SNOW-BOUND 
 
///// 
 
^tto\D-3Sottttti 
 
 AND OTHER AUTOBIOGRAPHIC POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1900 
 
XWO COPIES HECEIVKD, 
 
 Library of Cofigr^ti^ 
 OffiCQ of tli« 
 
 MAY 2 8 1900 
 
 SECOND OOP Y. ''^''^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 59128 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Editor's Notb t . . vii 
 
 Snow-Bound : A Winter Idyl . • . . .1 
 The Barefoot !Boy ....... 30 
 
 To MY Old Schoolmaster . . • . . .34 
 
 In School-Days 40 
 
 My Playmate 42 
 
 Memories 44 
 
 Telling the Bees . .... . . .48 
 
 Burns 50 
 
 To MY Sister . . . 55 
 
 Ichabod 66 
 
 The Lost Occasion 59 
 
 The Quaker of the Olden Time .... 62 
 
 The Meeting 63 
 
 Hampton Beach 71 
 
 A Sea Dream .74 
 
 Summer by the Lakeside 79 
 
 Sunset on the Bearcamp 83 
 
 The Last Walk in Autumn 86 
 
 An Out-Door Reception 95 
 
 The Tent on the Beach . . . . . 99 
 
 The Wreck of Rivermouth 108 
 
 The Grave by the Lake 114 
 
 The Brother of Mercy 126 
 
 The Changeling ....... 129 
 
 The Maids of Attitash ...... 134 
 
 Kallundborg Church 140 
 
 The Cable Hymn . . . . . . . 144 
 
 The Dead Ship of Harpswell , . . . 146 
 
 The Palatine . . 149 
 
 Abraham Davenport 154 
 
 The Worship of Nature . . . . . .158 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 Ego . . . / 160 
 
 My Psalm 166 
 
 Eesponse ; 169 
 
 At Last . . . . « . . . . . . 170 
 
 Notes . • . . • 173 
 
EDITORS NOTE 
 
 WHEN Mr. Whittier, a few years before his 
 death, supervised the definitive Riverside 
 edition of his Poems, he classified them under sev- 
 eral heads, among them being " Poems Subjective 
 and Reminiscent." In this group he placed " Snow- 
 Bound," "Memories," "Ego," "The Barefoot Boy," 
 "My Psalm," "In School-Days," "Response," "To 
 my Sister," and others which were now disclosures 
 of himself with the frankness of a Friend bearing 
 testimony, now vivid recollections of the early 
 years of his life ; for as with poets in general, 
 Memory often beckoned Imagination to come and 
 sit in the cool shade of youth. 
 
 Though this section of his Poems is thus pur- 
 posely autobiographic in character, all of the divi- 
 sions, " Personal," " Anti-Slavery," " Poems of Na- 
 ture," " Songs of Labor and Reform," " Religious 
 Poems," " Narrative and Legendary Poems," " Oc- 
 casional Poems," " At Sundown," are characterized 
 by that strong personal element which has en- 
 deared Whittier to readers because the man, genu- 
 inely humbly in spirit, was yet so at one with 
 God, nature, and humanity that he spoke and sang 
 clearly in his own voice, never in falsetto, always 
 as one upon whom as on an instrument the spirit 
 of truth played from the lowest note to the top of 
 his compass. 
 
viii EDITOR^S NOTE 
 
 Never was a poet so frank and so entirely void 
 of self-conceit. If sometimes he rambled on in 
 verse about the thoughts and feelings over which 
 he brooded till one wondered that he should find 
 himself so interesting, there never was a note of 
 vanity or even of the pride of humility. The f orth- 
 rightness of his song might sometimes be careless, 
 perhaps garrulous in form, but it was always genu- 
 ine and not assumed ; certainly it was the farthest 
 removed from dramatic concealment. These quali- 
 ties make the man himself so evident in his verse 
 that it is doubtful if his biography will ever be 
 much read; his life is so much more vividly told 
 in his own poems than it ever could be by any 
 other narrator, even than it could have been by 
 himself in prose. Indeed, there is a curious cor- 
 roboration of this in Mr. Pickard's Life, There 
 the biographer has collected some of Mr. Whit- 
 tier's letters, and how bald, how dry are these ex- 
 pressions of himself beside the animated clear- 
 voiced and liquid notes of his song ! 
 
 The mere incidents of the poet's life, though he 
 lived in stirring times and was a most active instru- 
 ment in creating the stir, are devoid of dramatic 
 character. No wood-thrush could seem so con- 
 cealed from observation as this "wood-thrush of 
 Essex." The simple household life he led, under 
 conditions often of physical weakness, was in 
 strange contrast to the clarion bursts with which 
 in a spiritual sense he led forth the hosts to war. 
 No, one must look for the real Whittier not in the 
 annals of Amesbury, but in the poems which re- 
 
EDITOR'S NOTE ix 
 
 corded the life of a great spirit at once homely and 
 universal, sensitive to the lightest breath yet ani- 
 mated by heroic virtues, now domiciled by a coun- 
 try hearth, now at large by ocean and mountain or 
 fighting on foot in the ranks of the great army 
 engaged in the Holy War. 
 
 This volume is planned with the purpose of giv- 
 ing an outline, in Whittier's own most character- 
 istic verse, of the life of this truthful poet. An 
 outline only it can be, yet by means of it one may 
 trace in no uncertain phrase the New England 
 boy baptized by the spirit of the Society of Friends, 
 yet dominated by an imagination which made the 
 world glow for him in color and sing with a mel- 
 ody not to be drowned by the voices of wrath which 
 were rising all g^bout him. In " Snow-Bound " and 
 in "The Barefoot Boy" the very details of his 
 homely life are drawn with an accuracy rightly 
 called Flemish rather than pre-Raphaelite, because 
 of the rich human flavor attached to it. The 
 poems which follow touch upon deeper experiences, 
 scarcely uncovered except in verse, yet there almost 
 intimately revealed. In "Burns'* one may read 
 the poet's own confession of how the Scotch singer, 
 so akin to him in many ways, was the touchstone 
 by which he discovered the purity of the vein which 
 ran through his own formation. The two poems 
 on Webster are chosen out of all the number pro- 
 perly relating to the anti-slavery crusade, because 
 they combine in so emphatic a manner that stern 
 temper as of a Hebrew prophet with which Whittier 
 spoke his " Thus saith the Lord," and that utter 
 
X EDITOR'S NOTE 
 
 absence of vindictiveness which made him walk 
 unscathed in the midst of his own words of fire ; 
 because also they hint at that strong political tem- 
 per which gave the poet a singularly practical hold 
 upon the movements of his day. 
 
 It is not an abrupt passage from Whittier the 
 anti-slavery prophet to Whittier the Friend and 
 seer, and then in a group of half a dozen poems 
 one may catch some glimpse of that affectionate 
 knowledge of nature, bounded by the ocean on one 
 side and the mountains on the other, which shows, 
 almost more surely than any other phase of his 
 poetical spirit, the large, universal temper of a man 
 walking with the Lord God in the garden in the 
 cool of the day. But by a natural transition the 
 reader comes at once on this genuinely companion- 
 able being in happy converse with friends. In 
 actual life Whittier, shy and reserved, seemed to 
 meet others most frankly out of doors. " An Out- 
 door Reception " is almost a chronicle of the many 
 picnics in which he engaged, but the mosaic " The 
 Tent on the Beach " is as characteristic a picture 
 of the man Whittier in the midst of his congenial 
 companions, as " Snow-Bound " is of the boy in the 
 seclusion of home. " The Tent on the Beach," 
 moreover, offers a happy illustration of the story- 
 telling faculty which was native to the poet, and 
 has made him on the whole the nearest to the 
 primitive ballad singer of any of our poets. 
 
 And so finally we may listen to the poet by him- 
 self in those reflective verses, mellow with an age 
 calm and cheerful, that sing his serene creed and 
 
EDITOR'S NOTE xi 
 
 show most directly and simply his place in the 
 choir invisible. It would be easy to fill out this 
 outline at almost every point, but outline though 
 it is, here is a picture drawn by himself of the 
 most human and artless and yet self-informed of 
 our poets. 
 
 The head-notes to the poems are those prefixed 
 by the poet himself when collecting the Riverside 
 edition, and transferred by the editor, with occa- 
 sional slight enlargement or modification, when 
 preparing the Cambridge edition. 
 
 H. E. S. 
 
 Chocorua, August 28, 1899. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 THE inmates of the family at the Whittier 
 homestead who are referred to in the poem 
 were my father, mother, my brother and two 
 sisters, and my uncle and aunt, both unmarried. 
 In addition, there was the district school master, 
 who boarded with us. The " not unfeared, half- 
 welcome guest " was Harriet Livermore, daughter 
 of Judge Livermore, of New Hampshire, a young 
 woman of fine natural ability, enthusiastic, eccen- 
 tric, with slight control over her violent temper, 
 which sometimes made her religious profession 
 doubtful. She was equally ready to exhort in 
 school-house prayer-meetings and dance in a Wash- 
 ington ball-room, while her father was a member 
 of Congress. She early embraced the doctrine of 
 the Second Advent, and felt it her duty to proclaim 
 the Lord's speedy coming. With this message she 
 crossed the Atlantic and spent the greater part of 
 a long life in travelling over Europe and Asia. 
 She lived some time with Lady Hester Stanhope, a 
 woman as fantastic and mentally strained as her- 
 seK, on the slope of Mt. Lebanon, but finally quar- 
 relled with her in regard to two white horses with 
 red marks on their backs which suggested the idea 
 of saddles, on which her titled hostess expected to 
 ride into Jerusalem with the Lord. A friend of 
 
2 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 mine found her, when quite an old woman, wan- 
 dering in Syria with a tribe of Arabs, who with 
 the Oriental notion that madness is inspiration, 
 accepted her as their prophetess and leader. At 
 the time referred to in Snow-Bound she was board- 
 ing at the Rocks Village, about two miles from us. 
 In my boyhood, in our lonely farm-house, we 
 had scanty sources of information ; few books and 
 only a small weekly newspaper. Our only annual 
 was the Almanac. Under such circumstances 
 story-telling was a necessary resource in the long 
 winter evenings. My father when a young man 
 had traversed the wilderness to Canada, and could 
 tell us of his adventures with Indians and wild 
 beasts, and of his sojourn in the French villages. 
 My uncle was ready with his record of hunting 
 and fishing and, it must be confessed, with sto- 
 ries which he at least half believed, of witchcraft 
 and apparitions. My mother, who was born in 
 the Indian-haunted region of Somersworth, New 
 Hampshire, between Dover and Portsmouth, told 
 us of the inroads of the savages, and the narrow 
 escape of her ancestors. She described strange peo- 
 ple who lived on the Piscataqua and Cocheco, 
 among whom was Bantam, the sorcerer. I have 
 in my possession the wizard's " conjuring book," 
 which he solemnly opened when consulted. It is 
 a copy of Cornelius Agrippa's Magic, printed in 
 1651, dedicated to Dr. Robert Child, who, like Mi- 
 chael Scott, had learned 
 
 "the art of glammorie 
 In Padua beyond the sea," 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 3 
 
 and who is famous in the annals of Massachusetts, 
 where he was at one time a resident, as the first 
 man who dared petition the General Court for lib- 
 erty of conscience. The full title of the book is 
 Three Books of Occult Philosophy, by Henry Cor- 
 nelius Agrippa, Knight, Doctor of both Laws, Coun- 
 sellor to Ccesar's Sacred Majesty and Judge of the 
 Prerogative Court, 
 
SNOW-BOUND 
 
 A WINTEB. IDYL 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF THE HOUSEHOLD IT DE- 
 SCRIBES 
 
 THIS POEM IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 "As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so 
 Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not 
 only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common 
 Wood Fire : and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark 
 spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same." — 
 Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy^ Book I. ch. v. 
 
 " Announced by all the trumpets of the sky. 
 Arrives the snow, and, driving o*er the fields, 
 Seems nowhere to alight : the whited air 
 Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, 
 And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
 The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
 Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
 Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
 In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 
 
 Emerson, The Snow Storm, 
 
 THE sun that brief December day 
 Eose cheerless over hills of gray. 
 And, darkly circled, gave at noon 
 A sadder light than waning moon. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 
 
 Slow tracing down the thickening sky 
 
 Its mute and ominous prophecy, 
 
 A portent seeming less than threat^ 
 
 It sank from sight before it set. 
 
 A chill no coat, however stout. 
 
 Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, 
 
 A hard, dull bitterness of cold. 
 
 That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 
 
 Of life-blood in the sharpened face. 
 
 The coming of the snow-storm told. 
 
 The wind blew east ; we heard the roar 
 
 Of Ocean on his wintry shore. 
 
 And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 
 
 Beat with low rhythm our i^iland air. \.- 
 
 Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, — 
 Brought in the wood from out of doors, 
 Littered the stalls, and from the mows 
 Baked down the herd's-grass for the cows : 
 Heard the horse whinnying for his corn ; 
 And, sharply clashing horn on horn, 
 Impatient down the stanchion rows 
 The cattle shake their walnut bows ; 
 While, peering from his early perch 
 Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, 
 The cock his crested helmet bent 
 And down his querulous challenge sent. 
 
 Unwarmed by any sunset light 
 The gray day darkened into night, 
 A night made hoary with the swarm 
 And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 
 
SNOW-BOUND 7 
 
 As zigzag, wavering to and fro, 
 
 Crossed and recrossed the winged snow : 
 
 And ere the early bedtime came 
 
 The white drift piled the window-frame, 
 
 And through the glass the clothes-line posts 
 
 Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 
 
 So all night long the storm roared on : 
 
 The morning broke without a sun ; 
 
 In tiny spherule traced with lines 
 
 Of Nature's geometric signs, 
 
 In starry flake, and pellicle. 
 
 All day the hoary meteor fell ; 
 
 And, when the second morning shone, 
 
 We looked upon a world unknown. 
 
 On nothing we could call our own. 
 
 Around the glistening wonder bent 
 
 The blue walls of the firmament, 
 
 No cloud above, no earth below, — 
 
 A universe of sky and snow ! 
 
 The old familiar sights of ours 
 
 Took marvellous shapes ; strange domes and 
 
 towers 
 Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, 
 Or garden-wall, or belt of wood ; 
 A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, 
 A fenceless drift what once was road ; 
 The bridle-post an old man sat 
 With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat ; 
 The well-curb had a Chinese roof ; 
 And even the long sweep, high aloof, 
 In its slant splendor, seemed to tell 
 Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 
 
 A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
 Our father wasted : " Boys, a path ! " 
 Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy 
 Count such a summons less than joy ?) 
 Our buskins on our feet we drew ; 
 With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, 
 To guard our necks and ears from snow, 
 We cut the solid whiteness through. 
 And, where the drift was deepest, made 
 A tunnel walled and overlaid 
 With dazzling crystal : we had read 
 Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, 
 And to our own his name we gave. 
 With many a wish the luck were ours 
 To test his lamp's supernal powers. 
 We reached the barn with merry din, 
 And roused the prisoned brutes within. 
 The old horse thrust his long head outf 
 And grave with wonder gazed about ; 
 The cock his lusty greeting said. 
 And forth his speckled harem led ; 
 The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked. 
 And mild reproach of hunger looked ; 
 The horned patriarch of the sheep. 
 Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, 
 Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 
 And emphasized with stamp of foot. 
 
 All day the gusty north-wind bore 
 The loosening drift its breath before ; 
 Low circling round its southern zone. 
 The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 
 
 No church-bell lent its Christian tone 
 To the savage air, no social smoke 
 Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. 
 A solitude made more intense 
 By dreary-voiced elements, 
 The shrieking of the mindless wind, 
 The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, 
 And on the glass the unmeaning beat 
 Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. 
 Beyond the circle of our hearth 
 No welcome sound of toil or mirth 
 Unbound the spell, and testified 
 Of human life and thought outside. 
 We minded that the sharpest ear 
 The buried brooklet could not hear, 
 The music of whose liquid lip 
 Had been to us companionship, 
 And, in our lonely life, had grown 
 To have an almost human tone. 
 
 As night drew on, and, from the crest 
 Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, 
 The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 
 From sight beneath the smothering bank, 
 We piled, with care, our nightly stack 
 Of wood against the chimney-back, — 
 The oaken log, green, huge, and thick. 
 And on its top the stout back-stick ; 
 The knotty f orestick laid apart. 
 And filled between with curious art 
 The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, 
 We watched the first red blaze appear, 
 
10 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
 On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
 Until the old, rude-furnished room 
 Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom ; 
 While radiant with a mimic flame 
 Outside the sparkling drift became. 
 And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 
 Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 
 The crane and pendent trammels showed. 
 The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed ; 
 While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
 The meaning of the miracle, 
 Whispered the old rhyme : " Under the tree, 
 Whenjire outdoor burns merrily, | 
 
 There the witches are making tea,'* ' 
 
 The moon above the eastern wood 
 Shone at its full ; the hill-range stood 
 Transfigured in the silver flood, 
 Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 
 Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 
 Took shadow, or the sombre green 
 Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 
 Against the whiteness at their back. 
 For such a world and such a night 
 Most fitting that unwarming light, 
 Which only seemed where'er it fell 
 To make the coldness visible. 
 
 Shut in from all the world without. 
 We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
 Content to let the north-wind roar 
 In bafiled rage at pane and door, 
 
SNOW-BOUND 11 
 
 While the red logs before us beat 
 
 The frost-line back with tropic heat; 
 
 And ever, when a louder blast 
 
 Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
 
 The merrier up its roaring draught 
 
 The great throat of the chimney laughed ; 
 
 The house-dog on his paws outspread 
 
 Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 
 
 The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
 
 A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
 
 And, for the winter fireside meet. 
 
 Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
 
 The mug of cider simmered slow, 
 
 The apples sputtered in a row, 
 
 And, close at hand, the basket stood 
 
 With nuts from brown October's wood. I I b 
 
 What matter how the night behaved? 
 What matter how the north-wind raved ? 
 Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
 Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 
 /^ Time and Change ! — with hair as gray 
 As was my sire's that winter day, 
 How strange it seems, with so much gone 
 Of life and love, to still live on ! 
 Ah, brother ! only I and thou 
 Are left of all that circle now, — 
 The dear home faces whereupon 
 That fitful firelight paled and shone. 
 Henceforward, listen as we will, 
 The voices of that hearth are still ; 
 Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, 
 Those lighted faces smile no more. 
 
12 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 We tread the paths their feet have worn, 
 We sit beneath their orchard trees, 
 We hear, like them, the hum of bees 
 And rustle of the bladed corn ; 
 We turn the pages that they read, 
 
 Their written words we linger o'er, 
 But in the sun they cast no shade, 
 No voice is heard, no sign is made, 
 No step is on the conscious floor ! 
 Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, 
 (Since He who knows our need is just,) 
 That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
 Alas for him who never sees 
 The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 
 Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 
 Nor looks to see the breaking day 
 Across the mournful marbles play ! 
 Who hath not learned, in hours of faith. 
 The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 
 That Life is ever lord of Death, 
 And Love can never lose its own ! 
 
 We sped the time with stories old, 
 Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told, 
 Or stammered from our school-book lore 
 
 " The Chief of Gambia's golden shore/' 
 How often since, when all the land 
 Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand. 
 As if a far-blown trumpet stirred 
 The languorous sin-sick air, I heard : 
 
 " Does not the voice of reason cry, 
 
 Claim thejirst right which Nature gave. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 13 
 
 From the red scourge of bondage fly, 
 
 Nor deign to live a burdened slave ! " 
 Our father rode again his ride 
 On Memphremagog's wooded side ; 
 Sat down again to moose and samp 
 In trapper's hut and Indian camp ; 
 Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 
 Beneath St. rran9ois' hemlock-fcrees ; 
 Again for him the moonlight shone 
 On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; 
 Again he heard the violin play 
 Which led the village dance away. 
 And mingled in its merry whirl 
 The grandam and the laughing girl. 
 Or, nearer home, our steps he led 
 Where Salisbury's level marshes spread ' 
 
 Mile-wide as flies the laden bee ; 
 Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 
 Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 
 
 The low green prairies of the sea. 
 We shared the fishing o:ff Boar's Head, 
 And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 
 The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals ; 
 The chowder on the sand-beach made, 
 Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot. 
 With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 
 We heard the tales of witchcraft old, 
 And dream and sign and marvel told 
 To sleepy listeners as they lay 
 Stretched idly on the salted hay. 
 Adrift along the winding shores. 
 When favoring breezes deigned to blow 
 
14 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 The square sail of the gundelow 
 And idle lay the useless oars. 
 
 Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
 Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, 
 Told how the Indian hordes came down 
 At midnight on Cocheco town. 
 And how her own great-uncle bore 
 His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 
 Recalling, in her fitting phrase, 
 So rich and picturesque and free, 
 (The common unrhymed poetry 
 Of simple life and country ways,) 
 The story of her early days, — 
 She made us welcome to her home ; 
 Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; 
 We stole with her a frightened look 
 At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 
 The fame whereof went far and wide 
 Through all the simple country side ; 
 We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
 The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 
 The loon's weird laughter far away ; 
 We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
 What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
 What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
 She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down. 
 Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 
 The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, 
 And heard the wild-geese calling loud 
 Beneath the gray November cloud. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 15 
 
 Then, haply, with a look more grave, 
 And soberer tone, some tale she gave 
 From painful Sewel's ancient tome, 
 Beloved in every Quaker home. 
 Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom. 
 Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — 
 Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — 
 Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, 
 And water-butt and bread-cask failed. 
 And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 
 His portly presence mad for food. 
 With dark hints muttered under breath 
 Of casting lots for life or death. 
 Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, 
 To be himself the sacrifice. 
 Then, suddenly, as if to save 
 The good man from his living grave, 
 A ripple on the water grew, 
 A school of porpoise flashed in view. 
 " Take, eat," he said, " and be content; 
 These fishes in my stead are sent 
 By Him who gave the tangled ram 
 To spare the child of Abraham/' 
 
 Our uncle, innocent of books, 
 Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, 
 The ancient teachers never dumb 
 Of nature^s unhoused lyceum. 
 In moons and tides and weather wise, 
 He read the clouds as prophecies. 
 And foul or fair could well divine, 
 By many an occult hint and sign, 
 
16 SNOW-BOUNB 
 
 Holding the cunning-warded keys 
 
 To all the woodcraft mysteries ; 
 
 Himself to IN'ature's heart so near 
 
 That all her voices in his ear 
 
 Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 
 
 Like Apollonius of old, 
 
 Who knew the tales the sparrows told, 
 
 Or Hermes who interpreted 
 
 What the sage cranes of Mlus said ; 
 
 A simple, guileless, childlike man. 
 
 Content to live where life began ; 
 
 Strong only on his native grounds. 
 
 The little world of sights and sounds 
 
 Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 
 
 Whereof his fondly partial pride 
 
 The common features magnified. 
 
 As Surrey hills to mountains grew 
 
 In White of Selborne's loving view, — 
 
 He told how teal and loon he shot, 
 
 And how the eagle's eggs he got. 
 
 The feats on pond and river done, 
 
 The prodigies of rod and gun ; 
 
 Till, warming with the tales he told, 
 
 Forgotten was the outside cold. 
 
 The bitter wind unheeded blew. 
 
 From ripening corn the pigeons flew, 
 
 The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 
 
 Went fishing down the river-brink. 
 
 In fields with bean or clover gay. 
 
 The woodchuck, like a hermit gray. 
 
 Peered from the doorway of his cell ; 
 The muskrat plied the mason's trade, 
 
SNOW-BOUND 17 
 
 And tier by tier his mud-walls laid ; 
 And from the shagbark overhead 
 
 The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 
 
 Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 
 And voice in dreams I see and hear, — 
 The sweetest woman ever Fate 
 Perverse denied a household mate. 
 Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
 Found peace in lovers unselfishness. 
 And welcome wheresoever she went, 
 A calm and gracious element. 
 Whose presence seemed the sweet income 
 And womanly atmosphere of home, — 
 Called up her girlhood memories. 
 The huskings and the apple-bees. 
 The sleigh-rides and the summer sails. 
 Weaving through all the poor details 
 And homespun warp of circumstance 
 A golden woof-thread of romance. 
 For well she kept her genial mood 
 And simple faith of maidenhood ; 
 Before her still a cloud-land lay, 
 The mirage loomed across her way ; 
 The morning dew, that dries so soon 
 With others, glistened at her noon ; 
 Through years of toil and soil and care. 
 From glossy tress to thin gray hair. 
 All unprof aned she held apart 
 The virgin fancies of the heart. 
 Be shame to him of woman born 
 Who hath for such but thought of scorn. 
 
18 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 There, too, our elder sister plied 
 Her evening task the stand beside ; 
 A full, rich nature, free to trust, 
 Truthful and almost sternly just, 
 Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act. 
 And make her generous thought a fact, 
 Keeping with many a light disguise 
 The secret of self-sacrifice. 
 O heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best 
 That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, 
 Rest from all bitter thoughts and things ! 
 How many a poor one's blessing went 
 With thee beneath the low green tent 
 Whose curtain never outward swings 1 
 
 As one who held herself a part 
 Of all she saw, and let her heart 
 
 Against the household bosom lean, 
 Upon the motley-braided mat 
 Our youngest and our dearest sat. 
 Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 
 
 Now bathed in the unfading green 
 And holy peace of Paradise. 
 Oh, looking from some heavenly hill. 
 
