LIBRARY OF 
 
 JOSEPH WARI 
 
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 nnm states itKGiKEEi memm 
 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/amonghillsotherpOOwhit' 
 
AMONG THE HILLS, 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 
 
 BOSTON: 
 FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 1869. 
 
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 Entered according to act of Congress, in tlie year 1868, by 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of tiie District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
^oJ^ ^ 8087 
 
 TO 
 
 ANNIE FIELDS, 
 ^fjts 5Little Volume, 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF SCENES WITH IVHICH SHE IS FAMILIAR, 
 
 IS 
 
 GRATEFULLY OFFERED. 
 
 8087 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Among the Hills . ^ 9 
 
 Miscellaneous Poems. 
 
 The Clear Vision 45 
 
 The Dole of Jarl Thorkell . . . . . 49 
 
 The Two Raeeis 57 
 
 The Meeting 63 
 
 The Answer 78 
 
 G. L. S 83 
 
 Freedom in Brazil 86 
 
 Divine Compassion 90 
 
 Lines on a Fly-Leaf 93 
 
 Hymn for the House of Worship at Georgetown 98 
 
AMONG THE HILLS 
 
 I* 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 A LONG the roadside, like the flowers of gold 
 That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, 
 Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod. 
 And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers 
 Hang motionless upon their upright staves. 
 The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, 
 Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, 
 Unfelt ; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf 
 With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams. 
 
14 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 Who clothes with grace all duty ; still, I know 
 
 Too well the picture has another side, — 
 
 How wearily the grind of toil goes on 
 
 Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear 
 
 And heart are starved amidst the plenitude 
 
 Of nature, and how hard and colorless 
 
 Is life without an atmosphere. I look 
 
 Across the lapse of half a century. 
 
 And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower 
 
 Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds, 
 
 Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place 
 
 Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose 
 
 And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed 
 
 Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine 
 
 To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves 
 
 Across the curtainless windows from whose panes 
 
 Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness ; 
 
 Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed 
 
PRELUDE. 1 5 
 
 (Broom -clean I think they called it) ; the best 
 
 room 
 Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air 
 In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless 
 Save the inevitable sampler hung 
 Over the fireplace, or a mourning-piece, 
 A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath 
 Impossible willows ; the wide-throated hearth 
 Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing 
 The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back ; 
 And, in sad keeping with all things about them. 
 Shrill, querulous women^, sour and sullen men. 
 Untidy, loveless, old before their time. 
 With scarce a human interest save their own 
 Monotonous round of small economies. 
 Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood ; 
 Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed. 
 Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet ; 
 
1 6 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 For them the song-sparrow and the boboUnk 
 Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves ; 
 For them in vain October's holocaust 
 Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, 
 The sacramental mystery of the woods. 
 Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, 
 But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent, 
 Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls 
 And winter pork with the least possible outlay 
 Of salt and sanctity ; in daily life 
 Showing as little actual comprehension 
 Of Christian charity and love and duty, 
 As if the Sermon on the Mount had been 
 Outdated like a last year's almanac : 
 Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields, 
 And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless. 
 The veriest straggler limping on his rounds. 
 The sun and air his sole inheritance, 
 
PRELUDE. 17 
 
 Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes, 
 And hugged his rags in self-complacency ! 
 
 Not such should be the homesteads of a land 
 Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell 
 As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, 
 With' beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make 
 His hour of leisure richer than a life ' 
 Of fourscore to the barons of old time, 
 Our yeoman should be equal to his home 
 Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, 
 A man to match his mountains, not to creep 
 Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain 
 In this light way (of which I needs must own 
 With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings, 
 " Story, God bless you ! I have none to tell you I ' ) 
 Invite the eye to see and heart to feel 
 The beauty and the joy within their reach, — 
 
1 8 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes 
 
 Of nature free to all. Haply in years 
 
 That wait to take the places of our own, 
 
 Heard where some breezy balcony looks down 
 
 On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon 
 
 Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, 
 
 In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet 
 
 Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine 
 
 May seem the burden qf a prophecy, 
 
 Finding its late fulfilment in a change 
 
 Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up 
 
 Through broader culture, finer manners, love, 
 
 And reverence, to the level of the hills. 
 
 O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn, 
 And not of sunset, forward, not behind. 
 Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee 
 bring 
 
PRELUDE. 19 
 
 All the old virtues, whatsoever things 
 
 Are pure and honest and of good repute, 
 
 But add thereto whatever bard has sung 
 
 Or seer has told of when in trance and dream 
 
 They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy ! 
 
 Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide 
 
 Between the right and wrong ; but give the heart 
 
 The freedom of its fair inheritance ; 
 
 Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long, 
 
 At Nature's table feast his ear and eye 
 
 With joy and wonder ; let all harmonies 
 
 Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon 
 
 The princely guest, whether in soft attire 
 
 Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil. 
 
 And, lending life to the dead form of faith, 
 
 Give human nature reverence for the sake 
 
 Of One who bore it, making it divine 
 
 With the ineffable tenderness of God ; 
 
20 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, 
 
 The heirship of an unknown destiny. 
 
 The unsolved mystery round about us, make 
 
 A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. 
 
 Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things 
 
 Should minister, as outward types and signs 
 
 Of the eternal beauty which fulfils 
 
 The one great purpose of creation, Love, 
 
 The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven ! 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 21 
 
 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 TTOR weeks the clouds had raked the hills 
 
 And vexed the vales with raining, 
 And all the woods were sad with mist, 
 And all the brooks complaining. 
 
 At last, a sudden night-storm tore 
 
 The mountain veils asunder. 
 And swept the valleys clean before 
 
 The besom of the thunder. 
 
 Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang 
 
 Good morrow to the cotter ; 
 And once again Chocorua's horn 
 
 Of shadow pierced the water. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. • . 
 
 Above his broad lake Ossipee, 
 Once more the sunshine wearing, 
 
 Stooped, tracing on that silver shield 
 His grim armorial bearing. 
 
 Clear drawn against the hard blue sky 
 The peaks had winter's keenness ; 
 
 And, close on autumn's frost, the vales 
 Had more than June's fresh greenness. 
 
 Again the sodden forest floors 
 
 With golden lights were checkered, 
 
 Once more rejoicing leaves in wind 
 And sunshine danced and flickered. 
 
 It was as if the summer's late 
 
 Atoning for its sadness 
 Had borrowed every season's charm 
 
 To end its days in gladness. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 23 
 
 I call to mind those banded vales 
 
 Of shadow and of shining, 
 Through which, my hostess at my side, 
 
 I drove in day's declining. 
 
 We held our sideling way above 
 
 The river's whitening shallows, 
 By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns 
 
 Swept through and through by swallows, — 
 
 By maple orchards, belts of pine 
 
 And larches climbing darkly 
 The mountain slopes, and, over all, 
 
 The great peaks rising starkly. 
 
