v *«. ^ *V 0" *».M^ ^> ^ «/ */\^»^/l'„ *Ov A** * •' ^ °.i. **•"•' *° V'-^V'*^ 'Co 1 ?- % It W : » * ++o* i + o. 4* ♦W^*_ ^ v v \* % "- 1 A° V *°«o° J* O * /, ■**, :•• a Mariamne, Queen of the Jews GENESIS, TREE OF LIFE (EDISON), THE FAIRIES, CENTENNIAL SONGS AND OTHER POEMS BY Mrs. Sarah Burlingame Rankin, nee Lapham , A . W& CINCINNATI Press op Robert Clarke & Co 1884 a- U^ Copyrighted, 188-1, By Sarah Burlingame Rankin. DEDICATION. TO MY BELOVED PARENTS, AND OTHER DEAR FRIENDS WHO AIDED MY EARLY AND LATER EFFORTS, THIS VOLUME IS Affectionately Bcfcicatcfc* Through the walls of hut and palace Shoots the instantaneous throe, When the travail of the ages wrings Earth's systems to and fro ; At the birth of each new Era, with a Recognizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing With mute lips apart, And glad Truth's — yet mightier man — Child leaps beneath the Future's heart." — Present Crisis, Low* 11. SKETCH. The authoress is a native of Rhode Island, but by adoption a westerner. Graduated from the Female College, Oxford, Ohio, when under the control of the fvev. John Walter Scott, D. D. Married and lived thirteen wedded years in Covington, Kentucky. Then, urged by her only brother, Levi A. Lapham, a lawyer residing at Peoria, Illinois, she removed (1872) to that city. Here she engaged in arduous and unremitting study, laboring to deserve the esteem of the gifted and cultured people with whom she had cast her lot. "With the same laudable am- bition that moves the man of business to be identified as suc- cessful in his life career, the writer, whose only wealth is the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of an inherited gift, comes before the public in a pursuit which has ever proved the animating ally of education and good breeding, and the strong cordon of social refinement. VI 11 CONTENTS. The March of Time, ..... 118 Ye Hills, ...... . 122 Daniel Boone, ...... 125 England will Care for Egypt, . 128 The Christmas Snow-storm, .... 130 Captain John J. Desmond, . 138 The Pitiful Sight of the Changing Year, 139 The Rose, ...... . 142 Sweet Spirit of Love, .... i r> Love after Tea, ..... . 141 Mammoth Cave, ..... 145 A Scrap of Poetry, .... . 147 The Pipe of Peace, . . . . . 148 The Dandelion, ..... . 151 The Northmen, ...... 152 The Slave's Purchase, .... . 154 Song of the Tea Kettle, .... 156 Yankee Doodle, ..... . 158 The Trumpet, . TOO The Flag: ...... . 162 Auld Lang Syne, ..... K)5 Independence Bells, .... . .167 The Old and the New, .... 176 My Country, ..... . 181 At My Father's Grave, .... Ian Friends' Burying-Ground, . 1^7 My Mother, ...... 183 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. For the account of Mariamne, wife of Herod the Great, consult Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews," Book 5, c. 1-7. Zedekiah was appointed King of Jerusalem by its Babylonish captor, Nebuchadnezzar : later was carried to Babylon, where he died in prison. From this time foreigners made and deposed the governors of Judea, beginning with Zerubbabcl, appointed by Cyrus. Under Roman authority, Antipater, an Idumean Jew was made pro- curator by Csesar. His son, Herod, called "The Great," finally ob- tained the kingdom through the affection of Mark Antony. This subject became our inspiration while reading the Antiq- uities. It was chosen and elaborated before knowing of its selec- tion or before reading the dramatic poem on " Herod's Jealousy," by Calderon. The reader must take the production with its stamp of origi- nality which is the plainer synonym of afflatus or inspiration. To make the plot consistent, the poem commencs with David, King of Israel. The moon full-orbed rose over Palestine When David to the house-top moved his harp, Bootes waned paler while the stars decline, Arcturus glittering on his garter sharp, — And few the marshals of the starry wards Marching across the planetary court, But when the bard makes melody with the chords God gets the praises of the inspiring sport. His Harp survives the Koyal Jew ! The Land, The Temple, Priesthood, Ceremonial, where? The sacrificial-vessels, vestments, altars and 10 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. Their symbolic furniture evocate despair; The Theocratic Polity has been fulfilled ! The Lion shall love the Lamb : The Child is at hand To lead the Lion and offer the New Command : The signs have changed, not God, who Omnipotent willed To change His Will, whereupon His promises stand From all Eternity. Now Adonijah Was feasting under the palms in Paradise, The Royal Park crowned with th' Edenic tira, A spot to allure and charm King David's eyes When within its labyrinthal ways he walked, • The conduct contemplating of Israel Or enjoying Nature spiritualized and talked, As Adam communed with this — and as him, fell. " Nathan is here, O king, and brings thee news, 'Thy sons disloyal spread a feast to-day At which Adonijah for thy kingdom sues, Insults thy power and scepter, throne and sway, Usurps thy Birthright, and begins to reign." ' This said Bathsheba to the king in haste. " Solomon shall hew the traitorous crew in twain ; O prophet, there's no moment here to waste, Upon my ass bear him to Gihon, where Zadock the priest must anoint him in my stead As king ; the gathering multitude will meet him there, Shouting, ' God save the King ! ' and making afraid MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 11 The rebels in yonder vale, and they will run Suing for ' mercy/ from my lord aud son, Death will embrace the old king here in peace, Jerusalem will nourish — Zion increase." Thus David spake. Moreover another king An acclaiming populace to Zion will bring, " Hozanna in the Highest to the son of David," who Shall ride an ass and wail Jerusalem's Jew. " Nation ! thy glories all depart as spoil, Drawing the lust of Conquerors to thee: With anise, mint, and cumin thou may'st toil, Serving the letter of the Law, to be Hereafter cleft and broken, sawn and peeled : My sheltering love, how often had it concealed Thee from the doom impending, even as a hen Appeals to her chickens under her wings ! but, Oh, Such love as mine thou would'st none of! again Go, tread the wine-press all alone ; for know, Jerusalem shall be cloven from crypt to spire And, piece by piece, be cast upon the fire."' It was night in David's city, and Herod kept His vigil in the alleys of the Palms, In that same garden to which rebels crept To plot their deed of blood. The Leonine arms Had been removed, for an Idumean Jew Rules on the throne of Judah's Royal Line, 12 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. Roman emblazonries for preference sue, Though Jewish sacrifices have their shrine. A toga of purple wraps the Ruler's form, A present from Caesar, stitched with precious stones, Around his forehead plays a jewel-storm, Drawn by the moon, sailing high over massive cones Of the Damascus date-palm, every gem Glittering in his bandeau like imperious eyes Flashing with fire, and plashing the surrounding hem Of coppice with scintillations till there lies On either hand a zodiac of light, Through which he moves abstracted from the sight. His sight looks in ward — pondering his heart's maze; B twcen his brows the forked frowns of thought Darken his countenance, while a threatening plays Like levin in his eyes ; such threats had brought If in the cloud the lightning sharp to flay The queenly palm and Jealousy's fiercer ray May burn as red across a darker day. The swooping winds across the spicery snare The aromatic smells of redolent wood, Camphor, cinnamon, cassia are incense there, And the tall aloe soaring into the flood Of pearlaceous moonlight stimulates the air Which scarcely soughs, so heavy with vesper scents, The calamus growing by the pool, did spare A spicy breath, with sweet sebaceous drents Of nard, and Jiled's balsamic tree, balm sweet Were all which filled this estival retreat. MAEIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 13 Throughout the garden flowed a gentle stream Knotting a crystal chord about the roots, Giving at every loop a sparkling gleam Among the brilliant flowers and verdant shoots, A rivulet led from Siloah's fount, " Going softly" through the Royal Paradise Till o'er a reservoir's marble lip to mount Purls down in cascade, sings its note and dies. The king came hither, where the Summer moon In all her glory seeming to be arrayed — A Heavenly Sheba traveling at high noon — Shone fully on his features, as afraid He warily came, as shy of being seen, Two doves were kissing, hidden in th' summery green. An utterance dark — and then a heavy sigh As if repenting what he then had said Escaped his lips ; Night's stillness then did vie With his stern pose, — when the weird coo had fled Beyond his ear ; Listening ; he listened not As the soft steps of woman's feet drew near, His heart throbbed too wild, and his brain too hot With anguish, that the light movement gave no fear, And she came nearer, near enough to lay Her hand upon the shoulder of the king. "Oking!" 14 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. He started, as a tigress may Nursing her cubs, if a strange beast should stray Across her lair : Like blasting iron did ring — W It jarred her ear, that tone of ire As it had bruised a harder thing than flesh ; His eyes flashed like the sparks of steely fire, His frame strained every muscle like a mesh Which bound him rigidly, wavering and at bay, In the presence of Salome, sister of the king, A feline whelp of Antipater — and only they Who suffered her virulence felt how it could bring The wounds, the torturing pangs, the deathly fears Which strike to the life and poison as the sting Of viper poisons ; but her venom tears And strikes the deepest, she who loved the king, Mariamne, beloved of th' earth, for whom Heaven he sues, Daughter of Hycanus, High Priest of the Jews. That love is fatal which our fears can rouse To jealousy, which every fear pursues ; This snake in our love-garden, who can tell Which is the fiercer, Love or Hate? Two fires Which are attracted, and combining, swell The flames wherein the suicide expires. The king drew life from Mariamne's love ; MAKIAMXE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 15 Many children of his loins had filled his court By mauy wives, though none to allure his love; Herod proud, voluptuous, imperious, held his port As a husband should before her, not a lord, Love never led a man by a stronger chord, As lion beside a lamb the two did go, Twins born of a ewe, the nestlings from one tree, Love fosters, grafts, but never prunes, we know Love by excess but not by penury. A wicked thought will escape and find, its breath Breeding infection or a blast of war ! Should the king die he had decreed her death, — And Mariamne learned the secret, for, Naught is so secret, but it in th' sun shall lie And winds will carry it, and friends will cry It from the house-top, and all the world will pry, Even as the shock opens earth to let in sky. Wrestling with constricting passions, on this eve Herod turned to Kidron's vale while th' garden lay Cooling in dew, and the full moon did weave Every color aud tint with her mild mordant ray Fixing a lutescent medium softly veiled About all heaven. And the peach-almond tree Felt its pink blossoms fade, Sharon roses paled, Purple lilies put on black — the livery we see That queenly star can most becoming wear Koyal yellow and black — these on the Labyrinth lay When Herod came there, where his jewels flare Like lamps among the alleys, every way 16 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. He seemed the corona for the eclipse of day. The tormentress, who could turn the palace walls Into whispering galleries of vindictive ire, Hated the queen with all the hate that galls At the sight of love like Herod's, as spirit to fire, Torments the object of Mariamne's love ; His feminine moods, his tender inanities Entering the harem, taking no way to move Save through the portal of Mariamne's heart. Conjured up the demons of all the Insanities In both. T' secern these wrong by wrong, each part Unknowingly kissed the other to do a crime For divided ends; the means secured a bride For Heaven and him and all of Etern Time Should prove and consummate the bridal; Pride Conferred the power to make his beloved wife The bride of sacrifice for this. But to move All Hell and Earth to destroy one hated life, To pander a bride for Death, Salome's power must lie Hate, Mortification, Envy, Jealousy, Foes antagonizing heavenliness and Heaven. The king's mad love men would have seen forgiven As Time forgives ; for love is but the glow Of God's Self-Attribute and undefined, And men have crazed of love, this God to know; Have worshiped woman with as mad a mind. Gentile and Jew receive the promises : The one accepts the Messiah already come, Another Interpreter of the Prophecies MAKIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 17 The other believes, — and still for all there's room, And God forgives. And now Salome heard For the first the king's decision ; from Sin's black spore The Tartarean apple of love lmng there and bore Such prolification of jealousy, it stirred Men's fears, knowing Herod's love tasted sweet before, Until Mariamne's woe stained red with gore, — As the Eastern Suri 1 snaps, like the wind's fair wracks, Her helpness neck must stroke the murderous ax. The problem of Existence here, when tried, God remains God, though matter returns to dust; The fool can read this truth; but, if denied, Does spirit return to be from what it came? Is there reunition of love with God as at first? The Brahmin trusts his soul even higher, its flame Refines in th' Nirvana' that absorbs its load, Though this divine psychism seems lotus flowed, Seems spirit inane as that on flowers bestowed ; Islamism prepictures the voluptuary's abode Of Love unending : It is " love, love, love," Which souls have cried since Eons began to move. But if the Christian's claim to Heaven must be " Purification of soul," alone for his purity — The Brahmin enjoys such a Heaven as this — just this! To be wise, like God, would relate us to higher bliss; IS RIARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. He is truly wise, He surely is purely clean ; Have tho works of God any stain to condemn, any moan Lei Heaven be filled with these, then, Let man Work out the problem of existence on God's plan. The grandest works of men become their gods 'fill hurled together in their common graves; Things of men's hands ami human like the abodes Of foul corruptions which Destruction saves Burying out <>f sight. Behold how Herod died ! God compensates the worm with what He made; The worm pulls down man's monuments of pride; God remains i\od, and Spirit is Deified. Strator surnamed Csesarea, on the sea Glistened like silver when the sun rose bigh, Herod's marble city whose Roman luxury The Imperial Mistress of the world could vie, Whose aoble mole outgrew the Tiber's pride, Kissing the feel of Home 14)011 its shore, — At whose full breast the merchant ships did ride Gorging the voluptuous city at her door, Whose Coliseum tills the marble stage With gladiators, tor the feast of Death, Smiling as proudly on the assembly's rage As though its umpire waved the victor's wreath; And if the dew wept over his Promised Land, Sorrowing to see such impious pile arise, Knowing his Law-Giver was guiltless oi' the command " An altar for a human sacrifice," Purged his soul cleaner with his prayers and sighs. MARIAMNE, C^UEEN OF THE JEWS. 1 J) God's mercy tempers even Jerusalem's doom! When Jew and Gentile skulk along the street, And the Centurions with their hundreds come Bristling with glaves, and friends afraid to meet, Or meeting eyes grow glassy, stiff with fear, Face pinched and ghostly under the soldiery's leer, Men petrifying as though the Gorgon sway Of Fear fell upon all ; 'T is the doomster's day, Mariamue's head falls by the lictor's blow, Queen of the Jews and Herod's overthrow. Hark ! hark ! what shrieks ring from Sebaste's walls ? What howls of madness, wailings of despair? Jews use no racks ; the rending wheel ne'er falls Mangling its victim ; what mean those shrieks there? The fortress rings with Mariamue's name, Court, gallery, dungeon, vault, and battlement ring; Night roaring with the confusion, morning came As horrible with din, and still more maddening, With Herod calling Mariamue's name ! Behold him crazed on love, remorse, despair, His love now fed by Hades' torturing flame, Jealousy has fled and Crime confronts him there " Her murderer": He calls, he roars, he raves ! *' Call," gibber the seven demons of his brain, "Mariamne s gone to Heaven, and there craves No love from thee uxoricide, the Cain 20 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. Battens on thy conscience, ravening thee for love, And Hell is just and thou must give him love." NOTES 1 The rose of Syria, which was called Suristan, the Land of Roses. 2 The first person of the Hindoo triad is Brahma, the creator of the world ; the second person, Vishnu, the preserver ; the third person is Siva, the destroyer. But above Brahma there is the Nirvana into which the souls of men are absorbed after exalted transmigrations, and the attainment of neceesary purification for this absorption after death. As the Nirvana takes precedence of Brahma, with this absorp- tion the soul takes perfect repose and the enjoyment of all this Spirit enjoys in Eternal Bliss. THE PRINCE IMPERIAL. 21 THE PRINCE IMPERIAL. Nous recevons d'une de nos lectrices americaines les plus assidues, Mme S. B. Rankin, residant a Peoria, 111., une charmante poesie en anglais: The Prince Imperial. ■ Cette poesie tout en pretant un hom- raage au Franpais qui vient de descendre dans la tombe, est une veritable ode a la Liberte. Nous regrettons que notre connaissance iraparfaite de la langue anglaise nous empeche d'en donner un tra- duction fidele. —Courrier de V Illinois. When Spring had warmed upon her breast * The violets, which the snows had pressed, And curled the hyacinth's fragrant hair, And sung the rose the robin's air, An angel peered from out the skies And thought our world a paradise. A woman beautifully fair, The gold of Castile in her hair — Indeed, a very rose of Spain — Was listening to the angel's strain, When, awakening from the trance, she knew The angel to her bosom flew. She threw her white arms round its form, She felt her wild heart, like a storm Of passion beating the old love down Since this new love was all her own, Till her still eloquence, tear by tear, Baptized the angel, "mortal," here. 22 THE PRINCE IMPERIAL. Did heaven translate her in that hour? This was the paradise of power ; The air shook with a joy intense, " Vive l'Imperatrice et Vivele Prince ! " And banners blazed for them, as though Heaven furnished its pavilion-bow. The voice of fate was strong and clear, — She lifted up her voice in prayer, She walked no longer in a cloud, The royal babe had made her proud, For "a principality" she prayed, And asked no lower of God's aid. What was there that could be forgiven In this white prayer, that went to heaven? She only asked it for her son The royal lily of her throne, And every mother asks the most That kin or country has to boast ! Millions on millions knew her prayer, And prayed God "their first bom to spare," Prayed Him, " that sweat, not blood, should flow To give the grain its harvest glow, Their red atonements make France free, But not, a principality." It was the common people's prayer Rose from each fire-side altar there, Bearing each Frenchman's soul to heaven, Asking the least, that can be given GENESIS. 