 Or from the shade of saintly palms, 
 
 Or silver reach of river calms. 
 Do those large eyes behold me still ? 
 With me one little year ago : — 
 The chill weight of the winter snow 
 
 For months upon her grave has lain ; 
 And now, when summer south-winds blow 
 
 And brier and harebell bloom again, 
 
SNOW-BOUND 19 
 
 I tread the pleasant paths we trod, 
 
 I see the violet-sprinkled sod 
 
 Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 
 
 The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 
 
 Yet following me where'er I went 
 
 With dark eyes full of love's content. 
 
 The birds are glad ; the brier-rose fills 
 
 The air with sweetness ; all the hills 
 
 Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; 
 
 But still I wait with ear and eye 
 
 For something gone which should be nigh, 
 
 A loss in all familiar things, 
 
 In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. 
 
 And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, 
 
 Am I not richer than of old ? 
 Safe in thy immortality. 
 
 What change can reach the wealth I hold ? 
 
 What chance can mar the pearl and gold 
 Thy love hath left in trust with me ? 
 And while in life's late afternoon. 
 
 Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
 I walk to meet the night that soon 
 
 Shall shape and shadow overflow, 
 I cannot feel that thou art far. 
 Since near at need the angels are ; 
 And when the sunset gates unbar, 
 
 Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 
 And, white against the evening star. 
 The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 
 
 Brisk wielder of the birch and rule. 
 The master of the district school 
 
20 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 Held at the fire his favored place ; 
 
 Its warm glow lit a laughing face 
 
 Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 
 
 The uncertain prophecy of beard. 
 
 He teased the mitten-blinded cat, 
 
 Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 
 
 Sang songs, and told us what befalls 
 
 In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 
 
 Born the wild Northern hills among, 
 
 From whence his yeoman father wrung 
 
 By patient toil subsistence scant, 
 
 Not competence and yet not want, 
 
 He early gained the power to pay 
 
 His cheerful, self-reliant way ; 
 
 Could do:ff at ease his scholar's gown 
 
 To peddle wares from town to town ; 
 
 Or through the long vacation's reach 
 
 In lonely lowland districts teach, 
 
 Where all the droll experience found 
 
 At stranger hearths in boarding round. 
 
 The moonlit skater's keen delight, 
 
 The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, 
 
 The rustic-party, with its rough 
 
 Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff. 
 
 And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid, 
 
 His winter task a pastime made. 
 
 Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 
 
 He tuned his merry violin. 
 
 Or played the athlete in the barn, 
 
 Or held the good dame's winding-yarn. 
 
 Or mirth-provoking versions told 
 
 Of classic legends rare and old, 
 
SNOW-BOUND 21 
 
 Wherein the scenes of Greece and Eome 
 Had all the commonplace of home, 
 And little seemed at best the odds 
 'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; 
 Where Pindus-born Arachthus took 
 The guise of any grist-mill brook, 
 And dread Olympus at his will 
 Became a huckleberry hill. 
 
 A careless boy that night he seemed ; 
 
 But at his desk he had the look 
 And air of one who wisely schemed. 
 And hostage from the future took 
 In trained thought and lore of book. 
 Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he 
 Shall Freedom's young apostles be. 
 Who, following in War's bloody trail, 
 Shall every lingering wrong assail ; 
 All chains from limb and spirit strike, 
 Uplift the black and white alike ; 
 Scatter before their swift advance 
 The darkness and the ignorance. 
 The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth. 
 Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, 
 Made murder pastime, and the hell 
 Of prison-torture possible ; 
 The cruel lie of caste refute. 
 Old forms remould, and substitute 
 For Slavery's lash the freeman's will. 
 For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; 
 A school-house plant on every hill. 
 Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 
 The quick wires of intelligence ; 
 
22 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 Till North and South together brought 
 Shall own the same electric thought, 
 In peace a common flag salute, 
 And, side by side in labor's free 
 And unresentf ul rivalry. 
 Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 
 
 Another guest that winter night 
 
 Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. 
 
 Unmarked by time, and yet not young. 
 
 The honeyed music of her tongue 
 
 And words of meekness scarcely told 
 
 A nature passionate and bold. 
 
 Strong, self -concentred, spurning guide, 
 
 Its milder features dwarfed beside 
 
 Her unbent will's majestic pride. 
 
 She sat among us, at the best, 
 
 A not unf eared, half -welcome guest, 
 
 Kebuking with her cultured phrase 
 
 Our homeliness of words and ways. 
 
 A certain pard-like, treacherous grace 
 
 Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash, 
 
 Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash ; 
 
 And under low brows, black with night. 
 
 Rayed out at times a dangerous light ; 
 
 The sharp heat-lightnings of her face 
 
 Presaging ill to him whom Fate 
 
 Condemned to share her love or hate. 
 
 A woman tropical, intense 
 
 In thought and act, in soul and sense, 
 
 She blended in a like degree 
 
 The vixen and the devotee. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 23 
 
 Revealing with each freak or feint 
 The temper of Petruchio's Kate, 
 The raptures of Siena's saint. 
 Her tapering hand and rounded wrist 
 Had facile power to form a fist ; 
 The warm, dark languish of her eyes 
 Was never safe from wrath's surprise. 
 Brows saintly calm and lips devout 
 Knew every change of scowl and pout; 
 And the sweet voice had notes more high 
 And shrill for social battle-cry. 
 
 Since then what old cathedral town 
 
 Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 
 
 What convent-gate has held its lock 
 
 Against the challenge of her knock ! 
 
 Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares, 
 
 Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, 
 
 Gray olive slopes of hills that hem 
 
 Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, 
 
 Or startling on her desert throne 
 
 The crazy Queen of Lebanon 
 
 With claims fantastic as her own, 
 
 Her tireless feet have held their way ; 
 
 And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, 
 
 She watches under Eastern skies, 
 With hope each day renewed and fresh. 
 The Lord's quick coming in the flesh. 
 
 Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! 
 
 Where'er her troubled path may be, 
 The Lord's sweet pity with her go 1 
 
24 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 The outward wayward life we see, 
 
 The hidden springs we may not know. 
 Nor is it given us to discern 
 
 What threads the fatal sisters spun, 
 
 Through what ancestral years has run 
 The sorrow with the woman born, 
 What forged her cruel chain of moods, 
 What set her feet in solitudes 
 
 And held the love within her mute, 
 What mingled madness in the blood, 
 
 A life-long discord and annoy. 
 
 Water of tears with oil of joy. 
 And hid within the folded bud 
 
 Perversities of flower and fruit. 
 It is not ours to separate 
 
 The tangled skein of will and fate, 
 To show what metes and bounds should stand 
 Upon the soul's debatable land, 
 And between choice and Providence 
 Divide the circle of events ; 
 But He who knows our frame is just, 
 Merciful and compassionate, 
 And full of sweet assurances 
 And hope for all the language is, 
 That He remembereth we are dust ! 
 
 At last the great logs, crumbling low, 
 Sent out a dull and duller glow. 
 The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, 
 Ticking its weary circuit through. 
 Pointed with mutely warning sign 
 Its black hand to the hour of nine. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 25 
 
 That sign the pleasant circle broke : 
 My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 
 Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, 
 X And laid it tenderly away ; 
 Then roused himself to safely cover 
 The dull red brands with ashes over. 
 And while, with care, our mother laid 
 The work aside, her steps she stayed 
 One moment, seeking to express 
 Her grateful sense of happiness 
 For food and shelter, warmth and health, 
 And love's contentment more than wealth, 
 With simple wishes (not the weak, 
 Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek. 
 But such as warm the generous heart, 
 O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) 
 That none might lack, that bitter night. 
 For bread and clothing, warmth and light. 
 
 Within our beds awhile we heard 
 The wind that round the gables roared, 
 With now and then a ruder shock. 
 Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
 We heard the loosened clapboards tost. 
 The board-nails snapping in the frost ; 
 And on us, through the unplastered wall, 
 Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 
 But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 
 When hearts are light and life is new ; 
 Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, 
 Till in the summer-land of dreams 
 They softened to the sound of streams. 
 
26 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, 
 And lapsing waves on quiet shores. 
 
 Next morn we wakened with the shout 
 Of merry voices high and clear ; 
 And saw the teamsters drawing near 
 To break the drifted highways out. 
 Down the long hillside treading slow 
 We saw the half-buried oxen go, 
 Shaking the snow from heads uptost, 
 Their straining nostrils white with frost. 
 Before our door the straggling train 
 Drew up, an added team to gain. 
 The elders threshed their hands a-cold, 
 Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 
 From lip to lip ; the younger folks 
 Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, 
 Then toiled again the cavalcade 
 
 O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, 
 And woodland paths that wound between 
 Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. 
 From every barn a team afoot. 
 At every house a new recruit. 
 Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, 
 Haply the watchful young men saw 
 Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 
 And curious eyes of merry girls. 
 Lifting their hands in mock defence 
 Against the snow-ball's compliments. 
 And reading in each missive tost 
 The charm with Eden never lost. 
 
SNOW-BOUND 27 
 
 We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound ; 
 
 And, following where the teamsters led, 
 The wise old Doctor went his round, 
 Just pausing at our door to say. 
 In the brief autocratic way 
 Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, 
 Was free to urge her claim on all, 
 
 That some poor neighbor sick abed 
 At night our mother's aid would, need. 
 For, one in generous thought and deed, 
 
 What mattered in the sufferer's sight. 
 
 The Quaker matron's inward light. 
 The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? 
 All hearts confess the saints elect 
 
 Who, twain in faith, in love agree. 
 And melt not in an acid sect 
 
 The Christian pearl of charity ! 
 
 So days went on : a week had passed 
 
 Since the great world was heard from last. 
 
 The Almanac we studied o'er, 
 
 Read and reread our little store 
 
 Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; 
 
 One harmless novel, mostly hid 
 
 From younger eyes, a book forbid. 
 
 And poetry, (or good or bad, 
 
 A single book was all we had,) 
 
 Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, 
 A stranger to the heathen Nine, 
 Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, 
 
 The wars of David and the Jews. 
 
 At last the floundering carrier bore 
 
 The village paper to our door. 
 
28 SNOW-BOUND 
 
 Lo ! broadening outward as we read, 
 To warmer zones the horizon spread; 
 In panoramic length unrolled 
 We saw the marvels that it told. 
 Before us passed the painted Creeks, 
 
 And daft McGregor on his raids 
 
 In Costa Rica's everglades. 
 And up Taygetos winding slow 
 Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, 
 A Turk's head at each saddle-bow I 
 Welcome to us its week-old news, 
 Its corner for the rustic Muse, 
 
 Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, 
 Its record, mingling in a breath 
 The wedding bell and dirge of death : 
 Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, 
 The latest culprit sent to jail ; 
 Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, 
 Its vendue sales and goods at cost. 
 
 And traffic calling loud for gain. 
 We felt the stir of hall and street, 
 The pulse of life that round us beat ; 
 The chill embargo of the snow 
 Was melted in the genial glow ; 
 Wide swung again our ice-locked door, 
 And all the world was ours once more I 
 
 Clasp, Angel of the backward look 
 And folded wings of ashen gray 
 And voice of echoes far away. 
 
 The brazen covers of thy book ; 
 
 The weird palimpsest old and vast, 
 
SNOW-BOUND 29 
 
 Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past ; 
 Where, closely mingling, pale and glow 
 The characters of joy and woe ; 
 The monographs of outlived years, 
 Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, 
 
 Green hills of life that slope to death, 
 And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees 
 Shade off to mournful cypresses 
 
 With the white amaranths underneath. 
 Even while I look, I can but heed 
 
 The restless sands' incessant fall. 
 Importunate hours that hours succeed. 
 Each clamorous with its own sharp need, 
 
 And duty keeping pace with all. 
 Shut down and clasp the heavy lids ; 
 I hear again the voice that bids 
 The dreamer leave his dream midway 
 For larger hopes and graver fears : 
 Life greatens in these later years, 
 The century's aloe flowers to-day ! 
 
 Yet, haply, in some lull of life. 
 
 Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, 
 
 The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, 
 
 Dreaming in throngful city ways 
 Of winter joys his boyhood knew ; 
 And dear and early friends — the few 
 Who yet remain — shall pause to view 
 
 These Flemish pictures of old days ; 
 Sit with me by the homestead hearth. 
 And stretch the hands of memory forth 
 To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze 1 
 
30 THE BAREFOOT BOY 
 
 And thanks untraced to lips unknown 
 Shall greet me like the odors blown 
 From unseen meadows newly mown, 
 Or lilies floating in some pond, 
 Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond ; 
 The traveller owns the grateful sense 
 Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, 
 And, pausing, takes with forehead bare 
 The benediction of the air. 
 
 THE BAREFOOT BOY 
 
 BLESSINGS on thee, little man, 
 Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan 1 
 With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
 And thy merry whistled tunes ; 
 With thy red lip, redder still 
 Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
 With the sunshine on thy face. 
 Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ; 
 From my heart I give thee joy, — 
 I was once a barefoot boy I 
 Prince thou art, — the grown-up man 
 Only is republican. 
 Let the million-doUared ride ! 
 Barefoot, trudging at his side, 
 Thou hast more than he can buy 
 In the reach of ear and eye, — 
 Outward sunshine, inward joy : 
 Blessings on thee, barefoot boy 1 
 
THE BAREFOOT BOY 31 
 
 Oh for boyhood's painless play, 
 Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 
 Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
 Knowledge never learned of schools, 
 Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
 Of the wild-flower's time and place, 
 Flight of fowl and habitude 
 Of the tenants of the wood ; 
 How the tortoise bears his shell. 
 How the woodchuck digs his cell. 
 And the ground-mole sinks his well ; 
 How the robin feeds her young. 
 How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
 Where the whitest lilies blow. 
 Where the freshest berries grow. 
 Where the ground-nut trails its vine. 
 Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; 
 Of the black wasp's cunning way, 
 Mason of his walls of clay. 
 And the architectural plans 
 Of gray hornet artisans ! 
 For, eschewing books and tasks, 
 Nature answers all he asks ; 
 Hand in hand with her he walks, 
 Face to face with her he talks, 
 Part and parcel of her joy, — 
 Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 
 
 Oh for boyhood's time of June, 
 Crowding years in one brief moon, 
 When all things I heard or saw, 
 Me, th^ir master, waited for. 
 
32 THE BAREFOOT BOY 
 
 I was rich in flowers and trees, 
 Humming-birds and honey-bees ; 
 For my sport the squirrel played, 
 Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 
 For my taste the blackberry cone 
 Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
 Laughed the brook for my delight 
 Through the day and through the night, 
 Whispering at the garden wall, 
 Talked with me from fall to fall ; 
 Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 
 Mine the walnut slopes beyond. 
 Mine, on bending orchard trees, 
 Apples of Hesperides ! 
 Still as my horizon grew. 
 Larger grew my riches too ; 
 All the world I saw or knew 
 Seemed a complex Chinese toy, 
 Fashioned for a barefoot boy I 
 
 Oh for festal dainties spread, 
 Like my bowl of milk and bread ; 
 Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, 
 On the door-stone, gray and rude ! 
 O'er me, like a regal tent. 
 Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent. 
 Purple-curtained, fringed with gold. 
 Looped in many a wind-swung fold ; 
 While for music came the play 
 Of the pied frogs' orchestra ; 
 And, to light the noisy choir, 
 Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
 
THE BAREFOOT BOY 33 
 
 I was monarch : pomp and joy 
 Waited on the barefoot boy 1 
 
 Cheerily, then, my little man, 
 Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! 
 Though the flinty slopes be hard, 
 Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, 
 Every morn shall lead thee through 
 Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
 Every evening from thy feet 
 Shall the cool wind kiss the heat : 
 All too soon these feet must hide 
 In the prison cells of pride, 
 Lose the freedom of the sod, 
 Like a colt's for work be shod, 
 Made to tread the mills of toil, 
 Up and down in ceaseless moil : 
 Happy if their track be found 
 Never on forbidden ground ; 
 Happy if they sink not in 
 Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
 Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy, 
 Ere it passes, barefoot boy I 
 
TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 AN EPISTLE NOT AFTER THE MANNER OP 
 HORACE 
 
 These lines were addressed to my worthy friend Joshua 
 Coffin, teacher, historian, and antiquarian. He was one 
 of the twelve persons who with William Lloyd Garrison 
 formed the first anti-slavery society in New England. 
 
 OLD friend, kind friend ! lightly down 
 Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown ! 
 Never be thy shadow less, 
 Never fail thy cheerfulness ; 
 Care, that kills the cat, may plough 
 Wrinkles in the miser's brow, 
 Deepen envy's spiteful frown, 
 Draw the mouths of bigots down, 
 Plague ambition's dream, and sit 
 Heavy on the hypocrite. 
 Haunt the rich man's door, and ride 
 In the gilded coach of pride ; — 
 Let the fiend pass ! — what can he 
 Find to do with such as thee ? 
 Seldom comes that evil guest 
 Where the conscience lies at rest. 
 And brown health and quiet wit 
 Smiling on the threshold sit. 
 
 I, the urchin unto whom. 
 In that smoked and dingy room, 
 Where the district gave thee rule 
 O'er its ragged winter school, 
 
TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER 35 
 
 Thou didst teach the mysteries 
 Of those weary A B C's, — 
 Where, to fill the every pause 
 Of thy wise and learned saws, 
 Through the cracked and crazy wall 
 Came the cradle-rock and squall. 
 And the goodman's voice, at strife 
 With his shrill and tipsy wife, — 
 Luring us by stories old, 
 With a comic unction told, 
 More than by the eloquence 
 Of terse birchen arguments 
 (Doubtful gain, I fear), to look 
 With complacence on a book ! — 
 Where the genial pedagogue 
 Half forgot his rogues to flog. 
 Citing tale or apologue. 
 Wise and merry in its drift 
 As was Phaedrus' twofold gift, 
 Had the little rebels known it, 
 Misum et prudentiam monet I 
 I, — the man of middle years, 
 In whose sable locks appears 
 Many a warning fleck of gray, — 
 Looking back to that far day. 
 And thy primal lessons, feel 
 Grateful smiles my lips unseal. 
 As, remembering thee, I blend 
 Olden teacher, present friend, 
 Wise with antiquarian search. 
 In the scrolls of State and Church : 
 Named on history's title-page. 
 Parish-clerk and justice sage ; 
 
36 TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 For tlie ferule's wholesome awe 
 Wielding now the sword of law. 
 
 Threshing Time's neglected sheaves, 
 Gathering up the scattered leaves 
 Which the wrinkled sibyl cast 
 Careless from her as she passed, — 
 Twofold citizen art thou, 
 Freeman of the past and now. 
 He who bore thy name of old 
 Midway in the heavens did hold 
 Over Gibeon moon and sun ; 
 Thou hast bidden them backward run ; 
 Of to-day the present ray 
 Flinging over yesterday ! 
 
 Let the busy ones deride 
 What I deem of right thy pride : 
 Let the fools their treadmills grind, 
 Look not forward nor behind. 
 Shuffle in and wriggle out, 
 Veer with every breeze about, 
 Turning like a windmill sail. 
 Or a dog that seeks his tail ; 
 Let them laugh to see thee fast 
 Tabernacled in the Past, 
 Working out with eye and lip 
 Riddles of old penmanship. 
 Patient as Belzoni there 
 Sorting out, with loving care, 
 Mummies of dead questions stripped 
 From their sevenfold manuscript ! 
 
TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER 37 
 
 Dabbling, in their noisy way, 
 
 In the puddles of to-day, 
 
 Little know they of that vast 
 
 Solemn ocean of the past, 
 
 On whose margin, wreck-bespread, 
 
 Thou art walking with the dead, 
 
 Questioning the stranded years. 
 
 Waking smiles by turns, and tears, 
 
 As thou callest up again 
 
 Shapes the dust has long overlain, — 
 
 Fair-haired woman, bearded man,, 
 
 Cavalier and Puritan ; 
 
 In an age whose eager view 
 
 Seeks but present things, and new, 
 
 Mad for party, sect and gold, 
 
 Teaching reverence for the old. 
 
 On that shore, with fowler's tact, 
 Coolly bagging fact on fact. 
 Naught amiss to thee can float. 
 Tale, or song, or anecdote ; 
 Village gossip, centuries old. 
 Scandals by our grandams told. 
 What the pilgrim's table spread. 
 Where he lived, and whom he wed. 
 Long-drawn bill of wine and beer 
 For his ordination cheer, 
 Or the flip that wellnigh made 
 Glad his funeral cavalcade ; 
 Weary prose, and poet's lines. 
 Flavored by their age, like wines, 
 Eulogistic of some quaint. 
 Doubtful, Puritanic saint ; 
 
38 TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 Lays that quickened husking jigs, 
 Jests that shook grave periwigs, 
 When the parson had his jokes 
 And his glass, like other folks ; 
 Sermons that, for mortal hours, 
 Taxed our fathers* vital powers. 
 As the long nineteenthlies poured 
 Downward from the sounding-board, 
 And, for fire of Pentecost, 
 Touched their beards December's frost. 
 
 Time is hastening on, and we 
 What our fathers are shall be, — 
 Shadow-shapes of memory ! 
 Joined to that vast multitude 
 Where the great are but the good, 
 And the mind of strength shall prove 
 Weaker than the heart of love ; 
 Pride of graybeard wisdom less 
 Than the infant's guilelessness, 
 And his song of sorrow more 
 Than the crown the Psalmist wore I 
 Who shall then, with pious zeal. 
 At our moss-grown thresholds kneel, 
 From a stained and stony page 
 Reading to a careless age. 
 With a patient eye like thine. 
 Prosing tale and limping line. 
 Names and words the hoary rime 
 Of the Past has made sublime ? 
 Who shall work for us as well 
 The antiquarian's miracle ? 
 
TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER 39 
 
 Who to seeming life recall 
 Teacher grave and pupil small ? 
 Who shall give to thee and me 
 Freeholds in futurity? 
 
 Well, whatever lot be mine, 
 Long and happy days be thine, 
 Ere thy full and honored age 
 Dates of time its latest page ! 
 Squire for master, State for school, 
 Wisely lenient, live and rule ; 
 Over grown-up knave and rogue 
 Play the watchful pedagogue ; 
 Or, while pleasure smiles on duty, 
 At the call of youth and beauty, 
 Speak for them the spell of law 
 Which shall bar and bolt withdraw, 
 And the flaming sword remove 
 From the Paradise of Love. 
 Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore 
 Ancient tome and record o'er ; 
 Still thy week-day lyrics croon, 
 Pitch in church the Sunday tune, 
 Showing something, in thy part. 
 Of the old Puritanic art. 
 Singer after Sternhold's heart 1 
 In thy pew, for many a year. 
 Homilies from Oldbug hear. 
 Who to wit like that of South, 
 And the Syrian's golden mouth. 
 Doth the homely pathos add 
 Which the pilgrim preachers had ; 
 
40 IN SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 Breaking, like a child at play, 
 Gilded idols of the day, 
 Cant of knave and pomp of fool 
 Tossing with his ridicule, 
 Yet, in earnest or in jest, 
 Ever keeping truth abreast. 
 And, when thou art called, at last, 
 To thy townsmen of the past, 
 "Not as stranger shalt thou come ; 
 Thou shalt find thyself at home 
 With the little and the big, 
 Woollen cap and periwig. 
 Madam in her high-laced rufp, 
 Goody in her home-made stuff, — 
 Wise and simple, rich and poor, 
 Thou hast known them all before ! 
 
 IN SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 STILL sits the school-house by the road, 
 A ragged beggar sleeping ; 
 Around it still the sumachs grow. 
 And blackberry-vines are creeping. 
 
 Within, the master's desk is seen, 
 Deep scarred by raps official ; 
 
 The warping floor, the battered seats. 
 The jack-knife's carved initial ; 
 
 The charcoal frescos on its wall ; 
 
 Its door's worn sill, betraying 
 The feet that, creeping slow to school, 
 
 Went storming out to playing ! 
 
m SCHOOL-DAYS 41 
 
 Long years ago a winter sun 
 
 Shone over it at setting ; 
 Lit up its western window-panes, 
 
 And low eaves' icy fretting. 
 
 It touched the tangled golden curls, 
 And brown eyes full of grieving, 
 
 Of one who still her steps delayed 
 When all the school were leaving. 
 
 For near her stood the little boy 
 
 Her childish favor singled : 
 His cap pulled low upon a face 
 
 Where pride and shame were mingled. 
 
 Pushing with restless feet the snow 
 To right and left, he lingered ; — 
 
 As restlessly her tiny hands 
 
 The blue-checked apron fingered. 
 
 He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 
 The soft hand's light caressing. 
 
 And heard the tremble of her voice, 
 As if a fault confessing. - 
 
 " I 'm sorry that I spelt the word : 
 I hate to go above you. 
 Because," — the brown eyes lower fell, — 
 " Because, you see, I love you ! " 
 
 Still memory to a gray-haired man 
 That sweet child-face is showing. 
 
42 MY PLAYMATE 
 
 Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 
 Have forty years been growing ! 
 
 He lives to learn, in life's hard school, 
 How few who pass above him 
 
 Lament their triumph and his loss, 
 Like her, — because they love him. 
 
 MY PLAYMATE 
 
 THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill, 
 Their song was soft and low ; 
 The blossoms in the sweet May wind 
 Were falling like the snow. 
 