 You should have seen that long hill-range 
 
 With gaps of brightness riven, — 
 How through each pass and hollow streamed 
 
 The purpling Ughts of heaven, — 
 
24 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 Rivers of gold-mist flowing down 
 
 From far celestial fountains, — 
 The great sun flaming through the rifts 
 
 Beyond the wall of mountains ! 
 
 We paused at last where home-bound cows 
 Brought down the pasture's treasure, 
 
 And in the barn the rhythmic flails 
 Beat out a harvest measure. 
 
 We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge, 
 The crow his tree-mates calling : 
 
 The shadows lengthening down the slopes 
 About our feet were falling. 
 
 And through them smote the level sun 
 
 In broken lines of splendor, 
 Touched the gray rocks and made the green 
 
 Of the shorn grass more tender. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. ' 25 
 
 The maples bending o'er the gate, 
 
 Their arch of leaves just tinted 
 With yellow warmth, the golden glow 
 
 Of coming autumn hinted. 
 
 Keen white between the farm-house showed, 
 
 And smiled on porch and trellis, 
 The fair democracy of flowers 
 
 That equals cot and palace. 
 
 And weaving garlands for her dog, 
 
 'Twixt chidings and caresses, 
 A human flower of childhood shook 
 
 The sunshine from her tresses. 
 
 On either hand we saw the signs 
 
 Of fancy and of shrewdness. 
 Where taste had wound its arms of vines 
 
 Round thrift's uncomely rudeness. 
 
26 • AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 The sun-brown farmer in his frock 
 Shook hands, and called to Mary : 
 
 Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came, 
 White-aproned from her dairy. 
 
 Her air, her smile, her motions, told 
 Of womanly completeness ; 
 
 A music as of household songs 
 Was in her voice of sweetness. 
 
 • Not beautiful in curve and line. 
 But something more and better, 
 The secret charm eluding art, 
 Its spirit, not its letter ; — 
 
 An inborn grace that nothing lacked 
 Of culture or appliance, — 
 
 The warmth of genial courtesy, 
 The calm of self-reliance. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 2/ 
 
 Before her queenly womanhood 
 
 How dared our hostess utter 
 The paltry errand of her need 
 
 To buy her fresh-churned butter ? 
 
 She led the way with housewife pride, 
 
 Her goodly store disclosing, 
 Full tenderly the golden balls 
 
 With practised hands disposing. 
 
 Then, while along the western hills 
 We watched the changeful glory 
 
 Of sunset, on our homeward way, 
 I heard her simple story. 
 
 The early crickets sang ; the stream 
 Plashed through my friend's narration : 
 
 Her rustic patois of the hills 
 Lost in my free translation. 
 
28 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 "More wise," she said, "than those who swarm 
 
 Our» hills in middle summer. 
 She came, when June's first roses blow. 
 
 To greet the early comer. 
 
 " From school and ball and rout she came, 
 
 The city's fair, pale daughter. 
 To drink the wine of mountain air 
 
 Beside the Bearcamp Water. 
 
 " Her step grew firmer on the hills 
 That watch our homesteads over ; 
 
 On cheek and lip, from summer fields, 
 She caught the bloom of clover. 
 
 " For health comes sparkling in the streams 
 
 From cool Chocorua stealing : 
 There 's iron in our Northern winds ; 
 
 Our pines are trees of healing. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 2g 
 
 " She sat beneath the broad-armed elms 
 
 That skirt the mowing-meadow, 
 And watched the gentle west-wind weave 
 
 The grass with shine and shadow. 
 
 " Beside her, from the summer heat 
 
 To share her grateful screening, 
 With forehead bared, the farmer stood. 
 
 Upon his pitchfork leaning. 
 
 "Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face 
 Had nothing mean or common, — 
 
 Strong, manly, true, the tenderness 
 And pride beloved of woman. 
 
 "She looked up, glowing with the health 
 The country air had brought her. 
 
 And, laughing, said : ' You lack a wife, 
 Your mother lacks a daughter. 
 
30 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 " ' To mend your frock and bake your bread 
 
 You do not need a lady : 
 Be sure among these brown old homes 
 
 Is some one waiting ready, — 
 
 " ' Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand 
 And cheerful heart for treasure, 
 
 Who never played with ivory keys, 
 Or danced the polka's measure.' 
 
 " He bent his black brows to a frown, 
 
 He set his white teeth tightly. 
 * 'T is well,' he said, * for one like you 
 
 To choose for me so lightly. 
 
 " * You think, because my life is rude, 
 
 I take no note of sweetness : 
 I tell you love has naught to do 
 
 With meetness or unmeetness. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 3 1 
 
 " * Itself its best excuse, it asks 
 
 No leave of pride or fashion 
 When silken zone or homespun frock 
 
 It stirs with throbs of passion. . 
 
 " ' You think me deaf and blind : you bring 
 
 Your winning graces hither 
 As free as if from cradle-time 
 
 We two had played together. 
 
 " ' You tempt me with your laughing eyes, 
 Your cheek of sundown's blushes, 
 
 A motion as of waving grain, 
 A music as of thrushes. 
 
 " ' The plaything of your summer sport, 
 The spells you weave around me 
 
 You cannot at your will undo. 
 Nor leave me as you found me. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 " * You go as lightly as you came, 
 Your life is well without me ; 
 
 What care you that these hills will close 
 Like prison-walls about me ? 
 
 " ' No mood is mine to seek a wife, 
 Or daughter for my mother : 
 
 Who loves you loses in that love 
 All power to love another ! 
 
 " ' I dare your pity or your scorn, 
 With pride your own exceeding ; 
 
 I fling my heart into your lap 
 Without a word of pleading.' 
 
 " She looked up in his face of pain 
 
 So archly, yet so tender : 
 'And if I lend you mine,' she said, 
 
 ' Will you forgive the lender > 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 33 
 
 " ' Nor frock nor tan can hide the man ; 
 
 And see you not, my farmer, 
 How weak and fond a woman waits 
 
 Behind this silken armor? 
 
 " ' I love you : on that love alone, 
 
 And not my worth, presuming, 
 Will you not trust for summer fruit 
 
 The tree in May-day blooming?' 
 
 "Alone the hangbird overhead. 
 
 His hair-swung cradle straining, 
 Looked down to see love's miracle, — 
 
 The giving that is gaining. 
 
 "And so the farmer found a wife, 
 
 His mother found a daughter : 
 
 There looks no happier home than hers 
 
 On pleasant Bearcamp Water. 
 
 2* r 
 
34 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 " Flowers spring to blossom where she walks 
 
 The careful ways of duty ; 
 Our hard, stiff lines of life with her 
 
 Are flowing curves of beauty. 
 
 " Our homes are cheerier for her sake, 
 
 Our door-yards brighter blooming, 
 And all about the social air 
 
 Is sweeter for her coming. 
 
 " Unspoken homilies of peace 
 Her daily life is preaching ; 
 
 The still refreshment of the dew 
 Is her unconscious teaching. 
 
