The Project Gutenberg eBook of Personal Poems I

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Title: Personal Poems I

Author: John Greenleaf Whittier

Release date: December 1, 2005 [eBook #9581]

Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

Credits: This eBook was produced by David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONAL POEMS I ***

This eBook was produced by David Widger

PERSONAL POEMS

BY

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

CONTENTS

PERSONAL POEMS A LAMENT TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS LINES ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY TO ——, WITH A COPY OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL LEGGETT'S MONUMENT TO A FRIEND, ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE LUCY HOOPER FOLLEN TO J. P. CHALKLEY HALL GONE TO RONGE CHANNING TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER DANIEL WHEELER TO FREDRIKA BREMER TO AVIS KEENE THE HILL-TOP ELLIOTT ICHABOD THE LOST OCCASION WORDSWORTH TO —— LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION IN PEACE BENEDICITE KOSSUTH TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER

THE CROSS THE HERO RANTOUL WILLIAM FORSTER TO CHARLES SUMNER BURNS TO GEORGE B. CHEEVER TO JAMES T. FIELDS THE MEMORY OF BURNS IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGER BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE NAPLES A MEMORIAL BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY THOMAS STARR KING LINES ON A FLY-LEAF GEORGE L. STEARNS GARIBALDI TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD THE SINGER HOW MARY GREW SUMNER THIERS FITZ-GREENE HALLECK WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT BAYARD TAYLOR OUR AUTOCRAT WITHIN THE GATE IN MEMORY: JAMES T. FIELDS WILSON THE POET AND THE CHILDREN A WELCOME TO LOWELL AN ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL MULFORD TO A CAPE ANN SCHOONER SAMUEL J. TILDEN

OCCASIONAL POEMS. EVA A LAY OF OLD TIME A SONG OF HARVEST KENOZA LAKE FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL THE QUAKER ALUMNI OUR RIVER REVISITED "THE LAURELS" JUNE ON THE MERRIMAC HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF THOMAS STARR KING'S HOUSE OF WORSHIP HYMN FOR THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP AT GEORGETOWN, ERECTED IN MEMORY OF A MOTHER A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATION CHICAGO KINSMAN THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD HYMN FOR THE OPENING OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA LEXINGTON THE LIBRARY "I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN" CENTENNIAL HYMN AT SCHOOL-CLOSE HYMN OF THE CHILDREN THE LANDMARKS GARDEN A GREETING GODSPEED WINTER ROSES THE REUNION NORUMBEGA HALL THE BARTHOLDI STATUE ONE OF THE SIGNERS

THE TENT ON THE BEACH. PRELUDE THE TENT ON THE BEACH THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE THE BROTHER OF MERCY THE CHANGELING THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH KALLUNDBORG CHURCH THE CABLE HYMN THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL THE PALATINE ABRAHAM DAVENPORT THE WORSHIP OF NATURE

AT SUNDOWN.

TO E. C. S.

THE CHRISTMAS OF 1888.

THE Vow OF WASHINGTON

THE CAPTAIN'S WELL

AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION

R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON THE MERRIMAC

BURNING DRIFT-WOOD.

O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

HAVERHILL. 1640-1890

To G. G.

PRESTON POWERS, INSCRIPTION FOR BASS-RELIEF

LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY, INSCRIPTION ON TABLET

MILTON, ON MEMORIAL WINDOW

THE BIRTHDAY WREATH

THE WIND OF MARCH

BETWEEN THE GATES

THE LAST EVE OF SUMMER

TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 8TH Mo. 29TH, 1892

NOTE. The portrait prefacing this volume is from an engraving on steel by J. A. J. WILCOX in 1888, after a photograph taken by Miss ISA E. GRAY in July, 1885.

PERSONAL POEMS

A LAMENT

"The parted spirit,

Knoweth it not our sorrow? Answereth not

Its blessing to our tears?"

The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken,

One bud from the tree of our friendship is shaken;

One heart from among us no longer shall thrill

With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill.

Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering now

The light of her glances, the pride of her brow;

Weep! sadly and long shall we listen in vain

To hear the soft tones of her welcome again.

Give our tears to the dead! For humanity's claim

From its silence and darkness is ever the same;

The hope of that world whose existence is bliss

May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.

For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throw

On the scene of its troubled probation below,

Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the dead,

To that glance will be dearer the tears which we shed.

Oh, who can forget the mild light of her smile,

Over lips moved with music and feeling the while,

The eye's deep enchantment, dark, dream-like, and clear,

In the glow of its gladness, the shade of its tear.

And the charm of her features, while over the whole

Played the hues of the heart and the sunshine of soul;

And the tones of her voice, like the music which seems

Murmured low in our ears by the Angel of dreams!

But holier and dearer our memories hold

Those treasures of feeling, more precious than gold,

The love and the kindness and pity which gave

Fresh flowers for the bridal, green wreaths for the grave!

The heart ever open to Charity's claim,

Unmoved from its purpose by censure and blame,

While vainly alike on her eye and her ear

Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting and jeer.

How true to our hearts was that beautiful sleeper

With smiles for the joyful, with tears for the weeper,

Yet, evermore prompt, whether mournful or gay,

With warnings in love to the passing astray.

For, though spotless herself, she could sorrow for them

Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem;

And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove,

And the sting of reproof was still tempered by love.

As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in heaven,

As a star that is lost when the daylight is given,

As a glad dream of slumber, which wakens in bliss,

She hath passed to the world of the holy from this.

1834.

TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS,

Late President of Western Reserve College, who died at his post of duty, overworn by his strenuous labors with tongue and pen in the cause of Human Freedom.

Thou hast fallen in thine armor,

Thou martyr of the Lord

With thy last breath crying "Onward!"

And thy hand upon the sword.

The haughty heart derideth,

And the sinful lip reviles,

But the blessing of the perishing

Around thy pillow smiles!

When to our cup of trembling

The added drop is given,

And the long-suspended thunder

Falls terribly from Heaven,—

When a new and fearful freedom

Is proffered of the Lord

To the slow-consuming Famine,

The Pestilence and Sword!

When the refuges of Falsehood

Shall be swept away in wrath,

And the temple shall be shaken,

With its idol, to the earth,

Shall not thy words of warning

Be all remembered then?

And thy now unheeded message

Burn in the hearts of men?

Oppression's hand may scatter

Its nettles on thy tomb,

And even Christian bosoms

Deny thy memory room;

For lying lips shall torture

Thy mercy into crime,

And the slanderer shall flourish

As the bay-tree for a time.

But where the south-wind lingers

On Carolina's pines,

Or falls the careless sunbeam

Down Georgia's golden mines;

Where now beneath his burthen

The toiling slave is driven;

Where now a tyrant's mockery

Is offered unto Heaven;

Where Mammon hath its altars

Wet o'er with human blood,

And pride and lust debases

The workmanship of God,—

There shall thy praise be spoken,

Redeemed from Falsehood's ban,

When the fetters shall be broken,

And the slave shall be a man!

Joy to thy spirit, brother!

A thousand hearts are warm,

A thousand kindred bosoms

Are baring to the storm.

What though red-handed Violence

With secret Fraud combine?

The wall of fire is round us,

Our Present Help was thine.

Lo, the waking up of nations,

From Slavery's fatal sleep;

The murmur of a Universe,

Deep calling unto Deep!

Joy to thy spirit, brother!

On every wind of heaven

The onward cheer and summons

Of Freedom's voice is given!

Glory to God forever!

Beyond the despot's will

The soul of Freedom liveth

Imperishable still.

The words which thou hast uttered

Are of that soul a part,

And the good seed thou hast scattered

Is springing from the heart.

In the evil days before us,

And the trials yet to come,

In the shadow of the prison,

Or the cruel martyrdom,—

We will think of thee, O brother!

And thy sainted name shall be

In the blessing of the captive,

And the anthem of the free.

1834

LINES

ON THE DEATH OF S. OLIVER TORREY, SECRETARY OF THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN'S ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

Gone before us, O our brother,

To the spirit-land!

Vainly look we for another

In thy place to stand.

Who shall offer youth and beauty

On the wasting shrine

Of a stern and lofty duty,

With a faith like thine?

Oh, thy gentle smile of greeting

Who again shall see?

Who amidst the solemn meeting

Gaze again on thee?

Who when peril gathers o'er us,

Wear so calm a brow?

Who, with evil men before us,

So serene as thou?

Early hath the spoiler found thee,

Brother of our love!

Autumn's faded earth around thee,

And its storms above!