 The blossoms drifted at our feet, 
 The orchard birds sang clear ; 
 
 The sweetest and the saddest day 
 It seemed of all the year. 
 
 For, more to me than birds or flowers, 
 My playmate left her home. 
 
 And took with her the laughing spring. 
 The music and the bloom. 
 
 She kissed the lips of kith and kin, 
 
 She laid her hand in mine : 
 What more could ask the bashful boy 
 
 Who fed her father's kine ? 
 
 She left us in the bloom of May; 
 The constant years told o'er 
 
MY PLAYMATE 43 
 
 Their seasons with as sweet May morns, 
 But she came back no more. 
 
 I walk, with noiseless feet, the round 
 
 Of uneventful years ; 
 Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring 
 
 And reap the autumn ears. 
 
 She lives where all the golden year 
 
 Her summer roses blow ; 
 The dusky children of the sun 
 
 Before her come and go. 
 
 There haply with her jewelled hands 
 She smooths her silken gown, — 
 
 No more the homespun lap wherein 
 I shook the walnuts down. 
 
 The wild grapes wait us by the brook, 
 
 The brown nuts on the hill. 
 And still the May-day flowers make sweet 
 
 The woods of FoUymill. 
 
 The lilies blossom in the pond, 
 
 The bird builds in the tree. 
 The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill 
 
 The slow song of the sea. 
 
 I wonder if she thinks of them, 
 
 And how the old time seems, — 
 If ever the pines of Ramoth wood 
 
 Are sounding in her dreams. 
 
44 MEMORIES 
 
 I see her face, I hear her voice ; 
 
 Does she remember mine ? 
 And what to her is now the boy 
 
 Who fed her f ather^s kine ? 
 
 What cares she that the orioles build 
 For other eyes than ours, — 
 
 That other hands with nuts are filled, 
 And other laps with flowers ? 
 
 O playmate in the golden time \ 
 
 Our mossy seat is green. 
 Its fringing violets blossom yet, 
 
 The old trees o'er it lean. 
 
 The winds so sweet with birch and fern 
 
 A sweeter memory blow ; 
 And there in spring the veeries sing 
 
 The song of long ago. 
 
 And still the pines of Ramoth wood 
 Are moaning like the sea, — 
 
 The moaning of the sea of change 
 Between myself and thee I 
 
 MEMORIES 
 
 "It was not without thought and deliberation, " Whittier's 
 biographer writes, " that in 1888 he directed this poem to be 
 placed at the head of his Poems Subjective and Reminiscent. 
 He had never before publicly acknowledged how much of 
 his heart was wrapped up in this delightful play of poetic 
 
MEMORIES 45 
 
 fancy. The poem was written in 1841, and although the 
 romance it embalms lies far back of this date, possibly there 
 is a heart still beating which fully understands its meaning. 
 The biographer can do no more than make this suggestion, 
 which has the sanction of the poet's explicit word. To a 
 friend who told him that Memories was her favorite poem, 
 he said, ' I love it too ; but I hardly knew whether to pub- 
 lish it, it was so personal and near my heart.' " 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL and happy girl, 
 With step as light as summer air, 
 Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl, 
 Shadowed by many a careless curl 
 Of unconfined and flowing hair ; 
 A seeming child in everything, 
 
 Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms, 
 As Nature wears the smile of Spring 
 When sinking into Summer's arms. 
 
 A mind rejoicing in the light 
 
 Which melted through its graceful bower, 
 Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright. 
 And stainless in its holy white. 
 
 Unfolding like a morning flower : 
 A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute. 
 
 With every breath of feeling woke. 
 And, even when the tongue was mute, 
 
 From eye and lip in music spoke. 
 
 How thrills once more the lengthening chain 
 
 Of memory, at the thought of thee ! 
 Old hopes which long in dust have lain. 
 Old dreams, come thronging back again, 
 And boyhood lives again in me ; 
 
46 MEMORIES 
 
 I feel its glow upon my cheek, 
 
 Its fulness of the heart is mine, 
 As when I leaned to hear thee speak, 
 
 Or raised my doubtful eye to thine. 
 
 I hear again thy low replies, 
 
 I feel thy arm within my own, 
 And timidly again uprise 
 The fringed lids of hazel eyes. 
 
 With soft brown tresses overblown. 
 Ah ! memories of sweet summer eves. 
 
 Of moonlit wave and willowy way. 
 Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves. 
 
 And smiles and tones more dear than they \ 
 
 Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled 
 
 My picture of thy youth to see. 
 When, half a woman, half a child, 
 Thy very artlessness beguiled. 
 
 And folly's self seemed wise in thee ; 
 I too can smile, when o'er that hour 
 
 The lights of memory backward stream, 
 Yet feel the while that manhood's power 
 
 Is vainer than my boyhood's dream. 
 
 Years have passed on, and left their trace, 
 Of graver care and deeper thought ; 
 
 And unto me the calm, cold face 
 
 Of manhood, and to thee the grace 
 Of woman's pensive beauty brought. 
 
 More wide, perchance, for blame than praise, 
 The school-boy's humble name has flown ; 
 
MEMORIES 47 
 
 Thine, in the green and quiet ways 
 Of unobtrusive goodness known. 
 
 And wider yet in thought and deed 
 
 Diverge our pathways, one in youth ; 
 Thine the Genevan's sternegt creed, 
 While answers to my spirit's need 
 
 The Derby dalesman's simple truth. 
 For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, 
 
 And holy day, and solemn psalm ; 
 For me,^ the silent reverence where 
 
 My brethren gather, slow and calm. 
 
 Yet hath thy spirit left on me < 
 
 An impress Time has worn not out, 
 And something of myself in thee, 
 A shadow from the past, I see. 
 
 Lingering, even yet, thy way about ; 
 Not wholly can the heart unlearn 
 
 That lesson of its better hours, 
 Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn 
 
 To common dust that path of flowers. 
 
 Thus, while at times before our eyes 
 
 The shadows melt, and fall apart. 
 And, smiling through them, round us lies 
 The warm light of our morning skies, — 
 
 The Indian Summer of the heart I 
 In secret sympathies of mind. 
 
 In founts of feeling which retain 
 Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find 
 
 Our early dreams not wholly vain ! 
 
TELLING THE BEES 
 
 A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, 
 formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. 
 On the death of a member of the family, the bees were 
 at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in 
 mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary 
 to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seek- 
 ing a new home. [The scene is minutely that of the Whit- 
 tier homestead.] 
 
 HERE is the place ; right over the hill 
 Runs the path I took ; 
 You can see the gap in the old wall still, 
 
 And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. 
 
 There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 
 
 And the poplars tall ; 
 And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 
 
 And the white horns tossing above the wall. 
 
 There are the beehives ranged in the sun ; 
 
 And down by the brink 
 Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, 
 
 Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 
 
 A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, 
 
 Heavy and slow ; 
 And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows. 
 
 And the same brook sings of a year ago. 
 
 There 's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze ; 
 And the June sun warm 
 
TELLING THE BEES 49 
 
 Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, 
 Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. 
 
 I mind me how with a lover's care 
 
 From my Sunday coat 
 I brushed oif the burrs, and smoothed my hair, 
 
 And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat. 
 
 Since we parted, a month had passed, — 
 
 To love, a year ; 
 Down through the beeches I looked at last 
 
 On the little red gate and the well-sweep near. 
 
 I can see it all now, — the slantwise rain 
 
 Of light through the leaves. 
 The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, 
 
 The bloom of her roses under the eaves. 
 
 Just the same as a month before, — 
 
 The house and the trees. 
 The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door, — 
 
 Nothing changed but the hives of bees. 
 
 Before them, under the garden wall, 
 
 Forward and back. 
 Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, 
 
 Draping each hive with a shred of black. 
 
 Trembling, I listened : the summer sun 
 
 Had the chill of snow ; 
 For I knew she was telling the bees of one 
 
 Grone on the journey we all must go ! 
 
60 BURNS 
 
 Then I said to myself, " My Mary weeps 
 
 For the dead to-day : 
 Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps 
 
 The fret and the pain of his age away." 
 
 But her dog whined low ; on the doorway sill, 
 
 With his cane to his ehin, 
 The old man sat ; and the chore-girl still 
 
 Sung to the bees stealing out and in. 
 
 And the song she was singing ever since 
 In my ear sounds on ; — 
 " Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence I 
 Mistress Mary is dead and gone ! '* 
 
 BURNS 
 
 ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN 
 BLOSSOM 
 
 NO more these simple flowers belong 
 To Scottish maid and lover ; 
 Sown in the common soil of song, 
 They bloom the wide world over. 
 
 In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, 
 The minstrel and the heather, 
 
 The deathless singer and the flowers 
 He sang of live together. 
 
 Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns ! 
 The moorland flower and peasant I 
 
BURNS 51 
 
 How, at their mention, memory turns 
 Her pages old and pleasant ! 
 
 The gray sky wears again its gold 
 
 And purple of adorning, 
 And manhood's noonday shadows hold 
 
 The dews of boyhood's morning. 
 
 The dews that washed the dust and soil 
 
 From off the wings of pleasure. 
 The sky, that flecked the ground of toil 
 
 With golden threads of leisure. 
 
 I call to mind the summer day, 
 
 The early harvest mowing, 
 The sky with sun and clouds at play, 
 
 And flowers with breezes blowing. 
 
 I hear the blackbird in the corn, 
 
 The locust in the haying ; 
 And, like the fabled hunter's horn, 
 
 Old tunes my heart is playing. 
 
 How oft that day, with fond delay, 
 
 I sought the maple's shadow, 
 And sang with Burns the hours away. 
 
 Forgetful of the meadow 1 
 
 Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead 
 
 I heard the squirrels leaping. 
 The good dog listened while I read, 
 
 And wagged his tail in keeping. 
 
52 BURNS 
 
 I watched him while in sportive mood 
 I read " The Twa Dogs' " story, 
 
 And half believed he understood 
 The poet's allegory. 
 
 Sweet day, sweet songs ! The golden hours 
 Grew brighter for that singing, 
 
 From brook and bird and meadow flowers 
 A dearer welcome bringing. 
 
 New light on home-seen Nature beamed, 
 
 New glory over Woman ; 
 And daily life and duty seemed 
 
 No longer poor and common. 
 
 I woke to find the simple truth 
 
 Of fact and feeling better 
 Than all the dreams that held my youth 
 
 A still repining debtor : 
 
 That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, 
 The themes of sweet discoursing ; 
 
 The tender idyls of the heart 
 In every tongue rehearsing. 
 
 Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, 
 
 Of loving knight and lady. 
 When farmer boy and barefoot girl 
 
 Were wandering there already ? 
 
 I saw through all familiar things 
 The romance underlying ; 
 
BURNS 53 
 
 The joys and griefs that plume the wings 
 Of Fancy skyward flying. 
 
 I saw the same blithe day return, 
 
 The same sweet fall of even, 
 That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, 
 
 And sank on crystal Devon. 
 
 I matched with Scotland's heathery hills 
 
 The sweetbrier and the clover ; 
 With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, 
 
 Their wood hymns chanting over. 
 
 O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, 
 
 I saw the Man uprising ; 
 'No longer common or unclean, 
 
 The child of God's baptizing ! 
 
 With clearer eyes I saw the worth 
 
 Of life among the lowly ; 
 The Bible at his Cotter's hearth 
 
 Had made my own more holy. 
 
 And if at times an evil strain, 
 
 To lawless love appealing, 
 Broke in upon the sweet refrain 
 
 Of pure and healthful feeling, 
 
 It died upon the eye and ear, 
 
 No inward answer gaining ; 
 No heart had I to see or hear 
 
 The discord and the staining. 
 
54 BURNS 
 
 Let those wlio never erred forget 
 His worth, in vain bewailings ; 
 
 Sweet Soul of Song ! I own my debt 
 Uncancelled by his failings ! 
 
 Lament who will the ribald line 
 Which tells his lapse from duty, 
 
 How kissed the maddening lips of wine 
 Or wanton ones of beauty ; 
 
 But think, while falls that shade between 
 
 The erring one and Heaven, 
 That he who loved like Magdalen, 
 
 Like her may be forgiven. 
 
 Not his the song whose thunderous chime 
 
 Eternal echoes render ; 
 The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, 
 
 And Milton's starry splendor I 
 
 But who his human heart has laid 
 
 To Nature's bosom nearer ? 
 Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 
 
 To love a tribute dearer ? 
 
 Through all his tuneful art, how strong 
 
 The human feeling gushes ! 
 The very moonlight of his song 
 
 Is warm with smiles and blushes ! 
 
 Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, 
 So " Bonnie Doon "but tarry ; 
 
 Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, 
 But spare his Highland Mary ! 
 
TO MY SISTER 
 
 WITH A COPY OF "THE SUPERNATURALISM OF 
 NEW ENGLAND " 
 
 The work referred to was a series of papers under this 
 title, contributed to the Democratic Review and afterward 
 collected into a volume, in which I noted some of the super- 
 stitions and folklore prevalent in New England. The 
 volume has not been kept in print, but most of its contents 
 are distributed in my Literary Recreations and Miscellanies 
 [now scattered in volumes v. and vi. of the Riverside edi- 
 tion] . 
 
 DEAR Sister I while the wise and sage 
 Turn coldly from my playful page, 
 And count it strange that ripened age 
 
 Should stoop to boyhood's folly ; 
 I know that thou wilt judge aright 
 Of all which makes the heart more light, 
 Or lends one star-gleam to the night 
 Of clouded Melancholy. 
 
 Away with weary cares and themes 
 Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams I 
 Leave free once more the land which teems 
 
 With wonders and romances ! 
 Where thou, with clear discerning eyes, 
 Shalt rightly read the truth which lies 
 Beneath the quaintly masking guise 
 
 Of wild and wizard fancies. 
 
 Lo ! once again our feet we set 
 
 On still green wood-paths, twilight wet, 
 
56 ICHABOD 
 
 By lonely brooks, whose waters fret 
 
 The roots of spectral beeches ; 
 Again the hearth fire glimmers o'er 
 Home's whitewashed wall and painted floor, 
 And young eyes widening to the lore 
 
 Of faery-folks and witches. 
 
 Dear heart ! the legend is not vain 
 Which lights that holy hearth again, 
 And calling back from care and pain, 
 
 And death's funereal sadness. 
 Draws round its old familiar blaze 
 The clustering groups of happier days, 
 And lends to sober manhood's gaze 
 
 A glimpse of childish gladness. 
 
 And, knowing how my life hath been 
 
 A weary work of tongue and pen, 
 
 A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men, 
 
 Thou wilt not chide my turning 
 To con, at times, an idle rhyme. 
 To pluck a flower from childhood's clime, 
 Or listen, at Life's noonday chime. 
 
 For the sweet bells of Morning ! 
 
 ICHABOD 
 
 This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and 
 forecast of evil consequences which I felt on reading the 
 seventh of March speech of Daniel Webster in support of 
 the "compromise," and the Fugitive Slave Law. t^o parti- 
 san or personal enmity dictated it. On the contrary my 
 
ICHABOD 57 
 
 admiration of the splendid personality and intellectual 
 power of the great Senator was never stronger than when I 
 laid down his speech, and, in one of the saddest moments of 
 my life, penned my protest. I saw, as I wrote, with painful 
 clearness its sure results, — the Slave Power arrogant and 
 defiant, strengthened and encouraged to carry out its scheme 
 for the extension of its baleful system, or the dissolution of 
 the Union, the guaranties of personal liberty in the free 
 States broken down, and the whole country made the hunt- 
 ing-ground of slave-catchers. In the horror of such a vision, 
 so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one spoke at all, he could only 
 speak in tones of stern and sorrowful rebuke. ' 
 
 But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness 
 of a common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies 
 the severity of judgment. Years after, in The Lost Occa- 
 sion, I gave utterance to an almost universal regret that the 
 great statesman did not live to see the flag which he loved 
 trampled under the feet of Slavery, and, in view of this de- 
 secration, make his last days glorious in defence of ** Liberty 
 and Union, one and inseparable." 
 
 SO fallen I so lost ! the light withdrawn 
 Which once he wore ! 
 The glory from his gray hairs gone 
 Forevermore ! 
 
 Eevile him not, the Tempter hath 
 
 A snare for all ; 
 And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, 
 
 Befit his fall ! 
 
 Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 
 
 When he who might 
 Have lighted up and led his age. 
 
 Falls back in night. 
 
58 ICHABOD 
 
 Scorn !' would the angels laugh, to mark 
 
 A bright soul driven, 
 Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, 
 
 From hope and heaven ! 
 
 Let not the land once proud of him 
 
 Insult him now. 
 Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, 
 
 Dishonored brow. 
 
 But let its humbled sons, instead, 
 
 From sea to lake, 
 A long lament, as for the dead. 
 
 In sadness make. 
 
 Of all we loved and honored, naught 
 
 Save power remains ; 
 A fallen angePs pride of thought, 
 
 Still strong in chains. 
 
 All else is gone ; from those great eyes 
 
 The soul has fled : 
 When faith is lost, when honor dies, 
 
 The man is dead ! 
 
 Then, pay the reverence of old days 
 
 To his dead fame ; 
 Walk backward, with averted gaze. 
 
 And hide the shame ! 
 
THE LOST OCCASION 
 
 SOME die too late and some too soon, 
 At early morning, heat of noon, 
 Or the chill evening twilight. Thou, 
 Whom the rich heavens did so endow 
 With eyes of power and Jove's own brow. 
 With all the massive strength that fills 
 Thy home-horizon's granite hills. 
 With rarest gifts of heart and head 
 From manliest stock inherited, 
 New England's stateliest type of man. 
 In port and speech Olympian ; 
 Whom no one met, at first, but took 
 A second awed and wondering look 
 (As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece 
 On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece) ; 
 Whose words in simplest homespun clad, 
 The Saxon strength of Caedmon's had. 
 With power reserved at need to reach 
 The Roman forum's loftiest speech. 
 Sweet with persuasion, eloquent 
 In passion, cool in argument. 
 Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes 
 As fell the Norse god's hammer blows. 
 Crushing as if with Talus' flail 
 Through Error's logic-woven mail, 
 And failing only when they tried 
 The adamant of the righteous side, — 
 Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved^ 
 Of old friends, by the new deceived, 
 
60 THE LOST OCCASION 
 
 Too soon for us, too soon for thee, 
 Beside thy lonely Northern sea, 
 Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, 
 Laid wearily down thy august head. 
 
 Thou shouldst have lived to feel below 
 
 Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow ; 
 
 The late-sprung mine that underlaid 
 
 Thy sad concessions vainly made. 
 
 Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall 
 
 The star-flag of the Union fall, 
 
 And armed rebellion pressing on 
 
 The broken lines of Washington I 
 
 No stronger voice than thine had then 
 
 Called out the utmost might of men, 
 
 To make the Union's charter free 
 
 And strengthen law by liberty. 
 
 How had that stern arbitrament 
 
 To thy gray age youth's vigor lent. 
 
 Shaming ambition's paltry prize 
 
 Before thy disillusioned eyes ; 
 
 Breaking the spell about thee wound 
 
 Like the green withes that Samson bound ; 
 
 Redeeming in one effort grand. 
 
 Thyself and thy imperilled land ! 
 
 Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, 
 
 O sleeper by the Northern sea, 
 
 .The gates of opportunity 1 
 
 God fills the gaps of human need, 
 
 Each crisis brings its word and deed. 
 
 Wise men and strong we did not lack ; 
 
 But still, with memory turning back. 
 
THE LOST OCCASION 61 
 
 In the dark hours we thought of thee, 
 And thy lone grave beside the sea. 
 
 Above that grave the east winds blow, 
 
 And from the marsh-lands drifting slow 
 
 The sea-fog comes, with evermore 
 
 The wave-wash of a lonely shore, 
 
 And sea-bird's melancholy cry, 
 
 As Nature fain would typify 
 
 The sadness of a closing scene, 
 
 The loss of that which should have been. 
 
 But, where thy native mountains bare 
 
 Their foreheads to diviner air, 
 
 Fit emblem of enduring fame. 
 
 One lofty summit keeps thy name. 
 
 For thee the cosmic forces did 
 
 The rearing of that pyramid. 
 
 The prescient ages shaping with 
 
 Fire, flood, and frost thy monolith. 
 
 Sunrise and sunset lay thereon 
 
 With hands of light their benison, 
 
 The stars of midnight pause to set 
 
 Their jewels in its coronet. 
 
 And evermore that mountain mass 
 
 Seems climbing from the shadowy pass 
 
 To light, as if to manifest 
 
 Thy nobler self, thy life at best I 
 
THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME 
 
 THE Quaker of the olden time I 
 How calm and firm and true, 
 Unspotted by its wrong and crime, 
 
 He walked the dark earth through. 
 The lust of power, the love of gain, 
 
 The thousand lures of sin 
 Around him, had no power to stain 
 The purity within. 
 
 With that deep insight which detects 
 
 All great things in the small. 
 And knows how each man's life affects 
 
 The spiritual life of all. 
 He walked by faith and not by sight, 
 
 By love and not by law ; 
 The presence of the wrong or right 
 
 He rather felt than saw. 
 
 He felt that wrong with wrong partakes, 
 
 That nothing stands alone. 
 That whoso gives the motive, makes 
 
 His brother's sin his own. 
 And, pausing not for doubtful choice 
 
 Of evils great or small. 
 He listened to that inward voice 
 
 Which called away from all. 
 
 O Spirit of that early day. 
 So pure and strong and true, 
 
THE MEETING 63 
 
 Be with us in the narrow way 
 
 Our faithful fathers knew. 
 Give strength the evil to forsake, 
 
 The cross of Truth to bear, 
 And love and reverent fear to make 
 
 Our daily lives a prayer 1 
 
 THE MEETING 
 
 The two speakers in the meeting referred to in this poem 
 were Avis Keene, whose very presence was a benediction, a 
 woman lovely in spirit and person, whose words seemed a 
 message of love and tender concern to her hearers ; and Sibyl 
 Jones, whose inspired eloquence and rare spirituality im- 
 pressed all who knew her. In obedience to her apprehended 
 duty she made visits of Christian love to various parts of 
 Europe, and to the West Coast of Africa and Palestine. 
 
 THE elder folk shook hands at last, 
 Down seat by seat the signal passed. 
 
 To simple ways like ours unused, 
 
 Half solemnized and half amused, 
 
 With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest 
 
 His sense of glad relief expressed. 
 
 Outside, the hills lay warm in sun ; 
 
 The cattle in the meadow-run 
 
 Stood half-leg deep ; a single bird 
 
 The green repose above us stirred. 
 " What part or lot have you," he said, 
 " In these dull rites of drowsy-head ? 
 
 Is silence worship ? Seek it where 
 
 It soothes with dreams the summer air, 
 , Not in this close and rude-benched hall, 
 
64 THE MEETIIsrG 
 
 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 temple ward 
 
 Walks the free spirit of the Lord ! 
 
 Our common Master did not pen 
 
 His followers up from other men ; 
 
 His service liberty indeed, 
 
 He built no church, He framed no creed ; 
 
 But while the saintly Pharisee 
 
 Made broader his phylactery. 
 
 As from the synagogue was seen 
 
 The dusty-sandalled Nazarene 
 
 Through ripening cornfields lead the way 
 
 Upon the awful Sabbath day, 
 
 His sermons were the healthful talk 
 
 That shorter made the mountain-walk. 
 
 His wayside texts were flowers and birds, 
 
 Where mingled with His gracious words 
 
 The rustle of the tamarisk-tree 
 
 And ripple-wash of Galilee." 
 
 " Thy words are well, O friend," I said ; 
 
 " Unmeasured and unlimited. 
 With noiseless slide of stone to stone. 
 The mystic Church of God has grown. 
 Invisible and silent stands 
 The temple never made with hands, 
 Unheard the voices still and small 
 Of its unseen confessional. 
 
THE MEETING 65 
 
 He needs no special place of prayer 
 Whose hearing ear is everywhere ; 
 He brings not back the childish days 
 That ringed the earth with stones of praise, 
 Roofed Karnak's hall of gods, and laid 
 The plinths of Philse's colonnade. 
 Still less He owns the selfish good 
 And sickly growth of solitude, — 
 The worthless grace that, out of sight, 
 Flowers in the desert anchorite ; 
 Dissevered from the suffering whole. 
 Love hath no power to save a soul. 
 Not out of Self, the origin 
 And native air and soil of sin, 
 The living waters spring and flow, 
 The trees with leaves of healing grow. 
 
 " Dream not, O friend, because I seek 
 This quiet shelter twice a week, 
 I better deem its pine-laid floor 
 Than breezy hill or sea-sung shore ; 
 But nature is not solitude : 
 She crowds us with her thronging wood ; 
 Her many hands reach out to us. 
 Her many tongues are garrulous ; 
 Perpetual riddles of surprise 
 She offers to our ears and eyes ; 
 She will not leave our senses still, 
 But drags them captive at her will : 
 And, making earth too great for heaven, 
 She hides the Giver in the given. 
 
; THE MEETING 
 
 " And so I find it well to come 
 For deeper rest to this still room, 
 For here the habit of the soul 
 Feels less the outer world's control ; 
 The strength of mutual purpose pleads 
 More earnestly our common needs ; 
 And from the silence multiplied 
 By these still forms on either side, 
 The world that time and sense have known 
 Falls off and leaves us God alone. 
 
