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19 Douglas, Norman. Paneros. Some 
 words on Aphrodisiacs and the like. 
 12mo, original boards, leather label. 
 Florence [1930]. $^5.00 
 
 First edition. One of 250 autographed copies. A tine copy 
 but without the jacket and box in which it was issued. 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Getty Research Institute 
 
 https://archive.org/details/panoramaotherpoeOOwhit 
 
THE 
 
 PANORAMA, 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 TICK NOR AND FIELDS. 
 M DCCC LTI. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 
 JOHN G. WHITTIER, 
 
 In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 STBREOTTPSD BT 
 
 HOBART & ROBBINS, 
 
 New Ea^land Type and Stereotype Foundery, 
 BOSTON. 
 
A ! fredome is a nobill thing ! 
 Fredome mayse man to haif liking. 
 Fredome all solace to man giffiis ; 
 He levys at ese that frely levys ! 
 
 A nobil hart may haif nane ese 
 Na ellys nooht that may him plese 
 Gyff Fredome failythe.” 
 
 Archdeacon Barbour. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 pioa 
 
 THE PANORAMA,. 3 
 
 OCCASIONAL POEMS. 
 
 Summer by the Lake-Side,.. 29 
 
 The Hermit op the Thbbaid,.35 
 
 Burns,.41 
 
 William Forster, .47 
 
 Rantoul,.52 
 
 The Dream op Pio Nono,.67 
 
 Tauler, . 61 
 
 Lines, etc.,.65 
 
 The Voices. 67 
 
 The Hero,.72 
 
 Hy Dream,.78 
 
 The Barefoot Boy,.82 
 
 Flowers in Winter,.87 
 
 The Rendition,.91 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FAOS 
 
 Likes, etc.,.93 
 
 The Fruit-Gift,. 96 
 
 A Memory,. 98 
 
 To C. S.,.100 
 
 The Kansas Emigrants,.102 
 
 Song op the Slaves in the Desert,.104 
 
 Lines, etc.,. 108 
 
 The New Exodus,.110 
 
 The Haschish,. 112 
 
 BALLADS. 
 
 Mart Garvin,.117 
 
 Maud Muller.127 
 
 The Banger,.134 
 
THE PANOEAMA. 
 
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THE PANORAMA. 
 
 Through the long hall the shuttered windows shetl 
 A dubious light on every up-turned head, — 
 
 On locks like those of Abs dom the fair, 
 
 On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair, 
 
 ()n blank indifi'erence and on curious stare ; 
 
 On the pale Showman reading from his stage 
 The hieroglyphics of that facial page ; 
 
 Half sad, half scornful, listening to the bruit 
 Of restless cane-tap and impatient foot. 
 
 And the shrill call, across the general din, 
 
 “ Roll up your curtain ! Let the show begin ! 
 
 At length a murmur like the winds that break 
 Into green waves the prairie’s grassy lake. 
 
 Deepened and swelled to music clear and loud. 
 
 And, as the west wind lifts a summer cloud. 
 
4 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 The curtain rose, disclosing wide and far 
 A green land stretching to the evening star, 
 
 Fair rivers, skirted by primeval trees 
 And flowers hummed over by the desert bees. 
 Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness show 
 Fantastic outcrops of the rock below, — 
 
 Tiie slow result of patient Nature’s pains. 
 
 And plastic fingering of her sun and rains, — 
 x\rch, tower, and gate, grotesquely-windowed hall. 
 And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall. 
 
 Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine. 
 Stare through their loop-holes on the travelled Rhine; 
 Suggesting vaguely to the gazer’s mind 
 A fancy, idle as the prairie wind. 
 
 Of the land’s dwellers in an age unguessed — 
 
 The unsung Jotuns of the mystic West. 
 
 Beyond, the prairie’s sea-like swells surpass 
 Tlie Tartar’s marvels of his Land of Grass, 
 
 Vast as the sky against whose sunset shores 
 \Vave after wave the billowy greenness pours ; 
 
 And, onward still, like islands in that main 
 Loom the rough peaks of many a mountain chain, 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 5 
 
 Whence East and West a thousand waters run 
 From Winter lingering under Summer’s sun. 
 
 And, still beyond, long lines of foam and sand 
 Tell where Pacific rolls his waves a-land. 
 
 From many a wide-lapped port and land-locked bay. 
 Opening with thunderous pomp the world’s highway 
 To Indian isles of spice, and marts of far Cathay. 
 
 “ Such,” said the Showman, as the curtain fell, 
 
 “ Is the new Canaan of our Israel — 
 
 The land of promise to the swarming North, 
 
 Which, hive-like, sends its annual surplus forth, 
 
 To the poor Southron on his worn-out soil, 
 
 Scathed by the curses of unnatural toil ; 
 
 To Europe’s exiles seeking home and rest. 
 
 And the lank noinads of the wandering West, 
 
 Who, asking neither, in their love of change 
 And the free bison’s amplitude of range, 
 
 Rear the log hut, for present shelter meant, 
 
 Not future comfort, like an Arab’s tent.” 
 
 Then spake a shrewd on-looker. “ Sir,” said he, 
 
 “ I like your picture, but I fain would see 
 A sketch of what your promised land will be 
 
6 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 When, with electric nerve, and fiery-brained. 
 
 With Nature’s forces to its chariot chained, 
 
 Tlie future grasping, by the past obeyed. 
 
 The twentieth century rounds a new decade.” 
 
 Then said the Showman, sadly: “lie who grieves 
 Over the scattering of the Sibyl’s leaves 
 Unwisely mourns. Suffice it, that we know 
 What needs must ripen from the seed we sow ; 
 
 That present time is but the mould wherein 
 We cast the shapes of holiness and sin. 
 
 A painful watcher of the passing hour. 
 
 Its lust of gold, its strife for place and power ; 
 
 Its lack of manhood, honor, reverence, truth, 
 Wise-thoughted age, and generous-hearted youth ; 
 Nor yet unmindful of each better sign — 
 
 The low, far lights, which on th’ horizon shine, 
 
 Like those which sometimes tremble on the rim 
 Of clouded skies when day is closing dim. 
 
 Flashing athwart the purple spears of rain 
 The hope of sunshine on the hills again : — 
 
 I need no prophet’s word, nor shapes that pass 
 Like clouding shadows o’er a magic glass ; 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 
 For now, as ever, passionless and cold, 
 
 Doth the dread angel of the future hold 
 Evil and good before us, with no voice 
 Ur warning look to guide us in our choice ; 
 
 ^^"ith spectral hands outreaching through the gloom 
 The shadowy contrasts of the coming doom. 
 Transferred from these, it now remains to give 
 The sun and shade of Fate’s alternative.” 
 
 Then, with a burst of music, touching all 
 The keys of thrifty life — the mill-stream’s fall, 
 
 Tlie engine’s pant along its cpiivering rails. 
 
 The anvil’s ring, the measured beat of flails. 
 
 The sweep of scythes, the reaper’s whistled tune. 
 Answering the summons of the bells of noon. 
 
 The woodman’s hail along the river shores. 
 
 The steamboat’s signal, and the dip of oars, —• 
 Slowly the curtain rose from off a land 
 Fair as God’s garden. Broad on either hand 
 The golden wheat-fields glimmered in the sun. 
 
 And the tall maize its yellow tassels spun. 
 
 Smooth highways set with hedge-rows living green. 
 With steepled towns through shaded vistas seen. 
 
8 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 The sclioolliOHse murmuring with its liive-like swarm, 
 The brook-bank whitening in the grist-mill’s storm, 
 The painted farm-house shining through the leaves 
 Of fruited orchards bending at its oaves. 
 
 Where live again, around the Western hearth. 
 
 The homely old-time virtues of the North ; 
 
 AVhere the blithe housewife rises with the day, 
 
 And well-paid labor counts his task a play. 
 
 And, grateful tokens of a Bible free, 
 
 And the free Gospel of Humanity, 
 
 Of diverse sects and differing names the shrines. 
 
 One in their faith, whate’er their outward signs. 
 
 Like vaiying strophes of the same sweet hymn 
 From many a prairie’s swell and river’s brim, 
 
 A thousand church-spires sanctify the air 
 Of the calm Sabbath, with their sign of prayer. 
 
 Like sudden night-fall over bloom and green 
 The curtain dropped : and, momently, between 
 Tlie clank of fetter and the crack of thong. 
 
 Half sob, half laughter, music swept along — 
 
 A strange refrain, whose idle words and low. 
 
 Like drunken mourners, kept the time of woe ; 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 9 
 
 As if the revellers at a masquerade 
 
 Heard in the distance funeral marches played. 
 
 Such music, dashing- all his smiles vfith tears, 
 
 The thoughtful voyager on Ponchartrain hears, 
 Where, through the noonday dusk of wooded shores. 
 The negro boatman, singing to his oars. 
 
 With a wild pathos borrowed of his wrong 
 Redeems the jargon of his senseless song. 
 
 “Look,” said the Showman, sternly, as he rolled 
 Ills curtain upward ; “ Fate’s reverse behold ! ” 
 
 A village straggling in loose disarray 
 Of vulgar newness, premature decay ; 
 
 A tavern, crazy with its whiskey brawls, 
 
 With “ Slaves at Auction ! ” garnishing its walls. 
 Without, surrounded by a motley crowd. 
 
 The shrewd-eyed salesman, garrulous and loud, 
 
 A squire or colonel in his pride of place. 
 
 Known at free fights, the caucus, and the race. 
 Prompt to proclaim his honor without blot, 
 
 And silence doubters with a ten-pace shot, 
 
 Mingling the negro-driving bully’s rant 
 With pious phrase and democratic cant, 
 
10 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 Yet never scrupling", with a filthy jest, 
 
 To sell the infant from its mother’s breast. 
 
 Break through all ties of wedlock, home, and kin. 
 Yield shrinking girlhood up to gray-beard sin ; 
 Sell all the virtues with his human stock. 
 
 The Christian graces on his auction-block. 
 
 And coolly count on shrewdest bargains driven 
 In hearts regenerate, and in souls forgiven ! 
 
 Look once again ! The moving canvas shows 
 A slave plantation’s slovenly repose. 
 
 Where, in rude cabins rotting midst their weeds. 
 The human chattel eats, and sleeps, and breeds ; 
 And, held a brute, in practice, as in law. 
 
 Becomes in fact the thing ho’s taken for. 
 
 There, early summoned to the hemp and corn. 
 The nursing mother leaves her child new-boni; 
 There haggard sickness, weak and deathly faint. 
 Crawls to his task, and fears to make complaint; 
 And sad-eyed Rachels, childless in decay, 
 
 W^eep for their lost ones sold and torn away ! 
 
 Of ampler size the master’s dwelling stands, 
 
 In shabby keeping with his half-tilled lands, — 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 11 
 
 The gates unhing’ed, the yard with weeds unclean, 
 The cracked veranda with a tipsy lean. 
 
 Without, loose-scattered like a wreck adrift, 
 
 Signs of misrule and tokens of unthrift; 
 
 Within, profusion to discomfort joined. 
 
 The listless body and the vacant mind ; 
 
 The fear, the hate, the theft and falsehood, bont 
 In menial hearts of toil, and stripes, and scorn I 
 There, all the vices, which, like birds obscene. 
 Batten on slavery loathsome and unclean. 
 
 From the foul kitchen to the parlor rise. 
 
 Pollute the nursery where the child-heir lies. 
 
 Taint infant lips beyond all after cure. 
 
 With the fell poison of a breast impure ; 
 
 Touch boyhood’s passions with the breath of flame. 
 From girlhood’s instincts steal the blush of shame. 
 So swells from low to high, from weak to strong, 
 The tragic chorus of the baleful wrong ; 
 
 Guilty or guiltless, all within its range 
 Feel the blind justice of its sure revenge. 
 
 Still scenes like these the moving chart reveals. 
 Up the long western steppes the blighting steals ; 
 
 \ 
 
12 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 Down the Pacific slope the evil Fate 
 Glides like a shadow to the Golden Gate : 
 
 Prom sea to sea the drear eclipse is thrown, 
 hh’om sea to sea the Mauvaises Terres have grown, 
 
 A belt of curses on the New World’s zone ! 
 
 The curtain fell. All drew a freer breath. 
 
 As men are wont to do when mournful death 
 Is covered from their sight. The Showman stood 
 With drooping brow in sorrow’s attitudo 
 One moment, then with sudden gesture shook 
 llis loose hair back, and with the air and look 
 Of one who felt, beyond the narrow stage 
 And listening group, the presence of the age. 
 
 And heard the footsteps of the things to be. 
 
 Poured out his soul in earnest words and free. 
 
 "0, friends!” he said, "in this poor trick of 
 paint 
 
 You see the semblance, incomplete and faint. 
 
 Of the two-fronted Future, which, to-day. 
 
 Stands dim and silent, waiting in your way. 
 
 To-day, your servant, subject to your will ; 
 To-morrow, master, or for good or ill. 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 I f) 
 
 o 
 
 If the dark face of Slavery on you turns, 
 
 If the mad curse its paper barrier spurns, 
 
 If the world granary of the West is made 
 The last foul market of the slaver’s trade, 
 
 'VWiy rail at fate ? The mischief is your own. 
 
 Why hate your neighbor ? Blame yourselves alone ! 
 
 Men of the North! The South you charge with 
 wrong 
 
 Is weak and poor, while you are rich and strong. 
 
 If questions, — idle and absurd as those 
 The old-time monks and Paduan doctors chose, — 
 Mere ghosts of questions, tariffs and dead banks. 
 And scarecrow pontiffs, never broke your ranks. 
 Your thews united could, at once, roll back 
 The jostled nation to its primal track. 
 
 Nay, were you simply steadfast, manly, just. 
 
 True to the faith your fathers left in trust. 
 
 If stainless honor outweighed in your scale 
 A codfish quintal or a factory bale. 
 
 Full many a noble heart (and such remain 
 In all the South, like Lot in Siddim’s plain. 
 
 Who watch and wait, and from the wrong’s control 
 Keep white and pure their chastity of soul). 
 
14 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 Now sick to loathing of your weak complaints, 
 
 Your tricks as sinners, and your prayers as saints. 
 Would half-way meet the frankness of your tone, 
 And feel their pulses beating with your own. 
 