 "And never tenderer hand than hers 
 Unknits the brow of ailing ; 
 
 Her garments to the sick man's ear 
 Have music in their trailing. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 35 
 
 "And when, in pleasant harvest moons, 
 
 The youthful huskers gather, 
 Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways 
 
 Defy the winter weather, — 
 
 " In sugar-camps, when south and warm 
 The winds of March are blowing. 
 
 And sweetly from its thawing veins 
 The maple's blood is flowing, — 
 
 " In summer, where some lilied pond 
 
 Its virgin zone is baring. 
 Or where the ruddy autumn fire 
 
 Lights up the apple-paring, — 
 
 " The coarseness of a ruder time 
 
 Her finer mirth displaces, 
 A subtler sense of pleasure fills 
 
 Each rustic sport she graces. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 " Her presence lends its warmth and health 
 
 To all who come before it. 
 If woman lost us Eden, such 
 
 As she alone restore it. 
 
 " For larger life and wiser aims 
 
 The farmer is her debtor ; 
 Who holds to his another's heart 
 
 Must needs be worse or better. 
 
 " Through her his civic service shows 
 
 A purer-toned ambition ; 
 No double consciousness divides 
 
 The man and politician. 
 
 " In party's doubtful ways he trusts 
 
 Her instincts to determine ; 
 At the loud polls, the thought of her 
 
 Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 " He owns her logic of the heart, 
 
 And wisdom of unreason, 
 Supplying, while he doubts and weighs, 
 
 The needed word in season. 
 
 " He sees with pride her richer thought. 
 
 Her fancy's freer ranges ; 
 And love thus deepened to respect 
 
 Is proof against all changes. 
 
 "And if she walks at ease in ways 
 
 His feet are slow to travel. 
 And if she reads with cultured eyes 
 
 What his may scarce unravel, 
 
 " Still clearer, for her keener sight 
 
 Of beauty and of wonder. 
 He learns the meaning of the hills 
 
 He dwelt from childhood under. 
 
 37 
 
38 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 "And higher, warmed with summer lights, 
 Or winter-crowned and hoary, 
 
 The ridged horizon lifts for him 
 Its inner veils of glory. 
 
 " He has his own free, bookless lore, 
 The lessons nature taught him. 
 
 The wisdom which the woods and hills 
 And toiling men have brought him : 
 
 " The steady force of will whereby 
 Her flexile grace seems sweeter ; 
 
 The sturdy counterpoise which makes 
 Her woman's life completer : 
 
 "A latent fire of soul which lacks 
 
 No breath of love to fan it ; 
 And wit, that, like his native brooks, 
 
 Plays over solid granite. 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 39 
 
 ''How dwarfed against his manliness 
 
 She sees the poor pretension, 
 The wants, the aims, the folUes, born 
 
 Of fashion and convention ! 
 
 " How hfe behind its accidents 
 Stands strong and self-sustaining, 
 
 The human fact transcending all 
 The losing and the gaining. 
 
 " And so, in grateful interchange 
 
 Of teacher and of hearer. 
 Their lives their true distinctness keep 
 
 While daily drawing nearer. 
 
 "And if the husband or the wife 
 In home's strong light discovers 
 
 Such slight defaults as failed to meet 
 The blinded eyes of lovers, 
 
40 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 " Why need we care to ask ? — who dreams 
 Without their thorns of roses, 
 
 Or wonders that the truest steel 
 The readiest spark discloses ? 
 
 " For still in mutual sufferance lies 
 
 The secret of true living : 
 Love scarce is love that never knows 
 
 The sweetness of forgiving. 
 
 " We send the Squire to General Court, 
 He takes his young wife thither ; 
 
 No prouder man election day 
 
 Rides through the sweet June weather. 
 
 " He sees with eyes of manly trust 
 
 All hearts to her inclining ; 
 Not less for him his household light 
 
 That others share its shining." 
 
AMONG THE HILLS. 4I 
 
 Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew 
 
 Before me, warmer tinted 
 And outhned with a tenderer grace, 
 
 The picture that she hinted. 
 
 The sunset smouldered as we drove 
 
 Beneath the deep hill-shadows. 
 Below us wreaths of white fog walked 
 
 Like ghosts the haunted meadows. 
 
 Sounding the summer night, the stars 
 Dropped down their golden plummets; 
 
 The pale arc of the Northern lights 
 Rose o'er the mountain summits, — 
 
 Until, at last, beneath its bridge, 
 We heard the Bearcamp flowing. 
 
 And saw across the mapled lawn 
 
 The welcome home-lights glowing ; — 
 
42 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 And, musing on the tale I heard, 
 'T were well, thought I, if often 
 
 To rugged farm-life came the gift 
 To harmonize and soften ; — 
 
 If more and more we found the troth 
 
 Of fact and fancy plighted, 
 And culture's charm and labor's strength 
 
 In rural homes united, — 
 
 The simple life, the homely hearth, 
 With beauty's sphere surrounding, 
 
 And blessing toil where toil abounds 
 With graces more abounding. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
THE CLEAR VISION. 
 
 T DID but dream. I never knew 
 
 What charms our sternest season wore. 
 Was never yet the sky so blue, 
 
 Was never earth so white before. 
 Till now I never saw the glow 
 Of sunset on yon hills of snow, 
 And never learned the bough's designs 
 Of beauty in its leafless lines. 
 
 Did ever such a morning break 
 As that my eastern windows see ? 
 
 Did ever such a moonlight take 
 
 Weird photographs of shrub and tree ? 
 
46 THE CLEAR VISION. 
 
 Rang ever bells so wild and fleet 
 The music of the winter street ? 
 Was ever yet a sound by half 
 So merry as yon school-boy's laugh ? 
 
 O Earth! with gladness overfraught, 
 
 No added charm thy face hath found ; 
 Within my heart the change is wrought, 
 My footsteps make enchanted ground. 
 From couch of pain and curtained room 
 Forth to thy light and air I come, 
 To find in all that meets my eyes 
 The freshness of a glad surprise. 
 
 Fair seem these winter days, and soon 
 
 Shall blow the warm west winds of spring 
 
 To set the unbound rills in tune, 
 
 And hither urge the bluebird's wing. 
 
. THE CLEAR VISION. 47 
 
 The vales shall laugh in flowers, the woods 
 Grow misty green with leafing buds, 
 And violets and wind-flowers sway 
 Against the throbbing heart of May. 
 
 Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own 
 
 The wiser love severely kind ; 
 Since, richer for its chastening grown, 
 
 I see, whereas I once was blind. 
 The world, O Father ! hath not wronged 
 With loss the life by thee prolonged ; 
 But still, with every added year, 
 More beautiful thy works appear! 
 
