Lyrics from the poetic XDorhs of Jol?n6reenleafifc LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. S^ajt. ©spongy Tfyt.. Shelf:..;„.c.o UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/legendslyricsfroOOwhit SSB&tte anfc (Sort §>txit*. A Series of Selections from Browning, Mrs. Browning, Longfellow, Tennyson, Whittier, and Wordsworth. Each volume, artistically printed, and bound in cloth of various colors, with backs decorated in gold on white cloth. i6mo, gilt top, $1.00; half levant, $3.00. LYRICS, IDYLS, AND ROMANCES. Robert Browning. ROMANCES, # LYRICS, AND SONNETS. Mrs. Browning. BALLADS, LYRICS, AND SONNETS. Long- fellow. INTERLUDES, LYRICS, AND IDYLS. Ten- nyson. •LEGENDS AND LYRICS. Whittier. PASTORALS, LYRICS, AND SONNETS. Wordsworth. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. Boston and New York. LEGENDS AND LYRICS FROM THE POETIC l^ORKS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER i) 3027 BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (fflbe ntoer£i&e pre??, CamfcritJp M DCCC XC ?s> ^c ^ Mu Copyright, 1850, 1856, 1857, i860, 1863, 1866, 1867, 1870, 1875, 1878, 1881, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1888, and 1890, By JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, TICKNOR & FIELDS, JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., and HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A, Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. THE TENT ON THE BEACH. And one there was, a dreamer horn, Who, with a mission to fulfil, Had left the Muses 9 haunts to turn The crank of an opinion-mill, Making his rustic reed of song A weapon in the war with wrong, Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow, Too quiet seemed the man to ride The winged Hippogriff Reform ; Was his a voice from side to side To pierce the tumult of the storm ? A silent, shy, peace-loving man, He seemed no fiery partisan To hold his way against the public frown, The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's hounding down. For while he wrought with strenuous will The work his hands had found to do, He heard the fitful music still Of winds that out of dream-land blew. iv The Tent on the Beach, The din about him could not drown What the strange voices whispered down ; Along his task-field weird processions swept, The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped. The common air was thick with dreams , — He told them to the toiling crowd ; Such music as the woods and streams Sang in bis ear he sang aloud ; In still j shut bays, on windy capes, He heard the call of beckoning shapes, And, as the gray old shadows prompted him, To homely moulds of rhyme he shaped their legends grim. CONTENTS. PAGE The Angels of Buena Vista 7 Hampton Beach 13 On Receiving an Eagle's Quill from Lake Superior 17 Tauler 21 The Barefoot Boy 26 The Kansas Emigrants 31 Maud Muller 32 The Last Walk in Autumn 39 The Garrison of Cape Ann 52 The Gift of Tritemius 60 Skipper Ireson's Ride 63 Telling the Bees 68 The Swan Song of Parson Avery 71 The Double-Headed Snake of Newbury .... 76 Mabel Martin 81 The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 98 My Psalm 106 Barbara Frietchie no Amy Wentworth 113 Snow-Bound 122 The Wreck of Rivermouth 152 The Dead Ship of Harpswell 160 Abraham Davenport 163 Nauhaught, the Deacon 167 In School-Days 174 Sunset on the Bearcamp 176 William Francis Bartlett 180 6 Contents. The Henchman 182 The Bay of Seven Islands 184 Ichabod 194 The Lost Occasion 196 Storm on Lake Asquam . 200 Birchbrook Mill 202 The Bartholdi Statue 205 At Last •••• 206 LEGENDS AND LYRICS. THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. WpgppPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, ■^L^'^ looking northward far away, §ja|l||§jj O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array, Who is losing ? who is winning ? are they far or come they near ? Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear. "Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls ; Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls ! " Who is losing ? who is winning ? " Over hill and over plain, I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain." 8 The Angels of Buena Vista Holy Mother ! keep our brothers ! Look, Ximena, look once more. " Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse, Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course." Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Ah ! the smoke has rolled away ; And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray. Hark ! that sudden blast of bugles ! there the troop of Minon wheels ; There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels. "Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now re- treat and now advance ! Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance ! Down they go, the brave young riders ; horse and foot together fall \ Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball." TJje Angels of Buena Vista 9 Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on ! Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, and who has won ? " Alas ! alas ! I know not ; friend and foe together fall, O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my sisters, for them all ! ''Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed Mother, save my brain ! I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain. Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they fall, and strive to rise ; Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes ! u my heart's love 1 O my dear one ! lay thy poor head on my knee ; Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee ? Canst thou hear me ? canst thou see ? O my husband, brave and gentle ! O my Bernal, look once more On the blessed cross before thee ! Mercy I mercy ! all is o'er ! " io The Angels of Buena Vista Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena ; lay thy dear one down to rest ; Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast ; Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said ; To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the liv- ing ask thy aid. Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away ; But, as tenderly before him the lorn Xi- mena knelt, She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt. With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head ; With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead ; But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain, And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again. The Angels of Buena Vista 1 1 Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and faintly smiled ; Was that pitying face his mother's ? did she watch beside her child ? All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied ; With her kiss upon his forehead, " Mo- ther ! " murmured he, and died ! " A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth, From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weep- ing, lonely, in the North ! " Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead, And turned to soothe the living, and bind the w r ounds which bled. Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Like a cloud before the wind Roils the battle down the mountains, leav- ing blood and death behind ; Ah ! they plead in vain for mercy ; in the dust the wounded strive ; Hide your faces, holy angels ! O thou Christ of God, forgive ! " 12 The Angels of Buena Vista Sink, O Night, among thy mountains ! let the cool, gray shadows fall ; Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all ! Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled, In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold. But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food. Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. Not wholly lost, O Father ! is this evil world of ours ; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers ; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air ! Hampton Beach 13 HAMPTON BEACH. HE sunlight glitters keen and bright, Where miles away, Lies stretching to my dazzled sight A luminous belt, a misty light, Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray. The tremulous shadow of the Sea ! Against its ground Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree, Still as a picture, clear and free, With varying outline mark the coast for miles around. On — on — we tread with loose-flung rein Our seaward way, Through dark-green fields and blossom- ing gram, Where the wild brier -rose skirts the lane, And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray. 14 Hampton Beach Ha ! like a kind hand on my brow Comes this fresh breeze, Cooling its dull and feverish glow, While through my being seems to flow The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas ! Now rest we, where this grassy mound His feet hath set In the great waters, which have bound His granite ankles greenly round With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet. Good-by to Pain and Care ! I take Mine ease to-day : Here where these sunny waters break, And ripples this keen breeze, I shake All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away. I draw a freer breath, I seem Like all I see — Waves in the sun, the white -winged gleam Of sea-birds in the slanting beam, And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free. Hampton Beach 15 So when Time's veil shall fall asunder, The soul may know No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, Nor sink the weight of mystery under, But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow. And all we shrink from now may seem No new revealing • Familiar as our childhood's stream, Or pleasant memory of a dream The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing. Serene and mild the untried light May have its dawning ; And, as in summer's northern night The evening and the dawn unite, The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning. I sit alone ; in foam and spray Wave after wave Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray, Shoulder the broken tide away, Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave. 16 Hampton Beach What heed I of the dusty land And noisy town ? I see the mighty deep expand From its white line of glimmering sand To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down ! In listless quietude of mind, I yield to all The change of cloud and wave and wind, And passive on the flood reclined, I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall. But look, thou dreamer ! wave and shore In shadow lie ; The night-wind warns me back once more To where, my native hill-tops o'er, Eends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky. So then, beach, bluff, and wave, fare- well ! I bear with me On Receiving an Eagles Quill ij No token stone nor glittering shell, But long and oft shall Memory tell Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea. x ON RECEIVING AN EAGLE'S QUILL FROM LAKE SUPERIOR. LL day the darkness and the cold Upon my heart have lain, Like shadows on the winter sky, Like frost upon the pane ; But now my torpid fancy wakes, And, on thy Eagle's plume, Rides forth, like Sindbad on his bird, Or witch upon her broom ! Below me roar the rocking pines, Before me spreads the lake Whose long and solemn-sounding waves Against the sunset break. 1 8 On Receiving an Eagle s Quill I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh The grain he has not sown ; I see, with flashing scythe of fire, The prairie harvest mown ! I hear the far-off voyager's horn ; I see the Yankee's trail, — His foot on every mountain-pass, On every stream his sail By forest, lake, and waterfall, I see his pedler show ; The mighty mingling with the mean, The lofty with the low. He 's whittling by St. Mary's Falls, Upon his loaded wain ; He 's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks, With eager eyes of gain. I hear the mattock in the mine, The axe-stroke in the dell, The clamor from the Indian lodge, The Jesuit chapel bell ! I see the swarthy trappers come From Mississippi's springs ; On Receiving an Eagle's Quill 19 And war-chiefs with their painted brow r s, And crests of eagle wings. Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe, The steamer smokes and raves ; And city lots are staked for sale Above old Indian graves. I hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be ; The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall roll a human sea. The rudiments of empire here Are plastic yet and warm ; The chaos of a mighty world Is rounding into form ! Each rude and jostling fragment soon Its fitting place shall find, — The raw material of a State, Its muscle and its mind ! And, westering still, the star which leads The New World in its train Has tipped with fire the icy spears Of many a mountain chain. 