 The North ! the South ! no geographic line 
 Can fix the boundary or the point define, 
 
 Since each with each so closely interblends. 
 
 Where Slavery rises, and where Freedom ends. 
 Beneath ^mur rocks the roots, far-reaching, hide 
 Of the fell Upas on-the Southern side ; 
 
 Tlie tree whose branches in your north winds 
 wave 
 
 Dropped its young blossoms on Mount Vernon’s 
 grave ; 
 
 The nursling growth of Monticello’s crest 
 Is now the glory of the free North-West; 
 
 To the wise maxims of her olden school 
 Virginia listened from thy lips, Eantoul; 
 
 Seward’s w-ords of power, and Sumner’s fresh re¬ 
 nown. 
 
 Flow from the pen that Jefferson laid down! 
 
 I 
 
 And when, at length, her years of madness o’er. 
 
 Like the crowned grazer on Euphrates’ shore. 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 15 
 
 From her long lapse to savagery, her mouth 
 Bitter with baneful herbage, turns the South, 
 Resumes her old attire, and seeks to smooth 
 Her unkempt tresses at the glass of truth, 
 
 Her early faith shall find a tongue again. 
 
 New Wythes and Pinckneys swell that old refrain. 
 Her sons with yours renew the ancient pact. 
 
 The myth of Union prove at last a fact! 
 
 Then, if one murmur mars the wide content. 
 
 Some Northern lip will drawl the last dissent. 
 
 Some Union-saving patriot of your own 
 Lament to find his occupation gone. 
 
 Grant that the North’s insulted, scorned, betrayed. 
 Overreached in bargains with her neighbor made, 
 AUhen selfish thrift and party held the scales 
 For peddling dicker, not for honest sales, — 
 
 Whom shall we strike ? ^Who most deserves our 
 blame ? 
 
 The braggart Southron, open in his aim. 
 
 And bold as wicked, crashing straight through all 
 That bars his purpose, like a cannon-ball ? 
 
 Or the mean traitor, breathing northern air. 
 
 With nasal speech and puritanic hair. 
 
16 
 
 THE PANOKAMA. 
 
 Whose cant the loss of principle survives, 
 
 As the mud-turtle e’en its head outlives ; 
 
 Who, caught, chin-buried in some foul offence. 
 Puts on a look of injured innocence. 
 
 And consecrates his baseness to the cause 
 Of constitution, union, and the laws ? 
 
 Praise to the place-man who can hold aloof 
 His still unpurchased manhood, office-proof; 
 Who on his round of duty walks erect. 
 
 And leaves it only rich in self-respect, — 
 
 As More maintained his virtue’s lofty port 
 In the Eighth Henry’s base and bloody court. 
 As, in our time, unawed by brutal force. 
 Unbribed by party, Eeeder held his course. 
 But, if exceptions here and there are found, 
 AVho tread thus safely on enchanted ground. 
 The normal type, the fitting symbol still 
 Of those who fatten at the public mill. 
 
 Is the chained dog beside his master’s door. 
 Or Circe’s victim, feeding on all four ! 
 
 Give me the heroes who, at tuck of drum. 
 Salute thy staff, immortal Quattlebum ! 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 n 
 
 Or they who, doubly armed with vote and guii, 
 Following thy lead, illustrious Atchison, 
 
 Their drunken franchise shift from scene to scene. 
 As tile-beard Jourdan did his guillotine ! — 
 
 Father than him who, born beneath our skies. 
 
 To Slavery’s hand its supplest tool supplies, — 
 The party felon whose unblushing face 
 Looks from the pillory of his bribe of place. 
 
 And coolly makes a merit of disgrace, — 
 
 Points to the footmarks of indignant scorn, 
 
 Shows the deep scars of satire’s tossing horn ; 
 
 And passes to his credit side the sum 
 Of all that makes a scoundrel’s martyrdom ! 
 
 Who knows not well these cankers of the North, 
 These modern Esaus, bartering rights for broth ? 
 Taxing our justice, with their double claim, 
 
 As fools for pity, and as knaves for blame ; 
 
 Who, urged by party, sect, or trade, withiu 
 The fell embrace of Slavery’s sphere of sin. 
 
 Part at the outset with their moral sense. 
 
 The watchful angel set for Truth’s defence ; 
 Confound all contrasts, good and ill; reverse 
 The poles of life, its blessing and its curse ; 
 
 9 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 And lose thenceforth from their perverted sight 
 The eternal difference ’twixt the wrong and right; 
 To them the Law is but the iron span 
 That girds the ankles of imbruted man ; 
 
 To them the Gospel has no higher aim 
 Than simple sanction of the master’s claim, 
 Dragged in the slime of Slavery’s loathsome trail, 
 Like Ghalier’s Bible at his ass’s tail! 
 
 Such are the men who, with instinctive dread. 
 Whenever Freedom lifts her drooping head, 
 
 Make prophet-tripods of their office-stools, 
 
 And scare the nurseries and the village schools 
 With dire presage of ruin grim and great, 
 
 A broken Union and a foundered State ! 
 
 Such are the patriots, self-bound to the stake 
 Of office, martyrs for their country’s sake : 
 
 Who fill themselves the hungry jaws of Fate, 
 
 And by their loss of manhood save the State. 
 
 In the wide gulf themselves like Curtius throw. 
 And test the virtues of cohesive dough ; 
 
 As tropic monkeys, linking heads and tails. 
 
 Bridge o’er some toiTent of Ecuador’s vales I 
 
THE P A X 0 R A M A. 
 
 19 
 
 Such are the men who in your churches rave 
 To swearing point, at mention of the slave, 
 AVhen some poor parson, haply unawares, 
 Stammers of freedom in his timid prayers ; 
 
 \Tho, if some foot-sore negro through the town 
 Steals northward, volunteer to hunt him down. 
 Or, if some neighbor, flying from disease. 
 
 Courts the mild balsam of the Southern breeze. 
 With hue and cry pursue him on his track. 
 
 And write Free-aoiler on the poor man’s back. 
 Such are the men who leave the pedler’s cart. 
 While faring South, to learn the driver’s art. 
 
 Or, in white neekcloth, soothe with pious aim 
 The graceful sorrows of some languid dame. 
 Who, from the wreck of her bereavement, saves 
 The double charm of widowhood and slaves ! — 
 Pliant and apt, they lose no chance to show 
 To what base depths apostasy can go ; 
 
 Outdo the natives in their readiness 
 To roast a negro, or to mob a press; 
 
 Poise a tarred schoolmate on the lyncher’s rail. 
 Or make a bonfire of their birth-place mail I 
 
20 
 
 THE PAU’ORAMA. 
 
 So some poor wretch, whose lips no longer bear 
 The sacred burden of his mother’s prayer, 
 
 By fear impelled, or lust of gold enticed, 
 
 Turns to the Crescent from the Cross of Christ, 
 And, over-acting in superfluous zeal. 
 
 Crawls prostrate where the faithful only kneel. 
 Out-howls the Dervish, hugs his rags to court 
 The squalid Santon’s sanctity of dirt; 
 
 And, when beneath tlie city gateway’s span 
 Biles slow and long the Meccan caravan. 
 
 And through its midst, pursued by Islam’s prayers. 
 The prophet’s Word some favored camel bears, 
 
 The marked apostate has his place assigned 
 The Koran-bearer’s sacred rump behind. 
 
 With brush and pitcher following, grave and mute. 
 In meek attendance on the holy brute 1 
 
 Men of the North ! beneath your very eyes. 
 
 By hearth and home, your real danger lies. 
 
 Still day by day some hold of freedom falls. 
 Through home-bred traitors fed within its walls.— 
 Men whom yourselves with vote and purse sustain. 
 At posts of honor, influence, and gain ; 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 21 
 
 The right of Slavery to your sons to teach, 
 
 And “ South-side ” Gospels in your pulpits preach ; 
 Transfix the Law to ancient freedom dear 
 On the sharp point of her subverted spear, 
 
 And imitate upon her cushion plump 
 
 The mad Missourian lynching from his stump. 
 
 Till even Jeffreys’ envious ghost complains 
 Of dangerous rivals in your Griers and Kanes ; — 
 Or, in your name upon the Senate’s floor 
 Yield up to Slavex’y all it asks, and more; 
 
 And, ere your dull ejms open to the cheat. 
 
 Sell yoxxr old hoxnestead underneath yoixr feet! 
 
 While such as these your loftiest outlooks hold, 
 While truth and conscience with your wares ax'G sold. 
 While grave-browed merchants band themselves to aid 
 Aix annxxal man-hunt for their Southern trade. 
 
 What xnoral power within your grasp remains 
 To stay the mischief on Nebraska’s plains ? — 
 
 High as the tides of genex’ous impulse flow. 
 
 As far rolls back the selfish undertow : 
 
 And all your brave resolves, though aimed as true 
 As the horse-pistol Balmawhapple drew. 
 
 To Slavery’s bastions lend as slight a shock 
 As the poor trooper’s shot to Stirling rock ! 
 
22 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 Yet, while the need of Freedom’s cause demands 
 The earnest efforts of your hearts and hands, 
 
 Urged by all motives that can prompt the heart 
 To prayer and toil and manhood’s manliest part; 
 Though to the soul’s deep tocsin nature joins 
 The warning whisper of her Orphic pines. 
 
 The north wind’s anger, and the south wind’s sigli, 
 The midnight sword-dance of the northern sky, 
 
 And, to the ear that bends above the sod 
 Of the green grave-mounds in the Fields of God, 
 
 In low, deep murmurs of rebuke or cheer. 
 
 The land’s dead fathers speak their hope or fear ; 
 Yet let not passion wrest from Season’s hand 
 The guiding rein and symbol of command. 
 
 Blame not the caution proffering to your zeal 
 A well-meant drag upon its hurrying wheel, 
 
 Nor chide the man whose honest doubt extends 
 To the means only, not the righteous ends : 
 
 Nor fail to weigh the scruples and the fears 
 Of milder natures and serener years. 
 
 In the long strife with evil which began 
 With the first lapse of new-created man. 
 
 Wisely and well has Providence assigned 
 To each his part, — some forward, some behind ; 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 23 
 
 And they, too, serve, who temper and restrain 
 The o’erwarm heart that sets on fire the brain. 
 
 True to yourselves, feed Freedom’s altar-flame 
 With what you have ; let others do the same. 
 
 Spare timid doubters ; set like flint your face 
 Against the self-sold knaves of gain and place : 
 
 Pity the weak ; but with unsparing hand 
 Cast out the traitors who infest the land, — 
 
 From bar, press, pulpit, cast them everywhere, 
 
 By dint of fasting, if you fail by prayer. 
 
 And in their place bring men of antique mould. 
 
 Like the grave fathers of your Age of Gold, — 
 Statesmen like those who sought the primal fount 
 Of righteous law, the Sermon on the Mount; 
 Lawyers who prize, like Quincy (to our day 
 Still spared. Heaven bless him !), honor more than 
 
 pay, 
 
 And Christian jurists, starry-pure, like Jay; 
 Preachers like Woolman, or like them who bore 
 The faith of Wesley to our western shore. 
 
 And held no convert genuine till he broke 
 Alike his servants’ and the Devil’s yoke ; 
 
 And priests like him who Newport’s market trod. 
 And o’er its slave-ships shook the bolts of God! 
 
24 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 So shall your power, with a wise prudence used, 
 Strong hut forbearing, firm but not abused, 
 
 In kindly keeping with the good of all, 
 
 The nobler maxims of the past recall. 
 
 Her natural home-born right to Freedom give. 
 
 And leave her foe his robber-right — to live. 
 
 Live, as the snake does in his noisome feu ! 
 
 Live, as the wolf does in his bone-strewn den ! 
 
 Live, clothed with cursing like a robe of flame. 
 
 The focal point of million-fingered shame ! 
 
 Live, till the Southron, who, with all his faults 
 Has manly instincts, in his pride revolts. 
 
 Lashes from off him, midst the glad world’s cheers. 
 The hideous night-mare of his dream of years. 
 
 And lifts, self-prompted, with his own right hand. 
 The vile incumbrance from his glorious land I 
 
 So, wheresoe’er our destiny sends forth 
 Its widening circles to the South or North, 
 Where’er our banner flaunts beneath the stars 
 Its mimic splendors and its cloud-like bars. 
 
 There shall Free Labor’s hardy children stand 
 The equal sovereigns of a slaveless land. 
 
THE PANORAMA. 
 
 25 
 
 And when at last the hunted bison tires, 
 
 And dies overtaken by the squatter’s fires ; 
 
 And westward, wave on wave, the living flood 
 Breaks on the snow-line of majestic Hood; 
 
 And lonely Shasta listening hears the tread 
 Of Europe’s fair-haired children, Efesper-led ; 
 
 And, gazing downward through his hoar-locks, sees 
 The tawny Asian climb his giant knees. 
 
 The Eastern sea shall hush his waves to hear 
 Pacific’s surf-beat answer Freedom’s cheer, 
 
 .Vnd one long rolling fire of triumph run 
 Between the sunrise and the sunset gun ! ” 
 
 My task is done. The Showman and his show, 
 Themselves but shadows, into shadows go ; 
 
 And, if no song of idlesse I have sung, 
 
 Xor tints of beauty on the canvas flung,— 
 
 If the harsh numbers grate on tender ears, 
 
 And the rough picture overwrought appears, — 
 With deeper coloring, with a sterner blast. 
 
 Before my soul a voice and vision passed. 
 
 Such as might Milton’s jarring trump require. 
 
 Or glooms of Dante fringed with lurid fire. 
 
 c 
 
26 
 
 THE PANORAMA. 
 
 0, not of choice, for themes of piiblic wrong 
 I leave the green and pleasant paths of song — 
 
 The mild, sweet words, which soften and adorn. 
 For griding taunt and bitter laugh of scorn. 
 
 More dear to me some song of private worth, 
 
 Some homely idyl of my native North, 
 
 Some summer pastoral of her inland vales 
 
 And sea-brown hamlets, through where misty gales 
 
 Flit the dim ghosts of unreturning sails — 
 
 Lost barks at parting hung from stem to helm 
 AVith prayers of love like dreams on Virgil’s elm ; 
 Nor private grief nor malice hold my pen ; 
 
 I owe but kindness to my fellow-men. 
 
