diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:29:35 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:29:35 -0700 |
| commit | 468f3192f6a7f0644d4ae1b5eab57b6ee8decf55 (patch) | |
| tree | 8703b527b5bf90e8cf46998c33956b1968e51329 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7391.txt | 4201 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7391.zip | bin | 0 -> 58048 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ohp0410.txt | 4189 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ohp0410.zip | bin | 0 -> 58129 bytes |
7 files changed, 8406 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7391.txt b/7391.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba7cc72 --- /dev/null +++ b/7391.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4201 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Vol. 4, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 4 + Songs In Many Keys (1849-1861) + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: September 30, 2004 [EBook #7391] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 4 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + [1893 three volume set] + + + + + SONGS IN MANY KEYS + + 1849-1861 + + + + PROLOGUE + AGNES + THE PLOUGHMAN + SPRING + THE STUDY + THE BELLS + NON-RESISTANCE + THE MORAL BULLY + THE MIND'S DIET + OUR LIMITATIONS + THE OLD PLAYER + A POEM DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, SEPTEMBER 9,1850 + TO GOVERNOR SWAIN + TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND + AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH + AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE + AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS + AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY + AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES + THE HUDSON + THE NEW EDEN + SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY, + NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22,1855 + FAREWELL TO J. R. LOWELL + FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB, 1856 + ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY + BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER + THE VOICELESS + THE TWO STREAMS + THE PROMISE + AVIS + THE LIVING TEMPLE + AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL: TO J. R. LOWELL + A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO J. F. CLARKE + THE GRAY CHIEF + THE LAST LOOK: W. W. SWAIN + IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. + MARTHA + MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE + THE PARTING SONG + FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL SANITARY ASSOCIATION + FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, + AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS + BOSTON COMMON: THREE PICTURES + THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA + INTERNATIONAL ODE + VIVE LA FRANCE + BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE + + + + + +THE piping of our slender, peaceful reeds +Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray; +Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play +Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds, +Following the mighty van that Freedom leads, +Her glorious standard flaming to the day! +The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleeds +Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay. +Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are better worth +Than strains that sing the ravished echoes dumb. +Hark! 't is the loud reverberating drum +Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock-bound North +The myriad-handed Future stretches forth +Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come,--we come! + +Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as these +Were not unsought for, as, in languid dreams, +We lay beside our lotus-feeding streams, +And nursed our fancies in forgetful ease. +It matters little if they pall or please, +Dropping untimely, while the sudden gleams +Glare from the mustering clouds whose blackness seems +Too swollen to hold its lightning from the trees. +Yet, in some lull of passion, when at last +These calm revolving moons that come and go-- +Turning our months to years, they creep so slow-- +Have brought us rest, the not unwelcome past +May flutter to thee through these leaflets, cast +On the wild winds that all around us blow. +May 1, 1861. + + + AGNES + +The story of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage is told in the +ballad with a very strict adhesion to the facts. These were obtained +from information afforded me by the Rev. Mr. Webster, of Hopkinton, in +company with whom I visited the Frankland Mansion in that town, then +standing; from a very interesting Memoir, by the Rev. Elias Nason, of +Medford; and from the manuscript diary of Sir Harry, or more properly +Sir Charles Henry Frankland, now in the library of the Massachusetts +Historical Society. + +At the time of the visit referred to, old Julia was living, and on our +return we called at the house where she resided.--[She was living June +10, 1861, when this ballad was published]--Her account is little more +than paraphrased in the poem. If the incidents are treated with a +certain liberality at the close of the fifth part, the essential fact +that Agnes rescued Sir Harry from the ruins after the earthquake, and +their subsequent marriage as related, may be accepted as literal truth. +So with regard to most of the trifling details which are given; they are +taken from the record. It is greatly to be regretted that the Frankland +Mansion no longer exists. It was accidentally burned on the 23d of +January, 1858, a year or two after the first sketch of this ballad was +written. A visit to it was like stepping out of the century into the +years before the Revolution. A new house, similar in plan and +arrangements to the old one, has been built upon its site, and the +terraces, the clump of box, and the lilacs doubtless remain to bear +witness to the truth of this story. + +The story, which I have told literally in rhyme, has been made +the subject of a carefully studied and interesting romance by Mr. +E. L. Bynner. + + + +PART FIRST + +THE KNIGHT + +THE tale I tell is gospel true, +As all the bookmen know, +And pilgrims who have strayed to view +The wrecks still left to show. + +The old, old story,--fair, and young, +And fond,--and not too wise,-- +That matrons tell, with sharpened tongue, +To maids with downcast eyes. + +Ah! maidens err and matrons warn +Beneath the coldest sky; +Love lurks amid the tasselled corn +As in the bearded rye! + +But who would dream our sober sires +Had learned the old world's ways, +And warmed their hearths with lawless fires +In Shirley's homespun days? + +'T is like some poet's pictured trance +His idle rhymes recite,-- +This old New England-born romance +Of Agnes and the Knight; + +Yet, known to all the country round, +Their home is standing still, +Between Wachusett's lonely mound +And Shawmut's threefold hill. + +One hour we rumble on the rail, +One half-hour guide the rein, +We reach at last, o'er hill and dale, +The village on the plain. + +With blackening wall and mossy roof, +With stained and warping floor, +A stately mansion stands aloof +And bars its haughty door. + +This lowlier portal may be tried, +That breaks the gable wall; +And lo! with arches opening wide, +Sir Harry Frankland's hall! + +'T was in the second George's day +They sought the forest shade, +The knotted trunks they cleared away, +The massive beams they laid, + +They piled the rock-hewn chimney tall, +They smoothed the terraced ground, +They reared the marble-pillared wall +That fenced the mansion round. + +Far stretched beyond the village bound +The Master's broad domain; +With page and valet, horse and hound, +He kept a goodly train. + +And, all the midland county through, +The ploughman stopped to gaze +Whene'er his chariot swept in view +Behind the shining bays, + +With mute obeisance, grave and slow, +Repaid by nod polite,-- +For such the way with high and low +Till after Concord fight. + +Nor less to courtly circles known +That graced the three-hilled town +With far-off splendors of the Throne, +And glimmerings from the Crown; + +Wise Phipps, who held the seals of state +For Shirley over sea; +Brave Knowles, whose press-gang moved of late +The King Street mob's decree; + +And judges grave, and colonels grand, +Fair dames and stately men, +The mighty people of the land, +The "World" of there and then. + +'T was strange no Chloe's "beauteous Form," +And "Eyes' celestial Blew," +This Strephon of the West could warm, +No Nymph his Heart subdue. + +Perchance he wooed as gallants use, +Whom fleeting loves enchain, +But still unfettered, free to choose, +Would brook no bridle-rein. + +He saw the fairest of the fair, +But smiled alike on all; +No band his roving foot might snare, +No ring his hand enthrall. + + + +PART SECOND + +THE MAIDEN + +Why seeks the knight that rocky cape +Beyond the Bay of Lynn? +What chance his wayward course may shape +To reach its village inn? + +No story tells; whate'er we guess, +The past lies deaf and still, +But Fate, who rules to blight or bless, +Can lead us where she will. + +Make way! Sir Harry's coach and four, +And liveried grooms that ride! +They cross the ferry, touch the shore +On Winnisimmet's side. + +They hear the wash on Chelsea Beach,-- +The level marsh they pass, +Where miles on miles the desert reach +Is rough with bitter grass. + +The shining horses foam and pant, +And now the smells begin +Of fishy Swampscott, salt Nahant, +And leather-scented Lynn. + +Next, on their left, the slender spires +And glittering vanes that crown +The home of Salem's frugal sires, +The old, witch-haunted town. + +So onward, o'er the rugged way +That runs through rocks and sand, +Showered by the tempest-driven spray, +From bays on either hand, + +That shut between their outstretched arms +The crews of Marblehead, +The lords of ocean's watery farms, +Who plough the waves for bread. + +At last the ancient inn appears, +The spreading elm below, +Whose flapping sign these fifty years +Has seesawed to and fro. + +How fair the azure fields in sight +Before the low-browed inn +The tumbling billows fringe with light +The crescent shore of Lynn; + +Nahant thrusts outward through the waves +Her arm of yellow sand, +And breaks the roaring surge that braves +The gauntlet on her hand; + +With eddying whirl the waters lock +Yon treeless mound forlorn, +The sharp-winged sea-fowl's breeding-rock, +That fronts the Spouting Horn; + +Then free the white-sailed shallops glide, +And wide the ocean smiles, +Till, shoreward bent, his streams divide +The two bare Misery Isles. + +The master's silent signal stays +The wearied cavalcade; +The coachman reins his smoking bays +Beneath the elm-tree's shade. + +A gathering on the village green! +The cocked-hats crowd to see, +On legs in ancient velveteen, +With buckles at the knee. + +A clustering round the tavern-door +Of square-toed village boys, +Still wearing, as their grandsires wore, +The old-world corduroys! + +A scampering at the "Fountain" inn,--- +A rush of great and small,-- +With hurrying servants' mingled din +And screaming matron's call. + +Poor Agnes! with her work half done +They caught her unaware; +As, humbly, like a praying nun, +She knelt upon the stair; + +Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien +She knelt, but not to pray,-- +Her little hands must keep them clean, +And wash their stains away. + +A foot, an ankle, bare and white, +Her girlish shapes betrayed,-- +"Ha! Nymphs and Graces!" spoke the Knight; +"Look up, my beauteous Maid!" + +She turned,--a reddening rose in bud, +Its calyx half withdrawn,-- +Her cheek on fire with damasked blood +Of girlhood's glowing dawn! + +He searched her features through and through, +As royal lovers look +On lowly maidens, when they woo +Without the ring and book. + +"Come hither, Fair one! Here, my Sweet! +Nay, prithee, look not down! +Take this to shoe those little feet,"-- +He tossed a silver crown. + +A sudden paleness struck her brow,-- +A swifter blush succeeds; +It burns her cheek; it kindles now +Beneath her golden beads. + +She flitted, but the glittering eye +Still sought the lovely face. +Who was she? What, and whence? and why +Doomed to such menial place? + +A skipper's daughter,--so they said,-- +Left orphan by the gale +That cost the fleet of Marblehead +And Gloucester thirty sail. + +Ah! many a lonely home is found +Along the Essex shore, +That cheered its goodman outward bound, +And sees his face no more! + +"Not so," the matron whispered,--"sure +No orphan girl is she,-- +The Surriage folk are deadly poor +Since Edward left the sea, + +"And Mary, with her growing brood, +Has work enough to do +To find the children clothes and food +With Thomas, John, and Hugh. + +"This girl of Mary's, growing tall,-- +(Just turned her sixteenth year,)-- +To earn her bread and help them all, +Would work as housemaid here." + +So Agnes, with her golden beads, +And naught beside as dower, +Grew at the wayside with the weeds, +Herself a garden-flower. + +'T was strange, 't was sad,--so fresh, so fair! +Thus Pity's voice began. +Such grace! an angel's shape and air! +The half-heard whisper ran. + +For eyes could see in George's time, +As now in later days, +And lips could shape, in prose and rhyme, +The honeyed breath of praise. + +No time to woo! The train must go +Long ere the sun is down, +To reach, before the night-winds blow, +The many-steepled town. + +'T is midnight,--street and square are still; +Dark roll the whispering waves +That lap the piers beneath the hill +Ridged thick with ancient graves. + +Ah, gentle sleep! thy hand will smooth +The weary couch of pain, +When all thy poppies fail to soothe +The lover's throbbing brain! + +'T is morn,--the orange-mantled sun +Breaks through the fading gray, +And long and loud the Castle gun +Peals o'er the glistening bay. + +"Thank God 't is day!" With eager eye +He hails the morning shine:-- +"If art can win, or gold can buy, +The maiden shall be mine!" + + + +PART THIRD + +THE CONQUEST + +"Who saw this hussy when she came? +What is the wench, and who?" +They whisper. "Agnes--is her name? +Pray what has she to do?" + +The housemaids parley at the gate, +The scullions on the stair, +And in the footmen's grave debate +The butler deigns to share. + +Black Dinah, stolen when a child, +And sold on Boston pier, +Grown up in service, petted, spoiled, +Speaks in the coachman's ear: + +"What, all this household at his will? +And all are yet too few? +More servants, and more servants still,-- +This pert young madam too!" + +"_Servant!_ fine servant!" laughed aloud +The man of coach and steeds; +"She looks too fair, she steps too proud, +This girl with golden beads! + +"I tell you, you may fret and frown, +And call her what you choose, +You 'll find my Lady in her gown, +Your Mistress in her shoes!" + +Ah, gentle maidens, free from blame, +God grant you never know +The little whisper, loud with shame, +That makes the world your foe! + +Why tell the lordly flatterer's art, +That won the maiden's ear,-- +The fluttering of the frightened heart, +The blush, the smile, the tear? + +Alas! it were the saddening tale +That every language knows,-- +The wooing wind, the yielding sail, +The sunbeam and the rose. + +And now the gown of sober stuff +Has changed to fair brocade, +With broidered hem, and hanging cuff, +And flower of silken braid; + +And clasped around her blanching wrist +A jewelled bracelet shines, +Her flowing tresses' massive twist +A glittering net confines; + +And mingling with their truant wave +A fretted chain is hung; +But ah! the gift her mother gave,-- +Its beads are all unstrung! + +Her place is at the master's board, +Where none disputes her claim; +She walks beside the mansion's lord, +His bride in all but name. + +The busy tongues have ceased to talk, +Or speak in softened tone, +So gracious in her daily walk +The angel light has shown. + +No want that kindness may relieve +Assails her heart in vain, +The lifting of a ragged sleeve +Will check her palfrey's rein. + +A thoughtful calm, a quiet grace +In every movement shown, +Reveal her moulded for the place +She may not call her own. + +And, save that on her youthful brow +There broods a shadowy care, +No matron sealed with holy vow +In all the land so fair. + + + +PART FOURTH + +THE RESCUE + +A ship comes foaming up the bay, +Along the pier she glides; +Before her furrow melts away, +A courier mounts and rides. + +"Haste, Haste, post Haste!" the letters bear; +"Sir Harry Frankland, These." +Sad news to tell the loving pair! +The knight must cross the seas. + +"Alas! we part!"--the lips that spoke +Lost all their rosy red, +As when a crystal cup is broke, +And all its wine is shed. + +"Nay, droop not thus,--where'er," he cried, +"I go by land or sea, +My love, my life, my joy, my pride, +Thy place is still by me!" + +Through town and city, far and wide, +Their wandering feet have strayed, +From Alpine lake to ocean tide, +And cold Sierra's shade. + +At length they see the waters gleam +Amid the fragrant bowers +Where Lisbon mirrors in the stream +Her belt of ancient towers. + +Red is the orange on its bough, +To-morrow's sun shall fling +O'er Cintra's hazel-shaded brow +The flush of April's wing. + +The streets are loud with noisy mirth, +They dance on every green; +The morning's dial marks the birth +Of proud Braganza's queen. + +At eve beneath their pictured dome +The gilded courtiers throng; +The broad moidores have cheated Rome +Of all her lords of song. + +AH! Lisbon dreams not of the day-- +Pleased with her painted scenes-- +When all her towers shall slide away +As now these canvas screens! + +The spring has passed, the summer fled, +And yet they linger still, +Though autumn's rustling leaves have spread +The flank of Cintra's hill. + +The town has learned their Saxon name, +And touched their English gold, +Nor tale of doubt nor hint of blame +From over sea is told. + +Three hours the first November dawn +Has climbed with feeble ray +Through mists like heavy curtains drawn +Before the darkened day. + +How still the muffled echoes sleep! +Hark! hark! a hollow sound,-- +A noise like chariots rumbling deep +Beneath the solid ground. + +The channel lifts, the water slides +And bares its bar of sand, +Anon a mountain billow strides +And crashes o'er the land. + +The turrets lean, the steeples reel +Like masts on ocean's swell, +And clash a long discordant peal, +The death-doomed city's knell. + +The pavement bursts, the earth upheaves +Beneath the staggering town! +The turrets crack--the castle cleaves-- +The spires come rushing down. + +Around, the lurid mountains glow +With strange unearthly gleams; +While black abysses gape below, +Then close in jagged seams. + +And all is over. Street and square +In ruined heaps are piled; +Ah! where is she, so frail, so fair, +Amid the tumult wild? + +Unscathed, she treads the wreck-piled street, +Whose narrow gaps afford +A pathway for her bleeding feet, +To seek her absent lord. + +A temple's broken walls arrest +Her wild and wandering eyes; +Beneath its shattered portal pressed, +Her lord unconscious lies. + +The power that living hearts obey +Shall lifeless blocks withstand? +Love led her footsteps where he lay,-- +Love nerves her woman's hand. + +One cry,--the marble shaft she grasps,-- +Up heaves the ponderous stone:-- +He breathes,--her fainting form he clasps,-- +Her life has bought his own! + + + +PART FIFTH + +THE REWARD + +How like the starless night of death +Our being's brief eclipse, +When faltering heart and failing breath +Have bleached the fading lips! + +The earth has folded like a wave, +And thrice a thousand score, +Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave, +The sun shall see no more! + +She lives! What guerdon shall repay +His debt of ransomed life? +One word can charm all wrongs away,-- +The sacred name of WIFE! + +The love that won her girlish charms +Must shield her matron fame, +And write beneath the Frankland arms +The village beauty's name. + +Go, call the priest! no vain delay +Shall dim the sacred ring! +Who knows what change the passing day, +The fleeting hour, may bring? + +Before the holy altar bent, +There kneels a goodly pair; +A stately man, of high descent, +A woman, passing fair. + +No jewels lend the blinding sheen +That meaner beauty needs, +But on her bosom heaves unseen +A string of golden beads. + +The vow is spoke,--the prayer is said,-- +And with a gentle pride +The Lady Agnes lifts her head, +Sir Harry Frankland's bride. + +No more her faithful heart shall bear +Those griefs so meekly borne,-- +The passing sneer, the freezing stare, +The icy look of scorn; + +No more the blue-eyed English dames +Their haughty lips shall curl, +Whene'er a hissing whisper names +The poor New England girl. + +But stay!--his mother's haughty brow,-- +The pride of ancient race,-- +Will plighted faith, and holy vow, +Win back her fond embrace? + +Too well she knew the saddening tale +Of love no vow had blest, +That turned his blushing honors pale +And stained his knightly crest. + +They seek his Northern home,--alas +He goes alone before;-- +His own dear Agnes may not pass +The proud, ancestral door. + +He stood before the stately dame; +He spoke; she calmly heard, +But not to pity, nor to blame; +She breathed no single word. + +He told his love,--her faith betrayed; +She heard with tearless eyes; +Could she forgive the erring maid? +She stared in cold surprise. + +How fond her heart, he told,--how true; +The haughty eyelids fell;-- +The kindly deeds she loved to do; +She murmured, "It is well." + +But when he told that fearful day, +And how her feet were led +To where entombed in life he lay, +The breathing with the dead, + +And how she bruised her tender breasts +Against the crushing stone, +That still the strong-armed clown protests +No man can lift alone,-- + +Oh! then the frozen spring was broke; +By turns she wept and smiled;-- +"Sweet Agnes!" so the mother spoke, +"God bless my angel child. + +"She saved thee from the jaws of death,-- +'T is thine to right her wrongs; +I tell thee,--I, who gave thee breath,-- +To her thy life belongs!" + +Thus Agnes won her noble name, +Her lawless lover's hand; +The lowly maiden so became +A lady in the land! + + + +PART SIXTH + +CONCLUSION + +The tale is done; it little needs +To track their after ways, +And string again the golden beads +Of love's uncounted days. + +They leave the fair ancestral isle +For bleak New England's shore; +How gracious is the courtly smile +Of all who frowned before! + +Again through Lisbon's orange bowers +They watch the river's gleam, +And shudder as her shadowy towers +Shake in the trembling stream. + +Fate parts at length the fondest pair; +His cheek, alas! grows pale; +The breast that trampling death could spare +His noiseless shafts assail. + +He longs to change the heaven of blue +For England's clouded sky,-- +To breathe the air his boyhood knew; +He seeks then but to die. + +Hard by the terraced hillside town, +Where healing streamlets run, +Still sparkling with their old renown,-- +The "Waters of the Sun,"-- + +The Lady Agnes raised the stone +That marks his honored grave, +And there Sir Harry sleeps alone +By Wiltshire Avon's wave. + +The home of early love was dear; +She sought its peaceful shade, +And kept her state for many a year, +With none to make afraid. + +At last the evil days were come +That saw the red cross fall; +She hears the rebels' rattling drum,-- +Farewell to Frankland Hall! + +I tell you, as my tale began, +The hall is standing still; +And you, kind listener, maid or man, +May see it if you will. + +The box is glistening huge and green, +Like trees the lilacs grow, +Three elms high-arching still are seen, +And one lies stretched below. + +The hangings, rough with velvet flowers, +Flap on the latticed wall; +And o'er the mossy ridge-pole towers +The rock-hewn chimney tall. + +The doors on mighty hinges clash +With massive bolt and bar, +The heavy English-moulded sash +Scarce can the night-winds jar. + +Behold the chosen room he sought +Alone, to fast and pray, +Each year, as chill November brought +The dismal earthquake day. + +There hung the rapier blade he wore, +Bent in its flattened sheath; +The coat the shrieking woman tore +Caught in her clenching teeth;-- + +The coat with tarnished silver lace +She snapped at as she slid, +And down upon her death-white face +Crashed the huge coffin's lid. + +A graded terrace yet remains; +If on its turf you stand +And look along the wooded plains +That stretch on either hand, + +The broken forest walls define +A dim, receding view, +Where, on the far horizon's line, +He cut his vista through. + +If further story you shall crave, +Or ask for living proof, +Go see old Julia, born a slave +Beneath Sir Harry's roof. + +She told me half that I have told, +And she remembers well +The mansion as it looked of old +Before its glories fell;-- + +The box, when round the terraced square +Its glossy wall was drawn; +The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, +The roses on the lawn. + +And Julia says, with truthful look +Stamped on her wrinkled face, +That in her own black hands she took +The coat with silver lace. + +And you may hold the story light, +Or, if you like, believe; +But there it was, the woman's bite,-- +A mouthful from the sleeve. + +Now go your ways;--I need not tell +The moral of my rhyme; +But, youths and maidens, ponder well +This tale of olden time! + + + + +THE PLOUGHMAN +ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, +OCTOBER 4, 1849 + +CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam! +Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, +With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow, +The lord of earth, the hero of the plough! + +First in the field before the reddening sun, +Last in the shadows when the day is done, +Line after line, along the bursting sod, +Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod; +Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide, +The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide; +Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves, +Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves; +Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train +Slants the long track that scores the level plain; +Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay, +The patient convoy breaks its destined way; +At every turn the loosening chains resound, +The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round, +Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, +And wearied hands unbind the panting steers. + +These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings +The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; +This is the page, whose letters shall be seen +Changed by the sun to words of living green; +This is the scholar, whose immortal pen +Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men; +These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil +Shows on his deed,--the charter of the soil. + +O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast +Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, +How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, +Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time +We stain thy flowers,--they blossom o'er the dead; +We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; +O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, +Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; +Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain, +Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. +Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms +Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms, +Let not our virtues in thy love decay, +And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. + +No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed +In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed; +By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests +The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests; +By these fair plains the mountain circle screens, +And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines, +True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil +To crown with peace their own untainted soil; +And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind, +If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind, +These stately forms, that bending even now +Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough, +Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, +The same stern iron in the same right hand, +Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run, +The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won! + + + +SPRING + +WINTER is past; the heart of Nature warms +Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms; +Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen, +The southern slopes are fringed with tender green; +On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves, +Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves, +Bright with the hues from wider pictures won, +White, azure, golden,--drift, or sky, or sun,-- +The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast +The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest; +The violet, gazing on the arch of blue +Till her own iris wears its deepened hue; +The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould +Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. +Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high +Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky +On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves +The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves; +The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave, +Drugged with the opiate that November gave, +Beats with faint wing against the sunny pane, +Or crawls, tenacious, o'er its lucid plain; +From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls, +In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls; +The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep, +Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap; +On floating rails that face the softening noons +The still shy turtles range their dark platoons, +Or, toiling aimless o'er the mellowing fields, +Trail through the grass their tessellated shields. + +At last young April, ever frail and fair, +Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, +Chased to the margin of receding floods +O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds, +In tears and blushes sighs herself away, +And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May. + +Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, +Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays; +O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis, +Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free; +With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, +And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose; +Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge +The rival lily hastens to emerge, +Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, +Till morn is sultan of her parted lips. + +Then bursts the song from every leafy glade, +The yielding season's bridal serenade; +Then flash the wings returning Summer calls +Through the deep arches of her forest halls,-- +The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes +The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; +The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, +Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; +The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire +Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. +The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, +Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; +The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, +Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; +Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, +Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings. + +Why dream I here within these caging walls, +Deaf to her voice, while blooming Nature calls; +Peering and gazing with insatiate looks +Through blinding lenses, or in wearying books? +Off, gloomy spectres of the shrivelled past! +Fly with the leaves that fill the autumn blast +Ye imps of Science, whose relentless chains +Lock the warm tides within these living veins, +Close your dim cavern, while its captive strays +Dazzled and giddy in the morning's blaze! + + + + +THE STUDY + +YET in the darksome crypt I left so late, +Whose only altar is its rusted grate,-- +Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, +Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams,-- +While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train, +Its paler splendors were not quite in vain. +From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow +Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; +Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will +On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, +Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard, +And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, +Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone, +Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone. + +Not all unblest the mild interior scene +When the red curtain spread its falling screen; +O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, +And the long evening only flew too fast; +Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend +In genial welcome to some easy friend, +Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves, +Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves; +Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, +In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed. +Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring +To the round table its expected ring, +And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,-- +Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard,-- +Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour +The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower. + +Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, +Not quite deserted when its guests were flown; +Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, +Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, +Ready to answer, never known to ask, +Claiming no service, prompt for every task. +On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes, +O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns; +A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, +That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime, +Each knows his place, and each may claim his part +In some quaint corner of his master's heart. +This old Decretal, won from Moss's hoards, +Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards, +Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, +Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close; +Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, +With glistening letters wrought in red and blue. +There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, +The Aldine anchor on his opening page; +There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind, +In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confused, +"Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?) +Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine! +In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill +The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville; +High over all, in close, compact array, +Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. +In lower regions of the sacred space +Range the dense volumes of a humbler race; +There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach, +In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech; +Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, +Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, +Lully and Geber, and the learned crew +That loved to talk of all they could not do. + +Why count the rest,--those names of later days +That many love, and all agree to praise,-- +Or point the titles, where a glance may read +The dangerous lines of party or of creed? +Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show +What few may care and none can claim to know. +Each has his features, whose exterior seal +A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal; +Go to his study,--on the nearest shelf +Stands the mosaic portrait of himself. + +What though for months the tranquil dust descends, +Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends, +While the damp offspring of the modern press +Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress; +Not less I love each dull familiar face, +Nor less should miss it from the appointed place; +I snatch the book, along whose burning leaves +His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, +Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share, +My old MAGNALIA must be standing _there_! + + + + +THE BELLS + +WHEN o'er the street the morning peal is flung +From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue, +Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale, +To each far listener tell a different tale. +The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor +Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar, +Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one, +Each dull concussion, till his task is done. +Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note +Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat, +Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street, +Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet; +The bell, responsive to her secret flame, +With every note repeats her lover's name. +The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane, +Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, +Hears the stern accents, as they come and go, +Their only burden one despairing No! +Ocean's rough child, whom many a shore has known +Ere homeward breezes swept him to his own, +Starts at the echo as it circles round, +A thousand memories kindling with the sound; +The early favorite's unforgotten charms, +Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms; +His first farewell, the flapping canvas spread, +The seaward streamers crackling overhead, +His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to weep +Her first-born's bridal with the haggard deep, +While the brave father stood with tearless eye, +Smiling and choking with his last good-by. + +'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats, +With the same impulse, every nerve it meets, +Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride +On the round surge of that aerial tide! + +O child of earth! If floating sounds like these +Steal from thyself their power to wound or please, +If here or there thy changing will inclines, +As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs, +Look at thy heart, and when its depths are known, +Then try thy brother's, judging by thine own, +But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range, +While its own standards are the sport of change, +Nor count us rebels when we disobey +The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway. + + + + +NON-RESISTANCE + +PERHAPS too far in these considerate days +Has patience carried her submissive ways; +Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, +To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; +It is not written what a man shall do, +If the rude caitiff smite the other too! + +Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need +God help thee, guarded by the passive creed! +As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl, +When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl; +As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow +When the black corsair slants athwart her bow; +As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien, +Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green, +When the dark plumage with the crimson beak +Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,-- +So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm +The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm, +Thy torches ready for the answering peal +From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel! + + + + +THE MORAL BULLY + +YON whey-faced brother, who delights to wear +A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair, +Seems of the sort that in a crowded place +One elbows freely into smallest space; +A timid creature, lax of knee and hip, +Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip; +One of those harmless spectacled machines, +The Holy-Week of Protestants convenes; +Whom school-boys question if their walk transcends +The last advices of maternal friends; +Whom John, obedient to his master's sign, +Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine, +While Peter, glistening with luxurious scorn, +Husks his white ivories like an ear of corn; +Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek, +Whose yellowish linen flowers but once a week, +Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare suits, +And the laced high-lows which they call their boots, +Well mayst thou shun that dingy front severe, +But him, O stranger, him thou canst not _fear_. + +Be slow to judge, and slower to despise, +Man of broad shoulders and heroic size +The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings, +Drops at the fountain where the cobra stings. +In that lean phantom, whose extended glove +Points to the text of universal love, +Behold the master that can tame thee down +To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown; +His velvet throat against thy corded wrist, +His loosened tongue against thy doubled fist. + +The MORAL BULLY, though he never swears, +Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, +Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, +And non-resistance ties his white cravat, +Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen +In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, +Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast +That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, +Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear +That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, +Feels the same comfort while his acrid words +Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds, +Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate, +That all we love is worthiest of our hate, +As the scarred ruffian of the pirate's deck, +When his long swivel rakes the staggering wreck! + +Heaven keep us all! Is every rascal clown +Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down? +Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul +Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole, +Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace +Of angel visits on his hungry face, +From lack of marrow or the coins to pay, +Has dodged some vices in a shabby way, +The right to stick us with his cutthroat terms, +And bait his homilies with his brother worms? + + + + +THE MIND'S DIET + +No life worth naming ever comes to good +If always nourished on the selfsame food; +The creeping mite may live so if he please, +And feed on Stilton till he turns to cheese, +But cool Magendie proves beyond a doubt, +If mammals try it, that their eyes drop out. + +No reasoning natures find it safe to feed, +For their sole diet, on a single creed; +It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their tongues, +And starves the heart to feed the noisy lungs. + +When the first larvae on the elm are seen, +The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are green; +Ere chill October shakes the latest down, +They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown; +On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy, +You stretch to pluck it--'tis a butterfly; +The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark, +They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark; +The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, +Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood; +So by long living on a single lie, +Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye; +Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,-- +Except when squabbling turns them black and blue! + + + + +OUR LIMITATIONS + +WE trust and fear, we question and believe, +From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave, +Frail as the web that misty night has spun, +Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun. +While the calm centuries spell their lessons out, +Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt; +When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne, +The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone; +When Pilate's hall that awful question heard, +The Heavenly Captive answered not a word. + +Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears +Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! +From age to age, while History carves sublime +On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, +How the wild swayings of our planet show +That worlds unseen surround the world we know. + + + + +THE OLD PLAYER + +THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud +The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed. +In flaming line the telltales of the stage +Showed on his brow the autograph of age; +Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair, +And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care; +Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,-- +He strove to speak,--his voice was but a sigh. + +Year after year had seen its short-lived race +Flit past the scenes and others take their place; +Yet the old prompter watched his accents still, +His name still flaunted on the evening's bill. +Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor, +Had died in earnest and were heard no more; +Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread +They faced the footlights in unborrowed red, +Had faded slowly through successive shades +To gray duennas, foils of younger maids; +Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start +With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart, +While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky +With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry. +Yet there he stood,--the man of other days, +In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze, +As on the oak a faded leaf that clings +While a new April spreads its burnished wings. + +How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier, +Their central sun the flashing chandelier! +How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim +Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim +How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold! +Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told. +No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue; +Again, again, the crashing galleries rung. +As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast +Hears in its strain the echoes of the past, +So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round, +A life of memories startled at the sound. +He lived again,--the page of earliest days,-- +Days of small fee and parsimonious praise; +Then lithe young Romeo--hark that silvered tone, +From those smooth lips--alas! they were his own. +Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe, +Told his strange tale of midnight melting snow; +And dark--plumed Hamlet, with his cloak and blade, +Looked on the royal ghost, himself a shade. +All in one flash, his youthful memories came, +Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame, +As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong dream, +While the last bubble rises through the stream. + +Call him not old, whose visionary brain +Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. +For him in vain the envious seasons roll +Who bears eternal summer in his soul. +If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, +Spring with her birds, or children at their play, +Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art, +Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, +Turn to the record where his years are told,-- +Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old! +What magic power has changed the faded mime? +One breath of memory on the dust of time. +As the last window in the buttressed wall +Of some gray minster tottering to its fall, +Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread, +A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red, +Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows +When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows, +And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane +See angels glow in every shapeless stain; +So streamed the vision through his sunken eye, +Clad in the splendors of his morning sky. +All the wild hopes his eager boyhood knew, +All the young fancies riper years proved true, +The sweet, low-whispered words, the winning glance +From queens of song, from Houris of the dance, +Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing phrase, +And Beauty's silence when her blush was praise, +And melting Pride, her lashes wet with tears, +Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns and cheers, +Pangs of wild joy that perish on the tongue, +And all that poets dream, but leave unsung! + +In every heart some viewless founts are fed +From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed; +On the worn features of the weariest face +Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace, +As in old gardens left by exiled kings +The marble basins tell of hidden springs, +But, gray with dust, and overgrown with weeds, +Their choking jets the passer little heeds, +Till time's revenges break their seals away, +And, clad in rainbow light, the waters play. + +Good night, fond dreamer! let the curtain fall +The world's a stage, and we are players all. +A strange rehearsal! Kings without their crowns, +And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing clowns, +Speak the vain words that mock their throbbing hearts, +As Want, stern prompter! spells them out their parts. +The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay +Is twice an actor in a twofold play. +We smile at children when a painted screen +Seems to their simple eyes a real scene; +Ask the poor hireling, who has left his throne +To seek the cheerless home he calls his own, +Which of his double lives most real seems, +The world of solid fact or scenic dreams? +Canvas, or clouds,--the footlights, or the spheres,-- +The play of two short hours, or seventy years? +Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes, +Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies; +Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this; +The cheating future lends the present's bliss; +Life is a running shade, with fettered hands, +That chases phantoms over shifting sands; +Death a still spectre on a marble seat, +With ever clutching palms and shackled feet; +The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain, +The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain, +Death only grasps; to live is to pursue,-- +Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true! + + + + + +A POEM + +DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, +SEPTEMBER 9,1850 + +ANGEL of Death! extend thy silent reign! +Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new domain +No sable car along the winding road +Has borne to earth its unresisting load; +No sudden mound has risen yet to show +Where the pale slumberer folds his arms below; +No marble gleams to bid his memory live +In the brief lines that hurrying Time can give; +Yet, O Destroyer! from thy shrouded throne +Look on our gift; this realm is all thine own! + +Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft beguiled +From their dim paths the children of the wild; +The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy dells, +The feathered warrior claimed its wooded swells, +Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges show +The pointed flints that left his fatal bow, +Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian toil,-- +Last of his wrecks that strews the alien soil! +Here spread the fields that heaped their ripened store +Till the brown arms of Labor held no more; +The scythe's broad meadow with its dusky blush; +The sickle's harvest with its velvet flush; +The green-haired maize, her silken tresses laid, +In soft luxuriance, on her harsh brocade; +The gourd that swells beneath her tossing plume; +The coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of bloom,-- +Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive +With the wide murmurs of the scattered hive; +Here glowed the apple with the pencilled streak +Of morning painted on its southern cheek; +The pear's long necklace strung with golden drops, +Arched, like the banian, o'er its pillared props; +Here crept the growths that paid the laborer's care +With the cheap luxuries wealth consents to spare; +Here sprang the healing herbs which could not save +The hand that reared them from the neighboring grave. + +Yet all its varied charms, forever free +From task and tribute, Labor yields to thee +No more, when April sheds her fitful rain, +The sower's hand shall cast its flying grain; +No more, when Autumn strews the flaming leaves, +The reaper's band shall gird its yellow sheaves; +For thee alike the circling seasons flow +Till the first blossoms heave the latest snow. +In the stiff clod below the whirling drifts, +In the loose soil the springing herbage lifts, +In the hot dust beneath the parching weeds, +Life's withering flower shall drop its shrivelled seeds; +Its germ entranced in thy unbreathing sleep +Till what thou sowest mightier angels reap! + +Spirit of Beauty! let thy graces blend +With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. +Come from the bowers where Summer's life-blood flows +Through the red lips of June's half-open rose, +Dressed in bright hues, the loving sunshine's dower; +For tranquil Nature owns no mourning flower. +Come from the forest where the beech's screen +Bars the fierce moonbeam with its flakes of green; +Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy plains, +Stanch the deep wound That dries the maple's veins. +Come with the stream whose silver-braided rills +Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills, +Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings, +Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs. +Come from the steeps where look majestic forth +From their twin thrones the Giants of the North +On the huge shapes, that, crouching at their knees, +Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees. +Through the wide waste of ether, not in vain, +Their softened gaze shall reach our distant plain; +There, while the mourner turns his aching eyes +On the blue mounds that print the bluer skies, +Nature shall whisper that the fading view +Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly hue. +Cherub of Wisdom! let thy marble page +Leave its sad lesson, new to every age; +Teach us to live, not grudging every breath +To the chill winds that waft us on to death, +But ruling calmly every pulse it warms, +And tempering gently every word it forms. +Seraph of Love! in heaven's adoring zone, +Nearest of all around the central throne, +While with soft hands the pillowed turf we spread +That soon shall hold us in its dreamless bed, +With the low whisper,--Who shall first be laid +In the dark chamber's yet unbroken shade?-- +Let thy sweet radiance shine rekindled here, +And all we cherish grow more truly dear. +Here in the gates of Death's o'erhanging vault, +Oh, teach us kindness for our brother's fault +Lay all our wrongs beneath this peaceful sod, +And lead our hearts to Mercy and its God. + +FATHER of all! in Death's relentless claim +We read thy mercy by its sterner name; +In the bright flower that decks the solemn bier, +We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; +In the deep lessons that affliction draws, +We trace the curves of thy encircling laws; +In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, +We own the love that calls us back to Thee! + +Through the hushed street, along the silent plain, +The spectral future leads its mourning train, +Dark with the shadows of uncounted bands, +Where man's white lips and woman's wringing hands +Track the still burden, rolling slow before, +That love and kindness can protect no more; +The smiling babe that, called to mortal strife, +Shuts its meek eyes and drops its little life; +The drooping child who prays in vain to live, +And pleads for help its parent cannot give; +The pride of beauty stricken in its flower; +The strength of manhood broken in an hour; +Age in its weakness, bowed by toil and care, +Traced in sad lines beneath its silvered hair. + +The sun shall set, and heaven's resplendent spheres +Gild the smooth turf unhallowed yet by tears, +But ah! how soon the evening stars will shed +Their sleepless light around the slumbering dead! + +Take them, O Father, in immortal trust! +Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, +Till the last angel rolls the stone away, +And a new morning brings eternal day! + + + + + +TO GOVERNOR SWAIN + +DEAR GOVERNOR, if my skiff might brave +The winds that lift the ocean wave, +The mountain stream that loops and swerves +Through my broad meadow's channelled curves +Should waft me on from bound to bound +To where the River weds the Sound, +The Sound should give me to the Sea, +That to the Bay, the Bay to thee. + +It may not be; too long the track +To follow down or struggle back. +The sun has set on fair Naushon +Long ere my western blaze is gone; +The ocean disk is rolling dark +In shadows round your swinging bark, +While yet the yellow sunset fills +The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills; +The day-star wakes your island deer +Long ere my barnyard chanticleer; +Your mists are soaring in the blue +While mine are sparks of glittering dew. + +It may not be; oh, would it might, +Could I live o'er that glowing night! +What golden hours would come to life, +What goodly feats of peaceful strife,-- +Such jests, that, drained of every joke, +The very bank of language broke,-- +Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died +With stitches in his belted side; +While Time, caught fast in pleasure's chain, +His double goblet snapped in twain, +And stood with half in either hand,-- +Both brimming full,--but not of sand! + +It may not be; I strive in vain +To break my slender household chain,-- +Three pairs of little clasping hands, +One voice, that whispers, not commands. +Even while my spirit flies away, +My gentle jailers murmur nay; +All shapes of elemental wrath +They raise along my threatened path; +The storm grows black, the waters rise, +The mountains mingle with the skies, +The mad tornado scoops the ground, +The midnight robber prowls around,-- +Thus, kissing every limb they tie, +They draw a knot and heave a sigh, +Till, fairly netted in the toil, +My feet are rooted to the soil. +Only the soaring wish is free!-- +And that, dear Governor, flies to thee! +PITTSFIELD, 1851. + + + + + +TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND + +THE seed that wasteful autumn cast +To waver on its stormy blast, +Long o'er the wintry desert tost, +Its living germ has never lost. +Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, +It feels the kindling ray of spring, +And, starting from its dream of death, +Pours on the air its perfumed breath. + +So, parted by the rolling flood, +The love that springs from common blood +Needs but a single sunlit hour +Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; +Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, +From shore to shore, from zone to zone, +Where summer's falling roses stain +The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, +Or where the lichen creeps below +Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow. + +Though fiery sun and stiffening cold +May change the fair ancestral mould, +No winter chills, no summer drains +The life-blood drawn from English veins, +Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows +The love that with its fountain rose, +Unchanged by space, unwronged by time, +From age to age, from clime to clime! +1852. + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH + +COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, +And leave the crowded hall +For where the eyes of twilight shine +O'er evening's western wall. + +These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, +Each with its leafy crown; +Hark! from their sides a thousand rills +Come singing sweetly down. + +A thousand rills; they leap and shine, +Strained through the shadowy nooks, +Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, +They swell a hundred brooks. + +A hundred brooks, and still they run +With ripple, shade, and gleam, +Till, clustering all their braids in one, +They flow a single stream. + +A bracelet spun from mountain mist, +A silvery sash unwound, +With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist +It writhes to reach the Sound. + +This is my bark,--a pygmy's ship; +Beneath a child it rolls; +Fear not,--one body makes it dip, +But not a thousand souls. + +Float we the grassy banks between; +Without an oar we glide; +The meadows, drest in living green, +Unroll on either side. + +Come, take the book we love so well, +And let us read and dream +We see whate'er its pages tell, +And sail an English stream. + +Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, +Still trilling as he flies; +The linnet sings as there he sung; +The unseen cuckoo cries, + +And daisies strew the banks along, +And yellow kingcups shine, +With cowslips, and a primrose throng, +And humble celandine. + +Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed +Her daughter in the West, +The fount was drained that opened first; +She bared her other breast. + +On the young planet's orient shore +Her morning hand she tried; +Then turned the broad medallion o'er +And stamped the sunset side. + +Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, +Her elm with hanging spray; +She wears her mountain diadem +Still in her own proud way. + +Look on the forests' ancient kings, +The hemlock's towering pride +Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, +And fell before it died. + +Nor think that Nature saves her bloom +And slights our grassy plain; +For us she wears her court costume,-- +Look on its broidered train; + +The lily with the sprinkled dots, +Brands of the noontide beam; +The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, +Its double in the stream, + +As if some wounded eagle's breast, +Slow throbbing o'er the plain, +Had left its airy path impressed +In drops of scarlet rain. + +And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; +There thrilled the thrush's soul; +And look! that flash of flamy wings,-- +The fire-plumed oriole! + +Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, +Flung from the bright, blue sky; +Below, the robin hops, and whoops +His piercing, Indian cry. + +Beauty runs virgin in the woods +Robed in her rustic green, +And oft a longing thought intrudes, +As if we might have seen. + +Her every finger's every joint +Ringed with some golden line, +Poet whom Nature did anoint +Had our wild home been thine. + +Yet think not so; Old England's blood +Runs warm in English veins; +But wafted o'er the icy flood +Its better life remains. + +Our children know each wildwood smell, +The bayberry and the fern, +The man who does not know them well +Is all too old to learn. + +Be patient! On the breathing page +Still pants our hurried past; +Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, +The poet comes the last! + +Though still the lark-voiced matins ring +The world has known so long; +The wood-thrush of the West shall sing +Earth's last sweet even-song! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE + +SHINE soft, ye trembling tears of light +That strew the mourning skies; +Hushed in the silent dews of night +The harp of Erin lies. + +What though her thousand years have past +Of poets, saints, and kings,-- +Her echoes only hear the last +That swept those golden strings. + +Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, +The balmiest wreaths ye wear, +Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers +Heaven's own ambrosial air. + +Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, +By shadowy grove and rill; +Thy song will soothe us while we own +That his was sweeter still. + +Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him +Who gave thee swifter wings, +Nor let thine envious shadow dim +The light his glory flings. + +If in his cheek unholy blood +Burned for one youthful hour, +'T was but the flushing of the bud +That blooms a milk-white flower. + +Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, +Who loved thy smiles so well, +And spread thy mantle o'er his rest +Of rose and asphodel. + +The bark has sailed the midnight sea, +The sea without a shore, +That waved its parting sign to thee,-- +"A health to thee, Tom Moore!" + +And thine, long lingering on the strand, +Its bright-hued streamers furled, +Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, +To seek the silent world. + +Not silent! no, the radiant stars +Still singing as they shine, +Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, +Have voices sweet as thine. + +Wake, then, in happier realms above, +The songs of bygone years, +Till angels learn those airs of love +That ravished mortal ears! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS + +"Purpureos spargam flores." + +THE wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave +Is lying on thy Roman grave, +Yet on its turf young April sets +Her store of slender violets; +Though all the Gods their garlands shower, +I too may bring one purple flower. +Alas! what blossom shall I bring, +That opens in my Northern spring? +The garden beds have all run wild, +So trim when I was yet a child; +Flat plantains and unseemly stalks +Have crept across the gravel walks; +The vines are dead, long, long ago, +The almond buds no longer blow. +No more upon its mound I see +The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; +Where once the tulips used to show, +In straggling tufts the pansies grow; +The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem, +The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," +Though its long blade of glossy green +And pallid stripe may still be seen. +Nature, who treads her nobles down, +And gives their birthright to the clown, +Has sown her base-born weedy things +Above the garden's queens and kings. +Yet one sweet flower of ancient race +Springs in the old familiar place. +When snows were melting down the vale, +And Earth unlaced her icy mail, +And March his stormy trumpet blew, +And tender green came peeping through, +I loved the earliest one to seek +That broke the soil with emerald beak, +And watch the trembling bells so blue +Spread on the column as it grew. +Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame +The sweet, dead poet's holy name; +The God of music gave thee birth, +Called from the crimson-spotted earth, +Where, sobbing his young life away, +His own fair Hyacinthus lay. +The hyacinth my garden gave +Shall lie upon that Roman grave! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY + +ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay +On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I +The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; +The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there. + +Morning: a woman looking on the sea; +Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; +Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee! +Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns. + +And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, +And torches flaring in the weedy caves, +Where'er the waters lay with icy hands +The shapes uplifted from their coral graves. + +Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; +The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks, +And lean, wild children gather from the shore +To the black hovels bedded in the rocks. + +But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, +"One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!" +Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, +Raised the pale burden on his level shield. + +Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire; +His form a nobler element shall claim; +Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, +And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame. + +Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; +Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; +Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; +All else has risen in yon silvery cloud. + +Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, +Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, +Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, +Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art. + +Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh, +O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim,-- +In all the mansions of the house on high, +Say not that Mercy has not one for him! + + + + + +AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES + +As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream, +As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream, +There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me,-- +The vision is over,--the rivulet free. + +We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March, +Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch, +And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day, +We hear the warm panting of beautiful May. + +We will part before Summer has opened her wing, +And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring, +While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud, +And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood. + +It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, +The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground; +No hand shall replace it,--it rests where it fell,--- +It is but one word that we all know too well. + +Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye, +If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky; +The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain +Will turn for a moment and look at his chain. + +Our parting is not as the friendship of years, +That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears; +We have walked in a garden, and, looking around, +Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found. + +But now at the gate of the garden we stand, +And the moment has come for unclasping the hand; +Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat +Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat? + +Nay! hold it one moment,--the last we may share,-- +I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare; +You may pass through the doorway in rank or in file, +If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile. + +For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part, +When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; +And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, +We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell. + + + + + +THE HUDSON + +AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY + + +'T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn, +Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn; +The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long, +And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song. + +"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,"-- +She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; +"Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played; +Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid." + +I wandered afar from the land of my birth, +I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, +But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream +With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream. + +I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, +Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine; +I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide +Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side. + +But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves +That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; +If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, +I care not who sees it,--no blush for it here! + +Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West! +I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; +Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, +Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled! + +December, 1854. + + + + + +THE NEW EDEN + +MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, +AT STOCKBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 13,1854 + +SCARCE could the parting ocean close, +Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow, +When o'er the rugged desert rose +The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough. + +Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field +The rippling grass, the nodding grain, +Such growths as English meadows yield +To scanty sun and frequent rain. + +But when the fiery days were done, +And Autumn brought his purple haze, +Then, kindling in the slanted sun, +The hillsides gleamed with golden maize. + +The food was scant, the fruits were few +A red-streak glistening here and there; +Perchance in statelier precincts grew +Some stern old Puritanic pear. + +Austere in taste, and tough at core, +Its unrelenting bulk was shed, +To ripen in the Pilgrim's store +When all the summer sweets were fled. + +Such was his lot, to front the storm +With iron heart and marble brow, +Nor ripen till his earthly form +Was cast from life's autumnal bough. + +But ever on the bleakest rock +We bid the brightest beacon glow, +And still upon the thorniest stock +The sweetest roses love to blow. + +So on our rude and wintry soil +We feed the kindling flame of art, +And steal the tropic's blushing spoil +To bloom on Nature's ice-clad heart. + +See how the softening Mother's breast +Warms to her children's patient wiles, +Her lips by loving Labor pressed +Break in a thousand dimpling smiles, + +From when the flushing bud of June +Dawns with its first auroral hue, +Till shines the rounded harvest-moon, +And velvet dahlias drink the dew. + +Nor these the only gifts she brings; +Look where the laboring orchard groans, +And yields its beryl-threaded strings +For chestnut burs and hemlock cones. + +Dear though the shadowy maple be, +And dearer still the whispering pine, +Dearest yon russet-laden tree +Browned by the heavy rubbing kine! + +There childhood flung its rustling stone, +There venturous boyhood learned to climb,-- +How well the early graft was known +Whose fruit was ripe ere harvest-time! + +Nor be the Fleming's pride forgot, +With swinging drops and drooping bells, +Freckled and splashed with streak and spot, +On the warm-breasted, sloping swells; + +Nor Persia's painted garden-queen,-- +Frail Houri of the trellised wall,-- +Her deep-cleft bosom scarfed with green,-- +Fairest to see, and first to fall. + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +When man provoked his mortal doom, +And Eden trembled as he fell, +When blossoms sighed their last perfume, +And branches waved their long farewell, + +One sucker crept beneath the gate, +One seed was wafted o'er the wall, +One bough sustained his trembling weight; +These left the garden,--these were all. + +And far o'er many a distant zone +These wrecks of Eden still are flung +The fruits that Paradise hath known +Are still in earthly gardens hung. + +Yes, by our own unstoried stream +The pink-white apple-blossoms burst +That saw the young Euphrates gleam,-- +That Gihon's circling waters nursed. + +For us the ambrosial pear--displays +The wealth its arching branches hold, +Bathed by a hundred summery days +In floods of mingling fire and gold. + +And here, where beauty's cheek of flame +With morning's earliest beam is fed, +The sunset-painted peach may claim +To rival its celestial red. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +What though in some unmoistened vale +The summer leaf grow brown and sere, +Say, shall our star of promise fail +That circles half the rolling sphere, + +From beaches salt with bitter spray, +O'er prairies green with softest rain, +And ridges bright with evening's ray, +To rocks that shade the stormless main? + +If by our slender-threaded streams +The blade and leaf and blossom die, +If, drained by noontide's parching beams, +The milky veins of Nature dry, + +See, with her swelling bosom bare, +Yon wild-eyed Sister in the West,-- +The ring of Empire round her hair, +The Indian's wampum on her breast! + +We saw the August sun descend, +Day after day, with blood-red stain, +And the blue mountains dimly blend +With smoke-wreaths from the burning plain; + +Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings +We sat and told the withering hours, +Till Heaven unsealed its hoarded springs, +And bade them leap in flashing showers. + +Yet in our Ishmael's thirst we knew +The mercy of the Sovereign hand +Would pour the fountain's quickening dew +To feed some harvest of the land. + +No flaming swords of wrath surround +Our second Garden of the Blest; +It spreads beyond its rocky bound, +It climbs Nevada's glittering crest. + +God keep the tempter from its gate! +God shield the children, lest they fall +From their stern fathers' free estate,-- +Till Ocean is its only wall! + + + + + +SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY +NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1855 + +NEW ENGLAND, we love thee; no time can erase +From the hearts of thy children the smile on thy face. +'T is the mother's fond look of affection and pride, +As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride. + +His bride may be fresher in beauty's young flower; +She may blaze in the jewels she brings with her dower. +But passion must chill in Time's pitiless blast; +The one that first loved us will love to the last. + +You have left the dear land of the lake and the hill, +But its winds and its waters will talk with you still. +"Forget not," they whisper, "your love is our debt," +And echo breathes softly, "We never forget." + +The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming around, +But your hearts have flown back o'er the waves of the Sound; +They have found the brown home where their pulses were born; +They are throbbing their way through the trees and the corn. + +There are roofs you remember,--their glory is fled; +There are mounds in the churchyard,--one sigh for the dead. +There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scattered around; +But Earth has no spot like that corner of ground. + +Come, let us be cheerful,--remember last night, +How they cheered us, and--never mind--meant it all right; +To-night, we harm nothing,--we love in the lump; +Here's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of the pump! + +Here 's to all the good people, wherever they be, +Who have grown in the shade of the liberty-tree; +We all love its leaves, and its blossoms and fruit, +But pray have a care of the fence round its root. + +We should like to talk big; it's a kind of a right, +When the tongue has got loose and the waistband grown tight; +But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau, +On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow. + +Enough! There are gentlemen waiting to talk, +Whose words are to mine as the flower to the stalk. +Stand by your old mother whatever befall; +God bless all her children! Good night to you all! + + + + + +FAREWELL + +TO J. R. LOWELL + +FAREWELL, for the bark has her breast to the tide, +And the rough arms of Ocean are stretched for his bride; +The winds from the mountain stream over the bay; +One clasp of the hand, then away and away! + +I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore; +The sun is declining, I see it once more; +To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field, +To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield. + +Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath, +With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death; +Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail +Has left her unaided to strive with the gale. + +There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast, +That will light the dark hour till its danger has past; +There are prayers that will plead with the storm when it raves, +And whisper "Be still!" to the turbulent waves. + + +Nay, think not that Friendship has called us in vain +To join the fair ring ere we break it again; +There is strength in its circle,--you lose the bright star, +But its sisters still chain it, though shining afar. + +I give you one health in the juice of the vine, +The blood of the vineyard shall mingle with mine; +Thus, thus let us drain the last dew-drops of gold, +As we empty our hearts of the blessings they hold. + +April 29, 1855. + + + + + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB + +THE mountains glitter in the snow +A thousand leagues asunder; +Yet here, amid the banquet's glow, +I hear their voice of thunder; +Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks; +A flowing stream is summoned; +Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks; +Monadnock to Ben Lomond! + +Though years have clipped the eagle's plume +That crowned the chieftain's bonnet, +The sun still sees the heather bloom, +The silver mists lie on it; + +With tartan kilt and philibeg, +What stride was ever bolder +Than his who showed the naked leg +Beneath the plaided shoulder? + +The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills, +That heard the bugles blowing +When down their sides the crimson rills +With mingled blood were flowing; +The hunts where gallant hearts were game, +The slashing on the border, +The raid that swooped with sword and flame, +Give place to "law and order." + +Not while the rocking steeples reel +With midnight tocsins ringing, +Not while the crashing war-notes peal, +God sets his poets singing; +The bird is silent in the night, +Or shrieks a cry of warning +While fluttering round the beacon-light,-- +But hear him greet the morning! + +The lark of Scotia's morning sky! +Whose voice may sing his praises? +With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye, +He walked among the daisies, +Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong +He soared to fields of glory; +But left his land her sweetest song +And earth her saddest story. + +'T is not the forts the builder piles +That chain the earth together; +The wedded crowns, the sister isles, +Would laugh at such a tether; +The kindling thought, the throbbing words, +That set the pulses beating, +Are stronger than the myriad swords +Of mighty armies meeting. + +Thus while within the banquet glows, +Without, the wild winds whistle, +We drink a triple health,--the Rose, +The Shamrock, and the Thistle +Their blended hues shall never fade +Till War has hushed his cannon,-- +Close-twined as ocean-currents braid +The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon! + + + + + +ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY + +CELEBRATION OF THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, +FEBRUARY 22, 1856 + +WELCOME to the day returning, +Dearer still as ages flow, +While the torch of Faith is burning, +Long as Freedom's altars glow! +See the hero whom it gave us +Slumbering on a mother's breast; +For the arm he stretched to save us, +Be its morn forever blest! + +Hear the tale of youthful glory, +While of Britain's rescued band +Friend and foe repeat the story, +Spread his fame o'er sea and land, +Where the red cross, proudly streaming, +Flaps above the frigate's deck, +Where the golden lilies, gleaming, +Star the watch-towers of Quebec. + +Look! The shadow on the dial +Marks the hour of deadlier strife; +Days of terror, years of trial, +Scourge a nation into life. +Lo, the youth, become her leader +All her baffled tyrants yield; +Through his arm the Lord hath freed her; +Crown him on the tented field! + +Vain is Empire's mad temptation +Not for him an earthly crown +He whose sword hath freed a nation +Strikes the offered sceptre down. +See the throneless Conqueror seated, +Ruler by a people's choice; +See the Patriot's task completed; +Hear the Father's dying voice! + +"By the name that you inherit, +By the sufferings you recall, +Cherish the fraternal spirit; +Love your country first of all! +Listen not to idle questions +If its bands maybe untied; +Doubt the patriot whose suggestions +Strive a nation to divide!" + +Father! We, whose ears have tingled +With the discord-notes of shame,-- +We, whose sires their blood have mingled +In the battle's thunder-flame,-- +Gathering, while this holy morning +Lights the land from sea to sea, +Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning; +Trust us, while we honor thee! + + + + + +BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER + +JANUARY 18, 1856 + +WHEN life hath run its largest round +Of toil and triumph, joy and woe, +How brief a storied page is found +To compass all its outward show! + +The world-tried sailor tires and droops; +His flag is rent, his keel forgot; +His farthest voyages seem but loops +That float from life's entangled knot. + +But when within the narrow space +Some larger soul hath lived and wrought, +Whose sight was open to embrace +The boundless realms of deed and thought,-- + +When, stricken by the freezing blast, +A nation's living pillars fall, +How rich the storied page, how vast, +A word, a whisper, can recall! + +No medal lifts its fretted face, +Nor speaking marble cheats your eye, +Yet, while these pictured lines I trace, +A living image passes by: + +A roof beneath the mountain pines; +The cloisters of a hill-girt plain; +The front of life's embattled lines; +A mound beside the heaving main. + +These are the scenes: a boy appears; +Set life's round dial in the sun, +Count the swift arc of seventy years, +His frame is dust; his task is done. + +Yet pause upon the noontide hour, +Ere the declining sun has laid +His bleaching rays on manhood's power, +And look upon the mighty shade. + +No gloom that stately shape can hide, +No change uncrown its brow; behold I +Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, +Earth has no double from its mould. + +Ere from the fields by valor won +The battle-smoke had rolled away, +And bared the blood-red setting sun, +His eyes were opened on the day. + +His land was but a shelving strip +Black with the strife that made it free +He lived to see its banners dip +Their fringes in the Western sea. + +The boundless prairies learned his name, +His words the mountain echoes knew, +The Northern breezes swept his fame +From icy lake to warm bayou. + +In toil he lived; in peace he died; +When life's full cycle was complete, +Put off his robes of power and pride, +And laid them at his Master's feet. + +His rest is by the storm-swept waves +Whom life's wild tempests roughly trie +Whose heart was like the streaming eaves +Of ocean, throbbing at his side. + +Death's cold white hand is like the snow +Laid softly on the furrowed hill, +It hides the broken seams below, +And leaves the summit brighter still. + +In vain the envious tongue upbraids; +His name a nation's heart shall keep +Till morning's latest sunlight fades +On the blue tablet of the deep. + + + + + +THE VOICELESS + +WE count the broken lyres that rest +Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, +But o'er their silent sister's breast +The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? +A few can touch the magic string, +And noisy Fame is proud to win them:-- +Alas for those that never sing, +But die with all their music in them! + +Nay, grieve not for the dead alone +Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- +Weep for the voiceless, who have known +The cross without the crown of glory +Not where Leucadian breezes sweep +O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, +But where the glistening night-dews weep +On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + +O hearts that break and give no sign +Save whitening lip and fading tresses, +Till Death pours out his longed-for wine +Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- +If singing breath or echoing chord +To every hidden pang were given, +What endless melodies were poured, +As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! + + + + + +THE TWO STREAMS + +BEHOLD the rocky wall +That down its sloping sides +Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, +In rushing river-tides! + +Yon stream, whose sources run +Turned by a pebble's edge, +Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun +Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + +The slender rill had strayed, +But for the slanting stone, +To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid +Of foam-flecked Oregon. + +So from the heights of Will +Life's parting stream descends, +And, as a moment turns its slender rill, +Each widening torrent bends,-- + +From the same cradle's side, +From the same mother's knee,-- +One to long darkness and the frozen tide, +One to the Peaceful Sea! + + + + + +THE PROMISE + +NOT charity we ask, +Nor yet thy gift refuse; +Please thy light fancy with the easy task +Only to look and choose. + +The little-heeded toy +That wins thy treasured gold +May be the dearest memory, holiest joy, +Of coming years untold. + +Heaven rains on every heart, +But there its showers divide, +The drops of mercy choosing, as they part, +The dark or glowing side. + +One kindly deed may turn +The fountain of thy soul +To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee burn +Long as its currents roll. + +The pleasures thou hast planned,-- +Where shall their memory be +When the white angel with the freezing hand +Shall sit and watch by thee? + +Living, thou dost not live, +If mercy's spring run dry; +What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely give, +Dying, thou shalt not die. + +HE promised even so! +To thee his lips repeat,-- +Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe +Have washed thy Master's feet! + +March 20, 1859. + + + + + +AVIS + +I MAY not rightly call thy name,-- +Alas! thy forehead never knew +The kiss that happier children claim, +Nor glistened with baptismal dew. + +Daughter of want and wrong and woe, +I saw thee with thy sister-band, +Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow +By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand. + +"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek, +At once a woman and a child, +The saint uncrowned I came to seek +Drew near to greet us,--spoke, and smiled. + +God gave that sweet sad smile she wore +All wrong to shame, all souls to win,-- +A heavenly sunbeam sent before +Her footsteps through a world of sin. + +"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale +The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,-- +The story known through all the vale +Where Avis and her sisters dwell. + +With the lost children running wild, +Strayed from the hand of human care, +They find one little refuse child +Left helpless in its poisoned lair. + +The primal mark is on her face,-- +The chattel-stamp,--the pariah-stain +That follows still her hunted race,-- +The curse without the crime of Cain. + +How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate +The little suffering outcast's ail? +Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate +So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale. + +Ah, veil the living death from sight +That wounds our beauty-loving eye! +The children turn in selfish fright, +The white-lipped nurses hurry by. + +Take her, dread Angel! Break in love +This bruised reed and make it thine!-- +No voice descended from above, +But Avis answered, "She is mine." + +The task that dainty menials spurn +The fair young girl has made her own; +Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn +The toils, the duties yet unknown. + +So Love and Death in lingering strife +Stand face to face from day to day, +Still battling for the spoil of Life +While the slow seasons creep away. + +Love conquers Death; the prize is won; +See to her joyous bosom pressed +The dusky daughter of the sun,-- +The bronze against the marble breast! + +Her task is done; no voice divine +Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame. +No eye can see the aureole shine +That rings her brow with heavenly flame. + +Yet what has holy page more sweet, +Or what had woman's love more fair, +When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet +With flowing eyes and streaming hair? + +Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown, +The Angel of that earthly throng, +And let thine image live alone +To hallow this unstudied song! + + + + + +THE LIVING TEMPLE + +NOT in the world of light alone, +Where God has built his blazing throne, +Nor yet alone in earth below, +With belted seas that come and go, +And endless isles of sunlit green, +Is all thy Maker's glory seen: +Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-- +Eternal wisdom still the same! + +The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves +Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, +Whose streams of brightening purple rush, +Fired with a new and livelier blush, +While all their burden of decay +The ebbing current steals away, +And red with Nature's flame they start +From the warm fountains of the heart. + +No rest that throbbing slave may ask, +Forever quivering o'er his task, +While far and wide a crimson jet +Leaps forth to fill the woven net +Which in unnumbered crossing tides +The flood of burning life divides, +Then, kindling each decaying part, +Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. + +But warmed with that unchanging flame +Behold the outward moving frame, +Its living marbles jointed strong +With glistening band and silvery thong, +And linked to reason's guiding reins +By myriad rings in trembling chains, +Each graven with the threaded zone +Which claims it as the master's own. + +See how yon beam of seeming white +Is braided out of seven-hued light, +Yet in those lucid globes no ray +By any chance shall break astray. +Hark how the rolling surge of sound, +Arches and spirals circling round, +Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear +With music it is heaven to hear. + +Then mark the cloven sphere that holds +All thought in its mysterious folds; +That feels sensation's faintest thrill, +And flashes forth the sovereign will; +Think on the stormy world that dwells +Locked in its dim and clustering cells! +The lightning gleams of power it sheds +Along its hollow glassy threads! + +O Father! grant thy love divine +To make these mystic temples thine! +When wasting age and wearying strife +Have sapped the leaning walls of life, +When darkness gathers over all, +And the last tottering pillars fall, +Take the poor dust thy mercy warms, +And mould it into heavenly forms! + + + + + +AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL + +TO J. R. LOWELL + +WE will not speak of years to-night,-- +For what have years to bring +But larger floods of love and light, +And sweeter songs to sing? + +We will not drown in wordy praise +The kindly thoughts that rise; +If Friendship own one tender phrase, +He reads it in our eyes. + +We need not waste our school-boy art +To gild this notch of Time;-- +Forgive me if my wayward heart +Has throbbed in artless rhyme. + +Enough for him the silent grasp +That knits us hand in hand, +And he the bracelet's radiant clasp +That locks our, circling band. + +Strength to his hours of manly toil! +Peace to his starlit dreams! +Who loves alike the furrowed soil, +The music-haunted streams! + +Sweet smiles to keep forever bright +The sunshine on his lips, +And faith that sees the ring of light +Round nature's last eclipse! + +February 22, 1859. + + + + + +A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE + +TO J. F. CLARKE + +WHO is the shepherd sent to lead, +Through pastures green, the Master's sheep? +What guileless "Israelite indeed" +The folded flock may watch and keep? + +He who with manliest spirit joins +The heart of gentlest human mould, +With burning light and girded loins, +To guide the flock, or watch the fold; + +True to all Truth the world denies, +Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; +Not always right in all men's eyes, +But faithful to the light within; + +Who asks no meed of earthly fame, +Who knows no earthly master's call, +Who hopes for man, through guilt and shame, +Still answering, "God is over all"; + +Who makes another's grief his own, +Whose smile lends joy a double cheer; +Where lives the saint, if such be known?-- +Speak softly,--such an one is here! + +O faithful shepherd! thou hast borne +The heat and burden of the clay; +Yet, o'er thee, bright with beams unshorn, +The sun still shows thine onward way. + +To thee our fragrant love we bring, +In buds that April half displays, +Sweet first-born angels of the spring, +Caught in their opening hymn of praise. + +What though our faltering accents fail, +Our captives know their message well, +Our words unbreathed their lips exhale, +And sigh more love than ours can tell. + +April 4, 1860. + + + + + +THE GRAY CHIEF + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS +MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1859 + +'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er, +And crown with honest praise +The gray old chief, who strikes no more +The blow of better days. + +Before the true and trusted sage +With willing hearts we bend, +When years have touched with hallowing age +Our Master, Guide, and Friend. + +For all his manhood's labor past, +For love and faith long tried, +His age is honored to the last, +Though strength and will have died. + +But when, untamed by toil and strife, +Full in our front he stands, +The torch of light, the shield of life, +Still lifted in his hands, + +No temple, though its walls resound +With bursts of ringing cheers, +Can hold the honors that surround +His manhood's twice-told years! + + + + + +THE LAST LOOK + +W. W. SWAIN + +BEHOLD--not him we knew! +This was the prison which his soul looked through, +Tender, and brave, and true. + +His voice no more is heard; +And his dead name--that dear familiar word-- +Lies on our lips unstirred. + +He spake with poet's tongue; +Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung: +He shall not die unsung. + +Grief tried his love, and pain; +And the long bondage of his martyr-chain +Vexed his sweet soul,--in vain! + +It felt life's surges break, +As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake, +Smiling while tempests wake. + +How can we sorrow more? +Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before +To that untrodden shore! + +Lo, through its leafy screen, +A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green, +Untrodden, half unseen! + +Here let his body rest, +Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best +May slide above his breast. + +Smooth his uncurtained bed; +And if some natural tears are softly shed, +It is not for the dead. + +Fold the green turf aright +For the long hours before the morning's light, +And say the last Good Night! + +And plant a clear white stone +Close by those mounds which hold his loved, his own,-- +Lonely, but not alone. + +Here let him sleeping lie, +Till Heaven's bright watchers slumber in the sky +And Death himself shall die! + +Naushon, September 22, 1858. + + + + + +IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. + +HE was all sunshine; in his face +The very soul of sweetness shone; +Fairest and gentlest of his race; +None like him we can call our own. + +Something there was of one that died +In her fresh spring-time long ago, +Our first dear Mary, angel-eyed, +Whose smile it was a bliss to know. + +Something of her whose love imparts +Such radiance to her day's decline, +We feel its twilight in our hearts +Bright as the earliest morning-shine. + +Yet richer strains our eye could trace +That made our plainer mould more fair, +That curved the lip with happier grace, +That waved the soft and silken hair. + +Dust unto dust! the lips are still +That only spoke to cheer and bless; +The folded hands lie white and chill +Unclasped from sorrow's last caress. + +Leave him in peace; he will not heed +These idle tears we vainly pour, +Give back to earth the fading weed +Of mortal shape his spirit wore. + +"Shall I not weep my heartstrings torn, +My flower of love that falls half blown, +My youth uncrowned, my life forlorn, +A thorny path to walk alone?" + +O Mary! one who bore thy name, +Whose Friend and Master was divine, +Sat waiting silent till He came, +Bowed down in speechless grief like thine. + +"Where have ye laid him?" "Come," they say, +Pointing to where the loved one slept; +Weeping, the sister led the way,-- +And, seeing Mary, "Jesus wept." + +He weeps with thee, with all that mourn, +And He shall wipe thy streaming eyes +Who knew all sorrows, woman-born,-- +Trust in his word; thy dead shall rise! + +April 15, 1860. + + + + + +MARTHA + +DIED JANUARY 7, 1861 + +SEXTON! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +Her weary hands their labor cease; +Good night, poor Martha,--sleep in peace! +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +For many a year has Martha said, +"I'm old and poor,--would I were dead!" +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +She'll bring no more, by day or night, +Her basket full of linen white. +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +'T is fitting she should lie below +A pure white sheet of drifted snow. +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +Sleep, Martha, sleep, to wake in light, +Where all the robes are stainless white. +Toll the bell! + + + + + +MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE + +1857 + +I THANK you, MR. PRESIDENT, you've kindly broke the ice; +Virtue should always be the first,--I 'm only SECOND VICE-- +(A vice is something with a screw that's made to hold its jaw +Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw). + +Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the babes of days gone by, +All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose milk is never dry, +We come again, like half-grown boys, and gather at her beck +About her knees, and on her lap, and clinging round her neck. + +We find her at her stately door, and in her ancient chair, +Dressed in the robes of red and green she always loved to wear. +Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek its morning flame; +We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish still the same. + +We have been playing many an hour, and far away we've strayed, +Some laughing in the cheerful sun, some lingering in the shade; +And some have tired, and laid them down where darker shadows fall, +Dear as her loving voice may be, they cannot hear its call. + +What miles we 've travelled since we shook the dew-drops from our shoes +We gathered on this classic green, so famed for heavy dues! +How many boys have joined the game, how many slipped away, +Since we've been running up and down, and having out our play! + +One boy at work with book and brief, and one with gown and band, +One sailing vessels on the pool, one digging sand, +One flying paper kites on change, one planting little pills,-- +The seeds of certain annual flowers well known as little bills. + +What maidens met us on our way, and clasped us hand in hand! +What cherubs,--not the legless kind, that fly, but never stand! +How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver crown +What sudden changes back again to youth's empurpled brown! + +But fairer sights have met our eyes, and broader lights have shone, +Since others lit their midnight lamps where once we trimmed our own; +A thousand trains that flap the sky with flags of rushing fire, +And, throbbing in the Thunderer's hand, Thought's million-chorded lyre. + +We've seen the sparks of Empire fly beyond the mountain bars, +Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they joined the setting stars; +And ocean trodden into paths that trampling giants ford, +To find the planet's vertebrae and sink its spinal cord. + +We've tried reform,--and chloroform,--and both have turned our brain; +When France called up the photograph, we roused the foe to pain; +Just so those earlier sages shared the chaplet of renown,-- +Hers sent a bladder to the clouds, ours brought their lightning down. + +We've seen the little tricks of life, its varnish and veneer, +Its stucco-fronts of character flake off and disappear, +We 've learned that oft the brownest hands will heap the biggest pile, +And met with many a "perfect brick" beneath a rimless "tile." + +What dreams we 've had of deathless name, as scholars, statesmen, bards, +While Fame, the lady with the trump, held up her picture cards! +Till, having nearly played our game, she gayly whispered, "Ah! +I said you should be something grand,--you'll soon be grandpapa." + +Well, well, the old have had their day, the young must take their turn; +There's something always to forget, and something still to learn; +But how to tell what's old or young, the tap-root from the sprigs, +Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs? + +The wisest was a Freshman once, just freed from bar and bolt, +As noisy as a kettle-drum, as leggy as a colt; +Don't be too savage with the boys,--the Primer does not say +The kitten ought to go to church because the cat doth prey. + +The law of merit and of age is not the rule of three; +Non constat that A. M. must prove as busy as A. B. +When Wise the father tracked the son, ballooning through the skies, +He taught a lesson to the old,--go thou and do like Wise! + +Now then, old boys, and reverend youth, of high or low degree, +Remember how we only get one annual out of three, +And such as dare to simmer down three dinners into one +Must cut their salads mighty short, and pepper well with fun. + +I've passed my zenith long ago, it's time for me to set; +A dozen planets wait to shine, and I am lingering yet, +As sometimes in the blaze of day a milk-and-watery moon +Stains with its dim and fading ray the lustrous blue of noon. + +Farewell! yet let one echo rise to shake our ancient hall; +God save the Queen,--whose throne is here,--the Mother of us all +Till dawns the great commencement-day on every shore and sea, +And "Expectantur" all mankind, to take their last Degree! + + + + + +THE PARTING SONG + +FESTIVAL OF THE ALUMNI, 1857 + +THE noon of summer sheds its ray +On Harvard's holy ground; +The Matron calls, the sons obey, +And gather smiling round. + + +CHORUS. +Then old and young together stand, +The sunshine and the snow, +As heart to heart, and hand in hand, +We sing before we go! + + +Her hundred opening doors have swung +Through every storied hall +The pealing echoes loud have rung, +"Thrice welcome one and all!" +Then old and young, etc. + +We floated through her peaceful bay, +To sail life's stormy seas +But left our anchor where it lay +Beneath her green old trees. +Then old and young, etc. + +As now we lift its lengthening chain, +That held us fast of old, +The rusted rings grow bright again,-- +Their iron turns to gold. +Then old and young, etc. + +Though scattered ere the setting sun, +As leaves when wild winds blow, +Our home is here, our hearts are one, +Till Charles forgets to flow. +Then old and young, etc. + + + + + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL +SANITARY ASSOCIATION + +1860 + +WHAT makes the Healing Art divine? +The bitter drug we buy and sell, +The brands that scorch, the blades that shine, +The scars we leave, the "cures" we tell? + +Are these thy glories, holiest Art,-- +The trophies that adorn thee best,-- +Or but thy triumph's meanest part,-- +Where mortal weakness stands confessed? + +We take the arms that Heaven supplies +For Life's long battle with Disease, +Taught by our various need to prize +Our frailest weapons, even these. + +But ah! when Science drops her shield-- +Its peaceful shelter proved in vain-- +And bares her snow-white arm to wield +The sad, stern ministry of pain; + +When shuddering o'er the fount of life, +She folds her heaven-anointed wings, +To lift unmoved the glittering knife +That searches all its crimson springs; + +When, faithful to her ancient lore, +She thrusts aside her fragrant balm +For blistering juice, or cankering ore, +And tames them till they cure or calm; + +When in her gracious hand are seen +The dregs and scum of earth and seas, +Her kindness counting all things clean +That lend the sighing sufferer ease; + +Though on the field that Death has won, +She save some stragglers in retreat;-- +These single acts of mercy done +Are but confessions of defeat. + +What though our tempered poisons save +Some wrecks of life from aches and ails; +Those grand specifics Nature gave +Were never poised by weights or scales! + +God lent his creatures light and air, +And waters open to the skies; +Man locks him in a stifling lair, +And wonders why his brother dies! + +In vain our pitying tears are shed, +In vain we rear the sheltering pile +Where Art weeds out from bed to bed +The plagues we planted by the mile! + +Be that the glory of the past; +With these our sacred toils begin +So flies in tatters from its mast +The yellow flag of sloth and sin, + +And lo! the starry folds reveal +The blazoned truth we hold so dear +To guard is better than to heal,-- +The shield is nobler than the spear! + + + + + +FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +JANUARY 25, 1859 + +His birthday.--Nay, we need not speak +The name each heart is beating,-- +Each glistening eye and flushing cheek +In light and flame repeating! + +We come in one tumultuous tide,-- +One surge of wild emotion,-- +As crowding through the Frith of Clyde +Rolls in the Western Ocean; + +As when yon cloudless, quartered moon +Hangs o'er each storied river, +The swelling breasts of Ayr and Doon +With sea green wavelets quiver. + +The century shrivels like a scroll,-- +The past becomes the present,-- +And face to face, and soul to soul, +We greet the monarch-peasant. + +While Shenstone strained in feeble flights +With Corydon and Phillis,-- +While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's heights +To snatch the Bourbon lilies,-- + +Who heard the wailing infant's cry, +The babe beneath the sheeliug, +Whose song to-night in every sky +Will shake earth's starry ceiling,-- + +Whose passion-breathing voice ascends +And floats like incense o'er us, +Whose ringing lay of friendship blends +With labor's anvil chorus? + +We love him, not for sweetest song, +Though never tone so tender; +We love him, even in his wrong,-- +His wasteful self-surrender. + +We praise him, not for gifts divine,-- +His Muse was born of woman,-- +His manhood breathes in every line,-- +Was ever heart more human? + +We love him, praise him, just for this +In every form and feature, +Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss, +He saw his fellow-creature! + +No soul could sink beneath his love,-- +Not even angel blasted; +No mortal power could soar above +The pride that all outlasted! + +Ay! Heaven had set one living man +Beyond the pedant's tether,-- +His virtues, frailties, HE may scan, +Who weighs them all together! + +I fling my pebble on the cairn +Of him, though dead, undying; +Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn +Beneath her daisies lying. + +The waning suns, the wasting globe, +Shall spare the minstrel's story,-- +The centuries weave his purple robe, +The mountain-mist of glory! + + + + + +AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS + + +AUGUST 29, 1859 + +I REMEMBER--why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago? +I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know; +It must have been in 'forty--I would say 'thirty-nine-- +We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine. + +He said, "Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I, +If we act like other people, shall be older by and by; +What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be, +There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea. + +"We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange, +For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change; +But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill, +And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill." + +"I know it," I said, "old fellow; you speak the solemn truth; +A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth; +But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair, +You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care. + +"At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise; +Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys; +No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes, +But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose." + +But one fine August morning I found myself awake +My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake! +Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold, +That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old! + +But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their +foolish stuff; +A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough; +At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray; +I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say. + +At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine; +Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine, +And when on the western summits the fading light appears, +It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years. + +There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, +But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old"; +So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years, +Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers. + +Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round; +Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned, +Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told; +Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict _old_. + +No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim; +Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb, +Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends, +The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends. + + + + + +FOR THE FAIR IN AID OF THE FUND TO PROCURE +BALL'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON + + +1630 + +ALL overgrown with bush and fern, +And straggling clumps of tangled trees, +With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, +Bent eastward by the mastering breeze,-- +With spongy bogs that drip and fill +A yellow pond with muddy rain, +Beneath the shaggy southern hill +Lies wet and low the Shawinut plain. +And hark! the trodden branches crack; +A crow flaps off with startled scream; +A straying woodchuck canters back; +A bittern rises from the stream; +Leaps from his lair a frightened deer; +An otter plunges in the pool;-- +Here comes old Shawmut's pioneer, +The parson on his brindled bull! + + +1774 + +The streets are thronged with trampling feet, +The northern hill is ridged with graves, +But night and morn the drum is beat +To frighten down the "rebel knaves." +The stones of King Street still are red, +And yet the bloody red-coats come +I hear their pacing sentry's tread, +The click of steel, the tap of drum, +And over all the open green, +Where grazed of late the harmless kine, +The cannon's deepening ruts are seen, +The war-horse stamps, the bayonets shine. +The clouds are dark with crimson rain +Above the murderous hirelings' den, +And soon their whistling showers shall stain +The pipe-clayed belts of Gage's men. + + +186- + +Around the green, in morning light, +The spired and palaced summits blaze, +And, sunlike, from her Beacon-height +The dome-crowned city spreads her rays; +They span the waves, they belt the plains, +They skirt the roads with bands of white, +Till with a flash of gilded panes +Yon farthest hillside bounds the sight. +Peace, Freedom, Wealth! no fairer view, +Though with the wild-bird's restless wings +We sailed beneath the noontide's blue +Or chased the moonlight's endless rings! +Here, fitly raised by grateful hands +His holiest memory to recall, +The Hero's, Patriot's image stands; +He led our sires who won them all! + +November 14, 1859. + + + + + +THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA +A NIGHTMARE DREAM BY DAYLIGHT + +Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea? +Have you met with that dreadful old man? +If you have n't been caught, you will be, you will be; +For catch you he must and he can. + +He does n't hold on by your throat, by your throat, +As of old in the terrible tale; +But he grapples you tight by the coat, by the coat, +Till its buttons and button-holes fail. + +There's the charm of a snake in his eye, in his eye, +And a polypus-grip in his hands; +You cannot go back, nor get by, nor get by, +If you look at the spot where he stands. + +Oh, you're grabbed! See his claw on your sleeve, on your sleeve! +It is Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea! +You're a Christian, no doubt you believe, you believe +You're a martyr, whatever you be! + +Is the breakfast-hour past? They must wait, they must wait, +While the coffee boils sullenly down, +While the Johnny-cake burns on the grate, on the grate, +And the toast is done frightfully brown. + +Yes, your dinner will keep; let it cool, let it cool, +And Madam may worry and fret, +And children half-starved go to school, go to school; +He can't think of sparing you yet. + +Hark! the bell for the train! "Come along! Come along! +For there is n't a second to lose." +"ALL ABOARD!" (He holds on.) "Fsht I ding-dong! Fsht! ding-dong!"-- +You can follow on foot, if you choose. + +There's a maid with a cheek like a peach, like a peach, +That is waiting for you in the church;-- +But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, +And you leave your lost bride in the lurch. + +There's a babe in a fit,--hurry quick! hurry quick! +To the doctor's as fast as you can! +The baby is off, while you stick, while you stick, +In the grip of the dreadful Old Man! + +I have looked on the face of the Bore, of the Bore; +The voice of the Simple I know; +I have welcomed the Flat at my door, at my door; +I have sat by the side of the Slow; + +I have walked like a lamb by the friend, by the friend, +That stuck to my skirts like a bur; +I have borne the stale talk without end, without end, +Of the sitter whom nothing could stir. + +But my hamstrings grow loose, and I shake, and I shake, +At the sight of the dreadful Old Man; +Yea, I quiver and quake, and I take, and I take, +To my legs with what vigor I can! + +Oh the dreadful Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea +He's come back like the Wandering Jew! +He has had his cold claw upon me, upon me,-- +And be sure that he 'll have it on you! + + + + + +INTERNATIONAL ODE + +OUR FATHERS' LAND + +GOD bless our Fathers' Land! +Keep her in heart and hand +One with our own! +From all her foes defend, +Be her brave People's Friend, +On all her realms descend, +Protect her Throne! + +Father, with loving care +Guard Thou her kingdom's Heir, +Guide all his ways +Thine arm his shelter be, +From him by land and sea +Bid storm and danger flee, +Prolong his days! + +Lord, let War's tempest cease, +Fold the whole Earth in peace +Under thy wings +Make all thy nations one, +All hearts beneath the sun, +Till Thou shalt reign alone, +Great King of kings! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT OFFERED AT THE DINNER TO H. I. H. +THE PRINCE NAPOLEON, AT THE REVERE HOUSE, +SEPTEMBER 25,1861 + +THE land of sunshine and of song! +Her name your hearts divine; +To her the banquet's vows belong +Whose breasts have poured its wine; +Our trusty friend, our true ally +Through varied change and chance +So, fill your flashing goblets high,-- +I give you, VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Above our hosts in triple folds +The selfsame colors spread, +Where Valor's faithful arm upholds +The blue, the white, the red; +Alike each nation's glittering crest +Reflects the morning's glance,-- +Twin eagles, soaring east and west +Once more, then, VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Sister in trial! who shall count +Thy generous friendship's claim, +Whose blood ran mingling in the fount +That gave our land its name, +Till Yorktown saw in blended line +Our conquering arms advance, +And victory's double garlands twine +Our banners? VIVE LA FRANCE! + +O land of heroes! in our need +One gift from Heaven we crave +To stanch these wounds that vainly bleed,-- +The wise to lead the brave! +Call back one Captain of thy past +From glory's marble trance, +Whose name shall be a bugle-blast +To rouse us! VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Pluck Conde's baton from the trench, +Wake up stout Charles Martel, +Or find some woman's hand to clench +The sword of La Pucelle! +Give us one hour of old Turenne,-- +One lift of Bayard's lance,-- +Nay, call Marengo's Chief again +To lead us! VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Ah, hush! our welcome Guest shall hear +But sounds of peace and joy; +No angry echo vex thine ear, +Fair Daughter of Savoy +Once more! the land of arms and arts, +Of glory, grace, romance; +Her love lies warm in all our hearts +God bless her! VIVE LA FRANCE! + + + + + +BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE + +SHE has gone,--she has left us in passion and pride,-- +Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side! +She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, +And turned on her brother the face of a foe! + +Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, +We can never forget that our hearts have been one,-- +Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name, +From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame! + +You were always too ready to fire at a touch; +But we said, "She is hasty,--she does not mean much." +We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent threat; +But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!" + +Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold? +Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? +Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain +That her petulant children would sever in vain. + +They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil, +Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil, +Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their eaves, +And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves: + +In vain is the strife! When its fury is past, +Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last, +As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow +Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below. + +Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky +Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts the die! +Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with steel, +The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal! + +Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, +There are battles with Fate that can never be won! +The star-flowering banner must never be furled, +For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world! + +Go, then, our rash sister! afar and aloof, +Run wild in the sunshine away from our roof; +But when your heart aches and your feet have grown sore, +Remember the pathway that leads to our door! + +March 25, 1861. + + + +NOTES: (For original print volume one) + +[There stand the Goblet and the Sun.] +The Goblet and the Sun (Vas-Sol), sculptured on a free-stone slab +supported by five pillars, are the only designation of the family tomb +of the Vassalls. + +[Thus mocked the spoilers with his school-boy scorn.] +See "Old Ironsides," of this volume. + +[On other shores, above their mouldering towns.] +Daniel Webster quoted several of the verses which follow, in his address +at the laying of the corner-stone of the addition to the Capitol at +Washington, July 4, 1851. + +[Thou calm, chaste scholar.] +Charles Chauncy Emerson; died May 9, 1836. + +[And thou, dear friend, whom Science still deplores.] +James Jackson, Jr., M. D.; died March 28, 1834. + +[THE STEAMBOAT.] +Mr. Emerson has quoted some lines from this poem, but +somewhat disguised as he recalled them. It is never safe to +quote poetry without referring to the original. + +[Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound.] +The churches referred to in the lines which follow are,-- +1. King's Chapel, the foundation of which was laid by Governor Shirley +in 1749. +2. Brattle Street Church, consecrated in 1773. The completion of this +edifice, the design of which included a spire, was prevented by the +troubles of the Revolution, and its plain, square tower presented +nothing more attractive than a massive simplicity. In the front of this +tower, till the church was demolished in 1872, there was to be seen, +half imbedded in the brick-work, a cannon-ball, which was thrown from +the American fortifications at Cambridge, during the bombard-ment of the +city, then occupied by the British troops. +3. The Old South, first occupied for public worship in 1730. +4. Park Street Church, built in 1809, the tall white steeple of which is +the most conspicuous of all the Boston spires. +5. Christ Church, opened for public worship in 1723, and containing a +set of eight bells, long the only chime in Boston. + +[INTERNATIONAL ODE.] +This ode was sung in unison by twelve hundred children of the public +schools, to the air of "God save the Queen," at the visit of the Prince +of Wales to Boston, October 18, 1860. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Vol. 4, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 4 *** + +***** This file should be named 7391.txt or 7391.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/3/9/7391/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/7391.zip b/7391.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5401d88 --- /dev/null +++ b/7391.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e70bd4a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #7391 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7391) diff --git a/old/ohp0410.txt b/old/ohp0410.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71114ed --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ohp0410.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4189 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook The Poetical Works of O. W. Holmes, Volume 4. +Songs in Many Keys +#18 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Volume 4. + Songs in Many Keys + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: January, 2005 [Etext #7391] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[Most recently updated: April 22, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V4 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + 1893 + (Printed in three volumes) + + + + + +CONTENTS: + + PROLOGUE + AGNES + THE PLOUGHMAN + SPRING + THE STUDY + THE BELLS + NON-RESISTANCE + THE MORAL BULLY + THE MIND'S DIET + OUR LIMITATIONS + THE OLD PLAYER + A POEM DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, SEPTEMBER 9,1850 + TO GOVERNOR SWAIN + TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND + AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH + AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE + AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS + AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY + AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES + THE HUDSON + THE NEW EDEN + SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY, + NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22,1855 + FAREWELL TO J. R. LOWELL + FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB, 1856 + ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY + BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER + THE VOICELESS + THE TWO STREAMS + THE PROMISE + AVIS + THE LIVING TEMPLE + AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL: TO J. R. LOWELL + A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO J. F. CLARKE + THE GRAY CHIEF + THE LAST LOOK: W. W. SWAIN + IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. + MARTHA + MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE + THE PARTING SONG + FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL SANITARY ASSOCIATION + FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, + AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS + BOSTON COMMON: THREE PICTURES + THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA + INTERNATIONAL ODE + VIVE LA FRANCE + BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE + + + + + + SONGS IN MANY KEYS + + 1849-1861 + + + +PROLOGUE + +THE piping of our slender, peaceful reeds +Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray; +Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play +Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds, +Following the mighty van that Freedom leads, +Her glorious standard flaming to the day! +The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleeds +Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay. +Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are better worth +Than strains that sing the ravished echoes dumb. +Hark! 't is the loud reverberating drum +Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock-bound North +The myriad-handed Future stretches forth +Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come,--we come! + +Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as these +Were not unsought for, as, in languid dreams, +We lay beside our lotus-feeding streams, +And nursed our fancies in forgetful ease. +It matters little if they pall or please, +Dropping untimely, while the sudden gleams +Glare from the mustering clouds whose blackness seems +Too swollen to hold its lightning from the trees. +Yet, in some lull of passion, when at last +These calm revolving moons that come and go-- +Turning our months to years, they creep so slow-- +Have brought us rest, the not unwelcome past +May flutter to thee through these leaflets, cast +On the wild winds that all around us blow. +May 1, 1861. + + + AGNES + +The story of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage is told in the +ballad with a very strict adhesion to the facts. These were obtained +from information afforded me by the Rev. Mr. Webster, of Hopkinton, in +company with whom I visited the Frankland Mansion in that town, then +standing; from a very interesting Memoir, by the Rev. Elias Nason, of +Medford; and from the manuscript diary of Sir Harry, or more properly +Sir Charles Henry Frankland, now in the library of the Massachusetts +Historical Society. + +At the time of the visit referred to, old Julia was living, and on our +return we called at the house where she resided.--[She was living June +10, 1861, when this ballad was published]--Her account is little more +than paraphrased in the poem. If the incidents are treated with a +certain liberality at the close of the fifth part, the essential fact +that Agnes rescued Sir Harry from the ruins after the earthquake, and +their subsequent marriage as related, may be accepted as literal truth. +So with regard to most of the trifling details which are given; they are +taken from the record. It is greatly to be regretted that the Frankland +Mansion no longer exists. It was accidentally burned on the 23d of +January, 1858, a year or two after the first sketch of this ballad was +written. A visit to it was like stepping out of the century into the +years before the Revolution. A new house, similar in plan and +arrangements to the old one, has been built upon its site, and the +terraces, the clump of box, and the lilacs doubtless remain to bear +witness to the truth of this story. + +The story, which I have told literally in rhyme, has been made +the subject of a carefully studied and interesting romance by Mr. +E. L. Bynner. + + + +PART FIRST + +THE KNIGHT + +THE tale I tell is gospel true, +As all the bookmen know, +And pilgrims who have strayed to view +The wrecks still left to show. + +The old, old story,--fair, and young, +And fond,--and not too wise,-- +That matrons tell, with sharpened tongue, +To maids with downcast eyes. + +Ah! maidens err and matrons warn +Beneath the coldest sky; +Love lurks amid the tasselled corn +As in the bearded rye! + +But who would dream our sober sires +Had learned the old world's ways, +And warmed their hearths with lawless fires +In Shirley's homespun days? + +'T is like some poet's pictured trance +His idle rhymes recite,-- +This old New England-born romance +Of Agnes and the Knight; + +Yet, known to all the country round, +Their home is standing still, +Between Wachusett's lonely mound +And Shawmut's threefold hill. + +One hour we rumble on the rail, +One half-hour guide the rein, +We reach at last, o'er hill and dale, +The village on the plain. + +With blackening wall and mossy roof, +With stained and warping floor, +A stately mansion stands aloof +And bars its haughty door. + +This lowlier portal may be tried, +That breaks the gable wall; +And lo! with arches opening wide, +Sir Harry Frankland's hall! + +'T was in the second George's day +They sought the forest shade, +The knotted trunks they cleared away, +The massive beams they laid, + +They piled the rock-hewn chimney tall, +They smoothed the terraced ground, +They reared the marble-pillared wall +That fenced the mansion round. + +Far stretched beyond the village bound +The Master's broad domain; +With page and valet, horse and hound, +He kept a goodly train. + +And, all the midland county through, +The ploughman stopped to gaze +Whene'er his chariot swept in view +Behind the shining bays, + +With mute obeisance, grave and slow, +Repaid by nod polite,-- +For such the way with high and low +Till after Concord fight. + +Nor less to courtly circles known +That graced the three-hilled town +With far-off splendors of the Throne, +And glimmerings from the Crown; + +Wise Phipps, who held the seals of state +For Shirley over sea; +Brave Knowles, whose press-gang moved of late +The King Street mob's decree; + +And judges grave, and colonels grand, +Fair dames and stately men, +The mighty people of the land, +The "World" of there and then. + +'T was strange no Chloe's "beauteous Form," +And "Eyes' ccelestial Blew," +This Strephon of the West could warm, +No Nymph his Heart subdue + +Perchance he wooed as gallants use, +Whom fleeting loves enchain, +But still unfettered, free to choose, +Would brook no bridle-rein. + +He saw the fairest of the fair, +But smiled alike on all; +No band his roving foot might snare, +No ring his hand enthrall. + + + +PART SECOND + +THE MAIDEN + +Why seeks the knight that rocky cape +Beyond the Bay of Lynn? +What chance his wayward course may shape +To reach its village inn? + +No story tells; whate'er we guess, +The past lies deaf and still, +But Fate, who rules to blight or bless, +Can lead us where she will. + +Make way! Sir Harry's coach and four, +And liveried grooms that ride! +They cross the ferry, touch the shore +On Winnisimmet's side. + +They hear the wash on Chelsea Beach,-- +The level marsh they pass, +Where miles on miles the desert reach +Is rough with bitter grass. + +The shining horses foam and pant, +And now the smells begin +Of fishy Swampscott, salt Nahant, +And leather-scented Lynn. + +Next, on their left, the slender spires +And glittering vanes that crown +The home of Salem's frugal sires, +The old, witch-haunted town. + +So onward, o'er the rugged way +That runs through rocks and sand, +Showered by the tempest-driven spray, +From bays on either hand, + +That shut between their outstretched arms +The crews of Marblehead, +The lords of ocean's watery farms, +Who plough the waves for bread. + +At last the ancient inn appears, +The spreading elm below, +Whose flapping sign these fifty years +Has seesawed to and fro. + +How fair the azure fields in sight +Before the low-browed inn +The tumbling billows fringe with light +The crescent shore of Lynn; + +Nahant thrusts outward through the waves +Her arm of yellow sand, +And breaks the roaring surge that braves +The gauntlet on her hand; + +With eddying whirl the waters lock +Yon treeless mound forlorn, +The sharp-winged sea-fowl's breeding-rock, +That fronts the Spouting Horn; + +Then free the white-sailed shallops glide, +And wide the ocean smiles, +Till, shoreward bent, his streams divide +The two bare Misery Isles. + +The master's silent signal stays +The wearied cavalcade; +The coachman reins his smoking bays +Beneath the elm-tree's shade. + +A gathering on the village green! +The cocked-hats crowd to see, +On legs in ancient velveteen, +With buckles at the knee. + +A clustering round the tavern-door +Of square-toed village boys, +Still wearing, as their grandsires wore, +The old-world corduroys! + +A scampering at the "Fountain" inn,--- +A rush of great and small,-- +With hurrying servants' mingled din +And screaming matron's call + +Poor Agnes! with her work half done +They caught her unaware; +As, humbly, like a praying nun, +She knelt upon the stair; + +Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien +She knelt, but not to pray,-- +Her little hands must keep them clean, +And wash their stains away. + +A foot, an ankle, bare and white, +Her girlish shapes betrayed,-- +"Ha! Nymphs and Graces!" spoke the Knight; +"Look up, my beauteous Maid!" + +She turned,--a reddening rose in bud, +Its calyx half withdrawn,-- +Her cheek on fire with damasked blood +Of girlhood's glowing dawn! + +He searched her features through and through, +As royal lovers look +On lowly maidens, when they woo +Without the ring and book. + +"Come hither, Fair one! Here, my Sweet! +Nay, prithee, look not down! +Take this to shoe those little feet,"-- +He tossed a silver crown. + +A sudden paleness struck her brow,-- +A swifter blush succeeds; +It burns her cheek; it kindles now +Beneath her golden beads. + +She flitted, but the glittering eye +Still sought the lovely face. +Who was she? What, and whence? and why +Doomed to such menial place? + +A skipper's daughter,--so they said,-- +Left orphan by the gale +That cost the fleet of Marblehead +And Gloucester thirty sail. + +Ah! many a lonely home is found +Along the Essex shore, +That cheered its goodman outward bound, +And sees his face no more! + +"Not so," the matron whispered,--"sure +No orphan girl is she,-- +The Surriage folk are deadly poor +Since Edward left the sea, + +"And Mary, with her growing brood, +Has work enough to do +To find the children clothes and food +With Thomas, John, and Hugh. + +"This girl of Mary's, growing tall,-- +(Just turned her sixteenth year,)-- +To earn her bread and help them all, +Would work as housemaid here." + +So Agnes, with her golden beads, +And naught beside as dower, +Grew at the wayside with the weeds, +Herself a garden-flower. + +'T was strange, 't was sad,--so fresh, so fair! +Thus Pity's voice began. +Such grace! an angel's shape and air! +The half-heard whisper ran. + +For eyes could see in George's time, +As now in later days, +And lips could shape, in prose and rhyme, +The honeyed breath of praise. + +No time to woo! The train must go +Long ere the sun is down, +To reach, before the night-winds blow, +The many-steepled town. + +'T is midnight,--street and square are still; +Dark roll the whispering waves +That lap the piers beneath the hill +Ridged thick with ancient graves. + +Ah, gentle sleep! thy hand will smooth +The weary couch of pain, +When all thy poppies fail to soothe +The lover's throbbing brain! + +'T is morn,--the orange-mantled sun +Breaks through the fading gray, +And long and loud the Castle gun +Peals o'er the glistening bay. + +"Thank God 't is day!" With eager eye +He hails the morning shine:-- +"If art can win, or gold can buy, +The maiden shall be mine!" + + + +PART THIRD + +THE CONQUEST + +"Who saw this hussy when she came? +What is the wench, and who?" +They whisper. "Agnes--is her name? +Pray what has she to do?" + +The housemaids parley at the gate, +The scullions on the stair, +And in the footmen's grave debate +The butler deigns to share. + +Black Dinah, stolen when a child, +And sold on Boston pier, +Grown up in service, petted, spoiled, +Speaks in the coachman's ear: + +"What, all this household at his will? +And all are yet too few? +More servants, and more servants still,-- +This pert young madam too!" + +"_Servant!_ fine servant!" laughed aloud +The man of coach and steeds; +"She looks too fair, she steps too proud, +This girl with golden beads! + +"I tell you, you may fret and frown, +And call her what you choose, +You 'll find my Lady in her gown, +Your Mistress in her shoes!" + +Ah, gentle maidens, free from blame, +God grant you never know +The little whisper, loud with shame, +That makes the world your foe! + +Why tell the lordly flatterer's art, +That won the maiden's ear,-- +The fluttering of the frightened heart, +The blush, the smile, the tear? + +Alas! it were the saddening tale +That every language knows,-- +The wooing wind, the yielding sail, +The sunbeam and the rose. + +And now the gown of sober stuff +Has changed to fair brocade, +With broidered hem, and hanging cuff, +And flower of silken braid; + +And clasped around her blanching wrist +A jewelled bracelet shines, +Her flowing tresses' massive twist +A glittering net confines; + +And mingling with their truant wave +A fretted chain is hung; +But ah! the gift her mother gave,-- +Its beads are all unstrung! + +Her place is at the master's board, +Where none disputes her claim; +She walks beside the mansion's lord, +His bride in all but name. + +The busy tongues have ceased to talk, +Or speak in softened tone, +So gracious in her daily walk +The angel light has shown. + +No want that kindness may relieve +Assails her heart in vain, +The lifting of a ragged sleeve +Will check her palfrey's rein. + +A thoughtful calm, a quiet grace +In every movement shown, +Reveal her moulded for the place +She may not call her own. + +And, save that on her youthful brow +There broods a shadowy care, +No matron sealed with holy vow +In all the land so fair + + + +PART FOURTH + +THE RESCUE + +A ship comes foaming up the bay, +Along the pier she glides; +Before her furrow melts away, +A courier mounts and rides. + +"Haste, Haste, post Haste!" the letters bear; +"Sir Harry Frankland, These." +Sad news to tell the loving pair! +The knight must cross the seas. + +"Alas! we part!"--the lips that spoke +Lost all their rosy red, +As when a crystal cup is broke, +And all its wine is shed. + +"Nay, droop not thus,--where'er," he cried, +"I go by land or sea, +My love, my life, my joy, my pride, +Thy place is still by me!" + +Through town and city, far and wide, +Their wandering feet have strayed, +From Alpine lake to ocean tide, +And cold Sierra's shade. + +At length they see the waters gleam +Amid the fragrant bowers +Where Lisbon mirrors in the stream +Her belt of ancient towers. + +Red is the orange on its bough, +To-morrow's sun shall fling +O'er Cintra's hazel-shaded brow +The flush of April's wing. + +The streets are loud with noisy mirth, +They dance on every green; +The morning's dial marks the birth +Of proud Braganza's queen. + +At eve beneath their pictured dome +The gilded courtiers throng; +The broad moidores have cheated Rome +Of all her lords of song. + +AH! Lisbon dreams not of the day-- +Pleased with her painted scenes-- +When all her towers shall slide away +As now these canvas screens! + +The spring has passed, the summer fled, +And yet they linger still, +Though autumn's rustling leaves have spread +The flank of Cintra's hill. + +The town has learned their Saxon name, +And touched their English gold, +Nor tale of doubt nor hint of blame +From over sea is told. + +Three hours the first November dawn +Has climbed with feeble ray +Through mists like heavy curtains drawn +Before the darkened day. + +How still the muffled echoes sleep! +Hark! hark! a hollow sound,-- +A noise like chariots rumbling deep +Beneath the solid ground. + +The channel lifts, the water slides +And bares its bar of sand, +Anon a mountain billow strides +And crashes o'er the land. + +The turrets lean, the steeples reel +Like masts on ocean's swell, +And clash a long discordant peal, +The death-doomed city's knell. + +The pavement bursts, the earth upheaves +Beneath the staggering town! +The turrets crack--the castle cleaves-- +The spires come rushing down. + +Around, the lurid mountains glow +With strange unearthly gleams; +While black abysses gape below, +Then close in jagged seams. + +And all is over. Street and square +In ruined heaps are piled; +Ah! where is she, so frail, so fair, +Amid the tumult wild? + +Unscathed, she treads the wreck-piled street, +Whose narrow gaps afford +A pathway for her bleeding feet, +To seek her absent lord. + +A temple's broken walls arrest +Her wild and wandering eyes; +Beneath its shattered portal pressed, +Her lord unconscious lies. + +The power that living hearts obey +Shall lifeless blocks withstand? +Love led her footsteps where he lay,-- +Love nerves her woman's hand + +One cry,--the marble shaft she grasps,-- +Up heaves the ponderous stone:-- +He breathes,--her fainting form he clasps,-- +Her life has bought his own! + + + +PART FIFTH + +THE REWARD + +How like the starless night of death +Our being's brief eclipse, +When faltering heart and failing breath +Have bleached the fading lips! + +The earth has folded like a wave, +And thrice a thousand score, +Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave, +The sun shall see no more! + +She lives! What guerdon shall repay +His debt of ransomed life? +One word can charm all wrongs away,-- +The sacred name of WIFE! + +The love that won her girlish charms +Must shield her matron fame, +And write beneath the Frankland arms +The village beauty's name. + +Go, call the priest! no vain delay +Shall dim the sacred ring! +Who knows what change the passing day, +The fleeting hour, may bring? + +Before the holy altar bent, +There kneels a goodly pair; +A stately man, of high descent, +A woman, passing fair. + +No jewels lend the blinding sheen +That meaner beauty needs, +But on her bosom heaves unseen +A string of golden beads. + +The vow is spoke,--the prayer is said,-- +And with a gentle pride +The Lady Agnes lifts her head, +Sir Harry Frankland's bride. + +No more her faithful heart shall bear +Those griefs so meekly borne,-- +The passing sneer, the freezing stare, +The icy look of scorn; + +No more the blue-eyed English dames +Their haughty lips shall curl, +Whene'er a hissing whisper names +The poor New England girl. + +But stay!--his mother's haughty brow,-- +The pride of ancient race,-- +Will plighted faith, and holy vow, +Win back her fond embrace? + +Too well she knew the saddening tale +Of love no vow had blest, +That turned his blushing honors pale +And stained his knightly crest. + +They seek his Northern home,--alas +He goes alone before;-- +His own dear Agnes may not pass +The proud, ancestral door. + +He stood before the stately dame; +He spoke; she calmly heard, +But not to pity, nor to blame; +She breathed no single word. + +He told his love,--her faith betrayed; +She heard with tearless eyes; +Could she forgive the erring maid? +She stared in cold surprise. + +How fond her heart, he told,--how true; +The haughty eyelids fell;-- +The kindly deeds she loved to do; +She murmured, "It is well." + +But when he told that fearful day, +And how her feet were led +To where entombed in life he lay, +The breathing with the dead, + +And how she bruised her tender breasts +Against the crushing stone, +That still the strong-armed clown protests +No man can lift alone,-- + +Oh! then the frozen spring was broke; +By turns she wept and smiled;-- +"Sweet Agnes!" so the mother spoke, +"God bless my angel child + +"She saved thee from the jaws of death,-- +'T is thine to right her wrongs; +I tell thee,--I, who gave thee breath,-- +To her thy life belongs!" + +Thus Agnes won her noble name, +Her lawless lover's hand; +The lowly maiden so became +A lady in the land! + + + +PART SIXTH + +CONCLUSION + +The tale is done; it little needs +To track their after ways, +And string again the golden beads +Of love's uncounted days. + +They leave the fair ancestral isle +For bleak New England's shore; +How gracious is the courtly smile +Of all who frowned before! + +Again through Lisbon's orange bowers +They watch the river's gleam, +And shudder as her shadowy towers +Shake in the trembling stream. + +Fate parts at length the fondest pair; +His cheek, alas! grows pale; +The breast that trampling death could spare +His noiseless shafts assail. + +He longs to change the heaven of blue +For England's clouded sky,-- +To breathe the air his boyhood knew; +He seeks then but to die. + +Hard by the terraced hillside town, +Where healing streamlets run, +Still sparkling with their old renown,-- +The "Waters of the Sun,"-- + +The Lady Agnes raised the stone +That marks his honored grave, +And there Sir Harry sleeps alone +By Wiltshire Avon's wave. + +The home of early love was dear; +She sought its peaceful shade, +And kept her state for many a year, +With none to make afraid. + +At last the evil days were come +That saw the red cross fall; +She hears the rebels' rattling drum,-- +Farewell to Frankland Hall! + +I tell you, as my tale began, +The hall is standing still; +And you, kind listener, maid or man, +May see it if you will. + +The box is glistening huge and green, +Like trees the lilacs grow, +Three elms high-arching still are seen, +And one lies stretched below. + +The hangings, rough with velvet flowers, +Flap on the latticed wall; +And o'er the mossy ridge-pole towers +The rock-hewn chimney tall. + +The doors on mighty hinges clash +With massive bolt and bar, +The heavy English-moulded sash +Scarce can the night-winds jar. + +Behold the chosen room he sought +Alone, to fast and pray, +Each year, as chill November brought +The dismal earthquake day. + +There hung the rapier blade he wore, +Bent in its flattened sheath; +The coat the shrieking woman tore +Caught in her clenching teeth;-- + +The coat with tarnished silver lace +She snapped at as she slid, +And down upon her death-white face +Crashed the huge coffin's lid. + +A graded terrace yet remains; +If on its turf you stand +And look along the wooded plains +That stretch on either hand, + +The broken forest walls define +A dim, receding view, +Where, on the far horizon's line, +He cut his vista through. + +If further story you shall crave, +Or ask for living proof, +Go see old Julia, born a slave +Beneath Sir Harry's roof. + +She told me half that I have told, +And she remembers well +The mansion as it looked of old +Before its glories fell;-- + +The box, when round the terraced square +Its glossy wall was drawn; +The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, +The roses on the lawn. + +And Julia says, with truthful look +Stamped on her wrinkled face, +That in her own black hands she took +The coat with silver lace. + +And you may hold the story light, +Or, if you like, believe; +But there it was, the woman's bite,-- +A mouthful from the sleeve. + +Now go your ways;--I need not tell +The moral of my rhyme; +But, youths and maidens, ponder well +This tale of olden time! + + + + +THE PLOUGHMAN +ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, +OCTOBER 4, 1849 + +CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam! +Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, +With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow, +The lord of earth, the hero of the plough! + +First in the field before the reddening sun, +Last in the shadows when the day is done, +Line after line, along the bursting sod, +Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod; +Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide, +The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide; +Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves, +Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves; +Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train +Slants the long track that scores the level plain; +Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay, +The patient convoy breaks its destined way; +At every turn the loosening chains resound, +The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round, +Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, +And wearied hands unbind the panting steers. + +These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings +The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; +This is the page, whose letters shall be seen +Changed by the sun to words of living green; +This is the scholar, whose immortal pen +Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men; +These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil +Shows on his deed,--the charter of the soil + +O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast +Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, +How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, +Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time +We stain thy flowers,--they blossom o'er the dead; +We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; +O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, +Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; +Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain, +Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. +Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms +Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms, +Let not our virtues in thy love decay, +And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. + +No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed +In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed; +By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests +The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests; +By these fair plains the mountain circle screens, +And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines, +True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil +To crown with peace their own untainted soil; +And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind, +If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind, +These stately forms, that bending even now +Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough, +Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, +The same stern iron in the same right hand, +Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run, +The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won! + + + +SPRING + +WINTER is past; the heart of Nature warms +Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms; +Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen, +The southern slopes are fringed with tender green; +On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves, +Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves, +Bright with the hues from wider pictures won, +White, azure, golden,--drift, or sky, or sun,-- +The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast +The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest; +The violet, gazing on the arch of blue +Till her own iris wears its deepened hue; +The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould +Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. +Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high +Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky +On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves +The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves; +The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave, +Drugged with the opiate that November gave, +Beats with faint wing against the sunny pane, +Or crawls, tenacious, o'er its lucid plain; +From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls, +In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls; +The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep, +Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap; +On floating rails that face the softening noons +The still shy turtles range their dark platoons, +Or, toiling aimless o'er the mellowing fields, +Trail through the grass their tessellated shields. + +At last young April, ever frail and fair, +Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, +Chased to the margin of receding floods +O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds, +In tears and blushes sighs herself away, +And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May. + +Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, +Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays; +O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis, +Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free; +With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, +And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose; +Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge +The rival lily hastens to emerge, +Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, +Till morn is sultan of her parted lips. + +Then bursts the song from every leafy glade, +The yielding season's bridal serenade; +Then flash the wings returning Summer calls +Through the deep arches of her forest halls,-- +The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes +The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; +The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, +Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; +The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire +Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. +The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, +Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; +The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, +Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; +Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, +Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings. + +Why dream I here within these caging walls, +Deaf to her voice, while blooming Nature calls; +Peering and gazing with insatiate looks +Through blinding lenses, or in wearying books? +Off, gloomy spectres of the shrivelled past! +Fly with the leaves that fill the autumn blast +Ye imps of Science, whose relentless chains +Lock the warm tides within these living veins, +Close your dim cavern, while its captive strays +Dazzled and giddy in the morning's blaze! + + + + +THE STUDY + +YET in the darksome crypt I left so late, +Whose only altar is its rusted grate,-- +Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, +Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams,-- +While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train, +Its paler splendors were not quite in vain. +From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow +Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; +Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will +On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, +Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard, +And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, +Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone, +Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone. + +Not all unblest the mild interior scene +When the red curtain spread its falling screen; +O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, +And the long evening only flew too fast; +Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend +In genial welcome to some easy friend, +Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves, +Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves; +Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, +In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed. +Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring +To the round table its expected ring, +And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,-- +Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard,-- +Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour +The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower. + +Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, +Not quite deserted when its guests were flown; +Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, +Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, +Ready to answer, never known to ask, +Claiming no service, prompt for every task. +On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes, +O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns; +A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, +That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime, +Each knows his place, and each may claim his part +In some quaint corner of his master's heart. +This old Decretal, won from Moss's hoards, +Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards, +Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, +Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close; +Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, +With glistening letters wrought in red and blue. +There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, +The Aldine anchor on his opening page; +There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind, +In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confused, +"Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?) +Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine! +In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill +The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville; +High over all, in close, compact array, +Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. +In lower regions of the sacred space +Range the dense volumes of a humbler race; +There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach, +In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech; +Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, +Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, +Lully and Geber, and the learned crew +That loved to talk of all they could not do. + +Why count the rest,--those names of later days +That many love, and all agree to praise,-- +Or point the titles, where a glance may read +The dangerous lines of party or of creed? +Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show +What few may care and none can claim to know. +Each has his features, whose exterior seal +A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal; +Go to his study,--on the nearest shelf +Stands the mosaic portrait of himself. + +What though for months the tranquil dust descends, +Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends, +While the damp offspring of the modern press +Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress; +Not less I love each dull familiar face, +Nor less should miss it from the appointed place; +I snatch the book, along whose burning leaves +His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, +Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share, +My old MAGNALIA must be standing _there_! + + + + +THE BELLS + +WHEN o'er the street the morning peal is flung +From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue, +Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale, +To each far listener tell a different tale. +The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor +Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar, +Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one, +Each dull concussion, till his task is done. +Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note +Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat, +Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street, +Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet; +The bell, responsive to her secret flame, +With every note repeats her lover's name. +The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane, +Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, +Hears the stern accents, as they come and go, +Their only burden one despairing No! +Ocean's rough child, whom many a shore has known +Ere homeward breezes swept him to his own, +Starts at the echo as it circles round, +A thousand memories kindling with the sound; +The early favorite's unforgotten charms, +Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms; +His first farewell, the flapping canvas spread, +The seaward streamers crackling overhead, +His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to weep +Her first-born's bridal with the haggard deep, +While the brave father stood with tearless eye, +Smiling and choking with his last good-by. + +'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats, +With the same impulse, every nerve it meets, +Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride +On the round surge of that aerial tide! + +O child of earth! If floating sounds like these +Steal from thyself their power to wound or please, +If here or there thy changing will inclines, +As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs, +Look at thy heart, and when its depths are known, +Then try thy brother's, judging by thine own, +But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range, +While its own standards are the sport of change, +Nor count us rebels when we disobey +The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway. + + + + +NON-RESISTANCE + +PERHAPS too far in these considerate days +Has patience carried her submissive ways; +Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, +To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; +It is not written what a man shall do, +If the rude caitiff smite the other too! + +Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need +God help thee, guarded by the passive creed! +As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl, +When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl; +As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow +When the black corsair slants athwart her bow; +As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien, +Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green, +When the dark plumage with the crimson beak +Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,-- +So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm +The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm, +Thy torches ready for the answering peal +From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel! + + + + +THE MORAL BULLY + +YON whey-faced brother, who delights to wear +A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair, +Seems of the sort that in a crowded place +One elbows freely into smallest space; +A timid creature, lax of knee and hip, +Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip; +One of those harmless spectacled machines, +The Holy-Week of Protestants convenes; +Whom school-boys question if their walk transcends +The last advices of maternal friends; +Whom John, obedient to his master's sign, +Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine, +While Peter, glistening with luxurious scorn, +Husks his white ivories like an ear of corn; +Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek, +Whose yellowish linen flowers but once a week, +Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare suits, +And the laced high-lows which they call their boots, +Well mayst thou shun that dingy front severe, +But him, O stranger, him thou canst not _fear_. + +Be slow to judge, and slower to despise, +Man of broad shoulders and heroic size +The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings, +Drops at the fountain where the cobra stings. +In that lean phantom, whose extended glove +Points to the text of universal love, +Behold the master that can tame thee down +To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown; +His velvet throat against thy corded wrist, +His loosened tongue against thy doubled fist + +The MORAL BULLY, though he never swears, +Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, +Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, +And non-resistance ties his white cravat, +Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen +In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, +Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast +That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, +Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear +That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, +Feels the same comfort while his acrid words +Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds, +Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate, +That all we love is worthiest of our hate, +As the scarred ruffian of the pirate's deck, +When his long swivel rakes the staggering wreck! + +Heaven keep us all! Is every rascal clown +Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down? +Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul +Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole, +Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace +Of angel visits on his hungry face, +From lack of marrow or the coins to pay, +Has dodged some vices in a shabby way, +The right to stick us with his cutthroat terms, +And bait his homilies with his brother worms? + + + + +THE MIND'S DIET + +No life worth naming ever comes to good +If always nourished on the selfsame food; +The creeping mite may live so if he please, +And feed on Stilton till he turns to cheese, +But cool Magendie proves beyond a doubt, +If mammals try it, that their eyes drop out. + +No reasoning natures find it safe to feed, +For their sole diet, on a single creed; +It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their tongues, +And starves the heart to feed the noisy lungs. + +When the first larvae on the elm are seen, +The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are green; +Ere chill October shakes the latest down, +They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown; +On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy, +You stretch to pluck it--'tis a butterfly; +The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark, +They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark; +The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, +Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood; +So by long living on a single lie, +Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye; +Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,-- +Except when squabbling turns them black and blue! + + + + +OUR LIMITATIONS + +WE trust and fear, we question and believe, +From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave, +Frail as the web that misty night has spun, +Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun. +While the calm centuries spell their lessons out, +Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt; +When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne, +The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone; +When Pilate's hall that awful question heard, +The Heavenly Captive answered not a word. + +Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears +Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! +From age to age, while History carves sublime +On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, +How the wild swayings of our planet show +That worlds unseen surround the world we know. + + + + +THE OLD PLAYER + +THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud +The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed. +In flaming line the telltales of the stage +Showed on his brow the autograph of age; +Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair, +And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care; +Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,-- +He strove to speak,--his voice was but a sigh. + +Year after year had seen its short-lived race +Flit past the scenes and others take their place; +Yet the old prompter watched his accents still, +His name still flaunted on the evening's bill. +Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor, +Had died in earnest and were heard no more; +Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread +They faced the footlights in unborrowed red, +Had faded slowly through successive shades +To gray duennas, foils of younger maids; +Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start +With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart, +While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky +With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry. +Yet there he stood,--the man of other days, +In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze, +As on the oak a faded leaf that clings +While a new April spreads its burnished wings. + +How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier, +Their central sun the flashing chandelier! +How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim +Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim +How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold! +Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told. +No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue; +Again, again, the crashing galleries rung. +As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast +Hears in its strain the echoes of the past, +So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round, +A life of memories startled at the sound. +He lived again,--the page of earliest days,-- +Days of small fee and parsimonious praise; +Then lithe young Romeo--hark that silvered tone, +From those smooth lips--alas! they were his own. +Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe, +Told his strange tale of midnight melting snow; +And dark--plumed Hamlet, with his cloak and blade, +Looked on the royal ghost, himself a shade. +All in one flash, his youthful memories came, +Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame, +As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong dream, +While the last bubble rises through the stream. + +Call him not old, whose visionary brain +Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. +For him in vain the envious seasons roll +Who bears eternal summer in his soul. +If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, +Spring with her birds, or children at their play, +Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art, +Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, +Turn to the record where his years are told,-- +Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old! +What magic power has changed the faded mime? +One breath of memory on the dust of time. +As the last window in the buttressed wall +Of some gray minster tottering to its fall, +Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread, +A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red, +Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows +When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows, +And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane +See angels glow in every shapeless stain; +So streamed the vision through his sunken eye, +Clad in the splendors of his morning sky. +All the wild hopes his eager boyhood knew, +All the young fancies riper years proved true, +The sweet, low-whispered words, the winning glance +From queens of song, from Houris of the dance, +Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing phrase, +And Beauty's silence when her blush was praise, +And melting Pride, her lashes wet with tears, +Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns and cheers, +Pangs of wild joy that perish on the tongue, +And all that poets dream, but leave unsung! + +In every heart some viewless founts are fed +From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed; +On the worn features of the weariest face +Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace, +As in old gardens left by exiled kings +The marble basins tell of hidden springs, +But, gray with dust, and overgrown with weeds, +Their choking jets the passer little heeds, +Till time's revenges break their seals away, +And, clad in rainbow light, the waters play. + +Good night, fond dreamer! let the curtain fall +The world's a stage, and we are players all. +A strange rehearsal! Kings without their crowns, +And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing clowns, +Speak the vain words that mock their throbbing hearts, +As Want, stern prompter! spells them out their parts. +The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay +Is twice an actor in a twofold play. +We smile at children when a painted screen +Seems to their simple eyes a real scene; +Ask the poor hireling, who has left his throne +To seek the cheerless home he calls his own, +Which of his double lives most real seems, +The world of solid fact or scenic dreams? +Canvas, or clouds,--the footlights, or the spheres,-- +The play of two short hours, or seventy years? +Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes, +Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies; +Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this; +The cheating future lends the present's bliss; +Life is a running shade, with fettered hands, +That chases phantoms over shifting sands; +Death a still spectre on a marble seat, +With ever clutching palms and shackled feet; +The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain, +The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain, +Death only grasps; to live is to pursue,-- +Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true! + + + + + +A POEM + +DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, +SEPTEMBER 9,1850 + +ANGEL of Death! extend thy silent reign! +Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new domain +No sable car along the winding road +Has borne to earth its unresisting load; +No sudden mound has risen yet to show +Where the pale slumberer folds his arms below; +No marble gleams to bid his memory live +In the brief lines that hurrying Time can give; +Yet, O Destroyer! from thy shrouded throne +Look on our gift; this realm is all thine own! + +Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft beguiled +From their dim paths the children of the wild; +The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy dells, +The feathered warrior claimed its wooded swells, +Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges show +The pointed flints that left his fatal bow, +Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian toil,-- +Last of his wrecks that strews the alien soil! +Here spread the fields that heaped their ripened store +Till the brown arms of Labor held no more; +The scythe's broad meadow with its dusky blush; +The sickle's harvest with its velvet flush; +The green-haired maize, her silken tresses laid, +In soft luxuriance, on her harsh brocade; +The gourd that swells beneath her tossing plume; +The coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of bloom,-- +Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive +With the wide murmurs of the scattered hive; +Here glowed the apple with the pencilled streak +Of morning painted on its southern cheek; +The pear's long necklace strung with golden drops, +Arched, like the banian, o'er its pillared props; +Here crept the growths that paid the laborer's care +With the cheap luxuries wealth consents to spare; +Here sprang the healing herbs which could not save +The hand that reared them from the neighboring grave. + +Yet all its varied charms, forever free +From task and tribute, Labor yields to thee +No more, when April sheds her fitful rain, +The sower's hand shall cast its flying grain; +No more, when Autumn strews the flaming leaves, +The reaper's band shall gird its yellow sheaves; +For thee alike the circling seasons flow +Till the first blossoms heave the latest snow. +In the stiff clod below the whirling drifts, +In the loose soil the springing herbage lifts, +In the hot dust beneath the parching weeds, +Life's withering flower shall drop its shrivelled seeds; +Its germ entranced in thy unbreathing sleep +Till what thou sowest mightier angels reap! + +Spirit of Beauty! let thy graces blend +With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. +Come from the bowers where Summer's life-blood flows +Through the red lips of June's half-open rose, +Dressed in bright hues, the loving sunshine's dower; +For tranquil Nature owns no mourning flower. +Come from the forest where the beech's screen +Bars the fierce noonbeam with its flakes of green; +Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy plains, +Stanch the deep wound That dries the maple's veins. +Come with the stream whose silver-braided rills +Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills, +Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings, +Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs. +Come from the steeps where look majestic forth +From their twin thrones the Giants of the North +On the huge shapes, that, crouching at their knees, +Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees. +Through the wide waste of ether, not in vain, +Their softened gaze shall reach our distant plain; +There, while the mourner turns his aching eyes +On the blue mounds that print the bluer skies, +Nature shall whisper that the fading view +Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly hue. +Cherub of Wisdom! let thy marble page +Leave its sad lesson, new to every age; +Teach us to live, not grudging every breath +To the chill winds that waft us on to death, +But ruling calmly every pulse it warms, +And tempering gently every word it forms. +Seraph of Love! in heaven's adoring zone, +Nearest of all around the central throne, +While with soft hands the pillowed turf we spread +That soon shall hold us in its dreamless bed, +With the low whisper,--Who shall first be laid +In the dark chamber's yet unbroken shade?-- +Let thy sweet radiance shine rekindled here, +And all we cherish grow more truly dear. +Here in the gates of Death's o'erhanging vault, +Oh, teach us kindness for our brother's fault +Lay all our wrongs beneath this peaceful sod, +And lead our hearts to Mercy and its God. + +FATHER of all! in Death's relentless claim +We read thy mercy by its sterner name; +In the bright flower that decks the solemn bier, +We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; +In the deep lessons that affliction draws, +We trace the curves of thy encircling laws; +In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, +We own the love that calls us back to Thee! + +Through the hushed street, along the silent plain, +The spectral future leads its mourning train, +Dark with the shadows of uncounted bands, +Where man's white lips and woman's wringing hands +Track the still burden, rolling slow before, +That love and kindness can protect no more; +The smiling babe that, called to mortal strife, +Shuts its meek eyes and drops its little life; +The drooping child who prays in vain to live, +And pleads for help its parent cannot give; +The pride of beauty stricken in its flower; +The strength of manhood broken in an hour; +Age in its weakness, bowed by toil and care, +Traced in sad lines beneath its silvered hair. + +The sun shall set, and heaven's resplendent spheres +Gild the smooth turf unhallowed yet by tears, +But ah! how soon the evening stars will shed +Their sleepless light around the slumbering dead! + +Take them, O Father, in immortal trust! +Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, +Till the last angel rolls the stone away, +And a new morning brings eternal day! + + + + + +TO GOVERNOR SWAIN + +DEAR GOVERNOR, if my skiff might brave +The winds that lift the ocean wave, +The mountain stream that loops and swerves +Through my broad meadow's channelled curves +Should waft me on from bound to bound +To where the River weds the Sound, +The Sound should give me to the Sea, +That to the Bay, the Bay to thee. + +It may not be; too long the track +To follow down or struggle back. +The sun has set on fair Naushon +Long ere my western blaze is gone; +The ocean disk is rolling dark +In shadows round your swinging bark, +While yet the yellow sunset fills +The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills; +The day-star wakes your island deer +Long ere my barnyard chanticleer; +Your mists are soaring in the blue +While mine are sparks of glittering dew. + +It may not be; oh, would it might, +Could I live o'er that glowing night! +What golden hours would come to life, +What goodly feats of peaceful strife,-- +Such jests, that, drained of every joke, +The very bank of language broke,-- +Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died +With stitches in his belted side; +While Time, caught fast in pleasure's chain, +His double goblet snapped in twain, +And stood with half in either hand,-- +Both brimming full,--but not of sand! + +It may not be; I strive in vain +To break my slender household chain,-- +Three pairs of little clasping hands, +One voice, that whispers, not commands. +Even while my spirit flies away, +My gentle jailers murmur nay; +All shapes of elemental wrath +They raise along my threatened path; +The storm grows black, the waters rise, +The mountains mingle with the skies, +The mad tornado scoops the ground, +The midnight robber prowls around,-- +Thus, kissing every limb they tie, +They draw a knot and heave a sigh, +Till, fairly netted in the toil, +My feet are rooted to the soil. +Only the soaring wish is free!-- +And that, dear Governor, flies to thee! +PITTSFIELD, 1851. + + + + + +TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND + +THE seed that wasteful autumn cast +To waver on its stormy blast, +Long o'er the wintry desert tost, +Its living germ has never lost. +Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, +It feels the kindling ray of spring, +And, starting from its dream of death, +Pours on the air its perfumed breath. + +So, parted by the rolling flood, +The love that springs from common blood +Needs but a single sunlit hour +Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; +Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, +From shore to shore, from zone to zone, +Where summer's falling roses stain +The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, +Or where the lichen creeps below +Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow. + +Though fiery sun and stiffening cold +May change the fair ancestral mould, +No winter chills, no summer drains +The life-blood drawn from English veins, +Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows +The love that with its fountain rose, +Unchanged by space, unwronged by time, +From age to age, from clime to clime! +1852. + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH + +COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, +And leave the crowded hall +For where the eyes of twilight shine +O'er evening's western wall. + +These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, +Each with its leafy crown; +Hark! from their sides a thousand rills +Come singing sweetly down. + +A thousand rills; they leap and shine, +Strained through the shadowy nooks, +Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, +They swell a hundred brooks. + +A hundred brooks, and still they run +With ripple, shade, and gleam, +Till, clustering all their braids in one, +They flow a single stream. + +A bracelet spun from mountain mist, +A silvery sash unwound, +With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist +It writhes to reach the Sound. + +This is my bark,--a pygmy's ship; +Beneath a child it rolls; +Fear not,--one body makes it dip, +But not a thousand souls. + +Float we the grassy banks between; +Without an oar we glide; +The meadows, drest in living green, +Unroll on either side. + +Come, take the book we love so well, +And let us read and dream +We see whate'er its pages tell, +And sail an English stream. + +Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, +Still trilling as he flies; +The linnet sings as there he sung; +The unseen cuckoo cries, + +And daisies strew the banks along, +And yellow kingcups shine, +With cowslips, and a primrose throng, +And humble celandine. + +Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed +Her daughter in the West, +The fount was drained that opened first; +She bared her other breast. + +On the young planet's orient shore +Her morning hand she tried; +Then turned the broad medallion o'er +And stamped the sunset side. + +Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, +Her elm with hanging spray; +She wears her mountain diadem +Still in her own proud way. + +Look on the forests' ancient kings, +The hemlock's towering pride +Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, +And fell before it died. + +Nor think that Nature saves her bloom +And slights our grassy plain; +For us she wears her court costume,-- +Look on its broidered train; + +The lily with the sprinkled dots, +Brands of the noontide beam; +The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, +Its double in the stream, + +As if some wounded eagle's breast, +Slow throbbing o'er the plain, +Had left its airy path impressed +In drops of scarlet rain. + +And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; +There thrilled the thrush's soul; +And look! that flash of flamy wings,-- +The fire-plumed oriole! + +Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, +Flung from the bright, blue sky; +Below, the robin hops, and whoops +His piercing, Indian cry. + +Beauty runs virgin in the woods +Robed in her rustic green, +And oft a longing thought intrudes, +As if we might have seen + +Her every finger's every joint +Ringed with some golden line, +Poet whom Nature did anoint +Had our wild home been thine. + +Yet think not so; Old England's blood +Runs warm in English veins; +But wafted o'er the icy flood +Its better life remains + +Our children know each wildwood smell, +The bayberry and the fern, +The man who does not know them well +Is all too old to learn. + +Be patient! On the breathing page +Still pants our hurried past; +Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, +The poet comes the last! + +Though still the lark-voiced matins ring +The world has known so long; +The wood-thrush of the West shall sing +Earth's last sweet even-song! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE + +SHINE soft, ye trembling tears of light +That strew the mourning skies; +Hushed in the silent dews of night +The harp of Erin lies. + +What though her thousand years have past +Of poets, saints, and kings,-- +Her echoes only hear the last +That swept those golden strings. + +Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, +The balmiest wreaths ye wear, +Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers +Heaven's own ambrosial air. + +Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, +By shadowy grove and rill; +Thy song will soothe us while we own +That his was sweeter still. + +Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him +Who gave thee swifter wings, +Nor let thine envious shadow dim +The light his glory flings. + +If in his cheek unholy blood +Burned for one youthful hour, +'T was but the flushing of the bud +That blooms a milk-white flower. + +Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, +Who loved thy smiles so well, +And spread thy mantle o'er his rest +Of rose and asphodel. + +The bark has sailed the midnight sea, +The sea without a shore, +That waved its parting sign to thee,-- +"A health to thee, Tom Moore!" + +And thine, long lingering on the strand, +Its bright-hued streamers furled, +Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, +To seek the silent world. + +Not silent! no, the radiant stars +Still singing as they shine, +Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, +Have voices sweet as thine. + +Wake, then, in happier realms above, +The songs of bygone years, +Till angels learn those airs of love +That ravished mortal ears! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS + +"Purpureos spargam flores." + +THE wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave +Is lying on thy Roman grave, +Yet on its turf young April sets +Her store of slender violets; +Though all the Gods their garlands shower, +I too may bring one purple flower. +Alas! what blossom shall I bring, +That opens in my Northern spring? +The garden beds have all run wild, +So trim when I was yet a child; +Flat plantains and unseemly stalks +Have crept across the gravel walks; +The vines are dead, long, long ago, +The almond buds no longer blow. +No more upon its mound I see +The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; +Where once the tulips used to show, +In straggling tufts the pansies grow; +The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem, +The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," +Though its long blade of glossy green +And pallid stripe may still be seen. +Nature, who treads her nobles down, +And gives their birthright to the clown, +Has sown her base-born weedy things +Above the garden's queens and kings. +Yet one sweet flower of ancient race +Springs in the old familiar place. +When snows were melting down the vale, +And Earth unlaced her icy mail, +And March his stormy trumpet blew, +And tender green came peeping through, +I loved the earliest one to seek +That broke the soil with emerald beak, +And watch the trembling bells so blue +Spread on the column as it grew. +Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame +The sweet, dead poet's holy name; +The God of music gave thee birth, +Called from the crimson-spotted earth, +Where, sobbing his young life away, +His own fair Hyacinthus lay. +The hyacinth my garden gave +Shall lie upon that Roman grave! + + + + + +AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY + +ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay +On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I +The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; +The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there. + +Morning: a woman looking on the sea; +Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; +Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee! +Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns. + +And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, +And torches flaring in the weedy caves, +Where'er the waters lay with icy hands +The shapes uplifted from their coral graves. + +Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; +The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks, +And lean, wild children gather from the shore +To the black hovels bedded in the rocks. + +But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, +"One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!" +Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, +Raised the pale burden on his level shield. + +Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire; +His form a nobler element shall claim; +Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, +And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame. + +Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; +Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; +Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; +All else has risen in yon silvery cloud. + +Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, +Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, +Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, +Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art. + +Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh, +O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim,-- +In all the mansions of the house on high, +Say not that Mercy has not one for him! + + + + + +AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES + +As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream, +As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream, +There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me,-- +The vision is over,--the rivulet free + +We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March, +Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch, +And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day, +We hear the warm panting of beautiful May. + +We will part before Summer has opened her wing, +And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring, +While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud, +And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood. + +It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, +The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground; +No hand shall replace it,--it rests where it fell,--- +It is but one word that we all know too well. + +Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye, +If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky; +The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain +Will turn for a moment and look at his chain. + +Our parting is not as the friendship of years, +That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears; +We have walked in a garden, and, looking around, +Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found. + +But now at the gate of the garden we stand, +And the moment has come for unclasping the hand; +Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat +Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat? + +Nay! hold it one moment,--the last we may share,-- +I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare; +You may pass through the doorway in rank or in file, +If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile. + +For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part, +When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; +And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, +We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell. + + + + + +THE HUDSON + +AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY + + +'T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn, +Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn; +The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long, +And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song. + +"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,"-- +She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; +"Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played; +Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid." + +I wandered afar from the land of my birth, +I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, +But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream +With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream. + +I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, +Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine; +I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide +Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side. + +But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves +That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; +If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, +I care not who sees it,--no blush for it here! + +Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West! +I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; +Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, +Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled! + +December, 1854. + + + + + +THE NEW EDEN + +MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, +AT STOCKBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 13,1854 + +SCARCE could the parting ocean close, +Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow, +When o'er the rugged desert rose +The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough. + +Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field +The rippling grass, the nodding grain, +Such growths as English meadows yield +To scanty sun and frequent rain. + +But when the fiery days were done, +And Autumn brought his purple haze, +Then, kindling in the slanted sun, +The hillsides gleamed with golden maize. + +The food was scant, the fruits were few +A red-streak glistening here and there; +Perchance in statelier precincts grew +Some stern old Puritanic pear. + +Austere in taste, and tough at core, +Its unrelenting bulk was shed, +To ripen in the Pilgrim's store +When all the summer sweets were fled. + +Such was his lot, to front the storm +With iron heart and marble brow, +Nor ripen till his earthly form +Was cast from life's autumnal bough. + +But ever on the bleakest rock +We bid the brightest beacon glow, +And still upon the thorniest stock +The sweetest roses love to blow. + +So on our rude and wintry soil +We feed the kindling flame of art, +And steal the tropic's blushing spoil +To bloom on Nature's ice-clad heart. + +See how the softening Mother's breast +Warms to her children's patient wiles, +Her lips by loving Labor pressed +Break in a thousand dimpling smiles, + +From when the flushing bud of June +Dawns with its first auroral hue, +Till shines the rounded harvest-moon, +And velvet dahlias drink the dew. + +Nor these the only gifts she brings; +Look where the laboring orchard groans, +And yields its beryl-threaded strings +For chestnut burs and hemlock cones. + +Dear though the shadowy maple be, +And dearer still the whispering pine, +Dearest yon russet-laden tree +Browned by the heavy rubbing kine! + +There childhood flung its rustling stone, +There venturous boyhood learned to climb,-- +How well the early graft was known +Whose fruit was ripe ere harvest-time! + +Nor be the Fleming's pride forgot, +With swinging drops and drooping bells, +Freckled and splashed with streak and spot, +On the warm-breasted, sloping swells; + +Nor Persia's painted garden-queen,-- +Frail Houri of the trellised wall,-- +Her deep-cleft bosom scarfed with green,-- +Fairest to see, and first to fall. + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +When man provoked his mortal doom, +And Eden trembled as he fell, +When blossoms sighed their last perfume, +And branches waved their long farewell, + +One sucker crept beneath the gate, +One seed was wafted o'er the wall, +One bough sustained his trembling weight; +These left the garden,--these were all. + +And far o'er many a distant zone +These wrecks of Eden still are flung +The fruits that Paradise hath known +Are still in earthly gardens hung. + +Yes, by our own unstoried stream +The pink-white apple-blossoms burst +That saw the young Euphrates gleam,-- +That Gihon's circling waters nursed. + +For us the ambrosial pear--displays +The wealth its arching branches hold, +Bathed by a hundred summery days +In floods of mingling fire and gold. + +And here, where beauty's cheek of flame +With morning's earliest beam is fed, +The sunset-painted peach may claim +To rival its celestial red. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +What though in some unmoistened vale +The summer leaf grow brown and sere, +Say, shall our star of promise fail +That circles half the rolling sphere, + +From beaches salt with bitter spray, +O'er prairies green with softest rain, +And ridges bright with evening's ray, +To rocks that shade the stormless main? + +If by our slender-threaded streams +The blade and leaf and blossom die, +If, drained by noontide's parching beams, +The milky veins of Nature dry, + +See, with her swelling bosom bare, +Yon wild-eyed Sister in the West,-- +The ring of Empire round her hair, +The Indian's wampum on her breast! + +We saw the August sun descend, +Day after day, with blood-red stain, +And the blue mountains dimly blend +With smoke-wreaths from the burning plain; + +Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings +We sat and told the withering hours, +Till Heaven unsealed its hoarded springs, +And bade them leap in flashing showers. + +Yet in our Ishmael's thirst we knew +The mercy of the Sovereign hand +Would pour the fountain's quickening dew +To feed some harvest of the land. + +No flaming swords of wrath surround +Our second Garden of the Blest; +It spreads beyond its rocky bound, +It climbs Nevada's glittering crest. + +God keep the tempter from its gate! +God shield the children, lest they fall +From their stern fathers' free estate,-- +Till Ocean is its only wall! + + + + + +SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY +NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1855 + +NEW ENGLAND, we love thee; no time can erase +From the hearts of thy children the smile on thy face. +'T is the mother's fond look of affection and pride, +As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride. + +His bride may be fresher in beauty's young flower; +She may blaze in the jewels she brings with her dower. +But passion must chill in Time's pitiless blast; +The one that first loved us will love to the last. + +You have left the dear land of the lake and the hill, +But its winds and its waters will talk with you still. +"Forget not," they whisper, "your love is our debt," +And echo breathes softly, "We never forget." + +The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming around, +But your hearts have flown back o'er the waves of the Sound; +They have found the brown home where their pulses were born; +They are throbbing their way through the trees and the corn. + +There are roofs you remember,--their glory is fled; +There are mounds in the churchyard,--one sigh for the dead. +There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scattered around; +But Earth has no spot like that corner of ground. + +Come, let us be cheerful,--remember last night, +How they cheered us, and--never mind--meant it all right; +To-night, we harm nothing,--we love in the lump; +Here's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of the pump! + +Here 's to all the good people, wherever they be, +Who have grown in the shade of the liberty-tree; +We all love its leaves, and its blossoms and fruit, +But pray have a care of the fence round its root. + +We should like to talk big; it's a kind of a right, +When the tongue has got loose and the waistband grown tight; +But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau, +On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow. + +Enough! There are gentlemen waiting to talk, +Whose words are to mine as the flower to the stalk. +Stand by your old mother whatever befall; +God bless all her children! Good night to you all! + + + + + +FAREWELL + +TO J. R. LOWELL + +FAREWELL, for the bark has her breast to the tide, +And the rough arms of Ocean are stretched for his bride; +The winds from the mountain stream over the bay; +One clasp of the hand, then away and away! + +I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore; +The sun is declining, I see it once more; +To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field, +To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield. + +Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath, +With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death; +Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail +Has left her unaided to strive with the gale. + +There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast, +That will light the dark hour till its danger has past; +There are prayers that will plead with the storm when it raves, +And whisper "Be still!" to the turbulent waves. + + +Nay, think not that Friendship has called us in vain +To join the fair ring ere we break it again; +There is strength in its circle,--you lose the bright star, +But its sisters still chain it, though shining afar. + +I give you one health in the juice of the vine, +The blood of the vineyard shall mingle with mine; +Thus, thus let us drain the last dew-drops of gold, +As we empty our hearts of the blessings they hold. + +April 29, 1855. + + + + + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB + +THE mountains glitter in the snow +A thousand leagues asunder; +Yet here, amid the banquet's glow, +I hear their voice of thunder; +Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks; +A flowing stream is summoned; +Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks; +Monadnock to Ben Lomond! + +Though years have clipped the eagle's plume +That crowned the chieftain's bonnet, +The sun still sees the heather bloom, +The silver mists lie on it; + +With tartan kilt and philibeg, +What stride was ever bolder +Than his who showed the naked leg +Beneath the plaided shoulder? + +The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills, +That heard the bugles blowing +When down their sides the crimson rills +With mingled blood were flowing; +The hunts where gallant hearts were game, +The slashing on the border, +The raid that swooped with sword and flame, +Give place to "law and order." + +Not while the rocking steeples reel +With midnight tocsins ringing, +Not while the crashing war-notes peal, +God sets his poets singing; +The bird is silent in the night, +Or shrieks a cry of warning +While fluttering round the beacon-light,-- +But hear him greet the morning! + +The lark of Scotia's morning sky! +Whose voice may sing his praises? +With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye, +He walked among the daisies, +Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong +He soared to fields of glory; +But left his land her sweetest song +And earth her saddest story. + +'T is not the forts the builder piles +That chain the earth together; +The wedded crowns, the sister isles, +Would laugh at such a tether; +The kindling thought, the throbbing words, +That set the pulses beating, +Are stronger than the myriad swords +Of mighty armies meeting. + +Thus while within the banquet glows, +Without, the wild winds whistle, +We drink a triple health,--the Rose, +The Shamrock, and the Thistle +Their blended hues shall never fade +Till War has hushed his cannon,-- +Close-twined as ocean-currents braid +The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon! + + + + + +ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY + +CELEBRATION OF THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, +FEBRUARY 22, 1856 + +WELCOME to the day returning, +Dearer still as ages flow, +While the torch of Faith is burning, +Long as Freedom's altars glow! +See the hero whom it gave us +Slumbering on a mother's breast; +For the arm he stretched to save us, +Be its morn forever blest! + +Hear the tale of youthful glory, +While of Britain's rescued band +Friend and foe repeat the story, +Spread his fame o'er sea and land, +Where the red cross, proudly streaming, +Flaps above the frigate's deck, +Where the golden lilies, gleaming, +Star the watch-towers of Quebec. + +Look! The shadow on the dial +Marks the hour of deadlier strife; +Days of terror, years of trial, +Scourge a nation into life. +Lo, the youth, become her leader +All her baffled tyrants yield; +Through his arm the Lord hath freed her; +Crown him on the tented field! + +Vain is Empire's mad temptation +Not for him an earthly crown +He whose sword hath freed a nation +Strikes the offered sceptre down. +See the throneless Conqueror seated, +Ruler by a people's choice; +See the Patriot's task completed; +Hear the Father's dying voice! + +"By the name that you inherit, +By the sufferings you recall, +Cherish the fraternal spirit; +Love your country first of all! +Listen not to idle questions +If its bands maybe untied; +Doubt the patriot whose suggestions +Strive a nation to divide!" + +Father! We, whose ears have tingled +With the discord-notes of shame,-- +We, whose sires their blood have mingled +In the battle's thunder-flame,-- +Gathering, while this holy morning +Lights the land from sea to sea, +Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning; +Trust us, while we honor thee! + + + + + +BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER + +JANUARY 18, 1856 + +WHEN life hath run its largest round +Of toil and triumph, joy and woe, +How brief a storied page is found +To compass all its outward show! + +The world-tried sailor tires and droops; +His flag is rent, his keel forgot; +His farthest voyages seem but loops +That float from life's entangled knot. + +But when within the narrow space +Some larger soul hath lived and wrought, +Whose sight was open to embrace +The boundless realms of deed and thought,-- + +When, stricken by the freezing blast, +A nation's living pillars fall, +How rich the storied page, how vast, +A word, a whisper, can recall! + +No medal lifts its fretted face, +Nor speaking marble cheats your eye, +Yet, while these pictured lines I trace, +A living image passes by: + +A roof beneath the mountain pines; +The cloisters of a hill-girt plain; +The front of life's embattled lines; +A mound beside the heaving main. + +These are the scenes: a boy appears; +Set life's round dial in the sun, +Count the swift arc of seventy years, +His frame is dust; his task is done. + +Yet pause upon the noontide hour, +Ere the declining sun has laid +His bleaching rays on manhood's power, +And look upon the mighty shade. + +No gloom that stately shape can hide, +No change uncrown its brow; behold I +Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, +Earth has no double from its mould + +Ere from the fields by valor won +The battle-smoke had rolled away, +And bared the blood-red setting sun, +His eyes were opened on the day. + +His land was but a shelving strip +Black with the strife that made it free +He lived to see its banners dip +Their fringes in the Western sea. + +The boundless prairies learned his name, +His words the mountain echoes knew, +The Northern breezes swept his fame +From icy lake to warm bayou. + +In toil he lived; in peace he died; +When life's full cycle was complete, +Put off his robes of power and pride, +And laid them at his Master's feet. + +His rest is by the storm-swept waves +Whom life's wild tempests roughly trie +Whose heart was like the streaming eaves +Of ocean, throbbing at his side. + +Death's cold white hand is like the snow +Laid softly on the furrowed hill, +It hides the broken seams below, +And leaves the summit brighter still. + +In vain the envious tongue upbraids; +His name a nation's heart shall keep +Till morning's latest sunlight fades +On the blue tablet of the deep + + + + + +THE VOICELESS + +WE count the broken lyres that rest +Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, +But o'er their silent sister's breast +The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? +A few can touch the magic string, +And noisy Fame is proud to win them :-- +Alas for those that never sing, +But die with all their music in them! + +Nay, grieve not for the dead alone +Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,-- +Weep for the voiceless, who have known +The cross without the crown of glory +Not where Leucadian breezes sweep +O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, +But where the glistening night-dews weep +On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + +O hearts that break and give no sign +Save whitening lip and fading tresses, +Till Death pours out his longed-for wine +Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- +If singing breath or echoing chord +To every hidden pang were given, +What endless melodies were poured, +As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! + + + + + +THE TWO STREAMS + +BEHOLD the rocky wall +That down its sloping sides +Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, +In rushing river-tides! + +Yon stream, whose sources run +Turned by a pebble's edge, +Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun +Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + +The slender rill had strayed, +But for the slanting stone, +To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid +Of foam-flecked Oregon. + +So from the heights of Will +Life's parting stream descends, +And, as a moment turns its slender rill, +Each widening torrent bends,-- + +From the same cradle's side, +From the same mother's knee,-- +One to long darkness and the frozen tide, +One to the Peaceful Sea! + + + + + +THE PROMISE + +NOT charity we ask, +Nor yet thy gift refuse; +Please thy light fancy with the easy task +Only to look and choose. + +The little-heeded toy +That wins thy treasured gold +May be the dearest memory, holiest joy, +Of coming years untold. + +Heaven rains on every heart, +But there its showers divide, +The drops of mercy choosing, as they part, +The dark or glowing side. + +One kindly deed may turn +The fountain of thy soul +To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee burn +Long as its currents roll + +The pleasures thou hast planned,-- +Where shall their memory be +When the white angel with the freezing hand +Shall sit and watch by thee? + +Living, thou dost not live, +If mercy's spring run dry; +What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely give, +Dying, thou shalt not die + +HE promised even so! +To thee his lips repeat,-- +Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe +Have washed thy Master's feet! + +March 20, 1859. + + + + + +AVIS + +I MAY not rightly call thy name,-- +Alas! thy forehead never knew +The kiss that happier children claim, +Nor glistened with baptismal dew. + +Daughter of want and wrong and woe, +I saw thee with thy sister-band, +Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow +By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand. + +"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek, +At once a woman and a child, +The saint uncrowned I came to seek +Drew near to greet us,--spoke, and smiled. + +God gave that sweet sad smile she wore +All wrong to shame, all souls to win,-- +A heavenly sunbeam sent before +Her footsteps through a world of sin. + +"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale +The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,-- +The story known through all the vale +Where Avis and her sisters dwell. + +With the lost children running wild, +Strayed from the hand of human care, +They find one little refuse child +Left helpless in its poisoned lair. + +The primal mark is on her face,-- +The chattel-stamp,--the pariah-stain +That follows still her hunted race,-- +The curse without the crime of Cain. + +How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate +The little suffering outcast's ail? +Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate +So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale. + +Ah, veil the living death from sight +That wounds our beauty-loving eye! +The children turn in selfish fright, +The white-lipped nurses hurry by. + +Take her, dread Angel! Break in love +This bruised reed and make it thine!-- +No voice descended from above, +But Avis answered, "She is mine." + +The task that dainty menials spurn +The fair young girl has made her own; +Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn +The toils, the duties yet unknown. + +So Love and Death in lingering strife +Stand face to face from day to day, +Still battling for the spoil of Life +While the slow seasons creep away. + +Love conquers Death; the prize is won; +See to her joyous bosom pressed +The dusky daughter of the sun,-- +The bronze against the marble breast! + +Her task is done; no voice divine +Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame. +No eye can see the aureole shine +That rings her brow with heavenly flame. + +Yet what has holy page more sweet, +Or what had woman's love more fair, +When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet +With flowing eyes and streaming hair? + +Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown, +The Angel of that earthly throng, +And let thine image live alone +To hallow this unstudied song! + + + + + +THE LIVING TEMPLE + +NOT in the world of light alone, +Where God has built his blazing throne, +Nor yet alone in earth below, +With belted seas that come and go, +And endless isles of sunlit green, +Is all thy Maker's glory seen: +Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-- +Eternal wisdom still the same! + +The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves +Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, +Whose streams of brightening purple rush, +Fired with a new and livelier blush, +While all their burden of decay +The ebbing current steals away, +And red with Nature's flame they start +From the warm fountains of the heart. + +No rest that throbbing slave may ask, +Forever quivering o'er his task, +While far and wide a crimson jet +Leaps forth to fill the woven net +Which in unnumbered crossing tides +The flood of burning life divides, +Then, kindling each decaying part, +Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. + +But warmed with that unchanging flame +Behold the outward moving frame, +Its living marbles jointed strong +With glistening band and silvery thong, +And linked to reason's guiding reins +By myriad rings in trembling chains, +Each graven with the threaded zone +Which claims it as the master's own. + +See how yon beam of seeming white +Is braided out of seven-hued light, +Yet in those lucid globes no ray +By any chance shall break astray. +Hark how the rolling surge of sound, +Arches and spirals circling round, +Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear +With music it is heaven to hear. + +Then mark the cloven sphere that holds +All thought in its mysterious folds; +That feels sensation's faintest thrill, +And flashes forth the sovereign will; +Think on the stormy world that dwells +Locked in its dim and clustering cells! +The lightning gleams of power it sheds +Along its hollow glassy threads! + +O Father! grant thy love divine +To make these mystic temples thine! +When wasting age and wearying strife +Have sapped the leaning walls of life, +When darkness gathers over all, +And the last tottering pillars fall, +Take the poor dust thy mercy warms, +And mould it into heavenly forms! + + + + + +AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL + +TO J. R. LOWELL + +WE will not speak of years to-night,-- +For what have years to bring +But larger floods of love and light, +And sweeter songs to sing? + +We will not drown in wordy praise +The kindly thoughts that rise; +If Friendship own one tender phrase, +He reads it in our eyes. + +We need not waste our school-boy art +To gild this notch of Time;-- +Forgive me if my wayward heart +Has throbbed in artless rhyme. + +Enough for him the silent grasp +That knits us hand in hand, +And he the bracelet's radiant clasp +That locks our, circling band. + +Strength to his hours of manly toil! +Peace to his starlit dreams! +Who loves alike the furrowed soil, +The music-haunted streams! + +Sweet smiles to keep forever bright +The sunshine on his lips, +And faith that sees the ring of light +Round nature's last eclipse! + +February 22, 1859. + + + + + +A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE + +TO J. F. CLARKE + +WHO is the shepherd sent to lead, +Through pastures green, the Master's sheep? +What guileless "Israelite indeed" +The folded flock may watch and keep? + +He who with manliest spirit joins +The heart of gentlest human mould, +With burning light and girded loins, +To guide the flock, or watch the fold; + +True to all Truth the world denies, +Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; +Not always right in all men's eyes, +But faithful to the light within; + +Who asks no meed of earthly fame, +Who knows no earthly master's call, +Who hopes for man, through guilt and shame, +Still answering, "God is over all"; + +Who makes another's grief his own, +Whose smile lends joy a double cheer; +Where lives the saint, if such be known?-- +Speak softly,--such an one is here! + +O faithful shepherd! thou hast borne +The heat and burden of the clay; +Yet, o'er thee, bright with beams unshorn, +The sun still shows thine onward way. + +To thee our fragrant love we bring, +In buds that April half displays, +Sweet first-born angels of the spring, +Caught in their opening hymn of praise. + +What though our faltering accents fail, +Our captives know their message well, +Our words unbreathed their lips exhale, +And sigh more love than ours can tell. + +April 4, 1860. + + + + + +THE GRAY CHIEF + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS +MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1859 + +'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er, +And crown with honest praise +The gray old chief, who strikes no more +The blow of better days. + +Before the true and trusted sage +With willing hearts we bend, +When years have touched with hallowing age +Our Master, Guide, and Friend. + +For all his manhood's labor past, +For love and faith long tried, +His age is honored to the last, +Though strength and will have died. + +But when, untamed by toil and strife, +Full in our front he stands, +The torch of light, the shield of life, +Still lifted in his hands, + +No temple, though its walls resound +With bursts of ringing cheers, +Can hold the honors that surround +His manhood's twice-told years! + + + + + +THE LAST LOOK + +W. W. SWAIN + +BEHOLD--not him we knew! +This was the prison which his soul looked through, +Tender, and brave, and true. + +His voice no more is heard; +And his dead name--that dear familiar word-- +Lies on our lips unstirred. + +He spake with poet's tongue; +Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung: +He shall not die unsung + +Grief tried his love, and pain; +And the long bondage of his martyr-chain +Vexed his sweet soul,--in vain! + +It felt life's surges break, +As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake, +Smiling while tempests wake. + +How can we sorrow more? +Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before +To that untrodden shore! + +Lo, through its leafy screen, +A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green, +Untrodden, half unseen! + +Here let his body rest, +Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best +May slide above his breast. + +Smooth his uncurtained bed; +And if some natural tears are softly shed, +It is not for the dead. + +Fold the green turf aright +For the long hours before the morning's light, +And say the last Good Night! + +And plant a clear white stone +Close by those mounds which hold his loved, his own,-- +Lonely, but not alone. + +Here let him sleeping lie, +Till Heaven's bright watchers slumber in the sky +And Death himself shall die! + +Naushon, September 22, 1858. + + + + + +IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. + +HE was all sunshine; in his face +The very soul of sweetness shone; +Fairest and gentlest of his race; +None like him we can call our own. + +Something there was of one that died +In her fresh spring-time long ago, +Our first dear Mary, angel-eyed, +Whose smile it was a bliss to know. + +Something of her whose love imparts +Such radiance to her day's decline, +We feel its twilight in our hearts +Bright as the earliest morning-shine. + +Yet richer strains our eye could trace +That made our plainer mould more fair, +That curved the lip with happier grace, +That waved the soft and silken hair. + +Dust unto dust! the lips are still +That only spoke to cheer and bless; +The folded hands lie white and chill +Unclasped from sorrow's last caress. + +Leave him in peace; he will not heed +These idle tears we vainly pour, +Give back to earth the fading weed +Of mortal shape his spirit wore. + +"Shall I not weep my heartstrings torn, +My flower of love that falls half blown, +My youth uncrowned, my life forlorn, +A thorny path to walk alone?" + +O Mary! one who bore thy name, +Whose Friend and Master was divine, +Sat waiting silent till He came, +Bowed down in speechless grief like thine. + +"Where have ye laid him?" "Come," they say, +Pointing to where the loved one slept; +Weeping, the sister led the way,-- +And, seeing Mary, "Jesus wept." + +He weeps with thee, with all that mourn, +And He shall wipe thy streaming eyes +Who knew all sorrows, woman-born,-- +Trust in his word; thy dead shall rise! + +April 15, 1860. + + + + + +MARTHA + +DIED JANUARY 7, 1861 + +SEXTON! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +Her weary hands their labor cease; +Good night, poor Martha,--sleep in peace! +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +For many a year has Martha said, +"I'm old and poor,--would I were dead!" +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +She'll bring no more, by day or night, +Her basket full of linen white. +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +'T is fitting she should lie below +A pure white sheet of drifted snow. +Toll the bell! + +Sexton! Martha's dead and gone; +Toll the bell! toll the bell! +Sleep, Martha, sleep, to wake in light, +Where all the robes are stainless white. +Toll the bell! + + + + + +MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE + +1857 + +I THANK you, MR. PRESIDENT, you've kindly broke the ice; +Virtue should always be the first,--I 'm only SECOND VICE-- +(A vice is something with a screw that's made to hold its jaw +Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw). + +Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the babes of days gone by, +All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose milk is never dry, +We come again, like half-grown boys, and gather at her beck +About her knees, and on her lap, and clinging round her neck. + +We find her at her stately door, and in her ancient chair, +Dressed in the robes of red and green she always loved to wear. +Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek its morning flame; +We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish still the same. + +We have been playing many an hour, and far away we've strayed, +Some laughing in the cheerful sun, some lingering in the shade; +And some have tired, and laid them down where darker shadows fall, +Dear as her loving voice may be, they cannot hear its call. + +What miles we 've travelled since we shook the dew-drops from our shoes +We gathered on this classic green, so famed for heavy dues! +How many boys have joined the game, how many slipped away, +Since we've been running up and down, and having out our play! + +One boy at work with book and brief, and one with gown and band, +One sailing vessels on the pool, one digging sand, +One flying paper kites on change, one planting little pills,-- +The seeds of certain annual flowers well known as little bills. + +What maidens met us on our way, and clasped us hand in hand! +What cherubs,--not the legless kind, that fly, but never stand! +How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver crown +What sudden changes back again to youth's empurpled brown! + +But fairer sights have met our eyes, and broader lights have shone, +Since others lit their midnight lamps where once we trimmed our own; +A thousand trains that flap the sky with flags of rushing fire, +And, throbbing in the Thunderer's hand, Thought's million-chorded lyre. + +We've seen the sparks of Empire fly beyond the mountain bars, +Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they joined the setting stars; +And ocean trodden into paths that trampling giants ford, +To find the planet's vertebrae and sink its spinal cord. + +We've tried reform,--and chloroform,--and both have turned our brain; +When France called up the photograph, we roused the foe to pain; +Just so those earlier sages shared the chaplet of renown,-- +Hers sent a bladder to the clouds, ours brought their lightning down. + +We've seen the little tricks of life, its varnish and veneer, +Its stucco-fronts of character flake off and disappear, +We 've learned that oft the brownest hands will heap the biggest pile, +And met with many a "perfect brick" beneath a rimless "tile." + +What dreams we 've had of deathless name, as scholars, statesmen, bards, +While Fame, the lady with the trump, held up her picture cards! +Till, having nearly played our game, she gayly whispered, "Ah! +I said you should be something grand,--you'll soon be grandpapa." + +Well, well, the old have had their day, the young must take their turn; +There's something always to forget, and something still to learn; +But how to tell what's old or young, the tap-root from the sprigs, +Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs? + +The wisest was a Freshman once, just freed from bar and bolt, +As noisy as a kettle-drum, as leggy as a colt; +Don't be too savage with the boys,--the Primer does not say +The kitten ought to go to church because the cat doth prey. + +The law of merit and of age is not the rule of three; +Non constat that A. M. must prove as busy as A. B. +When Wise the father tracked the son, ballooning through the skies, +He taught a lesson to the old,--go thou and do like Wise! + +Now then, old boys, and reverend youth, of high or low degree, +Remember how we only get one annual out of three, +And such as dare to simmer down three dinners into one +Must cut their salads mighty short, and pepper well with fun. + +I've passed my zenith long ago, it's time for me to set; +A dozen planets wait to shine, and I am lingering yet, +As sometimes in the blaze of day a milk-and-watery moon +Stains with its dim and fading ray the lustrous blue of noon. + +Farewell! yet let one echo rise to shake our ancient hall; +God save the Queen,--whose throne is here,--the Mother of us all +Till dawns the great commencement-day on every shore and sea, +And "Expectantur" all mankind, to take their last Degree! + + + + + +THE PARTING SONG + +FESTIVAL OF THE ALUMNI, 1857 + +THE noon of summer sheds its ray +On Harvard's holy ground; +The Matron calls, the sons obey, +And gather smiling round. + + +CHORUS. +Then old and young together stand, +The sunshine and the snow, +As heart to heart, and hand in hand, +We sing before we go! + + +Her hundred opening doors have swung +Through every storied hall +The pealing echoes loud have rung, +"Thrice welcome one and all!" +Then old and young, etc. + +We floated through her peaceful bay, +To sail life's stormy seas +But left our anchor where it lay +Beneath her green old trees. +Then old and young, etc. + +As now we lift its lengthening chain, +That held us fast of old, +The rusted rings grow bright again,-- +Their iron turns to gold. +Then old and young, etc. + +Though scattered ere the setting sun, +As leaves when wild winds blow, +Our home is here, our hearts are one, +Till Charles forgets to flow. +Then old and young, etc. + + + + + +FOR THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL +SANITARY ASSOCIATION + +1860 + +WHAT makes the Healing Art divine? +The bitter drug we buy and sell, +The brands that scorch, the blades that shine, +The scars we leave, the "cures" we tell? + +Are these thy glories, holiest Art,-- +The trophies that adorn thee best,-- +Or but thy triumph's meanest part,-- +Where mortal weakness stands confessed? + +We take the arms that Heaven supplies +For Life's long battle with Disease, +Taught by our various need to prize +Our frailest weapons, even these. + +But ah! when Science drops her shield-- +Its peaceful shelter proved in vain-- +And bares her snow-white arm to wield +The sad, stern ministry of pain; + +When shuddering o'er the fount of life, +She folds her heaven-anointed wings, +To lift unmoved the glittering knife +That searches all its crimson springs; + +When, faithful to her ancient lore, +She thrusts aside her fragrant balm +For blistering juice, or cankering ore, +And tames them till they cure or calm; + +When in her gracious hand are seen +The dregs and scum of earth and seas, +Her kindness counting all things clean +That lend the sighing sufferer ease; + +Though on the field that Death has won, +She save some stragglers in retreat;-- +These single acts of mercy done +Are but confessions of defeat. + +What though our tempered poisons save +Some wrecks of life from aches and ails; +Those grand specifics Nature gave +Were never poised by weights or scales! + +God lent his creatures light and air, +And waters open to the skies; +Man locks him in a stifling lair, +And wonders why his brother dies! + +In vain our pitying tears are shed, +In vain we rear the sheltering pile +Where Art weeds out from bed to bed +The plagues we planted by the mile! + +Be that the glory of the past; +With these our sacred toils begin +So flies in tatters from its mast +The yellow flag of sloth and sin, + +And lo! the starry folds reveal +The blazoned truth we hold so dear +To guard is better than to heal,-- +The shield is nobler than the spear! + + + + + +FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION + +JANUARY 25, 1859 + +His birthday.--Nay, we need not speak +The name each heart is beating,-- +Each glistening eye and flushing cheek +In light and flame repeating! + +We come in one tumultuous tide,-- +One surge of wild emotion,-- +As crowding through the Frith of Clyde +Rolls in the Western Ocean; + +As when yon cloudless, quartered moon +Hangs o'er each storied river, +The swelling breasts of Ayr and Doon +With sea green wavelets quiver. + +The century shrivels like a scroll,-- +The past becomes the present,-- +And face to face, and soul to soul, +We greet the monarch-peasant. + +While Shenstone strained in feeble flights +With Corydon and Phillis,-- +While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's heights +To snatch the Bourbon lilies,-- + +Who heard the wailing infant's cry, +The babe beneath the sheeliug, +Whose song to-night in every sky +Will shake earth's starry ceiling,-- + +Whose passion-breathing voice ascends +And floats like incense o'er us, +Whose ringing lay of friendship blends +With labor's anvil chorus? + +We love him, not for sweetest song, +Though never tone so tender; +We love him, even in his wrong,-- +His wasteful self-surrender. + +We praise him, not for gifts divine,-- +His Muse was born of woman,-- +His manhood breathes in every line,-- +Was ever heart more human? + +We love him, praise him, just for this +In every form and feature, +Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss, +He saw his fellow-creature! + +No soul could sink beneath his love,-- +Not even angel blasted; +No mortal power could soar above +The pride that all outlasted! + +Ay! Heaven had set one living man +Beyond the pedant's tether,-- +His virtues, frailties, HE may scan, +Who weighs them all together! + +I fling my pebble on the cairn +Of him, though dead, undying; +Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn +Beneath her daisies lying. + +The waning suns, the wasting globe, +Shall spare the minstrel's story,-- +The centuries weave his purple robe, +The mountain-mist of glory! + + + + + +AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS + + +AUGUST 29, 1859 + +I REMEMBER--why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago? +I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know; +It must have been in 'forty--I would say 'thirty-nine-- +We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine. + +He said, "Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I, +If we act like other people, shall be older by and by; +What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be, +There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea. + +"We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange, +For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change; +But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill, +And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill." + +"I know it," I said, "old fellow; you speak the solemn truth; +A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth; +But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair, +You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care. + +"At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise; +Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys; +No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes, +But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose." + +But one fine August morning I found myself awake +My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake! +Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold, +That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old! + +But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their +foolish stuff; +A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough; +At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray; +I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say. + +At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine; +Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine, +And when on the western summits the fading light appears, +It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years. + +There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, +But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old"; +So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years, +Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers. + +Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round; +Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned, +Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told; +Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict _old_ + +No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim; +Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb, +Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends, +The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends. + + + + + +FOR THE FAIR IN AID OF THE FUND TO PROCURE +BALL'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON + + +1630 + +ALL overgrown with bush and fern, +And straggling clumps of tangled trees, +With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, +Bent eastward by the mastering breeze,-- +With spongy bogs that drip and fill +A yellow pond with muddy rain, +Beneath the shaggy southern hill +Lies wet and low the Shawinut plain. +And hark! the trodden branches crack; +A crow flaps off with startled scream; +A straying woodchuck canters back; +A bittern rises from the stream; +Leaps from his lair a frightened deer; +An otter plunges in the pool;-- +Here comes old Shawmut's pioneer, +The parson on his brindled bull! + + +1774 + +The streets are thronged with trampling feet, +The northern hill is ridged with graves, +But night and morn the drum is beat +To frighten down the "rebel knaves." +The stones of King Street still are red, +And yet the bloody red-coats come +I hear their pacing sentry's tread, +The click of steel, the tap of drum, +And over all the open green, +Where grazed of late the harmless kine, +The cannon's deepening ruts are seen, +The war-horse stamps, the bayonets shine. +The clouds are dark with crimson rain +Above the murderous hirelings' den, +And soon their whistling showers shall stain +The pipe-clayed belts of Gage's men. + + +186- + +Around the green, in morning light, +The spired and palaced summits blaze, +And, sunlike, from her Beacon-height +The dome-crowned city spreads her rays; +They span the waves, they belt the plains, +They skirt the roads with bands of white, +Till with a flash of gilded panes +Yon farthest hillside bounds the sight. +Peace, Freedom, Wealth! no fairer view, +Though with the wild-bird's restless wings +We sailed beneath the noontide's blue +Or chased the moonlight's endless rings! +Here, fitly raised by grateful hands +His holiest memory to recall, +The Hero's, Patriot's image stands; +He led our sires who won them all! + +November 14, 1859. + + + + + +THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA +A NIGHTMARE DREAM BY DAYLIGHT + +Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea? +Have you met with that dreadful old man? +If you have n't been caught, you will be, you will be; +For catch you he must and he can. + +He does n't hold on by your throat, by your throat, +As of old in the terrible tale; +But he grapples you tight by the coat, by the coat, +Till its buttons and button-holes fail. + +There's the charm of a snake in his eye, in his eye, +And a polypus-grip in his hands; +You cannot go back, nor get by, nor get by, +If you look at the spot where he stands. + +Oh, you're grabbed! See his claw on your sleeve, on your sleeve! +It is Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea! +You're a Christian, no doubt you believe, you believe +You're a martyr, whatever you be! + +Is the breakfast-hour past? They must wait, they must wait, +While the coffee boils sullenly down, +While the Johnny-cake burns on the grate, on the grate, +And the toast is done frightfully brown. + +Yes, your dinner will keep; let it cool, let it cool, +And Madam may worry and fret, +And children half-starved go to school, go to school; +He can't think of sparing you yet. + +Hark! the bell for the train! "Come along! Come along! +For there is n't a second to lose." +"ALL ABOARD!" (He holds on.) "Fsht I ding-dong! Fsht! ding-dong!"-- +You can follow on foot, if you choose. + +There's a maid with a cheek like a peach, like a peach, +That is waiting for you in the church;-- +But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, +And you leave your lost bride in the lurch. + +There's a babe in a fit,--hurry quick! hurry quick! +To the doctor's as fast as you can! +The baby is off, while you stick, while you stick, +In the grip of the dreadful Old Man! + +I have looked on the face of the Bore, of the Bore; +The voice of the Simple I know; +I have welcomed the Flat at my door, at my door; +I have sat by the side of the Slow; + +I have walked like a lamb by the friend, by the friend, +That stuck to my skirts like a bur; +I have borne the stale talk without end, without end, +Of the sitter whom nothing could stir + +But my hamstrings grow loose, and I shake, and I shake, +At the sight of the dreadful Old Man; +Yea, I quiver and quake, and I take, and I take, +To my legs with what vigor I can! + +Oh the dreadful Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea +He's come back like the Wandering Jew! +He has had his cold claw upon me, upon me,-- +And be sure that he 'll have it on you! + + + + + +INTERNATIONAL ODE + +OUR FATHERS' LAND + +GOD bless our Fathers' Land! +Keep her in heart and hand +One with our own! +From all her foes defend, +Be her brave People's Friend, +On all her realms descend, +Protect her Throne! + +Father, with loving care +Guard Thou her kingdom's Heir, +Guide all his ways +Thine arm his shelter be, +From him by land and sea +Bid storm and danger flee, +Prolong his days! + +Lord, let War's tempest cease, +Fold the whole Earth in peace +Under thy wings +Make all thy nations one, +All hearts beneath the sun, +Till Thou shalt reign alone, +Great King of kings! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT OFFERED AT THE DINNER TO H. I. H. +THE PRINCE NAPOLEON, AT THE REVERE HOUSE, +SEPTEMBER 25,1861 + +THE land of sunshine and of song! +Her name your hearts divine; +To her the banquet's vows belong +Whose breasts have poured its wine; +Our trusty friend, our true ally +Through varied change and chance +So, fill your flashing goblets high,-- +I give you, VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Above our hosts in triple folds +The selfsame colors spread, +Where Valor's faithful arm upholds +The blue, the white, the red; +Alike each nation's glittering crest +Reflects the morning's glance,-- +Twin eagles, soaring east and west +Once more, then, VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Sister in trial! who shall count +Thy generous friendship's claim, +Whose blood ran mingling in the fount +That gave our land its name, +Till Yorktown saw in blended line +Our conquering arms advance, +And victory's double garlands twine +Our banners? VIVE LA FRANCE! + +O land of heroes! in our need +One gift from Heaven we crave +To stanch these wounds that vainly bleed,-- +The wise to lead the brave! +Call back one Captain of thy past +From glory's marble trance, +Whose name shall be a bugle-blast +To rouse us! VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Pluck Conde's baton from the trench, +Wake up stout Charles Martel, +Or find some woman's hand to clench +The sword of La Pucelle! +Give us one hour of old Turenne,-- +One lift of Bayard's lance,-- +Nay, call Marengo's Chief again +To lead us! VIVE LA FRANCE! + +Ah, hush! our welcome Guest shall hear +But sounds of peace and joy; +No angry echo vex thine ear, +Fair Daughter of Savoy +Once more! the land of arms and arts, +Of glory, grace, romance; +Her love lies warm in all our hearts +God bless her! VIVE LA FRANCE! + + + + + +BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE + +SHE has gone,--she has left us in passion and pride,-- +Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side! +She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, +And turned on her brother the face of a foe! + +Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, +We can never forget that our hearts have been one,-- +Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name, +From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame! + +You were always too ready to fire at a touch; +But we said, "She is hasty,--she does not mean much." +We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent threat; +But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!" + +Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold? +Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? +Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain +That her petulant children would sever in vain. + +They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil, +Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil, +Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their eaves, +And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves: + +In vain is the strife! When its fury is past, +Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last, +As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow +Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below. + +Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky +Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts the die! +Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with steel, +The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal! + +Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, +There are battles with Fate that can never be won! +The star-flowering banner must never be furled, +For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world! + +Go, then, our rash sister! afar and aloof, +Run wild in the sunshine away from our roof; +But when your heart aches and your feet have grown sore, +Remember the pathway that leads to our door! + +March 25, 1861. + + + +NOTES: + +[There stand the Goblet and the Sun.] +The Goblet and the Sun (Vas-Sol), sculptured on a free-stone slab +supported by five pillars, are the only designation of the family tomb +of the Vassalls. + +[Thus mocked the spoilers with his school-boy scorn.] +See "Old Ironsides," of this volume. + +[On other shores, above their mouldering towns.] +Daniel Webster quoted several of the verses which follow, in his address +at the laying of the corner-stone of the addition to the Capitol at +Washington, July 4, 1851. + +[Thou calm, chaste scholar.] +Charles Chauncy Emerson; died May 9, 1836. + +[And thou, dear friend, whom Science still deplores.] +James Jackson, Jr., M. D.; died March 28, 1834. + +[THE STEAMBOAT.] +Mr. Emerson has quoted some lines from this poem, but +somewhat disguised as he recalled them. It is never safe to +quote poetry without referring to the original. + +[Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound.] +The churches referred to in the lines which follow are,-- +1. King's Chapel, the foundation of which was laid by Governor Shirley +in 1749. +2. Brattle Street Church, consecrated in 1773. The completion of this +edifice, the design of which included a spire, was prevented by the +troubles of the Revolution, and its plain, square tower presented +nothing more attractive than a massive simplicity. In the front of this +tower, till the church was demolished in 1872, there was to be seen, +half imbedded in the brick-work, a cannon-ball, which was thrown from +the American fortifications at Cambridge, during the bombard-ment of the +city, then occupied by the British troops. +3. The Old South, first occupied for public worship in 1730. +4. Park Street Church, built in 1809, the tall white steeple of which is +the most conspicuous of all the Boston spires. +5. Christ Church, opened for public worship in 1723, and containing a +set of eight bells, long the only chime in Boston. + +[INTERNATIONAL ODE.] +This ode was sung in unison by twelve hundred children of the public +schools, to the air of "God save the Queen," at the visit of the Prince +of Wales to Boston, October 18, 1860. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V4 *** + +******* This file should be named ohp0410.txt or ohp0410.zip ******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, ohp0411.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ohp0410a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/ohp0410.zip b/old/ohp0410.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c59a176 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ohp0410.zip |