 " Yet rarely through the charmed repose 
 Unmixed the stream of motive flows, 
 A flavor of its many springs, 
 The tints of earth and sky it brings ; 
 In the still waters needs must be 
 Some shade of human sympathy ; 
 And here, in its accustomed place, 
 I look on memory's dearest face ; 
 The blind by-sitter guesseth not 
 What shadow haunts that vacant spot ; 
 No eyes save mine alone can see 
 The love wherewith it welcomes me ! 
 And still, with those alone my kin, 
 In doubt and weakness, want and sin, 
 I bow my head, my heart I bare. 
 As when that face was living there. 
 And strive (too oft, alas ! in vain) 
 The peace of simple trust to gain. 
 Fold fancy's restless wings, and lay 
 The idols of my heart away. 
 
THE MEETING 67 
 
 " Welcome the silence all utibroken, 
 Nor less the words of fitness spoken, — 
 Such golden words as hers for whom 
 Our autumn flowers have just made room ; 
 Whose hopeful utterance through and through 
 The freshness of the morning blew ; 
 Who loved not less the earth that light 
 Fell on it from the heavens in sight, 
 But saw in all fair forms more fair 
 The Eternal beauty mirrored there. 
 Whose eighty years but added grace 
 And saintlier meaning to her face, — 
 The look of one who bore away 
 Glad tidings from the hills of day, 
 While all our hearts went forth to meet 
 The coming of her beautiful feet ! 
 Or haply hers, whose pilgrim tread 
 Is in the paths where Jesus led ; 
 Who dreams her childhood's sabbath dream 
 By Jordan's willow -shaded stream. 
 And, of the hymns of hope and faith, 
 Sung by the monks of Nazareth, 
 Hears pious echoes, in the call 
 To prayer, from Moslem minarets fall, 
 Eepeating where His works were wrought 
 The lesson that her Master taught 
 Of whom an elder Sibyl gave 
 The prophecies of Cumae's cave \ 
 
 " I ask no organ's soulless breath 
 To drone the themes of life and death, 
 
68 THE MEETING 
 
 No altar candle-lit by day, 
 
 No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play, 
 
 No cool philosophy to teach 
 
 Its bland audacities of speech 
 
 To double-tasked idolaters 
 
 Themselves their gods and worshippers. 
 
 No pulpit hammered by the fist 
 
 Of loud-asserting dogmatist, 
 
 Who borrows for the Hand of love 
 
 The smoking thunderbolts of Jove. 
 
 I know how well the fathers taught. 
 
 What work the later schoolmen wrought ; 
 
 I reverence old-time faith and men, 
 
 But God is near us now as then ; 
 
 His force of love is still unspent, 
 
 His hate of sin as imminent ; 
 
 And still the measure of our needs 
 
 Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds ; 
 
 The manna gathered yesterday 
 
 Already savors of decay ; 
 
 Doubts to the world^s child-heart unknown 
 
 Question us now from star and stone ; 
 
 Too little or too much we know, 
 
 And sight is swift and faith is slow ; 
 
 The power is lost to self-deceive 
 
 With shallow forms of make-believe. 
 
 We walk at high noon, and the bells 
 
 Call to a thousand oracles, 
 
 But the sound deafens, and the light 
 
 Is stronger than our dazzled sight ; 
 
 The letters of the sacred Book 
 
 Glimmer and swim beneath our look ; 
 
THE MEETING 
 
 Still struggles in the Age's breast 
 With deepening agony of quest 
 The old entreaty : ' Art thou He, 
 Or look we for the Christ to be ? * 
 
 " God should be most where man is least : 
 So, where is neither church nor priest. 
 And never rag of form or creed 
 To clothe the nakedness of need, — 
 Where farmer-folk in silence meet, — 
 I turn my bell-unsummoned feet ; 
 I lay the critic's glass aside, 
 I tread upon my lettered pride, 
 And, lowest-seated, testify 
 To the oneness of humanity ; 
 Confess the universal want, 
 And share whatever Heaven may grant. 
 He findeth not who seeks his own, 
 The soul is lost that 's saved alone. 
 Not on one favored forehead fell 
 Of old the fire-tongued miracle. 
 But flamed o'er all the thronging host 
 The baptism of the Holy Ghost ; 
 Heart answers heart : in one desire 
 The blending lines of prayer aspire ; 
 
 * Where, in my name, meet two or three,* 
 Our Lord hath said, ' I there will be ! ' 
 
 " So sometimes comes to soul and sense 
 The feeling which is evidence 
 That very near about us lies 
 The realm of spiritual mysteries. 
 
70 THE MEETING 
 
 The sphere of the supernal powers 
 Impinges on this world of ours. 
 The low and dark horizon lifts, 
 To light the scenic terror shifts ; 
 The breath of a diviner air 
 Blows down the answer of a prayer : 
 That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt 
 A great compassion clasps about, 
 And law and goodness, love and force, 
 Are wedded fast beyond divorce. 
 Then duty leaves to love its task. 
 The beggar Self forgets to ask ; 
 With smile of trust and folded hands, 
 The passive soul in waiting stands 
 To feel, as flowers the sun and dew. 
 The One true Life its own renew. 
 
 " So to the calmly gathered thought 
 The innermost of truth is taught. 
 The mystery dimly understood, 
 That love of God is love of good, 
 And, chiefly, its divinest trace 
 In Him of Nazareth's holy face ; 
 That to be saved is only this, — 
 Salvation from our selfishness. 
 From more than elemental fire, 
 The soul's 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 humilities of sense 
 
HAMPTON BEACH 71 
 
 And posturing of penitence, 
 
 But love's unforced obedience ; 
 
 That Book and Church and Day are given 
 
 For man, not God, — for earth, not heaven, — 
 
 The blessed means to holiest ends, 
 
 Not masters, but benignant friends ; 
 
 That the dear Christ dwells not afar, 
 
 The king of some remoter star. 
 
 Listening, at times, with flattered ear 
 
 To homage wrung from selfish fear. 
 
 But here, amidst the poor and blind. 
 
 The bound and suffering of our kind, 
 
 In works we do, in prayers we pray. 
 
 Life of our life, He lives to-day." 
 
 HAMPTON BEACH 
 
 THE sunlight glitters keen and bright, 
 Where, miles away. 
 Lies stretching to my dazzled sight 
 A luminous belt, a misty light. 
 Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy 
 gray. 
 
 The tremulous shadow of the Sea ! 
 
 Against its ground 
 Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree. 
 Still as a picture, clear and free. 
 With varying outline mark the coast for miles 
 around. 
 
72 HAMPTON BEACH 
 
 Our seaward way, 
 On — on — we tread with loose-flung rein 
 Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain, 
 Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane, 
 And bends above our heads the flowering locust 
 spray. 
 
 Ha 1 like a kind hand on my brow 
 
 Comes this fresh breeze, 
 Cooling its dull and feverish glow. 
 While through my being seems to flow 
 The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas ! 
 
 Now rest we, where this grassy mound 
 
 His feet hath set 
 In the great waters, which have bound 
 His granite ankles greenly round 
 With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool 
 spray wet. 
 
 Good-by to Pain and Care ! I take 
 
 Mine ease to-day : 
 Here where these sunny waters break. 
 And ripples this keen breeze, I shake 
 All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts 
 away. 
 
 I draw a freer breath, I seem 
 
 Like all I see — 
 Waves in the sun, the white-winged gleam 
 Of sea-birds in the slanting beam, 
 And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind 
 free. 
 
HAMPTON BEACH 73 
 
 So when Time's veil shall fall asunder, 
 
 The soul may know 
 No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, 
 Nor sink the weight of mystery under. 
 But with the upward rise, and with the vastness 
 grow. 
 
 And all we shrink from now may seem 
 
 No new revealing ; 
 Familiar as our childhood's stream, 
 Or pleasant memory of a dream 
 The loved and cherished Past upon the new life 
 stealing. 
 
 Serene and mild the untried light 
 
 May have its dawning ; 
 And, as in summer's northern night 
 The evening and the dawn unite, 
 The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's 
 new morning. 
 
 1 sit alone ; in foam and spray 
 
 Wave after wave 
 Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray. 
 Shoulder the broken tide away. 
 Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy 
 cleft and cave. 
 
 What heed I of the dusty land 
 
 And noisy town ? 
 I see the mighty deep expand 
 
74 HAMPTON BEACH 
 
 From its white line of glimmering sand 
 To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts 
 down ! 
 
 In listless quietude of mind, 
 
 I yield to all 
 The change of cloud and wave and wind ; 
 And passive on the flood reclined, 
 I wander with the waves, and with them rise and 
 fall. 
 
 But look, thou dreamer I wave and shore 
 
 In shadow lie ; 
 The night-wind warns me back once more 
 To where, my native hill-tops o'er, 
 Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky. 
 
 So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell ! 
 
 I bear with me 
 ISTo token stone nor glittering shell. 
 But long and oft shall Memory tell 
 Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the 
 Sea. 
 
 A SEA DREAM 
 
 WE saw the slow tides go and come, 
 The curving surf-lines lightly drawn, 
 The gray rocks touched with tender bloom 
 Beneath the fresh-blown rose of dawn. 
 
A SEA DREAM 75 
 
 We saw in richer sunsets lost 
 
 The sombre pomp of showery noons ; 
 
 And signalled spectral sails that crossed 
 The weird, low light of rising moons. 
 
 On stormy eves from cliff and head 
 We saw the white spray tossed and 
 spurned ; 
 
 While over all, in gold and red. 
 Its face of fire the lighthouse turned. 
 
 The rail-car brought its daily crowds, 
 
 Half curious, half indifferent. 
 Like passing sails or floating clouds, 
 
 We saw them as they came and went. '] 
 
 But, one calm morning, as we lay 
 And watched the mirage-lifted wall 
 
 Of coast, across the dreamy bay, 
 And heard afar the curlew call, 
 
 And nearer voices, wild or tame. 
 Of airy flock and childish throng, 
 
 Up from the water's edge there came 
 Faint snatches of familiar song. 
 
 Careless we heard the singer's choice 
 Of old and common airs ; at last 
 
 The tender pathos of his voice 
 In one low chanson held us fast. 
 
 A song that mingled joy and pain, 
 And memories old and sadly sweet ; 
 
76 A SEA DREAM 
 
 While, timing to its minor strain, 
 The waves in lapsing cadence beat. 
 
 The waves are glad in breeze and sun ; 
 
 The rocks are fringed with foam ; 
 I walk once more a haunted shore, 
 
 A stranger, yet at home, 
 
 A land of dreams I roam. 
 
 Is this the wind, the soft sea-wind 
 That stirred thy locks of brown ? 
 
 Are these the rocks whose mosses knew 
 The trail of thy light gown. 
 Where boy and girl sat down ? 
 
 I see the gray fort's broken wall, 
 The boats that rock below ; 
 
 And, out at sea, the passing sails 
 We saw so long ago 
 Eose-red in morning's glow. 
 
 The freshness of the early time 
 
 On every breeze is blown ; 
 As glad the sea, as blue the sky, — 
 
 The change is ours alone ; 
 
 The saddest is my own. 
 
 A stranger now, a world-worn man, 
 
 Is he who bears my name ; 
 But thou, methinks, whose mortal life 
 
 Immortal youth became, 
 
 Art evermore the same. 
 
A SEA DREAM 77 
 
 Thou art not here, thou art not there, 
 
 Thy place I cannot see ; 
 I only know that where thou art 
 
 The blessed angels be, 
 
 And heaven is glad for thee. 
 
 Forgive me if the evil years 
 
 Have left on me their sign ; 
 Wash out, O soul so beautiful, 
 
 The many stains of mine 
 
 In tears of love divine ! 
 
 I could not look on thee and live. 
 
 If thou wert by my side ; 
 The vision of a shining one. 
 
 The white and heavenly bride, 
 
 Is well to me denied. 
 
 But turn to me thy dear girl-face ' 
 
 Without the angel's crown, 
 The wedded roses of thy lips, 
 
 Thy loose hair rippling down 
 
 In waves of golden brown. 
 
 Look forth once more through space and 
 time, 
 
 And let thy sweet shade fall 
 In tenderest grace of soul and form 
 
 On memory's frescoed wall, 
 
 A shadow, and yet all ! 
 
 Draw near, more near, forever dear ! 
 Where'er I rest or roam. 
 
78 A SEA DREAM 
 
 Or in the city's crowded streets, 
 Or by the blown sea foam, 
 The thought of thee is home ! 
 
 At breakfast hour the singer read 
 
 The city news, with comment wise, 
 Like one who felt the pulse of trade 
 , Beneath his finger fall and rise. 
 
 His look, his air, his curt speech, told 
 The man of action, not of books. 
 
 To whom the corners made in gold 
 And stocks were more than seaside nooks. 
 
 Of life beneath the life confessed 
 His song had hinted unawares ; 
 
 Of flowers in traffic's ledgers pressed, 
 Of human hearts in bulls and bears. 
 
 But eyes in vain were turned to watch 
 That face so hard and shrewd and strong ; 
 
 And ears in vain grew sharp to catch 
 The meaning of that morning song. 
 
 In vain some sweet-voiced querist sought 
 To sound him, leaving as she came ; 
 
 Her baited album only caught 
 A common, unromantic name. 
 
 No word betrayed the mystery fine, 
 That trembled on the singer's tongue ; 
 
 He came and went, and left no sign 
 Behind him save the song he sung. 
 
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE 
 
 LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE 
 I. NOON 
 
 WHITE clouds, whose shadows haunt the 
 deep 
 Light mists, whose soft embraces keep 
 The sunshine on the hills asleep ! 
 
 O isles of calm ! O dark, still wood ! 
 And stiller skies that overbrood 
 Your rest with deeper quietude ! 
 
 shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through 
 Yon mountain gaps, my longing view 
 Beyond the purple and the blue, 
 
 To stiller sea and greener land. 
 
 And softer lights and airs more iDland, 
 
 And skies, — the hollow of God's hand ! 
 
 Transfused through you, O mountain friends ! 
 With mine your solemn spirit blends, 
 And life no more hath separate ends. 
 
 1 read each misty mountain sign, 
 
 I know the voice of wave and pine, 
 And I am yours, and ye are mine. 
 
 Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, 
 
 I lapse into the glad release 
 
 Of Nature's own exceeding peace. 
 
80 SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE 
 
 O welcome calm of heart and mind ! 
 As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind 
 To leave a tenderer growth behind, 
 
 So fall the weary years away ; 
 A child again, my head I lay 
 Upon the lap of this sweet day. 
 
 This western wind hath Lethean powers, 
 Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers, 
 The lake is white with lotus-flowers ! 
 
 Even Duty's voice is faint and low. 
 
 And slumberous Conscience, waking slow, 
 
 Forgets her blotted scroll to show. 
 
 The Shadow which pursues us all. 
 Whose ever-nearing steps appall. 
 Whose voice we hear behind us call, — 
 
 That Shadow blends with mountain gray. 
 It speaks but what the light waves say, — 
 Death walks apart from Fear to-day ! 
 
 Rocked on her breast, these pines and I 
 Alike on Nature's love rely ; 
 And equal seems to live or die. 
 
 Assured that He whose presence fills 
 With light the spaces of these hills 
 No evil to His creatures wills, 
 
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE 81 
 
 The simple faith remains, that He 
 Will do, whatever that may be, 
 The best alike for man and tree. 
 
 What mosses over one shall grow, 
 What light and life the other know, 
 Unanxious, leaving Him to show, 
 
 II. EVENING 
 
 Yon mountain's side is black with night, 
 While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crown 
 
 The moon, slow-rounding into sight. 
 On the hushed inland sea looks down. 
 
 How start to light the clustering isles, 
 Each silver-hemmed I How sharply show 
 
 The shadows of their rocky piles. 
 And tree-tops in the wave below ! 
 
 How far and strange the mountains seem, 
 Dim-looming through the pale, still light ! 
 
 The vague, vast grouping of a dream. 
 They stretch into the solemn night. 
 
 Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale, 
 Hushed by that presence grand and grave, 
 
 Are silent, save the cricket's wail, 
 And low response of leaf and wave. 
 
 Fair scenes ! whereto the Day and Night 
 
 Make rival love, I leave ye soon. 
 What time before the eastern light 
 
 The pale ghost of the setting moon 
 
82 SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE 
 
 Shall hide behind yon rocky spines, 
 
 And the young archer, Morn, shall break 
 
 His arrows on the mountain pines, 
 And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake I 
 
 Farewell ! around this smiling bay 
 
 Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom, 
 
 With lighter steps than mine, may stray 
 In radiant summers yet to come. 
 
 But none shall more regretful leave 
 These waters and these hills than I : 
 
 Or, distant, fonder dream how eve 
 Or dawn is painting wave and sky ; 
 
 How rising moons shine sad and mild 
 On wooded isle and silvering bay ; 
 
 Or setting suns beyond the piled 
 And purple mountains lead the day; 
 
 Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy. 
 Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here, 
 
 Shall add, to life's abounding joy. 
 The charmed repose to su:ISering dear. 
 
 Still waits kind Nature to impart 
 Her choicest gifts to such as gain 
 
 An entrance to her loving heart 
 
 Through the sharp discipline of pain. 
 
 Forever from the Hand that takes 
 One blessing from us others fall ^ 
 
SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP 83 
 
 And, soon or late, our Father makes 
 His perfect recompense to all ! 
 
 Oh, watched by Silence and the Night, 
 And folded in the strong embrace 
 
 Of the great mountains, with the light 
 Of the sweet heavens upon thy face, 
 
 Lake of the Northland ! keep thy dower 
 
 Of beauty still, and while above 
 Thy solemn mountains speak of power, 
 
 Be thou the mirror of God's love. 
 
 SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP 
 
 A GOLD fringe on the purpling hem 
 Of hills the river runs. 
 As down its long, green valley falls 
 
 The last of summer's suns. 
 Along its tawny gravel-bed 
 
 Broad-flowing, swift, and still. 
 As if its meadow levels felt 
 
 The hurry of the hill. 
 Noiseless between its* banks of green 
 
 From curve to curve it slips ; 
 The drowsy maple-shadows rest 
 
 Like fingers on its lips. 
 
 A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, 
 
 Unstoried and unknown ; 
 The ursine legend of its name 
 
 Prowls on its banks alone. 
 
84 SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP 
 
 Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn 
 
 As ever Yarrow knew, 
 Or, under rainy Irish skies, 
 
 By Spenser's Mulla grew ; 
 And through the gaps of leaning trees 
 
 Its mountain cradle shows : 
 The gold against the amethyst. 
 
 The green against the rose. 
 
 Touched by a light that hath no name, 
 
 A glory never sung. 
 Aloft on sky and mountain wall 
 
 Are God's great pictures hung. 
 How changed the summits vast and old ! 
 
 No longer granite-browed. 
 They melt in rosy mist ; the rock 
 
 Is softer than the cloud ; 
 The valley holds its breath ; no leaf 
 
 Of all its elms is twirled : 
 The silence of eternity 
 
 Seems falling on the world. 
 
 The pause before the breaking seals 
 
 Of mystery is this ; 
 Yon miracle-play of night and day 
 
 Makes dumb its witnesses. 
 What unseen altar crowns the hills 
 
 That reach up stair on stair ? 
 What eyes look through, what white wings fan 
 
 These purple veils of air ? 
 What Presence from the heavenly heights 
 
 To those of earth stoops down ? 
 
SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP 85 
 
 Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods 
 On Ida's snowy crown ! 
 
 Slow fades the vision of the sky, 
 
 The golden water pales, 
 And over all the valley-land 
 
 A gray-winged vapor sails. 
 I go the common way of all ; 
 
 The sunset fires will burn, 
 The flowers will blow, the river flow, 
 
 When I no more return. 
 No whisper from the mountain pine 
 
 Nor lapsing stream shall tell 
 The stranger, treading where I tread, 
 
 Of him who loved them well. 
 
 But beauty seen is never lost, 
 
 God*s colors all are fast ; 
 The glory of this sunset heaven 
 
 Into my soul has passed, 
 A sense of gladness unconfined 
 
 To mortal date or clime ; 
 As the soul liveth, it shall live 
 
 Beyond the years of time. 
 Beside the mystic asphodels 
 
 Shall bloom the home-born flowers, 
 And new horizons flush and glow 
 
 With sunset hues of ours. 
 
 Farewell ! these smiling hills must wear 
 
 Too soon their wintry frown. 
 And snow-cold winds from off them shake 
 
 The maple's red leaves down. 
 
86 THE LAST WALK IST AUTUMN 
 
 But I shall see a summer sun 
 
 Still setting broad and low ; 
 The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom, 
 
 The golden water flow. 
 A lover's claim is mine on all 
 
 I see to have and hold, — 
 The rose-light of perpetual hills, 
 
 And sunsets never cold ! 
 
 THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 
 
 I 
 
 O'EE, the bare woods, whose outstretchedhands 
 Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, 
 I see, beyond the valley lands. 
 
 The sea's long level dim with rain. 
 Around me all things, stark and dumb. 
 Seem praying for the snows to come, 
 And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone. 
 With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn 
 atone. 
 
 II 
 
 Along the river's summer walk. 
 
 The withered tufts of asters nod ; 
 And trembles on its arid stalk 
 
 The hoar plume of the golden-rod. 
 And on a ground of sombre fir, 
 And azure-studded juniper. 
 The silver birch its buds of purple shows. 
 And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet 
 wild-rose ! 
 
THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 87 
 
 III 
 
 With mingled sound of horns and bells, 
 
 A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly. 
 
 Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells, 
 
 Like a great arrow through the sky. 
 Two dusky lines converged in one. 
 Chasing the southward-flying sun ; 
 While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jay 
 Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay. 
 
 IV 
 
 I passed this way a year ago : 
 
 The wind blew south ; the noon of day 
 Was warm as June's ; and save that snow 
 
 Flecked the low mountains far away. 
 And that the vernal-seeming breeze 
 Mocked faded grass and leafless trees, 
 I might have dreamed of summer as I lay, 
 Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at 
 play. 
 
 V 
 
 Since then, the winter blasts have piled 
 
 The white pagodas of the snow 
 On these rough slopes, and, strong and wild, 
 
 Yon river, in its overflow 
 Of spring-time rain and sun, set free. 
 Crashed with its ices to the sea ; 
 And over these gray fields, then green and gold, 
 The summer corn has waved, the thunder's organ 
 rolled. 
 
88 THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 
 
 VI 
 
 Rich gift of God I A year of time 1 
 
 What pomp of rise and shut of day, 
 What hues wherewith our Northern clime 
 
 Makes autumn^s dropping woodlands gay, 
 What airs outblown from ferny dells, 
 And clover-bloom and sweet brier smells. 
 What songs of brooks and birds, what fruits and 
 
 flowers. 
 Green woods and moonlit snows, have in its round 
 been ours ! 
 
 VII 
 
 I know not how, in other lands. 
 
 The changing seasons come and go ; 
 What splendors fall on Syrian sands. 
 
 What purple lights on Alpine snow I 
 Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits 
 On Venice at her watery gates ; 
 A dream alone to me is Arno's vale. 
 And the Alhambra's halls are but a traveller's 
 tale. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Yet, on life's current, he who drifts 
 
 Is one with him who rows or sails; 
 And he who wanders widest lifts 
 
 No more of beauty's jealous veils 
 Than he who from his doorway sees 
 The miracle of flowers and trees, 
 Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air. 
 And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to 
 prayer ! 
 
THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 89 
 
 IX 
 
 The eye may well be glad that looks 
 
 Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall ; 
 But he who sees his native brooks 
 
 Laugh in the sun, has seen them all. 
 The marble palaces of Ind 
 Rise round him in the snow and wind ; 
 From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz smiles, 
 And Rome's cathedral awe is in his woodland 
 aisles. 
 
 And thus it is my fancy blends 
 
 The near at hand and far and rare ; 
 And while the same horizon bends 
 
 Above the silver-sprinkled hair 
 Which flashed the light of morning skies 
 On childhood's wonder-lifted eyes. 
 Within its round of sea and sky and field. 
 Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kosmos stands 
 revealed. 
 
 XI 
 
 And thus the sick man on his bed. 
 
 The toiler to his task-work bound. 
 Behold their prison-walls outspread. 
 
 Their clipped horizon widen round I 
 While freedom-giving fancy waits, 
 Like Peter's angel at the gates. 
 The power is theirs to baffle care and pain. 
 To bring the lost world back, and make it theirs 
 again ! 
 
90 THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 
 
 XII 
 
 What lack of goodly company, 
 
 When masters of the ancient lyre 
 Obey my call, and trace for me 
 
 Their words of mingled tears and fire I 
 I talk with Bacon, grave and wise, 
 I read the world with Pascal's eyes; 
 And priest and sage, with solemn brows austere, 
 And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of Thought, 
 draw near. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say, 
 
 " In vain the human heart we mock ; 
 Bring living guests who love the day. 
 Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock I 
 The herbs we share with flesh and blood 
 Are better than ambrosial food 
 With laurelled shades." I grant it, nothing loath, 
 But doubly blest is he who can partake of both. 
 
 XIV 
 
 He who might Plato's banquet grace, 
 
 Have I not seen before me sit. 
 And watched his puritanic face. 
 