Evermore that turf lie lightly,

And, with future showers,

O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly

Blow the summer flowers

In the locks thy forehead gracing,

Not a silvery streak;

Nor a line of sorrow's tracing

On thy fair young cheek;

Eyes of light and lips of roses,

Such as Hylas wore,—

Over all that curtain closes,

Which shall rise no more!

Will the vigil Love is keeping

Round that grave of thine,

Mournfully, like Jazer weeping

Over Sibmah's vine;

Will the pleasant memories, swelling

Gentle hearts, of thee,

In the spirit's distant dwelling

All unheeded be?

If the spirit ever gazes,

From its journeyings, back;

If the immortal ever traces

O'er its mortal track;

Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us

Sometimes on our way,

And, in hours of sadness, greet us

As a spirit may?

Peace be with thee, O our brother,

In the spirit-land

Vainly look we for another

In thy place to stand.

Unto Truth and Freedom giving

All thy early powers,

Be thy virtues with the living,

And thy spirit ours!

1837.

TO ———,

WITH A COPY OF WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL.

"Get the writings of John Woolman by heart."—Essays of Elia.

Maiden! with the fair brown tresses

Shading o'er thy dreamy eye,

Floating on thy thoughtful forehead

Cloud wreaths of its sky.

Youthful years and maiden beauty,

Joy with them should still abide,—

Instinct take the place of Duty,

Love, not Reason, guide.

Ever in the New rejoicing,

Kindly beckoning back the Old,

Turning, with the gift of Midas,

All things into gold.

And the passing shades of sadness

Wearing even a welcome guise,

As, when some bright lake lies open

To the sunny skies,

Every wing of bird above it,

Every light cloud floating on,

Glitters like that flashing mirror

In the self-same sun.

But upon thy youthful forehead

Something like a shadow lies;

And a serious soul is looking

From thy earnest eyes.

With an early introversion,

Through the forms of outward things,

Seeking for the subtle essence,

And the bidden springs.

Deeper than the gilded surface

Hath thy wakeful vision seen,

Farther than the narrow present

Have thy journeyings been.

Thou hast midst Life's empty noises

Heard the solemn steps of Time,

And the low mysterious voices

Of another clime.

All the mystery of Being

Hath upon thy spirit pressed,—

Thoughts which, like the Deluge wanderer,

Find no place of rest:

That which mystic Plato pondered,

That which Zeno heard with awe,

And the star-rapt Zoroaster

In his night-watch saw.

From the doubt and darkness springing

Of the dim, uncertain Past,

Moving to the dark still shadows

O'er the Future cast,

Early hath Life's mighty question

Thrilled within thy heart of youth,

With a deep and strong beseeching

What and where is Truth?

Hollow creed and ceremonial,

Whence the ancient life hath fled,

Idle faith unknown to action,

Dull and cold and dead.

Oracles, whose wire-worked meanings

Only wake a quiet scorn,—

Not from these thy seeking spirit

Hath its answer drawn.

But, like some tired child at even,

On thy mother Nature's breast,

Thou, methinks, art vainly seeking

Truth, and peace, and rest.

O'er that mother's rugged features

Thou art throwing Fancy's veil,

Light and soft as woven moonbeams,

Beautiful and frail

O'er the rough chart of Existence,

Rocks of sin and wastes of woe,

Soft airs breathe, and green leaves tremble,

And cool fountains flow.

And to thee an answer cometh

From the earth and from the sky,

And to thee the hills and waters

And the stars reply.

But a soul-sufficing answer

Hath no outward origin;

More than Nature's many voices

May be heard within.

Even as the great Augustine

Questioned earth and sea and sky,

And the dusty tomes of learning

And old poesy.

But his earnest spirit needed

More than outward Nature taught;

More than blest the poet's vision

Or the sage's thought.

Only in the gathered silence

Of a calm and waiting frame,

Light and wisdom as from Heaven

To the seeker came.

Not to ease and aimless quiet

Doth that inward answer tend,

But to works of love and duty

As our being's end;

Not to idle dreams and trances,

Length of face, and solemn tone,

But to Faith, in daily striving

And performance shown.

Earnest toil and strong endeavor

Of a spirit which within

Wrestles with familiar evil

And besetting sin;

And without, with tireless vigor,

Steady heart, and weapon strong,

In the power of truth assailing

Every form of wrong.

Guided thus, how passing lovely

Is the track of Woolman's feet!

And his brief and simple record

How serenely sweet!

O'er life's humblest duties throwing

Light the earthling never knew,

Freshening all its dark waste places

As with Hermon's dew.

All which glows in Pascal's pages,

All which sainted Guion sought,

Or the blue-eyed German Rahel

Half-unconscious taught

Beauty, such as Goethe pictured,

Such as Shelley dreamed of, shed

Living warmth and starry brightness

Round that poor man's head.

Not a vain and cold ideal,

Not a poet's dream alone,

But a presence warm and real,

Seen and felt and known.

When the red right-hand of slaughter

Moulders with the steel it swung,

When the name of seer and poet

Dies on Memory's tongue,

All bright thoughts and pure shall gather

Round that meek and suffering one,—

Glorious, like the seer-seen angel

Standing in the sun!

Take the good man's book and ponder

What its pages say to thee;

Blessed as the hand of healing

May its lesson be.

If it only serves to strengthen

Yearnings for a higher good,

For the fount of living waters

And diviner food;

If the pride of human reason

Feels its meek and still rebuke,

Quailing like the eye of Peter

From the Just One's look!

If with readier ear thou heedest

What the Inward Teacher saith,

Listening with a willing spirit

And a childlike faith,—

Thou mayst live to bless the giver,

Who, himself but frail and weak,

Would at least the highest welfare

Of another seek;

And his gift, though poor and lowly

It may seem to other eyes,

Yet may prove an angel holy

In a pilgrim's guise.

1840.

LEGGETT'S MONUMENT.

William Leggett, who died in 1839 at the age of thirty-seven, was the intrepid editor of the New York Evening Post and afterward of The Plain Dealer. His vigorous assault upon the system of slavery brought down upon him the enmity of political defenders of the system.

"Ye build the tombs of the prophets."—Holy Writ.

Yes, pile the marble o'er him! It is well

That ye who mocked him in his long stern strife,

And planted in the pathway of his life

The ploughshares of your hatred hot from hell,

Who clamored down the bold reformer when

He pleaded for his captive fellow-men,

Who spurned him in the market-place, and sought

Within thy walls, St. Tammany, to bind

In party chains the free and honest thought,

The angel utterance of an upright mind,

Well is it now that o'er his grave ye raise

The stony tribute of your tardy praise,

For not alone that pile shall tell to Fame

Of the brave heart beneath, but of the builders' shame!

1841.

TO A FRIEND,

ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE.

How smiled the land of France

Under thy blue eye's glance,

Light-hearted rover

Old walls of chateaux gray,

Towers of an early day,

Which the Three Colors play

Flauntingly over.

Now midst the brilliant train

Thronging the banks of Seine

Now midst the splendor

Of the wild Alpine range,

Waking with change on change

Thoughts in thy young heart strange,

Lovely, and tender.

Vales, soft Elysian,

Like those in the vision

Of Mirza, when, dreaming,

He saw the long hollow dell,

Touched by the prophet's spell,

Into an ocean swell

With its isles teeming.

Cliffs wrapped in snows of years,

Splintering with icy spears

Autumn's blue heaven

Loose rock and frozen slide,

Hung on the mountain-side,

Waiting their hour to glide

Downward, storm-driven!

Rhine-stream, by castle old,

Baron's and robber's hold,

Peacefully flowing;

Sweeping through vineyards green,

Or where the cliffs are seen

O'er the broad wave between

Grim shadows throwing.

Or, where St. Peter's dome

Swells o'er eternal Rome,

Vast, dim, and solemn;

Hymns ever chanting low,

Censers swung to and fro,

Sable stoles sweeping slow

Cornice and column!

Oh, as from each and all

Will there not voices call

Evermore back again?

In the mind's gallery

Wilt thou not always see

Dim phantoms beckon thee

O'er that old track again?

New forms thy presence haunt,

New voices softly chant,

New faces greet thee!

Pilgrims from many a shrine

Hallowed by poet's line,

At memory's magic sign,

Rising to meet thee.

And when such visions come

Unto thy olden home,

Will they not waken

Deep thoughts of Him whose hand

Led thee o'er sea and land

Back to the household band

Whence thou wast taken?

