One yet remains, whose well-remembered name Pleads in my grateful heart its tender claim; His was the charm magnetic, the bright look That sheds its sunshine on the dreariest book; A loving soul to every task he brought That sweetly mingled with the lore he taught; Sprung from a saintly race that never could From youth to age be anything but good, His few brief years in holiest labors spent, Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had lent. Kindest of teachers, studious to divine Some hint of promise in my earliest line, These faint and faltering words thou canst not hear Throb from a heart that holds thy memory dear. As to the traveller's eye the varied plain Shows through the window of the flying train, A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, A gravelly bank, a sudden flash of green, A tangled wood, a glittering stream that flows Through the cleft summit where the cliff once rose, All strangely blended in a hurried gleam, Rock, wood, waste, meadow, village, hill-side, stream,— So, as we look behind us, life appears, Seen through the vista of our bygone years. Yet in the dead past's shadow-filled domain, Some vanished shapes the hues of life retain; Unbidden, oft, before our dreaming eyes From the vague mists in memory's path they rise. So comes his blooming image to my view, The friend of joyous days when life was new, Hope yet untamed, the blood of youth unchilled, No blank arrear of promise unfulfilled, Life's flower yet hidden in its sheltering fold, Its pictured canvas yet to be unrolled. His the frank smile I vainly look to greet, His the warm grasp my clasping hand should meet; How would our lips renew their school-boy talk, Our feet retrace the old familiar walk! For thee no more earth's cheerful morning shines Through the green fringes of the tented pines; Ah me! is heaven so far thou canst not hear, Or is thy viewless spirit hovering near, A fair young presence, bright with morning's glow, The fresh-cheeked boy of fifty years ago? Yes, fifty years, with all their circling suns, Behind them all my glance reverted runs; Where now that time remote, its griefs, its joys, Where are its gray-haired men, its bright-haired boys? Where is the patriarch time could hardly tire,— The good old, wrinkled, immemorial "squire "? (An honest treasurer, like a black-plumed swan, Not every day our eyes may look upon.) Where the tough champion who, with Calvin's sword, In wordy conflicts battled for the Lord? Where the grave scholar, lonely, calm, austere, Whose voice like music charmed the listening ear, Whose light rekindled, like the morning star Still shines upon us through the gates ajar? Where the still, solemn, weary, sad-eyed man, Whose care-worn face and wandering eyes would scan,— His features wasted in the lingering strife With the pale foe that drains the student's life? Where my old friend, the scholar, teacher, saint, Whose creed, some hinted, showed a speck of taint; He broached his own opinion, which is not Lightly to be forgiven or forgot; Some riddle's point,—I scarce remember now,— Homoi-, perhaps, where they said homo-ou. (If the unlettered greatly wish to know Where lies the difference betwixt oi and o, Those of the curious who have time may search Among the stale conundrums of their church.) Beneath his roof his peaceful life I shared, And for his modes of faith I little cared,— I, taught to judge men's dogmas by their deeds, Long ere the days of india-rubber creeds.

Why should we look one common faith to find, Where one in every score is color-blind? If here on earth they know not red from green, Will they see better into things unseen! Once more to time's old graveyard I return And scrape the moss from memory's pictured urn. Who, in these days when all things go by steam, Recalls the stage-coach with its four-horse team? Its sturdy driver,—who remembers him? Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim, Who left our hill-top for a new abode And reared his sign-post farther down the road? Still in the waters of the dark Shawshine Do the young bathers splash and think they're clean? Do pilgrims find their way to Indian Ridge, Or journey onward to the far-off bridge, And bring to younger ears the story back Of the broad stream, the mighty Merrimac? Are there still truant feet that stray beyond These circling bounds to Pomp's or Haggett's Pond, Or where the legendary name recalls The forest's earlier tenant,—"Deerjump Falls"? Yes, every nook these youthful feet explore, Just as our sires and grand sires did of yore; So all life's opening paths, where nature led Their father's feet, the children's children tread. Roll the round century's fivescore years away, Call from our storied past that earliest day When great Eliphalet (I can see him now,— Big name, big frame, big voice, and beetling brow), Then young Eliphalet,—ruled the rows of boys In homespun gray or old-world corduroys,— And save for fashion's whims, the benches show The self-same youths, the very boys we know. Time works strange marvels: since I trod the green And swung the gates, what wonders I have seen! But come what will,—the sky itself may fall,— As things of course the boy accepts them all. The prophet's chariot, drawn by steeds of flame, For daily use our travelling millions claim; The face we love a sunbeam makes our own; No more the surgeon hears the sufferer's groan; What unwrit histories wrapped in darkness lay Till shovelling Schliemann bared them to the day! Your Richelieu says, and says it well, my lord, The pen is (sometimes) mightier than the sword; Great is the goosequill, say we all; Amen! Sometimes the spade is mightier than the pen; It shows where Babel's terraced walls were raised, The slabs that cracked when Nimrod's palace blazed, Unearths Mycenee, rediscovers Troy,— Calmly he listens, that immortal boy. A new Prometheus tips our wands with fire, A mightier Orpheus strains the whispering wire, Whose lightning thrills the lazy winds outrun And hold the hours as Joshua stayed the sun,— So swift, in truth, we hardly find a place For those dim fictions known as time and space. Still a new miracle each year supplies,— See at his work the chemist of the skies, Who questions Sirius in his tortured rays And steals the secret of the solar blaze; Hush! while the window-rattling bugles play The nation's airs a hundred miles away! That wicked phonograph! hark! how it swears! Turn it again and make it say its prayers! And was it true, then, what the story said Of Oxford's friar and his brazen head? While wondering Science stands, herself perplexed At each day's miracle, and asks "What next?" The immortal boy, the coming heir of all, Springs from his desk to "urge the flying ball," Cleaves with his bending oar the glassy waves, With sinewy arm the dashing current braves, The same bright creature in these haunts of ours That Eton shadowed with her "antique towers."

Boy! Where is he? the long-limbed youth inquires, Whom his rough chin with manly pride inspires; Ah, when the ruddy cheek no longer glows, When the bright hair is white as winter snows, When the dim eye has lost its lambent flame, Sweet to his ear will be his school-boy name Nor think the difference mighty as it seems Between life's morning and its evening dreams; Fourscore, like twenty, has its tasks and toys; In earth's wide school-house all are girls and boys.

Brothers, forgive my wayward fancy. Who Can guess beforehand what his pen will do? Too light my strain for listeners such as these, Whom graver thoughts and soberer speech shall please. Is he not here whose breath of holy song Has raised the downcast eyes of Faith so long? Are they not here, the strangers in your gates, For whom the wearied ear impatient waits,— The large-brained scholars whom their toils release,— The bannered heralds of the Prince of Peace?

Such was the gentle friend whose youth unblamed In years long past our student-benches claimed; Whose name, illumined on the sacred page, Lives in the labors of his riper age; Such he whose record time's destroying march Leaves uneffaced on Zion's springing arch Not to the scanty phrase of measured song, Cramped in its fetters, names like these belong; One ray they lend to gild my slender line,— Their praise I leave to sweeter lips than mine.

Homes of our sires, where Learning's temple rose, While vet they struggled with their banded foes, As in the West thy century's sun descends, One parting gleam its dying radiance lends. Darker and deeper though the shadows fall From the gray towers on Doubting Castle's wall, Though Pope and Pagan re-array their hosts, And her new armor youthful Science boasts, Truth, for whose altar rose this holy shrine, Shall fly for refuge to these bowers of thine; No past shall chain her with its rusted vow, No Jew's phylactery bind her Christian brow, But Faith shall smile to find her sister free, And nobler manhood draw its life from thee.

Long as the arching skies above thee spread, As on thy groves the dews of heaven are shed, With currents widening still from year to year, And deepening channels, calm, untroubled, clear, Flow the twin streamlets from thy sacred hill— Pieria's fount and Siloam's shaded rill!



THE SILENT MELODY

"BRING me my broken harp," he said; "We both are wrecks,—but as ye will,— Though all its ringing tones have fled, Their echoes linger round it still; It had some golden strings, I know, But that was long—how long!—ago.

"I cannot see its tarnished gold, I cannot hear its vanished tone, Scarce can my trembling fingers hold The pillared frame so long their own; We both are wrecks,—a while ago It had some silver strings, I know,

"But on them Time too long has played The solemn strain that knows no change, And where of old my fingers strayed The chords they find are new and strange,— Yes! iron strings,—I know,—I know,— We both are wrecks of long ago.