 As thou hast made thy world without, 
 Make thou more fair my world within ; 
 
 Shine through its lingering clouds of doubt ; 
 Rebuke its haunting shapes of sin ; 
 
48 THE CLEAR VISION. 
 
 Fill, brief or long, my granted span 
 Of life with love to thee and man ; 
 Strike when thou wilt the hour of rest, 
 But let my last days be my best ! 
 
 2d Month, 1868. 
 
THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 49 
 
 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 
 
 ^ I ^HE land was pale with famine 
 
 And racked with fever-pain ; 
 The frozen fiords were fishless, 
 The earth withheld her grain. 
 
 Men saw the boding Fylgja 
 
 Before them come and go, 
 And, through their dreams, the Urdar-moon 
 
 From west to east sailed slow ! 
 
 Jarl Thorkell of Thevera 
 
 At Yule-time made his vow ; 
 
 On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone 
 
 He slew to Frey his cow. 
 
 3 D 
 
50 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 
 
 To bounteous Frey he slew her ; 
 
 To Skuld, the younger Norn, 
 Who watches over birth and death, 
 
 He gave her calf unborn. 
 
 And his little gold-haired daughter 
 Took up the sprinkling-rod, 
 
 And smeared with blood the temple 
 And the wide lips of the god. 
 
 5 Hoarse below, the winter water 
 
 Z 
 
 Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er ; 
 Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves, 
 Rose and fell along the shore. 
 
 The red torch of the Jokul, 
 
 Aloft in icy space, 
 Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones 
 
 And the statue's carven face. 
 
THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 5 1 
 
 And closer round and grimmer 
 
 Beneath its baleful light 
 The Jotun shapes of mountains 
 
 Came crowding through the night. 
 
 The gray-haired Hersir trembled 
 
 As a flame by wind is blown ; 
 A weird power moved his white lips, 
 
 And their voice was not his own ! 
 
 " The ^sir thirst ! " he muttered ; 
 
 " The gods must have more blood 
 Before the tun shall blossom 
 
 Or fish shall fill the flood. 
 
 " The ^sir thirst and hunger, 
 
 And hence our blight and ban ; 
 The mouths of the strong gods water 
 
 For the flesh and blood of man ! 
 
52 THE DOLE OF J ARE THORKELL. 
 
 " Whom shall we give the strong ones ? 
 
 Not warriors, sword on thigh ; 
 But let the nursling infant 
 
 And bedrid old man die." 
 
 " So be it ! " cried the young men, 
 " There needs nor doubt nor parle " ; 
 
 But, knitting hard his red brows, 
 In silence stood the Jarl. 
 
 A sound of woman's weeping 
 At the temple door was heard ; 
 
 But the old men bowed their white heads, 
 And answered not a word. 
 
 Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla, 
 
 A Vala young and fair. 
 Sang softly, stirring with her breaai 
 
 The veil of her loose hair. 
 
THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 53 
 
 She sang : " The winds from Alfheim 
 
 Bring never sound of strife ; 
 The gifts for Frey the meetest 
 
 Are not of death, but life. 
 
 " He loves the grass-green meadows, 
 The grazing kine's sweet breath ; 
 
 He loathes your bloody Horg-stones, 
 Your gifts that smell of death. 
 
 " No wrong by wrong is righted, 
 
 No pain is cured by pain ; 
 The blood that smokes from Doom-rings 
 
 Falls back in redder rain. 
 
 " The gods are what you make them, 
 
 As earth shall Asgard prove ; 
 And hate will come of hating, 
 
 And love will come of love. 
 
54 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 
 
 " Make dole of skyr and black bread 
 That old and young may live ; 
 
 And look to Frey for favor 
 When first like Frey you give. 
 
 " Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadows 
 The summer dawn begins ; 
 
 The tun shall have its harvest, 
 The fiord its glancing fins." 
 
 Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell : 
 
 " By Gimli and by Hel, 
 O Vala of Thingvalla, 
 
 Thou singest wise and well ! 
 
 " Too dear the -^sir's favors 
 
 Bought with our children's lives ; 
 
 Better die than shame in living 
 Our mothers and our wives. 
 
THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 55 
 
 " The full shall give his portion ' 
 
 To him who hath most need ; 
 Of curdled skyr and black bread, 
 
 Be daily dole decreed." 
 
 He broke from off his neck-chain 
 
 Three Unks of beaten gold ; 
 And each man, at his biddinc:, 
 
 Brought gifts for young and old. 
 
 Then mothers nursed their children, 
 
 And daughters fed their sires. 
 And Health sat down with Plenty 
 
 Before the next Yule fires. 
 
 The Horg-stones stand in Rykdal ; 
 
 The Doom-ring still remains ; 
 But the snows of a thousand winters 
 
 Have washed away the stains. 
 
56 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 
 
 Christ ruleth now ; the -^sir 
 Have found their twihght dim ; 
 
 And, wiser than she dreamed, of old 
 The Vala sang of Him ! 
 
THE TWO RABBIS. 57 
 
 THE TWO RABBIS. 
 
 'T~^HE Rabbi Nathan, twoscore years and ten, 
 
 Walked blameless through the evil world, and 
 then, 
 Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, 
 Met a temptation all too strong to bear, 
 And miserably sinned. So, adding not 
 Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught 
 No more among the elders, but went out 
 From the great congregation girt about 
 With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head. 
 Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed, 
 Smiting his breast ; then, as the Book he laid 
 Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice. 
 Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, 
 3* 
 
58 THE TWO RABBIS. 
 
 Behold the royal preacher's words: "A friend 
 Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end ; 
 And for the evil day thy brother lives." 
 Marvelling, he said : " It is the Lord who gives 
 Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells 
 Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels 
 In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees 
 Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees 
 Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay 
 My sins before him." 
 
 And he went his way 
 Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers ; 
 But even as one who, followed unawares, 
 Suddenly in the dafkness feels a hand 
 Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned 
 By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near 
 Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, 
 
THE TWO RABBIS. 59 
 
 So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low 
 The wail of David's penitential woe, 
 Before him still the old temptation came. 
 And mocked him with the motion and the shame 
 Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred 
 Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord 
 To free his soul and cast the demon out. 
 Smote with his staff the blankness round about 
 
 At length, in the low light of a spent day, 
 The towers of Ecbatana far away 
 Rose on the desert's rim ; and Nathan, faint 
 And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint 
 The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb. 
 Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom 
 He greeted kindly : " May the Holy One 
 Answer thy prayers, O stranger ! " Whereupon 
 The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then, 
 
6o THE TWO RABBIS. 
 
 Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men 
 Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence 
 Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense 
 Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore 
 Himseh' away : " O friend beloved, no more 
 Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, 
 Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame. 
 Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine. 
 May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. 
 Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned ! " 
 
 Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind 
 
 Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare 
 
 The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. 
 