While, at the sunset time,

Swells the cathedral's chime,

Yet, in thy dreaming,

While to thy spirit's eye

Yet the vast mountains lie

Piled in the Switzer's sky,

Icy and gleaming:

Prompter of silent prayer,

Be the wild picture there

In the mind's chamber,

And, through each coming day

Him who, as staff and stay,

Watched o'er thy wandering way,

Freshly remember.

So, when the call shall be

Soon or late unto thee,

As to all given,

Still may that picture live,

All its fair forms survive,

And to thy spirit give

Gladness in Heaven!

1841

LUCY HOOPER.

Lucy Hooper died at Brooklyn, L. I., on the 1st of 8th mo., 1841,

aged twenty-four years.

They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead,

That all of thee we loved and cherished

Has with thy summer roses perished;

And left, as its young beauty fled,

An ashen memory in its stead,

The twilight of a parted day

Whose fading light is cold and vain,

The heart's faint echo of a strain

Of low, sweet music passed away.

That true and loving heart, that gift

Of a mind, earnest, clear, profound,

Bestowing, with a glad unthrift,

Its sunny light on all around,

Affinities which only could

Cleave to the pure, the true, and good;

And sympathies which found no rest,

Save with the loveliest and best.

Of them—of thee—remains there naught

But sorrow in the mourner's breast?

A shadow in the land of thought?

No! Even my weak and trembling faith

Can lift for thee the veil which doubt

And human fear have drawn about

The all-awaiting scene of death.

Even as thou wast I see thee still;

And, save the absence of all ill

And pain and weariness, which here

Summoned the sigh or wrung the tear,

The same as when, two summers back,

Beside our childhood's Merrimac,

I saw thy dark eye wander o'er

Stream, sunny upland, rocky shore,

And heard thy low, soft voice alone

Midst lapse of waters, and the tone

Of pine-leaves by the west-wind blown,

There's not a charm of soul or brow,

Of all we knew and loved in thee,

But lives in holier beauty now,

Baptized in immortality!

Not mine the sad and freezing dream

Of souls that, with their earthly mould,

Cast off the loves and joys of old,

Unbodied, like a pale moonbeam,

As pure, as passionless, and cold;

Nor mine the hope of Indra's son,

Of slumbering in oblivion's rest,

Life's myriads blending into one,

In blank annihilation blest;

Dust-atoms of the infinite,

Sparks scattered from the central light,

And winning back through mortal pain

Their old unconsciousness again.

No! I have friends in Spirit Land,

Not shadows in a shadowy band,

Not others, but themselves are they.

And still I think of them the same

As when the Master's summons came;

Their change,—the holy morn-light breaking

Upon the dream-worn sleeper, waking,—

A change from twilight into day.

They 've laid thee midst the household graves,

Where father, brother, sister lie;

Below thee sweep the dark blue waves,

Above thee bends the summer sky.

Thy own loved church in sadness read

Her solemn ritual o'er thy head,

And blessed and hallowed with her prayer

The turf laid lightly o'er thee there.

That church, whose rites and liturgy,

Sublime and old, were truth to thee,

Undoubted to thy bosom taken,

As symbols of a faith unshaken.

Even I, of simpler views, could feel

The beauty of thy trust and zeal;

And, owning not thy creed, could see

How deep a truth it seemed to thee,

And how thy fervent heart had thrown

O'er all, a coloring of its own,

And kindled up, intense and warm,

A life in every rite and form,

As. when on Chebar's banks of old,

The Hebrew's gorgeous vision rolled,

A spirit filled the vast machine,

A life, "within the wheels" was seen.

Farewell! A little time, and we

Who knew thee well, and loved thee here,

One after one shall follow thee

As pilgrims through the gate of fear,

Which opens on eternity.

Yet shall we cherish not the less

All that is left our hearts meanwhile;

The memory of thy loveliness

Shall round our weary pathway smile,

Like moonlight when the sun has set,

A sweet and tender radiance yet.

Thoughts of thy clear-eyed sense of duty,

Thy generous scorn of all things wrong,

The truth, the strength, the graceful beauty

Which blended in thy song.

All lovely things, by thee beloved,

Shall whisper to our hearts of thee;

These green hills, where thy childhood roved,

Yon river winding to the sea,

The sunset light of autumn eves

Reflecting on the deep, still floods,

Cloud, crimson sky, and trembling leaves

Of rainbow-tinted woods,

These, in our view, shall henceforth take

A tenderer meaning for thy sake;

And all thou lovedst of earth and sky,

Seem sacred to thy memory.

1841.

FOLLEN.

ON READING HIS ESSAY ON THE "FUTURE STATE."

Charles Follen, one of the noblest contributions of Germany to American citizenship, was at an early age driven from his professorship in the University of Jena, and compelled to seek shelter from official prosecution in Switzerland, on account of his liberal political opinions. He became Professor of Civil Law in the University of Basle. The governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia united in demanding his delivery as a political offender; and, in consequence, he left Switzerland, and came to the United States. At the time of the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society he was a Professor in Harvard University, honored for his genius, learning, and estimable character. His love of liberty and hatred of oppression led him to seek an interview with Garrison and express his sympathy with him. Soon after, he attended a meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. An able speech was made by Rev. A. A. Phelps, and a letter of mine addressed to the Secretary of the Society was read. Whereupon he rose and stated that his views were in unison with those of the Society, and that after hearing the speech and the letter, he was ready to join it, and abide the probable consequences of such an unpopular act. He lost by so doing his professorship. He was an able member of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He perished in the ill-fated steamer Lexington, which was burned on its passage from New York, January 13, 1840. The few writings left behind him show him to have been a profound thinker of rare spiritual insight.

Friend of my soul! as with moist eye

I look up from this page of thine,

Is it a dream that thou art nigh,

Thy mild face gazing into mine?

That presence seems before me now,

A placid heaven of sweet moonrise,

When, dew-like, on the earth below

Descends the quiet of the skies.

The calm brow through the parted hair,

The gentle lips which knew no guile,

Softening the blue eye's thoughtful care

With the bland beauty of their smile.

Ah me! at times that last dread scene

Of Frost and Fire and moaning Sea

Will cast its shade of doubt between

The failing eyes of Faith and thee.

Yet, lingering o'er thy charmed page,

Where through the twilight air of earth,

Alike enthusiast and sage,

Prophet and bard, thou gazest forth,

Lifting the Future's solemn veil;

The reaching of a mortal hand

To put aside the cold and pale

Cloud-curtains of the Unseen Land;

Shall these poor elements outlive

The mind whose kingly will, they wrought?

Their gross unconsciousness survive

Thy godlike energy of thought?

In thoughts which answer to my own,

In words which reach my inward ear,

Like whispers from the void Unknown,

I feel thy living presence here.

The waves which lull thy body's rest,

The dust thy pilgrim footsteps trod,

Unwasted, through each change, attest

The fixed economy of God.

Thou livest, Follen! not in vain

Hath thy fine spirit meekly borne

The burthen of Life's cross of pain,

And the thorned crown of suffering worn.

Oh, while Life's solemn mystery glooms

Around us like a dungeon's wall,

Silent earth's pale and crowded tombs,

Silent the heaven which bends o'er all!

While day by day our loved ones glide

In spectral silence, hushed and lone,

To the cold shadows which divide

The living from the dread Unknown;

While even on the closing eye,

And on the lip which moves in vain,

The seals of that stern mystery

Their undiscovered trust retain;

And only midst the gloom of death,

Its mournful doubts and haunting fears,

Two pale, sweet angels, Hope and Faith,

Smile dimly on us through their tears;

'T is something to a heart like mine

To think of thee as living yet;

To feel that such a light as thine

Could not in utter darkness set.

Less dreary seems the untried way

Since thou hast left thy footprints there,

And beams of mournful beauty play

Round the sad Angel's sable hair.

Oh! at this hour when half the sky

Is glorious with its evening light,

And fair broad fields of summer lie

Hung o'er with greenness in my sight;

While through these elm-boughs wet with rain

The sunset's golden walls are seen,

With clover-bloom and yellow grain

And wood-draped hill and stream between;

I long to know if scenes like this

Are hidden from an angel's eyes;

If earth's familiar loveliness

Haunts not thy heaven's serener skies.

For sweetly here upon thee grew

The lesson which that beauty gave,

The ideal of the pure and true

In earth and sky and gliding wave.

And it may be that all which lends

The soul an upward impulse here,

With a diviner beauty blends,

And greets us in a holier sphere.

Through groves where blighting never fell

The humbler flowers of earth may twine;

And simple draughts-from childhood's well

Blend with the angel-tasted wine.