"We both are wrecks,—a shattered pair,— Strange to ourselves in time's disguise. What say ye to the lovesick air That brought the tears from Marian's eyes? Ay! trust me,—under breasts of snow Hearts could be melted long ago!

"Or will ye hear the storm-song's crash That from his dreams the soldier woke, And bade him face the lightning flash When battle's cloud in thunder broke? . . . Wrecks,—nought but wrecks!—the time was when We two were worth a thousand men!"

And so the broken harp they bring With pitying smiles that none could blame; Alas! there's not a single string Of all that filled the tarnished frame! But see! like children overjoyed, His fingers rambling through the void!

"I clasp thee! Ay . . . mine ancient lyre . . . Nay, guide my wandering fingers. . . There They love to dally with the wire As Isaac played with Esau's hair. Hush! ye shall hear the famous tune That Marian called the Breath of June!"

And so they softly gather round Rapt in his tuneful trance he seems His fingers move: but not a sound! A silence like the song of dreams. . . . "There! ye have heard the air," he cries, "That brought the tears from Marian's eyes!"

Ah, smile not at his fond conceit, Nor deem his fancy wrought in vain; To him the unreal sounds are sweet,— No discord mars the silent strain Scored on life's latest, starlit page— The voiceless melody of age.

Sweet are the lips, of all that sing, When Nature's music breathes unsought, But never yet could voice or string So truly shape our tenderest thought As when by life's decaying fire Our fingers sweep the stringless lyre!



OUR HOME—OUR COUNTRY

FOR THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE SETTLEMENT OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS., DECEMBER 28, 1880

YOUR home was mine,—kind Nature's gift; My love no years can chill; In vain their flakes the storm-winds sift, The snow-drop hides beneath the drift, A living blossom still.

Mute are a hundred long-famed lyres, Hushed all their golden strings; One lay the coldest bosom fires, One song, one only, never tires While sweet-voiced memory sings.

No spot so lone but echo knows That dear familiar strain; In tropic isles, on arctic snows, Through burning lips its music flows And rings its fond refrain.

From Pisa's tower my straining sight Roamed wandering leagues away, When lo! a frigate's banner bright, The starry blue, the red, the white, In far Livorno's bay.

Hot leaps the life-blood from my heart, Forth springs the sudden tear; The ship that rocks by yonder mart Is of my land, my life, a part,— Home, home, sweet home, is here!

Fades from my view the sunlit scene,— My vision spans the waves; I see the elm-encircled green, The tower,—the steeple,—and, between, The field of ancient graves.

There runs the path my feet would tread When first they learned to stray; There stands the gambrel roof that spread Its quaint old angles o'er my head When first I saw the day.

The sounds that met my boyish ear My inward sense salute,— The woodnotes wild I loved to hear,— The robin's challenge, sharp and clear,— The breath of evening's flute.

The faces loved from cradle days,— Unseen, alas, how long! As fond remembrance round them plays, Touched with its softening moonlight rays, Through fancy's portal throng.

And see! as if the opening skies Some angel form had spared Us wingless mortals to surprise, The little maid with light-blue eyes, White necked and golden haired!

. . . . . . . . . .

So rose the picture full in view I paint in feebler song; Such power the seamless banner knew Of red and white and starry blue For exiles banished long.

Oh, boys, dear boys, who wait as men To guard its heaven-bright folds, Blest are the eyes that see again That banner, seamless now, as then,— The fairest earth beholds!

Sweet was the Tuscan air and soft In that unfading hour, And fancy leads my footsteps oft Up the round galleries, high aloft On Pisa's threatening tower.

And still in Memory's holiest shrine I read with pride and joy, "For me those stars of empire shine; That empire's dearest home is mine; I am a Cambridge boy!"



POEM

AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 8, 1881

THREE paths there be where Learning's favored sons, Trained in the schools which hold her favored ones, Follow their several stars with separate aim; Each has its honors, each its special claim. Bred in the fruitful cradle of the East, First, as of oldest lineage, comes the Priest; The Lawyer next, in wordy conflict strong, Full armed to battle for the right,—or wrong; Last, he whose calling finds its voice in deeds, Frail Nature's helper in her sharpest needs.

Each has his gifts, his losses and his gains, Each his own share of pleasures and of pains; No life-long aim with steadfast eye pursued Finds a smooth pathway all with roses strewed; Trouble belongs to man of woman born,— Tread where he may, his foot will find its thorn.

Of all the guests at life's perennial feast, Who of her children sits above the Priest? For him the broidered robe, the carven seat, Pride at his beck, and beauty at his feet, For him the incense fumes, the wine is poured, Himself a God, adoring and adored! His the first welcome when our hearts rejoice, His in our dying ear the latest voice, Font, altar, grave, his steps on all attend, Our staff, our stay, our all but heavenly friend!

Where is the meddling hand that dares to probe The secret grief beneath his sable robe? How grave his port! how every gesture tells Here truth abides, here peace forever dwells; Vex not his lofty soul with comments vain; Faith asks no questions; silence, ye profane!

Alas! too oft while all is calm without The stormy spirit wars with endless doubt; This is the mocking spectre, scarce concealed Behind tradition's bruised and battered shield. He sees the sleepless critic, age by age, Scrawl his new readings on the hallowed page, The wondrous deeds that priests and prophets saw Dissolved in legend, crystallized in law, And on the soil where saints and martyrs trod Altars new builded to the Unknown God; His shrines imperilled, his evangels torn,— He dares not limp, but ah! how sharp his thorn!

Yet while God's herald questions as he reads The outworn dogmas of his ancient creeds, Drops from his ritual the exploded verse, Blots from its page the Athanasian curse, Though by the critic's dangerous art perplexed, His holy life is Heaven's unquestioned text; That shining guidance doubt can never mar,— The pillar's flame, the light of Bethlehem's star!

Strong is the moral blister that will draw Laid on the conscience of the Man of Law Whom blindfold Justice lends her eyes to see Truth in the scale that holds his promised fee. What! Has not every lie its truthful side, Its honest fraction, not to be denied? Per contra,—ask the moralist,—in sooth Has not a lie its share in every truth? Then what forbids an honest man to try To find the truth that lurks in every lie, And just as fairly call on truth to yield The lying fraction in its breast concealed? So the worst rogue shall claim a ready friend His modest virtues boldly to defend, And he who shows the record of a saint See himself blacker than the devil could paint.

What struggles to his captive soul belong Who loves the right, yet combats for the wrong, Who fights the battle he would fain refuse, And wins, well knowing that he ought to lose, Who speaks with glowing lips and look sincere In spangled words that make the worse appear The better reason; who, behind his mask, Hides his true self and blushes at his task,— What quips, what quillets cheat the inward scorn That mocks such triumph? Has he not his thorn?

Yet stay thy judgment; were thy life the prize, Thy death the forfeit, would thy cynic eyes See fault in him who bravely dares defend The cause forlorn, the wretch without a friend Nay, though the rightful side is wisdom's choice, Wrong has its rights and claims a champion's voice; Let the strong arm be lifted for the weak, For the dumb lips the fluent pleader speak;— When with warm "rebel" blood our street was dyed Who took, unawed, the hated hirelings' side? No greener civic wreath can Adams claim, No brighter page the youthful Quincy's name!

How blest is he who knows no meaner strife Than Art's long battle with the foes of life! No doubt assails him, doing still his best, And trusting kindly Nature for the rest; No mocking conscience tears the thin disguise That wraps his breast, and tells him that he lies. He comes: the languid sufferer lifts his head And smiles a welcome from his weary bed; He speaks: what music like the tones that tell, "Past is the hour of danger,—all is well!" How can he feel the petty stings of grief Whose cheering presence always brings relief? What ugly dreams can trouble his repose Who yields himself to soothe another's woes?

Hour after hour the busy day has found The good physician on his lonely round; Mansion and hovel, low and lofty door, He knows, his journeys every path explore,— Where the cold blast has struck with deadly chill The sturdy dweller on the storm-swept hill, Where by the stagnant marsh the sickening gale Has blanched the poisoned tenants of the vale, Where crushed and maimed the bleeding victim lies, Where madness raves, where melancholy sighs, And where the solemn whisper tells too plain That all his science, all his art, were vain.

