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So rose the picture full in view I paint in feebler song; Such power the seamless banner knew Of red and white and starry blue For exiles banished long.
Oh, boys, dear boys, who wait as men To guard its heaven-bright folds, Blest are the eyes that see again That banner, seamless now, as then,-- The fairest earth beholds! Sweet was the Tuscan air and soft In that unfading hour, And fancy leads my footsteps oft Up the round galleries, high aloft On Pisa's threatening tower.
And still in Memory's holiest shrine I read with pride and joy, "For me those stars of empire shine; That empire's dearest home is mine; I am a Cambridge boy!" POEM AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 8, 1881 THREE paths there be where Learning's favored sons, Trained in the schools which hold her favored ones, Follow their several stars with separate aim; Each has its honors, each its special claim.
Bred in the fruitful cradle of the East, First, as of oldest lineage, comes the Priest; The Lawyer next, in wordy conflict strong, Full armed to battle for the right,--or wrong; Last, he whose calling finds its voice in deeds, Frail Nature's helper in her sharpest needs.
Each has his gifts, his losses and his gains, Each his own share of pleasures and of pains; No life-long aim with steadfast eye pursued Finds a smooth pathway all with roses strewed; Trouble belongs to man of woman born,-- Tread where he may, his foot will find its thorn.
Of all the guests at life's perennial feast, Who of her children sits above the Priest?
For him the broidered robe, the carven seat, Pride at his beck, and beauty at his feet, For him the incense fumes, the wine is poured, Himself a God, adoring and adored! His the first welcome when our hearts rejoice, His in our dying ear the latest voice, Font, altar, grave, his steps on all attend, Our staff, our stay, our all but heavenly friend! Where is the meddling hand that dares to probe The secret grief beneath his sable robe?
How grave his port! how every gesture tells Here truth abides, here peace forever dwells; Vex not his lofty soul with comments vain; Faith asks no questions; silence, ye profane! Alas! too oft while all is calm without The stormy spirit wars with endless doubt; This is the mocking spectre, scarce concealed Behind tradition's bruised and battered shield.
He sees the sleepless critic, age by age, Scrawl his new readings on the hallowed page, The wondrous deeds that priests and prophets saw Dissolved in legend, crystallized in law, And on the soil where saints and martyrs trod Altars new builded to the Unknown God; His shrines imperilled, his evangels torn,-- He dares not limp, but ah! how sharp his thorn! Yet while God's herald questions as he reads The outworn dogmas of his ancient creeds, Drops from his ritual the exploded verse, Blots from its page the Athanasian curse, Though by the critic's dangerous art perplexed, His holy life is Heaven's unquestioned text; That shining guidance doubt can never mar,-- The pillar's flame, the light of Bethlehem's star! Strong is the moral blister that will draw Laid on the conscience of the Man of Law Whom blindfold Justice lends her eyes to see Truth in the scale that holds his promised fee.
What! Has not every lie its truthful side, Its honest fraction, not to be denied?
Per contra,--ask the moralist,--in sooth Has not a lie its share in every truth?
Then what forbids an honest man to try To find the truth that lurks in every lie, And just as fairly call on truth to yield The lying fraction in its breast concealed?
So the worst rogue shall claim a ready friend His modest virtues boldly to defend, And he who shows the record of a saint See himself blacker than the devil could paint.
What struggles to his captive soul belong Who loves the right, yet combats for the wrong, Who fights the battle he would fain refuse, And wins, well knowing that he ought to lose, Who speaks with glowing lips and look sincere In spangled words that make the worse appear The better reason; who, behind his mask, Hides his true self and blushes at his task,-- What quips, what quillets cheat the inward scorn That mocks such triumph?
Has he not his thorn?
Yet stay thy judgment; were thy life the prize, Thy death the forfeit, would thy cynic eyes See fault in him who bravely dares defend The cause forlorn, the wretch without a friend Nay, though the rightful side is wisdom's choice, Wrong has its rights and claims a champion's voice; Let the strong arm be lifted for the weak, For the dumb lips the fluent pleader speak;-- When with warm "rebel" blood our street was dyed Who took, unawed, the hated hirelings' side?
