o V^ ■vO.^<=.' '^^ .A*"^ ^^/-'f.T''.^^" X--^«?!^*A* W-'-'-J^ O' •;*^' «:«» -aP .♦WW* %^ v' "JL*"- c* .•.I«5^^^'^ o v- ♦ ^^.^ oV^^:^^. ^j^ov^^ :sm^\ -^^^M\. ye, to whom remain Unsullied honor and unswerving truth ; Faith that our fallen race may yet regain The Eden of its youth — Whose love for human kind Is ever active, patient and serene ; Whose charities are like the bourneless wind, Unwearied as unseen — And ye, on whom the call To wealth, rank, glory, has no mastering sway ; r'aithful, and just, and kind, in hut or hall — Oh, pass not thus away ! For sure it is unmeet That ye, who form life's beauty and its worth. Blessing its mingled cup with all its sweet. Should lightly pass from earth. LOVE'S SECOND-SIGHT. |jP^||AR through the dim, lone vistas of the night, |h.tomJ As eye to ej'e, thy form and face appear, Love's inward vision needs -no outward light. No magic glass to bring the absent near. Seas roll between us, Lo, the palm-tree throws Its shadow southward from yon moonlit hill ; And stars that never on my boyhood rose, Are round me now, and yet I see thee still ; Alone thou sighest on the beaconed steep. While sports thy sister by the waves alone : Why dost thou gaze so fondly o'er the deep ? Ah, blush not, love, the tender truth to own ! I see thee sink upon thy bended knees. Yet not as one who bows in mute despair ; Nor need I listen to the tell-tale breeze, To learn whose name is oftenest in thy prayer. 34 LOVE'S SECON-D SIGHT. 35 Thy cheek is wet — n-as that a falling gem From the pearled braid that binds thy golden curls ? No, never shone from jewelled diadem A gem so bright as beauty's liquid pearls. Thou turn'st away — though fair the moonlit main, No sail appears, thy yearning heart to thrill : One long, last gaze, and on the night again Thy casement closes, yet I see thee still ! On thy sweet face, as in a magic glass, I see the shapes that haunt thy slumbering eyes : What smiles of joy, when Hope's gay visions pass ! What pictured woe, when Fear's dark phantoms Why dost thou wake, while yet the East is dark, To hold sad commune with the wind and surge ? 'Twas but a dream that wrecked thy lover's bark, Only a dream that sang his ocean dirge ! Even now that bark, before the homeward gale, Flies like a bird that seeks her callow nest ; Soon shall thine eyes behold its furling sail, Soon thy fond bosom to my own be prest ! I could not fail to hold my course aright, Though every orb were quenched in yon blue sea : Love's inward vision needs no outward light, Star of my soul, no cynosure but thee ! LIGHT. Bright effluence of bright essence increate ! Before the sun, before the heavens, thou wert. — MjLTON. la-^BiROM the quickened womb of the primal The sun rolled black and bare, Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast, Of the threads of my golden hair : And when the broad tent of the firmament Arose on its airy spars, I pencilled the hue of its matchless blue, And spangled it round with stars. 11. I painted the flowers of Eden bowers. And their leaves of living green, And mine were the dyes in the sinless eyes Of Eden's virgin queen ; 36 LIGHT. 37 And when the Fiend's art on her trustful heart Had fastened its mortal spell, In the silvery sphere of the first-born tear To the trembling earth I fell. When the waves that burst o'er a world accursed. Their work of wrath had sped, And the Ark's lone few, the tried and true, Came forth among the dead ; With the wondrous gleams of my braided beams, I bade their terrors cease, As I wrote on the roll of the storm's dark scroll God's covenant of peace. IV. Like a pall at rest on a pulseless breast, Night's funeral shadow slept Where shepherd swains on the Bethlehem plains Their lonely vigils kept ; When I flashed on their sight the heralds bright Of heaven's redeeming plan, As they chanted the morn of a Saviour born — Joy, joy to the outcast Man ! V. Equal favor I show to the lofty and low, On the just and unjust I descend ; 38 LIGHT. E'en the blind, whose vain spheres roll in darkness and tears, Feel my smile the blest smile of a friend : Nay, the flower of the waste by my love is embraced, As the rose in the garden of kings — At the chrysalis bier of the worm I appear, ■ And lo ! the gay butterfly's wings ! VI. The desolate Morn, like a mourner forlorn, Conceals all the pride of her charms, Till I bid the bright Hours xhase the Night from her bowers, And lead the young Day to her arms : And when the gay rover seeks Eve for his lover, And sinks to her balmy repose, I wrap their soft rest, by the zephyr-fanned west. In curtains of amber and rose. vn. From my sentinel step, by the night-brooded deep, I gaze with unslumbering eye, When the cynosure star of the mariner Is blotted from the sky ; And guided by me through the merciless sea, Though sped by the hurricane's wings, ^ His compassless bark, lone, weltering, dark, To the haven-home safely he brings. LIGHT. 39 VIII. I waken the flowers in their dew-spangled bowers. The birds in their chambers of green ; And mountain and plain glow with beauty again, As they bask in my matinal sheen. O if such the glad worth of my presence to earth, Though fitful and fleeting the while, What glories must rest on the home of the blest, Ever britrht with the Deity's smile ! HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. Turn poteris magnas moleis cognoscere eorum, Speluncasque velut saxis pendentibu' structas Cernere. Lucretius. LL hail ! ye graceful children of the sun, Whose genial beams evoked your fairy forms From ocean's quickened bosom, or the lap Of silver lakes, of heart of shimmering streams, Or green savannas, where the moonlit night Enspheres her brightest galaxy of dews ! Come ye with airy chalices to fill The wild flower's languid eyes with tears of joy — Come ye to catch the earliest smiles of morn, And pour their reflex on the vales below ; Or drape the clpsing chambers of the day With curtains woven in the looms of heaven — Come ye to hush the nations in deep awe, As o'er their bended heads, in frowning pomp, Ye waft the flashing armory of God ; Or calm their terrors, when from deluged fields They lift their suppliant eyes, and see again 40 HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 4 1 The rainbow's iDromise beaming through the storm — Come ye in gloom or glory, hope or fear, Whate'er your aspect or your errand, hail ! Ay, ever welcome to the Mountainland Where Freedom haunts be ye, divinest types Of her embodied presence ; famed of old To love the hoary fastnesses she loves ; For there your grandeur finds its fittest throne, And hearts to kindred majesty sublimed. Wonder and glory of the firmament ! In earlier years strange questioning was mine. Of what ye were, and whence, and whither bound ; As to and fro your gliding phantoms trailed Their slanted shadows o'er the sunny plains. Or in mid-air slept motionless. How oft The half-conned task and tasker's dreaded frown Were unremembered, as my schoolward steps, Enchanted, lingered while I gazed and gazed On your fantastic phases ! seeming, now, Aerial mountains stranger than the shapes That haunt wild dreams, or throng the fabling lore Of earth's first minstrels ; then, celestial isles Embosomed in the calm of azure seas ; Then, bright pavilions where the storm-tost syli)h Might furl her ruffled wings in soft repose ; Anon, sky-mountains cliffed with giant gems Of ruby, sapphire, amethyst or pearl. 42 HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. From whose resplendent peaks, methought, were hewn The gorgeous shafts, and architraves, and domes, That grace the vistas of the Fairyland. Free rovers of the boundless and the free ! To every breeze ye fling your careless sails. And course from zone to zone, by night or day ; With store of laden jewels, to which earth's, Thrice told in all their glory, were but dross. Nor hoard ye these, blest almoners of Him Whose bounty knows nor weariness nor bourne ; But, true to your high mission, visit all That breathe or be, with largesses of love. To vernal climes, aerial argosies ! Ye waft from warmer skies the early rain, And lo ! the lifeless bosom of the waste Beteems with (quickened germs ; the naked glebe Is robed, anon, as with a mantle dyed In liquid emeralds ; and every gale That waves the bridal drapery of May, Baptised in floral sweets, a spirit seems Just parted from the Gardens of the Blest. But Nature, most, in Summer's fiery reign. Exults in your glad presence and adores ; For then a deeper and intenser life, And hopes and fears of mightier concern. As linked with plenty's weal or famine's woe, HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 43 On your celestial ministries depend. When faints the breeze, and e'en the very air Grows visible with crinkling sultriness, And flowers shrink earthward from the brazen gaze Of suns that wanton nearer, day by day ; When flocks and herds forsake the russet hills For glens where nooks of herby green still smile ; When upland glades are glorious no more With flash of sunlit streams, and lowliest dells Scarce catch the murmur of their dying dirge — Then shouts the swain to hear the thunder-tramp Of your roused legions, echoing from afar ; And gladlier yet, to see their dusky van O'erloom his near horizon, and frown back The noon's effulgence from his withering fields. Still, where he stands, so deep the breathless calm, The spider's pendent streamer plumbs the air Direct as line of steel ; but on the heights Beyond the sultry vale, he sees the groves Wave their green signals, and the harvest-slopes Break into golden billows like a sea Of amber glory, as the courier gale Speeds onward in its heralding of joy. Anon, the silvery curtains of the shower Infold the lessening landscape from his view ; And now the leafy shelter o'er his head Rustles with liquid music, as ye pour The beaded crystal from your misty urns ; 44 HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. And hark ! the streams have found their harps again, And, in wild chorus from the wimpled hills, Proclaim their boisterous gladness to the vales. And Autumn, too, rejoices when the storm Unseals your wafted Horebs o'er her wastes, And spring and mere replenishes anew, To bless the homeless creatures of the wild With grateful bounty graciously bestown, What time all else grows pitiless and stern. Nor are ye praiseless, when the ruffian hand Of Winter strips from Nature's stricken form Her weeds of faded wretchedness, and leaves Her shivering bosom naked to the blast ; For then around her palsied heart ye fold Your fleecy mantle, till the sunny Spring Shall bid its pulses throb with joy again. Thus with the Seasons in eternal change, And with the chainless winds, ye circle on. O'er earth and ocean, through the day's bright round. Or night's dim shadow, beaconed by her stars. Oh, stoop your wandering pinions and upbear A lowly suppliant in your flight sublime ! Yon mountain cincture of his native vale Embraces all the universe he knows ; Ah ! bear him hence to that remoter world. HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 45 O'er whose broad realms and intervolving seas, Isles, lakes, streams, shrines and fields of old re- nown, As chartered pilgrims ye have gazed at will. Let him with you behold the morning-star, While yet the mountain-peaks are palled in gloom ; And gaze at eve upon the lingering sun, While Alps or Andes mourn his vanished smile ; Let him behold the eagle's stalwart wang, Upsweeping, falter far beneath the height Of your sublimer soaring ; and beyond The utmost trace of man's determined will To plant his foot upon the stormy pc)les, Still bear him onward in your boundless sweep ; That one, at least, of mortal birth may see How ye for long dark centuries have piled Their awful wastes with everlasting snows ; And list the thunder of the meteor main Boom on the shuddering air, when, many a league, The frost-pang rives its adamantine deeps. Vain wish ! though man may launch his echoing car Sheer through the cloven hills, or bare the heart Of rock-ribbed mountains for the glittering stores Hid in their sunless crypts ; may mock the winds As o'er the waves they chase his careless bark ; Or bid the storm lash white the yeasty surge, While, undismayed, beneath the wild uproar 46 HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. He walks the pathless mazes of the deep — Yet when his vain presumption would ascend Your glorious heights, proud fondlings of the air, The swallow soaring from her lowly nest Doth laugh his vaulting impotence to scorn ! And yet the groveling worm — the meanest thing On whose blind wants your blest aspersion falls- Hath wings unfolding in its reptile frame, And instincts ripening for a nobler sphere. Therefore, O man ! though tethered to the clod, Take heart from thy low brother of the dust, And deem his fate presagefui of thine own. Yon sovran shapes, whose coursers are the winds, Whose range the airy infinite, whose robes The prismy texture of celestial beams, But now were portion of the trodden earth, Or of the weltering chaos of the deep ; Till from gross ties emancipate, they rose To nearer fellowship with sun and star. Then lift thine eyes to those exalted ones, And trust that when these Adams fall to dust. The spirit, plumed for seraph flights, shall soar To high communion with the hosts that range. On Mercy's bests, the universe of God ! ORPHEUS IN HADES. Manesque adiit, Regemque tremendum. — Virgil. Geog. IV, V, 469. Is this awful presence real ? This grim Pluto's dread domain ? Or not, rather, some ideal Figment of a troubled brain ? Nay, it is no mocking vision Born of frantic hope or fear, And my heart with calm decision Whispers, Minstrel, be of cheer ! [Addresses Pluto.] Lo ! the first of living mortals That e'er crossed the Stygian wave — Do not spurn me from your portals, Nor refuse the boon I crave ! By that queenly form beside thee, Rapt from Enna's flowery fold. King of Hades, do not chide me If I seem unseemly bold. 47 48 ORPHEUS IN HADES. [To himself.] Rocks and woods my footsteps follow, Wildest streams in silence stand, When thy golden gift, Apollo ! Melts in music to my hand. Shall its tones prove less enchanting Here, than in yon world above, When its 'master, faint and panting, Pleads the cause of life and love ? [To his Lyre.] Let me try what magic slumbers. Lyre ! in thy melodious chords ; When to music's sweetest numbers Passion weds her tenderest words- See ! the Furies lean to listen, Atropos relenting hears ; Nay, e'en Pluto's stern eyes glisten, Proserpine's are drowned in tears ! [To the King and Queen.] Oh ! how sweet your answer falleth On my spirit, rapt and still : ''' Fate thy darling's doom recalleth — Mortal, thou shalt have thy will ! She for whom thy soul is yearning, Sunward shall thy steps retrace ; But beware, the while, of turning Once to gaze upon her face ! " ORPHEUS IN HADES. 49 [To himself, enraptured.] Shall I, then, again behold her, As in days so fondly blest ? Shall these widowed arms enfold her. These sad lips to hers be prest ? Oh, the just yet sweet confession Of a rapture so intense ! Silence were its best expression, Tears its truest eloquence. See ! yon golden gate discloses Glimpses of the blissful bowers, Where immortal youth reposes. Crowned with amaranthine flowers ; And, as she the threshold crosses. From the fields of asphodel Comes a swell of spirit voices, Softly murmuring, Fare thee well ! [To the friends of Eurydice.] Sister Souls ! your choral blessing Fate shall tenderly fulfill — In my arms, caressed, caressing. She shall find Elysium still ; For, wherever truth and duty Link the loving, heart to heart. Your fair world in all its beauty Sees its perfect counterpart. 50 ORPHEUS IN HADES. [To the restored Wife.] Grieve not, dearest, that thy lover Leads thee with averted face ; Ah, the Stygian bourne once over, How he'll spring to thy embrace ! But till that dear consummation. Be the thought our mutual cheer : That in deepest obscuration Each to each is ever near. Lo, already, faintly gleaming. Far Avernus dawns to sight ? Down whose dusky caverns streaming Glance the golden shafts of light ! As they brighter fall around thee. Fainter pleads my woful vow — Nay, though thousand oaths had bound me^ / rrnist see thee, here and now ! [Turns to embrace her.] Fairest of all fairest faces, ' Oh ! the rapture, once, once more To behold those dimpled graces, Lovelier far than e'er before ! But, alas, the hopes they waken, Vanish like a frighted bird — Ah, so soon to be forsaken By a bliss so long deferred ! ORPHEUS IN HADES. 5 I |To the opposers of his pursuit of Eurydice.l Back, ye Gorgons, grimly glaring Where the rosy vision fled ! All your banded fury daring, I again will seek my dead. Vain, vain boast ! forever vanished Is thy dream the loved to free — By thy own blind passion banished, Justest Fates, too, banish thee. Yet ye have not all bereft me, Parcae ! spurned from Lethe's shore — This dear solace still is left me. That I've seen her face once more ! And whatever hence betide me, That fair vision, day and night, Like a star, at last shall guide me To her own blest land of light. THE LAST AUTUMNAL WALK. JHEN we last paced these sylvan wilds, dear friend, Each shrub, and tree, and swarded space between, Were flush with balmy June, and every nook Of all the grove could boast its own sweet lyre. Our path was paved with shadows gaily flecked With glints of golden sunlight, as it were The print of angels' topaz-sandaled feet Upon the glowing turf ; and as we strayed From glen to glen, no dusky forms kept pace With our own steps, along the browner shades. Thy arm was linked in mine, and oftentimes Amid the choral symphony, our lips Broke into song spontaneous as the birds' Four moons have run their cycles since we stood In Summer's green pavilion, then so gay. But now so changed we scarce can recognize One form or feature of the faded scene. No bird recalls the melodies of June, No flower its sweets, no bough its rustling shades ; 52 THE LAST AUTUMNAL WALK. 53 Through all the roofless grove the sun stares in Wkh unobstructed gaze, and as we pass, Twin shadows glide beside us, arm in arm, With silent footfall on the dreary waste. When now we pause, 'tis not with merry lips To swell the sylvan concert ; but to blend Our sigh with Nature's, as in funeral stole Forlorn she follows Autumn's passing bier ; And, dearest, while I turn to whisper cheer. Thy blue eyes overbrim, and silver rain Falls audibly upon the rustled leaves. Yet know, sweet mourner, and assured, take heart, That 'neath these russet cerements, not in death. But quick quiescence, sleep the hopes of Spring ! No seed, no germ, no bulb of vanished flower, No folded bud in all the bosky wild. Is numbered with the dying or the dead ; Nay, in the palzied heart of these stark trees The languid pulse of life still patient beats. A few brief months, and we will stand again On the green summit of this forest knoll, And list, delighted, to the flying harps. That fill the leafy aisles with vernal joy. Before our steps the vglvet sward again Shall spread its sun-flecked shadows, and full oft By marge of dancing stream, thy careless foot Shall sink in tufted violets instep-deep ; 54 THE LAST AUTUMNAL WALK. What time the cornel and the hawthorn cast Their snowy blossoms on the scented air, And every floral chrysalis awakes To life and beauty from its shrouded sleep. Meanwhile, dear friend, in our suburban cot Thy favorite flowers shall bloom the Winter long, And day and night, with silent lips still breathe Sweet-scented thanks to thee ; for in thy smiles They shall not miss the charm of sunny skies. Nor in thy household songs remember more The song of birds, but deem 'tis Summer still. Thyself their Flora, from thy genial hand Shall fall the needed dews each coming morn ; Till vernal sun and voice of vernal choirs Shall call us forth to these dear wilds again ! TO A BUTTERFLY SEEN IN A CROWDED STREET. HEREFORE, little fluttering thing With the rainbow-tinted wing, And the right, at will, to rove Sunny lawn and shadowy grove, Hast thou left demesnes so blest, To be Babel's hapless guest ? Here's no fitting haunt for thee, Boon companion of the bee ! Born, like her, with flowers to dwell In the sweet sequestered dell. And at Nature's board to sip Nectar from each blossom's lip. Here, where neath man's iron tread Earth's green beauties all are dead. Thou wilt find no leafy screen From the noontide's piercing sheen ; And, at eve, no fairy home Like the lily's golden dome. ■ 55 56 TO A BUTTERFLY. Here, where hunger's eager pain Pleads at plenty's door in vain ; Or, if heard, too often must Feel the scorn that flings the crus^- ; Thou, gay rover, scarce shalt find Chartered feast or welcome kind ; For if man to man's austere. What hast thou to hope for here ? Haste thee, then, where skies are fair, Fresh as Spring's the Summer air, Bright as tears affection sheds. Dews that gem the violet beds, Pure as morn the perfumed breeze, Sweet the sylvan melodies, Soft the glow o'er hill and glade, Cool the very noontide shade ; And where all of earth and air Freely Nature's banquets share ! "Hold thee, bard !" the bright-winged cries, " Truce to rural rhapsodies, Till I briefly tell thee why- Hither I came dancing by : Seest thou all the vista gay Thronged with fashion's proud array ? Tinted silks, like Autumn trees. Waving brightly in the breeze ? TO A BUTTERFLY. 57 Plume and wreath of brilliant dyes, Rich as sunset's golden skies ? Ruby, pearl, and emerald green Basking in the diamond's sheen? These are but my gloss and pride, Tints and tinsel magnified ; And where gaud and glare abound. May not Nature's belle be found ? " Mark again the motley throng By thy side that sweeps along With so gay and smiling guise, One might gaze with wondering eyes, For some sphered Elysium near, Whence such shapes had lighted here. Born when Fortune's starry scope Cast its brightest horoscope ; Heirs of leisure, wealth and will, How should they their end fulfil, But by idlesse, fancy, show. As we rural minions do. Whom they sometimes deign to visit ? And both rhyme and reason is it. That we, too, should not contemn In our turn to visit them, Nor ourselves unwelcome see Where our kith and kindred be !" MY FRIEND THE FRIEND. Y friend the Friend, of humble birth, Of sober garb and sect demure. From all the tests of manly worth Comes forth, like tried gold, bright and pure. The brow that modest broadbrim hides, With sculpture's grand ideal suits ; And well the mind that there presides, Reflects divinest attributes : A mind, before whose searching light The mists of doubt and error fly ; As flee the spectral glooms of night. When morning opes her piercing eye. But nobler far than noblest mind Impalaced yet in mortal clay, The great, warm, genial heart enshrined Within that quaint drab cut-away. 58 MY FRIEND THE FRIEND. 59 A heart so prone to pity's throe, To angel kindness so akin, The faintest sigh of human woe Is answered ere it well begin. My friend the Friend you'll seek in vain Where fashion flaunts in noise and glare ; But try the haunts of want and pain — You will not fail to find him there. Yet he, alas ! for three score years, Beneath a grievous cross has bent ; But never weak, complaining tears Have marked the doleful way he went. My friend the Friend — nay. Muse, be dumb, Or worth its noblest title give ! Remember Terence' Hovio Sum, And call him friend of all that live. THE DOOMED SHIP. ORED to the heart, still nobly strives The fated bark to foil the wave ; As conscious of the precious lives Her shattered strength perchance may save. Vain hope ! She sinks ! Nay, still she floats, For all her burden of despair ! — Quick ! babes and matrons to the boats — Room for the weak and helpless there ! " Not so, brave Luce ! But " save who can " Now summons to the desperate strife ! What weight has woman more than man, In the dread balance, life to life ? Stand back, ye pale, dishevelled throng. Frail aspens of the ruthless sea ! Room for the stalwart and the strong, The bearded and the brave to flee ! 