 And, South or North, wherever hearts of prayer 
 Their woes and weakness to our Father bear, 
 AVherever fruits of Christian love are found 
 In holy lives, to me is holy ground. 
 
 But the time passes. It were vain to crave 
 A late indulgence. AAHiat I had I gave. 
 
 Forget the poet, but his warning heed. 
 
 And shame his poor word with your nobler deed. 
 
OCCASIONAL POEMS. 
 
SUMMER BY THE LAKE-SIDE. 
 
 1 .-NOON. 
 
 ^Uhite clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep. 
 Light mists, whose soft embraces keep 
 The sunshine on the hills asleep 1 
 
 0, isles of calm ! — 0, dark, still wood ! 
 
 And stiller skies that overbrood 
 Your rest with deeper quietude ! 
 
 0, shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through 
 Yon mountain gaps, my longing view 
 Beyond the purple and the blue, 
 
 To stiller sea and greener land, 
 
 And softer lights and airs more bland. 
 
 And skies — the hollow of God’s hand ! 
 
 Transfused through you, 0 mountain friends ! 
 AUith mine your solemn spirit blends. 
 
 And life no more hath separate ends. 
 
30 
 
 SUMMER BY THE LAKE-SIDE. 
 
 I read each misty mountain sign, 
 
 I know the voice of wave and pine, 
 And I am yours, and ye are mine. 
 
 Life’s burdens fall, its discords cease, 
 I lapse into the glad release 
 Of nature’s own exceeding peace. 
 
 0, welcome calm of heart and mind ! 
 As falls yon fir-tree’s loosened rind 
 To leave a tenderer growth behind. 
 
 So fall the weary years away ; 
 
 A child again, my head I lay 
 Upon the lap of this sweet day. 
 
 This western wind hath Lethean powers. 
 Yon noon-day cloud nepenthe showers. 
 The lake is white with lotus-flowers ! 
 
 Even Duty’s voice is faint and low. 
 
 And slumberous Conscience, waking slow. 
 Forgets her blotted scroll to show. 
 
SUMMER BY THE LAKE-SIDE. 
 
 31 
 
 The Shadow which pursues us all, 
 
 Whose ever-nearing steps appall, 
 
 Whose voice we hear behind us call — 
 
 That Shadow blends with mountain gray. 
 It speaks but what the light waves say — 
 Death walks apart from Fear to-day ! 
 
 Rocked on her breast, these pines and I 
 Alike on Nature’s love rely ; 
 
 And equal seems to live or die. 
 
 Assui’ed that He, whose presence fills 
 "With light the spaces of these hills. 
 
 No evil to His creatures wills. 
 
 The simple faith remains, that He 
 Will do, whatever that may be. 
 
 The best alike for man and tree. 
 
 What mosses over one shall grow. 
 
 What light and life the other know, 
 Unanxious, leaving Him to show. 
 
SUMMER BY THE LAKE-SIDE. 
 
 II.-EVENING. 
 
 You mountain’s side is black with night, 
 
 While, broad-orbed, o’er its gleaming crown 
 
 The moon, slow-rounding into sight, 
 
 On the hushed inland sea looks down. 
 
 How start to light the clustering isles. 
 
 Each silver-hemmed ! How sharply show 
 
 The shadows of their rocky piles. 
 
 And tree-tops in the wave below ! 
 
 How far and strange the mountains seem. 
 Dim-looming through the pale, still light! 
 
 The vague, vast grouping of a dream, 
 
 They stretch into the solemn night. 
 
 Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale. 
 Hushed by that presence grand and grave. 
 
 Are silent, save the cricket’s wail, 
 
 And low response of leaf and wave. 
 
 Fair scenes 1 whereto the Day and Night 
 Make rival love, I leave ye soon. 
 
 What time before the eastern light 
 The pale ghost of the setting moon 
 
SUMMER BY THE LAKE-SIDE. 
 
 o o 
 OO 
 
 Shall hide behind yon rocky spines, 
 
 And the young archer, Morn, shall break 
 
 His arrows on the mountain pines. 
 
 And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake ! 
 
 Farewell! around this smiling bay 
 Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom, 
 
 With lighter steps than mine, may stray 
 In radiant summers yet to come. 
 
 But none shall more regretful leave 
 These waters and these hills than I; 
 
 Or, distant, fonder dream how eve 
 Or dawn is painting wave and sky ; 
 
 How rising moons shine sad and mild 
 On wooded isle and silvering bay ; 
 
 Or setting suns beyond the piled 
 And purple mountains lead the day; 
 
 Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy. 
 
 Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here. 
 
 Shall add, to life’s abounding joy. 
 
 The charmed repose to suffering dear. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 SUMMER BY THE LAKE-SIDE. 
 
 Still waits kind Natui’e to impart 
 Her choicest gifts to such as gain 
 
 An entrance to her loving heart 
 
 Through the sharp discipline of pain. 
 
 Forever from the Hand that takes 
 One blessing from us others fall; 
 
 And, soon or late, our Father makes 
 Ills perfect recompense to all! 
 
 0, watched by Silence and the Night, 
 And folded in the strong embrace 
 
 Of the great mountains, with the light 
 Of the sweet heavens upon thy face. 
 
 Lake of the Northland ! keep thy dower 
 Of beauty still, and while above 
 
 Thy solemn mountains speak of power. 
 Be thou the mirror of God’s love. 
 
THE HERMIT OF THE T H E B A I D . 
 
 0, STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith, 
 From inmost founts of life ye start — 
 
 The spirit’s pulse, the vital breath 
 Of soul and heart! 
 
 From pastoral toil, from traffic’s din, 
 Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad. 
 
 Unheard of man, ye enter in 
 The ear of God. 
 
 Ye brook no forced and measured tasks. 
 Nor weary rote, nor formal chains ; 
 
 The simple heart, that freely asks 
 In love, obtains. 
 
 For man, the living temple is : 
 
 The mercy-seat and cherubim. 
 
 And all the holy mysteries. 
 
 He bears with him 
 
36 THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID. 
 
 And most avails the prayer of love, 
 
 Which, wordless, shapes itself in deeds. 
 
 And wearies Heaven for naught above 
 Our common needs. 
 
 Which brings to God’s all perfect will 
 That trust of His undoubting child, 
 
 'Whereby all seeming good and ill 
 Are reconciled. 
 
 And, seeking not for special signs 
 Of favor, is content to fall 
 
 Within the providence which shines 
 And rains on all. 
 
 Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned 
 At noon-time o’er the sacred word. 
 
 Was it an angel or a fiend 
 Whose voice he heard ? 
 
 It broke the desert’s hush of awe, 
 
 A human utterance, sweet and mild ; 
 
 And, looking up, the hermit saw 
 A little child. 
 
THE HERMIT OP THE THEBAID. 
 
 37 
 
 A child, with wonder-widened eyes, 
 
 O’erawed and troubled by the sight 
 
 Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies. 
 
 And anchorite. 
 
 " What dost thou here, poor man ? No shade 
 Of cool, green doums, nor grass, nor well. 
 
 Nor corn, nor vines.” The hermit said : 
 
 “ With God I dwell. 
 
 " Alone with Him in this great calm, 
 
 I live not by the outward sense ; 
 
 My Nile his love, my sheltering palm 
 Ills providence.” 
 
 The child gazed round him. " Does God live 
 Here only ? — where the desert’s rim 
 
 Is green with corn, at morn and eve. 
 
 We pray to Him. 
 
 " My brother tills beside the Nile 
 His little field : beneath the leaves 
 
 My sisters sit and spin the while. 
 
 My mother weaves. 
 
38 THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID., 
 
 “ And when the millet’s ripe heads fall, 
 
 And all the bean-field hangs in pod, 
 
 My mother smiles, and says that all 
 Are gifts from God. 
 
 “ And when, to share our evening meal. 
 
 She calls the stranger at the door. 
 
 She says God fills the hands that deal 
 Food to the poor.” 
 
 Adown the hermit’s wasted cheeks 
 Glistened the flow of human tears ; 
 
 " Dear Lord ! ” he said, “ Thy angel speaks, 
 Thy servant hears.” 
 
 Within his arms the child he took. 
 
 And thought of home and life with men ; 
 
 And all his pilgrim feet forsook 
 Returned again. 
 
 The palmy shadows cool and long. 
 
 The eyes that smiled through lavish locks, 
 
 Home’s cradle-hymn and harvest-song, 
 
 And bleat of flocks. 
 
THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID. 39 
 
 “0, child I he said, “ thou teachest me 
 There is no place where God is not; 
 
 That love will make, where’er it be, 
 
 A holy spot.” 
 
 He rose from off the desert sand, 
 
 • And, leaning on his staff of thorn, 
 
 Went, with the young child, hand in hand, 
 Like night with morn. 
 
 They crossed the desert’s burning line. 
 And heard the palm-tree’s rustling fan, 
 
 The Nile-bird’s cry, the low of kine, 
 
 And voice of man. 
 
 Unquestioning, his childish guide 
 He followed, as the small hand led 
 
 To where a woman, gentle-eyed. 
 
 Her distaff fed. 
 
 She rose, she clasped her truant boy, 
 
 She thanked the stranger with her eyes ; 
 
 The hermit gazed in doubt and joy 
 And dumb surprise. 
 
40 THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID. 
 
 And, lo ! — with sudden warmth and light 
 A tender memory thrilled his frame ; 
 
 New-born, the world-lost anchorite 
 A man became. 
 
 “ 0, sister of El Zara’s race. 
 
 Behold me ! —had we not one mother ? ” 
 
 She gazed into the stranger’s face ; — 
 
 “ Thou art my brother ? ” 
 
 “ 0, kin of blood ! — Thy life of use 
 And patient trust is more than mine ; 
 
 And wiser than the gray recluse 
 This child of thine. 
 
 For, taught of him whom God hath sent. 
 That toil is praise, and love is prayer, 
 
 I come, life’s cares and pains content 
 "With thee to share.” 
 
 Even as his foot the threshold crossed. 
 
 The hermit’s better life began ; 
 
 Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost. 
 
 And found a man I 
 
BURNS. 
 
 ON RECEIVINQ A SPRIG OP HEATHER IN BLOSSOM. 
 
 No more these simple flowers belong 
 To Scottish maid and lover ; 
 
 Sown in the common soil of song, 
 
 They bloom the wide world over. 
 
 In smiles and tears, in sun and showers. 
 The minstrel and the heather. 
 
 The deathless singer and the flowers 
 He sang of live together. 
 
 Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns ! 
 The moorland flower and peasant! 
 
 How, at their mention, memory turns 
 Her pages old and pleasant! 
 
 The gray sky wears again its gold 
 And purple of adorning. 
 
 And manhood’s noonday shadows hold 
 The dews of boyhood’s morning. 
 
 D 
 
42 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 The dews that washed the dust and soil 
 From otF the wings of pleasure, 
 
 The sky, that flecked the ground of toil 
 With golden threads of leisure. 
 
 I call to mind the summer day. 
 
 The early harvest mowing. 
 
 The sky with sun and clouds at play. 
 And flowers with breezes blowing. 
 
 I hear the blackbird in the corn. 
 
 The locust in the haying; 
 
 And, like the fabled hunter’s horn, 
 
 Old tunes my heart is playing. 
 
 flow oft that day, with fond delay, 
 
 I sought the maple’s shadow. 
 
 And sang with Burns the hours away, 
 Forgetful of the meadow 1 
 
 Bees hummed, birds twittered, over head 
 I heard the squirrels leaping. 
 
 The good dog listened while I read. 
 
 And wagged his tail in keeping. 
 
BURNS. 
 
 43 
 
 I watched him while in sportive mood 
 I read “ The Twa Dogs^ ” story, 
 
 And half believed he understood 
 The poet’s allegory. 
 
 Sweet day, sweet songs ! — The golden hours 
 Grew brighter for that singing. 
 
 From brook and bird and meadow flowers 
 A dearer welcome bringing. 
 
 New light on home-seen Nature beamed, 
 
 New glory over Woman ; 
 
 And daily life and duty seemed 
 No longer poor and common. 
 
 I woke to find the simple truth 
 Of fact and feeling better 
 
 Than all the dreams that held my youth 
 A still repining debtor ; 
 
 That Nature gives her handmaid. Art, 
 
 The themes of^sweet discoursing; 
 
 The tender idyls of the heart 
 In every tongue rehearsing. 
 
44 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, 
 Of loving knight and lady, 
 
 When farmer boy and barefoot girl 
 Were wandering there already ? 
 
 I saw through all familiar things 
 The romance underlying; 
 
 The joys and griefs that plume the wings 
 Of Fancy skyward flying. 
 
 I saw the same blithe day return. 
 
 The same sweet fall of even. 
 
 That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, 
 
 / 
 
 And sank on crystal Devon. 
 
 I matched with Scotland’s heathery hills 
 The sweet-brier and the clover ; 
 
 With Ayr and Doon, my native rills. 
 Their wood-hymns chanting over. 
 
 O’er rank and pomp, as he had seen, 
 
 I saw the Man uprising ; 
 
 No longer common or unclean. 
 
 The child of God’s baptizing ! 
 
BURNS. 
 
 45 
 
 With clearer eyes I saw the worth 
 Of life among- the lowly; 
 
 The Bible at his Cotter’s hearth 
 Had made my own more holy. 
 
 And, if at times an evil strain, 
 
 To lawless love appealing-. 
 
 Broke in upon the sweet refrain 
 Of pure and healthful feeling-. 
 
 It died upon the eye and ear. 
 
 No inward answer gaining ; 
 
 No heart had I to see or hear 
 The discord and the staining. 
 
 Let those who never erred forget 
 His worth, in vain bewailings ; 
 
 Sweet Soul of Song 1 — I own my debt 
 Uncancelled by his failings ! 
 
 Lament who will the ribald line 
 Which tells his lapse from duty. 
 