 With more than Eastern wisdom lit? 
 Shrewd mystic ! who, upon the back 
 Of his Poor Richard's Almanac 
 Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream, 
 Links Manu's age of thought to Fulton's age of 
 steam I 
 
THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 91 
 
 XV 
 
 Here too, of answering love secure, 
 
 Have I not welcomed to my hearth 
 The gentle pilgrim troubadour, 
 
 Whose songs have girdled half the earth ; 
 Whose pages, like the magic mat 
 Whereon the Eastern lover sat. 
 Have borne me over Ehine-land's purple vines, 
 And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygians mountain 
 pines I 
 
 XVI 
 
 And he, who to the lettered wealth 
 
 Of ages adds the lore unpriced. 
 The wisdom and the moral health, 
 
 The ethics of the school of Christ; 
 The statesman to his holy trust, 
 As the Athenian archon, just, 
 Struck down, exiled like him for truth alone. 
 Has he not graced my home with beauty all his 
 own? 
 
 XVII 
 
 What greetings smile, what farewells wave, 
 
 What loved ones enter and depart ! 
 The good, the beautiful, the brave, 
 
 The Heaven-lent treasures of the heart ! 
 How conscious seems the frozen sod 
 And beechen slope whereon they trod ! 
 The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass bends 
 Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or absent 
 friends. 
 
92 THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Then ask not why to these bleak hills 
 
 I cling, as clings the tnfted moss, 
 To bear the winter's lingering chills, 
 
 The mocking spring's perpetual loss. 
 I dream of lands where summer smiles, 
 And soft winds blow from spicy isles, 
 But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flowers be 
 
 sweet, 
 Could I not feel thy soil, New England, at my feet I 
 
 XIX 
 
 At times I long for gentler skies. 
 
 And bathe in dreams of softer air, 
 But homesick tears would fill the eyes 
 
 That saw the Cross without the Bear. 
 The pine must whisper to the palm, 
 The north-wind break the tropic calm ; 
 And with the dreamy languor of the Line, 
 The North's keen virtue blend, and strength to 
 beauty join. 
 
 XX 
 
 Better to stem with heart and hand 
 The roaring tide of life, than lie, 
 Unmindful, on its flowery strand, 
 Of God's occasions drifting by I 
 Better with naked nerve to bear 
 The needles of this goading air. 
 Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego 
 The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know. 
 
THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 93 
 
 XXI 
 
 Home of my heart I to me more fair 
 
 Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, 
 The painted, shingly town-house where 
 The freeman's vote for Freedom falls ! 
 The simple roof where prayer is made, 
 Than Gothic groin and colonnade ; 
 The living temple of the heart of man, 
 Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or many-spired 
 Milan! 
 
 XXII 
 
 More dear thy equal village schools, 
 
 Where rich and poor the Bible read, 
 Than classic halls where Priestcraft rules, 
 
 And Learning wears the chains of Creed ; 
 Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering in 
 The scattered sheaves of home and kin. 
 Than the mad license ushering Lenten pains. 
 Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance in 
 chains. 
 
 xxin 
 
 And sweet homes nestle in these dales. 
 
 And perch along these wooded swells ; 
 And, blest beyond Arcadian vales, 
 
 They hear the sound of Sabbath bells ! 
 Here dwells no perfect man sublime. 
 Nor woman winged before her time. 
 But with the faults and follies of the race, 
 Old home-bred virtues hold their not unhonored 
 place. 
 
94 THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN 
 
 XXIV 
 
 I Here manhood struggles for the sake 
 Of mother, sister, daughter, wife, 
 The graces and the loves which make 
 
 The music of the march of life ; 
 And woman, in her daily round 
 Of duty, walks on holy ground. 
 No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor here 
 Is the bad lesson learned at human rights to 
 sneer. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Then let the icy north-wind blow 
 
 The trumpets of the coming storm, 
 To arrowy sleet and blinding snow 
 
 Yon slanting lines of rain transform. 
 Young hearts shall hail the drifted cold, 
 ' As gayly as I did of old ; 
 And I, who watch them through the frosty pane, 
 Unenvious, live in them my boyhood o'er again. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 And I will trust that He who heeds 
 
 The life that hides in mead and wold, 
 Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads, 
 
 And stains these mosses green and gold, 
 Will still, as He hath done, incline 
 His gracious care to me and mine ; 
 Grant what we ask aright, from wrong debar. 
 And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter 
 every star I 
 
AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION 95 
 
 XXVII 
 
 I have not seen, I may not see, 
 
 My hopes for man take form in fact, 
 But God will give the victory 
 
 In due time ; in that faith I act. 
 And he who sees the future sure, 
 The baffling present may endure, 
 And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand that leads 
 The heart's desires beyond the halting step of 
 deeds. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 And thou, my song, I send thee forth, 
 
 Where harsher songs of mine have flown ; 
 Go, find a place at home and hearth 
 
 Where'er thy singer's name is known ; 
 Revive for him the kindly thought 
 Of friends ; and they who love him not. 
 Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may 
 
 take 
 The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy 
 sake. 
 
 AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION 
 
 The substance of these lines, hastily pencilled several 
 years ago, I find among such of my unprinted scraps as 
 have escaped the waste-basket and the fire. In transcrib- 
 ing it I have made some changes, additions, and omissions. 
 
 o 
 
 N these green banks, where falls too soon 
 The shade of Autumn's afternoon. 
 
96 AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION 
 
 The south wind blowing soft and sweet, 
 
 The water gliding at my feet, 
 
 The distant northern range uplit 
 
 By the slant sunshine over it, 
 
 With changes of the mountain mist 
 
 From tender blush to amethyst, 
 
 The valley's stretch of shade and gleam 
 
 Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream. 
 
 With glad young faces smiling near 
 
 And merry voices in my ear, 
 
 I sit, methinks, as Hafiz might 
 
 In Iran's Garden of Delight. 
 
 For Persian roses blushing red, 
 
 Aster and gentian bloom instead ; 
 
 For Shiraz wine, this mountain air ; 
 
 For feast, the blueberries which I share 
 
 With one who proffers with stained hands 
 
 Her gleanings from yon pasture lands, 
 
 Wild fruit that art and culture spoil, 
 
 The harvest of an untilled soil ; 
 
 And with her one whose tender eyes 
 
 Reflect the change of April skies, 
 
 Midway 'twixt child and maiden yet, 
 
 Fresh as Spring's earliest violet ; 
 
 And one whose look and voice and ways 
 
 Make where she goes idyllic days ; 
 
 And one whose sweet, still countenance 
 
 Seems dreamful of a child's romance ; 
 
 And others, welcome as are these. 
 
 Like and unlike, varieties 
 
 Of pearls on nature's chaplet strung, 
 
 And all are fair, for all are young. 
 
AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION 97 
 
 Gathered from seaside cities old, 
 
 From midland prairie, lake, and wold, 
 
 From the great wheat-fields, which might feed 
 
 The hunger of a world at need. 
 
 In healthful change of rest and play 
 
 Their school-vacations glide away. 
 
 No critics these : they only see 
 An old and kindly friend in me, 
 In whose amused, indulgent look 
 Their innocent mirth has no rebuke. 
 They scarce can know my rugged rhymes, 
 The harsher songs of evil times, 
 Nor graver themes in minor keys 
 Of life's and death's solemnities ; 
 But haply, as they bear in mind 
 Some verse of lighter, happier kind, — 
 Hints of the boyhood of the man, 
 Youth viewed from life's meridian, 
 Half seriously and half in play 
 My pleasant interviewers pay 
 Their visit, with no fell intent 
 Of taking notes and punishment. 
 
 As yonder solitary pine 
 Is ringed below with flower and vine. 
 More favored than that lonely tree. 
 The bloom of girlhood circles me. 
 In such an atmosphere of youth 
 I half forget my age's truth ; 
 The shadow of my life's long date 
 Runs backward on the dial-plate, 
 
98 AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION 
 
 Until it seems a step might span 
 The gulf between the boy and man. 
 
 My young friends smile, as if some jay 
 
 On bleak December's leafless spray 
 
 Essayed to sing the songs of May. 
 
 Well, let them smile, and live to know, 
 
 When their brown locks are flecked with snow, 
 
 'T is tedious to be always sage 
 
 And pose the dignity of age. 
 
 While so much of our early lives 
 
 On memory's playground still survives, 
 
 And owns, as at the present hour. 
 
 The spell of youth's magnetic power. 
 
 But though I feel, with Solomon, 
 'T is pleasant to behold the sun, 
 I would not if I could repeat 
 A life which still is good and sweet ; 
 I keep in age, as in my prime, 
 A not uncheerf ul step with time. 
 And, grateful for all blessings sent, 
 I go the common way, content 
 To make no new experiment. 
 On easy terms with law and fate, 
 For what must be I calmly wait. 
 And trust the path I cannot see, — 
 That God is good sufficeth me. 
 And when at last on life's strange play 
 The curtain falls, I only pray 
 That hope may lose itself in truth. 
 And age in Heaven's immortal youth, 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 99 
 
 And all our loves and longing prove 
 The foretaste of diviner love ! 
 
 The day is done. Its afterglow 
 
 Along the west is burning low. 
 
 My visitors, like birds, have flown ; 
 
 I hear their voices, fainter grown, 
 
 And dimly through the dusk I see 
 
 Their kerchiefs wave good-night to me, — - 
 
 Light hearts of girlhood, knowing naught 
 
 Of all the cheer their coming brought ; 
 
 And, in their going, unaware 
 
 Of silent-falling feet of prayer : 
 
 Heaven make their budding promise good 
 
 With flowers of gracious womanhood ! 
 
 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 It can scarcely be necessary to name as the two com- 
 panions whom I reckoned with myself in this poetical 
 picnic, Fields the lettered magnate, and Taylor the free 
 cosmopolite. The long line of sandy beach which defines 
 almost the whole of the New Hampshire sea-coast is espe- 
 cially marked, near its southern extremity, by the salt- 
 meadows of Hampton. The Hampton River winds through 
 these meadows, and the reader may, if he choose, imagine 
 my tent pitched near its mouth, where also was the scene 
 of the Wrech of Eivermouth. The green bluff to the north- 
 ward is Great Boar's Head ; southward is the Merrimac, 
 with Kewburyport lifting its steeples above brown roofs 
 and green trees on its banks. [Mr. Whittier originally de- 
 signed following the Decameron method and feigning that 
 each person read his own poem, but abandoned it as too 
 hackneyed.] 
 
100 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 I WOULD not sin, in this half-playful strain, — 
 Too light perhaps for serious years, though 
 born 
 Of the enforced leisure of slow pain, — 
 
 Against the pure ideal which has drawn 
 My feet to follow its far-shining gleam. 
 A simple plot is mine : legends and runes 
 Of credulous days, old fancies that have lain 
 Silent from boyhood taking voice again. 
 Warmed into life once more, even as the tunes 
 That, frozen in the fabled hunting-horn, 
 Thawed into sound : — a winter fireside dream 
 Of dawns and sunsets by the summer sea, 
 Whose sands are traversed by a silent throng 
 Of voyagers from that vaster mystery 
 Of which it is an emblem ; — and the dear 
 Memory of one who might have tuned my song 
 To sweeter music by her delicate ear. 
 
 When heats as of a tropic clime 
 
 Burned all our inland valleys through, 
 Three friends, the guests of summer time, 
 Pitched their white tent where sea-winds 
 blew. 
 Behind them, marshes, seamed and crossed 
 With narrow creeks, and flower-embossed, 
 Stretched to the dark oak wood, whose leafy arms 
 Screened from the stormy East the pleasant in- 
 land farms. 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 101 
 
 At full of tide their bolder shore 
 
 Of sun-bleached sand the waters beat ; 
 At ebb, a smooth and glistening floor 
 
 They touched with light, receding feet. 
 Northward a green bluff broke the chain 
 Of sand-hills ; southward stretched a plain 
 Of salt grass, with a river winding down. 
 Sail - whitened, and beyond the steeples of the 
 town, — 
 
 Whence sometimes, when the wind was light 
 
 And dull the thunder of the beach. 
 They heard the bells of morn and night 
 Swing, miles away, their silver speech. 
 Above low scarp and turf-grown wall 
 They saw the fort-flag rise and fall ; 
 And, the first star to signal twilight's hour. 
 The lamp-fire glimmer down from the tall light- 
 house tower. 
 
 They rested there, escaped awhile 
 
 From cares that wear the life away, 
 To eat the lotus of the Nile 
 
 And drink the poppies of Cathay, — 
 To fling their loads of custom down. 
 Like drift-weed, on the sand-slopes brown, 
 And in the sea-waves drown the restless pack 
 Of duties, claims, and needs that barked upon 
 their track. 
 
 One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore 
 A ready credence in his looks. 
 
102 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 A lettered magnate, lording o'er 
 
 An ever-widening realm of books. 
 In him brain-currents, near and far, 
 Converged as in a Leyden jar ; 
 The old, dead authors thronged him round about, 
 And Elzevir's gray ghosts from leathern graves 
 looked out. 
 
 He knew each living pundit well, 
 
 Could weigh the gifts of him or her, 
 And well the market value tell 
 
 Of poet and philosopher. 
 But if he lost, the scenes behind. 
 Somewhat of reverence vague and blind, 
 Finding the actors human at the best. 
 No readier lips than his the good he saw confessed. 
 
 His boyhood fancies not outgrown, 
 
 He loved himself the singer's art ; 
 Tenderly, gently, by his own 
 
 He knew and judged an author's heart. 
 No Ehadamanthine brow of doom 
 Bowed the dazed pedant from his room ; 
 And bards, whose name is legion, if denied. 
 Bore off alike intact their verses and their pride. 
 
 Pleasant it was to roam about 
 
 The lettered world as he had done, 
 
 And see the lords of song without 
 Their singing robes and garlands on. 
 
 With Wordsworth paddle Rydal mere, 
 
 Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer. 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 103 
 
 And with the ears of Rogers, at fourscore, 
 Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's wit 
 once more. 
 
 And one there was, a dreamer born, 
 
 Who, with a mission to fulfil, 
 Had left the Muses* haunts to turn 
 
 The crank of an opinion-mill, 
 Making his rustic reed of song 
 A weapon in the war with wrong. 
 Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough 
 That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring 
 and grow. 
 
 Too quiet seemed the man to ride 
 The winged HippogrifE Reform ; 
 Was his a voice from side to side 
 
 To pierce the tumult of the storm ? 
 A silent, shy, peace-loving man, 
 He seemed no fiery partisan 
 To hold his way against the public frown. 
 The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's 
 hounding down. 
 
 For while he wrought with strenuous will 
 
 The work his hands had found to do. 
 He heard the fitful music still 
 
 Of winds that out of dream-land blew. 
 The din about him could not drown 
 What the strange voices whispered down ; 
 Along his task-field weird processions swept, 
 The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped. 
 
104 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 The common air was thick with dreams, — 
 
 He told them to the toiling crowd ; 
 Such music as the woods and streams 
 
 Sang in his ear he sang aloud ; 
 In still, shut bays, on windy capes, 
 He heard the call of beckoning shapes. 
 And, as the gray old shadows prompted him. 
 To homely moulds of rhyme he shaped their le- 
 gends grim. 
 
 He rested now his weary hands. 
 
 And lightly moralized and laughed, 
 As, tracing on the shifting sands 
 A burlesque of his paper-craft. 
 He saw the careless waves o'errun 
 His words, as time before had done. 
 Each day's tide-water washing clean away. 
 Like letters from the sand, the work of yesterday. 
 
 And one, whose Arab face was tanned 
 
 By tropic sun and boreal frost, 
 So travelled there was scarce a land 
 
 Or people left him to exhaust. 
 In idling mood had from him hurled 
 The poor squeezed orange of the world. 
 And in the tent-shade, sat beneath a palm. 
 Smoked, cross-legged like a Turk, in Oriental 
 calm. 
 
 The very waves that washed the sand 
 
 Below him, he had seen before 
 Whitening the Scandinavian strand 
 
 And sultry Mauritanian shore. 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 105 
 
 From ice-rimmed isles, from summer seas 
 Palm-fringed, they bore him messages ; 
 He heard the plaintive Nubian songs again, 
 And mule-bells tinkling down the mountain-paths 
 of Spain. 
 
 His memory round the ransacked earth 
 
 On Puck's long girdle slid at ease ; 
 And, instant, to the valley's girth 
 
 Of mountains, spice isles of the seas, 
 Faith flowered in minster stones. Art's guess 
 At truth and beauty, found access ; 
 Yet loved the while, that free cosmopolite, 
 Old friends, old ways, and kept his boyhood's 
 dreams in sight. 
 
 Untouched as yet by wealth and pride, 
 
 That virgin innocence of beach : 
 No shingly monster, hundred-eyed. 
 
 Stared its gray sand-birds out of reach ; 
 Unhoused, save where, at intervals, 
 The white tents showed their canvas walls, 
 Where brief sojourners, in the cool, soft air, 
 Forgot their inland heats, hard toil, and year-long 
 care. 
 
 Sometimes along the wheel-deep sand 
 A one-horse wagon slowly crawled, 
 
 Deep laden with a youthful band, 
 Whose look some homestead old recalled ; 
 
 Brother perchance, and sisters twain. 
 
 And one whose blue eyes told, more plain 
 
106 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Than the free language of her rosy lip, 
 
 Of the still dearer claim of love's relationship. 
 
 With cheeks of russet-orchard tint, 
 
 The light laugh of their native rills, 
 The perfume of their garden's mint, 
 
 The breezy freedom of the hills. 
 They bore, in unrestrained delight, 
 The motto of the Garter's knight. 
 Careless as if from every gazing thing 
 Hid by their innocence, as Gyges by his ring. 
 
 The clanging sea-fowl came and went, 
 
 The hunter's gun in the marshes rang ; 
 At nightfall from a neighboring tent 
 A flute-voiced woman sweetly sang. 
 Loose-haired, barefooted, hand-in-hand, 
 Young girls went tripping down the sand ; 
 And youths and maidens, sitting in the moon. 
 Dreamed o'er the old fond dream from which we 
 wake too soon. 
 
 At times their fishing-lines they plied. 
 
 With an old Triton at the oar. 
 Salt as the sea-wind, tough and dried 
 
 As a lean cusk from Labrador. 
 Strange tales he told of wreck and storm, — 
 Had seen the sea-snake's awful form. 
 And heard the ghosts on Haley's Isle complain. 
 Speak him off shore, and beg a passage to old 
 Spain I 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 107 
 
 And there, on breezy morns, they saw 
 The fishing-schooners outward run, 
 Their low-bent sails in tack and flaw 
 
 Turned white or dark to shade and sun. 
 Sometimes, in calms of closing day. 
 They watched the spectral mirage play. 
 Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh, 
 And ships, with upturned keels, sail like a sea the 
 sky. 
 
 Sometimes a cloud, with thunder black, 
 
 Stooped low upon the darkening main, 
 Piercing the waves along its track 
 With the slant javelins of rain. 
 And when west-wind and sunshine warm 
 Chased out to sea its wrecks of storm. 
 They saw the prismy hues in thin spray showers 
 Where the green buds of waves burst into white 
 froth flowers. 
 
 And when along the line of shore 
 
 The mists crept upward chill and damp, 
 Stretched, careless, on their sandy floor 
 
 Beneath the flaring lantern lamp. 
 They talked of all things old and new, 
 Eead, slept, and dreamed as idlers do ; 
 And in the unquestioned freedom of the tent. 
 Body and o'er-taxed mind to healthful ease un- 
 bent. 
 
 Once, when the sunset splendors died. 
 And, trampling up the sloping sand, 
 
108 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 In lines outreacliing far and wide, 
 
 The wMte-maned billows swept to land, 
 Dim seen across the gathering shade, 
 A vast and ghostly cavalcade. 
 They sat around their lighted kerosene, 
 Hearing the deep bass roar their every pause be- 
 tween. 
 
 Then, urged thereto, the Editor 
 
 Within his full portfolio dipped, 
 Feigning excuse while searching for 
 
 (With secret pride) his manuscript. 
 His pale face flushed from eye to beard, 
 With nervous cough his throat he cleared. 
 And, in a voice so tremulous it betrayed 
 The anxious fondness of an author's heart, he 
 read : 
 
 THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH 
 
 The Goody Cole who figures in this poem and The Change- 
 ling was Eunice Cole, who for a quarter of a century or 
 more was feared, persecuted, and hated as the witch of 
 Hampton. She lived alone in a hovel a little distant from 
 the spot where the Hampton Academy now stands, and 
 there she died, unattended. When her death was discov- 
 ered, she was hastily covered up in the earth near by, and a 
 stake driven through her body, to exorcise the evil spirit. 
 [When Goody Cole was brought before the Quarter Sessions 
 in 1680 to answer to the charge of being a witch, the court 
 could not find satisfactory evidence of witchcraft, but so 
 strong was the feeling against her that Major Waldron, the 
 presiding magistrate, ordered her to be imprisoned with a 
 lock kept on her leg at the pleasure of the court. In such 
 
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH 109 
 
 judicial action one can read the fear and vindictive spirit of 
 the community at large.] Rev. Stephen Bachiler or Batch- 
 elder was one of the ablest of the early New England 
 preachers. His marriage late in life to a woman regarded 
 by his church as disreputable induced him to return to Eng- 
 land, where he enjoyed the esteem and favor of Oliver 
 Cromwell during the Protectorate. 
 
 RiVERMOUTH Rocks are fair to see, 
 
 By dawn or sunset shone across, 
 When the ebb of the sea has left them free 
 
 To dry their fringes of gold-green moss : 
 For there the river comes winding down. 
 From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown, 
 And waves on the outer rocks af oam 
 Shout to its waters, " Welcome home ! '* 
 
 And fair are the sunny isles in view 
 
 East of the grisly Head of the Boar, 
 And Agamenticus lifts its blue 
 
 Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er ; 
 And southerly, when the tide is down, 
 'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown. 
 The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel 
 Over a floor of burnished steel. 
 
 Once, in the old Colonial days. 
 
 Two hundred years ago and more, 
 A boat sailed down through the winding ways 
 
 Of Hampton River to that low shore, 
 Full of a goodly company 
 Sailing out on the summer sea, 
 Veering to catch the land-breeze light, 
 With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right. / 
 
110 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid 
 
 Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass, 
 " Ah, well-a-day ! our hay must be made ! " 
 
 A young man sighed, who saw them pass. 
 Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand 
 Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, 
 Hearing a voice in a far-off song, 
 Watching a white hand beckoning long. 
 
 " Fie on the witch ! " cried a merry girl, 
 As they rounded the point where Goody Cole 
 
 Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, 
 A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. 
 
 " Oho ! " she muttered, " ye 're brave to-day ! 
 
 But I hear the little waves laugh and say, 
 
 * The broth will be cold that waits at home ; 
 
 For it 's one to go, but another to come I ' '* 
 
 " She 's cursed," said the skipper ; " speak her 
 fair: 
 
 I 'm scary always to see her shake 
 Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, 
 
 And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake/* 
 But merrily still, with laugh and shout. 
 From Hampton Eiver the boat sailed out. 
 Till the huts and thefflakes on Star seemed nigh, 
 And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye. 
 
 They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, 
 Drawing up haddock and mottled cod ; 
 
 They saw not the Shadow that walked beside. 
 They heard not the feet with silence shod. 
 
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH 111 
 
 But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, 
 Shot by the lightnings through and through ; 
 And mufied growls, like the growl of a beast, 
 Ran along the sky from west to east. 
 
 Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea 
 
 Up to the dimmed and wading sun ; 
 But he spake like a brave man cheerily, 
 
 " Yet there is time for our homeward run." 
 Veering and tacking, they backward wore ; 
 And just as a breath from the woods ashore 
 Blew out to whisper of danger past, 
 The wrath of the storm came down at last ! 
 
 The skipper hauled at the heavy sail : 
 
 " God be our help I " he only cried. 
 As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail, 
 
 Smote the boat on its starboard side. 
 The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone 
 Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, 
 Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare, 
 The strife and torment of sea and air. 
 
 Goody Cole looked out from her door : 
 
 The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone, 
 Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar 
 
 Toss the foam from tusks of stone. 
 She clasped her hands with a grip of pain, 
 The tear on her cheek was not of rain : 
 <* They are lost," she muttered, " boat and crew I 
 Lord, forgive me 1 my words were true 1 " 
 
112 THE TEJSTT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Suddenly seaward swept the squall ; 
 
 The low sun smote through cloudy rack ; 
 The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all 
 
 The trend of the coast lay hard and black. 
 But far and wide as eye could reach, 
 'No life was seen upon wave or beach ; 
 The boat that went out at morning never 
 Sailed back again into Hampton Kiver. 
 
 O mower, lean on thy bended snath, 
 
 Look from the meadows green and low : 
 The wind of the sea is a waft of death, 
 The waves are singing a song of woe ! 
 By silent river, by moaning sea, 
 Long and vain shall thy watching be : 
 Never again shall the sweet voice call, 
 Never the white hand rise and fall ! 
 
 O Eivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight 
 Ye saw in the light of breaking day ! 
 
 Dead faces looking up cold and white 
 From sand and seaweed where they lay. 
 