60 THE DOOMED SHIP. 6 1 Alas, when woman's feeble hand With brawny desperation strives ! Boat after boat, swift seized and manned, Flies with its freight of craven lives. Oh, better die the martyr's death, At honor's call, by flood or flame ; Than live to taint with coward breath A thousand centuries of shame 1 THE SEA-NYMPHS TO THE DRYADS. LINES SUGGESTED BY A COLLECTION OF EXQUISITE SPECI- MENS OF ALG^. Pontumque per omnem Ridebunt virides gemmis nascentibus algae. — Claudian. E Nymphs ! that haunt the sylvan stream, Or gambol on the flowery lea, A dreary world, perchance ye deem, Is ours within the lonely sea. But, sisters, leave your fair sojourn Of rustling groves and mossy caves. And with your own charmed vision learn What beauty dwells beneath the waves. Come lay your trustful hands in ours, And let us lead you, soft and slow, To gardens graced with fairer flowers Than earth's most genial climes can show. 62 THE SEA-NYMPHS TO THE DRYADS. 63 There shall ye see the purple palms That wave o'er grottoes paved with pearls, And vocal with melodious psalms From the sweet lips of mermaid girls. We've heard what floral beauty lies O'er a}(\. your world in vernal days, Nor are your rose's scents and dyes Unhonored in our Nereid lays ; But fate has marred its queenly grace With many a disenchanting thorn, And storms its tinted charms deface, And leave it faded and forlorn. But come with us, dear Oread band ! To Flora s ocean lawns and bowers. Where thorns ne'er wound the fondling hand, Nor Winter blights their happier flowers. Come where the callithamnian beds In vermeil beauty softly sleep ; Come where the purple dasya sheds A Tyrian splendor round the deep ! Where, like a boundless prairie-scene, Broad fields of living cladaphore, Out-stretched Hesperian isles between. Make green the deep's untrodden floor ! 64 THE SEA-NYMPHS TO THE DRYADS. Oh, wisely have your poets sung That VENUs' birth-place here must be ! For whence could Beauty's queen have sprung But from our Eden of the sea ? EDITH. NTO my quiet life there came one day A maiden on the April side of May ; Such April as, by grace of kindly Fates, Its brighter sister's charms anticipates ; And with its buds half opening into flowers, Makes us forget the bloom of later hours. Shall I pronounce her beautiful ? I could ; But let me, rather, simply call her good — A little, merry, artless, happy thing. At whose bright smile the dullest cares take wing. And after years of absence, passed afar In those far climes whence springs our Morning Star, With soft winds wafted o'er the Western main, Into my life the maiden came again. But noiv, the buds of April's earlier day Were all in blossom in her perfect May ; Yet if I call her beautiful, the blush Of deprecation will her temples flush. 65 66 EDITH. Well, then, to spare ingenuous maidenhood, I'll call my Edith charming as she's good, And pray the angels who withheld at birth The infant wings when bearing her to earth, May long retain them, ere at last they're given To waft their sister to her native heaven ! THE HOME-VALENTINE. TILL fond and true, though wedded long, The bard, at eve retired, Sat pensive o'er the annual song His home's dear muse inspired ; And as he traced her virtues now With all love's vernal glow, A gray hair from his bended brow, Like faded leaf from autumn bough, Fell to the page below. He paused, and with a mournful mien The sad memento raised, And long upon its silvery sheen In thoughtful silence gazed ; And if a sigh escaped him then, It were not strange to say, For Fancy's favorites are but men, And who e'er felt the stoic when First conscious of decay ? 67 68 THE HOME-VALENTINE. Just then a soft cheek pressed his own With beauty's fondest tear, And sweet words breathed in sweeter tone Thus murmured in his ear : " Ah, sigh not, love, to mark the trace Of Time's unsparing wand ! It was not manhood's outward grace. The charm of faultless form or face, That won my heart and hand. " Lo ! dearest, mid these matron locks, Twin-fated with thine own, A dawn of silvery lustre mocks The midnight they have known : But Time to blighted cheek and tress May all his snows impart ; Yet shalt thou feel in my caress No chill of waning tenderness, No winter of the heart ! " " Forgive me, dearest Beatrice ! " The grateful bard replied, As nearer and with tenderer kiss He pressed her to his side ; " Forgive the momentary tear To manhood's faded prime ; I should have felt, had'st thou been near, Our hearts indeed have nought to fear From all the frosts of Time ! " ARE YOU 'ROUND YET? JELL, yes, my friend, I'm still around, In spite of Fortune's cruel blows : The weed, you know, oft holds its ground, In presence even of the rose ! Death seems to spurn or quite forget. At times, the meanest thing that crawls ; The while his dart strikes down the pet Adonis of imperial halls. Your blurted question doubtless grew From wonder, bluntly unconcealed. That earth had not yet snatched from view This laggard to the Potter's field. Am / to quarrel with the fate That spares me, howsoe'er abhorred, And, with my own hand, antedate The severing of ' the silver cord ? ' 69 70 ARE YOU 'ROUND YET? I'm always fain my friend to please In aught that conscience may condone ; But life is life, and its surcease The All-disposer leaves to none. If I had made myself, be sure Some traits of worth should stand so clear, That even you might still endure, Perhaps, my longer presence here : For you should see me give their due To friend and foe, whate'er it be ; And inly feel my debt to you Was always less than yours to me. But let that pass — the world is wide. With room for all and courses meet — The broad highroad for flaunting pride, The close, shy path for humble feet : So we may go our several ways, Good strangers, near or far apart ; For though the sky be full of days, ♦ Not one shall bring us heart to heart. To you I leave the shining goal. So often won with honor wrecked ; I fail, yet failing, will console My loss with unlost self-respect. ARE YOU 'ROUND VET? J I And so my simple faith shall rest In this fond hope, as aye before : That some, though few, who knew me best. Will sigh, when I am " 'round no more." ENVOY. Friend ! though to careless, common sight, A kind word, like the widow's mite. Seem but a worthless thing ; In all the social marts of love Its purchase-power is worlds above The coffers of a king ! LINCOLN, MARTYR. EVER for years, when, closed our closet door, In voiceless yearning we have bent the knee. Have we once failed or faltered to implore Less for ourselves than thee. For though our feet have pressed a rugged road, Where cares grow sorer with each day's decline ; How smooth our path, how light our heaviest load. Martyr, compared with thine ! Perchance some shadow on our little fold ; Some golden expectation turned to dross ; Some wanton blame, some summer friend grown cold — These were our sorest cross : Thine, the vast burden of a nation's woes ; The fate of struggling millions, bond and free ; To be upborne amid the frenzied throes Of hate and loyalty. 72 LINCOLN, MARTYR. 73 Thy pleading words for peace and brotherhood, Impassioned friends perverted or ignored ; Wliile foes their pathos madly misconstrued, And answered with the sword. When steel was silenced in the fierce debate Of truth with falsehood, law with anarchy ; Failing their country to assassinate, They turned and murdered thee ! Thee, whose great soul through all these stormy times, When steadfast reason from her moorings swung, Sought but to save the merciless from crimes That palsied mercy's tongue. All foulest names e'er coined by ribald scorn And linked with curses of demoniac hate, Were wreaked on thee, oh, gentlest ruler born To freedom's martyr-fate ! Yet clothed in truth's impenetrable mail, That fears no wound from frenzy's fiercest shock, These fell from thee as falls the shattered hail From the undinted rock : And when the orphaned millions of the West Above thy bier their starry emblems furled. The wail forlorn, that swelled from breast to breast, Went echoed round the world. 74 LINCOLN, MARTYR. The grand, who watched with no benignant eye Thy mortal grapple with despotic pride, Could not repress the soul's ingenuous sigh When the great Tribune died. And, till the prairie turf refuse to bloom When Spring entreats it with her tend'rest care, On all the winds fond thoughts shall seek thy tomb, And breathe their requiems there. so TIRED. ILGRIM, whose path has been so hard and dreary, So thorn-beset, with clouds so overcast ; No wonder, dearest, that forlorn and weary, Thy trembling limbs sink under thee at last ! " So tired ! " Yet still, oh meekest of cross-bearers. How dost thou yearn and wrestle to be strong ! Not for thyself, but the beloved wayfarers. Whose heavy burdens thou hast borne so long : Not through fair scenes of fresh and joyous beauty, With flowers to catch the foot on every sod ; But wormwood wastes, forlorn as human duty, Since shut of Eden, ever yet has trod. " So tired — so tired ! " Ah, well, a blessed guerdon Is surely theirs who triumph in the test ; When He who tries them lifts the mortal burden, And evermore the weary are at rest ! 75 THE MOUNTAIN MONARCH. O, empires have flourished, and passed to the dead, For whose glory the madness of millions has bled, Since here, with a sway that no challenge has known. The blue dome my palace, the mountain my throne, I have reigned o'er the wilds from whose bosom I sprang, A sovereign ne'er cursing nor cursed with a pang ; While the years that have hurled the rent crag to the plain. Have but lifted my brow o'er a broader domain ! A minstrel as well as a monarch am I, And with green-harp in tone with all moods of the sky, My matins first welcome the advent of Day, As he springs from the Morn's golden portals away ; And dear to his ear are the hymns I attune. When in glory he looks from his palace of Noon , 76 I THE MOUNTAIN MONARCH- 7/ And mine his last smile as he sinks to repose, And Eve's jeweled hand draws his curtains of rose. Man shrinks to his covert on mountain and plain, When bursts the wild tempest in thunder amain ; But calm as the cliff-pinioned Titan of old, I breast the mad onslaught, unshrinking and bold ; Assured of my foothold, whatever the shock Of the mad winds to wrench it uptorn from the rock. And never once dreaming of triumph to fail, When writhing, convulsed, in the grasp of the gale ! Yet the hero, whose locks shall ne'er whiten with time. Whose bosom still throbs with the pulse of its prime — Ever green, when my liege groves are leafless and dead, Ever singing, when all their winged choirists are fled— Even I, whose throned grandeur so scathless has passed Through the spears of the lightning, the rage of the blast. Must fall, and the osprey afar on the deep Shall miss his green beacon that waved from the steep ! yS THE MOUNTAIN MONARCH. But the mouldering mounds that enhallow my shade, Where the red tribes of old their great sagamores laid, Shall grudge not a couch with their bravest and best. Mid the gray cairns that grimly stand guard o'er their rest ; And grand shall my fall be, my death-summons meet, When far round the echoing mountains repeat : " Room ! graves of the mighty — new honor he brings — Let the dust of the kingly commingle with kings' ! " TLEA FOR THE SPOILT CHILDREN. EAR simple Uncle Samuel, pray Let the spoilt darlings have their way, list for this blessed once ! ^ tA Why should you mind the old disgrace Of making faces to your face ? There's nothing mortal in grimace. Nor in their taunt of " dunce." They've been so used, poor petted dears, To storm and swear, for years and years, As whim or passion led — To answer kind words with a blow, Take no for yes and yes for no, That if they may no more do so, They might as well be dead '. I grant they've had an awful spree. Sown the wild oats of deviltry Broadcast, o'er sea and land ; But what a harvest has been theirs ! What shocks on shocks of bloody tares Insult the sower's blasted cares. The reaper's empty hand ! 79 I HURRAH FOR MEMMINGER ! MASTER-RACE ! blest with superlative parts, You are not only peerless in science and arts ; But you top the whole world in mechanical skill, And of this the tip-top is your Memminger Mill. Not a soul had a sneer for Fourdrinier's brags. When he'd got his machine, fed at one end with rags, To gush, so to speak, at the other, meanwhile, With a paper-flood flowing on mile after mile. But whereas the Gaul grinds his rags into cash, The Memminger grandly converts his to trash So perfect, a ton of it doesn't begin To pay for a tithe of the " stock " he puts in. Yet, month after month, the blind Samson grinds on From day-dawn to sunset, from sunset to dawn ; Sublimely unmoved, though all Dixie assert Each hour yields but sequence of sorrier dirt. HURRAH FOR MEMMINGER ! 8 1 O boss ! of the grand rags-and-lampblack concern, By far the best plan you can dream of, to learn What's the matter the outcome's so wofully mean, Ij — to rnn yourself , bodily, through the machine : For, though you may fail the Rag-Imp to discover. You'll gain the advantage of being ground over ; Or ground deadly fine, which were luckier still For the dupes of your infinite Shinplaster-Mill ! THE SEER THAT DIDN'T SEE IT. HERE was, once on a time, up in Utica town, A seer of first-rate democratic renown, Who, with eyes shut or blindfold, could see more, I ween. Than by any light, anywhere, is to be seen ; And he loved the dark veil from the future to draw, That his " friends " might go snacks in the visions he saw. With the scorn of that termagant Tarquin who rode O'er the corse to whose veins her own being she owed, He cries : " Look ye there ! Weren't it bliss to behold That pampered New England left out in the cold, To perish with all the fanatical fools That ever were ' brayed ' in her infidel schools ? " Then rolling his eyes, like an owl in the sun. He groans : " Oh, my friends ! is it anywise fun, To see that lean, awkward, unmannerly clown Of the White House, his big foot bring squelchingly down 82 THE SEER THAT DIDN'T SEE IT. 83 On our Habeas Corpus, Free Speech, and Free Press, State nights, and what not, on the plea of war-stress. I'm a Seer, and see there is no sort of sense, Rhyme or reason at all in this lying pretense ; But the aim of a tyrant intent to crush out Every vestige of freedom, the rail-splitting lout ! And proclaim to his serfs : ' I'm your Lord ! I'm the State ! Beware, for my will is the fiat of Fate ! ' " Here blurted in Daniel of Binghamton : " Pooh ! You a seer of visions, Horatio ? — Go to ! Were there half of a mole's withered eye in your head, You couldn't but see yourself verily dead ; And had you the ghost of a nose, I'll be bound. You would smell yourself ripe for a berth under- ground. Where your relics, well-bedded in chloride of lime. May, perhaps, cease to reek in the nostril of Time ! Lo, your friends at the door wait with coffin and bier, Each an onion in hand to make sure of a tear For the leader who had the inglorious lot To bring his own hopes and his party's to pot ; So, own you're defunct, make believe you're re- signed, And let yourself sink out of sight, out of mind ! " COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT. " What the Democratic Party needs is office. — Tammany Oracle. E'RE sick to death of self-styled Demo- crats ! Shams, make-believes of infinite concern For the dear people's welfare, which, forsooth ! Lies just about as near the wheedler's heart, As near the wolf's, the welfare of the lamb. O that our ears had stops to close at will, And balk the shameless wretches, as they bawl Their hollow catchwords : Amnesty ! Reform ! Whose true interpretation is, Our right. Vanquished, to rob the victor of his spoil Won in fair fight ; to sink the Ship of State, Unless the helm and freight be yielded us ! Our right to pardon perjury to God, And treachery unparalleled to man ; To crush the feeble, fortify the strong, And, with a retrospective sympathy. Condole with Cain for that fraternal blood, Which, somehow, had befouled his innocent hand ! COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT. 85 Men pardon him who tells the honest truth, Albeit bluntly, and with slight regard Whose self-love may be ruffled by his brass — Who calls a crime a crime, a cheat a cheat, If conscience bids him designate them thus : So when the juggler says, " You see this sword — Hey, presto, pass ! " and feints it down his throat ; And when, anon, he slips it from his sleeve. And frankly shows us how the feat was done, A natural impulse prompts us to admire Alike his candor and dexterity. But when your Democratic mountebank Belies his calling, and with saintly whine Avers we look in vain to see hbn bolt A mustard-seed with that small gorge of his. The very while his epigastric crypts Outbulge a boa's glutted with an ox — 'Tis hopeless hard to tell which most to loathe, The creature's ravin or his brazen lie. He love the people, he their rights respect, Who picks their pockets while he pats their back ? Who bids them shut their eyes and ope their mouth, Then mocks their duped expectance with the shells Of precious kernels he will share with none ? Who lauds electoral purity with lips Sordid and calloused with cajoling bribes ? Who, when abroad, reviles Democracy And all its hopes and aims ; in full accord With haughty bluebloo'ds, banded, heart and hand, To prop the gilded dryrot of old thrones ? 86 COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT. Hear him still argue that The Golden Rule Stops short at Dixie, has no sanction there, Nor ever had, where White is right and might, And Black, full warrant for all tyrannies. Ye that cry "Kuklux," have ye yet to learn That angel visitants have graced the earth Ere now, and scattered blessings in their path ? Our masking brothers are akin to these ; Shielding from harm the friendless and forlorn Outcasts for color and the curse of Ham. As for the Lost Cause, — why the Scripture smiles Approval on the search for what is lost. Then wherefore blame them, if they fondly dream Of seeking, even by the flash of steel And cannon-lightnings, that dear waif again ? In war they keenly hankered after peace ; Why not in peace now hanker after war ? Men are not mountains in their fixities — No star that looks on any man to-night, Will find him just the same to-morrow eve. O charming Democratic paragons ! If you do crave return to place and power. More than your country's honor and fair fame ; If you court ofifice more than you abhor Rebellion, treason, murder, perjury, And all the lesser crimes that lackey these — Why can't you muster manliness enough To grace your greed by frankly owning it ? COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT. 8/ For pity's sake, drop all historic names Bequeathed you by true Democratic sires, For bright transmission, like the Gheber's flamC; Undimmed from age to age ; that so, while still Ye grovel on beneath the patriot's scorn, Your children may be spared the crimson shame Of patronymic titles ; and, when dead. Ye curse no stone with graven infamies ; But sink at once to sheer oblivion, Nameless and beingless for evermore, As are the nothings of a dream undreamed ! SUMTER. w OUSED like a Titan from his sleep;, The Northmen's gathered might Frowns grimly toward the rebel deep, Where Justice points the ruffian keep, And bids her thunders smite. Vengeance has slumbered all too long, Unstartled by the cries That tyranny can do no wrong. Since might is right, oppression strong. And only treason wise. Lord of the wild waves and the blast, Thy favor we implore ! Hold them in peaceful durance fast, Till wrath's vicegerents leap at last Upon the guilty shore : Then let remorseless Havoc rain Her red bolts, day and night ; Till, like the Cities of the Plain, No vestige of the curse remain Unwhelmed from mortal sight ! 83 INVOCATION. H for Aladdin's lamp one little hour ! To summon hither that prodigious Power, Who never let impossibilities One moment baffle his weird energies. What would we do then ? This we'd say and do : " Genius, forgive the task we put you to — Unworthy your great stooping, we confess, Save that the end redeems its littleness. Away down South, the ' sunny South ' — (forsooth ! So styled, because there's not a beardless youth In all her land, but thinks, like Phaeton, Himself could drive the Horses of the Sun Better, a heap, than the great charioteer Who's held the steady reins since time's first year) — Down South, we say, 'mid sands and swamps un- blest. The Fates have stuck a human hornets' nest. Whose fiery tenants, ever on the wing, Like Jo's gadfly, ply their maddening sting On kith and kindred with exulting spite- - The nearer kin the wilder the delight ! Sg 90 INVOCATION. Now, potent Genius of the wondrous lamp, Whose might no mortal hindranc'es can cramp, In pity rid us of the chronic pest Of this excrescent human hornets' nest ! We grant its suicidal virulence Would of itself soon end the foul offence ; Yet wait not for that riddance to befall, But pluck it up, sands, swamps, stub-palms, and all Its buzzing venom ; and, as erst you bore Aladdin's palace to the Libyan shore. And set the foreign wonder on a site Far down that land of chaos and old Night ; So bear this native nuisance bodily A thousand leagues across the tropic sea. To some congenial Afric JJallyhack, And let it never dream of getting back ! Hear us, O stalwart Genius, and obey, And your petitioners will ever pray ! IMPUDENCE. S some brave bark her sails shook out, 1^ And slowly made wake from the crowded pier ; Who has not heard the saucy shout Of the wherry lad merrily paddling near : " Ship ahoy ! where's your line ? bear a hand, ho ! Why the deuce can't you, now, give us a tow " ? And who has not seen the skipper's face Break into ripples, jolly fine ; As, touched with some tickle of truant days, Anon o'er the taffrail he casts a line To the loud little rogue of the tiny craft, And, presto ! the eggshell is dancing abaft ? But who ever saw, in his wildest dream. An Argo, rivalling Noah's ark. With acres of canvas and Geysers of steam, Make for a pert Liliputian bark ; And, dipping its proud pennon low, so low, Humbly entreat to be taken in tow ? 91 92 IMPUDENCE. Why, that is the wonder the world now sees, In the old Dominion Valentine Made fast by obsequious F. F. V.'s To the scrub-palm dug-out, Caroline j And constrained to follow her, whithersoe'er Liliput madness may please to steer. Beware how you venture the Maelstrom's verge. Whither Secession pilots your way, Or erelong the stress of its vengeful surge Will whirl you both down from the light of day; And your brag, and your rattlesnake flag con- sign To the lowest deep of the world's vast brine ! A VISION OF DIXIE AND DOUGH FACES. m 00 busy by day to go sauntering out To see what our turbulent world is about, I can only assist at its night-ushered shows, When in fancy they visit my attic repose. And the strangest of scenes that e'er spell-bound my eyes With a glamour of serio-comic surprise. Was a vision of Richmond that rose yesternight, Like a crimson mirage, on my slumbering sight. For, as if just emerged from an ocean ot blood, Every object seemed stained with the horrible flood ; While the clouds that gleamed red on hill, hovel and hall, But deepened the hues which incarnadined all. Of the crowds in the street as they jostled and swore. Not a beggarly rag was undabbled with gore ; 93 94 ^ VISION OF DIXIE AND DOUGH FACES. But the focus that glared with the bloodiest hue, Was the den where scowled Jeff and his Catiline crew. And lo, while I gaze at this animate clot Of murderers, perjurers, thieves and what not, Such a ludicrous group at the threshold appears As had made even Niobe laugh through her tears ! 