But be the prying vision veiled,

And let the seeking lips be dumb,

Where even seraph eyes have failed

Shall mortal blindness seek to come?

We only know that thou hast gone,

And that the same returnless tide

Which bore thee from us still glides on,

And we who mourn thee with it glide.

On all thou lookest we shall look,

And to our gaze erelong shall turn

That page of God's mysterious book

We so much wish yet dread to learn.

With Him, before whose awful power

Thy spirit bent its trembling knee;

Who, in the silent greeting flower,

And forest leaf, looked out on thee,

We leave thee, with a trust serene,

Which Time, nor Change, nor Death can move,

While with thy childlike faith we lean

On Him whose dearest name is Love!

1842.

TO J. P.

John Pierpont, the eloquent preacher and poet of Boston.

Not as a poor requital of the joy

With which my childhood heard that lay of thine,

Which, like an echo of the song divine

At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy,

Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine,—

Not to the poet, but the man I bring

In friendship's fearless trust my offering

How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt see,

Yet well I know that thou Last deemed with me

Life all too earnest, and its time too short

For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport;

And girded for thy constant strife with wrong,

Like Nehemiah fighting while he wrought

The broken walls of Zion, even thy song

Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought!

1843.

CHALKLEY HALL.

Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Pa., was the residence of Thomas Chalkley, an eminent minister of the Friends' denomination. He was one of the early settlers of the Colony, and his Journal, which was published in 1749, presents a quaint but beautiful picture of a life of unostentatious and simple goodness. He was the master of a merchant vessel, and, in his visits to the west Indies and Great Britain, omitted no opportunity to labor for the highest interests of his fellow-men. During a temporary residence in Philadelphia, in the summer of 1838, the quiet and beautiful scenery around the ancient village of Frankford frequently attracted me from the heat and bustle of the city. I have referred to my youthful acquaintance with his writings in Snow-Bound.

How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze

To him who flies

From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam,

Till far behind him like a hideous dream

The close dark city lies

Here, while the market murmurs, while men throng

The marble floor

Of Mammon's altar, from the crush and din

Of the world's madness let me gather in

My better thoughts once more.

Oh, once again revive, while on my ear

The cry of Gain

And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away,

Ye blessed memories of my early day

Like sere grass wet with rain!

Once more let God's green earth and sunset air

Old feelings waken;

Through weary years of toil and strife and ill,

Oh, let me feel that my good angel still

Hath not his trust forsaken.

And well do time and place befit my mood

Beneath the arms

Of this embracing wood, a good man made

His home, like Abraham resting in the shade

Of Mamre's lonely palms.

Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years,

The virgin soil

Turned from the share he guided, and in rain

And summer sunshine throve the fruits and grain

Which blessed his honest toil.

Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas,

Weary and worn,

He came to meet his children and to bless

The Giver of all good in thankfulness

And praise for his return.

And here his neighbors gathered in to greet

Their friend again,

Safe from the wave and the destroying gales,

Which reap untimely green Bermuda's vales,

And vex the Carib main.

To hear the good man tell of simple truth,

Sown in an hour

Of weakness in some far-off Indian isle,

From the parched bosom of a barren soil,

Raised up in life and power.

How at those gatherings in Barbadian vales,

A tendering love

Came o'er him, like the gentle rain from heaven,

And words of fitness to his lips were given,

And strength as from above.

How the sad captive listened to the Word,

Until his chain

Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit felt

The healing balm of consolation melt

Upon its life-long pain

How the armed warrior sat him down to hear

Of Peace and Truth,

And the proud ruler and his Creole dame,

Jewelled and gorgeous in her beauty came,

And fair and bright-eyed youth.

Oh, far away beneath New England's sky,

Even when a boy,

Following my plough by Merrimac's green shore,

His simple record I have pondered o'er

With deep and quiet joy.

And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm,—

Its woods around,

Its still stream winding on in light and shade,

Its soft, green meadows and its upland glade,—

To me is holy ground.

And dearer far than haunts where Genius keeps

His vigils still;

Than that where Avon's son of song is laid,

Or Vaucluse hallowed by its Petrarch's shade,

Or Virgil's laurelled hill.

To the gray walls of fallen Paraclete,

To Juliet's urn,

Fair Arno and Sorrento's orange-grove,

Where Tasso sang, let young Romance and Love

Like brother pilgrims turn.

But here a deeper and serener charm

To all is given;

And blessed memories of the faithful dead

O'er wood and vale and meadow-stream have shed

The holy hues of Heaven!

1843.

GONE

Another hand is beckoning us,

Another call is given;

And glows once more with Angel-steps

The path which reaches Heaven.

Our young and gentle friend, whose smile

Made brighter summer hours,

Amid the frosts of autumn time

Has left us with the flowers.

No paling of the cheek of bloom

Forewarned us of decay;

No shadow from the Silent Land

Fell round our sister's way.

The light of her young life went down,

As sinks behind the hill

The glory of a setting star,

Clear, suddenly, and still.

As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed

Eternal as the sky;

And like the brook's low song, her voice,—

A sound which could not die.

And half we deemed she needed not

The changing of her sphere,

To give to Heaven a Shining One,

Who walked an Angel here.

The blessing of her quiet life

Fell on us like the dew;

And good thoughts where her footsteps pressed

Like fairy blossoms grew.

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds

Were in her very look;

We read her face, as one who reads

A true and holy book,

The measure of a blessed hymn,

To which our hearts could move;

The breathing of an inward psalm,

A canticle of love.

We miss her in the place of prayer,

And by the hearth-fire's light;

We pause beside her door to hear

Once more her sweet "Good-night!"

There seems a shadow on the day,

Her smile no longer cheers;

A dimness on the stars of night,

Like eyes that look through tears.

Alone unto our Father's will

One thought hath reconciled;

That He whose love exceedeth ours

Hath taken home His child.

Fold her, O Father! in Thine arms,

And let her henceforth be

A messenger of love between

Our human hearts and Thee.

Still let her mild rebuking stand

Between us and the wrong,

And her dear memory serve to make

Our faith in Goodness strong.

And grant that she who, trembling, here

Distrusted all her powers,

May welcome to her holier home

The well-beloved of ours.

1845.

TO RONGE.

This was written after reading the powerful and manly protest of Johannes Ronge against the "pious fraud" of the Bishop of Treves. The bold movement of the young Catholic priest of Prussian Silesia seemed to me full of promise to the cause of political as well as religious liberty in Europe. That it failed was due partly to the faults of the reformer, but mainly to the disagreement of the Liberals of Germany upon a matter of dogma, which prevented them from unity of action. Rouge was born in Silesia in 1813 and died in October, 1887. His autobiography was translated into English and published in London in 1846.

Strike home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root

Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel.

Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then

Put nerve into thy task. Let other men

Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit

The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal.

Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy blows

Fall heavy as the Suabian's iron hand,

On crown or crosier, which shall interpose

Between thee and the weal of Fatherland.

Leave creeds to closet idlers. First of all,

Shake thou all German dream-land with the fall

Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk

Was spared of old by Erfurt's stalwart monk.

Fight not with ghosts and shadows. Let us hear

The snap of chain-links. Let our gladdened ear

Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as the light

Follows thy axe-stroke, through his cell of night.

Be faithful to both worlds; nor think to feed

Earth's starving millions with the husks of creed.

Servant of Him whose mission high and holy

Was to the wronged, the sorrowing, and the lowly,

Thrust not his Eden promise from our sphere,

Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's span;

Like him of Patmos, see it, now and here,

The New Jerusalem comes down to man

Be warned by Luther's error. Nor like him,

When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb

The rusted chain of ages, help to bind

His hands for whom thou claim'st the freedom of

the mind

1846.

CHANNING.

The last time I saw Dr. Channing was in the summer of 1841, when, in company with my English friend, Joseph Sturge, so well known for his philanthropic labors and liberal political opinions, I visited him in his summer residence in Rhode Island. In recalling the impressions of that visit, it can scarcely be necessary to say, that I have no reference to the peculiar religious opinions of a man whose life, beautifully and truly manifested above the atmosphere of sect, is now the world's common legacy.

Not vainly did old poets tell,

Nor vainly did old genius paint

God's great and crowning miracle,

The hero and the saint!

For even in a faithless day

Can we our sainted ones discern;

And feel, while with them on the way,

Our hearts within us burn.

And thus the common tongue and pen

Which, world-wide, echo Channing's fame,

As one of Heaven's anointed men,

Have sanctified his name.

