

Three hours the first November dawn Has climbed with feeble ray Through mists like heavy curtains drawn Before the darkened day.

How still the muffled echoes sleep! Hark! hark! a hollow sound,— A noise like chariots rumbling deep Beneath the solid ground.

The channel lifts, the water slides And bares its bar of sand, Anon a mountain billow strides And crashes o'er the land.

The turrets lean, the steeples reel Like masts on ocean's swell, And clash a long discordant peal, The death-doomed city's knell.

The pavement bursts, the earth upheaves Beneath the staggering town! The turrets crack—the castle cleaves— The spires come rushing down.

Around, the lurid mountains glow With strange unearthly gleams; While black abysses gape below, Then close in jagged seams.

And all is over. Street and square In ruined heaps are piled; Ah! where is she, so frail, so fair, Amid the tumult wild?

Unscathed, she treads the wreck-piled street, Whose narrow gaps afford A pathway for her bleeding feet, To seek her absent lord.

A temple's broken walls arrest Her wild and wandering eyes; Beneath its shattered portal pressed, Her lord unconscious lies.

The power that living hearts obey Shall lifeless blocks withstand? Love led her footsteps where he lay,— Love nerves her woman's hand.

One cry,—the marble shaft she grasps,— Up heaves the ponderous stone:— He breathes,—her fainting form he clasps,— Her life has bought his own!



PART FIFTH

THE REWARD

How like the starless night of death Our being's brief eclipse, When faltering heart and failing breath Have bleached the fading lips!

The earth has folded like a wave, And thrice a thousand score, Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave, The sun shall see no more!

She lives! What guerdon shall repay His debt of ransomed life? One word can charm all wrongs away,— The sacred name of WIFE!

The love that won her girlish charms Must shield her matron fame, And write beneath the Frankland arms The village beauty's name.

Go, call the priest! no vain delay Shall dim the sacred ring! Who knows what change the passing day, The fleeting hour, may bring?

Before the holy altar bent, There kneels a goodly pair; A stately man, of high descent, A woman, passing fair.

No jewels lend the blinding sheen That meaner beauty needs, But on her bosom heaves unseen A string of golden beads.

The vow is spoke,—the prayer is said,— And with a gentle pride The Lady Agnes lifts her head, Sir Harry Frankland's bride.

No more her faithful heart shall bear Those griefs so meekly borne,— The passing sneer, the freezing stare, The icy look of scorn;

No more the blue-eyed English dames Their haughty lips shall curl, Whene'er a hissing whisper names The poor New England girl.

But stay!—his mother's haughty brow,— The pride of ancient race,— Will plighted faith, and holy vow, Win back her fond embrace?

Too well she knew the saddening tale Of love no vow had blest, That turned his blushing honors pale And stained his knightly crest.

They seek his Northern home,—alas He goes alone before;— His own dear Agnes may not pass The proud, ancestral door.

He stood before the stately dame; He spoke; she calmly heard, But not to pity, nor to blame; She breathed no single word.

He told his love,—her faith betrayed; She heard with tearless eyes; Could she forgive the erring maid? She stared in cold surprise.

How fond her heart, he told,—how true; The haughty eyelids fell;— The kindly deeds she loved to do; She murmured, "It is well."

But when he told that fearful day, And how her feet were led To where entombed in life he lay, The breathing with the dead,

And how she bruised her tender breasts Against the crushing stone, That still the strong-armed clown protests No man can lift alone,—

Oh! then the frozen spring was broke; By turns she wept and smiled;— "Sweet Agnes!" so the mother spoke, "God bless my angel child.

"She saved thee from the jaws of death,— 'T is thine to right her wrongs; I tell thee,—I, who gave thee breath,— To her thy life belongs!"

Thus Agnes won her noble name, Her lawless lover's hand; The lowly maiden so became A lady in the land!



PART SIXTH

CONCLUSION

The tale is done; it little needs To track their after ways, And string again the golden beads Of love's uncounted days.

They leave the fair ancestral isle For bleak New England's shore; How gracious is the courtly smile Of all who frowned before!

Again through Lisbon's orange bowers They watch the river's gleam, And shudder as her shadowy towers Shake in the trembling stream.

Fate parts at length the fondest pair; His cheek, alas! grows pale; The breast that trampling death could spare His noiseless shafts assail.

He longs to change the heaven of blue For England's clouded sky,— To breathe the air his boyhood knew; He seeks then but to die.

Hard by the terraced hillside town, Where healing streamlets run, Still sparkling with their old renown,— The "Waters of the Sun,"—

The Lady Agnes raised the stone That marks his honored grave, And there Sir Harry sleeps alone By Wiltshire Avon's wave.

The home of early love was dear; She sought its peaceful shade, And kept her state for many a year, With none to make afraid.

At last the evil days were come That saw the red cross fall; She hears the rebels' rattling drum,— Farewell to Frankland Hall!

I tell you, as my tale began, The hall is standing still; And you, kind listener, maid or man, May see it if you will.

The box is glistening huge and green, Like trees the lilacs grow, Three elms high-arching still are seen, And one lies stretched below.