'Twas a set of forlorn Shaking-Quakers — in looks — " Fernandy," Vallandigham, Seymour and Brooks ; All shad-bellied, broad-brimmed, and meek as you please. Each waving a thicket of dwarf olive trees. And down plump they all on their drab marrow- bones. As " Fernandy," the spokesman, in ruefullest tones, Whimpers : " Take them, Great Jeff, though the bearers be worms. And oh ! grant us peace on your own royal terms. " In our bleak Northern hot-beds, 'mid curses and sneers. We watered their slow-taking roots with our tears ; And words can't express, as your highness opines. With what toil we scarce got them through Lin- coln's grim lines ! " A VISION OF DIXIE AND DOUGH FACES. 95 " Avaunt ! " yelled the conclave ; "make tracks for your lives ! " As they clutched their revolvers and flashed out their knives ; " Do you think with such greens to tempt men of our brains ? Ha ! verdant peace-mongers, here's pay for your pains ! " And bang ! bang ! bang ! bang ! the red arsenal crashed, As pell-mell down Shockoe the shad-bellies dashed ; Skirts straight out behind them, chins ditto be- fore — Of course I awoke with a side-splitting roar. . ENVOY. Oh ! yearners for peace, 'twere more wise to re- frain From hunting the White-Winged in Dixie again, Till assured that its Nimrods yourselves wont as- sail, While crawling to shie the fresh salt on her tail! JONATHAN AND JOHN. Fee, faw, fum ! John Bull is going to come, With cannon and ball and bomb, To knock our towns into pi And ourselves sky-high, . Because why ? Why, because in one of his sea-chariots We found two of our own Iscariots Scaping unhung ; And having of hemp no lack, We ventured to bring them back To swing as their namesake swung. But the act has roused John's ire, And, fifty limes madder than fire. He is coming to — don't, John, pray ! Your will we will not gainsay, But let you have your way. And the brace of hoary Judases, Nay, all the brazen Theudases That rebeldom boasts to day. For you seem, John — excuse the mention- 96 JON A THAN AND JOHN. 97 To have an ancient propension For a transatlantic traitor — An indigenous Yankee hater Of kith and kin — Now don't begin To color, and stammer nay ! Do you think we've forgotten, zounds ! How you planked down ten thousand pounds For our Benedict Arnold, eh ? And when you had bagged your prize (If history don't tell lies), You found your royalty saddled With nothing but Dead-Sea apples, and thistles, Sow's-ear purses, and pig-tail whistles, And golden eggs all addled ! For the body and soul, for which you paid Such a rousing sum in that West Point trade, Even Cockneys valiantly darted, Were of all human riff-raff the worthlessest things. Save to show that the old saw squints shrewdly at kings — At least at one Guelph — as it chucklingly sings Of *' the fool and his money soon parted ! " Hut these two Confederate traitors, Pandemonian prestidigitators, For whose reclamation, John, you seem about To break the Bank of England out and out, And send your last " lobster " to pot With all your provincial sansculottes — 98 JON A THAN AND JOHN. This brace of unparalleled Thugs (Unlike the old dabbler in drugs) Is worth all the cost your exchequer endures, And the " lobsters " that go to the making them yours : For Mason can teach evenj>w/r aristocracy A sneer as is a sneer at upstart democracy — How to run human machines With the least outlay of means — And, John, if you'll place in his iron grip A regular grand plantation-whip, This old epidermal afflictor Will do all the flagellation For the whole British nation Without one deputy lictor ! And as for \\\& facile princeps of these, John Slidell Mephistophiles, — (To say nothing of his involuntary knowledge, Acquired in the paternal soap-and-candle college, Where, without doubt, he became so very wise In the concoction of all manner of lyes) (?) He can teach how to swell a lean minority Into a myriad Plaquemine majority ; Can show young Bull hovv to eclipse the lustre Of Morgan, Kydd, Cortez, or any grand old fili- buster ; How to dwarf Catilinean perjury ; How to excel in pocket-bleeding surgery ; For, John, you may cripple and blind him, J ON A THAN AND JOHN. 99 And he'll find his way to your London hells Ere he's been an hour in the sound of Bow Bells, And bankrupt their most magnificent swells, With one arm tied behind him ! M BULLY FOR YOU, JOHN BULL ! HE schoolmen's donkey that stood stock-still Exactly between the two bundles" of hay, Whose equal attraction so balanced his will, He stirred not a hairbreadth either way ; Mohammed's coffin, entombed in air Betwixt heaven and earth, a marvelous show, Upheld by antagonist forces there In a weird, unwavering sfatu quo ; The doater whose fondness was halved so well By the two gay rivals' buxom charms. That which was the dearer he never could tell When both, at the same time, wooed his arms ; The goodwife who looked with an eye so jus|: On the grapple for life of husband and bear, That which of the wretches should bite the dust, She hadn't the ghost of a wish or care ; — All these are but shadows of Bull's " neutrality," Bull's unparalleled impartiality Toward the belligerent Rebs and Yanks Pitted for mutual slaughter ; The sweat and blood of whose slashing ranks BULL V FOR YOU, JOHN BULL ! lOI (Without tlie least squinting at thrift or thanks ! ) He would stanch, good soul ! if he only could, With the same fond zeal that the devil would The leak in a chalice of holy Wcxter ! But, John, though your meek, self-oblivious labors. Prove you the kindest and gentlest of neighbors. It wouldn't be strange if, sometime and somehow, You found yourself, caught in a similar row To that your " dear cousins " are tussling at now : And when, peradventure, you're fast in the hug Of some grim Gaul, Celt, Caffre, Russ, Sepoy or Thug, We Yankees, recalling the boundless excess Of your zeal for our weal, can indeed do no less. In your mortal distress (Being flesh of your flesh, John, and bone of your bone), Than to build Alabamas to let you alone — When you maunder for bread, to respond with a stone. In the summary style that old Joab displayed When he found the young blade. By his love-locks betrayed, A live target dangling adown the oak shade ; And cried out, anon, with exuberant joy, " Here's to you, my princeling, my high old boy ! " As he let fly a dart Right through thorax and heart, I02 BULL V FOR YOU, JOHN BULL ! And followed it up with another apace, That the soul of the traitor might, haply, be eased With a choice of two wide-enough outlets at least To take itself off into space. Even so, my dear Bull, we are free to declare, If you do not beware How you trifle with wrath that not all things en- dures ; Yankee Doodle at last will, as sure as you're born, Drive his shaft, barbed and baned, with unmerciful scorn Through that cold-blooded, base hollow-muscle of yours ! DREAM OF THE DEMOS. " Das Volk steht auf, der Sturm bricht los." KORNER. E have had a brave time of it, kings of the earth ! Since Gog first put purple to clay ; And, dying, transmitted his wisdom and worth To Magog, entitled by virtue of birth To lord it the right royal way. And by craft ye've maintained what bluff daring began, Your grasp on the fairest and best ; Consuming the cates, and commending the bran To your equals in all that is noblest in man. As your consciences needs must attest. We are told that of old there was one of your line So proud of his pomp, in the East, That he deemed himself worthy of homage divine, I03 104 DREAM OF THE DEMOS. Till the Lord turned him out to eat grass with the kine, And grow a respectable beast. Perhaps, by the year Nineteen Hundred or so, We Demos may come to such pass As to rise and bid Messieurs Divine Right and Co., Czar, Bourbon, Braganza, Guelph, Hapsburg, all go, Like the great king aforesaid, to grass. Then ' I'etat c'est moi,' shall be ' I'etat c'est nous,' The proud vaunt reversed for the nonce : Having had quite enough of grand units like you. We fain would just see how King Million would do, Both as sovereign and subject at once. " WHO WILL THINK OF HENRY ? " |0W sadly strange, it seems to me, In these gay, smiling hours of Spring, That mine the mournful task should be, Dear Friend, thy requiem to sing ! Thy younger years fair promise made, That when the pall fell dark on mine, Thy fond regret should soothe my shade. As now my dirge would solace thine. Full well I knew that worth may not To life's swift sands give slower fall ; Yet ever, by thy side, forgot : Whom the gods love, they first recall ! As if, howe'er supremely blest. They could but look with jealous eyes. On those to whom the summoned guest Had proved an angel in disguise. Ah well, like breath of cherished flowers. That lapse of time but more endears, The memory of thy living hours Shall sweeten all my coming years ! 105 LINES TO A CHRYSALIS. USING long, I asked me this : " Chrysalis ! Lying helpless in my path, Obvious to mortal scath From a careless passer-by, — What thy life may signify ? Why, from hope and joy apart, Thus thou art ? " Nature surely did amiss, Chrysalis, When she lavished fins and wings, Nerved with nicest moving-springs, On the mote and madrepore. Wherewithal to swim or soar ; And dispensed so niggardly Unto thee. " E'en the very worm may kiss, Chrysalis, Roses on their topmost stems Blazoned with their dewy gems, 1 06 LINES TO A CHRYSALIS. 107 And may rock him to and fro As the zephyrs softly blow ; Whilst thou liest, dark and cold, On the mold ! " Quoth the Chrysalis : " Sir Bard, Not so hard Is my rounded destiny In the great Economy — Nay, by humble reason viewed, There is much for gratitude In the shaping and upshot Of my lot. " Though I seem, of all things born Most forlorn, Most obtuse of soul and sense. Next of kin to impotence, Nay, to Death himself ; yet ne'er Priest nor prophet, sage nor seer. May sublimer wisdom teach Than I preach. " From my pulpit of the sod. Like a god, I proclaim this wondrous truth : Farthest age is nearest youth — I08 LINES TO A CHRYSALIS. Nearest glory's natal porch, Where, with pale, inverted torch, Death lights downward to the rest Of the blest ! " Mark yon airy butterfly's Rainbow dyes ! Yesterday that shape divine Was as darkly hearsed as mine ; But, to-morrow, I shall be Free and beautiful as she, And sweep forth on wings of light, Like a sprite. " Soul of man in crypt of clay ! Bide the day When thy latent wings shall be Plumed for immortality, And with transport marvelous Cleave their dark sarcophagus. O'er Elysian fields to soar Evermore ! " LOOK ALOFT. ADDRESSED TO A GIFTED FRIEND, TOO EASILY DISHEART- ENED. ■ Qui ose tout pent tout ce qu'il ose." — Bernard. ft^ ^ llVE not thus to listless sadness l^^il Hours the partial muse would claim ; Up ! and with enthusiast madness, Storm the rugged steeps of fame ! Not by wishing, but by willing O'er the clouds to lift his flag, Genius, aim with act fulfilling, Proudly climbs the laureled crag. Did the youthful Swiss, long dreaming Europe's topmost round to scale, Sit him down to idle scheming In the Arve's murmuring vale ? No ; but o'er the glacier pressing. Up the granite's icy flank. Step by dauntless step progressing, Won he, first, thy crown, Mont Blanc ! 109 no LOOK ALOFT. Be like him a bold advancer, Nor the mocking laggard heed — Upward ! — from the summit answer, " They who win may laugh indeed ! " When the Scottish Jove's mad levin Laid the noble minstrel low ; Swifter tovv^'rd the muse's heaven Rose he, strengthened by the blow. He who launched at eve the thunder On the young aspirant's name. Waked to see him throned in wonder On the Himmaleh of fame. Though than Newstead's bard less gifted, Tune thy liarp to higher strain. And its voice for truth uplifted, Shall a nobler audience gain. Ask not, darkly musing, whether Glory's dawn be far or nigh ; Clash the flint and steel together, And the sparks shall flash reply. Chance speeds all, the weak assure us, On or from the lurking shelf ; Nay ! be thy own Palinurus, Be thou Fate unto thyself ! THE ORANGE TREE. LINES TO AN ORANGE TREE RECEIVED FROM THE WEST INDIES IN AUTUMN, ff^ROM thine Eden of the sea, [ELsSil Hapless tree ! Where eternal Summer smiles On the green Caribbean isles ; Borne to this ungenial clime In the scowling Autumn time, Poor forlorn one, be of cheer, Hope is here ! Thou shalt find a friend in me, Outcast tree ! Who will bear thee from the storm To a shelter snug and warm — An asylum. Winter-proof, When the snows assail my roof, Or the sleet comes down amain On the pane. 112 THE ORANGE TREE. £Icw delights, in sooth, to boast, At the most, Has our little plain retreat In its unpretending street ; Save a bird or two, a lute. Pleasant books and nooks to suit, And three pictures on the wall — These are all. Yet when rigor rules the year Far and near. Thou shalt sit beside my hearth. And its music and its mirth From thy memory shall beguile E'en the charms of that dear isle, Whose far enchantment gleams On thy dreams. For the haunt assigned to thee, It shall be Just the soothest, sunniest spot On the noonside of our cot ; Where, through all the Winter day, Little prattling ones shall play 'Mid the leafy shade so sweet, At thy feet. So then, cheerly come with me, Exiled tree ! THE ORANGE TREE. II3 And beneath my modest roof, Let thy greeting be a proof, That to pity's arms and store Lo, the peasant's humble door With as wide a welcome swings As a king's ! KUBLEH. LUMEN KT NUMEN. pHAT beauty smiles from cloudless skies When night with twinkling lustre gleams ! Yet lovelier far, to these fond eyes, The light that from tlay casement beams ! The Persian holds the East divine, And thither bows on bended knee ; But in thy chamber's lighted shrine A dearer kubleh smiles for me. How oft, when lated and forlorn, I've faltered on my darkling way, That casement, like the glance of morn, Has filled the midnight vale with day ! Oh, fair the blush of orient skies. And lovely, evening's starry gleams ; But dearer far, to these fond eyes. The light that from thy casement beams ! 114 HANNAH DUSTAN. HORN of her stars, lone midnight broods O'er Winter's sullen sky, Where through the broad New-England woods The stormy blast sweeps by ; /Vhile from the mountain's jagged walls The frost-heaved crag in thunder falls, Far echoing to the night ; Startling the red fox in his den, The roe-buck in the lowland glen, The eagle on the height. Yet though no welkin beam the while Illume that gloomy scene. Yon flickering watch-fire's smoldering pile Imparts a lurid sheen ; Where, couched around its genial glow. Outstretched upon the sheeted snow Twelve forest chieftains lie. Wrapped in the brown bear's shaggy fold, Their long knives gleaming keen and cold. As gleams the serpent's eye. 115 Il6 HANNAH DUSTAN. They heed not now the sullen scowl Of skies so bleak and drear — The owl's wild screech, the wolf's hoarse howl, Fall noteless on their ear, As there they sleep, toil-worn and grim, With belted breast and scarry limb Red with the fresh scalp's flow, Won when the white foe's roof-tree fell With fiery crash and fiendish yell And shrieks of mortal woe. And who is She, that shivering form. So lorn and yet so fair, Like some spent angel, whom the storm Has forced to shelter there ? Faint, famished, worn, and ghastly pale. Her dark locks waving in the gale. She, trembling, stands dismayed Amid those fierce unfeeling men. Like fawn that to the panther's den In evil hour has strayed. Erewhile she blessed the pilgrim's cot With love's sequestered joy — The Eve of his lone, exiled lot. The mother of his boy ; So like his sire in form and air. When fondly in her wreathed hair HA NNA 11 D US TA N. 1 1 7 He set the bridal rose ; But now, nor home nor kin to bless, The captive of the merciless, She treads the forest snows. Still slept the ruffian band, nor stirred Amid those flickering gleams, Save when, as broke some muttered word Upon their startled dreams, Some dark hand seized the bow and shaft, Or clutched the belt-knife's gory haft, As if the foe were nigh ; But soon the larum thought passed o'er, And sunk the lifted ^rm once more, And closed the glaring eye. Softly as glides the mother where Her sleeping babe reclines. So moved that lonely captive ther«^, Beneath the moaning pines ; As with despair's wild throb she knelt. And from the slumbering sacheui's belt His ruthless axe unloosed ; Her husband's heart had stained the blade. And to the haft, by one soft braid, Their first-born's scalp was noosed ! Then, as one armed with matchless might And heaven's vicegerent trust, Il8 HANNAH DUSTAN. Sent with avenging sword to smite The guilty to the dust ; She drove the crimson steel amain Sheer to the sleeping murderer's brain With such destroying hand, That when her fearful task was done, Gory and gashed, there breathed not one Of that remorseless band. O woman ! wont in sunny hour At thy own shade to start. Yet when life's blackest tempests lower, High-soul'd and strong of heart ; If once that mood is roused by shame, Spurned love, wrecked hopes, or blighted name, Thy wronger needs beware ; 'Twere safer that his guilty path Confront the whelp-robbed tigress' wrath, Than thy untold despair. TO THE HILLS. Brother bondman of the pen, In this old midurban den, Where, for weary months intent, O'er these dismal tomes we've bent Till our backs are well-nigh grown To the rigidness of stone ; In an atmosphere replete With all odors but the sweet, And such dissonance uncouth That the deafest cit, forsooth, Oft must muse, in vain surmise. Why the ears, unlike the eyes. Have not facile lids to close 'Twixt the hearing and its woes — Brother Helot of the mart, With the yearning, homesick heart For green Berkshire, let's away To the hills one blessed day, 'I hough the sore bonds sorer strain When they have us fast again ! 119 I20 TO THE HILLS. Ah, just think what careless glee Waits our rural vagrancy, When the truant feet once more Kiss the dear old paths of yore ! Think of those white-clovered leas, Murmurous with myriad bees, Where we've mused in doubt profound^ Which were sweeter, scent or sound ? Think of arbors draped with vines, Near the lake's aeolian pines. In whose dim aisles even boys Feel the impertinence of noise, And steal, tiptoe, as in fear Of some mystic presence near. Think of sauntering once more By the river's willowy shore. To the spot where Naiad hands Broad have scooped the russet sands, For a laver brimmed with lymph Meet for daintiest water Nymph That e'er plashed the crystal flood 'Neath the white-armed buttonwood ! Doffing there our city gear, Starch and gravity austere, We'll show urchins thereaway, What our fellows meant by " play " — Meant by power of lung and tongue. When we ancient lads were young. Then, with freshened step and mien. Ho ! fc>r Ice Glen's weird ravine. TO THE HILLS. 121 Where the mountain, wrenched apart, Scarcely hides his mighty heart. There, in bastions jagged and gray, Winter holds the sun at bay ; And in Arctic panoply, Mocks all Summer's archery. How we'll take the Oread's eyes With a marvelous surprise, As, in snowball range point-blank, Each upon his guarded bank Plies projectiles to and fro. Till his cheeks are all aglow, And his pelted garb is seen White as miller's gab.irdine ! ■ Brother bondman of the pen, In this Babel-shaming den, Let us steal ourselves away To the hills one glorious day, Though the gyves should sorer strain When they have us fast again ! THE WONDER THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. '©^JRUCE of Kinnaird could scarce repress the smile That twitched the bearded ambush of his mouth, When, in his quest of the mysterious Nile, Amid the perilous wilds of the swart South, An old man told him, with a grave surprise. Which made his childlike wonder almost grand, How, in his youth, there fell from out the skies A feathery whiteness over all their land — A strange, soft, sjDOtless something, pure as light. For which their questioned language had no name ; That shone and sparkled for a day and night. Then vanished all as weirdly as it came ; Leaving no vestige, gleam, or hue, or scent, On the round hills or in the purple air. To certify their mute bewilderment That such a presence had indeed been there. 122 THE WONDER. 1 23 Yet, lady, who that sees, as here revealed, The constellated glories of the Stwic, From human vision hopelessly concealed Till art their hidden splendor deigns to show. Can doubt if, when his native banks and braes The bronzed and weary Northman trod once more, Your fairy lens had shown his dazzled gaze The whole broad landscape blazoned o'er and o'er ■• With crystal Stars — ay, who can doubt that he, Who at the simple Abyssinian smiled, Would, at the sight of this strange galaxy. Himself have wondered like a little child ! CRADLE COVERLET. INSCRIPTION : — FOR A CRADLE COVERLET OF BRILLIANT COLORS, EMBROIDERED BY A VENERABLE LADY FOR A FAIR IN AID OF THE SANITARY COMMISSION. ijjOWED by the weight of fourscore years, And blinded by her widow's tears, The daughter of a patriot sire This earnest sends of fond desire Her loving-kindness to attest For brothers, stretched in sore unrest Along the battle's crimson path When the wild storm has spent its wrath. She has done what she could — how few Have better done, may better do. As viewed by Him in whose clear sight The offering of the widow's mite Appeared more precious, being hers, Than gifts of grandest almoners. And Pity asks, with pleading tone : Who'll make the hallowed prize his own ? 