 " I too, O friend, if not in act," he said, 
 
 " In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read, 
 
 * Better the eye should see than that desire 
 
 Should wander ? ' Burning with a hidden fire 
 
THE TWO RABBIS. 6 1 
 
 That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee 
 For pity and for help, as thou to me. 
 Pray for me, O my friend ! " But Nathan cried, 
 " Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac ! " 
 
 Side by side 
 In the low sunshine by the turban stone 
 They knelt ; each made his brother's woe his own, 
 Forgetting, in the agony and stress 
 Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness ; 
 Peace, for his friend besought, his own became ; 
 His prayers were answered in another's name ; 
 And, when at last they rose up to embrace, 
 Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face ! 
 
 Long after, when his headstone gathered moss. 
 
 Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos 
 
 In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read : 
 
62 THE TWO RABBIS. 
 
 " Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead ; 
 Forget it in loves service, and the debt 
 Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget ; 
 Heavens gate is shut to him who comes alone ; 
 Save thou a sold, and it shall save thy own ! " 
 
THE MEETING. 63 
 
 THE MEETING. 
 
 '^ I ^HE elder folk shook hands at last, 
 
 Down seat by seat the signal passed. 
 To simple ways like ours unused, 
 lialf solemnized and half amused, 
 With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest 
 His sense of glad relief expressed. 
 Outside the hills lay warm in sun ; 
 The cattle in the meadow-run 
 Stood half-leg deep ; a single bird 
 The green repose above us stirred. 
 " What part or lot have you," he said, 
 " In these dull rites of drowsy-head ? 
 Is silence worship ? — Seek it where 
 It soothes with dreams the summer air. 
 
64 THE MEETING. 
 
 Not in this close and rude-benched hall, 
 
 But where soft lights and shadows fall, 
 
 And all the slow, sleep-walking hours 
 
 Glide soundless over grass and flowers ! 
 
 From time and place and form apart, 
 
 Its holy ground the human heart, 
 
 Nor ritual-bound nor templeward 
 
 Walks the free spirit of the Lord ! 
 
 Our common Master did not pen 
 
 His followers up from other men ; 
 
 His service liberty indeed, 
 
 He built no church, he framed no creed ; 
 
 But while the saintly Pharisee 
 
 Made broader his phylactery. 
 
 As from the synagogue was seen 
 
 The dusty-sandalled Nazarene 
 
 Through ripening cornfields lead the way 
 
 Upon the awful Sabbath day, 
 
THE MEETING. 65 
 
 His sermons were the healthful talk 
 That shorter made the mountain-walk, 
 His wayside texts were flowers and birds, 
 Where mingled with His gracious words 
 The rustle of the tamarisk-tree 
 And ripple-wash of Galilee." 
 
 *' Thy words are well, O friend," I said ; 
 
 " Unmeasured and unlimited, 
 
 With noiseless slide of stone to stone, 
 
 The mystic Church of God has grown. 
 
 Invisible and silent stands 
 
 The temple never made with hands, 
 
 Unheard the voices still and small 
 
 Of its unseen confessional. 
 
 He needs no special place of prayer 
 
 Whose hearing ear is everywhere ; 
 
 He brings not back the childish days 
 
66 THE MEETING. 
 
 That ringed the earth with stones of praise, 
 Roofed Karnak's hall of gods, and laid 
 The plinths of Philae's colonnade. 
 Still less He owns the selfish good 
 And sickly growth of solitude, — 
 The worthless grace that, out of sight, 
 Flowers in the desert anchorite ; 
 Dissevered from the suffering whole, 
 Love hath no power to save a souL 
 Not out of Self, the origin 
 And native air and soil of sin, 
 The living waters spring and flow. 
 The trees with leaves of healing grow. 
 
 " Dream not, O friend, because I seek 
 
 » 
 
 This quiet shelter twice a week, 
 
 I better deem its pine-laid floor 
 Than breezy hill or sea-sung shore ; 
 
THE MEETING. 6/ 
 
 But nature is not solitude ; 
 
 She crowds us with her thronging wood ; 
 
 Her many hands reach out to us, 
 
 Her many tongues are garrulous ; 
 
 Perpetual riddles of surprise 
 
 She offers to our ears and eyes ; 
 
 She will not leave our senses still, 
 
 But drags them captive at her will ; 
 
 And, making earth too great for heaven. 
 
 She hides the Giver in the given. 
 
 "And so, I find it well to come 
 For deeper rest to this still room. 
 For here the habit of the soul, 
 Feels less the outer world's control ; 
 The strength of mutual purpose pleads 
 More earnestly our common needs ; 
 And from the silence multiplied 
 
6S THE MEETING. 
 
 By these still forms on either side, 
 
 The world that time and sense have known 
 
 Falls off and leaves us God alone. 
 
 " Yet rarely through the charmed repose 
 Unmixed the stream of motive flows, 
 A flavor of its many springs, 
 The tints of earth and sky it brings ; 
 In the still waters needs must be 
 Some shade of human sympathy ; 
 And here, in its accustomed place, 
 I look on memory's dearest face ; 
 The blind by-sitter guesseth not 
 What shadow haunts that vacant spot ; 
 No eye save mine alone can see 
 The love wherewith it welcomes me ! 
 And still, with those alone my kin. 
 In doubt and weakness, want and sin. 
 
THE MEETING. 69 
 
 I bow my head, my heart I bare 
 As when that face was living there, 
 And strive (too oft, alas ! in vain) 
 The peace of simple trust to gain, 
 Fold fancy's restless wings, and lay 
 The idols of my heart away. 
 
 " Welcome the silence all unbroken, 
 
 Nor less the words of fitness spoken, — 
 
 Such golden words as hers for whom 
 
 Our autumn flowers have just made room ; 
 
 Whose hopeful utterance through and through 
 
 The freshness of the morning blew ; 
 
 Who loved not less the earth that light 
 
 Fell on it from the heavens in sight, 
 
 But saw in all fair forms more fair 
 
 The Eternal beauty mirrored there. 
 
 Whose eighty years but added grace 
 
yO THE MEETING. 
 
 And saintlier meaning to her face, — 
 ' The look of one who bore away 
 Glad tidings from the hills of day, 
 While all our hearts went forth to meet 
 The coming of her beautiful feet ! 
 Or haply hers, whose pilgrim tread 
 Is in the paths where Jesus led ; 
 Who dreams her childhood's sabbath dream 
 By Jordan's willow-shaded stream. 
 And, of the hymns of hope and faith, 
 Sung by the monks of Nazareth, 
 Hears pious echoes, in the call 
 To prayer, from Moslem minarets fall. 
 Repeating where His works were wrought 
 The lesson that her Master taught, 
 Of whom an elder Sibyl gave, 
 The prophecies of Cumae's cave ! 
 
THE MEETING. 71 
 
 " I ask no organ's soulless breath 
 
 To drone the themes of life and death, 
 
 No altar candle-lit by day, 
 
 No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play, 
 
 No cool philosophy to teach 
 
 Its bland audacities of speech 
 
 To double-tasked idolators 
 
 Themselves their gods and worshippers, 
 
 No pulpit hammered by the fist 
 
 Of loud-asserting dogmatist, 
 
 Who borrows for the hand of love 
 
 The smoking thunderbolts of Jove. 
 