In vain shall Rome her portals bar,

And shut from him her saintly prize,

Whom, in the world's great calendar,

All men shall canonize.

By Narragansett's sunny bay,

Beneath his green embowering wood,

To me it seems but yesterday

Since at his side I stood.

The slopes lay green with summer rains,

The western wind blew fresh and free,

And glimmered down the orchard lanes

The white surf of the sea.

With us was one, who, calm and true,

Life's highest purpose understood,

And, like his blessed Master, knew

The joy of doing good.

Unlearned, unknown to lettered fame,

Yet on the lips of England's poor

And toiling millions dwelt his name,

With blessings evermore.

Unknown to power or place, yet where

The sun looks o'er the Carib sea,

It blended with the freeman's prayer

And song of jubilee.

He told of England's sin and wrong,

The ills her suffering children know,

The squalor of the city's throng,

The green field's want and woe.

O'er Channing's face the tenderness

Of sympathetic sorrow stole,

Like a still shadow, passionless,

The sorrow of the soul.

But when the generous Briton told

How hearts were answering to his own,

And Freedom's rising murmur rolled

Up to the dull-eared throne,

I saw, methought, a glad surprise

Thrill through that frail and pain-worn frame,

And, kindling in those deep, calm eyes,

A still and earnest flame.

His few, brief words were such as move

The human heart,—the Faith-sown seeds

Which ripen in the soil of love

To high heroic deeds.

No bars of sect or clime were felt,

The Babel strife of tongues had ceased,

And at one common altar knelt

The Quaker and the priest.

And not in vain: with strength renewed,

And zeal refreshed, and hope less dim,

For that brief meeting, each pursued

The path allotted him.

How echoes yet each Western hill

And vale with Channing's dying word!

How are the hearts of freemen still

By that great warning stirred.

The stranger treads his native soil,

And pleads, with zeal unfelt before,

The honest right of British toil,

The claim of England's poor.

Before him time-wrought barriers fall,

Old fears subside, old hatreds melt,

And, stretching o'er the sea's blue wall,

The Saxon greets the Celt.

The yeoman on the Scottish lines,

The Sheffield grinder, worn and grim,

The delver in the Cornwall mines,

Look up with hope to him.

Swart smiters of the glowing steel,

Dark feeders of the forge's flame,

Pale watchers at the loom and wheel,

Repeat his honored name.

And thus the influence of that hour

Of converse on Rhode Island's strand

Lives in the calm, resistless power

Which moves our fatherland.

God blesses still the generous thought,

And still the fitting word He speeds

And Truth, at His requiring taught,

He quickens into deeds.

Where is the victory of the grave?

What dust upon the spirit lies?

God keeps the sacred life he gave,—

The prophet never dies!

1844.

TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER.

Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of the British Complete Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 1845. She was the colleague, counsellor, and ever-ready helpmate of her brother in all his vast designs of beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot says of her: "Never, perhaps, were the active and passive virtues of the human character more harmoniously and beautifully blended than in this excellent woman."

Thine is a grief, the depth of which another

May never know;

Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken brother!

To thee I go.

I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding

Thy hand in mine;

With even the weakness of my soul upholding

The strength of thine.

I never knew, like thee, the dear departed;

I stood not by

When, in calm trust, the pure and tranquil-hearted

Lay down to die.

And on thy ears my words of weak condoling

Must vainly fall

The funeral bell which in thy heart is tolling,

Sounds over all!

I will not mock thee with the poor world's common

And heartless phrase,

Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman

With idle praise.

With silence only as their benediction,

God's angels come

Where, in the shadow of a great affliction,

The soul sits dumb!

Yet, would I say what thy own heart approveth

Our Father's will,

Calling to Him the dear one whom He loveth,

Is mercy still.

Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel

Hath evil wrought

Her funeral anthem is a glad evangel,—

The good die not!

God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly

What He hath given;

They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly

As in His heaven.

And she is with thee; in thy path of trial

She walketh yet;

Still with the baptism of thy self-denial

Her locks are wet.

Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest

Lie white in view

She lives and loves thee, and the God thou servest

To both is true.

Thrust in thy sickle! England's toilworn peasants

Thy call abide;

And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy presence,

Shall glean beside!

1845.

DANIEL WHEELER

Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of Friends, who had labored in the cause of his Divine Master in Great Britain, Russia, and the islands of the Pacific, died in New York in the spring of 1840, while on a religious visit to this country.

O Dearly loved!

And worthy of our love! No more

Thy aged form shall rise before

The bushed and waiting worshiper,

In meek obedience utterance giving

To words of truth, so fresh and living,

That, even to the inward sense,

They bore unquestioned evidence

Of an anointed Messenger!

Or, bowing down thy silver hair

In reverent awfulness of prayer,

The world, its time and sense, shut out

The brightness of Faith's holy trance

Gathered upon thy countenance,

As if each lingering cloud of doubt,

The cold, dark shadows resting here

In Time's unluminous atmosphere,

Were lifted by an angel's hand,

And through them on thy spiritual eye

Shone down the blessedness on high,

The glory of the Better Land!

The oak has fallen!

While, meet for no good work, the vine

May yet its worthless branches twine,

Who knoweth not that with thee fell

A great man in our Israel?

Fallen, while thy loins were girded still,

Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet,

And in thy hand retaining yet

The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell

Unharmed and safe, where, wild and free,

Across the Neva's cold morass

The breezes from the Frozen Sea

With winter's arrowy keenness pass;

Or where the unwarning tropic gale

Smote to the waves thy tattered sail,

Or where the noon-hour's fervid heat

Against Tahiti's mountains beat;

The same mysterious Hand which gave

Deliverance upon land and wave,

Tempered for thee the blasts which blew

Ladaga's frozen surface o'er,

And blessed for thee the baleful dew

Of evening upon Eimeo's shore,

Beneath this sunny heaven of ours,

Midst our soft airs and opening flowers

Hath given thee a grave!

His will be done,

Who seeth not as man, whose way

Is not as ours! 'T is well with thee!

Nor anxious doubt nor dark dismay

Disquieted thy closing day,

But, evermore, thy soul could say,

"My Father careth still for me!"

Called from thy hearth and home,—from her,

The last bud on thy household tree,

The last dear one to minister

In duty and in love to thee,

From all which nature holdeth dear,

Feeble with years and worn with pain,

To seek our distant land again,

Bound in the spirit, yet unknowing

The things which should befall thee here,

Whether for labor or for death,

In childlike trust serenely going

To that last trial of thy faith!

Oh, far away,

Where never shines our Northern star

On that dark waste which Balboa saw

From Darien's mountains stretching far,

So strange, heaven-broad, and lone, that there,

With forehead to its damp wind bare,

He bent his mailed knee in awe;

In many an isle whose coral feet

The surges of that ocean beat,

In thy palm shadows, Oahu,

And Honolulu's silver bay,

Amidst Owyhee's hills of blue,

And taro-plains of Tooboonai,

Are gentle hearts, which long shall be

Sad as our own at thought of thee,

Worn sowers of Truth's holy seed,

Whose souls in weariness and need

Were strengthened and refreshed by thine.

For blessed by our Father's hand

Was thy deep love and tender care,

Thy ministry and fervent prayer,—

Grateful as Eshcol's clustered vine

To Israel in a weary land.

And they who drew

By thousands round thee, in the hour

Of prayerful waiting, hushed and deep,

That He who bade the islands keep

Silence before Him, might renew

Their strength with His unslumbering power,

They too shall mourn that thou art gone,

That nevermore thy aged lip

Shall soothe the weak, the erring warn,

Of those who first, rejoicing, heard

Through thee the Gospel's glorious word,—

Seals of thy true apostleship.

And, if the brightest diadem,

Whose gems of glory purely burn

Around the ransomed ones in bliss,

Be evermore reserved for them

Who here, through toil and sorrow, turn

Many to righteousness,

May we not think of thee as wearing

That star-like crown of light, and bearing,

Amidst Heaven's white and blissful band,

Th' unfading palm-branch in thy hand;

And joining with a seraph's tongue

In that new song the elders sung,

Ascribing to its blessed Giver

Thanksgiving, love, and praise forever!

Farewell!

And though the ways of Zion mourn

When her strong ones are called away,

Who like thyself have calmly borne

The heat and burden of the day,

Yet He who slumbereth not nor sleepeth

His ancient watch around us keepeth;

Still, sent from His creating hand,

New witnesses for Truth shall stand,

New instruments to sound abroad

The Gospel of a risen Lord;

To gather to the fold once more

The desolate and gone astray,

The scattered of a cloudy day,

And Zion's broken walls restore;

And, through the travail and the toil

Of true obedience, minister

Beauty for ashes, and the oil

Of joy for mourning, unto her!