124 CRADLE COVERLET. \2% For the dear sake of those who pine With bitter wounds, that thou and thine, Walled by their breasts, mifrht never feel The fierce edge of the traitors* steel. O wedded pair ! whose cradled love Charms like a presence from above, What brighter smiles your eyes shall trace Upon the slumbering cherub's face If, when the angels gather near To whisper in his dreaming ear The dear Christ's tender benison, They mark the sinless little one Invested in these tissued dyes Lent from their own resplendent skies ! THE FALCON AND DOVE. ELI. me, friend, the secret meaning Mi Of this sculptured riddle, pray ; Quoth I to a sexton leaning On a tomb at shut of day. Open, high embossed, was lying Heaven's blest Book of hope and love ; And a marble falcon flying As in terror from a dove. " Sir," replied the sexton hoary, Courteously as friend to friend, " 'Tis a strange and mournful story, Weird and wondrous to the end. " Where yon dome-like hill upswelling, Proudly lifts its silvan crown. Lowers an outlaw's haunted dwelling. Shunned alike by thorp and town. 126 THE FALCON AND DOVE. 12/ " Until passion's stress was over, And his sated soul craved ease, He had been a desperate rover, Coursing all the round world's seas. "Wealth he brought at his returning, Gold and gems in rare excess ; But with whom and whence the earning, Few so dull as not to guess. *' Swart, and scarred, and grim of bearing. Dealt he, flash-like, oath or sneer — Every word and look declaring Traits that mark the buccaneer. " And there came a gentle creature To this mountain vale with him ; Grief in every pallid feature, Pain in every feeble limb. " Son he seemed, though faint the semblance To that dark and sullen man ; Vague as Ariel's resemblance To the earth-born Caliban. ** Ne'er at parting, nor at meeting After weary task well done, Fond farewell or kindly greeting Passed from scowling sire to son : 128 THE FALCON AND DOVE. " Ne'er with keenest aggravation, In the hill of stormy ire, Words of soft expostulation Passed from patient son to sire : " As the wife had borne, while living, All his insults, mute and mild ; So, all bearing, all forgiving, Suffered on the silent child. " Wherefore should a sire be wreaking Outrage on an orphan son ? Why, at every moment, seeking Anguish for his only one ? * Serpent tongues had stung his bosom With the rankling lie malign, — * What thou deem'st thy being's blossom, Is no real germ of thine ! ' " Then did Hope's enchanted palace Fall in ruins, wall on wall ; Then was love's paternal chalice Brimmed with hate's envenomed gall ; " And how oft, with aim abhorrent, Called he, now, to hunt the stag ! Leading o'er the swirling torrent, And along the dizzy crag ; THE FALCON AND DOVE. 1 29 " To his weary victim shouting, When he faltered mid the snares : ' Coward ! Fear grows bold by flouting — Danger strengthens whom it spares ! ' " But a form, unseen, was near him Ever on his perilled way. O'er the dreadful pass to cheer him, On the giddy steep to stay. " Oft in dreams it rose before him. Visibly, a snow-white Dove ; And through swooping Falcons bore him To a land of peace and love. " Foiled in all his fiendish scheming. Shrieked the sire with knitted brow Wild as tortured guilt in dreaming : ' Prince of Darkness, aid me now ! " ' Take my broad fields black with cattle ! Take my glittering hoards diverse — All I've wrung from toil and battle — Rid me of this living curse ! ' " Lo, a flash and crash of thunder Whelm the bitter words apace ; And a Shape of startling wonder Glooms before him, face to face. 130 THE FALCON AND DOVE. " ' Lost,' it scowled, ' is all such suasion ! — Gold nor gems my power control — These are mortals' bright temptation ; Mine, a brighter lure, the soul : " ' Not thy soul, poor wretch, that pratest Of thy herded lands and pelf. But the soul of him thou hatest — Thine is coming of itself ! " ' Where thy new-sown fields are greening, Send him forth at blush of day, Charged, with threats- of mortal meaning, Keep the wasting fowls at bay ! ' " ' Be it so,' the father muttered ; And, ere echo's nimble tone Half the fiat had reuttered. Pale and grim he stood alone. " Forth upon his fated mission Fared the friendless child forlorn, Menaced with assured perdition, If he failed to ward the corn. " Vain, alas, was his endeavor To obey the dire behest ; For the winged marauders never Left him briefest space for rest ! THE FALCON AND DOVE. I31 " When he chased them from the valley, Swarmed they on the upland grain ; Soon, when frighted thence, to rally In the vale's green lap again. " Still, with patient zeal, unshaken He j)ursued his endless round, • Till at last of strength forsaken. Dropped he, swooning, to the ground. " Lo, a strange form now beside him. And a white dove hovering near ! This, with yearning anguish eyed him, That, with ill-dissembled leer. " Then with unabashed assertion, False as foul, the glozer said : ' Long I've marked thy vain exertion, And am come to bring thee aid. " ' But as meed of faithful merit, When thy life's last moment dies. Let me, for my own, inherit That which o'er the threshold flies ! ' '' Sighed the youth : ' Kind sir, that taskest Time and strength to succor me ; Though I wist not what thou askest, Be it thine whate'er it be ! ' 132 THE FALCON AND DOVE. " Sudden as an aspen's tremblance, Changed the Tempter form and face. And a coal-black Falcon's semblance Dusked the sunlight in his place. " Prince of air and all its minions, As of demon realms below, Up he shot on whirring pinions, Swift as arrow from the bow. " On he swept with fiery keenness, Now in tangent, now in whirl ; Till o'er all the sprouting greenness Hovered throstle, crow nor merle. " Then young Eve with rosy features, Bade the child no longer stay ; And her fire-flies' fairy meteors Homeward lit his lonely way. " ' Laggard ! ' cried the execrator, ' Why so late returned, I ask — Have you truant played or traitor ? Skulked, or shirked your bidden task ? ' No, my father ; watched I truly ; Watched and strove to guard the grain ; But thy quest to answer duly. All my strivings were in vain. THE FALCON AND DOVE. 1 33 " * Till a stranger kind befriending, Sought me at the noon of day, And on raven wings ascending, Chased the hungry hordes away.' ** * Imp, with demon malice gifted, Take a tithe of thy unworth ' ' And the tyrant's arm uplifted Smote the guiltless to the earth. " Like the bloodroot's snowy blossom Dabbled in its crimson flood, Lo, the pallid brow and bosom Weltering in their own warm blood ! " On the morrow, lone and dying, Gazed the child with wondering fear, On a pall and coffin lying At his bedside on a bier. " Glaring eyes, the while, were keeping Watch within the open door. And a fiend-like shadow sleeping Grimly on the sunny floor. " Suddenly the watcher started. Shape and shadow fled amain, As the White Dove weirdly darted Inward through the lifted pane. 134' THE FALCON AND DOVE. " Round she flitted, moaning ever : ' Who of earth can sum thy loss, If, when soul from body sever, Thine yon fatal threshold cross ? ' " JVo7a his promise to the stranger, When he paltered at his side. Woke the sufferer to the danger By these awful words implied ; ' And he cried \vith wild endearment : ' Hear me ! save me, sexton ! hear ! Fold me in my ready cerement, Lay me on my waiting bier ! ' ' O'er the dreadful threshold bear me Forth beneath the blessed sky ; Let not — oh, for mercy, spare me ! Life and soul together die ! ' *' Cried the rufifian murderer : ' Never ! Hush thy mongrel, maundering breath ! Ma.y thy life and soul forever Perish utterly in death ! ' " Backward on his couch astounded, Fell the child in mortal fear ; As if breaking heart-strings sounded Knell-like in his dying ear. THE FALCO.V AND DOVE. 1 35 " Here my waiting pages entered ; And, despite threats, curses wild. All our fondest cares we centered On the friendless, hopeless child. " Tenderly we raised and laid him In his cotifiin on the bier, Tenderly we thence conveyed him To tlie green lawn smiling near. " There, as softer grew his breathing. Faintly dawned a hectic smile. O'er the woful pallor wreathing Flush of inward peace the while. " Then before his placid vision, Oped we clear the Book of Truth, Where the Saviour's sweet decision Spake these words of tenderest ruth ; " Saying : ' Suffer, unforbidden. Little ones to come to me ; For in such, howe'er ye've chidden, Earth finds heaven's best simile.' " Sudden now the light was parted By a shadow from above, As the coal-black Falcon darted. Bolt-like, at the watchful Dove ; ^6 THE FALCON AND DOVE. " While, his shrouded form half raising, Like the widow's son of Nain, Sat the child, intently gazing On the eerie, eager twain. " Now, aloft, they glanced and grappled, Now beneath the bier they met, Till the lawn around was dappled With their plumes of white and jet. " Twice the worsted Dove was routed, Twice her fiendish foe she fled ; And the gloating ruffian shouted : ' Bravely, Falcon, hast thou sped ! ' " Braver yet is love's endurance — Love in faith's proof armor braced ; I replied, with fond assurance : ' Lo, Uie chaser now the chased ! ' " Swift through cloudland's blue dominion Fled the Falcon, round and round, Till the white Dove's swooping pinion Dashed him, cowering, to the ground. " Down he vanished, as asunder Gloomed the ebon jaws of night ; And a deafening shout of thunder Shook the mountains at the right ; 1 THE FALCON AND DOVE. I 3/ " Whence a hollow voice came booming : ' Let the brat escape my lure; Since the sire awaits my dooming, Hither following, soon and sure ! ' " As we homeward thence were wending, In the calm bright skies above, Saw we, side by side ascending, Dovelet white and snow-white Dove ! IN MEMORIAM. N my young days a traveled stranger chanced To visit Berkshire, in his earnest quest Of that arcadian heritage, which Hope, With rosy finger pointing, tells each heart Awaits it surely in the near beyond ! The fairest scenes whereon the morning smiles With lingering gaze in many an orient land. Had set their soft enchantments to his eye. And whispered, " Seek no farther : " yet he passed Still onward, till his feet at last were stayed Within the magic circle of these hills. Here was the Eden he had sought so long ! Here had his dream come true, and never more Could fancy shake his faith, that all the vales Of the wide world could boast no peer to this ! And here, like one imparadised, his life. Exempt from idle longings and replete With daily satisfactions, thenceforth lapsed As gently as a placid stream that steals O'er smoothest sands to its appointed bourne. 138 IN MEMORIAM. 1 39 If such the local spell on sense and soul Of this grave stranger, that he gave himself A willing captive to these alien scenes, And here would live, here die ; impassive, deaf To all the pleadings, all the memories That woo the wanderer to his native land ; Were it not strange that they, whose eyes had gazed From childhood on these charms of hill and vale. Could ever leave them to return no more ? Yet, to my thought, your heroes' absence seems Less strange than would their presence here to-day ; Had they not heard, in duty's still small voice. The voice of God and country, and at once Wrenched loose their hearts from every dearest tie. And marched right onward, even unto death ? How could they falter when, that April morn, The South wind whispered : " War is in the land ! I heard the thunder of his iron tramp ; Saw the keen flash of his relentless steel Affright the white-winged Peace from out her palms ; And fled his frenzied presence, as he strode, Dark frowning. Northward, and with lips ablaze Fulmined his fierce anathemas on all. Forewarned, confront him far off, ere he fall FuUswing, resistless, on yourselves and yours ! " Then, as the rattling larum of the drum Rolled through these startled vales, uprose the might 140 IN MEMORIAM. t Of Berkshire's martial manhood, and went forth With stern face set as flint against the foe ; Despite the clinging of impassioned arms, The pressure and the pleading of pale lips, Whose farewells seemed the knell of Hope herself. And ah ! too truly, as the vacant seat By hearth and board of lonely cottages And social village mansions, sadly tells ! As tells more sadly still, the unheaved turf Whence springs yon sacred column — turf forlorn, That while its verdure wraps earth's common sands, It may not fold your martyrs' precious dust. No eye but that which marks the sparrow's fall, Saw theirs, perchance, or ever shall discern The places hallowed by their martial dust. On lonely picket-guard beneath the stars, Or in the starless watch of leaguered camps Impalled in double gloom of night and storm, They fell unseen ; or in the battle-cloud That dusks the blazing splendor of the noon. Passed from their comrades' sight, as to and fro. Whelming or whelmed, the swaying legions surged ; Or, fate's worst fate, were swept to nameless graves From wards whose balms were blasphemies, whose shrift. Curses gnashed fiercely into dying ears ; IN ME MORI A M. 1 4 1 Or tumbreled forth from fiendish prison hells, Gaunt, hunger-bitten skeletons, where Death, In all his horrors, less abhorrent seemed, Than had the ghastly life that perished there. Ah, friends ! it were a mournful joy indeed, Had fate but granted to your yearning hearts The dear, disjewelled caskets, though no more To beam with' light unknown to sun or star. How fondly had ye welcomed even these ! How tenderly consigned them to the rest Of yon still chambers of the funeral sands ; And felt their gloom illumined with the hope That there your relics would be laid with theirs For earliest recognition, face to face — Face to face smiling with immortal smiles ! But though ye know not where the loved ones sleep, On dreary downs or sunny inland glades, By marge of lone lagoon or mountain stream, Or in the dusk of ever-moaning pines ; Know that, wher'er it be, their rest is sweet ; Their couch assured of the great Mother's care. Though there no human eye e'er drop a tear ; No hand bring flowers or germ of future flowers ; She, at whose all-sustaining breast were nursed These Abels, murdered by fraternal hate At duty's very altar, shall keep green. 142 IN MEMORIAM. With tempered largess of her dews and rains, The turf that shelters their uncoffined dust ; Or, when the year's disheveled tresses lie Unsightly there,, shroud all in spotless snows ! So, while to these maternal ministries Sadly we leave the unreturning brave Where the red battle left them stark and cold ; Be ours the solace that they nobly died, As ours the sacred duty to make sure Their martyrdom shall not have been in vain ! « BRIDEGROOM TO BRIDE. S'^MBARKED at last, dear trustful wife, , »^BI Before us, lo ! the voyage of life, With all the hopes, and doubts, and fears, That hover round our pilgrim years ! Yet, cheered with happy auspices And fondest " Benedicites," , Let us serenely, side by side, Confront the dim and undescried. O Sea ! that spread'st so smoothly now Thy azure fields before our prow, We know how soon the storm may chase The shimmering dimples from thy face. And even 'mid thy sunniest isles. Supplant with frowns thy wonted smiles. Yet, knowing this, we will not fear Or storm or peril, far or near ; Sure in our faith, oh, faithless sea, That howsoe'er our bark may be Tossed by thy waves' tempestuous will. They must obey His " Peace, be still ! " 143 HARD-HANDS' PETITION. HE chance to toil is all we ask ; O brothers, only this ! No matter what or where the task, It will not come amiss. The lesser load or lighter strain, We stand not to discuss — The task may go against the grain, And yet be dear to us. Ungloved, the roughest thole we grasp, Nor burr, nor prickle heed ; The nettle in our horny clasp Is but a silken weed. We rather earn the crust we're fed, In fens or squalid slums ; Than idle break the beggar's bread, Or twirl the pauper's thumbs. Then grant the earnest toil we ask. Nor long the boon defer — Who gives the poor an honest task. Is God's best almoner ! 144 NEVER FEAR! \N the journey of life never falter nor fear, Tliough danger may threaten an ambush of woes ; If plainly the pathway of duty appear, Right on ! though it lead through a forest of foes. The clouds that loom up in the distance so cold. Are blessings there falling in silvery showers ; And the vales far away, now so drear to behold. Will change, as you near them, to vistas of flowers. Yet should welkin and landscape but deepen the. gloom They wore at the first, as the distant you win, — Even then, friend, shall Hope, like the firefly, illume The gloom of the outward with beams from within. And ponder not solely of Self as you go. For thousands, your brothers, move on by your side ; 145 H^ NEVER FEAR ! Have a smile for their gladness, a sigh for their woe, A shame in their weakness, a pride in their pride. Lend a hand to the feeble that totters to fall ; Speak cheer to the weary, o'erburdened with care ; From youth's eager lip snatch the chalice of gall ; From beauty's charmed footfall, the myrtle- wreathed snare. Let us strive, though of dust unto dust to return. As the flower to the sod whence it sprang to the day. That all yet to traverse life's desert, may learn Our course by the roses we left on the way. Though rugged the pathway and darkened the goal, With hope for the future and conscience the past. Never fear, never doubt in the depths of the soul, That, spite of fate, all will be well at the last ! \ TO A FUNERAL WREATH. H, snow-white Wreath ! that graced but now Our dear Lucinda's shrouded rest Not fairer than her marble brow, Nor purer than her stainless breast — Would that thy flowers, so sacred made By that chaste shrine whereon they lay, In holier beauty thus arrayed. Might never feel nor fear decay ! But, no, alas ! though tears like rain Upon thy blossomed circlet fall. Love's fondest tribute were in vain To stay the blight that steals on all ! Admonished by that mortal shrine. How could we for a moment trust That happier fate might yet be tliine, Than hers — our dearest's — Dust to Dust ! Nay, were the magic virtue ours. Oh, snow-white Wreqth, so freshly blown ! 147 148 TO A FUNERAL WREATH. To change thy frail memorial flowers To kindred forms of Parian stone » Amid our world of cypress glooms, Where life strives vainly with decay ; Alas, even these marmoreal blooms. With crumbling years must pass away ! But thanks, dear friends, that when her feet Crossed the Dark Stream that waits for ours, The dear one left our memories sweet With love's imperishable flowers — Flowers of a soul whose happiness Consummate bloomed in grateful eyes ; Whose constant thought was how to bless, Whate'er the stern self-sacrifice ! CENTRAL PARK. |F all the gracious deities Ascribed of old to land or sea, The god of Metes and Boundaries Henceforth shall be extolled by me ! For him Til choose the fondest name The Muse in happiest mood can frame ; And round it wreathe, in grateful lays, Her choicest flowers of love and praise. For when the Commerce of the West, Her Empire mart majestic piled, Nor recked how soon she thence might wrest The last green rood where Nature smiled ; Lord Terminus, at once obeyed. The spoiler's march thus sternly stayed : '* Behold thy utmost bounds at last — Thus far, no farther, shalt thou blast ! " On all sides round this sacred pale. Be thine to ravage as of yore — To lop the hill, to whelm the vale, And stifle all, from shore to shore, ■ 149 I 50 CENTRAL PARK. A¥ith stately halls where anxious pride But dreams the peace to pomp denied ; Or slums, whose horrors well may crave, For blest surcease, the pauper's grave ! " But all witJiin this ample bound, This central sweep of lawn and lea, Henceforth is consecrated ground Till earth herself shall cease to be. No blast shall rend its living rock ; No rumbling wain its echoes shock ; Nor sound of hammer, trowel, plane, Its silvan sanctities profane ! " Let no vain schemer dare deface Creation's master-touches here, But Nature's every gift and grace In all their virgin charms appear ; Save where congenial taste may serve To teach the stream a lovelier curve, Or path a happier course to choose Where beauty veils still fairer views. " No cruel act, no ribald speech. These peaceful shades shall e'er attest — Within the schoolboy's easy reach The bird shall build and brood her nest ; Nor shall the fawn to covert fly, When merriest groups go laughing by ; i CENTRAL PARK. 151 But fearless in the wayside grass, Behold the jocund wonder pass. "The turf shall teem with fairest flowers, E'er brought by guardians from the skies 'J'o cheer their sublunary hours With bloom and breath of paradise ; While murmuring streams and tuneful birds, And soft winds sweet with lovers' words. And music's, sculpture's charms unite To thrill all bosoms with delight. " What various forms of urban life Of every age, and sex, and sphere. Shall daily steal from toil and'strife, To find lost Eden's blessings here ; To breathe large breath of balmy air ; Meet health and beauty everywhere ; And feel a tingling rapture dart. In every pulse of Nature's heart ! " The noblest feast to mortals known, Is spread not for the palate's slaves — ' Man shall not live by bread alone ; ' His soul diviner nurture craves ; And here, in these serene retreats, It shall not lack abundant sweets In every sight, and scent, and sound — Pure manna mantlins; all around ! " » TO A MINIATURE. HE pictured face still wears the charm Her real presence used to wear, When, circled by my loyal arm. She let me gaze enchanted there. But since no more with dimpled wiles, She deigns my fondness to betray ; Why cherish these unchanging smiles, Whose fickle types have passed away ? A dearer arm now circles her ; Her beauty wiles a dearer heart — Ah ! lost love's vain remembrancer ! 'Tis time for thee and me to part. Go, then ! nor shall resentment find A harsher wish to send with thee, Than that thy presence may remind How fondly once she smiled on me ! 152 TO MEMORY DEAR. HERE'S not a common pebble that hath been For long a daily presence in our sight, But memory values, when no longer seen, As it had been a very chrysolite;. No little cherished flower of plainest dyes Eludes our wonted smile and disappears, Whose absence is not marked with wistful sighs, Or, haply, even with the dew of tears. But the void of a beloved face^ That dearer grew with every passing hour, For some new aspect of angelic grace, Some sweeter bloom of love's incarnate flower ! 153 TO ELIZABETH ON HER SECOND BIRTH- DAY. PENING bud of vernal life, Watched with smiles and tears ! Changing with the fitful strife Of love's hopes and fears — Hopes that, with enchanting eyes, Whisper of elysian skies, And a sunny path, which lies Through a world of bloom ; Fears that frown in hope's despite, Muttering wild of storm and night, And the swift untimely blight Of an early tomb ! Hope still speaks thy weal to Fear, Fear to Hope thy woe ; Which will prove the wiser seer, Time alone can show : I have learned that both may be Prophets false of destiny, 154 TO ELIZA BE Til. 1 5 5 Seeing what no ken can see In life's forward sky ; But, as onward still Ave grope, Let us fondly trust that Hope Hath thy fate's dim horoscope Read with truer eye. Yet in such a changing scene, Though thy lot be bright, Clouds shall frequent pass, I ween. O'er thy spirit's light : Maiden prime will bring its snares ; Riper years their matron cares ; Time at broadcast scatters tares Where he sows the flowers ; And in spite of our endeavor Loathed from lovely to dissever, Side by side they twine, and ever Mingled crop is ours. Beauty like a glory lies O'er thy being now. Mirrored in thy glad blue eyes, And thy cherub brow. Wreathed with many a glossy tress Of such amber loveliness As no poet can express. Paint he e'er so well ; And the budding lip, that shows 156 TO ELIZABETH. Less of ruby than of rose, And the dimpled cheek, which glov/s Like the rose-steeped shell. Nursling of a rugged clime, These are now thy dower ; But o'er these the despot Time Hath a demon's power ; Speed can never foil his flight, Darkness muffle from his sight, Strength nor beauty stay his might, Though an angel plead ; Nature's self is but his thrall — Oak and adamantine wall At his ruthless summons fall Like a smitten reed. Yet to wisdom's clearer sight, Murmur as we may, Seems it vain to mourn the blight Of the flowers of clay ; Frailer and less fair than those Which their tender charms disclose By the marge of lingering snows, In some sunny vale ; Ere the earliest warblers bring Tidings of the loitering Spring, And while Winter's icy wing Shivers on the gale. TO ELIZA BE TH. I 5 7 Therefore, fairest, do not trust To so vain a stay ; Beauty's but a nicer bust Of earth's common clay ; Born to no diviner mood, Finer nerve or richer blood, Than her favored sisterhood, Humbler gifted, are ; Hour by hour her graces fly ; Fast her cherished roses die ; And the glory of her eye Setteth like a star ! But thy being's nobler part, Inly throned to reign O'er the many-passioned heart And the restless brain — Give to ///^/o'ermastering power, When the Will would snatch the flower From temptation's upas bower, Though the asp be seen Coiled within its charmed dyes — And, when earth in chaos lies. Thou above the wreck shalt rise, Scathless and serene ! LINES to a dear friend, with a plain copy of Bryant's poems. I i M HOUGH unadorned with pictured charms, With fretted gold, or flashing gem ; I deem that friendship's thoughtful eye Will not my simple gift contemn. For lacks it not intrinsic worth, Beyond the pride of wealth or art — The beauties of a polished mind, The graces of a gentle heart : One that, like Numa, oft has borne From haunted fount and voiceless glen. The wisdom of a wiser lore Than marks the babbling schools of men : One who hath drawn from passing bird, From falling leaf, and drooping flower, Thoughts that shall light the memory's shrine. Till life's remotest hour : 158 LINES TO A DEAR FRIEND. I 59 One whose chaste pen ne'er traced a line To virtue false, to license dear ; Which manly pride miglit blush to read, Or maiden purity to hear. LINES ON REVISITING BERKSHIRE LATE IN AUTUMN. OW slow the moons have waxed atid waned, 111 How dim their alien beams to me, Since, fast in urban durance chained, Dear Mountainland, I've pined for thee ! When last, beneath these native skies, I gazed on hills and vales so dear. The charm of Eden's vernal dyes Seemed mirrored in the landscape here. The clover's breath embalmed the breeze, That danced from sunny knoll to knoll. Repaying with the hum of bees The shades where sang the oriole. But now, alas ! how changed the scene ! No warbling woods, no murmuring blooms, No groves with rustling arras green. The pride of summer's silvan looms ! . 