 I know how well the fathers taught, 
 
 What work the later schoolmen wrought ; 
 
 I reverence old-time faith and men, 
 
 But God is near us now as then ; 
 
 His force of love is still unspent. 
 
 His hate of sin as imminent ; 
 
72 THE MEETING. 
 
 And still the measure of our needs 
 
 Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds ; 
 
 The manna gathered yesterday 
 
 Already savors of decay ; 
 
 Doubts to the world's child-heart unknown 
 
 Question us now from star and stone ; 
 
 Too little or too much we know, 
 
 And sight is swift and faith is slow ; 
 
 The power is lost to self-deceive 
 
 With shallow forms of make-believe. 
 
 We walk at hisfh noon, and the bells 
 
 Call to a thousand oracles, 
 But the sound deafens, and the light 
 Is stronjier than our dazzled si^^ht ; 
 The letters of the sacred Book 
 Glimmer and swim beneath our look ; 
 Still struggles in the Age's breast 
 With deepening agony of quest 
 
THE MEETING. pr^ 
 
 The old entreaty : ' Art thou He, 
 Or look we for the Christ to be?' 
 
 " God should be most where man is least ; 
 
 So, where is neither church nor priest, 
 
 And never rag of form or creed 
 
 To clothe the nakedness of need, — 
 
 Where farmer-folk in silence meet, — 
 
 I turn my bell-unsummoned feet ; 
 
 I lay the critic's glass aside, 
 
 I tread upon my lettered pride, 
 
 Ik 
 And, lowest-seated, testify 
 
 To the oneness of humanity ; 
 Confess the universal want, 
 And share whatever heaven may grant. 
 He findeth not who seeks his own, 
 The soul is lost that's saved alone. 
 Not on one favored forehead fell 
 4 
 
74 THE MEETING. 
 
 Of old the fire-tongued miracle, 
 
 But flamed o'er all the thronging host 
 
 The baptism of the Holy Ghost ; 
 
 Heart answers heart ; in one desire 
 
 The blending lines of prayer aspire ; 
 
 ' Where, in my name, meet two or three,' 
 
 Our Lord hath said, ' I there will be ! ' 
 
 *' So sometimes comes to soul and sense 
 
 The feeling which is evidence 
 
 That very near about us lies 
 
 The realm of spiritual mysteries. 
 
 The sphere of the supernal powers 
 
 Impinges on this world of ours. 
 
 The low and dark horizon lifts, 
 
 To light the scenic terror shifts ; 
 
 The breath of a diviner air 
 
 Blows down the answer of a prayer : — 
 
THE MEETING. 75 
 
 That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt 
 A great compassion clasps about, 
 And law and goodness, love and force, 
 Are wedded fast beyond divorce. 
 Then duty leaves to love its task, 
 The beggar Self forgets to ask ; 
 With smile of trust and folded hands, 
 The passive soul in waiting stands 
 To feel, as flowers the sun and dew, 
 The One true Life its own renew. 
 
 " So, to the calmly gathered thought 
 The innermost of truth is taught, 
 The mystery dimly understood. 
 That love of God is love of good. 
 And, chiefly, its divinest trace 
 In Him of Nazareth's holy face ; 
 That to be saved is only this, — 
 
^6 THE MEETING. 
 
 Salvation from our selfishness, 
 
 From more than elemental fire, 
 
 The soul's unsanctified desire, 
 
 From sin itself, and not the pain 
 
 That warns us of its chafing chain ; 
 
 That worship's deeper meaning lies 
 
 In mercy, and not sacrifice. 
 
 Not proud humihties of sense 
 
 And posturing of penitence, 
 
 But love's unforced obedience ; 
 
 That Book and Church and Day are given 
 
 For man, not God, — for earth, not heaven, 
 
 The blessed means to holiest ends. 
 
 Not masters, but benignant friends ; 
 
 That the dear Christ dwells not afar 
 
 The king of some remoter star. 
 
 Listening, at times, with flattered ear 
 
 To homage wrung from selfish fear, 
 
THE MEETING. 77 
 
 But here, amidst the poor and blind, 
 The bound and suffering of our kind, 
 In works we do, in prayers we pray, 
 Life of our hfe, he hves to-day." 
 
yS THE ANSWER. 
 
 THE ANSWER. 
 
 OPARE me, dread angel of reproof, 
 And let the sunshine weave to-day 
 
 Its gold-threads in the warp and woof 
 Of life so poor and gray. 
 
 Spare me awhile ; the flesh is weak. 
 
 These lingering feet, that fain would stray 
 Among the flowers, shall some day seek 
 
 The strait and narrow way. 
 
 Take off thy ever-watchful eye. 
 The awe of thy rebuking frown ; 
 
 The dullest slave at times must sigh 
 To fling his burdens down ; 
 
THE ANSWER. 79 
 
 To drop his galley's straining oar, 
 
 And press, in summer warmth and calm, 
 
 The lap of some enchanted shore 
 Of blossom and of balm. 
 
 Grudge not my life its hour of bloom, 
 My heart its taste of long desire ; 
 
 This day be mine : be those to come 
 As duty shall require. 
 
 The deep voice answered to my own, 
 Smiting my selfish prayers away : 
 
 "To-morrow is with God alone. 
 And man hath but to-day. 
 
 " Say not, thy fond, vain heart within, 
 The Father's arms shall still be wide. 
 
 When from these pleasant ways of sin 
 Thou turn'st at eventide. 
 
80 THE ANSWER. 
 
 " ' Cast thyself down,' the tempter saith, 
 'And angels shall thy feet upbear.' 
 
 He bids thee make a lie of faith, 
 And blasphemy of prayer. 
 
 "Though God be good and free be Heaven, 
 No force divine can love compel ; 
 
 And, though the song of sins forgiven 
 May sound through lowest hell, 
 
 "The sweet persuasion of His voice 
 
 Respects thy sanctity of will. 
 He giveth day : thou hast thy choice 
 
 To walk in darkness still ; • 
 
 " As one who, turning from the light. 
 Watches his own gray shadow fall. 
 
 Doubting upon his path of night, 
 If there be day at all ! 
 
THE ANSWER. 8 1 
 
 " No word of doom may shut thee out, 
 No wind of wrath may downward whirl. 
 
 No swords of fire keep watch about 
 The open gates of pearl ; 
 
 "A tenderer light than moon or sun, 
 Than song of earth a sweeter hymn, 
 
 May shine and sound forever on, 
 And thou be deaf and dim. 
 
 "Forever round the Mercy-seat 
 
 The guiding Hghts of Love shall burn ; 
 
 But what if, habit-bound, thy feet 
 Shall lack the will to turn ? 
 
 " What if thine eye refuse to see, 
 
 Thine ear of Heaven's free welcome fail. 
 