The hangings, rough with velvet flowers, Flap on the latticed wall; And o'er the mossy ridge-pole towers The rock-hewn chimney tall.

The doors on mighty hinges clash With massive bolt and bar, The heavy English-moulded sash Scarce can the night-winds jar.

Behold the chosen room he sought Alone, to fast and pray, Each year, as chill November brought The dismal earthquake day.

There hung the rapier blade he wore, Bent in its flattened sheath; The coat the shrieking woman tore Caught in her clenching teeth;—

The coat with tarnished silver lace She snapped at as she slid, And down upon her death-white face Crashed the huge coffin's lid.

A graded terrace yet remains; If on its turf you stand And look along the wooded plains That stretch on either hand,

The broken forest walls define A dim, receding view, Where, on the far horizon's line, He cut his vista through.

If further story you shall crave, Or ask for living proof, Go see old Julia, born a slave Beneath Sir Harry's roof.

She told me half that I have told, And she remembers well The mansion as it looked of old Before its glories fell;—

The box, when round the terraced square Its glossy wall was drawn; The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, The roses on the lawn.

And Julia says, with truthful look Stamped on her wrinkled face, That in her own black hands she took The coat with silver lace.

And you may hold the story light, Or, if you like, believe; But there it was, the woman's bite,— A mouthful from the sleeve.

Now go your ways;—I need not tell The moral of my rhyme; But, youths and maidens, ponder well This tale of olden time!



THE PLOUGHMAN ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, OCTOBER 4, 1849

CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam! Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow, The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!

First in the field before the reddening sun, Last in the shadows when the day is done, Line after line, along the bursting sod, Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod; Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide, The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide; Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves, Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves; Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train Slants the long track that scores the level plain; Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay, The patient convoy breaks its destined way; At every turn the loosening chains resound, The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round, Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.

These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; This is the page, whose letters shall be seen Changed by the sun to words of living green; This is the scholar, whose immortal pen Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men; These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil Shows on his deed,—the charter of the soil.

O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time We stain thy flowers,—they blossom o'er the dead; We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain, Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms, Let not our virtues in thy love decay, And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away.

No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed; By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests; By these fair plains the mountain circle screens, And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines, True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil To crown with peace their own untainted soil; And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind, If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind, These stately forms, that bending even now Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough, Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, The same stern iron in the same right hand, Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run, The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won!



SPRING

WINTER is past; the heart of Nature warms Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms; Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen, The southern slopes are fringed with tender green; On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves, Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves, Bright with the hues from wider pictures won, White, azure, golden,—drift, or sky, or sun,— The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest; The violet, gazing on the arch of blue Till her own iris wears its deepened hue; The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves; The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave, Drugged with the opiate that November gave, Beats with faint wing against the sunny pane, Or crawls, tenacious, o'er its lucid plain; From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls, In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls; The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep, Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap; On floating rails that face the softening noons The still shy turtles range their dark platoons, Or, toiling aimless o'er the mellowing fields, Trail through the grass their tessellated shields.

At last young April, ever frail and fair, Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, Chased to the margin of receding floods O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds, In tears and blushes sighs herself away, And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May.

Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays; O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis, Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free; With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose; Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge The rival lily hastens to emerge, Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, Till morn is sultan of her parted lips.

Then bursts the song from every leafy glade, The yielding season's bridal serenade; Then flash the wings returning Summer calls Through the deep arches of her forest halls,— The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings.

Why dream I here within these caging walls, Deaf to her voice, while blooming Nature calls; Peering and gazing with insatiate looks Through blinding lenses, or in wearying books? Off, gloomy spectres of the shrivelled past! Fly with the leaves that fill the autumn blast Ye imps of Science, whose relentless chains Lock the warm tides within these living veins, Close your dim cavern, while its captive strays Dazzled and giddy in the morning's blaze!



THE STUDY

YET in the darksome crypt I left so late, Whose only altar is its rusted grate,— Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams,— While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train, Its paler splendors were not quite in vain. From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard, And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone, Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone.

Not all unblest the mild interior scene When the red curtain spread its falling screen; O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, And the long evening only flew too fast; Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend In genial welcome to some easy friend, Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves, Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves; Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed. Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring To the round table its expected ring, And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,— Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard,— Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower.

Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, Not quite deserted when its guests were flown; Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, Ready to answer, never known to ask, Claiming no service, prompt for every task. On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes, O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns; A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime, Each knows his place, and each may claim his part In some quaint corner of his master's heart. This old Decretal, won from Moss's hoards, Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards, Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close; Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, With glistening letters wrought in red and blue. There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, The Aldine anchor on his opening page; There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind, In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confused, "Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?) Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine! In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville; High over all, in close, compact array, Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. In lower regions of the sacred space Range the dense volumes of a humbler race; There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach, In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech; Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, Lully and Geber, and the learned crew That loved to talk of all they could not do.

Why count the rest,—those names of later days That many love, and all agree to praise,— Or point the titles, where a glance may read The dangerous lines of party or of creed? Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show What few may care and none can claim to know. Each has his features, whose exterior seal A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal; Go to his study,—on the nearest shelf Stands the mosaic portrait of himself.