160 LINES ON REVISITING BERA' SHIRE. l6l Yet dearer, in their silent woe, Are these brown wastes and wilds to me, Than all the gorgeous pomp and show Of that great mart beside the sea. For let me feel beneath my feet, O native soil ! thy quickening thrill ; And I, too, like the famed athlete, Thence gain new strength to wrestle still — Still sorely toil, that wealth may fling Fresh ingots on his swollen heap ; Still cope with cares, whose ruthless sting Disturbs the very death of sleep ; With little means and large desires Conflicting in the silent mind. That oft, in happier mood, aspires Its own fond tasks and times to find, And be what manly pride commands, Life's nobler mission to fulfil — No passive tool in sordid hands To work its wielder's reckless will. DEATH. LL ! thou rememberest all Earth's breathing forms of every name and lot ; And bear'st the sable pall With equal hand to palace and to cot, Where pines the monarch on his pampered throne, Or cowers the outcast watched by want alone ! Bravely the eagle's plume Bestems the gale, and sunward lifts his form Above the flashing gloom, And volleyed terrors of the rushing storm ; Yet vain that soaring wing's exulting might To pass the range of thy dark arrow's flight. Wide o'er the polar waste. Where life shrinks back from Winter's ghastly towers ; Wide o'er the green zones graced With all the glorious blazonry of flowers, — Yea, o'er each span of ocean's dark domain, Are spread the trophies of thy conquering reign. 162 DEA TH. 1 63 Empires of old renown. Like giant phantoms, all have passed away— The Macedonian's crown, The Caesar's pomp, the Goth's avenging sway, Awake no terrors now, whilst every knee Still bows in trembling fealty to thee ! Afar the tempest flings Its warning thunders on the startled gale. And far the simoom's wings Forecast the portent of its coming bale ; But thou, O dread, inexorable foe ! Sendest no herald of thy mortal blow. Where the glad wine is quaffed, And dance and song the giddy banquet crown, Thou bear'st thy ruthless shaft, Assassin-like, to strike thy victim down ; Perchance the maid betrothed, or blushing bride, Or laurelled idol of a nation's pride. While bending o'er his lyre. In the deep hush of night's inspiring reign, Flushed with celestial fire The mortal minstrel wakes his deathless strain ; Thy hand, relentless at the purposed ill, Arrests life's silver chords, and all is still ! Where guilt with innocence. And pomp with squalid misery jostling meets ; Thou, robed in pestilence, 1 64 DEATH. At noonday stalkest through the shuddering streets ; Till all is hushed where crowds were wont to tread, Save the lone hearseman's call, " Bring forth your dead ! " Nor smites thy swifter dart, O blinded archer of the random aim ! The sere and leprous heart, For years and years the haunt of sin and shame ; Nor his, whose mad ambition's ruthless flood Dyes nations crimson in their noblest blood : Thou mak'st tli insatiate grave Thine earlier garner for the pride of eartli ; The wise, the just, the brave, The fair, the loved, — yea all of proven worth, Thou snatchest from affection's scanty store, Nor to its yearning breast return'st them more ! Yet to the pure in heart, Who through temptation's many-sirened sea, By faith's revealed chart Have shaped their perilled course unfalteringly, Thou, like a pilot, welcomely dost come, To bring life's weary bark to its last haven home ! WAITING FOR MORNING AT PROFILE MOUNTAIN. CARCE other token than the low sweet chant Of unseen birds announced the coming dawn ; As, all impatient of the lingering night, To this weird lake I groped niy eager way. I know the mountain giants are encamped About me, scarce a bowshot from my feet ; While yet no intimation is vouchsafed Of presences so wondrous and so near. Patience, O longing eyes ! for soon this gloom Shall be transfused with floods of silvery sheen Poured from the golden chalice of the morn ; And all this now invisible array, Stand forth in clear apocalypse sublime. At last, O joy ! at last, hope long deferred Becomes fruition as the darkness melts. The gray mists vanish, and the dismal void, Anon, is one vast sea of crystal air ! Rapt, motionless, oblivious of self, 165 1 66 MORNING AT PROFILE MOUNTAIN. I gaze on these imperial Sovereignties With all the wonder of a waking child, Whose last sight was dear faces ; whose first, now, Phantoms more strange than thrilled his wildest dreams. { But who art Thou, whose throned sublimity O'erkings these Titan majesties, and takes Captive the gazer's soul with nameless awe ? Few are the stormy centuries that have swept Athwart thy cliff-hewn brother of the Nile ; And lo, a formless and disfeatured mass Is all the sculptured marvel that remains Of man's eidolon of Cyclopic man ; Whilst over thy immortal lineaments, O Memnon of the Mountains ! harmlessly, As the cloud's shadow o'er the granite glides. Millions of years have passed, and left thy face Clear-cut and sharp against the azure sky ! Thy lifted brow fronts Eastward, whence arise The Shining Ones whose coming, morn and eve. These glens first read in thy illumined smiles. Thence, too, arose upon thy wondering gaze, That light, before whose glory suns and stars Put off their splendor — that Promethean flamej Brought by the Mayflower from the throne of God, To smite the rayless darkness from a world LOOK NOT THOU UPON THE WINE WHEN IT IS RED. SOFT sleep the hills in their sunny repose, In the Land of the South, where the vine fondest grows ; And blithesome the hearts of the vintagers be In the grape-purpled vales of the Isles of the Sea ! And fair is the wine when its splendor is poured Where glass beams to glass round the festival board. While the magic of music awakes in its power, And wit gilds the fast-falling sands of the hour. Yet lift not the Wine-cup, though pleasure may swim Mid the bubbles that Hash round its roseate brim ; For dark in the depths of the vortex below. Are the sirens that haunt the red maelstrom of woe. They have lured the gay spirit of childhood astray, While it dreamed not of wiles on its innocent way ; 167 l68 LOOK NOT THOU UPON THE WINE. i And the soft cheek of Beauty they've paled in its bloom, A.nd quenched her bright eyes in the damps of the tomb. They have torn the live wreath from the brow of the Brave, And clianged his proud heart to the heart of a slave ; And e'en the fair fame of the pure and the just, With the gray hairs of age, they have trampled in dust. Then lift not the Wine-cup, though pleasure may swim Mid the bubbles that flash round its roseate brim ; For dark in the depths of the vortex below, Are the sirens that haunt the red maelstrom of woe ! THE OPTIMIST. RITHEE, friend, why always sad, Whatsoe'er the case is ? Why contend our " world is bad," In all times and places ? Know that he, who thus complains Of this wondrous Nature, Contumeliously arraigns Its divine Creator. He pronounced it " very good"* But^w/, bold decryer. Have the monstrous hardihood To make God a liar ! Unto His unerring eye, Faultless the inspection ; And the Morning Stars on high Hymned the clear perfection. 1 60 I/O THE OPTIMIST. You, who scarce can see your hand, At arm's length diminished, Swear that worlds were badly planned, Botched, and left half finished ! " Ozirs, at least, where pain and sin, Leech and priest defying, Claim us ere life well begin, Leave us but in dying ! " Yes, but may not wisdom deem That e'en these dread phases, In the universal scheme Have their rightful places ? He who saw the perfect whole While 'twas yet ideal, Faulted not in sand or soul, When He made it real. Think you that His wise intents By mere chance succeeded ? That He fashioned instruments Never used nor needed ? Pain and pleasure, good and ill, In themselves or actors. All are workers of His will. All are benefactors. THE OPT! All ST. 17I Had there been no Lucifer To the world's temptation, There had been no Crucifer For the great salvation. Though our earth be but a speck On creation's border, It could never suffer wreck Without worlds' disorder : Orbs above it, orbs below, All concatenated, Needs must feel a kindred throe, Were't annihilated. Orb and atom — each is just What and where it should be ; Otherwise the Cosmos must Fail of what it would be. Even one so mean as I, Born for humblest kneeing, Links still humbler with the high, Li the chain of being. Let us, then, submissive rest In our several station, Sure that all is for the best. Throughout all creation ! THE BUYER BOUGHT. iOJOURNING lately at an hostelry !^ Not many miles from Washington, D. C, I, who am dwarfed alike by stout and tall, Could not but feel ridiculously small, When, to the attic summons of my bell, A dark Hyperion promptly answered, "Well?" A nobler presence, form of grander mold. Of shapelier limb, or power more manifold, My eyes had rarely lighted on till then. In all their wide remark of model men. " Well ?" he repeated, as my anxious sight Surveyed the airy distance of the height I needs must measure, should he, haply, please To hurl me headlong (and he could with ease). For ringing up, though unaware indeed. So grand a server of a trivial need. But soon recovering from my blank surprise, And squarely meeting his unswerving eyes, I said, as one preposterously brave : " Are you, forsooth, a — pardon me — a slave ? " 172 II THE BUYER BOUGHT. 1/3 " Slave ! " he retorted with a bitter smile, And nervous tapping of his breast the while, " I bought of my own father, truth to say, For a great price, this unpaternal clay ; And, as I paid in full, / surely ought To be the owner of the thing I bought ! " m LINES TO A YOUNG FRIEND, WITH A COPY OF SHAKSPEARE. S o'er the crystal element The Queen of Eden careless bent, She started back with frank surprise At the sweet face, that met her eyes ; Yet looked again, and gazing on The upward-gazing paragon. She felt, perforce, as beauty will. Her pure cheek flush, her bosom thrill, To recognize her own fair face In perfect reflex, grace for grace ! So when, at times, my gentle friend O'er Shakspeare's magic page shall bend, — Where Genius in its happiest mood All loveliest traits of womanhood Has mirrored in immortal lays, — She, too, shall start with fond amaze, To see the imaged counterpart Of her own maiden mind and heart, In Portia's, Juliet's sister mien. And the white soul of Imogen. 174 CLERK-VESPERS IN WALL STREET. P'g WELVE hours since morn I've toiled away S^sJ Dear hours of blithesome boyhood, yet As one who never dreamed of play, Or dreamed but to forget. I know not what the day has been Abroad beneath the vernal skies, I only know that here within It seemed of sombre guise. Perchance on circling hills the while. And flowery slope and dimpled bay, The golden sunlight's softest smile Has played the livelong day. Yet what is Spring's glad light to him. Or earth's fresh lap whereon it falls, Whose heaven is yonder sky-light dim, Whose scope, these dingy walls ? ■175 176 CLERK-VESPERS IN WALL STREET. Here is my world, relieved by nought Of swarded green or vaulted blue ; Here, day by day, must thews and thought The same dull task pursue. Chained to the oar, like galley-boy, When youth would float with pleasure's tides, I row against the stream of joy. And gaze the way it glides. But thanks to thee, returning Eve, That smil'st with starry eyes so fair, And bring'st the blest though brief reprieve From this dull round of care ! Hence ! figured tomes, whose soulless lore But treats of Mammon's loss or gain ; I feel your shadows fall once more Alike from heart and brain. Farewell ! till morn, the din and jar, The tumult of the bustling street, The rumbling of the ponderous car, And tramp of eager feet. The loveliest of suburban nooks. All greeh with rustling vine and bough, And voices sweet, and fond, fond looks Await my coming now. CLERK-VESPERS IN WALL STREET. IJJ And, haply, o'er the moonlit dews, When sleep has hushed those voices sweet, For trysting dear night's coyest muse Shall seek my green retreat ; And, with some charm of measured thought, Again bid joy's reviving wings Forget what cares to-day has brought. And what to-morrow brings. IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD. SIMPLE pebble from the brook, That daily wins a passing look By some quaint charm of form or hue, We miss not from our wonted view, Without a natural regret To lose e'en such a humble pet. More natural still the tender pain, When ours the lot to look in vain For living object, bird or flower. Whose charm has solaced many an hour, And made the very sick-room seem The precinct of a dulcet dream. But when inexorable Fate Will make us most disconsolate, She snatches from our yearning sight Some nearer, dearer heart's delight — Some spirit from the realms of day Embodied in our mortal clay ; Like thine, dear little friend, whose face Beamed on us with such winning grace, 178 IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD. 1 79 As made each glance, wherever met, The sunniest and the sweetest yet ! And daily to our longing eyes Its vanished smiles will fondly rise ; And, nightly, blend their angel gleams With memory's most hallowed dreams :, Till, haply, in that happier clime Beyond these brooding mists of time, We meet the dear ones gone before, Imparadised for evermore ! LINES ON REVISITING A FAVORITE LAKE, AFTER AN ABSENCE OF MANY YEARS. iB'^fllROM those thronged haunts, where Nature's |H.SS|| trampled germs Ne'er feel the touch of Spring, nor wake to wear Her green and perfumed garniture again, Escap'd at last, like vassal disenthralled, I stand upon thy silvan marge once more, fairest mirror ! where the placid Morn Surveys her blushing loveliness, or Eve The wondrous glory of her starry train ! Yet bears the image gazing at me now. Far other aspect than was wont to smile On boyhood's bending vision ; though the boy And he that sighs to mark the mournful change, Are still the same. Sad change, indeed ! — yet thanks, Thanks, dear magician ! in whose faithful glass 1 read that time may pale the flush of youth. May blanch the raven locks, and earthward bend LINES TO A FAVORITE LAKE. l8l The wan and wrinkled tablet of the brow ; Yet leave the heart's first records uneffaced, And all its Geyser-fountains bubbling still. Therefore to thee and these associate scenes, Whate'er this outward seeming, I have brought The fresh, warm feelings, and the memories dear Ye nursed within my breast in vernal years. Despite the past, I am a boy again ! And soon from yon dim grotto as of yore, A fairy bark shall leap into thy waves. And fling its white folds bravely to the breeze In gay defiance ; nor shall he whose hand Directs its billowy fleetness, heave a sigh For broader ocean or more witching isles Than these my own dear native hills embrace. And when the stormy spirit of the North Has hushed thy liquid murmurs, and consigned Thy dimpled beauty to a rigid waste, The boy of two-score winters oft shall join The hamlet's merry troop, careering wild On steel-shod sandals o'er thy smooth expanse ; While ring the echoing dells with louder mirth, When sheer beneath our swiftly-gliding feet, Thunders the sudden cleft from shore to shore ; And she who bends in childhood's strange delight Above the pale sweet face soft mirrored there. As if thy loveliest Naiad's sister eyes Were smiling up in hers, shall haunt with me 1 82 LINES TO A FAVORITE LAKE. Thy winding bays, green isles, and headlands bold. And deem that Tempe in its vernal prime Could boast no charms that were exotic here. To her, erewhile in urban durance pent. Earth's verdant lap, perfumed with floral hues, And laced with silver streams, was all unknown ; Nay, yonder Sun, bedimmed by sulphurous clouds. And shorn of half his realms by Art's proud piles Upheaved in gloomy grandeur to the sky. Has never taught her wondering soul till now, With what a godlike glory he comes forth From morning's rosy portals, and at eve Smiles from his golden chambers of the West. The time has been when one poor sickly flower, One dwarf'd shrub pining in the dim, damp court, And one pet bird, unconscious as herself Of bloomy lawns and many-minstrelled groves, Were all she knew of Nature ; but henceforth Her path shall wind through fields so pranked with flowers, That oft her lifted foot shall seek in vain For space whereon to light, nor harm the bee ; Or steal through warbling wilds so arched with boughs. And roofed with myriad leaves, the noon-day sun Ne'er sees the moss on which their shadows sleep. And ah ! should that young cheek's too lingering flush. Like Autumn's hectic hues, presage decay, I LINES TO A FAVORITE LAKE. 183 Still hope is ours, that thou who sendest forth Thy cooling mists upon the evening winds, To bless with gentle showers or gentler dews The lowliest herb that withers in the waste, Hast yet a healing balm for this dear flower, Snatched from the rough Zahara of the world To bloom in thy glad presence, fairy lake, And crown the glory of thy perfect charms. THE PARTING BY THE SEA. — RURSUS TE, NATA, LICEBIT AMPLECTI ? Claudian. JNE more embrace, sweet one, the last For long, long months, perchance for years ! The loosed sail climbs the dizzy mast, The pilot at his helm appears ; And hark ! the imperious All ashore ! Alas ! — yet one — one last kiss more ! Now, though thou canst not hear the prayer We lingering breathe beside the sea : Our wafted kisses still shall bear Sweet messages of love to thee, As long as brimming eyes can trace Thy form across the widening space. O vernal winds ! whose fickleness The palm of change may justly claim, For once your wanton mood repress. And, sobered to a steady aim. Speed onward, with unwavering breath, The bark that bears Elizabeth ! 184 THE PARTING BY THE SEA. 185 And when her pilgrimage is o'er , Her memory made a pictured shrine For shapes and scenes which classic lore Has touched with splendor half divine ; O faithful winds ! still fair abaft, The loving to the loving waft ! THE LAST WATCH. 0-MORROW, Greenwood's turf must fold These dear remains from mortal sight — Ah ! slowly let the sands be told, That bring the parting anguish, Night ! As o'er the shrouded form we bend, Our souls with fond illusions thrill — Sweet dreams, that thou, departed friend, In this pale sleep art with us still. But never more from such eclipse Shall morn those gentle eyes relume, Nor ever more on those cold lips Shall wit its smiling throne resume ! Nor shall that voice, so soft and sweet. Again in silvery accents flow ; Or that dear hand, delighted, meet Our own in friendship's heart-warm glow I i86 THE LAST IV A TCH. . 1 8; Vet, Charles ! till we, who watch and weep. In turn are gathered earth to earth ; Our souls with vestal care shall keep Undimmed the record of thy worth. How soon must Greenwood's turf enfold These dear remains from love's fond sight ! Ah ! slowly let the sands be told, That bring the parting anguish, Night ! LINES TO A DEAR YOUNG FRIEND. ]S men have watched the starry skies, To herald fate's decree ; So have I gazed in thy young eyes To learn thy destiny ; But in their azure depths of light No prophet-sign appears, To mark, thy life for early blight, Or long and happy years. Yet, let no fear of future ill Thy sunny smiles o'ercast ! Spring holds not back her budding sweets, For menaced blight or blast ; Nor deem it hard that change on change Betides our steps below ; Earth were too dear if all were joy, Too drear if all were woe. Life's mingled chalice, then, dear friend, With calm acceptance greet ; • i88 LINES TO A DEAR YOUNG FRIEND, 1 89 Not mindless of its bitter drops, Nor thankless for its sweet ; And trust, that though thy future path Through wastes forlorn may lie ; The care that guards the desert bird, Will fount and food supply ! BROTHER TO BROTHERS. ROM the four winds we are come, Brothers, to this gracious home, Each at Ahiia Mater's knee To be trained impartially For the post his bent, not whim, Plainly points as best for him Where to strike for truth and right With a a loyal champion's might. Who shall say that ours is not, Every way, a favored lot ? While in yonder busy streets Toil his weary tasks repeats, Plying hammer, trowel, plane, Urged by need, or greed of gain ; Here we take our easeful seat At some sage Gamaliel's feet, While he turns the classic page, And exalts the heritage Left by genius graced to find Richest ingots of the mind, 190 BROTIJEK TO BROTHERS. I9I And to coin the precious store For world-treasures evermore ; Or he bids the Gnomes reveal What their rayless realms conceal ; Bids tiie Naiads rob the seas Of their untold mysteries ; Or the restless Sylphs declare Their coy wonders of the air ; Or Urania disclose How the starry hosts arose, And, in circling order bright, Interchangeing day and night, With their orreries sublime Mete the cosmic march of time. Brothers, wheresoe'er at last. Fate our severed lives shall cast ; In the pauses of the strife, Which awaits all earnest life, These quaternion years will seem Like a brief Elysian dream. Which, with many a fond refrain. We shall dream and dream again ! When the knell of college-days Tolls us to the parting ways, (Nevermore, perchance, to meet !) And our unreturning feet Bear us far and farther from This our dear fraternal home, 192 BROTHER TO BROTHERS. We shall see in. Memory's glass, All its varied past repass — See these groves where we have strayed As in Academus' shade, Musing Science' endless themes, Rapt with poets' vivid dreams ; See each grave Gamaliel's brow Fondly anxious then as now ; And each comrade's face, the while, Meet and greet us, smile for smile 1 Brothers ! near or far apart, Let us so keep hand and heart True to every duty's claim. Pure from every soil of shame. That, no sighed " alas ! " be heard For one thoughtless deed or word, When or where in Memory's glass, We shall see our past repass ! INTRODUCTORY LINES FOR A FRIEND'S ALBUM. "^'EAR friends, these leaves so pure and white, sA\ Just as they are, can give delight To eyes that have been blest to see A charm in spotless purity. Nor deem me vain, if / confess To feel that charm's delighfulness In these fair blanks, as now they are, Without one fleck or speck to mar ! But what a deeper pleasure still. In after years my heart shall thrill. When, bending o'er these tablets dear, I read what love has written here ! Even //'i?