 And thou a wiUing captive be. 
 Thyself thy own dark jail ? 
 
SZ THE ANSWER. 
 
 "O doom beyond the saddest guess. 
 As the long years of God unroll 
 
 To make thy dreary selfishness 
 The prison of a soul ! 
 
 » 
 "To doubt the love that fain would break 
 
 The fetters from thy self-bound limb ; 
 
 And dream that God can thee forsake 
 
 As thou forsakest him ! " 
 
G. L. S. 8^ 
 
 G. L. S. 
 
 T T E has done the work of a true man, — 
 
 Crown him, honor him, love him. 
 Weep over him, tears of woman. 
 Stoop manhest brows above him ! 
 
 O dusky mothers and daughters, 
 Vigils of mourning keep for him ! 
 
 Up in the mountains, and down by the waters, 
 Lift up your voices and weep for him ! 
 
 For the warmest of hearts is frozen, 
 
 The freest of hands is still ; 
 And the gap in our picked and chosen 
 
 The long years may not fill. 
 
84 G- L. s. 
 
 No duty could overtask him, 
 
 No need his will outrun ; 
 Or ever our lips could ask him. 
 
 His hands the work had done. 
 
 He forgot his own soul for others, 
 Himself to his neighbor lending ; 
 
 He found the Lord in his suffering brothers, 
 And not in the clouds descending. 
 
 So the bed was sweet to die on, 
 
 Whence he saw the doors wide swung 
 
 Against whose bolted iron 
 
 The strength of his life was flung. 
 
 And he saw ere his eye was darkened 
 The sheaves of the harvest-bringing, 
 
 And knew while his ear yet hearkened 
 The voice of the reapers singing. 
 
G. L. S. 85 
 
 Ah, well ! — The world is discreet ; 
 
 There are plenty to pause and wait ; 
 But here was a man who set his feet 
 
 Sometimes in advance of fate, — 
 
 Plucked off the old bark when the inner 
 
 Was slow to renew it, 
 And put to the Lord's work the sinner 
 
 When saints failed to do it. 
 
 Never rode to the wrong's redressing 
 
 A worthier paladin. 
 Shall he not hear the blessing, 
 
 " Good and faithful, enter in ! " 
 
S6 FREEDOM IN BRAZIL. 
 
 FREEDOM IN BRAZIL. 
 
 \ X riTH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine 
 forth 
 
 In blue BraziHan skies ; 
 And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth 
 
 From sunset to sunrise, 
 From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves 
 
 Thy joy's long anthem pour. 
 Yet a few days (God make them less !) and slaves 
 
 Shall shame thy pride no more. 
 No fettered feet thy shaded margins press ; 
 
 But all men shall walk free 
 Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness, 
 
 Hast wedded sea to sea. 
 
FREEDOM IN BRAZIL. 8/ 
 
 And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth 
 
 The word of God is said, 
 Once more, " Let there be Hght ! " — Son of the 
 South, 
 
 Lift up thy honored head, 
 Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert 
 
 More than by birth thy own, 
 Careless of watch and ward ; thou art begirt 
 
 By grateful hearts alone. * 
 
 The moated wall and battle-ship may fail, 
 
 But safe shall justice prove ; 
 Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail 
 
 The panoply of love. 
 
 Crowned doubly by man's blessing and Xjod's grace, 
 
 Thy future is secure ; 
 Who frees a people makes his statue's place 
 
 In Time's Valhalla sure. 
 
88 FREEDOM IN BRAZIL. 
 
 Lo ! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar 
 
 Stretches to thee his hand 
 Who, with the pencil of the Northern star, 
 
 Wrote freedom on his land. 
 And he whose grave is holy by our calm 
 
 And prairied Sangamon, 
 From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm 
 
 To^greet thee with "Well done!" 
 
 And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make 
 sweet. 
 
 And let thy wail be stilled, 
 To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat 
 
 Her promise half fulfilled. 
 The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still, 
 
 No sound thereof hath died ; 
 Alike thy hope and heaven's eternal will 
 
 Shall yet be satisfied. 
 
FREEDOM IN BRAZIL. 89 
 
 The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long, 
 
 And far the end may be ; 
 But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong 
 
 Go out and leave thee free. 
 
90 DIVINE COMPASSION. 
 
 DIVINE COMPASSION. 
 
 T ONG since, a dream of heaven I had, 
 
 And still the vision haunts me oft ; 
 I see the saints in white robes clad, 
 
 The martyrs with their palms aloft ; 
 But hearing still, in middle song. 
 
 The ceaseless dissonance of wrong ; 
 And shrinking, with hid faces, from the strain 
 Of sad, beseeching eyes, full of remorse and pain. 
 
 The glad song falters to a wail, 
 
 The harping sinks to low lament ; 
 Before the still unhfted veil 
 
 I see the crowned foreheads bent, 
 
DIVINE COMPASSION. 9I 
 
 Making more sweet the heavenly air, 
 
 With breathings of unselfish prayer ; 
 And a Voice saith : " O Pity which is pain, 
 O Love that weeps, fill up my sufferings which 
 remain ! 
 
 "Shall souls redeemed by me refuse 
 To share my sorrow in their turn? 
 
 Or, sin-forgiven, my gift abuse 
 Of peace with selfish unconcern ? 
 
 Has saintly ease no pitying care ? 
 
 Has faith no work, and love no prayer ? 
 
 While sin remains, and souls in darkness, 
 
 Can heaven itself be heaven, and look unmoved 
 on hell?" 
 
 Then through the Gates of Pain, I dream, 
 A wind of heaven blows coolly in ; 
 
92 DIVINE COMPASSION. 
 
 Fainter the awful discords seem, 
 
 The smoke of torment grows more thin, 
 
 Tears quench the burning soil, and thence 
 Spring sweet, pale flowers of penitence ; 
 
 And through the dreary realm of man's despair, 
 
 Star-crowned an angel walks, and lo ! God's hope 
 is there ! 
 
 Is it a dream ? Is heaven so high 
 
 That pity cannot breathe its air ? 
 Its happy eyes forever dry, 
 
 Its holy lips without a prayer ! 
 My God ! my God ! if thither led 
 
 By thy free grace unmerited, 
 No crown nor palm be mine, but let me keep 
 A heart that still can feel, and eyes that still 
 can weep. 
 
LINES ON A FLY-LEAF. 93 
 
 LINES ON A FLY-LEAF. 
 
