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A P E M 
 
 PRONOUNCED BEFORE TH 
 
 PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, 
 
 AT CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 AUGUST 28, 1845. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 BY CHARLES T^ BROOKS 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWJN 
 >\ 1845. 
 
 %^ 
 
t 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, 
 
 By Charles T. Brooks, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 boston: 
 printed by. freeman and bolles, 
 
 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
Boston, August 29, 1845. 
 In behalf of your classmates — as mauy of them as it was possible to 
 consult — we ask of you, dear Brooks, the favor of a copy of your recent 
 Poem for publication. The request comes fitly from your old. associates 
 and constant friends ; and we feel confident that in making it we are sus- 
 tained by the public voice. 
 
 How near to us you were in college life, proofs without number were 
 given. Be now assured that after thirteen years of separation we feel to 
 you as ever ; and allow us to accept the beautiful allusions at the close of 
 j'our Poem as a welcome token of your afiectionate remembrance of your 
 classmates and the years we passed so happily together at Cambridge. 
 
 With our best wishes for your welfare we remain ever faithfully your 
 Iriends, 
 
 Samuel Osgood, ^ i- r^r^/^^^ ^7^ 
 
 George T. Curtis. ( ^fJ'.S'-Q.l' 
 William C. Appleton, ^ ^^"^^ ^-^ ^S^^' 
 Rev. Charles T." Brooks. 
 
 Newport, R. I., September 5, 1845. 
 
 Brothers, — I gladly and gratefully give you the manuscript of my 
 Poem, having been led to hope that the pleasure, and perhaps profit, with 
 which it is read, will not fall very far short of the patience with which it 
 was heard. 
 
 It will be found that, here and there, a passage or paragraph was omitted 
 in speaking. 
 
 Reciprocating, with feelings which I can neither express nor repress, every 
 kind remembrance and wish of your note, and cherishing similar senti- 
 ments towards all our classmates, I shall always be, in the bonds of friend- 
 ship and of scholarshipj 
 
 Theirs and yours, 
 
 Charles T. Brooks. 
 
 Rev. Samuel Osgood, ^ 
 
 George T. Curtis, Esq. > 
 
 William C. Appleton, Esq. ) 
 
POEM 
 
 Old Harvard ! Mother Harvard ! Hail I — Once more 
 The pilgrim's foot is on his native shore. 
 Baffled by adverse fates — too long kept back. 
 Calm-bound or storm-tost, on his homeward track — 
 Heart-sick with hope deferred, day after day 
 Nearing the coast — then drifting far away, — 
 He vainly hovered, or at anchor lay. 
 Till — hark I a startling, thrilling cry of '^ land ! " 
 And lo ! beneath his bow the well-known strand, 
 Uprising from the fresh and gleamy sea, 
 Looms through the haze of morn and memory ; 
 And leaning, pensive, o'er the bulwarks, now 
 He feels the air that fanned his boyish brow ; 
 And now he disembarks, and quickly sees, 
 By the bright spire that overtops the trees. 
 
POEM. 
 
 Where, still, his inland home in beauty lies, 
 Lapped in the same green fields, the same blue skies. 
 That once, with heaven's own smile, entranced his ar- 
 dent eyes. 
 Fain would he lift his voice and bless the gale 
 That meets him entering that familiar vale ; 
 The morning-breeze of life's young spring-tide hours, 
 The breath of memory's never-fading flowers ; 
 Fain would he kiss the turf that silently. 
 Significantly speaks of days gone by. 
 And answer to the sighing grass that waves 
 Where sleeps the dreamy past in thousand graves. 
 Fain would he talk with all that 's living yet, 
 The whispering grove, the babbling rivulet ; 
 And, musing on what time shall ne'er restore, 
 Converse with that which now can die no more. 
 
 So, from the world's tempestuous, treacherous sea. 
 Come I, for refuge and for rest, to thee, 
 Sweet, shady harbor of the storm-tost soul ! 
 I leave my bark where billows dash and roll, 
 And inland — homeward turn my willing feet 
 To this, thy green-embosomed, calm retreat. 
 With glad, though saddened, thoughts I press the sod, 
 In other days with lighter step I trod ; 
 I bless the woodland walk — the winding stream, 
 Sweet scenes of many a dim-remembered dream ; 
 And think, though far and long by fate estranged. 
 How little thou and I, in heart, have changed. 
 
POEM. 
 
 Amidst these hallowed halls and haunts I feel 
 A mother's warm breath o'er my forehead steal ; 
 I hear a mother's low voice in the breeze 
 That stirs among these venerable trees — . 
 Thy voice, mild mother Harvard, bidding me 
 A mother's welcome home again to thee ! 
 
 Here, where, on classic, consecrated ground. 
 My Helicon and Siioa I found, 
 I come to seek — and here I find them still — 
 My vale of Sion and my Delphian hill. 
 Like some old Greek, long yearning (iiot in vain) 
 To see remembered Argos once again ; — 
 Like Judah's ransomed captive, when, in sight 
 Of temple-crowned Moriah's glittering height. 
 He strikes once more the long-neglected string, 
 In no strange land Jehovah's song to sing, — 
 So, from the world's great cloudy battle field 
 Escaped an hour, I come to rest my shield. 
 And strike my harp, albeit with fingers rude, 
 And raise my homely song of gratitude. 
 
 Again, to-day, such feelings, mingling, swell. 
 As when I joined that last, loud, long farewell. (1) 
 Strange years have passed since that farewell was said ; 
 But, though, at times, upon my care-worn head 
 I feel their weight, methinks no time can chill 
 The heart that glows with memory's purer thrill ; 
 And, though I stand here in the place of men, 
 'T were manly here to be a boy again. 
 
POEM. 
 
