The stone over her grave bears the lines, Fold her, O Father, in Thine arms, And let her henceforth be A messenger of love between Our human hearts and Thee.
I give thee joy!--I know to thee The dearest spot on earth must be Where sleeps thy loved one by the summer sea; Where, near her sweetest poet's tomb, The land of Virgil gave thee room To lay thy flower with her perpetual bloom.
I know that when the sky shut down Behind thee on the gleaming town, On Baiae's baths and Posilippo's crown; And, through thy tears, the mocking day Burned Ischia's mountain lines away, And Capri melted in its sunny bay; Through thy great farewell sorrow shot The sharp pang of a bitter thought That slaves must tread around that holy spot.
Thou knewest not the land was blest In giving thy beloved rest, Holding the fond hope closer to her breast, That every sweet and saintly grave Was freedom's prophecy, and gave The pledge of Heaven to sanctify and save.
That pledge is answered.

To thy ear The unchained city sends its cheer, And, tuned to joy, the muffled bells of fear Ring Victor in.

The land sits free And happy by the summer sea, And Bourbon Naples now is Italy! She smiles above her broken chain The languid smile that follows pain, Stretching her cramped limbs to the sun again.
Oh, joy for all, who hear her call From gray Camaldoli's convent-wall And Elmo's towers to freedom's carnival! A new life breathes among her vines And olives, like the breath of pines Blown downward from the breezy Apennines.
Lean, O my friend, to meet that breath, Rejoice as one who witnesseth Beauty from ashes rise, and life from death! Thy sorrow shall no more be pain, Its tears shall fall in sunlit rain, Writing the grave with flowers: "Arisen again!" 1860.
A MEMORIAL Moses Austin Cartland, a dear friend and relation, who led a faithful life as a teacher and died in the summer of 1863.
Oh, thicker, deeper, darker growing, The solemn vista to the tomb Must know henceforth another shadow, And give another cypress room.
In love surpassing that of brothers, We walked, O friend, from childhood's day; And, looking back o'er fifty summers, Our footprints track a common way.
One in our faith, and one our longing To make the world within our reach Somewhat the better for our living, And gladder for our human speech.
Thou heard'st with me the far-off voices, The old beguiling song of fame, But life to thee was warm and present, And love was better than a name.
To homely joys and loves and friendships Thy genial nature fondly clung; And so the shadow on the dial Ran back and left thee always young.
And who could blame the generous weakness Which, only to thyself unjust, So overprized the worth of others, And dwarfed thy own with self-distrust?
All hearts grew warmer in the presence Of one who, seeking not his own, Gave freely for the love of giving, Nor reaped for self the harvest sown.
Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude Of generous deeds and kindly words; In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers, Open to sunrise and the birds; The task was thine to mould and fashion Life's plastic newness into grace To make the boyish heart heroic, And light with thought the maiden's face.
O'er all the land, in town and prairie, With bended heads of mourning, stand The living forms that owe their beauty And fitness to thy shaping hand.
Thy call has come in ripened manhood, The noonday calm of heart and mind, While I, who dreamed of thy remaining To mourn me, linger still behind, Live on, to own, with self-upbraiding, A debt of love still due from me,-- The vain remembrance of occasions, Forever lost, of serving thee.
It was not mine among thy kindred To join the silent funeral prayers, But all that long sad day of summer My tears of mourning dropped with theirs.
All day the sea-waves sobbed with sorrow, The birds forgot their merry trills All day I heard the pines lamenting With thine upon thy homestead hills.
Green be those hillside pines forever, And green the meadowy lowlands be, And green the old memorial beeches, Name-carven in the woods of Lee.
Still let them greet thy life companions Who thither turn their pilgrim feet, In every mossy line recalling A tender memory sadly sweet.
O friend! if thought and sense avail not To know thee henceforth as thou art, That all is well with thee forever I trust the instincts of my heart.
Thine be the quiet habitations, Thine the green pastures, blossom-sown, And smiles of saintly recognition, As sweet and tender as thy own.
Thou com'st not from the hush and shadow To meet us, but to thee we come, With thee we never can be strangers, And where thou art must still be home.
1863.
BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY Mr.Bryant's seventieth birthday, November 3, 1864, was celebrated by a festival to which these verses were sent.
We praise not now the poet's art, The rounded beauty of his song; Who weighs him from his life apart Must do his nobler nature wrong.
Not for the eye, familiar grown With charms to common sight denied, The marvellous gift he shares alone With him who walked on Rydal-side; Not for rapt hymn nor woodland lay, Too grave for smiles, too sweet for tears; We speak his praise who wears to-day The glory of his seventy years.
When Peace brings Freedom in her train, Let happy lips his songs rehearse; His life is now his noblest strain, His manhood better than his verse! Thank God! his hand on Nature's keys Its cunning keeps at life's full span; But, dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these, The poet seems beside the man! So be it! let the garlands die, The singer's wreath, the painter's meed, Let our names perish, if thereby Our country may be saved and freed! 1864.
THOMAS STARR KING Published originally as a prelude to the posthumous volume of selections edited by Richard Frothingham.
The great work laid upon his twoscore years Is done, and well done.

If we drop our tears, Who loved him as few men were ever loved, We mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan With him whose life stands rounded and approved In the full growth and stature of a man.
Mingle, O bells, along the Western slope, With your deep toll a sound of faith and hope! Wave cheerily still, O banner, half-way down, From thousand-masted bay and steepled town! Let the strong organ with its loftiest swell Lift the proud sorrow of the land, and tell That the brave sower saw his ripened grain.
O East and West! O morn and sunset twain No more forever!--has he lived in vain Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told Your bridal service from his lips of gold?
1864.
LINES ON A FLY-LEAF.
I need not ask thee, for my sake, To read a book which well may make Its way by native force of wit Without my manual sign to it.
Its piquant writer needs from me No gravely masculine guaranty, And well might laugh her merriest laugh At broken spears in her behalf; Yet, spite of all the critics tell, I frankly own I like her well.
It may be that she wields a pen Too sharply nibbed for thin-skinned men, That her keen arrows search and try The armor joints of dignity, And, though alone for error meant, Sing through the air irreverent.
I blame her not, the young athlete Who plants her woman's tiny feet, And dares the chances of debate Where bearded men might hesitate, Who, deeply earnest, seeing well The ludicrous and laughable, Mingling in eloquent excess Her anger and her tenderness, And, chiding with a half-caress, Strives, less for her own sex than ours, With principalities and powers, And points us upward to the clear Sunned heights of her new atmosphere.
Heaven mend her faults!--I will not pause To weigh and doubt and peck at flaws, Or waste my pity when some fool Provokes her measureless ridicule.
Strong-minded is she?
Better so Than dulness set for sale or show, A household folly, capped and belled In fashion's dance of puppets held, Or poor pretence of womanhood, Whose formal, flavorless platitude Is warranted from all offence Of robust meaning's violence.
Give me the wine of thought whose head Sparkles along the page I read,-- Electric words in which I find The tonic of the northwest wind; The wisdom which itself allies To sweet and pure humanities, Where scorn of meanness, hate of wrong, Are underlaid by love as strong; The genial play of mirth that lights Grave themes of thought, as when, on nights Of summer-time, the harmless blaze Of thunderless heat-lightning plays, And tree and hill-top resting dim And doubtful on the sky's vague rim, Touched by that soft and lambent gleam, Start sharply outlined from their dream.
Talk not to me of woman's sphere, Nor point with Scripture texts a sneer, Nor wrong the manliest saint of all By doubt, if he were here, that Paul Would own the heroines who have lent Grace to truth's stern arbitrament, Foregone the praise to woman sweet, And cast their crowns at Duty's feet; Like her, who by her strong Appeal Made Fashion weep and Mammon feel, Who, earliest summoned to withstand The color-madness of the land, Counted her life-long losses gain, And made her own her sisters' pain; Or her who, in her greenwood shade, Heard the sharp call that Freedom made, And, answering, struck from Sappho's lyre Of love the Tyrtman carmen's fire Or that young girl,--Domremy's maid Revived a nobler cause to aid,-- Shaking from warning finger-tips The doom of her apocalypse; Or her, who world-wide entrance gave To the log-cabin of the slave, Made all his want and sorrow known, And all earth's languages his own.
1866.
GEORGE L.STEARNS No man rendered greater service to the cause of freedom than Major Stearns in the great struggle between invading slave-holders and the free settlers of Kansas.
He has done the work of a true man,-- Crown him, honor him, love him.
Weep, over him, tears of woman, Stoop manliest brows above him! O dusky mothers and daughters, Vigils of mourning keep for him! Up in the mountains, and down by the waters, Lift up your voices and weep for him, For the warmest of hearts is frozen, The freest of hands is still; And the gap in our picked and chosen The long years may not fill.
No duty could overtask him, No need his will outrun; Or ever our lips could ask him, His hands the work had done.
He forgot his own soul for others, Himself to his neighbor lending; He found the Lord in his suffering brothers, And not in the clouds descending.
So the bed was sweet to die on, Whence he saw the doors wide swung Against whose bolted iron The strength of his life was flung.
And he saw ere his eye was darkened The sheaves of the harvest-bringing, And knew while his ear yet hearkened The voice of the reapers singing.
Ah, well! The world is discreet; There are plenty to pause and wait; But here was a man who set his feet Sometimes in advance of fate; Plucked off the old bark when the inner Was slow to renew it, And put to the Lord's work the sinner When saints failed to do it.
Never rode to the wrong's redressing A worthier paladin.
Shall he not hear the blessing, "Good and faithful, enter in!" 1867 GARIBALDI In trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw The casting down of thrones.

Thou, watching lone The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy-hilled, Where, fringing round Caprera's rocky zone With foam, the slow waves gather and withdraw, Behold'st the vision of the seer fulfilled, And hear'st the sea-winds burdened with a sound Of falling chains, as, one by one, unbound, The nations lift their right hands up and swear Their oath of freedom.