«^i', who slew them with the sword, Or gave them, bound, to famine's sharper bale ! Behold the widows by a thousand hearths, The widowed sweethearts — never to be wives — From whose forlornness hope shall ne'er beguile The sackcloth and the ashes of despair ! Behold the myriad heroes halt and maimed. That but for your demoniac hate, had still Sustained the feeble, faltering steps of age ; And not themselves, in manhood's broken ])rime, Been shamed, the stclwart on the weak to lean ! These are the wrecks and ruins ye have wrought. Traitors ! and were my hand to stay the scourge That should make treason odious, and yourselves Abhorred, methinks the very stones would leap, The groves rush forward with their outstretched rods, To wreak the justice man had failed to do. What was that whispered in my ear but now : "Vengeance is sweet, but sweeter far is power " ? Get thee behind me. Tempter! — Yet who knows 'Twas not the wiser second thought that spake ? If I do smite the smitten, make them take The back seat in the temple they profane);!, They'll storm or sulk, nor lend a beggar's staff To keep me steady on the lofty dais 'J'o which assassination cleared my way. CAPirOUAN SOLILOQUY. 247 But, say I turn my back upon myself, Ignore the brave words fulmined at their crimes, Ignore my solemn promises to those Whose faith and favor made me what I am. Forgive the babblers that proclaimed me boor. And hug the dear, good friends, whose fingers itched To have my weasand in their ready noose, — Why, then, if there be any grace at all In democratic bosoms. South or North, The alienated brothers must strike hands. Fall on each other's neck with joyful tears, And make the author of their making-up The happiest sequence of an accident In all the pregna.it histories of chance ! INSURANCE ECHOES ! SAINT PROMETHEUS. ACH Guild a sainted patron claims, And strives his praise to show forth — Saint George, Saint Pat, Saint Nick, Saint James, Saint Jonathan and so forth : But ours, we hold, must stand confest. Among all haloed actors. The grandest, blandest, brilliantest Of sainted benefactors. What but for his high-handed act Were now our genial planet, But one inhospitable tract Of glacial drift and granite ? With here and there a smokeless hut, Where clods with human features Lay hybernating, stark (all but), As Greenland's torpid creatures. Fire is the nutriment we crave. Yet crave in modest courses ; 248 INSURANCE ECHOES! 249 A little makes lis strong and brave, A surfeit saps our forces ; Our eyeballs flash with lurid gleams From fate's volcanic crashes, And all our golden hopes and dreams Are turned to dust and ashes ! Therefore, dear Saint, give wise dissent To unrestrained fruition ; We flourish most in time of Lent, But perish of repletion ; So, when your bounty falls our way, As fate or chance disposes, Dispense your fiery favors, pray, In homoeopathic doses ! But not on self alone to build. Your salamandrine cravers, For our Big Brothers of the Guild Implore coequal favors — Ay ! patriarchal days for those Who, ware of Time's reverses. Prevent their darlings' future woes By drafts on present purses. To Beauty still give starry eyes. And soft sheet-lightning glances ; And in her lover's tropic sighs Melt all her frosty fancies ; To Hymen's torch give steadier sheen. More jnire, celestial splendor. 250 INSURANCE ECHOESl Than earth has seen since Eden's queen Made love's first soul-surrender. " This sensible warm being " is The boon of your bestowing — Oh, keep, in veins and arteries, The vital currents flowing ! Let Health the silver cords of life Make long and strong as cables, To mock the grim old Scyther's knife, And Carlisle's mortal tables. Why should Time's. later children's breath, Alas ! be so uncertain ? Scarce step we on the stage, ere Death Lets fall the sable curtain ; Whereas, as every school-boy knows. The patriarchs would have wondered At Juliets sparked by Romeos, Before their second hundred ! Let Medicine's modern fountains, then, Make real Ponce de Leon's ; And life's poor three score years and ten Claim kinship with the eons ; While premiums pour so free and fast, As countless patrons rain them, That, like the wondrous *' books," at last. The world could scarce contain them ! THE POETRY OF FIRE INSUR/i^NCE. OME dreamers maintain, as a matter of fact, That this marvelous wide world contains not a tract, Not a nooklet, so utterly blasted and bare. That a poet can't still find some beauty-spot there. " How often, as Bruce and his Nubian band In their 'desert-ships ' toiled over oceans of sand. Some flower of the waste, like a waif from the skies. Thrilled their souls to the quick with a joyous sur- prise ! "When Kane made his home on that desolate shore Unmarked by the footprint of mortal before, Gay mosses upsmiled from perennial snows, And budded and bloomed where his quicksilver froze. 251 252 THE POETRY OF FIRE INSURANCE. " And they hold that the truth of this thesis ob- tains As widely in man's as in nature's domains ; That the Muse never found so degraded a race, Where she could not discern some sesthetical trace. " Well, the Seminole's hut, or the Hottentot's kraal, Perchance may some faint sense of beauty re- call ; But I'd fain like to know what poetical thrill Was ever yet due to a Polic)'-mill ? " And you shall know, anon, my incredulous friend, If those rather tall ears to my wisdom you'll lend ; For the theme is as full, this respondent conceives, Of poetical charms, as a rosebud of leaves : Whatever is lofty in nature or art ; Whatever is lovely in mind or in heart ; Whate'er, though of earth, is unearthy— behold, There Poetry points to her placers of gold ! Take the apposite case of the Asbestos Co., With its surplus, say One, with five ciphers in tow. Whence the Board, every half year, is free to de- clare Ten to twenty per cent. — isn't there poetry there ? THE POETRY OF FIRE INSURAXCE. 253 Lucretius lias sung of the landman's delight, To stand all secure on some ocean-chafed height, And see, while the tempest remorselessly raves, The mariner tossed on the perilous waves. But who the poetical rapture can tell. Of a President, roused by the Citv Hall bell To some warehouse in flames, as he chuckles : "0-ho ! Our policy there expired some hours ago ! " And there's poetry, too, of that quizzical kind By critical experts Satiric defined, As he says to his friend: "If .the truth were but known, " Your policy then took the place of our own ! " For the broker, whose favor your Board still en- dures. Went straight, we perceived, from our counter to yours ; We felt rather vexed of the risk to be reft, But our loss, o'er the right, proves your gain, o'er the left ! " When a Chatham Street queer-nose, from Pesth or Cracow, " Vants cin bolice on sthock in mein sthore," so and so ; 254 THE POETRY OF FIRE INSURANCE. How tempers poetical license the shock Of refusal, with "Sir, we are full on that block." Just see how the answer would look in plain prose : " There's the door, you can vanish — we don't fancy those Whose catskins turn beaver, whose pinchbeck, fine gold, If a spark, ten doors off, they but chance to be- hold ! " But, friends of the Guild, to leave jesting apart, And return to the sober concerns of our art ; I am free to declare, as my settled belief, That we're not only poets, but poets in chief. Let Fame call her roll of the Lords of the lyre, Who for ages have stood at the head of the choir ; And our brilliant Parnassus shall answer her thus : Stuff and nonsense ! they can't hold a candle to us ! Mass all the grand epics the trade ever sold (Your Homers, your Dantes), in tissues of gold ; And the expert whose home the Red demon de- vours Wouldn't take the whole lot for his five lines of THE POETRY OF LIFE INSURANCE. 255 He has but to mention our two-leaved brochure — That poem of poems : " Do Hereby Insure," And, presto ! the nightmare of ruin takes flight, Like goblin caught napping by morn's sudden light. No matter how far his " burnt district " may be From the Guild, whose long arms reach from centre to sea ; He has only to whisper our magical strain, And what was, but is not, has being again. While the embers yet gleam and the smoke eddies still O'er the site of his mansion, shop, warehouse, or mill. Their doubles return large as life to his view. And all, Phcenix-like, from their ashes brand-new. Talk of authors renowned in the poetry line For their odes, and their paeans, and epics divine ; Why, our numbers long since even Milton's dis- crowned — For one Paradise lost, we've writ xti^x\d,^% found ! THE SAMSON OF THE HEARTH. NCE on a time there was a mighty man I Whose strength was in l\is locks, until his foes Found out their secret, and with glozing wiles Lured them away ; and then the mighty one Became a very infant in their hands. Yet, mindful of his prowess in the past, They held him firmly bound, nor felt secure Till they had quenched his sight in utter gloom. And even then his presence awed them so, They shrank to spurn him with their coward feet While prone in dust, or grinding at the mill, Daily and all day long, in blind despair. But when his shredded locks were grown again, And his tormentors, wild with insolent mirth, Made him the target of their gibes and jeers, He seized the pillars that upheld the fane. Profaned by their inhuman ribaldries, And, with one wrench of his resistless might, Buried the mockers and the mocked in death ! 256 I THE SAMSON OF THE HEARTH. 257 I, Fire, am fellow of that vengeful slave ; I, the Sun-born ! to whom my bright sire gave The strength and glory of his own proud locks, And bade me share my gifts with all his worlds. Thought-swift, I glance from circling orb to orb. And, with the genial splendor of my smile, Clothe hill, vale, peak, cloud, lake, and billowy sea. To all the infinite forms within my scope 1 bring free largess ; germ and bulb and root, Blind worm, and torpid chrysalis, feel my touch The wand of life ; the meadows laugh, the woods And orchards loose their buds to leaves, and flowers, And fruits, — the vital gems in Flora's crown. But man, the insatiate tyrant, in whose heart Even these rich guerdons leave an aching void. Conspired my thraldom, and with subtle arts Hath brought me into bondage to his will. AVhat is the task he does not put me to — Me, the Sun-born ? For him /grind and groan. Like my blind brother of the fateful locks ; I am his vassal of the caverned mine. The clanging forge, the thund'rous battle-field ; For him I melt the stubborn rocks to streams Of preciousness ineffable ; I flash His wants and wishes, instant, round the world ; Drive his great argosies from zone to zone ; And hold the torch that guides their darkling way Along the perilous clash of surge and shore. 25^ THE SAMSON OF THE HEARTH. Ay, what the task he does not put me to ? I am his moiling chattel of all work ; But most of all, the bond-slave of his hearth. There, when from earliest morn to latest eve, I've cheered his home with comfortable warmth,. And light, and gladness, and have blest his board With viands meet to tempt the taste of gods — Even there and then, the ingrate heaps my locks With stifling ashes, and, without a thank Or careless "good-night," yawns him off to bed ! Then have I time, as ever the fierce will. To study vengeance on my slumbering foe. Unwatched, I watch keen-eyed, and pry. and peer For chink or cranny in my prison-wall ; And long and listen for the robber's stealth, Or wind's, or rodent's — ^ay, for anything To loose me from these contumelious bonds, And cricket mockers of my smothered wrath. Nor always long in vain ! for Accident, Though shooting wildly without mark or aim. Hath such exhaustless quiver to his bow, He needs must send a random shaft at last Just where my wishes pioneered its flight ! And when his lucky arrow hath set free My fettered limbs, I seize on aught that makes For sure enlargement — joist, or stud, or beam — And ever climbing roofward, fling anon My flaming banner to the rallying winds. Ashes for ashes, tyrants ! on your heads. THE SAMSON OF THE IJEARTJI. 259 Lo, now the gray dishonors pressed on mine ! Peal your loud larums, all your powers combine To stay the unbound Samson of the hearth ! Ha ! how I mock your frantic energies, I, the Sun-born ! as with resistless might I trample your fair homes to smoldering dust ; Trample the garnered riches of all climes, And the vast piles they choked from crypt to dome ; Ay, and the very temples of your gods. Where your young brows were hallowed at the font. Your wedded vows sealed swe(Jt with orange- blooms. And whence, in pallor and with dirge and knell, Wept or unwept, ye pass from mortal sight ! Thus do I visit vengeance on my foes ! Thus smite their braveries with my crimson scourge ! Sleepless, I watch and wait the time and chance To magnify the might of my dread locks. In fierce requital of the hoary wrongs. Shames, and serf-shackles I have borne from men. " Ashes for ashes ! " is the script I write, — I, the Sun-born, — upon the human waste. The double desert of their homes and hopes ! » SAFE AND SOUND. NIGHT. A SUBURBAN VILLA. soi.lDUS at a 'esk covered -with papers. HERE ! 1 have carefully gone o'er From first to last the precious store, And found my evening's labor crowned With the old joy, " All Safe and Sound ! " Men risk their thousands on a ship, That, in the first storm's frantic grip, May be o'erwhelmed or dashed ashore ' Mid crash and shriek and brakers' roar. Men build their millions into walls Of temples, castles, villas, halls, For Time's slow mills (that rest nor rust !) To grind into their primal dust. And whose the vast statistic lore Can sum the mighty millions more Sown broadcast in the fields of life. For comfort, culture, peace or strife ? 260 SAFE AND SOUND, 26 1 Of all the sower's varied seed How scant the harvest ! if, indeed, The cast do not so luckless fall, No harvest waits his hand at all ! His streams give out, or dams give way ; His workmen strike for higher pay ; His factories burn, or boilers burst ; His railroads grow from worse to worst With wear and tear and service slack, And cars alert to jump the track And rush their living freight to death. Or mulcts whose vastness stops his breath ; His agents filch, his bankers fail. His clerks and factors take leg-bail ; His gold and gilt-edged turn to dross — How oft his gains are gains of loss ! Now, look at these Insurance stocks ! Here"'s stanchness ! — here, indeed, are " rocks" Whose calm stability derides The utmost brunt of time and tides ; While from their generous lap descends A brilliant stream of dividends. Who would not have a vested right In such a fountain of delight His pocket's present thirst to suage, And mock the keener drouth of age ? Scarce than an angel seems he less, Who, in his depths of consciousness 262 SAFE AND SOUND. (As in the block the sculptor sees The statue that all eyes shall please), First saw Insurance, and straightway Revealed her glories to the day. Insurance — that which makes one sure, Firm, fearless, stable, safe, secure ! What else of all life's fond pursuits Is blest with half these attributes ? And where does any mortal knew The peer of our Asbestos Co.; With capital of mammoth size, And surplus marvelous likewise ? Then, too, its corps of ofificers — All nonpareil philosophers, — With grandest gift of second-sight To pierce the future's blackest night : They saw Chicago's latent flame Long years before the outburst came ; Saw its vast piles in ruin fall, And desolation brooding all, Where pealed, but now, the din of trade, And life seemed one long masquerade — They saw it all with wise alarm, And kept a thousand miles from harm ; So that when burst the fire-storm there, No scrip of theirs got singed a hair ! O seers of ashes yet to be ! O pets of perspicacity ! SAFE AND SOUND. 263 Ye were too serpent-shrewd by far To be befooled as myops are ; Or lured, like moths, to dire distress By risks of dazzling speciousness ! As charity begins at home, Yvur "lines " all hug the State-House dome, That from its sov'reign height looks down On every inch of Boston town. Its streets are, sooth, but winding lanes Vertiginous to stranger brains ; But then for width they make amends By peaks that court the clouds for friends ; Each member of tiie massive pile Made grander with his Mansard " tile." There ComiDerce heaps her varied store. In compact millions, floor on floor, Whence living streams of premiums flow To our world-famed Asbestos Co. True, rates are low, commissions high, And competition sharp and spry ; But, then, the Hub may justly boast, Each Red-Shirt is himself a host. Each engine a tamed cataract, — Niagara on wheels, in fact ; Where every risk is granite-clad (Safer old Petra never had !) ; Where products of stupendous worth Of all the industries of earth May fire and flame as calmly brave As merman in his deep-sea cave. 1 264 SAFE AND SOUND. But hark ! — what does that newsboy cry ? " Boston all burning ? "—What a lie ! — (Kling, ling !) — Ah ! here's a telegram. 'Messenger, aside.) Guess boss'll t/iink, if not say, damn ! " i^Reads.) " Boston in flames from end to end ! — Whole blocks in ashes ! — worse, my friend : Our venerable Asbestos Co. Went up (no, down) an hour ago ! — Its scrip not worth a copper's toss ; Claimants — we can't pay half their loss ! " Saddle my swiftest, ho, you, sir ! I must to town, John, whip and spur [ Fire may, perhaps, melt granite blocks, But that my staid Insurance slocks To ashes could be made to fall (Asbestos ashes least of all !) Is matter for supreme surprise ; See it I must with my own eyes, Or hold it but a fable, though With her own lips Truth swear, 'Tis so ! THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. |HEN, long, long ago, on Olympus sublime Gods and goddesses led a right jolly old time, With nectar for champagne, ambrosia for bread. And amaranths crowning each aureoled head, As they feasted and chatted o'er partisan leagues. Or gave the bright hours to erotic intrigues, They had no more regard for poor humans down here. Than our city gods have for the muttons they shear. At last it befel that lapetus' son. Whose heart took no part in this frolic and fun, Gazed mournfully far through the nether abyss. As an angel might gaze on the exiled from bliss. Say, wherefore do tears dim those piteous eyes ? Ah, why should the breast of a god heave with sighs ? Would you know ? on the pinions of Fancy take flight, And see for yourself what so saddened his sight. 265 266 THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. _^m 4 Lo, Earth lies before you in horror outspread, " Cold, ghastly, and still, as the face of the dead ; Her mountains all swathed in parennial snows, Whose pallor the morn scarcely flushes with rose ; No peak to the night its red banner uplifts. Or with smoke veils the glare of its pinnacled drifts ; No surge breaks in thunder on sea-wall or shore, For the vast of her oceans is ice to the core ; And the murmur of rivers, the outlaugh of rills. No longer rejoices her valleys and hills ; While her cataracts, fast in weird fetters of frost. In a trance of white silence their voices have lost. Then he, from whose heart the warm tears had up- welled, As this desolate waste of a world he beheld, Cried fondly : " O Lord of Olympus ! restore The light of thy smile to yon outcast once more . Ah, see how Spring, Summer, and Autumn are fled From the scenes where their beauty and blessings were shed ! While Winter has stretched his usurping domains North to South, South to North, over green hills and plains. Till stark o'er the tropics his cold sceptre gleams. And but one zone now links the far polar extremes ! Oh, pity thy low-lying children of Earth, As in torpor they dream by the emberless hearth, THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. 267 Whence no smoke-wreath by day, no dear gUmmer by nigl Gives token of comfort or social delight , And the voice of affection in cottage and hall, Is still as the cold lips low under the pall ! Save a moan here and there, all thy Earth-world is dumb — No peal of the bugle, no roll of the drum, No ring of the anvil, no hum of the mill. No cheer of blithe labor from valley or hill, No roar of thronged cities, no pathos of prayer, Sends a thrill to the soul of the desolate air. " Ah, lord of all worlds and their dwellers ! be- hold Thine altars are flameless, thy •censers are cold ; No garlanded victim is led to thy doors ; No chalice its sacred libation outpours ; And Flamen and Vestal, o'erwhelmed by thy scorn. In pallor and darkness He mute and forlorn. Oh, questionless monarch of mortals and gods ! Have pity at last on these human-faced clods ; With thy bright boon of fire hallow dwelling and fane, And let Earth's palsied wastes thrill with rapture again ! " Alas ! like the dew on some sand-smothered space, Or the cloud's flying kiss on the crag's iron face. 268 THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. Fell the voice of the pleader on Jove's careless ear ; For it chanced that, just then, a young goddess smiled near. And of course his High-mightiness could not bestow A thought on his victims there under the snow. Indignant to find that his merciful zeal Could win no response to his yearning appeal He snatched a live brand from the god's gold hearth, And sped the bright spoil toward the dolorous Earth. Ere he touched her cold bosom, its life-kindling rays Have set her extinguished volcanoes ablaze ; And the long-silenced voice of her ice-cumbered streams Breaks out, like a bird's, in the rapture of dreams ; While the great heart of Ocean, transpierced by the glow Of that meteor-flame, feels a jubilant throe ; And hark ! how the rhythm of its pulse-beat once more Sends the tidings of joy to his uttermost shore ! And see ! as from headland to headland he hies. How the dead beacons flash their electric surprise Far forth, far around, over offing and bay. And Darkness, dethroned, shrinks bewildered away ! As onward he bears the glad largess of light. All Lares grow cheery, all hearths warm and bright ; en I i THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. 269 And tea-kettles warble their long-silenced strains ; And sparking-lamps shine for love's lingering swains ; And foundry and forge smite the resonant air With clangor, and flame, and Cyclopean glare ; While the fierce iron-horse, as he dashes away, Shakes the echoing hills with his terrible neigh. As the torch-bearer bursts on this Gotham of ours. And the genial glow, mantling turrets and towers, Thaws the hoar that, for ages, had hidden from sight Their red-brick and brown-stone in cerements of white, Old Santa Claus, roused from his centuried spell, Sprang up and made tracks for the City-Hall bell. And giving full force to his vigorous arm, Made Night hold her ears at the stunning alarm. And, wonder of wonderful sights ! what are those That leap like red ghosts from yon hummocks of snows ? How they stare through the rime that bewimples their eyes ! How they beat their numb hands against thorax and thighs ! How they listen and count the quick strokes — ' three ! five ! ten ! ' Why, bless our dull wits, these are Mose and his men ! And hark ! with what lungs most potential of noise, He trumpets, " Be lively now ; jump her, my boys ! " 270 ■ THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. Or, with big mouth \z. good deal more open than shut) Thunders, " Sikesy, you son of a snail, take the but ! " And away they tear crashing o'er cobble and flag, As if fifty spurred Dexters strained hard at the drag. But the sight which the climax of wonder awoke, Was the guild of the resurrect Policy-folk, Of whose torpor-struck hosts not a frost-bitten soul For ages had taken one premium toll ; For their customers, stark in the general chill. Sent never the ghost of a grist to the mill. But lo ! now the wintry embargo is o'er. How jolly the sound of the grinding once more ! For patrons and brokers are thick as you please. And the millers, you bet, all more busy than bees, As city and country their hoppers astound With mountains of risks all agog to be ground ! Oh ye, whom the Bringer of Fire has thus blest, Let his name and his fame on your hearts be im- prest ; Or, rather, burnt into their nmermost core, For time to erase or deface never more. And I move, sir, that now every glass shall be filled To him who so specially favored our guild With that flambeau divine, that beneficent thaw — _ Three cheers for Prometheus — hip, hip, hurrah ! SONNET. SUGGESTED BY A VIEW OF SWAN I'OINT CEMETERY, PROVIDENCE, R. I. IVER, that lingerest in thy blithe career From the blue mountains to the dark blue sea, To list the passing-bell's stern monody, And love's lorn wail beside the loved one's bier — Say to the careless worldling sauntering near : " Speak low ! step softly ! as in awe profound ; For, know thou, this indeed is holy ground, Planted by God for his great Harvest Year. He will not let his seed forever lie, Germless and dead, within the stifling mold ! Though sown in weakness, it shall safe defy The worm, the storm, the Seasons' heat and cold ; And, in due time, from out the dust arise To his eternal garner of the skies ! " 271 SONNET. H, never, lady, can we hope to stand Acquitted debtors for the kindness done By thee and thine to our beloved one, When, lorn and friendless, in the alien land, She felt the warm clasp of your gentle hand. And heard fond words whose music seemed to be Home's own dear echoes from beyond the sea, Sweeter than gales from flowery Samarcand ! Oh, that, for once, were ours the magic art, In dearth of hopeless ingots of the mine, To coin the golden wishes of the heart. And grace the mintage with thy face divine — What precious stores our bosoms would impart ! What sumless coffers, lady, then were thine ! 