What though for months the tranquil dust descends, Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends, While the damp offspring of the modern press Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress; Not less I love each dull familiar face, Nor less should miss it from the appointed place; I snatch the book, along whose burning leaves His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share, My old MAGNALIA must be standing there!



THE BELLS

WHEN o'er the street the morning peal is flung From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue, Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale, To each far listener tell a different tale. The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar, Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one, Each dull concussion, till his task is done. Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat, Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street, Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet; The bell, responsive to her secret flame, With every note repeats her lover's name. The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane, Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, Hears the stern accents, as they come and go, Their only burden one despairing No! Ocean's rough child, whom many a shore has known Ere homeward breezes swept him to his own, Starts at the echo as it circles round, A thousand memories kindling with the sound; The early favorite's unforgotten charms, Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms; His first farewell, the flapping canvas spread, The seaward streamers crackling overhead, His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to weep Her first-born's bridal with the haggard deep, While the brave father stood with tearless eye, Smiling and choking with his last good-by.

'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats, With the same impulse, every nerve it meets, Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride On the round surge of that aerial tide!

O child of earth! If floating sounds like these Steal from thyself their power to wound or please, If here or there thy changing will inclines, As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs, Look at thy heart, and when its depths are known, Then try thy brother's, judging by thine own, But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range, While its own standards are the sport of change, Nor count us rebels when we disobey The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway.



NON-RESISTANCE

PERHAPS too far in these considerate days Has patience carried her submissive ways; Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; It is not written what a man shall do, If the rude caitiff smite the other too!

Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need God help thee, guarded by the passive creed! As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl, When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl; As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow When the black corsair slants athwart her bow; As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien, Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green, When the dark plumage with the crimson beak Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,— So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm, Thy torches ready for the answering peal From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel!



THE MORAL BULLY

YON whey-faced brother, who delights to wear A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair, Seems of the sort that in a crowded place One elbows freely into smallest space; A timid creature, lax of knee and hip, Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip; One of those harmless spectacled machines, The Holy-Week of Protestants convenes; Whom school-boys question if their walk transcends The last advices of maternal friends; Whom John, obedient to his master's sign, Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine, While Peter, glistening with luxurious scorn, Husks his white ivories like an ear of corn; Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek, Whose yellowish linen flowers but once a week, Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare suits, And the laced high-lows which they call their boots, Well mayst thou shun that dingy front severe, But him, O stranger, him thou canst not fear.

Be slow to judge, and slower to despise, Man of broad shoulders and heroic size The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings, Drops at the fountain where the cobra stings. In that lean phantom, whose extended glove Points to the text of universal love, Behold the master that can tame thee down To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown; His velvet throat against thy corded wrist, His loosened tongue against thy doubled fist.

The MORAL BULLY, though he never swears, Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, Feels the same comfort while his acrid words Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds, Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate, That all we love is worthiest of our hate, As the scarred ruffian of the pirate's deck, When his long swivel rakes the staggering wreck!

Heaven keep us all! Is every rascal clown Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down? Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole, Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace Of angel visits on his hungry face, From lack of marrow or the coins to pay, Has dodged some vices in a shabby way, The right to stick us with his cutthroat terms, And bait his homilies with his brother worms?



THE MIND'S DIET

No life worth naming ever comes to good If always nourished on the selfsame food; The creeping mite may live so if he please, And feed on Stilton till he turns to cheese, But cool Magendie proves beyond a doubt, If mammals try it, that their eyes drop out.

No reasoning natures find it safe to feed, For their sole diet, on a single creed; It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their tongues, And starves the heart to feed the noisy lungs.

When the first larvae on the elm are seen, The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are green; Ere chill October shakes the latest down, They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown; On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy, You stretch to pluck it—'tis a butterfly; The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark, They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark; The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood; So by long living on a single lie, Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye; Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,— Except when squabbling turns them black and blue!



OUR LIMITATIONS

WE trust and fear, we question and believe, From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave, Frail as the web that misty night has spun, Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun. While the calm centuries spell their lessons out, Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt; When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne, The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone; When Pilate's hall that awful question heard, The Heavenly Captive answered not a word.

Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! From age to age, while History carves sublime On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, How the wild swayings of our planet show That worlds unseen surround the world we know.



THE OLD PLAYER

THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed. In flaming line the telltales of the stage Showed on his brow the autograph of age; Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair, And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care; Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,— He strove to speak,—his voice was but a sigh.

Year after year had seen its short-lived race Flit past the scenes and others take their place; Yet the old prompter watched his accents still, His name still flaunted on the evening's bill. Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor, Had died in earnest and were heard no more; Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread They faced the footlights in unborrowed red, Had faded slowly through successive shades To gray duennas, foils of younger maids; Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart, While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry. Yet there he stood,—the man of other days, In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze, As on the oak a faded leaf that clings While a new April spreads its burnished wings.