How sweet his fireside when the day is done And cares have vanished with the setting sun! Evening at last its hour of respite brings And on his couch his weary length he flings. Soft be thy pillow, servant of mankind, Lulled by an opiate Art could never find; Sweet be thy slumber,—thou hast earned it well,— Pleasant thy dreams! Clang! goes the midnight bell!

Darkness and storm! the home is far away That waits his coming ere the break of day; The snow-clad pines their wintry plumage toss,— Doubtful the frozen stream his road must cross; Deep lie the drifts, the slanted heaps have shut The hardy woodman in his mountain hut,— Why should thy softer frame the tempest brave? Hast thou no life, no health, to lose or save? Look! read the answer in his patient eyes,— For him no other voice when suffering cries; Deaf to the gale that all around him blows, A feeble whisper calls him,—and he goes.

Or seek the crowded city,—summer's heat Glares burning, blinding, in the narrow street, Still, noisome, deadly, sleeps the envenomed air, Unstirred the yellow flag that says "Beware!" Tempt not thy fate,—one little moment's breath Bears on its viewless wing the seeds of death; Thou at whose door the gilded chariots stand, Whose dear-bought skill unclasps the miser's hand, Turn from thy fatal quest, nor cast away That life so precious; let a meaner prey Feed the destroyer's hunger; live to bless Those happier homes that need thy care no less!

Smiling he listens; has he then a charm Whose magic virtues peril can disarm? No safeguard his; no amulet he wears, Too well he knows that Nature never spares Her truest servant, powerless to defend From her own weapons her unshrinking friend. He dares the fate the bravest well might shun, Nor asks reward save only Heaven's "Well done!"

Such are the toils, the perils that he knows, Days without rest and nights without repose, Yet all unheeded for the love he bears His art, his kind, whose every grief he shares.

Harder than these to know how small the part Nature's proud empire yields to striving Art; How, as the tide that rolls around the sphere Laughs at the mounds that delving arms uprear,— Spares some few roods of oozy earth, but still Wastes and rebuilds the planet at its will, Comes at its ordered season, night or noon, Led by the silver magnet of the moon,— So life's vast tide forever comes and goes, Unchecked, resistless, as it ebbs and flows.

Hardest of all, when Art has done her best, To find the cuckoo brooding in her nest; The shrewd adventurer, fresh from parts unknown, Kills off the patients Science thought her own; Towns from a nostrum-vender get their name, Fences and walls the cure-all drug proclaim, Plasters and pads the willing world beguile, Fair Lydia greets us with astringent smile, Munchausen's fellow-countryman unlocks His new Pandora's globule-holding box, And as King George inquired, with puzzled grin, "How—how the devil get the apple in?" So we ask how,—with wonder-opening eyes,— Such pygmy pills can hold such giant lies!

Yes, sharp the trials, stern the daily tasks That suffering Nature from her servant asks; His the kind office dainty menials scorn, His path how hard,—at every step a thorn! What does his saddening, restless slavery buy? What save a right to live, a chance to die,— To live companion of disease and pain, To die by poisoned shafts untimely slain?

Answer from hoary eld, majestic shades,— From Memphian courts, from Delphic colonnades, Speak in the tones that Persia's despot heard When nations treasured every golden word The wandering echoes wafted o'er the seas, From the far isle that held Hippocrates; And thou, best gift that Pergamus could send Imperial Rome, her noblest Caesar's friend, Master of masters, whose unchallenged sway Not bold Vesalius dared to disobey; Ye who while prophets dreamed of dawning times Taught your rude lessons in Salerno's rhymes, And ye, the nearer sires, to whom we owe The better share of all the best we know, In every land an ever-growing train, Since wakening Science broke her rusted chain,— Speak from the past, and say what prize was sent To crown the toiling years so freely spent!

List while they speak: In life's uneven road Our willing hands have eased our brothers' load; One forehead smoothed, one pang of torture less, One peaceful hour a sufferer's couch to bless, The smile brought back to fever's parching lips, The light restored to reason in eclipse, Life's treasure rescued like a burning brand Snatched from the dread destroyer's wasteful hand; Such were our simple records day by day, For gains like these we wore our lives away. In toilsome paths our daily bread we sought, But bread from heaven attending angels brought; Pain was our teacher, speaking to the heart, Mother of pity, nurse of pitying art; Our lesson learned, we reached the peaceful shore Where the pale sufferer asks our aid no more,— These gracious words our welcome, our reward Ye served your brothers; ye have served your Lord!



RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME

FROM the first gleam of morning to the gray Of peaceful evening, lo, a life unrolled! In woven pictures all its changes told, Its lights, its shadows, every flitting ray, Till the long curtain, falling, dims the day, Steals from the dial's disk the sunlight's gold, And all the graven hours grow dark and cold Where late the glowing blaze of noontide lay. Ah! the warm blood runs wild in youthful veins,— Let me no longer play with painted fire; New songs for new-born days! I would not tire The listening ears that wait for fresher strains In phrase new-moulded, new-forged rhythmic chains, With plaintive measures from a worn-out lyre. August 2, 1881.

===



BEFORE THE CURFEW

AT MY FIRESIDE

ALONE, beneath the darkened sky, With saddened heart and unstrung lyre, I heap the spoils of years gone by, And leave them with a long-drawn sigh, Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie, Before the ashes hide the fire.

Let not these slow declining days The rosy light of dawn outlast; Still round my lonely hearth it plays, And gilds the east with borrowed rays, While memory's mirrored sunset blaze Flames on the windows of the past.

March 1, 1888.



AT THE SATURDAY CLUB THIS is our place of meeting; opposite That towered and pillared building: look at it; King's Chapel in the Second George's day, Rebellion stole its regal name away,— Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last The poisoned name of our provincial past Had lost its ancient venom; then once more Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before. (So let rechristened North Street, when it can, Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!) Next the old church your wandering eye will meet— A granite pile that stares upon the street— Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head, Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by Say Boston always held her head too high. Turn half-way round, and let your look survey The white facade that gleams across the way,— The many-windowed building, tall and wide, The palace-inn that shows its northern side In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat The granite wall in summer's scorching heat. This is the place; whether its name you spell Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel. Would I could steal its echoes! you should find Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind Such feasts! the laughs of many a jocund hour That shook the mortar from King George's tower; Such guests! What famous names its record boasts, Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts! Such stories! Every beam and plank is filled With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, Ready to ooze, as once the mountain pine The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine!

A month had flitted since The Club had met; The day came round; I found the table set, The waiters lounging round the marble stairs, Empty as yet the double row of chairs. I was a full half hour before the rest, Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest. So from the table's side a chair I took, And having neither company nor book To keep me waking, by degrees there crept A torpor over me,—in short, I slept.

Loosed from its chain, along the wreck-strown track Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back; My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it seems Dreaming is life; nay, life less life than dreams, So real are the shapes that meet my eyes. They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, No hint of other than an earth-born source; All seems plain daylight, everything of course.

How dim the colors are, how poor and faint This palette of weak words with which I paint! Here sit my friends; if I could fix them so As to my eyes they seem, my page would glow Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush Of life into their features. Ay de mi! If syllables were pigments, you should see Such breathing portraitures as never man Found in the Pitti or the Vatican.

Here sits our POET, Laureate, if you will. Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it still. Dead? Nay, not so; and yet they say his bust Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's grace; Dead! No! Alive! I see him in his place, Full-featured, with the bloom that heaven denies Her children, pinched by cold New England skies, Too often, while the nursery's happier few Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue. Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there shines The ray serene that filled Evangeline's. Modest he seems, not shy; content to wait Amid the noisy clamor of debate The looked-for moment when a peaceful word Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have stirred. In every tone I mark his tender grace And all his poems hinted in his face; What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives! How could. I think him dead? He lives! He lives!

There, at the table's further end I see In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square, In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. His social hour no leaden care alloys, His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's,— That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot,— What ear has heard it and remembers not? How often, halting at some wide crevasse Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, High up the cliffs, the climbing mountaineer, Listening the far-off avalanche to hear, Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing laugh, From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls How does vast Nature lead her living train In ordered sequence through that spacious brain, As in the primal hour when Adam named The new-born tribes that young creation claimed!— How will her realm be darkened, losing thee, Her darling, whom we call our AGASSIZ!