So shall her holy bounds increase

With walls of praise and gates of peace

So shall the Vine, which martyr tears

And blood sustained in other years,

With fresher life be clothed upon;

And to the world in beauty show

Like the rose-plant of Jericho,

And glorious as Lebanon!

1847

TO FREDRIKA BREMER.

It is proper to say that these lines are the joint impromptus of my

sister and myself. They are inserted here as an expression of our

admiration of the gifted stranger whom we have since learned to

love as a friend.

Seeress of the misty Norland,

Daughter of the Vikings bold,

Welcome to the sunny Vineland,

Which thy fathers sought of old!

Soft as flow of Siija's waters,

When the moon of summer shines,

Strong as Winter from his mountains

Roaring through the sleeted pines.

Heart and ear, we long have listened

To thy saga, rune, and song;

As a household joy and presence

We have known and loved thee long.

By the mansion's marble mantel,

Round the log-walled cabin's hearth,

Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies

Meet and mingle with our mirth.

And o'er weary spirits keeping

Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill,

Shine they like thy sun of summer

Over midnight vale and hill.

We alone to thee are strangers,

Thou our friend and teacher art;

Come, and know us as we know thee;

Let us meet thee heart to heart!

To our homes and household altars

We, in turn, thy steps would lead,

As thy loving hand has led us

O'er the threshold of the Swede.

1849.

TO AVIS KEENE

ON RECEIVING A BASKET OF SEA-MOSSES.

Thanks for thy gift

Of ocean flowers,

Born where the golden drift

Of the slant sunshine falls

Down the green, tremulous walls

Of water, to the cool, still coral bowers,

Where, under rainbows of perpetual showers,

God's gardens of the deep

His patient angels keep;

Gladdening the dim, strange solitude

With fairest forms and hues, and thus

Forever teaching us

The lesson which the many-colored skies,

The flowers, and leaves, and painted butterflies,

The deer's branched antlers, the gay bird that flings

The tropic sunshine from its golden wings,

The brightness of the human countenance,

Its play of smiles, the magic of a glance,

Forevermore repeat,

In varied tones and sweet,

That beauty, in and of itself, is good.

O kind and generous friend, o'er whom

The sunset hues of Time are cast,

Painting, upon the overpast

And scattered clouds of noonday sorrow

The promise of a fairer morrow,

An earnest of the better life to come;

The binding of the spirit broken,

The warning to the erring spoken,

The comfort of the sad,

The eye to see, the hand to cull

Of common things the beautiful,

The absent heart made glad

By simple gift or graceful token

Of love it needs as daily food,

All own one Source, and all are good

Hence, tracking sunny cove and reach,

Where spent waves glimmer up the beach,

And toss their gifts of weed and shell

From foamy curve and combing swell,

No unbefitting task was thine

To weave these flowers so soft and fair

In unison with His design

Who loveth beauty everywhere;

And makes in every zone and clime,

In ocean and in upper air,

All things beautiful in their time.

For not alone in tones of awe and power

He speaks to Inan;

The cloudy horror of the thunder-shower

His rainbows span;

And where the caravan

Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in air

The crane-flock leaves, no trace of passage there,

He gives the weary eye

The palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon hours,

And on its branches dry

Calls out the acacia's flowers;

And where the dark shaft pierces down

Beneath the mountain roots,

Seen by the miner's lamp alone,

The star-like crystal shoots;

So, where, the winds and waves below,

The coral-branched gardens grow,

His climbing weeds and mosses show,

Like foliage, on each stony bough,

Of varied hues more strangely gay

Than forest leaves in autumn's day;—

Thus evermore,

On sky, and wave, and shore,

An all-pervading beauty seems to say

God's love and power are one; and they,

Who, like the thunder of a sultry day,

Smite to restore,

And they, who, like the gentle wind, uplift

The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and drift

Their perfume on the air,

Alike may serve Him, each, with their own gift,

Making their lives a prayer!

1850

THE HILL-TOP

The burly driver at my side,

We slowly climbed the hill,

Whose summit, in the hot noontide,

Seemed rising, rising still.

At last, our short noon-shadows bid

The top-stone, bare and brown,

From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid,

The rough mass slanted down.

I felt the cool breath of the North;

Between me and the sun,

O'er deep, still lake, and ridgy earth,

I saw the cloud-shades run.

Before me, stretched for glistening miles,

Lay mountain-girdled Squam;

Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles

Upon its bosom swam.

And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm,

Far as the eye could roam,

Dark billows of an earthquake storm

Beflecked with clouds like foam,

Their vales in misty shadow deep,

Their rugged peaks in shine,

I saw the mountain ranges sweep

The horizon's northern line.

There towered Chocorua's peak; and west,

Moosehillock's woods were seem,

With many a nameless slide-scarred crest

And pine-dark gorge between.

Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud,

The great Notch mountains shone,

Watched over by the solemn-browed

And awful face of stone!

"A good look-off!" the driver spake;

"About this time, last year,

I drove a party to the Lake,

And stopped, at evening, here.

'T was duskish down below; but all

These hills stood in the sun,

Till, dipped behind yon purple wall,

He left them, one by one.

"A lady, who, from Thornton hill,

Had held her place outside,

And, as a pleasant woman will,

Had cheered the long, dull ride,

Besought me, with so sweet a smile,

That—though I hate delays—

I could not choose but rest awhile,—

(These women have such ways!)

"On yonder mossy ledge she sat,

Her sketch upon her knees,

A stray brown lock beneath her hat

Unrolling in the breeze;

Her sweet face, in the sunset light

Upraised and glorified,—

I never saw a prettier sight

In all my mountain ride.

"As good as fair; it seemed her joy

To comfort and to give;

My poor, sick wife, and cripple boy,

Will bless her while they live!"

The tremor in the driver's tone

His manhood did not shame

"I dare say, sir, you may have known"—

He named a well-known name.

Then sank the pyramidal mounds,

The blue lake fled away;

For mountain-scope a parlor's bounds,

A lighted hearth for day!

From lonely years and weary miles

The shadows fell apart;

Kind voices cheered, sweet human smiles

Shone warm into my heart.

We journeyed on; but earth and sky

Had power to charm no more;

Still dreamed my inward-turning eye

The dream of memory o'er.

Ah! human kindness, human love,—

To few who seek denied;

Too late we learn to prize above

The whole round world beside!

1850

ELLIOTT.

Ebenezer Elliott was to the artisans of England what Burns was to the peasantry of Scotland. His Corn-law Rhymes contributed not a little to that overwhelming tide of popular opinion and feeling which resulted in the repeal of the tax on bread. Well has the eloquent author of The Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain said of him, "Not corn-law repealers alone, but all Britons who moisten their scanty bread with the sweat of the brow, are largely indebted to his inspiring lay, for the mighty bound which the laboring mind of England has taken in our day."

Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play

No trick of priestcraft here!

Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay

A hand on Elliott's bier?

Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust,

Beneath his feet he trod.

He knew the locust swarm that cursed

The harvest-fields of God.

On these pale lips, the smothered thought

Which England's millions feel,

A fierce and fearful splendor caught,

As from his forge the steel.

Strong-armed as Thor, a shower of fire

His smitten anvil flung;

God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire,

He gave them all a tongue!

Then let the poor man's horny hands

Bear up the mighty dead,

And labor's swart and stalwart bands

Behind as mourners tread.

Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds,

Leave rank its minster floor;

Give England's green and daisied grounds

The poet of the poor!

Lay down upon his Sheaf's green verge

That brave old heart of oak,

With fitting dirge from sounding forge,

And pall of furnace smoke!

Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds,

And axe and sledge are swung,

And, timing to their stormy sounds,

His stormy lays are sung.

There let the peasant's step be heard,

The grinder chant his rhyme,

Nor patron's praise nor dainty word

Befits the man or time.

No soft lament nor dreamer's sigh

For him whose words were bread;

The Runic rhyme and spell whereby

The foodless poor were fed!

Pile up the tombs of rank and pride,

O England, as thou wilt!

With pomp to nameless worth denied,

Emblazon titled guilt!

No part or lot in these we claim;

But, o'er the sounding wave,

A common right to Elliott's name,

A freehold in his grave!