 The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept. 
 
 And cursed the tide as it backward crept : 
 *^ Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake ! 
 
 Leave your dead for the hearts that break 1 " 
 
 Solemn it was in that old day 
 
 In Hampton town and its log-built church, 
 Where side by side the coffins lay 
 
 And the mourners stood in aisle and porch. 
 
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH U3 
 
 In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, 
 The voices faltered that raised the hymn, 
 And Father Dalton, grave and stern, 
 Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn. 
 
 But his ancient colleague did not pray ; 
 
 Under the weight of his fourscore years 
 He stood apart with the iron-gray 
 
 Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears ; 
 And a fair-faced woman of doubtful fame. 
 Linking her own with his honored name, 
 Subtle as sin, at his side withstood 
 The felt reproach of her neighborhood. 
 
 Apart with them, like them forbid. 
 
 Old Goody Cole looked drearily round, 
 As, two by two, with their faces hid, 
 
 The mourners walked to the burying-ground. 
 She let the staff from her clasped hands fall : 
 " Lord, forgive us ! we 're sinners all ! " 
 And the voice of the old man answered her : 
 " Amen ! " said Father Bachiler. 
 
 So, as I sat upon Appledore 
 In the calm of a closing summer day, 
 
 And the broken lines of Hampton shore 
 In purple mist of cloudland lay, 
 
 The River mouth Rocks their story told ; 
 
 And waves aglow with sunset gold, 
 
 Rising and breaking in steady chime, 
 
 Beat the rhythm and kept the time. 
 
114 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 And the sunset paled, and warmed once more 
 
 With a softer, tenderer after-glow ; 
 In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore 
 
 And sails in the distance drifting slow. 
 The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar, 
 The White Isle kindled its great red star; 
 And life and death in my old-time lay 
 Mingled in^ peace like the night and day ! 
 
 " Well ! " said the Man of Books, " your story 
 
 Is really not ill told in verse. 
 As the Celt said of purgatory, 
 
 One might go farther and fare worse." 
 The Reader smiled ; and once again 
 With steadier voice took up his strain, 
 While the fair singer from the neighboring tent 
 Drew near, and at his side a graceful listener bent. 
 
 THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE 
 
 At the mouth of the Melvin River, which empties into 
 Moultonboro Bay in Lake Winnipesaukee, is a great mound. 
 The Ossipee Indians had their home in the neighborhood of 
 the bay, which is plentifully stocked with fish, and many 
 relics of their occupation have been found. 
 
 Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles 
 Dimple round its hundred isles. 
 And the mountain's granite ledge 
 Cleaves the water like a wedge, 
 Einged about with smooth, gray stones, 
 Rest the giant's mighty bones. 
 
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE 115 
 
 Close beside, in shade and gleam, 
 Laughs and ripples Melvin stream ; 
 Melvin water, mountain-born, 
 All fair flowers its banks adorn ; 
 All the woodland voices meet. 
 Mingling with its murmurs sweet. 
 
 Over lowlands forest-grown, 
 Over waters island-strown, 
 Over silver-sanded beach, 
 Leaf-locked bay and misty reach, 
 Melvin stream and burial-heap, 
 Watch and ward the mountains keep. 
 
 Who that Titan cromlech fills ? 
 Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills ? 
 Knight who on the birchen tree 
 Carved his savage heraldry ? 
 Priest o' the pine-wood temples dim. 
 Prophet, sage, or wizard grim ? 
 
 Rugged type of primal man, 
 Grim utilitarian. 
 
 Loving woods for hunt and prowl, 
 Lake and hill for fish and fowl, 
 As the brown bear blind and dull 
 To the grand and beautiful : 
 
 Not for him the lesson drawn' 
 From the mountains smit with dawn. 
 Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May, 
 Sunset's purple bloom of day, — 
 
116 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Took his life no hue from thence, 
 Poor amid such afl3.uence ? 
 
 Haply unto hill and tree 
 All too near akin was he : 
 Unto him who stands afar 
 Nature's marvels greatest are ; 
 Who the mountain purple seeks 
 Must not climb the higher peaks. 
 
 Yet who knows, in winter tramp, 
 Or the midnight of the camp, 
 What revealings faint and far, 
 Stealing down from moon and star. 
 Kindled in that human clod 
 Thought of destiny and God ? 
 
 Stateliest forest patriarch. 
 Grand in robes of skin and bark. 
 What sepulchral mysteries. 
 What weird funeral-rites, were his ? 
 What sharp wail, what drear lament. 
 Back scared wolf and eagle sent ? 
 
 Now, whatever he may have been, 
 Low he lies as other men ; 
 On his mound the partridge drums, 
 There the noisy blue-jay comes ; 
 Rank nor name nor pomp has he 
 In the grave's democracy. 
 
 Part thy blue lips. Northern lake ! 
 Moss-grown rocks, your silence break ! 
 
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE 117 
 
 Tell the tale, thou ancient tree ! 
 Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee ! 
 Speak, and tell us how and when 
 Lived and died this king of men ! 
 
 Wordless moans the ancient pine ; 
 Lake and mountain give no sign ; 
 Vain to trace this ring of stones ; 
 Vain the search of* crumbling bones : 
 Deepest of all mysteries, 
 And the saddest, silence is. 
 
 Nameless, noteless, clay with clay 
 Mingles slowly day by day ; 
 But somewhere, for good or ill, 
 That dark soul is living still ; 
 Somewhere yet that atom's force 
 Moves the light-poised universe. 
 
 Strange that on his burial-sod 
 Harebells bloom, and golden-rod, 
 While the souFs dark horoscope 
 Holds no starry sign of hope ! 
 Is the Unseen with sight at odds ? 
 Nature's pity more than God's ? 
 
 Thus I mused by Melvin's side, 
 While the summer eventide 
 Made the woods and inland sea 
 And the mountains mystery ; 
 And the hush of earth and air 
 Seemed the pause before a prayer, — 
 
118 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Prayer for him, for all who rest, 
 
 Mother Earth, upon thy breast, — 
 
 Lapped on Christian turf, or hid 
 
 In rock-cave or pyramid : 
 
 All who sleep, as all who live, 
 
 Well may need the prayer, " Forgive ! ** 
 
 Desert-smothered caravan. 
 Knee-deep dust that once was man, 
 Battle-trenches ghastly piled. 
 Ocean-floors with white bones tiled, 
 Crowded tomb and mounded sod. 
 Dumbly crave that prayer to God. 
 
 Oh, the generations old 
 
 Over whom no church-bells tolled, 
 
 Christless, lifting up blind eyes 
 
 To the silence of the skies ! 
 
 For the innumerable dead 
 
 Is my soul disquieted. 
 
 Where be now these silent hosts ? 
 Where the camping-ground of ghosts ? 
 Where the spectral conscripts led 
 To the white tents of the dead ? 
 What strange shore or chartless sea 
 Holds the awful mystery ? 
 
 Then the warm sky stooped to make 
 Double sunset in the lake ; 
 While above I saw with it. 
 Range on range, the mountains lit ; 
 
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE 119 
 
 And the calm and splendor stole 
 Like an answer to my soul. 
 
 Hear'st thou, O of little faith, 
 What to thee the mountain saith, 
 What is whispered by the trees? — 
 " Cast on God thy care for these ; 
 Trust Him, if thy sight be dim : 
 Doubt for them is doubt of Him. 
 
 " Blind must be their close-shut eyes 
 Where like night the sunshine lies, 
 Fiery-linked the self-forged chain 
 Binding ever sin to pain. 
 Strong their prison-house of will, 
 But without He waiteth still. 
 
 " Not with hatred's undertow 
 Doth the Love Eternal flow ; 
 Every chain that spirits wear 
 Crumbles in the breath of prayer ; 
 And the penitent's desire 
 Opens every gate of fire. 
 
 " Still Thy love, O Christ arisen, 
 Yearns to reach these souls in prison I 
 Through all depths of sin and loss 
 Drops the plummet of Thy cross ! 
 Never yet abyss was found 
 Deeper than that cross could sound 1 " 
 
 Therefore well may Nature keep 
 Equal faith with all who sleep, 
 
120 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Set her watch of hills around 
 Christian grave and heathen mound, 
 And to cairn and kirkyard send 
 Summer's flowery dividend. 
 
 Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream, 
 Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam ! 
 On the Indian's grassy tomb 
 Swing, O flowers, your bells of bloom 1 
 Deep below, as high above. 
 Sweeps the circle of God's love. 
 
 He paused and questioned with his eye , 
 
 The hearers' verdict on his song. 
 A low voice asked : " Is 't well to pry 
 
 Into the secrets which belong 
 Only to God ? ^ The life to be 
 Is still the unguessed mystery : 
 Unsealed, unpierced the cloudy walls remain, 
 We beat with dream and wish the soundless doors 
 in vain. 
 
 " But faith beyond our sight may go." 
 He said : " The gracious Fatherhood 
 Can only know above, below, 
 
 Eternal purposes of good. 
 From our free heritage of will, 
 The bitter springs of pain and ill 
 Flow only in all worlds. The perfect day 
 Of God is shadowless, and love is love alway." 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 121 
 
 " I know," she said, " the letter kills ; 
 That on our arid fields of strife 
 And heat of clashing texts distils 
 
 The dew of spirit and of life. 
 But, searching still the written Word, 
 I fain would find. Thus saith the Lord, 
 A voucher for the hope I also feel 
 That sin can give no wound beyond love's power 
 to heal." 
 
 " Pray," said the Man of Books, " give o'er 
 A theme too vast for time and place. 
 Go on. Sir Poet, ride once more 
 
 Your hobby at his old free pace. 
 But let him keep, with step discreet, 
 The solid earth beneath his feet. 
 In the great mystery which around us lies, 
 The wisest is a fool, the fool Heaven - helped is 
 wise." 
 
 The Traveller said ; " If songs have creeds, 
 
 Their choice of them let singers make ; 
 But Art no other sanction needs 
 
 Than beauty for its own fair sake. 
 It grinds not in the mill of use, 
 Nor asks for leave, nor begs excuse ; 
 It makes the flexile laws it deigns to own, 
 And gives its atmosphere its color and its tone. 
 
 " Confess, old friend, your austere school 
 Has left your fancy little chance ; 
 You square to reason's rigid rule 
 The flowing outlines of romance. 
 
122 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 With conscience keen from exercise, 
 
 And chronic fear of compromise, 
 You check the free play of your rhymes, to clap 
 A moral underneath, and spring it like a trap." 
 
 The sweet voice answered : " Better so 
 
 Than bolder flights that know no check ; 
 Better to use the bit, than throw 
 
 The reins all loose on fancy's neck. 
 The liberal range of Art should be 
 The breadth of Christian liberty, 
 Restrained alone by challenge and alarm 
 Where its charmed footsteps tread the border land 
 of harm. 
 
 " Beyond the poet's sweet dream lives 
 The eternal epic of the mun. 
 He wisest is who only gives. 
 
 True to himself, the best he can ; 
 Who, drifting in the winds of praise. 
 The inward monitor obeys ; 
 And, with the boldness that confesses fear. 
 Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience 
 steer. 
 
 " Thanks for the fitting word he speaks. 
 Nor less for doubtful word unspoken, 
 For the false model that he breaks, 
 
 As for the moulded grace unbroken ; 
 For what is missed and what remains, 
 For losses which are truest gains, 
 For reverence conscious of the Eternal eye. 
 And truth too fair to need the garnish of a lie." 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 123 
 
 Laughing, the Critic bowed. " I yield 
 
 The point without another word; 
 Who ever yet a case appealed 
 
 Where beauty's judgment had been heard ? 
 And you, my good friend, owe to me 
 Your warmest thanks for such a plea, 
 As true withal as sweet. For my offence 
 Of cavil, let her words be ample recompense." 
 
 Across the sea one lighthouse star, 
 
 With crimson ray that came and went, 
 Revolving on its tower afar. 
 
 Looked through the doorway of the tent. 
 While outward, over sand-slopes wet. 
 The lamp flashed down its yellow jet 
 On the long wash of waves, with red and green 
 Tangles of weltering weed through the white foam- 
 wreaths seen. 
 
 " ' Sing while we may, — another day 
 
 May bring enough of sorrow ; ' — thus 
 Our Traveller in his own sweet lay, 
 
 His Crimean camp-song, hints to us," 
 The lady said. " So let it be ; 
 Sing us a song," exclaimed all three. 
 She smiled ; " I can but marvel at your choice 
 To hear our poet's words through my poor bor- 
 rowed voice." 
 
 Her window opens to the bay, 
 On glistening light or misty gray. 
 And there at dawn and set of day 
 In prayer she kneels. 
 
124 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 " Deax Lord I " she saith, " to many a home 
 From wind and wave the wanderers come ; 
 I only see the tossing foam 
 Of stranger keels. 
 
 " Blown out and in by summer gales, 
 The stately ships, with crowded sails, 
 And sailors leaning o'er their rails, 
 
 Before me glide ; 
 They come, they go, but nevermore, 
 Spice-laden from the Indian shore, 
 I see his swift-winged Isidore 
 
 The waves divide. 
 
 " O Thou ! with whom the night is day 
 And one the near and far away. 
 Look out on yon gray waste, and say 
 
 Where lingers he. 
 Alive, perchance, on some lone beach 
 Or thirsty isle beyond the reach 
 Of man, he hears the mocking speech 
 
 Of wind and sea. 
 
 " O dread and cruel deep, reveal 
 The secret which thy waves conceal. 
 And, ye wild sea-birds, hither wheel 
 
 And tell your tale. 
 Let winds that tossed his raven hair 
 A message from my lost one bear, — 
 Some thought of me, a last fond prayer 
 
 Or dying wail ! 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 125 
 
 " Come, with your dreariest truth shut out 
 The fears that haunt me round about ; 
 O God ! I cannot bear this doubt 
 
 That stifles breath. 
 The worst is better than the dread ; 
 Give me but leave to mourn my dead 
 Asleep in trust and hope, instead 
 
 Of life in death 1" 
 
 It might have been the evening breeze 
 That whispered in the garden trees, 
 It might have been the sound of seas 
 
 That rose and fell ; 
 But, with her heart, if not her ear. 
 The old loved voice she seemed to hear : 
 " I wait to meet thee : be of cheer, 
 
 For all is well!" 
 
 The sweet voice into silence went, 
 A silence which was almost pain 
 As through it rolled the long lament, 
 The cadence of the mournful main. 
 Glancing his written pages o*er. 
 The Eeader tried his part once more ; 
 Leaving the land of hackmatack and pine 
 For Tuscan valleys glad with olive and with vine. 
 
126 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 THE BROTHER OF MERCY 
 
 PiERO LucA, known of all the town 
 As the gray porter by the Pitti wall 
 Where the noon shadows of the gardens fall, 
 Sick and in dolor, waited to lay down 
 His last sad burden, and beside his mat 
 The barefoot monk of La Certosa sat. 
 
 Unseen, in square and blossoming garden drifted, 
 Soft sunset lights through green Val d* Arno 
 
 sifted ; 
 Unheard, below the living shuttles shifted 
 Backward and forth, and wove, in love or strife, 
 In mirth or pain, the mottled web of life : 
 But when at last came upward from the street 
 Tinkle of bell and tread of measured feet. 
 The sick man started, strove to rise in vain. 
 Sinking back heavily with a moan of pain. 
 And the monk said, " 'T is but the Brotherhood 
 Of Mercy going on some errand good : 
 Their black masks by the palace-wall I see." 
 Piero answered faintly, " Woe is me ! 
 This day for the first time in forty years 
 In vain the bell hath sounded in my ears, 
 Calling me with my brethren of the mask. 
 Beggar and prince alike, to some new task 
 Of love or pity, — haply from the street 
 To bear a wretch plague-stricken, or, with feet 
 Hushed to the quickened ear and feverish brain, 
 To tread the crowded lazaretto's floors. 
 
THE BROTHER OF MERCY 127 
 
 Down the long twilight of the corridors, 
 
 Midst tossing arms and faces full of pain. 
 
 I loved the work : it was its own reward. 
 
 I never counted on it to offset 
 
 My sins, which are many, or make less my debt 
 
 To the free grace and mercy of our Lord ; 
 
 But somehow, father, it has come to be 
 
 In these long years so much a part of me, 
 
 I should not know myself, if lacking it. 
 
 But with the work the worker too would die, 
 
 And in my place some other self would sit 
 
 Joyful or sad, — what matters, if not I? 
 
 And now all 's over. Woe is me ! " — " My son," 
 
 The monk said soothingly, " thy work is done ; 
 
 And no more as a servant, but the guest 
 
 Of God, thou enterest thy eternal rest. 
 
 "No toil, no tears, no sorrow for the lost. 
 
 Shall mar thy perfect bliss. Thou shalt sit down 
 
 Clad in white robes, and wear a golden crown 
 
 Forever and forever." — Piero tossed 
 
 On his sick-pillow : " Miserable me ! 
 
 I am too poor for such grand company ; 
 
 The crown would be too heavy for this gray 
 
 Old head ; and God forgive me if I say 
 
 It would be hard to sit there night and day. 
 
 Like an image in the Tribune, doing naught 
 
 With these hard hands, that all my life have 
 
 wrought, 
 "Not for bread only, but for pity's sake. 
 I 'm dull at prayers : I could not keep awake. 
 Counting my beads. Mine 's but a crazy head, 
 Scarce worth the saving, if all else be dead. 
 
128 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 And if one goes to heaven without a heart, 
 
 God knows he leaves behind his better part. 
 
 I love my fellow-men : the worst I know 
 
 I would do good to. Will death change me so 
 
 That I shall sit among the lazy saints, 
 
 Turning a deaf ear to the sore complaints 
 
 Of souls that su:ffer? Why, I never yet 
 
 Left a poor dog in the strada hard beset, 
 
 Or ass overladen I Must I rate man less 
 
 Than dog or ass, in holy selfishness ? 
 
 Me thinks (Lord, pardon, if the thought be sin !) 
 
 The world of pain were better, if therein 
 
 One's heart might still be human, and desires 
 
 Of natural pity drop upon its fires 
 
 Some cooling tears." 
 
 Thereat the pale monk crossed 
 His brow, and muttering, "Madman! thou art 
 
 lost I " 
 Took up his pyx and fled ; and, left alone, 
 The sick man closed his eyes with a great groan. 
 That sank into a prayer, " Thy will be done 1 " 
 
 Then was he made aware, by soul or ear. 
 Of somewhat pure and holy bending o'er him. 
 And of a voice like that of her who bore him. 
 Tender and most compassionate : " Never fear ! 
 For heaven is love, as God himself is love ; 
 Thy work below shall be thy work above." 
 And when he looked, lo ! in the stern monk's 
 
 place 
 He saw the shining of an angeFs face I 
 
THE CHANGELING 129 
 
 The Traveller broke the pause. " I 've seen 
 The Brothers down the long street steal, 
 Black, silent, masked, the crowd between, 
 
 And felt to doff my hat and kneel 
 With heart, if not with knee, in prayer. 
 For blessings on their pious care." 
 The Reader wiped his glasses : " Friends of mine, 
 We 11 try our home-brewed next, instead of for- 
 eign wine." 
 
 THE CHANGELING 
 
 For the fairest maid in Hampton 
 
 They needed not to search. 
 Who saw young Anna Favor 
 
 Come walking into church, — 
 
 Or bringing from the meadows, 
 
 At set of harvest-day. 
 The frolic of the blackbirds. 
 
 The sweetness of the hay. 
 
 Now the weariest of all mothers. 
 The saddest two years* bride. 
 
 She scowls in the face of her husband, 
 And spurns her child aside. 
 
 " Rake out the red coals, goodman, — 
 For there the child shall lie. 
 Till the black witch comes to fetch her 
 And both up chimney fly. 
 
130 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 " It 's never my own little daughter, 
 It 's never my own," she said; 
 
 " The witches have stolen my Anna, 
 And left me an imp instead. 
 
 " Oh, fair and sweet was my baby, 
 Blue eyes, and hair of gold ; 
 But this is ugly and wrinkled, 
 Cross, and cunning, and old. 
 
 " I hate the touch of her fingers, 
 I hate the feel of her skin ; 
 It 's not the milk from my bosom. 
 But my blood, that she sucks in. 
 
 " My face grows sharp with the torment ; 
 Look ! my arms are skin and bone i 
 Bake open the red coals, goodman, 
 And the witch shall have her own. 
 
 " She '11 come when she hears it crying. 
 In the shape of an owl or bat, 
 And she '11 bring us our darling Anna 
 In place of her screeching brat." 
 
 Then the goodman, Ezra Dalton, 
 Laid his hand upon her head : 
 " Thy sorrow is great, O woman I 
 I sorrow with thee," he said. 
 
 '* The paths to trouble are many, 
 And never but one sure way 
 
THE CHANGELING : 131 
 
 Leads out to the light beyond it : 
 My poor wife, let us pray." 
 
 Then he said to the great All-Father, 
 " Thy daughter is weak and blind ; 
 
 Let her sight come back, and clothe her 
 Once more in her right mind. 
 
 " Lead her out of this evil shadow, 
 Out of these fancies wild ; 
 Let the holy love of the mother 
 Turn again to her child. 
 
 " Make her lips like the lips of Mary 
 Kissing her blessed Son ; 
 Let her hands, like the hands of Jesus^ 
 Eest on her little one. 
 
 " Comfort the soul of thy handmaid. 
 Open her prison-door. 
 And thine shall be all the glory 
 And praise f orevermore." 
 
 Then into the face of its mother 
 The baby looked up and smiled; 
 
 And the cloud of her soul was lifted. 
 And she knew her little child. 
 
 A beam of the slant west sunshine 
 
 Made the wan face almost fair, 
 Lit the blue eyes* patient wonder 
 
 And the rings of pale gold hair. 
 
132 THE TENT 01^ THE BEACH 
 
 She kissed it on lip and forehead, 
 She kissed it on cheek and chin, 
 
 And she bared her snow-white bosom 
 To the lips so pale and thin. 
 
 Oh, fair on her bridal morning 
 Was the maid who blushed and smiled, 
 
 But fairer to Ezra Dalton 
 
 Looked the mother of his child. 
 
 With more than a lover's fondness 
 He stooped to her worn young face, 
 
 And the nursing child and the mother 
 He folded in one embrace. 
 
 " Blessed be God ! " he murmured, 
 " Blessed be God I " she said ; 
 
 " For I see, who once was blinded, — 
 I live, who once was dead. 
 
 " Now mount and ride, my goodman, 
 As thou lovest thy own soul ! 
 Woe 's me, if my wicked fancies 
 Be the death of Goody Cole ! " 
 
 His horse he saddled and bridled. 
 
 And into the night rode he, 
 Now through the great black woodland, 
 
 Now by the white-beached sea. 
 
 He rode through the silent clearings, 
 He came to the ferry wide, 
 
THE CHANGELING 133 
 
 And thrice he called to the boatman 
 Asleep on the other side. 
 
 He set his horse to the river, 
 
 He swam to Newbury town, 
 And he called up Justice Sewall 
 
 In his nightcap and his gown. 
 
 And the grave and worshipful justice 
 
 (Upon whose soul be peace !) 
 Set his name to the jailer's warrant 
 
 For Goodwife Cole's release. 
 
 Then through the night the hoof-beats 
 
 Went sounding like a flail ; 
 And Goody Cole at cockcrow 
 
 Came forth from Ipswich jail. 
 
 " Here is a rhyme : I hardly dare 
 
 To venture on its theme worn out ; 
 What seems so sweet by Doon and Ayr 
 
 Sounds simply silly hereabout ; 
 And pipes by lips Arcadian blown 
 Are only tin horns at our own. 
 Yet still the muse of pastoral walks with us, 
 While Hosea Biglow sings, our new Theocritus." 
 
134 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH 
 
 Attitash, an Indian word signifying ** huckleberry," is 
 the name of a large and beautiful lake in the northern part 
 of Amesbury. [In a letter to Mr. Fields, Whittier wrote : 
 " I should like to show thee Attitash, as it is as pretty as 
 St. Mary's Lake which Wordsworth sings, in fact a great 
 deal prettier. The glimpse of the Pawtuckaway range of 
 mountains in Nottingham seen across it is very fine, and it 
 has noble groves of pines and maples and ash trees."] 
 
 In sky and wave the white clouds swam, 
 And the blue hills of Nottingham 
 
 Through gaps of leafy green 
 
 Across the lake were seen, 
 
 When, in the shadow of the ash 
 That dreams its dream in Attitash, 
 
 In the warm summer weather. 
 
 Two maidens sat together. 
 
 They sat and watched in idle mood 
 The gleam and shade of lake and wood ; 
 
 The beach the keen light smote, 
 
 The white sail of a boat ; 
 
 Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying. 
 In sweetness, not in music, dying ; 
 Hardback, and virgin's-bower, 
 And white-spiked clethra-flower. 
 
 With careless ears they heard the plash 
 And breezy wash of Attitash, 
 
THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH 135 
 
 The wood-bird's plaintive cry, 
 The locust's sharp reply. 
 
 And teased the while, with playful hand^ 
 The shaggy dog of Newfoundland, 
 
 Whose uncouth frolic spilled 
 
 Their baskets berry-filled. 
 