How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier, Their central sun the flashing chandelier! How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold! Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told. No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue; Again, again, the crashing galleries rung. As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast Hears in its strain the echoes of the past, So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round, A life of memories startled at the sound. He lived again,—the page of earliest days,— Days of small fee and parsimonious praise; Then lithe young Romeo—hark that silvered tone, From those smooth lips—alas! they were his own. Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe, Told his strange tale of midnight melting snow; And dark—plumed Hamlet, with his cloak and blade, Looked on the royal ghost, himself a shade. All in one flash, his youthful memories came, Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame, As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong dream, While the last bubble rises through the stream.

Call him not old, whose visionary brain Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul. If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, Spring with her birds, or children at their play, Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art, Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, Turn to the record where his years are told,— Count his gray hairs,—they cannot make him old! What magic power has changed the faded mime? One breath of memory on the dust of time. As the last window in the buttressed wall Of some gray minster tottering to its fall, Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread, A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red, Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows, And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane See angels glow in every shapeless stain; So streamed the vision through his sunken eye, Clad in the splendors of his morning sky. All the wild hopes his eager boyhood knew, All the young fancies riper years proved true, The sweet, low-whispered words, the winning glance From queens of song, from Houris of the dance, Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing phrase, And Beauty's silence when her blush was praise, And melting Pride, her lashes wet with tears, Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns and cheers, Pangs of wild joy that perish on the tongue, And all that poets dream, but leave unsung!

In every heart some viewless founts are fed From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed; On the worn features of the weariest face Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace, As in old gardens left by exiled kings The marble basins tell of hidden springs, But, gray with dust, and overgrown with weeds, Their choking jets the passer little heeds, Till time's revenges break their seals away, And, clad in rainbow light, the waters play.

Good night, fond dreamer! let the curtain fall The world's a stage, and we are players all. A strange rehearsal! Kings without their crowns, And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing clowns, Speak the vain words that mock their throbbing hearts, As Want, stern prompter! spells them out their parts. The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay Is twice an actor in a twofold play. We smile at children when a painted screen Seems to their simple eyes a real scene; Ask the poor hireling, who has left his throne To seek the cheerless home he calls his own, Which of his double lives most real seems, The world of solid fact or scenic dreams? Canvas, or clouds,—the footlights, or the spheres,— The play of two short hours, or seventy years? Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes, Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies; Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this; The cheating future lends the present's bliss; Life is a running shade, with fettered hands, That chases phantoms over shifting sands; Death a still spectre on a marble seat, With ever clutching palms and shackled feet; The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain, The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain, Death only grasps; to live is to pursue,— Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true!



A POEM

DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, SEPTEMBER 9,1850

ANGEL of Death! extend thy silent reign! Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new domain No sable car along the winding road Has borne to earth its unresisting load; No sudden mound has risen yet to show Where the pale slumberer folds his arms below; No marble gleams to bid his memory live In the brief lines that hurrying Time can give; Yet, O Destroyer! from thy shrouded throne Look on our gift; this realm is all thine own!

Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft beguiled From their dim paths the children of the wild; The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy dells, The feathered warrior claimed its wooded swells, Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges show The pointed flints that left his fatal bow, Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian toil,— Last of his wrecks that strews the alien soil! Here spread the fields that heaped their ripened store Till the brown arms of Labor held no more; The scythe's broad meadow with its dusky blush; The sickle's harvest with its velvet flush; The green-haired maize, her silken tresses laid, In soft luxuriance, on her harsh brocade; The gourd that swells beneath her tossing plume; The coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of bloom,— Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive With the wide murmurs of the scattered hive; Here glowed the apple with the pencilled streak Of morning painted on its southern cheek; The pear's long necklace strung with golden drops, Arched, like the banian, o'er its pillared props; Here crept the growths that paid the laborer's care With the cheap luxuries wealth consents to spare; Here sprang the healing herbs which could not save The hand that reared them from the neighboring grave.

Yet all its varied charms, forever free From task and tribute, Labor yields to thee No more, when April sheds her fitful rain, The sower's hand shall cast its flying grain; No more, when Autumn strews the flaming leaves, The reaper's band shall gird its yellow sheaves; For thee alike the circling seasons flow Till the first blossoms heave the latest snow. In the stiff clod below the whirling drifts, In the loose soil the springing herbage lifts, In the hot dust beneath the parching weeds, Life's withering flower shall drop its shrivelled seeds; Its germ entranced in thy unbreathing sleep Till what thou sowest mightier angels reap!

Spirit of Beauty! let thy graces blend With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. Come from the bowers where Summer's life-blood flows Through the red lips of June's half-open rose, Dressed in bright hues, the loving sunshine's dower; For tranquil Nature owns no mourning flower. Come from the forest where the beech's screen Bars the fierce moonbeam with its flakes of green; Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy plains, Stanch the deep wound That dries the maple's veins. Come with the stream whose silver-braided rills Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills, Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings, Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs. Come from the steeps where look majestic forth From their twin thrones the Giants of the North On the huge shapes, that, crouching at their knees, Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees. Through the wide waste of ether, not in vain, Their softened gaze shall reach our distant plain; There, while the mourner turns his aching eyes On the blue mounds that print the bluer skies, Nature shall whisper that the fading view Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly hue. Cherub of Wisdom! let thy marble page Leave its sad lesson, new to every age; Teach us to live, not grudging every breath To the chill winds that waft us on to death, But ruling calmly every pulse it warms, And tempering gently every word it forms. Seraph of Love! in heaven's adoring zone, Nearest of all around the central throne, While with soft hands the pillowed turf we spread That soon shall hold us in its dreamless bed, With the low whisper,—Who shall first be laid In the dark chamber's yet unbroken shade?— Let thy sweet radiance shine rekindled here, And all we cherish grow more truly dear. Here in the gates of Death's o'erhanging vault, Oh, teach us kindness for our brother's fault Lay all our wrongs beneath this peaceful sod, And lead our hearts to Mercy and its God.

