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BY
JOHN. GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
ILL USTRA TED.
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFI.IN AND COMPANY.
I)e liibcriiie tpress, Caibibitcb. 
SNOW-BOUND.
.THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
FAVORITE POEMS.
BY
JOHN. GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
ILL USTRA  TED.
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFI,IN AND COMPANY.
EI) librr-qitic Cra, iaib,r-ibg.
Wtobcri Claooico. 
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TO
bet ftrlnorg
OF
THE HOUSEHOLD IT DESCRIBES,
THIS POEM IS DEDIC,4 TED
BY
THE AUTHOR.  
"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in thle dark, so
Good Spirits whiclh be Angels of Lighlt are augniented not
only b)y tlie Diviise Lighlt of tile Ssiii, )but also by our commono  VVood l'ire: and as the celestial Fire drivies away dark
spirits, so also thlis our Fire of VVood dotli the same." -
CoR. AGRIPPA, Occult Philosolphy, Book I. chlap. v.
"Announced b)y all thle trumpets of tile sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhlere to alight; the whited air
Ilides lills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils tile farm-hlouse at thle garden's end.
Tile sled iand traveller stopped, tile courier's feet
Delayed, all friends slhut out, the liousemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumuLltuous privacy of storm."
EMERSOi.
0 
a
i. "       I'., "I,:.-.!,.7.,. 
SNOW-BOUND.
HE sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of pray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and'ominous prophecy,
A portent seemilng, less tlani threat,
It sank firom sioght before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout, 
12    SNOW-BOUND.
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east: we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; 
SNOW-BOUND.
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Imipatient down the stanchion rows
Thle cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmiet bent
And down his quelulous challenge sent.
Unwarmed by any sunset light
Thle gray day darkened into night,
A ni,ght made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the wing6d snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
13 
14       SNOW-BOUJND.
The white drift piled the windowv-firame,
And  thlroulgh the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sleeted ghosts.
So all nighlt long tle storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tinlly sphlierule traced vWith lines
Of Natutire's geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning, shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
Oii nothingi we could call our own.
Arouin(d the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament, 
i\ *'\ —'/<  
SNOW-BOUND.
No cloud above, no earth below,
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes, - strange domes
and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showe(!,
A. fenceless drift what once was road
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-fluing coat and high cocked hat;
rThie well-curl) had a Chinese roof;
And even the loig sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaningi miracle.
17 
18      SNOW-BOUND.
A prompt, decisive iman, no breath
Our father wasted: "B13oys, a path!"
Well pleased, (for when did fiarmer boy
Count suchl a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hand s, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness tlhrou,gh.
And(, whlere thie drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
WAithl many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers. 
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I 
SNOW-BOUND.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes witllhin.
The old horse thrust his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The cock his lusty greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hung,er looked;
The horned patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute
And emphasized with stamp of foot
All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
121 
22    SNOW-BOUND.
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shorne.
No chlurcll-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voiced elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind.
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside. 
SNOW-BOUND.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us conIpanionshllip,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.
As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snlow-blown  traveller, sank
FromA sight beneath the smnothering bank,
We piled, with care, our iightly stack
Of wood against the climney-back,
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its to- the stout back-stick
2.3 
24       SNOW-BOUND.
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sa-gging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnishled room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-bougohed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels slhowed,
The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
SNOW-BOUND.
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old( rhyvme: " Uiider the tree,
It7he; fy e ozutdoor- bts b   zs merrily,
Tler}e the witches ar-e miaking tea."
The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hil-range stood
Transfigured il the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Againist the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that liwarmiing light,
25 
6       SSNOWV-BOUND.
Which only seemed w here'er it fell
To make the coldness visible.
Shut in from all the world vithout,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffl(d rag,e at pane and door,
While the red logs before us'beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a loudcr blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
Thle great throat of the chimney laughed,
The house-dog on his pawvs outsprcad
Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 
~~t#,! j~
II11,  
SNOW-BOUND.
The cat's d(lark silhouette oni the wall
A couclianit tiger's seemed to fall;
Anid, for the winter fireside meet,
Petween the audirons' straddling feet,
T'ie mug, of cider simmered slow,
Thle apples sputteredl in a row,
A,,d, close at band, tlie basket stood
WAVithl nits from brown October's wood.
What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow highi, blow low, not all its snlow
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.
0  Time  and  Change!- with  hair as
gray
29 
30       SNOW-BOUND.
As was my sire's that winter day,
Howv strange it seems, with so mluclh gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ahl, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now,
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelig'ht paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.
We tread the paths their feet have Vworn,
We sit beneathl their orchlard-trees,
We hear, like them, the humn of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn; 
SNOW-BOUND.
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written wVords we linger o'er,
But iii the sunI they cast no shade,
No voice is hear(l, lio sig,n is made,
No step is onl the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dreamn, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhlere, meet we must.
Al,s for him who never sees
The stars shine thlroug,i his cypress-trees
Whlo, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
A(ross the mournful marbl)les play!
Whio hatli not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and senise ullnknown,
31 
32       SNOW-BOUIND.
That Life is ever lord Of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!
Ve sped tile time withI stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-l)ook lore
The Chief of Gambia's golden shore."
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery's shiapinig hand,
As if a trumpet called, I've heard
Damie Mercv Wa,:ren's rousing word:
"])oes not the voice of reasoil cry,
C~ai'  tle fitrest right     which liature gave,
Fj'oi~ tie red scourye of bondtgyejty,
NVor deigz to live a burdened slave! 
I              I
I                                                                                                                                                                             iji  
SNOW-BOUND
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog's wooled( side;
Sat down again to iioose acd sartlp
In trapper's hut and Indian camp;
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. Frallnois' hlemlock-trees;
Ag,ain for him the moonlighlit shone
On Norman cap and hodiced( zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village (lance awav,
And mingled in its merrv whirl
The grandam and the laughoing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury's level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden l)ee;
35 
SNOW-BOUND.
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
36 
SNOW-BOUND.
The square sail of the gundalow
And idle lay the useless oars.
Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking,-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came (I(wn
At midnight on Cochecho town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-inark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fittingI 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;
37 
38       SNOW-BOUND.
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
it 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 onl 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-b)rown
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 
SNOW-BOUND.
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,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley'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 eyves 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,
39 
+0    SNOW-BOUND.
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddeilly, as if to save
The g,ood man from his living, grave,
A ripple on the water grev,
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 Abrahamn."
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature's unhouse( lyceum.
In moons and tid(les and weather wise, 
SNOW-BOUND.
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint an(d 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 ha(d meanings clear,
Like Apollotius of old,
WVho knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
41 
42    SNOW-BOUND.
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 White 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 with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 
SNOW-BOUND.
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,
43 
44     SNOW-BOUND.
And welcome wheresoe'er she went,
calin and gracious elenment,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home,
Called up her girlhood memnories,
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.
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 
I lii'i!!'i!1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I II
-4           I I I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1  
SNOW-BOUND.
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
AU  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
47 
4S8   SNOW-BOUND.
The secret of self-sacrifice.
0 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
WThose curtain never outward swings!
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 within the fadeless green 
SNOW-BOUND.
And holy peace of Paradise.
0, looking, from some heavenly hill,
Or fromn the shade of saintly palmns,
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,
49 
50      SNOW-BOUND.
Yet following me where'er I went
With dark eyes full of love's content.
Tile birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June's uncloudedj sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and birl 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 
SNOW-BOUND.
Thy love hath left inl 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,
51 
52      SNOW-BOUND.
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
l'resh-hlued and fair, where scarce appeared
'Thie uncertaiii proplhecy of bearld.
ll( teased the mittei,-blinded cat,
Played cross-pills on my uiele's hat,
Sang soigs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth's college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeomaii father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained thle power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way
Could doff at ease his scholar's gown
To peddle wares from town to town; 
Iii~ ~ ~  
SNOW-BOUND.
Or thlrough the long vacation's reach
fIn loiie!y 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 iiight,
Tile rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-iman's-buff,
And whirling plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the si1ow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,
Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame's winding yarn,
Or inirtlh-provoking versions told
55 
SNOW-BOUND.
Of classic legends rare and old,
Whereill the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the comlrmonplace of homre,
And little seemed at best the odds
'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Araxes took
Thle guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olvympus 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 scheme(d,
And( hostage from the ftlture took
In trained thought and lore of book.
56 
SNOW-BOUND.
Larg,e-brailed, clear-eyed,-  of such as he
Shall Freedona's young apostles be,
Who, following in War'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,
Made murder pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remnould, and substitute
57 
5(8   SNOW-BOUND.
For Slavery's lashl the freeman's will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in ra(liate nerve-liiies tlhehce
The quick wires of iiiteligence
Till North and Southl, together brouglht,
Shall own thle same electric thoughlt,
In peace a coimmon flag salute,
And, side ly sid(le ill lbor's free
And  unreseitful rivalry,
Harvest the fields whelreiii thlley foilit.
Another guest that winter iiglt
Flashed )ack fiom lustrous eyes the lilght.
UJnmarked by timne, and yet iot yollng, 
SNOW-BOUND.
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
Iter unbent will's majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the
lasb,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And und er low brows, black with night,
59 
60      SNOW-BOUND.
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
Thle sharp heat-li,ghtiinigs of her face
Presa,giig ill to him whom Fite
Con(lelmned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thout,ght and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The vixen and the devotee,
Revealing, with each freak or feilit
The temper of Petruchio's Kate,
Thle raptures of Siena's saint.
Her taperirng hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warin, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath's surprise. 
SNOW-BOUND.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every chaig,e of scowl ald 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 gow
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through  Smyrnla's  plague-hushed
oughfares,
Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thly tomibs and shlrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
61
thor 
SNOW-BOUND.
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unirestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and freshk
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,
62 
I -  —
1                                          1   --  -   --  
SNOW-BOUTND.
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,
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,
65 
66       SNOW-BOUND.
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! I
At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull's-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: 
SNOW-BOUND.
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
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)
67 
68    SNOW-BOUND.
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,
Till in the summer-land of dreams 
SNOW-BOUND.
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 struggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
69 
70       SNOW-BOUND.
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 ravine,
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,
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, 
0  1,
1, 
I 
SNOW-BOUND.
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,
73 
SNOW-BOUND.
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,
AndI melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!
So days went on; a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o'er,
Read and re-read our little store,
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
74 
II                                              /  
SNOW-BOUND.
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.
77 
78       SNOW-BOUND.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypl-iltis Mainote Greeks,
A Turk's head at each sa(dlUe-bow!
Welcoime to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
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; 
SNOW-BOUND. 
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!
Clasp, Angel of the backward look
And folded wings of aslien 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 monog,Taphs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
79
la 
80       SNOW-BOUND.
Green hills of life that slope to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
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! 
SNOW-BOUND.
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-tire's blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Or lilies floating in some pond,
81 
82    SNOW-BOUND.
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 TENT ON THE BEACH, 
,
,if  
The Tent on the Beachl 
CONTENTS.
Page
.    9
21
. 33
47
.  5.,
60
~ 67
76
. 82
88
rHE TENT ON THE BEACH..
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH.
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE...
THE BROTOEK OF MERCY....
TiiF CIIANGELING........
TIDE MAIDS OF ATTITASH...
KA.LLUNDBOORG CHURCH..
TIlE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL 
THIIE PALATINEF....
ABRAIIAM DAVENPORT.,, 
. I. _,.1
m 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Tent on the Beach....  Frontispiec.
Page
"And fair are the sunny isles"..  e  23
"The skipper hauled at the heavy sail"... 27
"Rake out the red coals, goodman"..    53
"The dead ship looms
Against the dusk of land".......    77 
I
N 
I 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
- ~    HEN heats as of a tropic clime
'1  Burned  all  our  inland  valleys
tlhrough,
Three friends, the guests of summer time,
Pitched their white tenit where sea-winds
blew.
Behlind them, marshes, seamed and crossed
W1Vith narrow creeks, and flower-embossed,
Stretched to the dark oak wood, whose leaty
arms
Screened from the stormy East the pleasant
illand farms.
At full of tide their bolder shore
Of sunl-bleached sand the waters beat;
At ebb, a smnooth and glistening floor
They touched withl light, receding feet. 
12     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Northward a green bluff broke the chain
Of sand-hiills; southward stretched a plain
Of salt grass, with a river winding down,
Sail-whlitened, and beyond the steeples of the
town.
Whence sometimes, when the wind was light
And dull the thunder of the beach,
They heard the bells of morn and night
Swing, miles away, their silver speech.
Above low scarp and turf-grown wall
They saw the fort flag rise and fall;
And, the first star to signal twilight's hour,
The lamp-fire glimmer down from the tall light       house tower.
They rested there, escaped awhile
From cares that wear the life away,
To eat the lotus of the Nile
Aixl drink the poppies of Cathay,
To fling their loads of custom down,
Like drift-weed, on the saud-slopes brown,
And in the sea waves drown the restless pack
Of duties, claims, and needs that barked'upon
their track. 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH.  13
One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore
A ready credence in his looks,
A lettered magnate, lording o'er
An ever-widening realm of books.
In him brain-currents, near and far,
Converged as in a Leyden jar;
The old, dead authors thronged him round
about,
And Elzevir's gray ghosts from leathern graves
looked out.
He knew each living pundit well,
Could weigh the gifts of him or her,
And well the market value tell
Of poet and philosopher.
But if he lost, the scenes behind,
Somewhat of reverence vague and blind,
Finding the actors human at the best,
No readier lips than his the good he saw con.
fessed.
His boyhood fancies not outgrown,
He loved himself the singer's art;
Tenderly, gently, by his own
He knew and judged all authlor's heart. 
14. THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
No Rlhadamalntlline brow of doom
Bowed thle dazed pedant fromi his room;
And b)ards, wllose name is legion, if denied,
Bore off alike inltact their verses and their pride
Pleasant it was to roam abont
Thle lettered world as hec had done,
And see tlhe lords of song witl-iout
Their singing robes and garlands on.
Withl Wordsworth paddle Rydal mere,
Taste rugged Elliott's lhome-brewed beer,
And with thle cars of Rtogers, at fourscore,
Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's
wit once more.
And one there was, a dreamer borln,
Wlio, withl a mission to fulfil,
Had left the Muses' liaunts to turn
The crank of ai opinion-mill,
Making his rustic reed of song
A weapon in the war withl wrong,
Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough
That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to
spring and grow. 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Too quiet seemed tlhe mati to ride
Thle winged Jti')po,griff RIteform;
Was his a voice fionl side to side
To p)ierce tlhe tuniult of tlhe storm?
A silent, sliy, p,ace-loviiig man,
IJ.e seenied no fiery )partisan
To hlold his way against the pul)lic frown,
The ball of Cllurch and State, the fierce miob's
hotunding down.
For whlile lie wroughlt witli strenuous will
Thle work llis lhands hlad found to do,
iee hleard tlie fitftil music still
Of winds thllat out of dream-land blew.
The din about hlim could not drown
What the strange voices whispered down;
Along his task-field weird processions swept,
The  visionary  pomp  of  stately  plhanltoms
stepped.
The comnmon air was tlick withl dreams,  lie told tlheii to the toiling crowd;
Such music as the woods and streams
Sang in his ear lie sang aloud;
In still, shlt bays, on windy capes,
15 
16     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
He heard the call of beckoning shapes,
And, as the gray old shadows prompted him,
To homely moulds of )hylne he shaped their
legends grim.
He rested now his weary ILands,
And lightly moralized anid laughed,
As, tracing on the shifting sands
A burlesctue of his paper-craft,
He saw the careless waves o'errun
His words, as time before had done,
Each dav's tidewater wasliiilg clean away,
b,ike k'ters from the sanid, the work of yester
dav.
And one, whose Arab face was tamnned
By tropic sun and boreal frost,
So travelled there was scarce a land
Or people left him to exhaust,
Iu idling mood had from him hurled
- The poor squeezed orange of the world,
And in the tent-shade, as beneath a palm,
Snoked, cross-legged like a Turk, in Orienta.
calm. 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
The very waves that washed thile sand
Below him, hlie had seen before
Wlhiteringi the Scandinavian strand
And sultry Mauritanian shore.
From ice-rimmed isles, from summner seas
Palm-fringed, they bore him messages;
He   heard tihe plaintive Nubian songs again,
And mule-bells tinkling down the mountain       pathls of Spain.
His memory round the ransacked earth
On Ariel's girdle slid at ease;
Anld, instant, to the valley's girth
Of nmountains, spice isles of the seas,
Faith flowered in minster stones, Art's guess
At truth and beauty, found access;
Yet loved the while, that free cosmopolite,
Old friends, old ways, and kept his boyhood's
dreams in sight.
Untouched as yet by wealth and pride,
That virgin innocence of beach:
No shingly monster, hundred-eyed,
Stared its gray sand-birds out of reach;
Unhoused, save where, at intervals,
17 
18     THE TENT ON THIE BEACH.
The white tents showed their canvas walls,
Where brief sojourners, ill the cool, soft air,
Forgot their inland heats, hard toil, and year.
long care.
Sometimes along the wheel-deep sand
A one-hlorse wagon slowly crawled,
Deep laden with a youthful band,
Whose look some homestead old recalled;
Brother perchance, and sisters twain,
And one whose blue eyes told, more plain
Than the firee language of her rosy lip,
Of the still dearer claim of love's relationship.
With cheeks of russet-orchlard tint,
Tile light laugh of their native rills,
The perfume of their garden's mint,
The breezy freedom of the hills,
They bore, in unrestrained delight,
The motto of the Garter's knight,
Careless as if from every gazing thing
Hid by their innocence, as Gyges by his ring.
The clanging sea-fowl came and went,
The lhunter's gun ill the marshes rang; 
THE TENIT ON THE BEACH.
At nightfall from a neighboring teat
A flute-voiced woman sweetly sang.
Loose-hlaired, barefooted, hand iln hand,
Yotung girls went tripping down thle sand;
And youthls and maidens, sitting in the moon,
Dreamed o'er thle old fond dream fromn which we
wake too soon.
At times their fishing-lines they plied,
Withl an old Triton at the oar,
Salt as thle sea-wind, tough and dried
As a lean cusk fromn Labrador.
Strang,e tales he told of wreck and storm,  Had seen the sea-snake's awful form,
And heard the ghosts on Haley's Isle complain,
Speak him off shore, and beg a passage to old
Spaill!
And thiere, onl breezy morns, thev saw
Tile fisllhing-scliooners outward run,
Their low-bent sails ill tack and flaw
Turned white or dark to shade and sun.
Sometimnes, in callms of closing day,
Thley watched the spectral mirage play,
19 
20     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh,
And shlips, withi upturned keels, sail like a sea
the sky.
Sometimies a cloud, with thunder black,
Stooped low upon tthe darkeninig main,
Piercing the waves along its track
Witli the slanit javelins of railn.
And when west-wind and suinshine warm
Chlased out to sea its wrecks of storm,
They saw the prismrny hues in thin spray showers
WVliere the green buds of waves  burst into
whlite froth flowers.
And wlhen along thle line of shiore
Thle nists crept upward cllill and damp,
St, ietclied, careless, on their sandy floor
Bnceatli the flaring lant,ern lamp,
Tliey talked of all things old and new,
Read, slept, tand dreaiiied as idlers do;
And in thle iunquestioned freedom of the tenlt,
Body and o'ertaxed mind to hlealthlful ease un.
bent.
OIce, whln the sunset splendors died,
And, tranlipliig up the sloping sand, 
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH.   21
In lijaes outreaching far and wide,
The white-maned billows swept to laud,
Dim seen across the gattlhering shlade,
A vast al)d ghIostly cavalcade,
They sat around their lighlted kerosene,
Hearinlg the deep bass roar tlieir every pause
between.
Then, urged thereto, thle Editor
Within h1is full portfolio dipped,
Feigning excuse vwhile searching for
(Withl secret pride) his maniiscript.
His pale face fluslied from eye to beard,
With nervous cougth his throat lhe cleared,
And, ill a voice so trenitilous it betrayed
The anxious fondness of an authlor's lieart, lhe
read:
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH.
RIVER3MOUTH Rockls are fair to see,
By dawnl or sunset slhone across,
Whel  the el)bb of thle sea hlas left them free,
To dry their fringes of gold-greeln mioss: 
22    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
For there the river comnes winding down
Fromt salt sea-meadows and uplands brown,
And waves on the outer rocks afoam
Shout to its waters, " Welcomne home! "
And fair are the sunny isles in view
East of the grisly Head of the Boar,
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 down tlhroughl the winding ways
Of Hampton River to that low shiore,
Full of a goodly company
Sailing out oln the summer sea,
Veering to catch the laud-breeze light,
With the Boar to left and thle Rocks to right.
In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid
Thli3ir scythes to the swaths of salted grass, 
"And fair are the sunny isles."  
THE WRECK OF RIVERMIOUTH.   25
"Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!'
A young man sighed, who saw them pass.
Loud laughied his fellows to see hliin stand
Whetting his scythe with a listless hand,
IHeariug a voice ill a far-off sonllg,
Watching a white hand beckoning long.
"Fie onl the witch!" cried a merry girl,
As they rounded the point where Goody Cole
Sat by her door withl 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,
'The broth will be cold that waits at home;
For it's one to go, but another to comte!'"
"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 -Hamptonl River the boat sailed out, 
26     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed
nigh,
And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye.
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 throughl;
Aid muffled growls, like the growl of a beast,
Ran along the sky from west to east.
Then the skipper looked from the darkening
sea
Up to the dimmned and wading sun;
But hlie 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!" lie only cried, 
The skipper hauled at the heavy sail  
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH.    29
As thie roaring gale, like tile stroke of a flail,
Smote the boat on its starboard side.
Tile SlIoalsneio looked, but saw alone
Dark filns of rain-cloud slantwise blown,
MWild rocks lit ul) by the liglitiitig'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.
Sihe 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 througlt cloudy rack;
The Shloals stood clear in the li,ght, and all
The trend of the coast lay lhard and black.
But far and wide as eye could reach,
No life was seen upon wave or beach;
The boat tltat went oltt at notiirui   never
Sailed back again into Hampton River. 
30    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
O mnower, lean on thy bended snatlh,
Look from the meadows green and lor
The wind of the sea is a waft of dentll,
Tile waves are singing a song of wne 
By silent river, by moalling sea,
Long and vain shiall thy watching beNever again shall the sweet voice calii,
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 alil sea-weed where they lay.
Tile mad old witch-wife wailed and wept,
And cursed the tide as it backward crept:
"Crawl back, crawl back, bloe water-snake!
Leave your dead for the hearts that break! "
Solemn it was in that old day,
InI Hampton town and its log-built church,
Where side by side the coffins lay
And the mourners stood in aisle and porch.
In the singing-seats young eyes were dim,
The voices faltered that raised the hymn, 
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH.   31
And Fatlier Daltoni, grave aid stern,
Sobbed thirougli his prayer and wept in turn.
Bit hlis ancient colleague did not pray,
Because of his sin at fourscore years
I-le stood apairt, with thle iron-gray
Of llis stro,ng b)rows knitted to hide his tears.
And a wretchled woman, holding her breath
IT  the awful presence of sill and death,
Cowered  and  shranik,  while hier neighbors
thronged
To look onl the dead her shiame had wrolinged.
Apart withi tihem, like them forbid,
Old Goody Cole looked drearily rounid,
As, two by tlwo, wit li their faees hid,
Thle mourners walked to the biiriyinig-ground.
Slie let the staff from lier clasped lihands fall:
"Lord, foirgive us! we're sinniers all!"
And thle voice of the old man answered her:
"Amen! " said Father Bachiler.
So, as I sat upon Appledore
In thle calmn of a closing sunmmer day,
AInd tlhe broken lines of T-Ha,mpton shore
In purple mist of clouidland lay, 
32     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
The Rivermouthli Rocks their story told;
And waves aglow withl sunset gold,
Risiig and breaking in steady chlime,
Beat the rhlytlhmn and kept the time.
And thle sunset paled, and warmed once more
Withl a softer, tenderer after-glow;
In thle east was moonl-rise, withl boats off-shore
And sails ill thle distance drifting slow.
Thle beacon glimmiered from Portsmnouth bar,
The White Isle kindled its great red star;
And lite ald deathi ill mny old-time lay
Mingled in peace like the night and day!
Well!" said the Man of Books, "your
story
Is not ill told in pleasant verse.
As the Colt said of purgatory,
One mi,ghit go farthier anld fare worse."
The reader sniled; and once agaiI
Withl steadier voice took up his strain,
Wliile the fair singer fromll thle neilghborilg tent
il'w near, and at his side a graceful listener
bent. 
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE.
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE.
WHERE the Great Lake's sunny smiles
Dimiple round its hbundred isles,
And the mountain's granite ledge
Cleaves the water like a wedge,
Ringed about with smooth, gray stones,
Rest the giant's milghty bones.
Close beside, in shade and gleam,
Laughs and ripples Melvin stream;
Melvin water, miountain-born,
All fair flowers its banks adorni;
All the woodland's voices meet,
Mingling with its murmurs sweet.
Over lowlands forest-grown,
Over waters island-strown,
Over silver-sanded beach,
Leaf-locked bay and misty reach,
Melvin stream and burial-heap,
Watch and ward the mountains keep.
33 
34    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Who that Titain eioluleell fills?
Forest-kaiser, lord o' thle hills?
Knlighlt whlo on t,lhe birclhen tree
Carved his savage heraldry'?
Priest o' the pinie-wood temples dinm,
Proplhet, sage, or wvizard grim'?
Rugged type of prinal iman,
Griiii utilitarian,
Loviag woods for lunit alnd prowl,
Lake and hill f(cr -fishl and fowl,
As the brown bear blind and dull
To the graiid and beautiful:
Not for him the lesson drawa
From the nmoultains sinit with dawml
Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May,
uinset's purple bloom of day, -
Took bis life no hlue froim  llhenee,
Poor amid such affluene?
HIaply Iuito hill ard tree
All too  near akini was lie:
Ulnto lhimi whlo sttands afair
Nature's marvels greatest are; 
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE.
Wlio thle mountain pnurple saeks
Must not climb the high,ier peaks.
Yet whlo knows in winter tramp,
Or i lie midnight of t lie camli),
WVliat revealings faint and fni,
Stealing down fromi mooni and star,
Kildled in that hlmana  clod
Thloughlt of destiiiy and God?
Stateliest forest patriarch,
Grand in robes of skin -and bark,
What sepulchral mysteries,
What weird ftuneral-rites, were his?
Whlat shlarp wail, wllat drear lament,
Back seared wolf and eagle sent?
Now, whate'er he may have been,
Low lie lies as othler men;
On his inound the partridge drums,
There the noisy blue-jay comes;
Rank nor namne nor pomp has lie
In the grave's democracy.
Part thy blue lips, Northlern lake!
Moss-grown rocks, your silence break!
33 
36     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Tell the tale, thou ancient tree!
Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee!
Speak, and tell us howv and when
Lived and died this king of ien!
Wordless moans the ancient pine;
Lake and iaountain give no sign;
Vaiii to trace this ring of stones;
Vaiii the search of crumbling bones:
Deepest of all mysteries,
And the saddest, silence is.
Namneless, noteless, clay with clay
Mingles slowly day by day;
But somewhere, for good or ill,
That dark soul is living still;
Somewhere yet that atom's force
Moves the lighlt-poised universe.
Strange that on his burial-sod
Harebells bloom, and golden-rod,
While the soul's dark horoscope
Holds no starry sign of hope!
Is thle Unseenl withl sight at odds?
Nature's pity more than God's? 
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE.
Thos I mused by Melvin side,
While the summier eventide
MIade thle woods and uinland sea
And the Inou:ltainis mystery;
And the hush of eartlh and air
Seemned the pause before a prayer,
Prayer for hin), for all who rest,
Mother Earth, upon thy breast,
Lapped onl Christian turf, or hid
In rock-cave or pyramid:
All who sleep, as all who live,
Well may need the prayer, "Forgive!"
D)esert-smotliered caravan,
Knee-deep dust that once was man,
Battle4-trenches ghastly piled,
Ocean-floors withl white bones tiled,
Crow(led tomb and mounded sod,
Dumbly crave that prayer to God.
O the generations old
Over whom no chlurchl-bells tolled,
Chliristless, lifting up blind eyes
To the silence of the skies!
37 
.1 
--                     -                                 -~~~~~~C
0                                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CD
~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~C I D -,
CD, 
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE.
Fiery-liked tile self-forged ellain
Biodiog ever sini to pailn,
Stron]g tI'ir prisoo-i ouise of will,
But witltottt bhe   aitetli still.
"Not witl It hattred's uotdertow
Dotlt tlie Love Eteroal flow;
Every chlain that spirits wear
Cruihbles in thle breath of prayer;
And the peniiteit's desire
Openls every gate of fire.
"Still tlily love, O  Chlrist arisen,
Yeari-is to  eachl tIese souls inl prison!
Tliroli all deptlis of sin aod loss
Diops tlhe plunmmet of tlhy cross!
Never yet ayl)ss wias fotind
Deeper tlhan that cross could sound!"
Tllerefore well omayi Natuoie keep
Eqlial fiitll it all whlo sieep,
Set ier watchl of lills  rounid
Chrlistialn griave and licetlieni mound,
And to caiirn and kirkvard send
Summt er's flowery dividend.
* * * ***
39 
40    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream,
Thy sweet laugh inl shade and gleam!
On the Indiai's grassy tomb
Swing, O flowers, your bells of bloom!
Deep below, as high above,
Sweeps the circle of God's love.
He paused and questioned with his eye
The hearers' verdict on his song.
A low voice asked: "Is't well to pry
Into the secrets whichi belong
Only to God?-The life to be
Is still the unguessed mystery:
UIscaled, unpierced the cloudy walls remain,
We beat with dream and wish the soundless
doors in vain.
"But faith beyond our sight may go."
lie said: "Thle gracious Fatherhood
Can only know above, below,
Eternal purposes of good.
From our free heritage of will,
The bitter sprinigs of pain and ill
.,.       -.,., 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Flow only ill all worlds. The perfect day
Of God is shladowless, and love is love alway, "
I know," she said, " the letter kills;
That onl our arid fields of strife
And hleat of clashing texts distils
The dew of spirit and of life.
But, searching still the written Word,
I fain would find, Thus saithli the Lord,
A voucher for the hope I also feel
That sin can give no wound beyond  love's
power to heal."
"Pray," said the Man of Books, "give o'er
A themne too vast for time and place.
Go on, Sir Poet, ride once more
Your hobby at his old free pace.
But let him keep, with step discreet,
The solid earth beneath his feet.
In the great mystery whichi around us lies,
The wisest is a fool, the fool Heaven-helped is
wise."
The Traveller said: "If songs have creeds,
Their choice of themn let singers make;
41 
42    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
But Art no other sanctioii needs
ThaLl   beauty l'or its ow'ii fair sake.
It gi dll(ls lnot ilL the iJill of uise,
Nor a.sks for leave, nior l)e,es exctuse;
It makes tlhe flexile laws it, deigns to ollwn,
And gives its atmiiisl)liere its color iditl its tone.
"Confess, old firiend, your austere school
lIas left your fancy little clhace;
You squllre to reasoii's rigi(d rule
Tile flowiog olttlilies of roioantce.
Witll coliscieilce keen f'rom exercise,
Anid cllroiiic t'ea" of coniproitiise,
You cleclk tle, free plaLy of your rliyliiies, to ci.p
A mioral underneathl, aitd sprillg il like a trap."
The swee  t voice anisweredl: "Bettcer so
VTlan bolder fcl ligi~sm ltS!l.t kxow 110o check;
BeItter t 0 its? th:- )it, t       tllit lrow
Tl'1'' eril l luo)s'3 (iti flie's ulcCk.
Thle  liberal raii'e (t' \r  slltid o ld
Tile bret;dll o' Cllrisltil li    lierty,
R:striniieil,  oul c by ciiilleig.   nidI alarm
Wlheire its elitreed fo)iotstelps tread  the border
lanld of ha-rm. 
Talces iii tthe  cr-owded  sail, aeiic Icts~ Lii  coii        scieaeeo steer.
TliaaTis for thei fit~tiog-,or(I loe speeL,ls
Nor less for doatl)tfaul v'oi-d -Liispolecil;
For ilic fa ieiodecl ttiit, liec~~ek'
A~s for  li,, oiiio-l(.d gir,ce- iiitiolciroia;
For  whiat is ii-ii,sfed ttild wli,.it ri- ciusaii,
FUor losses v,;liieli -ire truec.st, fiiaI,
Fior- reverecei  eoasiisi"iis or t i' Eterae,,l eye,
Aiid  rt ittl too fL,iji to aiced iII l ~ie IL'rlisli Of a- 12O."
Laughingll, thec Ci-itie h,okied.   "I -yield
The poiiit wil~lioat titotlier word;
Wlio ever- yet, a (case alipealedl
Wlici-(e hecauty's jodgiyeciit, laid heeii hecar-d?
Aaid yotu, miy good frieud, owe to mei
Your'variiies,t tliaiks f'or sueli a plea, 
44     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
As true withal as sweet.  For my offence
Of cavil, let her words be ample recompense."
Across the sea one large, low star,
Witli crimson light that came and went,
Revolving on its towel afatr,
Looked tlhroughl the doorway of the tent.
Wlhile outward, over sand-slopes wet,
The lamp flashed down its yellow jet
Onl the long washl of waves, with red and green
Tangles of weltering weed thiroughl the white
foam-wreaths seen.
' Sing wljile we may, - another day
May bring eciouglh of sorrow'; -  thus
Our Traveller in his owni  sweet lay,
His Crimnean camp-song, hints to us,"
The lady said. " So let it be;
Sing us a song," exclainied all three.
She smiled: "I can but marvel at your choice
To  hear our poet's words tlhrDugh my poor
borrowed voice."
Her window opens to the bay,
Onl glistening light or misty gray, 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
And there at dawn and set of day
In prayer she kneels:
"Dear Lord!" she saith, " to many a home
From wind and wave the wanderers come;
I only see tile tossing foani
Of stranger keels.
"Blown out and in by summer gales,
The stately ships, with crowded sails,
And sailors leaning o'er their rails,
Before me glide;
They come, they go, but nevermore,
Spice-laden from the Indian shore,
I see his swift-winged Isidore
The waves divide.
" O Thou! with whom the night is day
And one the near and far away,
Look out on you gray waste, and say
Where lingers he.
Alive, perchance, on some lone beach
Or thirsty isle beyond the reach
Of man, lie ihears the mocking speech
Of wind and sea.
45 
16'TH'E TENT ON THE BEACH.
"0 dread a(nd cruel deep, reveal
The secret whliclh tliy wlaves conceal,
And, ye wild sea-birds, hithler wlheel
And tell your tale.
Let willds that tossed his raveiill hair
A message fromi my lost oine bear,
Some thotughlt of mie, a last fonid prayer
Or dying wail!
"Come, withl your dreariest truth sliut out
The fears that hlaunt me round about;
O God! I cainot bear this doubt
That stifles breath.
The worst is better than the dread;
Give nme but leave to mourn my dead
Asleep in trust and hlope, instead
Of life in deathl!"
It mighlt lbave been the eveninig breeze
That whispered in thle garden trees,
It mnighlt have b)een tl!e souid of seas
Thlat; rose and tfell;
But, withl her hieart, if not her ear,
The old loved voice slie seenmed to hear: 
THE BROTHER OF MERCY.
"I wait to meet tlee: ba of chleer,
For all is well!"
Thie sweet voice into silence went,
A silencev wl)icll was almost )pain
As thlrough it rolled the lonig lament,
Tile cadence of tl)e mourntful main.
Glancing Ilis writtell pages o'er,
The R,ader tried his part once more;
Leaving the land of lhacikmatack.and pine
For Tuscan valleys glad withl olive and with
vine.
THE BROTHER OF MERCY.
PIERO LUCA, known of all the town
As tile gray p)orter by thle Pitti wall
Wherl t,lle noon shadows of tlhe gardens fall,
Sick iand iii dolor, waited to lay down
His last sad burden, a(nd beside llis iaat
T1- barefoot monk of La Certosa sat.
14 I' 
48    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Unseen, ill square and blossoming garden
drifted,
Soft sunset lights through green Val d' Arno
sifted;
Unhleard, below the living shuttles shifted
Backward and forth, and wove, in love or strife,
In mirth or pain, the mottled web of life:
But when at last came upward from the street
Tinkle of bell and tread of measured feet,
The sick man started, strove to rise in vain,
Sinking back heavily with a moan of pain.
And the monk said, "'T is but the Brotherhood
Of Mercy going on some errand good:
Their black masks by the palace-wall I see."
Piero answered faintly, " Woe is me!
This day for the first time in forty years
In vain the bell hath sounded in my ears,
Calling me with my brethren of the mask,
Beggar and prince alike, to some new task
Of love or pity,- haply from the street
ro bear a wretch plague-stricken, or, with feet
Hflushed to the quickened ear and feverish brain,
To tread the crowded lazaretto's floors,
Down the long twilight of the corridors,
Midst tossing arns and faces full of pain. 
THE BROTHER OF MERCY.
I loved tihe work: it was its own reward.
I never counted on it to offset
My sills, which are manyv, or make less my debt
To the free grace and mercy of our Lord
But somehow, father, it has come to be
In these long years so mulch a part of me,
I should not know myself, if lacking it,
But with the work the worker too would die,
And in my place some other self would sit
Joyful or sad, — what matters, if not I?
And now all's over.  Woe  is me!" - "My
sonl,"
The monk said soothingly, "thy work is doie;
And no more as a servant, but the guest
Of God thou enterest thy eternal rest.
No toil, no tears, no sorrow for tile lost
Shlall mar thy perfect bliss. Thlou shalt sit down
Clad in white robes, and wear a golden crowii
Forever and forever." —- Piero tossed
Oni his sick pillow: "Miserable me!
1 am too poor for such grand compally;
Tile crown would be too heavy for this gray
Old hlead; and God forgive me if I say
It would be lhard to sit there night and day
Like an image iln the Tribuue, doing naught
49 
50     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
With these bard hands, that all my life have
wrought,
Not for bread only, but for pity's sake.
I'm dull at prayers: I could not keep awake,
Counting my beads.  Mine's but a crazy head,
Scarce worth the saving, if all else be dead.
And if one goes to heaven without a heart,
God knows he leaves behind his better part.
I love my fellow-men; the worst I know
I would do good to. Will death change me so
That I shall sit among the lazy saints,
Turning a deaf ear to the sore complaints
Of souls that suffer?  Why, I never yet
Left a poor dog in the strada hard beset,
Or ass o'erladen! Must I rate man less
Thani dog or ass, iii holy selfishness?
Methinks (Lord, pardon, if the thought be sin!),
The world of pain were better, if therein
One's heart might still be human, and desires
Of natural pity drop upon its fires
Some cooling tears."
Thereat the pale monk crossed
Hlis brow, and, muttering, "Madmian! thou art
lost!" 
Took up his pyx and fled; and, Ieft alone, 
THE BROTHER OF MERCY.
The sick man closed his eyes with a great groan
That sank into a prayer, "Thy will be done!"
Then was he made aware, by soul or ear,
Of somewhat pure and holy bending o'er him,
And of a voice like that of her who bore him,
Tender and most compassionate: "Never fear!
for heaven is love, as God himself is love;
Thy work below shall be thy work above."
And when he looked, lo! in the stern mionk's
place
lie saw the shining of anll angel's face!
The Traveller broke the pause.  "I've seen
The Brothers down the long street steal,
Black, silent, masked, the crowd between,
And felt to doff my hat and kneel
With heart, if not with knee, in prayer,
For blessings on their pious care."
The Reader wiped his glasses: "Friends of
mine,
We'11 try our home-brewed next, instead of
foreign wine."
51 
52     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
THE CHANGELING.
FOR the fairest maid ill Halmpton
They needed not to search,
Who saw yvoung Allnna Favor
Comne walking into church,
Or bringing from the mneadows,
At set of harvest-day,
The frolic of the bl)ackbirds,
The sweetness of the hay.
Now the weariest of all mothers,
The saddest two-years bride,
She scowls ill the face of her husband,
Anld spurns her child aside.
" Rake out the red coals, goodman, —
For there the child stall lie,
Till thie black witchl comes to fetch her
And both up chimnitey fly.
It's never mny own little daughter,
It's never ily ownl," she said; 
out the red coals, goodman."  
THE CHANGELING.
"The witenes have stolen my Alta,
And left mie an imp instead.
"0 fair and sweet was many baby,
Blue eyes, and hair of gold;
But this is ugly and wrinkled
Cross, and cuining, and old.
"I hate the touch of her fingers,
I hate the feel of her skin;
It's not the milk friom my bosom,
But my blood, that she sucks in.
"My face grows sharp withl the torment;
Look! my arnms are skin and bonle!Rake open the red coals, goodmain,
And the witch sltall have her own.
'She'11 come when shle lhears it crying,
In the shape of an owl or hat,
And she'11 bring us our darling Ainna
In place of her screechinig brat.'"
Then the goodman, Ezra Dalton,
Laid his hand upon her head:
55 
56    TITE TENT ON THE BEACH.
"Thy sorrow is great, O woman!
I sorrow with thee," he said.
"The paths to trouble are many,
And never but one sure way
Leads out to the light beyond it:
My poor wife, let us pray."
Then he said to the great All-Fathler,
"Thy daughter is weak and blind;
Let her sight come back, and clothe her
Onee mnore in her right miinid.
"Lead her out of this evil shadow,
Out of these faincies wild;
Let the holy love of the mother
Turn again to her child.
"Make hier lips like the lips of Mary
Kissing, hier blessed Son;
Let her liands, like the hands of Jesus,
Rest on her little one.
"Comfort tIle soul of thy handmraid,
Op)e, her prison-door, 
THE CHANGELING.
And thine shall be all the glory
And praise forevermore."
Theni illto the face of its mother
Thie baby looked up) and smiled;
And the cloud of her soul was lifted,
And shle knew her little child.
A beam of the slant west sunshine
Made the wan face almost fair,
Lit thile blue eyes' patient wonder,
And the rings of pale gold hair.
Shle kissed it on lip and forehead,
Shle kissed it on cheek and chin,
And she bared her snow-whlite bosom
To the lips so pale and thin.
0, fair on her bridal morning
Was the maid who blushed and smiled,
But firer to Ezra Dalton
Looked the mothei of his child.
Witlih nmore than a lover's fondness
He stooped to her worn young face,
57 
i8    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
And the nursing child and the mother
He folded in one embrace.
"Blessed be God!" hle murmured.
"Blessed be God! " she said;
"For I see, who once was blinded, -
I live, who once was dead.
" Now mount and ride, my goodman,
As thou lovest thy own soul!
Woe's me, if my wicked fancies
Be the deathli of Goody Cole!"
Ilis horse he saddled and bridled,
And into the night rode hlie,Now through the great black woodland,
Now by the white-beached sea.
He rode thirough the silent clearings,
He came to the ferry wide,
And thrice he called to the boatman
Asleep on the other side.
He set his horse to thle river,
He swam to Newbiury town, 
THE CHANGELING.
And he called up Justice Sewall
in ihis nightcap and his gown.
And the grave and worshipful justice
(Upon whose soul be peace!)
Set his name to the jailer's warrant
For Goodwife Cole's release.
Then through the night the hoof-beats
Went sounding like a flail;
And Goody Cole at cockcrow
Came forth from Ipswich jail.
" Here is a rhyme:- I hardly dare
To venture on its theme worn out;
What seems so sweet by Doon and Ayr
Sounds simply silly hereabout:
And pipes by lips Arcadian blown
Are only tiii horns at our own.
Yet still the inmuse of pastoral walkls with us,
While Hosea Biglow sings, our new Tleoc      ritus."
59 
60     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH.
IN sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue lills of Nottinghlam
ThrIIou,gh gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen, -
Whlen, in thle shadow of the ash
Thiat dreams its dream in Attitash,
In the warmi summer weathler,
Two maidenls sat togetlier.
Thley sat and watched in idle miood
Tile gleam and shlade of lake and wood,
Thle beachl the keen light smote,
The white sail of a boat,
Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lyiug,
In sweetness, iiot in music, dyiug, -
IHardhlack, aind virgini's-bower,
Anld white-spiked clethlira-flower.
Witli careless ears thley heard thle plash
Aud breezy wasl  of Attitaslh, 
THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH.
The wood bird's plaintive cry,
The locust's sharp reply.
A'(i teased the whilee, witl  playful hand,
The slhaggy dog of Newfound(iland,
\Wiose unIcouthl frolic spilled
Their baskets berry-tilled.
Theni one, the beauty of wlhose eyes
Was evermore a grieat sturprise,
Tossed back her qmeeily lhead,
And, liglhtly laughing, said,
"No bridegroom's lanid be mille to hold
That is not lined witl y,ellow gold;
I tread nlo cottage-floor;
I own 110 lover poor.
"My love must come on silken wiogs,
With bridal ligllts of diamond riug,s,  Not foul with kitclieii snirch,l,
Withl tallow-dip for torch."
The other, on whose miodest, hlead
Was lesser dower of beauty sled,
61 
62    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
With look for home-learths meet,
And voice exceeding sweet,
Answered, - " We will not rivals be;
Take thou the gold, leave love to me;
Mihne be the cottage smnall,
And thine the rich man's hall.
"I know, indeed, that wealth is good;
But lowly roof and simple food,
With love that hath no doubt,
Are more than gold without."
Hard by a farmer hale anid young
His cradle in the rye-field swung,
Tracking the yellow plain
With windrows of ripe grain.
And still, whene'er he paused to whet
His scythe, the sidelong glance he met
Of large dark eyes, where strove
False pride and secret love.
Be strong, yoiung mower of the grain;
That love shall overmatchl disdain, 
THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH.
Its instincts soon or late
The heart shall vindicate.
In blouse of gray, with fishing-rod,
Half screened by leaves, a stranger trod
The mnargin of the pond,
Watching the group beyond.
The supreme hours unnoted come;
Unfelt the turning tides of doom;
And so the maids laughed on,
Nor dreamed what Fate had done, -
Nor knew the step was Destiny's
That rustled in the birchen trees,
As, with their lives forecast,
Fisher and mower passed.
Ereloug by lake and rivulet side
The summer roses paled and died,
And Autumn's fingers shed
The maple's leaves of red.
Throi,gh tile long gold-hazed afternoon,
Alone, but for the diving loou,
63 
64     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Thie partridge in the brake,
Tile black duck onl thle lake,
13iieathl the shadow of the ash
Sat mana  and maid by Attitasli;
Anld earthli and air made room
For human hearts to bloom.
Soft spread thle carpets of the sod,
And scarlet-oak and goldenrod
Withi blushes and with smiles
Lit up the forest aisles.
Thle mellow light the lake aslant,
The pebbled margin's ripple-chant
Attempered and low-toned,
The tender mystery owned
And through the dream the lovers dreamed
Sweet sounds stole ill and soft lights streamed;
Tile sunshinie seemed to bless,
The air was a caress.
Not she who lightly laughed is there,
WVithi scornful toss of midnight  hair, 
THE MAIDS OF ATTITASH.
iHer dark, disdainful eyes,
And proud lip worldly-wise.
Her hallglhty vow is still unsaid,
But all slhec dreamed and coveted
Wears, half to her surprise,
The youthful farmer's guise!
With more than all her old-time p)ride
She walks the rye-field at his side,
Careless of cot or hall,
Since love transfigures all.
Rich beyond dreams, tlhe vantage-roIIi(l,
Of life is gained; her hands have fo)ll(l
The talisman of old
That changes all to gold.
While she who could for love dispense
Witlh all its glittering accidents,
And trust her heart alone,
Finds love and gold her owin.
What wealth can buy or art ran butildl
Awaits her; but her cup is filled(
6b 
THE TENT ON THE BEAC1.
]Even now unnto the brinm;
Her world is love and him t
Tlhe while hle heard, the Bookl-man drew
A length of mnake-believing faee,
With smothered mischlief langhiiig thlrough:
Why, you slhall sit in Ramnsay's place,
And, withl his Gentle Shlepherd, keep
On Yankee hlls immortal sheep,
Wlile love-lorn swains and maids tile seas be
yond
Hold dreamy tryst around your huckleberry
pond.'
The Traveller laughed: "Sir Galahad
Singing of love the Trouvere's ]tv t
How shonld he know the blindfold lad
]-rom  one of Vulcan's forge-boys "       "Nay,"
He better sees whlo stands onutside
Tlian they who in procession ride,"
Thle Reader answered: "Selectmen and squire
aliss, whlile they make, the show that wayside
folks admire.
66 
KALLUNDBORG CHURCH.
"Here is a wild tale of the North,
Our travelled friiend will own as one
Fit for a Norlanld Chlristmas hearth
And lips of Chlristian Andersen.
They tell it in the valleys green
Of the fair island he hlas seen,
Low lying off the pleasant Swedish shore,
Washled by the Baltic Sea, anld watchled by
Elsinore."
KALLUNDBORG CHURCH.
"Tie stille, b)arn min!
Inimorgen koymnier Fin,
Fa'er din,
Og gi'er dig Esbern Snares oine og hlijerte at lege nicd!"
Zealand fh /.le.
"BUILD at Kallundborg by the sea
A chiteli as stately as churchl may be,
And thlere shlialt thou wed my dauglhter fair,"
Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare.
And the Baron laughed.  But Esbern said,
"Thoughl I lose my soul, I will Helva wed!'
e:
:'..-.:.       *.11
:..'  I.::..
6t 
68     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
,\(nd off he strode, in lis pride of will,
[r, the Troll who dwelt in Ulslioi hill.
' Bt.ld, O Troll, a church for me
Kt illundborg by thle mighty sea;
1'l i ld it stately, and build it fair,
Buil(ld it quickly," said Esbern Snare.
Bot thie sly Dwarf said, "No work is wrouglit
By Trolls of the Hills, O mali, for naughlit.
Wthat wilt thou give for thly cliureli so fair?"
"Set thy own price," quoth Esbern Snare.
" Wleni Kallundborg cliureli is builded well,
Thlou must the iname of its builder tell,
Oi thly lheart and tly eyes must be my boon."
"Build," said Esbernl, "and btild it soon."
By nighlt anld by day thlte Troll wrought on;
He hlewed the timbers, lie piled the stone;
But day by day, as the walls rose fair,
Darker aid sadder grew Esbern Snare.
He listened by nighlt, lie watched by day,
H? sonoli,t and tlhoughlt, )-lf ll1 daied i,ot pray; 
KALLUNDBORG CHURCH.
In vaiin le called on the Elle-maids shy,
And thle Neck and the Nis gave no reply.
Of his evil bargain far and wide
A runior ian thlroghl the country-side;
And Helva of Nesvek, young and fair,
Prayed for the soul of Esbern Snare.
And now the churchl  was well  ighli done;
One pillar it lacked, and one alone;
And the grimi Troll muttered, " Fool thlou art!
To-nioirow gives nie thy eyes and heart,!"
By Kallundborg ill black despair,
Throughl  wood and nieadow, walked Esbern
Share,
Till, worn and weary, the stronIg maii sank
Under the birches on Ulslhoi bank.
At his last day's work hie lleard the Troll
Haiimmer and delve in the quarry's hole;
Before himn the churchl stood large atid fair:
"I hlave boilded imy tomnb," said Esbern Siaie,,
And lie closed his eyes the sgllt to hide,
When  le heard a lig,lt step at his side:
69 
70)'TIlE TENT ON THE BEACII.
" O Es)erii Sluare!" a sweet voice said,
"Would I miglilt die lOW ill thly stead! "
Witli a grasp by love alnd by fear iiiade sti()ol,g
He  lel(d hter fast, ad hlie hleld ielr lonbg;
With thl  beating hleart of a bird af'eard,
She lid hler face ill his flame-red beard.
" O love!" lie cried, "let me look to-day
III thline eyes ere miie are plucked  iaway;
Let ime hold thee close, let uie feel tly lielrt
Ere luaie bv the Troll is tora apart!
"I siiined, O Helva, for love of thlee!
Pray that the Lotrd Chlrist pardon  iie!"
But fast as shle p)rayed, aud faster still,
IIaamiered tlie Troll in Ulsloi lill.
He knew, as hlie wroulght, that a loving heart
Was somiellow bhiffling hlis evil art;
For.t'ore tl.an spell of Elf or Troll
Is a iiiaideii's prayer for her lover's soul.
Aud Esl)erli listened, and caughlt thle sound
Of a Troll-wife singilng uiideigroniid: 
KALLUNDBORG CHURCH.
fo-oiorrow comes Finle, father thiiie:
Lie still and hliust thee, baby mine!
"Lie still, my darling! next suinrise
Thou'it play with Esberi' Snare's heart and
eyes! "
" Ho! ho! "  quotli Esbern,  "is that your
game?
Thanks to the Troll-wife, I know his nlaie!"
Thle Troll lie heard him, and hurried on
To Kalludhdborg church wlTithl thle lackiing stone.
"Too la.te, Gaffer Fine!" cried Esbern SaiiIre;
And Troll and pillar valislhed in ail'!
That  nighlt the harvesters heard the souind
Of a woman sobbing underground,
And the voice of thle Hill-Troll loud with bhame
Of the careless singer whlo told his name.
Of thle Troll of the Church they sing the rune
By tile Northierni Sea in the harvest moon;
And  lie fisliers of Zealand hear him still
Scolding his wife in Ulshoi hill.
71 
72     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
And seaward over its groves of birch
Still looks the tower of Kallunldborg ellurch,
Where, first at its altar, a wedded pair,
Stood Helva of Nesvek and Esbernl Snare!
What," asked the Traveller, "would our
sires,
The old Norse story-tellers, say
Of sun-graved pictures, ocean wires,
And smoking steamboats of to-day?
And this, O lady, by your leave,
RTecalls your song of yester eve
Pray, let us have that Cable-llyin once moe."
"Hear, hear!  tlhe Book-nan  cried,  " lie
lady has the floor.
"These noisy waves below perhaps
To such a strain will lend their ear,
With softer voice and lighter lapse
Come stealing up the sands to hear,
And what they once refused to do
For old King, Knut accord to you. 
KALLUNDBORG CHURCH.
Nay, even the fishes shall your listeners be,
As once, thlle legenid runs, they heard St. Ain       thonlly."
0 lonlely bay of Trinity,
0 dreary shores, give ear!
Lean dowvu unto the wliite-lipped sea
The voice of God to hear!
Fromi world to world his couriers fly,
Thoughlt-winged and shod with fire;
The allgel of his stormiy sky
Rides down the sunken wire.
What saith thle herald of the Lord?
"Thle world's long strife is done;
Close wedded by that mystic cord,
Its continents are one.
"Anid one ill heart, as one in blood,
Slall all lier peol)les be;
Thle lhands of hlltma   brotlierlood
Are clasped beicatli thie sea.
" Thlrougll  Orient seats, o'er Afiric's plain
And Asi-an mountains borne,
73 
74     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Thle vigor of tle Nortlierni brain
Shiall iierve tile world outworn.
"From climne to clicie, fromi shlore to siore,
Siall tlirill tlie magic tlhread;
The new Prooietlieus steals onlce more
The fire that wakes the dead."
Tllrob on, strong pulse of thunder! beat
From answering b)eachl to beachl;
Fuse aatioiins iii tlly kindly heat,
And mnelt the chaisi  of eacl!
Wild( terror of thle sky above,
Glide tanied and doumb below!
Bear gently, Oceaii's calier-dove,
Thv erranids to and fro.
Weave on, swxift sli:ittle of thle Lord,
Bineal i thle de, 1) so fr,
The brid.l rol)e of eirtll's accord,
Thle funueral sliroud of war!
For lo! the fall of ocean's wall
Space imocked and time outrun; 
KALLUNDBORG CHURCh.
And round the world the thiouglit of all
Is as the thlought of olne!
Thle poles unite, the zones agree,
Thle tongues of striving cease;
As on the Sea of Galilee
The Christ is whlispering, Peace!
"Glad prophecy! to this at last,"
Thlic Reader said, " shall all things come.
Forgotten be thle bugle's blast,
And battle-music of the drum.
A little whlile the world may run
Its old nimad way, witlh needle-gun
And iron-clad, but truthl, at last, shall reign:
The cradle-song of Chlrist was nlever sung in
vain!"
Shifting his scattered papers, " Here,"
Hs said, as died thle fainit applauise,
Is soi,ietlin' tllat I found last vear
Dow\n on the island lknown as Orr's.
I had it from a fair-haired giLrl
Wllo, oddly, bore tlhe liname of Pearl,
75 
7  THE TENT ON THE BEACII.
(As if by some droll freak of circumstance,)
Cltssic, or welloigh so, ill Harriet Stowe's ro,
illalice."
THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL.
WIHAT flecks the oLtter gray beyond
The sulldown's golden trail?
The wllite flashl of a sea-bird's wing,
Or gleam of slanting sail?
Let younng eyes watch from Neck and Point,
And sea-worn elders pray, -
The ghlost of what was once a shlip
Is sailing up the bay!
From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from  pain,
Tile loiiie-houjid fishler greets thy lights,
0  l,,iidlcd-l -1Iirbored MAIaine!
But nilaiy a ]kecl sliall seaward turn,
And many a sail outstand,
Wlein, tall and wihite, the Dead Slhip looms
Against the dusk of land. 
" The dead ship looml
wgalnst the dusk of land."  
THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL.  79
She roullds the headland's bristling pines;
Shle threads the isle-set bayv
No spul of breeze canl speed hler 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 doomn of baffled quest,
Thlou sad sea-ghost, is thine?
Whlat makes thee in the hauits of home
A wonder and a sign?
No foot is on tlhy silent deck,
Upomi ty hv lelm n o hanid;
No ripple bath the soundless wind
That smiites thee friom tlle land 
For never comes the ship) to port,
Howe'er thle breeze may be;
JaLst whlen shle neairs the waitilng shlore
She drifts again to sea.
No  tack of sail, nor turn of helm,
Nor slicer of veerlig side; 
80     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Stern-fore she drives to sea and night,
Against the wind and tide.
In vain o'er Harpswell Neck tihe star
Of evening guides hler ii;
Iii vain for her thie lamps are lit
Withiin thy tower, Seguin I
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 joys
Your gray-head hiuts of ill;
And, over sick-beds whisperiug low,
Your prophecies fulfil.
Somle home amid yonl birchenl trees
Shall drape its door with woe;
And slowly where the Dead Ship sails,
The burial boat shall row!
~F-om Wolf Neck and from Flying Points
From island anid fromn main,
From sheltered cove and tided creek,
Shall glide the funeral traii. 
THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL. 81
The dead-boat witi the bearers four,
The nmourners at her stera, -
Anld one shlall go tile silenlt way
Who shiall Ino more return!
And menl shall sighl, and women weep,
Whose dear ones pale anld pinle,
And sadly over sunset seas
Await the ghlostly sign.
They know nlot that its sails are filled
By pity's tender breath,
Nor see the Alngel at the hlielm
Who steers the Ship of Death!
Chlill as a downl-east breeze should be,"
The Book-iiianl said.  "A ghlostly touch
Thle legend hlas.  I'!n glad to see
Your flying, Yankee beat thle Dutchl."
Well, here is soiiiethiing of the sort
Whlich one nlidsumniier day I caught
In Narra,gaiset Bay, for lack of fishll."
"We wait," thte Traveller said; "serve hot or
cold your dish." 
82    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
THE PALATINE.
LEAGUES inorti, as fly the gull and auk,
Point Judithl watches with eye of hawk;
Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk!
Lonely and winid-sliorn, wood-forsakeln,
Witlh never a tree for Spring to waken,
For tryst of lovers or farewells taken,
Circled by waters that never freeze,
Beaten by billow anid swept by breeze,
Liethi the island of Manisees,
Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold
The coast lights up oli its turret old,
Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould.
Dreary the land when gust and sleet
At its doors and windows howl and beat,
And Winter laughs at its fires of peat!
But in summer time, when pool and ponld,
Held in the laps of valleys foid,
Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond; 
THE PALATINE.
WlIen the hills are sweet with the brier-rose,
And, hid ill the warm, soft dells, unclose
Flowers t,le mainland rarely knows;
When boats to tlleir morning, fishling go,
And, held to the wind and slanting low,
Whitening  anld  darkenling  the  small  sails
show,
Theni is that lonely island fair;
And the pale healthl-seeker findeth there
rThe wine of life in its pleasant air.
No greener valleys the sun  invite,
On smoother beachles no sea-birds light,
No blue waves shatter to foam more white!
Thlere, circling ever their narrow range,
Quaint tradition and legend strange
Live on unchalilenged, and know no change.
Old wives spinning their webs of to:,
r1 rocking weirdly to and. fio
In and out of the peat's dull glow,
83 
84    THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Anid old inen meniding their nets of twine,
Talk togethler of dream anld sign,
Talk of tile lost ship Palatine,
Thle shiip thlat, a lhunidred years before,
Freilighted deep withi its goodly store,
lii the gales of tile equinox went ashiore.
The  eager islanders one by one
Conilited tile sihots of lier sigial giun,
Anid lheard tihe criashi wlieii sihe drove righit on!
Iito tlie teethi of deathl sle sped:
(May God( foirive tlhe lianids tllat fed
The false lighits over the roclky Head!)
0 mnen anid brotlers! wllat siglts wvere there!
WV liite  tiptiltried  faces,  lhanids  stretched  in
piraycr!
Whlere w-aves llad pity, cotild ye not spare?
Down swooped tile wreckers, like li)rds of prey
Tearing tile lieart ofe tle slipi) aw-ay,
And the dead had never a word to say. 
THE PALATINE.
And thlen, withl ghastly slimmer and sline
Over the rocks and thle iseetllig l)rile,
They buroed thle wreck of the Palatine.
In their cruel hearts, as tlley lomeward sped,
"Thie sea and the rocks are dullnib," tlley said:
' Thlere'11 be no reckoniiing withl tlhe dead."
But tlhe year went round, and wleln once more
Along tlheir foamn-whlite curves of shlore
They hleard the line-storm rave anld roar,
Belhold! again  witll slimnier anid shine,
Over tlle rocks and tille seetlilini brine,
The flaminig wreck of the Palatine!
So, liaply iii fitter words tl!an  tllese,
ciidini  theiir nets onl their patient knees
They tell the legend of Manisees.
Nor lookls nIor toiies a doubt b)etray;
' It is kinowni to us all," tihey quietly say;
' We too have seen it ill our day."
85 
THE TENT C() THE BEACH.
Is thlere, tlhen,  no death  for  a word once
spoken?
Was never a deed but left its token
Written on tables never brokea?
Do the elemenlts subtle reflectionls give?
Do pictures of all the ages live
OI Nature's infinite negative,
Whlichll, hlalf in sport, illn  ialice hlalf,
,Sle slioI-s at timles, willi sliudder or laugh,
Plhaitoni and slhadow in pliotograpill?
F'or still, ou mlainy a moonless nighlt,
Fromi Kinigstoi1 Head and fi(iom Montauk light
The spectre kindles aud buorns ill silght.
TNov low and dim-, inow clear and hIighler,
Leaps up thle teririble Gllost of Fire,
Theni, slovwly siukiug, thle flames expire.
And ltle wise Soiund skippers, tlhougli  sklies be
fil1e,
Reef their saiis wxllen tlley see  llle si'n
Of the blazi:ng, wreckl of tile Palatile 1
86 
THE PALATINE.
A fitter tale to sereami thnli  sillg,"
Tle Book-oiao said.  " Well, faicy, tlhen,"
Tlile Reader aiiswertd, O"t tle willg
Thle sea-birds shriek it, iiot for oleln,
But iu tlhe ear of wave and bieeze!"
The Traveller mused   " Your Muilaiisees
Is fairy-lanid: off Narragaus(ct shlore
Who ever saw the isle or hleard its nlamie before?
"'T is somne strange land of Fly-away,
Wliose dreamyv slore the shipl beguiles,
St. BraiidLlti's ii its sea-oist g,ray,
Or sunset loomi of Fortuiiate Isles!"
"No ghlost, but s(olid tulrf anid rock
Is the good island kiiowii s Block,"
The Reader said.   "For l)eauity and for ease
I chose its Iindial namle, soft-flowing Manlisees!
"Bitt let it pass; hlere is a bit
Of uilrtlyitied stouy, withl a hist
Of the old preaetitig iio)d ii. it,
The sort of sid long, moral squinti
Our friendl obljects to, whieh has grown,
I fear, a habit of miy own.
87 
88     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
'Twas written when the Asian plague drew
near,
And the land held its breath and paled with
sudden fear."
ABRAHAM DAVENPORT.
IN 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
Drinlks the small tribute of the Mianas,
Waved over by the woods of Rip)powams,
And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths,
Stamford sent up to the councils of the State
Wisdom and grace ill Abraham Davenport.
'T was on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eiglity, 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 
ABRAHAM DAVENPORT.
In day of whlichl the Norland sagas tell, -
Tilhe Twilight of thle Go(:ds.  Thle low-Ihung sky
Was black withl ominlous clouds, save whlere its
riln
Was fringed withli a dull glow, like that wllichli
cliiibs
The crater's sides from tlhe red hlell below.
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, ald looked homeward; bats on leath       er  winllgs
F'litted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men  prayed, anld women wept; all ears grew
shlarp
To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shlatter
Tle black sky, that thle dreadful face of Clhrist
Might  look from the rent clouds, nlot as lie
looked
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
As Justice ald inexorable Law.
Meainwhile in the old State-House, dilm ias
ghlost s,
Sat the lawgivers of Coinnecticut,
Trembling beneath their legislative robes.
89 
90     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
"It is thle Lord's Gieat Day!  Let us adjourn,"
Some said; and tliciie, as if witli one accord,
All eyes were turned to Abralham Davenport.
He rose, slow cleaving witll his steady voice
The iiitolerable hushi.  "Tlhis well may be
Tile Day of Ju(lginent wlieili the world awaits
But be it so or not, I only know
M[y present dluty, aild my Lord's command
To occupy till lie comne.  So at thle post
Wliere lie llatli set nie iin his providence,
I cloose, for one, to mieet himi face to f'aee,
No failliless servant frightened from my task,
BLLt readv wlieti tle Lord of tile lharvest calls;
And therefore, witli all reverence, I would say,
Let G)od do his work, we will see to ours.
Bringi iii the  candles."   And  they broutgllt
them illn.
Tileii by the flariing liglits the Speaker reed,
All)ait witli Iutsky voice alid slhaking hands,
Ai  act to amend aii act to regalate
Tth:~ sllad n(n11l alerwive fisleii(-es.  Wliereupon
WYjisXey did wtell sw(Il C A''allam Davenport,
Straig"it 1t   thte question, wlith  1no figures of
speech 
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92     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Silenitly for a space eachi eye
Upon that suiddeii glory turined;
Cool fiom tile laid tile breeze blew by,
The teit-ropes flapped,  the long beach
chlurned
Its waves to foam; oa either lihand
Stretchied, far as siglit, the hIills of sanid;
Witli bays of marshi, and capes of bushi anid tree,
The wood's black sliore-line loomed beyond the
nmeadowy sea.
Thle lady rose to leave.   "One sonIg,
Or hIymn," tlecy urged, " before we part."
And sile, witli lips to wliiclih belong
Sweet intuitions of aill art,
Gave to thle winds of nighlt a straini
Wlhici tihey iwho hleard would hlear again;
Anid to lher voice ilie solemni ocean lenit,
Touchinig its hlarp of sanid, a deep accompani       ment.
Thle liarpi at Natiure's adveint strung
Has never ceased to p)lay;
The song tihe stars of morning sung
Has never died away. 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
AnLd prayer is miade, and praise is given,
By alt tlings nlear antd flt;
The oceaii looketli upl) to hleaveln,
AnLd ijirrors every star.
Its waves are kneelilg on tlhe strand,
As kneels thle  uiiii-aii knee,
Their wliite l)clks l)owiig to the sand,
'Thle priesthood of the sea!
They pour their glitteriing treasures fortlh,
Tleir g,ifts of )earl tl,ley bring,
And all tlhe listening, llills of earthl
Take up the song they sing.
The green earth sends her incense up
From  inaily a imouontain shlrine;
From folded letaf and dewvy cup
Shle pours lier sacred wine.
The mists abovl e the mornilig rills
Rise wlgite -is wilgs of prayer;
Thle atltar cenrtains of tlle lills
Are sonset's purple air.
93 
94     THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
Thlle winds with hymns of praise are loud,
Or low withl sobs of paiin,
The tlhunder-orgai of the cloud,
The dropping tears of rain.
Withl drooping hlead and branches crossed
Thle twilight forest grieves,
Or speaks withl tongues of Penltecost
From all its sunlit leaves.
The blue sky is thle temnple's arch,
Its transept earthl anld air,
The mnusic of its starry march
The chorus of a prayer.
So Nature keeps thle reverent frame
Withl which her years began,
And all hler signs and voices shame
The prayerless heart of mnan.
The singer ceased.   Thle moon's white rays
Fell on thle rapt, still face of hler.
"_1llaz it At1l,th!  He laftl I plaise
From all tlingis," said tlhec Traveller. 
THE TENT ON THE BEACH.
"Oft from the desert's silent nights,
And mounltaii      n hymnrs of sunset lights,
My hleart hlas felt rebuke, as ill his teat
Tile Moslemi's prayer has shamed my Chlristian
knee uhbenll."
He paused, and lo! far, faint, and slow
Thle bells ill Newbury's steeples tolled
The twelve dead hlours; the lanip burned
low;
The singer soulght hler canvas fold.
One sadly said, "At break of day
We strike our tent and go our way."
But one made answer helleerily, " Never fear,
We'll pitch this tenit of ours in type alothei
year."
95  
FAVORITE POEMS 
~      <""$14
~'
/4          y%~~  
______                      I     _____________________
Faneuil Hal
-L 
CONTENTS.
Page
.   11
.      13
*     *      a   22
.. 28
. *          e   32
. 34
.   41
.     e       45
.   47
49
..        54
.       60
..   63
G69
To FANEUIL HALL....
MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA
THE WATCHERS........
" EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT"
THE BATTLE AUITUMN OF 18G2..
AT PORT ROYAL
ICIIABOD
BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIIE
TIlE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY
TIlE EVE OF ELECTION.. 
BARBARA FRIETCHIE....
LAUS DEO.
MAUD MULLER.......
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. 
CONTENTS.
TELLING THE BEES.
MY PLAYMIIATE..
AMY WENTWORTII.
IN SCHOOL-DAYS
THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ
THE VANISHERS..
vi
74
S:.
.   S7
.   94 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Faneuil Hall.. Frontgs~iece.
Page
"Two angels, each withli drooping head"...  23
"Our good boats forward swing"....    35
"And lo! a poor slave mnother"........    43
"Shloot, if you miust, this old gray liead"..     57
"Weint drcarily singing the chore-girl small".     77 
~~w~~xxxx~ 
Ar
j)
TO FANEUIL HALL.
I 844.
-,~ ~EN! -if manhood still ye claim,
l!__      If the Northern pulse can thrill,
Roused by wrong or stung by shame,
Freely, strongly still:
Let the soundcls of traffic lie
Shut the nill-gate- leave the stall -
Fling the axe and hammer by   Throng to Faneuil Hall!
Wrongs which freemnan never brooked
Danigers grim and fierce as they,
Which, like couLching, lions, looked
On your fathers' way; —
These your instant zeal demand,
Shaking with their earthquake-call 
12          FAVORITE POEMS.
Every rood of Pilgrimn land  Ho, to Faneuil Hall!
From -your capes and sandy bars  Frolli youlr liountai-ri(l-rges cold,
ThroughIl whose pilles the westering stars
Stoop their crowns of gold —
Come, and witll your footsteps wake
Echoes from that holy wall:
Once again, for Freedom's sake,
Rock your fatheLs' hall!
Up, and treacld b)eneath your feet
Every cord by party spunil;
Let your hearts together beat
As the he-lrt of one.
Banks and tariffi, stocks and trade,
Let them rise or let them fall:
Freedomi asks your coiymmon aid -
Up, to Falucuil Hall!
Up, and let each voice that speaks
Riing from thene to Soutthern plains,
Sharply as the blow which breaks
Prison-bolts and chains! 
MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.    13
Speak as well becomes the free  Dreaded more than steel or ball,
Shall your calmest utterance be,
Heard from Faniieuil Hall!
Have they wronged us?  Let us then
Render back nor threats nor prayers
Have they chained our free-born men?
LET US UNCHAIN THEIRS!
Up! your banner leads the van,
Blazoned " Liberty for all! "
Finish what your sires began  Up, to Faneuil Hall!
MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.
.IHE  blast from Freedon's Northern
',~         I hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Viirginiiia from Mas           sachusetts Bay.No word of haug,hty challenging, nor battle
bugle's peal, 
1 4         FAVORITE POEMS.
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang
of horseinan's'steel.
No trains of dcleep-mouthed cannon along our
highways goAround our silent arsenals untrodden lies the
snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon
their errands far,
A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none
are spread for war.
We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy
words and high,
Swell harshly on the Southern winds which
melt along, our sky;
Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its
honest labor hereNo hewer of our miountain oaks suspends his
axe in fear.
Wild are the waves which lash the reefs
along St. George's bankCold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies
white and dank; 
MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.    15
Throug,,h storm and wave, and blinding mist,
stout are the hearts which man
\ The fishing, smacks of Marblehead, the sea        boats of Cape Ann.
The cold north light and wintry stin  glare
on their icy forms,
Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrest      ling, with the storms;
Free as the winds they drive before, rough
as the waves they roaim,
They  laugh  to scorn  the  slaver's threat
against their rocky homne.
What means the Old Dominion i? Hath she
forgot the day
When o'er her conqtuered valleys swept the
Briton's steel array?
How  si(le by side, with sons of hers, the
MassachLsetts ilen
Encountered( Tarleton's charge  of fire, and
stout Cornawallis, then?
Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to
the call 
16          FAVORITE POEMS.
Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out
from Faneuil Hall?
When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came
pulsing, on each breath
Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of
"LIBERTY OR DEATH!"
What asks the Old Dominion? If now her
sons have proved
False to their fathers' miemory- false to the
faith they love(d,
If she can scoff at Freedclom, and its great
charter spurn,
Must we of Massachusetts from  truth and
duty turn?
We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's
hateful hell —
Our voices, at your bi(lding, take up the
hloodhound('s yell -
We  gather, at your summons,  above  our
fathers' graves,
From Freeclom's holy altar-horns to tear
your wretched slaves!  
MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.
Thanik God! not yet so vilely can Massachu      setts bow;
The spirit of her early time is with her
even iiow;
Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves
slow, and calm, and cool,
She thus call stoop  her chainless neck, a
sister's slave alnd tool!
All that a sister State should do, all that a
free State may,
Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as ill our
early day;
But that one dark lo,thsome burden ye must
stagger with alone,
And reap the bitter harvest which ye your       selves have sown!
Hold, while ye may, your struggl,,ing slaves,
and burden G)od's free air
With w oman's shriekl beneath the lash, and
manlhood's wil(d despair;
Cling closer to the "cleaving curse" that
writes upon your plains
1 7 
18           FAVORITE POEMS.
The blasting of Almighty wrath against a
land of chains.
Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cava       liers of old,
By  watching  round  the  shambles  where
human flesh is sold
Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count its
market value, when
The  maddened mrothler's cry of woe shall
pierce the slaver's den!
Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the
Virginia nsame;
Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with
rankest weeds  of shame;
Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair uni      verse
We wash our hands forever, of your sin, and
shame, and curse.
A voice from lips whereon the coal from
Freedom's shrine hath been,
Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of
Berkshire's mountain men 
MASSACIIUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.          19
The echoes of that solemnin voice are sadly
lingering still
In all our suniny valleys, on every wind      swvept hill.
Anud when the prowling  nian-thief canime
hul-ting, for his prey
Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft
of,ray,
How, through the free lips of the son, the
father's warning spoke
How, fromn its bonds of trade and sect, the
Pilgrini city broke!
A hundred thousand right arins were lifted
Lp on high,
A hundred thousand voices sent back their
loud reply;
Throug,h the thronged towns of Essex the
startling suiminmons rang,
And up fronm bench and loom andti  wheel her
young mechanics sprang!
The voice  of free, broad Middlesex -  of
thousands as of one 
20          FAVORITE POEMS.
The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lex
ington
From Norfolk's ancient villages; from Ply      mouth's rocky bound
To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean
close her round;
From rich and rural Worcester, where
through the calmi repose
Of cultured vales and fringing woods the
gentle Nashua flows,
To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the moun      tain larches stir,
Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of
" God save Latimer!"
And sandy Barnstable rose -ip, wet with the
salt sea sprayAnd Bristol sent her answering shout down
Narragansett Bay!
Along the broad Connecticut old Hanmpden
felt the thrill,
And the cheer of Hampshire's  woodmen
swept down from Holyoke Hill. 
MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.    21
The voice of Massachi.setts I Of her free
sons and daughtersDeep calling unto deep aloud- the sound of
many waters!
Ag,ainst the burden of that voice what tyrant
power shall stand?
No fetters in the Bay State!  No slave upon
her land!
Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we
have borne,
In answer to our faith and trust, your insult
and your scorn;
You've spurned our kindest counsels -
you've hunted for our livesAnd shaken round our hearths and homes
your manacles and gyves!
We wage no war- we lift no arm - we fling
no torch within
The fire-damps of the quaking mind beneath
your soil of siin;
We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle,
while ye can, 
FAVORITE POEMS.
With the strong upward tendencies and God      like soul of man!
Butt for us and for our children, the vow
which we have given
For Freedom and humanity, is registered in
heaven;
No slave-hunt in our borders-  no pirate on
our strand!
,To fetters it the Bay State - no slave upon
our land!
THE WATCHERS.
Adz  ESIDE a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
I~~ lHlnug heavily the dew of blood.
Still in their fresh iouLnds lay the slain,
BuLt all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.
Two angels, eachl with droop)ing, head
Ai( lol flded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.
22 
~L;:          _       mm   >ThTh~ThTh~Th
~
__ ____           (t   
"Two angels, each with drooping head." 
i 
THE WATCHERS,
The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand,
The other's brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
Ilis hands for battle-gauntlets fit.
"How long! "-I knew the voice of Peace, -
"Is there no respite?-  no release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?
"0 Lord, how long - One human soul
Is more than any parchment scroll,
Or any flag thy winds unroll.
"What price was Ellswortlh's, young and
brave?
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Wintbrop's grave?
"' O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me."
25 
26          FAVORITE POEMS.
Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun
No strife nor pang, beneath the sun,
Whenii hunian rights are stakeed an(i won.
' I knelt with Ziska's hunte(d flock,
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
I walked with Syvlney to the l)lock.
" The Mloor of Marston felt -ny tread,
Throu(gh Jersey snows thie inarch I led,
My voice Ma(genta's charg,es sped.
"But now, througih wveary d(lay a(nd night,
I watch a vagule ann(l taimcl(ess fght
For leave to strike one blow arilght.
"On either side nmy foe they own:
One giards through love hiis  iastlv thlrone,
And( one through fear to reverence grown.
"Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed,
By open foes, or those afraid
To speed thy coming, through mny aid?
"Why watch to see who win or fall?
I shlake the dust ag,ainst them all,
I leave thlemn to their senseless brawl." 
THE WATCHERS.
" Nay," Peace implored: "yet longer wait;
The door is near, the stake is great:
GodT knoweth if it be too late.
"Still wait and watch; the way prepare
Where I with folded wings of prayer
May follow, weaponless and bare."
" Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied,
"Too late!" its imournful echo sighed,
In low lament the answer died.
A rutstling as of wings in flight,
An upward glean] of lessening, white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight
P,ut roiund ine, like a silver bell
Rungi down the listening sky to tell
Of hol(y help, a sweet voice fell.
"Still hope and trLst," it sang; "the rodcl
AIlust fall, the wine-press must be trod,
But all is possible with God!"
27
qw 
28         FAVORITE POEMS.
"EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER
GOTT."
(LUTHEIt'S HYAN) 
E wait beneath the ftirnace-blast
The pangs of transformation
Not painlessly doth God recast
And mould anew the nation
Hiot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire;
Nor spares the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.
The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared
Its bloody rain is dropping;
The poison plant the fathers spared
All else is overtopping.
East, West, South, North,
It curses the earth;
All justice dies, 
" EIN FESTE BURG 1ST UNSER GOTT." 29
And fraud and lies
Live only in its shadow.
What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?
What points the rebel cannon?
What sets the roaring rabble's heel
On the old star-spangled penion?
What breaks the oath
Of the men o' the South?
What whets the knife
For the Union's life?  Hark to the answer: Slavery I
Then waste no blows on lesser foes
In strife unworthy freemien.
Godl lifts to-day the veil, and shows
The features of the demion!
O North and South,
Its victims both,
Can ye not cry,
"Let slavery die!"
And union find in freedomn?
What though the cast-out spirit tear
The nation ill his going? 
30          FAVORITE POEMS.
We who have shared the guilt mnust share
The pang of his o'erthrowing!
Whate'er the loss,
Whate'er the cross,
Shall they complain
Of present pain
Who trust in God's hereafter?
For who that leans on his right arm
Was ever yet forsaken?
What righteous cause can sutffer harm
If he its part has taklen?
Though wild and loud
And dark the cloud,
Behind its folds
His hand upholds
The calm skly of to-morrow!
Above the maddening cry for blood,
Above the wild war-drunmming,
Let Freedom's voice be heard, with good
The evil overconinig.
Give prayer and purse
To stay the Curse 
" EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT." 31
WThose wrong we share,
Whose shamce we bear,
Whose end shall gladden Heaven I
Il. vain the bells of war shall ring
Of triiumnphs and revenges,
While still is sparedcl the evil thing
That severs and estranges.
But blest the ear
That yet shall hear
The jubilant bell
That rings the knell
Of Slavery forever!
Then let the selfish lip be dlumlb,
And hutshedl the -)reath of sighing;
Before the joy of peace nmust come
The pains of purifying.
Gad give us grace
Each in his place
To bear his lot,
And, murmiunring' not,
Endure and wait and labor I 
FAVORITE POEMS.
THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862.
IHE flags of war like storm-birds fly,
M   &   The charging trumpets blow:
Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,
No earthquake strives below.
And, callh and patient, Nature keeps
Her ancient promise well,
Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps
The battle's breath of hell.
And still she walks in golden hours
Through harvest-happy farms,
Arid still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.
What mean the gladness of the plain,
This joy of eve and morn,
The mirth that shakes the beard of grain
And yellow locks of corn?
Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
And hearts with hate are hot;
But even-paced come round the years,
And Nature chances not.
32 
THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862.   33
She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
With songs our groans of pain;
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.
Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear
Her sweet thanhsgiving-psaln;
Too near to God for doubt or fear,
She shares the eternal calm.
She knows the seed lies safe below
The fires that blast and burn;
For all the tears of blood we sow
She waits the rich return.
She sees with clearer eye than ours
The good of suffering born, --
The hearts that blosson  like her flower.,
And ripen like her corn.
0, give to us, in tinies like these,
The vision of her eyes;
And make her fields and frulited trees
Our' golden prophecies!
0, give to us her finer ear!
Above this stoirmyiv (din,
We too would hear the bells of cheer
Ring peace and freedom in! 
34          FAVORITE POEMS.
AT PORT ROYAL.
1THIE tent-lights glinimmer on the land,
The shlip-li,ghts on the sea;
'The night-wind smooths with drift.
ing sand
Our track on lone Tybee.
At last our grating keels outslide,
Our good boats f)rward swing;
And while we ride the land-locked tide,
Our n'egroes row and sing.
For dear the b)ondmcan holds his gifts
Of music and of sorig:
The gold that kindly Natutre sifts
Aniong, his sands of wrong;
The po)wer to make his toiling (lays
And poor lihome-comiforts please;
The q(iainiit relief of mirth that plays
WTith sorrow's minor keys. 
0~~~~~~~~~~~IF                                                         (((F
I \\;/Ii  
AT PORT ROYAL.
Another glow than sunset's fire
Has filled the West with light,
Where field and garner, barn and byre
Are blazing through the night.
The land is wild with fear and hate,
The rout runs mad and fast;
From hand to hand, from gate to gate
The flaminig brand is passed.
The lurid glow falls strong across
Dark faces broad with smiles:
Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss
That fire yon blazing piles.
With oar-strokes timing to their song
They weave in simple lays
The pathos of remembered wrong,
The hope of better days,
The triumlph-notes that Miriam sung,
The joy of uLincaged birds:
Softening with Atfric's mellow tonigue
Their broken Saxon words.
37 
38         FAVORITE POEMS.
SONG OF THE NEGPO BOATMEN.
0, praise an' tanks!  De Lord he come
To set de people fiee;
A    ]n' nassa tink it dlay ol) dooim,
An' we ob jul)ilee.
De Lord (lat lheap de Red-Sea waves
Hle jius' as'tronig as den;
He say de word   we ias' nig,ht slaves;
To-daty, de Lord's ii'eeiieii.
De yaim wvill grow, de cottoll blow,
We'11 hab de r'ice an' coni:
0 nebl)ber you fear, if nelbber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
Ole niassat on he trabbels gone;
He leaf (le  land )ehlind(l:
De Lord's T)ref- l)lowv liiiii fuirder on,
Like corn-shluck in de wind.
We own de hoe, we own de plough,
We owin de hand(s (lat hold;
We sell (le pig, we sell de cow,
But nebl)er chile )e sol(l.
De yami will grow, de cotton blow,
WVe'11 hab de rice an' corn: 
AT PORT ROYAL.
O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
We pray de Lord: he gib us signs
Dat somIe day we be free;
De Norf- wind tell it to de pines,
De wild-duck to de sea;
We tink it when Tde churchl-bell ring,
We dream it ill de dream
De rice-bird mean it when he Sing,
De eagle when he screami.
De yani will grow, de cotton blow,
We'11 liab de rice an' corn
0 nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn
We know de promise nebber fail,
An' nebber lie de awoid;
So like de'pestles iin de jail,
We waite(d for de LoId:
An' IIow he open e)ery door,
An' trow away de key;
He tink we lub him so before,
We lub him better free.
39 
40          FAVORITE POEMS.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
Hie'11 gib de rice an' corn:
0 nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
So sing our dusky gondoliers;
And, with a secret pain,
And smiles that seem akin to tears,
We hear the wild refrain.
We dare not share the negro's trust,
Nor yet his hope deny;
We only know that God is just,
And every wrong shall die.
Rutde seems the song; each swarthy face,
Flame-lighted, rudler still:
We start to think that hapless race
Must shape our good or ill;
That laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And, close as sin and suffering joined,
We march to Fate abreast. 
C1HABoDD!
Sing on, poor hearts I your chant shall be
Our sign of blight or bloom,The Vala-song of Liberty,
Or death-rune of our doom l
ICHABOD!
O fallen!  so lost ] the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Foreverinore ]
Revile him not, —the Temipter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!
0, dutmb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
HRve lighted up ald led his age
Falls back in night!
41 
FAVORITE POEMIS.
Scorn! would the allgels laugh, to mark
A bri,ght soul driven,
Fien(ld-goalded, down the endless dark,
Froni hope and heaven?
Let not the land, once prould of hinm,
Insutlt hili now,
Nor )rand with (leep)er shame his dim,
Dishonore(d brow.
Ilot let its huime)lel sons, instead,
From sel to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.
Of all we lovedl and honored, naught
Save power remains,
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strollng in chains.
All else is gone; friom those great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!
42 
j  t',;i<
~~~    \>j      ~~~      \
Thfifi
__   __'\'~~~~
I ~>\\>\>\>>
\\\\\>{\j$$ \!\\>j~j4;;~;i\
" -d1,pool' sl,,, C litil  
BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE.
Then, pay the reverence of old dclays
To his dead fam.e;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shane I
BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE.
'iO HN BROWN of Ossawatomie spake
I    on his dying day:
-  J "I will not have to shrive my  soul
a priest in Slavery's pay.
But let some poor slave-aother whom I have
striven to free,
With her children fromn the gallows-stair put
up a prayer for inme!"
John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him
out to die;
And lo! a poor slave-miother with her little
child pressed nigh.
Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the
old harsh face grew mild,
45 
46            FAVORITE POEMS.
As he stooped between the jeering ranks and
kissed the negro's child
The shadows of his stormy life that moment
fell apart;
And they who b)lamed the bloody hand for       g tve the lovilng heart.
That kiss irola all its guilty means redeemed
the goo(i intent,
Andt rouin(l the grisly fighter's hair the mar       tyr's aureole bent!
Perish with him the folly that seeks through
evil,ood
L)IIng live the generous purpose  unstained
with human blood
N,)t the raid of midnig,ht terror, but the
thotliht which iunderlies
Not the borderer's pride of darin, )iut the
Christian's sacrifice.
Never more may yon Blue Ridges the North      ern rifle hear,
Nor see the light of blazing homes flash on
the negro's spear. 
THE POOR YOTER ON ELECTION DAY. 47
But let the free-winged angel Truth  their
guarded passes scale,
To teach that right is more than might, and
justice miore than mail!
So vainly shall Virginia set her battle in
a ray;
In vain her tramnpling, squadrons knea(l the
winter snow with clay.
She miay strike the pouncing eagle, butt she
dares not harin the dove
And every gate she bars to Hate shall open
wide to Love!
THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION
DAY.
C  lIHE proudest now is but mliy peer,
P   The highest not nmore high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of n men am I.
To-day, alike are great and sinall,
The nameless and the known; 
48         FAVORITE POEMS.
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the seived shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simnple manhood try
The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in mny right hand!
While there's a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon's vilest dust, 
THE EVE OF ELECTION.
While there's a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat I
A man's a man to-day!
THE EVE OF ELECTION.
ROM gold to gray
[    Our mild sweet day
Of Indian Surmner fades too soon;
But tenderly
Above the sea
Hangs, white and calm, the Hunter's moon.
In its pale fire
The village spire
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance;
'rThe painted walls
Whereon it falls
Transfi,gured stand in marble trance,
O'er fallen leaves
The west-wind grieves,
49 
50          FAVORITE POEMS.
Yet comes a seed-time round again;
And morn  shall see
The State sowin free
With baleful tares or hiealthful grain.
Along the street
The shadows mieet
Of Destiny, whose handes conceal
The moulds of fate
That shape the State,
And make or mar thie commnon weal.
Around I see
The powers that be;
I stand by Enmpire's primal springs;
And princes meet
In every street,
And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!
Hiark! thlro,ugh the crowd
The laLugll runs loudl,
Beneath the sad, rebutkiing nloon.
God save the landcl
A carele.ss hand
Slay shake or swerve ere miorrow's noon! 
THE EVE OF ELECTION.
No jest is this;
One cast amiss
May blast the hope of Freedom's year.
0, take me where
Are hearts of prayer,
And foreheads bowed in reverent fear I
Not lightly fall
Beyond recall
The written scrolls a breath can float:
The crowning fact,
The kingliest act
Of Freedom, is the freeman's vote I
For pearls that gem
A diadem
The diver in the deep sea dies;
The regal right
We boast to-night
Is ours through costlier sacrifice:
The blood of Vane,
His prison pain
Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod,
And hers whose faith
51 
5   ~2   FAVORITE POEMS.
Drew strength from dcleath,
And prayed her Russell up to God I
Outr hearts grow cold,
We lightly hold
A right which brave men died to gain;
The stake, the cord,
The axe, the sword,
Grim nurses at its birth of pain.
The shadow rend,
And o'er Lus bend,
0 martyrs, with your crowns and palms,      Breathe through these throngs
Your battle songs,
[lour scaffoldc prayers, andl dungeon psalms!
Look fiomn the sky,
Like God's great eye,
Thou solemn moon, with searching beam;
Till in the sight
Of thy pure light
Our meanr self-seekirngs meaner seem.
Shame from our hearts
Unworthy arts, 
THE EVE OF ELECTION.
The fraud designed, the purpose dark;
And smite away
The hands we lay
Profanely on the sacred ark.
To party claims,
Ald private aims,
Reveal that august face of Truth,
Whereto are given
The age of heaven,
The beauty of immortal youth.
So shall our voice
Of sovereign choice
Swell the deep bass of duty done,
And strike the key
Of time to be,
Whe.n God and man shall speak as one!
53 
54          FAVORITE POEMS.
BARBARA FRIETCHIE.
- P fronm the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool Septemrnber morn,
The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple anid peach tree fruited deep,
Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When  Lee  marched  over  the mountain      wall, -
Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars, 
BARBARA FRIETCHIE.               55
Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the meti hauled down;
In her attic-window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his si,ght.
" Halt! "- the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
"Fire!"   out blazed the rifle-blast.
It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seamn and gash.
Quick, as it feel, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf; 
5 ~6    FAVORITE POEMS.
She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.
A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that womiiau's deed aid word:
"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! Marchl on!" hlie said.
All day long through, Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:
All day long that firee flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;
And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night. 
~'~
_    _      1'
,, si~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~t.'f~~~~~~~~__ iiii  jldl Ied
1~~~
I
I  
BARBARA FRIETCHIIE.           59
Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.
Honor to her! and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.
Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!
Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law
And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town 
k I  
60          FAVORITE POEMS.
LAUS DEO.
ON HEARING THE BELLS RING FOR THE CONSTI TUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY
IN THE UNITED STATES.
ThlT is done!
Clang of bell and roar of gun
Sencl the tidings up and down.
How the belfries rock and reel,
How tihe great guns, t)eal on peal,
Fling the joy fromi town to town!
Ring, 0 bells!
Every stroke exulting tells
Of the burial hour of crime.
Loud( and long, that all may hear,
Ring for every listening ear
Of Eternity and Time!
Let us kneel:
God's own voice is in that pell,
Anl this spot is holy grloun,l. 
LAUS DEO.
Lord, forgive us! What are we,
That ollur eyes this glory see,
That our ears have heard the sound!
For the Lord
On the whlirwvind is ab)road;
In the earthquake he has spoken;
He has smitten with his thunder
The iron walls asund(ler,
And the gates of brass are broken!
Lot(ud and long
Lift the old exultinr songi,
Sing with Miriam  I)vy the sea:
He has cast the mighty doAwn;
Horse and rid(ler sink an(l drown;
He has triumphed gloriously!
Did wve dare,
In our agony of prayer,
Ask for more than he has done?
When was ever his right hand
Over any time or land(
Stretched as now beneath the sun!
61 
62          FAVORITE POEMS.
How they pale,
Ancient myth, and song, and tale,
In this wonder of our days,
When the cruel rod of war
Blossoms white with righteous law,
And the wrath of man is praise.
Blotted out!
All within and all about
Shall a fresher life begin;
Freer breathe the universe
As it rolls its heavy curse
On the dead and buried sin.
It is done!
In the circuit of the stun
Shall the sound thereof go forth.
It shall bid the sad rejoice,
It shall give the dumb a voice,
It shall belt with joy the earth!
Ring and swing
Bells of joy! on mnorning's wing
Send the song of praise abroad; 
MAUD MULLER.
With a sound of broken chains
Tell the nations that He reigns,
Who alone is Lord and God!
MAUD MULLER.
,  AUD MULLER, on a summer's day,
e~   -Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
63 
64           FAVORITE POEMS.
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 bubbled up,
And filled for him her small till cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the  Judge; "a sweeter
draught
From a fairer hand was never 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 cloLud in the west would bring foul
weather. 
MAUD MULLER.               65
And Maud forgot her brier-tornl 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!
"He wouldc dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
" My father should wear a broadcloth coat
My brother should sail a painted boat.
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the
poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still. 
66           FAVORITE POEMS.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been miy 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:
"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 humnmed in court all old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 
MAUD  MULLER.               6 7
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;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
Re longed for the wayside well instead
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
fo dream of meadows and clover-bloomns.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret p.'ii),
"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 ancl brain. 
68          FAVORITE POEMS.
And oft, when the stummner sun shone hot
On the new-mown hlay in the mieadow lot,
Andcl she heardl the little spring brook fall
Over the road(side, thro,ugh the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, ge.zing dclown with timidcl grace,
She felt his pleas(ed eyes read her face.
Sornmetimes her narrow kitchlen walls
Stretched away into stately Ihalls;
The weary wvheel to a spinnet turned,
The tllow canidle an astral burned,
Adl Ifor him wiho sat lby the chimney lug,
Dozing, and( grumlbling o'er pipe ald mLg,
A mianly forrn at her side she saw,
And jocy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her bLurden of life again,
Saying only, " It might have been:' 
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.
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.
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
IDeeply buried from hnuman eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels mnay
Roll the stone from its grave away!
SKIPPER;'&ESON'S RIDE.
F all the rides srce the birth of t:,,,a
Told in story or sung in rhyme,  -
On ApuLleius- G(olldeI Ass,
Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brms,
Witch astride of a human back,
Islam's prophet on Al-Botak, -
The strangest ride that ever wad esie"
69 
70          FAVORITE POEMS.
\Vas Ireson's, out from Marblehead!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the wormen of Marblehead!
Body of turkeyv, head of owl,
Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
Feathered and ruffled in every part,
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,
Stron(, of muscle, and glib of tongue,
Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,
Shouting and sinioing the shrill refrain
Here's Fltd Oirson, fur his horrd( horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"
Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,
Girls in bloomr of cheek and lips,
Wild-eyed, free-limibed, such as chase
Bacchus round some antique vase,
Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,
Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,
Wvith conch-shells blowing and fish-horns'
twang, 
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.
Over and over the Maenads sang:
" Here's FluLLcd Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' ftitherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"
Smnall pity for him! -He sailed away
From a leaking ship, il Chaleur Bay,Sailed away fromnt a sinking wreck,
With his own town's-people on her deck!
"Lay by! lay by!" they called to him.
Back he answered,' Sink or swiTm!
Brag of your catch of fish again!"
And off he sailed through the fog and rain!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried ill a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
Fathomis deep in dalrk Chaleur
That wreck shall lie fo(revermore.
Mother and sister, wife and maid,
Looked fromn the rocks of Marbleheadl
Over the moaning, and rainy sea,
Looked for the coming that nmig(ht not )e!
What did the winds anid the sea-!)irds scv
Of the cruel captain wlho sailed away? --
7 1 
~72     FAVORITE POEMNIS.
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marbliehead!
Through the street, on either side,
UpL flew windows, doors swLung wide:
Sharp-tonguted spinsters, old wives g,ry,
Treble lent the fish-hora's brac.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Htllks of old sailors run aground,
Shlook head, and fist, and hat, aid cane,
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain
i" Here's Flud Oirson, fulr his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr d in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"
S weetly along the Salemi road
Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
Little the wicked skipper knew
Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.
Riiding there in his sorry triim,
Like an Indian idol glum and grim,
Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear
Of voices shouting, far and near 
SKIPPER IRESON S RIDE.
11 Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt
Torr'd ani' iltherr'd( an' cori'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead! "
"Hear ilie, neighl))rs!" at last he cried,
"What to ine is this noisy ride?
Whlat is the shaine that clotlhes the skin
To the inanieless lioirior that lives within 
Wakiing or sleeping, I see a wreck,
And( hear a cry from  a reeling deck!
Hate nie andl crise me, -  I only dread
The hand of (od and the face of the dlead!
Said old Fl)yd Iresoni, for his hard heait,
Tarred and tf(atliheie and carried in a cart
By the women of Marllehead!
Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea
Said, "God has touched him!-why shliould
we? "J
Said an old wife mourning her only son,
Cut the ro,gue's tether and let him rui!n
So wvith soft relentings and rude excuse,
Half scorn, half pity, thley cut himi loose,
And(l gave 1him  a cloatk to hide hiIn in,
And left hini  alone with his shame and sin.
73 
74           FAVORITE POEMS.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
TELLING THE BEES.
i1ERE   is the place; right over the hill
1   Runs the path I took;
a You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping-stones in the shallow
brook.
There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
And the poplars tall;
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle      yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.
There are the beehives ranged in the sun;
And down by the brink
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'er      run,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 
TELLING THE BEES.
A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
Heavy and slow;
And the same rose blows, and the samne suLi
glows,
And the same brook sings of a vear ago.
There's the same sweet clover-smell in the
breeze;
And the June sun warm
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
I mind me how with a lover's care
Fromi my Sunday coat
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,
And cooled at the brooksidle my brow and
throat.
Since we parted, a month had passed,
To love, a year;
Down through the beeches I looked at last
Oni the little red gate and the well-sweep
near.
I can see it all now,- the slantwise rain
Of light through the leaves,
75 
76      FAVORITE POEMS.
The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,
The bloomi of her roses under the eaves.
Just the same as a month before,  The house and the trees,
Thie barn's brown gable, the vine by the
door, -
Nothing changed but the hives of bees.
Be'ore them, under the garden wall,
Forward and back,
Went drearily singing the chlore-girl small,
Dra)ping, each hive with a shred of black.
Treniblirng, I listened: the suLnimer sun
Had the chill of siow;
For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!
Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps
For the (lead to-day:
lIaply her blind old( grandsire sleeps
Tie fiet and the pain of his age away."'
But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
With his cane to his chin, 
~~~~II
~; i  
MY PLAYMATE.
The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
Sung to the bees stealing out and in.
And the song she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on:"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"
MY PLAYMATE.
HE   pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.
The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.
For, more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home,
79 
80          FAVORITE POEMS.
And took with her the laughing spring,
The music and the bloom.
She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine:
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?
She left us in the bloom of May:
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.
'I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years;
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And( reap the autumn ears.
She lives where all the golden year
Her sLummer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.
There haply with her jewelled hands
She smiooths her silken gown, 
MY PLAYMATE. 
No more the holiesp-n lapp wheleini
I shook the walnuts down.
The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nutts on the hill,
And still the May-day flowers mniake sweet
The woods of Follymiill.
The lilies l)Iossom in the ponid,
The bird bLilds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ranioth hill
The slow sonig of the sea.
I wonder if she thinks of thenm,
And howv the old time seems,If ever the pines of IRamoth wood
Are sounding in her dreamis.
I see her fachee, I hear her voice:
Does she remembnl)er mine?
An(d whlat to her is now the boy
Who fedl her father's kine?
What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours, -
81 
82           F,\-AVOflITE POE.MS.
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers?
0 playmliate ii the golden time!
Our niossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.
The winds so sweet with birch and fern
A sweeter memory blow;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.
And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea, -
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee! 
AMY WENTWORTH.
AMY WENTWORTH.
ER fingers shame the ivory keys
They dance so light along;
The blooml upon her parted lips
Is sweeter than the song.
0 perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles!
Her thoughts are not of thee;
She better loves the salted wind,
The voices of the sea.
Her heart is like an outbound ship
That at its anchor swings;
The murmur of the stranded shell
Is in the song she sings.
She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise,
But dreams the while of one
Who- watches from his sea-blown deck
The icebergs in the sun,.  -
83 
~84     FAVORITE POEMS.
She questions all the winds that blow.
And every fog-wreath dim,
And bids the sea-birds flying north
Bear messages to him.
She speeds them with the thanks of men
He perilled life to save,
And gratefiul prayers like holy oil
To smooth for him the wave.
Brown Viking of the fishing-smack!
Fair toast of all the town!The skipper's jerkin ill beseems
The lady's silken gown!
But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear
For him the blush of shame
Who dares to set his manly gifts
Against her ancient name.
The streamin is brightest at its spring,
And blood is not like wine;
Nor honored less than he who heirs
Is he who founds a lin 
AMY WENTWORTH.
Full lightly shall the prize be won,
If love be Fortune's spur;
And never mnai(len stoops to himn
Who lifts himself to her.
Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street,
With stately stairways worn
By feet of old( Colonial knights
Ani  ladies gentle-borD.
Still green about its maple porch
The Englishl ivy twines,
Trained back to show inl English oak
The heraldcl's carven signs.
And on her, from the wainscot old,
Ancestral faces frown, -
And this has worn the soldier's sword,
And that the jtudge's gown.
But, strong of will and proud as they,
She walks the gallery floor
As if she trod her sailor's deck
By stormy Labrador!
85 
86          FAVORITE POEMS.
The sweetbrier bloomns on Kittery-side,
And green are Elliot's bowers;
1ter garden is the pebbled beach,
The mosses are her flowers.
She looks across the harbor-bar
To see the white nulls fly;
His greeting from the Northern sea
Is in their clanging cry.
She hums a song, and dreams that he,
As in its romance old,
Sliall homeward ridle with silken sails
And masts of beaten gold!
0, rank is good, and gold is fair,
And high andl low mate ill;
But love has never known a law
Beyond its own sweet will! 
IN SCHOOL-DAYS.
IN SCHOOL-DAYS.
TILL sits the school-house bytheroad,
A ragged beggar sunillg;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
Anld blackberry-vines are running.
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 (loor's worn sill, b)etraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storriig 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.
87 
~88     FAVORITE POEMS.
It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
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,
Andcl 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 broiwn eyes lower fell,
"Because, you see, I love you!" 
THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.
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 I
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
How few who pass above hini
Lament their triumph and his loss,
Like her,- because they love hilnm.
THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.
N the isle of Penikese,
Rinoed about by sapphire seas,
Faiined by breezes salt and cool,
Stood the Master with his school.
Over sails that not in vain
Wooed the west-wind's steady strain,
Line of coast that low and far
Stietchedcl its inldulating bar,
Wings aslant along the rim
Of the waves they stooped to skim,
Rock and isle and glistening bay,
89 
90         FAVORITE POEMS,
Fell the beautiful white day.
Said the Master to the youth
"We have come in search of truth,
Trying, with uncertain key
Door by door of mystery
We are reaching,, through His laws,
To the garm-ent-hem of Cause,
Him, the endless, unbegun,
The Unnamiable, the One
Light of all our light the Source,
Life of life, and Force of force.
As with fingers of the blind,
We are groping here to find
What the hieroglyphics mean
Of the Unseen in the seen,
What the thought which underlies
Nature's miasking and disguise,
What it is that hides beneath
Blight and bloom and birth and death.
By past efforts, tinavailing,
Doubt and error, loss and failing,
Of ouLr weakness made aware,
On the threshold of our task
Let us light and guidance ask,
Let us pautse in silent prayer!" 
THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.
Then the Master in his place
Bowed his head a little space,
And the leaves by soft airs stirred,
Lapse of wave and cry of bird
Left the solemn hush unbroken
Of that wordless prayer unspoken,
While its wish, on earth unsaid,
Rose to heaven interpreted.
As, in life's best hours, we hear
By the spirit's finer ear
His low voice within us, thus
The All-Father heareth us
And his holy ear we pain
With our noisy words and vain.
Not for Hilm oulr violence
Storming at the gates of sense,
HIlis the primial language, his
The eternal silences!
Even the careless heart was moved,
And the doubting, gave assent,
With a gesture reverent,
To the Master well-betbved.
As thin mists are glorified
By the light they cannot hide,
91 
92         FAVORITE POEMS.
All who gazed upon him saw,
Through its veil of tender awe,
How his face was still uplit
By the old sweet look of it,
Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer,
And the love that casts out fear.
Who the secret may declare
Of that brief, unuttered prayer'l
Did the shade before him come
Of the inevitable doom,
Of the end of earth so near,
And Eternity's new year 7
In the lap of sheltering seas
Rests the isle of Penikese
But the lord of the domain
Comes not to his own again:
Where the eyes that follow fail,
On a vaster sea his sail
Drifts beyond our beck and hail.
Other lips within its bound
Shall the laws of life expound
Other eyes from rock and shell
Read(l the worldl's old riddles well.
But when breezes light and bland 
THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.
Blow from Summer's blossomned land,
When the air is glad with wings,
And the blithe song-sparrow sings,
Many an eye with his still face
Shall the living ones displace,
Many an ear the word shall seek
Hle alone could( fitly speak.
And one namne forevermore
Shall be uttered o'er and( o'er
By the waves that kiss the shore,
By the curlew's whistle sent
Down the cool, sea-scented air;
In all voices known to her,
Nature owns her worshipper,
Half in triumnph, half lamient.
Thither Love shall tearfil turn,
Friendship pause uncovered there,
And the wisest reverence learn
From the Master's silent prayer.
93 
94         FAVORITE POEMS.
THE VANISHERS.
f,    tWEETEST of all childlike dreams
In the sweet Indian lore,
Still to me the legend seems
Of the shapes who flit before.
Flitting, passing, seen and gone,
Never reached nor found at rest,
Baffling, search, but beckoning on
To the sunset of the Blest.
From the clefts of mountain rocks,
Through the dark of lowland firs,
Flash the eyes and flow the locks
Of the mystic Vanishers!
And the fisher in his skiff,
And the hunter on the moss,
Hear their call from cape and cliff,
See their hands the birch-leaves toss. 
THE VANISHERS.
Wistftl, longing, through the green
Twilight of the clustered pines,
In their faces rarely seen
Beauty more than mortal shines.
Fringed with gold their mantles flow
On the slopes of westering knolls;
In the wind they whisper low
Of the Sunset Land of Souls.
Doubt who may, O friend of mine!
Thou and I have seen them too;
On before with beck and sign
Still they glide and we pursue.
More than clouds of purple trail
In the gold of setting (lay;
More than gleams of wing or sail,
Beckon from the sea-mist gray.
Glimpses of immortal youth,
Gleams and glories seen and flown,
Far-heard voices sweet with truth,
Airs from viewless Eden blown,
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FAVORITE POEMS.
Beauty that eludes our grasp,
Sweetness that transcends our taste,
Loving hands we may not clasp,
Shining feet that miock ouir haste,
Gentle eyes we closed below,
Tellder voices heard once miore,
Smnile and call Ius, as they go
On and onward, still before.
Guided thus, O friend of mine!
Let us walk our little way,
Knowing by each beckoning sign
That wve are not quite astray.
Chase we still, with baffled feet,
Smiiling eye and waving lianiid,
Sought and seeker soon shall meet,
Lost and found, in Sunset Land!
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