23 To help God's frail humanity, But naught for principality. Not for that cold but mighty head Resting, at last, among the dead, That would not let men be at rest While he could hear the groaning breast Of earth beneath his cannon wheels Which lulled him with their thunder peals; Not for that cold and impious hand That slipped the chains upon the land, Hurled his coup d'etat at consent And mocked them with a President, Nor let them see one stony tear To calm their trembling hearts of fear, Will sword and banner blaze again ; Although France has her iron men ;— For Freedom leases life too strong, To yield kings this red-handed wrong, And Time, dull, stony-eyed will see A sphinx, of the Principality. July, 1879. GENESIS. Faith in God ! a stern expression Preached to believers in early time : "Maranatha, or a full confession," Thundered the Canon Law for crime Pain has lost its fascination 24 GENESIS. For the man who kneels to pray, Brand and scourge and mutilation Amuse no idling bigots to-day, Heretics robed san-benito No court Ex Cathedra claims, Auto-da-fe has lost its hero Saved by this baptism of flames, Rack and stake from mind we banish, Iron collar, crown of snags, Not a man dare think in Spanish Of Religion using gags. Once, the stars the Lord has scattered Bountifully on the sky, Some souls thought they there were spattered For an ornamental dye ; The huge Opalescent Concave Wore the polish of a stone Which the fracturing fires engrave With a thunder-spliting toue ; And the things they claimed as sponsors For the young religious thought Were 'the things that were the monsters Recently from Chaos brought. Then, the tree inlaced in corsets Laced some maiden in its arms, 'Twas a lover's trick, to toss its Purgatories at her charms, And the lilies in the shallows, And the echoes 'inong the hills, GENESIS. 25 And the torrents in their wallows, And the wind's great organ mills, And the waters of the fountain, And the mists upon the river Had their gods who made a mountain Of our cosmographic sliver. When man's only contemplation Was a creed he could not read, He refused the Revelation Of the human mind to plead, Thought his intellect a treason, Thought the God of Wisdom bored With the attribute of Reason, Eve's lost attribute restored. — Mind began its resurrection, Broke away from priestly fraud, From the sun's concentred section This Copernican Sphere was thawed, Through the diaphanic ether Man could read the heavenly sphere, Lyra's music sounded sweeter When time brought the rhythm here, Aldebaran's noble anger At the Metador, concealed But an intellectual slander Of a scientific field, And the nebula was something Beside Berenice's hair Which so long had had the trumpeting 26 GENESIS. Of a sacrificial air, And the law of gravitation Stars and atomies control When, the spark of Inspiration Touched the spark of Newton' soul. Darkness fled when Fracastoro At the baby-world did knock, Twas a Genesis he came to, Fossils cradled in the rock, — Since, we walk the earth's green door-yard Graced with statues water-cut, Read time's monographs upon hard Granite bowlder, porphyry strut, Propping up the sectile surface, And the clambering stair of trap, And basaltic column which trace Of Time's lettering every scrap. There's a Genesis of brotherhood At the table of the Lord ; Earth, indeed, has been the mother good That has set us in accord With the smoking tea from China, Mocha! O the Gods must dine her Tutelary Saint of Yemeni — These have opened the world to freemen, Savory spices from Malacca, Ruby mulberries from the Caspian, And the fig which seems to track her Seeds across the tropic zone, GENESIS. Grapes flushed with the fires VesuviaD, Lemon-drops from bland Mentoue, And the date likewise commences Where cooked victuals injure man And can lay its proud pretenses To Damascus and Iran. We have spread our Constitution For the table-cloth, our fare Is the marvelous contribution Which this generous earth can spare. Minnesota shakes the pockets Of her wheat-fields for their gold, Earth can find no way to dock its Bounty, which her coffers hold ; From the bosom of Illinois Rivers of milk and honey flow, Round the world they do "Ahoy " Her for all that she can grow, She has fields of corn so ample That her hungry sisters wait Till her locomotives sample It and bring it to the gate ; California's banners flutter While her northern cereals sweeten, And her southern fruits do stutter With their juices, when they're eaten ; And the sugars of our tropic Through as long a cane do flow As would serve to make the tooth-pick For a Patagonian beau ; 28 GENESIS. While the oranges of Florida With the rice crop of Mobile Grow upon the glassy corridor Which covers up our keel. O the morning star of Genesis Points our residence in Eden, It is gaurded by a Nemesis 'Gainst the disobedient heathen, Where true learning spreads so ample Every race within its reach, Every man can pluck a sample, We can print a book for each. Praise to God ! a grander Genesis Has been heralded through earth ; Christ proclaims his exegesis " Love the price of heaven," — Henceforth Nations called to love and harmony, Nations filled with joy and peace, While His grand triumphant melody Strikes the Heavenly key with these. Time is something that's incipient, God is never growing old — Eternity is but the increment Of to-day, which onward rolled Its next Genesis to unfold. PERSIA. 29 PERSIA. A poem suggested by the presentation of the bust of Tom Moore to the city of Brooklyn by the St. Patrick's Society, May 28, 1879, on which occasion the union of Irish, Persian and American flags was introduced in honor of the poet of "Lalla Rookh." Hail, Persia, hail ! thy royal name Once the Koh-i-noor of nations, Is richly blazoned in sacred flame With Zend illuminations, And sparkles like the evening's skies With history's constellations, Ere Europe opened thy grasping eyes Thou asked Asia's oblations. Men gave to Egypt a name to wear " The mother, the eldest nation ; " God selected an Eastern vale to bear " The Paradise" of creation, And somewhere planted mysterious trees Where the tide of the green-gulf washes, 1 Whose honeyed fragrance the blue-winged breeze Round the realm of Eden flashes, And placed man in the midst thereof Ruling his heart with beauty, The "Fallen Pair" in the legend of love, For thy Gulzar- 2 vales, might woo thee ; For the women of Yzed 3 have a fame as fair As their faces, which have no peer, 30 PERSIA, In wedded life, the charms they wear Make man's only heaven here, With the broad that he eata of Yzedecas Ami the wine that Shiraz orders Ami the violet lilies which stain the grass 'Long the gay ZayinderudV borders. The mightiesl among men which warr'd Thou hast begotten, O Persia! Thy babe exposed, to victual a pard, 8 Was wiser starred than "Media, For like the Eternal-Hand which strove With the deluge at creation, Cyrus humbled the world, as a sea, to move For him of every nation ; His apotheosis left thy trust Pasargada's marble bier, When Greece had halted round the dust Which sleeps so potent here. His shield, scimitar, and Scythian bow Were all the tokens oi' honor His tomb, when opened, had to show The man who wept to conquer; Hystaspes left thee to reveal 'The strength of Persia's throne His foot, vise found on his seal Carved on Behistun's stone, And are Persepolis' glories vain Surviving common things, Name, deeds immortally remain, " Xerxes is king of kings." 1 PERSIA. 31 When the locusts of Mahomet Swooped upon thee, like the horse Of St. John, thou wast the forfeit 8 For Death's, or for Allah's cause, Over thy mountains, through thy valleys Where the fire of Mythras burned. How they poured, those lustful harpies Filthier than the swine they spurned, — And thy pure symbolic worship Without taint or shame, was vext — Just to please the harem's gossip Or to swell the Koran's text ; Nor can ive to guilt confine thee For indulging with the savage, Christian nations look supinely On his ravishing and ravage, Cities, villages and hamlet Know how Bashi-Bazouks murder, Thanks, the northern tyrant lives yet, Thanks to God for Alexander ! The poet has flourished his wand o'er thy vales, 9 O'er thy flowers, o'er thy streams, o'er thy mountains and gales, He has filled thee with music like sweet Israfil, Who singing in heaven, the angel's keep still ; He has found the blue campaka blossoming there, Save, in Eden and thee, it's not found any-where; Like bright stars are the lakes 'mong thy hills and thy dells Where the blue lotus swings to the wavelets its bells, 32 PERSIA. Or the nymphea blows open her vermilion-cup And the gold-powered psyche sips all her love up, Where the birds of the spice-wood build nests for their loves, And the orchards are filled with the blue turtle-doves, And the alma is full of its fruit and its flower, Where it hangs all the year in the sky for a bower ; And the soil shines as yellow with lilies, as gold, As each rain-drop a star from the heaven did hold, And the serpent is charmed by the emerald's eye, And the dew is too pure to transmit e'en a dye To the scimiter, true to a hair on its edge, And the fountains, like Zemzem's, complete every pledge ; Where the insects do sport such a regal attire They deserve to be " damsels" — for each graceful gyre ; Where the maidens of Cashmere come out of the bath With a skin like the tint that an Orman pearl hath, Where the tips of their fingers are rosy as buds Of the coral, the stain which the rich henna rubs, With eyes looking mild as the sweet eyes of Alia, With the dark shade that colors their soft drooping cilia, With the spangles of campac which purple their hair Like the luster of skies, when the planets are there ; But the rose of Cashmere can outrival them all, " The light of the harem, the young Nourmahal." Persia, through thy veins the purple Of the Asian kings has flowed ; Where thy common blood did gurgle There a love for freedom glowed ; Gao's 10 veins were filled with iron PERSIA. 33 Like the Vulcan — of the gods — Under whose aegis he turned the fire on Which consumes all tyrants' rods. Persia, thou art effete and weary Like men when decay appears ; Nations lose their pride as easy When they live to die of years, And, their battle-flags have feasted The moth's epicurean taste, Aud, their armaments are wasted, And, their heroes' graves effaced. Thou, voluptuous Orient dying, Casting dust upon thy head, With thy beard dyed scarlet, tryiug " To deceive how near thou art dead ; Isfahan, thy crown, how craven, Hark, how reptiles nest in her ! And the birds of pray now raven 12 On the sick Autocrator ; Yet two spirits watch and ward thee, Are the Prophet's cherubim — Rose -dew sparkles on their poetry, Are his dual seraphim — Hafiz', Sa'di's wings up waft thee 13 Trimmed with love's enamoring fire, Blowing the ashes from thy story Christian-Freedom kindles it higher. How sweet the songs of nations Whose hearts are in accord : PERSIA. Their triune variations Arc one in praise to God ; Iran poured out a morning hymn From her religious soul, And when the sun's broad glowing rim Toward the West did roll Ireland's sweel harper laid his hand Upon his golden-lyre, Music the distance quickly spanned — The sun rose up no higher — America caught up the strain And sung the grand Antiphony, The sun went round the world again And Persia heard her victory. PERSIA. 35 NOTES. ■ The Persian Guli has been called (he "green gulf" by Moore. - < ; : 1 1 is the Persic for rose. Gulzar, a rose-bower. a There is a proverb that, to live happy, a man must marry n wife of Yzed, eat the bread of Yzedecas, and drink the wine of Shlraz. Tavernier, Tom Moon's Note. iThe Zayinderud— a beautiful feature in tin- view of [spahan— is a river with no outfall. Tapped at every turn, anil its waters led away to Irrigate fields and gardens, the gay Zayinderud lies In the plains to the east of [spahan. a Astyages, King of Media, and grandfather of Cyrus, saw a vision— a vine appeared to spring from the womb of Mandane, ins daughter, Which overspread all Asia. When the child was horn, the king deliv- ered it lo HarpagUS, a person whose intimacy lie used, wdio transferred the child to a herdsman to lie exposed on the mountain.— Book CliO, in rodotus. '''The scarp of a rock in Persia, on which an Inscription In Cunei- form records the victories of Darius llystaspes, who is represented as receiving the homage of captives, on one of whom he has planted his toot.— Translated by Sir Henry Rawlinson. 7 On the platform of Persepolis is the magnificent prnpyheum of King Xerxes, with the inscription, " I am Xerxes the king, the great king, the king of kings." -Translated by sir Henry Rawlinson. BRevelation, ix,7: "And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle." • For "imagery, " see notes to /, THE ROSE OF PORTUGAL. As a lamb for the shambles love is slain With the body in bonds and the heart in twain, With Cross and Nail and Thorn and Spear The Church keeps crucifying here. Forced to a cell all bare and grated Went she, called "the Bride of Christ," With a human skuU was mated God enveloped in bloody mist, — Conscience dazed, and love a sob For the man the Church did rob. Thirty years he sought the pavement, Took th' dumb lover's statucd part, Storm or sunshine daily there went, Carried an old man's broken heart, While the nun grew old and waited Dumbly at her window grated. NOTE. Mn the Luclad wo read that Ulysses, in his wanderings, is sup- posed t>> have reached Portugal, mid that his descendents settled Oporto ; therefore the people were called the Olyssipolis raee. THE OLD WIFE. 57 THE OLD WIFE ; OR, A MARITAL DILEMMA. Never for you, the Old Wife's role, Comb the curl from my silvering hairs, Bind 'neath a frill, that my frigid poll May mope the rest of my wifely years? These memorials, now remain the best Of th' orange sprays I wore, that hour I modestly felt I could proudly rest On your bosom, "a nuptial flower" " Peerless" you said on our wedding day : Do you prize it, as such, now my hair is gray ? It seems only a little ago ; — Time from every one will steal, Even the blush, which a maiden will show, Even the thought, which that blush will reveal ; With our consent, these, do seem to go, When there is nothing, we try to conceal ; — Time steals the blush, the complexion, the hair, Was it love, that you wedded, or only its snare ? Has the thrill died out of my heart, Though the blush has died on my cheek ? Does no fire to my faded eye start? Does the expression no praises speak ? You are troubl'd, that I 'm growing old ? 58 THE OLD WIFE. Dismiss the robber, that takes your bride ; — For my beauty, a compensation you hold, He is blinding you, while you talk of pride. When the fire of youth is smoldering, then We are falling to ashes, year after year ; Till the dross has burned out of the gold, and been Cast out to the carnal heap, we leave here ; And we carry a heart without pretense, A mind relieved of corroding care, A spirit filled with a heavenly essence, A countenance holier, for prayer. In the heart of a song, love is ever sweet, Our voices attuned this, long ago, Our hearts did accord what the words repeat, Our eyes did fill up the measure too ; 11 Sweeter ; sweetest sing it over" You requested like a lover ; Now I 'm old, to be my lover Will you try to sing it over ? By these shadows, 1 know I am growing old, By this curl that is part of a youthful crown, By the scent of death which the orange i\oc> hold, By the song that is still, the tune that has flown; Yes I am old, but one day long passed Never gro^s old, as the years grow old, It was when my dead from my arms, at last Went out with the coffin my heart did hold. * :[: & * * THE OLD WIFE. 59 I know how love comes a wooing, How his footsteps halt, pursuing, How we catch the hesitating Of his hand on the door waiting, How we start, and go, and stand And hush the throbbing 'neath our hand, And check the tell-tale in our face By putting on a stiffer grace. I see favor presume to place Love on a woman's manner or dress, Beauty, which adds a softer grace, Riches, which adorn unloveliness, But my adoration's object Wore the soul's imperial seal, — This, the idol, of Love's project, This, I worship, through woe and weal. These memory bells, these memory bells Sweeter with years and clearer with age, Of the hallowed past their melody tells, The curtain of age is rung up, on the stage The drama, is life, the actors are youth, They come on and go out with their parts, in sooth Nothing grows old, except women and men, Nor too old, to go back to rehearsal again. We can play it all over, the bitter and sweet, We can freeze our tears in the fires of grief, We can kiss the fetters which bind our feet, We can carry a cross, if we seek relief, — Yes I am old, I thank God for this, ()() NEWPORT, K. I. I have given the rod a parting kiss, 1 am walking a road which I never miss, I shall pass into Heaven a child — in bliss. Last night in dreaming of love Angels were passing by, With harps they floated above On billows of melody, They were singing- of yon, I was dreaming from memory, In my heart is the song and the angel too, Must the Old Wife dream a threnody? 1 am growing old and my years hold Together like this ring oi' gold, While I wear it there, my heart will glow In renewing the vows of long ago. Though I sometimes, ask of this ring, k4 if again Yon would marry me over, if unwedded, as when I was sealed unto yon in the presence oi' men?" NEWPORT, R. I. Written in the Redwood Library, ami copied, by request, into the Register of the Institution. Of all Earth's monarch's, here reigns one Men never will disown, God's seal is printed on the stone Where Newport has her throne, Till; BENDING OF ULYSSES' BOW. 61 Her Royal Consort wears a ring Of costliest emerald Jeweled so rarely, it will bring The wealth of half a world, With this, he clasps her to his side Where love's wild currents flow, The world will come to kiss the Bride, But leave her pure as snow. December 6, 1883. THE BENDING OF ULYSSES' BOW. [Odyssey, Book 21.] The sudden transition of the narrative from danger and adven- ture to the spectacular scene, "The Bending of Ulysses' Bow," creates an ecstacy Beldom enjoyed in reading a classic poem. We trust the classic reader will appreciate our intention of giving a list of tin- suitors in the lines, preceding the verses in which Pene- lope haying discovered her king and husband Ulysses in the beggard Btranger, tries her Btrategem With her persecutors, by introducing the ordeal of Ulysses' Bow. See proud Ithaca, the goddess Of the consecrated isles, Drunk on love and wholly godless Maddened by a woman's wiles ; See the frenzy of the suitors Gathering for the final strife, Like Greeks when the clamorous rumors Made the rape of Helen rife ; Look at impudent Antinous The commandant of the train ; 62 THE BENDING OF ULYSSES' BOW Eurymachus who would do worst 1 Seek with flatteries the vain ; Keep a watch on vile Ctesippus Who did hurl an ox's ]\vv\ At the stranger, thought to truss 1 1 i in in Orcus like a veal ; . Sel a spy on slv Melanthius, That low goatherd of a tiling Who with slanderous talcs and envious Did insult his unknown king; Watch the Bueaking priest Leoides Who the queenly bed desires, It is Fate deceives his by-pleas, Bland his lust — she knows its tires ; Sir Mclantho's wild cotillion, Threatening with a blazing brand Him who dragged through tire proud Dion, Brought oft' Helen with his hand. Then contrast the kind swine-tender Old Eumaeus, who would spare Every thing his hut could tender Worthy of the stranger's tare; And the seer Theoclymenus Saw the suitor's shades descending Down where Orcus had a den worse, Their compatriots attending; Euryclea old and hoar Whose young breasts did nurse her king, Who detects the dreadful gore On his knee by the mad hoar, THE BENDING OF ULYSSES' BOW. <>:j Where the cicatrice does cling; Loyal Philetius, the drover, Kindling at the very mention Of a chance to be the mover For his lord freed from detention ; And the trusty, watchful Med on, Who tells all about the ambush Waiting for the prince Telemachus Whom the wily suitors will rush To destruction with their black curse, Ere, propitious gods Ulysses Let return to pay avenges, For liis vengeance never mi Any guilty herd's pretenses. While, Penelope contends With the clamors of the crew, And her chastity defends With a feminine wisdom too, Day by day the suitors waited On the warp her fingers drew, Nightly was the web unbraided And the garment never grew, Till her maids disclose their torment " That Laertes funeral job, The jealous robe of ornament Was contrived, their suit to rob;" Baffled her wit, the queen must plan To let the suitors know The favoring gods have spared the man Who bends the Elian bow, 6 I i in BENDING OP ri \ BSES* BOW, Her ohallonge brings them all, accursed l\> touch the immortal wand, The stranger's fete the gods have nursed, llo hoars the immortal hand, " it is the how of [thaoa Whioh twenty loitering years lias waited for a skillful band, shall conquer all your fears, •• Bet up the silver circlets twelve A linear Bpace apart. Tho truest eye ami steadiest hand Will pierce each circlet's heart. "And those who pro--- their ardent suit. Asking the queen ' to w ife,' Will welcome the impending fate Which hangs upon the strife, •• Unto i be suitor w ho can Bend An ai row from the Btring, And bend Ulysses' wond'rous bow Aiul pass each silver riii:-, " Shall be disposed these queenly charms, The queen's fidelity, That all who hear of [thaoa shall hear what gods decree." The ordeal fixed, the princes spring To their appointed place, THE BENDING OF ULYSSES BOW. 65 Antinous, chief, then hands the bow Alternate, aa they face. The priest, the first, with saintly poise Must draw the silken string, His hands have wasted all their strength The bow refused to spring. — The oext, accepts the stubborn horn Setting the singing reed, '• fcrength r< courtly arm-. Sealing his fate decreed. — " Bring hither, slave, the emollient oil" Enraged Antinous cried, " Knl), furbish every pore and part, Have gods our suits denied ? " ''I' is done and still the Elian how Resists their heat of love, — Antinous yields his passion, which Thin ordalion test must prove. The spumy lords smart, as they felt A burning rain of hisses, Tli'-, sting is keen when they compare Their weakness with [Jlys * * * * " Permitted, I would try my skill, And doom the Hying shaft To pass the medium of the rings, My faux- once of this craft." 