FATHER of all! in Death's relentless claim We read thy mercy by its sterner name; In the bright flower that decks the solemn bier, We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; In the deep lessons that affliction draws, We trace the curves of thy encircling laws; In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, We own the love that calls us back to Thee!

Through the hushed street, along the silent plain, The spectral future leads its mourning train, Dark with the shadows of uncounted bands, Where man's white lips and woman's wringing hands Track the still burden, rolling slow before, That love and kindness can protect no more; The smiling babe that, called to mortal strife, Shuts its meek eyes and drops its little life; The drooping child who prays in vain to live, And pleads for help its parent cannot give; The pride of beauty stricken in its flower; The strength of manhood broken in an hour; Age in its weakness, bowed by toil and care, Traced in sad lines beneath its silvered hair.

The sun shall set, and heaven's resplendent spheres Gild the smooth turf unhallowed yet by tears, But ah! how soon the evening stars will shed Their sleepless light around the slumbering dead!

Take them, O Father, in immortal trust! Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, Till the last angel rolls the stone away, And a new morning brings eternal day!



TO GOVERNOR SWAIN

DEAR GOVERNOR, if my skiff might brave The winds that lift the ocean wave, The mountain stream that loops and swerves Through my broad meadow's channelled curves Should waft me on from bound to bound To where the River weds the Sound, The Sound should give me to the Sea, That to the Bay, the Bay to thee.

It may not be; too long the track To follow down or struggle back. The sun has set on fair Naushon Long ere my western blaze is gone; The ocean disk is rolling dark In shadows round your swinging bark, While yet the yellow sunset fills The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills; The day-star wakes your island deer Long ere my barnyard chanticleer; Your mists are soaring in the blue While mine are sparks of glittering dew.

It may not be; oh, would it might, Could I live o'er that glowing night! What golden hours would come to life, What goodly feats of peaceful strife,— Such jests, that, drained of every joke, The very bank of language broke,— Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died With stitches in his belted side; While Time, caught fast in pleasure's chain, His double goblet snapped in twain, And stood with half in either hand,— Both brimming full,—but not of sand!

It may not be; I strive in vain To break my slender household chain,— Three pairs of little clasping hands, One voice, that whispers, not commands. Even while my spirit flies away, My gentle jailers murmur nay; All shapes of elemental wrath They raise along my threatened path; The storm grows black, the waters rise, The mountains mingle with the skies, The mad tornado scoops the ground, The midnight robber prowls around,— Thus, kissing every limb they tie, They draw a knot and heave a sigh, Till, fairly netted in the toil, My feet are rooted to the soil. Only the soaring wish is free!— And that, dear Governor, flies to thee! PITTSFIELD, 1851.



TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND

THE seed that wasteful autumn cast To waver on its stormy blast, Long o'er the wintry desert tost, Its living germ has never lost. Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, It feels the kindling ray of spring, And, starting from its dream of death, Pours on the air its perfumed breath.

So, parted by the rolling flood, The love that springs from common blood Needs but a single sunlit hour Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, From shore to shore, from zone to zone, Where summer's falling roses stain The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, Or where the lichen creeps below Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow.

Though fiery sun and stiffening cold May change the fair ancestral mould, No winter chills, no summer drains The life-blood drawn from English veins, Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows The love that with its fountain rose, Unchanged by space, unwronged by time, From age to age, from clime to clime! 1852.



AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH

COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, And leave the crowded hall For where the eyes of twilight shine O'er evening's western wall.

These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, Each with its leafy crown; Hark! from their sides a thousand rills Come singing sweetly down.

A thousand rills; they leap and shine, Strained through the shadowy nooks, Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, They swell a hundred brooks.

A hundred brooks, and still they run With ripple, shade, and gleam, Till, clustering all their braids in one, They flow a single stream.

A bracelet spun from mountain mist, A silvery sash unwound, With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist It writhes to reach the Sound.

This is my bark,—a pygmy's ship; Beneath a child it rolls; Fear not,—one body makes it dip, But not a thousand souls.

Float we the grassy banks between; Without an oar we glide; The meadows, drest in living green, Unroll on either side.

Come, take the book we love so well, And let us read and dream We see whate'er its pages tell, And sail an English stream.

Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, Still trilling as he flies; The linnet sings as there he sung; The unseen cuckoo cries,

And daisies strew the banks along, And yellow kingcups shine, With cowslips, and a primrose throng, And humble celandine.

Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed Her daughter in the West, The fount was drained that opened first; She bared her other breast.