 A boy again ? Yet wherefore stand I here ? 
 With lazy rhymes to lull a listless ear ? 
 Why stand I here — men, brethren, fathers, say 1 
 Your laureate bard, immortal for a day ? 
 Ah, heedless, hapless me 1 I roamed along. 
 Well pleased with Nature's great unwritten song. 
 By sandy margin and on beetling verge 
 I stopped and heard the music of the surge : 
 Old Ocean's everlasting organ-roar. 
 The roll of Neptune's chariot on the shore ; 
 The grim, gigantic billow's ecstasy. 
 Now greedy-bellowing, and now mad with glee : 
 I heard the gargling of the refluent wave 
 Wash down the pebbly floor of many a cave ; 
 The saddening, soothing, melancholy moan 
 Of sullen breakers, and the trumpet-tone 
 Of wintry winds, the signal of the shock. 
 When thundering surges charge the embattled rock : 
 I marked, where, rank on rank, the waves roll in 
 Up the broad beach their grand and martial din, 
 With high-curved neck the snowy sea-steeds champ 
 The frothy bit, and on the sand-floor stamp : 
 I saw the long and glittering lines advance. 
 Toss back their spray-manes in the noontide's glance 
 The hollow blast, the surf-drum's grufl", low beat. 
 Sounding, the while, each onset and retreat, — 
 (Than battle-music, O, how nobler far 
 The harmonies of elemental war !) — 
 Listening such sounds, and the canorous chat 
 Of gabbling sea-fowl, undisturbed that sate 
 
POEM. 
 
 Thick-congregated on the liquid plains, 
 
 Making a clangor like Caystrian cranes 
 
 Heard by old Homer, — aimless and alone 
 
 As thus I wandered, drinking in each tone 
 
 Of many-voiced ocean, '' fancy-free," 
 
 A little, white-winged land-bird came to me 
 
 Forth from a well-known dove-cote where, each day, 
 
 Whole flocks of paper-pigeons wont to stray. 
 
 And where, in all the pigeon-holes they crowd. 
 
 Thick as the snow-flakes from the wintry cloud. 
 
 Or doves that fly to windows, — thence impart 
 
 Their messages to many a fluttering heart : 
 
 E'en such a bird it was that came to me, 
 
 As carelessly I paced along the sea — 
 
 A bird of message from this classic ground, 
 
 And whispered in my ear an ominous sound. 
 
 At that low sound an awful Genius rose. 
 
 Like some Minerva, baleful to her foes. 
 
 To friends benignant ; — she had felt the storm 
 
 Of war — the calm of wisdom robed her form. 
 
 Methought two hundred years or more had shed 
 
 Their glory's deathless halo round her head. 
 
 A noble pride lit up her reverend eye. 
 
 For lo ! a long and lengthening host swept by, 
 
 Who, as they passed from earth to heaven, flung back 
 
 Blessings and honors from their starry track, 
 
 Remembering still, with fondest gratitude. 
 
 Their mother Berecynthia ; — there she stood, 
 
 A pilgrim and a warrior — though a queen, 
 
 A goddess ; — on her sandalled feet was seen 
 
10 POEM. 
 
 The dust of centuries, and for staff and spear, 
 
 She grasped a mighty cross ; and, as more near 
 
 I gazed with reverence, and almost with fear, 
 
 Methought the shield, her left hand leaned on, took 
 
 The shape and semblance of an unclasped book. 
 
 Whose open leaves and back, tripartite, bore. 
 
 In old black-letter : Veritas, — no more ; (2) 
 
 But what it meant full clearly could I trace 
 
 In the firm features of that trustful face : 
 
 ^' The Lord His truth shall be " (it seemed to say) 
 
 «' My shield and buckler, and His staff my stay ; " 
 
 While on her helmet's front was plain to see 
 
 The blazon — '' Christo et Ecclesiae." 
 
 Thus did she stand by me, and thus she spake, 
 
 (Not stern, yet stately, while my heart did shake) : 
 
 ^' I am thy mother Harvard, come to see 
 
 If yet my foster-child remembers me. 
 
 What ! roam'st thou idly here through Nature's halls, 
 
 Listening her song ? Within my classic walls 
 
 Go, weave thy song, and let my children hear 
 
 What melodies divine have charmed thine ear 
 
 Since forth I sent thee, taught and trained to wage 
 
 The scholar's warfare with a faithless age. 
 
 What hast thou done, seen, heard, felt, thought?^ 
 
 Away ! 
 That to thy brothers thou in rhyme shalt say." 
 And so she vanished. Then, how low and tame 
 Burned in my brain that crackling, soaring flame ! 
 What " saucy doubts and fears " beset my soul. 
 As, full of thoughts like these, I homeward stole ; — - 
 
POEM, 11 
 
 Ah, luckless wight, who, m a thmklng timej 
 Shall dare to write, or, writing, print his rhyme ! 
 Far happier he, who all in secret woos, — 
 Not marries (published thus) — the awful Muse ! 
 Him no dread honors wait — no doubtful praise — - 
 No certain censure — no Phi Beta days ! 
 And woe to him who rhymes for duty's sake, 
 Who feels the power of song, he ne'er could make ! 
 He, with rhyme's rudder, steers his careful course 
 Among the shoals and falls and flats of verse ; 
 Smoothly and safe, perchance, he drifts along, 
 But ah ! no inner soul of sacred song 
 Breathes o'er the waters a melodious gale 
 To swell with lofty thought his drooping sail. 
 He hears no music of the rippling tides, 
 Up no high port with flowing canvass rides. 
 Poor poetasters — creatures of a vote — (3) 
 Thus doubly doomed to sing the lay they wrote 
 With doubtful conscience and with labor long — 
 They '' learn in suffering what they teach in song ! " 
 
 By this, I sate within four walls once more, 
 When lo ! a Genius statelier than before, — 
 Enrobed in bookshelf-dust-clouds, where the beam 
 Of day on dancing motes doth, slanting, gleam. 
 Like radiance from the lamp of learning, cast 
 In a long track across the dusty past, — 
 The Muse of classic song, before me stood. 
 And, rallying, mocked my unheroic mood. 
 
12 POEM. 
 
 " When thou wast but a college-bird," said she, 
 
 My eye, not unsuspicious, fell on thee. 
 