 How kissed the maddening lips of wine 
 Or wanton ones of beauty ; 
 
BURNS. 
 
 i6 
 
 But think, while falls that shade between 
 The erring one and Heaven, 
 
 That he who loved like Magdalen, 
 
 Like her may be forgiven. 
 
 Not his the song whose thunderous chime 
 Eternal echoes render — 
 
 The mournful Tuscan’s haunted rhyme. 
 And Milton’s starry splendor ! 
 
 But who his human heart has laid 
 To Nature’s bosom nearer? 
 
 Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 
 To love a tribute dearer ? 
 
 Through all his tuneful art, how strong 
 The human feeling gushes ! 
 
 The very moonlight of his song 
 Is warm with smiles and blushes ! 
 
 Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, 
 
 So ‘ Bonnie Boon ’ but tarry ; 
 
 Blot out the Epic’s stately rhyme, 
 
 But spare his Highland Mary I 
 
WILLIAM FORSTER.* 
 
 Thk years are many since his' hand 
 Was laid upon my head, 
 
 Too weak and young to understand 
 The serious words he said. 
 
 Yet, often now the good man’s look 
 Before me seems to swim, 
 
 As if some inward feeling took 
 The outward guise of him. 
 
 * William Forster, of Norwich, England, died in East Tennessee, in 
 the first month, 1854, while engaged in presenting to the governors 
 of the States of this Union the address of his religious society, on the 
 evils of slavery. He was the relative and coadjutor of the Buxtons, 
 Gurneys, and Frys ; and his whole life, extending almost to three 
 score and ten years, was a pure and beautiful example of Christian 
 benevolence. He had travelled over Europe, and visited most of its 
 sovereigns, to plead against the slave-trade and slavery ; and had 
 twice before made religious visits to this country, under impressions 
 of religious duty. 
 
48 
 
 WILLIAM FORSTER. 
 
 As if, in passion^s heated war, 
 
 Or near temptation’s charm, 
 
 Through him the low-voiced monitor 
 Forewarned me of the harm. 
 
 Stranger and pilgrim ! — from that day 
 Of meeting, first and last. 
 
 Wherever Duty’s pathway lay. 
 
 His reverent steps have passed. 
 
 The poor to feed, the lost to seek, 
 
 To proffer life to death, 
 
 Hope to the erring—to the weak. 
 
 The strength of his own faith. 
 
 To plead the captive’s right; remove 
 The sting of hate from Law; 
 
 And soften in the fire of love 
 The hardened steel of War. 
 
 He walked the dark world, in the mild. 
 Still guidance of the Light; 
 
 In tearful tenderness a child, 
 
 A strong man in the right. 
 
WILLIAM FOESTER. 
 
 49 
 
 From what great perils, on his way, 
 He found, in prayer, release ; 
 Through wdiat abjmmal shadows lay 
 Ills pathway unto peace, 
 
 (lod knoweth : wm could only see 
 The tranquil strength he gained ; 
 The bondage lost in liberty, 
 
 The fear in love unfeigned. 
 
 And I—my youthful fancies grown 
 The habit of the man, 
 
 AVhose field of life by angels sown 
 The wilding vines overran — 
 
 Low bowed in silent gratitude. 
 
 My manhood^s heart enjoys 
 That reverence for the pure and good 
 Which blessed the dreaming boy's. 
 
 Still shines the light of holy lives 
 Like star-beams over doubt; 
 
 Each sainted memory, Christ-like, drives 
 
 Some dark possession out. 
 
 4 E 
 
50 
 
 WILLIAM POBSTER. 
 
 0 friend ! 0 brother 1 not in vain 
 Thy life so calm and true, 
 
 The silver dropping of the rain, 
 
 The fall of summer dew ! 
 
 How many burdened hearts have prayed 
 Their lives like thine might be I 
 But more shall pray henceforth for aid 
 To lay them down like thee. 
 
 With weary hand, yet steadfast will, 
 
 In old age as in youth. 
 
 Thy Master found thee sowing still 
 The good seed of His truth. 
 
 As on thy task-field closed the day 
 In golden-skied decline. 
 
 His angel met thee on the way. 
 
 And lent his arm to thine. 
 
 Thy latest care for man — thy last 
 Of earthly thought a prayer — 
 
 0, who thy mantle, backward cast. 
 
 Is worthy now to wear ? 
 
WILLIAM FORSTER. 
 
 51 
 
 Methinks the mound which marks thy bed 
 Might bless our land and save. 
 
 As rose, of old, to life the dead 
 Who touched the prophet’s grave ! 
 
RANTOUL* 
 
 One day, along the electric wire 
 Ilis manly word for Freedom sped ; 
 
 We came next morn: that tongue of fire 
 Said only, “ He who spake is dead ! ” 
 
 Dead ! while his voice was living yet. 
 
 In echoes round the pillared dome ! 
 
 Dead ! while his blotted page lay wet 
 With themes of state and loves of liome ! 
 
 Dead! in that crowning grace of time. 
 
 That triumph of life’s zenith hour! 
 
 Dead ! while we watched his manliood’s prime 
 Break from the slow bud into flower! 
 
 * No more fitting inscription could be placed on the tomb-stone of 
 Robert Rantoul than this : “ He died at his post in Congress, and his 
 last words were a protest in the name of Democracy against the 
 Fugitive Slave Law.” 
 
R A N T 0 U L . 
 
 53 
 
 Dead ! he so great, and strong, and wise, 
 
 AViiile the mean thousands yet drew breath ; 
 
 How deepened, through that dread surprise. 
 The m^’^stery and the awe of death I 
 
 From the high place whereon our votes 
 Had borne him, clear, calm, earnest, fell 
 
 His first words, like the prelude notes 
 Uf some great anthem yet to swell. 
 
 seemed to see our flag unfurled. 
 
 Our champion waiting in his place 
 
 For the last battle of the world —■ 
 
 The Armageddon of the race. 
 
 Through him we hoped to speak the word 
 Which wins the freedom of a land ; 
 
 And lift, for human right, the sword 
 
 Which dropped from Hampden’s dying hand. 
 
 For he had sat at Sidney’s feet. 
 
 And walked with Pym and Vane apart; 
 
 And, through the centuries, felt the beat 
 Of Freedom’s march in Cromwell’s heart. 
 
54 
 
 R A N T 0 U L . 
 
 lie knew the paths the wortliies held, 
 
 AVhere England’s best and wisest trod: 
 
 And, lingering, drank the springs that welled 
 Beneath the touch of Milton’s rod. 
 
 Xo wild enthusiast of the right. 
 
 Self-poised and clear, he showed alway 
 
 The coolness of his northern night. 
 
 The ripe repose of autumn’s day. 
 
 Ilis steps were slow, yet forward still 
 
 lie pressed where others paused or failed ; 
 
 The calm star clomb with constant will — 
 
 The restless meteor flashed and paled ! 
 
 Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew 
 And owned the higher ends of Law ; 
 
 Still rose majestic on his view 
 
 The awful Shape the schoolman saw. 
 
 Her home the heart of God ; her voice 
 The choral harmonies whereby 
 
 The stars, through all their spheres, rejoice. 
 The rhythmic rule of earth and sky ! 
 
K A N T 0 U L . 
 
 55 
 
 We saw his great powers misapplied 
 To poor ambitions : yet, through all, 
 
 We saw him take the weaker side. 
 
 And right the wronged, and free the thrall. 
 
 Now, looking o’er the frozen North 
 For one like him in word and act, 
 
 To call her old, free spirit forth. 
 
 And give her faith the life of fact — 
 
 To break her party bonds of shame. 
 
 And labor with the zeal of him 
 To make the Democratic name 
 Of Liberty the synonym — 
 
 We sweep the land from hill to strand. 
 
 We seek the strong, the wise, the brave. 
 And, sad of heart, return to stand 
 In silence by a new-made grave ! 
 
 There, where his breezy hills of home 
 Look out upon his sail-white seas. 
 
 The sounds of winds and waters come. 
 
 And shape themselves to words like these : 
 
5G 
 
 B A K T 0 U L . 
 
 " '.Vhy, murmuring’, mourn that he, whose power 
 Was lent to Party over long, 
 
 Heard the still whisper at the hour 
 He set his foot on Party wrong ? 
 
 “ The human life that closed so well 
 No lapse of folly now can stain; 
 
 The lips whence Freedom’s protest fell 
 No meaner thought can now profane. 
 
 “ Mightier than living voice his grave 
 That lofty protest utters o’er ; 
 
 Through roaring wind and smiting wave 
 It speaks his hate of wrong once more. 
 
 “ Men of the North ! your weak regret 
 Is wasted here ; arise and pay 
 
 To freedom and to him your debt, 
 
 By following where he led the way ! ” 
 
THE DREAM OF PIO NO NO. 
 
 It chanced, that while the pious troops of France 
 Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached, 
 
 What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands 
 (The Hur and Aaron meet for such a Moses), 
 Stretched forth from Naples towards rebellious Rome 
 To bless the ministry of Oudinot, 
 
 And sanctify his iron homilies 
 
 And sharp persuasions of the bayonet. 
 
 That the great pontiff fell asleep, and dreamed. 
 
 lie stood by Lake Tiberias, in the sun 
 Of the bright Orient; and beheld the lame, 
 
 The sick, and blind, kneel at the Master’s feet, 
 
 And rise up whole. And, sweetly over all. 
 Dropping the ladder of their hymn of praise 
 From heaven to earth, in silver rounds of song, 
 
 He heard the blessed angels sing of peace, 
 
 Good-will to man, and glory to the Lord. 
 
58 
 
 THE DREAM OP PIO NONO. 
 
 Then one, with feet unshod, and leathern face 
 Hardened and darkened by fierce summer suns 
 And hot winds of the desert, closer drew 
 His fisher’s haick, and girded up his loins. 
 
 And spake, as one who had authority : 
 
 “ Come thou with me.” 
 
 Lake-side and eastern sky 
 And the sweet song of angels passed away. 
 
 And, with a dream’s alacrity of change. 
 
 The priest, and the swart fisher by his side. 
 
 Beheld the Eternal City lift its domes 
 And solemn fanes and monumental pomp 
 Above the waste Campagna. On the hills 
 The blaze of burning villas rose and fell. 
 
 And momently the mortar’s iron throat 
 Roai’ed from the trenches ; and, within the walls. 
 Sharp crash of shells, low groans of human pain. 
 Shout, drum-beat, and the clanging larum-l)ell. 
 
 And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled sound, 
 
 1 Lalf wail and half defiance. As they passed 
 The gate of San Pancrazio, human blood 
 Flowed ankle high about them, and dead men 
 Choked the long street with gashed and gory piles — 
 
THE DREAM OF PIO NO NO. 
 
 59 
 
 A gliastly barricade of mangded flesh, 
 
 From which, at times, quivered a living hand, 
 
 And white lips moved and moaned. A father tore 
 His gray hairs, by the body of his son. 
 
 In frenzy ; and his fair young daughter wept 
 On his old bosom. Suddenly a flash 
 Clove the thick sulphurous air, and man and maid 
 Sank, crushed and mangled by the shattering shell. 
 
 Then spake the Galilean : " Thou hast seen 
 The blessed Master and his works of love; 
 
 Look now on thine ! Hear’st thou the angels sing 
 Above this open hell ? Thou God’s high priest I 
 Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of Peace ! 
 
 Thou the successor of his chosen ones 1 
 I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee, 
 
 In the dear Master’s name, and for the love 
 Of his true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist, 
 
 Alien and separate from his holy faith 
 Wide as the difference between death and life. 
 
 The hate of man and the great love of God ! 
 Hence, and repent! ” 
 
 Thereat the pontiff woke, 
 Trembling, and muttering o’er his fearful dream. 
 
60 
 
 THE DREAM OF PIO NONO. 
 
 " Wliat means he ? ’’ cried the Bourbon, 
 more 
 
 Than tliat your majesty liath all too well 
 Catered for your poor guests, and that, in 
 The Holy Father’s supper troubleth him,’ 
 Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile. 
 
 “ Nothing 
 
 sooth. 
 
T A U L E R . 
 
 Tauler, the preacher, walked, one antuinn day. 
 Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine, 
 Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life ; 
 
 As one who, wandering in a starless night, 
 
 Feels, momently, the jar of unseen waves, 
 
 Ajid hears the thunder of an unknown sea. 
 Breaking along an unimagin’d shore. 
 
 And as he walked he prayed. Even the same 
 Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, 
 jNEorning, and noon, and evening, lij) and heart 
 Had groaned : " Have pity upon me. Lord ! 
 
 Tliou scest, while teaching others, I am blind. 
 Send me a man who can direct my steps ! ” 
 
 Then, as ho mused, he hoard along his path 
 A sound as of an old man’s staff among 
 The dry, dead linden-leaves; and, looking up, 
 lie saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old. 
 
62 
 
 T A IT L E R . 
 
 “ Peace be unto thee, father 1 ” Tauler said ; 
 
 “ Grod give thee a good day! ” The old man raised 
 Slowly his calm blue eyes. “ I thank thee, son ; 
 
 But all my days are good, and none are ill.” 
 
 "Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again ; 
 
 " God give thee happy life.” The old man smiled ; 
 
 '' I never am unhappy.” 
 
 Tauler laid 
 
 His hand upon the stranger’s coarse gray sleeve : 
 
 “ Tell me, 0 father, what thy strange words mean. 
 
 Surely man’s days are evil, and his life 
 
 Sad as the grave it leads to.” “ Nay, my son. 
 
 Our times are in God’s hands, and all our days 
 Are as our needs : for shadow as for sun. 
 
 For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike 
 Our thanks are due, since that is best which is ; 
 
 And that which is not, sharing not His life. 
 
 Is evil only as devoid of good. 
 
 And for the happiness of which I spake, 
 
 I find it in submission to His will. 
 
 And calm trust in the holy Trinity 
 Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power.” 
 
T A U L E R . 
 