But who is he whose massive frame belies The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes? Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, Some answer struggles from his laboring breast? An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, Locked in his studio with a human heart, Tracking its eaverned passions to their lair, And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare. Count it no marvel that he broods alone Over the heart he studies,—'t is his own; So in his page, whatever shape it wear, The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there,— The great ROMANCER, hid beneath his veil Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl.

From his mild throng of worshippers released, Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, By every title always welcome here. Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe? You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulders' droop, The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, Carved by the edge of keen New England air. List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose The jewels for his bride, he might refuse This diamond for its flaw,—find that less bright Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, The fairest gems are chosen, and made fast In golden fetters; so, with light delays He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase; Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, His chosen word is sure to prove the best. Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong? He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, Born to unlock the secrets of the skies; And which the nobler calling,—if 't is fair Terrestrial with celestial to compare,— To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came, Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre? If lost at times in vague aerial flights, None treads with firmer footstep when he lights; A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, In every Bible he has faith to read, And every altar helps to shape his creed. Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares? Till angels greet him with a sweeter one In heaven, on earth we call him EMERSON.

I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn; Its figures fading like the stars at dawn; Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names, And memory's pictures fading in their frames; Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams!



OUR DEAD SINGER

H. W. L.

PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own, We claim with her that spotless fame of thine, White as her snow and fragrant as her pine! Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine, On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown. Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command,— The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild,— Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled, Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand? Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child.

Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould, Will grateful Memory fondly try her best The mortal vesture from decay to wrest; His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how cold! No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold, No throb can heave the statue's stony breast; "He is not here, but risen," will stand confest In all we miss, in all our eyes behold. How Nature loved him! On his placid brow, Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred sign That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine, Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough That envious Time might clutch or disallow, To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine.

On many a saddened hearth the evening fire Burns paler as the children's hour draws near,— That joyous hour his song made doubly dear,— And tender memories touch the faltering choir. He sings no more on earth; our vain desire Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear,— The sweet contralto that could never tire. Deafened with listening to a harsher strain, The Maenad's scream, the stark barbarian's cry, Still for those soothing, loving tones we sigh; Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again! The shadowy silence hears us call in vain! His lips are hushed; his song shall never die.



TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, JUNE 14, 1882

I. AT THE SUMMIT

SISTER, we bid you welcome,—we who stand On the high table-land; We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope, And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope, Looking along the silent Mer de Glace, Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass,— Sister, we clasp your hand!

Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent Before the swift descent. Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice; See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss; The mated eagles fan the frosty air; Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere, And, in their time, the darkening hours that bear Sweet memories, peace, content.

Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show Amid their rubrics' glow, But search the blazoned record's starry line, What halo's radiance fills the page like thine? Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find The way to all the hearts of all mankind, On thee, already canonized, enshrined, What more can Heaven bestow!

II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE

IF every tongue that speaks her praise For whom I shape my tinkling phrase Were summoned to the table, The vocal chorus that would meet Of mingling accents harsh or sweet, From every land and tribe, would beat The polyglots at Babel.

Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane, Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine, Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi, High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too, The Russian serf, the Polish Jew, Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo, Would shout, "We know the lady!"

Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom And her he learned his gospel from Has never heard of Moses; Full well the brave black hand we know That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe That killed the weed that used to grow Among the Southern roses.

When Archimedes, long ago, Spoke out so grandly, "dos pou sto— Give me a place to stand on, I'll move your planet for you, now,"— He little dreamed or fancied how The sto at last should find its pou For woman's faith to land on.

Her lever was the wand of art, Her fulcrum was the human heart, Whence all unfailing aid is; She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed, Its mountains shook, its temples reeled, The blood-red fountains were unsealed, And Moloch sunk to Hades.

All through the conflict, up and down Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown, One ghost, one form ideal; And which was false and which was true, And which was mightier of the two, The wisest sibyl never knew, For both alike were real.

Sister, the holy maid does well Who counts her beads in convent cell, Where pale devotion lingers; But she who serves the sufferer's needs, Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds, May trust the Lord will count her beads As well as human fingers.

When Truth herself was Slavery's slave, Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave The rainbow wings of fiction. And Truth who soared descends to-day Bearing an angel's wreath away, Its lilies at thy feet to lay With Heaven's own benediction.



A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD

ON HIS RETURN FROM SOUTH AMERICA

AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS DEVOTED TO CATALOGUING THE STARS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

Read at the Dinner given at the Hotel Vendome, May 6,1885.

ONCE more Orion and the sister Seven Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth,— How shall we welcome thee, whose home was heaven, From thy celestial wanderings back to earth?

Science has kept her midnight taper burning To greet thy coming with its vestal flame; Friendship has murmured, "When art thou returning?" "Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came.

Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion, While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore,— Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean, Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador.

Through the long nights I see thee ever waking, Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemisphere, While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching, Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier.

The souls that voyaged the azure depths before thee Watch with thy tireless vigils, all unseen,— Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er thee, And with his toy-like tube the Florentine,—

He at whose word the orb that bore him shivered To find her central sovereignty disowned, While the wan lips of priest and pontiff quivered, Their jargon stilled, their Baal disenthroned.

Flamsteed and Newton look with brows unclouded, Their strife forgotten with its faded scars,— (Titans, who found the world of space too crowded To walk in peace among its myriad stars.)

All cluster round thee,—seers of earliest ages, Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned kings, From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages To his who weighed the planet's fluid rings.

And we, for whom the northern heavens are lighted, For whom the storm has passed, the sun has smiled, Our clouds all scattered, all our stars united, We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long-lost child.

Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arching splendor, Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome, In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, tender, We bid thee welcome to thine earthly home!



TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE

AT A DINNER GIVEN HIM ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1885

With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury, presented by a few friends.

FIT emblem for the altar's side, And him who serves its daily need, The stay, the solace, and the guide Of mortal men, whate'er his creed!

Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze, He feeds the upward-climbing fire, Still teaching, like the deathless bronze, Man's noblest lesson,—to aspire.

Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove, Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car, And o'er Dodona's silent grove Streams the white, ray from Bethlehem's star.

Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch, A godlike shape, that human hands Have fired with Art's electric touch, The herald of Olympus stands.

Ask not what ore the furnace knew; Love mingled with the flowing mass, And lends its own unchanging hue, Like gold in Corinth's molten brass.

Take then our gift; this airy form Whose bronze our benedictions gild, The hearts of all its givers warm With love by freezing years unchilled.

With eye undimmed, with strength unworn, Still toiling in your Master's field, Before you wave the growths unshorn, Their ripened harvest yet to yield.

True servant of the Heavenly Sire, To you our tried affection clings, Bids you still labor, still aspire, But clasps your feet and steals their wings.



TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

THIS is your month, the month of "perfect days," Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze. Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes, Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes; Carpets her paths for your returning feet, Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet; And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June. These blessed days are waning all too fast, And June's bright visions mingling with the past;

Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows, And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets; The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites; The dandelion, which you sang of old, Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold, But still displays its feathery-mantled globe, Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe. These were your humble friends; your opened eyes Nature had trained her common gifts to prize; Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise Charles, with his muddy margin and the harsh, Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh. New England's home-bred scholar, well you knew Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through, And loved them ever with the love that holds All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds. Though far and wide your winged words have flown, Your daily presence kept you all our own, Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride, We heard your summons, and you left our side For larger duties and for tasks untried.

How pleased the Spaniards for a while to claim This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name, Who stored their classics on his crowded shelves And loved their Calderon as they did themselves! Before his eyes what changing pageants pass! The bridal feast how near the funeral mass! The death-stroke falls,—the Misereres wail; The joy-bells ring,—the tear-stained cheeks unveil, While, as the playwright shifts his pictured scene, The royal mourner crowns his second queen.

From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride,— Madrid and London long-stretched leagues divide. What if I send him, "Uncle S., says he," To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B."? A nation's servants go where they are sent,— He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went. By what enchantments, what alluring arts, Our truthful James led captive British hearts,— Whether his shrewdness made their statesmen halt, Or if his learning found their Dons at fault, Or if his virtue was a strange surprise, Or if his wit flung star-dust in their eyes,— Like honest Yankees we can simply guess; But that he did it all must needs confess. England herself without a blush may claim Her only conqueror since the Norman came. Eight years an exile! What a weary while Since first our herald sought the mother isle! His snow-white flag no churlish wrong has soiled,—- He left unchallenged, he returns unspoiled.

Here let us keep him, here he saw the light,— His genius, wisdom, wit, are ours by right; And if we lose him our lament will be We have "five hundred"—not "as good as he."



TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

1887

FRIEND, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek Burned in the flush of manhood's manliest year, Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak Thy feet have reached, and mine have climbed so near! Close on thy footsteps 'mid the landscape drear I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek, Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can speak! Look backward! From thy lofty height survey Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won, Of dreams made real, largest hopes outrun! Look forward! Brighter than earth's morning ray Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun, The unclouded dawn of life's immortal day!



PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS FOR THE BLIND

DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse That veils the noonday,—you whose finger-tips A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. This wreath of verse how dare I offer you To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers?

Nay, those I have I bring you,—at their birth Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth; If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds, And here and there you light on saucy weeds Among the fairer growths, remember still Song comes of grace, and not of human will: We get a jarring note when most we try, Then strike the chord we know not how or why; Our stately verse with too aspiring art Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart, While the rude rhyme one human throb endears Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears. Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read, From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed; The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame, The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim, Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold.



BOSTON TO FLORENCE

Sent to "The Philological Circle" of Florence for its meeting in commemoration of Dante, January 27, 1881, the anniversary of his first condemnation.

PROUD of her clustering spires, her new-built towers, Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering sea, A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to thee, Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its flowers! Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love embowers, Yet none with truer homage bends the knee, Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than we, Whose poets make thy dead Immortal ours. Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how near! Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse of thine Like the stern river from its Apennine Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled with fear: Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is dear, And every language knows the Song Divine!



AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL

MARCH 8, 1882

THE waves unbuild the wasting shore; Where mountains towered the billows sweep, Yet still their borrowed spoils restore, And build new empires from the deep. So while the floods of thought lay waste The proud domain of priestly creeds, Its heaven-appointed tides will haste To plant new homes for human needs. Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled The change an outworn church deplores; The legend sinks, but Faith shall build A fairer throne on new-found shores.



POEM

FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF HARVARD COLLEGE

TWICE had the mellowing sun of autumn crowned The hundredth circle of his yearly round, When, as we meet to-day, our fathers met: That joyous gathering who can e'er forget, When Harvard's nurslings, scattered far and wide, Through mart and village, lake's and ocean's side, Came, with one impulse, one fraternal throng, And crowned the hours with banquet, speech, and song?

Once more revived in fancy's magic glass, I see in state the long procession pass Tall, courtly, leader as by right divine, Winthrop, our Winthrop, rules the marshalled line, Still seen in front, as on that far-off day His ribboned baton showed the column's way. Not all are gone who marched in manly pride And waved their truncheons at their leader's side; Gray, Lowell, Dixwell, who his empire shared, These to be with us envious Time has spared.

Few are the faces, so familiar then, Our eyes still meet amid the haunts of men; Scarce one of all the living gathered there, Whose unthinned locks betrayed a silver hair, Greets us to-day, and yet we seem the same As our own sires and grandsires, save in name. There are the patriarchs, looking vaguely round For classmates' faces, hardly known if found; See the cold brow that rules the busy mart; Close at its side the pallid son of art, Whose purchased skill with borrowed meaning clothes, And stolen hues, the smirking face he loathes. Here is the patient scholar; in his looks You read the titles of his learned books; What classic lore those spidery crow's-feet speak! What problems figure on that wrinkled cheek! For never thought but left its stiffened trace, Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face, As the swift record of a raindrop stands, Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands. On every face as on the written page Each year renews the autograph of age; One trait alone may wasting years defy,— The fire still lingering in the poet's eye, While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest strain,— Non omnis moriar is its proud refrain.

Sadly we gaze upon the vacant chair; He who should claim its honors is not there,— Otis, whose lips the listening crowd enthrall That press and pack the floor of Boston's hall. But Kirkland smiles, released from toil and care Since the silk mantle younger shoulders wear,— Quincy's, whose spirit breathes the selfsame fire That filled the bosom of his youthful sire, Who for the altar bore the kindled torch To freedom's temple, dying in its porch.

Three grave professions in their sons appear, Whose words well studied all well pleased will hear Palfrey, ordained in varied walks to shine, Statesman, historian, critic, and divine; Solid and square behold majestic Shaw, A mass of wisdom and a mine of law; Warren, whose arm the doughtiest warriors fear, Asks of the startled crowd to lend its ear,— Proud of his calling, him the world loves best, Not as the coming, but the parting guest.

Look on that form,—with eye dilating scan The stately mould of nature's kingliest man! Tower-like he stands in life's unfaded prime; Ask you his name? None asks a second time He from the land his outward semblance takes, Where storm-swept mountains watch o'er slumbering lakes. See in the impress which the body wears How its imperial might the soul declares The forehead's large expansion, lofty, wide, That locks unsilvered vainly strive to hide; The lines of thought that plough the sober cheek; Lips that betray their wisdom ere they speak In tones like answers from Dodona's grove; An eye like Juno's when she frowns on Jove. I look and wonder; will he be content— This man, this monarch, for the purple meant— The meaner duties of his tribe to share, Clad in the garb that common mortals wear? Ah, wild Ambition, spread thy restless wings, Beneath whose plumes the hidden cestrum stings;

Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's vulgar crowds, And like the eagle soar above the clouds, Must feel the pang that fallen angels know When the red lightning strikes thee from below!

Less bronze, more silver, mingles in the mould Of him whom next my roving eyes behold; His, more the scholar's than the statesman's face, Proclaims him born of academic race. Weary his look, as if an aching brain Left on his brow the frozen prints of pain; His voice far-reaching, grave, sonorous, owns A shade of sadness in its plaintive tones, Yet when its breath some loftier thought inspires Glows with a heat that every bosom fires. Such Everett seems; no chance-sown wild flower knows The full-blown charms of culture's double rose,— Alas, how soon, by death's unsparing frost, Its bloom is faded and its fragrance lost!

Two voices, only two, to earth belong, Of all whose accents met the listening throng: Winthrop, alike for speech and guidance framed, On that proud day a twofold duty claimed; One other yet,—remembered or forgot,— Forgive my silence if I name him not. Can I believe it? I, whose youthful voice Claimed a brief gamut,—notes not over choice, Stood undismayed before the solemn throng, And propria voce sung that saucy song Which even in memory turns my soul aghast,— Felix audacia was the verdict cast.

What were the glory of these festal days Shorn of their grand illumination's blaze? Night comes at last with all her starry train To find a light in every glittering pane. From "Harvard's" windows see the sudden flash,— Old "Massachusetts" glares through every sash; From wall to wall the kindling splendors run Till all is glorious as the noonday sun.

How to the scholar's mind each object brings What some historian tells, some poet sings! The good gray teacher whom we all revered— Loved, honored, laughed at, and by freshmen feared, As from old "Harvard," where its light began, From hall to hall the clustering splendors ran— Took down his well-worn Eschylus and read, Lit by the rays a thousand tapers shed, How the swift herald crossed the leagues between Mycenae's monarch and his faithless queen; And thus he read,—my verse but ill displays The Attic picture, clad in modern phrase.

On Ida's summit flames the kindling pile, And Lemnos answers from his rocky isle; From Athos next it climbs the reddening skies, Thence where the watch-towers of Macistus rise. The sentries of Mesapius in their turn Bid the dry heath in high piled masses burn, Cithoeron's crag the crimson billows stain, Far AEgiplanctus joins the fiery train. Thus the swift courier through the pathless night Has gained at length the Arachnoean height, Whence the glad tidings, borne on wings offlame, "Ilium has fallen!" reach the royal dame.

So ends the day; before the midnight stroke The lights expiring cloud the air with smoke; While these the toil of younger hands employ, The slumbering Grecian dreams of smouldering Troy.

As to that hour with backward steps I turn, Midway I pause; behold a funeral urn! Ah, sad memorial! known but all too well The tale which thus its golden letters tell:

This dust, once breathing, changed its joyous life For toil and hunger, wounds and mortal strife; Love, friendship, learning's all prevailing charms, For the cold bivouac and the clash of arms. The cause of freedom won, a race enslaved Called back to manhood, and a nation saved, These sons of Harvard, falling ere their prime, Leave their proud memory to the coming time.