 Then one, the beauty of whose eyes 
 Was evermore a great surprise, 
 
 Tossed back her queenly head. 
 
 And lightly laughing, said : 
 
 " No bridegroom's hand be mine to hold 
 That is not lined with yellow gold ; 
 I tread no cottage-floor ; 
 I own no lover poor. 
 
 " My love must come on silken wings, 
 With bridal lights of diamond rings, 
 Not foul with kitchen smirch. 
 With tallow-dip for torch." 
 
 The other, on whose modest head 
 Was lesser dower of beauty shed, 
 
 With look for home-hearths meet, 
 
 And voice exceeding sweet, 
 
 Answered, " We will not rivals be ; 
 Take thou the gold, leave love to me ; 
 
 Mine be the cottage small. 
 
 And thine the rich man's hall. 
 
136 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 " I know, indeed, that wealth is good ; 
 But lowly roof and simple food. 
 With love that hath no doubt, 
 Are more than gold without." 
 
 Hard by a farmer hale and young 
 His cradle in the rye-field swung, 
 Tracking the yellow plain 
 With windrows of ripe grain. 
 
 And still, whene'er he paused to whet 
 His scythe, the sidelong glance he met 
 Of large dark eyes, where strove 
 False pride and secret love. 
 
 Be strong, young mower of the grain ; 
 That love shall overmatch disdain, 
 
 It3 instincts soon or late 
 
 The heart shall vindicate. 
 
 In blouse of gray, with fishing-rod. 
 Half screened by leaves, a stranger trod 
 The margin of the pond. 
 Watching the group beyond. 
 
 The supreme hours unnoted come ; 
 
 Unf elt the turning tides of doom ; 
 And so the maids laughed on, 
 Nor dreamed what fate had done, — 
 
 Nor knew the step was Destiny's 
 That rustled in the birchen trees, 
 
THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH 137 
 
 As, with their lives forecast, 
 Fisher and mower passed. 
 
 Erelong by lake and rivulet side 
 The summer roses paled and died, 
 
 And Autumn's fingers shed 
 
 The maple's leaves of red. 
 
 Through the long gold-hazed afternoon, 
 Alone, but for the diving loon, 
 
 The partridge in the brake, 
 
 The black duck on the lake, 
 
 Beneath the shadow of the ash 
 Sat man and maid by Attitash ; 
 
 And earth and air made room 
 
 For human hearts to bloom. 
 
 Soft spread the carpets of the sod, 
 And scarlet-oak and golden-rod 
 
 With blushes and with smiles 
 
 Lit up the forest aisles. 
 
 The mellow light the lake aslant, 
 The pebbled margin's ripple-chant 
 
 Attempered and low-toned. 
 
 The tender mystery owned. 
 
 And through the dream the lovers dreamed 
 Sweet sounds stole in and soft lights streamed ; 
 
 The sunshine seemed to bless, 
 
 The air was a caress. 
 
138 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Not she who lightly laughed is there, 
 With scornful toss of midnight hair, 
 Her dark, disdainful eyes, 
 And proud lip worldly-wise. 
 
 Her haughty vow is still unsaid, 
 But all she dreamed and coveted 
 Wears, half to her surprise, 
 The youthful farmer's guise ! 
 
 With more than all her old-time pride 
 She walks the rye-field at his side, 
 
 Careless of cot or hall, 
 
 Since love transfigures all. 
 
 Rich beyond dreams, the vantage-ground 
 Of life is gained ; her hands have found 
 
 The talisman of old 
 
 That changes all to gold. 
 
 While she who could for love dispense 
 With all its glittering accidents, 
 And trust her heart alone. 
 Finds love and gold her own. 
 
 What wealth can buy or art can build 
 Awaits her ; but her cup is filled 
 
 Even now unto the brim ; 
 
 Her world is love and him ! 
 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH 139 
 
 The while he heard, the Book-man drew 
 
 A length of make-believing face, 
 With smothered mischief laughing through : 
 
 " Why, you shall sit in Ramsay's place, 
 And, with his Gentle Shepherd, keep 
 On Yankee hills immortal sheep, 
 While love-lorn swains and maids the seas be- 
 yond 
 Hold dreamy tryst around your huckleberry-pond." 
 
 The Traveller laughed : " Sir Galahad 
 
 Singing of love the Trouvere's lay I 
 How should he know the blindfold lad 
 
 From one of Vulcan's forge-boys ? " — " Nay, 
 He better sees who stands outside 
 Than they who in procession ride," 
 The reader answered : " selectmen and squire 
 Miss, while they make^ the show that wayside 
 folks admire. 
 
 " Here is a wild tale of the North, 
 
 Our travelled friend will own as one 
 Fit for a Norland Christmas hearth 
 
 And lips of Christian Andersen. 
 They tell it in the valleys green 
 Of the fair island he has seen. 
 Low lying off the pleasant Swedish shore, 
 Washed by the Baltic Sea, and watched by Elsi- 
 nore." 
 
140 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 KALLUNDBORG CHURCH 
 
 " Tie stille, barn min ! 
 Imorgen kommer Fin, 
 Fa'er din, 
 Og gi*er dig Esbern Snares oine og hjerte at lege med! " 
 
 Zealand Rhyme, 
 
 " Build at Kallundborg by the sea 
 A church as stately as church may be, 
 And there thou shalt wed my daughter fair," 
 Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare. 
 
 And the Baron laughed. But Esbern said, 
 " Though I lose my soul, I will Helva wed ! " 
 And off he strode, in his pride of will. 
 To the Troll who dwelt in Ulshoi hill. 
 
 " Build, O Troll, a church for me 
 At Kallundborg by the mighty sea ; 
 Build it stately, and build it fair. 
 Build it quickly," said Esbern Snare. 
 
 But the sly Dwarf said, " No work is wrought 
 By Trolls of the Hills, O man, for naught. 
 What wilt thou give for thy church so fair ? " 
 " Set thy own price," quoth Esbern Snare. 
 
 " When Kallundborg church is builded well, 
 Thou must the name of its builder tell. 
 Or thy heart and thy eyes must be my boon." 
 
 " Build," said Esbern, " and build it soon." 
 
KALLUNDBORG CHURCH 141 
 
 By night and by day the Troll wrought on ; 
 He hewed the timbers, he piled the stone ; 
 But day by day, as the walls rose fair, 
 Darker and sadder grew Esbern Snare. 
 
 He listened by night, he watched by day, 
 He sought and thought, but he dared not pray ; 
 In vain he called on the Elle-maids shy. 
 And the Neck and the Ms gave no reply. 
 
 Of his evil bargain far and wide 
 A rumor ran through the country-side ; 
 And Helva of Nesvek, young and fair, 
 Prayed for the soul of Esbern Snare. 
 
 And now the church was wellnigh done ; 
 One pillar it lacked, and one alone ; 
 And the grim Troll muttered, " Fool thou art I 
 To-morrow gives me thy eyes and heart ! " 
 
 By Kallundborg in black despair, 
 Through wood and meadow, walked Esbern Snare, 
 Till, worn and weary, the strong man sank 
 Under the birches on Ulshoi bank. 
 
 At his last day*s work he heard the Troll 
 Hammer and delve in the quarry's hole ; 
 Before him the church stood large and fair : 
 " I have builded my tomb," said Esbern Snare. 
 
 And he closed his eyes the sight to hide, 
 When he heard a light step at his side : 
 
142 THE TENT Olsr THE BEACH 
 
 " O Esbern Snare ! " a sweet voice said, 
 " Would I might die now in thy stead \ " 
 
 With a grasp by love and by fear made strong, 
 He held her fast, and he held her long ; 
 With the beating heart of a bird afeard, 
 She hid her face in his flame-red beard. 
 
 " O love ! " he cried, " let me look to-day 
 In thine eyes ere mine are plucked away ; 
 Let me hold thee close, let them feel thy heart 
 Ere mine by the Troll is torn apart I 
 
 " I sinned, O Helva, for love of thee ! 
 Pray that the Lord Christ pardon me ! " 
 But fast as she prayed, and faster still, 
 Hammered the Troll in Ulshoi hill. 
 
 He knew, as he wrought, that a loving heart 
 
 Was somehow baffling his evil art ; 
 
 For more than spell of Elf or Troll 
 
 Is a maiden's prayer for her lover's soul. 
 
 And Esbern listened, and caught the sound 
 Of a Troll-wife singing underground : 
 " To-morrow comes Fine, father thine : 
 Lie still and hush thee, baby mine 1 
 
 " Lie still, my darling ! next sunrise 
 
 Thou It play with Esbern Snare's heart and 
 eyes ! " 
 " Ho ! ho ! " quoth Esbern, " is that your game ? 
 
 Thanks to the Troll-wife, I know his name 1 " 
 
KALLUNDBORG CHURCH 143 
 
 The Troll he heard him, and hurried on 
 To Kallundborg church with the lacking stone. 
 " Too late, Gaffer Fine ! " cried Esbern Snare ; 
 And Troll and pillar vanished in air 1 
 
 That night the harvesters heard the sound 
 Of a woman sobbing underground, 
 And the voice of the Hill-Troll loud with blame 
 Of the careless singer who told his name. 
 
 Of the Troll of the Church they sing the rune 
 By the ISTorthern Sea in the harvest moon ; 
 And the fishers of Zealand hear him still 
 Scolding his wife in Ulshoi hill. 
 
 And seaward over its groves of birch 
 Still looks the tower of Kallundborg church, 
 Where, first at its altar, a wedded pair. 
 Stood Helva of Nesvek and Esbern Snare ! 
 
 " What," asked the Traveller, " would our sires, 
 The old Norse story-tellers, say 
 Of sun-graved pictures, ocean wires. 
 
 And smoking steamboats of to-day ? 
 And this, O lady, by your leave, 
 Recalls your song of yester eve : 
 Pray, let us have that Cable-hymn once more." 
 " Hear, hear ! " the Book-man cried, " the lady has 
 the floor. 
 
144 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 " These noisy waves below perhaps 
 To such a strain will lend their ear, 
 With softer voice and lighter lapse 
 
 Come stealing up the sands to hear, 
 And what they once refused to do 
 For old King Knut accord to you. 
 Nay, even the fishes shall your listeners be. 
 As once, the legend runs, they heard St. Anthony.' 
 
 THE CABLE HYMN" 
 
 O LONELY bay of Trinity, 
 
 O dreary shores, give ear ! 
 Lean down unto the white-lipped sea, 
 
 The voice of God to hear 1 
 
 From world to world His couriers fly, 
 Thought-winged and shod with fire ; 
 
 The angel of His stormy sky 
 Rides down the sunken wire. 
 
 What saith the herald of the Lord ? 
 
 " The world's long strife is done ; 
 Close wedded by that mystic cord. 
 
 Its continents are one. 
 
 " And one in heart, as one in blood. 
 Shall all her peoples be ; 
 The hands of human brotherhood 
 Are clasped beneath the sea. 
 
 " Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain 
 And Asian mountains borne, 
 
THE CABLE HYMN 145 
 
 The vigor of the Northern brain 
 Shall nerve the world outworn. 
 
 " From clime to clime, from shore to shore, 
 Shall thrill the magic thread ; 
 The new Prometheus steals once more 
 The fire that wakes the dead." 
 
 Throb on, strong pulse of thunder I beat 
 From answering beach to beach ; 
 
 Fuse nations in thy kindly heat, 
 And melt the chains of each I 
 
 Wild terror of the sky above, 
 
 Glide tamed and dumb below ! 
 Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, 
 
 Thy errands to and fro. 
 
 Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, 
 
 Beneath the deep so far. 
 The bridal robe of earth's accord, 
 
 The funeral shroud of war ! 
 
 For lo ! the fall of Ocean's wall 
 
 Space mocked and time outrun ; 
 And round the world the thought of all 
 
 Is as the thought of one ! 
 
 The poles unite, the zones agree, 
 
 The tongues of striving cease ; 
 As on the Sea of Galilee 
 
 The Christ is whispering, Peace ! 
 
146 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 " Glad prophecy I to this at last," 
 
 The Eeader said, " shall all things come. 
 Forgotten be the bugle's blast, 
 
 And battle-music of the drum. 
 A little while the world may run 
 Its old mad way, with needle-gun 
 And ironclad, but truth, at last, shall reign : 
 The cradle-song of Christ was never sung in vain I " 
 
 Shifting his scattered papers, " Here," 
 He said, as died the faint applause, 
 " Is something that I found last year 
 Down on the island known as Orr's. 
 I had it from a fair-haired girl 
 Who, oddly, bore the name of Pearl, 
 (As if by some droll freak of circumstance,) 
 Classic, or wellnigh so, in Harriet Stowe's ro- 
 mance." 
 
 THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL 
 
 What flecks the outer gray beyond 
 
 The sundown's golden trail ? 
 The white flash of a sea-bird's wing, 
 
 Or gleam of slanting sail ? 
 Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point, 
 
 And sea-worn elders pray, — 
 The ghost of what was once a ship 
 
 Is sailing up the bay ! 
 
 From gray sea-fog, from icy drift, 
 From peril and from pain, 
 
THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL 147 
 
 The home-bound fisher greets thy lights, 
 
 O hundred-harbored Maine ! 
 But many a keel shall seaward turn, 
 
 And many a sail outstand, 
 When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms 
 
 Against the dusk of land. 
 
 She rounds the headland's bristling pines ; 
 
 She threads the isle-set bay ; 
 'No spur of breeze can speed her on, 
 
 Nor ebb of tide delay. 
 Old men still walk the Isle of Orr 
 
 Who tell her date and name. 
 Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards 
 
 Who hewed her oaken frame. 
 
 What weary doom of baffled quest, 
 
 Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine ? 
 What makes thee in the haunts of home 
 
 A wonder and a sign ? 
 No foot is on thy silent deck. 
 
 Upon thy helm no hand ; 
 No ripple hath the soundless wind 
 
 That smites thee from the land ! 
 
 For never comes the ship to port, 
 
 Howe'er the breeze may be ; 
 Just when she nears the waiting shore 
 
 She drifts again to sea. 
 No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, 
 
 Nor sheer of veering side ; 
 Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, 
 
 Against the wind and tide. 
 
148 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star 
 
 Of evening guides her in ; 
 In vain for her the lamps are lit 
 
 Within thy tower, Seguin ! 
 In vain the harbor-boat shall hail, 
 
 In vain the pilot call ; 
 No hand shall reef her spectral sail, 
 
 Or let her anchor fall. 
 
 Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy, 
 
 Your gray-head hints of ill ; 
 And, over sick-beds whispering low, 
 
 Your prophecies fulfil. 
 Some home amid yon birchen trees 
 
 Shall drape its door with woe ; 
 And slowly where the Dead Ship sails. 
 
 The burial boat shall row 1 
 
 From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point, 
 
 From island and from main. 
 From sheltered cove and tided creek, 
 
 Shall glide the funeral train. 
 The dead-boat with the bearers four, 
 
 The mourners at her stern, — 
 And one shall go the silent way 
 
 Who shall no more return ! 
 
 And men shall sigh, and women weep, 
 Whose dear ones pale and pine, 
 
 And sadly over sunset seas 
 Await the ghostly sign. 
 
THE PALATINE 14^ 
 
 They know not that its sails are filled 
 
 By pity's tender breath, 
 Nor see the Angel at the helm 
 
 Who steers the Ship of Death I 
 
 " Chill as a down-east breeze should be," 
 The Book-man said. " A ghostly touch 
 The legend has. I 'm glad to see 
 Your flying Yankee beat the Dutch,*' 
 " Well, here is something of the sort 
 
 Which one midsummer day I caught 
 In Narragansett Bay, for lack of fish." 
 " We wait," the Traveller said ; " serve hot or cold 
 your dish." 
 
 THE PALATINE 
 
 Block Island in Long Island Sound, called by the Indians 
 Manisees, the isle of the little god, was the scene of a tragic 
 incident a hundred years or more ago, when The Palatine^ 
 an emigrant ship bound for Philadelphia, driven ofE its 
 course, came upon the coast at this point. A mutiny on 
 board, followed by an inhuman desertion on the part of the 
 crew, had brought the unhappy passengers to the verge of 
 starvation and madness. Tradition says that wreckers on 
 shore, after rescuing all but one of the survivors, set fire to 
 the vessel, which was driven out to sea before a gale which 
 had sprung up. Every twelvemonth, according to the same 
 tradition, the spectacle of a ship on fire is visible to the in- 
 habitants of the island. 
 
 Leagues north, as fly the gull and auk, 
 Point Judith watches with eye of hawk ; 
 Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk I 
 
150 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken, 
 With never a tree for Spring to waken. 
 For tryst of lovers or farewells taken, 
 
 Circled by waters that never freeze. 
 Beaten by billow and swept by breeze, 
 Lieth the island of Manisees, 
 
 Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold 
 The coast lights up on its turret old, 
 Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould. 
 
 Dreary the land when gust and sleet 
 At its doors and windows howl and beat. 
 And Winter laughs at its fires of peat ! 
 
 But in summer time, when pool and pond. 
 
 Held in the laps of valleys fond, 
 
 Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond ; 
 
 When the hills are sweet with the brier-rose, 
 And, hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose 
 Flowers the mainland rarely knows ; 
 
 When boats to their morning fishing go. 
 And, held to the wind and slanting low. 
 Whitening and darkening the small sails show, ■ 
 
 Then is that lonely island fair ; 
 
 And the pale health-seeker findeth there 
 
 The wine of life in its pleasant air. 
 
THE PALATINE 151 
 
 No greener valleys the sun invite, 
 
 On smoother beaches no sea-birds light, 
 
 No blue waves shatter to foam more white I 
 
 There, circling ever their narrow range, 
 
 Quaint tradition and legend strange 
 
 Live on unchallenged, and know no change. 
 
 Old wives spinning their web of tow, 
 
 Or rocking weirdly to and fro 
 
 In and out of the peat's dull glow. 
 
 And old men mending their nets of twine, 
 Talk together of dream and sign, 
 Talk of the lost ship Palatine, — 
 
 The ship that, a hundred years before. 
 Freighted deep with its goodly store. 
 In the gales of the equinox went ashore. 
 
 The eager islanders one by one 
 
 Counted the shots of her signal gun. 
 
 And heard the crash when she drove right on I 
 
 Into the teeth of death she sped : 
 (May God forgive the hands that fed 
 The false lights over the rocky Head !) 
 
 O men and brothers ! what sights were there ! 
 White upturned faces, hands stretched in prayer 1 
 Where waves had pity, could ye not spare ? 
 
152 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Down swooped the wreckers, like birds of prey 
 Tearing the heart of the ship away, 
 And the dead had never a word to say* 
 
 And then, with ghastly shimmer and shine 
 Over the rocks and the seething brine, 
 They burned the wreck of the Palatine. 
 
 In their cruel hearts, as they homeward sped, 
 " The sea and the rocks are dumb," they said ; 
 " There 11 be no reckoning with the dead." 
 
 But the year went round, and when once more 
 Along their foam-white curves of shore 
 They heard the line-storm rave and roar, 
 
 Behold I again, with shimmer and shine, 
 Over the rocks and the seething brine, 
 The flaming wreck of the Palatine ! 
 
 So, haply in fitter words than these. 
 Mending their nets on their patient knees, 
 They tell the legend of Manisees. 
 
 Nor looks nor tones a doubt betray ; 
 " It is known to us all," they quietly say ; 
 " We too have seen it in our day." 
 
 Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken ? 
 Was never a deed but left its token 
 Written on tables never broken ? 
 
THE PALATINE 153 
 
 Do the elements subtle reflections give ? 
 Do pictures of all the ages live 
 On Nature's infinite negative, 
 
 Which, half in sport, in malice half. 
 
 She shows at times, with shudder or laugh, 
 
 Phantom and shadow in photograph ? 
 
 For still, on many a moonless night, 
 
 From Kingston Head and from Montauk light 
 
 The spectre kindles and burns in sight. 
 
 Now low and dim, now clear and higher, 
 Leaps up the terrible Ghost of Fire, 
 Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire. 
 
 And the wise Sound skippers, though skies be fine, 
 Reef their sails when they see the sign 
 Of the blazing wreck of the Palatine I 
 
 ** A fitter tale to scream than sing," 
 
 The Book-man said. " Well, fancy, then," 
 The Reader answered, " on the wing 
 
 The sea-birds shriek it, not for men, 
 But in the ear of wave and breeze ! " 
 The Traveller mused : " Your Manisees 
 Is fairy-land : off Narragansett shore 
 Who ever saw the isle or heard its name before ? 
 
 " 'T is some strange land of Flyaway, 
 Whose dreamy shore the ship beguiles, 
 
154 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 St. Brandan's in its sea-mist gray, 
 Or sunset loom of Fortunate Isles ! ** 
 " No ghost, but solid turf and rock 
 
 Is the good island known as Block," 
 The Reader said. " For beauty and for ease 
 I chose its Indian name, soft-flowing Manisees ! 
 
 " But let it pass ; here is a bit 
 
 Of unrhymed story, with a hint 
 Of the old preaching mood in it. 
 
 The sort of sidelong moral squint 
 Our friend objects to, which has grown, 
 I fear, a habit of my own. 
 'T was written when the Asian plague drew near, 
 And the land held its breath and paled with sud- 
 den fear.*' 
 
 ABRAHAM DAVENPORT 
 
 The famous Dark Day of New England, May 19, 1780, 
 was a physical puzzle for many years to our ancestors, but 
 its occurrence brought something more than philosophical 
 speculation into the minds of those who passed through it. 
 The incident of Colonel Abraham Davenport's sturdy pro- 
 test is a matter of history. 
 
 In the old days (a custom laid aside 
 
 With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent 
 
 Their wisest men to make the public laws. 
 
 And so, from a brown homestead, where the 
 
 Sound 
 Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, 
 
ABRAHAM DAVENPORT 155 
 
 Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, 
 And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, 
 Stamford sent up to the councils of the State 
 Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport. 
 
 'T was on a May-day of the far old year 
 Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell 
 Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring, 
 Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, 
 A horror of great darkness, like the night 
 In day of which the Norland sagas tell, — 
 The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky 
 Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim 
 Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which 
 
 climbs 
 The crater's sides from the red hell below. 
 Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls 
 Roosted ; the cattle at the pasture bars 
 Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern 
 
 wings 
 Flitted abroad ; the sounds of labor died ; 
 Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew 
 
 sharp 
 To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter 
 The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ 
 Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked 
 A loving guest at Bethany, but stern 
 As Justice and inexorable Law. 
 
 Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as 
 ghosts. 
 Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, 
 
156 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Trembling beneath their legislative robes. 
 
 " It is the Lord's Great Day ! Let us adjourn," 
 
 Some said ; and then, as if with one accord. 
 
 All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. 
 
 He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice 
 
 The intolerable hush. " This well may be 
 
 The Day of Judgment which the world awaits ; 
 
 But be it so or not, I only know 
 
 My present duty, and my Lord's command 
 
 To occupy till He come. So at the post 
 
 Where He hath set me in His providence, 
 
 I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, — 
 
 No faithless servant frightened from my task. 
 
 But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls ; 
 
 And therefore, with all reverence, I would say. 
 
 Let God do His work, we will see to ours. 
 
 Bring in the candles." And they brought them 
 
 Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read, 
 Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, 
 An act to amend an act to regulate 
 The shad and alewive fisheries. Whereupon 
 Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport, 
 Straight to the question, with no figures of speech 
 Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without 
 The shrewd dry humor natural to the man : 
 His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while, 
 Between the pauses of his argument. 
 To hear the thunder of the wrath of God 
 Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. 
 
ABKAHAM DAVENPORT 157 
 
 And there he stands in memory to this day, 
 Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen 
 Against the background of unnatural dark, 
 A witness to the ages as they pass, 
 That simple duty hath no place for fear. 
 
 He ceased : just then the ocean seemed 
 
 To lift a half -faced moon in sight ; 
 And, shore-ward, o'er the waters gleamed, 
 
 From crest to crest, a line of light, 
 Such as of old, with solemn awe, 
 The fishers by Gennesaret saw. 
 When dry-shod o'er it walked the Son of God, 
 Tracking the waves with light where'er his san- 
 dals trod. 
 
 Silently for a space each eye 
 
 Upon that sudden glory turned : 
 Cool from the land the breeze blew by, 
 
 The tent-ropes flapped, the long beach churned 
 Its waves to foam ; on either hand 
 Stretched, far as sight, the hills of sand ; 
 With bays of marsh, and capes of bush and tree. 
 The wood's black shore-line loomed beyond the 
 meadowy sea. 
 
 The lady rose to leave. "One song, 
 Or hymn," they urged, " before we part." 
 
 And she, with lips to which belpng 
 Sweet intuitions of all art, 
 
158 THE TENT ON THE BEACH 
 
 Gave to the winds of night a strain 
 Which they who heard would hear again ; 
 And to her voice the solemn ocean lent, 
 Touching its harp of sand, a deep accompaniment. 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 
 
 The harp at Nature's advent strung 
 
 Has never ceased to play ; 
 The song the stars of morning sung 
 
 Has never died away. 
 
 And prayer is made, and praise is given, 
 
 By all things near and far ; 
 The ocean looketh up to heaven, 
 
 And mirrors every star. 
 
 Its waves are kneeling on the strand. 
 
 As kneels the human knee. 
 Their white locks bowing to the sand. 
 