 A half-fledged bardling yet, and wilt thou fly 
 
 Where, calm and cold, Parnassus meets the sky ? 
 
 Monotonous cacklers — will ye strain your throats. 
 
 While yet the strong-winged Swan of Avon floats. 
 
 Rolling immortal melodies along. 
 
 Majestically down the tide of song ? 
 
 What ! in the name of all the Sisters Nine, 
 
 I take a Yankee priest for priest of mine ! 
 
 Fool ! wilt thou dabble in Castalia's rill ? 
 
 Thy Helicon shall turn a sermon-mill." 
 
 And she, too, vanished — then, how sank my heart ! 
 Of those last sting-in 2: words how keen the smart! 
 Who such unkind, unclassic cut could bear ? 
 It drove me forth to breathe a freer air; 
 To woo the inspiration of the breeze 
 That curled the surface of the wintry seas. 
 And from the rock, the sky, the boundless main. 
 To win my spirit's manhood back again. 
 
 As thus, in vengeful reverie, I stood, 
 And gazed far out upon the level flood, 
 That now, more calm and tranquil than before. 
 Extended lay, the vast, melodious floor 
 Of God's j$]olian harp, whose mystic strings 
 The winds, his angels, sweep with viewless wings. 
 By the broad, blue Atlantic, slowly there. 
 With eye as blue, and brow serene and fair 
 
POEM. 13 
 
 As the blue heavens that overarched the sea, 
 
 Rose a third shape, the noblest of the three. 
 
 In the calm features of the radiant face 
 
 Met Roman manliness and Grecian grace. 
 
 Old England's chaste and vigorous thought was there, 
 
 Old Scotia's daring, reverential air; 
 
 There Erin's fiery heart flamed high and free. 
 
 And flashed the soul of Gallic chivalry. 
 
 No word came forth — yet in that deathless look 
 
 Past days and deeds unrolled their mighty book ; 
 
 I read on that imperishable page 
 
 The names of statesman, soldier, saint and sage. 
 
 All they that ever bled for liberty, 
 
 From Bannockburn to old Thermopylae ; 
 
 All they whose faith in Christ was proven true 
 
 In the test-fires of Saint Bartholomew ; 
 
 All who for right e'er braved a traitor's doom. 
 
 Or sternly worshipped God in cave and tomb, — • 
 
 From that majestic brow seemed gazing yet. 
 
 As on some mount of calm remembrance met. 
 
 There breathed the soul that prayed on Plymouth rock. 
 
 That bade farewell to earth in Bunker's shock. 
 
 Pointed to steel the patriot's fearless pen, 
 
 And signed in blood the sacred rights of men. 
 
 The voiceless vision fired anew my soul ; 
 I saw new glory on the mighty scroll ; 
 The spirit of the past my spirit stirred, 
 Methought it bade me speak the patriot's word^ 
 3 
 
14 POEM. 
 
 But ah ! the mutability of mind ! 
 I left the sea-shore and my heart behind ; 
 For, on the road, " a wicked whisper " stole, 
 Breathed by some critic-demon, through my soul ; (4) 
 And this it said, with grin of impish glee : 
 *' Patriotism is not Poetry, 
 
 'Twill give thee rhymed orations — nothing more " — 
 Was ever bardling so beset before ? 
 The proud, cold muse of classic Poesy, 
 The fiery genius of young Liberty, 
 And Learning sage, with puritanic frown. 
 And warning finger raised, that would not down, 
 All tugging at this wayward heart of mine — 
 Methought it needs must ^' die and make no sign." 
 
 But with another morrow's dawning light 
 A beam of hope, like morning, cheered my sight. 
 Through all the chaos of conflicting thought 
 A ray, a tone of harmony I caught. 
 Rivals no more, I saw the mighty three — 
 Old reverend Learning — fair young Liberty, 
 And the calm muse of ancient Poesy, 
 In the serener realm of spirit stand, 
 Coequals of a bright, immortal band. 
 And shall my fitful, faltering lay profane 
 The tri-clang of their high, transcendent strain ? 
 Yet, haply, some divided, doubtful mind, 
 Like mine, by these poor words may learn to find 
 Round thought's calm wells, in ever-genial youth. 
 The forms of Freedom, Poesy and Truth ; 
 
POEM. 15 
 
 By loftier, deeper converse learn to know, 
 
 Each is to each a friend, and not a foe ; 
 
 Learn that the Poet's, Patriot's, Scholar's aim. 
 
 Each being chiefly man, Is still the same ; 
 
 That science, song and life In one agree, 
 
 That each free thought, fresh word, brave deed. Is poesy. 
 
 There are, who say the hour approaches fast, 
 When care-worn Poesy shall breathe her last. 
 Her gods all vanished, each Olynnpian hill 
 Dug down, dragged off, some Tempe-vale to fill — 
 Her HIppocrene a horse-pump — she, poor muse, — (5) 
 Her socks and buskins (alias boots and shoes) 
 Purloined for antiquarian trumpery, — 
 On her last faded bed of state shall lie, 
 Clutch up her scanty robes and (briefly) die. 
 Faith must (say they) give place to keener sight ; 
 All moonshine, rainbows and aurora-light, 
 All many-colored mists must fade away 
 Where common sense and science light the way. 
 No more red Mars, nor soft-eyed Venus reign, 
 When sober daylight makes all mysteries plain. 
 Already Yankee craft and English trade 
 The Muse's last, forlorn retreats Invade. 
 Go where Athena's hills and temples rise, 
 Where the sunset-flush of glory purples all the skies, 
 E'en there his '' Omnibus " some Jotham plies 
 " To the PIreus twice a day and back," — 
 (The '' Maid of Athens " is '' a Mrs. Black.") (6) 
 
16 POEM. 
 
 Pactolus sold, long since, his golden sand, 
 And Rothschild speculates in Holy Land. 
 