66 THE FAIRIES. They jeer to hear the Btranger ask, "Perchance the fatea command That he should come to Ithaca To win the queenly band ? " Penelope with ready wit Now soothes the indignant flame, 11 He does the teat— a spear, a vest Rewards his unknown fame." 'Mid clamorous sneers, the slave then goes To hand the strifeful gauge, And when the deft hands prove the arm, As fixed within a swage It strains, it yields — the stubborn horn Seems the man's touch to know, The shaft peals forth its singing note Ulysses bends the bow ! So helped the king of Ithaca His queeu to keep her vow, The missal draws the suitors' lives Ulysses bends the bow! THE FAIRIES. I n a sweltering spell of August weather When crickets fiddle their souls away, When the mercury drops its silver feather Caged like a bird, from its soaring way. THE FAIRIES. 67 The flyers, the jumpers, as well as the creeple Were watching a train of fiery cars, When Oberon crept from his leafy steeple Warning them, to run from the shooting stars, When from hollows, hills, meadows, pools, rivers and swales, From sedges, lushgrasses, ferns, flags and cat-tails, Flew the stars of the Fairies, the fire-flies, and soon All the Fairies were out in the light of the moon, But the march was too short, for a song with a tune. To rendezvous upon Clover Hill Embroidered by a turquois rill, An azurine lakelet, like a buckle Upon its toe, laughed a mellowy chuckle When flowery swans from fairy bowers, Tossing about like a shower of flowers, Bounding off, when they touch the brink Of a wave too lightly, to feel it wink, — Clasped each other — wing and wing, And waltzed thereon in a fairy ring. As I took the rustling wings to be The fairies making a head-long race, I made a screen of a huge oak tree And taking within its arms a place I soon forgot myself — to be An elfin a tent of moonlight lace, Which helped to deepen the mystery And served to show each fairy's face. 68 THE FAIRIES. With lances atilt to joust his neighbor Each Ephemeron followed the rout away, Like doughty knights flew every chafer Making their wiues like iron bray ; Behind — the Sphinx with stony stare And lion-feet, on eagle wings With dust as from a thousand years Gathered thereon, in tawny rings, — A cavalcade of mosquitoes come Stunning all ears with their fify hum, Their bills as keen as Toledo steel. And prick like an awl in a cobbled heel ; The great stag-beetles brushed their horns Against the branches of the grass, In mail of shard the nettle's thorns Felt soft as mosses, as they pas The bats flew round and round as tho' The birds and beast should know each other. The only fairy which I know With an ornithorhynchus brother; Behind these gravely marched two crabs Xanthus and Arion from the sea, Their trunks like a peddler's eased in drabs Bore on their shoulders heavily, These were two fairies from the sea That promenade sometimes on land. But not so fishy as to be Compelled upon their tails to stand ; The goblins next — of all the fays These are the ugliest and the funniest, And just before the rainy days THE FAIRIES. 69 You think their tempers are the sunniest. The victims of inebriation They drink of all the ponds and ditches, And wear their tails upon probation Then don a suit of leather breeches ; The lady-bugs in red and black Had paired off with their beaux in gold, And new, instead of the mushroom hack In which they rode when nights were cold, When lady-cow fell in a flower Which grew an inch below her feet And floundering there for half an hour Was almost fainting with the heat Till lady-bird hopped on a fern, Yelling so lustily for " help" Her cousin lady-fly did turn And laid the flower low with a skelp; The gryllus strode like an awkward crane Or jumped to keep up with the rest, Of green silk coats, they are very vain, With a swallow-tail, and a satin breast ; But the brown grasshoppers were the wags Who joked and teazed these prouder kin, Ogling their fine clothes, until the lags Were ready to die of a chagrin ; Blue and green dragons — flies that look Like Saint John's and Saint George's too — Had steely needles which they shook At Friar Boots, as past they flew, A tilt of lances one might lose, 'Twas all the same — the fairy knight 70 THE FAIRIES. Found that his lady-love would choose His colors be they dark or bright And these depend on day and night And these were fairies black and white ; The glow-worm flaunted now a snack Of livery differing from the rest, Looking as fine upon her back As though the blackest of the best, — The love of color did appear In fairies quite anomalous Some brown and black and gray and sere, Some painted like an omnibus ; And towering on their gawky shanks The shepherd-spiders bore their humps, Up-hill and down-hill playing pranks Beside the worms upon their stumps ; Where all the spiders bridges grew With a prison at each end of these, A shower of little millers flew Like parachutes among the trees ; Then, Mab drew near in gold and black, A butterfly's ermine, — beyond a question A match for Puck who rode a pack He named " blue-bottle's indigestion," The last — but fairies are not dumb, My ears were throbbing like a drum. The bands blew loud and shrill and clear Along this gay and weird procession, I thought the whole created sphere Delirious with the wild impression, THE FAIRIES. 71 The trumpets blared until the moon Though goddess of the elfin race Turned suddenly pale as if t were noon And pulled a wimple o'er her face ; The trombones croaked until the sound Resembled Egypt full of frogs, The raucous croaking would astound A younger fry of polliwogs ; The tamborines they buzzed and hummed And kept up such a dreadful racket All sounds were for some seconds dumbed, The great dish-sky I thought 'twould crack it; The violins, treble, second, bass, Together squeaked and squealed and squalled, Things seemed to spin round— in a daze I saw the tree upon me sprawled; — While now and then a piccolo Screamed out its notes so shrill and clear The chitty elves thought 't was a blow By some big Ouphe upon the ear ; Mine own buzzed like a pair of drums, Whistles, fifes, fiddles, and jews-harps, I thought the two great concert rooms Would blaze with their electric sharps; When lo, it was about the hour Another king began his journey, Oberon skulked somewhere to a bower, The fays hid somewhere in a hurry, With swans of silver, car of gold Where clouds pink, primrose, pearl undouble, Along the sapphire sky he rolled 79 LA FILLE DU REGIMENT. Where all had vanished like a bubble, And Clover Hill lay at my feet The bees and bombus gathering honey, I saw all elves were not a cheat That these may think a man as funny. LA FILLE DU REGIMENT. Proudly marches on the nation Which its patriots will defend, But remains a loyal station With its daughters to commend, Cheerfully to send the heroes Who are called to field and tent, Cheers ! for those who hold the vetoes, Vive la Fille du Regiment. How she springs to weave the banner With her fingers deft and nice, That with freedom does inspire her And her soldier brave and wise, Red and white and blue the union, Justice, Courage, Love are meant, Cheers! for every loyal woman Vive la Fille du Regiment. How she cheers the mustered heroes As they march away from camp, As- she scorned, to think of dire foes Who waylay them on the tramp, LA FILLE DU EEGIMENT. 73 While her vigilance perplexes Even the soldier, she has sent, Cheers ! for her's the loyal sex is, Vive la Fille du Regiment. How she makes the weary marches Where they rather die than yield, How with tear-wet eyes she searches For the dead upon the field When, she reads the news which smother Out the pride which victory sent, Cheers ! for every loyal mother Vive la Fille du Regiment. How the army's sanitarium Prospers in her loving hands, Homes, Sweet Homes, all recollect some Far away in hostile lands, Who are facing death and slaughter For the help which woman sent, Cheers ! for sweetheart, wife, and daughter, Vivent les Filles du Regiment. How she bears the poignant anguish In her tender breast, to go Where she knows the dear ones languish In the prison of the foe, Ask not " who " or " who " have found them After victory is sent, All where heroines around them, Vive la Fille du Regiment. LA FILLE I>U REGIMENT. How her coming has translated Every soldier, when she staid With the hospital and waited On the siek and offered aid, Angels on their heavenly mission Witb no higher mission went, Cheers! she has the saint's position, Vive la Fille du Regiment How she kissed their rigid features, Kissed the eold and stony hands, How her sacrifice, will teach ns What a country's life demands, When they bore them and they laid them Where a woman can lament, Twas a woman's love who saved them, Vive la Fille du Regiment. How she hung the pall upon her, Looking- sadder far than he Whom she had brought home to slumber Under Earth's green canopy ; It is woman, tender woman Widowed, orphaned, should lament, War is to her the most inhuman, — Vive la Fille du Regiment. When, Divine Justice hangs her garlands On the heroes of all lands As Heaven musters up the thousands Of Earth's patriotic bands. DUST. Heavenly stars entwined, like laurels For heroic suffering meant, Will crown women with immortelles Vivent les Filles du Regiment. DUST. ••It is asserted by scientific writers that the Earth is a vast cemetery; that on its surface, which contains 1,858,174,000,000 square rods, have lived 36,627,848,273,975,256 inhabitants; making 1,283 persons to each square rod, or five persons to a square foot. A square rod is scarcely sufficient for ten graves, hut each grave must contain 128 bodies. " Thus it will be seen, thai the entire surface of the globe has been dug- over 128 times to bury the dead. How literally true becomes the declaration of the poet: " ' There 's not a dust that floats on air But once was living man.' " I. How mighty is the sphered dust Which is trodden under foot, Made out of kingdoms, that the lust Of time destroyed their root ; Made out of principalities Which took their stone and brass And girded cities monstrous size, Which stood like withes of grass ; Made out of monuments it seemed Would break the tooth of Time, When Karnak o'er Serapis dreamed And the Sphinx was in her prime, When men believed that strength and size Were the portraitures of God 76 DUST. Ami the Collossi Leered their eyes On the pigmies of the sod. Are men ignoble, that life warms Their forms of common clay ? Heboid earth gathering their forms Unto her breast to-day ! Listen, to the mighty host whose tread Is pressing green earth over. Alas, "t is builded of the dead. Oust over dust they cover. When Earth retook the lovely vale The site of Paradise, — And men had made the green earth pale Where hanging-gardens rise. Rearing Ivlus' confusing piles For priests and oracles, Were millions turned into the soils Which built these miracles. Where e'er on this broad earth we stand, On mountain, hill, or plain. In green-wood wild, on desert sand. By river, rill, or main. In presence of the eternal snows Or her perennial tl wers. The dust of tribes and races goes To make this earth ot ours. They are mightiest graves which Ruin til And mightiest tomb-stones story The mightiest deeds, the warrior tills To gem his wreath of glory. Vet. turned to dust, these look as reared DUST. 77 As Old Creation's hills, See Nimroud's cuneiform marbles spered Which Ashur's house rebuilds ; For, when the touch of Ruin wrapp'd These in a royal gloom, Palace on top of palace clapp'd A dungeon round their tomb, Dust upon dust the mountain grew, City on city buried long, That twenty centuries never knew It was Nineveh the strong. ii. Count the nations which have flourished On the Asiatic main, Count them by the Hindoo Veda, Of whose age no dates remain, Century on top of century Piled these pyramids of dust, Till the Earth— not Himalaya- Is the tomb, where they must rust ; Count them by the heathen temples Sculptured in the solid rock The Titanic past has builded, We are building block by block, — Salsette, Poonah, Elephanta Have no dates to tell their age, And the earth must keep the record Of their mortuary page. It has buried living cities With its cities under ground, 78 DUST. In one night were lost the truces Where these places once were found, When earth swept them with a besom That was fiercer than the sword, When it vomited its fire And their swift destruction poured, When the earth has yawned, and tumbled Twenty cities in its jaws, Hurled the mountains from their bases, Burst them by volcanic laws, When the mountains sent their torrents Like great rivers thundering down And the villagers hail tainted Like a blast upon them blown, Blistering winds whose touch is poison, Famine with its lanken jaws, Pestilence which breeds by millions — These at millions never pause, Who are moldering on the hillsides, Who are crumbling on the plains, And we walk upon their ashes Without thinking of their pains, O, the traces of the race- Who have lorded over earth! Have become a> smooth as places Which have never known a hearth. IIIo God breathed on a handful of dust. That breath Brought life to the common ground, A -ingle soul had earth that day, WAR. 7!J By its heaven and conscience bound A .-ingle form, which in common clay Has planted a single grave, A mighty usury, earth has asked For the little dust it gave. WAR. The jaws of war are wet with blood, V' S3, wet with human blood ; His whelps pronounce it " very good," Lapping their tongues for food ; Bat did the God of Wisdom fail In making man a king? That he, like every beast should quail, Hating this human thins: ? ■- Man only of man be afraid? Man by a man to die? Then bolt the Book of God, that said " Man is like Divinity ;" Or lift Christ's bloody hands, and show The bleeding wounds he bore Upon a brother's cross, and know The blood of Hate no more. 80 SCOTCH HEATHER. SCOTCH HEATHER. By the wild North Sea, by the wild North Sea Once grew my Scottish Heather, Where the hills of Aberdeen rise free And the firths flow close together, Where Jedediah Clishbotham taught And kept the parish records, And Effie Dean's sad fate was fraught, The Lily of St. Leonards. The heather flower, the heather flower Is one of Scotland's glories, To the Meg Merrilies, the moor Was like a bed of roses, , Or if, her wild feet brushed the dew Making the sun look late, Twas e'er the heathery crag she tlew, Scenting Dirk Hatteraick's bait. The heather-bell, the heather-bell Warred with the bold and valliant, A flowery rampart, hid the fell Where fared the royal gallant, When suddenly, the heather bore But Highland-bonnets blue, Saxon Fitz-Jame<, usurp thy hour For I am Rhoderick Dhu! " SCOTCH HEATHER. 81 The heather-bell, the heather bell Thy muse is Caledonian. — Thy minstrel loves her lyric shell Twined with thee, like a woman. Though, verse thai paints so fair a (ace From the features of creation, Must e'er remain a modest trace And trait of imitation. But Scotia gave another flower To twine with rose and shamrock, A thistle-crown the monarch wore Where those wild seas are land lock : Too. like the noble elans who fared Upon her thousand hills. Thou wert — the emblem to be spared And feared, of, patriot Wills. I could na tell how sweet thy bells That swing on braes of Doon, Na feel love's heat the poet tells Let Burns to Mary roun, — For all was love, that Scotia's bard Has ever sung or spurtled. On Tarn O'Shanter's mare he starred With Maggie cutty kirtled. O heathery hills. O heathery hills Of Scotia's purple isle. Thy jewels, every lake that tills The landscape, with its smile. 82 THE TREE OF LIFE. Thou art in Splendor, like the dream Thai pictures Paradise, Perpetual beauty, grand, supreme In Faith that wooes t lie skies. Till' TREE OF LIFE. TO THOMAS Al.VA EDISON. The world was chaos, where the Darkness throve, Ruling the grand confusion like a god ; The lightning was his scepter, which then strove With every part of the rebellious flood ; The thunder was his utteranee, to make The mass from center to circumference shake. And Chaos had hounds, even as God has hounds, Filling the whole of the eternal space; And Darkness sent his sentinels the rounds, Attraction, Force, Cohesion, which embrace Like iron, driven through the surging flood. Until the World was stronger than this god. Aial darkness fled, and two great lights appear, The one to rule the uight, and one the day ; And darkness dropped into the sea of fear, For even tin 1 night had grown a starry way ; And light was every-where, the light of sense, And Light that spake, and is the God from hence. THE TREE OF LIFE. OO And Licrht stretched forth his hand o'er firmament o And the dry land grew green with trees and plants, Prismatic with unctions flowers oiuting with scent The atmosphere. A spontaneous life which wants To flee the poisonous mists, which darkness spreads, Inhales the light and its reflection sheds. And light was beautiful, as it displayed All things which dressed the earth and walked upon it ; But Light was still more beautifully arrayed Than any thing, which from His hand adorned it ; Ami Light made man to be His holy image, Asking His mind's subordinate for homage. The Tree of Life still grows mysteriously nigh The Tree of Knowledge as they grew in Eden, Man can produce and he can multiply, But if he could create, would this be forgiven ? The life, the germ of all created things Indicates a mind from which all mystery springs. If all miracle is done by Jehovah's sanction, (The visions of Bethel and of Patmos Isle,) God's crystal ladders touch the heavenly mansion Which, glorified spirits passing up the while Carry their crowns of sacred leaves, to show His gifted ones have honored their gifts below. Beneath this tree the bard of Khio walked Trimming his lyre with its spiritual leaves, While 'round the strings his spirit fluttered, talked, Sung and caressed and the tree's mystery reaves, 84 THE TREE OF LIFE. Filling hi s i grapple with fate Whether sun or storm is strong, O the pale wreck sent on the river oi tears Shows the fiffht was tierce and long. qiNCINNATT, THE QUEEN CITY. 8*3 The river of tears, the river of tears Is lashed by fearful storms, The isles of oeean would rend and sink If tried by the heart's hard qualms; Blasting brilliant results like fire, Hurling down schemes like straw, O the maelstrom of the river of tears Drowns the bravest, death e'er saw. One haven has the river of tears With a Pharos always light, All tears are wept ere we touch that shore \o more to mar our sight, A Father that's God or Lord or Christ- Will clasp us by the hand, And the flood of tears roll back in fear At the sight of the Happy Land. CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY. Cincinnati's crown descends From her Aboriginal kings. And her Roman pride contends For the splendor her name bring.-. In a lodge of silvan birches Dwelt a daughter of the wood, Her baptism paid the purchase Where Losantiville then stood. 88 CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY. Petticoated in a fawn skin Fringed with blue and scarlet feathers, Stitched together with the quill pin Which the spiney hedgehog gathers, And the crane bills strung like needles Dangling at her belt, to show them, For the crane bewitched the evils And was the Miami's totem. 1 Braided thongs her bare feet covered Of the badger's spotted coat, Naught above her shoulders hovered, Save a necklace at her throat Formed of humming birds which glisten Blue, and emerald, and gold, And the sunbeams seem to misten Touched, her raven hair unpolled. To Fort Washington they brought her, She became a soldier's bride, Cincinnati is their daughter, Born to rule a queen beside ; And a great and flowery kingdom Trending westward with the sun, Soon to yield a royal income With her was the dower he won. And the red man could not save her When the white man laid the snare ; For the wiser ways are braver And the ways of God are there ; CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY. 89 Id the pauses of creation God still asks for " wider room," And the hand of civilization Makes the desert places bloom. Lo ! the wondrous change, enchanted Forests bow before the ax, And the fields are plowed and planted As the springtime comes and tacks, Till the summer's sunshine's drifting Down upon the Indian corn, As the fruitful year is shifting Bringing round the harvest horn. When the river like a driv'ler Only lay awake to dream, And the bark canoe did quiver Like a lily on the stream, The unlettered Indian never Its mysterious forces found, Never could with reason sever Elements by laws profound. But the virgin queen was smitten With an intellectual king, When she saw his name was written On th' Ohio's wedding ring, Though the pride and pleasure given For the present of the groom, Sank as though the wrath of Heaven Buried Fitch beneath its gloom. 90 CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY. Lo ! his altar fire is burning In liis temple on the river ; Though no Stygian boatman's perning Now, the obolus of silver Wafting souls to their Elysia, The prefigurement of bliss, — The Ohio's Artemesia Made his mausoleum, this. Lo ! the ponderous steamer threading Like a swan the liquid floor, And the vales and hillsides spreading Corn and wine and oil, and more, Men are opening the treasure Kronos buried in the hill, And are trembling with the pleasure Which did olden Titans thrill. Queen of Industry ! here planted And enthroned upon the hills, Cincinnati's wealth is chanted By ten thousand voicing rills When the clappers with their clamors Fill with music every steeple, And the music of their hammers Praise the Lord and bless the people. Queen of Art ! divinely planted With thy sweet melodic shell, Every air to be enchanted By a siren's witching spell; THE MOUNTAINS. 91 Patroness of Arts ! we name thee More than all the "Masterpiece," Flourishing shall grow the bay tree, Consecrated here, to these. Since Ohio's noble mountains Were explored for their wealth, And her river, from its fountains Has been traveled for its health, And the years have left the harvest Heaped like gold upon its shores, Men have kept thine honor fairest Which the page of history stores. April 15, 1883. 1 In searching for the totem of the Miamis,we found in Schoolcraft's Myths that "Twak Twah," the cry of the crane, was the Indian ety- mology of the word Miami. Mr. Newton, librarian at College Build- iug, tells us that for an archery club who desired to take the name " Miami,'' and to use the totem as their insignia, he was unable, in his researches, to find the totem. Therefore we have assumed the crane as a poetic license until this or the correct totem is found. THE MOUNTAINS. Wkitten in the cars while crossing the Alleghenies, January 11, 1884. These mountains are a magnet, which appear Attracting the sphere beneath them to the skies, Mountains which cause Infinity to draw near, Where stars draw 7 closer with their glittering eyes ; 92 NIAGARA. Only the Eagle scales this dizzy height, Embracing with the San, while both alight Viewing the two Hemispheres of our World, The Nadir's half, from which the light just rolled Now sowing its ebon vault with relays of stars, Like some vast Ethiop temple, toward which draws The sable worshipers with flammeous torches, — And the proud Eagle taking these mountain gorges For the Earth's periphery, darts for a race Making yon loftier peak their goal in space, Too high to fear the cyclone's hundred hands Pound bootlessly the base whereon this stands ; But Praise is winged for grander heights than moun- tains, Singing " Glory to God " beyond the Sun's fire-fountains. NIAGARA. Written on first seeing Niagara Falls, October, 1876. God sealed thee His, Niagara ! Omnipotence, His sign ; Clothed thee with His Potential Awe Unutterable, divine, And gave His Strength unto thy brow, His Beauty to thy bow, His Mystery to the ages thou Hast rolled along, till now. NIAGARA. 93 Thou wast ordained impervious To Nature's softer sounds, . The voice, the song exalting us Thy diapason drowns, The electric tempest in the sky, The bolts of death it deals, Its thunder-volleys as they fly Thy heavier bass o'erpeals. Thou art High Priest of Nature here, Her solemn rites attend, And ephod-stones, thy shoulders rear, Thy inceuses ascend Vailing with mystery thy throne, Thy voice is raised to bless Her worshipers, who hear thy tone In deep devotiousness. 'T was the Eternal's hand reared thee This mighty altar-place, , Of His most ancient masonry Whereon Kronos we trace, Thy Isles are water-walled and strong, In the Almighty's plan To keep thee priest of Nature long, He made the form of man To be a shadow on thy brink, A bubble on thy wave, A vision which a wink can sink Into an awful grave. i>4 VINEGAR HILL. And thou, like the Invisible, Can'st span above thy head A glorious bow divisible Of the Sun's Iridian thread, Lifting the clouds to the heaven which Consecrated thee at birth, When the firmament found its fountains rich And poured them on the earth. " Glory, glory, glory, glory," Seraphic in sun and storm, — Thou art unlike the restless sea Which loves its hours of calm, But everlasting anthems raise Like Old Creation's Saint, Inspirer of man's feeble praise Till our Star rechaosed faint. VINEGAR HILL. Vinegar Hill, in Ireland, was the principal camp of the rebels during the rebellion of IT'.ts. The prime mover and chief of the reb- els in the county of Wexford was Father John, a priest who insulted religion by his cruelties and liberty by his crimes. Twenty priests celebrated mass at one time on different parts of Vinegar Hill, while the plundered cellars of the country around furnished the spirits for the occasion. Have you heard of the place they call Vinegar Hill In the country of Ireland the county of Wexford ? You will both find it down on the map and you will Find it down in the book that 's indited for record; VINEGAE HILL. 95 Like all the ferments of the Irish, you will Charge them all to the spirits, on Vinegar Hill. The Irish can Sweden their fay with the tongue After kissing at Killarney the swate Blarney Stone, And fai.r, don't you know every man is half hung By the heels, tike Saint Peter, till the hissing is done f For this pious shaking like a bottle, they still Quaffed the more to the Saint, upon Vinegar Hill. You can learn in few words that this Vinegar Hill Is famous for gaul, as the Gaul that bounds Biscay, Where the brave Father John camped his militants, till, He had gathered a crop of th' good Irish whiskay, Till the Protestants' barrels were piked and the rill Had fermented the army on Vinegar Hill. With pistol in holster and sword at his side And a cross of three feet to embrace in the saddle, The doughty priest John did as valiantly ride As a Protestant trooper the devil could addle, Be shure! All the saints he had mustered until They came swarming to meet him on Vinegar Hill. Instead of the Host, evil-spirits by the barrel Down the Gadarene troop how they slipped, in the storm, They toasted men over the fire, in this quarrel, And the pike made the Protestants' cross of reform, " For Jasus and Liberty" Father John still Was imbibing the spirits on Vinegar Hill. 96 the doom ov v\u\:. If Liberty we]»t upon Vinegar Hill For the smoke of the mass Mere her eyes never dry ; A covering of rags may be honorable, till They are thought the immaculate dress of the sky; But the Friar with sword and with gnu ever will Be the Saint she abhors upon Vinegar Hill. Justice even, sweat blood, as 't were her Incarnation, Her side it was gashed as the side of God's son, But she balanced the cross in her greatest prostration And swerved not with pain, till her justice was known. And the friars and the saints got as much in Crod's Bill As she made out against thorn at Vinegar Hill. THE DOOM OF FIRE. " Holy be the lay Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way." This poem was composed after the falling of the Ashtabula bridge, December, 1876, in which terrible accident, owing to the criminal careleBSnesS Of Officials, three coaches, with all their passengers were burned, the loss of life being so complete that scarcely a vestige of clothing remained unconsumed. In this holocaust a eousin of the writer perished, a pocket pin-CUShion being the only shred recovered and identified by his mother, of Des Moines, Iowa. Lo, THE vials of wrath are poured out on the land, And the day of cur doom seems already at hand, We are shaken by terror, and broken by grief And the earth seems to spurn every look of relief, The tomb is refused, and the shaft is un reared, Death-hardened, the vengeance of God is uufeared. THE DOOM OF FIRE. 97 O our eyes have grown dryer than sand e'er the noon, Or the lake wiped away by the fiery simoon ; We are uttering the wail of Egyptian despair ! We are wailing the cry of poor Kama's wild share ! And our hearts 'fore the furnace of Moloch have sunk, AVhile the flames with the blood of our children, are drunk. Are we stifFer in neck ? are we harder in heart ? Are we charmed with our sins and our lusts? till apart With the followers of Dagon and Baal, we class 'Mong our Gods only iron, gold, silver, and brass ? Have we shrunk to the size of the Heathenish King, Must we walk through the fire, or worship— the thing ? There's a God .'—though the ears of mankind have grown deaf To the groans of the dying, the sighings of grief, There's the mansion of God for the graveless above, And the bosom of God for the angels we love, There's the tender compassion of Jesus their friend, And the kind ministrations which never can end. Ye'll not turn to the coffin and bier with your grief, Ye will turn to the Father and seek for relief; O no, the cold earth has not given them rest, But the flowers will again speak to ye from her breast Of the beauty of heaven, the glory of hope, Though the types will grow paler, wherever ye grope. Ye will live in the spirit with seraphs and God ; Ye will walk where the feet of the carnal ne'er trod ; 98 THE NEW ENGLAND DAISY. Ye will look far away from this clod and a stoue ; Ye will learn how the visions of just men were known Ye will watch for the coming of judgment, nor fear ; Ye will go out prepared when the summons is here. THE NEW ENGLAND DAISY. [Tins flower is not found in the Western States.] Where New England's vigorous clime ■c j Fosters noble, classic rhyme, Like a star that dropped from glory, Stood the legend of Burns before me. Where the clannish spirit stalks. In old Scotia filled with lochs, When the poet chanced to gaze In the furrow, on its rays. Seemed the plow his hand did gauge To accept the minstrel's wage, Like a harp his touch could thrill With the afflatus of his will, And the inspiration came Like an ecstasy of flame. And the plow seemed burning clear Without either scar or sere, As the bush on Horeb burned When to flame the foliage turned, And the daisy at his feet Was translated to a seat THE PLANETS. 99 'Mong the Muses, — where it raises For the poets, New England daisies. Fall River, Mass., August 7, 1883. THE PLANETS. Inscribed to Professor Hall, of the Naval Observatory, Washing- ton, D. C. Professor Hall, the discoverer of the moons of Mars, has christ- ened his twin pets with the Homeric names of "Deimus" and " Phoebus." This fortunate American astronomer was lately voted a French medal, as the hero of the greatest achievement in astronom- ical research for the year 1877. Two " singiog stars" fondly appear Together in the evening sky, Saturn sings tenderly and clear And Mars sings strong the harmony. The very oldest songs they sing Of young creation and of war ; The epochs only, time can bring, Who first the mighty singers saw. "The Past," with recollection phased What the first noble voice can sing, — When Earth stood blushing and amazed And numbered with his young offspring. "Of Rhea" he begins to sing, When stern Succession wedded them ; — " When Jupiter new-born did bring To Saturn his lost diadem." 100 THE PLANETS. And while he sings, a lovely throng Who now recall their father's voice, Draw near, to hear the starry song And in his virile age rejoice. Yesta who trembled in her youth To hear his winged feet draw near, Has quite forgotten her mother's ruth Who hid the infant Jove from fear. Ceres grows radiant, when she hears The golden-age again rehearsed, The fire which warms the immortal years Within her golden seeds are nursed, Neptune the grave, the silver-hair, Whose trident parts the threatening cloud Among the clouds is seen to fare Where storms heat wild and winds roar loud. And Juno her enchantment lends — Wrapped in the starry mist of night, And to her father's bosom sends The arrows, of her eyes delight. All are with song enraptured — but Another's thrilling strain, descends ! Like cymbals, clash the numbers shut, For hark! the martial theme impends. "O'er Priam's strong mysterious wall Encircling his loved city round, Till] PLANETS. 101 Mars' ruddy torch was hailed of all The Greeks in arms, upon the ground. But ill-conteut to see the sway Of battle with the Grecian band, He rallies Hector in the fray — And sinks by Diomede's hand. Thus year by year he lit the tide Of conflict on the Trojan plain, Till death to Hector did betide And Troy wailed o'er insulted slain. When Persia leagued with death — her plan Arrayed her soldiery ten to one, Mars was with every Grecian man Upon the field of Marathon. E'en Christianity has named Him as defender of the faith ; And the Mohammedan that's claimed By him, gains Paradise with death. All nations ask his starry flag As ally round this sphered world ; Above embattled Malta's crag To death and glory 't was unfurled. Those lands in winter armor bound Which scarcely feel the tread of war, And those where flowers spring from the ground Enriched by blood his followers draw." 102 WHISTLING VERSUS KTSSING. But as I list, the martial star Sings faint and fainter in the arch, May be the olden spirit of wai- ls failing in the lovely torch, — But hark ! it strikes another theme, Trichoral music fills the air, Orbs rise from heaven's celestial dream Flashing like cimeters were there. And song on song breaks into spray Till sung by all the crystal spheres, For Hall was born upon this day To immortality of years. . Peoria, Ills., September 3, 1877. WHISTLING VERSUS KISSING. THE TWENTY-SEVENTH LETTER. A note from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on "the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet" is published by the Indianapolis News. The correspondent who sends it to the News says: "I begged it for the News." It is evident that Dr. Holmes was impressed with the char- acter of the fair inquirer's letter, and answered it, believing La- vinia (which is the second name of Miss , a worthy member of the Society of Friends) to be a lady, but his P. B. seems to indicate that he half believed himself sold as to the sex. I will first give you a note of explanation sent us by Lavinia: "The inclosed letter of Dr. Holmes was called forth by the follow- ing circumstance: 'Cousin Edward' and I were reading with much interest the story of 'Elsie Venner,' as it came out in the Atlantic Monthly. One day he asked me: ' What does Dr. Holmes mean by the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet?' and when I answered he was not satisfied, and insisted I should -vriteandask the illustrious author WHISTLING VERSUS KISSING. 10o for an explanation. To my inquiry the poet kindly sent me this witty reply. My willingness to gratify thy expressed wish prevails, and I place it at thy disposal. With great respect, ' Lavinia.' " Boston, March 4, 1861. "MY DEAR Miss LAVINIA: The twenty-seventh letter of the alpha - phet is pronounced by applying the 1 ps of the person speaking it to the cheek of a friend and puckering and parting the same with a pe- culiar explosive sound. 'Cousin Edward' will show you how to speak this labial consonant, no doubt, and allow you to show your proficiency by practicing it with your lips against his cheek. For further information you had better consult your gra'mma. Very truly yours, O. W. Holmes. "P.S.— Are you any relation to ' lovely young Lavinia ' who 'once had friends,' mentioned by Thomson in his 'Seasons.' " When the first lord of creation Was aware lie owned a whistle, 'Twas a prime alleviation When his nerves began to bristle, Proving a boon companion, that His island was not lonely, Sparing him from discoursing chat Which would have bored him, only, For dialects were, there, uncouth And rhetoric difficle, And so he puckered up his mouth And blew upon his whistle ; Brutes pranced across the everglade, Fish set their fins to quivering Charmed by that first sweet windy trade Which set the bugle shivering. We read that Satan's speech began In English or in Dutch, But cursed as an ophidian He had no use for such, 104 WHISTLING VERSUS KISSING. A trick of Old Theogony Leveling man with brute, Born with a like phrenology — And springing from one root, — But error often proves the fact, This proves man has a Soul, A Conscience, Dialect, and Tact, Keligion and Control. But I am not for argument, Offering this whiff of Keason Where verse becomes its instrument To ornament and season. Ape tried his mouth-piece, though to grin, When Adam saw — this other Was nearest like himself, as kin In grinning, makes a brother ; So this young whistler spent his time Twixt music and Orthoepy, The only thing without a rhyme In all this land of Poesy. For the On-o-mat-o-po-et-ic claims Of all of Eden's creatures, He had a way to find their names, By voices and by features ; — Which task accomplished, like a man The woman-half at church, Some entertaining work would plan To give Ennui the lurch. WHISTLINC; VERSUS KISSING. 105 Masing of this, lie dropped asleep, When such u fog of glory Over his jaded bruin did creep White, violet and rosy, And such a head of misty gold And flesh of alabaster As coming freshly from the mold In palpitating plaster, Produced such joy, 't was like a wound — Where his lone heart was bumping, A fracture, — as, his ribs were sound They seemed to burst with thumping. Breaking the trance which bound his eyes And ideal volition, " Thou comest from from my side," he cries, "I saw thee in my vision." When Adam saw the pleased surprise Her radiant face was succoring, He felt his olden habit rise He felt his lips were puckering, — Eve was a woman, therefore wise, Knew she would mil at whis'ling, Gave to his habit, her sweet surmise Puckering up her mouth for kissing. lOli GEORGE DENNISOS PRENTICE. GEORGE DENNISCXN PRENTICE. mi: SCHOLAR, THE POET, THE EDITOR. Yuv writer is especially fond of Mr. Prentice's poems, which are strong, mire, and tender. And this was Intensified by the writer's mother verifying a statement of his biographer, that Mr. Prentice taught a school in Smithfield, Rhode Island, which is hernativo place, and at her father's house he was a visitor, a brother attending his academy. She remembers his fondness for poetry and some of the effusions to His early loves, which are not mentioned in his life sketch. That Mr. Prentice will have lovers so long as books exists is un- doubted. '.'he commencement of the poem refers to Prentice's oft repeated allusion to the '-stars.'' which certainly are a type of the genius which steadily soared skyward. The seventh stan.'a alludes to his lines ou " An Infant's Grave," an emigrant's child buried in the forest of Arkansas, and which he met with and tenderly plaeed thereon a little tlower to annually memorise his loving eare. The poem is very tOUChingly told in the writer's own words : •■ lis well] 'tis well; but oh. such fate. Seems very, very desolate.'' A.MONG thy loved star>. 1 saw The brightest star of all,— Ami earth awhile, the heaven, for Thy brilliant beams to tall. Thou had'st move wisdom in thy brain, More beauty in thy eye, More nyu to lay thy mental train. Thv voice more melody, GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE. 107 Than hosts on hosts of other men ; Thy heart the richest vein Of friendship, always fuller for It flowed away like rain, The sweetest sympathy, that made The music for thy deeds, And gave thy poetry the shade Of pure religions creeds. Crowned with the talents of thy mind The first of monarch's crowned. Thy proudest conquests, were the kind Which in its toil are found ; And bearing westward, with thy star, The Nation saw thy hand Flashing- her signal-fires afar To her remotest land. Wrapped in thy splendor, like a cloud Around thy person cast, We then beheld the eager crowd O'er which thy spirit passed, Th' earuestfnl, trustful, gladful throng Hungry for living bread, Who felt their hearts and minds grow strong Upon thy wisdom fed. But like the master of the ship When mutiny appears, Thy thrilling orders sealed the lip On many a patriot's fears ; 108 GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE, And steadied many a faltering rank, And strengthened many a heart, And lived to see the fearful bank Of war-clouds all depart. O'er thy magnetic glory beamed Thy soft, harmonious rays, As Iris tenderly is gleamed Across the sun's strong gaze, Bending as gently as she bends The poet's dream to hear, Who, by thy fairer wings ascends Into a purer sphere. Or weeping as a mother weeps Above her infant's grave, Thy fount of tender feeliug creeps Up to thy eyes, to save The little stranger lying low Far, far upon the wild, Planting a little flower to blow, As though it were thy child. O, many a way gleams with thy "stars" Into the land of rest, Where thou hast gone to make thy cause With the brightest and the best; If thou hast been sublimed, thou know'st- Before the Eternal's seat, Thy " stars" of genius are a host, Heaven's lilies round thy feet. at franklin's grave. 109 THE PHARAOHS. Methinks I hear the kings of Egypt laugh While at Osiris' table now they quaff, When — some full scholar wanders to the dead Boasting of all the modern books he 's read — Telling "their stone primers, ages confused of Time, To learn a letter or to read a line." AT FRANKLIN'S GRAVE. I weep upon his precious earth But not one bitter tear ; Because he was of noblest worth I sought his barrow here ; He was a master-piece of God Made in divinest mold, And consecrated is the sod His mortal frame, can hold. 'Twas foreordained, that he was wise In wisdom more than gold, The thoughts which from his braiu did rise Were oracles of old, He was the light of chaos, then, The pillar and the cloud, Freedom's apostle, helping men To tear away her shroud. 110 at franklin's grave. What sacred sympathies were hound Up with his giant mind; Like dew of Herman dropping round He cherished all mankind, Casting into the common store His glorious gifts from Heaven, Enslaved Thought opened every door And sent to him for leaven. What wond'rous visions came to be His pure Philosophy ; The mysteries of Earth, Sky, and Sea And their cosmology ; Upon his ladder to the skies Which brought the Lightning down, What noble names thereafter rise Upon his grand Renown. Men serve their Destiny — and he Began our golden age ; — His deeds did print immortally Our own historic page ; Seizing the Pen, he led the van Beside a Washington, Giving the world the mightiest span Of Architectural Freedom, w T on. For him she spreads her starry wrings To chain the bolts of levin, „ For him her bow-men set their strings Now, with the shafts of heaven, MY OWN DEAR HEART. Ill For him the nation proudly strives For letters and for men To wipe toil's sweaty brow — by lives Devoted to the pen. MY OWN DEAR HEART. My owm dear heart, my own dear heart So light w T ith love and joy, What sweetheart makes me e'er so glad Or gives such sweet annoy? Thy whispers are such tender, sweet Love-nothings, I 'd not dare To utter them allowed, they'd break Like bubbles in the air. If once my lips begin, I pause, As every thought were still Betraying the precious joy, I feel By some magic, of thy will : I laugh with thee, I weep with thee, In all thy humor share, No heart, except my own true heart Feels my love so little care. My own dear heart, my own dear heart, Over thy thousand ills Tear after tear more bitterly flows Than over another's spills, 112 MY OWN DEAR HEART. Nursing thee, clear heart, night and day And giving thee relief, I prove the truest, faith fulest friend Of all, who share thy grief. My own dear heart, my own dear heart, Why should I prize thee less Than other hearts, I prize and serve In happiness or distress ? Let me live true to thee, dear heart, Sparing thee from fault and stain, I shall receive heaven's sweet reward And thou heaven's bliss attain. My own dear heart, my own dear heart With its own small heaven is stored, Love, from the holy of holies ta'en And scarred, like Heaven's Adored, — Charity with all her attributes, Friendship which binds like brothers, Esteem, which makes us love ourselves And desire the esteem of others. MOUNT VERNON. 113 MOUNT VERNON. From notes taken during a trip through the States, including visit to Exposition, we extract the following, written in Washington City on the eve of a day passed in visiting Mount Vernon. We stopped for some minutes on the lawn before the mansion, and when we started to enter, felt like removing the shoes from our feet» for it seemed to us a holy place. The circumstance recalls our first view of the home of Abraham Lincoln, at Springfield, 111. ; when, with eyes streaming with tears and voice breaking with sobs, we dare not trust a reply to questions of friends, who were kindly riding with us by the residence of the la- mented president. Mount Vernon ! in thy sacred shade I wandered to and fro, And over all the pleasant glade The past did come and go. The knotted oaks in gray decay, The vines supporting these, The asters blue along the way Were full of memories. The high commanding walk which led Directly to the door, The hill-side wild with nature, wed To all Potomac's lore. The river rolling grandly on Down to the mighty sea, Its waves no grayer, that have gone Thus many a century ; 114 MOUNT VERNON. Yet every one that kissed the shore To history did belong, The Indian sang his pow-wow o'er, The Englishman his song. I lingered here and there about Pained still to cross the door, Where th' disembodied had gone out Returning there, no more. What was I ! that I dare approach This shrine of love and trust ? The very mightiest would encroach Seemingly, on the dust ; And yet I sat me down upon The chairs, as though I knew The occupant, with Washington To hold an interview ; I drew up to the table there As though I was a guest, And viewed the pictures, with an air Of free familiar zest. The doors stood ope from room to room, The crowd swayed in and out, But it was struggling with the gloom To make the picture out. For who were these ? they were not Knox, Ts"or Green, nor Lafayette, MOUNT VERNON. 115 There was no woman, on whose locks The mistress' halo set ; There was no loftier one than all, Whose strong commanding glance Reproved the virtues lax, or call Them from their painful trance ; There was no sweet commanding voice, Could start the noble thrill Of pride in it, till the annoys Of vanity were still. It fairly seemed as though the place Was held thus by a trance, That surely, those great ones would grace Again the lordly manse ; I thought to hear the silver tone Of music through the house, The harpsichord, but wanted one Light touch, of the fair spouse ; I thought to hear the servants' feet Both up and down the stair, As Randolph, Jefferson, were greet As guests, and honored there. The past was all embodied here, As of to-day a part, And standing at the Chieftain's bier The grateful thought did start, 116 THE CHARLES RIVER BRIDGE. That pilgrim nations would come here, Vernon still unforgot, — Though reconquering nature reappear O'er all this sacred spot. October 16, 1876. THE CHARLES RIVER BRIDGE, BOSTON. Evening on the Charles River Bridge, Boston, after a visit to Mount Auburn and the graves of Longfellow, Everett, Agassiz, Charlotte Cushman, and other noted American characters. Day stepped quietly into heaven, Furled her feathery beams of light, As the Darkness climbed the mountain Listening to the owl of night. From a silvery crown of moonlight, Heavenly spirits there might bear High above the graves of Auburn, A mild radiance filled the air. Under the milky-way of gaslights Show the towns from rim to rim, While the leaden arch of twilight Spans the hill from brim to brim. Spans the great tumultuous city Like an eagle wild with life, Wings unfurled with winds of commerce, Every pinion plumed for strife. THE CHARLES RIVER BRIDGE. 117 Like an Apocalyptic vision Shone to illuminate the stones, In a twinkling blazed the spirit Of the great electric suns. In this grand illumination, Like a spirit climbed the moon Down the side of Auburn, farther, The Charles River glowed like noon. In that dawn of peace men pray for Looked the evening world — I thought The grim batteries in the harbor Vanished then, like spectres swart. Steely bands along the horizon Trace the waters of the bay, Dipping downward into ocean Where its shores at sunrise lay. Holy praises clearly musical Down the ambient air descend, While the sickle slowly faded, As, the tombs were going to rend — Sweeter sing those heavenly voices Praising over the graves of men, And I saw the Seers and Poets Walking on the earth again. November 2, 1883. 118 THE MARCH OF TIME. THE MARCH OF TIME. 1884. Scarce had the angels' voices hushed Their song of " Peace to man," When all the galaxy of stars Another song began ; Like Cherubim and Seraphim Around the Throne of Light, They struck their golden harps, and Heaven Flashed with their music bright ; Far in the Eastern Hemisphere Came rolling on the strains, Sublime and sweet, as Thales heard On the Nilotic plains ; Echo on echo touched the hills Which bursted into flame — As the Parsee hailed the rising sun ; And Time passed on the same ; Olympus summoned forth the Greeks To try the State's pastimes ; And by " Olympiad" time was called In histories and in rhymes ; THE MARCH OF TIME. 119 'Folding his eagle wings awhile Upon Italia's plains ; From mighty " Roma" — was the date. Which long with time remains ; And thus passed down, the march of time ; As men by time were schooled ; When time made conquest of them all As each one rose and ruled. Scarce had the angels' voices hushed Their songs of " Love to man," When all the galaxy of stars Another song began ; For time upon his annual flight, Pausing on Bethlehem's plain And listening to the angel's song, Joined with a new refrain ; Tender and sweet and like a bell It struck upon the ear, The Wise men pause — to catch the note — Lifting the heart in prayer ; And Mary clasped her Holy born Listening to the strain ; For Time then, struck his harp but—" Once! " And then passed on again. Within the palace, Herod clad In royal robes, had met (.20 THE MARCH OF TIME. The Maji who bad read the stars, Whose anxious faces set The king's heart very ill at ease, Casting the fate which traced An obscure King for Israel, By name " Messiah" graced ; And time upon his annual round, Had heard the wailing cry Of Israel's maids and mother-, For "Israel's babes should die;" Alighting upon Judea's plain And striking his harp — "Twice," It was the Christian — Century Which Time had made his prize. If constant stars ring out a year And ring one in again, Above their silvery twinklings, clear Is heard Old Time's refrain ; Striking his bar}) en England's coast, By the stiff Eastern breeze Its Sixteen Hundred notes were borne Over the Western seas; The Northern pine was ready strung With all its thousand strings; THE MARCH OF TIME. 121 The Southern cypress heard its moss Like Jubal's harp — that sings ; And like a Spirit, with the ship, The Mayflower reached the dock, And since, we've always counted time Dated from Plymouth Rock. Scarce had the angels' voices hushed Their song of " Love to man," When all the galaxy of stars Another song began ; Like Cherubim and Seraphim Around the Throne of Light; They struck their golden harps, and Heaven Flashed with their music bright ; Again, Old Time folds up his wings When all the fields are white, A wreath of pine upon his brow, His sandals soft and light ; Again, he strikes his golden harp Under the midnight stars ; Singing of Springtime, and the flowers Which at October pause ; The roses die, the lilies fade, The leaves and fruits all go, 122 O YE HILLS. He's singing of these, — and the dead Under the snow below ; He sings of all life's gladdening hopes The New Year has in store, While he is striking on his harp For Eigh teen-Eighty-Four. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." O YE HILLS. O ye hills ! O ye hills ! when ye wake and rejoice Like a great congregation ye lift up one voice ; When the Spirit of Light flieth over at morn, And the stars at the rush of his wings are withdrawn ; Like the brightness that filled the Lord's house on the hill, When the priests, for, the glow of Jehovah stood still, — When the glory is streaming your arches along, When your choirs of a thousand are full of their song, When the incense goes up from the river and rill Ye have both the old grandeur of temple and hill. Ye are volumes of Time ! upon every page Of creation, you open the stories of age; O YE HILLS. 123 With the dove, that went forth at the lull of the flood, When above the bare waters, old Ararat stood ; — We see one displaying the banner of cloud When the Law-giver opened his pleadings aloud, And his commands went forth with the pledge of the Lord "That the deeds of mankind should be judged by his word ; " One is wrapped in a pall of great sorrow, so black, The sun in the folds, lost its heavenly track, The rocks moved about at the sob of the earth, — The graves opened wide for the dead to come forth ; Then the touch of the feet of a Christ upon one The place was transfigured, with angels, thereon, And lifting the vail He had worn among men He revealed the Redeemer in heaven again. Though ye pause on the way to the skies — ye are nearer,— When altars were builded and heaven seemed clearer, When the vintage empurpled to empty its wine, When the olive was greened to a shading divine, When the corn bowed down to the earth and adored, And they numbered the flocks, while Pans' harmony poured. Ye were clad in the green robe of Peace ! But O Hills! Ye have trenched on the Pride, and the Avarice that kills, 124 O YE HILLS. Ye have portioned the earth with your columnar walls, And men looked on your face, were content — till the calls Of Ambition, unfurled them, its death dealing wings, And the mountains were scaled, like the lowlier things, And your ponderous gates were unlocked with the sword : But God, the new earth has revealed thy word, For we go up like those who went singing a song, Where the steam-driven chariot goes whirling along. Ye are mightier than Cheops ! ye are tombs of a race, — Without groan, without pain, ye were reared into place, And the red-men went free as the deer on the hill, The proud men who were kinged with the bald-eagle's quill, Who told over the fall, summer, winter, and May, From the planting of corn to the great hunting day By the silvery lettering they read on the moon, And the Great Spirit led them by sight as a boon, And they hallowed the graves of their father's with love, And rejoiced in the hunt and the bison above, Ami with bow, and with arrow they went to the field To themselves and their children, eternally sealed. Ye are tombs of a race — but the type on your page Is to dim, to discover the people or age ! Ye are tombs, ye are temples, ye are altars, ye are hills Which the praise of Elohim — everlastingly fills, And my heart breaketh up into song at your voice, Ail that's in me hath joined your grand choir to rejoice. DANIEL BOONE. 125 DANIEL BOONE. A REMINISCENCE. In the spring of 1855, after spending a night at the Capitol Hotel, Frankfort, Ky., we arose early the next morning to visit the cemetery before our departure by train. Climbing the foot-way which leads to the place, we found ourselves suspended some two hundred feet in the air upon the almost perpendicular face of the ascent, the path about eighteen inches wide, and rocks fringed with evergreens towering in magnificent height above our heads. Resting at a point where a cool spring comes leaping down from its source and falls into a natural rock, we took in the scene with all the enthusiasm of a young traveler. The Kentucky river, with its bold, bastioned bluffs, was on our right; South Frankfort lay before us: the railroad at our feet; woods pressing close up to the track, and spreading away in umbrageous concourse, made up one of those romantic views we never forget. Reaching the little wooden gate, we passed into the grounds and be- gan our wanderings amongthe homes of the dead. We came at length upon a dimple in the land about twenty feet in diameter, where lay two graves, unmarked save by a number of cedar stumps, which had been lifted by the roots, trimmed a little and hauled to the place. On expressing our astonishment at the proximity of such rude monuments, our companion informed us that we were standing at the graves of Daniel Boone and his wife. We sat down on the sward overcome by the incident, and burying our faces in our hands, shed tears, and tried to recall what we had gathered in childhood from Flint's memoir of the wonderful hunter of Kentucky. We saw him now as he tridded the canebrake, and skulked through the forest to elude the wary Indian; we saw him as his eagle eye pierced the coverts which sheltered the game, or gleamed admiringly over some everglade of flowers, comprehending at a glance the hunter's paradise; and we wept at the dangers he had run and the foes he had encountered. A hunter without a bow and a lover of nature, but most of all, of this nobleman of the wildwoods of our adopted state, we had chanced upon his resting place, were standing on the smallest spot of land he ever owned, were at the grave of Daniel Boone. Gathering a few splinters from the stumps as a memorial, we sorrowfully left the spot 126 DANIEL BOONE. and returned to the city, which has since erected a handsome monu- ment, sculptured and chased with designs expressive of the pioneer's experience; reflecting that inout homes of peace and comfort we can never be too gratefu] ortoo faithful to the memory of the white braves of early times. Boone died in 1818. Nature's green casket here, embalms The sturdy pioneer, And lias arrayed her floral charms Thereon these sixty year, And flushed and royal autumn's trace In season has been here, And knightly winter holds his place Beside the sacred bier. The winds that cross the Cumberland Have found the Hunter's grave, And marked his repose on the strand Of the blue Kentucky's wave, The rich insculptured pile of men Who reverently here trod, Bespeak the culture, that has been Reared from the savage sod. Methinks the hero only lies Alert, to meet the foe, The stealthiest Indian feels his eves — lire his rifle's flash can show, He feels the ambush must reveal A hunter of Kentucky, Whose pale-faced bravery won the seal For the ground so dark and bloody. DANIEL boom:. 127 The noble forest- born, he wore Its freedom like a king, — The trees umbrageous shades did pour And flowers thickly spring, And beauteous nimble-footed deer Here roamed the hills and vales, The newest, best primeval, here His sure birthright entails. Wild-bred with Nature, he was as The pattern of our race, Enjoyed her solitudes, but was Full of all human grace, Partook of woman's sweetest love, And friendship's teuderest thrill, All soft affections helped to move His strong, untutored will. 'Twas no silken fraternal bond That made men brothers then ; 'Twas sacrifice, Godlike, and fond, As His who died for men ; Where the stockaded fort arose — For the emigrant's defense, Was death shared like a boon by those Who scorned all self-defense. Together sweetly sing the names Of Harold, Boone, and Kenton, Around their valorous deeds Jhere flames The Muse's noble mention, 128 ENGLAND WILL CAKE FOR EGYPT. Like them — she loves the generous West Who gives her here a portion, But more, each bullet-proven breast Who gave it their devotion. She plucks her pinion just to trace The Pioneer's bier, And bows above his marble face To dew it with a tear, It falls upon the turf that's green Above his restful bed, And where the springing shaft is seen Her poetic bay has spread. The morning's azure gates were spread, The rosy winds passed through, A soft and golden splendor led Up each solemn avenue, It walked as 't were the spirit of God, It found us there alone — And, lo ! we stood upon the sod, At the grave of Daniel Boone. ENGLAND WILL CARE FOR EGYPT. England will care for Egypt, now she's old And tottering helpless, under her crown of stone ; When earth was fresh, with its primeval mold Her Asian founders, worshipers of the Sun, ENGLAND WILL CARE FOR EGYPT. 129 Commenced her greatness, pride, longevity, glory, — On her stone age immortalized their story. England will care for Egypt, for her gods Were, ages past, too feeble to help her people ; And they have petrified beneath the floods Of sands which drowned them, and the great upheaval Of Nil us brings no devotee to prayer,— The mysteries of Osiris are laid bare. England will care for Egypt as a kingdom, Not th' aristocratic beggar of a Porte ; — This mother of nations is the Eastern Bedlam Her laws a pest, her revolutions sport ; And here the Pharaohs swayed, the Ptolemies fell, The Mamelukes murdered — Arabi died as well. England will care for Egypt and her tradition, Zoan's groaning stones, heard in their glyphic traces, While scholars are using the torch of erudition Peering into the rock imprisoning Ramases, The Hebrew host, the march, the route they fled Not alone in the Myth of Papyrus, are read. England will care for Egypt till her stones Have sung and spoken and groaned out all they know; Her hieroglyphics like her Ra-faced suns And her fructifying Osiris set aflow Thousands of living streams of sacred truth Her monuments have pent up in her youth. 1-jO THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. Till men who felt her darkness, see her truth Now hewing it through, as the Egyptian fog Was broken and lifted — when the Hebrews' ruth Had driven them to their Exodus, and the boi Sibornian passed, the sea drank up their foes; Egypt's stone volumes, tell us what she knows. February, 1884. THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. I With a Temperance Moral.] The shoulders of the clouds, at last Tired of their fleece of snow, Casting it to the winds to bear Away to earth below, Though wound around their grasping fists To carry safely down, The fringes caught upon the hills And chimneys of the town, Snapping it loudly as they flew, The forest bare they passed And left some hanging, like the sails Upon a navy's mast, Clutching the rest with fingers stiff They soar, they dip, they leap, The rocky ledge tears off some shreds Which they roll in a heap, Tossing the balls with airy feet Into the fields below Like children at their winter sport THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM 131 Of tumbling in the snow ; Again, inflated like a puff And rolling round the sky T was caught up in the stubborn knots Only the winds can tie, 'Twas like a pendulum all day Swinging from left to right, But now — it lay in cloggy drifts As dropped the winds with night, The bearings of the road were lost Over the stretch between The city and the farm-house, where My actors can be seen. "John, bring a back-log from the pile Of the fall hickory You cut in the October days. The best stick of the tree ! And, while you're out, just shut the cows Into the southern shed, And with the corn and salted hay The herd must be well fed ! And from the mow throw down a bed For Filly, Sweet, and Roan, To beasts, on such a night as this Man's best side may be shown ! In weather such as this, I wish My house and barns were great Enough, to shelter many more Till the dreadful cold abate ; I never eat our bread, but what Vol THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. I think of some who would Do more work, in the Master's cause, And do His name more good ; My bins are filled, until they look As if their waists must ache, I must put all my substance by, — I can no field forsake, — But such a spell as this — I wish I could fulfill God's word — Send for the poor in His bv-way3 To come and share my board ; My Bible tells me what to do, It 's friendly to the poor, John! put the back-log on, and set The chimney in a roar Letting the glow across the snow Point some one to our door ; The sheep were in the fold all day, See they are all secure ! The flock in such a night as this If sheltered, may endure, The rooster and his wives will keep Their perch, while this will stay. And so escape the stirT'ning cold Tucked in the loft away." " Yes, Ezra, we have tried to live By christian love eontently, The kind that 's practiced with the lips Don't always touch one's plenty, And when I heard the hum and whir THE CHRISTMAS SNOWSTORM. 133 Of Maggie's wheel all day, I thought of all the smiles I 'd get For what I'd give away. You know our neighbor Brimful 's left His children in the cold, To see how much money, the till Of old Pint's shop can hold, — His Belle has got no gown to wear To church, and stays at home Because, he helped to buy the furs For Pint's Sue, who can come, — ; The boys, can wear their Kerseymere And boots which cost a ten, For Brimful will go there and drink His whisky with the men ; O, I remember what was said When his Robert went away. The coals heaped then, upon his heart, Would burn as deep to-day And daily burned the wound — it made In the boy's soul, to put The scanty earnings in Pint's till, Though his poor lips were mute ; — I sent John o'er at early morn With socks and milk and meal, The woman is too w T eak to work, Pint's shame she can 't conceal, But with her fragile life she '11 cling Unto her children more, She 's but a broken-hearted thing With hope turned from the door. 134 THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. " Maggie, your fingers were so deft Spinning the rolls to-day, Just stop drawing the thread awhile And put the wheel away, And take the half-peck apple tray And bring it heaping full, And soon Ave '11 have some toasting hot Roasting before the yule. "Ten years ago to-night, Ezra, If you'll think so far back — Our William put his worldly all Into a little pack. Talking in such a strain, the while, And I. thought boyish-wise About the wond'rous steps and turns Which up to Fortune rise, About another kind of stock Which takes a premium, ' Of gold and silver and per cent Until my lips grew dumb. So rich and gaudy — till I thought The fire-dogs stared at me Leering their eyes far back, to sneer Up at our plain roof-tree ; I brought the Bible from the drawers And laid it on the stand, To prove the filial chain was strong He gave us each a hand, And then you read in Matthew, two, 'The Bethlehem babe was born/ — THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 135 Our own came on a Christmas eve We named it ' Will/ next morn ; I thought of him so much to-day Since John brought home the pine, — He was our angel, sent us in The place of one divine, — I often wonder at the joy Which followed him — we've known Such stores of comfort, since that day, Ourselves, and in our own." Yes, mother, I have watched the snow Like frightened birds, all day Come dropping down the air in flocks Or blown by winds away, And when the fields were bleak with white A host of graves were seeu, For every stump and shrub were like A stone wdiere one had been ; So gloomy are my thoughts, for I Keep thinking of the boy, I fear his visit is postponed And so, with it, our joy, But, Maggie, give the fire a poke And turn the apples round, The room shall wear the welcome look, As our joy-hour was found ! You tell the story o'er so true, I see it now before My eyes, as though that year did not Kun backward half a score, 136 THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. Go place the bible on the stand I'll read the chapter two, There's something dim before my eyes — Won't let the letters show, — The cold must have searched out my chest,- My voice is growing worse, — Do mother, take your specks and read — The rest from the sixth verse. — " Hark ! John go out to the front door I thought I heard a ring, A cutter might come out from town Now it has stopped snowing! The station's but three miles away And if the boy has come, He'll never mind the drifts, that lie Between there and his home ! " " By Jingo ! Mr. Warren come And bring the light straight-way, I think they got the engine bell And hitched it to the sleigh ! That horse has on a head of steam — And if they do n't break up Before this house, the runners won't Follow long behind his croup! The snap that's in the man who can Turn this frost, would suffice The weather-clerk to put into His batch of winter's ice ! Je-mi-ma ! he's run on the switch THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 137 And brought up, at the gate, I 'm out to tell the stranger, where, They best accommodate ! Steady, and let the light's sliver Shine straight across the snow, Your hope is like a prophecy I think it has brought two ! " " William, my boy, I see that we Still the Lord's favor gain, The years pass on, and leave us old, They do not leave us pain Since you come home each Christmas Eve And make us young again." " Well, father, bid the stranger in And have him share your fire, Together we left town at morn, Through snow the train did mire, — ■ Beside, I'm his best, faithful friend, And he has heard enough Of farmer Warren's heavenly side To try his earthly stuff." " Bless me ; I think I look into Young Robert BrimfuTs face ; The beard has grown upon his chin — But my dim sight can trace The speaking truth still in his eyes, Nobleness across his brow, While chestnut curls still cluster round His head in many a row, 138 CAPTAIN JOHN J. DESMOND. Tlii^ Christmas storm has favoring gales For neighbor Brimful's sail, The Lord has blessings in reserve, I see, for those who fail." CAPTAIN JOHN J. DESMOND, A VICTIM OF THE RIOT, CINCINNATI, MARCH 29, 1884. Suggested by the pathetic wail of his distracted mother— "Oh that he had been a coward." Why that wail of despair which to heaven did fly ? The hero had conquered his march to the bier, He had died like a soldier, as men love to die When the call has been just and the duty severe, As men answer the call when their country's assailed By invaders abroad or by tyrants at home, When the Laws are defied and Injustice entailed And the growl can be heard, of the Avenger to come. Twas a woman who uttered that wail of despair, A mother, who saw that a bullet had crashed Through the brain of a son she had cultured with care, While she held every foe to his honor abashed. On her gray hairs has fallen the glow of his name, With its honor maintained, he could strive for a crown, On her brow too, has fallen the rays of his fame, He was twining the wreath which would bring him re- nown. PITIFUL SIGHT OF THE CHANGING YEAR. 139 'Twas the wail of a mother, who knew that her boy Had been torn from the breasts which had fed him with milk, Had been snatched from the lips which had kissed his with joy, From the bands which caressed his small fingers of silk ; She could wail for her babe without weakness or fear, Not with precept of courage, with the precept of Love She had conquered his heart, — as the sunbeams appear To attract and dissolve every storm-cloud above. Did she wail o'er a hero? then she wailed o'er a son ! She had taught him " forgiveness is stronger than war, That a kiss for a blow is not cowardly done, Cowards likewise are braver, than breakers of Law ; " There's no shadow can tarnish the gold of his name, To the grave, it will carry her gray hairs in peace, There's no leaf to be clipped from the wreath of his fame, For the Eight, do the crowns, of the martyrs increase. THE PITIFUL SIGHT OF THE CHANGING YEAR. The winds are cracking their gusty whips And surrying through the sky, As they were driving the flocks of snow Which in the Northward fly, 140 PITIFUL SIGHT OF THE CHANGING YEAR. The forests mourning in suits of blaek, The earth is wrinkled and old. But the pitiful sight of the changing year Is the poor hungry and cold. What earthly joy have the very poor? What comfort or what content In a rickety house with a broken roof, When the bitterest blasts are sent? When the cold creeps over their trembling limbs In a stiffening and snaky fold? O the pitiful sight of the changing year Is the poor hungry and cold. A handful of lire on the broken hearth, A smothering, smoking pile He blows, with a remnant of feeble breath That a spark of hope may smile, A pittance of coal from the frozen street Which the rich man's ashes hold, O the pitiful sight of the changing year Is the poor hungry and cold. Why need the poor a well-filled shed When the cellar is empty and bare? The harvest of summer seems not for him, Though the Lord sent enough and to spare ; " Where there 's little of food, there's little of fire" Is the shortest sermon told, O the pitiful sight of the changing year Is the poor hungry and cold. PITIFUL SIGHT OF THE CHANGING YEAR. 141 The preacher may call till the day of doom On the wicked to "be saved," The prison will gape wide as the church When men are by want enslaved, There were never fetters forged so sure, Or bolts that so surely hold, O the pitiful sight of the changing year Is the poor hungry and cold. There was never a fiend like the fiend of want, There was never a curse like this, The body can sin, and the soul feel pure — As an angel up in bliss, While man is judging the outward act. His God does the inward hold, O the pitiful sight of the changing year Is the poor hungry and cold. O God has cheapened His stores, that man Shall have no want to bear, The North and the South have filled the land With abundance to eat aud to wear, Yet thousands seek for work in vain, Eating the bread that's doled, O the pitiful sight of the changing year Is the poor hungry and cold. 142 THE ROSE. THE ROSE. There is something divine in } T our marvelous grace That tells where the Spirit of Love must abide, While the blushes of modesty seen on your face Preserves from a touch of the Spirit of Pride. Ye meet at the bridal, where mirthfulness lends Like the cloy of a passion, a sadness of voice, On your splendor the thorn of the Spirit attends, While the heart on your odorous balm will rejoice. In your beauty ye gather to cover the bier, With a radiance dispelling the thought of relief, The features of death in your presence appear Too lovely for earth and too holy for grief. Ye are twined for the bugle, the banner, the arch, Where the feet of the conqueror proudly will tread, In the stains of their glory, the victors will march To stain with your beauty, the graves of their dead. Ye are gayest, to meet where the dancers convene, Where Joy swoons and revives in the music's bright power, Though the fires of love rival your tropical sheen, Fond bosoms are clasped by your love-knots this hour. SWEET SPIRIT OF LOVE. 143 With our Passion ye meet, from the crib to the bier, Still uncloyed, are expecting your beautiful bloom Where a heaven will wipe from our face every tear, And its June in the flame of its Roses consume. SWEET SPIRIT OF LOVE. Sweet Spirit of Love, can'st thou prolong This ecstasy of love an hour? Confessions, which to thee belong Give me supremely, to thy power, But thou can'st bring me no repose When once the fickle thrill awakes, The heart it enters, ne'er can close, Its ecstasy subdues or breaks. I open all my heart and fling Upon thy bosom all that's told, Thou sweet intoxicant, and cling As mad, — yet thou did'st break my hold, And Earth has lost its paradise And heart-communion lost its bliss Because that hour forever flies When every vein was thrilled \uth this. Sweet Spirit of Love, if there's a place Where thou eternally can'st stay, And not be driven in disgrace Into the realms of outer day, 144 LOVE AFTER TEA. Perhaps, to find the men, there, gods, To find the women, angels, — where So e'er the place, love makes no odds Betwixt courtship and marrying there. LOVE AFTER TEA. How bright are the pictures which young recollection Throws onto the foreground of life as we pass, But truer and fonder, in those hours of reflection When husband and wife hold the magical glass. While pencils of bright flame are etching the lamp white Whose mellowing glow fills the room everywhere, Enjoying their rockers drawn close to the fire-light Two faces are clearing of wrinkles and care. ii. Her swift flying feet have been ready to answer The constant exactions of pleasure and pain, Her fingers though skillful will never advance her Beyond what to-day has done over again, — The odds and the ends for the household all finished, The maid of all work left with nothing to do, The children at last, leave the circle diminished, Alone, at the fire-side the lovers are two. MAMMOTH CAVE. 145 III. Her eyes kindly twinkle with love for the husband, The smiles brightly mist o'er his beard for the wife, The tick of the second goes teasing the hour-hand And no longer troubling the passage of life, — Two hearts beat as one in the purest communion That comes, after seal of connubial ban, And lips meet to kiss in the holiest union, The kiss that is shameless 'twixt woman and man. IV. And there, as two angels sat down 'mong the lilies Where whitest and sweetest in heaven above, Beatified ones, by the blessed affinities Of love, in the spirit of all that is love, Their troubles all cast on the Healing Physician, Again there are two, in the Eden of man, The tempter has slunk to the shades of perdition And love shows divine, in the conjugal plan. Fall River, Mass., July 28, 1883. MAMMOTH CAVE. The first verse of the poem was composed at the cave; the remain- der in the stage-coach on the way to Cave City, ten miles distant. When earth terraqueous left the Creator's hand, Water contended with the encroaching land ; And a diluvial ocean in its flow Carried the cunnino- lime unto its foe, 14(3 MAMMOTH (AVE. Which storing up the bottom of the sea The lime-rock there was born ; as God, would be, Using the forces of the rebellious wave To build the dungeons of the Mammoth Cave. Honored by God with an eternal age, Man feels His awful presence on each page ; Hears how His mighty spirit moves the sea; The firmaments round out immensity ; And dense with darkness, earth lias seen no light Under thick clouds which shut the heaven from sight, When the young world rose dripping from the wave Which piled the bed-rock of the Mammoth Cave. The sun was ladened with it- gaseous breath, And all the atmosphere was filled with death ; Except, the rocks, nature had swooned away, — Beauty had found no medium for its ray, — Gigantic forests slumbered in the germ Ferns and club-mosses, till their awakening term, And the subsidence of the acidulous wave Which cut the rock-ribs of the Mammoth Cave. Now like the rush of angels' wings, the breeze Sung its first lullaby across the seas ; The earth beheld the splendor of the bow Spanning the heaven — where gods are said to go, And well they might, and not dishonor Him Who makes the glory of the angels dim ; And sparkling with the beauty of the wave. The rock had blossomed, in the Mammoth Cave. A SCRAP OF POETRY. 147 True to the rule of Time, which gives the crown After the trial of the cross is borne, God hung the rose upon the cavern's mouth, The violet put her jacinth petals forth And drank the dew, when still condensing night Had cooled the earth and vapor floating light, And Light had kissed as fondly drop and wave And made its covenant with the Mammoth Cave. O crown of mind, O Immortality, Go find the forces of the land and sea ! Explore the heaven and earth, and thou shalt see God will be God of all their mystery ! Yield up thy pride, " to look upon His face," And take thy life a favor of His grace, For thou shalt bow before Him, like the wave Which built the caverns of the Mammoth Cave. August 9, 1882 A SCRAP OF POETRY. Nogamoto O. Kabe, a Japanese prince, completed his studies at Yale College; made the tour of the United States and Europe, returning to Japan in 1883. Thank Heaven, it is one song fills all the Earth, Sung in the same language, in the same chord of music, Terrestrially, in all souls it has birth, Celestially, it is the song cherubic. Love, Brotherhood, Humanity are one, One magnetism finds in all a power, 148 THE PIPE OF PEACE. Whore Asian Islands lirst induce the San To monld his splendor into fruit and flower. Where torrid Afric rears the tower of palm. Where Oeean keeps the chains of Arctic on, Where Earth needs vassals, and mankind need halm, Love does translate all languages — by one. Here's every zone, here every race can flourish, Here every product grows and vegetates, With all we are Republican, we nourish All men with freedom, knowledge, and estates. In that dear Isle Nippon, O then recall The awaiting for you in this i% Home sweet home," Your lines in pleasant places here did fall, Old Yale's your Mater, wheresoe'er you roam. THE PIPE OF PEACE. President Hayes was presented with the Peace-Pipe, Sept 28, 1877. A barbaric bowl is the Indian's pipe. The sacred Pipe of Peace ; Tis hewn from the old rock's flinty grip, Then hollowed out, for its roomy lip, And carved with the bison's fleece And antlers grasping each spiny tip Pound the Indian Pipe of Peace. THE PIPE OF PEACE. 149 A reed of slender stem they wind With plumes — which the eagle frees, And filled with weed, where'er they find The spirit of good in the human kind They light the Pipe of Peace, The lips of the Indian when combined Bring forth the spirit of peace. It has written like ink the silvery air, The smoke of the Pipe of Peace ; A treaty of peace by the blue Delaware When the father of love the Lennappe met there And he purchased the lands of these, The oath of the red-man was sacred who sware With Penn on the Pipe of Peace. It has sweeten'd the lips of the brave Illinois The breath of the Pipe of Peace ; When the priest of the white man accepted his toy, The breast of the savage was throbbing with joy After smoking the Pipe of Peace, The Christ of Marquette, was a vision t' enjoy, He saw in the Pipe of Peace. It has banded a brotherhood distant and wide The smoke of the Pipe of Peace ; It has glisten'd with spray from the Ocean tide, Has rolled like a cloud up the Cumberland side And swung o'er Yosemite's And sprung like the elk 'cross the Great Divide The smoke of the Pipe of Peace. 150 THE PIPE OF PEACE. If the white man carries a selfish heart When he smokes the Pipe of Peace, From their lands and their homes they must depart- O the Cherokee knoweth the graves apart Of his Braves — he left with these — From his graves eondemn'd, since taking the part Of pariah, the whites to please. If the Choctaw lived like the white brave, when He offered the Pipe of Peace, The laws of the whites, were the laws of men Who conquer'd a world, were conquering then Every foot of ground from tin They too must depart to be savages, when The white Brave was to please. Yes, the white men carry a selfish heart When they smoke the Pipe of Peace : Though the hills were of gold, it was their part To do, as they'd wish the Indian heart Would do by them, with these, O Red Cloud found the cross — his part Of the white men's vision of peace. The White Father, only had this to tell, Wheu he smoked the Pipe of Peace ; "The rivers are numbered by which they dwell, Th' forests are numbered and numbers foretell The last of the Pipes of Peace. For Nature has claims, she must yield as well And the braves must yield with these." THE DANDELION. 151 THE DANDELION. Crown me with Dandelion Strewn by the Spring, Full of the cheery gold Found in a ring, Full of the maiden-breath Found in a flower, Bring me the starry -gold Fresh, to my bower. After the feet of the Spring have flown by, Leaving the field like A patch of the sky, Down, 'moug the grasses They twinkle and shine, She's the enchantress Who opens the mine. Rich, as the yellow coin Made at the mint, With the sweet face of spring For the imprint, Gather the starry-gold Rich as a Jew's — For the bright buckles too, Worn on my shoes. 152 THE NORTHMEN. THE NORTHMEN. O they arc gallant, gallant Captains Who sail to the Polar Main, To conquer by courage and not by sword The cold on its native plain. Who gallantly, gallantly drive their ships Into the icebergs' jaws, And woe to the crew and the navy too When caught in their bloodless maws. They have gallant, gallant hearts who wait While the Sun is held at bay, And Cold and Darkness six long months Hold stern titanic sway. They have gallant, gallant spirits who watch The fight six months prolong, When the Sun enforces his titan sway And the cold reinforced too strong. As gallant a Dutchman as ever has sailed His frigate away to the North Where ice grows faster than corn at the South, Was Heemskerk with the pluck of his cloth. As gallant a crew as from England sailed Was charmed by the Kraken cold, THE NORTHMEN. 153 Were crushed in its toils — like the Laocoon, With no grave hut its icy fold. As gallant, as gallant as admiral could be And brave as a lion for its cub, McClintock quadrupled his search for Sir John As though the North Pole he would suub. Aud Kane has twice entered the den of the bear And twice herbinated in ice, And Hall took meridians and parallels there While the icicles froze to his eyes. And Nordenskold gallantly circled the Pole And came through the East by a door That never was opened because of the cold By any bold sailor before. As gallantly Schwatka did hazard his life Where Franklin and Irving remain, Where Cheops in ice, will immortalize fame And the cold will as deathless complain. Far, far more eternal than marble or bronze These tablets their valor enroll, No sound of the hammer and graver is heard In building their tombs at the Pole. The valorous men who tried bearding the cold, — DeLong who succumbed to its spies, Danenhower's ursine grip on the fiend of the Pole, Greely's rescue from famine and ice, 154 the slave's purchase. Where Sechley as gallantly, gallantly went When the dying a paladin call, This frigid sea-errantry calls for a man To be offered up Christlike for all. Wiiks, D'Unville and Ross, with those gallant com- ' mauds Who felt the ice crunching their bones, O as gallant commands as ever nations sent Have sailed to the frozen zones. THE SLAVE'S PURCHASE. Freedom that 's purchased with Slavery, must be Freedom the sweetest descended from Liberty ; For Time which appears to grow like any tree Seems ever increasing, buying it, to be free; And Hope that glitters on the distant goal, a star, Oftentimes must sink too low to shine, — at war With that emotional gloominess in the soul When high the billows of desperation roll — And nigh to drowning in this abandonment, he Discovers no Savins Rock but SI lavery, No hope but in bondage, kissing even this rod, But feeling a grave under every foot of sod ; O what rewards shall Heaven award the slave Who himself raised — body, soul, mind — from such grave ? tuk slave's purchase. 155 And when his lungs are inflated with freedom, he Bondage assumes, till he buys wife and children free ; man is love in Liberty like this? Would'st thine toil, suffer, sacrifice like his? Patriots will die for country, moralists die For principle, and Christians die for faith. And men have died for men in Slavery, — But not like the freedman treading the wheel to save The souls which see no ultimate but a grave ; Who will define such love as his? A wraith Comes in love's place after death or separation, — Yet this man toils, will make grander abnegation For love which the master would destroy, than he Who owns the slave and holds all love is free ; Such love among the freedmen proves to me That hearts have broken of love in Slavery ! O what rewards will Heaven award the slave AVho raised his wife and children from this grave ? O Freedom that's purchased with slavery, must be Freedom the sweetest descended from Liberty ! Kentucky, September 1, 1884. 156 CENTENNIAL SONGS. CENTENNIAL SONGS. The following Centennial songs were published in brochure dur- ing 1876, in Peoria, Ills. Inspired with the sentiments of a patriot and the principles of a Unionist, a grave reverence for the solemn responsibilities assumed by our early fathers in fighting and conquering for us this sacred trust, and the prayerful hope that statesmen will conscientiously protect and advance the high interest confided to their keeping, the authoress must wish, that all who read these songs could be likewise inspired with the love of that freedom which " Utters thunder till the world shall cease." SONG OF THE TEA KETTLE. Air. — Home, Sweet Home. Hark to the song which the tea-kettle sings, The domestic tea-kettle, boiling for tea, Clattering its lid — and at every puff flings A cloud, that grows fast, as a tempest at sea. " Home, Home, sweet, sweet home. There's no place like home, there's no place like home." When the great man at home put his hand in his pocket And whined out so often, " he had n't a pound To wager at piquet or swell the war docket," What could the lords do then but give him more ground ? " Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. Till all of the homes which their cousins did settle And bodies — and pockets — and consciences too SONG OF THE TEAKETTLE. 157 Belong to the king — who by warrants could nettle His subjects with the old yoke just furbished anew. "Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. And then when our forefathers had to send over A distance of three thousand miles for a hat And crow-bar and paper, — they thought they could love her — But make these at home, as they 'd genius for that. " Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. Said England : " But O how maternal, to send them Their clothing and furnish their tables beside, Perhaps they'll cry out, ' its oppression, or our phlegm,' We'll keep them a visiting, though, till they 've died ! " "Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. " Their uncles, and aunties, and cousins, are striving At home here, to keep them supplied with enough, Perhaps they'll die too, of the trouble of living, If we don't give the colonies shops a rebuff. " "Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. "We'll tax them on sugar, and rum, and molasses, Forbid Carolina to make tar and staves, We'll send them our wines too — and just to try passes — We '11 send o'er a cargo of tea, to the slaves. " 11 Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. The tea-kettle dried up its drops of vexation I thought all its vapors of hate, it had poured, 158 YANKEE DOODLE. When suddenly hissing a splenetic " taxation" I thought, 'twas the night the tea went overboard. "Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. YANKEE DOODLE. December 16 — '73 They gave the great tea party, And when they got through with the tea The men were feeling hearty And everybody whistled then The tune of Yankee Doodle, It stirred up all the minute men - And roused the British poodle. They ban the courts to Salem-town, And shut the custom-houses And Boston looks a little down, Before her spleen composes But everybody whistled then The tune of Yankee Doodle, It stirred up all the minute men And roused the British poodle. It snarled, until it got a bill Through parliament to cany, To quarter troops in Boston, till, The people they could harry And everybody whistled then The tune of Yankee Doodle, YANKEE DOODLE. 159 It stirred up all the minute men And roused the British poodle. The ports deserted, customs stopped, • Wharves waiting for the duster You may have thought their courage dropped, — They'd more than they dared muster For everybody whistled then The tune of Yankee Doodle, It stirred up all the minute men And roused the British poodle. And when the British troops marched out Eight hundred strong, for Concord, Eighty true patriots set about A rally to the good Lord And everybody whistled then The tune of Yankee Doodle, It cheered up all the minute men But roused the British poodle. As times looked blue, the Whigs called for A Congress to assemble Which showed a deadly sting for war, Making the British tremble And everybody whistled then The time of Yankee Doodle, It cheered up all the minute men But roused the British poodle. With thirteen rattles in its tail The Colonial snake prepared 160 THE TRUMPET. To make th' British constrictor quail, To see its rights were squared And everybody whistled then The tune of Yankee Doodle, It stirred up all the minute men And roused the British poodle. They showed what stuff they were made of As well as a flint musket, At Bunker Hill they spilled enough Of blood to make the grass wet And everybody whistled then The tune of Yankee Doodle, It cheered up all the fighting men And roused the Britsh poodle. And if they thought our brain was light And thought our heart eonceity, For Yankee Doodle we did fight Until w T e forced a treaty And everybody whistled then The tune of Yaukee Doodle, Before the world we are the men AVho whipped the British Poodle. THE TRUMPET. Air.— " Portuguese Hymn." Then, like it rolled from the blast of a trumpet, "O nation! I try every cause in a balance, THE TRUMPET 1(51 The Eight shall weigh down, and the Wrong shall weigh up, One word of my fiat is more than your talents ; Bare the sword ! let every man's right arm be ready And the foe shall melt down, like the foam on the sea. 11 Put on the whole armor, to go into battle ! The cuirass of Truth, and the helmet of Justice, The tough shield of Godliness, borne through the con- flict And the cause you fight for, shall go never amiss, Bare the sword! let every man's right arm be ready And the foe shall melt down, like the foam on the sea. " 'T is I, who have measured the girth of the oceans, With continents fairest, their bosoms begemmed, They sit there, like sisters, but one ye shall people With races of freemen, which tyrants condemned, Bare the sword ! let every man's right arm be ready And the foe shall melt down, like the foam on the sea. "They shall leave you alone, in the land that ye came to, Your ships, was the rod that divided the sea, Your cause has the pillar of fire in the night-time, By day for your pillar of cloud I will be, 162 THE FLACx. Bare the sword! let every man's right arm be ready And the foe shall melt down, like the foam on the sea. " Ye have taken a leader, a man I have chosen, Ye shall follow and fight where his valor leads you, Armipotent he shall lead you out victorious, In my strength I have panoplied him to go through, Bare the sword ! when every mau's right arm is ready The foe shall melt down, like the foam on the sea." THE FLAG— JANUARY 1, 1876. Tune.— Red, White, and Blue. It flies, it flies, is it a liviug thiug? Did it come from out the sky ? Does it sail aloug on feathery w T ing? Is it angel, bird or fly ? It delights to fly in mountain air Which ripens the mountain grass, It climbs from scrap to escarp there Where shocks of rude winds pass. God be with us where e'er we may be, Victory perch on the Flag of the Free! Proudly waving away War's red wraith, O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. It darts right toward the direst storm And where the lightnings lance THE FLAG. 163 And where the thunders growl alarm Turns there, its eagle glance ; It descends to the gentle gales That swing o'er plains below, It comes ! On azure wing it sails With golden stars aglow. God be with us where e'er w T e may be, Victory perch on the Flag of the Free ! Proudly waving away War's red wraith, O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. It is, it is the bonny flag By young freemen unfurled, Who swore a great oath ne'er to fag Till honored by the world ; Who swore to try afield the appeal And met the vaunting foe, And there with arms as true as steel To strike where it should go. God be with us where e'er we may be, Victory perch on the Flag of the Free! Proudly waving away War's red wraith, O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. Who swore, where cannons boomed, to go Where'er their colors lead, And where their rifles hissed, to show No foeman there could tread ; Who swore to carry it where suns Were wiped from off the sky — 164 THE FLAG. By smoke and flame, from raging guns That spat their wrath so high. God be with us where e'er we may be, Victory perch on the Flag of the Free ! Proudly waving away War's red wraith, O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. It snapped, defiance, like the wind — One hundred years ago, When men united as one mind All hardships to forego ; Meeting the bristling front of war And 'mid its iron talk, Did write in blood, a clause of law At Trenton, Guilford, York. God be with us where e'er we may be, Victory perch on the Flag of the Free ! Proudly waving away War's red wraith, O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. Though shattered on the Brandy wine Under a leaden scourge, It waved a defiant ensign O'er the camp at Valley Forge ; • But shaking prouder every fold When kissed by the June sun, At Monmouth where the victory rolled Our flag the fairest, shone. God be with us where e'er we may be, Victory perch on the Flag of the Free ! AULD LANG SYNE. 165 Proudly waving away War's red wraith, O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. The gales at sea might beat its bars And rain of fire pour hard As when flying with all its scars From the Bonhomme Richard ; But life was in the bonny flag By young freemen unfurled, AVho swore a great oath ne'er to fag Till honored by the world. God be with us where e'er we may be, Victory perch on the Flag of the Free! Proudly waving away War's red wraith, O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. AULD LANG SYNE. O, countrymen, join all and sing " Our happy, happy land," Divided we are always w r eak, United we shall stand, We sing the songs we used to sing In good old days of yore, That forced to rove, the winds will waft Us to our native shore, The good old songs we used to sing For good old days of yore, That forced to rove, the winds will waft Us to our native shore. 166 AULD LANG SYNE. Where'er to-day, our countrymen They'll recollect her fame, And sing the songs we sing at home To celebrate her name, They '11 sing the songs we used to sing In good old days of yore, That wafted back to native land Their hearts will rove no more, The good old songs they love to sing For good old days of yore, That wafted back to native land Their hearts shall rove no more. May all who 've left their kindred dear And made with us a home, Find all the laws so pure and just They'll care no more to roam, Then join and sing the songs we sung In good old days of yore, That wafted here from fatherland, Your hearts may rove no more, The good old songs we love to sing For good old days of yore, That wafted here from fatherland Your hearts may rove no more. INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 167 INDEPENDENCE BELLS— 1776-1876. Let the reader of the Independence Bells reflect, that the tories of the Revolutionary war must have been as chagrined at the mention of the successes of the Continental army as any Confederate can be at the mention of battles Avon by the Union army. It is imbecile and wicked to ignore our nation's history. The battles for the Union will as surely be read for all time, as the battles of England, France, Ger- many, Spain, Italy, or the conflicts of Russia and the Turks. — [Au- thoress. THE OLD BELL. " Hark ! to the Independence Bell From the dome of Liberty Hall ! The tale our iron lips can tell Like an old veteran's fall, Come up and hear the story, 'mid The scenes of the olden time, Where, our first throb for Freedom, did Set ringing every chime. "Our pulse was beating just as strong As any in the town, When feverish bullets sped along The plains of Lexington, And when our stumbling foemen fell Into their open graves, The reel lettering they left could tell What deeds, the patriot braves. " And when the swiftest couriers swoop Down, on the scattered towns, 168 INDEPENDENCE BELLS. And tell, bow every British troop Deserts the Boston downs, The bell it went off with a peal As sudden as a rocket ! Franklin's old printing-press did feel Also, the spirit of it ! " It was a hundred rears ago We held our speechful tongue, The sentient bell : waiting to show When the grandest deed was done ; Just like a mighty angel would With trumpet at his mouth, To roll a blast of tidings good O'er North, East, West, and South. " What yearning, prayerful hearts were led Up to the throne that day : That prayer for " Independence " said Enough, to give it sway, And when the immortal names went on The parchment with the rod, It was our new commandment stone Right from the hand of God. "If Aaron's rod can bud and bear Long as his j:>riesthood stands, — That pen has dropped a seed on, there, That's growing to shade all lands, A mighty tree, wherein the tribes Can shelter, just the tree INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 169 The olden, and prophetic scribes Told, ' Jesus said, 'twould be.' " The eager patriots caught the sound And learned how freedom spoke ! The tidal wave of joy it found, To a loud ' Praise God ! ' broke And roll'd up to the azure cloud And roll'd off to the main, And oaths, by Him, that day, they vowed Set off a dreadful train. " The Quaker atmosphere was charged With spirit, as never, where The heavenly-hearted Perm had warred With only beads and prayer, But meekness couldn't endure the ring Of the king's balls, — to stake her Pluck against these, was sure to bring The volunteering Quaker. " The tune of the- old bell was heard Up in the pines of Maine ; It sped the coast, too, like a bird, Down to the Mexic main ; 'Twas caught in Carolina's swamps; It woke up Eutaw Springs ; To it the British regular tramps When it at Cowpens rings. "The old bell hurries to declare How, with the drum's tattoo — 170 INDEPENDENCE BELLS. When rolling up the Delaware Came on the hurrying foe, — It called the sires and sons to arms, It heat the reveille, But lost its breath pounding alarms When Howe sailed in from sea. "The Sabbath bells all play'd the air, Such wond'rous love was in it; The Union learned its common prayer, When parson Jefferson blessed it : And where the dove-of-peace can come To nestle with the eagle, There, Love and Freedom find a home And men can worship equal. " We carried the key-note, which was found To cheer the gallant crew, With this, the gallant ship did bound Across Old Ocean blue, Before Key had her rhythm wrote The sailor loved to scan her Wild whistling music, note by note, Of the Star Spangled Banner. " Before this master found the scale And wrote her starry tune Our Banner proved the favoring sail Which flew before the sun ; With this, our tars the guns could slip On every enemy's cruiser, INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 171 Lawrence did never give up the ship, Perry's sea-fight was a bruiser. " It was the Spirit of the Bell That started up the fray, Tripping the foemen when they fell At Resaca d'la Pal ma ; Through blasts of death it led away, It led out of the ditch, And with the foe at Monterey It was a very witch. " When the golden crown has fallen From the proud Chapultepec, Leaving Mexico an orphan And her gloamy age a wreck, Up among her white Sierras Floats this air from drum and fife, Like a storm swoop down the cheerers, Swoop our heroes to the strife. THE NEW BELL. " Hark, hark, to the new Liberty Bell From the dome of Liberty Hall ! The tale we volunteer to tell Rings round this starry ball ! The boys all know the Hancock march The girls the Lincoln prayer, But every Union pitch we search For Farragut's lyre there. 172 INDEPENDENCE BELLS. " When he was up among the ropes Lash'd to the main -top spar, Where for the Rebel ram he gropes He flashed out like a star ! And clearly, over the booming guns And yell of shot and shell A strain of hero-music runs Which struck sparks from the bell. — ' ' When bright and glancing rays of steel Went flashing up Lookout, The boys in blue did never reel Before their foemen stout, And every hero did his work As right before his eyes Hooker and Grant and every Turk Were bound for Paradise. ''And when a stream of fire and shell Pour'd out of Wagner, grim, The memory of our solemn knell Mov'd ev'ry heart with him, When, DuPont bared his brow, and stood With God's hands on his head — Vowing to make the Union good, Or give his life instead. "And when flint Thomas stood against The Rock of Chickamauga, There was a roll of bass commenced The hero alone could augur, INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 173 And when the gunner's tuning-forks Struck their antiphouy, It woke an echo 'mong the rocks Which rung a victory. " And on the bell, and on the bell The strokes were fleetly falling, Fast as the concuss'd shot they fell The fun was never palling, And never since the Union gun Scattered the enemy, Did the Bell's clapper ever run The tune so merrily. " The bell for victory insane When dinging like a jester, Its tympanum caught the refrain The gallop from Winchester, 'Face about, boys, we're going back, We 're going back to lick 'em ! ' Struck it with such a sudden thwack It shrieked out ' Double quick 'em !' " Our plumy banners road along The Avinds, like a free eagle ; When, up the sun rose bright and strong The Union stars looked regal, And when the day and darkness met Over those Southern regions, Our stars did never, never set With Sherman and his legions." 174 INDEPENDENCE BELLS. These songs, like a long quipu cord, Knot up a hundred years ; Back — when the painted savage warr*d Like his brother beast, appears The conquering crew that pressed their way Through walls of waters wide, Overthrowing Nature's strong array In arms, on every side. Then, through the leafy windows pour Of temples vast and high, The notes that came to Freedom's shore In the bell of Liberty ; And hymns to God went singing through Old aisles unused to such, They turu'd the stately forest to The school-house and the church. The winds were busy with the sails That sought this distant shore, The new discover'd soil unveils Its thousand springs, which pour Into the waiting hands that spread The gifts with magic thrift, And Industry and Genius wed And Art and Skill they lift ! Wherever now, we wend our way, If toward the Northern gates And try their icy locks, or stray To the sun-pasture States, INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 175 Or look for the prairie flowers, Or seek for golden sand, The Independence Bell there showers Its music on the land. 176 THE OLD AND THE NEW. THE OLD AND THE NEW— JULY 4, 1876. A hundred years with all their freight Are rolling out of sight, The centuries take another mate On their eternal flight, It came and found the gates ajar Which open on the east, It blazoned eacli name with a star, Thirteen ! — gloriously increased ; — It came and cast its flashing crown Down from its radiant brow, And called on God to send renown As its deserts allow, It hurled its scepter from its hand, It seized a pen of flame And wrote its oath so strong, the land Saw its prophetic name, It plead for "Progress, Truth, and Right " With all w T hich these entail, And held its glittering sword in sight To break — when these prevail ; It came with rudely armed men From hillside and from plain, The farm, the mill, the work-shop, then The school in which they train, THE OLD AND THE NEW. 177 They had no manual of arms But practiced with a foe Who filled the forest with alarms, As winter with the snow. Our dear ! Our dear ! forefathers, who Died through these hundred years, Our filial gratitude will show Its blossoms as appears — Wherewith to deck your scattered graves Where, rescued by your name, The grass that waves above their eaves, Is whispering your fame. We love you for the toiling hand And busy, patient brain Which broke the soil and turned the land To traffic's golden gain ; We love you for the worrying thought Which tired nature down, For every crude invention wrought In rudest wood and stone ; We love you for the wrestling boor Who felled the forest trees And piled the walls and laid the floor Of puncheon out of these, Who toiled with rifle at his side Watching for lurking death, And yet his courage never died But with his final breath, ITS THE OLD AND THE NEW. Who saw his household growing strong o n o Although by danger shorn, Whose maids were cheered with rustic song And kissed when husking corn ; We. love you for the acts of faith Which made our fathers one, For what your backwoods' prayer eonvey'th Which led the preacher on, The scattered settlers' flag of smoke, The blazing ax they swung Were heralds of the light that broke Where the Good Tidings rung. How could they ever think to lay The broad foundations down Of such a government, as they Left us, to rear upon ? So few, so weak, so much in need Of money, power, and fame, Surely, they were the chosen seed To whom the blessing came. They guarded the pomerium 1 The little Mayflower plowed, Within the stronger walls have come Now, the amassing crowd, They were the dress of many lands. They talk like many men And all put forth their brawny hands To heave our anchor then, THE OLD AND THE NEW 179 And when they cast it in the sea Of politics, our ship Rides out the angry waves as free As the storm-petrel's dip. A hundred years put forth their strength Audio! the mighty change, Steam strides now twenty leagues, its length An hour, across our range, The little hoat which floated on Our rivers, like a shell, Now nestles 'midst the reeds, or gone Down 'neath the turgid swell The iron-lunged leviathan Raises with blasts of breath, Vanquishing many a haughty clan Whose heart-breaks found them death. A hundred years put forth their wealth And lo ! the mighty show ; — A thousand industries, — our health, We see rise up, and go, Our unknown values — till the Type And spiritual Press Gave to the Century in our grip, Their Autographic dress. With giant progress at the helm Our hundred years have run And opened wide the western realm And passed out with the sun ; 180 THE OLD AND THE NEW. The Asiatic lands have heard Aud seen our poud'rous train, These dead, within their graves have heard And wakened up again, — We hail the true prophetic day Of the millennium song, — Their despots tremble at our sway And cower before their wrong. 1 Pomerium— A space around the walls of a city or town, it was anciently laid off with a plow. MY COUNTRY. ' 181 MY COUNTRY— A THRENODE: Written during the corruption of public officials by the Whisky Ring, the winter of 1875-7G. My Country ! name for that sweet lyre Which gives the soul its noblest thrill, What other theme can so inspire? What song is so enrapturing still? My earliest Muse, thy suasive voice Which moved the land from end to end, When Virtues stirred thee to rejoice, — When Evils rous'd thee to forefend. When listening to thy chords divine, And few, thy story, then could mar, — We owned their sweet concord — " the sign Of Order" — was thy first great law. While all the adjunctives that wait Like ministers about this throne, Bespeak thy dignity of state, Adding their luster to thine own. Behold how easy Learning's point Cuts the shale of Ignorance to-day ; Wisdom comes newly from the mint Contending sternly for her sway ; 182 MY COUNTRY. Behold how Genius snaps our chains, Unfetters all the laboring hands, And only asks for her sweet pains The friendship which her love commands ; Behold how lightly Labor lifts The rock, and earth, and yellow ore, How lightly o'er our broad fields, sifts The seed and brings it to our door; Behold how lightly fly the wheels, Behold how lightly ply the ships, Behold how lightly it unreels The railway, where the carriage trips. My Country in thy earlier hours Vocal with patriotic songs, How all their grandest music pours Thy flashing defiance, of wrongs ! — How every rood of land, that owned The name Columbia, we loved, How our Republic was renowned For unity, in which we moved ! — What if there was a cloud or two Between us and the effulgent sun ! The fairest sky we ever view Will have some shadows o'er it run. My Country, I would sing to thee A true, an earnest, wailing strain, MY COUNTRY. 183 Flattery would mar its harmony, Then honest ! though it brings me pain. But thou art sad ! Thou canst not see Unsought, the clean, the just, the strong, With trembling consciences men flee Where Guilt stalks with its glass along. Et tu Brute I" thy breaking heart Hast uttured, with each falling stroke, Thou art no tyrant, but the part Of tyrants, bows thee to their yoke. My Country thou art sad ! And I Have sought the meaning of thy grief, Thou canst not put thy Keason by, — Thou must have for thy wrongs relief. Thou hast a hideous viper laid Too near thy vitals, thou must see ! Each branch of thy official aid Is poisoned with rank perjury. Thou hast the reprobate and vile And cruel in thy posts of trusts, Thy asylums reeking with guile And victims shackled in the dust. My Country, I had sung to thee A sweeter soug in other times, I wait the turn of destiny To sooth thee with a lover's rhymes. 184 MY COUNTRY. For lovers can not always praise ! The Truth should be thy altar's flame, Another torch's flickering blaze Would leave thy heaven obscured the same. And I would sweep thy heaven serene Counting the stars upon thy sky ; Were this fair Western World a queen Would crown her with my own Country. AT MY FATHER'S GKAVE. 185 SOUVENIRS. AT MY FATHER'S GRAVE. With filial reverence, I muse above This hillock, mingling with the dust I love, From the grave's trance, its noble form revived, The kind, impartial kiss, the look of pride As to his bosom I was fondly pressed And all his dear, paternal love expressed ; All ? No ; such love is deeper than the sea, Higher than the sky, and broader still, must be Than that eternity of space, where go The stars no telescope can ever show. Paternal love ! None ever said " How deep?" But felt a stronger billow onward sweep, Till love o'erwhelmed the body and the soul, And only heaven can be the objective pole Where we can feel we love, and where express In satisfying words, our blessedness. Stripped of the meretricious, false and vile, How looks the soul without a spot or soil ? Judgments of men are naught before heaven's God, The false, exposed by his purifying rod — Not labor, poverty, nor lack thereof Of those adornments, without which, men scoff; 186 1 1 my father's grave. One hand no whiter than another's there, God asks ll the virtue with which toil did share;" And thy rough hand is whiter to me now Than her's who wields a pen and seams the brow With thought! Thine, a heroic daring in The world's Olympiad, its bright crown to win ; And she, who loved thee, strives for one less fair, Albeit mine is a wreath, and thine the rare And heavy diadem of one who drew The "sword from the plowshare," taking in lieu Rewards of heaven — and not of men as I, — But patiently waiting till thine hour to die. God has so made us, each shall live for each, None for himself. A broader Love did teaeh 'That one forgiveness reaches all mankind;" Bearing this hopeful charity in mind We know the realm of heaven is full of love, Sweeter than the lilies — fonder than the dove, Each soul. And thine, dear father, thine how fair! Each gift unfolded like a rose in air, Shedding its radiance on the angels round, Drinking the spirtual light that's always found In heaven. Father, on thy love 1 grew, And child-like grieve, years lost, the love I drew. Peoria, MayU, 1882. HRDENDS' BURYING GROUND. 187 FRIENDS' BURYING-GROUND. The Deed to the burying-graund adjoining the Friend's meeting- house, Woonsocket, K. I., bears date "17th December, the 6th of the reign of King ' _,• ♦**% -.-„-. ♦