 The priesthood of the sea ! 
 
 They pour their glittering treasures forth, 
 Their gifts of pearl they bring, 
 
 And all the listening hills of earth 
 Take up the song they sing. 
 
 The green earth sends her incense up 
 From many a mountain shrine ; 
 
 From folded leaf and dewy cup 
 She pours her sacred wine. 
 
THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 159 
 
 The mists above the morning rills 
 
 Rise white as wings of prayer ; 
 The altar-curtains of the hills 
 
 Are sunset's purple air. 
 
 The winds with hymns of praise are loud, 
 
 Or low with sobs of pain, — 
 The thunder-organ of the cloud, 
 
 The dropping tears of rain. 
 
 With drooping head and branches crossed 
 
 The twilight forest grieves, 
 Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost 
 
 From all its sunlit leaves. 
 
 The blue sky is the temple's arch, 
 
 Its transept earth and air, 
 The music of its starry march 
 
 The chorus of a prayer. 
 
 So Nature keeps the reverent frame 
 
 With which her years began. 
 And all her signs and voices shame 
 
 The prayerless heart of man. 
 
 The singer ceased. The moon's white rays 
 Fell on the rapt, still face of her. 
 
 ^^ Allah it Allah I He hath praise 
 
 From all things," said the Traveller. 
 
 " Oft from the desert's silent nights. 
 
 And mountain hymns of sunset lights. 
 
160 EGO 
 
 My heart has felt rebuke, as in his tent 
 The Moslem's prayer has shamed my Christian 
 knee unbent." 
 
 He paused, and lo ! far, faint, and slow 
 The bells in Newbury's steeples tolled 
 The twelve dead hours ; the lamp burned low ; 
 
 The singer sought her canvas fold. 
 One sadly said, " At break of day 
 We strike our tent and go our way." 
 But one made answer cheerily, " jN'ever fear. 
 We '11 pitch this tent of ours in type another year." 
 
 EGO 
 
 WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OP A FRIEND 
 
 ON page of thine I cannot trace 
 The cold and heartless commonplace, 
 A statue's fixed and marble grace. 
 
 For ever as these lines I penned. 
 
 Still with the thought of thee will blend 
 
 That of some loved and common friend, 
 
 Who in life's desert track has made 
 His pilgrim tent with mine, or strayed 
 Beneath the same remembered shade. 
 
 And hence my pen unfettered moves 
 In freedom which the heart approves, 
 The negligence which friendship loves. 
 
EGO 161 
 
 And wilt thou prize my poor gift less 
 For simple air and rustic dress, 
 And sign of haste and carelessness ? 
 
 Oh, more than specious counterfeit 
 
 Of sentiment or studied wit, 
 
 A heart like thine should value it. 
 
 Yet half I fear my gift will be 
 Unto thy book, if not to thee. 
 Of more than doubtful courtesy. 
 
 A banished name from Fashion's sphere, 
 
 A lay unheard of Beauty's ear. 
 
 Forbid, disowned, — what do they here ? 
 
 Upon my ear not all in vain 
 
 Came the sad captive's clanking chain, 
 
 The groaning from his bed of pain. 
 
 And sadder still, I saw the woe 
 
 Which only wounded spirits know 
 
 When Pride's strong footsteps o'er them go. 
 
 Spurned not alone in walks abroad, 
 But from the temples of the Lord 
 Thrust out apart, like things abhorred. 
 
 Deep as I felt, and stern and strong, 
 
 In words which Prudence smothered long, 
 
 My soul spoke out against the wrong ; 
 
162 EGO 
 
 Not mine alone the task to speak 
 Of comfort to the poor and weak, 
 And dry the tear on Sorrow's cheek; 
 
 But, mingled in the conflict warm, 
 To pour the fiery breath of storm 
 Through the harsh trumpet of Kef orm ; 
 
 To brave Opinion's settled frown. 
 From ermined robe and saintly gown. 
 While wrestling reverenced Error down. 
 
 Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way, 
 Cool shadows on the greensward lay. 
 Flowers swung upon the bending spray. 
 
 And, broad and bright, on either hand. 
 Stretched the green slopes of Fairy-land, 
 With Hope's eternal sunbow spanned; 
 
 Whence voices called me like the flow. 
 Which on the listener's ear will grow, 
 Of forest streamlets soft and low. 
 
 And gentle eyes, which still retain 
 Their picture on the heart and brain. 
 Smiled, beckoning from that path of pain. 
 
 In vain ! nor dream, nor rest, nor pause 
 Eemain for him who round him draws 
 The battered mail of Freedom's cause. 
 
EGO 163 
 
 From youthful hopes, from each green spot 
 Of young Romance, and gentle Thought, 
 Where storm and tumult enter not ; 
 
 From each fair altar, where belong 
 The offerings Love requires of Song 
 In homage to her bright-eyed throng; 
 
 With soul and strength, with heart and hand, 
 I turned to Freedom's struggling band. 
 To the sad Helots of our land. 
 
 What marvel then that Fame should turn 
 
 Her notes of praise to those of scorn ; 
 
 Her gifts reclaimed, her smiles withdrawn ? 
 
 What matters it ? a few years more, 
 Life's surge so restless heretofore 
 Shall break upon the unknown shore I 
 
 In that far land shall disappear 
 The shadows which we follow here. 
 The mist-wreaths of our atmosphere ! 
 
 Before no work of mortal hand. 
 Of human will or strength expand 
 The pearl gates of the Better Land ; 
 
 Alone in that great love which gave 
 Life to the sleeper of the grave, 
 Resteth the power to seek and save. 
 
164: EGO 
 
 Yet, if the spirit gazing through 
 
 The vista of the past can view 
 
 One deed to Heaven and virtue true ; 
 
 If through the wreck of wasted powers, 
 Of garlands wreathed from Folly's bowers, 
 Of idle aims and misspent hours, 
 
 The eye can note one sacred spot 
 By Pride and Self profaned not, 
 A green place in the waste of thought, 
 
 Where deed or word hath rendered less 
 The sum of human wretchedness. 
 And Gratitude looks forth to bless ; 
 
 The simple burst of tenderest feeling 
 From sad hearts worn by evil-dealing, 
 For blessing on the hand of healing ; 
 
 Better than Glory's pomp will be 
 That green and blessed spot to me, 
 A palm-shade in Eternity 1 
 
 Something of Time which may invite 
 The purified and spiritual sight 
 To rest on with a calm delight. 
 
 And when the summer winds shall sweep 
 With their light wings my place of sleep. 
 And mosses round my headstone creep ; 
 
EGO 165 
 
 If still, as Freedom's rallying sign, 
 Upon the young heart's altars shine 
 The very fires they caught from mine ; 
 
 If words my lips once uttered still, 
 In the calm faith and steadfast will 
 Of other hearts, their work fulfil ; 
 
 Perchance with joy the soul may learn 
 These tokens, and its eye discern 
 The fires which on those altars burn ; 
 
 A marvellous joy that even then, 
 
 The spirit hath its life again, 
 
 In the strong hearts of mortal men. 
 
 Take, lady, then, the gift I bring, 
 
 'No gay and graceful offering, 
 
 "No flower-smile of the laughing spring. 
 
 Midst the green buds of Youth's fresh May, 
 With Fancy's leaf-enwoven bay, 
 My sad and sombre gift I lay. 
 
 And if it deepens in thy mind 
 
 A sense of suffering human-kind, — 
 
 The outcast and the spirit-blind ; 
 
 Oppressed and spoiled on every side, 
 By Prejudice, and Scorn, and Pride, 
 Life's common courtesies denied ; 
 
166 MY PSALM 
 
 Sad mothers mourning o'er their trust, 
 Children by want and misery nursed, 
 Tasting life's bitter cup at first ; 
 
 K to their strong appeals which come 
 From fireless hearth, and crowded room, 
 And the close alley's noisome gloom, — 
 
 Though dark the hands upraised to thee 
 
 In mute beseeching agony, 
 
 Thou lend'st thy woman's sympathy ; 
 
 "Not vainly on thy gentle shrine. 
 
 Where Love, and Mirth, and Friendship twine 
 
 Their varied gifts, I offer mine. 
 
 MY PSALM 
 
 IMOURlSr no more my vanished years : 
 Beneath a tender rain. 
 An April rain of smiles and tears, 
 My heart is young again. 
 
 The west-winds blow, and, singing low, 
 I hear the glad streams run ; 
 
 The windows of my soul I throw 
 Wide open to the sun. 
 
 "No longer forward nor behind 
 
 I look in hope or fear ; 
 But, grateful, take the good I find, 
 
 The best of now and here. 
 
MY PSALM 167 
 
 I plough no more a desert land, 
 
 To harvest weed and tare ; 
 The manna dropping from God's hand 
 
 Rebukes my painful care. 
 
 I break my pilgrim staff, I lay 
 
 Aside the toiling oar ; 
 The angel sought so far away 
 
 I welcome at my door. 
 
 The airs of spring may never play 
 
 Among the ripening corn, 
 Nor freshness of the flowers of May 
 
 Blow through the autumn morn ; 
 
 Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look 
 
 Through fringed lids to heaven, 
 And the pale aster in the brook 
 
 Shall see its image given ; — 
 
 The woods shall wear their robes of praise, 
 
 The south-wind softly sigh. 
 And sweet, calm days in golden haze 
 
 Melt down the amber sky. 
 
 Not less shall manly deed and word 
 
 Rebuke an age of wrong ; 
 The graven flowers that wreathe the sword 
 
 Make not the blade less strong. 
 
 But smiting hands shall learn to heal, — 
 To build as to destroy ; 
 
168 MY PSALM 
 
 Nor less my heart for others feel 
 That I the more enjoy. 
 
 All as God wills, who wisely heeds 
 
 To give or to withhold, 
 And knoweth more of all my needs 
 
 Than all my prayers have told ! 
 
 Enough that blessings undeserved 
 Have marked my erring track ; 
 
 That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved, 
 His chastening turned me back ; 
 
 That more and more a Providence 
 
 Of love is understood, 
 Making the springs of time and sense 
 
 Sweet with eternal good ; — 
 
 That death seems but a covered way 
 
 Which opens into light. 
 Wherein no blinded child can stray 
 
 Beyond the Father's sight ; 
 
 That care and trial seem at last. 
 Through Memory's sunset air, 
 
 Like mountain-ranges overpast. 
 In purple distance fair ; 
 
 That all the jarring notes of life 
 Seem blending in a psalm. 
 
 And all the angles of its strife 
 Slow rounding into calm. 
 
KESPONSE 169 
 
 And so the shadows fall apart, 
 And so the west-winds play ; 
 
 And all the windows of my heart 
 I open to the day. 
 
 RESPONSE 
 
 On the occasion of my seventieth birthday, in 1877, I 
 was the recipient of many tokens of esteem. The publish- 
 ers of the Atlantic Monthly gave a dinner in my name, and 
 the editor of The Literally World gathered in his paper 
 many affectionate messages from my associates in literature 
 and the cause of human progress. The lines which follow 
 were written in acknowledgment. 
 
 BESIDE that milestone where the level sun, 
 Mgh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays 
 On word and work irrevocably done. 
 Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun, 
 I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and 
 praise. 
 Half doubtful if myself or otherwise. 
 Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, 
 A beggar slept and crowned CaHph woke. 
 Thanks not the less. With not unglad surprise 
 I see my life-work through your partial eyes ; 
 Assured, in giving to my home-taught songs 
 A higher value than of right belongs. 
 You do but read between the written lines 
 The finer grace of unfulfilled designs. 
 
AT LAST 
 
 [Recited by one of the little group of relations, who stood 
 by the poet's bedside, as the last moment of his life ap- 
 proached.] 
 
 WHEN on my day of life the night is falling, 
 And, in the winds from unsunned spaces 
 blown, 
 I hear far voices out of darkness calling 
 My feet to paths unknown, 
 
 Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant. 
 Leave not its tenant when its walls decay ; 
 
 Love Divine, O Helper ever present, 
 
 Be Thou my strength and stay ! 
 
 Be near me when all else is from me drifting ; 
 Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and 
 shine, 
 And kindly faces to my own uplifting 
 The love which answers mine. 
 
 1 have but Thee, my Father ! let Thy spirit 
 
 Be with me then to comfort and uphold ; 
 No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, 
 Nor street of shining gold. 
 
 Suffice it if — my good and ill unreckoned, 
 
 And both forgiven through Thy abounding 
 grace — 
 I find myself by hands familiar beckoned 
 Unto my fitting place. 
 
AT LAST 171 
 
 Some humble door among Thy many mansions, 
 Some sheltering shade where sin and striving 
 cease, 
 And flows forever through heaven's green expan- 
 sions 
 The river of Thy peace. 
 
 There, from the music round about me stealing, 
 
 I fain would learn the new and holy song. 
 And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, 
 The life for which I long. 
 
NOTES 
 
NOTES 
 
 Page 11, line 25. Ah, brother ! only I and thou, 
 
 Matthew Franklin Whittier, born July 4, 1812, died Janu- 
 ary 7, 1883. In middle life, during his residence in Port- 
 land, he took a deep interest in the anti-slavery movement, 
 and wrote a series of caustic letters under the signature 
 Ethan Spike of Hornby. 
 
 Page 12, line 25. The Chief of Gambia's golden shore. 
 
 The African Chief was the title of a poem by Mrs. Sarah 
 Wentworth Morton, wife of the Hon. Perez Morton, a for- 
 mer attorney-general of Massachusetts. Mrs. Morton's nam 
 deplume was Philenia, The schoolbook in which The Afri- 
 can Chief was printed was Caleb Bingham's The American 
 Preceptor, and the poem contained fifteen stanzas, of which 
 the first four were as follows ; — 
 
 See how the black ship cleaves the main 
 High-bounding o'er the violet wave, 
 
 Remurmuring with the groans of pain, 
 Deep freighted with the princely slave. 
 
 Did all the gods of Afric sleep, 
 
 Forgetful of their guardian love, 
 When the white traitors of the deep 
 
 Betrayed him in the palmy grove ? 
 
 A chief of Gambia's golden shore, 
 Whose arm the band of warriors led. 
 
 Perhaps the lord of boundless power, 
 By whom the foodless poor were fed. 
 
 Does not the voice of reason cry, 
 ** Claim the first right which nature gave ; 
 
 From the red scourge of bondage fly. 
 Nor deign to live a burdened slave " ? 
 
176 NOTES 
 
 Page 15, line 3. From painful SeweVs ancient tome. 
 
 William Sewel was the historian of the Quakers. Charles 
 Lamb seemed to have as good an opinion of the book as 
 Whittier. In his essay, A Quahers* Meetingj in Essays of 
 Elia, he says : " Keader, if you are not acquainted with it, 
 I would recommend to you, above all church-narratives, to 
 read Sewel's History of the Quakers. ... It is far more 
 edifying and affecting than anything you will read of Wes- 
 ley or his colleagues." 
 
 Page 15, line 6. Or Chalhley^s Journal^ old and quaint. 
 
 Thomas Chalkley was an Englishman of Quaker parent- 
 age, born in 1675, who travelled extensively as a preacher, 
 and finally made his home in Philadelphia. He died in 
 1749 ; his Journal was first published in 1747. His own 
 narrative of the incident which the poet relates is as fol- 
 lows : "To stop their murmuring, I told them they should 
 not need to cast lots, which was usual in such cases, which 
 of us should die first, for I would freely offer up my life to 
 do them good. One said, * God bless you ! I will not eat 
 any of you.' Another said, * He would die before he would 
 eat any of me ; ' and so said several. I can truly say, on 
 that occasion, at that time, my life was not dear to me, and 
 that I was serious and ingenuous in lavy proposition ; and 
 as I was leaning over the side of the vessel, thoughtfully 
 considering my proposal to the company, and looking in 
 my mind to Him that made me, a very large dolphin came 
 up towards the top or surface of the water, and looked me in 
 the face ; and I called the people to put a hook into the sea, 
 and take him, for here is one come to redeem me (I said to 
 them). And they put a hook into the sea, and the fish 
 readily took it, and they caught him. He was longer than 
 myself. I think he was about six feet long, and the lar- 
 gest that ever I saw. This plainly showed us that we ought 
 not to distrust the providence of the Almighty. The peo- 
 ple were quieted by this act of Providence, and murmured 
 no more. We caught enough to eat plentifully of, till we 
 got into the capes of Delaware." 
 
NOTES 177 
 
 Page 15, line 24. Our uncle, innocent of books. 
 
 For further account of Whittier's uncle Moses, the reader 
 is referred to Whittier's Frose Works^ volume I. p< 323. 
 
 Page 18, line 1. There, too, our elder sister plied. 
 
 Mary Whittier, born September 3, 1806, married Jacob 
 Caldwell of Haverhill, had two children, Lewis Henry and 
 Mary Elizabeth, and died January 7, 1860. 
 
 Page 18, line 19. Our youngest and our dearest sat. 
 
 Elizabeth Hussey Whittier, born December 7, 1815, was 
 to her brother John what Dorothy Wordsworth was to Wil- 
 liam. It was her brother's opinion that '^had her health, 
 sense of duty, and almost morbid dread of spiritual and in- 
 tellectual egotism permitted, she might have taken a high 
 place among lyrical singers." She died September 3, 1864. 
 
 Page 19, line 31. The master of the distinct school. 
 
 Until near the end of his life, Whittier was unable to 
 recall the name of the schoolmaster who stood for this fig- 
 ure in Snow-Bound. At last he remembered his name as 
 Haskell, and from this clue the person was traced. He was 
 George Haskell from Waterford, Maine, a Dartmouth stu- 
 dent, who studied medicine, and removed to Illinois, where 
 he was active in founding Shurtleff College. Later, he 
 made his home at Vineland, New Jersey, where he aided 
 in laying out the model community there, and especially in 
 establishing an industrial school. He died in 1876, and. 
 seems never to have known that his portrait was drawn in 
 Snow-Bound. 
 
 Page 22, line 7. Another guest that winter night. 
 
 In his introductory note, Whittier adds somewhat to his 
 characterization of Harriet Livermore. At the time when 
 Snow-Bound was written he did not know that she was liv- 
 ing, or he might not have introduced her. She died in 1867. 
 
 Page 23, line 21. The crazy Queen of Lebanon. 
 
 An interesting account of Lady Hester Stanhope may be 
 ^ound in Kinglake's Eothen, chap. viii. 
 
 Page 27, line 3. The wise old doctor was Dr. Weld of 
 'Haverhill, an able man, who died at the age of ninety-six. 
 
178 NOTES 
 
 Page 27, line 27. Where Ellwood^s meek, drah-shirted 
 Muse. 
 
 Thomas Ellwood, one of the Society of Friends, a con- 
 tenxporary and friend of Milton, and the suggester of Para- 
 dise Regained^ wrote an epic poem in five books called 
 Davideisj the life of King David of Israel. He wrote the 
 book, we are told, for his own diversion, so it was not ne- 
 cessary that others should be diverted by it. EUwood's 
 autobiography, a quaint and delightful book, may be found 
 in Howells's series of Choice Autobiographies. 
 
 Page 28, line 5. Before us passed the painted Creeks. 
 
 Referring to the removal of the Creek Indians from 
 Georgia to beyond the Mississippi. 
 
 Page 28, line 6. And daft McGregor on his raids. 
 
 In 1822 Sir Gregor McGregor, a Scotchman, began an in- 
 effectual attempt to establish a colony in Costa Rica. 
 
 Page 29, line 28. These Flemish pictures of old days. 
 
 In 1888 Whittier wrote the following lines on the fly-leaf 
 of a copy of the first edition of Snow-Bound : — 
 
 Twenty years have taken flight 
 Since these pages saw the light. 
 
 All home loves are gone, 
 But not all with sadness, still, 
 Do the eyes of memory fill 
 
 As I gaze thereon. 
 
 Lone and weary life seemed when 
 First these pictures of the pen 
 
 Grew upon my page ; 
 But I still have loving friends 
 And the peace our Father sends 
 
 Cheers the heart of age. 
 
 Page 35, line 7. 
 
 And the good man's voice, at strife 
 With his shrill and tipsy wife. 
 When Whittier first went to school with his sister Mary, 
 the school-house was undergoing repairs, and the school 
 
NOTES 179 
 
 was held in a dwelling-house, the other part of which was 
 occupied by a tipsy and quarrelsome couple. 
 Page 48, line 1. Here is the place ; right over the MIL 
 *' The place Whittier had in mind was his birthplace. 
 There were beehives on the garden terrace near the well 
 sweep, occupied perhaps by the descendants of Thomas 
 Whittier's bees. The approach to the house from over the 
 northern shoulder of Job's Hill by a path that was in con- 
 stant use in his boyhood and still in existence, is accurately 
 described in the poem. The ' gap in the old wall ' is still to 
 be seen, and ' the stepping stones in the shallow brook ' are 
 still in use. His sister's garden was down by the brook- 
 side in ftont of the house, and her daffodils are perpetuated 
 and may now be found in their season each year in that 
 place. The red-barred gate, the poplars, the cattle yard 
 with Hhe white horns tossing above the wall,' were all part 
 of Whittier's boy life on the old farm. Even the touch of 
 *the sundown's blaze on her window pane' is realistic. 
 The only place from which the blaze of the setting sun 
 could be seen reflected in the windows of the old mansion 
 is from the path so perfectly described. . . . All the story 
 about Mary and her lover is wholly imaginative." S. T. 
 PiCKAED in his Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whit- 
 tier, 
 Page 76, line 13. I see the gray forfs broken wall. 
 The place that was in the mind of the poet when he wrote 
 this stanza was on the rocks at Marblehead, where he had 
 spent an early morning more than forty years before. 
 Page 102, line 16. He loved himself the singer^ s art, 
 Mr. Fields printed privately a volume of verse which 
 called out Mr. Whittier's pleasant lines To James T, Fields 
 on a blanJc leaf of ^* Poems printed not published,^* Another 
 poem In Memory was written after the death of his pub- 
 lisher and friend. 
 Page 102, line 23. 
 
 Pleasant it was to roam about 
 The lettered world as he had done. 
 
180 NOTES 
 
 Mr. Fields*s Yesterdays with Authors contains in agreea- 
 ble form many of those reminiscences of men of letters and 
 art which made him so companionable when living, and 
 further hints of his comradery with the literary guild may 
 be found in the memorial volume, James T, Fields: Bio- 
 graphical Notes and Personal Sketches, 
 
 Page 104, line 17. 
 
 And one whose Arab face was tanned 
 By tropic sun and boreal frost. 
 
 Bayard Taylor was in Germany when The Tent on the 
 Beach was published, and he wrote back to Mr. Fields, 
 "How pleasantly will you and I float down to posterity 
 each holding on to the strong swimmer, J. G. W. ! ** 
 After Taylor's death, Mr. Whittier wrote the lines headed 
 Bayard Taylor. The Quaker origin of the two men was a 
 subtle bond of union. 
 
 Page 109, line 9. And fair are the sunny isles in view. 
 
 The sunny isles in view from Great Boar's Head, and 
 Little Boar's Head as well, are the famous Isles. of Shoals, 
 whose praises have been sung so well by Celia Thaxter. 
 
 Page 110, line 23. 
 
 Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh, 
 And they lost the scent of the pines of Eye, 
 
 Star Island, occupied then as now by fisher folk, is one 
 of the Isles of Shoals. The township of Rye with its odor- 
 ous pine-woods reaches to the sea at Rye Beach. 
 
 Page 113, line 20. " Amen / " said Father Bachiler, 
 
 Evidence found in favor of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, 
 an ancestor of the poet, after the poem was first printed, 
 led Whittier to modify lines which implied the guilt of the 
 clergyman. 
 
 Page 123, line 20. ffis Crimean camp-song hints to us. 
 
 The reference is to Bayard Taylor's poem. The Song of 
 the Camp, 
 
 Page 149. The Palatine. The legend on which this bal- 
 lad is founded was told to Mr. Whittier by his friend/ 
 Joseph P. Hazard, of Newport, R. I., two years before 
 
NOTES 181 
 
 the poem was written. About two years after it was 
 published, he received a curious letter from Mr. Benjamin 
 Corydon, of Napoli, N. Y., then in the ninety-second year 
 of his age, who wrote : — 
 
 ''The Palatine was a ship that was driven upon Block 
 Island, in a storm, more than a hundred years ago. Her 
 people had just got ashore, and were on their knees thank- 
 ing God for saving them from drowning, when the Island- 
 ers rushed upon them and murdered them all. That was a 
 little more than the Almighty could stand, so He sent the 
 Fire or Phantom Ship, to let them know He had not for- 
 gotten their wickedness. She was seen once a year on the 
 same night of the year on which the murders occurred, 
 as long as any of the wreckers were living ; but never after 
 all were dead. I must have seen her eight or ten times — 
 perhaps more — in my early days. It is seventy years or 
 more since she was last seen. My father lived right oppo- 
 site Block Island, on the mainland, so we had a fair view 
 of her as she passed down by the island ; then she would 
 disappear. She resembled a full-rigged ship, with her sails 
 all set and all ablaze. It was the grandest sight I ever saw 
 in all my life. I know of only two living who ever saw 
 her, — Benjamin L. Knowles, of Rhode Island, now ninety 
 four years old, and myself, now in my ninety-second year.*' 
 
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