 But grant what jokers, and what croakers say -^ 
 Grant that our world is doomed to see the day 
 When the steam-whistle, ominously shrill. 
 Shall scare the goshawk from his last, lone hill ; 
 When the lark's lay, the vulture's pibroch-scream, 
 Shall both be lost in shrieks of captive steam ; 
 When sounds of factory-drums shall swell the breeze, 
 The hum of business drown the hum of bees ; 
 And every little, murmuring rivulet 
 Beneath its little mill shall foam and fret ; 
 Blue ocean's waves be hidden with a bridge 
 Of endless steamers — Himalaya's ridge, 
 All blasted down and quarried to its base. 
 And London's world-wide suburbs in the place ; — 
 Think'st thou brick walls and iron clamps can bind 
 The soarings, strugglings of the immortal mind ? 
 Think'st thou that mind itself, with all its art, 
 Can hide forever from the self-sick heart 
 The awful realms of faith ? As well ye might 
 Shut out with walls of glass the solar light ! 
 
 What though Salmoneus, on his steam-car borne, 
 Outstrip the fiery horses of the morn. 
 Giving great Jove, in proud defiance, back 
 Thunder for thunder from his iron track ? 
 And, mounted on his moving, pitchy throne. 
 Compel his clouds and call the world his own ? 
 
POEM. 17 
 
 Though waves and winds and lightnmgs own his nod ? 
 
 Yet can he grasp and hind the Protean God ? — 
 
 Let science, then, her borrowed thunders roll. 
 
 While conscience, whispering, thunder-shakes the soul — 
 
 Till man is God, and there is none but he, 
 
 Faith shall remain, and with her Poesy. 
 
 Yet should there come a time — so oft foretold — 
 When this green earth shall grow all grey and old. 
 When lynx-eyed Science shall have left no more 
 To love, admire, hope, fear, or yet adore, 
 
 But no — the central fire beneath our feet. 
 Melting the stubborn rocks with fervent heat. 
 Long ere that day of darkness, shall have thrust 
 Its arms of lava through the enclosing crust, 
 Another chaos whelm the cooling earth, 
 Again a new creation take its birth ; 
 New seas shall roll, unsung, yea, all unseen ; 
 New prairies roll their fresh, untrodden green ; 
 New hills, unnamed, unknown, in grandeur rise ; 
 New heavens await the uncreated poet's eyes. 
 
 But is it, then, alone in things like these — 
 Woods, wildernesses, mountains, skies and seas ; 
 Is it amidst wild Nature's forms alone. 
 The Muses keep their temple and their throne ? 
 No, in the depths of human hearts they dwell ; 
 And wheresoe'er these hearts with rapture swell 
 
18 POEM. 
 
 Before the wonders of that inner sea, 
 
 The spirit's omnipresent mystery ; 
 
 And wheresoe'er, in Mammon's crowded marts, 
 
 In the thronged wilderness of beating hearts. 
 
 The spirit feels that deeper loneliness 
 
 Peopled with thoughts no tongue can e'er express ; 
 
 Or nightly, in the city's crowded streets, 
 
 When fast, like rain, the frequent footfall beats. 
 
 Hears how man's generations evermore 
 
 Successive swell and die on Time's vast shore ; 
 
 Or muses on those tempests of the soul. 
 
 That hasten to no eyrie — find no goal ; (7) 
 
 Muses on shapes that fade like leaves and flee — 
 
 On shapeless things, time, space, eternity ; 
 
 When thoughts hke these man's higher kindred prove, 
 
 Though not in all they *' voluntary move 
 
 Harmonious numbers," yet the wakeful soul 
 
 Hears many a strain of spheral music roll — 
 
 Strains, to be sung in mortal speech no more 
 
 Than ocean's murmur or the thunder's roar. 
 
 For hark ! methinks I hear a busy crew 
 Of prosers, both in prose and metre too. 
 Who, in sad earnest, or in mockery say : 
 " Ho ! bards, up ! save the Muse's sinking sway ! " 
 Who fear, or hope, should rhyme be writ no more. 
 The reign of Poesy is surely o'er. 
 
 When Hebrew bards, and seers of hoary eld. 
 The last, fresh footprints of their God beheld ; 
 
POEM. 19 
 
 When in the cloud, the sea, the gathering storm, 
 
 They heard a voice, but could discern no form ; 
 
 Out from the whirlwind when Jehovah spake 
 
 In tones that made the prophet's bones to quake ; 
 
 When, in lone Patmos, saw the aged John 
 
 " A great white throne, and Him who sate thereon ; " 
 
 Shall Art's most finished numbers think to reach 
 
 The majesty of Nature's simple speech ; 
 
 In measured lines count out the words of Heaven, 
 
 Of inspiration not by measure given 1 
 
 Go, stand below on that tempestuous shore, 
 Where fills the dark ravine, Niagara's roar. (8) 
 Go stand there in the wildering gloom, what hour 
 Deep sleep o'er half the world holds silent power. 
 Look up at that pale, ghostly sheet — so high. 
 It seems to fall — and fall — forever from the sky : 
 Then think (for thou wilt think) of him who " saw. 
 In the night visions," filled with breathless awe. 
 Where, amid tempests, on his judgment-throne. 
 Ancient of days, Jehovah sate alone. 
 Like the pure wool his hoary hair did flow, 
 Flowed in the breeze his garment white as snow.- 
 Then wilt thou too — as when, at dead of night, 
 A spirit passed before the patriarch's sight. 
 When on his quivering flesh the very hair 
 Stood up, and holy dread transfixed him there, — 
 Thou, too, shalt hear a voice (when all is still 
 Within thee) from the torrent's restless thrill : 
 
20 POEM* 
 
 " Shall man, the worm and brother of the clod, 
 Shall a vain mortal be more just than God ! " 
 
 What poet's pen — what human tongue hath power 
 To interpret such a scene and such an hour ? 
 