On the young planet's orient shore Her morning hand she tried; Then turned the broad medallion o'er And stamped the sunset side.

Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, Her elm with hanging spray; She wears her mountain diadem Still in her own proud way.

Look on the forests' ancient kings, The hemlock's towering pride Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, And fell before it died.

Nor think that Nature saves her bloom And slights our grassy plain; For us she wears her court costume,— Look on its broidered train;

The lily with the sprinkled dots, Brands of the noontide beam; The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, Its double in the stream,

As if some wounded eagle's breast, Slow throbbing o'er the plain, Had left its airy path impressed In drops of scarlet rain.

And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; There thrilled the thrush's soul; And look! that flash of flamy wings,— The fire-plumed oriole!

Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, Flung from the bright, blue sky; Below, the robin hops, and whoops His piercing, Indian cry.

Beauty runs virgin in the woods Robed in her rustic green, And oft a longing thought intrudes, As if we might have seen.

Her every finger's every joint Ringed with some golden line, Poet whom Nature did anoint Had our wild home been thine.

Yet think not so; Old England's blood Runs warm in English veins; But wafted o'er the icy flood Its better life remains.

Our children know each wildwood smell, The bayberry and the fern, The man who does not know them well Is all too old to learn.

Be patient! On the breathing page Still pants our hurried past; Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, The poet comes the last!

Though still the lark-voiced matins ring The world has known so long; The wood-thrush of the West shall sing Earth's last sweet even-song!



AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE

SHINE soft, ye trembling tears of light That strew the mourning skies; Hushed in the silent dews of night The harp of Erin lies.

What though her thousand years have past Of poets, saints, and kings,— Her echoes only hear the last That swept those golden strings.

Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, The balmiest wreaths ye wear, Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers Heaven's own ambrosial air.

Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, By shadowy grove and rill; Thy song will soothe us while we own That his was sweeter still.

Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him Who gave thee swifter wings, Nor let thine envious shadow dim The light his glory flings.

If in his cheek unholy blood Burned for one youthful hour, 'T was but the flushing of the bud That blooms a milk-white flower.

Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, Who loved thy smiles so well, And spread thy mantle o'er his rest Of rose and asphodel.

The bark has sailed the midnight sea, The sea without a shore, That waved its parting sign to thee,— "A health to thee, Tom Moore!"

And thine, long lingering on the strand, Its bright-hued streamers furled, Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, To seek the silent world.

Not silent! no, the radiant stars Still singing as they shine, Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, Have voices sweet as thine.

Wake, then, in happier realms above, The songs of bygone years, Till angels learn those airs of love That ravished mortal ears!



AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS

"Purpureos spargam flores."

THE wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave Is lying on thy Roman grave, Yet on its turf young April sets Her store of slender violets; Though all the Gods their garlands shower, I too may bring one purple flower. Alas! what blossom shall I bring, That opens in my Northern spring? The garden beds have all run wild, So trim when I was yet a child; Flat plantains and unseemly stalks Have crept across the gravel walks; The vines are dead, long, long ago, The almond buds no longer blow. No more upon its mound I see The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; Where once the tulips used to show, In straggling tufts the pansies grow; The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem, The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," Though its long blade of glossy green And pallid stripe may still be seen. Nature, who treads her nobles down, And gives their birthright to the clown, Has sown her base-born weedy things Above the garden's queens and kings. Yet one sweet flower of ancient race Springs in the old familiar place. When snows were melting down the vale, And Earth unlaced her icy mail, And March his stormy trumpet blew, And tender green came peeping through, I loved the earliest one to seek That broke the soil with emerald beak, And watch the trembling bells so blue Spread on the column as it grew. Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame The sweet, dead poet's holy name; The God of music gave thee birth, Called from the crimson-spotted earth, Where, sobbing his young life away, His own fair Hyacinthus lay. The hyacinth my garden gave Shall lie upon that Roman grave!



AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY

ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there.

Morning: a woman looking on the sea; Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee! Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns.

And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, And torches flaring in the weedy caves, Where'er the waters lay with icy hands The shapes uplifted from their coral graves.

Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks, And lean, wild children gather from the shore To the black hovels bedded in the rocks.

But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, "One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!" Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, Raised the pale burden on his level shield.

Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire; His form a nobler element shall claim; Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame.

Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; All else has risen in yon silvery cloud.

Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art.

Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh, O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim,— In all the mansions of the house on high, Say not that Mercy has not one for him!



AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES

As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream, As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream, There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me,— The vision is over,—the rivulet free.

We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March, Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch, And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day, We hear the warm panting of beautiful May.

We will part before Summer has opened her wing, And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring, While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud, And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood.

It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground; No hand shall replace it,—it rests where it fell,—- It is but one word that we all know too well.

Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye, If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky; The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain Will turn for a moment and look at his chain.

Our parting is not as the friendship of years, That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears; We have walked in a garden, and, looking around, Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found.

But now at the gate of the garden we stand, And the moment has come for unclasping the hand; Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat?

Nay! hold it one moment,—the last we may share,— I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare; You may pass through the doorway in rank or in file, If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile.

For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part, When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell.



THE HUDSON

AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY

'T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn, Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn; The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long, And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song.