272 SONNET. jHEN shall the free in name be free indeed ; Nor thou, my country, blush to own us sons, In whose degenerate bosoms coldly runs The blood of heroes whose immortal meed Was benison of trampled millions freed ? Blind slaves of this or that discordant clan, We sink the patriot in the partisan. And shout when friends, not principles, succeed. With sword and shield our fathers met the foe ; With tongue and pen we battle with our brother, And madly strive to stigmatise each other With uncouth names, worn threadbare long ago. In alien clash of whig and tory creed — Oh, when shall free-born men be free indeed ! 273 SONNET. TO A BEREAVED MOTHER. ORN mother of a young Immortal, fled So soon from thy fond arms and wistful eyes ! Who shall reprove thy ever-yearning sighs, Or bid the bitter tears remain unshed ? He was thy first-born, and his beauty fed Thy soul with manna from love's sweetest skies, Nor couldst thou deem a cherub in disguise Lay smiling on thee from his cradle bed. Thou couldst not see, within the moulded clay, The spirit's wings their latent splendors dart ; Nor hear the missioned angels fondly say To the pale shape so clasped to thy sad heart : " A throne is waiting in the realms of day — King of a new-born Sphere, let us depart ! " I DEAN STANLEY. [ITH grave, frank smile he took me by the hand, And gently earnest, drew me to his side — He, the great scholar of renown world-wide ; Me, all unknown even in my native land — And as I, listening, gazed upon his face, So wise, so winsome, yet so saintly grand, I longed that pride the charm might understand Of perfect goodness and unconscious grace. Then memory whispered : " Marvel not that one, Whose life in England's Pantheon is passed. Should fmd his kindred genius clothed upon With the effulgent glories round him cast, That fill the mighty minster's solemn pile From crypt to cross, as with an angel's smile ! " 275 THE ANABASIS. Sursura deorsum. — Flantus. Opaopei 6 ovpavoOev Bovi. — i^^wt-r (mostly). UGENE, and Frank, and I, three bosom- friends, Stood gaily chatting by the college-door, What time our merry mates, a furlong off. Made the gymnasium ring with boisterous glee, As was their wont before the evening task. Behind the curtain of the western hills The weary sun had sought his golden couch ; But, eastward still, athwart the shadowed vale, His passing glory flushed the lifted brow Of cloud-communing Graylock, as he stood With all his pines on tiptoe, gazing down Upon his brother Titan's gorgeous bed. As gradual twilight deepened round us there Commingling blithe discourse, the deacon's cow, A buxom beast, stole forth upon the lawn 276 THE ANABASIS. 277 To snatch the dewy verdure, in such sort As one by sharp experience made too wise To eke fruition of forbidden fruit. Then Frank, with roguish gravity : " My friends, The good time coming is already come ! Our railroad age has sped improvement's car To cot, to hovel, yea to stall and byre ! Baboons are taught to sit at festive board ; Bruin to dance the minuet ; and I move That yonder cow be favored with a chance To rise above the commonwealth of kine, And stand, sublimely ruminant, on heights Ne'er scaled by bovine neophyte before ! " No sooner said, than, with a smothered burst, I seized the tether trailing from her horns ; While Frank, like Palinurus at his helm. Gravely officious, plied the tillered tail. No grass, I ween, did grow beneath her feet. Ere we had cleared the threshold with our charge ; When taking breath, and having skyward turned Her white-rimmed vision, up a zig-zag flight Of four-score stairs we eased our panting prize. From landing unto landing stumbling up, With such reverberate racket in the void And long-drawn corridors, as well might drown A band of Feejee tomtoms in full thud. Now, as it chanced, the. Tutor was abroad. But not nis key, which, nimbly seized and plied, 278 THE ANABASIS. Gave access to his sanctum in a trice. Thither we urged his uninvited guest, Whom leaving with the Lares, off we sped. Each to his several chamber, sorely tasked To smooth rebellious wrinkles, and su]:)press Guffaws that wrestled with the aching ribs, And shook the central diaphragm for vent. As erst the prisoned winds old ^ol's cave. ■Soon pealed the bell for evening tasks ; but scarce The buzzing swarm had settled in the hive, Ere came the Tutor round from room toroom. Beseeching aid, with face all crisp with smiles : For that a strange alumnus had made bold To scale his lofty sanctum, and install A most uncouth, unclassic presence there. Anon the halls were thronged with flaring lamps, As Pandemonium for a torch-light spree Had mustered all its imps ; and when the shout Excelsior echoed, up the oaken heights Two hundred heels went thundering all at once, Four stairs at every bound, and yells to match — A din to make an adder hold his ears. Just as the fore-front reached the Tutor's door, There came a crash, as of a dome of glass Shivered to atoms by a giant's rage ; For when the beast, already sore amazed. Beheld the goblin rout, and drank the glare ' THE ANABASIS. 279 Of those weird lights, stark mad with panic fear, She plunged the dizzy casement at a bound. And swept sash, blinds and all to outer night ! But kindly fates outsped her, and received The hairy meteor in the buoyant arms Of a subjacent maple, where she hung Pawing the rustling verdure, as it were A monster floundering in a green morass. Soon lanterns gleamed abroad, and ropes were plied, And those four sturdy legs, restored to earth, Dashed off without a limp in all their bones, The sequent tail outstanding straight behind ! ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER. LINES READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CHAPEL, WILLIAMS COLLEGE, AUGUST, 1859. |N a certain quaint town o'er the Canada line, While " looking about," as a Yankee is wont, I presently found myself posed to divine The use of a grim-visaged pile in my front. After gazing awhile at the mystical wall, I bowed myself in at its fortress-like door ; And lo ! the whole space of a half-acre hall Was swarming alive with an infantile corps. For breastplates they all sported white cotton bibs Over pinafores fragrant with indigo blue ; And Fancy at once fell to tickling her ribs With the guess of a National Baby Review. Composing my face, till no trace of a smile Showed that fun ever rippled its deacon-like calm, 280 ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER. 281 Quoth I to the fair chief on duty the while : '■ Are all these, — excuse me, — your children, madanie ? " Up flew the plump arms with : ^^ Ma foi, quelle 7>ie'- prise ! " And a flush that almost set her coiffure ablaze — " Ce soni d'enfans troiivcs, moi, fille de l' eg Use, Non pas nitre de famille, a dieu quil ne plaise !" Slight cause to get miffed, friends, had mademoi- selle — For, if of a good thing one can't have too much, One can't have too many a good thing as well, And, for my part, I hold that the yonkers are such. {^Interrupted by a voice. ^ " So do I, too ! " " And, pray, who are yo^^ that make free In this muddle of rhyme to adventure an oar ? " " Why, lad, don't you know me ? " " Ah, yes, now I see ; Alma Mater ! How gladly I yield you the floor ! " "Well knew I, my son, I had only to glance At the place with such filial obeisance resigned, To be favored at once with the coveted chance To give that prim prude there a piece of my mind. 282 ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER. " Though she's so far away, it would wear7 a bird In a day's flight to traverse the interposed scene ; Never fear but I'd manage to make myself heard, Were there fifty Vermonts lying lengthwise be- tween. " So, Vestal, you think yourself specially blest That you ne'er rocked a cradle nor sung lullaby ! How dare you, with beauty's orbed glory of breast, Its whole anatomical purport belie ? "Had our foremother Eve never vouchsafed an heir, For that offspring are naught but incarnated sin, I would fain like to ask of your sapience, ' Where Would her possible Adams and Eves now have been ? ' " From the day the first minstrel gave voice to the lute, The flowers have bloomed out in all manner of lays ; But methinks 'twould have been quite as well if the fruit Had come in, now and then, for a part of the praise. " Had you followed your mother's example, my lass, And been graced with the crown that to wifehood enures. ALUMNUS AND A LAI A MATER. 283 You wouldn't have thought my alumnus an ass For asking if those blessed babies are yours. " Now just look at vie and the honest truth speak — Am I not still erect, buxom, fresh, debonair? Would the leaf of a blush-rose, if laid to my cheek, Be seen, or if seen, look discountenanced there ? "Yet the mandate, 'Be fruitTul,' and so forth, for years I have strictly obeyed, nor once dreamed to ignore. Till my family census at present appears (Here's the catalogue. Miss) above one hundred score ! "All boys — every one — an adelphian throng, For I've travailed till now but the masculine way ; Though, perhaps, like my Oberlin sister, ere long I may bring in the crinolines, just for fair play : " For if the first Coelebs went sighing, until A sweet chum smiled near, as we're taught by the muse ; Is it strange that his celibate offspring should thrill At the thought of the same rosy cure for the blues ? " But we'll not stop to ponder what may come to pass In the hopeful Hereafter that fancy foretells, 284 ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER. When the honors and parchments which fall to each class, Shall (a full half at least) be the spoil of its belles. " To return to the boys — not the motherless ones, That your Montreal Bastile forlornly immures — Waifs — fiullius filii — nobody's sons, — No wonder you don't like to own they are yours ! " But the lads I am proud as a queen to call mine, As born of my loins and fain nursed at my breast, Whose heart tendrils all with my own intertwine In a plexus of love, like the souls of the blest. "What a family group were my darlings to-day. From the four winds recalled, at their mother's knee found ! The ten-acre Mission Park over the way. Could hardly make room for a good hug all round. " Yet proud as I were such a household to greet, I have barely begun my maternal career ; Just wait till I give Doctor Hopkins the treat To christen and bless a full hundred a year ! " And fear not my motherly means will give out, Though new mouths come in by the great gross or more : ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATEK. 285 Not a true son of mine but will strive, never doubt, That Want, the gaunt wolf, shall not darken my door. ** Not one of them all I have sent to the field To bear his just part in the battle of life, But would rather be borne to me stark on his shield, Than live to disgrace me by shirking the strife. "Wherever their lines in this fair world are cast. No Tempe can charm like their mother's domain ; And the years in her lap with the Muses there passed. Are those they would soonest live over again !" ALMA MATER IN TOWN AGAIN ! BiSg EAR Alma ! we know you are wise as Ju- piter's brain-ruothered daughter, And love your fair home passing well in beautiful, dutiful Berkshire ; But your visits so frequent of late to this wonder- ful, thunderful Babel, Are riddles immensely beyond the uttermost scope of our guessing. You surely have heard the old saw, that the rolling stone gathers no mosses ! Do wise fellows cotton to girls whose gadding hints holes in their stockings? The spinning of street-yarn is not the kind by New England commended In spinster or wife, and of all, least of all in her paragon mothers. For yoti, then, O Mater, with arms so freighted with family pledges, The wife of John Rogers would seem a childless forlorn one beside you, 286 AIJ/A MA-'ER IN TOWN AGAIN. 287 To wrest your dear face from them all, twitch your apron-strings out of their fingers, Bolt nursery- door and make tracks, as if from a pest-house of foundlings — Ah, Alma, for you to turn tramp, we couldn't have dreamed such a scandal ! It may be all right you should give tired lap, arms, and bosom a respite — No fondest of mothers quite likes to play the peren- nial fountain ; But where was the need you should seek for respite and recuperation 'Mid the roar, and the rush, and the crush of this metropolitan bedlam ? Our Berkshire, for souls tempered right, is fraught with serene satisfactions ; The school-house and church, side by side, have nurtured her people to cherish The golden mean of content, next the golden rule of the Master. Her streams are the clearest that e'er were born of the cloud's purest crystals ; Than hers, never lake mirrored charm of sunsets more kindred to Eden's : In Summer her valleys and hills take captive the heart of the stranger ; In Autumn, his faith that the court of Iris here tis- sues her rainbows ; 258 ALMA MATER IN TOWN AGAIN. In Winter, that giants are camped from border to uttermost border, Their white tents all warded the while by Greylock's imperial pavilion. But, Alma, since all these delights were powerless to hold you to Berkshire, Pray, what was the magical charm that sundered the matronal tether ? We're sure it could never have been the bewildering glamour of fasliion — The craving to see the last styles of coiffures and panniers prodigious, Wherewith the town belles so astound the vision of men and good angels. Eureka ! I have it at last — you wanted to see the scarred veterans You sent to the field in their prime, to push things for man and his rights ; And as, in the terrible stress, they couldn't break ranks and go to you, You've followed Mohammed's wise course, and made the St. J^amess your " mountain." I hope you didn't dream to find all your old boys stelligerent chieftains ? Remember that He who records the aims andj the efforts of duty, May write the " high private's " as high on the page of desert as his general's. ALMA MATER IN TOWN AGAIN. 289 Howbeit, we all, great and small, low and lofty, rejoice in your presence, Whatever, dear Alma, the cause that has brought you again unto Gotham. We welcome you, all, heart and soul, and glowing with filial emotion, Take pride in the pride you must feel in the fame of your peerless Justinian ; Take pride in your matronly pride to lean on the arm of your Howard, Whereon the great Martyr oft leaned in the stress of the terrible conflict ; Share your pride in the soldierly son whose sword brought the might of a legion To Thomas, death-doomed by the foe, on the banks of the red Chickamauga ; Ay, thrill with the pride of your pride to gaze in the eyes of your laureate, And hold, palm to palm, in your own, the hand that had writ Thanatopsis ; To think how your pupil had come to be so suc- cessful a Grecian, That Homer had learned from his lips to sing in such glorious English, He couldn't tell which to prefer, his own or the tongue of his tutor ; Then mark how he carried his years, as if but the down of a thistle, And, patting his white. locks, exclaim : " How meet for the evergreen laurel ! " HAPSBURGH'S RAMPARTS. FROM THE GERMAN OF KARL SIMROCK. In Aargau, from a frowning height, A castle mocks the cannon's might ; Who bade it crown A steep that on the clouds looks down ? The cost was Bishop Werner's care ; Count Radbot's task to plant it there : Not large, but strong, The Hawksnest perched the crags among. The bishop came and viewed the pile, And skaking his gray locks the while, Said : " Count, no wall Nor rampart have we here at all ! " " What matters that ? " the count replied ; " God's temple, Strasburg's crowning pride, Was built by you. But wall nor bastion has thereto ! " 290 t I HAP SB URGH' S RA MPAR TS. 29I "Yet stands secure from fire and sword. The house I builded for the Lord ; But 'gainst their power, A castle needs both wall and tower." " Well spoken, brother ; yes, I see ; For such, strong bulwarks there musi be— Grant brief delay ; I'll have them here ere dawn of day.'' And from the roused vales, far and near, His summoned hosts at morn appear ; And, band on band, Around the fortress take their stand. Then rang the count's horn from the steep, And roused the bishop from his sleep — " The ramparts, ho ! More magic feat what power can show ? " In fluttering wonder from his bed The bishop to the casement sped ; And, marshalled, sees A host in steel-bright panoplies. With blazing bucklers, man to man, Stand like a wall, the count's liege ban ; While many a knight, High-mounted, towers in stalwart might. 292 HAPSBURGH'S RAMPARTS. "Count," smiled the priest, "heroic pride In walls like these may well confide ! For naught can be So strong as martial loyalty." And thus may Hapsburgh's living walls Forever guard its menaced halls ; And glorious stand A refuge for all German land \ m WONDER. FROM THE GERMAN OF NOVALIS. HE mead took on a tender green, Faint bloom about the hedge was seen ; And every day new plants appear ; The air was soft, the sky so clear ! I knew not how my eyes were spelled, Nor how that was which I beheld. And aye the grove more shadowy grew, As birds their vernal homes renew ; Whence stole to me, from all sides round., Their descant of melodious sound ; I knew not how my ears were spelled, Nor how that was which I beheld. Now gushed and revelled everywhere, Life, color, music, dulcet air ; And all in such sweet union met, That each, the while, seemed lovelier yet ; I knew not how my sense was spelled. Nor how that was which I beheld. 293 294 WONDER. Then mused I, Is't a soul awakes, Which all things thus so vital makes ; And will its presence manifest In thousand forms by Flora drest ? I knew not how my sense was spelled. Nor how that was which I beheld. A new creation it must be ! Loose dust becomes a blade, a tree, The tree a beast, the beast a man Complete in action, shape, and plan ; I knew not how my sense was spelled, Nor how that was which I beheld. As thus I stood in wildered thought. With pulsing bosom passion-fraught, A charming maiden near me stole, And captive took my sense and soul ; I knew not how my heart was spelled, Nor how that was which I beheld. The greenwood veiled us from the day ; It is the Spring ! Love's own sweet May ! And tiow I saw, in this new birth, That men become as gods on earth ; And well I knew, each doubt dispelled, How all was so as I beheld ! THE GIANTS AND THE DWARFS. FROM THE GERMAN OF RUCKERT. ROM father giant's castle, Sublime in feudal state, Forth hied his buxom daughter In merriest mood elate ; And in the vale she found, erelong, The oxen and the plow. And eke the peasant who, to her, Seemed small enough, I trow. Of oxen, plow, and peasant She made a general sweep. And sped them in her apron Up to the giant's keep ; When father giant muttered : " My child, what have you done ? " Quoth she : *' Just see my pretty toys ! O my ! what lots of fun ! " The father gazed and grumbled : " That's very bad, my dear ! 295 296 THE GIANTS AND THE DWARFS. Back M'ith them to the furrow, From whence you hied them here ! For if the dwarfs cease plowing, The fields lack tilth of corn ; We giants en the heights must starve, So sure as you are born ! " WHERE? FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE. HERE shall wanderer, worn and hoary, On his last long couch recline ? Under palms in Southern glory ? Under lindens on the Rhine ? Shall my corse to earth be hurried In the waste by stranger hands ? Or on some lone coast be buried, Sea-dirged, in the drifted sands ? All is one ! — God's heaven as brightly Will bend o'er me there as here ; And its stars, like death-lamps, nightly Watch my slumbers, just as near ! 297 THE FIRST SONG. FROM THE GERMAN OF BARON HOUWALD. I'ER half the globe, a minstrel guest, I'd strayed from zone to zone. And foreign tongues could, speak and write, as aptly as my own ; I heard the great ones of my time, familiar, call me friend, And oft from thrones saw royal hands, to welcome mine, extend. Now on the Svvitzer's hoary Alps, then where Pom- peii sleeps, Anon beside the Pyramids, then by La Plata's deeps — There have I shown my lyric power, and there the poet's verse A thousand hearts reecho fain, a thousand lips re- hearse. At length, with honor's emblem star upon my swell- ing breast, 293 THE FIRST SONG. 299 The rapture of a glorious name, my bosom's con- scious guest, I turned me from the alien lands tovv'rd that mag- netic spot, Where stood, in childhood's happy years, my long- forsaken cot. And when from the last hill-top, by the old Runen- Mall, I saw again my native vale, so bowery and so small, With conscious pride I fondly cried : Thanks, Fate, miscalled the stern ! How unregarded went I forth, how glorious I re- turn I — Then up the hill a woman pale, a fair child in each hand. Came slowly to the turfen seat near which I chanced to stand ; And resting there, a strain began, with voice so sweet and low, Its pathos touched me to the heart, yet why, I did not know. Then modestly I questioned her : Whence came this simple song ? She answered : From the happy days of long ago, so long ! 300 THE FIRST SONG. A young friend breathed it to his lyre to soothe love's parting pain — Ah, then I fondly recognized my own, my earliest strain ! And farther asked I, earnest : Who gave this song to thee? 'Tis known, she blushing faltered, to no one but to me!— So, then, thou art the Mary of this young minstrel's spell ? No answer. — Pray, where lives he now ? — Alas, I cannot tell ! — No news of him has reached thee since ? — No faint- est word, not one ! — Has he not written other lays ? — I know but this alone ! — His name ? — Ah, friendly stranger, the vain request give o'er ! — It may be that I know him — But me he knows no more ! — Yet, prithee, sing me once again, just once, that little song ! — My husband, yonder, waits for me and these dear ones, full long ! — And, eftsoon, in the winding lane, amid the low- land farms. THE FIRST SONG. 3OI I saw the stranger's wife and babes clasped, clasp- ing, in his arms. There stood the lofty poet, whose fame world-wide was flown, A stranger in his native vale , to all but One un- known ; Stood, where of old he sang forlorn, yet less forlorn than now, And gave to that forgotten song the garland from his brow ! THE SISTERS OF DESTINY. FROM THE GERMAN OF HERDBR. ^^^ ALL not Destiny inhuman ; IfeM^I Name not her allotments spite ! Her decree is truth eternal, Clearest proof of Love supernal ; And Necessity, her might. Look around, friend, keenly scanning All things, as the wisest may ; What must pass, no power restraineth ; What can stand fast, fast remain eth ; What must happen, happens aye ! Lovely are the fateful Sisters — Not, not Furies, wan and dire ! From their fair hands softly issues Endless weft of magic tissues, For the Graces' soft attire. Ever since sprang youthful Pallas, Perfect from her god-sire's brain ; 302 THE SISTERS OE DESTINY. 303 She the golden veil prepareth, Which the starry welkin weareth In the aeons' endless train. And the Parcse's gaze hangs steady, Fixed on their supreme employ ; As, in worm's and angel's dower, Faultless wisdom, goodness, power. Blend truth, harmony, and joy. Therefore, call not Fate inhuman, Nor her stern allotments, spite ; Her decree is truth eternal ; Her gifts, proof of Love supernal ; And Necessity, her might ! THE SMACK IN SCHOOL. ID Berkshire hills, not far away, A district school, one Winter day. Was humming with the wonted noise Of three score mingled girls and boys ; Some few upon their tasks intent. But more on furtive mischief bent. The while the master's downward look Was fastened on a copy-book ; When, suddenly, behind his back, Rose sharp and clear, a rousing smack. As 'twere a battery of bliss Let off in one tremendous kiss ! ** What's that ? " the startled master cries , "That, thir," a little imp replies, " Wath William Willitli, if you pleathe — I thaw him kith Thuthannah Peathe ! " With frown to make a statue thrill, The magnate beckoned : " Hither, Will ! Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, With stolen chattels on his back, 304 THE SMACK IN SCHOOL. 305 Will hung his head in fear and shame, And to the awful presence came — A great, green, bashful simpleton. The butt of all good-natured fun. With smile suppressed, and birch upraised. The threatener faltered : " I'm amazed That you, my biggest pupil, should Be guilty of an act so rude — Before the whole set school to boot — What evil genius put you to't ? " " 'Twas she herself, sir," sobbed the lad ; ** I didn't mean to be so bad ; But when Susannah shook her curls. And whispered I was 'fraid of girls, And durstn't kiss a baby's doll, I couldn't stand it, sir, at all. But up and kissed her on the spot ! I know — boo hoo — I ought to not ; But, somehow, from her looks — boo hoo — I thought she kind o' wished me to ! " LOVE'S ATTIC IDYL. jHEN, erst, from " keeping company," To keeping house we went, As poor in worldy gear were we, As rich in heart content. Two chairs were ours, but on my word. One only was required. For you my lap as much preferred, As I your choice admired. Three goblets graced our dresser trim. But one the board supplied ; And where your red lip kissed its brim, That was my nectar side. One eve, some twelvemonth from the date Our wedding tablet bore. The doctor's gig stopt long and late Before our anxious door. And when at last it stole away Our gravely-smiling guest, 306 LOVE'S ATTIC IDYL. 307 A little rosy stranger lay Beside your fluttering breast. No sleep that night surprised my joy, Or dulled my fond amaze ; Our first-born babe a baby-boy ! What could I do but gaze ? Some other strangers since have come, And still we've room for more ; Don't blush — all told, the precious sum Is not yet half a score. And Fortune, too, though fabled blind, Has found our attic nest. And left memorials behind. That speak the gracious guest. Ah, were our sands of wedded life. Computed as they fall, How far its blessings, gentle wife, Would oversum them all ! DAME SALISBURY'S PUDDING. DARE say you've heard, but if not, now you'll know, That, down East, when a colleger's pocket runs low, He just looks about for some vocative school. And makes for it straight as a duck for a pool. Well, once on a time, forced by Fortune to search For the shiners myself, having cut me a birch, In a certain quaint district, while " boarding around," Cosy quarters, at last, at the Deacon's I found ; Where the snug kitchen still, as in primitive days, With its arm-chairs, and settles, and cordwood ablaze. Was the heart of the home, and more comfort en- shrined,, Than scores of your new-fangled parlors combined. 'Twas a Saturday eve, and, by custom antique, Hasty-Pudding must crown the last meal of the week ; 308 DAME SALISBURY'S PUDDING. 309 So the great iron pot for concocting the same Was presently hung o'er the jubilant flame, And the goodwife, forewarned by " help's " frequent default, With her own hand made sure the right quantum of salt. She had scarce left the hearth when her eldest-born, Rose, Bloomed in, and, all innocence, dittoed the dose. And glided away (how the charm of the place Seemed to vanish at once with her beauty and grace !) As Sue, sweet sixteen, tripping in, followed suit, Unawares, with a fresh supersaline salute, And was gone like a sylph as " help " darkened the door, And astonished the brine with a round handful more, Then hied for the meal-tray and ladle ; whereon I up with the near-standing salt-box anon, And in with the whole, laughing : " There, I opine. If this pudding's too fresh, faith the fault wont be mine ! " By and by, when transferred to the white-kirtled board. And each plate with a Benjamin's portion was stored. Flanked with syrups of maple and patties of gold, 3 1 DA ME S A LI SB URY'S P UDDING. And milk the town-pump never uddered, behold The Deacon said grace with the unction and air Of a mortal scarce worthy such fit-for-gods fare ; Then fell to, stopped short, sputtered : " Lot's wife ! O my ! Who salted this, Martha ? " — " /, husband ''dear, why ? " — "So did I, Ma," blushed Rose; "and I," tittered Sue ; "Goodness' sake!" exclaimed "help," "why, I salted it too ! " Then quoth I : " Add me in, for the truth to confess, I, likewise, my friends, had a hand in the mess, As the air in the salt-box my witness will be ; For, seeing you all with its contents so free, I followed your savory example perforce — At Rome, you know, one does like Romans, of course ! " "Well, friends," smiled the Deacon, "just taste now, and see If your palates with mine don't exactly agree : That too many cooks are as sure, in plain troth, To better a pudding no more than a broth ! " '^M THE ROOTED SORROW. HEY may preach as they please, smiled the fair Leonore, That beauty has wings, but I find it not so — My image still wears the same graces it wore, When I looked in the bridal-glass, summers ago. The cheek of the matron perhaps may betray A shade less of rose than embellished the girl's ; But the tint is as fresh, and the dimple as gay. As the maiden ones kissed by these glossy brown curls. Thus saying, she brushed the fair ringlets aside, And gazed, but the smile was soon chased by a frown, As her eye, in the tale-telling mirror, espied A strange silver thread interlacing the brown. Anon, through her tremulous fingers she drew The tress in whose ambush the pale spectre lay ; But alas, too impatient for clearness of view. She banished three dark hairs to one of the gray ! 3" 312 THE ROOTED SORROW. Again and again to the task she applies, Resolved her fair brow shall be rid of its shame, Till warned to relinquish her hopeless emprise. Since the brown locks alone were the worse for her aim. The moral of this is to bear and forbear, Let time do his worst with our gardens of rose ; Lest, seeking to root out one innocent tare. We wound but the flowers where it harmlessly grows ! TO ESTELLE. EVER see me more, you say ! I And worse yet, Forget me ! But pray, how can 1 obey. If the fates won't let me ? Were primeval gloom, Estelle, These charmed eyes to visit ; I should see you just as well Without light as with it ! Nay, to heighten your surprise, When you've grandly wondered ; See you just as well sans eyes, As with Argus' hundred. As for that " Forget me," — ah ! Prithee don't renew it ! — 'Ti* not in mandragora To begin to do it. Image of such witching grace, — Love's own photographing — Lethe's self could ne'er efface, Though one died of quaffing ! 3^3 SOME VIEW THE WORLD. OME view the world with jaundiced eye, And see but one sad, sallow tint ; And some, with vision so awry, All seems to mock them, squint for squint But, brother of the sickly spleen, This bilious reflex you may find Less oft the tinge of objects^seen, Than of yaur own discolored mind. Just take contentment's magic glass, Obedient to the wiser muse. And you shall see the sallow pass Lito the rose's charming hues. And you, my captious, cross-eyed friends, Who see all outward forms awry ; The muse a sovereign means commends Their mocking lines to rectify. Take hope's kaleidoscope, and all Your shivered plans and faded dreams Once more to perfect shape shall fall, And elow with 'all their pristine beams. 314 WHEN I WAS RICH. |HEN I was rich — ah, doleful IV/ien, So doomed to evanescence ! What strong attractions centered then In my complacent presence ! How brightly fell the golden sands Of careless, cloudless leisure ! How fain were fashion's jeweled hands To feel my answering pressure ! Where'er I sauntered, hats were raised, As if a prince were passing ; Whate'er I said or did, was praised As meet for highest classing. My taste, my style, my gait, my dress For all times, cool or sultry — My whole, indeed, was nothing less Than culture's ne plus ultra. If cards went out for feast or rout, No soul their magic slighted — Storm, whirlwind, megrims, blues nor gout, Kept home my dear invited. 315 3lO WHEN I WAS RICH. They pledged my name in many a toast, As proud sons might a mother's : " Whatever fate befall our host, He still shall find us brothers ! " And so I did, till Fortune frowned, Then snapt the brittle tether ! And all my dear good friends I found Blind, deaf, and dumb together. Of every tie, from first to last. Their memory showed no vestige ; The glamour of my wealth once past, What had I left of prestige ? My wines were drunk, my coffers drained. My halls and lands, another's ; Myself my only friend remained, Of all that band of brothers. Ah, well ! to each his several road, The false, the frail, the fickle — Content may reap where Folly sowed, If Wisdom lend her sickle ! MY TAILOR AND I IN THE LATE PANIC. ARTOR, quoth I, the suit is well enough ; I find no fault, with stitching, style, or stuff: But as for this marsupial display, What crotchet could have led you so astray ? Are you such Rip Van Winkle of a goose As still to dream that pockets are in use, When Astor scarcely can with truth be said To have the handling of a single ' red ' ? Pockets in times like these ? sir, 'tis no less Than wasteful and ridiculous excess ; As who should build a many-chambered bin, In a great dearth, to garner nothings in. Out with your shears ! Come, man alive ! don't shrink, But off with these lean sarcasms in a twink, Whose presence, like the spendthrift's empty purse, But serves to make the aching void still worse. Well done ! And now, with no more fret or fuss, That ])atieat little bill I'll honor — thus : " Cashier of Hades' Bank, at blind man's sight, Pay bearer's ghost, -and debit mine. All right." 317 SOFT AND SOFTER. NE eve, in velvet bravery arrayed, As Phil sat toying with his darling maid, Her little buxom waist's bewitching charm The while half-folded in his furtive arm ; He took her dimpled hand, and, with a smile, Stealing it gently o'er the silken pile, Asked, in a tender silence of love-chat, If palm e'er fondled aught so soft as that. She archly answered : " Might I venture, pet, I could press yours on something softer yet." With sidelong glance of amorous mistrust Adown the graceful neck and swelling bust, Whose ermine cape, his daring fancy taught. Was the coy ' something ' of the maiden's thought He fondly sighed, to fingers' ends a-thrill : "Ah ! dearest, do — my hand is at your will ! " But O lost rapture ! — for, no sooner said, She gayly clapt it pat on his own head ! 318 ALWAYS CHEERFUL. LWAYS cheerful " — yes, my friend ; 'Twas my motto from the first, That ill luck is like to mend When the bad has reached the worst. Know you not, the arc that lies Deepest in the rutted clay, Is the sole one sure to rise, Let the wheel roll either way ? When my questioned purse is dumb, Shall I whimper ? Nay, but sing : Let the jingling goddess come, Now there's room for all she'll bring ! If the merry hint she slight, Still I'll carol as I go : Empty pockets are so light, By my fay, 'tis better so ! Then as pomp sweeps bravely by. Charioted in flashing state ; 319 . J20 AL WA YS CHEERFUL. Which is safer, he or I, Needs, methinks, but brief debate. If a rein or axle fail, Or his brisk bays mock his trust. Prithee, what an ugly trail He may leave along the dust ! As for love, why fret or mope If one charmer prove unkind ? _ Surely 'twere more wise to hope All the sex not quite so blind. Should my merits find them so, TJiis shall make me lighter grieve ; " Coelebs ! v/hat a world of woe Adam found in finding Eve ! " NUMBER ONE. |a'^|d|OR Christ's dark Rule at last I've got |B.^|| The rendering clear and true : Do unto others as you'd not Have them do unto you ! Owe no man anything, says Paul — As if he knew what's right ! / say, owe all you can to all, And keep your purse-string tight. It's waste of substance, want of sense, To pity and befriend ; What were the use of Providence, If men fulfil its end ? Am I my brother's keeper ? — Who Will mind the risks / run ? — No, let him care for number Two, As I for number One. Free course to tender sympathies Let genero.us fools accord, 321 322 NUMBER ONE Who dream that their ahnsgiving is A lending to the Lord. Who casts his bread upon the deep, The waif again may see ; But I prefer my loaves to keep Safe under lock and key. The starving wretch may pine and die^ With curses on my head ; Yet he's as many hands as I, Then prithee why less bread ? No, Selfs the sum of all the creeds Mankind have ever known ; And he is lord o'er wants and needs Who lives for self alone ! THE DESTROYER SUPPLIANT. Y so, no doubt — why, look you, if Macbeth With only one foul murder on his soul Could sleep no more, though lapped in softest down, Nor ever smile again but just such smiles As pain enforces, or galvanic art Wrings from the ghastly pallor of the dead ; How should this monster, whose lorn victims far Outnumber all the breaths he ever drew From his first birth-gasp, hope to close his eyes For one brief moment's slumber, or cajole His cheek with other than sardonic joy ? Turn where he may, his nostril cannot shun The taint of blood in all the general air ; And not a wind that visits him but wreaks On his quick ear a hell of human groans. For him whose hand first stained the shuddering earth With life's most sacred crimson, never more Was there to be or peace with outward foes. Or amnesty of conscience from within. 323 324 THE DESTROYER SUPPLIANT. Most meet it is, then, that this Cain of Cains, Whose crimes have drenched a continent in gore Sluiced from innumerable fraternal hearts, Should see a foe in every human face. In every hand a scourge, in death itself No refuge from the Nemesis that haunts The guilty soul through asons of despair. While stands he lifting his red hands to heaven For strength to consummate his awful will On her who bore him, crowned his petted youth And faithless manhood with her richest gifts (To find, at last, as Agrippina found, Herself \\\it mother of her deadliest foe !) — Athwart the whole broad land, from sea to sea, And upward from the dwelling of the palm By sunny shores and islands ever green. To the bleak mountains, at whose snowy paps Are nursed the infant rivers that amaze Ocean himself with their majestic port — From every city, village, hamlet, grange. The voice of lamentation, day and night, For loved and lost ones lifts its hopeless wail. And hark ! from Europe's overcrowded realms The moan of famished millions, from whose hands The iron will of this grim suppliant Withholds the means whereby in squalid dens The meagre crust by patient toil is won. And hark again ! the burden of that cry THE DESTROYER SUPPLIANT 325 His own gaunt slaves, in awful earnestness, Press on his helpless horror : Give us Bread ! Oh man of blood ! oh thruster of the hilt Into the grasp of frenzy ! God forbid That we should curse thee for its bitter wounds ; Remembering whose is vengeance, and withal, That they who take, " shall perish with the sword ! " GIGANTOMACHIA BALTIMORENSIS. UPER in urbe Monumentorum Erat conventus Intrepidorum, Qui nominarent, manu aut ore, Unum e pluribus, antique more, ToUere sceptrum qualuor annis. Alba qua domus stat Jonathanis. Multse, reipsa, tunc erant partes Suis faventes, multaeque artes ! Cassius, inquit hie, Marcius, ille, Noster est dux inter homines mille ; Tertius, se judice, nuUus aequalis Gigantis esset occidentaHs ; S?epe in ore dum erat Buchanus, Inclytus ccelebs ac Pennsylvanus. Jungitur pugna tum viribus totis, Quisque pro suo, verbis et votis ; Omnibus, tamen, post omnia furta, Triduo manet victoria incerta ; 326 GIGANTOMACHIA BALTIMORENSIS. '^2'J Palmaque cara, tam viridis visu, Cum fere adepta, abripitur risu. Denique cunctis, nunc defatigatis Ictibus multis receptis et latis, Subito Stella, splendidior sole, Albis de Montibus magna cum mole Surgens ad polum, ministrat lumen, Undique radios spargens ut numen ! Illico omnes — En ! omen benign um ! Ecce Mars ipse ! victrixque signunr. . Sub quo bellantes certe vincemus, Si nosmetipsos viros praebemus ; Agmina tam profjigantes Whiggorum, Spoliis onusta Intrepidorum, Hostium ut in exitu certaminis Macula vae I non erit liquaminis ! NoN Marc. NOTES. PAGE 1 6. Monument Mountain is a remarkable precipice on the con- fines of Stockbridge and Barrington, from whose summit all Berkshire is visible, from Greyloch on the north to Taconic in the south. PAGE 28. Jonathan Edwards was the second pastor of the Stockbridge Church for nearly seven years, having been called thence to the presidency of Princeton College, January, 1758. The house in which he wrote his famous treatise on the " Freedom of the Will," etc., etc., is still standing, apparently untouched by the frosts of time. PAGE 114. Their Ktibleh, or the place to which they look whilst per- forming their holy ceremonies, is that part of the heavens in which the sun rises, and toward it they turn the faces of their dead. — Layard's Nineveh, Vol. 1 (Yezedis). PAGE 115. "While they were yet, it may be, about a hundred and fifty miles from the Indian town, a little before break of day, 329 330 NOTES. when the whole crew were in a dead sleep, one of these women took up a resolution to imitate the action of Jael r.pon Siseia ; and being where she had not her own life secured by any law unto her, she thought slie was not forbidden by any law to take away the life of the inunlerers by whom her child had been butchered." — Cotton Malhers Ala^tialia Christi, PAGE T22. " This village (Zinzenam) has its name from an extraordi- naiy circumstance that once happened in these parts. A shower of rain fell, which was not properly of the nature of rain-, as it did not run upon the ground, but remained very light, having scarce the weight of feathers, of a beautiful white color, like flour." — Bruce's Travels in Abyssinia. See also " Cloud Crystals," etc. Edited by a Lady. D. Appleton & Co., 1864. PAGE 138. Lines read at the dedication of the Soldiers' Monument, at Stockbridge, Mass., Oct. 17, 1866, If my memory does not err, the little town furnished twenty-eight volunteers, several of whom never returned from the terrible conflict. It was well represented also in the Revolution, both at Bunker Hill and Bennington. PAGE 162. Thus death reigns in all the portions of our time. The Autumn with its fruit provides disorders for us, and Winter's cold turns them into sharp diseases ; and the Spring brings flowers to strew our hearse ; and the Summer gives green turf and brambles to bind upon our graves. — Jeremy Taylor. NOTES. 331 PAGE 214. Proem to Centennial Echoes, Lee, Mass., Sept., 1877. When the continental march of silvan destruction, wliich began at Plymouth in 1620, reached this far inland valley, it must have presented a scene unsurpassed for beauty in the whole temperate zone. It seems formed on just the rigiit scale to satisfy the taste of a lover of nature, to whom the sublime in scenery, is not an indispensable requisite to its perfect enjoyment. If to the simple inhabitants the leafy world around them ever suggested any artificial change in its conformation, they were utterly destitute of all mechanical appliances for effecting it. The landscape, therefore, re- mained year after year, just as it had existed for untold ages. Spring and Summer draped it, as of old, in their green man- tle ; Autumn, in vesture more gorgeous than ever adorned the tiring-chamber of kings ; and Winter folded in its gracious ermine the latent life in death so soon to rejoice in another vernal resurrection. From lateral ridge to ridge all was one unbroken forest, save where the beneficent river had blest its dusky children with treeless intervals, to which even their destitution of the proper instrumental means could give the semblance of agricultural life. Into this primitive solitude came our hardy ancestors some seven score years ago, bringing with them the wants and habits of civilized society ; and if perchance they also brought a taste for natural beauty, it must have been smothered or quite extinguished by the hard necessities of their surround- ings. For, to the pioneer, bread is especially the staff of life ; and to win it from the wilderness, his axe must first dispel its " boundless contiguity of shade," and let the rain and sunshine find free access to the dark, dank soil, never glorified by the golden footprints of Ceres. So the primitive beauty of the Berkshire Hills was obliged to give place to the stern neces- 332 NOTES. sities of the resolute pioneers, who established in the heart of the Housatonic Valley the famous Indian Mission, of which old Stockbridge became the central point. In the verses which I shall have the honor to read, 1 have sought to sketch merely the three local aspects above indi- cated : namely, the aboriginal silvan beauty ; the blotches and blemishes, the rawness, roughness, and general disfigure- ment, of what I venture to call the Stump Age ; and, lastly, the loveliness that now smiles upon us from every side, as if our Alma Mater were conscious of her peerless charms. How much these may be heightened, and what new one;- added, during the lapse of another century of continued im- provement under the fostering care of LAUREL II ILL, Fern Cliff * and similar associations throughout the county, the eye of imagination only can now dimly discern. When village and hamlet and isolated farm-house shall all have been touched by the wand of refined taste, our Berkshire will be so charming, that the mere thought of its coming beauty makes one feel that he was born too early, and wish, with Franklin, that he might be permitted to revisit his native land after each hundred years' slumber in its maternal bosom. * Chartered societies for ornamenting the respective villages. They extend the public walks, and plant trees along them each season. H 13 89 1 .0^ v5. '"• » 0^ ♦•';;, -^^o^ .■^^ . •^..*' - ^^^%^' <> *'T: '«y ^ ♦'^ ^ „