 63 
 
 Silently wondering, for a little space, 
 
 Stood the great preacher; then he spake as one 
 "Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought 
 Which long has followed, whispering through the 
 dark 
 
 Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light: 
 
 “ AYhat if God’s will consign thee hence to Hell ? ” 
 
 “ Then,” said the stranger, cheerily, “be it so. 
 AVhat Hell may be I know not; this I know — 
 
 I cannot lose the presence of the Lord ; 
 
 One arm. Humility, takes hold upon 
 His dear Humanity ; the other. Love, 
 
 Clasps his Divinity. So where I go 
 
 He goes ; and better fire-walled Hell with Him 
 
 Than golden-gated Paradise without.” 
 
 Tears sprang in Tauler’s eyes. A sudden light. 
 Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove 
 Apart the shadow wherein he had walked 
 Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man 
 AYent his slow way, until his silver hair 
 Set like the white moon where the hills of vine 
 Slope to the Ehine, he bowed his head and said: 
 
64 
 
 T A U L E R . 
 
 “ My prayer is ansAvered. God hath sent the man 
 Long so^ight, to teach me, by his simple trust, 
 M’isdom the weary schoolmen never knew.’’ 
 
 So, entering with a changed and cheerful step 
 The city gates, he saw, far down the street, 
 
 A mighty shadow break the light of noon, 
 
 ^Vhich tracing backward till its airy lines 
 Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes 
 O’er broad facade and lofty pediment. 
 
 O’er architrave and frieze and sainted niche. 
 
 Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise 
 Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where 
 In the noon-brightness the great Minster’s tower. 
 Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown. 
 
 Rose like a visible prayer. " Behold ! ” he said, 
 
 “ The stranger’s faith made plain before mine eyes 
 As yonder tower outstretches to the earth 
 'fhe dark triangle of its shade alone 
 When the clear day is shining on its top. 
 
 So, darkness in the pathway of Man’s life 
 Is but the shadow of God’s providence. 
 
 By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon ; 
 
 And what is dark below is light in Heaven.” 
 
LINES 
 
 SUGGESTED BY READING A STATE PAPER, WHEREIN THE HIGHER LAW IS 
 INVOKED TO SUSTAIN THE LOWER ONE. 
 
 A PIOUS magistrate ! sound his praise throughout 
 The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth 
 doubt 
 
 That the long-wished millennium draweth nigh ? 
 Sin in high places has become devout, 
 
 Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie 
 Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety! 
 
 The pirate, watching from his bloody deck 
 The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold 
 Of Acapulco, holding death in check 
 
 While prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads 
 are told — 
 
 The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross 
 On dark Abruzzo tells of life’s dread loss 
 From his own carbine, glancing still abroad 
 For some new victim, offering thanks to God I — 
 
 5 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 LINES. 
 
 Rome, listening' at her altars to the cry 
 Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell 
 Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell 
 And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high, 
 Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky, 
 
 " Thanks to the Lord who giveth victory ! ’* 
 
 What prove these, but that crime was ne’er so black 
 As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack ? 
 
 Satan is modest. At Heaven’s door he lays 
 llis evil offspring, and, in scriptural phrase 
 And saintly posture, gives to God the praise 
 And honor of the monstrous progeny. 
 
 W'liat marvel, then, in our own time to see 
 llis old devices smoothly acted o’er — 
 
 Official piety, locking fast the door 
 Of Hope against three million souls of men — 
 Rrotliers, God’s children, Christ’s redeemed — and 
 then, 
 
 With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee. 
 
 Whining a prayer for help to hide the key ! 
 
THE VOICES. 
 
 “ Why urge the long, unequal fight, 
 
 Since Truth has fallen in the street. 
 
 Or lift anew the trampled light. 
 
 Quenched by the heedless million’s feet ? 
 
 " Give o’er the thankless task ; forsake 
 The fools who know not ill from good ; 
 
 Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take 
 Thine ease among the multitude. 
 
 “ Live out thyself; with others share 
 Thy proper life no more ; assume 
 
 The unconcern of sun and air. 
 
 For life or death, or blight or bloom. 
 
 “ The mountain pine looks calmly on 
 The fires that scourge the plains below. 
 
 Nor heeds the eagle in the sun 
 
 The small birds piping in the snow I 
 
68 
 
 THE VOICES. 
 
 “ The world is God’s, not thine ; let Him 
 Work out a change, if change must be ; 
 
 The hand that planted best can trim 
 And nurse the old unfruitful tree.” 
 
 So spake the Tempter, when the light 
 Of sun and stars had left the sky. 
 
 I listened, through the cloud and night. 
 
 And heard, methought, a voice reply : 
 
 “ Thy task may well seem over-hard. 
 
 Who scatterest in a thankless soil 
 
 'I'hy life as seed, with no reward 
 Save that which Duty gives to Toil. 
 
 “Not wholly is thy heart resigned 
 To Heaven’s benign and just decree. 
 
 Which, linking thee with all thy kind, 
 Transmits their joys and griefs to thee. 
 
 “ Break off that sacred chain, and turn 
 Back on thyself thy love and care ; 
 
 Be thou thine own mean idol, burn 
 
 Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy children, there. 
 
THE VOICES. 
 
 69 
 
 " Released fi-om that fraternal law 
 
 Which shares the common bale and bhss, 
 
 No sadder lot could Folly draw, 
 
 Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this. 
 
 “ The meal unshared is food unblest; 
 
 Thou hoard’st in vain what love should spend ; 
 
 Self-ease is pain ; thy only rest 
 Is labor for a worthy end, 
 
 " A toil that gains with what it yields. 
 
 And scatters to its own increase. 
 
 And hears, while sowing outward fields, 
 
 The harvest-song of inward peace. 
 
 “ Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run. 
 
 Free shines for all the healthful ray ; 
 
 The still pool stagnates in the sun. 
 
 The lurid earth-fire haunts decay! 
 
 " What is it that the crowd requite 
 Thy love with hate, thy truth with Lies ? 
 
 And but to faith, and not to sight. 
 
 The walls of Freedom’s temple rise ? 
 
THE VOICES. 
 
 to 
 
 “ Yet do thy work ; it shall succeed 
 Ill thine or in another’s day ; 
 
 And, if denied the victor’s meed, 
 
 Thou shalt not lack the toiler’s pay. 
 
 “ Faith shares the future’s promise ; Love’s 
 Self-offering is a triumph won ; 
 
 And each good thought or action moves 
 The dark world nearer to the sun. 
 
 “ Then faint not, falter not, nor plead 
 Thy weakness ; truth itself is strong ; 
 
 The lion’s strength, the eagle’s speed. 
 
 Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong. 
 
 “ Thy nature, which, through fire and flood. 
 To place or gain finds out its way. 
 
 Hath power to seek the highest good. 
 
 And duty’s holiest call obey ! 
 
 Strivest thou in darkness ? — Foes without 
 In league with traitor thoughts within ; 
 Thy night-watch kept with trembling Doubt 
 And pale Remorse the ghost of Sin ? — 
 
THE VOICES, 
 
 n 
 
 “Hast thou not, on some week of storm, 
 Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking fair. 
 And cloud and shadow, sunlit, form 
 The curtains of its tent of prayer ? 
 
 “ So, haply, when thy task shall end, 
 
 The wrong' shall lose itself in right. 
 And all thy week-day darkness blend 
 With the long Sabbath of the light! ” 
 
THE HERO. 
 
 "01 FOB a knight like Bayard, 
 Without reproach or fear ; 
 
 My light glove on his casque of steel. 
 My love-knot on his spear ! 
 
 " 0 ! for the white plume floating 
 Sad Zutphen’s field above — 
 
 The lion heart in battle, 
 
 The woman’s heart in love ! 
 
 " 0 ! that man once more were manly, 
 Woman’s pride, and not her scorn ; 
 
 That once more the pale young mother 
 Dared to boast ‘ a man is bom ’! 
 
 " But, now life’s slumberous current 
 No sun-bowed cascade wakes; 
 
 No tall, heroic manhood 
 
 The level dulness breaks. 
 
THE HERO. 
 
 " 0 ! for a knight like Bayard, 
 Without reproach or fear ! 
 
 My light glove on his casque of steel, 
 My love-knot on his spear ! ’’ 
 
 Then I said, my own heart throbbing 
 To the time her proud pulse beat, 
 
 “ Life hath its regal natures yet — 
 True, tender, brave, and sweet 1 
 
 “ Smile not, fair unbeliever 1 
 One man, at least, I know. 
 
 Who might wear the crest of Bayard, 
 Or Sidney’s plume of snow. 
 
 “ Once, when over purple mountains 
 Died away the Grecian sun. 
 
 And the far Cyllenian ranges 
 
 Paled and darkened, one by one — 
 
 “ Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder. 
 Cleaving all the quiet sky. 
 
 And against his sharp steel lightnings 
 Stood the Suliote but to die. 
 
 G 
 
n 
 
 THE HERO. 
 
 “Woe for the weak and halting! 
 
 The crescent blazed behind 
 A curving line of sabres, 
 
 Like fire before the wind I 
 
 “ Last to fly and first to rally, 
 
 Rode he of whom I speak. 
 
 When, groaning in his bridle-path 
 Sank down a wounded Greek, 
 
 “ With the rich Albanian costume 
 Wet with many a ghastly stain 
 Gazing on earth and sky as one 
 Who might not gaze again I 
 
 “ He looked forward to the mountains, 
 Back on foes that never spare. 
 
 Then flung him from his saddle. 
 
 And placed the stranger there. 
 
 “ ‘ Allah I hu I ’ Through flashing sabres, 
 Through a stormy hail of lead. 
 
 The good Thessalian charger 
 Up the slopes of olives sped. 
 
THE HERO. 
 
 To 
 
 “ Hot spurred the turbaned riders ; 
 
 He almost felt their breath, 
 
 Where a mountain stream rolled darklj" down 
 Between the hills and death. 
 
 “ One brave and manful struggle — 
 
 He gained the solid land, 
 
 And the cover of the mountains. 
 
 And the carbines of his band ! ” 
 
 “ It was very great and noble," 
 
 Said the moist-eyed listener then, 
 
 “ But one brave deed makes no hero ; 
 
 Tell me what he since hath been ! " 
 
 \ 
 
 “ Still a brave and generous manhood. 
 
 Still an honor without stain. 
 
 In the prison of the Kaiser, 
 
 By the barricades of Seine. 
 
 “ But dream not helm and harness 
 The sign of valor true ; 
 
 Peace hath higher tests of manhood 
 Than battle ever knew. 
 
•(6 
 
 THE HERO. 
 
 “ Wouldst know him now ? Behold him, 
 The Cadmus of the blind, 
 
 Giving the dumb lip language. 
 
 The idiot clay a mind. 
 
 ‘‘ Walking his round of duty 
 Serenely day by day, 
 
 AVith the strong man’s hand of labor • 
 And childhood’s heart of play. 
 
 “ True as the knights of story, 
 
 Sir Lancelot and his peers, 
 
 Brave in his calm endurance 
 As they in tilt of spears. 
 
 “ As waves in stillest waters. 
 
 As stars in noonday skies. 
 
 All that wakes to noble action 
 In his noon of calmness lies. 
 
 “ Wherever outraged Nature 
 Asks word or action brave, 
 
 Wherever struggles labor. 
 
 Wherever groans a slave — 
 
THE HERO. 
 
 77 
 
 " Wherever rise the peoples, 
 Wherever sinks a throne, 
 
 The throbbing heart of Freedom finds 
 An answer in his own. 
 
 “ Knight of a better era. 
 
 Without reproach or fear 1 
 Said I not well that Bayards 
 And Sidneys still are here ? 
 
MY DREAM. 
 
 In my dream, methought I trod, 
 Yesternight, a mountain road ; 
 
 NaiTOw as A1 Sirat’s span, 
 
 High as eagle’s flight, it ran. 
 
 Overhead, a roof of cloud 
 With its weight of thunder bowed ; 
 Underneath, to left and right. 
 Blankness and abysmal night. 
 
 Here and there a wild-flower ])luslied, 
 Now and then a bird-song gushed ; 
 Now and then, through rifts of shade, 
 Stars shone out, and sunbeams plaj^ed 
 
 But the goodly company. 
 
 Walking in that path with me. 
 
 One by one the brink o’erslid. 
 
 One by one the darkness hid. 
 
MY DREAM, 
 
 79 
 
 Some with wailing and lament, 
 Some with cheerful courage, went; 
 But, of all who smiled or mourned, 
 Never one to us returned. 
 
 Anxiously, with eye and ear. 
 Questioning that shadow drear. 
 Never hand in token stirred. 
 
 Never answei’ing voice I heard ! 
 
 Steeper, darker ! —lo ! I felt 
 From my feet the pathway melt. 
 Swallowed by the black despair. 
 And the hungry jaws of air. 
 
 Past the stony-throated caves. 
 Strangled by the wash of waves, 
 Past the splintered crags, I sank 
 On a green and flowery bank — 
 
 Soft as fall of thistle-down. 
 
 Lightly as a cloud is blown. 
 Soothingly as childhood pressed 
 To the bosom of its rest. 
 
80 
 
 MY DREAM. 
 
 Of the sharp-horned rocks instead, 
 Green the grassy meadows spread, 
 Bright with waters singing by 
 Trees that propped a golden sky. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Painless, trustful, sorrow-free. 
 
 Old lost faces welcomed me. 
 
 With whose sweetness of content 
 Still expectant hope was blent. 
 
 Waking while the dawning gray 
 Slowly brightened into day. 
 
 Pondering that vision fled. 
 
 Thus unto myself I said : 
 
 " Steep, and hung with clouds of strife. 
 Is our narrow path of life ; 
 
 And our death the dreaded fall 
 Through the dark, awaiting all. 
 
 " So with painful steps we climb 
 Up the dizzy ways of time. 
 
 Ever in the shadow shed 
 By the forecast of our dread. 
 
MY DREAM. 
 
 81 
 
 “Dread of mystery solved alone, 
 
 Of the untried and unknown ; 
 
 Yet the end thereof may seem 
 Like the falling of my dream, 
 
 “ And this heart-consuming care, 
 
 All our fears of here or there. 
 Change and absence, loss and death, 
 Prove but simple lack of faith.” 
 
 Thou, 0 Most Compassionate ! 
 
 Who didst stoop to our estate. 
 Drinking of the cup we drain. 
 Treading in our path of pain — 
 
 Through the doubt and mystery. 
 Grant to us Thy steps to see. 
 