 Then courage, friends ! the torrent thunders yet, 
 And many a tributary rivulet 
 Through glen and meadow, tinkling, steals along. 
 And twinkling leaves are dancing to the song. 
 Lives Nature yet — and lives the human soul — 
 Suns rise and set, woods wave and billows roll — 
 Day uttereth speech to night, and night to day, 
 And, in despite of all the prosers say. 
 Song shall sound on, when tongues forever pass away. 
 
 But hark ! I hear a nobler band complain : 
 '' Who shall resuscitate the Epic strain ? 
 Alas ! the bard's heroic age is o'er — > 
 Blind Homer and blind Milton live no more ; 
 Troy was ; and Hell and Heaven are now a dream ; 
 And Faith and Fable are the critic's theme ; 
 ' Blind Thamyris ' and all blind seers are dead, 
 And a sharp, sober race is risen instead. 
 Through whose dull ears the mighty march of Time 
 Sounds in with no heroic, heavenly chime." 
 
 What if this age of common sense and steam 
 Should yield the Epic bard no worthy theme — 
 
POEM. 21 
 
 Or yield no bard the endless theme to reach, 
 Or find no audience for his endless speech ? 
 Shall, therefore, Time's great Epic thrill no more, 
 And Life's great Drama be forever o'er, 
 And Nature's Lyric fount ne'er gush again. 
 Nor Ocean roll his grand Elegiac strain ? 
 
 What though no second Joel e'er should rise, (9) 
 To sing our Queen Columbia to the skies ? 
 What though, with us, the busy sons of song 
 Would rather build the lofty rhyme than long ? 
 Dream not, for this, the soul of song shall die, 
 In dull decline, beneath our fitful sky. 
 Although our children never should behold 
 The days a Poet of your own foretold, (10) 
 When " Homer's arms shall ring in Bunker's shock. 
 And Virgil's wanderers land on Plymouth rock," 
 Yet while two hearts with freedom's fire still burn, 
 And with devout and grateful reverence turn 
 To that old Plymouth landing — • while there still 
 Live two, who would have died on Bunker's Hill, — 
 So long, even in New England, shall there be 
 A heart — a tongue — an ear for poesy. 
 
 Friends ! fathers ! yes, my fathers ! be not hard 
 In judgment on your vote-begotten bard ! 
 With patience most paternal ye have heard 
 The Poet's — listen yet the Patriot's word. 
 4 
 
22 POEM. 
 
 « 
 
 From Dan to Beersheba of this our land 
 Of promise have I passed, from strand to strand ; 
 Have seen the moon o'er Campo Bello rise, (11) 
 And watched the sun in far South-Westem skies, 
 What time his fiery axle, wheeling slow, 
 Stood on the reddening gulf of Mexico. 
 Slowly I 've labored, with the panting steam, 
 Up Mississippi's tortuous, turbid stream. 
 Where, at each bend, each wood-crowned sweep, 
 
 behold 
 Sea after sea its noble bays unfold ! 
 There, in the glimmering dusk, when far-off trees 
 Like spectres stand, the cheated vision sees 
 Strange shows of fleets and fleet-girt cities, rife 
 With all the stir of busy human life. 
 Mark, as by magic. Orient Stamboul rise ! (12) 
 Its brisding masts, a forest, meet your eyes, 
 Where, half of sight and half of fancy born, 
 Wind the bright waters of the Golden Horn. 
 And now 'mid hoary, reverend groves we glide. 
 Where Gunga's thousand islets break the tide ; 
 Where, robed with pendent moss, the aged trees 
 Stand like the priests of Nature's mysteries. 
 Fades each fair vision with a puff of steam, 
 As onward still we labor up the stream. 
 By bend and bay — through sea and strait we go, 
 Where woods, on either hand, rise row on row, 
 Breathless spectators of the mighty show. 
 
POEM. 23 
 
 And seem to hail, with ecstasy of pride, 
 
 The grand procession of the rushing tide. 
 
 Now, on the bosom of the swollen stream 
 
 Far inland borne, we break the lovely dream 
 
 Of Nature, in some sweet sequestered scene, 
 
 Where silver poplars dip their glossy green, 
 
 And, leaning, dreaming, stir with deep-drawn sigh, 
 
 As man's far-echoing engine thunders by. 
 
 Through narrow lanes of liquid green we go. 
 
 Green woods around and mimic woods below, 
 
 Till, soon, we " burst " into a " silent sea," 
 
 Where beauty struggles with sublimity ; 
 
 Where, set by the Almighty Planter's hand, 
 
 Terrace on terrace, sweeping, soaring, stand 
 
 Woods above woods, with many a " monarch " green. 
 
 All bending " to behold the swelling scene." 
 
 But lo ! where in her stateliness and pride, 
 
 Looks out o'er all the valley, far and wide, 
 
 That young Queen City, " throned by the West," 
 
 What visions of the future fire the breast ! 
 
 Eastward she looks, and seems, with noble eye, 
 
 Her proud Atlantic sisters to defy. 
 
 And glow in the great race and rivalry. 
 
 With reverent step and swelling heart I 've pressed 
 
 The boundless prairie of the teeming West ; 
 
 And where the Northern Lakes, a mighty chain. 
 
 Stretch their bright links along our vast domain, 
 
 There have I travelled — there, transported, seen 
 
 Blue inland oceans — piny oceans green. 
 
24 POEM. 
 
 • 
 And where New England's Alps majestic rise, 
 
 I 've climbed that rocky island in the skies, 
 
 Whence, seen afar, om- noble rivers glance 
 
 Like threads of silver in the broad expanse ; 
 
 And where earth seems a living map — no more — ^ 
 
 Dotted with towns, with forests speckled o'er. 
 
 And I have stood, and felt a nameless thrill 
 
 Of reverence and rapture, on the hill, 
 
 Where, calmly looking down on the fair shore 
 
 Of Chesapeake and stately Baltimore, 
 
 In emblematic, marble majesty, 
 
 Stands Washington " in the clear, upper sky,'' 
 
 And breathes his benediction. 
 