20 On Receiving an Eagle's Quill The snowy cones of Oregon Are kindling on its way ; And California's golden sands Gleam brighter in its ray ! Then blessings on thy eagle quill, As, wandering far and wide, I thank thee for this twilight dream And Fancy's airy ride ! Yet, welcomer than regal plumes, Which Western trappers find, Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown, Like feathers on the wind. Thy symbol be the mountain-bird, Whose glistening quill I hold ; Thy home the ample air of hope, And memory's sunset gold ! In thee, let joy with duty join, And strength unite with love, The eagle's pinions folding round The warm heart of the dove ! Tattler 21 So, when in darkness sleeps the vale Where still the blind bird clings, The sunshine of the upper sky- Shall glitter on thy wings ! TAULER. AULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day, Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine, Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life ; As one who, wandering in a starless night, Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, And hears the thunder of an unknown sea, Breaking along an unimagined shore. And as he walked he prayed. Even the same Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart 22 Tattler Had groaned : " Have pity upon me, Lord! Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind. Send me a man who can direct my steps ! " Then, as he mused, he heard along his path A sound as of an old man's staff among The dry, dead linden-leaves ; and, looking up, He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old. "Peace be unto thee, father! " Tauler said, " God give thee a good day ! " The old man raised Slowly his calm blue eyes. "I thank thee, son ; But all my days are good, and none are ill." Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again, "God give thee happy life." The old man smiled, " I never am unhappy." Tauter 23 Tauler laid His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve : "Tell me, O father, what thy strange words mean. Surely man's days are evil, and his life Sad as the grave it leads to." " Nay, my son, Our times are in God's hands, and all our days Are as our needs ; for shadow as for sun, For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike Our thanks are due, since that is best which is ; And that which is not, sharing not His life, Is evil only as devoid of good. And for the happiness of which I spake, I find it in submission to His will, And calm trust in the holy Trinity Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power." Silently wondering, for a little space, Stood the great preacher ; then he spake as one Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought 2.4 Tattler Which long has followed, whispering through the dark Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light: " What if God's will consign thee hence to Hell ? " " Then," said the stranger, cheerily, "be it so. What Hell may be I know not ; this I know, — I cannot lose the presence of the Lord. One arm, Humility, takes hold upon His dear Humanity ; the other, Love, Clasps his Divinity. So where I go He goes \ and better fire-walled Hell with Him Than golden-gated Paradise without." Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sud- den light, Like the first ray w r hich fell on chaos, clove Apart the shadow wherein he had walked Darkly at neon. And, as the strange old man Went his slow r way, until his silver hair Tauter 25 Set like the white moon where the hills of vine Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said : " My prayer is answered. God hath sent the man Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust, Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew." So, entering with a changed and cheer- ful step The city gates, he saw, far dow T n the street, A mighty shadow break the light of noon, Which tracing backward till its airy lines Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes O'er broad fagade and lofty pediment, O'er architrave and frieze and sainted niche, Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where In the noon-brightness the great Min- ster's tower, Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, 26 The Barefoot Boy Rose like a visible prayer. " Behold ! " he said, " The stranger's faith made plain before mine eyes. As yonder tower outstretches to the earth The dark triangle of its shade alone When the clear day is shining on its top, So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life Is but the shadow of God's providence, By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon ; And what is dark below is light in Heaven." THE BAREFOOT BOY ^pflLESSINGS on thee, little man, ™k Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! r#| With thy turned-up pantaloons, And thy merry w T histled tunes ; With thy red lip, redder still Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; With the sunshine on thy face, Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ; The Barefoot Boy 2? From my heart I give thee joy, — I was once a barefoot boy ! Prince thou art, — the grown-up man Only is republican. Let the million-dollared ride ! Barefoot, trudging at his side, Thou hast more than he can buy In the reach of ear and eye, — Outward sunshine, inward joy: Blessings on thee, barefoot boy I Oh, for boyhood's painless play, Sleep that wakes in laughing day, Health that mocks the doctor's rules, Knowledge never learned of schools, Of the wild bee's morning chase, Of the wild-flower's time and place, Flight of fowl and habitude Of the tenants of the wood ; How the tortoise bears his shell, How the woodchuck digs his cell, And the ground-mole sinks his well ; How the robin feeds her young, How the oriole's nest is hung ; Where the whitest lilies blow, Where the freshest berries grow, Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 25 The Barefoot Boy Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; Of the black wasp's cunning way, Mason of his walls of clay, And the architectural plans Of gray hornet artisans ! For, eschewing books and tasks, Nature answers all he asks ; Hand in hand with her he walks, Face to face with her he talks, Part and parcel of her joy, — Blessings on the barefoot boy ! Oh, for boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon, When all things I heard or saw, Me, their master, waited for. I was rich in flowers and trees, Humming-birds and honey-bees ; For my sport the squirrel played, Plied the snouted mole his spade ; For my taste the blackberry cone Purpled over hedge and stone ; Laughed the brook for my delight Through the day and through the night, Whispering at the garden wall, Talked w r ith me from fall to fall ; Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, The Barefoot Boy 2g Mine the walnut slopes beyond, Mine, on bending orchard trees. Apples of Hesperides ! Still as my horizon grew, Larger grew my riches too ; All the world I saw or knew Seemed a complex Chinese toy, Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! Oh, for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread ; Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude, O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold ; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs orchestra ; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch : pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy ! Cheerily, then, mv little man, Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! Though the flinty slopes be hard, $o The Barefoot Boy Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, Every morn shall lead thee through Fresh baptisms of the dew ; Every evening from thy feet Shall the cool wind kiss the heat : All too soon these feet must hide In the prison cells of pride, Lose the freedom of the sod, Like a colt's for work be shod, Made to tread the mills of toil, Up and down in ceaseless moil : Happy if their track be found Never on forbidden ground ; Happy if they sink not in Quick and treacherous sands of sin. Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy, Ere it passes, barefoot boy I The Kansas Emigrants 51 THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS. E cross the prairie as of old The pilgrims crossed the sea, To make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free J We go to rear a wall of men On Freedom's southern line, And plant beside the cotton-tree The rugged Northern pine ! We 're flowing from our native hills As our free rivers flow ; The blessing of our Mother-land Is on us as we go. We go to plant her common schools On distant prairie swells, And give the Sabbaths of the wild The music of her bells. Upbearing, like the Ark of old, The Bible in our van, We go to test the truth of God Against the fraud of man. $2 Maud Mullet No pause, nor rest, save where the streams That feed the Kansas run, Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon Shall flout the setting sun ! We '11 tread the prairie as of old Our fathers sailed the sea, And make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free ! MAUD MULLER. AUD MULLER on a summer's day Raked the meadow sweet with hay. Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health, Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee The mock-bird echoed from his tree. Maud Mailer 33 But when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down, The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast, — A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known. The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, And asked a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road. She stooped where the cool spring bub- bled up, And filled for him her small tin cup, And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 34 Maud Mailer " Thanks ! " said the Judge ; " a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed." He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees ; Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; And listened, while a pleased surprise Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. At last, like one who for delay Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me ! That I the Judge's bride might be ! Maud Midler 35 u He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine. " My father should wear a broadcloth coat ; My brother should sail a painted boat. " I 'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day. " And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door." The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Mullet standing still. 11 A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. " And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair. " Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay ; jj6 Maud Muller " No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, " But low of cattle and song of birds, And health and quiet and loving words." But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And Maud was left in the field alone. But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love- tune ; And the young girl mused beside the well Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power. Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, He watched a picture come and go ; Maud Muller $y And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes Looked out in their innocent surprise. Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, He longed for the wayside well instead ; And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again ! " Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And many children played round her door. But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, Left their traces on heart and brain. And oft, when the summer sun shone hot On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall, )8 Mated Muller In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein. And, gazing down with timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face. Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls ; The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, The tallow candle an astral burned, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law. Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, " It might have been." Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, For rich repiner and household drudge ! God pity them both ! and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. The Last Walk in Autumn 39 For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these : " It might have been ! " Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes ; And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away ! THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN. I. 