 And the grace to draw from thence 
 Larger hope and confidence. 
 
 Show Thy vacant tomb, and let. 
 
 As of old, the angels sit. 
 Whispering, by its open door : 
 
 “ Fear not! lie hath gone before ! ” 
 6 
 
THE BAREFOOT BOY. 
 
 Blessings on thee, little man, 
 Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! 
 With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
 
 And thy merry whistled tunes ; 
 
 With thy red lip, redder still 
 Kissed by strawberries on the hill; 
 With the sunshine on thy face. 
 Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace 
 From my heart I give thee joy — 
 
 I was once a barefoot boy ! 
 
 Prince thou art—the grown-up man 
 Only is republican. 
 
 Let the million-dollared ride I 
 Barefoot, trudging at his side. 
 
 Thou hast more than he can buy. 
 
 In the reach of ear and eye — 
 Outward sunshine, inward joy : 
 Blessings on thee, barefoot boy ! 
 
THE BAEEFOOT BOY. 
 
 83 
 
 0, for boyhood’s painless play, 
 
 Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 
 Health that mocks the doctor’s rules. 
 Knowledge never learned of schools. 
 
 Of the wild bee’s morning chase, 
 
 Of the wild-flower’s time and place, 
 Flight of fowl, and habitude 
 Of the tenants of the wood ; 
 
 ITow the tortoise bears his sliell, 
 
 How the woodchuck digs his cell, 
 
 And the ground-mole sinks his well; 
 How the robin feeds her young, 
 
 How the oriole’s nest is hung ; 
 
 Where the whitest lilies blow, 
 
 ^ Where the freshest berries grow, 
 
 Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 
 Where the wood-grape’s clusters shine ; 
 Of the black wasp’s cunning way. 
 Mason of his walls of clay, 
 
 And the architectiiral plans 
 Of gray, hornet artisans ! — 
 
 For, eschewing books and tasks, 
 
 Nature answers all he asks; 
 
84 
 
 THE BAREFOOT BOY. 
 
 Hand in hand with her he walks, 
 
 Face to face with her he talks, 
 
 Part and parcel of her joy, — 
 
 Blessings on the barefoot boy I 
 
 0, for boyhood’s time of June, 
 Crowding years in one brief moon, 
 When all things I heard or saw 
 Me, their master, waited for. 
 
 I was rich in flowers and trees, 
 Humming-birds and honey-bees ; 
 
 For my sport the squirrel played, 
 
 Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 
 
 For my taste the blackberry cone 
 Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
 
 Laughed the brook for my delight 
 Through the day and through the night, 
 Whispering at the garden wall, 
 
 Talked with me from fall to fall; 
 
 Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 
 Mine the walnut slopes beyond. 
 
 Mine, on bending orchard trees. 
 
 Apples of Hesperides 1 
 
THE BAREFOOT BOY. 
 
 85 
 
 Still, as my horizon grew, 
 
 Larger grew my riches too ; 
 
 All the world I saw or knew 
 Seemed a complex Chinese toy. 
 Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! 
 
 0, for festal dainties spread. 
 
 Like my bowl of milk and bread, — 
 Pewter spoon and bowl of wood. 
 
 On the door-stone, gray and rude ! 
 O’er me, like a regal tent. 
 Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent. 
 Purple-curtained, fringed with gold. 
 Looped in many a wind-swung fold ; 
 VVhile for music came the play 
 Of the pied frogs’ orchestra ; 
 
 And, to light the noisy choir. 
 
 Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
 
 I was monarch : pomp and joy 
 Waited on the barefoot boy ! 
 
 Cheerily, then, my little man. 
 
 Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! 
 
 I 
 
THE BAREFOOT BOY. 
 
 8t) 
 
 Though the flinty slopes be hard, 
 Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, 
 Every morn shall lead thee through 
 Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
 
 Every evening from thy feet 
 Shall the cool wind kiss the heat: 
 
 All too soon these feet must hide 
 In the prison cells of pride. 
 
 Lose the freedom of the sod. 
 
 Like a colt’s for work be shod, 
 j\Iade to tread the mills of toil. 
 
 Up and down in ceaseless moil: 
 Happy if their track be found 
 Never on forbidden ground ; 
 
 Happy if they sink not in 
 Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
 Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy. 
 Ere it passes, barefoot boy I 
 
FLOWERS IN WINTER. 
 
 PAINTED UPON A PORTE LIVRE. 
 
 How strange to greet, this frosty morn, 
 
 In graceful counterfeit of flowers, 
 
 These children of the meadows, born 
 Of sunshine and of showers ! 
 
 How well the conscious wood retains 
 The pictures of its flower-sown home —- 
 The lights and shades, the purple stains, 
 And golden hues of bloom ! 
 
 It was a happy thought to bring 
 To the dark season’s frost and rime 
 This painted memory of spring, 
 
 This dream of summer time. 
 
 Our hearts are lighter for its sake. 
 
 Our fancy’s age renews its youth, 
 
 And dim-remembered fictions take 
 The guise of present truth. 
 
88 
 
 FLOWERS IN WINTER. 
 
 A wizard of the Merrimac — 
 
 So old ancestral legends say — 
 
 Could call green leaf and blossom back 
 To frosted stem and spray. 
 
 The dry logs of the cottage wall, 
 
 Beneath his touch, put out their leaves ; 
 
 The clay-bound swallow, at his call. 
 
 Played round the icy eaves. 
 
 Tlie settler saw his oaken flail 
 
 Take bud, and bloom before his eyes ; 
 
 From frozen pools he saw the pale, 
 
 Sweet summer lilies rise. 
 
 To their old homes, by man profaned. 
 
 Came the sad dryads, exiled long, 
 
 And through their leafy tongues complained 
 Of household use and wrong. 
 
 The beechen platter sprouted wild. 
 
 The pipkin wore its old-time green ; 
 
 The cradle o’er the sleeping child 
 Became a leafy screen. 
 
FLOWERS IN WINTER. 
 
 89 
 
 Ilaply our gentle friend hath met, 
 
 While wandering- in her sylvan quest, 
 
 Ilaunting his native wmodlands yet, 
 
 That Druid of the W^est; — 
 
 And, while the dew on leaf and flower 
 Glistened in moonlight clear and still. 
 
 Learned the dusk wizard’s spell of power. 
 And caught his trick of skill. 
 
 But welcome, he it new or old, 
 
 The gift which makes the day more bright, 
 
 And paints upon the ground of cold 
 And darkness, warmth and light! 
 
 Without is neither gold nor green; 
 
 Within, for birds, the hirch-logs sing ; 
 
 Yet, summerdike, we sit between 
 The autumn and the spring. 
 
 The one, with bridal blush of rose. 
 
 And sweetest breath of woodland balm. 
 
 And one whose matron lips unclose 
 In smiles of saintly calm. 
 
 H 
 
90 
 
 FLOWERS IN WINTER. 
 
 Fill soft and deep, 0 winter snow! 
 
 The sweet azalia’s oaken dells, 
 
 And hide the bank where roses blow. 
 
 And swing the azure bells ! 
 
 O’erlay the amber violet’s leaves, 
 
 The purple aster’s brook-side home. 
 Guard all the flowers her pencil gives 
 A life beyond their bloom. 
 
 And she, when spring comes round again. 
 By greening slope and singing flood 
 Shall wander, seeking, not in vain. 
 
 Her darlings of the wood. 
 
THE RENDITION. 
 
 I HEARD the train’s shrill whistle call, 
 
 I saw an earnest look beseech, 
 
 And rather by that look than speech 
 My neighbor told me all. 
 
 And, as I thought of Liberty 
 
 Marched hand-cuffed down that sworded street, 
 The solid earth beneath my feet 
 Reeled fluid as the sea. 
 
 I felt a sense of bitter loss — 
 
 Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, 
 
 And loathing fear, as if my path 
 A serpent stretched across. 
 
 All love of home, all pride of place. 
 
 All generous confidence and trust, 
 
 Sank smothering in that deep disgust 
 And anguish of disgrace. 
 
92 
 
 THE RENDITION. 
 
 Down on my native hills of June, 
 
 And home’s green quiet, hiding all. 
 
 Fell sudden darkness like the fall 
 
 Of midnight upon noon I 
 
 And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong. 
 
 Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod, 
 Iloarse-shouting in the ear of God 
 
 The blasphemy of wrong. 
 
 " 0, Mother, from thy memories proud. 
 
 Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, 
 
 Lend this dead air a breeze of health. 
 
 And smite with stars this cloud. 
 
 “ Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, 
 
 Kise awful in thy strength,” I said ; 
 
 Ah, me 1 I spake but to the dead ; 
 
 I stood upon her grave ! 
 
 Si.ith Month, 1854. 
 
LINES, 
 
 os THE PASSAGE OP THE BILL TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS AKD LIBERTIES OF THE 
 PEOPLE OF THE STATE AGAINST THE FUGITTPE SLAVE ACT. 
 
 I SAID I stood upon thy grave, 
 
 My Mother State, when last the moon 
 Of blossoms clomb the skies of June. 
 
 And, scattering ashes on my head, 
 
 I wore, undreaming of relief. 
 
 The sackcloth of thy shame and grief. 
 
 Again that moon of blossoms shines 
 On leaf and flower and folded wing. 
 
 And thou hast risen with the spring! 
 
 Once more thy strong maternal arms 
 Are round about thy children flung — 
 
 A lioness that guards her young! 
 
94 
 
 LINES. 
 
 No threat is on thy closed lips, 
 
 But in thine eye a power to smite 
 The mad wolf backward from its light. 
 
 Southward the baffled robber’s track 
 Henceforth runs only ; hereaway, 
 
 The fell lycanthrope finds no prey. 
 
 Henceforth, within thy sacred gates. 
 
 His first low howl shall downward draw 
 The thunder of thy righteous law. 
 
 Not mindless of thy trade and gain. 
 
 But, acting on the wiser plan. 
 
 Thou ’rt grown conservative of man. 
 
 So shalt thou clothe with life the hope, 
 Dream-painted on the sightless eyes 
 Of him who sang of Paradise — 
 
 The vision of a Christian man, 
 
 In virtue as in stature great. 
 Embodied in a Christian State. 
 
LINES. 
 
 95 
 
 And thou, amidst thy sisterhood 
 Forbearing long, yet standing fast, 
 
 Shalt win their grateful thanks at last; 
 
 When North and South shall strive no more. 
 And all their feuds and fears be lost 
 In Freedom’s holy Pentecost. 
 
 Six/h Month, 1855. 
 
THE FEUIT-GIFT. 
 
 Last night, just as the tints of autumn’s sky 
 Of sunset faded from our hills and streams, 
 
 I sat, vague listening, lapped in twilight dreams, 
 To the leaf’s rustle, and the cricket’s cry. 
 
 Then, like that basket, flush with summer fruit, 
 Dropped by the angels at the Prophet’s foot, 
 Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered sweetness. 
 Full-orbed, and glowing with the prisoned beams 
 Of summery suns, and, rounded to completeness 
 By kisses of the south wind and the dew. 
 
 Thrilled with a glad surprise, methought I knew 
 The pleasure of the homeward-turning Jew, 
 
 Wdien Eschol’s clusters on his shoulders lay. 
 Dropping their sweetness on his desert way. 
 
 I said, “ This fruit beseems no world of sin. 
 
 Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise, 
 
 O’ercrept the wall, and never paid the price 
 Of the great mischief— an ambrosial tree, 
 
THE F R UI T - G IF T . 
 
 97 
 
 Eden’s exotic, somehow smugg’led in, 
 
 To keep the thorns and thistles company.” 
 Perchance our frail, sad mother plucked in haste 
 A single vine-slip as she passed the gate, 
 
 "Where the dread sword, alternate, paled and burned, 
 And the stern angel, pitying her fate, 
 
 Forgave the lovely trespasser, and turned 
 Aside his face of fire ; and thus the waste 
 And fallen world hath yet its annual taste 
 Of primal good, to prove of sin the cost. 
 
 And show by one gleaned ear the mighty harvest lost. 
 
A MEMORY 
 
 Here, while the loom of Winter weaves 
 The shroud of flowers and fountains, / 
 I think of thee and Summer eves 
 Among the Northern mountains. 
 
 When thunder tolled the twilight’s close, 
 And winds the lake were rude on. 
 
 And thou wert singing. Go’ the Yoives, 
 The bonny yowes of Cluden ! 
 
 When, close and closer, hushing breath. 
 Our circle narrowed round thee. 
 
 And smiles and tears made up the wreath 
 Wherewith our silence crowned thee ; 
 
 And, strangers all, we felt the ties 
 Of sisters and of brothers ; 
 
 Ah ! whose of all those kindly eyes 
 Now smile upon another’s ? 
 
A MEMORY. 
 
 99 
 
 The sport of Time, who still apart 
 The waifs of life is flinging ; 
 
 0 I never more shall heart to heart 
 Draw nearer for that singing ! 
 
 Yet when the panes are frosty-starred, 
 And twilight’s fire is gleaming, 
 
 I hear the songs of Scotland’s bard 
 Sound softly through my dreaming ! 
 
 A song that lends to winter snows 
 The glow of summer weather — 
 
 Again I hear thee ca’ the yowes 
 To Cluden’s hills of heather ! 
 
TO C. S. 
 
 If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong 
 Than praise the right; if seldom to thine ear 
 My voice hath mingled with the exultant cheer, 
 Borne upon all our Northern winds along ; 
 
 If I have failed to join the fickle throng 
 In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest strong 
 Ill victory, surprised in thee to find 
 Brougham’s scathing power with Canning’s grace 
 combined ; 
 
 That he, for whom the nine-fold Muses sang, 
 
 From their twined arms a giant athlete sprang. 
 Barbing the arrows of his native tongue 
 With the spent shafts Latona’s archer fiung. 
 
 To smite the Python of our land and time, 
 
 I’eU as the monster born of Orissa’s slime. 
 
 Like the blind bard who in Castalian springs 
 Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings. 
 And on the shrine of England’s freedom laid 
 The gifts of Cumm and of Delphi’s shade — 
 
TO C . S. 
 