 Have not we 
 A goodly heritage from sea to sea — 
 From lake to gulf? What noble rivers pour 
 Their inland tribute to the extended shore ! 
 O'er rolling upland and on waving plain. 
 By town and farm what peace and plenty reign ! 
 Ye favored tillers of this western soil. 
 Thrice blessed with health, with competence and toil, 
 Who in the shade of your own elm trees rest, 
 With nought but sin to scare you or molest. 
 My countrymen, for you, of you, 'twas sung 
 By Roman Virgil, in his noble tongue : 
 " Fortunate men ! oh, all too fortunate. 
 Did they but know the blessings of their state ! 
 Whom Earth herself, most just of mothers, far 
 From the discordant arms of horrid war, 
 
POEM. 25 
 
 Unstinting, yields an easy sustenance. 
 
 What though, each morn, no spacious halls, perchance, 
 
 Of stately mansions pour through portals wide, 
 
 Of early parasites the reboant tide ? 
 
 What though no posts, with various tortoise lined, 
 
 Nor gold-fringed vestments vex the hankering mind. 
 
 Nor workmanship of Ephyrean brass ? What though 
 
 They never learned to stain the fleece of snow 
 
 With poison of Assyria, nor to spoil 
 
 With cinnamon the olive's useful oil ? 
 
 Yet, quiet and secure, a life of health, 
 
 Unversed in fraud, and rich with various wealth. 
 
 Is theirs — in their broad farms what rest they take ! 
 
 Nor yet are wanting cave and living lake ; 
 
 Cool Tempe-vales ; the grateful low and bleat 
 
 Of sheep and oxen ; slumbers soft and sweet 
 
 At sultry noon, beneath umbrageous trees. 
 
 Lulled by the drowsy drone of murmuring bees. 
 
 There are the forest-haunt and hunt, and there 
 
 A youth inured to toil and frugal fare ; 
 
 Religion's rites are there ; the memory 
 
 Of a long line of sainted ancestry ; 
 
 And Justice, when from earth to Heaven she passed, 
 
 Left there her brightest footprints and her last." 
 
 " Her last 1 " O no, not yet is Justice fled 
 From earth — not yet is ^' Sacred Honor " dead — 
 Not yet is the Greek torch of Liberty 
 Quenched to the nations in our western sea. 
 
26 POEM. 
 
 • 
 
 And must the day come, when fraternal war 
 
 Shall rend our mighty empire, star from star ? 
 
 Or (worse) Corruption's canker eat the chain, 
 
 No earthly arm had power to snap in twain ? 
 
 Must the day come, when over freemen's graves 
 
 Their shameless sons shall walk, the slaves of slaves ? 
 
 When the proud flag, whose field of starry blue 
 
 Tells of the sky, whence our young Freedom drew 
 
 Her life's first breath — the flag, whose stripes of red 
 
 Tell of the brave, who, at her summons bled, 
 
 Shall droop inglorious, or, dishonored, lie, 
 
 A taunt — a jest — a sign of infamy ? 
 
 Benignant Heaven, forbid I and ye, whose dust 
 
 Our soil, " from Maine to Georgia," holds in trust ! 
 
 Forbid it ! living sons of those dead sires 
 
 Who lit, on Freedom's heights, the morn-watch-fires. 
 
 Whose hearts'-blood, where they fell, enriched the sod, 
 
 And scattered seed of valor far abroad, 
 
 That, mouldering in full many a furrow, lies, 
 
 Our nobler harvest, ripening for the skies. 
 
 When, in our fields, the strong-armed son of toil, 
 Each spring, with plough and harrow breaks a soil 
 Ploughed up with cannon balls and harrowed o'er 
 By staggering war-carts fifty years before, — (13) 
 When his bright share heaves up, mid root and stone, 
 The deadly bullet and the shattered bone, — 
 Dreams he, perchance, what wealth these relics tell, 
 And does his patriot-heart with rapture swell 
 
POEM. ' 27 
 
 To think his fields such priceless treasures hold, 
 
 Beyond all garnered stores of grain or gold ? 
 
 Spend, slave of gain, O spend one thought on these, 
 
 The riches of ancestral memories ! 
 
 Sell all thou hast, and with thy fathers find 
 
 The jewel of a free and fearless mind. 
 
 Gone is the day when our young eagle heard 
 The cry of war, and in his eyrie stirred ; 
 When Quincy saw the blood-red dawning nigh, (14) 
 And Warren, at the call, made haste to die ; 
 When Otis, Adams, fanned the kindling flame, 
 And Hancock pledged a patriot-merchant's name : 
 Gone is the day — compatriots, never more 
 May dawn its like ! — when, ghastly-red with gore, 
 Yon altar-height the smoke of sacrifice 
 Sent up, in summer-sunlight, to the skies. 
 Gone is the day, and oh, not soon may men 
 Beat back the ploughshare to a sword again I 
 Yet warfare, brothers. Is our honored lot, 
 A warfare that, while life lasts, endeth not. 
 
 The Poet's, Patriot's word Is said — one more, 
 The Pupil's word — and my poor work is o'er. 
 
 Old Harvard ! Mother Harvard ! To thy shrine 
 Comes, at thy call, a pilgrim-child of thine. 
 Fain would he here the scholar's vow renew, 
 To be thy servant, son, and soldier true. 
 
28 * POEM. 
 
 • 
 
 So, In old Roman days, did heroes plight 
 
 Their faith and fortunes to a meaner fight. 
 
 See son and sire by tomb or altar stand ! 
 
 The hoary warrior lays that bloodless hand 
 
 Of his brave boy on the cold marble there, 
 
 And teaches his young lips and thoughts to swear, 
 
 While in this clay mind holds her conscious throne, 
 
 His father's, country's foes shall be his own. 
 
 But thou, great Mother, summonest our youth 
 
 To wage for thee the sterner strife of truth ; 
 
 Life-long to wage, perchance alone, the fight 
 
 For Truth and Faith, for Reason and for Right ; 
 
 'Gainst Sin's dark host, 'gainst Error's shadowy band 
 
 To stand ; and, when they vanish, still " to stand." 
 