No greener civic wreath can Adams claim, No brighter page the youthful Quincy's name! How blest is he who knows no meaner strife Than Art's long battle with the foes of life! No doubt assails him, doing still his best, And trusting kindly Nature for the rest; No mocking conscience tears the thin disguise That wraps his breast, and tells him that he lies.
He comes: the languid sufferer lifts his head And smiles a welcome from his weary bed; He speaks: what music like the tones that tell, "Past is the hour of danger,--all is well!" How can he feel the petty stings of grief Whose cheering presence always brings relief?
What ugly dreams can trouble his repose Who yields himself to soothe another's woes?
Hour after hour the busy day has found The good physician on his lonely round; Mansion and hovel, low and lofty door, He knows, his journeys every path explore,-- Where the cold blast has struck with deadly chill The sturdy dweller on the storm-swept hill, Where by the stagnant marsh the sickening gale Has blanched the poisoned tenants of the vale, Where crushed and maimed the bleeding victim lies, Where madness raves, where melancholy sighs, And where the solemn whisper tells too plain That all his science, all his art, were vain.
How sweet his fireside when the day is done And cares have vanished with the setting sun! Evening at last its hour of respite brings And on his couch his weary length he flings.
Soft be thy pillow, servant of mankind, Lulled by an opiate Art could never find; Sweet be thy slumber,--thou hast earned it well,-- Pleasant thy dreams! Clang! goes the midnight bell! Darkness and storm! the home is far away That waits his coming ere the break of day; The snow-clad pines their wintry plumage toss,-- Doubtful the frozen stream his road must cross; Deep lie the drifts, the slanted heaps have shut The hardy woodman in his mountain hut,-- Why should thy softer frame the tempest brave?
Hast thou no life, no health, to lose or save?
Look! read the answer in his patient eyes,-- For him no other voice when suffering cries; Deaf to the gale that all around him blows, A feeble whisper calls him,--and he goes.
Or seek the crowded city,--summer's heat Glares burning, blinding, in the narrow street, Still, noisome, deadly, sleeps the envenomed air, Unstirred the yellow flag that says "Beware!" Tempt not thy fate,--one little moment's breath Bears on its viewless wing the seeds of death; Thou at whose door the gilded chariots stand, Whose dear-bought skill unclasps the miser's hand, Turn from thy fatal quest, nor cast away That life so precious; let a meaner prey Feed the destroyer's hunger; live to bless Those happier homes that need thy care no less! Smiling he listens; has he then a charm Whose magic virtues peril can disarm?
No safeguard his; no amulet he wears, Too well he knows that Nature never spares Her truest servant, powerless to defend From her own weapons her unshrinking friend.
He dares the fate the bravest well might shun, Nor asks reward save only Heaven's "Well done!" Such are the toils, the perils that he knows, Days without rest and nights without repose, Yet all unheeded for the love he bears His art, his kind, whose every grief he shares.
Harder than these to know how small the part Nature's proud empire yields to striving Art; How, as the tide that rolls around the sphere Laughs at the mounds that delving arms uprear,-- Spares some few roods of oozy earth, but still Wastes and rebuilds the planet at its will, Comes at its ordered season, night or noon, Led by the silver magnet of the moon,-- So life's vast tide forever comes and goes, Unchecked, resistless, as it ebbs and flows.
Hardest of all, when Art has done her best, To find the cuckoo brooding in her nest; The shrewd adventurer, fresh from parts unknown, Kills off the patients Science thought her own; Towns from a nostrum-vender get their name, Fences and walls the cure-all drug proclaim, Plasters and pads the willing world beguile, Fair Lydia greets us with astringent smile, Munchausen's fellow-countryman unlocks His new Pandora's globule-holding box, And as King George inquired, with puzzled grin, "How--how the devil get the apple in ?" So we ask how,--with wonder-opening eyes,-- Such pygmy pills can hold such giant lies! Yes, sharp the trials, stern the daily tasks That suffering Nature from her servant asks; His the kind office dainty menials scorn, His path how hard,--at every step a thorn! What does his saddening, restless slavery buy?
What save a right to live, a chance to die,-- To live companion of disease and pain, To die by poisoned shafts untimely slain?
Answer from hoary eld, majestic shades,-- From Memphian courts, from Delphic colonnades, Speak in the tones that Persia's despot heard When nations treasured every golden word The wandering echoes wafted o'er the seas, From the far isle that held Hippocrates; And thou, best gift that Pergamus could send Imperial Rome, her noblest Caesar's friend, Master of masters, whose unchallenged sway Not bold Vesalius dared to disobey; Ye who while prophets dreamed of dawning times Taught your rude lessons in Salerno's rhymes, And ye, the nearer sires, to whom we owe The better share of all the best we know, In every land an ever-growing train, Since wakening Science broke her rusted chain,-- Speak from the past, and say what prize was sent To crown the toiling years so freely spent! List while they speak: In life's uneven road Our willing hands have eased our brothers' load; One forehead smoothed, one pang of torture less, One peaceful hour a sufferer's couch to bless, The smile brought back to fever's parching lips, The light restored to reason in eclipse, Life's treasure rescued like a burning brand Snatched from the dread destroyer's wasteful hand; Such were our simple records day by day, For gains like these we wore our lives away.
In toilsome paths our daily bread we sought, But bread from heaven attending angels brought; Pain was our teacher, speaking to the heart, Mother of pity, nurse of pitying art; Our lesson learned, we reached the peaceful shore Where the pale sufferer asks our aid no more,-- These gracious words our welcome, our reward Ye served your brothers; ye have served your Lord! RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME FROM the first gleam of morning to the gray Of peaceful evening, lo, a life unrolled! In woven pictures all its changes told, Its lights, its shadows, every flitting ray, Till the long curtain, falling, dims the day, Steals from the dial's disk the sunlight's gold, And all the graven hours grow dark and cold Where late the glowing blaze of noontide lay.
Ah! the warm blood runs wild in youthful veins,-- Let me no longer play with painted fire; New songs for new-born days! I would not tire The listening ears that wait for fresher strains In phrase new-moulded, new-forged rhythmic chains, With plaintive measures from a worn-out lyre.
August 2, 1881.
=== BEFORE THE CURFEW AT MY FIRESIDE ALONE, beneath the darkened sky, With saddened heart and unstrung lyre, I heap the spoils of years gone by, And leave them with a long-drawn sigh, Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie, Before the ashes hide the fire.
Let not these slow declining days The rosy light of dawn outlast; Still round my lonely hearth it plays, And gilds the east with borrowed rays, While memory's mirrored sunset blaze Flames on the windows of the past.
March 1, 1888.
AT THE SATURDAY CLUB THIS is our place of meeting; opposite That towered and pillared building: look at it; King's Chapel in the Second George's day, Rebellion stole its regal name away,-- Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last The poisoned name of our provincial past Had lost its ancient venom; then once more Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before.
(So let rechristened North Street, when it can, Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!) Next the old church your wandering eye will meet-- A granite pile that stares upon the street-- Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said Its shape was modelled from St.Botolph's head, Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by Say Boston always held her head too high.
Turn half-way round, and let your look survey The white facade that gleams across the way,-- The many-windowed building, tall and wide, The palace-inn that shows its northern side In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat The granite wall in summer's scorching heat.
This is the place; whether its name you spell Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel.
Would I could steal its echoes! you should find Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind Such feasts! the laughs of many a jocund hour That shook the mortar from King George's tower; Such guests! What famous names its record boasts, Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts! Such stories! Every beam and plank is filled With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, Ready to ooze, as once the mountain pine The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine! A month had flitted since The Club had met; The day came round; I found the table set, The waiters lounging round the marble stairs, Empty as yet the double row of chairs.
I was a full half hour before the rest, Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest.
So from the table's side a chair I took, And having neither company nor book To keep me waking, by degrees there crept A torpor over me,--in short, I slept.
Loosed from its chain, along the wreck-strown track Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back; My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it seems Dreaming is life; nay, life less life than dreams, So real are the shapes that meet my eyes.
They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, No hint of other than an earth-born source; All seems plain daylight, everything of course.
How dim the colors are, how poor and faint This palette of weak words with which I paint! Here sit my friends; if I could fix them so As to my eyes they seem, my page would glow Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush Of life into their features.

Ay de mi! If syllables were pigments, you should see Such breathing portraitures as never man Found in the Pitti or the Vatican.
Here sits our POET, Laureate, if you will.
Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it still.
Dead?
Nay, not so; and yet they say his bust Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's grace; Dead! No! Alive! I see him in his place, Full-featured, with the bloom that heaven denies Her children, pinched by cold New England skies, Too often, while the nursery's happier few Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue.
Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there shines The ray serene that filled Evangeline's.
Modest he seems, not shy; content to wait Amid the noisy clamor of debate The looked-for moment when a peaceful word Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have stirred.
In every tone I mark his tender grace And all his poems hinted in his face; What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives! How could.

I think him dead?
He lives! He lives! There, at the table's further end I see In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square, In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair.
His social hour no leaden care alloys, His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's,-- That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot,-- What ear has heard it and remembers not?
How often, halting at some wide crevasse Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, High up the cliffs, the climbing mountaineer, Listening the far-off avalanche to hear, Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing laugh, From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls How does vast Nature lead her living train In ordered sequence through that spacious brain, As in the primal hour when Adam named The new-born tribes that young creation claimed!-- How will her realm be darkened, losing thee, Her darling, whom we call _our_ AGASSIZ! But who is he whose massive frame belies The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes?
Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, Some answer struggles from his laboring breast?
An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, Locked in his studio with a human heart, Tracking its eaverned passions to their lair, And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare.
Count it no marvel that he broods alone Over the heart he studies,--'t is his own; So in his page, whatever shape it wear, The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there,-- The great ROMANCER, hid beneath his veil Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl.
From his mild throng of worshippers released, Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, By every title always welcome here.
Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe?
You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulders' droop, The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, Carved by the edge of keen New England air.
List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose The jewels for his bride, he might refuse This diamond for its flaw,--find that less bright Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, The fairest gems are chosen, and made fast In golden fetters; so, with light delays He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase; Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, His chosen word is sure to prove the best.
Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong?
He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, Born to unlock the secrets of the skies; And which the nobler calling,--if 't is fair Terrestrial with celestial to compare,-- To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came, Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre?
If lost at times in vague aerial flights, None treads with firmer footstep when he lights; A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, In every Bible he has faith to read, And every altar helps to shape his creed.
Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares?
Till angels greet him with a sweeter one In heaven, on earth we call him EMERSON.
I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn; Its figures fading like the stars at dawn; Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names, And memory's pictures fading in their frames; Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams! OUR DEAD SINGER H.W.

L.
PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own, We claim with her that spotless fame of thine, White as her snow and fragrant as her pine! Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine, On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown.
Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command,-- The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild,-- Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled, Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand?
Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child.
Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould, Will grateful Memory fondly try her best The mortal vesture from decay to wrest; His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how cold! No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold, No throb can heave the statue's stony breast; "He is not here, but risen," will stand confest In all we miss, in all our eyes behold.
How Nature loved him! On his placid brow, Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred sign That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine, Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough That envious Time might clutch or disallow, To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine.
On many a saddened hearth the evening fire Burns paler as the children's hour draws near,-- That joyous hour his song made doubly dear,-- And tender memories touch the faltering choir.
He sings no more on earth; our vain desire Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear,-- The sweet contralto that could never tire.
Deafened with listening to a harsher strain, The Maenad's scream, the stark barbarian's cry, Still for those soothing, loving tones we sigh; Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again! The shadowy silence hears us call in vain! His lips are hushed; his song shall never die.
TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, JUNE 14, 1882 I.AT THE SUMMIT SISTER, we bid you welcome,--we who stand On the high table-land; We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope, And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope, Looking along the silent Mer de Glace, Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass,-- Sister, we clasp your hand! Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent Before the swift descent.
Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice; See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss; The mated eagles fan the frosty air; Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere, And, in their time, the darkening hours that bear Sweet memories, peace, content.
Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show Amid their rubrics' glow, But search the blazoned record's starry line, What halo's radiance fills the page like thine?
Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find The way to all the hearts of all mankind, On thee, already canonized, enshrined, What more can Heaven bestow! II.