 101 
 
 Small need hast thou of words of praise from me. 
 Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst 
 guess 
 
 That, even though silent, I have not the less 
 Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree 
 AVith the large future which I shaped for thee, 
 AVhen, years ago, beside the summer sea, 
 
 AATiite in the moon, we saw the long waves fall 
 Baffled and broken from the rocky wall. 
 
 That, to the menace of the brawling flood. 
 
 Opposed alone its massive quietude. 
 
 Calm as a fate ; with not a leaf nor vine 
 Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine, 
 Crowning it like God’s peace. I sometimes think 
 That night-scene by the sea prophetical — 
 
 (For nature speaks in symbols and in signs. 
 
 And through her pictures human fate divines) — 
 That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink 
 In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall 
 In the white light of heaven, the type of one 
 Who, momently by Error’s host assailed, 
 
 Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed ; 
 
 And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all 
 The tumult, hears the angels say, AVell done! 
 
THE KANSAS EMIGHANTS. 
 
 We cross the prairie as of old 
 The pilgrims crossed the sea. 
 
 To make the West, as they the East, 
 The homestead of the free I 
 
 W e go to rear a wall of men 
 On Freedom’s southern line 
 
 And plant beside the cotton-tree 
 The rugged Northern pine ! 
 
 We ’re flowing from our native hills 
 As our free rivers flow ; 
 
 The blessing of our Mother-land 
 Is on us as we go. 
 
 We go to plant her common schools 
 On distant prairie swells. 
 
 And give the Sabbaths of the wild 
 The music of her bells. 
 
THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS. 
 
 lo:^ 
 
 Upbearing, like the Ark of old, 
 
 The Bible in our van. 
 
 We go to test the truth of God 
 Against the fraud of man. 
 
 No pause, nor rest, save where the streams 
 That feed the Kansas run. 
 
 Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon 
 Shall flout the setting sun I 
 
 We ’ll tread the prairie as of old 
 Our fathers sailed the sea. 
 
 And make the West, as they the East, 
 
 The homestead of the free ! 
 
SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT.* 
 
 Where are we going ? where are we going, 
 Where are we going, Rubee ? 
 
 Lord of peoples, lord of lands. 
 
 Look across these shining sands. 
 
 Through the furnace of the noon. 
 
 Through the white light of the moon. 
 
 Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing. 
 
 Strange and large the world is growing ! 
 Speak and tell us where we are going. 
 
 Where are we going, Rubee 't 
 
 * “ Srhah, Oasis of Fezzan, \Qth March, 1846. — This evening 
 the female slaves were unusually excited in singing, and I had the 
 curiosity to ask my negro servant, Said, what they were singing 
 about. As many of them were natives of his own country, he had no 
 (lifBculty in translating the Mandara or Bornou language. I had 
 often asked the Moors to translate their songs for me, but got no 
 satisfactory account from them. Said at first said, ‘ 0, they sing of 
 Rubee ’ (God) ‘ What do you mean ? ’ I replied, impatiently. ‘ 0, 
 
SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT. 105 
 
 Bornou land was rich and good, 
 
 Wells of water, fields of food, 
 
 Dourra fields, and bloom of bean. 
 
 And the palm-tree cool and green : 
 
 Bornou land we see no longer. 
 
 Here we thirst and here we hunger. 
 
 Here the Moor-man smites in anger : 
 
 Where are we going, Rubee ? 
 
 don’t you know,’ he continued, ‘ they asked God to give them their 
 Atka?' (certificate of freedom). I inquired, 'Is that all?’ Said : 
 ‘ Xo ; they say, " Where are we going ? The world is large. 0 God ! 
 ivhr.re are we going ^ O God / ” ’ I inquired, ' What else ? ’ Said : 
 ‘They remember their country, Bornou, and say, “Bornou teas a 
 pleasant country, full of all good things ; but this is a bad country, and 
 we are miserable!^'’ ‘Do they say anything else?’ Said: ‘No; 
 they repeat these words over and over again, and add,' “ 0 God ! give 
 us our Atka, and let us return again to our dear home.” ’ 
 
 “ I am not surprised I got little satisfaction when I asked the 
 Moors about the songs of their slaves. Who will say that the above 
 words are not a very appropriate song ? What could have been more 
 congenially adapted to their then woful condition ? It is not to be 
 wondered at that these poor bondwomen cheer up their hearts, in 
 their long, lonely, and painful wanderings over the desert, with words 
 and sentiments like these ; but I have often observed that their 
 fatigue and sufferings were too great for them to strike up this mel¬ 
 ancholy dirge, and many days their plaintive strains never broke over 
 the silence of the desert.” — Richardson’s Journal. 
 
106 SONG OP SLAVES IN THE DESERT. 
 
 When we went from Bornou land, 
 
 We were like the leaves and sand, — 
 We were many, we are few; 
 
 Life has one, and death has two: 
 Whitened bones our path are showing. 
 Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowing ! 
 Hear us, tell us where are we going. 
 Where are we going, Rubee ? 
 
 Moons of marches from our eyes 
 Bornou land behind us lies ; 
 
 Stranger round us day by day 
 Bends the desert circle gray ; 
 
 AVild the waves of sand are flowing, 
 
 Hot the winds above them blowing, — 
 Lord of all things 1 —where are we going ? 
 AWiere are we going, Rubee ? 
 
 AA^e are weak, but Thou art strong ; 
 Short our lives, but Thine is long ; 
 AVe are blind, but Thou hast eyes ; 
 We are fools, but Thou art wise 1 
 
SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT. 107 
 
 Thou, our morrow’s pathway knowing 
 Through the strange world round us growing, 
 Hear us, tell us where are we going, 
 
 \N’’here are we going, Rubee ? 
 
INSCRIBED TO FRIENDS UNDER ARREST FOR TREASON AGAINST THE SLAVE PO^VEE. 
 
 The age is dull and mean. Men creep, 
 
 Xot walk ; with blood too pale and tame 
 To pay the debt they owe to shame ; 
 
 Buy cheap, sell dear ; eat, drink, and sleep 
 Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want; 
 I’ay tithes for soul-insurance ; keep 
 Six days to Mammon, one to Cant. 
 
 In such a time, give thanks to God, 
 
 That somewhat of the holy rage 
 With which the prophets in their age 
 On all its decent seemings trod, 
 lias set your feet upon the lie. 
 
 That man and ox and soul and clod 
 Are market stock to sell and buy 1 
 
LINES. 
 
 109 
 
 The hot words from your lips, my owu, 
 
 To caution trained, might not repeat; 
 But, if some tares among the wheat 
 Of generous thought and deed were sown. 
 No common wrong provoked your zeal; 
 The silken gauntlet that is thrown 
 In such a quarrel rings like steel. 
 
 The brave old strife the fathers saw 
 For Freedom calls for men again 
 Like those who battled not in vain 
 For England’s Charter, Alfred’s law; 
 
 And right of speech and trial just 
 Wage in your name their ancient war 
 With venal courts and perjured trust. 
 
 Cod’s ways seem dark, but, soon or late, 
 They touch the shining hills of day; 
 
 The evil cannot brook delay. 
 
 The good can well afford to wait. 
 
 Give ermined knaves their hour of crime ; 
 Ye have the future grand and great, 
 
 The safe appeal of Truth to Time ! 
 
THE NEW EXODUS.* 
 
 By fire and cloud, across the desert sand, 
 
 And through the parted waves, 
 
 From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand, 
 God led the Hebrew slaves ! 
 
 Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, 
 
 As Egypt’s statues cold. 
 
 In the adytum of the sacred book 
 Now stands that marvel old. 
 
 " Lo, God is great! ” the simple Moslem says. 
 
 We seek the ancient date, 
 
 Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase 
 A dead one : “ God was great! ” 
 
 ♦One of the latest and most interesting items of Eastern news is 
 the statement that Slavery has been formally and totally abolished in 
 Egypt 
 
THE NEW EXODUS 
 
 111 
 
 And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa’s wells, 
 
 We dream of wonders past. 
 
 Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells. 
 
 Each drowsier than the last. 
 
 0 fools and blind! Above the Pyramids 
 Stretches once more tliat hand. 
 
 And tranced Egypt, from her ston}' lids. 
 
 Flings back her veil of sand. 
 
 And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes ; 
 And, listening by his Nile, 
 
 O’er Ammon’s grave and awful visage breaks 
 A sweet and human smile. 
 
 Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call 
 Of death for midnight graves. 
 
 Put in the stillness of the noon-day, fall 
 The fetters of the slaves. 
 
 No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, 
 
 The bondmen walk dry shod ; 
 
 Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, 
 Runs now that path of God I 
 
THE HASCHISH. 
 
 Of all that Orient lands can vaunt 
 Of marvels with our own competing-, 
 
 The strangest is the Ilaschish plant, 
 And what will follow on its eating. 
 
 What pictures to the taster rise. 
 
 Of Dervish or of Almeh dances ! 
 
 Of Eblis, or of Paradise, 
 
 Set all aglow with Houri glances I 
 
 The poppy visions of Cathay, 
 
 The heavy beer-trance of the Suabian; 
 
 The wizard lights and demon play 
 Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian ! 
 
 The Mollah and the Christian dog 
 Change place in mad metempsychosis 
 
 The Muezzin climbs the synagogue, 
 
 The Rabbi shakes his beard at Moses ! 
 
THE HASCHISH. 
 
 113 
 
 The Arab by his desert well 
 
 Sits choosing from some Caliph’s daughters, 
 
 And hears his single camel’s bell 
 
 Sound welcome to his regal quarters. 
 
 The Koran’s reader makes complaint 
 Of Shitan dancing on and off it; 
 
 The robber offers alms, the saint 
 
 Drinks Tokay and blasphemes the Prophet! 
 
 Such scenes that Eastern plant awakes ; 
 
 But we have one ordained to beat it, 
 
 The Ilaschish of the West, which makes 
 Or fools or knaves of all who eat it. 
 
 The preacher eats, and straight appears 
 
 . Ilis Bible in a new translation ; 
 
 Its angels negro overseers. 
 
 And Heaven itself a snug plantation ! 
 
 The man of peace, about whose dreams 
 The sweet millennial angels cluster. 
 
 Tastes the mad weed, and plots and schemes, 
 
 A raving Cuban filibuster I 
 
 8 
 
 E 
 
114 
 
 THE HASCHISH. 
 
 The noisiest Democrat, with ease, 
 
 It turns to Slavery’s parish beadle ; 
 
 The shrewdest statesman eats and sees 
 Due southward point the polar needle. 
 
 The Judge partakes, and sits ere long 
 Upon his bench a railing blackguard ; 
 
 Decides olf-hand that right is wrong. 
 
 And reads the ten commandments backward 
 
 0, potent plant! so rare a taste 
 Has never Turk or Gentoo gotten ; 
 
 The hempen Ilaschish of the East 
 Is powerless to our Western Cotton 1 
 
BALLADS. 
 
MARY GARVIN. 
 
 From the heart of Waumhek Methna, from the lake 
 that never fails, 
 
 Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway’s in¬ 
 tervales ; 
 
 There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters foam 
 and flow. 
 
 As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, 
 dams, and mills. 
 
 How changed is Saco’s stream, how lost its freedom 
 of the hills. 
 
 Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately 
 Champernoon 
 
 Heard on its banks the gray wolf’s howl, the trum* 
 pet of the loon 1 
 
]18 
 
 MARY GARVIN. 
 
 AVith smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of 
 fire and steam, 
 
 AMde-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him 
 like a dream. 
 
 Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward 
 far and fast 
 
 The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the 
 past. 
 
 But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow 
 and the sin. 
 
 The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own 
 akin ; 
 
 And, in the tales our fathers told, the songs our 
 mothers sung. 
 
 Tradition, snowy-bearded, leans on Romance, ever 
 young. 
 
 0, sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco’s banks to- 
 day ! 
 
 0, mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle’s 
 restless play! 
 
MARY GARVIN, 
 
 119 
 
 Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand 
 beguile. 
 
 And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear or 
 smile ! 
 
 The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort Mary’s 
 walls ; 
 
 Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and 
 plunged the Saco’s falls. 
 
 And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and gusty 
 grew, 
 
 Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of Spur- 
 wink l^ew. 
 
 On the hearth of Farmer Garvin blazed the crackling 
 walnut log ; 
 
 Fight and left saf dame and goodman, and between 
 them lay the dog. 
 
 Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside 
 him on her mat. 
 
 Sitting drowsy in the fire-light, winked and purred 
 the mottled cat. 
 
120 
 
 MARY GARVIN. 
 
 “ Twenty years ! ” said Goodman Garvin, speaking- 
 sadly, under breath. 
 
 And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who 
 speaks of death. 
 
 The Goodwife dropped her needles: It is twenty 
 years, to-day. 
 
 Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our child 
 away.’’ 
 
 Then they sank into the silence, for each knew the 
 other’s thought. 
 
 Of a great and common sorrow, and words were 
 needed not. 
 
 “ Who knocks ? ” cried Goodman Garvin. The door 
 was open thrown; 
 
 On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and 
 furred, the fire-light shone. 
 
 One vsdth courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin from 
 his head: 
 
 “Lives here Elkanah Garvin?” “I am he,” the 
 Goodman said. 
 
MART GARVIN. 
 
 121 
 
 “ Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night 
 is chill with rain.’’ 
 
 And the Goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the 
 fire amain. 
 
 The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the fire-light 
 glistened fair 
 
 In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of dark 
 brown hair. 
 
 Dame Garvin looked upon her: “ It is Mary’s self I 
 see ! 
 
 Dear heart! ” she cried, “ now tell me, has my child 
 come back to me ? ” 
 
 " My name indeed is Mary,” said the stranger, sob¬ 
 bing wild; 
 
 “ Will you be to me a mother ? I am Mary Garvin’s 
 child! 
 
 “ She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying 
 day 
 
 She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far 
 away. 
 
 L 
 
122 
 
 MARY GARVIN. 
 
 "And when the priest besought her to do me no 
 such wrong, 
 
 She said, ' May God forgive me ! I have closed my 
 heart too long. 
 
 " ' When I hid me from mj^ father, and shut out my 
 mother’s call, 
 
 I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father of 
 us all. 
 
