V^I^I^^E® I?"IR DEC. y 1901 CLhSS ^XXc >i - \ C®PV J. Printed by the SOUTHGATE Department of THE STILLINGS PRESS, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS VERSES fr m the COTTON BOLL by HENRY TIMROD THE COTTON BOLL WHILE I recline At ease beneath This immemorial pine, Small sphere ! (By dusky fingers brought this morning here And shown with boastful smiles), I turn thy cloven sheath, Through which the soft white fibres peer, That, with their gossamer bands. Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands. And slowly, thread by thread. Draw forth the folded strands. Than which the trembling line, By whose frail help yon startled spider fled Down the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed. Is scarce more fine; And as the tangled skein Unravels in my hands, Betwixt me and the noonday light A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles The landscape broadens on my sight. As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell Like that which, in the ocean shell. With mystic sound Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round. And turns some city lane Into the restless main. With all his capes and isles ! HA THE COTTON BOI.'L — Coniinued YONDER bird, Which floats, as if at rest, In those blue tracts above the thunder, where No vapors cloud the stainless air, And never sound is heard, Unless at such rare time When, from the City of the Blest, Rings down some golden chime. Sees not from his high place So vast a cirque of summer space As widens round me in one mighty field. Which, rimmed by seas and sands. Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams Of gray Atlantic dawns ; And, broad as realms made up of many lands. Is lost afar Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns Of sunset, among plains vtrhich roll their streams Against the Evening Star! And lo! To the remotest point of sight. Although I gaze upon no waste of snow, The endless field is white ; And the whole landscape glows, For many a shining league away. With such accumulated light As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day ! f^S THE COTTON BO 1.1. — Continued NOR lack there (for the vision grows, And the small charm within my hands, — More potent even than the fabled one, Which oped whatever golden mystery Lay hid in fairy wood or magic vale. The curious ointment of the Arabian tale — Beyond all mortal sense Doth stretch my sight's horizon, and I see, Beneath its simple influence, As if, with Uriel's crown, I stood in some great temple of the Sun, And looked, as Uriel, down!) Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all green With all the common gifts of God, For temperate airs and torrid sheen ■Weave Edens of the sod; Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold Broad rivers wind their devious ways; A hundred isles in their embraces fold A hundred luminous bays; And through yon purple haze Vast mountains lift their plumed peaks cloud-crowned ; And, save where up their sides the ploughman creeps, An unhewn forest girds them grandly round, In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps ! THE COTTON BOI.'L — Continued YE Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth ! Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays Above it, as to light a favorite hearth ! Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the West See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers ! And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers ! Bear witness with me in my song of praise, And tell the world that, since the world began, No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays, Or given a home to man : But these are charms already widely blown! His be the meed whose pencil's trace Hath touched our very swamps with grace. And round whose tuneful way All Southern laurels bloom; The Poet of "The W^oodlands," unto whom Alike are known The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone, And the soft west wind's sighs; But who shall utter all the debt, O Land wherein all powers are met That bind a people's heart, The world doth owe thee at this day, And which it never can repay. \ THE COTTON 'BO 1.1.— Concluded YET scarcely deigns to own ! Where sleeps the poet w^ho shall fitly sing The source wherefrom doth spring That mighty commerce which, confined To the mean channels of no selfish mart, Goes out to every shore Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips In alien lands ; Joins with a delicate web remotest strands; And gladdening rich and poor. Doth gild Parisian domes, Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes, And only bounds its blessings by mankind ! In offices like these, thy mission lies. My Country ! and it shall not end As long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend In blue above thee; though thy foes be hard And cruel as their weapons, it shall guard Thy hearth-stones as a bulwark; make thee great In white and bloodless state; And haply, as the years increase — Still working through its humbler reach With that large wisdom which the ages teach — Revive the half-dead dream of universal peace ! Verses from Christmas Peace in the quiet dales, Made rankly fertile by the blood of men. Peace in the woodland, and the lonely glen. Peace in the peopled vales ! Peace in the crowded town. Peace in a thousand fields of waving grain, Peace in the highway and the flowery lane, Peace on the wind-swept down ! Peace on the farthest seas. Peace in our sheltered bays and ample streams, Peace wheresoe'er our starry garland gleams, And peace in every breeze ! Peace on the whirring marts. Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams. Peace, God of Peace! peace, peace, in all our homes. And peace in all our hearts ! — By Henry 'Timrod.