 T NEED not ask thee, for my sake, 
 To read a book which well may make 
 Its way by native force of wit 
 Without my manual sign to it. 
 Its piquant writer needs from me 
 No gravely masculine guaranty. 
 And well might laugh her merriest laugh 
 At broken spears in her behalf ; 
 Yet, spite of all the critics tell, 
 I frankly own I like her well. 
 It may be that she wields a pen 
 Too sharply nibbed for thin-skinned men, 
 That her keen arrows search and try 
 The armor joints of dignity, 
 
94 LINES ON A FLY-LEAF. 
 
 And, though alone for error meant, 
 Sing through the air irreverent. 
 I blame her not, the young athlete 
 Who plants her woman's tiny feet, 
 And dares the chances of debate 
 Where bearded men might hesitate, 
 Who, deeply earnest, seeing well 
 The ludicrous and laughable, 
 Mingling in eloquent excess 
 Her anger and her tenderness, 
 And, chiding with a half-caress. 
 Strives, less for her own sex than ours, 
 With principalities and powers, 
 And points us upward to the clear 
 Sunned heights of her new atmosphere. 
 
 Heaven mend her faults ! — I will not pause 
 To weigh and doubt and peck at flaws, 
 
LINES ON A FLY-LEAF. 
 
 Or waste my pity when some fool 
 Provokes her measureless ridicule. 
 Strong-minded is she? Better so 
 Than dulness set for sale or show, 
 A household folly capped and belled 
 In fashion's dance of puppets held, 
 Or poor pretence of womanhood. 
 Whose formal, flavorless platitude 
 Is warranted from all offence 
 Of robust meaning's violence. 
 Give me the wine of thought whose bead 
 Sparkles along the page I read, 
 Electric words in which I find 
 
 The tonic of the northwest wind, 
 
 The wisdom which itself allies 
 
 To sweet and pure humanities, 
 
 Where scorn of meanness, hate of wrong. 
 
 Are underlaid by love as strong ; 
 
 95 
 
96 LINES ON A FLY-LEAF. 
 
 The genial play of mirth that lights 
 Grave themes of thought, as, when on nights 
 Of summer-time, the harmless blaze 
 Of thunderless heat-lightning plays, 
 And tree and hill-top resting dim 
 And doubtful on the sky's vague rim, 
 Touched by that soft and lambent gleam. 
 Start sharply outlined from their dream. 
 
 Talk not to me of woman's sphere. 
 Nor point with scripture texts a sneer, 
 Nor wrong the manliest saint of all 
 By doubt, if he were here, that Paul 
 Would own the heroines who have lent 
 Grace to truth's stern arbitrament. 
 Foregone the praise to woman sweet, 
 And cast their crowns at Duty's feet ; 
 Like her, who by her strong Appeal 
 
LINES ON A FLY-LEAF. 97 
 
 Made Fashion weep and Mammon feel, 
 
 Who, earliest summoned to withstand 
 
 The color-madness of the land, 
 
 Counted her life-long losses gain, 
 
 And made her own her sisters' pain ; 
 
 Or her, who in her greenwood shade, 
 
 Heard the sharp call that Freedom made, 
 
 And, answering, struck from Sappho's lyre 
 
 Of love the Tyrtaean carmen's fire ; 
 
 Or that young girl, — Domremy's maid 
 
 Revived a nobler cause to aid, — 
 
 Shaking from warning finger-tips 
 
 The doom of her apocalypse ; 
 
 Or her, who world-wide entrance gave 
 
 To the log-cabin of the slave. 
 
 Made all his want and sorrow known, 
 
 And all earth's languages his own. 
 
 3 ^* 
 
98 HYMN. 
 
 HYMN 
 
 FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN, 
 
 ERECTED IN MEMORY OF A MOTHER. 
 
 npHOU dwellest not, O Lord of all ! 
 In temples which thy children raise ; 
 Our work to thine is mean and small, 
 And brief to thy eternal days. 
 
 Forgive the weakness and the pride, 
 If marred thereby our gift may be, 
 
 For love, at least, has sanctified 
 The altar that we rear to thee. 
 
 The heart and not the hand has wrought 
 From sunken base to tower above 
 
HYMN. 99 
 
 The image of a tender thought, 
 The memory of a deathless love ! 
 
 And though should never sound of speech 
 
 Or organ echo from its wall, 
 Its stones would pious lessons teach. 
 
 Its shade in benedictions fall. 
 
 Here should the dove of peace be found, 
 And blessings and not curses given ; 
 
 Nor strife profane, nor hatred wound, 
 The mingled loves of earth and heaven. 
 
 Thou, who didst soothe with dying breath 
 The dear one watching by thy cross. 
 
 Forgetful of the pains of death 
 In sorrow for her mighty loss. 
 
I OO HYMN. 
 
 In memory of that tender claim, 
 O Mother-born, the offering take, 
 
 And make it worthy of thy name, 
 And bless it for a mother's sake ! 
 
 THE END 
 
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 lowing pages. 
 
 I 
 
THE ILL USTRA TED SNOW-BOUND, 
 
 WHITTIER'S SNOW-BOUND. With 40 Pictures by Harry 
 Fenn, engraved by Anthony and Linton, i vol. 8vo. Tinted paper, gilt 
 edges, and bevelled boards, with ornamental cover. Price, in Morocco Cloth, 
 $5.00; Turkey Morocco, $9.00. 
 
 The well-curb had a Chinese roof; 
 And even the long sweep high aloof 
 In its slant splendor seemed to tell 
 Of Pisa's leaning miracle." 
 
 Of the illustrations to this exquisite Winter Idyl Mr. Whittier says : " It gives me 
 pleasure to commend the illustrations which accompany this edition of Snow-Bound,' 
 for the faithfulne.ss with which they present the spirit and the details of the passages 
 and places that the artist has designed them to accompany." 
 
 " The illustrations and the poem fit together so perfectly, forming a beautiful and 
 harmonious whole, that one can hardly be said to have read ' Snow- Bound ' unless 
 he has read it in this edition." — New York Times. 
 
MAUD MULLER ILLUSTRATED, 
 
 WHITTIER'S MAUD MULLER. With 13 Illustrations drawn 
 by W. J. Hennessy, and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony and others. 
 
 This edition of one of the most charming and popular ballads in our language is 
 beautifull}' illustrated, elegantly printed on thick tinted paper, and bound in hand- 
 some morocco cloth with bevelled boards and gilt edges. 
 
 Price, 8vo, Cloth, gilt, ^3.50; Morocco Antique, ^7.00. 
 
 WHITTIERS NATIONAL LYRICS, 
 
 With Illustrations by various Artists. A charming Pocket Edition 
 of Whittier's most popular patriotic poems. Bound in Morocco Cloth, with 
 Portrait. Price, 5 i.oo. 
 
THE RED-LINE WHITTIER, 
 
 Illustrated with 12 full-page Pictures by various Artists. 
 
 KATHLEEN. 
 
 This first and only complete Illustrated Edition of Whittier ever published 
 contains all of Mr. Whittier's hitherto piibHshed Poems, is handsomely printed 
 on fine tinted paper, each page bordered with a red-ruled line, and is illustrated with 
 12 engravings by the best artists. It is a small quarto, uniform with the " Red-Line 
 Tennyson." 
 
 Price, in Cloth, $4.50; Half Calf, $6.00; Morocco, $8.00. 
 4 
 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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