While in their still retreats our scholars turn The mildewed pages of the past, to learn With endless labor of the sleepless brain What once has been and ne'er shall be again, We reap the harvest of their ceaseless toil And find a fragrance in their midnight oil. But let a purblind mortal dare the task The embryo future of itself to ask, The world reminds him, with a scornful laugh, That times have changed since Prospero broke his staff. Could all the wisdom of the schools foretell The dismal hour when Lisbon shook and fell, Or name the shuddering night that toppled down Our sister's pride, beneath whose mural crown Scarce had the scowl forgot its angry lines, When earth's blind prisoners fired their fatal mines?

New realms, new worlds, exulting Science claims, Still the dim future unexplored remains; Her trembling scales the far-off planet weigh, Her torturing prisms its elements betray,— We know what ores the fires of Sirius melt, What vaporous metals gild Orion's belt; Angels, archangels, may have yet to learn Those hidden truths our heaven-taught eyes discern; Yet vain is Knowledge, with her mystic wand, To pierce the cloudy screen and read beyond; Once to the silent stars the fates were known, To us they tell no secrets but their own.

At Israel's altar still we humbly bow, But where, oh where, are Israel's prophets now? Where is the sibyl with her hoarded leaves? Where is the charm the weird enchantress weaves? No croaking raven turns the auspex pale, No reeking altars tell the morrow's tale; The measured footsteps of the Fates are dumb, Unseen, unheard, unheralded, they come, Prophet and priest and all their following fail. Who then is left to rend the future's veil? Who but the poet, he whose nicer sense No film can baffle with its slight defence, Whose finer vision marks the waves that stray, Felt, but unseen, beyond the violet ray?— Who, while the storm-wind waits its darkening shroud, Foretells the tempest ere he sees the cloud,— Stays not for time his secrets to reveal, But reads his message ere he breaks the seal. So Mantua's bard foretold the coming day Ere Bethlehem's infant in the manger lay; The promise trusted to a mortal tongue Found listening ears before the angels sung. So while his load the creeping pack-horse galled, While inch by inch the dull canal-boat crawled, Darwin beheld a Titan from "afar Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car," That panting giant fed by air and flame, The mightiest forges task their strength to tame.

Happy the poet! him no tyrant fact Holds in its clutches to be chained and racked; Him shall no mouldy document convict, No stern statistics gravely contradict; No rival sceptre threats his airy throne; He rules o'er shadows, but he reigns alone. Shall I the poet's broad dominion claim Because you bid me wear his sacred name For these few moments? Shall I boldly clash My flint and steel, and by the sudden flash Read the fair vision which my soul descries Through the wide pupils of its wondering eyes? List then awhile; the fifty years have sped; The third full century's opened scroll is spread, Blank to all eyes save his who dimly sees The shadowy future told in words like these.

How strange the prospect to my sight appears, Changed by the busy hands of fifty years! Full well I know our ocean-salted Charles, Filling and emptying through the sands and marls That wall his restless stream on either bank, Not all unlovely when the sedges rank Lend their coarse veil the sable ooze to hide That bares its blackness with the ebbing tide. In other shapes to my illumined eyes Those ragged margins of our stream arise Through walls of stone the sparkling waters flow, In clearer depths the golden sunsets glow, On purer waves the lamps of midnight gleam, That silver o'er the unpolluted stream. Along his shores what stately temples rise, What spires, what turrets, print the shadowed skies! Our smiling Mother sees her broad domain Spread its tall roofs along the western plain; Those blazoned windows' blushing glories tell Of grateful hearts that loved her long and well; Yon gilded dome that glitters in the sun Was Dives' gift,—alas, his only one! These buttressed walls enshrine a banker's name, That hallowed chapel hides a miser's shame; Their wealth they left,—their memory cannot fade Though age shall crumble every stone they laid.

Great lord of millions,—let me call thee great, Since countless servants at thy bidding wait,— Richesse oblige: no mortal must be blind To all but self, or look at human kind Laboring and suffering,—all its want and woe,— Through sheets of crystal, as a pleasing show That makes life happier for the chosen few Duty for whom is something not to do. When thy last page of life at length is filled, What shall thine heirs to keep thy memory build? Will piles of stone in Auburn's mournful shade Save from neglect the spot where thou art laid? Nay, deem not thus; the sauntering stranger's eye Will pass unmoved thy columned tombstone by, No memory wakened, not a teardrop shed, Thy name uncared for and thy date unread. But if thy record thou indeed dost prize, Bid from the soil some stately temple rise,— Some hall of learning, some memorial shrine, With names long honored to associate thine: So shall thy fame outlive thy shattered bust When all around thee slumber in the dust. Thus England's Henry lives in Eton's towers, Saved from the spoil oblivion's gulf devours; Our later records with as fair a fame Have wreathed each uncrowned benefactor's name; The walls they reared the memories still retain That churchyard marbles try to keep in vain. In vain the delving antiquary tries To find the tomb where generous Harvard lies Here, here, his lasting monument is found, Where every spot is consecrated ground! O'er Stoughton's dust the crumbling stone decays, Fast fade its lines of lapidary praise; There the wild bramble weaves its ragged nets, There the dry lichen spreads its gray rosettes; Still in yon walls his memory lives unspent, Nor asks a braver, nobler monument. Thus Hollis lives, and Holden, honored, praised, And good Sir Matthew, in the halls they raised; Thus live the worthies of these later times, Who shine in deeds, less brilliant, grouped in rhymes. Say, shall the Muse with faltering steps retreat, Or dare these names in rhythmic form repeat? Why not as boldly as from Homer's lips The long array, of Argive battle-ships? When o'er our graves a thousand years have past (If to such date our threatened globe shall last) These classic precincts, myriad feet have pressed, Will show on high, in beauteous garlands dressed, Those honored names that grace our later day,— Weld, Matthews, Sever, Thayer, Austin, Gray, Sears, Phillips, Lawrence, Hemenway,—to the list Add Sanders, Sibley,—all the Muse has missed.

Once more I turn to read the pictured page Bright with the promise of the coming age. Ye unborn sons of children yet unborn, Whose youthful eyes shall greet that far-off morn, Blest are those eyes that all undimmed behold The sights so longed for by the wise of old. From high-arched alcoves, through resounding halls, Clad in full robes majestic Science calls, Tireless, unsleeping, still at Nature's feet, Whate'er she utters fearless to repeat, Her lips at last from every cramp released That Israel's prophet caught from Egypt's priest. I see the statesman, firm, sagacious, bold, For life's long conflict cast in amplest mould; Not his to clamor with the senseless throng That shouts unshamed, "Our party, right or wrong," But in the patriot's never-ending fight To side with Truth, who changes wrong to right. I see the scholar; in that wondrous time Men, women, children, all can write in rhyme. These four brief lines addressed to youth inclined To idle rhyming in his notes I find:

Who writes in verse that should have writ in prose Is like a traveller walking on his toes; Happy the rhymester who in time has found The heels he lifts were made to touch the ground.

I see gray teachers,—on their work intent, Their lavished lives, in endless labor spent, Had closed at last in age and penury wrecked, Martyrs, not burned, but frozen in neglect, Save for the generous hands that stretched in aid Of worn-out servants left to die half paid. Ah, many a year will pass, I thought, ere we Such kindly forethought shall rejoice to see,— Monarchs are mindful of the sacred debt That cold republics hasten to forget. I see the priest,—if such a name he bears Who without pride his sacred vestment wears; And while the symbols of his tribe I seek Thus my first impulse bids me think and speak:

Let not the mitre England's prelate wears Next to the crown whose regal pomp it shares, Though low before it courtly Christians bow, Leave its red mark on Younger England's brow. We love, we honor, the maternal dame, But let her priesthood wear a modest name, While through the waters of the Pilgrim's bay A new-born Mayflower shows her keels the way. Too old grew Britain for her mother's beads,— Must we be necklaced with her children's creeds? Welcome alike in surplice or in gown The loyal lieges of the Heavenly Crown! We greet with cheerful, not submissive, mien A sister church, but not a mitred Queen!

A few brief flutters, and the unwilling Muse, Who feared the flight she hated to refuse, Shall fold the wings whose gayer plumes are shed, Here where at first her half-fledged pinions spread. Well I remember in the long ago How in the forest shades of Fontainebleau, Strained through a fissure in a rocky cell, One crystal drop with measured cadence fell. Still, as of old, forever bright and clear, The fissured cavern drops its wonted tear, And wondrous virtue, simple folk aver, Lies in that teardrop of la roche qui pleure.