 Sore strife ! yet glorious ! glorious strife, yet sore I 
 
 No trumpet sounds, no banner hovers o'er — 
 
 No thrilling fife, no heart-emboldening drum 
 
 Proclaims in voicelike tones, " the foemen come ! " 
 
 In stealth and silence comes our deadliest foe — 
 
 From ambush, sidelong, strikes his deadliest blow. 
 
 Yet 't is our God the high command has given — 
 
 A battle-march must bring us home to heaven. 
 
 By faith we walk, with faith's good weapons fight. 
 
 Faith brings the sacred ensign full in sight ; 
 
 At starry midnight, or in noon-day sky, 
 
 '' By this ye conquer ! " blazes broad and high. 
 
 From such a field thy servant comes to-day, 
 ^ To hear thy God-speed on his future way. 
 
POEM. 29 
 
 Happier than he who fell ainid the fight 
 
 Where no dear Argos cheered his fainting sight ; 
 
 Though not yet victor, not quite vanquished yet, 
 
 I turn aside my fevered brow to wet, 
 
 As the worn soldier, from the dust and heat 
 
 Seeks by some shaded fount a still retreat, 
 
 To rest his limbs beside the murmuring stream, 
 
 Of home and peace and victory to dream ; 
 
 Then start afresh upon his long campaign 
 
 By rugged height, parched waste, and battle-plain. 
 
 Thus I revisit now thy classic stream. 
 Thou cradle-home of youth's heroic dream ! 
 As at thy altar once again I stand, 
 I feel the pressure of that gentle hand 
 Which erst my feet to wisdom's waters led. 
 Rest, like God's blessing, on my bended head. 
 
 But where are they, the loved, the honored ones, 
 With whom, in learning's bonds, we walked as sons ? 
 The sires and elder brethren, at whose side 
 We passed where classic, holy waters glide ? 
 By premature disease, or slow decay. 
 Inexorable death has claimed his prey ; 
 Nor learning's grace, nor virtue's worth could save, 
 Nor genius, nor religion, from the grave ! 
 
 A few are left us — veterans of the band, 
 Who led our march toward Wisdom's promised land 
 5 
 
30 POEM. 
 
 Repose and honor crown their whitening hairs ! 
 
 A soft, slow passage home to heaven be theirs ! 
 
 Such be his lot, I need not speak a name, 
 
 To patriots, as to scholars, known by fame : 
 
 Who "came to us the statesman and the sage," (15) 
 
 Youth's vernal vigor in autumnal age ; 
 
 Who goes, ill-spared, from this his proudest post, 
 
 Where long he led our bands — himself a host. 
 
 But no ; his proudest post he leaves not yet, 
 
 Nor ever shall, while memory lasts, forget 
 
 To worship at the shrine he owned in youth ; 
 
 The shrine of Learning, Liberty and Truth. 
 
 Long may he keep, undimmed, his youthful fires ! 
 
 Late may he go to join his sainted sires ! 
 
 And when, at last, the appointed hour shall come, 
 
 May all good angels gently bear him home ! 
 
 But where are ye, my partners in the strife 
 A common mother bade us wage for life ^- 
 The strife of truth, of faith, of liberty — 
 Long-parted comrades — classmates, where are ye ? 
 Alas ! how many forms I find no more. 
 Of them who sleep in death, life's conflict o'er. 
 One, e'en while girding for the fight, was gone — ^ 
 One fell in fight with all his armor on. 
 The thought-marked brow, the cheek of boyish bloom, 
 Alike they rest — they moulder in the tomb ! 
 Peace to their dust ! But ye who yet remain 
 The noonday's heat and burden to sustain, 
 
POEM. 31 
 
 Where roam ye now, by land or sea, where rest ? 
 Still do ye feel, within each manly breast, 
 Of sacred gratitude the lofty flame, 
 Perchance the keener pangs of noble shame, 
 When ye review those hours, forever fled. 
 Spent in these shades among the mighty dead ? 
 May there be one who hears no trumpet-call, 
 Whose goodly armor, in the castle-hall 
 Of Indolence, hangs rusting on the wall : 
 One who the scholar's post of trust hath sold 
 To sloth or sense — for glory or for gold ? 
 O slink not, brother ! to thy soul be true ! 
 The foes are many, and God's champions few. 
 Or think'st thou not to advance, nor yet retreat ? 
 Press on thou must, or sink in vile defeat ! 
 
 Enough of thoughts like these ; friends, I am fain 
 To end your sufferings with a lighter strain. 
 
 A village landlord once, (no matter where ; 
 Poetic truth such questions may not bear) — 
 Hung out his tavern sign-board, neat and new, 
 Then called an Artist, (History names not who — 
 They called him Painter,) " Prithee, now," said he 
 Of the Sun Tavern, " canst thou paint for me 
 A handsome picture of the rising sun ? " 
 The artist dipped his brush, the work was done ! 
 For lo ! so pure a beam of light he drew ; 
 So bold his genius, and his touch so true ; 
 
32 POEM. 
 
 (Rarely such gifts a mortal man inspire !) 
 At the first stroke he set the board on fire. 
 
 Were mine that daring artist's cunning hand ; 
 Could I such burning tints and tones command ; 
 Could I but touch the dark electric wire, 
 And telegraph a word of living fire 
 On the fair tablet of one manly heart, 
 With clearer conscience might I now depart. 
 But, as it is, I go, unsaid my word. 
 Sheathing my voiceless thought, my wooden sword, (16) 
 Shoulder my harp, and hie me back once more 
 Home to Aquidneck's bare, foam-whitened shore, (17) 
 And hang it on the scraggly willow-trees, 
 There to be swept at will by ocean's breeze. 
 
 Yet, Mother Harvard ! from my swelling heart 
 One word — one fingering word before we part ! 
 May this right hand her cunning quite forget. 
 When I repudiate the mighty debt 
 Of gratitude and service due to thee 
 And thine, sweet second home of memory 1 
 
 My task is done ; companions ! ye have heard 
 Some feeble echoes of the mighty word. 
 Each heart that beats around me fain would say, 
 Amidst the memories of this festal day. 
 The meaning of that word what tongue can tell ! 
 Old Harvard 1 Mother Harvard ! Fare thee well ! 
 