1850

ICHABOD

This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and forecast of evil consequences which I felt on reading the seventh of March speech of Daniel Webster in support of the "compromise," and the Fugitive Slave Law. No partisan or personal enmity dictated it. On the contrary my admiration of the splendid personality and intellectual power of the great Senator was never stronger than when I laid down his speech, and, in one of the saddest moments of my life, penned my protest. I saw, as I wrote, with painful clearness its sure results,—the Slave Power arrogant and defiant, strengthened and encouraged to carry out its scheme for the extension of its baleful system, or the dissolution of the Union, the guaranties of personal liberty in the free States broken down, and the whole country made the hunting-ground of slave-catchers. In the horror of such a vision, so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of stern and sorrowful rebuke. But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity of judgment. Years after, in The Lost Occasion I gave utterance to an almost universal regret that the great statesman did not live to see the flag which he loved trampled under the feet of Slavery, and, in view of this desecration, make his last days glorious in defence of "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable."

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn

Which once he wore!

The glory from his gray hairs gone

Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath

A snare for all;

And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,

Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,

When he who might

Have lighted up and led his age,

Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark

A bright soul driven,

Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,

From hope and heaven!

Let not the land once proud of him

Insult him now,

Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,

Dishonored brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead,

From sea to lake,

A long lament, as for the dead,

In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honored, naught

Save power remains;

A fallen angel's pride of thought,

Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes

The soul has fled

When faith is lost, when honor dies,

The man is dead!

Then, pay the reverence of old days

To his dead fame;

Walk backward, with averted gaze,

And hide the shame!

1850

THE LOST OCCASION.

Some die too late and some too soon,

At early morning, heat of noon,

Or the chill evening twilight. Thou,

Whom the rich heavens did so endow

With eyes of power and Jove's own brow,

With all the massive strength that fills

Thy home-horizon's granite hills,

With rarest gifts of heart and head

From manliest stock inherited,

New England's stateliest type of man,

In port and speech Olympian;

Whom no one met, at first, but took

A second awed and wondering look

(As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece

On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece);

Whose words in simplest homespun clad,

The Saxon strength of Caedmon's had,

With power reserved at need to reach

The Roman forum's loftiest speech,

Sweet with persuasion, eloquent

In passion, cool in argument,

Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes

As fell the Norse god's hammer blows,

Crushing as if with Talus' flail

Through Error's logic-woven mail,

And failing only when they tried

The adamant of the righteous side,—

Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved

Of old friends, by the new deceived,

Too soon for us, too soon for thee,

Beside thy lonely Northern sea,

Where long and low the marsh-lands spread,

Laid wearily down thy August head.

Thou shouldst have lived to feel below

Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow;

The late-sprung mine that underlaid

Thy sad concessions vainly made.

Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall

The star-flag of the Union fall,

And armed rebellion pressing on

The broken lines of Washington!

No stronger voice than thine had then

Called out the utmost might of men,

To make the Union's charter free

And strengthen law by liberty.

How had that stern arbitrament

To thy gray age youth's vigor lent,

Shaming ambition's paltry prize

Before thy disillusioned eyes;

Breaking the spell about thee wound

Like the green withes that Samson bound;

Redeeming in one effort grand,

Thyself and thy imperilled land!

Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee,

O sleeper by the Northern sea,

The gates of opportunity!

God fills the gaps of human need,

Each crisis brings its word and deed.

Wise men and strong we did not lack;

But still, with memory turning back,

In the dark hours we thought of thee,

And thy lone grave beside the sea.

Above that grave the east winds blow,

And from the marsh-lands drifting slow

The sea-fog comes, with evermore

The wave-wash of a lonely shore,

And sea-bird's melancholy cry,

As Nature fain would typify

The sadness of a closing scene,

The loss of that which should have been.

But, where thy native mountains bare

Their foreheads to diviner air,

Fit emblem of enduring fame,

One lofty summit keeps thy name.

For thee the cosmic forces did

The rearing of that pyramid,

The prescient ages shaping with

Fire, flood, and frost thy monolith.

Sunrise and sunset lay thereon

With hands of light their benison,

The stars of midnight pause to set

Their jewels in its coronet.

And evermore that mountain mass

Seems climbing from the shadowy pass

To light, as if to manifest

Thy nobler self, thy life at best!

1880

WORDSWORTH

WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF HIS MEMOIRS.

Dear friends, who read the world aright,

And in its common forms discern

A beauty and a harmony

The many never learn!

Kindred in soul of him who found

In simple flower and leaf and stone

The impulse of the sweetest lays

Our Saxon tongue has known,—

Accept this record of a life

As sweet and pure, as calm and good,

As a long day of blandest June

In green field and in wood.

How welcome to our ears, long pained

By strife of sect and party noise,

The brook-like murmur of his song

Of nature's simple joys!

The violet' by its mossy stone,

The primrose by the river's brim,

And chance-sown daffodil, have found

Immortal life through him.

The sunrise on his breezy lake,

The rosy tints his sunset brought,

World-seen, are gladdening all the vales

And mountain-peaks of thought.

Art builds on sand; the works of pride

And human passion change and fall;

But that which shares the life of God

With Him surviveth all.

1851.

TO ———

LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION.

Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom,

In hieroglyph of bud and bloom,

Her mysteries are told;

Who, wise in lore of wood and mead,

The seasons' pictured scrolls can read,

In lessons manifold!

Thanks for the courtesy, and gay

Good-humor, which on Washing Day

Our ill-timed visit bore;

Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke

The morning dreams of Artichoke,

Along his wooded shore!

Varied as varying Nature's ways,

Sprites of the river, woodland fays,

Or mountain nymphs, ye seem;

Free-limbed Dianas on the green,

Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine,

Upon your favorite stream.

The forms of which the poets told,

The fair benignities of old,

Were doubtless such as you;

What more than Artichoke the rill

Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill

Arcadia's mountain-view?

No sweeter bowers the bee delayed,

In wild Hymettus' scented shade,

Than those you dwell among;

Snow-flowered azaleas, intertwined

With roses, over banks inclined

With trembling harebells hung!

A charmed life unknown to death,

Immortal freshness Nature hath;

Her fabled fount and glen

Are now and here: Dodona's shrine

Still murmurs in the wind-swept pine,—

All is that e'er hath been.

The Beauty which old Greece or Rome

Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home;

We need but eye and ear

In all our daily walks to trace

The outlines of incarnate grace,

The hymns of gods to hear!

1851

IN PEACE.

A track of moonlight on a quiet lake,

Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore

Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make

Such harmonies as keep the woods awake,

And listening all night long for their sweet sake

A green-waved slope of meadow, hovered o'er

By angel-troops of lilies, swaying light

On viewless stems, with folded wings of white;

A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far seen

Where the low westering day, with gold and green,

Purple and amber, softly blended, fills

The wooded vales, and melts among the hills;

A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest

On the calm bosom of a stormless sea,

Bearing alike upon its placid breast,

With earthly flowers and heavenly' stars impressed,

The hues of time and of eternity

Such are the pictures which the thought of thee,

O friend, awakeneth,—charming the keen pain

Of thy departure, and our sense of loss

Requiting with the fullness of thy gain.

Lo! on the quiet grave thy life-borne cross,

Dropped only at its side, methinks doth shine,

Of thy beatitude the radiant sign!

No sob of grief, no wild lament be there,

To break the Sabbath of the holy air;

But, in their stead, the silent-breathing prayer

Of hearts still waiting for a rest like thine.

O spirit redeemed! Forgive us, if henceforth,

With sweet and pure similitudes of earth,

We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green,

Of love's inheritance a priceless part,

Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is seen

To paint, forgetful of the tricks of art,

With pencil dipped alone in colors of the heart.

1851.

BENEDICITE.

God's love and peace be with thee, where

Soe'er this soft autumnal air

Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair.

Whether through city casements comes

Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms,

Or, out among the woodland blooms,

It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face,

Imparting, in its glad embrace,

Beauty to beauty, grace to grace!

Fair Nature's book together read,

The old wood-paths that knew our tread,

The maple shadows overhead,—

The hills we climbed, the river seen

By gleams along its deep ravine,—

All keep thy memory fresh and green.

Where'er I look, where'er I stray,

Thy thought goes with me on my way,

And hence the prayer I breathe to-day;

O'er lapse of time and change of scene,

The weary waste which lies between

Thyself and me, my heart I lean.

Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, nor

The half-unconscious power to draw

All hearts to thine by Love's sweet law.

With these good gifts of God is cast

Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast

To hold the blessed angels fast.

If, then, a fervent wish for thee

The gracious heavens will heed from me,

What should, dear heart, its burden be?