'ER the bare woods, whose out- stretched hands Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, I see, beyond the valley lands, The sea's long level dim with rain. Around me all things, stark and dumb, Seem praying for the snows to come, And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone, With winter's sunset hVhts and dazzling morn atone. 40 The Last Walk in Autumn ii. Along the river's summer walk, The withered tufts of asters nod ; And trembles on its arid stalk The hoar plume of the golden-rod. And on a ground of sombre fir, And azure-studded juniper, The silver birch its buds of purple shows, And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rose ! in. With mingled sound of horns and bells, A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells, Like a great arrow through the sky, Two dusky lines converged in one, Chasing the southward-flying sun ; While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jay Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay. IV. I passed this way a year ago : The wind blew south; the noon of day The Last Walk in Autumn 41 Was warm as June's; and save that snow Flecked the low mountains far away, And that the vernal-seeming breeze Mocked faded grass and leafless trees, I might have dreamed of summer as I lay, Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at play. v. Since then, the winter blasts have piled The white pagodas of the snow On these rough slopes, and, strong and wild, Yon river, in its overflow Of spring-time rain and sun, set free, Crashed with its ices to the sea ; And over these gray fields, then green and gold, The summer corn has waved, the thun- der's organ rolled. VI. Rich gift of God ! A year of time ! What pomp of rise and shut of day, What hues wherewith our Northern clime 42 The Last Walk in Autumn Makes autumn's dropping woodlands gay, What airs outblown from ferny dells, And clover-bloom and sweetbrier smells ? What songs of brooks and birds, what fruits and flowers, Green woods and moonlit snows, have in its round been ours ! VII. I know not how, in other lands, The changing seasons come and go ; What splendors fall on Syrian sands, What purple lights on Alpine snow ! Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits On Venice at her watery gates ; A dream alone to me is Arno's vale, And the Alhambra's halls are but a trav- eller's tale. VIII. Yet, on life's current, he who drifts Is one with him who rows or sails \ And he who wanders widest lifts No more of beauty's jealous veils Than he who from his doorway sees The miracle of flowers and trees, The Last Walk in Autumn 43 Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air, And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to prayer ! IX. The eye may well be glad that looks Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall; But he who sees his native brooks Laugh in the sun, has seen them all. The marble palaces of Ind Rise round him in the snow and wind ; From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz smiles, And Rome's cathedral awe is in his wood- land aisles. x. And thus it is my fancy blends The near at hand and far and rare; And while the same horizon bends Above the silver-sprinkled hair Which flashed the light of morning skies On childhood's wonder-lifted eves, Within its round of sea and sky and field, Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kos- mos stands revealed. 44 The Last Walk in Autumn XL And thus the sick man on his bed, The toiler to his task-work bound, Behold their prison-walls outspread, Their clipped horizon widen round ! While freedom-giving fancy waits, Like Peter's angel at the gates, The power is theirs to baffle care and pain, To bring the lost world back, and make it theirs again ! XII. What lack of goodly company, When masters of the ancient lyre Obey my call, and trace for me Their words of mingled tears and fire! I talk with Bacon, grave and wise, I read the world with Pascal's eyes ; And priest and sage, with solemn brows austere, And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of Thought, draw near. XIII. Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say, " In vain the human heart we mock • The Last Walk in Autumn 45 Bring living guests who love the day, Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock ! The herbs we share with flesh and blood Are better than ambrosial food With laurelled shades." I grant it, noth- ing loath, But doubly blest is he who can partake of both. XIV. He who might Plato's banquet grace, Have I not seen before me sit, And watched his puritanic face, With more than Eastern wisdom lit ? Shrewd mystic ! who, upon the back Of his Poor Richard's Almanac, Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream, Links Manu's age of thought to Fulton's age of steam ! xv. Here too, of answering love secure, Have I not welcomed to my hearth The gentle pilgrim troubadour, Whose songs have girdled half the earth : 46 The Last Walk in Autumn Whose pages, like the magic mat Whereon the Eastern lover sat, Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple vines, And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygians mountain pines ! XVI. And he, who to the lettered wealth Of ages adds the lore unpriced, The wisdom and the moral health, The ethics of the school of Christ ; The statesman to his holy trust, As the Athenian archon, just, Struck down, exiled like him for truth alone, Has he not graced my home with beauty all his own ? XVII. What greetings smile, what farewells wave, What loved ones enter and depart I The good, the beautiful, the brave, The Heaven-lent treasures of the heart ! How conscious seems the frozen sod The Last Walk in Autumn 47 And beechen slope whereon they trod ! The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass bends Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or ab- sent friends. XVIII. Then ask not why to these bleak hills I cling, as clings the tufted moss, To bear the winter's lingering chills, The mocking spring's perpetual loss. I dream of lands where summer smiles, And soft winds blow from spicy isles, But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flow- ers be sweet, Could I not feel thy soil, New England, at my feet ! XIX. At times I long for gentler skies, And bathe in dreams of softer air, But homesick tears would fill the eyes That saw the Cross without the Bear. The pine must whisper to the palm, The north-wind break the tropic calm ; And with the dreamy languor of the Line, The North's keen virtue blend, and strength to beauty join. 48 The Last Walk in Autumn xx. Better to stem with heart and hand The roaring tide of life, than lie, Unmindful, on its flowery strand, Of God's occasions drifting by ! Better with naked nerve to bear The needles of this goading air, Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know. XXI, Home of my heart ! to me more fair Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, The painted, shingly town-house where The freeman's vote for Freedom falls ! The simple roof where prayer is made, Than Gothic groin and colonnade ; The living temple of the heart of man, Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or many- spired Milan ! XXII. More dear thy equal village schools, Where rich and poor the Bible read, The Last Walk in Autumn 49 Than classic halls where Priestcraft rules, And Learning wears the chains of Creed ; Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering in The scattered sheaves of home and kin, Than the mad license ushering Lenten pains, Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance in chains, XXIII. And sweet homes nestle in these dales* And perch along these wooded swells ; And, blest beyond Arcadian vales, They hear the sound of Sabbath bells I Here dwells no perfect man sublime, Nor woman winged before her time, But with the faults and follies of the race ? Old home-bred virtues hold their not un- honored place. xxiv. Here manhood struggles for the sake Of mother, sister, daughter, wife, The graces and the loves which make The music of the march of life ; 50 The Last Walk in Autumn And woman, in her daily round Of duty, walks on holy ground. No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor here Is the bad lesson learned at human rights to sneer, XXV, Then let the icy north-wind blow The trumpets of the coming storm, To arrowy sleet and blinding snow Yon slanting lines of rain trans- form. Young hearts shall hail the drifted cold, As gayly as I did of old ; And I, who watch them through the frosty pane, Unenvious, live in them my boyhood o'er again, XXVI. And I will trust that He who heeds The life that hides in mead and wold, Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads, And stains these mosses green and gold, Will still, as He hath done, incline His gracious care to me and mine ; The Last Walk in Autumn 5/ Grant what we ask aright, from wrong de- bar, And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter every star ! XXVII. I have not seen, I may not see, My hopes for man take form in fact, But God will give the victory In due time ; in that faith I act. And he who sees the future sure, The baffling present may endure, And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand that leads The heart's desires beyond the halting step of deeds. XXVIII. And thou, my song, I send thee forth, Where harsher songs of mine have flown ; Go, find a place at home and hearth Where'er thy singer's name is known ; Revive for him the kindly thought Of friends ; and they who love him not^ 52 The Garrison of Cape Ann Touched by some strain of thine, per- chance may take The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy sake. THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN. ROM the hills of home forth look- ing far beneath the tent -like span Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann. Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide glimmering down, And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient fishing-town. Long has passed the summer morning, and its memory waxes old, When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant friend I strolled. Ah ! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean wind blows cool, And the golden - rod and aster bloom around thy grave, Rantoul ! The Garrison of Cape Ann 53 With the memory of that morning by the summer sea I blend A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather penned, In that quaint Magnalia Christi, with all strange and marvellous things, Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos Ovid sings. Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual life of old, Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward, mean and coarse and cold ; Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay, Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hodden gray. The great eventful Present hides the Past ; but through the din Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in ; And the lore of home and fireside, and the legendary rhyme, Make the task of duty lighter w T hich the true man owes his time. 54 The Garrison of Cape Ann So, with something of the feeling which the Covenanter knew, When with pious chisel wandering Scot- land's moorland graveyards through, From the graves of old traditions I part the blackberry-vines, Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouch the faded lines. Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse with rolling pebbles, ran, The garrison-house stood w 7 atching on the gray rocks of Cape Ann ; On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade, And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moonlight overlaid. On his slow round walked the sentry, south and eastward looking forth O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with breakers stretching north, — Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged capes, with bush and tree, Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and gusty sea. The Garrison of Cape Ann 55 Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by dying brands, Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets in their hands ; On the rough-hewn oaken table the veni- son haunch was shared, And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from beard to beard. Long they sat and talked together, — talked of wizards Satan-sold ; Of all ghostly sights and noises, — signs and wonders manifold ; Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead men in her shrouds, Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morning clouds ; Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths of Gloucester woods, Full of plants that love the summer, — ■ blooms of warmer latitudes ; Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's flowery vines, And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilight of the pines I 56 The Garrison of Cape Ann But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky tones of fear, As they spake of present tokens of the powers of evil near ; Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim of gun ; Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of mortals run ! Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp- locks, from the midnight wood they came, — Thrice around the block-house marching, met, unharmed, its volleyed flame ; Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in earth or lost in air, All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit sands lay bare. Midnight came ; from out the forest moved a dusky mass that soon Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly marching in the moon. " Ghosts or witches," said the captain, " thus I foil the Evil One ! " And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, down his gun. Vie Garrison of Cape Ann $y Once again the spectral horror moved the guarded wall about ; Once again the levelled muskets through the palisades flashed out, With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top might not shun, Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant wing to the sun. Like the idle rain of summer sped the harmless shower of lead. With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the phantoms fled ; Once again, without a shadow on the sands the moonlight lay, And the white smoke curling through it drifted slowly down the bay ! " God preserve us ! " said the captain ; " never mortal foes were there ; They have vanished with their leader Prince and Power of the air ! Lay aside your useless weapons; skill and prowess naught avail ; They who do the Devil's service wear their master's coat of mail ! " 5 From the red scourge of bondage fly, Nor deign to live a burdened slave J" Our father rode again his ride On Memphremagog's wooded side ; Sat down again to moose and samp In trapper's hut and Indian camp ; Lived o'er the old idyllic ease Beneath St. Francois' hemlock-trees ; Again for him the moonlight shone On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; Again he heard the violin play Which led the village dance away, And mingled in its merry whirl The grandam and the laughing girl, ij2 Snow-Bound Or, nearer home, our steps he led Where Salisbury's level marshes spread Mile-wide as flies the laden bee ; Where merry mowers, hale and strong, Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along The low green prairies of the sea. We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, And round the rocky Isles of Shoals The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals ; The chowder on the sand-beach made, Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot, With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. We heard the tales of witchcraft old, And dream and sign and marvel told To sleepy listeners as they lay Stretched idly on the salted hay, Adrift along the winding shores, When favoring breezes deigned to blow The square sail of the gundelow And idle lay the useless oars. Our mother, w T hile she turned her wheel Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, Told how the Indian hordes came down At midnight on Cocheco town, And how her own great-uncle bore His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. Snow-Bound 1 33 Recalling, in her fitting phrase, So rich and picturesque and free, (The common unrhymed poetry Of simple life and country ways), The story of her early days, — She made us welcome to her home ; Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; We stole with her a frightened look At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, The fame whereof went far and wide Through all the simple country side ; We heard the hawks at twilight play, The boat-horn on Piscataqua, The loon's weird laughter far away ; We fished her little trout-brook, knew What flowers in wood and meadow grew, What sunny hillsides autumn-brown She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, Saw where in sheltered cove and bay The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, And heard the wild-geese calling loud Beneath the gray November cloud. Then, haply, with a look more grave, And soberer tone, some tale she gave From painful Sewell's ancient tome, Beloved in every Quaker home, i$4 Snow-Botmd Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, Or Chalkiey's Journal, old and quaint, — Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — Who when the dreary calms prevailed, And water-butt and bread-cask failed, And cruel, hungry eyes pursued His portly presence mad for food, With dark hints muttered under breath Of casting lots for life or death, Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, To be himself the sacrifice. Then, suddenly, as if to save The good man from his living grave, A ripple on the water grew, A school of porpoise flashed in view. " Take, eat," he said, " and be content; These fishes in my stead are sent By Him who gave the tangled ram To spare the child of Abraham." Our uncle, innocent of books, Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, The ancient teachers never dumb Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. In moons and tides and weather wise, He read the clouds as prophecies, And foul or fair could well divine, Snow-Botmd 135 By many an occult hint and sign, Holding the cunning-warded keys To all the woodcraft mysteries ; Himself to Nature's heart so near That all her voices in his ear Of beast or bird had meanings clear, Like Apollonius of old, Who knew the tales the sparrows told ? Or Hermes who interpreted What the sage cranes of Nilus said : Content to live where life began ; A simple, guileless, childlike man, Strong only on his native grounds, The little world of sights and sounds Whose girdle was the parish bounds, Whereof his fondly partial pride The common features magnified, As Surrey hills to mountains grew In W 7 hite of Selborne's loving view, — ■ He told how teal and loon he shot, And how the eagle's eggs he got, The feats on pond and river done, The prodigies of rod and gun ; Till, warming w T ith the tales he told, Forgotten was the outside cold, The bitter wind unheeded blew, From ripening corn the pigeons flew, 1)6 Snow- Bound The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink Went fishing down the river-brink. In fields with bean or clover gay, The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, Peered from the doorway of his cell ; The muskrat plied the mason's trade, And tier by tier his mud-walls laid ; And from the shagbark overhead The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer And voice in dreams I see and hear, — The sweetest woman ever Fate Perverse denied a household mate, Who, lonely, homeless, not the less Found peace in love's unselfishness, And welcome wheresoe'er she went, A calm and gracious element, W r hose presence seemed the sweet income And womanly atmosphere of home, — Called up her girlhood memories, The huskings and the apple-bees, The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, Weaving through all the poor details And homespun warp of circumstance A golden woof-thread of romance. Snow-Bound 137 For well she kept her genial mood And simple faith of maidenhood ; Before her still a cloud-land lay, The mirage loomed across her way ; The morning dew, that dries so soon With others, glistened at her noon ; Through years of toil and soil and care, From glossy tress to thin gray hair, All unprofaned she held apart The virgin fancies of the heart. Be shame to him of woman born Who hath for such but thought of scorn. There, too, our elder sister plied Her evening task the stand beside ; A full, rich nature, free to trust, Truthful and almost sternly just, Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, And make her generous thought a fact, Keeping with many a light disguise The secret of self-sacrifice. O heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, Rest from all bitter thoughts and things ! How many a poor one's blessing went With thee beneath the low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings ! ij8 Snow-Bound As one who held herself a part Of all she saw, and let her heart Against the household bosom lean, Upon the motley-braided mat Our youngest and our dearest sat, Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, Now bathed in the unfading green And holy peace of Paradise. Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, Or from the shade of saintly palms, Or silver reach of river calms, Do those large eyes behold me still ? With me one little year ago : — The chill weight of the winter snow For months upon her grave has lain ; And now, when summer south-winds blow And brier and harebell bloom again, I tread the pleasant paths we trod, I see the violet-sprinkled sod . Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak The hillside flowers she loved to seek, Yet following me where'er I went With dark eyes full of love's content. The birds are glad } the brier-rose fills The air with sweetness ; all the hills Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; But still I wait with ear and eye Snow-Bound 139 For something gone which should be nigh, A loss in all familiar things, In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, Am I not richer than of old ? Safe in thy immortality, What change can reach the wealth I hold? What chance can mar the pearl and gold Thy love hath left in trust with me ? And while in life's late afternoon, Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are ; And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, The master of the district school Held at the fire his favored place, Its warm glow lit a laughing face Fresh -hued and fair, where scarce ap- peared 140 Snow-Bound The uncertain prophecy of beard. He teased the mitten-blinded cat, Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, Sang songs, and told us what befalls In classic Dartmouth's college halls. Born the wild Northern hills among, From whence his yeoman father wrung By patient toil subsistence scant, Not competence and yet not want, He early gained the power to pay His cheerful, self-reliant way ; Could doff at ease his scholar's gown To peddle wares from town to town ; Or through the long vacation's reach In lonely lowland districts teach, Where all the droll experience found At stranger hearths in boarding round, The moonlit skater's keen delight, The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, The rustic party, with its rough Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, And whirling plate, and forfeits paid, His winter task a pastime made. Happy the snow-locked homes wherein He tuned his merry violin, Or played the athlete in the barn, Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, Snow-Bound 141 Or mirth-provoking versions told Of classic legends rare and old, Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome Had all the commonplace of home, And little seemed at best the odds 'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; Where Pindus-born Arachthus took The guise of any grist-mill brook, And dread Olympus at his will Became a huckleberry hill. A careless boy that night he seemed ; But at his desk he had the look And air of one who wisely schemed, And hostage from the future took In trained thought and lore of book. Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he Shall Freedom's young apostles be, W r ho, following in W r ar's bloody trail, Shall every lingering wrong assail ; All chains from limb and spirit strike, Uplift the black and white alike ; Scatter before their swift advance The darkness and the ignorance, The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, 142 Snow-Bound Made murder pastime, and the hell Of prison-torture possible ; The cruel lie of caste refute, Old forms remould, and substitute For Slavery's lash the freeman's will, For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; A school-house plant on every hill, Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence The quick wires of intelligence ; Till North and South together brought Shall own the same electric thought, In peace a common flag salute, And, side by side in labor's free And unresentful rivalry, Harvest the fields wherein they fought. Another guest that winter night Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. Unmarked by time, and yet not young, The honeyed music of her tongue And words of meekness scarcely told A nature passionate and bold, Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, Its milder features dwarfed beside Her unbent will's majestic pride. She sat among us, at the best, A not unf eared, half- welcome guest, Rebuking with her cultured phrase Snow-Bound 143 Our homeliness of words and ways. A certain pard-like, treacherous grace Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash, Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash ; And under low brows, black with night, Rayed out at times a dangerous light ; The sharp heat-lightnings of her face Presaging ill to him whom Fate Condemned to share her love or hate. A woman tropical, intense In thought and act, in soul and sense. She blended in a like degree The vixen and the devotee, Revealing with each freak or feint The temper of Petruchio's Kate, The raptures of Siena's saint Her tapering hand and rounded wrist Had facile power to form a fist ; The warm, dark languish of her eyes Was never safe from wrath's surprise. Brows saintly calm and lips devout Knew every change of scowl and pout ; And the sweet voice had notes more high And shrill for social battle-cry. Since then what old cathedral town Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 144 Snow-Bound What convent-gate has held its lock Against the challenge of her knock ! Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thor- oughfares, Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, Gray olive slopes of hills that hem Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, Or startling on her desert throne The crazy Queen of Lebanon With claims fantastic as her own, Her tireless feet have held their way ; And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, She watches under Eastern skies, With hope each day renewed and fresh, The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! Where'er her troubled path may be, The Lord's sweet pity with her go ! The outward wayward life we see, The hidden springs we may not know. Nor is it given us to discern What threads the fatal sisters spun, Through what ancestral years has run The sorrow with the woman born, What forged her cruel chain of moods, What set her feet in solitudes, Snow-Bound 1 45 And held the love within her mute, What mingled madness in the blood, A life-long discord and annoy, Water of tears with oil of joy, And hid within the folded bud Perversities of flower and fruit. It is not ours to separate The tangled skein of will and fate, To show what metes and bounds should stand Upon the soul's debatable land, And between choice and Providence Divide the circle of events ; But He who knows our frame is just, Merciful and compassionate, And full of sweet assurances And hope for all the language is, That He remembereth we are dust ! At last the great logs, crumbling low, Sent out a dull and duller glow, The bulKs-eye watch that hung in view, Ticking its weary circuit through. Pointed with mutely warning sign Its black hand to the hour of nine. That sign the pleasant circle broke : My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 146 Snow-Bound Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, And laid it tenderly away, Then roused himself to safely cover The dull red brands with ashes over. And while, with care, our mother laid The work aside, her steps she stayed One moment, seeking to express Her grateful sense of happiness For food and shelter, warmth and health, And love's contentment more than wealth, With simple wishes (not the weak, Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, But such as warm the generous heart, O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) That none might lack, that bitter night, For bread and clothing, warmth and light. Within our beds awhile we heard The wind that round the gables roared, With now and then a ruder shock, Which made our very bedsteads rock. We heard the loosened clapboards tost, The board-nails snapping in the frost ; And on us, through the unplastered wall, Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. But sleep stole on, as sleep will do When hearts are light and life is new ; Faint and more faint the murmurs grew. Snow-Bound 147 Till in the summer-land of dreams They softened to the sound of streams, Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, And lapsing waves on quiet shores. Next morn we wakened with the shout Of merry voices high and clear ; And saw the teamsters drawing near To break the drifted highways out. Down the long hillside treading slow We saw the half-buried oxen go, Shaking the snow from heads uptost, Their straining nostrils white with frost. Before our door the straggling train Drew up, an added team to gain. The elders threshed their hands a-cold, Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes From lip to lip ; the younger folks Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, Then toiled again the cavalcade O'er windy hill, through clogged ra- vine, And woodland paths that wound be- tween Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. From every barn a team afoot, At every house a new recruit, 148 Snow-Bound Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law Haply the watchful young men saw Sweet doorway pictures of the curls And curious eyes of merry girls, Lifting their hands in mock defence Against the snow-ball's compliments, And reading in each missive tost The charm with Eden never lost. We heard once more the sleigh - bells' sound; And, following where the teamsters led, The wise old Doctor went his round, Just pausing at our door to say, In the brief autocratic way Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, Was free to urge her claim on all, That some poor neighbor sick abed At night our mother's aid would need. For, one in generous thought and deed, What mattered in the sufferer's sight The Quaker matron's inward light, The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? All hearts confess the saints elect Who, twain in faith, in love agree, And melt not in an acid sect The Christian pearl of charity ! Snow-Bound 149 So days went on : a week had passed Since the great world was heard from last The Almanac we studied o'er, Read and reread our little store, Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; One harmless novel, mostly hid From younger eyes, a book forbid, And poetry, (or good or bad, A single book was all we had,) Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, A stranger to the heathen Nine, Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine. The wars of David and the Jews. At last the floundering carrier bore The village paper to our door. Lo ! broadening outward as we read, To warmer zones the horizon spread ; In panoramic length unrolled We saw the marvels that it told. Before us passed the painted Creeks, And daft McGregor on his raids In Costa Rica's everglades. And up Taygetos winding slow Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, A Turk's head at each saddle-bow ! Welcome to us its week-old news, Its corner for the rustic Muse, 150 Snow-Bound Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, Its record, mingling in a breath The wedding knell and dirge of death ; Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, The latest culprit sent to jail ; Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, Its vendue sales and goods at cost, And traffic calling loud for gain. We felt the stir of hall and street, The pulse of life that round us beat ; The chill embargo of the snow Was melted in the genial glow ; Wide swung again our ice-locked door, And all the world was ours once more I Clasp, Angel of the backward look And folded wings of ashen gray And voice of echoes far away, The brazen covers of thy book ; The weird palimpsest old and vast, Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past \ Where, closely mingling, pale and glow The characters of joy and woe ; The monographs of outlived years, Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, Green hills of life that slope to death, And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees Snow- Bound 151 Shade off to mournful cypresses With the white amaranths underneath. Even while I look, I can but heed The restless sands' incessant fall, Importunate hours that hours succeed, Each clamorous with its own sharp need, And duty keeping pace with all. Shut down and clasp the heavy lids ; I hear again the voice that bids The dreamer leave his dream midway For larger hopes and graver fears : Life greatens in these later years, The century's aloe flowers to-day ! Yet haply, in some lull of life, Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, Dreaming in throngful city ways Of winter joys his boyhood knew; And dear and early friends — the few Who yet remain — shall pause to view These Flemish pictures of old days ; Sit with me by the homestead hearth, And stretch the hands of memory forth To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze ! And thanks untraced to lips unknown Shall greet me like the odors blown 1 52 The Wreck of Rivermoufb From unseen meadows newly mown, Or lilies floating in some pond, Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond ; The traveller owns the grateful sense Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, And, pausing, takes with forehead bare The benediction of the air. THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH. MSI |ag5| IVERMOUTH Rocks are fair to see, By dawn or sunset shone across, When the ebb of the sea has left them free, To dry their fringes of gold-green moss : For there the river comes winding down, From salt sea - meadows and uplands brown, And waves on the outer rocks afoam Shout to its waters, " Welcome home ! " And fair are the sunny isles in view East of the grisly Head of the Boar, The Wreck of Rivermouth 1 55 And Agamenticus lifts its blue Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er \ And southerly, when the tide is down, 'Twixt white sea -waves and sand-hills brown, The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel Over a floor of burnished steel. Once, in the old Colonial days, Two hundred years ago and more, A boat sailed dow r n through the winding ways Of Hampton River to that low shore, Full of a goodly company Sailing out on the summer sea, Veering to catch the land-breeze light, With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right. In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass, " Ah, well-a-day ! our hay must be made ! " A young man sighed, who saw them pass. i$4 The Wreck of Rivermouth Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, Hearing a voice in a far-off song, Watching a white hand beckoning long. " Fie on the witch ! " cried a merry girl, As they rounded the point where Goody Cole Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. "Oho!" she muttered, "ye 're brave to- day ! But I hear the little waves laugh and say, 1 The broth will be cold that waits at home ; For it 's one to go, but another to come ! ' " " She 's cursed," said the skipper ; " speak her fair : I 'm scary always to see her shake Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake." But merrily still, with laugh and shout, From Hampton River the boat sailed out, Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh, And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye. The Wreck of Rivermouth 155 They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, Drawing up haddock and mottled cod ; They saw not the Shadow that walked beside, They heard not the feet with silence shod. But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, Shot by the lightnings through and through j And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast, Ran along the sky from west to east Then the skipper looked from the darken- ing sea Up to the dimmed and wading sun ; But he spake like a brave man cheerily, "Yet there is time for our homeward run." Veering and tacking, they backward wore ; And just as a breath from the woods ashore Blew out to whisper of danger past, The wrath of the storm came down at last! The skipper hauled at the heavy sail : " God be our help ! " he only cried, 1 56 The Wreck of Rivermouth As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail, Smote the boat on its starboard side. The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare, The strife and torment of sea and air. Goody Cole looked out from her door : The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone, Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar Toss the foam from tusks of stone. She clasped her hands with a grip of pain, The tear on her cheek was not of rain : " They are lost," she muttered, " boat and crew ! Lord, forgive me ! my words were true ! " Suddenly seaward swept the squall ; The low sun smote through cloudy rack; The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all The trend of the coast lay hard and black. But far and wide as eye could reach, No life was seen upon wave or beach ; The Wreck of River mouth 757 The boat that went out at morning never Sailed back again into Hampton River. O mower, lean on thy bended snath, Look from the meadows green and low : The wind of the sea is a waft of death, The waves are singing a song of woe ! By silent river, by moaning sea, Long and vain shall thy watching be : Never again shall the sweet voice call, Never the white hand rise and fall ! O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight Ye saw in the light of breaking day ! Dead faces looking up cold and white From sand and seaweed where they lay. The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept, And cursed the tide as it backward crept : "Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake ! Leave your dead for the hearts that break ! " Solemn it was in that old day In Hampton town and its log- built church, Where side by side the coffins lay And the mourners stood in aisle and porch. 1 58 The Wreck of Rivermouth In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, The voices faltered that raised the hymn, And Father Dalton, grave and stern, Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn. But his ancient colleague did not pray ; Under the weight of his fourscore years He stood apart with the iron-gray Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears ; And a fair-faced woman of doubtful fame, Linking her own with his honored name, Subtle as sin, at his side withstood The felt reproach of her neighborhood. Apart with them, like them forbid, Old Goody Cole looked drearily round, As, two by two, with their faces hid, The mourners walked to the burying- ground. She let the staff from her clasped hands fall: " Lord, forgive us ! we 're sinners all ! " And the voice of the old man answered her: " Amen ! " said Father Bachiler. The Wreck of Rivermouth 159 So, as I sat upon Appledore In the calm of a closing summer day, And the broken lines of Hampton shore In purple mist of cloudland lay, The Rivermouth Rocks their story told 3 And waves aglow with sunset gold, Rising and breaking in steady chime, Beat the rhythm and kept the time. And the sunset paled, and warmed once more With a softer, tenderer after-glow ; In the east was moon-rise, with boats off- shore And sails in the distance drifting slow. The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar, The White Isle kindled its great red star ; And life and death in my old-time lay Mingled in peace like the night and day ! i6o The Dead Ship of Harpswell THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL. HAT flecks the outer gray be- yond The sundown's golden trail ? The white flash of a sea-bird's wing, Or gleam of slanting sail ? Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point, And sea-w r orn elders pray, — The ghost of what was once a ship Is sailing up the bay ! From gray sea-fog, from icy drift, From peril and from pain, The home-bound fisher greets thy lights, O hundred-harbored Maine ! But many a keel shall seaward turn, And many a sail outstand, When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms Against the dusk of land. She rounds the headland's bristling pines ; She threads the isle-set bay ; The Dead Ship of Harpswell 161 No spur of breeze can speed her on, Nor ebb of tide delay. Old men still walk the Isle of Orr Who tell her date and name, Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards Who hewed her oaken frame. What weary doom of battled quest, Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine ? What makes thee in the haunts of home A wonder and a sign ? Xo foot is on thy silent deck, Upon thy helm no hand ; No ripple hath the soundless wind That smites thee from the land ! For never comes the ship to port, Howe'er the breeze may be ; Just when she nears the waiting shore She drifts again to sea. No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, Nor sheer of veering side ; Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, Against the wind and tide. In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star Of evening guides her in ; i62 The Dead Ship of Harpswell In vain for her the lamps are lit Within thy tower, Seguin ! In vain the harbor-boat shall hail, In vain the pilot call ; No hand shall reef her spectral sail, Or let her anchor fall. Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy, Your gray-head hints of ill ; And, over sick-beds whispering low, Your prophecies fulfil. Some home amid yon birchen trees Shall drape its door with woe ; And slowly where the Dead Ship sails, The burial boat shall row ! From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point, From island and from main, From sheltered cove and tided creek, Shall glide the funeral train. The dead-boat with the bearers four, The mourners at her stern, — And one shall go the silent way Who shall no more return ! And men shall sigh, and women weep, Whose dear ones pale and pine, Abraham Davenport 163 And sadly over sunset seas Await the ghostly sign. They know not that its sails are filled By pity's tender breath, Nor see the Angel at the helm Who steers the Ship of Death ! 3 ABRAHAM DAVENPORT, the old days (a custom laid aside With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent Their wisest men to make the public laws. And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, Stamford sent up to the councils of the State Wisdom and grace in Abraham Daven- port. 164 Abraham Davenport 'T was on a May-day of the far old year Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring, Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, A horror of great darkness, like the night In day of which the Norland sagas tell, — The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs The crater's sides from the red hell below. Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn- yard fowls Roosted ; the cattle at the pasture bars Lowed, and looked homeward ; bats on leathern wings Flitted abroad ; the sounds of labor died ; Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew sharp To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ Abraham Davenport 165 Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked A loving guest at Bethany, but stern As Justice and inexorable Law. Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts, Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, Trembling beneath their legislative robes. " It is the Lord's Great Day ! Let us ad- journ," Some said ; and then, as if with one ac- cord, All eyes were turned to Abraham Daven- port. He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice The intolerable hush. " This well may be The Day of Judgment which the world awaits ; But be it so or not, I only know My present duty, and my Lord's com- mand To occupy till He come. So at the post Where He hath set me in His providence, I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, — 1 66 Abraham Davenport No faithless servant frightened from my task, But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls ; And therefore, with all reverence, I w r ould say, Let God do His work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles." And they brought them in. Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read, Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, An act to amend an act to regulate The shad and alewive fisheries. Where- upon Wisely and well spake Abraham Daven- port, Straight to the question, with no figures of speech Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without The shrewd dry humor natural to the man : His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while, Between the pauses of his argument, Nauhaught, the Deacon i6y To hear the thunder of the wrath of God Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. And there he stands in memory to this day, Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen Against the background of unnatural dark, A witness to the ages as they pass, That simple duty hath no place for fear. NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. AUHAUGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing Cape Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds And the relentless smiting of the waves, Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream Of a good angel dropping in his hand A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God. 1 68 Nauhaught, the Deacon He rose and went forth with the early day Far inland, where the voices of the waves Mellowed and mingled with the whispering leaves, As, through the tangle of the low, thick woods, He searched his traps. Therein nor beast nor bird He found ; though meanwhile in the reedy pools The otter plashed, and underneath the pines The partridge drummed : and as his thoughts went back To the sick wife and little child at home, What marvel that the poor man felt his faith Too weak to bear its burden, — like a rope That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks above The hand that grasps it. " Even now, O Lord! Send me," he prayed, " the angel of my dream ! Nauhaught is very poor ; he cannot wait." Even as he spake he heard at his bare feet Nauhaughtj the Deacon 169 A low, metallic clink, and, looking down, He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held The treasure up before his eyes, alone With his great need, feeling the wondrous coins Slide through his eager ringers, one by one. So then the dream was true. The angel brought One broad piece only ; should he take all these ? Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb woods ? The loser, doubtless rich, would scarcely miss This dropped crumb from a table always full. Still, while he mused, he seemed to hear the cry Of a starved child ; the sick face of his wife Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce revolt Urged the wild license of his savage youth Against his later scruples. Bitter toil, Prayer, fasting, dread of blame, and piti- less eyes ijo Naubaugbt, the Deacon To watch his halting, — had he lost for these The freedom of the woods ; — the hunting- grounds Of happy spirits for a walled-in heaven Of everlasting psalms ? One healed the sick Very far off thousands of moons ago : Had he not prayed him night and day to come And cure his bed-bound wife ? Was there a hell ? Were all his fathers' people writhing there — Like the poor shell-fish set to boil alive — Forever, dying never ? If he kept This gold, so needed, would the dreadful God Torment him like a Mohawk's captive stuck With slow-consuming splinters ? Would the saints And the white angels dance and laugh to see him Burn like a pitch-pine torch ? His Chris- tian garb Seemed falling from him ; with the fear and shame Naubaught, the Deacon lyi Of Adam naked at the cool of day, He gazed around. A black snake lay in coil On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong eye Watched from a dead bough. All his In- dian lore Of evil blending with a convert's faith In the supernal terrors of the Book, He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake And ominous, black-winged bird ; and all the while The low rebuking of the distant waves Stole in upon him like the voice of God Among the trees of Eden. Girding up His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he thrust The base thought from him : " Nauhaught, be a man ! Starve, if need be ; but, while you live, look out From honest eyes on all men, unashamed. God help me ! I am deacon of the church, A baptized, praying Indian ! Should I do This secret meanness, even the barken knots Of the old trees would turn to eyes to see it, i?2 Nauhaught, the Deacon The birds would tell of it, and all the leaves Whisper above me : ' Nauhaught is a thief ! ' The sun would know it, and the stars that hide Behind his light would watch me, and at night Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes. Yea, thou, God, seest me ! " Then Nau- haught drew Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea ; And, pausing at the inn-door, cheerily asked : " Who hath lost aught to-day ? " " I," said a voice ; " Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse, My daughter's handiwork." He looked, and lo ! One stood before him in a coat of frieze, And the glazed hat of a seafaring man, Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no trace of wings. Marvelling, he dropped within the stran- ger's hand Nauhaugbt, the Deacon 173 The silken web, and turned to go his way. But the man said : " A tithe at least is yours ; Take it in God's name as an honest man." And as the deacon's dusky ringers closed Over the golden gift, " Yea, in God's name I take it, with a poor man's thanks," he said. So down the street that, like a river of sand, Ran, white in sunshine, to the summer sea, He sought his home, singing and praising God; And when his neighbors in their careless way Spoke of the owner of the silken purse — A Wellfleet skipper, known in every port That the Cape opens in its sandy wall — He answered, with a wise smile, to him- self : " I saw the angel where they see a man." % 1J4 l n School-Days IN SCHOOL-DAYS. TILL sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sleeping ; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry-vines are creeping. Within, the master's desk is seen, Deep scarred by raps official ; The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife's carved initial ; The charcoal frescos on its wall ; Its door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school, Went storming out to playing ! Long years ago a winter sun Shone over it at setting ; Lit up its western window-panes, And low eaves' icy fretting. It touched the tangled golden curls, And brown eyes full of grieving, In School-Days 775 Of one who still her steps delayed When all the school were leaving. For near her stood the little boy Her childish favor singled : His cap pulled low upon a face Where pride and shame were mingled. Pushing with restless feet the snow To right and left, he lingered ; — As restlessly her tiny hands The blue-checked apron fingered. He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt The soft hand's light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing, " I 'm sorry that I spelt the word : I hate to go above you, Because," — the brown eyes lower fell, — " Because you see, I love you ! " Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing! iy6 Sunset on the Bear camp He lives to learn, in life's hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her, — because they love him. SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP. GOLD fringe on the purpling hem Of hills the river runs, As down its long, green valley falls The last of summer's suns. Along its tawny gravel-bed Broad-flowing, swift, and still, As if its meadow levels felt The hurry of the hill, Noiseless between its banks of green From curve to curve it slips ; The drowsy maple-shadows rest Like fingers on its lips. A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, Unstoried and unknown ; The ursine legend of its name Prowls on its banks alone. Sunset on the Bear camp 177 Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn As ever Yarrow knew, Or, under rainy Irish skies, By Spenser's Mulla grew ; And through the gaps of leaning trees Its mountain cradle shows : The gold against the amethyst, The green against the rose. Touched by a light that hath no name, A glory never sung, Aloft on sky and mountain wall Are God's great pictures hung. How changed the summits vast and old! No longer granite-brow r ed, They melt in rosy mist ; the rock Is softer than the cloud ; The valley holds its breath ; no leaf Of all its elms is twirled : The silence of eternity Seems falling on the world. The pause before the breaking seals Of mystery is this ; Yon miracle-play of night and day Makes dumb its witnesses. iy8 Sunset on the Bear camp What unseen altar crowns the hills That reach up stair on stair ? What eyes look through, what white wings fan These purple veils of air ? What Presence from the heavenly heights To those of earth stoops down ? Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods On Ida's snowy crown ! Slow fades the vision of the sky, The golden water pales, And over all the valley-land A gray-winged vapor sails. I go the common way of all ; The sunset fires will burn, The flowers will blow, the river flow, When I no more return. No whisper from the mountain pine Nor lapsing stream shall tell The stranger, treading where I tread, Of him who loved them well. But beauty seen is never lost, God's colors all are fast ; The glory of this sunset heaven Into my soul has passed, Sunset on the Bear camp 1J9 A sense of gladness unconfined To mortal date or clime ; As the soul liveth, it shall live Beyond the years of time. Beside the mystic asphodels Shall bloom the home-born flowers, And new horizons flush and glow With sunset hues of ours. Farewell ! these smiling hills must wear Too soon their wintry frown, And snow-cold winds from off them shake The maple's red leaves down. But I shall see a summer sun Still setting broad and low ; The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom, The golden water flow. A lover's claim is mine on all I see to have and hold, — The rose-light of perpetual hills, And sunsets never cold ! 180 William Francis Bar tie it WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT. H, well may Essex sit forlorn Beside her sea-blown shore ; Her well beloved, her noblest born, Is hers in life no more ! No lapse of years can render less Her memory's sacred claim ; No fountain of forgetfulness Can wet the lips of Fame. A grief alike to wound and heal, A thought to soothe and pain, The sad, sweet pride that mothers feel To her must still remain. Good men and true she has not lacked, And brave men yet shall be ; The perfect flower, the crowning fact, Of all her years was he ! As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage, What worthier knight was found To grace in Arthur's golden age The fabled Table Round ? William Francis Bartlett 181 A voice, the battle's trumpet-note, To welcome and restore ; A hand, that all unwilling smote, To heal and build once more ! A soul of fire, a tender heart Too warm for hate, he knew The generous victor's graceful part To sheathe the sword he drew. When Earth, as if on evil dreams, Looks back upon her wars, And the white light of Christ outstreams From the red disk of Mars, His fame who led the stormy van Of battle well may cease, But never that which crowns the man Whose victory was Peace. Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore Thy beautiful and brave, Whose failing hand the olive bore, Whose dying lips forgave ! Let age lament the youthful chief, And tender eyes be dim ; 182 The Henchman The tears are more of joy than grief That fall for one like him ! THE HENCHMAN. Y lady walks her morning round, My lady's page her fleet grey- hound, My lady's hair the fond winds stir, And all the birds make songs for her. Her thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers, And Rathburn side is gay with flowers ; But ne'er like hers, in flower or bird, Was beauty seen or music heard. The distance of the stars is hers ; The least of all her worshippers, The dust beneath her dainty heel, She knows not that I see or feel. Oh, proud and calm ! — she cannot know Where'er she goes with her I go ; The Henchman iSj Oh, cold and fair ! — she cannot guess I kneel to share her hound's caress ! Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk, I rob their ears of her sweet talk ; Her suitors come from east and west, I steal her smiles from every guest. Unheard of her, in loving words, I greet her with the song of birds ; I reach her with her green-armed bowers, I kiss her with the lips of flowers. The hound and I are on her trail, The wind and I uplift her veil ; As if the calm, cold moon she w T ere, And I the tide, I follow her. As unrebuked as they, I share The license of the sun and air, And in a common homage hide My worship from her scorn and pride. World-wide apart, and yet so near, I breathe her charmed atmosphere, Wherein to her my service brings The reverence due to holy things. 1 84 The Bay of Seven Islands Her maiden pride, her haughty name, My dumb devotion shall not shame ; The love that no return doth crave To knightly levels lifts the slave. No lance have I, in joust or fight, To splinter in my lady's sight ; But, at her feet, how blest were I For any need of hers to die ! THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS. ROM the green Amesbury hill which bears the name Of that half mythic ancestor of mine Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago, Down the long valley of the Merrimac, Midway between me and the river's mouth, I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest Among Deer Island's immemorial pines, Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks The Bay of Seven Islands 185 Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song, Which thou hast told or sung, I call to mind, Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills, The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate. To thee the echoes of the Island Sound Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan Of the South Breaker prophesying storm. And thou hast listened, like myself, to men Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies Like a fell spider in its web of fog, Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles And frost-rimmed bays and trading sta- tions seem Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove, j 86 The Bay of Seven Islands Nubble and Boon, the common names of home. So let me offer thee this lay of mine, Simple and homely, lacking much thy play Of color and of fancy. If its theme And treatment seem to thee befitting youth Rather than age, let this be my excuse : It has beguiled some heavy hours and called Some pleasant memories up ; and, better still, Occasion lent me for a kindly word To one who is my neighbor and my friend. The skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth, Leaving the apple-bloom of the South For the ice of the Eastern seas, In his fishing schooner Breeze. Handsome and brave and young was he, And the maids of Newbury sighed to see His lessening white sail fall Under the sea's blue wall. The Bay of Seven Islands i8j Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine, St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon, The little Breeze sailed on, Backward and forward, along the shore Of lorn and desolate Labrador, And found at last her way To the Seven Islands Bay. The little hamlet, nestling below Great hills white with lingering snow, With its tin-roofed chapel stood Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood ; Green-turfed, flower-so wn, the last outpost Of summer upon the dreary coast, With its gardens small and spare, Sad in the frosty air. Hard by where the skipper's schooner lay, A fisherman's cottage looked away Over isle and bay, and behind On mountains dim-defined. And there twin sisters, fair and young, Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung 1 88 The Bay of Seven Islands In their native tongue the lays Of the old Provencal days. Alike were they, save the faint outline Of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine ; And both, it so befell, Loved the heretic stranger well. Both were pleasant to look upon, But the heart of the skipper clave to one ; Though less by his eye than heart He knew the twain apart. Despite of alien race and creed, Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed ; And the mother's wrath was vain As the sister's jealous pain. The shrill-tongued mistress her house for- bade, And solemn warning was sternly said By the black-robed priest, whose word As law the hamlet heard. But half by voice and half by signs The skipper said, " A warm sun shines On the green-banked Merrimac ; Wait, watch, till I come back. The Bay of Seven Islands i8g " And when you see, from my mast head. The signal fly of a kerchief red, My boat on the shore shall wait ; Come, when the night is late." Ah ! weighed with childhood's haunts and friends, And all that the home sky overbends, Did ever young love fail To turn the trembling scale ? Under the night, on the wet sea sands, Slowly unclasped their plighted hands : One to the cottage hearth. And one to his sailor's berth. What was it the parting lovers heard ? Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird, But a listener's stealthy tread On the rock-moss, crisp and dead. He weighed his anchor, and fished once more By the black coast-line of Labrador ; And by love and the north wind driven, Sailed back to the Islands Seven. 190 The Bay of Seven Islands In the sunset's glow the sisters twain Saw the Breeze come sailing in again ; Said Suzette, " Mother dear, The heretic's sail is here." " Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide ; Your door shall be bolted !" the mother cried : While Suzette, ill at ease, Watched the red sign of the Breeze. At midnight, down to the waiting skiff She stole in the shadow of the cliff ; And out of the Bay's mouth ran The schooner with maid and man. And all night long, on a restless bed, Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said : And thought of her lover's pain Waiting for her in vain. Did he pace the sands ? Did he pause to hear The sound of her light step drawing near ? And, as the slow hours passed, Would he doubt her faith at last ? The Bay of Seven Islands igi But when she saw through the misty pane The morning break on a sea of rain, Could even her love avail To follow his vanished sail ? Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind, Left the rugged Moisic hills behind, And heard from an unseen shore The falls of Manitou roar. On the morrow's morn, in the thick, gray weather They sat on the reeling deck together, Lover and counterfeit Of hapless Marguerite. With a lover's hand, from her forehead fair He smoothed away her jet-black hair. What was it his fond eyes met ? The scar of the false Suzette ! Fiercely he shouted : " Bear away East by north for Seven Isles Bay ! " The maiden wept and prayed, But the ship her helm obeyed. / 92 The Bay of Seven Islands Once more the Bay of the Isles they found : They heard the bell of the chapel sound, And the chant of the dying sung In the harsh, wild Indian tongue. A feeling of mystery, change, and awe Was in all they heard and all they saw : Spell-bound the hamlet lay In the hush of its lonely bay. And when they came to the cottage door, The mother rose up from her weeping sore, And with angry gestures met The scared look of Suzette. "Here is your daughter," the skipper said ; " Give me the one I love instead." But the woman sternly spake ; " Go, see if the dead will wake ! " He looked. Her sweet face still and white And strange in the noonday taper light, She lay on her little bed, With the cross at her feet and head. The Bay of Seven Islands 193 In a passion of grief the strong man bent Down to her face, and, kissing it, went Back to the waiting Breeze, Back to the mournful seas. Never asrain to the Merrimac And Newbury's homes that bark came back. Whether her fate she met On the shores of Carraquette, MiscoUj or Tracadie, who can say ? But even yet at Seven Isles Bay Is told the ghostly tale Of a w r eird, unspoken sail, In the pale, sad light of the Northern day Seen by the blanketed Montagnais, Or squaw, in her small kyack, Crossing the spectre's track. On the deck a maiden wrings her hands ; Her likeness kneels on the gray coast sands ; One in her wild despair, And one in the trance of prayer. 1 94 Ichabod She flits before no earthly blast, The red sign fluttering from her mast, Over the solemn seas, The ghost of the schooner Breeze ! ICHABOD. i8;o. O fallen ! so lost ! the light with- drawn Which once he wore ! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore ! Revile him not, the Tempter hath A snare for all ; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall ! Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age Falls back in night. Icbabod 195 Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark A bright soul driven, Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, From hope and heaven ! Let not the land once proud of him Insult him now, Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, Dishonored brow. But let its humbled sons, instead, From sea to lake, A long lament, as for the dead, In sadness make. Of all we loved and honored, naught Save power remains ; A fallen angel's pride of thought, Still strong in chains. All else is gone ; from those great eyes The soul has fled : When faith is lost, when honor dies The man is dead ! Then, pay the reverence of old days To his dead fame ; ip6 The Lost Occasion Walk backward, with averted gaze, And hide his shame ! THE LOST OCCASION. 1880. OME die too late and some too soon, At early morning, heat of noon, Or the chill evening twilight. Thou, Whom the rich heavens did so endow With eyes of power and Jove's own brow, With all the massive strength that fills Thy home-horizon's granite hills, With rarest gifts of heart and head From manliest stock inherited, New England's stateliest type of man, In port and speech Olympian ; Whom no one met, at first, but took A second awed and wondering look (As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece) ; Whose words, in simplest homespun clad, The Lost Occasion igy The Saxon strength of Caedmon's had, With power reserved at need to reach The Roman forum's loftiest speech, Sweet with persuasion, eloquent In passion, cool in argument, Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes As fell the Norse god's hammer blows, Crushing as with Talus' flail Through Error's logic-woven mail, And failing only when they tried The adamant of the righteous side, — Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved Of old friends, by the new deceived, Too soon for us, too soon for thee, Beside thy lonely Northern sea, Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, Laid wearily down thy august head. Thou shouldst have lived to feel below Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow ; The late-sprung mine that underlaid Thy sad concessions vainly made. Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall The star-flag of the Union fall And armed rebellion pressing on ig8 The Lost Occasion The broken lines of Washington ! No stronger voice than thine had then Called out the utmost might of men. To make the Union's charter free And strengthen law by liberty. How had that stern arbitrament To thy gray age youth's vigor lent, Shaming ambition's paltry prize Before thy disillusioned eyes ; Breaking the spell about thee wound Like the green withes that Samson bound ; Redeeming, in one effort grand, Thyself and thy imperilled land ! Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, O sleeper by the Northern sea, The gates of opportunity ! God fills the gaps of human need, Each crisis brings its word and deed. Wise men and strong we did not lack ; But still, with memory turning back, In the dark hours we thought of thee, And thy lone grave beside the sea. Above that grave the east winds blow, And from the marsh-lands drifting slow The sea-fog comes, with evermore The wave-wash of a lonely shore, Tloe Lost Occasion 199 And sea-bird's melancholy cry, As Nature fain would typify The sadness of a closing scene, The loss of that which should have been. But where thy native mountains bare Their foreheads to diviner air, Fit emblem of enduring fame, One lofty summit keeps thy name. For thee, the cosmic forces did The rearing of that pyramid, The prescient ages shaping with Fire, flood, and frost thy monolith. Sunrise and sunset lay thereon With hands of light their benison, The stars of midnight pause to set Their jewels in its coronet. And evermore that mountain mass Seems climbing from the shadowy pass To light, as if to manifest Thy nobler self, thy life at best 1 200 Storm on Lake Asquam STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM. CLOUD, like that the old-time Hebrew saw On Carmel prophesying rain, began To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan, Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw Of chill wind menaced ; then a strong blast beat Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet. Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined dark- ness swept Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range ; A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange, From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped. Storm on Lake Asquam 201 One moment, as if challenging the storm, Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel Looked from his watch-tower ; then the shadow fell, And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form. And over all the still unhidden sun, Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain, Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain ; And, when the tumult and the strife were done, With one foot on the lake and one on land, Framing within his crescent's tinted streak A far-off picture of the Melvin peak, Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned. 202 Birchbrook Mill BIRCHBROOK MILL. NOTELESS stream, the Birch- brook runs Beneath its leaning trees ; That low, soft ripple is its own, That dull roar is the sea's. Of human signs it sees alone The distant church spire's tip, And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray, The white sail of a ship. No more a toiler at the wheel, It wanders at its will ; Nor dam nor pond is left to tell Where once was Birchbrook mill. The timbers of that mill have fed Long since a farmer's fires ; His doorsteps are the stones that ground The harvest of his sires. Man trespassed here ; but Nature lost No right of her domain ; She waited, and she brought the old Wild beauty back again. Birchbrook Mill 203 By day the sunlight through the leaves Falls on its moist, green sod, And wakes the violet bloom of spring And autumn's golden-rod. Its birches whisper to the wind, The swallow dips her wings In the cool spray, and on its banks The gray song-sparrow sings. But from it, when the dark night falls, The school-girl shrinks with dread ; The farmer, home-bound from his fields, Goes by with quickened tread. They dare not pause to hear the grind Of shadowy stone on stone ; The plashing of a water-wheel Where wheel there now is none. Has not a cry of pain been heard Above the clattering mill? The pawing of an unseen horse, Who waits his mistress still ? Yet never to the listener's eye Has sight confirmed the sound ; 204 Bircbbrook Mill A wavering birch line marks alone The vacant pasture ground. No ghostly arms fling up to heaven The agony of prayer ; No spectral steed impatient shakes His white mane on the air. The meaning of that common dread No tongue has fitly told ; The secret of the dark surmise The brook and birches hold. What nameless horror of the past Broods here forevermore ? What ghost his unforgiven sin Is grinding o'er and o'er? Does, then, immortal memory play The actor's tragic part. Rehearsals of a mortal life And unveiled human heart ? God's pity spare a guilty soul That drama of its ill, And let the scenic curtain fall On Birchbrook's haunted mill ! The Bartholdi Statue 205 THE BARTHOLDI STATUE. HE land, that, from the rule of kings, In freeing us, itself made free, Our Old World Sister, to us brings Her sculptured Dream of Liberty : Unlike the shapes on Egypt's sands, Uplifted by the toil-worn slave, On Freedom's soil with freemen's hands We rear the symbol free hands gave. O France, the beautiful ! to thee Once more a debt of love we owe : In peace beneath thy Colors Three, We hail a later Rochambeau ! Rise, stately Symbol ! holding forth Thy light and hope to all who sit In chains and darkness ! Belt the earth With watch-fires from thy torch uplit ! Reveal the primal mandate still Which Chaos heard and ceased to be, 206 At Last Trace on mid-air th' Eternal Will In signs of fire : " Let man be free ! " Shine far, shine free, a guiding light To Reason's ways and Virtue's aim, A lightning-flash the wretch to smite Who shields his license with thy name ! AT LAST. HEN on my day of life the night is falling, And, in the winds from un- sunned spaces blown, I hear far voices out of darkness calling My feet to paths unknown, Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, Leave not its tenant when its walls de- cay; O Love Divine, O Helper ever present, Be Thou my strength and stay J At Last 20J Be near me when all else is from me drift- ing: Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine, And kindly faces to my own uplifting The love which answers mine. I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy spirit Be with me then to comfort and uphold ; No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit,' Nor street of shining gold. Suffice it if — my good and ill unreck- oned, And both forgiven through Thy abound- ing grace — I find myself by hands familiar beckoned Unto my fitting place. Some humble door among Thy many mansions, Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease, And flows forever through heaven's green expansions The river of Thy peace. I 2o8 At Last There, from the music round about me stealing, I fain would learn the new and holy song, And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, The life for which I long. WHITTIER'S WORKS. POEMS. Cabinet Edition. i6mo, $1.00. Household Edition. With Portrait. i2mo, $1.50; full gilt, $2.00. Family Edition. Illustrated. 8vo, full gilt, $2.50. Illustrated Library Editiofi. With Portrait and Illustrations. 8vo, full gilt, $3.00. POETICAL WORKS. Riverside Edition. 4 vols, crown 8vo, gilt top, $6.00. PROSE WORKS. Riverside Edition. 3 vols, crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.50, COMPLETE WORKS. Riverside Edition. 7 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $10.50. EA RL Y POEMS. 12010, full gilt, $1.00. THE VISION OF E CHA RD,ANDO THER POEMS. i6mo, gilt top, $1.25. SNOW-BOUND. i6mo, $1.00. Illustrated Edition. With 40 Illustrations. 8vo, flexible leather, $2.00. MAUD MULLER. With Illustrations. 8vo, full gilt, $2.50. BALLADS OF NEW ENGLAND. With 60 Illustra- tions. 8vo, flexible leather, $2.00. 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