"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,"— She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; "Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played; Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid."

I wandered afar from the land of my birth, I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream.

I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine; I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side.

But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, I care not who sees it,—no blush for it here!

Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West! I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled!

December, 1854.



THE NEW EDEN

MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, AT STOCKBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 13,1854

SCARCE could the parting ocean close, Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow, When o'er the rugged desert rose The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough.

Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field The rippling grass, the nodding grain, Such growths as English meadows yield To scanty sun and frequent rain.

But when the fiery days were done, And Autumn brought his purple haze, Then, kindling in the slanted sun, The hillsides gleamed with golden maize.

The food was scant, the fruits were few A red-streak glistening here and there; Perchance in statelier precincts grew Some stern old Puritanic pear.

Austere in taste, and tough at core, Its unrelenting bulk was shed, To ripen in the Pilgrim's store When all the summer sweets were fled.

Such was his lot, to front the storm With iron heart and marble brow, Nor ripen till his earthly form Was cast from life's autumnal bough.

But ever on the bleakest rock We bid the brightest beacon glow, And still upon the thorniest stock The sweetest roses love to blow.

So on our rude and wintry soil We feed the kindling flame of art, And steal the tropic's blushing spoil To bloom on Nature's ice-clad heart.

See how the softening Mother's breast Warms to her children's patient wiles, Her lips by loving Labor pressed Break in a thousand dimpling smiles,

From when the flushing bud of June Dawns with its first auroral hue, Till shines the rounded harvest-moon, And velvet dahlias drink the dew.

Nor these the only gifts she brings; Look where the laboring orchard groans, And yields its beryl-threaded strings For chestnut burs and hemlock cones.

Dear though the shadowy maple be, And dearer still the whispering pine, Dearest yon russet-laden tree Browned by the heavy rubbing kine!

There childhood flung its rustling stone, There venturous boyhood learned to climb,— How well the early graft was known Whose fruit was ripe ere harvest-time!

Nor be the Fleming's pride forgot, With swinging drops and drooping bells, Freckled and splashed with streak and spot, On the warm-breasted, sloping swells;

Nor Persia's painted garden-queen,— Frail Houri of the trellised wall,— Her deep-cleft bosom scarfed with green,— Fairest to see, and first to fall.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

When man provoked his mortal doom, And Eden trembled as he fell, When blossoms sighed their last perfume, And branches waved their long farewell,

One sucker crept beneath the gate, One seed was wafted o'er the wall, One bough sustained his trembling weight; These left the garden,—these were all.

And far o'er many a distant zone These wrecks of Eden still are flung The fruits that Paradise hath known Are still in earthly gardens hung.

Yes, by our own unstoried stream The pink-white apple-blossoms burst That saw the young Euphrates gleam,— That Gihon's circling waters nursed.

For us the ambrosial pear—displays The wealth its arching branches hold, Bathed by a hundred summery days In floods of mingling fire and gold.

And here, where beauty's cheek of flame With morning's earliest beam is fed, The sunset-painted peach may claim To rival its celestial red.

. . . . . . . . . . .

What though in some unmoistened vale The summer leaf grow brown and sere, Say, shall our star of promise fail That circles half the rolling sphere,

From beaches salt with bitter spray, O'er prairies green with softest rain, And ridges bright with evening's ray, To rocks that shade the stormless main?

If by our slender-threaded streams The blade and leaf and blossom die, If, drained by noontide's parching beams, The milky veins of Nature dry,

See, with her swelling bosom bare, Yon wild-eyed Sister in the West,— The ring of Empire round her hair, The Indian's wampum on her breast!

We saw the August sun descend, Day after day, with blood-red stain, And the blue mountains dimly blend With smoke-wreaths from the burning plain;

Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings We sat and told the withering hours, Till Heaven unsealed its hoarded springs, And bade them leap in flashing showers.

Yet in our Ishmael's thirst we knew The mercy of the Sovereign hand Would pour the fountain's quickening dew To feed some harvest of the land.

No flaming swords of wrath surround Our second Garden of the Blest; It spreads beyond its rocky bound, It climbs Nevada's glittering crest.

God keep the tempter from its gate! God shield the children, lest they fall From their stern fathers' free estate,— Till Ocean is its only wall!



SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1855

NEW ENGLAND, we love thee; no time can erase From the hearts of thy children the smile on thy face. 'T is the mother's fond look of affection and pride, As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride.

His bride may be fresher in beauty's young flower; She may blaze in the jewels she brings with her dower. But passion must chill in Time's pitiless blast; The one that first loved us will love to the last.

You have left the dear land of the lake and the hill, But its winds and its waters will talk with you still. "Forget not," they whisper, "your love is our debt," And echo breathes softly, "We never forget."

The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming around, But your hearts have flown back o'er the waves of the Sound; They have found the brown home where their pulses were born; They are throbbing their way through the trees and the corn.

There are roofs you remember,—their glory is fled; There are mounds in the churchyard,—one sigh for the dead. There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scattered around; But Earth has no spot like that corner of ground.

Come, let us be cheerful,—remember last night, How they cheered us, and—never mind—meant it all right; To-night, we harm nothing,—we love in the lump; Here's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of the pump!