NOTES. 
 
 (1) Class song of 1832 : 
 
 Chorus — "A long, a loud, a last farewell 
 To auld lang syne ! 
 We '11 meet no more as we have met, 
 Farewell to thee and thine ! " 
 
 (2) I have deviated slightly from the exact arrangement of this 
 device on the old college arms. " The first four letters were 
 inscribed on the inside of tvi'o open volumes ; the last three letters 
 on the outside of a third volume ;" upon which Robert Winthrop, 
 at the Centennial Dinner, in 1836, gave the following happy toast : 
 " The founders of our University. They have taught us, by the 
 mode in which they inscribed the motto on the college arms, that 
 no one human book contains the wliole truth of any subject ; and 
 that, in order to get at the real end of any matter, we must be 
 careful to look at both sides." My idea of the Book's being the 
 Bible is in keeping with the Puritan spirit. Was there, perhaps, 
 in the Three Books, containing together the one word Truth, an 
 allusion to the Three witnesses of John? 
 
 (3) 
 
 " How changed those times of which old Horace wrote ! 
 Our bards are not by nature, but by vote." 
 
 EvereWs Phi Beta Poem, 1812. 
 
 (4) Carlyle's critique on Burns's Poems, is somewhat alarm- 
 ing to a young aspirant. He says very few of them can strictly 
 
34 NOTES. 
 
 • 
 
 be called poems. *' They are rhymed sense — rhymed eloquence 
 — rhymed pathos-— but seldom essentially melodious, aerial, po- 
 etical." With all due deference I should call this hypercritical. 
 Burns is not always aerial — he is sometimes rough, fiery, tre- 
 mendous, because nature is so. Is not the poetry of nature, too, 
 heard by fits and snatches ? Somebody has said, that imagination 
 in Shakspeare is "rapid and vivid as lightning, fusing all things 
 by its power — in Milton awful as collected thunder." Does not 
 Burns combine both forms of the faculty ? 
 
 (5) Some wag says Hippocrene means literally a Jiorse-pond. 
 The contemptuous expression of Coleridge's master is well 
 known: "Helicon! Pugh ! The town-pump." 
 
 (6) See Stephens's Travels. 
 
 (7) 
 " But where of you, ye tempests, is the goal ? 
 Are ye like those within the human breast ? 
 Or do ye find, like eagles, some high nest ? " 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 I find that I have caught something from both Byron and Bry- 
 ant, in several previous lines of this paragraph. 
 
 (8) I seriously advise the reader, "si non obstiterit, gelidus 
 circum precordia sanguis," to try the effect of a spray-bath at 
 the foot of the American fall, about 11 o'clock at night. 
 
 (9) Of course not the Prophet Joel, but Joel Barlow, is here 
 meant. 
 
 (10) Everett, in his Phi Beta Poem : 
 
 *' Oh yes, in future days, our western lyres, 
 Tuned to new themes, shall glow with loftier fires, 
 Clothed with the charms, to grace their later rhyme, 
 Of every former age and foreign clime. 
 Then Homer's arms shall ring in Bunker's shock. 
 And Virgil's wanderers land on Plymouth Rock. 
 Then Dante's knights before Quebec shall fall. 
 And Charles's trump on train-band chieftains call. 
 
 Fitz James's horn Niagara's echoes wake. 
 And Katrine's lady skim o'er Erie's lake." 
 
NOTES. 35 
 
 (11) A British island opposite Eastport, the " jumping-ofF 
 place" of" Down East." 
 
 (12) My eyes may differ from others, but certainly, in ascend- 
 ing the Mississippi, T had several glimpses of the Ganges, and 
 Constantinople with its shipping. 
 
 (13) 
 
 " No solemn host goes trailing by 
 
 The hlack-mouthed gun and staggering wain ; 
 Men start not at the hatfle-cry — 
 Ohj be it never heard again ! 
 
 " Soon rested those who fought — but thou 
 
 Who minglest in the harder strife 
 
 For truths which men receive not now ; 
 
 Thy warfare only ends with life," 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 I take this occasion to say, for my own sake, that if there is 
 any inspiration about my verse, I owe a good deal of it, in thought, 
 sentiment, and occasionally language, to those three great Amer- 
 ican hearts, Bryant, Everett, and Webster. 
 
 (14) These four lines are a partial versification of the follow- 
 ing passage from Everett's speech at the Centennial Dinner, 
 in 1836 : 
 
 "Yes, fellow-students, if our college had done nothing else 
 than educate Samuel Adams, who, in 1743, on taking his second 
 degree, maintained the thesis, that it is lawful to resist the chief 
 magistrate, if the state cannot otherwise be preserved ; or James 
 Otis, who, by his argument on writs of assistance, in the words 
 of one* well authorized to express an opinion, 'first breathed 
 the breath of life into the cause of American freedom ; ' or John 
 Hancock, the patriot merchant, who offered his fortune, a sacri- 
 fice to his country, and placed his name first to the Declaration of 
 her Independence ; or John Adams, the Colossus who sustained 
 the declaration in debate ; or Josiah Quincy (your honored 
 
 * President Adams the Elder. 
 
36 NOTES. 
 
 father, Mr. President,) who, in 1774, wrote to his countrymen 
 from London, ' that they must seal their testimony with their 
 blood ; ' or Warren, who on yonder sacred height, made haste to 
 obey that awful injunction ; — had Harvard College done no more 
 than train up any one of these great men to the country's ser- 
 vice, what title would it need to the world's gratitude and admi- 
 ration? " 
 
 (15) See the close of Charles Sprague's Phi Beta Poem, in 
 1829. 
 
 (16) 
 
 But as it is, I live and die unheard, 
 
 With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword." 
 
 (17) Rhode Island. 
 
 Lot 69