Of old I wandered by the river's side Between whose banks the mighty waters glide, Where vast Niagara, hurrying to its fall, Builds and unbuilds its ever-tumbling wall; Oft in my dreams I hear the rush and roar Of battling floods, and feel the trembling shore, As the huge torrent, girded for its leap, With bellowing thunders plunges down the steep. Not less distinct, from memory's pictured urn, The gray old rock, the leafy woods, return; Robed in their pride the lofty oaks appear, And once again with quickened sense I hear, Through the low murmur of the leaves that stir, The tinkling teardrop of la roche qui pleure.

So when the third ripe century stands complete, As once again the sons of Harvard meet, Rejoicing, numerous as the seashore sands, Drawn from all quarters,—farthest distant lands, Where through the reeds the scaly saurian steals, Where cold Alaska feeds her floundering seals, Where Plymouth, glorying, wears her iron crown, Where Sacramento sees the suns go down; Nay, from the cloisters whence the refluent tide Wafts their pale students to our Mother's side,— Mid all the tumult that the day shall bring, While all the echoes shout, and roar, and ring, These tinkling lines, oblivion's easy prey, Once more emerging to the light of day, Not all unpleasing to the listening ear Shall wake the memories of this bygone year, Heard as I hear the measured drops that flow From the gray rock of wooded Fontainebleau.

Yet, ere I leave, one loving word for all Those fresh young lives that wait our Mother's call: One gift is yours, kind Nature's richest dower,— Youth, the fair bud that holds life's opening flower, Full of high hopes no coward doubts enchain, With all the future throbbing in its brain, And mightiest instincts which the beating heart Fills with the fire its burning waves impart.

O joyous youth, whose glory is to dare,— Thy foot firm planted on the lowest stair, Thine eye uplifted to the loftiest height Where Fame stands beckoning in the rosy light, Thanks for thy flattering tales, thy fond deceits, Thy loving lies, thy cheerful smiling cheats Nature's rash promise every day is broke,— A thousand acorns breed a single oak, The myriad blooms that make the orchard gay In barren beauty throw their lives away; Yet shall we quarrel with the sap that yields The painted blossoms which adorn the fields, When the fair orchard wears its May-day suit Of pink-white petals, for its scanty fruit? Thrice happy hours, in hope's illusion dressed, In fancy's cradle nurtured and caressed, Though rich the spoils that ripening years may bring, To thee the dewdrops of the Orient cling,— Not all the dye-stuffs from the vats of truth Can match the rainbow on the robes of youth!

Dear unborn children, to our Mother's trust We leave you, fearless, when we lie in dust: While o'er these walls the Christian banner waves From hallowed lips shall flow the truth that saves; While o'er those portals Veritas you read No church shall bind you with its human creed. Take from the past the best its toil has won, But learn betimes its slavish ruts to shun. Pass the old tree whose withered leaves are shed, Quit the old paths that error loved to tread, And a new wreath of living blossoms seek, A narrower pathway up a loftier peak; Lose not your reverence, but unmanly fear Leave far behind you, all who enter here!

As once of old from Ida's lofty height The flaming signal flashed across the night, So Harvard's beacon sheds its unspent rays Till every watch-tower shows its kindling blaze. Caught from a spark and fanned by every gale, A brighter radiance gilds the roofs of Yale; Amherst and Williams bid their flambeaus shine, And Bowdoin answers through her groves of pine; O'er Princeton's sands the far reflections steal, Where mighty Edwards stamped his iron heel; Nay, on the hill where old beliefs were bound Fast as if Styx had girt them nine times round, Bursts such a light that trembling souls inquire If the whole church of Calvin is on fire! Well may they ask, for what so brightly burns As a dry creed that nothing ever learns? Thus link by link is knit the flaming chain Lit by the torch of Harvard's hallowed plain.

Thy son, thy servant, dearest Mother mine, Lays this poor offering on thy holy shrine, An autumn leaflet to the wild winds tost, Touched by the finger of November's frost, With sweet, sad memories of that earlier day, And all that listened to my first-born lay. With grateful heart this glorious morn I see,— Would that my tribute worthier were of thee!



POST-PRANDIAL

PHI BETA KAPPA

WENDELL PHILLIPS, ORATOR; CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, POET

1881

"THE Dutch have taken Holland,"—so the schoolboys used to say; The Dutch have taken Harvard,—no doubt of that to-day! For the Wendells were low Dutchmen, and all their vrows were Vans; And the Breitmanns are high Dutchmen, and here is honest Hans.

Mynheers, you both are welcome! Fair cousin Wendell P., Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee; Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we, And Vondel was our namesake, though he spelt it with a V.

It is well old Evert Jansen sought a dwelling over sea On the margin of the Hudson, where he sampled you and me Through our grandsires and great-grandsires, for you would n't quite agree With the steady-going burghers along the Zuyder Zee.

Like our Motley's John of Barnveld, you have always been inclined To speak,—well,—somewhat frankly,—to let us know your mind, And the Mynheers would have told you to be cautious what you said, Or else that silver tongue of yours might cost your precious head.

But we're very glad you've kept it; it was always Freedom's own, And whenever Reason chose it she found a royal throne; You have whacked us with your sceptre; our backs were little harmed, And while we rubbed our bruises we owned we had been charmed.

And you, our quasi Dutchman, what welcome should be yours For all the wise prescriptions that work your laughter-cures? "Shake before taking"?—not a bit,—the bottle-cure's a sham; Take before shaking, and you 'll find it shakes your diaphragm.

"Hans Breitmann gif a barty,—vhere is dot barty now?" On every shelf where wit is stored to smooth the careworn brow A health to stout Hans Breitmann! How long before we see Another Hans as handsome,—as bright a man as he!



THE FLANEUR

BOSTON COMMON, DECEMBER 6, 1882

DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS

I LOVE all sights of earth and skies, From flowers that glow to stars that shine; The comet and the penny show, All curious things, above, below, Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: I claim the Christian Pagan's line, Humani nihil,—even so,— And is not human life divine? When soft the western breezes blow, And strolling youths meet sauntering maids, I love to watch the stirring trades Beneath the Vallombrosa shades Our much-enduring elms bestow; The vender and his rhetoric's flow, That lambent stream of liquid lies; The bait he dangles from his line, The gudgeon and his gold-washed prize. I halt before the blazoned sign That bids me linger to admire The drama time can never tire, The little hero of the hunch, With iron arm and soul of fire, And will that works his fierce desire,— Untamed, unscared, unconquered Punch My ear a pleasing torture finds In tones the withered sibyl grinds,— The dame sans merci's broken strain, Whom I erewhile, perchance, have known, When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne, A siren singing by the Seine.

But most I love the tube that spies The orbs celestial in their march; That shows the comet as it whisks Its tail across the planets' disks, As if to blind their blood-shot eyes; Or wheels so close against the sun We tremble at the thought of risks Our little spinning ball may run, To pop like corn that children parch, From summer something overdone, And roll, a cinder, through the skies.

Grudge not to-day the scanty fee To him who farms the firmament, To whom the Milky Way is free; Who holds the wondrous crystal key, The silent Open Sesame That Science to her sons has lent; Who takes his toll, and lifts the bar That shuts the road to sun and star. If Venus only comes to time, (And prophets say she must and shall,) To-day will hear the tinkling chime Of many a ringing silver dime, For him whose optic glass supplies The crowd with astronomic eyes,— The Galileo of the Mall.

Dimly the transit morning broke; The sun seemed doubting what to do, As one who questions how to dress, And takes his doublets from the press, And halts between the old and new. Please Heaven he wear his suit of blue, Or don, at least, his ragged cloak, With rents that show the azure through!

I go the patient crowd to join That round the tube my eyes discern, The last new-comer of the file, And wait, and wait, a weary while,

And gape, and stretch, and shrug, and smile, (For each his place must fairly earn, Hindmost and foremost, in his turn,) Till hitching onward, pace by pace, I gain at last the envied place, And pay the white exiguous coin: The sun and I are face to face; He glares at me, I stare at him; And lo! my straining eye has found A little spot that, black and round, Lies near the crimsoned fire-orb's rim. O blessed, beauteous evening star, Well named for her whom earth adores,— The Lady of the dove-drawn car,— I know thee in thy white simar; But veiled in black, a rayless spot, Blank as a careless scribbler's blot, Stripped of thy robe of silvery flame,— The stolen robe that Night restores When Day has shut his golden doors,— I see thee, yet I know thee not; And canst thou call thyself the same?

A black, round spot,—and that is all; And such a speck our earth would be If he who looks upon the stars Through the red atmosphere of Mars Could see our little creeping ball Across the disk of crimson crawl As I our sister planet see.

And art thou, then, a world like ours, Flung from the orb that whirled our own A molten pebble from its zone? How must thy burning sands absorb The fire-waves of the blazing orb, Thy chain so short, thy path so near, Thy flame-defying creatures hear The maelstroms of the photosphere! And is thy bosom decked with flowers That steal their bloom from scalding showers? And bast thou cities, domes, and towers, And life, and love that makes it dear, And death that fills thy tribes with fear?

Lost in my dream, my spirit soars Through paths the wandering angels know; My all-pervading thought explores The azure ocean's lucent shores; I leave my mortal self below, As up the star-lit stairs I climb, And still the widening view reveals In endless rounds the circling wheels That build the horologe of time. New spheres, new suns, new systems gleam; The voice no earth-born echo hears Steals softly on my ravished ears I hear them "singing as they shine"— A mortal's voice dissolves my dream: My patient neighbor, next in line, Hints gently there are those who wait. O guardian of the starry gate, What coin shall pay this debt of mine? Too slight thy claim, too small the fee That bids thee turn the potent key.

The Tuscan's hand has placed in thine. Forgive my own the small affront, The insult of the proffered dime; Take it, O friend, since this thy wont, But still shall faithful memory be A bankrupt debtor unto thee, And pay thee with a grateful rhyme.



AVE

PRELUDE TO "ILLUSTRATED POEMS"

FULL well I know the frozen hand has come That smites the songs of grove and garden dumb, And chills sad autumn's last chrysanthemum;

Yet would I find one blossom, if I might, Ere the dark loom that weaves the robe of white Hides all the wrecks of summer out of sight.

Sometimes in dim November's narrowing day, When all the season's pride has passed away, As mid the blackened stems and leaves we stray,

We spy in sheltered nook or rocky cleft A starry disk the hurrying winds have left, Of all its blooming sisterhood bereft.

Some pansy, with its wondering baby eyes Poor wayside nursling!—fixed in blank surprise At the rough welcome of unfriendly skies;

Or golden daisy,—will it dare disclaim The lion's tooth, to wear this gentler name? Or blood-red salvia, with its lips aflame.

The storms have stripped the lily and the rose, Still on its cheek the flush of summer glows, And all its heart-leaves kindle as it blows.

So had I looked some bud of song to find The careless winds of autumn left behind, With these of earlier seasons' growth to bind.

Ah me! my skies are dark with sudden grief, A flower lies faded on my garnered sheaf; Yet let the sunshine gild this virgin leaf,

The joyous, blessed sunshine of the past, Still with me, though the heavens are overcast,— The light that shines while life and memory last.

Go, pictured rhymes, for loving readers meant; Bring back the smiles your jocund morning lent, And warm their hearts with sunbeams yet unspent!

BEVERLY FARMS, July 24, 1884.



KING'S CHAPEL

READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY

Is it a weanling's weakness for the past That in the stormy, rebel-breeding town, Swept clean of relics by the levelling blast,

Still keeps our gray old chapel's name of "King's," Still to its outworn symbols fondly clings,— Its unchurched mitres and its empty crown?

Poor harmless emblems! All has shrunk away That made them gorgons in the patriot's eyes; The priestly plaything harms us not to-day; The gilded crown is but a pleasing show, An old-world heirloom, left from long ago, Wreck of the past that memory bids us prize,

Lightly we glance the fresh-cut marbles o'er; Those two of earlier date our eyes enthrall: The proud old Briton's by the western door, And hers, the Lady of Colonial days, Whose virtues live in long-drawn classic phrase,— The fair Francesca of the southern wall.

Ay! those were goodly men that Reynolds drew, And stately dames our Copley's canvas holds, To their old Church, their Royal Master, true, Proud of the claim their valiant sires had earned, That "gentle blood," not lightly to be spurned, Save by the churl ungenerous Nature moulds.

All vanished! It were idle to complain That ere the fruits shall come the flowers must fall; Yet somewhat we have lost amidst our gain, Some rare ideals time may not restore,— The charm of courtly breeding, seen no more, And reverence, dearest ornament of all.

Thus musing, to the western wall I came, Departing: lo! a tablet fresh and fair, Where glistened many a youth's remembered name In golden letters on the snow-white stone,— Young lives these aisles and arches once have known, Their country's bleeding altar might not spare.

These died that we might claim a soil unstained, Save by the blood of heroes; their bequests A realm unsevered and a race unchained. Has purer blood through Norman veins come down From the rough knights that clutched the Saxon's crown Than warmed the pulses in these faithful breasts?

These, too, shall live in history's deathless page, High on the slow-wrought pedestals of fame, Ranged with the heroes of remoter age; They could not die who left their nation free, Firm as the rock, unfettered as the sea, Its heaven unshadowed by the cloud of shame.

While on the storied past our memory dwells, Our grateful tribute shall not be denied,— The wreath, the cross of rustling immortelles; And willing hands shall clear each darkening bust, As year by year sifts down the clinging dust On Shirley's beauty and on Vassall's pride.

But for our own, our loved and lost, we bring With throbbing hearts and tears that still must flow, In full-heaped hands, the opening flowers of spring, Lilies half-blown, and budding roses, red As their young cheeks, before the blood was shed That lent their morning bloom its generous glow.

Ah, who shall count a rescued nation's debt, Or sum in words our martyrs' silent claims? Who shall our heroes' dread exchange forget,— All life, youth, hope, could promise to allure For all that soul could brave or flesh endure? They shaped our future; we but carve their names.



HYMN

FOR THE SAME OCCASION

SUNG BY THE CONGREGATION TO THE TUNE OF TALLIS'S EVENING HYMN

O'ERSHADOWED by the walls that climb, Piled up in air by living hands, A rock amid the waves of time, Our gray old house of worship stands.

High o'er the pillared aisles we love The symbols of the past look down; Unharmed, unharming, throned above, Behold the mitre and the crown!

Let not our younger faith forget The loyal souls that held them dear; The prayers we read their tears have wet, The hymns we sing they loved to hear.

The memory of their earthly throne Still to our holy temple clings, But here the kneeling suppliants own One only Lord, the King of kings.

Hark! while our hymn of grateful praise The solemn echoing vaults prolong, The far-off voice of earlier days Blends with our own in hallowed song:

To Him who ever lives and reigns, Whom all the hosts of heaven adore, Who lent the life His breath sustains, Be glory now and evermore!



HYMN.—THE WORD OF PROMISE

(by supposition)

An Hymn set forth to be sung by the Great Assembly at Newtown, [Mass.] Mo. 12. 1. 1636.

[Written by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, eldest son of Rev. ABIEL HOLMES, eighth Pastor of the First Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.]

LORD, Thou hast led us as of old Thine Arm led forth the chosen Race Through Foes that raged, through Floods that roll'd, To Canaan's far-off Dwelling-Place.

Here is Thy bounteous Table spread, Thy Manna falls on every Field, Thy Grace our hungering Souls hath fed, Thy Might hath been our Spear and Shield.

Lift high Thy Buckler, Lord of Hosts! Guard Thou Thy Servants, Sons and Sires, While on the Godless heathen Coasts They light Thine Israel's Altar-fires!

The salvage Wilderness remote Shall hear Thy Works and Wonders sung; So from the Rock that Moses smote The Fountain of the Desart sprung.

Soon shall the slumbering Morn awake, From wandering Stars of Errour freed, When Christ the Bread of Heaven shall break For Saints that own a common Creed.

The Walls that fence His Flocks apart Shall crack and crumble in Decay, And every Tongue and every Heart Shall welcome in the new-born Day.

Then shall His glorious Church rejoice His Word of Promise to recall,— ONE SHELTERING FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD'S VOICE, ONE GOD AND FATHER OVER ALL!



HYMN

READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL AT HUDSON, WISCONSIN

JUNE 7, 1877

ANGEL of love, for every grief Its soothing balm thy mercy brings, For every pang its healing leaf, For homeless want, thine outspread, wings.

Enough for thee the pleading eye, The knitted brow of silent pain; The portals open to a sigh Without the clank of bolt or chain.

Who is our brother? He that lies Left at the wayside, bruised and sore His need our open hand supplies, His welcome waits him at our door.