Here 's to all the good people, wherever they be, Who have grown in the shade of the liberty-tree; We all love its leaves, and its blossoms and fruit, But pray have a care of the fence round its root.

We should like to talk big; it's a kind of a right, When the tongue has got loose and the waistband grown tight; But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau, On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow.

Enough! There are gentlemen waiting to talk, Whose words are to mine as the flower to the stalk. Stand by your old mother whatever befall; God bless all her children! Good night to you all!



FAREWELL

TO J. R. LOWELL

FAREWELL, for the bark has her breast to the tide, And the rough arms of Ocean are stretched for his bride; The winds from the mountain stream over the bay; One clasp of the hand, then away and away!

I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore; The sun is declining, I see it once more; To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field, To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield.

Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath, With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death; Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail Has left her unaided to strive with the gale.

There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast, That will light the dark hour till its danger has past; There are prayers that will plead with the storm when it raves, And whisper "Be still!" to the turbulent waves.

Nay, think not that Friendship has called us in vain To join the fair ring ere we break it again; There is strength in its circle,—you lose the bright star, But its sisters still chain it, though shining afar.

I give you one health in the juice of the vine, The blood of the vineyard shall mingle with mine; Thus, thus let us drain the last dew-drops of gold, As we empty our hearts of the blessings they hold.

April 29, 1855.



FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB

THE mountains glitter in the snow A thousand leagues asunder; Yet here, amid the banquet's glow, I hear their voice of thunder; Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks; A flowing stream is summoned; Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks; Monadnock to Ben Lomond!

Though years have clipped the eagle's plume That crowned the chieftain's bonnet, The sun still sees the heather bloom, The silver mists lie on it;

With tartan kilt and philibeg, What stride was ever bolder Than his who showed the naked leg Beneath the plaided shoulder?

The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills, That heard the bugles blowing When down their sides the crimson rills With mingled blood were flowing; The hunts where gallant hearts were game, The slashing on the border, The raid that swooped with sword and flame, Give place to "law and order."

Not while the rocking steeples reel With midnight tocsins ringing, Not while the crashing war-notes peal, God sets his poets singing; The bird is silent in the night, Or shrieks a cry of warning While fluttering round the beacon-light,— But hear him greet the morning!

The lark of Scotia's morning sky! Whose voice may sing his praises? With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye, He walked among the daisies, Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong He soared to fields of glory; But left his land her sweetest song And earth her saddest story.

'T is not the forts the builder piles That chain the earth together; The wedded crowns, the sister isles, Would laugh at such a tether; The kindling thought, the throbbing words, That set the pulses beating, Are stronger than the myriad swords Of mighty armies meeting.

Thus while within the banquet glows, Without, the wild winds whistle, We drink a triple health,—the Rose, The Shamrock, and the Thistle Their blended hues shall never fade Till War has hushed his cannon,— Close-twined as ocean-currents braid The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon!



ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY

CELEBRATION OF THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, FEBRUARY 22, 1856

WELCOME to the day returning, Dearer still as ages flow, While the torch of Faith is burning, Long as Freedom's altars glow! See the hero whom it gave us Slumbering on a mother's breast; For the arm he stretched to save us, Be its morn forever blest!

Hear the tale of youthful glory, While of Britain's rescued band Friend and foe repeat the story, Spread his fame o'er sea and land, Where the red cross, proudly streaming, Flaps above the frigate's deck, Where the golden lilies, gleaming, Star the watch-towers of Quebec.

Look! The shadow on the dial Marks the hour of deadlier strife; Days of terror, years of trial, Scourge a nation into life. Lo, the youth, become her leader All her baffled tyrants yield; Through his arm the Lord hath freed her; Crown him on the tented field!

Vain is Empire's mad temptation Not for him an earthly crown He whose sword hath freed a nation Strikes the offered sceptre down. See the throneless Conqueror seated, Ruler by a people's choice; See the Patriot's task completed; Hear the Father's dying voice!

"By the name that you inherit, By the sufferings you recall, Cherish the fraternal spirit; Love your country first of all! Listen not to idle questions If its bands maybe untied; Doubt the patriot whose suggestions Strive a nation to divide!"

Father! We, whose ears have tingled With the discord-notes of shame,— We, whose sires their blood have mingled In the battle's thunder-flame,— Gathering, while this holy morning Lights the land from sea to sea, Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning; Trust us, while we honor thee!



BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER

JANUARY 18, 1856

WHEN life hath run its largest round Of toil and triumph, joy and woe, How brief a storied page is found To compass all its outward show!

The world-tried sailor tires and droops; His flag is rent, his keel forgot; His farthest voyages seem but loops That float from life's entangled knot.

But when within the narrow space Some larger soul hath lived and wrought, Whose sight was open to embrace The boundless realms of deed and thought,—

When, stricken by the freezing blast, A nation's living pillars fall, How rich the storied page, how vast, A word, a whisper, can recall!

No medal lifts its fretted face, Nor speaking marble cheats your eye, Yet, while these pictured lines I trace, A living image passes by: