Lo! a scene of deadly strife-- A nation struggling into infant life; Not yet the fatal game at Yorktown won Where failing Empire fired its sunset gun.
LANGDON sits restless in the ancient chair,-- Harvard's grave Head,--these echoes heard his prayer When from yon mansion, dear to memory still, The banded yeomen marched for Bunker's Hill.
Count on the grave triennial's thick-starred roll What names were numbered on the lengthening scroll,-- Not unfamiliar in our ears they ring,-- Winthrop, Hale, Eliot, Everett, Dexter, Tyng.
Another stride.

Once more at 'twenty-nine,-- GOD SAVE KING GEORGE, the Second of his line! And is Sir Isaac living?
Nay, not so,-- He followed Flainsteed two short years ago,-- And what about the little hump-backed man Who pleased the bygone days of good Queen Anne?
What, Pope?
another book he's just put out,-- "The Dunciad,"-- witty, but profane, no doubt.
Where's Cotton Mather?
he was always here.
And so he would be, but he died last year.
Who is this preacher our Northampton claims, Whose rhetoric blazes with sulphureous flames And torches stolen from Tartarean mines?
Edwards, the salamander of divines.
A deep, strong nature, pure and undefiled; Faith, firm as his who stabbed his sleeping child; Alas for him who blindly strays apart, And seeking God has lost his human heart! Fall where they might, no flying cinders caught These sober halls where WADSWORTH ruled and taught.
One footstep more; the fourth receding stride Leaves the round century on the nearer side.
GOD SAVE KING CHARLES! God knows that pleasant knave His grace will find it hard enough to save.
Ten years and more, and now the Plague, the Fire, Talk of all tongues, at last begin to tire; One fear prevails, all other frights forgot,-- White lips are whispering,--hark! The Popish Plot! Happy New England, from such troubles free In health and peace beyond the stormy sea! No Romish daggers threat her children's throats, No gibbering nightmare mutters "Titus Oates;" Philip is slain, the Quaker graves are green, Not yet the witch has entered on the scene; Happy our Harvard; pleased her graduates four; URIAN OAKES the name their parchments bore.
Two centuries past, our hurried feet arrive At the last footprint of the scanty five; Take the fifth stride; our wandering eyes explore A tangled forest on a trackless shore; Here, where we stand, the savage sorcerer howls, The wild cat snarls, the stealthy gray wolf prowls, The slouching bear, perchance the trampling moose Starts the brown squaw and scares her red pappoose; At every step the lurking foe is near; His Demons reign; God has no temple here! Lift up your eyes! behold these pictured walls; Look where the flood of western glory falls Through the great sunflower disk of blazing panes In ruby, saffron, azure, emerald stains; With reverent step the marble pavement tread Where our proud Mother's martyr-roll is read; See the great halls that cluster, gathering round This lofty shrine with holiest memories crowned; See the fair Matron in her summer bower, Fresh as a rose in bright perennial flower; Read on her standard, always in the van, "TRUTH,"-- the one word that makes a slave a man; Think whose the hands that fed her altar-fires, Then count the debt we owe our scholar-sires! Brothers, farewell! the fast declining ray Fades to the twilight of our golden day; Some lesson yet our wearied brains may learn, Some leaves, perhaps, in life's thin volume turn.
How few they seem as in our waning age We count them backwards to the title-page! Oh let us trust with holy men of old Not all the story here begun is told; So the tired spirit, waiting to be freed, On life's last leaf with tranquil eye shall read By the pale glimmer of the torch reversed, Not Finis, but _The End of Volume First_! MY AVIARY Through my north window, in the wintry weather,-- My airy oriel on the river shore,-- I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar.
The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen, Lets the loose water waft him as it will; The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden, Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still.
I see the solemn gulls in council sitting On some broad ice-floe pondering long and late, While overhead the home-bound ducks are flitting, And leave the tardy conclave in debate, Those weighty questions in their breasts revolving Whose deeper meaning science never learns, Till at some reverend elder's look dissolving, The speechless senate silently adjourns.
But when along the waves the shrill north-easter Shrieks through the laboring coaster's shrouds "Beware!" The pale bird, kindling like a Christmas feaster When some wild chorus shakes the vinous air, Flaps from the leaden wave in fierce rejoicing, Feels heaven's dumb lightning thrill his torpid nerves, Now on the blast his whistling plumage poising, Now wheeling, whirling in fantastic curves.
Such is our gull; a gentleman of leisure, Less fleshed than feathered; bagged you'll find him such; His virtue silence; his employment pleasure; Not bad to look at, and not good for much.
What of our duck?
He has some high-bred cousins,-- His Grace the Canvas-back, My Lord the Brant,-- Anas and Anser,--both served up by dozens, At Boston's Rocher, half-way to Nahant.
As for himself, he seems alert and thriving,-- Grubs up a living somehow--what, who knows?
Crabs?
mussels?
weeds ?--Look quick! there 's one just diving! Flop! Splash! his white breast glistens--down he goes! And while he 's under--just about a minute-- I take advantage of the fact to say His fishy carcase has no virtue in it The gunning idiot's worthless hire to pay.
Shrewd is our bird; not easy to outwit him! Sharp is the outlook of those pin-head eyes; Still, he is mortal and a shot may hit him, One cannot always miss him if he tries.
He knows you! "sportsmen" from suburban alleys, Stretched under seaweed in the treacherous punt; Knows every lazy, shiftless lout that sallies Forth to waste powder--as he says, to "hunt." I watch you with a patient satisfaction, Well pleased to discount your predestined luck; The float that figures in your sly transaction Will carry back a goose, but not a duck.
Look! there's a young one, dreaming not of danger; Sees a flat log come floating down the stream; Stares undismayed upon the harmless stranger; Ah! were all strangers harmless as they seem! _Habet_! a leaden shower his breast has shattered; Vainly he flutters, not again to rise; His soft white plumes along the waves are scattered; Helpless the wing that braved the tempest lies.
He sees his comrades high above him flying To seek their nests among the island reeds; Strong is their flight; all lonely he is lying Washed by the crimsoned water as he bleeds.
O Thou who carest for the falling sparrow, Canst Thou the sinless sufferer's pang forget?
Or is thy dread account-book's page so narrow Its one long column scores thy creatures' debt?
Poor gentle guest, by nature kindly cherished, A world grows dark with thee in blinding death; One little gasp--thy universe has perished, Wrecked by the idle thief who stole thy breath! Is this the whole sad story of creation, Lived by its breathing myriads o'er and o'er,-- One glimpse of day, then black annihilation,-- A sunlit passage to a sunless shore?
Give back our faith, ye mystery-solving lynxes! Robe us once more in heaven-aspiring creeds Happier was dreaming Egypt with her sphinxes, The stony convent with its cross and beads! How often gazing where a bird reposes, Rocked on the wavelets, drifting with the tide, I lose myself in strange metempsychosis And float a sea-fowl at a sea-fowl's side; From rain, hail, snow in feathery mantle muffled, Clear-eyed, strong-limbed, with keenest sense to hear My mate soft murmuring, who, with plumes unruffled, Where'er I wander still is nestling near; The great blue hollow like a garment o'er me; Space all unmeasured, unrecorded time; While seen with inward eye moves on before me Thought's pictured train in wordless pantomime.
A voice recalls me .-- From my window turning I find myself a plumeless biped still; No beak, no claws, no sign of wings discerning,-- In fact with nothing bird-like but my quill.
ON THE THRESHOLD INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION OF POEMS BYDIFFERENT AUTHORS AN usher standing at the door I show my white rosette; A smile of welcome, nothing more, Will pay my trifling debt; Why should I bid you idly wait Like lovers at the swinging gate?
Can I forget the wedding guest?
The veteran of the sea?
In vain the listener smites his breast,-- "There was a ship," cries he! Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale, He needs must listen to the tale.
He sees the gilded throng within, The sparkling goblets gleam, The music and the merry din Through every window stream, But there he shivers in the cold Till all the crazy dream is told.
Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye That held his captive still To hold my silent prisoners by And let me have my will; Nay, I were like the three-years' child, To think you could be so beguiled! My verse is but the curtain's fold That hides the painted scene, The mist by morning's ray unrolled That veils the meadow's green, The cloud that needs must drift away To show the rose of opening day.
See, from the tinkling rill you hear In hollowed palm I bring These scanty drops, but ah, how near The founts that heavenward spring! Thus, open wide the gates are thrown And founts and flowers are all your own! TO GEORGE PEABODY DANVERS, 1866 BANKRUPT! our pockets inside out! Empty of words to speak his praises! Worcester and Webster up the spout! Dead broke of laudatory phrases! Yet why with flowery speeches tease, With vain superlatives distress him?
Has language better words than these?
THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD BLESS HIM! A simple prayer--but words more sweet By human lips were never uttered, Since Adam left the country seat Where angel wings around him fluttered.
The old look on with tear-dimmed eyes, The children cluster to caress him, And every voice unbidden cries, THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD BLESS HIM! AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB A LOVELY show for eyes to see I looked upon this morning,-- A bright-hued, feathered company Of nature's own adorning; But ah! those minstrels would not sing A listening ear while I lent,-- The lark sat still and preened his wing, The nightingale was silent; I longed for what they gave me not-- Their warblings sweet and fluty, But grateful still for all I got I thanked them for their beauty.
A fairer vision meets my view Of Claras, Margarets, Marys, In silken robes of varied hue, Like bluebirds and canaries; The roses blush, the jewels gleam, The silks and satins glisten, The black eyes flash, the blue eyes beam, We look--and then we listen Behold the flock we cage to-night-- Was ever such a capture?
To see them is a pure delight; To hear them--ah! what rapture! Methinks I hear Delilah's laugh At Samson bound in fetters; "We captured!" shrieks each lovelier half, "Men think themselves our betters! We push the bolt, we turn the key On warriors, poets, sages, Too happy, all of them, to be Locked in our golden cages!" Beware! the boy with bandaged eyes Has flung away his blinder; He 's lost his mother--so he cries-- And here he knows he'll find her: The rogue! 't is but a new device,-- Look out for flying arrows Whene'er the birds of Paradise Are perched amid the sparrows! FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY DECEMBER 17, 1877 I BELIEVE that the copies of verses I've spun, Like Scheherezade's tales, are a thousand and one; You remember the story,--those mornings in bed,-- 'T was the turn of a copper,--a tale or a head.
A doom like Scheherezade's falls upon me In a mandate as stern as the Sultan's decree I'm a florist in verse, and what would people say If I came to a banquet without my bouquet?
It is trying, no doubt, when the company knows Just the look and the smell of each lily and rose, The green of each leaf in the sprigs that I bring, And the shape of the bunch and the knot of the string.
Yes,--"the style is the man," and the nib of one's pen Makes the same mark at twenty, and threescore and ten; It is so in all matters, if truth may be told; Let one look at the cast he can tell you the mould.
How we all know each other! no use in disguise; Through the holes in the mask comes the flash of the eyes; We can tell by his--somewhat--each one of our tribe, As we know the old hat which we cannot describe.
Though in Hebrew, in Sanscrit, in Choctaw you write, Sweet singer who gave us the Voices of Night, Though in buskin or slipper your song may be shod; Or the velvety verse that Evangeline trod, We shall say, "You can't cheat us,--we know it is you," There is one voice like that, but there cannot be two, Maestro, whose chant like the dulcimer rings And the woods will be hushed while the nightingale sings.
And he, so serene, so majestic, so true, Whose temple hypethral the planets shine through, Let us catch but five words from that mystical pen, We should know our one sage from all children of men.
And he whose bright image no distance can dim, Through a hundred disguises we can't mistake him, Whose play is all earnest, whose wit is the edge (With a beetle behind) of a sham-splitting wedge.
Do you know whom we send you, Hidalgos of Spain?
Do you know your old friends when you see them again?
Hosea was Sancho! you Dons of Madrid, But Sancho that wielded the lance of the Cid! And the wood-thrush of Essex,--you know whom I mean, Whose song echoes round us while he sits unseen, Whose heart-throbs of verse through our memories thrill Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze from the hill, So fervid, so simple, so loving, so pure, We hear but one strain and our verdict is sure,-- Thee cannot elude us,--no further we search,-- 'T is Holy George Herbert cut loose from his church! We think it the voice of a seraph that sings,-- Alas! we remember that angels have wings,-- What story is this of the day of his birth?
Let him live to a hundred! we want him on earth! One life has been paid him (in gold) by the sun; One account has been squared and another begun; But he never will die if he lingers below Till we've paid him in love half the balance we owe! TWO SONNETS: HARVARD At the meeting of the New York Harvard Club, February 21, 1878.
"CHRISTO ET ECCLESLE." 1700 To GOD'S ANOINTED AND HIS CHOSEN FLOCK So ran the phrase the black-robed conclave chose To guard the sacred cloisters that arose Like David's altar on Moriah's rock.
Unshaken still those ancient arches mock The ram's-horn summons of the windy foes Who stand like Joshua's army while it blows And wait to see them toppling with the shock.
Christ and the Church.

Their church, whose narrow door Shut out the many, who if overbold Like hunted wolves were driven from the fold, Bruised with the flails these godly zealots bore, Mindful that Israel's altar stood of old Where echoed once Araunah's threshing-floor.
1643 "VERITAS." 1878 TRUTH: So the frontlet's older legend ran, On the brief record's opening page displayed; Not yet those clear-eyed scholars were afraid Lest the fair fruit that wrought the woe of man By far Euphrates--where our sire began His search for truth, and, seeking, was betrayed-- Might work new treason in their forest shade, Doubling the curse that brought life's shortened span.
Nurse of the future, daughter of the past, That stern phylactery best becomes thee now Lift to the morning star thy marble brow Cast thy brave truth on every warring blast! Stretch thy white hand to that forbidden bough, And let thine earliest symbol be thy last! THE COMING ERA THEY tell us that the Muse is soon to fly hence, Leaving the bowers of song that once were dear, Her robes bequeathing to her sister, Science, The groves of Pindus for the axe to clear.
Optics will claim the wandering eye of fancy, Physics will grasp imagination's wings, Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy, The workshop hammer where the minstrel sings, No more with laugher at Thalia's frolics Our eyes shall twinkle till the tears run down, But in her place the lecturer on hydraulics Spout forth his watery science to the town.
No more our foolish passions and affections The tragic Muse with mimic grief shall try, But, nobler far, a course of vivisections Teach what it costs a tortured brute to die.
The unearthed monad, long in buried rocks hid, Shall tell the secret whence our being came; The chemist show us death is life's black oxide, Left when the breath no longer fans its flame.
Instead of crack-brained poets in their attics Filling thin volumes with their flowery talk, There shall be books of wholesome mathematics; The tutor with his blackboard and his chalk.
No longer bards with madrigal and sonnet Shall woo to moonlight walks the ribboned sex, But side by side the beaver and the bonnet Stroll, calmly pondering on some problem's x.
The sober bliss of serious calculation Shall mock the trivial joys that fancy drew, And, oh, the rapture of a solved equation,-- One self-same answer on the lips of two! So speak in solemn tones our youthful sages, Patient, severe, laborious, slow, exact, As o'er creation's protoplasmic pages They browse and munch the thistle crops of fact.
And yet we 've sometimes found it rather pleasant To dream again the scenes that Shakespeare drew,-- To walk the hill-side with the Scottish peasant Among the daisies wet with morning's dew; To leave awhile the daylight of the real, Led by the guidance of the master's hand, For the strange radiance of the far ideal,-- "The light that never was on sea or land." Well, Time alone can lift the future's curtain,-- Science may teach our children all she knows, But Love will kindle fresh young hearts, 't is certain, And June will not forget her blushing rose.
And so, in spite of all that Time is bringing,-- Treasures of truth and miracles of art, Beauty and Love will keep the poet singing, And song still live, the science of the heart.
IN RESPONSE Breakfast at the Century Club, New York, May, 1879.
SUCH kindness! the scowl of a cynic would soften, His pulse beat its way to some eloquent words, Alas! my poor accents have echoed too often, Like that Pinafore music you've some of you heard.
Do you know me, dear strangers--the hundredth time comer At banquets and feasts since the days of my Spring?
Ah! would I could borrow one rose of my Summer, But this is a leaf of my Autumn I bring.
I look at your faces,--I'm sure there are some from The three-breasted mother I count as my own; You think you remember the place you have come from, But how it has changed in the years that have flown! Unaltered, 't is true, is the hall we call "Funnel," Still fights the "Old South" in the battle for life, But we've opened our door to the West through the tunnel, And we've cut off Fort Hill with our Amazon knife.
You should see the new Westminster Boston has builded,-- Its mansions, its spires, its museums of arts,-- You should see the great dome we have gorgeously gilded,-- 'T is the light of our eyes, 't is the joy of our hearts.
When first in his path a young asteroid found it, As he sailed through the skies with the stars in his wake, He thought 't was the sun, and kept circling around it Till Edison signalled, "You've made a mistake." We are proud of our city,--her fast-growing figure, The warp and the woof of her brain and her hands,-- But we're proudest of all that her heart has grown bigger, And warms with fresh blood as her girdle expands.
One lesson the rubric of conflict has taught her Though parted awhile by war's earth-rending shock, The lines that divide us are written in water, The love that unites us cut deep in the rock.
As well might the Judas of treason endeavor To write his black name on the disk of the sun As try the bright star-wreath that binds us to sever And blot the fair legend of "Many in One." We love You, tall sister, the stately, the splendid,-- The banner of empire floats high on your towers, Yet ever in welcome your arms are extended,-- We share in your splendors, your glory is ours.
Yes, Queen of the Continent! All of us own thee,-- The gold-freighted argosies flock at thy call, The naiads, the sea-nymphs have met to enthrone thee, But the Broadway of one is the Highway of all! I thank you.

Three words that can hardly be mended, Though phrases on phrases their eloquence pile, If you hear the heart's throb with their eloquence blended, And read all they mean in a sunshiny smile.
FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION MAY 28, 1879.
ENCHANTER of Erin, whose magic has bound us, Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim, Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us That blush into life at the sound of thy name.
The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers,-- I hear the old song with its tender refrain,-- What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers What perfume of youth in each exquisite strain! The home of my childhood comes back as a vision,-- Hark! Hark! A soft chord from its song-haunted room,-- 'T is a morning of May, when the air is Elysian,-- The syringa in bud and the lilac in bloom,-- We are clustered around the "Clementi" piano,-- There were six of us then,--there are two of us now,-- She is singing--the girl with the silver soprano-- How "The Lord of the Valley" was false to his vow; "Let Erin remember" the echoes are calling; Through "The Vale of Avoca" the waters are rolled; "The Exile" laments while the night-dews falling; "The Morning of Life" dawns again as of old.
But ah! those warm love-songs of fresh adolescence! Around us such raptures celestial they flung That it seemed as if Paradise breathed its quintessence Through the seraph-toned lips of the maiden that sung! Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred, Yet still with their music is memory haunted, And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard.
I feel like the priest to his altar returning,-- The crowd that was kneeling no longer is there, The flame has died down, but the brands are still burning, And sandal and cinnamon sweeten the air.
II.
The veil for her bridal young Summer is weaving In her azure-domed hall with its tapestried floor, And Spring the last tear-drop of May-dew is leaving On the daisy of Burns and the shamrock of Moore.
How like, how unlike, as we view them together, The song of the minstrels whose record we scan,-- One fresh as the breeze blowing over the heather, One sweet as the breath from an odalisque's fan! Ah, passion can glow mid a palace's splendor; The cage does not alter the song of the bird; And the curtain of silk has known whispers as tender As ever the blossoming hawthorn has heard.
No fear lest the step of the soft-slippered Graces Should fright the young Loves from their warm little nest, For the heart of a queen, under jewels and laces, Beats time with the pulse in the peasant girl's breast! Thrice welcome each gift of kind Nature's bestowing! Her fountain heeds little the goblet we hold; Alike, when its musical waters are flowing, The shell from the seaside, the chalice of gold.
The twins of the lyre to her voices had listened; Both laid their best gifts upon Liberty's shrine; For Coila's loved minstrel the holly-wreath glistened; For Erin's the rose and the myrtle entwine.
And while the fresh blossoms of summer are braided For the sea-girdled, stream-silvered, lake-jewelled isle, While her mantle of verdure is woven unfaded, While Shannon and Liffey shall dimple and smile, The land where the staff of Saint Patrick was planted, Where the shamrock grows green from the cliffs to the shore, The land of fair maidens and heroes undaunted, Shall wreathe her bright harp with the garlands of Moore! TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE APRIL 4, 1880 I BRING the simplest pledge of love, Friend of my earlier days; Mine is the hand without the glove, The heart-beat, not the phrase.
How few still breathe this mortal air We called by school-boy names! You still, whatever robe you wear, To me are always James.
That name the kind apostle bore Who shames the sullen creeds, Not trusting less, but loving more, And showing faith by deeds.
What blending thoughts our memories share! What visions yours and mine Of May-days in whose morning air The dews were golden wine, Of vistas bright with opening day, Whose all-awakening sun Showed in life's landscape, far away, The summits to be won! The heights are gained.

Ah, say not so For him who smiles at time, Leaves his tired comrades down below, And only lives to climb! His labors,--will they ever cease,-- With hand and tongue and pen?
Shall wearied Nature ask release At threescore years and ten?
Our strength the clustered seasons tax,-- For him new life they mean; Like rods around the lictor's axe They keep him bright and keen.
The wise, the brave, the strong, we know,-- We mark them here or there, But he,--we roll our eyes, and lo! We find him everywhere! With truth's bold cohorts, or alone, He strides through error's field; His lance is ever manhood's own, His breast is woman's shield.
Count not his years while earth has need Of souls that Heaven inflames With sacred zeal to save, to lead,-- Long live our dear Saint James! WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB January 14, 1880 CHICAGO sounds rough to the maker of verse; One comfort we have--Cincinnati sounds worse; If we only were licensed to say Chicago! But Worcester and Webster won't let us, you know.
No matter, we songsters must sing as we can; We can make some nice couplets with Lake Michigan, And what more resembles a nightingale's voice, Than the oily trisyllable, sweet Illinois?
Your waters are fresh, while our harbor is salt, But we know you can't help it--it is n't your fault; Our city is old and your city is new, But the railroad men tell us we're greener than you.
You have seen our gilt dome, and no doubt you've been told That the orbs of the universe round it are rolled; But I'll own it to you, and I ought to know best, That this is n't quite true of all stars of the West.
You'll go to Mount Auburn,--we'll show you the track,-- And can stay there,--unless you prefer to come back; And Bunker's tall shaft you can climb if you will, But you'll puff like a paragraph praising a pill.
You must see--but you have seen--our old Faneuil Hall, Our churches, our school-rooms, our sample-rooms, all; And, perhaps, though the idiots must have their jokes, You have found our good people much like other folks.
There are cities by rivers, by lakes, and by seas, Each as full of itself as a cheese-mite of cheese; And a city will brag as a game-cock will crow Don't your cockerels at home--just a little, you know?
But we'll crow for you now--here's a health to the boys, Men, maidens, and matrons of fair Illinois, And the rainbow of friendship that arches its span From the green of the sea to the blue Michigan! AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION MAY 26, 1880 SIRE, son, and grandson; so the century glides; Three lives, three strides, three foot-prints in the sand; Silent as midnight's falling meteor slides Into the stillness of the far-off land; How dim the space its little arc has spanned! See on this opening page the names renowned Tombed in these records on our dusty shelves, Scarce on the scroll of living memory found, Save where the wan-eyed antiquarian delves; Shadows they seem; ab, what are we ourselves?
Pale ghosts of Bowdoin, Winthrop, Willard, West, Sages of busy brain and wrinkled brow, Searchers of Nature's secrets unconfessed, Asking of all things Whence and Why and How-- What problems meet your larger vision now?
Has Gannett tracked the wild Aurora's path?
Has Bowdoin found his all-surrounding sphere?
What question puzzles ciphering Philomath?
Could Williams make the hidden causes clear Of the Dark Day that filled the land with fear?
Dear ancient school-boys! Nature taught to them The simple lessons of the star and flower, Showed them strange sights; how on a single stem,-- Admire the marvels of Creative Power!-- Twin apples grew, one sweet, the other sour; How from the hill-top where our eyes beheld In even ranks the plumed and bannered maize Range its long columns, in the days of old The live volcano shot its angry blaze,-- Dead since the showers of Noah's watery days; How, when the lightning split the mighty rock, The spreading fury of the shaft was spent! How the young scion joined the alien stock, And when and where the homeless swallows went To pass the winter of their discontent.
Scant were the gleanings in those years of dearth; No Cuvier yet had clothed the fossil bones That slumbered, waiting for their second birth; No Lyell read the legend of the stones; Science still pointed to her empty thrones.
Dreaming of orbs to eyes of earth unknown, Herschel looked heavenwards in the starlight pale; Lost in those awful depths he trod alone, Laplace stood mute before the lifted veil; While home-bred Humboldt trimmed his toy ship's sail.
No mortal feet these loftier heights had gained Whence the wide realms of Nature we descry; In vain their eyes our longing fathers strained To scan with wondering gaze the summits high That far beneath their children's footpaths lie.
Smile at their first small ventures as we may, The school-boy's copy shapes the scholar's hand, Their grateful memory fills our hearts to-day; Brave, hopeful, wise, this bower of peace they planned, While war's dread ploughshare scarred the suffering land.
Child of our children's children yet unborn, When on this yellow page you turn your eyes, Where the brief record of this May-day morn In phrase antique and faded letters lies, How vague, how pale our flitting ghosts will rise! Yet in our veins the blood ran warm and red, For us the fields were green, the skies were blue, Though from our dust the spirit long has fled, We lived, we loved, we toiled, we dreamed like you, Smiled at our sires and thought how much we knew.
Oh might our spirits for one hour return, When the next century rounds its hundredth ring, All the strange secrets it shall teach to learn, To hear the larger truths its years shall bring, Its wiser sages talk, its sweeter minstrels sing! THE SCHOOL-BOY Read at the Centennial Celebration of the foundation of Phillips Academy, Andover.
1778-1878 THESE hallowed precincts, long to memory dear, Smile with fresh welcome as our feet draw near; With softer gales the opening leaves are fanned, With fairer hues the kindling flowers expand, The rose-bush reddens with the blush of June, The groves are vocal with their minstrels' tune, The mighty elm, beneath whose arching shade The wandering children of the forest strayed, Greets the bright morning in its bridal dress, And spreads its arms the gladsome dawn to bless.
Is it an idle dream that nature shares Our joys, our griefs, our pastimes, and our cares?
Is there no summons when, at morning's call, The sable vestments of the darkness fall?
Does not meek evening's low-voiced Ave blend With the soft vesper as its notes ascend?
Is there no whisper in the perfumed air When the sweet bosom of the rose is bare?
Does not the sunshine call us to rejoice?
Is there no meaning in the storm-cloud's voice?
No silent message when from midnight skies Heaven looks upon us with its myriad eyes?
Or shift the mirror; say our dreams diffuse O'er life's pale landscape their celestial hues, Lend heaven the rainbow it has never known, And robe the earth in glories not its own, Sing their own music in the summer breeze, With fresher foliage clothe the stately trees, Stain the June blossoms with a livelier dye And spread a bluer azure on the sky,-- Blest be the power that works its lawless will And finds the weediest patch an Eden still; No walls so fair as those our fancies build,-- No views so bright as those our visions gild! So ran my lines, as pen and paper met, The truant goose-quill travelling like Planchette; Too ready servant, whose deceitful ways Full many a slipshod line, alas! betrays; Hence of the rhyming thousand not a few Have builded worse--a great deal--than they knew.
What need of idle fancy to adorn Our mother's birthplace on her birthday morn?
Hers are the blossoms of eternal spring, From these green boughs her new-fledged birds take wing, These echoes hear their earliest carols sung, In this old nest the brood is ever young.
If some tired wanderer, resting from his flight, Amid the gay young choristers alight, These gather round him, mark his faded plumes That faintly still the far-off grove perfumes, And listen, wondering if some feeble note Yet lingers, quavering in his weary throat:-- I, whose fresh voice yon red-faced temple knew, What tune is left me, fit to sing to you?
Ask not the grandeurs of a labored song, But let my easy couplets slide along; Much could I tell you that you know too well; Much I remember, but I will not tell; Age brings experience; graybeards oft are wise, But oh! how sharp a youngster's ears and eyes! My cheek was bare of adolescent down When first I sought the academic town; Slow rolls the coach along the dusty road, Big with its filial and parental load; The frequent hills, the lonely woods are past, The school-boy's chosen home is reached at last.
I see it now, the same unchanging spot, The swinging gate, the little garden plot, The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor, The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still; Two, creased with age,--or what I then called age,-- Life's volume open at its fiftieth page; One, a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet As the first snow-drop, which the sunbeams greet; One, the last nursling's; slight she was, and fair, Her smooth white forehead warmed with auburn hair; Last came the virgin Hymen long had spared, Whose daily cares the grateful household shared, Strong, patient, humble; her substantial frame Stretched the chaste draperies I forbear to name.
Brave, but with effort, had the school-boy come To the cold comfort of a stranger's home; How like a dagger to my sinking heart Came the dry summons, "It is time to part; Good-by!" "Goo-ood-by!" one fond maternal kiss.