 " ' Christ’s love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie 
 of kin apart; 
 
 Better heresy in doctrine, than lieresy of heart. 
 
 “‘Tell me not the Churcli must censure: she who 
 wei^t the Cross beside 
 
 Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims 
 of blood denied ; 
 
 “‘And if she who wronged her parents, with her 
 child atones to them. 
 
 Earthly daughter. Heavenly mother ! thou at least 
 wilt not condemn ! ’ 
 
MARY G A R V I X . 
 
 12:-) 
 
 “ So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother 
 spake; 
 
 As we come to do her bidding, so receive us for her 
 sake.” 
 
 “God bo praised!” said Goodwife Garvin, “He 
 taketh and He gives ; 
 
 He Avoundeth, but He hoaleth ; in her child our 
 daughter lives.” 
 
 I 
 
 “ ximeu ! ” the old man answered, as he brushed a 
 tear away. 
 
 And, kneeling by his hearth-stone, said, with rever¬ 
 ence, “Let us pray.” 
 
 All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew para¬ 
 phrase. 
 
 Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer 
 of love and praise. 
 
 But he started at beholding, as he rose from off his 
 knee. 
 
 The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of 
 Papistrie. 
 
124 
 
 MARY GARVIN. 
 
 “What is this?’’ cried Farmer Garvin. “Is an 
 English Christian’s home 
 
 A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign 
 of Kome ? ” 
 
 Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his 
 trembling hand, and cried : 
 
 “ 0, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my 
 mother died I 
 
 “ On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and 
 sunshine fall. 
 
 As they fall on Spurwink’s grave-yard; and the 
 dear God watches all! ” 
 
 The old man stroked the fair head that rested on his 
 knee ; 
 
 “Your words, dear child,” he answered, “are God’s 
 rebuke to me. 
 
 “ Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith 
 and hope be one ; 
 
 Let me be your father’s father, let him be to me a 
 son.” 
 
MART GARVIN. 
 
 125 
 
 When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the 
 still and frosty air, 
 
 From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to 
 sermon and to prayer. 
 
 To the goodly house of worship, where, in order 
 due and fit. 
 
 As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the 
 people sit; 
 
 Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire 
 before the clown. 
 
 From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the gray 
 frock, shading down ; 
 
 From the pulpit read the preacher: " Goodman 
 Garvin and his wife 
 
 Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has 
 followed them through life, 
 
 "For the great and crowning mercy, that their 
 daughter, from the wild. 
 
 Where she rests (they hope in God’s peace), has 
 sent to them her child ^ 
 
MARY GARVIN. 
 
 12fi 
 
 “ And the prayers of all God’s people they ask that 
 they may prove 
 
 Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such 
 special proof of love.” 
 
 As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple 
 stood, 
 
 And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maiden¬ 
 hood. 
 
 ddiought the elders, grave and doubting, “ She is 
 Papist born and bred ; ” 
 
 Thought the young men, “’Tis an angel in Mary 
 Garvin’s stead! ” 
 
MAUD MULLER. 
 
 Maud Muller, ou a summer’s day, 
 
 Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 
 
 Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
 Of simple beauty and rustic health. 
 
 Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 
 The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 
 
 But, when she glanced to the far-off town, 
 White from its hill-slope looking down. 
 
 The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 
 And a nameless longing filled her breast — 
 
 A wish, that she hardly dared to own. 
 
 For something better than she ha(^\ known. 
 
 The Judge rode slowly down the lane. 
 Smoothing his horse’s chestnut mane. 
 
128 
 
 MAUD MULLER. 
 
 He drew his bridle in the shade 
 Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, 
 
 And ask a draught from the spring that flowed 
 Through the meadow, across the road. 
 
 She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, 
 And filled for him her small tin cup, 
 
 And blushed as she gave it, looking down 
 On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 
 
 “ Thanks ! ” said the Judge, “a sweeter draught 
 From a fairer hand was never quafied.” 
 
 He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, 
 
 Of the singing birds and the humming bees ; 
 
 Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether 
 The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 
 
 And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown. 
 
 And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; 
 
 And listened, while a pleased surprise. 
 
 Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 
 
MAUD MULLER. 
 
 129 
 
 At last, like one who for delay 
 Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 
 
 Maud Muller looked and sighed: " Ah, me ! 
 That I the Judge’s bride might be ! 
 
 “ He would dress me up in silks so fine, 
 
 And praise and toast me at his wine. 
 
 " My father should wear a broadcloth coat; 
 
 My brother should sail a painted boat. 
 
 "I’d dress my mother so grand and gay. 
 
 And the baby should have a new toy each day. 
 
 “ And I’d feed the hungry and clothe the poor. 
 And all should bless me who left our door.” 
 
 The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill. 
 And saw Maud Muller standing still. 
 
 “ A form more fair, a face more sweet. 
 
 Ne’er hath it been my lot to meet. 
 
 “ And her modest answer and graceful air 
 Show her wise and good as she is fair. 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 MAUD MULLER. 
 
 “ Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
 
 Like her, a harvester of hay : 
 
 "No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
 Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 
 
 " But low of cattle and song of birds. 
 
 And health and quiet and loving words,’’ 
 
 But he thought of his sisters proud and cold. 
 And his mother vain of her rank and gold. 
 
 ¥ 
 
 So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on. 
 
 And Maud was left in the field alone. 
 
 But the lawyers smiled that afternoon. 
 
 When he hummed in court an old love-tune ; 
 
 And the young girl mused beside the well, 
 Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 
 
 lie wedded a wife of richest dower, 
 
 MTio lived for fashion, as he for power. 
 
 Yet oft, in his marble hearth’s bright glow. 
 He watched a picture come and go: 
 
MAUD MULLER. 
 
 131 
 
 And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
 Looked out in their innocent surprise. 
 
 Oft, wheii'the wine in his glass was red, 
 
 He longed for the wayside well instead ; 
 
 And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms. 
 
 To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. 
 
 And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain: 
 “ Ah, that I were free again 1 
 
 “ Free as when I rode that day, 
 
 Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 
 
 She wedded a man unlearned and poor. 
 
 And many children played round her door. 
 
 But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain. 
 
 Left their traces on heart and brain. 
 
 And oft, when the summer sun shone hot 
 On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot. 
 
 And she heard the little spring brook fall 
 Over the roadside, through the wall, 
 
132 
 
 MAUD MULLER. 
 
 In the shade of the apple-lj^’ee again 
 She saw a rider draw his rein. 
 
 And, gazing down with timid grace, 
 
 She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 
 
 Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
 Stretched away into stately halls ; 
 
 The weary wheel to a spinnet turned. 
 
 The tallow candle an astral burned, 
 
 And for him who sat by the chimney-lug. 
 Dozing and grumbling o’er pipe and mug, 
 
 A maidy form at her side she saw'. 
 
 And joy was duty and love was law. 
 
 Then she took up her burden of life again. 
 Saying only, “It might have been.” 
 
 Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 
 
 For rich repiner and household drudge I 
 
 God pity them both! and pity us all, 
 
 Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 
 
JIAUD MULLER. 
 
 13.3 
 
 For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 
 The saddest are these : “It might have been! ” 
 
 Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies 
 Deeply buried from human eyes ; 
 
 And, in the hereafter, angels may 
 Roll the stone from its grave away ! 
 
THE RANGER. 
 
 Robert Rawlin ! — Frosts were falling 
 When the ranger’s horn was calling 
 Through the woods to Canada. 
 
 Gone the winter’s sleet and snowing, 
 Gone the springtime’s bud and blowing, 
 Gone the summer’s harvest mowing. 
 And again the fields are gray. 
 
 Yet away, he ’s away ! 
 
 Paint and fainter hope is growing 
 In the hearts that mourn his stay. 
 
 Where the lion, crouching high on 
 Abraham’s rock with teeth of iron. 
 Glares o’er wood and wave away, 
 Faintly thence, as pines far sighing. 
 
 Or as thunder spent and dying. 
 
 Come the challenge and replying, 
 
 Come the sounds of flight and fray. 
 
THE RANGER. 
 
 135 
 
 Well-a-day I Hope and pray ! 
 
 Some are living, some are lying 
 In their red graves far away. 
 
 Straggling rangers, worn with dangers, 
 Homeward faring, weary strangers 
 Pass the farm-gate on their way ; 
 Tidings of the dead and living, 
 
 Forest march and ambush, giving. 
 
 Till the maidens leave their weaving. 
 
 And the lads forget their play. 
 
 “ Still away, still away ! ” 
 
 Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving, 
 
 “ Why does Robert still delay! ’’ 
 
 Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer, 
 
 Does the golden-locked fruit-bearer 
 Through his painted woodlands stray. 
 Than where hill-side oaks and beeches 
 Overlook the long, blue reaches. 
 
 Silver coves and pebbled beaches, 
 
 And green isles of Casco Bay ; 
 
 Nowhere day, for delay. 
 
 With a tenderer look beseeches, 
 
 “ Let me with my charmed earth stay ! ” 
 
136 
 
 THE BANGER. 
 
 On the grain-lands of the mainlands 
 Stands the serried corn like train-bands, 
 Plume and pennon rustling gay ; 
 
 Out at sea, the islands wooded, 
 
 Silver birches, golden-hooded. 
 
 Set with maples, crimson-blooded. 
 White sea-foam and sand-hills gray. 
 Stretch away, far. away. 
 
 Dim and dreamy, over-brooded 
 By the hazy autumn day. 
 
 Gayly chattering to the clattering 
 Of the brown nuts downward pattering, 
 Leap the squirrels, red and gray. 
 
 On the grass-land, on the fallow. 
 
 Drop the apples, red and yellow; 
 
 Drop the russet pears and mellow. 
 
 Drop the red leaves all the day. 
 
 And away, swift away 
 Sun and cloud, o’er hill and hollow 
 Chasing, weave their web of play. 
 
 “ Martha Mason, Martha Mason, 
 Prithee tell us of the reason 
 Why you mope at home to-day : 
 
THK RANGER. 
 
 13T 
 
 Surely smiling is not sinning; 
 
 Leave j'our quilling, leave your spinning ; 
 What is all your store of linen, 
 
 If your heart is never gay ? 
 
 Come away, come away ! 
 
 Never yet did sad beginning 
 Make the task of life a play.’’ 
 
 Overbending, till she’s blending 
 With the flaxen skein she ’s tending. 
 
 Pale brown tresses smoothed, away 
 From her face of patient sorrow, 
 
 Sits she, seeking but to borrow. 
 
 From the trembling hope of morrow. 
 Solace for the weary day. 
 
 “ Go your way, laugh and play ; 
 
 Unto Him who heeds the sparrow 
 And the lily, let me pray.” 
 
 “ With our rally, rings the valley — 
 
 Join us ! ” cried the blue-eyed Nelly; 
 
 “ Join us ! ” cried the laughing May : 
 
 “ To the beach we all are going, 
 
 And, to save the task of rowing, 
 
 M 
 
138 
 
 THE RANGER, 
 
 West by north the wind is blowing, 
 Blowing briskly down the bay ! 
 
 Come away, come away ! 
 
 Time and tide are swiftly flowing. 
 
 Let us take them while we may I 
 
 “ Never tell us that you T1 fail us, 
 
 AVhere the purple beach-plum mellows 
 Oil the bluffs so wild and gray. 
 
 Hasten, for the oars are falling ; 
 
 Hark, our merry mates are calling : 
 
 Time it is that we were all in. 
 
 Singing tideward down the bay ! ” 
 
 “ Nay, nay, let me stay ; 
 
 Sore and sad for Robert Eawliri 
 Is my heart,” she said, " to-day.” 
 
 “ Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin I 
 
 Some red squaw his moose-meat’s broiling, 
 Or some French lass, singing gay ; 
 
 Jlist forget as he’s forgetting ; 
 
 What avails a life of fretting ? 
 
 If some stars must needs be setting. 
 
 Others rise as good as they.” 
 
THE RANGER. 
 
 139 
 
 “ Cease, I pray ; go your way ! ” 
 Martha cries, her eyelids wetting; 
 
 “ Foul and false the words you say ! ” 
 
 “ Martha Mason, hear to reason ! 
 Prithee, put a kinder face on ! ” 
 
 “ Cease to vex me,” did she say ; 
 
 “ Better at his side be lying. 
 
 With the mournful pine-trees sighing. 
 And the wild birds o’er us crying. 
 
 Than to doubt like mine a prey ; 
 While away, far away, 
 
 Turns my heart, forever trying 
 Some new hope for each new day. 
 
 “ When the shadows veil the meadows. 
 And the sunset’s golden ladders 
 
 Climb the twilight’s walls of gray — 
 From the window of my dreaming, 
 
 I can see his sickle gleaming, 
 Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming 
 Down the locust-shaded way ; 
 
 But away, swift away 
 Fades the fond, delusive seeming. 
 
 And I kneel, again to pray. 
 
140 
 
 THE RANGER. 
 
 “ When the growing' dawn is showing, 
 And the barn-yard cock is crowing, 
 
 And tlie horned moon pales away : 
 From a dream of him awaking. 
 
 Every sound my heart is making 
 Seems a footstep of his taking ; 
 
 Then I hush the thought, and say, 
 
 ‘ Nay, nay, he ’s away ! ’ 
 
 I 
 
 Ah ! my heart, my heart is breaking 
 For the dear one far away.’’ 
 
 Look up, Martha ! worn and swarthy, 
 Glows a face of manhood worthy : 
 
 “ Robert! ” " Martha ! ” all they say. 
 O’er went wheel and reel together, 
 
 Little cared the owner whither ; 
 
 Heart of lead is heart of feather. 
 
 Noon of night is noon of day! 
 
 Come away, come away I 
 When such lovers meet each other. 
 
 Why should prying idlers stay ? 
 
 Bare the timbers, quench the embers 
 Of their red leaves, in December’s 
 Hoary rime and chilly spray. 
 
THE RANGER. 
 
 141 
 
 But the hearth shall kindle clearer, 
 Household welcomes sound sincerer, 
 Heart to loving heart draw nearer, 
 When the bridal bells shall say : 
 
 “ Hope and pray, trust alway ; 
 
 Life is sweeter, love is dearer. 
 
 For the trial and delay ! ” 
 

 
 
 V