The sighing of a shaken reed,—

What can I more than meekly plead

The greatness of our common need?

God's love,—unchanging, pure, and true,—

The Paraclete white-shining through

His peace,—the fall of Hermon's dew!

With such a prayer, on this sweet day,

As thou mayst hear and I may say,

I greet thee, dearest, far away!

1851.

KOSSUTH

It can scarcely be necessary to say that there are elements in the character and passages in the history of the great Hungarian statesman and orator, which necessarily command the admiration of those, even, who believe that no political revolution was ever worth the price of human blood.

Type of two mighty continents!—combining

The strength of Europe with the warmth and glow

Of Asian song and prophecy,—the shining

Of Orient splendors over Northern snow!

Who shall receive him? Who, unblushing, speak

Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break

The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off

At the same blow the fetters of the serf,

Rearing the altar of his Fatherland

On the firm base of freedom, and thereby

Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand,

Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie!

Who shall be Freedom's mouthpiece? Who shall give

Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive?

Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying,

Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain

The swarthy Kossuths of our land again!

Not he whose utterance now from lips designed

The bugle-march of Liberty to wind,

And call her hosts beneath the breaking light,

The keen reveille of her morn of fight,

Is but the hoarse note of the blood-hound's baying,

The wolf's long howl behind the bondman's flight!

Oh for the tongue of him who lies at rest

In Quincy's shade of patrimonial trees,

Last of the Puritan tribunes and the best,

To lend a voice to Freedom's sympathies,

And hail the coming of the noblest guest

The Old World's wrong has given the New World of the West!

1851.

TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER.

AN EPISTLE NOT AFTER THE MANNER OF HORACE

These lines were addressed to my worthy friend Joshua Coffin, teacher, historian, and antiquarian. He was one of the twelve persons who with William Lloyd Garrison formed the first anti-slavery society in New England.

Old friend, kind friend! lightly down

Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown!

Never be thy shadow less,

Never fail thy cheerfulness;

Care, that kills the cat, may, plough

Wrinkles in the miser's brow,

Deepen envy's spiteful frown,

Draw the mouths of bigots down,

Plague ambition's dream, and sit

Heavy on the hypocrite,

Haunt the rich man's door, and ride

In the gilded coach of pride;—

Let the fiend pass!—what can he

Find to do with such as thee?

Seldom comes that evil guest

Where the conscience lies at rest,

And brown health and quiet wit

Smiling on the threshold sit.

I, the urchin unto whom,

In that smoked and dingy room,

Where the district gave thee rule

O'er its ragged winter school,

Thou didst teach the mysteries

Of those weary A B C's,—

Where, to fill the every pause

Of thy wise and learned saws,

Through the cracked and crazy wall

Came the cradle-rock and squall,

And the goodman's voice, at strife

With his shrill and tipsy wife,

Luring us by stories old,

With a comic unction told,

More than by the eloquence

Of terse birchen arguments

(Doubtful gain, I fear), to look

With complacence on a book!—

Where the genial pedagogue

Half forgot his rogues to flog,

Citing tale or apologue,

Wise and merry in its drift

As was Phaedrus' twofold gift,

Had the little rebels known it,

Risum et prudentiam monet!

I,—the man of middle years,

In whose sable locks appears

Many a warning fleck of gray,—

Looking back to that far day,

And thy primal lessons, feel

Grateful smiles my lips unseal,

As, remembering thee, I blend

Olden teacher, present friend,

Wise with antiquarian search,

In the scrolls of State and Church

Named on history's title-page,

Parish-clerk and justice sage;

For the ferule's wholesome awe

Wielding now the sword of law.

Threshing Time's neglected sheaves,

Gathering up the scattered leaves

Which the wrinkled sibyl cast

Careless from her as she passed,—

Twofold citizen art thou,

Freeman of the past and now.

He who bore thy name of old

Midway in the heavens did hold

Over Gibeon moon and sun;

Thou hast bidden them backward run;

Of to-day the present ray

Flinging over yesterday!

Let the busy ones deride

What I deem of right thy pride

Let the fools their treadmills grind,

Look not forward nor behind,

Shuffle in and wriggle out,

Veer with every breeze about,

Turning like a windmill sail,

Or a dog that seeks his tail;

Let them laugh to see thee fast

Tabernacled in the Past,

Working out with eye and lip,

Riddles of old penmanship,

Patient as Belzoni there

Sorting out, with loving care,

Mummies of dead questions stripped

From their sevenfold manuscript.

Dabbling, in their noisy way,

In the puddles of to-day,

Little know they of that vast

Solemn ocean of the past,

On whose margin, wreck-bespread,

Thou art walking with the dead,

Questioning the stranded years,

Waking smiles, by turns, and tears,

As thou callest up again

Shapes the dust has long o'erlain,—

Fair-haired woman, bearded man,

Cavalier and Puritan;

In an age whose eager view

Seeks but present things, and new,

Mad for party, sect and gold,

Teaching reverence for the old.

On that shore, with fowler's tact,

Coolly bagging fact on fact,

Naught amiss to thee can float,

Tale, or song, or anecdote;

Village gossip, centuries old,

Scandals by our grandams told,

What the pilgrim's table spread,

Where he lived, and whom he wed,

Long-drawn bill of wine and beer

For his ordination cheer,

Or the flip that wellnigh made

Glad his funeral cavalcade;

Weary prose, and poet's lines,

Flavored by their age, like wines,

Eulogistic of some quaint,

Doubtful, puritanic saint;

Lays that quickened husking jigs,

Jests that shook grave periwigs,

When the parson had his jokes

And his glass, like other folks;

Sermons that, for mortal hours,

Taxed our fathers' vital powers,

As the long nineteenthlies poured

Downward from the sounding-board,

And, for fire of Pentecost,

Touched their beards December's frost.

Time is hastening on, and we

What our fathers are shall be,—

Shadow-shapes of memory!

Joined to that vast multitude

Where the great are but the good,

And the mind of strength shall prove

Weaker than the heart of love;

Pride of graybeard wisdom less

Than the infant's guilelessness,

And his song of sorrow more

Than the crown the Psalmist wore

Who shall then, with pious zeal,

At our moss-grown thresholds kneel,

From a stained and stony page

Reading to a careless age,

With a patient eye like thine,

Prosing tale and limping line,

Names and words the hoary rime

Of the Past has made sublime?

Who shall work for us as well

The antiquarian's miracle?

Who to seeming life recall

Teacher grave and pupil small?

Who shall give to thee and me

Freeholds in futurity?

Well, whatever lot be mine,

Long and happy days be thine,

Ere thy full and honored age

Dates of time its latest page!

Squire for master, State for school,

Wisely lenient, live and rule;

Over grown-up knave and rogue

Play the watchful pedagogue;

Or, while pleasure smiles on duty,

At the call of youth and beauty,

Speak for them the spell of law

Which shall bar and bolt withdraw,

And the flaming sword remove

From the Paradise of Love.

Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore

Ancient tome and record o'er;

Still thy week-day lyrics croon,

Pitch in church the Sunday tune,

Showing something, in thy part,

Of the old Puritanic art,

Singer after Sternhold's heart

In thy pew, for many a year,

Homilies from Oldbug hear,

Who to wit like that of South,

And the Syrian's golden mouth,

Doth the homely pathos add

Which the pilgrim preachers had;

Breaking, like a child at play,

Gilded idols of the day,

Cant of knave and pomp of fool

Tossing with his ridicule,

Yet, in earnest or in jest,

Ever keeping truth abreast.

And, when thou art called, at last,

To thy townsmen of the past,

Not as stranger shalt thou come;

Thou shalt find thyself at home

With the little and the big,

Woollen cap and periwig,

Madam in her high-laced ruff,

Goody in her home-made stuff,—

Wise and simple, rich and poor,

Thou hast known them all before!

1851

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONAL POEMS I ***

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Table of Contents

PERSONAL POEMS

CONTENTS

PERSONAL POEMS

A LAMENT

TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS,

LINES

TO ———,

LEGGETT'S MONUMENT.

TO A FRIEND,

LUCY HOOPER.

FOLLEN.

TO J. P.

CHALKLEY HALL.

GONE

TO RONGE.

CHANNING.

TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER.

DANIEL WHEELER

TO FREDRIKA BREMER.

TO AVIS KEENE

THE HILL-TOP

ELLIOTT.

ICHABOD

THE LOST OCCASION.

WORDSWORTH

TO ———

IN PEACE.

BENEDICITE.

KOSSUTH

TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE